Teyla did not turn from the window, swirling snow half obscuring the towers outside. “This is what we believe of our origins. We were conceived in love by the Ancestors. We were nurtured as any baby beloved by its parents, sheltered from the storms until we were grown. We were the children of love.” She raised her head, her long black hair falling down her back, and Eva could not see her face. “We Athosians say that our first foremother was Amitas. It was not until I came here that I learned that her name has meaning in Ancient.” Teyla turned. “Her name is Beloved.” Teyla shook her head. “I do not know how to carry this story.”
“I can’t tell you that,” Eva said. She met Teyla’s eyes. “Except that I expect you’ll tell it at the right time, to the right person.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Compromises
Carson shifted the sling on his shoulder, trying to find a comfortable place for its strap to rest. The thing was really beginning to get tiresome, but he knew well enough that he should give it another week at least. As things were, it seemed that all he was going to take away from their disastrous desert mission in the long run was a nasty scar and a good story to tell about fighting off killer reptiles. There was no use in straining his healing arm and going back to worrying about whether he’d have the full use of it.
Still, it would be good to be able to use both hands again. He peered at the computer keyboard, hunting and pecking left-handed to type.
“Carson?” Jennifer said from the doorway of the laboratory.
Carson stood at once. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet.”
“My vital signs and my blood work are all normal,” Jennifer said. “I’m not saying I feel great, but I’m also not planning to run a marathon or anything. I won’t even take the stairs. Transport chambers all the way.”
He looked her over. “How are you feeling? And at least sit down.”
Jennifer didn’t argue with that, sinking into a chair, her hand going to her hair as if worried that it was coming down from its severe ponytail. “I feel tired,” she said. “And I ache all over, but I suspect that’s from tensing up so much when — when I was being fed on. I took some ibuprofen, so I’m, you know, good.”
“It’s a tremendous shock,” Carson said. “And, before you say it, I know Todd healed you, but I also treated Colonel Sheppard when the same thing happened to him. It can be a difficult experience in more ways than just physically. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to schedule some time with Dr. Robinson.”
“I will if it bothers me, but…” Jennifer shrugged. “I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t pretty awful, but I wanted to do this. I knew…well, maybe not exactly what I was getting into, but I knew what was going to happen, and I knew it was going to hurt. It was my choice. I think that makes it a little different from being tortured.” She shrugged again, and looked away. “There were only a few moments where I really thought I was going to die.”
Carson let out a breath. “That’s the problem with doctors as patients,” he said. “They’re every bit as stubborn as these great strapping soldiers.”
Jennifer’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Oh, we’re not that bad,” she said.
“Worse,” Carson said. “I’m so tired of this bloody sling that I’d have come down to complain about it if I weren’t trying not to add to your stress.”
“I’ll take a look later, but I’m not expecting miraculously rapid healing,” Jennifer said. “Unless you can get Todd to arrange that for you.”
Carson repressed a shudder. “I’ll pass on that,” he said. He still remembered all too clearly having Michael close enough to touch him, and had no desire to be that close to any of the other Wraith. “Anyhow, I’ve had the Hoffan drug, remember? I can’t be fed on without the Wraith dying of it.”
“I know,” Jennifer said. “That’s why the next trial has to be me again.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Carson said. “You can’t imagine we’re going to let you do this again.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Jennifer said. “We still need to know if there’s any way to make this work. I have some ideas about what went wrong, and, believe me, I’m going to run all the simulations I can, but at some point we’re going to have to test this again. And I can’t ask anyone else to go through being fed on as a test.”
“Well, to start with, we know that your best try at a prototype didn’t work,” Carson said. “For all you know, this could be just one more blind alley.”
“If we always gave up the first time something didn’t work—”
“We’d have saved ourselves no end of grief trying to genetically modify the Wraith,” Carson said a little sharply.
“And let a lot of other people die,” Jennifer said. “Come on, the answer can’t be ‘we should always give up every time we have problems.’”
Carson shook his head. “Knowing that you might go through exactly the same ordeal again, that your life may depend on Todd deciding to heal you—”
“That’s why it has to be me again,” Jennifer said. “First, because now that I’ve experienced this, I can’t ethically let anyone else consent to go through it for research purposes.”
“I thought you were fine,” Carson said.
“Yes, fine except for having been in agonizing pain, which is the part that— I just don’t think we get to inflict agonizing near-death experiences on people. As a doctor, I have a problem with that.”
“I do, too.”
“But the main thing is, I know now that Todd will revive me, even at a point where I’m essentially clinically dead. I don’t know how much of that is that he really wants to make this work, and how much of it is that he’s scared of Teyla—”
“We’re all a little scared of Teyla, love,” Carson said with a smile.
“And I was starting to get the impression that I remind him of…” Jennifer hesitated, as if not sure whether she should repeat something a patient had told her in confidence. “Somebody who used to be important to him. Anyway, for whatever reasons, I’m confident now that if we try this again, he’s not going to let me die. I can’t put someone else’s life in his hands, not when I wouldn’t be as sure.”
“Show me what you’re thinking,” Carson said reluctantly. He tried to think entirely rationally as Jennifer talked through the changes she wanted to make to the retrovirus, to focus on the genetic puzzle pieces rather than on the faces of patients he’d watched die after being fed on. It was hard not to remember all the young Marines he’d sent home with the faces of old men.
“I see what we did wrong,” Jennifer said. “It’s a simple adjustment. We just need permission to do one more test.”
Carson shook his head. “I can’t recommend it,” he said. “Not when we’re no more certain this time than we were last time. And not when I still have grave doubts about whether making this thing work is going to be good for anyone.”
“It may be the only way we can save Rodney’s life,” Jennifer said.
“You’re not thinking—”
“Yes, I am,” Jennifer said, her voice rising in frustration. “What else are we going to do when we get him back? We’ve run a hundred simulations and none of them work. I don’t know how to turn Rodney back into a human permanently. Do you?”