"I will leave rocks alone. Modulating the shield to encompass them is not so difficult as you think."
"I'm just saying to be careful, both now and when you get outside the jumper. While still learning everything you can about the mooring, of course."
Radek engaged their shield and turned down the volume on his microphone. "This is punishment I do not deserve," he muttered to Carson. "I am kind to small children and animals. I use my intellect for good and not evil. .how have I earned such treatment?"
Assuming it was a rhetorical query, Carson ignored him and concentrated on Sheppard's steady voice in his ear, guiding their jumpers into position. Their respective shields merged just before he felt the craft settle onto the seafloor.
A loud creaking sound sent a burst of adrenaline through Carson, instantly banishing his momentary sense of relief. He shot a fearful look at Radek.
"It is to be expected," the scientist explained with a shrug. "The shield has encapsulated wreckage and coral. The force of many atmospheres of water has been displaced by air of only one atmosphere."
Somehow that didn't sound terribly reassuring. "Is that supposed to happen?" Carson pointed to the dozens of fish now flopping around the ground inside what he could only think of as a fragile bubble of air beneath a great deal of ocean.
Radek nodded once. "Force field is currently calibrated to repel only seawater."
Carson was not comfortable in the least. The human body was composed mostly of water. Furthermore- "Everything's still wet."
Crossing his arms, Radek politely explained, "I calibrated the shield to repel water of a certain molecular weight. Now that the shield is in place, I have recalibrated to prevent anything entering. If that"-he pointed through the windshield to the looming monolith and glanced at Carson over his glasses-"falls, it cannot pass through the shield."
Yet it had successfully penetrated whatever shield had encapsulated the flattened jumper. Lovely thought.
"Everybody gear up," Sheppard instructed from Jumper One. "Mueller's going to go out first and check the stability of things inside the shielded area."
Presumably Elizabeth had sent Rodney for coffee, because the radio frequency was unnaturally quiet. Carson watched apprehensively as the German engineer emerged from the jumper and clam bered around the mass of wrecks, coral, and mooring block.
The groaning of stressed rocks and metal sounded again. Radek cleared his throat and sent a slightly anxious look in Carson's direction, which did absolutely nothing to enhance the doctor's peace of mind. "Tell me a number," Radek said.
Puzzled, Carson replied, "Eight."
"No, no, bigger."
"Forty-three?"
A snicker came from the general area of Stackhouse's seat. Radek sighed. "You have not played Prime, Not Prime before, have you?"
Before the Czech could explain the game, Mueller reappeared. "It is uncertain," he told the team, his accent sounding particularly thick coming from within his HAZMAT hood. "As you see, the hatch on the bottom vessel is partially open. Two long boxes are inside, one atop the other-I assume that these are the life pods. I cannot be sure if the bulkhead of the jumper is intact or if the pods themselves support it "
"Or if it's all this coral and junk." There was a pause while Sheppard must have been weighing the decision. "All right, let's go. But everybody stay on their toes."
With a fatalistic shrug, Radek waited until Carson had secured his hood before opening Jumper Three's rear hatch. Rodney seemed to have run out of things to harangue them about-a temporary situation, most likely. Either that or the coffee break had extended into lunch. Carson hoped that food might restore the man's blood sugar level and, with luck, his patience.
If using a jumper as a submersible and approaching this undersea location had been surreal, stepping outside was decidedly unnatural. The casualties of Radek's selective shield calibration were either dead or lay with gills and mouths flapping uselessly. Every surface of every outcrop was glistening wet, and Carson could hear dripping from somewhere inside the wreckage. Did that mean the shield was leaking? He couldn't help but glance up and around. Right then, he fully comprehended Rodney's reluctance to join them.
Like Sheppard and Sergeant Alderman, Stackhouse had his weapon slung over his protective suit, an odd sight in and of itself. As much as Carson disliked guns on principle, he had had occasion to appreciate them in practice. Of course, it raised the question of what exactly might occur if a discharged bullet struck the force field holding the waters at bay.
Careful to avoid the sharp edges of broken coral, Colonel Sheppard approached the still-intact jumper embedded in the low- ennost section of the wall. Carson followed only close enough to get a glimpse of the pods.
"How about some coimnentary, people?" Rodney's voice was garbled around a mouthful of food.
Sheppard gingerly grasped the edge of the hatch and made a disgusted sound. "Everything's covered in coral and stuff. It's gonna be hard to get a handhold on the pods."
"But they're intact?" Dr. Weir asked.
"Seem to be. They don't look exactly like the life pods we ran into in the Cohall system, though. Smaller, for one thing, even with the growth."
"That's undoubtedly because they were designed by and for Ancients." Rodney noisily gulped down whatever he'd been eating before adding, "I suspect these are portable stasis pods, although the signal they're putting out is similar to the Cohall versions, which definitely were not Ancient in design. Probably copied the idea, though. Which leads me to conclude that this original model was intended to perform a similar function."
"Kinda hoping these don't carry the same body-snatching possibilities."
"I wouldn't bank on that, Colonel," Rodney warned. "After our recent encounter, I checked the database and found that SG-1 once discovered an entire ship full of stasis chambers with a computerized system that had the capacity to download and store thousands of minds. Dr. Jackson found himself inhabited by several personalities simultaneously."
Even through his faceplate, Carson could see the expression on the Colonel's face. "Great," Sheppard muttered, stepping out of the wreck. "As if two wasn't already a crowd."
"Be careful," Dr. Weir said, unnecessarily.
Carson hung back with Radek while the military contingent cautiously maneuvered the wrecked jumper's hatch fully open. Mueller rigged up cables to anchor points on the uppermost life pod- stasis pod, whatever Rodney had it in his head to call them now-and attached them to Jumper One.
A gloved hand on Carson's arm brought his attention to Sheppard. "Why don't you two hop back inside Jumper Three?" the Colonel suggested, motioning with his thumb over his shoulder. "I'll use Jumper One to withdraw the uppermost pod. Mueller and the sergeants are staying out here to guide it, but you might as well be protected in case we destabilize anything."
Another cheery thought. On the way back Carson distracted himself by examining the various soft-bodied sponges and corals. He was tempted to take a few samples back to the lab, but had not brought proper containment vessels.
Radek handed him a digital camera with a vaguely apologetic expression. "For sharing images with the lovely Lieutenant Cadman?"
Wily man, that Radek. Laura had SCUBA dived back on Earth and would no doubt be intrigued by images of the underwater world on this planet. It was difficult to find suitable gifts for a lady in this galaxy, after all. Carson smiled his thanks and stepped up to the edge of force field. Before reentering the jumper, he snapped a few shots of the sea life swimming freely just beyond the invisible barrier.
Extracting the first pod seemed to take an inordinately long time, the process punctuated by screeching sounds and the occasional groan from the tangled wreckage as Jumper One slowly eased backwards. At last, the chamber thudded to the seafloor, prompting Radek to release an audible sigh.