Teal’c’s methods were somewhat more gracious than Jack’s but equally effective. Sam abandoned a lecture, which, in the simplest of terms, came down to If a Jaffa can’t get the damn hook up there, nobody can. She nodded. “Go ahead.”
After a glance at the girder thirty meters above, Teal’c stepped back and measured out some slack on the zip line. Then he began swinging rope and hook in a diagonal circle over his head. Once, twice. The third time he let go, his body extending as if he meant to take flight himself. The grappling hook soared upward and did what it’d been doing for the past hour. Five meters or so short of the girder it ran out of steam and stalled. Crash-bang-boom.
“Well, I think that settles it.” The words mixed with the echo still caroming through Daniel’s sinuses, and he yawned to ease the pressure. Then his mouth snapped shut with an audible clack. “Uh-oh.”
The man stood motionless just inside the open gate, outlined by a wedge of copper evening light. Terrific! If not entirely unexpected.
The ongoing racket was bound to have brought security guards on the plan sooner or later. Of course they’d hoped to be out of here sooner. Strictly speaking, what they were doing could be considered trespassing at best, breaking and entering at worst.
“We’ve just come to collect some leftover equipment.” Sam had risen, arms slightly spread to indicate that she was unarmed. “There was a military exercise here a few days ago. If you want to—”
“I know there was an exercise, Carter. I got you killed, remember?”
“Sir!” Chiseled by a sharp breath, it sounded like a sob.
“O’Neill,” said Teal’c.
“The one and only.”
Fists sunk into the pockets of a leather jacket, he started walking toward them, affecting the nonchalance of a tourist at some historical site. Gee, that’s a real neat battlefield! Except, it didn’t quite come off as planned. He moved as though somebody had strapped him into a corset, and when he finally stepped out of that glaring backlight, Daniel was startled to see how drained he looked. Drained and wound more tightly than a wristwatch.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jack?”
“The perp always returns to the scene of the crime. Never heard of it? We also tend to turn up at funerals.”
By Jack O’Neill’s standards this was a whole encyclopedia of information, although Daniel was willing to bet a month’s paycheck that Jack had had no real intention of carrying the conversation even this far. If they hadn’t noticed him, he’d have beat a quiet retreat until after they were gone. And then? He’d have come in here and made himself relive every second of the exercise, compulsively listing and re-listing everything he thought he’d done wrong.
“Where’s the crime?” Daniel asked, aware that it was the next best thing to poking a tiger’s abscessed tooth.
“We’ve had this discussion. We’re not having it again,” snarled the tiger. Then his curiosity asserted itself, and he took in the zip line, the hook, the laptop, and the piece of equipment sitting next to it. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Sir, we—”
“Observe, O’Neill.”
Obviously Teal’c had concluded that a demonstration would be more beneficial than Sam’s treatise on kilopond and differentials. The grappling hook flew, stalled, plunged, and made that infernal noise.
Jack never even twitched. “You missed.”
“That’s precisely our point, sir.” Sam allowed herself a small, hopeful grin. “If Teal’c’s throwing short, Norris’ team—Marines or no—wouldn’t have had a prayer of catching the girders. Unless”—she picked up a bulky gun that had the business end of a hook sticking out its nose—“they had launchers.”
Settling the device against her shoulder, she took aim, fired. The hook soared, rope rippling after it, and neatly wrapped itself around a girder. Just like that, and with considerably less noise, too.
“That’s the only way they could have got up there, Colonel,” she added. “And we both know that launchers weren’t permitted. Norris didn’t play by the rules, sir. Nobody can blame you for not anticipating that they’d cheat.”
“Oh no?” Jack’s voice could have cut glass. “Tell me something, Major. When the Goa’uld pull the next new and improved doomsday machine out of their collective hat you gonna come running to me and bawl, ‘They’re cheating! They’re not permitted those, so I don’t wanna play!’?”
“No, sir.” Her jaw worked, but she refused to be drawn into a fight.
Sensing it, Jack wouldn’t let up. “That’s what the enemy do. They cheat. If you haven’t grasped that by now, you’re in the wrong job, Major! They cheat because it gives them an advantage. We do the same damn thing, and anybody who doesn’t anticipate that is a liability.”
“Your comparison is flawed, O’Neill.”
“Is it?” Jack whirled around, grimacing when the abrupt move jarred his ribs.
“Indeed.” Slowly and methodically, Teal’c was coiling his zip line. Each coil punctuated a sentence. “It was a game. Games have rules. You abided by these rules and expected your opponent to do the same, because you knew it was a game. But the rules were broken. Who is to blame? You or the one who broke them?”
As so often, Teal’c’s unshakeable calm deflated Jack. Sighing softly, he hunched his shoulders. “I know it was a game. What I don’t know is that I’d have done anything different if it’d hadn’t been. If it’d been for real… Sergeant Chen’s wife had a little girl two weeks ago. If it’d been for real, that kid would grow up without a father because of me. You’d be dead, too, Carter, and I’d rather not think about the ways in which Jacob would rearrange my anatomy. As for you”—he tossed a wry grin at Daniel—“you’d probably have got your head in the way of some obstacle no matter what, so I won’t plead to that.”
“Jack—”
“Ah!” One hand held up, he wandered away, aimless until he was caught in the gravitational pull of the cotton bales and veered toward those. His left hand slipped from the pocket and started picking fluff. At last he turned back. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, kids. I… Look, I’m sure Carter could get Norris sent down for grand larceny, but it’s not gonna change anything. So do me a favor and forget about it. I’d like get out of this with a few shreds of dignity intact.”
The get out of this part was unequivocal and triggered something of a flashback. As far as thoroughly miserable conversations went, that one had been a doozy. “That’s… uh… that’s funny, because I didn’t figure you for the early retirement type anymore,” Daniel said quietly.
Jack shot him a sharp glance. He remembered it too. Those words and what had come next.
“So, this friendship thing we’ve been working on the last few years…”
And he stares at Daniel point blank and finishes that half-formed question, “Apparently not much of a foundation, huh?”
He had the same steady, determined, goddamn implacable look now, though the veneer of arrogance was missing completely. “This is different, Daniel, and you know it.”
It was. This time it wasn’t a lie. This time it was for real. The question was if it’d be worth fighting. For a split-second, Daniel saw Reese’s dead face and asked himself if things weren’t just dandy the way they seemed to pan out now. Then he banished the thought to where it’d come from, ashamed of himself. Twisted and battered and bent out of shape, yes, but that friendship was still there, still for real, and as long as—
“Sir, you can’t!” Sam had gone white as a sheet. “Not over this. Not when—”
“When what, Carter?” Jack asked almost gently. “Always boils down to the same thing, see? Liability. In every sense of the word. Besides, I already have. The letter should be on Hammond’s desk tomorrow. The only alternative would be me pushing paper till the end of my days. You can see that working? No, wouldn’t have thought so. I can’t either.”
Bits of cotton floated in the air, and he caught one, picked at it, blew it away again.
Abruptly he turned and headed for the door. He looked surprisingly small in the vastness of the room, a black silhouette outlined by a wedge of light that had deepened from copper to burgundy.
“That’s pathetic!” yelled Daniel, furious at him, Norris, the world at large. “The hero walking off into the sunset! It’s such a cliché, Jack!”
For once there was no comeback. He just kept going. Daniel started after him, and was stopped by Teal’c’s large, strong hand clasping his arm.
“Not now. You will not dissuade him now, Daniel Jackson.”
Colonel Frank Simmons had monitored the car’s approach from the control center. The vehicle had passed the gatepost at the outer perimeter of the safe house and gone on a winding journey through a mile of lush countryside. When it emerged from a pine copse and entered the last stretch toward the house, he’d gone outside to wait. Now he regretted it. The night air was freezing.
Next to him Conrad shuffled, one finger stretching the collar of his turtleneck sweater. In all likelihood his discomfort was caused not by the collar but by the safety device it concealed; a remote-controlled choker studded with parcels of naquadah-enhanced explosive. One wrong move and it would literally blow Conrad’s head off—and kill the Goa’uld. It was the price he had to pay for attending the meeting.
“Tell me one thing,” Simmons asked. “How can she be your mistress? You were stuck inside a Jaffa’s pouch when you got here, then you spent some time in a fish tank, and then you ended up inside our friend Adrian.”
Conrad gave up fidgeting and condescended to answer. “You know nothing, human. The Jaffa who nursed me once belonged to her. The Goa’uld queen who bore me belonged to her. Therefore she is my mistress.”
Headlights doused, the government-issue sedan pulled into the circular driveway in front of the house. The slamming of the doors and crackle of feet on gravel sounded overly loud in the stillness of the night, and Simmons finally admitted to a mild case of nerves. It had set in about six hours ago, when his operatives had informed him that they’d made contact and were en route to Peterson AFB where their jet was waiting. Even then Conrad had refused to reveal the identity of his ‘mistress’—another one of the pointless power games the Goa’uld seemed to enjoy so much—but it didn’t matter now. Simmons was about to find out.
A blond agent held the door open for her, and she got out of the car with the grace of a debutante. The first thing that struck Simmons was how delicate she looked. Then she turned, and the light of a lamp below the portico illuminated a chin-length bob of raven hair, black almond eyes, a deceptively generous mouth, and a narrow nose. A diamond-shaped Bindi on the Chakra point between the eyebrows underlined the exotic flair of her features.
Simmons resisted an urge to laugh. Not that he’d ever met her, of course, but he’d seen archive pictures and read the SGC reports, and by God, her credentials were perfect. More than that, she would be amenable to the offer. She needed all the help she could get. Slipping into his role of host—a rather worrying term, come to think of it—he glided down the steps to greet her.
“Lady Nirrti. I’m delighted that you chose to accept my invitation.”
The sardonic tilt of her eyebrows suggested that either the address had been too baroque or she’d seen through the formulaic courtesy. She swept past him and toward Conrad, eyes flaring. “What made you think you could allow this human to summon me here?” The distorted voice sounded almost masculine.
It also sounded utterly cold, and Conrad, whose mask of superiority had slipped out of sight the moment she approached him, seemed tempted to prostrate himself. “Forgive me, mistress. I meant no offense. I acted merely from a wish to aid you.”
The veiled reminder of her precarious standing—if any—among the System Lords caused another baleful flicker in her eyes, but she was smart enough to concede the truth. “Very well. I am willing to discuss this proposal.”
“In that case, please follow me.” Grateful to get out of the night chill, Simmons led her and Conrad into the library on the first floor. The ambiance would be sufficiently pompous, even for Goa’uld tastes. The room smelled of old leather bindings and faded parchment, and in the open grate roared a fire, the shine of its flames dancing across walls and a parquet floor. Atop a priceless Persian rug sat a cherry wood table, surrounded by high-backed chairs.
Nirrti stopped dead in front of the grandfather clock by the door, listened to its ticking, suspicion contorting her face. “What is this device?”
Not so omniscient after all. The urge to laugh threatened to return, and Simmons stifled it ruthlessly. “It measures time. It’s quite harmless, I assure you. Please, take a seat.”
“How… quaint.” As she eased herself onto a chair, a sneer told him exactly what she thought of antique timepieces. Then her gaze fell on a crystal decanter and three glasses that sat on the table. “I am thirsty. Pour me some water.”
Almost obeying, from reflex and the dicta of a conservative upbringing, he caught himself at the last moment. It was part of the power game, and if he gave in to her in the first round, she would have the upper hand throughout. Simmons ignored her and sat down in the chair opposite.
Face stony, eyes simmering, she engaged in a staring contest. “Pour me some water.”
Conrad broke. The command had never been directed at him, but he was hovering behind Nirrti’s chair like one of those… what did they call their loyal and trusted servants? Lotus? Luther? Lotar… like one of those lotars. Now he reached out, poured the water, handed the glass to her. “If it pleases you, mistress.”
She took the glass without thanks and set it down on the table.
When she looked up, she was smiling. “You have my attention, Simmons.”
Simmons smiled back at her. “Any progress on the hak’taur yet?”
“What do you know of the hak’taur? You could not possibly comprehend what it means!” It had rattled her, as it was meant to, and the hostility was back.
Good. He preferred to confront the real nature of the beast. Smiling sharks were unpredictable. “I think I comprehend enough: hak means ‘improved’ and taur is a slang term for ‘Tauri’.” Dr. Jackson, tedious and rude as he was, had his uses. That report had been eminently informative. Without waiting for an answer, Simmons carried on. “Put together, you get a human with superhuman abilities. An über-host, in other words, which is what you’re after. You had to start from scratch, because Stargate Command, and specifically Dr. Fraiser, prevented you from using the Hankan girl, Cassandra. So I repeat: any progress yet?”
“It took me more than two hundred of your human years to achieve what I had achieved with the Hankan girl. How much progress do you think I have made in the two months since?”
“Not much I would assume.” Simmons schooled his features into a kindly frown. “And in the meantime you are virtually unprotected—one mothership and barely enough Jaffa to man it isn’t exactly a defense force, is it? Is Lord Yu still hunting you?”
“What if he were?” Her fingers caressed the stem of the water glass, twisting and turning it. “What is it to you?”
That was a yes. So much the better. “I’m asking because I would be prepared to provide you with protection.”
“What kind of protection?”
“The kind only you would be able to create.”
“You are talking in riddles!” Nirrti’s eyes brightened to neon-white displeasure.
Conrad leaned forward and began whispering to her in rapid Goa’uld.
“Speak English!” Simmons snapped. Neither of them gave any indication that they’d heard him. That little problem had to be solved and solved decisively. He rose. “This discussion is terminated.” Without another word he headed for the door.
“Wait!” And then, as if it were causing her throat to ache, “Please.”
“Yes?” He slowed to a halt and carefully wiped the smirk off his face before turning back to her.
“I have no wish to offend you. Certain things are eas
ier to understand in my own language. Sit.” It was as close to an apology as she would ever get. Nirrti watched him with the stare of a snake charmer while he resumed his seat. Suddenly she burst out laughing. “You amuse me, human. Be glad you do. So you thought it was a question of a simple surgical procedure?”
“Of course not! We—”
“Tried to implant the pouch. Then you tried to prevent the inevitable immune response by applying the crudest chemistry imaginable. Without success, of course. Each one of your subjects rotted slowly, from the inside out. Did it ever occur to you that the very thing that causes rejection would be integral to the process? A protein. Such a tiny thing. So small that you cannot see it with the naked eye. Tauri scientists call it a ‘building block of life’, yes? For once they are correct. And yet, this tiny thing will cause death if introduced into a body that responds improperly. Why do you think it is called symbiosis?”
“Spare me the biology lesson!” Simmons placed his hands on the polished wood of the table and studied his fingernails. “I don’t care how it’s done, as long as it is done.”
“What makes you think it can be done?”
“The fact that it wouldn’t be the first time.” His gaze drifted up from his fingers, and he met her eyes. “Hathor did it.”
Nirrti’s face twisted in a grimace. Apparently she and Hathor hadn’t been in the habit of sharing girlie secrets. “Hathor was a queen. I am not.”
“Don’t take me for a fool!” In a deliberate show of anger, his right hand had slammed down on the tabletop. The glasses sang. “It had nothing to do with her being a queen and everything to do with a tasteless piece of costume jewelry. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a close cousin to a Goa’uld healing device.”
The shark’s smile returned, and she slowly inclined her head. “You say you would protect me? How?”
“Some of the warriors you create would be at your disposal.”
“Some? Are you aware that Lord Yu can command thousands?”
“It’s a question of quantity versus quality, isn’t it? The more advanced your product, the safer you will be. Pick the best and see what you can do. I trust this will aid in your own research?”
07 - Survival of the Fittest Page 4
