by Stargate
"I'm kind of surprised you agreed to Spanish," Janet added. "I mean, it's not Mexican, but..."
"The Spanish never set foot on Xalotcan, it was pure Aztec." Sam poured the sangria.
"Welcome home." Janet raised her tumbler in salute. She sipped from the glass, then pitching her voice low, added, "The.. speci men you brought back was a queen, all right. I found immature larvae in her."
"Wasn't she a little... old?"
"The host was, yes, which is why I ran a test on the symbiote's genetic makeup."
"And?"
"I found something quite interesting, a mutation - an extra gene. From what I can tell, it seems to have restricted her ability to maintain the host's body. Her larva carried the same gene."
"So they can't retard the aging process. Does that mean that her Jaffa and offspring's hosts would be more vulnerable to injury?"
"Almost definitely. I also suspect that as mature Goa'uld, they would have less psychological control of the host."
"Without a sarcophagus, it would explain why they have to change hosts every fifty-two years," said Sam. She recalled Teal'c's words to Daniel, about the Goa'uld choosing hosts that believed implicitly in the culture. "And they incorporated that need into Aztec rituals. Could also explain why children were regularly being sent to the `gate."
"She was experimenting on them."
Sam closed her eyes. "God, no wonder they were so terrified."
The door opened, and a wandering Santa came inside. "Merry Christmas, everyone!" he called, dispensing candy canes among the patrons.
Janet waited until he had passed, then said, "I also found traces of a psychotropic substance in your blood. You must have been having some interesting dreams."
Sam knew that Janet was fishing, but she didn't mind. As Cassandra's adoptive mother and the only other permanent female officer on the base, Janet had become her closest friend outside SG1. "I had my suspicions about the green glow bugs, that's why I brought back a sample."
"Green glow bugs?" Janet laughed softy. "That has to be one of the Colonel's expressions."
"Sorry" Sam's quick smiled faded, and she added, "There were a couple of times when I had some intensely disturbing... memories."
"Well, if you do go back, don't spend too much time in the caves. And I'll treat you all withAcetazolamide. It works quite well as a prophylactic against mild altitude sickness. It should help with the nightmares, too."
Sam looked doubtful. "I'm not sure we're going back. Daniel seems to think that even if we can convince them to rebel against the remaining Goa'uld, which they seem ready to do, they'd revert back to their original culture."
"What if you could show them there's another way?"
"The Pentagon doesn't want us to get involved unless there's enough naquadah to justify an operation of that scale. Although Dabruzzi's examining the samples and data now, we won't have a full analysis until after Nemontemi is over." Sam suppressed a momentary surge of anger. "Waiting until the Goa'uld have left for another fifty-two years is also `strategically sensible'."
Janet's expression soured, but then she sighed in resignation. "Well, that is our mandate, to find technology and resources to defend ourselves against the Goa'uld, not engage in outright confrontation - if we can avoid it." She examined Sam through lowered eyes. "Sam, are you okay? You don't normally let that sort of policy decision get to you."
"I just keep thinking about the kids. Maybe we should have brought them back here."
"I have my hands full with Cassie."
Sam laughed. "Two-water reminded me of..." She paused when the waiter came and took their order. Two-water hadn't reminded her of Cassie, but the little girl had tugged at her heart in a way Sam couldn't explain.
Janet examined her with knowing eyes. "Maternal instinct is a powerful thing, Sam, even when you don't have children."
They'd had this conversation before, generally around Christmas and Cassie's birthday. "When I was engaged to Jonas, we figured on waiting a few years before having children, and then I'd take a year or two off. I knew that balancing work and family would be difficult, but back then I really believed I could do anything." Sam paused and sipped her drink. So much had changed since then. "I mean I still want to have children, someday. But to be the sort of mother I'd want for them would mean giving up all that I am. And I'm not ready to do that, Janet. It would be dishonest to myself, to my commitment to the Air Force, to those children, and to the moral obligation I have to do everything in my power to protect..." She lowered her voice. "Earth."
Being part of the SGC had given Sam an incredible life, but it was also an exclusive world. It was hard to meet anyone, let alone make small talk when everything you did was classified. As to a relationship with someone who did know... She thought about Martouf, on Netu, the way Apophis had tried to use his memory of Jolinar to betray the Tok'ra. The military's rules about fraternization existed so that you could never be placed in a position where your personal feelings got in the way of making difficult decisions.
Janet gave her a considered look. As if reading her mind, she said, "Not everyone at the SGC is in the military."
And Sam didn't need the safety net of rules to fall back on, at least not when it came to those outside the military.
Her phone began vibrating in her bag. She glanced at the screen before lifting it to her ear. "Colonel?"
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he grumbled.
"We just ordered."
"Get it to go. General wants us back at the base. Damn!"
Sam grinned when she heard the familiar television voices in the background. "VCR, sir?" she suggested.
"It was a Christmas marathon!" he groused. "D'oh!"
Daniel stared across the briefing room table at Dabruzzi. "How long did you say?"
Sam was sitting beside the volcanologist, typing something into her laptop. Hammond was frowning. Jack looked bored, the sort of deliberately bored look he got when he was concerned. Only Teal' c appeared to accept the news calmly.
"A month, maybe," replied Dabruzzi. "But celestial mechanics isn't exactly my field. That's why I asked if Major Carter could come in and run a simulation." He turned to Jack. "It was only when I began examining the data - thanks for getting my computer, by the way - that I realized what was going on with the moon's mantle."
"The orbital instability has increased dramatically," Sam said, and kept typing.
"And that would mean?" Jack said impatiently. "Ten words or less, Carter. Make it five and I'll spring for a beer."
Carter paused, exchanged a quick look with Dabruzzi, and then replied, "Think Tollan."
General Hammond sat forward and looked at her expectantly. "You mean, it's breaking up? When will you know for certain if this is the case?"
"It's a matter of when, not if, sir. I should have an accurate time frame soon." She hit the return key on her laptop, and then sat back. "It'll take a few minutes for the program to run."
"What do you think?" Hammond turned to Jack. "Could we evacuate everyone?"
"Two million people via the Polar Plunge?" Jack replied, picking up a pen. "Hey, we're good, but not that good."
"What about using the skull network?" suggested Hammond.
Daniel bit his lip in thought. "Even if we could, most of the inhabitants would refuse to leave."
"Oh, here we go." Jack began doodling a death's head on his note pad. "There's always someone who believes it's the will of pick-your-deity."
"Huitzilopochtli."
Jack shuffled his chair back. "Gesundheit."
Ignoring Dabruzzi's snigger, Daniel said, "Huitzilopochtli is the name of a god, Jack. He's also known as Moctil, Mextli, Mexitl or Uitzilpochtli, the Hummingbird Wizard." He frowned and, opening his file folder, pulled out a list. Something was missing... something to do with the names of the gods.
"Whoa!" Jack cried. "How many damned Goa'uld are running the place?"
"TheAztecpantheon features ninety-seven major deities, i
nclud- ingAcuecucyoticihuati, Coyolxanuhqui, Huixtocihuatl, Macuilcoz- cacuahtli, Tlahuixcalpantecuhtli, Xmulzencab and Yiacatecuhtli," replied Daniel absently. What was it that connected them all?
Jack stared at him. "You practiced that, right?"
"Here." Daniel handed him the list.
As Jack's eyes traveled down the paper, a slow smile spread across his lips. "This is great!"
Sam's eyebrows shot up and she looked at him. "It is?"
Daniel blinked, pulled the list from Jack's fingers and re-examined it. What had he missed?
"Yeah." Jack snatched the paper back. "Do you realize how many points just one of these is worth in Scrabble?"
A choking noise from Sam quickly turned into a fit of cough ing, while Dabruzzi covetously eyed the list. Daniel pulled off his glasses and began cleaning them. It wouldn't help him see any better, but it seemed vaguely constructive. "The god Piquete-zina, for example - "
"Who?"
` - or Batman," Daniel continued without missing a beat.
"Batman was a god?"
"Piquete-zina means Batman, Jack. Many ancient deities took on the form of animals, and this was essentially an animist culture. Batman's friend and companion was supposedly the..." Daniel pulled the paper from Jack's hands again, and ran a finger down the list. It was there somewhere. "...chief god of alcoholic beverages, R-"
"Robin? You gotta be kidding."
"Rabbit," Daniel finished, tapping the paper. "Drunken-rabbit."
"There's a god named Drunken Rabbit?" Sam's blue eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Several, in fact. A total of four hundred lesser deities, the offspring of Mayahuel - Drunken Rabbit - and Patecatl."
"Why so many?"
"Rabbits, Carter," said Jack dryly. He plucked insistently at the list in Daniel's fingers. "Drunken rabbits."
"The point being, Dr Jackson?" said General Hammond, somewhat impatiently.
"The point is, that even if we can save everyone, then what?" Jack said. "We find some other planet for them where they can just keep on with this whole human sacrifice thing?"
"Jack, they're not bad people!" Daniel released his grip on the paper - he'd print out another later. "You must have learned by now that you can't judge a civilization based on our cultural perceptions of what's right and wrong."
"They sacrifice kids!"
"Who are going to die anyway unless we evacuate everyone!" Daniel jammed his glasses back on. Moral quagmires. He was tempted to argue but he knew both viewpoints too well.
"You said it yourself, Dr Jackson," said Hammond. "The Aztecs were doing this long before the Goa'uld abducted them from Earth."
"Did not Nicholas Ballard say that the Goa'uld had been exiled by Ra because they had done unspeakable things?" asked Teal'c.
Andthat's when ithithim. "Oh my God, ofcourse. Teal'c, you're right." Daniel pushed his chair back so hard that it almost fell. He leaped up and began pacing the briefing room. "I can't believe I've been so stupid!" he cried, bringing his hands to his head in frustration. He turned and saw Jack's cautiously raised eyebrow. Everyone was staring at him. "Jack, you...well, you're right, too!"
"I am?" A tiny smile rode across Jack's lips and he looked around at the others. "I'm right!" Then a cautious frown appeared. "Exactly what am I..." He looked at Teal'c. "...are we right about, Daniel?"
"It's what's been bothering me from the beginning. The Goa'uld are responsible for the sacrifices. All of them, because Coatlicue stayed on Earth!"
Hammond released a frustrated sigh. "Dr Jackson, what are you talking about?"
Daniel's voice almost ran away with the words as he explained. "After Ra exiled them in 750AD, the `evil' Goa'uld battled with the Omeyocan in a distant part of space until only one badly damaged ship remained. The surviving Goa'uld, Coatlicue, then went to Earth to collect slaves."
"If her ship was damaged," said Sam. "It could have taken centuries to reach Earth."
"Exactly! She must have had a sarcophagus, at least, back then." Daniel grabbed the chair and sat back down. It was something he didn't like to dwell on, but Hathor had needed his DNA in order to produce human compatible larvae. "Once Coatlicue arrived, she took a human mate and then created the first Jaffa for her offspring. In Aztec mythology Huitzilopochtli - Hummingbird Wizard - was born from Coatlicue around 1100AD. In mythology, Coatlicue also claimed to be Quetzalcoatl's mother." He rapidly paged through a thick book as he talked.
"A little Oedipus problem there?" said Jack.
"No, his wife was Cha/chiuhtlicue."
"Of course, what was I thinking," Jack muttered.
"I'm now certain that Coatlicue pretended to be Chalchiuhtlicue, and distorted an essentially Mayan religion to suit her somewhat pathological pleasures." Daniel found the page and tapped it with a finger. "Here." He handed it to Jack, who stared at the illustration of a half-naked woman with a magnificent headdress, and strings of human hearts and hands around her neck and waist.
"Hat's cool. Accessories are a little over the top."
"I think fashion is the problem." Daniel pointed to the writhing snakes clustered about Coatlicue's waist. "This has always been interpreted as a skirt of snakes. But in fact she's probably - "
"Giving birth to them!" Sam's nostril's flared in disgust.
"It would explain how Huitzilopochtli supposedly emerged from Coatlicue `with all the knowledge of his mother' and, after describing himself as the new sun god, founded the Aztec civilization. To celebrate his birth, Huitzilopochtli gave four priests explicit instructions on exactly how to set up what would rapidly become the largest empire in the New World."
"What are you saying? That all these gods," Jack held up the list, are Goa'uld?"
"The Aztec legends of gods doing battle, the incest and shifting alignments, the so-called `star wars', all of it can be explained by power plays between Coatlicue's offspring!"
"So," said Jack. "An exiled Goa'uld queen didn't adopt the Aztec empire, she founded it. Doesn't explain how she located Tollan, Orban and these other planets. I mean the skull system isn't exactly Goa'uld compatible, right?"
"I believe I know the answer," said Teal'c.
"You read this?" Daniel opened his grandfather's journal to the page of glyphs.
Teal'c inclined his head. "It tells of how a snake goddess, one of an ancient race of alien reptiles, came to Earth and took the leader of a powerful warrior tribe as a human mate."
"That's it! Coati in Nahuatl means snake. The Emperor's 'assistant' was always called cihuacoatl, snakewoman."
"Subtle," Jack muttered.
"If Coatlicue had the same power over men as Hathor...uhm.. . had over us - "
Sam looked at Daniel. "It would explain how she learned about the skull network."
"Here." Daniel pointed to the image of a priest holding a skull. Light beams shone out to encompass a numeric glyph that denoted thousands of warriors. "Archeologists assumed that the `sacrificed' warriors from the Flower Wars, the xochimiqui, were sent to four metaphysical worlds, Heavens, otherwise known as Omeyocan. But they must have been sent on military campaigns to the four worlds the original Teotihuacanos settled via the crystal skull network: Orban, Tollan, Xalotcan and Yaxkin. Coatlicue and her offspring didn't need the skull transport system. Once they knew the location of these worlds - the Aztecs were amazing astronomers, adept at making celestial maps - they could go by ship, and then establish Stargates on each world. On Xalotcan the original inhabitants were likely slaughtered, but the Tollans and Orbanians eventually defeated them."
PushingNick's journal to one side, Daniel opened a smaller notepad. "This is Wodeski's. He was taking notes on the `Chappa'ai' when we found him." He scanned the cramped, spidery handwriting. "It's a little hard to read, but he mentions how Coatlicue lost her `bed of life' and her `great home in the sky' when one of her sons, Tonatui, deposed Huitzilopochtli, the first Aztec sun god, and conspired with her other children to kill her. In the Aztec mythology on Earth, Coatlicue survived.
But on Xalotcan, she supposedly died - at about the same time as Chalchiuhtlicue appeared, and began demanding monthly sacrifices through the `gate. Then Tonatui's brother, Tzcatlipoca, betrayed `them all' - presumably all of Coatlicue's Goa'uld offspring - to Coatlicue's father. Her father is referred to as a sun god, from worlds `far away'. Apparently he..." Daniel squinted as he read the glyphs, "...'cut most of the gods asunder and made the people dig rock from the ground and send it through the Chappa'ai'."
"So Cat Lips betrayed Tonto and the other Goa'uld to Ra in return for...what, some two-bit naquadah mine?"
"Okay." Sam sat forward again. "The simulation is coming up now."
Jack glanced at the laptop screen, then continued to fill in the details of the death's head on his notepad. "Want to bet it's because Ra double crossed `em?"
"Good guess, sir." Sam scanned the data scrolling beside the 3D image on the screen.
"Guess?" Jack mouthed, somewhat indignantly.
"Extrapolating backwards," Sam continued, "it would appear that the orbital decay was instigated fifty-two years ago."
Daniel looked up from Wodeski's notes. "That would have been during the last Nemontemi."
"The same time as the naquadah ran out," Dabruzzi added.
"Well, now that we know what's really going on, we cant abandon them." Daniel closed the notepad.
"According to this, the orbital decay is actually increasing." Sam's eyes were wide with concern. "The moon's crust will begin to break up within a week, maybe less."
Dabruzzi groaned. "The volcano will blow before then. And it's just a parasitic vent."
"That volcano is the size of Vesuvius." Daniel's face screwed up. "How can it be just a parasitic vent?"
The volcanologist stood and picked up a black marker pen and piece of paper. He drew a large circle with two dots spaced near the inside edges. "This is the valley and the dots are the cities of Teotihuacan and Xalo." Drawing a smaller circle around Xalo, he added, "This is a crater lake. The entire valley is a collapsed caldera almost thirty miles across."