Fanfic: The Gray - Part 1/3
The Gray
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Sam stepped through the event horizon, blinked and said "Wow."
Beside her, Daniel simply smiled. "Told you."
The MALP telemetry from P3X-287 had given the impression of a large cave, the walls of which were heavily frescoed, but it had failed to convey the immense size of the cavern housing the Gate. It had also failed to do justice to the detail and number of the frescoes, which stretched up the cavern's walls to the height of three or four stories.
"Must have a lot of time on their hands," observed Colonel O'Neill, smiling at the approaching welcome party, which seemed to consist of short, middle-aged men and women wearing colorful versions of the draped garments that Daniel called chitons. (During the mission briefing, there had been some heated discussion resulting from Colonel O'Neill's use of the term "toga" and while Sam sympathized with Daniel's position, she had been forced, under direct questioning, to admit that no, sir, she couldn't tell the difference, either.)
"Welcome, honored guests!" the stout man leading the party exclaimed. "I am called Bodhus. It is a privilege to welcome you to our world." He accompanied his welcome with a wide smile and an expansive gesture that fluttered the edge of his purple chiton.
"Bodhus, yes." Daniel advanced to meet the small assembly, "We're pleased to meet you. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Teal'c," he indicated each of them in turn. "And I am Doctor Daniel Jackson; we spoke over the radio earlier."
"Indeed we did!" Bodhus agreed, gesturing toward the MALP, where it had stopped in the middle of the cavern. "Your people command a truly astonishing magic to send one's voice where one's self is not."
"Oh, it's not magic," Sam replied, coming up behind Daniel while Teal'c and the Colonel held back a few paces. "It's simply a matter of being able to send and receive various wave patterns that can--"
"Certainly," the woman beside Bodhus spoke sharply, "all magic seems a simple matter to those who have mastered it." She frowned. "But not all are capable of such mastery." She was shorter even than Bodhus, coming up just past Sam's elbow and she wore a length of her chiton looped over her head in a hood. Sam noted that she wore gray rather than the bright colors favored by the others.
Bodhus smiled at Sam and made a conciliatory gesture. "Hariteia represents the Accepted, our most learned and gifted elite." He smiled at the woman, who did not return his good humor, and turned back to Sam. "Perhaps you are an Accepted on your own world?" When Sam just looked vaguely baffled, he added, "You understand the secrets of your world's magic, yes?"
Before Sam could decide how to answer, Daniel was answering for her. "Captain Carter possesses a great deal of understanding of how our technology--what you would call magic--functions. But it's not necessary to understand technology in order to use it; I used the radio on our probe to speak to you through the wormhole, though I don't fully understand how it works."
Bodhus's smile broadened further. "Here it is so, also." He gestured widely at the cavern's distant ceiling, where several clusters of lights hung suspended, illuminating the frescoes on the walls. "Only the Accepted know the mysteries that give us our great lamps, yet all may read our history by their light."
"Speaking of your history..." Daniel began at once, and Sam smiled politely. He had talked of nothing but frescoes since seeing the MALP telemetry, so it didn't surprise Sam that he took this opportunity to begin firing off questions about the cavern, the designs, the paint, the symbolism, without appearing to give much thought to the implications of the initial exchange; Sam couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. She looked back at the woman Bodhus had called Hariteia and found the small woman returning her gaze coolly, her expression unreadable.
Daniel and Bodhus began moving toward the nearest cavern wall and at a nod from the Colonel, Teal'c followed, looking stoic--or possibly bored; after only a few months on the same team as the Jaffa, Sam found it difficult to tell. With a last glance at Hariteia, who had turned to speak to another member of the greeting party, Sam moved back to stand beside Colonel O'Neill.
"Captain?" The Colonel prompted, reading her uneasiness before she had spoken a word.
"I'm not sure, sir," she said after a moment, pursing her lips. "The preliminary energy readings indicated a pretty decent amount of technology, and they obviously have some kind of power source." She nodded at the lights high above. "But Bodhus seemed to think that both the lights and the MALP were a type of magic. And when I tried to explain radio waves, that woman in gray, Hariteia, cut me off in a hurry." Sam turned to look for the other woman again and found that she had been joined by a man who had not been a part of the original assembly. He wore hooded gray, as well, and they were speaking quiety to each other, looking from Teal'c and Daniel (still talking with a happily nodding Bodhus) to Sam and the Colonel.
"So the villagers are hiding something." Colonel O'Neill gave a small sigh of annoyance and gazed up at the lights overhead, then across at the small, gray-clad pair still conferring with one another. "Well, Daniel will be occupied for a while, if his All Frescoes All The Time presentation at the briefing was any indication. Why don't you..." he waved a hand vaguely, apparently waiting for her to fill in the rest of the order herself.
"Collect some mineral samples and take some more detailed energy readings?" Sam supplied.
"Yes." The Colonel nodded soberly, then added with a generous smile, "Collect. Read. Have fun. I'll be..." he seemed to be searching for a way to say 'standing around looking bored' without actually saying it. He finished half-heartedly with "...over there," and strolled away in the direction he had indicated. Sam grinned at his back and started toward the MALP to retrieve her sample kit.
"Captain Carter." A small woman in an orange chiton approached her, smiling. "I am called Menandi; I serve with Bodhus in the House of Governors. Your friend requested that Bodhus send someone to assist you and answer any questions you might have." She inclined her head toward Daniel, who was evidently fascinated by a section of fresco not too far away. "He said you would be particularly interested in our local magic."
"Thank you, Menandi, I'd love some help." Sam returned the other woman's smile, then cast a glance over her head at Daniel. He looked up from his study of the cavern wall and gave her a small grin. She gave him a slight nod and turned back to her kit, impressed. So Daniel's preoccupation with the frescoes had been as much diplomatic maneuvering as academic enthusiasm. He'd avoided hostilities with Hariteia and sent Sam someone who would hopefully prove a more willing source of information on the planet's ‘magic.’
"That's why we keep feeding him," said the Colonel, strolling by with his arms crossed over his MP-5. There was something very like paternal pride in his grin. Sam smiled and turned back to Menandi, who was waiting patiently.
"I'd like to take some samples of the nearby soil and rock; I'll be testing it for the presence of some specific ores and minerals."
Menandi nodded. "These caves and tunnels, which now house our city, were once a vast mine. Some sections are still worked for various ores; perhaps you would like to take your samples from a few of the closer mining sites?" She gestured toward one of the nearby exits from the cave.
"That would be perfect, actually." Sam turned toward the Colonel, who was watching her, and nodded in the direction Menandi had indicated, tapping her sample kit. The Colonel nodded, then strolled over to Teal'c and Daniel. As Sam slung the sample kit over her shoulder and followed Menandi out of the cave, Teal'c detached himself from the others and fell into step behind her.
The tunnel they entered had obviously not been designed to accommodate anyone over five and a half feet tall. Sam could feel her hair grazing the ceiling and instinctively ducked her head slightly. Beside her, Teal'c was somehow making the act of walking with his neck bent at almost a fifty-degree angle look dignified.
"What elements will you be looking for in your tests?" Menandi asked curiously. Sam couldn't help noticing that the smaller woman had no trouble walking through the tunnel, and was moving with much more grace and dispatch than Sam could manage, encumbered as she was with her kit and trying not to hit her head.
"Well, I'll test for a number of different ones, but I'm going to look for a significant concentration of an element called naquadah in particular." Sam paused to squeeze through a particularly narrow section of tunnel, then added "It's what the Stargate is made of."
"By 'Stargate' you mean the Ring in the chamber of histories." Menandi raised her eyebrows, making the statement a question. When Sam nodded, she continued, "Then I think you will find a great deal of this element at our first destination. We are very close to one of the sites where it is currently being mined."
Sam began to hear--or perhaps feel--very low vibrations through the tunnel walls. They grew steadily stronger as she and Teal'c followed Menandi down branching tunnels. "Menandi, if we find that your planet has enough naquadah for the purpose, do you think your House of Governors would be open to some kind of trade agreement with my planet?"
Menandi looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied "I suppose it would depend heavily on the decision of the Accepted. The use of this ore is restricted to them." Sam grimaced, thinking she could probably guess how Hariteia and the other Accepted would decide that question, but Menandi continued "It would also likely depend on what was offered in trade." She cocked her head over her shoulder at Sam, obviously curious.
"Well, we normally offer medicines as a primary trade item; most of the peoples we've encountered through the Stargate haven't advanced very far in the field of medicine."
"I think you will find that our planet is an exception," Menandi smiled a little apologetically. "The healing magic of the Accepted can cure any injury and almost any disease."
"I'm sure we could work out some other agreement, then." Sam tried to sound more confident than she felt. She glanced at Teal'c, who was giving her the enigmatic eyebrow-lift that seemed to be his response to almost everything. Sam took this one to mean that Teal'c had as many reservations about the Accepted and their abilities as Sam had herself.
The vibrations intensified as they followed Menandi around a corner and found that the tunnel ended in a heavy door.
"I would suggest taking your samples from the rock here." Menandi indicated the tunnel walls around the door. "I tested the rock and soil here a year ago myself, which led to this mining site's placement. I think you'll find...what was your phrase?" She grinned. "A 'significant concentration' of what you call naquadah."
"Shouldn't I take samples from inside the mine itself?" asked Sam, looking from Menandi to the door, which had no discernible latch or hinges.
"Only the Accepted are permitted to enter the mine," said Menandi, "but I believe there should be enough traces of the ore in this rock to serve your purposes." She looked keenly at Sam's sample kit, as if impatient to see inside it. "What methods do you use to ascertain the presence of the ore in soil and rock? The device the House of Governors uses was provided by the Accepted, and is much smaller than yours."
"Oh, this isn't actually a device for testing, it's a kit of all the equipment I might need for testing." She opened the kit and began setting out items, explaining their uses while watching Teal'c out of the corner of her eye. He was looking at the door behind her, face inscrutable as usual. Sam was halfway through an explanation of acid testing, and had just paused to let Menandi ask a question when Teal'c cut smoothly into the conversation.
"Am I to understand that the mining of naquadah is entirely under the purview of the Accepted?"
"Yes," Menandi replied, "they do allow some of the more skilled assistants in the House of Governors to use their testing equipment to evaluate new mining sites," she did not look up from the streak plate she was holding, but the small note of pride in her voice was unmistakable. "However, the operations of mining are carried out with the Accepted's magic, so naturally others are not permitted to enter the mine once it has been established."
"And the Accepted do not impose any labor connected with the mining on your people?" Teal'c's tone was of polite inquiry, but Sam could hear a slight edge under his words.
"No, the Accepted use magic to perform most forms of unskilled labor," Menandi replied, still more interested in the contents of Sam's kit than in the conversation. "It frees the workers that would otherwise be needed to pursue training with the guilds." She had put down the streak plate and was holding the magnets up for scrutiny, experimentally separating and joining them. Teal'c, seeming satisfied with her answer, subsided.
"Menandi," Sam hesitated, holding a tube full of the fine grit that covered the tunnel's floor. When the other woman only looked at her expectantly, she continued, "You said the Accepted could cure almost any disease. Does that mean there are diseases that they can't cure?"
"Only one," Menandi replied, handing Sam the magnets. "The wandering sorrow. Perhaps it cannot be cured because it is not a disease in the common way. It is..." she paused, seeming to search for the best choice of words, "an affliction, perhaps, of the heart and mind. One might even say a madness. It is not an illness like most others. There is no pain, no suffering of the body, only of the spirit." She touched one hand to her chest.
"But you call it a disease," Sam frowned. "If it doesn't affect people physically, what are its symptoms?" When Menandi cocked her head at the unfamiliar word, Sam clarified: "What does it do to the people who have it?"
"They become sad first," Menandi sobered a bit. "They grow more and more unhappy and they can rarely give a reason for their unhappiness. They begin to wander farther and farther from the city and eventually they take one of the tunnels to the planet's surface, where the air is harsh and the ground is covered with ice. Most never return."
"Do they just freeze to death, or do they continue to live on the surface?" asked Sam, perplexed.
"Most of them live the rest of their years on the surface, though life on the surface is difficult and sometimes dangerous. Some die for lack of proper food or heat or medicine, all things that they would have in abundance here in the city." Menandi gave a small sigh. "From time to time, attempts are made to convince them to come back or to at least accept food and clothing." She shrugged and her smile faded a little. "They will not accept anything from the city. They say they are exiles."
Sam was still debating asking another question when Teal'c spoke. "What reason do these exiles give for leaving the city and refusing aid?"
Menandi looked down at Sam's kit and shook her head. "No doubt their reasons seem sound to them in their own minds, but to those who are clear-minded and are not afflicted with their strange sadness, they make little sense." She looked up, shrugged again and gave Sam a resigned smile. "Forgive me, I am being foolish. My sister took the wandering sorrow a long time ago and my father also, only a year ago. It is difficult to see those dear to one's heart impose suffering upon themselves for no reason."
"I'm sorry," said Sam, because she didn't know what else to say.
Menandi shook her head as if dismissing the subject. "It is not something that should concern you. If you have gathered enough samples for your test, I suggest we move on, as it will be time for the evening meal soon."
She helped Sam pack her samples away and led the way back down the tunnel, followed by Teal'c. Sam paused just long enough to touch the fingers of one hand to the implacable mine door, feeling the vibrations of what had to be heavy machinery buzzing through the metal. Then she turned and caught up with Teal'c, her mind humming, and followed the small, orange-clad figure back toward the city.
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By evening, or what passed for evening underground, Sam had a couple dozen mineral samples and a lot of mostly unhelpful information about the local technology to show for her day's work.
"Menandi seems very eager to answer my questions, and even more interested in asking me questions, but she doesn't know any more than Bodhus about the technology or how it works," Sam gave a frustrated sigh as she collapsed onto the couch of one of the rooms the team had been given for the night. "She has no idea what powers the lights or how they work. These caves, despite being deep underground are very livable, so they obviously have other technology tucked away for things like air circulation and climate control, but she doesn't even know where that technology is housed, much less how it works. She just writes it all off as 'magic' and says that the Accepted make it work."
Colonel O'Neill, perched on a stool across from her, turned to Daniel, who was examining the painted walls of the room, his enthusiasm for frescoes apparently undimmed by his afternoon with Bodhus in the Gate cavern.
"Daniel?" he prompted.
Without looking away from the wall, Daniel responded "Well, I think I've got a little information that we can work with. The frescoes in the Stargate chamber are a kind of historical log. The style is very Hellenistic, but there are some distinctly Indian influences that lead me to believe that this culture is descended from a transplanted Greco-Bactrian population, probably taken during one of the Magnesian dynasties--"
"Daniel," the Colonel said again. "Information we can use."
Daniel rolled his eyes before continuing. "Anyway, the history related in the frescoes goes all the way back to a time roughly three hundred years ago that Bodhus referred to as the Age of Rebellion. It's the point from which they date their history, and Bodhus says that before that time the ancestors of these people were slaves to the gods."
"So it's safe to say this was a goa'uld-occupied world at one point," the Colonel said, looking at Teal'c, who merely nodded.
"It's a pretty good bet that this planet was home to a goa'uld naquadah mine," offered Sam, sitting up. "Menandi took us to where naqudah is currently being mined for use by the Accepted. She doesn't know what they use it for. It could be anything from bombs to a simple power-source." She gestured at the bowl-shaped light affixed to the room's ceiling.
"Let's hope for power-source," the Colonel said evenly.
Sam grinned. "Judging by the sounds we heard in the mine tunnel, I'd say they've got some pretty heavy equipment, but we couldn't get a look at the actual mining operation. Only the Accepted are allowed into the mine itself."
"Big surprise," the Colonel rolled his eyes.
"What I find interesting," Daniel said, turning toward the rest of them, fresco momentarily forgotten, "is that according to Bodhus, the rebellion that eventually cast out the gods and made the people of this planet free was driven by a group well-known as being the most intelligent and learned of the slaves. Apparently they met in secret to avoid punishment by the gods, probably because of the usual goa'uld injunctions against reading and information."
Another nod from Teal'c.
"So the goa'uld on this planet got his butt kicked by the resident chess club." Colonel O'Neill looked as though this thought amused him.
"Here's the really interesting thing:" Daniel didn't even seem to have noticed the interruption, "according to the histories, this group of learned slaves possessed a special talent that gave them the ability to use the god's own magic against them."
That made the Colonel sit up straighter. "So the chess club figured out how to work some goa'uld technology and used it to free the planet." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "That sounds promising."
"Well, here's the thing," Daniel held up both hands as if telling the Colonel not to get too excited just yet. "After they defeated the gods, this group founded a guild of selected individuals, all of whom were said to possess this special talent for the gods' magic."
"The Accepted," said Sam, and Daniel just nodded.
"So," Colonel O'Neill glanced from Sam to Daniel to Teal'c and back to Sam. "What does that make the Accepted? Besides the chess club."
"They could honestly be the only people with enough talent and education in the right areas to understand how the technology works," replied Daniel, more hopeful than convinced.
"That is unlikely, Daniel Jackson." The Colonel had opened his mouth to make some form of scathing reply, but Teal'c's baritone cut him off. "As you said yourself, one need not understand a device to use it. Yet the Accepted seem to intentionally keep their people in a state of ignorance."
"So they're keeping all the fun toys for themselves and using them to achieve power and status," the Colonel shrugged. "Nothing we haven't seen before."
"I don't think we know enough about the situation to be assigning motivations to the Accepted just yet, Jack," said Daniel. "I agree, it does look like they're keeping a lot of information from the rest of the people, but I'm not convinced they're doing it purely to secure power and status for themselves. You saw how Bodhus behaved toward Hariteia this morning."
"When she tried to stop us from talking about how our radios worked." Sam nodded.
"Exactly," replied Daniel. "Bodhus was gracious and respectful but not subservient to Hareteia. She obviously wanted us to stop asking questions about their 'magic,' and didn't like that you were trying to explain how our technology worked. But if she and the rest of the Accepted were using their horded technology to lord over their people, don't you think she would have just ordered that the subject be dropped or even denied us permission to stay?"
"I noted," said Teal'c, "that of all the officials who greeted us upon our arrival, only Hariteia appeared to be an Accepted. Would they not form a more substantial part of the governing body if they were indeed using their knowledge to gain power over others?"
"Exactly," Daniel said again, turning back to the wall.
"Well, whatever." Colonel O'Neill stood and stretched. "I'm turning in. It's been a long day of watching you take notes. Teal'c, take first watch just in case our hosts are hiding something more than the batteries for their lights. I'll relieve you in a few hours. We'll see if we can't dig up some more answers in the morning."
Sam unrolled her sleeping bag onto the floor--four separate rooms had been provided but none of them liked sleeping away from the others offworld--and began untying her boots.
"Sam, you said you were sure that machinery was being used for mining naquadah but that you couldn't tell what kind was being used." Daniel had turned away from the wall again, but he was gazing thoughtfully over Sam’s head instead of at her.
"The vibrations I could feel in the tunnel were made by something big, and there was definitely a regular rhythm to them.” Sam nodded. “Sure sounded like machinery to me, and nothing simple, either. Whatever was behind that door was pretty complex."
"When researching how various ancient cultures constructed their monuments, we could learn a lot about the process and tools they used just by looking at the sites where the stone had been quarried." Daniel tilted his head to one side and seemed to be scrutinizing the frescoes behind Sam. "I'll see if I can't get Bodhus to take me to an abandoned mining site tomorrow. There’ve got to be old, exhausted mines lying around. Maybe the Accepted don't keep those off limits once the mining equipment has been moved elsewhere."
"Bedtime, kids," the Colonel's voice issued from the huddle of his sleeping bag. "Daniel, you may have won the coin-toss, but this floor is cold and if you don't start using that couch soon, you may find that it's become occupied while you were busy staring at the walls."
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"I love the planets that give us breakfast instead of shooting at us." Colonel O'Neill was munching happily on the remains of some sort of spicy bread as he and Sam followed Menandi down a long tunnel the next morning. He was so pleased with the local cuisine that he had yet to complain about how low the tunnel's ceiling was, but Sam figured it was only a matter of time before he ran out of bread and noticed that he was having to hunch uncomfortably in order to avoid hitting his head. "So where are we headed?" he asked, popping another morsel of bread into his mouth.
"Menandi mentioned that the Accepted keep mostly to a remote cavern where they have a sort of guild hall set up," Sam answered.
Colonel O'Neill devoured the last of his breakfast bread, licked crumbs off his thumb and, right on cue, shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "And to get to this hall, it is necessary to crawl through a bunch of tunnels built by dwarfs for dwarfs?"
Sam hid a smile. "Yes, sir." She paused, but couldn't resist adding, "You could have stayed with Daniel in the main cavern, where the ceiling's a lot higher."
"Yes," he agreed cheerfully, "but then I would have had to listen to another full day of Daniel rhapsodizing about frescoes and magnesium and bacteria." Sam cocked an eyebrow at him and he added: "Or whatever. So we're just going to this guild hall for the view? I assume they're not going to actually let us inside so you can poke around."
"The Accepted do not allow visitors to the Hall unless they are there to be tested," Menandi offered, glancing over her shoulder.
"Tested?" Sam prompted.
"Yes," Menandi replied. "Everyone must be tested when they reach their fifteenth year to find if they possess the talent for magic. If they do, they are admitted into the Hall and allowed to put on the gray." At Sam's questioning expression, she clarified: "They become one of the Accepted. The gray hood is a symbol of their status."
"So what exactly is their status?" asked the Colonel. "Do they run the show around here? Tell everyone else what to do?"
"There is always one Accepted who is chosen by the others to represent the Hall at the House of Governors--you met Hariteia yesterday, I believe; she is the Hall's delegate at the moment--but they do not control the House any more than the other seated delegates." Menandi smiled at the Colonel like a teacher explaining the basics of the checks and balances system to a twelve-year-old. "The Hall's delegate merely acts as an adviser to the governors in matters where magic is concerned, and ensures that the Hall is represented as befits one of our most important guilds."
"So the Accepted are the only ones with knowledge of magic," Sam tried not to let her discomfort with the term show in her voice, "but they don't use that knowledge to make any demands on the rest of you?"
Menandi shook her head, still smiling. "They ask that the use and understanding of magic remain strictly within their Hall, but the other guilds have similar requirements with regard to their skills and knowledge. It is only prudence, as magic could become very dangerous in the hands of those who do not understand it."
Sam shared a glance with Colonel O'Neill, but didn't know quite what to make of this intelligence. They slowed to a stop as they reached a low doorway in the tunnel. They stepped through and for the second time this mission, Sam found herself saying "Wow."
The cavern they had entered was, quite simply, vast. The dome of its roof was lost in darkness and its floor, dotted with lamps that looked tiny from this distance, was several hundred feet down from the balcony where they had emerged. Menandi pointed toward a large, domed structure at the center of the cavern, surrounded by lamps.
"That is the Hall of the Accepted. It is kept far from the city so that the Accepted may practice their magic undisturbed."
"Or so that no one can get a decent look at it without taking a long hike," added the Colonel in an undertone.
Sam pulled her hand-held sensor out of her vest and started keying through readings, frowning. Whatever the Accepted were hiding in their Hall, it was certainly more than a simple power station; the sensor was picking up energy signatures like nothing she had ever seen before. "Menandi, you mention a test that determines if someone has the talent required to become an Accepted."
The smaller woman nodded. "Yes, it is taken by every citizen in their fifteenth year. Those who pass remain in the Hall and put on the gray. Most do not, and they return to the city and their lives."
"And what does the test involve?" asked Sam.
"Various tasks to be performed, questions answered. I imagine you have similar ways of determining aptitude on your world. The specifics of the test are not to be revealed to the untested, of course," she added with a trace of apology to her smile.
"Can we get any closer to the Hall, or is this where the tour ends?" asked Colonel O'Neill, squinting through his monocular at the distant building and its cluster of lights.
"This is as far as any but the Accepted may go," Menandi replied. "They prize their seclusion, as it is required for the practice of their art."
"Yeah, I'll bet it is," the Colonel said under his breath, putting the monocular away. "All right, well, I guess that's it, then. We came, we saw, we...saw some more." He looked pointedly at Sam's hand-held. "You see everything you wanted to see?"
"I think so, sir." She nodded and put the hand-held back in her vest, turning back to follow Menandi through the door again.
Daniel's voice suddenly crackled out of their radios. "Jack, Sam, come in." Sam felt her heart skip a beat at the urgency in his voice.
"Daniel, what's wrong?" the Colonel asked, grip tightening reflexively on is MP-5.
"Bodhus is hurt. We were studying some of the debris in an abandoned mine and there was a cave-in--" he cut off for a moment, then added "One of his assistants is here, and he says that help will be arriving very shortly, but he's hurt pretty--" Another pause while Daniel spoke to someone else, and then "Hariteia's here with two other Accepted. Looks like they're getting him ready to be moved."
"You okay?" the Colonel asked.
"Bodhus was half-buried in rock by the time we got to him," said Daniel. "I think there might have been spinal damage, not to mention head trauma."
"Not what I asked."
"Teal'c and I are fine, Jack." Daniel's voice was edged with irritation. "Hariteia and her assistants are taking Bodhus away for treatment."
"Where are they taking him?" Sam asked.
It was a moment before Daniel answered. "Ah, I asked and offered to help, but Hariteia just said that the Accepted would take care of him and the help of outsiders was not needed. She was...pretty definite about not wanting Teal'c and me to come with."
"Told ya where you could shove it, huh?" The Colonel grimaced.
"Basically, yeah," Daniel admitted, sounding chagrined. "She's having Bodhus's assistant take us back to the city. Apparently she doesn't like us poking around here. I got the sense that she was already on her way here to kick us out of the mine when the accident happened."
"Okay, well, we're on our way back anyway, we'll meet you back at our rooms." The Colonel turned to Menandi, who had been watching them use their radios with interest.
"Bodhus was right, your magic is, indeed, amazing to allow you to speak to your friend when he is so far removed from you," she said.
"Yeah, well, apparently Bodhus got himself injured pretty seriously while he was showing our friend around," said the Colonel.
"The Accepted will care for him, he will be fine," she assured him, unconcerned. "Their healing magic is very powerful."
Their hike back to the city was conducted at the same pace they'd employed getting out to the cavern. Sam kept suggesting that they move more quickly, but Menandi simply repeated that the Accepted would take care of Bodhus and there was no need to hurry. Instead, she turned the comversation back to the radios. "You said on your arrival yesterday that your magic worked by creating waves. These waves are not visible, I take it?"
"No, they're below the frequency of visible light," Sam replied, distracted, and then had to give an explanation of what she meant by "visible light." By the time they had reached the city's outskirts, Menandi had become thoroughly charmed by the idea of color as wavelength.
"How strange to think of everything looking as it does because it reflects the light a certain way. But then that would mean that we do not truly see things as they are, only as they are shaped by these waves of visible light," she smiled eagerly at Sam. "How fascinating it would be to see things truly. Can you see in this way, using your magic?"
"Uh, well, we can use our technology to see things using a lot of different wavelengths, not all of them visible to the naked eye," Sam replied, still puzzled by the other woman's blithe disregard for Bodhus, the Accepted and their powerful healing magic notwithstanding. "But I wouldn't necessarily say that any one view is more 'true' than the others, each one is really just one part of the whole."
Menandi opened her mouth to ask another question, but they had reached the room where Daniel and Teal'c were waiting and the Colonel was asking them for word on Bodhus.
"We haven't heard anything since Hariteia left the mining site with him,” Daniel reported.
"I will go to Hariteia and ask after Bodhus," said Menandi. "He will be pleased to know of your concern." Still smiling, she departed.
"She's very sanguine about the whole Bodhus-crushed-by-falling-rocks thing," commented the Colonel.
"So was Bodhus's assistant when it happened," replied Daniel. "And although he didn't actually get literally crushed, he did look pretty severely injured and he was unconscious. I would have expected a greater sense of urgency out of his assistant at least, but the only people who seemed in any way concerned were Hariteia and the other Accepted. The rest just kept saying that the Accepted would take care of him and that he'd be fine."
"That's pretty much all we got out of Menandi, too." Sam nodded, troubled.
"Could their medical technology just be that good?" asked the Colonel, raising his eyebrows.
Daniel looked like he was entertaining the possibility but Teal'c wasn’t. "I believe Bodhus's injuries were quite grave. Even if the Accepted commanded healing technology to equal that of Earth, I would still believe there to be cause for concern."
"But you see, all is well! Though your concern touches my heart."
They all turned, surprised, to find Bodhus smiling at them from the doorway. Sam glanced quickly from Daniel, whose mouth had fallen open, to Teal'c, who actually blinked with surprise.
Menandi came around Bodhus and into the room, smiling. "I found him returning home and told him how worried you had been."
"I thought perhaps you feared for me, not knowing how easily the Accepted can heal one of almost anything with their magic," said Bodhus, sounding as jolly and robust as he had when he welcomed them the day previous. "And I thought if you saw how well I am, you would be easier in your minds. But now I must take my leave; the Accepted healers have told me that I must rest for their curative to complete its work. I regret, Doctor Jackson, that we must delay our study of the east wall histories. Perhaps tomorrow?"
Daniel found his voice long enough to stammer "Uh, yes, I...we're glad you're...tomorrow. Yes." Bodhus gave another of his expansive gestures in farewell and left, shepherded by Menandi.
"That's not...he was...there's no way he could..." Daniel gestured vaguely.
"Bodhus's condition was severe enough to make such a recovery unlikely," Teal'c supplied.
"Okay, that's a little bit fishy," said the Colonel unnecessarily. He glanced around at the rest of them and asked "So what are we thinking? Goa'uld sarcophagus?"
"The goa'uld that ruled here could have left one behind," said Daniel.
"Or they could have come up with something of their own," Sam added. "The readings I got near the guild hall were suggestive of a massive amount of technology and I'm guessing it's pretty advanced."
"And yet they're not sharing," said Colonel O'Neill. "Why does that not surprise me?"
Part 2 | Part 3
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Sam stepped through the event horizon, blinked and said "Wow."
Beside her, Daniel simply smiled. "Told you."
The MALP telemetry from P3X-287 had given the impression of a large cave, the walls of which were heavily frescoed, but it had failed to convey the immense size of the cavern housing the Gate. It had also failed to do justice to the detail and number of the frescoes, which stretched up the cavern's walls to the height of three or four stories.
"Must have a lot of time on their hands," observed Colonel O'Neill, smiling at the approaching welcome party, which seemed to consist of short, middle-aged men and women wearing colorful versions of the draped garments that Daniel called chitons. (During the mission briefing, there had been some heated discussion resulting from Colonel O'Neill's use of the term "toga" and while Sam sympathized with Daniel's position, she had been forced, under direct questioning, to admit that no, sir, she couldn't tell the difference, either.)
"Welcome, honored guests!" the stout man leading the party exclaimed. "I am called Bodhus. It is a privilege to welcome you to our world." He accompanied his welcome with a wide smile and an expansive gesture that fluttered the edge of his purple chiton.
"Bodhus, yes." Daniel advanced to meet the small assembly, "We're pleased to meet you. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Teal'c," he indicated each of them in turn. "And I am Doctor Daniel Jackson; we spoke over the radio earlier."
"Indeed we did!" Bodhus agreed, gesturing toward the MALP, where it had stopped in the middle of the cavern. "Your people command a truly astonishing magic to send one's voice where one's self is not."
"Oh, it's not magic," Sam replied, coming up behind Daniel while Teal'c and the Colonel held back a few paces. "It's simply a matter of being able to send and receive various wave patterns that can--"
"Certainly," the woman beside Bodhus spoke sharply, "all magic seems a simple matter to those who have mastered it." She frowned. "But not all are capable of such mastery." She was shorter even than Bodhus, coming up just past Sam's elbow and she wore a length of her chiton looped over her head in a hood. Sam noted that she wore gray rather than the bright colors favored by the others.
Bodhus smiled at Sam and made a conciliatory gesture. "Hariteia represents the Accepted, our most learned and gifted elite." He smiled at the woman, who did not return his good humor, and turned back to Sam. "Perhaps you are an Accepted on your own world?" When Sam just looked vaguely baffled, he added, "You understand the secrets of your world's magic, yes?"
Before Sam could decide how to answer, Daniel was answering for her. "Captain Carter possesses a great deal of understanding of how our technology--what you would call magic--functions. But it's not necessary to understand technology in order to use it; I used the radio on our probe to speak to you through the wormhole, though I don't fully understand how it works."
Bodhus's smile broadened further. "Here it is so, also." He gestured widely at the cavern's distant ceiling, where several clusters of lights hung suspended, illuminating the frescoes on the walls. "Only the Accepted know the mysteries that give us our great lamps, yet all may read our history by their light."
"Speaking of your history..." Daniel began at once, and Sam smiled politely. He had talked of nothing but frescoes since seeing the MALP telemetry, so it didn't surprise Sam that he took this opportunity to begin firing off questions about the cavern, the designs, the paint, the symbolism, without appearing to give much thought to the implications of the initial exchange; Sam couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. She looked back at the woman Bodhus had called Hariteia and found the small woman returning her gaze coolly, her expression unreadable.
Daniel and Bodhus began moving toward the nearest cavern wall and at a nod from the Colonel, Teal'c followed, looking stoic--or possibly bored; after only a few months on the same team as the Jaffa, Sam found it difficult to tell. With a last glance at Hariteia, who had turned to speak to another member of the greeting party, Sam moved back to stand beside Colonel O'Neill.
"Captain?" The Colonel prompted, reading her uneasiness before she had spoken a word.
"I'm not sure, sir," she said after a moment, pursing her lips. "The preliminary energy readings indicated a pretty decent amount of technology, and they obviously have some kind of power source." She nodded at the lights high above. "But Bodhus seemed to think that both the lights and the MALP were a type of magic. And when I tried to explain radio waves, that woman in gray, Hariteia, cut me off in a hurry." Sam turned to look for the other woman again and found that she had been joined by a man who had not been a part of the original assembly. He wore hooded gray, as well, and they were speaking quiety to each other, looking from Teal'c and Daniel (still talking with a happily nodding Bodhus) to Sam and the Colonel.
"So the villagers are hiding something." Colonel O'Neill gave a small sigh of annoyance and gazed up at the lights overhead, then across at the small, gray-clad pair still conferring with one another. "Well, Daniel will be occupied for a while, if his All Frescoes All The Time presentation at the briefing was any indication. Why don't you..." he waved a hand vaguely, apparently waiting for her to fill in the rest of the order herself.
"Collect some mineral samples and take some more detailed energy readings?" Sam supplied.
"Yes." The Colonel nodded soberly, then added with a generous smile, "Collect. Read. Have fun. I'll be..." he seemed to be searching for a way to say 'standing around looking bored' without actually saying it. He finished half-heartedly with "...over there," and strolled away in the direction he had indicated. Sam grinned at his back and started toward the MALP to retrieve her sample kit.
"Captain Carter." A small woman in an orange chiton approached her, smiling. "I am called Menandi; I serve with Bodhus in the House of Governors. Your friend requested that Bodhus send someone to assist you and answer any questions you might have." She inclined her head toward Daniel, who was evidently fascinated by a section of fresco not too far away. "He said you would be particularly interested in our local magic."
"Thank you, Menandi, I'd love some help." Sam returned the other woman's smile, then cast a glance over her head at Daniel. He looked up from his study of the cavern wall and gave her a small grin. She gave him a slight nod and turned back to her kit, impressed. So Daniel's preoccupation with the frescoes had been as much diplomatic maneuvering as academic enthusiasm. He'd avoided hostilities with Hariteia and sent Sam someone who would hopefully prove a more willing source of information on the planet's ‘magic.’
"That's why we keep feeding him," said the Colonel, strolling by with his arms crossed over his MP-5. There was something very like paternal pride in his grin. Sam smiled and turned back to Menandi, who was waiting patiently.
"I'd like to take some samples of the nearby soil and rock; I'll be testing it for the presence of some specific ores and minerals."
Menandi nodded. "These caves and tunnels, which now house our city, were once a vast mine. Some sections are still worked for various ores; perhaps you would like to take your samples from a few of the closer mining sites?" She gestured toward one of the nearby exits from the cave.
"That would be perfect, actually." Sam turned toward the Colonel, who was watching her, and nodded in the direction Menandi had indicated, tapping her sample kit. The Colonel nodded, then strolled over to Teal'c and Daniel. As Sam slung the sample kit over her shoulder and followed Menandi out of the cave, Teal'c detached himself from the others and fell into step behind her.
The tunnel they entered had obviously not been designed to accommodate anyone over five and a half feet tall. Sam could feel her hair grazing the ceiling and instinctively ducked her head slightly. Beside her, Teal'c was somehow making the act of walking with his neck bent at almost a fifty-degree angle look dignified.
"What elements will you be looking for in your tests?" Menandi asked curiously. Sam couldn't help noticing that the smaller woman had no trouble walking through the tunnel, and was moving with much more grace and dispatch than Sam could manage, encumbered as she was with her kit and trying not to hit her head.
"Well, I'll test for a number of different ones, but I'm going to look for a significant concentration of an element called naquadah in particular." Sam paused to squeeze through a particularly narrow section of tunnel, then added "It's what the Stargate is made of."
"By 'Stargate' you mean the Ring in the chamber of histories." Menandi raised her eyebrows, making the statement a question. When Sam nodded, she continued, "Then I think you will find a great deal of this element at our first destination. We are very close to one of the sites where it is currently being mined."
Sam began to hear--or perhaps feel--very low vibrations through the tunnel walls. They grew steadily stronger as she and Teal'c followed Menandi down branching tunnels. "Menandi, if we find that your planet has enough naquadah for the purpose, do you think your House of Governors would be open to some kind of trade agreement with my planet?"
Menandi looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied "I suppose it would depend heavily on the decision of the Accepted. The use of this ore is restricted to them." Sam grimaced, thinking she could probably guess how Hariteia and the other Accepted would decide that question, but Menandi continued "It would also likely depend on what was offered in trade." She cocked her head over her shoulder at Sam, obviously curious.
"Well, we normally offer medicines as a primary trade item; most of the peoples we've encountered through the Stargate haven't advanced very far in the field of medicine."
"I think you will find that our planet is an exception," Menandi smiled a little apologetically. "The healing magic of the Accepted can cure any injury and almost any disease."
"I'm sure we could work out some other agreement, then." Sam tried to sound more confident than she felt. She glanced at Teal'c, who was giving her the enigmatic eyebrow-lift that seemed to be his response to almost everything. Sam took this one to mean that Teal'c had as many reservations about the Accepted and their abilities as Sam had herself.
The vibrations intensified as they followed Menandi around a corner and found that the tunnel ended in a heavy door.
"I would suggest taking your samples from the rock here." Menandi indicated the tunnel walls around the door. "I tested the rock and soil here a year ago myself, which led to this mining site's placement. I think you'll find...what was your phrase?" She grinned. "A 'significant concentration' of what you call naquadah."
"Shouldn't I take samples from inside the mine itself?" asked Sam, looking from Menandi to the door, which had no discernible latch or hinges.
"Only the Accepted are permitted to enter the mine," said Menandi, "but I believe there should be enough traces of the ore in this rock to serve your purposes." She looked keenly at Sam's sample kit, as if impatient to see inside it. "What methods do you use to ascertain the presence of the ore in soil and rock? The device the House of Governors uses was provided by the Accepted, and is much smaller than yours."
"Oh, this isn't actually a device for testing, it's a kit of all the equipment I might need for testing." She opened the kit and began setting out items, explaining their uses while watching Teal'c out of the corner of her eye. He was looking at the door behind her, face inscrutable as usual. Sam was halfway through an explanation of acid testing, and had just paused to let Menandi ask a question when Teal'c cut smoothly into the conversation.
"Am I to understand that the mining of naquadah is entirely under the purview of the Accepted?"
"Yes," Menandi replied, "they do allow some of the more skilled assistants in the House of Governors to use their testing equipment to evaluate new mining sites," she did not look up from the streak plate she was holding, but the small note of pride in her voice was unmistakable. "However, the operations of mining are carried out with the Accepted's magic, so naturally others are not permitted to enter the mine once it has been established."
"And the Accepted do not impose any labor connected with the mining on your people?" Teal'c's tone was of polite inquiry, but Sam could hear a slight edge under his words.
"No, the Accepted use magic to perform most forms of unskilled labor," Menandi replied, still more interested in the contents of Sam's kit than in the conversation. "It frees the workers that would otherwise be needed to pursue training with the guilds." She had put down the streak plate and was holding the magnets up for scrutiny, experimentally separating and joining them. Teal'c, seeming satisfied with her answer, subsided.
"Menandi," Sam hesitated, holding a tube full of the fine grit that covered the tunnel's floor. When the other woman only looked at her expectantly, she continued, "You said the Accepted could cure almost any disease. Does that mean there are diseases that they can't cure?"
"Only one," Menandi replied, handing Sam the magnets. "The wandering sorrow. Perhaps it cannot be cured because it is not a disease in the common way. It is..." she paused, seeming to search for the best choice of words, "an affliction, perhaps, of the heart and mind. One might even say a madness. It is not an illness like most others. There is no pain, no suffering of the body, only of the spirit." She touched one hand to her chest.
"But you call it a disease," Sam frowned. "If it doesn't affect people physically, what are its symptoms?" When Menandi cocked her head at the unfamiliar word, Sam clarified: "What does it do to the people who have it?"
"They become sad first," Menandi sobered a bit. "They grow more and more unhappy and they can rarely give a reason for their unhappiness. They begin to wander farther and farther from the city and eventually they take one of the tunnels to the planet's surface, where the air is harsh and the ground is covered with ice. Most never return."
"Do they just freeze to death, or do they continue to live on the surface?" asked Sam, perplexed.
"Most of them live the rest of their years on the surface, though life on the surface is difficult and sometimes dangerous. Some die for lack of proper food or heat or medicine, all things that they would have in abundance here in the city." Menandi gave a small sigh. "From time to time, attempts are made to convince them to come back or to at least accept food and clothing." She shrugged and her smile faded a little. "They will not accept anything from the city. They say they are exiles."
Sam was still debating asking another question when Teal'c spoke. "What reason do these exiles give for leaving the city and refusing aid?"
Menandi looked down at Sam's kit and shook her head. "No doubt their reasons seem sound to them in their own minds, but to those who are clear-minded and are not afflicted with their strange sadness, they make little sense." She looked up, shrugged again and gave Sam a resigned smile. "Forgive me, I am being foolish. My sister took the wandering sorrow a long time ago and my father also, only a year ago. It is difficult to see those dear to one's heart impose suffering upon themselves for no reason."
"I'm sorry," said Sam, because she didn't know what else to say.
Menandi shook her head as if dismissing the subject. "It is not something that should concern you. If you have gathered enough samples for your test, I suggest we move on, as it will be time for the evening meal soon."
She helped Sam pack her samples away and led the way back down the tunnel, followed by Teal'c. Sam paused just long enough to touch the fingers of one hand to the implacable mine door, feeling the vibrations of what had to be heavy machinery buzzing through the metal. Then she turned and caught up with Teal'c, her mind humming, and followed the small, orange-clad figure back toward the city.
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By evening, or what passed for evening underground, Sam had a couple dozen mineral samples and a lot of mostly unhelpful information about the local technology to show for her day's work.
"Menandi seems very eager to answer my questions, and even more interested in asking me questions, but she doesn't know any more than Bodhus about the technology or how it works," Sam gave a frustrated sigh as she collapsed onto the couch of one of the rooms the team had been given for the night. "She has no idea what powers the lights or how they work. These caves, despite being deep underground are very livable, so they obviously have other technology tucked away for things like air circulation and climate control, but she doesn't even know where that technology is housed, much less how it works. She just writes it all off as 'magic' and says that the Accepted make it work."
Colonel O'Neill, perched on a stool across from her, turned to Daniel, who was examining the painted walls of the room, his enthusiasm for frescoes apparently undimmed by his afternoon with Bodhus in the Gate cavern.
"Daniel?" he prompted.
Without looking away from the wall, Daniel responded "Well, I think I've got a little information that we can work with. The frescoes in the Stargate chamber are a kind of historical log. The style is very Hellenistic, but there are some distinctly Indian influences that lead me to believe that this culture is descended from a transplanted Greco-Bactrian population, probably taken during one of the Magnesian dynasties--"
"Daniel," the Colonel said again. "Information we can use."
Daniel rolled his eyes before continuing. "Anyway, the history related in the frescoes goes all the way back to a time roughly three hundred years ago that Bodhus referred to as the Age of Rebellion. It's the point from which they date their history, and Bodhus says that before that time the ancestors of these people were slaves to the gods."
"So it's safe to say this was a goa'uld-occupied world at one point," the Colonel said, looking at Teal'c, who merely nodded.
"It's a pretty good bet that this planet was home to a goa'uld naquadah mine," offered Sam, sitting up. "Menandi took us to where naqudah is currently being mined for use by the Accepted. She doesn't know what they use it for. It could be anything from bombs to a simple power-source." She gestured at the bowl-shaped light affixed to the room's ceiling.
"Let's hope for power-source," the Colonel said evenly.
Sam grinned. "Judging by the sounds we heard in the mine tunnel, I'd say they've got some pretty heavy equipment, but we couldn't get a look at the actual mining operation. Only the Accepted are allowed into the mine itself."
"Big surprise," the Colonel rolled his eyes.
"What I find interesting," Daniel said, turning toward the rest of them, fresco momentarily forgotten, "is that according to Bodhus, the rebellion that eventually cast out the gods and made the people of this planet free was driven by a group well-known as being the most intelligent and learned of the slaves. Apparently they met in secret to avoid punishment by the gods, probably because of the usual goa'uld injunctions against reading and information."
Another nod from Teal'c.
"So the goa'uld on this planet got his butt kicked by the resident chess club." Colonel O'Neill looked as though this thought amused him.
"Here's the really interesting thing:" Daniel didn't even seem to have noticed the interruption, "according to the histories, this group of learned slaves possessed a special talent that gave them the ability to use the god's own magic against them."
That made the Colonel sit up straighter. "So the chess club figured out how to work some goa'uld technology and used it to free the planet." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "That sounds promising."
"Well, here's the thing," Daniel held up both hands as if telling the Colonel not to get too excited just yet. "After they defeated the gods, this group founded a guild of selected individuals, all of whom were said to possess this special talent for the gods' magic."
"The Accepted," said Sam, and Daniel just nodded.
"So," Colonel O'Neill glanced from Sam to Daniel to Teal'c and back to Sam. "What does that make the Accepted? Besides the chess club."
"They could honestly be the only people with enough talent and education in the right areas to understand how the technology works," replied Daniel, more hopeful than convinced.
"That is unlikely, Daniel Jackson." The Colonel had opened his mouth to make some form of scathing reply, but Teal'c's baritone cut him off. "As you said yourself, one need not understand a device to use it. Yet the Accepted seem to intentionally keep their people in a state of ignorance."
"So they're keeping all the fun toys for themselves and using them to achieve power and status," the Colonel shrugged. "Nothing we haven't seen before."
"I don't think we know enough about the situation to be assigning motivations to the Accepted just yet, Jack," said Daniel. "I agree, it does look like they're keeping a lot of information from the rest of the people, but I'm not convinced they're doing it purely to secure power and status for themselves. You saw how Bodhus behaved toward Hariteia this morning."
"When she tried to stop us from talking about how our radios worked." Sam nodded.
"Exactly," replied Daniel. "Bodhus was gracious and respectful but not subservient to Hareteia. She obviously wanted us to stop asking questions about their 'magic,' and didn't like that you were trying to explain how our technology worked. But if she and the rest of the Accepted were using their horded technology to lord over their people, don't you think she would have just ordered that the subject be dropped or even denied us permission to stay?"
"I noted," said Teal'c, "that of all the officials who greeted us upon our arrival, only Hariteia appeared to be an Accepted. Would they not form a more substantial part of the governing body if they were indeed using their knowledge to gain power over others?"
"Exactly," Daniel said again, turning back to the wall.
"Well, whatever." Colonel O'Neill stood and stretched. "I'm turning in. It's been a long day of watching you take notes. Teal'c, take first watch just in case our hosts are hiding something more than the batteries for their lights. I'll relieve you in a few hours. We'll see if we can't dig up some more answers in the morning."
Sam unrolled her sleeping bag onto the floor--four separate rooms had been provided but none of them liked sleeping away from the others offworld--and began untying her boots.
"Sam, you said you were sure that machinery was being used for mining naquadah but that you couldn't tell what kind was being used." Daniel had turned away from the wall again, but he was gazing thoughtfully over Sam’s head instead of at her.
"The vibrations I could feel in the tunnel were made by something big, and there was definitely a regular rhythm to them.” Sam nodded. “Sure sounded like machinery to me, and nothing simple, either. Whatever was behind that door was pretty complex."
"When researching how various ancient cultures constructed their monuments, we could learn a lot about the process and tools they used just by looking at the sites where the stone had been quarried." Daniel tilted his head to one side and seemed to be scrutinizing the frescoes behind Sam. "I'll see if I can't get Bodhus to take me to an abandoned mining site tomorrow. There’ve got to be old, exhausted mines lying around. Maybe the Accepted don't keep those off limits once the mining equipment has been moved elsewhere."
"Bedtime, kids," the Colonel's voice issued from the huddle of his sleeping bag. "Daniel, you may have won the coin-toss, but this floor is cold and if you don't start using that couch soon, you may find that it's become occupied while you were busy staring at the walls."
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"I love the planets that give us breakfast instead of shooting at us." Colonel O'Neill was munching happily on the remains of some sort of spicy bread as he and Sam followed Menandi down a long tunnel the next morning. He was so pleased with the local cuisine that he had yet to complain about how low the tunnel's ceiling was, but Sam figured it was only a matter of time before he ran out of bread and noticed that he was having to hunch uncomfortably in order to avoid hitting his head. "So where are we headed?" he asked, popping another morsel of bread into his mouth.
"Menandi mentioned that the Accepted keep mostly to a remote cavern where they have a sort of guild hall set up," Sam answered.
Colonel O'Neill devoured the last of his breakfast bread, licked crumbs off his thumb and, right on cue, shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "And to get to this hall, it is necessary to crawl through a bunch of tunnels built by dwarfs for dwarfs?"
Sam hid a smile. "Yes, sir." She paused, but couldn't resist adding, "You could have stayed with Daniel in the main cavern, where the ceiling's a lot higher."
"Yes," he agreed cheerfully, "but then I would have had to listen to another full day of Daniel rhapsodizing about frescoes and magnesium and bacteria." Sam cocked an eyebrow at him and he added: "Or whatever. So we're just going to this guild hall for the view? I assume they're not going to actually let us inside so you can poke around."
"The Accepted do not allow visitors to the Hall unless they are there to be tested," Menandi offered, glancing over her shoulder.
"Tested?" Sam prompted.
"Yes," Menandi replied. "Everyone must be tested when they reach their fifteenth year to find if they possess the talent for magic. If they do, they are admitted into the Hall and allowed to put on the gray." At Sam's questioning expression, she clarified: "They become one of the Accepted. The gray hood is a symbol of their status."
"So what exactly is their status?" asked the Colonel. "Do they run the show around here? Tell everyone else what to do?"
"There is always one Accepted who is chosen by the others to represent the Hall at the House of Governors--you met Hariteia yesterday, I believe; she is the Hall's delegate at the moment--but they do not control the House any more than the other seated delegates." Menandi smiled at the Colonel like a teacher explaining the basics of the checks and balances system to a twelve-year-old. "The Hall's delegate merely acts as an adviser to the governors in matters where magic is concerned, and ensures that the Hall is represented as befits one of our most important guilds."
"So the Accepted are the only ones with knowledge of magic," Sam tried not to let her discomfort with the term show in her voice, "but they don't use that knowledge to make any demands on the rest of you?"
Menandi shook her head, still smiling. "They ask that the use and understanding of magic remain strictly within their Hall, but the other guilds have similar requirements with regard to their skills and knowledge. It is only prudence, as magic could become very dangerous in the hands of those who do not understand it."
Sam shared a glance with Colonel O'Neill, but didn't know quite what to make of this intelligence. They slowed to a stop as they reached a low doorway in the tunnel. They stepped through and for the second time this mission, Sam found herself saying "Wow."
The cavern they had entered was, quite simply, vast. The dome of its roof was lost in darkness and its floor, dotted with lamps that looked tiny from this distance, was several hundred feet down from the balcony where they had emerged. Menandi pointed toward a large, domed structure at the center of the cavern, surrounded by lamps.
"That is the Hall of the Accepted. It is kept far from the city so that the Accepted may practice their magic undisturbed."
"Or so that no one can get a decent look at it without taking a long hike," added the Colonel in an undertone.
Sam pulled her hand-held sensor out of her vest and started keying through readings, frowning. Whatever the Accepted were hiding in their Hall, it was certainly more than a simple power station; the sensor was picking up energy signatures like nothing she had ever seen before. "Menandi, you mention a test that determines if someone has the talent required to become an Accepted."
The smaller woman nodded. "Yes, it is taken by every citizen in their fifteenth year. Those who pass remain in the Hall and put on the gray. Most do not, and they return to the city and their lives."
"And what does the test involve?" asked Sam.
"Various tasks to be performed, questions answered. I imagine you have similar ways of determining aptitude on your world. The specifics of the test are not to be revealed to the untested, of course," she added with a trace of apology to her smile.
"Can we get any closer to the Hall, or is this where the tour ends?" asked Colonel O'Neill, squinting through his monocular at the distant building and its cluster of lights.
"This is as far as any but the Accepted may go," Menandi replied. "They prize their seclusion, as it is required for the practice of their art."
"Yeah, I'll bet it is," the Colonel said under his breath, putting the monocular away. "All right, well, I guess that's it, then. We came, we saw, we...saw some more." He looked pointedly at Sam's hand-held. "You see everything you wanted to see?"
"I think so, sir." She nodded and put the hand-held back in her vest, turning back to follow Menandi through the door again.
Daniel's voice suddenly crackled out of their radios. "Jack, Sam, come in." Sam felt her heart skip a beat at the urgency in his voice.
"Daniel, what's wrong?" the Colonel asked, grip tightening reflexively on is MP-5.
"Bodhus is hurt. We were studying some of the debris in an abandoned mine and there was a cave-in--" he cut off for a moment, then added "One of his assistants is here, and he says that help will be arriving very shortly, but he's hurt pretty--" Another pause while Daniel spoke to someone else, and then "Hariteia's here with two other Accepted. Looks like they're getting him ready to be moved."
"You okay?" the Colonel asked.
"Bodhus was half-buried in rock by the time we got to him," said Daniel. "I think there might have been spinal damage, not to mention head trauma."
"Not what I asked."
"Teal'c and I are fine, Jack." Daniel's voice was edged with irritation. "Hariteia and her assistants are taking Bodhus away for treatment."
"Where are they taking him?" Sam asked.
It was a moment before Daniel answered. "Ah, I asked and offered to help, but Hariteia just said that the Accepted would take care of him and the help of outsiders was not needed. She was...pretty definite about not wanting Teal'c and me to come with."
"Told ya where you could shove it, huh?" The Colonel grimaced.
"Basically, yeah," Daniel admitted, sounding chagrined. "She's having Bodhus's assistant take us back to the city. Apparently she doesn't like us poking around here. I got the sense that she was already on her way here to kick us out of the mine when the accident happened."
"Okay, well, we're on our way back anyway, we'll meet you back at our rooms." The Colonel turned to Menandi, who had been watching them use their radios with interest.
"Bodhus was right, your magic is, indeed, amazing to allow you to speak to your friend when he is so far removed from you," she said.
"Yeah, well, apparently Bodhus got himself injured pretty seriously while he was showing our friend around," said the Colonel.
"The Accepted will care for him, he will be fine," she assured him, unconcerned. "Their healing magic is very powerful."
Their hike back to the city was conducted at the same pace they'd employed getting out to the cavern. Sam kept suggesting that they move more quickly, but Menandi simply repeated that the Accepted would take care of Bodhus and there was no need to hurry. Instead, she turned the comversation back to the radios. "You said on your arrival yesterday that your magic worked by creating waves. These waves are not visible, I take it?"
"No, they're below the frequency of visible light," Sam replied, distracted, and then had to give an explanation of what she meant by "visible light." By the time they had reached the city's outskirts, Menandi had become thoroughly charmed by the idea of color as wavelength.
"How strange to think of everything looking as it does because it reflects the light a certain way. But then that would mean that we do not truly see things as they are, only as they are shaped by these waves of visible light," she smiled eagerly at Sam. "How fascinating it would be to see things truly. Can you see in this way, using your magic?"
"Uh, well, we can use our technology to see things using a lot of different wavelengths, not all of them visible to the naked eye," Sam replied, still puzzled by the other woman's blithe disregard for Bodhus, the Accepted and their powerful healing magic notwithstanding. "But I wouldn't necessarily say that any one view is more 'true' than the others, each one is really just one part of the whole."
Menandi opened her mouth to ask another question, but they had reached the room where Daniel and Teal'c were waiting and the Colonel was asking them for word on Bodhus.
"We haven't heard anything since Hariteia left the mining site with him,” Daniel reported.
"I will go to Hariteia and ask after Bodhus," said Menandi. "He will be pleased to know of your concern." Still smiling, she departed.
"She's very sanguine about the whole Bodhus-crushed-by-falling-rocks thing," commented the Colonel.
"So was Bodhus's assistant when it happened," replied Daniel. "And although he didn't actually get literally crushed, he did look pretty severely injured and he was unconscious. I would have expected a greater sense of urgency out of his assistant at least, but the only people who seemed in any way concerned were Hariteia and the other Accepted. The rest just kept saying that the Accepted would take care of him and that he'd be fine."
"That's pretty much all we got out of Menandi, too." Sam nodded, troubled.
"Could their medical technology just be that good?" asked the Colonel, raising his eyebrows.
Daniel looked like he was entertaining the possibility but Teal'c wasn’t. "I believe Bodhus's injuries were quite grave. Even if the Accepted commanded healing technology to equal that of Earth, I would still believe there to be cause for concern."
"But you see, all is well! Though your concern touches my heart."
They all turned, surprised, to find Bodhus smiling at them from the doorway. Sam glanced quickly from Daniel, whose mouth had fallen open, to Teal'c, who actually blinked with surprise.
Menandi came around Bodhus and into the room, smiling. "I found him returning home and told him how worried you had been."
"I thought perhaps you feared for me, not knowing how easily the Accepted can heal one of almost anything with their magic," said Bodhus, sounding as jolly and robust as he had when he welcomed them the day previous. "And I thought if you saw how well I am, you would be easier in your minds. But now I must take my leave; the Accepted healers have told me that I must rest for their curative to complete its work. I regret, Doctor Jackson, that we must delay our study of the east wall histories. Perhaps tomorrow?"
Daniel found his voice long enough to stammer "Uh, yes, I...we're glad you're...tomorrow. Yes." Bodhus gave another of his expansive gestures in farewell and left, shepherded by Menandi.
"That's not...he was...there's no way he could..." Daniel gestured vaguely.
"Bodhus's condition was severe enough to make such a recovery unlikely," Teal'c supplied.
"Okay, that's a little bit fishy," said the Colonel unnecessarily. He glanced around at the rest of them and asked "So what are we thinking? Goa'uld sarcophagus?"
"The goa'uld that ruled here could have left one behind," said Daniel.
"Or they could have come up with something of their own," Sam added. "The readings I got near the guild hall were suggestive of a massive amount of technology and I'm guessing it's pretty advanced."
"And yet they're not sharing," said Colonel O'Neill. "Why does that not surprise me?"
Part 2 | Part 3