"Digs crooked paths, underground clever mole," I chanted a line from the famous Soviet film. "Normal heroes always go around, Normal heroes always go around."
Angering the Ascended — not the smartest idea that can come to the population of this universe's head.
"To go around is understandable, not very easy, Not very pleasant and very far, Not very pleasant and very far."
How many opportunities to complicate fate do beings who lived thousands or even millions of years and told some shit have? Most likely the same figures: thousands and millions.
And at the same time they will surely manage to do it so as not to violate their own rules. Let Melia listen to me, but didn't agree that rules exist to be broken.
"But only sages do so, Only heroes advance so," with a heavy sigh I moved away from the Puddle Jumper control panel. "Only heroes advance so."
There is a belief that an idiot can be intrigued by promising to tell him something interesting tomorrow.
"Fools build heroes, rush forward," I looked at the burning instrument panel, sitting in the pilot's seat, and tried to compensate for irritation with singing. Fortunately, no one around suggests where I can go with my vocal data. "Normal heroes always the other way, Normal heroes always the other way."
Puddle Jumper control panel. View from the pilot's seat.
The thought that the Ascended's energetic ass will burn a little, after which they will still spit on the commandments of their religion and help didn't give me peace.
"And we won't turn off the crooked path once, And if necessary, we'll go the crooked path again, And if necessary, we'll go the crooked path again."
But psychological attack by the method of a singer on whose ear a bear stepped didn't help a bit.
And how else to solve the task with a huge number of unknowns, I couldn't imagine.
The ultimatum I put to Melia was good. Damn good.
"Don't interfere if you don't intervene." "Trust — trust, and don't look over the shoulder with a finger on the trigger of a big gun." And your mother, give at least a Russian-Ancient dictionary.
How the hell can you control alien civilization technology if everything, literally everything, is written in their language?
From marks on buttons to text on monitors.
And it would be fine if these were static inscriptions! No! The Ancients used as the basic way of reproducing textual information... a ticker tape. And so you sit there, look at the monitor — doesn't matter which — and watch as flock after flock dozens and hundreds of pictograms fly past your eyes.
I can't say that my ultimatum worked as planned.
They won't trust me, but won't interfere at every step either. On the other conditions... There too with variable success. But the main thing that I understood — in moments of danger sitting and waiting for someone big, kind, bright to come and save me is not worth it. They won't intervene. Neither when they do great evil to me, nor if I decide to do it. Later yes, maybe come punish if I commit great villainies — violate their rules. But that will be later. And quite possibly they won't do it themselves, but send someone after my soul.
Wonderful allies. I have no trust in them, nor they in me. Who's to blame? Hippaforalkus!
The dictionary, naturally, no one gave me. And no, not even because it would be a rule violation to give me such information. Oh no, Melia assured me that such data in principle there is no need to transmit to me, as potentially I will find the answer myself.
Because deep down I know it.
Brilliant?
Of course.
First I thought she was appealing to the fact that I once saw something on the internet on this topic long ago... It turned out no. Not at all this.
"To achieve something — you need to learn," the Ancient said before dissolving.
And that's all.
No strength to swear and curse.
I already understood that we're playing those very universal chess where my move seeming winning actually helped the opponent to kick me. Thought that since they can't intervene promptly, fear and generally busy, they'll go to meet? Yeah right.
The only thing besides the well-known that played directly in my favor is that the Ascended in principle don't intend to challenge my rights to Atlantis and other their legacy that will be discovered by me.
And no, this is not a concession.
This is, damn it, they have such a law. If a thing wasn't claimed for a long time, and its owner or creator didn't claim rights to it, then whoever first said "mine" — he's the new owner.
Well, I said. Can be proud of myself — Atlantis is mine. It even seems to be programmed somewhere in its subroutines. Well all, now need to find several ZPM, take course to Earth and get through MFC a certificate of ownership of... Here's a catch. Hardly in the local version of my homeland they can issue documents for ownership in the form of a spaceship, concurrently a city, a little laboratory-testing complex, a sample of high technologies, a site for placing weapons — and this only what I know about Atlantis.
Well, at least from Melia's hints about Moros who forbade drinking columns in every room, I understood that those very columns with water that I wanted to drink from circulate through themselves not ocean, but already desalinated water.
It took me thirty minutes to find the faucet and quench my thirst heartily. Perfect, now definitely won't die. From dehydration, of course. And as the shield falls — so definitely my end will come.
There is, of course, an option — with the help of a jumper blow up part of the tower and fly out. The ship is hermetic, and means able to overcome ocean pressure and get to the planet's surface. And there is a continent, can plow fields, hunt game... True, there's a nuance.
Yes, two.
First — the storm that hit the expedition in the first year of stay here and almost 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 subsequent seasons. Burns all living. 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 of the problems would be solved if I had energy! But none of the ZPM in the city will help me, searching for them means drawing even more energy from the doomed source.
Annoying, but on the planet there is an alternative energy source — a drilling platform. True it's buried at the ocean floor depth... And where exactly — I don't know. But I remember that near it a Wraith ship crashed. And inside it there is one small problem. Which can create immediately two problems threatening the planet's death.
And I'm silent about the fact that the platform control is also in the Ancients' language! And literally nowhere to learn it!
Several hours I spent to come up with at least some plan.
I have a hint how and where to find ZPM, but... To do this I need to leave the city! And to do this I need to understand where to go — the planet where the sought is located is somewhere in this galaxy. And to get there without knowing its address won't work. At least in my current situation.
In general and whole, it took me several hours to understand — the Ascended got not the smartest helper.
I heard Melia's words about ZPM, about drinking columns... But thought that the hints were only in this. Seems the lady in principle used the conversation with me to transmit hints that I hope only I will understand.
Learn... I need to learn to achieve success.
And where do they learn on Atlantis?
Right — in the holographic hall. Where I, by the way, returned.
Yes, the installation consumes a lot of already scarce energy. But I simply didn't find other options. Poke buttons blindly, maybe it will work — bad idea. Of course I won't go to the past, but I can blow up what shouldn't. Or open doors in flooded city areas. Or something else.
I had no great desire to be a monkey with a grenade, as well as spend time in random dialing of addresses on the principle of "luck-luck not."
According to the series, the Ancients' language, or as it was also called, the Alteran language, was similar to Latin. The latter I also didn't know, but here's a surprise — the Latin alphabet in many Western countries is the same.
There was even an anecdote on this topic when a Frenchman and an Englishman lamented that the letters in their alphabet are the same, but the words are different.
So I turned to the Melia hologram — really to the hologram, not to her Ascended copy — with a request to show me the Ancients' alphabet.
She showed. As I already guessed, the city computer for oral communication adjusts to the language it hears. I don't know if the city has a database of all existing languages, or it analyzes the 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 for each planet it is individual — at least for the local group where constellations are similar. But something tells me it's not so simple — otherwise it would take a lot of work to return to the home planet from the other end of the galaxy every time.
And maybe they worked, I still have to find out on my own skin.
Is it surprising that the Ancients' alphabet used on Atlantis had twenty-six symbols? Exactly as many in the Latin alphabet.
True, there are various dialects where the symbols are slightly different, and in number they differ. But I chose exactly the "base."
To match letters and Arabic numerals with similar symbols from the main Alteran alphabet from Atlantis wasn't so difficult. As a result, by the scientific poke method, I recorded in the memory of my handheld the identifications I got. It turned out not bad, but it required checking my research in practice. And for this the city control panel will do, as well as the available database of addresses.
Lantean alphabet.
Without numerous laptops, familiar monitors, servers and handhelds produced on Earth, the city control center seemed empty. The Ancients didn't even provide chairs, armchairs for work in this place.
Atlantis control center. Located in the "right" part of the second tier of the Gate Room.
In the Ancient control panels in the center unusually everything is even. Shape, size, texture...
There are no familiar buttons here, and each "keyboard" is a flat glass (or similar to this material) plate inserted into the console slot. They can be easily removed, swapped for convenience. But at the same time there is a more familiar "button" mode — but this is most tied to the gate control panel.
On each such glass plate there are marks under touch buttons — enough to put a finger on top and you'll definitely turn something on. By trial and error, I still managed to get to the database I needed.
But this is that hell. First translate from Ancient to English, then, scraping memory, to Russian. It turned out I remember the potential enemy's language much better than I think. Or here again some Ancient jokes.
The Stargate database of the Pegasus galaxy available to the Ancients was not just an address book with a multitude of addresses that could be dialed right here, without leaving the control center, and open a wormhole to the conditional other end of the galaxy. There was also relatively detailed reference information — in case 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 in principle — to gain a foothold in the galaxy at a completely different level. It remained only to find the planet I needed, and this — far from simple. Just sift through thousands and thousands of addresses... And not a fact that in the database there will be a mention of the planet I need in the form I understand.
And especially, there are no marks about what was discovered by the expedition — due to the absence of this very expedition.
Potentially, potential, potentia...
This has nothing to do with indecent jokes.
In this galaxy there is a planet where once the so-called Brotherhood ruled. In the series during the time travel of the expedition leader, the ancient who helped her, Janus, not just saved the city, but gave into the hands of the woman who remained in stasis for ten thousand years in the abandoned by all Atlantis a note with indication of five planets. On each of which there is a ZPM.
One of the planets in this list — the world ruled by the Quindozium Brotherhood. I remember, these are monks, harmless and fearful. But they were all destroyed during the Wraith attack on the planet. And knowledge of the ZPM location was lost.
The expedition members went on reconnaissance, tested themselves in a multitude of puzzles, found the ZPM... But couldn't take it.
The thing is that the locals kept the device exclusively for the Ancients. And when they learned that the expedition members are not them, they took the battery and rehid it. As far as I know, earthlings didn't try to find the trace of this ZPM anymore.
In the Brotherhood's notes it was mentioned exactly as "Potentia." Which in translation means "power" or something like that.
All that remained for me — to find the right address, fly to the planet, take the ZPM from there and return to Atlantis before the city sinks under the water mass. Easy, do it three times a day and you can forget about cholesterol.
But there was another problem.
Based on cause-and-effect, the ZPM ended up with the Brotherhood because Janus gave it to them. And he did so for the expedition leader who arrived from the past. Melia confirmed that none of the expedition variants arrived in the city. And consequently — there wasn't even a hint that in this galaxy there are the said five ZPM from Janus. Damn with all five — I would have enough of one. For starters, of course.
Yes, there were other places where ZPM were. But there, except the replicator planet, they are in almost discharged state. And not a fact that I can detect at least one of them.
What is the probability to guess at least once correctly when choosing one address out of thousands? Minimal. Even despite the presence in the gate database of search and filters by key concepts — this doesn't simplify the situation at all.
So, I have four obvious places to choose from, in three of which ZPM definitely lit up, of various degrees of exhaustion. In my situation there was no particular choice.
I need at least some to prolong the city's agony.
Melia didn't prompt the last option for nothing. Reasoning logically, Janus, having left Atlantis, hardly returned to Pegasus to leave even one ZPM. Simply — for this a ton of energy is needed. And the Ancients who fled to the Milky Way turned out to be extremely limited in resources. And besides, in the canonical events, Janus on a direct question from the Council members if the time-travel heroine left through the gate, lied saying yes.
All right — the Lanteans didn't allow the earthwoman to 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 out that the earthwoman isn't with them, they didn't go back to take her. The galaxy swarmed with Wraith, and they were short on ships.
True, they could use the gate, fortunately ZPM in the Milky Way were available... But didn't. Why? I don't know, can only assume, but without facts it's just wasted time.
I think Janus didn't send ZPM to the Pegasus galaxy after his departure. Most likely he reported the addresses of planets where they already were in one form or another. This would be the most reasonable option.
In any case, the situation in the city is such that I need a ZPM, at least somewhat charged. Extra hour, day, week or month — this is not just important.
It remains only to find the coordinates of the planets I need in the Atlantis database and take a walk there on the jumper.
Easier said than done.
Unfortunately, neither my memory turned out rich in the Brotherhood planet coordinates. By the way, it is called Dagan. Therefore, even the search service won't work. And working by enumeration method...
Wait a minute. If Dagan can't be found through its coordinates, then why not go another way?
*
The option with entering the planet name into the search engine seemed extremely interesting to me. Therefore I used it.
How surprised I was when it turned out that in the entire vast database of Atlantis there is not a single mention of such. Not the planet name — generally even a remotely similar word.
Dagan, Dakan, Dogan, Dagon... I rearranged letters as I could, as far as memory allowed — nothing.
Unlike earthly analogs, the city's search system required entering exact search criteria. Therefore I "twenty" times tried to fit the planet name into the system one way or another, but in my searches didn't advance.
The ghost of disappointment loomed on the horizon.
No, Russians don't give up that easily.
Let's enter another search criterion.
Unfortunately for me, the word "potentia" had a clear relation to the Ancients' language, which, as we remember, toyed with Latin. If I'm right, then "potentia" from Latin — power, might and another dozen other meanings. Therefore the search engine gave me information about planets where there were powerful volcanoes, strong storms, magnetic fields, hurricanes and so on and so forth...
Were there cataclysms of this order on the Brotherhood planet? The Ancients weren't interested in simple volcanoes or something similar. Only supervolcanoes, supercyclones, super tides and ebbs.
I think I would remember something like that. And since no, then boldly can remove such planets from the list. And this reduced the number of issued options by thirty percent.
Just from three thousand addresses need to look at two. Progress, but not as rapid as I would like.
For reliability having tried luck with the planet name a few more times, in my heart 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, somehow even spit on it. But since the city is now mine... No, my grandfather is Belarusian, and grandmother is Mordvinian — such a volatile mixture leaves no chance to passing universe miracles.
Need to change the approach.
***
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