Title: Nabu
Author: P.L.S.
Rating: PG /PG-13
Warning: Alternate Universe, Exploitation of a Minor,
Summery: AU- Project Nabu was created by a stroke of luck on the NID's part but luck runs out and sometimes fate won't let you wander off your path.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 TV series, and are copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. In other words, I don't own it, I'm not making money off of it, so please don't sue.
Author's Note: Okay, like I said in AN of Hundreds of Letters, my laptop is broken and in the shop for the next week at the very least. I'm going to try to get this done between the computers at the cc I attend and the so slow pc my grandparents have at home. Don't expect this to be long, but I just have to get this next bit out.
ooOooOoo
Chapter Three- From the Mouths of Babes
Harry Maybourne was a patient man, well, that was how he saw it. He wasn't crazy about some things but he knew how to wait things out and turn them to his advantage. One of those things was Project Nabu, once he had heard rumors about it he worked to get assigned to the USAF team that worked in conjunction with the mish-mash NID. Now the NID was made of groups from the NSA, CIA, all branches of the armed forces, politicians, inventers, scientists, some even stolen right out from under NASA and the Pentagon's noses. The last group to get involved was so shrouded in mystery that Harry had just given up on finding out who they were, at least until he had a few more favors to call in. He just knew that it was because of this phantom group that all the various teams had formed one rather solid R&D agency.
They also created several of the most intense and intelligent people in the world, one of whom was now sitting on a sand dune over looking an alien city with a look so out of place on this mission that Harry was very tempted to tell the kid to just keep being a kid and to hand the guns and knives over before he got hurt.
Nabu was the first in the project's line of super-brain children. He lived up to his name as a linguist of unheard of talent. The last count of Nabu's mastered languages was somewhere in the ballpark of fifteen, with a conversational level in at least ten more. Nabu could just look at really old things and tell the age, the people, and maybe even where the people went or what killed the culture. There were two more children he knew of, Tages was a boy of about six who had an uncanny talent for almost prophetic dreams and for reading people and Ira, a girl who was taken several years ago from a mental institution where she was being treated as a schizophrenic and now was sixteen and practically only used numbers and complex equations to communicate.
Harry knew that Nabu had no clue about the other children, it was part of the reason that the boy was allowed to live in the deserts and travel so much. The other reasons being that Nabu learned best in total inundation and had a knack for putting himself in the right places to be picked up by people who normally hated Westerners or who were just too far out to be concerned with the rest of the world. For some reason people just wanted to befriend the boy, which was just fine by Nabu because the kid only wanted to learn more about people and their cultures.
Not that Harry had fallen entirely under the boy's spell. Nope, Harry saw in that boy a future. And if playing to the boy's wishes now got him what he wanted in the future then he'd, do it with a smile.
"Hey, look." Said Miggs from behind him. Harry looked over to where the captain was pointing, from the other side of the city a stream of people were leaving with huge yak creatures and a lot of noise. They seemed to be heading towards a dark ridge in the distance. Harry looked through his binoculars. Most of the people were carrying pick-axes and other primitive mining devices.
"Looks to be about two or three thousand folks." Said Lieutenant Greer. Nabu nodded.
"That must be the local industry. Otherwise there wouldn't be a permanent settlement of this size here." Said the boy, his voice tinged with wonder. "Did you hear those songs? The language is something that has roots on Earth, I'm sure, but it only sounds like gutter Cairo Arabic and a few of the Bedouin dialects, I really couldn't pick out any of the words."
"So do you think you can talk to 'em?" asked Miggs. Nabu grinned.
"It will take time and a lot of charades but I'm sure once I find a base root to work off of, I'll be able to hold some kind of meaningful conversation."
"Tell us now if you think that they might be scared of strangers." Said Sergeant Lee.
"Well, I don't know. Most Arabic cultures are wary but welcoming of newcomers and have very strict hospitality codes, but I have no way of knowing the history here. Things like plagues, war, and religion have odd ways of impacting previous mores. A people that once let anyone in their homes may become very distrustful after an epidemic." Nabu said and Harry nodded. He had seen things like that before; he had caused things like that before.
"Well, we'll go see, but no promises on time, kiddo." Said Harry and Nabu nodded.
"I understand." But Harry saw that look in the kid's eyes. The brat was already trying to plot either and escape or a way to waste time.
TBC…
(Well, I wanted to get this to you today… so it is very short. Sorry.)