Stargate SG1: Heir to the Ennead (1/5)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Heir to the Ennead
Chapter One
There wasn't much difference between one desert planet and the next.
When SG1 stepped through the stargate, Jack's first impression was that they could have been on Abydos and it wouldn't have surprised him, if not for the fact that the gate was in the middle of nowhere instead of inside a pyramid. And in the near distance, maybe half a mile away, he could see a wide river snaking its way across the barren landscape. But aside from those two things, there was nothing noticeably different between the two worlds. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, and he wondered if Daniel felt as comfortable there as he did on his adopted home planet.
Jack, Sam and Teal'c fanned out on the dais as Daniel went to check the DHD. Jack noticed almost immediately that the people on the planet didn't use their gate much, if at all. The desert sand had blown and drifted up around it, half-burying the dais and almost completely covering the stairs, and the DHD was so buried that Daniel had to kneel down just to be able to reach it.
"This looks like a happening place," Jack remarked.
He got two of the three responses he was expecting. Sam grinned at him across her shoulder. Teal'c looked back at him in that way he had of making people feel really, really stupid. But Daniel, who should have fired back some snide little comment of his own, didn't even look at him.
Jack shook his head. Things were not starting well.
He watched Daniel stand up from the DHD and decided to try again.
"All good there, Daniel?"
Daniel nodded without speaking, and Jack had to stop himself from sighing. That had been pretty well the same way their conversation the day before had gone, too. Jack had talked, and Daniel had nodded at him, or shook his head, or rolled his eyes without speaking. Jack had wondered at the time if it was an intentional thing he was doing, or if he wasn't aware of it.
But they were supposed to be working their way back to normal, and Jack had never been one to give up easily.
"Okay, so, Daniel, how far, and which way?"
The look in Daniel's eyes made two things perfectly clear to Jack. First, he was fully aware that he wasn't talking and second, he wanted it that way. Daniel hadn't stopped talking to Jack because of some deep-seated defense mechanism or any other involuntary psychological thing. He'd stopped talking to Jack because he was mad at him. He was giving him the silent treatment.
Daniel was throwing a temper tantrum.
The parent in Jack was telling him to yell at Daniel to knock it off, but the commanding officer in him saw Sam and Teal'c standing there, watching to see what he was going to do. And the friend in him had to admit that Daniel had a right to be mad at him. So he bit his tongue, rubbed his forehead, and sighed.
"Daniel?"
Daniel shook his head and looked down at the ground, and when he looked back up, the open defiance that had been in his eyes was gone. He didn't look angry anymore; he just looked tired. Resigned. Defeated.
Jack hated it.
"Two miles," Daniel finally answered, gesturing at one of the hundreds of indistinguishable dunes that surrounded them. "Two miles west."
Jack nodded once and motioned Teal'c forward with his hand. "All right. Teal'c, you take point. We walk west until we run into something."
Sam jogged down the few visible steps of the gate platform in time to catch up with Daniel, who'd already turned to follow Teal'c out across the sand. Jack took his place at the end of the line, far enough back to stay out of the conversation but still close enough to hear it.
"Aren't you excited?" Sam asked. "I couldn't believe it when I read the mission briefing."
"Believe what?"
"We're walking right into the Old Kingdom!" Jack had to smile at Sam's enthusiasm, and he didn't even care if it was real or if she was just putting it on for Daniel's sake. If anyone would be able to break through the pissed-off - and injured - child on the surface and get through to the scientist underneath, it would be Sam. "Everything you've ever studied, Daniel, and it's here. Why aren't you more excited?"
Daniel smiled, a small one at first, but when he looked at Sam and saw the wide grin on her face, it grew.
"Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'm a little excited."
"A little?! Come on, Daniel."
"Okay, a lot," he admitted reluctantly. "How much of the cultural information did you read?"
"All of it," Sam answered immediately. "I think it sounds fascinating. What's the one thing you think we absolutely have to see while we're here?"
"Oh, that's easy." And just like that, Daniel was Daniel again. Jack owed Sam, big time, for doing in two minutes what he'd failed to do in two weeks. "The MALP took pictures of what looks like a Sun Temple, and if the estimated size calculations are right, then it's at least twice as big as the Temple of Amun at Karnak. The implications are astounding, really..."
Jack's smile got wider with every word that came out of Daniel's mouth. Plain, boring desert or not, the place might not be so bad after all.
Jack didn't know if the implications were really astounding, but the size of Daniel's temple certainly was.
SG1 was lined up against the top of a dune on their stomachs, still half a mile from the edge of the village and looking down on it. The village itself was in a valley of sorts, a natural depression in the center of a ring of dunes that rose above it. And in the center of the village stood what had to be the largest structure that Jack had ever seen.
"Look, Sam," Daniel said. "Mastabas."
"What are mastabas?" she asked.
"Burial vaults. And over there?" Jack looked to his right, past Teal'c and Sam, and saw Daniel. He was pointing into the village, showing Sam the different structures he'd identified. "See how the houses are different? How they're sectioned off? They really do separate the classes, but there's no walls between the sections. Just the streets."
"What's that in front of the temple?" Sam asked, reaching into her pack and pulling out her binoculars.
"It's a black pyramid," Daniel answered breathlessly. "I'll have to see it closer to be sure, but from here it looks exactly like the Fifth Dynasty pyramids at Abusir on Earth. I can't believe this is all here!"
Jack smiled to himself once more. Daniel was acting like a child again, but more like a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning than one who'd been kicked repeatedly while being told his puppy had been run over by a car.
It was a vast improvement.
Teal'c had obviously noticed the change that had come over Daniel since their arrival, because he was looking at Jack and nodding his silent approval. Sam was doing a damn good job of pulling Daniel back out of himself, Teal'c was on-board with the situation even if he didn't know the specifics of why they were there, and Daniel was having a blast. The best part was that they were less than an hour into a four day mission, and things were going so much more smoothly than Jack could have asked for.
And he'd been worried.
"Uh... Colonel?"
Jack looked back over at Sam, saw her pulling her binoculars away from her eyes, and the look on her face brought all of Jack's worry right back.
"Report, Carter."
"Locals, sir," she said, passing the binoculars to him. "You might want to take a look."
"Well, we knew it was inhabited," he said as he held the binoculars up to his eyes. He gave them a few seconds to adjust their focus on the group of people he'd picked to look at.
Crap.
"There should be a variety of different professions," Daniel was saying. "Farmers, craftsmen, scribes, priests..."
"Jaffa."
Jack handed the binoculars to Teal'c with a frustrated huff. "Just once," he said. "Is it so much to ask Just one time I want the mission guys to say there's no Goa'uld and have there actually be no Goa'uld. Why is that so damn hard?" He saw Teal'c's forehead furrow above the binoculars. "T? You know who they work for?"
"I do not," Teal'c answered as he lowered the binoculars. Daniel reached for them, and Sam passed them across to him. "I do not recognize that symbol."
"Neb-Hut," Daniel said suddenly. He lowered the binoculars and looked at his teammates, all of whom were looking at him questioningly.
"Neb who?" Jack asked.
"Neb-Hut," Daniel repeated. "Nephthys, if you prefer."
"Are you certain, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.
"Well, that's her symbol," Daniel insisted, handing the binoculars back to Sam, who held them up to look through them again.
"I have not heard of a Goa'uld by this name," Teal'c said.
"Well, I'm not really surprised, given what we know about her husband." Daniel shrugged and turned to look back down on the village.
Jack waited for more of an explanation, but there didn't seem to be one coming any time soon. "What do we know about her husband?" Again, there was no answer. "Daniel?"
"Yeah?" Daniel answered distractedly.
"Who's her husband?"
Sam nudged Teal'c in the ribs with her elbow, handed him the binoculars, and pointed to something in the distance. Jack could see her whispering something in Teal'c's ear as he investigated whatever it was she'd pointed out.
"Um..." Daniel glanced around and looked incredibly nervous all of a sudden. He really didn't want to answer that question for some reason.
"Daniel?" Jack prompted.
"Seth?"
Jack didn't say anything at first, just looked at Daniel and blinked. Sam and Teal'c were absorbed in a private conversation between them, and didn't seem to be hearing a word they said. Daniel simply flashed Jack a shy smile and shrugged.
"Are you guessing?" Jack finally asked.
"What? No!" Daniel protested. "No, I know. Nephthys was Seth's wife."
Jack dug his elbows into the sand dune they were leaning against and massaged his forehead with his fingers. The news just kept getting better and better.
"So, just so we're clear here. The mission guys said there were no Goa'uld here, but they sent us to a planet full of Jaffa. And now you're telling me that these Jaffa serve the widow of the snakehead that we just killed?"
Daniel bit his lip and nodded his head, then turned away quickly.
"Well, that's just peachy." Jack pressed his hands against the dune and pushed himself down it. "Come on, kids. Time to go home."
"O'Neill."
"Colonel, wait."
Jack stopped where he was and turned back to his team. All three of them were scooting down the sand beside him, and he waited for them to reach him. They formed a small circle seated on the side of the dune.
"What?"
Sam glanced quickly at Teal'c before speaking. "Teal'c and I don't think we should leave, sir."
Jack shook his head and blinked in confusion. "Did you not hear what I just said? What Daniel just said?"
"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, we heard. But we don't think there's a Goa'uld here."
"Jaffa, Carter." Jack insisted. "Where's there's Jaffa, there's Goa'uld."
"Not necessarily, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "I did see the symbol of this Nephthys on the heads of several men in the village, but I see no armor. There are no staff weapons. These Jaffa are not in a state of battle readiness."
"He's got a point, Jack," Daniel put in. "They're walking around in their normal clothes."
"The Jaffa on Chulak aren't always in armor, either," Jack pointed out.
"You are correct. But these Jaffa do not carry symbiotes."
"How do you know that?"
"They wear no shirts, and they have no outward signs of a womb."
Jack took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair as he considered Teal'c's words carefully. "So what does that mean, exactly? How does that mean there's no Goa'uld here?"
"It does not prove that there is not one, but it does not lend support to a theory that there is. If they have no wombs, then this means there are no symbiotes for them to carry."
"Also," Carter said, "there are no resources here that a Goa'uld would be interested in. Not just naquadah or trinium, sir, but nothing. There's no gold, no silver, no minerals that would be in any way valuable."
Jack took a deep breath and let it out, and Daniel took the opportunity to speak up.
"And it's not on the Abydos Cartouche. This is one of Sam's cold-dial planets, which means that the Goa'uld most likely don't even know it exists."
Jack gestured at the dune, indicating the village behind it. "Then how did they get here?"
"The Ancients?" Daniel said. "The Asgard? It wouldn't be the first time we've come across a culture that's been planted by one of the benevolent races."
Jack nodded briefly. "Wouldn't be the first time that people we thought were good guys turned out to be the bad guys, either."
Jack snapped his hat against his leg before he put it back on. He was considering their words, weighing them against what his own gut was telling him. He wanted to tell them they could just stay, because Daniel wasn't the only one who needed a nice, easy mission for a change. They all needed this. And four days in the sun, with no real mission and no real responsibilities, sounded great.
But there were Jaffa in that village, symbiotes or no, staff weapons or no. The soldiers of their enemy. And he couldn't just ignore that.
"If there was a way to talk to one of the villagers without strolling into a village full of potentially dangerous Jaffa, then maybe..."
"Greetings, travelers!"
All four members of SG1 turned their heads toward the sound of the cheerful voice.
There was a man standing on the crest of the dune above them, with his arms open wide and a large and very friendly smile on his face. He wore a long white robe, and he had a leopard skin draped across his shoulder. When he saw that they were all looking at him, he spoke again.
"Greetings."
Daniel shook his head, confused. "How do you... you speak our language."
Jack glanced across at Daniel and cocked an eyebrow, unsure whether he'd just asked a pointless question or made a very obvious statement. Daniel simply shrugged back at him.
The man on the dune smiled. "It is the language of the Violet Mother. She has taught it to us since we were children," he explained. "So you do understand me?"
Daniel nodded quickly, and Jack could hear the excitement in his voice. "Yes, yes, we understand you perfectly. You speak the same language we do."
"You have come through the Chappa'ai?" the man asked. "You are travelers from a distant land?"
"Yes, we are," Daniel answered. He pushed himself to his feet as he settled into a familiar and comfortable role, that of team diplomat and communicator. "We were just discussing whether or not we could enter your village."
"Yes," the man responded with an enthusiastic nod. The longer he talked to Daniel, to wider his smile grew. "Yes, you must come. The feast will begin at sundown, and the people will be elated that you have arrived."
"There's no need for a feast," Daniel began, but the man interrupted him.
"Nonsense! The feast will be held as it is every year on this night. The coming of the morrow is highly anticipated by all."
Daniel seemed to accept that answer, because he nodded his head with a smile.
"Oh, of course. If it's an annual event, that's different. I'm Daniel," he said, reaching out a hand for the man to grasp. The man backed away quickly, almost in fear, and Daniel let his hand fall to his side. "These are my friends - Jack, Sam and Teal'c. Are we all welcome in your village?"
"Yes, of course you are," the man said. He was looking Daniel up and down, not predatorily but certainly more familiarly than Jack was comfortable with. Almost possessively. "I am Niuserre. I am Wer-Meu of the goddess, the divine Nephthys."
Jack saw Daniel freeze at the word. It didn't last long, only for a second, but it was more than enough for Jack.
"Daniel?" he asked. "What's Wer-Meu?"
"Priest," Daniel explained with a smile. "He's a priest. The high priest actually."
"Of the goddess, Nephthys," Jack added.
"Yes, she who is always with us, looking down on us and protecting us. Our goddess is kind and gracious and good."
Jack rolled his eyes, but then took the chance to ask the one question he really needed answered. "But is she here?"
Niuserre looked at him in an incredibly condescending manner, and Jack bristled. Daniel got beaming smiles and enthusiasm, but he got arrogance?
"The goddess is all around us," Niuserre said. "Do you not see her in the sand that blows past your feet? In the clouds that float across the sky? In the river that flows and gives life to our land?"
Jack leaned forward slightly, so that he could speak directly into Daniel's ear. "Is he for real?" he whispered.
"He's a priest, Jack," Daniel whispered back. "He has to believe in her, but he's not talking about her like she's real. She's an ideal, a perfect image in his mind."
Daniel was so earnest in his belief, and Sam and Teal'c in theirs, that Jack found himself wavering. It went against every instinct he had, but when he looked at it logically, his team had to be right. There was nothing on that planet to attract a Goa'uld's attention, and nothing to indicate that this Nephthys person had ever been there. He didn't like the priest guy much at all, but he seemed harmless enough. And even if he wasn't, SG1 was heavily armed and more than willing to defend themselves - and each other - if necessary.
What could four days really hurt?
"All right," Jack admitted reluctantly. "I'm thinking we might go ahead and give this a try. But if there's a Goa'uld hiding under the bridge waiting to eat us, Daniel, so help me..."
"It's a desert. There are no bridges." Daniel flashed him a quick smile before turning back to Niuserre.
"There's a river," Jack countered under his breath.
Daniel ignored him.
"Niuserre," he said. "If I may, we are from a very distant land, and we do not know the name of this one."
"Oh!" Niuserre actually flushed from embarrassment. "So excited was I at your arrival that I forgot to call it by name." Niuserre spread his arms again, gold trinkets and jewelry clinking as he moved.
"Greetings, weary travelers. Welcome to Iunu."
Daniel smiled thinly and held up his index finger, asking Niuserre for patience. "Give us just one minute, please."
He spun around and walked quickly to Jack, grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Sam and Teal'c climbed to their feet as well, and the four of them formed a tight circle. Niuserre was still standing on the top of the dune, looking down at them, but Jack doubted that he could hear their conversation.
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Iunu, Jack. Iunu!"
"Bless."
"No!" Daniel's frustration was real, and Jack felt bad for causing it, but at the same time, it was the first time Daniel had talked to him normally since they'd arrived. "Iunu is another name for Heliopolis."
It was obvious from Daniel's expression that he was expecting them to immediately fill in their own blanks, but Jack wasn't seeing whatever it was he was supposed to see. Teal'c spoke up, saving him the effort.
"That is the name Ernest Littlefield gave to the planet he was stranded on."
"Yes," Daniel confirmed with the nod of his head. "Yes, it is."
"And it wasn't on the Abydos Cartouche, either," Sam added.
"Nope."
Daniel's grin was enormous, and Jack thought at that moment that he'd do just about anything to keep it that way.
"You think they're related?" he asked.
"I don't know," Daniel admitted. "But it's a lot of coincidences, don't you think? Two planets with the same name..."
"But the people that lived on that planet originally didn't name it Heliopolis," Sam pointed out. "Dr. Littlefield did."
"Because it was a center of knowledge and learning," Daniel said. "What if the locals named this place the same thing, for the same reason?" He turned and looked at Jack directly, blue eyes staring intensely. "What if there's a device here, Jack? A device like the one Ernest found?"
Jack considered that for a moment. He remembered the lengths Daniel had been willing to go to just to study that first device, the fact that he'd been more than willing to be stranded on Ernest's planet forever just for a chance to learn everything it contained. And he remembered his own experiences with another knowledge repository left lying around by the Ancients.
"What if there's one of those head-sucker things, too?"
Daniel shook his head. "Then I won't use it. Obviously. But if there's a holographic device like Ernest's? If we can find one on a peaceful planet, and I have the time I need to study it... Jack, think about it. The benefits of that knowledge, the things we could learn. And if there's a chance, even a small one, and we can take advantage of it?"
Jack nodded slowly. He had to admit that Daniel had a point. He didn't have to like it, but he did have to concede it.
"All right," he said. "All right, Daniel, you win. We'll stay. But the first sign of weirdness, and I mean any weirdness, we're out of here. Got it?"
Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I got it."
"Okay. So, go make nice with the priest guy."
Jack couldn't help but smile when Daniel turned and ran to do just that.
Chapter Two
Niuserre hadn't been lying when he said that the feast would begin at sundown.
Jack poked at his plate with his fingers, a bit uncertain about eating the food even though it smelled wonderful. The rest of his team seemed to be relaxing into the situation, eating and talking with their hosts like they'd known them their whole lives. But Jack couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was looming just beyond the horizon.
"Where do you think all the fish came from?" he asked absently.
Daniel turned to him with the same expression Jack imagined he'd give a small child. "There's a river," he said, quoting Jack's own words from earlier in the day. The ironic smile on his face made it clear to Jack that Daniel had heard the crack after all.
Jack sighed as Daniel turned away from him and back to Niuserre, and Jack took the opportunity to study their surroundings once more.
The significance of the event was still a mystery, despite Jack's insistence that they needed to know what was going on. Daniel had asked Niuserre repeatedly exactly what was being celebrated, but all the priest would say was that it was an annual feast that had been being planned for weeks.
There were dozens of tables arranged at the base of the black pyramid in the center of the village, all of them filled to overflowing with fish, dates, bread and wine, and the entire population seemed to have turned out for it. Daniel had noted more than once that the laborers and upper class were seated at the same tables, sharing the same food, and letting their children run around and play together. Apparently the civilization that had developed on that world had all but eradicated classism, and everyone was treated equally, no matter what their station.
The only exception to that rule seemed to be Niuserre.
The table SG1 had been seated at was enormous, easily large enough for a dozen more people than currently occupied it, and before the sun had gone down, the shadow of the pyramid had fallen directly across it. Jack didn't doubt for a second that the placement was intentional, because it was obviously what passed for a VIP table.
Niuserre sat at the head of it, and the amount of food the villagers had placed in front of him made it fairly obvious who the most important person in their lives actually was. Jack had exerted enough influence over the seating arrangements to keep SG1 together. He'd had to do it through Daniel, of course, because at best Niuserre didn't seem to care that Jack existed, and at worst he seemed to actively dislike him. So Jack was seated to the priest's left with Daniel directly across the table from him. Carter was sitting at Jack's side, and thanks to another small favor that he'd gotten Daniel to agree to, Teal'c was at Daniel's.
Next to Teal'c sat a Jaffa that nearly matched him in size; according to the gold symbol of Nephthys on his forehead, he was First Prime. Introductions had been brief, but Jack remembered Niuserre introducing him as Saq'ar. Across from Saq'ar, next to Sam, sat Saq'ar's wife, Dashu.
The conversations at the table seemed to be going well. Or, at least, they'd been going on for quite a while. He could hear Carter next to him, talking to Dashu about medicinal plants and healing technology, including a sarcophagus that apparently existed somewhere on the planet but was forbidden for the humans to use. Teal'c was deep in conversation with Saq'ar about something, and even though Jack couldn't hear a single word of it, it looked important. Jack trusted both Carter and Teal'c to alert him if anything pinged their danger senses, and so far neither had, so Jack was more than willing to let them keep talking.
The one conversation at the table that he was most interested in, though, was the one Daniel was having with Niuserre. Whether by accident or by design, Jack was far enough away from both of them that he couldn't hear a single word they said, and he didn't like that at all.
There was something off about that priest. He couldn't put his finger on it, couldn't even begin to explain it, but he didn't trust the man as far as he could throw him. He'd been far too interested in Daniel from the very beginning, much too familiar for someone he'd never met before, and he seemed to be one of those people who had to be constantly touching the person he was talking to - his hand was always on Daniel's arm, or his shoulder, or his hand. And overly-friendly aliens, priest or otherwise, taking an interest in Daniel was something that never sat well with him. There were just too many things that could go wrong, too many ulterior motives that they could have, and Jack worried that he couldn't plan for them all.
Never mind that Daniel seemed comfortable around him. Jack didn't like him, and knew himself well enough to admit that he probably never would.
He picked up a piece of the fish on his plate and put it in his mouth absentmindedly, not even realizing he'd done so until he tasted it. It was better than he'd expected, and he took another bite almost immediately.
He glanced around the table once more, watching his team do what they did best. All three were at ease with the situation and seemed to already be settling in for the next several days. None of them looked worried, not even Teal'c. Jack found himself thinking that maybe he was just being overly cautious, that maybe the Ma'chello thing still had him on edge, because so far, Iunu didn't seem like a dangerous place at all. If anything, it seemed like exactly what it was intended to be: a clean, simple, uncomplicated first mission back.
And the fish was actually pretty damn good.
It was another three hours of mingling with the natives before Jack finally gathered his team around him. They assembled next to one of the recently vacated smaller tables to the right of the one they'd eaten at. He glanced around to make certain that none of the villagers were within earshot.
"So, kids, what did we learn tonight?" he asked.
Carter spoke up first. "Dashu said she's willing to show me the medical technology that she has access to, and teach me about the herbs and roots they use for basic medicines."
"What about that sarcophagus she mentioned?"
Jack didn't miss the way Daniel's back stiffened at that, but he'd been expecting it. He also knew that it was something Daniel needed to be aware of, so that if he ran across it, he wouldn't be surprised. It had been almost a year since his nearly-fatal addiction to one of the damn things, and he'd not shown any outward signs of relapsing, but then again, there hadn't been many opportunities for him to stumble across one unsupervised.
Carter shook her head slowly. "She says there's one here, sir, but she doesn't know where it is."
"Everyone keep your eyes open for that, then," Jack said. "I doubt it's just lying around waiting for us to walk into it, but you never know. And the R&D guys at Area 51 are just itching to take one apart and figure out what makes it tick."
"And for an ancient culture, they seem to be pretty progressive overall," Carter continued. "First there's the fact that their healer is a woman. And Dashu told me there's a teacher in the village, another woman, who teaches girls and boys equally."
"Actually," Daniel put in, "they're incredibly progressive. It's not just the lack of serious division between the sexes, either, even though that's remarkable on its own. The different sections of the village aren't separated by anything more than roads, the classes exist side-by-side and socialize with each other, and it's in their faith system, too."
"How so?" Jack usually wasn't all that interested in lectures on offworld religions, but if it would give him some insight into Niuserre, then it might be worth listening to.
"Well, Niuserre knows that Nephthys isn't an actual goddess."
Jack came to full attention then. "How does he know that?"
Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. But he does. He told me that they worship her because she's earned it, not because she demands it. And he knows that her powers aren't anything more than advanced technology."
Jack tilted his head in confusion. "She didn't demand it?"
"Saq'ar told me the same," Teal'c added. "The Jaffa that wear her symbol do so out of reverence and respect, not fear. It is not required for the men of this village to become Jaffa if they do not choose to do so. I was also correct about there being no Goa'uld larva on this planet. According to Saq'ar, the last Jaffa to carry a symbiote died several hundred years ago."
Jack scratched his head in confusion. "That can't be right, can it? A benevolent Goa'uld? Is there such a thing?"
Daniel shrugged. "It's also possible that she's just been gone from here for so long that they don't remember exactly what she was. Niuserre talks about her in the present tense, but the things he says implies distance. He talks like she exists, like he knows she's real, but I honestly don't think he's ever met her."
"Did he explain how they ended up here, then?"
"A little bit," Daniel said with a small nod. "The legend says that she was banished here by Seth for defying him, for taking sides with Osiris against him. That's incredibly close to the myths about her on Earth, and I'd really like to get some more information about what exactly happened. He tells me the stories are on the walls of the temple, and he's offered to take me there, so..."
Jack shook his head immediately. "Not tonight, Daniel."
"Why not?"
"Because it's late. We'll bed down for the night, and you and I can check that temple out in the morning."
"Jack..."
"In the morning. After sleep." He turned toward Teal'c and Carter. "You're doing the medical thing tomorrow, right, Carter?"
"Yes, sir." Sam glanced at Daniel, and the expression on her face told Jack that he didn't want to turn around. He hadn't really needed her to convey the fact that Daniel was pissed at him, but he was grateful to her for doing it just the same. "She's actually invited me to stay the night at their home, so we can discuss things a bit more in-depth tonight and get started early in the morning."
"Teal'c?"
"I have received a similar invitation to Saq'ar's home," Teal'c said. "He wishes me to inspect his troops at dawn."
Jack leaned against the table they were standing next to. "I thought you said they weren't real soldiers?"
"I said that they do not seem to be at a state of battle readiness, and they are not. He has simply never had an opportunity to receive an outside perspective on his training methods, and he wishes for me to express mine."
Jack nodded in understanding. "All right. So then, threat assessment?"
Carter and Daniel shook their heads in unison, and Teal'c said, "I do not believe there to be any threat from these people."
Jack took just a minute to consider everything he'd just been told. He trusted his team implicitly when it came to examining and feeling out potential threats, and this time would be no different. If Teal'c, Carter and Daniel all three thought splitting up for the night was safe, then that was exactly what they'd do.
"Okay. Carter and Teal'c, you go shmooze with the First Prime and his wife. Me and Daniel will set up camp just outside the..."
"Daniel Jackson!"
Jack managed to keep himself from cringing when he heard the priest's voice behind him, but he couldn't quite banish the wave of irritation that washed over him. Keeping in mind that they were going to be on that planet for another three days, and that angering the town's most important citizen was probably an incredibly bad idea, he forced a fake smile onto his face before he turned around.
But the smile on Niuserre's face grated on his nerves almost instantly.
"Niuserre," Daniel greeted easily.
"I have come to extend to you an invitation," the priest said. "I would be honored if you would consider taking quarter in my home during your stay on Iunu."
Jack's grated nerves were immediately raw, and when he saw Daniel opening his mouth to answer, he jumped forward and cut him off.
"We accept," Jack announced. "Your place has got to be more comfortable than a sand dune, right?"
Niuserre looked both shocked and offended that Jack had invited himself along with Daniel, but as far as Jack was concerned, he could just deal with it. He knew that if worse came to worst, Daniel could explain it away as a cultural difference, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. The priest had shown an almost overwhelming tendency to accept any and everything Daniel said without question, so if Daniel backed Jack up, the matter would be resolved.
He just wished he knew whether or not Daniel would actually back him up.
"We'd be honored," Daniel said slowly, carefully, and with an awkward smile. "Thank you. Could you give us a few moments, and then we'll join you?"
Niuserre nodded deeply and moved away.
Daniel spun around. "Jack..."
Jack held his hand up in the air and cut him off. "SOP, Daniel, you know that. Carter and Teal'c are doubled up at Saq'ar's house, so you're stuck with me. We'll meet up again in the morning right back here, all right?"
Daniel shook his head angrily, picked his pack up from the ground under the table, and stormed off. Jack turned to Carter and jerked his head in Daniel's direction. She grabbed her own pack with a quick nod and followed after him.
Jack sighed deeply and stepped closer to Teal'c.
"I know you guys are saying it's safe here, T, but I gotta tell ya, I just can't shake this feeling that there's something wrong."
Teal'c tilted his head slightly. "It is obvious that we have not yet returned to our previous level of comfort in each other's company," he said. "Could that be this 'something' that is wrong? Is it our current mission that troubles you, O'Neill, or our last?"
"I don't know," Jack admitted as he closed his eyes and shook his head.
"What is it you require of me?"
Jack opened his eyes and let his hands drop to his sides. "Just keep your eyes open," he said. He picked his pack up and slung it over his shoulder. "Anything that seems out of place, anything that strikes you as wrong, you let me know."
"Of course, O'Neill," Teal'c answered. "I do feel a measure of comfort on this world, but I would never allow my personal feelings to interfere with our mission here."
Jack patted him lightly on the arm as he turned away.
"And if we could all do that," he said, "then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place."
He knew that eavesdropping was rude. He knew that spying on their host was bad form. He knew that if Daniel caught him doing it, he'd be in even worse standing with him than he already was.
But none of that stopped Jack from standing just inside the door to Niuserre's garden, holding two cups of coffee he'd just made over an open fire, and listening to what Daniel and the priest were talking about.
"How long have your people been here?"
"From the beginning of history itself," Niuserre said. "More than one hundred and seventy generations."
Jack did the calculation in his head, and wasn't surprised to realize that Niuserre was saying they'd been on the planet for more than four thousand years. He'd read the cultural mission report much more thoroughly than he normally did, and he remembered it being stated that the Old Kingdom, the era that this world had evolved from, had disappeared from Earth at right around the same time.
"The only record we have of the Before Time is written on the walls of the temple our originators built to our goddess. I know that you would find these writings to be of great interest to you, young one."
The hair on the back of Jack's neck stood up at that. He didn't want to jeopardize relations with the priest by reacting too harshly, but he did shift his position in the door so that he could see what was going on outside.
Daniel was standing near the top terrace of the multi-tiered garden, only one or two steps down, looking out at the sunrise over the village. Niuserre was standing behind him on the top level, looking off in the same direction. There was nothing threatening in the priest's stance - of that much, Jack was sure - but he wasn't willing to relax his guard just yet.
"I'm sure I will," Daniel said. "I find everything about this world fascinating. There's been nothing like it on my world since... well, since you came here."
Niuserre turned his eyes away from the horizon and toward Daniel. "It is true, is it not? You come from the world of the Before Time?"
Daniel nodded his head slowly. "Yes, I do. Your originators were born on the same world I was."
Niuserre nodded, and Jack saw the edge of his lips curl up in a knowing smile. "And when you look out over our new world, what do you see? What do you feel as the sun rises over the pyramid before us?"
Daniel half-turned back toward him. "What do you mean?"
"Are you reminded of your home, your true home? Does it make your heart sing to be among us now?"
Jack saw the way Daniel's shoulders stiffened, on his own back did the same.
"How do you...?"
"All is as it is intended to be, young one," Niuserre said. "For if these things are true, then it is here where you belong. And you will be greatly welcomed."
He reached his hand out and placed it against the side of Daniel's head from behind, then started carding his fingers through Daniel's hair almost lovingly.
Jack didn't know who reacted first, him or Daniel, but they both did immediately. Daniel pulled away from Niuserre and spun around so quickly that he stumbled backwards a few steps, his eyes wide in surprise and his hands up to ward off any more contact. Jack simply stepped out the door and called out, "Daniel!"
Niuserre and Daniel both turned to face him, and he held the two cups in his hands up in the air.
"Made coffee," he said simply. "Thought you might want some."
Daniel nodded his head quickly, and for a brief second, Jack saw the gratitude in his eyes. "Yes, Jack, thank you. Some coffee would be wonderful."
Niuserre, on the other hand, was glaring at him openly. Jack didn't really care, and he walked past him and right up to Daniel without a second glance. After handing one of the cups over, he turned back around again.
"If you'll excuse us, Niuserre," he said. "We've got some things to talk about. Important things. You know."
Niuserre let out an indignant huff as he turned around and stomped off. As soon as he'd cleared the door, Jack turned back to Daniel again.
"Are you all right?" he asked quickly.
"Yeah," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. We were just..."
"I saw that, Daniel," Jack pointed out. "That whole... running his fingers through your hair thing. What was that?"
Daniel shook his head again. "I have no idea." He crinkled his forehead and lowered his eyebrows. "It was sort of awkward, though."
"Awkward?" Jack echoed. "No, that wasn't awkward. That was straight-up creepy. And we're not sleeping here again."
"We have to, Jack," Daniel began. "We've been invited by the..."
"I don't care," Jack interrupted. "We'll finagle us an invitation from Saq'ar for the next couple of nights. It makes more sense for the four of us to be in one place, anyway, and besides, there's no way I'm letting you stay where that priest can..."
"But I'm fine," Daniel protested. "It just... took me by surprise. That's all. I just wasn't expecting him to do that."
"Most people don't expect random strangers to start playing with their hair," Jack said. "But we're still not coming back here tonight. So finish your coffee, grab your gear, and let's go find Carter and Teal'c."
Daniel didn't answer him right away, and seemed instead to be staring off into the distance again.
"Do you hear what I'm saying, Daniel?"
"Who's that?"
The seemingly random question caught Jack off-guard, and he turned to face the same direction Daniel was staring.
He saw her immediately, because the clothes she was wearing were definitely intended to make her stand out in the crowd. She was standing near the side of the narrow street that ran past Niuserre's house, just outside of the small wall that separated his garden from the rest of the village. Instead of the common white linen skirts and dresses of the women in the village, she was wearing a purple cape that covered her from the shoulders down. The hood of it hung down her back, leaving her long dark hair to blow in the wind and also allowing them to see that she was staring right at them.
Daniel took one step forward, as though he was going to approach and talk to her, but she turned away quickly and disappeared into the side streets behind her.
"Well, that's... strange," Jack said.
"Do you know who she is?" Daniel asked. "Did you see her last night?"
"Nope," Jack answered with a shake of his head. "Never seen her before in my life."
He threw his head back, tossed the last of his coffee down, then put the cup on one of the small tables that sat around the garden.
"What are we going to do about her?"
Jack turned toward Daniel and blinked at him in open confusion. "You don't want to say 'no' to the creepy priest that can't seem to keep his hands off you, because you don't want to offend him, but you think we should do something about some woman who hasn't done anything but stare at us?"
Daniel sighed deeply before taking a drink of coffee, then he shook his head and turned away.
"There's nothing to do about her right now," Jack continued. "If we keep seeing her, or if her behavior gets threatening, then we deal with her. Right now, I'm more worried about getting us packed up and out of this house."
He gestured toward the village before turning away once more. "You finish your coffee, I'll go grab our stuff. Sam and Teal'c are waiting for us."
It looked like the feast from the night before had just been the start of the party.
The sun had finished coming up, and in the early morning, the streets of the village were already filled with people milling around, talking and laughing. The tide of people seemed to be moving toward the pyramid again, and SG1 moved along with them as they briefed each other on what had happened while they'd been apart.
"I'm sure they have room for you, sir," Carter said.
Jack had asked about getting an invitation for himself and Daniel to Saq'ar's house, though he hadn't told either Carter or Teal'c exactly why he was asking. Teal'c had given him a look that said he was fairly sure that Niuserre was the reason, but he hadn't pressed for details, and Jack didn't feel like giving them.
How exactly did he explain that he didn't want to hang out with the priest anymore simply because the guy liked to touch Daniel's hair?
"The children all share a large room downstairs. Saq'ar and Dashu sleep upstairs, and so did Teal'c and I. There's an empty room between us, though, so I don't see why it would be a problem."
"Did you learn anything valuable from her?"
Sam nodded enthusiastically. "She has a remarkable knowledge of anatomy and physiology, sir. Far beyond what I would have expected. She has access to quite a bit of rudimentary Goa'uld technology, all of it low-level medical tech, but she doesn't rely on it for making a diagnosis."
"The ancient Egyptians were amazing physicians," Daniel said. "They understood the effects the different systems had on each other, had varying medical specialties that they trained for and practiced. We've found medical treatises written on papyrus that date back almost three thousand years, not long after their ancestors left Earth. So it stands to reason that the knowledge they already had would have come with them."
"And evolved," Sam added. "Medicine is a science to them, based on fact, not belief. And the medicines they've developed to treat the few illnesses they do have are remarkably effective."
"Anything we can use?" Jack asked.
Sam shook her head. "They're not more advanced than us, no, but we might be able to work some sort of trade for a chance to study the medical technology Nephthys left behind. I wouldn't recommend that we give them any of our medicines, though, because I think it might actually interfere with what they already have, and they're handling their own medical needs just fine."
"Okay. I'll make sure that's in the first report to Hammond this afternoon. Teal'c, what about Saq'ar and his men?"
"They are very well trained," Teal'c answered. "I was correct in my belief that they are not at a state of battle readiness, but they do maintain an active training regimen. I have been invited to participate in a tournament that will be held as part of the current festivities."
Jack nodded his appreciation of that. "What about Saq'ar? You get a feel for him?"
"I have more than a feel, O'Neill. I believe that I know him very well, and I am satisfied with his understanding that Nephthys is a false god."
"Really?" Jack was surprised by that. Even though it didn't appear that the Goa'uld had been present on the planet in many years, generally their subjects remained loyal to them.
"As Niuserre, Saq'ar is aware that Nephthys was an advanced being rather than a goddess. His reasons for accepting the position of First Prime, and continuing to train his troops, are purely custom and tradition. He feels closer to his ancestors when he is part of maintaining the old ways, but he feels no true loyalty to either Nephthys or the Goa'uld in general."
"Think you can recruit him to the Jaffa freedom movement?" Jack asked with a smile.
Teal'c tilted his head. "Recruitment is not required. Saq'ar and his men are already free, and will die to defend that freedom."
The atmosphere in the streets around them had been slowly changing as they'd walked along, and it was no longer possible to ignore it. Instead of moving slowly toward the pyramid, the people were running, laughing, and smiling as they went. Jack stopped a young man in a rough brown skirt as he ran past.
"What's going on?" he asked. "What's the big rush?"
"Oh, we must hurry!" the young man answered. "Niuserre will be entering the temple to bathe the goddess soon! Opet has begun!"
Jack shook his head in confusion as the man ran off again, and he shrugged as he turned back around. Carter and Teal'c looked equally perplexed, but Daniel's reaction was anything but confused. He looked like he knew exactly what the man was so excited about, and he didn't look like he liked it.
He looked like it scared him.
"Daniel?" Jack took one step forward and grabbed Daniel's arm. "What's going on? What's this Opet thing?"
Daniel shook his head quickly, and the last of the color drained from his face. "Opet is not good," Daniel answered. "No, no, no. That can't be right. We have to..."
"Have to what?" Jack demanded. He squeezed Daniel's arm tighter. "What do we have to do?"
Daniel pulled away from Jack without another word, then turned and ran back the direction they'd come, toward the edge of the village.
"Daniel!"
Jack took off after him, with Carter and Teal'c hot on his heels. He didn't understand what was going on at all, but Daniel was freaked out, and Daniel never freaked out. Either something was seriously wrong, or... no, there was no "or." Something was seriously wrong, and that was all there was to it.
Daniel had reached the dune that formed the perimeter of the village and started running up it, pushing himself back to his feet when he stumbled and slid in the loose sand. He was climbing up and out of the village frantically. Jack, Carter, and Teal'c were right behind him the whole time.
It was Daniel who crested the dune first. He slid to a stop and stared at the horizon in horror.
It was only seconds before Jack caught up to him, and when he saw what Daniel was looking at, he froze. Carter and Teal'c did the same on his other side.
"Daniel?" Sam's voice was shaking, her eyes wide in shock and confusion.
"The Festival of Opet," he answered softly, "is to celebrate the flooding of the Nile."
'There's a river' was a statement that Jack and Daniel had tossed back and forth several times the night before, but it didn't seem to be appropriate anymore, because the river was gone. Everything was gone. There was no sand visible, no matter where they looked. There was nothing but water, from horizon to horizon. There was no river; there was an ocean.
And the Stargate was at the bottom of it.
Part Two
Chapter One
There wasn't much difference between one desert planet and the next.
When SG1 stepped through the stargate, Jack's first impression was that they could have been on Abydos and it wouldn't have surprised him, if not for the fact that the gate was in the middle of nowhere instead of inside a pyramid. And in the near distance, maybe half a mile away, he could see a wide river snaking its way across the barren landscape. But aside from those two things, there was nothing noticeably different between the two worlds. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, and he wondered if Daniel felt as comfortable there as he did on his adopted home planet.
Jack, Sam and Teal'c fanned out on the dais as Daniel went to check the DHD. Jack noticed almost immediately that the people on the planet didn't use their gate much, if at all. The desert sand had blown and drifted up around it, half-burying the dais and almost completely covering the stairs, and the DHD was so buried that Daniel had to kneel down just to be able to reach it.
"This looks like a happening place," Jack remarked.
He got two of the three responses he was expecting. Sam grinned at him across her shoulder. Teal'c looked back at him in that way he had of making people feel really, really stupid. But Daniel, who should have fired back some snide little comment of his own, didn't even look at him.
Jack shook his head. Things were not starting well.
He watched Daniel stand up from the DHD and decided to try again.
"All good there, Daniel?"
Daniel nodded without speaking, and Jack had to stop himself from sighing. That had been pretty well the same way their conversation the day before had gone, too. Jack had talked, and Daniel had nodded at him, or shook his head, or rolled his eyes without speaking. Jack had wondered at the time if it was an intentional thing he was doing, or if he wasn't aware of it.
But they were supposed to be working their way back to normal, and Jack had never been one to give up easily.
"Okay, so, Daniel, how far, and which way?"
The look in Daniel's eyes made two things perfectly clear to Jack. First, he was fully aware that he wasn't talking and second, he wanted it that way. Daniel hadn't stopped talking to Jack because of some deep-seated defense mechanism or any other involuntary psychological thing. He'd stopped talking to Jack because he was mad at him. He was giving him the silent treatment.
Daniel was throwing a temper tantrum.
The parent in Jack was telling him to yell at Daniel to knock it off, but the commanding officer in him saw Sam and Teal'c standing there, watching to see what he was going to do. And the friend in him had to admit that Daniel had a right to be mad at him. So he bit his tongue, rubbed his forehead, and sighed.
"Daniel?"
Daniel shook his head and looked down at the ground, and when he looked back up, the open defiance that had been in his eyes was gone. He didn't look angry anymore; he just looked tired. Resigned. Defeated.
Jack hated it.
"Two miles," Daniel finally answered, gesturing at one of the hundreds of indistinguishable dunes that surrounded them. "Two miles west."
Jack nodded once and motioned Teal'c forward with his hand. "All right. Teal'c, you take point. We walk west until we run into something."
Sam jogged down the few visible steps of the gate platform in time to catch up with Daniel, who'd already turned to follow Teal'c out across the sand. Jack took his place at the end of the line, far enough back to stay out of the conversation but still close enough to hear it.
"Aren't you excited?" Sam asked. "I couldn't believe it when I read the mission briefing."
"Believe what?"
"We're walking right into the Old Kingdom!" Jack had to smile at Sam's enthusiasm, and he didn't even care if it was real or if she was just putting it on for Daniel's sake. If anyone would be able to break through the pissed-off - and injured - child on the surface and get through to the scientist underneath, it would be Sam. "Everything you've ever studied, Daniel, and it's here. Why aren't you more excited?"
Daniel smiled, a small one at first, but when he looked at Sam and saw the wide grin on her face, it grew.
"Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'm a little excited."
"A little?! Come on, Daniel."
"Okay, a lot," he admitted reluctantly. "How much of the cultural information did you read?"
"All of it," Sam answered immediately. "I think it sounds fascinating. What's the one thing you think we absolutely have to see while we're here?"
"Oh, that's easy." And just like that, Daniel was Daniel again. Jack owed Sam, big time, for doing in two minutes what he'd failed to do in two weeks. "The MALP took pictures of what looks like a Sun Temple, and if the estimated size calculations are right, then it's at least twice as big as the Temple of Amun at Karnak. The implications are astounding, really..."
Jack's smile got wider with every word that came out of Daniel's mouth. Plain, boring desert or not, the place might not be so bad after all.
Jack didn't know if the implications were really astounding, but the size of Daniel's temple certainly was.
SG1 was lined up against the top of a dune on their stomachs, still half a mile from the edge of the village and looking down on it. The village itself was in a valley of sorts, a natural depression in the center of a ring of dunes that rose above it. And in the center of the village stood what had to be the largest structure that Jack had ever seen.
"Look, Sam," Daniel said. "Mastabas."
"What are mastabas?" she asked.
"Burial vaults. And over there?" Jack looked to his right, past Teal'c and Sam, and saw Daniel. He was pointing into the village, showing Sam the different structures he'd identified. "See how the houses are different? How they're sectioned off? They really do separate the classes, but there's no walls between the sections. Just the streets."
"What's that in front of the temple?" Sam asked, reaching into her pack and pulling out her binoculars.
"It's a black pyramid," Daniel answered breathlessly. "I'll have to see it closer to be sure, but from here it looks exactly like the Fifth Dynasty pyramids at Abusir on Earth. I can't believe this is all here!"
Jack smiled to himself once more. Daniel was acting like a child again, but more like a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning than one who'd been kicked repeatedly while being told his puppy had been run over by a car.
It was a vast improvement.
Teal'c had obviously noticed the change that had come over Daniel since their arrival, because he was looking at Jack and nodding his silent approval. Sam was doing a damn good job of pulling Daniel back out of himself, Teal'c was on-board with the situation even if he didn't know the specifics of why they were there, and Daniel was having a blast. The best part was that they were less than an hour into a four day mission, and things were going so much more smoothly than Jack could have asked for.
And he'd been worried.
"Uh... Colonel?"
Jack looked back over at Sam, saw her pulling her binoculars away from her eyes, and the look on her face brought all of Jack's worry right back.
"Report, Carter."
"Locals, sir," she said, passing the binoculars to him. "You might want to take a look."
"Well, we knew it was inhabited," he said as he held the binoculars up to his eyes. He gave them a few seconds to adjust their focus on the group of people he'd picked to look at.
Crap.
"There should be a variety of different professions," Daniel was saying. "Farmers, craftsmen, scribes, priests..."
"Jaffa."
Jack handed the binoculars to Teal'c with a frustrated huff. "Just once," he said. "Is it so much to ask Just one time I want the mission guys to say there's no Goa'uld and have there actually be no Goa'uld. Why is that so damn hard?" He saw Teal'c's forehead furrow above the binoculars. "T? You know who they work for?"
"I do not," Teal'c answered as he lowered the binoculars. Daniel reached for them, and Sam passed them across to him. "I do not recognize that symbol."
"Neb-Hut," Daniel said suddenly. He lowered the binoculars and looked at his teammates, all of whom were looking at him questioningly.
"Neb who?" Jack asked.
"Neb-Hut," Daniel repeated. "Nephthys, if you prefer."
"Are you certain, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.
"Well, that's her symbol," Daniel insisted, handing the binoculars back to Sam, who held them up to look through them again.
"I have not heard of a Goa'uld by this name," Teal'c said.
"Well, I'm not really surprised, given what we know about her husband." Daniel shrugged and turned to look back down on the village.
Jack waited for more of an explanation, but there didn't seem to be one coming any time soon. "What do we know about her husband?" Again, there was no answer. "Daniel?"
"Yeah?" Daniel answered distractedly.
"Who's her husband?"
Sam nudged Teal'c in the ribs with her elbow, handed him the binoculars, and pointed to something in the distance. Jack could see her whispering something in Teal'c's ear as he investigated whatever it was she'd pointed out.
"Um..." Daniel glanced around and looked incredibly nervous all of a sudden. He really didn't want to answer that question for some reason.
"Daniel?" Jack prompted.
"Seth?"
Jack didn't say anything at first, just looked at Daniel and blinked. Sam and Teal'c were absorbed in a private conversation between them, and didn't seem to be hearing a word they said. Daniel simply flashed Jack a shy smile and shrugged.
"Are you guessing?" Jack finally asked.
"What? No!" Daniel protested. "No, I know. Nephthys was Seth's wife."
Jack dug his elbows into the sand dune they were leaning against and massaged his forehead with his fingers. The news just kept getting better and better.
"So, just so we're clear here. The mission guys said there were no Goa'uld here, but they sent us to a planet full of Jaffa. And now you're telling me that these Jaffa serve the widow of the snakehead that we just killed?"
Daniel bit his lip and nodded his head, then turned away quickly.
"Well, that's just peachy." Jack pressed his hands against the dune and pushed himself down it. "Come on, kids. Time to go home."
"O'Neill."
"Colonel, wait."
Jack stopped where he was and turned back to his team. All three of them were scooting down the sand beside him, and he waited for them to reach him. They formed a small circle seated on the side of the dune.
"What?"
Sam glanced quickly at Teal'c before speaking. "Teal'c and I don't think we should leave, sir."
Jack shook his head and blinked in confusion. "Did you not hear what I just said? What Daniel just said?"
"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, we heard. But we don't think there's a Goa'uld here."
"Jaffa, Carter." Jack insisted. "Where's there's Jaffa, there's Goa'uld."
"Not necessarily, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "I did see the symbol of this Nephthys on the heads of several men in the village, but I see no armor. There are no staff weapons. These Jaffa are not in a state of battle readiness."
"He's got a point, Jack," Daniel put in. "They're walking around in their normal clothes."
"The Jaffa on Chulak aren't always in armor, either," Jack pointed out.
"You are correct. But these Jaffa do not carry symbiotes."
"How do you know that?"
"They wear no shirts, and they have no outward signs of a womb."
Jack took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair as he considered Teal'c's words carefully. "So what does that mean, exactly? How does that mean there's no Goa'uld here?"
"It does not prove that there is not one, but it does not lend support to a theory that there is. If they have no wombs, then this means there are no symbiotes for them to carry."
"Also," Carter said, "there are no resources here that a Goa'uld would be interested in. Not just naquadah or trinium, sir, but nothing. There's no gold, no silver, no minerals that would be in any way valuable."
Jack took a deep breath and let it out, and Daniel took the opportunity to speak up.
"And it's not on the Abydos Cartouche. This is one of Sam's cold-dial planets, which means that the Goa'uld most likely don't even know it exists."
Jack gestured at the dune, indicating the village behind it. "Then how did they get here?"
"The Ancients?" Daniel said. "The Asgard? It wouldn't be the first time we've come across a culture that's been planted by one of the benevolent races."
Jack nodded briefly. "Wouldn't be the first time that people we thought were good guys turned out to be the bad guys, either."
Jack snapped his hat against his leg before he put it back on. He was considering their words, weighing them against what his own gut was telling him. He wanted to tell them they could just stay, because Daniel wasn't the only one who needed a nice, easy mission for a change. They all needed this. And four days in the sun, with no real mission and no real responsibilities, sounded great.
But there were Jaffa in that village, symbiotes or no, staff weapons or no. The soldiers of their enemy. And he couldn't just ignore that.
"If there was a way to talk to one of the villagers without strolling into a village full of potentially dangerous Jaffa, then maybe..."
"Greetings, travelers!"
All four members of SG1 turned their heads toward the sound of the cheerful voice.
There was a man standing on the crest of the dune above them, with his arms open wide and a large and very friendly smile on his face. He wore a long white robe, and he had a leopard skin draped across his shoulder. When he saw that they were all looking at him, he spoke again.
"Greetings."
Daniel shook his head, confused. "How do you... you speak our language."
Jack glanced across at Daniel and cocked an eyebrow, unsure whether he'd just asked a pointless question or made a very obvious statement. Daniel simply shrugged back at him.
The man on the dune smiled. "It is the language of the Violet Mother. She has taught it to us since we were children," he explained. "So you do understand me?"
Daniel nodded quickly, and Jack could hear the excitement in his voice. "Yes, yes, we understand you perfectly. You speak the same language we do."
"You have come through the Chappa'ai?" the man asked. "You are travelers from a distant land?"
"Yes, we are," Daniel answered. He pushed himself to his feet as he settled into a familiar and comfortable role, that of team diplomat and communicator. "We were just discussing whether or not we could enter your village."
"Yes," the man responded with an enthusiastic nod. The longer he talked to Daniel, to wider his smile grew. "Yes, you must come. The feast will begin at sundown, and the people will be elated that you have arrived."
"There's no need for a feast," Daniel began, but the man interrupted him.
"Nonsense! The feast will be held as it is every year on this night. The coming of the morrow is highly anticipated by all."
Daniel seemed to accept that answer, because he nodded his head with a smile.
"Oh, of course. If it's an annual event, that's different. I'm Daniel," he said, reaching out a hand for the man to grasp. The man backed away quickly, almost in fear, and Daniel let his hand fall to his side. "These are my friends - Jack, Sam and Teal'c. Are we all welcome in your village?"
"Yes, of course you are," the man said. He was looking Daniel up and down, not predatorily but certainly more familiarly than Jack was comfortable with. Almost possessively. "I am Niuserre. I am Wer-Meu of the goddess, the divine Nephthys."
Jack saw Daniel freeze at the word. It didn't last long, only for a second, but it was more than enough for Jack.
"Daniel?" he asked. "What's Wer-Meu?"
"Priest," Daniel explained with a smile. "He's a priest. The high priest actually."
"Of the goddess, Nephthys," Jack added.
"Yes, she who is always with us, looking down on us and protecting us. Our goddess is kind and gracious and good."
Jack rolled his eyes, but then took the chance to ask the one question he really needed answered. "But is she here?"
Niuserre looked at him in an incredibly condescending manner, and Jack bristled. Daniel got beaming smiles and enthusiasm, but he got arrogance?
"The goddess is all around us," Niuserre said. "Do you not see her in the sand that blows past your feet? In the clouds that float across the sky? In the river that flows and gives life to our land?"
Jack leaned forward slightly, so that he could speak directly into Daniel's ear. "Is he for real?" he whispered.
"He's a priest, Jack," Daniel whispered back. "He has to believe in her, but he's not talking about her like she's real. She's an ideal, a perfect image in his mind."
Daniel was so earnest in his belief, and Sam and Teal'c in theirs, that Jack found himself wavering. It went against every instinct he had, but when he looked at it logically, his team had to be right. There was nothing on that planet to attract a Goa'uld's attention, and nothing to indicate that this Nephthys person had ever been there. He didn't like the priest guy much at all, but he seemed harmless enough. And even if he wasn't, SG1 was heavily armed and more than willing to defend themselves - and each other - if necessary.
What could four days really hurt?
"All right," Jack admitted reluctantly. "I'm thinking we might go ahead and give this a try. But if there's a Goa'uld hiding under the bridge waiting to eat us, Daniel, so help me..."
"It's a desert. There are no bridges." Daniel flashed him a quick smile before turning back to Niuserre.
"There's a river," Jack countered under his breath.
Daniel ignored him.
"Niuserre," he said. "If I may, we are from a very distant land, and we do not know the name of this one."
"Oh!" Niuserre actually flushed from embarrassment. "So excited was I at your arrival that I forgot to call it by name." Niuserre spread his arms again, gold trinkets and jewelry clinking as he moved.
"Greetings, weary travelers. Welcome to Iunu."
Daniel smiled thinly and held up his index finger, asking Niuserre for patience. "Give us just one minute, please."
He spun around and walked quickly to Jack, grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Sam and Teal'c climbed to their feet as well, and the four of them formed a tight circle. Niuserre was still standing on the top of the dune, looking down at them, but Jack doubted that he could hear their conversation.
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Iunu, Jack. Iunu!"
"Bless."
"No!" Daniel's frustration was real, and Jack felt bad for causing it, but at the same time, it was the first time Daniel had talked to him normally since they'd arrived. "Iunu is another name for Heliopolis."
It was obvious from Daniel's expression that he was expecting them to immediately fill in their own blanks, but Jack wasn't seeing whatever it was he was supposed to see. Teal'c spoke up, saving him the effort.
"That is the name Ernest Littlefield gave to the planet he was stranded on."
"Yes," Daniel confirmed with the nod of his head. "Yes, it is."
"And it wasn't on the Abydos Cartouche, either," Sam added.
"Nope."
Daniel's grin was enormous, and Jack thought at that moment that he'd do just about anything to keep it that way.
"You think they're related?" he asked.
"I don't know," Daniel admitted. "But it's a lot of coincidences, don't you think? Two planets with the same name..."
"But the people that lived on that planet originally didn't name it Heliopolis," Sam pointed out. "Dr. Littlefield did."
"Because it was a center of knowledge and learning," Daniel said. "What if the locals named this place the same thing, for the same reason?" He turned and looked at Jack directly, blue eyes staring intensely. "What if there's a device here, Jack? A device like the one Ernest found?"
Jack considered that for a moment. He remembered the lengths Daniel had been willing to go to just to study that first device, the fact that he'd been more than willing to be stranded on Ernest's planet forever just for a chance to learn everything it contained. And he remembered his own experiences with another knowledge repository left lying around by the Ancients.
"What if there's one of those head-sucker things, too?"
Daniel shook his head. "Then I won't use it. Obviously. But if there's a holographic device like Ernest's? If we can find one on a peaceful planet, and I have the time I need to study it... Jack, think about it. The benefits of that knowledge, the things we could learn. And if there's a chance, even a small one, and we can take advantage of it?"
Jack nodded slowly. He had to admit that Daniel had a point. He didn't have to like it, but he did have to concede it.
"All right," he said. "All right, Daniel, you win. We'll stay. But the first sign of weirdness, and I mean any weirdness, we're out of here. Got it?"
Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I got it."
"Okay. So, go make nice with the priest guy."
Jack couldn't help but smile when Daniel turned and ran to do just that.
Chapter Two
Niuserre hadn't been lying when he said that the feast would begin at sundown.
Jack poked at his plate with his fingers, a bit uncertain about eating the food even though it smelled wonderful. The rest of his team seemed to be relaxing into the situation, eating and talking with their hosts like they'd known them their whole lives. But Jack couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was looming just beyond the horizon.
"Where do you think all the fish came from?" he asked absently.
Daniel turned to him with the same expression Jack imagined he'd give a small child. "There's a river," he said, quoting Jack's own words from earlier in the day. The ironic smile on his face made it clear to Jack that Daniel had heard the crack after all.
Jack sighed as Daniel turned away from him and back to Niuserre, and Jack took the opportunity to study their surroundings once more.
The significance of the event was still a mystery, despite Jack's insistence that they needed to know what was going on. Daniel had asked Niuserre repeatedly exactly what was being celebrated, but all the priest would say was that it was an annual feast that had been being planned for weeks.
There were dozens of tables arranged at the base of the black pyramid in the center of the village, all of them filled to overflowing with fish, dates, bread and wine, and the entire population seemed to have turned out for it. Daniel had noted more than once that the laborers and upper class were seated at the same tables, sharing the same food, and letting their children run around and play together. Apparently the civilization that had developed on that world had all but eradicated classism, and everyone was treated equally, no matter what their station.
The only exception to that rule seemed to be Niuserre.
The table SG1 had been seated at was enormous, easily large enough for a dozen more people than currently occupied it, and before the sun had gone down, the shadow of the pyramid had fallen directly across it. Jack didn't doubt for a second that the placement was intentional, because it was obviously what passed for a VIP table.
Niuserre sat at the head of it, and the amount of food the villagers had placed in front of him made it fairly obvious who the most important person in their lives actually was. Jack had exerted enough influence over the seating arrangements to keep SG1 together. He'd had to do it through Daniel, of course, because at best Niuserre didn't seem to care that Jack existed, and at worst he seemed to actively dislike him. So Jack was seated to the priest's left with Daniel directly across the table from him. Carter was sitting at Jack's side, and thanks to another small favor that he'd gotten Daniel to agree to, Teal'c was at Daniel's.
Next to Teal'c sat a Jaffa that nearly matched him in size; according to the gold symbol of Nephthys on his forehead, he was First Prime. Introductions had been brief, but Jack remembered Niuserre introducing him as Saq'ar. Across from Saq'ar, next to Sam, sat Saq'ar's wife, Dashu.
The conversations at the table seemed to be going well. Or, at least, they'd been going on for quite a while. He could hear Carter next to him, talking to Dashu about medicinal plants and healing technology, including a sarcophagus that apparently existed somewhere on the planet but was forbidden for the humans to use. Teal'c was deep in conversation with Saq'ar about something, and even though Jack couldn't hear a single word of it, it looked important. Jack trusted both Carter and Teal'c to alert him if anything pinged their danger senses, and so far neither had, so Jack was more than willing to let them keep talking.
The one conversation at the table that he was most interested in, though, was the one Daniel was having with Niuserre. Whether by accident or by design, Jack was far enough away from both of them that he couldn't hear a single word they said, and he didn't like that at all.
There was something off about that priest. He couldn't put his finger on it, couldn't even begin to explain it, but he didn't trust the man as far as he could throw him. He'd been far too interested in Daniel from the very beginning, much too familiar for someone he'd never met before, and he seemed to be one of those people who had to be constantly touching the person he was talking to - his hand was always on Daniel's arm, or his shoulder, or his hand. And overly-friendly aliens, priest or otherwise, taking an interest in Daniel was something that never sat well with him. There were just too many things that could go wrong, too many ulterior motives that they could have, and Jack worried that he couldn't plan for them all.
Never mind that Daniel seemed comfortable around him. Jack didn't like him, and knew himself well enough to admit that he probably never would.
He picked up a piece of the fish on his plate and put it in his mouth absentmindedly, not even realizing he'd done so until he tasted it. It was better than he'd expected, and he took another bite almost immediately.
He glanced around the table once more, watching his team do what they did best. All three were at ease with the situation and seemed to already be settling in for the next several days. None of them looked worried, not even Teal'c. Jack found himself thinking that maybe he was just being overly cautious, that maybe the Ma'chello thing still had him on edge, because so far, Iunu didn't seem like a dangerous place at all. If anything, it seemed like exactly what it was intended to be: a clean, simple, uncomplicated first mission back.
And the fish was actually pretty damn good.
It was another three hours of mingling with the natives before Jack finally gathered his team around him. They assembled next to one of the recently vacated smaller tables to the right of the one they'd eaten at. He glanced around to make certain that none of the villagers were within earshot.
"So, kids, what did we learn tonight?" he asked.
Carter spoke up first. "Dashu said she's willing to show me the medical technology that she has access to, and teach me about the herbs and roots they use for basic medicines."
"What about that sarcophagus she mentioned?"
Jack didn't miss the way Daniel's back stiffened at that, but he'd been expecting it. He also knew that it was something Daniel needed to be aware of, so that if he ran across it, he wouldn't be surprised. It had been almost a year since his nearly-fatal addiction to one of the damn things, and he'd not shown any outward signs of relapsing, but then again, there hadn't been many opportunities for him to stumble across one unsupervised.
Carter shook her head slowly. "She says there's one here, sir, but she doesn't know where it is."
"Everyone keep your eyes open for that, then," Jack said. "I doubt it's just lying around waiting for us to walk into it, but you never know. And the R&D guys at Area 51 are just itching to take one apart and figure out what makes it tick."
"And for an ancient culture, they seem to be pretty progressive overall," Carter continued. "First there's the fact that their healer is a woman. And Dashu told me there's a teacher in the village, another woman, who teaches girls and boys equally."
"Actually," Daniel put in, "they're incredibly progressive. It's not just the lack of serious division between the sexes, either, even though that's remarkable on its own. The different sections of the village aren't separated by anything more than roads, the classes exist side-by-side and socialize with each other, and it's in their faith system, too."
"How so?" Jack usually wasn't all that interested in lectures on offworld religions, but if it would give him some insight into Niuserre, then it might be worth listening to.
"Well, Niuserre knows that Nephthys isn't an actual goddess."
Jack came to full attention then. "How does he know that?"
Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. But he does. He told me that they worship her because she's earned it, not because she demands it. And he knows that her powers aren't anything more than advanced technology."
Jack tilted his head in confusion. "She didn't demand it?"
"Saq'ar told me the same," Teal'c added. "The Jaffa that wear her symbol do so out of reverence and respect, not fear. It is not required for the men of this village to become Jaffa if they do not choose to do so. I was also correct about there being no Goa'uld larva on this planet. According to Saq'ar, the last Jaffa to carry a symbiote died several hundred years ago."
Jack scratched his head in confusion. "That can't be right, can it? A benevolent Goa'uld? Is there such a thing?"
Daniel shrugged. "It's also possible that she's just been gone from here for so long that they don't remember exactly what she was. Niuserre talks about her in the present tense, but the things he says implies distance. He talks like she exists, like he knows she's real, but I honestly don't think he's ever met her."
"Did he explain how they ended up here, then?"
"A little bit," Daniel said with a small nod. "The legend says that she was banished here by Seth for defying him, for taking sides with Osiris against him. That's incredibly close to the myths about her on Earth, and I'd really like to get some more information about what exactly happened. He tells me the stories are on the walls of the temple, and he's offered to take me there, so..."
Jack shook his head immediately. "Not tonight, Daniel."
"Why not?"
"Because it's late. We'll bed down for the night, and you and I can check that temple out in the morning."
"Jack..."
"In the morning. After sleep." He turned toward Teal'c and Carter. "You're doing the medical thing tomorrow, right, Carter?"
"Yes, sir." Sam glanced at Daniel, and the expression on her face told Jack that he didn't want to turn around. He hadn't really needed her to convey the fact that Daniel was pissed at him, but he was grateful to her for doing it just the same. "She's actually invited me to stay the night at their home, so we can discuss things a bit more in-depth tonight and get started early in the morning."
"Teal'c?"
"I have received a similar invitation to Saq'ar's home," Teal'c said. "He wishes me to inspect his troops at dawn."
Jack leaned against the table they were standing next to. "I thought you said they weren't real soldiers?"
"I said that they do not seem to be at a state of battle readiness, and they are not. He has simply never had an opportunity to receive an outside perspective on his training methods, and he wishes for me to express mine."
Jack nodded in understanding. "All right. So then, threat assessment?"
Carter and Daniel shook their heads in unison, and Teal'c said, "I do not believe there to be any threat from these people."
Jack took just a minute to consider everything he'd just been told. He trusted his team implicitly when it came to examining and feeling out potential threats, and this time would be no different. If Teal'c, Carter and Daniel all three thought splitting up for the night was safe, then that was exactly what they'd do.
"Okay. Carter and Teal'c, you go shmooze with the First Prime and his wife. Me and Daniel will set up camp just outside the..."
"Daniel Jackson!"
Jack managed to keep himself from cringing when he heard the priest's voice behind him, but he couldn't quite banish the wave of irritation that washed over him. Keeping in mind that they were going to be on that planet for another three days, and that angering the town's most important citizen was probably an incredibly bad idea, he forced a fake smile onto his face before he turned around.
But the smile on Niuserre's face grated on his nerves almost instantly.
"Niuserre," Daniel greeted easily.
"I have come to extend to you an invitation," the priest said. "I would be honored if you would consider taking quarter in my home during your stay on Iunu."
Jack's grated nerves were immediately raw, and when he saw Daniel opening his mouth to answer, he jumped forward and cut him off.
"We accept," Jack announced. "Your place has got to be more comfortable than a sand dune, right?"
Niuserre looked both shocked and offended that Jack had invited himself along with Daniel, but as far as Jack was concerned, he could just deal with it. He knew that if worse came to worst, Daniel could explain it away as a cultural difference, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. The priest had shown an almost overwhelming tendency to accept any and everything Daniel said without question, so if Daniel backed Jack up, the matter would be resolved.
He just wished he knew whether or not Daniel would actually back him up.
"We'd be honored," Daniel said slowly, carefully, and with an awkward smile. "Thank you. Could you give us a few moments, and then we'll join you?"
Niuserre nodded deeply and moved away.
Daniel spun around. "Jack..."
Jack held his hand up in the air and cut him off. "SOP, Daniel, you know that. Carter and Teal'c are doubled up at Saq'ar's house, so you're stuck with me. We'll meet up again in the morning right back here, all right?"
Daniel shook his head angrily, picked his pack up from the ground under the table, and stormed off. Jack turned to Carter and jerked his head in Daniel's direction. She grabbed her own pack with a quick nod and followed after him.
Jack sighed deeply and stepped closer to Teal'c.
"I know you guys are saying it's safe here, T, but I gotta tell ya, I just can't shake this feeling that there's something wrong."
Teal'c tilted his head slightly. "It is obvious that we have not yet returned to our previous level of comfort in each other's company," he said. "Could that be this 'something' that is wrong? Is it our current mission that troubles you, O'Neill, or our last?"
"I don't know," Jack admitted as he closed his eyes and shook his head.
"What is it you require of me?"
Jack opened his eyes and let his hands drop to his sides. "Just keep your eyes open," he said. He picked his pack up and slung it over his shoulder. "Anything that seems out of place, anything that strikes you as wrong, you let me know."
"Of course, O'Neill," Teal'c answered. "I do feel a measure of comfort on this world, but I would never allow my personal feelings to interfere with our mission here."
Jack patted him lightly on the arm as he turned away.
"And if we could all do that," he said, "then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place."
He knew that eavesdropping was rude. He knew that spying on their host was bad form. He knew that if Daniel caught him doing it, he'd be in even worse standing with him than he already was.
But none of that stopped Jack from standing just inside the door to Niuserre's garden, holding two cups of coffee he'd just made over an open fire, and listening to what Daniel and the priest were talking about.
"How long have your people been here?"
"From the beginning of history itself," Niuserre said. "More than one hundred and seventy generations."
Jack did the calculation in his head, and wasn't surprised to realize that Niuserre was saying they'd been on the planet for more than four thousand years. He'd read the cultural mission report much more thoroughly than he normally did, and he remembered it being stated that the Old Kingdom, the era that this world had evolved from, had disappeared from Earth at right around the same time.
"The only record we have of the Before Time is written on the walls of the temple our originators built to our goddess. I know that you would find these writings to be of great interest to you, young one."
The hair on the back of Jack's neck stood up at that. He didn't want to jeopardize relations with the priest by reacting too harshly, but he did shift his position in the door so that he could see what was going on outside.
Daniel was standing near the top terrace of the multi-tiered garden, only one or two steps down, looking out at the sunrise over the village. Niuserre was standing behind him on the top level, looking off in the same direction. There was nothing threatening in the priest's stance - of that much, Jack was sure - but he wasn't willing to relax his guard just yet.
"I'm sure I will," Daniel said. "I find everything about this world fascinating. There's been nothing like it on my world since... well, since you came here."
Niuserre turned his eyes away from the horizon and toward Daniel. "It is true, is it not? You come from the world of the Before Time?"
Daniel nodded his head slowly. "Yes, I do. Your originators were born on the same world I was."
Niuserre nodded, and Jack saw the edge of his lips curl up in a knowing smile. "And when you look out over our new world, what do you see? What do you feel as the sun rises over the pyramid before us?"
Daniel half-turned back toward him. "What do you mean?"
"Are you reminded of your home, your true home? Does it make your heart sing to be among us now?"
Jack saw the way Daniel's shoulders stiffened, on his own back did the same.
"How do you...?"
"All is as it is intended to be, young one," Niuserre said. "For if these things are true, then it is here where you belong. And you will be greatly welcomed."
He reached his hand out and placed it against the side of Daniel's head from behind, then started carding his fingers through Daniel's hair almost lovingly.
Jack didn't know who reacted first, him or Daniel, but they both did immediately. Daniel pulled away from Niuserre and spun around so quickly that he stumbled backwards a few steps, his eyes wide in surprise and his hands up to ward off any more contact. Jack simply stepped out the door and called out, "Daniel!"
Niuserre and Daniel both turned to face him, and he held the two cups in his hands up in the air.
"Made coffee," he said simply. "Thought you might want some."
Daniel nodded his head quickly, and for a brief second, Jack saw the gratitude in his eyes. "Yes, Jack, thank you. Some coffee would be wonderful."
Niuserre, on the other hand, was glaring at him openly. Jack didn't really care, and he walked past him and right up to Daniel without a second glance. After handing one of the cups over, he turned back around again.
"If you'll excuse us, Niuserre," he said. "We've got some things to talk about. Important things. You know."
Niuserre let out an indignant huff as he turned around and stomped off. As soon as he'd cleared the door, Jack turned back to Daniel again.
"Are you all right?" he asked quickly.
"Yeah," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. We were just..."
"I saw that, Daniel," Jack pointed out. "That whole... running his fingers through your hair thing. What was that?"
Daniel shook his head again. "I have no idea." He crinkled his forehead and lowered his eyebrows. "It was sort of awkward, though."
"Awkward?" Jack echoed. "No, that wasn't awkward. That was straight-up creepy. And we're not sleeping here again."
"We have to, Jack," Daniel began. "We've been invited by the..."
"I don't care," Jack interrupted. "We'll finagle us an invitation from Saq'ar for the next couple of nights. It makes more sense for the four of us to be in one place, anyway, and besides, there's no way I'm letting you stay where that priest can..."
"But I'm fine," Daniel protested. "It just... took me by surprise. That's all. I just wasn't expecting him to do that."
"Most people don't expect random strangers to start playing with their hair," Jack said. "But we're still not coming back here tonight. So finish your coffee, grab your gear, and let's go find Carter and Teal'c."
Daniel didn't answer him right away, and seemed instead to be staring off into the distance again.
"Do you hear what I'm saying, Daniel?"
"Who's that?"
The seemingly random question caught Jack off-guard, and he turned to face the same direction Daniel was staring.
He saw her immediately, because the clothes she was wearing were definitely intended to make her stand out in the crowd. She was standing near the side of the narrow street that ran past Niuserre's house, just outside of the small wall that separated his garden from the rest of the village. Instead of the common white linen skirts and dresses of the women in the village, she was wearing a purple cape that covered her from the shoulders down. The hood of it hung down her back, leaving her long dark hair to blow in the wind and also allowing them to see that she was staring right at them.
Daniel took one step forward, as though he was going to approach and talk to her, but she turned away quickly and disappeared into the side streets behind her.
"Well, that's... strange," Jack said.
"Do you know who she is?" Daniel asked. "Did you see her last night?"
"Nope," Jack answered with a shake of his head. "Never seen her before in my life."
He threw his head back, tossed the last of his coffee down, then put the cup on one of the small tables that sat around the garden.
"What are we going to do about her?"
Jack turned toward Daniel and blinked at him in open confusion. "You don't want to say 'no' to the creepy priest that can't seem to keep his hands off you, because you don't want to offend him, but you think we should do something about some woman who hasn't done anything but stare at us?"
Daniel sighed deeply before taking a drink of coffee, then he shook his head and turned away.
"There's nothing to do about her right now," Jack continued. "If we keep seeing her, or if her behavior gets threatening, then we deal with her. Right now, I'm more worried about getting us packed up and out of this house."
He gestured toward the village before turning away once more. "You finish your coffee, I'll go grab our stuff. Sam and Teal'c are waiting for us."
It looked like the feast from the night before had just been the start of the party.
The sun had finished coming up, and in the early morning, the streets of the village were already filled with people milling around, talking and laughing. The tide of people seemed to be moving toward the pyramid again, and SG1 moved along with them as they briefed each other on what had happened while they'd been apart.
"I'm sure they have room for you, sir," Carter said.
Jack had asked about getting an invitation for himself and Daniel to Saq'ar's house, though he hadn't told either Carter or Teal'c exactly why he was asking. Teal'c had given him a look that said he was fairly sure that Niuserre was the reason, but he hadn't pressed for details, and Jack didn't feel like giving them.
How exactly did he explain that he didn't want to hang out with the priest anymore simply because the guy liked to touch Daniel's hair?
"The children all share a large room downstairs. Saq'ar and Dashu sleep upstairs, and so did Teal'c and I. There's an empty room between us, though, so I don't see why it would be a problem."
"Did you learn anything valuable from her?"
Sam nodded enthusiastically. "She has a remarkable knowledge of anatomy and physiology, sir. Far beyond what I would have expected. She has access to quite a bit of rudimentary Goa'uld technology, all of it low-level medical tech, but she doesn't rely on it for making a diagnosis."
"The ancient Egyptians were amazing physicians," Daniel said. "They understood the effects the different systems had on each other, had varying medical specialties that they trained for and practiced. We've found medical treatises written on papyrus that date back almost three thousand years, not long after their ancestors left Earth. So it stands to reason that the knowledge they already had would have come with them."
"And evolved," Sam added. "Medicine is a science to them, based on fact, not belief. And the medicines they've developed to treat the few illnesses they do have are remarkably effective."
"Anything we can use?" Jack asked.
Sam shook her head. "They're not more advanced than us, no, but we might be able to work some sort of trade for a chance to study the medical technology Nephthys left behind. I wouldn't recommend that we give them any of our medicines, though, because I think it might actually interfere with what they already have, and they're handling their own medical needs just fine."
"Okay. I'll make sure that's in the first report to Hammond this afternoon. Teal'c, what about Saq'ar and his men?"
"They are very well trained," Teal'c answered. "I was correct in my belief that they are not at a state of battle readiness, but they do maintain an active training regimen. I have been invited to participate in a tournament that will be held as part of the current festivities."
Jack nodded his appreciation of that. "What about Saq'ar? You get a feel for him?"
"I have more than a feel, O'Neill. I believe that I know him very well, and I am satisfied with his understanding that Nephthys is a false god."
"Really?" Jack was surprised by that. Even though it didn't appear that the Goa'uld had been present on the planet in many years, generally their subjects remained loyal to them.
"As Niuserre, Saq'ar is aware that Nephthys was an advanced being rather than a goddess. His reasons for accepting the position of First Prime, and continuing to train his troops, are purely custom and tradition. He feels closer to his ancestors when he is part of maintaining the old ways, but he feels no true loyalty to either Nephthys or the Goa'uld in general."
"Think you can recruit him to the Jaffa freedom movement?" Jack asked with a smile.
Teal'c tilted his head. "Recruitment is not required. Saq'ar and his men are already free, and will die to defend that freedom."
The atmosphere in the streets around them had been slowly changing as they'd walked along, and it was no longer possible to ignore it. Instead of moving slowly toward the pyramid, the people were running, laughing, and smiling as they went. Jack stopped a young man in a rough brown skirt as he ran past.
"What's going on?" he asked. "What's the big rush?"
"Oh, we must hurry!" the young man answered. "Niuserre will be entering the temple to bathe the goddess soon! Opet has begun!"
Jack shook his head in confusion as the man ran off again, and he shrugged as he turned back around. Carter and Teal'c looked equally perplexed, but Daniel's reaction was anything but confused. He looked like he knew exactly what the man was so excited about, and he didn't look like he liked it.
He looked like it scared him.
"Daniel?" Jack took one step forward and grabbed Daniel's arm. "What's going on? What's this Opet thing?"
Daniel shook his head quickly, and the last of the color drained from his face. "Opet is not good," Daniel answered. "No, no, no. That can't be right. We have to..."
"Have to what?" Jack demanded. He squeezed Daniel's arm tighter. "What do we have to do?"
Daniel pulled away from Jack without another word, then turned and ran back the direction they'd come, toward the edge of the village.
"Daniel!"
Jack took off after him, with Carter and Teal'c hot on his heels. He didn't understand what was going on at all, but Daniel was freaked out, and Daniel never freaked out. Either something was seriously wrong, or... no, there was no "or." Something was seriously wrong, and that was all there was to it.
Daniel had reached the dune that formed the perimeter of the village and started running up it, pushing himself back to his feet when he stumbled and slid in the loose sand. He was climbing up and out of the village frantically. Jack, Carter, and Teal'c were right behind him the whole time.
It was Daniel who crested the dune first. He slid to a stop and stared at the horizon in horror.
It was only seconds before Jack caught up to him, and when he saw what Daniel was looking at, he froze. Carter and Teal'c did the same on his other side.
"Daniel?" Sam's voice was shaking, her eyes wide in shock and confusion.
"The Festival of Opet," he answered softly, "is to celebrate the flooding of the Nile."
'There's a river' was a statement that Jack and Daniel had tossed back and forth several times the night before, but it didn't seem to be appropriate anymore, because the river was gone. Everything was gone. There was no sand visible, no matter where they looked. There was nothing but water, from horizon to horizon. There was no river; there was an ocean.
And the Stargate was at the bottom of it.
Part Two