“We took a jumper up and scanned for life signs. We didn’t find anything bigger than your shoe. The only sign anyone’s ever been here is some carvings in the rocks up here. We took pictures of them for the archaeologists, and we’re not going to set up the alpha site on top of them.”
“Show me the carvings,” Lorne said.
Anthony led him some distance across the rocky tableland to a spot where several large boulders might — or might not — have originally been dragged together into an intentional grouping. Several of them were chiseled with a series of crosses or X’s above with what was probably lettering. It wasn’t any Pegasus alphabet he recognized, and he’d seen a lot of them by now.
“Anything on the lettering?”
Anthony shrugged. “Not that I’ve heard. They’re going to run it through the computers in case it turns out to be just another phonetic alphabet for writing Ancient.”
“All right,” Lorne said. He turned around again, looking out at the distant horizon. The only sign of movement from this distance were some large black birds riding the thermals over the desert. “Those birds giving you any trouble?”
“They’re just big birds, sir.”
“Team Sheppard ran into big birds that set a grass fire and then chased them with nets,” Lorne said. “The Pegasus galaxy is like that.”
“Noted, sir,” Anthony said after a moment. “These birds appear to be… big birds, sir. I think they’re hunting some little mouse things. We’ve seen a couple of those. They were running away. In my professional opinion, not posing an immediate security threat, sir.”
“Don’t get smart,” Lorne said. “Whenever you’re sure there aren’t any potential security threats on an uninhabited world, it pays to think again.” He was beginning to feel like he’d given that same speech so many times he could recite it in his sleep. Each new crop of Marines and airmen thought they knew everything, and some of them would even survive long enough to learn better.
“Sorry, sir. But, seriously, I think this place is deserted because it’s too dry to grow crops here, there aren’t any animals big enough to be worth hunting, and if there are any valuable natural resources here, they’re nowhere within miles of the Stargate. I think this planet is just really boring.”
“That’s what we like to hear,” Lorne said. “All right. Start setting up an alpha site here. Any local water sources?”
“None near enough for us to use. We’ll have to bring in water.”
“All right, let’s get it done. Set up a portable AC unit, too. And keep an eye out for hostile wildlife. Or strange radiation. Or anything that glows. Or anything out of the ordinary at all. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” Anthony slowed down, stopping some distance away from where Harper and the other Marines now had the tent most of the way up. “I hear that Dr. McKay has been telling people that Elizabeth Weir is still alive.”
Lorne considered several possible answers to that question, including “None of your business, sergeant,” and decided that ducking the question wasn’t going to do anything about Atlantis’s thriving rumor mill. “That’s what I hear,” he said.
“So… is he cracking up, or what? I mean, after the Wraith thing… ”
“Dr. Beckett and Dr. Keller cleared him to return to duty,” Lorne said. “Lots of people around here have been through stuff. I wouldn’t go around saying you think one of the senior staff is crazy unless he’s talking to the walls or hallucinating Wraith under every rock.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Besides, maybe he’s right.”
Anthony looked at him sideways. “You think that’s possible?”
Lorne shrugged. “Possible? Sure. Is it likely?” He shook his head slowly. “Dr. Weir was a pretty special lady. She held this expedition together for a whole year when they couldn’t get any reinforcements from Earth and had no idea if they were ever going to get home. When she died, that was pretty bad for everybody. When she sort of came back, and then they had to leave her frozen in deep space — that was worse. There are a lot of people on this expedition who still want to believe there’s something they can do for her.”
“Even if there isn’t.”
“Probably it’s a wild goose chase,” Lorne said. “But a few wild goose chases won’t kill us. Better than leaving one of our people out there if there’s any chance she’s alive and we can get her back.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Besides, we are in the Pegasus galaxy,” Lorne said. “Stranger things have happened.”
Ronon stood in the door of Dr. Robinson’s office, not sure whether he was supposed to come in without an invitation. “Are you busy?”
“Actually, no,” she said, looking surprised but not displeased. “Come in and sit down, please.”
He did, settling into her chair and considering how to put his question. He didn’t want to insult Eva, who he had decided he liked; for a doctor from Earth, she’d taken surprisingly well to being chased through ice caverns by fanged predators and other risks of living in the Pegasus galaxy. And at least she seemed old enough to be able to give good advice, and had been around military people before. Dr. Heightmeyer had always seemed like she didn’t know much about soldiers.
“What exactly is it that you do?” he asked finally. “I mean, what are you supposed to be for? We had doctors on Sateda, but they were just for actual medicine.”
Eva looked less offended than he had thought she might be. “You know, a lot of people ask that question,” she said. “The way I see it, I’m here to help you understand the way you think and feel, and maybe make some changes to how you think about things so that you can feel better and do your job better.”
“Like?”
“Like, sometimes people who’ve been injured, or who’ve seen bad things happen in combat spend a lot of time thinking about those things, to the point that it interferes with their daily life. One thing I can do is help people change how they think about those things, and when they think about them, so that they don’t cause as many problems for them.”
“Everybody here has seen bad things.”
“Often that’s true,” Eva said. “And that can put a strain on a community, but it can also strengthen it when people can help each other to survive and rebuild. I can’t fix anybody, but I can help people find ways to help themselves and each other.” She looked at him curiously. “Is any of this sounding familiar?”
“Maybe. There were some people in the military, older people who’d seen a lot, who would give you that kind of advice. Told you to ask for leave, or to spend more time doing something that wasn’t fighting. That kind of thing.”
“And did people listen to them?”
“Sometimes.”
“And did it help?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’m here if you want to talk,” Eva said. “Or if you want advice. I know I can’t imagine some of the things you’ve seen and done. But some of them I can imagine, because I’ve heard them before. War on Earth isn’t always very pretty.”
Ronon shrugged. “War isn’t. It’s just necessary.”
“Sometimes it is,” Eva agreed. “I wouldn’t work for the military if I didn’t think that was true.” After a minute she added, “So was there something you wanted my advice about?”
“Not today,” Ronon said, and Eva shrugged philosophically.
“You know where to find me,” she said.
Richard Woolsey worked late on what was probably his last night in Atlantis. After all, they’d said to leave everything in good order. That meant not leaving a bunch of paperwork hanging around for whoever the next person was. For Sheppard, likely. The IOA might spend months arguing over his replacement. In the meantime the work would fall on Sheppard.