by Karen Miller
“How is Sam this morning?” asked Khenti. “We hope she is feeling better. We hope your magic medicines have made her well again.”
“She’s fine. They don’t make ’em much tougher than Carter. And of course our medicines are top notch.”
Again, a swift exchange of glances. “There is something you wish to discuss with us, Jack?”
“Something I wanted to ask, actually. I’d like to have a look around the valley. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”
Khenti sat forward, his clasped hands upon the table. “Sam and the others have already looked around the valley.”
“Yeah, well… I’m a hands-on kind of guy, Khenti. Seeing is believing. I like to check things out for myself.”
“And you wish to check out our valley?”
“Take the scenic tour. Yeah. That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” he said, shrugging. “Because it’s there. We’re explorers, remember? Exploring’s what we do.”
Khenti’s smile was faint, and definitely unnerving. “Of course. And do you also wish to explore the naquadah mine, Jack?
The pulsing pain behind his eyes leapt like a marlin. “Naquadah mine?” he said. Stay cool, stay cool, don’t show him your hand… “Sure. I’ll explore anything. You know about naquadah?”
“Of course we know,” said Sebak, gently. “But it is of no interest to us. Naquadah is not a thing the people of Mennufer… or any other village… require.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that impression.”
“Is naquadah something your people require, Jack?” asked Khenti. His hands were still folded neatly on the table before him. Breakfast was forgotten. The flatbread was starting to curl round the edges.
Sorry, Daniel. Looks like I’m talking trade after all.
“Maybe. And if it is?”
Instead of answering, Khenti exchanged looks with the other Elders. Interesting. Had they spent the night discussing what they’d be willing to trade for medicines?
Could be. They may not be sophisticated but these people aren’t stupid.
“What would you use our naquadah for?” asked Khenti.
“If we were interested?” Another shrug. “A lot of different things. It’s complicated. If I tried to explain I’d only mystify you. My people and yours started in the same place, Khenti, but… we’ve traveled a bit further down the road than you.”
Khenti sat back. “You told us you came here through the chappa’ai. That is all you have told us and we have not pressed you for more. Now I think it is time for more, Jack. Now I think it is time for the Elders of Mennufer to know your truths.”
O’Neill took a deep breath and let it out. Here goes. Please God, don’t let this be a mistake. “Okay. My team and I came to Adjo from a planet called Earth. It’s the planet your ancestors were stolen from by Ra and Setesh, three thousand years ago. Your people and mine belong to the same family. The family of mankind. Humanity.”
The gathered Elders of Mennufer said nothing but their mouths opened and their eyes grew wide.
“Oh, and one other thing,” he added. “Ra and Setesh weren’t gods. They were aliens called the Goa’uld, who like to use humans as slaves. They’re dead now. I killed Ra, and Carter killed Setesh.”
Madu leaned forward, hands fisted, eyes white-rimmed with his intensity. “You say you are godslayers?”
He almost stepped back. “No. Not godslayers. Ra and Setesh were living beings, just like us. Not gods. Never gods.” He considered them. “Hope I haven’t ruined your day.”
Khenti shook his head dismissively. “The Elders of Mennufer long ago stopped worshipping Ra and Setesh.”
“But their symbols are scrawled all over the place.”
Yet again, the Elders exchanged complicated glances. Khenti nodded. “That is true.”
“Ah… why?”
“If I tried to explain,” said Khenti, smiling, “I’d only mystify you.”
Smartass. He smiled back. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”
“So, Jack,” said Khenti. “You are explorers, and you are traders, and you are interested in our naquadah.”
“Is that a problem, Khenti? Are we still welcome here, or should me and my team pack our bags and try our luck in Maidum or Dahshur?”
Khenti remained supremely relaxed, but the other Elders stiffened as though he’d stuck them with a pin.
Ha. Gotcha.
“I think we can talk of trade, Jack,” said Khenti. “And I think we can help you when you talk to the Elders of the other villages.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m happy to hear it. Now I’ll leave you gentlemen to finish your breakfast.”
Dixon was waiting for him on the grassy river bank, leaning back on his elbows and watching the coracles bob on the currents. Hearing footsteps approaching, he looked up.
“How’d it go?”
“It went,” he said curtly. “Now if you’ve finished topping up your tan, Dixon, maybe you’d like to show me this mine.”
Aside from a few essential directions, Dixon managed to keep his mouth shut while they poled their way across the river on the village’s primitive ferry and then hiked through the cultivated fields to the base of the sloping valley sides.
But the golden silence didn’t last.
“So Jack,” Dixon said as they started up the side of the valley. “How long do you reckon we can keep on tapdancing round the honking great elephant in the room?”
No, no, no. I am not doing this. “Something wrong with your memory?” he said. “I told you already, Dixon. I don’t dance.”
“You don’t say much, either.”
“So I’m laconic. Sue me.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather have one decent conversation with you. Just one. Is that so much to ask?”
Crap. He grabbed at a sapling, used its slim bole to clamber over a jutting rock spur. “That depends on what you want to talk about.”
“Veer right,” said Dixon, behind him. “Five degrees. You’re going off course.”
And I’m not the only one. He adjusted direction, his breathing a little harder and faster. But that was only because they’d hit a steep part of the climb. It had nothing to do with the relentless damned headache skewered between his eyes. “How much further?”
“A ways yet,” said Dixon.
“Then I suggest we save our breath.”
“I don’t want to,” said Dixon. “Jack, you know damn well what I want to talk about.”
Why wouldn’t the bastard just leave it alone? “Give it a rest, Dixon. As Hammond would say, that dog won’t hunt.”
He heard Dixon stop. “Dammit, O’Neill,” the man said, protesting. “Frank was your friend. He was my friend too. And he’s dead. Don’t you want to — ”
“What?” he demanded, turning. “Resurrect him? Dig up his corpse so we can pick over his bones? Screw you, Dixon.”
Dixon’s genial face was blank with shock, or hurt, a mix of both. “What is your problem? My God, he was my best friend and you were the last person to speak to him before he died. He died inches away from you. Don’t you think you owe me — ”
“Owe you? Holy crap, Dixon, what the hell do I owe you? I don’t even know you. I don’t want to know you. You’re a tourist. For the last damned time, Frank Cromwell is not up for discussion. Not today, not tomorrow, not this side of the apocalypse. And if you mention his name again I will bounce you back to Earth so fast you’ll get whiplash. Is that talkative enough for you, Dave?”
Dixon shook his head. “Jesus. Frank said you could be a bastard.”
“Frank was right. Take the hint. Now are we going up to this mine or what?”
“Yeah,” said Dixon, shoving past him. “Why don’t we do that, before one of us has an accident.”
Toiling in Dixon’s wake, fighting the urge to sneeze as a warm breeze came up and swirled pollen into his face, he felt a stinging tingle in his blocked sinuses, tasted an iron tang in his throat. For the sec
ond time that morning his touching fingers came away red.
Crap.
But it was okay. It was just a stupid nosebleed. And anyway, he had more important things to worry about.
Like how I’m going to stop myself throwing Dixon down a mine shaft. George, George… you owe me big time for this.
Teal’c ran through the Adjoan wilderness steadily, easily, barely breaking a sweat. The naquadah-filled back-pack bounced to the rhythm of his strides, full of promise, as Adjo was full of promise.
And danger, though I cannot say why.
Running from the village to the Stargate presented no great challenge, even though he carried a significant amount of naquadah. As a Jaffa in his prime he possessed a stamina that was rarely tapped by his duties at the SGC. Occasionally, in some battle situations, he felt himself stretched. But for the most part he was forced to bleed off his excess energy in extended sessions of physical activity in one of the SGC’s gyms. He had even been known to run up and down the emergency access stairwells that led to the top of the Cheyenne Mountain facility.
O’Neill constantly bemoaned his ineligibility for the United States Olympic team.
He wished he could outrun his sense of unease with as little effort as he ran now through Adjo’s flowering woods. On the surface, so far, the planet did indeed seem a paradise. Whatever disasters had befallen it in the time of Ra and Setesh, a sensible man would agree that they were long in the past. And the people of Mennufer, they appeared to be totally harmless. Peace-loving, gentle, concerned only with the day-to-day necessities of living and life. They did not make war on each other or their neighbors, nor did they seek to dominate or destroy. Their Elders might be secretive, which put O’Neill on his guard, but nothing about them suggested a threat of any kind.
And yet I cannot feel easy. I am chased by shadows.
This must be what his human friends called dread. A looming, consuming weight of dire expectation.
Something bad is coming. I know it. I feel it. I cannot prove it, but all the same… it is true.
If he was honest with himself — and at all times he strove to be honest — General Hammond’s refusal to heed his warning had caused him some pain. Even more, it caused him trepidation.
The blame will be mine if something should go awry with this mission. I will have failed in my duty to keep my people safe.
And something was about to go awry…
Even as he ran he shook his head at himself. If O’Neill were running with him and if he voiced his concerns aloud, the colonel would chastise him for — for — borrowing trouble.
He wished he could have brought Major Carter with him to the Stargate. He wished O’Neill had insisted that she report to Doctor Fraiser for a medical inspection. He was not happy with how she appeared.
Or was that simply more borrowing trouble?
Conflicted and brooding, he continued to run.
When at last he reached Adjo’s Stargate he did not dial the SGC immediately. Instead he looked around for any sign of Lotar. But there were no fresh flowers in the shrine behind the Stargate, just a withered straggle that had clearly been there at least a day.
His skin crawled with unease. “Lotar!” he called. “Lotar, it is Teal’c. Are you nearby? Do you require assistance?”
No reply. No sign of her. Just the soughing of the wind through the surrounding trees. But that did not mean she was in trouble. Withered flowers did not mean something was wrong… and yet his instincts told him otherwise. But he could not search for her now. He would search for her when he returned from his mission.
He dialed Earth, sent through his IDC code, waited a moment then stepped into the wormhole to emerge an endless heartbeat later in the familiar surrounds of the SGC gate room.
As the SF guards lowered their weapons and stepped back, Sergeant Harriman greeted him over the intercom. “Hey, Teal’c! Welcome home.”
He raised an acknowledging hand then joined the sergeant in the control room. “I wish to see General Hammond. Is he available?”
Harriman shook his head. “Sorry. He’s at the Pentagon briefing the Joint Chiefs.”
“I see. Is it not possible to reach him by telephone?”
Harriman rolled his eyes. “No. It’s a closed door session. There’s a loooot of heat coming down from the brass.”
“I see. Then I will leave him a note. Have you a pen and paper I might use?”
“Sure,” said the sergeant, and gave him both. “Hey, what’s in the back-pack? Looks heavy.”
“Naquadah,” he said briefly.
Harriman grinned. “Whoah. Cool.”
Ignoring the sergeant, Teal’c focused on his letter to Hammond. General, we have located a naquadah mine. I am giving the samples we have obtained to the science team for analysis and returning to Adjo to continue the mission. SG-1 will make contact with further progress reports as frequently as possible. Teal’c. He folded the note and gave it to Harriman.
“Please ensure General Hammond receives this as soon as he returns from Washington.”
“I’ll hand it to him personally,” Harriman promised. “And if he calls in I’ll read it to him over the phone.”
He nodded. “Thank you. Is Doctor Zola in his laboratory?”
“I don’t know,” said Harriman with an apologetic shrug. “You know what it’s like, Teal’c. I don’t get out of here much. But I’m pretty sure he’s on the base, if that’s any help.”
“Thank you,” he said again, and went in search of the SGC’s second-best physicist.
Marcel Zola was in his lab, poring over a long strip of computer printout. He looked up distractedly when he realized he wasn’t alone, his green eyes bleary behind their glasses. “Teal’c! Can I help you?”
Teal’c shrugged himself out of the back-pack and dumped it on the desk. “These are samples of Adjoan naquadah. I require them to be tested for quality immediately. General Hammond urgently requires the information.”
Zola’s puffy, stubbled face lit up. “Adjoan naquadah?” he breathed. “So the mission’s a success? That’s fantastic, Teal’c. Congratulations.”
“The mission has yet to be completed, Doctor,” he pointed out. “Congratulations at this point are premature.” When Zola’s face fell, he relented. “But I believe this naquadah to be of excellent quality. It is my hope the mission will succeed in due course. Please. Commence your testing.”
“You got it, Teal’c,” said Zola, and promptly forgot he wasn’t alone.
Leaving the scientist to his work he made his way to the infirmary, where he found Doctor Fraiser examining the partially-healed wound in Captain Ariel Lee’s thigh.
“Hey, Teal’c,” the doctor greeted him. “Back so soon?”
“I have brought samples of raw naquadah for testing,” he explained. “Now I must return to Adjo, but I wished to take more medical supplies with me.” He nodded to Lee. “Captain. It would appear you are healing satisfactorily.”
Captain Lee nodded, smiling. “Yeah. I’m not doing too bad.”
“I’ll just be a few minutes here, Teal’c,” said Doctor Fraiser. “You can wait in my office.”
“Of course. Captain Lee.”
Doctor Fraiser joined him a short time later. Perching on the edge of her cluttered desk, hands shoved into her lab coat pockets, she raised her eyebrows. “You need more medical supplies? Why? Is there a situation I should know about?”
He shook his head. “No, Doctor. Although Major Carter has sustained some minor injuries in a fall.”
Doctor Fraiser straightened. “What do you mean minor?”
“She has some contusions, abrasions and a mild concussion.”
“What? Teal’c, there’s no such thing as mild concussion! All concussions are brain damage. Why didn’t she come back here with you so I could examine her?”
“She did not wish to,” he said simply. “She assured Colonel O’Neill she was competent to continue her duties.”
“Yeah, like she’d know. Or
he would,” Doctor Fraiser muttered. “Idiots, the pair of them. You tell them from me that I want to see Sam in my infirmary if she’s not one hundred percent okay by this time tomorrow. Clear?”
“I shall inform them. But it is not for Major Carter that I require the medical supplies. The people of Adjo have no medicines of their own. Colonel O’Neill believes — ”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. He wants to use our medical expertise as a bargaining tool?” She blew out a sharp breath. “Oh, boy. He and I are going to — ” Then her expression shifted from anger to puzzlement. “No medicines, did you say? How is that possible? Even the most primitive cultures develop rudimentary — ”
“Yes,” he replied. “Daniel Jackson was equally surprised. Perhaps it is a mystery you can solve together. However, for now — ”
“Yes, yes, you want to get back,” she said. “Come on. Let’s raid the supply room.”
She helped him fill a fresh back-pack with testing kits, antiobiotics, bandages, antibiotic cream, analgesics and antiseptic wipes, then walked with him to the gate room. As Sergeant Harriman opened a wormhole to Adjo she stood by his side at the base of the ramp.
“Remember what I said, okay? I want Sam back here the minute it looks like the concussion was more than mild.”
“You have my word, Doctor, if I have to carry her here myself.”
She grinned at him. “And you would, too. Safe journey.”
“Thank you, Doctor Fraiser.”
He walked into the wormhole.
The moment he stepped back through to Adjo he saw Lotar, crumpled on the ground beside the DHD. He was beside her in four swift strides.
“Lotar! Lotar, what has happened? Are you ill?”
As gently as he could he took the girl by the shoulders and rolled her over. When he saw her face he recoiled in horror. It was thickly covered in weeping boils. They marred her forehead, her cheeks, her throat, and disappearing beneath the neck of her linen dress. Her eyelids were crusted with yellow matter, her nostrils clotted with old dried blood. A hint of fresh blood glinted and the warm air rattled in her throat.
“Lotar!” he said again. “Lotar, can you not hear me?”
