SG-1 Fic, The Universe Is Infinite
Written for the Stargate Second Lives Challenge, at Phoenix Gate:
Prompt: Fiction, Character(s)/other to be given a second life: Furlings
Prompt word(s), phrase, quotation, lyrics, image, or scenario: they neither look like scary lizardpeople or ewoks, and they aren't what SG-1 expects.
Disclaimer: Stargate and SG-1 do not belong to me, this is not intended to infringe any copyrights, and no profit whatsoever is made from this little exercise in imagination.
Ratings/Warnings: K / G, none. Team fic, humour.
*****
"You have got to be kidding me," Jack O'Neill said flatly. He slapped the mission report down on the table, and looked at each of the members of SG-1 in turn. Mitchell was wearing his best poker face, Carter looked vaguely apologetic, Daniel shrugged, Vala nodded earnestly, and Teal'c looked as impassive as he ever had. "This is a joke, right? Come on, give it up."
"Jack, do you think I'd drag you all the way from Washington for a joke?" General Landry said. "You were the one who issued a standing order that you had to be briefed in person about any encounters with highly advanced species, let alone one of the original Four Races."
"Right," said O'Neill. "Look, I can buy that you kids somehow landed up on-" he paused to look down at the mission report again, "The for-some-reason totally unknown planet with no Stargate..."
"Technically, it was a moon, not a planet," Carter interjected. "We're tentatively designating it PFA-1094."
"And it was unknown because we truly didn't know it was there, sir," Mitchell said.
"Until we landed on it," Vala added.
"Until we crashed into it, to be precise," Daniel corrected, drily.
"You just can't let that go, can you?" Vala sighed, before continuing with a martyred air. "Anyway, we had just slipped away from the pirate armada, in a cargo ship that I managed to borrow..."
"Steal," Daniel and Mitchell muttered, in unison.
"...and we were headed for a safe planet a hundred light years away, when our systems had a sudden, catastrophic malfunction. Or at least, we thought it was a malfunction, because we were trapped in a massive gravitational field that came out of nowhere. Before we knew it, we were already in the upper atmosphere of this planet-moon thing, and I just barely managed to get us down on the surface in one piece - it was an exceptional piece of piloting too, given that most of the sensors weren't working, and we were effectively flying half-blind," she said, with a defiant look at Daniel.
"She's not wrong," Carter put in. "It was touch-and-go for a while there, sir. We crashed through a few tree-tops. It was a really good landing, under the circumstances."
Vala smiled her appreciation and hugged Sam's arm in a sign of solidarity.
"You crash-landed on the forest-moon," O'Neill said, just to clarify.
"In that it was a moon, and there was a forest on it, yes," Sam confirmed.
"At least there was a breathable atmosphere," said Mitchell, taking up the story. "So we left Sam and Vala to try and make repairs, while the three of us headed out to explore the area."
"See, so far, I can buy this. But the part that's coming up, that's what I'm having trouble with," Jack said. "One minute you're walking along, not a care in the world, and the next..."
"Oh, we did have a care or two, sir."
"If we were going to be able to get off the planet," Daniel put in helpfully.
"For one," Mitchell agreed. "But I grant you, we didn't spot anything unusual, at first."
"Indeed," Teal'c confirmed. "It appeared that we were in the midst of an ordinary woodland environment, similar to hundreds of worlds that we have encountered."
"Right. And then the Furling made contact with you? Just like that," said O'Neill, in a uniquely uninflected way that still managed to convey blank incomprehension and/or deep scepticism topped off with biting sarcasm.
"Not exactly. We didn't know he was a Furling at the time, and it was Jackson who made contact," Mitchell said. Jack spotted the spasm that passed across Daniel's face and identified it as a hastily suppressed wince.
"Literally," Teal'c added blandly.
"He walked right into it, er, him, sir. At least, we assume it was a 'he'. Jackson kinda stepped on his, um, toes, and that's when he grabbed all of us, swung us about twenty feet off the ground, and sorta -"
"Toes? Toes, Mitchell? You ran into a talking tree that had - toes?"
"Roots! They were more like roots, there was no way to..."
"Yeah. That's more believable," Jack dead-panned.
"... and anyway, that's completely irrelevant," finished Daniel, with a scowl.
"A talking tree? Really?"
"Yes, Jack, really!" Daniel repeated, exasperated. "A sentient, fully ambulatory, highly-evolved, incredibly advanced life form that happened to look like a tree."
"Honestly sir, we had some trouble with the concept too. Not exactly what we were expecting. But after we all got past the initial confusion, he was... nice enough," Mitchell said. "He figured out we were human, and tried to introduce himself, but even Jackson couldn't pronounce his name. So Teal'c asked if we could call him Treebeard."
Teal'c inclined his head. "It seemed an appropriate form of address."
"Nice reference, T," Jack said, sounding impressed.
"He didn't mind, seemed to be amused - if you can imagine a tree chuckling - but the next thing he said was that we shouldn't be there, the whole system was off limits to non-native fauna," Mitchell continued. "Yes, sir, he called us 'fauna'," he said, answering Landry's raised eyebrow.
"We explained how we'd ended up there by accident, and would in fact be more than happy to leave, once we got our ship fixed," Daniel said.
"Regardless, since we were already there, Jackson wanted to find out more about Treebeard's people," said Mitchell. "That's when he told us they were the Furlings. So of course, now Jackson wanted permission to stay."
O'Neill snorted. "Of course."
"Treebeard said he'd help us," Mitchell shrugged. "Sounded good to me, especially when he started walking back to where we'd left the ship. It felt a bit weird, but I gotta say, nice view, riding on a tree. Turns out he meant he'd help us to leave. He said our presence would 'contaminate' the natural evolution of the native species, so the sooner we left, the better."
"I tried talking to him, told him we'd been looking forward to meeting his people for a long time, hoping to learn from them," said Daniel. "He said the Furlings believed in strict non-interference, that they'd be impeding our natural development if they interacted with us. Apparently they prefer to observe 'younger species', as he put it, without unduly influencing their evolution."
"OK, that sounds... what's the word?" said O'Neill, snapping his fingers.
"Condescending?" suggested Landry.
"Frustrating?" Daniel sighed.
"Familiar?" said Vala, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah- those, too. I was going to go with not-helpful."
"Not exactly, sir. It was more like he was..." Mitchell paused, searching for a descriptor.
"Benevolent yet detached," said Teal'c.
"Very Zen, sir. Like Teal'c said. He was really polite and all, but we were beginning to feel about as welcome as a skunk at a Fourth of July picnic," Mitchell continued. "Kinda wish I'd had a camera for when we got to the ship, though - Sam and Vala's reactions were something to behold."
"You came back perched on a walking, talking tree," Carter pointed out. "That was a whole new level of weird, even by our standards."
They all paused to contemplate this. Then there was a general round of nods and variously audible noises of agreement.
"I liked him," said Vala, with a bright grin. "It's a shame he wouldn't let us stay around to chat - it was lovely, the way he touched the ship and healed all the damage to it."
"That was pretty incredible," Sam agreed, looking wistful. "I can't be sure, but it looked like he was actually reversing entropy rather than creating matter, in real time. If we could understand even some of the principles involved, it could be the next great leap in our knowledge of the universe..."
"Yes, yes, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana - I get it, Carter. Or rather, I don't. Which is as per usual when you try to explain science stuff to me," O'Neill stated.
Daniel and Sam exchanged mutually commiserating looks, before the archaeologist took up the story. "So, anyway, once the ship was working again, Treebeard hustled us off on our merry way. He also told us not to come back, implying that we wouldn't be able to find the planet even if we tried."
"His exact words were, 'henceforth, we will ensure that this world is out of bounds for outside travelers,' sir. We're adding a note in SGC records that PFA-1094 as well as that solar system are to be avoided in future," Sam said. "It's probably redundant, though. The moon, the planet, in fact the whole solar system, disappeared from our sensors the minute we left it."
"I did ask if there was some way we could contact his people - after all, the Nox and the Asgard let us do it - there's so much we could learn from them," said Daniel. "He replied that humans were a promising species, and maybe in a hundred thousand years or so, it would be safe for them to interact with us."
"I got the impression he meant 'if we managed not to blow ourselves up in the meantime'," Mitchell put in.
Daniel confirmed this assessment with a judicious nod. "He did say the Furlings hoped humans would achieve their potential, and that they would continue to observe us with great interest."
"Observe us?" Jack repeated.
"Oh, yes. He mentioned that there are millions of them all over the galaxy, including human-inhabited planets. They just avoid making their presence known, so as not to interfere in our development."
"So technically, this might not even be the first time we've seen a Furling. Just the first time we talked to one," Mitchell said, pointing out the obvious.
"It's all wrong," Jack complained.
"Wrong?" Daniel said, raising an eloquent eyebrow.
"For a people calling themselves the 'Furlings', I always pictured something less - tall. And with more actual - fur."
"You were perhaps expecting Ewoks, O'Neill?" Teal'c enquired, with commendable gravity.
"No!" he disclaimed. Then reluctantly, "Maybe. Scary lizard-people were a close second."
"Wow. No wonder you get on so well with Martin Lloyd."
"Don't push it, Daniel!" Jack warned. "Anyway, I always knew all those alien trees were creepy," he said, determined to have the last word.
*****
"Ah! Trees, trees...and more trees. What a wonderfully green universe we live in, eh?" -- Jack O'Neill, in Season 3 episode, Demons.