Translations (14/19)
Title: Translations ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4a-- 4b Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11 Chapter12 Chapter13 Chapter14
XXXXX
Chapter 14: The Other
XXXXX
2 February 1998; SGC, Earth, 0800 hrs
"Kal shak! Enough."
Daniel shook his head, not moving his bashaak from the guard position. "I can do it, Teal'c," he panted. "Just let me try again."
"Ar'ee kree, chal'ti!" Teal'c barked, expertly spinning his own staff and planting it upright on the mat for emphasis.
Gritting his teeth, Daniel obeyed and dropped his guard. "Kel sha, Tek'ma'tae."
"Lay down your weapon and begin your exercises. We will go no further today."
With a scowl of frustration, he lay the staff down on the mat and obediently stripped off his protective padding to stretch before his muscles stiffened. Jaffa were used to their symbiotes' fixing the worst aches and bruises; he had needed Sam to show him a proper warm-up and stretching routine for humans. Jack had taken that opportunity to explain to Teal'c that human bodies couldn't take as much pummeling as Jaffa bodies could, not without a much longer recovery time.
Teal'c picked up both of the sticks they were using as bashaak and leaned them against the corner. "You must learn to commit more fully," he instructed, turning back to watch Daniel. "You know these movements. You executed that very maneuver flawlessly in practice, but you hesitate when you face an opponent."
"It's not the opponent that bothers me," he answered, shaking out aching arms; "it's not knowing what you're going to do next."
"You can never know what your enemy will do. You cannot hesitate in anticipation that your opponent will strike back."
"Then how can I have enough time to stop and counter in case you do strike back?"
"You must not neglect your present action in order to attempt to think two moves ahead," Teal'c told him. "You must fight expecting to hit me."
Thinking of the whirl of motion that Teal'c's staff was when he wasn't holding back, Daniel said, "What if I don't actually expect to hit you?"
"Then you will never do so." Daniel grimaced but said nothing. "When you first began learning lok'nel, empty-handed," Teal'c continued, "you experienced the same problems, but that is no longer the case. You have learned to commit to an action."
"That's because now I can see when you're about to counterattack," Daniel said. "But with the bashaak...it's so fast for its range. I can't see it in time. It takes more time to recover when I'm trying to hold onto the staff, too."
"That will come with practice, Daniel Jackson. You must learn which of your opponent's movements betray his intentions. In time, your strength and control will increase and allow you to guide your bashaak as if it were part of your own arm."
"I suppose," he sighed. Sometimes he wished he had a symbiote that could heal away injuries, too, just so he could push further and faster in these training sessions--he could tell the pace seemed slow to Teal'c. Then he remembered that that would have meant being dependent on a larval Goa'uld in his body, and he quickly stopped wishing it. "I keep trying to stay back so I don't get caught in too close," he explained. There was a dangerous zone where he was close enough for Teal'c to hit but too far for his own, shorter reach to counter.
"Maintaining proper distance is indeed essential," Teal'c said, "but you must learn how to close the distance during your attack."
Daniel mulled over that. "What if I get so close that you can't use your staff?" he suggested.
"If you do, I will likely overpower you with no need of any weapon," Teal'c said bluntly. "For such a tactic to be successful, you must either have surprise on your side or be quicker or stronger than your opponent. You, chal'ti, would be wise not to engage an opponent in such close quarters until you can claim to be his match in strength or skill."
"So," he summarized wryly, "I probably shouldn't try it against you, huh."
"On the contrary, you should do so. It would serve you well to know the consequences of every possible maneuver."
The consequences of using that maneuver on Teal'c would, no doubt, end with Daniel on the floor. Pushing himself to his feet, he said, "I'll, uh, keep that in mind."
Looking him up and down with a critical eye, Teal'c added, "It may be unwise to rely too heavily on this approach. You will continue to grow taller, Daniel Jackson?"
"I hope so," Daniel answered wryly, but, realizing that Teal'c might not have paid close enough attention to human slaves to be sure of their growth patterns, explained, "We normally grow taller for...uh, at least a few years after my current age."
"Then you may soon have equal or greater reach among human warriors," Teal'c told him. "Then distance would indeed become an advantage for you."
"And among Jaffa, I won't ever want to get into a test of strength," he said. "So don't get caught too close unawares, I guess." More formally, he bowed and said formulaically, "Thank you for the lesson. Tai'ya teal'c ya daru."
"Ta'i, chal'ti. You are learning well," Teal'c allowed.
Daniel bit back the 'it doesn't feel like I am,' because it sounded like whining even in his head. Instead, he turned his thoughts away from sparring and back to one of SG-1's missions from nearly two months ago. "Teal'c, have you ever heard of a Goa'uld named Belus?"
"I have not," Teal'c told him. "Where have you heard that name?"
"Not heard--read. You remember the planet you went to...what was it...uh, P3X-8...66, I think."
"Indeed. We found only water and sands."
"Not quite," Daniel reminded him. "There was that rock with cuneiform writing on it. Robert and I have been putting it off, because it didn't seem to say anything that most people were interested in"--like information about weapons or technology--"but we've finally finished a rough draft of it. There was definitely a Goa'uld there who called himself Belus, but apparently the people there rebelled, and he was forced to go...somewhere else. It didn't say where."
Teal'c lifted an eyebrow. "Successful uprisings against a Goa'uld are uncommon."
"The only ones I know of were against Ra--here and on Abydos," Daniel agreed, "but it stands to reason that there might have been others. History is full of rebellions against a ruler the people didn't want. The information we have is incomplete, though; it's as if it's missing the ending. Like someone recorded the beginning of the story but didn't know what happened next. And there are no people there--why wouldn't there be, if they successfully threw off the Goa'uld?"
"Perhaps their efforts devastated them, and they were unable to survive the aftermath," Teal'c suggested.
"A whole race of people?" Daniel said, unconvinced, then grimaced. "I suppose that's not impossible." Depressing, but he wouldn't put much past the Goa'uld. "I was thinking that maybe they had some way of defeating Belus that could help us. Or, we--I mean, you or other SG teams--could go back to find the people and talk to them or ask them for help."
Teal'c considered for a moment, then said, "I do not believe such a mission would be approved."
"Wha... Why not? Think of how much we could learn!"
"We would be unlikely to find survivors of that race. On the previous journey to P3X-866, we were unable to find anything with the exception of that rock during the fourteen hours spent there. Further search would be impractical and would likely prove futile."
"If there's no one there, then who wrote all that?"
"As you have already stated, the text is incomplete. It is likely that the beings were unable to finish writing."
"But..." Daniel wrinkled his nose in disappointment but conceded, "Okay. You're probably right. Still, someone must have been there at some point--someone advanced enough or strong enough to drive off a Goa'uld. Aren't you curious at all to know who they were? Or what they were? Or, you know, what they were like?"
"It is unlikely that they would be able to help us," Teal'c said in answer.
"But even so, it's still fascinating, isn't it? Even if there isn't any strategic advantage..." Daniel trailed off, then sighed in resignation. "So you don't think the general would agree."
"I do not."
It would have been nice for the teams to go somewhere once in a while, just to learn, and stop worrying solely about weapons or things they could bring back to Earth in trade. SG-7 was on a planet called Hanka now, studying astronomy, but aside from that, few of the teams bothered to think twice about a planet if there wasn't some material gain.
But, with P3X-866...someone had once lived on a planet so far away that Daniel couldn't even fathom it and somehow wrote the same way that some of the earliest writers on Earth had...
Daniel stopped. Teal'c continued for two steps before noticing and turning back with a raised eyebrow. "They came to Earth," he realized. "I'll bet you they did. Why else would there be so much language similarity? There has to be some connection. We know people went from P3X-866 to somewhere else, but we didn't know where, so..." He bit his lip, thinking. "Robert said...Akkadian cuneiform. So, Assyria or Babylonia, maybe. They could be here, on Earth!"
When he saw Teal'c watching him curiously, he waved his friend ahead. "Thanks, Teal'c. I need to ask Robert something. Lek tol!" Setting off toward a quick shower, he wracked his brain for the names from the text that had seemed important to him, repeating them in his head so he wouldn't forget. Belus. Kel. Omoroca. Ohnnes. Oannes..
Once in his normal day clothes, he nearly bumped (literally) into Jack on the way to the office, just barely avoiding a collision by ducking quickly aside, still reciting under his breath to himself, "...Omoroca...Sorry, Jack."
"You're still going on about Omoroc-whatever?"
Daniel paused with a finger on the elevator button. "When was I before?"
Jack stared at him. "Never mind. Something important?"
"Maybe, hopefully," he answered absently as he stepped into the elevator, "but I need to ask about...or more likely look it up, because Robert and I don't usually..." The doors began to slide closed, so he called, "Good morning!" through them at a bemused-looking Jack.
When he reached the archaeology department, he rushed in and bypassed Robert, who had apparently just arrived himself, proceeding to the bookshelf behind the desk and grabbing the folder where they'd put papers relating to the P3X-866 text. "Robert, I just thought of something, but I don't know enough of the history...here, here, look at this..."
"Um," Robert said. "Hel...lo?"
Taking a deep breath, Daniel put the folder down and turned sheepishly. "Hi. Good morning. Just...I think we might...I mean...okay. Look. We've been assuming all traces of Goa'uld on Earth would be in Giza, right, because that was where the Stargate was found, but since this is the planet of the Tau'ri, the first humans to be taken as hosts, there must have been other Goa'uld besides Ra who were here at some point."
"Sure..."
"And I think at least one of them brought cuneiform writing to Earth. Or brought people who brought cuneiform...you know."
Robert looked down and saw which folder Daniel had taken down. "Belus. You think--"
"Yes, Belus. And if that's right, then there might be something in our history of...of Babylon or wherever that could tell us how they defeated him, or who they were, or...something."
"Do we know for sure he was defeated again in Babylon?" Robert said.
"I think we would have noticed if a Goa'uld were still ruling there."
"Yeah, dumb question. Right, well, our knowledge of Babylonian history is full of holes," Robert explained, but he was already standing and scanning his shelf for references. "If Belus came from P3X-866, it could have been anytime before the Giza rebellion against Ra. That's a lot of history to cover."
"The Goa'uld posed as gods," Daniel pointed out. "We don't need concrete history--we're looking for mythology, stories that have been passed down, legendary wars... But I know very little about their mythology, which is why I wanted to ask you--"
"Already there," Robert told him, pulling down a book. "I didn't realize I'd be dealing with Mesopotamia, so... Here, you look through this; I'll go see if anyone else here has more references that'll help us. You can try an online search, too, for...uh...?"
"Belus," Daniel suggested, pulling out his glasses. "It mentions someone named Kel, too--actually that might be a Goa'uld interrogatory and not a name. Uh...maybe 'Omoroca.'"
...x...
"Dead end," Robert announced once they'd compiled their information.
"Not a dead end," Daniel protested.
Robert shook his head. "Belus went to Babylon pursued by a bunch of people called 'Ohnnes' from a planet named after Oannes. They tried to fight him and failed. Their leader Tiamat--Omoroca--was killed. Whatever they did, it didn't work."
"But don't you see, it did work," Daniel said excitedly. "Belus doesn't rule there anymore. He must have been defeated, if not by the Ohnnes, then by the Tau'ri there after their defeat. Tau'ri mythology identifies Omoroca as a sort of serpent or dragon, a monster of chaos who was also essential in the creation of the world. They raised her to the level of a deity; she must have done something important. Maybe this is what started it all, the...the opposition to the Goa'uld on Earth! We owe the Ohnnes...our lives, our freedom."
"Possibly," Robert agreed, sitting back. "But what do you want to do about it? They didn't have some miraculously successful ability or strategy that we can replicate. They came, they didn't win, and the bad guy was forced out the old-fashioned way by humans--probably with, like, swords and spears. End of story."
Slumping back in his own chair, Daniel raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I really thought there was something there."
Robert didn't look annoyed at the waste of time; instead, he offered, "It was a good idea. I never would've thought of it, and that's the kind of thinking we're going to need."
Not ready to give up quite yet, Daniel tried, "What about... The Tau'ri legends of Oannes say he was half-fish. Maybe they didn't find anything on P3X-866 because everyone was living underwater. There was an ocean there."
"Daniel, I'm all for looking to mythology, but you can be the one to tell Hammond to get out the SCUBA gear so we can look for mermaids."
Daniel could imagine General Hammond's reaction to that. "That does sound stupid," he conceded, flipping the book shut and rising to replace it on the shelf. "What was I thinking."
"But," Robert said, "this did bring up an important point. Other Goa'uld have been here at various points in our history. We've been concentrating on Ra, as far as Earth is concerned, and looking for other Goa'uld only off-world."
"You think they should send out a search team looking for Goa'uld on Earth?" Daniel asked dubiously.
"No, no. Whatever traces there are on Earth will more likely be hidden among our history and archaeological findings. So, artifacts, papers."
Daniel laughed uncertainly. "That's a lot to dig through."
"But we're looking for specific kinds of findings: the kind no one could explain. And..." Robert hesitated. "If we want a good place to start...well, your parents' work kicked this program off."
"Oh. Oh." Somehow, even knowing his parents had been archaeologists who'd lived and worked for years on Earth, he'd never thought to search for the papers they must have published. With a lurch, he realized he could have had access to them--for an official reason, for research, even--for months and never even looked. "Wha--um. Okay," he said, hoping he sounded casual. "So how do I..."
"Their work is all in older journals, obviously--before 1982. I think the best way to start... I've got copies of some of Melburn Jackson's papers, and I can find out what else he's written, maybe see which other archaeologists took an interest in him and tried to publish similar results."
"You have copies of my father's work?" Daniel said, confused.
"I used to try pushing some unconventional theories similar to...your father's," Robert said. He shuffled papers around on his desk, not looking at Daniel, but his voice had taken on an uncomfortable note. "I've read practically everything he ever wrote and some of Claire Ballard's later work, too, after she began working on archaeological digs in Egypt. They were the basis of some of my...less well-received ideas in grad school."
Daniel blinked. "Claire...Ballard?"
"Yeah, isn't that--she published mostly under that name, though some later papers listed her as Ballard-Jackson." Robert looked uncertainly at him. "You, uh...you did know that was her name?"
No one thought about second names all that much on Abydos, much less changing a name after marriage, but of course, of course her family name would have been different. Why hadn't he ever thought about it before? A little stunned and more than a little ashamed--because what kind of son didn't know his mother's full name?--Daniel shook his head. "It was always just Claire. Or Claire Jackson. She never used anything else on Abydos, and she never said."
"Uh, yeah. Well, um...Ballard's a well-known name in archaeology, too," Robert told him awkwardly. "There was a Nicolas Ballard, before my time, working in Central America, I think, or somewhere around there. Who knows, maybe you're, you know, related to him."
"Mm," Daniel hummed absently. Ballard. Hadn't Colonel Maybourne mentioned that his mother was following in her father's footsteps? "I suppose I should read some of their work," he said, thinking he could at least look up Nicolas Ballard the next time he was at a computer.
"Yeah--oh, I should've had you start reading from academic journals before now," Robert agreed, sounding relieved, happier now that there was something objective to do. "It's important to learn the jargon--and then you can see the kind of research this program was started on. I'll help you dig up some of their stuff, but first I have to go look at the artifact SG-8 brought back yesterday."
"What artifact? Do you need help?"
"Honestly, I think it's decorative. Jewelry or something. The craftsmanship looks pretty primitive. Not a big deal for the SGC's goals, but they want me to go check it out to make sure. Did you finish that translation SG-2 wanted?"
"Yes, yesterday. It was an offer for negotiations for that medicine-plant-thing they found. I already gave a copy to the general, and I'll give one to Majors Kovachek and Ferretti, too."
"Oh. Well, that's it for our active projects, then," Robert said. "Want to come with me to the lab?"
"Actually," Daniel said, "can I use your computer? I'd like to look up a few things."
Robert waved him toward the keyboard as he left the office. "Password's in the drawer."
"Robert, you're not supposed to keep it in your drawer," Daniel called after him, even as he opened the drawer to look at the password. "Even I know that! That...that defeats the entire purpose of--"
"Yeah, whatever," Robert called back. "Like someone's gonna come in here and steal my C-14 calibration charts."
With a shrug, Daniel sat and searched for 'Melburn Jackson' first before trying to decide which name his mother would have used. He braced himself, knowing full well that very few people respected his parents' most recent theories or took them seriously. Still, he'd never expected the first article he found to say:
"Mexico: Archaeologists Murdered in Egyptian Burial Vault"
His first thought was that there was no reason for an Egyptian burial vault to be in Mexico. His second was that there was no reason why he should have found this while searching for his father's name, but that the chances of another archaeologist studying something Egyptian to be named Melburn Jackson were too slim to ignore.
Clicking on the link, he skimmed the article until his eyes caught on the name and backtracked to read:
"... colleagues of Dr. Kleinhouse who were away from the site at the time of the murder have expressed confusion about the finding, noting the peculiarity of finding an empty Egyptian coffin in such an unexpected region of the world.
"While authorities suspect this was a sign that the site was previously tampered with, perhaps by the same crypt robbers who killed the two researchers, the incident has prompted tongue-in-cheek rumors of a connection to claims made over a decade ago by the renowned husband-and-wife archaeological team of Melburn and Claire Jackson. The late Drs. Jackson's' wild theories concerning cross-pollination between ancient cultures have, however, been discounted by..."
An Egyptian coffin--a sarcophagus, like the one Ra had? If it had belonged to a Goa'uld, it would explain the murders...
He skimmed further down until he found:
"...coffin was to be taken back by the surviving scientists for further study. However, it was confiscated by American federal agents as part of an ongoing investigation."
There was a picture below, taken by one of the researchers before it had been taken away. It definitely looked like a sarcophagus of some sort to Daniel, but he'd never seen Ra's and had no way to know if this was the same. Except...
He leaned in closer to the screen and squinted through his glasses. There was a pictograph on the sarcophagus, and he could just barely make it out from the photo...
It wasn't Ra's symbol. The sarcophagus belonged to someone else.
And it was empty.
Thinking quickly, he printed the article, grabbed the pages and hurried to the elevator toward Jack's office.
Five minutes later, he remembered that that was a stupid place to look--Jack only really went to his office when he was hiding from someone--and ran away from the empty room. He made his way to the commissary, where he finally spotted Jack eating with Major Ferretti.
"Jack!" he called, then lowered his voice as a few heads nearby turned at the sound. "I have...I have to show you--there's--"
"Whoa, Jackson," Ferretti said, sounding amused as he skidded to a stop at their table.
"Very polite, Daniel," Jack remarked.
"Sorry, sorry, Jack, Major," Daniel said quickly, then immediately continued, "Jack, there was this--this--just take a look at--"
"Is this about the...whatever you were so excited about this morning, Daniel?"
"N--what?" It took him a second to remember he'd been thinking about Belus that morning, and he shook his head, "No, no, not the Oannes text. I mean, I found it because of that, kind of, because...it's a long story, not important. But listen, Jack: I really, really think a Goa'uld just got...let out. Released."
"Yeah?" Jack said, picking at something in his food. "Where?"
"In Mexico," Daniel said.
Jack put down his fork and straightened so fast his chair rocked back a bit. "Mexico, on Earth?"
"Yes." Daniel thrust the article toward Jack. "Four days ago, someone named Dr. Kleinhouse found something in a burial vault and was killed soon after. Do you recognize that picture?"
"Crap." Jack stood and yanked the paper out of his hand to stare at it.
Ferretti stood up, too, looking concerned now. "Sir?"
"Ra's sarcophagus. How the hell--we blew that up with a...a nuclear warhead! No way it could've survived and...what, landed in Mexico? What the--"
"It's not the same one," Daniel said.
"How would you know? You never saw it."
"There, see," he answered, pointing at a tiny pictograph on the side. "Abydons remember Ra's mark, and it's not that. That's the headdress of Hathor. If you don't believe me, ask Robert--I'm sure he would say the same." When Jack raised his eyebrows, he clarified, "Hathor was very important among the Egyptian gods and goddesses, and--"
"Yeah, okay, got the picture. Goa'uld, Egyptian god, yadda."
"There's something else," Daniel said. "Someone, uh...confiscated the sarcophagus for a federal investigation. I didn't notice someone bringing a sarcophagus to the SGC, so..."
"Crap," Jack said again. "The general needs to know about this. Ferretti, get Dr. Rothman and bring him to meet us at the briefing room."
"He's in the lab on 21st," Daniel said, starting to turn away. "I can go and--"
"No, you're with me, I need you to explain," Jack told him. "Ferretti?"
"On it, sir," Ferretti said, and hurried out of the mess.
In the elevator, Jack read through the article more slowly. "Where'd you get this?"
"I...found it online. By accident," Daniel said. "Jack, what federal agencies other than us would care about a Goa'uld sarcophagus?"
"You need to ask?" Jack said.
Daniel grimaced. "NID?"
"Someone at Area 51. I don't know who else even knows about this stuff. And, ah...for the record," he added, "I didn't tell Ferretti to call Rothman because I don't believe you."
"He's the expert on Egypt," Daniel said evenly without looking at Jack.
General Hammond was, fortunately, in his office when they arrived. Jack barely stopped to knock before he was waved inside. "Colonel," the general greeted. Spotting Daniel trotting a step behind, he asked, "Is there a problem, gentlemen?"
"We've got a Goa'uld somewhere on Earth, sir," Jack said without delay, handing the printed article to him.
The general glanced at it, then looked back up. "What is this?"
"I know that sarcophagus," Jack said with certainty, pointing. "It's exactly like the one Ra had on his ship."
"Except--" Daniel started, then stopped when both men looked at him. Jack gave him a nod, and he continued. "Except not exactly. We--well, I think it belongs to a different Goa'uld: Hathor. If it was Goa'uld in origin, it would explain how an Egyptian sarcophagus with Egyptian hieroglyphs ended up in a closed Mayan temple in Mexico."
"And it would explain how the two people died," Jack added. "We think Ra stayed alive partly by taking naps in his sarcophagus. Hathor was probably preserved in that one, there. Then two archaeologists open it and release him, and he jumps them."
"She, Jack," Daniel corrected. "Hathor was the daughter of Ra. Very powerful. Mother of all the pharaohs, supposedly."
Jack glared at him, as if this were his fault. "Well, that's just great." Daniel shrugged helplessly.
General Hammond was frowning. "How did you find out about this, Colonel?"
Jack pointed at Daniel, who repeated, "I found it by accident, looking up...unrelated information."
"I'd like to have Dr. Rothman--"
"Colonel O'Neill? General Hammond?" Major Ferretti's voice called from the entrance to the briefing room.
Jack glanced at Daniel, who nodded and stepped partway out of the office to show them where they were. "Way ahead of you, sir," Jack told the general. "Ferretti's got Rothman with him." Ferretti and Robert came toward the office, with Sam behind them. Jack nodded approvingly. "And Carter, too, apparently."
"I hope you don't mind, sir," she said. "I was in the lab with Dr. Rothman and heard about a Goa'uld?"
"General, what's going on?" Robert asked.
"Take a look at this picture," the general said, turning it to face him. "What does it look like to you?"
"It's...a sarcophagus of some kind--a coffin. Probably Egyptian, but I'd have to know more to say anything about it."
"Do you recognize any of the symbols?"
Robert blinked and bent his head closer, so that his nose almost touched the paper. "Not really. The writing's too small to make out...wait, wait. There's one that's bigger--it could be a symbol for Hathor, the goddess of fertility and...well, goddess of lots of other things. The wife of Ra."
"Wife?" Jack asked, saying to Daniel, "I thought she was his daughter."
"That too," Robert confirmed. Jack made a face. "It kind of depends on the version of the myth. But why are you...what is this thing? And where is it? '...Confiscated by...' Did someone bring it to the SGC? Why wasn't I told about a giant coffin with Egyptian..."
"It wasn't us," General Hammond said grimly, reaching for his telephone. "Everybody wait in the briefing room. I'll see what they have to say about this at Area 51."
Major Ferretti, Robert, and Sam still looked more than a little lost, but they obediently took seats around the table to wait. "Someone want to explain what's going on?" Robert asked, looking at Daniel. "What the heck were you looking up while I was gone?"
Daniel opened his mouth, but Jack beat him to it and summarized, "Goa'uld sleeps in sarcophagus. People open sarcophagus. Hathor gets out and kills them. NID takes sarcophagus."
"And we have no idea where this Goa'uld is now?" Ferretti asked.
"If she's been sealed in there for a long time," Sam mused, "she's going to be almost powerless. No Jaffa army, no ships, nothing."
"So, no, we have no idea where she is, or whether she's even still in Mexico," Jack summarized.
Robert was reading over the article. His eyes stopped and flicked up toward Daniel, who flushed slightly, wondering if the man knew what he'd been looking for it when he'd found it. Then Robert rubbed his forehead, saying, "I swear, Daniel, I leave you alone for five minutes..." Jack snorted.
"I wasn't trying to find it," Daniel defended. "But it's a good thing I did, yes?"
"Excuses," Jack said. "So...Hathor. Another snakehead, huh."
"Actually," Robert corrected, "she was more often associated with the cow."
Ferretti laughed, and Jack repeated, "The cow? Did she moo those archaeologists to death?"
"She was also represented as a bloodthirsty lioness."
"Of course she was," Jack sighed.
A minute later, Sam was drumming her fingers against the arm of her chair, glancing occasionally at the closed door to the general's office. Ferretti was leaning back in his chair and slowly turning in it from side to side. Daniel tried to strain his ears to hear the general's conversation without making it obvious that he was trying to listen in. Apparently, he wasn't successful, because Jack assured him, "It's soundproof, kid." Daniel scowled.
Finally, they stood as General Hammond opened the door. "I can't get through," he told them.
"You can't get through? To Area 51, sir?" Jack said incredulously.
Sam was looking just as dumbstruck. "You can't be saying no one is there."
"That's exactly what I'm saying, Captain," the general informed her, "or, at least, no one in the Stargate Research sections is answering the phone. I tried several times, and people in Washington are about to start trying, too."
"That's impossible, sir. That's one of the most high-security facilities in the world--I can't even imagine what it would take for the entire facility to shut down. Unless..." She trailed off, but Daniel's imagination filled in the unfinished sentence with images of long, emptied corridors--or, worse, corridors filled with people dead or completely incapacitated.
"That 'unless,' Captain, is what I'm afraid of," the general said grimly.
"What about the other sections, sir?" she said.
"In light of recent developments, that sarcophagus and the Goa'uld Hathor could be the cause of whatever's happened there. The secrecy of the Stargate program aside, this could be extremely dangerous, and we don't know which move might worsen the situation."
Daniel looked up at Jack, whose face had taken on the hard, alert expression he wore in crises. "Sir, recommend sending a team to check it out."
"I agree. We just--" the general started
"Sir," an airman interrupted them from the staircase. "There's an urgent call for you."
"Star-6-9?" Jack said sardonically. Daniel looked around surreptitiously; the others' reactions said it was a joke of some sort.
"I'll take it in here," General Hammond said, already walking toward the phone in the corner. Daniel didn't bother trying to pretend he wasn't listening in this time. The general opened his mouth to answer, but apparently someone on the other end was already talking. "Who is this?" he demanded. "What's your situation there?" There was a short pause, and then, "You'll have to clarify that. What do you mean..." He was cut off again, then turned to face them, taken aback. Finally, after an eternity of seconds, he said, "Stay calm, ma'am. We'll get this straightened out."
"General?" Ferretti asked.
"That was a Christina Vedenshop at Area 51," the general announced gravely. Daniel leaned forward, remembering the nurse from his own visit there. "It appears that they are being held against their will by the men who work there. Specifically, only and all of the men."
Jack raised his eyebrows and exchanged a startled glance with Daniel. "You're talking a mass revolt?"
"Wait, all the...men?" Sam asked, confused. "As in, not the women?"
"That's what she said--with one exception," the general said. He shook his head. "There is a woman calling herself Queen Hathor who tried to break in two days ago and now seems to be leading the...takeover. The woman who called just now noted that Hathor has a distinctive, distorted voice."
"Sounds...like a classic Goa'uld?" Ferretti said, though his tone made it seem like a question.
"What the hell," Jack muttered.
"And the women, sir?" Sam asked. "What's their situation?"
"They have been imprisoned, for the most part, but a group of them at first tried to engage Hathor and were killed by their own men, who outnumber them quite a bit and appear to be guarding Hathor. Vedenshop says she was locked in the infirmary, where the initial attack took place, although more women have been thrown in with her over the past two days. She hid her mobile phone away in the infirmary while Hathor was establishing control over the rest of the facility, so it wasn't taken away when she was searched. Some of the guards left to check security when the phones rang repeatedly just now, and she decided to hide and try calling."
"She has a direct line to here, sir?" Jack asked skeptically.
"People within the facility do, yes, in emergencies," General Hammond said. "The researchers in certain parts of Area 51 were given this number in urgent situations."
"I don't know, sir," Jack said, still looking unconvinced. "This is a crazy story. And I mean crazy. And even if it's true, this woman just happens to be there when Hathor makes her first move?"
"It's possible," Daniel spoke up, with a nervous glance at the general. When no one stopped him, he continued, "The first thing they would have done when they found Hathor, especially if they suspected she was a Goa'uld, is to have her tested, like they did with me when I was there."
"Blood naquadah concentration, imaging of the Goa'uld symbiote," Sam suggested.
"Right, well," Daniel said, "Vedenshop is a nurse in the infirmary and helps run tests for the people researching Goa'uld technology. It makes sense that she would be there from the start and be the one to contact us."
"Still," Ferretti scoffed, "c'mon, Jackson, this is insane! All the men following Hathor's orders, all the women imprisoned...being Goa'uld doesn't give you magic powers." He paused. "I think. It doesn't, right?"
"But sufficiently advanced technology..." Sam said.
Apparently understanding her meaning, General Hammond nodded, then strode quickly to the airman standing outside the briefing room, ordering, "Find Teal'c and have him come here immediately."
Robert offered, "Well, it makes a kind of sense that Hathor affects men and women differently. She was the goddess of fertility, joy, inebriation, among other traits. She was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in history and was identified with various sex goddesses from cultures all around the world--Aphrodite, Venus, Ishtar..."
Ferretti shook his head and interrupted, "I don't care how shallow a man is, Doc, shit like this doesn't happen."
"Just like stepping into a wormhole to go halfway across the galaxy doesn't happen?" Daniel countered. No one told him to stay quiet, so he continued more boldly, "The stories say that Hathor could control men with her beauty and seduce them into doing literally anything for her. Like they were...uh, inebriated."
"And you think there's some device that can do that specifically to men?"
Sam suggested, "A chemical or biological agent. Like...what do you call it, pheromones, maybe something that enhances suggestibility, too." She considered, then shrugged and said, "I'm no expert, sir, but it could be possible. Dr. Frasier might have a better idea."
Teal'c came up the staircase. "General Hammond."
"Teal'c," the general said, "we have a situation at Area 51 with a Goa'uld named Hathor." He quickly explained what they knew, then asked, "Have you ever heard of anything like this?"
"The Jaffa who are able to observe the Goa'uld closely have long suspected that some of them have methods to ensure submission in their slaves," Teal'c replied. "There are Goa'uld compounds that can force humans to be entirely obedient."
"Then we have to assume that the nurse was telling the truth," the general said. "Do you have any idea of what Hathor might be planning?"
"If Hathor no longer has an army to command," Teal'c said, "she will attempt to create Jaffa warriors from those available to her."
"What, turning humans into Jaffa?" Jack asked, looking disgusted. "Can she do that?"
"She can indeed, with access to the proper devices."
"But they'd die without larval Goa'uld," Sam pointed out.
Teal'c tilted his head, considering, then said, "Jaffa legend states that the original Goa'uld larvae come from queen Goa'ulds."
Queen Hathor, Daniel thought. "And you think Hathor's one of them," he said. "She was a fertility goddess. Maybe she..." He felt his cheeks redden, but speaking about such things around women wasn't taboo on Earth--at least, not on base when it was pertinent to security. "...she can give birth to larval Goa'uld?"
Teal'c inclined his head, then turned to the general. "If I am correct, Area 51 will become her nest. From there, she will populate your world with new Goa'uld. I cannot permit this to happen. General Hammond, we cannot permit this to happen."
"General," Jack said, "I recommend again that we send a team to take care of Hathor."
"SG-2 can be ready on your word," Ferretti added.
"Agreed," the general said.
Daniel panicked and blurted, "No, no, wait, you can't, Jack! None of the men can; the same thing will happen to them, and they'll just end up as more slaves for Hathor."
"We don't have another choice, Daniel," Jack snapped, but Sam cut him off.
"Yes, sir, actually we do. If we send a team of women, we can get into the facility and neutralize Hathor without being compromised."
Jack looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "We're not gonna--"
"With all due respect, Colonel, if we're right, the men would literally be worse than useless. We have to do something, and we have to act fast." Sam turned determinedly. "General, permission to assemble combat-ready female personnel to retake Area 51?"
Teal'c added, "I will go as well. My symbiote will protect me from Hathor's methods."
"You're certain about that?"
He paused briefly. "Relatively certain."
Sam hesitated, then said, "It would be a big help, especially getting in and moving through the facility, since they won't expect any men to be unaffected. We can try to recruit some of the women there to help, as well, if we can find and free them. General?"
The general's gaze moved from her face to Jack's frustration and Ferretti's indignant resignation. He sighed, then reluctantly said, "Permission granted, Captain. Good luck."
XXXXX
2 February 1998; SGC, Earth, 1300 hrs
Daniel didn't think he'd ever had a less productive afternoon. Logically, it had probably only felt that way because he was waiting for news, but still.
He'd stayed in the room until after Sam's quickly assembled team had been briefed and had left for Peterson AFB with Teal'c, every available and willing woman on base, and even Janet among them. The doctor had insisted on going, since they knew of several deaths already, and no one could expect that they'd resolve this in all one piece. Besides, she'd pointed out, they had few enough women to work with. They'd need everyone they had, and Janet had done BCT at one point; she at least knew how to use Tau'ri weaponry, even if she rarely trained with them.
Once they were gone, agreeing to stay in contact by occasional phone checks, Daniel lingered a few more minutes but eventually went back to the archaeology office.
It was a rare day when he and Robert had nothing at all that they needed to work on, since the two of them together covered more cultures and more common languages than anyone else in the department, but he couldn't concentrate enough to make use of the downtime, even to look up his parents or Nicolas Ballard.
Eventually, Daniel gave up after double-checking the translation he'd completed for SG-2. "Robert, do you need me for anything?" he asked, picking up one of the Egyptology books he'd never read before. "Do you mind if I take this to read downstairs after I hand in this translation?"
Robert glanced up. "Which book...is that Budge? Sure, if you really want to. I'd be...uh, interested to see what you think of it."
After checking that the briefing room was empty, Daniel took a seat at the table to read, using the occasional distant sound of a phone ringing in the control room as a sign that Sam and the others were still okay.
Jack wandered in from the control room when the clock read 1600. "Waiting?" he said. Daniel shrugged, peeking upward at him. Jack looked even more frustrated than he had before. "Dammit," he muttered. "They're outnumbered over there."
Not really knowing how to answer that and knowing next to nothing about tactics, Daniel tried, "Sam's good at what she does. And Teal'c's with them, too, and he's been doing this for decades."
"That's not the point! They're going in practically blind, and--" Jack started angrily, then seemed to realize who he was talking to and stopped, exhaling and walking closer. "Whatcha reading?" he said gruffly. He lifted the book to see the cover, then put it back down. "'Egyptian Magic'? Learn anything new?"
Daniel flipped it closed in disgust. "Well, now I know why I've never read this before. My parents would never have brought such a biased, incomplete book with them to Abydos."
Jack huffed a short laugh and took a seat. "You were hoping to learn something about Hathor?"
"Yeah."
"So..." Jack said. "That article you found about the sarcophagus. You weren't looking for it, you said."
"We found definite evidence of another Goa'uld other than Ra who was on Earth and was also driven away by humans with the help of beings from P3X-866," he explained. "Robert thought we should look for unexplained archaeological findings to see if there were any others."
"Like your parents'?" Jack guessed. "They were mentioned in the Hathor article."
"I was looking up my father," Daniel said, then went on, a little defensively, "It was as good a starting point as any. The Stargate program wouldn't exist without his work--their work." Melburn Jackson and Claire Ballard, apparently.
"Ah."
After picking at the binding of Budge's book for a few moments, he asked abruptly, "Jack, do you know what my mother's first name was? I mean...her first...family name."
He looked up to see Jack taken aback by the question. "We call it 'maiden name,'" he answered finally. "And I think it was Ballard. The name on her file is Ballard-Jackson."
Daniel stood and pushed his chair back in a little harder than necessary. "I can't believe I didn't know that. She labeled all her journals as Claire. And Jackson. We didn't use two names on Abydos, and I never even thought to ask... I found out from Robert," he told Jack bitterly. "Apparently, she went by Ballard on Earth. Everyone from you to college archaeology students to Colonel Maybourne knows more about her than I do."
"Maybourne?" Jack repeated.
"He said something about how her father was an archaeologist. My grandfather, Jack! Robert even mentioned it. Some of the things Maybourne said...I could have looked them up any time, and..."
"Hey," Jack said sharply, "don't pay attention to Maybourne. And he and Rothman, and even me...don't think for a second we knew your parents better than you. A bunch of names and facts, which you can look up yourself now...that's it. You knew who they were better than anyone, and no one's gonna take that away from you. But they had another very different life here on Earth, and while you're here, you're bound to find some new things once in a while."
Daniel exhaled and nodded, but he couldn't help thinking that, whatever Maybourne's motives, facts were still facts. His grandfather had been--and maybe still was--an archaeologist whose name his mother had stopped using when she left the planet. His parents had brought an eclectic collection of books that had little probable relevance to the original Abydos mission. Even Budge's arrogant prattling would have made more sense to take to Abydos than some of the books he'd read growing up.
He looked back down at Egyptian Magic on the table. Well, perhaps not.
"There's nothing useful on Hathor in here," he said, reclaiming his seat with a sigh and pulling his attention back to the current issue. "She's only given a few pages, and it's implied that everything they believed about her power was nothing more than primitive superstition. Which, given the current situation..." He looked warily at Jack. "But...I still think we were right about the men not going."
Jack pushed out of his chair now, pacing with his hands jammed into his pockets. "I'm stuck here doing nothing while the rest of my team tries to mount a siege on one of the most well-protected facilities in the nation," he said tightly. "Not even a siege, since that makes it sound like we sent enough people to do any good from the outside."
Daniel winced but said, "I'm not sorry for telling the general not to let you go."
"Do you realize how--" Jack turned to glare at him, then suddenly cut himself off again and rubbed a hand over his face. "It was lucky we found out about it now and not after the queen hatches her eggs," he said neutrally instead. "Or however Goa'uld get born."
"Jack, you don't have to change the subject every time you mention what's happening there," Daniel said. "It's not like I don't know they're in danger."
"You did good today, kid," Jack said flatly, "but there are limits to what it's appropriate for me to talk about with you."
Daniel clenched his hands into fists under the table. "I can hear the control room telephone ringing from here, Jack, and I'm not stupid. I know as well as you that Sam's been calling with updates every quarter hour until she stopped"--he checked the clock--"almost seventy-five minutes ago."
He looked up, considering Daniel. "That why you're sitting here? So you can hear the control room?"
"They're my friends, too," he said in answer. "And I'd also like to know if this world is going to be overrun with newborn Goa'uld larvae."
Jack gave him a long look, then leaned against the wall. "When the last call came, they were about to arrive at Area 51," he finally offered. "Getting in--even getting near--might be tricky, so we're not expecting another call until they've neutralized Hathor. So now, we wait."
...x...
The call came at 1930. Anxiously awaiting news, no one paid attention to Daniel when he snuck into the control room to listen.
"...secure. Hathor was stopped as she attempted to escape with her Jaffa," Sam's voice came through. Daniel let out a relieved breath and felt the entire room relax.
"What's the condition of the personnel, Captain?" General Hammond asked.
"We're in the process of letting people out of their cells, sir. Most are fine. The men appear to be gradually returning to normal. We count twenty-six people in total who were killed in the days before we arrived. Four were killed and several more sustained minor injuries during our assault; everyone is now being treated by Dr. Frasier and other medical personnel here. The directors are working on what to tell those who didn't know about the Goa'uld before now, as well as people in other areas of the facility."
Twenty-six--no, thirty people dead. Daniel bit his lip.
"But Hathor is dead?" the general said.
"Yes, sir; unfortunately, we were unable to avoid killing the four men she'd turned into Jaffa. They had already been implanted with Goa'uld and were too strong, physically, for us to capture them without harming them. All were military personnel--I recognized one as Colonel Harold Maybourne, but I haven't gotten a chance to check who the others are yet."
Daniel was almost disappointed that that meant he would never find out exactly why Maybourne had been so interested in his homeworld. He quickly became relieved, because the point was now moot, and immediately felt guilty. It shouldn't have taken him so long to feel bad about the fact that another man was dead, no matter who he was.
"The good news," Sam went on, "is that Hathor's tank of larval Goa'uld was destroyed in the firefight, so nothing of her survived. But, General...Hathor tried to escape through the Stargate."
General Hammond frowned. "Then why wouldn't she have tried to come here, instead?"
"No, sir, not our Stargate. There's a 'gate here, in an underground room."
The control room froze as one. Daniel crept closer, wondering if he'd heard wrong.
"What?" Jack broke in. "That's... Carter, are you sure?"
"Yes, Colonel. We followed Hathor and her men down there and I saw it myself. There doesn't appear to be any dialing mechanism or DHD, which is likely the reason we were able to stop her before she could rig up some other mechanism and get out through it. A lot of people here seem as surprised as we were, so I haven't been able to determine yet how they found it or who knew about--" Sam stopped, and there was a brief scuffling noise, along with the sound of muffled voices.
"Captain Carter," the general called sharply. "Captain?"
"Sorry about that, sir," Sam's voice came back. "One of the researchers who studied it, Dr. Farley, is here and says she can explain, if that's all right, General."
"Is there anything else to report about the Hathor situation?" the general asked.
"No, sir, not at the moment. We're assisting with damage assessment and providing medical care where needed."
"Then put the doctor on."
There was another short pause, and then a different woman's more tentative voice came through the speaker. "Hello? Is this Stargate Command? Um, Captain Carter says you weren't aware of the existence of the Antarctica Stargate."
The general's eyebrows jumped up. "Antarctica?"
"It was found by a researcher at McMurdo Station in...1991, I believe. A man was separated during a storm and took shelter in a large chamber, which was where he found the ring. He recognized it for what it was, and, afterward, he contacted the National Intelligence Division."
"Who was this man?" General Hammond demanded. "How did he recognize it? How did he know to call the NID?"
"Um...I don't know how he recognized it. His name was Brent Langham. Maybe he was involved in the initial research on Stargates? I don't know--I was just assigned to study it after it was brought here."
"I don't remember that name from 1982," Jack said quietly. "Could've been an NID plant, sir, or one of their contacts."
The general nodded once. "Doctor, who was in charge of your research?"
"The same man who found the ring: Dr. Langham. He was reassigned here after the discovery to direct the project. No one but the people who worked on it directly even knew about it. But all work on the Stargate was shut down after he passed away almost five years ago, so we never got very far."
"And no one's done any work on it since then."
"Not that I know of; we were all reassigned to different projects. We assumed the SGC knew everything about this--we used the SGC's early research as a starting point for our own."
General Hammond pursed his lips, thinking. "Thank you, Doctor. That will be all. Put Captain Carter back on the line, please."
Satisfied that the planet wouldn't be taken over by a Goa'uld anytime soon, Daniel backed away and slipped out to bring Robert's book back to his office before someone noticed him standing there.
From the next chapter ("Decisions"):
Looking between them, Jack ran a hand through his hair and said, quieter but no less intense, "Look at what's happening here. We are training a fourteen-year-old boy to be...the perfect little worker for the SGC, and no one's even been noticing!"
"What are you talking about?" Daniel said, more cautiously.