She ducked into the tent where the radio was set up and impatiently waved the radio operator out. She adjusted the knobs to tame the old set’s perpetually annoying crackle and picked up the transmitter. “Sora Tyrus reporting.”
“Sora, this is Ladon Radim,” said the voice on the other end, and Sora’s hand clenched on the transmitter in the effort not to swear. Having the chief himself on the line couldn’t mean a single thing that she was going to like.
“Chief Radim,” Sora said. “What news of the Lanteans? Have they finished their business on Sateda?”
“I’ve just spoken with the Lanteans,” Radim said. “They want us to sit down with Ushan Cai and his people and negotiate our respective interests there.”
“I hope you told them no,” Sora said.
“We’re scheduling the meeting now,” Radim said. “I’ll be bringing some of my people, and of course you’ll be present to explain our activities so far.”
“That’s — ” Sora began. She took a deep breath and strove for calm. “I’m sure you’re already aware that this is only going to give Cai’s ‘provisional government’ more legitimacy. I’m just wondering why you don’t seem to think that’s a problem.”
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Radim said. “But I think right now it can’t be helped. We’ll have plenty of opportunity to present our case that the Satedans are private individuals with no claim to anything but their own personal property.”
“’Present our case’? To the Lanteans? Who made them the judge?”
“It’s called diplomacy,” Radim said, his tone more sharp than usual. “You may have heard of it. In any event, this is not a request. You’ll remain in camp and do your best not to antagonize the Satedans until we can arrange a time for the meeting.”
“Yes, of course,” Sora said. She sat fuming for a moment after she’d silenced the radio set, and then told herself there was no use in expecting Radim to be reasonable.
She’d have to work out a way of getting their hands on the artifacts. And if Radim couldn’t appreciate that, there were certainly other people — highly-placed people — who would. The thought made her tired, though. She didn’t want to start playing that game again.
Part of the appeal of Kolya had been that it seemed like he might actually hold onto the reins for a while if he ever managed to take them. Then they could all have spent their time doing things that actually got results rather than endlessly maneuvering for power. It was a waste of time, when time was the one thing they didn’t have, with the Wraith threat growing stronger and new horrors like the Replicators appearing every time it seemed they might be getting the upper hand.
But if that was the game they had to play, she didn’t intend to lose.
Chapter Eighteen
Diplomatic Mission
Lorne stretched uncomfortably in his office chair, wishing there were some way to sit that didn’t make his leg hurt. Just then, there didn’t seem to be any way to do anything that didn’t make his leg hurt, so he figured that was a lost cause. Still, he wished the Ancients had dedicated just a little of their technological know-how to figuring out how to make really good adjustable chairs.
Somebody knocked on the door, and he called, “Come in,” trying to shift into something resembling a work-like posture as the door opened. “Colonel Carter.”
“Hi, Major,” she said, with a smile that looked genuine. “I see you’re up and around.”
“More or less,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am, I would…” He gestured apologetically in the direction of standing. “It’ll just take me a minute.”
“God, no, don’t get up,” Carter said. “I was on crutches once, I know what a pain that is.” She glanced ruefully at his cast. “Same leg as last time, huh?”
“Yep. I should get some kind of a discount this time.”
“I don’t know. Janet always used to threaten to charge extra if we came in with the same injury more than once. She said she was getting awfully tired of the Colonel’s knees.”
“I remember that,” Lorne said. “She kept everybody in line.”
“She did,” Carter said. Her smile was sad. She and Dr. Fraiser had been friends, Lorne remembered, until Dr. Fraiser was killed on a rescue mission gone bad. He’d been with SG-1 then, the third SG-1. The first two teams with that designation had been lost in action, killed to a man. He suspected her thoughts were running along the same lines, because she added, “Hey, any one you walk away from, right?”
“I’m not complaining,” Lorne said, although he thought ‘limp away from’ might be more accurate at the moment. And maybe for longer than that, but he was trying very hard not to think like that. It was probably going to heal fine, although he was pretty sure this time he had the fun of physiotherapy waiting for him once the cast came off. “I just wish I could be out there doing more.”
“You should take it easy,” Carter said. “Under normal circumstances, you’d have earned yourself a trip home to recuperate for a while, but unfortunately that’s not very practical right now.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, even if we could dial Earth, there’s a lot that needs to get done right here,” Lorne said. “Dr. Keller cleared me for light duty.”
“I know,” Carter said. “It’s just that we do like to give people who’ve been wounded in action a chance to rest up somewhere where they’re not in constant danger of being attacked by aliens.”
“And so you’re suggesting Colorado Springs?”
She smiled. “You have a point there.”
“Thanks for checking up on me,” he said.
“Actually that’s not the only reason I came by,” she said. “Colonel Sheppard asked me to keep an eye on things in Atlantis while he and his team go mediate these negotiations between the Satedans and the Genii. I just wanted to touch base with you, since you’re the acting military commander.”
He thought that translated as, ‘I hope you haven’t got your feathers ruffled by Sheppard leaving me in charge instead of you.’ He hadn’t, particularly — at the moment, all he really wanted was to be lying down with some stronger painkillers than the Tylenol Keller had prescribed. And with three colonels currently on the station, he hadn’t expected to be running the show.
“We’ll hold down the fort,” he said. He was tempted to say that he wished they could have her back in Atlantis on a permanent basis instead of Woolsey, but it wouldn’t make him look good to criticize his current boss, even to his previous boss who he thought had been entirely unfairly screwed out of her job. “What about Colonel Caldwell?”
“He offered to help Colonel Sheppard with the negotiations,” Carter said. “He thinks the rank might carry some weight with the Genii.”
“Great,” Lorne said, trying to sound like he meant it. Personally he thought that Colonel Sheppard and Colonel Caldwell working together on diplomatic negotiations really couldn’t be good, but he suspected that Carter was well aware of that. So either there hadn’t been any way to get out of it, or they thought it really was going to be useful enough to make up for the fact that Sheppard and Caldwell did not exactly play well together as a team.
“Should be interesting,” Carter said, another one of those good all-purpose remarks that could mean anything. “Oh, and we’re almost ready to put the new iris into place. I was just down in the lab, and they’re testing the control mechanism now.”
“I know everybody’s going to feel better once that’s done,” Lorne said.
“I know I will,” Carter said. “I would really rather not rely on Rodney not breaking into our computer system.”
“Dr. Zelenka and Mrs. Miller have been working on that, right? So we’re in better shape?”