Title: Night Sky
Author: Joolz
Feedback: If you like J [email protected]
Rating: G
Pairing: None
Category: Gen, Vignette
Spoilers: None
Synopsis: Carter, the universe, and everything
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not my lovely characters, just playing with
them
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NIGHT SKY
They were
settled in around the campfire after another not-exciting day on a boring
planet. Daniel had played happily in
some ruins all day and Carter had filled little sample bottles from sunrise to
sunset. Jack was ready to kick back and
let his mind drift. Maybe imagine
himself in front of a TV, set to the
sports channel, with a beer in one hand and someone warm and pliant in the
other.
But no. As if a whole day of soil samples weren’t
enough, Carter had to be rambling on about where to get more tomorrow. Time to change channels.
Jack
interrupted, “So, Carter. There’s one thing I’ve never quite gotten
clear on. You’re an astrophysicist, right? Black holes and quasars and event horizons
and stuff like that. So what is it with
you and soil samples, anyway? This isn’t
exactly what you got your doctorate in.
Wouldn’t you like, you know, someone else to do the dirt work?”
It was always a
risk asking Carter a direct question, but he was in fact curious about this
point. She looked at him quizzically, a
bit distrusting, then asked, “Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah, Carter,
enlighten us. In words of two syllables or less.”
She looked
down, considering her response. When she
lifted her head there was a glowy expression on her face.
“It has
everything to do with astrophysics, sir.
You’ve got theoretical astrophysics, that deals with understanding the
physical nature of the universe. How it
formed, what it’s made of, how different parts of it interact. Then there’s applied astrophysics, which is a
lot like engineering, where you try to figure out ways to detect and measure
the elements the universe is composed of, in order to inform theory.
“For an
astrophysicist in the military the space program is as close as you’ll usually
get to either one of those things.
Satellites, telescopes, the occasional deep space probe if you’re lucky. All those things are vehicles for
instrumentation to measure properties of distant stellar phenomenon. The information they can gather is
necessarily diffuse. It, it’s coming
from hundreds or billions of light years away.
It’s hundreds or billions of light years old. And our instruments can only do so much.
“That was
the state of astrophysics before the Stargate program. Think about it, sir.” Her face brightened with enthusiasm. “Every time we send a MALP through to a new
planet, it takes readings. You’re familiar with the basic environmental data
which tells us whether we can visit or not, but it also collects information
about the local star…or stars…” She grinned with pleasure. “We get real time data up close and personal
about the properties of stars from all over the galaxy, and how they interact
at the atomic and gravimetric levels with other bodies and phenomena in that
region. That’s great on its own, but we
can also compare it with readings taken from Earth that give us an incredible
timeframe to work with. You wouldn’t
believe how the knowledge available to theoretical astrophysicists has grown in
the last couple of years. If they were
allowed to, it would take an army of scientists years to analyze all the data we’ve collected so far.”
A look of
joyous amazement spread across her face as she continued. “And then there are the soil samples. Sir, that isn’t even remote data from a
MALP. That’s the physical makeup, the
elements, radiation patterns, geological history of distant planets, and I hold
it right in my hand. I take bits of the
universe home to Earth.” She looked
close to tears. “No astrophysicist could
ever have imagined an opportunity like this.
It goes beyond, well, my wildest dreams. Yes, a lot of it is so that the government
can find naquadah and other rare minerals, but we get to do ‘ground breaking’
research at the same time, even if it is still just ‘scratching the
surface’. So no, I would never want
someone else to collect the samples. I
don’t have time to do the analysis myself, but I know what those little jars of
soil mean to our understanding, as a race, of the origins, present and future
of the universe.”
Teal’c was
sitting beside Sam, gazing at her with a warm, affectionate smile. Next to Jack, Daniel was positively beaming,
pleasure infusing his face as he responded to his friend’s elation. Sam was looking at the ground again, a
thoughtful, inward expression returning to her features.
Daniel’s
pleasure in and enthusiasm for his work was well known to all. The ancient buildings and writings were there
for everyone to see, and he continued to gush about his artifacts long after
they’d returned home. But this was the
first time Jack had ever really understood that his 2IC felt the same kind of
fulfilment from her work. She hardly ever
talked about it. And he never
asked. In fact, when she tried to share
her work he always cut her off and shut her down. He’d reduced her to ‘Carter, just tell us if
you can fix it.’
For the first
time Jack realized that by doing that he had been repressing her spirit. He may not understand what she was talking
about, but he owed it to her to acknowledge its importance, and support her
initiative. Jack knew full well that
there were limits to the techno-babble he could endure, but he resolved to try.
Looking up at
the canopy of alien constellations spilled across the sky, his own universe
expanded into a new space. He said with
genuine sincerity for once, “Thanks,
Carter, that was very interesting. So,
you see that pink cloud stuff, and how it sort of mixes with the green cloud
stuff over by that bright star? Why does
it do that?”
The four
friends leaned back against their packs and gazed up at the night sky. And Carter began to talk.
The end
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