Stargate SG-1 story: "Zephyr"
WARNING: I posted this at Dreamwidth an hour ago; it was supposed to crosspost, but it hasn't appeared. LJ might possibly get around to approving the crossposting at some point, and then there may temporarily be two of this story. There's only one story. I will remove a duplicate if it appears.
TITLE: Zephyr
AUTHOR: Aelfgyfu
RATING: G
CATEGORIES: episode-related (for "Unending," the final episode of the series)
SUMMARY: You didn't really think SG-1 saved the Asgard time after time for it to end like this, did you? A brief visit with Thor and Loki-after "Unending."
SPOILERS: The whole run of the series, especially "Fragile Balance" (season 7) and "Unending" (season 10)
WARNINGS: None, aside from the spoilers.
Stargate SG-1 and its characters belong to MGM-UA, Gekko, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, Stargate SG-1, Showtime/Viacom, NBC/Sci Fi, and no doubt other persons or entities whom I've forgotten (this list keeps getting longer). No copyright infringement is intended. In fact, my stories make no sense if you haven't seen the shows, so I encourage you to watch! And get all the DVDs! Just like I do!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to redbyrd_sgfic and to my Brilliant Husband (dudethemath) for reading drafts of this and making many helpful suggestions.
All remaining errors, infelicities, and incoherences are my own.
Read "Zephyr" at my website (you can come back here to leave comments!) or go
Zephyr
by Aelfgyfu
"The humans would call this 'sulking,' or perhaps 'moping,' would they not?" asked Loki from somewhere behind Thor.
Thor tore his eyes away from the verdant hill stretching down in front of him long enough to look at the approaching Loki and sigh audibly. He did not expect the sigh would help; Loki did not take hints, suggestions, or even orders, most of the time. He had not been sulking or moping, but Loki would not understand.
Naturally, Loki persisted. "You were the only one who wished to tell the humans our true plans."
"Perhaps because I am the only one of us who truly knows some humans. And no--experimenting on their bodies does not count." Thor wished Loki would leave him alone to contemplate the planet's beauty. The brilliant purple flowers and the crimson bushes offered some consolation; the beauty of their new home surpassed even Orilla's. If only it were quiet....
"The Council was otherwise unanimous on the issue," Loki pointed out repetitively.
"I know," Thor replied unnecessarily. A slight breeze touched his sensitive skin. He took a deep breath. The atmosphere here on Hallr had more oxygen than that on Orilla; deep breaths often gave him a heady feeling, a sense almost of elation. He thought this might be a faint echo of what O'Neill had once described as "an adrenaline rush." Asgard did not possess quite the same endocrine system, and they had lost the adrenal gland millennia ago. Thor would never experience a sensation O'Neill seemed to enjoy (though O'Neill claimed he did not).
"Do you resent me?" Loki asked.
Resent? Perhaps. "You had not finished your punishment," Thor answered with some asperity. "I voted not to release you. On that also I was overruled. In both these decisions, of course, I have followed the will of the Council in every point. I hope that you will learn from me."
"I have no opportunity for unauthorized experiments; I would not even without you supervising my work," Loki complained. "I have little enough on which to experiment at all!"
"Which is why you pursue me even when I leave you unguarded for a few moments?" Thor asked.
"You wanted to tell the humans of our deception," Loki said, ignoring Thor's question, "but surely you recognize that even if we could trust their good will, we could not trust their strength! The Replicators and the Ori had ways to force information from their minds!"
"The Replicators were destroyed by the humans. I can only hope the Ori have gone the same way, or soon will. No," Thor corrected himself, "I can do more than hope. I expect. They have proven far more resourceful in the short span of their race than we have in eons. They will defeat the Ori. I wish I could be there to congratulate them." He wished he could be there right now, in fact. He would rather fight alongside O'Neill than talk with Loki.
"You know that is impossible."
Thor knew. The Asgard had barely survived the Replicators; they were unlikely to survive the Ori, even if the humans did. There were many, many humans, spread throughout the galaxy; the Asgard had had but one world, and their population had not filled it. The Ori had found Orilla, as the Asgard had anticipated; they would have destroyed it, had Thor's people not done so themselves. They had destroyed the planet so spectacularly that not even the humans suspected the ruse, and the Ori could not have detected their vessel's escape. Thor knew his bold plan owed much to the humans: the concept of the fake-out he had learned from O'Neill, the fact ships need not be enormous to be powerful from Samantha Carter, and the hope that past mistakes could be overcome to make a better future from Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Thus the Asgard had ventured into yet another galaxy, found yet another habitable planet, to make yet another attempt to save themselves.
Thor regretted lying to their race's best ally. The Nox had gone their own way millennia before; the Furlings had broken off contact with everyone, and no one even knew if they still lived. Those Ancients who had not been annihilated had removed themselves from this plane of existence and refused to make contact. The Fifth Race had helped them as none of their allies had done in generations upon generations. The humans had called upon the Asgard for help, but they had given back even more aid. The Asgard race existed now thanks to them.
If the Asgard ended, it would be their own fault. Loki had been freed from his confinement in the hopes that he could assist the other geneticists, but Loki had never been the best of scientists; Thor doubted he could help reverse their condition, even with the meager results of his unprincipled work on humans. After considering O'Neill's objections and pleas on behalf of his own clone, Thor argued against using anything that Loki might have learned at the cost of intelligent lives he had created and then discarded. The Council had not followed his advice in that matter either. Overall, he had, as O'Neill would say, been batting five hundred.
Of course, O'Neill had explained once that five hundred was in fact good.
"I wish I had gotten to know them," Loki said at last, and those words took Thor by surprise as did nothing else Loki had done for centuries.
"Why?" he asked simply.
"To understand why you...." Loki seemed uncertain how to finish.
"Why I miss them? Why I count them as friends?"
"Yes."
Another breeze played across Thor's skin, and he allowed himself another deep breath before he answered. "I doubt you could understand." Yet he was curious why Loki would want to try.
"I wish now that I had made the attempt, however, that I might know what you see in them. That I might see what made you so certain that we should not give up life that you convinced half the Council not to fulfill the original plan to end the attenuated lives that remain to us. That I might feel what gave you the confidence to entrust all our knowledge to them--a confidence with which you managed to infect enough of the Council to prevail on that point, though they did not accede to all that you wished."
Thor laughed quietly, and he was not surprised when Loki started at the noise. It was a sound few of his people made any longer. "You had so many chances, Loki, and you wasted them all." He sobered a little. "That is true of all of us, myself included. I hope it does not become the epitaph for our race."
"We will have no epitaph," Loki replied, settling down on the soft grass of the hill, positioning his all-too-soft body carefully among the small stones. "No one will know we have been here; no one will know we are gone. Unless you mean the epitaph the humans have probably already written for us now that they believe we are gone-or the Ori, once they are victors."
Thor did not feel like sitting now. He had never lowered himself to Loki's level, even with the mistakes he had made himself. He remained standing, pleased that even such obvious symbolism would elude his literal-minded companion.
"The humans will find this place, someday," he said quietly. "They will win, and they will continue to expand their reach. With our technology, they will attain this galaxy, just as we did. I only wonder whether they will find a ruin, a lost civilization for some new Daniel Jackson to uncover-or whether we may signal them and greet them ourselves, when we have vanquished our own weaknesses."
Loki laughed then himself, a rusty sound he was clearly not used to making. "You are a dreamer. Did you learn that from the humans as well?"
Thor smiled. "We were among their first teachers. Is it not fitting that we should be their students now?"
"How is that fitting?" Loki seemed genuinely confused.
"It is one of those human sayings that O'Neill taught me: 'The teacher has become the pupil.'" Or was it Daniel Jackson? His memory was not what it used to be--too many facts and events and people. A few fell out here and there.
"And this is considered a good thing?" Loki inquired.
"It means the teacher has fulfilled his purpose: the student has learned both the specific lessons and, more importantly, how to learn. When the student can learn on his-or her-own, he or she can bring new lessons back to the teacher." He remembered now: Daniel Jackson had spoken with him about how little he remembered of his time among the Ascended Ancients, and the frustration he did recall. The Ascended could not learn from their pupils, apparently, or did so far too rarely.
"Do you truly believe we will survive? Contact them again one day?" Loki asked, his voice oddly fearful. Thor had not heard that note in it since he had found Loki bound by the members of SG-1; Loki's usual arrogance had returned by the time Thor had brought him back to face the assembly of the Asgard.
Was Loki afraid to believe? Too many Asgard were these days. Thor had nearly lost the battle to save his people; if one fewer councillor had listened to him, Thor's plan would have failed in Council. They would indeed have died on Orilla as humans and Ori alike believed.
"I do not know," Thor answered honestly. "I look forward to finding out." He felt some pity for his companion at last, an Asgard of limited imagination. "But you, Loki: if you do not believe we can survive, why did you take a new clone? Why not allow your consciousness to remain in stasis, that you might feel no more pain or failure?" Most of their people remained in stasis. Thor had taken his new body first, as Supreme Commander. Key scientists came next, a few score at a time due to the limited equipment they could bring on their escape vessel. Loki would himself still be in stasis except that some of their more promising scientists, so disheartened that they wished to end their own lives and their entire race, chose when outvoted to remain in stasis rather than contribute to the Asgard's new start. They would be revived only if those who continued the work succeeded-and then they would benefit from the labor they would not undertake. Thor tried not to hold any anger against them: despair, not sloth, motivated them. At least Loki contributed his efforts voluntarily.
Loki answered at last, "If I did not believe we could survive, I would not have conducted those 'unauthorized experiments' on the humans. If such a species as theirs can survive, even thrive, surely as the more advanced race we should be able to continue!"
Ah, the old prejudice that had limited contact between Asgard and human for so long. Thor no longer believed in human inferiority. They might be less advanced in mathematics and physics, in chemistry and medicine. Yet despite those disadvantages, they had shown themselves able to defeat adversaries the Asgard could not, and they maintained a love for life and an eagerness for discovery that the Asgard had forgotten. What was the good of being an "advanced race" if one could find no pleasure in life, only anxiety, even despair? He said as much to Loki.
Again Loki was silent. Thor began to think he should reassess his companion's character. Perhaps this Asgard had more capacity for introspection than Thor had realized. Perhaps he could yet learn. Thor tucked the thought away for another time, however. Now, he wanted to enjoy the air, and the quiet, if his charge would allow.
Loki did respond eventually. "You say now that we should find pleasure in discovery, but that was not what you told the Council when you brought me before them." His voice carried an undercurrent of resentment that tried Thor's patience.
"Pleasure should not come from harming others. Can you not see that still?" Perhaps he was wrong to hope in Loki. Still, so few of them had become incarnated yet, would it not be better to think well of one of those with whom he could work, and even converse?
Loki considered. "I did not understand their uniqueness. When my body needs replacement, I replace it." He would not do so easily here, when they needed many more bodies for many more Asgard, but Thor took his point.
Loki continued, "I am the same person in a new body. Nothing dies. When I did my work on humans, I thought that when the original remained as he had been, the fate of the clone did not matter. I did not understand that they were separate...."
Thor wanted to press him but feared it would make his companion defensive. Loki had never shown this side of himself before, not in the millennia that Thor had known him. Perhaps he too could see that they needed to change their old ways if they were to survive-but Thor would not, to use another human phrase, "push his luck."
Loki spoke again. "When O'Neill wanted his clone to live, I did not understand. I did, however, have a little time in my isolation"-Loki went on with unnecessary emphasis-"to consider what he asked, and why. He saw the new O'Neill not as a flawed copy, to be destroyed while the more perfect original remained; he thought of him as a different person." Something not unlike awe entered his voice at the end. "He spoke to him as a separate entity."
Awe was a sensation Thor had forgotten until the Fifth Race had come to find them again. He had felt it several times since then-and usually in the presence of humans.
Loki had not finished, however. "I have cloned myself, in my experiments."
Thor held his breath and his tongue. Apparently there was even more unauthorized research than they had found. Making duplicates of oneself had been banned long ago: it was an abuse of resouces, and there were questions about the consciousness of the extra copies that Asgard science and ethics had proved unable to answer with certainty. Loki seemed unaware of having confessed another crime, however.
"I never thought of the clones as separate persons, any more than I would think of two crystals with the same data as independent. They might be discrete, but any differences between them were simply failures. A flawed copy had no value. My flawed clones could not reproduce any more than I could; I destroyed them. O'Neill's clone, however, did not think and say exactly what he did. They disagreed. They differed. And that difference held great value for all the humans who were there; they all wished the clone to live."
Thor nodded. He remembered his own surprise at O'Neill's decision. It had taken him some time to understand; no wonder Loki found it so shocking.
Loki fell silent again, and eventually Thor realized he had come to the end of what he had to say.
"So you have learned from the humans." He could not resist driving the point home.
"Not what I wished to learn," Loki said a little sullenly. "Not what we needed to learn."
Thor could not help but disagree. "Perhaps you learned things you very much needed to learn."
To his surprise, Loki did not argue-at least not out loud.
"So you believe we will live? That we will find a solution?"
"I hope we will find a solution," Thor corrected him. Even he, apparently the most optimistic of the Asgard, could not wholeheartedly declare they would succeed. "We will have to work for it. And, as the humans like to say, time will tell."
"In the meantime," he concluded, turning back to what he had come out here to find in the first place, "I intend to enjoy the breeze." Was it a zephyr, or a föhn? He regretted that he could not ask Daniel Jackson about the distinction; while they had been downloading all their knowledge to the Odyssey, they had taken the liberty of uploading the Odyssey's database themselves. It would be years before even Colonel Carter realized what they had done, if she realized at all. But the Ori had left him no time to ask for clarification of their wonderful words, even if they had been able to admit what they were doing. They had no time to honor their friends, to say goodbye; the Ori had come too soon, and almost before they were ready to leave. Now that Thor had done all he could to secure the planet and set up monitoring stations elsewhere in their new galaxy, he had time to study the thought of the humans. Their words, their music, their art amazed him.
"And the flowers?" Loki pressed, poking a slender finger at a violet blossom gingerly and drawing it back at once, as he might test to see if a piece of equipment was still hot. He touched again, longer, and then again, and left his finger there.
"Are they not more resplendent than the blooms of Orilla, and even those of Hala?" Thor asked, finally deigning to sit beside his companion.
"I hardly remember; I did not pay much attention," Loki answered absently. "Not for centuries now. But with so little we can use to build, it will be many, many rotations before we have proper buildings here." He looked at Thor. "We may not even live so long."
"Then we will live among the flowers and return to the ship when the rain comes too hard," Thor answered. He felt a yearning growing in him that he found hard to identify; he had too little familiarity with it. That set of human dictionaries had been one of their best acquisitions. He liked English best, having spoken it many times. He remembered a word whose sense had eluded him before: contentment. Perhaps this was it. This beautiful planet brought him to desire again a feeling he had not had in so long that he had forgotten the Asgard term for it. "Contentment" would do. He had begun to feel that contentment might be within his grasp.
If only he could share these new, or long-forgotten, feelings with his human friends, the ones who had taught him what the Asgard needed to come here: never to give up, to concoct unexpected solutions! If only he could share this feeling with his teachers, he might fully experience "contentment." If only he could tell Samantha Carter....
Perhaps when the Fifth Race had overcome the Ori, and had time to master the gifts the Asgard had left them, he might see them again? If the Asgard could find this place with their new escape vehicle, the humans could surely make the journey.
Sprinkles of water fell on them. Loki jumped to his feet. Thor stood more slowly. He was still not used to how fast the weather could change here, but he minded less than most of the other Asgard.
"We will not melt," Thor assured his suddenly shivering comrade. "We will not wash away."
Loki walked rapidly back to the ship, and Thor sighed again and went with him. A little rain felt pleasant, in an odd way, but a lot of rain could be painful to the skin. Perhaps that was one of the reasons humans wore clothes. He still did not quite understand the concept, no matter how many times they had explained it to him.
They returned together. This new craft was less grand than most Asgard ships: the corridors were low and narrow, the rooms compact, the internal walls not only plain but thin and light. They had calculated the minimum space necessary to contain the consciousnesses of their race and their archives, and the equipment needed to provide those consciousnesses with new bodies. They had built the smallest possible ship. They had gambled that such a vessel would be better able to hide from Ori sensors. Their work had paid off: her departure had apparently been invisible to enemies and allies alike during the spectacular explosion of Orilla. Weeks had passed, in human reckoning, and no pursuit had found them.
"Do you think you will be able to tell her one day?" Loki asked, raising an arm to point at the ship as it came into view when they ascended the next rise.
Thor was taken aback by how well Loki seemed to have gotten to know him in the short time they had spent together already.
"I do not know," he replied slowly. "I do hope, however, that someday Samantha Carter may see the Samantha Carter."
The Samantha Carter remained larger than the greatest human ships, but living inside this new, rather cramped vessel required some . . . adjustment. They had begun to build additional living spaces outside, for the revived Asgard had filled the space inside already, even with the vast majority of their race yet in stasis. Those who lived in the new dwellings had to make due with more primitive living conditions than even the oldest Asgard could recall, for they could bring little manufacturing equipment with them. They used native materials: they had begun to build with stone and minerals extracted from the ground of their new planet. These techniques did not allow the kinds of architecture they had formerly enjoyed.
Thor had left the ship earlier not only to earn some respite from Loki and the others, but also to enjoy the open spaces of Hallr. As Supreme Commander, his living quarters remained on the ship. Perhaps one day, he would be able to hand off his responsibilities to someone else and move into one of the new, modest buildings. He looked forward to that time.
Thor might not have all he wished, but this was his home now. Perhaps he could cultivate the little shoots of contentment he had found sprouting within him, even as he kept alive the hope the humans inspired in him. Perhaps those emotions would even tide him over until he might one day see his other friends again.
FIN
TITLE: Zephyr
AUTHOR: Aelfgyfu
RATING: G
CATEGORIES: episode-related (for "Unending," the final episode of the series)
SUMMARY: You didn't really think SG-1 saved the Asgard time after time for it to end like this, did you? A brief visit with Thor and Loki-after "Unending."
SPOILERS: The whole run of the series, especially "Fragile Balance" (season 7) and "Unending" (season 10)
WARNINGS: None, aside from the spoilers.
Stargate SG-1 and its characters belong to MGM-UA, Gekko, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, Stargate SG-1, Showtime/Viacom, NBC/Sci Fi, and no doubt other persons or entities whom I've forgotten (this list keeps getting longer). No copyright infringement is intended. In fact, my stories make no sense if you haven't seen the shows, so I encourage you to watch! And get all the DVDs! Just like I do!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to redbyrd_sgfic and to my Brilliant Husband (dudethemath) for reading drafts of this and making many helpful suggestions.
All remaining errors, infelicities, and incoherences are my own.
Read "Zephyr" at my website (you can come back here to leave comments!) or go
Zephyr
by Aelfgyfu
"The humans would call this 'sulking,' or perhaps 'moping,' would they not?" asked Loki from somewhere behind Thor.
Thor tore his eyes away from the verdant hill stretching down in front of him long enough to look at the approaching Loki and sigh audibly. He did not expect the sigh would help; Loki did not take hints, suggestions, or even orders, most of the time. He had not been sulking or moping, but Loki would not understand.
Naturally, Loki persisted. "You were the only one who wished to tell the humans our true plans."
"Perhaps because I am the only one of us who truly knows some humans. And no--experimenting on their bodies does not count." Thor wished Loki would leave him alone to contemplate the planet's beauty. The brilliant purple flowers and the crimson bushes offered some consolation; the beauty of their new home surpassed even Orilla's. If only it were quiet....
"The Council was otherwise unanimous on the issue," Loki pointed out repetitively.
"I know," Thor replied unnecessarily. A slight breeze touched his sensitive skin. He took a deep breath. The atmosphere here on Hallr had more oxygen than that on Orilla; deep breaths often gave him a heady feeling, a sense almost of elation. He thought this might be a faint echo of what O'Neill had once described as "an adrenaline rush." Asgard did not possess quite the same endocrine system, and they had lost the adrenal gland millennia ago. Thor would never experience a sensation O'Neill seemed to enjoy (though O'Neill claimed he did not).
"Do you resent me?" Loki asked.
Resent? Perhaps. "You had not finished your punishment," Thor answered with some asperity. "I voted not to release you. On that also I was overruled. In both these decisions, of course, I have followed the will of the Council in every point. I hope that you will learn from me."
"I have no opportunity for unauthorized experiments; I would not even without you supervising my work," Loki complained. "I have little enough on which to experiment at all!"
"Which is why you pursue me even when I leave you unguarded for a few moments?" Thor asked.
"You wanted to tell the humans of our deception," Loki said, ignoring Thor's question, "but surely you recognize that even if we could trust their good will, we could not trust their strength! The Replicators and the Ori had ways to force information from their minds!"
"The Replicators were destroyed by the humans. I can only hope the Ori have gone the same way, or soon will. No," Thor corrected himself, "I can do more than hope. I expect. They have proven far more resourceful in the short span of their race than we have in eons. They will defeat the Ori. I wish I could be there to congratulate them." He wished he could be there right now, in fact. He would rather fight alongside O'Neill than talk with Loki.
"You know that is impossible."
Thor knew. The Asgard had barely survived the Replicators; they were unlikely to survive the Ori, even if the humans did. There were many, many humans, spread throughout the galaxy; the Asgard had had but one world, and their population had not filled it. The Ori had found Orilla, as the Asgard had anticipated; they would have destroyed it, had Thor's people not done so themselves. They had destroyed the planet so spectacularly that not even the humans suspected the ruse, and the Ori could not have detected their vessel's escape. Thor knew his bold plan owed much to the humans: the concept of the fake-out he had learned from O'Neill, the fact ships need not be enormous to be powerful from Samantha Carter, and the hope that past mistakes could be overcome to make a better future from Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Thus the Asgard had ventured into yet another galaxy, found yet another habitable planet, to make yet another attempt to save themselves.
Thor regretted lying to their race's best ally. The Nox had gone their own way millennia before; the Furlings had broken off contact with everyone, and no one even knew if they still lived. Those Ancients who had not been annihilated had removed themselves from this plane of existence and refused to make contact. The Fifth Race had helped them as none of their allies had done in generations upon generations. The humans had called upon the Asgard for help, but they had given back even more aid. The Asgard race existed now thanks to them.
If the Asgard ended, it would be their own fault. Loki had been freed from his confinement in the hopes that he could assist the other geneticists, but Loki had never been the best of scientists; Thor doubted he could help reverse their condition, even with the meager results of his unprincipled work on humans. After considering O'Neill's objections and pleas on behalf of his own clone, Thor argued against using anything that Loki might have learned at the cost of intelligent lives he had created and then discarded. The Council had not followed his advice in that matter either. Overall, he had, as O'Neill would say, been batting five hundred.
Of course, O'Neill had explained once that five hundred was in fact good.
"I wish I had gotten to know them," Loki said at last, and those words took Thor by surprise as did nothing else Loki had done for centuries.
"Why?" he asked simply.
"To understand why you...." Loki seemed uncertain how to finish.
"Why I miss them? Why I count them as friends?"
"Yes."
Another breeze played across Thor's skin, and he allowed himself another deep breath before he answered. "I doubt you could understand." Yet he was curious why Loki would want to try.
"I wish now that I had made the attempt, however, that I might know what you see in them. That I might see what made you so certain that we should not give up life that you convinced half the Council not to fulfill the original plan to end the attenuated lives that remain to us. That I might feel what gave you the confidence to entrust all our knowledge to them--a confidence with which you managed to infect enough of the Council to prevail on that point, though they did not accede to all that you wished."
Thor laughed quietly, and he was not surprised when Loki started at the noise. It was a sound few of his people made any longer. "You had so many chances, Loki, and you wasted them all." He sobered a little. "That is true of all of us, myself included. I hope it does not become the epitaph for our race."
"We will have no epitaph," Loki replied, settling down on the soft grass of the hill, positioning his all-too-soft body carefully among the small stones. "No one will know we have been here; no one will know we are gone. Unless you mean the epitaph the humans have probably already written for us now that they believe we are gone-or the Ori, once they are victors."
Thor did not feel like sitting now. He had never lowered himself to Loki's level, even with the mistakes he had made himself. He remained standing, pleased that even such obvious symbolism would elude his literal-minded companion.
"The humans will find this place, someday," he said quietly. "They will win, and they will continue to expand their reach. With our technology, they will attain this galaxy, just as we did. I only wonder whether they will find a ruin, a lost civilization for some new Daniel Jackson to uncover-or whether we may signal them and greet them ourselves, when we have vanquished our own weaknesses."
Loki laughed then himself, a rusty sound he was clearly not used to making. "You are a dreamer. Did you learn that from the humans as well?"
Thor smiled. "We were among their first teachers. Is it not fitting that we should be their students now?"
"How is that fitting?" Loki seemed genuinely confused.
"It is one of those human sayings that O'Neill taught me: 'The teacher has become the pupil.'" Or was it Daniel Jackson? His memory was not what it used to be--too many facts and events and people. A few fell out here and there.
"And this is considered a good thing?" Loki inquired.
"It means the teacher has fulfilled his purpose: the student has learned both the specific lessons and, more importantly, how to learn. When the student can learn on his-or her-own, he or she can bring new lessons back to the teacher." He remembered now: Daniel Jackson had spoken with him about how little he remembered of his time among the Ascended Ancients, and the frustration he did recall. The Ascended could not learn from their pupils, apparently, or did so far too rarely.
"Do you truly believe we will survive? Contact them again one day?" Loki asked, his voice oddly fearful. Thor had not heard that note in it since he had found Loki bound by the members of SG-1; Loki's usual arrogance had returned by the time Thor had brought him back to face the assembly of the Asgard.
Was Loki afraid to believe? Too many Asgard were these days. Thor had nearly lost the battle to save his people; if one fewer councillor had listened to him, Thor's plan would have failed in Council. They would indeed have died on Orilla as humans and Ori alike believed.
"I do not know," Thor answered honestly. "I look forward to finding out." He felt some pity for his companion at last, an Asgard of limited imagination. "But you, Loki: if you do not believe we can survive, why did you take a new clone? Why not allow your consciousness to remain in stasis, that you might feel no more pain or failure?" Most of their people remained in stasis. Thor had taken his new body first, as Supreme Commander. Key scientists came next, a few score at a time due to the limited equipment they could bring on their escape vessel. Loki would himself still be in stasis except that some of their more promising scientists, so disheartened that they wished to end their own lives and their entire race, chose when outvoted to remain in stasis rather than contribute to the Asgard's new start. They would be revived only if those who continued the work succeeded-and then they would benefit from the labor they would not undertake. Thor tried not to hold any anger against them: despair, not sloth, motivated them. At least Loki contributed his efforts voluntarily.
Loki answered at last, "If I did not believe we could survive, I would not have conducted those 'unauthorized experiments' on the humans. If such a species as theirs can survive, even thrive, surely as the more advanced race we should be able to continue!"
Ah, the old prejudice that had limited contact between Asgard and human for so long. Thor no longer believed in human inferiority. They might be less advanced in mathematics and physics, in chemistry and medicine. Yet despite those disadvantages, they had shown themselves able to defeat adversaries the Asgard could not, and they maintained a love for life and an eagerness for discovery that the Asgard had forgotten. What was the good of being an "advanced race" if one could find no pleasure in life, only anxiety, even despair? He said as much to Loki.
Again Loki was silent. Thor began to think he should reassess his companion's character. Perhaps this Asgard had more capacity for introspection than Thor had realized. Perhaps he could yet learn. Thor tucked the thought away for another time, however. Now, he wanted to enjoy the air, and the quiet, if his charge would allow.
Loki did respond eventually. "You say now that we should find pleasure in discovery, but that was not what you told the Council when you brought me before them." His voice carried an undercurrent of resentment that tried Thor's patience.
"Pleasure should not come from harming others. Can you not see that still?" Perhaps he was wrong to hope in Loki. Still, so few of them had become incarnated yet, would it not be better to think well of one of those with whom he could work, and even converse?
Loki considered. "I did not understand their uniqueness. When my body needs replacement, I replace it." He would not do so easily here, when they needed many more bodies for many more Asgard, but Thor took his point.
Loki continued, "I am the same person in a new body. Nothing dies. When I did my work on humans, I thought that when the original remained as he had been, the fate of the clone did not matter. I did not understand that they were separate...."
Thor wanted to press him but feared it would make his companion defensive. Loki had never shown this side of himself before, not in the millennia that Thor had known him. Perhaps he too could see that they needed to change their old ways if they were to survive-but Thor would not, to use another human phrase, "push his luck."
Loki spoke again. "When O'Neill wanted his clone to live, I did not understand. I did, however, have a little time in my isolation"-Loki went on with unnecessary emphasis-"to consider what he asked, and why. He saw the new O'Neill not as a flawed copy, to be destroyed while the more perfect original remained; he thought of him as a different person." Something not unlike awe entered his voice at the end. "He spoke to him as a separate entity."
Awe was a sensation Thor had forgotten until the Fifth Race had come to find them again. He had felt it several times since then-and usually in the presence of humans.
Loki had not finished, however. "I have cloned myself, in my experiments."
Thor held his breath and his tongue. Apparently there was even more unauthorized research than they had found. Making duplicates of oneself had been banned long ago: it was an abuse of resouces, and there were questions about the consciousness of the extra copies that Asgard science and ethics had proved unable to answer with certainty. Loki seemed unaware of having confessed another crime, however.
"I never thought of the clones as separate persons, any more than I would think of two crystals with the same data as independent. They might be discrete, but any differences between them were simply failures. A flawed copy had no value. My flawed clones could not reproduce any more than I could; I destroyed them. O'Neill's clone, however, did not think and say exactly what he did. They disagreed. They differed. And that difference held great value for all the humans who were there; they all wished the clone to live."
Thor nodded. He remembered his own surprise at O'Neill's decision. It had taken him some time to understand; no wonder Loki found it so shocking.
Loki fell silent again, and eventually Thor realized he had come to the end of what he had to say.
"So you have learned from the humans." He could not resist driving the point home.
"Not what I wished to learn," Loki said a little sullenly. "Not what we needed to learn."
Thor could not help but disagree. "Perhaps you learned things you very much needed to learn."
To his surprise, Loki did not argue-at least not out loud.
"So you believe we will live? That we will find a solution?"
"I hope we will find a solution," Thor corrected him. Even he, apparently the most optimistic of the Asgard, could not wholeheartedly declare they would succeed. "We will have to work for it. And, as the humans like to say, time will tell."
"In the meantime," he concluded, turning back to what he had come out here to find in the first place, "I intend to enjoy the breeze." Was it a zephyr, or a föhn? He regretted that he could not ask Daniel Jackson about the distinction; while they had been downloading all their knowledge to the Odyssey, they had taken the liberty of uploading the Odyssey's database themselves. It would be years before even Colonel Carter realized what they had done, if she realized at all. But the Ori had left him no time to ask for clarification of their wonderful words, even if they had been able to admit what they were doing. They had no time to honor their friends, to say goodbye; the Ori had come too soon, and almost before they were ready to leave. Now that Thor had done all he could to secure the planet and set up monitoring stations elsewhere in their new galaxy, he had time to study the thought of the humans. Their words, their music, their art amazed him.
"And the flowers?" Loki pressed, poking a slender finger at a violet blossom gingerly and drawing it back at once, as he might test to see if a piece of equipment was still hot. He touched again, longer, and then again, and left his finger there.
"Are they not more resplendent than the blooms of Orilla, and even those of Hala?" Thor asked, finally deigning to sit beside his companion.
"I hardly remember; I did not pay much attention," Loki answered absently. "Not for centuries now. But with so little we can use to build, it will be many, many rotations before we have proper buildings here." He looked at Thor. "We may not even live so long."
"Then we will live among the flowers and return to the ship when the rain comes too hard," Thor answered. He felt a yearning growing in him that he found hard to identify; he had too little familiarity with it. That set of human dictionaries had been one of their best acquisitions. He liked English best, having spoken it many times. He remembered a word whose sense had eluded him before: contentment. Perhaps this was it. This beautiful planet brought him to desire again a feeling he had not had in so long that he had forgotten the Asgard term for it. "Contentment" would do. He had begun to feel that contentment might be within his grasp.
If only he could share these new, or long-forgotten, feelings with his human friends, the ones who had taught him what the Asgard needed to come here: never to give up, to concoct unexpected solutions! If only he could share this feeling with his teachers, he might fully experience "contentment." If only he could tell Samantha Carter....
Perhaps when the Fifth Race had overcome the Ori, and had time to master the gifts the Asgard had left them, he might see them again? If the Asgard could find this place with their new escape vehicle, the humans could surely make the journey.
Sprinkles of water fell on them. Loki jumped to his feet. Thor stood more slowly. He was still not used to how fast the weather could change here, but he minded less than most of the other Asgard.
"We will not melt," Thor assured his suddenly shivering comrade. "We will not wash away."
Loki walked rapidly back to the ship, and Thor sighed again and went with him. A little rain felt pleasant, in an odd way, but a lot of rain could be painful to the skin. Perhaps that was one of the reasons humans wore clothes. He still did not quite understand the concept, no matter how many times they had explained it to him.
They returned together. This new craft was less grand than most Asgard ships: the corridors were low and narrow, the rooms compact, the internal walls not only plain but thin and light. They had calculated the minimum space necessary to contain the consciousnesses of their race and their archives, and the equipment needed to provide those consciousnesses with new bodies. They had built the smallest possible ship. They had gambled that such a vessel would be better able to hide from Ori sensors. Their work had paid off: her departure had apparently been invisible to enemies and allies alike during the spectacular explosion of Orilla. Weeks had passed, in human reckoning, and no pursuit had found them.
"Do you think you will be able to tell her one day?" Loki asked, raising an arm to point at the ship as it came into view when they ascended the next rise.
Thor was taken aback by how well Loki seemed to have gotten to know him in the short time they had spent together already.
"I do not know," he replied slowly. "I do hope, however, that someday Samantha Carter may see the Samantha Carter."
The Samantha Carter remained larger than the greatest human ships, but living inside this new, rather cramped vessel required some . . . adjustment. They had begun to build additional living spaces outside, for the revived Asgard had filled the space inside already, even with the vast majority of their race yet in stasis. Those who lived in the new dwellings had to make due with more primitive living conditions than even the oldest Asgard could recall, for they could bring little manufacturing equipment with them. They used native materials: they had begun to build with stone and minerals extracted from the ground of their new planet. These techniques did not allow the kinds of architecture they had formerly enjoyed.
Thor had left the ship earlier not only to earn some respite from Loki and the others, but also to enjoy the open spaces of Hallr. As Supreme Commander, his living quarters remained on the ship. Perhaps one day, he would be able to hand off his responsibilities to someone else and move into one of the new, modest buildings. He looked forward to that time.
Thor might not have all he wished, but this was his home now. Perhaps he could cultivate the little shoots of contentment he had found sprouting within him, even as he kept alive the hope the humans inspired in him. Perhaps those emotions would even tide him over until he might one day see his other friends again.
FIN