Amy Griswold - The Lost

“That’s…incredible,” Eva said. So many networks, so many contacts. And such unique experiences for a tech sergeant, a cook who didn’t on the surface have a very interesting job. “You’ll have some stories to tell when you get home.”

Pollard’s face fell, and his voice dropped. “I hope not,” he said. “I’m trying to figure on that.”

“You don’t want to go home?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a friend, you see… Her name’s Osalia, one of Halling’s cousins that got rescued from Michael. She’s the one who makes the goat cheese. I’ve been thinking that if I had my druthers I’d retire to New Athos. She says she could use me about, with those two teenage boys of hers and twenty two goats. But I’m not thinking the Marine Corps would like that.”

“Maybe not,” Eva said. But wasn’t that always the case? There were always people who didn’t want to come home, people who made a home where they hung their hats, who made new lives. What was the policy about people staying in Pegasus? Had anyone tried it yet? Or tried taking home a bride from another galaxy? A whole kettle of fish, a whole new series of questions…

“Anyhow.” Pollard straightened up with the air of a man who’s said too much to a suspect psychologist. “Got lots to do. Stop in anytime, doc.”

“Thanks,” Eva said, and made a retreat with her milk in hand, wondering who the proper person on Earth to put these questions to was, or if questions would in themselves create problems. Often something wasn’t officially prohibited until it was brought to the attention of authorities. She would have to tread very carefully indeed.

“So, what’s the sensor situation looking like?” Lorne asked, coming up behind Zelenka to look at the code scrolling across his screen. It was meaningless to him, but at least it suggested that progress of some kind was being made.

“We are still having problems,” Zelenka said. “Now that we have cleared some of the ice off the external sensor arrays — thank you for that, by the way — ”

“No problem,” Lorne said. He’d spent the day before towing the baby iceberg out of range of the city where the Marines could practice their demolitions skills by blowing it up, followed by painstakingly supervising ice removal by teams in climbing gear. “Next time we move the city, though, how about somewhere tropical?”

“If only to stop everyone complaining, yes,” Radek said. “We are getting better short-range data, but the sensors directly below the city are still showing blind spots.”

“Kind of inconvenient if we’re going to keep getting chunks of ice jammed down there.”

“And there is the part that is really a problem.” Radek’s fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard. “This is what we are picking up from the short-range sensors, and by that I mean the ones that tell us about the surrounding ocean, not about things happening in space. This is themal imaging, showing the temperature of objects in the surrounding water — ”

Lorne whistled. “That is a lot of ice,” he said.

Radek nodded. “It is. Dr. Bryce has set up a subroutine for the sensors that will alert us when objects of alarming size approach the city. For example, here — ” He pointed to one of the larger spots of icy blue on the display. “This we suspect is on course to hit the city. It will have to be diverted.”

“Well, we can do that,” Lorne said. “It’s going to be a pain having to spend our time going out and towing icebergs around, but as long as we have plenty of warning, we should be fine, right?”

“In the sense that we are unlikely to be struck by an iceberg the size of a tall building without warning, yes,” Radek said. “The problem is that there are so many smaller pieces of ice in the water. We think this is a result of the high seismic activity in the area. There are many small earthquakes,” he added when Lorne looked quizzical. “Ice breaks free from the ice sheets on land, and so we get many small chunks of ice striking the city. And by small here I mean maybe the size of a car.”

“Which would be okay, except that there’s stuff under the city that’s apparently getting banged up.”

Radek nodded. “You were right, by the way. According to the Ancient database, the city was once equipped to reshape itself if it was in cold water to prevent ice from being swept under the city. It is a fairly low-tech solution, a network of spikes and gridwork that is supposed to extend below the piers.”

“I guess even if the Ancients could have run the shield all the time, they didn’t want to waste all the power it would use if it had ice hitting it all day long.”

“We do not think they planned to run the shield all the time, even when they had easy access to ZPMs,” Radek said. “It uses a tremendous amount of power. Whatever their process was for making ZPMs, it was not likely easy or cheap.”

“Okay,” Lorne said. “Can we turn this thing back on?”

“In a way, it is on,” Radek said. “The subroutines that are intended to trigger the extension of defenses against ice are running. The trick is, they think that there is no need for the defenses.

Because the underwater sensors aren't working right, Lorne said.

Yes. If we were on land, trying to extend the defensive mechanisms would probably damage them. Not to mention that anything that happened to be under a five-meter spike when it extended would get skewered. The built-in safety protocols are trying to save us from ourselves by insisting that we cannot modify the city shape in areas of the city where sensors are not operational.

Don't we keep having that problem?

I think the actual builders of the city did not much trust those who ran it to make good judgment calls about its technology, Radek said. This is not an attitude unique to the Ancients, believe me. There is a tendency to assume when building any mechanism or program that your users will be idiots.

Which in our case might be a good thing.

Cost of the time I think it is, Radek said. The safety protocols kept us from doing serious damage to the city or to ourselves many times when we did not know what we were doing. But this one is not helping. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair in frustration. If we had Rodney, he could maybe interface with the part of the city responsible for modifying its structure and make this work. It will not work for me.

Which leaves what?

We will have to repair the sensor inputs below the city, Radek said. It is impossible to tell if they were damaged by ice or by the battle with the hive ship that attacked Earth or years ago when we first moved the city, but they have been damaged by something. I have a team building replacements that should work. The entertaining part will be installing them.

Lorne didn't have many illusions about who was going to wind up taking a team to do that. I don't suppose we can fit a jumper with remote manipulators so that we don't actually have to get out in the water?

It is a good idea, but, no, Radek said. The connections required are delicate, and I doubt you can keep the jumper stable enough in the water in these currents.

The currents and the water temperature are what I'm thinking of when I'm thinking about doing this as a dive,Lorne said. Got to mention all the ice.

Radek shrugged apologetically. Yes, I know. I wish there was another good option, but I think this is it. Once the sensors are back online, the city's own defense mechanisms should keep ice from being swept under the city, and we will only need to worry about very large pieces of ice.

Lorne rubbed the back of his neck. Okay. If we set up a video feed, can you walk a team through what needs to be done?