Voices from a Lost Time - Chapter 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, Atlantis or Universe, I am only playing in the world.
Previously: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6
Voices from a Lost Time - Chapter 7
Urdijina, M3R-921, December 2007
Sam gasped as she clutched at Cam's arm. She was seeing things. She had to be seeing things. Light-headed! That's right she'd been in the hot springs too long and now she was light-headed and dizzy and seeing things!
"Do you see that?" Cam asked incredulously and she cursed, closing her eyes in frustration.
"A floating wall of Ancient text? Yes, I do." she replied with a grimace.
"A floating wall of Ancient text is right! What the Hell is going on?" He spun them around and she nearly slipped, clutching at him, pressing against his chest. "Oh, sorry, Sam." He wrapped his arms around her and made sure she was steady before letting her pull away, still holding onto her elbow with a steadying hand while turning his head this way and that. "Where is this coming from?"
"I have no idea." she grumbled before walking closer to the hologram, one arm still clutching the back of Cam's robe. "I suppose it stands to reason. This planet has an orbital Stargate, but the people still know of the Ancients, of Atlantis... they have rituals dedicated to those who come from the City of the Ancestors." She frowned slightly as she examined the wall of text. It was nothing like the display on Merlin's device, which shimmered and wavered. This looked almost solid. "They meant for us to see this. Maybe they don't know it happens, they can't have had a visitor for ten thousand years after all, they've just kept the rituals alive. Maybe ingesting the water from the cataract has something to do with it?" She looked at Cam, but he only shrugged at her. "Still, this is meant for us." She cursed and spun around to glare at Cam who looked at her in puzzlement. She sighed and laid her other hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, just frustrated." He nodded with a slight smile.
"It's alright, Sam." He looked at the text with a slight frown. "It's no good to us if we can't read it, is it?" She nodded, turning back to the text. Cam reached out and passed a finger over a line of text which flashed and then disappeared, the rest of the text disappeared shortly thereafter and Sam turned her head in surprise.
"What just happened?" she cried.
"I don't know. I just touched the text about coming from Atlantis." He shrugged his shoulders and she turned to where the text had been floating a few seconds before. It took a moment, but she gasped and whipped her head around to face him again.
"You did what? How did you know-" Before she could finish the thought there was a bright flash of light and she found herself blinking at Cam, who was clutching at his eyes. "Maybe you've been in the water a bit too long as well, Cameron." She chuckled at his sheepish smile and patted his arm before turning to step out of the milky water. She looked down and blushed slightly at how the robes were clinging to her and quickly gathered up the box with her new hair clips and bracelet. Looking over her shoulder at Cam she smiled in gratitude and began to walk towards the alcove where she'd change back into her clothes. She was acutely aware Cam was probably watching her walk away. She made sure not to quicken her pace though.
She completed the ritual as it had been explained to her, disrobing once more, allowing the white cloth to pool at her feet under the cataract. She let the water flow over her with her eyes closed and ran her hands through her hair. This time the flowery scent of the lake mixed with the loamy smell of this water, filling her with memories of spring at the Academy in Colorado. She cupped some water in her hands and drank it, both flavours filling her mouth. Stepping out from under the flowing water she walked around the screening rock and dried herself off as well as she could with the cloth the Aleri had left for her. Dressing once more she brushed her long hair with a comb, thoughtfully provided for her, and pulled it into a ponytail. Using her reflection in a pool of standing water, lit from above by a hanging torch, she combed her fringe to the left across her forehead and used the hair clips Cam had given her as a present to pin it into place. They were lovely. She smiled in spite of herself, taking the bracelet in hand and stuffing the empty box in her pocket. She walked out, back towards the front of the cavern, and found Cameron waiting for her. He smiled when he saw her. Looking at her hair appreciatively.
"Lookin' good, Sam." he murmured. She looked down and smiled.
"Thanks, they really are lovely, Cam." She held the bracelet out to him and turned her wrist over when he took it. "Help me put it on?" He smiled and complied, tying the silver clasp around her wrist and letting his fingers linger on the skin before dropping his hands. She smiled and rubbed his forearm for a moment before walking towards the entrance while he fell into step beside her after picking up his weapons from where he'd left them. Once outside they found the Aleri waiting for them and returned the bow they were given. The youths indicated they would remain behind to carry out the last of their duties, but assured them the path back to the village was clearly marked and lit, so they both set off side by side.
The scent of the water still lingered in her nostrils, and it was only made more powerful when combined with Cam's scent. She found herself drifting close to him as they walked silently. Smiling whenever her arm brushed against his until they arrived in the village. Jinaiya and Urisca greeted them warmly and led them to a long table in the center of the village where a small ceremony was held to mark their agreement. Sam and Urisca exchanged formal words of intent and agreed that the Urdijine scribes would produce a document to be signed by both as representatives of their peoples. Urisca made it clear however that they already considered the agreement to be in effect and Sam accepted that happily, aware of a small group of refugees in desperate need of relocation. She made arrangements for Urisca to appoint someone to return with them to meet with the leader of the refugees. After that they got down to the real business of the evening. Eating and drinking to excess, then dancing, perhaps not necessarily in that order. Something akin to flutes were played to produce lively melodies, something akin to wine was drunk to get them tipsy, something akin to boar was eaten to sate their appetites, and Sam actually let Cam dance with her, or at least something akin to dancing.
As the smallest of Urdijina's three moons rose in the sky Sam found herself sitting beside Cam, watching the Urdijine dancing and cheering around a large festive bonfire. They were an extremely friendly people, they would welcome anyone Atlantis brought to them. Which made it imperative she could ensure their hospitality wasn't abused. It was far too important that this be kept a safe place. She glanced beside her at Cameron's grinning face and his enthusiastic clapping to the up-tempo music. She realised something she never would have thought possible. Cameron understood people. He could tell what was important to them. What they would accept and what they wouldn't. She'd seen him earlier clapping several Urdijine on the shoulder in a manner she'd never seen them do amongst themselves and it had not fazed them. The training she'd received from the IOA before taking up this post told her that the lack of contact she normally observed between these people should be imitated intently during any interaction with them, but Cam was different. He could see that it wasn't a matter of strict compulsion, just one of traditional form. It was how they did things, but not something they were passionate about. Which boded well in future interactions. In fact, she realised he seemed to understand that it was more important to the Urdijine that he be honest in his actions, not holding back out of diplomatic tact. Maybe she could stand to learn some things from Cam herself. She reached across and laid her hand over his on his leg. He looked at her and grinned in return to her smile, lifting her hand and clasping the fingers which curled around the back of his hand.
"Thank you, Cam. This has been the best birthday I've had in a long time." she said softly into a lull in the music.
"Sam, it was entirely my pleasure." He smiled gently and stood up. "Anyways! I live for dancing!" He swept her up out of her seat as a much slower melody began playing and led her out amid clapping Urdijine as she laughed.
USS Odyssey, above P3X-474, May 2007 + 2,782 days relative
"This isn't hard, Jackson," Cam glared at the linguist from where he stood by one of the holograms in the Asgard database room, "it makes no sense!" he cried, throwing up his hands. Daniel, drew his lips tight and sighed. He brought his hands up, holding his thumbs to his forefingers as if about to make a point and opened his mouth, but he paused, closed his eyes and let his arms drop.
"Let's finish there for today. This is a very tricky section." He was about to switch off the holograms when Cam came up and stopped him, laying his hand on the top of the console's concave control surface.
"No way! We've only been at it an hour." He backed up and faced the hologram again. "I can do it, I just have to..." he twisted his fingers through the air and then spread them out wide, "channel my chi!" Daniel chuckled and walked around the console to the hologram they were looking at. It was written in Asgard runes, a text detailing the history of strategic developments in the Asgard-Replicator War. A dry text, but it had the right combination of technical and cultural language and at least the subject matter was kind of interesting. Daniel held his hands up to the lines of text and scrolled them up.
"The thing about Asgard as a language is verb position. As an English speaker you're used to a subject - verb - object grammatical structure. Asgard is verb - object - subject. Where we would say 'Bob read the newspaper,' an Asgard would say 'read the newspaper Bob.' Then they use the Verb Second element order in subordinate clauses and modifying phrases. Of course it makes no sense to you. That's my point." He looked at Cam in understanding. "You've learned several languages before, you know better than most, you don't learn a language by translating in your head, you learn it by thinking in that language." Cam nodded. "Hell, Japanese is a subject - object - verb language and you know that."
"I'm doing better with Ancient and we don't even have any audio of it." Cam muttered and Daniel had to laugh.
"It helps that Alteran was spoken by beings with throats and mouths almost identical to ours. I don't think we'll ever be able to actually speak more than a simplified pidgin Asgard." Daniel walked towards Cam and put a hand on his shoulder. "And it also shows you are adaptable, Alteran is a free word order language like the Latin which derives from it. English is fixed word order." Daniel looked up in despair. "I swear, having English as a first language should count as a disability when it comes to learning new ones. So inelegant as well."
"We are tied to a language which makes up for in obscurity what it lacks in style." Cam muttered and Daniel looked at him in surprise. "You missed that movie night, Sam's still pissed at you since she picked the film. It was good too." Daniel chuckled and nodded in acquiescence. "I'm still kind of upset I have to learn two different kinds of Ancient." He glowered.
"Well, the vast majority of Ancient texts you'll encounter will be one of those two, the Alteran from the time they left Avalon, and the Lantean from when they came back from Atlantis. And there's enough differences between the two where, I think you'll agree, you can't just fudge it by knowing one. Not without several doctorates like me." He grinned and Cam rolled his eyes. "It also shows you how language can change over time, how the same word can change shape or have its meaning altered slightly, so that something translated with knowledge in one could be missing nuances from the other. Subtle things, like a word which has two distinct connotations, having one meaning take precedence over time, or the shape of a conjunction changing slightly with a subtle twist of the emphasis."
"I'm sure that's fascinatin' an' all." Cam crossed his arms in amused impatience. "I just want to be able to read the manuals on the power systems I'm tinkering with so I don't, you know," he waved his hands about and flourished his fingers, "kill us all in a massive explosion of fire and death and fiery death." Daniel glared at him.
"Yes. I want that too."
P1R-727, August 2010
"What the Hell did you say to them, Jackson?" Cameron yelled at the man running in front of him through the forested plateau, his long duster jacket billowing behind him. Cam reached into his own tan coloured duster and pulled out the automatic stubber he had secured to his side. He held it out behind him at the group of men chasing them and opened fire with a few quick bursts of the galactic equivalent of 9mm rounds. It was enough to send their pursuers scattering to hide behind trees momentarily.
"To be fair, Cameron," began Vala as she ran ahead of both men in her leather bustier, short jacket and trousers, with her ponytail whipping from side to side, "I don't think it was so much what he said, as what he didn't." Cam fired another burst at their pursuers before raising his radio to his lips.
"Sam, honey, if you want your fiancé back, sans bullet holes, I suggest you get that ship over here pronto." He glanced over his shoulder at the men who still chased them. Lucian Alliance thugs who provided muscle to the local kassa plantation manager. This moon was one of the four addresses they'd retrieved from the DHD on P4S-891 which matched with addresses gleaned from the DHD on P2W-217 eighteen months previously, the time when Cam and Sam had been stuck on a cliff face for seven hours after the Alliance unexpectedly showed up on the little backwater planet to conduct a clandestine meet-up with a third-party. They were trying to determine which of the four addresses was the destination of the folks the Lucian Alliance had been meeting. This moon probably wasn't it, it definitely seemed to be Alliance friendly territory.
"I think there was supposed to be some sort of passphrase, probably a precaution after we stumbled on Worrel's operation on P6G-452 a few years ago." yelled Daniel over his shoulder.
"Not one of my finest moments." groused Cam in remembrance.
"That's certainly one way to put it." retorted Daniel.
"I'm on my way, sweetie. Don't worry, no one gets to touch your cute little ass except me." Sam declared over the radio in reply to Cam's earlier missive. Vala giggled as much as anyone running full speed can giggle.
"That's a comfort to know, Sam." Cam rattled off into the radio before firing off another burst behind him to be greeted by several rapid-fire clicks, indicating the magazine was empty. "Jackson!" Daniel looked behind him and saw Cam waving his gun slightly and reached for his own, he then tossed it to Cameron while the Air Force officer tossed his forward. Daniel began reloading it after he caught it, while Cam flipped his new one over in his hand and swung his arm back around behind him to open up with another burst. Just then they emerged from the trees to find a grassy scrubland which ran only another twenty yards before ending in a sheer cliff. "What the-? Who put a ravine in the middle of my escape route?"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" cried Daniel as he spun around to find cover behind some rocks and dragged Vala with him. Cam dove behind another outcropping just as bullets ricocheted off the stones behind his head as he pressed his back against them and raised the radio back to his lips.
"Sam, where's my damn ship?" He held his gun over the top of the boulder and fired blindly into the trees behind him as he saw Daniel and Vala firing back a little more orthodoxly.
"Give it up, hasshak! There's no way out of here for you!" cried the voice of the mercenary leader of this band of thugs. "Come out and we won't shoot you! Not right away."
"You've got a lot to learn about negotiating a surrender, Tergali!" Daniel yelled back.
"I'm not negotiating your surrender, Hans Olo, I'm negotiating your death!" The mercenaries laughed hard at that and Cam shot Daniel a grimace. Cam took a mirror out of his pocket and used it to see the band of thugs begin to walk out of the cover of the trees, covering the rocks with their weapons. "Come out now or I start using grenades." Cam didn't have time to curse before an Al'kesh decloaked right in front of him at the lip of the cliff and it's ventral cannons swivelled from their locked position to aim right at the group of mercenaries. It hovered just a little above their heads and a clear melodious voice sounded from its external speaker system.
"Step away from my fiancé and our friends, or I will blow a new crater in your little moon!" Cam whipped his head to look at Daniel and Vala and they both looked at him incredulously.
"She didn't!" cried Daniel.
"She did." replied Vala.
Cam snuck a look over the boulders with the mirror to see the mercenaries rapidly back-pedalling away from the Goa'uld assault ship to the safety of the tree line. They fired the odd shot at it, but their weapons were nothing to the ship's hull. Cam knew Teal'c was piloting the ship from the precision of its movements, and he knew Sam was in charge when he saw the cargo bay doors on the belly of the ship slide open and the loading platform lower on its struts to settle just below the lip of the cliff over mid air. He raised the radio once more.
"Sam, are you really telling me to-" his question was cut off by Sam's voice.
"Don't argue with me, Cam. Hop to it!" He grumbled and looked over to Daniel and Vala and hooked his head towards the suspended platform while he got up on one knee and provided covering fire into the trees. They didn't move for a moment, looking at him in horror.
"Move it, you two!" He fired some more and the two finally were on the run, jumping the short distance from the edge to land on the platform and slide to a stop on their stomachs, then they scooted over to the leading edge and opened up on the trees themselves so Cam could make his own run. He got up and took a running leap from the edge and landed right on the lip, sliding along on his side while raising the radio to his lips again. "Pull us in, Sam!" The platform began retracting immediately and the Al'kesh slowly rose and backed away from the cliff. He dared not move until the platform was inside, but as soon as it was he was on his feet and rushing to the bridge, Daniel and Vala in tow. They crossed into the bridge as they were breaking orbit above the moon, the gas giant it circled around filling the view with a greenish light. Sam walked over and slipped her arms around him.
"Any bullet holes?" She smirked at him and patted him down as he chuckled ruefully.
"Thanks for the save, sweetness," he kissed her gently, "but today isn't U-day and I didn't go to an Alliance friendly bar to pick a fight." Sam grinned. "I can't believe you just did that."
"I love that show, Cam-" she began until Teal'c spoke.
"It is one of my favourites also, Colonel Mitchell." interjected the Jaffa. Cam closed his eyes as he saw Sam turn from Teal'c with a huge grin on her face. Daniel bent down to retrieve his glasses from his back pack on the floor of the bridge, not having worn them while they were undercover on the surface.
"And technically you could say it was an Alliance friendly moon." She poked his chest. Daniel spoke up while Vala was undoing the ponytail in her hair and shaking it out.
"I wouldn't really compare the Lucian Alliance to- Oww, Vala!" He rubbed the top of his head and glared at the raven-haired thief, who glared back in equal measure.
"I just can't believe you of all people would quote a TV show, Sam." Cam smirked at Sam's open mouthed look of shock and indignation. She poked his chest again.
"You don't have an exclusive mandate on pop culture references, Cameron Mitchell!" She gave his side a little punch and he grinned, wrapping his arms around her to pin hers to her sides.
"So would you really have blown a new crater in their little moon?" he asked huskily into her ear, feeling the heat in her cheek rising at his drawl.
"If anyone lays a hand on you, I'll make sure they fully understand the extent of my displeasure." she breathed against his neck.
"For crying out loud, will you two get a gorram room!" cried Daniel while he glared at them.
Selenis, Luna, August 2010
"Anyway, sir," Cam elaborated to the image of General Landry on the subspace comms screen in Command, "we used an Al'kesh the Jaffa loaned us after our MALP was destroyed as soon as it came through the 'gate. However, the moon seems to just be another kassa farm world."
"A particularly feisty one." Vala added.
"Yes, thank you, Vala," Cam smirked at her and she smiled happily, "I'm guessing Masim sent some people back and forth to this world during previous meetings at P4S-891 or the Lucian Alliance uses 891 frequently as a vaguely neutral meeting place."
"I see, Colonel, unfortunately that means all four address matches are Lucian Alliance worlds." Landry supplied to their consternation.
"How can that be, sir? The video surveillance clearly shows the stranger coming and going through the Stargate, he never stepped out beyond that interference field." Sam looked to Teal'c for confirmation and the Jaffa nodded that it was so, no-one else arrived by ship. "And they weren't Alliance either."
"That did indeed seem to be the case. However much this new information seems to contradict it." Teal'c concluded.
"As it is, we have nothing." Landry grumbled. "We can only wait until the next meeting as per the schedule given to us by Dr. Heidal, and hope for more matches."
"The option still exists to capture the representative. A large enough force should be able to accomplish such a task." Teal'c posited and Landry frowned slightly.
"That scenario has been put forward at Homeworld Command, Teal'c, but General O'Neill and I are both of the opinion that stealth and intelligence gathering are still our best options at this point." Landry looked down to his right at something said to him from off-screen. "Thank you, Walter. We'll have to cut this short, SG-1. We're due for a meeting with the Tok'ra over here. I'll let you know if they have anything, SGC out." Cam signed off as well and turned to his teammates to discuss any options they had until he spotted Daniel coming up the stairs with his laptop in hand. Sam tilted her head in curiosity.
"Guys, I've found something interesting in my audio notes." He laid the laptop on a console and looked at Cameron with a glint in his eye. "First though, I want to play you something else." He shrugged with a smile. "I have a habit of sometimes reading the last paragraph of a book before starting it, to see if I can come up with an idea of the plot from those last few sentences while I read the rest of it. I tried the same with these audio files, to see if I could follow my thread of inquiry from what I was working on last. Except, the last audio file was a bit small." He queued it up and pressed play.
"I keep my promises, Jackson." came Cam's voice through the speakers and Sam grinned, she must have realised what it meant, but Cam hadn't, he looked at Daniel in confusion. Daniel just smiled before queuing up the file he really wanted to play. Daniel's voice played through the speakers for a moment before he used the slider to advance the playback to a specific point.
"-it's written here that Merlin really hated these guys, that the Desdamendi and the men of Thule betrayed his people in the distant past. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back to Camelot right now-" he stopped the file and looked at them with a huge grin.
"What did the Inuit ever do to Merlin?" asked Cam incredulously. Daniel rolled his eyes. He closed the lid of his laptop and raised his fingers with a shrug of his shoulders.
"In this context, Thule is the mythical lost island of the arctic seas. And did you hear that name, 'Desdamendi'? That stem is the same, etymologically speaking, as Indesta." He paused to make sure they all understood what he'd just said. "Also," he chuckled wryly, "and I have no idea how I missed this before, Thule is known by several names, Thula, Tile, Thila and Thyïlea." He stopped again and watched them all. Vala and Sam looked at him with wide eyes.
"~Selenis, play back Ilemus' final log entry from the Archive repository.~" Vala ordered softly.
"~Of course, Vala.~" responded the computer and the audio transmission which had piped through Sam's comm from the outpost played over the speakers.
"~Final log, Selenis Arch- ~"
"~About half way through, please Selenis.~" Vala clarified.
"~-the few of us that are left.~" Ilemus gave a mirthless chuckle. "~We'll arrive in Sele-...~" There was a long pause as he trailed off. "~Lantica long before they arrive in Thyilea. May they rot on their long journey.~"
"~Thank you, Selenis. That'll do.~" Vala breathed.
"You're saying that the Desdamendi are the Indesta, and that Thule refers to their new home galaxy?" Sam asked Daniel with a hard stare.
"Yes." Daniel replied.
"That doesn't make any sense, Jackson. Why would Merlin, or the rest of the Lanteans, care what had happened millions of years before in a different galaxy?" Cam asked in consternation.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Colonel Mitchell?" asked Teal'c with a raised eyebrow. Cam glared at him.
"I don't know. Which is why I want to do what I couldn't when I recorded this file. I want to go to Camelot." He glanced between Cam and Sam hopefully. "We're nowhere with the search for the ships, it'll be weeks until the next meeting, and the Tok'ra, love 'em to death and all, aren't likely to come up with something in the interim." He motioned to the both of them. "The two of you are going to Pegasus for the week for that treaty renewal, I was thinking I could go to Merlin's Library with Vala and Teal'c." Cam watched Daniel for a couple of seconds before speaking.
"Jackson," Cam looked down at his watch, Daniel sighed in frustration, "what are you still doing here? Don't you have to go see Meurik about getting a place to stay in the village?" Daniel's head shot back up and Vala clapped her hands excitedly. "Go on, I'll get it cleared with General Landry." Cam grinned and Daniel grabbed his laptop and shot off, Vala was already beating him down the stairs. "Keep Vala out of trouble!" Daniel stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at Cam very seriously.
"Cameron, thank you." he said softly, nodding his head deeply and giving the laptop a little lift. He turned and walked down the stairs.
"Yeah, sure." Cam replied with a confused frown. Teal'c smiled and nodded to them both before walking away.
"Teal'c," Sam called, and the Jaffa turned to face her, "keep them both out of trouble, please." The Jaffa bowed with a decided smirk on his lips. Sam turned to Cameron and rubbed his arm. "I'd say you were turning into a big softy, except you've always been one." She chuckled at Cam's glare.
"Jackson's right, we're not in any position to find the guys who sent the ships yet." He sat by a console and Sam sat across from him. "He'd just be twiddling his thumbs while we're in Pegasus. Jackson with nothing to read has been known to awaken sleeping gods." Sam smiled ruefully. She stood up and walked over to Cameron, sitting in his lap with her arms around his neck. He put his arms around her back and stomach to rest on her hip and smiled when she leaned in to kiss him softly, searchingly.
"You know he wasn't thanking you for agreeing to let him go to Camelot, right?" She lifted a hand to caress his cheek and laughed softly at his look of confusion. "Oh, sweetie, you're adorable." She kissed him again so he decided that he didn't really care that he didn't know what she was talking about.
Atlantis, September 2010
Cameron offered her a piece of his pie on a fork and she smiled, taking it into her mouth and letting him slip his fork out as she smiled and savoured the flavours before very grudgingly offering him a spoonful of her blue jello. He grinned and accepted, then watched her with that smile and she knew exactly what he was thinking. She reached across and pinched his cheek.
"I don't love you more than blue jello, Cameron." She looked away with a smile as he laughed. She glanced around the mess hall in Atlantis at everyone eating their breakfast before turning back to him. "To answer your question, Selenis has drawn up a list of the raw materials she'll need to manufacture the power relays I designed, your ideas about internal distribution are going to work out great too." She let him brush his fingers along the back of her hand on the table. "Unfortunately we'll need some raw materials which Selenis doesn't have. The power relay designs in Hypraxia were obsolete by Selenis' time and the materials necessary to interface with them properly no longer used in more contemporary Alteran design."
"We'll have to mine for them?" Cam asked and she nodded. "What about the sources she had been using during her construction?"
"She wouldn't have been mining for those materials specifically," she intertwined her fingers with his, "but they may have been present in the ores she was mining. We'll go through her databanks when we go back."
"Dr. Carter." She turned as her name was called to find Carson Beckett walking towards her. Cam raised a hand in greeting and was answered with a friendly nod. "I'm glad I caught you before you left, love." he burbled and motioned for them to follow him. "Jennifer and I have a surprise for you." Sam glanced in puzzlement at Cam and he just shrugged and tilted his head, so they followed behind the cloned Scottish doctor. "I understand you're going back to Urdijina later today, lovely place, fascinating people."
"That's right, they requested for us to be the ones to renew our treaty with them, since we were the original signatories." She smiled at the memory of her birthday spent with Cam.
"You negotiated it, I just tried not to cause a diplomatic incident." Cam chuckled and Sam slapped his arm at his self-deprecation.
"Yes, well, they're a very interesting people medically," Carson elucidated, "whatever is in that light keeps them remarkably healthy." Sam quirked an eyebrow, she hadn't known about that. "That has nothing to do with the surprise though." He chuckled as they rounded the corner into the infirmary. "I've brought her, Jennifer."
"Oh, good, Carson, good. Dr. Carter." Jennifer Keller happily grasped Sam's hand and shook it. "And Colonel Mitchell, good to see you as well."
"Good to see you too, Doc." he smiled then perched himself on one of the beds out of the way.
"Here's the surprise." Carson came back from one of the cabinets holding a vial which he held up for Sam to see. "This is something Jennifer and I have spent the last several weeks on, it is a serum which will cause your body to produce an enzyme which will block the receptors on the enzyme produced by the protein marker." Sam blinked and her eyes widened. "It's only temporary, but the effects should last a few days. We've run all the tests we can bar a live trial. We'd like you to test it, but only if you're willing, love." Sam nodded eagerly and Cam grinned at her. Carson smiled and handed the vial to Dr. Keller. An hour later they were running a test with Carson's gene expression scanner and Sam hugged Cam fiercely after she had the ball of light shining brightly and the bar on the display registering in the highest yellow bands and into the yellowish-green. Thirty minutes after that she was laughing her head off as she sent a puddle jumper pirouetting through the sky above Atlantis, while he cheered her on from the co-pilot's seat.
On to Chapter 8