Carter's eyes widened in understanding. Daniel was silent for a moment and then he nodded. “Carter and Carnarvon's excavation permit stipulated that they had to wait for the arrival of Egyptian authorities before entering any newly discovered tomb. The rift between Carter and the authorities was common knowledge, and it was an open secret that Carnarvon's daughter and several others entered Tutankhamen's tomb immediately when it was opened. It was also common knowledge that he allowed his guests to take several small items of gold and jewelry. Given Vala's tendency to kleptomania...”
“As unlikely as it sounds, it makes sense.” Carter sat back. She'd put a fair dent in her meal. “Vala would have identified the gold cuff immediately, and Cam's memorized every SG-1 mission report. He knows where the Stargate was buried.”
“So why'd they wait three months before using it?” Jack asked.
“Because Professor Langford had the dig concession around the Giza pyramids. I'm surprised they managed to bribe the right people and get the 'gate dug out in only three months. Then all they would have needed was a power source.”
“The power outage in Cairo that night.” Carter pushed her now empty plate aside.
Jack signaled Dorothy, who was patrolling the diner armed with a fully loaded jug of coffee and fresh mouthful of gum. When their cups were refilled, he said, “Okay, maybe. Doesn't mean we have to go running off to New York.”
“Professor Langford didn't discover the Stargate in 1928,” Carter reminded him.
“No Langford, no Stargate program,” Daniel muttered into his coffee.
“Daniel's right, sir. Leaving behind Cam and Vala has dangerously altered the timeline. Listen to this. Due to a restriction in floor space, the rim of the Well of Ra, displayed in an upright position, serves as a fascinating entryway into the New York Museum.'“ She dropped the paper onto her plate. “Without a capstone, with the 'gate displayed upright, if Ra sends anyone through now—”
“What are the odds of that happening?” Jack said dismissively, although he had to admit, not convincingly. It was an image that he'd never forgotten, and one that had literally caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end when he'd first laid eyes on it. The mummified remains of a jackal-headed Jaffa partially embedded in the capstone had, justifiably as it had turned out, prompted the Air Force into sending him to Abydos with a nuke. The evil gods of myths and legends hadn't been so imaginary after all.
“Depends on what happened after Vala and Cam went through the 'gate,” Daniel replied. “And where—or when—they went.”
Before Jack could ask what he meant by that, a cowhand burst in through the front door, cursing the military and Sheriff's Department alike. “I'm telling ya, Johnny,” he said to the smartly dressed guy who followed him in, “unless it's a bomb, I'm never gonna report one of their goddamned planes crashing again.”
Outside, a convoy of military trucks crawled past, heading toward the base.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You know, you have to wonder, don't you?”
Vala's words broke through the steel wool clag that currently inhabited Cam's skull. Opening one gluey eye, he saw her sitting with her back to a filthy brick wall, young Howard sitting huddled beside her, apparently hanging off every word.
“Regards to what?” Howard wondered.
“Well, let's face it,” Vala said, twirling a curl of hair around her finger, “assuming the Ancients did create—or rather, recreate—all life in this galaxy, what were they thinking when they created the Goa'uld? I mean I've come across some nasty specimens in my time, but a creature that mixes its DNA with a human in order to create a slave race, and then sets itself up as a bunch of gods?”
“Didn't you say they were false gods?”
“As distinct from true gods? Have you encountered any of those around the universe?” She smiled and turned to him. “No, of course you haven't but aside from the odd fundamentalist who doesn't seem to need hard proof in any form, I haven't met anyone yet who really fits that description. And let's face it, the Ancients aren't stacking up too well in that regard, despite this whole Ascension thing they've got going.”
“What...the hell happened?” Cam asked. The last thing he remembered was walking into a tack room and—crap. He brought his hand up and felt around his groin. It was tacky with dried blood, and there was a hole in the cloth directly above...”Please tell me this isn't my blood.”
“Oh good, you're awake.” Vala redirected her smile at him and, standing, collected her borrowed coat and pulled it on. “We better leave before it gets too light, or we'll be spending the day in among these garbage cans. And yes, it is your blood but don't worry, all the bits are back in place and it's all healed up. As to whether the bits in question are still in work-ing order—”
“Thank you. I think.” He planted a hand against the grubby brick wall and pushed himself to his feet. “Where's Daniel?”
“Twiddling his thumbs in the rear of the jumper, I suspect, waiting for Sam to reconfigure the transport so that they can beam us aboard.”
Cam's vision was still slightly off, but he was fairly certain he'd heard that last part right. While he was happy about Vala finding the opal, he distinctly recalled the transport device having 'several critical errors', which weren't exactly fixable in this era. “I hate to be the pessimist, but I'm not so sure they're going to be doing any beaming us aboard until they get Loki back to—what year was it again?”
“1947.”
“To sort out the transport— Whoa! Did you say 1947?”
The smile on Val's face slipped a notch. “Yes. And I was trying not to think about that. In which case they might take a few-hours getting back here. But they will come back for us, won't they? I mean—” she laughed nervously— “they wouldn't leave us behind.”
1947, huh. Well, it made sense. “Guess you don't know much about General O'Neill.” He squinted and, edging out past a few garbage cans, looked along the alley to the line of horse-drawn fire trucks. “Uhm, did we start a fire?”
“Just a teensy one. Nothing that would interfere with Sam's precious timeline.”
“What's it like? 1947?” Howard asked, standing and ineffectually brushing the soot off his clothes.
“Dunno,” Cam replied. Now that he'd been reminded of Carter's warning about screwing around with the timeline, he frowned at Vala. “And I'm not sure it's such a good idea to be blabbing about what's out in the big ol' universe to all and sundry, either.”
The pounding in the back of his skull was subsiding, which made it a hell of a lot easier to focus on getting out of here. The back way was clearly out, given the amount of water and greasy cinders all over the ground...not to mention the place was crawling with helmeted police and firemen and what would—no doubt—be a bunch of angry Rhode Islanders wanting to get their hands on whoever had started the blaze.
“Do you think we can leave, now?” Howard asked uncertainly. “My mother will be concerned if I'm not in my room.”
Cam glanced down the other end of the alley. It faded off into the shadows. “Howard, do you have an attic?”
“No, but we do have a coal cellar.”
“Good enough.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Learning the Stargate was on public display in New York worried Sam for any number of reasons, not the least of which seemed to be that leaving Vala and Cam behind had changed history. That had now exposed Earth to a horror that would make the recent genocide of World War II pale by comparison.
Fifty years in their future, when Apophis stepped through the 'gate beneath Cheyenne Mountain, humanity had at least had some comprehension of the Goa'uld threat, and the technology they could employ to counter that threat. Now, in 1947, with no idea of the Stargate's true function, if Ra got it in his mind to return, New York would be a war zone before the military could even conceive of a defensive strategy.
Earth would fall in a matter of weeks.
The. burning question was: would Ra ta
ke it into his head to come through the Stargate? There was no way of knowing for certain, of course, but given Vala and Mitchell had been through the 'gate, there was a fair chance word had already got back to Ra that the Stargate on Earth was operational once more.
They had no choice. Sam had to find a way to repair the time machine and restore the past. Before Daniel had even answered the General's questions about the odds, her mind had been racing ahead. The past had been altered, which meant that any impact they might now have was no longer a consideration. Trivial details that had bothered her earlier, like paying for their meals with coins minted in 2002, vanished, and she focused on what resources they had available to them.
The arrival of the rancher, Marc Brazel, and the radio reporter, John McBoyle, was her and Daniel's cue to leave the diner—assuming the event they had come to intercept still happened. Sam hoped it would. Everything else about Roswell had so far seemed to fit with the known timeline. Recovering An and the escape pod was now vital for what she had in mind.
She eased out of the booth while the General folded the newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and followed.
“Calm down, Marc,” McBoyle was saying, patting the rancher on his shoulder. “Lemme buy you a cup of coffee and you can tell me all about what happened.”
“I've found stuff before, you know, those weather balloons the Army are always testing, but nothing like this.”
Sam didn't hear the rest. Leaving O'Neill to order more coffee for himself, she pushed open the door and stepped outside into a blast of searing heat. The temperature was still in the eighties even though it was almost 1700 hours.
The town lacked the glitz and plastic neon signs and the endless line of fast-food drive-throughs featuring super-sized meals. It reminded Sam of the Saturday movie matinees that her mother had loved. She was equally fascinated by the line of 1930s and 40s Packard's and Buicks, Fords and Chryslers angle parked along the dusty street, although it surprised her the vast bulk were black and grays, cream and navy or emerald. No bright shiny red and yellow models in this neck of the US. Also surprising was the number of women about who were either pregnant or pushing wicker perambulators. The baby boomer generation was well on its way.
“Sam, you still want to go through with this?” Daniel asked, falling into step beside her.
Turning right and heading west, they tugged their caps low over their faces in a mostly useless attempt to hide from the blinding sun as it crept toward the horizon. Sunglasses were out of the question. Her 2006 model aviator Ray-Bans would have drawn just the sort of attention Sam wanted to avoid, at least for the next couple of hours. After that, she'd be drawing a great deal of attention.
Provided her revised plan could be implemented.
“The only way to protect Earth is by restoring the timeline, Daniel. To do that, we need the Asgard transport. Then we can recover Cam and Vala before any of this happens.”
“Aren't you forgetting the little matter of a functioning time machine?”
“We have several options available to us. The simplest would be to recover the time-travel jumper on the planet where Colonel Maybourne was exiled, but that won't give us a transport.”
“But we've got that jumper.”
“Nope. Think about it.” She smiled and nodded at a middle-aged farmhand who tipped his hat as he passed them. Then she turned back to Daniel and added in a low voice, “This is 1947, we didn't take it until 2005. It's still there. And if it isn't there's always Janus's machine on Atlantis.”
Daniel almost stumbled. “You want to go to Atlantis?”
“We have a DHD enabled jumper and access—more or less—to two Stargates here on Earth. We can head to a planet in this galaxy where we steal an Al'kesh or Tel'tak, retrieve the ZPM from Proclarush Taonas, and use it to 'gate to Atlantis. We've changed our past, which means Elizabeth Weir will never go there, so Janis's time-travel enabled jumper will still be there. With the General able to access the Atlantis database, I should also be able to locate and install some sort of beaming technology.”
“Okay, fine, maybe, but how do we get the time machine back to Earth before Atlantis floods?”
“Dagan.”
“Dagan?”
“It's a planet in the Pegasus Galaxy. McKay's report went into great detail about how he found a ZPM hidden there by a secret Brotherhood. That ZPM will enable us to return to Earth. And once we go back to 1908, nothing we do here will matter, because our history will be restored.” I hope. The possibility that this timeline would continue on regardless didn't change the need to get back to their timeline.
He tried to keep the doubt from his voice, but Sam didn't fail to miss it. “In which case, should we even be considering rescuing An? Maybe we should just head to New York?”
Sam pulled the packet of Asgard food from her pocket. “I put this in the medical kit, Daniel. I have to trust that I did so for a reason. By the time we return from Atlantis, An could be dead.”
They turned left again, down a dingy alley. Instead of dumpsters, trashcans lined the walls. The absence of graffiti and kids shooting up imbued the laneway with a sense of alienness that Sam found disconcerting. She tensed, expecting a trap or some unseen assailant.
Years of off-world missions together in hostile environments had attuned her sense to that of her teammates, and it was clear that Daniel was having a similar reaction. They'd almost reached the end of the alley when he laughed softly. “Kind of a sad testimony to our future, isn't it?”
She smiled. “Feeling nostalgic?”
“Not really. I mean, I've never lived in this time, so there's nothing for me to be pining for. I laving said that, I could think of worse places to be marooned than 1947.”
Daniel was favoring his leg, which prompted Sam to ask, “How's the wound?”
“Fine.”
The reply was too fast for Sam's liking, but she'd seen the injury for herself, and seen him down the antibiotics. There was no telltale damp patch on his jeans. It probably just hurt like hell.
They reached the end of the alleyway. Checking her watch, which she'd set to match that of the diner's clock, Sam glanced back the way they had come. Several sets of steps offered dark comers where they could remain out of sight until—
A motorcyclist zipped passed them along the road—and ploughed directly into the side of a pickup truck piled high with bales of hay.
Although Sam had been expecting the accident, the impact still made her wince. The bike rider, a soldier in standard issue drab, had swerved at the last minute, but, unable to avoid the open tailgate of the pickup, was tossed onto the road while his bike slid with a screech of metal on concrete into a nearby Barber's pole.
The driver of the battered pickup braked sharply, looked around, and unable to see behind him, stared in alarm at Sam and Daniel, who were running to the rider's aid. A half dozen men, two wearing aprons and a third with a large white cape flapping around his neck rushed out of the Barber's shop. “I'll call Glenn!” one of the barbers announced, and hurried back inside.
The bike rider's arm and face were badly grazed, but more importantly, his leather flying helmet had offered no protection against the impact and subsequent fall. His face was covered in blood and he was lying prone on the ground, semi-lucid.
“Oh, heck!”
Sam glanced up to see the shocked face of the young driver.
The barbershop patrons were also crowding around. “I need a
towel to stop the bleeding,” she announced, keeping her voice authoritative and assured. The second barber, still with scissors and comb in hand, also hurried back to the shop, while more people emerged from the surrounding stores and gathered around them. Daniel made it known to anyone who asked, that Sam was a military nurse.
Checking his pulse, Sam cautioned the bike rider, “Don't move, okay?” She gently felt his neck vertebrae, before moving his head to one side. He was young, no more than early-twenties, but his neck and shoulder blades were ridged with scars�
��shrapnel wounds by the look and feel of it.
“How...how is he?”
“Will he be all right?”
Daniel opened his arms wide, to prevent the onlookers crowding too close. “Okay, everyone, how about we move back and give them some air.”
Although there was a reasonable amount of blood, it was typical of a superficial head wound and what looked to be a broken nose. When the bike rider opened his eyes, his pupils dilated instantly in response to the glare from the late afternoon sun. He was a tough kid; he'd be okay, but Sam wasn't about to give anyone that reassurance—just the opposite. “His neck's not broken but he may have a fractured skull. He's concussed at the very least,” she reported. “I need that towel—fast. I have to stop the bleeding.”
Stargate SG1 - Roswell Page 17