STARGATE SG-1-23-22-Moebius Squared-s11

by Melissa Scott

  “Like trying to call the cable company,” Jack huffed.

  “Exactly like, sir,” Carter said.

  “Daniel Jackson has used the telephone analogy before,” Teal’c said.

  “It’s exactly like a phone.” Carter turned to Daniel. “So what do you do if you need to call someone, but their line is always busy? You know they have to get off the phone sometime, but you don’t know when. Especially if you have a lot of numbers you have to call.”

  “Leave a voice mail?” Mitchell suggested.

  Daniel sat up straighter. “You use a predictive dialer.”

  “OK, kids,” Jack said. “What’s a predictive dialer?”

  “It’s a program you use for phone banking or telemarketing, sir,” Carter said. “It dials dozens or even hundreds of numbers at once, and then only puts through to the live operators the ones that get a connection. That way you don’t waste time having your employees dial numbers that are inoperable.”

  “It’s that little click click click on the line you get when a creditor is calling you,” Daniel said helpfully. “That way you can hang up before they put a live person on and they’ll think it was a bad connection.”

  Jack blinked. He wasn’t generally pursued by creditors. After all, he’d had a steady salary since 1973, give or take the year he was retired, and he was the kind of guy who paid all his bills on the fifteenth of the month, every month.

  Carter looked like she was trying not to smile. “Because if you don’t say anything their computer can’t recognize that the call wasn’t dropped.”

  “Oh, hey, my car loan does that all the time,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t realize what that was.”

  “Same with Bloomingdales,” Vala said, patting his knee.

  “My college loans can’t tell,” Daniel said. “They’ve got that dialer turned up so high they can’t tell if they’ve got a live person or not.”

  Mitchell blinked. “I didn’t know your college loans were chasing you.”

  “Yeah well, your rich Uncle Sam may have paid for your school, but I still owe nearly $30,000 on my doctorate.” Daniel shrugged. “I figure I’ll have it paid off by the time I’m sixty.”

  “Can we focus here?” Jack said.

  “Sorry, sir,” Carter said, though of course it hadn’t been her being the peanut gallery. “My point is that Ba’al’s device must have a predictive dialer program. Otherwise it would spend a huge amount of time and memory displaying inoperable functions.” Jack opened his mouth, but she was right ahead of him. “It would waste resources displaying inoperable gates. It seems to display the options available at any given moment, calculating the gate that would need to be dialed and the temporal deviation caused by any one of a dozen possibilities. For example, the wormhole passing through a single solar flare could have a dozen different outcomes depending on which gate beyond it the wormhole was connecting with. These are immensely complex and memory intensive calculations. There is no reason to do hundreds of extraneous ones every few minutes when you can eliminate the unworkable ones with something as simple and low tech as a predictive dialing program.”

  Jack nodded slowly. “So you’re saying you should be able to use Ba’al’s device to tell when Earth’s Stargate was operable?”

  Carter nodded. “It should work, sir. Essentially, it’s like having a predictive dialing program call your phone every thirty seconds until you pick up.”

  “My car loan does that too,” Mitchell said to Daniel under his breath.

  “I thought that was illegal,” Daniel said.

  Jack gave them a quelling look.

  “It is,” Carter said.

  Landry turned around. “So what you’re saying is that you can use Ba’al’s device to find a window when the Stargate was operable and use that to follow the Tok’ra.”

  Mitchell and Carter looked at each other. “Carter thinks we can,” Mitchell said. “So let’s do it.”

  Landry hesitated, and Jack thought he knew what was going through his mind — sending them all into danger for his daughter. But it wasn’t for Carolyn. It was for the timestream. It was just that Landry needed someone else to make that call.

  “You have a go,” Jack said. “Go knock yourselves out, SG-1.”

  “Why are we just sitting here?” Daniel nudged Cam’s shoulder. They were sitting on the floor of Ba’al’s installation with their backs against the only thing around to lean on, the base of the instrument console. On the other side of Daniel, Teal’c had closed his eyes and opened his hands, meditating or something. On the other side of Cam, Vala was snoring softly, her head drooping over onto Cam’s shoulder. Their packs and weapons were arranged around their feet.

  Cam looked at his watch for the seven hundredth time. Nine hours and forty eight minutes. “We’re waiting for the right solar flare,” he said.

  “And waiting,” said Daniel. “And waiting.”

  Carter stuck her head over the top of the console looking surprisingly perky. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “We’ve got to wait for the right moment on our end, one that connects with a clear gate. This could take quite a while. But as soon as it does connect we’ve got to move fast.”

  Daniel blinked. “What’s put you in such a good mood?”

  “Chocolate.” Carter held out a bag of fancy foil wrapped squares. “Want some?”

  Cam looked at it thoughtfully. “Yeah, actually, I do.” He picked through the bag looking for one of the milk chocolate ones.

  “You got into some bad habits in Atlantis,” Daniel said.

  “No kidding.” Sam pulled out a square labeled ‘dark chocolate truffle cream’ and started unwrapping it. “When you’re on a long deployment where you can’t get much of anything, it really makes you appreciate stuff when you’ve got it. I never realized how lucky we were to be able to come home at night, and you never know how long that’s going to last.”

  Daniel opened his mouth and shut it again, clearly thinking the same thing as Cam. “You mean the George Hammond,” he said quietly.

  Carter looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t know for sure that I’m going to get it.” She studiously didn’t look at Cam. And that was about all this stepping on each others’ feet. If Carter were going to stay at the SGC with her level of experience and rank, she needed to be either the exec or get SG-1. Either of which would be all over Mitchell’s feet. And Cam was pretty sure he wasn’t seriously in the running for the Hammond.

  “Hey, you know it won’t be me,” he said. “Not that I wouldn’t love it. But.” Cam shrugged. “There are way too many people ahead of me.”

  “You’ve got the 302 experience,” Carter said.

  “And you’ve done a tour on Odyssey,” Cam said. He bit into his chocolate. “And you’re a grade ahead of me. And you’ve got administrative experience.”

  “For what that’s worth.”

  “It’s worth a lot at staff grade,” Cam said. He’d been breathing down Carter’s neck since his first year at the Academy, when he’d been in her flight as a freshman. She was a junior, and she’d always have that two years up on him, but he’d gotten the best tactical aircraft right away while she’d gone through a series of research positions. Her work on wormhole physics might have been more important, but it didn’t look as good on the record as four years in an F-16. And then there was that little bit about the Congressional Medal of Honor. Not to mention that he looked like a poster boy for the Air Force and always had. There had never been a female starship commander, and he only knew of three women in 302s. It was still a boys’ club, just the boys and Carter.

  That was changing, of course. About a quarter of the lieutenants in the program were women. It looked a lot different for the kids who were nineteen, not thirty nine. But he was thirty nine, and Carter was forty one. They were on the front edge.

  “You’ll get the Hammond,” he said.

  Daniel nodded slowly. “Cam’s right. We’ll miss you. But it’s your time.”

  “I don’t k
now,” she began, but a flashing light on the console distracted her, and she bent over the datascreen. “I think this is it!”

  Cam gave Vala a quick nudge. “Hey!”

  Carter’s hands flew over the board. “We’ve got a window open in 2492 BC. Not a big one, so let’s get going! I’m going to go ahead and tell the gate to dial.” She punched keys, and the vast ring began to turn, the first chevron flaring to life.

  “What?” Vala said, startling awake.

  “Time to go, sleepyhead,” Cam said, getting to his feet. “Come on.”

  Teal’c, of course, had merely opened his eyes and was getting up.

  Cam looked at Daniel as he reached down and gave Vala a hand. “2492. What have we got?”

  “Early First Dynasty,” Daniel said. He looked rueful. “We don’t have a very complete chronology in that period. But this is what I was telling you about the other day. It’s roughly the period of the creation of the Narmer palette, the one showing the defeat of King Scorpion.”

  “So there may be Goa’uld,” Teal’c said, lifting his weapon to port arms.

  “It’s a good bet,” Daniel said.

  “I knew it was going to bite me in the ass,” Cam said.

  Carter stuffed her bag of chocolate into her pack as the sixth chevron lit. “OK. We’re set.”

  “Everybody be ready for trouble,” Cam counseled. “Daniel says there may be hostiles.”

  “We are ready,” Teal’c said. He dropped back to be the last through the gate as the wormhole exploded in a blue kawoosh.

  “Right.” Cam took point and plunged through the event horizon, hoping for one fleeting second that Carter absolutely, positively knew what she was doing and they weren’t going to emerge under a ton of sand or in a crevasse in Antarctica.

  There was a moment’s disorientation, the swooping sensation of wormhole travel, only it seemed to go on longer than it ought to, longer and longer. He was just on the point of deciding that something had gone badly wrong when suddenly he was out, stumbling through under a star studded night sky, the gate in a plaza lit around by torches.

  He stopped, and there was a soft ooof as Vala plowed into his back. “Would you mind clearing the place where other people have to step?” she said.

  He took a step forward, raising his hands slowly. “Sorry,” he said. “I think we’ve got a problem.”

  Daniel, then Carter, then Teal’c emerged, looking around with the same wonderment that Cam felt, wonderment and dread. Ahead of them the great pyramids at Giza loomed against the bright night sky, tips capped with shining stone or metal, while about them a bunch of low buildings clustered alive with lights. The Stargate stood in a wide courtyard well lit with a hundred torches, and there were about a hundred guys covering them, some of them with zats, some of them behind barricades.

  A young man in a white kilt that came to his knees stood up behind one of the barricades, gold bracelets on his upper arms like emblems of rank, and called out to them in what was clearly an official tone of voice.

  “What did he say?” Cam asked Daniel quietly.

  “He said drop your weapons or die.”

  Cam eased his P90 to the ground. “Daniel?”

  Daniel rattled off a long bit in a language of course he didn’t understand.

  “What are you saying?” Cam muttered as Teal’c, Vala and Carter followed his lead and carefully put their weapons down.

  “I’m saying we aren’t Goa’uld,” Daniel said.

  “Are you sure they aren’t?”

  Daniel shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I don’t think so. I don’t see any Jaffa.” He took a step forward his hands raised, speaking to the officer again. That was the thing about Daniel, Cam thought. He was brave as all get out and he’d play a hunch as far as it went. He was probably saying something about how they were friends and how they hated Ra, which if these guys weren’t working for Ra was a fair bet would be a winner.

  The officer replied, and several men stood up and came around the barricades, zats at the ready.

  “He says they’re going to take our weapons,” Daniel said quietly, translating as they went. “And we will come quietly to prove our good intentions.” Even Cam caught one word in the last sentence just as Carter made a strangled noise behind him. “We may plead our case before his officer, the distinguished O’Neill.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Egypt

  2492 BC

  Aset was still sleeping, Teal’c sitting at her bedside. Her color was improving, and Jack knew that if he lifted the bandage, he would see signs of impossible healing. Already the chief priest had his suspicions about this miracle, and Jack wasn’t looking forward to explaining this to Hor-Aha. Well, you see, this one is actually a good Goa’uld, and her descendants are going to bring down Ra and the rest of the System Lords in about five thousand years. If he were Pharaoh, he wouldn’t buy it, either.

  “O’Neill!” One of the young officers came dashing in, his eyes wide. “You must come at once! Travelers have come through the gate!”

  “What?” Jack shook his head. “How?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam hand Ellie to Tamit, and hurry to join him.

  The young officer looked at his sandals. “Apparently we did not secure the gate, O’Neill.”

  “Damn it,” Jack began, and stopped himself. “Is it secure now?”

  “Yes, O’Neill.”

  “What kind of travelers?” That was Danyel, rubbing his eyes, zat unfolded in his other hand.

  “Not Goa’uld,” the young man said. “But — strange. Sergeant Basa has them under guard.”

  “On my way,” Jack said, and the young officer dashed out. Jack paused long enough to collect a staff weapon, and stalked toward the temple steps. He checked at the top, his eyes sweeping across the group waiting for him. His men were drawn up in careful order, zats and staff weapons pointed at a group in what were unmistakably Air Force uniforms. Five of them, and three were hardly strangers: Teal’c — Teal’c with hair, which was unexpectedly weird, and the gold First Prime’s tattoo still in place, looking indefinably older; and Danyel, looking younger; and Sam. Sam with long hair in a pony tail and what looked like a colonel’s eagles on her collar and the same incredulous recognition on her face.

  “Holy crap,” he said, and looked at Basa.

  “O’Neill.” The sergeant raised his hand in salute. “These came through the gate — very like what happened before, when you, the other you, arrived. They swear they are no friends of Ra —”

  “Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” Jack said.

  “Perhaps so,” Basa agreed. “But you were not his friend, and these — are they not more of you?”

  “Not me,” Jack said. That seemed important, somehow. “But, yeah, a couple of them do look vaguely familiar.”

  This Daniel grinned at that, almost in spite of himself, and the tall good-looking one took a half step forward.

  “General O’Neill?”

  “Boy, have you got that wrong,” Jack said, in English. “It’s Colonel O’Neill. And I’m retired. Very, very retired.”

  “Not so much,” Daniel said, with a pointed look at the soldiers.

  The pretty, dark-haired woman was looking at him curiously, and then her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said.

  The woman who looked like Sam — who probably was Sam Carter, in some weird twist of time and physics that was going to make his head hurt just to think about it — made an odd strangled noise, and valiantly looked away. Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Sam and Danyel descending the steps. The other Sam, the colonel said, “Uh, sir?”

  “Not sir,” Jack said. “I’m retired.”

  “They — I’m guessing they must be us from the original timeline.” That was his Sam, her eyes bright. “Or something very like it.”

  “I knew this would give me a headache,” Jack muttered. He said, more loudly, “OK, kids, this is — weird. What are you doing here?”

  “We’re here because the
timeline is in danger,” the good-looking one said. He really did look like a recruiting poster, Jack thought. “Again.”

  “You people seem pretty careless about it,” he said.

  “I’m guessing this has something to do with a videotape we found in a First Dynasty canopic jar,” the younger-looking Daniel said.

  “That damn videotape,” Danyel said. He shook his head. “It seemed like such a good idea at the time.”

  “General O’Neill,” the good-looking one said. He’d gotten a grip on himself, looked as though he was determined to get a word in before things got any stranger. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, this is Vala Mal Doran, and I’m thinking you know Colonel Carter, Dr. Jackson, and Teal’c.”

  “Colonel,” Jack said, and shook his head. “And I’m a colonel. Was a colonel. Not a general.” He looked at Basa. “They’re friends. Or at the very least, they’re enemies of our enemies.”

  “Unless they are evil ka,” Basa said. “Sent to deceive us.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” Jack said. “But I don’t think so. Those two —” He pointed to Mitchell and Carter. “They serve the same government I used to, and I’m sure they wouldn’t ally with Ra or any other Goa’uld.”

  Basa gave a reluctant nod. “As you say, O’Neill.”

  “Come on in,” Jack said, in English, and motioned for them to follow up him up the long stairs. “We probably need to talk.”

  The temple servants found them stools and cushions and brought jars of beer and a plate of dates and almonds into the room outside the area where Aset slept. Teal’c, his Teal’c, came reluctantly to join them, his eyebrows rising as he saw the other Jaffa. Jack busied himself getting the beer handed round, got everyone served in time to hear Danyel — his Danyel — say, “OK, this is the part that you don’t know about because it didn’t actually happen.”