"He digs crooked paths, the clever underground mole," I recited a line from a famous Soviet film in a sing-song voice. "Normal heroes always go around, Normal heroes always go around.
Angering the Ascended — not the smartest idea that can come to the minds of the inhabitants of this universe.
"Going around is understandable, not very easy, Not very pleasant and very far, Not very pleasant and very far.
How many ways do beings who have lived thousands, or even millions, of years, and who have spilled some crap, have to complicate fate? Most likely, the same numbers: thousands and millions.
And yet, they will surely manage to do it without breaking their own rules. Even if Melia listened to me, she didn't agree that rules exist to be broken.
"But only the wise do it that way, Only the brave advance that way," with a heavy sigh, I pulled away from the Puddle Jumper's control panel. "But only the brave advance that way.
There's a belief that you can intrigue an idiot by promising to tell him something interesting tomorrow.
"Fools build heroes, rush forward," I stared at the glowing instrument panel, sitting in the pilot's seat, and tried to compensate for my irritation with singing. Fortunately, no one around suggested where I could go with my vocal talents. "Normal heroes always do the opposite, Normal heroes always do the opposite.
Puddle Jumper control panel. View from the pilot's seat.
The thought that the Ascended's energetic asses might get a little singed, after which they would spit on the commandments of their religion, did help, didn't let me rest.
"And we won't veer from the crooked path once, And if needed, we'll go the crooked way again, And if needed, we'll go the crooked way again.
But the psychological attack using the method of a singer on whose ear a bear stepped didn't help a bit.
And how else to solve a problem with a huge number of unknowns, I couldn't imagine.
The ultimatum I issued to Melia was good. Damn good.
"Don't interfere if you don't meddle." "If you trust — trust, and don't look over the shoulder with a finger on the trigger of a big gun." And, damn it, give me at least a Russian-Ancient dictionary.
How the hell can you manage alien civilization technology if everything, literally everything, is written in their language?
From the labels on the buttons to the text on the monitors.
And it wouldn't be so bad if they were static inscriptions! No! The Ancients used a running ticker as the basic method of displaying textual information. And so, you sit there, looking at the monitor — no matter which one — and watch as flocks of pictograms flash by your eyes, one after another, dozens and hundreds.
I can't say that my ultimatum worked as intended.
They won't trust me, but they won't interfere at every step either. As for the other conditions... Variable success there too. But the main thing I understood is that in moments of danger, sitting and waiting for someone big, kind, and bright to come and save me isn't worth it. They won't interfere. Neither when great evil is done to me, nor if I decide to do it. Later, yes, they might come and punish if I commit great evils — break their rules. But that will be later. And quite possibly, they won't do it themselves, but send someone after my soul.
Great allies. I have no trust in them, nor they in me. Who's to blame? Hippophoralkus!
Naturally, no one gave me the dictionary. And no, not even because giving me such information would violate the rules. Oh no, Melia assured me that there's no need to transmit such data to me in principle, as potentially I can find the answers myself.
Because deep down, I know it.
Brilliant?
Of course.
At first, I thought she was appealing to the fact that I once saw something on the internet about it long ago... It turned out not to be that. Not at all.
"To achieve something — you need to learn," the Ancient said before dissolving.
And that's it.
No strength left to curse and swear.
I already understood that we're playing those cosmic chess games where my move, seeming victorious, actually helped the opponent smack me. Thought that since they can't intervene promptly, are afraid, and are busy in general, they'd meet me halfway? Yeah, right.
The only thing, besides the well-known, that played directly in my favor was that the Ascended in principle don't intend to challenge my rights to Atlantis and other their legacy that I will discover.
And no, that's not a concession.
That's, damn it, the law they have. If a thing hasn't been claimed for a long period of time, and its owner or creator hasn't asserted rights to it, then whoever says "mine" first becomes the new owner.
Well, I said it. Can be proud of myself — Atlantis is mine. It's even programmed somewhere in its subroutines. Well, now I need to find a few ZPMs, set course for Earth, and get a certificate of ownership through the MFC for... Here's the catch. Unlikely that the local version of my homeland can issue documents for property in the form of a spaceship,兼 city, a bit of a laboratory-test complex, a high-tech sample, a weapons placement site — and that's only what I know about Atlantis.
Well, at least from Melia's hints about Moros, who banned drinking fountains in every room, I understood that those water columns I wanted to drink from actually circulate not ocean water, but already desalinated water.
It took me about thirty minutes to find a faucet and quench my thirst heartily. Great, now I definitely won't die. From dehydration, of course. And as soon as the shield falls — end for me for sure.
Of course, there's an option — use the Jumper to blast part of the tower and fly out. The ship is hermetic, and thus can overcome ocean pressure and surface the planet. And there's a continent there, can plow fields, hunt game... True, there's a nuance.
Even two.
First — the storm that hit the expedition in their first year here and nearly drowned Atlantis when it was on the ocean surface. It wasn't sweet on the continent either.
Second — the solar flare that happened to them in one of the later seasons. Burns all life. The Ancients protected the planet in the past by stretching a shield over it. I can't do that — no sufficient energy.
No, seriously! More than half the problems would be solved if I had energy! But none of the ZPMs in the city will help me; searching for them means drawing even more energy from the doomed source.
Annoying, but there's an alternative energy source on the planet — a drilling platform. True, it's buried at the ocean floor depth... And where exactly — I don't know. But I remember a Wraith ship crashed near it. And inside it, there's one small problem. Which can create two problems at once, threatening the planet's destruction.
And I'm silent about the fact that the platform's control is also in the Ancients' language! And I literally have nowhere to learn it!
I spent several hours coming up with at least some plan.
I have a hint on how and where to find a ZPM, but... To do that, I need to leave the city! And for that, I need to figure out where to go — the planet I'm looking for is somewhere in this galaxy. And getting there without knowing its address won't work. At least in my current situation.
In general, it took me several hours to realize — the Ascended got not the smartest assistant.
I heard Melia's words about the ZPM, about the drinking columns... But I thought the hints were only in that. Seems the lady in principle used the conversation with me to pass hints that, I hope, only I will understand.
Learn... I need to learn to achieve success.
And where do they learn in Atlantis?
Right — in the holographic hall. Where I, by the way, returned.
Yes, the installation consumes a lot of already scarce energy. But I found no other options. Poking buttons blindly, maybe it'll work — bad idea. Won't go to the past, of course, but can blow up what shouldn't be. Or open doors in flooded city areas. Or something else.
I had no great desire to be a monkey with a grenade, nor to waste time on random address dialing on the "lucky or not" principle.
According to the series, the Ancients' language, or as it was also called, the Alteran language, resembled Latin. The latter I didn't know either, but surprise — the Latin alphabet is the same in many Western countries.
There was even a joke about it, when a Frenchman and an Englishman lamented that their alphabets have the same letters, but different words.
So I turned to the hologram of Melis — really to the hologram, not her Ascended copy — with a request to show me the Ancients' alphabet.
She showed it. As I already guessed, the city's computer adjusts to the language it hears for oral communication. I don't know if the city has a database of all existing languages, or it analyzes what's said and learns like a neural network, but the fact remains.
I got the symbols of the Ancient alphabet.
And ten digits — from zero to nine.
After that, I asked to show me the Atlantis Gate symbol and its full address. For dialing the Gate address, this element is mandatory. It goes last in the chain of seven symbols. In general, each symbol is a constellation visible from the night sky, and supposedly unique to each planet — at least for the local group, where constellations are similar. But something tells me it's not that simple — otherwise, it'd be a lot of work to return to the home planet from the other end of the galaxy each time.
And maybe they did work, I'll find out on my own skin.
Is it surprising that the Ancients' alphabet used in Atlantis had twenty-six symbols? Exactly as many as in the Latin alphabet.
True, there are various dialects where the symbols are slightly different, and the number differs. But I chose the "basic" one.
Mapping letters and Arabic numerals to their analogous symbols from the main Alteran alphabet of Atlantis wasn't that hard. In the end, by trial and error, I recorded the identifications I got into my PDA's memory. It turned out not bad, but I needed to test my findings in practice. And for that, the city control panel and the existing address database will do.
Lantean alphabet.
Without numerous laptops, familiar monitors, servers, and PDAs produced on Earth, the city control center seemed empty. The Ancients didn't even provide chairs or seats for work in this place.
Atlantis Control Center. Located in the "right" part of the second tier of the Gate Room.
In the Ancients' control panels in the center, everything is unusually even. Shape, size, texture...
There are no familiar buttons here, and each "keyboard" is a flat glass (or similar material) plate inserted into the console slot. They can be easily removed, swapped for convenience. But at the same time, there's a more familiar "button" mode — but that's mostly tied to the Gate control panel.
Each such glass plate has markings for touch buttons — just put a finger on top and you'll definitely activate something. By trial and error, I managed to reach the database I needed.
But that's a real hell. First translate from Ancient to English, then, scraping memory, to Russian. Turns out, I remember the potential enemy's language much better than I think. Or here again some Ancient jokes.
The Pegasus galaxy Gate database the Ancients had wasn't just a notebook with a bunch of addresses that could be dialed right there from the control center and open a wormhole to the conditional other end of the galaxy. There was also relatively detailed reference information — if the Ancients knew what was happening on the planet.
Melia's hint, transparent as a child's tear, gave me the opportunity not only to save the city but also to establish myself in the galaxy on a completely different level. All that remained was to find the planet I needed, and that's — far from simple. Just sift through thousands and thousands of addresses... And not a fact that the database will mention the planet I need in a form I understand.
And especially, no marks about what the expedition discovered there — due to the absence of that very expedition.
Potentially, potential, Potentia...
This has nothing to do with scabrous jokes.
In this galaxy, there's a planet once ruled by the so-called Brotherhood. In the series, during the time travel of the expedition head, the Ancient who helped her, Janus, not only saved the city but gave the woman who remained in stasis for ten thousand years in abandoned Atlantis a note with five planets. Each with a ZPM.
One planet in this list — the world run by the Quindozium Brotherhood. I remember, harmless and fearful monks. But they were all destroyed during a Wraith attack on the planet. And knowledge of the ZPM's location was lost.
Expedition members went on reconnaissance, tested themselves in many puzzles, found the ZPM... But couldn't take it.
The thing is, the locals kept the device only for the Ancients. And when they learned the expedition members weren't them, they took the battery and hid it. As far as I know, Earthlings didn't try to find that ZPM's trail again.
In the Brotherhood's notes, it was mentioned precisely as "Potentia." Which translates to "power" or something similar.
All that remained for me — find the right address, fly to the planet, take the ZPM from there, and return to Atlantis before the city sinks under the water's weight. Easy, do it three times a day and forget about cholesterol.
But there was another problem.
From cause and effect, the ZPM ended up with the Brotherhood because Janus gave it to them. And he did so for the expedition head who arrived from the past. Melis confirmed that none of the expedition variants arrived in the city. And thus — no hint that in this galaxy there are the aforementioned five ZPMs from Janus. Damn all five — one would be enough for me. For starters, of course.
Yes, there were other places with ZPMs. But except for the Replicator planet, they're in practically discharged state. And not a fact I can detect even one.
What's the probability of guessing right at least once when choosing one address out of thousands? Minimal. Even with the Gate database having search and filters by keywords — it doesn't simplify the situation.
So, I have four obvious places to choose from, three of which clearly had ZPMs of varying depletion. In my situation, no real choice.
I need at least some to prolong the city's agony.
Melis didn't hint at the last option for nothing. Logically, Janus, leaving Atlantis, unlikely returned to Pegasus to leave even one ZPM. Simply — it requires a ton of energy. And the Ancients who fled to the Milky Way were extremely resource-strapped. And besides, in canonical events, Janus lied to the Council members on a direct question if the time-travel heroine went through the Gate, saying yes.
That's right — the Lanteans didn't let the Earth woman return to her time. They planned to take her with them to Earth.
I think no need to say that as soon as all Atlantis inhabitants left for Earth and found the Earth woman wasn't with them, they didn't go back to get her. The galaxy swarmed with Wraith, and they were short on ships.
True, they could use the Gates, luckily ZPMs in the Milky Way existed... But they didn't. Why? Don't know, can only assume, but without facts, it's just wasted time.
I think Janus didn't send ZPMs to Pegasus galaxy after leaving. Most likely, he reported addresses of planets where they already existed in some form. That would be the most reasonable option.
In any case, the city's situation is such that I need a ZPM, at least somewhat charged. Extra hour, day, week, or month — it's not just important.
All that's left is to find the coordinates of the planets I need in Atlantis's database and take a walk there on the Jumper.
Easier said than done.
Unfortunately, my memory wasn't rich in the Brotherhood planet's coordinates. It's called Dagan, by the way. So even the search service won't work. And working by enumeration...
Wait a minute. If Dagan can't be found by coordinates, why not go another way?
The option of entering the planet's name into the search engine seemed extremely interesting to me. So I used it.
How surprised I was when it turned out that in the vast Atlantis database, there's not a single mention of anything like it. Not the planet's name — nothing even remotely similar.
Dagan, Dakan, Dogan, Dagon... I rearranged letters as I could, as far as memory allowed — nothing.
Unlike Earth analogs, the city's search system required entering exact search criteria. So I tried a dozen times to enter the planet's name in one way or another, but didn't advance in my searches.
The ghost of disappointment loomed on the horizon.
Well, no, Russians don't give up that easily.
Let's enter another search criterion.
Unfortunately for me, the word "Potentia" clearly relates to the Ancients' language, who, as we remember, toyed with Latin. If I'm right, "Potentia" from Latin — power, might, and a dozen other meanings. So the search engine gave me info on planets with powerful volcanoes, strong storms, magnetic fields, hurricanes, and so on...
Were there catastrophes of that order on the Brotherhood planet? The Ancients weren't interested in simple volcanoes or the like. Only supervolcanoes, supercyclones, super tides and ebbs.
I think I'd remember something like that. And since no, we can safely remove such planets from the list. And that reduced the number of options by about thirty percent.
Just look at two out of three thousand addresses. Progress, but not as swift as I'd like.
For certainty, trying the planet's name a few more times, in frustration I kicked the Stargate control console, as if the high-tech device could be guilty of something.
I refused to reconcile with defeat. Not when I'm so close to saving the city! While Atlantis belonged to the Ancients, it was somehow okay to ignore it. But since the city is now mine... No, my grandfather's Belarusian, grandmother's Mordvinian — such a volatile mix leaves no chance for universe miracles passing by.
Need to change approach.
At the same time, my stomach rumbled quietly, reminding me. Like, master, solving the Ancients' problems is good, of course. But don't forget about yourself.
Fine. This damn planet won't go anywhere from me. At least for the half hour I planned to spend on eating. Because I wasn't even going to leave the control center.
My limited provisions suffered again. Which, after five days in Atlantis, had already gotten quite boring. And if at first I identified it more with hematogen, now it seemed purely like plasticine. Starting to understand Melis.
***
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