Chapter 14
There was a lingering scent of smoke hanging in the air. Colonel Samantha Carter paused on the mossy stone platform in front of the Gate as the event horizon cut out, and looked around at the forest. Birds that had been disturbed by her arrival picked up the threads of their song, and interrupted rustlings in the undergrowth resumed. The woodland, here at least, was lush and green, and Sam could see a scattering of tiny pale shoots that must have sprung up since the previous day's rainfall.
She set off down the forest path, eager for her many questions to be answered, her appetite merely whetted by the cryptic, jumbled phrases uttered by the exhausted team the day before, and Jennifer's somewhat puzzling medical report. It was good to be off-world, she thought, striding out energetically and breathing deeply of the fresh, if slightly barbecue-tinged air.
She arrived at the clearing in front of the Happy Helg in time to see Jennifer and her medical team trundling off in the opposite direction, past the parked Jumper and onto the the main forest track, presumably to check on some of the fire-related injuries, although judging by the laughter that floated back on the light morning breeze, the outing was also destined to be pleasurable.
Colonel Sheppard and his team variously sat, lolled or slouched around one of the tables in front of the pub, the debris of an extensive breakfast arrayed on empty platters between them. They looked reasonably alert compared to the previous day and reasonably whole, most of their injuries being hidden by an eclectic mix of uniform and borrowed clothes. John's outfit looked like it belonged to the landlord, Tam, a man built on a much larger framework, and was set off by a large dressing on his forehead. It would be unkind to laugh, though, so she'd try not to, especially knowing that McKay and probably Ronon too, would already have tested John's capacity for being teased to its limit and beyond. They turned at the sound of her steady tread.
"Good morning!" she greeted the team, but didn't hear any of their responses, because she suddenly found herself under the fierce scrutiny of a pair of golden eyes, glaring out from the shadows under the table. Two smaller pairs of eyes also blinked uncertainly from between the legs of John's team.
Sam stopped and knelt down on the ground and felt a smile break unstoppably over her face.
"She won't come to you!" McKay's eye-roll was almost audible.
"I didn't serve on a team with Daniel Jackson for all those years without learning a thing or two about first contacts, McKay!" Sam had been longing to meet Boudicca, and she allowed her honest, open fascination to show on her face and body, remembering all the times wary natives had been won over by Daniel's innocent, heart-on-his-sleeve sincerity. The priss emerged, and strode directly toward Sam, placed her front paws on Sam's thighs and bent her head forward. Their foreheads touched, Athosian-style, and Sam saw Elizabeth's face, with a sense of regret, and then her own. She saw the forest burning, and her team's attempts to help, and she felt Boudicca's protectiveness toward her world and toward her human friends.
"What's she saying?" interrupted Rodney. "You'd better not be talking about me!"
The exchange of thought broken, Boudicca's ears twitched, but then she resumed and, at first, Sam was confused. She saw the movement of the wind in the forest; the way it plays lightly with leaves and ruffles fur, the way it can bite and jab as sharp as a thorn, the way it blusters and howls in the mouth of the cave, but then, when your whiskers cross the threshold, it sinks to a murmuring in the long grass. She felt how the wind can be determined, finding its way into every tiny chink, and how it can, just occasionally, when the mood or some unknowable urge takes it, root up entire trees, a powerful, unstoppable force. She saw the forest, and the wind, and the priss's knowledge and love of both. Then Sam found herself blinking into the yellow eyes, and suddenly tears were in her own, which she didn't feel the need to hide.
"What? What did she say?" Rodney demanded. He stood directly behind Boudicca, who calmly removed her paws from Sam's thighs and began winding her sinuous furriness around his legs.
"You're incredibly lucky, McKay," Sam said, wonderingly. "She knows you. She sees you. Through and through, inside and out. And she loves you." Sam climbed to her feet and looked at him, conscious of a slight feeling of envy.
"Oh." It was Rodney's surprised, vulnerable voice; the one that she hadn't known and wouldn't have believed existed, when they first met. "Yes. Um. Well."
Sam slapped him on the back, in a hearty military fashion that she knew he'd find irritating, to dispel the hanging emotions.
"Good thing you didn't try first contact Sheppard-style," said Ronon.
"It worked, didn't it?" John drawled.
"Oh, well of course it worked for you!" jabbed Rodney. "Colonel 'Blow 'em up first, ask questions later'! You're lucky it interpreted a packload of C4 and a grenade as a chirpy 'hello'!"
"You're supposed to exchange gifts. It's in the protocol," John smirked. "I handed over some examples of our technology, and it..."
"Saved you from a gory death with its excruciatingly painful healing techniques!" Rodney interrupted.
"I didn't say..."
"You didn't have to."
"Gentlemen?" Sam broke in firmly. She pulled up a chair and sat down. "I think I need to hear this from the beginning." Rodney and John both drew breath to speak. "Teyla? Perhaps you could start."
oOo
Teyla spoke about their journey into the mountains, while Lil and Tirren cleared away the breakfast things, and then she listened, when Rodney, unable to contain himself, held forth about his discoveries at Altamontaris. Rodney faltered at the arrival of a tray of tea and cakes, and Teyla watched with amusement as his attention became divided and then wholly claimed by the refreshments. John took over, with Ronon as back-up, telling of the accidental release of the Guardian, John's retrieval of the Jumper and the last-minute rescue from the grenza. Their report had reached the discovery of the forest fire and the splitting up of the team when there was an interruption; a cart arrived, carrying Grella and the children. Introductions were made, more tea was brought (and pickled eggs at Maddy's insistence), and Lil was invited to join the group and sat down. Tallen and Ellet wandered over to a lingering puddle and began a muddy game and Grella, having unwrapped Penda from her back-carry, passed the baby absently to her left, which seat happened to be occupied by Rodney. Rodney held the dribbling baby stiffly and looked as if he was wondering how short a turn of 'pass the baby' he could get away with, without giving too much offence.
The informal meeting resumed. Sam's blue eyes sparked with interest when she heard about the Ancient's methane capture machine and Rodney's use of it for cloud-seeding.
"Good work, Rodney," she said. "We'll have to come up with a better name for it, though."
Penda shrieked and Maddy passed her an egg, which she proceeded to squeeze in between her chubby fingers.
"Nothing wrong with calling it the Waffle," said John. Ronan rumbled agreement, and Rodney tutted, passing Penda to John and brushing chunks of pickled egg off his lap.
"That flying thing?" said Maddy, her cheeks bulging with egg. She pushed the bowl over to Penda, who, under John's casual supervision, a hand firmly gripping the back of her dress, was trying to crawl onto the table to reach the eggs. "Looked like a little moon. We'll call it that."
"It's not a moon," disputed Rodney, also in dispute with Penda over the bowl.
"Looked like one."
"No, it didn't. Doesn't," argued Rodney, frustrated in his attempts to gain control of the eggs as John extended his arm, thus increasing Penda's range.
"Looked like a waffle," said Ronon.
Teyla noticed Sam put a hand to her brow and close her eyes in what appeared to be an attempt to recruit her flagging patience.
"Rodney, how long will it take to reduce the planet's methane levels?" Teyla asked, bringing the meeting back on track.
"Mm...well," he said, failing to look professional, with flecks of egg yolk on his chin. "I've set the autopilot to maintain a height of three thousand metres, circling the globe, and avoiding mountain ranges obviously. My estimate is three to six months to bring the level within normal parameters."
"And then will the ZPM become available?" Sam asked.
"Well, that'll be up to the Montareans," said Rodney, with unusual diplomacy. "Although, it's been busy upsetting the global climate for several thousand years; I'm not sure it'll be up for much more in the way of significant action."
At that point, Ronon, who had been twitching impatiently for the last ten minutes, stood up and wrested control of the baby from John, bore her over to the puddle and joined in the messy game with every appearance of enjoyment.
"So, we're the Montareans," said Grella, smiling as her children (and Ronon) grew progressively more filthy.
"A serviceable enough name," approved Lil.
"Huh," Rodney muttered, unimpressed with this lukewarm reception. "They're lucky it wasn't planet Zygothroop, because then they'd be Zygothroopis."
"Would the lives of the Zygothroopis be of any less value than the Montareans, Rodney?" asked Teyla, carefully maintaining a stony-faced expression, one eyebrow raised.
"Um... No?" he back-tracked, weakly.
"Nice one, Teyla," smirked John.
"Oh, ha, ha," grumbled Rodney. "Let's all wind up the hero of the hour."
"C'mon, Rodney," John said, not disputing Rodney's self-bestowed title, but gifting him with an exuberant elbow in the ribs. "Lighten up!"
"We're very grateful for having our weather set to rights," said Lil.
"And for having the Gardener to help us," agreed Grella.
"What? Gardener?" snapped Rodney.
"Oh, we were calling it the Guardian and some of the little ones got a bit mixed up and started calling it the Gardener. So it stuck and everyone's calling it that now."
Rodney slapped a palm to his face. John grinned.
"Gardener! I like it!" he said.
"And it does," said Grella. "Garden, that is. It's sorting out the burnt areas a treat, ready for planting."
"Although," put in Lil, "there's talk we won't plant it all. Or at least not with trees. We're thinking a field would be nice. For fairs."
"And racing!" said Maddy eagerly, taking the last egg with a muddy hand. "You could go really fast on a nice, wide-open field."
"You could, couldn't you?" said John, thoughtfully.
This comment was met with such a swift and resounding veto from all the women round the table that Rodney began to make clucking noises and calling John 'hen-pecked'. The meeting dissolved into chaos and Teyla, with a suppressed smile, left John and Rodney to their sniping, to play with the young children, who seemed in some ways mature by comparison. But as she watched Penda making muddy handprints all over Ronon's clothes, she reflected on her teammates' bravery, their resourcefulness and their tenacity and she knew that she loved them for all of their qualities, those that made her proud and those that simply made her laugh.
oOo
Rodney's voice broke into John's post-lunchtime doze, by the fire in the parlour of the Happy Helg.
"You want to go there, don't you?" said Rodney. "You do, don't you? Shall we go there? Now?"
"Not now, Rodney!"
John opened his sluggish eyes and hauled himself up from where he'd been lying on the settle. His bruises and abrasions protested and he wondered if he should give in and go to bed. McKay would make remarks about Grampa and afternoon naps, but even so it might be worth it.
"What's up, McKay?" he croaked.
"Nothing!" said Sam, running her fingers over Boudicca's soft fur. She didn't look much like the Commander of an Ancient city, sitting on the hearthrug with the priss draped over her, her cheeks flushed with warmth and pleasure.
"C'mon, Sam, you know you want to!"
"Want to what?" asked John.
"Take a quick flight out to our city, to Altamontaris," said Rodney.
"Atlantis is our city," said John.
"Yes, don't insult your girlfriend, I know!" This earned Rodney a glare from beneath John's heavily lowered brows. "Okay, I mean our newly-discovered city."
John yawned and ran a hand through his already messy hair.
"Yeah, sure, I'm up for it," he said, casually.
"I don't think Jennifer would clear you for that, John," said Sam, doubtfully.
"Keller's not here," dismissed John. "And McKay could fly."
"With a sprained wrist?"
"Hey, I installed a ZPM in freezing water and flew the waffle to an amazing victory with this wrist!"
"Which is why you need to rest it now!"
"Sam." John tried that thing with his eyes and a kind of sad face that seemed to work quite often. "It's just a short hop in the Jumper. Just a little twirl round the mountain."
"To view a timeless city: carved from the ancient rock, wreathed in majesty!" encouraged Rodney, grandly.
"And there are these cool coloured glass towers that stick out the top. Real cool," John said, projecting sincerity.
oOo
It wasn't quite the trip that Rodney had had in mind. When Sam had finally agreed to go, Lil had been tending the fire and at her rather wistful look, Sam had asked if she'd like to come too.
"It is your planet, after all!" Sam had said.
And then the whole thing degenerated into a three-ring circus, Rodney thought, bitterly, feeling something drip down his neck. Probably baby-drool, he thought. Boudicca was obviously going to be a well-behaved passenger and she kept the prissets in line with no more than a flick of a whisker. But Grella's bunch? Well, there was the mud, for a start! And Ronon wasn't much cleaner! Rodney felt like the jealous owner of a pristine vintage car, forced to take the family on a road trip.
Then they'd started to sing. Rodney gritted his teeth and glanced across at John in the co-pilot's seat. The man was actually asleep! Asleep, damn him! Not even joining in with Rodney's annoyance, let alone doing his bit to entertain the rabble.
"There it is! There it is!" Maddy shrieked, right next to his ear, causing the Jumper to lose about ten metres suddenly. The inertial dampeners took care of it, but, even so, John jerked awake.
"Want me to take her, McKay?"
"No, thank you very much Colonel Dopey! Go back to sleep!"
"That makes no sense, McKay," said John, rubbing his shadowed eyes. "Sleepy, not Dopey."
"Oh, hi ho!" sneered Rodney.
"It's beautiful!" Sam's awed tone almost made up for the trials of the journey. Rodney turned his attention to Altamontaris, shining in the lowering sun. He lost some height so that the light shone through the huge, broken, rainbow-coloured tubes that crowned the city and flew lower still so that the weathered turquoise facing was visible, the still-proud columns and those that had fallen, the domes, the towers, the tiers upon tiers of buildings great and small, the arches and buttresses, the windows opening from rooms carved deep into the mountain and finally the great fallen arch that looked out toward the east.
Boudicca, her front paws resting on the edge of the console, turned round to Rodney, growled resonantly and touched her nose to his. He scratched absently between her ears and banked the Jumper to head back toward the forest.
"None of us knew," said Grella.
"We had no call to come out here," said Lil. "It's a hard country. Nothing much growing."
"Beautiful, but harsh," agreed Grella. "A place of times long past, probably best left alone."
"Your Guardian came from there, though," said John.
"Gardener, Gardener!" Tallen yelled.
"Rodney, take us to see it! Please!"
Rodney was inclined to deny them the treat as the price they should pay for dirtying the Jumper. And singing.
"Just a quick fly past, on the way home, Rodney," encouraged Sam.
Grumbling, he acquiesced. John was asleep again. Chuh!
oOo
The Guardian was content with its work. It had found the purpose for which it had been designed, the creatures it must protect and the environment it would maintain, faithfully. It was unfamiliar with the concept of emotions, but it had begun to feel a certain level of dissatisfaction with its form. The little creatures all seemed to have a set pattern; a standard to which they adhered, and the Guardian decided that it might be best, when it was convenient, to take on this same form. Thus, it formed itself into a body, with two upper appendages for grasping things and two lower ones, upon which it balanced. It then realised that the best way to experience the world with any degree of similarity to the little ones, was to simulate some senses and cluster them at the top of the body in the form of a head. There was then some inner debate about the surfacing of the new body and the Guardian decided, in order to be a familiar, maybe even approachable being to its little charges, it would array itself in the colours and textures of the forest. The creatures had fought to defend their forest and so it must be an acceptable thing to them and, the Guardian discovered, it deeply wanted acceptance. It arranged its outer layer in rough-textured browns and delicate slivers of green and then it made its visual sensors match this appearance, giving them a slight liquid sheen and a green light that would appear to spring gently from within. The Guardian realised that it enjoyed its new appearance and hoped that some of the little ones would come soon and perhaps be sufficiently unafraid to interact. Perhaps it could learn to imitate their rhythmic disturbance of air molecules; in fact, the Guardian was sure it could and created a mouth for that purpose.
It continued with its work, experimenting with the air disturbances, realising that auditory receptors were required and then amusing itself with the deep booming sounds that it naturally seemed to produce.
oOo
Far above, Rodney angled the Jumper so that the passengers could look down over the forest. At first there was dismay at the extent of the fire's destruction and the mood became sombre. Tallen began to cry from his vantage point in Ronon's arms and Ellet, standing up on John's lap to see over the console, his hands holding her steady, began to sniff and her lip trembled so that Rodney had to blink and grit his teeth and pretend to be unaffected. Then Maddy gave another of her characteristic ear-spliting yells and everyone's attention was on the Guardian.
"Garner!" Ellet shrieked; with typical inaccuracy, Rodney thought.
They looked. Rodney brought the Jumper down so they could all have a good view. Then he lowered it a bit more. And stared. And then, really, it was all a serious and not-at-all sentimental or over-excited physicist could do to maintain even the remotest semblance of dignity. John, to whom dignity was a foreign concept, was grinning like a lunatic.
"That, my friends!" announced Rodney, seeing John's foolish grin and raising him the broadest of red-faced, teary-eyed beams. "That," echoed John, and they finished together: "is an Ent!"