“Be still your injuries are extremely grave.” Came a quite female voice.

“Who?” he managed to ask.

‘I am Melia, you are in the Alteran city of Atlantis, your ship was shot down by the Wraith and we retrieved you an your two companions from the ocean floor.” She said hurriedly.

“But city was deserted and flooding when strange machine in ship triggered, are Dr. Weir and Maj. Sheppard alright?” he gasped.

“Janus claimed the ship you used had a time travel instrument he was experimenting with, the readings he took say you and your companions have travelled back ten thousand years.” She said making him gasp.

“Your female companion will be fine,” she continued.  “Janus is healing her injuries and she will recover completely in a few days, you and your male companion on the other hand are both gravely injured, using ordinary methods neither of you will recover." she let him asbsorb that before she continued.  "There is a chance we can heal you both but it is extremely experimental, as such it can not be attempted without permission.  We need you to make that decision for yourself and your male companion, before you object to that you must understand his injuries are so grave we doubt he will survive any attempt to wake him for permission.  Your own injuries while also grave and beyond our usual medicine to heal, were such that we could risk waking you to make this decision for you both.” She finished sombrely.

“Dr. Weir is head of expedition usually makes decisions, what will this chamber do?.” Radek said weakly, he did not really know the young Major so did not feel he was the right person to make such a decision.

“Unfortunately the healing she is undergoing can not be interrupted so you will not even get to say goodbye to her.  I fear when you next wake she will be long dead as will I.  Ideally I would delay placing you inside the Chambers so you can say farewell but you will both be too far gone for us to save if we waited for her to regain consciousness.” She said softly.

“What! Why will all be dead when wake?” he finally asked.

“My people have invented a healing Chamber that can heal almost any injury.” Said Melia.

“Know of this machine.” Said Radek with frown, he had heard of Gou’ald healing machine that kept them alive for millennia, sounded like originally of Ancient design stolen by Gou’ald like everything else, he also knew of the dangers.

“Then it is true you are from the future as Janus claims, good that means I do not have to explain how it works, unfortunately while it works extremely well healing almost any injury instantly it has disastrous effects on the patients brain chemistry producing a drastic change in personality.” She said.

“Yes this I know but is cumulative effect, one use will not produce that effect.” Said Radek.

“Oh! Obviously we shall prefect the Chamber more in the future as at the moment even one use has this effect because of this continued use of the Hhealing Chamber in the original form has been banned?” she said, Radek frowned he had a feeling there was much more to that story than she was telling. 

“Fortunately for your male companion and yourself we discovered a way to totally negate these effects on the human and Alteran brain.  This new healing chamber is very experimental but we know it will work all the tests have confirmed that by combining the healing chamber with a stasis pod the detrimental effects on the patient’s brain chemistry does not occur.  By slowing down the healing to a snails pace while sustaining the injured patient in the stasis chamber we negated the change in brain chemistry.  Every simulation and test confirms it is the rapid healing that produces the changes in the patient’s brain.  Unfortunately the Council has deemed this new machine also a failure.  Not because it will not work but because the addition of the stasis chamber extends the healing time to centuries not minutes, the patient would be a stranger to the world round them when they woke because of this the Council decided any test of the new healing chamber needed the patient’s permission or that of someone who can make the decision if they are too injured to make the decision themself.”

Radek grimaced at that he had seen and read many stories of people thrown into future society due to suspended animation and this sounded similar he could see why need patient’s permission the healing time would make everything a person know obsolete.

“The Council has given permission for this experimental stasis healing chamber to be used on you and your male companion as it is the only way to heal you both and you are already in an alien world, adjusting to our society now or in a few centuries from now will not matter.” She said softly.  “While you sleep the teaching computer attached to the chambers will enable you and your companion to interact and teach you so you can fit into our culture better when you wake, the Council has also given permission to set the chambers to adjust your gene code while you sleep to give you the same genetic key as your companion so you can use our equipment when you wake the better to fit inot our society.”

Radek frowned his head ached but he had a question that needed to be asked, “Are you sure Chambers will work on us? We are not Ancients, only second evolution of form produced by Earth, I have been told many times we are different on genetic level in many ways.  Plus Earth has fossil proof we evolve on Earth not brought there.” Explained Radek making Melia’s eyes widen at the implications.  Then nod it did explain the abnormalities they had found on a genetic level, these people were not Alteran or the lessor humans derived from the Alteran gene code they seeded this galaxy with but a totally separate natural evolution of the Alteran form.”

“That does explain many things about the anomalies in your life codes.  I had to do quite a bit of reprograming to adapt the machines to your brain structure.  That is true even of your male companion, both his brain structure and life-code proved he is not the hybrid of our two races we first suspected when we noticed the genetic key to our equipment present.” She said gently.  “The genetic key was originally a very rare gene found in varying strengths that naturally occured in our Race, it was a genetic quirk we made use of and introduced into our Race on a larger scale to protect the more dangerous equipment from misuse.  We were very surprised to see he had it as it is the one thing deliberately left out of the Life-code when we seeded this galaxy, it is actually proof you are not from this galaxy but a totally separate evolution.  We have always known Earth is a planet of change, the harsh and constantly changing environments forcing evolution on the plants and animals that inhabited that world on a scale not found elsewhere, your people are the living proof of that, as your people while immensely younger have been evolving much faster than the humans in this galaxy even though they are the older race.” She said thoughtfully, this was proof of the evolution of a coming Fifth Race that would eventually become equal to their own just as the Asgard, Nox and Furlings had in the past.  She would have to examine their life-code in greater detail but she suspected it would show this new Race was evolving slightly differently to their sister race the Alteran they truly would become the Fifth Race not simply a copy of the Alterans as the seeded humans of this galaxy were destined to become.  It was wonderful thing to see evolution in action, Ascension was the end path of the evolution of the Alteran Race and the people of this galaxy but this new Fifth Race not only had the seeds of Ascension within them but also the seeds of a dozen other evolutionary paths they could follow the direction they would finally choose was still an open book.

Radek nodded, “Major does have the gene very strong that lets him use Ancient equipment, picked as many people with gene as possible for expedition but as you said is very rare, it is huge loss that they all drowned.” Going on to explain exactly what happened when they reached Atlantis making her frown in horror at the tragedy.

“You grow weak, do we have permission to use the chambers to save you and your male companion.” she asked formally holding up a small crystal. “This will record your decision for the legal record.’

“Yes I, Doctor Radek Zelenka give permission to use experimental healing chambers on myself and Major John Sheppard.” He said.

“I shall inform your female companion of the decision when she wakes.” Melia said gently.

“No do not,” he ordered. “Better to tell Dr. Weir we are die in crash, if she knows we are alive any decision she makes will be to see to our needs not her own, is fairer to let her make her decisions without Major and I being stone around neck messing up any decisions.  It is not as if we will be in her life as it will be centuries before we are well enough to leave the chambers by then Elizabeth Weir will be long dead, better she thinks we are dead so she can move on with her life and decide own fate.”

“It will be as you wish!” she said with a frown.  “Sleep well Doctor.” She said softly injecting a counter for the stimulant she had given him.  Once he was asleep she called her assistants over and they began transferring both Radek and John Sheppard to the waiting chambers, the chambers were already hooked into a separate power supply ready for the trip to Earth.