Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.
Previously: Anna and Radek are working on figuring out if Anna can actually make ZPMs out of those little orange rocks she discovered (first in chapter 64). Also, Rodney asked Radek to have lunch with him (last chapter). Because it's his birthday. Clearly, Rodney doesn't have many friends.
Chapter 99. Not Listening.
"Anna?"
She didn't even move, her eyes pasted on the computer panel with the most awed or adoring expression. Radek wondered if he shouldn't try to snap her out of it, but decided against that almost immediately. The last time he saw her looking at something like that was in the back of a Puddle Jumper…
They still hadn't quite sorted that out to his satisfaction. For the meantime, he was happy to ignore it. The Athosian boy was hundreds of kilometers away. Fortunately for Radek, Anna currently considered ZPMs much more interesting. This was, at least, something he understood.
He slid to stand beside her, and that caught her attention.
That smile on her face when she looked up at him. She really loved this stuff, didn't she? She really did. "It's a really beautiful piece of technology," she said.
He nodded, wondering what she meant by that. Perhaps something more than aesthetics, since she'd spent the last five minutes poring over the circuits leading from this central node to the surrounding junctions. There were more aesthetically pleasing sights in this room than a jumble of blue and white wires.
"It is," he agreed anyway. "Do you think we have what you need?"
She gave him a smirk. "You're the expert. Do I have what I need?"
Radek looked at his tablet and scrolled through the scans they'd run. He was surprised at all of her ideas for making a thorough job of it. In fact, they scanned the ZPM in more ways today than Radek thought they'd ever scanned it. As he suspected, some of the data they'd gathered was fairly useless, but anything was worth trying once. And anything to encourage her toward her love of Atlantean power systems.
With any luck, it would keep her from loving other things too much for a while.
"I think we have everything we can get," he said, handing her the tablet.
Anna looked at the screen with a nod, and then started gathering her things. With a final glance back at the panel of circuits and capacitors, she said, "Next time you have to work on the ZPM, can I watch?"
"Yes, of course," he said.
He helped her gather her things and they left the ZPM room. She scrolled through the tests they'd run. He would show her how to analyze the data in all the ways he thought pertinent. She'd already asked a few questions that Radek would never have expected of an undergraduate, much less a sixteen-year-old. Her questions seemed to indicate, to him, that she already had a firm grip on the things she needed to know about the ZPM before she could even think about making one herself.
He was biased. He had to believe that. The odds that his daughter would be just as gifted as he was as a child were… fairly good, actually. He trusted Eliška would encourage their daughter toward math and science even if she wasn't truly exceptional.
But she was. Anna was exceptional.
Even if she wasn't.
It was an unfamiliar feeling and motion for him to give her a sort of sideways hug as they walked, but she seemed to take to it well.
"You're quite smart, you know," he said. It was probably a stupid thing to say, since he didn't doubt she was aware that very few teenagers would have seen the ZPM as anything more than as a pretty orange rock.
Well, she saw it as a pretty orange rock, too.
Smart and normal. He had the fleeting thought that Anna might not be related to him at all, given that bit of information. He had the smart part. Not necessarily the normal part.
She gave him a half-frowning grin, like she was annoyed that she was smiling at all. "You are what you're around, I guess."
"Adaptation," Radek said.
"Without adaptation, you go extinct."
That was a bit more serious a discussion than Radek bargained for. He doubted that a lack of comparable intellect on Atlantis would spell out Anna's extinction… if he thought that, they wouldn't be here. He had a comparable intellect, and he'd able to keep her safe if it came down to it. Probably.
Most likely.
If he thought that he wouldn't be able to, or that Rodney wouldn't, or any number of unbelievably brilliant individuals on Atlantis wouldn't be able to snatch the city and its inhabitants from the jaws of death in the nick of time… they wouldn't be here.
"So can I?"
Radek looked at Anna. The conversation seemed to have gone on without him. "I'm sorry—can you what?"
Anna rolled her eyes in frustration. "Go to the mainland."
Oh, the mainland.
Hell, no.
He opted for the more diplomatic, "What for?"
Anna shrugged and ran her fingers down the side of her tablet. "That is where I found the rocks, and I thought that maybe I could get a few more better specimens for study."
Of course, that was what she thought. But he couldn't really say no, could he? "I don't know…" he mumbled anyway. "Don't you think you should figure out what you have right now before you go trying to get more?"
"But I don't know what is there," Anna said. "This might not be the only kind of rock. There might be more. More rocks more like ZPMs. Because what I have now isn't exactly like a ZPM and I don't know if we can change it to be more like one."
"What a perfectly scientific reason…"
Anna looked to be trying to hide a small smile as she said, "I mean, I want to see Iskaan, too. But that's okay, isn't it?"
Radek sighed. "I guess so. As long as you can promise that seeing is all you'll be doing."
She blushed, frowned, and gave him a well-meaning slug on the shoulder. "Radek," she scolded.
"Kidding," he offered. Even though he really wasn't kidding. But he'd have to figure out what to do about this sometime or another. After all, Anna wasn't getting any younger. Time was going on and it was up to him to keep pace.
He'd just have to adapt, probably. Adapt or die.
#
Radek walked into the mess hall, saw Rodney sitting at the table by himself. If Anna was right—
God, he was pathetic.
He picked up a plate, already filled with a sandwich, a tray of salad that looked primarily like spinach, a little yellow cup of some kind of juice and… um… something orange? There was also something brown with the feel and look of chocolate. Without asking, he sat down across from Rodney and said, almost sadly, "No blue Jell-O." He put his tablet on his left, and picked up his fork.
"Yeah." Rodney sounded disappointed, but then he lifted one of the little slips of orange food stuffs and asked, "What the hell is this?"
Radek picked up one of the mystery chips. It wasn't a potato chip, though, the consistency was all wrong. It was sort of soft, and ever so slightly fuzzy. Dry. He carefully, tentatively, tasted it. "I think it's like a, um… lyofilizace? Vojenských přídělů, myslím..." He sighed and took another bite.
Rodney looked horrified. "Is it that awful, really?" He carefully picked up one of his orange chips.
"No, I don't—" He cut himself off from saying he didn't know the word for it in English. "I think it's a… like a banana."
"Those are yellow."
"I said like a banana."
It actually wasn't terrible. But, for some reason, whoever was in charge of the kitchen saw fit to transform some of their home-grown Pegasus fruit into the texture-less, virtually tasteless affair that was military rations.
"If you really wanted Jell-O, you know, I think you could have asked and they would have made it for you," Radek pointed out, stabbing a stack of spinach leaves with his plastic fork. Only the best for the geniuses in the Pegasus galaxy…
Rodney shrugged, but didn't say much else.
Maybe because Colonel Sheppard appeared out of nowhere, already a bite into some other freeze-dried mystery. He set his tray down on the end of the table, between Rodney's and Radek's, before turning to grab a chair from another table.
"How's it going?" Sheppard asked.
Radek looked at Colonel Sheppard sideways. Made sense, Rodney would have asked him to lunch, as well. Radek supposed that if Rodney had any friends, he and Colonel Sheppard were just about it. And what a strange couple of friends they were. Completely and one-hundred percent different. Rodney probably just took what he could get. It explained Radek's being there, anyway.
He wondered if Sheppard knew that it was Rodney's birthday.
Probably not. Nobody knew anybody's birthday.
"Good." Rodney didn't sound very convinced. Maybe because he was looking at the banana-like chip in his fingers as though deciding whether or not to eat it. Then Rodney pointed at the gray thing Sheppard was holding. "What's that?"
Sheppard shrugged. "Like an apple? It's good."
"It's good," Rodney informed Radek, as if it were his fault that the almost-bananas didn't receive rave reviews. Swapping out the banana for the apple, he took a bite. Frowned. Nodded. "Not bad."
"I didn't say anything bad about the banana." To prove his point, Radek bit his chip in half. The taste seemed to get better with every bite.
"What did you say, then?" Rodney asked.
Time to admit he didn't know the word for lyophilization. Radek sighed and looked at Sheppard. "What is this called?" he asked, displaying the banana.
Sheppard gave the banana an appraising look, maybe about to give the fruit a name like he'd given the Puddle Jumpers a name.
Radek cut Sheppard off before he got the chance to offer the obvious answer that he didn't know what the alien fruit was called. "Not the fruit. I mean, the way it's prepared. What is it?"
"Oh. Freeze-dried." Sheppard nodded and took a bite.
"Freeze-dried? There. That's what I was saying."
Rodney didn't seem to believe him entirely, but seemed to decide to try the banana anyway. It apparently met with his expectations, but he turned his attention to his salad all the same. Radek made it halfway through his salad before the silence started to get to him.
Sheppard suddenly looked at Radek. "So how are repairs on Jumper Six going?"
Radek didn't know why he was surprised. Either he was surprised that Sheppard spoke to him at all, or that Sheppard cared or knew about Jumper Six. No, but of course he knew. He was the military commander of Atlantis—he probably read all kinds of reports. He probably knew Patterson. Probably heard at least something from Rodney about Higginson.
"Um." Radek gave a nod before putting words to it. "It's good."
"Good." Sheppard immediately turned his attention to Rodney, as if he'd just been handed some sort of segue. "Have you thought any more about the idea?"
Rodney rolled his eyes. "What—? No! Because it's insane."
"Oh, come on, I already told Elizabeth that you wanted to try it. Besides, being able to explore the ocean floor with a Jumper would be really useful." Sheppard nodded. Of course, that couldn't really be denied. It would be useful.
Radek would also never want to do that. Because, as Rodney put so eloquently, it was insane.
Radek didn't speak while he stabbed at a stack of spinach. It didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility, though the stresses on the Jumper's hull would be extraordinary. Then again, they hadn't really tested exactly what kind of stresses the Jumper's hull could withstand.
"We've had a similar conversation, though, haven't we?" Radek said when Rodney took a breath from scolding Sheppard. "That the Jumper might be able to function as a submersible."
"Yeah, it might." Rodney looked at Radek, stressing the fact that they, in fact, did not know.
It was really a switch of roles. "Yes, that is what I said." Radek shrugged and looked at his sandwich before deciding he'd rather talk than try to muscle down a bit of the dry-looking sandwich. "We've said before that the Jumpers—"
"Are probably capable of withstanding the stress, yeah, I know," Rodney said. "Here's the thing: engines made to propel in atmosphere and space are categorically different from engines made to move through water. Completely different."
"Well, atmosphere is a fluid in a way, it's just—" Radek started, but Rodney cut him off.
"Yeah! Worst case scenario, we plop the Jumper in the ocean and it sinks like a rock. You wanna be on that test flight, Zelenka?"
"No, I don't swim." Radek paused. That wasn't the point. "I was only saying that the engines we'd build to propel through space and atmosphere are also different. The Daedalus has two types: one for atmosphere, one for space. Maybe the Jumper is the same."
Rodney paused. "We still don't even know if the Jumpers are capable of submersing any more than we know whether they can have a hyperdrive on them."
Sheppard's eyes went wide for just a second. "Could we do that?"
"No. No, you could not. The crushing strength of atmospheres-worth of ocean on your head are a little bit different from the shearing and torsion you'd find in hyperspace."
Both Rodney and Radek ignored him. Radek was no expert on the strength of ocean currents, but he would have put money on the strength of forces in hyperspace being multiple times that any ocean could put on a Jumper. For one thing, crushing force was different from shear. Fish could be ripped in half, but not by ocean currents. Fish lived in oceans. Fish didn't live in hyperspace.
He wasn't sure where he was going with that.
"What is keeping a Jumper from maneuvering in hyperspace?" Radek asked. "Or any other vehicle, for that matter. A Dart could maneuver in a Wraith hyperspace field, probably, if it were in one." He didn't know why he thought that, except that it was an impressively strong and sturdy piece of machinery that was notoriously difficult to break apart. Even with rockets and high-tech lasers.
"No, no, no, no." Rodney rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "There's no reason to believe that their hyperspace field is any different than ours, and we can't launch 302s from the Daedalus while in hyperspace."
"I'm simply talking about maneuvering within the field, not passing through it," Radek objected.
This conversation was academic, anyway, unless they had the chime-in of an actual pilot who'd been in space. Which was approximately a third of their table. That third of the table didn't seem to be interested in the conversation.
Radek looked at Colonel Sheppard. "What do you think?"
The colonel just smiled, shrugged a little.
"Colonel?" Radek tried again.
Colonel Sheppard looked between the two of them, suddenly, as if he hadn't been there this entire time. "What?" he asked, then nodded with some authority. "Yes."
Rodney shook his head. "He's not listening."
Rodney was right, though. Sheppard really wasn't listening. Radek glanced to his right to see what, exactly, had Sheppard so enthralled.
Oh. Rafaela. Of course.
"Wait, if you aren't concerned with launching the 302s from the Daedalus while in hyperspace, then how are you getting them out there in the first place, exactly?" Rodney asked. "They sure aren't equipped with hyperdrive themselves, you know."
"It was a thought," Radek muttered. "And I still think they'd be maneuverable in the field."
"Okay. Maybe. But you still have to somehow get them in field, and even then—forget it. The strength of forces in hyperspace basically converts space into a river and you're just along for the ride." Rodney picked up his sandwich, still wrapped in cellophane, and started to peel back the wrapping. "Good thing you aren't going to be flying any darts or 302s in the near future."
At least they could agree on that. Radek picked up his own sandwich.
"What?" Now Colonel Sheppard decided to listen? "Zelenka wants to fly a 302?"
"No." The easiest question of the day. Do you want to be a pilot, Zelenka? "No, we were just commenting how lucky it is that I'm not a pilot."
Rodney nodded, smiling smugly.
"Oh, come on, Rodney, you aren't much better." Radek looked at his sandwich, unduly upset about his lack of piloting skills. It wasn't like Rodney had any of those, either. Not really.
"Excuse me?" Rodney snapped. "I can fly. I can fly Puddle Jumpers. Sheppard? Tell Zelenka I can fly Puddle Jumpers." He looked to Colonel Sheppard for backup that, apparently, Sheppard was having a hard time coming to terms with giving.
Sheppard picked up a sliver of freeze-dried orange banana and nodded with reservation. "You can fly a Puddle Jumper," he said. Emphasis on the can. No need to get technical.
"Better if he's in the back monitoring systems," Radek guessed with a half-grin. That was where Radek was better, too. No shame in it. At least, he didn't think so.
"Yeah," Sheppard agreed, maybe a little too hastily. "Nothing wrong with that, though. It's better to keep the ship flying. I mean, anybody can point the Jumper in a direction and go. But nobody wants to be flying along and crash into the ocean." Sheppard scoffed and shook his head. "That'll ruin your day."
Radek could imagine…
No. No, wait. He couldn't imagine.
Sheppard slowly looked up at Rodney, saying, before he took a bite, "Unless it can fly underwater."
"Fly. Underwater. You realize—"
"You know what I mean, Rodney!" Sheppard snapped.
The conversation continued down a mostly-piloting path, with Sheppard actually participating since Esposito finished her lunch. It seemed like Sheppard had flown almost everything on Earth, and even a lot of things not on Earth. Even Rodney had a bit of experience flying Puddle Jumpers, which left Radek squarely on the outside of the conversation.
Except when Sheppard poked fun at Rodney's inept piloting. Radek felt perfectly at home doing that.
If Radek didn't know any better, he'd say he almost enjoyed himself. Almost thought they should do this more often. Birthdays came only once a year. But, if nobody knew, it wasn't much of an excuse to break out of the ordinary, was it?
"Nothing like a gruesome crash to remind you that piloting is dangerous…" Rodney muttered during a lull.
Okay, maybe it was a good thing that birthdays only came once a year.
Sheppard arched an eyebrow. "What?"
"I was just thinking about Jumper Six. You're almost done repairing it, aren't you?" Rodney asked.
"Um, yes…" Radek mumbled. He looked at Sheppard helplessly, then back at Rodney. "Yes, I'm finished. I actually wanted to talk to you about that."
"On that note," Sheppard said, standing up with his empty tray. "I'll get out of here. Later, Rodney. Zelenka." He nodded to each of them and went on his way.
Rodney watched him go before turning back to Radek. "What about Jumper Six?"
"Well, since this was my day off and I'm working for you, instead, I was hoping that you could do a favor for me…?" He watched Rodney pale as if he was just as afraid of flying as Radek was.
Radek wasn't afraid of flying. He just… he didn't like it. That was all.
"No. Uh, no, sorry, I can't." Rodney gathered his own tray and various plastic pieces of garbage.
Radek didn't even get a chance to call him on that wild tale as he hurried to follow Rodney. He opened his mouth to object before Rodney jumped in with another excuse.
"I'm having lunch with Doctor Brown tomorrow, since she was busy today."
"You owe me."
There were plenty of reasons besides his taking Rodney's birthday for him. For example, his scalp still itched. Who knew Radek was allergic to M7G grass? Probably. Rodney got to be allergic to all citrus. It was believable if Radek was allergic to a specific variety of grass used for hair-braiding on a planet located in the Pegasus galaxy. It was perfectly reasonable.
"What—for lunch?" Rodney demanded.
Radek made a sarcastic show of thinking about it. "No, I mean I'm working today. My usual day off." Rodney didn't look convinced. "You sent me offworld on the year anniversary of my ex-wife's death at my express request to not do that. I'm sure I asked very nicely, too."
"Yeah, but I actually saved you a lot of trouble by not listening to you, didn't I?" Rodney asked as he deposited his tray and plasticware to be cleaned and the ball of cellophane in the nearest trash bin. "I really only have your best interest at heart. And it would be to your benefit to get over your fear of flying in Puddle Jumpers."
"It's not—" Radek was about to say it wasn't fear, per se. But he wasn't sure whether it was or not. "That's not the point. We had squirrel, Rodney. Three times."
"Anna doesn't hate you anymore," Rodney pointed out, his irritation mounting. He tended toward squeaking when he was irritated.
"There was grass in my hair."
Radek didn't know how to articulate how much he'd hated going to M7G. Yes, he'd gotten to spend some good quality time with Anna, which was great. Of course. He wouldn't have traded that assignment in retrospect. But that didn't change the fact that it was an uncomfortable and inconvenient assignment, either, and Rodney gave it to him just to spite him.
Or maybe he was avoiding how much he didn't want to take Jumper Six out for a spin. Yes, the last time he was in a Jumper, he'd been staring down the prow of a Wraith hive ship. He'd been terrified, but more concerned with getting Sheppard's team home safe. Even those brief jaunts to and from planets from space 'gates were not his favorite thing in the galaxy. Major Lorne was a passable pilot.
Radek loved the Puddle Jumpers. Just hated flying.
Okay, so it wasn't just the squirrels. "Look, flying is not… it's not my favorite activity in the best of times, alright?" Radek admitted quietly. Hated it so much he was maybe one step away from outright begging Rodney to do it. Hoped it didn't come to that, though.
Rodney paused. Looked at him. "You're afraid of flying?"
Radek winced. "Well, do you have to be so blunt about it?" And his own horrific version of exposure therapy wasn't working very well.
Rodney considered this new information. He was just going to tell Radek he had to suck it up and do it because it was his job and, surprise, adults just do that.
"But even you must admit you always give me the worst assignments."
"Those are randomly assigned," Rodney objected.
That was possible. Radek's life hadn't exactly let him strike it rich in casinos, now, had it? Still… "Well, either I have had the worst luck imaginable for the past year and a half or my boss, who isn't that fond of me in the first place, has been giving me these undesirable assignments." Radek waited for Rodney to respond, but he didn't say anything. "Occam's razor."
Not exactly the most logically sound assertion he'd made in his life. It was perfectly possible that both of those things were happening at the same time. It was why he wasn't making his living gambling.
"Alright!" Rodney suddenly sighed, loudly and at length. "Alright, fine. I'll do it. I should probably check up on your work anyway, hm?"
And Radek almost thanked him.
"Maybe I'll take Anna…" **
Czech Things
* "Freeze-dried? Military rations, I think…" Thanks, Google.
A/N: I know this random scientist isn't Rafaela Esposito. Doesn't even look like her at all. But… well, I'm just going to say that it's Esposito for fun. Okay? Okay. Not that it's much fun; it's just some fun. Even though I'm pretty sure she's not a flirt like this other chick.
Thank yous & etc.
(all of you are the best, seriously; thanks for reading)
Adela- I'm glad! Thanks for reading and see you next week.
Fulmen- I'm glad to see you, too! And I'm happy everything's good with you. I'm glad you still like the story. :)
Ms. Meow- Happy to hear you still enjoy it. Feel free to recommend a story! I'm always looking for something fun.
Next time: DUN DUN DUNNNN~
**just kidding just kidding that's definitely not happening
I do feel like it should be something special, though. One-hundred. Big doings. But I'm not.
