Diplomacy (10/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
XXXXX
Cruvus, Part I
XXXXX
28 September 1998; SGC, Earth; 1600 hrs
"Who knows what kind of people might be populating that planet." Pause. "Aren't you curious about the power source, sir?"
"Carter," Jack's voice answered, "when have you ever known me to be curious about the power source?"
Daniel looked over to see Sam lift a bar with a grunt of effort and replace it on the pins. She sat up and accepted a towel from Jack, who had been spotting her.
"Chal'ti, kree!" Teal'c barked, and he turned to see a blur flying toward him. He stumbled back and toppled to the mat, just barely able to raise his arm in time to partially stop an elbow from crushing his throat but completely unable to avoid the weight that pressed him forcefully onto the floor.
"Ow! Yi shay, Teal'c."
With a deep scowl, Teal'c released him and straightened up. Daniel relaxed, shaking out his arm but not sitting up.
A laugh from nearby made Daniel turn again to see Captain Griff walking toward the lockers. "What's this? You get so lost in your head you forget about the Jaffa sitting on your chest? Only you, Jackson."
"Wasn't sitting on me, Captain," Daniel protested breathlessly, with an apprehensive look at his displeased teacher. Griff snorted.
Of the members of SG-2, Warren tended to stay more aloof from the newer members, and Casey shared so many inside jokes with the two majors that Daniel and Griff had often been left at a loss for what was going on in the first missions. They were all good men, and when Ferretti gave an order, everyone moved as a relatively cohesive unit.
But during downtime, Daniel had found himself sharing apprehensive looks with Captain Griff in the face of the close-knit original three members of the team until they'd both decided the others wouldn't bite. Griff had no patience for researchers who hindered his part of the job, but he was friendly otherwise. SG-2, for instance, entirely composed as it was of career military men, tended to use more Tau'ri military slang than SG-1, who couldn't risk confusing Teal'c at key moments. Ferretti tried to use laymen's terms around his civilian attachés when he remembered, but Griff seemed to approve of Daniel's efforts to learn common military jargon.
"I could easily have sat upon you, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c informed him with a glower. "Were we truly doing battle, you would no doubt be dead now."
Daniel grimaced and looked up at his training master from where he still lay on the mat.
"I have told you many times before never to intercept me directly. You build your strength to use against a human; you will always need speed and cunning against a Jaffa."
"I know, I'm sorry, Teal'c. I was distracted."
"That is evident."
Daniel sat up. "Sorry," he repeated.
It was only recently that he and Teal'c had begun to use the exercise rooms regularly during the day when so many others were around, and it was difficult to stay focused, especially when he knew Shifu was sleeping in the infirmary but might wake up at any moment, and someone on the other side of the room was speculating eagerly about unknown people populating a planet with odd power sources. He glanced back toward Jack and Sam. Both were now heading out, Sam saying something about MALP recordings and lights and sealed chambers with functioning life support...
A dark fist came toward him, and he automatically threw himself back down flat to avoid it, rolling to his feet with his hands raised in front of him.
Teal'c folded his arms. "Your speed has improved. Your distraction, however, has not. Finish your exercises now; we will continue another time."
Griff snorted. Daniel ignored him. "Kel sha, Tek'ma'tae."
"Are you in disagreement, Captain Griff?" Teal'c asked Griff now.
The captain paused at Teal'c's serious face in his, but didn't seem overly intimidated. "Nope, not me. Just leaving." To Daniel, he added, "Pay attention, grasshopper."
"Right," Daniel muttered as the captain left, deciding not to ask what exactly it was about him that Griff thought resembled an insect. Under Teal'c's critical eye, he sighed and began to jog his first circuit around this section of the gym and hoped Teal'c wouldn't join in, because no one could keep up with a running, miffed Jaffa.
When he was nearly done, he looked up as Staff Sergeant Alipto's voice called, "You're late, Rothman." Robert huffed in displeasure as he entered--athletic champion in college or not, he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about these sessions--and moved first toward Daniel, who slowed to a stop.
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, Daniel, if you're going back to the infirmary, stop in the office first. There's MALP data of some text that I don't recognize. Actually, I don't even have a clue--"
"Rothman!"
"I printed it out--just take a quick look," Robert told him, then scurried off to the trainer.
Daniel glanced at Teal'c for permission, then finished his drills, bowed, and left for the showers.
XXXXX
28 September 1998; SGC, Earth; 1900 hrs
Shifu squirmed and mewed loudly.
"Pari, sinu'ket," Daniel told him through a yawn, shifting his baby brother against his hip with one hand while he flipped through printouts of something in the shape of a circle with his other, papers spread over the surface of an unused bed in the infirmary.
He had been hoping that the MALP data might be some text he would recognize from Abydos, something that had developed after the rebellion against Ra on Earth, so that he might know it even though Robert didn't, but it was like nothing Daniel had ever seen before. He almost questioned that it was text at all, at first--it could be just a decorative design, and it was in the shape of a circle, after all, not even a spiral, which was not only unusual but also highly impractical and, therefore, improbable for a writing system.
But there were clearly separate symbols that could be either ideographs or phonetic units--some repeated, but not so that it formed any sort of obvious aesthetic pattern. It could be some sort of short announcement, maybe. 'Welcome to our planet.'
"Whatever secrets are inside you...I don't suppose they have to do with what this means, Shifu?" he asked the tiny head lying on his arm. Shifu stuck out his tongue and drooled. Daniel sighed, wrinkling his nose, and wiped the baby's face with a spare cloth lying on the beside table. "Of course not."
"Hey," Robert said, poking his head in the infirmary's doorway. "I'm heading home. Any luck with those?"
"I can't even begin to guess how it would be pronounced," he answered apologetically, "much less what language it is or who wrote it."
"It's from the planet P3R-272," Robert said.
Daniel frowned, trying to remember if he'd heard that planet before, and decided it must be one of the next ones up for exploration. "That doesn't actually help."
"Well, that circle is basically all the MALP showed. SG-1's doing recon tomorrow, and I'm going with them. There's a briefing in the morning, but if you can't get anything out of that thing, you don't have to show up."
"I can cross-reference this with other things we have on record," Daniel said. He put the papers down on the bed he'd been using as a desk, dropping his glasses on top to rub his eyes.
"Well, I'll keep looking and check with things I have at home," Robert said. "You take a break. Or if you really want, check with the linguists and take a look at some of the stuff that no one's never been able to figure out. Maybe something'll match."
"Maybe, yeah."
Robert didn't leave, though. Daniel followed his gaze to Shifu and self-consciously adjusted the infant. "Any news from Abydos?" Robert asked.
"SG-8 finished installing the iris almost a month ago, of course, but they've gotten it connected to the DHD power source now," Daniel said. "It works with codes sent from our GDOs by an automatic acceptance or rejection mechanism. They tested it with SG-6's IDC when they started setting up operations, and it worked perfectly."
"We should just put a big battery there," Robert said, only sounding partly serious. "Then we don't have to worry about draining the DHD."
"Oh, Sam says that the power it takes is negligible compared to what the DHD stores," Daniel said. "And now they understand Goa'uld control crystals well enough to be able to replace the power source if necessary, as long as we keep collecting crystals we find off-world. Um, what else...oh, SG-6 brought back some ore the day before yesterday. Some was sent to the Pentagon's research facilities, and the scientists here are working on a better way to refine it."
"Good," Robert said absently. "You know...I've still got nothing on the Kheb thing."
As if either of them might be unaware. "I know," Daniel said. "I started looking at historical records of anything that had to do with Setesh, Heru, Osiris, Isis, anyone even mentioned in the Kheb myths--"
Robert raised his eyebrows. "Historical records...on Earth?"
"I know, it sounds silly," Daniel admitted, "but I was running out of ideas, and I actually did find a few odd things about Setesh. Religious groups--pretty fanatical ones--over the last few millennia, with mysterious leaders named Setesh or Seth or Sutekh, as recently as the 1820s in England. Of Earth."
"Huh," Robert said, blinking. "That's...weird. I doubt that has anything to do with Kheb, but...are we talking about a Goa'uld, here, or just people latching onto an interesting myth?"
"Well, the accounts are suspicious," he said, "but there's not enough evidence to say much. And I lost all relevant mention of Setesh on Earth after the 1800s, and if he were still here, wouldn't he try to retake the Stargate, or at least be doing...something that we'd notice? So, unless you think I should keep looking, I was going to put it aside."
"Yeah, I think we should table that," Robert agreed, though he was pulling out a pen and writing a note on his palm. "Give me whatever research you have on that and we'll put it aside in case anything rings a bell later. Focus on Kheb for now."
Daniel nodded. "Well, I'm running out of other places to look."
"I've still got some old friends and colleagues from academia," Robert offered, "and I asked around to see if anyone else could tell us something. Don't give me that look; I'm not a moron. I framed it as a question about a reference in Budge."
"And did they have any ideas?"
"Nope. Sarah and Steven--I told you about them, right, Dr. Gardner and Dr. Rayner? Well, they and our professor, Dr. Jordan, all recognized the myth, but that's it. So it's back to the drawing board."
Daniel sighed. Absently, he tugged the edge of Shifu's blanket up and tucked it more securely around his brother.
"Has..." Robert started. He hesitated, then went on. "Has General Hammond said anything else about...you know?"
"About mythology?"
Robert gave him a look. "About the baby."
"No, not really. No one's sure what to do with him, but no one wants him too far from our sight."
"For his safety, I'm sure."
"More like for our safety," Daniel corrected unhappily. The Academy hospital, which had been good enough for dozens of Nasyan refugees--one of whom had been an assassin--was not considered secure enough for an infant.
Their caution was justified, he knew, and it wasn't like he, of all people, didn't want secrets that could defeat the Goa'uld. Sha'uri hadn't wanted the Goa'uld to have Shifu, which had to mean that keeping him away from them was a good thing, right? The problem was that no one was sure if he'd be the key the Tau'ri needed to win the war or a dangerous tool the Goa'uld could use to destroy them all if they weren't careful enough. And there was the question of whether it had been Sha'uri or Amaunet instructing them to find Kheb, and Daniel knew, just knew it was the former, but...well, he couldn't quite ignore the possibility that it might have been the latter.
Robert nodded like that was perfectly reasonable, though, because maybe Daniel could try to ignore it, but no one else would. "Did they ever learn anything about those nanocytes?"
"Not much. They're inactive. Sam says they might need to be in range of a transmitter or that they could be activated...uh, remotely, later."
"Then what's the point of them?"
"It's possible that that was what Sha'uri meant when she said Shifu possessed some knowledge," Daniel said. "The nanocytes could be storing it, and we don't know how to reprogram them."
"It's possible," Robert said. "But we've only ever seen them on Argos; it's possible nanocytes only ever make people age."
"Yes, well, I've also been thinking that if Apophis was planning to use Shifu as a host," Daniel said, "he'd have to wait several years until he was old enough, which would seem fine to him; those years would seem as nothing to a Goa'uld who has already lived thousands of years. But..."
"But if he's in a rush," Robert picked up, nodding thoughtfully, "and he can somehow implant nanocytes into an unborn fetus and activate them post-natally, he'll only have to wait about a month before his son's in his prime."
Not his son, Daniel thought, except that was exactly what Shifu was. Born of human flesh, but by the will of two Goa'uld. Sha'uri's flesh, and that of Apophis's host, but the Goa'ulds' son no less for all that.
Suddenly, Daniel wondered for the first time who Apophis's host had been before being imprisoned in his own prison of flesh and bone like Sha'uri was in hers. Then he stopped wondering, because he didn't think there was room in his head to feel both pity and hatred at the thought of Apophis's face. He had to focus on the latter, because he wasn't sure he could...well. There was nothing he could do about the other.
"That means these nanocytes could go active anytime Apophis wants," Robert said.
"I know. Why do you think no one's willing to take Shifu anywhere but here?"
"You realize we're gonna have the Pentagon crawling up our butts soon."
Daniel blinked. "Not...literally?" he asked. Robert gave him a look. "Right. I knew that."
"I mean," Robert said, "that soon, someone's gonna start bothering us about why he's still here and what we can get out of this. And by 'someone' I mean..."
"Joint Chiefs. The President. The NID," Daniel filled in, because he had been thinking about this, too. He knew that every day that ticked by with no answers meant more pressure on General Hammond to get some answers, and that meant more pressure leaking steadily through to Daniel to figure out something, even though he knew the general was trying to shield him from the brunt of Washington's concerns. "I know, Robert."
"You forgot Congress--or, at least, the few on the appropriations committee who know--because they're always interested."
"Right, thank you. That makes me feel much better."
Robert shrugged. "We'd better hope we find Kheb, and find something there that can...I don't know. What are we hoping, anyway? It'll extract the knowledge for us to use? Take out the nanocytes? Or maybe...you know, it's possible Sha'uri meant for the Harsesis to be...well...gotten rid of somehow--"
"No," Daniel snapped, too emphatically to pretend he hadn't been thinking of that last possibility himself. The gods knew he had been thinking of it far too much. When Robert's eyes flicked to the infant and then back to him, Daniel swallowed and looked away. "I mean, I know that...that we don't know what's there. Or if it's there. But I trust Sha'uri."
"There are a lot of ways this could go, Daniel," Robert said. "And not all of them are good."
"What do you suggest?" Daniel asked, calming his tone when Shifu whimpered restlessly, disturbed by the audible tension. "We can't do anything until we know more about him. Give him up to the Goa'uld and they gain whatever information he holds, and we lose it. Bring him somewhere less secure than the SGC, and we're letting out a...a potential security breach, or handing him to someone with less desirable intentions. Goa'uld and NID--Scylla and Charybdis."
"And the SGC's right in the middle. I get it. Hey, you've been reading Homer?"
"That's not the point." In fact, he'd read the Greek version Robert had lent him and was partway through the English. His only job these days was to watch over Shifu, be ready and on call for emergencies, and take over basic duties when Robert was off-world consulting for someone. The search for Kheb in books and mythology was slowing down, and there was little more that anyone could do when they hit dead ends on every side. He'd started simply looking over reports after each recent mission, hoping new information would come up, and so far, nothing had.
Then Robert snorted. "Charybdis. So, in your head, the NID is a sea monster that sucks people into a whirlpool?"
Daniel smiled sheepishly but shrugged.
"Well, if they start hounding us about the baby, there will be people who agree with them. Just remember what happened to Odysseus's crew when they got to Scylla and Charybdis, all right?"
Daniel imagined a sea monster with the System Lords for its heads, all reaching down to pluck Shifu out of his arms. "I know. It won't come to that."
Robert opened his mouth, as if to say something further, then stopped and changed the subject instead. "Yeah. So, you okay handling our stuff tomorrow? You can stay with the kid and work from here until I get back if it makes you feel better."
As if to illustrate the point, Shifu started to cry loudly, and Daniel jumped. "Shh, Shifu, sinu'wer hano'ta," he said, trying to clamp down on his own panic that never failed to spring up when this happened. "Um. Sorry. Crap."
"No, no, uh, yeah," Robert said, backing warily away, more uncomfortable around Shifu than he was around armed marines who didn't like him. "Is he...uh..."
Daniel checked his watch. "I think he's hungry. Or. I think. I should go get..." He stopped, bouncing Shifu gently and not knowing whether he was trying to comfort the baby or simply fidgeting from nervousness. "Sorry. I'll keep working from here on base and make sure to send word through about anything I figure..." He winced as Shifu wailed into his ear. "...out. Um."
"Yeah," Robert repeated, looking from Shifu to the MALP data lying on top of a history textbook at the foot of the bed. "So you should probably..." He gestured vaguely toward Shifu, looking uncomfortable. "And I should..." He looked toward the door.
"Sure," Daniel said, rising awkwardly and trying to hold his brother without crushing him, because he was so tiny it always felt like the slightest pressure could crush the baby that everyone was keeping under such strict watch. "I've got it. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
Robert retreated safely out of range of the baby.
Once Shifu was once again being blissfully quiet on his lap, sucking contentedly on a bottle filled with the formula that Janet had started keeping in the infirmary, Daniel sat back for a moment to watch him. He only managed for a few minutes before he became thoroughly bored and put his glasses back on to read his history book until the baby was done so he could go upstairs and look for something more interesting to do.
"Are you full yet?" he asked Shifu hopefully when the slurping sounds slowed and stopped. He gently pulled the bottle away, prompting an immediate sharp whine from Shifu, who reached up with miniscule, flailing hands, as if trying to pull it back. With a sigh, Daniel returned the bottle to his baby brother's mouth and waited.
By the time Shifu was full and content again, Daniel had fallen half-asleep and was sure most of the linguistics consultants on base had probably gone home long ago. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check.
Daniel peeked into the nurses' office to tell them he was leaving for a few minutes, and could they please keep an eye (or two) on Shifu?
That was a mistake, apparently, since the nurse dragged him into the main area of the infirmary, wielding a syringe. Being vaccinated against common Earth diseases apparently took a couple of years to finish, and it turned out that forgetting his appointment schedule didn't matter when he spent most of his days in the infirmary with Shifu. He sighed in resignation and let the nurse inject him with whatever it was this time--he'd stopped asking--and then made his way to the elevator to the eighteenth sublevel, rubbing his arm irritably.
Jack was in the car when the doors opened--a late night for him, as well, but he was dressed in civilian clothes now. "Up?" he asked as Daniel joined him.
"Up," Daniel agreed. "Could you--" he started, but Jack's finger was already on the button marked '18.'
"Are you planning to leave this place anytime in the next...ever?" Jack asked, carefully casual.
"Jack..."
"I'm not pressuring you," Jack told him. "It's up to you if you want to spend time with the...with, uh, Shifu. But you haven't stepped foot off this base in more than a month. If you want to get out of here once in a while, bring him along. It's fine--I said it was your home, too, and I meant it. Fraiser said it's not a problem."
"Well, he can be kind of...loud. And fussy, sometimes. You shouldn't have to..."
"I know what babies are like, kid," Jack said, half-exasperated and half-awkwardly embarrassed by the subject. "A lot better than you do. I've got experience, remember?"
Mentions of Charlie, however oblique, were rare and never careless. Daniel ducked his head. "Right. Um. I'll... I was planning to look over something--it's for your mission tomorrow, so I have a reason to stay tonight...but maybe some other day, later? Soon, maybe? It's been a while."
"Yeah, I've noticed. Just let me know."
The car stopped and the door slid open. Daniel glanced at Jack once, then stepped out, but an arm came out to stop the doors from closing. "Jack?"
Jack stared at him for a moment, then said suspiciously, "You haven't been sleeping."
"Of course I have," Daniel said, fidgeting away a little. Following the general's orders, he hadn't even been off-world since late-August; he was probably better rested than most personnel just by dint of the fact that he'd therefore been able to keep to a regular sleeping schedule. Semi-regular. And if Shifu woke him up sometimes, well, the two of them had taken over a bed in the infirmary, too, and he had his quarters on base, so it wasn't like he didn't have a place to sleep if he was tired.
"Yeah," Jack said again. He didn't look happy, but he didn't push it, either. A lot of people acted like Daniel answered to Jack, and, true, sometimes both of them acted that way, too, but in the end, unless Daniel was temporarily involved in SG-1 business or was missing a training session, Jack couldn't order him to do anything. "If you say so. I'll see you tomorrow, kid." He took his hand from the door and let it start to slide closed.
"Jack, w--just. I mean, good night," Daniel called, receiving a jaunty wave before the doors closed to move the rest of the way up to the surface. He rubbed his eyes, sighed, and turned toward the offices.
The door of the office next to his and Robert's was partially open. Daniel knocked on the door and pushed it open to find Lieutenant Hagman at a desk with no one else around. That wasn't surprising; Hagman loved his work as much as anyone, and he was good at it, too, whatever past bad experiences he had had in the field with SG-1. SG-4 was happy with him, after all, and even those civilians who stayed carefully away from military liked Hagman. Well, the linguists did, anyway. Daniel needed more time to observe if he wanted to characterize the engineers' unique culture.
"Lieutenant?" he said.
Hagman startled with a mug raised to his lips, barely avoiding spilling it over himself and the keyboard. "Jesus! Daniel."
Daniel winced, used to people who noticed when he walked into their territory. Even Robert, for all he acted like he was absentminded to a fault, had an uncanny ability to notice whenever someone walked within two paces of one of his artifacts. Daniel had tested it, once, and none of Teal'c's Jaffa stealth tips could help him in that arena. "Sorry to disturb you," he said.
Hagman put the mug down with a rueful smile. "S'okay. Should've been paying more attention. Whaddya need?"
Pushing the door open further, Daniel stepped into the office. "I just wanted to see if anyone recognized this writing." He held out the P3R-272 circular inscription. "Or if you had an idea of where to start looking for references."
Hagman took it from him but was shaking his head even before he took a good look. "Not me, sorry. What do you know about it? Do you know if it's a phonetic alphabet or--"
"No idea," Daniel said. "I've never seen it before. It's from MALP footage. Block-like character units, but...I don't know what to make of it."
"Well, if you want, there's a pile of mystery data over..." Hagman gestured toward a table in the corner, then stood. "Okay, so, it's a little buried. I'm sure it's here somewhere."
Daniel watched him dig out the pile of folders and resolved to organize his own desk sometime in the future, when they weren't so busy.
"Here. Knock yourself out," the lieutenant finally said, handing them to him. "I don't remember seeing any writing like that before, but some of that stuff goes back almost a year, so maybe something'll catch your attention. " He shrugged. "Good luck."
Daniel accepted the offered folders with a nod of thanks and stopped by his own quarters to drop them off before going back to the infirmary.
"Come on, little brother," he told Shifu, picking him up and waving to the nurse on the way out toward his room. "You can help me read through the papers." Shifu made a sound remarkably similar to Jack's scoff. "Or go to sleep," Daniel amended with a yawn. "I don't care."
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29 September 1998; SGC, Earth; 0930 hrs
"Wasn't Rothman coming with us?" Jack said as he led the rest of SG-1 into the briefing room.
Daniel didn't raise his head but looked at them over the top of his glasses. "He's on his way. I've been looking over"--he held up the circular inscription from P3R-272--"this, so I thought I would see you off."x
"And what is that?"
"It's part of what the MALP sent back, sir," Sam told him, sitting across from him. "Daniel, you know what it says? Dr. Rothman said it didn't even look familiar to him."
"I couldn't figure it out, either," he admitted as Robert hurried in. Jack raised his eyebrows in question just as General Hammond entered.
"As you were," the general said, taking his seat. "Captain Carter, you were the one who suggested this planet as one worth exploring. Care to elaborate?"
"Yes, sir," Sam said, folding her hands on the table and leaning forward. "There were no signs of hostile life forms that we could see--"
"Or of any life in general," Jack said.
"Not exactly," she corrected. "The MALP indicated that the Stargate is in some kind of enclosed structure. Now, we've sent it as far as it can go into the enclosure, and we can't find any sign of what it was used for. Dr. Rothman is sure it's not a natural formation, but its construction is too sophisticated for technology at our level. Beyond that, the MALP's sensors read breathable air, a comfortable temperature, and lights, without any visible source of power for any of it."
Jack's face showed some disappointment, but he summarized, "In other words, technological survey."
"Someone created that technology," General Hammond said. "Are you certain there were no signs of any inhabitants?"
"None that we saw with the MALP, sir."
"Except the writing on the floor," Robert pointed out. "Which, granted, could've been left there a long time ago."
"I don't think it was a long time," Daniel said. "The MALP sent back a clear picture, and the stone around the words isn't eroded at all. Enclosed or not, there must be some...air movement, even, that would make the words less sharp over time than they actually are."
"Yes," Robert agreed. "So either those words were carved very recently, in which case we're more likely to meet the very advanced people who wrote it, or they were carved a long time ago by someone with very interesting technology. It's flashy, too--lights up and everything. I'd like a look at it."
"Do you have any idea what it says?" General Hammond asked both of them.
"Uh...well, no. We don't know anything about the language, but we've seen advanced races that were able to learn English very quickly to be able to communicate with us, like the Nox. It's possible that that could be the case here, too, or that we could figure it out after meeting them."
"If we're right, they could be much more advanced than we are," Sam added. "Maybe--and this is a long shot, but it's possible--they could be someone like the Asgard, advanced and willing to help humans against the Goa'uld."
"Or," Robert said, "they could be advanced and willing to kill humans. Not," he added when the general turned to him, "that I don't think we should go and look. It's just...you know. It could be that."
"I definitely think we should check it out, sir," Sam said.
"All right," General Hammond decided. "SG-1 and Dr. Rothman, you have a go. You leave in two hours."
Jack paused by Daniel's chair as they filed out, tilting his head to look at the circular inscription from various angles. Finally, he sighed. "This better be good."
XXXXX
29 September 1998; SGC, Earth; 1500 hrs
'Good' wasn't how Daniel would have described the results.
From the control room, he watched in horror as Teal'c dragged Jack back through the wormhole, with everyone else uninjured but Jack slung over Teal'c's shoulder, unmoving. It didn't help that the only information he could get out of anyone was 'I don't know' and 'colored lights' and 'head-grabbing-thing,' and, really, what did that mean?
Now, he sat on the edge of Shifu's bed, peeking through the frosted window in the doors that separated this area from the main part of the infirmary, where Jack was now awake, along with the rest of SG-1.
"I don't understand," he said aloud to Robert, frustrated. "It doesn't make any sense. Why would any people do--"
"It wasn't the 'people' so much as the..." Robert waved a hand toward his head. "Head-grabbing thing."
Daniel glared at the floor, because that wasn't helpful at all, then walked to the door to peer through at SG-1 again and moved agitatedly back toward the bed.
"Will you stop, Daniel? If you wake the baby and make me listen to him cry, I will make you brief the marine combat teams alone for the next year, don't think I won't."
"No you won't, and he's not going to cry," Daniel said, checking on Shifu just to make sure. As if understanding the tension, the infant was awake but silent. Normally, it made Daniel nervous when Shifu stayed so eerily quiet like that, but right now, Jack had come back from the stupid planet with the stupid head-grabbing whatever-it-was that no one recognized, and 'quiet' in any form was a good thing.
"Dr. Fraiser said he seems fine," Robert said. "Colonel O'Neill says he's fine. And, hey, look at that, he's walking out, so I'm sure he's fi--"
Daniel was out the doors before Robert could finish.
"Jack, are you--" he started
"For cryin' out loud, I am fine!" Jack snapped.
"Uh...okay," Daniel said, taken aback and holding his hands up. "I didn't say--"
"If someone asks me one more time if I'm..."
"We need to debrief," Sam cut in, looking relieved and anxious all at once. "Daniel, we'll fill you in when we're done." Daniel didn't miss the way she turned not-so-surreptitiously toward Jack every few seconds, as if expecting him to fall over, or the way Teal'c hovered so close behind that Jack managed to step on his toes several times on the way to the briefing room.
"Whoa, hey," Robert said, coming out as well and hurrying after them. "Yeah, thanks for telling me!"
"Rothman, briefing room," Jack barked without turning.
"But--" Daniel called after them. "Wh--Sam? Teal'c! What's going on?"
"I'll find you in your office when we know," Sam assured him as they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
Daniel stared after them, then looked from the silently watching infant on the bed to the nurse who was currently on shift in this section. "I'll be back later. And stop kicking my papers around," he admonished Shifu, pulling a mythology book out of range. He checked that the railings were secured on the bed, then hurried up to the archaeology office to wait for his friends.
XXXXX
1 October 1998; SGC, Earth; 1700 hrs
Two days later, everyone was still suspicious that something odd was going on with Jack--which only made Jack crankier, since he was quarantined on base--but no one had figured it out yet, so Daniel found himself back in the archaeology office.
For some reason, every time he stood up from his chair and walked away from that circular inscription on the floor of P3R-272, he thought he had forgotten something and simply needed to stare harder at it. And then he sat down again and stared again, only to realize that he was fooling himself. He had never seen it before, and no amount of straining his eyes would tell him what it meant when he didn't even know what it sounded like.
Careless. Should have looked harder. Shouldn't have assumed 'intelligent and advanced' meant 'friendly.'
Perhaps that circular inscription really was from an advanced civilization, or even a different race of beings as powerful as the Asgard. Even so, the text could have any number of meanings. For all they knew, it was a warning to stay away. Or it could have said 'Do Not Trespass.' Or maybe the inscription had been written by someone who worked for the Goa'uld. Or they could be an enemy of humans or the Tau'ri without being Goa'uld at all. Or it said 'Welcome' and the device that had attacked Jack was beneficial, but only to a different species. There were so many possibilities, and he hadn't considered any of them as well as he should have.
So Daniel was still hunched over the ring of text from P3R-272, thinking of increasingly wild possibilities, when he heard Robert's voice calling from down the hall, "You know, if you could all stop running around for a second, we could maybe try to figure this out. Colonel O'Neill, seriously, just--!"
Jack stormed into the office, Sam and Teal'c behind him and Robert's voice following them. Ignoring the archaeologist, Jack demanded, "Okay, I need to figure out what the hell is going on!"
Robert's figure came into view then, just as Daniel blinked and said, "Okay. What's going on?"
With a frustrated growl, Jack threw his hands in the air. Teal'c tilted his head at the display and told Daniel, "Colonel O'Neill seems to be having difficulty expressing certain words."
"I don't have problems expressing words, Teal'c," Jack snapped. "I just can't seem to get some of them out in English."
His interest peaked, Daniel sat up straight and pushed up his glasses. "Well, like what? And what language is it?"
Shouldering past the SG-1 blockade of the doorway, Robert explained, "No idea. During the debrief a couple days ago, he tried to say that nothing was wrong with him, but instead he said that nothing was 'cruvus' with him. We thought it was a slip of the tongue at the time."
"Nothing was 'curvus,' huh?" Daniel asked, his mind whirring as he stood and started to scan the bookshelves. When silence met his question, he turned back. "What, you said 'curvus,' right? Like 'bent' or 'twisted' or...you know. Not right. Wrong. No? Sorry, uh, what did you say it was?"
"No, he definitely said 'cruvus,'" Sam corrected. "You switched the..." She twisted two fingers around each other. "The sounds."
"Oh," Daniel said, satisfied. "Well, there."
She frowned. "I don't--"
"A metathesis," Robert interrupted. "'Cruvus' to 'curvus,' or the other way around. You think this is Latin?"
Daniel shrugged, standing on his toes to pull down one Latin dictionary while Robert ducked around him to reach for another. "I don't know about the timescale," Daniel said, "but Latin's probably too recent. It could be a derivative. Or it's related somehow and developed in parallel. When did Latin on Earth--?"
"A few centuries--no, about a millennium BC, I think," Robert said, "so yeah, after the Stargate closed here. But there were Italic languages before anyone ever settled in Latium, maybe before the Goa'uld left Earth."
"So our Latin might have a common ancestor with the P3R-272 language," Daniel finished, excited now. "Finally! We can probably figure it out, then. We have 'cruvus,' and...what else?" he asked, turning to SG-1.
They stared back at him without speaking for a moment. Then, "Nuh-uh," Jack said flatly, pointing a finger at them. "I don't know Latin in any form. Except pig."
"What?"
"Pig Latin."
"Is that a derivative of--"
"No," Robert said firmly, rolling his eyes.
Daniel pointed out, "Well, you're speaking something."
Sam turned to Jack now and studied him as if the answer were written somewhere on his person. "You think it was the..." She gestured vaguely around her head.
"The head-grabber thing, maybe," Robert said. "It could've been putting information in your head."
"Like downloading something onto a computer," Sam suggested, nodding. "I wonder if..."
Jack held up a finger. "Ah-aht! Before we get too far into this fascinating discussion, can we keep in mind that I have lost the falatus to speak properly! What?" he added when all of their stares whipped toward him.
Daniel met Robert's eyes across the desk, and both bent to page quickly through their dictionaries. Before Robert could speak, Daniel said, "Facultas? Means, capacity, ability."
"I was about to say that," Robert muttered.
Jack's hands came down heavily on top of the desk between them. "If you two are done with your little game of 'find the word,' would you do something before I'm completely derentis?"
"Dementis," Robert said quickly, flashing Daniel a smug look. "Crazy."
"That was an easy one," Daniel said. As Jack's expression very rapidly lost what little had been left of his patience, however, he added confidently, "No, it's okay, Jack, we know a related language now. It could well be close to Latin, which means there might be some clues we can understand. We just have to figure out how it happened and why, and we might have a way to solve it."
"Fine," Jack said, visibly trying to calm down and beginning to pace slowly again.
When he didn't say anything else, Daniel asked the room at large, "So...how did this happen?"
"I thought you were going to figure that out!"
"What I mean," Daniel said patiently, "is I wasn't there. Robert told me about the"--he tried to think of a more dignified term, then gave up--"head-grabbing thing that appeared out of the wall. He said it only worked on you, yes?"
Sam explained, "We don't actually know that. Only Teal'c and the colonel tried it. We think it didn't affect Teal'c because of his symbiote; we've seen technology before that's sensitive to the presence of a Goa'uld."
"Like Asgard technology," Daniel said, encouraged. "Well, that's good."
"So what if it's like Asgard technology?" Jack said.
"So, we like the Asgard. Don't we? I think... I mean, we like the Asgard, right?"
"So? And? Theref--"
"So...maybe this technology was made to work against the Goa'uld somehow, just like Asgard technology was. I mean, nothing about this seems like Goa'uld work, does it?" he asked Sam.
"It doesn't look like Goa'uld technology to me," she allowed.
"And it's teaching you a language. Does that seem like such a bad thing?"
Jack scowled. "It's also getting rid of this other lengha I normally know."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Lingua? Language."
"Whoa," Robert said, blinking at Jack. "That's an interesting fricative. Where the heck did that one disappear to when Latin was developing?"
"What purpose would such a technology serve?" Teal'c said before Jack could explode.
"To...to help us communicate with them better," Daniel suggested.
Sam shook her head. "By making him less able to communicate with us? I don't know; sounds a little shaky to me."
"Maybe it wasn't designed for humans?" He sat down again, thinking. "Okay, hold on. What made the...device come out in the first place?"
"Colonel O'Neill passed through the circle on the floor just before it appeared," Teal'c said.
"You think that was the trigger?" Robert asked.
Daniel picked up the circular inscription. "You mean this thing? So stepping through the circle triggered the device."
"Nu ani anquietas," Jack said suddenly, staring at the printout.
"...What?" Daniel said.
"Nu ani anquietas," he repeated, adding, "Hic qua videum."
Daniel looked at the text and back up. "Are you...reading this?"
Irritably, Jack said, "I don't know; you tell me!"
Robert came around to peer at the text as well. "Huh. Daniel, have you been able to figure out any--"
"No, I still have no idea. Jack, do you know what this means?"
"No!" Jack insisted. "I'm just looking at it, and the words pop right into my fron."
"Frons, frontis," Robert put in helpfully. "Forehead."
"Just 'head,' in this context," Daniel said, wondering if it was the general word for head or if it carried the connotation of the forefront of one's mind. His excitement dimmed slightly as Jack pressed the fingers of one hand hard into his eyes while reaching for the edge of Robert's chalkboard with the other. "Jack? What's wrong?"
Looking worried as well, Sam jumped in. "Sir, this device has clearly tampered with your brain somehow. I think we should talk to Dr. Fraiser again."
Jack ignored her and picked up a piece of chalk.
"Jack," Daniel said again, his concern tinged with impatience now, "of all times, this is not the time to start playing with our...things..." He trailed off as Jack, instead of idly juggling pieces of chalk as he often did, turned his back to them and began writing something on the board. "Um. What are you doing?"
Sam walked closer. "These are equations for something," she said. "Sir?"
"What, Carter?" Jack said, scribbling quickly.
She studied his progress and wrinkled her brow. "Sir?" she said again, incredulously.
"I don't know," Jack told her, his hand moving furiously across the surface. "It's just...just coming out--I don't know!"
"You know math?" Robert said.
Jack finished--naturu, he had covered almost the entire board in less than a minute--and spun around to glare at Robert. "No, they made me a colonel in the US Air Force without making sure that I knew two plus two."
"Uh," Sam said, scanning over the equations. "Sir, this is...well, a little beyond 'two plus two.'"
"Y'think?"
"But it doesn't make any sense."
"Join the club, Carter!" he snapped.
"No," she said, pointing at a string of numbers, "I mean the equations don't make sense." Daniel couldn't do arithmetic with such huge numbers in his head like Sam probably could, but he could see a few places, too, where the digits simply didn't match up. There was no way a four and a six should add to something ending in a two.
Jack exhaled heavily and rubbed his temple.
His 'fron,' Daniel thought, and quickly jotted it down before he could forget, because he was starting to realize something was wrong with Jack, and he couldn't do medical scans or solve equations that had factorials and numbers with more digits than he wanted to count, but he could solve this language, and he would--he would.
"O'Neill," Teal'c said calmly, "I believe we should consult with Dr. Fraiser."
"So do I," Jack replied tightly.
Daniel bit his lip and stopped writing when he heard the easy agreement, because he knew how much most people hated enforced trips to the infirmary, and Jack was certainly not an exception. He took a step forward to go with them before stopping, torn between keeping apprised of what was happening to Jack and staying to follow up on what they now knew about the language.
"Daniel, stay here--we need to work through this," Robert said, taking the decision out of his hands and gesturing toward the text, where he had written an approximation of what Jack had read from the inscription. Daniel looked back at SG-1, but Jack waved him toward the data as well.
"Right, okay," Daniel agreed with a confused mixture of reluctance and guilty eagerness. He promised the team as they left, "We'll tell you as soon as we get anything."
"Thanks, guys," Sam said, ushering her CO out the door. "We'll be downstairs."
Daniel sank down at his desk while Robert pulled a chair closer and said, "All right. Let's get to work."
Next chapter (" Cruvus, Part II"):