by Stargate
"So there must have been four additional skulls beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, each of which lead to the worlds shown here," Daniel finished.
"In its rush to civilization mankind has lost so much." Nick sighed, but then he looked at the hologram, and added, "At least we can be comforted by the knowledge that, if Earth ever falls to the Goa'uld, these worlds remain forever protected."
"Because even if the Goa'uld or some other hostile race find the skulls, they can't use them."
"This is why your friend, Teal'c, may not use the network." Nick shook his head in regret. "For although his soul has not been stolen, he carries a Goa'uld within him."
"It also explains why there's a `gate on this world," Daniel said with sudden insight. "No Goa'uld who comes here could ever use the skull network. In fact, Quetzalcoatl isn't even here, is he? That's why we can't see him until the skull network is activated."
"It took me a long time to realize it, but I think that perhaps he and Chalchi died in the last great battle I spoke of, and that use of the skull triggers a mechanism by which their images appear."
"Like an interactive computer program."
"Once there were many Omeyocan." Nick walked around the chamber, pointing out certain glyphs as he went. "And so there are many other map rooms with devices such as this."
"My God, do you know what this means?" cried Daniel excitedly. "There could be dozens, hundreds of worlds out there, all with cultures as advanced, or more advanced than ours, who've never had any contact with the Goa'uld!"
"Alas, Quetzalcoatl will not allow me to see these other map rooms." Nick pouted and crossed his arms in a pose Daniel well knew.
Recalling the pre-programmed interactive tests on Cimmeria, and Jack's experience with the repository of the Ancients, Daniel said, "Quetzalcoatl is probably trying to protect you, Nick. We've learned that our brains aren't designed to absorb knowledge indiscriminately."
"Perhaps you are right." Nick's feathery white eyebrows lifted in resignation. He looked across the room. "Your friend, Teal'c, seems very interested in the hologram."
Only then did Daniel realize that Teal'c had heard just one side of the conversation. He took a few moments to explain.
"That is incorrect, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c's frown deepened. "There are Stargates on three of these worlds."
Nick's expression faltered. "That is not possible. These planets were chosen because they are outside of the Stargate network."
Teal'c ran his hand over the light generated from the center of the pedestal. The `page' did not change.
Nick moved to stand beside Teal'c. "You must place your hand on an image to enlarge it."
"Touch one of the worlds," said Daniel.
When Teal'c tried, nothing happened. Leaning forward to examine the images more closely, Daniel added, "It probably contains the same built-in mechanism that prevents a Goa'uld from accessing the skull network. Let me try."
Although it was only a hologram, Daniel felt the same oily, warm sensation as when he'd touched the pedestal. The image of the planet enlarged, prompting him to step back.
"I believe that is Orban," said Teal'c.
Nick was frowning now. "He is mistaken. He must be!"
"No, I think Teal'c's right." Daniel examined the image. "The Orbanians are almost certainly descended from the people who built Teotihuacan. And they had a history with the Goa'uld, although it's been lost." He touched a second sphere. It enlarged while the first image shrank.
"That is Tollan." Teal'c's matter-of-fact voice made his pronouncement no less worrying.
"It certainly is."
"No. It is not possible!" declared Nick, the lines on his face deepening with concern.
"Narim showed us holographic maps of what their planet looked like before volcanoes destroyed it." Daniel turned to his grandfather. "You were the one who taught me that Tollan was the ancient Mayan name for Teotihuacan. Tollan architecture and city planning certainly reflected that. They knew about the Goa'uld, they had defenses against them - at least until the end." He touched the hologram of the third world. When neither he nor Teal'c recognized it, he enlarged the fourth and final world.
"Daniel Jackson, do you not recognize this from the aerial surveys?" Teal'c ran his hand along a snowcapped mountain chain.
"That is the world to which Stanislaw went!" Nick's voice was urgent.
His eyes riveted to the detailed rendering of the mountains, Daniel said, "How do you know?"
"You see the small lights in the round shaped valley east of the mountains? They are where the skulls should be. The white light, which represents Earth, glowed."
"Can we get a closer look?"
"Touch the image twice, quickly."
With Nick's help, Daniel learned to navigate the map, enlarging the area and changing the perspective until the image pretty much matched what they'd seen through the MALP. No doubt about it. "That's the valley on M4D-376 where SG-10 were exploring for naquadah."
Nick walked around the hologram shaking his head gravely. "Where did you find the co-ordinates of these Stargates?"
"On the Abydos Cartouche. Although it's thousands of years old, the inscriptions appear to have been periodically updated by Ra. Based on the number of addresses Jack later gave us, when he had the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into his brain, we know there are many planets with Stargates that the Goa'uld aren't aware of"
Teal'c inclined his head in agreement. "The Goa'uld also move Stargates when necessity dictates. Most often to mining colonies."
"AndM4D-376 is an abandoned Goa'uldmining colony." Daniel winced at the thought of Jack marooned in some magma tunnel with Wodeski. They would get along so well.
"Is it not possible," said Teal'c thoughtfully, "that Professor Wodeski's first failed attempt to use the skull precipitated the earthquake that injured SG-10?"
Daniel groaned and brought a hand to his forehead. "Of course! Dabruzzi said the quake was weird." Making a quick mental calculation, he added, "The second time he used the skull, it not only collapsed the excavation tunnel and cavern on Earth, it also caused the second quake on M4D-376 -which broke the dam!"
Nick was paying scant attention. "I must inform Quetzalcoatl." He hurried up the steps. "These worlds were meant to have been protected from the Goa'uld!"
"Wait - Nick?" Daniel followed him. "Why wouldn't Quetzalcoatl know that already? I mean, even if he - it - is some sort of sophisticated computer program, hasn't there been any communication with these planets since they were settled?"
Shaking his head, Nick picked up his pace. Daniel caught up with him at the edge of the narrow walkway to the platform where the skull pedestal sat. The silvery walls and ceiling of the cavern kept slipping out of focus. Like the spindly gray stalagmites, they did not seem to exist entirely in this dimension. Even the patches of luminous orange were difficult to define, as if they were powered by something that existed in an ethereal beyondness. Only the platform itself offered a firm point of reference.
The Omeyocans had also been insubstantial, ghostlike. What if the skull network had been abandoned because they had long vanished, and all that remained was a legacy and hope that the humans they had protected would one day rise up and defeat the Goa'uld? The thought that the great and wondrous beings who had built this place might be gone forever, saddened Daniel immensely.
"Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c was staring at him.
"Sorry, Teal'c. I just got...a little lost there for a moment." Daniel stepped out onto the walkway.
Nick was nearly across; his pace confident, nothing like the old man who had staggered and almost fallen eighteen months earlier.
"Why was the rose skull that you discovered," Daniel called, "kept inside Quetzalcoatl's temple in Belize, and not Teoti huacan?"
"All the great Mesoamerican cultures, the Incas and the Olmecs, the Mayans and Toltecs, even the Aztecs, who came much later, worshipped Quetzalcoatl. And the people of Teotihuacan traded with the Mayans." Nick walked to the
pedestal, bent and stared into the eyes of the skull. "You must tell all that you have told me to Quetzalcoatl. Perhaps, he may answer you."
Turning to Teal'c, Daniel said, "Uhm...I'm not entirely certain what's going to happen once Quetzalcoatl learns that his protected worlds aren't so protected anymore. If it is a computer program, then probably nothing. General Hammond is expecting us back in two hours. If I don't reappear by then - "
"I shall return and inform General Hammond," Teal'c replied.
Daniel had read accounts of people who had declared that looking into the eyes of a crystal skull was like standing on the edge of something wondrous, and if only they could have abandoned their mortal bodies, the secrets of the universe would have been revealed. His first encounter had been a little less wondrous. While the eyes of the skull had certainly drawn him, being stuck in an other-dimensional plane, in a ghostlike existence where no one could see or hear him, was not his idea of a fun out-of-body experience. Yet he had also glimpsed the edges of something similar on Kheb.
The crystal skull's rose tint turned gold, and tiny bubbles began to swirl within the cranium. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, thin, fractured strands of starlight emerged from the skull and surrounded Nick. They quickly expanded to envelope Daniel and Teal'c. Soon the entire cavern was lit by threads of light, blowing around them with the force of a brisk wind. When the filaments of golden light passed through him, he felt the feathery touch of this ineffable awareness again. Something was waiting for him, something with infinite patience. Something ... wonderful.
Daniel blinked rapidly. It was probably just a hallucinatory side effect of the intense Muon radiation. Beside him, Teal'c stiffened and his eyes widened, but he remained unmoving. Daniel envied his stoicism. He knew that Teal'c would stay there until he reappeared or until it was time to go back through the Stargate.
"Quetzalcoatl!" called Nick.
The wind died but the sense of enormous power remained. Tendrils of white fog rose from the depths of the chamber and gathered around the stalagmites. A portion of the fog thickened then coalesced into the form of a giant, ghostly humanoid. Only the upper half of the alien's body was visible; the rest faded from view in the fathomless depths. Nick could well be right. The Omeyocan could be a sophisticated holographic image.
"Uy ah ual ing ual ing wetail!" it called in a deep, resonant voice. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Moving closer, it pointed to Daniel. "You have returned."
"Yes! Yes, I have. I'm sorry, but I bring news that I think you may find disturbing."
The white apparition pulled back momentarily. If it was possible for a computerized specter to have an expression, then this one certainly looked curious.
"Quetzalcoatl, the..." Daniel pointed towards the chamber that Nick called a map room. "The planets where you took the people from the city we now call Teotihuacan. My friend here - " He gestured to Teal'c, whose face indicated he was definitely sensing something. "Although he is Jaffa, he has dedicated his life to fighting the Goa'uld who enslaved his people. Teal'c recognized three of these places... because they have Stargates."
"Coatlicue!" Quetzalcoatl bellowed, and flew towards Daniel. The specter veered up and over his head only at the last moment, then another phantasm appeared from the depths, and fog closed in around them.
Every instinct in Daniel urged him to flee, but he stood his ground. "I -" He glanced at Teal'c. "We have been to three of these worlds. Tollan was destroyed when its orbit shifted, and the Goa'uld once enslaved Orban, but the people are now free. The third world, a moon-
"Xalotcan." Quetzalcoatl's voice boomed through the cavernous chamber.
"Okay ...Xalotcan, was mined by the Goa'uld. It appears to have been abandoned-"
"What of Yaxkin?"
Assuming Quetzalcoatl meant the fourth world, Daniel replied, "We have not been there."
The Omeyocan appeared to multiply as they flew around his and Teal'c's heads. "Coatlicue!" The evidently despised name echoed around the cavern. "Coatlicue!"
Daniel began to rethink the computer generated hologram theory; these guys were seriously agitated. Maybe it had been programmed to act that way? Maybe -
"Daniel Jackson!" called Teal'c.
Startled, Daniel replied, "You can see us?"
"Indeed!" Teal'c's eyes followed the swirling phantasms.
"I did not think it was possible." Nick stared at Teal'c in amazement.
The Omeyocans slowly settled back into the depths until only one - presumably Quetzalcoatl - remained. "You!" He - Daniel decided it was a `he' not an 'it'- pointed a feathery finger at Teal' c. "Uy ah ual ing ual ing wetail. You have chosen to die rather than let your Goa'uld symbiote take a host. You have earned the right to travel these worlds." Then turning once more to Daniel, he said, "Why did you come?"
"Someone on Earth used a skull, and we hoped to learn where he had been taken." Daniel glanced at Teal'c. It wasn't exactly why they'd come, but an idea suddenly struck him, so he added, "I believe that two of our friends, the people who were with us when we first came here, are also on Xalotcan. They used a Stargate to get there. An earthquake caused a flood that covered the `gate and prevented our friends' return. We would ask if we might use the skull network to go to Xalotcan and find them."
Quetzalcoatl inclined his head in agreement, and then descended into the depths. "As you wish. Look into the eyes of the skull."
Daniel hesitated. "Uhm...that's it?" he said to Nick. "We need to report to General Hammond."
"Of course." Nick nodded. "The skull will make you corporeal again. When you come back here, it will take you to Xalotcan. There you will arrive in a temple where the rose skull is kept. It should be near the `gate because that is what the image shows on the map."
"What if there is no temple anymore, or the skulls are hidden in burial chambers, like Teotihuacan?"
"The network takes its energy from this pyramid." Nick stepped up to the skull. "If all five skulls have been destroyed, you will not leave here. If they are buried, then you will arrive in a suitable resonating chamber nearby. A large cave, perhaps."
"What if we can't find the rose skull, how do we get back?"
Nick's brow furrowed. "Then you may not journey back."
CHAPTER SEVEN
ack had become accustomed to the low-level background noises: the soft gurgling water from the nearby hot springs cavern and the deep rumblings of the volcano. But he would never adjust to the endless tremors. That and the pervasive stench of brimstone were a constant reminder that they were sitting on a thin skin of frozen rock above a very, very big ball of molten moon.
Two-water was curled up asleep between him and Carter, sucking her thumb, all but buried in Sergeant King's sleeping bag. A couple of charcoal ears stuck out beside her. The hairless dog stared up at him with ridiculously large eyes. "Hey, Toto." He leaned down and patted the animal's head. It tentatively licked his hand before curling up inside the sleeping bag again.
Carter started breathing again. It had freaked him out when he'd discovered her like that after the flood - although he hadn't so much as found her, as stumbled over a lump of snow beside the beached FRED. But his relief had instantly turned to dread. Her face had been white and her lips blue. Another something to shove into the basement of unwanted memories. He still wasn't sure if she'd stopped breathing altogether, or if it had been a combination of extreme cold and the same problem that had afflicted him during the night. He'd kept waking up short of breath, then found himself hyperventilating to compensate.
That's when he'd remembered that something similar had happened to him in the Zagros Mountains. The weird breathing pattern wasn't altitude sickness; it was how the human body adjusted to thin air. The kids weren't affected because they'd grown up in it.
Carter's breathing changed again. "Sir?" she whispered.
In the dim light he met her eyes and nodded. She moved gently so as not to disturb Two-water then grabbed a canteen from inside her sleeping bag.
They walked back along the tunnel towards the exit, drinking as they went. One thing he did remember about high altitudes and thin atmospheres, the more they hyperventilated to get the oxygen they needed, the more CO2 their kidneys had to scrub from their body. Keeping up their fluids was vital, no matter how much it made you pee.
The temperature dropped with every step until they arrived at the outer cave. Despite the lack of wind it was one hell of a lot colder than the night before. It was also a lot lighter. The storm either hadn't materialized, or it had been and gone. Jack went outside to check on the condition of the lake, and stopped in his tracks.
Carter, ever the scientist, walked out further and looked up at the night sky. "The gas planet must be what the children call Meztli, and this moon is Xalotcan. The orbital eccentricity has -"
"Major," he said in a low voice. From the comer of his eye he saw her smile of acknowledgement.
It had been a long time, too long perhaps, since the sheer beauty of the moment had given Jack O'Neill pause. Once upon a time he had looked up at the heavens with childlike wonder, and, although he would never admit it, dared to dream what it would be like to set foot upon the airless dust of alien worlds. Like most such childhood fantasies, they had become buried under a succession of bitter disappointments served up by reality. Alien worlds had not offered majestic panoramas of stark, awe-inspiring beauty, but terraformed planets inhabited by mortal enemies pretending to be gods.
But tonight, as he stood at the entrance of the tunnel, he caught a glimpse of those past dreams.
The sky was clear. Even the persistent volcanic ash plume was barely a smudge above mountains silhouetted by a planet that dominated fully two thirds of the night sky. The swirling clouds of the gas giant cast a veil of pastel light across the mountainscape. Normally, the orbiting rings were edge on, and would have been seen as little more than a thin shadowy line bisecting the planet. But tonight, the moon's eccentric orbit provided them with a different perspective. The rings, now at an angle to them, looked like rainbow ribbons encircling the enormous world. "I remember," he whispered, "the first time I saw Saturn through a telescope."