More tentacles rose toward him, one reaching out toward the flashlight. Lorne considered his options, and let go of the flashlight. The creature curled its tentacle around it, tilting the flashlight back and forth in the water.
“The last array is in place,” Zelenka said. “I am turning it on.” There was another rush of bubbles, and then the sensor vane lit with twinkling red light.
The glow of the creature’s body shifted, dimmer red lights spreading against skin that had gone suddenly dark. It looked a lot like the sensor vane.
One for the biologists, Lorne told himself, and pushed off from the hull, trying to kick toward the jumper without making sudden movements. Green and Campbell followed. Green started to switch on the light on her camera, but Lorne motioned for her to leave it. They didn’t want to draw the creature’s attention as they tried to make their retreat.
It stayed where it was, and Lorne thought he could see the glow of the flashlight’s beam moving erratically through the water along with the light shed by the creature itself. Then it moved, faster than he would have thought possible, rushing past them into the darkness, the flashlight tumbling abandoned through the water behind it.
Lorne heard the noise a moment later, a grinding that he hoped wasn’t an iceberg about to send giant chunks of ice tumbling toward his team. Green caught his arm and pointed toward the edge of the city, and he looked up toward where the water was lit by the gray sunlight.
A ring of spikes were sliding down through the water, meters long and angled out to deflect any impact. Between them, cables stretched to make an underwater fence that would catch anything small enough to slip between the spikes. Here and there Lorne thought he saw gaps, but they could take a look later, and mend anything that looked the worse for wear.
“That is perfectly lovely,” Zelenka said. “Now come inside and get warm.”
Lorne wasn’t about to argue with that.
… and returned the ship to the Genii, thereby ensuring the continuation of smooth diplomatic relations, Dick typed. He hesitated, and then deleted the last part of the sentence. Not strong enough, and anyway he felt that describing their relations with the Genii in the past as smooth was probably more of a creative interpretation of the truth than the IOA was likely to swallow. Thereby avoiding a diplomatic incident that might well have…
The trick was making the consequences sound significant enough to justify handing over an Ancient battle cruiser, but not so dire as to make the IOA question the wisdom of trying to make a deal with the Genii in the first place. He very much suspected that couldn’t be done. He wasn’t looking forward to the IOA reading this report. A diplomatic incident that…
…that would have been very embarrassing, Dick typed, and then deleted the words with a sigh.
He looked up at a diffident knock on the doorframe, feeling grateful for the distraction. “Dr. Zelenka, please come in. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Zelenka said.
“At least there is some good news,” Dick said.
“A bit, yes,” Zelenka said. “We have managed to reactivate the Ancient systems intended to protect the city from damage by floating ice. We may still have problems if we encounter extremely large icebergs, but Major Lorne says there is no problem with towing those out of the way, or even just blowing them up.”
“Is blowing up icebergs entirely safe?”
Zelenka shrugged. “I think not particularly, but he says that the demolitions experts could use the practice, and I suppose it is not more dangerous than blowing up anything else.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Dick said. He had been dealing with the military for decades, now, and he still sometimes found their perspective a little hard to grasp. “Any more good news?”
“Not really,” Zelenka said. “The biologists are concerned about the pigeon issue.”
“I’m sorry?”
“They sent you memos? We have pigeons?”
“Of course,” Dick said. “The pigeons.” He’d seen an email about pigeons, he was fairly sure, but it hadn’t seemed to be a priority compared to the offworld teams that still hadn’t reported back at the time. “And they’re concerned because…”
“It could be damaging to this planet’s ecosystem,” Zelenka said. “Pigeons can be an invasive species. However, as far as we can tell there are no native birds, and I am skeptical that the pigeons can survive outside the city in this weather. Here they have warmth, and they seem to be finding sources of food.”
Dick frowned. “Would that be our supplies?”
“We have taken measures to make our storerooms pigeon-proof, so we will see how that goes. They are resourceful birds.”
“Is there something else we should be doing?”
Zelenka shrugged again. “I think poison would be more likely to harm the ecosystem than the pigeons, especially if the pigeons were eaten by any of the native sea life. We have a sort of giant squid, apparently. There are various strategies for driving pigeons away, but as there is essentially nowhere for them to go, that is unlikely to be effective.”
“Back up a moment,” Dick said. “Giant squid?”
“They seem to be doing no harm, although they were alarming for our divers to encounter unexpectedly. They are probably interesting to the marine biologists, but in terms of their effect on city systems. Zelenka made a dismissive gesture, possibly indicating that as long as they didn't pose a technical problem, he didn't consider them a priority.
And essentially you are recommending that we do nothing about the pigeons.
Yes. I think the pigeon situation is not really a crisis.
Let's do that, then, Dick said. He was very much in the mood for problems that could be solved by doing nothing. Was that the bad news?
What would be nice, Zelenka said. So, the bad news is much worse. I have been working on trying to ensure that the Wraith cannot access Atlantis' computer systems using information they have gained from Rodney. Dick nodded. It is a bigger problem than I thought. I am finding multiple back doors into the system, and this is suggesting that there are many I am not finding. Right now in my opinion the computer system is not secure.
Dick let out a breath. All right. What do we do?
I will need help on this one, Zelenka said.
Dick had a sinking feeling about where this one seemed to be going. I suppose we could ask Colonel Carter if she could spare any time to our computer security, he said. Asking the person who had his job before him for help wasn't exactly a position he wanted to be in, but neither was having the Wraith with free access to Atlantis' computers. I know she plans to keep the Hammond on station here for at least a few more days in case we do hear from Todd.
What would be helpful. I am just thinking that if we do not, we will need help for more than a few days. The Daedalus should be leaving Earth shortly on its way here.
Yes, Dick acknowledged. Unfortunately, I think we're in no position to request additional staff. The IOA has made it very clear that they will not authorize any further expenses this fiscal year, and that was before they read the report I'm about to send them.
Zelenka's eyebrows raised. Is it that bad?
Dick spread his hands. I have to tell them that we let Todd escape, that Dr. McKay is in the hands of the Wraith and may be handing over the access codes to our computer system as we speak, and that we just gave a functional Ancient battle cruiser to the Genii. Let's just say they won't be happy.It was worse the first year, Zelenka said, with the ghost of a smile.