McGee emerged in his quarters on Ther'lin, and stood still, letting the tension that had gripped him at the sight of the dragon babies finally ease, slipping away like water down a drain.  When it was gone he sank into the arm chair that was angled so that he could look out the observation window Ther'lin had added to his quarters shortly after she accepted him as her companion eons ago.  Outside was the blackness of space broken by points of starlight or the view of a planet or a nebula or comet trail or any of the other things that made up creation came and went.  In the long years he'd watched the nurseries of the First Ones, as life began emerging and then evolving, the view had kept him sane, comforted and calmed him the way an aquarium was said to do.  He'd learned in those years that the one thing he could count on was that time passed.  Artificial construct that it was, still it went by, moving from one moment to the next, inexorable and constant.  That fact had become the meaning of hope for him. 

He leaned back and thought of what Marc had said about companions and closed his eyes against the inrush of memory, the images of her that he kept locked away against the times when loneliness was absolute, unending and unbearable.  Eons later and the ache was as sharp as it had been when it began in the instant immediately after the last glimpse he'd had of her.  He closed his eyes and saw her against the backside of his eyelids; saw every detail of her from the long silky red-brown hair, the silky eyes of the same rich russet color, the ripe, pouting red of her mouth, and the rosy golden skin to the high proud breasts, the parabolic curve of waist flaring out to hips and the sleek length of her legs.  He saw it, absorbed the stab of want mingled with loss and then shoved it away. 

He opened his eyes and let out an audible sigh.  Then he drew the mask down over his face, and rearranged the light in his eyes back into its usual camouflage and went over to his bookcase.  He ran a finger along the spines and stopped at one, a slim volume.  He pulled it out and opened it to a random page, studying the symbols and diagrams that covered most of the page.  Then he closed it and looked back at the shelves, reaching for another volume, fatter this time, and opened it to a random page, whose paper, unlike the other book, was tissue thin, and looked at the bolded text followed by other unbolded words in sentences as they marched down the page.  He flipped back to the front and looked at the alphabet printed there followed by the basic rules of pronunciation, punctuation, and grammar that unlocked the language of the words defined in this dictionary. 

He nodded to himself, flipped it closed and with a silent farewell to Ther'lin, zapped back to the common room on Aaru.  He held the two books out to Melly and Colin, waiting with Marc and Dinah for him to return.  "These will give you what you need, I think, to read the script in the cavern."

Colin took the book offered him eagerly, thumbing through it, looking quickly at page after page. A huge grin lit his pleasant features. "Oh, this is great. Listen, do you know anything about what is kept in the cavern libraries? I mean, is it history, or science, or what?"

"My understanding is that it covers a variety of subjects," McGee said.  "But from what I saw of the video you took, in this case it's something to do with genetics."

Marc's head came up at that. "Maybe I should take a look at it when you two have it translated," he said to Melly and Colin.

"You may need to look at it before that," Melly said, looking up from the other book.  She held it out to him.  "I don't know nothing about genetics beyond Mendeleev and his sweet peas."

"Okay, let's go check it out. You sound disappointed Melly. You were hoping for a treasure map, weren't you?" Marc asked with a grin.

"Me too," Colin agreed glumly.

"Well, genetics are a sort of treasure map. You two just want to dig up tombs and cities whereas I want to dig up something a little bit more basic."

"Basic?" Melly said.  "I'd have thought genetics fell into the advanced category, myself."

"Well, basic in the sense that genetics deals with the building blocks of what makes you and me look like we do. And, what makes us build your tombs and cities."

"And what do you wanna do with it when you get it?" Melly asked, gesturing to the screen where the script was displayed.

Marc sat down next to her as she programmed the alterations that would help them read it.  "Understand it."

She looked up from her typing.  She understood wanting to understand it.  "And then what?"

"Don't know," he confessed. "Sometimes you can use that sort of knowledge to help cure disease, or forestall mistakes of evolution, or even plan how to move someone forward. We used it to try to make normals operant. To understand the development of the brain structures that were activated in the process and seeing if we couldn't alter them from latent to active. Who knows what someone so far ahead of us could do."

Melly shifted her chair so McGee could reach the keyboard.  "If you could put in the translation of those," she said to him, "the program will start crunching."

McGee nodded and began typing. 

"So in this case create whole new species or move others into sentience or pre-sentience who would never have made it on their own?" she said to Marc while she watched.

"So it would seem. Or at least perhaps, over such a long time period, keep detailed notes on genetic changes and consequences of such changes, not to mention the dead ends and mistakes along the way. But the mistakes are often leaps forward. What might seem a step toward extinction might instead produce the slightest alteration of a chemical perhaps that provides a being with just the minutest edge."

"You make it sound exciting," Colin commented, frowning.

"It is," Marc replied with a grin.   Colin rolled his eyes.

Melly laughed.  "He's bored by cities and tombs, Colin.  It's probably a genetic thing."

Marc laughed. "Well, I watched most of the cities you dig up built, so it's not quite as much a puzzle that intrigues me as new knowledge is."

"That would explain it," Melly said.  Then she leaned forward to watch what McGee was doing.  "You understand the mathematics?" she asked him.

"No, or at least only to a fairly basic point, say the equivalent of differential calculus from piloting Ther'lin," McGee said.  "But enough so that I can define some of the symbology for you.  After that you're going to have to work based on context for the most part."  He switched the screen back to the script from the cavern and scrolled through it, stopping at a series of equations.  "This bit here is wave mechanics.  I recognize it, but I don't know anything about it."  He scrolled to another part of the script and a series of equations and schematics.  "This is beyond me totally.  If I had to guess what you're looking at I'd say it's biochemistry, probably neurological applied to brain wave function and information theory, meaning the biochemistry involved in learning, based on what came before it."

Marc was glued to the screen, his interest almost a palpable thing.

"I hope you stocked up on sex, Dinah," Ingev said with a grin. "I'm thinkin' your partner there is gonna be busy 24/7."

Dinah looked at Marc and sighed.  "Men and their toys."

Melly grinned at her.  "Reno says women and their puzzles."

"Well, Dinah, I'm often left twiddling my thumbs. We can play scrabble," Reno added, "while these three puzzle it all out."

"Gee Reno, I can't recall how long it's been since I've had a better offer," Dinah said, rolling her eyes.  She nudged Marc on the shoulder.  "You gonna come up for food or should I just hook up the IV feeding station now?"

"Hmmm?" he said, "see that, Melly, right there. Oh, that's elegant."

Dinah groaned and shook her head.  "He's all yours Melly.  Don't forget to send him home when you're through with him."

Melly ignored her, leaning in closer.  "I see it, I just am not sure I get it," she said. 

"Oh, well I guess you don't have a background in that sort of thing. Just ... wow..." Marc said, madly taking notes in a notebook he'd conjured up.

"Where's the scrabble board, Reno?" Dinah said.

McGee laughed and pushed his chair back.  "That's it.  You're on your own now, I'm afraid.  But I'm guessing you're not going to have much trouble.  They want this stuff understood.  Obviously, or they wouldn't have put it there."

"Yes, I agree," Marc replied, still taking notes.

"You know..." Colin said and let the thought fade as he reached for his own notebook. "Melly we need to go back to the cave. Darin has three relics now, and all have the same symbol on them. But one relic activated just one part of only one cave - or so we think anyway. So there must be other keys out there, and we need to know the symbols. Let's go over that cavern from top to bottom and see if there isn't something there that can give us a hint as to what the other symbols look like."

"If this symbol is related to the genetics, maybe another symbol activates, I dunno, history or something," Reno commented. "Hell even economics."

"You mean the one on Darin's key?" McGee said.  "That's the symbol for the dragons.  Genetics is the helix.  Many of the sigils you see for the Houses correspond to the symbology they used.  It was deliberate."

Marc looked around at that. "You're telling me the Houses have been using this notational system? Do they realize it? I thought they were, I don't know, just stylistic."

"They do too," McGee said.  "They have no control over the palm sigils.  Those are a function of the genetics and the First Ones copied it.  All I really meant is the glyphs they used to represent things are to some degree in use now."

"Who else do we have who's into symbology," Marc asked looking around frowning.  "We need someone to compile all of the ones here and look for similarities among the house symbols and cross-reference all of it with what we learn from the cavern and hopefully more of them.  And if this symbol represents the dragons, then maybe some others represent, I don't know, other species they were studying.  Anja?" Marc suddenly said, looking at her.

She jumped at the sound of her name and looked up, coloring.

"You were frowning. Why?" Marc asked.

"I was thinking..." Anja replied.

"And?" Marc demanded.

"And I was thinking I've seen that symbol before. And possibly that I've seen variations on some of the House sigils.  It's only now seemed.. interesting."

"Where?" Melly asked.

"At the monastery where I grew up, on my home world," Anja replied.

"In a book? On a mosaic? Or in a painting?  Or what?" Melly asked.

"In paintings but also used in some of the texts.  Ideographs. To denote complex concepts in shorthand. That sort of thing," Anja explained. "St Michael's has a few texts but not quite so many as my home world, I don't think. Perhaps I imagine that, however."

"And you can read the texts?  You know what they mean or say or whatever?" Melly said. 

"Yes, of course," Anja replied, confused.

"Have you read them yourself?" Dinah asked.  "I think that's what she's really getting at.  And if we went there would they let us use them?"

"Yes, I've read some of them. The texts are there for study, so I do not see why the monks would not let anyone see them.  The tradition is that those who wish to stay and meditate and study are welcome."

Dinah looked at Marc.  "We finish here and head there?"  Or do you want to go to St. Michael's first.  We've business with Lantana anyway and she wants us there when the Assemblies open."

"Let's spend a few days here, and also pick Darin's brain on the symbols. Colin and Melly can check out the cavern top to toe, and then we can head back. How's that? You coming with us McGee?"

McGee looked over at Zaf, an eyebrow raised.  "What do you think?  We haven't been back there in a long time."

"Sure. There's always a good card game if Az or Mikey are around," Zaf replied with a grin.

"Geez, those guys get around," Dinah muttered, scowling.

Zaf laughed. "So do we, darlin', so do we."

"I wonder what the Rev will make of them." Laz said, coming up behind Anja. 

"The Rev?" McGee said.

Marc laughed. "No doubt he'll think them demons. It's what all us cool folks are, after all."

"You're just jealous he tried to exorcise Julian and not you," Dinah said.  "The Reverend," she explained to McGee, "is our own personal demon hunter.  It's his mission, direct from God."

"No way," McGee said, awed.

"Oh yeah, he's great entertainment.  He disapproves of Mikey hanging out with Az, as you can imagine. I suppose he thinks Az corrupted him,"  Reno added laughing.

McGee laughed.  "Yeah I think we'll tag along.  This guy sounds too good to be true."

Zaf frowned. "If he starts waving holy water at me he's toast."