The living area of Mrs. Unat's lodging house was furnished with square, overstuffed chairs, a heavily cushioned divan and a number of small, low tables. There were many decorative plants and an astonishing dearth of reading material. What Kevin had first taken for books proved to be albums of glass plates, mostly black and white but some in color.
Lantash had a theory: The writing system is ideographic rather than alphabetic, as is yours. Such a system lends itself to a two tiered society of the literate and illiterate.
'You're kidding,' Kevin was more than a little shocked. 'Is it possible to have an advanced industrial culture without widespread literacy?'
Oh yes. No doubt the generality of citizens are numerate and have a modest vocabulary of common symbols - such as those indicating hired lodgings on the sign outside.
Kevin closed the book of plates he was holding. 'Maybe that's why they never bothered to invent paper.'
"Hey, Mr. Lakamar."
Kevin looked up startled, to see Mrs. Unat's youngest boarder in the doorway. "Bilsham? Why aren't you in school?"
"They closed it," the boy answered, tossing his satchel onto the divan. "On account of the alien."
Oh now really!
'Indeed!' "Kind of overreacting aren't they? I mean he's only one man."
"Yeah but he's an alien. He has all kinds of powers and stuff. I heard he blasted Intelligence HQ to the ground!"
'Oh boy.'
Mass hysteria is not a good thing.
'Ya think? Damn. We better resolve this fast.' "Bil, how would I find a Scholar First named Usser Ashptim?"
"Friend of yours?"
"Just about the only person I know in Erech," Kevin answered honestly.
"Well, if he's a scholar the University is the place to start."
----
Young Bil wasn't at all afraid to go out, in fact he seemed eager to witness at first hand whatever death and destruction the alien should unleash. A Typical kid in other words; Kevin knew he would have been just the same at his age.
There was a troop of soldiers at the end of the street, ranged around what looked uncannily like an open manhole. "They must be searching the sewers!" Bil said enthusiastically.
"Ugh!" Kevin made a face. "Why'd the alien go down there?"
"To spawn!"
I resemble that remark!
Kevin choked back a laugh as the boy continued with unabated gusto: "There'll be millions and millions of aliens and we'll fight 'em. The streets'll run with blood. What color blood do you think they'll have?"
"Red."
Blue. Kevin, is this - this - bloodthirst - really normal in an immature male human?
'Oh yeah. Trust me on this.'
The rail car system took them into the city center. They disembarked at a familiar park. "Come on," said Bil, tugging at Kevin's arm "Let's see what's going on at the ring."
The stargate had disappeared behind a high metal fence which, Kevin was prepared to bet was electrified. It was also surrounded by soldiers and what looked like the Nisirian version of tanks.
'Oh hell," thought Kevin.
Indeed, thought Lantash.
A large number of Bil's fellow citizens stood at a safe distance, waiting for something to happen. A man with a microphone in one hand and a suitcase sized recorder in the other moved through the crowd getting reactions.
"And how about you, sir?" he asked Kevin brightly. "Are you frightened too?"
"I'm beginning to be," he answered a little grimly.
Me too.
"You don't look scared," Bil observed as they moved out of the crowd towards yet another rail stop.
"Don't I?" he answered dryly. "Can't think why not."
I agree with young Bil, your emotional control is admirable, Kevin.
'Thanks.'
----
The university proved to be a low, rambling mass of masonry full of windy passages opening unexpectedly into wide, tree planted courtyards. The porter's directions to Ashptim's rooms were long and complicated and Kevin let Bil lead the way while he kept a wary eye out for watchers.
You seriously believe there could be surveillance set on Scholar Ashptim? Lantash asked curiously.
'Sure, that's what we would do. On the other hand we wouldn't be searching the sewers.'
Why ever not?
'Because in our experience very few intelligent species voluntarily hang out with organic waste.'
Lantash chuckled. Very true.
To Kevin's eye the only difference between Usser Ashptim's room and a SGC geek's lab was the lack of paper. However plastic paged, ring bound 'books' were piled everywhere, mostly open, and the little scholar was sitting on the floor bent over a stone slab and surrounded by yet more books.
Kevin cleared his throat. No reaction. "Scholar Ashptim!"
The old man looked up and eyes and mouth both dropped open. "Kevin Elliot!"
----
Gate travel did interesting things to the human diurnal rhythm. After four or five hours sleep Jack O'Neill's stomach was insisting it was breakfast time. The clock on the commissary wall said 0100 hrs. and the four members of SG-12 - the only other people in the room - were working on what was clearly their dinner. Jack accepted a box of cornflakes, carton of milk and cinnamon bun from the sleepy server and found himself a table.
On the other side of the room Axsel Reilly, SG-12's 2IC, was holding forth loudly: "-why every green-skinned space babe we meet looks right through me and makes a beeline for Colonel Castleman. What's he got that I haven't got?"
"Killer blue eyes and general silver foxiness," Zoey Tibbetts answered promptly. Steve Castleman's fork froze midway between plate and mouth as said orbs fixed disbelievingly on his team geek. "Not to mention the whole ass-kicking vibes he's got going," she continued blithely, apparently unaware of the rapidly thinning metaphorical ice.
Reilly's mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he got out a rather whiney; "I kick ass!"
Aviva, SG-12's other female member and resident alien was sitting next to Reilly and patted him consolingly on the arm. "You are indeed a formidable warrior, Axsel, but you do not - yet - have the aura maturity and command have given to our colonel, and to Colonel O'Neill as well -"
"Hey, leave me out of this!" Jack interrupted in lively alarm from his table.
Castleman emitted a warning growl. "Enough!"
Zoey either didn't hear or didn't heed. "Yeah, that's it exactly. Power is sexy and the colonel just oozes power -"
"I said enough! This conversation is over."
Zoey looked adorably hurt and about twelve years old. "I was just answering Axsel -"
Castleman raised a warning finger and she shut her mouth.
"Perhaps it would have been wiser to treat it as a rhetorical question," Aviva said thoughtfully before being glared silent in her turn.
Jack addressed himself to his cereal reflecting, yet again, that you didn't have to be crazy to work at the SGC - but it sure helped. Sheftu/Liorin's entrance broke the ensuing sticky silence, attracting SG-12's attention as well as Jack's.
"Anything from the Tok'ra?"
Sheftu - it was still Sheftu - shook his head sliding into the seat opposite Jack. "Sorry, not a word."
"Damn. And Liorin's still hiding?" The kid grinned. "Coward!."
"That's what I told him," Sheftu agreed cheerfully. Adding, "Here're the others," as the rest of SG-1 and SG-13 got tangled in the doorway with SG-12 on their way out.
Jack waited for everybody to get their food and settle around the table before issuing his orders for the day. "Okay, boys and girls, we eliminate the three remaining possibilities and if none of them pan out check Revanna again. Elliot and Lantash may have decided to go back to the tunnels."
Sheftu looked dubious. "Personally I'd have put some light years between me and the massacre."
"Me too," said Daniel thoughtfully. "But there's no telling what a person might do under stress."
"Could somebody else have gotten to Elliot and Lantash before us?" Schaeffer blurted abruptly, like he'd been worrying about that possibility for some little time.
"Let's not borrow trouble," said Jack, who'd had a stray thought or two in that direction himself. "First let's make sure where he isn't, then we'll worry about who else might have got him."