Chapter 8

There was a voice, and Rodney decided to ignore it. It came again, accompanied by a firm prod on his shoulder. He opened his eyes.

"McKay! Your watch."

"Huhmmmyeah, 'kay," replied Rodney. He forced himself to sit up, putting weight on his sore wrist and stifling the resulting curses. The pain reduced to an ache, and Rodney began to feel the stiffness resulting from his use as a crash mat on the previous day, and his trampling by sheep-things the day before. He looked resentfully at his slumbering companions. Ronon had already encased himself in his sleeping bag and Teyla and John both lay still, breathing deeply. The ZPM-glow was a bit too comforting and Rodney knew he could easily fall asleep again, so he stood up and, draping his sleeping bag round his shoulders, shuffled to the central console. He glanced over his shoulder shiftily and, seeing no movement, reached over to give the ZPM a friendly pat and a murmured, "Good morning." The sleeping bag slipped off his shoulders and he shivered slightly.

The previous evening, Rodney had spent some time in the main city systems, finding that they had a lot in common with those on Atlantis. This proved fruitful in terms of an important discovery, to wit, the bathrooms, their doors sneakily hidden within the smooth, white walls; it had taken John, running his hands around the curved surface, to coax the doors into revealing themselves. And not a minute too soon Rodney had thought, with relief. He had also managed to get the water running, although unfortunately, the nearest showers seemed to be the ones in the changing rooms at the entrance and there was no way he was traipsing all the way back up there more times than he absolutely had to.

Rodney accessed the controls for the heating, twitched them up a notch, paid a visit to the bathroom (there was actual hot water this morning) and then returned to the console. His task for the day, (or actually just part of the morning would be good), was to continue to assess the safety of removing the ZPM, in terms of security features, such as, say, the automatic closing and locking of all doors if the requisite passcode wasn't entered, trapping them all in the mountain to die a slow death from starvation. Because that wouldn't be ideal.

Rodney worked his way methodically around the system, unable, so far, to find anything which indicated the presence of such troublesome features. After a while he stopped, stretched, wondered at the litter of power bar wrappers on the floor, when he didn't remember eating anything, and shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, feeling itchy and grimy and crumpled. He grabbed his pack and hefted it into the bathroom. It really was a pity that there weren't any showers, but at least there was hot water, and he'd make the best of it.

Personal hygiene was always difficult on missions, Rodney thought, as he sorted through his pack for some clean clothes. Facilities were often as basic as finding the nearest river, or even waiting for the next downpour, and even at the Happy Helg, the provision for washing was minimal, consisting of a jug of water, which seemed to stay hot for all of five minutes, and a china basin to pour it into.

Having washed and dressed and shoved his dirty clothes firmly to the bottom of his pack, Rodney thought about shaving; could he be bothered? Technically, he was still on watch and he had already been in the bathroom for ages, leaving his sleeping team unguarded.

Ronon entered and echoed Rodney's thoughts.

"S'posed to be on watch, McKay. Is the water hot?"

He began stripping off with a complete lack of self-consciousness, holding Rodney's gaze as he did so.

"Er... yes!" Rodney squeaked, abandoned the idea of shaving and made a hasty exit. He saw the door of the women's bathroom slide closed; presumably Teyla was up. Unless it was John, which would be funny, and Rodney would purposely make plenty of noise, so that Teyla would wake up and she'd be sure to need to use the facilities, and then she'd walk in on John. Rodney sniggered to himself. But no, that was a Sheppard-shaped sleeping bag still occupied. Rodney sat down on the stairs, pulling a random MRE from his pack, (it didn't matter which he got because he liked all of them) and thought about how best to ensure his team's safety when he finally removed the ZPM.

oOo

Teyla had been woken by the rustle of Ronon's sleeping bag and had rolled over in time to see the bathroom door slide shut behind him. She wondered where Rodney was, as she knew he had had the last watch of the night. Reluctant to leave John sleeping alone, nevertheless the bathroom beckoned, and Teyla took her pack and went in search of relief and hot water. She heard the door of the men's bathroom open as she went in the women's and was satisfied that John would not be unguarded after all.

When she emerged, feeling much fresher, she saw that Rodney had brought the lighting a little higher, but not all way up, respecting their still sleeping team leader. Rodney was sitting on the stairs, struggling with the packaging of his breakfast, his injured arm obviously still painful. Teyla's knee felt better, but she knew she would have to be careful not to over exert herself. Silently she took Rodney's meal from him, opened it, and passed it back.

"Thanks."

Teyla sat down, a packet of crackers in her hand, and began to eat, wishing she had some fresh fruit.

"Where is Ronon?"

"Gone for a run."

There was a rustle and a groan, and John's bleary and unshaven face emerged from his sleeping bag. He croaked, cleared his throat and said:

"Ronon's gone?"

"He just said, 'Feel like running,'" (Rodney's impression of Ronon would not be well received were its subject present, Teyla decided). "And then he took off."

John sat up slowly, rubbed his face, ran his hands through his hair, blinked and squinted in the suddenly glaring lights, and then made a turning gesture with his right hand held in the air, as the lights dimmed slightly.

"'S better," he said. "Why didn't you stop him? Pairs, I said! We always have a buddy in a place like this!"

"Why didn't I...?" Rodney responded, his eyebrows raised. "'Stop, please!' said the squirrel to the grizzly bear!"

"I'll have to go after him McKay," John snarled, annoyed.

Ronon's voice came from the walkway above.

"No, you won't." He slouched, loose-limbed down the stairs, bouncing slightly with excess energy and directed a meaningful look at Rodney. "Squirrels? Those the little squeaky ones with the fluffy tails?"

"That was just an example," huffed Rodney.

Ronon growled and raised his hands to suggest claws.

"Knock it off," said John, grumpily, fighting his way out of his sleeping bag. He moved like a man who had been recently thrown onto hard surfaces, by both an earthquake and a monster, thought Teyla. "No more solo missions, big guy, yeah?"

"I'm done now, anyway," Ronon replied evasively.

Teyla rolled her eyes.

"Um... The water's hot, Sheppard," said Rodney, with what Teyla thought was a careful lack of emphasis.

"I found it most refreshing!" she encouraged, brightly.

John narrowed his eyes, suspiciously. "Anything to add, Chewie?"

"No," said Ronon. And then continued, tactlessly, "Stink, no stink, it's all the same to me."

"Ronon!" Teyla rebuked him, sharply.

John snatched at his pack, dragged it huffily to the bathroom and disappeared inside, muttering.

oOo

Ronon loomed over Rodney and asked, with deliberate provocation, "Are you done yet?" He was disappointed with the response, which had been becoming increasingly high-pitched over the last hour, so that Ronon had risked Sheppard's displeasure and Teyla's glare to make it a round ten times, wondering if Rodney would actually squeak. Or squeal. He did neither, but just waved a hand with bandaged wrist attached, in vague dismissal.

This unusual response alerted Sheppard, who been cleaning all the handguns and Teyla's P90 (and sighing over the mangled remains of his own).

"You got something, Rodney?"

"Yes," McKay replied simply. He stood up straight and looked around his team, a small smile rising to his lips. "I... I think I have!" He sounded hesitant, almost as if he couldn't believe his own words.

"And? So?" John prompted.

"Zeolites!" announced Rodney, proudly, if cryptically, his eyes shining with enthusiasm.

"Zeo-what, now?"

"Zeolites! Hydrated aluminosilicates of the alkaline and alkaline-earth metals! Put simply, their molecular structure is porous, so they act like like microscopic sieves, trapping methane; it's called carbon capture."

"So, there's another machine to balance this thing?" John asked, gesturing at the methane delivery pipe.

"Have you turned it on?" Ronon asked. Problem solved, he thought.

"Ah, well, hmm... There is a machine, but it's not actually here."

"Where is it, then?"

Rodney turned to his laptop, tapped the keys, and brought up a map of Montarea.

"Here," he said, pointing.

"That's an ocean, right? It floats?" asked John, hopefully.

"Ah, no, sorry."

"So, on the ocean floor, then," said John, running a hand thoughtfully round his jaw and looking surprised to find himself clean-shaven.

"But there are Jumper ports!" said Rodney, tapping keys to bring up a diagram of the machine. Ronon leant forward, closer to the screen. Last time the Daedalus had resupplied Atlantis, there'd been some new kitchen equipment, including a waffle iron, and Ronon had since become adept at exploiting the load-bearing capabilities of waffles, in terms of portable breakfasts; waffle, bacon, waffle, egg, waffle, more bacon (if he could get it), and so on. He'd stack as much as he could reasonably hold and eat it on the way to a mission-departure, a meeting, beating-up Marines, whatever he was doing. The thing on the screen looked like a waffle; round, divided into sections, except it had a hole in the middle where there was a sub-roll- shaped bit (Ronon was also an expert on filling sub-rolls to maximum capacity).

"See, this bit pivots," said Rodney, pointing to the sub-roll. "So, when it lifts off, the array," (He means the waffle, Ronon realised), "swings round to the vertical, then both the movement of the ship, machine, whatever, and giant fans, draw in the air, the zeolites filter out the methane, and then it gets oxidised into CO2."

"CO2?" John looked confused. "But that's a greenhouse gas too. How's that gonna help?"

"Because it's the methane doing the damage here; it absorbs heat two hundred times more efficiently than CO2. In the grand scheme of things the CO2's a drop in the ocean!"

"Speaking of drop in the ocean, how deep is this thing? And can you get it working?"

"Oh, it's well within the safety zone for a Jumper. As for getting it working, that's a qualified yes, with two provisos."

"Those being?"

"Firstly that we can unbury it."

"It's buried as well as sunk," John said, flatly.

"Ten thousand years, Colonel! What do you expect?"

"And?" said John, resignedly.

Rodney shuffled from foot to foot and looked pained.

"I'm guessing it plummeted out of the sky and sank into the ocean depths for a reason," he said, plaintively.

"Out of juice?"

Rodney's expression said it all.

oOo

Rodney cradled his precious cargo close to his chest, resisting the urge to croon reassuringly to it. His wrist hurt, but he didn't care, having refused to relinquish his burden to less tender hands. Anyway, it meant he could see where he was going, as he'd realised when he'd nearly tripped in the near-total darkness and wished for more light. The ZPM had set up a gentle glow, supplementing the meagre light provided by Teyla's P90 and John's too, the previously barrel-mounted flashlight being the sole remaining working component.

Of course, the lights had gone out as soon as he'd powered down and disconnected the ZPM and, while he was doing that there'd been much scuttling about packing things away and generally 'leaving the place as you'd hope to find it'. He thought John's military instincts had kicked in a little too hard, so that he'd even cleaned the bathrooms; Rodney wondered if he'd used his toothbrush, the ghosts of old Drill Sergeants echoing in his ears.

Rodney climbed the endless stairs with very mixed feelings; on the one hand, he was immensely relieved to have found a potential solution to the global warming crisis, albeit one that included a whole list of 'ifs' in its execution, which, anyway, was a situation that Rodney was well used to. The thought of their friends, human and otherwise (especially otherwise, in fact) losing their homes, their livelihoods, and even their lives, had been devastating.

But on the other hand...

"You need the ZPM to power the waffle thing, right?"

"Ha! Waffle! Nice one, Ronon," endorsed John.

"Yes, unfortunately, and I was thinking CCM - 'Carbon Capture Machine, so if you don't mind...!"

"We do," John interrupted, totally disregarding the load of disappointment under which Rodney was already labouring. Rodney held his ZPM more tightly (mine for now, at least, he thought), and continued to climb, readying his answer to the foolish question, 'How are we going to get out without power running to the door?', to which he would answer, 'Residual power, or, failing that... ZPM, anyone?' He'd pour a good deal of scorn into the response too, feeling he had a right to be more than a little peeved.

They were nearly at the top when Rodney saw Teyla's silhouetted form fling up a hand, bringing everyone to a halt, and for a moment he didn't register the significance of the scene before his eyes. Then, it clicked: daylight. Muted and diffuse, it nevertheless lit the top of the stairs, bringing three-dimensional form to his surroundings, where before Rodney had been traveling in a small golden ball with two white antennae penetrating the utter blackness before him. John and Teyla slowly climbed the remaining stairs and cautiously rounded the corner into the entrance corridor, disappearing from view. There was a sharp gasp and a stifled groan and Rodney froze, his heart rate rising to panic speed.

John's voice came, tight and strained. "Teyla, stay with Rodney. Ronon, with me."

Rodney climbed up to the landing, but Teyla put her hand on his chest, stopping him from entering the corridor.

"What...?" he began.

"Wait!" she said, and he couldn't interpret the look in her eyes, lit by grey daylight and red ZPM light.

He waited, hearing just John's and Ronon's footfalls diminishing; no shouts, no weapons' fire, no chittering call or eerie cry of grenza.

"Clear!" It was Ronon's voice; loud, almost angry. Why hadn't John given the all clear? John always did that team leader stuff. Rodney hesitated, feeling his arms tremble around the ZPM. His mouth was dry, a lump in his throat too big to swallow.

"Rodney." Teyla's of gentle resignation did nothing to dispel his fears, but Rodney had faced his fears before, many times, and, as usual, he surprised himself by rediscovering an elusive inner core of strength that hid itself entirely from his questing mind until it was needed; it was needed now. He stepped around the corner into the light that penetrated the mountain's depths and immediately saw the reason why: the doorway had gone. The doorway and the surrounding walls were now a ragged undulating arch, and, his faltering steps bringing him closer, Rodney noticed that some of the floor had gone too, in shallow grooves, or deep trenches. Eaten away? Dissolved? Blasted? His scientific mind observed that there was no debris present, while simultaneously noting, now that he was close enough, the damage to the stairway and walls leading up from the other lab. The other, isolated lab, set apart from the main area, set apart and isolated for a reason, laid over and over with layers of security, its contents placed in a type of deep suspended animation, so that a horror the like of the grenza could never be accidentally released. And Rodney had been sure, so sure, that removing the ZPM would be safe, would merely leave the unanimated creature trapped in its perpetual prison, never to be released into this precious, unsuspecting world. Sure. He'd been sure; as sure as he'd been on Doranda.

His shocked attention turned from his own devastation to his friends, his team. Ronon stood, outside the ruins of the doorway, his blaster clenched tightly in his hand, his frame visibly vibrating with the need for action. John had not reached the doorway; he had stopped, at the point in the corridor where Rodney had been able to clearly see the damage originating from the stairwell. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, his face was greyer than the grey light, his eyes stared at nothing. Teyla, her face full of sorrow and concern, but still somehow projecting hope and faith, tentatively reached out to put her hand on his arm.

oOo

John pulled away, turned away from her completely and Teyla's heart sank. She had faith in him, faith where he himself doubted; she knew that John would do whatever it took to rectify this fresh setback, that even now, in the midst of his harsh self-blame, he would be planning, scheming, deciding the best course of action. But Teyla shrank from the thought of the price he might pay; the physical and mental burdens he would dutifully shoulder, deeming them rightfully his to bear.

She reached out again.

"John, this is not..."

He spun around. "My fault? Not my fault - that's what you think, is it?" he spat, bitter with self-recrimination. Next to Teyla, Rodney started forward, about to speak, but John stopped him. "No! Don't any of you tell me that! Just... don't!" He broke off, his fists clenching and unclenching. Rodney's mouth drooped unhappily, the ZPM held protectively against his chest as if it were a small child. John closed his eyes and his chest rose and fell slowly two, three times. His eyes opened again, and his expression was intent, grim with purpose.

"Ronon, can you clear me a safe place to land the Jumper?"

"What...?" Rodney began, but John interrupted.

"The platform in front of the bathhouse?"

Ronon shook his head. "Not strong enough. I'll level an area near the dome. Up from where we camped the other night." He gestured with his weapon, and Teyla knew that, with his hands and his gun, he would manage the job.

"Rodney, you need to find a way to track the thing." John had dumped his pack on the ground, and, taking off his tac vest he began to strip it of all non-essential items. "What can you tell me about it?"

"Um... I guess it's, um, assimilating its surroundings somehow, er, some kind of phase-shift to integrate its molecules with other materials; unless it's non-corporeal, an entity created from energy, maybe?"

"What does that mean?" demanded John. He'd taken off his uniform shirt and was putting his tac vest back on over his t-shirt.

"It means I don't know! It means maybe it can do virtually anything! John, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going for the Jumper," said John, checking his sidearm. "I'll come back, pick you up, and then we'll follow it."

"But..."

"We'll track it, we'll find it, we'll destroy it."

"John, I wouldn't know where to start! I don't even know if it's alive!"

"You said it assimilates stuff?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll get it to assimilate our C4."

"I don't know..." Rodney tailed off, stunned.

John turned to Ronon. "I'll be as quick as I can. Be ready." Then he was gone, and Teyla heard the rapid beat of his boots fading into the distance.