“You’re up early,” Carson observed.
“I have seen Torren off to New Athos with his father for a few days,” Teyla said.
“You don’t sound pleased about that.”
Teyla cupped her hands around her mug. “It is not that I do not want Torren to be with Kanaan,” she said slowly. “It is only that I cannot relax when he is on New Athos. There have been so many raids, and New Athos is so vulnerable.” She raised her eyes to Carson’s. “Nor can I deny Kanaan his son on the grounds that it is too dangerous when Torren runs no greater risk than any other Athosian child, no greater risk than that which Kanaan and I faced growing up.” She shook her head. “When Torren is in Atlantis, I feel that he is safe. Perhaps it is not true. The city has its own dangers, and more than once enemies have penetrated. But I feel he is safe and I can go about my work. When he is on New Athos, I am poised for trouble, and I do not know how to stop worrying so.”
Carson nodded gravely. “Part of developing judgment is knowing what to worry about and what not to. The last time Torren was on New Athos, the Wraith raided New Athos and took Rodney. Of course you’re worried! Last time he was there you lost a friend. It could as easily have been your son, and you’re not able to deny that to yourself. You’re worried because there’s something reasonable to worry about.”
“I suppose when you put it that way,” Teyla said. The first rays of morning sun were coming in through one of the slanted windows high up on the walls, picking out shades of bronze and green in the ceiling. “It does not seem…neurotic.”
Carson snorted. “Now I know you’ve been around us too long when you start using words like neurotic! You’re about the least neurotic person I know.”
“Do you think?” Her words came out unexpectedly solemn.
He looked at her keenly. “Something bothering you, love?”
“No. Yes. I suppose so.” Teyla took another long drink of her coffee. “You are a geneticist, so perhaps you can tell me…” Carson waited, and she drew a breath, not looking at him. “The Genii believe that the people with Wraith DNA, the descendants of the humans who were part of that Wraith experiment, are what they call Bloodtainted. That they are mentally…wrong. We know, we Athosians, that some of the Lost who then returned went mad. They heard voices, they made no sense, and some of them even killed. Among the Genii, they believe it is because of the Wraith DNA. That humans with Wraith DNA are inevitably wrong. They are twisted in ways that cannot be fixed. They cannot help but kill. And what is most obscene, they take pleasure in it.”
Teyla laced her fingers around her mug tightly. “To my people that is the greatest evil. One may kill in self-defense or the defense of another. One may kill in passion or anger — this is bad, but it is understandable. People kill in fights or injure one another, and that is bad, it is a crime, but it is not evil. Evil is being like the Wraith. Evil is killing or tormenting another for pleasure.” She looked at him, at his worn, patient face. “I do not want to be thus. This Gift…”
“Teyla. Love.” Carson unwound one of her hands and squeezed her fingers. “Why would you ever do such a thing? I’ve known you five long years now, and you’re completely rational. I’ve never seen you do any such thing.” He sighed as though he marshaled his thoughts. “The Genii don’t yet have the technology to examine genetic code, and while I’ve no doubt that the original Bloodtainted that you describe were survivors of Wraith experiments, there is no way they could possibly have diagnosed any more recent cases as resulting from genetic abnormality. They simply don’t have the technology to get that kind of information. So what they’re going on is presenting symptoms. Every human society produces sociopaths and psychopaths. Regardless of their technology level, it’s part of being human. There are always some few people who aren’t quite right, regardless of their genetic heritage. Every society on Earth has dealt with killers. How we frame that, as possession by evil spirits or genetic abnormality or witchcraft or poor upbringings, is different from society to society, but it’s a problem all humans have when they live in large enough groups. I’m sure it’s a problem the Genii face too. But that has nothing to do with Wraith DNA. It has nothing to do with you or with your Gift.”
Her eyes searched his face. “You are certain of this?”
“Absolutely,” Carson said. “There is no cause whatsoever to think that your Wraith DNA makes you any less moral or rational than any other human being.”
Teyla swallowed. “And yet I fear sometimes what I will do,” she said quietly.
Carson squeezed her hand in his. “What are you afraid of?”
She could not look at him and still speak. “When we are in a fight, there is nothing for me but that. Even when it is only sparring. There is a satisfaction in hitting Ronon hard, in landing a solid blow and seeing him wince. I like it.”
Carson smiled. “I think Ronon is perfectly capable of taking the hard knocks he asks for. If you whale on Ronon a bit, I don’t see the harm in that. He can always stop playing.”
“That is true,” she said, and it was. “There is no reason he must spar with me if he does not want to. But.” She took another deep breath. “What does it say about me that I like to do it? That I find it pleasant to hurt someone?”
“There’s many a person I’d like to smack from time to time,” Carson said. He smiled encouragingly. “It’s a way of blowing off steam, I’d say. Mind you, I’m not the psychologist. That would be good Dr. Robinson. But as long as you’re playing a game with another consenting adult, with someone who can certainly adequately defend themselves or who can stop whenever they want, I don’t see how it’s wrong. Giving Ronon or John a few bruises isn’t the end of the world. Mind you, I’d object if you were putting Colonel Sheppard in the infirmary with a broken arm! But he’s had stitches often enough from sparring with Ronon and none from you, so I’d say there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
Teyla felt a furious blush rising in her face for reasons that made no sense whatsoever. “They play too rough with one another,” she said. “I do not like to need stitches.”
“Nor do I,” Carson said. He shrugged. “I suppose it’s manly or something. But I truly think you have nothing to worry about. Your Wraith DNA is a useful quirk, and nothing but that.”
Teyla met his eyes firmly. “Then you do not believe the Wraith are evil.”
Carson swallowed hard, and she knew he was thinking of Michael, of the misbegotten crew of the hive ship he had first tried the retrovirus on with such disastrous results. They had seemed men. And yet, in the end, they had slaughtered them because they were too dangerous. Because they were Wraith.
“No,” Carson said quietly. “I don’t think any sentient creature is inherently evil. Maybe that doesn’t make me a good Scots Presbyterian, not seeing the separation between the elect and the damned, but I do not believe that any person is inherently evil.”
“And they are people?” Her eyebrows rose and her stomach churned. “The Wraith are people?”
“How can you doubt that?” Carson asked. “Ninety-four percent of our genetic code is the same. They’re much more closely kin to us than Rodney’s cat or a bird or one of those lizard things that attacked us. Their physiology is clearly based on human physiology, their brains on our brains. Compared to something like the Asgard, there’s no doubt we have common origins.”
“How is that possible?” Teyla clutched at her coffee cup, and it was bitter in her mouth.
Carson dropped his voice. “I told you years ago that my first theory was that the Wraith were an accident. That human colonists on a planet with the Iratus bug accidentally gave rise to a hybrid. It was a good theory, but it’s wrong.”