Brotherhood (23/27)
Title: Brotherhood ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Chapter1 Chapter2a-- 2b Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10a-- 10b Chapter11 Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14 Chapter15 Chapter16a-- 16b Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19a-- 19b Chapter20 Chapter21a-- 21b Chapter22a-- 22b Chapter23
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Family Ties
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24 June 2000; Briefing Room, SGC; 1100 hrs
"Crystal skulls," Jack repeated, flipping again through the packet of information Daniel had slapped together sometime in the past couple of hours. Mostly, he was just looking at the pictures, which were kind of hokey-looking. He didn't really want to read about what legos and moron radiation had to do with cutting a skull out of a piece of rock.
Oh, wait--that was the report Carter had put together. Jack surreptitiously slipped that one aside and pretended he'd been looking at Daniel's report like he was supposed to be doing, which, as it turned out, had even hokier and creepier pictures. He still didn't get what hexagons and grains had to do with cutting a skull out of a piece of rock, though.
Carter seemed to get it. He guessed that was going to have to be good enough for him.
"Yes," Daniel said, for some reason looking more nervous than normal pre-mission jitters or excitement could explain. "There's a lot of legend and theories surrounding them. There's been a lot of work done in trying to date the skulls, but the common methods will tell you about the stone but not about when it was cut. Recent research has provided evidence that at least some of the skulls are...uh, nice artwork, but were probably made recently."
"So...not made by ancient aliens," Jack said.
"But you said this one is different?" Carter said.
"Well, it's on an alien planet, for one," Daniel said, "which is, uh..." He gestured vaguely with one hand. "...different. And it looks a lot like a skull found in 1971 in Belize, which has not, itself, been proven to be a hoax."
"Have they tested that one to see if it's a hoax?" Jack asked, paging through his notes to find the page with the Belize skull on it.
"Uh...no," Daniel admitted. "B--uh, but...also, the lead archaeologist's area of expertise was the Mayan culture, which fits the Mayan architecture that the MALP showed us."
"What is the significance of this skull?" Teal'c said.
Daniel ducked his head. "It's said to have a certain...uh, power. That's why I looked that one up specifically, actually, because of the references to...well... Supposedly, if you look into the eyes of the skull, you'll be...teleported to see aliens."
"Wait a minute," Jack said, dropping the report and leaning forward. "I've heard this one before. The..." He floundered for a moment before he remembered Claire Jackson's maiden name. "The Ballard thing."
Daniel looked up at him, astonished, and then said, "Yes. Dr. Nicolas S. Ballard was the person who found that skull. How did you know that?"
Jack looked around at the others. Judging by Fraiser's expression, she remembered this one, too, from almost a year ago. "Are we talking about...Crazy Grandpa Ballard?" he said.
"Colonel," Fraiser rebuked.
Daniel's eyebrows climbed even higher. "Well, I...I doubt he goes by that name."
"You know," Jack commented, "it sounded a lot crazier when Rothman said it. He said something about talking mist aliens, not just..."
"Oh, yes," Daniel said, nodding slowly, "Dr. Ballard said that, too."
Jack glanced at the general, who looked bemused. Carter offered, "Well, what we've seen so far from the MALP corresponds well enough to what Dr. Ballard claimed."
"The MALP showed no evidence of beings of mist," Teal'c pointed out, "nor of any life form."
"That's just because we haven't looked into the eyes of the skull," Jack said, only half-joking.
"Still," Daniel said, "like Sam says, maybe it means something. It is on an alien planet. And, I mean, no one believed my parents, either."
"True," Jack conceded. It could be something. Besides, Carter wanted to see whatever it was with the nintendos and dense things, so... "General, we have to see this."
"A word of caution, if I may," Dr. Fraiser said. "I checked into Dr. Ballard's records. You should consider that he has persistently experienced hallucinations for years, by his own account."
"You...why were you checking his..." Daniel started, still looking confused, and then stopped. "Oh. You mean when I was..." He pointed in the direction of his head, blushing slightly as he realized they all knew. "So that's why you've heard of it."
"Yes," she said. "And in his case, treatment wasn't forced on him; he sought help by checking himself into a psychiatric institution. So however good the argument for going to this planet, I think Dr. Ballard's words should be taken with a grain of salt."
Personally, Jack was taking a whole can of salt with Dr. Batty's words, but it didn't mean there wasn't something there to see. "Done," he said.
"Well, what if his condition was caused by whatever he found?" Carter said, glancing at Daniel. "We've certainly seen that happen before."
"There's no evidence that the skull poses any danger to us," Daniel said quickly.
"But you should be even more cautious," Fraiser said. "I've no desire to see that happen again."
XXXXX
24 June 2000; P7X-377; 1200 hrs
"We get fifteen minutes after we reach the inside of the pyramid, right?" Daniel said when they stepped out of the Stargate.
"Carter?" Jack said.
She looked down at the meter in her hand. "Yes, sir, that's what Dr. Fraiser said."
"Okay," he said. "Keep an eye on that, Major."
"Yes, sir."
Taking advantage of the lack of people on this planet, Daniel was trotting happily a few steps ahead of them, looking around and trying to capture the few structures on video. Jack suspected that only the desire to reach that central pyramid was stopping him from being sidetracked to that pillar over here, or that unnatural-looking rock out there. "So, Daniel," Jack said casually when he'd caught up from behind.
"Jack?" Daniel said, not looking away from his camera screen.
"Grandpa Ballard," Jack said.
"I doubt he's ever been called that, actually."
"I'm just wondering. You're a guy who likes his history, right?" Daniel glanced back, shrugged, kept walking. "I just remembered it now. You mentioned to me...must've been a couple of years back. You said that you had a grandfather on Earth."
"Did I?" Daniel said.
"Yeah."
"Hm."
"So you've known about him for years," Jack said, "you're basically on Earth on permanent assignment, and you never wanted to find him?"
Daniel played dense and said, "Oh, but I did find him--he lives in Oregon and has no other living family by blood or marriage within three generations, as far as I can tell."
Well, someone had done his homework, and Jack wasn't about to be convinced that Daniel had looked the guy up and worked out his family tree out of curiosity alone without the slightest hope for something more. "But...you've never wanted to meet him?" Jack clarified.
"What," Daniel said sarcastically as he put his camera away, "Crazy Grandpa Ballard?"
Jack winced. "Sorry."
"I mean, if I wanted to meet him, it would be strange to meet him as anything but his daughter's son, and since his daughter supposedly died a few months before I was born...well, it might be an odd conversation. And there would be questions about her or me that I couldn't answer." Daniel folded his arms. "Also, he's in a psychiatric institution."
"But that's the beauty of it," Jack said. "You could tell him something, and if he leaked it, who'd believe him?"
Daniel made a face that started as curious and made its way toward vicariously insulted. "That's a joke, right?"
"We might be able to find some way," Jack amended.
"Mm," Daniel said.
"He might not be as crazy as they think. Crystal skull and all."
"Yes. Well."
Jack frowned. "Did someone already tell you 'no?'"
"No," Daniel said shortly.
"You're being very monosyllabic, Daniel."
"You're being strangely pentasyllabic, Jack, and now, look, so am I."
Jack walked a little farther. "You haven't even asked anyone about Nicolas Ballard," he guessed.
"I asked Robert, as you already know."
"You haven't asked anyone who could actually give you permission to--"
"No, I haven't," Daniel said, sounding irritated now. "Jack, will you drop it?"
"Okay," Jack said, curious as hell but holding his hands up in surrender. "Dropping it."
Daniel lasted another minute before mumbling, "My mother never mentioned him." Jack raised his eyebrows, tilting his head to invite some elaboration. Daniel shrugged, looking at the trail they were following. "My father talked about his parents. My mother followed her father into the profession, more or less, and I never even knew her name was Ballard."
"Ah," Jack said. "They didn't get along?"
"How would I know?" Daniel said, and then, "Maybe. The point is, he's supposed to be schizophrenic. I mean..." He exhaled sharply. "What's the point--he'd never get high enough clearance to know who I actually am, anyway. There's no point in trying."
Jack knew for a fact that there was very little in the known universe that would stop Daniel from trying to get something he really wanted--he'd bided his time and prodded a major general for years until he'd gotten a field assignment, after all--which meant that this was probably not something Daniel particularly wanted for one reason or another. Maybe it was wisest not to ask. "Yeah," he said. "You could be right."
"Anyway. His name was known for chasing...strange theories," Daniel added. "Not all of them sound nearly as plausible as the crystal skull, in case you're wondering."
"That plausible, huh?" Jack said.
"Mm-hm."
Given the awkwardness of the conversation, when they finally stepped into the pyramid, Jack had never been so glad to be somewhere so radioactive. "Carter?" he asked.
"Muon radiation is increasing, sir," she said, entering behind them. "Not dangerous just yet if it stays at these levels."
"Whoever the builders are," Teal'c observed, looking around the gigantic pyramid, "they appear to be a formidable race."
Carter looked away from her meter and said, "I can't believe this place is stable." Jack raised his eyebrows at her, and she assured him, "It appears to be, sir. I just wish I knew how the architects managed it."
Daniel was eyeing the narrow strip of land that formed the bridge that spanned the deep chasm between where they were and where the skull was sitting on a pedestal.
"Start the clock," Jack said, setting the timer on his watch. "We have fifteen minutes starting now." This seemed to be all the impetus Daniel needed to lead the way onto the bridge. Jack followed behind, surprised at the lack of hesitation. "Lost that fear of heights?"
Without turning, Daniel said, "I got a lot of practice with that beam in the Hall of Thor's Might."
"Ah. Right," Jack said, watching carefully to make sure he wasn't faltering. "You realize if you fall here, you actually fall?"
Daniel stopped for a moment, then determinedly went on. "Thank you, Jack."
"Eyes on the skull," Carter said helpfully from behind Jack. Actually, that did help--Daniel tended to be easily distracted by shiny things that possessed potentially dangerous qualities, and he sped up until he stepped onto the central platform and moved aside for Jack.
Jack heard Carter stepping off the bridge from behind him and Teal'c behind her. "Hey, stay close," he added when Daniel started to move away. Just in case, he followed behind Daniel, since he had nothing better to do, anyway.
"There's no one here, Jack," Daniel pointed out, dropping his pack to the ground and edging closer to the skull as Teal'c peered over the edge and Carter took radiation measurements.
"But the skull might teleport you to see aliens," Jack said. Daniel's eyebrows said he was Not Amused. Jack held up his hands and let him do his thing.
Daniel moved to the pedestal, and, despite the jokes, Jack started to reach for him as he bent toward it, only to abort the motion when Daniel whirled and gave him a look, as if to say, 'do you mind?' "I'm just looking at the teeth," he said.
"Ah...why?" Jack said.
"We couldn't get a good visual on this from the MALP, and one of the obvious distinguishing features of some crystal skulls is the way the jaw and the teeth are assembled. Or carved or etched," Daniel said. "Without having seen the Ballard skull with my own eyes, everything from the size to the shape of the features of this one seems to match the descriptions." He stopped short of poking at the indentations of the skull's temples. "Not that I've seen other crystal skulls, but people back home would know. We can take this back with us, right?"
"Sure, why not," Jack said. "Doesn't look like any local people are going to complain."
"I'd like to run a few tests on it, too," Carter added, still several meters away and looking over the edge of the platform. "If it's said to have supernatural powers, maybe there's some basis in fact that we can examine."
Daniel hurried down the steps to where his pack was lying on the ground and pulled it open. Jack turned back to knock experimentally on the crystal cranium as Daniel asked, "Teal'c, you've never seen anything like that before? The Goa'uld use crystal technology."
"I have not," Teal'c said. "Goa'uld crystal technology does not take this form."
As Jack started to turn away, something flickered. He automatically scanned the skull for it again, but the flicker was gone until he took another step down and back, leaving him eye level to...well, the eyes.
"Hey, there's really something going on with the eyes," Jack said sharply.
Except he didn't say it. He tried opening his mouth and forcing sound through, and when that didn't work, he tried turning away or moving anywhere, only to find himself completely frozen.
"Sir, radiation is spiking!" Carter said.
What? Jack tried and failed to say.
"What? But we've barely had any time," Daniel said, and then, "Jack, what are you d... Jack?"
"Three hundred percent," Carter called worriedly. "Four hundred!"
Get out of here! Jack screamed futilely. The flicker he'd seen before was flashing now, like lights that were rising around the skull and rushing toward him. Something was pulling at him from every direction, but there was nothing he could struggle against, even if he could move.
"Colonel, we have to go now!"
"O'Neill!"
"Jack! Teal'c, let go--"
"Major Carter, we must act--"
Their voices were drowned out by a rushing sound in Jack's ears. The pulling sensation grew stronger as the air around him grew cold, and then unbearably hot--
Something exploded in front of his eyes. Jack felt himself starting to fall and blacked out on the way down.
XXXXX
24 June 2000; P7X-377; 2000 hrs
Jack sat up and almost fell over the edge of the platform and into a chasm that seemed to have no end. "Oy," he said, staring down at it before scooting a safe distance back. Footsteps to his right made him turn to see Teal'c grabbing the crystal skull.
"What the hell?" he said, looking around and noticing that only Teal'c was here. In fact, Daniel's pack was still on the ground, open and with a book, supplies, and a grenade spilling out. Carter's hand meter lay next to it. Teal'c paused, looking around as Jack pushed himself to his feet. "Want to tell me what's going on?" Jack said. Teal'c made the eyebrow equivalent of a shrug, didn't answer, and ran--
--right through Jack's chest.
"Whoa!" Jack cried, patting himself to make sure he was still there. "Hey! What the hell? Teal'c, stop!" Without stopping, Teal'c closed his pack again. "Hello?"
Jack thought that maybe there was something wrong with Teal'c. He bent absently to scoop up Daniel's bag and watched as his hand passed through it. That was when he decided that maybe there was something wrong with himself.
Maybe he was a ghost.
"Crap," he said, staring. Teal'c frowned harder at a point about an inch above Jack's head but didn't answer. "Oh, this is...this is a really bad day." If this was Hell, though, it was pretty disappointing; someone could use a few decorating tips from Sokar.
As Teal'c started to jog over the bridge and toward the entrance to the pyramid, Jack decided to follow, just in case there was anything else he couldn't touch, like the DHD, which could be a problem. If he was dead, he damn well wasn't going to hang around haunting an alien planet. He hoped ghosts could go through wormholes. Maybe someone back on base would give his eulogy and then he'd find out what happened.
...x...
24 June 2000; Infirmary, SGC; 2030 hrs
As they'd left the 'gate room, Jack had discovered that he could walk through doors. As annoying as this whole not-being-seen thing was, walking through doors was pretty cool. The doors were all open when he followed Teal'c to the infirmary, though, so he decided to walk through a wall instead.
This was how he discovered that he could not walk through walls.
"That is the stupidest thing..." Jack said, and then had to stop to check and see if his nose was bleeding, which it wasn't. Good thing, too, since, with his luck today, tissues and water probably all went through him. At least he was pretty sure that meant he wasn't a ghost, because it would just be stupid for a ghost to be able to go through doors and not walls. Maybe the crystal skull had teleported him to ghost-world and skimped on the ghost powers.
"Carter," Jack called as he went around and through the doorway instead, "why can't I walk through--whoa. What happened?"
Carter was lying on a bed, unconscious, while Dr. Fraiser checked the monitor over her head. "They're going to be fine, Teal'c," she said quietly. "Their exposure wasn't long enough to cause any permanent damage."
"Exposure to what?" Jack said exasperatedly, and then remembered the radiation. "Oh. Crap."
"Dr. Fraiser," a nurse called from the other side of the curtain. "He's waking up again."
Fraiser and Teal'c each walked through one of Jack's arms as they all hurried to see Daniel stirring on another bed, his eyes narrowed to slits and his face covered in sweat. "Sam?" he whispered, raising a hand to his head.
"She's still unconscious," Dr. Fraiser told him gently, patting his face with a damp cloth, "but she'll be fine."
Daniel's eyes squinted even more as his frazzled brain tried to work. "Um," he managed, then caught sight of Teal'c. "Teal'c...Jack?"
Jack wondered if it was weird that he could hear whole sentences when the only thing Daniel had said was their names. Teal'c got it, though, and answered, "Colonel O'Neill was nowhere in the vicinity of the planet. I believe it is indeed a teleportation device."
"Look! I'm still here!" Jack said, jumping a few times in case someone could see him.
"Dr. Rothman is now studying it," Teal'c said.
"Should've been me," Daniel mumbled, slumping back bonelessly.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "No offense, but if Rothman's the one who taught you about crystal skulls in the first place, I think we should go to him."
That wasn't what Daniel had meant, though. "We keep losing him somewhere, Teal'c. If I hadn't...taken off my pack or...or if I'd known more about the skull..."
"Perhaps you yourself would have been transported elsewhere, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.
"Mm," Daniel said as Fraiser pulled the covers higher around him. "But he's better at...finding people. Maybe he's talking to mist aliens. That's my job. What if they don't speak English?"
"That is so not the issue right now, kid," Jack said softly, swiping a hand futilely through the mattress and wishing more than ever he could say something, touch something, anything...
"Jack?" Daniel gasped, turning to look directly at Jack's stomach. He started to push himself up on his elbows as Fraiser easily pressed him back down.
"Wait, wait," Jack said desperately, moving to wave his arms wildly in front of Daniel's eyes. Daniel's eyes didn't follow him or any of his movements, but still... "Can you see me? Or hear me?" He flicked a hand through Daniel's nose. "Come on--"
"Shh," Fraiser soothed, standing right on top of Jack. Whoa. This was weird. He could see her face coming out of his shoulder. "Rest. You can help them when you get your strength back."
...x...
Nyan looked fascinated by the skull. Rothman looked skeptical. Hammond looked displeased. Then Teal'c said, "We believe it to be a teleportation device," and he looked a little crazy.
Rothman raised his eyebrows and blew his nose on a tissue. "Are you serious?" he said.
"No," Jack said, "he's joking. Teal'c does that a lot."
"We were hoping your archaeological expertise could help provide some insight into where Colonel O'Neill may have been sent," Hammond added.
"It's a skull!" Rothman protested.
"I myself witnessed the artifact create a tremendous field of energy which engulfed Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c said.
"It's made of crystal, not...plutonium," Rothman complained as Jack slapped a hand through his head a few times, just because he could. "I don't see how this could--"
"Humor me, Doctor!" Hammond thundered. Nyan jumped in alarm, and Rothman shut up, eyes wide. "I want a full report in twelve hours."
"Yes, sir, I-I was--"
Teal'c grabbed the back of Nyan's shirt as the Bedrosian bent closer to look at the skull. "Do not look directly into its eyes," he warned. Nyan stared at him uncertainly, then gave Robert a sideways look and received the same expression in return.
"Oh," Nyan said as he was set back onto his feet.
"Good, Teal'c," Jack said, exasperated, "now they'll believe you."
...x...
25 June 2000; SGC; 0600 hrs
Jack learned that night that kelno'reem was, in fact, just as boring as it looked and sounded. He also learned that watching unconscious people being unconscious was even less exciting when no one could hear or see him. His team was very boring when they weren't awake.
The rules were dumb, too. He could pass through the elevator doors, but not through the floor or walls of the elevator. He could even pass through the elevator doors when the elevator car wasn't there.
This was how he learned that he couldn't grab onto the ropes in the elevator shaft.
And then he learned that he could climb the escape ladders, but not the sections that had clearly been recently repaired. Maybe the metal was different. If he'd been Carter, he might have cared. Luckily, he could also pass through the escape hatch that led to the ladder, and then he decided to try to stay away from places he might get stuck, like elevator shafts.
When he went back to the infirmary, he could sit on one of the little tables by the bed. It was weird--the table should have toppled over, but it didn't even move or bend as he sank his whole weight onto it. Then Jack decided that, if he could touch that, he should be able to do something to the knickknacks on top of it if he just grabbed the table and pulled it up...
Except that he could touch it but couldn't move it. This was just...boring. He would've even welcomed Urgo at this point.
Well, not Urgo. But anything besides Urgo would've been nice.
And he wasn't getting hungry, or thirsty, or tired. He tried running around a lot and couldn't even make himself tired. That made him feel kind of dead, so he stopped thinking about it.
Daniel made it out of the infirmary first. He and Carter were both half-sitting on their respective beds by this time, the curtain still up between them, and Daniel waited until Fraiser was telling Carter not to get up yet, shamelessly using the distraction to slip out. Jack followed him to the archaeology office before he got stuck and had to wait for someone to use the elevator.
"It's a crystal skull," Rothman said immediately upon seeing him. Nyan was asleep in Daniel's chair, slumped over the desk. "I mean...it's a skull."
"Robert, it did something to Jack," Daniel said tiredly. He accidentally sat on Nyan, which resulted in both of them toppling to the floor in an ungainly pile of limbs.
"For crying out loud," Jack sighed. Rothman rubbed his eyes and helped both of them up.
"It is a skull of crystal!" Nyan declared, still wide-eyed from his sudden awakening.
"I'm telling you, it did something to Jack," Daniel insisted.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Daniel," Rothman said. "It looks exactly like the Nicolas Ballard skull. I've compared it with every description he ever published on it and I managed to get a copy of the provenance from the Smithsonian, at midnight, which, let me tell you..."
"Yes," Daniel said, "and Nicolas Ballard said it could teleport--"
"But Nicolas Ballard was--" Rothman started.
"Robert, Jack got...got...got beamed somewhere!" Daniel said. "It's a start."
Jack scratched his head. "I wouldn't say 'beamed.' 'Shifted,' maybe. 'Phased,' if you will."
"Do you want to take a shot at it?" Rothman said, gesturing. "I've done everything I can possibly think of on this thing, and I'm telling you, there is nothing special about it. It's quartz crystal, and it looks like it was made right here on Earth...wha--what are you doing?"
Daniel had settled himself in front of the skull and was staring into the eyes.
"Hey, stop that!" Jack ordered, grabbing futilely at Daniel's shoulder.
"Teal'c says that we should not watch the eyes," Nyan said, hovering worriedly.
"Then again," Rothman said, throwing down a pencil in frustration, "it's not like it's going to do anything, because this thing is like a...a fancy paperweight."
Daniel paused long enough to glare at him, then turned back to the skull to glare harder.
"Are you insane?" Jack said, reaching toward him again and then shoving at him as hard as he could to try to make him move. "He's actually insane this time. Rothman, stop him! For cryin' out loud, you want to get stuck here with me?"
"Stop!" Carter's voice said, sounding furious and shocked as she marched in, followed by Dr. Fraiser. Daniel jumped and broke eye contact with the skull, looking nervously at them.
"Thank you!" Jack snapped, relaxing and breathing hard the way climbing up ladders and running around the base couldn't make him do. "You know, no one can scare me like you do."
"Daniel, what is the matter with you? And you!" she added, pointing to Rothman. "Didn't we tell you not to do that under any--"
"I did, I told him!" Nyan squeaked.
"It doesn't work, Sam," Daniel said in disgust.
"And what if it had?" Carter said angrily, rubbing a hand over her face. "God."
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Doesn't sound like you are," Jack snapped at him. "Dammit, Daniel."
Carter's head snapped up. Jack froze.
"What was that?" she said, looking around suspiciously. "I just got a shiver."
"Me! Hello!" Jack yelled. "Major Carter! I order you to...see me."
Fraiser filled a cup with water and handed it to her. "You're still suffering from radiation sickness," she said with a pointed glance at Daniel, too.
"Carter! Over here!"
"Yeah," Carter said, taking a sip and looking at a point next to Jack, still suspicious, but then she gave up. "Dr. Rothman, Nyan, you've been up all night. I'll take over from here. Daniel..."
"I've got Robert's notes," Daniel said, slapping his hand on a pile of papers and planting his feet as the two others cleared the room. Jack imagined Daniel holding the notes hostage until they let him stay. Fraiser gave him a look that Jack had learned to mean 'I'm watching you.'
Carter nodded and carefully examined the skull, saying, "Janet, if you're busy--"
"I think I'm better off staying here," Fraiser said frostily, and settled firmly into a chair. "Apparently, some of my patients need to be watched."
"All right," Carter said unapologetically, though she blushed out of Fraiser's sight. "So, crystal. Uh...we can start with X-ray diffraction, elemental analysis... Unless Dr. Rothman already...?"
"Yes, as well as they could," Daniel, pushing up his glasses and somehow interpreting Rothman's brand of illegible handwriting. "As far as they could tell, it's silicon dioxide, with minute chlorite inclusions near the base of the skull--which was also true of the Ballard skull from Belize," he added, looking up, "so that matches. Um...it looks like they repeated some of the experiments run on the 'hoax' skulls. No contaminants on the surface like that which might come from known abrasives."
"What, what?" Jack said. He expected that kind of talk from Carter, not Daniel. The kid had clearly spent too much time playing with Barber and Lithell on SG-5.
Apparently, whatever it meant, it made sense, because Carter looked thoughtful. "Anything about the carving technique itself?" She was already starting to stick electrodes onto the surface of the skull. He wasn't sure what she was planning to measure, but he really hoped she figured something out.
"They've made PDMS molds of the surface and imaged them on the SEM," Daniel told her, still skimming notes. "It's not perfectly smooth, of course--"
"It'd probably have to be melted for that," she agreed, hooking the electrodes onto a meter. "And with silica, you're more likely to get a glass than a crystal without careful temperature control--"
"Which would be a detectable change in lattice structure, or at least a...a distortion from layers under it, which they haven't seen," Daniel finished. "But we should confirm by XRD if there's a way to test the surface of the intact artifact..."
"Holy crap," Jack said, glad he wasn't usually in the room when Daniel and Carter geeked out over something in the lab. He fled the room in hopes that Teal'c was acting more normal.
...x...
25 June 2000; Control Room, SGC; 1100 hrs
"We've subjected the skull to every piece of diagnostic equipment we have," Carter said.
Jack rolled his eyes and continued trying to push down the keys by the dialing computer. The sergeant didn't notice. Honestly, how much did it suck for him to be invisible and able to touch some things but not actually affect them? His fingers were getting stopped somewhere halfway through the keyboard, which was pretty odd.
Then again, he was invisible and somewhat ghost-like. Not much counted as 'odd' after that.
"Perhaps we should return to search the planet," Teal'c said.
"I'd strongly recommend against it," Fraiser said, shaking her head. "The radiation levels have dropped slightly, but they're still elevated."
"We're prepping a UAV for a long-range search around the pyramid," Hammond said, looking out the window toward the open wormhole. "I can't risk another SG team unless that search turns up something."
"General," Daniel said, "maybe...we can go and ask Dr. Ballard a few questions."
"Oy," Jack said, but Carter was nodding in agreement.
"Sir, there are too many similarities between his story and what we've just seen ourselves," she said. "It may not be much, but it's all we have to go on."
"I can speak with his doctor and try to convince him of the necessity of this," Fraiser offered.
"Find out what you can," Hammond decided as the UAV launched behind then, zooming into the wormhole. "I needn't remind you that the details of this matter are classified. You cannot tell him what happened to Colonel O'Neill or where the skull was found. And Mr. Jackson, we should revisit this later, but until this is over, informing him of your connection will only complicate--"
"I'm told my name is a very common one around here, sir," Daniel said. "I wasn't going to, anyway."
Jack winced, thinking of their conversation on the way to the pyramid, and imagined how that introduction might go. Hello, Dr. Ballard. Your daughter didn't die seventeen years ago--oh, whoops, sorry, but she's dead now, and I can't tell you why or how or where, or who I am or why I'm standing here telling you all this...yes, it's getting a little awkward now, isn't it?
Yeah. Maybe not.
Then Fraiser hurried to find a phone and a contact at the facility where Ballard lived. Carter, Teal'c, and Daniel went off to change into civvies. As he waited, Jack fell through the control console while trying to climb on it. Instead, he kicked at the DELETE key on the dialing computer. Still nothing. It was kind of therapeutic, though. He kicked it a few more times.
...x...
25 June 2000; Oregon; 1500 hrs
Given what Jack had heard about Teal'c and Daniel when they had to listen to some commander who wasn't Jack, he could admit to a bit of nervousness when Carter was in charge and the only one of them who knew what was acceptable in places like psychiatric institutions (at least from a visitor's perspective). He needn't have worried, however; it seemed that they were perfectly willing to behave themselves with her.
"Sorry for the wait," a nurse told them with a polite smile. "You're from the Air Force?"
"Yes," Carter said, stepping forward and offering a handshake while showing her identification at the same time. "I'm Major Samantha Carter, and these are two members of my team. We just have a couple of questions we'd like to ask Dr. Ballard."
"That's right, a Dr. Fraiser contacted us," the nurse said, examining the ID. "Major, before you go in, we'd like to know what you need with Dr. Ballard."
"We can't go into the details, but I assure you, all we're asking for is some information," Carter said calmly. Jack was starting to think the long-lost grandson routine might have worked faster. Well, until they had to explain the grandson, anyway.
"I see," the nurse said, finally handing the ID back. "If this is a legal issue, we haven't received any notice, and... well, Nick hasn't taken any visitors in several years. We don't want anything to upset him."
"It's not a legal--sorry, sorry," Daniel said, ducking his head a little as he stepped forward, his glasses slipped low on his face and making him look particularly harmless. It was probably deliberate. "There are certain areas in which Dr. Ballard may have more knowledge than anyone--we're interested in his past research. Certain areas of the world where he spent some time."
"We'd appreciate it if he could give us some expert advice on those topics," Carter added. "We'll leave him alone if we're bothering him. I understand you're just looking out for him, ma'am."
"He's with his doctor at the moment," the nurse said eventually. "I'll check to see if he's willing to speak with you."
The woman departed again through the doors. Carter took a breath, raising her eyebrows at Daniel and Teal'c, then readjusted the latter's hat to cover the tattoo completely. Jack leaned against a wall with a sigh. At this point, he was almost ready just to sit back and stop following them around. He was starting to think that skull had been a weapon of some sort after all--this kind of monotony was frustrating enough to drive the most patient man insane.
Finally, they were invited back in. Jack followed them closely, because if he didn't, he ran the risk of being left in a psychiatric institution in Oregon and would have to hike back to Colorado Springs, completely unseen forever.
Dr. Nicolas Ballard was sitting in a chair, dressed in a set of scrubs, when they approached the room. The doctor stood, meeting them before they could enter. Jack heard the doctor start to remind SG-1 that whatever information they wanted from Ballard might not be completely accurate, decided he'd had enough of the niceties, and walked through them into the room.
Ballard was in the middle of saying 'it's nice to meet you' when Jack first stepped into the room. This was Jack's first clue that the man might not be their most credible source of information.
"Hello," Jack said when the man fell silent and frowned uncertainly. "Dr. Ballard, I presume."
For a stunning moment, he was sure Ballard could see him. The man's face lifted in his direction, and his eyebrows rose.
"You can see me?" Jack said, incredulous, but then, Ballard shook his head and looked down at his lap, a bemused expression on his face. Jack was reminded of Daniel in Mental Health, the way his eyes had sometimes tracked something just beyond them, and Jack wondered with a chill if this was how Daniel would have been now if he'd gotten used to seeing hallucinations everywhere, rather than being cured of them.
In any case, Carter soon walked in, followed closely by Daniel and Teal'c, and smiled politely. "Dr. Ballard--"
"Nick," Ballard corrected.
She paused. "Nick. Thank you for meeting us. I'm Major Carter; this is Sergeant Murray and, uh..."
"Daniel," Daniel said for himself, leaning forward to shake the man's hand with an odd expression on his face. "It's, uh...it's an honor to meet you. I've read just about everything you've ever published, sir."
"Geek," Jack muttered, moving to lean against the wall in the corner behind his team. He couldn't tell whether this was supposed to be part of the plan to make Nick more willing to talk or just Daniel being actually excited about meeting the man.
"They said you wished to talk about my research," Nick said in a comprehensible but very distinct accent. Jack remembered what the nurse had said about his not getting any visitors for years and felt a little bad when he saw how eager the man's expression had become.
"What we're interested in is the crystal skull you found in Belize in 1971," Carter said. "We'd like to hear exactly what happened to you back then."
Immediately, Nick's excitement disappeared. "Nothing happened. There were no aliens."
"Oh, nice one," Jack said, snorting. This guy could possibly be the worst person ever at holding information to himself.
The three of them exchanged glances. Teal'c said, "Perhaps not, Dr. Ballard. However, your memory of the events that occurred may reveal information that is useful to us."
"No one believed me," Nick snapped. "Even my own daughter could not believe me."
Daniel blinked. "R-really?" he said intelligently.
"What if," Carter said, putting a hand on Daniel's arm to make him shut up, "we told you that we'd found another skull?" At that, Nick's head jerked up toward her. "It's identical to the 1971 Belize skull, and we need to know what you experienced then."
That was all they needed. "Show me," Nick said, his eyes bright.
"It's in a high security facility at the moment," Carter said, "but--"
"Then take me there!" Nick demanded.
"We can't," she said, looking worried; "it's classified."
"Hey," Jack said, "like I said, what's the harm? No one'll believe him, anyway."
"If you don't take me, then I won't tell you anything. Besides," Nick added, and Jack was a little disoriented by the fact that he could hear Daniel's wheedling in the tone, "everyone knows that the Ballard archaeologists are famous for inventing stories about aliens that no one believes."
Ooh. Ouch.
Daniel stiffened, but Carter's hand was still restraining him as she told Nick, "I'll need to ask my superiors for permission. Do you mind if we step outside for a moment?"
"By the way," Jack told Ballard as his team left the room with him trailing after them, "that other Ballard? She was right, and your grandson's an alien. So there."
By the time he caught up to the others, Carter was talking to the general already. "Yes, sir, we think it really is necessary."
Jack watched her grimace slightly and commented, "It would've been easier just to take him back with you. Once he's inside, what's Hammond gonna do?"
"Yes," she said. "I do believe he knows something ... He wants to see it, sir--he says he won't tell us anything unless we bring him back to base; he seems much more interested in seeing the artifact than anything about us ... That's correct, but..." She made a face and lowered her voice even further. "Considering his past record, I think any leaks ... Yes, sir, every precaution. He'll be escorted everywhere he ... Understood--not a word about the colonel. Thank you, sir."
"Huh," Jack said. "Okay. I guess that works, too."
From the next chapter (" Nick"):
"No, no," Nick said, tilting his head. "Do you know, before she died, my daughter worked for the military for almost a year. Perhaps somewhere like this, analyzing strange artifacts."
"Um. Yes," Daniel said. He cleared his throat. "Dr. Claire...Ballard, yes? I've read a lot of her work, too."