Chapter 7: Introductions

They came over a rise, and saw the small cluster of tents below them. There didn't seem to be anyone around them. All the activity was a couple of hundred yards away, where they could see several people working in and around a shallow trench that had been dug in the ground.

Buffy felt a surge of relief. They were digging in the wrong place. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did. Then she remembered what Giles had told them about the spell that had been cast over the temple to keep it from being rediscovered. She moved back up beside Willow. "Will, is the keep away spell still active?"

"Yeah," said Willow quietly. "I can feel it."

"And I've got this strong feeling that they're in the wrong place," said Buffy. "Does that mean that they're in the right place?"

"Yeah, it does."

"So, why isn't the spell working on them?"

"Don't know."

Jack pointed to a place about twenty yards from where his tents were set up. "Why don't you folks set up your camp over there?"

Buffy looked at the place he had picked out for them. "Yeah, that looks good." It was close enough that they'd be able to keep an eye on Jack and his people, and far enough away to give them a little privacy. She wondered if Jack was thinking pretty much the same thing when he had selected it. She walked down the hill and dropped her pack where he had indicated, and the others quickly followed suit.

"Can we take a look at your dig now?" asked Giles.

"Why don't you rest for a bit, and get your camp set up first," said Jack. "I'll make sure that the kids are ready for visitors. Murray, why don't you go spell Carter for a bit, and ask her to come up here?"

"Very well, O'Neill." Murray nodded and walked quickly away toward the dig.

Buffy and the others started to unpack their gear, and pitch their tents. Jack noted that they didn't seem to have had much practice at this sort of thing, and wasted a lot of time getting in each other's way. They weren't anywhere near done when Major Carter joined them. Jack introduced her around, and she shook everyone's hands.

She turned back to Jack after she was done. "A message came in from Hammond while you were out, Jack. I think you'll want to see it."

"Right!" said Jack, "I should do that! You folks keep…" He waved his hand around the vicinity of their camp site. "…doing what you're doing." He and Sam started back toward their tents.

"So, you feel anything?" he asked Sam quietly.

"No Sir," said Sam. "Should I have?"

"That girl, Buffy, she's a lot stronger than she looks. I figure her pack must have weighed at least a fifty kilos."

Sam looked back in surprise. "Really? She doesn't look like she could carry a ten kilo pack that far."

"I know," said Jack. "I was wondering if maybe she was a Goa'uld."

"I didn't feel anything like that from her, or any of the others. Teal'c should have told you if he felt anything."

"Just getting a second opinion."

"Anything unusual about the others?"

"Nope. They act pretty much like I'd expect them to act, if they were really who they say they are, except that they seem to be as suspicious of us as we are of them. So, did the folks back home find out anything about them?"

"Yes, Sir." Sam lifted the flap of the lab tent. "Quite a bit."

Sam had printed out copies of the files that they had been sent for Jack to read. He scanned over them all quickly, not really noticing anything that jumped out at him, except that none of them was a student of archaeology. Buffy had a rather impressive police record: lots of "suspicion" of one thing or another, right up to murder, but nothing that had gone as far as actual charges being filed. Their files showed that they had all moved to England together after the destruction of Sunnydale, and didn't show much since then.

Sam handed him another piece of paper. "We also received this, Sir."


Jack:

High level sources have informed me that there are some important omissions in these files, but they are unable to tell me what has been omitted. They are confident that Rupert Giles and his people are not a threat, but they are unwilling to reveal any specifics.

Use your best judgement when dealing with these people.

G. Hammond.

"What that heck does that mean?" asked Jack.

"I guess it means that he trusts your judgement, Sir."

Jack frowned. "This message is almost worse than him not telling me anything. Who are his sources, and why give him non-information like that, if they couldn't say anything useful? This almost sounds like NID crap!"

"I'm sure you'll work it out, Sir."

"And stop calling me 'Sir'!" said Jack. "Our guests are supposed to think we're a bunch of archaeologists."

"Yes, S— Jack."

"See? I knew you could do it!"

Jack saw that their visitors had a pair of civilian looking tents set up when he and Sam got back outside. Both of them looked to be big enough to sleep four, and they seemed to be dividing their gear between the two of them, Giles and Xander into one, and the girls into the other.

Buffy saw him and Sam approaching. "So, can we see the dig now?" she asked.

"Sam, why don't you show our guests the dig?"

"Okay, Jack." Sam waved toward where they could see the people working. "If you'll come with me." She started to walk toward the dig.

Jack hung back a bit, watching as the new arrivals followed Sam. He followed a few meters behind, wanting to see their reaction to the 'Wrong Place' field. They reacted pretty much the way everyone but Teal'c and Sam was reacting to it now. They looked a little confused, like they thought they should be somewhere else, but they managed to stay with Sam, and not wander off. Jack thought about that for a bit. It had taken most of them a day to get to the point where they could manage that. Now, when they concentrated, most of their group could get themselves to the site without any help from Sam or Teal'c. He supposed it could be because they could clearly see where the archaeologists were working now, but he didn't think that was the explanation. Giles had indicated that he'd been here before. Maybe that was why he could do it…but then how had he found it the first time?


Buffy followed along after Sam Carter, all the time feeling that she was going in the wrong direction. If Giles hadn't told her about the spell placed on this location, and she couldn't see the people working up ahead, she might not have been able to follow Carter at all, which raised the question in her mind:'How is Carter doing this?'

A man separated himself from the others at the dig, and came toward them. Buffy recognised him from the pictures she'd seen of him, and decided that the photos didn't do him justice. He was cute…in a way that Giles might have been ten years ago, and she so didn't want to think thoughts like that.

He approached Giles, and held out his hand. "Dr. Giles, a pleasure to meet you. I'm Daniel Jackson."

Giles shook his hand. "Happy to meet you too, at last. I have a great deal of respect for your work."

"Then you are a member of a very small minority," said Daniel.

"Yes, well, many people have a great deal of difficulty in accepting anything outside of their day to day experience."

"So, do you think the pyramids were built by little green men from outer space?" asked Sam.

"Well…ah…I'd have to say 'no' to that," said Giles. "But Dr. Jackson's evidence that they are much older than the accepted theory is very persuasive."

Giles introduced Daniel to Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander, and he in turn introduced them to his team of archaeologists: Dr. Daryl Hawley, Jerry Morrison, Doug Ritchie and Charles Delaney, and then he showed them the dig. It looked like a trench to Buffy. One that was being dug very slowly.

The biggest tool she could see anyone using looked like a garden trowel. She only half listened as Giles and Dr. Jackson got into a discussion about what they were doing, how they had chosen this particular location for their first exploratory trench, and other boring things. She watched the people work instead. She was particularly interested in Murray. He didn't seem to actually be doing any of the digging. He had a chart of the area, showing where the trench was supposed to go, and he used it to direct where the others were working. She saw him call one of the others back after they started to wander off. Buffy found herself wandering off a couple of times herself, but Murray didn't call her back. She had to find her way back on her own, after she noticed that she wasn't near the dig anymore. She found it was easier to stay on the site if she concentrated on the people. As long as she was thinking about them, and not the dig, the feeling that she was in the wrong place faded into the background.

Buffy noticed that Dawn didn't seem to be having much trouble keeping from wandering off. She was staying close to Dr. Jackson. Buffy could see the early warning signs of a developing crush. She really hoped he wouldn't turn out to be evil.

Giles volunteered his own services, and those of the others to aide in the digging, but Dr. Jackson politely declined, saying that he had more than enough people working now. Any more would just start getting in each other's way.

It was already late afternoon, and Jack arrived at the dig to tell everyone it was time to take a break for dinner. He invited Buffy and Giles and the others to join them. "That is, unless you've got something better than MREs to eat."

"MREs?" asked Buffy.

"Meal Ready to Eat," said Xander. "Military rations."

"Yeah," said Jack. "Picked them up surplus. Great for extended camping trips."

"We've got dehydrated camping rations," said Xander. "Maybe we can trade, give ourselves a little variety."

"How much have you got?" asked Jack.

"Enough for two weeks," said Xander.

"You planning to be here that long?" Buffy could tell that Jack really didn't like that idea.

"No," said Xander. "The boat's supposed to come back for us in a week, but we didn't want to be caught short if they can't pick us up because of weather, or something like that."

Jack obviously didn't like the idea of them being there a week much better than he did two weeks.

It was a fairly tense meal, eaten at Jack's camp site. Both groups were suspicious of the other, and neither was being very subtle about it. Buffy was tempted to just demand outright who these people really were, and what they were doing here, but she didn't want to have to face the same sort of questioning herself, so she went on pretending to believe that these people were just a bunch of archaeologists from Colorado.

None of the archaeologists wanted to talk about what they were doing here, so Giles tried to turn the discussion to what their previous work had been. He found that they were just as reluctant to talk about any of their more recent work, but quite willing to talk about ancient ruins in general. Buffy found herself tuning them out. Giles might be able to talk for hours about civilisations that had vanished thousands of years ago, but she couldn't.

She turned her attention to the others around the table. Jack seemed to be just as bored with the archaeology talk as she was. He tried to talk about hockey with Xander, and seemed surprised to learn that Xander knew almost nothing about the game. Sam Carter was taking an interest in the archaeology talk, but her questions and comments pegged her as someone who, though she had an interest in the field, wasn't one of the professionals. She reminded Buffy of Willow: someone with a very sharp mind, who took an interest in everything. Murray was being…Murray. Sitting quietly, observing everything around him.

"So, if Jack and Murray are here to carry stuff, what's your job?" Buffy asked Sam.

"Oh, um, technical support," said Sam. "The communications equipment, the computers, stuff like that."

"I noticed your satellite dish," said Xander. "Pick up any good TV stations?"

"It's not for TV," said Sam. "It's for voice and telecommunications."

"Do you have Internet access?" asked Willow.

"Yes, but it's pretty limited bandwidth," said Sam. Actually it was a very high bandwidth connection. She just didn't want to tell Willow that.

Dawn started to pepper Daniel with questions about his theories on the Egyptian pyramids, and Buffy noticed that though he wasn't nearly as evasive in his answers to her questions about them, he seemed to be almost as reluctant to talk about that subject as he was about his current work. He seemed to be thinking over his answers carefully before he said anything, and once or twice he seemed to start to say something, but then censored himself. Jack also started to take more interest in what they were talking about. He didn't say anything, but Buffy could tell that he was monitoring the conversation.

They returned to their own camp site after dinner. Buffy glanced back over her shoulder to make sure that they weren't being followed. "Dawn, I want you to see if you can learn anything more about these guys."

"Okay, I'll hit the Internet. Thank god for magic WiFi."

"Willow, can you do anything to make us immune to the keep away spell, while still keeping it in place?"

"Maybe," said Willow. "It doesn't seem to be affecting Sam or Murray, so there should be some way to duplicate that effect…but I've got no idea why they're immune."

"How long will it take?"

"Don't know," said Willow.

"If you can't come up with something by the morning, I think you should just drop the whole spell, like we planned."

"Are you sure that's wise?" asked Giles. "They are bound to notice."

"I think we should risk it," said Buffy. "I don't like the idea that I might go running off in the wrong direction if something happens, and I need to get there in a hurry. Willow, are you feeling any magic from any of them?"

"Not really," said Willow. "I tried reading their auras…but I'm not really all that good at that. Daniel has a very bright one, I think he's got a lot of potential, but it's…disorganised. I don't think he knows how to use it. Murray's aura was…strange…like he has something else inside him."

"Possession?" asked Buffy.

"No…I don't think so. Whatever it is doesn't seem to be conscious. There's something else about him though. A bit of a discontinuity happens whenever anyone calls him 'Murray.' I don't think that's his real name."

"Why would they lie about his name?" asked Xander.

"Maybe he's famous," said Dawn. "He's always wearing that hat, like he's trying to hide."

"Or his real name is something really weird," said Xander.

"Weirder than 'Xander'?" asked Buffy.

"What's the matter with 'Xander,' Buffy?"

Buffy decided to ignore the question. "Anything else about them?"

"An awful lot of their gear is military," said Xander.

"You think they're Army?" asked Buffy. "Initiative?"

"I don't know," said Xander. "If they were, they'd know who we are, wouldn't they? I got the impression that they're trying to figure us out just as hard as we're trying to figure them out."

"Maybe I should try to contact Riley," said Dawn. "See if he can learn anything about them."


Jack watched the visitors all disappear into their tents. "So, what do ya think?"

"They seem to be pretty much what their files say they are," said Sam.

"Dawn Summers is a bit of a surprise," said Daniel. "Nothing in her file indicates that she should have nearly as much knowledge of ancient cultures as she seems to. Most of her grades for the last couple of years were pretty…dismal."

"But her I.Q. test scores are pretty good," said Sam. "Almost as smart as Willow Rosenberg, and she's had a pretty tough last few years. She and her sister have been living with Dr. Giles for nearly a year now, and they've known him much longer. She might have learned a lot from him."

"She seems like a nice kid," said Jack, "which really makes me wonder: if they are up to something, why bring her along?"