"Well, shit…"

Mitchell pretty much felt the same way, but she knew it could have been a lot worse. After all, the water was warm, and they hadn't fallen into a pool filled with vipers or rabid lions or anything. The Mok were staring at them, but were hardly going to eat them. She ignored the Mok for a moment, and looked back the way they'd fallen. It was slippery with mud and steep and she was fairly certain they weren't going to be able to climb out of the pool that direction.

Which meant going through the group of Mok to get out the other end.

At least they're not rabid lions

True.

"Major?"

Sheppard had been checking things out the same way she had, and had obviously come to the same conclusion. Chest deep in a pool of hot – but not too hot, thank goodness – water, surrounded on three sides by big ole cow-like critters, it wasn't too hard to see your options, after all.

"Colonel?"

"Take point."

Sheppard scowled, and Melony ignored it, hiding her grin behind an innocent look. As he headed for the herd, Melony realized that not all of these Mok had the water balloon things hanging down from their necks – which made her assume these were the females.

"The ones without the things on their necks must be females," Duck said, obviously thinking the same thing she was.

"What makes you think that?" Sheppard asked, looking back over his shoulder, curiously. He'd just reached the first of the Mok, now, one of the males, and had put his hand on its damp neck to see if he could get it to move out of his way with a gentle shove. As heavy as the creatures were, it wasn't like they were going to be able to just move them aside if they didn't want to go.

Duck flushed – which had nothing to do with the heat of the water – and mumbled something about just guessing, and Mitchell snorted in amusement, but didn't say anything.

John gave her an odd look, and ran his hand along the protruding sack of the nearest Mok, admiring the velvety softness of the thing.

"What do you suppose this is?" He asked Mitchell, who had come up beside him with Sanders beside her. Both were grinning, now.

"I'd suggest you don't squeeze it or anything, Major," Melony told him.

"What?"

"Talon is telling me that it's a sperm sack…"

Sheppard jerked his hand away, much to the disappointment of the Mok he'd been fondling. He didn't need to hear more than that – and certainly didn't need an explanation of what she meant.

"A sperm sack?"

He looked down at his hand, and dipped it in the water, splashing as he tried to wash it off.

Mitchell snickered, although now that she thought of it, she didn't see any obvious sign of any other-

"Well… if that's its… um… sperm sack," Sanders asked. "Where's its –"

"How do you suppose they breed?" Sheppard asked, still washing his hand off.

"If you guys keep feeling them up like that, we'll probably find out," Mitchell said, not even trying to hide her amusement.

"Ask Talon," Sheppard said, moving his way through the herd as well as he could with the one he'd touched now following them as they waded.

Talon?

No clue, Hot Shot, Talon told her, chuckling as well. That's why they went extinct. Several races tried captive breeding programs, but while they knew where the males kept their sperm, they couldn't find anything on the females – inside or out – to put it with

Huh. That's odd.

She relayed that information to the others, who were interested of course, but since neither of them were xenobiologists, they really didn't have much chance of figuring out something that other – presumably more advanced – races hadn't. And really, standing in the water with the creatures wasn't the way any of them wanted to find out.

"Maybe you can keep an eye on them while you're here…" Duck said as Sheppard found himself in shallower water now as they were reaching the edge of the pool. Several of the Mok were following them, but when he pulled himself up onto the rocky ledge that formed the lip and turned around to reach down and take Mitchell's

90, none of them showed any interest in following him.

"Unless they put out an instruction video or something, chances are I'm not going to learn anything," Melony said, dragging herself up onto the ledge beside John. She had too much on her plate to start playing peeping Tom with the Mok, after all.

Sheppard smiled, and pulled Sanders up out of the water and then looked at Mitchell. Soaked as they were – and now that they were out of the warm water it was starting to get a little chilly – he was ready to call it a day, even though they hadn't been gone that long.

"Can we go home?"

She nodded.

"Sounds like a great idea to me."

She'd seen enough, and knew Talon had as well. The place was deserted enough that they weren't going to have to worry about someone surprising them when they least expected it, and as near as either of them could tell they weren't going to have to worry about the local wildlife going berserk on them and trying to eat them.

And they now knew the perfect place to soak if they wanted a hot bath.

The three of them started back toward the Jumper.

OOOOOOOOOO

"Do you know when Major Sheppard was planning on being back?"

The Marine who'd been guarding the single Jumper left in the ravine shrugged.

"He didn't say, Doctor McKay. He just said he'd see us soon."

Rodney scowled. It wasn't like they could raise them on the radio, either. Communications were blocked by whatever made up the walls of the lava flow – and the surrounding area. He was still planning on taking a sample back with him to Atlantis to see what it was and if it was something they could use somehow, but that was going to have to be a back burner project, even now that they'd pretty much finished Mitchell's secret base.

"Maybe we could take the Jumper up and try to raise them?" He asked.

The Marine shook his head.

"Only in an emergency. Is it an emergency?"

He wanted to say it was, but gloating about having finished your latest masterpiece was hardly something that could be counted as an emergency by anyone's standards – and certainly not from Sheppard's, McKay knew.

"No. I suppose not."

"They should be back before dark."

McKay scowled again.

"When they return, let them know I want to see them. Please."

"Sure thing."

He went back into the lava tube. No sense standing out in the drizzling rain, after all.