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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ladybird" data-source="post: 2265345" data-attributes="member: 10689">Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 4: More Questions than AnswersA shadow fell across the red sandstone wall of the corridor: a standard-issue Air Force uniform cap, silhouetted by the dim beam of a flashlight. Below it, a distorted shape stretched back into the darkness, long and thin, then fading into a large amorphous blob. Ked’rec’s calm, even voice sounded incongruously loud in the stony silence of the hallway. “There is nothing here.” He straightened up, resting one end of the long pole he was carrying on the ground, so that the hat on other end of the pole hovered above his head, and looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the group.“Can I have my hat back, then?” Reinhart asked. He was trying hard to sound casual, but couldn’t quite keep the plaintive note out of his voice. Was this some tease-the-newbie act, or was it a realistic safety measure?“Not till we’re sure there’s nobody here,” Joe answered flatly. Kathleen confirmed the statement with a nod, giving Reinhart a sympathetic smile. “Plus, we don’t know what kind of automated systems they might have set up down here,” she explained, “or what their security devices are set to detect. Better that your hat gets hit with an anti-intruder device than one of us does.” The young lieutenant sighed and nodded, and the group continued on their cautious way down the hall. To anyone approaching from further down the corridor, the shadow of the hat and pole would look as if it were being cast by someone much taller than any of SG-17 actually were – and as if it were being cast by someone about five feet in front of the group.After a few hundred feet, the corridor ended in a doorway. The sharp silent signal of Ked’rec’s raised hand brought the group to a halt, and the Jaffa nudged the hat-and-pole cautiously around the edge of the doorway, waiting for a long moment before lowering it and saying, “All clear.”On the other side of the doorway, the ceiling lifted up, reaching away into the darkness and sending the group’s footsteps echoing hollowly around the walls. Kathleen shone her flashlight up – the ceiling had to be at least 30 feet high, ending in a closed-off hatchway.“From the height of the ceiling, it looks as if it would be on a level with the surface.” It was Joe’s voice, but the speech pattern was unmistakably Orieth’s. “Right,” said Kathleen slowly, her attention still fixed on the ceiling as the wheels started to turn in her mind. “This is probably how they brought in all their building materials. See the break there? That looks like the place where it would open up.” “Nothing else in here.” Joe’s flat, terse tone was back.  “The other end of the corridor just goes back to the left-hand door. “Then I think it’s time to go back to the beginning and try the right-hand door,” The beam from Kathleen’s flashlight traveled back down to earth as she finally ended her intent study of the ceiling. “That’s the only place that we haven’t explored yet.” As soon as the group had circled back to the entry chamber, with its three doors and ominous inscription on the right-most one, Kathleen instructed, “All right, Dr. Hramov. Back upstairs.”  Reluctantly, the archaeologist started back up the ladder into the basement.“Reinhart, you too. And Ked’rec,” Kathleen added after a brief pause.“And you,” Joe prompted.“No, I’ll stay down here to back you up, Mr. Healy.” They might count a Tok’ra or a rebel Jaffa as a traitor, she thought, but I haven’t betrayed anyone.Joe regarded Kathleen warily for a moment. “Are you sure?”She held his gaze steadily. “Yes, Mr. Healy.” By way of demonstration, she picked up the crate behind which he had been crouching before, holding it out to him. “You need to be really careful on this one,” she added, with a significant glance at the inscription.Worship her glorious countenance; traitors will be struck down, Orieth thought wearily. Really, it could just be a fancy way of saying ‘kneel before your god.’ Which to a Goa’uld is like saying ‘pass the chips.’Kathleen blinked in surprise at Joe’s sudden fit of chuckling. “Mr. Healy, is everything okay?”“Yeah,” Joe answered with a shrug. She watched him for one more confused, concerned moment, and then together, Joe and Kathleen knelt down behind the upturned crate, while Joe reached out with the stick to push the buttons on the right-hand door to trigger its lock.Kathleen didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she let it out as the door swung silently open. “All clear,” she called up to the others.Behind the door, there was hardly enough space for Ked’rec to hold out Reinhart’s hat on the pole before the hallway ended in a large chamber. It was furnished with heavy wooden tables and chairs, looking incongruously European against the Egyptian-style architecture of the sandstone passages. Even more out of place was what sat on one of the tables: a notebook, two quill pens, and an inkwell that had long since overflowed and dried up, leaving a scatter of black dust on the wooden surface. And a small metal object, about the size of the digital camera that Kathleen was already pulling out of her backpack to snap pictures of the room in its undisturbed condition. But this object had a wide viewscreen of some shimmering substance that was not glass, and its case wasn’t made of any metal that any of them had seen before, except for Orieth. “A Goa’uld tablet reader?” he said in astonishment, starting towards the table.“Hold on!” Kathleen said, nearly at the same time that Hramov cried, “Stop!”  With only a brief glance at the archaeologist, Kathleen explained, “We need to get pictures of what this looks like first, before we move anything.” She started to make her way around the room, carefully framing the table in the viewscreen of her camera. Hramov watched in grudging respect – at least she knew how to treat an archaeological find. The rest of the team moved in, edging carefully around the tables and chairs as they began to survey the room’s contents.“Major Fitzgerald? This notebook is not written in Goa’uld,” Ked’rec’s voice held a faint note of puzzlement.Kathleen lowered her camera, moving over to look at the notebook. “No, it’s in…that looks like pre-Revolutionary Russian script. Dr. Hramov, am I right? Ugh, it’s a pain to read.”“It is not so difficult if you know what to do,” Hramov replied, with a superior smirk. “And yes, it is the old-style writing.”“Uh…ma’am? You’re going to want to get a picture of this…” Reinhart was standing by the second table, his hands hovering above it as if he had just stopped himself from reaching out to touch it. The entire table was covered by an enormous tablet of the same red sandstone that formed the walls, its surface inscribed with symbols.“What language is this?” Hramov asked, leaning over to get a better look. “It does not look like standard Goa’uld script.”“It isn’t,” Orieth replied, a slight frown coming over his face. “There are a few borrowings from Goa’uld, but otherwise the characters are almost entirely different.”Kathleen put the camera down again, looking at the tablet with her own eyes instead of through the viewscreen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it either. Although that bit looks like it might say…hm. If it were just Goa’uld written in different characters, then that pattern could fit…” Reinhart tried to follow the quick motion of her finger as it traced through the air over the tablet, but she was following some pattern that made sense only in her own mind, becoming increasingly lost in thought. “And if that means that,” she murmured, “then…” Unless I am greatly mistaken, Orieth thought, she could be at this for quite a while. And unless I am even further mistaken, the source of the naquadah readings that the scientists were picking up is somewhere to the right.Another locked door. Joe shrugged in response to his own thoughts. Doesn’t look too much worse than the others. I can probably get it. He shivered a little as he let his senses follow Orieth’s towards the source of the naquadah. Never gonna get used to that.Yes, you will, Orieth responded soothingly. I wasn’t talking to you. And then, almost as an afterthought, Shut up.“It is Goa’uld,” Kathleen declared, the sudden sound of her voice drawing Joe and Orieth out of their internal dialogue. “But it’s written in different characters – I don’t know what they are. Plus, part of it is encrypted.”“Can you not break the code?” Ked’rec asked, from where he stood keeping watch by the door.Kathleen shook her head. “Not here. This isn’t an A=1, B=2 kind of cipher – it’s going to take some serious computer-power for me to crack it. I’ll send it back to the SGC and have some of our people back there start working on it.”“You will send the tablet?” There was a rising note of alarm in Hramov’s voice. “You will take it –““No, Doctor,” Kathleen sighed patiently, holding up her camera. “I’ll send pictures. The tablet isn’t going anywhere right now.” She offered a conciliatory grin. “Plus, do you want to carry that thing up the ladder? Now, the notebook, we can take with us – ““No!” Hramov’s shout echoed off the stone walls of the chamber. “You must not take it!”Reinhart took a wary step towards the archaeologist, and Kathleen looked hard at Hramov as she said evenly, “All right, then, we’ll leave it here for now. But we’ll have to come back for it. We need to know what’s in there. Same with the tablet reader.”“All right,” Hramov agreed, after a long, unhappy pause. Kathleen kept her eyes steadily on him, until after a moment more, the archaeologist backed away from the table, gaze dropping to his feet.What was that all about? Kathleen thought. “Right. Let’s keep going, then. Mr. Healy? Which door do you think leads to what we’re looking for?”“That one.” Joe jerked his head towards the door to the right, then reached out and tested it. “Locked,” he grunted. “Maybe trapped, too. I’ll check.” Another trap? Really, this is getting a little old, Orieth thought as Joe’s hands worked over the door. Shut up.</blockquote>

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