John nodded seriously. He ought to have expected something like this. “You know that’s not going to do it, don’t you? The Ancient technology is so advanced, so far ahead of both of us, that we can’t reproduce a quarter of what we see. Hell, we can’t reproduce the technology of a bunch of people in the Milky Way who were nowhere near as advanced as the Ancients! The first time we built a fighter based on reverse engineering the thing went haywire and nearly killed our test pilots. And that was based on a Goa’uld Death Glider, not an Ancient warship. This stuff isn’t easy.”
“We know.” Radim nodded. “But we must start somewhere. Do you think my people are any less resourceful than yours at trying to jump centuries of technology in a few years? It’s a leap we must all take if we’re going to defeat the Wraith.” He picked up his mug and took a long swallow of tea.
“What is your proposition?” Teyla asked. “We are certainly willing to consider it.”
“As I said, I need a pilot. I need a pilot with the ATA gene who has flown an Ancient warship. I need you to go to the planet where the wreck is, which my engineers assure me they have already substantially repaired, get the ship in the air, and bring it back here. That’s all.”
“That’s pretty straightforward,” John admitted. “If the thing will fly. I’ve flown an Ancient warship before, so…” He shrugged. “But I don’t think it’s going to do you guys much good, especially without pilots of your own with the ATA gene.”
“We have been working on that,” Radim said pleasantly. “As you know, the ATA gene is uncommon in this galaxy, but not unheard of. We will find our own pilots to train once we have the ship. But that’s not really your concern, Colonel. Your part of the bargain is just to bring it back here. When you bring us the warship, we’ll task our men with finding Dr. McKay.”
“It’s on a planet full of Wraith or something, isn’t it?” Carson asked.
Radim laughed. “No. It’s on an uninhabited world, one that’s too dry and unappealing to support human civilization anymore. Unfortunately, the crash site is a considerable distance from the Stargate, but with your ships that shouldn’t be much of an obstacle. A few minutes’ flight. While the Wraith doubtless know of the planet’s existence, since there are no humans there and the climate is inhospitable, there is no reason for them to be there or pay the planet any special attention.” He shrugged. “There are hundreds of worlds like it, essentially barren balls of rock with marginal atmosphere, of no use to anyone. Which is probably why the wreck has survived. If it had been on an inhabited world, it would have been scavenged long ago.”
“But if the Wraith show up,” Carson began.
“We’ve got a cloaked jumper,” John said. “And if we get there and the Wraith are all over the wreck the deal is off. We’ll come straight back.”
“If the deal is off, the deal is off.” Radim shrugged. “Obviously if you can’t get to the ship or get it in the air, we’ll have to come up with something else for you to trade for our intelligence networks.”
“Ok.” John nodded. “That’s fair. We’ll get on it. Give me the gate address.”
“Of course,” Radim said.
Teyla glanced at him sideways. “We will need to return to Atlantis first,” she said. “We do not have a scientist with us who is experienced with Ancient technology. We will return with Dr. Zelenka and…”
“I don’t think we need Zelenka,” John said.
“If the ship’s systems are in need of repairs,” Teyla began.
That was always Rodney’s job, putting things back together with duct tape and spit, complaining constantly that it would never work, it would never fly.
“We don’t need Zelenka,” John said.
Teyla’s eyes narrowed. “But if we need to make repairs…”
“I’m sure our Chief Scientist will be happy to assist you,” Radim said. “My sister, Dahlia Radim, will be accompanying you. She has been heading up our Ancient Technology Recovery program, and will be able to do whatever you need.”
“Great,” John said. “Then we’ll get going. The sooner the better.” He stood up. “Let’s get a move on, people.” Every moment they wasted talking Rodney was in Wraith hands.
They filed out of the office and through the halls, upstairs to the barn where the hatch led to the upper world. Radim left them at the bottom of the stairs. “Dahlia will be with you in a few moments,” he said.
John looked suspiciously after him.
Carson shrugged. “If it was a double cross there would be easier ways to do it. I think it’s on the up and up. So you’ll be flying the Ancient warship home and I’ll be flying the jumper?”
“Sounds good to me,” John said. He twitched as a bird outside burst into song. Hours. This whole diplomatic thing was taking hours. And it would take hours again to get this ship and get back, but that was probably the fastest way to get Radim on the case. At least what the Genii wanted was straightforward.
“I think we should go get Radek,” Teyla said quietly.
“That’s going to take a really long time,” John said. “Look, I’ll call in and tell Woolsey what’s up, but if we go back to Atlantis we’ll have meetings and debriefings and it will be half a day before we get on the road again. And either this thing will fly or it won’t. If it won’t, the deal’s off. And if it will, then we just do it. Radim isn’t going to send his sister to go get this thing if he didn’t think it would work.”
“That’s true enough,” Carson said. “I had her as a patient, if you remember. Lovely girl. He was worried sick about her. I’d say if Dahlia Radim is along he expects it to go smoothly.”
Teyla didn’t look convinced. “As you say, Colonel.”
Chapter Six: Live Wires
“Look, here they go again,” Lorne said in frustration as the security readout flickered. “We’re having these long periods where we’re not getting any data from the external sensors, and then when we do — ”
“Yes, I see,” Radek said, pointing out the same faint blur that Lorne had seen at the edge of the city. As long as he was hanging out in the control room waiting for Woolsey to clear him to take his team out, Lorne thought at least he might be able to pin down what was wrong with the sensors. It would be nice to be able to cross one problem off their list.
“If it’s not some kind of software error — ”
“It should not be,” Radek said. “We have not made any modifications to the programming of the sensors since before we left Earth. It is possible that the external sensors themselves could be accumulating ice.”
“Great,” Lorne said. If he was remembering right, the external sensor arrays weren’t anywhere that would make removing ice from them easy. “We can go out in a jumper and see if we see any ice. At least that would be a simple problem. What about these weird readings, though?”
“That is actually of more concern to me,” Radek said, the green light from the display reflecting off his glasses as he leaned closer and frowned. “Our preliminary scans of the planet found no signs of habitation, or of concentrations of large animal life in the oceans surrounding our landing site.”
“We didn’t find out about the whales for a while, though, either.”
“Well, we were not looking,” Radek said.
“We scanned this planet pretty fast,” Lorne pointed out. “And I know Teyla always says that planets in Pegasus that aren’t inhabited aren’t inhabited for a reason.”
“In this case, the reason is that there was no Stargate here,” Radek said without looking up. “The only people with any way of reaching this planet would have been the Travelers, and there are few natural resources on this world that would be of interest to them.”