Last time: Anna's on a field trip (since chapter 37), but she's stuck in some ruins with Kavanagh (and some snarling dogs), Radek's worried. So that's normal, since he's pretty much over his illness (from chapter 30).
Chapter 40. What It Isn't.
Anna felt like she'd been watching Kavanagh pick at the alien puzzle box for years, now. It had actually been about forty-five minutes. Anna almost tried to start a game until she realized it was highly likely that only Kavanagh would be able to play Prime/Not-Prime, and Iskaan would have no idea what any of it meant. Kavanagh was busy. And he didn't seem like the game-playing-type anyway.
Iskaan seemed pretty content looking over the turret at the pacing pack below, anyway. Several of the dogs had gone into the ruins. Anna thought that if she listened hard enough she could hear their claws click on the hard floor beneath. They howled every now and again.
"That doesn't look Ancient," Anna finally commented.
Kavanagh glanced up for a moment. "Oh yeah? What was your first clue?" He held the thing up under the light of his flashlight.
It didn't actually look Ancient at all, not from any of Anna's experience, anyway. It was wholly square and pretty plain. Ancient things were usually geometric, but they typically had some sort of marking on them. Besides, the ruins were almost obviously not Ancient. But apparently they'd been wrong about things like this before, so maybe they thought it was worth sending Kavanagh out to look.
Or maybe anything was worth getting Kavanagh out of the lab for the day?
Anna just sighed at Kavanagh's sarcasm. "Why are you looking at it, then?"
"Because it is Ancient. But from what I can tell, these ruins were picked over a thousand times and the only reason this was passed over is because it doesn't look like anything." He handed her one of his instruments and then his tablet. "Take a look."
Anna looked at the readings on the tablet. The thing was emitting a faint energy signature, but it really didn't look like much.
"What are you looking for?" Anna asked.
"Anything," Kavanagh sighed. He peered down through the hole. "You're right about the rest of the ruins, though. These aren't Ancient. I haven't a clue what they are." He held the box up again and turned it around. "I don't see any sort of access point."
Anna didn't see one, either, but she hadn't been fiddling with it for the past near-hour, either. "This energy signal is very faint," she said finally. "Could it just be a box holding something?"
Kavangh nearly scoffed, but ended up coughing instead. "What a novel thought."
"It was just an idea. If it's not a machine itself, it might hold something…" Anna squinted at it. She held her hand out. "Can I see it?"
Kavanagh gave it to her without a word and tried to raise Rutherford on the radio. "You're telling me there's no chance of getting out of here tonight?" he asked after Rutherford answered.
"Calm down, Kavanagh," Rutherford answered through the buzz of static. "I asked for a Jumper, but it's the middle of the night and the locals can tell some pretty convincing stories about these dogs of yours."
Kavanagh sighed and rolled his eyes, but he didn't hold down the talk button. "Someone just shoot me," he mumbled. Probably didn't let Rutherford hear that because he'd probably offer to do that the very next time he saw Kavanagh.
"It's not that bad," Iskaan said. He pulled a panpipe from his vest and started playing. That didn't seem to do anything to help Kavanagh's nerves.
"Yes. Yes, it is, and it just got worse." Kavanagh gave Iskaan a dry glare.
Anna was only mildly paying attention, fussing with Kavanagh's box. She pulled, pried, and twisted it every which way she could think of and looked for any writing in Ancient in hopes that Kavanagh could translate it. The odds that he'd missed it were pretty low, but sometimes looking at something too long and hard made the most obvious things invisible.
Suddenly, it popped.
"What did you do?" Kavanagh asked.
"Nothing." Anna shrugged and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I was just pulling on it." She handed it back.
"The old brute force method." Kavanagh sighed. He pulled the top of the box off to reveal a small device with the access point that Kavanagh had been looking for in its housing. Otherwise, it looked inert. He glanced at her. "I guess you're not quite as helpless as you look."
Anna didn't know whether to thank him or punch him. It might save time and effort to just let Rutherford shoot him.
#
"She's alright?" Radek followed Elizabeth into her office. He felt like he'd asked this a hundred times, but the answer he kept getting didn't put him any more at ease. "Can't we go get them now?"
He realized too late where he was—what he was doing. He backed up a few paces, putting his back on the door.
"I told you, you didn't have to come," Elizabeth assured him. Despite her amused look, he didn't feel much better about it. "She is just fine. Rutherford and his team are ready to move out at first light. It seems a local pack of dogs made a home of the ruins Kavanagh was investigating. They didn't take too kindly to that."
"Where are they exactly?"
"At the top of a tower. They're apparently very safe." Radek didn't answer for a moment. Elizabeth sighed and motioned at one of the chairs. "Come in, Doctor Zelenka. Sit down."
Radek did as he was bidden, mulling over Elizabeth's last words. He sank into the chair in front of Elizabeth's desk. "Who is 'they'?" Radek asked.
"Kavanagh, Anna, and Iskaan," Elizabeth answered. Radek must have paled at that, because Elizabeth smiled warmly. "Iskaan has dealt with this kind of thing before. Teyla tells me he's a very accomplished hunter. He'll keep Anna safe."
That didn't change the fact that Radek should never have let her go offworld in the first place. He sniffed, remembering that he promised himself that he'd only be out for a few hours today. He wasn't entirely recovered. Doctor Beckett might be miffed if he managed to get himself sick with something else.
Radek sighed and nodded. "I know that. I know she's safe."
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment. Her hazel eyes were bright, seemed all-seeing. He blinked and looked at the floor, just to get his eyes somewhere else.
"Every parent goes through this, Radek," she said, as though she had personal experience. As far as he knew, she didn't. But her voice carried the weight of a sage. "Teenagers like to test the limits. Their limits. She'll find many, many more ways to worry you before she's eighteen."
Radek only barely remembered what it was like to be a teenager. But he'd lived in a different world, literally and figuratively. Czechoslovakia was a far cry from Atlantis. Of course, young Radek's notion of testing limits had been mostly scientific. Alright, there may have been plenty of alcohol and a reasonable handful of young ladies involved, too.
Young Radek sometimes seemed an eternity away.
"How about you just get your mind off things?" Elizabeth suggested.
"Lunch?"
The word had flown, unbidden, from his mouth. Not what he'd meant to say. And she'd obviously taken it precisely as he hadn't meant it. Or had he meant to ask her a long time ago?
"No, no, no, no, that's not—forget I said anything," he said when he saw the look on her face.
A pathetic mixture of surprise, confusion, and pity.
"No, it's my fault," Elizabeth interrupted. "I may have given you the wrong idea about—"
"Do not apologize, please." He rose from the chair, feeling his face flush with color.
"I'm just concerned about Anna. That's all," she said.
Elizabeth looking for company more engaging than the empty balcony for a midnight meal was a far cry from a lunch in public with… well, anyone. Least of all, him. After all, Radek was well aware that on a scale of one to, say, Colonel Sheppard, he certainly dominated the low numbers. He was small and awkward, and any distinguishing features weren't particularly flattering. Better not sell himself short, though. He was intelligent, could be witty (in Czech, though English was coming along), and had some sort of innocent charm despite an admitted lack of innocence. Or charm.
Yeah, he wasn't sure how that worked at all, but he'd take it. Maybe it was the pigeons...
The fact remained that Radek had never seen Elizabeth share a meal with anyone before, come to think of it. Not really. Not outside of clearly business.
"Me, too." If only that were true, if only…
Idiot. She probably thinks you're an idiot.
He backed up to the door, pausing only long enough to watch her, half a moment. Apologetic. "Think nothing of it. Tell me when Anna returns, please."
And she's right.
He let the door fall closed behind him. He didn't stop it when he heard her say his name softly. He'd really managed to mess things up this time, hadn't he? He'd admired her for as long as he'd known her. Her beauty was one thing. Her intellect was quite another—unlike anyone he'd ever met before. But Elizabeth was famously separate from everyone else in the expedition, what Radek might have termed an "extremely professional distance."
She wasn't interested in friends. She was most certainly not interested in anything else.
Naturally, Radek's response would be to embarrass himself beyond words. It would be preferable if he never saw her again.
No. No, that was the last thing he wanted.
Next time: Okay. Enough adventure for one day.
