Chapter 5 – Clueless
The broad, semi-transparent screen appeared from the nothing in the middle of the lab, when Rodney McKay switched on one of the Ancient computers. The diagram showed the fluctuation of the energy-supply of the sensors. In the background, Zelenka and a young scientist examined a map of the technical details of the equipment.
"It's impossible to find out the way to disturb our sensors if they got no inner help from Atlantis," Zelenka hemmed in front of him.
"What do you mean?" Rodney asked, shocked. "You mean that someone sent our sensor-protocols to the Wraiths?"
"After the ominous alliance when we let a few Wraiths in our city, Weir ordered me to change some parameters in our sensor-system in case the Wraiths should figure out a method to circumvent our sensors," Zelenka explained. "So even if they got information from the database of the blown-up Orion, that information is outworn, there is no chance that the crew of the super-hive could find out the way to disturb our sensors."
McKay snapped his fingers. "You should have told me earlier that you tampered with the sensor-system!" He shook his head. "I'm sure that you overlooked something, impairing a part of the equipment-"
"No!" Zelenka protested feverishly. "I made the necessary changes, nothing more. I checked it three times. I wrote down every change into my personal palmtop – you should have a look at my notes before you accuse me of doing any harm to our systems."
"Okay, show me the notes," Rodney beckoned, "Anyway, I'm sure that you did something detrimental to our sensor-system, and that's why the sensors don't work in the case of the super-hive."
Zelenka made an affronted gesture and pushed his palmtop in the direction of McKay. "You can check it, but you won't find a mistake," he murmured.
"Hey, guys!" John Sheppard stood in the doorway, smiling. He was wearing civilian clothes instead of the military uniform, a black t-shirt, which emphasized his muscles, and blue jeans. "How are you getting along with your job?"
"Very well," Rodney answered instantly. "We found out that Zelenka had muddled up our sensor-system."
"No, for Heaven's sake, no!" Radek turned to Sheppard, shaking his head. "I changed some details of the protocols in our sensor-system, but they were all harmless. I did nothing wrong."
"Well, we will see," McKay turned to Zelenka's palmtop.
"How can you tolerate him in your team?" Radek asked Sheppard, making a slight motion towards Rodney. The question made John's smile turn into a grin.
"We had to practice it really hard..." He answered sarcastically.
"I've heard that," McKay put Zelenka's palmtop aside, and turned to the others. "If you wish to talk about me, you should do it outside."
"No. I'm curious what you can find out about our sensors, I'm waiting for some results," John took a chair, and he sat down.
Hermiod stood at the other side of the desk with a grey, aggrieved furrow on his forehead, reminding Doctor Weir of an angry gremlin from an old book with fairy-tales.
„I've already told you that I have no idea how it could happen that the files had been deleted from the database of the Daedalus." The little Asgard repeated quickly. "I've done nothing with that appliance since Wednesday."
"Okay, slow down. No one assumes that it is your responsibility." Doctor Weir tried to force a smile into the corner of her mouth, but she was exhausted, worried and she had enough of the irritated answers given by the crew of the Daedalus as she kept questioning them, so she did not manage to shape the smile convincing enough. "I am not looking for the party at fault; I just want to know how Teyla Emmagan could disappear, and I want to find her. Could you, please, try to help me instead of insisting on your innocence?"
"I don't know a thing about the case," Hermiod replied coolly. "As far as I know, it's only Doctor Lindsey Novak and me who are familiar enough with the protocols of that database to completely delete the whole list of transactions."
"Novak could not tamper with the database, for she spent the last two days in the infirmary because of the attack of the dog-like creature she bought from the Athosians," Doctor Weir sighed. "And I don't think that you would have done it either. McKay and Zelenka are smart enough to handle that database, but it can't be them either. Who else has the ability to puzzle out the functional parameters of your beam-technique-system?"
"Someone who is familiar with Asgardian scripts," Hermiod murmured, looking daggers at Weir. Colonel Caldwell, who was standing at the back of the room, leaning leisurely against a metal-pillar, smiled maliciously as he heard the Asgard's answer. At first, Doctor Weir did not catch the hidden meaning of the Asgard's cold look and Caldwell's smirk, but then she realized what that was.
"Well, I've studied Asgardian language for a while, if that's what you mean," she answered, narrowing her eyes. "Of course, we can cross my name off the list because I know perfectly well that I did not do a thing to the systems of your ship. Who else do you have in mind?"
"No idea," Hermiod replied apathetically. "No one has ever asked me to show him or her how the files can be deleted from the database. I haven't seen anyone trifling with the appliance either. That's all."
Doctor Weir began to lose patience. "Okay, so you are telling me that someone kidnapped a woman, brought her in a blood-dripping blanket with the beam-technology aboard the Daedalus, transported her somewhere else, then deleted the files about the transactions, and no one on that damned ship saw or heard a thing?"
Caldwell stepped forward. "We don't spend our whole life aboard the resting Daedalus. It may happen that none of us was aboard when that person broke into our systems."
"Oh, don't you think that this idea has already occurred to me as well?" Elizabeth asked indignantly. "I've checked it, and there were people aboard the ship yesterday during the whole time-period while Teyla might have disappeared. A few scientists kept repairing a malfunction of the engineering system..."
"Why don't you ask them, then?" Hermiod interjected.
"I've asked them, but they told that they had noticed nothing related to the case." Doctor Weir leaned back in her chair. She knew beforehand that her next order would make Caldwell annoyed, but she had no other choice. She turned to the colonel. "I want you to command all of your people to visit the infirmary during the day. Doctor Beckett will check if they have any influence by aliens which might be manifested in biological mutations. I myself will get me examined, and I will send everybody from the residents of Atlantis who has no perfect alibi for that morning to go to the infirmary for a quick check-up as well. I'd like you two to do the same, too."
Again, she could see how stupid of her was when she had mentioned Caldwell the Goa'uld case yesterday. If she had not done that, now it would have been much easier to tell this instruction without any awkward innuendo in it, and that sour expression on Caldwell's face would not have appeared either.
McKay looked up from Zelenka's palmtop. "Radek, why did you edit this file a week ago?"
"What?" Zelenka, who was examining the screen of the energy-fluctuations thoroughly, turned to Rodney surprised. "I wrote those notes two months ago, and I did not even open the file afterwards."
"Look, here!" Rodney showed him the screen of the palmtop. "It points out that it was edited last Friday."
"That's impossible! I did not do a thing to that file."
"Who knows the security password of your palmtop?" John asked from the background, frowning. He stopped playing with one of the hanging cables of a computer, and turned his chair in the direction of the two scientists.
"Do you assume that someone could break in the system of my palmtop?" Zelenka asked dumbfounded. "No, no, that's impossible. No one knows my security passwords except me. No one could... Oh, no!" He suddenly came to a halt, and his face grew very pale.
"What no?" Sheppard asked impatiently.
"I've just remembered that last week one of my jotters disappeared from the lab. It contains all my passwords written on the front page, so I was really upset to lose it, but next morning I found it again under a pile of books. I was sure that I could not leave it there, though I suspected nothing wrong. Anyhow, I wanted to change my passwords just to make sure that no ignorant person would muck about with my palmtop, but unfortunately I forgot about it."
"Why the hell do you keep your passwords written into a jotter?" McKay stared at him, shaking his head with disapproval.
"In case something bad may happen to me, I wanted you to have an easy way to get access to my work on my palmtop." The other scientist explained.
"Well, it seems that someone else gained unearned access to your notes," Sheppard sighed, and he got up from his chair. "Someone read your passwords, opened the file in which you collected the changes of the sensor-system you made, and he or she could transfer them to the Wraiths. Now I'm going to talk to Elizabeth about the situation. She won't be glad to hear it; she is already worried about the strange changes made in the database of the Daedalus. I'm sure that the news of having a traitor in Atlantis won't make her day happier."
"Oh, my God, she will fire me," Zelenka muttered bitterly.