Daniel was starting to wish he'd paid more attention to howler monkeys in Brazil when he'd had the chance. Certain rules of communication seemed to be almost universal, though he'd come to understand that what were commonly accepted to be among those rules really only applied to humans. Since joining the Stargate program, Daniel had started taking more interest in animal communication, because what was true across species on Earth was often true of aliens as well. But in Daniel's case, more interest meant slightly more than none, which was what he'd had for most of his life.

Since he sneezed violently whenever he got near almost any animal, Daniel had a kind of antipathy for them, and had spent very little time around even your basic cat or dog. A lack of experience around animals was what had gotten him in trouble with a mastadge back on Abydos. Many times over the course of his stay, actually, and yet he'd never really got the hang of communicating with the ugly beast.

The howlers had herded Daniel away from the enclosure, and into a very large hut made primarily from twigs, sticks and logs. Even though many primitive cultures on Earth had built such structures (some still did) and he'd seen their like on many planets, something about this particular hut struck him as odd. Though artificially constructed, it did not seem... man-made.

While the thorn enclosure had a gate on the ground, Daniel was obligated to climb almost two feet up the side of the hut, which let him get up close and personal with the wood used to build it. The wood seemed soft, flexible, but surprisingly strong as it bore not only his weight but that of the several howlers that were surrounding him and urging him on with pushes, shoves and menacing sounds. There was no distinctly built ladder, and the howlers climbed wherever they wished along the side of the structure, while Daniel made as straight a course as he was able for the opening in the wall.

Because the hut was shaped rather like an overturned bowl, there was nothing for Daniel to climb down the inside, and he simply dropped to the dirt floor. The howlers swung in, clinging to branches woven into the walls and ceiling, wandering upside down and sideways. They seemed surprised and perplexed by Daniel's abrupt descent to the floor.

He had trouble seeing them because the light wasn't great inside the hut, and he was still without his glasses, but it looked like there were perches or shelves or something along the interior walls that the howlers went to and perched on. Unlike humans, the howlers were probably tree dwellers, like the monkeys on Earth, and being on the ground for long was against their nature. So why have a hut on the ground at all? Why have a ground-based thorn enclosure? Why not a tree-house? Most Earth apes lived their lives in trees, and some of them even built nests. Not as elaborately as birds, but nests just the same. Why not these howlers?

Something heavy dropped to the floor and landed next to him with a thump. Familiar with the sound, Daniel recognized it quickly as one of the team's packs, which the howlers had taken. All he could see was a shadowy lump on the floor, and he decided not to move towards it, just in case he ticked off the howlers. Instead, he looked up and around to see which of them had thrown it, and if it had been aimed at him, or just near to him. He located the scarred howler that had attacked Jack, standing half in and half out of the door to the hut through which Daniel had come. He didn't need to see to feel the hooded glare of the creature's eyes as it stared at him, its mouth partially open, showing about a third of the shafts of its massive canines between its lips.

The howler issued a guttural sound that reminded Daniel of a washboard being used as a musical instrument. Except that it was louder, harsher and felt like the sound reverberated in his own chest. For some reason, Daniel was struck by the idea that it sounded almost like a instrument made of bone. It wasn't fair to call it a growl, or a howl, but it certainly didn't qualify as speech either, despite its fierce, almost inquiring note towards the end, a note echoed by the howlers stationed around the hut.

When Daniel had dropped, he'd ended the landing on his knees. He now opted to stay there as he gazed up at the howlers all around him, his mind racing for some response he might give. They acted upset, and seemed to expect something from him, but he couldn't think what it was.

Years ago, long before he'd ever gone through the Stargate that first time, Daniel had instituted a policy: When in doubt, guess, and hope you don't piss them off so much that they beat you up. It had since been amended: When in doubt, guess wildly, and hope they don't kill you.

"We're sorry," Daniel said, actually taking more care with his even, gentle tone than with his words, "We didn't mean to intrude on your forest. We didn't know you were here. We're not here to hurt you."

No sooner had he started speaking than he was drowned out by the hellish noise of the shrieking, howling monkeys, who shook their perches in seeming anger as they shouted at him in tones that suggested obscenity yet lacked the coherent structure of language to properly deliver the sentiment.

Daniel fell silent, and let them screech. There was no point in trying to out-shout them, they clearly had the lung capacity and the numbers to make the effort worse than futile, and all Daniel would get from it would be a sore throat, unless it also made them angry, in which case he could come off far worse.

The excessive sound in the confined space served to make his headache worse, and Daniel wondered if his hearing might not suffer somewhat after this as well. The noise was so loud it felt like the waves of sound were vibrating the ground under him, shaking through his skeleton and rattling the walls.

He didn't need to understand monkeys to understand that this was a unified threat sound. They were all shouting at him together, as if they were viewing him as a predator, or an intruder to their territory. But he couldn't have fled them if he'd tried, because the entrance was still blocked by the scarred howler, who glared at him in silence while the other monkeys roared. It didn't make sense to him that they were shouting like they wanted to chase him away, when they had carefully set it up so he couldn't run.

The howlers were acting very different from how they'd behaved when Jack provoked them. So differently that it almost seemed like they were not even the same creatures at all. They were acting less like animals, and more like people. Carefully thought out irrationality was typically thought of as a human trait. Daniel knew some aliens that had the same weakness, but he'd never heard of monkeys behaving in the same manner. Never heard of any animal doing it.

Or maybe he was misreading the whole thing. Perhaps they were trying to intimidate him into submission, not drive him away. But that didn't make sense either. He'd already submitted to them when they caught him. There wasn't much else he could do, except sit quietly and listen to them, wait for whatever came next, and wonder just what in the hell these monkeys wanted.

Suddenly, the scarred howler let out a hooting roar, louder than all the rest, who fell silent as if on a command. It glared about at the other howlers, and then swung through the opening, and down to the ground. Dust clouded the air around its feet when the howler landed, less than a foot from Daniel.

Now Daniel understood.

The scarred howler was approaching for a more intimate conversation, and would not be as prepared for a fight as it had been in the thorn enclosure. Here, if Daniel did anything untoward, it would not be taken as a challenge for dominance, but the action of an enemy against the clan or troop. The consequences would therefore be far more dire than what Jack had suffered.

"One wrong move and they tear me apart," Daniel said quietly to the evident leader of the howlers, nodding slowly and cautiously, keeping his eyes on the scarred howler, but carefully lowered to avoid a look of direct challenge, "I get it."

The scarred howler grabbed the pack and trundled it closer to Daniel, walking on three legs while dragging the pack behind it with the fourth, seemingly almost carelessly. Then it stopped, dragged the pack forward so that the pack was between itself and Daniel. The scarred howler sat down. It hooted once, quietly and waved a hand at Daniel. Slowly, cautious of his interpretation, Daniel rearranged to a more comfortable sitting position, while the howlers stared at him.

For the first time really, Daniel got a proper look at one of the howlers up close. The howlers had, of course, been much closer when they'd swarmed over him near the 'Gate, but he hadn't exactly been taking careful stock of their physical features. Even without his glasses and in dim light, he could see well enough to notice some things he'd missed or been unsure of before.

One of the more obvious facts was that the scarred howler was distinctly male, and made no attempt at all to conceal his maleness from anyone or anything. If anything, he seemed pleased to show off. It was typical of animals not to be shy about such things, but of course apes had certain human-like qualities that made it seem awkward that they seemed to have no sense of modesty. On the other hand, Daniel was well aware that it wasn't universal in humans either, and he'd certainly spent some time with tribes where the idea of covering up was viewed as almost amusing or even slightly embarrassing.

The scarred howler had the typical furless monkey face, with forward facing eyes surrounded by a protectively bony brow, slit-like nostrils, and a wide mouth with impressively flexible lips. Like howlers on Earth, he had long fur under his jaw like a big beard. A prehensile tail curled around his body as he sat, long enough to wrap around him twice. The fur on his underside was thinner than on his back, and his hands and feet were very nearly hairless. Daniel was surprised to realize he wasn't actually solid black as he'd first appeared. There was actually a patch of red fur that seemed to start about halfway down his spine and continued to the base of his tail. Proportionally, he was much like an Earth howler, with the same long, spindly looking arms and relatively small body. It seemed to Daniel that his head was somewhat larger for his size than an Earth howler's however, somewhat more the shape of a human skull on the top and back.

Though he was the largest of them, the scarred howler was probably only about a hundred pounds or so. But Daniel knew that he'd still lose a wrestling match with even one of these creatures of any size. He'd seen this particular male tackle Jack like the Colonel was nothing. Not many men would ever be able to say they'd done that, and most of them would've been twice Jack's size. But these howlers clearly had the strength of Earth monkeys.

While Daniel studied the howler, the creature seemed to be doing the same with him. The howler got tired of it first. With a soft (for him) hoot, he pushed at the backpack between them. Daniel wasn't entirely sure what the howler wanted. Maybe it wanted him to take the pack. Maybe they were supposed to tug-of-war for it. He didn't know, but he certainly didn't want to fight this thing, so he wanted to avoid ticking it off.

"I'm not sure-" Daniel began, but the howler interrupted him with a harsh growl.

Hesitantly, Daniel reached out with one hand and touched the pack. The howler grunted, seemingly in approval. Daniel pulled the pack closer, and opened the top of it. It was Sam's, and the device they'd found was in the top. Taking a guess, Daniel pulled the object from the pack.

"This is yours?" he inquired, holding the object slightly towards the ape.

The howler hooted at him loudly, apparently not liking something he'd done. Daniel froze where he was while the hooting spread to the other howlers overhead. He did his best to ignore them, to only watch the scarred one. The scarred howler made a hooting-snarling sound, baring his fangs. Confused, but looking for a way to pacify him, Daniel started to withdraw the object. The howlers began to quiet and Daniel dared let loose the breath he'd been holding. Apparently they didn't want their cylinder back.

The scarred howler continued to bare his teeth, though he and the other apes fell silent. Daniel sat back, holding the object that he and Sam had been pretty sure was some kind of technology, wondering if it would be better to put it down. So far he wasn't doing very well at guessing what the howlers wanted. But the scarred howler had shoved the pack at him. If the howler had wanted the device, surely he could have taken it for himself, but Daniel had assumed maybe the expectation was for him to return the object he and his people had taken. Daniel knew something about symbolic gestures, and hand returning a stolen object to its owner was often such a gesture. Evidently that wasn't what the howlers wanted. If they didn't want Daniel to handle the object, why thrust it at him to begin with? With that question in mind, Daniel couldn't quite see his way clear to putting it down.

The scarred howler growled again, low, quiet, and the others didn't echo it. Daniel realized he'd been so busy watching the howler's face, and trying not to look at the monkeys ranged around the hut, that he'd missed the obvious. The scarred howler was digging at the dirt with the fingers of one hand.

Now he'd noticed it, Daniel watched to see if anything would come of it. He faintly recalled that there had been studies concerning written communication in apes. He couldn't quite remember the details as he'd not been really interested at the time, and so many other interesting things had happened since he'd read the article, but of course one of his go-to methods of communication was drawn pictures.

But after watching for almost a minute, he saw nothing that even started to look like anything. It just looked like random digging. Yet it did not escape his attention that none of the howlers had interfered with his quiet observation, or tried to make him do something else. When he looked up at the face of the scarred howler, it seemed as if the creature was staring at him in puzzled concentration.

It almost struck him as funny, because the scarred howler looked as if he too had expected some sort of communication to take place, but somehow nothing had happened. Daniel decided to risk laying the cylinder aside, and tried his hand at drawing a picture. He decided to start with the simple concept of "you and me," drawing a stick figure human, and a monkey (mainly differentiated by having a tail).

The scarred howler watched this, and listened patiently while Daniel gestured at the human stick figure and himself, and tried to verbally explain the idea that the picture represented him, and that the other one represented the ape. But there didn't appear to be comprehension. In fact, the look in the howler's eyes as Daniel struggled to get the concept across was almost pitying, the way Daniel might look at a simpleton trying to achieve a level of communication beyond his means.

Finally, after the third or fourth time Daniel revised his dirt drawings to try and improve them, the howler reached out and smacked his hands away with surprising gentleness. The scarred howler then began to dig in the dirt as before. Daniel again tried to discern some sort of pattern or meaning to it, but it just looked like digging a little hole in the ground, and there were no sounds or movements accompanying it to indicate what the scratched out hole was meant to represent.

"Okay, not pictures," Daniel sighed, shaking his head.

The scarred howler sat back and snorted, then licked its dirty fingers. Daniel tried not to imagine how gritty it would feel if he did that, and hoped the howler didn't expect him to lick his own fingers.

"What about the alphabet?" Daniel inquired.

He knew that was more than a long shot, it was grasping at straws, but he had to start somewhere, and the howler seemed interested in digging in the dirt, and in the device itself. Daniel decided to scratch out the three alphabets on the object to see if he could get a reaction, and then go from there.

The howler watched quietly, periodically licking his fingers again or scratching himself. The monkeys above and around leaned and peered down, trying to see past Daniel to get a look at what he was doing.

Finishing the first alphabet, Daniel sat back and gestured to it. The howler looked at it, then looked at Daniel. Shrugging, Daniel started work on the second, then the third alphabet. All the while, the scarred howler watched, but didn't seem to comprehend what Daniel was trying to do.

"Of course," Daniel said as he finished, "the letters aren't exactly interchangeable." the three alphabets didn't even have the same number of letters.

The scarred howler grunted and picked up the cylinder. He hooted once, and threw it at Daniel. The toss was unexpected and the device threw more awkwardly than Daniel would have thought the howler capable of. Even aside from the other factors, Daniel couldn't see well enough to catch a tossed baseball with any degree of regularity without his glasses. Consequently, the device smacked him in the arm and bounced off.

This caused quite a stir in the howlers overhead. Being monkeys, they were probably extremely dexterous and coordinated, had good vision and fast reflexes. They tittered and chattered among one another, as if each was asking his neighbor what this odd turn of events might mean.

The scarred howler leaned forward, and waved an arm in Daniel's face. Daniel flinched and blinked in response to this action, and the scarred howler sat back, evidently confused.

"I can see," Daniel said, "Just not very well without my glasses."

He used his fingers to try and mime glasses, unaware that Jack had once done the exact same thing, years ago on Abydos, when he'd been looking for Daniel. Daniel didn't get the same response as Jack had, but it was about as productive an exercise. The scarred howler watched him do it, then snarled until he stopped, perhaps deciding it might be an offensive gesture of some kind.

It was frustrating. By all appearances, these howlers had some kind of language. Certainly they were far more advanced than any of the Earth's monkeys. The attempt to communicate couldn't be overlooked, nor the fact that Daniel had actually succeeded once, conveying to them that he didn't want to fight. But aside from that, he was so far getting nowhere trying to talk to the howlers.

"Okay," Daniel said, "Let's go back to basics."

He wasn't sure they had many gestures in common, and it was easy to make a mistake with gesturing. In some countries, gesturing with the wrong hand was enough to get you into trouble. So he decided to go with something very basic. Pointing at an object, and verbally identifying it. He looked around for something easy. Not the cylinder, since he knew its shape, but little else. He needed something simpler, something that was familiar to both parties, and that had a limited number of ways to be misinterpreted.

It all looked very easy in the movies, and to some degree it was. Context could go a long way to providing help across a language barrier. For instance, if you were at a bus stop and started asking questions of people around that they found incomprehensible, most of them would still guess you were looking for a bus, or when the bus might arrive, even though there was a virtually unlimited number of other things you might be trying to say. But even that was fraught with some potential difficulty. Unless there were very few buses, going to very few places, you might wind up being helped to board the wrong bus, because no one would know if you were talking about a time or place or perhaps trying to get tickets. Generally a series of gestures could help. A tap of the watch would indicate you were interested in time. Waving at something looking like a schedule would indicate an interest in that. Pointing at a bus would generally cause someone to say the local word for bus, because in the human context it wouldn't immediately make sense for you to be asking about the color, the material it was made of or how long it had been in service.

But what did Daniel have in common with the howlers? So far he couldn't prove they even had language in the traditional sense. He had an ear for such things, but up to now he hadn't determined enough of a pattern to their vocalizations to be confident that they were using labels. Their chatter just sounded like random sounds. A roar sounded like a roar. So far he had no confirmation that they used sentences or labels as he understood them at all. But he did know that many apes (though primarily the great apes) had been taught labeling with some success since the 1970's.

Daniel knew that being able to learn the concept wasn't the same as already knowing it, but he also knew it was a lot easier to teach humans a new language because of their ability and inclination to label objects. It was not unreasonable to think that maybe his noises sounded just as random to the howlers as theirs did to him. He also didn't think it unreasonable to at least try to talk to them. Monkeys or not, he and his team were at their mercy, and they seemed able to build relatively complex structures, and behave socially, suggesting a level of intelligence that made speech a possibility.

Though it had initially been presumed to be a lack of intelligence, considerable study had been done on chimps and gorillas that confirmed their inability to mimic human speech was a lack of the physical -not mental- ability to do so. What their true limits were, no one had yet ascertained, but studies were ongoing, and they seemed to do very well at sign language.

For reasons of potential offensiveness, Daniel wasn't prepared to just start hand signaling. Even if he did, sign language was not universal, it varied considerably. He could try the ASL gesture for friendship, but the chances of it meaning the same thing to the howlers -even if they used sign language- were virtually nil. Not that he was unwilling to try it... eventually.

"Context," he muttered, "Context..."

The howlers weren't wearing clothing, and there was no indication they had bags for carrying items in. That was most of what Daniel had on him. Then he remembered how he'd done it on Abydos. It had all started with an energy bar. It hadn't entirely worked out, because what he'd taken to mean 'very good' (because that had been the concept he'd been trying to convey at the time) actually meant something along the lines of 'sweet,' which had caused some consternation later on when he had repeated the word to try and indicate a chicken-like dish was good.

Still, it had been the start he'd needed.

Daniel patted his pockets, and found where he'd stuck an energy bar. He always kept one on his person, not only as a snack, but also as a potential peace offering and conversation starter during missions. The bar had more than once saved his hide and jump started conversations where the fate of the galaxy might hang in the balance, something the company that manufactured it would sadly never know.

He pulled the bar out, and made a big show of how good it smelled, then unwrapped it. Before he could taste it, to show what it was good for, the scarred howler growled and mock-lunged, startling him and causing him to drop it. The howler snatched up the bar and examined it, then bounded away with it, snarling over his shoulder, warning Daniel to stay away.

The howler sat down on the far side of the hut, and messily devoured the bar, snarling and glaring around at Daniel and the monkeys overhead as he did so. The behavior seemed pure animal, no words or gestures were evident, just pure dominance display and eager consumption of this new treat.

"So much for common ground," Daniel sighed.