Lisa and Bella were among the last few stragglers to arrive in the gate room. They had walked there with the airman who'd delivered the message and while he'd responded when spoken to and hadn't seemed spooked, he hadn't been particularly relaxed, either. When they'd arrived at the gate room, he'd walked away from them with a polite "ma'am, ma'am" to join a group of friends. They were slightly reassured that he didn't approach Lieutenant James, his commanding officer.

"Did he hear?" Lisa mouthed to Bella as soon he was out of range.

"I don't know," Bella hissed back. "He knows I used to be an air force officer."

Colonel Young and Camile Wray had finished mounting the steps to the landing opposite the gate, and Lieutenant Scott was calling for quiet.

"EVERYBODY LISTEN UP!"

"Thank you, Mr Scott," Colonel Young said, then addressed the assembled crew of the Destiny. "This is a status update. We have finished loading the supplies that the Tenfurans have so generously provided. There will be a short delay before new foods appear in the mess hall, so that Dr Cone can finish her analysis. We will be leaving Tenfura as soon as the colonists have downloaded a copy of the Tenaran archives. We estimate that will be in forty-eight hours."

"Why the delay?" someone shouted.

"Please," said Camile Wray, raising her voice over the escalating hubbub, "hold your questions." She waited while the noise subsided, then continued. "The colonists we brought here have been provided with land for their own settlement and are well on their way to being assimilated. With Colonel Young's permission, Eli has given them the extra set of communication stones. We will be able to communicate with them after we leave their star system."

"I'd like to respond to the question about the delay now," said Young, who suspected that the room would explode after Camile's next announcement. "Dr Rush? Eli?"

Eli looked at Rush, who gestured that he should answer. "It would have taken almost forty hours to upload the Tenaran archives when we were on Novus. It's a whole lot of data, even compressed. We got a third of it, which is still a lot of data. The Tenfurans don't have one system that can hold all of it and we don't have any freestanding storage we can give them. They're having to find individual units that can hold part of it for now, to be networked together later. That's taken some time to arrange. The archives will take up more than half of the planet's computers. Then we have to divide the archives into discrete units before we can compress them—"

Young apparently sensed that Eli was about to launch into a long, technical explanation and cut him off. "Thank you, Eli. Camile?"

"Thank you, Colonel Young," Camile began. "The Tenfurans are throwing us a goodbye party. They already had a market fair planned and they're moving it forward a few days." She gestured to tamp down the murmur running through the crowd. "You've each been issued with credit so you'll have money to spend. You can bring back souvenirs. Someone told them tomorrow is Fourth of July on Earth. There will be fireworks."

Everyone started talking and the Americans in the crowd all clapped. "Will there be beer?" someone shouted out.

"Yes," Camile shouted back, but no one heard her. Lieutenant Scott whistled and the room quietened somewhat.

"There will be a shuttle run to the planet every four hours," said Colonel Young. "Everyone will have to stand three four-hour shifts on Destiny. Those shifts have been assigned along with your initial shuttle run. Take your radios with you. If you want to switch Destiny shifts with someone else, you'll need approval from the officer of the day. For the next twelve hours that's Lieutenant James. Bring up 'party' on any terminal to see your own schedule and to sign up for shuttle runs. First shuttle leaves as soon as everyone assigned to it assembles in shuttle bay one. That is all."

The noise level rose again as Camile and Young left the dias. By the time they reached the gate room deck, a general exodus had started. Everyone was anxious to reach a terminal to check their shuttle schedule and shift assignments.

"Dr Park! Dr Cone! Wait . . ." Camile shouted over the din, as she forced her way through the dispersing crowd toward them. "Come with me to my office," she said, then noticed their wary looks. Neither of them had said a word. "It's nothing bad, I promise. I need your help with something."

"Will this take long?" Bella asked, as they started walking together. Camile's office wasn't far—a few doors down the corridor that ran from the gate room to the command interface room. "I really need some R&R, and I'm rarin' to get to that schedule." She didn't know Camile as well as Lisa did, and Lisa had remained silent. Camile seemed happy and excited, and that was reassuring.

"I put you both on the first Destiny shift. I hope you don't mind. It'll get it out of the way and give you more time on the planet once you get there," Camile explained.

"OK. What about Ron?" Lisa asked. This party could be their first real date.

"He's on the first shift too. Doing shuttle runs with Lieutenant Scott," Camile added as they entered her office and she led them to her console. She pulled up the map she'd been compiling of Destiny on one screen and some kino footage on another. "This is from a routine exploration of a corridor eight decks below and forward of the gate room. It was taken about two weeks back. I watched it yesterday when I was working on the map. Tell me what you see."

They peered closely as a door slid open and the kino entered a room. Its spotlight activated in reaction to the darkness, with mixed results. As it rotated 360º in the center of the room, it lit objects with an intense brightness that quickly passed into deep shadow. It was also set for a narrow field of vision, and only showed the level of room from about five to seven feet off the floor, like the icing between layers of a cake. It caught the crew members in ATV suits who were standing just inside the door, but it was impossible to tell who they were.

"Who took this footage?" Bella asked, as she restarted it at one-eighth speed. "Was this their first mapping mission? Weren't they trained on the kino?"

"Two airmen. Brody was with them until he was called back to the bridge. This might have been their second mission in ATV suits. After Brody turned over the kino control and left them alone in the bowels of the ship, they got a little spooked and rushed through the remainder of the corridor. There!" Camile froze the image. "What do you see?"

"Bedding," said Lisa. "Shelves of it. It's a linen closet."

"Hmmm . . ." Bella murmured as she enlarged the image of some Ancient writing half in shadow. "It's the ship's laundry room. Is there any footage of nearby rooms?"

"Just one more room." Camile fast-forwarded the kino recording then played back a section at one-eighth speed. "Here."

This time the rotation showed shelves containing what looked to be bolts of fabric and then Bella paused the image. "That," she said, "is a loom. Do you know what this means?"

"I don't know about the two of you," said Camile, "but I don't want to go to a party wearing the same clothes I've worn for almost eight months straight."

"Indeed," said Bella, who had been on SG-15 for two years and knew Teal'c. "I'm going to my room to fetch my pack."

"Good idea," said Camile. "I'll get mine, too."

"And I'll check out the logistics of getting there and back safely," said Lisa, turning to Camile's console. "Meet me in ATV storage in ten minutes."

Bella lingered until Camile had left the room. "She said eight months."

"It doesn't mean she knows. Time feels normal, wherever you are," said Lisa without looking up from the console. "Go, Bella! Ten minutes. And pick up a kino and controller, too."

.

.

Notes

Since this story takes place before SGU 2x19 "Blockade," Dr Park still has her eyesight and Camile Wray doesn't yet have the "new" outfit Colonel Young scavenged from an abandoned dry cleaners.