A Mini-Midlife Crisis

[hi_there_aliens]

Where to start? He had to resist the urge to pick at the little square bandage on his forehead or the stitches. Daniel put his hands on his hips, where they couldn't get anywhere near his head, and surveyed what was going to temporarily be his domain. Until he got kicked out, at least, but until then, he was determined to squat here. As makeshift archaeology labs went, he'd worked with less. It was a lot to take in; there were an impressive amount of artifacts from the dig. They probably didn't even scratch the surface of Taleen, but they'd brought back a lot anyway. The room was crowded. Practically overflowing. An archaeologist's wet dream. Maybe not Meaning of Life Stuff, but this could keep a person occupied for months. Maybe years, depending on how thoroughly you wanted to go into it.

Daniel didn't make any motion to begin on any of them. He sat down and looked at the tables.

What the hell was he even doing here? Once the excitement and rush wore off, Daniel realized how inappropriate this was. Talk about a lack of priorities. The fact that he was still thrilled about the prospect of spending a day studying them angered him at the same time as it excited him. Sha're was out there, still a host. Or maybe not, if his universe really had been destroyed. Daniel had a hard time wrapping his head around the concept. Part of him still didn't believe it was true. He wanted proof. Something besides Stacy and the Daligig's word. At the same time, having actual proof only meant that what felt like a terrible possibility became cold, hard fact. Maybe he didn't want to know. It was easier on his sanity if he could wonder if SG-1 was out there still.

And here he was, about to get arm deep in relics and a dead civilization. Like it had any bearing on what was supposed to be the most important thing. He should be trying to get back home or - or do something to help everything and everyone he ever cared about.

Sure thing, as soon as he found some good options. So far, Daniel didn't see anything better than staying on this ship. Even if he found a Stargate, it wasn't like he could abandon ship. It wasn't a matter of attachment but practicality. Where would he go? No point of origin, or maybe they were different, and even if he went back to this Earth, nothing was quite the same. It wasn't his universe. He was better off sticking with Stacy, Daniel had to admit to himself. Everything seemed to converge on her. If anything was going to come up that would help, it would more likely happen around her. That left him doing missions while he was on board, working. Maybe they'd find something on one planet, something that could helped his universe. Even with the destruction of Thor's Hammer, he had a chance to find something to help Sha're.

Daniel took a breath. He stood up. He could make himself useful until the next mission. He had a few things he wanted to study first. The mummy they brought back lay on the table. He was dying to start on it. Or there were the Goa'uld devices.

Comments

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

Hiccup had come to the labs to work on one of his little personal projects. So far, he'd gotten science types to help him put laser edges on various weapons, but he wanted to be able to do it by himself, and understanding that kind of technology required a bit of experimentation, putting things together and taking them apart to figure out how they worked.

The young Viking had a surprise in store for him, however, in the form of what was obviously some kinda of body, dug up from somewhere, laid out on a table.

Cue panic. Vikings had certain beliefs and superstitions about the dead, and quite a few of them involved sending them off properly so that they didn't come back as draugur.

Thus, Daniel found himself confronted by a young man in clothes that were styled older than the clothes some had on the ship. He was wearing a tunic and leggings, as well as a single boot on his good foot. The other leg was mechanical in nature.

"What are you doing?" he exclaimed, flapping the hand that held his omnicom in it. "What is that?"

Did this guy seriously grave-rob from somewhere?

[livestoannoy]

Marco hadn't actually intended to go to the Science Department at all. It wasn't exactly his thing; he left that stuff up to Ax. But then when he was walking along the hallway just outside, it appeared.

The otter.

There it was, standing in the middle of the corridor like it owned the place and looking up at him with those beady little evil eyes. Marco only had half a second before the thing launched himself at him. Cursing, Marco lunged to the side, darting to get through the nearest door - the one leading towards the Science Department.

But the otter was too quick, and before he could shut the door on the stupid thing's face it latched onto his the end of his jeans. Letting out a stream of profanity that he would really appreciate Daniel not telling his mother about, Marco shook his leg, trying to get the otter off. (And possibly to try and kick it too. Just a little.)

[youmissed]

After Moya and all the other weird ships he'd been on, John thought he had this down to a science. Explore ship tier by tier. (Learn to open the doors and use the bathroom: always Step 1 and Step 2 in his book). Find any fire exits. Keep your hands and arms inside at all times. Remember stranger danger with any aliens giving you the eye, especially if they tried to knife you. Or have wild alien sex with you. Maybe shake things up with wild alien sex + knifing. Tended to get all kinds of awkward then.

Yeah, John Crichton totally had this.

He liked to think he was a positive guy. Couldn't get back home? Fine, okay, he'd go with the other options of Don't Get Killed By Scorpius and Don't Die of Alien Food Poisoning on Moya. Considering most of the time he just had food cubes, you really, really, really had to make an effort to get food poisoning. So yeah. Being told his home world might be destroyed but it was possible to bring it back, John tried to take a glass half full attitude about it. First things first. Figure his way out around the ship. Then how he could help with this Ohm thing.

John wandered. He thought he was just picking a random hall. Finding out what was where. But it felt like something in the back of his mind was tugging at him -- a hunch maybe -- and he found himself veering off until he stood in front of what was apparently the Science Department.

Somehow it felt like this was exactly the place he wanted to be.

"Hey, anyone home?" John knocked on the wall. "Doctor Jones?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor wasn't much for knocking. Not quite his thing, knocking. He could do it when he absolutely had to, but he rather preferred letting himself in and cutting out the middleman.

Easier that way.

The Doctor almost tripped over that otter of Daniel's. The otter shot him an annoyed look and a twitch of its whiskers before it got to its feet and began to lead him around the maze of artifacts with that loping otter run. The Doctor followed behind, jigging and jagging over engine pieces and ancient pottery. Took a leggy hop over a collection of holo projectors that were fritzing on and off, apparently still functioning on their backup power cells. The otter slinked its way toward where he would eventually find the human, standing in front of a table with a dead person on it.

Ah, of course. Daniel and Egyptians. It meant he'd have a special interest in mummies, he imagined.

The Doctor peered at the mummy. "I suppose you insisted on naming this one. Archaeologists! Never could resist that sort of thing."

Daniel looked about the same as the last time he saw him. Maybe a little bit more frazzled in the hair than he remembered. Other than that, well; Daniel Jackson the Otter Soother. Archaeologist on his time off.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva looks better than the last time he saw her. She's showered, she's brushed her hair and clipped it up, she's put some of her self-inflicted injuries out of sight with lipstick and powder. Her flesh still looks like a curtain between her and the world, as if she's somewhere else entirely, with only her physical body to anchor her to whatever location she's actually in. Haunted, maybe. Clouded.

She debated a long time about whether to come see Daniel. A more selfless person than her might have cut ties with the man entirely. After all, what more is there to say? She is incapable, the nature of time and space is incapable, of producing an apology that is appropriate for what she dragged him into. She can't go back in time and excise him from the situation and torture the cultist in private.

And that's the thing, she still doesn't think she'd have let the cultist get away intact. Some part of her still feels so justified. The Eva that is horrified at herself is sharing space with the Eva that still says 'they attacked us in our home'.

Finally, about half a bottle of wine in, she wrangled her self-doubt into submission and made her way to the science department. She heard there'd been an Archaeology dig and the crew had returned with artifacts. It would make sense to find Daniel here.

She knocks on the doorway a little, trying to call his attention without invading the room.

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

Karis occasionally swept through the science department to pilfer small items that she might find useful and to just poke around and see what other 'engineers' and scientists did. See if she could use any of it. Today happened to be one of those days. She poked her head through the door and then sidled in, eyes locked on the strange mummy on the table.

"Welp, that's a pretty dead corpse you've got there. Whatcha gonna do with it?"

Sure, it was old and musty, but it was still meat.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel looked up. He paused. He took his glasses off, rubbed at his eyes with his forearm, and put them back on, as if he wasn't sure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

If he hadn't dozed off in the middle of the lab, Daniel was looking at a dead person. Who was talking to him. He discreetly pinched himself. Nope, not asleep. There really was a walking corpse across the table. His first instinct wasn't to run. It was to look down at the table, to make sure that the body was actually still there and not up and running around. And had apparently changed species.

Daniel had to admit it. Stacy finally stumped him. He'd been prepared to see everything in the universe but the undead. Now he did actually have a living dead in front of him. The linguist in him cringed. There had to be a better way to refer to them. She wasn't eating him or making any aggressive moves, and right then was where Daniel decided he'd watched one too many zombie films. He'd only seen two. That was already two too many.

"Being dead is generally the idea behind a corpse," Daniel said. He was proud that he came off as professional sounding and not puzzled or shaken. "I'm going to study it. "

He held out a gloved hand. "Daniel Jackson."

[hi_there_aliens]

A minute or two passed before Daniel came to the door, finally pulled away from the sarcophagus. He had the closest thing he could find to a surgical mask, gloves, and safety goggles over his glasses. As he drew closer, he pulled the goggles off and let them drop around his neck. Daniel slowed for a fraction for a second, then continued to the doorway. Eva. What was she doing here?

He wasn't ready to see her again. She looked better than she had in the brig. Clean, brushed, a human being again. Daniel had made it clear that he would try to help her, if he even could, but he'd also made it clear that he didn't know what he thought of her anymore. Did she expect them to go back to what they were before? Whatever that was.

The dig had done some good. Exhilarating, refreshing, and in a way, the politics and the supremely pragmatic military aspect of the SGC's missions left him feeling smothered at times. Stifled was a better word. And for three days, it took his mind off the terrorist attack and Eva's actions. He could do his job. All he'd had to worry about overall was the disaster.

"Eva," Daniel said, a silent 'what are you doing here?' tagging along her name. "Can I help you with anything?"

[hi_there_aliens]

"Actually, I haven't." Yet. Damn you Doctor. He'd been thinking some potentials over. The nice thing about Menkaure was that the otter seemed like a Doctor trip alarm system. It gave Daniel plenty of time to prepare for the oncoming storm and move all the most fragile artifacts out of the path of destruction that was the Doctor.

The otter slid off somewhere. Daniel didn't know where it went half the time, only that it always came back. Usually for food, it knew a good deal when it- he? saw one, but sometimes he would curl around Daniel's ankles as he worked.

Daniel set the brush down, reaching over to adjust a light so he could see better.

"Besides, it seems disrespectful calling it a corpse all the time. Or Remains BX-19 or something like that. There's more dignity to a name."

[hi_there_aliens]

"Menkaure." Daniel called out sharply. The otter reluctantly let go of Marco and backed off like a furry caterpillar. It retreated behind Daniel's legs and glared at the boy from around them.

Call him insane, but Daniel found out quickly that the otter only seemed to respond favorably to Ancient Egyptian. It didn't seem to care for "Otter". Daniel didn't blame it. It was unimaginative as names went. He didn't think it understood anything he was saying, but the sound of the language seemed to do something for it. Anything would've done. Daniel wasn't going to name it some Abydonian swear word, that was cruel, so after some thought, he'd tried some names, before settling on Menkaure, the pharaoh who ordered the smallest of the Giza pyramids.

"You didn't try to pet it or something, did you?"

[hi_there_aliens]

Maybe he should keep the door closed. Put a sign on it that said Archaeologist at Work: Beware of Mummies. Or "Mummies at Play", but that was too cheesy. But he should get a sign. It might spare people the nasty shock of finding a dessicated corpse on a table. Sometimes he forgot that dead bodies bothered most people. Howard's reaction wasn't atypical. And neither was this stranger's.

The clothes were something. They looked almost Viking, and he'd have said it was if it weren't for the mechanical leg, which certainly wasn't Viking. Daniel's eyes traveled up to his face. That was both surprise and horror, and Daniel was thinking the warning on the door should be a top priority. It wasn't like he was going to start an autopsy or something. He didn't even know how to do one. He also wasn't interested in learning.

Daniel set the body's wrist down. Leaving the mask over his nose and mouth on, he lowered the tape recorder from his mouth.

"It's a body," Daniel said. Obviously. "I'm taking notes on the length of the pisiform bone. Can I help you?"

[livestoannoy]

Marco glared back at the otter. Yeah, he's looking at you, you psycho furball.

"That thing is evil," he growled, looking like he trying to get lasers to come out of his eyes and fry the otter. "Like hell I'm going to try and pet it." Tearing his eyes away from That Otter for a moment, he looked up at Daniel, his expression dubious. That guy had called the otter...something. Marco hadn't really caught it. "Don't tell me you actually named it. That goddamn otter is..."

Marco trailed off, frowning. Hang on, this guy was familiar. He'd talked to him before - the memories were a little fuzzy, like they were from years ago when he was a kid, when really they weren't from that long ago at all. They'd been in Cassie house, with pancakes, and Marco had been deaged to about six. The guy had really towered over Marco then.

"Hey, aren't you that dude with the boots?" he said, remembering running around in a pair of boots that had been way too big for him. "You're one of Mom's friends."

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel looked down at the otter. It almost coiled possessively around his legs, as if to say, this was its food factory, stay away. He looked up to find Marco glaring at the otter, as if to say, bring it. Maybe he should step out from between them and let them at it. He was feeling a little like a car stuck before an oncoming train. Two of them. The otter's beady eyes tilted up at him and Daniel muttered another warning, 'Menkaure' at it.

"It's just an animal. It can't be evil," Daniel said. He cocked his head. There was a certain familiarity to the kid. Like he saw him before. Or someone who looked a lot like him.

The boots jogged his memory. The last time he saw him, he'd been about six, had commandeered his boots, and asked him question after question. Like why he studied old people.

"You're Marco?" Daniel blurted out.

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

Obviously it was a body, but Hiccup had been hoping there'd be some sort of explanation for it other than the obvious.

"Oh, oh look at this, you stole all their grave goods too?"

Hiccup looked around the room, then turned and looked at Daniel as if he was a hooligan of the highest order. This was mostly because he thought he was. Vikings did not take kindly to grave-robbing and archaeology hadn't exactly been invented yet in his time.

"Why would you--why would you do that?"

He racked his brain, trying to put the cause of his extreme disapproval into words.

"If they aren't cremated, bodies are supposed to stay in the ground, preferably with their heels nailed together so they don't come back as draugur."

He went on, "But even if that's just a touch too superstitious, that whole unholy revenant problem aside, by digging this person up and not leaving them in peace with their grave goods, you've doomed their soul to eternal wandering. I repeat: Why would you do that?"

Culture clash, Daniel. Gotta love it.

[livestoannoy]

Well it was Daniel's own fault for deciding to take on an insane rodent that for some stupid reason had decided that attacking Marco was it's life ambition on as a pet in the first place. If Daniel had just gotten a normal pet he wouldn't have this problem. In fact, if someone had just done the sensible thing and thrown the goddamn creature out of an airlock, everyone would be infinitely better off.

Okay, so mainly Marco would be better off. But that didn't change the fact that the otter was insane. "That one is evil," Marco said, folding his arms and glaring at it. "And it is most definitely completely insane."

Okay, so Marco had kinda been in the middle of the 'why' stage back when he'd met Daniel the first time. Being six years old would do that to you, although generally Marco was trying to forget much of what it was like being six again. "Yes, I'm Marco," he said, rolling his eyes a little. "What, were you expecting me to still be three feet high?"

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Her mouth's halfway open when she realizes that she doesn't quite have an answer for that. She sighs and pushes that breath out through pouted lips in an expression of deep irritation at herself.

Because I don't know what I am, so I'd at least like to know what we are.

She wraps an arm around her waist and frowns. "What, visiting hours only go one way? I can only talk to you if we're going through the motions of guilt and punishment?"

She cringes at herself, between how slurred the last half of that question came out and how accusatory it sounds. "Sorry. You'd think I'd be in a better mood, what with being off my leash again."

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel opened his mouth to tell her that she brought it on herself, no one forced her to rip a man's face apart, just as no one made her use him to do it, but thought better of it. Then he sniffed. It was a barely perceptible motion, but it brought him up short. That was a whiff of alcohol. It had to be. Eva had been drinking before she decided to come up here? What happened to alcohol wasn't a problem for her, not a solution to life's problems?

He couldn't believe it. But he did bite back his retort. If she was drunk or even buzzed, it might set her off. She obviously wasn't a cheerful one when she did drink. And truthfully, she might have been a little right. Daniel didn't mind visiting her, or meeting somewhere else, but as far as he was concerned, this lab was a sanctuary for him. A place where he could be comfortable, where he could bury himself in the dust of long dead civilizations and let his imagination out.

"Being out of the brig wasn't going to be a cure all. We both know that."

An uncomfortable silence fell. Daniel studied her. Now he could see the careful makeup, the equally careful brush of hair. Maybe Eva was right. He was being a hypocrite. The alternative was he turn Eva away. He didn't have much of a good reason to, and Eva did want to see him. Maybe they could try to work something out. If there was anything that could be salvaged of whatever their relationship was before.

He retrieved a pair of goggles, glove and a mask and handed them to Eva. "Here, put these on and come in."

Daniel turned and led the way back to the sarcophagus.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"More of a cure-nothing," she mutters. The alcohol has lowered her inhibitions about wallowing in self-pity, about letting the negative, self-loathing seeds of doubt in her take hold and keep her wrapped up tight. Normally those thoughts are there, pressed right there up between her brain and skull, where Edriss used to be, but she doesn't verbalize them. Verbalizing these things gives them some kind of authority.

She's about to offer to go when he hands her the gear. She stares at them a moment, dully, then up at him with a question in her face, as if asking for more permission than his offer contains. His gesture has caught her by surprise; a heavy part of her expected to be turned away, or at best barely tolerated. He has no obligation to entertain her attempts at feeling her way through their strange relationship, whatever it is. She expects he only visited her in the brig due to some misguided sense of responsibility, as if he were paying penance as much as she was supposed to be. As that is not the case here, she's fairly flummoxed that he invites her to have an excuse to stay longer.

But he's already turned, so she puts the equipment on and follows him.

"What's this you've got here?"

[hi_there_aliens]

"I'm not a grave robber," Daniel cut in heatedly. No. Just no. He was not going to get labeled with them. Grave robbers took for personal gain, to profit off of on the black market or whatever reason. Archaeologist's removed finds to learn from, to preserve, and more importantly, to understand and then share with the world. "I'm an archaeologist. There's a big difference. If you don't know what it is, maybe you should look it up before making accusations."

Draugur. Aptrgangr, again-walkers. Daniel didn't believe in them. It also wasn't his business to tell the teenager what to believe when it came to his own culture, so Daniel didn't. But he didn't believe in draugur any more than he believed in zombies. Maybe there could be something to Egyptian curses. Even if it sounded ridiculous, he had a feeling almost every Egyptology harbored a tiny amount of superstition. That was different. It seemed like everyone connected to the crew that opened King Tutankhamun's died shortly after. You never knew for sure...

It was time to set him straight about how they found the body.

"For one, this body was not prepared for death or the afterlife. He died from a blast wound and was left trapped in the room we found him," Daniel didn't even know if it was a him, her, or something new. It was hard to tell. The alien had been tall, graceful, avian and reptilian at the same time. It took two tables to support his height.

"There were no ceremonial treatment or any signs of preparation for an afterlife. He was abandoned and his body dessicated by the elements. The site was also going to get destroyed. He would have gone with it and any memory or knowledge of his people would've been lost."

[hi_there_aliens]

Correction, Eva was a depressing, self-hating drinker. Maybe he could get her focused on the artifacts. Not so much focused as distracted. When she was feeling more sober, they could actually talk. If she couldn't respect him or herself enough to come up here without drinking, Daniel wasn't going to indulge the self-pity. He'd wait her out. Then they'd sit down, try and work things out.

Moving through the crowded room was becoming a second nature. Effortless. It never took him long to get used to a lab room, even when it was overflowing with artifacts and not nearly enough tables or room space. He didn't bump into a single one. Weaving in and out of tables and shelves, he took her to the back wall of the lab. The sarcophagus gleamed garishly amongst the rest of the artifacts. On a nearby table, sat the ribbon device and the healing device.

...And then the other healing device, the one he'd accidentally stolen from Vala. Accused her of being a thief and then turning out to be one himself. Today was not his day. He had to track her down.

Daniel came to a stop on the other side of the device. He'd been trying to clean it earlier. Not all of the dirt and sand came off, but there was enough cleared that he could start reading. For now, he left the goggles around his neck for now, and picked up a notepad and pen.

"In general, everything here? Or this?" He tapped the sarcophagus with a knuckle.

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

Hiccup's ruffled feathers started to un-ruffle. Slightly. It was hard to shush lots of ingrained superstitions, especially when seeing people like Karis on board only reaffirmed that the dead could indeed walk under certain circumstances.

Still, recovering a body that had been left where it died wasn't quite as bad as unearthing a grave.

He took half a moment to type the best approximation of "archaeologist" he could spell in runes on the omnicom in his hand, mentally thanked the gods for auto-correct, and then glanced over the basic definition of it.

Then he glanced back at Daniel.

Shuffling awkwardly where he stood, he said, "Well, you are going to bury him, aren't you? At least? With the right, y'know, rites? When you're done doing...whatever it is you're doing?"

[hi_there_aliens]

It wasn't like he had a choice. Daniel got adopted by it. And once he had Menkaure following him around, and making those pitiful starving sounds, Daniel's resolve toppled like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, if you replaced the earthquakes with the pitiful otter face Menkaure kept giving him.

Although it was probably better if the otter went somewhere else, before there was a fight on his hands. He just hoped he could get the otter to leave. Daniel gently nudged it with his heel. It didn't notice him the first time. Daniel did it again, a very gentle but insistent pressure.This time it looked up, and then got up and slunk off.

"Maybe you smell-" it was on the tip of his tongue to say 'bad'. Daniel narrowly averted the disaster by hastily changing the last part of the sentence. "like something otters don't like."

It was weird looking at Marco. One second he was six, now he was a teenager. Maybe ti wasn't that weird, Jack had aged quickly on Argos because of Pelops' nanomachines, but that was different. He remembered everything. Marco had literally gone backwards. So this was Eva's son as he was supposed to be.

He could see the family resemblance. Starting with the sarcasm.

"Sorry. I think I got used to you when you were six." Probably not the best thing to say. He didn't seem to remember him completely, just the boots. The archaeologist held out a hand. "Daniel Jackson."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

It takes Eva quite a bit more effort to not bump into anything, but she's honed her buzzed navigational skills sneaking back to her bedroom without waking Marco at odd hours. Like a naughty teenager. Ironic, that. She makes it through the room without so much as brushing an artifact.

She waves a hand at the crowded room. "It'd take you the better part of an hour to even name everything in this room, and that's not even making any progress towards explaining what makes each piece fascinating."

She leans over the sarcophagus. Its incongruity with just about everything else isn't lost on her. Nor is the attention it must have received from Daniel to get so much cleaner than the other objects.

Her face gets serious. "This is Goa'uld, isn't it?"

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel watched her, making sure she didn't hit any artifacts, and relaxed when she joined him. She was right, it'd take him an hour just to even name them, especially when half the stuff didn't have a name yet.

"Yes. Good eye." She'd never seen one before but Eva was an intelligent woman and what little he'd told her before was enough to pick up the rest. Despite the fact he was still upset with her, it pleased him how quick she was to make the guess.

"These three devices," Four, you thief. Daniel wasn't going to let himself live it down. And if Vala wanted to ever speak to him again if he found her, he didn't think she would either. -"are of Goa'uld origin. This is a sarcophagus. It's not used to keep their dead."

Daniel motioned towards the hand device. He didn't touch it. If he had to pick worst memories between the two, he was actually leaning towards this device instead of the sarcophagus. Dying had hurt, but in his case, extremely quick. The sarcophagus had revived him, so it was more the staff weapons. The hand device on the other hand.... he'd been tortured with it, and it didn't get better each time afterwards. It felt like his brains had been about to disintegrate in his skull. "This is a kara kesh or a ribbon device. It seems to be multipurpose. This is a healing device."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Rather than looking at the objects closely, she mostly pays attention to Daniel, what he does and doesn't do. She doesn't ignore the artifacts, but they're secondary. There's something guarded in his face, some memory he's placing. She wants to ask, but at the same time, she understands the need for privacy, and she doesn't want to be making any demands on him at the moment.

Instead, she asks a related question that may lead her to an answer anyway, but isn't intended to get at it. "What are the sarcophagi used for?"

She has her suspicions, but if Daniel ever explicitly told her what they were used for before, she's forgotten it. Her mind is sharp, but like all human things, imperfect. Edriss was always capable of accessing every fine detail Eva had resigned to oblivion, and in some ways Eva misses having someone there able to call up and cross reference her mind like a computer.