"I expected more dust in here," I said, looking around the control room.
Our conversation — or rather, its introductory part, about how Chaya became the sole representative of the Ancients among all Proculucians — had ended in the laboratory of Project Arcturus. A very familiar laboratory — it had been depicted quite well in the series.
Project Arcturus Laboratory. Still from the series.
Except back then, when it was discovered by the Earthlings, it was covered in such a thick layer of dust that it felt like an ancient tomb. Though there were a few skeletal remains in the lab.
But not now. It seemed Chaya had cleaned up in here thoroughly.
"I restored a relative degree of order," Sar confirmed my suspicions, walking past the activated consoles and monitors. I hope she just turned them on, not the entire project.
I really, really hope so.
"So," I spotted a simple chair, clearly not of Lantian design, and plopped down into it. Chaya repeated my gesture, but used a small cabinet in the corner. Judging by the two backpacks next to it with food peeking out, this piece of furniture served as her dining table. "General Hippaforalkus was impressed by you, but all your fellow countrymen weren't suitable for initiation."
"It would probably have been possible to implant the gene, it might have taken root," Chaya said. "But initiation is something more than simple genetic improvement. You can't turn a farmer who doesn't know that the stars aren't just lights in the night into an Ancient."
"Genetic therapy to improve the body works on a specific physiological base," I understood. "And, I assume, has a limit for enhancing the human body."
"Exactly," Chaya said sadly. "So applying it to undeveloped peoples is quite foolish. That's why my people remained at the same level of development — the Lantians didn't want to waste resources on us since they had other candidates in mind."
"But they didn't let you stay with them. Why?"
"To become an advanced race worthy of joining the 'Lesser Races,' it's not enough to have a long-lived leader who can handle Ancient technology," Chaya explained. "Evolution goes hand in hand with technological progress; without each other, they're useless. There's no point in building an advanced industry for farmers — they still wouldn't understand what it's for. And mastering such technologies requires centuries of use, scientific progress, and so on..."
"So you joined the Ancients."
"Yes. The General promised it would ensure protection for my people. The Lantians needed everyone who was smart enough to help in the war that was beginning. I was one of them. But since I was treated as an impostor, I had no significant influence in the early stages of the war with the Wraith. And then General Hippaforalkus died."
"And you were left without a patron."
"And my people — without protection. The Lantians suffered one major defeat after another. They recalled starships from some planets to others, losing even more, exposing their flanks and rear. On my own, I couldn't have protected Proculus as a human. Even if I could have."
"You needed to find a new patron."
"And I found one," Chaya admitted. "He was... A wonderful person, a prominent scientist. He also wasn't on good terms with the Council, but he was open to new ideas. Many Lesser Races respected him, so in a way, he was an icon of scientific progress for the Lantian Confederation. Some of my work interested him, and we... grew close," she added the last word with some embarrassment. "Such things weren't encouraged among the Lantians, though... we didn't pay much attention to it. While the Council thought victory should come on the battlefield, our team, like many others, sought a solution through science. And we found it..."
"Project Arcturus?" I clarified.
"That project became a tombstone," Chaya gave a bitter smile. "Before it, I had made... a few more dangerous mistakes."
"Such as?"
"I created a nanovirus that was supposed to destroy the Wraith at the cellular level."
Everything inside me went cold.
"Wait a minute," I said. "There's a lab on Atlantis with a nanovirus that killed everyone who didn't have the Ancient gene."
The Earthlings had paid a heavy price for getting acquainted with that technology. And it ended exactly the way Chaya had done almost immediately after her arrival — the nanomachines were disabled by an electromagnetic pulse.
Now I understand why she had so purposefully eradicated that plague, never letting it escape. She was destroying her own experiment.
"That's the one," the girl said. "When it got out of control, the population of an entire planet died — almost completely. The project was shut down, but, as always happened with the Lantians, 'shutting down' meant preserving all the data about it to use later if new ideas came up."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this project lead to the humanoid replicators called the Asurans?" I asked. "Billions of tiny nanomachines created to destroy the Wraith. Except they became self-aware, started copying the Ancients, their technology, and so on."
"In general terms, you're right," the girl confirmed. "My project was 'reworked.' The Ancients were fundamentally opposed to artificial intelligence in any form."
"Because in the Milky Way, the replicators destroyed one of the Four Great Races, the Ferlings?" I clarified.
"You know about that too," Chaya nodded sadly. "Yes, after that, a ban was placed on creating artificial intelligence. Or human-machines, cyborgs."
"So that's why the Ancients decided to destroy the Asurans," I figured out. "Vietnam flashbacks... They were afraid the same thing would happen."
"Probably," Chaya shrugged. "They didn't want to repeat the fate of the Lesser Race of the Asurans, who had developed in the field of robotics. They were the ones who tried to rework my project, considering it promising."
"Asurans... Asurans... Tell me that's just a coincidence in the name."
"In my time, no one called the humanoid communities of nanomachines copying the Ancients 'Asurans,'" Chaya explained. "I adopted that from your speech. Asurans was the planet settled by the Lesser Race of the Asurans. There were legends that they were among the few who came with the Lantians from the Milky Way, but whether that's true or not, I don't know. Either way, the communities created by the Asurans didn't act the way their creators wanted. As a result, the Lantians destroyed the planet."
"Along with the Asurans?" I tensed up.
"They were all dead by then," Chaya explained. "The Council reported that they were killed by nanomachines that had gotten out of control. But, as you understand, there was no way to verify that. The Council banned experiments in that direction; all data on the Asurans' experiments was destroyed. The official reason was an unsound basic solution."
"Which was the one you created."
"Exactly. So I became even more disliked. By that time, the territories under the Ancients' control were shrinking. Something had to be done. So I and Janus... Why are you coughing?"
Patting my chest to clear the cough, I looked at Chaya:
"Your new patron was Janus?"
"Yes. Do you know about him?"
"I've heard. The guy who built a time machine."
"Yes, but for some reason it didn't survive to the present day," Chaya sighed. "The Council, even though they were against such experiments, turned a blind eye because the situation was becoming desperate. As long as Janus didn't cross the line, he could do whatever he wanted. So we decided on an ambitious project... To use subspace, also known as hyperspace, to create interference in it specifically for the Wraith hyperdrive technology."
I broke out in a cold sweat for the second time.
"The Attero device," I said.
"Yes," Chaya said. "If you know the name, then you know what it is..."
"By creating interference, you wanted to either destroy the Wraith when they entered hyperspace, or force them to stop using hyperdrives. Then you could pick them off one by one."
"Except we didn't account for the fact that the interference would disrupt the Stargates," Chaya continued. "As a result..."
."..they started uncontrollably accumulating energy when activated while the Attero device was running," I concluded. Once again, my knowledge from the TV series universe came in handy.
And I'm feeling less and less comfortable in Sar's company.
"The result was the explosion of hundreds of Stargates," Chaya said. "In one moment, the Ancient population in Pegasus lost forty Lesser Races... Millions, if not billions, died. Both those who had long been part of the Confederation and those who were being prepared for initiation."
Holy...
...shit.
Stargates are made of a bunch of technologies, but the material that possesses enviable durability, not to mention the ability to accumulate an energy charge for creating hyperspace tunnels within the galaxy and beyond it (and theoretically, any gate in Pegasus is capable of this with minor modifications), is quite exotic.
Naquadah.
The same stuff that's at the core of the reactor Chaya created.
The gates are made of it too.
Roughly speaking, Naquadah is something between uranium and plutonium, but an order of magnitude more powerful. It can be equally effective as a weapon of mass destruction and as an energy source.
If you feed energy into Naquadah... If you uncontrollably pour energy into Stargates made of Naquadah, they will eventually explode. And the Naquadah amplifies the detonation. The planet where this happens can be safely crossed off the list of habitable worlds. At best. At worst — off the list of planets entirely. Asteroids — that's all that would be left. Very, very small asteroids, I should say.
I can't imagine how Chaya can even sleep with that baggage.
"What happened then?"
"I was banished from Atlantis," Sar said. "The Council forbade me from setting foot in the city or on any other planet of the Lantian Confederation, under threat of death. They assigned me a place of exile, but far from Proculus."
"Strange they didn't kill you."
"And Janus didn't stand up for you?"
"As it turned out, even the position of a lover doesn't grant leniency," Chaya gave a bitter smile. "The only thing he did was ensure I wasn't executed but sent into exile. Since I was smart enough, and such talent was very dangerous to squander by the end of the war, at Janus's insistence I was sent to help the Dorandans. To help them prepare the planet for defense, set up energy projects for planetary weapons."
"In the events I know about, Janus never came across as such an asshole," I admitted. "A free-thinker, but... He helped..."
"A woman he liked?" Chaya smirked. "Oh, yes, he could be charming. Especially when he spoke in court in my defense. He emphasized my intelligence, my origins, asked them to be lenient because I came from a not-too-developed world and clearly had no malicious intent. His words about giving me a chance, but under the supervision of experienced mentors, even moved the Council. Most likely..."
"Wait a minute!" I exclaimed. "How did he avoid punishment? You worked on the project together!"
Moreover, some materials on the Attero device are still stored on Atlantis. And yes, I'm not poking around in them because that's also risky.
"For that, you can thank my own stupidity," the girl said. "Moros, the head of the Council, as I understood it, had been trying for a long time to hold Janus accountable. He suspected Janus was involved in many projects the Council considered dangerous. But it always turned out Janus had nothing to do with it. Only his students, friends, numerous lovers, as it turned out... But not him. And Janus explained away all accusations with a single phrase: 'They were trying to imitate me, as the most prominent representative of Lantian scientific life.'"
I think my built-in asshole detector is about to explode.
"You didn't 'rat him out,'" I understood.
"I was young, stupid, and in love," Chaya explained. "Besides, he told me he would do everything so I could continue my research, but away from the Council's eyes."
"He made it sound like some 'clever plan'?"
"Something like that."
"They sent you to Dorandan?"
"The Dorandans were one of the last Lesser Races of the Ancients still holding out against the Wraith," Chaya said. "They were relatively young by Lantian standards, ambitious. And they desperately wanted the Lantians to notice them. Their race became 'young' later than me, but their level of technology was impressive. And the closer the war crept to the borders of Atlantis, the more serious the question of providing energy for Lantian technology became."
"Why?" I asked, intrigued. "The Lantians could create ZPMs in any quantity."
"Maybe they could," Chaya said after a moment's thought. "But I never heard of them doing it."
"Then where did they get their ZPMs?" I sensed something was wrong.
"The Asurans produced them," Chaya explained.
"Right," I stood up and started pacing the lab. Trying not to bump into anything. The last thing I need is to turn this thing on. "So what did the Lantians themselves actually create?"
"Hyperdrives, homing projectiles, control chairs, warships, scientific equipment, generators, Stargates," Chaya listed without hesitation. "And thousands of other things, like the Puddle Jumpers. They were the generators of progress. And the Lesser Races handled the routine tasks. For example, when some races reached a level of complete trust from the Ancients, they were given the secret of one technology or another and could produce it."
"Like?"
"I think the Lantians used to produce ZPMs themselves in the past. But the Asurans had been their allies for quite a long time, so they received that privilege."
Unlikely.
"Any other examples?"
"Very few. Few could compare with the Asurans — they weren't inferior to the Lantians in power and knowledge. But they were very few in number, so they were content with secondary roles."
"You talk as if there were others who were nipping at their heels."
"Yes. One Lesser Race, for example, managed to build a copy of Atlantis," Chaya explained. "The Yatrans. They were basically among the first to become Lesser Races in the Pegasus galaxy."
"And... What happened to them?"
"I don't know," Chaya admitted. "But the crew of the battleship Tria, which you mentioned, consisted of Yatrans."
"So, roughly speaking, they're third in the list of superior beings after the Lantians and Asurans."
"Most likely," Chaya assumed.
"And what did these guys do that was special?" I asked.
"They built the Lantian military-research ships like the Aurora, the Hippaforalkus, and the Tria," Chaya said.
Okay, I should think about that information later. But it reminds me of something.
"Tell me about Project Arcturus."
"After the destruction of the Asurans, ZPM reserves began to dwindle rapidly," Chaya said. "From what I heard, the latest versions of battleships were sent into battle without ZPMs. An energy crisis was building."
"And the Dorandans decided that if they could solve it, the 'parents' would love them more?"
"That's what Janus told them," Chaya explained. "I was supposed to help them... The project was created in the deepest secrecy. Officially, this complex was supposed to be a simple weapons platform, but I decided to connect it to an energy source. According to my calculations, Arktos was supposed to generate enough energy from a single generator to power an entire planet."
"Or warships with the most powerful weapons and impenetrable shields," I estimated.
"Or that," Chaya agreed.
From the girl's expression, it was clear this conversation was weighing on her. But I wasn't going to back down.
"Tell me more about Project Arcturus. Why did everything go wrong?"
I knew some of it myself, but right now I was interested in getting the data from the source.
"Project Arcturus was developed as a replacement for the ZPM," Chaya explained. "You know what a ZPM is, right?"
"Besides it being a crystal filled with zero-point energy?" I clarified. "Practically nothing."
"Not a crystal, but a group of crystals," Chaya corrected me. "They serve as a shell and simultaneously a safety mechanism for an artificially created region of space-time inside the ZPM."
"A pocket universe?"
"A microscopic part of one," Chaya clarified. "Zero-point energy is the minimum possible energy level that sustains a system based on elements like photons, electrons, protons..."
"Quantum physics," I realized.
"Mmm," Chaya thought. "I suppose your people call that discipline that. In general terms, a system existing on such principles, different from mechanics, must have a minimum possible energy source to keep it in order."
"Zero-point energy."
"Yes," Chaya agreed after a moment. "Point... That's actually a more accurate concept of what a ZPM is. A tiny point of an artificial universe..."
"Don't get sidetracked," I asked.
"Yes, sorry," the girl smiled apologetically. "I'm... trying to make you understand what I and the leading Dorandan scientists were trying to do. A ZPM is called a battery for a reason — its energy is limited by the boundaries of a tiny piece of space-time enclosed within the crystals. That very piece was the quantum system that provided the energy. Compared to the real universe, what a ZPM contains is roughly equal to one cell in an entire organism. And I decided it would be right, since the Lantians could no longer create artificial regions of space-time, to try to extract energy from the space-time of our own universe. In that case, we would have access to unlimited energy."
Fairy tales about free electricity, but on the scale of an entire universe... The 'DIY guys' from YouTube nervously lighting up in the corner.
"Why didn't the Lantians try to do the same thing themselves?" I asked. "It's really easier to extract energy from right under your nose than to create dwarf universes in crystals. Isn't it?"
"Not really," Chaya admitted. "First, you have to understand that the Lantians had reserves of ZPMs, so there was no immediate need for it. But most importantly... Theoretically, Project Arcturus could have destroyed our universe."
"How?"
"If the universe is a system in which order is maintained by a certain level of energy, what will happen to it if you start draining that energy?" Sar asked.
"Sooner or later, the system would collapse."
"Given the infinity of the universe, that's unlikely," Sar admitted. "But there was a danger of a cascading collapse of the system due to the emergence of weak points."
"No matter how strong a house is, if you start pulling out bricks from the bottom, you don't need to tear it all down — it will collapse on its own."
"Exactly," Chaya confirmed. "So I never thought Arktos would be a panacea. A temporary solution to the problem until victory over the Wraith — possibly. I tried as best I could to make the project safe. The project's generator was supposed to draw energy not so much from the entire universe, but from a small section of it, shielded by a force field to prevent collapse. According to calculations, this was more than enough not only to run tests, but also to create an energy source capable of generating the energy of dozens of ZPMs for millions of years. And all of that — from a region of space just a few meters in diameter."
"Sounds too good to be true."
"It is. The calculations were too complex, and the project was far from combat-ready. There weren't even any tests, so when a Wraith fleet arrived at Dorandan, after receiving the order, I had no other choice but to link Arktos with the turret developed by the Dorandans. According to their plans, it was supposed to become the basis for new weapon mounts to replace things like the Satellites satellites or the pulse cannons on battleships."
"The planet had no other means of defense?" I asked.
"It did, but they proved ineffective against an armada. I had to activate Arktos. The generator started working, and at first everything seemed to work perfectly. Even at minimum power output, there was enough energy to put up resistance. No one planned to push further on an experimental setup. But, unfortunately, forces I couldn't have foreseen intervened."
I was silent, though I had a guess about what she was talking about.
"Extracting zero-point energy from a region of space randomly and radically changed the laws of physics in that region," Chaya's voice filled with pain. "This led to the continuous creation and destruction of exotic particles unknown to science inside the containment field. Since they were created in a region with radically different physical laws, their behavior couldn't be predicted in our space-time. The protective field proved unable to contain them. The energy output grew exponentially. I decided to use the weapon mount to vent the excess energy. The Wraith, regrouping in orbit, simply didn't understand what had destroyed them — the mount destroyed hive ships and cruisers with equal efficiency and evaporated Darts."
Now I understand why not a single Dart fragment was found in orbit. As I assumed — small craft can't survive a hit.
"Then things got even worse," Chaya continued. "The weapon didn't respond to the shutdown command. It opened fire on the surrounding space. The city, the wreckage of Wraith ships... Everything became its target. Thousands killed with each shot. I and the Dorandan engineers worked to stop this rampage."
"You managed to shut it down."
"Yes," Chaya sighed heavily. "But by that time, the only survivors on the entire planet were me and the outpost personnel."
"But the ruins all over the planet..."
"The Dorandan weapon powered by Arktos didn't even need to hit its target directly," Sar announced. "Besides the impact, it also carries a radiation charge and exotic particles that, upon contact with matter, create a terrible shockwave. But even that wasn't what destroyed Dorandan. Half the population survived the bombardment... I requested help from Atlantis, thinking there was a chance."
"And you told them everything honestly?"
"Frankness is a virtue," she said with a bitter smile. "I hoped the Lantians would be able to help. I hoped that even if I were executed, the remnants of the Dorandan people would be saved. After all, they're the smartest of their kind. I hoped... Right up until the cooling reactor ejected accumulated exotic particles into space. They caused an uncontrolled expansion of the protective field, a breakthrough of deadly radiation that spread across the entire planet. Instant death for millions — they didn't even understand what had happened. And Dorandan, along with half its star system, turned into a radioactive desert for ten thousand years." She nodded toward the consoles. "The automatic monitoring system recorded much of what happened here over those ten thousand years. The radiation was so intense that Wraith ships, finding themselves in the kill zone, simply burned up from it. I think after that, they decided never to come here. So when the automatic defense finally did its job and finished the test cycle, this system became a deadly trap for all living things."
"But you survived!"
"Only because General Hippaforalkus, whom I thought was dead, helped me Ascend at the last moment of my life," Chaya explained. "From what I now know from my encrypted messages, I wasn't liked there either. But breaking the rules of Ascension gave the others grounds to exile me. And to silently watch as millions and billions of sentient beings died, while I had the power to protect Proculus. Only my protection stalled their development. Which is an even greater torment..."
"How do you know what happened while you were Ascended?" I asked. "Or was that written in the phrases you deleted from your computer before I read them?"
"'Conceal your failures,'" Chaya said. "'Protecting your own made you an outcast,' 'You no longer have defenders among the Ascended,' 'Being human is your only chance at life.' Those are the theses I erased. I understood part of the background behind them myself, part was told to me by you."
"Maybe you also know the hidden meaning of the other theses?" I inquired. Chaya shook her head negatively.
"'Others lie,' 'The Leap,' 'Everything has already happened,'" she repeated. "These mean nothing to me."
But I have certain guesses. Which, as my conversation with the captain of the Aurora showed, are best kept to myself.
"Why did you leave?" I asked. "The catastrophes happened ten thousand years ago."
"But my guilt in developing the nanites that destroyed the Asurans, as well as my involvement in Project Arcturus, is undeniable," the girl said. "I created them with a defect in the program — and that destroyed the Asurans. If you decided to bring the Ytrans back to Atlantis, who were friendly with the Asurans, they would have demanded my execution. The Dorandans from the Aurora would have demanded the same thing. Are you saying I'm wrong?"
"Trebal wants you dead," I said, not mincing words.
"I understand myself that I don't deserve to live," Chaya sighed. "I couldn't tell you everything because I was afraid you would turn away from me too. I tried to replace an entire scientific staff for you on my own, but I failed... You flew after the Aurora. I had no choice left... I did what I could to help you, and I left."
"Do you think I'm set on executing you?"
Chaya looked at me with a weary gaze.
"Until the moment I left, I spent all my free time trying to understand the reasons for the failure of Project Arcturus," she explained. "I reworked blueprints, built models... I thought I could find the mistake... But then, when you saw them, I noticed recognition on your face. You didn't tell me about Dorandan, but I understood that you knew about Arcturus. Meeting and reviving the crew members of the Aurora would have unequivocally exposed me. And... there would have been a conflict."
"You decided not to put me in a position of having to choose — defend you and lose the Dorandans' support, or throw you to the wolves but not let them execute my ally," I realized why all this had been done.
"Seliza told you?" Chaya asked.
"No, we haven't talked about it," I admitted. "But why did you ever decide you had the right to make that choice for me?"
"Because the commander of the Aurora is a Lantian," she said. "Not a minor one. Tribune Titus was on the Council, even if he was a junior councilor. But compared to you... He could easily have gotten rid of you too. Even though I remember him as a man of honor, ten thousand years changes sentient beings."
I supposed Tribune Titus was the name of the Aurora's commander. Something clenched inside me... And I hadn't even bothered to find that out beforehand. It really showed an educated and decent person from Earth — to be so grateful for having my thoughts organized that I didn't even learn the name of the man who sacrificed himself for me.
"He's dead." I briefly recounted to Chaya everything related to the journey to the battleship and back, except for what the Tribune had told me about the most important thing. "In fact, I almost died too... If it hadn't been for Celise..."
I fell silent when I saw Sar slap her palm against her face. A facepalm from an Ancient?!
"One day you'll just kill yourself," she looked at me with undisguised pity. "Of course, I'm guilty for not calculating this option... But I didn't even think Trebal knew how to reconfigure the chair! That's a very subtle and dangerous technology to just do like that, without a proper level of knowledge... You were lucky you got away with only minor brain damage."
Minor, yeah...
"The chairs on the ships don't just fulfill minimal functions for no reason," she explained. "Without a full set of protective systems, they are very dangerous for a human mind! And by her actions, Trebal essentially connected the chair into the ship's mental control system. That is, when you connected to the ship from the commander's chair, you were connecting to the control chair! Without stabilizers or defense systems! It's lethally dangerous, which is why it's forbidden! Even controlling projectiles from such a chair is extremely exhausting! And here..."
A thought emerged at the back of my mind: was Trebal trying to kill me this way? Doubtful, actually — she acted the same way herself. It seemed she simply didn't understand the seriousness. She had picked up knowledge from the Tribune, but without understanding its gravity.
Interesting that Chaya knows this, but Trebal doesn't... It seems Janus was quite frank with her.
Janus... Either this is an extremely negative universe, or the original series didn't show just how much of a bastard this guy really was.
"Now do you understand why you need to come back?" I asked. "Without you, a bright but very short life awaits me."
"Misha, I already explained..." Chaya began. "Even from here, I'll have to leave for somewhere else after talking to you. Trebal is far from stupid. She twice acted as prosecutor at my trial — for the nanite incident and the Attero device. And only Janus's intervention..."
"I don't give a damn about Janus or what happened ten thousand years ago," I admitted. "The Ancients can think whatever they want. But from my point of view, blaming a person whose project they shut down due to a flaw for the fact that it was flawed when they used it is excessively biased. Just like you being the only one responsible for the failure of Attero. Their genius boy Janus was right there beside you, and he kept his mouth shut... Hm... You know, isn't that funny?"
"The death of millions is funny?" Chaya asked.
"No, the death of millions is terrible," I acknowledged. "What's funny is that on Earth, Janus was the name of the ancient Roman two-faced god..."
Ancient Roman... "The Romans claimed their roads were taught to them by gods who called themselves Ancients," I recalled a phrase spoken in the universe by one famous Earth native.
Ancient Rome... Roads... Janus... Two-faced god... Two-faced, two-sided...
This seems like one of those cases where an owl feels sick from contact with a globe, but there's something in this logical chain...
"Order," it clicked in my head.
"What, sorry?" Chaya asked again.
"You said you launched Arcturus because there was an order," I reminded her.
"Yes," she confirmed cautiously.
"And the one who gave it knew the project wasn't ready?"
"Yes," Chaya looked at me with distrust.
"Let me guess the name of the person who issued that order," I smiled sardonically, looking at the bewildered girl. "Starts with 'Ja', ends with 'nus', doesn't it?"
Sighing, Chaya nodded.
"The monitoring system recorded everything that happened here, didn't it?" I asked Sar. "Including communication with Atlantis? With Janus?"
"Misha, please," Chaya looked pitiful. "Janus is, even if partly rebellious, still an unquestioned authority for all Ancients. I told you all this not to reopen old wounds, but so you'd understand why I want to dismantle this outpost. Project Arcturus is a dead end, it's dangerous... I wanted to dismantle the installation and erase the data so you wouldn't repeat my terrible mistake!"
"I don't give a damn about Arcturus," I sighed. "Pack your things, we're going back to Atlantis. And bring the monitoring system crystal with you."
"Misha, I can't..."
"Women," I sighed, pulling the Ancient electroshock weapon from my jacket pocket. "Are you coming on your own, or do I have to carry you?"
Chaya looked at me and sighed bitterly:
"You completely don't appreciate what I did for you by leaving Atlantis."
"You're wrong," I countered. "I appreciate you so much that I won't let one Ancient asshole's authority ruin your second life."
"But you'll ruin your own," Chaya sighed.
"We'll figure it out," I promised. "And yes, stop stalling. Otherwise I'll knock you out and carry you... You don't want me to inspect every seam on your new dress, do you?"
"It's seamless," Chaya replied. "And there's nothing underneath it that you haven't already touched..."
"Well, there, and you were afraid," I smiled contentedly.
And then sud-den-ly I understood.
"Hold on!"