SGU-FIC: Wonders and Secrets - Part Two
Rush concentrated on the results of his work on the power-supply-problem and nodded contently, when he heard the door open and Young and Scott entered the control room.
“Found anything useful?” Scott asked.
Folding his arms over his chest and sending him one of the glares that Young had secretly titled ‘non-scientist-evaporation-glare’, Rush said in a calm but nevertheless threatening voice: “If you consider the stabilisation of the power-supply for the infirmary useful, then yes.”
“Good, keep at it. We’ll find more work for you.” Young sounded quite content.
“I wish you wouldn’t. We don’t have the power and the knowledge to run these systems. It would be advisable to go step by step and learn about each discovery before we search for new ones,” Rush said, clearly impatient and annoyed.
Young waved his hand dismissingly. “You’ve made your point before, Rush. And so did I. No further argument about this subject. We need to find out as much about the ship’s capabilities as soon as possible.”
Rush’s hand rubbed over his chin, making a scratchy noise. “I imagined you would say that. And I don’t think anything I suggest will change your mind?”
Young shook his head, his facial expression was unreadable.
”Then … if you don’t mind, I have work to do.” The expression on Rush’s face was clearly annoyance.
The two men left the room, unnoticed by Rush, who had returned to his attempts to bring back the hologram.
Little did he know that Young and Scott had just done him the favour.
~~~***~~~
“Restrain your people. Playing around with various systems is undesired behaviour.”
Rush flinched at the sudden appearance of the holographic woman. He slowly breathed in to calm himself down.
He raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think I didn’t try?”
“Try harder. I will not tolerate you playing around with things you do not understand. You will not understand. Not ever.” Her voice sounded somehow impatient.
Anger welled up in his throat, he tried to swallow it, he really did. He knew it would be unwise to upset her. They needed her, he needed her and he wouldn’t risk this chance to learn more about the ship and the ancient technology.
“So why do you offer help?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I like you. You are a sweet child, eager to learn. Nice, despite your bad temper.”
He stared at her completely at a loss of words. It was one of the extremely rare speechless moments in his life.
She smiled patronisingly at him. “Don’t forget to stop your people from pushing every button they can find,” she added and disappeared.
Rush felt the urgent need to kill someone. Slowly and painfully. After repressing the impulse to run through the corridors, shouting at everyone he would meet, he cleared his mind and remembered the reports he’d read by Daniel Jackson, who would have understood the frustration a conversation with an Ancient could cause. Their interaction with what they considered ‘younger races’ could be most annoying.
Still, it was absolutely inappropriate to call him a ‘sweet child’.
Oh, how he hated to be patronised. Even by an Ancient hologram, which was - admittedly - much wiser than he was. Still, he so much wished it to be just an advanced help-system that would answer his questions and follow his commands. It obviously wasn’t; there must have been an AI programmed in the system of the ship and it had a will of its own.
The only way to gain the information he needed was to manipulate her in some way. He had never been good at this kind of psychological games and to be honest, he hated them. And he wasn’t quite sure if he could be successful playing them with her. But it was worth a try and he was determined to go for it.
~~~***~~~
Several days passed by while Rush tried to gain access to the main computer core of Destiny, still unsuccessful. His moods changed rapidly so everyone was cautious, trying to avoid him during one of the worst moods. He usually yelled at the poor victim, whether the person was really the source of his rage or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He tried to avoid the others as well; he had never been bothered by the looks they gave him, but now they began to annoy him. He knew he was tired, exhausted, but he just didn’t have the time to rest.
Walking through the corridors of Destiny, heading for the control room, he saw other people standing together in small groups or pairs. He watched them talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company. He wasn’t part of that, he never wanted to be, but it gave him a wee sting to watch them socialise.
Back in the control room, he started working on the enormous database of the ship. There was so much to read, so much to learn, he couldn’t afford to waste a second of his time.
He ran his fingers through his hair, when the flickering light announced the appearance of the hologram. Unknowingly a tiny smile curled his lips, when he turned towards his most welcome guest.
She watched him silently for a few seconds before asking, “Do you request help or information?”
“I need access to the main computer core.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I have to look into the main system, see how it works, so I can operate the ship’s systems and calculate a course.”
“I operate the ship’s system. I decide about the course.”
He felt anger crawling up from his stomach to his throat but he swallowed it. “Why do you offer help when you are not willing, to bestow it?” he asked more harshly than he had intended.
“I do help. Don’t you notice that?”
“Not the help I need. Not the help I want,” he said resigning.
“What do you expect? You are not supposed to be here.”
Rush sighed. “You have said that before. And yes, we are not supposed to be here. But we are. You did not even answer my very first question. Who are you?”
She blinked. “If you are not able to find out who I am, you are not worth my help.” The hologram flickered and she disappeared.
Rush rubbed his neck and felt the sudden sting of pain in his shoulders. He groaned quietly.
With a sudden flicker, the holographic woman reappeared.
“You don’t look well,” she said soft-spoken and a worried expression emerged on her beautiful face. “You should look after yourself.”
He didn’t answer, a sudden feeling of exhaustion flooding over his body and mind. Tiredly he shook his head. “I have to take care of the system and the people. Even if they don’t appreciate it.” He smiled sadly.
“I take care of the systems. Go get some rest.”
He didn’t sleep well, although he was exhausted beyond words. His brilliant mind couldn’t rest, even less now that he had so much more to think of. The hologram puzzled him exceedingly and while his body forced him to rest, his mind kept repeating what she had said. She offered help and wasn’t helpful at the same time. Yet she had opened the infirmary, which was doubtlessly a big help. But she refused to give him the information he needed to understand the ship’s systems, not to mention access to the main core system.
He knew he needed that, but she seemed to think differenly.
He awoke with a pounding headache; it felt as if someone very small was trying to force their way out of his scull by breaking through the bone without caring about any resulting damage. Getting up he had to suppress a sudden nausea and a slight tumble. With a painful groan he set off for the sick-bay to see if Lt. Johanson had anything there to help him.
She greeted him with a worried expression. “You look terrible, Dr. Rush. Lay down.”
He suppressed the impulse to shake his head, but sat down on one of the chairs. “Just a headache,” he said. “Do you have any Aspirin here?”
She shook her head, looking at him in disbelief. “You look much worse than a simple headache.”
“Oh, thank you so much. You look quite well too.” Despite the growing pain in his head he was still capable of his very own acid tone.
She sighed. “I’m so sorry, we ran out of Aspirin a few days ago. But look at this; I just discovered it this morning. It looks like some kind of chemical synthesizer.” She pointed to a large device in the wall. It was obviously switched on, as indicated by some green and yellow lights.
Rush went over to the device, carefully avoiding rapid movements, while T.J. watched him with concern. He studied the console cautiously, reading the symbols on the display. After a few minutes he started typing something and a few seconds later a small amount of colourless liquid came out of the outlet port in the middle of the device.
“Acetylsalicylic acid,” he said with a grim smile. “Just what I need.”
He tried to smell the liquid but he could find nothing significant. With a sigh he swallowed the whole potion, ignoring T.J., who exclaimed “NO!”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You didn’t know what exactly that was! It could have poisoned you, even if the synthesizer said, it was acetylsalicylic acid. It could have been anything. We should have analysed it first!”
“Analyse it? With what? Another of Destiny’s devices? Why should we believe the results of one device and distrust another?”
“But you just drank it. That’s too risky.”
He gave her a small smile. “I have faith in Destiny. And besides that, I had no other option; I couldn’t have worked with that headache. And I seriously need to get back to work.”
A red flashing light grabbed his attention and he turned to the console. “It seems that the device needs components to synthesize anything else. We should try to find them.”
T.J. nodded. “First I’ll feed our antibiotics into the analysing tool, to make sure it can reproduce them, then I’ll make a list of components for various useful pharmaceuticals that we might need. Any planetary mission team can look out for them.” She beamed at him. “This is great! First the infirmary itself, now the discovery of this device … it will enable me to help so much more.”
She started to write something down, while murmuring “I just have to figure out how the diagnostic devices of the beds work.”
Rush smiled and left the sick-bay.
~~~***~~~
-tbc
Part Three