Book 4 - New Horizons 6

11/05/2024 – 21.47
Prepped & ready SG2 & their new best friends stepped through the gate again accompanied by Meera Taneja, who this time successfully managed to hold the contents of her stomach in place.
11/05/2024 – 21.49
Stepping out of the gate SG2 were confronted by an increased number of guards securing the chamber. The gas lights had been cleaned off & now bathed the room in a gentle yellow flickering glow.
Straight to business, Captain Zaghloul was keen to represent the SG members to the city council to see what agreement for an exchange of food & technology, he also proudly displayed his new pistol to the Memphis soldiery.
Dungip however was keen to investigate what Lateefah Eldesouky had told him about other ancient artefacts kept in the museum as well as investigating further the hieroglyphs particularly the one that appeared to depict the gate. Unfortunately, the potential for barter overrode this but Lateefah promised they would consult further on this before the day was done (as noted by SG2 the day length was shorter on Geb & it was therefore out of kilter with earth’s 24 hour clock)
11/05/2024 – 22.19
As previous carriages were immediately arranged & SG2, accompanied by an honour guard, Lateefah Eldesouky & Captain Zaghloul attended the hastily summoned city council. This time however the presence of the outworlders had clearly spread & a large mass of curious civilians were gathered at the gates to the palace gardens. The throng were held back however by armed city militia.
11/05/2024 – 22.34
Inside the privy chambers the council of twelve as well as various hangers on & those representing Memphis’ religious order waited took their places at the high table, as previous, much food & wine was offered to SG2.

After brief pleasantries Captain Zaghloul & Lateefah Eldesouky gave a brief account of their amazement at the world beyond the gate including details of the temporary entrapment of the SG personnel in the underground bunker but made no mention of the decimation on the surface above as this had been withheld from them. Zaghloul proudly showed the council the wonderful repeating hand gun that he had exchanged his black powder pistol, it was lost on SG2 that this was clearly of interest to the council as a most prized possession.

Without further ado, the council, led by Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, commenced negotiations with SG2 for the acquisition of weapons in exchange for food & manpower. Whilst SG2 felt this was above their paygrade they resolutely tried to steer talks away from weapons with talk of the destruction that could ensue & made offers of medical & industrial technology. It was clear that the council had been very impressed by the demonstration that Jayne had given them on their previous visit to Memphis & no amount of talk could distract them from their desire for fire power to obliterate Hermopolis & its false idol worshipping inhabitants.

Eventually SG2 agreed to take Memphians request for weapons back to earth although none of them considered that Mahonney would be happy to have to decide on this one.

In the meantime, the council leader, Hosni Mubarak, suggested that the visitors should be given a tour of the city & its many wonders, he also provided the good captain with a letter of credit from the council to allow SG2 to buy any trinkets of interest as a gift to show the earthmen their sincerity & generosity. In addition, he gave instruction that fresh & preserved foods should be transported to the gate chamber for their new BF’s again as a gift to dhow their honourable intentions. SG2 thanked the council premier whist doing their best not to commit to an exchange of weapons of mass destruction.
12/05/2024 – 03.41
By the time SG2 left the council it appeared to be mid-morning in Memphis, they were greeted by a blue sky, a light breeze & a pleasant temperature.

Captain Zaghloul & Lateefah Eldesouky lead them on foot through the gardens towards the main gate, on route workers could be seen clearing the debris from Kalashnikov shattered bust.

With a guard of 8 armoured soldiers, 4 upfront, 4 to the rear, SG2 were given free access of the city’s streets, denizens & bazaars all to the entertainment to the growing assemblage. As SG2 wandered the streets both captain Zaghloul & Ms Eldesouky took much time to show their visitors the plentiful & wide abundance of food available to the populace, it was impressive. It was noted that whilst there were still poorer members of the community nobody was starving or in want off a place to sleep.

12/05/2024 – 06.23
As the morning progressed into afternoon SG2 felt they’d seen all that there was to see & showed a keenness to return home & report back to those in higher authority plus Dungip was still keen to see what Lateefah had to show him in the museum.

As they toured the many & varied stalls SG2 made use of the letter of credit available to them & bought a collection of trinkets & nibbles as well las several bottles of interesting looking distilled & fortified liquids however they declined several offers from one merchant that seemed to suggest the bottle contained more than just a pleasant drink.

It was at that point that Dr Licance realised the holster for his Spacher P11 was empty.

When Irving announced this to the rest of the party, the colour drained from Zaghloul’s face. Immediately the captain questioned Dr Licance to see if he could recall anything that could help identify the thief. Irving confessed he couldn’t put his finger on any incident other that a young male street artist who had juggled various items for the group in exchange for a few coppers from Ms Eldesouky. Impassively the captain listened to these details & Irving’s description of the boy         before dispatching several runners to alert the city watch.

Clearly concerned about this turn of events the captain’s enthusiasm for continuing the tour of the city was somewhat dampened & eventually he suggested they headed back to palace.

12/05/2024 – 07.52
As they headed back through the crowds towards the palace SG2 enquired of Lateefah as to the judicial systems in Memphis, unhappily, she confirmed what they anticipated was very much how it operated, an eye for an eye was to be expected. The museum curator added that given the status of SG2 it was likely that the miscreant would be treated more severely than normal & at the very least was likely to find himself minus a hand, Dr Irving in particular wasn’t exactly overjoyed to hear this.

12/05/2024 – 08.42
Tired, SG2 followed the captain back to the palace, as they neared the gates a large crown could be seen blocking their path. With a few curt orders the way cleared to reveal a young boy strung up on the palace gates, Irving recognised him as the juggling street performer. It was clear to all that he had been heavily beaten & both his hands had been hacked from his arms. Irving was about to ask if he was dead but realised it would be a waste of breath, it was clear to all that he had bled out.

It was a slightly more subdued party that entered the cool passages in the tesseract.

12/05/2024 – 09.27

Inside the museum SG2 could see a considerable stockpile of foodstuffs amassed for transport through the gate & whilst this didn’t justify the slaughter of the child the thought of fresh food instead of dehydrated rations was certainly improvement.

As promised Lateefah Eldesouky led the party to various chambers in the tesseracts maze of tunnels pointing out various artefacts of assumed origin as well as panels of hieroglyphs. During the ensuing conversations, the operation of the gate & the means of its operation was eventually discussed from which the curator revealed there was a panel of what Dungip referred to as ‘address’ SG2 & Dungip especially was excited to hear about this & when lead to the secluded vault took many photographs, of the 40 plus address listed none replicated the address found in the records on Abydos.

Lateefah also revealed that they had found a number of sealed chambers over the past hundred or so years that that the tesseract had been further investigated. These explorations had uncovered one crypt or ossuary that had contained an empty sarcophagus.

Keen to impress Dungip assisted by the other members of SG2 utilised their various inbuilt sensors as they passed through the mausoleums tunnels & amazed Lateefah when they highlighted a small hidden sepulchre in one of the walls. Whilst the void turned out to be empty it gave Lateefah food for further thought.

After several hours of wandering SG2 made the decision to head home so they could hand the problem of weaponry to Mahonney.

12/05/2024 – 12. 38

On the promise to return soon SG2 stepped through the gate.

12/05/2024 – 12. 41

Back at SGC Mahonney demanded an immediate report on what had transgressed on Geb & as expected he was chuffed to find that the decision to possibly assist with genocide was to be his priority.

There was overall a much more positive feeling in the base as the transfer of stockpiled food had already commenced.

In addition, SG2’s return was greeted by the sight of Helen alongside Mahonney, the base commander advised that as, apart from her miraculous health, he could see no reaso0n to continue her isolation. Irving immediately decided to rerun a health check on her but with nothing discovered of the small ceramic type globe he had to concede that she appeared not to be of immediate danger to SGC or its occupants.

Mahonney also advised SG2 that the digging out of the collapsed lift shafts had been halted as it was thought that they would imminently have cleared sufficient so that airspace into the SG network of tunnels would be available. He added that ‘noises’ had been picked up above the near removed rubble suggesting that the virus that infected SGC & then the surface was probably still live. This didn’t go down well with SG2. Under advice from SG2 Mahonney issued instruction for a barricade to be erected around the lift openings a first line of defence in case things went tits up.

With SG2 clearly suffering from the constantly changing time zones Mahonney ordered all to take 48hrs R&R but not before they filed their reports & allowed Dr Helen Schultz full access to all the information recovered from Geb.

14/05/2024 – 10.16

Despite the prescribed R&R Jayne & Dungip were keen to explore the further to investigate the capabilities of the energy staffs recovered from Abydos now that they appeared to have the charging mechanism. With this in mind & accompanied by Didimos they travelled to Abydos with what they thought was a pair of fully charges staffs.

Setting up a basic firing range out of the way of the inhabitants the three spent several happy hours blowing holes in rocks & bushes to confirm the number of shots it held, its effective range & its best use against armour.

Rex meantime spent a happy couple of days writing a report to assist Mahonney in making the decision whether to supply any modern weaponry to the Memphians in their conflict with the Hermopolisans.

In turn Mahonney had instructed Dr Irving & his team to draw up a list of what medical supplies & equipment they could realistically barter for food.

Agatha, free from instruction by Mahonney assisted Helen where she could in respect of the social organisation & Memphis culture.

Post R&R Mahonney reached a decision on supply of weapons to Geb, as expected it was a big fat no. Accompanied by SG2 he visited the council in Memphis & gave them the good news, it went down like a lead balloon.

Whilst this was going on Irving & Dungip had spoken to Lateefah at some length as it had come to light that there were long standing issues with a regressing birth rate in the city as well as high incidence of infantile death & still births. Lateefah confirmed that she too suffered from an inability to have children. With the limited resources available to them, the pair started to investigate matters. Dungip had already made note that there was a slightly higher level of background radiation than he was comfortable with.