City of the Gods

by Stargate

  Dabruzzi tapped the screen. "This tells me that they weren't swept over the cliff into the next valley. The surface of the lake is frozen now, but assuming they survived the wave front, which wouldn't have been that high when it hit the `gate platform, then they should have been able to make it ashore while the water was still warm." He turned to Hammond. "They're only hope of survival would have been to find shelter before the blizzard hit."

  "Wouldn't the camp have been washed away?" asked Daniel.

  "Yeah, but not far from the gate is a big ice cave that leads to a magma tunnel. I'm only guessing, of course, but under the circumstances there's nowhere else they could have gone. Not far inside are a couple of geotumors - magma blisters, caverns - they could hole up in, including one with a hot spring."

  Teal'c was standing silently in the background. For such a big man - or Jaffa - Hammond was constantly surprised by how inconspicuous Teal'c could make himself. Daniel Jackson, on the other hand, was radiating enough nervous energy to power the `gate. Nearby, Siler, an extraordinarily large wrench in his hand, was talking to an SFA. "Sergeant?" Hammond called.

  Siler looked up. "Sir?"

  "How long would it take you to rig up an underwater probe? We need to make contact with Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter."

  Dabruzzi pulled at his beard. "Even if you don't get a signal, it doesn't mean they're not alive. As I told the Colonel yesterday, our radios were damned near useless."

  Hammond's eyes darted between them, then settled on Siler expectantly. Hope and human ingenuity was the unofficial motto around the SGC.

  "Well, sir," the technical sergeant replied. "I could probably rig up something simple, but it would be better to get a remote controlled camera from the Navy. That'd allow us to swim it around some and see what's going on."

  Hammond stared at the screen. He didn't want the Navy asking awkward questions about why the Air Force needed a submersible probe beneath Cheyenne Mountain. He'd have to call in more favors. "All right," he said to Siler. "Tell me what you need and I'll have it here within twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, Dr Jackson, now that the `gate is operational again, why don't you and Teal'c go pay a visit to that grandfather of yours?"

  Daniel began to object, but Hammond added, "Son, you can't do anything to help Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter until we know what the conditions are on the other side of the `gate. You'll be back from P7X-377 before we can get a submersible here."

  CHAPTER SIX

  o they liked vegetarian RCWs, who'd have guessed? Although, given the waif-like condition of the children, Jack suspected it had been a while since any of them had seen a decent meal.

  Pretending to be gods was just plain wrong, on all levels, but it had been the only way to keep any kind of control over the situation. Since it was too wet to bunk down in the hot springs cave, they'd settled on making camp in the tunnel just outside. Warmed by a patchwork quilt of feather cloaks, Air Force uniforms and Dabruzzi's eclectic collection of colorful clothes, the children looked as contented as if they were home in their beds, clutching teddy bears and soft woolen blankets. It was a telling statement on the hardships they must have endured in their short lives that they found such meager offerings comfortable. And yet, they didn't have the bruised, battered and feral - or worse, openly abused and vacant - looks he'd seen in too many kids in too many refugee camps. And all of them were well behaved, even respectful. These kids had grown up in poverty-stricken but loving homes, ones where obedience and temperance were necessary adjuncts to survival in a harsh world.

  Jack looked at the sorcerer's apprentice, Heart-eater, sitting alone in a dark niche beside a rock fall. Good thing, too. Stinking like a flyblown corpse, he was home to enough bugs to drive an anteater into a feeding frenzy. He'd accepted the food, but rejected the offer of a coat. The black stuff on his skin apparently kept him warm.

  "Zazanilli, Muan-zac!" called one of the children. "A story, White-owl!"

  Two-water, who had adopted Carter and was now sitting in her lap, said, "Yes, brother, you are the oldest, you must tell us a story."

  "Tell us of how Quetzalcoatl made us."

  "No," called another. "Tell us how Quetzalcoatl promised he would return at the end of the world and take his chosen people to Omeyocan!"

  They were obviously trying to impress Jack with their knowledge of Quetzal's deeds. Which didn't make him feel any better about the whole god thing.

  "Tomorrow," said White-owl seriously, "will be the last day before Nemontemi."

  The word Nemontemi hushed the children, and they huddled closer together. "Then tell us of Nemontemi," said a teenager.

  White-owl nodded sagely. "This is the story I shall tell, as told to me by my colli, my grandfather, who was but a boy during the last Nemontemi, fifty-two years ago.

  "Oc ye nechca, once upon a time, when Chalchiuhtlicue destroyed the last world in a great flood, the gods decided to build a fifth and final world. Tonatui made his glorious ship in the sky, the sun, while Quetzalcoatl," White-owl glanced at Jack, "made this world, Xalotcan. Then he made mankind - "

  "By tricking Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the Underworld, into giving him the bones of people from past worlds," called one of the older children.

  "Shh! Do not spoil the story!" scolded Two-water. Most of the children giggled. They'd obviously heard it a dozen times, but their enthralled looks said it was a favorite tale.

  "And Tzcatlipoca made the great planet in the sky, Meztli, to which we are bound. But when Tzcatlipoca and Tonatui became jealous of their brother, Quetzalcoatl, they drove..." White-owl paused and looked uncertainly at Jack.

  The other children also turned and stared at him expectantly. Great. What was he supposed to do now?

  "You know," said Carter, "I think White-owl's telling the story very well."

  "Yeah," Jack added quickly. "Don't let us stop you. We like stories. Love 'em...in fact." Next time Daniel decided to go on vacation, he'd tie him to a chair.

  White-owl glowed with pride, although his voice turned solemn. "The brothers drove Quetzalcoatl away, and began to fight amongst themselves. Each day Tonatui rides Ichan Tonatiuh, his glorious sun ship, across the sky. But by evening he has grown weak, and Tzcatlipoca, the lord of the night, defeats him in battle. That is why we must give our hearts to Tonatui, so that he may rise each moming and cast his light upon our world, Xalotcan."

  "I do not like Lord Tzcatlipoca," Two-water whispered loudly to Carter.

  "Ah!" White-owl chided her with a frown. "It is Lord Tzcatlipoca that keeps us safe at night, by holding us close to Meztli. If it were not for him, Xalotcan would be cast adrift into the night sky, and the tlaloque spirits would send cold, white rain to cover the world and kill us all. This is why we must also give Tzcatlipoca our hearts and blood, so that he can grow strong and come to us again each evening."

  Well, what a surprise. A couple of Goa'uld named Cat Lips and Tonto squabbling over who controlled the place, each one demanding 'hearts'- probably Jaffa armies - from the local population.

  "After fifty-two years of fighting this battle every day, Tzcatlipoca and Tonatui become weak." White-owl's voice lowered dramatically. "Tzcatlipoca casts us adrift from Meztli, and the god Mictlantecuhtli grows restless in Mictlan, the Underworld, and shakes the ground. Tonatui can no longer push aside the floating water skins in the sky, so we do not see his golden face, and Chalchiuhtlicue..." He paused and shot a quick, nervous glance in Carter's direction. "It is said that she orders the tlaloque spirits to fill the floating water skins with poison. When this fire-rain falls upon the ground, it kills our gardens, and we hunger and die. This is Nemontemi, the no-time, where the days have no name and the living and dead are as one. During Nemontemi we must feed many more hearts to Tonatui and Tzcatlipoca to renew their strength, or our world will end.

  "But as with all worlds, the day will come when our world, Xalotcan, must end, and it will do so during one such Nemontemi. This is the time as foretold by Quetzalcoatl, for he promised that
he would return, defeat his brothers, and take those loyal to him to Omeyocan."

  Jack felt a tug on his sleeve. Two-water was gazing up at him. "Is that why you have come, Jack Quetzalcoatl? Because this Nemontemi is the end of the world?"

  Twenty pairs of big brown eyes turned worriedly to him. A few years ago he might have dismissed the story as a parable, but as he met Two-water's solemn stare, he remembered assuring Cassie's people that an eclipse didn't mean the end of the world. Bad call.

  Eyeing Jack thoughtfully, White-owl said, "Quetzalcoatl has not come to us as a god, but as a man. The gods have always walked amongst us in the guise of humans, for what happens at the end of each Nemontemi?"

  An older child replied, "Those of us who have proven to be the most righteous, the most perfect in body and mind and spirit, become Tzcatlipoca and Tonatui!"

  "Then," White-owl finished with a flourish of his hands, "with their chosen Jaffa they ascend in glowing rings of light to their great ships in the sky, to battle once more."

  Okay, well, that pretty much confirmed it. There were four or five Goa'uld, at least two whom had ships, but since they were both dipping into the same resources, they weren't exactly system lords.

  When Two-water yawned sleepily, White-owl smiled and said, "Now it is time to sleep. Tomorrow, when Quetzalcoatl and Chalchi take us to the Emperor's palace garden, we shall be free, and we will see our families again."

  Tossing her arms around Carter's neck happily, Two-water cried, "Oh, thank you for saving us, Chalchi! Can you come and live with us for a little while? My mother always believed that the true Chalchi was kind and beautiful." She frowned at Heart-eater. "And not the wicked monster that the fire priests said!"

  The smile on Carter's face froze. White-owl looked at her, and said, "They cannot stay, little sister, for Quetzalcoatl must not be here when Tzcatlipoca and Tonatui arrive in six days, or it will be as Heart-eater says, the end of the world."

  The monumental Mayan pyramid on P7X-377 was no less breathtaking than the first time Daniel had seen it two and a half years earlier. As with his previous visits, there was no sign of life, no birds fluttering overhead, not even the chirp of a cricket to break the silence of an utterly tenantless landscape. Sam had said that normal life forms could not survive the regular bombardment of ration radiation from the pyramid, and that the atmosphere was probably artificial. It was disturbing nonetheless. Looking over the side of the walkway all he could see was amorphous gray rock. Green was not one of the colors on P7X-377.

  Nick walked out of the pyramid and looked up. "Daniel! Good, I've been expecting you." Moving with a degree of sprightliness that Daniel hadn't seen in twenty years, his grandfather disappeared back inside. "Come, come, I have something to show you."

  With Teal'c on his heels, Daniel hurried inside - and ran right through his grandfather. He stopped and spun around. "Ali, Teal'c, could you take a step back?"

  Teal'c's habitual look of attentive indifference was, Daniel knew, a survival trait acquired during a lifetime of service to Apophis. But along with his willingness to volunteer information, Teal'c's range of expressions had gradually increased since joining SG-1. Right now, his face was curiously uncertain.

  "You're, ah, standing in my grandfather."

  Teal'c's left eyebrow shot up, and he promptly stepped back. "My apologies, Nicholas Ballard."

  "That really is disconcerting, even when it happens to someone else," Daniel muttered. "Uhm, Nick? We...ah, failed to stop Professor Wodeski."

  Oblivious to the incursion into his ethereal body, his grandfather was staring at the wall, tapping a finger to his lips in thought. "I know." Nick's voice dropped and he turned a worried eye to Daniel. "The pyramid?"

  "Is okay. Only the cave and excavation tunnel collapsed." Nevertheless, Daniel still felt the pang of anger. "We think Wodeski murdered the guards."

  "In Peru, on a site he was overseeing, a guard was shot and artifacts stolen. Stanislaw blamed thieves." Nick's eyes narrowed. "That was not the first time such a thing has happened. Always, it is thieves." He turned and led them further inside to the alcove overlooking the cavernous interior of the pyramid. A narrow walkway in the center led to a platform where a rose quartz crystal skull was mounted on a pedestal. Nick stopped near the walkway, and began examining a section of the nearby wall.

  "Do you know where Wodeski is?" Daniel asked him.

  Nick's face adopted the self-satisfied expression of one who has been vindicated after a lifetime of ridicule. "Another world. Perhaps it would be best if you left him there?" His voice was hopeful.

  "Grandfather." Daniel sent him a reproachful look.

  "It was just a thought." Nick shrugged and pointed to what appeared to be a keystone. "I do not know why a door exists. When one no longer has a physical body, walls do not present a problem. But you are still made of solid flesh, Daniel, so you must push here."

  Daniel gently nudged the beveled block. A door-sized section moved aside with the gritty, heavy sound of stone sliding across stone. Teal'c clutched his staff weapon in surprise when a light appeared from nowhere, revealing a dozen marble steps leading into a small, roughly circular chamber.

  "This is amazing!" Daniel all but danced around the room in excitement, Teal'c following cautiously behind. The dark marble walls featured the same glyphs that they'd seen in Nick's journal and the Teotihuacan codex.

  "There is so much to learn here, Daniel, so much to understand, I have barely begun." Nick beamed like a post-doctorate with a million dollar research grant. "Place your hand here." He pointed to a proustite pedestal in the center of the room.

  "Why?" Daniel wondered how much of the writing Nick had managed to translate.

  "You will see."

  Still with his eyes on the glyphs, Daniel placed his palm on the crystalline block. It was slightly oily and warm to the touch. A column of light, as bright and alive as aflame, silently shot up from the center. He snatched his hand back with a gasp, then his jaw slack ened in wonder. The light swirled around their heads and divided into five spinning balls. Their rotation slowed and the colors shifted from magenta to blue-white as they dropped to eye-level. "It's the same machine that Ernest Littlefield discovered! Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

  Teal'c looked less certain. "I do not believe this is the same device, Daniel Jackson." The holograms were more solid in appearance, and they did not represent atoms or molecules, but five worlds. "Nor is it a device used by the Goa'uld."

  "I have spent a great deal of time reading your reports," said Nick, "so that I could understand these aliens, the Goa'uld. Your theory that many ancient civilizations vanished suddenly because the Goa'uld took them is only partly correct."

  Daniel's eyes were drawn to the sphere with an extraordinarily detailed rendering of Earth. "How so?"

  "In the past," Nick explained, "Quetzalcoatl and others of his race, the Omeyocan, also took people from Earth."

  Alarmed, Daniel looked up. "Why?" His voice was full of suspicion.

  "Do not worry, Daniel. It is alright." Nick smiled reassuringly. "It was a very long time ago, before the Egyptians buried the Stargate. The Omeyocan were..." He searched for the right words. "I think they were conservationists, like park rangers. When the Goa'uld came to our galaxy, the Omeyocan took tribes of uninfected humans from Earth and seeded them on planets outside the Stargate network."

  "The giant aliens are called Omeyocan? That's the Nahuatl Indian word for Heaven, but it also means the heavenly bodies in the sky, including the sun, moon and stars. You said many planets. There are only four here, in addition to Earth."

  "Twelve and a half centuries ago, in a distant part of our galaxy, there was a great battle between the Omeyocan and a group of evil Goa'uld."

  Peering over his glasses at Nick, Daniel said, "Calling the Goa'uld evil is a little redundant, Grandfather. The Goa'uld define evil."

  Nick shook his head and waved his finger for emphasis. "No, even by Goa'uld standards these w
ere evil, an abomination exiled by their father, Ra, because they had done unspeakable things." He shuddered. "Many Omeyocan, and all but one of these Goa'uld, Coatlicue, died in this great battle. When Coatlicue fled, she needed new human slaves to take with her into exile. She had no knowledge of the worlds protected by the Omeyocan, but she did know of one planet where she could be sure to harvest slaves without fear of Ra finding her."

  "Earth."

  "Yes. With the Stargate buried, Ra was unlikely to return in his ship because he had stocked many other worlds with humans. Quetzalcoatl knew that when Coatlicue reached Earth, she would exact a terrible revenge on him and his mate, Chalchiuhtlicue, by making slaves of the people under his protection."

  "The inhabitants of Teotihuacan."

  Nick nodded gravely. "Quetzalcoatl also knew that those whom Coatlicue could not enslave would be killed, and the city razed."

  " Teotihuacan was burned and ransacked, but there's no evidence of any Goa'uld weapons having been used"

  "Coatlicue had only one badly damaged ship." Nick shrugged. "Perhaps her weapons had been destroyed in battle. What you must understand, Daniel, is that for more than five hundred years after Teotihuacan had been built, the inhabitants used the skull transport system to settle four worlds that Quetzalcoatl and Chalchi had made ready for them." His eyes were fixed on the hologram. "These are the four planets that you see here. By 750AD, travel, trade and scientific exchange between these worlds and Earth had been well established. But after the great battle and Coatlicue's escape, Quetzalcoatl warned the people of Teotihuacan that they must abandon Earth forever."

  The hologram was exceptionally detailed. Ignoring the temptation to reach out and touch one of the images, Daniel said, "Then why did the skull in Belize transport you here, and not to one of these worlds?"

  "Each skull takes travelers to only one place. The rose crystal skull that I found in the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Belize led here to this world, what you call P7X-377, because this pyramid," Nick gestured around them, "is the hub of the transport network."