The Drift

by Diane Dru Botsford

  She slid her hand horizontally. “It’s not hot or cold. It’s just — ”

  “There?” Weiyan asked. “To see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight.”

  “That’s beautiful.” Sam dropped her hand down from the force field. “Maybe even more beautiful than this situation deserves.”

  “The words of Sun Tzu are often that way, even though they are words of war.” Weiyan sighed. “I am grateful my father encouraged my reading of his work. Imagine how stunned he would be now to see such a large Zhenmushou!”

  Sam looked over her shoulder at Weiyan. Her eyes shined with amazement, transfixed by the clay statue on the hill.

  “Carter!” shouted General O’Neill.

  “Finally!” Sam looked back toward her team, relieved the walls had vanished. The three raced toward her. In fact, everything had vanished with the exception of the statue and its freshly dug graves.

  “It’s Kunlun, Sam!” Daniel dropped down beside Weiyan. “Lord Yu’s former home-world, P3Y-702.” He grabbed a handful of the dirt and hefted it in his hand. “The events we saw? Just like Yu described when — ”

  “When he captured your sorry ass and almost got the rest of us killed,” the general said, frowning.

  Teal’c crouched beside Daniel. That’s when Sam noticed the gray tinge to his skin.

  “Teal’c, you all right?”

  “I am well, Colonel Carter, a moment’s rest will suffice.” Teal’c sat down heavily. Sam knew he was overdue for a tretonin injection, but without a means of escape from their current dilemma, there wasn’t anything that could be done. He probably didn’t wish to alarm them.

  “A bit of a break will do us all good.” General O’Neill plunked down on Teal’c’s other side. “Any guesses on why we’re getting the History Channel edition of Lord Yu’s life on this hellhole of a planet?”

  Sam pointed toward the building. “I think the answer’s inside there, sir.”

  “All right, Carter. You’re with me. Let’s go check that building out. You three stay here.”

  Immediately, vibrations started up beneath her feet. “Sir?”

  The vibrations turned to a loud rumble. Dirt and stones scattered across the ground.

  “Let’s do it, Colonel.” He started to march off toward the building.

  Within seconds, the ground ripped open between the general and his target. A chasm formed at least twenty-feet long and endlessly deep.

  “This is getting old.” He took a step back and the ground sealed shut. He threw up his hands.

  “I don’t remember a building like that when we were actually on P3Y-702.” Sam reported what little she’d seen of the device inside.

  “I do,” Daniel said. “Those doors were hidden behind some of the other ruins. I tried prying them open just before the ring transporter grabbed me. There were Chinese pictograms on some of the walls describing Kunlun and how it was built by — ”

  “Emperor Yu Huang Shang-Ti,” Weiyan offered. “There are many legends surrounding Kunlun. I have even heard it said that the emperor’s paradise was really a planet. An evil planet that destroyed the Emperor’s first Dragon Guards.”

  Sam winced at the awe in Weiyan’s voice. Looking back over the valley, she wondered yet again how much of Earth’s ancient history was myth and how much was fact. Since the Stargate Program’s inception, the line dividing the two had thinned dramatically.

  “Weiyan,” said Daniel behind her, “Chinese mythology places Kunlun on a mountain, not another planet.”

  The air rippled. Sam tilted her head, curious to see what images would be displayed next.

  Lord Yu’s ships shimmered into existence again, positioned only a few feet away. Behind them, the fortress walls also reappeared. This time, however, the images weren’t static. The Jaffa led slaves up into the Al’kesh while members of the original four battalions marched back up the mothership’s gantry, carrying large crates.

  “Sir, those Jaffa. I’ll bet they’re carrying the Ancient photon emitter Yu has installed on his present home world.”

  “Oh, goody.” General O’Neill groaned. “Another walk down memory lane.”

  “Don’t you see, Jack?” Daniel waved a hand at the closing gantries. “We’re watching events play out the way they did a thousand years ago, exactly as Yu told us.”

  “Then how come she knows so much?” the general asked, jerking his head toward Weiyan.

  “My father told me,” Weiyan’s voice trembled. “He said Kunlun was not a myth, but I didn’t believe him. He told me everything… all of it…” She flung a hand out toward the building. “All of it has happened just as he said!”

  “And just who-in-the-hell is your father?”

  Her eyes lifted toward Sam, wide in desperation. “I thought his tales were make-believe. I thought he told me fairytales so he could pretend I was the little girl he had never known.” Weiyan buried her head in her hands.

  The mothership’s hull slid downwards, covering its multi-tiered base underneath. Sam recognized the signs of pre-liftoff.

  “Carter, we need answers.” General O’Neill jerked a thumb toward Weiyan. “Now, please.”

  Sam dropped down besides the girl. “Weiyan, is your father a member of the IOA?”

  “No. Please do not ask me more. I swore I would not say.”

  “Do you want to get out of here or not?” General O’Neill said with remarkable restraint.

  “I do!” Weiyan mumbled. “I just… I never thought…” Tears welled in her eyes, but Sam held back any demonstration of pity. The girl knew something. Something that could help them figure a way out of here.

  “Weiyan Shi.” Teal’c placed a hand on her shoulder. “You must share how you obtained this information.”

  Sam lifted the girl’s chin, forcing Weiyan to not look away. “If your father’s not IOA, is he military? Or an ambassador, maybe?”

  “Was.” Weiyan’s eyes slid toward General O’Neill. “His name is Huang. Ambassador Huang.”

  With a cracking boom, Yu’s ships blasted off.

  Teal’c was so shaken by Weiyan Shi’s revelation that the departure of Lord Yu’s ships meant nothing. His teammates were equally stunned. O’Neill’s clenched jaw only served to accentuate his attempt to suppress his undoubted anger.

  “I have done nothing wrong!”

  The girl dashed tears from her eyes.

  Her eyes. Teal’c leaned in for a closer view.

  Weiyan Shi’s mouth quivered as he did so. “Forgive me, Teal’c. I did not know — ”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Teal’c assured her. “You are not guilty of your father’s crimes.”

  The young woman did indeed have the intense black eyes marked with odd specks of green exhibited by both Yu’s First Prime Oshu and the spy Ambassador Huang. A spy who had nearly cost SG-1 their lives when he’d impeded their efforts to save Daniel Jackson a year ago.

  Her features, however, were different. Her nose smaller. Her face more oval.

  “Weiyan,” said Daniel Jackson. “If everything you’ve told us is true — ”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Daniel!” O’Neill grabbed Weiyan Shi’s shoulders and yanked her to her feet. “He put you up to this, didn’t he? Is Huang here somewhere, getting his rocks off, watching us run around like rats in a — ”

  The ground trembled. Teal’c recognized the sign. O’Neill must control his temper.

  Teal’c struggled to his feet, the task made all the more difficult by a weariness he could not ignore. None of the others seemed fatigued. Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson had jumped to their feet with great alacrity.

  “Where’s your father, Weiyan?” O’Neill shook her, his face dark with rage.

  “Jack!” Daniel pushed O’Neill back from the girl. “Calm down!”

  “Shut up, Daniel. She knows something.”

  A great tremor erupted across the valley floor, throwing Teal’c to the ground once more.

 
Colonel Carter ran to his side. “You okay?”

  “O’Neill must stop.” Teal’c pushed himself up to his knees. “His emotions — ”

  A final shudder, Yu’s fortress collapsed to rubble, and the quake faded to a distant rumble. All that remained was the hill bearing the great statute, the building in question, and the Stargate perched upon the cliff.

  Teal’c looked to O’Neill. His eyes were closed. His chest heaved heavily, his nostrils flared. Teal’c dared hoped his brother could contain himself.

  Weiyan Shi had already succeeded in doing so. She had wrapped her arms about herself, inhaling long, slow breaths.

  “That’s right,” Daniel Jackson said. “Keep calm, both of you. Jack, your abrasive general card won’t work here and you know it.”

  Weiyan Shi sank down beside Teal’c. She squeezed his hand. “Are you all right?”

  “I am well,” Teal’c lied. No purpose would be served by admitting a minor weakness. Not to her, not to any of his team. Whatever troubled him would surely pass. “It is you, or more specifically, your origins which are now the concern.”

  Weiyan Shi wrung her hands. “I have told you everything I know. I spoke with my father only once. A year ago. It was then he told me he must go away. Forever.”

  “Oh, he went away all right.” O’Neill opened his eyes. “To a nice padded cell in China. He was spying for that god-damned slimy, snakeheaded — ”

  “Sir,” warned Colonel Carter as another tremor threatened.

  O’Neill sucked in a long breath. He expelled it noisily. “Fine, Carter. You tell her. Tell her how — ” He turned away, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  The tremor faded.

  “Sir, there’s a bigger question here,” said Colonel Carter. “We know her father’s a clone from Janet Fraiser’s report.”

  “A clone?” Weiyan Shi laid her palm against her abdomen. “That is why he could not tell me the truth. That is why…” Her voice became inaudible.

  “Weiyan,” said Colonel Carter, “your father’s genetic markers date back 4,000 years. Were you and your mother both tested by the IOA?”

  “My mother,” Weiyan Shi gulped, as if mention of the one who had born her was painful. “She doesn’t have the necessary genetics to power the great chair.”

  “Then Ambassador Huang must carry the Ancient gene,” Teal’c said. Weiyan Shi’s small hand tightened within his own. Though her grasp should have felt as nothing, Teal’c hands ached. He released her grip and flexed his fingers. His elbows and shoulders ached as well.

  “Is my father an alien like you?” asked Weiyan Shi.

  Daniel Jackson knelt down beside her once more. “Your father’s completely human.”

  “Cloned from a human,” Colonel Carter emphasized. “A human who not only lived 4,000 years ago, but must have been a direct descendent of the Ancients, just like — ”

  “Like Jack.” Daniel Jackson removed his glasses and gazed kindly into Weiyan Shi’s eyes. “Look, I know this sounds crazy, but if Yu was telling the truth, your ancestor was Sun Tzu.”

  “When you think about it,” Colonel Carter said, “it’s amazing your mother even conceived. Four-thousand years of cloning would degrade the original DNA sample, no matter how much the Goa’uld used advanced Ancient technology.”

  Weiyan Shi’s eyes widened. “If Lord Yu is a Goa’uld and he made my father, he cannot be bad.”

  Teal’c interjected, believing the record must be set straight. “Lord Yu is a parasitical creature, falsely claiming to have been your original emperor.”

  Daniel Jackson slid his glasses back on. “I’m not so sure his claims were false.”

  Clink. Snap.

  O’Neill had retrieved his lighter from his pocket and was now flipping it open and shut mindlessly, his attention on the building.

  “Perhaps we will find our answers in the one constant throughout these apparitions,” Teal’c observed.

  O’Neill twisted toward him, a half-smile upon his lips. “Now you’re talking. I could give a rat’s ass about clones and gene pools. If Yu’s in there — ”

  Kawoosh.

  The recognizable sound of the Stargate heralded its activation. Teal’c turned toward the cliff as the violent plunge of water settled into a stable event horizon.

  “Carter? Any chance the gate’s not a figment?”

  Four figures emerged. Although they were too far away to ascertain their identities, Teal’c immediately recognized their khaki BDU pants, jackets and black tactical vests.

  O’Neill stuck a forefinger and thumb in his mouth and whistled. “Over here!”

  “Sir…”

  “It’s an SG team, Carter.”

  “I don’t think so, Jack.” Daniel Jackson slung a hand under Teal’c’s arm and assisted him to rise.

  As Weiyan joined them, they watched the four-man team descend along the side of the cliff and stride toward them. One of them had orange-red hair.

  “What the hell’s Balinsky doing here?” O’Neill growled. “I sent orders to Walter to kick his ass off of SG-13.” He stormed toward the team. “Took you enough time, Dixon!”

  Colonel Dixon walked directly through O’Neill.

  “Great, more ghosts!”

  SG-13 strode toward the crumbled walls of what had once been Yu’s fortress. The team neared the ruins and their images dissolved.

  The air rippled yet again, stirring up a great wave of dust that drifted toward them. The dust dissipated, revealing a more recognizable scene. SGC archaeologists dug trenches, others strung lines around several foot-deep holes. A tall, dark-skinned man with long plaits and a shovel jumped down into one such hole, shouting to an assistant who scurried in his direction.

  “That’s Kevin Hopkins.” Daniel Jackson ran to the lead archaeologist. A college roommate, Teal’c recalled. Daniel Jackson waved a hand through the man’s head, but Dr. Hopkins never flinched.

  “And you wonder why instant replay was never approved in baseball.” O’Neill pointed at the Stargate as another SG team — dressed in khaki uniforms and tactical vests — climbed down from the cliff. One carried a staff weapon.

  Teal’c recognized the team member immediately. He was the man carrying the staff weapon. “This is indeed a faithful rendition of events.”

  “Yeah, super faithful,” O’Neill’s voice cracked.

  The imagery sped up in a blur. The phantom version of SG-1 stopped by Kevin Hopkins, conferred, and then moved onward. Then Colonel O’Neill hefted a backpack toward the hill bearing the funerary statute. Daniel Jackson followed at a distance, his boonie-covered head turned toward the dig. Teal’c’s doppelganger joined the then Major Carter and walked the camp’s perimeter.

  A moment passed and the images subtly changed. Teal’c’s ghost-double conferred with Major Carter at the base of the far hill. A single rifle shot rang out. He glanced upwards toward the hill as a shower of red clay sprayed forth from the Zhenmoushu’s claws.

  Daniel Jackson’s ghost descended from the hill, his face flushed with indignation. He stormed toward the ruined walls. Placing a hand against the building’s doors, he tilted his head upwards and stepped back as if to obtain a better view. A great wash of light surrounded Daniel Jackson and he disappeared as a ring transporter took hold.

  All that remained was his boonie cast upon the ground.

  Teal’c turned his gaze upon the real O’Neill. His Tau’ri brother gripped the lighter, his eyes haunted with inner pain.

  The need to assure O’Neill that these were merely specters of the past drove Teal’c to approach him. “We cannot change — ”

  Dizziness clouded Teal’c’s vision. His body became numb.

  “Teal’c!”

  Fatigue overcame him and he collapsed to the ground.

  “Come on, T.” Jack shook Teal’c’s arm. “Wake up!”

  Nothing. Teal’c’s face had taken on a definite gray tinge, almost like he was —

  Nope, Jack wasn
’t even going to think it. He pressed two fingers against Teal’c’s neck. There was pulse, barely. Jack glanced over his shoulder at that hellhole of a building, ready to take it apart brick-by-brick for answers.

  Daniel dropped down on Teal’c’s other side. “Does he need his tretonin?”

  “If he does, he’s outta luck.” Jack slapped Teal’c face lightly. “Come on, buddy boy. Rise and shine.”

  “Wake up, Teal’c,” Weiyan sobbed behind Jack. “I am trying, cannot you?”

  What the hell did that mean?

  Teal’c’s eyes fluttered opened. “O’Neill, what has happened?”

  Jack let himself breathe for the first time since Teal’c had passed out. “Okay, don’t do that.”

  Teal’c harrumphed. “I did not do anything.”

  “Sorry, Teal’c.” Carter knelt down beside Jack. “You did kinda pass out there. How are you feeling?”

  “I am well.” With a barely hidden grimace, Teal’c pushed himself up onto his elbows.

  Putting a hand on Teal’c’s chest, Jack stopped him. “Nice try, but stay put for the moment.”

  Teal’c sunk back, giving in way too easily.

  Weiyan brushed by, wrapping her arms around the big guy’s neck. “You will live?”

  “He’ll be his normal self in no time. That is,” Jack gently pulled her away, “if you give him breathing room.”

  Carter shot him a look. A look that meant trouble.

  He let go of Weiyan’s arm. “What?”

  Carter jerked her chin toward a spot a few feet off from Teal’c’s position. Getting her message, Jack climbed to his feet and followed her out of earshot.

  As Carter turned toward him, Jack noticed the bruises under her eyes. The kind she got when she’d been up for days straight. They’d been plopped down in this crap for a few hours, but days? Not even his internal clock was that messed up.

  Or was it? His memory had played some nasty tricks on him when they’d first arrived.

  He sighed. “A few real answers would be nice about now, Carter.”

  “Sir, if Teal’c continues to deteriorate…”

  “You think he needs tretonin?”

  “Maybe.”