SG1-16 Four Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page A

moment to confer with his colleagues.
    “Go on,” Kevin said, handing him the cup. “Take a look at the inscription.”
    The battered bronze cup’s fluted bowl was still encrusted with dirt. Daniel pulled a small brush from a leg pocket of his BDUs and swept it clean. Most of the writing was worn off, but a few characters were still identifiable. Long thin lines in groups of two and three… No, that wasn’t possible.
    “You realize this isn’t Shang writing, right?”
    “It’s Xia, man. Do you believe it?” Kevin snatched the cup back. “What 2100 B.C. writing is doing in a drinking cup from a good thousand years later is beyond me.”
    The archaeologist handed the cup over to the assistant with instructions to mark its location and then turned back. “Pity we can’t write a paper on it, huh? Oh, the woes of selling out to the military.”
    “Without the military, you and I wouldn’t be here,” Daniel replied with a patient smile. Kevin knew the drill. He’d signed the non-disclosure statements.
    “Too true. I hated writing papers anyway so I shouldn’t complain. The Pentagon only wants cold, hard facts.” He pulled a canteen off his belt and took a deep drink. After sticking the cap back in place, he laughed loudly, the sound oddly out of place in the alien environment. “At the end of the day, I suppose all we’ve done is trade out uniforms of khaki shirts and blue jeans for khaki BDUs.”
    Daniel grinned, remembering endless months as a starving student, wearing the same old jeans worn thin from sand and sun as he dug alongside fellow doctorate students. He’d come a long way since then.
    A long way and back.
    Kevin jumped back into his pit. “The hardest part about all this is putting it into context. On Earth, a find like this has one meaning — ”
    “But here it’s an entirely different matter.” Daniel eyed the nearest obelisk, its Ancient writing calling out to him to sit, decipher, and translate.
    He looked back at Kevin who shook his head, clearly following his train of thought. “What a mishmash. We could sure use your help.”
    Daniel sighed. What could he say?
    My commanding officer has a bug up his ass and needs me to shoot targets thousands of light years from home .
    “I heard some strange stories about you this past year.”
    “Need to know,” Daniel said, wiping away a trickle of sweat that had run down his forehead. Even if he could, his death, ascendency and then reappearance would have been a bit tough to explain. It really was all about context. “You work with the military now, you know how it is.”
    “Sadly, I do. Though not as much as I’d like to.” Kevin stuck his trowel into the dirt.
    Daniel sighed. “I’m guessing they gave you the Reader’s Digest version of the Stargate Program?”
    “They did. Foolish, if you ask me. How can I make sense of all this,” Kevin said, waving his arms in the air, “without knowing everything else? Your General Hammond’s got hard ears.”
    Daniel recognized the Jamaican phrase for stubborn. “No, he really hasn’t,” he replied emphatically. “He’s just cautious… with good reason. Trust me.”
    Kevin flashed another smile. “Whatever, man. It’s their loss… Oh, if you get a chance, visit the grave site, it’s — ”
    “Who’s the new sandbox buddy?”
    It was Jack. Daniel winced when SG-1’s leader joined them by the pit. Ignoring the colonel’s social skills, or lack thereof, was never easy. Especially with someone like Kevin who had no patience for military mentalities. It was too bad Sam was heading off with Teal’c — probably to do a sweep of the area. As a fellow scientist, she would have been the perfect bridge between Kevin and the military.
    Instead, Jack would have to do. Great.
    Hopefully what Sam had said about Jack becoming more diplomatic would be true. Daniel took a deep breath and plunged in to introductions.
    “Kevin and I wrote our doctoral theses together,” he explained.
    Kevin