“There,” Daniel said, and pointed.
Jack turned the crystal to the light, and finally saw the snake gnawing on its own tail that was carved into the surface of the stone. “Oh. That’s — interesting.”
“Isn’t it? I figured Sam would want to look at it.”
Assuming he survived, assuming he escaped the Wraith ship. But that was Daniel for you, the perpetual optimist. Jack nodded. “Hey, Carter!”
She detached herself from a knot of scientists and came to join them. “Sir?”
“Daniel brought you a present,” Jack said, and held it out.
Carter took it, her eyebrows rising almost comically. “Oh, wow. That’s — that actually might be really useful. It looks a lot like the crystals in the device back on P6T-847.”
“I thought it might help,” Daniel said, with a grin.
“Any chance you could get that thing up and running in five days, Carter?” Jack said.
“I don’t know. Remember, I haven’t even seen it yet. Just Daniel’s pictures. But — maybe? I can try.”
“You can have whatever help we can give you, Colonel,” Sheppard said. “The spare naquadah generator, Dr. McKay…”
“I’ll stick with the generator, thanks, Major,” Carter answered, and Daniel didn’t bother to hide his grin.
“Right, then,” Jack said. “You’ve got five days, Carter. And then things get a whole lot more complicated.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Interlude
THE QUEEN was still coldly furious, driving hive and men with equal rigor. The Young Queen was in disgrace, and had the sense to keep herself out of sight, huddling in her quarters with her Pallax and the young cleverman who was her half-brother. A rumor swept the hive that she would not be allowed to form her own hive, that her ship would be frozen or abandoned or given to another, and was just as quickly quashed by the Hivemaster. Spark retreated to his labyrinth of workshops in the stern of the ship, and the Consort sought refuge in Seeker’s quarters and their endless game of towers.
*I still think we should wipe them out,* the Consort grumbled, and moved a stone to claim a cascade of forfeits.
*And how would we do that?* Seeker shifted a stone of his own, creating a block. The Consort frowned, moved another, won a second move, and shifted a scarlet round. Seeker smiled, played gray to block again. *We don’t know how they came here — yes, they said they came by the Stargate, but as far as we know, that’s impossible, too.*
*And yet the Queen is sure he was telling the truth,* the Consort answered. He checked his reserve, deployed three steel-blue cubes, and Seeker tilted his head to one side, considering. He moved more gray, then added a single magenta runner.
*Which is another reason it would have been worth keeping one of them alive. Preferably Daniel Jackson, he was the most knowledgable.*
The Consort refrained from rolling his eyes at that, and moved green. *Which we could not, under the circumstances.*
*No.* Seeker’s tone was chastened, and he gave the Consort a look of apology. *No more could we.*
*They’re dangerous,* the Consort said. *We can’t afford to leave them loose out there.*
*I don’t believe they can go home,* Seeker said, slowly. *I do think Daniel Jackson was telling the truth when he said that they were sent on a possibly one-way mission, and I think that something has indeed gone wrong. They are trapped here, and we can hunt them down at our leisure.*
*At our leisure?* The Consort glared. *And how many of us will they kill in the process?*
*More than any of us would like, I fear. But they cannot make those weapons they carry, and I doubt they can teach any of the other kine how to make them. We’ve not allowed anyone to advance far enough to make that jump. No, we’re safe enough, in the long run.* Seeker moved another gray sphere. *Forfeit, I believe.*
The Consort bared teeth in a silent snarl. *Double or nothing.*
*If you’re certain.*
The Consort reached for the dice, slid half the set across the table, then tossed his own. Seeker smiled and threw, the antique bone cubes rattling across the stone. *Your luck is in,* he said.
The Consort smiled. The dice had fallen fairly well; he still lost men and position, but not as much as he might have. *Another round?*
Seeker was still collecting his winnings. *Why not?*
Before the Consort could respond, the communications globe in the center of the room chimed twice, and one of Seeker’s assistants spoke from its depths. “Your pardon, Lord, but the zenana is summoned.”
The Consort flinched in spite of himself and Seeker gave him a speaking look. “Very well,” he said aloud, and returned the dice to their box. *Shall we?*
*If we must.*
The Queen seemed less angry than before, though there was still a sharp edge to her thoughts. Spark was there before them, sitting at her feet, a position that would have made the Consort snarl had the cleverman not been fiddling with some mechanical device. Seeker bowed, punctiliously correct as always, and the Queen raised a hand in a greeting that encompassed Seldom Seen as well, entering behind them.
*My Queen,* he said. *We are holding course as you directed.*
She nodded. *The question now is our next move. We gave them five days’ grace, and after that…*
*We must return,* Spark said, without looking up from his device.
*And we will not find the feral humans there,* Seeker said.
*We could seek out the Athosians,* the Consort said, *find where the others have gone.*
*A waste of time,* Seeker answered. *Whatever the ferals tell them, it will be in their interest to do something else.”
*I don’t think they’re going to leave,* Seldom Seen said. The others turned to look at him where he leaned on the back of one of the couches, and he shrugged. *There must be something there that they want, in the ruins of Emege, or they would have escaped through the Stargate after our first attacks.*
*There’s nothing there,* the Consort said, but he looked at Seeker, and his tone was less certain than his words.
*Or is there?* Spark asked. *Seeker has an unhealthy interest in Ancient matters, after all…*
The Queen looked at Seeker, who bowed.
*My interest in Ancient matters, as Spark puts it, has served us well in the past. But no matter. No, there is nothing extraordinary left in Emege that I know of. It is ruins and rubble, nothing more.*
*And yet the ferals remained, when all sense would have told them to go elsewhere,* Seldom Seen said.
Seeker nodded. *It’s logical, but I don’t know what it would be.*
*The question that arises,* the Queen said, *is whether or not to wake my sisters. Is this threat enough? I am in two minds myself, and value your advice.*
*I think they’re deadly dangerous.* It was Seldom Seen who spoke first, to everyone’s surprise. *And — I cannot believe I’m saying this — but, yes, I think you should wake the sleeping queens and track these ferals to their homeworld before they destroy us.*
*The kine will not support us all if more hives are awakened,* Seeker said.
*And the hive that wakes the rest for less than good cause must sleep an extra cycle,* the Queen said. *I am well aware of the agreements made among my sisters!*
*I agree with the Hivemaster,* Spark said. *We cannot afford to let them spread their technology any further.*
*They cannot,* Seeker said. *There aren’t any other human worlds that can duplicate what they have, we’ve seen to that. They are too few to recreate their devices themselves, nor have they brought with them the tools to do so — I am sure of that from my conversations with Daniel Jackson. At worst, they will return to wherever it is they came from and not trouble us further. At best, they are trapped here, and we can eliminate them at our leisure.*
The Queen looked at her Consort. *And you?*
He was silent for a long moment. *I agree with Seeker.*
*Well, of course you would,* Spark snapped.
The Consor
t ignored him, his attention on the Queen. *And I also think it is too great a risk to wake the sleeping queens for something as yet unproven. That is a step that can be taken later, if it must be.*
The Queen reclined in her throne, considering the question. *We will wait,* she said at last. *In five days, Hivemaster, I would be in orbit over Athos. If they are gone, well and good. If not — we will decide whether to wake our sisters and exterminate them utterly.*
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Janus’s Device
SAM SAT back on her heels, studying the open pedestal of the ouroboros device. The interior had been well and truly shock-proofed — when the Wraith attacked the city or because the Wraith were going to attack the city? — and the remaining crystals were all intact. The problem was that about a third of the slots were still empty, and she had no idea where she was going to find suitable spares.
She’d already opened all the support consoles, and pulled out every crystal she thought might fit and that probably wasn’t needed to power the system. It had been a good start, and she’d even managed to fill the biggest gaps, but now she was back to having to choose between taking crystals from the support consoles, and almost certainly compromising overall function, or cannibalizing crystals from the power plant McKay had discovered. And the latter had never been designed to work with this system.
The light shifted, and she looked up to see Daniel lowering himself down the ladder from the surface, an Athosian basket slung over one shoulder. She pushed herself to her feet and came out from behind the diamond barrier.
“You can’t have found that many crystals,” she said, and he shook his head.
“No. The rest of it’s lunch.”
She was hungry, she realized, and glanced at her watch to see that it was already past two. “Time flies.”
“Yeah.” Daniel set the basket on an intact console, lifted out a well-wrapped package — more crystals — and then a thermos and sandwiches. Sam reached for the crystals, but Daniel lifted a finger. “You might want to eat first.”
Sam stopped. “Yeah, probably.” She picked up the closest sandwich, peanut butter on heavy, yeasty Athosian bread, and took a cautious bite. It was good, better than she’d expected, and she poked at the wrapped package again. “Any luck?”
“Maybe?” Daniel took a swig of the lemon-scented tea. “I pulled everything that looked likely — Zelenka helped, before McKay pulled him off for something else. God knows what.”
“They have a lot to do, too,” Sam said. “I did figure out what that crystal you found was for. It’s the key to the central console, the one that all the others connect through. Except there was already one in the pedestal.”
“That’s interesting,” Daniel said. “That suggests that there is another chamber like this one somewhere out there.”
Sam nodded. “And right now I’m just glad to have a spare. I’m pretty sure that as long as we have it, the thing’s going to fire.”
“Yeah, but will it work?” Daniel paused. “I wonder if Seeker knew what the crystal was — if that’s why he took it.”
“Do the Wraith know anything about Ancient technology?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “That wasn’t one of the things I thought to ask them.”
“Yeah, I suppose not.” Sam shook her head. “Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. The main thing is to get this working.”
“We’ve got three days left,” Daniel answered.
“Counting today,” Sam said. “I know.” She stuffed the last of the sandwich into her mouth and began unwrapping the bubble wrap.
“What can I do to help?”
Sam glanced back at the open pedestal. If she couldn’t find enough crystals, she was going to have to bypass the empty slots or somehow force the system to use crystals that didn’t quite fit the parameters. She’d done both before, on other worlds, and it never quite worked the way she’d hoped. And she wasn’t exactly eager to try it on one of Janus’s devices. “Could you sort the crystals I’ve pulled? I need two things. First, if you find any like this one, those are the ones I really need. The color doesn’t matter, it’s the shape and the connector.”
She held out a long slender blade, like a knife or a flattened quartz point, and Daniel took it, examining it carefully. “All right.”
“And while you’re looking for those, I need them sorted by size and approximate shape.”
“Ok,” Daniel said again. She realized she must have given him a doubtful look because he smiled. “Sam, I may not know what all of them are, but I can sort artifacts. I’ll take care of it.”
Sam nodded. “Sorry. It’s just —”
“We’re cutting things close,” Daniel said. “I know.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, and turned back to the device chamber.
At least some of the layout was familiar from the installation on P7F-260, even if this was definitely an earlier version of the system. She had already identified the power connections, and the point where she could attach a naquadah generator to jump-start the system. Next up was figuring out the configuration of the main control panel, and then, with any luck, she’d be in a position to identify the targeting device. She hadn’t been all that concerned with it back on P6T-847, since they hadn’t planned to go anywhere, but this time she wanted to try to get them home. If she could just figure out how to direct the subspace energy, maybe she could figure out a way to shift them across the dimensions, just like that Ancient mirror had done… She felt in her pocket for a borrowed screwdriver and began to pry the panels loose.
The light had faded from the opening at the top of the ladder by the time she finished tracing the first round of circuits, and she struggled to hold a flashlight in her teeth while she pulled out a bracket to examine the fittings.
“Sam?” Daniel took the flashlight out of her mouth and trained it on the bracket. “We should be heading back.”
“I want to stay a little longer.”
“The light’s bad,” Daniel pointed out. “I’d move the second worklight in here, but I don’t think it would do much good. Besides, you need to sleep sometime.”
“Sleep’s overrated,” Sam said, but pushed herself out from under the console and sat up. She glanced at her watch, and was startled to see that it was past seven.
Daniel nodded, and held out his hand to help her up. “We’ll start fresh in the morning.”
By the end of the next day, Sam had identified most of the differences between the installation on P6T-847 and this version of the device, but she was still short of useable crystals. She could see how to bypass the least important, but the others would have to handle an increased load, and there was no way to guarantee they could stand it. She said as much to Jack when he and Teal’c climbed down to see how things were going, bringing two more flashlights and a thermos of actual coffee. Sam took a cup gratefully, wrapping her hands around the plastic. It got cold after dark on Athos.
“So does that mean we can use it, or we can’t?” Jack asked.
“It means I don’t know,” Sam said. “I can start it up, and I think it will run, but I don’t know if the crystals will short out before we get where we’re going.”
“Does that mean we would be trapped in transit?” Teal’c asked. “Or killed?”
“Both are possible,” Sam answered. “I think the latter is more likely.”
“Oh, well, that’s a comfort,” Jack said.
“Yes, sir.”
“But it could work,” Daniel said. “Did you figure out if it has a DHD equivalent?”
“I did,” Sam said. “And, no, it doesn’t. It looks as though these chambers — or this chamber, anyway — was designed to go to a single, central hub. And before you ask, no, I don’t know where the hub was meant to be.”
“Does it still exist?” Jack asked. “More important, can we tell if it doesn’t before we turn the thing on?”
“I’ve identified a set of what look like safeties,” Sam answered, “and I think th
ey will keep the system from firing if there’s no locked-in destination.”
“But if we’re just going to a hub…” Daniel began.
Sam nodded. “I know. We’re going to end up wherever this takes us. But, if it’s the hub, then we should be able to program it to send us back to our own time. I think we’ll have a better chance of doing it there than we would in a secondary device like this.” She squared her shoulders. “Sir, if we’re going to try this, we need to do it before Major Sheppard and his people leave Athos. That way, they won’t lose a generator, and if something goes wrong, there’s a chance McKay can get us out of it.”
“I’d rather trust you,” Daniel muttered.
“So would I,” Sam answered. “But McKay is good.”
Jack nodded. “I’ll talk to Sheppard. I know they’re starting to send people through to the alpha site at dawn, but I imagine he can spare us McKay and Zelenka for an hour or two.”
As far as Jack could tell, everything was ready. Cables snaked across the installation’s floor, powering the last of the expedition’s work lights and ready to switch on the ouroboros device. McKay and Zelenka were bickering in the outer chamber, laptops open on two separate consoles, and in the inner chamber, Carter had her head literally inside the central console. She pulled herself out as he watched, and took a crystal that Daniel held out to her.
“Ok,” she called. “I’m inserting the key stone.”
“Yes, ok,” McKay answered. “Ok, is it in?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing’s happening.”
“Well, it’s not supposed to,” Carter said. “Not yet.”
“I show a change in the background power flow,” Zelenka said, and McKay abandoned his laptop to look over the other man’s shoulder.
“Ok, that’s interesting.”
“Problem?” Jack asked, and McKay glared at him.
“Not so far.”
“Sir?” Carter came to the opening in the diamond partition. “I think we’re ready.”
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