Last time: Radek is feeling better... for the moment. Anna is exploring some ruins on an offworld trip (since chapter 37).
Chapter 39. Dog's Den.
"What are those…?" Anna asked quietly. The light of her flashlight didn't make her feel any better in the dark ruins with what sounded like dogs killing each other outside.
"Just some wild animals," Kavanagh said.
He was pretty calm and collected for being a long, long walk away from town. But maybe he did things like this often. Maybe he was calm about it because it was unlikely that Wraith would cull the nearby town and go looking in the ruins for dessert.
Wild animals, though. Anna hadn't come across many of those. Of course, feral dogs, stray cats, the kind of thing that one might see in a city. She saw deer on the drive from Denver. But what were alien wild animals like?
She must have looked terrified, because Iskaan was laughing. "It's nothing, Anna. Do you want to see the stars? There is a high turret just down this hall and up some stairs."
Kavanagh squinted at them.
"Um…" Anna looked between Kavanagh and Iskaan. She wouldn't put it past Kavanagh to spin some crazy tale about her and Iskaan, from all the stories she'd heard about him. Or, rather, all the stories she hadn't heard about him. "I can scan the corridors on the way," she suggested.
"Uh-huh," Kavanagh agreed with a nod. He looked back at his own scanning equipment while he found another one in the bag slung over his shoulder. "You might want to take this heat sensor with you. There might be something behind the walls worth looking at."
Anna took the sensor and looked at it. She seriously doubted there was anything worth seeing with it. The look on his face said he doubted it, too. Like he'd just made some sort of joke. Maybe it was an American-thing. Or an English-thing. "Okay. We'll be right back," Anna said finally.
"You better."
Anna followed Iskaan through the halls to a landing beneath some stairs. They were solid and, frankly, didn't look anything like Atlantis or anything else Ancient that she'd ever seen. On the other hand, she hadn't seen much. This was, for all intents and purposes, her first time offworld.
"Up here." Iskaan paused at the foot of a ladder—a stone ladder where the grips were more like holes in the wall. He scampered up the ladder like a squirrel and waited for her at the top, his hand reaching down to help her up. "Coming?"
Anna slowly climbed the ladder. She didn't have nearly as much practice as she imagined Iskaan did.
The view from the top was well worth it, though. It seemed like they could see everything from up here. The bright sky above was so very different from Atlantis, the stars punching past the atmosphere like fireflies. Atlantis was usually too bright to see the millions of stars in the sky very clearly. They could even see the village's torches across the field.
She might have felt very safe, Iskaan standing so close to her. He wasn't looking at the stars. Then the wild dogs howled and yipped some more.
Anna picked up the heat sensor and pointed it out to the field. She frowned at the incredible number of moving red dots. She showed it to Iskaan. "Are there usually that many?" she asked.
Iskaan sighed and looked at her sensor and then squinted out at the field. "I'm not usually out here at night. I've only been here at night once before."
Anna took a deep breath and nodded. That was alright… Except that the little red dots seemed to be circling their fortress. Didn't hunting animals do that when they were about to go in for the kill? Didn't scavenging birds do that when they found a meal?
"I think we should go back," she said quietly.
"I think you're right."
Iskaan lowered himself into the hole in the floor and waited for Anna to come down after him. They made it to the floor without any incident, but Anna had the feeling that an incident was about to occur.
"Doctor Kavanagh!" Anna shouted as they ran back through the halls toward him.
"Did you find something?" he called back. He glanced up when they ran into the room, panting. "Okay, it can't have been that interesting—"
"I think we're being hunted," Iskaan said.
"Hunted?" Kavanagh repeated. He looked between the two of them. "You're kidding. By the animals outside? How can you tell?"
Anna handed him the heat sensor. "They're circling the tower."
Kavanagh looked at Iskaan pointedly. "What is it your people do again?"
"Funny," Iskaan said as he drew his knife. "But I've seen wild dogs like these before. We might not have time to joke. They're pretty intelligent creatures and—"
"Then we leave," Kavanagh said, throwing his equipment into a bag. "Right now."
Iskaan shook his head. "Too late for that. They can see far better than we can in the dark. We'll have to wait for tomorrow morning."
Kavanagh sighed and looked around. Anna guessed Kavanagh saw the same thing she did. This room was hardly a defensible position. There were three entrances, and three of them. Doctor Kavanagh had his sidearm and Iskaan was carrying a few knives from what Anna saw. Anna… she could defend herself against sticks sometimes. She could shoot a stationary target in broad daylight.
On the other hand, she figured it was in her blood to run and hide. "Why don't we go back up to the turret and wait them out?"
"We can radio Rutherford," Kavanagh agreed.
"After you," Iskaan said, motioning for Anna to lead the way.
Anna retraced her steps back through the ruins until she reached the tower ladder. Kavanagh paused beneath the opening, then looked at Anna and Iskaan. "It looks a little tight up there."
Iskaan tapped the wall, indicating for Kavangh to get moving. "I'm not looking forward to this either."
Kavanagh started climbing. He was more limber than Anna expected and made it to the top in about half the time it took Anna. But, then again, he was significantly taller than she was. She was even more surprised when he helped her up the rest of the way. Iskaan was quick to follow them.
Kavanagh took out the heat sensor and aimed it out at the fields. "Damn, there's a lot of them." It looked to Anna like a few of them had gone into the ruins.
"They might have made this their den," Iskaan sighed. "And we walked right into it."
Anna took out the metal wand that was supposed to detect power conduits in the walls and handed it to Kavanagh.
"Any luck?" he asked.
At a time like this, he was interested in defunct power conduits? "I was a little busy…"
He tucked the wand back into his bag and pulled out a radio. He pressed the side button. "Rutherford, this is Kavanagh," he said.
They waited a few moments, then heard Rutherford's voice. "Hey, what?" he asked, the backdrop to his voice a chorus of laughter and music. He was probably in the tavern at the Dog's Den.
The inn. Not the actual dog's den they were in at the moment.
"We've got a bit of a problem," Kavanagh said, looking over the edge of the turret. "About fifty wild dogs would like to make us into a nice dinner. Could you come get us out of this?"
"How many?" Rutherford sounded aghast.
"They're dogs," Kavanagh snapped. "They probably have—" Kavanagh paused to glance at Iskaan. "Does this galaxy have the equivalent of rabies?" Iskaan looked baffled, so Kavanagh continued, "It doesn't matter. They probably have all kinds of diseases, as if being bitten wouldn't present enough of a problem."
"Are you guys alright?" he asked. "Can they, you know, get at you?"
"We're at the top of a tower. Unless they can climb ladders, we should be fine. But I'd rather not spend the night up here, you know?" Kavanagh glanced between Anna and Iskaan. Iskaan was too busy looking out over the turret toward the town.
"There are four of us," Rutherford said. "It's unfamiliar terrain. You aren't in any immediate danger." He paused and they didn't hear anything from him for a few seconds.
The few seconds gave Anna time to reconcile that she might be spending a few hours on top of this turret with Kavanagh and Iskaan.
"You're gonna have to sit tight."
"How long?" Kavanagh asked.
Rutherford apparently declined to answer. "Give Anna and Iskaan my regrets. We'll figure something out."
Kavanagh sighed and slammed his radio back into his bag. "I guess that's that," he said. "I knew that coming alone was a bad idea…"
"Then there would just be seven of us up here," Iskaan said. "Trust me, these animals aren't the kind you want to mess with."
Kavanagh didn't answer. He dug around in his bag for another device that Anna didn't recognize. It was sort of like a gray box with circuits etched into it. Anna watched him fiddle with it for a few minutes.
"What is that?" she asked.
Kavanagh didn't answer, still picking at the outside with his penlight in his mouth to see what he was doing.
Anna sighed and leaned back on the wall of the turret. This was going to be a long night.
#
"I take it you're feeling better," Collins said.
"Yes, thank you." Radek paused to look around the lab for the conspicuously missing presence. Mostly conspicuous because it wasn't berating him. He glanced at Collins. "Where is Rodney?"
"Ah, Doctor McKay is on a series of missions today and tomorrow, looking at planets that have space 'gates." Collins crossed the lab to one of the refrigerator units that was supposed to keep mostly temperature-controlled Ancient devices. Instead, Collins pulled out two bottles of beer—or at least as close to the Pegasus galaxy equivalent, and handed one to Radek. "One of them is supposed to have a nice civilization on it… according to the ten-thousand-year-old database."
"Oh, that sounds promising," Radek said sarcastically as he broke the cap off the beer. He held it up to toast Collins's generosity. "Thank you."
Collins didn't even look up from his work as he returned the cheer. "Na zdraví." *
Radek grinned, echoing the salute, and set up his laptop next to Rodney's main computer. "When we go back to Earth, you will come to the Czech Republic with me. If you have not had Czech beer, you have never had beer at all."
Collins tipped his bottle for a drink. For a moment, Radek wasn't sure if he was off-duty, but perhaps mice played when the cat was on another planet. "Looking forward to it. Always wanted to go to Prague."
It struck him as rather odd that someone might have always wanted to go there. It was old and beautiful—in its own way. Probably exotic to his American friends. Their country's history was short and modern. Prague had been around for a thousand years. And they did have beer. Radek doubted even Prague's grand cathedrals drew as many tourists as their alcohol did.
He turned his attention to his computer, thinking he'd had an epiphany last night. With the drugs and the illness, but it turned out it was nothing of consequence. But, maybe, if he looked at the control crystals again, he might see something similar to whatever he thought he saw. But Atlantis had a way of stealing away time before he could use it constructively. He only barely remembered what he was working on before the whole McKay/Cadman fiasco.
Right. Trying to figure out how to use power from the ZPM more efficiently. Shaving power consumption by even a hundredth of a percent could be significant.
"Where's Anna?" Collins asked. "I haven't seen her all day."
"Ah…" Radek was trying hard not to think about it. "She's offworld."
Collins sounded like he choked. Then he chuckled. "I'm sorry—did you say she's offworld?"
"Yes." He glanced at his colleague. "What's so funny?"
Collins shook his head. "Nothing. I didn't know you had it in you."
"I had what in me?"
"Well…" Collins appeared to be rethinking his whole angle. Or maybe he just wanted to take a drink. He waited a few seconds, but Radek wasn't going to let this one slide. "Setting up a distillery in the bottom levels of the west pier is one thing. Letting your daughter go offworld—with Rutherford and Kavanagh, no less—is another. Isn't it?"
Radek frowned. "Kavanagh?" He really had been out of it the past few days, hadn't he? Never mind the jab at his one-time, one-man black market. So he knew a thing or two about alcohol. It turned out to be an unneeded service, anyway. The Pegasus had more than its fair share and was very much willing to trade with them.
His endless supply was mostly convenient to just him. Not many people were lining up to buy him drinks, that is. That was probably Rodney's department and Radek had never seen him drink. Not really. The universe was unfair like that.
Kavanagh, though…
That was actually good news. "He wouldn't go anywhere dangerous."
"No, but he'd sure as hell leave someone behind if it were." Collins suddenly looked up at the ceiling. "Oh, god. Uh, I didn't mean it that way. I mean, it's a very safe planet. Only a handful of thieves from what I understand."
"Thank you. I feel better about this already." Radek mustered up the best glare he could manage post his sudden and mostly inexplicable worry.
"Forget I said anything."
Radek didn't get a chance to forget anything before Elizabeth's voice piped over the comm channel. "Weir to Science Lab One. Is Doctor Zelenka there?" She sounded concerned.
Radek sighed and tapped the nearby control. "Yes, Doctor Weir. How may I help you?"
"I thought you might want to know," she said. "Anna is in a bit of a bind."
He felt his heart pound so loud in his ears, he was sure Collins could hear it. "Is she alright?" He didn't wait for Elizabeth to answer. He picked up his earpiece—left aside on account of his pounding head. Last time he'd ever do that.
As he was leaving Science Lab One for the control room, he heard Collins shouting from the lab. "Forget I said anything!"
Czech Things
* Na zdraví = Cheers. I think it means something like "to your health."
A/N: Anyone else think Kavanagh gets unfair judgment? I don't see him necessarily as being an insufferable coward or even (comparatively) rude. He would just like to live. Thirty-eight minutes was all it took for everyone to decide he was a horrible human being. Admittedly, he didn't seem to be all that torn up that they might lose Sheppard and company… It's not his fault that Sheppard, Ford, Teyla, and Rodney were the main characters, okay?
Next time: You'd better figure out what it is before it blows up in your face.