While Lieutenant Rossberg was deploying his expertise on a crime scene, an important meeting was being held at Cheyenne Mountain.
The analysis of the stones and the "autopsy" of the dead body had confirmed the absence of hazard. Doctors Sakai and Wayland had conducted a deep dive on the stones. The results had turned out to be very interesting, contrary to the exploration of the planet.
The Stargate Command, aka the SGC, had organized a meeting to share the results. Two members of the International Oversight Advisory (IOA) had been invited. This non-military organization had been set up years ago to gather representatives of the countries involved in the Stargate Program. Its mission: control and finance the program, to avoid any military body to be the sole master of it.
The IOA had a permanent office in the SGC. Porter, a man above fifty, salt and pepper hair, was the IOA's emissary assigned to the SGC. This day, he was attending the meeting with a female about the same age and named Ballester.
Porter and Ballester were sitting on leather seats, on the same side of the big table at the center of the briefing room. SGC teams would use this place to talk about their missions with their CO. The SGC would also use this place for major meetings. From where they were sitting, the two civilians could see a large bay window, but not the gate that was below – the meeting room was above the control room –.
General Harrigan's back was facing the SGC emblem hooked on the wall, and the metallic stairs that led directly to the control room. Porter and Ballester were on the left of Harrigan. A third civilian, a man about thirty, was seated next to Ballester. He didn't work directly for the IOA. Nevertheless, due to the nature of his assignment, he would report to the IOA.
In front of the civilians, the military people. Colonel Colby, on the right of the general, then, Captains Galvez and McKinson, and finally, Lieutenant Patterson. The latter was a Marine, like McKinson. Doctors Sakai and Wayland shared, with a young man, a corner at the opposite of the general. While everyone was at ease in a seat, the scientists and the young man were standing, to lead with more convenience the presentation and display items on the screen that was behind them and on the wall shared with the base commander's office.
Like any other key event, everyone was dressed accordingly. Suit and tie for the male civilians. The man sitting next to Porter and Ballester had even chosen a three-piece suit. Pantsuit or skirt suit for the female civilians. Service dress uniform for the military personnel.
A copy of the presentation had been given to each attendee. Some had printed it, some had it on their laptop.
Porter was now holding in his right hand one of the stones found on P7X-557 and was looking at it with attention.
The Japanese scientist provided an interesting fact about the stone, "It isn't obvious at first sight, but this stone is ductile, Mister Porter."
"Ductile?" Porter repeated. He looked at Sakai expectantly.
"It means it can be bent or stretched easily without being broken. On Earth, gold has this property."
"Interesting..." the IOA collaborator muttered while admiring the stone again.
"They look like ordinary stones to me," Ballester said, with an accent that made clear she wasn't American. She glanced at the scientists, a bit skeptical.
"But they're not, Mrs. Ballester," Wayland said. Ballester looked at her. Wayland continued, "What's interesting is that the stones have nothing in common with what we've known so far. Nevertheless, it seems that they share properties with the family of metals."
Sakai nodded and completed, "We discovered that the rocks, in addition to being ductile, are a more powerful source of energy than Naquadah and Naquadria we have found in the Milky Way. As a reminder, Naquadria is an isotope of Naquadah and is itself more powerful than Naquadah, but also more unstable. The rocks we're talking about turned out to be more stable than Naquadria."
Porter and Ballester glanced at each other. As Colby noticed their perplexity, he suggested to the scientists, "I think a demo will speak louder than words."
Wayland nodded and looked at the youngest scientist. "Doctor Nelson, could you start the video, please?"
Nelson activated the video from the laptop in front of him. The video appeared on the big screen behind the scientists. The other people around the table saw a Petri dish laid on a platform, which was at the center of a big room. A mobile robot was nearby. The camera zoomed in on the Petri dish, to reveal the tiny substance, reduced to powder, in the receptacle. The camera zoomed out. The mobile robot arm triggered a chemical reaction with the substance. The audience saw and heard the explosion following the reaction. Though it was astonishing, the explosion didn't destroy neither the equipment nor the room.
"You've just seen an explosion due to Naquadah, reduced to powder. We repeated this experience with the same quantity of the stones from P7X-557," Nelson explained before he started the second video.
This time, the explosion was much bigger and caused more damages: the blast dismantled the camera, and the very loud sound made the IOA people and the three-piece suit man jump. The video stopped suddenly after the event.
"That's what happens when we watch it for the first time," Nelson commented.
The second video obviously piqued Porter's interest as he said, "It's… It's incredible… What else can we do with these stones?"
Nelson glanced at Wayland. "We were about to address this topic, Mister Porter," the member of SG-1 revealed with a smile, before providing a more serious answer. "We can use it the same way we use Naquadah. Weaponry, industry, energy, and other sectors. The effects will be multiplied by two hundred. They are multiplied by one hundred with Naquadria. These stones are a great opportunity. I think you understand why."
"Incredible," Porter repeated.
Wayland glanced at Sakai. Like her, he was satisfied that Porter looked impressed. "Now, I suppose this is the right moment to discuss how and where we'll find the stones?" Wayland suggested.
Ballester frowned. "You found a dead corpse beside the chest that contained the rocks. I can read that you also retrieved in the remains of this person's clothes, a kind of... "treasure map", I quote Colonel Colby."
The colonel gave a soft smile to Ballester. While Ballester had been talking, Nelson had displayed on the screen pictures of the "treasure map". There were symbols on it, including drawings of the stones and a row of seven star constellations that could be easily noticed.
"That's the first term that came to my mind, indeed," Colby confided.
"I think you used the perfect term, colonel."
"Our medical examiner confirmed that it was a woman and estimated that she died more than eighty years ago. The map has been with this woman since then. So has been the chest. Based on that, we could assert that the woman, the map, and the chest were buried at the same time. Surprisingly, the map was still readable. Well, some parts were less readable than others, but it didn't stop us from deciphering it."
Colby left his seat and stood beside the screen. He nodded to Nelson. The young man showed on the screen a picture that was a zoom on the row of seven star constellations. Colby said to the audience, "You certainly get it, these symbols are the coordinates of a planet. Let's call it P2X-606. We assume the stones are from this planet."
The audience didn't react, except the man in the three-piece suit. "What if there's no link between the map and the chest?"
"Someone drew the stones on the map and wrote some text in an unknown language, Mister Marlowe," Captain McKinson said as Marlowe's eyes and hers met. "Despite this hurdle, our experts managed to identify similarities with old languages and the Ancients'. We could understand that the map was indicating the existence of plentiful mines. We are willing to believe that the map is referring to the planet where the chest comes from."
"Not to mention that our teams found no trace of these stones on P7X-557, as explained in the report," Colonel Colby added.
The two officers' arguments didn't seem to convince Ballester, as she inquired, perplexed, "I'm sorry to ask: what's the cause of death of the woman?"
"According to the medical examiner, she was hanged," Colby calmly revealed.
"Hanged?" Ballester repeated, shocked.
Captain Galvez tried to reassure her. "Maybe we shouldn't start getting lost in conjectures, ma'am. The context seems dark when we present it this way. There can be another story behind, though. Maybe this woman stole the rocks, which could have been qualified as a crime. We should focus on the fact that the mentioned planet is full of this mineral."
"So, why are we still discussing?" Ballester said, confused. She turned to the base commander. "General Harrigan, you don't need the International Oversight Advisory's approval to send a team on this planet, do you?"
Ballester glanced at Porter, who was on the same page regarding her question. The two IOA representatives were a bit surprised that this meeting had been held for something the SGC was doing every day.
"This isn't as simple as it seems, Mrs. Ballester, Mister Porter. We tried to establish a connection with the planet's stargate many times. In vain," Harrigan confessed.
"Oh…" Ballester could only say.
"We didn't give up, though. Doctors Sakai and Nelson managed to calculate the position of the planet. We have a workaround solution we'd like to share, but it will require the IOA to think out of the box."
Indeed, the IOA would have to think out of the box. Next part of the meeting would be the hardest one, Harrigan thought.