Author's Note:
'Let the Ghosts lie Still' is a more 'normal' story after my aberration that was 'Madacran' but, be warned, it is DEATHFIC! But I feel it is one that offers hope...
There are minor references to episodes of all 5 seasons of SGA, in particular, as they featured Daniel, 'Last Contact' and 'Lost Tribe'.
It's complete at just over 43,000 words so, as usual, I'm all ready, apart from some tweaking, to update at regular intervals.
Let the Ghosts lie Still
Prologue
It is time to go.
Why?
The light never answers. And it is darkness that calls and beckons. He honestly doesn't want to go.
And he looks to the Others. Safety. He's felt happiness here. Gratitude for that. A whole mix of stuff that he'd never been able to put into words back there. That wraps up round your heart. Whatever that is. And holds it tight forever in eternity.
In fact, there are no words here and he's surprised he even knows words again.
Light.
Purity.
Emotion only.
Something is sucking at him. Tugging. Pulling at the edges. And it's... scary. When he doesn't feel fear here. When he feels nothing but safe here.
Darkness. Darkness is tugging him back to there. And there is nothing he can do. Not even the Others can help him. They are in the light. And he is not.
And he's overwhelmed with sorrow.
Is this wrong? To feel sorrow? For myself?
No, says the darkness. For the darkness is sorrow.
Why? Why me? His mind searches. But there is nothing to search.
Nothing...
The light had taken him to nothing.
He looks back. One last yearning glimpse that is sorrow. The light is distant. Small. Like a gold coin. His mind searches and now finds a memory. Once, long ago, he tossed a coin...
The light had taken him to nothing, and now the darkness pulls him under, weighing him down, drowning him in life once more.
-oAo-
Chapter One
File Subject: 2486/92B.
'Subject 2486/92B! I do sometimes wish we can call him by his proper name - like we're pretending we don't know it!'
Logged in: Senior Technician Carter Kjeldsen. Assistant Technician Siom Bonde.
Report Time: 10.02.
Report Date: 28.13.8013
Date of last report: 21.13.8013
General Status: No marked change.
Toxicity level: Grade 1-2 level constant.
'Wish we could get this wretched thing back down to Grade One again – he's been in there too long.'
'Tell me about it.'
Temperature: -198 C. Sensors indicate little significant variation over past week.
Level of Zb16 coolant: Optimum levels
Level of Sy208 protectorant: -1 below optimum. Suggest increase input of nanomolecules to 28 cu. Cap.
Extracellular: Maintained.
Intracellular: Maintained.
Specifics: Heart: ditto
Lungs: ditto
Liver: ditto. Addition of Zd2 enzymes has held previous deterioration of 7.9.8013.
Kidneys: ditto
Abdomen, intestines, stomach: Slight change. Recommend daily appraisal.
Skin and hair tissue: ditto. Previous noted jaundice in recession.
Muscle: Slight deterioration. Not to the low levels of 6.6.8009 as yet. Recommend supplements of Hx10 fluids in two weeks.
'Hopefully they'll give the permit for recovery soon and these supplements won't be necessary. Don't think a second round of those things will do him an awful lot of good. He needs exercise and fresh air, not drugs.'
Bone: ditto
Corneas: Hydration 92H. Slight change. Though satisfactory recovery from 7.9.8013.
Brain: Continuing anomaly of minor fluctuations in electrical impulses.
'I just don't get this. I'm typing in: Subject is 'conscious'? I've been asking Professor Osterholt if he thinks it's possible.'
'Well, let's hope so!'
'Yes, but seriously, his brain cells have been activated before recovery has been initialised? On their own? And it's nothing to do with us? These are sub-zero temperatures.'
'Oh, I feel a theory coming on here! You gonna write a Paper?'
'Might.'
'Consciousness, awareness of persona is separate from body? Even triggered perhaps by the discussions in Oslo. He/it knows?'
Other Recommendations: Full vitamin and mineral support.
Conclusion: All preparations for recovery are complete when the Ethics Committee gives the go-ahead. Bloods compatible to subject 2486/92B are on the order schedule and ready for the full recommended transfusion.
'That had better be soon! We want to meet this guy at long last! Did I ever tell you that my great great aunt was in on this from the very start?'
'Oh, loads of times. I'm just about ready for a cuppa now. Want to join me? Ujarak tells me the Rest Room has Leite Cake on the Specials today.'
'Our subject gets to you like that, does he? Makes you fancy chocolate cake like rotten?'
'Well, yes, indeed, Carter, a girl can fantasize all she likes, and then she's just got to have a substitute for-'
'Shhh! I don't want to know and I'm trying to concentrate here! But if Professor Osterholt ever gets to hear how long you take over assessing subject 2486/92B's reproductive organs, you'll be out of this scheme before you can think sheets and soft lights.'
Logged Out: C. Kjeldsen. S. Bonde.
Time: 10.53
-oAo-
Washington Hjelm swipes off his optics and rubs hard at his eyes with the palms of his hands. A headache now. He's been staring at the screen for too long. Martya will scold him as she hands him water and painkillers. He swivels his chair round, squinting at the view through the wide panoramic balcony window of his study. This isn't going to do his migraine any good, but the scene is breathtaking. A golden sea caught in a blazing sunset. Nothing but wide open sky and ocean, punctuated with black rocks at the edges, streaked with the white glimmer wash of a playful tide.
It always has this effect on him. It never ceases to amaze. To inspire. And he gives thanks to whichever immortal may be responsible, though he's convinced it is all down to simple good luck, that his great grandfather, Kuuk Hjelm had chosen this location, just outside of Sisimiut for his home.
He remembers so many happy childhood memories here and is glad of its nurturing on his formative years. He only wishes he could be here more often. And even now Martya is packing his bags and ordering his place on board the airship for his trip to Oslo tomorrow.
He has come a long way since his boyhood. He replaces his optics, glancing over to the filing system where sit neat rows of data rings of his many published treatises and papers.
And he looks back to his holo screen with more than a little stirring of pride.
'Let The Ghosts Lie Still'.
Concluding Notes by Washington Hjelm, (credited author of 'The Lost City of Atlantis: will she ever be found and do we necessarily wish to find her?') Chairperson of the World Ethics Committee.'
Quite a post considering his humble upbringing in the backwoods of the Greenland Archipelago. History teacher to international lecturer and adviser to the World Council at Oslo in twenty years.
He's finishing the final corrections of his work, preparing to send out his notes by 20.00, which should give each one of the Committee's representatives, an ample twenty-four hours to read and peruse them before the next meeting. Twenty members and he holds the casting vote. And if it's still ten against ten, after the week's adjournment to reconsider, which way will he vote?
He returns his gaze to the sea. The sun, a brilliant red crimson, slashed with purple cloud, now begins its evening slip below the horizon.
He allows his mind to wander once more over his own personal history, his academic life, his milestones of achievements and disappointments, reflecting how the world itself has progressed too over the past ten thousand years.
How different things must have been back then, when events had all but obliterated the seasons and the Earth stood blighted, with humans surviving as best they could. It still seems to Washington incredible that recovered and restored records show that at the time of the Wraith Attack, Earth claimed to provide life for six billion souls. How many died back then? How many indeed?
It is now 8014 NC. Population censuses indicate an optimum level of 300 million. Any more than 500 million and virgin lands would have to fall under cultivation. How did the world once manage to provide for itself? The same records also show that they did not. At least, not to an acceptable level.
NC, New Count is, he muses, no longer so very new, introduced, as far as anyone could tell, after a gap of approximately two thousand years after the Wraith Attack. Those who suffered that fate said it occurred in 2012. That such a calamity had been predicted by an ancient race called the Mayans, five thousand years prior to that.
Humans, however, thinks Washington are always exceptional in their ability to survive. The Wraith Attack had been closely followed by a shift in the earth's axis that had meant a major realignment of the North Pole into Russia and the South Pole to the mid-Pacific. The shift had led to intense volcanic activity and massive earthquakes, throwing up new mountain ranges, re-locating the old, raising tectonic plates, sinking others into oblivion under the sea. The accumulation of volcanic ash, a smog of hundreds of years, produced a mini ice-age. The subsequent smog dispersal had led to a warming up that had, in turn led to a rise in sea levels. Washington knows that the maps of old were quite different to those of today. It was a miracle that humans came through it all as well as they did.
Washington finally surrenders to his headache, to the inability to concentrate further, and admitting he can polish his notes no further, he presses 'submit'. He levers himself from his chair and walks over to the window, taking in the last of the sunset, his mind skimming over years of lectures on anthropology and archaeology given to student halls the world over. He has memories of young faces, perhaps not all eager for this knowledge, and yes, he has to concede that some would have been bored. He remembers going through similar experiences. There is little new about growing up. But all students know and celebrate the story behind Atlantis Day, their time of thanksgiving for victory over the Wraith.
The room behind him has darkened and he returns to his desk, reaching for the room controls. He sets the lighting to 'dim'. Anything higher will flare up his headache for sure. He bypasses his bookcase and randomly selects one volume, taking it to the window. Martya hates his books. They simply collect dust, she says, frowning. Why can't he be more like other of her former employers and rely on nothing but data compilers and data rings that feedback effortlessly to the holo, with scarcely a flicker of power resources used? But no, his preference is for books, with that natural, personal link between reader and writer. And besides, and he acknowledges some vanity here, he likes to show off his vast and impressive array of titles that include some of the world's rarest items, permanently stored behind glass and sealed in a temperature controlled vacuum – books dating right back to around 2000AD.
He thumbs through pages of an 'Introduction to World History'.
Humans had been thrown literally to the four corners of the world.
Five states.
Newfoundland. Consisting of the islands of North Canada, (revealed once the ice had receded) Alaska, Iceland and the archipelago of Greenland, with jurisdiction over what had once been the American continent. The State had been highly populated in those early days having taken in so many refugees. What few people had survived the initial intensive onslaught of the Wraith in what had been The United States, had then the misfortune of finding themselves, due to the prevailing wind direction, in the path of toxins and contaminants as Wraith ship after Wraith ship (and regretfully many Earth planes carrying nuclear weapons) had been blasted from the sky. And Central America, being in such close proximity to the South Pole, is now lost under an ice sheet. South America is as barren as the North, with a few nomadic tribes wandering across inhospitable tundra and grasslands.
The State of Eurasia. Formed, basically, from what had once been Scandinavia and parts of Western Russia. Very little had survived of European Nations and even to this day, the area has not been declared safe to enter.
The peoples of Africa with its former heavy dependence on 'Western Countries' had finally been decimated by a more virulent form of Aids, and during the unification of the world peoples had fallen under the guardianship of the small State of Arabia. Much of Africa's western seaboard is now submerged beneath the sea. Nonetheless, with the Equator now running from what was once it's north-west to south-east, it is still a bountiful land of tropical rainforest and lush savannahs.
The Wraith had fed well in Asia. Their principle food target. It had been mainly their populations that died in the Wraith ships. Little was left. Leaving only Australia, enlarged with the addition of the Indonesian Mountains, the highest mountain ranges on Earth, standing alone in that section of the globe, seeing to the isolated pacific islands.
Perth had been the last known resting place of Atlantis.
And finally, New Antarctica. Once a desolate rocky territory that had evolved and blossomed into what could only be described as Utopia, blessed with fertile soils and a temperate climate. Mass migration took place to its shores around 4000 NC, making it now the most productive farm state of the five.
Washington leans a shoulder against a window column, staring into a landscape of shadows and dark greying shapes that edge the black brown flatness of a calm sea, touched here and there by the last orange shimmer of light that clings to the sky.
So much hope… so much hope for the future… surely it wasn't to be dashed again? Not after all this time? But he, more than anyone he supposes, knows and understands the cycles of human history.
NC. New Count. Archaeological digs indicated that there had been once an AD or a BC. Though the world then had been so fragmented into so many nations, religions, etc, that this was not a universal application. anno Domini. But which God? Perhaps then, a Guardian Angel? For how could so few survive, not only to survive but to recover and become technologically advanced once more, and without making the same ecological mistakes as their ancestors? Perhaps the Wraith had presented mankind with something of a favour, reflects Washington, and Earth had come through a sort of baptism. Certainly since that war there had been no other...
Illogically, at unification into one World nation, the Justinian calendar of twelve months of variable lengths had been accepted. Now there were thirteen months in a year based on the moon's cycle and somehow the names of the months had been retained, English being adopted as the universal language of most survivors. And it seemed fitting, in memory of the legend, to call the new month, Atlantea.
Even though, until the great archaeological digs of circa 7000 NC, that's all it ever was… a legend. Many had even doubted its existence. Others said it'd been Atlantis that had been the Guardian Angel…
Irrefutable proof came when archaeologists discovered Cheyenne Mountain, the place of all the legends.
The State of Newfoundland had initiated the first great archaeological digs though some work had already been carried out along the coasts of Southern Canada, as early as 5963NC. Historical interest was naturally thrown to the former United States with all the hearsay of the great seaboard cities on both the Pacific and the Atlantic, the ruins of which had been revealed during the Big Freeze of 5200-6000 when the Central American icecap had doubled in size and sea levels had dropped. It seemed unbelievable to see yet again, the footprints of such cities as New York and Boston. Los Angeles and San Francisco had never been found, lost forever in early earthquakes.
Work and studies inland had been brought to a halt when radiation was still found to be at dangerous levels but with the passing of years and further radiation depletion, and with the production of good suits for men on the ground, the investigations continued.
It met with much initial discouragement. Little remained of towns and cities. Stories passed down and told round family fires or in community centres had it that the Wraith used some sort of stun weapon, that for the want of a better word, simply 'blew' everything away in its path. Occasionally something underground was discovered. And Washington remembers childhood visits to Greenland Museum in Nuuk, that displayed fragments of rusty automobiles found in what were once storage areas called garages.
Dust. They found a lot of dust too.
Forensic Labs later revealed their grisly findings – much of the dust was all that was left of humans. Perhaps these underground halls had been shelters of some sort? Odd fragments of metal and plastic from clothing were also found and, even more rarely than ever, buttons and hooks much resembling those used in the present day. Rings and loops and chains too. All personal ornaments. Even rudimentary personal communication systems, with manufacturers' names still decipherable.
Then came the fortuitous find of a small government depository in what had once been the city of Washington. Other larger depositories had been uncovered elsewhere but proved to be empty, their contents falling victim to the ravages of time. Fallen debris had sealed this particular depository's entrance and, deprived of air and its destructive capacity towards all things carbon, its 'treasures' of recorded discs and even paper files had survived intact, as if… the last human being had just that instant turned the key and left for a cup of kokoda...
The revelations disclosed from the depository were breathtaking in their significance and magnitude. There just weren't enough academia and archaeologists alive to sift through the material. Everything verified all the stories. The world was sent in a frenzy of excitement as detail after detail of legends revealed itself as actuality. It really did all happen as the stories had told. Earth's last defences. Its airfields. Numbers of planes. Casualties... generals. Staff... names behind the legends... General Jack O'Neill, John Sheppard, Cameron Mitchell, Dr Rodney McKay, Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, Ronon Dex, Vala Mal Doran, Teyla Emmagan
And more importantly of all, came the discovery of the exact location of Cheyenne Mountain.
Barely a month passed and the search revealed the base, barely hidden beneath the surface, miraculously untouched despite the earthquakes of minus1000NC that had hit the area.
Soon, the archaeologists were in possession of the last known sighting of Atlantis but sadly, not its present day situation.
That had been May 7802 NC.
The World Ethics Committee sat its first meeting regarding the findings of Cheyenne Mountain ten years later following the work of Dr. P. Sokofsky, from the State of Eurasia, investigating the possibility of cloning humans from recovered DNA. It'd been just over two hundred years debating the issue. Not to be taken lightly then?
The Ethics Committee, caught up in the universal euphoria of the new discoveries, had immediately granted permission to use DNA from archaeological digs, failing, despite its title, to consider the ethics involved. The scientists were given a carte blanche to do whatever.
One clone was successfully created from DNA retrieved from an Australian airfield, only to be placed into cold store, before even being 'awakened'. There were second thoughts. A new spiritual movement had gripped the world, and questions were raised as to the propriety of cloning. Could it be regarded as an intrusion into an individual's soul?
Counter-arguments were thrown back and forth.
Nothing could be proved about the soul of a clone – or of anyone for that matter. And the clone had been created now. The damage done, surely? It was known that another clone had once walked the Earth, a Dr Carson Beckett, and his case demonstrated very little evidence of anything beyond the physical effects of the cloning.
Soul or not, was it worth the risk, simply to satiate a desire to get a few historical facts straight?
Because we can?
Feelings ran so high that the lab containing the clone was destroyed by protesters. The production of another clone was given permission but the resulting clone was again frozen. The dizzying arguments continued to surface sporadically through the decades. But gradually, they and the clone were forgotten.
Till now.
The discoveries at Cheyenne Mountain had not only substantiated the details of Earth's fight against the Wraith but had uncovered much about the Wraith themselves. Their coding systems, for one.
The shock revelation of December 8013?
Those exact same signalling patterns, faint, but there all the same, picked up by the new high level reconnaissance balloons that orbit the Earth.
There were Wraith survivors too? And they'd left Pegasus once more? They were now in the Milky Way and heading towards Earth?
Earth needs to find Atlantis.
And quickly.
With no wars, the weapon industry is practically non-existent. Earth, lulled into a sense of false security by centuries of peace, is defenceless. Weapon production programmes are in frantic progress but the World Council is the first to admit to its immediate inadequacy. And no one has any estimation of the timescale involved. If the Wraith come tomorrow, then… they were looking at defeat. Then... the past ten thousand years will have been for for nothing.
They'd been other spaceships ten thousand years ago… Asgard and Ancient technology. The Orion and Daedalus, but both had eventually succumbed to the alien onslaught. Hope rests on Atlantis. Hope rests on this clone. And really, thinks Washington, shaking his head, that's too much dependency on one man.
Washington is certain that activating the clone is no longer a case of mild curiosity. He is certain that not activating can no longer be justified on grounds of mere squeamishness. They no longer have that luxury.
The clone could help them to find Atlantis. And perhaps the second clone too, if its growth could be accelerated. And the geneticists had assured him that this would not be a problem.
Washington knows how he would cast the deciding vote if it ever came to it. He is aware that he might be clutching at straws in desperation but the safety of Earth is at stake. And he has looked into the background of the clone's 'original', has studied it's military background and it's life accomplishments. It's deeds, it's actions are most creditworthy. He is, therefore, convinced the clone itself would want it this way.
Itself? Himself? And Washington frowns at his own confusion.
He stabs at another button on his house controls and watches the window blinds slowly lower to shut out the black night.
-oAo-
"How is he?"
"Coming along nicely."
"Hmmm... a hero and sateon…"
"In his day, it was called 'hot'."
"Oh, that word works too, I'm sure. Can he, you know...?"
"Oh yes, he's fully functional. Sperm samples have already been taken but put into cold store."
"Ethics Committee, huh?"
"Yeah, we're not allowed to use them, until forms have been filed in triplicate and the EC have had about twenty deliberations."
"Won't stop one of us trying to bear his children, now, will it?"
"Apparently, in all instances, his permission has to be asked first."
-oAo-
Where?
Take it easy, John.
Where?
Calm down, you're among friends.
Friends? The Others?
The Others were in the light.
This.
This is different. This plain doesn't feel right.
-oAo-
