by Crane, J. F.
At the top of the stairs, the showman even now, Tynan lifted his arms to the sky and cried out, “I surrender myself to thy care, oh Lord!” Without looking back he vanished into the unknown.
Unknown to him, at least. Jack knew exactly what awaited him: snow, rock, and a long abandoned research station. Fifty-fifty odds, at least; men like Tynan Camus had a nasty habit of coming back and biting you in the ass.
Calmly Jack watched as the rest of the Elect followed, preferring the terrors of Acarsaid Dorch to the prospect of being proven wrong. When the last man had been swallowed by the event horizon, the wormhole collapsed and the gate was still once more.
It was over.
Rhionna looked shell-shocked, same as Faelan. Perhaps they’d just figured out that the whole expectant crowd was looking to them, waiting to be led. They shared a glance, then Rhionna said, “Now we wait for Sciath Dé—for the new world to begin.”
And Jack sure as hell hoped she was right. Behind his sunglasses he squinted toward the ugly tower that housed the Ark’s so-called library. If Carter didn’t get the damn shield working, he doubted that the fragile coalition between the Seachráni and the Ark would last. Hope was pretty much all these people had left, and if they lost that… Well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what would happen next.
* * *
Daniel’s initial reaction when Sam told him where the shield was hidden was skepticism. He’d been to the library and seen for himself the dusty, half empty shelves that hadn’t held a book in almost two hundred years. It was an insult to the name ‘library’; repository for knowledge it was not, much less the site for an advanced planetary shield.
“Are you sure it’s here?” he said, trying not to sneeze as the dust motes swirled around him.
“Daniel…” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked the question, and Sam’s patience seemed to be wearing thin.
“Sorry. It’s just…” He gestured at the abandoned stacks of Sunrise scripts and recordings. “Look at this place.”
“Ennis said we’d find it here,” she said, unbuckling her pack.
“Exactly. Ennis said we’d find it here. The man wanted us to fail from the get-go.”
Sam shook her head. “You weren’t there. He wouldn’t have lied to her, Daniel. Believe me.”
Daniel sighed, unable to do anything but trust Sam’s conviction. “Then where do we start looking? What are we even looking for?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’ll know when I find it.”
Before they had a chance to begin their search, a noise from the other end of the library made both of them start. Sam’s hand flew to her sidearm, but Daniel stayed her with a gesture. He recognized the man standing in the shadows of a stack. “Liam?”
The librarian edged out from his hiding place. “Am I to be sent with them?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The others. You’ve sent them to Acarsaid Dorch. Am I to be exiled too?”
Daniel thought for a moment, figuring it out. “You’re one of the Elect too.”
“I am the Archivist, as was my father and his father before him.” He was on edge, wary and nervous; Daniel noticed that Sam’s hand had not left her gun. Hesitating briefly, Liam added, “My family has guarded the library’s secrets since the Flood.”
“Its secrets?” It took a few moments for the words to make sense to Daniel.
By the time that happened, Sam had piped up. “The shield. You know where it is?”
Liam paused. “Is it true that Ennis told you the truth in the end?”
“That’s what we want to find out,” she said. “He said it’s here in the library.”
The librarian looked away with a nod and a slight smile, as if some belief had just been affirmed. Then he strode to a towering shelf, his gait purposeful now, all hesitancy gone. He slid his fingers into the gap between the shelving and the wall and, with a grunt of effort, he pulled. The shelf teetered on its edge and came crashing down in a blizzard of yellowed paper.
He moved to the next bookshelf, toppling that one too. Without another word, Daniel and Sam joined him in his task of tearing the library apart, first the shelves, then the wooden panels behind them. Once they were done they stood back, out of breath, and admired their handiwork. Behind one of the discarded wall panels they’d found a computer interface.
“It looks like the technology we found on Acarsaid Dorch,” said Sam, approaching it with something akin to wonder. She ran her hand over one of the keyboards and turned to Liam. “Is it?”
“Yes, Major Carter,” replied the librarian. “This is the Knowledge you seek. This is God’s Shield.”
A familiar weariness settled bone-deep into Jack as he made his way with Teal’c and Faelan to the library. The adrenaline high of the past few days over, he was braced for post-battle lethargy, a fatigue that also was evident in the heavy gait of the man who walked alongside him. Faelan Garret looked as if he wanted to sleep for an entire day at least. Shame he wouldn’t get the chance.
“You’ve got a job ahead of you,” Jack said, though he guessed Faelan already knew as much.
Garret nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know whether to blame you or thank you,” he said with a faint smile.
“I should probably get out of here before you’ve had time to figure that one out.” Grinning, Jack added, “You’ll do just fine.”
“Maybe. At least I won’t be doing it alone.” Faelan’s smile grew broader at the mention of Rhionna.
Jack scratched his jaw and looked away. “Where’d the new Pastor get to anyway?”
“She had other business to take care of.” Faelan’s expression had turned serious.
Business concerning the one person who’d been conspicuously absent for the past few days, Jack surmised. Given what Carter had told him of Sorcha’s part in Ennis’s death, he was curious to know how exactly Rhionna intended to take care of that particular business. He had his own thoughts on the matter, but kept them to himself. And anyway, it was time to get off this planet, let these people sort their own future out.
Of course, before they did that they had one final item on their own agenda to take care of. “Do you think it’s up there?” he asked, tilting back his head to take in the tall building directly in front of them.
“It could be I suppose. Though I can’t see what good it’ll do us now—the damage to our world is already done.”
“Major Carter seems to think it could still help your people,” said Teal’c, as they entered the foyer and made their way to the elevator.
“I hope she’s right.”
“Yeah,” Jack muttered, “me too.”
However, when the elevator doors slid open, it appeared that their doubts had been misplaced. The room was a wreck, shelves and paper and data cartridges strewn all around, and in the sunken central area the floor was gone entirely. In its place a huge metal disc thrummed with an energy that coursed right up through Jack’s boots. Carter stood next to it, grinning with triumph.
“Just in time for the main show, sir,” she said.
Jack gave a brief laugh, part amazement, part disbelief. “It works?””
“That’s what we’re about to find out.” She turned to Faelan, who stood open-mouthed, staring. “If it does work though, Faelan, it’s not a quick fix. It could take generations for you to see real benefits.”
“At least there’ll be future generations to see those benefits, Major Carter. I don’t know if I can express my gratitude for that.”
“Letting us come back and study this technology will be thanks enough.”
“That goes without saying.”
She gestured at the console in the wall. “Care to do the honors?”
He nodded, unable to hide his eagerness, and followed Sam to the console, where Daniel and the librarian guy, Beaker or Gonzo, or whatever his name was, were poring over the controls.
“You are not confident in this endeavor, O’Neill.�
� Evidently, Teal’c didn’t share his CO’s reluctance to voice any lingering doubts.
Jack looked over to where Carter, with no small amount of enthusiasm, was explaining the workings of the console to Faelan. “Well, that’d just make me the guy who punches Santa in the mouth on Christmas morning. I’d much rather say something profound, about long journeys or small steps and huge leaps or some other cliché. Besides”—he rocked back on his heels, looking down at the vibrating floor—“it’s hard to deny that something’s happening here.”
The next few moments were to prove, conclusively, that something was most definitely happening. With a grind of machinery, the roof itself slid open, bathing the library in filtered sunlight. The metal disc in the center of the room shone, brighter and brighter, like a coin tossed into a fire, and with a blast of energy that shook the entire building, a beam of light shot upward from its surface, piercing the dome and flooding the sky beyond.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jack. There didn’t seem to be any other way to put it.
* * *
Rhionna picked her way through what remained of the Badlands, the savage noon heat clawing at her heavy sunwear. It was a landscape transformed, scoured by the ocean and turned alien and strange. Debris from the depths of the sea—from a world long lost—lay scattered in the mud, baking hard beneath the sun. Some things she recognized—the overturned hull of the Fánaí na Mara, a solar sail. Others were a mystery, tantalizing hints of her people’s drowned history.
But seabed treasures had not drawn her from the Ark. She had come outside in search of something else—she hardly knew what to call it. Resolution, perhaps. The closing of the past, and the opening of a future unknown.
Parched mud cracked beneath her boots, stirring dust into the stink of the air; drying seaweed and rotting fish made pungent in the noontide furnace. She should find shelter until the Burn had passed, but she did not have long and could not afford to tarry.
The familiar paths within the Badlands were gone, but she knew her direction in spite of it. How many times had she walked this way? Blind, she could have found her way to the scrap of tarp that flapped in the desiccating Badland winds.
She approached slowly, letting her presence be heard, and stopped some short distance away.
Sorcha Caratauc sat in scant shade with her bony knees drawn up to her chest and her eyes upon the glitter of the sea. Placid now, the ocean was a mere ghost of the monster that had wrought so much destruction upon the land.
Rhionna dared not remove her sunwear to meet Sorcha’s gaze full on. Besides, the old woman was determinedly not looking at her.
“Why have you come?” she said at last, voice as dry and cracked as the Badlands themselves.
“In search of you.”
The only sound was the distant lap of the waves on the shore, the whisper of the wind across the land. “I have spent my life collecting words,” Sorcha said at last. “And yet I now find that I have none to give you this day. What words are enough to speak of my remorse?”
Rhionna crouched to Sorcha’s level. The sun burned into her back, but she did not move. “You know what my father was, Sorcha Caratauc; he died a better man than he lived.”
Moisture glinted on the old woman’s cheek, tracing the lines of her face. “You have a right to hate me.”
“No.” She stretched out her hand and took Sorcha’s dry fingers in her own. “What you are, Sorcha, this place has made you. You carry no blame.”
“I killed your father, girl.”
“He earned his own fate. But I take comfort that his last act was to share the truth.”
Sorcha blinked, sharp eyes a glint beneath her brow. “The truth?”
“About Sciath Dé.”
Like new blood flowing, hope surged through the old woman’s veins. “Then you have found it?”
Rhionna smiled and rose to her feet. Above her the Ark gleamed, a giant oyster pearl offered to the sky. She held out her hand. “Come,” she said. “Look.”
Holding her ragged scarf tight around her head, Sorcha pushed herself upright. “Look at what?”
“Wait…”
And then it happened, as Samantha Carter had promised it would. A flare shot up from the Ark, and a rainbow flash of light danced across the deep blue sky until a dozen ghostly crescent moons shimmered far above. Sciath Dé, the last hope of their ancestors, spread over their world to shield them from the sun. Rhionna held her breath, not sure what to expect next. Then, though the sunlight did not dim, she felt a change in the heat.
Sorcha felt it too, pulling her hand out from within her long sleeve and turning it over in the sunlight. “It does not burn,” she said, her voice a whisper of disbelief. “I had never thought to see this day. It does not burn…”
Smiling, Rhionna pulled off her sunwear. Sunlight fell on her, a benign heat, and she raised her face to welcome it for the first time in her life. “This is only the beginning, Sorcha.”
“Aye, that it is.”
She looked at the old woman; the wrinkled face was as marked and damaged as ever, but her eyes were alive with renewed hope. The hope of her people, a hope she had carried almost single-handed her whole life. “I speak now for the people of the Ark,” Rhionna said. “Faelan speaks for the Seachráni.” Sorcha’s eyes narrowed; she knew what was coming, but Rhionna forged on regardless. “Will you speak for the people of the Badlands, Sorcha Caratauc?”
“Inside the Ark?”
“We are one people now,” Rhionna said, once more holding out her hand. “Ni neart go cur le cheile.”
Sorcha hesitated a moment, then threw back her scarf and shook out her tangled gray hair. It glinted like steel in the sunlight. “Strength in unity,” she said, and took Rhionna’s hand in her strong grip. “And we shall need every bit of it upon the path ahead.”
Rhionna answered only with a nod, and together they began the walk, out of the Badlands and toward the bright, uncertain future.
Chapter Twenty-two
“…and so,” Major Carter concluded, “although the shield wasn’t exactly what we’d been hoping for, I actually think it could be very valuable.”
Hammond folded his hands on the desk, casting his eyes over the schematics the major had distributed. “But not against the Goa’uld.”
“No, sir. But Faelan said we can return any time to study the technology and, as I’m sure you already know, geo-engineering is increasingly considered the way forward in tackling climate change.”
“Yes,” Jack agreed. “We already knew that.”
Major Carter smiled, shifting in her seat to accommodate the sling that supported her arm. “Let’s hope it never comes to that, sir, but the ability to deflect significant amounts of solar radiation might be important one day.”
“So they say.”
Her eyes widened. “So they say?”
“Come on.” He cast a conspiratorial glance at Dr. Jackson. “You know what these scientists are like, Carter, it’s all about the research funding.”
“With all due respect, sir, that’s—”
“Oh, he’s right,” Daniel said. “I mean, they’ll come up with any crackpot theory to get money out of the government.”
Teal’c lifted an eyebrow. “Such as pyramids being landing platforms for alien space craft?”
Daniel pointed a finger at him. “Exactly!”
Carter shook her head, caught between exasperation and amusement. “Okay, guys, I get it. Ha-ha, very funny.”
O’Neill spread his hands. “What?”
Hammond let it ride for a moment, enjoying the camaraderie between the team, then he held up his hand for silence. “People, I’m going to consider this mission a success—on both technological and humanitarian grounds. Job well done.”
Serious now, O’Neill nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Dr. Fraiser tells me Major Carter will be fit to return to duty in one week. So, until then, consider yourselves stood down.” He got to his feet, signaling the end o
f the debrief. While SG-1 gathered their papers and began to leave, he said, “Colonel, a word?”
With a glance at the departing team, O’Neill followed Hammond into his office. “Sir?”
Hammond perched on the corner of his desk, taking in the sunburned face and wary eyes of his second-in-command. “I think you know what I’m going to ask.”
“If it’s about the golf clubs—”
“Jack.”
He plunged his hands into his pockets, rebellious as a schoolboy.
“I still have Dr. Fraiser’s report on my desk, Colonel, and I need to know how your team is coping.”
“How?” He shrugged. “The usual way. We’re getting on with it, sir. That’s what we do. You want me to say everything’s fine now? One mission down and it’s like P3R-118 never happened? I can’t do that. You know I can’t.”
There were shadows in his eyes, and George Hammond knew better than to dig deeper into what had happened between the team in Caulder’s power plant. Fraiser had her concerns, that was her job, but Hammond had commanded men for a long time, and he knew when to intervene and when to step back. With Jack O’Neill, it was almost always worth stepping back. “You helped a lot of people on Ierna,” he said, getting up and moving behind his desk. “It wasn’t the mission objective, son. You didn’t have to do that.”
O’Neill gave half a shrug. “Actually, sir, I think we did. Turns out it’s kind of an SG-1 thing.”
“Yes, it is.” Hammond sat down, and O’Neill met his gaze with a frank stare. “It’s good to have you back, Jack. All of you.”
“Thanks, sir. It’s good to be back.”
They exchanged a look, their understanding mutual and unspoken. Then Hammond said, “Before you go, I have something you might be interested in. For your eyes only, of course; if you tell anyone you’ve seen it, you’re on your own.”
He slid a file over the desk, and O’Neill picked it up with a raised eyebrow. “Sir?”
