Archaeology (7a/30)
Title: Archaeology ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6
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Chapter 7: Anterograde Amnesia
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10 October 2000; Infirmary, SGC; 0800 hrs
Martouf walked around the corner just as Daniel did, making him wheel backward to avoid crashing into the man who'd just undergone brain surgery.
"Whoa...good morning," Daniel said, taking in the clothes Martouf was now wearing instead of scrubs--the healing device and presence of a symbiote had clearly done a lot for his recovery. "Hey, you're looking better. You, uh...should you be walking around by yourself?"
"I was told it is fine for a few minutes," Martouf told him with his polite almost-smile. "I was becoming tired of following a nurse each time I needed to stretch my legs."
"Well, good," Daniel said. "Uh...great. How's everything going?"
Usually, in response to questions like that, Martouf gave some vague, courteous answer that translated into 'I'm fine, stop asking me.' This time, he hesitated, looking around himself carefully while holding onto the wall, then looked away and said, "I seem to have...lost my way. Could you remind me where the infirmary is?"
Daniel forced his expression not to change as he gestured with a hand and said, "Sure. Here--I'll walk with you."
Martouf had gotten lost inside the infirmary itself once, until he'd learned which signs marked which doors and walls. Daniel had seen him trying to memorize the objects around his bed, and once, he'd sat back down on the wrong bed when someone moved a cart out of its normal place. A Tok'ra spy used to long journeys in unfamiliar places should never get lost like that.
They started together back to the infirmary, slowly, because Martouf tended to lose his balance when he moved too fast. "Samantha says you have a mission scheduled for today," Martouf said as they walked. "I hope I am not inconveniencing you, Daniel."
"Oh, it's not for a few hours," Daniel assured him. "We have a briefing in, uh...an hour, but I've got plenty of time."
Neither of them mentioned that Martouf's remembering what Sam had told him was fairly significant; the man sometimes forgot things only minutes after being told, at least without the help of Lantash.
Lantash remembered new things a lot better than Martouf, but Martouf had to learn to rely on his symbiote to remember all new events. Janet said that learning how to do that was a different kind of memory than actually learning a fact, that it wasn't completely conscious, and that they would eventually be able to function relatively well together; it would just take time. Daniel didn't understand how it worked, but he had rarely been so grateful for the presence of a symbiote before.
"Wait, uh, this way," Daniel said hastily as Martouf started to walk past a turn.
There was a short pause as Martouf looked down both corridors and then, without a word, followed him down the right way. There were still some gaps left unfilled.
A minute later, Martouf slowed. Daniel did, too, as the older man stared at the floor and stopped, still hugging the wall, his lips pressed tightly together. Daniel looked around, then said hesitantly, "Are... Martouf, are you...?"
Instead, his eyes flashed and Lantash raised his head. "Martouf is recovering as well as can be expected, Mr. Jackson," Lantash said. "We are simply unaccustomed to the amount of time required."
"According to the Tau'ri, you're both healing very fast," Daniel said.
"So I have been told." Perhaps because Martouf was somewhat less steady these days, Lantash seemed to have temporarily taken over the role as the calm one, though Daniel thought he could sometimes hear the restrained impatience in his tone.
"Come on," Daniel said, gesturing down the hall. "We should get you back to the infirmary. You can call me 'Daniel,' by the way, Lantash."
"I will remember that," Lantash said, even though he'd already forgotten it once before.
Then Martouf returned, looking a little embarrassed, and said, "Forgive me."
"It's okay," Daniel said, trying not to show how much it bothered him to see Martouf as something other than the calm, reasonable presence he usually was. "It took me weeks to figure out how to get around base. Actually, if you look down, the colored lines can help to tell you where to go."
"I see," Martouf said once he'd glanced down and noted the lines.
"Also," Daniel said, reminding himself to slow down when Martouf had to stop for a minute and catch the wall, "Sam says you're better at research while confined to a bed than most people are on their feet, so we should be thanking you. For a lot of things, actually--"
"You know that I do not remember working on the treaty with your people?"
Daniel nodded. "I know. But trust me--a lot of the credit is definitely yours. You can read it yourself and then decide whether you think someone untrained like me or someone as...as diplomatic as Jack could have written it."
That brought a smile out of Martouf. "You are not untalented, Daniel, and the colonel has been very...polite."
"That's because he likes you," Daniel admitted. "You haven't seen him talk to Anise." Well, Martouf had seen Jack talk to Anise before, but not in his memory, so it didn't count.
"Freya seems quite fond of Colonel O'Neill."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "You think so? Well, they--wait. You mean...fond of him?"
"I do," Martouf said, quirking another smile.
"Oh," Daniel said, unable to picture that and not particularly wanting to. "Well, no offense, but I don't think he'd take that too well."
"Before she returns to Vorash," Martouf joked, "perhaps I should remind her that not all humans are as open in their affection as the humans of Freya's planet."
After a moment, Daniel managed a weak laugh. "Yeah. Uh...we should do that. She actually...left last night, though, so we'll have to wait until next time to talk to her."
Martouf fell silent for a while, his eyes unfocused in the way that Daniel had learned meant he was talking to Lantash. "I had not..." he started, and then, "We must have forgotten that."
Before Daniel had to think of a way to respond, Sam's voice called, "Martouf! There you are."
Martouf looked so pleased to see her that Daniel felt like an intruder. "Samantha. Daniel and I were discussing forms of expressing affection among humans of different worlds," Martouf said.
Sam looked sharply at Daniel. "He was talking about Jack," Daniel explained, and then, "No, no, I mean, Jack and Freya." Sam's eyes widened. "Not that there's anything between Jack and Freya," Daniel said awkwardly.
"Uh...huh," Sam said, sounding confused. Martouf looked honestly amused, the way he so rarely did. Daniel decided to believe it was a side effect of being off-duty for a while and able to spend time chatting with Sam rather than a side effect of having part of his brain gone.
"Do you guys need anything? If not, I'll, uh, go now," Daniel said, pointing his thumb the other way. "I'll be in the commissary until the briefing."
...x...
Daniel found Jack sitting alone at a table. He dropped his notebook in the seat across and went to seek out food and coffee. Jack at this hour of the morning was either ridiculously full of energy or very focused on eating, after which he had a lot of energy. He seemed to be the latter today, and Daniel knew from experience that, at times like these, it was best to let the man eat.
Sam joined them eventually, took a look at Jack, and decided the same, sitting next to Daniel. Daniel waited until he decided he'd been quiet long enough and said, "Where's Teal'c?"
It took a few moments for Jack to stop spooning Froot Loops into his mouth and answer, "Doing something for someone in some lab."
"Great," Daniel said. "Thanks for the details."
"You're welcome," Jack said around a mouthful.
"So. Mission today."
"Yup," Sam said. "Daniel, thanks for finding Martouf. The nurses were getting worried."
That caught Jack's attention enough to make him look up for a moment. "Where was he?"
"In the hallway," Daniel said. "He just got turned around, that's all. He's okay."
Jack nodded. "Glad to hear it. That seems to be happening to him a lot."
"He's still having some memory problems," Sam said. "Lantash wasn't, uh, damaged as much, and he compensates for certain things--there are events that one of them remembers when the other doesn't--but not everything. Symbiotes have a huge capacity for factual memory, but spatial memory, hand-eye coordination...they have to learn to cooperate for tasks like those, but it's still Martouf's body and two brains trying to work together and control it. Certain reflexes and thought-forming processes have to be relearned."
"Spatial memory," Daniel repeated, even as he thought that hand-eye coordination was something a Tok'ra operative should be very good at, and that Martouf might never be able to go on missions again at this rate. "Janet mentioned that, too--what does that mean?"
"Well," she said, pausing in the familiar way that meant she was trying to think of a simplistic way to explain something to him, "you learned how to find your way around the base, right? Or if you went to Nagada, you'd know how to get from, say, Ra's pyramid to the village gates."
"So it's what lets you find your way," Daniel said.
"It's like a...a sort of map in your head," she said. "Basically, certain types of maps in Martouf's head don't work properly anymore. So he needs to make up for that by...um. Let's say you can picture a layout in your mind and recognize where to go. He's learning to use a list of instructions from Lantash instead: go past the door labeled '17B,' then turn left two corridors later...et cetera."
"That's a lot to remember," Daniel said.
She nodded. "He's learning. It takes time to get used to. Martouf and Lantash are working on improving their, uh, tandem motor control so he'll be better at writing things down to help remember. The anterograde amnesia he was showing before is better now, though. Lantash is still good at processing new events."
"You know what's strange about anterograde amnesia?" Daniel said, cutting into his cooling pancake and talking around a bite. "Not Martouf's exact case, but a really severe one. Can you imagine not remembering that you'd already done something or...or said something... It would be basically like waking up every day and, you know, living the same day over and over."
She tilted her head. "Well, it wouldn't be exactly the same day, not if different things were happening around you. You'd have to have a completely controlled environment to have the same day happen, whether or not you remembered it."
"But that's just it," Daniel said, pointing a piece of pancake at her. "If you don't remember having lived it, does it matter to you if it's the same or different? Does it matter if you live the same day over and over, or do similar things, if you don't realize it's already happened? This is an extreme case, obviously, in which you don't remember...not remembering."
Sam took a quick sip of coffee. "So this is hypothetical."
"Yeah. Like...if I had severe amnesia, I could have had this conversation with you five minutes ago, and I just forgot. And I'd never know unless someone told me, and then five minutes later, I wouldn't know again. I mean, life is based on your perception of the world around you, right? Would it matter what I did each day if I didn't know I'd done it?"
She tilted her head back to think. "First of all, you could've written yourself a note to tell yourself you'd had this conversation already. And either way, it'd matter to someone--whoever was around you that didn't have amnesia. You don't agree?"
"I think...I think we could all have anterograde amnesia right now and just not realize it."
She shook her head. "I think it's a little too theoretical for practical purposes."
"Maybe you think that because you don't remember learning that it's happening," he said, earning an eye roll and a laugh, then turned to Jack. "Anyway, that's just how I feel about it. What do you think?"
Jack stuck his spoon into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He paused, and Daniel waited for his answer. Then Jack scooped another spoonful of cereal and went on eating.
"I don't think he was listening," Daniel told Sam, disappointed. She grinned. Daniel resisted the childish urge to poke Jack with his fork to see what would happen.
Ironically, their silence seemed to catch Jack's attention better than their chatter had, and he looked up, eyeing both of them suspiciously. "What?" Jack said.
Sam smothered another smile and checked her watch. "We're going to be late to the briefing."
Daniel put down his fork and stood.
"What?" Jack repeated, following them out.
...x...
10 October 2000; P4X-639; 1800 hrs
As it turned out, the man named Malikai had picked up English from SG-15's trip, when the radiation hadn't been as strong and the other team had stayed considerably longer. Malikai's native dialect was a proto-Canaanite language related to many other central Semitic languages Daniel knew, and with that as an aid, communication was quite easy.
The writing on the walls was definitely Ancient, and after just a few hours, it was clear that they represented some sort of planetary history.
"I agree," Malikai said when Daniel said as much.
"What I don't understand," Daniel said, looking at the altar before which the man stood, "is what this is. It's, uh, obviously in good condition, compared to everything else in here." The surface looked like it was made of buttons. He really, really wanted to push one of them and see what happened. He was pretty sure Jack would yell at him if he did.
"The storm is approaching, Daniel Jackson. The radiation may be dangerous for you and your team."
"Major Carter will let us know when we have to leave," Daniel assured him. "What's this line here? It seems to repeat several times. Um...domavetus vestul motabilum."
Malikai looked like he was getting nervous about the radiation, but Daniel knew, after their close brushes in the past, that Sam would keep an eye on it and that Jack would make her check every few minutes even if she forgot. "Conqueror of time," Malikai suggested.
Daniel tilted his head, thinking as he looked over the rest of the altar. "Is it? I think it's, uh...motabilum would refer to uncertainty or lack of stability, and obviously, vestul...so something more like 'master of the uncertain past.' So in a way, yes, but in this context..."
There was a beeping sound. Daniel looked up and found Malikai holding something in his hands.
"What's that?" Daniel asked, wondering where the device had come from.
"The geomagnetic disturbance is reaching its peak," Malikai said. "I have to act now."
Confused, Daniel watched as the archaeologist pulled something else from his bag that looked a lot like a gun. And then Malikai pointed it at him and it looked a lot more like a gun. Frozen in place and staring at the weapon, Daniel could only say, "What?"
Then something jolted through him like all-too-familiar agony of electricity burning through his body. Daniel's last thought was that he wouldn't have said anything about the translation if he'd known the man would be so angry about it.
Continued in Part b...