The Barque of Heaven

by Stargate

  "What's up?" She glanced over again, eyes lost in the shadow of her boonie.

  Do it already.

  "Sam, what...." He sighed. "I hope you don't think I'm prying, but I need to know. What was it like, with Jolinar... having a, a Tok'ra inside you?" He trailed off as her expression shut down. "I'm sorry, I know you don't like to talk about it, but... I need to know."

  "Need to? Why?"

  "I just need as much information as I can find, in case... in the future... if we can't find Sha're and Skaara. I need to know what options I have."

  "Daniel, the Tok'ra don't know where they are. Dad's gone through all the latest intel. There's been no sightings of them."

  "I'm grateful to him, of course. But that's not really why I'm asking." Daniel glanced behind them, ensuring Jack was well out of earshot. "What was it like?"

  Her head jerked up and she gaped at him. "You don't mean you're considering becoming...."

  "The Goa'uld live very long lives, Sam," he said quietly, eyes fixed on his boots. "Very long. I'm only human."

  "Oh, Daniel." She looked away from him and stared at the endless stretch of desert around them. "No, you can't."

  "I won't give up on them. If it takes forever." His soft determined words were swept up by the breeze and scattered like a promise across the sky.

  Eyes fixed on the horizon, she reached out and rubbed his arm. After a long, silent pause, she quietly began to talk.

  By the time they reached the structure they were all sweating heavily, even Teal'c. Packs were dumped on the ground with relief and they spread out to investigate. What remained of the building were three stone archways, six meters high and two meters thick, standing in a line some ten meters apart. Around them, the remnants of earth walls were marked by crumbled sand and stumps of stone pillars.

  "This is old," Daniel ran his hand over the carved stone of the first archway. "Very, very old. There's mention of Ra here. It might have been an outpost or trading station originally."

  Sam passed through the doorway and handed him a tube of sun-block. "Nice place to be stationed."

  "Thank you. Yeah, I'll bet Ra's least favored lackeys got sent out here."

  The second archway bore another set of faded carvings; none seemed more recent than a millennium ago.

  "Found a well," Jack called out. He stood by the remains of a low circular wall, gingerly trying to peer in without bending his back.

  Teal'c knelt by the edge and dropped a stone into the darkness. It clattered down, ending in a thud that echoed back to them. He traded a glance with Jack and they moved on to the third archway, forlornly guarding the entrance to the vast emp tiness beyond. Here, clearer engravings drew Daniel's attention.

  "Found something."

  He traced the writing -Goa'uld script this time rather than the pictograms on the outer archways. Teal'c came to stand behind him, reading over his shoulder.

  "Here we go. `Light of Ra...' and so on, `defeat the invaders and earn the keys to unlock the Gate of the God'." His eyes flicked rapidly over the heavily carved stone, eventually coming to rest on stylized rays emanating from a depiction of Ra standing, arms outstretched, ram's head glaring down at them from the lintel of the arch.

  "Interesting. He's used a human form this time instead of the Eye symbol." He traced the path of the sun rays down the left side of the doorway and found a small glyph. "Kheperi, one of the old names for Ra. It means `infant sun of morning'. I wonder... dawn? Beginning, perhaps?" Daniel extended a finger and pushed firmly on the glyph.

  A gentle hum filled the silent air and he stepped back as a large stone slid aside. A metal arm came out and from it unfolded a large, glasslike panel.

  "This is different," Jack commented as they crowded round to look.

  "It is a training device," Teal'c said. "Used for battle simulations in three dimensional holographic projections."

  "Oh, wonder what kind of power it's running on?" Sam crouched down to examine the underside of the panel.

  "Never mind, Carter. Let's just do this and get going." Jack turned to Daniel. "We run the sim, win the battle and get what we need, right?"

  "Yes," Daniel nodded. "That seems to be the general idea."

  "Fire it up, T." Jack planted his feet and settled into a more comfortable stance.

  Teal'c activated the panel and miniature fortifications, troops, weapons, armed vehicles and air ships popped into holographic life, ready to be dispatched into battle.

  "Our objective is to capture this installation intact." Teal'c pointed out a dome, high on a hill overlooking a plain crisscrossed by rivers. "Enemy numbers and arms will only be revealed as the battle progresses."

  "Okay, Master Jaffa, take us through our ordnance."

  Teal'c, Jack and Sam settled around the board, ready to battle for their lives. Daniel wandered back to the first archway and its inscriptions, and left them to play.

  Over two hours later, they were still at it. Calm calls for tactical support or coordinates for weapons fire drifted along on the hot breezes that had picked up as the sun rose higher. Nothing else stirred in the emptiness surrounding the ruins.

  Daniel had wandered back through the first two doorways, recording the structures and their inscriptions and making sure they were indeed alone this time. Had any other supplicant been trapped here, he decided, it would be very unlikely they had survived long in this unforgiving heat.

  After retrieving the packs and handing out water and crackers where needed, he settled in the archway's shade and with no trouble at all, fell asleep.

  Daniel jolted awake some time later as a whoop of triumph rose up from the battle sim. He straightened slowly from where he had been curled on the ground, every muscle protesting. His skin itched and crawled with dried sweat, salt and sand which was finding its way into tender areas. His toes in particular seemed to attract stray grains, no matter how many times he emptied out his boots and changed socks to a less dirty pair. The ache in his left shoulder had not lessened with rest, if anything it seemed sharper. He shook his head, puzzled over an injury he couldn't remember receiving, but put it down to being dragged off by his ankles-how many planets ago? He pulled his canteen out and sacrificed a dribble of water to moisten his bandana, then tied it over his head and reset the boonie on top.

  Staring up at the lintel of the archway, Daniel blinked as he realized there was a carved face peering down at him. Ugly and misshapen, it looked just like the being who had twice visited them during the Trial-Bes. Big, round stone eyes contemplated him, and then one slowly closed, deliberately winking at him. As Daniel's mouth dropped open, the face broadened into a wide grin then vanished completely.

  "Okay. Right. Okey dokey." He crawled away from the wall and stood. Determinedly not looking at the smooth stone behind him, he circled the archway and rejoined his team.

  "How's it going?" Daniel walked over to the players and regarded the battlefield. It was a mess; downed ships, decimated troops and smoking fires were littered everywhere.

  "We are near to victory, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c told him, a hint of a smile tweaking his mouth.

  "Whoa, fifth columnists, ten o'clock from the advance patrol," Sam blurted out.

  "Bring up F troop, Carter. Teal'c, get an air strike in there, coordinates 21.12.03 by 11.32.18." Jack was in full command of his little war and quite enjoying himself.

  "I'll just...." Daniel backed away carefully as little explosions blossomed in the chaos.

  He stepped over the crumbled wall and walked through the third archway for a more detailed exploration than his first security checks had allowed. There was around three meters of mud brick wall still attached to either side of the arch, topped on the left side by weighty capstones. On the right side of the arch the capstones and a substantial chunk of wall had fallen and lay in a tumble of stones at the base. The area behind the arch appeared to have once been a courtyard, fenced in by low, crumbling brick walls around three sides. Here and there, paving stones showed through t
he baked earth, and the stumps of three pillars stood alone at the far end. Beyond the wall, the bleak landscape stretched unbroken until the sky leant down to swallow it.

  The earth here had the same seared quality to it as the rest. Daniel squatted by the fallen piece of wall, examining the fine clay bricks. There seemed to be a lot of water erosion on the top and broken sides, evidence of powerful and plentiful rain that had dissolved the earth, only to be hardened once again in the sun.

  He scratched off a piece of brick, then bent closer as a shape at odds with the angular blocks caught his eye. It was rounded, caked in a layer of thick clay. Pulling out his knife, Daniel gently chipped away the soil to reveal-the sole of a shoe. More precisely, a shoe with its owner's leg and foot bones still attached.

  He grimaced and sat back on his heels. The leg bones disappeared under the fallen section of wall. Considering the angle, Daniel decided whoever it was had been either standing or sitting by the right side of the arch when the wall, possibly weakened by heavy rain, had crashed down.

  The victim long dead and posing no threat, Daniel decided not to interrupt the three-D version of Gettysburg. He stepped around the debris and found contours in the baked mud eerily resembling a head and partial torso.

  He frowned, turning to consider the archway. "What were you doing here?"

  The muffled voices of his team from beyond the wall were his only reply.

  "Were you resting before you left? No, not if it was raining hard enough to bring the wall down."

  "Daniel?"

  "Just talking to, er, myself, Jack."

  "We're nearly done here."

  "Okay."

  He looked closely at the archway. There was a small square opening just above his head in the stone casing on the right side. Tentatively, he reached up and brushed his fingers inside the hole. The three sides and top of the tiny space were smooth and blank, but the bottom was hollowed out-into the all too familiar shape of Ra's Eye. He pulled back and looked at the stone on the left of the arch. This was unbroken. Peering closely, he could just see an outline of a matching cavity, now tightly filled with a cube of stone.

  He stepped back and considered. One cavity filled. One open. Dead body by the open cavity.

  "Uh oh."

  Daniel fetched his pack and pulled out his tools. He brushed away what loose soil there was covering the body, revealing the outline of a head, shoulder and torso down to the lower ribs and the right arm stretched outwards from the body, all covered in a hard layer of clay. It was all too easy to imagine the unfortunate person desperately trying to claw their way free.

  "Hooah! Score one for the Air Force!" Jack's exultant voice broke through Daniel's ruminations.

  He got up and walked through the archway to see Sam doing a one-sided high five with Teal'c. The game board was still, a frozen image of carnage. Jack beamed, the smile lighting the tired lines of his face.

  "Good guys won, Daniel."

  "Congratulations. Did you get the keys?"

  On cue, the board went dark and retracted into the archway. There was a click of stone on metal and the arm slid out again, bearing a tray with two indentations in the shape of an Eye of Ra. One was filled with a glittering diamond cut into the Eye shape. The other was empty. Jack picked up the diamond and the tray retracted into the wall, the stone cover settling back into place.

  Jack frowned. "Shouldn't there be two?"

  "The instructions did say keys-plural-didn't they, Daniel?" asked Sam. She looked worn too and pulled her boonie off to shake out her sweaty hair.

  Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the diamond in Jack's hand. "I think you'd better come see this." He turned and walked through the archway. Baffled, the others followed.

  Succinctly, Daniel pointed out the two apertures in the arch, both now open, and then the remains under the fallen wall. "I think this is the last person to have attempted the Trial. They played the simulation, won, brought the keys here. Inserted the left one, went to insert the other and the wall fell on him, or her."

  Jack held the diamond up to the reopened hole. "It fits."

  "Logically therefore, this person was holding the other key when they were struck down." Teal'c knelt by the body's outline.

  "Yes." Daniel winced as he saw Sam and Jack's previous elation evaporate.

  "It could be anywhere." Sam hunkered down in the shade of the doorway.

  Jack stared at Daniel. "You mean we have to sift through who knows how much dirt in..." he checked the countdown on his chrono, "a little under six hours? In this heat?" He flung his arms out in exasperation.

  "We're dead," Sam whispered.

  Daniel crouched next to her. "Sam. Don't worry. This is what I do. We'll find it."

  Going for the most obvious target first, Daniel set to work excavating the body's right arm. He fitted together his collapsible shovel and changed the head for a small pick. Gently but firmly, he peppered the clay with blows hard enough to penetrate the surface without damaging what lay buried. The ground gave way reluctantly, clumping in rock-like lumps. It took a full half-hour to break enough of the surface away so that he could begin troweling off looser soil beneath. The body was buried under nearly eighteen inches of clay and soil. Relief filled him when he did reach the limb; it was mummified, robbed of its moisture by the dry subsoil.

  Daniel pulled on a face mask and shifted around on his knees, carefully following the arm up to the hand. With the trowel's point he scraped away enough dirt to reveal what was probably a male's arm, bereft of clothing. The hand was clenched shut.

  "Looks like he's holding something," Daniel said. He looked up in surprise as a shadow passed over him. Sam and Teal'c had fashioned an awning out of their four rain ponchos; knotted together and strung on cord from the wall to two packs at the other end.

  "Oh, good idea. Thanks."

  "Can you see what he's holding?" Sam crawled under the shelter and peered at the exposed limb.

  "Not yet. Uh, don't get too close, Sam. Bodies can be full of nasty surprises sometimes."

  "Right." She pulled back and watched Daniel's deft movements uncover more of the buried hand.

  "How's Jack?" he asked quietly.

  "He took the first sleep break."

  "Oh. That bad?" Daniel darted a glance at Jack, asleep sitting up in the shade of the arch. "And Teal'c?"

  "That wound is still bleeding. Infection's bound to set in soon and he won't be able to fight it." She sighed tiredly.

  "How are you holding up, Sam?"

  "I'm fine. Although, I keep having visions of really huge bath tubs, swimming pools, lakes, margaritas.... So I'm probably starting to lose it, actually." She quirked a smile.

  "Sounds perfectly normal to me. Here we go. Um, you might want to look away for a minute."

  Sam's eyes widened as she saw Daniel place his hands on the corpse's dried fingers. She didn't look away, but was unable to repress a flinch at the cracking of bone and dried flesh. Daniel extracted a small object and held it up for inspection.

  "I don't think that's the key."

  "No, it's not." He stared at the oval shape; its blue metallic covering glinted in the bright light. "Teal'c? Can you have a look at this?"

  Teal'c appeared at the edge of the shelter and crouched, taking the object from Daniel. "It is a personal recorder. Such things are quite common amongst the Goa'uld. They are used either to store personal mementoes or to send messages."

  He tapped the tiny controls and a small holographic face appeared in the air above the recorder. Off kilter and blurry, it was the man whose body now lay at their feet, his pale and blood-stained face looking out at them. No sound emerged from the device but he appeared to be speaking. Teal'c snapped the recorder off as the dying man's head drooped.

  "Even if he was a Goa'uld, it's a sad way to die," Sam said quietly. "I hope the host didn't feel anything."

  Without quite knowing why, Daniel took the recorder back and stashed it in his pocket.

&nb
sp; "We're going to have to tear this site apart. If the key was in his other hand it'll be under the wall. If it was thrown from his right hand it could be anywhere in a ten meter radius."

  "He might have put it in a pocket." Sam eyed the heap of rubble with an air of despair.

  "Yes, he could have. Sam, can you use the shovel head to clear around his hand? Teal'c, we'll have to get through this clay and move the bricks." Daniel looked at the collapsible pick, nowhere near adequate to the task. "Wish we still had my tool box."

  "Perhaps another method would be more efficient." Teal'c got up and disappeared around the wall. Moment's later he was back, bearing his staff weapon and a determined gleam in his eye.

  "Oh. Right! Excavation by staff weapon. Why didn't I think of that?"

  Daniel and Sam scrambled out of the way. After some discussion about points of impact and vector levels, Teal'c dropped to one knee, sighted carefully and gently pressed the trigger. The bolt of plasma ripped across the top of the debris. It sent a cloud of dust and dirt chunks flying up into the air and brought one sleeping colonel rolling to his knees, weapon aimed and primed even before his vision had cleared.

  "Whoa, hold fire, Colonel!"

  "What the hell was that?" Jack sagged back onto his heels.

  "Sorry, Jack. Teal'c's just helping excavate the body."

  "With a staff weapon?"

  "Well, not... well, yes."

  "And I was having such a good dream too-donuts, Mary Steenburgen...."

  "Go back to sleep, Jack."

  "No, I'm good now. Where do you want me?"

  "Can you sift through the soil as Sam digs it out?"

  "You got it."

  They settled in to a hushed, almost frantic pace of work. Sam used the shovel-head to dig through the dry earth in the most likely direction she could project, while Jack sifted her spoils with a leaf trowel. Daniel directed Teal'c in a few more well-placed shots that broke through most of the baked clay and dislodged the top layer of bricks.

  Together they attacked the wall. Bricks were tossed into an ever-increasing pile, but it was hard work and taxed their already depleted strength. Daniel found himself favoring his left hand as the ache in his shoulder increased and he had to crawl about on his knees in deference to his healing back and leg. The dull throb in his side was not worthy of notice.