The truth of all history died with those who created it

Stars in the Sky

Shadows danced across the fresco on the mud brick wall of the small workshop, thrown out by the flame from a beeswax candle that was nearing the end of its usefulness. In the far corner, away from the cold night air that flowed in through an open doorway, an old man looked down at the tablet he was working on and blew away a fine coating of siltstone dust that had built up around his latest glyph.

He closed his eyes and ran a finger over the engraving, noting edges needing to be dressed further and troughs that could be deeper. Unlike those around him, the old man had a unique concept of history and knew exactly what was required for the future to better comprehend the past. Kings lived and died here, their legacies contained in mastaba tombs that echoed the wealth of their reign, reflected in the luxuries they took with them to the afterlife. It was an enlightened view, this notion that living in the here and now was just a step along a greater path, but it was also unfortunate that the only footprints to be seen on that path were those of kings. The old man knew better, and so left the glorifying of deeds and recording of religious events to the scribes of this time, all the while making sure his future would have a greater understanding of all he endured for them.

"You are called to court, my friend."

The old man looked up and squinted at the figure standing before him. The shuffle of feet on the dusty floor and the way the shadows on the wall lived and died when someone walked in the path of the candle was all he needed to know that his quiet solitude had been broken.

"Again?" he grumbled as he put his chisel aside and dusted his hands off on his tunic. "This will be the fourth time in as many days."

"He favors your counsel above most in the kingdom."

"That may be true, but I fear our king has become a little indecisive in his old age."

"If you believe twenty summers to be old. Already, his first born son has been promised a bride from a land to the east, while the queen nurses a second." Katep chuckled and smoothed the front of his kilt down, blown about from the winds of a distant storm that marked the start of the season of Akhet - the Inundation. The rains would soon come to awaken the Nile and fertilize the land.

"Mature then," the old man conceded around a wide smile. He set the rest of his tools aside and wrapped the tablet up in a piece of coarse linen. "And yet young enough to sometimes forget all that I have taught him."

"All that he claims credit for."

This was an old argument. One he and Katep had kept alive for far too many years, serving, he guessed, as a reminder that the golden age of this young king came more from his willingness to embrace new ways, and less from the very recent and tortured past that could have easily claimed him like it did those before him. King Den was no fool and, just like his mother and father, he had seen the value in the wisdom of the old man. "If teaching the king to count his cattle in order to realize their worth means he takes the credit for bringing greater wealth to the kingdom, then my job is done. And you should be careful of what you say," he cautioned pointing a crooked finger at Katep. "The walls have ears."

Katep looked to the nearest wall and frowned. "You say this and yet still I see no lobes."

"It is a term used to warn of those who may be listening... or something like that. You know, I quite forget sometimes." The old man pulled himself up from his mat and slipped his feet into his papyrus sandals, paying little heed to the yaw and pop of his aged joints. He would be seventy-two summers old during the season of Shemu – when farmers took to harvesting their crops from fields made fertile during the inundation.

"Only sometimes?" Katep took a lit torch from the brazier near the entrance and held it up as the old man blew out his candle. "Then I guess, in this, you and our king may be quite alike."

They walked in silence from the old man's workshop, past the decorative pond with no fish and out to a darkened courtyard, where a strong wind was blowing in from the south and whipping up the waters along the nearby shores of the Nile. Off in the distance, beyond the wall that almost completely circled the old man's modest house, was Memphis; the city lit up by the fires of hundreds of braziers.

"She is beautiful, is she not?"

The old man shuffled past Katep, shrugged in silent response and instead looked up to the heavens.

To the stars that still looked different after all these years.

~oOo~

General Jack O'Neill stood at the entrance to the SGC briefing room and frowned at the sight of Doctor Daniel Jackson pacing back and forth in front of the large screen monitor, briefing folder in hand and muttering to himself. If the sight hadn't been a familiar one from his many years spent as leader of SG-1 and being subjected to oh-so-many Jackson briefings, he was sure he'd probably be worried. Frustration was generally the term Jack assigned to such lectures, even when their importance related to upcoming missions, because there was a vast difference between imparting operation-critical information and simply being verbose.

He thought about interrupting Daniel's nervous pacing with a salty quip about the time wasted on his only weekend off in months just to get here, and why video conferencing might have been an easier option, but Daniel's behavior was starting to put him on edge.

It was late afternoon, having taken him all day to get to the mountain, and he was just as clueless as Landry and the rest of SG-1 as to why he had been summoned to this impromptu one on one session.

Jack stepped into the room and to the chair at the head of the table. "Daniel?" he said slowly, raising one eyebrow questioningly when Daniel stopped pacing and cocked his head to the side to look at Jack.

"Oh, good, you're here."

"As per your 2am phone call with news of earth-shattering importance, yes." Jack shrugged off his dress blues jacket and sat down. "So?"

"Den," said Daniel as he picked up a remote from the table and brought up an image Jack recognized from past missions as an Ancient Egyptian cartouche seal. "Also known as Septi, Hor-Den, Smeti and Dewen, among others; Den was a king from the 1st Dynasty. Most historians list him as the fifth king of the dynasty, which conforms with a detailed King List found on a wall of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Egypt. However there's considerable debate as to whether King Narmer should actually be included in that list or if he was in fact the last king of Dynasty 0, the question being further confused by the existence of a King Menes or Meni who is known to have been the first king to unify both Upper and Lower Egypt. There is sufficient evidence to argue that he and Narmer were one and the same, though there are some who believe Menes was more of a mythical amalgamation of several pre-dynastic kings. Still, regardless of whether Den was the 4th or 5th, he follows a very impressive line of succession that included a period of time when his mother, Queen Merneith, ruled as Regent until Den came of age and ruled in his own right. His reign started around 2970BC... or so it was originally thought."

It was the total lack of any preamble that had Jack raising a finger to get Daniel's attention. "You couldn't have just sent me one of your overly detailed but always fascinating reports to labor through over the weekend?"

"Did you know Den was the first ruler of Egypt noted in pictorial evidence to wear the double crown?"

"No. Should I?"

Daniel looked down at Jack through a mask of confusion, as though he should have understood his every word. "Really? You didn't know?"

"Nope."

"Huh!"

"I don't suppose you could—"

"He was also the first ruler to use the title of King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and was responsible for introducing the hieroglyphic numbering system, among... other things."

"Obviously a smart guy." Jack's initially calm demeanor was being quickly eroded away.

"Smart? Hard to know, but he probably had help. He was quite long-lived for a man of that time period. Conflicting historical records have him ruling Egypt for approximately 42 years, depending on whose version of events you want to believe. His tomb—Tomb T—is at Umm el-Qa'ab, Abydos, upstream from the ancient city of Thebes, modern day Luxor. Actually, and it's an interesting fact that, like his father and grandfathers before him, Den practiced the ritual of retainer suicide, which wasn't really suicide at all. Basically, when a ruler died, servants were murdered and buried around the outside of the royal tomb. Of course, the idea being that these servants would wait on the king in the afterlife. 136 such retainer graves were found around Tomb T."

"And they called that suicide?"

"Well, no, hardly, but I guess there were probably cases with earlier 1st Dynasty rulers where servants died willingly for their divine leader, giving credibility to the term 'retainer suicide' even though many bodies uncovered from the burial mounds of later generation kings clearly show their retainers were murdered. Most would have been strangled. The practice stopped at the end of the 1st Dynasty and was replaced by the use of shabtis - clay funerary figurines that fulfilled the same purpose of serving the deceased in the afterlife."

Daniel turned to face the monitor and started scrolling through the images at an annoyingly fast pace until he settled on one. "This is a siltstone tablet, one of many recovered from a tomb located close to Tomb T."

"And Tomb T is this Den guy?"

"Right."

"And this other tomb is?"

"I'll get to that later."

The image on the screen was of a grey, rectangular tablet with Egyptian hieroglyphs carved neatly into its surface. There was no way to tell how big the tablet was from looking at the picture.

Jack tilted his head to one side and frowned. "Looks Goa'uld to me."

"Actually, it is. Well... almost. It's a mixture of Goa'uld and Archaic Egyptian - Pre-Dynastic Period, with a few symbols and structures not common to either language."

"But you can read it, right?"

Daniel winced and closed his eyes briefly. "Yeah," he breathed, "let's skip that part for the moment."

"Hey, given I have no idea where this is all going and why you called me here—"

"Can you just... just trust me, Jack?"

Jack flicked his right hand at the screen, and said impatiently, "Go on."

"Right. So, each of these tablets is numbered, which means the writer or scribe was intending them to be a representation of historical events from his point of view. Not uncommon, though writings found on most tablets, seals, etc. were usually more exacting in their content, portraying a particular event or religious celebration. These tablets contain dates and names that clearly indicate they were made during the rule of Den in the 1st Dynasty. Prior to this discovery, the first full sentence of hieroglyphs was dated to the 2nd Dynasty. These tablets eclipse that find by over one hundred years! You can see the significance."

"Not really."

Daniel blew out a long breath and pursed his lips, clearly frustrated. "It means either someone didn't date that find correctly or Den has been confused with a later ruler."

"How about we pretend for a moment that I know what you're talking about."

"It's just... Okay, look at it this way: Hieroglyphs are representations of a variety of elements. Much like Chinese, some glyphs can look the same but have a different idea or meaning. Logogram—"

"Daniel!"

"Jack! I know, all right! I'm trying to get to the point!"

"Get there faster."

"Right. Sorry." Daniel put his folder down and rubbed at his eyes. "It's been a long day."

"And night, by the looks of you." Jack waved at the screen. "Are you sure this... whatever this is, can't wait?"

"It can't. We need to act now."

"Act on what?" Jack said, exasperated. "Come on, Daniel, cut me some slack here. You know me and history."

Daniel sat down heavily in the nearest chair and rested his head in his hands. "He lived," he muttered under his breath. "He lived."

~oOo~

Jack opened the briefing folder Daniel handed him and got a close up view of the tablets that had been displayed on the monitor. There were thirty-six in total, all made from the same greyish siltstone and all apparently engraved by the same person.

"Each person's handwriting is unique, which is much the same when it comes to identifying this type of workmanship. The way the maker held the chisel and the resulting stroke pattern, tell us these tablets were all made by the same person." Daniel hummed as he rummaged through his stack of images. "That... and they were all found in the same tomb. Which is unusual."

"How so?"

"Royalty and people of stature in Egyptian society would have tablets made for them, which generally means we might see a variation in quality and workmanship. Definitely not the case here. And there's more." Daniel turned the picture around and tapped on it. "When Queen Merneith died, Den had her placed in a tomb appropriate in size for both her status as his mother and former Regent of Egypt. Ironically, her tomb would turn out to be larger than her son's, though less elaborate, but that's another story."

"Right. And?"

"The tomb these tablets were found in would have been smaller again, which means whoever it held was probably a minor noble or someone of enough value to the king to have warranted a tomb in the first place."

"Do we have a picture of this tomb?"

"No, and the size estimate is based on historical precedence with no actual proof. I think it's safe to say that whoever excavated the tomb must have found something unique, likely these tablets, given the writing wasn't standard for the period. They were probably hoping to get credit for deciphering them."

"Obviously they never did or..."

"Or we'd be in more trouble than I think we are now."

"Which brings me back to whatever this is about."

Daniel dropped his chin to his chest in a classic move that Jack had only seen when he was truly distressed or aggravated. Whatever he had discovered had left him visibly unsettled.

"The tablets tell a story." He quickly regained his composure and selected another image from the stack, turning it to face Jack. "Several of them touch on the reign of Djet, Den's father, and explain certain historical events of the time, most of which no other reference exists. Others relate to the introduction of a system of accounting and taxes during Den's rule. All very bland but historically significant in the details they provide. Far above what we have now. However..." He paused and held up a different image. "This one mentions Ra and the uprising that lead to him leaving Earth."

"Are we talking about someone who actually witnessed Ra leaving?"

"Yes."

"What about the gate?"

"No." Daniel smiled tightly. "Though, there is a passage that mentions the restoration of history."

"Restoration? So, whoever wrote this knew how history was supposed to play out?"

"It would seem so."

"Didn't our other selves bury the gate so it could be found in the future?"

"By Catherine's father, Professor Langford. Thus correcting a timeline we apparently futzed with in the first place."

"Yeah. See... that bit still confuses me." Which at least got a smile from Daniel. "Whoa, wait up." Jack shuffled through the pictures until he found his matching copy. "Does it actually say on here that Ra left Earth?"

"Yes."

"Earth?"

"Yes."

"Not that he was supplanted by another god and simply vanished?"

"No."

"Which is impossible!"

"Well, yes... and no. There exists some hieroglyphic evidence suggesting the Ancient Egyptians may have had contact with extraterrestrials, though most Egyptologists agree with the notion of glyphic representations, in some instances, being illusionary and thus denoting an idea rather than an actual fact."

"Where did they come from?"

"The aliens?"

Jack pushed his open briefing folder and pictures across the table. "These! I'm done with the games, Daniel. If you have something to tell me, just say it!"

"It's more what I'm not telling you."

"Which is?"

"I made them, Jack. Me! Well, not me but—"

"Aht!" Jack raised a finger in the air. "When you said he lived..."

"I meant it quite literally. The tablets do tell a story. Of how the other me—the one stuck in Ancient Egypt five thousand years ago—lived after the rest of his team died at the end of the uprising. Two teams, actually."

"Two teams?"

"Yes."

"I thought Carter said nothing we did in the past affected our future?"

"She did. And based on the tape left in the past by our other selves that would appear to be the case, but clearly we had to make more than one attempt to correct whatever damage we did to the timeline first time around. In this tablet... Daniel... he mentions losing two teams, so we have to assume the first uprising failed either completely or failed in so far as Ra leaving the gate behind for us to find. The second attempt obviously was successful because, well, here we are. Either way, he endured the loss of both teams, leaving himself stranded in the past and struggling to stay hidden in society."

"Which you... he... clearly failed at."

"Yes. Imagine that." Daniel blinked rapidly and turned back to the images now scattered across the table. "In fact," he went on to say, "there's a great deal he left for us to find. Or not."

"Not?"

"My other self used a made-up version of written Egyptian, knowing his future self would be able to figure it out and hoping no one else could. It's a mixture of Goa'uld, Archaic Egyptian, with some Linear A image substitutions and structure variations. Everything was written Boustrophedon-style, making it virtually impossible for anyone to decipher, which they never did."

"And who is this 'they'?"

"I don't know, and the company planning to sell these tablets in a month's time isn't saying. Apparently, the current owner wants to stay anonymous. Unfortunately for us, though it is a predictable move as far as selling off ancient artifacts is concerned, the images released to the public only contain snippets of details, with the seller or vendor holding back on the bulk of the information to lure in a greater number of buyers. All they would tell me is that the artifacts were uncovered in the 1800's, and given the amount of concessions active in Egypt at that time... well, there are a number of people who could have been responsible."

"That's it?"

"Not quite." Daniel brought up an image of what looked like a journal page, complete with writing Jack found just as confusing as hieroglyphs. "The archaeologist who removed the objects did at least leave a diary containing a vague reference to the location of this tomb, which, as I said, was close to Tomb T. The notes, which clearly indicate the objects having been removed from an actual tomb and not a retainer grave, have been included as part of the auction."

"You obviously made an impression on someone."

"Dry, Jack. Very dry."

"Hey, he survived. Give your other self some kudos for making the most of a bad situation."

"For all we know it was probably him who contributed to the huge social and academic leaps made during Den's reign."

"Yeah, and?"

A wave of his hand and Daniel effectively blew off the topic and turned back to his briefing notes. "There are, however, no official records of the tomb which means it's possible the contents were removed and the tomb covered over during the original excavation of the area."

"To hide the fact it had been robbed?"

Daniel made a face, and said with a hint of sadness, "It wasn't uncommon for artifacts to go missing, deliberately or not. Especially when we consider the lack of accurate record keeping by some people at the time and the prevalence of, yes, tomb robbers. Den is a case in point here because his tomb was burned in antiquity and restored in the 26th Dynasty by the Pharaoh Amasis."

Jack sat forward in his chair and tapped at an image of one of the tablets. "Where are these tablets now?" he said reaching into his pants pocket and drawing out his cell phone.

"On pre-auction display in Amiens, France." Daniel looked warily at the phone and then up at Jack, brow furrowed. "What exactly are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. Try and figure out how the hell we can anonymously get our hands on these things without every conspiracy nut-job on the planet taking an interest?"

"Well, like I said, the auction itself isn't for another month, and while the collection can only be viewed online at the moment, the auction house will be holding private inspections by appointment one week prior to the event. According to the website, these are the only Egyptian artifacts listed for sale."

Jack dropped his head to his hand and palmed his eyes. "And you couldn't have told me this first?"

"What? No. This isn't exactly easy for me. And there is more than just the significance of the find itself to consider. If just one person manages to figure out the writing—"

"Exactly how did you find out about the auction?"

"Images of the some of the tablets turned up via an internet search program I've had running continuously for the last eight years. An alert is generated immediately whenever the search finds an image containing hieroglyphs specific to the Goa'uld written language."

"So, if they were discovered in the 1800's then the current owner could be just about anyone?"

"Maybe. My first instinct was to look at the archaeologist who initially excavated Den's tomb, but even knowing who that was doesn't mean he was also responsible for this tomb. Especially when it wasn't unheard of for digs to involve an archaeologist and several research assistants. And Amiens is in a region of France where quite a few noted archaeologists of the time resided. It's more likely the collection was handed down through family members. Until now."

Jack winced at the level of uncertainty in Daniel's voice. "If we're lucky, no one has touched these tablets except for the family and the auction company."

Daniel nodded vigorously. "I think so."

"So, we send someone in to buy them."

"No. Not going to be that easy. The level of interest in artifacts from the 1st Dynasty is immense, both from private collectors and legitimate museums, as well as the Egyptian government. And there's something else."

"What?"

"The catalog for the auction lists thirty-six tablets and several other related items."

"More?"

"Ah, yeah."

There was something in the emotional tone of his voice and the way he closed his eyes tightly and turned away that amped up Jack's growing fear that Daniel had been holding back something more important than just the discovery of the tablets. "Daniel?"

"Look, it's nothing really, but whoever took the objects... took the coffin as well."

"And you call that nothing!" Jack could actually feel himself go pale. "Anyone home?"

"Listed as complete with untouched mummified remains."

"Daniel, if whoever wins the damn bid opens up the coffin and orders up a DNA test..."

"Yeah, I get it, Jack."

There was an air of resignation about Daniel that blew in as quickly as he mentioned the coffin and seemed to expand to fill the whole room. How would it feel to suddenly discover his mummified remains were floating around, about to be sold at auction?

And so, where Jack was used to an unmatched level of excitement that came from a Jackson discovery—an unsurpassed moment of fascination and clinical acceptance of the situation—here there was nothing but sadness.

~oOo~

"Carter and Mitchell know what to do."

Daniel's head shot up from where he was resting it on the briefing table, eyes wide with worry. "You told them?"

"No, that's your job. I told them enough to get a plan in motion. That's all. And the address of the auction house."

"I don't under... Oh! No, you're not!"

Jack put a cup of coffee in front of Daniel and pulled up a chair. "Beam up the entire building?" he said as he sat down. "You say that like it hasn't been done before."

"Yes. When they had naquadah to lock on to. This isn't exactly the same."

"Relax, Daniel. The SGC budget isn't so blown that we need to set the Odyssey up in the building removal business just yet. No, I'm having SG-1 drop in, tag the items, and beam them out. In and out in no time."

"What about security?"

"Way ahead of you there. Carter mentioned some mumbo-jumbo about running electronic interference. Mitchell and Teal'c are packing C4 as we speak. You know... just in case."

Daniel sat back and picked up his coffee, blowing at the rising steam. "Even if they get everything, there's still the images on the website and computer back-ups to worry about, and there's no way to know how many people have taken copies from the website itself."

"Can't get everything."

"Which is a problem."

"Plausible deniability can be an effective weapon. Not that I think we'll need it."

Daniel frowned into his cup. "The loss of the artifacts would cast doubt on their authenticity, making the content of the images appear... controversial."

"I was gonna say fake, but controversial works for me." Jack shrugged and checked the time on his wristwatch. "Mitchell, Carter and Teal'c will be here for a briefing soon. Oh, and Landry. He's a good guy, Daniel."

"I just needed to tell you first, you know?"

"I get it. You up to telling this story twice?"

"No choice."

"Nope, because if you leave it to me you know I'm gonna skip the good parts."

"You and history?"

"Like that." Jack raised his right hand and crossed two fingers. "Only the more abridged version... with stick figures."

"That's funny, Jack," Daniel said dryly.

"One more thing, Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"There's no wasting time. SG-1 needs to get in and take care of business as soon as everything is set up. That's SG-1 minus you, Doctor Jackson."

"Jack," Daniel said pleadingly. "I should be with them."

"No, you need some rest and, at least for the recovery part of the mission, a good dose of detachment. I'll make that an order if I have to."

"And then what?"

"Then, assuming everything goes to plan, you get to play with those tablets, but that's all you get."

"What about... him?"

Jack swallowed hard and fought to maintain his composure. His emotions swung like a pendulum between anger at the other Daniel's remains being auctioned for profit, feeling as though it somehow belittled his memory and importance to those who loved him, and sorrow for his Daniel who had been deliberately thrust into the situation by the events of a past none of them could truly comprehend. "I'll figure something."

"Cremation. There can't be anything left to trace back to—"

"It's okay. I said I'll take care of it." He clamped a hand on Daniel's shoulder and felt the tension of pent up emotions vibrating loudly beneath the surface. "And then we'll take him home."

~oOo~

Stars died in silence.

Katep looked on with a heavy heart as a large cover stone was set in place over the opening of the tomb, sealing the old man and his tablets away for all eternity.

You made this tomb when you were alive and your bones did not ache with the pain of age, for only those whom the king favored with a tomb could enter the afterlife and be free of the darkness that awaited mere men with their last breath.

You shunned the need for possessions, taking with you nothing more than a chair to rest your weary soul upon and a sturdy box for your tablets. Kings have other ideas, as often kings do when their word is absolute, and so I am sorry for the jars of food you will not eat, and for the jewelry your wore under sufferance in this life but did not want in the next. And for everything else King Den believes you deserve.

Thankful are those of us who dwelt in the darkness of Ra but whom you have delivered into the light.

And honored am I for watching you pass from this life to the next.

The sky was growing dark and the wind from the south was forcing its way across the land, showering sand over the new tomb.

Farewell, Dan'yel

~oOo~

Where there should have been excitement, instead a weariness washed over Daniel as he took in the small sample of tablets scattered about his lab. Space had been made, projects packed away in favor of making room for portable workbenches that Siler and his team had wheeled in. Odyssey had beamed down the crate of tablets and other items found in the tomb, but it wasn't until Daniel started the unpacking did he realize the enormity of what had been recovered. His reality was twisted, skewed with the extent of what was sitting in front of him, and what had been left in the hopes that a once damaged past would be corrected enough for a future version of himself to understand.

"You okay?" Jack stood in the doorway, slouched against the frame with his hands tucked in his pockets and a soft smile on his face. Daniel had no idea how long he had been standing there, watching him, maybe looking for some crack in his cleverly built emotional façade. Was he okay?

The problem, as Daniel had so blandly labeled his emotions of the last few days, was that he didn't know how he was. He felt the familiar sense of mourning that enveloped him when he lost Sha're, but this time it was tempered with a sense of fascination, driven by the need to disconnect from what these tablets meant to him personally.

Unable to hide his pain, Daniel sucked in a breath and shook his head. "No. Not really."

Jack pushed off the doorjamb and walked into the lab, hooking a stool with one foot and sitting down in front of Daniel's workbench. He reached out to touch the tablet Daniel had been staring at, but pulled back before making contact. "It's a lot to take in."

"He knew, Jack. He knew he was dying, so he did everything he could to document his life for us to find."

"Hey, if just one of us could survive back then, well... I'm glad it was you."

"Really?"

"Who better to live in Ancient Egypt then someone who studied it."

"Book of the Dead moment?"

"Something else I never quite understood but, yeah... I guess."

Daniel cast his gaze around the room, taking in the large crate that held tablets still to be unpacked, as well as those that were already sitting out on the various workbenches waiting for his attention.

"These... they're the total sum of his life—everything he experienced there is on these tablets."
"Which just goes to show that even without paper, you kept a journal. Kinda hard to keep on a bookshelf, though."

"That's funny, Jack."

"True, though." Jack stood up and pushed the stool away. "He was a good guy, Daniel. So are you. I know you'll make his effort count for something, even if we are the only ones who get to know his story."

"He never finished the last tablet." Daniel nodded towards a lone tablet sitting on a bench to his right. Even somewhat shrouded by the cloth it had been packed in, it was clear the surface was only partially covered in glyphs. "Died before he could complete it." He shrugged and closed his eyes for a moment, frowning.

"Happens to us all, Daniel. Live and die, ashes, dust, and all that." Jack eyed him quizzically for a moment, and then added, "Well, with one exception I can think of."

"Oddly profound."

"I have my moments." He turned towards the door and took a few steps before looking back over his shoulder at Daniel and pointing towards the ceiling. "I'm heading up to take care of the other part of our... problem. I'll be back, though."

The coffin. Daniel had everything recovered from the auction house, but Jack had ordered the coffin be left on board Odyssey.

"And don't even bother asking."

"I wasn't."

"Not going to happen."

"I get it, Jack."

"Good. I need to get going. I'll sort our travel plans as soon as I have his ashes."

"You're not expecting a problem?"

"Na. The Egyptian ambassador and I go way back. Way... way back. You sure you're gonna be okay?"

Daniel nodded once and turned back to the tablet he had taken from the packing crate and carefully unwrapped. Its beauty lay not in its appearance but in the history etched into its surface and the warmth Daniel swore he could feel when he touched the first glyph.

Dips and curves and corners, words and ideas all crafted with care in the hope of preserving the past for the one person in the future that could best make sense of it all.

"The first thing you notice is that the stars are different..."

The End.