Bridge Between Worlds

by Tilt

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ast/tilt/bridge.php
Summary: Jack struggles to make amends with Daniel after 'Shades of Gray' while the team is on a first-contact mission to a highly advanced culture who could become extremely valuable allies.

Doctor Daniel Jackson sighed as he looked through his car's windshield at the stately house, the neatly trimmed hedges, the several varieties of rose bushes in full glorious bloom that lined the driveway. Catherine loved her roses; one of the perks of being retired, she'd joked once. Daniel was glad. After a lifetime alone of teaching and the frustrations of fighting for the Stargate, Catherine deserved any happiness she could get.

Maybe it was time to take some of the grandmotherly advice she had so often impressed upon him.

The maid answered the door only a moment after his knock. She showed him into the smaller kitchen parlor and went to go inform Catherine of his arrival. Catherine's house could have been a museum -- a lifetime of archaeology had filled her home with artifacts large and small. Many were quite valuable, but most were smaller pieces of more personal sentiment and greater worth as exemplars of the cultures that had produced them. Archaeologists were all packrats at heart, he supposed. As a child he'd had a treasured box full of "artifacts" just like any child; but he supposed not every child had burial goods from the tomb of a minor pharaoh, nor could every child recite the full history, function and cultural significance of the scarabs and the tiny crude carvings of cats, baboons, jackals and crocodiles.

"Daniel," Catherine said as she came into the room, holding out her hands as he turned and took the few steps into her welcoming hug.

"Catherine," Daniel said softly as he gently returned the hug. She was so tiny he was always afraid he'd hurt her if he hugged too hard. But there was nothing weak or frail in her spirit, and he suspected never would be. As she gently pushed him away to look up at him he tried to smile when he saw the amulet of the Eye of Ra on its beaded cord around her neck. A legacy of happier days, that amulet. He'd asked Jack to return it Catherine as they stood before the Stargate in the pyramid of Abydos. Shau'ri had been at his side, and Jack's eyes no longer held the coldness of his deathwish. "Where's Ernest?"

"The golf course," Catherine said, smiling. "Whatever else has changed in the world, he can still chase a little white ball around an empty field."

Daniel laughed a little at that. He'd never understood golf either.

"You look like hell," Catherine said with her usual forthrightness. "Given the stories I've heard lately I shouldn't be surprised."

Still holding her hands, Daniel shrugged slightly. "I'm just ... tired, Catherine."

"Tired my ass. You're exhausted, in more ways than one."

Daniel found himself smiling a little. He didn't have the energy to lie to himself anymore, much less to her. He'd never get away with it anyway. "I'm thinking of leaving the project. They hired me to translate the coverstones and figure out how the Stargate worked, and Shau'ri is gone. I've no real reason to stay anymore."

Catherine looked up at him consideringly, worry in her eyes. "Where would you go? Archaeologists have long memories, I doubt you could get a place at a university."

"I don't know," Daniel said. "I hope I can sign up for a dig somewhere. Maybe if I go somewhere other than the Middle East I could sneak in through the back door before anyone noticed. Peru, maybe?"

"It's Jack, isn't it? That undercover mission he just did. General Hammond said it was rough on you and Samantha and Teal'c." Catherine peered up at the averted eyes.

"It had to be done," Daniel said flatly, still looking down at her hands holding his. "Jack followed his orders and he did what he's trained to do. He infiltrated those rogue SG teams and brought them back to face court-martial and criminal charges. The Asgard and the Tollan and the Nox would have broken ties with us if he hadn't done it, Catherine. We need the Asgard. We have no other space-based defenses."

"That's Hammond and the Joint Chiefs talking," Catherine said. "You're mad as hell."

Daniel shrugged again. "I'm tired of everything being about weapons, Catherine. They don't want archaeologists or anthropologists or even linguists. They want translators. My own personal stake in the fight is gone now. I think it's time I moved on."

Catherine began to lead him toward the French doors leading to the gardens. "I may have an idea. I have someone I want you to meet."

***

"Henry, this is Doctor Daniel Jackson," Catherine said as she led Daniel by the hand out onto the marble-floored patio.

As they approached a figure sitting on the stone balustrade surrounding the patio turned and rose stiffly to his feet. Eyes as piercingly blue as Daniel's own met his gaze. White-haired, scruffy with a few days' worth of equally white stubble, the old man's gaunt face split into a lopsided grin as Catherine came forward. His clothes were somewhat rumpled -- old brown corduroys, a cream-colored button-down shirt and a dark gray overcoat. Leaning against the balustrade was an ebonywood cane, and above it on the balustrade a battered fedora hat.

"Henry Jones," he said as Daniel approached. He held out a hand and Daniel shook it. Jones peered at him for a long moment, nodded as if agreeing with himself on something. "You're Nick Ballard's daughter's boy?"

Daniel blinked. "Yes. How did you guess?"

Jones chuckled. "You look just like him. He was one of my grad students, way back when dinosaurs walked the earth."

"Henry," Catherine said with a laugh. "Behave yourself."

Jones shook his head, still grinning. "Catherine says you're an archaeologist. What's your specialty?"

"I have several, actually," Daniel said as he sat down on one of the stone benches that ringed the patio. Catherine sat down beside him and he glanced at her and smiled. "In archaeology, the Middle East specifically and western Europe in general. In linguistics, pretty much everything from the Ganges west until you hit the Atlantic."

Jones just stared at him for a long moment. "Sanskrit?"

"Of course. And Farsi, Pashto, Urdu --"

Jones held up a hand. "I get the picture. Greek and Latin?"

"Of course."

"What about Tibetan and Nepalese?"

"Not really, except for what's derived from Sanskrit or Pali. I don't speak Pali, by the way, but I can read it fairly well." Daniel shrugged while Catherine grinned smugly at Jones' astonished expression. "Why?"

Jones sat down again on the stone balustrade and picked up the battered old hat, turned it in his hands for a moment before answering. "I'm looking for someone for an ... expedition, I guess you'd call it. In the Himalayas."

***

Daniel sat stunned in Catherine's parlor while she saw Dr. Jones to his daughter's car. The afternoon was growing late, the sunlight taking on that angular amber color. He drank absently from the tall glass of iced tea Catherine had given him, grateful for the liquid coolness.

"The sword of Alexander the Great," he said quietly as he heard Catherine's footsteps behind him on the hardwood floor.

"The magical sword of Alexander the Great," Catherine corrected him fondly as she came and sat down beside him on the sofa. "Henry never does anything halfway. If it's not magical or cursed he doesn't bother to go after it." She gave him a conspiratorial grin. "There's no money in plain old ancient junk."

Daniel snorted a soft laugh and shook his head, his eyes focused on a tiny perfume amphorae on the small marble-top table across the room. "It's people like that that give archaeology a bad name."

"It's people like that who gave you the Stargate, dearheart."

Daniel turned to her again. "Your father wasn't a graverobber, Catherine."

Catherine smiled. "Neither is Henry. Or at least, he outgrew that kind of thing. Around about when he was Jack's age, I think." The smile fell from her face then. "It's when he started to believe in something more than just a paycheck."

"Probably just started realizing he was getting too old to bring back the high-stakes finds," Daniel said.

Catherine looked at him for a long moment, her face suddenly solemn. "No. He realized that money and glory mean nothing when you're facing death; and that miracles can happen even when you think you don't believe."

Daniel let it drop. "Well... at least he didn't immediately think I'm squirrelly just because I'm Nick's grandson. Or ask about that damned crystal skull."

"He didn't have to. He's gone round and round with Nick about that thing ever since Nick found it," Catherine said, smiling. She patted his hand where he'd let it fall onto his knee. "But what do you think? Can you find that sword he's looking for?"

Daniel turned his hand in hers and squeezed her fingers gently. "I'll have to do quite a bit of research -- I've only been to India once, a side trip after a dig when I was in college, and then only for a week. Brush up on my Sanskrit and Greek. Find all the source materials." He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. "It's everything I've been missing, Catherine. If I could I'd leave tomorrow."

"If you could?"

Daniel nodded. "We're going off-world this week. And I'll have to find someone to take my place on the team before I leave anyway."

Catherine didn't speak for a moment, then squeezed his fingers in hers. "Daniel -- don't make any decisions yet. Think about it. Find someone to take your place; I'd expect that might take a while given the need for security checks and such. Give it some time for things to get back to normal with Jack. If you still feel the need to leave once you've found someone to replace you, then go."

Daniel sighed wearily. "Catherine, I don't want to stay with an outfit that thinks nothing of manipulating and deceiving its operatives. That's not the kind of place I want to be."

Catherine just looked at him with somber eyes for a long moment. "Just give it some time. That's all I'm asking."

Daniel didn't really want to agree. But he nodded anyway.

***

"Boo!"

Sam yelped and automatically whirled toward the voice behind her, giggling already as she turned in Daniel's arms and lightly slapped his shoulder. "You startled me, you bastard."

Daniel's brilliant blue eyes echoed his laughter as he kissed her cheek. "I'm glad to see you too, Sam. Have fun this weekend?"

"Five hundred miles and not a squeak of trouble out of the bike," Sam said before hugging him back. She wrapped the leads of a handheld sensor unit into a neat coil and tucked it into the unit's hard plastic casing. "Worth all the trouble."

"I think you're getting the hang of having a hobby that doesn't involve ripping atoms apart. I'm so proud," Daniel said with a smirk. He helped her lift one of the metal cases of empty sample vials up onto her lab workbench, ready to be loaded onto the FRED for another team later that day.

"Your turn now, I've done my bit."

"I have a hobby, wench. Singing lurid folk songs in obscure dialects."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then simultaneously burst out laughing, giggling as they fell into each other's arms again, holding each other up.

"Come on," Sam said finally when they could breathe again without setting each other off into further bouts of giggles. She moved out of his arms reluctantly and pulled him toward the door of her lab. "Help me get the MALP ready. We've got less than an hour."

"Your wish, as ever, oh light of my life," Daniel said, still grinning and following her out. Sam rolled her eyes and shook her head as she pushed open the door of her lab.

As they left, they didn't see Jack standing just at the bend in the corridor outside Sam's lab. He watched them go in silence, smiling wistfully at their antics. Then he pushed himself away from the wall and followed them.

***

The first thing one saw when the elevator doors opened on Level 25 was a poster hung on the wall opposite. "WATCH OUT FOR ROBOTS" was lettered in bold red over a comic picture of a lanky soldier in SGC green fatigues losing his balance and flailing helplessly on the point of falling down as four spherical flying robots whizzed around his head and a pair of small rover bots ran over his toes. The warning was best heeded. SGR -- Stargate Robotics -- tended to allow their creations free range of the entire SGC during the testing phases of their development.

They came to a set of double doors, beside which was another poster in the same style. "MeRV and the Fruit Loops" was lettered over a drawing of one of the small rover type robots on a grassy hillock, the four spherical flying robots in different bright colors circling above it. As Sam pushed open one of the doors something beeping raced out of the door at their feet and into the hallway, swerving before it hit the wall and careening down the corridor like a demented silver rat.

The Stargate Robotics unit had been formed eighteen months before when funding had been approved for research and development of a more extensive robotic recconnaisance program. The unit was under the de-facto command of Sergeant Randall Kroeger, one of the original MALP technicians who had joined Stargate Command soon after the project was reactivated following the appearance of Apophis and the return mission to Abydos. The other two members of SGR were civilian experts -- Anthony Wearandt was a computer systems expert specializing in artificial intelligence applications; Matilda Weaver was a genius in robotics design. At present their greatest creations were the Mobile Recconnaisance Vehicle "mothership" rover and the four flying sensor robots that communicated with it. Dubbed the "Fruit Loops" for their distinctive colors -- Cherry, Grape, Lemon and Lime for red, purple, yellow and green -- they were intended to replace both the MALP and the UAV for preliminary recconnaisance. They took advantage of an unusual natural property of naquadah; running an electrical current through a thin foil of pure naquadah caused that foil to float, and to raise and lower in altitude with the fluctuations in voltage. Mass seemed to have no effect on the phenomenon. SGR had once driven a fully loaded FRED onto a sheet of naquadah foil and kept it hovering three feet off the floor for more than half an hour. With the addition of tiny ducted fans to maintain balance, the four sensor robots could fly quite steadily and very quickly to altitudes up to twenty thousand feet.

Beyond the double doors was a large open room dominated by a huge table on one side and an obstacle course laid out on the floor on the other. Racks of bins full of parts and tools dominated the long wall on the other side of the table and cables and hoses hung from the ceiling waiting ready to be connected at need. The table itself was full of half-completed forms, parts and tools. Flat-screen monitors hung on extendable arms over the table, most displaying screensavers at the moment. Other rooms opened off the main one; through one of them they saw the wheeled forms of the half-dozen MALP probes waiting ready to be loaded onto the freight elevator. Voices came from down a short corridor to another room.

"Major Carter, Dr. Jackson" Matilda Weaver called a moment before she came down the corridor. "The MALP's ready to go."

"How'd you know it was us?" Daniel asked as the short, slightly pudgy woman waved them after her toward the MALP room.

"Because Randy's had Lime hovering over the door for the last ten minutes, waiting for someone to open it. It slipped out when you came in. One thing the little guys can't do is open doors." As she spoke she went to a wall rack of computers beside the door and typed in a quick stream of commands. The third MALP in line came to life with a hum of power and the clatter of the maintenance umbilical cable falling from its connection point as the robot released it. Sam took the remote controller from the rack beside the computers and began directing the MALP toward the short corridor leading from the room to the freight elevator. Daniel coiled the maintenance cable and put it aside as the rover trundled slowly out of line.

"Any idea when you'll be ready for off-world tests?" Sam asked Matilda as they followed the MALP.

"We could begin human-controlled tests in the next couple of weeks, using only the MRV and one of the sensor pods," Matilda answered. "That's with Randy on-site controlling through the MRV. We have three trials planned for each pod by itself, then two at a time with various combinations, then all four. By that time, Tony should have the AI programming ready for a live free-range uncontrolled test." Matilda shook her head and shrugged. "If all goes well, a year. But hopefully the tests will be successful enough to return useful data." She chuckled with a grin. "I'm getting tired of the budget committees telling us we're wasting money on toys and games."

"If they only knew," Sam said as she followed the MALP into the elevator. "Coming with, Danny?"

"No, go on up, Sam. I'll go on up to the control room," Daniel answered as the doors closed. "They really think you're wasting money down here?" he asked Matilda as they left the MALP room.

"We've spent all this money with only one thing to show for it so far, Dr. Jackson -- the mapper bot. And they weren't impressed."

"But that thing is brilliant. I could have used it a hundred times in the last few years, not to mention the civilian applications --" Daniel stopped as he saw who was in the room with Sergeant Kroeger. "Jack."

"Daniel."

Their eyes met briefly before Jack looked back to the computer monitors. Sergeant Kroeger was wearing virtual reality goggles and a glove controller on one hand with a wireless joystick controller in the other. Two of the half-dozen monitors were showing the view being transmitted through the virtual reality goggles -- Daniel recognized one of the corridors several levels above, seen from somewhere near the ceiling. People were walking by beneath, oblivious to the tiny spherical robot hovering silently above them. The view suddenly lurched and blurred as Sergeant Kroeger directed it out of its hiding place. Daniel got a glimpse of the elevator doors at the end of the corridor before the view shuddered and blurred again, and suddenly the monitors were showing a view he was quite familiar with -- Teal'c's dark face, eyebrow raised inquisitively.

Jack burst out laughing. "Danny, look, T caught --"

The weary look in Daniel's eyes stopped Jack's laughter cold. Daniel saw the sudden concern, the worry so plain in the brown eyes. But he didn't want that worry, he didn't need that concern, when he knew how easily Jack could manufacture any emotion that would serve his purposes. He dropped his gaze from Jack's, turned away and left without a word.

***

Sam nodded up at the MALP operator in the control room and turned off the remote control, then crossed to the armored door leading into the corridor. A few seconds later she was standing beside Teal'c where he stood behind the MALP operations monitors. The big Jaffa was peering down curiously at the green spherical sensor robot in his hands.

"A most ingenious device," he said quietly.

"It is, Teal'c. If all goes well, one day soon it's going to replace the MALP and the UAVs." She grinned a little at the Jaffa's muted curiosity. "And if we give Dr. Weaver half a chance, in twenty years we won't even need SG teams at all."

"A combat force composed entirely of mechanical entities would pose little threat to the Goa'uld," Teal'c said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Sam said, grinning up at Teal'c when he tilted his head slightly to see her expression. "They don't feel pain, they don't need to eat or drink, they don't get sick, they can't be taken as hosts, they don't feel fear, they never give up..."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding.

"Hey guys," Daniel said as he joined them. The Stargate began spinning and the first chevron locked. "What d'you think it'll be this time?"

"Trees," Jack said quietly behind them as he climbed the stairs into the control room. "It's always trees, Danny."

Daniel didn't answer, but he didn't have to as the wormhole whooshed into the gate room and retreated again to the shimmering silvery-blue pool of radiance bounded by the great metal ring. In a moment the MALP was industriously climbing the ramp.

"MALP away," Norman said as the rear end of the robot probe disappeared through the event horizon. "Reaching destination in eight seconds."

They watched the countdown as the MALP traveled the thousands of lightyears to its destination, and then the confirmation as it arrived. Another few seconds and transmissions began arriving as the MALP surveyed its surroundings.

The Stargate at the MALP's destination was inside a structure. Smooth walls, a round room, a very high ceiling. Directly in front of the MALP was a huge open archway leading out into further open spaces. As it turned its camera arm they saw an identical archway to the right, dark and empty. They didn't see a DHD immediately, but as the MALP turned its cameras behind itself they saw a familiar triple-circle pattern on the wall which was a safe distance behind the Stargate.

"Could that be the DHD?" Daniel asked. "Can you zoom in on it?"

The MALP operator was already doing so, and the picture blurred and then cleared again. The symbols were clearly visible, inset flush with the surface of the wall. Daniel asked for a screen capture of it and moved to an empty terminal to study it.

There were no decorations save for the DHD symbols inset in the rear wall, and no other doors. The MALP was moved to the darkened archway and directed to shine its lights through, illuminating a wide curving staircase made of the same smooth substance as the walls. The substance looked like sandstone, or perhaps some kind of concrete or poured building material that resembled sandstone, a warm honey-tan that didn't vary in color. The high ceiling held only a bright opaque white circular area directly above the Stargate which provided a diffused and quite bright light. The Stargate itself seemed to be suspended on pilings several centimeters off the floor; it seemed intact and in very good condition.

"Sam, is this one of the planets that isn't on the Abydos chart?" Daniel called as they watched the MALP move toward the other open archway.

"Why? What did you find?" Sam asked as she moved to look over his shoulder. Jack silently moved to join her at Daniel's shoulder.

Daniel was studying the image of the DHD symbols. He traced around the triple circle with one finger. "For one thing, every DHD I've ever seen has had the horns of Isis around the edges. For another, there's no central crystal. This central circle is red, yeah, but it could be painted on. It's flat and looks flush with the wall."

"Looks like glass," Sam said. "It's reflecting the light. It could be crystal. It could be a DHD, just not built like any we've ever seen. Let me check and see where this address came from."

Daniel sat lost in thought as he studied the image, chin in hand and elbow propped on the desk.

"O'Neill," Teal'c said suddenly.

Exclamations of surprise began to circulate around the control room as the MALP left the immediate area of the Stargate through the open archway. What they saw through the robot's cameras was more than enough to inspire such surprise.

Jack hurried to join Teal'c at the monitor. A second later Daniel too was peering nearly speechless at the scene unfolding.

The architecture was vast in scale. The MALP was now rolling across an open balcony that looked to be hundreds of meters long and at least a hundred wide. To the right the balcony simply ended with open air -- no railings, no walls to prevent falls, just empty air. The ceiling over the balcony was even higher here, at least a hundred feet high. The MALP operator directed the robot toward the open edge of the balcony, stopping some twenty feet from the edge. They got one glimpse of gleaming metal forms far below, moving with a human-like grace, walking across the even vaster spaces beyond the balcony. The MALP's camera got a split-second view of a matching balcony across the width of the unknown structure, and more of the giant gleaming metallic humanoid forms made small by the distance.

Abruptly the wormhole vanished in a burst of dissipating energies, cutting off the tantalizing pictures.

"The wormhole was disconnected from the other end, sir," Norman said.

"Close the iris, just in case," Jack said quickly, nodding as the titanium shield cycled into place.

"Major Carter, Doctor Jackson, we'll need preliminary analysis," General Hammond said. "Colonel, given what we've seen here I think it would be wise to get Doctor Weaver's assessment as well. SG-1, I'll expect your analysis for mission briefing at 1300."

"Yes sir," Jack answered. "Come on, kids, looks like we've got a live one. Four hours 'til showtime. Carter, get that video on the mainframe, I'm heading back down to Robotics."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said as Jack turned for the stairs. The Jaffa held up the spherical sensor robot. "I believe this belongs to Sergeant Kroeger."

Jack grinned and took the bot. "You betcha."

Daniel sighed as Jack disappeared clattering down the stairs.

"Oh, and Daniel?" Sam called as she sent the videos to the mainframe.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"This planet -- it's not on the Abydos chart. Whoever these people are, they're not connected to the Goa'uld."

***

"Based on measurements of shadow length of a known quantity -- the Stargate itself -- the room containing the Stargate is twenty-one meters in height and in diameter." Sam hit the button on the remote to switch to the next picture, the computer results of the MALP's sensor readings. "Ambient temperature, seventy degrees Fahrenheit; Gas spectrograph readings indicate high oxygen to carbon dioxide levels and some negligible variations on nitrogen and other gases as compared to Earth-normal. The light source might possibly be artificial, the material filtering the light might be biasing the spectrum analysis. Sonar readings on the walls indicate they are solid, uniform in composition and density, and made of a substance comparable to volcanic rock. The Stargate seems to be in a stable mounting constructed of the same material as the walls. It is not on a dais or raised structure, but due to the 'Gate being mounted slightly above the floor we should expect that first step will be a bit of a jolt."

Sam switched to the next picture, a screen capture taken from the last few seconds of the MALP's transmission. "The structure seems to be some sort of multi-storied rectangular hall with at least one open mezzanine on the long sides of the structure. Based on what we already know, the other mezzanine is a little bit more than half a mile away. The lower floor past the mezzanine is approximately one hundred meters below. There could be further levels above, but the MALP didn't observe any. Then there's the machines." Sam stopped and nodded to the roboticist. "Dr. Weaver?"

For a moment Dr. Weaver was silent, looking down at her clasped hands on the table before getting to her feet. She took the remote control Sam handed her. A split-screen image appeared, an enhanced and magnified image of one of the humanoid machines on the left and a line drawing obviously taken from the image to the right. "First off, let me warn you that these things may not be entirely machines. For one thing, they're too big to go through the Stargate standing upright -- estimates are a little bit over forty feet tall and depending on the materials and metals used they could be anywhere from twenty to thirty tons. These things couldn't really fit into the room where the Stargate sits, and the stairway through the dark archway is much too small. So my best guess is that these machines are some sort of vehicle or possibly armor."

"Armor?" Jack said. "As in the 'knights in shining' type or --"

"Both, Colonel. Armor as in 'knights in shining' and armor as in the sort we all watched running across the deserts of Iraq on CNN ten years ago. And I think I've seen evidence of weapons as well." Dr. Weaver switched to another magnified portion of a screen capture, blurry and indistinct. "This is a very magnified view of the arm of one of these machines. See this dark area here? This darkest spot here is round, and these slightly lighter streaks leading from it could be carbonized -- I'm sure you've seen just such markings on the weapons of fighter aircraft that have been in combat. Those markings could be from weapons fire."

"The entire architecture seems scaled up to accommodate these machines," Daniel said as Dr. Weaver handed him the remote and sat down again.

"Except for the room where the Stargate is," Sam said. "As Dr. Weaver said, the staircase through that dark archway is of smaller scale as well. I agree with Dr. Weaver. There must be a human or at least humanoid presence there, or at least something smaller than those machines."

"I agree," Daniel said. He used the remote to switch to a view of the odd DHD markings on the wall behind the Stargate. "This could very well be a perfectly functional DHD, just in a form we've never seen before. This planet is one of the most distant we've ever seen -- most of the symbols correspond to those on other very far planets we've been to. There are also two unknown symbols. I'm assuming one of them is the origination symbol for this planet. The differences are that this version does not have the horns of Isis that we've seen around all other DHDs we've encountered, nor does it have a central dome-shaped activation crystal. The center circle is solid red and reflects the light as if it is glass or possibly crystal. It could be the activation crystal. Or the entire DHD could be simply a decoration, a reproduction of the DHD that once accompanied this Stargate. But if you'll notice, in support of Dr. Weaver and Major Carter's theory about a human presence, the center of this DHD is approximately five feet from the floor -- a good height that an average sized human could easily reach all the symbols."

"So it could indeed be a functioning DHD?" General Hammond asked.

"It's possible, sir," Daniel agreed. "I'm not prepared to say for certain."

After a moment of silence, General Hammond turned to Teal'c. "Teal'c, do the Goa'uld make much use of robots?"

"No," Teal'c answered. "Slaves are preferred. Such mechanical contrivances are disdained."

"That's probably because any culture that's advanced enough to produce robots or artificial intelligence would be too tough of a nut to crack for them," Dr. Weaver said. "Seems like they go after the easy targets -- pre-technological worlds. They might have the firepower to go after more advanced cultures, but they'd be cut up so bad that they don't want to risk it."

"Dr. Weaver is correct," Teal'c said. "The Goa'uld often rely upon fear and intimidation as a less costly means of control. A culture possessing scientific means of investigation could learn of ways to counteract their technologies, such as you have done here at Stargate Command."

"These people may not have ever encountered the Goa'uld," Daniel said. "This planet is not on the Abydos chart."

"Sir, don't the Tok'ra owe us a favor or two?" Jack asked as Daniel fell silent again.

"How so, Colonel?"

Jack shrugged a little. "Carter could figure out how far this planet is from some other planet we've been to, the closest one that we know for certain has a working Stargate. We could borrow a tel'tak and a pilot, have'em sit somewhere out of range and come in to pick us up if this DHD doesn't work. We run for the nearest Stargate and come home. If we can't make nice with the natives, the Tok'ra could give it a try."

"Given the potential benefits, I agree with you," Hammond said. He nodded decisively. "I'll make a formal request and explain the situation. Major Carter, if you'll do those calculations for the nearest safe Stargate, we'll send it through. Report back here at 1600 hours. We may have to delay your departure until tomorrow. Thank you for your assessments, SG-1, Dr. Weaver. Dismissed."

***

"Well, here we go again," Sam said as she and Daniel walked down the corridor together toward the elevators.

"Here we go again what?" Daniel asked.

"We have no idea if that DHD thing on the wall works. We may not be able to get home. We're actually thinking about 'Gating into a place with giant, possibly hostile robots and a culture obviously far in advance of our own. Doesn't that seem just slightly suicidal?"

"They don't have to be bad guys, Sam. And we have another way home," Daniel said as he punched the elevator call button.

"Which may not work and end up getting a tel'tak and a Tok'ra killed, not to mention ourselves. If they've got robots like that they'll undoubtedly have ships," Sam answered. "Big gigantic ships with very large and powerful guns."

"I think you've been around Jack too much," Daniel said.

"You've been around me much longer, Danny," Jack said at his shoulder.

Daniel yelped and jumped at the quiet words, whirling away to put some distance between them. "Damn it, Jack! Do you have to sneak up on people like that?"

Jack blinked, pretending to think. Then he smirked slightly. "No."

Daniel glared at him. After a moment he looked away and the slight smile faded from Jack's face. He followed the archaeologist and his second in command into the elevator.

"It'll be fun, kids," he said in the silence as the elevator started downward. "Adventure, excitement, giant robots. Big puzzle for you, Danny. If they're not on the Abydos chart they might not be from Earth, right? You get to figure out something entirely new."

"I doubt it, Jack," Daniel answered flatly. "You'll only want me to learn enough of their language to tell them we want their weapons and naquadah and make indirect threats about the Goa'uld. That's all we really want from people these days, isn't it?" He shook his head as the elevator doors opened on his floor.

"Danny --"

"Say hi to your dad for me, Sam," Daniel said as he slipped out the door. "I'll see you at the next briefing."

The heavy elevator door slid shut and Jack pounded the wall with one fist. "Damn it! What's it gonna take, kowtowing and yelling 'I'm not worthy'?"

"Might be a good place to start, sir," Sam said. Jack turned to glare at her as the elevator doors opened again on her floor. She shrugged slightly and left him staring after her, trying to figure out if she was serious.

"I'm trying!" Jack yelled after her as the doors closed again.

***

Daniel picked up the book and turned to tuck it into its place in his cluttered shelves. "Any book, any time, Teal'c. There's nothing here that you couldn't understand or shouldn't read."

"The philosophical writings of the Tau'ri are of most interest to me, Daniel. There seem to be many similarities between the practices of the ancient Greeks and those of my homeworld," Teal'c said quietly.

"There are, Teal'c, and a great deal of ancient Egyptian as well due to the influence of Apophis. Now, what would you like to try this time?"

"I am most interested in the Oracle of Delphi." Teal'c stopped and turned toward the door a moment before Sam appeared at the door.

"Hey, guys. Quitting time," Sam said cheerfully.

"I'm staying, Sam, I've got some things I have to catch up on," Daniel said, peering up at the shelves. "Oracle of Delphi. You've read almost everything I have so far as books are concerned, Teal'c. So we'll start on the journals and magazines. Would you like some more general information on oracles and oracular practices? Most ancient Tau'ri cultures had some form of oracle. It might give you some perspective as to how the Oracle of Delphi fit into the scheme of things."

"Yes, Daniel, it would be most appreciated."

Daniel smiled, pulled two books from the shelves and handed them to Teal'c, then went to his computer. "Let me run these searches and we'll see if we can get some reprints. What did your dad say about this next mission, Sam?"

Sam was holding the small framed picture of Shau'ri that Daniel kept on his desk. She smiled sadly at the picture and put it back, well out of the way of the scattering of papers, books, pens and computer keyboard. "Dad said he couldn't say yes or no til he'd had a chance to speak to the rest of the Council. Sel'mac said yes. I'd call it a hung jury."

"I'd call it yes," Daniel said, sitting down at his computer again.

"Symbiotic relationship, Danny. It means Sel'mac listens to Dad," Sam admonished.

"It also means she gets to nag him all night until he agrees with her," Daniel answered. "There's another word for 'symbiotic relationship', Sam. It's called marriage."

"Ha ha. Is he right, Teal'c?"

The amusement in the Jaffa's dark eyes was plain to his two younger teammates. "DanielJackson is correct. Although at times I would characterize it as a parasitic rather than symbiotic relationship." Teal'c shrugged slightly. "But this is merely a personal observation."

"Don't worry, Teal'c, there's probably thousands of years of anecdotal data to back that hypothesis up," Daniel said as he keyed in a search request on the website of a religions and philosophy academic journal. "Guys, since you're both here..."

Sam and Teal'c both looked at him as he stopped and chewed on his lip for a moment nervously.

"Guys, I -- As soon as I can find someone to replace me, I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Sam asked, stunned.

"Yeah." Daniel looked away. Sam realized he was looking at the picture of Shau'ri. "Catherine hired me to decode the cover stones and figure out how the Stargate worked, Sam. Then we had to find Shau'ri and now she's gone. Because of the nature of the fight against the Goa'uld and the constant battles with Kinsey and the budget committees, we have neither the time nor the resources nor the interest in archaeological or anthropological research on any kind of meaningful scale. I'm not just a translator, Sam. And I'm not a soldier. I want to do the job I love, the job that I've been training for literally my entire life. Sure, I know all these languages but between them my staff covers them all. They can train others. I'll find someone who can take my place on SG-1. I won't leave you guys hanging, but -- I want out."

Sam stared at him in astonishment. "But where would you go?" she asked. "I mean, when Catherine found you everyone thought you were a kook."

"I've had an offer. I haven't said yes yet because I knew it would take time to find someone to replace me. But I'm going to." Daniel stood up and pulled her into his arms. "I'll miss you, Sammy." He freed one arm from around her and held it out to Teal'c. "I'll miss you too, Teal'c. You'll take care of Sam for me, won't you?"

"Of course," Teal'c answered gravely, clasping hands with Daniel. "It is unfortunate that your life's path must now turn away from us, Daniel."

"It is, Teal'c." Daniel sighed and gave Sam one more squeeze before letting her go. "It won't be for several weeks yet, maybe several months. So let's just get on with our work, okay? I promise you I won't leave without saying goodbye."

The sad look was back in Sam's eyes, but at his words she nodded quickly, squared her shoulders. "You're right. I'm for home. Dad said he'd get back to us in the morning. We've got a tentative go at 0900 tomorrow."

"I'll be there with bells on," Daniel said, grinning.

Sam couldn't help laughing at that. "And bows?"

"Sammy, for you I'd even wear pointy shoes."

That got Sam giggling. She wiggled her fingers in farewell as she left, laughing too hard to speak.

***

"We don't have anything close enough to get to this planet in only 48 hours," Jacob Carter said the next morning. "But we do have a tel'tak that could make it in 70. The problem is, that tel'tak and its pilot are involved in an operation at the moment. We hope he'll be sending us confirmation that he's made it out successfully within the next day. We could leave instructions for him to divert to pick you up. If we don't hear from him, we have an al'kesh that we could send from the homeworld. But that would take at least 96 hours." He looked around at the members of SG-1, then back to the computer screen showing the MALP video. "I agree with Sam, if these people are this advanced they will certainly have spacecraft. They may be able to detect a cloaked ship. The tel'tak or al'kesh could be chased or fired upon. If these people are humanoid we may have a very difficult time finding you. We don't know this planet. Given that, Jack, I think your pick-up point should be at the Stargate itself. It'll be the most easily detectable object for our sensors."

"Unless the planet's full of naquadah," Jack said.

"In which case, Sel'mac and I will dance a happy jig because it means we get a vacation on a tropical island on a planet with no name. Want to come along?" Jacob grinned at their laughter. Then he sobered as he took up the starchart of the relevant sector and read the galactic coordinates again. "It's very far out. We have almost no information about that sector. There's a minor Goa'uld who once claimed this area, Fea, but we've heard nothing of her for several decades. What we did know indicated she wasn't very powerful."

"I knew they had to have their underachievers stashed away somewhere," Jack said with a smirk. "Ninety-six hours? That should be enough time to get us into trouble."

Teal'c turned to look at him silently, raising an eyebrow in eloquent inquiry. Sam rolled her eyes and looked across the briefing table to Daniel, who was writing something in Arabic on his notepad.

General Hammond looked at each member of SG-1, briefly and silently noting the subtle and not so subtle communications going on between the four of them. O'Neill was far too quiet -- the sarcasm was the same but seemed forced. Still in the doghouse, dealing with the hurt feelings and misunderstandings generated by the necessities of his undercover mission some two weeks before. Teal'c and Major Carter were being civil toward him, even friendly, beyond the strictures of commander and subordinates. Doctor Jackson, however, seemed determined to ignore him whenever possible, equally determined to continue with the destruction of their friendship that O'Neill had been forced to initiate during the sting operation. Hammond would never have believed Daniel Jackson could be capable of such coldness, even more so as it was directed at Jack O'Neill.

The classic immovable object and irresistable force.

Well, it would just take time.

"All right. Jacob, we'll take you up on that offer of the al'kesh. I wouldn't want to jeopardize any of your operatives or the information they could bring you, and an al'kesh would be better in a fight should it come to that. It also gives us 96 hours for a first contact. Colonel O'Neill, plan on that chamber where the Stargate is placed as your pick-up point should it be necessary. Jacob, can your sensors pick up a Stargate activation?" Hammond asked.

"Yes. We can even tell if it's an originating or destination."

"Good. If your pilot picks up an originating signal within two hours of that 96 hour window, assume that SG-1 has managed to dial out and return via the wormhole. Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill, you'll be taking Tok'ra communicators but use them only if strictly necessary. The signals may be picked up." Hammond looked around the table again. "All right. Pack up and report for departure in one hour. Dismissed."

***

"All right. Everybody stick together. The gate activating on that end is gonna be as obvious as a one-man band. I'd say it's almost certain someone will come running the minute we step through." Jack shrugged to settle his backpack's weight a little more comfortably on his shoulders. "Carter, first thing you do is stick that little homing beacon thingy somewhere around the Stargate. Teal'c, you check that stairway. Danny, you and me, we've got the other doorway. If the place is still empty you can get some pictures off that balcony. Then if there's still no one there we'll try that staircase. After that, we'll play it by ear."

They all watched as the Stargate began to cycle, and the wormhole burst into life in a brief explosion of watery brilliance. It retreated and settled to its normal rippling veil and they all turned to look up at the control room.

"Ninety-six hours, Colonel O'Neill. Good luck and Godspeed. SG-1, you have a go."

Jack and Sam saluted, Daniel waved farewell. Together they climbed the ramp, stopping at the top to click off the safety catches on their guns. Jack looked at them all, the watery light playing across their faces -- Sam's eager, Daniel's slightly worried and Teal'c's serene.

"One more time, this time in four-part harmony," Jack quipped. And stepped forward into the event horizon.

"At least it wasn't 'Play it again, Sam'," Daniel grumbled.

"Not after I threatened to slap him last time," Sam said sweetly, grinning. "Shall we?"

They went through together laughing, Teal'c at their back.

***

They emerged from the wormhole and landed hard on their feet but it was no rougher than skipping a step descending a staircase. Jack was already at the open archway, peering out and around, as Daniel, Sam and Teal'c emerged. Teal'c activated his staff and immediately moved to the darkened archway. The Stargate deactivated with a burst of light and displaced air and was empty again. Sam took the homing beacon transmitter from one of the side pouches on her backpack, peeled the backing from the adhesive strip on its side and attached it to the underside of the Stargate in the shadow of one of the mounting brackets. Daniel took up a place at the other side of the archway across from Jack and took out his handheld digital video camera, waiting for the signal to move out.

"Teal'c?" Jack asked in a loud whisper.

"Nothing yet, O'Neill," the Jaffa's deep voice said quietly behind them.

"Stay there. Carter, Danny, let's go." Jack tightened his grip on his P-90 and whirled out the archway, swiftly scanning the immediate area.

Nothing showed itself on the vast balcony. It was darker now, the lights above dimmed over the cavernous open hallway below. The mezzanine opposite was dark. Daniel walked quickly to within a few feet of the edge and switched the camera to take single pictures, readjusting it for the dim lighting conditions for greater contrast.

"Sir? I've found the MALP."

"What's the word, Carter?"

"I'd call it a write-off, sir."

Daniel glanced over toward Sam in between pictures. Several yards away, Sam was standing next to the remains of the MALP. It was demolished, blackened and burnt. And as if to underscore the point it was literally flattened as if some giant foot had landed inexorably on top of the robot probe, grinding it into the floor. Given what they'd seen through its cameras, a giant foot probably had.

"Sounds like 'beware of the dog' to me," Jack muttered. "Danny? Couple more."

Daniel nodded and raised his camera again. "Jack, this place has at least five more levels. And there's a waterfall."

"Waterfall?" Jack asked as Daniel lowered the camera and tucked it away into its pouch on his belt. Sam came to look too. The far wall of the canyon-like hall was at least two miles distant, but the faint rumble of the waterfall cascading down it was quite distinct. The catchpool at the bottom narrowed into a channel that flowed straight down the hall's length, shimmering in the dim light from far above. It disappeared through another high archway at the nearer end of the hall, dropping away and out of sight in black darkness.

"Wow," Jack said. "Let's go."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said through their radios.

"What, T?"

"There are voices below in the stairwell," Teal'c said. "They are approaching."

"Come out here with us, T." Jack nodded as Teal'c appeared at the open archway and joined them. "Back against the rear wall, in the corner," Jack directed. "Two less directions to worry about."

Sam and Daniel hurried to comply. They'd all taken only a few steps when something very large vaulted up over the edge of the mezzanine and landed gracefully on its feet several dozen yards away, coming to rest with a thud of metal on stone and a chorus of blasts from small attitude control jets. In seconds half a dozen more had landed behind it and arrayed in a tight semi-circle around them, huge and menacing and unbelievably quick for something so large and mechanical. Each was distinct, the hulls of the great machines worked in clever decorations of various metals and intricate patterns, stylized snarling faces of unknown animals, sunbursts, sinuous spirals and flames.

They were works of terrible art, all the more so for that each was obviously pointing at least two arm or shoulder-mounted weapons at SG-1.

Daniel swallowed nervously and reached to unhook his P-90's sling strap from around his neck.

"Daniel, no," Jack said at his side, clearly meaning it as an order.

Daniel ignored him. The voices from the stairway were now in the room of the Stargate and a few seconds later three obviously human -- or at least mostly human -- forms burst from the archway, indistinct in the dark. Daniel slowly knelt and put his P-90 on the floor at his feet, and equally slowly slipped his Beretta out of its holster and left it beside the rifle.

"Damn it, Danny, don't you ever listen to me?" Jack said tightly.

Daniel took three steps forward toward the three humanoid figures who were now weaving between the feet of the giant robots to confront him. "Hello? My name is Daniel, we're explorers from a planet called Earth."

The figure in the lead called out a rapid staccato phrase and three of the giant robots suddenly blazed with yellow lights from shoulders, heads and torsos. Daniel winced and held up one hand to block the light as his eyes tried to adjust, heard Jack cursing behind him. More words from the humanoid who had spoken, a guttural language that reminded him of German. He tried repeating his usual greeting in German, but before he could complete it he felt hands grab his wrists and pull him forward.

"Danny!"

"Daniel!"

He heard Teal'c's staff firing, and a brief scuffle and gunfire as Jack and Sam tried to follow. But in a moment he was too busy trying to keep his balance on the wide, shallow stairs leading down into darkness as these unknown people all but carried him away from his teammates and friends.

***

They weren't entirely human. Daniel realized that as soon as they came out into the light. His first confused impression as he twisted about trying to pull his arms out of their grasp was of a delicately formed, slightly oversized and definitely pointed ear.

His second impression was that they were slender, pale-skinned, deceptively frail and amazingly strong. That could have been because there were two of them dragging him along while the third ran ahead of them shouting in their guttural but oddly musical language. They were all dressed identically in what he took to be some sort of uniform, some sort of black velvet-like material in close-fitting long-sleeved tunics with matching black trousers of looser cut made of some light slithery silk-like material.

They emerged from the comparatively narrow stairwell into a short hallway of more human-sized proportions, one end of which simply opened out into the emptiness of the great gigantic cavernous structure beyond. They rushed him across and into another stairwell, brighter this time and with several more figures awaiting them at the bottom. Two others fell in behind his captors, pushing him from behind as the first two dragged him along. Down another flight of stairs, this time curved sharply, and they emerged into another high-ceilinged, immense structure of several levels ascending into dim altitudes. Human-sized balconies and terraces spiraled up into the twilight distances, vines and flowers cascading amidst fountains and smaller waterfalls. He barely had a moment to glimpse a huge stained-glass window, several stories tall and unbelievably intricate, before they dragged him to the side and under a trellised archway into another darkened hallway. Then again into bright light, more people chattering. He was lifted bodily onto some sort of table and abruptly all hands were gone from his arms and shoulders. Before he could do anything to take advantage of it a reddish light flashed above him and he was slammed back onto the surface beneath him.

"Danny! Danny where are you?"

Jack's voice. The radio on his shoulder. He'd forgotten -- He was surprised when they didn't try to rip it away from him, but he couldn't move to hit the transmit button anyway. This was some sort of energy beam -- he spared a thought for his camera, his GDO, the radio -- they'd taken his backpack sometime during the mad rush down all those stairs. He heard rapid words among the crowd surrounding him, and a swift hand darted into the reddish light and snatched the radio from his shoulder, the ripping sound of the Velcro right by his ear. Then one reached into the red light to take his glasses while another quickly fitted some sort of small cold devices over his ears and forehead. They pulled their hands out of the light with some difficulty, and the one on his left said a quick phrase to someone else in the crowd.

Daniel felt an odd tingle begin just over his ears inside his head, and his world went gray. His body went numb all over. He could still hear, and see the bright light above his head. After a while the light above receded into a single point, shining like a star in a sea of black.

***

All that money the government spent on my training, and I can't keep a near-sighted geek from wandering away and getting himself killed.

It was moments like this that told Jack O'Neill that maybe it was time to pack it in and go back to designing airplanes. He obviously just wasn't cut out to be a soldier, no matter what the Air Force kept telling him.

Then again, despite fifty years of turning out astronauts the Air Force was just not on the same page as Stargate Command. Hell, they weren't even reading the same book.

"Danny!" He tried the radio again as more people came flooding up the stairway and through the room with the Stargate, and then yelled as he was caught and pulled toward the stairs. He struggled to hold on to his P-90 but felt hands taking his handgun and the zat, felt someone take his knife. He heard Carter trying to fight her captors off, her high-pitched yell echoing in the stone stairwell. They came out into another hallway and got a glimpse of some of these people running ahead of the group, carrying their equipment and weapons. One of them peered down at Teal'c's staff in wonderment before handing it off to a subordinate and gesturing their captors forward into another darkened stairway.

They came out eventually into a dim high place, an open hollow place several stories tall, terraces and balconies draped with vines and flowers, the great intricate stained glass window dark with night but still impressive by sheer scale if for no other reason. They were standing on a sort of landing or perhaps one of the many terraces, a half-circle of mosaic marble tiles beneath their feet, bounded by a low stone planters filled with more of the big-leaved vines with large white flowers. Their captors pushed them down onto the edge of the planters where the upper edge widened into a bench, half a dozen of them watching over them. The entire place was silent save for the tiny trickle of water somewhere nearby. It was cool, there was a constant light breeze ruffling the vines and flowers, and the light scent of the flowers and water. Jack turned to try to peer over the other side of the planter on which he sat. Floor level was at least thirty feet below him, too far to jump. Their captors surrounded them, standing easily, some so confident as to fold their arms on their chests and stare with frank curiosity.

"I don't think they're quite human, sir," Carter said quietly at his side. "Did you see their ears?"

"Such modifications are easily produced through genetic manipulation," Teal'c said from beyond Carter's shoulder. "I have seen such cosmetic modifications often in my service as First Prime. Many of the false gods are amused by such novelty."

"I don't know if it's a cosmetic modification, Teal'c," Sam said. "It might be natural for their species. They're all of the same basic build -- skinny, sort of --"

"Stretched out," Jack said.

"Slender, sir," Sam corrected.

"They're white as a sheet too," Jack said. "I think you're going to be a hit here, T."

Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."

"Danny," Jack said into the radio at his shoulder. "Danny?"

There was still no answer from the archaeologist. The six slender figures surrounding them watched curiously, one of them chattering something to the others briefly.

A figure came running down the side hallway to their right, but this one was slightly more muscular than those who were guarding them. Where the slender people all had masses of long hair of ebony, spun-gold or red-blond that fell in bone-straight floods, this newcomer had a mass of red-brown waves loosely gathered into a series of colorful ties. It was a guess on Jack's part, but the half-dozen who guarded them looked to all be males; this newcomer was definitely female, the facial features slightly rounder and with the obvious curves of a female body under the velvet-like material of the black tunic. A fast conversation in that German-sounding language and the newcomer nodded once, whirled, and raced back down the hallway she'd arrived from.

"Hey!" Jack called to their captors. "What did you do with Daniel? Only one archaeologist to a customer, and we saw him first."

Their captors just stared at them silently. One of them moved to lean on the wall of the planter at the end of the semi-circle and his hair fell back from his neck. Something small and oval-shaped gleamed darkly at the side of his throat in that spot under the ear at the hinge of the jaw. He glanced around at the other slender forms. "Carter, that one over here, the one that just sat down? You see that thing on the side of his neck? What is that, jewelry?"

"I don't know, sir, it could be anything. Looks like a gemstone of some kind."

"It appears they are all wearing these gemstones," Teal'c said quietly.

Jack tried to speak to them again. "What have you done with Daniel?"

The six glanced between themselves, then the one who seemed nominally in charge straightened abruptly and turned to walk into the hallway where the female had disappeared. The remaining five closed ranks, trading a few soft words between them.

There were voices in the hallway, and two of their captors came out leading Daniel between them.

"Danny!" Jack jumped to his feet and rushed forward to the archaeologist, Sam and Teal'c at his heels. Their captors allowed it, moving away as Teal'c and Jack ducked under Daniel's arms to hold him up and led him to where they were sitting. "God, Danny, what happened?" Jack asked once Daniel was sitting safely.

Sam knelt in front of him, checking for wounds, lifting his head to look into his eyes. Daniel tried to smile wanly down at her, lifted a hand to pat her hand on his cheek reassuringly. Jack and Teal'c sat down on either side of him.

"Sir, he's got one of those gemstones on his neck," Sam said worriedly as her fingers found the small hard ovoid lump beneath his ear.

"It's all right, Sam," Daniel said softly. "It's a translator. They realized I wasn't a threat when I put my guns down." Daniel quirked a small smug grin at that and glanced sideways at Jack. "And lucky for all of you they realized you were firing at them trying to get me back."

"Danny, it's not all right. Can you take that thing off?" Jack tugged Daniel around to look at him closely, his fingers finding the translator gem and trying to pry it off with his fingernails.

"Ow! Jack, quit it! Yes, I can take it off if I want!" Daniel said, batting Jack's hands away. "But it won't come off from you trying to rip it out of my neck! It operates on mental commands. I think a certain mnemonic word and it'll come right off." To prove the point he closed his eyes, put a hand up to catch the gemstone as it abruptly fell from his skin. "See?"

"Can I see, Danny?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, but it won't work for you, Sammy," Daniel said, handing her the gemstone. "They're keyed for the specific person. They have a sort of scanner like an MRI, they do a scan of your neural patterns and program the translators for the individual person." Daniel shrugged. "It doesn't even hurt, just sort of makes you go fuzzy for a while."

Sam was peering at the gemstone in her hand curiously, holding it up to the light spilling from the hallway trying to see if there was anything inside. For all she could determine it was a cabochon jewel, a dark ruby red in color, about two centimeters long and one wide at its widest point, smoothly flat on one side, flawlessly clear. Shrugging, she handed it back to Daniel and he immediately put it back in its place below his ear. It stuck as if glued to his skin the instant the flat side touched his neck.

Daniel looked up at their captors and gestured to Jack, Sam and Teal'c, speaking rapidly in that guttural, German-like language as if he'd been doing it all his life.

"What are you telling them?" Jack asked quietly as their captors nodded their understanding.

"That we'd prefer not to be separated," Daniel muttered back in English. Then he lapsed back into the other language, obviously introducing them as he said their names.

The leader, one of the males with a fall of ebony hair that matched the color of his uniform, spoke rapidly and at some length while Daniel listened and answered when he was obviously asked a question. Jack, Sam and Teal'c stayed quiet, knowing he'd tell them anything relevant. Then the leader gave them all a considering glare and turned to a subordinate, giving a swift set of instructions before turning away and down a staircase they hadn't seen on the other side of the low wall of planters.

"Guys, we have to behave ourselves," Daniel said as their captors gestured for them to get to their feet. "They'll give us our stuff back but they're going to keep us in a secured place until they decide what to do about us."

"Probably just the usual, Danny," Jack said tensely. "Three quarters of the people we meet want to kill us the minute we come through the Stargate."

"These people won't," Daniel said. "They're obviously more advanced than that. They want you all to go through the scanning process so you can get translators. It doesn't hurt and it'll be a lot easier to deal with these people if we can all talk to them. You especially, Jack, as you're the one in charge."

"Daniel, we just met these people, how can you be so sure they won't hurt us?" Jack said angrily.

Daniel stopped abruptly and turned to confront his team leader. In the half-light from the entrance of the hallway he looked very annoyed, blue eyes blazing behind his glasses as he glared into Jack's eyes. "Have they hurt us? Despite the fact that all of you tried to fire on them? They left you your radios, your GDOs, they only took mine away because they would have been damaged by the scanner and they gave them back the moment the scan was done. Were you hurt at all when they brought you down the stairs from the room where the Stargate is? No. Yes, Jack, they are obviously far superior technologically, on a par with the Tollan, the Nox and the Asgard. If they wanted us dead we'd have been dead the moment they saw us. They realize we're of a lower technological level than they are. The simple truth is that they can afford to be curious because there is no way in hell we could hurt them. So let them do the scan, get your translator, and let's start doing our jobs, shall we?" He turned and headed down the hallway, already chatting with two of their captors in that oddly musical harsh language.

Jack glared after him, trying to think of something to say.

Sam, wisely, said nothing. Instead she reached for Teal'c's hand. He tilted his head to look down at her serenely, and then fell into step with her as they followed Daniel.

After a moment they heard a muttered imprecation in Latin behind them, and Jack joined them.

***

The night above the fortress throne city of Alaharu was clear again after the mists of the previous day, the path of diamond brilliance that was the blaze of the galaxy fully visible rising from the northeastern horizon. The Path of Adal some still called it, despite the fact that their science had long ago identified it as the galaxy of which their worlds were a part. The ancient religious name just sounded far more poetic, and despite those thousands of years of science the dominant Tilindran culture still preferred to retain the beauty they had found among the planet's indigenous population. Roughly half of the place-names extant on the throneworld of Oriyan retained their original Adalandai names. It was less so on the other six worlds of the Empire; the Adalandai were native only to Oriyan, and of all the peoples who had been overtaken by the Empire they were the only ones who retained their full identity even long after they had joined inextricably with the invading Tilindrans.

The two tiny moons of Oriyan were low in the east and south, bare irregular slivers of gold and white. Other slivers of silver, needles of light, kept pace with the planet below, occasionally turning to take up new positions, spawning the odd tiny sparks that formed new patterns before racing away like purposeful shooting stars. The buffeting winds, that which came down from the mountains inland cold and smelling of the eternal snows and that which came from the sea warm and smelling of salt, made all above twinkle and shimmer as the upper atmospheric turbulence occluded the light. The winds were what made the mists that Alarahu was famous for, often arising mysteriously from nothing, appearing literally out of thin air in moments to turn bright sun to foggy gloom. Again the poetic Tilindran spirit took this as given -- a city that wrapped itself in veils of fog, calling the winds to shroud itself away.

Alaharu was a city of towers. The spires of the noble houses built in terraced rows against the sea cliffs twisted upward into the night, roofed in silvery and golden metals, imported granite dark and imposing and marble softly glowing. The lesser folk of the town contented themselves with the native volcanic basalt, black and easily worked, built into comfortable lesser towers of round or square design, squat and homely. Above them all, built partially into the sea cliffs on the northern seaside edge of the city, the massive heart of the fortress city clawed for heaven itself -- the palace of the House of Draelen, the royal house of the Empire of the Seven Nations.

Many lights still glowed in the towers of the palace, mostly in the Commandery wing where the Empire's military command worked all hours. Stretching ten miles along the cliffs, the palace, Commandery and Assembly buildings seemed to encrust the city heights like a line of dark giant birds huddled on their rocky faces. The royal residence held pride of place at the seaside edge. Twenty-one towers rose in softly glowing silvery splendor. Of those twenty-one, not the tallest and not the most ostentatious, one tower dark and silent with night's peace held the fate of seven planets in contented slumber.

***

"First, we have an incursion situation. You're needed at the Commandery."

Talynara Kai rolled over and away from the warm darkness of Areelyn's night-black hair as gentle amber light bloomed in the high-ceilinged tower room. "Incursion? From the frontier? Vanix or Elidon?"

"Neither, First. There's been an incursion in the Commandery itself."

"What?" She threw back the thick quilted silkwool blankets and slid out of the warmth, shaking the thick mane of mahogany brown hair out of her eyes as she moved quickly toward the corridor leading to the pool room. "That's the second time in a day. How? Who are they?"

"We don't know yet, First. But they seem to be no threat. One offered himself for neural scan and we've given him a translator. We'll know soon enough." The Captain of the Queen's Guard -- Tragat, an old friend of Areelyn's and Talyn's from their days as young cadets -- moved quickly away as Talyn rushed past into the bathing room.

"Tal? Tragat? What's going on?" came a soft voice from the bed.

Tragat turned back to answer his Queen. "An incursion, Ard-tran, in the Commandery. We have contained them. One volunteered for scans. The First is needed for decision on what shall be done with them."

"Are they a threat?" Throwing her long, bone-straight ebony hair back over her shoulders, Areelyn sat up against the pile of pillows at the head of the huge bed. Her ice-blue eyes regarded her Guard Captain steadily, uncaring of her own nakedness, her delicate fragile form white as fine marble against the cream color of the sheets and pillow covers. Coming up through the ranks of the Empire's military soon dealt with any modesty of the body.

"No, Ard-tran. They seem to be somewhat primitive, but they did possess several communications devices and some apparently advanced energy weapons along with primitive projectile weapons." Tragat turned as Talyn rushed back into the room gathering the mane of mahogany hair back into a set of loose ties of the royal colors of purple and yellow. The large green jewel beneath her left ear gleamed in the light as one of the Queen's chambermaids came into the bedchamber with her arms full of a fresh black uniform. "First, the scans on the man who volunteered indicate that these people are almost identical neurologically to pure Adalandai. The translators needed very little calibration."

"Interesting. Any idea where they came from, how they got here?" This last was muffled as she pulled the black tunic over her head.

"None at this time, First. Shall I post double guard here? They were able to appear despite the shielding over the Commandery, they would have no trouble appearing anywhere in Alaharu." Tragat turned to his Queen expectantly.

"Double guard, nothing!" Areelyn said, kicking away the blankets "If they can get into the Commandery then I'm just as safe there as here. I'm going with you!"

"No you're not," Talyn said, smiling lopsidedly at her Queen. "You're staying right here and going back to sleep. I don't want you anywhere near them until we're sure they're no threat." She turned to Tragat. "Yes, post the double guard. Four in the room here, four in the corridors below. I want Lancers on watch outside the tower, one for each airt of the compass. I assume you've already alerted the Lord Guardian and begun scans of the throneworld system. You will stay here, Ree, until I say otherwise. I can't play chellyanach without knowing where all the pieces are."

Areelyn looked up mutinously at her Guard Captain and her First Lord of War. "Have you forgotten who is Queen here?"

"No. That's why I'm ordering you to stay." Grinning, Talyn leaned across the bed and kissed the pouting lips, then laughed as Areelyn abruptly grabbed the sides of her head and kissed her back with considerably more angry passion.

"Deal with this, and later I will deal with you," Areelyn said in a silky growl. She reached over to the small ornate table beside the bed and retrieved a round silvery-clear cabochon jewel and pressed it to the hollow of Talyn's throat just above the black tunic's neckline. It stuck instantly and flashed with white light for a moment before resuming its transparency. "Now go."

"At your command, Ard-tran," Talyn said, a laugh in her voice. She kissed Areelyn's forehead quickly and turned to go.

***

"Hell of a jail cell," Jack said as he let his pack fall to the floor in the middle of the room and looked around.

"Indeed," Teal'c said at his side. "A most comfortable place of holding."

The woman with the red-brown hair they had seen before among their captors -- Sonaya, she had informed them was her name -- had led them up into the complex of vine-bedecked terraces and balconies they had seen while waiting for Daniel. It was the middle of the night and the entire place was eerily silent even though Sonaya told them that these suites and apartments were the housing of the military command staff. This section of the huge cavernous hall where they had begun this adventure was apparently residential and diplomatic; Sonaya indicated they would be housed in some spare officers' quarters until the First Lord of War decided what was to be done with them. Jack had been expecting some kind of bare room, hopefully with a bed. Instead, Sonaya left them in a suite of rooms that could have been a cross between a late medieval castle and a five-star hotel.

The floors were made of slate, patterned in some subtle and intricate geometric design. There were woven rugs at various points that reminded Jack of the braided rag rugs his grandmother used to make. The furniture was all of dark wood, handmade, carved and knobbly and very heavy, upholstered in cushions and pillows in rich jewel-tone colors. There was a small fireplace in one corner, a fire already burning merrily within and giving off a faint scent like pine and cedar combined. The walls were beautiful stained wood to about waist height and then marble to the ceiling with a line of inlaid tiles of sinuous stylized animal motifs just under the ceiling. A narrow table against one wall held what was obviously food -- fruit, something that might have been some kind of nuts, and a metal pitcher with frost on its sides that must be some kind of drink beside a collection of silver cups. There was a very comfy-looking leather sofa arrangement that ran along two of the walls. The outer wall was mostly windows, deep-silled windows that each contained an upholstered window seat thick with pillows. The window in the middle was a set of doors, open at the moment, leading out into the dark. The golden-amber glow of the small floating globes of light near the ceiling gave the entire place a homely cozy feel despite the high ceilings.

"Looks like we each have a bedroom," Daniel said from one of the doorways in the far wall. Light bloomed inside the room as he stepped inside, revealing light-colored wood paneling, more of the braided rugs over slate floors, and a low bed big enough for four. A long bench built into the wall opposite the door was upholstered similar to the window seats, pillows and furs of some sort.

"Wow," Sam said from out in the common room of the suite. Daniel left his pack just inside his room's door and ducked back out to see what she had found.

Sam was standing at a doorway between his room and the bedroom Jack was currently exploring. It was obviously a bathroom of some sort; there was a very large, very deep bathtub built into the floor against the wall. Steaming water cascaded constantly in a flat curving sheet from a wide aperture in the wall some few feet above the pool. There was a round skylight dominating the ceiling, some kind of light-colored stone tiles on the walls and gray marble underfoot. There were small wooden boxes on a low bench at the foot of the pool, what Daniel suspected must be soap of some kind. "Wonder what those are?" he asked Sam, pointing to matching round devices in the ceiling and floor in the corner opposite the pool.

"No idea," Sam said, shaking her head. "But I don't see any towels. Could be some sort of air-drying thing."

"Don't see a toilet either. Maybe they don't have them?" Daniel asked.

"Oh no, over here behind the door," Sam said, opening the door wider to reveal a smaller door behind it leading into a tiny dark room beyond. "Not that different from ours. Some things are universal, huh?"

"For humanoids with a gravity-driven digestive track, anyway," Daniel answered with a grin.

"That bathtub looks heavenly," Sam said, nodding to it.

"Get in line, girlfriend," Daniel answered, grinning.

Sam giggled and slapped his shoulder affectionately.

"Holy shit," Jack said from the balcony outside the open French-door type window in the common room. His voice held such astonishment that they all hurried to see what he'd found.

The doors let out onto a wide stone balcony. The enclosing wall came up to the middle of Daniel's chest but they could all see over the edge easily. What they saw made all of them clutch at the thick granite stones in mute but undeniable amazement.

A city stretched out below them, lights twinkling throughout the ten-mile expanse from the cliffs over the ocean and up the sides of the two mountains that formed a rough triangle with the sea as the third side. They were at the highest point on the tall cliffs at the north end of the city, high on one side of the Commandery. Below them towers, metal-clad or plain stone, granite or marble or basalt or fancifully carved wood, amber light glowing in windows where folk stayed awake late, small floating passenger vehicles moving silently in the streets below made tiny with distance. There was a buffeting capricious wind that seemed to come from several different directions, sometimes warm, sometimes cold. Two miles away they could see the shimmer of the ocean.

"It's the galaxy," Sam said suddenly. She pointed upward in explanation. "Edge on."

The thick streak of stars that stabbed across the sky, twinkling fire in all the colors light could be, outshone the glow of the two tiny irregular moons floating in the middle heights above the horizon. This planet was so far out on the edges of the galaxy that the distant galactic core and the spiral arms became the unmoving fire of stars across the black sky. Jack gave a low whistle of astonishment at the incredible sight, then pointed to the slowly moving slivers of light that drifted in formation across the field of stars.

"Ships," Jack said. "In orbit."

Teal'c nodded in agreement. "Indeed. They are anchored above this city, O'Neill."

"Definitely worth the trip, kids, just for the view," Jack said.

They fell silent, simply looking down at the city below. There were no wide streets, and very few straight ones for that matter; it reminded Daniel of ancient cities of the Middle East now having to accommodate a modern population with twisty cobblestone-paved streets that had been just fine for foot traffic and the odd donkey cart a thousand years before. At the base of the cliffs the towers seemed finer and more ornate, clad in metal roofing with finials or stylized animals. A defensive wall cut across parallel to the cliff face about a mile distant, and beyond that the towers and buildings were much more humble. In the center of the city was a great open square, flat and gray in the darkness. Jack pointed suddenly down to it in mute excitement as he saw the two tall robot forms standing silent sentinel in the middle of the square, turned back to back.

Sam shook her head slowly. "It's like a fairy-tale city, with technology as the magic."

Daniel thought he couldn't have put it better himself.

But Jack, as usual, was a few pages back. He had taken off his translator and was peering at it in his hand worriedly. "Man, I hope these things aren't bombs or mind-control devices or something. I'd hate to wake up clucking like a chicken. Someone would have to die."

"Look at those robots, Jack. Look at those ships up there. I don't think there's anything we have at the SGC that they're going to want," Daniel said with a sigh.

"Teal'c, have you seen anything so far that says Goa'uld to you?" Jack asked. Daniel glared at him and Jack gave him a patently false smirk back.

"No. I have not," Teal'c said quietly. "Though Apophis would greatly desire this world and all its wealth. Any Goa'uld would, though the inhabitants would quickly defeat any false god who attempted it."

"Moth to the flame," Jack said, nodding his understanding. "They're kinda stupid that way."

So much to learn here, for each of them. And they had less than four days to do it.

They'd do it better, Jack decided, after a few hours sleep. It would be morning soon enough, and their captors would surely deal with them at their leisure.

"Come on, kids," he said. "Let's get some rest while we can. And no sitting up writing, Danny, we'll need you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning."

They followed him back inside without complaint. Jack wondered if they were all as suddenly weary as he was with the enormity of the task ahead.

***

"Just one mouthful, Teal'c," Daniel warned. "Not half the mug like you usually do. At least until you're certain it's safe."

Teal'c raised his eyebrow briefly at Daniel's warning, then slowly took a sip of the cold liquid Daniel had poured into a cup for him from the metal pitcher. Clear golden in color, lightly sweet and tasting oddly as if one had taken the scent of roses and the taste of cherries and combined the two. Fruit juice of some sort. He blinked as he felt his symbiote wriggle, but it was not in distress. "It is fruit juice," he decided gravely. "It is good."

"Is it safe?"

Teal'c nodded decisively. "It is safe."

"Good. It's a good sign. Now the nuts."

Teal'c took a handful of the nutmeats from the large bowl beside the pitcher and put one in his mouth, chewing tentatively. Similar to walnuts, he decided. Or perhaps hickory nuts. Major Ferretti had several walnut trees on the grounds of his home and often brought bags of the nuts to Teal'c when they were in season, claiming they were much better fresh off the tree than the kind one got in the grocery stores. His symbiote did not react with alarm to the first mouthful of these alien almost-walnuts, so he ate another. "They resemble walnuts," Teal'c reported to an anxious Daniel. "They are safe."

"Daniel, they told us we were neurologically and genetically almost identical to some of their population," Sam said sleepily from the door of her bedroom. "I don't think they'd put anything here that would poison us."

"Probably not, Sam, but this is a different planet. There might be something that would make us violently ill that wouldn't affect them." He gestured to Teal'c. "The people of Chulak were seeded from Earth; Teal'c is genetically identical to us, his ancestors came from Earth. Junior will pitch a fit if Teal'c eats or drinks anything that could harm him, and take care of the effects as well." He reached over and put a hand on the big Jaffa's shoulder with a grin. "And I'm not letting him make a pig of himself until we're sure it's safe."

"Like you could stop him if he's hungry," Sam said, smiling as she came to join them. She hugged Teal'c with one arm while she reached for one of the silver cups with the other. "So the juice is safe?"

"Yes," Daniel said as she reached for the pitcher. Teal'c was now eating one of the round green-skinned fruits from the basket beside the nuts, and looking quite content. "Looks like it's all safe."

"Good. I'm not in the mood for MREs." Sam poured herself a cupful of the juice and tasted it. "Oooh. This is good."

"Yes," Daniel said slowly. He rubbed a hand through his hair, disordering the strands still damp from his first bath in that amazing pool-tub. He could have stayed under the wonderfully hot water for hours. "But I've no idea what I'm going to do for coffee."

Sam stopped drinking and looked at him worriedly. "Oh."

A snort behind them and they turned to see Jack rubbing his eyes. "You brought those pills?" he said, his voice scratchy with sleep.

Daniel grimaced. "Yeah. But I still want my coffee."

Jack shook his head as he dropped onto the leather sofa against the wall and stared at the low flames in the small fireplace. "Good thing you were never in Special Ops, Danny. Three days in, you're just getting set up for the hit and run out of coffee the day before you're supposed to whack your target. Next thing you know, the CIA is trying to explain why you left a body count in the hundreds."

Daniel didn't reply, just poured himself a cup of juice and grabbed two of the fruits from the basket. Teal'c had already opened the window-doors and left them open to the breeze -- warm this morning, and smelling of salt from the ocean. Daniel wandered outside into the bright sunlight to look down at the city as he crunched through the fruit.

The city was even more amazing in the daylight. Small ships or atmospheric craft were flying or hovering, obviously passenger or possibly cargo craft. The great square in the middle of the city was alive with people walking across the empty expanse. The towers decorated in metals glittered or gleamed in the bright sun. He turned to look up at the walls of the Commandery around him; a dark rust-red stone, other balconies above and below and to the sides. The Commandery was a long building, some three miles of long high walls of several stories on the very edge of the cliffs. If he could look straight down from the balcony, he'd be looking down several hundred feet into the narrow streets and towers below. A round building of dark gray stone bulked large beyond the Commandery. Beyond that and rising above in silvery glittering spires, what looked like a miniature city of elaborate towers on a promontory of its own overlooking the ocean.

"When you've got a minute today, explain to them about your coffee and ask if they'd give you something that would heat up water," Jack said quietly at his side. "Or ask if you could fire up your camp stove out here on the balcony. You brought that coffee that comes in the tea bags, right?"

Daniel turned to look at his team leader. Jack wasn't looking at him but out over the city, a cup of the fruit juice in his hands. Daniel looked at the averted profile for a long moment. "Teal'c says all the food's safe."

"Yeah," Jack answered. He shrugged. "Should have known he'd hog the walnuts."

Daniel grinned a little at that. Jack was always eager for the bags of walnuts Ferretti foisted off on all of them. He'd taught Teal'c how to crack them by squeezing two together in his hands, and ever since Teal'c had secretly delighted in making it look easy.

"Your allergies giving you trouble?" Jack asked quietly.

"No. I got Janet to give me enough antihistamines to last me a month. I shouldn't have any trouble. I've got that new injector too. In the usual place, the right-hand side pocket on my pack." Daniel looked down into his cup of juice, knowing Jack was looking at him worriedly.

Jack was silent for a moment. This was the first conversation they'd had since before that damned undercover mission that hadn't been angry or truncated by Daniel's selective deafness. But the subjects pertained to the operations at hand -- Daniel knew his allergies were a liability that could effect the safety of the team. As his team leader, Jack needed to know where the spring-loaded injector was kept to avoid any delays in getting the epinephrine into Daniel's bloodstream. It was literally a life or death situation if it got that bad.

"Carry it with you at all times while we're here," Jack said. "You and mushrooms, Danny. Never the twain shall meet, got it? For all we know these people nosh on them three times a day."

Daniel nodded silently.

Jack looked at him for a long moment. Then he put a hand on Daniel's slumped shoulder briefly, turned, and went back inside.

***

It was mid-morning before they ventured out of the surprisingly unsecured door of the suite. Daniel quickly made note of the pattern of silvery dots on a black placard on the wall beside the door -- numbers, he assumed. They set off down the hallway they had traversed the night before and soon came out onto the curving shallow rampway that seemed as ubiquitous as plain stairwells would have been on Earth. It didn't wind in a complete spiral around the entire core of the building; the immense stained glass window that took up one side of the building necessitated some graceful shallow stairs at the switchbacks.

"Oh my God," Sam breathed when they came out into a spot where they could see the interior of the building.

Daniel almost echoed her astonished exclamation. The huge stained glass window was in full glory, glowing with the sunlight, painting every inch of the interior of the building with colors unbelievably rich. They could see the patterns clearly now. A streak of gold bisected the window from floor to ceiling; along that streak of gold, seven roundels of different sizes and swirled colors, with the largest and most prominent roundel of swirled blues, greens and whites in the center. Smaller roundels of single colors were at seemingly random spots throughout the remainder of the window, like bubbles. A sinuous ribbon of silvery gray wound between the larger roundels, looking very much like one side of a double helix pattern.

"It represents the Empire," called a strong male voice from below. "The Seven Nations, and their moons."

All of them looked over the side of the balcony toward the voice. One of their guards from the night before was standing in the spot where Jack, Sam and Teal'c had been kept while Daniel was scanned for his translator.

"What do we need the translators for, everybody here speaks English," Jack muttered.

"No he's not, Jack. Your translator's doing its job," Daniel answered quickly. He looked back to the slender, black-clad man standing waiting for them below. "The Seven Nations?" he called down.

The man below nodded once. "We have much to discuss. Wait there, I will join you."

The black-clad man turned into the hallway below and in a few seconds he appeared literally out of the wall at the bend of the nearest switchback some few yards away.

"I knew these people had to have elevators," Jack said with a smirk.

"Indeed," Teal'c said gravely.

The guard stopped some few feet in front of them. They saw he was one of the two black-haired men who had been guarding them the night before. "My name is Tragat," he said quietly. "I am the Captain of the Queen's Guard. I have been sent to bring you to speak with the First Lord of War."

"Works for me," Jack said shortly. He turned to survey his team. Sam and Daniel had their cameras and notebooks; Teal'c looked serene as always, ready for anything. He nodded, glad they had it all together today. SG-1 at its best. He turned back to Tragat. "Let's go."

***

"They're on their way," Auliya said as she received Tragat's signal.

"Good." Talyn didn't take her eyes from the great holographic display. The sphere of influence claimed by the Empire was depicted in miniature, the seven star systems with all their planets and moons picked out in sparks and lines of light. The icons indicating elements of the Starfleet were deployed throughout, on constant watch at the vulnerable frontier areas beyond the systems of Vanix and Elidon. The black cloud of the great nebula beyond Elidon disguised any forces that chose to risk an attack in that quarter; Vanix bordered a vast region of asteroids, a lawless wasteland of bandits and tramps. The inner systems were in little danger, but Vanix and Elidon were rich enough prizes to tempt many.

"Any speculations on the anomalous organism carried by the dark-skinned one?" Talyn asked as one of the technicians brought the current status report of the fleet.

"None at this time, First. It seems dormant. It did not react to the scans, nor interfere with them. It does not appear to be in direct interaction with its carrier," Auliya answered. Tiny and delicate in appearance, Auliya sithna'Suria possessed a flood of bright red-gold hair that she kept tightly braided and coiled around her head in the traditional military way. Her sharply pointed ears and the finely-drawn contours of her face bespoke her pure Tilindran noble blood. The simple black standard-issue uniform of the Starfleet with the silver embroidery of her rank of Ship's Command at the collar and the purple and gold badge denoting her assignment to the Queen's Command spoke of her chosen life in the Empire's military services.

"Have you found their ship? Nor any sign of how they entered the Commandery?" Talyn asked as they moved to the banks of communications and sensor stations for the palace complex and the city at large.

"No, First. There were no idications of any landings, no incursions registered at any time." Auliya's face shifted to bewilderment. "It is a bald-faced mystery, First. We have no idea how they came to be here."

"That is not good," Talyn said in dry understatement. She stopped and read through the status report of the fleet still in her hand, scanning it quickly as she ran one finger down the small screen to scroll through. "I will speak to the Lord Guardian."

Auliya nodded. "At once, First."

Talyn went to stand before another holoprojector and waited as the call was placed to the flagship of the Empire's defense forces. A second later the familiar image appeared -- Eruin sithna'Draelen, at present Heir of the Empire, Princess of the House of Draelen, Lord Guardian of the Empire, known to her troops and her enemies alike by her battle-name of Bloodsong. Besides and despite all of that, a friend closer than the blood ties that marked her as cousin to the Queen. A tall, flame-haired throwback in a family that ran to delicate and ebony-haired, Eruin had come up through the ranks with her younger cousin, and had in fact been Areelyn and Talyn's first commander on their first tour of duty as Navigator and Tactical officers. Her grin of greeting spoke of her high spirits -- Eri loved a mystery.

"Eri," Talyn said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Tal. Can't I leave you two alone for three days -- three days! -- without having to pull your tails out of the fire?"

Talyn blinked at the smiling image of her kinswoman-by-marriage. "You are Lord Guardian. Wherever these -- people -- came from, it is your job to stop them. And long before they are found skulking around the Commandery."

"I did my job," Eruin announced, emphasizing the first pronoun. She gestured to her Tactical officer off-camera and Talyn nodded as the sensor logs downloaded to the Commandery computers. "We've gone over the sensor logs twice, looking at them so hard our noses were pressed against the screens. We saw nothing that was not scheduled, on any frequency, for either incursion. No gravitational anomalies, no anomalous comm traffic, no indications of traffic in the overheaven. Nothing, Tal. As far as we can determine, they appeared from nothingness. And I don't mean subspace, either. We could have detected that."

Talyn was silent for a moment, thinking. Eruin, long accustomed to these brooding moments of silence, simply watched her.

"Stay on station here-above," Talyn said slowly after a moment. "Auliya, location of the Lord Marshal and his fleet?"

"Vanix, First. On station at the heliopause. Prince Thoren and his scout group are on station beyond Elidon's second moon," was Auliya's instant answer.

"He'll be returning with the refinery ships," Talyn said thoughtfully. "Iril and his group will be heading out tomorrow to replace them. Very well. Eri, I'm off to get some answers."

Eruin grinned again, nodding. "I'll be waiting."

"You'll hear first thing," Talyn answered.

"Take care," Eruin said in farewell, and the hologram vanished.

"Have they arrived?" Talyn asked as Auliya fell into step beside her as she turned for the wide double doors, nodding as technicians and officers alike put fist to shoulder in salute as she passed.

Auliya's eyes went distant for a moment, querying her neural communicatior. "Yes, First. Tragat has taken them to the smaller Assembly conference room."

"Good. And our Queen?"

Auliya looked down at the floor under their feet for a moment as they entered the hallway, trying to hide her sudden smile. "The Ard-tran awaits us at the entrance to the Assembly, First."

Talyn heaved a long-suffering sigh. "She never stays where I put her."

***

"This place is incredible," Sam said as they emerged from the connecting corridor from the Commandery into a curving concourse of subtle grays and tans. Sunlight streamed through a roof that seemed composed entirely of skylights, gleaming off highly polished mosaic floors. Marble walls of white and dove gray accented by upholstered wooden benches at intervals along the inner walls. The outer walls were mostly long windows, admitting even more sunlight. There were archways at intervals along the inner wall that gave a view into a great round chamber of darker marble, rows of handcarved chairs and tables along the sides. A raised dais on one side held a single large chair of simple design, obviously an antique from the signs of long service. Directly across from it against the far wall was another dais bounded by an ornate wooden railing, also containing a chair of lesser nobility but no less antiquity. There were lecterns at the midpoints of the other two sides of the chamber, in front of the rows of chairs. The middle floor between them all was empty save for a fantastic mosaic tile circle depicting the same design they had seen in the stained glass window in the Commandery.

Tragat stopped so they could look their fill into the chamber. "This is the Assembly chamber."

"How are those who serve on the Assembly chosen?" Daniel asked. Sam took his notebook as he got out his camera.

Tragat was silent for a moment. "Chosen?"

"Are they elected? Or appointed?" Daniel asked. "Or is it hereditary?"

"Ah," Tragat answered with sudden understanding. "The Assembly consists of the heads of the noble houses who rule each of the Seven Nations. The Ard-tran has also appointed a representative from among the governors of the prominent moons, though so far their influence in the Assembly is collective rather than individual. Between them the moons have a single vote, and if they cannot agree then they have no vote at all. Also the Grandmaster of the Guilds, who speaks for all the Crafts. The First Lord of War, the Lord Guardian and Lord Marshal. Normally the Heir would also claim a place, but at present the Ard-tran's cousin the Lord Guardian is Heir Presumptive. She holds both places but chooses to speak as Lord Guardian."

"So your Lord Guardian is a woman?" Jack asked as Daniel snapped a couple more pictures.

"Yes. We have no prejudice of gender." Tragat looked among them, nodded slightly at Sam. "May I assume it is the same for your people as well?"

"It's beginning to be," Sam said.

"Major Carter is an original," Jack said. "She's gone up against this prejudice of gender thing both in the military and in her field of expertise." Jack glanced at Sam and grinned lopsidedly at her look of warning. "She's not the only one, just one of the first."

"I see," Tragat said. "Obviously the Assembly is not in session at the moment. The next scheduled session is several days from now. The High Court is in session today, however."

Several minutes' walk around the curving concourse and they began to hear voices. They began to see people gathered on the benches along the walls, clustered at the archways watching the proceedings below. Tragat stopped them again and cleared one of the archways to afford them a moment's glimpse into the High Court chamber.

Similar in design to the Assembly chamber, the High Court was less ostentatious in decoration. Daniel was irresistibly reminded of the British Parliament. The entire chamber was of dark wood, simple designs for the most part though there were some of the ubiquitous sinuous animal designs on the railings and as gargoyle-like corner decorations. At the far end was the raised dais where the seven Judiciars sat. Those bringing cases before them stood in the mosaic circle at the center of the floor -- again the design of the Seven Nations. Instead of the carved chairs the surrounding walls contained rows of upholstered benches with wooden backs. At the moment there was a richly-dressed man at the center of it all, speaking earnestly up toward the Judiciars. Several men in similar dress occupied the first row of benches just behind him, apparently his supporters.

"He is the Grandmaster of the Mining Guild," Tragat answered in reply to Daniel's question. "They have found a planetoid in the asteroid field beyond Vanix; they have asked permission of the Ard-tran to tow it into the inner systems for ease of operations. It would require the use of military ships, you see. The other Guilds immediately filed suit against the Miners for that this planetoid would increase both their wealth and their land holdings by an unreasonable degree. The other Guilds do not want such a precedent, and neither do the noble houses." Tragat shrugged slightly and they turned away. "I think it wise the Ard-tran is leaving this to the discretion of the High Court. They make reccomendations to the Ard-tran. She may or may not agree with them, but in cases such as this it is politic to do so."

They walked on and Tragat led them to a rampway that dipped below the concourse and spiraled down the outer walls into the building's lower levels. The light here in this lower level came from some kind of extruded clear crystal inlaid in the ceilings and masses of natural quartz as functional sculptures in corners or wall niches.

"It is natural sunlight," Tragat explained when Sam asked about them. "There are collectors atop the roof, spun-crystal fiber. I do not know exactly how it works -- I was Command Path, not Sciences -- but the crystal fibers gather the light and enable it to be channeled wherever we will. The crystals in the ceiling and elsewhere merely radiate the light that is gathered. An ancient technology, but useful."

Sam thanked him for the explanation but said nothing further. She knew the technique, something similar was just beginning to be used in buildings on Earth, mostly in Asia and the Scandinavian countries that were actively promoting alternative energy technology. On Earth, it was still an expensive prospect to outfit a building with such technologies; paradoxical as those technologies were meant to save money. Here, it was an aesthetic decision since obviously this culture had long since conquered the problem of scarcity of energy.

This lower level was the first low-ceilinged place they'd seen so far, scaled down for the average humanoid. While the walls were still a highly polished dove gray they were made of some sort of granite instead of marble with simpler designs in the floor and no ornamentation. The corridor curved around and ended in a three-way junction of corridors that curved away around round walls. Tragat led them down the middle corridor and in a moment they entered a room about the size of the Assembly and High Court rooms in the level above. The outer wall was all glass, floor to ceiling windows that gave a view of a grassy area that rose after a distance into a low hill topped by a small copse of trees. The wall at one end held a large flat screen obviously meant for audio-visual. The long stone table was granite and marble with a hemispherical crystal in the center. At the end of the table opposite the screen was a somewhat larger and more elaborate antique wooden chair, obviously the Queen's place. The two dozen or so other chairs were simpler and identical, with at least another dozen or so extra against the walls.

"The First Lord of War will be joining us shortly," Tragat said. "If you would, please, make yourselves comfortable while I call for food and drink."

"Anywhere but there, huh?" Jack asked, nodding at the chair at the end of the table.

Tragat smiled slightly. "It would be... politic, yes."

"Yeah," Jack said, walking to the windows. "Same thing where we come from."

Tragat nodded. "I will only be a moment."

Daniel dropped into a chair as Tragat left and sprawled bonelessly for a moment with a long happy sigh. "Do we have to go home? I mean, is there really any reason we can't stay here for, oh, gee, I dunno, ten years or so?"

Sam dropped into a chair on the other side of the table. "No reason. I can get Dad to bring us our mail and our paychecks." She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "This place is beautiful. Everything we've seen is incredibly beautiful. Any excuse for decoration, y'know? But it's all tasteful. I haven't seen anything over the top. What do you think of it, Teal'c?"

Teal'c had gone to stand with Jack at the windows. "I agree. A most prosperous society, yet with little need for ostentatious display."

"You're both right," Daniel said, pulling himself upright in his chair. "If you think about it, we haven't really seen art for art's sake alone. You don't see big oil paintings or corny sculpture. It's always things that are meant to serve a function, furniture or floors or buildings. Things that get used for something."

"We see beauty in function before form," said a new voice at the door. A woman stood there, a head shorter than Tragat who followed her in, fit and seeming much more robust of form than the slender Captain of the Guard. Long shaggy mahogany brown hair was gathered in a loose braid woven with purple and yellow cords, framing a round face that might have been called homely if not for the force of the personality animating it. As she came around the end of the table they saw her ears were not pointed at all -- the first person they'd seen who did not have pointed ears. She was dressed in what looked like a field-combat uniform not very dissimilar to their own green SGC field uniforms save that hers was all black. There was an embroidered badge on the sleeve at the shoulder, concentric circles of purple and gold, but no other ornamentation or rank insignia. And she wore two jewels, one emerald green in the usual translator position and a larger clear crystal in the hollow of her throat. She stood at the table at the right of the Queen's chair as Tragat sat down at the first chair at the left.

"Showtime," Jack said to Teal'c. The Jaffa nodded and they moved to chairs opposite Daniel and Sam.

As the First Lord of War assumed her usual place at the table two other women filed in behind her. One, a tiny thing with her long red hair braided and coiled around her head in the black field-combat version of their uniforms, took one of the chairs near the door. The other was perhaps an inch or two taller with her ebony hair in an identical braided and coiled arrangement. She was dressed in the long-sleeved velvet and silk outfit common to the Queen's Guard with a thin stripe of intricate bordering in purple along the tunic's hem and at the cuffs of the sleeves. Both wore translator jewels and clear crystals at the hollows of their throats, so surely the second jewel was for some purpose and not just mere ornamentation. This second woman also took a chair near the door.

"My name is Talynara Kai," began the First Lord of War. "I know only your names and the fact that you appeared in the Commandery apparently out of thin air. We will find your ship, or whatever means you used to gain access. Obviously you know of our capabilities -- reprisals will be at the Queen's discretion, but rest assured they will be swift and overwhelming. Your cooperation could earn your people a warning and enough time to evacuate at least a tenth of your population. If they choose not to heed the warning, it is not our concern."

"Ship?" Jack asked.

"We didn't come here in a ship," Daniel said. He turned toward the First Lord of War and began to explain. "We came here through the Stargate. We're explorers from a planet called Earth. We came here with peaceful intentions, not as an invasion force. I realize how you might think that we did come here with intent to invade, since your Stargate is in your Commandery. But we did not come here as an invasion force."

The First Lord of War remained standing, looking from one to another of them consideringly. "You're rebels, from one of the moons?"

"No," Daniel said. Across the table, Jack shook his head in mute support of his answer. "No, we're from another planet, from outside the -- uh -- Seven Nations."

Another silent perusal from the First Lord of War. "Then you came in a ship?"

"No," Jack said. "No ships."

"They do not know of the Stargate," Teal'c said to his teammates.

Daniel and Jack both turned to look at the Jaffa in astonishment and sudden comprehension.

"Teal'c's right," Sam said. "Daniel, I think you'd better start with that."

"How can they not know about the Stargate when they have it sitting in the middle of their Commandery?" Daniel asked.

"We have often encountered those who know nothing of the true nature of the Stargate," Teal'c said.

"Well, yeah, Teal'c, but none this advanced," Daniel agreed. "Okay, let's start this over." He turned back to the First Lord of War and Tragat. "When you found us last night, we were just outside a room that contained a -- a very large metal ring. Along the inner track there are thirty-nine symbols corresponding to certain prominent constellations. Six of these symbols provide a set of galactic coordinates to a destination, and a seventh symbol standing for the planet of origin. These symbols are input into the Stargate by means of a device we call a Dial-Home Device -- we don't know it's real name, but the acronym 'DHD' works for us. The Stargate forms a wormhole through spacetime that allows travel to another Stargate at the intended destination. We arrived through your Stargate last night. That proves that your Stargate still works, but we may not be able to return home through it. Your DHD is not like any we've ever seen, and if you don't know about the Stargate and how it works then you -- or your ancestors -- might not have known enough to bring the DHD along if it was moved anytime in the past. There is something that looks like a DHD on the wall of the room where the Stargate is -- but there's every chance it's just a reproduction of the DHD that once controlled your Stargate."

The First Lord of War just stared at Daniel in silence for a moment, then her flinty eyes flickered to the others. "Tragat, where were they found?"

"The first tier on the western side of the Canyon of Night, First."

The First Lord of War was silent again for another long moment. "I know the place. This ... Stargate, as you call it, is a sculpture. Nothing more."

"Oh fer cryin' out loud," Jack said suddenly. "Danny, you said they didn't do art!"

"They don't, Jack, they must think it has some kind of significance or it wouldn't be here. Look," Daniel said, turning back to the two at the end of the table. "There's a simple way to prove what I'm saying. We need to see if we can get back home through this Stargate anyway, so take us there and we'll see if it that DHD works. Obviously we have a lot to discuss and we'd like to notify our people that we'll need more time than we anticipated here. So take us there and we'll see if it works. If it doesn't, well, you still need to know about the Goa'uld."

"Should the Goa'uld become aware of your Empire, they would attempt to conquer and enslave your entire population," Teal'c said quietly. "Your prosperity and technology would be irresistible to them. They are scavengers and parasites. They would not rest until your Empire and all your worlds were under their control."

"That's right," Daniel agreed. "We didn't come here just to explore. In a way, we came here to warn you. And to offer alliance against the Goa'uld."

"Alliance?" The First Lord of War asked flatly. "What could you possibly offer in an alliance?"

"You tell me," Jack said. He sat back in his chair and looked at the woman across the table. "We showed up out of thin air, in the middle of your military command. If we were here to invade, we'd have had you by the balls in less than an hour."

There was a long, tense moment of mutual silence.

The First Lord of War looked from one to another of SG-1 and then flickered her gaze past Sam's shoulder to the two women sitting by the door. Then, as if she'd received a signal of some sort, she nodded once. "Tragat, have the first tier cleared, and the corridors from the door of the Commandery. We'll give them their chance."

"Actually we may need two," Daniel put in apologetically. "There are two possible symbols on your Stargate which may be the originating symbol. So we may have to try twice to connect."

"Assuming the DHD works," Jack added.

"Auliya, message to the Lord Guardian. I want full sensor scans of the Commandery for the next hour. Tell her the mystery may soon be solved." The First gestured to SG-1. "Let's go."

"Sam, have you got your GDO?" Daniel asked as they followed the Guard Captain and First Lord of War out of the room.

Jack glared at him and pulled up the sleeve of his green BDU shirt to reveal the device strapped to his arm. "Hope you know what you're doing, Danny."

Daniel shrugged a little. "So do I, Jack."

Behind them, Auliya and Areelyn traded small smiles.

***

"Enjoying yourself?" Talyn asked in an undertone to the woman standing just behind her right shoulder. Daniel and Sam were examining the DHD-like decoration on the wall behind the Stargate while Teal'c watched over them. Jack was standing beside the great metal ring, waiting for his archaeologist and astrophysicist to decide they were ready. Talyn was well aware he was checking on the small device that Sam had attached to the underside of the Stargate, but she had said nothing. It served her purposes to let them think they had some measure of control.

"Their story is fascinating," Areelyn murmured. "If they are telling the truth, we have a long and exciting Assembly session ahead of us. Several, I should think."

"And if they're not?"

"Then you get to kill them," Areelyn answered back. "As always."

"If they're telling the truth -- " Talyn stopped as Daniel and Sam turned to call to Jack that they were ready to try and began moving toward Talyn and the others gathered at the archway leading to the stairs.

"It's a clever design," Sam said.

"So it's a real DHD?" Jack asked.

"I think so," Sam said. "It's been rebuilt as an integral part of the wall. The central crystal opens up to get to the crystals inside for maintenance. I don't see anything burnt out, so it should work. Daniel, which two symbols do we need to try?"

"These," Daniel said, sketching swiftly in his notebook before turning it to show Jack and Sam. Teal'c peered over their shoulders, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Whoever built this arrangement knew how Stargates work," Daniel said as he showed the symbols to Talyn. Areelyn and Auliya peered over her shoulders to see as well. "An originating wormhole explodes forward, an incoming wormhole explodes backward. They put the DHD where they wouldn't be caught in the event horizon as it forms."

Talyn blinked down at the symbols drawn and then flicked her glance sideways to Areelyn at her shoulder. "Record this," Talyn said. "Suit up and transmit this to Operations."

"Yes, First," Auliya said. She and Areelyn both understood the hidden order -- if anything should happen their Cymats would give them the best protection and hopes of escape. In the absence of the First Lord of War, Auliya's duty was to protect her Queen. They moved out of the other archway into the larger area beyond. They took a few running steps and jumped.

Before they could land again flickers of gray appeared around them and metal began to appear out of nothingness, lifting the two up, surrounding them, encasing them, growing about them into familiar giant forms. Within only a heartbeat, no more than three seconds at the most, two of the robotic forms stood confidently on the wide mezzanine, turning gracefully to face the way they'd come.

"My God, Doctor Weaver was right," Sam said. Jack, beside her, was staring at the two behemoths with his mouth hanging open and eyes wide. The two Cymats were works of art. Auliya's was silvery-gray and copper-red, the torso armor worked in a scaled pattern that resembled a bird's spread wings radiating from a central spiral roundel in the center. The ovoid head also had wings on the sides, cleverly disguising the workings of twin communications aerials. Areelyn's was a bright chromed silver-white, almost glowing in the indirect light, decorated with an incredibly detailed depiction of a stylized sun disk, thousands of swirling rays and tongues of flame etched and inlaid in dozens of different metals, giving it a shimmering reddish-gold iridescence. The pattern was continued on the legs and arms, flames radiating upward from the huge feet and rubberized four-fingered hands. Both Cymats had the concentric-circle purple and yellow badge of the Queen's Command on the left arm.

"I have got to get me one of those," Jack said, eyes still fixed on the mechanical forms as they both lowered to kneel on one knee just outside the archway.

"I think you've watched Independence Day one time too many, Jack," Daniel said, mostly to hide his own amazement.

"Hurry up and convince these people we're kosher," Jack said, nudging Daniel with his elbow without taking his eyes from the two Cymats.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "We need your GDO, Jack."

Jack shoved his sleeve up and ripped the Velcro fastenings free, sliding the device off.

"Jack."

"What?"

"We're about to fire up the 'Gate, you might want to move."

Jack blinked, shook his head and glanced around, saw Daniel standing there looking at him expectantly. "Oh."

"Uh-huh. Oh indeed," Daniel answered. "Big watery explosion."

"Yeah," Jack said. "C'mon, Teal'c, let's go -- I dunno, find something to do."

Teal'c watched Jack edge out the archway and closer to the two waiting Cymats. "Indeed," the Jaffa intoned, and followed him.

"Sam?" Daniel asked as he moved to the DHD. "Got that note ready?"

"Yep," Sam answered, holding up the folded bit of notebook paper.

"First try. Here goes." Daniel began punching in the symbols. There was no reassuring click as the symbols were pressed, but each began to glow and hum softly, creating a complex and dissonant chord. As the seventh symbol was pressed the Stargate began to whirl and the chevrons began to lock with jolts that they could feel through the floor. Daniel and Sam quickly got out of the path of any possible backlash from the 'Gate, moving quickly to the side of the great ring. By the fourth chevron they could feel the familiar vibrations begin. These increased, rattling the Stargate in its mountings, and by the seventh the two Cymats were leaning forward to poke their massive ovoid heads closer to the archway curiously.

The wormhole exploded outward, the watery illusion of the event horizon roaring into the room, boiling and lashing just short of the walls. It retreated in seconds to the normal rippling puddle of shimmering light. Daniel quickly keyed in his GDO code and Sam ran forward to toss through the note she'd prepared wrapped around a spare pen and secured with a rubber band to give it a little more weight on its flight through the wormhole.

Talyn came forward slowly, eyes filled with wariness as she approached the event horizon.

"It's all right," Sam said. She reached up to touch her fingers to the iridescent energy wall, causing it to ripple. "It's perfectly safe now."

"You came here through -- that?" Talyn asked.

"Yes. We use our Stargate quite a bit -- " Sam stopped, straightened and looked up at the wall of energy, and then ducked quickly out of the way. A split-second after she did the event horizon abruptly burst out of existence with a loud whip crack of displaced air.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, rushing to her.

Sam shook her head, blinking, as Daniel held her steady and looked at her worriedly. "I felt it destabilizing. That close to the event horizon -- felt like someone was walking over my grave."

"Carter?" Jack asked as he appeared beside them, Teal'c at his heels.

"I'm all right, sir," Sam answered. She gathered herself and turned to her commanding officer. "Colonel, the Stargate should have been stable for much longer than that. Even a Stargate without a constant source of power should be able to maintain a stable wormhole for a matter of several minutes, not just a few seconds."

Jack looked over at the huge metal ring, biting his lip in thought. "You told the folks back home to send us a postcard?"

"Yes, sir. Should be five to ten minutes."

"Good." Jack turned to the First Lord of War. "Well, there you have it. Our people should be sending back something in the next few minutes."

Talyn looked from one to the other and then out the archway to the two Cymats still kneeling, the massive heads tilting as the two inside the machines focused on her and SG-1. Then she glanced toward the stairway to see not only Tragat but several of the Guard awaiting her orders.

And at that moment, the Stargate began to dial.

"C'mon," Jack said, waving his team and the First Lord of War to the side of the Stargate as the second chevron locked. Tragat joined them against the wall as once more the vibrations mounted, and then the violence of the incoming wormhole splashing illusory watery coils to within a few feet of the DHD on the wall behind the metal ring.

Something fell out of the event horizon and rolled a few feet away, and three seconds later the wormhole vanished again.

Jack went forward to see what the SGC had sent through and found one of the standard-issue field packs. He picked it up, unzipped the top and looked inside. Then he laughed at the first thing he saw.

"Danny, I think this one's for you," he said, and tossed something toward Daniel.

Daniel caught it, realized what it was almost instantly.

A box of Kleenex, with the words "Get Me A T-Shirt -- Feretti" in red across the side.

"I'm gonna kill him," Daniel muttered.

"No you're not," Sam said as she and Jack continued to look inside the pack. She pulled a package of Hershey bars out. "He sent us chocolate."

Jack left the pack full of goodies to Daniel and Sam and Teal'c and turned to the First Lord of War expectantly.

Talyn looked up at him consideringly, then glanced out toward the two Cymats still kneeling beyond the archway. "It seems we have much to discuss."

"Ya think?" Jack asked. "Seems to me that we've got something to trade with after all. We've got Stargate know-how, you've got giant robot battle suits and ships. We're not just galactic tourists. The Goa'uld are getting more powerful every day and the only way we've found to stand against them is to work together."

"Then perhaps you had best speak to our Queen," Talyn said.

"I'd be happy to."

Talyn smiled frostily and nodded to the two Cymats. They stood and the metal began to part and draw away, layers vanishing into nothingness, the two women inside riding the controlled fall down to land safely on their feet as the last of the machinery disappeared from around them. Talyn held out her hand and Areelyn came to her side.

"You have already, Colonel O'Neill. May I present Areelyn of the House of Draelen, Imperatrix Ardana of the Empire of the Seven Nations." Talyn glanced at Areelyn's mischievous smile and then back to Jack. "And, if I may add, my handfast lifemate."

Areelyn laughed softly at that and turned to Jack. "It is not often we have seeming enemies become potential friends. Be welcome to the Seven Nations, Colonel O'Neill. Shall we take this somewhere better suited for talk? As Talyn says, we have much to discuss."

***

Within the hour deployment schedules were shuffled and the Lord Marshal recalled from his patrol of the Vanix frontier. Areelyn called for an emergency session of her Council and Assembly for the following morning, allowing for travel time for those currently on duty in the Empire's far-flung territory. Then when all was in motion, Areelyn and Talyn invited them all to their tower in the Palace complex where they could rest in comfort while SG-1 made some sort of beginning at relating to an Empire so vastly removed from the galaxy at large that they had never even heard the word "Goa'uld."

***

The Ard-tran's tower, though for sake of security not the most obvious among the twenty-one of the Palace complex, was nevertheless fit for a monarch ruling seven planets and some fifty-plus moons. Built in the spiraling conical design common among the nobility, it was on the edge of the complex and so had an excellent view of the ocean below and the seaside quarters of the city. The outer walls were wound about with the rampways and landings of a wide turret walk that began at the tower's ornate ground-level doors and wound upward around the walls to end at a tiny solarium at the tower's pinnacle. In between, windows and doors on the landings provided entrance to the rooms within. There were benches built into the walls at each landing, sometimes fancifully made to resemble animals in what Jack was coming to recognize as the signature style of the culture.

The Queen's personal rooms were actually quite cozy, not at all what they had expected for the place of a Queen. The walls were of gray granite speckled with quartzite bits, making them sparkle where the sun touched them. Deep windowsills with window seats upholstered with thick cushions and the shaggy pelts of some sort of animal, the kind of thing you wanted to curl up in on a rainy day with a book. More thick furry pelts on the floors, some like a reddish-brown sheepskin and others an iridescent black that rippled with hints of green and blue in the indirect light. There were low carved wood tables between wide sofas covered in patterned and embroidered fabrics in a loose square in front of a fireplace. Shelves built into the rock of the walls held all sorts of royal knick-knacks -- flawless gemstones the size of Jack's fist, priceless antiques, fragile cylinders made of beaten gold incised with lines of tiny script, a crown long since retired due to the unavoidable damages of time and use and now kept lovingly dust-free in honor of the dozens of previous monarchs who had worn it with such pride. A smaller, more homely shelf full of what were obviously personal tokens, things Jack recognized instantly despite their alien origins: unit insignia, holograms showing young hotshots grinning around a small fighter craft, another showing Areelyn and Talyn standing together, arms around each other's waists, in what were obviously their formal dress uniforms. Another larger hologram showed a beautiful red-haired woman and a giant bear of a man, arms around each other looking into each other's eyes in what was obviously a fiery kind of love. Jack grinned a little and raised his mug of wine to the two in the hologram, glad someone in this crazy universe had that kind of love.

And wishing he had it himself.

Daniel was talking himself hoarse. All of them were, but Daniel most of all. He was so excited, so eager, so happy to know everything he could possibly learn of life in the Seven Nations. Areelyn and Talyn were curled up together on one of the couches, drinking impartially from each other's silver goblets as they took turns asking or answering Daniel's questions. Jack smiled, hearing laughter behind him. Carter and Daniel were so excited they were giggling like loons.

It had been a while since he'd heard that kind of laughter. Maybe all this would work out after all.

He wandered out through the open window-door onto the walkway landing where a quieter discussion was taking place.

"How ya doin', T?" he asked as he joined them.

"I am well, O'Neill," Teal'c said serenely. "Captain Tragat and Lieutenant Sonaya were formerly assigned to the Empire's defensive forces. They have been explaining the structure of command."

"Ah yes," Jack said, grinning a little. "The path the buck takes on its way from General to lowly Airman." He leaned against the walkway crenellations beside Teal'c. "I realize this may be classified information, Tragat, but could you give me a general idea as to how the Cymats work? How you control them, where they are exactly before you hit the 'on' button, that kind of thing?"

Tragat smiled slightly, his sharp thin face lighting with enthusiasm. "I am not an engineer, mind you, but the Cymats exist in the subspace area bounded by the form outline of the Cymat centered on the pilot. We have other weapons than the Cymats that utilize the same method, though they are tuned to a different frequency of phase so that the weapons do not exist within the same region of subspace at the same time. We are able to call them into existence in this spacetime by momentarily opening a conduit from that extradimensional space."

Jack blinked, trying to work out what Tragat had said. "Okay, let's take this one at a time. Subspace?"

"Teal'c has mentioned that the Goa'uld use ships that travel in what you call hyperspace -- we call it the overheaven. We are aware of hyperspace and the means by which travel can be affected through it, there was a brief period in our history when we used such ships ourselves. Hyperspace exists in the dimensions above these we know as spacetime -- the three dimensions of form with time being the fourth. Subspace exists below the dimensions of form. They are fractional dimensions which can contain infinite area."

"Like a Menger Cube," Sam said, entering the conversation as she came out onto the walkway landing. "Fractional dimension of 2.73, with infinite surface area."

"They're not scientists, Carter," Jack warned. "They just fly the hardware, they don't know how it works."

"Should things go as the Ard-tran wishes, you will certainly be among those given access to our Sciences Guild," Tragat said.

"I was meaning to ask about that, the Sciences Guild, I mean -- " Sam began.

Jack watched his second for a moment, shook his head and turned to go back inside. Teal'c followed, realizing that Sam was off on another round of questions trying to assuage her curiosity. Teal'c detoured to the table against the wall that the Queen's servants had laid with platters of snacks and pitchers and bottles of drinks -- Teal'c had quickly come to prefer the fruit juice drink they'd found in their rooms that morning. The light, fruity wine that the rest of them drank had just enough of a kick to keep them all pleasantly relaxed. There'd been a bit of culinary cultural exchange earlier when Sam and Daniel had introduced the Queen and the First Lord of War to Hershey's chocolate. The Queen had immediately insisted that she would write a clause into the treaty that would guarantee they had a steady source of supply. Once again, Daniel's form of chocolate diplomacy had bridged insurmountable cultural gaps and started the Seven Nations on the road to alliance.

Daniel was happy. Jack could see it in the way he talked with his hands, the brightness in his eyes, the animation in his voice. For the last two weeks after that pyrrhic victory of the undercover mission, Daniel had lived in a kind of angry shadow. For the moment, at least, he was doing what he loved and he was at peace.

Jack was just beginning to realize what he'd do to keep him that way.

Tragat came in from the walkway, Sonaya and Sam in his wake. "Ard-tran, First, message from the Portmaster -- The Lord Marshal had arrived, he and the Lord Guardian and on their way here."

Areelyn pulled herself upright from her comfortable sprawl in Talyn's arms, putting aside her goblet of wine. "Ah, good! Blannad!" She turned as one of her chambermaids appeared at the door at her call. "We will need more food and wine. The Lord Marshal and Lord Guardian will be joining us shortly."

"At once, Ard-tran," the girl said, nodding as she withdrew.

Jack took the chance of the sudden lull in conversation to sit down next to Daniel on the wide sofa, watching with faint bemusement as Talyn pulled her Queen back into her arms. The two together really showed the contrast; one delicate, slender and pale, the other muscled, broad-shouldered and lightly tanned. Areelyn's sharply pointed ear was distinctly visible against her bound black hair as she turned her head.

Daniel anticipated his question. "This may be a delicate subject -- but ever since we got here I've noticed that there seem to be two different -- well, species? -- of people. I'll understand if you don't want to talk about it."

Talyn snorted a laugh and Areelyn grinned and lightly slapped the muscled leg against which she rested. "There are some circles within the higher nobility where it is a delicate subject. It's been a point of... irritation, I suppose would be the word, within my court. You are correct, there are two strands in the colors of Oriyan. There are others within the Seven Nations, but of them all the Adalandai have stubbornly refused to dissolve themselves completely into the whole."

"We were here first," Talyn said as Areelyn handed her their cup of wine. "The Adalandai were here long before the Tilindrans barged in and took over."

"Ha!" Areelyn said. She turned back to Daniel and his question. "Talyn's right. The Adalandai are the original inhabitants of Oriyan. My people, the Tilindra, arrived some thirty-five hundred of our years ago."

"May I ask how you came here?" Daniel said carefully.

"We came here ourselves, not at the hands of these Goa'uld you have spoken of," Areelyn said. "We were a spacefaring race long before we came here to Oriyan. I do not know where we came from, all records of our origins have long since vanished -- the Adalandai were not pleased to see us at first. They destroyed our ships and with them our historical archives. Typically Adalandan plan, they wish us to leave and destroy our ships."

Talyn humphed at that while the others laughed.

"We found Oriyan to our liking and saw potential in the Adalandai, and so we stayed," Areelyn said.

"What are your people like?" Daniel asked, directing the question to Talyn.

The First Lord of War grinned lopsidedly. "When these pointy-eared nags showed up, we were nomadic," Talyn began. "Now, I guess to look at us there is no difference. Save for the obvious."

"They are the iron hand inside the armored glove of our military forces," Areelyn said quietly. "Where Tilindra would confront an enemy with greater technologies, the Adalandai are the strength behind the blade."

They were all quiet for a moment.

"I guess there was some objection when you two got married, huh?" Jack asked, looking down at his hands holding his mug. "Because you're Adalandan?" he continued, looking up at Talyn.

The two laughed shortly and without mirth. "That fact is the singular cause of intrigues beyond intrigues in my Court and Council at the moment," Areelyn said. "That I should have taken up with a woman is of no importance -- it is common in our military. That I should have taken up with a pure-bred Adalandai from the lowest ranks of our society, the very dregs of the barrel --"

"My family are herdsmen," Talyn said flatly. "It's good honest work."

"Wingman was fine, but to share a bed with her? My parents didn't care but everyone else seemed to have opinions from morning to middlenight," Areelyn finished. "Nevermind that Talyn was the only one who volunteered. I needed a wingman, and no one wanted to be responsible for the safety of the Heir to the Throne. It can be a quick path to execution."

"So why did you do it?" Daniel asked, intrigued as the rest of them.

Talyn grinned ruefully. "Initially, to gain merit. My family may be honest herdsmen, but Ree is right -- we're the lowest of the low. One gains value in the eyes of others by accomplishment and association. The longer I was able to keep Ree from harm, the greater value I would have in the eyes of others. Those in power are more inclined to be favorable to those who are seen as of greater worth. I was ambitious."

Daniel was opening his mouth to ask another question when a commotion began in the inner hallway beyond the thick wooden door. Abruptly the door was flung open and a very tall, burly man came striding quickly into the room, followed by an equally tall woman with a fall of red-gold hair that fell to her knees. Both were dressed in the black field-combat uniforms, but before any other details could be grasped Areelyn and Talyn jumped up from their comfortable sprawl and flung themselves into the newcomers' arms.

In the midst of all the hugging, kissing and joyful exclamations, Jack realized the two were the man and woman he'd seen in the hologram portrait. And presumably they were the Lord Marshal and the Lord Guardian, commanders of the attack and defense forces respectively.

"Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Jackson, Major Carter, Teal'c," Areelyn said, turning to her guests but not leaving the circle of the bear-like man's arms. "These are Norai sithna'Sheolaun, Lord Marshal, and his wife the Princess Eruin sithna'Draelen, Lord Guardian, my cousin and my heir. Should anything happen to me, these two will be set loose upon the universe."

"You already set us loose upon the universe," the big man teased. He looked up and around, keeping both arms around Areelyn and Talyn, looking to each of SG-1 in turn. "Ree's message was remarkably short, but she tells me you all are from a distant world far outside the realm of the Empire."

"We are," Daniel said quickly.

"That you came here right under the nose of my wife tells me you must be something more than a few Adalandai," the Lord Marshal continued.

"They're not Adalandai," Areelyn said. "Come, sit. Eat and drink. Eri, Blannad will have more food brought up shortly. Colonel O'Neill and his friends have spun the universe on its head for us. There is much we will need to decide."

***

It was late into the night when Sonaya took SG-1 back to their rooms in the officer's quarters of the Commandery. The warm breeze from the ocean was wonderfully soothing. Daniel leaned against the balcony wall and closed his eyes and breathed in the salt scent, his mind whirling.

So much to learn here... where could he even begin?

"I think my brain is going to explode," Sam said wearily beside him. "Overload."

"Me too," Daniel answered. "We're getting too old for this. What say you and me quit all this, run away together and buy a strawberry farm somewhere? Nice safe primitive plant life that doesn't talk much and doesn't use tools or build things."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Sam said. Daniel opened his eyes to see her smiling weakly.

"Grapes," Jack said, coming outside to join them. He leaned his elbows against the top of the wall and rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted. "Grow grapes."

"You gonna peel them for us, sir?" Carter joked.

"Yeahsureyoubetcha," Jack said, the phrase muffled by his hands. "Spend the rest of my life peeling grapes for a pair of strawberry-growing eggheads." He took his hands away and looked out over the city below. "Maybe fly kites. No engines, no hydraulics, nothing to explode or burst into flames. Just wings and wind."

"We're beginning to sound like hippies," Daniel said tiredly.

They fell silent at that. Teal'c joined them, watching his teammates calmly.

"Any of you find out how Areelyn's father died?" Jack asked.

"No, sir," Sam said as Daniel shook his head.

"Killed during an attempted coup. He was personally commanding a skirmish against these bandits they're always fighting when his Tactical officer and several others in the crew instigated a mutiny. He escaped and fought back, got some of the loyal among the crew together and tried to regain control of the ship. The rebels panicked and set the self-destruct on the ship's engines. Kaboom." Jack shook his head. "Their Lord Marshal, Norai, he was commanding one of the fast-attack ships sent after them when the rebels took over. Said that kind of thing happens all the time here. The whole thing was an attempt to get the King to agree to sign over land-use rights to one of the moons. Areelyn's first act as Queen was to personally execute about a dozen people who were involved in the plot."

"Don't be fooled by the fairy-tale trappings, Jack," Daniel said. "These people are deadly. They don't just fight nice clean battles in space, they board their enemies' ships and leave the walls covered in blood. That goes for their political enemies from home as much as the bandits from the frontier."

"In this aspect they are much like the Goa'uld," Teal'c said quietly. "Conflicts between the false gods at times distract them from perceiving threats from elsewhere."

"And that's always good news for us," Jack said. He sighed wearily. "Come on, kids, let's get some rest. We've got to be at our best for our audience tomorrow. Roar of the grease paint, smell of the crowd and all that."

"It's a joint session of the Queen's Council and the Assembly, Jack, not a circus," Daniel admonished as they turned to go back inside.

"Danny, if it's anything like joint sessions of Congress back home the only thing missing will be the clowns."

***

The Assembly chamber was standing room only, filled not only with the seven planetary Princes, the Governor of the Moons, military and Guild leaders but Areelyn's Council of advisors. The Council consisted of Areelyn's personal choices of experts from the Guilds, several members of the royal family, two of her former teachers from the War College and a surprising half-dozen "commoners" -- as it turned out, a family of bards that Areelyn met some fifteen years before when she was still Crown Princess. The archways along the outer wall of the chamber were jam-packed with people jostling to get a glimpse of the proceedings, some wearing a head-mounted device that covered the eye and ear on the left side of the head. Jack assumed they were news reporters. Talyn had assured him that Tragat's men had cleared and searched the building that morning, all entrances were under guard and all who entered the building thoroughly searched for weapons. By law Areelyn had to preside over Assembly and High Court sessions at least once a month; by her own custom she did so at the High Court once a week while leaving Assembly to the traditional once a month.

"I think you were right about the clowns, Jack," Daniel said, peering through the crack where he stood at the door hidden behind the throne on the Assembly chamber's dais. "There's some people out there with remarkably bad taste in clothing."

"Bright green and orange?" Areelyn asked.

"Yeah. Back home we use those colors for warning signs on our roads."

Areelyn laughed as she straightened her simple floor-length gown of white silk. "That's the Prince of Yovinar. His wife has no sense of taste or style at all but fancies herself the very last word on both." She shook her head, ran her hands carefully over the braids coiled around her head and checked the various jewels clinging to her neck, forehead and temples. "I'm a fine one to talk, all these weapons activators and communicators and neuromats I'm wearing. I look like a cheap mercenary. Or a whore."

Jack snorted a laugh at that.

"That's oh so diplomatic, sir," Sam admonished.

"Always a good idea to agree with the top brass, Carter, even when they say weird things. Mercenaries in white silk dresses -- it's a big universe, it had to happen somewhere." Jack grinned as Areelyn giggled.

"There's Talyn," Daniel said, still peering through the crack at the door as the Speaker of the Assembly began the ritualized formal presentation that traditionally opened the Assembly sessions. Talyn was answering with the ritual response confirming that all approaches were guarded, all enemies of the Empire and their treacheries removed from the place of Assembly.

"Tragat's just confirmed they've locked the doors," Eruin said, nodding as she received the message from the Guard Captain. She turned to her cousin, straightening her own formal uniform of black trimmed in dark purple, rather like the formal uniforms of the Marines on Earth save for the restrained colors and the absence of a hat. Instead, Eruin wore her flaming red hair braided and coiled on her head in the traditional military manner. "Well? Shall we?"

Areelyn nodded, drew herself up, suddenly looking every inch the Ard-tran of the Seven Nations. Eruin took Daniel's place at the door, waited on her cousin's nod. Head held high, Areelyn walked forward to face her Assembly and her people.

***

A simple telling, really, though obviously from the reactions it came as a shock. The heart of the Seven Nations was known to be inviolable, that four travelers had appeared in the Commandery itself via something that all believed was simply an ancient work of art (however mysterious), undetected and unchallenged, was simply untenable and unbelievable. All in the chamber remained silent while Areelyn was speaking, though their reactions were plain to see as her tale progressed -- anger, disbelief, shock, denial. The moment Areelyn stopped speaking, sat down on her throne again, and said, "Speaker, we will now entertain debate" the uproar began.

The questions and accusations and demands flew thick and furious. Who were these invaders? What technologies did they possess that they could use an ancient religious sculpture to take the very heart of power of the Seven Nations (a comment that had Daniel scribbling furiously in his notebook, as they had seen no signs of any extant religions yet)? Where did they come from? Should they launch a counterinvasion, reduce the invaders' planets down to bedrock, murder ever man able to hold a weapon in retaliation for this insult? Or should they invade, take the invaders' planets, and keep them under military and economic domination for a generation or two?

There was no talk of alliance, no talk of scientific or cultural exchange, no talk of trade. Only invasion, destruction, and revenge for the supposed "insult" of arriving unannounced.

"Kids, I think we are in deep shit," Jack said quietly as he watched the vengeful vitriol from behind the door behind the throne. "Were they watching you when you dialed home yesterday, Danny?"

"I --" Daniel stopped, thinking, then turned to Jack with a look of horror in his eyes. "Tragat, Talyn, Auliya and Areelyn, they were all watching, or close enough to see the symbols as the Stargate dialed!"

"Carter, is there any way they could triangulate to Earth from the coordinates? They're based on constellations as seen from Earth, there'd be no way they could know exactly which stars were the reference points, right?"

"No sir," Sam said, her eyes as wide as Daniel's. "The constellations are all based on Earth mythology and astronomical reference methods, they'd have to understand those to even begin."

"Small mercies, kids." Jack ran a hand back through his hair. Then he looked up at them again as something else occurred to him. "The damned translators!"

Daniel's hand flew to the hard oval lump below his ear, Sam echoing the gesture at the same moment. They realized what Jack was saying -- if the translators worked by replacing Tilindran words with English via the neural activity of the brain itself, could they be used as mind imaging or mind control devices? Could they pick out the galactic location of Earth?

"O'Neill," Teal'c said from the doorway. "We are being summoned to speak."

They looked at each other for one more moment in fear, then Jack straightened and his expression calmed. Sometimes the mask of the calm, cool, Air Force Colonel came in handy. Sam nodded and collected herself, and Daniel's face cleared of anxiety as well.

"Best behavior. We need to win an Academy Award here, so put on your happy budget-committee 'butter wouldn't melt in our mouths' faces and let's convince these people it would be a bad idea to turn our planet into Swiss cheese," Jack said calmly.

Teal'c stepped away from the door as it opened, and Sonaya beckoned them out.

***

There was a very obvious silence that fell when the Assembly and Council realized their ears weren't pointed. You could have heard a pin drop.

And then the uproar broke like a wave.

In the midst of strident angry voices yelling, Sonaya led them to stand in the middle of the mosaic symbol of the Seven Nations inlaid into the floor. Jack and Sam seemed to fall into parade rest without conscious thought while Daniel and Teal'c flanked them, Teal'c looking as unfazed as a stone. Daniel clutched his notebook and pen in one hand and kept his eyes on Areelyn, who was flicking her gaze among her protesting Assembly with a mask of such cold detachment on her delicate features that she resembled nothing so much as a pale marble statue. Talyn, standing in front and slightly to the right of her Queen, looked like a matching statue of obsidian in her black and purple uniform. The crystals of weapons activators were distinctly visible on her throat and under her ears. Eruin and Norai were the only quiet ones in the Assembly seats, both with their gazes fixed firmly on their Queen. Daniel thought they looked worried but were hiding it behind their military masks just as Jack and Sam were.

After a full two minutes of shouted invective, Areelyn raised one white hand. Silence fell instantly.

"Friends from far away, we wish you to repeat your tale of how you came to appear in our Commandery, in detail so that all here may know of how it came to be. Speak, each of you according to your talents and skills, of the operation of the Stargate and why you wish for alliance with the Seven Nations," Areelyn said. She bent cool glances on her Assembly and Council. "There will be no comment until all your tale is known."

Jack nodded, then glanced over to Daniel.

Daniel nodded in acknowledgement and handed Sam his notebook and pen. Sonaya led the others to seats that were cleared for them in the first row of the Council side. Daniel gathered himself and began to speak. "Seventy-two years ago on my homeworld, Earth, a large ring-shaped object was found under the sands of a desert in an area long known to contain relics of some of the most ancient cultures of my planet. It was lying flat on a shelf of natural bedrock and covered by six wedge-shaped cover stones bearing inscriptions in variations of the script extant at the time of its burial some eight thousand years previous. Also present were six symbols that bore no relation to any script known on my homeworld even today save to a small group of people. These symbols could not be translated, and the object, its cover stones and its mysterious writing were soon forgotten in the midst of a war that encompassed the major powers of the world. The object's discoverer, Dr. Wendell Langford, continued his studies. Dr. Langford died without learning the true significance of what he had found. His daughter, Dr. Catherine Langford, followed in his footsteps and continued his studies. A little more than five of our years ago, she asked me to join the team that she had gathered in her continuing attempts to decode the mysteries of the object. We soon came to learn it was called the Stargate, and that the unknown symbols on the coverstones represented an address to another Stargate on a world several thousand lightyears away..."

***

"This region of the galaxy was once claimed by the false god Fea, a minor Goa'uld of little wealth and power. But even a minor Goa'uld can inflict terror and suffering across hundreds of living worlds," Teal'c intoned in his deep voice. "As the First Prime of Apophis, I commanded forces that decimated entire worlds in service to his quest for power. Many struggled, valuing their freedom above life. Many fell without struggle, recognizing they had no chance of standing against the false gods' might. All became enslaved. Those of exceptional physical beauty often became hosts to the offspring of Apophis. DanielJackson's wife Shau'ri and her brother Skaara were two of these. I regret that as First Prime my duty was to choose those who were to be presented to the false goddess Amaunet as candidates for host. To my shame, Lady Shau'ri was found pleasing to the false goddess, and was taken as host..."

***

"We worked for two years with the best physicists in the world and the most advanced computers on our planet, trying to puzzle out how the Stargate dialing system worked," Sam said, standing easily at parade rest in the center of the symbol of the Seven Nations, facing the Assembly. "We made very little progress until Catherine brought Daniel to us and he discovered that you needed a seventh symbol that indicated the originating planet. That first time the Stargate activated, they sent a MALP through. The next day, Colonel O'Neill led the first team through the Stargate to Abydos..."

***

"The upshot of it all is that we defeated Ra, but only just," Jack said calmly. "We got damned lucky. When Apophis came to Earth a year later, he could just as easily have secured Stargate Command as his base of operations and begun moving his Jaffa through the Stargate by the battalion. Kawalsky, Feretti and I were the only survivors of the first mission, and as far as we knew there was only one other Stargate. I was recalled to active duty to deal with the problem. General Hammond was very much aware how lucky we'd been that Apophis had only showed up to take a look around and kidnap one of our airmen. The techs were hooking up a nuclear device to send to Abydos, thinking that's where the attack originated. I had to admit I'd lied, and that Daniel was alive on Abydos. We returned to the planet. We went, we saw, we ate, we drank -- Skaara makes a mean moonshine, thanks to the corrupting influence of his brother-in-law. While Daniel and Carter and I were discussing -- things -- Apophis and his Jaffa came through the Stargate. The Abydonians and my men fought; several of the Abydonians were killed, two of my men were badly injured. Daniel's wife Shau'ri was kidnapped, and ... well, you've heard the rest. Ever since then, we've been going to planets looking for allies to help us in the fight against the Goa'uld. Some of the folks we've found tell us that we Tau'ri are the first race, the oldest strain of humans in the universe, and that every other human culture in the universe came from colonies of humans planted by the Goa'uld. Daniel's found cultures all over the universe that parallel the old civilizations of Earth, like living history exhibits. Sometimes, though, they're not what we expected..."

***

"You could probably stand against the Goa'uld by yourselves, the Seven Nations alone," Daniel said in conclusion. "From what little I've seen I can already tell that your resources are vast, your technology certainly comparable if not superior to the Goa'uld. The real question is how long can you sustain such a level of resistance? The Goa'uld themselves can live for thousands of years so long as they have a supply of hosts to sustain them. The only emotions they feel are greed and vengeance. Should the Seven Nations become the object of their desires they would literally spend thousands of years promulgating a war that you cannot win. What they cannot take, they destroy. The methods we have developed with our allies -- mutual defense, covert operations, the mobility afforded by Stargate travel and the advanced technologies of our allies -- have enabled us to gain some ground against the Goa'uld. If you were to join our alliance, these same advantages would come also to the Seven Nations. You know nothing of the Stargate. You believed your own 'Gate was a sculpture until we came through it. I believe that joining the alliance would be advantageous to the Seven Nations for that one reason alone, even if you are fortunate enough never to encounter the Goa'uld." Daniel stopped, looked from one to another of the Assembly, turned to Areelyn. "I suppose it's all in your hands now. Thank you for giving us a fair hearing."

***

"You did good, Danny," Jack whispered as Daniel sat down beside him. He reached over and squeezed Daniel's hand where the archaeologist had let it fall on his own knee. The hand was trembling slightly. Nerves, Jack guessed. "You did great. It'll be all right."

Daniel took the goblet of fruit juice that Sam handed down from the pitcher Sonaya had left for them, drank off half of it while Jack watched. "I'm all right," Daniel whispered back, seeing the worry in Jack's dark eyes.

Jack nodded. "Maybe they'll throw us out soon so they can yell some more."

"Maybe," Daniel answered wearily.

***

Areelyn soon had Sonaya escort them back to their quarters in the Commandery. The debate -- or screaming match, Jack wasn't sure which -- looked bound to continue for the next several hours. There was no reason for them to attend, as most of it would concern matters of state that they could hardly hope to follow.

"Is there anywhere we could go to get some fresh air, walk around outside, that kind of thing?" Jack asked as they walked.

"Surely," Sonaya said, nodding. "Behind the Assembly and Commandery. A tamed forest, naught in it to alarm or harm, but soothing for all of that. I can take you there now."

"Come on, T," Jack said, knowing the Jaffa was as unaccustomed to indoor life as he was. "You gonna go talk to your tape recorder?" Jack asked with a wan grin at Daniel.

Daniel looked weary. The presentation to the Assembly had taken a lot out of them all. None of them really liked to remember what had happened to Shau'ri and Skaara. They'd saved Skaara, why couldn't they have saved Shau'ri? Daniel especially would never forgive himself for not taking her with them that day to the Hall of Ra. That one small decision had cost her a year of horror and her life.

"Yeah," Daniel said tonelessly.

Sam nodded at Jack's silently conveyed order, Go with him. "Me too, sir," she said aloud. "I want to get all the planetary data into some sort of order and make a start on my report."

Jack turned to the two younger members of his team, put one hand on Daniel's slumped shoulder and one on Sam's, looked into first one set of weary blue eyes and then the other. "It'll be all right, kids. We're doing all we can, and that's all anyone can ask. Even the President couldn't ask us for more."

"Yes sir," Sam said softly. Daniel nodded wordlessly.

"Teal'c and I will bring you some stuff to send home," Jack promised. "Now go on."

"Come on, Danny," Sam said. She took his hand and one of Sonaya's fellow Guards began to escort them toward the Commandery's officer quarters.

Teal'c watched them go, then turned to look at Jack.

"Show's not over til the fat lady sings, T," Jack said, answering Teal'c's unspoken query.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I am unaware of this phrase."

"It means that nothing's decided until everything's said and done. We can't know how it's going to turn out, so we just keep going full steam ahead until it's over." Jack put a hand on the Jaffa's muscled shoulder briefly and turned them both to follow Sonaya. "Come on, let's take a walk."

***

The mountains that rose up a few miles behind the Palace, Assembly and Commandery complex looked remarkably like the Rockies. A serrated, sharp-toothed line of black stone clothed in trees on the lower slopes and glacial ice on the jagged tops, perpetually shrouded in clouds of snowy mist, they loomed over the triangle of the valley below in imposing silence. Jack felt the cold wind from those mountains sweeping down the sloping plain between the city and the mountains, the scent of snow. For a moment he could almost believe he was back in Colorado.

He could sense Sonaya and the other guards keeping their distance. Well, he couldn't blame them. He knew the drill.

"This planet is most pleasant," Teal'c said at his side.

"Yeah, it is, T," Jack said quietly. "Kinda reminds me of home."

They were sitting against the shaggy-barked trunk of a tree easily ten feet in diameter, its high canopy some two hundred feet above them, on the far edge of the little tamed forest behind the Commandery. They had an unobstructed view of the mountains; the forest was on a slight rise above the level of the plains. Herds of some sort of large animal were roaming and grazing the thick grasses of the plains. They'd been sitting watching the snow mists swirling off the tops of the mountains for the last fifteen minutes, mostly in silence. Both of them were old soldiers. Sometimes -- most times -- you just didn't feel like talking.

Why was it Daniel always had so much to say?

"Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c," called a familiar light contralto voice behind them. A moment later Areelyn came out of the trees, looking like some fairy-tale version of Princess Leia in her white silk dress. Tragat and several other bodyguards were moving silently through the forest. She looked around with a smile, closing her eyes briefly against the cold wind, clearly pleased to be outdoors. "May I join you for a moment or two?"

"Your planet," Jack said. "Pull up a tree root."

Areelyn laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Actually, Colonel --" Areelyn stopped and looked to Teal'c apologetically. "Master Teal'c, may I speak with Colonel O'Neill alone? It is near to our sunset meal, if you wish to join your companions. If this day has taken its toll on you as it has with me, a good hot meal will be all the better for you."

"Indeed. I have found your foods most flavorful." Teal'c got to his feet, bowed to the Queen and turned for the pathway. Sonaya joined him, but the other guards kept their distance scattered through the forest. Areelyn watched the Jaffa go with a small smile, then settled on a patch of thick grass a few feet away.

"Teal'c and I were just sayin' that you've got a nice planet here," Jack said after a moment.

"It is beautiful," Areelyn agreed. "Though I cannot take credit for my ancestors' decision to build Alaharu in this particular spot. They chose it for that the Adalandai avoided the place. Due to the convergence of the winds, clouds and mist can form literally in minutes. You can watch it happening, it's that quick. The Adalandai believed this area to be haunted. In those days, we needed that shield of fear or the Adalandai might have killed us all."

"But you've integrated now, right?" Jack asked.

"Yes. It is only among the high nobility that we still have racial discrimination." Areelyn sighed quietly. "We are close enough genetically to produce children, though my family has never done so. Once a Prince of the house had to marry the daughter of the leader of the Onuskai -- they're the indigenous people of Ulo. They are not genetically compatible to us, no children came of it, but by the time the Prince died the Onuskai had realized the benefit of being within the Empire. They have become very prominent in the Traders' Guild."

"So you have people with mixed blood?" Jack asked.

"Indeed. You know of one. Sonaya."

"No kidding? I never would have guessed," Jack said with some surprise.

Areelyn smiled a little. "She is only a quarter Adalandan, but it is enough. Should you see anyone here with brown hair, they are Adalandan or have Adalandan blood. We Tilindra never have brown hair. Also Tilindra will not have brown eyes, our eyes are always blue or green. Their skin is generally darker than ours, though never as dark as Teal'c's. They are more robust in form. There are other differences, but those are the most visible. No matter what you may be told, the Adalandai are fully as intelligent as the most gifted of Tilindra." She shrugged, looking down at her fingers sifting through the grass at her side. "I would never have made Talyn my First Lord of War if she were not capable of it, no matter how beloved she was to me. It never occurs to my detractors that I was aware of what I was doing when I appointed her to the post. My reign began in vengeance but once that was done we needed someone with the ability to hold fast to what we have gained. Talyn is that person."

They were both silent for a moment.

"So did the Assembly actually decide on anything after we left?" Jack asked.

Areelyn snorted an unladylike laugh. "Colonel, we do not make alliances of the sort that Doctor Jackson has described." She held up a slim hand as he opened his mouth to speak. "That is not to say I would not make such an alliance. But traditionally we have only one method of dealing with new worlds -- conquest. If circumstances dictate, we may proffer an alliance marriage, but it is little more than a polite way of securing a hostage to ensure cooperation. We do not offer an alliance of equals because we believe we have no equals." She shrugged delicately. "So says the common run of thought."

"Are you kidding?" Jack said. "Seven planets and fifty some odd moons would be chump change for Apophis or Ra."

"Chump change?"

"Ra would have given that kind of thing to one of his kids for their birthday. Seven planets is nothing to a Goa'uld. Give it a hundred years and they'd swallow the Empire whole." Jack ran a hand back through his hair and rubbed his eyes. "Didn't you hear what Daniel said? You may be able to fight, but you can't win. They'll win by attrition. They can afford that kind of time."

Areelyn shrugged again, little more than a small movement of her head. "There are those within the Assembly who do not believe Daniel or any of you. Because you look like Adalandai."

Jack pushed himself to his feet with sudden angry energy and began to pace. "What, do they want a demonstration? 'Cause I really don't like asking Teal'c to get Junior to poke his ugly snout out of the bag. It completely creeps me out and if Danny sees it he'll have nightmares for days."

"Junior?" Areelyn asked.

"The Jaffa carry Goa'uld larvae in their stomachs. They're incubators. Most of'em consider it an honor. Teal'c's one of the few who think it's slavery. If he could live without the damned thing he'd rip it out of his stomach and wring it's slimy neck in a heartbeat."

"So that is what it is," Areelyn said quietly. "Tragat said they detected it during the neural scans."

"That's what most of your people would become if the Goa'uld found the Empire," Jack said, turning back to face her. "Tilindran, Adalandai, doesn't matter. Some of you would become hosts, some would become Jaffa, and the rest would become slaves. We've seen it on literally hundreds of planets. Danny was telling you God's honest truth. What they can't take, they destroy."

"I believe you, Colonel," Areelyn said. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them as Jack dropped back down to sit against the tree again. She looked down at her hands cupped together on her knees, pale flesh against white silk. "Despite our technologies, change comes slowly within the Empire," she said carefully. "We are the supreme power, isolate and alone, the masters of all we hold. There is no reason to change. Perhaps it is pride, or it's underbelly stubbornness. Our way has worked for thousands of years. We believe ourselves superior to any challenge the universe may bring us." She looked up at him. "I know that is a fatal blindness. Before my father was killed and I became Queen, I commanded a scout ship. Talyn and I and our crew have been beyond the asteroid field beyond Vanix. We have seen another world, a trading planet. We did not land -- that would have been suicide, there were dozens of ships in orbit, and we were alone. We landed on one of the asteroids at the system's edge, and we ... listened. For days. What our translators could translate taught us much. The most important thing we learned was that our way of life is not the only way that works. The second most important was that we are not alone." She sighed and looked up at the distant mountains. "One day they will find us, and I suspect they won't be offering alliance as you have. My people are quick to use others if it is to their advantage. The Empire may not fall -- but it could dissolve. That is the danger of the worlds beyond. It is simply change."

Jack slumped back against the tree, weary all over again. "So what do we do? How do we make this work? You guys need to know about the Stargate, even if only to protect yourselves. We could sure use your help in the alliance, since us Tau'ri always have to do things bass ackward and figure out wormholes before we can send a ship to the next planet out in our own system. So either you guys learn to do alliances real quick, or --" He stopped.

"Exactly," Areelyn said. "An alliance marriage. Which would make your homeworld part of the Empire."

Jack swallowed nervously. "You guys would overrun us, wouldn't you?"

Areelyn sighed. "We would have to do something of the sort, to enforce our ... claim."

"My people wouldn't go for that," Jack said.

"Would they honor an alliance marriage?"

Jack slowly shook his head. "There's really no one who would work. We don't have a single ruler of our planet. The nation I'm from is the most powerful, so... the President? But there's plenty of people who wouldn't acknowledge that he's the leader of the planet."

Areelyn looked surprised. "Why not? If he is the leader of the most powerful nation?"

Jack sighed. "Because -- we still fight amongst ourselves. Over stupid stuff, Danny would say. I dunno, I'm just a guy who wanted to fly airplanes for a living."

"Airplanes?"

"Atmospheric craft. I started out as a test pilot and engineer." Jack shrugged. "Then I had this problem with my ears, I was grounded for several years. I thought I'd never fly again, and I went into Special Operations. One thing led to another, and I ended up at Stargate Command."

"Ah," Areelyn said. "Sounds like a path of unexpected turns."

"It was," Jack confirmed. "So what do we do?"

Areelyn looked back up at the mountains. "An alliance marriage does not have to be with the leader, or even of his family," she said carefully. "It can be anyone of great worth. One of the nobility, or... a high-ranking member of the military."

Jack blinked. She couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying. So he said the second question that popped into his head. "What about Talyn?"

"She and I are handfasted, it was not a full state marriage -- it can't be. But we have several different kinds of marriage. None of them are exclusive. I love Talyn, and I will until the moment I die. Preferably in her arms, after a long and satisfying life. But..." Areelyn stopped, and her eyes were sad. "She can never be my King."

Jack just stared at her in silence, wondering if she was crazy or if he was himself.

Areelyn smiled wanly, then got to her feet. There were grass stains on her dress, but she didn't seem to even notice. "Please think on what I have said," she said quietly, and turned to go.

Jack watched until she disappeared into the trees.

"Jeez," he said finally, disbelieving.

***

"The culture of the Seven Nations is in general a modern feudal system and appears to be divided among three broad categories: the landed nobility; craftsmen and artists represented by the Guilds; and the military, both planetside infantry and Starfleet. The Sciences Guild, while generally thought of as a Guild, seems to hold a special, almost mystical significance. It seems to have taken on a sort of proto-religious importance in that they are seen to be quite mysterious characters dealing in the direct workings of the universe. This is certainly not an uncommon attitude but seems to be a source of mild embarrassment, as if they're ashamed to admit that they acknowledge a power greater than themselves even if it is simply an understanding of the mechanical workings of the universe. The landed nobility consist of the hereditary ruling houses of the seven planets, a Governor of the moons appointed by the Ard-tran, and the royal family of sithna'Draelen. Areelyn is the ninety-third monarch of her family to rule the Seven Nations, and she is currently in the fourth year of her reign. Aside from the throne world of Oriyan which was the first to be colonized by the Tilindrans, the Empire consists of, in order of colonization, Vanix, Yovinar, Meharat, Ulo, Elidon and Shohadeh. See my notes for approximate English spellings on those. The most prosperous worlds of the Empire aside from Oriyan seem to be Vanix and Meharat, Vanix for its mineral wealth from the asteroid field and Meharat for its extensive industrial manufacturing production. The planets Ulo and Shohadeh are the poorest, producing little more than some agricultural products, textiles and medicines. They are both primarily Guild planets, being home to most of the major Guild motherhouses. The majority of shipbuilding enterprises are in orbit within the Vanix system, due to its proximity to the asteroid fields and the Mining Guild's refined metals."

Daniel glanced down at his notes propped on his leg as they rustled in the slight wind, held them there with one hand and clicked his mini tape recorder off with the other. That bit of Air Force blue hadn't gone away where it hovered just at the edge of his peripheral vision. They'd all been wearing their blue planetside fatigues since the morning after they got there -- they'd have to dial home soon to ask for more clothing if they stayed more than another few days. They'd only brought enough for the allotted four-day mission. "What, Jack?"

Jack came out onto the balcony of their quarters, grinning slightly at the way Daniel was sitting slumped in a chair with his feet propped on one of the stones of the balcony wall, notes in his lap, tape recorder in hand. The warm wind from the seaside of Alaharu was beginning to gust in steady waves, and he could see a haze in the air over the city that promised mist. He leaned on the balcony wall, looking out over the city, to the two Cymats standing guard in the square, the ocean, the towers. "Where's Carter and Teal'c?"

"Eruin came by and asked if they wanted to see one of their starfighters. Sam's eyes glazed over. So did Teal'c's. Off they went," Daniel said with an indulgent grin. "Thought that's where you'd be too."

Jack shook his head. "Sure, if I'd known. I'll get around to it."

They both fell silent.

"Sounds like you're getting a lot done," Jack said. "Kills me, sometimes, the stuff you remember."

Daniel shrugged. "Eidetic memory. Friend of mine from college used to say I was like Data in Star Trek -- one of his first lines was I remember every fact I'm exposed to."

Jack laughed a little. "Yeah. That's you."

Daniel got up, put his notes down with the tape recorder on top so they wouldn't blow away, and went to stand with Jack at the balcony wall. He knew he was going to regret this, but -- "What's wrong?"

Jack shrugged but didn't look at him. "I think this mission's a bust, Danny."

"Seems to be going fairly well to me. What happened?"

Jack shrugged again. Daniel peered at the averted eyes, the hands that seemed lost with nothing to do, the lines of anxiety on the lean face, the ruffled silver-gray hair standing on end. Jack was nervous. Daniel had only seen him in this kind of state a few times in the years they'd been together.

"Danny, these people don't do alliances," Jack said harshly. "All they do is conquer people. I just had a talk with Areelyn. These people have been sitting here in the middle of their own spider web for so long that they think they're the hottest thing since sliced bread. They think they're so hot that they don't need alliances. They don't see anyone else as being their equals, so why should they make an alliance with someone when they can just conquer them?"

Jack's voice had risen in distress. Daniel grabbed him by the shoulders and turned Jack to face him. Jack brought his hands up to clutch Daniel's forearms, and Daniel transferred his grip to Jack's wrists. But Jack still wouldn't look into Daniel's eyes.

"About the only thing that might work is if Areelyn marries someone from Earth. Sort of like they used to do back in Europe, marry the kids of the kings involved to make a sort of truce to stop a war. I told her we don't have any one leader -- and anyway she said that even if they did that they'd still come to Earth to 'enforce our claim' as she put it. Anyway, it doesn't have to be the President, she said it could be someone from the top brass and --" Jack stopped. "Danny, I think she was talking about me." He stopped again, shook his head violently. "I can't do this. Even if I had the authority, which I don't, I couldn't do it."

"Jack," Daniel said calmly. "Jack, look at me."

Jack took a deep breath, swallowed nervously and looked up into Daniel's eyes.

"Think," Daniel said. "Take another breath. Now think. There's got to be a way. We'll figure it out. We figured out the Nox and the Tollan and the Asgard and the Tok'ra, we can figure this out."

"Why me?" Jack asked, dropping his eyes from Daniel's again.

"Look at me," Daniel repeated. If he could keep Jack focused on the here and now they could get to the bottom of this. "Why not you, Jack? You'd love it here. The Cymats, their starfleet -- ships, Jack! You love it when Thor takes you up to his ship. You're a career officer in the Air Force, you're a strategist and tactician, you're a fine judge of character, you're open-minded and fair and sensible. You're everything the Air Force has to be proud of. You know what would be best for Earth and the alliance. They need to know how to use the Stargate, you know a hell of a lot more about it than you ever let on, not to mention five years of experience in using it. Why not you, Jack? You're single, Sara has her own life and she's happy and doesn't need you anymore. Areelyn has Talyn, they've obviously gone through a lot of hell to stay together so I doubt she'd really get involved with you. We could probably work it out that they would only come to Earth as a show of force, without firing a shot. It would mean the Stargate would be made public knowledge, but we knew that would have to happen someday. It could be done, Jack."

"No," Jack said. "Not me. Find someone else."

"I'm sure we could. But again, why?"

"Because," Jack started, then stopped. He drew himself up and looked resolutely into Daniel's eyes. "Because as far as I'm concerned I'm taken. And I'm not going to be made to destroy it again. I don't care if the Goa'uld take every last man, woman and child on Earth. I'm not for sale like some damned whore anymore."

Daniel blinked in astonishment at the words, looked into the deep brown of Jack's eyes --

--And went numb all over as he realized what Jack was saying.

He knew very well that the only person Jack was really close to anymore was --

Daniel himself.

They stood for a long moment staring into each other's eyes, stunned, numb, confused. Then Jack dropped his eyes from Daniel's, hugged him briefly -- Daniel felt him shaking like a leaf -- and almost ran back into their quarters. A moment later Daniel heard the door into the corridor beyond close behind him.

He dropped heavily into his chair again, still too stunned to speak.

Then he knew what he had to do.

***

"Hey."

Jack didn't move from where he was curled on the bench at the edge of the tiny fountain pool below the place where they'd been made to wait for Daniel that first night they'd arrived on Oriyan. The trickling sounds of water bubbling over smoothed rocks faded a few yards from the fountain, but within the circle of its sound it brought peace. Jack was sitting with his arms wrapped around himself, hugging his knees, eyes fixed on the rippling of the pool. He didn't respond or even blink when Daniel sat down carefully beside him, so maybe Jack didn't see anything at all.

Or maybe he just didn't want to see or hear.

Daniel had no idea what to say. Everything that came to mind sounded trite or just plain wrong. What brought this on? would make it seem as if he were trivializing something that was clearly tearing Jack apart. Have you thought this through? would imply that Jack was letting his emotions get the better of him, when Daniel knew that Jack would never allow such a thing for any reason. Why me? was obvious. Five years together, fighting an implacable enemy, involvement in a covert operation under layers of secrecy, lives grown inextricably entwined. Somehow they'd come to fill in the holes in each other's lives. Sam had her brother and her father, Teal'c had Ry'ac and Bra'tac, but Jack and Daniel really only had each other. So long as the other was there, they weren't alone and adrift in the world.

Was it really such a surprise?

Thinking about it now, he was more surprised that he hadn't always seen the inevitable.

He knew now what it must have cost Jack to lie to him during the sting operation, what it must have cost to destroy what they were to each other. It was sitting right in front of him now -- Jack curled in on himself in withdrawal, staring sightlessly into the ripples of the fountain pool.

How many times had Jack looked death in the face for him? He couldn't even begin to count.

Suddenly his own fury at Jack for the sting operation looked more like the temper tantrum of a child than the compassion and understanding of an adult.

"Oh Jack," Daniel said softly as he pulled Jack around and into his arms. "We'll figure it out. I promise you, we'll figure it out."

***

"Sonaya, is it possible we could go down into the city?" Daniel asked an hour later as the Guard lieutenant ate dinner with them in their rooms and helped them to plan their schedule for the following day. "Since the Ard-tran will be at the High Court until early afternoon, I'd like to see some more of how your people live. Try to get a feel for common life here in the Empire."

Sonaya shrugged a little and swiped a few crumbs off her black tunic. "The common life is just that: common. It is the Ard-tran who makes the decisions."

"I was hoping I could see some of the Guild houses," Daniel said carefully. He'd soon realized during that long talk with Areelyn and Talyn two nights before that any interest in the common people of the Empire was viewed with faint disdain. The arrogance of royalty was something he would have to work carefully around if he was going to get any clear picture of life in the Empire at all. He had a feeling that if he mentioned the humanitarian standards clause that the Pentagon would insist on, he'd be met with a wall of blank indifference.

"I'd like to see the Sciences Guild," Sam said helpfully, concentrating on arranging thick slices of roasted meat covered in gravy on a slice of bread before diving in with her two-tined fork.

"They have not asked to see you yet," Sonaya said. She held up a hand as Sam opened her mouth to object. "I know, but they are often difficult to deal with. Often if the Ard-tran formally requests the Guildmaster's presence he will refuse, yet if they wish to speak to the Ard-tran she is expected to drop everything and attend to them. If they do not wish to see you, you will not get past the door." She looked toward the closed door across the suite's common room. "You are certain Colonel O'Neill is well? I can call a healer if need be."

"He's fine," Daniel said, reaching for another scoop of a thick soufflé-like food with bits of vegetables. "Just grabbing a nap. We've been going short of sleep." In fact Jack had been asleep in seconds when his head hit his pillow. The only thing he'd said since his revelation was I dunno when Daniel asked if he would be all right.

Daniel had left him to get some sleep. They had work to do. He had no doubts that Jack would be awake in a couple of hours and ready to get back to work. They'd deal with it when they got home. Jack wouldn't allow himself any more "wallowing" (as he would put it). He would do his job.

Both of them would. To the bitter end, it seemed.

"The Ard-tran will be meeting with the Council at sunset," Sonaya said. "She has asked that you attend, if you wish."

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c looked at each other in silent query, and then Sam realized she was the one nominally in charge in the absence of Colonel O'Neill. "Yes," she said. "I'd like that. Guys?"

"Sure, Sam," Daniel said.

"I would also like to attend," Teal'c said.

"We'll need to use the Stargate tomorrow," Sam said. "To send our preliminary reports through and get some clean clothes."

"Of course. Daniel, would a meeting with the Guildmasters suit you? I can have them come here for discussions if you like, in place of your going into the city," Sonaya said.

"Uh -- yeah, sure," Daniel said.

"Then I shall," Sonaya said, nodding decisively. "Master Teal'c, I noticed you particularly liked our scraiyanin fruit when we attended the Ard-tran two nights ago, they are from Shohadeh. These sweetcakes are made with them, and with another fruit from here on Oriyan, they compliment each other nicely as one is tart and the other sweet..."

Sonaya went on encouraging Teal'c to try the cakes while Sam and Daniel traded worried looks.

There was something not right here.

Daniel looked down at his plate for a moment, then looked across to the room where he'd left Jack sleeping. He didn't want to have to wake Jack up, but something was wrong here.

He was no longer certain who they could trust.

***

"Y'know, I think Areelyn's a real maverick," Sam said later that night as they returned to their quarters from the Council meeting in Areelyn's tower in the Palace complex. "I mean, she's married to Talyn and freely admits Talyn came from the lowest levels of society, she has that family of bards on her Council."

"Hate to disappoint you, Sam, but those bards are in the minor nobility," Daniel said. "They're an offshoot of the ruling family of Meharat. Talyn climbed the ranks in the Starfleet by picking the right people to suck up to, and I use the term advisedly."

Sam stared at him for a moment, then snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes.

"Admittedly, she apparently took quite a chance all those years ago, volunteering to be Areelyn's wingman, and to her credit she made it work." Daniel shrugged. He opened the door to their quarters.

"Hey, kids," Jack said quietly from one of the leather sofas in front of the fire. "Made it home before curfew."

"Gee, Dad, does that mean I can have the car tomorrow so I can go to the mall?" Sam said with a bright and patently false smile.

"Only if you promise to fill up the tank and take your Savage Garden CD out of the deck before you get home," Jack answered with a small weary grin. "How did it go?"

"Another meet and greet, really," Daniel said quietly. "The Council sessions are pretty informal."

Jack held up his legal pad and pen, with several pages covered with his familiar handwritten scrawl. "Another couple pages and you can stick it with the ones you two are sending back tomorrow."

"The Lord Marshal has offered to take us on an inspection of a battle group of their Cymats," Teal'c said. "I have accepted, and indicated you would most likely accompany me."

"Think I will, T. Thanks for telling them so." Jack watched Daniel cross to his bedroom while Sam poured herself a cup of wine and Teal'c a cup of fruit juice from the supplies kept on the table against the wall. "So that makes me and Teal'c out with the Lord Marshal tomorrow for a bit of military assessment. Daniel, you'll be meeting with the Guildmasters. Carter?"

"I'll be dialing home about 0800 local time, sir, that'll put it about 2000 back home," Sam said. "Then I'll be with the Lord Guardian at the Starfleet side of the Commandery. Hopefully trying to find out what kind of spacecraft we're looking at bringing into the alliance."

"Yeah," Jack said. "Right. Okay, guess I'd better get this report done then."

Sam and Teal'c went out onto the balcony to look out over Alaharu, but the haze in the air had turned to thick cold fog while they'd been with the Queen and her Council. Daniel was still rustling around in his room, getting his own notes and tapes and the memory cards from his camera. Jack finished his report and recommendations and folded them up ready to go.

Daniel had left his door ajar, and Jack leaned against the doorjamb trying for his usual nonchalance. "Hey."

Daniel was sitting on his bed, fitting his notes and memory cards and tapes into a manila envelope. He didn't answer for a moment. "Hey," he said softly.

Jack swallowed and came inside the room, sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. "Got enough room for mine?"

"Sure," Daniel said. He took the folded yellow pages and tucked them into his own notes, fit them into the envelope. He fastened the envelope closed and set it aside. "I'm sorry I've been --"

Jack held up a hand and Daniel stopped. "You were entitled."

"To treat you like shit these last couple of weeks when I should have realized --"

"You were entitled," Jack repeated, overriding the rest of Daniel's self-denigrating tirade. "You had no way of knowing it wasn't for real."

"You were acting completely out of character, Jack, I should have realized -- " Daniel stopped and shook his head. "I should have realized, Jack!"

Jack shrugged a little. "Well, now you do." He reached for one of Daniel's hands, looked down at their fingers intertwined. "Question now is what do we do about it?"

"Run screaming in circles?" Daniel asked.

"You too? Damn, Danny, we think too much alike."

Daniel laughed helplessly, looked up to find Jack's eyes sparkling and a little smile on his face. "If you're asking do I want this, the answer is a tentative yes."

"Tentative?"

"I want it -- you -- so long as it doesn't do you any harm. You know you could get court-martialed for this?" Daniel watched the shadows settle in Jack's eyes. "I won't do that to you, Jack. I won't be the means by which your life is ruined."

Jack sighed and nodded. "I'll have to retire for good in two or three years anyway. Doc says I do too much. I'd go crazy flying a desk, so... it won't be long. And we'll still be together."

"Let's take things slow," Daniel said in agreement. "From the way you freaked out earlier today I'd say you're having trouble with this."

Jack shrugged again, still looking down at their entwined fingers. "And you're not?"

"You want to hear something totally and completely pathetic?" Daniel asked, grinning when he saw Jack's questioning look. "Shau'ri is the only person I've ever had sex with. I'm not assuming I'm heterosexual on the basis of one relationship, and I've been ... curious."

"What about that girl -- "

"Sarah? I realized she didn't want me, she wanted my name next to hers on the research papers she wrote. If the only way she could get that was to sleep with me, that's what she determined to do. I kept not cooperating, and she got fed up and left. I was jail bait for most of the time I was in college, and to be honest I just wasn't interested. By the time I did get interested -- and curious -- celibacy had become comfortable." He shrugged helplessly. "And I was still pretty mistrustful of people. I had my work, and I was happy. Or at least content."

"So how did Shau'ri get under your skin so quickly?" Jack asked.

"Come on, Jack, it was Shau'ri."

"Yeah, it was Shau'ri, but if you'd spent all those years saying no then she would have bounced right off too."

Daniel's eyes went distant, and he smiled at the memories, then laughed softly. "She was actually very patient, or so Skaara told me. She waited three days. She tied me to our bed, cut my clothes off me and told Skaara to burn them. Then she had her evil way with me."

Jack blinked, imagining tiny Shau'ri demanding her shy, nervous new husband make an honest woman of her or she'd do it herself, and then proceeding to do just that. "So how long did she keep you tied down?"

Daniel sighed in mock suffering. "Twelve hours. I'd never thought she was capable of such cruelty."

"Not," Jack finished for him.

"Definitely not." Daniel said, smiling anew. Then he sobered. "She admired you a great deal, Jack. More than I think you realized."

"She was a hell of a woman," Jack agreed.

Daniel was silent for a long moment. "She would be very angry with me if I turned away from someone who loved me simply because of such petty things as gender and laws and regulations. She would stand there looking up at me with her hands on her hips, and say, 'O'Neill is a good man! I would not trust anyone else with you! If you do not love him back, you are a fool! A man of knowledge you call yourself, but a man of wisdom you will never be!' "

"Always knew she was a smart cookie too," Jack agreed.

"She was that," Daniel said softly. "And wiser than I'll ever be."

"So this whole... " Jack gestured with his free hand to the two of them. "This whole guy thing doesn't bother you?"

"We fall in love with people, Jack, not genders. It's you. I know you. You and Shau'ri are the two best things that ever happened to me." Daniel squeezed his fingers lightly again. "Yes, Jack. If you want me, I want you."

"Then..." Jack stopped and swallowed nervously. "Then we try."

"Yeah," Daniel answered. "And we succeed."

***

Standing at the bathroom door beside Daniel's half-open bedroom door, Sam blinked at what she was hearing. She felt the lump in her throat as Daniel spoke of Shau'ri.

Finally, after all this time, they were admitting what they felt for each other. It was something she'd suspected -- no, she'd known -- all along. They'd spent so much time missing each other like ships in the night that she'd begun to despair they'd ever get it right. What was she supposed to do, tie them together? Sounded like Shau'ri had had the same idea...

Men. All this cluelessness from a pair that were supposed to be geniuses. If they were so smart why didn't they get it a long time ago?

They needed each other. At least now they realized it themselves, and they'd do something about it.

She hoped.

***

Teal'c sat cross-legged on a folded blanket before the wide window in his room. It was well after local midnight; the rain had come almost a half-hour before, ticking softly against the thick glass of the window. He had marked the new noise, identified it, and accepted it as part of the environment. O'Neill, DanielJackson and MajorCarter had all long since settled into sleep in their respective rooms. He had completed one cycle of kel'no'reem, and would repeat the meditation twice more before the dawn. For the moment, he was simply thinking over the events of the last two days.

He, too, had marked the unusual evasions in conversation during the evening meal, the apparently adamant refusal to allow DanielJackson to venture into the city. Also the claim that the Sciences Guild was a law unto itself. Areelyn held absolute power, yet the Sciences Guild commanded her presence at times while refusing to answer her summons on others. Perhaps they were as the Tollan, arrogant in their superiority.

Areelyn had inquired several times as to the whereabouts of Colonel O'Neill during the Council session. DanielJackson and MajorCarter had very carefully attempted to reassure the Ard-tran that O'Neill was well and taking a much-needed break to catch up on his sleep. One inquiry was understandable, expected. But five times within three hours?

He decided Daniel was correct. There was something odd here. The situation did not "add up" as O'Neill would put it.

His symbiote wriggled in agitation.

The familiar cold chill crept down his spine and his eyes snapped open in surprise.

The Stargate had just activated.

He jumped to his feet in one lightning-quick move and was through the door of his bedroom before he felt the shock of the Stargate deactivating. A handful of quick strides and he was at O'Neill's door.

"That was the Stargate," Sam said sleepily behind him.

"It was. I will wake O'Neill, if you will see to DanielJackson."

"Right," Sam said. She rubbed her eyes blearily, straightened the shorts and t-shirt she wore to sleep in, and crossed to Daniel's door. She wasn't the least surprised when it opened as she got there.

"That was the 'Gate," Daniel said in a muffled, sleep-slurred voice as he ran one hand through his hair.

The same thought seemed to take root in both of their minds at the same moment. It couldn't be anyone from home, they would wait for SG-1 to contact them.

It had to be a Goa'uld.

***

"You have done well. I am pleased."

"Thank you, Lady."

"Have them brought to me. Are your plans prepared?"

"Yes, Lady. They are already in motion."

"Very well. Bring me the Tau'ri."

"At once, Lady."

Jack jerked back behind the bend in the staircase leading to the chamber of the Stargate, flexed his fingers on the grip of his zat and looked at Daniel beside him. Beyond Daniel, Sam and Teal'c were standing ready, looking at him expectantly. "Guards coming," he whispered. "Split up. Carter, go with Teal'c. Danny, with me."

They all nodded, and in a moment Sam and Teal'c were gone down the corridor, zats in hand. Most of their weapons had been returned the day after they arrived, except for Teal'c's staff. That had surprised Jack until he realized they'd probably reverse-engineered them already.

"Come on," Jack whispered, running down the corridor and under the trellised arch on the ground floor of the officers' quarters.

"Where are we going?" Daniel whispered back as they trotted down the corridor, stopping to peer around corners.

"Outside. I memorized the way when T and I were out for our walk. Maybe we can find a way down into the city, get lost for a while."

Daniel looked up at him in the half-light of the corridor. "You're definitely an exciting date, Colonel O'Neill."

"Yeah, the whole dinner and a movie thing is kind of overrated," Jack answered back. They grinned at each other and set off down the connecting corridor.

***

Teal'c flattened against the wall and Sam instantly did the same.

Voices, in the corridor leading to the Commandery's small hangar.

Teal'c scanned the walls, then pulled Sam across the corridor and a few yards ahead, into a small alcove that Sonaya called a "pass-through" -- the device used as an elevator. It worked by creating a tunnel through subspace between two points; the travel time was instantaneous. It did take a little practice to learn not to flinch when you deliberately walked into what you thought was a solid wall --

"Oomph!" Teal'c caught her as Sam hit and fell away from what was a very real and solid stone wall. He held her while she recovered.

"The pass-throughs have been locked off," Teal'c said quietly.

"Good guess," Sam gasped out. Damn, that had hurt! There were things in her vest pockets that had made very painful contact with parts of her she wished they hadn't. She shook her head again and joined him in the corridor again. "Let's go! Back the way we came!"

They backtracked, ducked down a side corridor. No good, lights through doorways, and the sounds of voices murmuring. Sam remembered from Eruin's sketchy tour the day before that it was the Communications center of the Commandery. There should be another pass-through alcove nearby. Surely they wouldn't have locked off the one in the Communications center? She ducked inside the alcove, found the proper wall and carefully put her hand out toward it.

Her hand disappeared as it met the wall.

Teal'c was right behind her. A blink of light, she had no idea where she was going to emerge.

A wide corridor of the ubiquitous sandstone-like walls, and at the end she saw the distinctive glow and shift of holograms.

A figure appeared at the end of the corridor, small, slim, in the black field uniform of the starfleet.

"Major Carter," said a familiar voice. "Master Teal'c. How did you manage to get here?"

Sam recognized the voice -- Auliya, Talyn's handpicked aide. "Oh," she said, stuck for an answer. "We were --"

"Your Stargate was activated approximately seven Tau'ri minutes ago," Teal'c said. "We did not do so. One of your people is in contact with a Goa'uld."

Auliya came forward to them, smiling frostily. "Oh, we're not just in contact." Her head dipped and when she looked up at them her eyes were glowing golden. "We are her daughter and loyal servant."

Sam lifted her zat --

-- and felt something metallic nudge the back of her head.

"Do so and you will be dead before you hit the ground," said the unknown Goa'uld. "Jaffa, take their weapons. Take them to await the others."

Hands took their zats, other hands took their P-90s and handguns, Teal'c's knife. As the Jaffa were binding their hands Sam got a glimpse of another figure at the end of the corridor. A woman, very tall, with a shock of shaggy black hair, dressed in a long dark red dress with a wide border of what looked like Celtic designs in gold. The scene abruptly vanished as the Jaffa dragged her through a pass-through and into darkness.

***

There were aircraft in the sky, shining spotlights down the entire three mile length of the Commandery, splitting the darkness of the night with a steady thrum.

"My God, is that a Cymat?" Daniel asked in an urgent whisper as they hid within the small archway door, peering out into the darkness and brilliant stabbing lights. A quarter-mile away was the small forest Jack and Teal'c had wandered through the day before, the gentle slope of the hill rising to trees hissing slightly in the wind. A massive dark humanoid figure taller than the trees stood among them; a spotlight briefly illuminated a spherical head and huge shoulders. It began to move and they felt the vibrations through the stones under their feet as it stepped slowly. It must be on the far side of the forest or else trees would have been breaking and falling. As they watched smaller Cymats of different designs began appearing, small two-legged runners with no arms, looking sort of like huge metallic crickets. They trotted quickly the length of the Commandery, seven of them, heading toward the round bulk of the Assembly building.

Jack ducked his head out of the archway for a quick look and then pulled himself back into the sheltering darkness. Cymats. At least a dozen of the smaller humanoid-shaped ones, another huge one further down toward the Assembly building, at least another half-dozen of the insect-looking ones scattered in the forest itself. The aircraft above with their spotlights. They'd brought only what they could stuff in their packs around pulling clothes and boots on as quickly as they could. Carter had the C4 and detonators. He had two extra clips of ammunition for his P-90. "Do you have any grenades, Danny?"

He couldn't see Daniel in the darkness but he felt the warmth at his back. He felt Daniel moving, taking off his pack. "Here," Daniel said, tugging on his elbow. Jack freed one hand from his zat and felt the hard round form of a grenade pressed into it.

"Got any more?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, one more."

"Keep it. We may need it later. Now get ready to run. We're going to the right, along the wall of the building behind the Cymats. Once we get to the end of the building we'll see what we can do." He heard Daniel pulling his pack on again, nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready, Jack."

Jack peered out, turned to look down the wall of the Commandery opposite to the way they'd be running, pulled the pin and threw the grenade as hard as he could.

It bounced off the leg of one of the Cymats standing just in front of the wall and struck the wall of the building, detonating as it hit the wall. In the sudden fire and concussion Jack and Daniel slipped out of their hiding place and began to run.

Unfortunately, all the Cymats turned toward the grenade explosion -- including the four standing between them and the far corner of the Commandery wall. Spotlights immediately converged on the area and in the sudden harsh illumination the richly patterned and etched metal forms began to shift and flow and shrink. Metal smoothed and contracted, molding itself into smaller forms. In seconds where four full-sized Cymats had stood, four Tilindrans in form-fitting powered armor lifted arm-mounted weapons and began to fire.

Jack and Daniel lifted their zats and fired at the same moment, triggering triple bolts from the small Goa'uld hand weapons, blue energies splashing against the armor before the metal-clad forms crumpled to their knees. Daniel kept pace with Jack, running for all he was worth and firing as fast as the zat could cycle.

Light exploded before them, a ripping roar like someone was prying the world apart, and they were flung back and away.

When the roaring stopped, the last thing Daniel saw was the glitter of light off metal as four Cymats leaned over to peer at him, eclipsing the harsh sun-like yellow of the spotlights. He heard Jack curse softly as darkness descended, and he knew nothing more.

***

Jack woke in darkness with a headache that told him he'd either been on the firing range without earplugs or been too close to something exploding. He wished it had been the first because the second usually meant shrapnel that would make going through airport security a real bitch.

"O'Neill."

Teal'c. Damn, they didn't get away. "I'm here, T."

"I know. But are you conscious?"

Jack opened his eyes but all he could see of the Jaffa was a dark outline against a feeble light from above. "Carter? Daniel?"

"They are beside you, both still unconscious." Teal'c had recovered first, of course. Jack wondered sometimes if Junior would seek them all out once it matured and got a host, to demand payment for services rendered.

Jack sat up carefully, wincing as several aches and sharp pains made themselves apparent. Dirty from the unexpected flight and landing when the Cymats shot the ground up in front of them. Definitely energy weapons. No packs, no zats, no guns, no grenades. No Tok'ra communicators, no GDO. Nothing except clothes --

He tugged his shirt aside to get to the small pouch on his belt that held his pocketknife. "Yeah!" He held the folded knife up triumphantly to show Teal'c. "Ceramic blade. They didn't detect it."

"Most ingenious," Teal'c said quietly.

"Get you one as soon as we get home," Jack promised. He was sitting on the floor of a small dark room, no windows, the door a barely-visible outline. In the feeble light he could just detect the shine of gold from Carter's hair, so the motionless form huddled on her other side must be Daniel. "Carter?" He put a hand on her shoulder, shaking lightly. "0600, Major."

"How can you tell it's 0600, sir?" Sam said in a slurred voice.

" 'Cause it's time to wake up, it must be 0600 somewhere."

"All due respect, sir, but your logic escapes me." Sam began sitting up, wincing and reaching up to rub her hands through her hair. "My hair's standing on end, I think I was zatted."

"You were," Teal'c said. "The Jaffa did so to facilitate removal of your weapons."

"We got outside, but only just," Jack said. "Got knocked flying by a Cymat." He moved carefully to Daniel's side, wincing when movement brought new aches and pains. "Danny?"

Daniel's glasses were gone, probably knocked off in the blast that felled him. Jack put a hand on his cheek to rub a smudge of dirt away, sighed at a thin streak of blood that began when he did so -- the dirt had been covering a cut on his cheek. If any of them besides Teal'c were hurt there'd be nothing they could do except ask the Goa'uld to bring a doctor. And if it was a Goa'uld the first response would be the sarcophagus. Daniel would rather die from gangrene, Jack knew this without having to ask.

"Danny," Jack said again.

Daniel's breath caught for a moment, then he shifted a little and his eyes blinked open.

"Glad you could join us, Doctor Jackson," Jack said as the blue eyes focused on him. He smiled a little at the dazed expression.

"Danny, are you hurt?" Sam asked.

"I don't think so," Daniel said slowly. He started to sit up, then gasped and his right hand went to his left shoulder. "Damn. Think I landed on that shoulder..."

"Dislocated?" Sam asked.

Daniel moved his arm carefully, biting his lip at the pain. He was able to move it in almost the full range of motion, albeit slowly and with apparently a great deal of pain. "No, don't think so. Just bruised, I think," he said in a strained voice.

Jack sighed in relief and very carefully put a hand on the uninjured shoulder, squeezing briefly. No way he could do anything more, not with Carter and Teal'c here.

"I can run, Jack," Daniel said quietly. He patted Jack's hand on his shoulder. "Assuming we get out of here."

Jack scooted over to lean up against the wall and the others arranged themselves beside him. "Well, kids, what have we learned?" he said with weary sarcasm.

"A Stargate is never just a sculpture," Daniel said after a moment.

"Never offer free Stargate lessons until you have a treaty signed," Sam said.

They were all silent waiting for Teal'c.

"If it walks like an aquatic bird, and it vocalizes like an aquatic bird --" the Jaffa began slowly.

"It's a duck!" Sam and Daniel finished for him.

They laughed helplessly at that, protesting when bruises made themselves known.

"Moving right along," Jack said after they'd calmed down. Definitely needed the laughter. If you couldn't laugh about a situation you were too close to it to see a solution.

"Danny, I think it's a Goa'uld with a Celtic persona," Sam said. "Or actually two of them."

"Two?" Jack said. "That other voice we heard was familiar."

"It was Talyn's aide, sir, the red-haired girl named Auliya. She's a Goa'uld too."

"Did not Jacob Carter indicate this area was once claimed by the false god Fea?" Teal'c asked. "I am unfamiliar with this Goa'uld."

"Fea is a minor Celtic god, actually Irish. So maybe you'd better mind your manners, Jack," Daniel said. Jack snorted a laugh. "One of the two daughters of the Morrigan."

"Why didn't you guys sense the girl had a snake in her head?" Jack asked.

"I don't --" Sam stopped. She shook her head. "I don't know, sir."

"Because the Goa'uld was not within her until this night," Teal'c said calmly. "We cannot sense what is not there."

"So the first snake comes through the 'Gate, grabs the girl --" Jack began.

"No, Jack, the 'Gate activation we felt was an originating signal," Daniel said. "Right, Teal'c?"

"I believe you are correct, Daniel Jackson."

"So the girl got snaked first, then dialed out for the other one?" Jack shook his head. "So the snake was already here? In some kind of containment device or something?"

"It's possible," Daniel said. "Does it matter?"

"Yeah, kinda sorta, Danny. What if there's more of them? What if it was a tank full of larvae or if there was more than one mature larva ready to go wherever the kid found the one she's got now? We need to know what we're looking at here."

The edges of the door suddenly glowed golden and two bodies were hurled through the pass-through, staggering on their feet as they tried to halt their forward momentum before striking the wall. One was clothed in a loose flowing white dress that shimmered in the dim light, the other in black.

"Well," Areelyn's voice said as she straightened and threw back the unbound black hair that fell to her knees. She took the two steps to stand before the pass-through door, glaring at it with anger written in every line of her slim form, the white dress making her seem ghostlike. "They obviously have no idea who they are dealing with."

"You go, girl," Jack said. "Tell'em who's boss."

"I shall," Areelyn said, nodding decisively.

Leaning againt the wall behind her, Talyn chuckled wearily. She was dressed in her uniform with her hair tied up in a loose and messy loop hanging down her back. Obviously she'd been wakened by the Guard at the first signs of trouble and had jumped out of bed to deal with it much as SG-1 had. She stepped forward and caught a lock of Areelyn's hair, tugging lightly. "Come sit, Ree. Your advisors await."

"Indeed," Areelyn said. She turned and sat down against the wall opposite the door, arranging the white lounging gown around her and marshalling her hair over her shoulder to puddle in her lap. Talyn sat down beside her and took her hand.

"I think you owe us an explanation," Jack said.

"What's to explain? For all I know you brought these -- things -- into my realm through the Stargate," Areelyn snapped. "As a ploy to force us to ally with you."

" 'Scuse me?" Jack asked. "In case you didn't notice, one of your own people is a Goa'uld now. Junior's not nearly ready to go out into the world on his own sans Papa Teal'c over there. So how did your lieutenant suddenly start with the glowing eyes and weird voice?" Jack glared at the two. "That wormhole was originating. We felt it. It's a trick you learn once you've been around a Stargate for a while. Teal'c and Daniel can sometimes tell if it's originating or receiving. They tell me that someone dialed out from your Stargate tonight. I believe them. So since obviously they dialed somewhere other than our planet -- thank God for small favors -- you obviously had a Goa'uld already here. They dialed somewhere other than Earth, and brought the other snake through. So where did Auliya get the snake from, huh?"

"I have no idea," Areelyn said coldly.

A long moment of frozen silence descended before Talyn sighed.

"Just tell them," she said plainly. "What does it matter if they know? They can't do anything about it. No one can now."

Areelyn did not speak.

"They know how to deal with these things that have captured us," Talyn continued with an edge to her voice. "We do not. The past is unrecoverable. It is only knowledge that may be able to save us now. They need that knowledge. As your First Lord of War, I advise the Ard-tran that we have no more choice in this matter. They have taken the Lord Marshal and the Lord Guardian. If we are to save them we must act quickly before they have the Seven Nations under their control. We must act now, Ard-tran."

Areelyn closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. "We have heard your council, First," she said softly. Then she looked up at each of SG-1 in turn. "The Stargate predates the arrival of the Tilindran colonization. My ancestors first landed in a place where they detected an unusual concentration of a metal they had not detected in any other spot on the planet. It was the Stargate. They had only just begun to study it when the Adalandai attacked them. My ancestors drove them off by using the weapons on their ships, but the Adalandai attacked day after day, returning every dawn with suicidal fanaticism. It took days to excavate the Stargate -- it had been buried in a deep pit filled with a kind of mud that had hardened like stone. Along with the Stargate were found three stone eggs. Scans indicated these eggs were hollow and that there was something of organic nature inside. The Adalandai went wild when these eggs were brought above ground and began attacking continuously, throwing themselves at the encampment from all directions in a blind fury. My ancestors gathered up the eggs, the Stargate and the dialing device and loaded them into one of the ships while the Adalandai massacred those acting as rear-guard. Seven ships landed -- only three took to the skies again. Wherever my ancestors landed it seemed to be the same, the Adalandai would appear within hours and all of them infected with this suicidal madness that made them throw themselves in front of our weapons. My ancestors finally managed to capture one of the tribal leaders and discovered why. The Stargate was a religious relic, sacred to all Adalandai. My ancestors waited to hear no more. They gathered the Adalandai chieftains and forced peace upon them. The Stargate would be returned to them if they so desired -- so long as peace reigned between the Adalandai and the Tilindra for a thousand years. Until then, the Stargate would be lost to them and would be lost to them forever should the Adalandai prove treacherous. The first monarch of my house had the Stargate hidden within subspace, and the crystal that could retrieve it set into his crown. That jewel was passed down in my family for ten generations until the appointed time arrived. We returned the Stargate -- but by that time the Adalandai had lost all vestiges of their religious past into the mists of time. They had come to value our science and forgotten their own ancient histories. But we had not. Before the Adalandai histories were lost one of my ancestors discovered the full story of the Stargate. They did not worship the Stargate; they were guardians of it, bound to the task of keeping it and the eggs buried forever. They claimed that the entities inside the eggs were demons, and that their race's eternal duty was to keep them from destroying the world. Over the thousand years of the bargain the Adalandai lost all memory of that duty, casting it away as superstition. When the day of the return arrived, none of them remembered. Or cared."

"Containment vessels," Daniel said. "Those eggs were holding symbiotes."

"Three?" Jack asked. "And they've been in those things for -- what, thirty-five hundred years?"

"Probably longer, Jack," Daniel said. "The Adalandai were guarding them before that."

"So they were antiquities? Curiosities?" Sam asked.

"They were forgotten, for the most part," Talyn said. "The Stargate really was just a sculpture to us. A relic of a time we wanted to forget, the humiliation of being forcibly evicted from lands we'd wandered for thousands of years. We knew some great purpose had been taken from us, but in the midst of losing the land and forced to serve the Tilindra it was just one more misery."

"So you guys were slaves?" Jack said harshly.

"We did not enslave them," Areelyn snapped.

"They just had the bigger guns," Talyn explained.

"We had the only guns," Areelyn said. She looked down at Talyn's square, tanned hand entwined with her own slender white fingers. "The Adalandai attacked us with clubs and stone knives."

They all fell silent at that, and stayed so for several long minutes.

"Well." Talyn got to her feet and went to look at the outline of the door where the pass-through should have been. "If we had the means to do so, we could be out of here in seconds."

Jack snorted a bitter, mirthless laugh and shook his head. "No shit."

"Talyn's right," Areelyn said softly, her anger having cooled in those few minutes and retreated behind her royal facade. "If we had a means of -- cutting -- we could -- "

Jack put his hand back to his his knife pouch and held up the ceramic folding blade. He unfolded it one-handed, displaying the laser-sharpened ceramic blade that had eluded scans for metals.

"Perfect! Talyn!" Areelyn moved quickly to snatch the blade from Jack's fingers, earning herself an angry glare which she didn't notice as Talyn came to sit down again beside her. The First Lord of War began tugging open the fastenings of her black uniform tunic and shrugging out of the right sleeve, exposing a muscled shoulder as she turned to present her back to her Queen and pulled her hair out of the way.

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked worriedly.

"Procuring the means of our escape," Areelyn said. She put a hand on Talyn's bare shoulder. "Sleep in peace and dreams, my falcon."

Talyn went limp and slumped against the wall beside her and did not even flinch when Areelyn lifted the knife and plunged the blade into the muscles of her arm just below the shoulder. Areelyn cut very quickly, exposing the bone and pulling the incision wide. Blood covered her hand as she reached into the incision and began to search by touch.

"Ah! There!" Nodding, the Queen removed her hand and held up a blood-covered hard lump.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Daniel said.

"Best to do so outside," Areelyn said briskly. She looked down at her handiwork, the blood that now covered her dressing gown and her hands and Jack's pocketknife. With deliberate care she wiped the blade clean on an unsoiled part of her dress, then turned it to offer the rubberized grip to Jack. "My thanks, Colonel. The proper implement for the proper time." Then she struggled to her feet and pressed the cabochon jewel she had retrieved from Talyn's arm to her throat. It clung instantly.

Metal began to form around her slim form, appearing from subspace, overlaying itself to form silvery-chrome body armor.

"Do what you can to protect your eyes," came her voice, distorted through the armor encasing her head and face. Then she lifted both arms and the weapons on her forearms suddenly spit forth the fury of a sun.

The concussions deafened them momentarily, and when it was quiet again they dared to take their hands and arms away from where they had lifted them to shield their eyes.

Where the pass-through door had been was a jagged hole blasted and blackened in the wall, and beyond a corridor dim with warm yellow light on sandy stone. Areelyn was already kneeling by Talyn's slumped form.

"Awake, my falcon," she said, voice still distorted by the armor.

Talyn stirred and lifted her head, then hissed with pain. "Ree?"

"It is done. And now we must escape," Areelyn said quietly.

Talyn pushed herself to her feet, shrugging back into her uniform tunic with fine disregard for the giant incision still pouring blood. "We will need weapons. And they will need their communications devices if they are to return home."

"Weapons first," Areelyn said. "Let's go."

The Queen in her armor stalked out of the hole she'd blasted and swiftly looked up and down the corridor. She turned right and began moving quickly away.

"Time to go, Colonel," Talyn said, her voice only slightly strained. She followed her Queen with no signs of anger or resentment, blood dripping out of the sleeve of her tunic to spot on the floor.

"Damn," Jack said in the sudden silence.

They looked at each other, Daniel and Sam looking very white and almost sick, Teal'c looking unreadable as ever. Jack shook his head. "Come on!" he ordered, and ran out the door.

Escape first, freak out later. That, Jack reflected, was the story of their lives.

***

The Commandery was crawling with Jaffa herding people through the corridors. Chaos was swiftly replacing quiet order.

The moment they got out into the corridor they could feel vibrations through the floor. A nearly inaudible random thumping shivered every wall, throbbed just at the edge of hearing and more apparent as a tactile sensation than as sound. Muffled strident voices in the corridors surrounding spoke of a confusion of orders and conflict, the sounds of weapons fire.

"Cymats," Talyn said when Jack asked what that deep thumping vibration was. "They have called the commanders to the Canyon of Night."

They heard Areelyn firing again around the corner and Talyn nodded. They followed her around the corner and down the cleared corridor, passing two blackened forms of Jaffa in the torn shells of their body armor. Areelyn was still moving ahead of them, they could hear her firing as they reached the bend in the corridor and stopped.

"We do not keep arms anywhere near the interrogation area," Talyn said as she held them back from rounding the corner. A moment later she nodded, as if receiving a signal. Which she probably was, Jack suspected. Her translator gem was of a different color and larger than his own, and knew it must also contain the neural communications devices that were common among the military.

"Can you hear what's going on?" Sam asked.

Talyn nodded. "Two forces fight. From what I hear, those loyal to the Ard-tran are being forced to stand down, ordered so by the Lord Marshal. Those loyal to someone they are calling Morguana are holding Eri and Norai hostage."

"Morgauna, that's a variation of Morgan," Daniel said. "But that's more Welsh, more the Arthurian mythos than Irish."

"What, King Arthur?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, Morguana being Morgan le Fey -- " Daniel stopped, then shook his head. "Priestess, sorcerer, associated with the island of Avalon, the island of the otherworld that existed half in the world of men and half in the world of the dead -- gee, could it mean a world so far out on the galactic arm that no other Goa'uld would ever bother with it? Talyn, what's the Adalandan word for Oriyan?"

They were all trotting down the next length of corridor as Daniel asked the question. They stopped at the next corner, and then Talyn pulled them all to a darker patch of wall and through the pass-through it indicated into a room beyond full of holograms in darkness -- status screens and monitoring boards abandoned when the operators were routed out by the Jaffa. Once they were all inside Talyn touched a small round dark spot at the edge of the door outline to lock out the pass-through. Just as she did so they heard the distinctive tread of Jaffa rising beyond the door.

"Orfaulaun," Talyn said. Her face was white and sweaty, and blood was dripping steadily from the hidden wound in her arm. Her uniform sleeve was soaked in it. "The Tilindran turn of it is Oriyan."

"Affallin is the old Welsh name," Daniel said. "Avalon."

"Talyn, your arm," Sam said. "You need to get that cut closed up."

"Ree is dealing with some resistance," Talyn said as if she hadn't heard Sam's words. "Once we make the Armory we will have to program you all some Cymat command stones. We should be giving you Sparrows but the Canyon of Night is full of Lancers and Ravens. You'll be in full Lancers. Might be all to the good, as you'll have the full complement of weapons." She touched the dark spot near the door outline again and ran through the wall. "Follow me."

"You're willing to let Areelyn do this?" Jack said as they trotted up the corridor. A half-dozen more bodies littered the floor, blackened and smoking, blast points on the walls attributing to the fight a few seconds previously.

"Our weapons and Cymats are keyed individually," Talyn said. "Ree's were implanted into me for just such situations as this. If she hadn't been able to cut that one out of my arm, there's another one lodged in a specially constructed fold of my stomach. I have neural commands implanted that would make me vomit it out. It tends to sicken me so much that it is not practical."

"And cutting your arm open is?" Daniel asked.

"Far more than being sickened," Talyn snapped. "We can afford pain. We can't afford weakness."

Jack wondered if they could "afford" the trail of blood Talyn was leaving behind as they ran. And how long it would be until she collapsed from blood loss.

They were running up a spiraling rampway toward Areelyn's waiting silver-chromed form when sounds rising behind them told them the Queen's mad charge had been discovered.

"This way!" Areelyn said, voice distorted through the smooth vented mask of her armor. She gestured them to pass her by. "Talyn, head for the tunnels!"

"The Armory?" Talyn asked as she stopped by her Queen.

"No good! The channels are alive with orders, they've found the cell empty and they're tracking us by the bodies! They already have Jaffa in the Armory! Go!"

"What about Eri and Norai? And their belongings?" Talyn asked, nodding at Jack and the others. Teal'c and Sam were keeping watch of the corridor with the zats they'd picked up from bodies along the way.

"Take the Tau'ri through the catacombs, I'll meet you at the Aloyu," Areelyn said. "I will see what I can and do what I must. If I can free Eri and Norai, I shall."

"Ree!" Talyn winced as she reached up with her injured arm to clutch the Queen's armored elbow. "You are no longer one among equals, you are the Ard-tran of the Seven Nations!"

"I am all the hope we have at this moment, First! Now take the Tau'ri and run! That is the command of your Queen!" The bite of the words was obvious.

Talyn glared at the armored face, the smooth expressionless metal, then whirled and ran, waving SG-1 to follow.

Areelyn watched them disappear into a pass-through alcove and then turned and sprinted for another junction of corridor ahead. The Armory was not far -- she would need far more than just body armor. The hallways were rapidly clearing as the Jaffa routed out those who were resisting their occupation. She would see what had become of her Heir and Lord Marshal.

***

Eruin sithna'Draelen had been privileged to grow up the pampered daughter of a man widely thought to have more interest in his military life than in the perpetual power struggles of the royal family. Prince Athan had married early, earlier even than his eldest brother who had ascended to the place of Heir in Blood after the death of their eldest sister. For all their royal blood and potential to rise to Heir or even Monarch in the next generation, Eruin and her brother had grown up for the most part in green hills and greener forests far from Alaharu and the backstabbing and intrigue that some in the Seven Nations called politics. The Starfleet was a common path for those destined to rule -- the power in the royal hand was often that of military might rather than wealth. True loyalty couldn't be bought, and it was often the only thing standing between a monarch and the assassin's blade.

Like so many royals who found the intrigue not to their liking, Eruin found a true calling in the simpler life of the Starfleet. The Starfleet didn't operate on the lines of blood, wealth and power. It operated solely on skill, talent, discipline and ambition -- none of which made any distinction between royal, noble and commoner. As feudal societies were rated the Seven Nations offered far more promise of making something of oneself than almost any other society in known space. It was literally true that a child could be born into the lowest of households and through diligence and work and talent could advance to Grandmaster of the Guilds... or First Lord of War.

Sometimes, though, she would just as soon be captain of a ship of the line as Lord Guardian. There were times when she wished with all her heart to return to her first command, the little fast-attack ship the Arentani. A crew of twenty, and a patrol assignment of some quiet inner world like Yovinar.

Now was one of those times.

The vast open central hall of the Commandery, the Canyon of Night, was filled with rank upon rank of gleaming massive metal forms. The commanders and lieutenants of the Empire's sixty-three battalions filled the seven tiers of balconies, standing at attention in silence while the seven elite lances of Ravens paced in their ponderous way onto the open floor space leading to the foot of the waterfall at the Canyon's distant outer wall. The Ravens were far too heavy and tall to fit on the tiers where the Lancers stood -- they would have collapsed the floor beneath them. There had not been such a gathering since the Queen's coronation four years previous.

It was not the Queen who had commanded this summons, but the Lord Guardian. Given the rumors most of them had heard over the past two days of people arriving mysteriously from the worlds beyond, this untoward and unexpected summons could only mean one thing.

Invasion.

Rebellion wasn't just a hobby in the Seven Nations, it was a national pastime. It was only by clear threat to their Queen that prevented any of the Lancers or Ravens from kicking, stomping on, throwing or shooting any of the Jaffa who kept them under guard with staff weapons primed and ready. If their Queen or proof of her continued good health didn't appear soon... well. All bets would be off.

Eruin stood looking out over the brave sight of rank upon rank of great metal beasts from the balcony over the waterfall's tumbling waters, standing with head held high and expression carefully blank. She felt the blunt snout of a staff weapon against her back, but as the Jaffa wielding it was kneeling behind her the ranks of Cymats could not see she was standing there under threat. Just as they could not see the zat guns held against Norai's back where he stood a few feet away beside Auliya.

Auliya, who now spoke in a voice distorted by an alien presence and whose eyes glowed golden, who now called herself Morguana.

Behind them in the corridor leading to the balcony, guarded by her Jaffa, the alien woman Fea stood watching impassively, waiting.

The threat had been clear. Hand over the Seven Nations, bow to Fea and acknowledge her as Goddess and Master, or watch the Empire fall in a hammer blow of blood, fire and chaos.

Well, Eruin still had a trick or two up her sleeve.

All it would take was one command.

For all she knew she might already be Queen, and this her first and last act. What better death, than to strike a decisive blow for the Empire?

Looking out and up at rank upon rank of great metal beasts standing ready and silent at last, she opened her mouth to speak --

--There was a lone, unmarked Lancer coming out onto the floor of the Canyon. But the tiers were all filled, all were present --

It came up the center of the Canyon floor, wading through the waters of the spillway from the waterfall pool between the ranks of the Ravens. Many of the huge Ravens turned their heads to watch as the smaller Lancer walked past.

"Jaffa! Fire upon that Lancer!" Auliya/Morguana ordered, pointing down to the lone machine striding so confidently forward.

All along the Canyon's length, the Jaffa raised their staffs. A split-second before they fired, the Lancer suddenly leaped straight up and fired upon the high royal balcony.

Auliya/Morguana cried out and stumbled backward, falling against the Jaffa beside her. Jaffa who were already dead, and her own cindered form crumbling in on itself as the blasted remains fell.

The Lancer landed and leaped again on the full force of the jump-jets in the great machine's legs and back, flying at an angle straight for the royal balcony. In its wake, chaos erupted as every Lancer and Raven began firing upon the Jaffa, picking them up and tearing them in half, or simply kicking them screaming from the higher tiers.

All of them knew who was within the lone Lancer. Only the Hammer of the Stars could be so bold. Nearly wild with elation at such spectacular proof of their young Queen's survival, they massacred every Jaffa present in little more than a minute.

Areelyn triggered her Cymat to transition to body armor mode as she flew, the giant robotic form contracting and sliding into the nothingness of subspace to be replaced by the gleaming silver-chrome armor. Her momentum carried her to the royal balcony, she twisted in mid-flight to land feet-first on the chest of a Jaffa attempting to guard Fea's retreat into the corridor. The Jaffa went down, Areelyn shot him twice as she jumped again into the corridor after the Goa'uld and her guards. Behind her, Eruin and Norai had come to life, taking advantage of Areelyn's sudden appearance and attack to deal with the Jaffa guarding them. Norai had managed to wrestle a staff away from his captors, and Eruin had immediately whirled to jerk the staff of the one threatening her out of his hands before kicking him across the face. They scooped up the fallen zats from the balcony floor and shot their captors for good measure.

"What shall we do?" Eruin asked, gesturing down at the chaos and death of the Canyon of Night as the Cymats massacred the Jaffa. "Shall I stay?"

Norai was clearly torn, knowing their Queen needed them -- more than that, Areelyn needed her family at her back. Neither of them had missed that Talyn was nowhere to be seen. "You command here! I will go with Ree. Mop up here, and then head for the Arentaris. Organize what you can, rout out any more of these things from the Commandery. Ree has probably sent Talyn for the Aloyu."

"Yes," Eruin said, nodding. "Go, beloved."

Norai nodded and ran to catch up with his Queen.

***

"It pays to have paranoid ancestors," Sam said in the darkness.

"Y'know, Carter, your dad and the missus really should meet these people," Jack said. They all knew he meant Sel'mac. "The Cymats and that body armor Areelyn had are the ultimate concealable weapon. Only sign is a bit of jewelry, and it can't be used by anyone except the person it's keyed for."

"Sir, with these weapons the war could be over in weeks," Sam said quietly. "My dad and his friends wouldn't even need the ships, just these weapons."

"Major Carter is correct," Teal'c said.

"Jack, we have to find some way to get the Empire into the alliance," Daniel said softly at Jack's side.

Jack felt Daniel's hand curl around his and the strong fingers entwining with his own. They were in the dark, hiding behind a line of stalagmites waiting for Talyn. A hidden pass-through in the floor of an empty conference room had led to a claustrophobic storage room filled with dusty old tapestries and drapes folded and stacked floor to ceiling. With Teal'c and Daniel's help Jack had managed to move one of the stacks to reveal another pass-through in the wall behind it. Sam had helped Talyn out of her uniform tunic enough to check on her wound, only to find the wound partially closed. There was still blood dripping steadily down her arm but something she called "bions" were rapidly closing the wound. Jack hadn't had time to ask yet, but he assumed it was some sort of medical doohickey since she obviously was in a lot less danger of bleeding to death than he'd thought. Another blink of vertigo through the pass-through and they'd come out here, in an underground cavern. Talyn said they were beneath the Commandery, inside the cliffs, and that this means of escape was the best kept secret of the royal family.

"We will, Danny," Jack said. He didn't want to think about Areelyn or even the idea of alliance-marriage. Not only no but hell no. Not while Daniel lived. He had no real idea what they were becoming or where they were headed together, but over the last few months he'd tried to think of what he'd be doing in ten or twenty years. Daniel was always there, in his mind's eye, in his future. Alien planets, his cabin in Minnesota, flying charters at some airfield, hanging out at home trying to figure out how to hook up the digital camera to his telescope -- it didn't matter where he imagined himself, Daniel was always in it somewhere. He tried to put Carter there, but it just didn't work. Daniel was the one who finished his sentences. It reminded him so much of the way he and Sara had once been that he didn't know what to think. Lya had made him admit it, finally, that he loved Daniel.

Just his luck that he'd fall for the sort of person who never eliminated anything from possibility. What anyone else would have said was a disturbing phase and blame it on a mid-life crisis, Daniel took at face value with open arms. Daniel loved him. If it were just satisfying curiosity or a long-term commitment, Daniel would be there with him.

"I've done what I can," Talyn's voice came on a slight sepulchral echo out of the darkness. They heard her footsteps on the rough stone of the floor and a moment later a blue-white light bloomed, illuminating her face. "Here, handlights. Can you all run? Good. Stay close. These caves are a catacombs, a labyrinth. Hold to each other, sight is no guarantee here."

"Got it," Jack said as he took one of the little clip-on flashlights, about the size of a golf ball with one half of it a facetted clear crystal spitting out that surprisingly bright blue-white light. He clipped it to his vest as Daniel and the others did the same. Well, at least for the moment he couldn't be looked at weird for holding Daniel's hand. He put a hand on Talyn's shoulder and nodded to the First Lord of War to go. "What are we going to?"

"To deal with the Demon Eggs first, and then Ree's scout ship the Aloyu," Talyn answered as they started off into the darkness. "If Eri or Norai haven't done so, we will alert the fleet and call for the city to be alerted and the city bounds sealed. After that, reinforcements should arrive from the fleet and we search the city, beginning with the Commandery. What signs are we to look for, in routing out these Goa'uld?"

Jack sighed with relief as Sam and Teal'c began answering the First Lord of War's questions. Why was it the Adalandai were so ready to just deal with the threat of the Goa'uld where the Tilindrans would yell and scream and throw out the very idea of alliance?

Easy. They'd tried their damndest thirty-five hundred years ago to stop the Tilindrans from digging up the Goa'uld larvae they'd kept contained for probably thousands of years. The threat was in their blood. The Tilindrans had been too arrogant to listen to a primitive culture, had destroyed the wisdom that culture had gained, and now they were paying the price for that deliberate ignorance.

Seemed like all that cultural preservation stuff Danny went on and on about had its uses after all.

***

"Where are they leading us?" Noral asked as he ducked back behind the edge of the corridor wall. A dozen of his commanders and their lieutenants had joined them as the chase began through the halls of the Starfleet side of the Commandery. More were reporting their positions as they arrived through pass-throughs and connecting corridors from the Assembly, attempting to cut off the Goa'uld's mad rush.

"A merry chase, I think," Areelyn said through the vents of her armor. "But eventually back to the Stargate."

"Something you're not telling me, keyyada?" Norai asked.

They were running again, and Areelyn saw their troops were tracking the Goa'uld into one of the corridors leading to the Assembly. Some of the remaining Jaffa fired at them and were quickly felled by return fire as the weaker Goa'uld weapons failed to have any effect. The energies were shunted into subspace via the armor's connection to that fractional realm. "They are headed for the Assembly," Areelyn said after a moment. "They must be able to sense the presence of their own."

"What do you mean?" Norai asked as they ran. "How did Auliya of all people become one of these things?"

"If I hadn't freed you, you would have undoubtedly found out for yourself," Areelyn answered. "Beneath the Assembly there is a cavern. Within that cavern are -- or perhaps were -- the Demon Eggs."

"You mean they're real?" Norai asked around a chuckle. Weapons fire sounded again as light flashed down the corridors, the Jaffa trying desperately to protect their Goddess.

Areelyn added her own sun-like fire to the responding barrage, then gestured them all forward as the Goa'uld and Jaffa fled again. "They are real. They contained three of these Goa'uld that Colonel O'Neill and his keyyadin spoke of. That is what the Adalandai were trying to keep from us three and a half millennia ago, Norai. They were guardians. All of them, the entire race of Adal, were pledged to keeping safely buried this threat that we so rashly took from them."

"And you knew?" Norai asked, not with accusation but merely asking.

"The Crown is the guardian of the people, Norai. I had to know. My question is, how did Auliya know? It has been kept within my family for all these generations!"

Norai grunted, gesturing some of his men to break off and take a side corridor. "Her father, I suspect. Master Heluwin. The Sciences ships were the ones who found the Demon Eggs and the Stargate to begin with. Had you ever gone personally yourself to see the Demon Eggs?"

"No," Areelyn admitted. She shook her head. "I didn't believe it myself, and Father treated it as such a joke that I didn't take it seriously."

"Until now," Norai said.

***

They walked in the dripping dark broken by the touch of cold drafts like ghostly fingers on their faces, droplets creeping down their necks and through their hair. The blue-white light of the tiny handlights made a sharp-edged circle of brightness around them, but beyond those small zones of illumination the darkness was absolute. Save for their footsteps and the slow maddening dripping it was silent. Daniel's hand was still warm and solid in Jack's, reassuring in the steady strength communicated through the interweaving of fingers. Daniel held tight to one of the webbing straps on Sam's vest, and Sam had the fingers of one hand looped through a strap on Teal'c's vest. It left Sam and Teal'c able to return fire if need be, yet still linked to Daniel and Jack and Talyn.

And they needed that linking. The caverns were treacherous, to say the least. Stalagmites and stalactites formed walls, hid the entrances of caverns, blocked their way so that they were forced to squeeze between them, were carved and sharpened to blade-like edges and needle-like points to slice and impale the unsuspecting. Pools that looked no deeper than a puddle concealed pits full of these fierce stabbing stones, as did thin shells of stone that looked solid as the floor before and beyond yet would crumble beneath the unwary and send the unfortunate to an agonizing death. Once when Jack happened to look upward after carefully crossing the one safe path over one of these tiger pits, he thought he saw the massive stone daggers growing from the ceiling swaying. He knew there was no way all those thousands of tons of stone could be moving. No way. Trick of the light. Had to be.

Then a line of imposing stalagmites rose before them, completely filling the cavern before them, blocking their way. They could squeeze between them, but the low ceiling beyond also sprouted a myriad of stone fangs like the upper jaw of some gargantuan beast. There were pools of mineral-heavy water on the floor too, and many of the stones sported a glowing rime of ice.

"They glow because of a fungus," Talyn said as they were looking at the odd, softly muted colors.

Daniel suddenly stopped, pulling back on Jack's hand. "A fungus?"

"Yes," Talyn said.

"I can't go in there," Daniel said tightly.

"Danny?" Jack turned to look at him, saw the fear scrawled across Daniel's face.

"Fungus, Jack. Mushrooms." Daniel swallowed nervously and tried to pull away.

"Fungus, mushrooms, what?" Jack asked.

"Mushrooms are fungus, Jack. I go in there, I could be dead before you could get me out." Daniel shook his hand free from the strap on Sam's vest and started to reach for his pocket where he usually kept the epinephrine injector.

And then stopped when he realized the Jaffa had taken it like they'd taken everything else.

"Oh God," Daniel said, fear strangling his voice. "Jack... they took my injector."

Jack turned Daniel toward him and just in time remembered about Daniel's bruised shoulder and clasped his forearms instead. "Danny, don't freak on us!"

Daniel looked in very real danger of a full-blown panic attack.

Sam carefully put up a hand to rub his back gently. "Daniel? Sir, we need to get him out of here, and we can't go that way!" She nodded at the glowing fungus-covered stalagmites only a few yards away.

"What is wrong?" Talyn asked, coming to stand with them.

"Allergies," Jack said. Vaguely he heard Carter explaining what allergies were to Talyn, but he had more immediate concerns. He freed one of his hands from Daniel's forearms and took hold of Daniel's chin, forcing the dazed, terrified eyes to look at him. "Daniel! Look at me! You will not freak on me here! I need you, Carter needs you, and you are damned well going to get out of this alive! D'you hear me, Jackson?"

"They took my injector," Daniel said in a choked voice.

"Daniel!" Sometimes it paid to be a guy accustomed to yelling orders at idiot airmen.

Daniel's eyes were black in the blue-white light, and his face was pale as a moon. What a Goa'uld had never managed to get out of Daniel Jackson leaped out full-blown in the face of what his own body could do with equal efficiency -- fear of death. Those terrified eyes locked with Jack's for what seemed an unending moment.

A moment which was broken by the nearby sounds of transport rings activating somewhere beyond that cavern of glowing, fungus-covered stalagmites.

"Retrieve the remaining vessels, First Prime. We must move swiftly now, else all is lost."

The distorted voice of the Goa'uld drifted on the clammy air.

The remaining orders were drowned out by the transport rings activating again, and the relaying of orders to the Jaffa. After another moment the rings activated once more and Jack looked at each of his team as the thought occurred simultaneously.

They were outnumbered. And with only five zats between them, undoubtedly outgunned.

"The handlights!" Talyn hissed in a whisper, and they all fumbled to switch the little clip-on lights off. Once more they were in near-total darkness, broken only by the phosphorescent glow of the fungus clinging to the fangs of rock that were all that stood between themselves and the Goa'uld and Jaffa. As quickly and as quietly as they could they slipped away into the darker shadows, hiding as best they could.

Daniel jumped when he felt Jack's arms go around him in a hug. "Stay with Carter. Teal'c and I will handle this," Jack whispered in his ear. Daniel clung to him but Jack gently disengaged his clutching hands and moved away. A scrape of cloth on stone and he knew Jack and Teal'c were gone.

***

"In the Assembly chamber itself!" Areelyn spat in outrage as she stood glaring down at the mosaic of the symbol of the Seven Nations in the middle of her Assembly chamber. Around her, Norai and the commanders of her battalions gathered protectively, all eyes searching for possible enemies. A moment before they'd had the Goa'uld in their sights, a moment away from dying in an incandescent fireball, when six metal rings suddenly appeared from nowhere, stacking themselves around the Goa'uld and the Jaffa, and in a flash of light they were gone.

Norai straightened suddenly and held up a hand as she turned to look at him. He stood so for a long moment and then said, "Eri's Tactical officer. They're scanning the entire Commandery. Whatever this Goa'uld used here to escape, a matching signal appeared directly beneath the Assembly. Within the caverns."

Areelyn was already moving back out the door. "To the Stargate! Fall back! Norai, tell Eri to have the Ravens revert to Sparrow configuration and prepare for defense. They must prevent the Goa'uld from reaching it at all costs."

"Understood, Ard-tran," Norai said, transmitting the command via his neural communicator to his wife and her forces in the Commandery. "Hokot and Kynel have found Colonel O'Neill's communications devices and weapons."

"Call Tragat and have him take those to the Crown vaults," Areelyn said as they ran for the flagstone-paved courtyard between the Assembly and Commandery. "Post guard there too, as many as Eri can spare."

"At once, Ard-tran," Norai answered.

***

"Sam, we have to help them," Daniel whispered.

"The Colonel said to stay here," Sam whispered fiercely back. Daniel felt her clutching the webbing straps on his vest with her free hand. "And we are staying here until he says move. Now be quiet!"

Daniel swallowed nervously and hugged himself, trying to still his breathing, trying to listen for Jack and Teal'c. Then he saw one of the deep shadows detach itself at the edge of the feeble glow thrown off by the phosphorescent fungus and begin to weave slowly between the fangs of solid rock in the cavern. A moment later, Teal'c's dark form appeared at the other side of the rock cavern, stepping with cat-like silence between the stalagmites and stalactites.

Neither of them noticed when Talyn slipped away soundlessly behind them, disappearing into a hidden pass-through.

***

"Mind what you are doing, fools."

The Jaffa strained against the rough spheres of stone, three of them trying to crack the seal of concrete-like hardened mud that cemented them into small depressions in the natural stone of the cavern. Three others were working a few feet away at the second sphere. The third sphere gaped empty, showing the obvious signs of the laser cutting tool used to open it.

The sound of a zat unfolding itself and powering up was distinctly obvious against the background of their work. Fea whirled.

"I am Talynara Kai, First Lord of War of the Seven Nations," Talyn said in the sudden silence. She stood still as the stones behind her, both hands steadying the zat she held, flinty hazel eyes fixed inexorably to the woman in red. Before Fea could react she swung the zat around and fired -- not at Fea, but at the nearest of the stone spheres.

The howl that burst forth from the Goa'uld's mouth was drowned out by zat fire as Jack and Teal'c took advantage of the distraction and leapt out of hiding.

The Goa'uld vanished under a barrage of blue lightning, wailing out insane denials even as her body glowed with the overload of energies. A moment later the space where she had stood was empty, the stone blackened and smoking. Heartbeats later, the Jaffa were gone too.

Jack and Teal'c hurried across the small cavern to meet the First Lord of War, who was staring at the spot where one of the stone spheres had rested only seconds before. Then she turned toward the other one and lifted her zat again.

"It ends here," she said flatly.

Her face as expressionless as the stones around them, she fired quickly at the remaining sphere. It glowed soundlessly for a bare second and then vanished.

***

"There is remarkably little to be put right again," Norai said as they climbed the steps leading to the room holding the Stargate. "The Canyon of Night for the most part, and the bodies to be disposed of. No more than the work of a few days."

"We were lucky," Areelyn said. At her side, Talyn nodded.

"You were," Teal'c said. He peered down at the two women calmly, dark face solemn. "If the false goddess Fea had possessed a ha'tak you would have had to contend with hundreds of Jaffa, not the thirty-six she brought through the Stargate."

"We've seen first-hand the damage a single Goa'uld can do, even without Jaffa," Daniel said as they came out into the chamber of the Stargate. There was a permanent guard there now of seven, each of them wearing the crystals of weapons and Cymat activators at their throats, their dark silvery armor gleaming in the light.

"Well, I should have no objections now to anything I wish to do in order to deal with this threat," Areelyn said.

"Uh, yeah," Jack said. "About that. Can I -- uh -- talk to you for a minute?" He looked around at the others. "Uh, alone?"

"Certainly, Colonel," Areelyn said. She started out the archway onto the wide balcony where the day before several of her commanders had blasted a pair of Jaffa into black scorch marks on the sand-colored stone.

Jack hurriedly unhooked his P-90 and handed it and his zat and his handgun to Teal'c and Carter. He swallowed nervously and glanced up at Daniel.

Daniel, with a tiny smile twitching at his lips, and his blue eyes holding hope and promise in equal measure.

"Back in a minute, kids," Jack murmured, and followed the Queen.

Areelyn showed very little sign of the stresses of the near-invasion of the day before. After a good night's sleep she seemed to be once more the unshakable, indomitable Queen of all she surveyed. Dressed in flowing rich purple and gold silks, her ebony hair gathered in braided lengths threaded through several gold and platinum rings that chimed like bells with every movement, the delicate features of the pale face showed no marks of worry or care. Talyn seemed to have taken all of that, barely speaking a word, seemingly sunk in brooding gloom for all that she had ended the threat of the Goa'uld.

"About that offer I think you made the other day," Jack began. "You said your people don't make alliances like we do. To each their own, y'know? I understand that. You're a proud people. You said the only way we could have any alliance would be by alliance-marriage. It could happen -- I won't deny that. But it won't be me." Jack swallowed nervously and looked down into the ice blue eyes. "I've got somebody. We're not like you people in that respect. We don't share."

Areelyn smiled a little. "Not even to be King of the Seven Nations?"

Jack shook his head. "What I've got is ... " He stopped, and his little nervous smile echoed Daniel's. "Seven galaxies wouldn't even begin to cover it." He glanced through the archway to the woman waiting in the black field-combat uniform, impassively watching as Daniel and Sam and Teal'c prepared to return home. "Besides, as far as I'm concerned you already have a King."

"I agree," Areelyn said. She sighed and looked out into the Canyon of Night, at the work crews repairing walls blasted by Cymat weapons and Jaffa staffs. "I have been humbled somewhat by all of this. I rule here, yet now we know there are forces beyond the Seven Nations that dwarf this paradise we've made for ourselves. We have grown inward, and turned our eyes from knowledge to delusion. Change comes slowly to the Empire. But it comes nevertheless. Better to ride at the crest of the breaking wave than to be drowned by its fury." She turned back to him, looking up into his eyes. "As Imperatrix Ardana of the Empire, I welcome this alliance with Earth and her allies. At the earliest possible convenience, return to us and we will begin negotiations."

"What, doing things our way?" Jack asked.

"Yes, Colonel," Areelyn said, nodding. "It is time for a change."

***

The reports were written and turned in, the debriefing had been long and for once ended on a positive note. Jacob had arrived only moments after they did, summoned by General Hammond's quick communication of success. The hundreds of megabytes of pictures and video that Daniel and Sam had taken were playing on at least half of the computers of the SGC. A world of technology so advanced it seemed like magic, a beautiful Queen and her faithful First Lord of War, a husband and wife team that commanded the attack and defense forces the equal of anything the Asgard could muster... for the SGC, it was a rare and unqualified success wrapped in the romantic trappings of fairy-tale.

Now, late into the night, Jack signed himself out at the topside security post and turned into the tunnel corridor leading to the outer doors and the parking lot beyond. A day off and they'd be back on Oriyan.

He pulled his leather jacket on as he started into the tunnel corridor, then stopped as he saw a familiar figure leaning against the metal wall, waiting.

Daniel was looking at the wall at the end of the tunnelway, eyes distant and focused on nothing. He was wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt, old black jeans, hiking boots, his blue ski jacket held folded in his arms.

Jack watched him for a moment. "Hey."

Daniel smiled a little and glanced at him. "Hey."

"What's up?" Jack asked.

"Oh, just ... thinking," Daniel said. "Remembering. Waiting."

"About...?" Jack prompted.

Daniel's smile widened. "What a long strange trip it's been, the first time I saw you, and waiting for you, in that order."

"Can't argue with the long strange trip part," Jack said. "It's not over yet, Danny."

"No," Daniel said slowly. "It's not."

They were both silent for a moment or two, acknowledging wordlessly the fundamental truth of their lives -- that they were bound to the Stargate, to the worlds beyond and to each other, wound together so inextricably that their lives would have no meaning if even one element were lost. That last step was no step at all, because they'd taken it long since. It had been their first step from the event horizon onto the sandy floor of the gate room in that pyramid on Abydos, five years before. From that moment on, they would always be something unique in each other's lives.

"So... you were waiting for me?" Jack said.

"We've been waiting for each other, Jack." Daniel gave him another small smiling glance.

Jack swallowed nervously. "You could be right about that, Doctor Jackson."

"I know I am, Colonel O'Neill."

One last step. That's all it took.

"Come on," Jack said, nodding to the tunnelway leading to the parking lot. "Let's go home."

***

Hiding behind the bend in the corridor a few yards away, Sam watched Daniel smile at Jack's words, turn and fall in beside him as Jack started for the tunnelway. At last!

"Yes!" she whispered in triumph, punched the air lightly in victory, and turned to run to the elevators. This deserved celebration, this deserved brass bands and ticker tape parades, this deserved...

This deserved chocolate.

The End