Daniel shook his head. “No. No, I know you don’t keep records as such, but you have —” He stopped himself just in time, swallowing anything that would sound too much as though he were calling them Goa’uld. “You have the genetic memories of your immediate and distant ancestors. One of you — one of them — should be able to identify if anything like that ever happened. And when.”
Sam gave him a sharp look, and he willed her to understand. The last thing he wanted to do was to mention Ba’al’s device to the Tok’ra, but as a last resort —
“Yes,” Per’sus said. “That is true.” He and Sal’tor exchanged looks, and Per’sus nodded. “The High Council remains resolute in its belief that Marik’s plan poses an immediate and grave danger to everything we have achieved.”
“The High Council,” Anise said, “is not unanimous in this.”
“Nonetheless, the majority decision stands,” Per’sus said. “We are willing, Colonel Carter, to cooperate with you in finding the most likely time and place for Marik to have gone.” He shook his head. “Though what you will do then — I cannot see.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sam said. “Thank you, Per’sus.”
“And as a further token of our sincerity,” Per’sus said, “we of the Council are willing to be the first questioned.”
Anise looked up sharply. “I object.”
“If you wish to remain on the Council,” Per’sus began, and she sagged slightly.
“Very well, I agree. But only under protest.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, firmly. “The sooner we begin, the better.”
Chapter Four
Hank Landry was usually happy to see Jack O’Neill. Not today. O’Neill had his third star, and he was in command of Homeworld Security, which oversaw Stargate Command. And he was arriving from Washington by special flight to deal with the massive security breach that had occurred at the SGC on Landry’s watch. This was not a happy thing.
Not that O’Neill would yell and scream. He would be perfectly calm and measured. It would just be very obvious that this had never happened during O’Neill’s tenure in the job, that the whole thing was handled remarkably poorly in a way that O’Neill would never have permitted, nor his illustrious predecessor Hammond. It made Hank squirm just thinking about it.
And so the moment the briefing room doors closed on just the two of them, Hank was ready for it.
“So,” O’Neill said. He walked over to the windows that looked out on the gateroom below, his gray head encircled by the curve of the gate like a vast halo. Hank wondered if he did things like that on purpose, or if it was just the universe’s usual serendipity where Jack O’Neill was concerned.
“SG-1 is shaking down the Tok’ra,” Hank said.
A tilt of the head. “That’ll work,” he said dryly.
“It might.” Hank came around the end of the table to stand next to him. “Colonel Carter may be able to get something out of them.”
Another tilt. “Maybe. I’d give Daniel more leeway there. He’s better at shaking people down than Carter is. Unless they’re Wraith.” O’Neill paused. “We’ll get her back.”
Hank shook his head. “I can’t even think about that.”
“They need her alive and in good shape to fly the puddle jumper,” O’Neill said. “Carolyn’s OK. And she’s going to be OK. They need someone with the ATA gene for whatever they’re up to. They’re not going to hurt her.”
“When they’re done…” Hank said. He was appalled that his voice broke, and so he stopped talking.
“They’re going to just throw away something as valuable as an Ancient ship?” O’Neill shook his head. “No. They need her to fly the ship. They’ll take good care of her. And we’ll get her back.”
“We don’t even know when…”
The corner of O’Neill’s mouth twitched. “Look, obviously it didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work?”
“Whatever.” O’Neill shrugged. “If they’d already screwed up the timeline, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because we wouldn’t remember a thing. So either it didn’t work, or it hasn’t worked yet. Which means SG-1 can stop it.”
“How can we stop it if we don’t know what it is?” Hank felt like this was all pretty muddy going.
“We’ll figure it out. They’ll figure it out. And they’ll bring Carolyn home safe and in one piece.”
Hank looked out the window at the gate, waiting in all its usual stark majesty. Amazing how you could get used to that thing. “I’m compromised,” he said. “I’m making bad decisions because she’s my daughter.”
“I think you’ve made the right decisions,” O’Neill said. “And I’d say so if I thought you hadn’t.” He paused. “You know, it’s not actually a bad thing to love your kid.” He put his hand on Hank’s shoulder. “Let’s just see what SG-1 turns up.”
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. Anise was sitting in the chair, her back very straight, her anger barely leashed. Sal’tor stood behind her, her arms folded, and Daniel looked down at the silver button in his hand. It was a deceptively tiny device, for all its power, could draw to the surface suppressed or simply forgotten memories. And in theory it was harmless, though he’d never seen it used without some discomfort, because somehow it seemed as though the memories they were after were always the nasty ones. A part of him hoped it would hurt Anise just as much as it had hurt Sam, when they were on the transport headed for Tartarus, but he shoved that thought aside. The za’tarc detector stood ready, another bad memory. It was only to be used here to ensure that Anise — and the other council members, they had all agreed to submit to the examination — was telling the truth.
Mitchell leaned closer, arms folded across his chest. “No offense, Jackson,” he said in an undertone, “but why you?”
“Because Sam still wants to kill her,” Daniel said. “And while it’s crossed my mind once or twice — well, all right, maybe a few more times than that — I don’t have as much reason.”
“I could handle it, if you want.”
Daniel hesitated. A part of him would rather let Mitchell do it, and that was one more reason not to give in. “I know her,” he said, after a moment. “I have an idea how she’s going to play this.”
Mitchell nodded. “OK. But that’s also a reason to let someone who doesn’t have a stake in this handle it.”
“She used Sam and Jack and me to test out some technology once,” Daniel said. “Which, although it did get me into the second bar fight of my adult life, isn’t actually the problem. That could have been a miscalculation, you get that when you’re playing around with alien artifacts.”
“I’ve noticed,” Mitchell said.
“The problem is that she damn near got Jack and Sam killed when she decided that they were za’tarcs — Goa’uld sleeper agents, sort of,” Daniel said. And that wasn’t exactly the problem, either, but it was as much of it as he could say to Sam’s fellow officer. Mitchell didn’t need to know what it was they weren’t saying that had triggered Anise’s za’tarc detector. And then the za’tarc had turned out to be Martouf, who was basically a good guy, and that had been particularly hard for Sam, since Jolinar had once been his lover. He shook the memory away. “Which is why Sam isn’t going to question her.”
“OK.” Mitchell sounded dubious, but made no further objection.
Daniel turned back toward the two Tok’ra and Anise fixed him with a hard stare.
“This is outrageous treatment of an ally —”
“The Council has consented,” Sal’tor said.
“The Council has no right.”
“If the Council doesn’t,” Sal’tor’s host said, with a wry smile, “then there’s really no point in being Tok’ra.”
Daniel caught himself smiling back. Sal’tor and the host reminded him a little bit of Selmak and Jacob, which was not a bad thing at all. She held out the probe, and Daniel adjusted the controls, tuning it to the disk in his hand.
“That’s up to Sal’tor,” Daniel said, and Sal’tor sighed.
“If you insist.”
“I request,” Freya said. Sal’tor shrugged, and moved away, out of earshot but still with her eyes fixed on Anise and her host.
“Dr. Jackson,” Freya said again, and reluctantly Daniel came closer. It wasn’t that he really expected her to do anything, to try any kind of physical attack, but he didn’t trust either of them. “Anise — there are things she would prefer not to share with the other members of the Council.”
“I’m sure there are,” Daniel said, and heard Mitchell snort.
“It’s nothing improper,” Freya said, indignantly. “I know you don’t like Anise, but she has only the good of the Tok’ra at heart. It’s just that there are political arguments hanging in the balance, and this gives a real advantage to the other side. Surely you can see that.”
Daniel shook his head. “Nope. I’m not buying it. Right now, it looks to me as though Anise was either working with Marik, or giving him passive support, and either way I’m going to find out where he went. And when. And I really don’t care if that’s a problem for Anise.”
The golden head tipped downward, and when it rose, Anise spoke again. “I care. And I am willing to bargain with you. Send Sal’tor away, and I give you my word that I will tell you everything I know about Marik’s plans.”
“I think you’d better tell me that anyway,” Daniel said.
“I can make it very difficult for you,” Anise answered.
Daniel paused. “I don’t want to be unduly negative, but I don’t think you have very much to bargain with. Yes, you may be able to delay my finding out what’s going on, but eventually I’m going to get what I want. And you’ll just have annoyed the rest of the High Council even more, as well as jeopardized what’s left of your alliance with the Tau’ri — which, by the way, you need more than we do right now — for nothing.”
There was a little silence, and finally Anise looked away. It was Freya who spoke then. “We will cooperate.”
“Good,” Daniel said.
Sal’tor, her face expressionless, pressed the memory disk into Anise’s temple, then swung the za’tarc detector into place. Anise sat stiffly ready, the arm of the detector positioned to scan one eye. It looked like a snake ready to strike, and Daniel grimaced in spite of himself. Mitchell gave him a dubious look.
“OK, that doesn’t look real pleasant.”
“It’s not painful,” Daniel said. “Sal’tor, are you ready?”
“I am.” She seated herself behind the console where the readouts would be displayed. Daniel could see them from where he stood, a steady row of lights.
“Anise,” he said. “Tell me what Marik has planned.”
There was another silence, and then at last Anise answered. “He has gone to seek our foremother Egeria, to persuade her to spawn again so that we may survive as a people.”
Sal’tor gasped, and Daniel shot a glance at the console. All the indicators were green, so she was telling the truth. “Is he out of his mind?” he began, then waved the words away. “No, never mind, I think I know that answer. Does he have any idea how huge a change that is? What that could do to the timeline?”
“He believes that it is worth the risk,” Anise said, flatly.
“When — when and where does he plan to look for her?” Daniel got himself under control. There would be time to yell later, once they had a better idea of what Marik was getting into.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t —” Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “You may not know exactly, but you know how he plans to look.”
Anise paused again. “Yes.”
“Go on.”
“He sought to find her on Earth, at our earliest collective memories of her life. He knew he could not seek her out at any more recent time, or we would already know what he had done, through our genetic memory. But there are times, early in her life, that are not as clear — the years she was on Earth, in the service of King Numa, and before. He believed that if he were to find her then, in those times that were deliberately obscured — well, he believed that his act might be the reason this time was hidden from us.”
“When, exactly, are you talking about?” Daniel asked.
“Just after the rebellion against Ra,” Anise said. “Near the Stargate.”
“The Stargate was buried then,” Daniel said.
“Not all the time. There was a period when it was open, briefly, and Egeria was there.”
Daniel looked at the console — all indications were that Anise was telling the truth — and Sal’tor nodded slowly.
“This memory we all have, though I had not considered what it meant,” she said. “And under the circumstances there is one other thing that you must know. It is our greatest secret, which we have jealously preserved and at last it has outlived its usefulness.”
Anise’s breath caught in her throat. “You must not.”
“There is no other choice,” Sal’tor said. “Because the timeline is at stake now in more ways than one.” She looked back at Daniel. “Our foremother Egeria was herself a time traveler, who came to Earth at that time from a place we have never identified, but a time which we now know to have been only a few years — no more than ten — in our past. Her memories of the ‘future,’ which were genetic memories of her past, saved us more than once — gave us warning of shifts in alliance, of traps laid for us, of myriad changes that could have doomed our rebellion a hundred times. We have outlived those memories, or very nearly so. And therefore it is possible that these rebels, Marik and his companions — one of them may become Egeria. You must find them, but you must also be sure that you don’t change the timeline further by stopping what must happen.”
“Holy —” Mitchell seemed to realize he was speaking aloud, and stopped, shaking his head. “But you don’t have any queens.”
Anise’s face tensed. “Marik may believe that the symbiote he carries is one who may become Egeria, or he may simply think that he can induce Egeria to spawn in the past and then bring back one of her daughters either in his body or the body of another host. It is not unheard of for a symbiote to sacrifice itself so that its host may carry another and save the life of one who is more worthy. Leymac, Marik’s symbiote, has often said that he would do this were it necessary. It is possible that this is what they intend.”
Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose. Even by SG-1’s standards, this was baroque. He could only imagine what Jack would have to say about it.
“OK,” Mitchell said. “Let me see if I’ve got his straight. We have to go back in time, rescue Dr. Lam, stop Marik and his boys from changing anything, and bring them back with us — unless it turns out that one of them is going to become his own great-a-thousand-times-grandmother. Is that is?”
Daniel nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Crap,” Mitchell said.
Chapter Five
Egypt
2492 BC
The brazier was lit more for light and comfort than against the night’s mild chill. The evening meal was long finished, though a platter of dates still sat beside Jack, and the beer jar was still half full. Tamit had taken Ellie to bed a while ago, and the back of the house was dark and silent. A feather’s touch of a breeze caught the flame of the nearest oil lamp, sending a ripple of shadow across the room. Sam saw Aset shiver and move just an inch closer to Teal’c. The Jaffa put out his hand, caressed her wrist, but said nothing.
“Well, kids,” Jack said. “I guess we have to talk about it sometime.”
“I do not see that there is anything to be gained by further discussion,” Teal’c said.
“There has to be something we can do,” Danyel began, and Sam sat up straighter against the cushions.
“It’s possible there isn’t an answer,” she said. She owed Teal’c that much, t
o acknowledge that the danger was real and desperate and might not be overcome. “But I can’t — we have to try.”
Aset’s fingers moved, circling Teal’c’s wrist, and the Jaffa bowed his head.
“I would be glad to be proven wrong,” he said. “But the protection of — others — must take precedence.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw him meet Teal’c’s gaze firmly. “But unless and until —”
“We have to think of something,” Danyel said again.
He’d been through this once already, Sam thought, lost his own team, his own versions of her and Jack and Teal’c. Of course he was determined not to let it happen a second time.
“OK,” Jack said. “Let’s think.” He reached for his beer, and Danyel gave him a look.
“Like that’s going to help.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Jack said, and took a long drink.
“Let’s look at our options,” Sam said firmly. She could tell that Teal’c was about to say something like ‘we have none’ or ‘you could kill me now,’ so she hurried on. “If I understand this properly, the normal course of events would be for the — symbiote — to take a host, and you would get a new, younger one, to carry until it matures in turn. Is that correct?”
Teal’c nodded. “It is. But — ”
Sam ignored him. “Are there any other options? Anything else that anybody’s heard of, no matter how weird?”
Danyel gave a frustrated sigh. “There’s Tretonin, of course. It’s a drug that we managed to synthesize, back in my time, that eliminated the Jaffa’s need for symbiotes entirely. It was the key to the success of the Jaffa rebellion.” He shook his head. “But we don’t have the equipment or, more important, the ingredients. And I don’t really know the formula anyway.”
“Gee, that’s helpful,” Jack said. “Got anything else?”
“Not really,” Danyel said, and reached for his own cup.
“I think we need to do this the old-fashioned way,” Jack said. “Teal’c needs a new symbiote. OK, we get him one.”
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