Jack and Sam considered it and nodded. “Alright, get an arch for the Academy Hospital and program one of these last three for the hospital. Good idea,” Jack said. “Can we change these from seven to ten?” he asked Sam. She shrugged and nodded.
“No problem,” she said. “We limited them so that everyone wasn’t trying to remember thirty-six symbols and all their permutations. We can make it eleven. Ten for personal use and the eleventh for our central emergency location.”
“I don’t think the general public needs to know about that one,” Jack said. “Most people know computer programmers have back doors, right?”
“We can do that,” Sam said.
Daniel looked once more at his cup and decided to put it down. A moment later, Jack handed the baby to Sam. Both men abruptly rushed from the room and could be heard throwing up in the bathroom. Sam and the kids looked toward the guest bath. She went into the master bath and looked at the stick on the counter.
“We’re pregnant!”
Chapter 61
Sam dug hungrily into her bowl of cottage cheese and fruit while the men stared white-faced at the curds. They forced their stomachs to behave.
“Here.” Maggie put dry toast in front of the men. “It’ll help settle your stomachs.”
“This isn’t fair,” Jack muttered. “We’re not supposed to be sick.”
“It’s only a few more weeks,” Maggie told him. “Big baby. You always were a pain in the butt when you were sick.”
“But morning sickness?” Daniel whined. He winced as Maggie tweaked his ear.
“You two can play, but you can’t pay?” she demanded. “Get your ya-ya’s off and sit back?”
“Mom!” Jack put his toast down, shocked. Matthew stuck a finger in one ear while he ate his cereal with the other hand.
“Guys, I’m sorry you’re the ones who are sick,” Sam said, putting her spoon down. “I’ve heard that this happens but I didn’t expect it. I thought I’d be sick.”
“No,” Daniel said, standing. He walked behind her and put an arm around her, pecking the top of her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. We’re being whiny. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Jack said, giving her his sad dog face. A strange look crossed his face and he bit into the toast. This didn’t happen when Sara was pregnant. He had heard about the odd reaction of some men, but didn’t really believe it.
Upon informing Jack’s mother that Sam was pregnant, Maggie was ecstatic. She was still a little confused over the paternity issue, but Jack assured her that the child would be her grandchild no matter who was the father.
“But whose name will be on the birth certificate?” she asked, trying to understand.
“Just Sam’s,” Jack told her. “The baby will have her name. We’ll probably have a fight with the hospital over it, but this is how we are dealing with it. If we fail with the hospital, we will have the baby’s name changed in court to Carter. There is no law that says a child must have the father’s name. Our handfasting contract covers this, both our Wills are being changed to cover this; Daniel and I will both be father to the baby. Just like Olivia is calling both of us Daddy, so will this baby.”
Jack then had to argue with Sam about using the arch to get to work. He didn’t want hers and the baby’s molecules scrambled.
“Inanna and Enki AND Thor said it was alright!” she insisted once more. “And there is nothing in our computations that say it would harm the baby.”
“Jack, let’s think about this,” Daniel said calmly, getting between them. “Will the two of you compromise on something?” He waited until he had a reluctant nod from each of them. “Sam, just for the next couple days, you take the al'kesh to work. Jack, you get into some serious head space and dig into those buried archives and find out if there is anything that warns against gate travel during pregnancy. And, Jack, remember this –she’d been using the arch every day during the past six weeks, so if there’s going to be a problem, it would already have occurred. Can you both do that?”
“Alright,” they grumbled.
“And the ultrasound shows a perfectly formed six week old fetus,” Sam reminded Jack.
The kids were excited and promised to help Sam. Even Fang displayed curious behavior as he kept sniffing at Sam’s stomach.
“He smells the baby,” Daniel told the kids when they asked why Fang was doing that. “Animals can do that. They have good sniffers.”
They marked the kitchen calendar with her due date, June 4th, and Stacey and Davy took turns marking off the days. Stacey was especially excited because this was going to be a real sibling. Daniel reminded her that the other kids were her real siblings, but he understood. To the surprise of the adults, Jerrie started knitting a blanket.
“Just because I’m a dyke doesn’t mean I can’t do arts and crafts,” she told them. They raised hands in surrender and let her knit in peace.
The Pentagon was making a fuss over the arches. They wanted toys, too, and they were salivating over the arches and the new bug stunners. All the major powers wanted arches, once the word got out. Sam assured them that more were in the works and everyone would have arches. She and Jack also swore that ten was the limit on programmed addresses. Even the paperwork said the arches could hold only ten. The few techs who worked on that part of the arches also swore to ten addresses. The military wanted to know if the arches were portable. Can they be taken on missions? No, Jack told them; they needed to be a permanent fixture or the coordinates would be thrown off and who knows where someone would end up, if they reappear at all. The arches were also set with blocking codes, in the same way the Stargate had a doorbell. Someone had to call beforehand and ring the bell, before being let in. That eased the military minds a little. No one would be invading through their arches. Jack didn’t point out to them that that was the same reason they had asked for portable arches. Maynard knew when Jack was rewriting information and didn’t bother to question him; he had learned that Jack had good reasons. Jack wasn’t hiding behind rose-colored glasses, he fully expected someone in a government think tank to realize that the arches could be moved and could hold more addresses. Before that happened, though, he hoped to have laws put into effect that would govern the use of the arches. He sent a private recommendation to Henry.
The general population was taking things well, considering. They surprised Jack who thought there would be more of an outcry over all the alien stuff and new technology that was suddenly appearing. When Jack told the Yards to express fun and enjoyment, and let their communities see the happenings, he didn’t realize that it would work so well. Another thing Daniel was right about. It was the religious community that was having issues. Attendance in churches, temples, and mosques were down by almost seventy percent. Of course fingers were pointed in Jack’s direction. According to Rabbi Melnik, however, only a handful of those people had given up on religion. Most of them had continued with their own spiritual quest. The Rav found it humorous -“God is not found in a building,” he said, chuckling at himself. “Christians are finally hearing the words of Jesus.” Jack liked the short rabbi with the scraggly beard; he didn’t take himself too seriously and thought that life was the funniest thing he had ever run across.
After dinner, Jack and Daniel got into the hot tub, which was finally fixed, and Sam stood looking at them.
“I feel like I’d be boiling an egg,” she said, spreading her hand across her stomach. “You guys enjoy it. And Matthew wants to know if it’s safe for him to come out.”
“Sure,” Jack said after looking at Daniel. The men just wanted to relax after spending the day nibbling on crackers. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m good,” Sam said, giving him a smile and leaning over the edge to kiss him. “I’m still in high altitude. Also a little worried that something will go wrong.”
Daniel reached over his shoulder and took her hand. “This is a planned pregnancy, you have a healthy uterus, and you’re completely in tip-top shape,” he told
her. He glanced over his shoulder, letting his eyes wander. “Very tip-top shape.”
Sam laughed and took her hand away, smacking playfully at his chest.
“Ow,” he complained, rubbing delicately. “Nipples are sore.”
“Really?” Jack asked, giving his own chest a rub. “Mine, too.”
Sam looked at them. “You guys are too much. I’m sending Matty out, so don’t start anything.”
“Aren’t you having any symptoms?” Jack asked her. Sam thought about it.
“No,” she said cheerfully and walked back into the house.
“I don’t care what Mom says, this is so not fair,” Jack muttered. He looked at the offending points hiding in the fur.
Matthew stuck his head out the door and Jack waved him over.
“Want to get in?” Jack asked. Matty looked down at his clothes. “Just take them off and get in,” Jack said. “It’s a guy thing. It’s okay.”
“No, that’s okay,” Matty said, a little reticent. He looked around and pulled a chair up. “I uh, I’m not sure how… remember when we talked about me going to Kalam for a while?”
“Sure,” Jack nodded. Daniel leaned his head back and shut his eyes, letting the hot water and bubbles get to the back of his neck.
“I’m uh, wondering if…. something is wrong with me,” Matthew said.
“What makes you think that?’ Jack asked.
“Because it… doesn’t interest me all that much,” Matthew said.
“What doesn’t?”
Matty shrugged and tried to look anywhere except at Jack. “Sex. Stuff.”
Jack frowned. “What do you mean? Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”
Matthew slouched in the chair, letting his gangly legs stretch out. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t know the words, I guess.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully and reached out a feeler. “Maybe the words you want are not exactly disinterest, but maybe your mind is preoccupied,” he suggested. The boy thought about it and seemed a little relieved.
“Yes, I think so,” Matty said. “I mean, I like kissing girls and stuff, but I keep thinking there’s something more important I should be doing.”
“Like what?” Jack asked. “Matt, you don’t need to get torqued over this; some guys don’t get interested until they’re a little older.”
Daniel opened an eye and Jack offered him the conversation.
“Matty, can you give us an example of what goes through your mind when you’re with your girlfriend?”
Matthew held out his hands. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he said.
“Jack, what else do you get from him besides preoccupation?”
Jack sank further into the hot water, thinking about it.
“That’s actually the best word,” he said. “But I get the same sense that I get from the Rav.”
Daniel crooked an eyebrow up. “Open? Accepting?”
Jack thought about it and nodded. “Yeah, those work.”
“Matt, you spend a lot of time at church with your grandfather and you seem to enjoy the council meetings. Any chance you’re considering being a priest?”
Matthew considered it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I like how it all makes me feel, but I don’t want to be a priest like grandpa. Maybe I’ll want to get married someday. Have kids. I like helping with Olivia, even though she’s a pain sometimes.”
“There are lots of different kinds of priests,” Daniel told him. “Only a small few have celibacy rules. Matt, what do you get when read the different myths?”
“That they all say the same thing,” he said. “I mean, a lot of them talk about people and how they lived, but they also want us to be kind to each other and to be honorable.”
“What about deity?” Daniel asked.
Matthew shrugged. “I think that there’s something that feels alive,” he said in cautious contemplation. “I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’m not sure that a single God fits, though. It’s like…. this is stupid, but all I can think of is Star Wars and the Force.”
“An energy that connects all things and binds them together?” Daniel suggested.
Matthew lit up. “Yes, that’s it,” he said.
“That is spirituality,” Daniel told him. “I think it’s great that you found that wave to ride. And I agree that it can be heady enough to overshadow everything else. If you’re worried that there’s something wrong, we can certainly get your hormones tested and make sure they’re where they’re supposed to be, but I think you’re a little young to be concerned about that. Jack’s right; lots of boys are late bloomers. Not a problem. Unless you do plan on being celibate, though, you should learn to adapt that spirituality to the rest of your life. Matty, if you are meant to be a priest of some kind, don’t fight it. We will encourage and support you.”
Jack echoed him and Matthew ducked his head. “Can I ask you something?” Matthew asked Daniel.
“Sure, kiddo.”
“About your book. I’ve read it a couple of times and I keep thinking that something is missing. Something about the Ancients, I think. I keep thinking that maybe they did something more than build the gates.”
Daniel spread his arms along the side of the tub. “Like what else?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Matthew said, lifting a shoulder. “I mean, I know you had to leave some things out. Classified things. I’ve lived here long enough to hear when things are NOT being said. I think there’s stuff you didn’t say. And I think there’s something about the Ancients that you don’t want people to know.”
“Well, when you can expound a little more on that, I don’t mind listening,” Daniel told him. Matty looked at him.
“Uh huh.” He stood and unexpectedly pecked Daniel’s damp cheek. “Thanks, Uncle Dad.”
Daniel was smiling as the boy went back into the house. He opened an eye to see Jack also smiling. “He’s going to lead the children out of darkness,” Daniel predicted.
“How about we deal with getting his new brother or sister out of darkness first?” Jack suggested. Daniel agreed and turned toward Jack with glittering eyes.
“The kids are still up,” Jack warned. Daniel didn’t seem to care as one hand slid down while his mouth found Jack’s neck. Daniel was obviously feeling better. Jack gave a growl and pushed back, splashing water over the edge of the hot tub.
Darkness hit a new high, or low, when Jack was called to the SGC late the next morning. The conference room held Landry, SG-1 and 3, and their Indian trainees.
“Morning, Jack,” Landry said as Jack acknowledged everyone and waved them down. Landry pulled slightly at Jack’s collar and shook his head at the purple bruise that was poking out. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
“Hey, talk to Daniel, I’m just his toy,” Jack informed him. Reynolds and Bosco snickered. “Besides, Sam is being extra careful for the next seven months so we are being considerate by letting her rest.” It took the others a moment and then congratulations were offered. The trainees were a little perplexed.
“Does this mean you can’t go out for a ride with us?” Reynolds asked.
“A ride? To where?” Jack asked. With a nod from Landry, Reynolds pointed at the screen.
“You need to see this,” he told Jack.
Video from a hidden camera showed the Indian-descended locals of the Vishnu planet working hard in a factory. Tanks bubbled gently as shadowy forms swam freely in the water.
“Are those…?” Jack leaned in.
“Yep,” Reynolds said grimly.
The image changed to someone’s hands, long, slender fingers holding a Goa’uld larva gently, examining it before setting it back into a tank. The image zoomed in on another, larger tank at the far end of the room. A bloated form occupied the tank.
“That’s…. where the hell did they get her?” Jack couldn’t believe it. Someone had found a queen snake!
“We haven’t gotten that far, sir,” Reynolds told him. “Since only one que
en was ever found, and she died before we could talk with her, we don’t actually know how many others there were, if there were any at all. Nothing the Tok’ra or the Goa’uld ever said made us think there were more. According to Malek, the Tok’ra didn’t think there were any more. We have a call out to Thanatos.”
“Could one have been bioengineered?” Landry asked.
“Don’t know, sir,” Reynolds said apologetically. “Not my area of expertise. We can ask the Tok’ra once they get finished reviewing this footage. This isn’t the best part, though, Jack. Keep watching.”
They all winced as they watched a snake take the human offering. Vishnu himself appeared, dark, with long black hair and a blue robe, inspecting the slaves. Jack had to admit that he didn’t know the face, although the over-the-top clothes were in character for a Goa’uld. The scene changed to more of the lab. Someone was bent over what was obviously a microscope, completely out of character for the technological level of the planet. The person was female and… blond?
“Who…?” Jack leaned in. He then sat back, stunned. “Crap.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Daniel, come to the SGC. Now.”
“This is not good,” Jack informed the room.
When Daniel came in, via the new arch, and saw the footage, he sank into a chair. “Oh, crap,” he said, echoing Jack. “Oh, I was hoping that it wouldn’t happen.”
“Well, if she had a twisted wire or something, a little amnesia wouldn’t fix it,” Jack told him. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but we should have killed her.”
“Don’t pull the I-told-you-so routine with me, please, Jack,” Daniel begged, running a hand over his hair and giving it a pull in frustration. “Is there a plan in the works?”
“Not yet,” Landry said. “We need to know about that queen and we need to know if there are any more. We also need to get Dr. Frankenstein out of there and question her. From what we’ve seen of security, not too many people get near to her and she doesn’t go out into the general public.”
“I can get to her,” Daniel said.
Unification: The Anunnaki Unification Book 5 Page 21
