Lee eyed the cat where it sat watching them. "Why is that thing still following us around?"

Van looked up from the text he was studying. "I don't know, maybe he wants company."

"Are you sure it's a he?" Lee looked at the cat.

"I have no idea and I'm certainly not going to lift its tail and check. But I'm not going to continue to say 'it'."

"So, what did you name him?"

"Name him? What makes you think I've named him?" Van asked.

"Because you are a cat person," she replied.

"You are too!"

"Am not. Princess Snowflake was my mother's cat, I've already explained that."

"Princess Snowflake?"

Oliver grinned. "Our mother thought it was a fitting name since Snowflake's mother was a pedigreed cat with papers. Never mind that Snowy's father was some alleycat her mom got busy with."

Mal wrinkled his nose. "Right, can we change the subject?"

Lee was still eyeing the cat. "It gives me the willies. The thing sits there and stares at us. It doesn't even meow. It's like he's studying us." The cat turned to look at her when she scooted further from it.

Van smiled at the cat. "We ignore her, you should too, Tater Tot." The cat dipped its head as if it understood what Van had told it.

"You named the poor thing Tater Tot?" Lee asked.

"It's a perfectly respectable name. Besides, he sort of looks like a tater tot, he's brown and he's, you know, tater tot shaped." Van shrugged.

She shook her head. "Right, are you two nerds done studying this place so we can go home?"

"Captain, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet."

"Colonel, as nice as not getting shot at is, I'm bored. Van and Ollie may find this stuff thrilling but I do not."

"Take the cat for a walk," he told her.

"Har har, so funny, sir. Look, we've been here for four days can't we go home?"

"No, we can't. We've barely scratched the surface of the information in this place," Oliver told her. "Expand your mind, Lee."

"I can't read Furling so my mind will stay un-expanded." She frowned. "Wait a minute, if the idea of this place was to spread knowledge, how would people read the stuff if it was in Furling?"

Oliver gestured toward the computer console they'd found the first day. "That interface device translates the information into whatever language the reader is familiar with. It's quite advanced. It's not like anything we have on Earth. You pick the text you'd like to read, place it on the console and it will give you the translation."

"So they one upped Google translate?" Lee asked with a smirk.

He snorted. "Google translate is a useless toy by comparison. That interface can translate into any language, it isn't preprogrammed, it simply knows."

"Maybe it reads your mind." She bounced her eyebrows.

"We think it does a scan of your brain and it detects the areas of the brian dedicated to language and speech. It can pick up the language your brain is familiar with," Oliver explained. "It's a stunning piece of technology. Can you imagine what it could do for us on Earth, how we could break down the barriers of language?"

"Yeah, great! We can translate, 'Pardon me, where is the bathroom?' for all the tourists."

"Funny. It would make any sort of negotiations or peace meetings go much more smoothly. I would love to bring it back and see if we could reverse engineer it but it seems to be integral to the structure. I think removing it would do irreparable damage." He sighed dramatically. "It's a shame. The knowledge contained here is amazing."

The cat looked between Oliver and Van. "At least two of you are worth speaking to."

Lee screeched and jumped up from her seat, her P90 aimed at the cat. "It talked! You heard it, right?"

Van smiled. "You can talk?"

"Of course I can, I'm not a fool."

"This is amazing, a cat that can talk." Van released a little squeal of excitement. "Wait, talking cat ... are you a Furling?"

"Indeed, I am." The cat dipped its head.

"This is amazing! I have so many questions for you! Are there more of you, where did you go?"

"We left to avoid the ongoing war with the Goa'uld. We are many, our people are not as prolific as they were in the past, but we continue to survive."

"Can we come to the planet and meet your leaders, there is so much we'd like to learn from you!" Van said excitedly.

"This is the reason I've been sent to find you."

Oliver smiled. "This is phenomenal. We've been searching for you for a long while."

"And you must stop. We left for a reason," Tater Tot told him.

"But the Goa'uld have been defeated!" Van insisted. "There is no danger from them anymore!"

The cat gave his head a shake. "We choose to remain isolated. It matters little to us that the Goa'uld are no longer a threat, there will always be a threat of some sort waiting to step forward. You must stop searching for us. We will not tell you again."

"But ... we want to learn from you!" Van told the cat with a slight whine in his voice.

The cat stood. "We have left plenty behind for you to learn from but we do not wish to be found. We enjoy the lives we have built in isolation. This is the only warning we will give you."

"Warning? Is that a threat?" Mal asked with narrowed eyes.

"Yes, it is. Stop your search for our new home or our leaders will make certain that you are stopped. As far as anyone is concerned the Furlings have vanished and we would like to keep it that way." The cat looked at Van. "I appreciate your enthusiasm and there are those among us who would welcome your questions but it would put us at risk of being discovered, I am sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

The cat dipped its head. "It has been a pleasure to observe you these past few days. It is obvious to me how much you value learning, just as we do." He eyed Lee. "At least some of you do."

"Hey!" Lee shouted.

Tater Tot ignored her. "My name is Tikia Pata. Loosely translated it would mean small potato in your language so I was quite pleased with the name you gave me. I wish you well, SG-1. This is goodbye, you will not be contacted by us again." The cat turned and left the building.

Van made a small noise and sniffled. "We finally meet a Furling and they want nothing to do with us."

"We were just told to screw off by a cat," Lee said. "This job keeps getting weirder." She looked at Mal. "Can we go home now?"

He ignored her question and looked at Van. "You doing okay?"

"I ... can't answer that right now."

"Dammit, I should have asked him how to build one of those translater things," Oliver said.

"I don't think he was in a sharing kind of mood, Ollie."

"Yeah, I guess not. That's too bad."

"Great, perfect, that didn't answer my question. Can we go home now?"

Van sighed deeply. "Yes, we can go home. I'll make a recommendation to Dr. Jackson to send a team back here to study the place some more. If they can take a closer looked at the translation device maybe they can figure out how to build something similar to it."

"All right, it's late, let's get some rest and we can pack up and leave in the morning," Mal told them.

Van sighed again. "This is depressing."

"And disappointing," Oliver added.

"Isn't it usually disappointing when you meet your idols?" Lee asked them.

"Not for me, Dr. Jackson is a great guy," Van said.

Lee rolled her eyes. "All right, that is an exception."

"Dr. McKay is ... nice?" Oliver said.

"Was that a question?" Lee frowned at him.

Oliver shrugged. "He has his moments."

"I bet. I'm turning in, the faster I get to sleep the faster it will be morning. Night guys." Lee moved away to crawl into her sleeping bag.

"Night, you two," Mal told Oliver and Van before he went to his sleeping bag.

Oliver looked at Van. "You tired?"

"Not really. You?"

"Nope."

"Do you want to take another look at the historical section?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Oliver stood with a grin.

"Nerds!" Lee called out as they headed off to fetch items from the section designated for historical data.

Lee threw her arms up. "I am so happy to be home!"

Sam chuckled as Lee came down the ramp from the Gate. "Welcome home, Captain. How was the trip?"

"Boring, ma'am, very boring."

"Well, that's a nice change."

Lee shrugged. "I suppose, but some excitement would have been nice."

"We had some excitement! We met a Furling!" Van burst out.

"You found them?" Sam asked.

"They found us, ma'am," Mal said. "Apparently they are quite happy being lost and don't want to be found by anyone. The one they sent to speak to us, told us this was our one and only warning to stop searching for them."

"So they aren't willing to be allies?"

"No, ma'am, it would appear not."

"Well, we know they're out there somewhere. Maybe someday they'll change their minds," Sam said.

"Maybe. It would be nice if they did change their minds, Tikia Pata was very nice," Van told her.

"Oh yes, he even liked the fact that Van named him Tater Tot before we knew who he was," Lee added.

"Hey, it was a perfectly respectable name!"

Lee snorted. "If you say so."

"We'll debrief in an hour. Go ahead and get changed," Sam told them.

"Yes, ma'am."

Sam watched them go with a small smile. Lee and Van were arguing about pet names while Oliver added in his viewpoint and Mal trailed behind them grinning and shaking his head. They were a good team. They complemented one another and it was a perfect working relationship. She knew she'd made the right choice when she'd chosen them and with the addition of Oliver the team was complete. It was good to have an SG-1 team back in action, to see a new little family forming and growing together.