Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 142

Chapter 142 - Ancestors and Gods - Part 1

A somewhat bored looking Vala had already been waiting for them in the meeting room alongside a pot of brewing coffee that pretty much every human in the room seemed to be eyeing with thinly disguised impatience.

“I don’t suppose you fixed the SGC’s abominable tea situation in the few days I’ve been gone?” Eventus asked, eyeing O’Neill with thinly disguised hope.

“Sorry.” O’Neill apologized, pouring himself the first cup of coffee before handing the pot off to Doctor Weir. “Hasn’t really been high on our list with everything else going on.”

“Figures.” Eventus muttered, idly wondering if he should try and bribe Walter to keep a high end supply available for future visits. 

“So.” He continued once everyone had their drink and was seated. “I assume this is where you try to talk me into not granting Yami’s request?”

Weir winced before giving a slow nod of acknowledgement. “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, but yes. As much as I support the idea of trying to make peace with the Goa’uld. Bringing one back to Atlantis would be dangerous on several levels.”

“Not nearly as much as you probably think.” Eventus said, only to expand that explanation upon noticing the skeptical look she was shooting him. “The city has an entire block of subsystems dedicated to criminal rehabilitation. So the only really unique thing about her case would be the need to design a monitoring bracelet to make sure she doesn’t jump hosts when nobody is looking.”

Technically the city’s sensors could watch for that, but there were enough still damaged sectors that a monitoring bracelet would be more secure.

“And those criminal rehabilitation systems will keep her from learning about the city's technology?” Weir asked.

Taking a moment to go over just what sorts of things could potentially be learned via visual identification, Eventus made a so-so motion with his hand. “I can’t say she won’t learn anything, but it really depends on how good Goa’uld memory actually is.”

“As perfect as they want it to be.” Vala put forward. “Though Qetesh tended to keep things just good enough that she never really forgot slights against her.”

Which put another pin in Eventus’s theory that the Goa’uld were the result of some unknown species genetic engineering program. As selective memory levels were far too unlikely to have evolved naturally.

“Then she’d probably be able to learn a little bit about the city’s surface level systems, but that wouldn’t really be useful on any tactical or strategic level. And well, technically speaking that would make her actually less dangerous than pre-teens who’ve just completed their first engineering program.”

O’Neill gave him an odd look. “Do I want to know?”

“You really don’t.” Eventus told him honestly, still to this day thankful to whichever founder of the maintenance corps had gotten childcare cleanup excluded from their list of responsibilities.

“Realistically speaking, if she were a System or Under Lord I’d be much more concerned due to the sarcophagus induced mental problems. But everything I’ve read in the SGC’s files suggests that regular use of the devices was restricted to those two groups almost to the point of exclusion.”

“They thought it kept the lower ranks from running off to build up their own empires.” Vala said, with a slight hint of amusement in her voice that told Eventus that there was probably a story there.

Eventus turned to the former host. “You have the most first hand experience of anyone here with the Goa'uld. So outside of the System and Under Lords, what are they like?”

“Egotistical assholes.” Vala offered with a shrug. “But beyond that it kind of depended on who they were descended from.”

“Who they were descended from?” Weir repeated with a frown.

“Like the Tok'ra.” Daniel seemingly followed. “We've suspected for some time that certain distinctive personality types amongst the Goa'uld might be related to which Queen they were descended from. But without a comprehensive genealogy to work from we've never really been able to investigate it in any serious way.”

“Qetesh's mother was Hathor if that helps.” Vala admitted glibly. “Which should tell you all you need to know about how much of a bitch she was.”

“All right.” Weir nodded, focusing on Vala. “Do you know who Yami might be descended from?”

“Not in the slightest.” Vala confessed. “I've never even heard the name Yami before today.”

“She mentioned her mothers name was Sanjna.” Eventus offered, really wishing he'd had the time to look up the various names involved.

Daniel began flipping through his book, quickly arriving on a page towards the end. “Sanjna, a Hindu goddess associated with the clouds. Daughter of Tvashtr and Rechana. Which would match up with our guest being Yami, since that was one of the earlier names Yamuna was known by.”

“Oh!” Vala exclaimed happily. “I know Tvashtr! Qetesh borrowed him from Indra a few hundred years back to design the heated baths in her palace.” 

The former hosts gave a dismissive wave. “She was so proud of the invisible water jet system in those. Which, okay I'll admit was moderately impressive and felt absolutely divine on my body. But she insisted on showing it off to every Goa'uld who visited, even if they'd already seen it before.”

“You should see the hot tubs on Atlantis.” Eventus put forward with a fond tone. “The system's sensors calibrate the experience in real time to your bodily needs.”

Vala turned to Daniel with a hopeful look in her eye. “Hey Daniel, I don't suppose we–”

“No.” Daniel answered before she could finish.

“We’re not really open for tourists at the moment anyways.” Eventus apologized. “Too much system damage that still needs repairing.” His lips twitched slightly in amusement as thought hit. “We also kind of need to replace all the plants Doctor Weir had her people throw out.”

“We thought they were dead.” Weir defended in clear annoyance at him bringing that up once again.

“You’ve read about my people.” Eventus countered smoothly. “Do you really think we would keep plants that couldn’t survive a few decades of us forgetting to water them?”

The real reason of course was that his people hadn’t wanted to replace their decorative foliage every time they needed to go into stasis for one reason or another. However that running joke had existed all the way back before the Wraith war, so it felt only right to continue it now that there was an entirely new audience.

“We’re getting off topic” O’Neill tiredly interjected. 

“All right then.” Eventus sighed, a bit disappointed that he hadn’t been able to distract them from the issue at hand. “Let’s move directly to the point, what exactly are you afraid Yami is going to do?” 

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Author’s Notes: A bit of a harder cutoff point this chapter than usual, but the next chapter is going to continue directly from that point so it works out. And yes, this is Eventus letting his Ancient ego show a bit more then normal.