Fic: Of Colonels and Cattle (Gen, PG-13)
Title: Of Colonels and Cattle
Author: tielan
Recipient: tanaquisga
Characters: team, Alicia Vega, Amelia Banks, 2 OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Wait, you're telling me that we're here to negotiate Colonel Sheppard's stud fees?"
Of Colonels and Cattle
As she always did when she came off-world, Amelia took a deep breath of the air - dirt and grass and a spicy floral scent. In Atlantis, the air was always bitter brine, the endless salt of the sea in her nose. Just one more reason she enjoyed travelling out into Pegasus.
The view was pretty, too.
The sky was more violet than blue - sign of a thicker atmosphere to that of Earth. Beneath it, on the horizon, a pine forest spread out across a snow-tipped mountain range. The contrast was impressive, since the plain on which the Stargate stood was richly green and thicky covered in what looked very much like poppies as far as the eye could see - a carpet of scarlet from close beside the road all the way out to the foot of the hills.
"Ho-ly shit," murmured Sergeant Reynolds. "That's a lotta opium."
"You're assuming they're Earth poppies," said Amelia, squinting slightly at the brightness of the sun off the hills.
"Good point," said Reynolds, unabashed. "Two four-month stints in Afghanistan will do that to you."
"Somehow," murmured Captain Vega, "I don't think we're here to deal with the local druglords." She indicated the woman who was waiting by the FRED, her wrists resting on the butt of her P-90 as casually as any soldier.
Teyla Emmagan looked very calm for a woman who'd called for a team to assist in diplomatic negotiations, and been very specific about who was to be sent. She also looked very solitary for a member of Colonel Sheppard's team.
"Why would she ask specifically for us?" Dr. Vendross asked, frowning.
"I think we're about to find out," said Amelia as Captain Vega strode down the steps towards the Athosian woman.
The call had come through to Atlantis from Teyla after her team had gone to check out a planet which one of the scientists had found marked down in what equated to an Ancient's personal notebook. According to the notebooks, the people there had been a personal interest of this particular Ancient and she'd taught them 'many things' before she left for Earth.
Various scientists and specialists had argued exactly what 'many things' entailed, up until the point when Mr. Woolsey - clearly tired of the endless debate - authorised Colonel Sheppard's team to a recon and report mission.
As they came down the stairs, Reynolds murmured, "Since her team-mates aren't in sight, I'm guessing that the recon and report didn't go well."
"I'm not sure," said Amelia, looking at Teyla as the Athosian woman stood and approached Captain Vega.
In the last couple of months, she'd started getting to know Teyla quite well, not only through the stretching classes that Teyla held for the women of the expedition, but also through the sparring lessons given for the more advanced students, most of them women in the Atlantis military, and a couple of the more active scientists.
Amelia had noticed that Athosian body language wasn't like Earth body language, or even Satedan body language. She'd seen it in Teyla, even before Kanaan of Athos came to live in the city - the carefully-held posture that rarely relaxed. Ronon was easy and casual with most of the people in the expedition, his tension reserved for strangers and threats, but Teyla was only ever completely easy in the presence of her team-mates, or when she thought herself quite alone.
Right now, Teyla wasn't entirely relaxed, but she didn't seem unduly tense either, so Amelia didn't think the guys were in trouble.
Still, Amelia was very definitely curious as to what had caused the present situation. SOP was that team members were supposed to move around off-world in pairs. Of course, this being the Atlantis expedition, SOP often went out the window.
"Captain Vega." Teyla stood as the group approached, lightly dusting herself off.
"Teyla. I'm guessing the fact that the Colonel isn't with you means there's a long story behind this?"
The wide mouth twitched. "Perhaps more of a medium-sized story. But, yes, there is a story behind it. And they are not in trouble."
"Yet," Amelia murmured, making Reynolds snort and tilting up the corners of Teyla's mouth.
"Well, it looks like it's a bit of a walk to the village," said Vega with a faint sigh, "You can tell us on the way."
--
Alicia Vega had been more than a little surprised when she was told that Teyla had asked for her by name. Usually, when a team got into trouble, they asked for the guys.
Teyla's request had been very specific.
Maybe that was why Mr. Woolsey hadn't been too concerned that it was Teyla calling the request through and not Colonel Sheppard. If they only needed women then the situation couldn't be that bad, could it?
Yes, Alicia had a chip on her shoulder - with good reason. She didn't know of a woman in the armed forces that didn't.
"So," said Reynolds cheerfully, "what'd Doc McKay do this time?"
Reynolds would not have been Alicia's choice of team-mate. She came from the Atlantis Quartermaster's department - one of nearly a dozen women and men whose department nickname was 'Scroungers 'R Us' and not one of whom came with volume control.
Teyla glanced back at Reynolds with a slight smile on her face. "It is less a question what was done as what the Murakati discovered some months ago - a cache of devices made by the Ancestors. When we arrived, Dr. McKay determined that the cache was present, and Colonel Sheppard's presence activated the devices."
"I can hear the 'uh-oh' coming," muttered Amelia Banks behind them, and Alicia turned and gave her a quick, frowning glance. Amelia wasn't even on the list of outgoing Stargate personnel; she was one of the control room techs. Not bad for a tech, but, again, not someone Alicia would have chosen for this mission if she'd had the chance.
"The 'uh-oh' is not so bad," Teyla explained. "It is merely that the Murakati are desirous of acquiring the gift of the Ancestors for their people."
The words were straightforwards enough, but there was an undercurrent in her words that implied something Alicia wasn't quite getting.
"They want the ATA gene injections?" Dr. Vendross ventured, speaking up for only the second time since they'd exited the gate. Unlike any of the rest of them, Vendross wasn't even military - she was an 'intercultural specialists' - not quite a xeno, not quite an anthro, not quite a diplomat.
"What've they got to trade?" Sergeant Reynolds sounded interested now; no surprise since this was her specialty area.
Teyla shook her head. "You misunderstand," she said. "They learned of the gene injections through Dr. McKay; but their perspective is that the injections will service only one generation of their people, and they seek something...longer term."
Longer term? The ATA injections lasted for a lifetime. What was longer than that? "I don't understand," Alicia said after glancing around at the others and seeing the same blank incomprehension on their expressions.
"They would like to pass the gene on through their generations," Teyla said.
Banks suddenly laughed. "Oh, my God. Do they want to hire him by the hour, or by the...uh...service?"
Behind Alicia, Reynolds gave an earthy guffaw as Vendross giggled. Realisation dawned and her jaw dropped. "Wait, you're telling me that we're here to negotiate Colonel Sheppard's stud fees?"
Teyla's eyes danced, but her expression was only lightly amused. "Not exactly."
The thing was, the Murakati had Ancient devices - a lot of them, some in pristine working condition. And the Murakati had indicated a willingness to trade for them. Teyla had figured that, rather than taking Colonel Sheppard's stud fees off the table from the get-go, she'd call for a team with some knowledge that could be useful in the negotiations and then get the Colonel taken off the List Of Things They Really Want.
"And you got all this past Sheppard?" Alicia asked as they reached the hill over which, Teyla informed them, the village was situated.
"The matter of the bargaining was referred to me," Teyla said simply. "Murakati bargaining and trading is performed through the distaff line - and as the only woman travelling with the Colonel, it was presumed that I took responsibility for him."
"Poor you," Reynolds said cheerfully.
"Sergeant," said Alicia in a quick warning.
"Sorry, ma'am."
"Actually, Sergeant," Teyla said, "I thought you and Dr. Vendross could work together to determine what we have that the Murakati desire and might exchange in return for the use or study of their devices."
Reynolds feigned disappointment. "Oh, and here I thought this might be a nice day out."
"A nice day out...with a little bit of bargaining," said Banks.
"I asked for Amelia because she has experience in some of the Ancient technologies found around Atlantis," Teyla said. "I thought you might have an idea of what can be used and what cannot."
Banks' expression sobered. "One of the lab scientists might have been better..."
"But more difficult to persuade out on short notice," Teyla said. "And the Murakati are more likely to allow a woman to look at the devices than a man."
"I bet McKay's fuming about that," Reynolds murmured.
"Only a little."
"And I'm the figurehead for the all-female team," Alicia concluded. She felt a little frustrated that that was all she was reduced to. She knew weaponry and warfare for most situations - and the ones that she didn't know, she could work out - but she usually managed to end up as the baby sitter while the men got the plum assignments. It was that much worse to be specifically called for by a woman and still get relegated to the role of baby-sitter.
"Yes, and no," Teyla said after a moment. "Your task is...a little more complicated than that."
"And that would be?"
"You will be pumping the Murakati leader for information."
"In as non-pumping a manner as I can manage, I suppose?" Alicia remarked dryly.
"Which is why the task is complicated."
--
Gayle Vendross had worked in the Pegasus galaxy since the Atlantis expedition first arrived in the city, and had worked with the diplomatic teams of Stargate Command long before that.
For the most part, the job wasn't too taxing. People were people, no matter where you went. Their primary interest was almost never in ideals or ideology, but in the much simpler business of life, survival, and familiarity.
It wasn't the first time a culture had taken an interest in the breeding possibilities of Earth personnel. In societies where the population was regularly depleted, whether the Goa'uld took the best and brightest of the people, or the Wraith culled the peoples of Pegasus, new blood was highly-prized. At least in Pegasus, the cultures were accustomed to using the Stargate, and new cultures were often no more than a quick wormhole trip away.
Still, there were certain traits that were perceived as advantageous to breed in a Pegasus population - and Colonel Sheppard's Ancient gene was at the top of several lists.
"If Colonel Sheppard isn't amenable to fathering a child, then we're not going to force him," she explained to the Murakati bargainer, Eslin.
"And he's not," Sheppard added.
Gayle hid a smile and saw Teyla doing the same. Amelia Banks and McKay were off looking at the tech, and Ronon had offered to join them - probably as much to watch Banks as to keep an eye on McKay.
"Oh, we would not think of forcing him," said Eslin, somewhat anxiously. "But if he is willing..."
"He's not."
"I believe we have ascertained that already, John," said Teyla with a faint smile. "Perhaps if you permit Dr. Vendross to discuss the alternatives?"
Sheppard exhaled. "I'm going outside. Teyla?"
Teyla glanced at Gayle, who nodded. She wasn't entirely comfortable with Teyla leaving, but there was nothing she could identify that would be gained from keeping her here. And it was a little awkward to have Sheppard standing around while they tried to find something on the bargaining table that the Murakati would accept in his stead.
"It is difficult to discuss these things with a man in the room," Eslin said as the curtain fell behind Sheppard and Teyla.
Personally, Gayle thought it was difficult to discuss these things when one of the bargaining chips on the table was a man's abilities at stud and the man in question was still in the room. She'd delicately suggested that the Colonel might prefer to be somewhere else at the start, but he'd planted his feet and refused to move.
"You must understand," said Gayle, "our people hold sex and reproduction to be the choice of the individual rather than the group."
Eslin shrugged. "Surely your people have those whose abilities are too important to lose?"
It was a common thread among the Pegasus peoples - those with particular gifts and abilities were required to reproduce. It wasn't exactly a social pressure to do so, but there was an unspoken expectation that the desirable traits would be passed on, a more explicit Darwinism that bordered on eugenics.
When Gayle thought about it, she was surprised that Teyla hadn't gotten pregnant sooner. With her gifts, the pressure to reproduce would have been considerable.
"The abilities cherished among our people have not been proven to be passed from parent to child," said Gayle.
"And yet Colonel Sheppard's abilities are surely of sufficient import to warrant the siring of children?"
"Not among our people," said Gayle firmly, thinking of the furore that would result at the merest suggestion that an individual had a responsibility to procreate. "As we've noted, Colonel Sheppard's...willingness to accede to your request is up to him. We cannot promise anything from him."
Eslin's disappointment was palpable, but she seemed philosophical about it rather than angry. A good start in the negotiations process.
"All right," said Reynolds, laying her tablet down on the table and beginning to scroll through the Atlantis inventory options. "We've got a lot of inventory available right now, so you'll get your pick of what we can release as well as what the Athosians are willing to trade through us."
Gayle leaned forward, mirroring Eslin's pose as they got down to the tin tacks of trade negotiations.
--
When she was first assigned to the Atlantis expedition, shortly after the city made contact with Earth, Beth Reynolds figured she'd do her two-year TOD in Atlantis, take the hazard pay, and get the hell out of dodge.
Somewhere along the way, she learned that the term 'adrenaline junkie' didn't only apply to other people.
Sure, Atlantis was a solitary outpost in the middle of another galaxy full of life-sucking space vampires, but as assignments went, it beat Afghanistan, Antarctica, and East Timor hands down for interesting things to scrounge.
And scrounging things was what Beth loved to do.
She left the bargaining up to others - Dr. Vendross seemed to know what she was talking about, and Teyla certainly did when she came back in the room sans Colonel Sheppard. Between them, they hammered out a perfectly good arrangement with the Murakati.
"So, in exchange for the devices Dr. McKay identified, we're willing to offer you twenty sacks of tava seed, the dam system specifications along with consultation from one of our engineers for its implementation, ten boxes of pins, and four of needles, two compasses, two ploughshares, two injections of the ATA gene, and enough innoculations for the winter fever to cover your children up to age five, along with someone to show you how to produce the serum in future. "
Beth thought it was a perfectly good bargain. But the Murakati considered it, and shook their heads.
"It is not enough."
"We can't offer you Colonel Sheppard's services," Vendross said. "He's not willing to offer them and we can't do more than ask him."
"That is understood," said Eslin. "However, this is still not sufficient recompense for what you ask us to give up. You want these devices that have been kept among us for generations upon generations - a legacy left to us by Pasaphi when she departed this existence."
"But you yourself admitted they have no use to your people!"
"Yet they might be of use to us in the future once we learn what they do, once we have the ability to use them. If not through Colonel Sheppard, then through the exchange of this...activator that you have offered us in his stead." Eslin was resolute. "I would be doing my people a disservice to trade our future so cheaply."
As they 'broke for discussion' and walked out of the negotiations room and into the street, Beth snorted. "If that's cheaply, I hate to think of what 'expensive' is."
Vendross' mouth pursed. "Expensive would be persuading the Colonel he's got to stud for a woman he doesn't want to sleep with."
Tempted to say 'He's a guy. How hard can it be to find a woman he doesn't want to sleep with?' Beth decided that it was probably a good idea to keep her mouth shut and not say anything. If nothing else, Colonel Sheppard wrote her appraisal reports.
A moment later, she was glad she'd kept quiet as she and Vendross turned the corner and nearly walked into Colonel Sheppard, his team, and Amelia Banks coming the other way.
"So, Doctor," the Colonel said. "How are our negotiations going?"
Once Teyla had reassured him that he was no longer on the bill of goods being traded, the Colonel had been a little less tense about the situation, although no less touchy.
Vendross looked at Beth who shrugged. The other woman had done all the talking - all Beth had done was to provide lists of what they had to trade.
"Not as well as we'd hoped, Colonel. They're reluctant to accept our offer."
Behind Sheppard, Ronon smirked at Amelia who betrayed only a moment's amusement before the calm, cool expression was back in place. Dr. McKay huffed. "What? What's wrong with what we're offering? We're only asking for five things - how can they not accept?"
"My best guess is that they are...piqued by Colonel Sheppard's refusal to co-operate with their initial plans, and are playing hard to get," said Vendross, matter-of-factly.
"Look, I'm not gonna..." Sheppard trailed off. "There's gotta be something else that they'll accept." He glanced at Beth. "We don't have anything they really want?"
Other than you... "No, sir," Beth said, keeping her face straight, although she really did want to giggle. "I could go back and contact Atlantis - Maddock was going through one of the Helkatta villages and their technology level is a little above the Murakati, so they might have things that the Murakati can use..."
Sheppard grimaced slightly. "Well, see if Vega's found anything out about these people and sort it out with her."
It was a struggle to hide her grin, but Beth managed it. Beneath the easy tones, the Colonel sounded just a little stressed - which she could understand. He'd gained a certain amount of interest from the local women due to his gene - nothing new, really, since gaining interest from the locals was par for the course among the Stargating teams - or any newcomers walking into a village in Pegasus. Still, it had to be unnerving - just a little.
"Speaking of the Captain," said Vendross with a frown, "where is she?"
"Last I saw, she and several of the villagers were headed up the track towards the field," Teyla offered. "I believe they were showing her the valley."
--
Teyla found Captain Vega chatting easily with one of the Murakati women on a verge overlooking one of the planting fields. She left John talking to the children who'd followed them out from the village, and hiked up the verge, squinting into the afternoon sun as she did so.
The conversation that reached her ear was one of farming - a topic on which Teyla would have said the Lanteans were vastly unqualified. However, from the sound of it, Alicia was more knowledgeable than most.
"Most animal and plant farming on Earth takes place on a very large scale," Alicia was saying as they looked over the field. "For huge cities of millions of people. It's very different to this. You've got everything growing in the one place. A multiculture, not a monoculture. It's not half as pretty - or nutritious either, I guess."
"But this is how one grows food," said the Murakati woman, slightly surprised. "We would not like to eat manaki every day, after all. And interbreeding provides new blood and new possibilities - which we need very much at this stage." Her eyes twinkled as Teyla came to stand beside her. "Hence our interest in your Colonel Sheppard. Teyla Emmagan of the Athosians."
"Limar, Captain Vega." Teyla nodded at them both. "How goes the afternoon?"
"In whiles and stages. Easier, now that Alicia is here to tell me about her planet," Limar said with a glowing smile and a twinkle in her eye. "And even better since you have brought your Colonel Sheppard here."
Teyla smiled, trusting that Limar was joking. It was well-known that John was unwilling to provide the Murakati with the gene they required, and the Murakati mostly took it well. Perhaps they would not have bargained so hard had John been willing to sire children on the Murakati, but Teyla knew the Lanteans well and John even better. He might 'play the field' as the Lantean saying goes, but he would never sire a child without due consideration for how he would be involved in it.
In that, she supposed, he was more prepared for parenthood than she ever was when she discovered herself pregnant with Torran.
"How are the negotiations going?" Alicia asked, curiously. "Have they sorted out the exchange for the devices yet?"
"Not yet. Our offerings are not considered sufficient recompense for what we would like to take."
"And Colonel Sheppard is still unwilling," said Limar, glancing down the hill to where the Colonel was crouching down to look at one of the children's dirt-directions. "A pity. They would give much more for the siring of a child."
"Their ways are not yours." Nor were they Teyla's ways, but after four years, she understood the Lanteans very well. The phrase, however, was a common one in Pegasus, to indicate difference and the respecting of it. "An agreement will be reached sooner or later."
"If nothing else, we can take one of the devices off the bargaining list," Alicia suggested.
"And you will be the one to explain this to Dr. McKay?" Teyla asked, more out of mischief than any intent to deter the idea.
"Um, no."
John scrambled up the bluff, putting up a hand for Teyla to balance him in the last few precarious steps. "Captain, ma'am."
"Sir."
"Colonel Sheppard." Limar smiled. "I hear that the negotiations are unsatisfactory."
"Yeah, well, they're working on it." John smiled back, although Teyla could tell he was still uncomfortable by the idea of having to 'play stud' as Sergeant Reynolds had put it. "I'm sure they'll come up with something."
"I understand your alliance is formidable," said Limar. "Alicia indicates that you have negotiated many trade alliances, as well as resistance against the Wraith."
"Yeah, we're doing okay."
Limar gave a small, astonished laugh. "You remain in the face of the Wraith. As Teyla well knows, that is more than 'doing okay.'"
Teyla smiled and shrugged a little at John's querying look at her. She had presumed that Atlantis knew its efforts were appreciated, although, given how John undervalued himself, perhaps it could do with a little more saying. "They consider modesty a virtue."
"Modesty has its place, but life is too short to wait for another to sing your competence."
"Rivers rarely cut brand new courses," Teyla replied with a faint smile.
"Or, as we say, 'Old habits die hard,'" said John, coming into the conversation. "We've had this discussion before," he reminded Teyla.
In the end, while the Lantean cultural intransigence had frustrated Teyla more than once, she made allowance for the fact that they had not known trouble and turmoil as Pegasus had done. What technological advantage they had gained had been bought at the cost of a flexibility of mind: the adoption of new ways and the discarding of unhelpful traditions, even the acceptance of ways of life that worked for others.
"And will have it many times more, I am sure."
"Until the cows come home." John turned his head. "Speaking of which, the kids said that they think some of your herders haven't been keeping a proper eye out - they saw one of them up in the hills..."
In the corner of her eye, Teyla saw Alicia start, and turned to see her mouth shape an 'oh' of sudden realisation. "Alicia?"
Her query caught the attention of both John and Limar.
"Captain?" John eyed her, frowning a little. "What's up?"
"Cows," Alicia said. Then, when the others stared at her in bewilderment, she added, "We have cows, sir!"
--
They weren't Earth cows, Amelia reminded herself for the umpteenth time. But it still took her aback a little to see the little horns in the middle of the beasts' wide foreheads. Unicorns did exist in the Pegasus galaxy, although they were bovine rather than equine and neither magical nor sparkly.
"Do you ever have moments where you think you're in a TV show?" Sergeant Reynolds inquired of Amelia as they watched the herd of cows clamber out of the wormhole and stumble their way down the impromptu ramp set up to help them down the stairs.
Amelia stared for a moment, then grinned. "I'm no Inara."
"And I'm no Mal," responded the Sergeant with a grin, "surname or not."
"I still can't quite believe we had thirty-three cows just waiting around for delivery to some needy village?"
Reynolds waved a hand over the backs of the herd like she was some blonde bimbo assistant displaying a Fendi handbag on a game show, and not a sturdy woman in boots and bottle-green fatigues watching cows go by. "As you see. It's a good thing the Murakati were looking for new blood for their herds - we were wondering what we were going to do with it."
Amelia could imagine.
It was one thing to intellectually know that your milk and meat came from something that clumped and moo-ed and generally stunk and made a hell of a lot of mess, it was quite another to be faced with the prospect of a herd of thirty-three trooping past you in all their very live and very odorous glory.
"How'd we get the cows in the first place?"
Reynolds glanced over at the group standing down by the DHD, comprised of Colonel Sheppard, Teyla, Dr. Vendross, and Eslin the bargainer. She lowered her voice. "It was a dowry payment."
"A dowry--" Then Amelia remembered. "Jimmy Horwood?"
"That's the guy!"
The news had been all around the city for days. Sergeant Horwood, twenty-seven, unmarried, had gone to a local celebration and unwisely drank a little too deeply. As frequently happened on Earth, he woke up in a bed he didn't know, next to a girl he didn't remember sleeping with. Of course, when this kind of thing happened off-world, it was always a little more complicated than stumbling out of the room the next morning with an apology for the previous night.
"I thought he ditched the girl," Amelia murmured, trying to remember what had happened. "Or she ditched him."
"Heh, yes. Not quite the fastest marriage in history, but close. It turned out that she really just wanted to get away from her people. But by then, her father had paid the dowry, and since Horwood was being gentlemanly and not giving the game up..."
"Atlantis gained a herd of cows."
"Useful."
"In this instance, yes. Although I thought the Chief was going to lose it when he realised we'd have to trade someone to manage the herd. Atlantis isn't exactly cattle country."
Amelia grinned at the thought of a herd of cows wandering through the corridors of the city. Then she indicated the group of people coming just outside the path, carefully avoiding the steady stream of cows that were being herded to the village by Murakati adolescents: Captain Vega, Ronon, and a very annoyed-looking Dr. McKay. "Looks like we're about to get out of here."
"About time," said Reynolds with a sigh. "We've been here most of the day - and I was hoping to get back before Tim and the others got back with the stash."
"You really enjoy your job, don't you?"
The other woman shrugged broad shoulders. "See new places, meet new faces, play with shiny toys, and dust off and clean up the old and rusty toys...what's not to love? Especially when it comes down to the bargaining - I love a good bargain."
"And this is a good bargain?"
"They get their cows, we get them off our hands, and Colonel Sheppard doesn't have to play stud."
"Could I write that in my mission report?" Amelia wondered. Mr. Woolsey was a bit of a stickler for the paperwork, while both Colonel Carter and Dr. Weir had been willing to let things slide since Atlantis faced imminent death as often as they did.
"Not if I write it up first."
"You know, the Colonel actually having to sire a child... It would have made the mission report interesting," Amelia remarked as the last of the cattle clattered past them and the wormhole closed behind. "On Earth as well as in Woolsey's office."
"We came, we saw, and Colonel Sheppard came, too?" Reynolds suggested as they walked down the stairs.
They giggled all the way back to Atlantis.
- fin -
Author: tielan
Recipient: tanaquisga
Characters: team, Alicia Vega, Amelia Banks, 2 OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Wait, you're telling me that we're here to negotiate Colonel Sheppard's stud fees?"
Of Colonels and Cattle
As she always did when she came off-world, Amelia took a deep breath of the air - dirt and grass and a spicy floral scent. In Atlantis, the air was always bitter brine, the endless salt of the sea in her nose. Just one more reason she enjoyed travelling out into Pegasus.
The view was pretty, too.
The sky was more violet than blue - sign of a thicker atmosphere to that of Earth. Beneath it, on the horizon, a pine forest spread out across a snow-tipped mountain range. The contrast was impressive, since the plain on which the Stargate stood was richly green and thicky covered in what looked very much like poppies as far as the eye could see - a carpet of scarlet from close beside the road all the way out to the foot of the hills.
"Ho-ly shit," murmured Sergeant Reynolds. "That's a lotta opium."
"You're assuming they're Earth poppies," said Amelia, squinting slightly at the brightness of the sun off the hills.
"Good point," said Reynolds, unabashed. "Two four-month stints in Afghanistan will do that to you."
"Somehow," murmured Captain Vega, "I don't think we're here to deal with the local druglords." She indicated the woman who was waiting by the FRED, her wrists resting on the butt of her P-90 as casually as any soldier.
Teyla Emmagan looked very calm for a woman who'd called for a team to assist in diplomatic negotiations, and been very specific about who was to be sent. She also looked very solitary for a member of Colonel Sheppard's team.
"Why would she ask specifically for us?" Dr. Vendross asked, frowning.
"I think we're about to find out," said Amelia as Captain Vega strode down the steps towards the Athosian woman.
The call had come through to Atlantis from Teyla after her team had gone to check out a planet which one of the scientists had found marked down in what equated to an Ancient's personal notebook. According to the notebooks, the people there had been a personal interest of this particular Ancient and she'd taught them 'many things' before she left for Earth.
Various scientists and specialists had argued exactly what 'many things' entailed, up until the point when Mr. Woolsey - clearly tired of the endless debate - authorised Colonel Sheppard's team to a recon and report mission.
As they came down the stairs, Reynolds murmured, "Since her team-mates aren't in sight, I'm guessing that the recon and report didn't go well."
"I'm not sure," said Amelia, looking at Teyla as the Athosian woman stood and approached Captain Vega.
In the last couple of months, she'd started getting to know Teyla quite well, not only through the stretching classes that Teyla held for the women of the expedition, but also through the sparring lessons given for the more advanced students, most of them women in the Atlantis military, and a couple of the more active scientists.
Amelia had noticed that Athosian body language wasn't like Earth body language, or even Satedan body language. She'd seen it in Teyla, even before Kanaan of Athos came to live in the city - the carefully-held posture that rarely relaxed. Ronon was easy and casual with most of the people in the expedition, his tension reserved for strangers and threats, but Teyla was only ever completely easy in the presence of her team-mates, or when she thought herself quite alone.
Right now, Teyla wasn't entirely relaxed, but she didn't seem unduly tense either, so Amelia didn't think the guys were in trouble.
Still, Amelia was very definitely curious as to what had caused the present situation. SOP was that team members were supposed to move around off-world in pairs. Of course, this being the Atlantis expedition, SOP often went out the window.
"Captain Vega." Teyla stood as the group approached, lightly dusting herself off.
"Teyla. I'm guessing the fact that the Colonel isn't with you means there's a long story behind this?"
The wide mouth twitched. "Perhaps more of a medium-sized story. But, yes, there is a story behind it. And they are not in trouble."
"Yet," Amelia murmured, making Reynolds snort and tilting up the corners of Teyla's mouth.
"Well, it looks like it's a bit of a walk to the village," said Vega with a faint sigh, "You can tell us on the way."
--
Alicia Vega had been more than a little surprised when she was told that Teyla had asked for her by name. Usually, when a team got into trouble, they asked for the guys.
Teyla's request had been very specific.
Maybe that was why Mr. Woolsey hadn't been too concerned that it was Teyla calling the request through and not Colonel Sheppard. If they only needed women then the situation couldn't be that bad, could it?
Yes, Alicia had a chip on her shoulder - with good reason. She didn't know of a woman in the armed forces that didn't.
"So," said Reynolds cheerfully, "what'd Doc McKay do this time?"
Reynolds would not have been Alicia's choice of team-mate. She came from the Atlantis Quartermaster's department - one of nearly a dozen women and men whose department nickname was 'Scroungers 'R Us' and not one of whom came with volume control.
Teyla glanced back at Reynolds with a slight smile on her face. "It is less a question what was done as what the Murakati discovered some months ago - a cache of devices made by the Ancestors. When we arrived, Dr. McKay determined that the cache was present, and Colonel Sheppard's presence activated the devices."
"I can hear the 'uh-oh' coming," muttered Amelia Banks behind them, and Alicia turned and gave her a quick, frowning glance. Amelia wasn't even on the list of outgoing Stargate personnel; she was one of the control room techs. Not bad for a tech, but, again, not someone Alicia would have chosen for this mission if she'd had the chance.
"The 'uh-oh' is not so bad," Teyla explained. "It is merely that the Murakati are desirous of acquiring the gift of the Ancestors for their people."
The words were straightforwards enough, but there was an undercurrent in her words that implied something Alicia wasn't quite getting.
"They want the ATA gene injections?" Dr. Vendross ventured, speaking up for only the second time since they'd exited the gate. Unlike any of the rest of them, Vendross wasn't even military - she was an 'intercultural specialists' - not quite a xeno, not quite an anthro, not quite a diplomat.
"What've they got to trade?" Sergeant Reynolds sounded interested now; no surprise since this was her specialty area.
Teyla shook her head. "You misunderstand," she said. "They learned of the gene injections through Dr. McKay; but their perspective is that the injections will service only one generation of their people, and they seek something...longer term."
Longer term? The ATA injections lasted for a lifetime. What was longer than that? "I don't understand," Alicia said after glancing around at the others and seeing the same blank incomprehension on their expressions.
"They would like to pass the gene on through their generations," Teyla said.
Banks suddenly laughed. "Oh, my God. Do they want to hire him by the hour, or by the...uh...service?"
Behind Alicia, Reynolds gave an earthy guffaw as Vendross giggled. Realisation dawned and her jaw dropped. "Wait, you're telling me that we're here to negotiate Colonel Sheppard's stud fees?"
Teyla's eyes danced, but her expression was only lightly amused. "Not exactly."
The thing was, the Murakati had Ancient devices - a lot of them, some in pristine working condition. And the Murakati had indicated a willingness to trade for them. Teyla had figured that, rather than taking Colonel Sheppard's stud fees off the table from the get-go, she'd call for a team with some knowledge that could be useful in the negotiations and then get the Colonel taken off the List Of Things They Really Want.
"And you got all this past Sheppard?" Alicia asked as they reached the hill over which, Teyla informed them, the village was situated.
"The matter of the bargaining was referred to me," Teyla said simply. "Murakati bargaining and trading is performed through the distaff line - and as the only woman travelling with the Colonel, it was presumed that I took responsibility for him."
"Poor you," Reynolds said cheerfully.
"Sergeant," said Alicia in a quick warning.
"Sorry, ma'am."
"Actually, Sergeant," Teyla said, "I thought you and Dr. Vendross could work together to determine what we have that the Murakati desire and might exchange in return for the use or study of their devices."
Reynolds feigned disappointment. "Oh, and here I thought this might be a nice day out."
"A nice day out...with a little bit of bargaining," said Banks.
"I asked for Amelia because she has experience in some of the Ancient technologies found around Atlantis," Teyla said. "I thought you might have an idea of what can be used and what cannot."
Banks' expression sobered. "One of the lab scientists might have been better..."
"But more difficult to persuade out on short notice," Teyla said. "And the Murakati are more likely to allow a woman to look at the devices than a man."
"I bet McKay's fuming about that," Reynolds murmured.
"Only a little."
"And I'm the figurehead for the all-female team," Alicia concluded. She felt a little frustrated that that was all she was reduced to. She knew weaponry and warfare for most situations - and the ones that she didn't know, she could work out - but she usually managed to end up as the baby sitter while the men got the plum assignments. It was that much worse to be specifically called for by a woman and still get relegated to the role of baby-sitter.
"Yes, and no," Teyla said after a moment. "Your task is...a little more complicated than that."
"And that would be?"
"You will be pumping the Murakati leader for information."
"In as non-pumping a manner as I can manage, I suppose?" Alicia remarked dryly.
"Which is why the task is complicated."
--
Gayle Vendross had worked in the Pegasus galaxy since the Atlantis expedition first arrived in the city, and had worked with the diplomatic teams of Stargate Command long before that.
For the most part, the job wasn't too taxing. People were people, no matter where you went. Their primary interest was almost never in ideals or ideology, but in the much simpler business of life, survival, and familiarity.
It wasn't the first time a culture had taken an interest in the breeding possibilities of Earth personnel. In societies where the population was regularly depleted, whether the Goa'uld took the best and brightest of the people, or the Wraith culled the peoples of Pegasus, new blood was highly-prized. At least in Pegasus, the cultures were accustomed to using the Stargate, and new cultures were often no more than a quick wormhole trip away.
Still, there were certain traits that were perceived as advantageous to breed in a Pegasus population - and Colonel Sheppard's Ancient gene was at the top of several lists.
"If Colonel Sheppard isn't amenable to fathering a child, then we're not going to force him," she explained to the Murakati bargainer, Eslin.
"And he's not," Sheppard added.
Gayle hid a smile and saw Teyla doing the same. Amelia Banks and McKay were off looking at the tech, and Ronon had offered to join them - probably as much to watch Banks as to keep an eye on McKay.
"Oh, we would not think of forcing him," said Eslin, somewhat anxiously. "But if he is willing..."
"He's not."
"I believe we have ascertained that already, John," said Teyla with a faint smile. "Perhaps if you permit Dr. Vendross to discuss the alternatives?"
Sheppard exhaled. "I'm going outside. Teyla?"
Teyla glanced at Gayle, who nodded. She wasn't entirely comfortable with Teyla leaving, but there was nothing she could identify that would be gained from keeping her here. And it was a little awkward to have Sheppard standing around while they tried to find something on the bargaining table that the Murakati would accept in his stead.
"It is difficult to discuss these things with a man in the room," Eslin said as the curtain fell behind Sheppard and Teyla.
Personally, Gayle thought it was difficult to discuss these things when one of the bargaining chips on the table was a man's abilities at stud and the man in question was still in the room. She'd delicately suggested that the Colonel might prefer to be somewhere else at the start, but he'd planted his feet and refused to move.
"You must understand," said Gayle, "our people hold sex and reproduction to be the choice of the individual rather than the group."
Eslin shrugged. "Surely your people have those whose abilities are too important to lose?"
It was a common thread among the Pegasus peoples - those with particular gifts and abilities were required to reproduce. It wasn't exactly a social pressure to do so, but there was an unspoken expectation that the desirable traits would be passed on, a more explicit Darwinism that bordered on eugenics.
When Gayle thought about it, she was surprised that Teyla hadn't gotten pregnant sooner. With her gifts, the pressure to reproduce would have been considerable.
"The abilities cherished among our people have not been proven to be passed from parent to child," said Gayle.
"And yet Colonel Sheppard's abilities are surely of sufficient import to warrant the siring of children?"
"Not among our people," said Gayle firmly, thinking of the furore that would result at the merest suggestion that an individual had a responsibility to procreate. "As we've noted, Colonel Sheppard's...willingness to accede to your request is up to him. We cannot promise anything from him."
Eslin's disappointment was palpable, but she seemed philosophical about it rather than angry. A good start in the negotiations process.
"All right," said Reynolds, laying her tablet down on the table and beginning to scroll through the Atlantis inventory options. "We've got a lot of inventory available right now, so you'll get your pick of what we can release as well as what the Athosians are willing to trade through us."
Gayle leaned forward, mirroring Eslin's pose as they got down to the tin tacks of trade negotiations.
--
When she was first assigned to the Atlantis expedition, shortly after the city made contact with Earth, Beth Reynolds figured she'd do her two-year TOD in Atlantis, take the hazard pay, and get the hell out of dodge.
Somewhere along the way, she learned that the term 'adrenaline junkie' didn't only apply to other people.
Sure, Atlantis was a solitary outpost in the middle of another galaxy full of life-sucking space vampires, but as assignments went, it beat Afghanistan, Antarctica, and East Timor hands down for interesting things to scrounge.
And scrounging things was what Beth loved to do.
She left the bargaining up to others - Dr. Vendross seemed to know what she was talking about, and Teyla certainly did when she came back in the room sans Colonel Sheppard. Between them, they hammered out a perfectly good arrangement with the Murakati.
"So, in exchange for the devices Dr. McKay identified, we're willing to offer you twenty sacks of tava seed, the dam system specifications along with consultation from one of our engineers for its implementation, ten boxes of pins, and four of needles, two compasses, two ploughshares, two injections of the ATA gene, and enough innoculations for the winter fever to cover your children up to age five, along with someone to show you how to produce the serum in future. "
Beth thought it was a perfectly good bargain. But the Murakati considered it, and shook their heads.
"It is not enough."
"We can't offer you Colonel Sheppard's services," Vendross said. "He's not willing to offer them and we can't do more than ask him."
"That is understood," said Eslin. "However, this is still not sufficient recompense for what you ask us to give up. You want these devices that have been kept among us for generations upon generations - a legacy left to us by Pasaphi when she departed this existence."
"But you yourself admitted they have no use to your people!"
"Yet they might be of use to us in the future once we learn what they do, once we have the ability to use them. If not through Colonel Sheppard, then through the exchange of this...activator that you have offered us in his stead." Eslin was resolute. "I would be doing my people a disservice to trade our future so cheaply."
As they 'broke for discussion' and walked out of the negotiations room and into the street, Beth snorted. "If that's cheaply, I hate to think of what 'expensive' is."
Vendross' mouth pursed. "Expensive would be persuading the Colonel he's got to stud for a woman he doesn't want to sleep with."
Tempted to say 'He's a guy. How hard can it be to find a woman he doesn't want to sleep with?' Beth decided that it was probably a good idea to keep her mouth shut and not say anything. If nothing else, Colonel Sheppard wrote her appraisal reports.
A moment later, she was glad she'd kept quiet as she and Vendross turned the corner and nearly walked into Colonel Sheppard, his team, and Amelia Banks coming the other way.
"So, Doctor," the Colonel said. "How are our negotiations going?"
Once Teyla had reassured him that he was no longer on the bill of goods being traded, the Colonel had been a little less tense about the situation, although no less touchy.
Vendross looked at Beth who shrugged. The other woman had done all the talking - all Beth had done was to provide lists of what they had to trade.
"Not as well as we'd hoped, Colonel. They're reluctant to accept our offer."
Behind Sheppard, Ronon smirked at Amelia who betrayed only a moment's amusement before the calm, cool expression was back in place. Dr. McKay huffed. "What? What's wrong with what we're offering? We're only asking for five things - how can they not accept?"
"My best guess is that they are...piqued by Colonel Sheppard's refusal to co-operate with their initial plans, and are playing hard to get," said Vendross, matter-of-factly.
"Look, I'm not gonna..." Sheppard trailed off. "There's gotta be something else that they'll accept." He glanced at Beth. "We don't have anything they really want?"
Other than you... "No, sir," Beth said, keeping her face straight, although she really did want to giggle. "I could go back and contact Atlantis - Maddock was going through one of the Helkatta villages and their technology level is a little above the Murakati, so they might have things that the Murakati can use..."
Sheppard grimaced slightly. "Well, see if Vega's found anything out about these people and sort it out with her."
It was a struggle to hide her grin, but Beth managed it. Beneath the easy tones, the Colonel sounded just a little stressed - which she could understand. He'd gained a certain amount of interest from the local women due to his gene - nothing new, really, since gaining interest from the locals was par for the course among the Stargating teams - or any newcomers walking into a village in Pegasus. Still, it had to be unnerving - just a little.
"Speaking of the Captain," said Vendross with a frown, "where is she?"
"Last I saw, she and several of the villagers were headed up the track towards the field," Teyla offered. "I believe they were showing her the valley."
--
Teyla found Captain Vega chatting easily with one of the Murakati women on a verge overlooking one of the planting fields. She left John talking to the children who'd followed them out from the village, and hiked up the verge, squinting into the afternoon sun as she did so.
The conversation that reached her ear was one of farming - a topic on which Teyla would have said the Lanteans were vastly unqualified. However, from the sound of it, Alicia was more knowledgeable than most.
"Most animal and plant farming on Earth takes place on a very large scale," Alicia was saying as they looked over the field. "For huge cities of millions of people. It's very different to this. You've got everything growing in the one place. A multiculture, not a monoculture. It's not half as pretty - or nutritious either, I guess."
"But this is how one grows food," said the Murakati woman, slightly surprised. "We would not like to eat manaki every day, after all. And interbreeding provides new blood and new possibilities - which we need very much at this stage." Her eyes twinkled as Teyla came to stand beside her. "Hence our interest in your Colonel Sheppard. Teyla Emmagan of the Athosians."
"Limar, Captain Vega." Teyla nodded at them both. "How goes the afternoon?"
"In whiles and stages. Easier, now that Alicia is here to tell me about her planet," Limar said with a glowing smile and a twinkle in her eye. "And even better since you have brought your Colonel Sheppard here."
Teyla smiled, trusting that Limar was joking. It was well-known that John was unwilling to provide the Murakati with the gene they required, and the Murakati mostly took it well. Perhaps they would not have bargained so hard had John been willing to sire children on the Murakati, but Teyla knew the Lanteans well and John even better. He might 'play the field' as the Lantean saying goes, but he would never sire a child without due consideration for how he would be involved in it.
In that, she supposed, he was more prepared for parenthood than she ever was when she discovered herself pregnant with Torran.
"How are the negotiations going?" Alicia asked, curiously. "Have they sorted out the exchange for the devices yet?"
"Not yet. Our offerings are not considered sufficient recompense for what we would like to take."
"And Colonel Sheppard is still unwilling," said Limar, glancing down the hill to where the Colonel was crouching down to look at one of the children's dirt-directions. "A pity. They would give much more for the siring of a child."
"Their ways are not yours." Nor were they Teyla's ways, but after four years, she understood the Lanteans very well. The phrase, however, was a common one in Pegasus, to indicate difference and the respecting of it. "An agreement will be reached sooner or later."
"If nothing else, we can take one of the devices off the bargaining list," Alicia suggested.
"And you will be the one to explain this to Dr. McKay?" Teyla asked, more out of mischief than any intent to deter the idea.
"Um, no."
John scrambled up the bluff, putting up a hand for Teyla to balance him in the last few precarious steps. "Captain, ma'am."
"Sir."
"Colonel Sheppard." Limar smiled. "I hear that the negotiations are unsatisfactory."
"Yeah, well, they're working on it." John smiled back, although Teyla could tell he was still uncomfortable by the idea of having to 'play stud' as Sergeant Reynolds had put it. "I'm sure they'll come up with something."
"I understand your alliance is formidable," said Limar. "Alicia indicates that you have negotiated many trade alliances, as well as resistance against the Wraith."
"Yeah, we're doing okay."
Limar gave a small, astonished laugh. "You remain in the face of the Wraith. As Teyla well knows, that is more than 'doing okay.'"
Teyla smiled and shrugged a little at John's querying look at her. She had presumed that Atlantis knew its efforts were appreciated, although, given how John undervalued himself, perhaps it could do with a little more saying. "They consider modesty a virtue."
"Modesty has its place, but life is too short to wait for another to sing your competence."
"Rivers rarely cut brand new courses," Teyla replied with a faint smile.
"Or, as we say, 'Old habits die hard,'" said John, coming into the conversation. "We've had this discussion before," he reminded Teyla.
In the end, while the Lantean cultural intransigence had frustrated Teyla more than once, she made allowance for the fact that they had not known trouble and turmoil as Pegasus had done. What technological advantage they had gained had been bought at the cost of a flexibility of mind: the adoption of new ways and the discarding of unhelpful traditions, even the acceptance of ways of life that worked for others.
"And will have it many times more, I am sure."
"Until the cows come home." John turned his head. "Speaking of which, the kids said that they think some of your herders haven't been keeping a proper eye out - they saw one of them up in the hills..."
In the corner of her eye, Teyla saw Alicia start, and turned to see her mouth shape an 'oh' of sudden realisation. "Alicia?"
Her query caught the attention of both John and Limar.
"Captain?" John eyed her, frowning a little. "What's up?"
"Cows," Alicia said. Then, when the others stared at her in bewilderment, she added, "We have cows, sir!"
--
They weren't Earth cows, Amelia reminded herself for the umpteenth time. But it still took her aback a little to see the little horns in the middle of the beasts' wide foreheads. Unicorns did exist in the Pegasus galaxy, although they were bovine rather than equine and neither magical nor sparkly.
"Do you ever have moments where you think you're in a TV show?" Sergeant Reynolds inquired of Amelia as they watched the herd of cows clamber out of the wormhole and stumble their way down the impromptu ramp set up to help them down the stairs.
Amelia stared for a moment, then grinned. "I'm no Inara."
"And I'm no Mal," responded the Sergeant with a grin, "surname or not."
"I still can't quite believe we had thirty-three cows just waiting around for delivery to some needy village?"
Reynolds waved a hand over the backs of the herd like she was some blonde bimbo assistant displaying a Fendi handbag on a game show, and not a sturdy woman in boots and bottle-green fatigues watching cows go by. "As you see. It's a good thing the Murakati were looking for new blood for their herds - we were wondering what we were going to do with it."
Amelia could imagine.
It was one thing to intellectually know that your milk and meat came from something that clumped and moo-ed and generally stunk and made a hell of a lot of mess, it was quite another to be faced with the prospect of a herd of thirty-three trooping past you in all their very live and very odorous glory.
"How'd we get the cows in the first place?"
Reynolds glanced over at the group standing down by the DHD, comprised of Colonel Sheppard, Teyla, Dr. Vendross, and Eslin the bargainer. She lowered her voice. "It was a dowry payment."
"A dowry--" Then Amelia remembered. "Jimmy Horwood?"
"That's the guy!"
The news had been all around the city for days. Sergeant Horwood, twenty-seven, unmarried, had gone to a local celebration and unwisely drank a little too deeply. As frequently happened on Earth, he woke up in a bed he didn't know, next to a girl he didn't remember sleeping with. Of course, when this kind of thing happened off-world, it was always a little more complicated than stumbling out of the room the next morning with an apology for the previous night.
"I thought he ditched the girl," Amelia murmured, trying to remember what had happened. "Or she ditched him."
"Heh, yes. Not quite the fastest marriage in history, but close. It turned out that she really just wanted to get away from her people. But by then, her father had paid the dowry, and since Horwood was being gentlemanly and not giving the game up..."
"Atlantis gained a herd of cows."
"Useful."
"In this instance, yes. Although I thought the Chief was going to lose it when he realised we'd have to trade someone to manage the herd. Atlantis isn't exactly cattle country."
Amelia grinned at the thought of a herd of cows wandering through the corridors of the city. Then she indicated the group of people coming just outside the path, carefully avoiding the steady stream of cows that were being herded to the village by Murakati adolescents: Captain Vega, Ronon, and a very annoyed-looking Dr. McKay. "Looks like we're about to get out of here."
"About time," said Reynolds with a sigh. "We've been here most of the day - and I was hoping to get back before Tim and the others got back with the stash."
"You really enjoy your job, don't you?"
The other woman shrugged broad shoulders. "See new places, meet new faces, play with shiny toys, and dust off and clean up the old and rusty toys...what's not to love? Especially when it comes down to the bargaining - I love a good bargain."
"And this is a good bargain?"
"They get their cows, we get them off our hands, and Colonel Sheppard doesn't have to play stud."
"Could I write that in my mission report?" Amelia wondered. Mr. Woolsey was a bit of a stickler for the paperwork, while both Colonel Carter and Dr. Weir had been willing to let things slide since Atlantis faced imminent death as often as they did.
"Not if I write it up first."
"You know, the Colonel actually having to sire a child... It would have made the mission report interesting," Amelia remarked as the last of the cattle clattered past them and the wormhole closed behind. "On Earth as well as in Woolsey's office."
"We came, we saw, and Colonel Sheppard came, too?" Reynolds suggested as they walked down the stairs.
They giggled all the way back to Atlantis.
- fin -