Ever since then they had been going about their work, and, of course, waiting. There was a lot of waiting going on. More than even the eternally patient Teyla Emmagen could handle. Thankfully Sergeant Tucker was always up for a stick-fight. He had taken to the practise better than anyone else, and, though his movements were still less than graceful, he was more than proficient with the Bantos rods. She enjoyed sparring with him. And it didn�t hurt that he was cute, Teyla admitted, though she realized that Earth had a plethora of social taboos, especially when it came to romance in the workplace. Her people never had that problem. She didn�t know of any culture in Pegasus that did, to be honest. Romance usually led to sex which often led to children which meant there was another generation to keep your people alive. Teyla guessed, though, that since Earth had been almost completely isolated from alien interference until the Stargate Program had begun several years earlier, that keeping the population up was not much of a concern. A friend of hers had even told her that some parts of Earth had too many people and that families were forced to have only one child at most because of overpopulation. The entire concept was mind-boggling to Teyla. A lot of things about Earth were mind-boggling to Teyla.
�Please explain to me again how we have lost seven days,� Teyla requested of Radek who was tapping away at his laptop in the Control Room at the station next to where the Athosian leader had taken up residence. �I still do not understand how it is possible,� she added, only somewhat meekly. Since Rodney and Elizabeth and John and Carson had left Atlantis and Teyla and Radek had been in charge she had gotten to know the quirky scientist quite well, and was no longer afraid to admit that she didn�t understand a concept in front of him. It was a level of trust she had yet to achieve with many other people, including her team mates, though she trusted them deeply on many other levels.
Pushing up his glasses with one hand while saving his work with the other Radek turned his chair so that he was facing Teyla. That was something that Teyla appreciated about Radek. He didn�t multi-task, as Rodney put it, unless he absolutely had to. He was willing to pause in his work to speak to someone, not just continue working and look up when something caught his interest like Rodney did.
�A day is measured by one full rotation of the planet.�
�Around the sun,� Teyla nodded.
�No,� Radek said, shaking his head. He was stammering and stuttering a lot less without the constant pressures�situational or related to a certain Canadian astrophysicist with a big mouth and an even bigger ego�bearing down on him. �That is a year. A day is one full rotation of the planet around its axis.�
�Axis� that�s the invisible line that runs through the planet that it spins around, correct?� Teyla said, hoping she was right.
Along with her duties as temporary co-leader of Atlantis Teyla had been trying to learn more of the basic sciences of Earth. Chemistry was easy enough as it was much like following recipes. She wasn�t a very good cook, Teyla knew, but the few experiments she had done in the Chemistry lab with her tutor had gone quite well� at least that was what she was told. Biology was less of a success, though Doctor Biro had made sure that her field medical training was up to date and that she knew how to administer a dose of epinephrine should Rodney ingest citrus on one of their missions. The other sciences like Botany and Marine Sciences and the more specific subsets of what she were told the three main branches of science�chemistry, biology, and physics�she hadn�t exactly gotten around to, though she had borrowed a few books from several departments to read in her resting hours.
�Correct,� Zelenka nodded and Teyla smiled, pleased that she had been correct and that no one was around to shrug her personal accomplishment off. �Earth�s day-long rotation takes approximately twenty-four hours. Lantia�s day-long rotation takes approximately thirty-two hours. However, we have used a system of one-point-three-three-bar hours here being equivalent to one hour on Earth which makes an hour on Atlantis eighty minutes long instead of sixty.�
Teyla frowned. �This is where I get confused. My people have always risen with the sun, slumbered not long after dark, and worked during the daylight hours, stopping halfway through the day for a meal.�
Zelenka nodded. �It is difficult to grasp,� he agreed sympathetically.
�Can you take me through it? Step by step?� Teyla requested. �That might help,� she added.
Since they still had another forty minutes before the hour was up�they had been waiting for forty minutes already�Radek didn�t see the harm in explaining the time problem to Teyla.
�Alright. One day on Earth is twenty-four hours long.�
�I know that,� Teyla nodded.