Barren
Title: Barren
Author: randomfreshink
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None, GEN
Warnings: Some language , spoilers for Absolute Power.
Prompt: 187. Original team. Add an archeological team if you wish. Prefer Gen,no implied 'ships, but it's your call. A planet is about to be destroyed by natural disaster (you pick!). The inhabitants have been evacuated and the team make one last trip back to document the ruins, which will be destroyed.
Notes: Prompt is pretty much the summary.
Many thanks to
sg_fignewton for the beta, and some really good ideas. But the mistakes are all mine,
Wind gusted over the plain, into the city, hot and dry, fitful bursts carrying grit and the scent of emptiness. The sand swept with it--fine and white--slipped into equipment, found its way under clothing, dug across any inch of exposed skin. Which was why they'd all started with goggles for this last visit to PGR-772--a last chance to record what had happened. But Daniel had abandoned his within minutes. The pitted, scoured surface had gotten in the way of his translations. Now he was wishing he'd left his goggles on.
Oh, god--nothing about how these people had lived, and everything about why this world had died.
Leaning back, he looked up at the obelisk--silver and bright, the most recent structure built on this now arid plain. The metal would be polished by the sand over the coming centuries. It would take eons to wipe away these words, to wear thick letters into obscure nubs. But he had a video recorder with him--and an obligation to his chosen profession, and to the SGC. And that left him frowning and fingering the vest pocket where he'd learned to carry C-4.
One brick of explosives. That's all it'd take. One block at the base to take out the foundation, topple the obelisk, let it fall where the sand would bury this last record. It had been arrogant of them to leave this behind. These people hadn't left an apology, or their regrets--no, they'd gone through the Stargate, left their world behind along with a monument to their own stupidity. They'd had enough pride even at the end to still want to document their biggest mistake. It was even more arrogant of him to think about destroying it.
Squinting against the wind and dust, Daniel took a step back, even as his mouth dried and a quiver started deep in his gut.
Do it now--before the radio crackles or someone shows up.
Glancing behind him, he had his heart thumping slow and heavy in his chest. He could count each beat, and the idea still wasn't letting go. It was a sick weight in his stomach--it was antithetical to everything he believed. And it was the right thing to do. If this knowledge got back to Earth, he was damn sure there'd be someone stupid enough to use it there, too.
Sand brushed his cheek, caught in his lashes. He blinked and put his back to the wind. This world smelled of dust, of barren waste. They'd lost their great oceans, their threads of rivers, their lakes, their ponds--basically anything that could sustain life. Without plants, the atmosphere was already thinning--plants were the lungs of a world, Sam had said. But Daniel had enough desert in him, from his early years and from Abydos, to know that water was life's blood. The population had left, gated out for another world. They'd probably ruin that one, too, he thought, the words going sour even as they slipped into regret.
He wished they'd left him the decent legacy of a good mystery.
But, no. This was a specific record, with the kind of information anyone with a mind for science ought to treasure--dates and oh, god, the details. And he could feel pity for them; a slow sorrow, a familiar ache, banded around his chest. It hadn't been their fault--not at first. They weren't all to blame. Their world had changed; they'd tried to adapt. They'd tried to fix it. They'd failed, but that was just how it too often went.
The science lost him about there, but Sam would figure out that part. And it was easy to see the potential.
This offered a way to change continents, or worlds, and leave them barren. Leached dry, left to dust. It was a terrible way for a civilization to fade. To see lakes dry not in years but in hours, to record the failing of tides over minutes, to stare at a sky and watch the clouds vanish.
God, if this got loose on Earth...
He thought of the Sahara, once fertile and lush, now spreading sands. Or the ar-Rub al-Khali, the Empty Quarter, where Ur had once flourished. And the Kizil Kum, the Hungry Desert of Turkistan, where cotton was grown, but only due to diverted rivers. If those rivers dried, if the wet seasons never came--standing on this world, it was all too easy to imagine.
But what if the knowledge was lost along with this world?
It should be an easy decision to make...for once. A clear choice. And still he hesitated. Did he have the right? Could his judgment even be trusted anymore?
If he closed his eyes, he could still see how bright Moscow could burn, a halo of flame and destruction. He had that image from a dream--meaning he had no real knowledge at all. Just the desolate certainty that he wasn't going to be the one to bring this home with them.
God, how did you choose a new path when the same old path kept forcing your steps?
He reached for the C4 at the same time his radio crackled.
"What?" he said, almost had to shout to get the word out over the wind, and he wanted to yell, or tear at someone.
Jack's voice came back at him, so damn normal that Daniel forced a breath, and made himself stop and listen. "Daniel, you about done there?"
There was a long pause, only the sound of wind scraping over his ears, before Daniel could wet his lips and speak again. "Almost." He wet his lips again, and he was glad Jack couldn't see him. He'd get a sideways glance for it--his lips were already chapping, and wetting them wasn't helping. But Jack didn't need to give the lectures anymore; the looks were enough these days.
After another moment of silence--Jack waiting for something, and Daniel didn't know what--Jack's voice came at him again, "Be by to pick you up in five."
Daniel nodded and didn't answer, and not five minutes later Jack showed up.
He stepped up beside Daniel and glanced at him, and now Daniel wished he had remembered to put his goggles back on. He still had them hanging around his neck, useless, and a video recorder in his hands, and Jack's mouth was tight, but that could to be keep the sand out.
Gesturing toward the obelisk with his weapon muzzle, Jack asked, "Anything we can use?"
Daniel gave a shrug, because they could use it, maybe, for something--or at least it was useful, depending on your point of view, and on your desire for world domination. This would be the sort of thing that went well with a volcanic lair...or a guarded mansion. Daniel fiddled with his camcorder.
"Get it down?" Jack asked, added a nod to the camera. His voice was too casual now, loaded with questions.
Daniel looked away and he nodded, then shook his head, held out the camcorder and popped out the tape. "Sand got in it." He flashed a tense smile. "Guess I should take rubbings."
The words came out as hesitant as a question and Daniel winced at his slip, then he watched Jack watching him.
Please, don't ask. Not now, not here, not ever.
Jack looked away then, at the obelisk, and Daniel could almost hear Jack's thoughts, since he knew the man better than himself right now.
Daniel had told him about Shifu's dream. He'd told everyone in the debrief he hadn't wanted to be at. He'd given them short, clear sentences. The conference table surface had been cool under his hands, and he'd kept his stare on his fingernails, forced himself to watch them so he wouldn't press so hard that they turned white. He hadn't wanted to see anyone's reaction. He still couldn't bear the thought that they might offer him their sympathy--their understanding. It had just been a dream, after all. A lesson about his own limitations in exchange for a few stories since Shifu had wanted to know about his mother--about Sha're. The boy didn't offer any intel on the Goa'uld, only a warning that it was a bad idea to go digging for anything more. As if they could. Shifu was another Oma--meaning all glowy, and someone you didn't mess with, as Jack had put it.
And he'd spooked the hell out of Daniel.
This place was spooking Jack now. Daniel could see it in the way Jack kept shifting, turning so he could scan a dead horizon as if something was going to pop up at them. He started to wet his lips again, had the back of a hand slap his arm.
"Stop that."
Lips pressed tight now, Daniel glanced down to where Jack had batted at him. He rubbed the spot even though it wasn't sore, and stared at Jack, eyes narrowed, but the look was lost in the sand and wind. And he wished the hell Jack had his own darkened goggles off, because he couldn't see Jack's eyes, and Jack had on his locked-down mission face.
Then Daniel looked at that damned obelisk again.
He was avoiding the issue, letting his irritation spill onto Jack instead of keeping it on himself and an action that was anathema in his profession.
And wasn't that a good word to use.
Greek for an offering to the gods, but a word translated in Hebrew to cherem. Something to be set apart, denounced. Something not to touch.
That was the point Shifu had made--there were things that should be left alone. He hadn't ever done much of that, and maybe this was the place to start. Or was it?
Jack's arm brushed his, right over the spot he'd slapped, and so the fabric of Jack's uniform rasped over the back of Daniel's fingers, but he didn't look at Jack. He kept his stare on the obelisk, glinting bright and shiny. Jack liked shiny things. Daniel wasn't feeling too shiny himself, and he didn't have any bright words, either--but he had a few that he really had to get out. That was his job.
"Y'know the phrase--knowledge for knowledge's sake?"
"Yeah?" Jack said, the word drawn out long.
Letting out a breath, Daniel turned to face him. Jack's stare hung onto him with the heft of Jack's stillness behind it. Daniel fought not to lick his lips again. "I'm not sure I believe that anymore."
Behind the goggles, Jack's eyebrows lifted high. "You?"
Daniel gave a shrug. People changed--he had changed. He'd seen how far it was possible for him to change. But there had to be fundamentals that mattered--somewhere. He needed to hang onto that much at least.
"Academia, as a word, comes to us from the Greek--akademeia--the 'groves of Akademos'. He was a farmer. You could say he stopped one war over Helen of Troy--well, she was Helen of Sparta then, and Theseus of Athens was the first to run off with her, and Akademos wasn't about to let his people go to war with Sparta over her, so he told her brothers where they could find her. And they bought him the groves as a thank you. His name meant 'of a silent district' and Plato founded his academy of philosophy there. But we use the phrase 'it's all academic' now to indicate something that's over, no longer relevant, other than for discussions that don't matter. And maybe I wasn't a part of academia the way I thought--the way I wanted, but there has to be some value in collected, shared knowledge. Or at least I thought there was. And I...I'm not making much sense...."
Jack gave a shrug, glanced at the obelisk, reached up to tug his cap down tighter. Then he looked back. "This a weapon?"
Ah--there it was. The direct question. But with an indefinite article--a weapon, not the weapon, as in the weapon that killed this world. That left some wiggle room.
"Well, not--"
"Aht!" Jack held up his right hand, flatted out, then his head cocked. "A weapon--yes or no."
"No, but--"
"Does it tell you how to build a weapon?"
"Well, if--"
"Daniel!"
Mouth pressed tight, he lifted his hands wide, waved the camera at the obelisk. "It's not blueprints!"
"Fine. Just words then. Think you've got enough of those. Our mandate's weapons, Daniel."
"Is it?" Daniel asked, even though he knew he should leave it, that he'd just gotten Jack's blessing to turn his back. But he couldn't leave it anymore than he could leave this damn message for someone else to find--hell, what if the Goa'uld found this world?
Jack turned and stared at him, and Daniel could only see his own squinting reflection in Jack's dark goggles. "Mission here is take a look, assess, check for anyone needing a ride outta here, and get home in about the same condition as we left. You have a problem with any of that...or do you want an academic debate on it?"
The words could have been sharp--they almost had an edge--but Daniel caught the frustration underneath, and the patience. And he wanted to snap back, tell Jack to go to hell, that he didn't need that kind of pandering.
More Greek there, Pandaros--which became Pandarus, the archer who'd been goaded by the gods into wounding Menelaus, breaking the truce with Troy, sealing its destruction. And how must it be to have your name become associated with exploiting weakness? Daniel shook his head, and shied away from the sexual pejorative connotations that also came with the word.
"Daniel?" Jack's voice pulled Daniel's attention, and Jack's hand came down hard on his shoulder. "Leave it. Head back."
He gave a nod, started for the Stargate without another word. A few minutes later Jack had overtaken him, moved so that Daniel fell into step just off Jack's left, and Daniel thought of the other words drilled into him.
Stay out of line of fire--that means tuck yourself in on the side where you see the butt of a weapon.
There'd been other phrases, too, about how to check a room, or a tree line, or...well, places. He could remember them if he tried, but he didn't want to. Not now. But he thought about what he owed Jack, and the general, and his responsibilities.
So he stopped, waited until Jack hesitated and turned so that he angled back. Then Daniel said, his voice lifted, so he'd be heard clear over the wind, "It tells what happened here. How they did this. So, yes, it could be made into a...."
"Daniel!" The second syllable went up sharp as a flashing blade, and Daniel stiffened against it. Jack's mouth flattened, and then he said, his tone clipped, "We've brought some damn dangerous stuff back with us--assess means we don't keep doing that."
"So we just leave it for the next poor idiot?" he asked, his chin coming up, matching Jack's belligerence.
With a small shake of his head, Jack turned away, and started walking. Daniel lifted his voice, let out the rest of it, "We leave it for the Goa'uld?"
Jack paused, his next step almost hovered--Daniel caught the hesitation only because Jack's moves were always fluid grace. This wasn't. This was a physical stutter, and then Jack moved out, long legs covering ground as he reached up to his shoulder for his radio, called for Sam and Teal'c to meet them at the gate.
Head down, frowning, Daniel followed him. He glanced back once--the knowledge of what he'd left behind clawing at him.
By the time they reached the gate--set high on a stone platform, a place of significant prominence, a clear indication that these people had known what it was and had not kept it a secret--the wind had picked up. The air thickened with choking sand. Teal'c and Sam were already waiting.
Teal'c had his feet spread, looked braced against the wind, and Daniel was relieved to see that at least Teal'c had abandoned his goggles, too. He had them hanging loose and useless around his neck. Of course, he probably didn't need them. Sam gave them a nod, her eyes hidden by her goggles, a boonie pulled low on her head. Daniel put his stare on the stone pavement, and kept his back to the obelisk as Jack told Sam to dial.
"Sir?" she said, then lifted the magnetometer she'd brought to check for EM fields and power sources. "I haven't finished a full scan yet."
Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the west, and Sam turned. So did Daniel. Brown clouds hunched on the horizon like a beast gathering itself for a leap.
"Sh'shun," Daniel said. And, next to him, he heard Teal'c's low rumble as he translated, "Deadly wind."
Throat tight, Daniel nodded. He kept forgetting how close the languages were--Goa'uld and Abydonian. There were connections he didn't like to remember. He ran his teeth over his lower lip, over a crack where the spit stung. "Sawafi in Arabic--sandstorm."
Frowning, eyes hidden by her goggles, Sam glanced at him. "It's not...?" She let the words drift. But Daniel knew she was thinking of how Shifu had appeared in a tornado of sand, controlling the elements as if it was child's play--and perhaps it had been.
He shook his head, hoped that was answer enough. Sam gave him a nod, and turned to dial out. The flash and sound hit as Sam hit the last glyph.
The noise burst behind them as the Stargate flashed to life. Teal'c swung around, crouching, staff weapon lowering to fire. Daniel turned as well, wondered if he should drop or reach for his gun, and his stare went to Jack.
Shoulders relaxed, Jack didn't so much as glance over his shoulder at the swirl of dissipating smoke. Daniel realized they were all staring at Jack.
Teal'c had eased up from his protective crouch, now seemed to be taking his lead from Jack and looked ready to ignore that explosion. Sam's stare moved from Jack to the horizon and back again, and she had that startled poise, like an elegant hound waiting to be loosed.
Blinking, Daniel tried to pull his stare away, but it stayed on Jack. They all turned to Jack when anything went wrong or weird. They needed him, used him, and Daniel tried not to, because he was pretty damn sure that one of these days he'd look, and Jack wouldn't be there, and what would he do then?
How do you find your path when you're drawn along on the path of another? Several others, he thought, glancing around, at the others.
Face tight under her forage cap, Sam asked, her voice lifting high over the wind that had started to howl at them, "Sir?"
One word, and in it Daniel heard all her other questions: What was that? Do we check it out? Can I take a look?
Jack glanced at her, face unreadable behind his goggles, but Daniel saw tension ease from his shoulders, and Daniel frowned at that. Then Jack offered a compacted curve of a smile, nothing more than the lifted corners of his mouth, "Sounds like time to go. Carter?"
He gestured to the active gate, but Sam hesitated, body still leaning towards the west, leaning against the sand, maybe against protests. Jack didn't look at her. Her shoulders fell, and she gave an abrupt nod, turned, did as ordered and stepped into the shimmer of the wormhole.
Teal'c moved as well, stopped to swap a look with Jack--one of those silent communications that Daniel never understood, but these two did, so that was all that seemed to matter. Teal'c didn't seem curious about the explosion, but he seemed to get whatever reassurance he wanted from Jack. He followed Sam.
That left Daniel with Jack, with the wind pushing at them, the sand biting, swirling, leaching the water from them. The Stargate glistened, a vertical oasis...a mirage.
Then Jack stepped up to him, had to shout over that rising howl. "It's not always up to you, y'know."
Frowning, Daniel gave a nod--more acknowledgement than agreement, since he wasn't sure Jack was right about that, but he had no arguments right now. And there were times when everything fell on one individual. Shifu had shown him that. But he wondered if he should say something since the tension had gone from his shoulders as well.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge had to have limits, as did all things. He could tell Jack that. But perhaps it was in the silence of a grove...perhaps that was where real wisdom could be found. So he stared at Jack and said nothing.
Letting his gun dangle from its tether, Jack reached over, lifted Daniel's goggles and put them in place. Then Jack offered a crooked, one-sided smile.
Daniel couldn't find one of his own. And he couldn't stop wondering if they'd lost a technology that could have been reversed, made into something that could transform deserts into rainforest. But, if it could, why hadn't these people done that?
And then he thought of the Goa'uld--about shields that could be turned so that they rained destruction; the good made over into bad. Why was it so often that discoveries turned that way?
He didn't have an answer--this world was barren of that as well. So he turned when Jack did and went with him. But he kept thinking before his body vanished--dissipated into energy so it could reform again on another world--of the wisdom to be found in a silent grove.
And he wasn't sure if he had lost the right along his path to look for such peace anywhere in this universe.
Author: randomfreshink
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None, GEN
Warnings: Some language , spoilers for Absolute Power.
Prompt: 187. Original team. Add an archeological team if you wish. Prefer Gen,no implied 'ships, but it's your call. A planet is about to be destroyed by natural disaster (you pick!). The inhabitants have been evacuated and the team make one last trip back to document the ruins, which will be destroyed.
Notes: Prompt is pretty much the summary.
Many thanks to
sg_fignewton for the beta, and some really good ideas. But the mistakes are all mine,
Wind gusted over the plain, into the city, hot and dry, fitful bursts carrying grit and the scent of emptiness. The sand swept with it--fine and white--slipped into equipment, found its way under clothing, dug across any inch of exposed skin. Which was why they'd all started with goggles for this last visit to PGR-772--a last chance to record what had happened. But Daniel had abandoned his within minutes. The pitted, scoured surface had gotten in the way of his translations. Now he was wishing he'd left his goggles on.
Oh, god--nothing about how these people had lived, and everything about why this world had died.
Leaning back, he looked up at the obelisk--silver and bright, the most recent structure built on this now arid plain. The metal would be polished by the sand over the coming centuries. It would take eons to wipe away these words, to wear thick letters into obscure nubs. But he had a video recorder with him--and an obligation to his chosen profession, and to the SGC. And that left him frowning and fingering the vest pocket where he'd learned to carry C-4.
One brick of explosives. That's all it'd take. One block at the base to take out the foundation, topple the obelisk, let it fall where the sand would bury this last record. It had been arrogant of them to leave this behind. These people hadn't left an apology, or their regrets--no, they'd gone through the Stargate, left their world behind along with a monument to their own stupidity. They'd had enough pride even at the end to still want to document their biggest mistake. It was even more arrogant of him to think about destroying it.
Squinting against the wind and dust, Daniel took a step back, even as his mouth dried and a quiver started deep in his gut.
Do it now--before the radio crackles or someone shows up.
Glancing behind him, he had his heart thumping slow and heavy in his chest. He could count each beat, and the idea still wasn't letting go. It was a sick weight in his stomach--it was antithetical to everything he believed. And it was the right thing to do. If this knowledge got back to Earth, he was damn sure there'd be someone stupid enough to use it there, too.
Sand brushed his cheek, caught in his lashes. He blinked and put his back to the wind. This world smelled of dust, of barren waste. They'd lost their great oceans, their threads of rivers, their lakes, their ponds--basically anything that could sustain life. Without plants, the atmosphere was already thinning--plants were the lungs of a world, Sam had said. But Daniel had enough desert in him, from his early years and from Abydos, to know that water was life's blood. The population had left, gated out for another world. They'd probably ruin that one, too, he thought, the words going sour even as they slipped into regret.
He wished they'd left him the decent legacy of a good mystery.
But, no. This was a specific record, with the kind of information anyone with a mind for science ought to treasure--dates and oh, god, the details. And he could feel pity for them; a slow sorrow, a familiar ache, banded around his chest. It hadn't been their fault--not at first. They weren't all to blame. Their world had changed; they'd tried to adapt. They'd tried to fix it. They'd failed, but that was just how it too often went.
The science lost him about there, but Sam would figure out that part. And it was easy to see the potential.
This offered a way to change continents, or worlds, and leave them barren. Leached dry, left to dust. It was a terrible way for a civilization to fade. To see lakes dry not in years but in hours, to record the failing of tides over minutes, to stare at a sky and watch the clouds vanish.
God, if this got loose on Earth...
He thought of the Sahara, once fertile and lush, now spreading sands. Or the ar-Rub al-Khali, the Empty Quarter, where Ur had once flourished. And the Kizil Kum, the Hungry Desert of Turkistan, where cotton was grown, but only due to diverted rivers. If those rivers dried, if the wet seasons never came--standing on this world, it was all too easy to imagine.
But what if the knowledge was lost along with this world?
It should be an easy decision to make...for once. A clear choice. And still he hesitated. Did he have the right? Could his judgment even be trusted anymore?
If he closed his eyes, he could still see how bright Moscow could burn, a halo of flame and destruction. He had that image from a dream--meaning he had no real knowledge at all. Just the desolate certainty that he wasn't going to be the one to bring this home with them.
God, how did you choose a new path when the same old path kept forcing your steps?
He reached for the C4 at the same time his radio crackled.
"What?" he said, almost had to shout to get the word out over the wind, and he wanted to yell, or tear at someone.
Jack's voice came back at him, so damn normal that Daniel forced a breath, and made himself stop and listen. "Daniel, you about done there?"
There was a long pause, only the sound of wind scraping over his ears, before Daniel could wet his lips and speak again. "Almost." He wet his lips again, and he was glad Jack couldn't see him. He'd get a sideways glance for it--his lips were already chapping, and wetting them wasn't helping. But Jack didn't need to give the lectures anymore; the looks were enough these days.
After another moment of silence--Jack waiting for something, and Daniel didn't know what--Jack's voice came at him again, "Be by to pick you up in five."
Daniel nodded and didn't answer, and not five minutes later Jack showed up.
He stepped up beside Daniel and glanced at him, and now Daniel wished he had remembered to put his goggles back on. He still had them hanging around his neck, useless, and a video recorder in his hands, and Jack's mouth was tight, but that could to be keep the sand out.
Gesturing toward the obelisk with his weapon muzzle, Jack asked, "Anything we can use?"
Daniel gave a shrug, because they could use it, maybe, for something--or at least it was useful, depending on your point of view, and on your desire for world domination. This would be the sort of thing that went well with a volcanic lair...or a guarded mansion. Daniel fiddled with his camcorder.
"Get it down?" Jack asked, added a nod to the camera. His voice was too casual now, loaded with questions.
Daniel looked away and he nodded, then shook his head, held out the camcorder and popped out the tape. "Sand got in it." He flashed a tense smile. "Guess I should take rubbings."
The words came out as hesitant as a question and Daniel winced at his slip, then he watched Jack watching him.
Please, don't ask. Not now, not here, not ever.
Jack looked away then, at the obelisk, and Daniel could almost hear Jack's thoughts, since he knew the man better than himself right now.
Daniel had told him about Shifu's dream. He'd told everyone in the debrief he hadn't wanted to be at. He'd given them short, clear sentences. The conference table surface had been cool under his hands, and he'd kept his stare on his fingernails, forced himself to watch them so he wouldn't press so hard that they turned white. He hadn't wanted to see anyone's reaction. He still couldn't bear the thought that they might offer him their sympathy--their understanding. It had just been a dream, after all. A lesson about his own limitations in exchange for a few stories since Shifu had wanted to know about his mother--about Sha're. The boy didn't offer any intel on the Goa'uld, only a warning that it was a bad idea to go digging for anything more. As if they could. Shifu was another Oma--meaning all glowy, and someone you didn't mess with, as Jack had put it.
And he'd spooked the hell out of Daniel.
This place was spooking Jack now. Daniel could see it in the way Jack kept shifting, turning so he could scan a dead horizon as if something was going to pop up at them. He started to wet his lips again, had the back of a hand slap his arm.
"Stop that."
Lips pressed tight now, Daniel glanced down to where Jack had batted at him. He rubbed the spot even though it wasn't sore, and stared at Jack, eyes narrowed, but the look was lost in the sand and wind. And he wished the hell Jack had his own darkened goggles off, because he couldn't see Jack's eyes, and Jack had on his locked-down mission face.
Then Daniel looked at that damned obelisk again.
He was avoiding the issue, letting his irritation spill onto Jack instead of keeping it on himself and an action that was anathema in his profession.
And wasn't that a good word to use.
Greek for an offering to the gods, but a word translated in Hebrew to cherem. Something to be set apart, denounced. Something not to touch.
That was the point Shifu had made--there were things that should be left alone. He hadn't ever done much of that, and maybe this was the place to start. Or was it?
Jack's arm brushed his, right over the spot he'd slapped, and so the fabric of Jack's uniform rasped over the back of Daniel's fingers, but he didn't look at Jack. He kept his stare on the obelisk, glinting bright and shiny. Jack liked shiny things. Daniel wasn't feeling too shiny himself, and he didn't have any bright words, either--but he had a few that he really had to get out. That was his job.
"Y'know the phrase--knowledge for knowledge's sake?"
"Yeah?" Jack said, the word drawn out long.
Letting out a breath, Daniel turned to face him. Jack's stare hung onto him with the heft of Jack's stillness behind it. Daniel fought not to lick his lips again. "I'm not sure I believe that anymore."
Behind the goggles, Jack's eyebrows lifted high. "You?"
Daniel gave a shrug. People changed--he had changed. He'd seen how far it was possible for him to change. But there had to be fundamentals that mattered--somewhere. He needed to hang onto that much at least.
"Academia, as a word, comes to us from the Greek--akademeia--the 'groves of Akademos'. He was a farmer. You could say he stopped one war over Helen of Troy--well, she was Helen of Sparta then, and Theseus of Athens was the first to run off with her, and Akademos wasn't about to let his people go to war with Sparta over her, so he told her brothers where they could find her. And they bought him the groves as a thank you. His name meant 'of a silent district' and Plato founded his academy of philosophy there. But we use the phrase 'it's all academic' now to indicate something that's over, no longer relevant, other than for discussions that don't matter. And maybe I wasn't a part of academia the way I thought--the way I wanted, but there has to be some value in collected, shared knowledge. Or at least I thought there was. And I...I'm not making much sense...."
Jack gave a shrug, glanced at the obelisk, reached up to tug his cap down tighter. Then he looked back. "This a weapon?"
Ah--there it was. The direct question. But with an indefinite article--a weapon, not the weapon, as in the weapon that killed this world. That left some wiggle room.
"Well, not--"
"Aht!" Jack held up his right hand, flatted out, then his head cocked. "A weapon--yes or no."
"No, but--"
"Does it tell you how to build a weapon?"
"Well, if--"
"Daniel!"
Mouth pressed tight, he lifted his hands wide, waved the camera at the obelisk. "It's not blueprints!"
"Fine. Just words then. Think you've got enough of those. Our mandate's weapons, Daniel."
"Is it?" Daniel asked, even though he knew he should leave it, that he'd just gotten Jack's blessing to turn his back. But he couldn't leave it anymore than he could leave this damn message for someone else to find--hell, what if the Goa'uld found this world?
Jack turned and stared at him, and Daniel could only see his own squinting reflection in Jack's dark goggles. "Mission here is take a look, assess, check for anyone needing a ride outta here, and get home in about the same condition as we left. You have a problem with any of that...or do you want an academic debate on it?"
The words could have been sharp--they almost had an edge--but Daniel caught the frustration underneath, and the patience. And he wanted to snap back, tell Jack to go to hell, that he didn't need that kind of pandering.
More Greek there, Pandaros--which became Pandarus, the archer who'd been goaded by the gods into wounding Menelaus, breaking the truce with Troy, sealing its destruction. And how must it be to have your name become associated with exploiting weakness? Daniel shook his head, and shied away from the sexual pejorative connotations that also came with the word.
"Daniel?" Jack's voice pulled Daniel's attention, and Jack's hand came down hard on his shoulder. "Leave it. Head back."
He gave a nod, started for the Stargate without another word. A few minutes later Jack had overtaken him, moved so that Daniel fell into step just off Jack's left, and Daniel thought of the other words drilled into him.
Stay out of line of fire--that means tuck yourself in on the side where you see the butt of a weapon.
There'd been other phrases, too, about how to check a room, or a tree line, or...well, places. He could remember them if he tried, but he didn't want to. Not now. But he thought about what he owed Jack, and the general, and his responsibilities.
So he stopped, waited until Jack hesitated and turned so that he angled back. Then Daniel said, his voice lifted, so he'd be heard clear over the wind, "It tells what happened here. How they did this. So, yes, it could be made into a...."
"Daniel!" The second syllable went up sharp as a flashing blade, and Daniel stiffened against it. Jack's mouth flattened, and then he said, his tone clipped, "We've brought some damn dangerous stuff back with us--assess means we don't keep doing that."
"So we just leave it for the next poor idiot?" he asked, his chin coming up, matching Jack's belligerence.
With a small shake of his head, Jack turned away, and started walking. Daniel lifted his voice, let out the rest of it, "We leave it for the Goa'uld?"
Jack paused, his next step almost hovered--Daniel caught the hesitation only because Jack's moves were always fluid grace. This wasn't. This was a physical stutter, and then Jack moved out, long legs covering ground as he reached up to his shoulder for his radio, called for Sam and Teal'c to meet them at the gate.
Head down, frowning, Daniel followed him. He glanced back once--the knowledge of what he'd left behind clawing at him.
By the time they reached the gate--set high on a stone platform, a place of significant prominence, a clear indication that these people had known what it was and had not kept it a secret--the wind had picked up. The air thickened with choking sand. Teal'c and Sam were already waiting.
Teal'c had his feet spread, looked braced against the wind, and Daniel was relieved to see that at least Teal'c had abandoned his goggles, too. He had them hanging loose and useless around his neck. Of course, he probably didn't need them. Sam gave them a nod, her eyes hidden by her goggles, a boonie pulled low on her head. Daniel put his stare on the stone pavement, and kept his back to the obelisk as Jack told Sam to dial.
"Sir?" she said, then lifted the magnetometer she'd brought to check for EM fields and power sources. "I haven't finished a full scan yet."
Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the west, and Sam turned. So did Daniel. Brown clouds hunched on the horizon like a beast gathering itself for a leap.
"Sh'shun," Daniel said. And, next to him, he heard Teal'c's low rumble as he translated, "Deadly wind."
Throat tight, Daniel nodded. He kept forgetting how close the languages were--Goa'uld and Abydonian. There were connections he didn't like to remember. He ran his teeth over his lower lip, over a crack where the spit stung. "Sawafi in Arabic--sandstorm."
Frowning, eyes hidden by her goggles, Sam glanced at him. "It's not...?" She let the words drift. But Daniel knew she was thinking of how Shifu had appeared in a tornado of sand, controlling the elements as if it was child's play--and perhaps it had been.
He shook his head, hoped that was answer enough. Sam gave him a nod, and turned to dial out. The flash and sound hit as Sam hit the last glyph.
The noise burst behind them as the Stargate flashed to life. Teal'c swung around, crouching, staff weapon lowering to fire. Daniel turned as well, wondered if he should drop or reach for his gun, and his stare went to Jack.
Shoulders relaxed, Jack didn't so much as glance over his shoulder at the swirl of dissipating smoke. Daniel realized they were all staring at Jack.
Teal'c had eased up from his protective crouch, now seemed to be taking his lead from Jack and looked ready to ignore that explosion. Sam's stare moved from Jack to the horizon and back again, and she had that startled poise, like an elegant hound waiting to be loosed.
Blinking, Daniel tried to pull his stare away, but it stayed on Jack. They all turned to Jack when anything went wrong or weird. They needed him, used him, and Daniel tried not to, because he was pretty damn sure that one of these days he'd look, and Jack wouldn't be there, and what would he do then?
How do you find your path when you're drawn along on the path of another? Several others, he thought, glancing around, at the others.
Face tight under her forage cap, Sam asked, her voice lifting high over the wind that had started to howl at them, "Sir?"
One word, and in it Daniel heard all her other questions: What was that? Do we check it out? Can I take a look?
Jack glanced at her, face unreadable behind his goggles, but Daniel saw tension ease from his shoulders, and Daniel frowned at that. Then Jack offered a compacted curve of a smile, nothing more than the lifted corners of his mouth, "Sounds like time to go. Carter?"
He gestured to the active gate, but Sam hesitated, body still leaning towards the west, leaning against the sand, maybe against protests. Jack didn't look at her. Her shoulders fell, and she gave an abrupt nod, turned, did as ordered and stepped into the shimmer of the wormhole.
Teal'c moved as well, stopped to swap a look with Jack--one of those silent communications that Daniel never understood, but these two did, so that was all that seemed to matter. Teal'c didn't seem curious about the explosion, but he seemed to get whatever reassurance he wanted from Jack. He followed Sam.
That left Daniel with Jack, with the wind pushing at them, the sand biting, swirling, leaching the water from them. The Stargate glistened, a vertical oasis...a mirage.
Then Jack stepped up to him, had to shout over that rising howl. "It's not always up to you, y'know."
Frowning, Daniel gave a nod--more acknowledgement than agreement, since he wasn't sure Jack was right about that, but he had no arguments right now. And there were times when everything fell on one individual. Shifu had shown him that. But he wondered if he should say something since the tension had gone from his shoulders as well.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge had to have limits, as did all things. He could tell Jack that. But perhaps it was in the silence of a grove...perhaps that was where real wisdom could be found. So he stared at Jack and said nothing.
Letting his gun dangle from its tether, Jack reached over, lifted Daniel's goggles and put them in place. Then Jack offered a crooked, one-sided smile.
Daniel couldn't find one of his own. And he couldn't stop wondering if they'd lost a technology that could have been reversed, made into something that could transform deserts into rainforest. But, if it could, why hadn't these people done that?
And then he thought of the Goa'uld--about shields that could be turned so that they rained destruction; the good made over into bad. Why was it so often that discoveries turned that way?
He didn't have an answer--this world was barren of that as well. So he turned when Jack did and went with him. But he kept thinking before his body vanished--dissipated into energy so it could reform again on another world--of the wisdom to be found in a silent grove.
And he wasn't sure if he had lost the right along his path to look for such peace anywhere in this universe.