Torchwoodgate Year One - Ch 09 - In the Caves
Title: Torchwoodgate - Year One
Author: Soledad
Author's Note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. go to the secondary index page
As you’ll see, I have a profoundly different view on the Athosian culture than canon does. Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.
We never actually learned what kind of creatures destroyed Jack’s childhood home, or how it happened. So I’ve taken some poetic licence here.
CHAPTER 09 - IN THE CAVES
After a narrow little passageway they came into what must have been a huge cave, by the way the space suddenly widened around them with the air moving freely, cold and fresh. It was more a feeling than anything else, as it was pitch black in there. Jack started feeling uncomfortable. He never liked dark places, and despite the dimensions he could feel around them, he found the place suffocating.
“Teyla?” he asked uncertainly.
“I much play here as child,” she replied in broken English; her voice came from a short distance. Then she switched back to her own tongue, and the iPod in Corrigan’s hand came dutifully alive, translating her words. “I believe this is where the survivors hid from the Wraith during the last great attack.”
The tiny screen gave just enough illumination for Jack to switch on the torchlight on his P90. It cast harsh shadows about the cavernous room, bouncing off rough-hewn stone and dust and getting lost in the shadowy height of a ceiling too far above their heads to be even visible. The air was surprisingly fresh; perhaps this was a carst cave, cut by some ancient river that had long since changed its path. Now it was dry, but some of the natural air ducts must have remained intact.
Still it wasn’t a very welcoming place - even less so than the military tents. Jack still had no idea who these Wraith could be, but if people had been willing to hide in this dank cave just to avoid being discovered by them, they must have been a terrible enemy indeed.
“One can almost taste the desperation in the air,” Liz Shaw commented softly, as if reading his thoughts. “I wish there would be a little more light. This place gives me the shivers.”
Apparently, Teyla had understood the word light, if nothing else, because she looked around, as if seeking for something. She found it soon enough: an old torch, fastened to the rocky wall with some sort of metal ring that didn’t show the slightest sign of the years gone by. Before Ianto could have produced his lighter - he still smoked the one or other cigarette sometimes, despite Jack’s efforts, who didn’t like the taste of nicotine on his lips, to break him out of the habit - Teyla pulled out something that looked like a penlight. With a flick of her thumb, a scarlet laser beam zapped out and onto the torch, lighting it instantly.
“Impressive,” Ianto commented. “So much better than a zippo.”
Teyla offered him a smile. “We trade the fire-starters with the Olesians for animal skins,” she explained. “They chose a settled life and technology long ago. A choice that makes their lives more comfortable… but also more vulnerable to a Wraith attack.”
“You have mentioned these Wraith many times by now, you and the others,” Dr. Shaw said, after Corrigan had handed her the iPod. “But you never told us what - or who - they are. Can you tell us more about them? Details would be useful.”
Corrigan translated the question into Ancient, as it was still too complex for her English, and Teyla nodded. “We come to show you who they are,” she said in English.
Then she took the torch from the wall and led them deeper into the caves.
“Whoa!” Corrigan breathed as the light of the torch illuminated the rock wall in front of them. “This sure as hell beats the paintings of Altamira. Or Lascaux.”
Jack hurried up to see what caught the anthropologist’s breath - and was stunned by the sight himself. The wall was indeed covered with primitive pictures that would more than match the famous cave paintings found in France and Spain. They were dynamic, colourful, and spoke of rough yet definite artistic talent.
They also seemed to have been made by different people, and during a long time span. A difference between the various styles and techniques could easily be made. Generations of unknown artists must have worked on this.
Only that - unlike their counterparts on Earth - the images didn’t depict hunting scenes, animals or any other aspect of daily life. They showed the brutal history of a hunted people - and considering their apparent age, that history must have been a very long one.
“The paintings in the caves are extensive,” Teyla murmured, bringing the light of the torch closer to the pictures. “No-one has ever gone far enough to study them all.”
“And they’re old, too,” Corrigan commented, switching the iPod into recording mode to store the images for his colleague to study. “Based on these scans, they must date back thousands of years.”
He repeated it in Ancient for Teyla, who nodded in agreement, adding that many generations of Athosians used to live in these caves in the primitive past of her people.
Thousands of years? Jack followed Ianto to the wall, where the young Welshman was studying a detailed image depicting the annihilation of a vast city. There were people running for their lives, and what looked like some kind of energy weapon sweeping the city itself.
“This represents the destruction of the Ancient city you don’t want us to visit?” he asked.
Teyla consulted Corrigan in Ancient, then she shook her head. “No; the city of the Ancestors was never this big. Besides, this painting far predates their departure from our world.”
“Then what?” Liz Shaw asked. “Have your forefathers witnessed this on a different world? Or did someone know in advance this was going to happen?”
This time the consultation took considerably more time.
“Some of our forefathers did visit other worlds, back, when the Ancestors ruled many planets,” Teyla finally answered,” and I doubt not that they saw terrible things, which they then depicted here, as a warning for the coming generations. I have come to believe, however, that this happens again and again.”
“The destruction?” Jack tried to clarify things. Teyla nodded.
“Yes. The Wraith allow our kind to grow in number, and when that number reaches a certain point, they return to cull their human herd.”
“Human herd? Culling?” Ianto seemed like someone who’d get violently sick any moment. Small wonder, considering that he’d been very nearly butchered and eaten by cannibals, who had considered him nothing but meat, barely a year ago.
“Hey,” Jack patted his back encouragingly, “don’t lose it now. Deep, even breaths!”
Ianto nodded shakily and obeyed. After a few moments, his pallor became a little healthier, and he calmed down again.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jack pointed out; then he looked at the others. “I think there can be no doubt that these Wraith are the terribly enemy the Ancient hologram has mentioned.”
“No,” Dr. Shaw agreed. “The thought that they’re still out there, after so many years, is… unsettling.”
Teyla consulted with Corrigan again, then she nodded. “Yes, that is true. The Wraith triumphed over the Ancestors in a long, horrible war, and the Ancestors vanished without a trace. The Wraith, however, are still here. Sometimes a few hundred years will pass before they awaken again, sometimes even longer… But the end is always the same.”
Jack eyed the pictures of dying men and women, and all of a sudden he felt so very tired. The hopes they’d had when coming to the Pegasus galaxy, the excitement over a great adventure, they were all gone with the wind.
“And there’s no-where to go?” he asked, although he feared he knew the answer already. If there would be a safe place, the Athosians would have already fled there.
This time Teyla didn’t wait for the translation, intuition having filled the gaps in her vocabulary.
“We have visited many, many worlds,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I know of none untouched by the Wraith,” she paused, waiting for the iPod to translate, then added in a different, more tense tone. “The last great holocaust was five generations ago, but still they return in smaller numbers, to remind us of their power. My mother was taken three years ago.”
Stunned silence followed her word. No-one knew what to say. Telling her that they were sorry would have been incredibly cheap, as she stood in their middle, at once sad, proud and resilient. They couldn’t help but feel great respect for her.
“What a horrible way to live!” Gwen finally mumbled, her eyes wide with fear and her lower lip trembling. “It isn’t a life at all… it’s just survival… barely…”
Teyla shrugged. “It is what it is - what we have known since the Keepers’ memory can reach back. We adapt. We move our hunting camp around. We try to teach our children not to live in fear… but it is hard.”
Hard didn’t even begin to describe it. Jack knew that from personal experience. He knew what it meant to live with the certain knowledge of a holocaust hovering above their heads, from day to day, from year to year. What it meant for the children to grow up knowing that their entire settlement could be wiped out at any time.
“When I was a child, we lived on a remote colony,” he spoke slowly, searching centuries-old memories that were almost painfully vivid and sharp nonetheless. “It was a simple and harsh life that my parents had chosen consciously. They wanted to keep out of the wars and struggles taking place elsewhere. We’d heard about a hostile race that migrated from world to world like locusts, murdering and tormenting people in unspeakable manners for years, but we never believed they would come after us, too. Our colony was so remote, so insignificant, so off the well-trodden paths. We thought they wouldn’t even notice us. We were wrong.”
“What happened?” Teyla asked, after Corrigan had translated for her.
“One day, they came, and we were unprepared,” Jack replied simply. “I lost my entire family that day.”
“How old were you?” Ianto asked quietly, laying a comforting hand upon his. Jack made a mirthless grimace.
“Twelve… perhaps more… I can’t even remember. Weird, ain’t it? I know my father died there - I saw him die - and my mother probably too. But I have no idea what happened to my little brother. Was he killed, was he taken? Later, when I was with the Time Agency, I searched after him for years. I never found him; not even a hint about his fate.”
“So, this Captain Hart lied when he said he’d found him?” Gwen asked.
Jack shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“So you’ve just given up on your brother?” Gwen demanded. “Jack, how could you do that? That poor boy is probably still enslaved by those monsters!”
“That poor boy, if he’s indeed still alive, is a grown man by now,” Jack replied tiredly. “What would you want me to do, Gwen? I couldn’t find him when I still had the resources of the Time Agency at my disposal - what could I do now, limited by the means of contemporary Earth?”
“You never told me anything about your brother,” Gwen said accusingly. “Or your parents. Or where you came from.”
“No, I haven’t, Jack answered, thoroughly annoyed by her now. “It’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business,” Gwen returned stubbornly.
Jack felt a killer headache starting to build behind his eyes. Fortunately, before he could have said anything he’d regret later, Ianto intervened, smoothly but efficiently as always.
“No, you’re not,” he told Gwen. “If it were anyone’s business, it would be mine. I am Jack’s… partner, remember?”
“He still hasn’t told you anything, has he?” Gwen asked smugly.
“No,” Ianto admitted. “And I never asked. I knew once he felt up to it, he’d speak about it.”
“Or not,” Gwen said nastily.
“Or not,” Ianto agreed. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know every little detail about everything he’s seen or done. Some memories are just too painful to be relived. So leave Jack alone, will you? He doesn’t need your nagging about something he can’t change.”
There was such a forbidding finality in his tone that even Gwen, who didn’t back off easily, found it better to stop arguing. She huffled in disappointment and stomped off to explore the cave on her own.
Jack closed his eyes. “Thanks, Ianto.”
“Headache?” Ianto asked quietly, stopping behind him and massaging his tense neck muscles.
Jack relaxed under his fingers with a ragged sigh. “You’re a godsend, Ianto Jones.”
“Just doing my job, sir,” Ianto said with an intimate little smile.
Teyla had been listening to them with growing confusion. Now that the argument seemed to have been ended, she turned to Corrigan, and the two had a lengthy discussion in Ancient, to which Corrigan also consulted the iPod.
“This is interesting,” he finally said. “I’ve been guessing something like that since we moved here from Atlantis, but now it’s confirmed: the Athosians live in clan marriages.”
“Which means… what exactly?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“It means that every family consists of two or more co-husbands and co-wives,” Corrigan explained. “The custom has been developed for the protection of the children, it seems. This way, even if one or more of the parents are taken by the Wraith, the kids still can grow up in a family.”
“But how can they prevent inbreeding and the degeneration of the gene pool?” Dr. Shaw’s medical interest was definitely piqued.
Another lengthy discussion followed, Teyla and Corrigan clearly warming up to the topic, which wasn’t really surprising. Corrigan was an anthropologist, not just a linguist, and what he was learning about Athosian lifestyle clearly fascinated him.
“They’ve got an interesting system,” he then explained. “It seems that each individual can count back his or her ancestors to ten or twelve generations, on both their parents’ sides. And then there are people like Halling. They’re called the Keeper of Tradition and are obviously living archives. They know the bloodlines of each clan within their tribe by heart, which clan has intermarried with which and for how long, who are just foster siblings and who are related by blood… that sort of thing. There are several such people in each tribe, and each of them starts teaching his or her potential follower in early childhood, in case they’d be taken by the Wraith.”
“But these people are clearly literate,” Dr. Shaw said, surprised. “Why would they need to learn all this by heart?”
“They can read, that’s true,” Corrigan replied, after having consulted with Teyla, “But they don’t write, as a rule. Written records can be lost or destroyed. And since everyone knows their own bloodline, the genetic history of the tribe can be reconstructed with reasonably little effort, even if all Keepers would get taken at once. Which, according to Teyla, has never happened to them, so far.”
“I assume such people are specially protected,” Dr. Shaw said.
“All are protected,” Teyla said promptly in English, not needing the translation this time. “All the same. All very important. Only old ones special.”
“That makes sense,” Corrigan commented. “Where the population is so small in numbers, each individual counts. And the experiences of those who’ve managed to live long enough to grow old would be very valuable.”
Teyla nodded, apparently getting the gist of the statement. The speed which she picked up English with - arguably not the most logical language of mankind - was simply amazing. Unless she was mildly telepathic, of course.
Jack asked about that with the help of Corrigan, and Teyla shook her head.
“No mind-reading,” she replied in English, “though I have the Gift.”
They looked at her in obvious confusion, and she switched back to her own dialect to explain.
“Some of us can sense the Wraith coming,” she said. “That gives us warning. It is a rare gift, and not a pleasant one; it feels like a hot knife slicing through one’s brain. But it is useful; it helps us and the others to prevent being taken… if we are fast enough.”
“You have mentioned being taken many times by now,” Jack said. “What do the Wraith do with the people they take? Torture them? Kill them for sport? Eat them?”
Teyla waited for Corrigan to translate, just to be sure she understood the question correctly. Then she nodded and answered in her mother tongue.
“They feed on people,” she explained. “They have a… an organ in their palm, through which they can suck life out of people by mere touch. The… the victim grows old and dies as a dried-out husk within minutes.”
“Oh, that must be a bad joke!” Corrigan exclaimed, checking what the iPod if he’d heard that right. “Are we talking about vampires here?”
“Well, if the Ancients had encountered the Wraith in this galaxy, it’s not unlikely that vampire legends are based on their memories,” Ianto commented. “They wouldn’t be the first weird aliens mankind has met. I wonder about the quick aging part, though. How do they do that?”
“Actually, that’s the least baffling part of it,” Dr. Shaw replied. “If that… that feeding organ enables them to absorb bio-energy directly from the victim, the entropy effect would be accelerated by magnitudes and death would be imminent. It would also mean that such a creature would be able to regenerate from near-fatal injuries, if properly fed.”
“They do heal very fast,” Teyla agreed, after Corrigan had translated for her. “The best way to kill them is to cut their heads off - but it is hard to get close enough to do that, without being killed.”
“Cremation should work, too,” Ianto added thoughtfully. “Any energy weapon at a high enough setting. Disintegrating them with a zat gun, for example. Or vaporizing them with the Jamolean lance.”
“Or blowing their heads off with our big gun,” Jack continued, feeling just a little bit bloodthirsty, because really, what else would such parasitic creatures deserve? “It’s only a question of caliber, ain’t it? The bigger the bullet, the better the results.”
Teyla looked from one at another in slight confusion. They were talking way too fast for her, but she believed to have heard something important.
“You get weapons that can kill Wraith?” she asked.
“Some,” Jack replied. “Not as many as we’d like, but yeah; the ones we do have should work like a charm.”
“Then perhaps you can truly afford to take a look at the city of the Ancestors, Teyla said thoughtfully. “Can your weapons destroy machines that fly in the air?”
“Some of them can,” Jack answered, thinking of the grenade launchers Captain Magambo had insisted to bring with them with gratitude. “Do these Wraith not come through the Stargate… I mean, through the Ring of the Ancestors?” he corrected himself.
“They do,” Teyla answered. “They come by small ships that fit through the Ring and are very fast. We call them Darts, as they look like the points of our hunting weapons. They collect their prey, kill many of the rest to terrorize them, and then vanish through the Ring again.”
“They must have a mothership somewhere out there,” Jack was thinking loudly. “Ships that are small enough to pass through the Gate can’t be capable of interstellar travel.”
“They have huge ships they call Hives with thousands of Wraith on board,” Teyla explained. “We do not know how many such ships exist, but it is said that between great wars, most of them are asleep. Otherwise there would be no living people left in our worlds.”
“So, if we manage to sneak aboard such a Hive Ship and place a big enough bomb in the middle of the vital systems, we could kill thousands of those monsters in their sleep?” Jack asked. It sounded brutal, but right now, he didn’t feel above genocide, if that meant to save an entire galaxy full of unprotected humans from vampiric aliens.
Teyla thought about the question for a while. She understood the concept, and frankly, she had no moral objections - why should she? The Wraith didn’t have any, either. She just couldn’t imagine the means that would enable mere humans to do so.
“I cannot see how that would be possible,” she finally said.
“Let that be our concern… and hopefully none too soon,” Jack answered. “We need a safe place to settle first. Could you talk the other elders into letting us at least check out the old city in the valley? Our people can’t live out their lives in tents.”
“I do wish to help you,” Teyla said thoughtfully. “But you must understand us, too. We cannot risk alerting the Wraith to your presence. You have got weapons, technology… they would not simply cull our world if they discovered that. They would see you as a threat and kill you… and us with you, as an example for other people. It is known to have happened before, on other planets.”
“I understand the risk,” Jack said, and he really did. Perhaps he was the only one in the entire expedition who truly did, due to his past. “But try to understand us. We ain’t a people of hunters or farmers. We can’t live the same way you do, not in the long run. The Ancient city might give us the means to grow our own food, the way we’re used to do it; to be independent and self-supporting, instead of becoming a burden for you.”
“Besides,” Ianto added, “we have people among us who can disable the devices left behind to alert the Wraith. They have done so on countless other worlds, back home.”
“I thought you did not know the Wraith back on your home planet,” Teyla said, getting a little suspicious again.
“We didn’t,” Ianto assured. “But there were other enemies, ruthless and cruel ones, against whom we had to fight with all that we had. Sometimes it wasn’t even nearly enough. We came here in the hope that the Ancients - the ones you call the Ancestors - might have left something behind, some weapon perhaps, that could help us. And now…”
“And now you are trapped here, with the Wraith,” Teyla finished for him.
Ianto shrugged. “We always knew there might not be a way back. Still, we had to try. We still may succeed yet… if we find the right energy source.”
“I cannot assume that I understand everything you have told me,” Teyla said slowly. “Your language has too many words that are meaningless for me. But Halling and I have realized for quite some time that our way of life would not suit you. Very well; I shall speak to the elders on your behalf. But if letting you into the old city turns out to be a horrible mistake, you will be expected to help protect my people.”
“Of course,” Jack said; then he gave her his widest, patented Jack Harkness grin. “Would you like to accompany us when we make the survey run?”
Teyla grinned back at him. “I thought you would never ask.”
Everyone laughed with them, and they were about to get up and leave the caves when Jack realized that Gwen was missing.
“God help that woman,” he swore under his breath. “Why must she always run off on her own?”
“Perhaps cos you always let her get away with everything,” Ianto commented dryly.
Jack gave him a dirty look. That had been a controversial topic between them ever since Jack had come back from his trip with the Doctor.
“We must seek after her immediately,” Teyla said, as soon as she understood the problem. These caves branch out a very long way under the hills. When she turns the wrong way, we might not find her in time.”
“That’s what the lifesign detector is for,” Jack looked at Ianto. “I assume you’ve got one on your person, Mr. Jones?”
“When have I gone on a field trip unprepared, sir?” Ianto asked back with his best receptionist smile and produced the required instrument from his vest pocket. “Shall we?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They found Gwen in the fourth cave, where she was studying the paintings, not even aware of the fact that they’d been looking for her. Around her neck she was wearing a piece of jewellery neither of them had seen before: a dainty necklace with a beautifully crafted locket on it, made of some sort of unknown alloy.
Well, unknown to them but not to Teyla, obviously, who gasped softly at the sigh of it.
“I lost this when I was a young girl,” she said in delight. “How did you find it?”
“Caught my eye, half-buried in the dirt. Must have reflected the sunlight. “Gwen reluctantly took off the necklace and let it swing from her finger. “I guess you want it back…”
Teyla nodded, her eyes shining. “It was a gift from my father. I believed I would never see it again.”
Jack took the necklace from Gwen and held it out to Teyla in a gentlemanlike manner. “May I…?”
She laughed as she turned around, brushing the ends of her short hair upwards with her hand to allow him to fasten the clasp. Jack did as it was expected of him, but he took his sweet time to admire the elegant sweep of her neck.
“Some things never change,” Gwen muttered angrily. In Welsh.
Ianto shrugged. “Jack is Jack,” he replied. “You can no more change him than you could change the weather.”
“And that doesn’t bother you a bit, does it?” Gwen’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“Actually… no, it doesn’t,” Ianto replied with a faint smile; then he looked at Jack. “Well, since Gwen’s been found and you’ve had your gentlemanly moment, perhaps we can return to the camp now?”
Jack grinned at him and saluted. “Your wish is my command, Mr Jones!”
“I certainly hope so,” Ianto answered dryly. “Move!”
Corrigan snorted and Liz Shaw shook her head in tolerant amusement.
“Newlyweds,” she commented. “They’re always the same. God, was I ever that young?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
An hour before sunset Halling came to Gateship #3, which served as Dr. Shaw’s temporary quarters and her office. He brought Corrigan with him as communications support; the linguist certainly was in much demand in these days.
“The elders would like to speak with you again, Doctor Shaw,” he said. “And with Captain Harkness, if he is available.”
“Is this about our request concerning the Ancient city?” Liz Shaw asked.
“Among other things,” Halling replied with a grave nod. In English. Clearly, Teyla wasn’t he only one who picked up languages very quickly.
“Very well,” Liz Shaw switched off the computer tablet activated her headset instead. “Ianto, do you know where Jack is?”
“Always,” Ianto replied simply. “Do you need him?”
“The Athosian elders do,” Liz said. “They’ve called for a meeting.”
“Interesting,” Ianto commented. “I’ll send him to you at once.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your plans for the evening,” Liz apologized.
“You haven’t,” Ianto assured her dryly. “Unless you consider standing atop a gateship and brooding as evening plans. I’ll be grateful if you could snap him out of it; it’s no fun at all.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Liz promised and broke the connection.
Jack arrived within minutes indeed, and the two of them followed Halling to the Athosian village. The elders had gathered in Teyla’s tent again and where - what else? - drinking tea. As every time he saw them doing that, Jack felt a sudden, uncontrollable craving for coffee. For Ianto’s coffee. Which was just not doable at the moment. Not as long as they hadn’t found a reliable power source to which Ianto could have connected his shiny new coffee machine. So everyone was living off caffeine pills, and even those were strictly rationed… and it showed.
Withdrawal was a bitch.
Liz and Jack accepted the offered cushions and the tea in the circle of the Elders. Corrigan, like the young Athosian man called Toran, as seated outside the circle but close enough to hear whatever was being said. Jack had the iPod, as Corrigan understood a lot from the Athosian dialect without help already.
They drank the tea in silence, everyone gathering their thoughts for the upcoming discussion. It was Charin who finally broke the silence; as the oldest member, it was her privilege to speak first.
“You have asked our permission to dwell in the abandoned city of the Ancestors,” she said. “We are of two minds about that request. Before we would open a discussion about it, however, let me warn you: moving there would not necessarily do you any good. Legend says that only the Ancestors could use all the machines and tools that can be found in the city. To all others, it would remain dead.”
Liz and Jack exchanged significant looks. Was it possible that nobody in the entire Athosian population had the gene?
“That is not entirely true, “Liz said, choosing her words very carefully. “Some of us have the… the ability to make their technology work. It’s a gift of the Ancestors; a gift that some of us carry in their blood. Literally.”
“That is impossible,” Ireni protested, after Corrigan had translated everything into Ancient. “The tools of the Ancestors recognize them and would not work for anyone else.”
“And yet some of us can fly their ships,” Jack reminded her.
“We have been wondering about that,” Halling murmured.
“As I said; some of us have it in their blood,” Liz Shaw said. “The world we originally come from is the same on the Ancients called home. The one where they returned after the great war against the Wraith was lost.”
The Athosian elders fell into shocked silence after they’d understood the meaning of her words.
“You are of the blood of the Ancestors?” Selena asked, clearly stunned.
“Many years and many generations have gone by since they returned to our world,” Liz Shaw explained. “Not a single one of them has remained by now. But they’ve mingled with our ancestors, and some of us still carry a gift in our blood. A gift that enables us to use their technology. I’m not one of those, unfortunately, but Jack here is. So are several others from our group.”
The elders exchanged meaningful looks. They’d clearly discussed the topic among themselves in advance, and perhaps could carry on a nonverbal communication for quite some time. Slowly, deliberately, all eyes turned to Teyla, and the others nodded, one by one. Flashing one of her half-bemused, half-amused smiles, Teyla nodded, too, and then she looked at the three newcomers.
“Since you are practically the offspring of the Ancestors, we do not have the right to deny you access to your inheritance,” she said. “But if we are to take such a great risk on your behalf, you will have to do something for us as well.”
Chapter 10 - The City on the Edge of Forever
Author: Soledad
Author's Note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. go to the secondary index page
As you’ll see, I have a profoundly different view on the Athosian culture than canon does. Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.
We never actually learned what kind of creatures destroyed Jack’s childhood home, or how it happened. So I’ve taken some poetic licence here.
CHAPTER 09 - IN THE CAVES
After a narrow little passageway they came into what must have been a huge cave, by the way the space suddenly widened around them with the air moving freely, cold and fresh. It was more a feeling than anything else, as it was pitch black in there. Jack started feeling uncomfortable. He never liked dark places, and despite the dimensions he could feel around them, he found the place suffocating.
“Teyla?” he asked uncertainly.
“I much play here as child,” she replied in broken English; her voice came from a short distance. Then she switched back to her own tongue, and the iPod in Corrigan’s hand came dutifully alive, translating her words. “I believe this is where the survivors hid from the Wraith during the last great attack.”
The tiny screen gave just enough illumination for Jack to switch on the torchlight on his P90. It cast harsh shadows about the cavernous room, bouncing off rough-hewn stone and dust and getting lost in the shadowy height of a ceiling too far above their heads to be even visible. The air was surprisingly fresh; perhaps this was a carst cave, cut by some ancient river that had long since changed its path. Now it was dry, but some of the natural air ducts must have remained intact.
Still it wasn’t a very welcoming place - even less so than the military tents. Jack still had no idea who these Wraith could be, but if people had been willing to hide in this dank cave just to avoid being discovered by them, they must have been a terrible enemy indeed.
“One can almost taste the desperation in the air,” Liz Shaw commented softly, as if reading his thoughts. “I wish there would be a little more light. This place gives me the shivers.”
Apparently, Teyla had understood the word light, if nothing else, because she looked around, as if seeking for something. She found it soon enough: an old torch, fastened to the rocky wall with some sort of metal ring that didn’t show the slightest sign of the years gone by. Before Ianto could have produced his lighter - he still smoked the one or other cigarette sometimes, despite Jack’s efforts, who didn’t like the taste of nicotine on his lips, to break him out of the habit - Teyla pulled out something that looked like a penlight. With a flick of her thumb, a scarlet laser beam zapped out and onto the torch, lighting it instantly.
“Impressive,” Ianto commented. “So much better than a zippo.”
Teyla offered him a smile. “We trade the fire-starters with the Olesians for animal skins,” she explained. “They chose a settled life and technology long ago. A choice that makes their lives more comfortable… but also more vulnerable to a Wraith attack.”
“You have mentioned these Wraith many times by now, you and the others,” Dr. Shaw said, after Corrigan had handed her the iPod. “But you never told us what - or who - they are. Can you tell us more about them? Details would be useful.”
Corrigan translated the question into Ancient, as it was still too complex for her English, and Teyla nodded. “We come to show you who they are,” she said in English.
Then she took the torch from the wall and led them deeper into the caves.
“Whoa!” Corrigan breathed as the light of the torch illuminated the rock wall in front of them. “This sure as hell beats the paintings of Altamira. Or Lascaux.”
Jack hurried up to see what caught the anthropologist’s breath - and was stunned by the sight himself. The wall was indeed covered with primitive pictures that would more than match the famous cave paintings found in France and Spain. They were dynamic, colourful, and spoke of rough yet definite artistic talent.
They also seemed to have been made by different people, and during a long time span. A difference between the various styles and techniques could easily be made. Generations of unknown artists must have worked on this.
Only that - unlike their counterparts on Earth - the images didn’t depict hunting scenes, animals or any other aspect of daily life. They showed the brutal history of a hunted people - and considering their apparent age, that history must have been a very long one.
“The paintings in the caves are extensive,” Teyla murmured, bringing the light of the torch closer to the pictures. “No-one has ever gone far enough to study them all.”
“And they’re old, too,” Corrigan commented, switching the iPod into recording mode to store the images for his colleague to study. “Based on these scans, they must date back thousands of years.”
He repeated it in Ancient for Teyla, who nodded in agreement, adding that many generations of Athosians used to live in these caves in the primitive past of her people.
Thousands of years? Jack followed Ianto to the wall, where the young Welshman was studying a detailed image depicting the annihilation of a vast city. There were people running for their lives, and what looked like some kind of energy weapon sweeping the city itself.
“This represents the destruction of the Ancient city you don’t want us to visit?” he asked.
Teyla consulted Corrigan in Ancient, then she shook her head. “No; the city of the Ancestors was never this big. Besides, this painting far predates their departure from our world.”
“Then what?” Liz Shaw asked. “Have your forefathers witnessed this on a different world? Or did someone know in advance this was going to happen?”
This time the consultation took considerably more time.
“Some of our forefathers did visit other worlds, back, when the Ancestors ruled many planets,” Teyla finally answered,” and I doubt not that they saw terrible things, which they then depicted here, as a warning for the coming generations. I have come to believe, however, that this happens again and again.”
“The destruction?” Jack tried to clarify things. Teyla nodded.
“Yes. The Wraith allow our kind to grow in number, and when that number reaches a certain point, they return to cull their human herd.”
“Human herd? Culling?” Ianto seemed like someone who’d get violently sick any moment. Small wonder, considering that he’d been very nearly butchered and eaten by cannibals, who had considered him nothing but meat, barely a year ago.
“Hey,” Jack patted his back encouragingly, “don’t lose it now. Deep, even breaths!”
Ianto nodded shakily and obeyed. After a few moments, his pallor became a little healthier, and he calmed down again.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jack pointed out; then he looked at the others. “I think there can be no doubt that these Wraith are the terribly enemy the Ancient hologram has mentioned.”
“No,” Dr. Shaw agreed. “The thought that they’re still out there, after so many years, is… unsettling.”
Teyla consulted with Corrigan again, then she nodded. “Yes, that is true. The Wraith triumphed over the Ancestors in a long, horrible war, and the Ancestors vanished without a trace. The Wraith, however, are still here. Sometimes a few hundred years will pass before they awaken again, sometimes even longer… But the end is always the same.”
Jack eyed the pictures of dying men and women, and all of a sudden he felt so very tired. The hopes they’d had when coming to the Pegasus galaxy, the excitement over a great adventure, they were all gone with the wind.
“And there’s no-where to go?” he asked, although he feared he knew the answer already. If there would be a safe place, the Athosians would have already fled there.
This time Teyla didn’t wait for the translation, intuition having filled the gaps in her vocabulary.
“We have visited many, many worlds,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I know of none untouched by the Wraith,” she paused, waiting for the iPod to translate, then added in a different, more tense tone. “The last great holocaust was five generations ago, but still they return in smaller numbers, to remind us of their power. My mother was taken three years ago.”
Stunned silence followed her word. No-one knew what to say. Telling her that they were sorry would have been incredibly cheap, as she stood in their middle, at once sad, proud and resilient. They couldn’t help but feel great respect for her.
“What a horrible way to live!” Gwen finally mumbled, her eyes wide with fear and her lower lip trembling. “It isn’t a life at all… it’s just survival… barely…”
Teyla shrugged. “It is what it is - what we have known since the Keepers’ memory can reach back. We adapt. We move our hunting camp around. We try to teach our children not to live in fear… but it is hard.”
Hard didn’t even begin to describe it. Jack knew that from personal experience. He knew what it meant to live with the certain knowledge of a holocaust hovering above their heads, from day to day, from year to year. What it meant for the children to grow up knowing that their entire settlement could be wiped out at any time.
“When I was a child, we lived on a remote colony,” he spoke slowly, searching centuries-old memories that were almost painfully vivid and sharp nonetheless. “It was a simple and harsh life that my parents had chosen consciously. They wanted to keep out of the wars and struggles taking place elsewhere. We’d heard about a hostile race that migrated from world to world like locusts, murdering and tormenting people in unspeakable manners for years, but we never believed they would come after us, too. Our colony was so remote, so insignificant, so off the well-trodden paths. We thought they wouldn’t even notice us. We were wrong.”
“What happened?” Teyla asked, after Corrigan had translated for her.
“One day, they came, and we were unprepared,” Jack replied simply. “I lost my entire family that day.”
“How old were you?” Ianto asked quietly, laying a comforting hand upon his. Jack made a mirthless grimace.
“Twelve… perhaps more… I can’t even remember. Weird, ain’t it? I know my father died there - I saw him die - and my mother probably too. But I have no idea what happened to my little brother. Was he killed, was he taken? Later, when I was with the Time Agency, I searched after him for years. I never found him; not even a hint about his fate.”
“So, this Captain Hart lied when he said he’d found him?” Gwen asked.
Jack shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“So you’ve just given up on your brother?” Gwen demanded. “Jack, how could you do that? That poor boy is probably still enslaved by those monsters!”
“That poor boy, if he’s indeed still alive, is a grown man by now,” Jack replied tiredly. “What would you want me to do, Gwen? I couldn’t find him when I still had the resources of the Time Agency at my disposal - what could I do now, limited by the means of contemporary Earth?”
“You never told me anything about your brother,” Gwen said accusingly. “Or your parents. Or where you came from.”
“No, I haven’t, Jack answered, thoroughly annoyed by her now. “It’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business,” Gwen returned stubbornly.
Jack felt a killer headache starting to build behind his eyes. Fortunately, before he could have said anything he’d regret later, Ianto intervened, smoothly but efficiently as always.
“No, you’re not,” he told Gwen. “If it were anyone’s business, it would be mine. I am Jack’s… partner, remember?”
“He still hasn’t told you anything, has he?” Gwen asked smugly.
“No,” Ianto admitted. “And I never asked. I knew once he felt up to it, he’d speak about it.”
“Or not,” Gwen said nastily.
“Or not,” Ianto agreed. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know every little detail about everything he’s seen or done. Some memories are just too painful to be relived. So leave Jack alone, will you? He doesn’t need your nagging about something he can’t change.”
There was such a forbidding finality in his tone that even Gwen, who didn’t back off easily, found it better to stop arguing. She huffled in disappointment and stomped off to explore the cave on her own.
Jack closed his eyes. “Thanks, Ianto.”
“Headache?” Ianto asked quietly, stopping behind him and massaging his tense neck muscles.
Jack relaxed under his fingers with a ragged sigh. “You’re a godsend, Ianto Jones.”
“Just doing my job, sir,” Ianto said with an intimate little smile.
Teyla had been listening to them with growing confusion. Now that the argument seemed to have been ended, she turned to Corrigan, and the two had a lengthy discussion in Ancient, to which Corrigan also consulted the iPod.
“This is interesting,” he finally said. “I’ve been guessing something like that since we moved here from Atlantis, but now it’s confirmed: the Athosians live in clan marriages.”
“Which means… what exactly?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“It means that every family consists of two or more co-husbands and co-wives,” Corrigan explained. “The custom has been developed for the protection of the children, it seems. This way, even if one or more of the parents are taken by the Wraith, the kids still can grow up in a family.”
“But how can they prevent inbreeding and the degeneration of the gene pool?” Dr. Shaw’s medical interest was definitely piqued.
Another lengthy discussion followed, Teyla and Corrigan clearly warming up to the topic, which wasn’t really surprising. Corrigan was an anthropologist, not just a linguist, and what he was learning about Athosian lifestyle clearly fascinated him.
“They’ve got an interesting system,” he then explained. “It seems that each individual can count back his or her ancestors to ten or twelve generations, on both their parents’ sides. And then there are people like Halling. They’re called the Keeper of Tradition and are obviously living archives. They know the bloodlines of each clan within their tribe by heart, which clan has intermarried with which and for how long, who are just foster siblings and who are related by blood… that sort of thing. There are several such people in each tribe, and each of them starts teaching his or her potential follower in early childhood, in case they’d be taken by the Wraith.”
“But these people are clearly literate,” Dr. Shaw said, surprised. “Why would they need to learn all this by heart?”
“They can read, that’s true,” Corrigan replied, after having consulted with Teyla, “But they don’t write, as a rule. Written records can be lost or destroyed. And since everyone knows their own bloodline, the genetic history of the tribe can be reconstructed with reasonably little effort, even if all Keepers would get taken at once. Which, according to Teyla, has never happened to them, so far.”
“I assume such people are specially protected,” Dr. Shaw said.
“All are protected,” Teyla said promptly in English, not needing the translation this time. “All the same. All very important. Only old ones special.”
“That makes sense,” Corrigan commented. “Where the population is so small in numbers, each individual counts. And the experiences of those who’ve managed to live long enough to grow old would be very valuable.”
Teyla nodded, apparently getting the gist of the statement. The speed which she picked up English with - arguably not the most logical language of mankind - was simply amazing. Unless she was mildly telepathic, of course.
Jack asked about that with the help of Corrigan, and Teyla shook her head.
“No mind-reading,” she replied in English, “though I have the Gift.”
They looked at her in obvious confusion, and she switched back to her own dialect to explain.
“Some of us can sense the Wraith coming,” she said. “That gives us warning. It is a rare gift, and not a pleasant one; it feels like a hot knife slicing through one’s brain. But it is useful; it helps us and the others to prevent being taken… if we are fast enough.”
“You have mentioned being taken many times by now,” Jack said. “What do the Wraith do with the people they take? Torture them? Kill them for sport? Eat them?”
Teyla waited for Corrigan to translate, just to be sure she understood the question correctly. Then she nodded and answered in her mother tongue.
“They feed on people,” she explained. “They have a… an organ in their palm, through which they can suck life out of people by mere touch. The… the victim grows old and dies as a dried-out husk within minutes.”
“Oh, that must be a bad joke!” Corrigan exclaimed, checking what the iPod if he’d heard that right. “Are we talking about vampires here?”
“Well, if the Ancients had encountered the Wraith in this galaxy, it’s not unlikely that vampire legends are based on their memories,” Ianto commented. “They wouldn’t be the first weird aliens mankind has met. I wonder about the quick aging part, though. How do they do that?”
“Actually, that’s the least baffling part of it,” Dr. Shaw replied. “If that… that feeding organ enables them to absorb bio-energy directly from the victim, the entropy effect would be accelerated by magnitudes and death would be imminent. It would also mean that such a creature would be able to regenerate from near-fatal injuries, if properly fed.”
“They do heal very fast,” Teyla agreed, after Corrigan had translated for her. “The best way to kill them is to cut their heads off - but it is hard to get close enough to do that, without being killed.”
“Cremation should work, too,” Ianto added thoughtfully. “Any energy weapon at a high enough setting. Disintegrating them with a zat gun, for example. Or vaporizing them with the Jamolean lance.”
“Or blowing their heads off with our big gun,” Jack continued, feeling just a little bit bloodthirsty, because really, what else would such parasitic creatures deserve? “It’s only a question of caliber, ain’t it? The bigger the bullet, the better the results.”
Teyla looked from one at another in slight confusion. They were talking way too fast for her, but she believed to have heard something important.
“You get weapons that can kill Wraith?” she asked.
“Some,” Jack replied. “Not as many as we’d like, but yeah; the ones we do have should work like a charm.”
“Then perhaps you can truly afford to take a look at the city of the Ancestors, Teyla said thoughtfully. “Can your weapons destroy machines that fly in the air?”
“Some of them can,” Jack answered, thinking of the grenade launchers Captain Magambo had insisted to bring with them with gratitude. “Do these Wraith not come through the Stargate… I mean, through the Ring of the Ancestors?” he corrected himself.
“They do,” Teyla answered. “They come by small ships that fit through the Ring and are very fast. We call them Darts, as they look like the points of our hunting weapons. They collect their prey, kill many of the rest to terrorize them, and then vanish through the Ring again.”
“They must have a mothership somewhere out there,” Jack was thinking loudly. “Ships that are small enough to pass through the Gate can’t be capable of interstellar travel.”
“They have huge ships they call Hives with thousands of Wraith on board,” Teyla explained. “We do not know how many such ships exist, but it is said that between great wars, most of them are asleep. Otherwise there would be no living people left in our worlds.”
“So, if we manage to sneak aboard such a Hive Ship and place a big enough bomb in the middle of the vital systems, we could kill thousands of those monsters in their sleep?” Jack asked. It sounded brutal, but right now, he didn’t feel above genocide, if that meant to save an entire galaxy full of unprotected humans from vampiric aliens.
Teyla thought about the question for a while. She understood the concept, and frankly, she had no moral objections - why should she? The Wraith didn’t have any, either. She just couldn’t imagine the means that would enable mere humans to do so.
“I cannot see how that would be possible,” she finally said.
“Let that be our concern… and hopefully none too soon,” Jack answered. “We need a safe place to settle first. Could you talk the other elders into letting us at least check out the old city in the valley? Our people can’t live out their lives in tents.”
“I do wish to help you,” Teyla said thoughtfully. “But you must understand us, too. We cannot risk alerting the Wraith to your presence. You have got weapons, technology… they would not simply cull our world if they discovered that. They would see you as a threat and kill you… and us with you, as an example for other people. It is known to have happened before, on other planets.”
“I understand the risk,” Jack said, and he really did. Perhaps he was the only one in the entire expedition who truly did, due to his past. “But try to understand us. We ain’t a people of hunters or farmers. We can’t live the same way you do, not in the long run. The Ancient city might give us the means to grow our own food, the way we’re used to do it; to be independent and self-supporting, instead of becoming a burden for you.”
“Besides,” Ianto added, “we have people among us who can disable the devices left behind to alert the Wraith. They have done so on countless other worlds, back home.”
“I thought you did not know the Wraith back on your home planet,” Teyla said, getting a little suspicious again.
“We didn’t,” Ianto assured. “But there were other enemies, ruthless and cruel ones, against whom we had to fight with all that we had. Sometimes it wasn’t even nearly enough. We came here in the hope that the Ancients - the ones you call the Ancestors - might have left something behind, some weapon perhaps, that could help us. And now…”
“And now you are trapped here, with the Wraith,” Teyla finished for him.
Ianto shrugged. “We always knew there might not be a way back. Still, we had to try. We still may succeed yet… if we find the right energy source.”
“I cannot assume that I understand everything you have told me,” Teyla said slowly. “Your language has too many words that are meaningless for me. But Halling and I have realized for quite some time that our way of life would not suit you. Very well; I shall speak to the elders on your behalf. But if letting you into the old city turns out to be a horrible mistake, you will be expected to help protect my people.”
“Of course,” Jack said; then he gave her his widest, patented Jack Harkness grin. “Would you like to accompany us when we make the survey run?”
Teyla grinned back at him. “I thought you would never ask.”
Everyone laughed with them, and they were about to get up and leave the caves when Jack realized that Gwen was missing.
“God help that woman,” he swore under his breath. “Why must she always run off on her own?”
“Perhaps cos you always let her get away with everything,” Ianto commented dryly.
Jack gave him a dirty look. That had been a controversial topic between them ever since Jack had come back from his trip with the Doctor.
“We must seek after her immediately,” Teyla said, as soon as she understood the problem. These caves branch out a very long way under the hills. When she turns the wrong way, we might not find her in time.”
“That’s what the lifesign detector is for,” Jack looked at Ianto. “I assume you’ve got one on your person, Mr. Jones?”
“When have I gone on a field trip unprepared, sir?” Ianto asked back with his best receptionist smile and produced the required instrument from his vest pocket. “Shall we?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They found Gwen in the fourth cave, where she was studying the paintings, not even aware of the fact that they’d been looking for her. Around her neck she was wearing a piece of jewellery neither of them had seen before: a dainty necklace with a beautifully crafted locket on it, made of some sort of unknown alloy.
Well, unknown to them but not to Teyla, obviously, who gasped softly at the sigh of it.
“I lost this when I was a young girl,” she said in delight. “How did you find it?”
“Caught my eye, half-buried in the dirt. Must have reflected the sunlight. “Gwen reluctantly took off the necklace and let it swing from her finger. “I guess you want it back…”
Teyla nodded, her eyes shining. “It was a gift from my father. I believed I would never see it again.”
Jack took the necklace from Gwen and held it out to Teyla in a gentlemanlike manner. “May I…?”
She laughed as she turned around, brushing the ends of her short hair upwards with her hand to allow him to fasten the clasp. Jack did as it was expected of him, but he took his sweet time to admire the elegant sweep of her neck.
“Some things never change,” Gwen muttered angrily. In Welsh.
Ianto shrugged. “Jack is Jack,” he replied. “You can no more change him than you could change the weather.”
“And that doesn’t bother you a bit, does it?” Gwen’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“Actually… no, it doesn’t,” Ianto replied with a faint smile; then he looked at Jack. “Well, since Gwen’s been found and you’ve had your gentlemanly moment, perhaps we can return to the camp now?”
Jack grinned at him and saluted. “Your wish is my command, Mr Jones!”
“I certainly hope so,” Ianto answered dryly. “Move!”
Corrigan snorted and Liz Shaw shook her head in tolerant amusement.
“Newlyweds,” she commented. “They’re always the same. God, was I ever that young?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
An hour before sunset Halling came to Gateship #3, which served as Dr. Shaw’s temporary quarters and her office. He brought Corrigan with him as communications support; the linguist certainly was in much demand in these days.
“The elders would like to speak with you again, Doctor Shaw,” he said. “And with Captain Harkness, if he is available.”
“Is this about our request concerning the Ancient city?” Liz Shaw asked.
“Among other things,” Halling replied with a grave nod. In English. Clearly, Teyla wasn’t he only one who picked up languages very quickly.
“Very well,” Liz Shaw switched off the computer tablet activated her headset instead. “Ianto, do you know where Jack is?”
“Always,” Ianto replied simply. “Do you need him?”
“The Athosian elders do,” Liz said. “They’ve called for a meeting.”
“Interesting,” Ianto commented. “I’ll send him to you at once.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your plans for the evening,” Liz apologized.
“You haven’t,” Ianto assured her dryly. “Unless you consider standing atop a gateship and brooding as evening plans. I’ll be grateful if you could snap him out of it; it’s no fun at all.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Liz promised and broke the connection.
Jack arrived within minutes indeed, and the two of them followed Halling to the Athosian village. The elders had gathered in Teyla’s tent again and where - what else? - drinking tea. As every time he saw them doing that, Jack felt a sudden, uncontrollable craving for coffee. For Ianto’s coffee. Which was just not doable at the moment. Not as long as they hadn’t found a reliable power source to which Ianto could have connected his shiny new coffee machine. So everyone was living off caffeine pills, and even those were strictly rationed… and it showed.
Withdrawal was a bitch.
Liz and Jack accepted the offered cushions and the tea in the circle of the Elders. Corrigan, like the young Athosian man called Toran, as seated outside the circle but close enough to hear whatever was being said. Jack had the iPod, as Corrigan understood a lot from the Athosian dialect without help already.
They drank the tea in silence, everyone gathering their thoughts for the upcoming discussion. It was Charin who finally broke the silence; as the oldest member, it was her privilege to speak first.
“You have asked our permission to dwell in the abandoned city of the Ancestors,” she said. “We are of two minds about that request. Before we would open a discussion about it, however, let me warn you: moving there would not necessarily do you any good. Legend says that only the Ancestors could use all the machines and tools that can be found in the city. To all others, it would remain dead.”
Liz and Jack exchanged significant looks. Was it possible that nobody in the entire Athosian population had the gene?
“That is not entirely true, “Liz said, choosing her words very carefully. “Some of us have the… the ability to make their technology work. It’s a gift of the Ancestors; a gift that some of us carry in their blood. Literally.”
“That is impossible,” Ireni protested, after Corrigan had translated everything into Ancient. “The tools of the Ancestors recognize them and would not work for anyone else.”
“And yet some of us can fly their ships,” Jack reminded her.
“We have been wondering about that,” Halling murmured.
“As I said; some of us have it in their blood,” Liz Shaw said. “The world we originally come from is the same on the Ancients called home. The one where they returned after the great war against the Wraith was lost.”
The Athosian elders fell into shocked silence after they’d understood the meaning of her words.
“You are of the blood of the Ancestors?” Selena asked, clearly stunned.
“Many years and many generations have gone by since they returned to our world,” Liz Shaw explained. “Not a single one of them has remained by now. But they’ve mingled with our ancestors, and some of us still carry a gift in our blood. A gift that enables us to use their technology. I’m not one of those, unfortunately, but Jack here is. So are several others from our group.”
The elders exchanged meaningful looks. They’d clearly discussed the topic among themselves in advance, and perhaps could carry on a nonverbal communication for quite some time. Slowly, deliberately, all eyes turned to Teyla, and the others nodded, one by one. Flashing one of her half-bemused, half-amused smiles, Teyla nodded, too, and then she looked at the three newcomers.
“Since you are practically the offspring of the Ancestors, we do not have the right to deny you access to your inheritance,” she said. “But if we are to take such a great risk on your behalf, you will have to do something for us as well.”
Chapter 10 - The City on the Edge of Forever