A Sword in Agate - Epilogue
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Previously: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8
A Sword in Agate - Epilogue
Al Karj AB, Saudi Arabia, December 1990
Lieutenant Samantha Carter sat outside the office of her new squadron CO and held her cover tightly in her hands to keep from fidgeting with it. She was trying to control her breathing also. Her first day at her first posting and it was right in the middle of a powder keg. They were only weeks away from declaring war on Iraq, to enforce UNSC Resolution 678 which gave a deadline of January 15th for complete withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and the Air Force was going to be the point of the spear. She lifted a hand and brushed her hair around her ear. She looked up when the petite Master Sergeant behind the desk next to the door spoke to her.
"The Colonel will be ready very soon, Lieutenant. As you can imagine things are getting very busy around here." Sam nodded to the woman as she shuffled some papers on her desk then quirked an eyebrow when the other woman's hands froze and the Sergeant bit her lip with a nervous glance her way. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"
"Of course, Master Sergeant." Sam replied with a small tilt of her head. The Sergeant's entire demeanour changed as she leaned forward slightly towards Sam and looked at her with a glint in her eye after surreptitiously glancing at the closed door beside and behind her desk.
"I am so jealous of you, ma'am. Your flight leader is," She fanned herself with her hand, "so gorgeous. He's a young thing, but very... very..." She sighed and closed her eyes. "You'll see what I mean, Lieutenant." She sat straight once more and resumed her entirely business-like façade. Sam blinked in stunned surprise, then smirked ruefully while looking down.
"I'm sure I will have a lot to learn from my assigned flight leader, whomever they may be. And they will no doubt have things to learn from me also." She tried to make it stern, but the Sergeant merely smiled in return.
"Of course, Lieutenant." She looked down at the intercom on her desk as it squawked into life.
"I'm ready now, Marty, please send 'er in." The Master Sergeant rose with a smile at Sam and indicated the door.
"If you would please follow me, ma'am." She opened the door as Sam stood and walked behind her into the room. She waited until Sam walked past her and came to attention, then closed the door behind her when she received a nod from the man behind the desk.
"First Lieutenant Samantha Carter reporting for duty, sir." Sam stood rock still with her cover held in the crook of her arm. The colonel stood up and walked around his desk.
"At ease, Lieutenant." He held out his hand which Sam shook. "Welcome to the 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Carter. You're one of the Chiefs now." He grinned and she smiled in return. He sat down on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms across his chest. "I'll tell you now, you picked a helluva time to graduate, but I ain't gonna complain, lost one of my flight leaders with a pair of broken pegs just last week in a crash over the desert. Runnin' a CAP along the border when his wingman spotted a bunch of Iraqi birds." The man grumbled in anger. "No shots fired, but he still managed to plough a brand-new, thirty million dollar Strike Eagle into the sand after knocking wings with his partner." He looked Sam up and down. "Still, I got a brevet commission for the hotshot I picked to replace him out of it so I guess I should thank the sumbitch. And Saddam too." Sam looked at her commander in confusion, she wasn't used to having such things spoken of so casually. "I'm assigning you as the new guy's wingman." He stood up and indicated Sam should follow him. She fell into step slightly behind and to the side of him. "Far too 'green' for the Captain's bars he already deserves, but with a war comin' he got 'em anyway, Hell, whole damn squadron's green." he grumbled before looking at her with a glint in his eye. "Damn good pilot though, best flyer I've seen in years. Damn kid flies circles around mosta the other guys with twice his seniority. He gets the best out of 'em too." He shook his head slightly and Sam had to admit to being intrigued. "Just joined six months ago," her eyes widened slightly, "but I bet he'll stay a Captain right up until they can make it permanent." It couldn't be.
The Colonel led her along the dull white walls of the garrison building and out into the glaring desert Sun. They both replaced their covers and carried on walking towards one of the maintenance hangars in the near distance. All the while he was acquainting her with specific regulations and ways of doing things they had developed at the base, things she'd need to know. He returned to the topic of her new wing leader as they reached the hangar.
"You probably saw him around the Academy, both of you were there at the same time." He glanced at her, but said no more as he opened a side door to enter the hangar to the bustle of flight engineers tinkering underneath an F-15E. Sam followed the Colonel's lead and doffed her cover once more as she spotted someone standing with his arms crossed, facing away from them, the top of his flightsuit tied around his waist to reveal a white cotton tank top with some grease smudges around the back. Sam's breathing stopped momentarily when she saw him. It had been six months, but she'd recognise the line of those shoulders anywhere. "Mitchell!" He turned and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw her, then a slow smile split his face and made his eyes crinkle. Sam couldn't help her own smile creeping over her lips. Cam came to attention soon after and was waved at ease by the affable Colonel. "I think from the way the two a you reacted that ya might already know each other, but just ta be official about it, Captain Cameron Mitchell, this is your new wingman, Lieutenant Samantha Carter." Cam gave her a little nod which she returned.
"Yes, sir, Lieutenant Carter and I are a team from way back at the Academy, wouldn't have made the Superintendent's List my last semester without her help." He grinned and Sam found herself blushing furiously, remembering the hard work and late nights he'd put in with her help to manage the high grades to gain the academic distinction of the Dean's list to go with the Commandant's List military distinction and the Athletic Director's List he already had. All three together earned him the star, laurels and lightning bolts of the Superintendent's List pin.
"Right! Which just makes this all the more serendipitous. Hah, knew I could find a use for that one." The Colonel slapped his thigh and grinned at them both. "I'll leave Carter in your capable hands then, Mitchell." Both Sam and Cam came to attention as the Colonel nodded to them and walked away. When the man had left Sam found herself hoisted into the air from behind in Cam's bear hug.
"Cameron!" she said in a piercing whisper, but inside she was just as happy at the turn of events as he was. When he put her down she turned and gave him a proper hug before pulling back from him in his mucky state. She pinched the fabric of his smudged tank top with a mock-grimace and he laughed. "It's really good to see you, Cam. And what the Hell? Captain?"
"I've been frocked." He leaned in with a dark look in his eye. "The last guy was a real ass." he whispered. Sam took in his serious look and nodded slightly. He looked her up and down. "You look good, Sam, really good." She smiled.
"You don't look so bad yourself, Captain Mitchell, already turning the heads of the non-coms in logistics." she said with a teasing quirk of her eyebrow. "I can attest to that." She laughed when he looked away in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah, well, that's not the kind of logistical help I need." he muttered. He shook his head and turned to give her a small look and put his hands on her shoulders. "You got my six, Sam?" he asked with a serious look. She flushed slightly at how dark blue his eyes turned and brushed the fingers of one of her hands over his on her shoulder.
"Always, Cam. You know that." she replied in a soft voice.
Praxyon, August 2009, (alternate reality, alternate timeline)
As Cam stepped from the event horizon he wasn't particularly surprised to see Sam and Daniel covered by the staff weapons of Teal'c's Jaffa. He also wasn't particularly surprised when the Kalashnikov he was carrying was ripped from his grasp while a zat'nik'tel was pointed at his chest by someone who should be his friend. He smiled ruefully at Teal'c's stern mien and put his hands up.
"Give me a reason I should not kill you where you stand." ordered the Jaffa tersely. Cam would have chuckled if this wasn't such a serious situation.
"Because, you're a good man." he offered, only to have Teal'c grunt and flick a glance over to his men who gripped their staffs more tightly. Cam cursed inwardly. "Because, somewhere, deep down, you realize we're supposed to be on the same side." That only got the zat pressed right under his nose while Teal'c glared at him. He flicked his eyes at Sam and gave her a little tilt of the head towards the Jaffa. She gave him a look.
"Because we can offer you the freedom of your people." she supplied and Teal'c turned to her without taking the zat from under Cam's nose. Teal'c's men shifted nervously, but stayed their weapons.
"Really?" Cam asked with a confused glance towards his wife. She rolled her eyes at him as Teal'c gave him a baleful glare then moved the zat away from him a little.
"This is Ba'al's failsafe. It has to be. I think this whole place is his time machine." She waved her arms around the cavernous space they were in. It was mostly shrouded in darkness, but Cam could see a walkway ahead of him leading to a platform with a massive tower of rings rising from it, a faint light shone through in between the rings, providing the limited illumination they now basked in. He saw two more platforms beyond that central one to the right and left of it. Teal'c deactivated the zat'nik'tel with a flick of his finger and let it drop to his side as he looked around, stepping past them along the walkway towards the central platform. Following Teal'c's lead the other Jaffa raised their staffs, allowing Daniel to step past them to follow Teal'c onto the walkway while lights along their edge began illuminating the entire space.
"Teal'c, you have to understand," he began earnestly, "in the timeline we just came from, the Goa'uld are defeated and the Jaffa are free." Sam began moving around the pair towards the platform where Cam saw something like a control console. "Now, Ba'al used a machine to go back in time and change all of that. He made you his First Prime and Qetesh his queen so he could control you." Teal'c turned to him briefly before replying.
"This is the secret for which Ba'al was murdered." he declared, Daniel looked away for a moment, his eyes dark. Cam stepped forward.
"So that's why you think Qetesh is on her way here? She wants to use this device for herself." He looked towards Sam who shook her head slightly as she watched Daniel in concern.
"That cannot be allowed to happen." The Jaffa's tone was more than merely insistent. Cam turned back to him with an intense look.
"See? We agree about everything." he added, trying to emphasize the point. Sam squared herself to face them and hooked her thumb over her shoulder from the edge of the console's platform.
"Teal'c, if you let us use this device, we can return history to the way it was meant to be." she offered and he glanced her way with narrowed eyes.
"The Goa'uld will be gone?" he asked and she nodded. "My people will be free?"
"You have our word." Daniel breathed as Teal'c turned to him then looked at each of them appraisingly for long moments.
"Let it be done." he ordered and Sam immediately turned to rush to the console, Daniel followed her. Cam stepped up to Teal'c while the other Jaffa moved along the walkway slowly. Sam began looking over the console, manipulating the globe at its center.
"It'll just take me a few minutes to figure out exactly how it works." she muttered, her gaze flying over the controls. Cam was always amazed how quickly she could get used to new technologies. Since being given command of SG-1, and finally marrying her after recovering from his crash in Antarctica, he'd managed to see up close just how good she was at this whole alien tech stuff. He was still fascinated by it all.
"That may be all the time we have." Teal'c said while handing Cam the Kalashnikov he'd taken from him earlier, Cam thanked him. "By my reckoning, Qetesh will be here at any moment." Cam joined Sam and Daniel in front of the console and looked over the controls himself.
"Well, you heard the man." he jibed Sam lightly and she took a moment to give him a little glare. Soon after that lights appeared at the top of the central tower, they looked up to see the Milky Way rotating slowly over their heads.
"There must be satellites orbiting every one of these stars. There's hundreds of them, each sending real-time telemetry back to this computer through subspace." Sam breathed in astonishment, her face lighting up in child-like fascination. Cam looked from her back up to the projected hologram, unable to mask his confusion.
"Exactly how does that add up to a time machine?" he asked her as she gave him a teasing smile. She turned back to the console and pressed a few controls.
"They're looking for something specific." she began only for Daniel to finish in dawning realisation.
"Solar flares." he breathed as Sam brought up a hologram of a star above the console, boxes of information in Goa'uld and Ancient flitting past their eyes. Cam blinked as he looked at the display, they mentioned most of the star's characteristic information, and also lots of current readings on magnetic field flux and other telemetry. It all went over his head so he dismissed it from his mind.
"Exactly." Sam grinned at her friend, before turning on her scientist mode. "Until now, other than Ancient technology, the only way we know of traveling backward and forward through time is to pass through a wormhole as it intersects the magnetic field of a solar flare. Now with enough satellites and enough computing-" Cam had to stop her.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's brilliant." He looked at her apologetically and she gave him a faint smile. He loved her scientist mode, he could listen to her explain stuff all day usually, but they just didn't have the time right now. "Which button do we press?" Daniel turned a little glare on him and drew his lips tight.
"Yeah, I think it's a little more complicated than that." he muttered as the hologram disappeared from in front of Sam.
"Actually, not much." she said and Daniel blinked in surprise while Cam gave him a little knowing smile. "We just need to choose a time and place sometime before Ba'al can put his plan into motion." They turned at the distinctive noise of the ring platform activating only to be distracted once more by a sound from the console. They all turned back and were stunned into silence as a green laser field passed over each of them. They stepped backwards in shock, each remembering a time three and a half years earlier when Cam had been similarly scanned by a metal case waiting for them after they'd returned from the alternate reality where they'd planned to steal a ZPM. The case had contained three of the Alteran power generators, and a thank you note. Sam rushed forward when an overlay display winked into existence above an ancillary console and text, in English, appeared in it. She gasped as she read it and Cam joined her.
'Voice print analysis... complete. Verified.
Facial recognition analysis... complete. Verified.
Welcome back SG-1.
Activating defensive countermeasures.
Scrambling ring transporter sequence codes... complete.
Scrambling ring transporter activation frequencies... complete.'
Whatever had just happened it hadn't been quite quick enough as the rings descended and disgorged a troop of Jaffa warriors.
"They are here." Teal'c called out as he and his men took up defensive positions around the central tower and opened fire. Cam turned to Sam and touched her arm.
"Sam..." he muttered with a stern look before turning to face the Jaffa firing at each other.
"Well, if you want to go back to the Cretaceous period, we can go right now, otherwise we have to wait for a flare capable of sending us back to a time and place that's a little more useful." she shot back acerbically while Cam handed Daniel his pistol and the archaeologist took his own out to wield both of them, they both then went to join Teal'c at the central platform. They managed to dispatch all the attacking Jaffa in short order as the ring platform provided no cover whatsoever. No more Jaffa seemed to be forthcoming though, which was definitely odd. Cam rushed back to Sam. She was working furiously, he could see several search patterns running on a display while her fingers flew over the controls. She glanced his way momentarily at his questioning look, but merely pointed at the display in English, it had new output. Cam blinked in alarm as Daniel approached them and read the same thing.
'Ring transporter lockout... complete.
Be advised this will not hold Vala/Qetesh for long.
Do not stick around. Take the first one that looks good.
Oh, and this is important, take a running leap through the Stargate.
Good luck.'
"What the Hell? What is going on?" asked Cam as he let the Kalashnikov hang from his hand at his side.
"I think this is how they did it, Cam, how they sent back the ZPMs to us. They found this place in their reality..." Sam's voice was hitching in amazement as surges of emotion welled up in her. Remembering how the ZPMs had helped avert the defeat of Earth, how they'd been able to take one to Atlantis and prevent the Wraith getting access to the Milky Way, all thanks to that metal case. "I think we're going to set up these defensive countermeasures ourselves sometime in the future... in the past..." Both men stared at her in confusion as she continued to work. Ugly sounds were coming from the ring platform, the sounds of machinery trying to break itself to pieces.
"Sam." Daniel called with a look over his shoulder as he and Cam walked back to the central platform. Sam turned to them urgently.
"I've found one, but you're not going to like it." she called and Cam could already see her working away to program something into the console. Cam came to stand by her side.
"Why not?" he asked in confusion and she turned to give him a significant look.
"It'll send us back to 1929." she muttered with a tilt of her head.
"That's ten years too soon!" he cried with a glare and she rolled her eyes at him. He pursed his lips knowing she was calling him Colonel Obvious in her head. He raised a finger at her in warning and she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Well, it'll have to do, 'cause it sounds like those countermeasures are not going to be able to hold them much longer." Daniel cried from the tower and Cam could hear the high keening whines from the ring platform as the recess in the housing overhanging the platform fought alternately between staying closed and trying to open. Cam rushed to the central platform.
"Once I dial the Stargate, we'll have less than twenty seconds to get through." Sam called to them all as she slapped her hands down on the controls, activating the program she'd just completed.
"Dial it up and get your ass down here!" Cameron called to her. Teal'c came around the central tower and walked over to them.
"We will hold them off." he declared to Sam's dismay as she took the pistol from her belt and rushed to Cam's side. "You will do as you have promised. Reverse what has been done, free my people." Cam looked at him for a long moment, then nodded once. Sam shook her head with a look at the Jaffa.
"I'm staying too." Daniel breathed as he walked up behind Teal'c and Sam looked horrified.
"No! Daniel you can't, if we succeed we have no idea what's going to happen to this timeline." she cried walking towards him, a look from Daniel stopped her in her tracks as she shook her head slowly from side to side.
"I can't leave her here, not like this. I have to see her... talk to her." he breathed with a desperate look in his eyes. Teal'c turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. Cam watched his best friend, then turned his machine gun around and tossed it to him. Teal'c caught it in front of the archaeologist's face as he hadn't been prepared to catch it himself. Cam reached for Sam's Beretta and similarly tossed that towards Daniel, he managed to catch that. Sam whirled on him angrily before turning back to Daniel.
"Daniel! You can't do this!" She took a step forward, but was stopped by Cam's hand around her waist from behind. "Cameron! Let me go! We can't leave him or Teal'c!" She struggled against his grip, but he felt her wavering when he pressed his cheek against the side of her head.
"He has to do this, baby. I'd do the same for you." he breathed into her ear and she shook her head. "Good luck, Daniel." he intoned, saying good-bye to his best friend.
"No! No, no, no, no!" she murmured, distraught. Daniel caught his eye and nodded in gratitude as the Stargate activated behind him, chevrons lighting up as the inner track turned.
"Thank you, Mitchell. Now get her out of here!" He pointed towards the 'gate with the Kalashnikov Teal'c had handed him after he'd stuffed the three pistols in his pockets. "And make sure to get me my notes! You promised!" Cam nodded and turned Sam around as she struggled in his grip. "Good-bye, Sam, Cameron."
"Come on, baby, you remember the message. We have to run for it. Right now." He grabbed her hand, but she turned to face Daniel for a moment.
"If you can, try to come through on another wormhole!" She pointed at the console and Daniel nodded with a wry smile before turning away. "I won't say good-bye!" she yelled as Cam began tugging at her hand and she finally turned to run alongside him towards the wormhole as it opened. They heard the rings finally dropping down to disgorge more of Qetesh's Jaffa. Cam watched as Sam disappeared into the event horizon as the tears streamed down her cheeks and followed after her with a leap.
Muranis, September 2010
Sam grabbed on to the solidity of Cameron's chest as he knelt next to her, a bulwark against the flashes of ephemeral conjecture streaming through her mind. She was only distantly aware she'd just been called Angharad by Merlin of all people, the name was familiar, where had she heard it before? She gritted her teeth as the images assaulting her mind peaked in intensity then stopped. She gasped and went limp in Cam's embrace.
"Sam, baby, are you okay?" he asked softly as he pushed her hair from over her eyes with his gloved fingers. She looked up for a moment so she could gaze into his blue eyes. She lifted her hand to brush her fingertips against his cheek. She shook her head while her eyes began to sting.
"No, I'm not okay." she breathed then smiled gently when his features creased with worry. "I will be, Cam. I just... need to sort things out." She leaned up while pulling his lips to hers with a hand on his jaw. She kissed him tenderly, hoping to push away the visions to the back of her mind. Decisions far too difficult to contemplate now. She pulled back with a sigh and leaned against him for a moment.
"Samantha, what just happened?" asked a worried Vala beside her. Sam looked up at her friend and smiled softly.
"Muranis is nothing like Selenis." she replied, which only confused the former smuggler more. Daniel came to crouch down by them as well while Teal'c hovered over them with eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the smiling hologram of Merlin.
"What does that mean, Sam? Granted, the design is... amazingly different, but underneath isn't it just a generation ship like Selenis?" asked the archaeologist while Sam shifted in Cam's arms to lean back against his chest while she recovered some of her strength. She shook her head.
"No, Daniel, Selenis is power and purpose, she is the foundation, Muranis is perception and logic, he is the vision." She stopped with a little frown.
"And Kariala, Samantha Carter?" Teal'c asked in understanding. Sam looked up at him with a rueful tilt of her head.
"Kariala is action and strength, she is the spear." she replied. "The winged spear." she breathed and looked up at Cam for a moment before continuing. "Remember when we first arrived in Selenis and found she had a gravitic displacement engine?" He nodded.
"I promised you I'd stay away from anything marked 'propulsion'." he replied with a smile. She nodded with a smile of her own before her features turned pensive.
"Remember when we thought that since that was her only means of propulsion that the trip to Pegasus would take millions of years?" she asked with a more distant tone. He frowned in confusion. "Selenis is the power, Muranis is the perception, Kariala is the action." she intoned. "They were designed to move as one, Cameron." She looked up at him. "Kariala takes Selenis' energy and Muranis' senses and rips hyperspace open, driving all of them through together." He stared at her in disbelief. "It would still take a long time, but only millennia instead of megayears." She paused and looked down. "At least that's how it was supposed to be." she murmured with a distant sigh and closed her eyes.
"Muranis showed you this?" asked Daniel and she tilted her head to the side without looking up.
"Sort of, he isn't quite right." She felt Cam's arms tightening around her and she smiled gently, she finally opened her eyes to look up at him. "I'm fine, Cam. Really."
"Muranis will not have harmed her. He was cleared of the worm millions of years ago." Merlin added from where he stood. They all turned to look at him. "What she means is that he is dying." He looked up at the crystal glowing faintly in the darkness while their flashlights were pointed down or away.
"How can that be? Did the worm do something?" asked Vala. Merlin shook his head.
"No, Valan. As Angharad said, Muranis is nothing like Selenis." he indicated the crystal towering above them. "This is merely the physical manifestation of what you call Muranis." Silence descended on them as Sam nodded slowly and raised her hand to cup Cam's cheek, asking him silently to help her stand.
"Muranis exists in all dimensions of this reality. As a tesseract is a cube through time, Muranis is this crystal, tesselating all the way to the eleventh dimension." She chuckled bitterly. "I should have paid more attention to those M-theory papers I was reading." She still leant heavily in Cam's arms, but her legs were taking her weight now. A deafening crack rent the dumbfounded silence which followed her words. Everyone looked up at the crystal as a bright jagged plane which had formed inside it from nowhere faded away to nothing, leaving only the broken shadow of itself as refracted through the crystal facet. "And he's dying," Sam said in a pained whisper, "shattering under the strain of his own existence." She looked at Merlin in distress and he shook his head.
"If I had known when I was last here, installing myself in this console, I may have been able to do something." he said gently. "As it is, I've only been able to hold vigil as his internal entropy destroys him." His features twisted in pain. "If I had simply thought to give him enough power to repair himself. A millennium too far." he murmured sadly. Daniel scratched at his temple.
"As fascinating as it is hearing you two talk about things far too complex for this social sciences major to grasp, we're not here for that." he muttered and Vala laughed nervously.
"Daniel, sometimes Samantha loses me when she describes the weather." she jibed while laying her head on Sam's shoulder. Sam smiled indulgently and ruffled her friend's hair. Daniel looked at her with tightly drawn lips. She just grinned at him.
"Ah, but it is why you are here, Galahad." Merlin responded at last. Daniel frowned.
"You know, you call him Galahad, but that's a lot closer to the name of our ship, Galadia." Vala pointed out and Merlin smiled with a lift of his eyebrows.
"Galahad comes from the old Welsh Gwalchavad. Galadia's name is derived from the Alteran for sword, galadus." Daniel said in irritation. Vala raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed and tilted his head in apology, coming to stand next to her. She slipped her hand around his forearm.
"Why are you here, Merlin?" Cameron asked and they all turned to the hologram. The ersatz Lantean looked troubled at the question, shifting uncomfortably.
"That is not an easy question to answer, Percival." he replied. Cam frowned while Teal'c's eyes narrowed dangerously. "No need to look at me like that, Bors." he groused with a huff. "In a manner of speaking, I'm here as a night watchman. To hold vigil until the morning."
"You were waiting for us." Cameron stated resolutely. Merlin smiled slightly with an appraising look.
"Yes, Percival." He nodded. Sam frowned while glancing over her shoulder at Cameron. What had he seen? For his part, Daniel was looking down at the platform and pinching his lower lip between a thumb and forefinger, his brow furrowed in thought.
"We're here to find Muranis' part of the Clava Thessara Infinitas." Vala offered brightly into the tense silence. Teal'c walked around behind Merlin, still keeping a baleful gaze on him. "We came after finding out you'd been here. We've been reading through your books on Camelot, I hope you don't mind." She paused in thought. "Although I suppose we should have said that when we met the real you nearly four years ago." She cringed apologetically. "You were sort of not all there." She waved her fingers theatrically at the sides of her head and Merlin nodded and smiled.
"You are just as I remember you, Valan." he burbled happily. Vala tilted her head with a frown and Daniel looked up with narrowed eyes. Sam felt Cameron tensing behind her. Something was definitely up.
"Yes, well, anyway, um, you wouldn't happen to know where it is?" asked Vala hopefully. Merlin shook his head.
"I can tell you it isn't here. I took it from this place some seven centuries before I last visited." replied the hologram. Sam cursed.
"Do you know its current location, Merlin?" asked Teal'c. The hologram turned to him and shook his head. Teal'c narrowed his eyes. "You took it from this place yet are not aware of its present location?"
"I'm just a hologram, I wasn't programmed with that information." replied the Lantean. Sam smirked bitterly. Even she could tell that was a lie. Teal'c wasn't going to be fooled by it. The hologram didn't know because, wherever the Key was now, it wasn't where Merlin had taken it to originally and he knew it.
"Kariala then," Daniel interjected with a glint in his eye, "can you tell us which symbol is Kariala's ninth chevron? We have a choice of two and would rather not dial up the home of the Indesta by mistake." Merlin turned to him and nodded.
"I can, but it won't help you." said the hologram. "Kariala is lost. Unreachable." He turned to the crystal behind them all. "Only Muranis knows where she could be."
On to the Gag Reel
To be continued in ' The Patience of Kings'