“You’re deliriously happy?”
“Yes.”
Rodney leaned back on the desk. “You don’t sound like it. Deliriously happy, I mean.”
“I am.”
“Oh come on!” Rodney exclaimed. “Nice, outdoorsy and playful? He sounds like a golden retriever!”
She pursed her lips, and he thought for a second that she was really mad, madder than maybe she’d ever been at him, but then he saw the laughter in her eyes and she broke. “There you have me, Rodney,” Sam laughed, biting her lip in what he thought was an absolutely adorable gesture. “He is kind of like a golden retriever.”
“So you’ll have dinner with me?” It always pays to press the advantage when you’re winning.
Sam grinned at him, her head to the side, and turned for the door. “No.” She stopped just inside and looked back. “What about the Lost City?”
“I’m going,” Rodney said. “What did you think?”
And he had, of course. It’s not like you can live with yourself if you say no, spend your life wondering what would have happened if you’d been one of the few who dared to do something really extraordinary. After all, even the best of the best have to stretch a little, reach for a prize that’s really worthy of their talents.
Tomorrow — today — he’d find their missing people. He promised. He wouldn’t quit until he did.
And with that thought, Rodney fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Radek jerked awake at a cry, but before he was even properly conscious it stopped. He lay there in the darkness, wondering what it was that had awakened him. Not goats, though the shed smelled strongly of them. Perhaps a dog in a different yard, or a sound outside in the street.
Ronon was awake. He could hear his breath in the dark, quick gasps half stifled.
Radek rolled over. In the dim light that came in from the window he could see Ronon lying open eyed on the straw, his pupils huge and dark in a face rendered paler in silhouette. It came to him in that moment that Ronon was still young. How old had he been when he became a runner? Twenty, perhaps? Like Edmond Dantes, tragedy had stolen his youth, made him older than his years. He looked terrified, as though surfacing from some terrible dream Radek did not even care to speculate upon. He would not want Radek to know it.
And why should he not be frightened? One ought to be, trapped without resources hundreds of kilometers from the Stargate, on an alien world full of Wraith. Surely this was not the first time Ronon had been in such circumstances, all the more reason to be afraid. All the more reason to be plagued with bad dreams.
Loudly and distinctly, Radek stretched, turning over and reopening his eyes as though for the first time. “Ronon?” he whispered.
“Yeah?” His voice sounded almost normal.
“I cannot sleep,” Radek said, allowing a note of apology to creep into his tone. “Nerves, you know. Talk with me.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
A distraction, at least. He would not be able to dwell upon whatever it was while keeping up a conversation. “It does not matter,” Radek said. He waited a moment, as though the idea were suddenly striking him. “It is your turn for a story.”
“I don’t remember any,” Ronon said.
“A poem then,” Radek said.
Ronon turned his head and looked at him. “Are you a poet?”
“Me? No.” Radek shrugged. “I am an engineer, and I have no gift for words. But there are some I learned in school that stick with me, and some others I carry around here.” He tapped his temple. “My father said that the ones you know are the ones that can never be taken from you. You can pull them out and enjoy them wherever you are, whenever you wish, no matter what may happen around you, with no one the wiser. And so there are a few I know. So few, I am afraid. I am a scientist, and I have no gift of memory.”
Ronon nodded, rolling onto his back, looking up at the low ceiling of the shed. It was a long time before he spoke, and Radek had almost decided he would not. “We learned some in school too. A lot of them. I used to know the first fifty lines of the Yennam Cycle straight off. But I’ve forgotten them now.” His eyes were shadowed in the dimness. “You wear them out when you think them too much. They get holes in them and you forget them.”
Radek nodded. “I can see how that would be,” he said gently. He is like the old men, Radek thought, the ones who tell you they do not remember the war, and perhaps they are not lying.
A silence fell. Ronon cleared his throat, his voice almost a whisper, but growing stronger.
When he had been silent a long moment Radek spoke again. “That is lovely,” he said. “What is it part of?”
“It’s about a king a long time ago,” Ronon said. “He was murdered by his brother while they were hunting in the marshes.” He shrugged. “It’s not just the Wraith who fight wars. We’re pretty good at killing each other too.”
“I know,” Radek said. He wondered if it would be too much to reach out and clasp Ronon’s shoulder. Probably it would. So he did not. “I shall sleep better now,” he said, but did not close his eyes until after Ronon did.
“We can find them,” Rodney said. “We’re not giving up on them.” He felt only a little better for a few hours sleep, but surely coffee could fix that. Coffee could fix anything.
Elizabeth Weir folded her arms across her chest. The door to her office was shut, so that no one could hear her conversation with him and Lorne. “I’m not saying we should, Rodney. But you’ve been searching for two days and found nothing. I need to hear a plan that’s going to work. Your present plan seems to be to fly around in circles and hope you bump into them. I think you need to rethink this.”
Major Lorne straightened his shoulders. “We are following a search grid, ma’am.”
“And following that search grid, how long will it take you to complete a full survey of the planet?” Weir asked.
“Six days,” Lorne said, and Rodney winced. “Give or take a little.”
“Six days.” That was Elizabeth at her most skeptical. “Six more days flying around the planet twenty four hours a day.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Lorne said, “It’s not going to take six days to find them. They’re not going to be on the other side of the planet, and we’re proceeding methodically outward.”
“Do you know they’re not on the other side of the planet?” Elizabeth asked. “You don’t know where they are or how they might have gotten there. You’ve already searched the area near the crashed jumper, near the Stargate, and near where Zelenka and Ronon were supposed to be.”
Rodney leaned forward on the desk. “Just what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you need to consider indigenous modes of transportation. And you need to consider the planet’s inhabitants. They’re human. Don’t you think it’s likely that our people have made contact? Don’t you think it’s more likely that they might have sought assistance and food from the people who live there than that they would be wandering off in a random direction? Why would Colonel Sheppard or Dr. Zelenka go stand in the middle of the desert or a trackless forest? Give our people credit for a little common sense. Let’s apply some logic as well as method to the search.”