Archaeology (17a/30)
Title: Archaeology ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Note: As usual, if conversation takes place in a situation where English is not the primary language, English may be relegated to "italics" while the primary language is in "normal text."
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7a-- 7b Chapter8 Chapter9a-- 9b Chapter10 Chapter11 Chapter12a-- 12b Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16a-- 16b
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Chapter 17: Personnel
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20 February 2001; P3X-888; 1100 hrs
All in all, it was a relief to be away from the Alpha Site, until Daniel remembered that they only had a few days' break and that P3X-888 was next on their schedule.
He wanted to be here, of course. He'd pushed hard for it, and...and...
And that was where Robert had first shown him Casca. And there was the path they'd trampled out on the way to fetch water so many times over three weeks, still visible in the areas where grass hadn't grown out to cover their tracks. The simple barriers they'd set out at the dig sites were still standing. And right here, on the ground by his feet, was the pen he must have dropped when he'd heard Loder fire, which meant that just beyond those trees was where the previous SG-11 had been buried.
"Daniel?"
He turned around to see Jack watching him while Edwards' team and the rest of SG-1 checked the area around what used to be their base camp. "What? Yes. I'm...just, uh...picking up some garbage." He picked up the pen and almost put it down on the table before he remembered the table wasn't there anymore, since SG-2 had cleaned things up.
"Sure?" Jack said.
Daniel nodded. "Um. The Unas must come out of their caves sometimes," he said, "if only for food. We can either stay and wait for an Unas to find us or go to the caves and look for Chaka ourselves."
"The other Unas aren't your friends," Jack said. "If someone besides Chaka comes along, they might not be so willing to deal. We should go find him."
"O'Neill," Teal'c's voice said through their radios, "someone approaches."
Daniel froze.
"Come on," Jack said, tugging him once sharply and heading toward the others. Daniel shook himself and followed, his hands moving to the gun clipped to his chest.
Teal'c and Sam were watching the woods while SG-11 spread out behind them. "I heard movement among the trees," Teal'c said.
"We haven't seen anything yet, sir," Sam added quietly. "But Colonel Edwards thought he heard something, too." Jack nodded and signaled for silence.
Daniel edged out from behind SG-1, who had formed a sort of barrier between him and the woods. Jack's fist shot up. Daniel stopped reflexively, then took a breath and continued moving in front. If the Unas came out, he wanted to see them before people started shooting at them.
A loud roaring sounded in the woods.
Before Daniel could think again, he took a step backward, the sound so familiar his heart started to race. He waited for another sound, another movement, another growl, but there was no warning, this time, before all of the Unas leapt out of the woods at once, four, five, eight, ten, too many to fight.
"Hold your fire!" Jack shouted.
"Ka keka!" Daniel yelled, lowering his gun and pushing past SG-1. "Unas ka keka!"
The Unas weren't moving, but they held their aggressive stance, and the growls were coming from all around them now, the one that started low in the throat and Daniel was pretty sure was physiologically impossible for a human to replicate exactly, but one could get pretty close with a trill from the--
"Stop that; you're freaking me out," Jack hissed from behind him, and it was only then that Daniel realized he was doing it, too, and stopped.
Rational. He could do that this time.
Daniel unclipped his gun, held it away from himself, and set it deliberately on the ground, ignoring the warning hisses from around him. Keeping his arms low and his head down, he walked slowly in front of his team. "Chaka?" he called loudly.
The Unas around them stilled. And then a few of them moved closer. "Pull back," Jack said.
"Chaka!" Daniel repeated. Thinking back to what Chaka had said when Daniel had been brought before the alpha male last time, he called, "Cho'ee'che!"
"A benar!" a voice called from among the Unas. "Cho'ee'che!"
"What does that mean?" Edwards said quietly.
"I have no idea," Daniel said, but he repeated, "Cho'ee'che, Chaka!"
And then, a welcome voice. "Dan'el!"
"Oh, good," Daniel breathed, watching his friend approach. "That's him. Chaka! Jack, lower your weapon."
"No," Jack said, but he wasn't giving an order to shoot or retreat, either.
Chaka stopped in front of him. "A benar!" Chaka repeated. The other Unas lowered their clubs or dropped down to all fours, backing slowly away.
"I think we should lower our weapons, Jack," Daniel repeated, not turning around. "There's a...a reciprocity in their dealings. Quid pro quo. Look, your guns are still close at hand, and they're backing away."
There was a pause, and then, "Stand down," Jack said.
Daniel only realized when Chaka was standing directly in front of him that he was all but kneeling on the ground. "Daniel," he said, pointing to himself. Then, in the odd case the Chaka might have forgotten, he added, "Wok tah?"
Chaka snorted. "Dan'el ka wok tah," he said. "Dan'el ka nay."
"I'm not his ritual sacrifice anymore," Daniel reported over his shoulder. "Which is...good. I don't know what, uh...kel 'ka nay'?" he asked. "What is...ka nay?"
Tilting his head, Chaka bent slightly and reached a hand down to him instead of answering.
Daniel stared at it for a second, then grasped it and let himself be yanked roughly to a fully upright position. "Thank you, Chaka," he said, and then, remembering something else, he turned Chaka's hand over to find unbroken, hardened skin. "Hey, it's all healed now," he said.
"Aka," Chaka said.
"Yeah," Daniel said, letting go of Chaka's hand and reaching into his pocket to turn on his tape recorder, leaving it in his vest pocket to keep his hands free. "So...'ka nay' and 'aka.'"
Chaka gestured at SG-1 and SG-11. "Dan'el ka nay," he repeated, then turned and swept his arm to include himself and all the Unas still there. "Te Unas ka nay."
"I think te is a first person singular pronoun," Daniel said. "Ka nay is a grouping of some sort." He gestured to himself and the SG personnel and said, "Human." He glanced at Teal'c but didn't mention Jaffa; simplicity seemed to be the best way to go right now. "Human."
"'Uman?" Chaka repeated, looking over the two teams.
"Daniel 'uman ka nay?" Daniel tried. "Te 'uman ka nay?"
"Ta 'uman ka nay," Chaka confirmed. "Te Unas ka nay. 'Uman Unas ka nay."
"Daniel," Jack said.
Smiling, Daniel said, "I think ka nay is...clan, or group, or...friends. We just established that my clan is humans, his clan is the Unas, and we're all friends."
"Uh-huh," Jack said.
"Unas ka keka 'uman," Daniel said as firmly as he dared. "Ka nan."
Chaka looked over the SG teams and their weapons, perhaps more wary now that he knew they were capable of seriously injuring an Unas. "'Uman ka keka Unas," he countered.
"Daniel," Jack said.
"We said that no one's killing or eating each other," Daniel said. "Cho'ee'che?" he tried, hoping Chaka would tell them what that meant, too.
Chaka took a step toward him. Daniel leaned backward but held his place. Chaka's hands dropped onto his shoulders and started pushing downward firmly.
"Daniel," Jack said. The metallic sounds of weapons rising sounded.
"Tal bet, tal bet," Daniel said, forgetting what language he was speaking in his consternation.
"Lower your weapons," Teal'c said for him.
Daniel sank down under Chaka's insistence. "Cho'ee'che?" he said again as he knelt.
Chaka let go of him and swiped an abrupt hand at the other Unas. "A benar!" he bellowed at them, then added a loud roar for good measure. The Unas looked around at each other, then slunk back into the woods. Then he turned back and held his palms facing downward. "Cho'ee'che," he said, then sat down, folding his legs under himself.
"Oh," Daniel said, relieved. "I guess he just wanted me to sit down."
An odd growling sound came from Chaka, but while it was familiar, it wasn't the usual one Daniel remembered. He wondered if roars could be parsed into individual phonemes or if they each had some specific lexical meaning--maybe different roars meant different things. Then Daniel remembered their adventures in eating across a fire in a cage and realized what this particular sound meant. "Mmm," he said.
"Rrrr," Chaka answered.
"Daniel," Jack said.
"Stop saying my name, Jack," Daniel said, smiling at Chaka. "Does someone here have an energy bar? A chocolate one, preferably."
"You're kidding me, right?" Edwards said. "You're hungry right now?"
"Jack," Daniel said, "you listened to my recording. It's not for me. Chaka," he added while rustling sounds came from behind him, "nan?" Looking confused, Chaka leaned forward and sniffed him. "No, no. Ka. Ka nan Daniel."
To his relief, Chaka leaned back and chuckled. "Ka nan Dan'el," he scoffed.
"Jackson," someone said from behind. Daniel turned slowly and caught an energy bar as it was tossed to him.
"Mmm," Daniel said holding it up for Chaka to see, laughing when the Unas's eyes went wide. He peeled it open and handed it over. "Nan?"
"Naan," Chaka said, taking it and ripping off a chunk.
"Huh," Jack said from behind. "So when you said he ate your chocolate, you were being literal."
Daniel frowned, then stopped frowning when Chaka looked up in concern. "Is there some metaphorical interpretation of that phrase I should be aware of?"
"Not really," Jack answered. "I just thought you'd lost it by the time you said that."
"And you wonder why half the SGC thinks I'm crazy," Daniel said, stuffing the ripped piece of plastic back into his pocket.
"Who says it's just half?" Jack said absently.
There was a crinkling sound, and then Chaka held the rest of the wrapper out to him. "You remembered!" Daniel said, taking it and putting it away. "See, they're not mindless animals; they know not to litter."
But then Chaka put down the half-eaten bar, leapt to his feet, and ran back into the woods.
"Whoa," Daniel said, holding his place since no one had said yet to stand. "Uh...Chaka?"
Chaka reappeared a second later holding--
"Hey, my forceps!" Daniel said, grinning as Chaka tossed them onto the ground near where he was sitting. Chaka sat back down in front of him and finished eating the energy bar as Daniel turned around to show the others. "Look! He had a bullet in his hand, and I took it out, but I must have dropped these in the cave and he gave them back."
Edwards looked slightly constipated as he said tensely, "That's very nice."
When Chaka tossed back the last of his snack, Daniel turned back around and clasped his hands in his lap. "So," he said. "'Uman ko keka onak. Um. Unas, 'uman, ko keka onak."
Chaka looked over the SG personnel. "Unas 'uman a ka naya ko keka onak."
"A ka naya," Daniel repeated, thrilled with their progress. "Together, as a...as a group. Together, we'll kill the Goa'uld. See, Jack, see, see? We're, we...you see?"
When he turned around, Jack was looking around at the rest of the team as if for an opinion. "All right," Jack said. "I take it back--you're not nuts. How're we going to start cooperating with these fellas?"
"Uh, well..." Daniel said. "Chaka and I can communicate with about ten words, so...this could take a while. And by that, I mean...more than a few hours."
Never taking his eyes from Chaka, Jack said, "We'll stick around for another day. If we're convinced everything will go smoothly this time, we'll report the successful contact to the SGC. And then, Daniel, you'll probably come back here with SG-11 for a long-term study--with daily check-ins--while SG-1 resumes normal duties."
Daniel nodded vigorously. "Okay. Sure. Thank you. Maybe I can ask him to show us the caves."
"Fine," Jack said.
Chaka tilted his head in question. Daniel thought.
"And?" Jack said.
"I have to figure out a few words," Daniel said. "Like...'where,' and 'cave.'"
XXXXX
28 February 2001; P3X-888; 0800 hrs
Between reports, paperwork, preparations for leaving base for yet another few weeks, it was almost a week between their first friendly contact with the Unas and Daniel and SG-11's return to start their studies, but soon after that, they got an invitation to the caves.
"I have to say," Captain Lorne said as he looked around the tunnel, "I'm impressed. This looks like something I didn't read in my high school biology book."
"The Goa'uld life cycle," Daniel said, panning his camera slowly over the artwork on the wall. "The Unas understand their biology, their habitat, and the threat they pose. It's amazing."
"Now, that wasn't something your friend wrote, was it," Devon said, pointing. Daniel following his flashlight to 'DANIEL JACKSON WAS HERE,' faded but still legible.
"No," Daniel said shortly, and reached up to rub out the chalk.
"What, you don't want to record it for posterity?"
"No," he repeated. When he saw that he was getting odd, sideways looks again, he added calmly, "It's artificially introduced. It has no business being there, and our recordings should show what the Unas drew and wrote, not SGC graffiti."
"Not sure I'm comfortable trusting these Unas," Edwards said, looking warily at the Unas at the far end of the chamber.
Daniel glanced up. "Colonel, if we've been picking up their language, there's no reason to think they might not be picking up some of ours, too."
"Is this paint?" Lieutenant Stemler asked, touching something on the wall near him. "Kind of weird that it's only right here. I wonder what it's made of."
"That's human blood," Daniel said. Stemler stopped touching it. "Don't worry; I don't think I have any blood-borne diseases," he added casually as he panned the camera over to that part of the wall, just to make the man look disturbed.
One of the men muttered, "This is weirding me out."
"Chaka promised us protection," Daniel said, because it was the first time they'd been allowed into the caves and Daniel and Chaka seemed to be the only ones really happy about it. "This part of the wall describes what I think is a coming of age ritual. You don't seem to do this where you're from, but plenty of cultures on Earth do or did in the past. Abydonian hunters have to pass a ritual similar to this--they bring back game to prove they can do it."
"They should learn about cacao around here," Lorne said. "Seem to like chocolate. Cacao harvesting for their rite of passage would be better for people's health."
"From the rest of their habits, they seem carnivorous, don't they?" Daniel said, reaching for his flashlight to get a better picture of the cave drawings. "I haven't seen signs of plant cultivation."
"Yeah," Edwards said. "Okay. Weren't we going to collect more water?"
Heavy footsteps from behind made him turn around to see Chaka standing there, holding a necklace of bone in his hand and pushing it toward Daniel. "Onak," Chaka said solemnly.
"Uh...thank you," Daniel said, not taking the necklace. "But, uh...Aka. And ka. Onak...ka nok."
But Chaka made the familiar gesture of scooping water with his hand and drinking. "Onak ko keka," he said, then dropped the bone necklace over Daniel's head.
Daniel tried not to wince as the bones clanked against each other around his neck. "See," he said. "You heard us talking, didn't you. You know our word for 'water.'"
"Wa-tar," Chaka tried, then made the drinking motion again. "Nar."
"Okay," Daniel said, making sure his recorder had caught that. "Nar. Water. 'Uman ko ka cha nar."
"Chaka ko ka cha 'uman," Chaka said.
"Aka," Daniel said, then put his camera away. "Sir, Chaka says he'll come with us to the water."
"Let's go," Edwards said briskly.
As they left the caves and made their way toward the river's edge, Lieutenant Devon said teasingly, "How come Jackson gets a neck protector?"
"Chaka likes my neck the best," Daniel said, pulling the necklace off to look at it. "Are these vertebrae? They look like it." He held it up close to Stemler's back to compare. "They're too big to be human."
Edwards scowled. "That makes me feel so much better."
"Well, sir," Devon pointed out, "at least it means we're being escorted by someone who can kill animals bigger than we are."
Chaka took the necklace out of his hand and put it back on properly. "Ka," he told Daniel sternly.
...x...
"Onak," Chaka warned again when they reached the all-too-familiar river. "Onak."
"Yeah, I got that last time," Daniel said, staring at the surface. "Could I have some of those sample vials, Colonel?"
With Chaka, Colonel Edwards, and the two lieutenants standing guard, Daniel and Captain Lorne together filled as many jars as Janet and the chemists could possibly want before refilling their canteens, too. "Now we know there are parasites in here and it's not just plain water," Lorne commented, "I'm not sure I really want to drink it anymore."
"They're not like tapeworms, sir," Stemler said. "They won't sneak into your canteen."
Daniel paused in packing everything carefully away. "They'd probably fit, though," he said. "Once, Major Carter captured a larval Goa'uld from Chulak by putting it in a thermos."
Lorne turned to give him an incredulous look. "A thermos?"
"They didn't have a better container," he explained. Leaning down to look more closely at the water, he said, "I wonder if we could--"
A hand grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him away. "Ka!" Chaka growled, and added a clear, "No."
"Right, I remember," Daniel said, eyes wide. "No heads near the water." He pulled loose and scrambled away from the edge to look an angry Chaka in the eye. "Could you..." He made a motion with his hand like someone catching a flying symbiote. "Uh...wok tah," Daniel said. "I want to capture it. Ka keka onak; onak wok tah."
Chaka narrowed his eyes. "Ka," he said again. Clearly, onak weren't supposed to be wok tah.
"Maybe we can just come back sometime with fishing nets or something," Devon suggested. Daniel imagined telling Jack he had an idea for a fishing trip and decided it would be a bad idea.
Edwards lowered a gun that Daniel hadn't even seen him raise. "Well, we don't have one of those right now, so let's stick to collecting water and soil and not the wildlife."
...x...
10 March 2001; P3X-888; 2200 hrs
"Hey, where are you going, Jackson?" Edwards said when Daniel began to walk away from the main camp toward the woods one evening, near the end of their stay.
"Just over there," Daniel said, pointing to the tree line.
"Buddy rule everywhere," Edwards reminded him.
"But..." Daniel sighed. "I'll stay in sight. Could you maybe watch and not...you know...listen? Please, sir."
Edwards stared suspiciously at him, then glanced in that direction. As if remembering what was out there, he finally nodded. "You stay in view at all times," he ordered.
"Yes, sir," Daniel said, then walked quickly toward the former SG-11's graves and sat near them with his back against a tree, making sure the men could see him. "For the record," he told the graves, "I'm not really trying to talk to you. I'm just going to take notes here."
It was odd being with the others, anyway, since he still thought of Robert and Major Hawkins' team when someone said 'SG-11,' even though they hadn't been the first SG-11 or even the first to fall. He pulled out his notebook and pen and rewound his first tape of the day's work so he could start transcribing while everything was still fresh in his mind.
"You know what's ironic?" Daniel said to the mound where Robert was buried. "I always thought I was better with living people while you preferred dead societies, and now I'm talking to graves instead of the living. Not that I'm talking to..."
But he was still talking, so he shut up and waited for his tape to finish rewinding.
The tape recorder clicked to a stop. Daniel set a small stone on top of each of their graves, just to mark that someone had visited, then pushed PLAY and went to work.
He'd finished half of one tape and was nearing the end of one notebook when he realized his face was so close to the page because it was getting too dark to see. Just as he was about to turn on his flashlight, Captain Lorne's voice said from overhead, "It's getting dark. The colonel'd rather have everyone closer together until the sun rises again."
"Oh. Okay," Daniel said, stopping his own voice on the tape and replacing it in his plastic bag.
Lorne waited until he'd packed his things away and stood, heading back to camp together. "So," Lorne said. "This is an alien planet, huh."
Daniel was surprised into grinning. "With respect, Captain, you probably should have noticed that a couple of weeks ago."
"That's not what I meant," Lorne said, rolling his eyes. "It just looks so normal. Except for the"--he made a claw with his hand--"alien beasts."
"It's more immediately obvious in some places," Daniel said. "If there's a...a giant planet visible in the sky, or a few more moons than you're used to, or the climate...although, I'm told there's a wide range of climates on Earth, too. But a lot of planets were, uh...I've forgotten the word the SGC uses. It means they changed the environment artificially to make it habitable."
"Terraforming?" Lorne said.
"Uh, sure," Daniel said. "Or, possibly, the Ancients just picked planets that could already support life. Teal'c learned growing up that the Goa'uld did the...terra-forming, but since we've discovered planets like this where advanced Goa'uld have never been, and since we don't know what technology did it, that could be an example of the Goa'uld taking credit for something the Ancients did. And not everywhere is this fertile or so deserted of humans--if it were artificial, one might expect more uniformity, given the Ancients' level of technological advancement. Oh--in fact, traditionally, it's the engineering teams that take charge of mining operations, so you'll probably see Abydos at some point, which is just about the opposite of here."
Lorne raised his eyebrows. "Jesus. It's like I'm back in school."
Daniel wrinkled his nose. "Sorry. I do that sometimes."
"Nah, I don't mind the lecture. I just mind knowing that I have to know all of that at some point."
"You think that now," Daniel said, "but then a new team is assembled--"
"--and then they look stupid in comparison, huh," Lorne said.
"Oh. No, no," Daniel said, realizing his faux pas too late. "Not--it's...you absorb it as you go, that's all. You know a lot without trying by the time you've been at the SGC for just a year."
Lorne stopped just before they stepped into earshot of the rest of the team. "I don't know about the older guys, but there's speculation among the newer people that you're not really human."
Daniel coughed. "Um," he said.
"Yeah," Lorne said.
"My parents were born in Cairo and New York," he said. He almost added as an afterthought that his grandfather lived in a different phase with mist-like Aztec aliens who spoke Mayan, but decided he'd unnecessarily needled the newbies enough for a few weeks.
"Or there's something wrong with you," Lorne amended. "That's what most people are saying. Crazy lucky, crazy stupid, or crazy smart. Or all of the above. We can't figure out which, but they're not mutually exclusive, you understand."
"Uh," Daniel said, frowning. "Huh."
"Listen," Lorne said, taking advantage of his confusion. "You're always off by yourself when you can help it. Do you even know our first names? Because mine isn't Captain."
Embarrassed, Daniel had to shake his head. "Not--not...really. I know Lieutenant Devon is 'Mark.' But..."
"Well, I'm Evan," Lorne said, holding out his hand. Daniel stared at it for a moment before taking it cautiously. "I think that was our first conversation, weird as it was, so...you know. For the record, the colonel's name is Michael, but you should stick to Colonel for him."
"Yes, sir," Daniel said.
Lorne looked back over his shoulder. "I get that you probably knew them a lot better, but give us a chance, okay?"
Ashamed of what he'd been thinking at the graves just before, he said, "I didn't mean to--"
"No, s'okay. We get it. But you should at least have dinner with everyone for once."
Daniel nodded. "I really didn't mean to make it seem like I don't like you guys or anything, and to be honest, I didn't know the...your predecessors very well, either, as a whole."
"Well, I can see how the Unas are more interesting than we are, so you've got an excuse for that part of the day, but at the end of the day, you don't want to be that antisocial kid off in the corner," Lorne said. "Come on. Honorary SG-11. There are worse things."
"Yeah," Daniel agreed. "There are." He glanced back once more at the graves, then followed Captain Lorne to the fireside.
XXXXX
19 March 2001; Briefing Room, SGC; 0900 hrs
Daniel found himself relaxing into the atmosphere of being around SG-11, if not quite the idea of being one of them, and he returned to the SGC after their weeks of study with a mixture of longing for more time on the mission and eagerness to return to his own team.
He returned, however, to find SG-1 gone and the general grim.
"Mr. Jackson, you should hear this," the general said at the briefing room table with another team. "Report back here as soon as Dr. Fraiser clears you."
So Daniel and SG-11 were escorted to the infirmary for a quick Goa'uld-check and blood screen, and then he hurried back to the briefing room, where SG-2 was gathered around the table.
"P3R-118," General Hammond said once he'd taken a seat next to Major Griff, before he could ask when in the last couple of months Griff had been promoted and Majors Coburn and Pierce reassigned. "SG-1 went there approximately one week ago after the MALP and UAV showed a large area of concentrated energy among what seemed to be a world too cold to be inhabited."
"That much power means someone put it there," Daniel reasoned, "and if someone survived to build on an uninhabitable world...an artificial environment of some sort?" He knew he'd guessed right by the looks of surprised approval from two people he didn't recognize at the table. SG-2 had undergone some reorganization while he'd been away.
The general nodded once. "The people of P3R-118 built a domed city. They have what seems to be a very advanced and prosperous society, as well as technology we've never seen on Earth. The people speak a language similar to what Colonel O'Neill spoke for three months on Edora, so they were able to begin the establishment of relations and possibly start trade negotiations."
"But they never finished," Daniel guessed.
"They reported back to say they'd opened negotiations and then missed their next check-in," Griff said. "The guy in charge--his name is Calder--said Major Carter was so interested in something about the technology that Colonel O'Neill led the team too far into the snow and the storm, against Calder's warnings."
Daniel frowned, immediately suspicious. "That doesn't make any sense. Jack takes safety much more seriously than technology, and Sam wouldn't risk the team like that, not when she could just talk to the engineers in the city instead. Even if it were true, Jack and Sam would've realized they'd gone too far for their bodies to handle long before Teal'c was too weak to get back--"
"We know," Captain Freeman said. He pointed to one of the new faces. "Lieutenant Simpson's our engineer. He doesn't think there's anything Major Carter would have been so interested in. The rest of us can't find anything, either."
"And I agree about O'Neill," Griff added. "No way would he have let anyone out into that mess."
"So Calder is lying while he negotiates with us," Daniel said. "Sir--"
"We can't prove it," the general said, "and without more proof or another reason, I'm not authorized to cut off diplomatic ties with them, which is what would happen if we accused Administrator Calder of lying about our people."
A surge of indignation rose--Calder or his people were lying about the lives of SG-1, which meant the SGC didn't want diplomatic ties to them, anyway--and then fell, because Daniel knew it didn't work like that. "We can't leave them," he said, thinking furiously. "There has to be something..."
"We're just about to start planning a covert search-and-rescue operation," Griff said. "If we can find SG-1, it'll prove they were lying."
"Or if they weren't lying, they'll be happy for us that we found them," a woman added optimistically. Daniel glanced down at her jacket to see her name--Lieutenant Walker--and remembered that he'd read over her file a few weeks ago and recommended her for field team testing, after she'd spent a couple of months proving she was good at thinking on her feet in a lot of different languages.
"But we're pretty sure they're lying," Griff said. "Now--"
"Hold on," Daniel interrupted, drawing a scowl, but he'd learned years ago that Griff's scowls were relatively harmless. It was his gun one had to worry about. "They think we're still seeking a trade agreement or something, right? If they've been communicating with us and lying in an attempt to keep from antagonizing us, that means they still want something. We probably have technology or supplies to offer them."
General Hammond looked thoughtful. "I will not authorize furthering relations with them while we suspect foul play," he said, though he seemed to be thinking what Daniel was.
"But if we go in and say we're continuing SG-1's mission there," Daniel pointed out, "we'll be able to get closer and find out what really happened. Even if we sign a treaty of some sort, if we find out they signed under false pretenses or...or something like that, then surely any agreement we made with them would be rendered invalid. And," he added reluctantly, "if they're not lying, and my team really is... Well, then we still need someone to negotiate with them."
"You'd also be taking the risk that whatever may have happened to SG-1 will happen to you," the general said, but Daniel could tell he was sold and only needed the final arguments.
Griff raised his eyebrows. "Well, if they really do want diplomatic relations with us, they need to keep us unharmed and able to report home. No disrespect intended to Colonel O'Neill," he added, looking first at the general and then at Daniel, "but he might've aggravated them if he thought they were hiding something."
"Yeah," Daniel said, remembering Euronda and what Jack was capable of when he disagreed with aliens' morals. "We'll be nicer and make sure they have no reason to do anything to us."
"Besides, sir," Freeman added, "the risks of a covert search-and-rescue, after we've already been told not to try, are probably greater. If we really think they did something to SG-1, they could do the same to us if they think we're suspicious. Their world is uninhabitable; it wouldn't be hard."
General Hammond stood up. "Then I am now authorizing you to continue SG-1's work in establishing relations with the people of P3R-118," he said. "Mr. Jackson, you just got back from a long mission..."
"So it's a good thing we're not planning on initiating hostilities with them, sir," Daniel said, standing with the others and really hoping he wasn't going to be forbidden from going. "I'm not too tired, and I can talk just fine."
The general nodded. "Good. Go get geared up again."
XXXXX
19 March 2001; Domed City, P3R-118; 1200 hrs
"It's freezing," Daniel said in his rusty Edoran; Lieutenant Walker said it matched the language here well enough to communicate. "I did not realize it would be so cold."
He was shivering despite the thick coats they'd worn. The others looked cold but seemed to be faring a little better, perhaps because he had grabbed a particularly big and ill-fitting coat that made him look smaller than he was. That was fine. He was here to play the worried non-soldier, anyway. Griff on a good day wasn't any more diplomatic than Jack, but some people, at least, thought twice before hurting someone when the someone was young.
Not that they were sure SG-1 had been hurt. There were other possibilities. Like prison. Maybe Sam would pick the locks and they'd escape before anything happened.
A woman met them at the doorway, looking oddly distracted, but she smiled, if a little nervously. "I am Brenna," she said, and Daniel automatically began cataloguing away the differences in her speech to try to adapt his own better. "Please, come in and warm yourselves."
"Thank you for your hospitality," Daniel said, fiddling with his glasses and ducking and smiling gratefully in a way that he knew made him look maximally young and harmless. Brenna smiled back at him, and whatever Sam might grumble about gender roles, Daniel had no qualms with appealing to a woman and hoping she would feel motherly enough toward him to be sympathetic.
It was not, for instance, something he would try with the stiff-backed woman taking notes in the corner, or the man coming out into the main hall just now, looking professionally welcoming and not at all prone to sympathy or motherliness.
"Administrator Calder," Lieutenant Walker told Daniel quietly.
"Major Griff," Calder said, nodding to Griff, "and the SG-2. I regret to tell you that we have still been unable to find Colonel O'Neill and his team. I recommend for your own safety that you do not continue your own efforts."
"We understand," Walker said when Griff nodded to her. "We thank you for your efforts and hope that you will be willing to pursue talks with us, as you had been doing with SG-1."
Calder looked surprised for a moment, enough that Daniel began to worry the man was finding it suspicious, so he spoke up again.
"I am a friend of SG-1. Now that they are..." He paused, dredging up enough suppressed anxiety to be sure his expression was real. "Because they are...lost and your city has been so kind, General Hammond allowed me to come here with SG-2. I know Major Carter...very well, and I know she always seeks to improve technology. I did not think my friends would be so foolish as to ignore your warnings, but..." He stopped again.
He had been watching Brenna out of the corner of his eye, though, and saw how she ducked her head and then almost flinched when Sam's name had been mentioned--or was it the technology? Whatever it was, he could work on her.
Walker gave him a deliberate pat on the arm and finished, "Please understand that our sorrow for our friends is great, but we hope our worlds may prosper as allies. And this time," she added, to establish their own safety net, "we will not wander away into the unsafe parts of your world. General Hammond knows we are fully under your protection and that no harm will come to us."
The prospect of putting SG-1's so-called loss aside and continuing relations with the SGC seemed to be enough temptation, and Calder gave them another polite nod. "Of course. Please, follow me. Brenna, I believe you have business that you must attend to?"
Brenna still looked unhappy about something, but she only said, "It is an honor to serve," and began to turn away.
"Wait," Daniel said before she could leave and the rest of them follow Calder, "Brenna? Did you know my friends before they..." He gestured out the window, where they could see heavily-layered snow.
The woman hesitated and glanced at Calder. Daniel held his breath, knowing from her reactions what the answer was but hoping she wouldn't lie and force him to find another way in.
Finally, she said, "I spoke with them, a little. They toured the city with me."
With a glance toward Griff, Daniel hunched his shoulders and said, "May I speak with you?"
Calder didn't seem to think he was a threat or useful to negotiations in any way. "That would be fine," Brenna said when Calder didn't say otherwise. "There is a room this way where we can speak. I will show you the way back to your team afterward."
...x...
Brenna closed the door behind her and gave Daniel an awkward smile. "You do not need to be with SG-2 and Administrator Calder?"
Daniel shook his head. "General Hammond allowed me to return because he knew I wished to speak with someone who had last spoken to my friends."
A flash of unease crossed her face again. "I... I am afraid I did not have that honor. They were on the tour with me only briefly," she said.
But the rhythm of the words was wrong, too halting and disjointed, as if pasted together. Any lies Daniel told weren't obvious in his words--he could always excuse it as a foreigner's accent, but otherwise, a language had a music to it and her lines now sounded off-key.
Searching for some other place to prod deeper, Daniel said, "Oh. Did they seem happy?"
"They..." Brenna said. "I...suppose. J--Colonel O'Neill may have been concerned, perhaps, but...you must understand, I did not know them well."
Daniel looked down at his hands to give himself time to pull his expression back again. She'd almost called Jack...something. 'Jack,' maybe, except that Jack had become so accustomed to being called 'O'Neill' or 'Colonel O'Neill' by all aliens not named 'Daniel' that he always introduced himself as such, not even as Colonel Jack O'Neill--it simply confused people who had different naming conventions. Without Daniel on this mission, it was unlikely Brenna had ever heard Jack's first name.
Still, what did that mean? That Jack had introduced himself differently for once? That Sam had let a 'Jack' slip out, as unlikely as that was on a mission? That Brenna knew Jack--and Sam and Teal'c--better than she was saying?
But something. Something, something...
Daniel was carrying his sidearm and was fairly sure he could easily overpower Brenna and demand an answer. But it depended on how loyal she was to whatever she was hiding and on other things he couldn't tell from here: who was outside, how well they could hear, how far he would have to go, what help he could expect, and what Brenna carried under the plain bulky clothing she wore. Maybe she was a fighter, and he simply didn't know it. Maybe she hid better than he did.
New topic. Sam's name. Brenna had tensed at the mention of her and technology. "Did Major Carter ever tell you what she was trying to discover?" Daniel asked, and then allowed a small laugh. "She must have asked you so much about all the technology she saw around here. Is that what your job is in this city--you know about technology?"
"No," Brenna said, "I..." She paused, just long enough to see through the lie. "...keep records."
"Oh, really?" Daniel said, brightening. "I study records." He grinned, briefly. "You mean stories, history?"
She seemed a bit thrown by the change in mood but smiled nonetheless, relaxing now they'd stopped talking about SG-1. "No--I keep records of the people and the work that they do."
Now that would be useful. There was no way to ask for them directly, though, now that he'd established that he studied historical records.
Instead, Daniel looked out the window, where he could see the rest of the city and the snowstorm beyond. "I have read of many societies," he said admiringly. "Rarely have I heard of places like this, where all your people prosper and everything works so...so well. Efficient."
Brenna's smile became a bit strained, so Daniel pushed harder there.
"Often," he said, as if oblivious, "we find that that means the society either has very, very advanced technological abilities or--"
Oh. This was it. Even as he said it, he knew. What else would have peaked Sam's interest in technology and energy and raised Jack's ire all at once?
"--or they must use a lower class of citizens for labor, just to fill energy needs," Daniel finished, watching Brenna's smile fade. "Oh, but I am not accusing you of using slaves, of course. In truth, the first purpose of the SGC is to fight a war against a race of people who tell humans they have to serve and then use them as slaves."
"Really," Brenna said.
Nodding, Daniel said, "We are trained to fight people who would do such a thing. It is terrible, is it not? That is why we look for allies. My friends on SG-1 must have recognized that your people are good and would help us in our fight against such evil deeds."
"Enough," she said, and Daniel shut up.
He'd gotten sloppy. He could sound threatening, moving, or curious if he tried, but perhaps he'd lost the necessary subtlety when he'd tried to use them all at once. If he had moved more slowly, pushed more gently...
"Come," she said tersely.
Daniel didn't move, knowing she knew what he'd been doing.
But Brenna glanced once at the door and said quietly, "Do not pretend. We both know of what you speak, but we cannot speak here. Come." When his hand inched up toward his radio, she said, "Your companions are with the administrator."
He let his hand fall to his side. Calder couldn't know. "Is this what happened to my friends?"
She pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, "Yes. But you will be safe with me. If you stop me, you have no one to help you."
Which wasn't reassuring at all, but Brenna had seemed uneasy from the start. Even if he didn't have any reason but desperation and instinct to trust her...well. Evan Lorne had called him crazy at least two or three times in the space of a few weeks; he might as well live up to the reputation.
...x...
They stepped into another office, one without windows. "Are we beneath the surface?" Daniel asked, looking back at the stairs they had just walked down.
"Yes," Brenna said simply, and closed the door. "I will bring your friends. I would have done so even if you had not come."
Daniel's heart leapt. "They are alive?" he blurted, allowing desperation to seep through in his relief. "Here?"
She looked around nervously. "Understand," she said, "that the people here are...happy. They are happy when they can serve. Our method ensures it."
"And my friends?" Daniel pressed. "Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Teal'c? Whatever is it you have done to them, do you claim they are happy?" Brainwashing, that must be it.
Maybe Brenna was just as brainwashed by their society, or she truly believed it was all right to use slaves as long as the slaves seemed happy. But SG-1 wasn't brainwashed, surely, not in a week's time, and Brenna must have seen they weren't happy. It was impossible to pretend an unhappy slave was anything but a slave or a prisoner.
Except that wasn't it, either, not quite.
"Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter are content as they are now," Brenna said. Daniel furrowed his brow, confused--that didn't any sense. "But Teal'c is dying. I cannot watch him die."
"What did you do to him?" Daniel demanded, quietly, mindful that he had no idea how well sound penetrated these walls. "What did you do to them?"
"They were given mind stamps," she said. "It is a chemical that affects their memories. They believe they are loyal citizens called Jonah, Thera, and Tor, and are honored to serve our city. Jonah and Thera have held, but the technology barely works with Tor--Teal'c."
"So..." he said. "So. But. It can be reversed?"
Brenna nodded. "They will remember everything in time. The conditions there, the food we give them, the periodic examinations...they all enforce the stamp, but away from here, once they are reminded, they will return to normal."
"But why is Teal'c dying?" Daniel said, still not fully comprehending how and what.
"I was hoping you might know," she said. "He became weak and ill after only a few days. He does not sleep, and there is an odd wound on his stomach..."
"Kelno'reem," Daniel realized. "He needs to meditate every day to remain in health. But now," he said, unable to help a spike of anger despite the woman's good--if late--intentions, "he cannot remember that he must kelno'reem."
She looked relieved. "I will bring him immediately. Perhaps together, we can find a way for him to leave."
"No--all of them," Daniel said, dropping all traces of his previous act and standing as tall as he could. "You will bring all of my team out here."
Brenna hesitated for a moment, and Daniel wondered suddenly whether she had been mind-stamped, too. How many in this city knew about it, and how many had been chemically conditioned not to argue? "Yes," she finally said, nodding. "Stay here. I will bring them."
...x...
Continued in Part b...