Sonny Whitelaw: The Chosen

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up and have Carson check you over before we discuss what happened?” Elizabeth suggested.

Rodney’s expression managed to turn haughty, quite a feat considering the brown sludge on his face. “Because I wanted you to see with your own eyes—”

“Okay, Rodney,” she replied in a well-practiced pacifying tone. “I can see.”

“And smell,” John added, ever helpful.

Behind them, half a dozen people snickered. Elizabeth did her level best to ignore them. “Now, was anyone else…injured in this explosion?”

“No, but that’s beside the point. This is just one more example of—”

“Ah!” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose and motioned in the direction of the living quarters.

The arguing group, still led by Rodney, made its way out of the control room, although the noisome smell lingered.

“Well, that ought to make him the butt of a few more jokes,” John said.

The sniggers in the control room were louder. Elizabeth shot him a reproachful look. “Try not to aggravate him too much, Major. He’s been through a lot lately. We all have.”

The Major’s expression conceded the point. Turning his attention back to the screen, he gestured toward the symbols on the display. “So, you want us to go take a look?”

“Why don’t you wait until tomorrow morning? That’ll give Rodney time to get cleaned up and calmed down.” At the Major’s look of uncertainty, she added, “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No. McKay can be a pain in the ass — and no, I didn’t mean that as a joke — but he’s got his uses.”

Unless she was mistaken, John Sheppard was beginning to like the scientist. “All right. In the meantime, I’ll go talk to Rodney, find out what happened.”

“The cut is healing well, and it’s clean.” Carson Beckett, the biologist and chief physician of the expedition, pulled his gloves off. “No sign of infection.”

“Regardless, I’m absolutely certain that I’m coming down with the flu.” Rodney sniffed theatrically and looked around the rooms that had become the research laboratory and infirmary.

“I very much doubt that,” Carson said, giving Elizabeth a long-suffering glance. “Every member of the Atlantis expedition underwent a thorough medical examination before stepping through the Stargate. You can’t catch a cold from thin air. It’s probably one of your many allergies. I’ll give you an antihistamine.”

“Now, Rodney,” Elizabeth asked. “What happened?”

Rolling down the sleeve of his jacket, Rodney exhaled loudly before launching into a tirade. “Most of Atlantis’s systems are either self-regulating or can be operated with the push of a button. Once the Wraith became a serious threat, the Ancients apparently employed gene recognition technology to protect crucial systems like weapons and life-support. So, only those with the ATA gene, or in my case, where the gene therapy has been successful, can access critical life-support operations.”

No doubt he assumed that the conclusion he’d drawn from that to be obvious, but it took Elizabeth a moment before she could even hazard a guess at it. “Are you suggesting that not everyone should be given the gene therapy in case they inadvertently trigger something dangerous?” That didn’t feel quite right. Rodney was an intellectual elitist, but he had limits.

“That is in fact the polar opposite of what I’m suggesting,” Rodney declared, rearing up off the stool in order to pace the room. “Every time somebody wants an Ancient device activated, or a secure door opened, they come running to me, as if I had nothing better to do with my time. If everyone had the gene therapy, they could open the damned doors themselves. Life-support isn’t as crucial as it was when the city was hundreds of feet underwater.”

As usual, his theory made a good amount of sense. Turning to Carson, Elizabeth asked, “How’s the research on the gene therapy coming?”

The doctor gave a small shrug. “From what I can tell so far, it’s going to be effective in a little less than half of everyone who receives it. And we’re still not entirely certain of the long term risks.”

“All right, then,” Elizabeth replied. “We’ll work out a roster system so that those with the ATA gene, natural or otherwise, only need make themselves available for a few hours each week. Think of it as being on call.”

“How’s that going to help if someone decides to wait until it’s my turn to, oh, I don’t know, open a trapdoor into a recycling plant?” Rodney turned to Carson. “Isn’t there something you can do to make the gene therapy more effective? Rain dances? Sacrifices to the DNA gods?”

“I’m working on a way to efficiently produce large quantities of the vaccine, Rodney, but you can’t rush these things.” Carson’s frustration with him was evident.

Exchanging a look with the beleaguered doctor, Elizabeth eased toward the door. “Rodney, Major Sheppard is taking a team to P3Y-986 in the morning.”

“If this is another trade delegation—”

“We think it might have at a ZPM. A more recent one.”

Rodney suddenly looked interested. “As I was saying, excellent idea.”

“And Major Sheppard made a point of asking if you’d be ready to participate.” Close enough to the truth, she reasoned.

“He did?” A surprised smile appeared on Rodney’s face, masked quickly by confidence. “Well, of course he did. Leaving aside my myriad talents, he’s no doubt assumed — correctly, I might add — that he’s got some work to do to get back on my good side, what with the mocking and all.”

“Just check in with Peter after you’re finished here, and we’ll get started on the pre-mission planning.” Elizabeth ran a hand across the back of her neck as she exited the infirmary. The day’s events had already left her drained. Maybe Carson was right about the flu, but she definitely felt like she was coming down with something.

Lieutenant Aiden Ford studied the planet looming above the jumper’ s windscreen. Almost three quarters of the blue-green world was in daylight, while the rest was blanketed by a nighttime shadow. Odd angle notwithstanding, he had to admit that P3Y-something-or-other looked pretty from several thousand miles out. Sort of like Earth, except that there was just one landmass.

“Would it be too much to ask if you could keep us upright?” McKay griped.

“We’re in space,” Major Sheppard replied, maneuvering the jumper behind the MALP with careful precision. “There’s no such thing as ‘upright’. You’re gonna have to get used to that if you want to learn to fly one of these things outside an atmosphere.” He allowed the probe to touch the sloped face of the jumper with just enough force to halt its forward momentum. “Okay, dial her up.”

The vortex shot out of the orbiting Stargate then snapped reassuringly back into place. “Atlantis, Jumper One,” McKay called. “Ready to receive the MALP?”

“Go ahead, Jumper One.”

Aiden watched his commanding officer make just the tiniest motion with his hand. The jumper came to a stop, while the MALP continued through the rippling blue event horizon at a slight angle relative to their point of entry.

“MALP received. Good luck, Jumper One.” With that send-off, the event horizon vanished.

“That was skillfully done, Major,” Teyla said.

Until then, Aiden hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his breath. He had every confidence in the Major’s ability to pilot the jumper, and in any case a lot of it was automatic. But the ‘gate-in-space thing still kind of freaked him out. Getting stuck in one hadn’t been a whole lot of fun, and he really didn’t want a replay.