He lowered his hand slowly at the complete lack of reaction, other than a steely-eyed second look, that he got from the leader of those who had greeted them. He didn't know what to do with that, but he knew the nature of the conversation that followed. Something about giants, perhaps Jolly and Green. He never let it bother him, he'd be a miserable person indeed if he did. He'd been hearing about it ever since the moment he'd come into the world. But he shook himself from the idle thought before he could get to the sorrowful edges of it when someone asked him a question.

He looked around, raising his arms and checking 'under his elbows' just in case they were right next to him. And he found her, a big smile spreading across his face when he discovered the source of the question almost as if the answer was something to be particularly proud of. "Yup, they 'read me in' a month ago and told me to wait for their call. So I went on a cataloging run in New Zealand's interior, on the big island, until they called me. Flew in and was given my General Issue yesterday, slept on somebody's office couch, and here I am!" He related it all happily as if she'd specifically asked him for it all. He held out a great big hand after reflexively wiping it off (it was already clean, the move was obviously habitual). "Alexander Badillion Trahourn, folks call me Mississippi. I'm the new Zoologist... I might be the whole Zoology department, actually, nobody has made that clear yet."

More than a little accustomed to being offworld, Ruth was, nevertheless, excited to be on such a remote planet for the first time. She hadn't been approached to go on the Atlantis expedition, but neither had she expressed interest. Sure, there would be plenty of new languages to study, but there had been something holding her back. The whole one way trip aspect, perhaps? At least this posting was only for a few weeks, then she'd be back at the SGC again. Best of both worlds, as far as she was concerned.

There wasn't anyone on the expedition whom she was particularly close to, but there were a couple of people who she was friendly with, which would at least make things easier. Not that she found it hard to make friends; she was the kind of perky person who found the best in all situations, which made things infinitely easier.

The tall guys she was talking to seemed to be every bit as bubbly as she was herself, which she was glad to see, and she fired him a grin as wide as his own as he introduced himself. "Sounds like you've been busy," she replied, arching an eyebrow up. "And why Mississippi? Is that where you're from?" It seemed obvious to her, anyway, but she was probably wrong. "Welcome, anyway, hon." Her Baltimore accent came out strong and plain. "I'm Ruth Tolliver, probably the linguistic department here as well. I've been at the SGC for about three years, so I guess I'm what they call a lifer!" She couldn't imagine doing anything else now.

"No, ma'am," he drawled in an accent plainly indicative of the American South with a higher education thrown atop it. "My Paw is, though. I'm from Plymouth, England by birth. Was raised all over the Southern United States. Which is all to say, my name is really long, I introduce myself by the whole of the thing, and Southerners don't like obvious abbreviations like Alex or Al so much as something a little more... remotely reasoned. I'm just glad I didn't end up with 'Tiny' as a nickname." They also liked irony in the South, but he'd gotten away with them focusing on his name rather than his physical build. A good trade off, so far as he was concerned.

He slowly, almost carefully, held out a hand when she introduced herself in return. "Well, it's right nice to meet you, Doctor Ruth." Mississippi would understand if she didn't want to shake, putting ones hand inside the grip of a much larger one didn't always appeal to the lizard part of peoples brains but he'd been taught to offer anyways. "Well that's alright, you talk pretty enough to handle the job. And I reckon we're all lifers, or at least that's the impression I got from the fine print on that document they had me sign." One could only imagine the chagrin on the faces of the two officers that had been sent to recruit him as he took the time to read through the whole of the non-disclosure agreement they'd asked him to sign before continuing. Especially considering where they'd been at the time, and the size of the mosquitoes there on location.

"Don't call me ma'am, please," Ruth begged. It was hard enough edging closer to her late 30s, being called ma'am was just a step too far, and she didn't care how "respectful" it might seem. Sure, Baltimore just about classed itself as a southern city, but there were no pretensions to being grand there. She was surprised that - technically - Mississippi was a Brit, though, and she smiled. "Sounds like a bit of a mix there, hon," she remarked. "I'm Bawlmer, born and bred, still miss the place." Not being able to go home for a few weeks was a minor annoyance, but still.

Ruth didn't hesitate in shaking Mississippi's hand, gripping it firmly, even though her hand was dwarfed in his. "It's just Ruth," she chuckled. "Yeah, I guess we're in it for life. So what's your story, Mississippi? How'd they find you and reel you in?" She was always interested in how others found their way to the SGC.

"Alright, Miss." He knuckled his brow in an apology. "I'll work on it, but it's our way so please be forgivin' if I fumble a few times." Sounded like a reasonable request of a reasonable request. Folks were funny about the things that got said in other places in the world, and Mississippi was well traveled enough not to take it personally when he got corrected or hard-nosed enough to insist on doing it his way when folks asked politely enough for another. "It's unique, I'll give ya that." He'd never heard of a place called Bawlmer, he'd look it up later, but he covered for that by smiling and nodding like it'd fit right into the conversation. "Always nice to go back home... though I've never been to mine. Not since Paw moved us away, but I was just a baby then. He says I was so small I had to take two bites to eat a whole cow, back then." He chuckled at his old man's words, as he'd quoted them.

"Alright, Miss Ruth." He was doing the best he could on calling a relative stranger in the familiar. Folks might think they were sweet on each other if he went getting too common with the woman so soon. "They said they'd arrived at a point where some questions were finally being asked they hadn't thought about before. So they took them questions and went looking for somebody with the credentials they'd require who'd asked them same questions already. My Masters and Doctoral Theses were all about how a non-native species might adapt to a new environment, why it worked in some cases just fine and either failed or spun horribly out of control in others, and that sort of thing. Asked me if I would be interested in finding out the answers, first hand and immediately. You know, real casual like, by demanding that I signed them papers before they'd even explain what they were talking about."

"How'd they get you?" She was awful pretty, with the vivid red hair, but while his father would have openly added something like 'and to whom do we send the thank you card', Mississippi just thought it without any real commitment to the idea.

This strange, huge Southern guy seemed to be far more quiet and thoughtful than his outward demeanour would indicate, and Ruth appreciated that. The next few weeks were going to be hard enough as it was, and she could do with making a few friends. Nobody she had seen so far had fallen into the "friends" bracket, but that could change easily enough. If there was one thing Ruth could do, it was make friends.

Her eyebrows twitched upwards as Mississippi admitted he hadn't been back to his place of birth since leaving there. "See, I'm a Bawlmer - Baltimore - girl, born and bred, and can't imagine not going home regularly, though I understand that it might be different if you've got no memory ties to the place," she mused. To Ruth, Baltimore was a massive part of who she was, and she was incredibly proud of that.

She rolled her eyes, though, as he called her Miss Ruth. That made her sound every bit as ancient as "ma'am", if not moreso: it smacked of an ancient spinster being driven around in a classic car, and drinking mint juleps on the verandah. She wasn't quite ready to fall into that bracket just yet. "Sounds like you have quite a unique skillset there, Mississippi," remarked Ruth. "And I guess it's as good a way to be found as any, hon."

She cocked an eyebrow up at Mississippi's question about how the SGC had "got" her. "Nothing as impressive," she admitted. "I'm a polyglot, fluent in the classic languages and a few more, and it appears I was what they needed at the time. Couldn't just leave everything to Dr Jackson, apparently." She was just thankful that she was still needed. "And what're you doing on the Beta site? Anything special?"

"Yeah, was only there three months as I understand. All my folks' families are over here... er, in America back that way." He hooked his thumb at the Stargate as he corrected himself after realizing he'd failed to modify his wording for the fact that he wasn't on Earth anymore. He'd seen places like this location back home, but for the color of the sky and a small detail here and there. And Ruth, he'd not seen Ruth back there either. Until the Gate Room. He ran a hand through his short hair and shrugged to himself. "I reckon with running back and forth between Japan and the US, and all points in between, I just never got around to hopping the Atlantic again."

Mississippi shook his head slowly. "Nothing unique about me, I was just thinnin' about the right question at the right time. But motivation can make up for a lot of lost genius, I suppose." Zoology wasn't really a research science, nobody was trying to make a break through that required decades of lab work. For the most part, they were laying around on the ground with a camera trying to witness an animal doing something no one else had ever witnessed said animal doing before. It was more akin to a cross between a wildlife photographer and a small town veterinarian most days, both example disciplines he'd made the effort to learn as well so it was even more so in his case. Documentation was key, and it was cheaper if you didn't have to pay for a separate photographer when you pitched your funding requests to the funding committee.

"Who's Dr. Jackson?" He asked, sounding idly curious but obviously having no idea who the man was or that he should be even remotely considered significant in any way. "Polyglot is pretty impressive. I can manage not to starve to death or get arrested in Japanese, understand scientific Latin, and otherwise I speak Southern. Fortunately, most English speakers can figure out what I'm getting at most of the time." He looked around and could, in the distance, hear the sound of fauna. "Gonna do some cataloging, some testing, etc. See if this planet is viable for us to bring in foreign life forms other than ourselves. My first inclination is to say no, but boy would it be neat if we could." The chances that this world wouldn't be hostile to animal life from Earth, or that animal life from Earth wouldn't be detrimental to this world, were slim. Extremely, in fact.

But who knew until the research and experimenting was done? Nobody. Thus Mississippi stood on an alien world with crates of science equipment, photography equipment, cages, and very large protective gear.

Ruth smiled. It had taken her a while to get used to going offworld, and longer still to remember that she wasn't actually still on earth. however, by the time she got stuck into whatever translation she had been brought along to look at, it didn't matter anyway. She was in her element, and she couldn't have cared less where she was. "I've never really travelled," she admitted. "Couple times to Europe when I was at college, but they were more field trips, that sort of thing. Oh, and a trip to Egypt to study hieroglyphs, but..." She shrugged. "I guess it's been all work, no play!"

Mississippi had a point. Each of them - while they were at the top of their respective fields - were likely no better than their peers, and had just done the right thing at the right time. Not that Ruth was ungrateful.

She laughed as Mississippi asked who Dr Jackson was. "Only Dr Daniel Jackson, hon, who was responsible for working out what the symbols on the Stargate mean," she giggled. He was kind of a god in her circles, although ridiculed in the mainstream. "He's probably the only guy at the SGC who speaks more languages than I do, and is better with the Goa'uld translations than I am." It wasn't a boast, just a fact. "Can't say I really speak southern, despite half of Bawlmer natives swearing they're southern!" It was very much a divided city in that sense.

Ruth nodded as Mississippi explained why he had been brought to the Beta site. "That makes sense," she replied. "After all, if we can actually set up a full colony here, rather than a camp, it'll make it easier if the Alpha gets compromised again." From the tales she had heard of the last Beta, it hadn't been fully equipped or prepared, and they were scrambling now to try to get things up to scratch. "I'm just here for any pretty scrawlings we can find." She shrugged. "We're ten a penny, you... you're actually useful."

"My career is still pretty new, but I've been a few places. Not really to sight see, unless you're really into rustic camping safari..." he let that hang in the air for her to decide if she was or not before he continued on with that thought. "I like the interior of New Zealand, and the coast of North Carolina, and I've done a bit of work tracking the wild horses in Europe for a comparison but," He grinned at the memory that leaped into his head. "For single shot wonder, there's no place on earth with more natural wonders per square mile than Japan. Some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and you can feel the reverence that the Japanese have invested in such places over the centuries." He rubbed the back of his neck as he realized he'd been rambling a bit. "But I digress. All work, but I love what I do so... it's never really seemed like work."

"So... he's humanity's first interplanetary telephone technician?" Mississippi grinned, playing off the fact that one 'dialed' the gate. "Well, I should send him a thank you card. He's responsible for my most interesting project so far even existing." Mississippi raised an eyebrow at her proclaiming at least half of a city in Maryland thinking they were Southern. "My Pa would get a chuckle out of that, gonna have to call him next time I get home... or maybe write him a letter. He complains people don't write anymore, and then I can sneak it in with anyone or anything headed back to Earth."

"Aw, shucks." He rubbed the back of his neck again when she got to praising him. "Aw, if ladies smart enough to speak a half-dozen languages and with pretty red hair are ten a penny... I'm gonna need to check my couch for loose change." He wasn't the type to bemoan his love life but he could make light of it when necessary to illustrate a point. "I'll have to scratch some Klingon in the dirt for ya if'n we don't find nothing else."

Ruth smiled at the big man's exuberance and enthusiasm. She remembered being just as excited on her first offworld trip - not that her excitement had diminished much now - but still, she kept it a little more containted these days. Most of the time. "Can't say I've ever been 'rustic camping'," she admitted, shrugging. "Not unless you count the nights under canvas when I've been offworld." Not exactly rustic, but she guessed it could be classed as camping, of a sort. She returned Mississippi's smile as he described the places he loved. "See, Japan has never interested me," she admitted. "But I guess it's probably because their language doesn't interest me." Most linguists loved it, but Ruth's passion lay in the European languages and their origins and offshoots.

She laughed a Mississippi's description of Daniel Jackson. "Just from you saying that, hon, it's clear you've never met the guy," she laughed. She reminded herself to mention that to him when she got back to earth. She shrugged again as Mississippi seemed to get a kick out of a load of Baltimorons believing themselves to be southern. "That's the problem," she mused. "It's not really in the north, not really in the south... can't really make up its mind what it is." To Ruth, though, it was home, pure and simple.

Ruth blinked a couple of times as Mississippi complimented her, before her cheeks stained pink, and she looked down, shaking her head. "Best get lookin' hon, there's plenty of us around," she replied, dismissing what may or may not have been a flirt. "And I might just take you up on that if we don't find anything other than a dialect of Goa'uld out here." Sure, it might be her bread and butter, but, for once, Ruth would like to sink her teeth into something a little more challenging.