by Graham, Jo
As Dick was the one who hadn’t been able to arrange it, he felt it was worth pointing out why. “Since the Wraith destroyed the ZPM installed in the weapons chair at Area 51, Earth’s only ZPM is aboard Odyssey,” Dick said. “The Odyssey is on a deep-space mission, and even if it had been possible to recall it, it would take nearly as long to reach Earth as Daedalus will to reach Atlantis.”
“You can’t ever get a cab when you need one,” Sheppard said.
“Well, let us hope that the delay is not critical to preventing Atlantis from being invaded,” Zelenka said. “That would be nice to think.”
Dick let the door close behind Zelenka and Carter before he raised his eyebrows. “He doesn’t seem optimistic.”
“We are all worried about Rodney,” Teyla said.
“Of course,” Dick said. He suspected that his decision to assign Zelenka to Sheppard’s gate team might also have something to do with Zelenka’s mood, but he still didn’t see any alternative. They couldn’t go on as though McKay might walk through the gate at any minute. “I’d like you to think about the best tactics for another rescue attempt, should we be in that position.”
“I’ll do that,” Sheppard said. “And also get some extra security teams to keep an eye on critical areas of the city, just in case.”
Dick turned to Dr. Keller. “Assuming for a moment that we do get Dr. McKay back, what happens then?”
“We don’t know,” Dr. Beckett said before Dr. Keller could answer.
“If the process they used is based on our original retrovirus, it should simply wear off once the virus is no longer being administered,” she said.
“Yes, but we don’t know that it is,” Dr. Beckett said. “It could just as easily be based on the process I developed for Michael, or they could have designed it from scratch after we gave them the idea.”
“Whatever they based it on, I think we should go back to your original work as a starting place,” Dr. Keller said. “It’s the best chance of figuring out what they did and making sure it’s fully reversible.”
“Please keep me posted,” Dick said.
“I will,” she said. “If that’s all…”
“One more thing,” he said. “I hate to have to be the one to say so, but we can’t put all our energies into this. I am not saying that we should stop trying to recover Dr. McKay. That has to be a priority. But we came out here to do any number of important things, and we can’t stop doing them just because one person is missing.”
“I think we all understand that,” Teyla said after a moment’s pause. He hoped it was just that she was the quickest to speak, and not that she was the only one at the table who agreed with him.
“All right,” Dick said. He stood as people began to push back their chairs. “Colonel Sheppard, if you’ve got time this morning, I’d like to discuss your team’s schedule for the rest of the week.”
“I’m not exactly booked up,” Sheppard said as the others made their way out. “I’d like to have a word with Lorne about security first.”
“Of course,” Dick said. “There’s also plenty of time for you to go shave.”
“I expect there is,” Sheppard said after a moment.
“We can’t act as though we’re in a state of crisis all the time,” Dick said. “I just think we need to send the message that things are getting back to normal.”
He could see Sheppard bite back whatever sharp reply had first come to mind. He might not like it, but he knew it was true. “Yeah, but what if we are in a state of crisis all the time?” he said instead.
“We still act like we have things under control,” Dick said. “At least, I always understood that to be part of my job description.”
“Which is why I’m glad you have the job and not me,” Sheppard said.
Dick was tempted to point out that it was a good question whether that would still be true once he heard from the IOA about his most recent set of reports. That problem could wait, though. He thought they had enough to keep everyone busy for the day.
