“Dr. Robinson.”
Her broad face lightened, and she set her cookie onto a small plate. She was drinking herbal tea, he saw, and thought again that he probably should have poured himself decaf.
“Dr. Lynn. Nice to see you.”
“And you,” William said. “I wondered where you’d gone after Colorado Springs.”
“Someplace even more interesting,” she answered with a smile. “Care to join me?”
“Thanks.”
They found a table toward the window, where they could see the pale aurora, but far enough back that the cold didn’t radiate. It was surprising that the sound didn’t echo more in such a large and empty space, and William found himself scanning the ceiling to see if he could spot the sound baffles.
“I wonder — “
“The current theory is that it’s the shape of the room,” Eva said. “In fact, there’s a pool running, if you’re interested.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” William said. “What’s your position, Doctor?”
“My dollar is on ‘otherwise unspecified weird Ancient thing’,” Eva answered. “OUWAT, with an emphasis on the ‘oooh’. Actually, I bet that in all the pools.”
“Not much of a gambler, then,” William said.
“I prefer as close to a sure thing as I can get.” Eva took a sip of her tea, her eyes traveling to something over William’s shoulder. “Oh, hello, Dr. Zelenka.”
“You are not in the right place for sure things,” Radek said. He had a sandwich on his plate, as well as a large mug of coffee.
“So I’m beginning to see,” Eva said.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Radek asked, and Eva shook her head. William copied her, though he wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t mind. He had been avoiding Zelenka since he arrived on Atlantis, though he’d hoped it hadn’t been obvious. Apparently, though, he’d been less subtle than he’d thought, and he gave the other man what he hoped was a conciliatory smile.
“It’s been a while.”
“Since Cambridge, yes,” Radek answered, with a show of teeth that wasn’t entirely a smile.
Oh, dear, William thought. He hadn’t really thought that Radek would have forgotten the things he said when Radek had gone to work for the US military, but he’d hoped they might at least be ignored. He said, to Eva, “Dr. Zelenka and I were in graduate school together.”
She made a non-committal noise in answer, and Radek settled himself at the table. “Which is partly why I did not expect to see you here, William. In fact, you are probably the last person I was expecting. I am astonished your father allowed it.”
Not fair. Especially when Radek knew perfectly well how his father would feel about his going to work for the American government, not to mention working directly for the unspeakable Nicholas Ballard’s equally unsound grandson. William sat up straighter, eyes narrowing, the apology he’d been groping for forgotten. “It is, of course, possible to change one’s mind. About politics as much as anything.”
“Dr. Lynn did not approve of US policy, as I remember,” Radek said, to Eva. “Nor did he believe that one should aid it in any way.”
“I still don’t think — ” William began, and Eva lifted her hands.
“Hold it. I am not going to let you argue through me. I can leave, if you’d like to continue — ”
“No, no,” William said, and Radek gave him a look of triumph.
“Please,” he said. “I am sorry, Eva. These would be what you call unresolved issues?”
“Which I would be happy to help you resolve,” Eva said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “During office hours.”
“Of course,” Radek said.
William took a breath. It really had been his fault, and he did owe Radek an apology. It was just hard to find the words. “I really didn’t know you were here,” he said. “I–I would still have come, but I would at least have dropped you an email. Let you know.”
“It has been a week for awkward meetings,” Radek said, and reached for his sandwich.
“How is Mrs. Miller doing?” Eva asked. “Is there any word on Dr. McKay?”
Radek sighed. His hair was thinner, William thought, with what he hoped was dispassionate assessment, and what had been a somewhat disheveled look had become distinct disarray. And he still couldn’t keep his glasses in place…
“Nothing,” Radek said, softly, and William grimaced at the sorrow in his voice. “We have had nothing but bad news — ”
He stopped abruptly, his hand going to the receiver he wore in his ear, his face sharpening. “Yes? Yes. Yes, I am on my way — ” He was pushing back his chair before he finished speaking, before William could think to ask what was going on, and was gone. William looked at Eva, knowing his eyes were wide.
“That didn’t sound good,” she said.
“No.” William looked over his shoulder, wondering if this was the sort of emergency that needed more caffeine, or the kind that wanted the pistol he’d been issued on arrival. “That didn’t sound good at all.
“So what have we got?” Lorne said as he came up the last of the stairs from the transport chamber into the back of the control room. An unscheduled offworld activation could be anything, from Radim wanting to chat, to somebody trying to dial a gate address close to theirs and getting a wrong number, but Salawi looked alarmed.
“Sir, we’re still not getting an IDC.”
“Any transmission?”
“I’m not picking up a transmission, but maybe…” She glanced at Taggert, who looked up from her own keyboard nervously.
“Let me see,” Lorne said. He leaned over her shoulder, checking to see that she had activated the sensors that would pick up a radio transmission, or anything else coming through the gate. “It could be a misdial, or somebody trying out gate addresses.” The screen flickered suddenly. “Or not. What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Salawi said, in a tone that made it clear she expected him to expect her to know. “I called Dr. Zelenka — ”
“Yes, what is the trouble?” Zelenka said, breathing hard as he came up the stairs. He’d clearly had a brisk walk from wherever he’d been, or maybe run was more like it. As far as Lorne could tell, he’d been spending as many of his waking hours in close proximity to a computer terminal as possible.
“Salawi keeps getting this flicker on her monitor, and my computer keeps — look, there it goes again,” Taggert said as her display shifted. Zelenka bent forward to look over her shoulder, and his eyes went wide.
“Oh, no, no,” he said. “No, that is not good. Here, let me — ” He shooed Taggert out of the way to take her place at the console, and she obligingly slid over to the next workstation. “Look at this,” he said. Lorne looked, although he wasn’t surprised to see lines of incomprehensible code mixed with even more incomprehensible Ancient code. “Now what is this supposed to be doing?”
“If we don’t know, maybe we should shut it down,” Lorne said.
“Yes, I am trying. These programs should not be running. What were you doing?”
“Nothing. The alert went off for an unscheduled offworld activation, I started monitoring for radio transmissions — ”
“That might do it,” Zelenka said. “Some kind of trigger — ”
“There wasn’t a transmission,” Salawi said. “Look.”
“The computer says that there was not,” Zelenka said. “Yes, that is either another sensor malfunction or very bad.”
“Just what are we dealing with here?” Lorne said.
“There are programs running in the security subsystems that should not be there. I am trying to shut them down, but they are triggering more subroutines — this could be a serious problem.” Zelenka looked up sharply over his glasses. “I think we are under attack.”