Chapter 2
4 hours ago…
"SG-13 welcome back. Debrief in one hour."
'Great!' thought Daniel, 'That will be just enough time to catalogue these artefacts; I might even get to start on these translations! Oh – shower first!'
A happy go lucky Daniel Jackson bounced down the ramp ahead of a mob of wet, mucky and tired archaeologists. There was no doubt in their minds that had they been on the same amount of coffee as Daniel Jackson most of them would be dancing out of the gate room; or hunting and chasing Daniel with abandon for making them stay on that horrible planet for a short eternity.
oOo
It took a record 9 minutes and 32 seconds for Daniel to get showered and changed and dash into his office. This short space of time also included an agonisingly long 34 second journey upwards in one of the base elevators. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the warm glow of his desk light compared with the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. Around him, teetering in towers and stacked high on shelves were thousands of books; each containing their own little piece of history from the eating habits of Bronze Age civilisations to the religious pursuits of the Dark Ages and yet more books where filled with the languages and writings of the world (and a few others). Several great bookcases loomed high above his head. This was his little patch of heaven in all the madness of the galaxy. Littering every other surface in the office was some of his prized rocks… artefacts. And pride of place in an easily accessible shelf behind his desk was the ultimate coffee maker. It took an agonising 1 minute and 4 seconds for a single cup of coffee to brew. He savoured its sweet smell before taking his first sip of real coffee in four days.
He was now ready to work.
Opening his pack he carefully removed the 'rocks', but he soon found that there was very little space for the new additions. Some had been lucky and had been placed in some once forgotten space on the desk, others on papers that littered the desk with scribbles of translations, and the least fortunate found themselves propped precariously on towers of books.
And they were not stable to say the least.
It was a Greek pillar that fell first. He saw the books move in slow motion to slump on to the desk before causing more books to tumble. The last thing that he remembered seeing was a copy of 'An advanced Guide to Roman Mythology' by Romulus Tiber firing across and into his beloved coffee sending it cascading over a weeks worth of notes and translations.
So with a slightly queasy feeling in his stomach he dived forward before all went black.