It was good. Really, really good. It was a pleasure to lose a session like this one, because in losing you gained a new perspective, and therefore you won no matter what. Carter’s slightly patronizing smile vanished, replaced with one of appreciation. “I knew I’d like you.”
Jackson looked back at her, mildly befuddled. “Really? I mean… You think I’m right?”
“According to the expanding universe model, all bodies in the universe are constantly moving farther apart.”
“So in the thousands of years since the Stargate was built…”
She nodded. “All the coordinates could have changed.”
Daniel’s brows knitted as he proceeded to challenge his own theory. “But why does it still work between Abydos and Earth?”
“Abydos is probably the closest planet in the network to Earth. The closer they are, the less the difference in relative position due to expansion. The farther away, the greater the difference. In a few thousand years more, it won’t work between Earth and Abydos either.”
“Unless you can adjust to the displacement?”
O’Neill and Kawalsky swiveled their heads back and forth as if following a ball at a tennis match.
“With this map as a base,” Carter said triumphantly, “that should be easy. All we have to do is correct for Doppler effect. Then I should be able to arrive at a computer model that will predict the adjustments necessary to get the Gate working again.”
“So,” Kawalsky interrupted, recognizing a capping argument when he heard one even if he didn’t understand it, “what’d we just figure out?”
Carter recognized it too, but she also saw the ramifications. “Any civilization advanced enough to build this Gate network would be able to compensate for fifty thousand years of stellar drift.”
O’Neill was still slightly behind the curve. “The Stargate can go other places?”
“The aliens could have come from… anywhere.”
O’Neill looked up at the carvings on the wall, mentally calculating the number of possibilities the symbol groupings represented. Thousands… thousands of new worlds…
“Sir, with your permission,” Carter said briskly, back in military mode, “I’d like to put this entire room on digital video. Then when we get back to Earth I can download it into the computer and get faster results.”
Shaken, O’Neill nodded. Thousands of new worlds. How many of them occupied by aliens with glowing eyes? “Do it. But do it quickly.”
Louis Ferretti was working away at a laptop, roughing out a report. He found himself distracted by Sha’re and another Abydos woman, who were directing the teen militia in carrying in more food. The other two soldiers made no pretense of working; they were too busy enjoying the scenery. This was going to be a major feast, held in the Gate room itself, and the women were fussing like grandmothers at Thanksgiving dinner, making sure everything was perfect for their guests. The fact that they were already stuffed to the gills was a mere detail.
“You gotta give Daniel credit,” Ferretti remarked idly, shutting the laptop down. “She is one beautiful woman.”
Sha’re, hearing the name of her beloved, looked up and smiled shyly.
Ferretti smiled back, wishing he’d gotten so lucky. He was thinking that some people had all the luck, being abandoned on another world and finding a beautiful woman who obviously adored them, when the room trembled with an ominously familiar vibration.
Sha’re and the other woman looked up in terror. The boys and the three soldiers from Earth grabbed guns, scrambling, dishes of unidentifiable delicacies flying everywhere.
Ferretti dived for cover behind a stone bench as the Abydos Gate activated, spewing forth a funnel of quantum particles. Sure enough, as soon as the Gate stabilized, six Serpent Guards came trooping out, followed by what looked very much like the same guy who’d come through the Earth Gate.
“Damn it!” Ferretti whispered, trying to get a good target.
The golden leader, seeing resistance, snapped to his guards, “Brichnk!”
The Serpent Guards opened fire with their odd-looking staff weapons. The stone benches behind which the boys and the soldiers were crouching disintegrated with a deafening roar, shards of stone flying like hail. The women screamed. Ferretti felt like screaming too, but he was too busy. He and the others returned fire, but the Serpent Guards’ armor seemed impervious to mere high-velocity bullets. Ferretti kept firing as his two men jerked and fell, gaping holes blasted in their bodies; he kept firing as the boys shrieked and died, as Skaara dived behind a supporting pillar, motioning to Sha’re to join him. The captain could barely hear the boy’s call, “Sha’re! Shim rota! Shim rota!”
Out of nowhere, a massive invisible hand struck Ferretti on the shoulder, spinning him back, knocking his rifle out of his hands. Dazed, he watched as the golden one caught sight of the frantic Sha’re and yelled an order to his guards. Another blow slapped him across the face, and his left eye blurred.
One of the Serpent Guards responded instantly, grabbing the woman and dragging her to his leader. Skaara shrieked in rage and protest, lunging toward the aliens, firing wildly. Another guard lifted his staff weapon, and the long, narrow bulb on the end gaped wide, charging with evil energy. He pointed it toward the frantic boy, ready to destroy him, when another guard, evidently the commander, grasped the weapon and turned to the golden one.
“Chel Kol, Makka sha?”
Ferretti shook his head. His vision was blurring, but he could hear the words clearly. His shoulder—there was something about his shoulder he should notice—
He could hear the head guard talking to Skaara. “This is not your weapon. Where did you get it?”
The leader either didn’t hear or wasn’t interested in the answer. He was only a few feet from Ferretti as he smiled, baring his teeth, and reached forward to grab Skaara by the throat, lifting the boy into the air until he was eye to eye with the alien. Skaara’s rifle clattered to the floor as the mask on the golden one’s head folded back into itself, revealing a face that would be all too human were it not for the glowing eyes.
“A good choice, Teal’c,” he said. “A perfect specimen.”
English? Ferretti wondered. He was sagging back against the stone floor, watching as best he could through one half-closed eye. Well, why not English? Who knew what aliens could do?
A ribbon around the alien’s hand and fingers began to glow as well, weaving a net of energy around the boy, through his neck and down his spine. Skaara fell limp, and the alien shoved his unconscious body into the arms of another of his guards.
The room echoed now. For a long moment, as the leader of the invading aliens surveyed the devastation he had wrought, the only sound was the crying of the women and the surviving children. At least six of the boys were dead, Ferretti thought hazily. The bastard looked proud of himself.
And then he turned to Sha’re, pulling her to him, eyeing her like a prize racehorse. He pinched her cheeks, forced her mouth open to inspect her teeth, felt her hair. The woman was petrified but refused to collapse. The alien smiled, recognizing defiance, savoring it, and reaching out, he ripped her robe in half.
Gloating over her naked body, he smiled. “You may be the one.”
Sha’re pulled away, but was caught by the Serpent Guards. Ignoring her now, the leader strode to the ancient control panel, pushing buttons. Ferretti strained to see, to remember.
The Gate reactivated. Grabbing the woman by one arm, he pulled her through the portal.
His shoulder. His eye. They were beginning to demand attention all their own, Ferretti realized. It was no longer just a feeling of overwhelming pressure; it was real, right-now, agonizing pain.
As the Serpent Guards followed their leader through the Gate, carrying Skaara and Sha’re with them, his one good eye sagged shut, and he let blackness descend, shutting out the soft weeping of the children.
CHAPTER SIX
“Sha’re!”
It was the first word out of Jack
son’s mouth. Even in the cave, they had felt the characteristic vibration that meant the Gate was powering up. They knew instantly that whoever was coming through didn’t work for General Hammond, and they ran for the pyramid.
Jackson, O’Neill, Kawalsky, and Carter led the charge into the Gate room to find a scene of utter devastation. Some of the women were weeping over the bodies of the boys. Jackson ran to them, kneeling by the side of one of the stricken youths. Meanwhile, Carter and Kawalsky ran to the aid of their comrades, only to find that two of them were beyond their help. O’Neill took a quick survey of the room, making sure no hostiles remained and assessing overall damage. His lips were white with rage.
Samantha Carter checked Ferretti’s pulse, gritting her teeth against the urge to retch at the sight and smell of the man’s arm and the blood that covered his face and eye. She was relieved to find a sign of a heartbeat, thready and quick. Beside her Kawalsky broke out a medical kit and began cutting away the blood-soaked uniform.
Beneath their hands, Ferretti stirred and groaned. Carter moved to hush him, but Kawalsky held his hand up, retraining her.
“I… saw… the symbols…” They were rewarded with those few words before Ferretti fell back, mercifully unconscious.
Carter got to her feet. “Colonel! Ferretti saw the seven symbols.”
Daniel, leaning over the boy, took him by the shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
The boy shook his head. “It was Ra.”
O’Neill’s head snapped around. “What’s going on, Daniel?”
Daniel was shaking his head, trying to understand as he talked to the boy. “Ra’s dead. Tao qua, Ra.”
“No, no, Ra. I saw! His eyes… He took Sha’re. He took Skaara into the Chaapa-ai!”
Daniel went white. So did O’Neill.
“Where?” the archaeologist demanded. “Did you see?” Surrendering support of the boy to the surrounding women, he ran to the Gate control panel and pointed at the symbols. “Show me which pictures. Did you see?”
The boy shook his head, muttering, and then gasped once and sagged back, dead.
Kawalsky, finished with the rough bandaging of his friend’s arm, looked up. “What’s going on, Daniel? Could there be another Ra?”
The repetition of the question, the shock of the situation, caused something in Daniel Jackson to snap. “How the hell should I know? I should have left the barricade up. This is my fault….”
Quietly, Carter asked for O’Neill’s notice. “Colonel, Ferretti needs medical attention.”
Jackson waved his arms distractedly. “Go. Help him. I can send you back—”
O’Neill shook his head. “You’re coming with us this time, Daniel. I’ve got orders.”
Jackson wheeled on him. “I don’t care about your orders, Colonel. My wife is out there. So is Skaara—”
“And the only way you’re going to get them back is to come home with us,” O’Neill snapped. “Ferretti might’ve seen the coordinates for where they went.”
Carter held up her digital video. “I’ve got all I need.”
For a long moment Daniel Jackson stood lost, looking around at the people of Abydos. The room was crowded now with men and women from the town, parents of the boys who had fought in vain. They looked back at him, their stranger, their leader who had slain the monster Ra. What would he do now that Ra had come back, taking his revenge, taking Sha’re and Skaara for his own evil purposes?
With Sha’re gone, Jackson had lost the greatest link he had to Abydos. With Sha’re gone, would he abandon them? Did he have any reason to stay? The happiness he had known had vanished, and in its place had reappeared the threat he thought was gone forever.
He took a deep breath and gathered them around himself. “After we go through the Chaapa-ai,” he said, “you have to bury it like we did before. Then leave this place.”
“You come back?” asked one wistful voice from the back of the crowd.
He shook his head violently. “No. No, I can’t, nobody can. That’s what I’m telling you, not for a long time.” He looked at the Gate with something close to hatred in his eyes. “Soon as we’re gone, I want you to close it. Bury it, put a big, heavy cover stone over it. Nothing good can ever come through the Gate. Do you understand?”
The voice refused to accept this. “You came through it, Dani-el.” The owner of the voice, one of the young boys, broke free of the group and stood in front of him defiant.
Daniel’s hand touched the dark head, a gesture oddly like that of an Old Testament patriarch, and his voice broke. “Remember the story I told you: how the ancient Egyptians back on Earth cut themselves off from Ra? That is exactly what you have to do.” He took a deep breath and looked up again at the Gate. “Then in one year—one year from this day, you take the cover stone away. I will try to bring Sha’re home on that day. But if I don’t make it back, if I don’t return, you must bury the Gate again. Forever.” He swallowed, then asked for their assent in their own language. “Joa qua?”
The boy, hugging him fiercely, nodded, fighting back tears. As the Earth team watched, the people of Abydos moved in around Daniel and the boy, hugging the scientist, burying him in touches meant to reassure both giver and receiver.
“Tell Sha’re’s father”—Daniel’s voice became stronger, more fervent as he made a promise of his own—“in one year…
“Promise me,” Daniel went on. “All of you.”
A murmur rose from the assembled people, a reluctant assent.
“We promise, Dani-el,” the boy said, speaking for them all.
In the Gate room on Earth, soldiers milled about in purposeful activity, setting up defenses. Machine-gun emplacements were sandbagged and ready, extra belts of ammunition were in place, and a few special surprises had been added. As the room began to rumble, Samuels and Hammond looked up from their inspection. The inner ring of the Gate began to move.
Instantly alarms sounded, and a voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Stand by for arrival! Stand by for arrival!”
The now familiar funnel of light formed and retracted, stabilized. Through the Gate came Colonel O’Neill, carrying a bloody uniformed body as if cradling a sleeping child. After him came Kawalsky, staggering under the weight of what were obviously bodies over his shoulder, followed by Carter and a scruffy-looking, bespectacled young man whose face was white and immobile with grief. O’Neill went immediately to the nearest table and laid his burden on it.
As soon as they were clear of the Gate, Samuels barked, “Close the iris!”
An engineer pushed a button. What was left of the team spun around, guns ready, at the sound of shrieking metal. As they watched, a sharp-edged metal iris spiraled shut over the Gate, sealing it.
O’Neill, next to the table, looked at the general, surprised. “What the hell’s that?”
“That’s our insurance against any more surprises,” the general informed him. “Little idea I got from Jackson’s barricade. Pure titanium, hopefully impenetrable.” He looked over the casualties, and his eyes became grim. “What happened, Colonel?”
“Base camp got hit while we were on recon,” O’Neill said briefly. “Ferretti’s down.” One hand strayed unconsciously to touch the injured man, as if to reassure him. Medics scrambled to get Ferretti on a gurney, to relieve Kawalsky of his grisly burdens.
“Same hostiles who attacked us?”
O’Neill nodded. “Best guess. Jackson’s wife and one of my kids were kidnapped.”
The phrasing gave the general pause. “Your kids?”
“From the first mission, sir—”
Jackson broke in, unable to wait any longer. “General? Hi, um, Daniel Jackson, we’ve never met. I’d like to be on the team that goes after them.”
Hammond looked the young archaeologist over. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw—a long-haired, bespectacled young man dressed in wool robes and smelling of goat. “You’re not in any position to make demands, Jackson.”
<
br /> Jackson flinched and fell silent.
The gurney was wheeled out of the room. The reconnaissance team and the general followed.
“Sir,” O’Neill told him, “we know the hostiles didn’t come from Abydos. But Daniel found evidence that there’s a whole network of Stargates out there—all over the galaxy. They could be anywhere.”
That news stopped Hammond in his tracks. “Network?”
Carter spoke up. “We think Ferretti saw the sequence of symbols they used to go through the Stargate. That should tell us where they went. General, Dr. Jackson found a room on Abydos with a thousand possible coordinates, maybe more. That’s a thousand new worlds, General!”
“And our Stargate can take us to these worlds?” The general was having trouble grasping the scope of the idea. Not for lack of imagination, but out of a stunned realization that the problems presented by the one known Stargate had just been multiplied a thousandfold.
Maybe more. Between that and the heavy casualties, he was not a happy general.
“With this new data, sir, as long as we make the appropriate allowances for alignment in the targeting computer—”
“Yes or no?”
“I think so, sir, yes. Request permission to upload the symbols into the base supercomputer for analysis.”
O’Neill broke back in, a feral urgency in his eyes. “General, I assume I’ll be leading the rescue mission once we find out the hostiles’ location—”
Hammond raised his hand for silence.
“All right, people, all right. There will be a debriefing at 0800 hours, after I’ve had a chance to confer with my superiors about this new… situation. Captain Carter, the base computer is at your disposal.” To O’Neill he added, “Colonel, we’ll discuss your request at the briefing.” He wasn’t making any promises. “In the meantime”—he indicated Daniel with a jerk of his head—“get this man a clean uniform. He stinks.”
The general spun around and marched off, heading for the nearest secure phone. Carter followed him, unlimbering her video recorder. Jackson and O’Neill stood staring after them, and then back at the Gate through which they had just come.
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