Chapter 28: Questions
January 19
Two Days Later
Gaia Ready Room
No one had slept much since the battle, each crew member contributing to ship repairs and personnel support. The communications array had taken the most time to fix, after which a message had been sent to Alpha, requesting a live conference with General O'Neill and the council of advisors. Now all the senior officers of Gaia sat around the conference table, along with Colonel MacFarland and Doctors Lam and Jackson. The connection was made at the appointed time, and a two-foot-tall holographic image of the group of the seven men and women from Alpha appeared in the middle of the table.
"Hi, Daniel." Jack's expression was guarded as his gaze shifted to include the full complement of staff seated in the ship's ready room. "Everyone's here on this end, as requested. What's up?"
There was an attempt at lightness in Jack's voice, but he had to know something significant had happened. "I'm not conducting this meeting, Jack," Daniel returned quietly. "Captain will be discussing the events with you and the Alpha council. I'm just here as an advisor."
"Oh. Okay." Jack eyed the Furling giant seated at Daniel's left. "How're things, Captain?"
Mountain folded his large hands on the tabletop. "Doctor Jackson advised us that it would be wise to report to you an attack on the planet we recently visited by the followers of the Ori." His newly-acquired command of English was excellent. All the officers of Gaia had been required to learn their human allies' language, but none had become as adept with it as Scout.
Jack cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. "Would that be the planet Colonel MacFarland requested the mission report on a few days ago?"
Captain nodded. "It would. Your alphanumeric designation P3X-367, where the Goa'uld, Nirrti, was killed."
The General nodded. "We haven't heard from those folks in a while."
Jack didn't ask if there were survivors, or what damage had been done. He was waiting for the Furling commander to tell the story his way.
Mountain sighed and shook his head. "The villagers are all safe," he told the hologram. "The followers of the Ori were only interested in the ruins of an underground city left by the People. We believe they may have found an important artifact, but are not certain what they took before they blasted the place into pieces."
Jack's eyebrows lifted in unhappy surprise. "There was a Furling city on that planet? Daniel, why didn't you--" He stopped himself and frowned. "Oh. That was when Jonas was with us. Sorry."
Scout grinned slightly. "You're correct in your assumption that Doctor Jackson found the city, General O'Neill," he interjected. "It was beneath the fortress where the one called Nirrti was using one of our machines to re-sequence the DNA of her victims. That is not a science for novices in the subject."
From his seat next to Jack, Doctor Bill Lee leaned forward across the table. "Wait, that was a Furling machine? We were certain it'd been built by the Ancients, but our researchers never got a chance to examine it. We were just going by the descriptions in the reports from SG-1. Are you sure?"
Captain nodded. "We examined the remains and found where the machine had been removed from the ruins. Unfortunately, the Ori ships razed the city before we were able to retrieve any artifacts from it ourselves."
"Ships?" asked Jack.
"Three of them," Captain verified. "We destroyed one, but the other two escaped."
Jack's expression shut like a door, his demeanor all business now. "What sort of damage did you folks sustain? Do you need assistance?"
Scout smiled broadly at the table, but kept silent.
Mountain shook his head. "It has taken us two days to repair our communication devices so that we could contact you, General. Other repairs are under way, but we should be fit to travel in another day. We appreciate the kindness of your offer, however." He inclined his head with a slight bow of respect.
"Casualties?" asked Jack.
Carolyn Lam winced, then her composure slipped neatly into place as she answered for her department. "Twenty-nine dead so far, General, with ninety-two injured. I think those numbers will hold. We shouldn't be losing any more. Most of the wounds were minor and over eighty percent of the injured are already back at their posts."
Jack nodded, his expression grave. "Do we know what the Ori found in the ruins?"
"No, but you can bet it was incredibly important," Daniel answered. "The Prior they'd sent to convert that world packed up and left with the ships. I've never seen the Ori just drop an attempted conversion like that without punishing the population. They just left, Jack." He rubbed his face wearily.
"This was our first encounter with the followers of the Ori," Captain declared. "We are learning, General O'Neill, and we will not be caught unaware again. Our council of elders will be informed, and word of the Ori will be disseminated to all the People. We will visit those worlds you know to be under Ori control and offer aid to those who wish their freedom."
Scout added, "Please share all you know about the Ori with those of us who now live among you on Alpha, and take care to watch your skies and your stargate. A full report will be transmitted to you shortly, and we on Gaia will be available to answer any questions you may have."
Captain bowed and gave the Furling hand signal to indicate he'd spoken his piece.
Jack addressed Colonel MacFarland. "I assume I'll have your report included in that download?"
She nodded. "The SGC staff on Gaia are all fine, sir. The casualties were all on the Furling side."
"Our condolences for your loss, and our gratitude for looking after our people," said Jack sincerely. "We'll get back to you ASAP, Captain. Thanks for the heads-up, and I'll be looking for your reports shortly. You'll have one from us in return, as soon as we can get the information compiled for you. Alpha, out."
For a moment, there was only silence in the room, everyone occupied by their own thoughts.
Scout sighed and folded his hands. "We should decide our next destination," he observed, and lifted his gaze to Daniel's face.
Daniel had figured that was coming. "To Paradise," he said quietly. "Just don't eat any of the plants while we're there."
Four years ago, while he'd been among the Ascended, SG-1 had visited P5X-777. Jack and Harry Maybourne had disappeared through a portal and been marooned on the planet's moon. The two men had eaten native plants in order to survive, but the hallucinogenic effects had come close to driving both of them mad. During their absence, SGC scientists had combed over the temple where the portal was located, studying the Furling invitation to join them in a utopian paradise.
Once the men had been rescued, the ruins where they'd been trapped were also studied, but the site was eventually abandoned, the information catalogued and filed away as unimportant.
Daniel couldn't help but wonder just what shadow of information might have been missed in that initial exploration; he looked forward to seeing the site himself.
~~**~~
January 20
Next Day
Gaia Infirmary
Daniel had been by the infirmary several times over the last few days, visiting with those who'd been wounded in the battle with the Ori ship. Every stop he'd made, Dr. Lam had been there, working with her all-Furling medical staff, learning their healing techniques and applying that knowledge to her already considerable skills. She was dead on her feet, dark circles under her eyes, but she'd refused to leave her patients until the most critical period was over.
"Hey," Daniel said to her as he handed her a tall cup of strong Furling tea. "How're you holding up?"
"Thinking about going to bed for a few hours," she told him with a weary smile, accepting the cup and sipping the contents with a sneer of distaste. "This tastes terrible, but it's kept me going for three days straight. Good stuff." She lifted it in salute to him. "Thanks for bringing it."
She glanced around the spacious ward, once discouragingly empty, now alarmingly full. "I'm gonna make rounds one more time, and then hit the hay. Wanna come with me?" What she'd just offered registered a beat later, and she hurried to clarify. "Um, I mean, on rounds. Do you want to accompany me on rounds?"
She bowed her head, closed her eyes and rubbed her face with a sigh. "Boy, am I tired. Guess that's kind of obvious, huh?"
Daniel grinned, tickled by her unintentional slip of the tongue. "Yeah, a bit." He followed her orderly progress, row by row of beds, watching her kindness as she interacted with her patients, her professionalism as she dealt with her staff, and how intently she listened to her Furling teachers. He marveled at how she managed to deliver the same level of care to all of the wounded, regardless of their size, as they lay in their beds.
For a moment, he remembered Janet Fraser, thinking privately how well the diminutive doctor would have interacted with Grass Clan. He missed her warm smile and dangerous wit. She'd have owned this infirmary in short order -- Jack's "little Napoleon" of a doctor. He smiled at the fond memory.
As his attention shifted from the doctor to her patients, he returned to the questions that had consumed his attention since he'd returned from the drowned city.
Examination of the wreckage of the machine Nirrti had used to alter the DNA of the people on P3X-367 indicated that it had been of Furling origin, not a product of Goa'uld technology, as had originally been assumed. It had all the hallmarks of the Furlings' sense of artistic design, and they had even found its previous location in the flooded cavern beneath the fortress. There was sufficient evidence to credit the ancient Furling society that had been destroyed with its invention -- but to what purpose? Whose DNA had they wanted to change?
He glanced away, frowning as that thought rattled around in his mind.
A Grass Clan female, whom Carolyn had named Jarvik, strolled up to them with a portable database tablet that linked into the ship's system and handed it over for her review. "Three patients ready to release to their quarters, Jehani," the alien reported, calling the doctor by her Furling title.
Doctor Lam checked through the records, approved the releases, and thanked the Furling healer. Just as she finished, she was summoned to another bedside for a consultation by one of the tiny Sky Clan physicians who worked with her.
Daniel grinned as the light bulb of intuition finally went on over his head. "How many times do I have to see the forest before I finally recognize a tree?" he murmured to himself and shook his head in wonder.
Everything made perfect sense now.
Lya had told him the last time he saw her that the Furlings adapted to a variety of environmental conditions with incredible ease, setting up colonies on planets all over the galaxy. She'd called them 'masters of change,' and now he understood how they'd managed to proliferate so easily on so many worlds. They'd changed their own DNA to be able to survive almost anywhere!
Furdani had been a microcosm of the habitats to which they'd adapted. Sky Clan were tiny and lived in the rocky, arid canyon lands around the stargate, where food and water were scarce. Grass Clan were tailored for areas a little richer in resources, yet still small enough to hide from large predators in the meadowlands. Forest Clan were lithe and graceful, adept at climbing trees and moving stealthily through the vegetation, and the Mountain giants were tall and strong, capable of carving out great cities from the heart of the bedrock of whatever planet they occupied.
Yet, if all that were true, why were there so many genders? What was the biological purpose of the nulls, who were neither male nor female, and incapable of breeding?
What did the helix displayed by that device Rose dropped in the cavern signify? Whose DNA was it, and why had it been in that underwater museum?
So many questions, and he instinctively knew he hadn't yet scratched the surface of this mystery.
The text he'd recorded from the wall in the cavern was incredibly old. The Furling language had changed so much in the millennia since the People had been forcibly removed from that world, the translation was slow going. He'd left it in the hands of the scholars aboard Gaia, checking their reports several times a day to see what progress had been made. Although deciphering the meaning behind the characters was difficult for them, it was all but impossible for him. He likened the challenge to early Earth linguists trying to understand hieroglyphs prior to the discovery of the Rosetta stone. The mystery of the drowned city would take some time to unravel, and might require the discovery of other pieces of Furling history before the true meaning of the text was known.
Meanwhile, they were on their way to P5X-777. It would take approximately ten days' travel, including time for repairs, to get there, but Daniel hoped they'd find something important, something the SGC's first teams had missed. Even if they didn't, the Furlings would want to lay claim to another piece of their heritage, and Daniel wanted to be there for that.
Until they arrived, repairs would continue to be made to both ship and crew.
He sidled up to Doctor Lam as she finished her last consultation with a sigh. "Get some rest, Carolyn," he urged quietly. "This is as good a place as any to step back for a little while."
She nodded with a weary grin. "I think I'll do that," she agreed, signing off the duty roster with a Do Not Disturb notation beside her name. "See you later, Daniel."
After he watched her leave the infirmary, he stayed a little longer to visit the wounded, then retreated back to his office to work on his own projects for a while.
~~**~~
January 30
Ten Days Later
P5X-777
The temple sat perched on the knee of a mountain, halfway up a ridge of rock on a neatly carved pillar of stone. Each of the towers was capped with a pyramid-shaped cone, the largest at the center of the building. Inside, the floors and walls were covered with dirt, and the native vegetation had gained a stronghold in every nook and crack.
The mystery of the portal's auto-dialer had been resolved long ago, and the "Paradise" on the nearby moon fully explored by the SGC. They had found nothing of interest, but now the explorers were the people who had built the elegant temple, alongside a human being with a knack for unraveling secrets. This time, the underground city was discovered through scans conducted on Gaia, halfway across the planet.
No secret doors or passages were found above it, and in the end, the only way to gain access was through Gaia's transporters.
As with the temple ruins on the surface, time and nature had taken their toll on the subterranean city. The area where Daniel, Rose, Scout and Denali arrived was one of the few places still structurally sound. Seismic events and erosion had made most sections of the cavern unstable, much of it already collapsed. Only a few areas had survived intact, but the remains of the once grand metropolis were in total darkness.
The away team arrived with their lights on, all facing a different direction, the illumination reaching out in white fans around them and disappearing into vast space.
For a moment, no one moved as they allowed their eyes to adjust to the dimness.
All around them, giant pillars of rock stretched upward, some tilted at odd angles, others lying sideways on the floor. The stillness was unnerving. There was no sound at all except for their breathing and the whisper of the s'resh fabric they wore flexing as they moved.
"Looks like we're in a marketplace," Daniel observed, eyeing the jagged remains of the buildings around them.
"Then the museum will be this way," Scout added, stepping toward his right.
The others followed his lead, their footsteps crunching against loose rock and throwing up little clouds of dust as they walked, making their way around, over, and through the many obstacles in their path. After two hours of laborious travel, they squeezed into the entrance of what had once been a great library.
The foyer was as far as they got. Chunks of stone, debris and dirt made it clear that the rooms behind the entry were impassable, so they began to examine the objects around them.
A glint of light caught Daniel's eye, and he headed for a pillar lying on the floor, no doubt toppled by the quakes. A glass case lay in pieces beside it, and amidst the shards was another clear crystal pyramid, lying on its side. He smiled to himself and carefully picked it up in his gloved left hand.
"Hello, beautiful," he said to the artifact fondly, as if meeting an old lover. In the beam from his s'resh, he examined it, looking for cracks or chips, any sign of damage. He sighed as he realized it was still intact. "Maybe now I'll be able to find out what the other one had in it. I hate not knowing things like that."
"Oh, you found another one," chirped Rose through the comm link. "Lookee what I got. Cool, huh?"
Daniel turned to the woman at his side and gaped as he spied her discovery.
She held a crescent-shaped object about the size of a soup bowl with numerous small buttons and inscribed keys on its upper surface. Intricate designs were incised and embossed all around it, and though centuries of dust and grime were caked into the spaces, the precious metals gleamed softly where she had brushed the dirt away. One finger stroked over a touch-pad in the center, and it flickered to life.
A hologram projected from the center of the device, and the image began speaking in an unfamiliar dialect of Forest Clan, which the translator in his helmet converted into English script on the inside of his visor. The being resembled a Furling, but was still vastly different, with smaller eyes, slitted pupils, and a more prominent nose. Distinctly female, she introduced herself and started describing the displays in the room where they were standing.
"It's a virtual docent," Daniel gushed, unable to even blink as he stared at the recording. "Rose, this must be a guided tour device. That means information on everything that was in this museum will be in here!" He tucked the pyramid into the crook of his left arm and reached for the machine with both hands.
"I knew you'd be happy." She patted his shoulder and handed him the device after turning it off again. "I'll go see what else I can find. Don't run the batteries down in it."
Daniel didn't know how long he stood there gawking at the device, studying the characters on its surface, turning it on and listening, jumping ahead in the narrative, playing back pieces. He was fascinated, overwhelmed by Rose's luck. If they found nothing else, this would make the trip worthwhile. They'd hit the jackpot!
Then a cry of anguish jerked Daniel's head around.
The sound came from the comm link curved over his left ear, and he had no idea where to look for his teammates, but he knew whose voice it had been.
"Scout, where are you?" he called, turning in a circle, looking for his friend.
There was no answer, save the sound of anguished weeping.
Dimly, he saw Rose's helmet reflecting the light from his uniform. "He went this way," she told him, her voice strident, filled with alarm. "His tracks are right here, Daniel. Come on."
They followed the dusty footprints out of the library, around the edge of a crumbling balcony, and into the ruins of what had once been a massive temple.
Scout was on his knees, bent over and trembling, his helmet open, long green mane dangling in the dust.
At his side, Denali stood rock-still, staring straight ahead, massive fists dangling loosely at his sides.
Daniel and Rose hurried toward them.
A few steps away, Daniel caught sight of what had wrenched that terrible cry from the elder.
Bones.
The temple was filled with them. Large and small skeletons, adults and children alike, lay in enormous heaps. The structure of the skulls verified that they were Furlings.
"God. In. Heaven," Rose breathed. "There must be thousands here. The whole city."
Daniel's eyes burned, but no tears would come. He settled both of the artifacts in the crook of his left arm as he stopped at Scout's side. Daniel placed his free hand on his friend's shoulder, offering what comfort he could from that simple touch. He understood what the elder was feeling, the gravity of his loss, changed in a single moment from the stuff of dry history to real personal grief.
These had been Scout's people, millennia ago. They had been destroyed by the Ancients, murdered in a place sacred to them, and abandoned.
Daniel looked down at the alien's bowed head. "Mikha," he called gently, "we should go. There's nothing you can do for them now."
"Their bones must be burned, according to our custom," Scout choked out, his gaze on Daniel's boots rather than meeting his eyes. "I will summon my people, and they will see to it." Tears streaked down his bronze cheeks and dripped off his chiseled jaw.
"Yes. Send for your priests and priestesses. They'll want to clean the temple properly, and pay homage to the lost ones." Daniel waited for his friend to rise, then glanced at Denali, still staring at the mountain of remains.
The giant's helmet was also open, his face was in shadowy profile, but Daniel could see enough of his expression to understand what Denali was thinking and feeling, and it sent a chill of fear through his human heart as he recalled something Hunter had told once him about the People.
"Sky watch Wheel. Grass protect. Forest attack. Mountain destroy."
That description now held a more ominous note for Daniel, and he observed privately that he would not want to make an enemy of any of the Furlings. They were no longer prisoners on Furdani, and Sky Clan weren't just sentinels on the stargate. Now, they were keeping watch on numerous other worlds, invisibly observing other races and societies as they had the Jaffa and Ting-sha population on Olympus.
Grass Clan were healers, offering protection from illness.
Forest were warriors.
Mountain...They were a quiet race, innately gentle and good-natured, but Daniel suspected there were deep passions bubbling beneath their calm, almost unshakable exteriors.
He waited until Scout and Rose were gone to approach the giant, gently touching the big alien's elbow, since he couldn't reach Denali's shoulder.
"Are you all right?" he asked gently.
Denali's face, lit from below with the glow from Daniel's s'resh, was frightening. His lips twitched as he struggled for words, but he said nothing, just turned away and stomped after the others. Daniel cast a glance back at the tragic scene, and hurried to catch up.
He'd never had a problem keeping company with the dead before, since that was part and parcel of being an archaeologist, studying the bones of those who had passed into history long ago. But there was something about this place that scratched at his soul and made him eager to leave; it was almost as though he could hear the echoes of their screams as they died.
He didn't believe in ghosts, but this place, these people, were not at rest.
He couldn't wait to get back to the ship.
End Chapter 28