Digging in Dirt
Atenik bracelet, possibly 50,000 to 100,000 years old, hard to tell from its condition as it is broken in several places, badly corroded and extremely fragile. It may have been, like the armbands discovered by the Tok'ra on the Atenik homeworld, a weapon of some kind but if so any power or useful purpose cannot be ascertained. The remains indicate no technological vestiges, it appears that it may have simply been ornamental in nature.
It is, however, a magnificent find, and if we find more they may enable us to build a picture, however incomplete, of what appears to have once been an Atenik colony on this minor world, untouched by Goa'uld invasion or any other incursion by outside civilizations.
~oOo~
The buildings - what was left of them, decaying slowly into the landscape as they were - looked disconcertingly like old-fashioned flying saucers. They must have once been stacked neatly into towers, but had over the millennium sagged, collapsed into themselves and fallen apart, and now were haphazard tumbledown piles of broken, decaying pod shapes.
Part of Daniel really missed his team leader being there and making bad jokes about pod houses for pod people. Part of Daniel was almost glad his team leader wasn't there to make bad jokes about pod houses for pod people.
He sighed, and turned back to the careful task of excavating what little remained of this ancient Atenik colony.
His team leader had flatly refused the Tok'ra's 'invitation' (unencumbered as it was by tact, diplomacy or anything inviting) to join their search for artifacts technological or otherwise on this small colony, as had just about everyone in the SGC. In fact Jack and General Hammond had been all for simply declining the offer wholesale.
Daniel, following the fiasco over the robot Reese, had had other ideas.
"The Tok'ra would not be exploring the site of they did not think there was something of value, General; they don't have time to waste in simple... study for the sake of it. And you know we have a problem where they don't share information and knowledge, surely this is a perfect way to ensure that if anything of strategic or military value is found, we have a share in it?"
For once, he didn't care if they didn't understand.
"Sam... it could be useful. That's really what we're after, isn't it? Anything that can be useful."
He didn't care if they thought they needed him.
"I'll be fine, Teal'c. Whatever technological finds are there, we'll be careful."
He just needed this more.
"Jack... I'm going. I want to go, I need to go. No one is making you, or Sam, or Teal'c, go with me."
And now he'd been at work, on his knees in the alien dirt as he and his Tok'ra companion had been for three days now, under the watchful - if bored - eyes of SG-3, his appointed keepers for the week.
"Doctor Jackson?" The deep echo of the symbiote's voice overlaying the lightness of the host's... still made him flinch inside. Always had, always would, for all the years he'd had to learn to keep it inside. It was no one's fault but the Goa'uld's but he couldn't deny it, at least to himself.
Anise was kneeling beside him; her large, solemn - and 'cowlike' according to a crankier-than-usual Sam - eyes were fixed on the tiny, broken object she was slowly, oh-so-painstakingly unearthing from the ancient ground, her touch as delicate as a butterfly's as she worked. Daniel, working just as slowly and carefully on what he privately believed was of no practical use, just for decoration -
- And all the more to be treasured for it -
- gave her an abstracted smile.
"I believe this to be simply an ornament of some kind."
"Really?" He paused in his own work, shifting across on his knees to peer closer.
He was fairly sure that Hammond hadn't actually known all the salient facts about this investigation before allowing Daniel to wear him down into agreeing. First, that it was an Atenik site (Hammond still looked sour eyed at the mention of the armband fiasco); secondly, that Anise was the Tok'ra site director (Hammond still looked acid at the mention of her name); thirdly and most importantly, that when the proposal had said 'ruins' they meant ruins. The place was more crumbling and tumbledown than they had been led to believe; unlike the Atenik homeworld, no advanced storage or building techniques kept the finds in usable shape for modern use (modern scavenging, his mind whispered).
Whatever had been here, only traces remained, valuable only for the tiny, uncertain glimpses of a long-gone past they could try to decipher, however vaguely, knowing even as they did it was like a flicker of candlelight in a canyon.
Daniel... loved it. He'd missed it, he'd felt the loss of it, he'd hurt, and ignored and avoided the hurt because there was nothing to be done. He had a job, he was a part of a war, and knowledge for knowledge's sake had no place in that war.
Or some such drivel.
~oOo~
Facsimile native fruits, made of a unique plaster that we believe was made locally and coated with anodized metal in what, from metallurgical analysis, would have been in a variety of brilliant colors. Their use could have been religious but we are inclined to believe that they were domestic items, especially given that the actual fruits are very pretty but utterly inedible...
~oOo~
"It looks like... an animal of some kind," and it was Freya, the host, who spoke this time, softly and wonderingly. "I am unsure what it is made of."
"Some sort of plastic, I think." Daniel brushed the thinnest layer of soil away and bent closer. "Given its age, the condition -"
"There are many creatures native only to this world." That was Anise again. "Once we have excavated it, I can compare it to those we have made records of, though there are still many we do not know of."
"And it could be a domesticated one, like we have dogs, cats, horses... or for food." He was more inclined to go for the dog/cat substitute himself, even if that was anthropomorphic of him. Humans - and the Ateniks did seem to be reasonably human - tended to commemorate their pets more than their meals. "If so, the animals may have died out at the same time as the inhabitants, not being able to survive in the wild. We may never know what it is."
She cocked her head, her long, beautiful face as impassive as ever as she considered.
"It might even be a toy," he suggested; he wasn't sure that Anise would have ever had such a thing (his mind boggled at the idea of baby Tok'ra playsets) but surely Freya remembered her childhood? "In any case, I think given what we have found here - mostly jewelry, ornaments, what we think are decorative items, personal items - I think we both have to admit..."
"This appears to be a domestic dwelling of some sort."
"Ordinary houses for ordinary people." To be honest, Daniel wasn't all that sure that 'ordinary' wasn't a stretch of the imagination, since they had no idea what was ordinary on this little world, but it felt right. He shifted back to his bracelet, touching the dirt-and-decay encrusted fragments as reverently as he knew his teammates would an ion cannon for the taking.
Anise said nothing; they both kept working.
~oOo~
Decorative container, similar to vases but there was as far as we could tell no vegetation that in any way resemble flowers or decorative plants: its exact use is unknown and given the condition - we have retrieved nearly one-third of the container, in sixty-two pieces - it is unlikely that this will be established with any certainty. Much of the decoration we assume it was covered with was missing but one square inch retain bright coloring and what appeared to be scrolling.
~oOo~
The days on this world were shorter than Earth's and dusk was falling as he stretched, dimly aware that his back was going to give him hell tomorrow. In the fading light he could see SG-3 patrolling, still bored, still watchful.
The remains of the bracelet had broken apart further on their attempt to lift it from the ground - he'd expected that, really - but underneath Daniel had found what he suspected were bits of its container, topped with a tiny figurine in the same not-quite-plastic as Anise's animal (which, revealed bit by bit, was beginning to look to Daniel's trained eye like a tentacled aardvark and wouldn't that make for a point of interest in his report?) Looking down at the tiny figure, he was put strongly in mind of his mother's cheap jewelry box and the tiny ballerina that turned around to a tinkly tune he couldn't remember the name of.
If he ever knew, that was.
For a moment, he wondered what had happened to that box and that little plastic ballerina, and if someone, hundreds or thousands of years from now, would look at it and wonder themselves.
And why it mattered to him, and why he could never make them all understand.
"Anise," he said softly.
She looked up, eyes large and yes, as Sam had said, very like those of an intellectual alien cow. Sam didn't like her, of course, Daniel knew that, he wasn't sure he did. Like Sam and like Jack, Anise put the hunt for technology, weapons, things, first most of the time, and he couldn't really blame either of them.
Still, here she was, an alien historian on her knees in the same mud as he was, and surely, surely she knew... "You know there's nothing here of use."
"In the fight against the Goa'uld, no." Anise inclined her head. "That is true. I would not have expected my proposed study to be approved by the High Council for that reason."
"Nor did I by... the General, the Colonel, the Pentagon. By anyone."
"It is fortunate then, that we did not know when we proposed it," she said calmly. "I believe, Doctor Jackson, that you have found the first representation we have found of one of the people of this world. I am pleased for you."
He had to admit, it was a thrill he'd missed for too long. "Thanks, but we came here to find..."
"To find whatever there is to be found. Which we are doing. I promised no more than that, did you?"
Daniel looked at her, really really looked at her. Anise and Freya both, they were historians, they did understand.
"A week," Freya said softly. "Who knows what we may discover in a week?"
"Nothing for the SGC," he answered honestly through dust-dry lips, staring down at the caked bit of what anyone else would have seen as just dirt or stone.
"Or for the High Council."
"At least... possibly nothing for them."
"We cannot be certain -"
"Until we do it."
Daniel knew he should feel guilty, but somehow he didn't. His hand closed tightly over the broken bracelet, as he rose to his feet.
The dig would go on tomorrow.
~oOo~
A miniature figurine representing, it appears, a native dancer or entertainer, made of some sort of plastic, believed to have adorned a container...
-the end-