Jo Graham - The Furies

Jeannie pushed her tray to the side, leaning closer. “Wow,” she said appreciatively. “That can’t be anything natural, can it?”

“This galaxy is full of strange natural phenomena, but I think that is a long shot. The power signature is too close to the technology used in the city itself. I am almost certain that whatever we are picking up was made by someone, and very possibly by the Ancients.”

“Those Ancient guys certainly got around.”

“Basically this galaxy was a big laboratory for them,” Radek said. “It could be they were interested in the effects of a colder climate. Although if they seeded a group of humans on this planet, it seems they did not survive.”

“Not much question about why,” Jeannie said. Outside it was sleeting, ice rattling against the windowpanes. “But if they intended this to be a human world — ”

“You would expect to find a Stargate, yes, I am way ahead of you,” Radek said. “That is part of why it is interesting. What would the Ancients put on a planet that didn’t have a Stargate?”

“I don’t know,” Jeannie said. “Unless when the original inhabitants discovered that, big surprise, you can’t farm ice, they moved the Stargate somewhere else? Those things can’t have been exactly cheap and easy to build.”

Radek spread his hands. “Who knows? But I am requesting a flyby this afternoon to get some sensor readings. Come up and take a look?” He shrugged with his eyebrows. “I will not be there, as I must get back to the repairs on the Wraith cruiser, but for you it would be something different than Rodney’s code, at least.”

Jeannie nodded. “Please. I’m telling you, when we get Meredith back …” She couldn’t quite maintain the exasperated tone she was going for.

“When we get Rodney back, he will owe us one,” Radek said.

“For this you need a surgeon, not an engineer,” Radek muttered, trying to get the clumsy fingers of his vacuum suit to pick out the tiny strands of what he supposed was the Wraith cruiser’s neural network so that he could splice them. Not electrical cables, but the biological equivalent, they were slippery with the mucous that coated them. And it did not help having to work in the equivalent of big, sloppy mittens. But until the hull breaches in this section were fully sealed, he had to work in a vacuum suit.

This breach was only about ten centimeters long, perhaps made when a piece of superheated shrapnel had sliced through the ship’s skin. If that were the case, the edges should have been charred. Instead, they were pinkish white, thick and webby.

His radio clicked, and Colonel Carter spoke in his ear. “Dr. Zelenka, how’s it going?”

“It is going,” Radek said. He did not look up from the tiny strands in his hands. “And it is fascinating. You should see. I think the ship has begun to heal itself.”

“Come again?”

“The ship is healing itself,” Radek repeated, putting aside the strands. He might as well talk first. “The hull breaches are not so large as they were at first. The small one aft and port has already closed, though the skin is very thin there and you can see where it was.”

“They do that?” Carter sounded excited.

“To a certain extent at least,” Radek said. “What I am doing is splicing and reconnecting the bioelectrical systems, much as Carson does when he does surgery on a wound. But the ship, like a patient, is already healing itself and will do so to a certain extent whether we intervene or not. It is better if we do, I think, just as it is better that Carson set a bone right.”

“That’s incredibly nifty,” Carter said. “I wish I could come up and take a look.”

She couldn’t, of course. With him up here, Carter and Kusanagi were working on the Hammond’s systems. “You would find it fascinating, I think,” Radek said.

“Anyway, I was going to tell you that Dr. Keller and Teyla are on their way up to you. You have the forward sections repressurized?”

Radek nodded even though he knew she could not see him. Habit. “Everything is repressurized except the port drive sections and the ventral landing array. I do not know what can be done about that. The bays that hold the landing gear are open to space with their outer doors entirely gone. But fortunately they are sealable to withstand vacuum. However, there is no landing gear. Teyla must not try to land on a planet.”

“Tell her that,” Carter said.

“I will,” he replied. He tried for the fortieth time to push his glasses up on his nose, an impossible task since his glasses were inside his helmet and his mitted fingers were outside. “I am connecting tissues, but I cannot initialize any systems nor make much sense of the controls. Some of them are designed for ease of use, but the diagnostics seem to involve the same kind of telepathic interface that the guidance systems do. Perhaps Teyla can make sense of them.”

“She’ll be there in a few minutes,” Carter said.

“Then I will come out of the port drive section,” Radek said. And get out of this suit, he added to himself. While he was not particularly claustrophobic and the suit itself did not bother him, the clumsiness did. He went methodically into the next chamber, which they were using as an airlock, and patiently waited while it pressurized. It seemed to take much longer than one of their airlocks did, five to seven minutes, but there was no doubt that it worked. By the time he had removed the vacuum suit and neatly stored it, all systems inactive, and opened the door to the section beyond, Dr. Keller and Teyla had already come aboard.

Dr. Keller looked a little nervous, glancing around at the dark and seamed walls as though expecting a hull breach any moment. Or perhaps it was just that the Wraith ship was disconcerting.

Though not nearly as disconcerting as Teyla. She turned, and Radek’s breath caught in his throat.

She was no taller than he, but she seemed to fill the chamber entirely, green tinted skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones, sensory slits to either side of her nose flaring slightly. Long black hair caught up in black combs fell to her waist, and a tight bodice of dark emerald material embroidered with black clung to the contours of her body. A long black coat was the same length as her divided skirts, which fell in wide folds to tightly laced leather boots. She lifted her chin and gave him a smile that penetrated to the bone, for all that Radek saw the artifice of it.

What these nuances might mean in Wraith culture he didn’t know, but he knew what they meant in his, every trick of posture and stance meant to convey dominance and power. And oh yes, unmistakable allure. For all that his own personal tastes did not run that way, Radek could see that it was well done. If the Wraith were anything like many men of his acquaintance, they would be lining up to kiss Teyla’s feet.

Teyla smiled, and this time her face lit like a delighted girl who has pulled off something she was not certain of, which only made the contrast still more intriguing. “Does it work?”

“It works splendidly, my dear,” Radek said, coming forward and taking her hands like a partner in a dance, looking her up and down. “I should be trembling in terror.”

“I thought,” she said, glancing down at the dark emerald bodice, “about how we think of color. Skin tones are innocent, but darker versions of those colors are…”

“Are sex.” Radek nodded. “Very clever. And the green does look well on you.” He smiled. “It suits your complexion?”

“I hoped it would.” Teyla retrieved her hands gently. “Now let us see if the ship will fly.”

“You cannot use the landing gear,” Radek said, following her toward the control room. “Because it is not there. And I have nothing to replace it with. So you must not land on a planet. Other than that, the unhealed breaches are in the port drive section, which hopefully you will not need to enter. If you do, there is a suit in the airlock with nearly six hours of air in the tank.”