Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author's Notes:
This is one of the fictions in the Other Voices series.
Acknowledgements:
Best thanks to Sho.
780-653BT – The Renaissance
In previous ages, power was held by a hereditary warrior-aristocracy and an autocratic priesthood, but this was a time of transition. The priests adopted the new learning; the warriors did not. In alliance with the emergent middle class of merchants and craftsmen, the priesthood overthrew the old aristocracy, replacing their rule with that of the Scholastic élite and forming the first professional armies to replace the military role of the old nobility. The élite ushered in an era of renaissance, in which science and learning blossomed, but only under the strict control of the Scholar-priests.
The Renaissance is now deemed to have ended in 653BT, with the first act of suppression – the Mandate of Universal Order and Harmony. This Élite mandate, formulated in response to a number of academic assaults on the prevailing system of government, outlawed the study of the political sciences as detrimental to good order.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
The myths of our people once spoke of a place to which the soul might go after the body died; an afterlife. These myths told of a blessed realm, a land of peace and joy; an idyllic land, without grief or suffering, where all worthy souls could enjoy an eternity of bliss. They gave this place a name: Paradise.
But the myths spoke also of a realm to which the souls of the unworthy would be condemned. These benighted shades passed to a place of eternal torment; a land of darkness and suffering where the soil burned the skin and the air burned the lungs; a land of poisonous waters and searing, acid rain. They gave this place a name as well, and they called it Hell.
Be good, they said. Live worthy lives, or you will be consigned to an eternity in Hell.
It was more than fifty years ago, when my father was but a child, that our people realised that if these myths had any truth to them, then surely we must already be dead, and we must have been found wanting.
For was the world in which we lived not Hell?
618BT – The Knights of Purity
The élite suffered many schisms, but few breakaway sects lasted much longer than a few hours. The Knights of Purity were one sect who did; with over a million followers, almost five hundred members of the Scholastic élite established themselves on the island of Artos and began to develop the eugenic doctrine of Artosianism. From this schism grew the divisions which ultimately led to the Terror.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
My name is Aedar Chela mac Farras, third child and only son of Farras Arbiter and Edira Intelligensia. I was born on the tenth day of Spring in a year without seasons; the year 18AT. I was born on a world made Hell by the actions of men and I dwell among the last of a dying people. It is my duty – ordained by skill and choice, not by birth – that I should keep some record of our people, in the hope that, should we perish, a trace of us will remain.
I, for my sins, am a remembrancer of Euronda.
608BT – The Crusade of Purity
Without warning, the Knights of Purity returned from Artos and seized power in a bloody coup. In a single night they established themselves in every major building in the capital and executed all members of the élite who would not fall into line with the Artosian creed.
The Knights moved the centre of government to their fortress on Artos and instituted their eugenic programmes across Euronda. Selective breeding was enforced and the Knights developed the system in which genetically specialised ethnic clusters are bred and trained exclusively to fill particular social roles. The new system encouraged promiscuity within one's own breeding group, but mating outside that group – even between those who were once married – or refusing an assigned pairing was a crime.
Many of the Knights claimed – with varying degrees of credibility – to be lineal descendents of the old aristocracy; the principles of Artosianism incorporated many unsustainable claims, based on arbitrary racial distinctions, intended largely to return power to the self-styled remnants of the aristocracy.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
The Great War ended in the year 53AT; fifty-three years, eight months, thirty-three days and eleven hours after it began. The alliance of the Clans had suffered since the Terror, but we never surrendered; we fought on until the end, if only because our hatred of the Purestrains outweighed our impulse to surrender to the inevitable. In the final years, however, it was clear that hatred was not enough. Our shelters were failing, our numbers were depleted; our stocks of uncontaminated water were dwindling fast; our filters and air scrubbers were reaching the limits of endurance and any food but enriched protein curds was a distant memory.
The people of the Clans could all see the final end of our future looming like a black cloud; like the poisonous gas of the Terror that blotted out the sun. After half a century of war, we were sick of it. Still the Purestrains' fortress pumped out its deadly fog in their attempt to annihilate us and so still we struggled on, out of sheer stubbornness. Our efforts were ploughed into forging weapons and training warriors, in our desperate efforts to overwhelm the superior resources of the Purestrains.
The fight was led by the five clans whose guardians still lived; the Decari, Makor, Insanto, Torles and the Chelan – my own clan. We were few, we were starving, and we fought only from ingrained habit, but we had no choice. In the final months, even the engineers and physicians – and the remebrancers – took up arms in the desperate final push. Even I flew in those last sorties, when we were sure that their shield must be close to the limits of its power. Some had begun to think that this was our chance to end the war before the Clans of the Alliance were all dead.
And then the unthinkable occurred: The shield returned, as strong and impregnable as it had been when the war began; the aerofighters flew in great waves and our weapons were as useless as our impotent hatred.
In one final effort, we threw everything we had left at that accursed fortress. We thought this was the end, but then something occurred; something as unexpected as the shield's return. The fighters turned on each other, the shield crumbled and the earth cracked beneath our fire. Our warriors could not believe their eyes; the people could not believe the reports; and I do not think that even the Guardians had any real idea what to do next.
582BT – The Act of Liberation.
With this act, monogamy and long-term pairings were abandoned. Short-term pairings were encouraged between parents who possessed desirable traits.
536BT – The Act of Probity.
The élite at last decided that informal pairings – long discouraged but accepted – produced too many 'unwanted' offspring and so passed this act, prohibiting mating beyond assigned pairings.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
We reeled for several days before the Makor, Chief Guardian of the Makor clan, brought us out of our daze. The gas was gone, but it had left our world scarred and broken. The air was still poisonous, the waters stinking and deadly. We knew of no way to reverse this effect, but the Makor was certain that the Purestrains must have created an antidote to their own hatred. If he were to survive, we must find that antidote and use it.
It seems odd that, even then, we hoped against hope for survival. The urge of life, the desire to keep going, was stronger than any of us could believe. We had long told ourselves that we fought only to deny the Purestrains their victory, that we had no hopes for ourselves, but if that were so – I realise only now – we would have stopped having children. Why would we have brought children into a hopeless life?
510-312BT – The 'Golden Age'.
In the time that the élite called the 'Golden Age', they developed their genetic clusters into a rigid system of castes. The élite themselves were formed of the two high castes, the Intelligensia – descendents of the Scholastic élite – and the Equestrians – those of the Knights who traced their descent to the old aristocracy and any who were in the élite were inducted into those castes, regardless of blood.
The middle class was formed of the Literati, Astartes and Venditiores – scribes, soldiers and merchants. The working class was made up of the Arbites, Factores and Agricores – enforcers, workers and farmers. The Arbites were always an oddity; low caste but influential and high-status.
The caste system was enforced by instituting the system of allocation. All infants were placed in the keeping of professional carers from birth to prevent parental influence from interfering with their genetic destiny. The social construct of the parent was formally abandoned.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
It was a year after the end of the war that I came to realise that hope had left me: My beloved Jela told me that she was with child and I felt no joy, only a deep sorrow for the luckless brat that we had made between us. I knew then that I had lost my desire to live. Perhaps it was our failure to find the antidote that sapped my will to continue, but in honesty I think it was the children. Their children.
312BT-54BT – The Age of Purges.
Attacks on the system became more and more widespread and organised. Even elements of the high castes began to push for the legalisation of emotional pairings, unrestricted mating as an expression of mutual affection and the raising of children by their birth parents.
These attacks broke into full-fledged revolt when a member of the Intelligensia bore a child by one of the Astartes and refused to surrender it. When she fled into the wilderness, the Arbites were ordered to pursue her and refused. The Equestrians ordered the Astartes to suppress the ensuing riots and hundreds were killed. Society was sundered.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
We should have known and perhaps on some level we always did. We knew that all of the Purestrains were trapped in their fortress, their bunker; we just did not want to think of it. Once, a man came to us, a defector from the fortress, he said. He told us that there was another bunker, housing the Purestrains' children, and tried to lure us into attacking that. It was a trap of course and I am proud to say that for all our hatred we did not take the bait.
54BT-10BT – The Collapse.
The system continued to break down. Outlying cities began to abandon the Artosian creed and several rival, meritocratic caste systems emerged. The élite became increasingly Draconian in enforcing their system. At last, the Artosian élite declared open war on the rebel 'Breeders'.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
Perhaps we wanted to believe that part of the defector's tale was true. If we believed that the fortress held only warriors, no innocents, it was easier for us to do what we had to do. But then we found that place; that chamber. Children, sealed in refrigerated tubes; hundreds of them. When the power died, so did they. There were galleries full of them; we had to dig through these layers of corpses if we were to find our salvation.
Our antidote.
0BT – The Terror
Talar Intelligensia initiated his 'final solution'. Gathering his élite to the fortress of Artos, he released a terrible poison into the atmosphere to destroy all of the hated Breeders.
He failed.
- from 'A History of the Old World', by Remembrancer Aedar Chela mac Farras.
We never did find that salvation, but we did find something utterly unexpected.
*
I had been working with the researchers in the fortress excavation for several months. I and two other remembrancers poured over every record that we found, every computer file we recovered, for something that we could use. I had found a lover in my work – Jela Decara na Derrel, a beautiful woman just a few years my junior – and I suppose that I should have been hopeful, but I was at rock bottom when the discovery was made.
In the early hours of the morning, I was wakened by the shrill squawk of my communicator and tersely informed that Commander Brath – the Guardian in charge of the project – wanted me in C-shelter as soon as possible. I was irked to be woken so early, not least because it meant leaving the side of the woman whose company gave me the few, fragmentary moments of joy that remained in my life. Brath is not a patient woman, however; she would also not ask if it was not important. Unlike the old, genetically-selected élite, the guardians are chosen to lead us, and chosen with good reasons.
I rose from Jela's side, therefore, and cleansed myself in the vapour chamber, then donned my robes and survival gear. C-shelter was not yet linked to the dormitory dome by umbilicus and so I would have to go outside to reach it. Venturing onto the surface is not my idea of fun. Simply leaving the security of our glasteel clan dome for the noise of one of the wind-ravaged temporary shelters is my usual limit.
Wrapped in three layers of protective polyweave, my head encased in a dome-helmet and breathing mask and with a resistive polymer poncho as added defence against the acid rain, I still felt vulnerable. Nevertheless, I steeled myself and stepped from the airlock into the poisonous atmosphere of the surface of Euronda.
My mother was of the Intelligensia, the high philosopher-élite of the old order. She was genetically pure, bred for thought and scholarship and by inclination a poet and storyteller. By giving her love, her body and her child to an Arbites – even if he was an investigator rather than an enforcer – she not only echoed the 'crime' which sparked the original Breeder riots, she also sealed her fate and became by her own will an outcast. She never looked back. While I was growing up, she would tell my sisters and I tales of the beauty of Euronda-that-was.
As I walked out that day, I could not imagine the scenes which she had described. I did not even know what 'green' was. The Euronda that my mother knew and loved was slain when her kin released their terrible gas. The only Euronda that I had ever known was a world of foul, noxious smogs and deadly rains. The only colour visible as I stepped out from the dormitory dome was in the orange streaks of corrosion which stained the polymer sheaths of the shelters and the sparkling glasteel of the clan domes in the distance.
The Terror broke my mother's heart once. The fact that her brothers and sisters loathed her choice of partner so desperately almost destroyed her; only my father's love brought her through. Twenty years later, my father died without ever seeing my twin sisters and my mother's heart was shattered again. The love of her children kept her going; my sisters and I.
Five years after my father's death, my eldest sister – Jarrow – was shot down over the fortress, her bomber crashing down in what had once been the Straits of Artos, before war and industry blocked the channel with effluent, wreckage and concrete. Jarrow was not even thirty years old; her death almost killed our mother and she demanded that each of her surviving children swear an oath to her that we would never take up arms. We swore those oaths, only for one of the handful of Purestrain offensives to claim the life of our youngest sister, Keda.
That was the death of my mother. On her deathbed, she freed the rest of us from our oaths. I never did become a soldier, although I did my share of fighting; Keda's twin, Kenda, became an officer, however, and big sister Brath...she was already a guardian and she became one of the leading lights of the final offensive and ultimately, my boss on the excavation.
Our final losses were terrible and I almost feel selfish to be so happy that my last two sisters survived unharmed.
As I walked across to C-shelter, it struck me that I was treading on the packed debris of the Straits. Somewhere in the barren wasteland around me lay the spray of wreckage which marked Jarrow's fall. Like all of those who died amid the corrosive rains of our Euronda, her body was never found and it never would be.
It was with a heavy heart that I passed through the airlock and the vapour chamber which led into C-shelter, the latest polymer dome to be raised over our excavations. Officer Kenda Chela na Farras – my little sister – waited for me inside. She has been Brath's aide-de-camp since she first became an officer. She is a model of efficiency, although the unspoken truth is that Brath mainly keeps her close so that she can watch over her; she still feels guilty for Keda's death.
"Why," I demanded, "is anyone working at this hour?"
Kenda smiled. "The research crew hit a deep shaft. It took us about five hours to rig a generator and activate the pumps and filters, but it looks as though there's a corridor running along, outside the fortress. We think it was a recent excavation."
"Why would the Purestrains have dug a tunnel out of the shield at that point in the war?"
"We don't know," Kenda replied. "But Brath is betting it must have been important. The air down there should be good now, so we're sending in a team. We want you to look over it; your understanding of Purestrain systems is second to none."
I shrugged. "Mama taught me some things," I allowed, "but what we really need is a technician."
"We don't need to make the systems work yet; just identify them."
"And besides, we don't have any Chelan techs on the project at the moment," I sighed. "Honestly, K; why did we fight this damned war if we were just going to start squabbling over heritage all over again?"
"It's not the same and you know it," Kenda chided me.
"On the contrary, it is and you know it."
"Come on, big brother," Kenda begged. "Let's not argue."
"Alright, little sister," I sighed, too weary to argue anything with anyone. If Kenda had told me the sky had cleared, I probably would have walked outside without my protective suit. I felt a desperate desire to hold her, but my cloak was still impregnated with the toxins from the rain. I shed my surface gear quickly, but the moment had passed.
"Alright," Kenda said. "Follow me."
We left the airlock area and headed into the honeycomb of chambers which had made up the interior of the shelter. Near the shelter, we came upon the shaft; maybe twenty or thirty feet, straight down. The shaft had been lined with polyweave against the acidity of the soil. We rappelled down and found ourselves in a cement-lined passageway.
The corridor had half-collapsed, but the debris had been cleared and the walls and ceiling shored-up with temporary props. With this reinforcement the passage seemed sound; clearly the area had escaped the worst of the bombing. There was a stark coldness to the tunnels, a sense which I always associated with the Purestrains; an unforgiving functionality.
The tunnel led to a larger chamber, in which I saw an astonishing sight. A great circle of grey stone, leaning against a wall. Between me and this circle of stone, there stood two low pedestals, one of them a Purestrain data terminal – in itself an incredibly valuable find – the other a completely alien device, like the ring.
Brath was also in the room and she turned towards us as we entered. "Good morning, Remembrancer," she said.
"Well it was, big sister," I replied. "Then I got dragged out of a nice, warm bed with a nice, warm woman in it, to look at shattered machinery."
"Oh, stop bellyaching," Brath told me.
"Why on Earth are you awake?"
Brath shrugged. "Some crazy notion about saving my people," she suggested.
"She had a fight with Jans," Kenda offered, although all three of us knew that it was neither. Brath and Jans did not have fights; their relationship was not that serious. Nor was she doing this for her people; not really. She did what she did, put in every hour the maker gave, denied herself any human contact intense enough to inspire any real conflict, for her family; for Kenda; for the twin of the sister she had not saved. Brath's absolute commitment to the cause stemmed directly from her guilt over Keda's death.
Regardless of her motives, Brath was one of the most revered warriors of the Alliance. That was why she had been given command of this project. I respected her more than anyone else in the world, but not because she was a great warrior. I respected her because she was my sister and I trusted her; I loved her.
"Come on, baby brother," Brath said. "We've got some work for you at last." Brath led the way over to the terminal. "We've got lucky here, Aedar. A fallen beam looks to have shielded the terminal and this strange pedestal. I need you to speed-read the logs and find out what went on here, even if you can't tap into the main research database and find our antidote."
"How did the ring survive?"
"No idea," Brath admitted. "Best guess is that it is simply too tough for a little falling debris. Nothing we have seems to scratch it. We hit it with a candrite drill bit to try and insert a probe; the drill shattered without leaving a mark. We'll get a tech on that in time though; your concern is the terminal."
I nodded and looked the thing over. My interest was piqued, if only a little. "It looks like they wired this terminal into that alien console. I don't think it's a data console," I admitted. "It looks more like a control unit."
"Well...see what you can get anyway," Brath told me, trying to conceal her disappointment. I might as well have told her that I'd given up; it would hardly have hurt her more than the feeling that she had failed us again.
"I'll need a technician," I said. "I'll call Jela."
"I'll send back to the Clan," Brath interrupted. "I'd rather keep this in the family."
"That kind of thinking is what got us into this state," I accused. "We share this or we don't do it at all."
"Aedar..."
"No, Brath. This is what I do; I remember so we don't repeat our past mistakes. Jela works with me on this, and we tell the other Clans. Promise me that, Brath." I met her steely glower and – for once in my life – I did not flinch.
"I promise," she said at last.
It frightens me just how quickly the Clans began to view each other as rivals once the Purestrains were out of the way. Brath's suspicions and secrecy were bad enough, but some of the other guardians – in our Clan and others – would never have allowed anyone from any other Clan to work on anything of importance. We remembrancers fought it – it was we who insisted on Brath as controller of the project – but our world could support so few; it was inevitable that everyone would try to save their own first.
I was drifting into melancholy thoughts of this kind when Jela arrived. I smiled to remember how she had once made me feel that our race had a chance and I mourned the loss of that hope. She looked sad and I realised that I had not hidden my feelings from her as well as I had believed.
"Good morning, Remembrancer," she said.
"Good morning, Technician," I replied, mirroring her formality.
Jela got to work at once, opening up the terminal to examine the crystals within. "This looks promising," she told me. It was a swift assessment, but Jela is one of the most gifted of her caste. The project was lucky to have her; most of the artisan castes were claimed by the vital work of maintaining and enhancing the air filters and water reclamation plants.
"Do you think our race is doomed?" she asked me, suddenly.
"Of course not," I lied.
She did not bother to humour me. "Aedar; if you believe that there is no hope, why did you ever lie with me?"
I did not know what to say. What could I tell her? That it was because I loved her so and because of the child growing inside her that I had lost all hope?
"Let us see what we can find," I suggested.
"I love you," she told me.
"I love you. I just...The thought that the blight all around us will claim you; that you and my sisters will be swallowed up by the hate that has poisoned this planet..."
Jela left off her examination and looked up at me with her beautiful, grey eyes. "I wish that you wouldn't talk that way. We're searching for a solution to our race's peril; what hope is there for the rest of them if we have no faith?"
"I'm sorry, Jela. I have tried; really I have."
"It's the strife between the Clans, isn't it?"
"Partly."
"I understand," she assured me," but remember one thing, darling."
"What?"
Jela stood up and kissed me. She took my hand and laid it flat against her stomach. "I am Decari; you are Chelan. Remember that."
I nodded.
"So; let's get to work."
It took some days for Jela to reactivate the Purestrain terminal. During that time we moved our bunks into the subterranean chamber. There was some concern when Jela grew ill, but Kenda soon realised why she was nauseous. Needless to say, Brath was concerned that I was to have a child with a Decari, but even she could not conceal her delight; I wish I could have shared in that mood of celebration, but I still felt hopeless.
Almost painfully slowly, the Purestrain console gave up its secrets. Fearful of destroying the already damaged machinery and so losing ist secrets forever, Jela resisted the urge to hurry and Brath's impatient exhortations. Much of the technology was like any other console in the stronghold, but connected it to the other device had clearly required many changes to the standard design.
"What is it, though?" Kenda wondered aloud at dinner on the third day. We had all asked ourselves the question, but to date it had never been discussed. I think that we all feared that the ring would give us no help in our current position and we did not speak of it to try and keep some hope alive.
I did not speak because I no longer cared what it was. I was sure that it would not be our salvation.
"I hope it is a reactor," Brath admitted. "With their stocks of deuterium oxide depleted, the Purestrains were obviously seeking an alternate power source. We know that they almost succeeded and if we could complete the work and power up the shield to cover our own people."
"Maybe," I agreed. "Something happened here in the last days of the war and I think that this must have been related to it somehow, but we do not know what. Perhaps this has something to do with the Purestrains turning on each other?"
"Whatever it is," Jela interjected," the Purestrains did not build it. This device is as alien to their technology as it is to ours."
"Alien?" Brath asked.
"As in 'not of Euronda'," Jela confirmed.
Brath and Kenda were dumbstruck, as I had been when Jela broke this news to me.
"I suspect that many of the elements used in the construction of the ring do not exist anywhere else on our planet," Jela went on. She reached under the table and found my hand, squeezing it gently.
As we had agreed, I said: "Brath; we think that all of the clans should be involved in this."
Brath shook her head. "Not until we know more about this device. I have informed the Decari guardians, but until we know more...It is still possible that this thing is a weapon."
"And you would control that for yourselves," Jela accused.
Kenda scowled at both Jela and myself. "We would destroy it," she said. "We have done so before and will doubtless do so again."
Jela was no less surprised than I. "You have?"
Brath nodded her head. "By compact of the Clans, all Purestrain weapons are to be destroyed. They are too terrible to be allowed to survive, even for study."
"Why were the remembrancers not informed of this?" I demanded.
"Because their secrets must be lost for ever," Brath replied. "It is enough to know that such horrors existed; if their nature were known, others might be tempted to construct the weapons anew."
"Do you see now why we need to know what the device is, before we bring anyone else in?" Kenda asked, looking to me with a silent appeal in her eyes. "Can you not say when we shall know?"
Jela shrugged, helplessly. "I can not."
In fact, it was another eight days before the console finally came alive beneath Jela's fingers and we were able to begin teasing the secrets from the damaged memory crystals. It was another seven before we were able to present a report to Brath.
Since the start of our investigation, word had reached us that the Makor was dead, killed leading the evacuation of a breached section of his Clan's glasteel dome. As a consequence, all of the domes had been surveyed and found to be corroded beyond all expectation; far from easing with the destruction of the fortress, the toxicity of the planet's atmosphere seemed to be intensifying. The domes were hastily laminated with polyweave canopies, without and within, but this operation stretched production to breaking point. Rations ran short that week and in the Chelan dome, the acid in the waters dissolved several filter units; hundreds were made sick and almost a dozen died.
"Please," Brath said, when we came to her office that day. "Please, baby bro; tell me the worst." Jans had been one of those killed in the Chelan dome and his death had hit Brath harder than anyone had expected. I could see from the slump of her shoulders that she hardly dared to hope any more.
But I had hope. For the first time in months, I could see a way out as I told her: "It's a door."
What we had learned from our study of the surviving data was this:
As we had already known, the Purestrains were growing desperate in those final days. Their gas had been intended to bring about a swift victory and our tenacity had surprised them. There were fewer of them, but they had smaller store of supplies than us; for fifty years they had been hanging on by their fingernails while their reserves of deuterium oxide dwindled. Their stronghold became their prison and they saw that it would soon become their tomb; desperately, they sought for any way out.
At last, their leader, Alar, followed clues in the theories of a number of hitherto discredited historians and launched an attempt to find the fabled space bridge which had brought our people to Euronda from the world of our ancestors. It was an act of desperate madness, but it paid off. There, in the depths of the earth, they found it: The Stargate.
It was hard for us to believe that this unassuming ring of grey crystal was that legendary – I can no longer say mythical – portal, but the Purestrains had not merely found it, they had opened it. According to the console logs, two emissaries had even been sent across the bridge. There remained also fragmentary records of a broadcast communication between Alar and someone on the other side. We learned that the emissaries had met with some misfortune when exiting the Gate at the far end, but this seemed to have been accepted as an accident.
More incredibly still, the logs revealed that four representatives had come to Euronda from the progenitors' world and that they had brought with them the supply of deuterium oxide which bolster the shield. After that, only one further log could be recovered: The four representatives had left, followed by one other. There had been no further use of the device.
"It may be that these progenitors can help us," I told Brath. "They had deuterium oxide to spare but clearly they did not give it."
"Perhaps," Brath replied, "or perhaps not. We do not know what occurred during their visit here."
"What is lost if we try?" Jela demanded.
"You say that this Stargate can open to many places; is it necessary therefore that we try to contact the progenitors in particular?"
I looked to Jela to answer this one.
"The number of possible combinations is vast," she explained. "We could dial for the rest of our lives and never find a world fit for our people."
"Our people do not have that long," Brath noted. "Very well; make contact. The two of you."
"Do we inform the other clans?" Jela asked.
"If contact is successful and productive, I shall inform the other guardians," Brath agreed, reluctantly. "But I do not think that the progenitors will be too happy with the idea of supporting eight thousand refugees if they would not spare a little deuterium oxide.
"Are you ready?" Jela asked me.
"How could I be?" I quipped in reply. "We are about to make history; I am an observer by inclination."
She squeezed my hand and gave me a smile. "I love you," she told me.
"I love you," I replied then, strengthened by her support, I turned my mind to business. In front of us, a bank of monitors crackled into life and I was conscious of the recording devices levelled at us. I checked my control panel. "Communications systems are operative; transmitting on the frequencies identified by the Purestrains and all neighbouring wavelengths."
Jela nodded and operated a series of controls on the jury-rigged Purestrain console. "I am activating the Stargate," she said, with impressive calm.
The console sent its signal to the alien terminal; seven lights lit up, one by one, on the terminal, mirrored by the illumination of seven of the chevrons on the ring. The great panel in the centre of the terminal glowed red, and the Stargate activated. Truly, I have never seen anything so spectacular. Now I look back on it and compare the effect to a fountain of water, but at the time I had never seen water, nor a light so bright and pure as that from the Stargate.
"It is beautiful," Jela whispered.
I turned to her and saw her face, radiant in that unearthly glow. "Yes," I replied. "Beautiful."
We stood there, just staring at the circle of rippling light, until a man's voice broke upon our reverie.
"Unknown station, this is Stargate Command. Our Stargate is protected by a defensive shield; send no travellers. The shield will not be lowered for unauthorised travellers; impact with the shield will be fatal. I say again, send no travellers."
We stood a while longer, then Jela nudged me. "Go on," she whispered.
I cleared my throat. "Stargate Command," I began. "My name is Aedar Chela mac Farras; I am a Remembrancer of Euronda." I looked at the monitors, but they were blank. I felt a cold shudder at the thought of a dozen pairs of blue eyes staring at my image in disgust. "We are transmitting a visual signal; can you respond in kind?"
There was a long pause. "We will restore this connection in one hour, Euronda. Stand by."
"Stargate Command?"
"In view of our past dealings, I am required to follow very specific protocols. Contact will be restored in one hour, at which time a video link will be established. In the meantime, please stand by."
Jela shut down the transmitter, but left the receivers on. "What does that mean?" she asked me.
"I think that those people were burned by their dealings with the Purestrains. This will make it hard fro them to trust us, but we may find it ultimately to our benefit. I lifted my field communicator and opened a channel. "Brath."
"How did it go?"
"It...didn't; not yet. They will contact us again shortly; we need to organise a proper showing as quickly as possible. I think it is time to notify the other Clans and assemble a panel of guardians..."
"Not yet," Brath replied.
"Brath! These people had a bad experience with the Purestrains, I am sure of it. We have to show them that we are different."
"We must look to our own first; the Chelan and Decari..."
"No! Listen to me, big sister: I do not think that they will deal with Jela and I. I look too much like Mama and even Jela could just have passed selection for the élite. We need visible variety; all the Clans and as many bloodlines as possible. If we present them with a group of our leaders, guardians, drawn from all of the old genetic castes, we can show them that we are not the same old Purestrains trying to trick them."
There was a long pause. I was growing tired of listening to dead air.
"Brath?"
"What else do you need?"
"Brath!"
"You will have your variety," Brath promised. "I will contact the other guardians; now, do you need anything else?"
I gave a grateful sigh. "New clothes," I said. "We should make an effort with appearances. Perhaps a conference table of some sort."
"I'll see what I can do," Brath replied, "although food would be easier than clothes. Brath out."
"Do you trust her," Jela asked.
"She's my sister," I replied, aware that I was avoiding the question. "Besides, we have no choice. The Clans are out of time, Jela; this is our last chance."
Kenda and a group of other auxiliaries brought the table and a set of rather nice chairs. The clothes that they managed to find were good quality, if about a dozen years old. I do not know how I looked, but Jela looked magnificent.
"I did not know that such clothes still existed on this world of ours," I admitted.
"Not much in them to recycle," Kenda explained. "Good luck, big brother."
We had worked as fast as possible to prepare the area, clearing debris and setting up the telereceptors and monitors correctly; now we were waiting for the progenitors to make contact...and for our fellow negotiators to arrive.
"We seem to be rather short on people," Jela noted.
Behind us, the Stargate hummed into life.
"It looks as though it is just us," I said.
"Damn her," Jela fumed. "Quickly; to our seats." She paused to throw the master switch on the communication control panel, then joined me. She leaned over and kissed me as the Gate came to life. "Good luck."
As the Gate opened, I tried to push aside the question of whether Brath had truly betrayed me; was she still trying to keep this secret between two clans – always assuming that she had told the Decari guardians. To steady me, I took hold of Jela's hand beneath the table and squeezed it tightly.
The monitors flickered into life. We saw a table, not unlike our own, where five people sat at a table and faced a telereceptor. Beside me, Jela hissed in anger, no doubt reacting to the woman at the far right of the table. She was blonde and blue-eyed; the picture of Purestrain beauty. My response was less dramatic, since I mostly associated those physical traits with my mother, rather than the hated enemy.
The other four were less worrying to look upon. The grey-haired man and the bald one at the head of the table might have been Purestrains, but the third wore lenses on his eyes – no Purestrain would have corrected vision – and the fourth had skin as dark as any descendent of the old Factores or Agricores castes. I could see why they had not had a good time in visiting the Artosians.
"Good evening," the bald man said. "I'm General Hammond of the SGC; this is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Dr Daniel Jackson and Teal'c."
"Greetings, General Hammond of the SGC," I replied. "I am Aedar Chela mac Farras; this is Jela Decara na Derrel. We are representatives of the Council of Clans of...what is left of Euronda."
General Hammond nodded in acknowledgement. "What can we do for you, Mr MacFarras?"
I was somewhat puzzled by his term of address, but we were, ultimately, supplicants to these people. "I believe that the plight of our world is known to you, in part at least?"
"We have some familiarity," Colonel O'Neill assured me.
"Well, our world is now beyond recovery," I explained. "My people are dying and there seems now to be no hope that the damage done by the Purestrain gas can be reversed."
"Probably should have thought of that before you poisoned the atmosphere," Colonel O'Neill snapped.
"Purestrain lies!" Jela retorted. "We had no technology to cause such harm!" She sprang to her feet in her anger, face flushed, but she doubled over at once and retched. If she had eaten more in the last few months, she probably would have vomited.
I turned from the screens to help her back to her seat. At that moment, the doors of the chamber opened and a cadre of guardians entered. I felt my heart soar, for Brath had brought four other guardians, one from each of the clans and she had done me proud.
Brath takes after our father more than Mama; Belis Decara descends from a long line of venditiores and Tala Makoi is the daughter of an agricore and a literati; Refus Insant was, like myself, the result of a liaison between high and low castes, an equestrian and a factore. The last guardian, Ziras Torl, was half-agricore, half-factore and – as befits a union of the two lowest and most worthless castes in the old system – was by common acknowledgement one of the handsomest and most brilliant men on Euronda. If Brath had a rival as the people's sweetheart, it was Ziras.
"Please accept our sincere apologies for our lateness," Brath said, as the guardians took their seats.
"As you may understand," Ziras added, "we do not in fact know what an hour is."
"Of course," Dr Jackson replied, diplomatically.
Brath smiled and turned to me. "Aedar; perhaps you could make the introductions, and then I think that Fe Decara should lie down."
I nodded my thanks and did as Brath had asked, then helped Jela to the edge of the table, out of sight of the monitors.
"It's alright," she whispered, "I'm fine. It's just a touch of bearing sickness. And I'm sorry. You were right, Aedar; she came through."
"I had my doubts," I admitted.
Of necessity, that was a short conference, for the Gate could not be opened for long. It did, however, result in an invitation for a delegation to visit Stargate Command, while a team from the SGC would visit Euronda to establish the numbers to be evacuated. Brath and her fellow guardians would be receiving the ambassadors; the four who had sat with General Hammond.
"Apparently they were the ones who came before and met with Alar," Brath explained. "We will be treading lightly and we have undertaken not to air Clan politics at the table," she assured me. "They barely batted an eyelid at the notion of eight thousand refugees; Ziras and I have high hopes for these negotiations." She smiled and I realised that she had not done so in many years. "You were right, baby bro. Mother would have been proud of you; father as well."
I blushed. "It is nothing; I did my part."
"You made me listen; you and that girl of yours. Watch out for her when you visit this new world."
"When we...?"
"Well, who else would we send? Remember what I said: If you take care of Jela, she will take good care of you, if you let her." She put a hand to my face. "Hope suits you, little brother."
"And you, big sister."
"It suits our people," she said. "Good luck. And make a good showing on the other side."