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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ladybird" data-source="post: 2884950" data-attributes="member: 10689">Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 8 - Lost in TranslationBack in the village, Kathleen was doing her best to investigate the possibility of  recent Goa’uld activity on the planet without speaking more than a few words of the language. Somehow, knowing the local words for “blueberries” and “good morning” wasn’t helping much. Marka – apparently the most extroverted of the villagers, despite the glazed and distracted look that she shared with all of the others – was listening with eager encouragement, but the village headman, Geert, had only mild confusion on his passive face as he watched Kathleen’s struggle to make herself understood.“Do you know anything about the little trees? Um…kleine baumen?” Kathleen tried what she thought was an approximation of the phrase in German, holding her hand a few inches above the ground to mime ‘small.’ Geert and Marka turned to each other, puzzled, and discussed it amongst themselves for a few moments, trying to figure out what she meant. Finally they turned back to Kathleen, shaking their heads. Geert looked slightly surprised that she would ask such a question, as if nobody had ever thought to wonder about the strangely stunted trees. Doesn’t anyone on this planet have any curiosity?“Okay….um…has anyone else come through the Stargate?” Kathleen tried the same motion that she had done before, waving her arm in a wide circle, then sweeping forward while making a ‘whoosh!’ sound, in her best imitation of a Stargate. Marka nodded enthusiastically, and started a discourse on ‘vremdelingen,’ but Kathleen shook her head. “No, besides us. Not me, not him.” She pointed to herself and Gatwick in turn, shaking her head emphatically after each.Geert and Marka stared. Kathleen sighed heavily, and tried again. “No, not us. People with flashing eyes? Deep voices?” She made fists near her eyes, then opened her hands swiftly, miming the flash of a Goa’uld’s eyes. Geert and Marka stared.Fortunately for all of them, a distraction arrived in the form of Reinhart, fresh back from checking in with the SGC. “They’re happy to hear that everyone’s all right, ma’am,” he reported. “We’re supposed to stay here until SG-14 is all rounded up, and until we’re sure that there isn’t any health risk from that stuff they drank. They’ve got some preliminary reports from the samples we sent back – there’s definitely some kind of mind-affecting chemical in the water. There’s also another chemical that’s similar to the ones used in some preservatives.”“Well, they do seem to be fairly pickled,” Kathleen muttered. “Anything else?”“I think Dr. Haas might be on her way back, ma’am. I saw a group of locals coming up the road, and there was someone with them who looked like she was wearing an SGC uniform.”“Finally!” Kathleen let out a sigh of profound relief. “Look, I’ll be back in a second,” she said quickly, turning back to the others. Gatwick gave her a mellow wave; Geert and Marka blinked in their usual incomprehension. “Dr. Haas!” Kathleen called, hurrying out of the town hall and into the brightening sunshine. Ugh. It’s getting hot. That’s not going to be fun…A smallish figure, dressed in fatigues, split off from the group of villagers making their way down the path towards the village. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes as she squinted into the sun. “Is that…Major Fitzgerald? What are you doing here?” Even from a distance, Kathleen could hear the slow pace and vague, distracted tone of Dr. Haas’s words, and she sighed again. She’s drunk it too. “We’re here looking for you,” Kathleen began.Kathleen went through the entire situation with Dr. Haas, repeating herself a few times when the botanist’s attention wandered off towards the flowers that she carried in her arms.  “Sergeant Gatwick tells me that you understand the language?” Kathleen asked, when she was done.“Oh, yes. My grandmother was born in the Netherlands. This language isn’t exactly like Dutch, but it’s close enough that I can understand the locals, and they can understand me.”“Oh, thank goodness! Look, can you help me out with some translation. I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s been any Goa’uld presence on this planet, and I’m getting nowhere.”“I’d be happy to,” Dr. Haas replied. And then, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “Good idea, finding out if there have been any Goa’uld here.”It’s only one of our central missions, Kathleen grumbled inwardly, as she led the way back into the town hall. She sat, slightly impatiently, while Dr. Haas translated her questions about the Stargate, then again while Geert and Marka discussed it, again looking confused that anyone would be asking such questions.  Finally, Dr. Haas turned back to Kathleen. “It sounds like we’re the first people to have come through the Stargate in a very long time. They don’t have any idea what it’s for, and until today they didn’t even have any idea that people could travel through it.”“Well, that’s good, I guess,” Kathleen replied. “What about the local religion – any indications of Goa’uld influence there?” She looked around at the sparse walls of the town hall – if it did serve as a place of worship, there weren’t any Goa’uld symbols that she could see. Once again, Dr. Haas translated, and once again she returned with a negative answer. “As far as I can tell, their religion centers around ancestral spirits – nothing that would even suggest Goa’uld influence.”“All right. That’s definitely good. What about – ““Got a bunch more samples for you.” Joe’s laconic grunt broke in – he and Ked’rec had returned. “Found some weird guy living out in the woods, too.” It didn’t take very long at all for Joe to make a complete report on the strange reclusive man that they had encountered at the cabin.Through Dr. Haas, they asked the locals for more information – surprisingly, this received a stronger reaction from Marka than anything that they had asked before. The young woman’s expression darkened into a disapproving frown as she answered. “His name is Joost,” Dr. Haas translated. “He doesn’t like other people very much. I gather that he’s lived off by himself for several years.”Suddenly, Ked’rec held up a hand, his head cocked to listen. The others fell silent, following his lead – and a few seconds later, they heard it too. Shouting, and then, running feet, approaching quickly from outside. “Hagadis!” it sounded like someone was yelling. “Hagadis!”Kathleen looked quickly to Dr. Haas for translation, even as she was getting to her feet and hurrying towards the door, hand on her gun and eyes alert.“I don’t know.” Dr. Haas shook her head helplessly. “It sounds familiar, but I’m not sure exactly what it means.”By the time they got outside, the shouting was louder, and the people had nearly reached the town hall: two locals, and Major McNair of SG-14, all flushed and out of breath. “What is it?” Kathleen pressed. “A person? An animal?” Dr. Haas carried on a hurried conversation with the locals. “An animal. Big? Er – not hairy. Scaly?”“What, is it a dinosaur?” Kathleen tossed off the question half-jokingly, but Dr. Haas’s eyes widened. “Er. Actually…I think ‘hagadis’ does mean ‘lizard.’ It might be a dinosaur.”</blockquote>

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