Totality
By Rheanna - brian@hannabp.softnet.co.uk 

Includes:  Totality: Part I   - The Stone Dancers
           Totality: Part II  - The Keltoi
           Totality: Part III - The Horus Child 

Part I: "I know it's not a Gate. You know it's not a Gate. Anybody want 
to tell the rocks?" 

Part II: "You are not Keltoi. You are not from the village. Where are 
you from?" "Well, personally I'm from Basingstoke." 

Part III: "Can other places become home?" 

                         *******************


"Totality: Part I- The Stone Dancers"
By Rheanna - brian@hannabp.softnet.co.uk 


RATING: PG

CATEGORY: Action/adventure 

SPOILERS: A few passing references, nothing major. 

TIME FRAME: Takes place August 1999, "real time". Characters are all 
circa end of season two. 

SUMMARY: When SG-1 is sent to Cornwall to observe a British scientific 
experiment, O'Neill is more interested in the upcoming solar eclipse 
than in the task at hand. But at Totality, anything can happen...

Part I: "I know it's not a Gate. You know it's not a Gate. Anybody want 
to tell the rocks?" 

DISCLAIMER: SG-1, the Gates, SGC and the Goa'uld belong to MGM. Cornwall 
belongs to the United Kingdom, the Merry Maidens belong to whoever built 
them, and the August 11 1999 total eclipse belongs to the universe at 
large. Everything else is mine, I tell you, all mine <evil cackle> 

OTHER NOTES: Well, here it is: proof positive that I can write something 
that doesn't involve torturing Jack. Much.

The Merry Maidens are a real stone circle and, yes, the August 11 
eclipse will pass pretty much right over them.

I'm British. So are the spellings.

Email me. I love it. 


                         *******************

"We must reconcile ourselves to the stones, not the stones to us." - 
Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet

"Mehr als das Leben lieb'ich meine Freiheit." (More than life, I cherish 
freedom.) - Friedrich Schiller, German poet and playwright

                         *******************

Prologue

The night was close and hot. Those were the only constant features of 
the forest's climate. In the year there were seasons of rain and seasons 
of mist, seasons of growth and seasons of decay, but the jungle's heat 
and humidity were ever present. The air was heavy and moist. It sank 
through the tree canopy and settled over the forest floor like a sodden 
blanket.

Dicenos lay on his back at the edge of the empty circle of earth at the 
heart of the rainforest. Around him, he could hear the faint swishing of 
the lightest of breezes as it rustled the tree tops' slim branches. From 
time to time, those soothing whispers were interrupted by the piercing 
hoot of a nocturnal creature on the hunt. 

He had come here to dream and, having dreamt, sleep now eluded him. So 
he lay still, luxuriating in the warmth the ground had captured from the 
sun's rays during the day.

The Circle was his people's holy place, but the clearing would have held 
a fascination for Dicenos even if it had not been. This empty space was 
the only place outside the village where the ever-present forest canopy 
broke open, allowing an unrestricted view of the sky above. Dicenos 
stretched on the dusty earth, studying the shapes in the heavens above 
him.

The constellations offered him the reassurance of the familiar. He 
recalled learning from his father how to find and name them. That had 
been a long time ago, and his father was many seasons gone. 

Dicenos blinked and gazed up at the stars. There was the Great Oak, 
three bright stars forming the trunk, topped by a plethora of smaller, 
fainter lights which marked its branches. Its smaller twin, the Sapling, 
was by its side, as always. The River, the bright trail of stars which 
mimicking the meandering bends of the water-course on whose banks 
Dicenos' village sat, was particularly clear tonight. It flowed with 
celestial dignity through the gap between the large and small moons. And 
in the most distant corner of the sky, the Snake was visible, a hissing, 
malignant presence outlined against the blackness beyond.

See the Snake, touch the Stones.

That was the rhyme the village children sang to one another; it had not 
altered since Dicenos had been a boy. He was far too old for such 
childish games, and yet...

He reached out a hand in the darkness, and found the base of the nearest 
Stone. The rock was cool and smooth beneath his fingertips, reassuringly 
protective. There were nineteen Stones in all, outlining the circle at 
the edge of which Dicenos lay. The Stones were the tribe's protectors, 
their sentinels. The means by which they had escaped danger once, and 
perhaps the means by which they would escape it again.

That was why he could not go back to sleep. He had come here to ask for 
answers from the Stones and in their generosity they had responded 
through his dreams. Dicenos withdrew his hand and shivered, in spite of 
the heat.

Cerian had objected strongly when he had informed the council of his 
intended expedition. He was no longer, she had reminded him, a young 
warrior, and could not hope to out-run or fend off any of the many local 
carnivores he might encounter. But he had insisted and eventually, 
because he was the tribe's leader, she and the other members of the 
council had relented. He knew, however, that the village would enjoy 
little rest this night until he returned safely to them. 

It was a risk, Cerian had said, and he was too old and too valued to 
take such risks. She would want to know when he returned if the risk had 
been worth it, if the Stones had spoken.

He must consider what he would tell her.

He would tell her that yes, they had spoken: that was the truth. But the 
question then became, how much to share. How much to reveal.

The Stones had spoken. They had showed him images. Some he understood, 
some he did not. He had seen another stone circle, standing in a 
summer's field of gently rippling grasses. He had seen the sun blacken 
and hide its face in the middle of the day. He had seen strangers 
arrive, out of the forest. 

All of this, he decided, he would tell. 

But then there were the dreams he would not tell. The ones in which the 
village burnt. The ones in which the child-which-was-not descended from 
above the tree-canopy, with the lust for death glittering in its beady 
bird's eyes. And then the final dream, from which he had woken with the 
conviction that the council would soon need another leader. 

No, it would not be wise to share those details with Cerian. Or anyone 
else, for that matter.

He blinked and sat up. He would not sleep again tonight, and he had 
learnt all that he needed to know. He would not disturb the Stones 
further.

Dicenos got to his feet, massaging the feeling back into his sore, old 
limbs. As he left the Circle, he looked upwards one final time. The two 
moons, one nearly full, one a thin crescent, looked back down at him. He 
nodded, acknowledging the sky's benevolent gaze.

Then he slipped through the dense green wall surrounding the Circle, and 
back into the forest. 

                         *******************

Part I
The Stone Dancers

One

Credenhill, near Hereford, in England

Monday August 9, 1999

Outside the window of the Brigadier's office, the evening was rainy and 
still, the sun's light hazy and indistinct as the yellow star sank out 
of view behind the English countryside's gentle, rolling hills. An empty 
cup, rimmed at the bottom with the faintest residue of the long since 
drunk tea it had contained, sat on the desk, next to a plate spread with 
biscuits, untouched on top of the paper doily on which the Brigadier's 
secretary had presented them, along with the brigadier's apologies. 
Chocolate digestives, custard creams, jaffa cakes. 

The cupboard set into the wall opposite the desk had been opened, 
revealing the small television inside. The sound was low, but the voices 
distinct in the otherwise quiet air.

"...the Prime Minister will make a live broadcast to the nation this 
evening to appeal for the mass influx of people into Cornwall to cease. 
It is estimated that in the past seven days more than two and a half 
million eclipse watchers have flooded into the region, placing an 
intolerable strain on basic and emergency services. The Prime Minister 
is expected to announce that from midnight tonight, all routes into 
Cornwall will be blockaded. However, it is unlikely that the most 
determined visitors will be dissuaded from missing a celestial show 
which will not be repeated in the United Kingdom until the end of the 
next century. 

"Other news: in Northern Ireland, the peace process today looked more 
fragile than ever as..."

"Aha." The door opened and the Brigadier strode into the study, removing 
his hat and jacket and hanging them with a swift, neat movement over an 
empty peg on the wooden stand by the bookshelf. "Major Caliburn. I 
apologise for my tardiness. The traffic on the road up from London was 
appalling. It feels as if the entire south of the country has ground to 
a standstill." He glanced at the open cupboard, the television within. 
"I'm glad to see you've had the initiative to make yourself at home. I 
hope you haven't been waiting long."

Rhys Caliburn lifted the television remote and pressed the off button, 
reducing the face of the pretty newsreader to a tiny white dot in the 
centre of the screen. He pushed the cupboard doors together, hiding the 
television behind two flush panels of evenly grained walnut. Credenhill 
had been an RAF station before the Special Air Services had adopted it 
as headquarters and the oldest parts of the property retained the 
atmosphere of a well-maintained country retreat. 

"I was held up on the drive here myself, sir," he said. Caliburn's Welsh 
lilt had softened in the years since he had left his home, but it had 
not vanished. The accent travelled with him, a mark of his origins which 
he carried wherever he went. It served to remind him that no matter how 
far he travelled, there was still a place where he belonged. Although he 
had not been back there for a long time, and sometimes he wondered if he 
still did. "It's quite all right."

The Brigadier nodded in acknowledgement and sat, indicating that Rhys 
should take the chair opposite. He waited for the younger man to settle, 
fingering the manila folder which he had brought with him from London. 
"Major Caliburn..." he began, and paused, steepling his fingers together 
in front of his face. 

Rhys waited patiently.

"This eclipse is going to be quite something," the Brigadier remarked.

Caliburn's left eyebrow twitched. Whatever else he had expected, casual 
chit-chat had not been high on the list of possibilities.

"Yes, sir," he agreed. "Although I'm no astronomer myself."

The Brigadier smiled wryly. "I think you'll find that not many of those 
two million odd people down in Cornwall at the minute are either, Major. 
Occasions like this... have a certain intrinsic sense of import. It 
draws the crowds."

"Yes, sir."

The Brigadier paused again, then appeared to rouse himself, opening the 
file in front of him and flipping through it quickly. "Your patrol- 
Sheldrick, Hart, Doyle- have they enjoyed their leave?"

"The men always enjoy some downtime but... they're ready to get back 
into action, sir," said Rhys carefully. Added to himself, and so am I.

"Good. That's good." Another pause, longer this time. The Brigadier 
appeared to be in the throes of some internal debate. Rhys frowned. What 
was this about? "Major, I have been placed in a position with which I am 
not altogether happy."

Caliburn waited. He had reported to the Brigadier on a face to face 
basis for more than eight years, and had heard much about the man before 
that. In all that time, Rhys had never known him to criticise orders 
from further up in the army's hierarchy in front of men under his 
command, had never even heard rumours of it from others. He sensed that 
he was witnessing something which was, in its own small way, as 
momentous as the approaching eclipse. He wondered what had been 
discussed at that meeting which had delayed his CO.

"The Ministry," continued the Brigadier shortly, "in spite of much good 
advice to the contrary, has decided to proceed with a series of... 
tests. They are to take place in Cornwall. During the totality of the 
eclipse."

Unsure how else to react, Rhys nodded. 

"Apparently, the research team has been preparing for Wednesday's 
eclipse for quite some time. However it has only become apparent in 
recent weeks that the level of public interest is even higher than 
anticipated." He spread his hands: "I am told that Cornwall's water and 
sewage system is capable of bearing the needs of two million people. 
There are half as many again there right now. You are probably aware 
that the Third Division has already been deployed to help the regional 
police and emergency services."

"I had heard something to that effect."

"Then you will appreciate that this is not the ideal time to carry out 
classified testing. Yet the decision has been taken to proceed. And I 
have been asked to lend a patrol to the project for the duration. Your 
patrol."

"May I speak freely, sir?"

"Of course."

Rhys spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "While I appreciate the 
need for a military presence, I don't see the necessity of involving the 
SAS when the Third is already on the ground. Cornwall isn't enemy 
territory."

"Perhaps I should clarify the situation. The Ministry has not only 
requested your presence during the tests: they also want your 
participation."

Participation. There was something about the tone in which the Brigadier 
ended the sentence which made Rhys feel distinctly uneasy. "May I 
enquire as to the nature of the tests, sir?"

"You may enquire," said the Brigadier stiffly, and Caliburn realised 
that he had stumbled on the heart of the matter: "But I may not respond. 
The full briefing is to be held when you arrive on site. After you've 
met the Americans." 

"The Americans?" 

"A team from NORAD. They are coming to observe the tests." He glanced at 
the clock on the wall. "In fact, they should be en route by now. They're 
due to land at RAF Lyneham in the early hours of tomorrow morning. You 
will rendezvous with them there and accompany them to the site. Jane 
will make sure you have an itinerary before you leave."

Something told Rhys that the 'you' being addressed was singular. "And my 
men?"

"Separate arrangements have been made for them." The Brigadier spoke 
sharply, then caught himself. "My apologies, Major Caliburn. I have... 
reservations about this situation. I do not like men under my command 
being placed entirely at the disposal of civilian authorities. I do not 
like this... external interference, even from the Americans. Especially 
from the Americans. I do not like issuing orders in an information 
vacuum."

"Then may I suggest that you don't issue them?" Rhys sat back in the 
chair, forced himself to appear to relax. "Brigadier, I would like to 
volunteer myself and my patrol for the assignment under discussion." 

The Brigadier hesitated, then nodded. "So noted." Abruptly, he stood up, 
pushing down on the edge of the wide oak desk as he did so. "You would 
be well advised to brief your patrol this evening, Major. Your schedule 
as of tomorrow morning is tight."

"Very well, sir."

"Dismissed."

Caliburn turned to go, then stopped at the sound of the voice behind 
him: "Tell them..."

He looked back.

"Tell them the mission involves reconnaissance."

Rhys nodded. "Yes, sir."

Reconnaissance? In Cornwall? In the middle of an eclipse?

What the hell did I just sign us up for?

                         *******************

Two

"Black in the corner pocket. Off both cushions."

Andy Sheldrick screwed green chalk into the tip of his cue, pretending 
not to look in Hart's direction as he did so. In the corner of the games 
room, a television set blared out edited highlights of Newcastle versus 
Chelsea in the Premier League. The soccer match was reaching its 
decisive moments and Andy, whose lifelong commitment to Queen and 
country was rivalled only by a similar lifelong passion for Newcastle 
United Football Club, tried not to let it spoil his concentration.

Sergeant Derek Hart shook his head smugly. "Not possible, mate. Angles 
are all wrong."

Sheldrick made a derisory noise at the back of his throat. "Lad, I was 
playing pool in the pubs of Tyne and Wear when you were yelling to have 
your nappy changed. Stand back and watch a master at work."

Stepping back from the pool table, he leaned over, tensing his left hand 
so that the cue rested in the bony hollow between his knuckles. The age 
difference between himself and the two youngest members of the patrol 
was not nearly as extreme as the many running jokes concerning it. True, 
Sheldrick was older than the rest of his patrol- and looked it too, he 
thought ruefully- but he wasn't ready to collect his pension yet. In the 
meantime, Andy had no aversion to making the case for maturity and 
experience on a regular basis.

On the telly, Burt passed to Ferguson, who moved neatly in past 
Chelsea's defensive formation. Determinedly, Sheldrick focused on the 
table. Played the predictions game. Newcastle will equalise, and I am 
going to pot this bloody black and wipe that smug grin off his face.

He pulled the cue back, eased it forward, pulled back again. Nice and 
easy. Ferguson had passed to Shearer, who was nearing the goal mouth. 
Andy relaxed his shoulder muscles, kept the hands rigid, pictured the 
white ball sliding forward, bouncing off the green baize, hitting the 
black... He breathed out. 

Thunk.

The white ball exploded from the tip of the cue, ricocheting off the 
cushion towards the black. On the screen, Shearer made a strike for the 
goal. The match commentator was breathless and gushing. Sergeant Hart 
was standing back, holding a can of lager, one eyebrow raised.

The white ball hit the black, which rolled in the exact direction of the 
pocket... then slowed, and stopped precisely on its lip, teetering 
without falling. At the same time, Shearer's kick sent the football 
squarely into the goalkeeper's arms. Seventy nine minutes played, and 
Newcastle were still one-nil down.

"Not your night," observed Hart with a grin, stepping forward and 
administering the simple tap required to knock the black into its final 
resting place and take the game. 

"Shut up," Andy told him, but without rancour. "That's still three-two 
to me." 

"Now there's a coincidence," noted Corporal Doyle from his position on 
the elderly, shapeless sofa at the far side of the room: "It was three-
two to Chelsea as well."

Hart grinned and lifted his can to Doyle in a mock salute. Sheldrick 
threw his cue down on to the table in disgust. "Oh, thank you. Thank you 
very bloody much, Doyle. Do I creep round in the middle of the night and 
fill out your crosswords for you? No. So is it too much to ask that I 
might possibly, once every so often, get to see the highlights without 
you spoiling it completely?"

Doyle did not raise his head from his book, but a faint smile tugged at 
the corners of his mouth as he bent his long legs so that his feet no 
longer jutted out over the far end of the couch. Andy wondered if the 
Corporal ever got fed up with living a world designed for short people. 
No bed or bath was ever quite big enough to accommodate his lanky frame, 
and Sheldrick was by now accustomed to waking in the morning to find him 
fast asleep on the floor next to whatever insufficiently long bed he had 
been assigned. 

At twenty eight, the Corporal was the youngest member of the patrol, and 
although he had over ten years' experience, he still had the appearance 
of a gangly adolescent. He spent a lot of time off duty in the weights 
room trying, Andy supposed, to acquire a more impressive physique. It 
wasn't necessary: Doyle could walk eight miles wearing a full pack in 
less time than most of his colleagues took to run the distance. 
Sheldrick had been astonished by, and grateful for, his endurance on 
more than one occasion. 

Doyle turned the page and settled back into his book. From where he was 
standing, Sheldrick could just make out the bright colours of what 
looked like a map inserted into the text.

"Whatcha reading, Doyle?"

Doyle folded the book shut, marking his place in it with a thumb, and 
held it up so that the front cover was clearly visible. It was, Andy 
saw, yet another of Doyle's seemingly endless supply of books on travel. 
This one was called Italian Journeys. Andy grinned indulgently. 
"Planning your next leave?"

"I'm not due any until October."

"You could get there sooner if you could persuade someone in the 
government to declare war on Italy," suggested Hart. 

Doyle's head vanished as he sank lower into the sofa's cushions, 
returning to his book. Sheldrick grinned at Hart and dug another twenty 
pence piece out of his pocket and stuck it into the slot at the side of 
the pool table, watching as the red and yellow balls rolled down the 
chute which was visible through the glass panel in the table's side. 
"Rematch," he challenged.

"Evening, gentlemen."

Andy looked up, saw the Major standing in the Rec Room doorway, and 
responded automatically, stiffening into a pose which, despite the 
generous amount of alcohol in his bloodstream, was a fair approximation 
of attention. On the other side of the table, Sergeant Hart was doing 
much the same thing, while the squeaking of ancient springs from the 
battered sofa behind him testified to Corporal Doyle's reaction.

"God, you lot would make my old drill Sergeant weep." The humour in 
Caliburn's Welsh lilt was unmistakable. "But at this time of the 
evening, I should be grateful you're all capable of achieving the 
vertical. At ease. Good night, I take it?"

Sheldrick grinned. "Yes, sir. We were sorry you couldn't join us."

"So was I, but there was a reason. I've just seen the Brigadier. We're 
back on active, as of tomorrow morning."

"About bloody time," growled Hart.

"Don't get too excited, Sergeant. You haven't heard where we're going 
yet."

Hart rolled his eyes. "Oh God. Not the desert again." With ginger hair 
and skin as pale as the white of a fried egg, Hart baked in the sun. He 
had been hospitalised with sunstroke in the Gulf, and had never lived it 
down. His face flushed red within hours of exposure, then burnt, and the 
rash of freckles scattered liberally across his nose and cheeks glowed 
lividly for months after the initial damage healed, making him look like 
a naughty schoolboy. The slight chubbiness which persisted around his 
face did nothing to dispel the impression. "Babyface" was among the 
gentler nicknames Hart had earned during his time in the patrol; to his 
credit he bore the constant stream of good-natured abuse with stoicism.

Caliburn almost smiled. "Nothing like it. We're going exploring... in 
Cornwall."

Andy blinked. "Sir?"

"A civilian science team wants to borrow a patrol for a week, and we're 
the lucky guinea pigs."

"Guinea pigs for what, sir?" asked Doyle from the sofa.

Caliburn's expression flickered, the easy manner returning within the 
briefest of moments, but Sheldrick caught the interlude and exchanged a 
look with Hart. "The details haven't come through yet. We'll be briefed 
when we get there." He paused. "You should also be aware... the Yanks 
are sending over a military team to observe. The Brig wants us to liaise 
with them. So it's best behaviour and no farting at meals, Sergeant."

Hart feigned innocence. "Me, sir? Surely not, sir?"

The Major smiled, then nodded briskly. "You're going straight to the 
site in Cornwall to meet the scientists. I'll meet you there after I 
collect the Yanks from Lyneham. Be ready to move out at 0600 tomorrow. 
Goodnight, gentlemen."

Hart waited until he had gone before relaxing his posture, slumping 
against the edge of the pool table. He looked at Sheldrick and Doyle. 
"You know what this is?" he said: "Bloody babysitting scientists and 
Americans." 

Doyle was wearing a puzzled expression. "There's going to be an 
eclipse," he remarked softly, almost to himself. "How do you observe 
anything in the dark?"

                         *******************

Three

Tuesday August 10

On any other day, Rhys would have allowed no more than two hours for the 
drive from Credenhill to RAF Lyneham, but the previous evening's news, 
with its reports of gridlock as far north as Bath, convinced him to set 
off even earlier than he had planned. He was awake and in the shower at 
twelve minutes past five, rubbing the shampoo in his palms into a 
generous lather on his scalp. He rinsed himself off and padded back into 
the bedroom of his quarters, dripping as he went. The room was tidy, 
even spartan. Rhys had been based at Credenhill for nearly six months, 
but somehow he never seemed to find the time to personalise his 
surroundings. It didn't seem worth the effort. These quarters were not 
home.

Once dry, he retrieved a clean uniform from the wardrobe and dressed: 
underwear, trousers, then finally the shirt, which he buttoned up over 
the small cross-shaped mark which stood out like a brand on his lower 
abdomen. More than one person had taken it to be the scar of an old 
wound incurred in conflict, but the truth was more mundane: the 
birthmark ran in the Caliburn family with the same persistence as the 
waves of dark hair Rhys had inherited from his mother's side. His 
paternal grandmother had claimed the mark was proof that the family 
carried Druid blood. Rhys had his doubts about that, but it made for 
interesting pillow-talk.

He was driving through Hereford as the first grey light of dawn began to 
suffuse the eastern horizon, listening to Today on Radio Four for 
company. At the 6.30 timecheck, he glanced at his watch. Sheldrick, Hart 
and Doyle should be taking off about now; the Americans should be 
landing. 

Although there were undoubtedly more vehicles travelling south than 
would have been normal, it was sufficiently early in the morning that he 
experienced no delays on the way to Lyneham. He arrived shortly before 
eight o'clock, and by a quarter past eight he was standing outside the 
open door of the barracks canteen, having been directed there by the 
duty Sergeant when he had enquired after the Americans. "What do they 
look like?" Caliburn had asked. 

The Sergeant had grinned. "I don't think you'll have any trouble picking 
them out, sir."

He had been right about that. The mess hall was empty, the base's 
permanent residents having been and gone before the visitors had 
arrived. But even if the hall had been packed, Rhys doubted he would 
have had difficulty locating his charges. They were attacking the 
breakfast which had been provided with varying degrees of enthusiasm, 
and a conversation was in full flow. Odd vowel sounds rang out across 
the canteen, jarring with the gentle burr of the kitchen staff in the 
background. No one had yet noticed his presence, and Rhys hung back for 
a moment, curious. 

"Frome. Shepton Mallet. Thruxton Grately." The speaker, a lean man 
somewhere in his forties, was holding down a map with one hand while 
spearing food on to the tines of his fork with the other. The haircut 
and the bearing said military, although he had rolled up the sleeves of 
his shirt and slung his uniform jacket over the back of his chair with 
something less than military precision. "Are these places or diseases?" 
Rhys squinted at the jacket and recognised the wings of a USAF Colonel 
on the sleeve. 

"How can you face that at this time of the morning?"

The younger man across the table, dressed in unmarked fatigues, was 
spreading margarine thinly on a slice of brown toast and eyeing the 
contents of the plate opposite him with unease. 

"How can you survive until lunch on that?" The Colonel gestured with the 
fork. "It was this or cereal. The choice was pretty limited. No bagels, 
no pancakes, no hash browns... although the sausage kinda makes up for 
it. This is damn good sausage. Teal'c, try some."

"Don't do it, Teal'c. You'll get cholesterol poisoning and Junior will 
die."

They were both addressing the third man at the table. Rhys had been 
studying him curiously for some time already. A black man with a 
powerful physique, he might have stepped straight out of a US Marines 
recruitment campaign. But, like his younger companion, his uniform was 
unmarked. Bizarrely, he was wearing a black, close-fitting hat pulled 
down so low on his forehead that it almost hid his eyebrows.

Teal'c was regarding the lump on the end of the proffered fork with deep 
suspicion. "What is this, O'Neill?"

At this, the fourth member of the party, an attractive blonde woman, 
looked up from her grapefruit with a smile which suggested this kind of 
bizarre interchange was not uncommon. She was wearing her jacket, the 
double bars of a Captain in plain view. "Word to the wise, Teal'c: if 
you're going to eat that, you probably don't want to know what's in it. 
Or how it's made."

This appeared to sway the odd Mr Teal'c. "Thank you, O'Neill, but my..." 
he paused, as if the word was unfamiliar: "...cereal is sufficient."

Rhys shook his head in disbelief. Who were these people? Californians?

O'Neill pointed the fork, and the lump of sausage meat, at the Captain 
in what seemed to be mock irritation. "Oh, thank you, Carter. Spoil my 
continuing efforts at cultural acclimatisation, why don't you."

The response which the Captain opened her mouth to make was drowned out 
by a sudden explosion of violent sneezing from the young man. Dropping 
his toast, he turned his head away from the table and buried his mouth 
and nose in a wad of paper tissues. "Sorry," he said when the fit had 
passed: "Travel allergy." He rolled the used tissues into a bundle and 
began to cast about for a fresh supply.

The Captain produced a small packet of travel handkerchiefs from 
somewhere on her person and handed it to the young man, while the 
Colonel shook his head sceptically. "How can you be allergic to travel? 
Pollen, dogs- those are things people are allergic to. But travelling?"

"I'm not allergic to travel per se. Travelling aggravates all my other 
allergies-" Abruptly, he started sneezing once more.

"Danny, you spend your whole life travelling."

The sneezing was almost under control again. "All the more reason not to 
have to make long-haul plane trips at ten minutes' notice," he 
complained. "And I still haven't heard a good explanation why we're 
here." 

"We are here, Daniel, to enjoy an all expenses paid vacation on good ol' 
Uncle Sam."

Carter looked at O'Neill wryly. "Strange, that wasn't what I heard the 
General say at the briefing. As I recall, what he said was, liaise with 
the British and..."

"...And ascertain whether the monument could conceivably function as a 
Gate," completed the Colonel, "the answer to which depends on three 
simple questions. Is it made of Naquada? No. Does it glow blue and 
wobble in the middle? No. Is it inscribed with those neat hieroglyphs 
Danny here gets so excited about? No. Is it therefore a Stargate? No. 
The prosecution rests its case, and SG-1 gets a few days of leisure and 
a ringside seat for the best celestial show since Hale-Bopp."

Rhys stepped forward, covering the distance to the Americans' table in a 
few strides. "The general opinion is that the eclipse will be a good 
deal more impressive than the comet," he said mildly, and gave a smart 
salute. "Major Rhys Caliburn. Welcome to England, sir."

Instantly, O'Neill was on his feet, returning the salute, Captain Carter 
only slightly slower off the mark. Mr Teal'c stood and inclined his head 
in what was clearly a gesture of respect, and Daniel wiped his fingers 
on a bundle of clean tissues before offering a hand to be shaken. Rhys 
passed on that.

"A pleasure to be here, Major. I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill." O'Neill 
indicated the other observers in turn: "This Captain Doctor Samantha 
Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Mr Teal'c."

No rank for Jackson, noted Rhys, which did not surprise him: the haircut 
alone (well, lack of it) was enough to convince him that the young man 
was not military. As for Mr Teal'c, who looked and acted like a soldier 
but who had neither a TITLE nor, apparently, a Christian name... that 
one he couldn't figure just yet. 

Rhys looked to the table, where a forlorn lump of sausage lay spiked on 
the end of a fork, and a limp slice of toast sagged off the side of Dr 
Jackson's plate. "Please don't allow me to interrupt your breakfast. I'm 
going to make sure the helicopter is being made ready to take us down to 
Penzance. We'll be on our way within the hour."

"Cool," said O'Neill. Rhys looked at him. Cool was not a word he 
expected the nearly middle-aged to use with such an obvious lack of 
self-consciousness. 

"I expect so," he agreed, and began to make his way back to the canteen 
door, noting in the periphery of his vision as he did so that while 
Carter, Jackson and Mr Teal'c had resumed their places at the table, 
O'Neill was walking behind him. 

Caliburn stopped, turned around abruptly. "And if it is a Stargate?" he 
asked. Not sure why he said it. Not sure what reaction he would get.

The Colonel looked at him, his face suddenly cautious and closed. "Isn't 
that your decision, Major? We're just here to... observe."

Rhys nodded, and left. As he exited the canteen, he was dimly aware that 
O'Neill was standing in the doorway, watching him go, and he wondered 
which of them had given away more in that last exchange.

* * *

"Can you believe the Air Force signs off on his pay cheques?" Jack 
gestured with amused theatricality in the direction of Daniel as the 
archaeologist retched into a long, thin paper bag. "How embarrassing is 
that?"

The helicopter bounced and rocked in what the pilot had called "some 
small degree of turbulence". Either that had been conclusive evidence of 
the famous British predilection for understatement, or the guy had just 
been plain wrong. Jack was currently trying to decide which. 

Carter patted Daniel sympathetically on the shoulder with one hand, 
while relieving him of the sick-bag with the other. "This is worse than 
the plane," he said, shutting his eyes and tipping his head back against 
the green painted metal of the Chinook's interior wall. "Are we nearly 
there yet?" He sounded, thought Jack, like a kid in the back seat of the 
car on a long vacation drive.

O'Neill checked his watch. "Another thirty minutes should do it."

"Oh God."

Taking pity on him, Jack unstrapped himself, got up and walked- or, more 
accurately, hopped and swayed- across the pitching floor to sit beside 
the archaeologist. "Try looking out the window. It'll help."

"No it won't."

"Carter, tell him."

"Motion sickness can be alleviated by focusing on something steady in 
the distance. The ground will work as well as anything, Daniel. And it's 
quite a sight."

One eye opened, warily. Then Daniel manoeuvred himself around under the 
webbing which held him in position, craning his neck to look out of the 
one of the helicopter's small porthole-type windows.

Below them, Cornwall sped past, the rolling green countryside punctuated 
by rivers and the occasional small lake, glinting in the morning sun. 
O'Neill, who had seen parts of pretty much everywhere on the face of the 
planet from the air, was nevertheless struck by how organised the 
patchwork of fields was, how compact the land, how tidy. His first 
training flights had been made in the wide open skies above the 
Midwest's endless, sprawling prairies, where towns were tenuously linked 
by thin, meandering roads like pearls on a fine gold chain. Here, the 
towns and villages were squashed together, tessellated up against each 
other in order to make the best use of the severely limited space 
available. And the names on the map- St Austell, Truro, Redruth, 
Camborne: they were old names, spoken and refined by the tongues of a 
hundred generations. This was an old land, with a heritage which spanned 
not hundreds of years but thousands.

No wonder the damn Brits had such a superiority complex.

"It's like Woodstock three down there," said Daniel, temporarily 
distracted from his nausea. 

"Yeah," agreed O'Neill, "except with more mud and longer lines for the 
john."

Carter unhooked her belt and lurched across the aisle to join them; 
after a moment Teal'c followed her. 

"The radio said two and half million people," she remarked, gazing at 
the fields filled with brightly coloured tents. The roads between them 
were jammed with cars and caravans like coloured candies arranged by a 
meticulous child. The overall effect was as if someone had lifted the 
whole island by the Scottish end, and allowed the bulk of the population 
to slide southwards. "God, it must be standing room only."

There was a click and a hiss from the front of the cabin and the hatch 
to the Chinook's cockpit swung open. Caliburn's face, almost completely 
obscured by helmet, headset and goggles, appeared around its edge. 
"Landing in ten. Time to strap in, please." He was speaking loudly and 
distinctly in order to make himself heard over the roar of wind at his 
back.

O'Neill nodded to show he had understood, thinking that the Major 
sounded like one of the better varieties of British nanny, polite but 
implacable. He crossed the aisle to return to his seat, watched Daniel 
struggle through the one hundred and eighty degree turn away from the 
window, twisting his straps. Carter reached over to free him, catching 
O'Neill's gaze as she did so. Her eyes flicked to the now-closed hatch 
where the Welsh Major had been standing. "Sir?"

Jack shook his head. "Tell you later." Hoped he wouldn't have to. Hoped 
he had misread the other man. Doubted it.

The big, twin-bladed Chinook began its descent towards Penzance.

* * *

Whupwhupwhup

Whup-whup-whuppa-whup-ahh

Lieutenant Andy Sheldrick watched the heavy blades mounted on the 
Chinook's front rotor beat the air with a steadily slowing rhythm, and 
the force five hurricane pushing him backwards so hard that he was 
leaning into it at an acute angle just to stay on his feet eased to 
nothing more than a steady gale. By the time the front doors opened and 
Caliburn hopped down onto the grass, the wind tousling Sheldrick's hair 
was little more than a light breeze.

A few seconds later, the aft hatch slid backwards and the Americans 
appeared. Sheldrick glanced sideways at Sergeant Hart. "Bloody hell," 
whispered the Sergeant out of the corner of his mouth, "Talk about your 
mixed bag."

The Major approached, and Sheldrick fired off a rapid salute, which was 
accepted with a polite nod of acknowledgement. The Americans gathered 
behind him; one of them, a shaggy-haired man about Hart's age, was 
wobbling slightly on his feet and had a greenish tinge to his 
complexion. "Smooth flight?" enquired Andy.

Caliburn shot him a look which clearly said, play nicely. 

"A little bumpy in places," said the Major. He turned to the man now 
standing at his side: "Colonel O'Neill, this is my patrol- Lieutenant 
Andrew Sheldrick, Sergeant Derek Hart, Corporal Craig Doyle." 

"It's a pleasure," said the Colonel easily, and introduced his people. 
Within moments, Andy found himself shaking hands with each of the 
observers in turn. Jackson's grip was clammy, that of Captain Carter 
cool and firm, and when he got to the unusually named Mr Teal'c... 

Sheldrick stood, one hand hovering in empty air, feeling foolish. He 
looked up at the right moment to catch the Colonel waggling his eyebrows 
meaningfully first at the man at his side, then Andy's hand. Sheldrick 
shook hands with Teal'c, and winced. 

O'Neill clapped his hands together and rubbed them against each other in 
a gesture of exaggerated anticipation. "So what's the plan?"

Andy pointed in the direction of a sloping path of trampled grass which 
led up the field in which the helicopter had landed, towards the next 
meadow. At the crest of the hill, a low white canvas dome was visible as 
it flapped in the light breeze. "We were asked to escort you to the site 
as soon as you arrived, sirs."

"Lead on," said O'Neill, and they threaded their way in single file 
through the long summer grasses.

                         *******************

Four

The first thing O'Neill said once inside the tent was: "God. It's 
Stonehenge for munchkins."

There were nineteen stones in all, and none was taller than himself. 
They were arranged in what appeared to be a fairly accurate circle, 
although there was a gap at the eastern side of the ring. Whether this 
was an intentional feature, an entrance of some sort, or whether a stone 
had been removed at some point in the distant past was impossible to 
tell. 

Jack had never really understood the appeal of ancient monuments, even 
before his life had twisted in a direction which frequently involved 
being chased or shot at while running around some particularly fine 
examples of them. Stars and planets which kept perfect geometry under 
the inexorable influence of unseen forces impressed him; rocks which sat 
in imperfect geometry, and only then because someone had spent a hell of 
a lot more time than was psychologically healthy putting them there, did 
not. He could just about see how, on a misty morning, or in the warm 
glow of the evening sun, these nineteen flawed and weathered obelisks 
could adopt a certain mien of mystery. However, under the roof of the 
canvas marquee above them, and with tarpaulin sheets spread around and 
between them, the stones simply looked mundane. They were just rocks, he 
thought, not worthy of all this hoopla.

And for half a century people had thought the Stargate was just a stone 
circle, too.

Now where had that unwelcome thought sprung from?

"What's all the equipment for?" asked Hart, staring at the variety of 
instruments and computers which were clipped on, taped to, sitting on 
top of, and, in one instance, jutting out of the stones. "It's just a 
load of rocks."

"Quiet!" The injunction was hissed with conviction: "They'll hear you 
and be offended."

O'Neill turned to see an impossibly tall man with impossibly wild white 
hair bounding towards them across the plastic sheeting. The Geiger 
counter in Jack's head, sensitive to eccentrics, began to click loudly. 
The guy was wearing a bow tie, for crying out loud. 

"Who will?" asked Daniel. 

Well done, Danny. Encourage him.

"The Maidens." The man gestured expansively around the stones. "Or 
possibly the Men. I haven't managed to ascertain the gender for certain 
yet."

"So," said Jack slowly, "there are... boy rocks and girl rocks?"

The man tut-tutted disdainfully. "No, not in general. But these 
stones... they are known locally as the Merry Maidens. Or sometimes as 
the Dawn's Men. Hence the confusion. However, the latter name is a 
corruption of the Cornish phrase Dans Maen, meaning, Stone Dancers. So, 
as maidens may be dancers, but men may not be maidens, I suppose I've 
answered the question. Professor Irvine Yarrow."

He blinked, smiled, and Jack had the sudden impression that he had known 
where his ramblings were heading all along. O'Neill took the offered 
hand, performed yet another round of introductions, then waited while 
Caliburn went through the same rigmarole. The Major was looking round 
himself with curiosity and, so far as Jack could tell, a complete lack 
of understanding. O'Neill watched him closely, suspicions hardening into 
certainties.

"Perhaps you could begin by outlining the exact nature of your work to 
date," said Carter.

Go, girl.

Yarrow positively beamed. "Most certainly. I'd be delighted to give you 
a complete history. It has been- "

"Professor, our American guests have been travelling through the night. 
I'm sure they would benefit from being shown to their accommodation 
before we drown them in technical detail."

The individual who had appeared at the Professor's elbow was an edgy, 
bird-like man whose skinny frame was disguised by a well-cut suit. Far 
too well cut for his current environment, which was, after all, one 
layer of plastic away from being a field. O'Neill cast a quick glance 
down at his shoes and was somehow unsurprised to see that, despite the 
mud everywhere else, they were black and shiny. It figured. Spooks. He 
knew the type: nothing stuck to them.

"You're quite right, Mr Pinker. I do apologise, Colonel, Major. We can 
resume this discussion later."

Jack nodded. That suited him just fine. All he really wanted to do right 
now was get his people somewhere they could talk in private, before 
someone came out with something unwise, like- 

"Do you really think this could be a Stargate?" 

O'Neill winced, shot a look at Daniel which he hoped conveyed extreme 
displeasure, and was rewarded with the kind of expression children give 
their parents when they genuinely don't know that forcing buttered toast 
into the CD player is a bad thing. But when Jack looked away again, he 
found that Major Caliburn was staring at himself, not Daniel. 

Okay. Time to make a strategic withdrawal. 

"If it's okay with you, the first thing we'd like to do is take a tour 
of the site. Make sure it's secure."

"I can assure you it has been made quite secure." Mr Pinker had a voice 
like cream liqueur: sweet, persuasive and sickly after the first 
mouthful. 

O'Neill smiled at him amiably. "We're here to observe. Well, we'd like 
to start by observing the perimeter." 

"We'll accompany you, Colonel," said Caliburn.

"Not necessary." Something in the Major's expression closed down, and 
Jack realised regretfully that he'd probably just screwed any chance he 
had had of hitting it off with the man. But, dammit, he needed some 
privacy. He turned to go, motioning to the rest of his team to follow. 
"We'll find our own way."

* * *

"Pinker's a spook and Caliburn doesn't know what the hell he's supposed 
to be doing here."

They were walking along the edge of the field which adjoined the meadow 
in which the Maidens stood. The wide white canvas tent which hid the 
stones from view was just visible on the crest of the gentle hill behind 
them. From this distance the guide ropes which held it up were 
invisible, making the marquee look like the flying saucer in an old sci-
fi movie. The Day the Earth Stood Still, maybe, thought Jack. Klaatu 
barada nikto. 

In the other direction, the meadow fell away into a steep, grassy gully, 
along the bottom of which had been erected a flimsy-looking wire fence. 
The fence was insubstantial, but the signs ranged intermittently along 
its length were large and clear. He could read them easily from where he 
stood: ECLIPSE SCIENCE STATION. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY. The soldiers 
patrolling the perimeter at regular intervals were probably doing a 
pretty good job of driving the point home to the mass of eclipse-seekers 
whose tents, caravans and other assorted temporary accommodations packed 
the side of the hill opposite. If O'Neill had had a pair of binoculars 
with him, he would even have been able to make out individual jealous 
expressions. But no one looked as if they were about to head this way, 
and Jack would have put money on the fence being electric, too.

But Jack had a reason to be glad about the fence. Because of it, he and 
his three companions were now walking through what was very probably the 
only sizeable patch of empty countryside within a hundred miles. With no 
one else within earshot. 

"Spook?"

It was Carter who answered Teal'c, but she was looking at O'Neill as she 
spoke. "He's a British Secret Services operative, Teal'c. Like Maybourne 
but sneakier."

Now there was a severe attack on character, if Jack had ever heard one. 
And the description would probably mean more to Teal'c than a half hour 
lecture on the structure of British Intelligence. Carter didn't have 
O'Neill's experience in covert ops, but she had spent more than enough 
time in the Pentagon's somewhat dingy corridors to make up for it. She 
must have realised the truth about Pinker nearly as quickly as Jack had.

Daniel's expression indicated that Mr Pinker's profession was a genuine 
revelation to at least one member of the party. "Do you think the 
Professor knows?"

Jack shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Either he doesn't, and Pinker is running 
things behind his back, or he does, and he's willingly handed over the 
reigns of his pet project in return for the funding to green-light it. 
No, what worries me is that the Major is so obviously in the dark and 
that Mr Pinker so obviously wants to keep him that way."

"Fine. So we'll tell him."

O'Neill turned around and paced backwards, spreading his arms wide. 
"Y'see, I'm thinking that that's the point here, Danny."

Daniel looked to Carter for assistance. "Is he making sense?"

She nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"It's like this, Daniel." Jack jabbed a finger back in the direction of 
the UFO-tent-thing: "That's no more a Gate than the washer-dryer in my 
garage is. We knew that before we got on the plane. More than that, I'll 
bet Mr Pinker knows that too, even if our over-enthusiastic friend the 
Professor doesn't yet. The purpose of this little charade is to put one 
well-informed military unit in close proximity to a similar but less 
well informed unit, and hope that khaki-coloured bonding takes place and 
we spill the beans to them about what we really do under Cheyenne 
Mountain when the folks upstairs at NORAD have gone home for the night. 
This- " he waved an arm expansively, taking in the tent, the hill, the 
sky with its imminent eclipse too (hell why not, maybe God was in on it, 
He'd sounded English in The Ten Commandments): "This is nothing more 
than an elaborate charade, an exercise in information gathering by the 
Brits."

Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but Teal'c beat him to it. "I 
do not understand. Is this nation not an ally?"

"Well... yes," said Carter, uncomfortably.

Jack spread one hand flat and waggled it. "Kinda. At least, we've fought 
on the same side in the last couple of notable wars. Although if the 
Spice Girls release any more albums, we may have to take action for the 
good of civilisation and bomb them into submission." 

Teal'c looked puzzled, and Jack found himself regretting that crack: the 
last thing he needed on top of everything else was to field questions 
about British girl groups. Come to think of it, he wondered what Teal'c 
was making of this whole expedition. He nearly hadn't made it this far- 
the original orders O'Neill had received the previous morning had 
referred only to himself, Carter and Daniel, and a swift call to the 
General had confirmed that Command was less than enthusiastic about the 
idea of allowing the only genuine example of alien life readily 
available out of the country for any extended period. Jack had other 
ideas, chief among which was that, however grey or fuzzy the Jaffa's 
official status was, the one thing he most definitely was not was a 
prisoner inside Cheyenne Mountain. So, O'Neill had yelled about SG-1 
being a four-person unit and generally pitched a hissy fit until he had 
persuaded Hammond to make use of his long-standing and frequently 
extremely useful friendship with the current incumbent of the Oval 
Office. One of these days Jack fully intended to ask him where they knew 
each other from. 

"But the Gate is something special, right?" Daniel spoke quietly; Jack 
could tell realisation was beginning to dawn. "Finders keepers, and we 
found it. And other things equal, we'd prefer if no one else even knew 
about it."

"Something like that."

Carter frowned. "But they do. Even if they don't know details, someone 
knew enough about the Stargate to request our presence here in the first 
place. Which begs the further question- why did our government admit the 
existence of the project by agreeing and sending us?"

Now that was a good question, O'Neill was forced to admit, and not one 
to which he was currently able to suggest a reasonable-sounding answer. 

"I have no idea. But if I'm right, all we have to do is be real careful 
what we say until eleven minutes past eleven tomorrow morning. When the 
Prof's experiment fails to ignite, we can all go home."

"What happens at eleven eleven?" asked Daniel.

"What all that equipment back there is set up to record and monitor," 
said Jack. He raised a hand and pointed up at the sun. The rain which 
had greeted them as they had landed at RAF Lyneham had dissipated, and 
it was a fine English summer's afternoon. The sun shone brightly on the 
fields, brilliant and warm. There was no indication in the heavens of 
the inevitable approaching conjunction with the moon. But it would 
happen. 

"Totality."

* * *

Sheldrick leaned back in the bright sunshine and wished he'd had the 
foresight to bring his sunglasses with him from Credenhill. Another 
couple of days like this and there would be hosepipe bans and the 
inevitable items on the Nine O'Clock News about reservoirs drying up. It 
was good to know there were some things in life you could rely on. 

"It beats Croatia in December," he said. "And bloody Ulster any time."

"I like Cornwall," agreed Corporal Doyle. "It's peaceful." Which if you 
didn't know Doyle, ruminated Sheldrick, you would have thought a very 
strange thing for a professional soldier to say. But that was Doyle. 

Sergeant Hart eyed the gentle rolling greenery of the surrounding hills 
and vales, and screwed up his expression into a mixture of distaste and 
mistrust. "Not enough buildings," he pronounced. "Not enough roads." 

"How old were you before you'd been outside London, Hart?"

"Old enough to know that green is what happens when something's gone 
off." 

"Bloody Southerners."

Hart ripped a handful of damp, mossy grass from the earth and hurled the 
sod with vengeful enthusiasm. Andy caught it easily- although it half-
fell apart as he did so, soil and mud oozing between his fingers- and 
threw it back. The brown, slimy mass hit Hart square in the chest even 
as he tried to dodge the impact, and it splattered, leaving a large, 
dark splotch on the front of his shirt and a mass of tiny flecks on his 
face and neck. He made desultory attempts to wipe the worst of it off. 
"Oh, hell. Where am I going to get a clean uniform from?"

Doyle had neatly avoided the fracas by returning his attention to the 
task at hand. Several large crates had been delivered to the site soon 
after themselves, and he had started unpacking them. He peered into the 
first box, frowning at its contents. "I don't think that's going to be a 
problem." He lifted out a package and threw it to the Sergeant. Even 
through the reflective plastic wrapping, Andy could read the neat 
embroidery above the breast pocket: SGT D HART. He nodded 
appreciatively.

"They thought of everything. For once."

"Yeah," said Doyle, oddly. "Everything." He lifted out more clothes, 
packs of rations, other mundane field essentials, the paused and hefted 
an oblong metal case into the sunlight. Resting it on one knee, he 
flipped open the catches and exhibited the contents to the others.

Sheldrick stared at the disassembled MP-5, and the ammo beside it. "Is 
that-?"

Doyle nodded. "Live. There're at least another six in here."

Sheldrick looked at the pile of crates in front of them, did the maths. 
"Bloody hell. They can send us into deepest hostile territory woefully 
under-equipped, but twenty four hours in Cornwall merits the full monty. 
Fucking army admin."

Hart was confused. "I don't get it. What could we possibly need all this 
for? D'you think Cornwall's planning to declare independence or 
something?"

"God, I hope not," said Andy. "For their sake."

                         *******************

Five

"I'm terribly pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you, Dr 
Jackson. Psycho-sexual Symbolism in Rameside Period Hieroglyphs is a 
definitive article. I recommend it to all my students."

Oh God. Daniel smiled politely, and tried not to grimace. Why was the 
psycho-sexual symbolism paper the only one anyone ever remembered? If 
only it hadn't made quite so much sense when he had written it on a 
caffeine and junk food high six hours before the submission deadline. 
Out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out the smirk on Sam's 
face. 

Yarrow beamed happily at Daniel, oblivious to the trauma he was 
inducing. He guided them around the patches where grass trampled to mud 
was leaking through the plastic underfoot as they wove a path between 
the Maidens. The afternoon sun was warming the canvas over their heads, 
and the air inside the tent was sultry and still. 

"Although it was of course your later work which first sparked my 
interest in this project."

Daniel looked at him, surprised. "A lot of the later papers weren't, 
umm, particularly well received by the academic community." Yes, that 
was one way of putting it. They'd done everything except throw rotten 
fruit at him when he spoke at conferences. 

Yarrow smiled indulgently. "A prophet in his own country, eh, Dr 
Jackson? Yes, it was your re-translation of the inscriptions at Giza, 
and the connections drawn to astronomy which intrigued me. I found the 
notion of the pyramids at Giza being aligned exactly as the stars in 
Orion's belt absolutely fascinating..."

Daniel found himself nodding enthusiastically. So someone had made it 
beyond his somewhat unwise foray into ancient Egyptian sexual mores. 
"There are two other pyramids in the area which fit into the 
representation of Orion, and another where Sirius should be."

"At the time, I was working on British archaelogy, so Egyptology was 
merely a pastime. But then I participated in a project at Stonehenge, 
and I saw..." Yarrow paused, and spread his hands wide for effect: "I 
was studying a map of the area, and I saw the same pattern, the shape of 
Orion, being formed in the barrows around the rivers Avon and Kennet. 
And when one considers that the barrows, when originally constructed, 
would have been highlighted in gleaming white chalk..."

"...then it's obvious they were built as starmaps," finished Daniel. 
"And the stone circle at the centre was the observatory." 

"Precisely. So we have two sets of ancient peoples on different sides of 
the world independently developing a fairly sophisticated understanding 
of astronomy and expressing it in exactly the same way, within a very 
narrow band of history."

"Except that it wasn't necessarily independent," began Daniel without 
thinking. "They could have- "

"-Fortuitously arrived at similar conclusions given the same set of 
external stimuli as Egyptian society," interrupted Sam, and looked 
pointedly at Daniel.

The Professor, absorbed in his own train of thought, apparently missed 
the sharpness in her tone. "Well, yes. That was what I concluded 
initially as well. And then I found something here..." He turned and 
began to stride away from them, long legs loping easily over the 
stagnant water pooling in the plastic sheeting underfoot from the 
previous day's rainfall. Daniel started to follow, and felt Sam's 
restraining hand on his shoulder. 

"Sam..." he began.

"No," she said firmly. "And that's not up for discussion."

He gave her a pained look. "I spent my whole career in academia being 
laughed at, Sam. And they were wrong and I was right. We know for a fact 
that there was a Goa'uld presence and Goa'uld technology in ancient 
Egypt. They could have zipped around the planet in a couple of hours. 
It's perfectly possible that there is a connection."

"And it's equally possible that it is a coincidence. And even if it 
isn't, we still say nothing."

At the far side of the ring, Yarrow was kneeling by the one of the 
larger Maidens, brushing gently at its base with a small cloth. Daniel 
wondered what kind of reception he got at conferences. "In the last 
twelve months, I've written twenty papers, not one of which I'm ever 
going to see in print. I don't even get to talk to anyone outside the 
SGC... Couldn't I just...?"

"No." Sam hesitated, then continued: "Daniel, I know this isn't easy. 
But what we do is secret, and that's that."

"Right," said Daniel heavily. "All because we have something they 
don't." 

Yarrow was waving at them to join him. Daniel stalked off across the 
ring's diameter; after a moment, Carter followed.

"Now this," said Yarrow, kneeling and pointing: "this is quite 
something. As far as I can tell, it's a unique engraving, although the 
style and symbolism are more suggestive of Egyptian hieroglyphs than 
anything of ancient British origin. It's as old as the Stones 
themselves. Do you recognise it at all, Dr Jackson? "

Daniel stared at the pattern etched into the granite for a long time, 
unwilling to answer the question with the outright lie it demanded. He 
didn't merely recognise the carving: the upside down V-shape with the 
half-circle at its crux was as familiar to him as the letters of his own 
name.

It was the seventh glyph.

* * *

Rhys doubted that any of the unwashed assorted students, tourists and 
new age travellers gathered on the neighbouring hills posed a particular 
security threat-especially with the regulars of the Third pacing the 
electrified fence around the site's perimeter. Nevertheless he stood the 
first watch, and told Sheldrick to expect to be woken some time after 
midnight. Caliburn was not comfortable with the idea of all four members 
of his patrol being simultaneously unconscious, no matter how safe the 
territory. 

Although with Mr Pinker in the vicinity, he wasn't sure that this 
particular corner of Cornwall was quite as safe as it should have been.

In Caliburn's experience, situations generally became messier once 
Intelligence got involved. And in this case, it was clear that Mr Pinker 
was very involved indeed in whatever the hell was going on out here in 
the Cornish countryside. Rhys paced along the damp grass, trying to slot 
the different pieces of the puzzle together in some kind of pattern-
revealing order. There was Mr Pinker, with his smooth and empty words. 
There was the Professor and his experiment. There were the Americans. 
And finally there was Rhys and his patrol, right slap bang in the middle 
of things and yet completely ignorant of the true state of affairs, 
whatever that might be.

No, he couldn't see the pattern. 

Rhys was beginning to dislike this assignment intensely.

A noise, a slight clearing of the throat, made him turn sharply. Fifteen 
years of training kicked in and Rhys brought the gun he was carrying up 
to the firing position, the bright beam from the torch mounted on its 
end piercing the darkness. "Friend or foe?" he barked.

The voice which replied from within the piercing white beam was dryly 
laconic. "American. You make the call." O'Neill waved a hand through the 
air in front of his face, as if trying to bat the light aside. "And turn 
that damn thing off. You're blinding me."

Caliburn tipped the rifle up, so that the light, and the barrel, were 
aimed skywards. "Apologies, Colonel. I thought you'd retired for the 
evening."

"Yeah, well, it's a clear night, and I wanted to, ahhh..." O'Neill 
trailed off, sounding, Rhys thought, almost abashed. The Colonel was 
sitting cross-legged on the grass, something flat and reflective spread 
out in front of him. Caliburn stepped forward, curious, and saw that he 
had been consulting a map. A map of the night sky.

"Looking for anything in particular?"

"Persean meteors." 

Rhys looked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Shooting stars. Originating in the constellation of Perseus, hence 
Persean. Tonight's the shower maximum, and the sky's clear. Look." He 
pointed upwards, and Rhys tipped his head back in time to see a streak 
of light flame across the starfield then die away. "Make a wish, Major."

The meteor had vanished, and the sky was still once more, but Rhys found 
himself continuing to stare up at it, his gaze being absorbed by the 
infinite vista of lights. "It is quite entrancing, isn't it?"

The Colonel began to fold up his map. "I never used to notice it. Always 
thought stars were just things that country singers compared their 
girlfriends' eyes to. But once you start looking you can't stop." He 
lifted an arm, index finger outstretched. "Lemme show you something. See 
that? Those six stars right there? That's Ursa Major, Major." He grinned 
at his own small joke, and Rhys nodded. The ladle-shaped constellation 
was about the only one he could find and name. 

"The Plough. Yes, I see it."

"Okay, those two stars at the far end are Merak and Dubhe. Follow the 
line that way-" he dragged his finger across the sky: "Then down, that's 
Virgo. That little red disk in the middle of Virgo, that's Mars."

"Planet of war."

"Kinda appropriate for professional warriors, doncha think?"

Rhys nodded absently. He looked at O'Neill. "So you're the team 
astronomer, then?"

Unexpectedly, the Colonel laughed. "No more than Daniel is a 
quarterback." He chuckled again, and collapsed backwards on to the damp 
meadow-grass, propping himself up on his elbows. "No. I'm no astronomer. 
Just an interested amateur."

Rhys put his gun to one side, and looked at him in the murk. "Then what 
are you, Colonel?"

"I'm a grunt, Major. I get paid for going where I'm told and doing what 
I'm told. Just like you."

As lies went, Rhys had heard more convincing words from his chocolate-
mouthed four year old nephew concerning a missing Easter Egg. The summer 
night air was still, and he realised suddenly that it was too still. He 
looked up at the silver moon, embedded in the starfield, the night's 
blank, unseeing eye. 

The world was waiting for something. 

"I have no problems with doing as I'm told," he said quietly, "but 
occasionally it's nice to know why."

"Yeah," said the Colonel. "Been there."

"So, what am I doing here?"

O'Neill looked at him. "You're following orders. Just like I am."

Rhys watched as O'Neill folded the starmap and got up. He waited until 
the American had gone several paces towards the dormitory tents before 
calling out his name. The other man turned.

"What happens at totality?" 

"The moon covers the sun entirely, and the corona is visible around its 
edges."

Which was a correct answer, reflected Caliburn, but not to the question 
he had been asking. He pointed at one of the low, grey shapes nestling 
at the marquee's edge like a duckling at its mother's wing. "Pinker's 
sleeping in that tent over there."

O'Neill nodded once, and changed direction, taking the long way back 
behind the Stones, as Rhys had known he would. 

So they were not friends, although they had a common foe.

He wondered if that was sufficient.

                         *******************

Six

Wednesday August 11 

Jet lag doesn't hit until the second day.

Daniel sat at the folding metal and plastic table, trying to get his 
brain around the concept of breakfast while his stomach remained 
obstinately convinced that it was still the middle of the night. It 
didn't help that British army rations were just as flavourless and 
unpalatable as anything the US military had inflicted on him in the 
course of his association with it. At least this experience was 
alleviated somewhat by a limited selection of fresh fruit and dairy 
products from several local farms.

"Daniel, Teal'c, look." 

Across the table, Sam was nodding at the far side of the temporary 
enclosure which served as combined mess and meeting hall for the 
eclectic mixture of people who had converged on the Maidens. Daniel 
nudged his glasses so that they flopped down from their precarious perch 
above his fringe and landed on the bridge of his nose. The world snapped 
into focus.

He twisted his head and scanned the room, trying to locate the source of 
Carter's obvious amusement. At the next table over, Sheldrick and Hart 
were having a loud discussion about the relative merits of two soccer 
teams, neither of which Daniel had heard of, while Doyle pored over a 
wrinkled copy of the London Times. Daniel guessed it must be the 
previous day's, unless one of the perks of being in the SAS was having 
your choice of newspaper delivered to you in the field each morning. As 
Daniel watched, Major Caliburn looked up and caught his gaze. Daniel 
looked away, feeling that he had been caught somehow. At the largest 
table, Yarrow and his gaggle of attendant scientists chatted animatedly 
in the jargon of technicalities. Mr Pinker ate at a table by himself. 
And standing at the buffet...

Daniel grinned. Jack was holding a whole grapefruit at arm's length, 
peering at it through one open eye while moving the apple he was holding 
in his other hand back and forth. A few more seconds of intense 
squinting passed until, apparently satisfied, he discarded the 
grapefruit and crossed to join them, biting into the apple as he walked. 

"Good morning, campers, and isn't it a terrific morning?"

Carter smiled slightly, and sipped her coffee. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, 
and although that was pretty much his ready-response expression in most 
circumstances, Daniel could have sworn that in this instance there was a 
lightness in his normally stony features. Daniel tapped the table with 
his plastic spoon. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that enthusiasm 
born of intellectual curiosity and the thrill of scientific discovery I 
hear?"

Jack had demolished the apple in several bites, and was attacking a 
sealed rations pack with gusto. "Hey, the sun is shining and the sky is 
clear from horizon to horizon. Which means we're in for a great show. 
Forget intellectual whatever. Can't a guy get excited over a really 
impressive show?"

Daniel nodded, and shot a look over the table at Sam, whose smile had 
spread so wide across her face that she was having trouble with her 
drink. Time to play his trump card. "Sure. Right. So that wasn't a copy 
of Sky and Telescope I saw you sneaking off to read last night?"

"I was hiding the latest edition of Penthouse inside it," said O'Neill 
defensively. Bullseye.

"Sure you were," agreed Daniel. Across the table, Sam's shoulders were 
shaking, and if Teal'c's eyebrow rose any further, it would be in 
serious danger of detaching itself from his face.

Suddenly Carter became serious again. "Daniel, have you told the Colonel 
what Yarrow showed us?"

O'Neill looked at them. "What?"

The experience of the previous afternoon leapt to the forefront of 
Daniel's mind, ratcheting his good humour down a couple of notches. "The 
seventh glyph. The symbol for Earth. It's engraved on one of the 
Stones."

Jack continued munching. "So?"

"So," said Daniel, "a little weird, don't you think? Given that this is 
Cornwall and not Egypt."

"Danny, Ra's autobiography could be engraved on these stones and it 
wouldn't make a whole heap of difference. So the Goa'uld did a little 
exploring while they were here. Big deal."

Outside the sun shone. But not for much longer.

* * *

"And the official fashion accessory of the day is..." O'Neill produced 
four sets of tinted goggles from behind his back with a flourish: 
"...aluminized mylar glasses. Put 'em on now, take 'em off when it's 
over. And remember- scorched retinas are for life, not just for 
eclipses."

Daniel made a face at the excruciating pun as he pulled the bulky 
goggles over his regular glasses and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the 
newly-tinted world. 

In the midst of the scientific activity which had consumed the hours 
since breakfast, the two military contingents had been more or less 
forgotten, with the exception of Carter, who had spent most of the 
morning deep in conversation with two long-haired techno-geeks, over a 
particular piece of arcane machinery which was refusing to play ball 
with the rest of the set-up. Several lengthy bouts of coffee-fuelled 
reprogramming seemed however to have done the trick, and the Captain was 
currently strapping on her goggles while her two newest fans watched 
from behind the machinery with expressions which were somewhat goggle-
eyed also.

When it had become obvious that the British weather was going to abandon 
the habits of millennia and behave itself for once, a small team had 
been dispatched to remove the marquee's low canvas roof, and the Maidens 
were now once more bathed in bright sunshine. Only the fabric walls of 
the tent remained in place, affording some measure of privacy from the 
legions of eclipse watchers crowded on to the nearby hills. 

"So when does it start?" asked Daniel.

A shadow passed across the circle of stones. O'Neill looked at his 
watch: 9.57. "It just did," he said. "First contact."

High in the eastern sky, the sun suddenly took on a lopsided aspect, as 
the moon began to eat into its photosphere. A tiny black bite appeared 
at its circumference, rapidly enlarging and gobbling up the surface of 
fire. Very quickly, the sky began to darken noticeably; overhead, a 
flock of starlings swirled once around the circle in evident confusion 
before alighting on the branches of the trees nearby and attempting to 
roost. 

Yarrow's team must have been made up of veterans with a multitude of 
similar experiences behind them, because they seemed to have no 
difficulty ignoring the celestial ballet taking place overhead in order 
to attend to their various tasks. The military representatives, on the 
other hand, were probably all going to need neck braces by lunchtime.

"Wow," commented Daniel. "It's weird enough when you know exactly what 
it is and why it's happening. No wonder ancient civilisations attached 
so much significance to eclipses."

"Look at the ground."

He looked, and saw through a gap in the canvas wall a thousand miniature 
images of the crescent sun jump and flicker over the grassy earth 
beneath the nearby trees. "Magic," whispered Daniel, and he had never 
used the word with such a certainty of its meaning before.

Sam shook her head. "Physics. The tiny gaps between the leaves must be 
acting as pinhole cameras, focusing the light on to the ground and-"

But Daniel was not paying attention. Physics was as arcane and 
mysterious a discipline to him as archaeology was to her. In that 
respect, he supposed he was not so distant from the ancients who had sat 
here, when the Stones were raw and freshly hewn, watching the last 
perfect conjunction of day and night passing overhead with the same 
feelings of awe and wonder now filling him. 

He shivered. The temperature was dropping quickly, and the air was 
still. Shadows sharpened and the countryside around appeared washed in a 
metallic grey hue. Parallel lines of light and dark skimmed the still 
grass in the meadow below the Maidens. "What is that?"

"Shadow bands," said O'Neill. "Caused by irregular atmospheric 
diffraction of the sun's rays."

Daniel looked at him. "Who are you and what have you done with Jack?" 

"Oh for crying..." O'Neill rolled his eyes. "You're not the only person 
who can read books, y'know." 

Daniel smiled. Around them, the world was preternaturally silent, 
waiting. 

"Eleven o'clock," came Yarrow's voice, a soft call across the circle. 
"Totality in ten minutes."

Daniel started, and peered at his own watch in the gloom. Where had the 
last hour gone? Overhead, he could see the Moon's shadow approaching 
from the western horizon, the harbinger of night. The sun was the merest 
sliver of its former fullness, and even that was diminishing rapidly as 
the dark disk of its silver sister slipped in front of its face. 

"Second contact," said O'Neill. "We'll see Bailey's Beads in a second."

"What's- ? Oh..." In the seconds before the moon covered the sun's face 
entirely, the rim of light at the sun's exposed edge broke up into a 
chain of discrete blobs of light which shone along the arc, diamonds 
scattered by God's hand. The sight, in its full breathtaking near-
perfection, lasted only for a moment, before the beads began to wink 
out, one by one. The final bead burnt brightest and longest, creating a 
diamond ring in the sky, a token exchanged between sun and moon, between 
heaven and earth. 

With a conscious effort, Daniel released the breath he had not realised 
he was holding. He made himself take slow, deep breaths of the chilly 
air, and looked down momentarily. And saw...

"Jack."

O'Neill grunted in acknowledgement, his attention focused on the 
spectacle above.

"Jack, the Stones are glowing."

"It's another optical effect."

Now Carter and Teal'c were looking at their ground-level surroundings 
again. "No, sir, Daniel's right," said Sam. "It almost looks as if..." 
she broke off. O'Neill twisted around to look at them wearing an 
expression which clearly heralded a firm intention to tell them both to 
shut up and watch the eclipse, and stopped.

The Maidens were glowing, not with a silvery reflected light but with 
something altogether different. A blue-tinged lambency ignited their 
granite surfaces in cold fire, flowing in shimmering waves over the 
Stones like water. Like water. And where had Daniel seen that particular 
effect before?

Carter beat him to it. "My God. It is a Gate."

"But that's- that's not possible," stuttered Daniel.

"I know it's not a Gate. You know it's not a Gate," said Jack. "Anybody 
want to tell the rocks?"

There was no doubt about it now. The Stones were coming to life around 
them, drawing the attention of the grouped watchers increasingly from 
the sky above. Caliburn and his men looked around themselves in 
increasing confusion. As Daniel watched, the Major took a step forward 
into the ring, some instinct drawing him closer to his men in the face 
of the unknown. 

It was completely the wrong thing to do.

"Get out of the circle!" yelled Daniel. A fraction of a second later he 
registered that Jack was shouting as well, having come to the same 
conclusion as himself. "Step back out of the ring!"

Caliburn stared at them in bemusement and took a tentative step 
backwards, as the Stones crackled with energy and the air between them 
began to hum. Sheldrick followed him, then Doyle. Hart stayed where he 
was.

Above them, the diamond dissolved into blackness as the last of the 
photosphere disappeared behind the moon's dark void. The brightest stars 
came out in the clear sky, and the corona, wispy and wraith-like, 
appeared around the obsidian circle where the sun had been. 

Sheldrick crossed the threshold of the circle; Doyle was a few steps 
behind him. Caliburn looked up at the sky. O'Neill yelled at Hart, but 
the Sergeant stood still, like a shadowy replica of one of the Stones 
which encircled them.

Then the ground dissolved, and the Gate opened at their feet.

* * *

The earth liquefied and shifted as the seventy seven feet wide circle of 
mud and grass and plastic sheeting melted and distorted into a gateway 
whose perimeter was marked by nineteen pillars of blue fire.

O'Neill watched in horror as Caliburn fell like a brick through wet 
tissue paper. Someone on the far side of the circle gave a high pitched 
scream, and he figured that whatever Yarrow and his team had been 
expecting to happen, it hadn't been this. 

Sheldrick was placing his right foot on the solid ground outside the 
circle when the earth behind him melted to glimmering insubstantiality. 
He lurched awkwardly, throwing his weight forward as he attempted to 
keep his balance. He had been lucky; Jack could tell even as he raced 
around the perimeter towards the Lieutenant that he was just far enough 
across the boundary to make it on to terra firma. Doyle and Hart had not 
been so fortunate, and as Sheldrick collapsed and twisted his head and 
shoulders to look behind him, they began to flounder and sink at the 
edge of the shimmering sea of blue light. Like men drowning in the 
shallows, they began to sink.

Sheldrick reached out and grabbed Hart by the arm. Jack skidded down on 
to his knees at the soldier's side in time to take a firm grip of 
Doyle's shirt. He grunted with the sudden exertion of bearing the other 
man's full weight. The Sergeant and the Corporal were being drawn into 
the vortex as surely as if it were deepest quicksand. Jack felt himself 
beginning to slide forward on the slippery plastic, and looked around 
frantically for something with which he could anchor himself. There was 
nothing.

Teal'c arrived and locked his grip around on Doyle's other arm, 
relieving part of the burden on Jack. A few feet away, Daniel and Carter 
were helping Sheldrick as best they could, but Hart was still slipping 
away from them, the expression on his face one of near-terror. With a 
sudden cold feeling in his stomach, Jack realised that they were not 
fighting gravity alone. Whatever force acted on matter entering the 
wormhole had claimed Hart for its own and would not let him go.

"Rope," he gasped to Carter: "Get rope."

She nodded, understanding, and disappeared, leaving Sheldrick and Daniel 
participating in a losing tug-of-war over Hart. 

Jack and Teal'c were fairing better with Doyle: whatever tides and 
eddies swirled in the forces under the Gate's surface seemed to have 
momentarily cancelled each other out, and the pulling force they were 
exerting on him was succeeding in raising him up out of the whirlpool. 
"Teal'c-" Jack readied himself: "On three. One. Two- pull!"

They pulled, and Doyle yelled in surprise and pain as his shoulder was 
wrenched upwards. But they had won, and together they hauled him on to 
the grass and rolled him away from the lip of the pool. 

Jack indicated Hart, and nodded to Teal'c. "Him next. We can..."

But it was too late. He turned in time to see Hart's terrified face slip 
underneath the dancing false waters. 

"Shit," said Sheldrick. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"I found rope," reported Carter, returning with a thick coil slung over 
her shoulder. 

"Too late," said Daniel, shaking his head.

"We could pull them back up."

"The Gates work only in one direction."

"But this isn't a Gate, and we just pulled a man who was half way 
through it out again."

"If we threw down a rope..."

"There isn't enough time," interrupted O'Neill. Around him, Carter, 
Daniel and Teal'c fell silent. He pointed at the sky above them, where 
the corona around the inky blackness of totality was fading. In seconds, 
the diamond ring would reappear on the far side of the disk, and the 
eclipse would be over. "Totality lasts just over two minutes. Who wants 
to bet that in thirty seconds this Gate- or whatever the hell it is- 
shuts down until the next total eclipse passes this way sometime in the 
next century? We don't have time to get those men back up here." He 
stopped. "We do have time to join them."

Daniel stared at him, horrified. "Join them?"

Jack nodded. "They don't know what's happened to them. They don't know 
where they are. Even if they landed a hundred yards from a real 
Stargate, they wouldn't know how to use it to get home. We're their best 
chance of getting back."

"But this isn't a Stargate." Carter spoke quickly, rushing the words as 
the seconds ticked by. "There's no guarantee that they've gone somewhere 
on the Gate network. And if they haven't, we'd only be stranding 
ourselves as well."

Jack looked at her. "Which is why you're not coming, Captain. If we 
can't get back here from there, you'll have to figure out a way of 
getting to us."

"Sir, that might not be possible- "

"You'll think of something, Captain," Jack told her with a confidence 
which he hoped sounded more convincing in her ears than his own. He 
faced Daniel and Teal'c. "I won't leave those men stranded for the rest 
of their lives without ever knowing why. We can get them home. We can 
get us home." He grinned, and heard the manic edge in his voice. 
"Volunteers?"

Teal'c nodded.

"Daniel, I'll need you to work out how to dial us home when we find a 
Gate."

"If we find a Gate."

"This is why the Air Force pays your life insurance premiums."

"You know, your good ideas are okay, but your bad ideas really stink." 
Daniel lifted his hands to his head and pushed them back through his 
hair.

"Fifteen seconds," said Jack. "No pressure or anything."

Daniel shut his eyes, opened them again. "Next time I ask for an extra 
twelve hours somewhere to study something in more detail..."

"Twenty four," said Jack, "Scout's honour. And I won't even complain 
about being bored." Then he stepped over the edge of the circle. He had 
vanished before the last syllable of geronimo had made it past his lips. 

Teal'c turned to Carter. "We will return," he said. Then he too 
disappeared.

Daniel hesitated by the maelstrom's edge. "If there's no Gate there, 
it's up to you."

Sam nodded. "I'll think of something."

Daniel shut his eyes, and jumped.

The Gate closed.

The first shafts of post-eclipse light hit the hills, scattering shadows 
and flooding the indigo sky with the red-orange light of a false dawn. 
On the opposite side of the circle of stones, a technician was having 
hysterics. Yarrow was standing staring at the ground inside the circle, 
as silent and immobile as one of the granite pillars which flanked him. 
And Mr Pinker watched everything, with an alert and all-embracing gaze.

Sam knelt beside Doyle, and began automatically to administer first aid 
to his shoulder. Beside him, Sheldrick was staring at the dewy meadow 
grass which grew in the space where a moment before there had been a 
swirling blue nothing, swearing continuously under his breath.

"Sure," she repeated to herself, "I'll think of something."


                         *******************

"Totality: Part II- The Keltoi"
By Rheanna - brian@hannabp.softnet.co.uk

SPOILERS: Solitudes 

SUMMARY: Part II: "You are not Keltoi. You are not from the village. 
Where are you from?" "Well, personally I'm from Basingstoke." 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Still with me? This is where the fun *really* starts... 

                         *******************

Totality: Part II
The Keltoi

One

For some reason, Wizard of Oz references formed the basis of the most 
popular running jokes around the SGC. Sinking feet first through the 
darkness- well, it felt feet-first, although Sam would have argued that 
gravity had no more influence during transference than it did outside 
the Earth's atmosphere- Daniel was inclined to think that in this 
instance Alice in Wonderland would have been more appropriate. 

He was falling slowly, so slowly that the experience had more in common 
with a gentle parachute drop to earth than the heady, plummeting thrill 
of being sucked through the Gate that he had come to expect. He also had 
the sensation of being in an enclosed space or tunnel, and he briefly 
entertained the possibility that what they had stumbled across was not a 
Gate but simply a very, very deep hole, and any minute now he would pop 
out somewhere in the Australian outback. It would be no stranger than a 
lot of the things that had happened to him in the past couple of years.

There was a light somewhere below him. He hoped kangaroos were friendly.

With a sound which was almost a pop a green grassy mat too lush and 
verdant to be Antipodal appeared underneath him. Just in time, he 
recalled one class from the endless round of training courses the Air 
Force had made him take, and tucked his legs up to his chest, and 
prepared to roll with the impact.

Whumph.

Daniel hit the ground with something which was less of a controlled 
rolling motion and more of an arms-flailing, legs-kicking tumble; but it 
achieved its purpose, and when he came to an eventual halt, flat out on 
his back and staring at the rippling blue expanse above him, he was 
bruised and winded but nothing worse.

Overhead, the shimmering gateway broke apart and dissipated, leaving him 
with a clear view of the sky, whose flat blue expanse was punctuated by 
a flotilla of white, nebulous clouds. 

"Daniel? You okay?"

He opened his mouth to respond to O'Neill's urgent inquiry, but nothing 
more than a thin wheeze emerged. The fall had knocked off the mylar 
goggles, but had protected his glasses for long enough that they had not 
parted company from his face until he had slowed down considerably. A 
brief search in the grass around nearby located them and a quick 
inspection revealed that the lenses were undamaged. With a sigh of 
relief, Daniel replaced them and blinked in the bright sunshine, and 
attempted to sit up. He allowed O'Neill to help him.

"Danny, are you injured?"

"No..." he wheezed, and managed a weak grin: "Although after such a fall 
as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs."

Apparently O'Neill hadn't read Alice in Wonderland recently. His 
expression creased with deepening concern. "Hell, you're concussed. 
Okay, sit there and I'll..."

"It's all right. I'm okay. Just a little bruised." Daniel looked up and 
down the grassy bank which had taken the brunt of the impact. Caliburn 
was standing up, a hand to his head, which he was shaking slowly as if 
the world around them was an optical illusion which could be cleared if 
he blinked rapidly enough. Teal'c was attending to Sergeant Hart, who 
had been less fortunate than Daniel in the angle at which he hit the 
ground. "Where are we?"

Jack pulled Daniel to his feet. 

"God knows. But I don't think we're in Kansas any more." 

* * *

Carter spent most of Wednesday afternoon yelling.

As the stars disappeared and the sky flooded with the golden translucent 
rays of the re-emerging sun, she yelled at the stunned scientists and 
archaeologists on Yarrow's team until one of the long-haired technicians 
stumbled into life to help her administer first aid to Sheldrick and 
Doyle. Neither of the soldiers was badly injured, but both were 
exhibiting symptoms of shock, which was hardly surprising. They had, 
after all, just watched two of their comrades being literally swallowed 
up by the ground, and had narrowly escaped the same fate themselves. 

Next, she shouted for an air ambulance to take the SAS men to the 
nearest military hospital, then for a helicopter to take herself and 
Yarrow after them. She raised her voice with the terrified Lance 
Corporal who was sent to placate her, with the result that she was 
reassured that a secure communications channel with the MOD in London 
would be waiting for her on arrival at the closest RAF base. Then she 
shouted for coffee. The tactic seemed to have worked so far, and it 
seemed a pity to stop while she was ahead.

Her father would have called it an SLT. Strategic Loss of Temper. Not to 
be indulged in on a regular basis, but damned effective in the right 
circumstances.

She was finishing the last dregs of the coffee as the late afternoon sun 
dipped behind the distant low hills. The campers, distant dots of day-
glow orange and yellow, were dismantling their tents, packing up their 
caravans. She was glad her route out of Cornwall would be air-borne: the 
roads leading east would be as impassable for the next twenty four hours 
as the roads west had been during the previous twenty four. She looked 
behind her at the quiet, sleeping Stones. Show's over folks. Move along. 
Nothing to see here now.

A sudden angry impulse made her crush the empty polystyrene cup in her 
fist. In front of her, a sycamore seed twirled through the still air 
towards the ground, its twin green blades designed by nature's symmetry 
to carry it as far from its parent tree as possible. Sam watched it 
distractedly, absorbed by other thoughts, until a sudden gust of wind 
knocked the seed beyond her sight. She looked up, and saw the Chinook 
which had been summoned for them descending rapidly. The helicopter was 
a kind of mechanical sycamore seed made by human hands. 

She frowned, and looked back at the Stones again. Sycamore seeds and 
helicopters. Why did that thought bother her?

The roar of the settling Chinook was loud in her ears now, disrupting 
her concentration. Yarrow hurried towards her, down the rough muddy path 
which led away from the Maidens. "Where's Pinker?" called Sam, vocal 
chords fighting the tide of noise from behind her.

Yarrow looked about himself. "I don't know. I haven't seen him. You 
don't suppose he...?"

Sam shook her head. Whatever else had happened to Pinker, she was 
certain he had not fallen through the open wormhole. She guessed the 
little spook had far too well-developed a sense of self-preservation for 
that. She replayed the events of the morning in her head, and realised 
that the last time she had seen him had been in the confusion just after 
totality. Amidst the general air of hysteria, Pinker had been calmly 
standing by himself, making a series of low-voiced, urgent-toned calls 
into his cellphone. 

So much for the Colonel's injunction to say nothing. They must have 
provided the spook with enough material to fill a dozen highly 
confidential reports. But if he had scurried off to brief his superiors, 
at least Sam would not have to deal with him again. That seemed to be 
the only good point to have arisen from the eclipse debacle. 

The Chinook's blades slowed and stilled. "C'mon," she said to Yarrow: 
"Let's go."

She paused before climbing into the aircraft's belly, somehow compelled 
to look back at the Stones once more before departing. The circle of 
Maidens in the open field mocked her; sleeping now, they clutched their 
secrets close to their still, stone hearts. 

It had taken years to unlock the Stargate's mysteries. She doubted the 
Colonel could be so patient. 

* * *

"Where the bloody hell did everybody go?"

"They didn't go anywhere," said O'Neill. "We're the ones who've moved."

Hart, who had posed the question, stared at O'Neill in consternation, 
then turned to Caliburn, as if making an appeal to a higher, more 
rational power.

Rhys rubbed at his temple; he had sustained a painful blow to his neck 
and shoulder when he had- landed? Yes, that felt like the right word, he 
had certainly fallen some distance- when he had landed, and the pain was 
unfurling into hot, elongated tendrils inside the muscles behind his 
ears. He wouldn't be able to turn his head easily tomorrow. 

In the meantime, he didn't understand what the American colonel was 
talking about. Rhys was sitting, with the four other men, in the centre 
of the nineteen granite Stones. The apparatus and other scientific 
paraphernalia which had disturbed the ancient dignity of the site had 
been removed, along with all evidence of the large team of people who 
had been there not ten minutes earlier. 

That didn't make sense. Perhaps he had lost consciousness; that would 
account for the site being cleared so completely without his knowledge. 
But in that case, why had they been left behind?

"Look at this place," O'Neill said. "Does that look like Merrie Olde 
Englande to you?"

Rhys had to admit that he had a point. The ground inside the circle was 
dusty and dry, but beyond the circumference which the stones defined, 
the dense vegetation of what seemed to be a tropical forest pushed in 
from all around. Large-leafed plants swayed and dipped in the warm, 
moist breeze and somewhere high in the tree canopy a bird jabbered and 
called with a high-pitched squawk which was unlike anything Rhys had 
ever heard in the Home Counties. He half expected David Attenborough to 
appear through the foliage at any second.

He looked at O'Neill who, apparently satisfied that he had got his 
attention, continued: "Okay. This is going to sound a little kooky, but 
bear with me. We fell through a wormhole, a kind of a rip-"

"Or aperture-"

"Not helpful, Danny."

"Sorry."

"-a kind of a rip in space. It's like, ahh, a worm burrowing through an 
apple. Hence the term wormhole. Leastways, that's how it was explained 
to me." He paused. "Look, we're on another planet. Deal with it."

Rhys stared at them: the Colonel, the anxious-looking archaeologist, and 
the silent black man. Lunatics, he thought. We've been kidnapped by 
lunatics.

O'Neill turned to Jackson. "How was that?"

"Honest opinion? You were doing well up to the last part. Then I felt 
you lost the tone a little."

"Carter's better at this kind of thing," admitted O'Neill.

"Captain Carter is still on Earth."

"Yes, Teal'c, I know she's still-"

Caliburn was still processing the previous sentence. One part of it 
stuck out in his mind. "...on Earth?" he echoed.

O'Neill nodded, as to a slow and somewhat backward child. "We left her 
in Cornwall."

"This is Cornwall," protested Hart.

"Am I going to have to do my B-movie mad scientist explanation again? We 
are not in Cornwall-"

"Excuse me," interrupted Daniel.

"We are not in England-"

"Umm, perhaps if we all looked at the sky-"

"We're not even in Europe-"

"Everyone look up!" commanded Daniel.

Rhys looked up. The sun was low in the sky, and rising from the opposite 
horizon was a full, blue-tinged moon.

He stared. Make that moons.

The second satellite was a smaller version of its dominant companion, 
but the shadowy pock marks of the craters which marred its surface could 
just be seen with the naked eye, and there was no doubt about what it 
was. 

Rhys shut his eyes against the sight, and breathed deeply. The thick, 
damp air which filled his nostrils bore the scent of exposed earth, the 
fragrances of flowering plants, and something else. The air was infused 
with something indefinably different, and it told Caliburn that he did 
not belong here. 

This was not home. Not anything like it.

"Oh fuck," said Hart. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck..."

He was staring into space, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. 
Rhys could empathise with the reaction- he was sorely tempted to join 
in- but he could not allow it. "Knock it off, Sergeant," he said 
sharply, trying to project an assurance and authority he did not feel. 

"But we're... it's... this isn't..." Hart looked at him, his pleading 
red-rimmed eyes glistening in the half-light.

Rhys placed a hand on his shoulder and said, more gently, "Derek. Del. 
We're here. We're not injured. We're not in immediate danger." He looked 
up at O'Neill. "And we're about to get a full explanation for exactly 
what the hell just happened. Right, Colonel?"

O'Neill sat back, and nodded. "Right."

* * *

Carter waited until the helicopter was under way before tackling Yarrow.

"So what were you expecting to happen this morning, Professor?"

He looked at her, eyes almost as wild and floating as his shock of white 
hair. Sheldrick and Doyle weren't the only ones whose stress-bearing 
mechanisms had been tried by the day's events. Ordinarily, Sam would 
have had more sympathy towards the man, but she needed answers and was 
feeling more than a little strung out herself. Yarrow wasn't the one who 
had had to stand by and watch his closest friends vanish to a place from 
which it was not altogether certain that return was possible.

Dammit, she wouldn't allow herself to think like that. 

Yarrow's hands twisted together in front of his chest. "I didn't... we 
weren't..."

"Professor," she insisted.

He took a deep breath. "Electromagnetic fields."

"What about them?"

"They are particularly strong in the area around Falmouth. I had a 
survey performed and found..." He unlaced his fingers and made a 
circular motion with one hand, before tapping the centre of the 
imaginary ring with the other: "...that the fields are focused around 
the Maidens. Since the fields fluctuate with the effects of gravity, the 
phases of the moon and so on, and since Dr Jackson's theories had made 
me wonder if the circle had been constructed as part of a star map, I 
speculated that there might be some measurable effect on the fields 
during an event of such astronomical significance as a total eclipse." 
He gave a hollow laugh: "There was."

Carter stared at him. "You weren't expecting that to happen? You don't 
know what it was?"

Yarrow looked up, startled. "My word, who could have anticipated... Of 
course not." His eyes narrowed. "Did you?"

"No," said Carter.

The Professor gazed at her in confusion. "Then why did you come?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I was told that you- I mean, the American military- wanted to be 
present at the tests."

"Who told you that?"

"The gentleman from the Ministry. Mr Pinker."

Sam thought about that. "The symbol you found engraved on the Stones. Do 
you know what it is?"

"Well, no," he said, puzzled. "That's what I was hoping you could tell 
me. Mr Pinker said it was your area of expertise."

"Mr Pinker told you a lot of things, didn't he?"

The Professor frowned. "No," he said shortly. "Not really."

That figured. Carter would have pressed for more information, but any 
further conversation was made impossible by the increasing roar of the 
Chinook's engine as it climbed into the air and bore them east, over the 
idyllic, crowded fields.

                         *******************

Two

"So, you do this kind of thing on a regular basis?"

"Pretty much every week."

Caliburn nodded, taking this in, and gazed into the flames of the 
campfire they had built. Mr Teal'c, it seemed, was a man of few words 
but many talents. When the night had begun to draw in, it had not taken 
him long to find and use a small fragment of flint to kindle a fire from 
the dry wood the others had found around the circle. The jungle's muggy 
heat had prompted everyone to shed a layer of clothing, and Teal'c had 
abandoned his hat, revealing a prominent gold tattoo in the middle of 
his forehead. It was almost a brand on his dark skin, and Caliburn added 
one more item to the day's excessively long list of peculiarities. 

The fire crackled. He traced the paths of individual sparks in the 
rising plume upwards in the smoke until they died away somewhere among 
the unfamiliar patterns of the stars overhead.

The glance upwards was unwise. It prompted another stab of longing for 
home which he fought to repress. He dug his fingers into the dry soil so 
hard that he could feel sharp fragments of rock gouging his skin. "If 
you knew this was going to happen you might have said something about 
it."

"We didn't know," said Jackson. Of the three Americans, he seemed most 
eager to answer Rhys' questions. "We didn't think it was possible. 
There's a whole host of factors Stargates have that the Maidens don't. 
They're made of a mineral not found on earth, they have control devices 
nearby, they..."

"What Daniel is saying, albeit somewhat long-windedly," broke in 
O'Neill, "is that as far as we knew, you can't make a Stargate by 
throwing a few rocks together."

Rhys raised an eyebrow. "Apparently one can."

"You don't say," returned O'Neill drily.

"So how do we get back?" asked Hart. His nervousness had not abated, 
which disturbed Caliburn. He had never seen the Sergeant so seriously 
rattled by anything. But he was at least managing to sound calm.

"Two possibilities," said the Colonel: "Option one: Carter works out how 
the Stones in Cornwall operate, in which case all we have to do is stay 
put until she does."

"And failing that?"

"Option two: we go looking for a real Stargate, so Daniel can dial us 
home."

Rhys looked at the archaeologist. "You can do that?"

Jackson dug in a pocket and produced a dog-eared ring-bound pad. "I 
brought my notebook."

"I'm glad someone brought something," said Rhys, "since we don't have 
food, water or appropriate equipment."

"Carter's good," said O'Neill. "We won't be here long enough to need 
them."

Oh wonderful, thought Caliburn as he lay back on the cold, hard earth- 
no, make that ground. An optimist. That was all he needed.

Above him, the two moons hung in the night sky, one large and one small, 
a knowing wink from a universe better informed than himself. 

Rhys shut his eyes and, in spite of the jungle heat, shivered.

* * *

The flight to London took less than three hours, which Sam considered 
little more than a short hop. The staff at the Ministry of Defence in 
Whitehall did not appear to share her opinion, and she quickly lost 
count of the number of kind enquiries as to how well she had survived 
the rigors of her lengthy journey. It was an odd country, she thought, 
which was so small and thought itself so large. 

While Yarrow was taken away, presumably to make account to his 
superiors, a matronly woman named Joan showed Sam to a tiny, bare 
office. There, what Joan assured her was the secure communications link 
Carter had requested was installed. Joan smiled a smile which might have 
been maternal concern or might have been a Cheshire Cat grin. Sam 
couldn't tell, and so had no option but to take her words at face value. 

Politely, Carter refused the cup of tea which Joan offered before 
leaving her alone. When the woman had gone, she stared at the PC and the 
telephone sitting beside it on the desk with suspicion for several 
minutes. But she knew she would have to talk to SGC at some point, and 
it was either this or a telephone booth in the street. Cellphones were 
not standard issue equipment for SG teams. She would have to see what 
she could do about that when she got back. 

She resigned herself to the possibility that the conversation she was 
about to have might not be as private as she would have liked and lifted 
the receiver, wishing that O'Neill could be here. His experience in 
covert ops and the lies governments tell each other was exactly what she 
needed right now. She entered the direct line number and felt another 
quick stab of anger at having been ordered to stay behind. She was a 
scientist and a military officer; she lacked the experience in half-
truths and deal-making that this situation would soon demand. 

The phone rang twice before it was answered. The voice on the other end 
was tinny and echoed slightly in her ear, but she was glad to hear the 
General's calm, measured tones. She briefed him quickly, answered his 
questions as they arose. 

"Where are you now, Captain?" he asked finally.

"London, sir. At the MOD. They're finding me a hotel for tonight."

"And there's been no further activity at the Stones in Cornwall?"

"No, sir. Professor Yarrow left a small section of his team there to 
monitor them, and I've left instructions to let me know if there's any 
activity, but my instincts say it's unlikely. The eclipse has come and 
gone."

"Do you think you can recreate the wormhole at the Stones without an 
eclipse?"

Sam pushed her hair back off her face and gazed at her reflection in the 
dark surface of the office's single tiny window. Then she refocused on 
the lights beyond the glass, the myriad chains of golden streetlamps 
which stretched along Victoria Embankment, lining the wide dark waters 
of the Thames. "I won't know until I sit down and go through Yarrow's 
results, try to figure out exactly how the eclipse made the wormhole 
open in the first place. But even then..." she trailed off, her mind 
tracking down several possible avenues of investigation, already 
anticipating the dead ends just out of sight: "...They're just rocks in 
a field, sir. We can't recreate a total eclipse, and right now I can't 
see what other factors might have been in play."

"Then perhaps you'd better return to the SGC and work on the problem 
from here."

Sam shut her eyes. God, that was tempting. The familiar environment of 
the SGC, her own equipment, her own team of scientists... She opened her 
eyes, made herself look at the lights of the London skyline. "Our Gate 
only connects with other Gates. Since the Colonel and the others left 
here through something which is not a Stargate, there is a strong 
possibility that wherever they've gone doesn't have one either. I've got 
to satisfy myself that I've exhausted all the possibilities here before 
I leave, sir."

"Very well. I've put TSS on full alert. If you need to teleconference 
with anybody here at any time, it'll happen."

Sam nodded. The SGC's Technical and Scientific Support team comprised 
some of the best people she had ever worked with, across a dozen fields. 
Knowing she had that resource to call upon made her feel slightly more 
confident. But only slightly. 

Five men had disappeared into a hole in the ground during an eclipse, 
and she had to find out why, and then make it happen again. 

"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'll be in touch."

"I know it's late where you are, Captain. Go and get some rest. In the 
morning, you'll think of a way to bring them home."

Despite herself, Sam smiled, hearing the undercurrent of paternal 
concern in the distant voice. At least she knew that was genuine. "Yes 
sir. I'll do that," she said, and cut the connection.

But the answer was a lie, of sorts. Rest and bring them home. She 
wouldn't do one until she had achieved the other. 

* * *

The ground was hard, cold and uncomfortable. Jack grunted, and turned 
over on to his other side; this made his sleeping position no more 
tolerable, and only served to allow the brilliant dawn rays of this 
alien world's sun to shine straight into his face. Even with his eyes 
closed, it was too bright. He gave up on sleep and sat up, stretching 
sore, stiff muscles. 

Not far off, Daniel was curled into a foetal ball, arms wrapped around 
himself, legs drawn up to his chest. Jack gave him a firm shake. "Rise 
and shine, Danny-boy."

Daniel started, and opened his eyes, squinting in the harsh morning sun. 
"What time is it?"

"It's dawn here, two a.m. in Cornwall, and about eight in the evening at 
home. Take your pick."

Daniel moaned. "This isn't jet lag, it's terminal temporal confusion." 
He rolled over and sat up. The circle of stones was as empty and dormant 
as it had been when they had made camp the previous evening. "How much 
longer are we going to wait here?"

"Just the question I was about to ask."

Jack looked up in time to see Caliburn cross the circle and join them. A 
tuft of hair was sticking out at right angles to his head just above one 
ear, and stubble was darkening the skin on his jaw and throat. O'Neill 
looked down at his own clothes- and dammit, he was wearing dress 
uniform, not even practical combats and boots- and decided that they 
must all look something less than parade perfect this morning. 

"Colonel, no one is injured. We can all walk. And we need to find fresh 
water, if nothing else."

"Agreed," Jack conceded. He looked beyond the boundaries of the circle. 
Dense undergrowth began only a few feet outside the perimeter, and it 
was impossible to see further than several yards in any direction. 
"Anyone want to make the call?"

Caliburn indicated the rising sun. "East is as good as anything."

"Ummm," said Daniel.

The Major looked at him. "Problem, Dr Jackson?"

"Not with the direction. It's just that, uh, where the sun rises isn't 
necessarily east here." 

Caliburn looked for a moment as if he might say something. Then he 
turned on his heel and stalked away to wake Hart.

"Way to go, Danny," muttered Jack. "Make it harder for the guy than it 
already is."

Daniel frowned. "I thought he seemed to be coping pretty well."

"Seemed being the operative word. This is SOP for us, or very nearly. 
Caliburn over there is in major weird-out territory, if you'll pardon 
the pun. We're lucky Hart's here, and not taking it so well. Caliburn's 
keeping it together for the sake of his command." 

"You think?"

"I know." Jack straightened up. "C'mon. Time to head east, or whatever 
the hell direction it is."

* * *

Carter's luggage, such as it was, had been left in the centre of her 
hotel room, waiting for her arrival. The suite which had been found for 
her in the Mayfair hostelry easily ranked as the most opulent 
accommodations she had been billeted to during her career, although she 
suspected this was more a result of the last minute nature of the 
arrangement rather than the British MOD's intrinsic spirit of generosity 
towards visiting Americans. Under other circumstances, she would have 
devoted a considerable length of time to enjoying the plush 
surroundings; tonight, she was too preoccupied to do much more than cast 
a quick glance around her as she unpacked.

The task completed, she kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the 
king-sized bed, massaging her cramped and aching toes. She hadn't worn 
heels for such an extended period of time in months, and her feet were 
letting her know it. Come to think of it, the rest of her body wasn't 
overly happy at having been zipped and buttoned into the chafing 
confines of skirt and jacket when it had become accustomed to more 
comfortable, practical clothes. She acceded to its demands and stripped, 
dumping her uniform on the luggage rack and shrugging on the towelling 
robe she found hanging behind the door in the bathroom. Then she sat up 
against the bed's headboard with a pad of hotel writing paper balanced 
against her knees, sucking on the end of a hotel pen, and thought about 
wormholes.

Thinking about wormholes. It seemed to Sam sometimes that she had spent 
most of the past four years doing little else. She knew she had a first 
class mind- that wasn't vanity, it was an honest appraisal of one of her 
greatest assets- but she also knew that she had become part of the 
Stargate project through a mixture of hard work and simple good fortune. 
Hard work had led her through the long, difficult path of degree after 
degree, and then, just when she had the beginnings of a career in 
academia, it had taken her through the entirely new challenges the 
military had presented. Good fortune had ensured that one whimsical, 
extreme paper she had written- Traversible Wormholes: Theory and 
Implications- had landed on the desk of someone with the power to make 
things happen.

There were more brilliant physicists, but Sam Carter knew for certain 
that tonight there was no one else on the planet who possessed her 
combination of theoretical knowledge and practical experience of 
wormholes. 

She could make it count. She had to.

* * *

Within a few yards of the Maidens' alien sisters, the vegetation 
thickened into a mass of green foliage which was impossible to pass 
through except in single file, and only then with tedious slowness. Rhys 
pushed his way through the soggy green mesh of creepers and low branches 
which blocked the way ahead, wishing for the thousandth time that he had 
a machete. Better still, a flamethrower. Yes, it was an impractical 
fantasy, but as everything that had happened to him since the previous 
day had been firmly in the realms of the fantastical, he didn't see why 
he shouldn't indulge himself for a while. 

Rhys cast a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Hart was still 
following, ignoring the pain the movement generated. He was glad to see 
the younger man was making a good pace, and was concentrating on where 
he placed his feet with each step. The undercurrent of vague terror had 
never left his face, but at least a collapse into hysterics or shock had 
been forestalled. 

Satisfied, Caliburn twisted to face the front one more, and caught 
O'Neill's eye as he turned. The Colonel had been making exactly the same 
surreptitious check-up on Jackson, who was lagging a short distance 
behind Hart. 

The path opened wide enough to accommodate two persons at once, and 
Caliburn fell into step beside O'Neill. "This Stargate we're looking 
for," he began: "What is it like?"

"Oh, you can't miss it. It's about fifteen feet high, round, and it has 
lots of really neat squiggles carved around the outside. And there's a 
control, ahhh, thing nearby, with a sort of red glowing, ahhh, thing in 
the middle."

Rhys looked at him. "Use a lot of technical terms, then, do you?"

"Hey, go easy on us. We're making this up as we go along."

"So I've noticed," said Caliburn sourly, and ignored the dark glance 
which the Colonel shot at him in response. "Where did it come from? The 
Gate? I mean, I assume you didn't build yours, not if they're all over 
the show, like Tube stops."

"No, we didn't build ours." O'Neill shrugged. "Although I for one would 
like to meet the guys who did. We found it. Dug it up."

"In the US?"

"Ahh... no. In Egypt."

Rhys considered this. "So essentially you're saying that this thing 
belongs in the first place to some kind of Galactic equivalent to a 
civic council, or failing that to the Egyptians, but actually America 
spirited it away and now you're popping through it on a regular basis 
just to see what's out there?"

"Hey, if we hadn't figured out that the damn thing was more than a 
glorified lawn ornament, it'd still be sitting in some museum gathering 
dust."

"And we wouldn't be wandering about in a tropical forest when we should 
be in Cornwall!" returned Rhys. 

"Your point being?"

"My point being, you got lucky. And instead of standing by saying 
nothing while we got sucked into this mess, you could have said 
something a little bit earlier." 

"Like what?"

"Stand back would have sufficed!" snapped Rhys, losing his temper.

O'Neill stopped walking and turned to face him, looking slightly 
ridiculous in his leaf and soil stained white dress shirt and dark 
trousers. Ahead, Teal'c drew up, while behind them Jackson and Hart 
stopped as well. "You could try being glad that we're here," said the 
Colonel angrily, "because if we weren't, you wouldn't have the first 
damn clue what happened or how to get back."

"You'll have to excuse my lack of gratitude, Colonel. I'm having a hard 
time seeing how the circumstances merit it." 

Rhys swivelled on his heel and prepared to walk on, but stopped when he 
nearly collided with Teal'c's upheld palm. "Be still," he said.

Caliburn gaped at him. What the bloody hell was this supposed to be, an 
impromptu anger management class?

"What is it, Teal'c?" asked Jackson.

"I hear water."

Jackson let out a sigh of relief, and hopped ahead of Rhys and O'Neill 
to follow in the direction Teal'c indicated; Hart was close behind him. 
Rhys made to follow them, giving O'Neill a black look as he did so. 
"This discussion is not over," he said.

"Not on this side of the Pond either, Major."

They set off behind the others.

                         *******************

Three

A sycamore seed, spinning in the air. Floating on the breeze, carried by 
the force of air from below. Lighter than a pin, yet somehow the beating 
of its green blades against the air was more noise than Sam could bear.

Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthump-

She woke with a start, took a second to orient herself. She was lying 
sprawled across the top of the covers of the huge bed, one leg sticking 
out at an ungainly angle from the gap in the hotel bathrobe she was 
wearing. The piece of paper she had stared at uselessly for hours before 
drifting into unconsciousness still rested on top of her stomach. She 
must have been exhausted: she had not stirred at all in her sleep.

She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, scattering papers and books 
on to the floor. Some time after midnight a courier had arrived with the 
full transcript of the results of the tests Yarrow's team had been 
carrying out during the eclipse. The Professor's theory concerning the 
fluctuating EM fields around the Stones, she quickly saw, had been 
correct: the graphical representations of the fields came in the form of 
a series of print-outs of wave forms which shifted and changed over the 
course of the eclipse. Sam had never seen anything quite like it, and 
under other circumstances would have been fascinated by the phenomenon. 
Currently she had other concerns.

She rummaged around in the piles of paper until she located the print 
outs whose time signatures indicated the measurements which they 
recorded had been made at eleven minutes past eleven. Totality. The wave 
form, as far as Sam could tell, was just another wave form. There was 
nothing, absolutely nothing, in the data to indicate what had caused the 
wormhole at the Stones to open. 

She shook her head. No, that wasn't quite correct. It was patently 
obvious what had caused the wormhole to open: the eclipse occurring 
overhead could hardly have been a fortuitous coincidence. But given that 
she had no way to generate another eclipse, she had to find the link 
between the wormhole and the forces which had acted on the Maidens 
during those strange minutes at totality, and reproduce them. 

No naquada, she thought. No DHD, no series of glyphs, no power source. 
Just nineteen granite rocks in a field.

And the Colonel, Daniel and Teal'c could be anywhere.

She stared at the print-out she was holding and traced her index finger 
along the dipping and rising line. 

Damn, she thought, but we've really gone and done it this time.

There was a sharp knock at the hotel room's door.

Sam discarded the print-out and blinked at the clock on the bedside 
table. Seven o'clock. She got up and staggered to the door, expecting 
room service, or perhaps another delivery of the papers and reference 
books which she had requested. 

She opened the door, and stared blankly at Lieutenant Sheldrick.

"I need to know what the hell this is all about," he said, the words 
tumbling out over each other as if he was afraid that pausing between 
them might reduce his chances of finishing the sentence.

Carter cleared the sleep from her eyes and stepped back, allowing him 
into the room. A small cut on his face was already healing over, but 
otherwise he looked, if it were possible, worse than she felt. The dark 
circles under his eyes betrayed exhaustion, while the expression within 
them showed confusion and incomprehension. 

"Lieutenant," she said, "I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."

He shook his head angrily. "Captain, what I saw yesterday... That was 
impossible. The ground opened up and..." He broke off. His mouth 
continued to move but no words came out. Sam waited while he attempted 
to sort it out, watching as he tried in vain to fit the experience into 
his established understanding of how the world ought to work. With 
sudden clarity he looked directly at her. "Are they dead?" he asked.

She returned his gaze, seeing the desperate hope in his face. He 
deserved to know that much. "No," she told him. "It's just that 
they're... temporarily elsewhere."

Sheldrick nodded slowly, and sat down heavily on the end of the unmade 
bed. "When I saw them vanish...the Major, then Del...I thought..." he 
looked up: "They're not dead?" he asked again.

Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. "They're not dead. And I'm going to 
figure out how to bring them home, Lieutenant."

"Home from where?"

She didn't answer. "Where's Doyle?"

"Still in debriefing at the Ministry. What I've been doing all night. I 
came here as soon as they let me out."

No wonder Sheldrick looked so grey: he'd spent the hours since the 
accident being forced to describe it over and over again in fine detail 
for Pinker and his fellow intelligence ghouls. Sam felt a sudden stab of 
anger that the man could not have been given at least a few hours' grace 
before they descended upon him. "Lie down," she instructed him. "And 
never let it be said my bed isn't open to everybody."

The reward for this weak attempt at humour was a faint smile, as 
Sheldrick leaned back into the still-warm covers. Sam headed for the 
bathroom picking up her clothes on the way. Once inside, she closed the 
door behind her and washed her teeth and face. She slipped off her 
bathrobe and allowed it to fall to the tiled floor, then began to dress, 
pulling on underwear, nylons, her uniform skirt and blouse. 

She shrugged on her jacket, and frowned.

Something tickled her neck, below the hairline. She reached up and her 
probing fingers soon located and retrieved the annoyance. She held it up 
under the beauty cabinet light, and examined it carefully. It was a 
sycamore seed.

It must have blown into her hair when the helicopter landed, and then 
nestled under her collar all the way back to the Ministry and then the 
hotel. She held the seed between her thumb and forefinger and then, with 
a brief twisting action, released it into the air. She watched it twirl 
into the sink, its spinning wings the natural inspiration for the 
helicopter's beating blades.

She stared. 

"Oh my God," she whispered. That was it. A sycamore seed was nature's 
helicopter. The Stones marked nature's Gate. The Stones were merely 
stones, but the ground they marked, on the other hand...

She thought rapidly. 

There was a perforation in space in the Cornish countryside. Whoever had 
built the stone circle had recognised and marked it. Most of the time, 
the Stones were only stones, like a sycamore seed attached to its parent 
tree. But then, once every few millennia, a breeze passed by- or a 
particularly strong gravitational surge caused by the temporary 
alignment of Earth, moon and sun as the totality of an eclipse swept 
overhead- and shook it free. Then the seed flew, and the passage to 
somewhere else opened.

She pushed her right foot into a shoe and hopped back into the bedroom 
still levering her left heel into place. "Sheldrick. Sheldrick!"

He sat up as she flung the bathroom door open in front of herself, and 
looked slightly nervous at her wild-haired, wilder-eyed approach. "I've 
got it," said Sam. "I know how we can get them back. Have you got a 
car?"

He stared at her. "They're somewhere we can drive to?" 

Sam shook her head emphatically. "No, no, no. I need a ride. I need to 
find Doyle."

"Doyle? Why Doyle?"

"Because he made contact with the event horizon." Sheldrick looked at 
her blankly. "Okay. That means nothing to you. Bear with me." She paced 
up and down the room, talking to herself, nailing down her thoughts by 
vocalising them. "We can take an accurate resonance sounding from Doyle, 
back home. Then we can tweak our Gate to match the resonance. Hell, it 
could work. It could." Sheldrick was still frowning, and Sam gripped him 
by the arms and grinned at him. "I think I know how to follow them."

"And bring them back?" he asked slowly.

"I hope so." 

"Right you are then." He got up. "We'll get Doyle and do it."

Sam shook her head emphatically. "Lieutenant," she said, "You really 
don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"So tell me."

"I can't." She turned and moved towards the door, looking away from him. 
"I have my orders too. You're just going to have to trust me."

Her hand was resting on the door handle when he next spoke. Sam was not 
sure what she had expected- anger, maybe, incomprehension, some attempt 
at persuasion. She was not prepared for the calm, measured appeal she 
heard.

"Captain, I came here because no one else is telling me anything. I know 
about secrecy. But Del, Major Caliburn... They're my patrol."

Sam let go of the doorknob and turned around. "And Daniel and Teal'c and 
the Colonel are my team." Sheldrick's tired, grey face looked back at 
her, a faint glimmer of hope easing the lines around his eyes. How 
important are secrets now? she thought. Damn Minstry used them as guinea 
pigs.

"I could use your help."

He gave her a tired but sincere grin. 

"Where to, ma'am?"

"Right now, to the Ministry. After that..." Sam grabbed her room key 
from the bedside table: "Your guess is as good as mine."

* * *

The stream Teal'c had located was small, but the water it channelled was 
fresh and clear, and hostilities were suspended while they drank. This 
done, a rest break was agreed by mutual consent, and they sat around on 
the moist, bare soil, fanning themselves with fallen leaves and saying 
little. 

"You didn't mention the Goa'uld?" asked Daniel softly, taking an empty 
patch of ground beside Jack.

O'Neill treated him to his most withering look. "No, Daniel, I did not 
tell him about the Goa'uld. I didn't think letting him in on the 
existence of the legions of body-snatching slugs who we've managed to 
piss off royally in the recent past would go down well at this point."

"Just asking."

"Yeah. Sorry." O'Neill leaned back into a bank of soft moss and pulled 
at the sleeves of his filthy shirt. "I wouldn't mind except that he has 
a point. The Major over there and his men were sent to Cornwall as bait 
in a trap set for us. I thought if we didn't talk to them we'd avoid 
falling into it." He gave a wry smile. "We fell into it anyway. 
Literally. We would have been better off if we'd sat down with them the 
minute we arrived and told them everything about the SGC and the Gate. 
If we'd done that, we'd probably be enjoying the local beer with them 
somewhere in downtown Plymouth right now."

Daniel looked at him doubtfully. "Downtown Plymouth?"

"Whatever the Brits say."

"You know, I don't think we're the first people to use this stream as a 
source of drinking water."

The switch of topic was abrupt and unannounced, but that was Daniel. In 
the ten second lull in the conversation, thought Jack, his brain had 
probably made the run from beer to the possibility of native life and 
back again at least a dozen times. He wouldn't even be aware of a jump 
in the discussion thread: to Daniel, thoughts and ideas flowed like 
water downhill, fast and fluid as quicksilver. 

Impressive. But damned annoying to talk to sometimes. "What makes you 
think that?"

"Oh, stuff," said Daniel vaguely. "The way the moss is crushed over 
there. That dip in the rock. Little things."

Jack looked, and began to see what he meant. In fact, now that he looked 
carefully, he thought he could see a pattern in the disruption to the 
otherwise lush undergrowth. "Is that a trail?"

"Could be." Daniel got up. "I'll take a look."

"Don't wander too far," said Jack automatically.

Daniel mumbled an assent as he clambered away, up the slope of the 
stream. Elsewhere, Hart gave a sudden exclamation of pain. Caliburn 
looked around sharply. "What is it, Sergeant?"

"I tore my hand on a bush a way back, sir."

"Let's see it." The Major took hold of Hart's right hand and manipulated 
it into a rare shaft of sunlight breaking through the tree canopy above. 
Jack shuffled down the bank to join them, and saw Teal'c draw closer as 
well. "How's your field medicine, Colonel?" asked Caliburn.

Jack spread his hands apologetically. "Basic first aid. I could kiss it 
better, though," he added brightly.

"Is the bleeding severe?" asked Teal'c.

"No, it's just..." Caliburn stopped, and Jack leaned into the light to 
see what was concerning the Major. The wound on Hart's hand oozed a 
little blood, but it was not deep, and superficially there seemed to be 
little to worry about. But there was a sticky residue, like sap, 
clinging to the exposed edges of flesh, and the skin around the cut was 
blistering and swelling in a way which it should not have been.

"It looks like it could do with a wash," said Caliburn, and guided 
Hart's hand under the running water. As he moved, Jack saw a crescent of 
red welts rising on the back of the Major's neck. 

"What happened to you?" Caliburn looked up, frowning, and Jack raised a 
hand to his own neck, suddenly aware of the itch that was developing 
there and on his forearms. "Did we go through a nightshade patch or 
something?"

Caliburn rubbed at his neck and winced. "The vegetation mustn't be very 
friendly."

"Great," said Jack. "All we need now is stinging ants, and we're in 
paradise."

The yell of surprise and pain from the top of the stream was as 
unexpected as it was penetrating; Caliburn and Teal'c began to scrabble 
up the bank immediately, but Jack was faster, and reached the source of 
the cries first. Daniel was kneeling, one leg half in the water, his 
hands caged around his face. 

"Oh God. My eyes- my eyes- oh God-"

Jack knelt by him and attempted gently to prise his locked fingers away 
from his face. Daniel was still wearing his glasses. How bad could it 
be?

"Colonel," said Caliburn, warning in his voice.

Jack turned and saw an innocuous looking red flower-bud bulging from a 
bush whose branches overhung the stream. The bud bobbed up and down, 
then, without warning, popped. A fine red mist filled the air within an 
inch of the flower, then dissipated. 

"Okay," said Jack reassuringly, "you're okay. You got a little pollen in 
your eyes, Danny, that's all. What were you doing, looking for an 
addition to your pressed flowers collection?"

"O'Neill." Another voice: Teal'c this time. Jack looked again, and saw 
what he had observed- a dusting of the heavier pollen grains had fallen 
on the leaves of another shrub, growing below the first.

They disintegrated.

"Shit," breathed Jack. Then: "Water. Let him at the water."

He pulled Daniel's hands away from his face, and removed his glasses 
with equal force. The plastic surface of the lenses was warped and 
decaying. Next, he man-handled Daniel through a one hundred and eighty 
degree turn and down to the babbling water, grimly ignoring the 
incoherent cries of agony the movement provoked.

"Teal'c. Caliburn. Help me." 

Teal'c supported Daniel at his left side; Jack allowed the Major to 
replace himself at the right while he put his hands together, dipped 
them in the water and lifted cupped palms streaming with the clear, 
clean liquid to Daniel's face. The cries became high-pitched whines of 
pain as the cold hit Daniel's raw and blistering skin, and Jack saw the 
other men tense with the effort of holding him steady as he 
instinctively tried to buck away from the this new source of hurt. Jack 
tried not to focus on the suffering he was causing the younger man; 
instead he concentrated on the necessity of getting the plant's noxious 
secretions out of his eyes before any permanent damage was done.

He was afraid it might be too late already to prevent that.

The delicate skin around Daniel's eyes was rising in angry red blisters, 
the flesh swelling so fast that his eyelids had already been forced 
shut. 

"It hurts, oh shit it hurts, it hurts, oh God oh God..."

"Easy, take it easy, Danny," soothed Jack. He called a halt to the 
mechanical routine of lifting the water, pouring it over Daniel's face, 
repeating the action. Daniel was soaking, hair plastered to his 
forehead, T-shirt sopping. O'Neill lifted the edge of his shirt, 
twisting it until he located a patch of material that was still 
relatively clean, and dabbed the excess water away. Daniel moaned and 
rocked back and forward. 

"He's in shock," said Caliburn.

"So would you be." Jack sat back on his heels, watched as Teal'c and 
Caliburn released Daniel gently on to the ground, where he lay on his 
side, moaning. "We need to bandage his eyes. Hart, give me your shirt."

The Sergeant unbuttoned his green shirt, stripping to the sweat-stained 
vest he was wearing underneath, and began to reach it over to Jack. 
Suddenly he froze.

"Dammit Hart," said O'Neill with irritation, "just give me the-"

"O'Neill," interrupted Teal'c quietly.

Jack looked up.

"Oh shit," he said.

* * *

All in all, thought Sam, the morning was progressing much more 
productively than she could have hoped.

They had fought their way through Thursday morning rush hour traffic in 
reasonable time, chiefly due to Sheldrick's battlefield-style driving. 
Once at the MOD they split up, Carter to make contact with SGC and run 
her plan by the General, and Sheldrick to find Doyle. When the lift 
doors opened on the Ministry's entrance lobby, Sam was greeted by the 
sight of the Lieutenant waiting for her with the Corporal in tow. The 
gold rimmed, ornate clock set high in the lobby's wall read half past 
ten. Sam nodded to herself. Not bad going.

"Captain?" asked Sheldrick as she approached.

"We're all set," she informed him. "The General's given us the go-ahead. 
We'll go to the US embassy next: he's arranged travel from there. We'll 
be at the base by this evening."

"Ahh, I wouldn't be so certain of that, Captain."

The silky, sly voice was the last one Sam wanted to hear at that moment, 
and she turned around as slowly as she could, hoping she was wrong. She 
wasn't. Mr Pinker stood just behind them, immaculate in a fresh grey 
suit, smiling thinly.

"Mr Pinker," said Sam: "We have five men missing. I'm trying to find 
them. You can help me or you can get out of my way." 

"I do appreciate the gravity of the situation," he replied evenly. "But 
I've just received a call from Major Caliburn's commanding officer. The 
Brigadier is rather irate. He wants to know why two of his men have 
vanished and why the American military wants to spirit two more out of 
the country without going through the proper channels."

"With respect, sir," said Sheldrick, "The Americans have made a request 
for our aid. Due to the urgent nature of the situation, we thought it 
best to help first and fill in the relevant forms later." He smiled 
pleasantly at Pinker. "And, begging your pardon, I'm not sure I see how 
this is any of your bloody business."

Pinker smiled back at Sheldrick, but his eyes remained fixed on Carter. 
"Captain Carter, may I have a word with you in private?"

Sam hesitated, debating the wisdom of telling him exactly where to go 
and dealing with the consequences later. But the little spook's smug 
smile bothered her. He had the look of a man who knows he holds the 
winning hand. "By all means." 

Sam followed Pinker down a long, marble floored hallway with led off the 
lobby, and allowed him to hold the door for her as they entered one of 
the succession of box-like offices which lined it. Once inside, he 
squeezed through the small gap between the desk and the wall, and sat 
down behind the heavy oak table, holding out a hand and indicating that 
she should sit also. She did so, warily. Somehow she didn't even trust 
this man's soft furnishings.

"I'll come straight to the point," said Pinker. "You can't take them."

She regarded him coolly. "I have permission from my superiors. I have 
their co-operation. Perhaps you'd like to justify that?"

Pinker shrugged easily. "If you want to co-opt Lieutenant Sheldrick and 
Corporal Doyle into any American military operation, you'll need 
approval from their unit and ultimately from the Ministry. It could take 
up to six weeks. If it's granted."

"No games, Mr Pinker," said Carter sharply. "Unless you're planning to 
have us arrested, the Lieutenant and the Corporal are walking out of 
here with me. Political consequences be damned."

"Political consequences," echoed Pinker. "Interesting that you should 
put it like that."

Sam stood up and made to leave. "You know, I really don't have time for 
this crap. If you have something to say, say it."

He smiled again. "I have nothing to say." His voice became silken and 
soft. "I do, however, have something to show you."

His tone hardened, the vague undertones of threat crystallising into 
something barbed and almost tangible. Carter felt a chill in the bottom 
of her stomach as she hesitated at the door, realising the truth. He 
held a trump card.

Abruptly, Pinker got up and, crossing to an anonymous grey filing 
cabinet, unlocked the top drawer. He pulled out a plain A-4 brown 
envelope, which he handed to her. "I think you'll find these rather... 
interesting."

Carter opened the sealed envelope, running one thumbnail under the 
adhesive flap and sliding out the contents. Five large black and white 
photographs tumbled out.

She looked at the first. Then the second. She turned to Pinker. "Where 
did you get these?"

He smiled. "You should know where they're from, Captain. You're in 
them." He leaned past her, in an overly-intimate manner, and tapped the 
glossy paper of the uppermost image. "That's you there, on that 
stretcher. Of course, you were unconscious when this was taken, so I can 
understand if you don't recall the exact circumstances. But you must 
recognise the rest of your observation team. This fellow here, on the 
stretcher next to you, that's Colonel O'Neill, and that gentleman 
standing on the edge of the shot and looking so touchingly concerned, 
that's Dr Jackson."

Sam stared at him, lips pressed tightly shut. 

"The pictures were taken at St Andrew's RAF base, inside the Antarctic 
Circle. That's where you and Colonel O'Neill were flown out of- this was 
about a year and a half ago. Remember?" He shook his head. "The 
Antarctic is international territory, Captain. A lot of people watch 
what happens there very closely indeed. And I personally found it very 
curious that the US Air Force evacuated two injured officers from a 
region which had been blizzard bound and completely cut off for the 
previous three months. No way in. Not by land or sea or air. You take my 
point?"

Sam said nothing.

"And then there was this." Pinker lifted away the top four photographs, 
exposing the final shot. It had been taken in perfect Antarctic 
conditions, clear and bright, and the resolution was so sharp that Sam 
almost winced at the contrast between light and dark. It showed a group 
of Air Force personnel supervising as two thick cables suspended from a 
crane lowered some evidently heavy object into an enormous transport 
crate. When the camera's shutter had closed and preserved the moment, 
the procedure had been almost completed, and only the very top of the 
object was visible, peeping up over the rim of the huge wooden box. It 
was curved and dark, and Sam didn't have to see any more of it to know 
what it was. The second Stargate.

"Of course, very little of the object is visible, but what little detail 
can be made out is quite fascinating. Take this, for example." Pinker 
rested one finger on the faint outline of one of the carvings at the 
crest of the Gate. Sam noticed that he had no cuticles to speak of, and 
that the nail was round and even. She wondered, absurdly, if he went to 
a beautician for his manicures or did them himself. "The enlargement is 
clearer. Here." He handed her yet another image, this time of the 
magnified symbol. It was the capped A-shape of the seventh glyph. 

"I'm not going to condescend by asking if you recognise it. It's clear 
you do. Now you understand why Professor Yarrow's work has attracted 
more interest than it might otherwise have done."

He stopped speaking, and returned to his side of the desk, taking his 
time as he settled back into the padded, high backed chair. Sam took a 
silent, measured breath. When she met his gaze her composure was 
absolute. "Mr Pinker, you have a marvellous imagination. Colonel O'Neill 
and myself are pilots. It's not uncommon in the Air Force. We were on a 
training flight and we crashed. We were very lucky to survive. These 
photographs..." She deposited the sheaf of images on the desk: "I don't 
know anything about them."

Pinker made no reply for several long seconds. Then he reached into a 
drawer in the desk and withdrew a bundle of pages, paperclipped 
together. Wordlessly, he pushed it over the desktop to Sam.

She glanced down at it, and read the TITLE at the top of the first sheet 
with dismay. Traversible Wormholes: Theory and Implications. By Capt. 
Dr. S. E. Carter.

"Quote from the conclusion: Such a phenomenon, if it could be harnessed, 
would not be limited in range as are conventional forms of space 
exploration. Traversible wormholes would become not merely our gates to 
the planets of this solar system, but our gates to the stars." He sat 
back and when he finally spoke again his voice was so soft that the hum 
of traffic from the street outside almost drowned it out: "Gates to the 
stars. An evocative little phrase. But Stargate is so much punchier, 
isn't it?"

Damn him. He knew.

"Why do you think your government agreed to send you here, Captain 
Doctor? It certainly wasn't out of a commitment to international co-
operation and the advancement of science. We gathered the evidence and 
came to the correct conclusions, and when we asked for an appropriate 
team to observe at the Cornwall experiment, we made it quite clear that 
if no such team was forthcoming, we would table a motion at the UN 
enquiring what the Americans were doing removing unique archaeological 
treasures from international territory without telling anyone. And no 
one wanted that unhappy outcome. Political consequences, you see."

Sam stared at him, keeping her gaze steady. She was tempted to continue 
to stonewall, to let him talk himself hoarse then walk out of here and 
find a way around him. But she didn't have the time for lengthy 
diplomatic manoeuvring, and she didn't know how extensive or solid Mr 
Pinker's power base was. 

Spooks were famous for cutting deals. It was time to cut and run.

"Mr Pinker," she said: "I don't give a damn what you know or think you 
know. There are five men lost out there. My orders are to bring them 
home."

Pinker smiled, and visibly relaxed. He had won, Sam realised, and he 
knew it. "I have no objection to that, Captain. I don't want an 
international incident any more than you do. But if you're taking 
Sheldrick and Doyle anywhere, then it's on one condition."

He sat back in the plush, high backed chair and templed his hands 
together in front of face, fingertips meeting to form a cage, a trap of 
flesh and bone. 

"I'm coming too."

* * *

Bad things come in threes, thought Jack morosely as he sat and attempted 
to make himself comfortable on the uneven, damp floor of the hut which 
had become their new home. So, number one, getting duped into coming to 
this God-forsaken, chlorophyll-ridden hole in the first place; number 
two, Danny getting an eyeful of magic dust, and number three, the 
natives.

Ah yes. The natives.

The group of ten men who had surrounded them at the stream had made for 
an imposing welcoming committee. They had stood in complete silence for 
as long as several minutes, aiming an impressive arsenal of razor-tipped 
implements in the direction of the five newcomers as they tried to 
decide whether what they had stumbled across was friend or foe.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Caliburn's hand edge towards the 
holster at his belt in which his sidearm rested, then stop as the Major 
thought better of the action. Jack felt a profound sense of relief: 
outnumbered two to one, he suspected that any rash action by any member 
of his party would have resulted in a swift and bloody death.

After a silence which seemed to extend for years rather than minutes, 
the leader of the group had stepped forward, spear extended. His short 
woven tunic was dyed a dark green colour, which served to accentuate the 
rich chocolate timbre of his skin. All in all, thought Jack, in Levis 
and a sweatshirt, he would not have looked out of place in the shopping 
district of Colorado Springs. 

Apart from the hair. 

His hair was white. Not grey, or blonde, or dark at the roots: white. As 
was that of each of his nine companions. The effect was startling in the 
extreme.

The native took another tentative step forward and lowered his weapon, 
although not fully. He looked down at Daniel, who was crouched on the 
ground, moaning, unaware of the drama unfolding above his head. Then the 
forest dweller looked at O'Neill.

The only sound was the splashing of water over algae-slickened rocks and 
the hoot of strange creatures in the canopy.

"Well," said Jack finally, "this is becoming socially awkward, isn't 
it?"

The white-haired man started- yes, Jack wasn't imagining it, he 
physically started. A ripple of interested movement passed around the 
watchers like the wave at a baseball game.

The hunter took another step forward. "You will come with us," he said 
clearly. 

His commanding tone made it quite clear that the matter was not open to 
discussion. O'Neill looked to Caliburn, who gave a small, what-the-hell 
shrug. Then Jack motioned to Teal'c to help him pull Daniel to his feet, 
and they set off down the forest track which ran parallel to the stream, 
flanked left and right, forward and back by their new, armed friends.

                         *******************

Four

The clock on the infirmary wall informed Andy that it was seven o'clock 
in the evening. His body was convinced that it was in fact much later, 
and the long journey they had endured to get here- London Heathrow to 
RAF Lyneham to Denver to an airstrip in the middle of nowhere- was 
providing persuasive supporting evidence. He stifled a yawn and flipped 
over the pages of the US Air Force recruiting brochure in which he was 
feigning interest. It was either that or talk to Pinker, and Andy wasn't 
that desperate for conversation.

NORAD had not been much of a surprise. He had heard about the place over 
the years, and had been briefed on its functions and facilities more 
than once. He had known about the three miles of tunnels, the three foot 
thick blast doors at the main entrance and the surface buildings set 
atop mammoth metal springs which were designed to serve as shock 
absorbers in the event of a missile strike. 

He had not known about the second set of doors located deep within the 
facility itself, about the personnel and freight lifts which they 
concealed. He had not known about the second, self contained unit which 
nestled inside the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, inside NORAD itself, like 
the smallest sister in a set of Russian dolls. When the elevator doors 
had opened, many, many storeys below the surface, Andy had found himself 
in a plain metal corridor whose dull grey walls and gridded floor put 
him in mind of a submarine which had become hopelessly lost and had 
somehow resurfaced through the continental shelf into the American mid-
west. 

The plain sign on the corridor wall opposite him had read, Welcome to 
Stargate Command.

And underneath it, a second, hand-written notice was taped to the wall: 
SGC Interstellar Travel. Adventure Vacations our Speciality.

Barmy, thought Andy. They're all stark raving barmy.

There was a noise from the door which connected the waiting room to the 
ward and Sheldrick looked up to see Carter returning with Doyle. 

"Did you get it?"

The Captain nodded, and held up a print-out, which resembled nothing 
more complex than a wave-form, dipping and rising unevenly across a pair 
of axes. "This is the signature of the residual field which Corporal 
Doyle here picked up during his contact with the wormhole," said the 
Captain. "It took a couple of attempts, but this is as clear and 
accurate a reading as we need."

Andy looked doubtfully at the piece of paper. "And that's going to help 
us?"

"Yes. Every time we open a Gate here to a new destination, the field 
generated at the event horizon is unique. We keep records of each one. 
Through the Corporal here, we now know the signature field for the 
wormhole linked to the Maidens in Cornwall."

"So you can match it up to all your records and find where they went?" 
asked Pinker.

"Probably not," said Carter. "They didn't leave here through a Gate. 
It's probable that they didn't arrive through one either."

"Then what's the point of all this?"

"I think that the Stones in Cornwall mark a natural weakness in the 
fabric of space. When the eclipse passed overhead, the alignment created 
a gravitational punch which briefly blasted the potential wormhole open. 
That implies that there's a corresponding weakness somewhere else. So we 
should be able to tune into it using our Gate." 

"How?" asked Pinker.

"Trial and error," said Carter. "I'll run a matching query through our 
database of Gate signatures until I find the closest one we have on 
record to this. Then we'll open the Gate and overload it deliberately. 
When the wormhole jumps away from the receiving Gate, we'll tweak the 
field at interface on this side until it's as close to this-" she shook 
the print out for emphasis: "-as possible. It's the same principle as 
tuning a radio into the station you want. We'll tune in the gate, then 
we'll walk through and hope we end up where the others went."

Carter smiled brightly, as if any of the foregoing had made any sense 
whatsoever. Sheldrick looked to Doyle for help.

"The Gates work like fax machines," said Doyle. "You can only send faxes 
from one fax machine to another, yeah? Well, they're about to try and 
send a fax from here to a place where there's no receiving fax machine."

"That fax being us," said Andy sceptically. He looked to Carter. "Is 
this going to work?"

She folded the print-out in half and tucked it in a pocket. "Ask me 
again when we've done it."

"How long will it take?"

"Not more than a couple of hours, I hope. In the meantime, you'll be 
equipped and briefed. Then we'll leave- if you still want to come."

"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Pinker.

Carter glared at him, and Andy wondered- again- what circumstances had 
forced the spook's inclusion on this excursion. He certainly wasn't here 
because the Captain had taken a liking to him. "We started off here with 
nine four-man recon teams," she said icily. "Hand picked individuals, 
the best from each of the services. And still personnel turnover in the 
first six months was forty per cent. Gate travel is like nothing else 
you've done before. Not everyone can adapt to it. If you have any doubts 
about your ability to handle it, you'll be doing everyone a favour if 
you stay here."

"Captain," replied Pinker coldly: "I can assure you, you have no reason 
to be concerned about me."

"I hope so, Mr Pinker," said Carter, her eyes as steely as the 
infirmary's gunmetal walls, "Because I intend to bring those men home, 
and if you're coming with me you'd damn well better not be a risk to the 
mission." She stepped back, and regarded all of them with equal 
severity. "Am I making myself clear, gentlemen?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Doyle quietly. "Crystal."

* * *

"They speak English," said Hart in tones of amazement.

"Yeah," replied Jack, "a lot of them do. It's kinda weird."

Caliburn raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Aliens from the other side of 
the galaxy not only look like us- more or less- but they speak English 
better than my Great Aunt Gweirfyl, and all you can say is that it's 
kind of weird?"

O'Neill shrugged. "What should I say? I can't explain it. Carter has 
this theory that the Gates have some sort of in-built mechanism which 
re-wires the language centres of the brain for whatever destination you 
dial, but if that's true, it doesn't work for inscriptions or writing 
and we haven't unravelled the technology enough to find the proof yet. 
Daniel thinks it might be a case of, umm, convergent development- 
y'know, all roads lead to Rome kind of thing. But that strikes me as 
somewhat far fetched."

Hart stared at him. "Far fetched? Like this whole bloody camping trip 
isn't far fetched?"

"Mind your tongue, Sergeant," growled Caliburn. 

"O'Neill."

At the sound of Teal'c's low, insistent summons, Jack made his way 
across the damp, earthy floor of the hut in which they had been 
imprisoned on arrival at the hunters' village. The settlement was not 
large: on their swift, escorted passage through it, Jack had guessed 
that there were about a hundred huts and shelters of varying sizes. 
Although small and primitive, the dwellings and other buildings were 
neatly laid out and immaculately kept, the simple houses in good repair 
and the lanes between them swept and clean. There were, Jack noticed, no 
flower gardens, no vegetable patches, and not even so much as a window 
box was in evidence around the dwellings. As they were taken to the 
sturdy hut which appeared to serve as the local jail, he observed 
several organised teams of natives industriously weeding out the scraps 
of greenery which had begun to grow inside the village walls. There was 
one exception to the general rule of barrenness. A gnarled and ancient 
tree grew in the centre of the settlement. Alone among the alien 
plantlife, its shape and leaves were familiar, and Jack saw Caliburn 
react with the same surprise that he felt at the unexpected appearance 
of something so ordinary in such an extraordinary place. The village was 
built around an oak tree.

Jack was quickly amassing a whole list of questions to which he would 
very much have liked to have answers. Although for the moment, only one 
of them was worth asking out loud. 

"How is he?" he asked quietly as he joined Teal'c at Daniel's side.

"Daniel Jackson has a high fever. He needs treatment quickly."

Jack laid a hand on Daniel's forehead, above the mess of bruised and 
blistered flesh which hid his eyes, feeling the blast-furnace heat of a 
raging temperature before he made contact with the archaeologist's 
sweat-shiny skin. Privately, he was amazed that Daniel had made it this 
far- the march through the jungle as prisoners had exhausted them all, 
God alone knew how Daniel had managed to stay on his feet for the 
duration, even with the physical support which the others had taken it 
in turns to provide. 

"Could an infection take hold this quickly?"

"I do not believe it is an infection. It is more likely a reaction to 
the flower's poison."

"Whatever the hell it is, he's fighting a losing battle with it." Jack 
took hold of Daniel's hand and gripped it tightly. "Daniel. C'mon, 
Danny. Stay with us." There was no response, except perhaps that the 
strained whimpering sounds coming from the mat eased momentarily. 

Damn it, thought Jack, after so much, to get taken out by a flower...

The door of the hut opened, affording a brief glimpse of the guards who 
kept watch at its entrance. A woman stepped between them, her shadow 
falling before her in the bright sunshine.

She was small-framed, dark-skinned and, like the men, wore her long 
white hair hanging tied back from her face and shoulders. Her dress was 
similar to theirs as well, with one difference: she wore a sash woven 
from dried, twisted vines over one shoulder. It fell to the opposite 
side of her waist, and was decorated with clutches of small fabric 
pouches. Jack wondered if it was practical or ornamental, but couldn't 
decide. For all he knew, plaited vine sashes were the accessory all the 
chic alien girls were wearing.

As the door shut firmly behind her, she hovered just inside the hut's 
entrance, gripping the basket she was carrying tightly against her, as 
if it were a shield. Jack had the distinct impression that she was 
terrified. 

"Well," said Hart, ostensibly to Caliburn: "at least the prison visitors 
are pretty."

The girl smiled timorously, and came forward. She set the basket on the 
floor, in the manner of an offering. 

"I am Daron. I am to see to your needs. There is food and water here."

Jack reached into the basket, and found it piled high with fruits, 
vegetables and other items he could not readily identify, but which 
looked edible. God, he was hungry. There was a pitcher of water too. He 
wondered if Daron would take it the wrong way if he kissed her and 
offered to sire her children. Hmmm. Probably not the best opening to 
diplomatic relations. He chose a piece of fruit at random and bit into 
it, before handing the basket on. The flesh was sweet and cold and 
tasted like nothing he had ever eaten before. "Thank you, Daron," he 
said, mouth full. Ooops, Jack, table manners. He swallowed. "I'm Jack. 
This is Teal'c and Daniel."

The Major accepted the basket and selected a flat, biscuit-like cake. 
"Major Rhys Caliburn, ma'am. This is Sergeant Derek Hart."

Daron smiled again. "Caliburn. This is also a name among us."

Caliburn's fluid Welsh accent lent a gentle lyricism to his words. 
"Where I come from, Daron is a name too."

Finishing the fruit, Jack pulled a face. There was diplomacy and then 
there was brown-nosing. But at least they were being fed rather than led 
out for execution. "Our friend is injured," he said, indicating Daniel's 
quietly trembling form. 

Daron nodded. "Idris told me." She lifted a hand and detached two small 
pouches from the sash she wore, and opened them. Although both were 
tiny, the sweet, herby aromas their contents threw out quickly suffused 
the hut's close interior. She approached Daniel, casting nervous glances 
around her as she knelt. Not wanting to make her more anxious than she 
already was, Jack withdrew to a safe distance.

Carefully, Daron probed the skin around Daniel's eyes, noting how he 
twitched in agony at her touch. She turned to Jack: "What was the flower 
like that did this?"

"It was, ahhh... red. I think."

She looked at him like a cop who, on asking for a description of a 
suspect, receives the reply that he had two legs and a head. Jack 
realised more effort was required. "It was red with spiky leaves... and 
little white spots on the petals."

"White flecks? You are quite sure?"

Jack looked for help to Teal'c, who nodded. "We are certain."

Daron nodded and selected one of the two cloth bags. Emptying its 
contents into the palm of one hand, she popped the melange of dried 
leaves and seed pods into her mouth and chewed rapidly. After a minute 
or so, she delicately returned the doughy mass into her hand and, 
dividing it into two equal portions, pressed each one in turn into 
Daniel's eye sockets. This done, she dampened a heavy measure of fabric 
with water from the jug and laid it over the top half of his face, 
leaving his nose and mouth exposed. Jack watched her, scratching idly at 
the rash on his arm.

"Leave it." She did not look up from her work. "You will break the skin. 
I will bring salve."

Jack smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

Her task completed, Daron rose. Jack expected her to leave, and was 
surprised when she addressed herself to Teal'c. Raising a hand, she 
traced the outline of an oval on her forehead, mimicking the shape of 
his brand. "You are Jaffa, Teal'c."

He nodded. "I am."

"You do not wear the mark of Ra. Whom do you serve?"

"I am no longer a slave of the System Lords. I have pledged allegiance 
by choice to those you see here."

She looked at him and nodded, as if the answer pleased her.

"Dicenos would speak with you. Come with me."

She held out a hand. Teal'c looked to O'Neill for confirmation, and Jack 
nodded. Given the undoubted danger of their current situation, there was 
a part of him which did not want to let Teal'c out of his sight, but 
that would serve no useful purpose now. If these people wanted to talk 
to Teal'c, let them talk: he might find out something useful. Like the 
location of the nearest Stargate.

Daron led Teal'c to the door, and out into the sunshine. And then they 
were imprisoned again.

"What was that all about?" asked Hart.

Caliburn was looking at Jack with an expression of intense curiosity, 
coupled with crystallising realisation. "I think I have a fair idea. 
Your friend Mr Teal'c isn't human, is he?"

Jack sighed, and leaned back against the wall of the hut. Well, it had 
to come out eventually. Might as well be now. "He is human," he said: 
"At least, his great-great-whatever grand-daddy was. His people are 
called the Jaffa. They were harvested from Earth and genetically 
altered."

"Harvested? By who? For what purpose?"

"By creatures called the Goa'uld," said Jack heavily, "for the purpose 
of creating a race of slaves." 

The Major blinked, and frowned. "Ghouls?"

Jack grinned without humour. "Yeah, that's close enough. The Goa'uld are 
parasites. They need a host species to survive, and humans are the 
current flavour of the month. The Jaffa are altered to carry Goa'uld 
larvae until they mature. I guess they're the lucky ones, because adult 
Goa'uld don't just live in the host's belly- they take over the mind."

Caliburn was staring at him, saying nothing, and Jack felt sympathy for 
the Major as he clearly struggled to assimilate this latest addition to 
the jumbled strangeness into which he had been plunged without his 
consent or foreknowledge. Finally, the Welshman asked: "Did the... 
Goa'uld... build the Gates?"

Jack shook his head. "No. But they use the network pretty extensively. 
We ran into them the first time we got the Gate on Earth to work and 
went through. Ever since then it's been running skirmishes." He 
hesitated, trying to decide how much more to say. He had realised almost 
as soon as they had arrived on this world that any ideas he might have 
had about not telling the Major about the Gates and what they did would 
have to be abandoned if they were to have any chance of making it home 
in one piece, and had decided then and there that he would happily share 
whatever secrets would maximise their hopes of survival. No, secrets 
were no longer the issue. 

"Look," said Jack at last: "We're not just out here for the hell of it. 
We found the Gate, we started playing with it, and we screwed up big 
time. We made an enemy which has a higher level of technology than us, 
lives longer than us, is harder to kill and which is absolutely evil. 
We're out here looking for allies and weapons and we're hoping that we 
can put some kind of defence together before they decide to turn up on 
our doorstep." Again, he added silently.

Quietly, Caliburn said: "If Daron recognised your friend Mr Teal'c as 
a... Jaffa...wouldn't that suggest these people have a history with the 
Goa'uld? That they might in fact be here?"

"Yeah," admitted Jack. "Maybe."

Caliburn glanced at his Sergeant, then looked at O'Neill coldly. "As the 
representative of one nation to another," he said, "may I congratulate 
you on initiating our very first interstellar conflict." 

Jack recalled Ra's ship, and the bright daytime firework it had briefly 
created in the blue sky over the dunes of Abydos. If only Caliburn knew 
just how personal that you was. 

But that was one secret he wasn't about to admit to.

                         *******************

Five

"Chevron seven locked."

Carter was tapping rapidly at a keyboard located at the front desk of 
the SGC's control centre. From his position behind her left shoulder, 
Andy had a perfect view of the Gate Room below them. 

The Gate itself, ancient and richly ornate, was strangely incongruous in 
the stark surroundings of the vault in which it had been installed. It 
would have looked more at home in the Antiquities section of some musty 
museum. 

And then...

"Bloody hell," said Andy.

The air inside the empty circle shimmered momentarily, then exploded 
outwards in a burst of fluid motion. Sheldrick glanced at Doyle, and saw 
that the Corporal was wearing an astonished, dumb-struck smile of pure 
wonder. Even Pinker looked impressed.

Carter hadn't even glanced up from her work. "Confirm lock on PX-3728."

"Lock confirmed."

The Captain paused long enough to make eye contact with the technician 
seated at the central position. General Hammond stood quietly at the 
foot of the stairs at the back of the room. It was Carter's show. "Ready 
for overload?" she asked.

"Yes, Captain."

"On my mark... Now."

For several seconds, there was no apparent change in the curtain of 
light which hung within the carved ring below them. Then the meniscus of 
the field suddenly rippled across its surface, and swirled backwards. It 
was as if someone had pulled the plug out of a bathtub, and the water 
was spinning down the hole in a whirlpool.

"Gate integrity?" asked Carter, to no one in particular.

"Holding," responded a technician from the far side of the room.

The Captain nodded, satisfied. "Let's do it."

The technician hunched over one of the many screens in front of him and 
began to input a series of commands. Andy recognised the image on the 
VDU as the wave pattern from the print out Carter had shown them. It was 
superimposed over a second wave pattern, which Andy presumed to be the 
current reading from the Gate. As he watched, the second wave stretched, 
elongating and sliding until it approached the exact sequence of dips 
and curves of its steady companion. The two lines ran closer and closer 
to one another, nearly touching at points, then actually touching, and 
then blending and merging along their lengths until...

"Got it," reported the technician.

"Lock it now," said Carter. "Hold it!"

There was a pause. Andy realised he had been holding his breath. "Is 
that it?" he asked. "Did we get it?"

Carter looked down through the control room's thick viewing panels to 
the Gate Room, where the whirlpool had snapped forward into a watery, 
flat disc once again. "Well, we have a Gate to somewhere," she said. 

Her assistant consulted another VDU, which was scrolling data at the 
limits of the human eye's ability to scan for meaning. "And it's not PX-
3728."

Carter nodded. "That's good enough for me." She turned to Sheldrick, 
Doyle and Pinker. "Time to go travelling, gentlemen." And then she was 
heading out of the control room, consulting with the General as she 
left.

Doyle leaned close to Andy so that his whisper did not carry beyond 
themselves. "What if we said we had notes from our Mums? You know: Craig 
has a cold and can't go to another planet today."

Andy smiled, but could not dispel an underlying feeling of anxiety. 
"We've come this far. What's a few more billion miles?"

* * *

Rhys lay on his back, studying the patterns made by the sunlight as it 
penetrated the chinks in the hut's roof of layered branches. Teal'c had 
been gone for hours, and Daron, when she had returned with the promised 
salve for O'Neill's rash as well as a poultice for the gash in Hart's 
hand, would only say that Dicenos was still talking with him. Jackson's 
fever had broken and he appeared to be sleeping soundly; with little 
else to do, Rhys was attempting to follow the archaeologist's example. 
But in spite of physical exhaustion, he had been able to doze only for a 
little while in the sodden, hot air, and for some time now he had been 
feigning unconsciousness, welcoming the first few moments of privacy 
he'd had for several days.

He rolled over, and saw O'Neill sitting up against the hut's stout 
wooden side. His eyes were shut and his head was tipped back, and he 
seemed to be asleep.

"Jack?"

Dr Jackson's voice was shaky, almost tremulous, but Rhys saw the instant 
reaction hearing his name spoken produced in O'Neill. He straightened up 
and placed a hand on the archaeologist's arm. "Welcome back, Danny."

Not sleeping at all, Rhys realised. 

"I need to ask you a question."

"Shoot." O'Neill leaned over the younger man and gently removed the 
strip of wet cloth and the herbal dressings underneath it. Even from 
across the room, Rhys could see that the swelling around his eyes and 
cheeks had abated considerably.

"It may sound a little weird, but it's important."

"Okay."

"So just answer it, right? No smart comments. Just a straight answer."

"Agreed."

"Is my nose still there?"

O'Neill's face contorted with the effort of withholding the laughter he 
obviously wanted desperately to release. "Yes," he said at last. "Still 
there."

"Oh, good," said Jackson, with relief. "My whole face is numb, I can't 
feel anything... and I woke up, and you know how it is when you get an 
idea..."

"Yeah. I know." O'Neill sat back against the wall again. "Daniel, I've 
been thinking, and I've made a decision...When we get back, no more 
flower arranging classes for you. It's too damn dangerous."

Jackson snorted with laughter, which emerged distorted by his puffy, 
swollen face. "And you never get into trouble on strange planets?"

"Name me one time," challenged O'Neill.

The response was instant: "P3X562."

"What can I say? It looked like your basic, standard issue alien blue 
crystal."

"P5F728."

"She drugged me."

"P4S584."

"How was I supposed to know it was going to explode?"

"That planet with the-"

"Enough already!"

Despite himself, Rhys smiled in the dimness- and looked up to find 
O'Neill grinning back at him. In the far corner, Hart snored softly.

"You didn't get to see the eclipse," said Jackson after a moment.

"Yeah, well, there'll be other eclipses."

"Not until next century... Hey, Jack- do you have my glasses?"

"Yeah, I got 'em safe."

"Good," said Jackson, satisfied, "because I'll need them later, when I 
get these bandages off."

O'Neill's grin faded, and Rhys knew why. The hut was gloomy but not 
dark; the many tiny shafts of sunlight forcing their way through the 
walls and roof made sure of that. One such shaft was falling directly on 
to Jackson's face, on to his open, staring eyes.

"You're going to be fine," said O'Neill.

But only Rhys saw the shadow which darkened his expression as he said 
it.

* * *

First he was stepping forward, then he was toppling, then falling, then 
rolling and ohgoditwassobloodycoldand...

Andy hit the ground, hard.

He rolled over on to his back, blinking in the bright sunshine. He was 
freezing. He felt sick. He felt worse than the time, when he was ten, 
that he'd eaten three ice creams in rapid succession and then insisted 
on going on the biggest rollercoaster at the Blackpool amusements. 

"Sheldrick? Still with us?" Carter's face hovered into view above him.

"Bloody hell," Andy whispered. "That was..." he stopped, searching for 
an appropriate descriptive phrase. He couldn't think of one. "Bloody 
hell," he repeated.

Carter nodded, not without sympathy. "First time's a killer. You get 
used to it."

Yeah, thought Andy, and his first Sergeant had used to say the same 
thing about being shot. He hadn't believed him, either.

He picked himself up and saw Doyle doing the same. Pinker was emptying 
the contents of his stomach into the dirt behind one of the stones which 
formed the circle at the centre of which they currently stood.

Andy blinked, momentarily confused. "Are we back in Cornwall?"

"Not unless they've started a rainforest conservation programme there 
since we left," said Doyle. "Look."

He pointed with the muzzle of his weapon, and Sheldrick took in the 
thick layers of vegetation which pressed in around the circumference of 
the ring. Yet the area bounded by the stones was clear of all greenery. 
Bizarre.

The air was hot and humid; for these few brief moments, while he was 
still chilled from the transfer, it felt pleasant. It was going to be 
grim to walk through in a couple of hours, though.

Andy inhaled deeply, concentrating on the smell of the forest. The 
woody, sappy aromas were familiar, but there were other notes in the 
melange of scents too: exotic, pungent fragrances from fruits and 
flowers which were entirely foreign to him. As of course he should 
expect them to be. He was on another planet.

He was on another bloody planet.

Andy breathed out, and in again, trying to steady his breathing. Carter 
had been right: this was like nothing else he had ever done. Somewhere 
above them the wormhole they had fallen through dissolved and 
disappeared, and Sheldrick was hit by the sudden, frightening sensation 
of being alone and further from home than he had ever been before in his 
life. He felt terrified.

"This is brilliant!" announced Doyle, bounding over the alien earth to 
join him. "Isn't this totally brilliant?" 

"Oh yes," said Andy indistinctly. "Absolutely bloody marvellous." But 
the Corporal was too busy investigating the clearing into which the 
wormhole had deposited them to hear him.

"Well, it looks as if they were here," said Carter. She was standing 
over the blackened remains of a camp fire, raked over with soil. 
Elsewhere, Andy could see the separate spots where the ground had been 
disturbed when it had been walked and slept on. 

"Do you think somebody took them?" asked Pinker. He still looked a 
little green around the gills, but he was no longer throwing up. 

"There are no signs of a struggle," said Carter, shaking her head. "It's 
been a couple of days. They would have had to leave to find water, at 
the very least. All we have to do is figure out which way they went."

Doyle grinned. "Shouldn't be too hard." Carter looked at him, and he 
beckoned the others over to join him, so they could see what he had 
found.

The three branches were sufficiently heavy that it was certain they had 
not been displaced by the elements or foraging animals since they had 
been positioned two days earlier. The arrangement, one branch straight 
and two angled against it, formed a perfect arrow. 

"Follow that stick," said Carter.

They headed into the forest.

* * *

The tiny, wizened individual stared at Teal'c for fully two or more 
minutes before speaking.

"I am Dicenos," he said at last. "I am chief among the elders of the 
Keltoi."

Teal'c bowed respectfully, although the action did not bring him 
anywhere near as low as he needed to be to get below the level of the 
top of Dicenos' white-furred head. "I am honoured to speak with you. I 
am Teal'c."

"You are Jaffa."

"I am."

"And these men who have come with you, they are not Jaffa."

"They are not," confirmed Teal'c. "They are Tau'ri." He felt the need to 
clarify that statement, so he continued: "Although they are of different 
tribes among the Tau'ri."

"What is Tau'ri?"

Teal'c was momentarily silent. He had grown up with the stories and 
legends of the Tau'ri; among his people, the word carried with it a host 
of associations and myths, and he had found on his travels that the same 
was true on many of the worlds which the Goa'uld had seeded with humans. 
However far they had drifted from their origins, that one word, Tau'ri, 
whispered from mother to suckling child, seemed to endure, a reminder of 
a common inheritance. It seemed odd to him that it was not known here. 

He tried again, with the word the Tau'ri used for themselves: "They are 
human. Their world is Earth."

"Aha." The old man's eye's lit up with a spark of interest. "And tell me 
of Earth."

"What do you desire to know?"

"Does Ra rule there still?"

Teal'c shook his head. "Ra is dead. The Tau'ri- the humans- have ruled 
themselves for many generations."

Dicenos motioned to one of the two warriors who stood impassively inside 
the door of his dwelling. Teal'c recognised one of them as having been 
the leader of the party which they had first encountered by the stream. 
"Idris, bring us tea."

Idris nodded, and ducked out of the hut's low doorway, returning moments 
later with a wooden, lidded jug which puffed small bursts of steam into 
the air as he carried it. Dicenos lifted two carved handle-less cups 
down from a hook driven into the wall, one dark wood and one light, and 
poured the piping water into each in equal measure. Teal'c looked at his 
doubtfully.

Dicenos laughed. "The tea is safe, you have my word." He lifted his own 
mug and drank: "See?"

Teal'c nodded and accepted the drink. It was thin, and tasted of very 
little other than hot water suffused with a hint of plant juices and 
woody extracts. 

Dicenos reassumed his seat on the mat opposite Teal'c, lowering himself 
on to the floor with difficulty. "Yesterday Idris came to me and 
reported that a party had been seen among the Stones- four warriors and 
a Jaffa. You tell me that Ra no longer rules on Earth, Teal'c. Perhaps 
this is so. But when you stand before me, it is difficult for me to 
accept that there are no Goa'uld on Earth."

Teal'c felt the larva which nestled in the pouch below his stomach 
squirm, as if in response to the accusation. The sensation was not 
pleasant, but it was one to which he had long since become accustomed. 
He ignored it and explained: "The Goa'uld Apophis ruled my world. He was 
my...master." 

The word felt ugly on his lips, and Teal'c realised that it had been a 
long time since he had described himself using that term. Slave, under 
the mastery of another. Movable property. Chattel. There had been a 
time, in a youth now long since passed away, when he had felt fierce 
pride that he held a place in the household of the god Apophis. Then he 
had begun to rise through its ranks, and as he had seen more and more of 
the true nature of the god he served, the pride had dissipated, replaced 
by shame, then later loathing. 

"And you serve him still?"

"No. I am no longer a slave. I have pledged allegiance to the Tau'ri." 
The larva would not settle and its mindless thrashings within him were 
beginning to cause Teal'c pain. Dicenos' wilful lack of understanding 
was not helping his swiftly fraying patience.

"Then you are a slave to the humans, the Tau'ri, if you now serve them."

"I have sworn an oath of loyalty," said Teal'c through gritted teeth. 
"It is not the same."

"And if they say, go there, you go?" asked Dicenos. "You must excuse the 
feebleness of an old man, but that has the ring of slavery to these 
ears."

"I choose... to offer service." He had to force the words out: the 
stabbing pain in his gut was like a rod of fire inside him. Dicenos 
appeared oblivious to his discomfort.

"You are a slave to the Tau'ri," said Dicenos, "just as you are a slave 
to the thing that grows within you. Your mind must follow their orders, 
your body must meet its needs."

"That... is... a lie."

"No!" exclaimed the old man forcefully, hopping to his feet: "You lie, 
Teal'c! You tell me you do not serve the Goa'uld when you let one grow 
within you. You tell me you are not a slave when you follow where others 
lead. I wish to hear the truth."

"I have given you the truth," he cried, and gasped as the muscles in his 
abdomen went into spasm. Through eyes streaming with the pain, he looked 
up and saw Dicenos standing above him, motioning to Idris and the other 
Keltoi warrior to take hold of him. They lifted him, and he was pulled 
to his feet, doubled over so that his eyes were now level with those of 
Dicenos. The old man was looking at him with a hard-edged gaze. 

The drink, thought Teal'c.

Dicenos apparently guessed his thoughts, because he lifted the empty 
cups and held them up for Teal'c to inspect. "The tea is made from a 
plant we call the snakesbane," he said: "The learning of our fathers 
tells us that the bane is a poison to the demons and their children. And 
a poison to those who carry the demons within also."

"We have done... nothing to harm you. Why do you wish me harm?"

"I do not wish you harm. Far from it. I wish you to be free."

Teal'c looked at him through a haze of agony, not understanding, until 
with one swift, sudden movement, Dicenos pushed his hand into the slit 
in his belly and pulled out the symbiont within.

Teal'c gasped.

"This is the mark of your slavery," said the old man. He touched the 
tattoo on Teal'c forehead with his free hand: "Not this. If I take this 
serpent and crush it beneath my heel, only then will you be truly free."

"I will die."

"You will die," agreed Dicenos. "But you will die free."

"Yes," said Teal'c. He allowed his head to drop momentarily; the 
combined effects of the poison and the sudden emptiness within were 
almost unbearable. He forced himself to crane his neck, to meet Dicenos' 
gaze. "I am no slave," he said quietly, clearly. The words had to be 
comprehensible. "I have given my loyalty by choice to those who have 
earned it. Kill the Goa'uld if you will. I will die free. But I would 
prefer to live free."

Dicenos looked at him, weighing up the words. Then he leaned in close to 
Teal'c. 

Teal'c shut his eyes, and felt the cool touch of the larva on the flesh 
of his stomach before it found the entrance to the pouch and pushed its 
way inside. When he opened his eyes again, the worst of the pain had 
passed, and Dicenos was smiling.

"Forgive me, brother," he said. "We came here long ago to flee from the 
slavery imposed by Ra. By the other Goa'uld. I had to be certain you 
were not sent by him, or any other false god."

"Brother?" repeated Teal'c.

"Brother," confirmed Dicenos. He pulled apart the tunic he wore at his 
chest, extending the split as far as his navel. The cross-shaped scar of 
a closed pouch stood out like a brand on his dark, weathered skin. "We 
are Jaffa also."

                         *******************

Six

At the extreme edge of Andy's peripheral vision, something moved.

He looked around quickly, and studied the foliage carefully. Nothing. 

Well, it was a rainforest. It was only natural to expect a lot of local 
wildlife. It was probably just a monkey, or a bird- 

There it was again.

Sheldrick cast a glance behind him, where Pinker laboured through the 
thick undergrowth, followed by Doyle. The Corporal was scanning the 
forest with an alertness which was mixed with the look of utter 
absorption he usually reserved for his travel books. SGC Travel, thought 
Andy, suppressing a smile: Adventure holidays a speciality.

Pinker, however, was having serious difficulty: not only was he finding 
the slow trudge through the dense vegetation hard going, but Andy had 
noticed that he twitched or stumbled at every unfamiliar bird's call or 
strange insect's buzz. The man was not cut out for this, and Andy 
wondered what kind of deal had been struck that had forced the Americans 
to allow him to come along.

He hoped Pinker didn't turn out to be a liability.

Andy picked up his pace until he had drawn up behind Carter. "Captain," 
he said quietly.

"Yeah, I know. I've seen it."

Sheldrick nodded, impressed. "What's the response, ma'am?"

She shook her head. "Walk on. If we are being followed, we'll find out 
soon enough if they're friendly."

Andy nodded again, and flicked off the safety on his weapon. Carter 
placed her hand on the barrel. "Remember, we're not here to start a 
conflict, Lieutenant. Do not fire unless I give the order."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Captain," she corrected him, then added, "please."

Andy grinned at her. "Aye aye, Captain."

There was a hiss and a whistle as something sped past Andy's chest. He 
jumped back in time to see the feathered dart land with a thunk in the 
trunk of the tree next to him. The sharp point punctured the bulbous red 
swelling of fungus which grew on the bark, causing it to collapse in on 
itself, leaking a trail of bright spores on to the wood below.

Pinker drew up short. "What the fuck-?"

"There," said Doyle: "Look."

Andy looked, and saw a slim, dark figure running away from them through 
the bushes, a mass of white hair flowing out behind it like a bridal 
train. 

Then he was running.

The woman- it had to be a woman, it was too small to be a male- was more 
than nimble. She jumped over roots and ducked under branches as if she 
had some kind of internal radar which told her exactly what obstacle was 
approaching next. For all Andy knew, she did: after all, this wasn't 
home. The normal rules didn't have to apply here. 

She wasn't human. 

He was chasing an alien.

Carter and Doyle were ahead of him, Pinker somewhere behind. Sheldrick's 
advantage was his strength- he had never been a runner, not even when he 
was Doyle's age. But although the Captain and the Corporal were pacing 
their quarry, they had the disadvantage of unfamiliarity with the 
territory, and neither of them was gaining on her. 

Dammit, she was going to get away.

The woman had reached a steep, mossy bank. She paused at its base, and 
cast a quick, frightened look back over her shoulder. Her face was dark-
toned, not young, and perfectly human. 

A low branch hung several feet above her head. Andy saw her look up at 
it, then at the barrier in front of her. He could see exactly what she 
intended, but he was too far off to do anything about it.

She bent her knees, braced herself, and leapt straight up.

She caught the branch with both hands and began to pull herself up, like 
a gymnast on the parallel bars. It was, thought Sheldrick, a hell of a 
move for a middle-aged woman to be able to bring off.

And she would have made it, had the branch not chosen that exact moment 
to snap.

The woman fell to the ground and lay still. Carter got to her first, 
then Doyle. Andy arrived as the Captain was starting to check her for 
injuries. 

Sheldrick slung down his pack and retrieved his first aid kit. There was 
a spot of blood on her arm. Carefully, he probed the skin around it. 
Carter looked at him. 

"It's all right, Captain," said Doyle: "Sheldrick's the patrol field 
medic."

She nodded, and sat back, giving him room to work. Andy swiftly checked 
the woman's limbs, her skull, her neck. He pushed one eye open and was 
reassured when the pupil contracted almost instantaneously in the 
sunlight. He breathed out in relief. "She's not hurt at all," he 
reported: "She just took the fall badly. She'll be fine in a second."

Pinker had arrived on the scene, and was regarding the fallen woman with 
undisguised suspicion. "Then give her something to keep her out."

"I don't think that would serve much purpose, Mr Pinker," said Carter.

"She might attack us again."

Andy looked at him. "Yeah, right. Three trained soldiers and a secret 
service operative against somebody's Mum. My God, would we even stand a 
chance?"

"She's waking up."

The woman groaned and blinked. She sat bolt upright, and tried to back 
away from the four faces which surrounded her. 

Carter put her weapon down behind herself, and reached out a hand. She 
smiled. "It's all right. We're not going to hurt you. We don't mean you 
any harm."

"What about the harm she might mean us?"

"Shut up, Pinker."

The woman looked at them. "Who..." she began: "Who are you?"

"I'm Carter. This is Sheldrick, Doyle and Pinker. What's your name?"

"I am Cerian."

Carter smiled again. "Hi, Cerian."

"Ask her why she attacked us. Go on, ask her that."

Andy scowled. "Pinker, if you don't shut the fuck up right now I swear I 
will-"

"Lieutenant," said Carter sharply. Andy looked at Pinker, and bit his 
tongue. 

Cerian was staring at Carter. Curiously, she reached out a hand and 
touched the Captain's pale skin. Then she turned her gaze on the three 
men. When she looked at Andy, she paused. "Could you...?" she asked, and 
mimed lifting something off her head.

Andy reached up and took off his beret, revealing his close-cropped dark 
brown hair. Cerian stared at him, a smile of curious wonder spreading 
across her face.

"You are not from the village," she said. "You are not Keltoi. Where are 
you from?"

"Well," said Doyle: "Personally, I'm from Basingstoke."

* * *

It was Daron who brought Teal'c back to the small hut at the edge of the 
settlement, her tiny frame rigid with the effort of keeping him on his 
feet. She was barely through the door before O'Neill and Caliburn had 
risen to relieve her of her burden. 

Jack grunted at the sudden transferral of weight on to himself, and 
allowed Teal'c to sink to the floor as gently as was possible. The 
change in his appearance was drastic: he was shaking, and the pupils of 
his dark eyes were fully dilated. Jack looked to Daron, seeking some 
kind of explanation.

There was none forthcoming. "Dicenos, our council leader, says that you 
are welcome here," she said. "You are our guests. You may come and go as 
you wish." 

Jack looked at Teal'c, then at Daron. "If this is your idea of making 
friends, I'd hate to get on your collective bad side."

"He will recover quickly." Daron knelt beside Teal'c and pulled open his 
unbuttoned undershirt, revealing the slits of the pouch in his stomach. 
Then she lifted the Jaffa's hand and held it against the fissures in the 
skin. "Press hard. It will ease the pain. There."

She removed her hand from over his and smiled encouragement; the 
response was a weak nod of gratitude. Satisfied that Teal'c was not 
seriously hurt, Jack looked away, and found Caliburn and Hart staring at 
the Jaffa with twin expressions of disquiet- for once, the Major 
appeared even more unnerved than the Sergeant. Just as well, thought 
O'Neill, that Junior hadn't decided to poke its nasty little head out, 
or Daron might have needed her smelling salts too. 

Daron rose and crossed to where Daniel now sat up against the wall. She 
placed her hands over his face, gently probing the raw skin.

"Ahh, umm, hello? What are you doing? What's she doing, Jack?"

O'Neill opened his mouth to reassure Daniel, but Hart beat him to it. 
"It's all right, Doctor Jackson. If you could see her, you wouldn't mind 
her getting so close."

Daron looked over her shoulder at the Sergeant, a smile which was half-
flattered and half-embarrassed spreading over her face. With her dark 
complexion it was difficult to tell, but Jack could have sworn she was 
blushing all the way to the white roots of her hair.

Suddenly all business again, she produced a clean strip of cloth from a 
pocket in her tunic and began to wrap it around Daniel's eyes, securing 
it at the back of his head. "You must see no light at all now. It is 
important for the healing." 

A quick inspection of Hart's hand and the rashes which Caliburn and 
O'Neill had suffered followed, and then she was gone again. This time 
the door remained ajar behind her, and Jack could see no guards in the 
immediate vicinity, although more than a few interested villagers were 
lurking in the neighbourhood. 

"It would appear that they don't receive many visitors," observed 
Caliburn.

Jack nodded. "Teal'c, are you okay? I thought this guy Dicenos just 
wanted to talk to you."

"He wished to be sure that we had not been sent by the Goa'uld. We 
had..." he paused: "A productive dialogue."

Jack took in Teal'c's shattered appearance and noted that particular 
euphemism for future use. "Did this productive dialogue include the 
location of the nearest working Stargate?"

"I do not believe there is a Stargate here."

Hart looked at O'Neill accusingly. "You said there would be. You said 
there had to be."

"Just because these people don't know where it is, doesn't mean there 
isn't one," said Jack.

Teal'c shook his head weakly. "No. They chose this world for its 
isolation."

Daniel pulled himself over to join them. Jack grabbed the water pitcher 
out of his path before he could upset it. "What do you mean, Teal'c?"

"They call themselves the Keltoi. They are the last of Ra's Jaffa, from 
your world. From Earth."

"What?"

"Their forefathers were among a group of Jaffa who rebelled against Ra, 
in the last days of his rule. Many were killed; some escaped. The 
survivors fled. The journey took many years. But they took with them 
some understanding of the workings of the Gates. At last they came to a 
place which was suitable, and they built the Stones and came to this 
world."

"They built their own Gate? How?"

"Dicenos says that there are places where the nature of what is real is 
different from elsewhere."

"Different how?"

"Weaker. There are places where crossings may be made, as with the 
forging of a river. The Stones on your world mark one such place. The 
Stones here another. Dicenos claims that the ancestors of the Keltoi did 
not build a Gate; they merely divined one which was already there."

"You talked to him, Teal'c. Do you believe him?"

"The story has to believable," said Daniel. "It's true."

Jack looked at him. "How do you figure that?"

"I should have worked it out earlier, but it's not my area of 
expertise... Keltoi is the word the Greeks used to refer to the Celts. 
We don't know much about them- they didn't leave any writings, so all 
that remains is what other nations wrote about them, and most of that's 
propaganda. But elements of Keltoi society seem to fit in with Celtic 
culture, or parts of it. They're quite Druidic, actually."

Jack frowned. "You mean white gowns and Stonehenge at the Solstice type 
thing?"

"Ummm. Well, no. I was thinking more of the general attitude of equal 
respect for women as evidenced by a female healer and the proto-
democratic structure which having a council leader suggests. But I'm 
sure they'd do the white gown thing too, if you asked nicely."

"Hold on," said Caliburn, "I was under the impression that the Celts 
lived in North West Europe. Ireland, Brittany, Wales for that matter. 
These people claim that their ancestors escaped from slavery to an 
Egyptian god?"

Daniel shrugged. "The Celts were a lot more widespread than a lot of 
people know. There's evidence that a group of Celtic warriors were 
recruited by Ptolemy the second, in Egypt as mercenaries. We also know 
that sometime after that, Celtic tribes were migrating north through 
Europe. Jaffa live a lot longer than the norm. This group of rebels must 
have evaded capture for long enough to get to what is now southern 
England...and then they came here, where Ra couldn't follow without 
mounting a major operation using ships. And their descendants have been 
here ever since."

Jack shook his head, then remembered that Daniel couldn't see the 
action. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. Suppose a group of Jaffa did end 
up here, after running away for years. There would have been no more 
larvae to replace the ones they carried as they matured. So they should 
all either have been taken over by the mature Goa'uld, or they should 
have died before they had a chance to establish themselves. So why are 
their great-great-grandkids here?"

"What do you mean, should have died?" queried Caliburn.

"The larva supplants the host's immune system with its own, which is 
superior." Daniel was addressing himself to the air, in the vague 
direction of Caliburn's voice. "But the host is then dependent on the 
symbiont. Jaffa need a new larva every time the one they carry matures."

"We are born with the pouch," explained Teal'c. "Without a Goa'uld, we 
live and die as others do. But once we are with Goa'uld, we must always 
be with Goa'uld." He shut his eyes for a moment, and Jack realised that 
he must be exhausted. Teal'c and Daniel needed to rest: they could talk 
about this later. He opened his mouth to say as much, then stopped at 
what Teal'c said next. 

"It is not so for the Keltoi. Dicenos has told me that their ancestors 
removed the larvae, and did not die. He has offered to share the 
knowledge with us. With me." He opened his eyes. "He has offered to free 
me."

* * *

"Personally, I'm from Basingstoke. Oh, well done, Doyle. Very bloody 
well done."

Doyle grimaced as he walked behind Sheldrick in the short column which 
was now headed by Cerian, followed closely by Carter. Pinker, silent and 
morose, drew up the rear. "I couldn't help it," said the Corporal. "It 
just sort of popped out."

"I mean, there we are, talking to an alien, a bloody alien, and it's our 
big chance to say something really memorable, something up there with 
One small step for man, one giant leap, and you go and ruin the moment 
with bloody Basingstoke."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Basingstoke. My mother still lives in 
Basingstoke."

"Worse luck for Basingstoke," muttered Sheldrick, and walked on.

Ahead of them, Carter saw Cerian look behind her at the two men and 
frown nervously. "It's all right," she reassured the white-haired woman: 
"I think they always carry on like that."

"Forgive me. You are very... strange... to me."

"Is that why you fired the dart at us?"

Anger flashed in the woman's eyes. "I meant to help you, and you pursued 
me."

Carter thought quickly. Somehow she had failed to understand the 
situation, and she sensed she was dangerously close to alienating a 
potential ally and guide. "Cerian, we're strangers here," she said, tone 
as conciliatory as she could make it. "We thought we were being 
attacked."

The native shook her head. "The dart was not for you, it was for the 
fever-tree."

"Fever-tree?"

Cerian pointed at a tall, slim-trunked tree growing by the side of the 
trail they were now following. A rash of red globes bulged out from the 
knots in its bark. "We call them fever-trees because of the fungus which 
grows on them. The bulbs are delicate- the slightest touch will cause 
them to burst when they are ripe. Those who breathe the dust die 
quickly."

Slowly, Sam nodded, recalling how the dart which had she had assumed had 
been aimed at Sheldrick had hit one such deadly growth. Cerian had quite 
possibly saved either herself or the Lieutenant from a painful death. 
And instead of thanking the woman, they had turned on her. No wonder she 
was mistrustful. 

"Cerian, I didn't realise."

The native stared at her. "How could you not? Even little children know 
of the fever-trees."

"We're travellers," explained Sam. "We're not familiar with the forest."

"How can you not know the forest?"

"We come from a place beyond the forest."

"A place beyond the...?" began Cerian. She stopped. "Did you come here 
by the Stones?"

Sam said nothing for a moment, before deciding that honesty was probably 
the best policy. "Yes."

Cerian looked at her, an expression of surprise mingled with wonder 
forming on her face. "Dicenos said you would come. I should not have 
doubted him."

Carter paused, not sure what to make of that. "Well, it's nice to be 
expected," she said at last. "I don't suppose he said anything about the 
others as well?"

"Others like you?"

Sam nodded. "We came looking for some friends of ours. A group of five 
men. Have you seen them?"

Cerian shook her head. "No. But someone in the village may have. I have 
been away these last five days." She reached down to a collection of 
pouches which were strung along the green woven sash which hung over her 
tunic, and held one up for Carter to see: "I am a healer. I often make 
journeys into the forest to collect herbs."

"How far away is your village?"

"Not far. Less than a half-day."

"And you'll take us there?"

"I must," said Cerian. 

Carter didn't understand. "Is that... a rule your people have?"

"No. But you do not know the forest, so I cannot leave you here." Cerian 
walked on ahead of Carter, easily ducking the sharp thorns of an 
overhanging creeper. "If I did, you would surely be dead before sunset."

                         *******************

Seven

The Keltoi village was barricaded on three sides by high, wooden walls, 
but such fabricated protection was unnecessary on its fourth outlook, 
where it was protected by the river into which the tiny tributary Teal'c 
had found ultimately fed. The river was a monstrous, brown-green channel 
which wound its way sluggishly through the heart of the rainforest, its 
heavy, silt-laden waters lapping gently at the wide strip of sandy soil 
which traced its course.

Jack picked his way through the oozing mud- noting ruefully that he 
would need a new pair of dress shoes when they got back- until he was 
standing next to Teal'c. The Jaffa had installed himself on a wide, flat 
rock and was sitting cross-legged, forearms resting lightly on his 
knees. 

"If this is one of those meditation moments, I can come back," said 
Jack.

Teal'c looked up at him. "I am no longer meditating. Now I am thinking."

Pretty subtle distinction, thought Jack, but he nodded and sat down on 
the next nearest slab of stone. "So what's the deal?" 

"Dicenos tells me that the medicine woman here, Cerian, has the 
knowledge to remove the larva I carry without killing me."

O'Neill shook his head. "We tried that at home, and it didn't work. 
What's so different about doing it here?"

"When I spoke to Dicenos, he told me the story of the first settlers 
here. The fugitives, Ra's Jaffa. Soon after they arrived, many, and then 
all, became ill. Their bodies began to reject the larvae within them. 
Then the Goa'uld they carried died, one by one."

"And they didn't?" Teal'c shook his head. "Why not?"

"It was because of a herb. A new element in their diet here, one not 
present on your world. They use it as a preservative. It is in much of 
their food. They call it snakesbane."

Jack thought about that. "And this, ahhh, snakestuff, if you took enough 
of it, it would make your body reject the symbiont? But boost your 
immune system so you'd be okay?" 

"Dicenos believes so."

"Believes so," repeated Jack. "In other words, this all happened maybe 
twenty generations ago, and all there is to say it'll work on you is 
folklore." The evening was drawing in, and O'Neill could see the top of 
the larger moon beginning to peek above the treeline on the far side of 
the river. "Teal'c, we nearly lost you on the table when we tried this 
before. And now you want to try it again in the middle of the forest, 
with the nearest well-equipped emergency room a thousand light years 
away. What happens if something goes wrong?"

"I accept that risk."

"Dammit, I don't!" The second moon was rising now as well, joining its 
brighter sister in the unfamiliar heavens. "Why do you want this, 
Teal'c?" Jack stopped, then, without waiting for a reply, answered 
himself: "All right. Dumb question. If I had one of those things in my 
gut I'd want it out too. But..." he looked at the Jaffa, trying to read 
his expression. "You told me once that this is normal for you. I thought 
you were used to it. So why the sudden change of mind?"

"Because the Keltoi are free, and I am not."

"But you don't serve Apophis any more."

"I do not. But my body serves the needs of the Goa'uld." Teal'c stopped, 
and Jack waited, sensing that he had not finished. O'Neill had learnt 
very early on in his friendship with the Jaffa that Teal'c did not 
believe in talking unless he had something to say. Probably just as 
well, thought Jack wryly, since he could easily talk enough for both of 
them. Jack waited now, confident that anything which prompted Teal'c to 
put more than three sentences in a row was worth hearing. "I am no 
longer a slave of Apophis, and for that I am thankful. But the people I 
left behind are still his slaves. My son and my wife are still his 
slaves. And my people and their children will remain slaves always, 
unless they are shown an escape such as the Keltoi found."

"So you want to prove it's possible and then go back?" 

There was no reply. Maybe, thought Jack, using so many words all at once 
had exhausted the ready supply. 

"Hell of a risk to take to prove a point, Teal'c."

"Some points are worth it."

Both moons had risen now, and together they cast a haunting, blue-tinged 
glow over the sleeping forest beyond the river. Hadn't Chu'lac had two 
moons? Jack wasn't sure, but he remembered there had been more than one 
satellite in the night skies of Teal'c's home. O'Neill looked up at the 
foreign constellations beginning to wink into existence above his head, 
and tried for a moment to imagine that Earth's single moon was a 
stranger to him, that the constellations, bright Sirius, the friendly 
yellow glow of Venus and the red eye of Mars were similarly alien. What 
must it be like to live in exile, separated from family, friends and the 
culture of home, among strangers who mean well but who will never wholly 
understand?

It would be easy to say no. To exercise his rank and forbid this. Easy, 
justifiable, and wrong. 

"Yes," he said softly, "I guess they are."

"O'Neill! Teal'c!"

"Daron?" Jack turned on the rock, and saw the Keltoi woman skipping over 
the stones of the shale beach, her face alight. "What's up?"

Daron skidded to a halt. "Cerian has returned. And she has brought 
others like you with her." And without waiting for a reply, she turned 
and ran up the shore.

"Others like...?" Jack grinned widely and punched the air. "Way to go, 
Carter!" 

* * *

A crowd of Keltoi had gathered by the village's main gates, and there 
was a hum of animated conversation in the air. Probably, thought Jack, 
nothing this interesting had happened since great great Grandpa and 
Grandma Keltoi had decided they were fed up with obeying Ra's every 
whim. He hung back, standing at the outskirts of the crowd, from which 
position he could see the back of Carter's head bobbing up and down as 
she waved her arms expressively. Caliburn drew up beside him.

"...people like us?" the Captain was saying. "Maybe they came this way? 
There are five men, four light like us, one dark like you."

The Major looked at O'Neill. "Perhaps you should..."

Jack shook his head. "Oooh no. Not yet."

"And their hair is like ours-" She tugged at her own blond locks for 
emphasis. 

O'Neill looked at Caliburn, and saw that he was smiling. "Colonel, have 
mercy." 

Jack grinned back, and slouched forward through the throng, hands in 
pockets. "I'm not hearing the word 'handsome' in that description, 
Captain."

She turned, and grinned delightedly. "Colonel!"

Jack looked around the assembled villagers: "It's okay, folks, they're 
with us." To Carter, he said, "Glad you could join us, Captain."

"So am I, sir." Behind her, Sheldrick and Doyle gave snappy salutes in 
the direction of the Major, while Pinker- now what the hell was he doing 
here?- cast mistrustful glances around the crowd of natives, as if 
expecting to be attacked at any moment. 

While the Major and his men indulged in a little catch-up, Jack rescued 
Carter from the small but insistent group of Keltoi women who found her 
pale skin and golden hair absolutely fascinating. He led her back 
through the village towards their temporary home, listening carefully as 
she outlined the machinations she had undertaken in order to follow 
them. When she had brought him up to date, he did some explaining of his 
own.

"Jaffa?" she asked when he had finished. 

"So it would seem."

A small child toddled out from a nearby dwelling and fell directly 
across the path. Carter bent down and picked him up, brushing the dust 
from the boy's skin and murmuring reassuring words before he could begin 
to cry. The X-shaped scar on his stomach was small but clearly visible.

"So they're human," she said, kneeling in front of the child. "Or were."

The boy smiled shyly at her, and reached out one chubby, dark hand to 
touch her pale skin. 

"Yes," said Jack: "But don't ask me why they all look like they've been 
hitting the peroxide bottle a little too hard."

Carter stroked the toddler's fuzzy white curls. "This seems to be a 
small population, and they've been isolated for a long time. It's 
surprising which genes become dominant." Bored now, the boy turned and 
ran off towards a nearby dwelling where a Keltoi woman sat spinning 
yarn. After a moment, Carter walked on after O'Neill.

"They weren't sure about us at first," said Jack as they arrived at the 
hut at the far side of the settlement, "but Teal'c won them over with 
his natural charm and easy manner." He pushed open the door of the 
dwelling, and allowed the Captain to enter ahead of him. "Danny, I 
should warn you, has had... a little accident." 

"Oh my God," said Carter: "Daniel?"

"Sam?" 

O'Neill rolled his eyes at the Captain. "No, Danny, it's just me doing 
my Carter impression. It's getting better, don't y'think?"

Carter knelt beside Daniel and pressed her hands against his bandaged 
eyes experimentally. 

"Ouch."

"Sorry. How'd you do this?"

"He got a little pollen in his face. He'll be fine," O'Neill told her. 
In response, Carter looked up at him, and pointed silently at the raw, 
red skin peeping out from beneath the layers of dressings. Jack shook 
his head at her, and mouthed the word no emphatically. Panicking wasn't 
going to benefit anyone, least of all Daniel. 

Carter nodded, accepting his judgement of how to play the situation. 
"Doesn't look too bad," she said carefully. "Should be okay if you keep 
the bandages on it."

"So," said Jack, "not that I'm not having the time of my life here or 
anything, but it doesn't appear that there's a Stargate anywhere 
convenient, so can I take it that we're going to be able to go home the 
same way you arrived?"

Carter nodded. "In twenty nine hours."

"Why do I get the feeling that's not a randomly selected figure?"

The Captain stood up. "There is a wormhole here- or a potential 
wormhole, at least- but it's a natural phenomenon. It seems to be linked 
to the one at the Stones in Cornwall. It's not powered, so we can't 
control it or open it from this end. To get here, we punched the 
weakness open using our Gate; in twenty nine hours, SGC will do it 
again. They're expecting us to return then."

"Wait, they're dialling us?" said Daniel from the floor. "That doesn't 
work. We won't be able to go through from this side."

"We're not dealing with a Gate, remember. The circles of Stones here and 
on Earth are just markers: it's the locations they mark which are 
special."

"Special?" repeated Jack doubtfully.

She nodded. "Think of them as... little sections of tissue paper in a 
steel-plated reality."

"You have a poet's soul, Captain."

She ignored him and continued: "The Gates are artificial: they 
deconstruct matter and project the energy stream across space. What the 
Stones mark is slightly different. It's more like a perforation in the 
space-time continuum, a place where, under the right circumstances, two 
distinct sets of co-ordinates can simultaneously co-exist."

Jack frowned. "I'll take your word for it."

"Essentially, sir, if the theory is right- and we've already pretty much 
proved that it is by getting here- then when SGC dials us up the day 
after tomorrow, the resulting wormhole will allow us passage back home."

"For one time only." He grinned at her. "Good work, Captain."

Carter shrugged. "Well, I only discovered the phenomenon, it was already 
there..."

"Captain, that was a compliment. Take it and run."

"Yes, sir."

Daniel raised his hands to the sides of his head and rubbed at his 
temples, fighting down a yawn with only marginal success. Jack suspected 
that the tiredness was a side effect of the various pain-killing potions 
Daron was making him take. "So what are we going to do for the next 
twenty nine hours?"

Jack leaned down and, resting a hand on the younger man's shoulder, 
guided him down and into the nest of blankets by the fire. "You are 
going to rest up and keep well away from the native flora. The rest of 
us are going to hang out, enjoy the local hospitality, and help Teal'c 
through some minor surgery."

"Sir?" said Carter.

Jack went to the hut's door. "Come on. I'll introduce you to Dicenos."

                         *******************

Eight

"Wake up, Daniel Jackson."

The voice cut into Daniel's dreams, and he woke into a brief but intense 
state of confusion, when he tried to open his eyes and couldn't. He 
panicked for a moment, before remembering that the bandages around his 
face not only blocked out all available light but also forced his 
eyelids closed. He sat up and held still while gentle hands unwrapped 
the strips of cloth from around his head. The material caught and stuck 
where the blistered, weeping skin around his eyes and nose was starting 
to heal, and the peeling sensation was painful. "Another change?" he 
asked petulantly. "Already?"

"You must be presentable for the celebration." Daron's voice was 
soothing and patient. He recognised her voice now, and it would not be 
long before he would be able to recognise her touch as well. It was a 
strange kind of intimacy to share with someone whose face he had never 
seen. 

"What celebration?"

Daniel was not sure, but he thought he could hear a smile behind Daron's 
words. "We are celebrating having new friends. And we are celebrating 
that Teal'c will soon be free, like us."

"He's going through with it?"

"Cerian is the most gifted healer we have had in three generations. 
Teal'c is strong. All will be well." Daron's tone was one of firm 
conviction. "Come. They are making ready to eat. I will take you to the 
meeting hall." 

Daniel got to his feet- he was feeling stronger now, and that part was 
easy- but had to wait for Daron's guiding hand on his arm before he 
could make progress to the door and beyond. As he stepped outside, he 
felt a slight change in the air, from the stuffy interior of the hut to 
the warm but cleaner night air. An instinctive reaction, a yawning 
sensation of panic in the pit of his stomach, gripped him: inside was a 
known environment, but outside, in the unfamiliar territory of the 
village, he was conscious of his complete dependence on Daron for 
guidance. If he was separated from her, or got lost, or wandered into 
the forest by mistake...

He took a deep breath and tried to quell the mounting fear with rational 
thought. He was temporarily- temporarily, he stressed to himself- 
without sight, and in a strange place to boot. These feelings of 
vulnerability were natural, but without foundation. The Keltoi were 
friendly, Carter had found them, and they would all be going home soon. 
There was nothing to worry about. 

Somewhere a forest creature hooted loudly. Despite himself, Daniel 
gripped Daron's hand a little more forcefully. He took a deep breath and 
forced himself to relax.

"Daniel Jackson, may I ask you a question?"

"Umm, just Daniel is fine. And, ummm, yes, sure."

"I wish to know..." She hesitated. "It is difficult to say. There are 
many people. I do not wish others to overhear."

"Well, I, ahh..." Daniel thought. "Whisper it to me."

"Very well." There was the briefest of hesitations, then he felt Daron's 
warm, sweet-scented skin touch his bare cheek as she leaned closer to 
him. Very quietly, she breathed: "Does he have a woman? Hart?"

Her self-consciousness and embarrassment were palpable in her voice and 
Daniel nearly chuckled. Then he caught himself. He'd been here himself, 
after all. "Daron, I only met him a couple of days ago. I don't know." 
Impishly, he added: "You'll have to ask him."

She stopped moving, and as Daniel jolted to a halt beside her, he 
wondered if he had accidentally broken some fundamental tribal taboo 
concerning male-female courtship. Then he smelt the warm, welcoming 
aroma of meat roasting over an open fire, and realised they had arrived 
at their destination. Daron's romantic concerns had distracted him from 
the anxiety of the journey.

He wondered if that had been deliberate. If it had been, Daron was going 
to make one hell of a medicine woman when Cerian decided to retire.

She told him to duck as they passed through the low entrance, and he did 
as she said. 

* * *

"These guys really know how to throw a barbecue."

Rhys watched as O'Neill carved a generous portion of meat off the 
charred flank of a wholly unidentifiable animal and dipped it into one 
of the many bowls of seasoned sauces and dressings which had been 
provided. He was slightly less convinced of the merits of tribal cuisine 
than the American colonel appeared to be, but he suspected that it would 
be excessively bad form not to demonstrate a hearty appreciation for the 
hospitality being offered, and so when the knife was passed in his 
direction, he sliced the blackened flesh with determined enthusiasm. 
Handing the blade on to Carter, he took an experimental bite of the deep 
red, succulent meat. He chewed and swallowed it cautiously, then took 
another, larger bite. It wasn't bad at all.

"What d'you reckon?" asked O'Neill.

Caliburn nodded. "Good. Tastes a little like chicken."

"Hear that, Danny? That's your cue to make with the clucking noises."

Dr Jackson was sitting cross legged on the other side of the long, low 
table on which the multitude of foods and jugs had been arranged, while 
Captain Carter cut a serving of meat for him in a maternal manner which 
Rhys imagined the archaeologist would have found embarrassing had he 
been able to see it. "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"Sure it worked. Next time I talked to the kids I had to endure a half 
hour's worth of barnyard impersonations." He dipped a sliver of meat 
into a bowl of noxious-appearing green goo and munched on it 
appreciatively. "Hey, try this one. It tastes like salsa."

Rhys ate, and allowed the conversation to flow around him. His patrol, 
and O'Neill's people and Pinker, had been seated at the top of one of 
the two long tables which ran parallel along the length of the meeting 
hall, in what Rhys took to be a position of honour. The hall was by far 
the largest structure in the village, but was still crowded tonight, as 
every member of the community sat or stood or leaned in a convenient- 
and frequently inconvenient- position for eating. Looking around, 
Caliburn estimated that there might easily be five hundred people 
present. It was certainly impressive. And yet... the rest of the village 
was deserted. Everyone was here. And a settlement of five hundred people 
after a millennium's opportunity for growth was hardly a success story. 
Rhys looked down at the fading red rash on his arms and hands, and 
thought of the forest, dense and dark and poisonous, beyond the 
perimeter fences. This world was not the friendly, gentle cradle which 
his home was. These people had done remarkably well to survive here, but 
they would never prosper.

Although Hart and Daron might prosper, given half a chance.

Caliburn looked down the length of the table, to where the Keltoi woman 
was reaching out a hand, tentatively, towards his Sergeant's layer of 
close-cropped red curls. "But does it hurt?" he heard her say, and saw 
Hart shake his head and laugh. Fraternising with the natives was 
probably not the most sensible course of action, but Rhys was glad to 
see the Sergeant seeming more relaxed than at any time since they had 
come here, and he decided to follow the polite tack and ignore the 
developing relationship. They would leaving before long anyway, and it 
was unlikely that Daron would be coming with them.

"My friends." At the head of the table, Dicenos got to his feet, leaning 
heavily on a stout wooden staff to do so. He raised the stick and rapped 
it on the low table three times, reducing the hum of chatter to a 
respectful silence within moments. "My old friends," he said, gazing 
around the assembled village, "...and my new friends," he added, 
indicating the visitors. Rhys felt five hundred separate gazes converge 
upon himself and the group around him, and smiled politely. "We are 
gathered to celebrate a momentous day in our history. Today we have 
received visitors from the land we left so long ago. We welcome them."

O'Neill waved to the room at large. "Hi. Nice to meet you folks."

Caliburn tried not to wince. Oh God. Americans.

"And they bring us good news. The demon Goa'uld from which we fled are 
gone from Earth."

There was a smattering of low cheers and sounds of approval. Dicenos 
held up a hand for silence. "There is a final cause for joy this night." 
He paused, and when he next spoke, his tone had shifted subtly, taking 
on a rhythmic, mellifluous quality. Rhys suddenly had the impression 
that the words he was hearing had been spoken many times before, that 
this was Keltoi oral history being reinforced and passed on.

"When the fathers of our people came here, they found that the ways of 
the forest are harsh."

A ripple of nodded agreement passed around the hall.

"But they also found that the forest is bountiful. That it can provide 
for our needs. And the forest met the needs of our fathers and mothers, 
by bringing forth the snakesbane; the snakesbane which freed them from 
the slavery to the demon children of Ra which they carried within them."

More nods, and when Rhys looked into the gloom past the end of the 
table, he saw a Keltoi woman lifting her young daughter on to her knee 
and whispering to her words which were surely an injunction to heed and 
remember. The more Rhys learned of these people the more their fortitude 
and their sense of identity impressed him. They had no paper, no books 
and yet they had found a way to preserve their history and origins 
accurately. How many leaders before Dicenos had stood in this spot and 
told this story, without variation? How many children had listened to 
it, and then grown up to tell it to their own children?

"And so we are free of the demon children of the snake Ra. Today, my 
friends, we have been given the chance to share our freedom with another 
who is enslaved now as we once were." 

Rhys looked to where Teal'c sat, silent and focused, at the Keltoi 
leader's side. Dicenos lowered a hand and touched his shoulder, and he 
rose, dwarfing the frail white-haired man as he stood. 

"Teal'c," said Dicenos: "Gladly we share with you our freedom. Cerian, 
let us begin."

The Keltoi woman, wearing the woven sash of dried vines which Rhys now 
understood was the mark of the position of village healer, got up and 
crossed the hall, carrying with her a cup which steamed in the dim 
orange-red glow of the fire. 

Dicenos took the cup from her, and handed it to Teal'c. "Drink, and you 
will soon be free."

Teal'c accepted the cup and held it, eyes shut. The perfect, deep 
silence of anticipation had fallen throughout the hall; all eyes, all 
thoughts were directed at the central pageant. 

Rhys glanced away, and looked across the table, to where the Colonel 
sat. He too was focused entirely on the ritual about to begin, but 
unlike the Keltoi, his face was marked with something other than 
delighted expectation. There was a tension in his expression, and the 
flickering firelight highlighted the taut muscles in the side of his 
neck. 

Teal'c lifted the cup to his mouth, and drained it. The Keltoi erupted 
into a roar of approval, mingled with claps and shouts. Cerian led the 
Jaffa out of the hall through an ovation of ecstatic approval.

* * *

It was a balmy night, and now that the meal was over, most of the 
villagers and their guests had chosen to move out into the warm outside 
air. As Rhys strolled through the settlement, he could hear the murmur 
of low conversations and the ringing of distant laughter. A succession 
of loud splashing noises, followed swiftly by high pitched childish 
squeals, came from the direction of the river where the Keltoi children 
were making the most of an extended evening's play. 

He found O'Neill sitting by the oak tree at the centre of the village, 
looking up at the moons. The Colonel lowered his gaze as Rhys 
approached.

"We have got to stop meeting like this."

Caliburn sat down beside him. "You don't have your starmap this time."

"No," agreed O'Neill. "Not that it would be much use here." He stifled a 
yawn, and Rhys was about to suggest that he get some rest when he 
realised that O'Neill had not been studying the night sky at all: this 
spot, beneath the ancient oak, afforded a perfect view of the isolated 
hut to which Cerian had taken Teal'c. The door of the little dwelling 
was closed tightly, and shutters were pulled over the windows. The 
outline of the building was hazy in the darkness, and it took Rhys a 
moment to understand why. Then he saw that tendrils of smoke were rising 
from between the gaps in the hut's woven structure, and that in the 
stillness a pall of herby fumes hung around its walls and roof. 

"What is that?"

"Carter says the smoke will reduce the risk of infection," said O'Neill: 
"If it doesn't give him lung cancer first." He yawned again.

"You know," said Rhys carefully, "you're not helping him sitting out 
here."

"No. But he'd do the same for me." O'Neill shifted his position against 
the tree trunk. "Teal'c is an exile because he chose to help us. Where 
he comes from, he's persona non grata. I feel..." he hesitated: 
"...maybe a little more responsible than I should."

Rhys nodded, understanding. "Were you in the Gulf?" he asked.

"Yeah. You?"

"Al Basra."

O'Neill winced sympathetically. "I heard it got ugly there."

"It did. It was my first command- well, I say command, I had two men to 
lead on a basic ground recon. Everything was going A-1, and then we ran 
into sniper fire. Suddenly one of my people was lying on the ground 
bleeding into the sand and all I could think was I would have taken it 
for him if I could. But you can't."

"No," agreed O'Neill. "You can't." He looked at Rhys. "What happened to 
him?"

"Doyle was just fine." Caliburn leaned back against the gnarled bark, 
listening to the settlement's friendly voices, the adults' talk and the 
children's play. If he shut his eyes, ignored the strange sky above, he 
could almost believe himself back in his parents' village. Apart from 
the heat. "All those different worlds you visit," he said to O'Neill: 
"Ever tempted to stay on any of them?"

The Colonel appeared to consider this, and shrugged. "No. There's a 
saying that fits: the best part of travelling is coming home. The more 
places I go the more sense it makes."

"And what if a person has no home to go back to?"

"Then I'd feel sorry for him."

The door of the hut opened, the narrow gap just wide enough for Cerian 
to poke her head out into the clean air, puffs of dense grey smoke 
clinging to her rapidly staining white hair. "You may enter now," she 
called to O'Neill. "But be quick." Then she vanished, and the door shut 
behind her.

The Colonel stood, dusting loose sand and soil from his clothing. "Guess 
that means visiting hours start now." He began to make his way across 
the square to the dwelling.

Rhys watched him go. "O'Neill."

"Yeah?"

"If you want a break at any point, call and I'll fill in."

O'Neill nodded. "I'll do that."

* * *

Inside the hut, the atmosphere was so thick with smoke from the dampened 
wood fire that Jack began coughing almost as soon as he was inside. 
Cerian frowned at him, and handed him a wet cloth. "Breathe through 
this," she instructed. 

Unable to reply, he nodded and put the material over his nose and mouth, 
hacking into it like a man in the terminal stages of emphysema. For this 
I quit smoking?

Cerian was wringing out another cloth, making ready to replace the one 
lying across Teal'c's forehead. His eyes were closed and his face was 
contorted in pain. Jack could not tell whether he was conscious or not.

Jack knelt by the Jaffa, taking careful, shallow breaths through the 
mask until he felt able to frame a sentence. His eyes were watering and 
he had to blink back stinging tears caused by the clouds of particulate 
matter in the air. "How is he?"

"The snakesbane is killing the demon within him. It is painful for him 
also."

She lifted the cup which was sitting next to Teal'c's head and set it to 
one side. Jack saw that it was still half-filled with the snakesbane 
tincture. He looked at the healer doubtfully. "Maybe you should give him 
some more. Get it over with quicker."

Cerian shook her head. "Too much would poison him as well as the demon's 
child." She pushed up her tunic sleeves. "It is nearly time. I am about 
to remove the larva."

"And after that it'll get better?"

"No. After that it will get worse. And then it will get better." She 
assumed a position at Teal'c's side, kneeling over his stomach. "You may 
hold his shoulders. Prevent him from moving."

Jack did as she instructed, placing his hands on either side of Teal'c's 
neck and bearing down with as much force as he dared. The Jaffa's skin 
was coated with a thin layer of grey dust from the fire, new deposits of 
which were settling as fast as the sweat collecting on him could wash 
the old dirt away. The muscles in his arms were tight and tense, and his 
mouth was twisted into an open snarl, revealing teeth clenched together 
in agony. 

"You're okay," Jack reassured him softly. "This'll only hurt for a 
second, and then everything will be..."

Cerian's hand darted into the slits in Teal'c's stomach, and emerged 
slick with mucus, and holding a writhing, furious larva. Teal'c 
screamed.

Jack pressed down on him with all his weight, and even so nearly could 
not stop him from arching up off the thin mattress of blankets on which 
he lay. 

Cerian deposited the larva in a deep bowl by the fire, and lifted 
another small cup, which she filled with water from a clay jug. She 
placed one hand behind Teal'c's head and the used the other to hold the 
cup to his lips. "Come, now. Drink. It is done."

"I am..." he hissed: "It is not..."

"Hush," said Cerian. "Drink, and rest." She tipped the cup, and although 
much of the liquid missed his mouth entirely, Jack could see his Adam's 
Apple bobbing up and down as he instinctively swallowed. After a moment 
he became a fraction more relaxed, and Jack eased off the pressure he 
was applying to his shoulders. He sat back, exhausted. 

Cerian placed a hand on Teal'c's forehead, and nodded. "He is sleeping. 
This is the most important time. It is a healing sleep. He must not 
wake." She got up, and lifted the jug. "I will return. Watch him while I 
am gone."

The smoke was thickening again, and Jack did not trust himself to speak. 
He nodded silently.

Cerian went to the door, and began to open it. As she stepped outside, 
she said: "You did well."

Jack grinned at her, and made the thumbs-up sign. She frowned at him in 
incomprehension, and left.

"Y'hear that?" he croaked to the sleeping Jaffa: "We did okay."

* * *

Rhys sat under the oak tree and listened to the muffled noises coming 
from the hut. He was on the point of rapping on the door to find out if 
they needed help when it opened and Cerian emerged, carrying a small 
brown-red jug. She crossed the village square without noticing Rhys, and 
her expression was preoccupied, but she walked purposefully, not 
anxiously, and he decided that the situation must, for the meantime, be 
progressing as expected.

He stood up. He could do with a few hours' sleep himself.

Caliburn walked slowly through the now-quietening settlement, thinking 
how different it was to the small pit village in north Wales in which he 
had grown up, and how much the same. That had been a close-knit 
community too, one where surnames were rarely if ever used and everyone 
knew everyone else's business, for better or worse. And, like this 
place, his home had been a lingering, stagnant remnant of another time. 
His village had died a slow death when the coal seams had begun to run 
out, just as the Keltoi would eventually face extinction when their 
walls and healing herbs could no longer hold off the forest's poisonous 
assault. 

He hadn't thought about home in a long time. Hadn't been back since his 
father's funeral. Odd that this place, so remote and so exotic, should 
remind him so forcefully of it.

He heard a wheezing gasp from the shadows under the eaves of a nearby 
dwelling, and stopped to peer into the gloom. "Dicenos?"

The old man held up a hand. "I am... just a little tired. Please, a 
moment."

The answer sounded about as convincing to Rhys as those his father had 
given when he coughed up blood and bile and coal dust. He moved closer 
to Dicenos. "With respect, sir, I think you could use some assistance."

Dicenos tried to wave him away, but did not resist when Rhys curled an 
arm around him and supported part of his weight. He was surprised at how 
frail the old man was beneath his tunic. 

Caliburn manoeuvred him around and helped him down into a sitting 
position on the ground. As he did so, he found himself looking, for the 
shortest of moments, straight into Dicenos' eyes. Unlike his body, they 
were not weak with age, but sparkled and shone with the brightness of an 
acute intellect. And something else. 

Recognition?

Rhys started, and nearly let the old man slip to the ground with a bump.

"Yes," said Dicenos. He smiled and nodded. "You too are one of our 
brothers." 

Rhys looked at the contrast where his own pale, ivory-toned fingers 
rested on the old man's dark, wrinkled arm. "Of a type, sir," he said, 
"but not of a kind."

Dicenos shook off Rhys' grip and pressed his hand against his abdomen. 
"Oh yes," he said quietly. "The Stones told me you would come, and the 
Stones brought you. Tell me about your home."

"Well, it's..." Rhys stopped. "It's not like here."

Dicenos made a small noise of derision. "If it were, would I be asking? 
Tell me about the place we left."

And Rhys told him. He told him about the fields and the valleys, places 
where the dense, suffocating forest was unknown, where the land was open 
and gentle. He told him about the farms laid out like patchwork around 
his village, about walking home on cold winter nights and waking up to 
snow in the morning. He described summers which were warm and long, but 
without the oppressive humidity of this place. And Dicenos listened, 
without speaking to interrupt or ask questions. He simply listened.

When Rhys had finished, he said: "I think that it is time for us to find 
a new home."

There was a splash from the direction of the river. Then a shout. Then a 
scream.

"What the bloody...?" began Rhys.

Then all hell broke loose.

                         *******************

Nine

A loose stone caused Daniel to stagger, and he stumbled against Sam, 
almost tripping. 

"Ooops. Sorry."

"It's all right. Don't worry about it."

Scanning the ground ahead more carefully in the moonlight, Sam took a 
firmer grip of his hand and led him through the obstacle course which 
was the route from the meeting hall to the hut on the far side of the 
village where they were staying. She stifled a giggle, not wholly 
successfully.

"What's so funny?"

Sam put her free hand to her mouth. She really shouldn't have had that 
third cup of Keltoi fruits-of-the-forest hooch. "I was thinking... 
holding hands, walking slowly in the dark. We could keep the SGC rumour 
machine ticking over for months on this."

"Sam, you could be naked right now and I wouldn't be in any position to 
appreciate it." 

"How d'y'know I'm not?"

He reached over with his free hand and made a fuss of prodding her 
uniformed arm. "I feel cloth. Yep, that's a jacket." 

Now she did laugh out loud. "Okay, all right, I admit it, I'm dressed."

Daniel smiled- at least, she thought he did, it was difficult to tell in 
the dark and with half his face hidden under bandages- and she was glad 
that he seemed to be maintaining a positive attitude. Then again, she 
thought, Daniel was probably the only person who was unaware of the 
extent and severity of the injuries he had sustained. She would feel 
better when they got home and found a specialist to check him out.

If it wasn't too late by then to prevent permanent damage to his sight.

"Sam? You've gone quiet."

"Sorry," she replied automatically. "I was just thinking about Teal'c."

"Yeah. I know. Me too. But Cerian knows what she's doing, and this is 
what he wants. Besides," he added, "if this plant contains a drug strong 
enough to bring his immune system back up to normal levels, think what 
medical science at home could do with it. If we brought nothing else 
home, that would justify everything we do."

Sam said nothing, but looked up at the twin moons and made a silent wish 
on the shining crescents that the treatments Daron had given Daniel were 
as effective as he believed the snakesbane might be. 

She blinked. A bright light appeared then vanished between the moons, 
above the treeline on the far side of the river. Sam stopped in her 
tracks.

Daniel walked on a pace, and stumbled. "What is it?"

"I don't know. There's a light out in the forest. It looks like it's 
moving towards us. It's..." Her heart stopped, then quickened, and she 
felt a rush of adrenaline stimulated by fear hit her bloodstream. 
Suddenly she was stone cold sober again. "Oh my God, Daniel, it's a 
Glider. There are Goa'uld here!"

"But that's not..."

"Get down!" 

The Glider skimmed the tree canopy, then swooped in low over the 
village, approaching the settlement from the side which backed on to the 
river, strafing as it came. The first blasts fell harmlessly on the 
wide, empty banks. The next rounds landed closer to the buildings at the 
water's edge.

Carter dived for the nearest available cover, dragging Daniel behind 
her. As the pulses from the craft's energy weapons hit the settlement's 
buildings and structures, the night sky above her glowed like a Fourth 
of July fireworks display. A chorus of screams began to break the 
peaceful silence into which the village had settled; Sam could tell that 
they were shouts of surprise, of panic- screams of pain were different, 
higher pitched and longer. There were none of those. Yet.

She began to edge forwards, crawling on her belly along the ground.

"Sam?" There was an edge of raw panic in Daniel's voice: "Where are you 
going?"

She looked behind her, momentarily torn. "Our weapons are in the hut. 
These people have nothing more sophisticated than bows and arrows. We 
have to defend them."

"Fine. I'll come with you."

"Daniel, you're..." She stopped. A liability was the most honest way to 
finish the sentence, but she couldn't say it. "You're injured. I can't 
watch out for both of us at once. Stay here, don't move and I will come 
back."

"Sam..."

She put a hand to his face, drawing her fingertips along the bare skin 
below the bandage line. "I will come back. I promise."

He took a breath. "All right. Okay."

Sam looked at him, glad he could not see the concern she knew her 
expression must be betraying right now. Then she turned and crawled out 
of the shadow of the building, into the line of fire.

She picked herself up and ran.

* * *

"Sheldrick! Doyle!"

Caliburn was running full tilt through the heart of the village, dodging 
falling masonry and terrified Keltoi with equal dexterity. He caught up 
with his patrol as they appeared from behind a dwelling just ahead of 
him. "Where's Hart?"

Sheldrick shook his head. "Ain't seen him since dinner."

"Then we'll find him on the way. What the hell is that?"

"Death Glider," said Doyle.

"It's a what...? No, tell me later," he amended, as the Corporal opened 
his mouth to elaborate. His men may have had further briefings from 
Carter which he had not been privy to, but for the moment Rhys didn't 
need to know much more about the screeching, whining machine above his 
head other than that it was trying to kill him. "Come on," he told them, 
and headed off again, Sheldrick and Doyle hard behind him.

* * *

O'Neill started, and coughed himself awake. A few more hours in here and 
everything he had achieved on behalf of his lungs in these past 
nicotine-free couple of years would be undone. He looked down at Teal'c, 
and satisfied himself that the Jaffa was still asleep. The interior of 
the hut was perfectly still. He wondered what had woken him.

The explosion came as something of a surprise.

The hut, and the ground beneath, jolted and shook. Several branches from 
the structure which supported the ceiling collapsed. Jack leapt to his 
feet and began to make for the door, nearly colliding with Cerian as she 
returned.

"What's happening?"

She stared at him, terrified. "No one knows. There are lights, in the 
sky. The ground burns..."

"Shit." Jack looked at her, and then down at Teal'c. "Will you stay with 
him? Whatever happens, will you stay?"

She nodded mutely.

"Will you stay?" he repeated.

She looked up. "I will stay."

Jack nodded. "I'm going to find the others. We'll do what we can."

He left, coughing the last of the smoke out of his lungs as he went.

* * *

By the time O'Neill reached the hut at the far end of the village, 
Carter was already distributing weapons between Caliburn, Doyle and 
Sheldrick. There was no sign of Hart- or, for that matter, Pinker. 
"Colonel!" she called, and threw him one of the MP-5's. 

"Where's Daniel?"

"I found shelter for him and told him to stay put." She shook her head. 
"I had to go."

O'Neill nodded. She would have had no option but to leave him. 

There was a high-pitched whining noise in the inky night sky above. 
Carter looked up anxiously. "We only have a minute or two before the 
Glider makes another pass."

Caliburn hefted his weapon, clipping the ammo into place. "Will what 
we've got bring it down?"

Jack shook his head. "Not a chance. We might as well throw rocks at it. 
But we might be able to use these against the ground forces."

"Ground forces?" asked the Major.

"Typical Goa'uld tactics would be to soften the target with an air 
attack, then send in Jaffa infantry," explained Carter. "But there's no 
access to the settlement from the river side, so..."

"...So we can expect the Glider to concentrate on taking out the walls 
or gates on the next pass," finished Jack. 

Caliburn looked in O'Neill's direction. "You've met these things before. 
What's the best response?"

Jack looked at Sheldrick and Doyle, who were listening intently. 
"Carter, are they up to speed?"

"The General briefed them himself."

Jack pointed at the Lieutenant and the Corporal. "You two take the wall 
on the far side of the meeting hall. Try to stop any ground troops 
breaking through. If you're outnumbered, fall back. But there's only one 
Glider: if we're lucky, this is just a raid and we might be able to hold 
them off. Carter, you're on the opposite wall. If you find Hart or 
Pinker get them to help."

The reply was a chorus of fast affirmatives, and the three officers left 
at a run.

"Major, you and I will take the main gates." Jack grinned, as somewhere 
very close there was another explosion: "And on the way, we'll do the 
fastest briefing on alien battle strategies you've ever had."

"Fastest?" repeated Caliburn. "Try only."

* * *

Carter rounded the corner of a store-house at full tilt, and nearly 
flattened Hart, who was coming in the other direction. Daron was right 
behind him. "Captain!" he gasped: "What's happening?"

She threw him the spare gun she was carrying. "We're under attack. Come 
with me. Daron, better find yourself somewhere safe."

The young woman shook her head. "This is my home. This is supposed to be 
safe."

Carter hesitated, then nodded. "Stay behind me and do exactly what I 
tell you."

She ran on without waiting for a reply.

* * *

A rush of blistering heat passed a little too close to Daniel's arm for 
comfort, and he yelped and tried to back himself further away from the 
source of the scorching sensation. He could tell from the crackling 
noises and shouts all around him that the village was being razed. So 
far, however, his calls for assistance or, failing that, for someone 
just to take a second and tell him what the hell was going on, had 
generated no response whatsoever. Evidently there was no time in this 
crisis to spare for a blind man. 

He wanted to find the others. Wanted to know what was happening. Wanted 
to help. Wanted not to feel so helpless.

But walking out into the middle of that would be suicide.

"Mama! Mama! Where are you?"

The child's voice was a rising cry of panic and fear, and was coming 
from somewhere very close to him. "Mama? Mama!" 

"Ahh, hello?" he called. "Are you all right?"

The response which his tentative enquiry produced was sudden and 
dramatic: a small, warm body collapsed into Daniel's arms and began to 
sob into his jacket. He wrapped his arms around- him? Her? Well, he 
could figure that one out in a minute- and offered a gentle stream of 
murmured reassurances. 

"I want my mother."

Yes, thought Daniel, you and me both. "What's your name?"

"Teleri."

That sounded vaguely feminine. He decided, for the sake of argument, 
that Teleri was a girl. "Hello, Teleri. I'm Daniel."

"I want my mother," she repeated, and tried to pull away from him: "I'm 
going to get my mother back."

Daniel suspected that the village in its current state of panic and 
confusion would be as much of a death-trap for an unaccompanied child as 
it would be for a sightless adult. "Teleri, that's not a good idea. Why 
don't you stay here with me until this is over, and then we'll find your 
mother, okay?" There was no reply. He held her closer. "Okay?"

He could feel her tiny form shaking against him, and he could tell she 
was crying. He wished he could look her in the eye to offer comfort. 
"C'mon, Teleri," he said softly, more to himself than her, "I could do 
with some company too right now."

She relaxed against his chest, and although he still held her, he 
allowed his arms to loosen around her, confident now that she was not on 
the point of running off. Her hair, fuzzy and ticklish, brushed his 
chin, smelling of sweet, strange herbs and home-made soap. 

Suddenly something she had said clicked. 

"Teleri," he probed gently: "What did you mean, get your mother back?"

"We have to get her back. From the things that took her."

A cold, crawling sensation began in the pit of Daniel's stomach. "The 
things that took her?"

"The bird things. The men with birds' heads."

She began to cry again, and he apologised for making her think about bad 
things. Then he rocked her back and forth as they listened to the 
settlement being destroyed around them.

                         *******************

Ten

"Incoming!"

The Glider was making another low pass over the Keltoi village. Sam 
dived for cover, pulling Daron down with her. "Hart! Get down!"

She rolled over, and saw with horror that the Sergeant was standing 
directly under the path of the craft, shooting straight up at its 
exposed underside. "Get down!" she screamed at him. "It's too well 
shielded. There's no point!"

In the confusion of noise and fire which reigned around them, her words 
were lost to the tumult, and Hart continued his useless assault, 
unheeding. "Stay here," Carter instructed Daron and, making a dash 
across the open ground, tackled Hart at the knees and brought him down. 
They rolled in an unlikely pairing across the blackened ground until the 
tumbling motion was stopped by the trunk of a felled tree. 

Carter stood up and pulled Hart to his feet, swearing liberally at him. 
Then she saw the panicked form huddling behind the log.

"Pinker?"

"What is this?" he asked, voice pleading and desperate. "What is this? 
What is this?"

His pupils were fully dilated and his skin was cold and clammy. Sam 
recognised shock when she saw it. She hauled him to his feet. "We should 
get him somewhere relatively safe," she said to Hart: "He's going to be 
no help like this."

Hart nodded. "Further inside the village..." he began, and then looked 
up. "Shit. I think I did it. I think I brought it down."

Carter followed the line of his gaze, and saw that the Glider was 
falling rapidly out of the dark sky above them. Then she looked more 
closely, and realised that there was no smoke or flames emanating from 
its engines, and that its descent was, although fast, controlled. 

"No," she said: "It's landing." 

There was a high-pitched whine and the air around them began to vibrate. 
The Glider hovered a few yards above ground level. Sam was close enough 
to see the ultrasound emitters on its nose hum and shake. She clasped 
her hands over her ears.

"Move!" she yelled at Hart. "Get away!" 

It was useless. The blanket of white noise around them drowned out her 
words even to herself, and Hart reeled away from her, blood beginning to 
leak from his nose. Sam felt her vision blur as she staggered two more 
steps, then three, and collapsed on to her knees. 

Strong hands lifted her and bore her upwards. As she lost consciousness, 
she remembered suddenly the words her father would use to soothe her to 
sleep when she had been very young. Let it lift you away, Sammy. 

Up, up, into the sky and far away. 

* * *

The village was burning.

Jack ran through arches of fire, created when the blasts from the 
screeching Glider overhead made contact with the buildings' dry tinder. 
Around him, desperate-faced men and women were running between the river 
and their homes carrying buckets, bowls and jugs, while flaming branches 
collapsed on to the narrow lanes between dwellings, making many of the 
routes they tried impassable. Several times, O'Neill and Caliburn were 
forced to double back on themselves, searching for a clear path to the 
village's main entrance. 

They arrived seconds too late.

The Glider descended from out of the starry sky, screaming like a bird 
of prey making ready for the kill. There was a series of four, maybe 
five, muffled thuds of artificial thunder, as the blasts of heat it 
released passed through the air, causing pockets to expand and then 
immediately collapse. A succession of bright blue flashes fell to ground 
at the village gates.

And then the gates were gone.

Jack heard a cry of pain, and saw the man who had led the hunters who 
had found them- Idris, he remembered- lying prone on the blackened earth 
as another man attempted to stem the blood pouring from the wound in his 
leg. 

The left hand gate was gone; the right hand one hung off its frame like 
a broken child's toy. The space between them was obscured by billowing 
clouds of acrid smoke.

"Here," said Jack, suddenly certain. "It'll be here."

Beside O'Neill, Caliburn tensed, his breathing fast but controlled. He 
raised his weapon. And then...

The Jaffa warriors stepped out of the clearing haze, the golden-beaked 
helmets they wore giving them a bizarre, top-heavy appearance. 

And there were no others following them.

Two? Thought Jack. Two Jaffa and a Glider? What the hell is this, a 
training session? Unless there were others, elsewhere in the village. 
Unless the Glider...

The Jaffa approached, stepping over the screaming Idris as if he were 
inconsequential.

"Fire," said O'Neill.

He knew that the sub-machine guns they were using would most likely be 
ineffective against the warriors' superior armour, unless either he or 
the Major landed a lucky shot. But they did have the advantage of 
surprise: the Jaffa must be expecting to be met by nothing more 
sophisticated than arrows and spears. 

The Jaffa closest to them took a volley of shots to the chest: they did 
not pierce his armour, but Jack could see it denting, and the force of 
the multiple impacts knocked the soldier sideways, momentarily 
highlighting his hawkshead silhouette as he fell. His companion turned 
his body to and fro, searching for the source of the unexpected 
resistance. Caliburn was firing at him, and Jack switched his aim to the 
standing Jaffa as well. The tactic was successful, and he toppled with 
the slow dignity of a bronze statue. Jack grinned at Caliburn. "The 
armour looks great, but it's a bitch to move in."

"What now?"

"Get those staff weapons. They might do some damage to the Glider."

Breaking cover, they ran across the open space, towards the gap where 
the gates had been. The nearest Jaffa was attempting to sit up, and Jack 
knocked him backwards again with a firm kick to the chest. He made a 
grab for the man's weapon, but the soldier did not intend to give it up 
easily, and a scuffle ensued. 

"O'Neill!"

Caliburn's shout made him look up, and he saw what had made the Major 
cry out. A third form was entering the village through the ruined gates.

It was not a Jaffa; it was too small. It was not even large enough to be 
an adult. It was...

Jack stared. It was a child.

The boy looked to be no more than eight or nine years old. He was 
dressed in a white robe inlaid with jewels which reflected the light of 
the fires which raged around him. His head was shaven, except for a long 
plait which began at the crown of his scalp and fell, interwoven with 
coloured silks and more gemstones, half way down his back. His skin was 
tawny brown, and his eyes...

His eyes were not human. The bright, golden speckled irises surrounded 
tiny, beady pupils which regarded Jack with a hard and glittering gaze. 
They reminded him of a bird's eyes. A bird of prey. 

And they glowed fiercely with an alien, snake-like intelligence. 

The child was Goa'uld.

The Jaffa's fingers relaxed for the shortest of seconds, and suddenly 
Jack found that he was holding the man's staff weapon. He lifted it, and 
aimed.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" yelled Caliburn. "That's a child, 
for God's sake!"

"No, it isn't," said O'Neill. He held the weapon straight. Still did not 
fire.

The boy's lips twisted upwards in a parody of humour. He raised one 
stick-like arm and unfurled a hand, revealing the mesh of golden-brown 
alloy which enveloped it like a glove.

The air in front of Jack rippled and shimmered as if in a heatwave. The 
last thing he saw before the blast caught him full in the chest was the 
boy's smile: an old, old smile in a child's face.


                         *******************

"Totality: Part III- The Horus Child"
By Rheanna - brian@hannabp.softnet.co.uk

SUMMARY: Part III: "Can other places become home?" 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, I know I promised not to do anything nasty to 
Jack, but Sam came up with a truly icky idea and I just had to go with 
it.

Since we're nearly at an end, here are a few points which might be of 
interest. An image of the Merry Maidens in Cornwall can be found at 
www.stonepages.com. There's loads on the August 1999 eclipse out there, 
but a good starting point is www.cornwalleclipse99.com. Articles include 
one on ancient astronomy which planted the seeds of Totality in my head 
in the first place. Two books in particular were useful in the 
conception of Horus: "Gods of Ancient Egypt" by Barbara Watterson 
(Sutton publishing, 12.99 pounds sterling) and "Daily Life of the 
Egyptian Gods" by Dmitri Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks (Pimlico, 
12.50 pounds sterling). The Keltoi were inspired by Druidic society, and 
for background there I read "The Druids" by Peter Berresford Ellis. 
(Constable, 10.95 pounds sterling.)Finally, many thanks to everyone who 
contributed thoughts, ideas and beta-reads to Totality along the way. 
Special thanks to jmas for maternal support and momoftoad ("Think 
American!"). I'm a very grateful Brit... 


                         *******************

Totality: Part III
The Horus Child

One 

Rhys woke up, and immediately wished he hadn't.

At least, he thought grimly, if anyone ever asked him what being hit in 
the face with the blast from an energy weapon felt like, he'd be able to 
tell them. It felt bloody awful.

His head buzzed, and an oily, metallic taste at the back of his throat 
made him want to gag. He sat very still, then he did gag, and rolled 
over, retching into the dirt.

"Take it easy, sir. Don't choke."

The nausea subsided, not completely, but enough to allow Caliburn to sit 
up. He rubbed at his temples experimentally, just in case it helped. It 
didn't.

"Water?" he asked thickly.

"There you go."

A cup was lifted to his mouth, and he sipped at it slowly, resisting the 
temptation to drink too quickly. Apparently being knocked unconscious by 
the discharge from an energy weapon left a person dehydrated. He made a 
mental note for future reference.

The sun was bright, and hurt his eyes. Shouldn't it still be night-time? 
He blinked, and tried to focus on the face in front of him. "Doyle?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long was I out?"

"About six hours, sir."

Rhys nodded, taking this in. Nearby, O'Neill was standing against the 
one remaining wall of a demolished building, leaning against it for 
support while he massaged the backs of his calves. "Good morning, 
Major."

"Not really," answered Rhys. He tried to stand up and failed. He had no 
feeling at all below his knees. 

"Stretch a little on the ground first," counselled O'Neill. "Then try 
getting up. Trust me, I'm an expert."

Rhys followed the advice, rubbing the sensation back into his dead 
limbs. "The child..." he began.

"The kid wasn't a kid," said O'Neill. "It was a Goa'uld. You can always 
tell by the eyes."

The blood was rushing back into Rhys' legs now, bringing with it a rash 
of stinging pains over the surface of his skin and in his muscles. It 
was pins and needles factored up by ten. He ignored it and kept rubbing, 
looking about himself as he did so.

The settlement was a wasteland.

Rhys remembered losing consciousness at the gates, but he had been moved 
at some point to the central square of the village, as had the rest of 
the injured. And there were a lot of them. Caliburn had guessed at the 
previous evening's banquet that the Keltoi numbered perhaps five 
hundred; there were as many as one hundred here. An attack which left 
one fifth of the target population in need of medical attention wasn't 
just successful, it was a massacre. He could see Sheldrick and Cerian 
moving among them, administering first aid, but it was clear that there 
was more suffering here than two people could hope to ease.

And then there was the village itself.

Barely a single building, dwelling or store-house had escaped unscathed. 
Many of the well kept, brightly lit homes he had seen at dusk the 
previous evening were now smoking ruins. Most of those still standing no 
longer looked structurally sound. The gates were gone, the fences lining 
the settlement's perimeter ripped open, gaping wounds exposing the 
forest beyond. The meeting house still possessed four standing walls but 
had lost its roof. And the tree, the oak tree which stood at the heart 
of the Keltoi community, had been felled.

"Report," he said to Doyle.

"We've got maybe sixty walking wounded, twenty Sheldrick reckons need 
hospital treatment if they're to pull through, ten dead and fifteen 
unaccounted for."

"Are they hiding in the jungle?"

"No, sir. We think they've been abducted. The, ahh, bird-headed men took 
them. The Jaffa. People saw it happen."

Caliburn looked at O'Neill, who said: "The attack at the front gates was 
a diversion. While we were occupied there, the Glider landed and two 
other Jaffa started snatching people."

"Who?"

"Carter," said O'Neill. He looked sick. "Hart. Daron. Pinker. Others." 

Hart. Shit. Rhys shook his head, as if by doing so he could displace the 
tingling pain which clung to his nerve endings. "What the bloody hell is 
going on here?"

"Yeah," said O'Neill: "That gets my vote for Question Of The Morning."

* * *

"Teleri, help me."

Daniel had finished bandaging the leg of an injured woman, a task made 
at least twice as slow and twice as difficult as it should have been by 
the fact that he was working by touch alone. He stood up and held out a 
hand. Very quickly he felt the small, firm grip of his new eyes take 
hold of his fingers and lead him towards the next casualty. He was not 
sure how much good he was achieving, but the alternative was to sit and 
do nothing. He had badgered Sheldrick until he was given a job, and 
Teleri had hung around long enough to be press-ganged into helping him 
do it. Her mother was among the missing, and Daniel figured that she was 
best off somewhere where he could keep an eye on her.

Metaphorically speaking.

A sharp pain across the bridge of his nose made him raise his free hand 
to the bandages around his own injuries. They felt slightly damp around 
the edges. They would need changed again soon, or he would risk 
infection. He would have to get Daron...

No Daron.

And no Sam either.

"Daniel, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Teleri. My eyes, ahhh, hurt a little, that's all."

"Dr Jackson!"

As pointless as the action was, Daniel raised his head in the direction 
of Doyle's voice. "Right here."

"Crisis meeting by the oak tree in ten minutes. Colonel O'Neill said to 
tell you."

"I'll be there."

Led by the girl, he moved on to the next casualty.

* * *

It was like being underwater.

Sam sat up groggily and looked around herself, blinking in an effort to 
clear her vision. It didn't help: the world was drowned in a blue wash 
of rippling, unfocused light. Carter rubbed at her eyes, suddenly afraid 
she had damaged her sight.

Then she looked again, and realised that the effect was not behind her 
retinas but in front of them. The blue shimmer hung in the air, a wall 
of light which stretched like gauze between two high engraved posts 
rammed deep into the ground. Sam turned her head, ignoring the sensation 
of nausea that the motion provoked, and saw a third post behind her. 
Along with a dozen or so others, she was in a triangular pen which was 
approximately fifteen feet along each side. 

"Captain Carter!"

She looked around until she located the source of the familiar English-
accented voice. "Hart?"

The Sergeant was sitting on the bare ground, while Daron dabbed 
carefully at a cluster of blackened calluses on the palms of his hands. 
Pinker sat beside them, looking on, and although he was pale and 
nervous, the blind panic which had overtaken him the previous evening 
seemed to be under control. Sam supposed she should feel some measure of 
sympathy for him, then decided that she couldn't muster the effort 
required to generate it.

She didn't yet feel capable of standing up, so she crawled over to join 
the others on all fours. "What happened to you?" she asked the Sergeant, 
and swallowed. Her mouth was dry, and she was sorry she had taken off 
her canteen before attending the banquet.

Hart nodded in the direction of one glimmering wall. "I tried to get 
out," he said sheepishly. "The light burnt me."

"It's a Goa'uld energy field," Sam told him. "The harder you push it, 
the harder it pushes back."

Hart grimaced as Daron rubbed a small amount of balm into his scorched 
palms. "Now I find out."

Pinker looked at her curiously. "How do you know it's the Goa'uld we're 
dealing with?"

Sam pointed through the force field at the wavering, distorted real 
world beyond it. "Because that's a Goa'uld ship."

The craft was pyramid-shaped, and obviously Goa'uld, although it was 
somewhat smaller than any Sam had seen before. Set amongst the dense 
forest vegetation, it looked oddly incongruous: no matter how many of 
the things Carter saw, pyramids remained firmly entrenched in her mind 
as belonging to the deserts of Egypt. They weren't supposed to fly and 
they weren't supposed to open up to launch squadrons of Death Gliders. 
And they certainly weren't supposed to squat like a some giant child's 
building block on top of the jungle. 

"Goa'uld?" said Daron. "No. That is not possible. We are well hidden 
here."

"Apparently not any more," said Sam grimly.

Hart looked warily towards the alien ship. "Wish I still had my weapon."

"It wouldn't do much good against Goa'uld technology anyway," Carter 
told him. Beside her, Daron had finished ministering to Hart's injuries, 
and was replacing the tiny jar of salve she had been using in one of the 
multitude of small bags she wore on her sash. "Although we might have 
something we could use. Daron, are you carrying any snakesbane?"

The Keltoi woman nodded, and untied one of the other pouches. "A 
measure."

"Mind if we take it?"

"This is marvellous," said Pinker as Daron handed over the bag: "They 
have all the technology of a highly advanced alien civilisation, and we 
have a small bag of roots. Fan-bloody-tastic."

Sam slipped the herbs into a pocket and zipped it up. "The snakesbane 
obviously contains a substance which is highly toxic to the Goa'uld. And 
right now we need every advantage we can get."

A movement outside the pen attracted her attention, and she looked 
around to see what appeared to be, but almost certainly was not, a stone 
in the pyramid-ship's nearest face began to dissolve, allowing two of 
the Jaffa who had attacked the village to emerge. Falling into step with 
one another, they crossed the wide forest clearing and halted opposite 
the two guards positioned with their backs to the pen. There was a 
muttered exchange of orders, and the sentries raised their staff weapons 
while the new arrivals stepped forward, each reaching out to touch a 
corner-post. One side of the triangle shimmered and disappeared. 

Carter held her breath as one of the Jaffa entered the enclosure. The 
two remaining force fields formed a V-shape, and the potential exit was 
wide in front of her. The guards were out-numbered, she thought: perhaps 
if they made a rush for them...

No, that was madness. The Jaffa were in the minority, but they were also 
armed, and there was nowhere for the Keltoi to retreat to. There was 
nothing to do except play along. For now.

The nearest Jaffa raised his staff, and a tremor of near-panic passed 
through the group. But he was using it to point out individuals, Sam 
realised. First herself, then Hart and Pinker. "You. Come."

Hart looked at her, and she nodded. She saw him exchange a glance, and 
the thinnest of reassuring smiles, with Daron, while one of the other 
Jaffa grabbed Pinker and dragged him forwards. 

"What now?" Pinker asked in a low voice as the enclosure was sealed off 
behind them and they were escorted towards the ship.

"We get to meet the Goa'uld," she whispered back.

"Any possibility of negotiating something?"

Sam looked at him. "This thing puts people in pens as if they were 
animals. What do you think?"

* * *

Jack found Cerian carefully rubbing a white, oily substance into the 
flaps of skin which covered the pouch in Teal'c's stomach. The flesh 
around the pouch was swollen and distended, so that the hole in his 
belly lay exposed. It was an open wound, raw and ugly. 

Cerian didn't look up from her task. "You are awake," she said to Jack. 
"Good. When I was brought to you, you were so cold that I feared you 
were dead."

"I had a few moments of doubt myself," he told her, and knelt by 
Teal'c's side. "Cerian, I appreciate that you're trying to carry this 
through, but we've kinda got a crisis going down here. I think you 
should put the larva back."

She looked at him, expression stony. 

"It is no longer alive, O'Neill," breathed Teal'c, eyes still shut. "It 
died when it was removed."

"You're awake," said Jack, surprised. He looked at Cerian. "You said he 
wasn't going to wake up."

"I said he should not be allowed to wake. But the hut began to burn... 
we would both have been killed..." Her head dropped as she broke eye 
contact. "I am sorry."

And Jack understood. Forced to choose between allowing Teal'c to die on 
the spot as the flames engulfed Cerian's dwelling or condemning him to a 
slower death by preventing the herbal drugs from completing their 
healing work on his body, Cerian had made the decision to rouse him. 
Jack stared at her tiny, bird-like frame and wondered where in hell she 
had found the resources of strength and endurance to wake and move the 
Jaffa. The woman must have the stamina of an ox. But she could not see 
it that way, because now Teal'c was in the worst situation possible, 
with neither a symbiont nor a fully functional immune system. 

He was slowly dying, and Cerian was blaming herself. 

"You stayed with him," Jack told her. "You saved him. Thank you."

She looked at him, eyes bitter. "What have I saved him for?"

"Cerian."

The reply was a snap. "Pyrs, I am occupied."

The young man, who carried one arm awkwardly in a hastily improvised 
sling, blinked at the terseness in her voice, but persevered. "Dicenos 
asks for you."

"Dicenos was hurt?" asked Jack.

"He was not injured. But he is old, and his heart is not a young man's." 
Cerian handed Jack the bowl she was using. "I should go to him. Complete 
this." And then she was gone.

Jack lifted the tub of white salve and sniffed it experimentally. It 
looked like petroleum jelly and smelt like coal tar. He made a face, 
then scooped some out using the first three fingers of his right hand. 
Gingerly, he rubbed the substance on to the skin around the pouch. "Yell 
if it stings, okay?"

"It does not sting."

"Well, that's good."

"I do not feel anything."

"That's not so good. What's this stuff supposed to do, anyhow?" 

"Slow down the onset of infection."

"Will it?"

Teal'c opened his eyes. "For a little while, perhaps. Not for long."

Jack looked at him. "How long?"

"Perhaps a day. No longer."

"Until you get sick?"

"Until I die."

Jack began to spread another blob of the white goo on to the Jaffa's 
stomach. "That's not going to happen. We'll get you a new larva."

"There are no Goa'uld here. That is why the Keltoi came to this world."

"Correction: there were no Goa'uld here. Who d'you think was behind last 
night's extensive urban renewal program?"

Teal'c frowned. "Which of the system lords is here?"

O'Neill shook his head. "No one I've had the pleasure of meeting before. 
It's a weird one, though. The host is a kid. A boy, maybe ten years old, 
with eyes like a bird's. Ring any bells?"

"I hear no bells, but I know of the Goa'uld." Teal'c's voice had faded 
to almost a whisper, and Jack realised just how weak he was. "It is Hor-
pa-khred. The Horus Child."

                         *******************

Two

The interior of the ship was the same strange discordant mixture of 
ancient and advanced Sam had seen before and which the Goa'uld seemed to 
favour. Its corridors were lined with high Doric pillars, utterly 
redundant in terms of providing support. She guessed their true purpose 
was to emphasise the imposing height of the ceilings above. A succession 
of hieroglyphic murals- no doubt extolling the might and power of the 
ship's owner- served to enhance the effect from either side. But the 
impression Sam was left with was one of smallness, as if this was a 
miniature version of the other Goa'uld vessels she had seen. Perhaps it 
was a landing craft, and there was a mother ship in orbit. Or perhaps 
this was the craft of a very minor system lord. Goa'uld on a budget, she 
thought, and wondered if the Colonel's sense of humour was finally 
wearing off on her.

The Jaffa ushered them into a gloomy chamber whose four walls tapered to 
a single tip high above: they were, Sam realised, right under the apex 
of the pyramid. The guards exited, sealing the door behind them, and 
just as Carter was about to step forward to investigate the arch on the 
far side of the room, another rippling gossamer force field sprang into 
existence in front of them, effectively dividing the room into two 
halves. 

"What do you think they want with us?" asked Pinker nervously. He was 
swaying rapidly from one foot to the other, making Sam feel vaguely 
seasick.

"If it came to attack the Keltoi, it probably wants to know why we're 
not Keltoi," she hazarded. 

//You are quite correct//

Sam was looking at Hart, who was standing behind her. She registered his 
reaction before turning to see the source of the words for herself. 

She gaped. 

A child host? 

The boy had the appearance of a slightly sickly ten year old, although 
Carter had no doubt that he was much, much older. If the sarcophagi 
could retard the ageing process in adults, they could surely slow or 
arrest the growth of children. And, while this had undoubtedly been a 
child, the pallid sheen to its complexion and the thinness to its limbs 
reminded her more of an old man than a youth. 

And then there were its eyes.

Sam stared at them; she couldn't help it. Speckled, birdlike pupils 
darted and flashed around the room, absorbing all, leaving no detail 
unexamined. The host was human, but the eyes... 

//The writings which spoke of the last of Ra's Jaffa made it clear that 
they escaped to an isolated world// said the boy, in a mockery of 
childish speech. 

"What the hell...?" breathed Hart.

The boy ignored him. //But you are not Jaffa, and your weapons, although 
primitive, are further advanced than those of the fugitives. What are 
your origins?//

"Ahhh," began Pinker, stepping forward. "We're from a place called 
Earth."

"Shut up, Pinker," snapped Carter. 

"Captain, he doesn't think we're animals, he's talking to us..."

"Shut up!"

//What are your origins?// repeated the boy.

There was a silence. Then Hart, regaining his composure, snapped to 
attention. "Sergeant Derek Hart," he said sharply. "Armed forces of the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Special Air 
Services, Sabre Squadron A." 

Carter nodded. "Captain Samantha Carter, United States of America Air 
Force," she said briskly, eyeing the Goa'uld. "Sorry. That's all you 
get."

The boy smiled, with chilling precision. //And you?// he enquired of 
Pinker.

"Stephen Pinker. I work for the British Government." He smiled back. 
"Not that you know what that is."

//I do not. But I would be fascinated to learn.// The child approached 
the force field which protected him. //I am Horus Son of Isis. I am 
Horus Avenger of my Father Osiris. I am Horus enemy of Seth. And I owe 
you my thanks//

Carter felt suddenly cold.

"You do?" said Pinker.

//But yes. I have been searching for the fugitive Jaffa for a long time. 
But it was not until my machines sensed the opening of a Gate where no 
Gate should be that I was able to find them. You led me here, and now 
they can be joyful in my service// 

Its smile widened. 

//Thank you//

* * *

The oak tree had been felled at some point during the attack by a stray 
blast from the Glider, and its thick trunk lay across the square at the 
centre of the settlement, one more corpse under the morning sun. Jack 
helped Teal'c towards it, and waited while he slowly sat on the ground, 
leaning against the mossy, rugged bark. The Jaffa could still walk- just 
about- although how much longer his strength would hold out was 
debatable. O'Neill didn't want to think about that. 

Doyle, arriving next, took up a place on the ground, and Sheldrick 
followed his example. Daniel appeared, walking slowly through the 
debris, one hand resting on the shoulder of the white-haired, dark-
skinned child who was acting as his guide. 

Daniel blinded, Teal'c dying, Carter missing, thought Jack. Bad things 
really did come in threes. 

He should never have brought them here. 

This wasn't a mission; those were different. Every time they stepped 
through the Gate in the SGC they each accepted the risks that came with 
walking through the wormhole to somewhere entirely new. This had been an 
accident, and the decision to follow Caliburn and his men- Jack's 
decision- had been a rash one. Carter, Daniel and Teal'c had come to 
this world not because of the Gate project but out of personal loyalty 
to himself. They were here only because he had asked them to come. There 
was a thin line between commanding a unit within acceptable parameters 
and stepping outside those parameters. Jack knew he had crossed it.

And now they were all paying for his mistake. 

"Y'know, Danny," he said, forcing a note of humour into his voice: 
"Don't take this the wrong way, but she's just a little too young for 
you. Do I get an introduction?"

"Ahh, Jack, this is Teleri. Teleri, this is Jack." Daniel leaned closer 
to the girl: "If he asks you to dinner, run away. Fast."

The child giggled, flattered by the attention she was receiving. "I'm 
Daniel's eyes," she said proudly.

"I never thought I'd hear myself say this," Jack told her, "but Daniel 
has very, very pretty eyes."

Caliburn emerged from behind the leafy limbs of the fallen oak, and 
assumed a position opposite Jack. "I've spoken to the Keltoi," he 
reported, "and it appears that there were only four raiders, two in the 
Glider and two guarding the child." 

Sheldrick shook his head in disbelief. "Four blokes and a little lad did 
this?"

"Four guys, a kid and a hell of a lot of advanced Goa'uld weaponry," 
said Jack. "And they had the advantage of surprise. We didn't stand a 
chance."

"That child," said Caliburn slowly: "You said that was a Goa'uld?" Jack 
nodded. "Then it's an infant? Like the one Teal'c was carrying?"

"No, the Goa'uld is mature," corrected Daniel: "But it's chosen an 
immature human host." 

"Why?" asked Doyle. "I mean, these creatures can be in any kind of body 
they want, right? So if it were me, I'd choose the biggest, meanest host 
available. Why be a child?"

"It doesn't make sense, does it?" agreed Daniel. "A child might be 
desirable on the grounds that the host personality isn't fully formed 
and is therefore easier to subjugate. But none of the other Goa'uld 
we've encountered so far seems to have had any trouble controlling the 
host."

"Hor-pa-khred always takes a child host. When one matures, the Goa'uld 
abandons it for the next," said Teal'c. He spoke slowly, and with 
unnaturally long pauses between his sentences.

"Hor-pa-khred...?" echoed Daniel. "The Horus Child. Of course."

"The what?" asked Caliburn.

Daniel turned his head in the direction of the Major's voice. "From 
Egyptian mythology. Horus was the child of Isis and Osiris. He wasn't so 
much one god as a synthesis of several. Over various dynasties and in 
various places, he was worshipped in his capacity as Isis's child, as 
the enemy of his father's murderer Seth, even as a kind of variation on 
the sun god: he was Horus-Khenty-en-Irty, Horus Foremost One Without 
Eyes- the face of the sky when both the sun and the moon are hidden."

"And we've run into Horus Junior?" said Jack.

"Apparently so. Teal'c, where does Horus fit in the Goa'uld hierarchy?"

"He was once powerful. When I was a young warrior, all the Goa'uld 
feared the family of Osiris-Isis-Horus. Then Seth, the most powerful 
single system lord at that time, rose up against them. Osiris was 
killed, and Isis retreated into mourning. It was said that Seth gouged 
out Horus' eyes while Isis was made to watch."

"Niiice," drawled O'Neill.

"Horus vanished, and it was believed that he was dead. Ra offered his 
Jaffa, the Horus-Guard, sanctuary if they would pledge allegiance to 
him. They did, and the rise of the house of Ra began."

"And that was today's class in Goa'uld society and development," said 
Jack: "Papers in by the end of the week, please." 

Caliburn frowned. "So what's he doing here?"

"Trying to re-establish himself."

"Daniel?"

"Well, think about it. He's been in the wilderness, so to speak, for a 
long time. Presumably he wants to start making a comeback. To do that he 
needs resources. And Jaffa."

"He has Jaffa," pointed out Jack. "We saw them last night."

Teal'c shook his head, with difficulty. "It was said among the warriors 
who taught me that when Ra offered asylum to the Horus-Guard, four 
refused and remained loyal to Hor-pa-khred. They were known as the Sons 
of Horus. They were renowned as the fiercest of the Guard."

Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "They're in the mythology too: Imset, 
Haapy, Duamutef and Qebehsenuf."

"He's here for the Keltoi," said Caliburn quietly. "He wants to blast 
them into submission then take them and put those...things...in them. 
And then they'll have to serve him."

"They will be slaves once more," said Teal'c.

"No they won't," said Doyle. "because we won't let it happen. Right?"

Sheldrick nodded, and addressed O'Neill. "Horus may have superior fire-
power, but there are maybe five hundred Keltoi plus us."

"Five hundred Keltoi who've been isolated for at least a millennium," 
said Daniel. "These people aren't soldiers: they're hunter gatherers. 
Look around you. The ones who aren't injured after last night are in 
shock. They've never been attacked like this before. Their homes are 
gone. They're not soldiers in waiting, they're victims." Daniel's face 
was mostly hidden, but O'Neill could hear the appeal in his voice: 
"Jack, don't even think about a counter-offensive. It would be a 
slaughter."

"So what's the alternative?" asked Caliburn.

"Evacuate them," responded Daniel instantly. "Bring them back with us 
and use our Gate to find them somewhere else to live, somewhere Horus 
won't find them. We've done it before."

"That's one hell of an undertaking you're suggesting, Doctor. We don't 
exactly have the manpower here to make it happen."

"And we have the manpower to start a war?"

"Daniel," said Jack. He met the Major's gaze. "It's not our call anyhow. 
What the Keltoi decide to do next is up to Dicenos."

"No longer."

Cerian's voice was raw, hoarse with exhaustion. Jack looked up to see 
her approaching, pushing her way through the felled oak's broken 
branches. Her long white hair had fallen out of the knot which had held 
it back, and trails of it hung around her face, accentuating her haggard 
expression. 

"Dicenos is dead."

                         *******************

Three

The cell was small, airless and windowless; there was barely enough room 
for Carter and Hart to sit on its narrow floor at the same time. They 
made best use of the available floor space by occupying diagonally 
opposite corners, setting aside for the moment the tacit rules of 
personal space and allowing their legs to cross in the centre of the 
cell. 

"What's with the voice?" asked Hart.

Sam shrugged. "The Goa'uld control their hosts directly through the 
brain. Except for the voice. The parasite has a specially adapted 
tendril which locks around the host's vocal cords. The creature controls 
the host's words through mechanical interference, and that distorts the 
natural speech patterns. There's no good biological reason for it: they 
could easily control the speech centres of the brain. But I have my own 
theory why the Goa'uld choose to talk like that."

"Go on."

"The voice proves the Goa'uld is in complete control of the host. I 
think they just like ramming the point home."

Hart suppressed a shudder, not wholly successfully. "Why do you think 
Horus wanted Pinker to stay?" he asked. Sam noted the change of subject.

"Probably because he thinks Mr Pinker is most willing to tell him 
whatever he wants to know."

Hart made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. "He's right. You 
saw the way that bloody spook was crawling to that... that thing." He 
shook his head. "Lucky for us he doesn't know anything worth telling."

Sam thought about that, and wondered. Pinker could tell Horus about 
Earth, about the Gate, about the SGC and the people stationed there. He 
may not know technical or scientific data, but he knew about the iris 
shield, and other details Carter would have preferred he did not. And, 
having been briefed by Hammond at the same time as Sheldrick and Doyle, 
he now knew what information SGC had about their enemies. That in itself 
was valuable knowledge. I know that you know that I know... she thought 
with distaste. This whole disastrous episode had been caused by 
subterfuge and ignorance.

Sam unzipped her jacket pocket and took out Daron's bag of snakesbane. 
She began to untie the knotted cord which sealed it. "Hold out your 
hands," she instructed Hart.

He obeyed, and she poured half the contents of the pouch into his cupped 
palms. "How effective do you reckon this stuff is?" he asked doubtfully.

"According to Keltoi legend, it's effective enough to kill Goa'uld 
larvae if taken by the host."

"And what about grown up Goa'uld?"

Sam slipped her half of the portion of herbs into the sleeve of her 
jacket, where it would be more easily and less obviously retrievable. 
"Guess we'll find out."

* * *

The Keltoi Rhys recognised as Pyrs stood watch outside the hut in which 
Dicenos had died. He stood aside to allow Cerian, O'Neill and Caliburn 
into the tiny dwelling, which was one of the few to have survived the 
previous night's attack unscathed. The healer had asked them for help to 
prepare the body according to custom before she announced Dicenos' death 
to the community. Without waiting for a response, she had stumbled away, 
too tired and grief-stricken to be bothered with the niceties of polite 
intercourse. After a moment, O'Neill had risen to follow her, and Rhys 
had come as well.

Cerian had evidently already begun the task, as Dicenos' body lay in the 
aspect of sleep. His eyes were closed and his hands were folded neatly 
over his chest. Cerian paused at the doorway long enough to nod 
respectfully at the old man's body. Rhys and O'Neill hung back, waiting 
for instructions.

The healer disappeared behind the partition which divided the house into 
two rooms, and came back holding a thin blanket. "You will lift him 
while I place this beneath."

Rhys nodded, and went to stand at the top of the body. He waited until 
O'Neill had a firm grip on Dicenos's ankles, then placed his own hands 
under the corpse's shoulders. 

"On three," said O'Neill: "One, two, three."

They lifted the corpse with a smooth, easy action- the old man had been 
spare- and Cerian quickly slipped the cloth underneath him. They set him 
down, and she began to fold the material, hiding his feet and his face. 
Then she ripped open his tunic, exposing the sealed scar of the pouch in 
his abdomen.

"Cerian," said O'Neill softly.

Cerian lifted a small bag, and removed her knife from the strap which 
held it to her shin. She leaned over the body and began to cut, tracing 
the lines of the scars with precision. "We open the false womb only 
after death," she said. "We place the snakesbane within it, so we can be 
sure that the demons from which we fled will not claim the soul on its 
journey to the life after."

Pushing aside the flaps of skin she had freed, she opened the bag and 
shook sprigs of the fresh herb into the wound. Her eyes were closed, and 
her lips moved in silent recitation. Rhys offered up a small, swift 
prayer of his own on the old man's behalf. 

Cerian stepped back from the body, pulling the gap in the cloth closed 
as she did so, creating a shroud.

"Cerian," said O'Neill quietly: "Who's in charge now?"

She turned to face him. "I am the next most senior of the council. 
Leadership passes to me."

The Colonel nodded. "Cerian, I understand this is difficult, but the 
Goa'uld who attacked the village last night could return at any time. 
You have to decide what the Keltoi are going to do now."

"Do?" she repeated dumbly. Her expression was distracted, and Rhys saw 
that she was numb with shock and grief.

"There are two possibilities," he pressed gently: "We can take everyone 
in the village away from here. Or we can stand and fight. We'll help you 
whatever you decide to do, but you have to decide."

"Have to decide?" echoed Cerian. She shook her head. "No, I..." She 
looked up at the two men. "Why must I decide? I am the healer here, not 
the council leader. Dicenos is the leader."

"Cerian..." began O'Neill.

"No!" she said sharply, anger animating her voice just as grief had 
deadened it. "What right have you to tell me what I must do? Our 
forefathers fled here from the Goa'uld Ra a hundred generations ago. The 
forest is cruel, but we have learned its ways. We understand this place. 
We have made it our home. And now you have come, and you have brought 
the Goa'uld with you. How dare you tell me what I must or must not do? 
You caused this!"

Rhys opened his mouth to tell her that their arrival and that of Horus 
were mere coincidence, then caught O'Neill's eye and stopped. The Keltoi 
had lived under the protection of total isolation since coming to this 
world; now an enemy had found them barely hours after that isolation had 
been broken. How much of a coincidence was that? Could they have 
inadvertently caused this?

"Whatever we've made wrong," said O'Neill, "we want to make it right. 
Trust us. Please."

Cerian stared at the Colonel, then Caliburn, and shook her head in 
disgust. "Why should I trust you? You are not Keltoi."

She looked away.

"I am," said Rhys.

Cerian turned back towards him, while O'Neill did a double take which, 
under other circumstances, Rhys would have found comical. 

The healer hesitated, then stepped towards Rhys. She stood in front of 
him, and he met her gaze, seeing the trepidation within it. He reached 
out and took hold of her right arm just below the elbow, guided it until 
her hand found his stomach. 

She began to unbutton his jacket, then the shirt beneath it, not once 
breaking eye contact. Rhys felt her hands, cool and dry, make contact 
with his flesh, exploring the skin with a feather-light touch.

Something in her eyes changed. "You are Keltoi," she said, a faint tone 
of wonder suffusing her voice.

Rhys nodded, and stood back, holding his undershirt open so that O'Neill 
also would be able to see the cross shaped mark on his stomach. "We're 
from another place," he said to Cerian, "but we have the same ancestors. 
We're your distant relatives. We want to help."

Cerian hesitated for a long moment. Finally she nodded, slowly but with 
growing certainty. "I must inform the village of Dicenos' death," she 
said. "Then I must confer with the remaining council members. We will 
decide."

"Thank you," said Rhys.

She moved towards the door. "I will return." She nodded again, in the 
direction of the body: "Please stay with him."

"Yes, ma'am," said O'Neill. 

Cerian left.

Rhys sat down against one stone wall- the dwelling was one of the few 
stone structures in the village, that was probably why it was still 
standing- and let out a long, uneven breath. He looked up at O'Neill and 
grinned. 

"When did you know?" asked the Colonel.

Rhys shrugged. "I suppose I worked it out when Daron returned Teal'c and 
Dr Jackson suggested that the Keltoi had come here via the Stones in 
Cornwall. It's not so surprising that some of them decided to stay and 
take their chances on Earth. Permanent exile isn't everyone's idea of a 
solution." He placed a hand on his stomach. "The birthmark runs in the 
family, down the Caliburn side. My grandmother used to tell me it meant 
we had Druid blood. Little did she know." 

"You should have said something. You and Teal'c could have started a 
Jaffas-on-Earth support group."

"I think I would have been doing most of the talking. You'll have to 
excuse me, Colonel. The past couple of days have been just about the 
oddest I've ever lived through. And it's not that often a person finds 
out he's part alien."

"They're not aliens. They're just people whose ancestors got a really 
raw deal."

"As they are now." Rhys looked up at O'Neill. "Could she be right? Could 
we have brought the Goa'uld here?"

The Colonel squatted down on the ground beside Rhys. "I don't know," he 
said quietly. "I can't see how we could have, but the Keltoi have been 
hidden here a hundred generations, then the Goa'uld turn up a day after 
us. That's circumstantial evidence I could do without."

"I feel," said Rhys softly, "a certain sense of...kinship with them."

O'Neill nodded.

"We can't let them become slaves again."

"No," said the Colonel. "We can't."

* * *

//It is not a question of slavery// said Horus. //If that is what they 
have led you to believe, they have misled you//

"Oh?" said Pinker, keeping his tone carefully neutral. When Carter and 
Hart's stoic but foolish silences had begun to annoy their captor, he 
had seen no option but to maintain the dialogue with the boy by himself. 
The Captain and the Sergeant had glared, but short of physically jumping 
on him, there was little they could do to stop him talking. And talk he 
must, he knew. The military may entertain fine notions of saying nothing 
to the enemy, but it was clear that if they were to survive this, they 
would have to negotiate. Talk. Find out what the thing wanted, then find 
a way to placate it. 

Pinker had no desire to see the people of the village suffer, but 
neither did he want to die. He really didn't want to die.

//Slavery is an ugly word, is it not?// asked Horus. //Some of my kind 
may treat the Jaffa as slaves, but not I. They are my bondsmen, my aids 
and my helps. They are my strength- for this form is but a child, as you 
observe- and my eyes, for you see that an enemy once robbed this body of 
its organs of sight, and I was forced to create these poor substitutes//

The boy blinked his hawk's eyes, and Pinker nodded, murmuring sympathy 
while privately thinking that the false eyes looked to be superior to 
the natural ones they had replaced in every respect. He could not 
believe that there were many things Horus did not see.

//I wish only to restore the proper order. The Jaffa are born to carry 
the children of the Goa'uld. It is their purpose. And, like all 
creatures, when they fulfil their purpose they are blessed. Did they not 
tell you of the advantages which carrying the larva brings?//

"No," admitted Pinker.

Horus smiled warmly. //The gifts are many. Long life is the first, 
freedom from illness, wasting and infirmity among the others. They are 
strong in body and spirit. The Jaffa prosper, and all we ask is that a 
few, a very few, should enter our service and use their many talents to 
our gain. This is not unreasonable, surely?//

"No," said Pinker slowly. "I suppose not."

//Where you come from, are there no Jaffa?//

"None."

//A strange world, indeed. I should like to know more of it.//

Pinker nodded. There it was, the opening he had known must come. The 
boy-thing had extended a feeler towards him, making clear the 
possibility that a bargain might be struck, an arrangement might be 
made. Now he was in familiar territory once more. Aliens, distant 
worlds, strange technologies-these things were unknown quantities to 
him, but Pinker had been dealing in the trade of knowledge and secrets 
all his adult life. And a deal with a Goa'uld, it seemed, was no 
different than a deal with any other rational, self-interest seeking 
being.

"I would be glad to answer all your questions," he said carefully. "In 
my culture, such openness would be considered evidence of willingness to 
trust. And be trusted."

//In mine also//

"But you are obviously of an advanced and intelligent race, and I must 
confess I feel slightly, ahh, nervous in your presence." Easy, Stephen, 
he thought. Don't sound like you're crawling. "What I mean is, I would 
be pleased to share my meagre knowledge with you, but I would be 
grateful for some, ahh, assurances in return."

The Goa'uld's voice was suddenly cold. //Such as?//

Pinker shivered, but pressed on regardless. "Well, I would want to be 
certain that you intended the Keltoi no harm."

//But I have explained how it is better for them to enter my service//

"Well, yes..." Pinker decided to gloss over that one for the moment. "I 
would also need to know that you intended to allow myself and the others 
who are not Keltoi to return to our home."

//Ahh. That is more problematic. You see, my enemies still pursue me, 
and I do not wish news of my actions and location to be widely 
disseminated. But you must not be afraid. No harm will come to you//

Pinker began to relax. "Well, thank you."

The boy smiled. //You too will enter my service, and be blessed. Like 
the Keltoi//

                         *******************

Four

Cerian was kneeling by the river, as if in prayer. For a second Rhys 
considered retreating into the rubble of the village and allowing her a 
few more minutes alone. God knew she could probably use them.

Then he saw that her eyes were open, and that she was trailing her 
fingers through the murky grey-green waters. He hesitated, and then 
approached.

The pebbles crunched under his boots, and she looked up. She reached 
down and, cupping her hands, swiftly sluiced water over her face; but 
not before Caliburn saw that her cheeks had already been wet.

She stood up, and stretched out an arm, taking in the ruins of the 
settlement behind them, the wandering, directionless Keltoi who moved 
among its shattered homes. "Even if this Goa'uld is as weak as you say, 
even if we fought and won..." She shook her head. "The stores are gone. 
The well is polluted. And so many of us are hurt now."

"O'Neill says that we can find you another place to live. Another place 
to make home."

"This is our home." She looked at him, her eyes lost and remote. "Can 
another place be home?"

Rhys sat down on the rock next to her, and watched how the thick, 
sluggish river water bore its cargo of branches, leaves and other forest 
debris slowly past his toes. "I grew up in a village, very like this. 
All the men worked in the mines nearby, and I always expected that I 
would too. All my friends were there, all my family. And then, when I 
was sixteen, my father sat me down and told me that the coal seams- the 
mineral they extracted- were running out. He told me there was no future 
for me there. He told me that I had to leave." Rhys smiled sadly at the 
memory. "He told me to get lost, in the nicest possible way."

"And you left."

He nodded. "I went away to be a soldier. Hated it, at first. I was far 
from what I knew, and I was alone."

"So you will tell me that you found another home."

Rhys began to say something, then stopped, feeling suddenly unsure. He 
approached Cerian and stood beside her at the water's edge. "The truth," 
he said slowly, "is that nowhere has really felt like home to me since."

She looked up at him. "This forest is our home. I do not wish live in 
exile for the remainder of my days."

"Neither did I. Neither did your ancestors. But we made better lives for 
ourselves than we would have had if we'd stayed put." Tentatively, he 
placed a hand on her thin arm. "And you'll have something I didn't. Your 
community will stay intact."

Cerian smiled. "Our community, Caliburn. You are Keltoi too."

* * *

"Horus wants to re-employ the Keltoi."

"You mean re-enslave."

Pinker shrugged. "Semantics."

Hart looked at Carter enquiringly. "Why would he want to do that? 
Doesn't he have enough of his own?"

"The other Goa'uld do..." Sam thought, looking around the plain room to 
which she and Hart had been brought, where Pinker had been waiting for 
them. They had been escorted from their cell by two of the Jaffa, the 
same two who had brought them there in the first place. The ship, 
although small, felt empty, and Carter had only seen four different 
Jaffa, and Horus. 

Could it be that the Goa'uld didn't have enough slaves of its own?

"What did you tell it?" she asked Pinker.

"Nothing. I promise. I may have dangled the possibility in front of it- 
"

"You what-?"

Pinker held up a hand, cutting off Hart before the tirade got started. 
"But I didn't say anything." He looked peeved. "I found out more than I 
gave away, which is more than you managed with your name-rank-and-number 
tosh."

"So what happens now?"

Pinker looked helpless. "That I don't know."

//Please, do not be anxious//

Horus appeared, flanked by two of the ever-present Jaffa. If there were 
only four, thought Sam, the other two would probably be guarding the 
prisoners outside. So it was three to three in here. Surely those were 
manageable odds?

But the Jaffa were armed, and Horus was wearing the metal mesh over his 
tiny right hand.

The Goa'uld crossed to a wall covered with hieroglyphs and stood up high 
on tip toes to reach a particular symbol. There was something sickly 
comic about the action. Sam stepped back as three solid plinths began to 
rise out of the floor at their feet.

She didn't like where this was heading at all.

//My skills with the flesh are renowned among my kind// explained the 
child. //Another would have had to take a fresh host had its eyes been 
taken from it, but I liked this form, and so I crafted these for myself. 
They are pretty, do you not think?//

"To die for," muttered Hart.

//And so, to protect you, I now offer you the opportunity to pledge 
allegiance to me, and carry the larva//

"Even if we wanted to, we couldn't," said Carter. "We're not Jaffa. We 
don't have the pouches."

Horus turned, and she saw that he was holding a long thin object, which 
tapered at one end, and which gleamed and shone in the light. It was a 
knife.

//That can be remedied//

* * *

"Rhirid, speak," said Cerian.

The young Keltoi man cleared his throat and glanced nervously around the 
faces of his audience. He looked terrified. For a moment, Jack 
remembered that he was the alien here, with a strange face and stranger 
manners.

"I saw where the flying thing went."

"Where?"

Rhirid looked to Cerian for support, and she nodded, face stern. He 
continued: "It went through the pass between the hills. Then it 
vanished."

Jack suppressed a sigh. Well, it was better than nothing. He looked at 
Caliburn, who appeared similarly disappointed. "What kind of range have 
those things got?" asked the Major.

"Horus' base could be on the other side of the planet. Or in orbit."

"Terrific."

"But it's probably close," put in Daniel optimistically. "I mean, if 
Horus wants the Keltoi, he's going to stay near them, right?"

Cerian looked at him, then at Jack and Caliburn. "Five seasons ago, 
there were great fires in the forest. There are some areas, just beyond 
the pass, which are still clear. The council had discussed beginning a 
new settlement there at one time. It is not more than a morning's walk."

"All right." O'Neill nodded. This was more like it. "Show us on the 
map."

The healer took the twig he offered her, and scratched a circle in to 
the sandy soil. It formed the third point of a triangle whose other 
vertices were the village and the Stones. An assortment of small rocks 
and leaves marked the positions of various landmarks on the terrain.

"Okay," said Jack. "We have three objectives. Firstly, we have to 
evacuate the Keltoi to the Stones in time for our rendezvous with SGC in 
thirteen hours. Secondly, we have to get our people back from Horus and 
hopefully keep him occupied while the village makes a break for it. And 
thirdly we need to find a replacement for the late Junior."

"The late...?" said Doyle, not following. Then his expression cleared. 
"Oh." 

"The Major and I, in a demonstration of transatlantic co-operation which 
would make our respective governments weep with pride, have worked out a 
strategy."

Caliburn picked up. "Sheldrick and Doyle, you're co-ordinating the 
evacuation. Your job is to get everyone in the village from here to the 
circle where we arrived. Whatever way you want to do it, Cerian will 
make it happen." The healer nodded. 

"While myself and Major Caliburn will deal with items two and three on 
the to-do list," completed Jack. 

"What about me?" asked Daniel.

"You're with Sheldrick and Doyle," said O'Neill.

"Jack, I..."

Jack cut him off. "Don't say it. You know I can't."

For a second, O'Neill thought that he was going to put up a fight: it 
was so damn difficult to tell what was going through his head without 
being able to see his eyes. The younger man had a face which reflected 
his inner life with a degree of accuracy which was nothing short of 
astonishing. Jack had very quickly learned to interpret the steady 
parade of emotions which quarrelled for dominance over his features at 
any given moment. But now... He thought that Daniel must understand why 
he couldn't come with them to retrieve Carter and the others, and he 
thought that he was coping with his current situation well. But right 
now, Jack was feeling a little blind himself, around Daniel.

"Yeah," said Daniel. "I see."

And Jack didn't know what to make of that response.

* * *

Held firmly to the plinth- butcher's table was nearer the mark, she 
thought grimly- Sam struggled against the forcefield which held her in 
place. Or perhaps it wasn't a forcefield. There was no blue glow, no 
rippling effect this time. She simply couldn't move, pinned to the stone 
slab beneath her back as surely as if she was bound with straps. Her 
legs and arms felt like lead, and it was an effort to breathe. 

Gravity, she thought dimly. The Goa'uld were able to generate gravity on 
their ships. Horus had simply turned up the gain.

Pinker was to her left, Hart to her right. The Jaffa had assumed a 
position by the single exit, although their presence was now almost 
superfluous: not one of the prisoners posed any threat to the Goa'uld. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Horus standing over Hart, 
wielding the knife. Even for the small boy's form which the creature 
inhabited, it was an easy reach: the plinths on which they lay were only 
a foot or so above the floor. 

Horus leaned over the slab and ripped Hart's shirt open, exposing his 
chest and stomach. He nodded to himself, and began to cut.

Sam saw Hart's eye's spring open, but he made no sound. Horus smiled 
down at him.

//The instrument anaesthetises as it cuts. There is no pain. I am not 
cruel//

The incisions made, Horus retracted the blade and turned away. Sam saw 
Hart take a succession of panting, quick breaths. His eyes were wide 
open, staring up at the high ceiling with dread and terror. 

He turned his head towards Sam. 

Then, with a huge effort, he moved his hand and she saw that he was 
holding a fistful of Daron's snakesbane.

What-? She mouthed at him. 

Slowly, carefully, Hart slid his arm up the slab. The fierce gravity 
pinning him down would make it impossible to go about the task any other 
way. 

Sam stared at him, not understanding what he was trying to do. Daron's 
herbs would be useless unless the Goa'uld ingested them, and Sam could 
not see how Hart intended to trick or force Horus into doing that. 
Unless he planned to throw the snakesbane in the child's face, but the 
high gravity field would ruin that ploy's effectiveness...

Then she saw that Hart's fist was at his mouth. And suddenly Sam 
understood what he intended.

No. Don't.

He saw her frantic, silent pleading, and nodded. He was smiling. He knew 
exactly what he was doing, she realised, and he was sure. 

He sucked the contents of the package in his mouth, and swallowed.

Horus turned around. He was holding a transparent canister, in which 
floated a pale pink, puckered object about the size of a man's fist. 

//This is my own creation// said the Goa'uld. //I am proud of it. It is 
not ideal, of course, but it serves quite admirably to convert the 
cavity below the diaphragm to a suitable storage chamber. The insertion 
will feel strange, but it will soon be over//

His small hands opened the jar, and removed the false pouch. Once out of 
the fluid's support, it immediately began to deflate and collapse. 
Quickly, Horus slipped his child's hands inside it, and then forced both 
fists into the wound in Hart's belly.

The Sergeant gave a muffled cry, which he swiftly choked back.

"Oh my God," whispered Pinker. He might not be able to see what was 
going on, but he could certainly hear it. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

//And now you are ready//

The boy turned away once more, and this time when he came back into 
Sam's field of vision, he was holding a larva which twisted and writhed 
in his hands. He must have a supply, she thought: he must intend to 
capture the Keltoi and implant as many of them as possible. 

His tiny fist disappeared into Hart's new pouch.

//It is done. Welcome to my service, Jaffa//

Hart screamed. 

The noise was a screech of agony, of pain far in excess of what the 
human body was capable of bearing. If Sam had been able to, she would 
have covered her ears, but the gravity which held her kept even that 
small relief from her. She watched, helpless but fascinated, as Hart 
shook and trembled and yelled, the hands at his sides making tiny 
clutching movements at his stomach.

//It will ease// said Horus. //It will ease//

Hart's back arched. He screamed again.

And then he died.

His body collapsed back down on to the table, lifeless and still. Sam 
stared, while Horus stood still in disbelief. From the slab on her other 
side Carter heard Pinker's frantic repeated invocations of the deity.

Faint flecks of green sat at the edge of Hart's mouth, remnants of the 
herb which he had not been able to ingest. 

Horus extended a finger and touched them. 

//The bane// He shook his head, causing his long plait to bounce off his 
narrow shoulders. //Fool. Fool//

And then he disappeared from sight, and Sam heard childish footsteps 
pattering across the stone floor. When Horus' malignant, furious boyish 
face hovered into sight above her, she was not surprised.

//And you?// he hissed. //Did you take the herb also?//

Sam opened her mouth, but the gravity field was such that she could not 
garner up enough air in her lungs to force out any words. "...'ess..." 
she said, as clearly as she could.

//What?//

"...ess..."

The child waved a hand over her, and suddenly the crushing pressure had 
eased: she no longer felt as if she was carved from lead, just very, 
very tired. But she could speak.

"I took it too. Put one of those things in me and I'll die like Hart."

//I am gracious. I am forgiving// Horus' eyes narrowed. //But you try 
me//

"Good," whispered Sam. It took nearly all the strength she had left to 
force the word out.

//You are strong, and you have fire in your spirit. You would make a 
fine Jaffa. Therefore I will allow you one more chance. You will be 
returned to the cell. When the snakesbane has passed from your blood, I 
will ask you again if you would serve me. You will accept. Or you will 
die. I will allow you the choice//

The gravity field dissipated entirely, and Sam was pulled to her feet by 
the Horus Guards. She felt so weak that she could barely keep upright 
unaided. And Hart was dead.

His body lay on the slab beside hers, the slits in the stomach distended 
and raw. The larva was dead also: its ugly maw poked out of his flesh- 
it had died even as it attempted to crawl out the toxic environment 
which his body, fortified with the Keltoi herb, had become. 

"Wait," said Pinker, "Wait, please."

His voice was a breathy susurration, barely audible. Horus paused, then 
made a similar gesture over his table. Pinker gasped in relief as the 
field lifted, and took a series of long, deep breaths.

"I didn't..." he said when he was able to speak: "I didn't take any. Of 
the herb. And I don't want to die."

"Pinker, don't," said Sam. "You're making a terrible mistake."

"Do it," he told Horus. "I'll serve you."

"It's slavery!" Carter cried, and one of the Jaffa beside her slapped 
her, hard. She reeled, and nearly passed out as they began to drag her 
from the room. 

//It is service// she heard Horus say.

Then she did lose consciousness.

                         *******************

Five

"O'Neill!"

Jack dodged out of the way of a familiar looking plant whose red and 
white speckled buds bulged obscenely, and stopped walking long enough 
for Caliburn to catch up with him. Even more useful than the Keltoi's 
knowledge of the local terrain had been their knowledge of the forest's 
breathtakingly wide variety of dangerous or toxic plant life. Without 
the careful briefing Cerian had given them before they left the ruins of 
the village, Jack doubted either himself or the Major would have 
completed the journey through the jungle without sustaining injuries as 
serious as Daniel's. Even with Cerian's guidance, however, some 
collateral damage had been inevitable, and Jack rubbed at the deep red 
acid burns which were already developing on the back of his hands 
following a close encounter with a particularly hostile example of the 
native vegetation. He would be very glad to get back home, to a place 
where gardening wasn't a potentially fatal pastime. 

O'Neill accepted the water bottle the Major offered him with gratitude, 
and drank. The sun was not yet low in the sky. They were making good 
time, and should arrive at the place Cerian had spoken of within a few 
more hours. 

He handed the canteen back to Caliburn. "Thanks."

Rhys nodded and drank himself. Then he returned the bottle to the pack 
he was carrying. "We need to decide what we're going to do if they are 
there," he said.

O'Neill nodded. "Yeah."

Caliburn hesitated. Then he said: "If Horus is the threat, the cleanest 
way to do this would be to take him out."

"Yeah," said O'Neill again. He had been thinking much the same thing.

"So?" prompted the Major.

Jack looked at him. "So?"

"You're the Goa'uld expert. This thing is a child with a snake inside 
it. Is the host just a shell, or is there a little boy in there too?" He 
looked at O'Neill. "If we kill Horus, what are we killing?"

Jack made no reply for a long time. There were a lot of things he could 
have told the Major, he knew. He could have told him about Daniel, 
watching his wife being taken from him, saying Surely something of the 
host must survive. He could have told him about Kendra, or even Carter, 
both hosts who had emerged intact from the experience. He could even 
have told him about Apophis' host, the temple scribe, the personality 
which had been marginalised for millennia reasserting itself at the 
point of death. 

But a child. An unformed person. There was no reason to think any of 
Horus' host remained. And even if there was, the five hundred lives of 
the Keltoi, as well as Jack's people and Caliburn's men...surely that 
justified the taking of two lives, one of which was wholly evil. 

And one of which was innocent.

Jack wondered, if it came to it, would he be able to pull the trigger. 
He asked himself the question, and found that he could not answer it. He 
did not know.

He looked at Caliburn, who was doubtless wondering what the hell was up 
with him. One of them, thought Jack, would need to be up to the task.

"Nothing of the host survives," he said. "We'll do what we have to."

* * *

"I've lost him!"

The small voice coming from somewhere around the level of Andy's waist 
was tearful and upset. He felt a tug on his belt, and looked around to 
see Teleri sniffling miserably. He knelt down so that he was face to 
face with her. "There, there. What is it, love?"

"I've... I've lost Daniel," she told him, her words somewhat unclear 
through the sobs. Andy cast an anxious glance around the evacuation 
party he was leading, and saw that the archaeologist was indeed no 
longer in its number. 

"It's all right, lass," he reassured her. "He's not far off. You stay 
here and I'll go find him, okay?" The child looked doubtful, so he used 
the corner of his sleeve to wipe the tears off her small brown face as 
he smiled at her. "Dry those tears, now. That's right."

Consigning Teleri to the temporary care of one of the Keltoi women, he 
broke away from the main party and left the trail for the forest beyond. 
He would have to be careful that he didn't get lost himself... still, 
the man couldn't have wandered far, and if he had any sense he'd stop 
dead as soon as he realised he had become separated from the group.

"Dr Jackson?" called Andy. "Dr Jackson!"

"Over here!"

Andy smiled to himself. Well, that had been just about the first thing 
to have worked out easily for a while. It must be a good omen for the 
success of the evacuation. "Stay where you are. I'm coming now."

He made Jackson continue to call out, and followed his voice until he 
found the archaeologist sitting in a hollow on the forest floor, one 
foot twisted and trapped under a gnarled root system. Andy crouched down 
beside him, and saw that the laces of one of his shoes had somehow 
become caught in the undergrowth, and that his unseeing efforts to 
untangle them had only made the problem worse. 

Sheldrick slipped his knife out of its sheath and began to free the 
tangle. "Soon have you free, Dr Jackson."

"Thanks." The archaeologist put a hand to the bandages at his face, and 
Andy noted that they were now soiled with a combination of dirt, sweat 
and- worryingly- a few spots of blood. He took off his backpack and 
fished out his first aid kit. There were enough injuries among the 
Keltoi to have used up his meagre supplies twenty times over, but Andy 
had made sure he kept a roll of sterile gauze in reserve. 

"Those dressings need changed again. I'll do it now."

"Shouldn't we get back to the evacuation party?"

"I wouldn't worry, Doctor. They're only about twenty yards away."

"Oh." Jackson held still while Andy loosened the bandages and eased them 
away from his face. "I thought I'd wandered way off... It's my fault, I 
should have been holding on to Teleri, but my head hurts and my eyes 
hurt, and I was thinking about...other things. Next thing I know, I'm 
out of earshot of everyone. I guess I kind of panicked. And fell over."

"Not to worry," said Sheldrick. He made ready to remove the bandages 
completely, and frowned. Jackson was sitting in deep shadow, but there 
was still a lot of natural light filtering through the trees around 
them. "Keep your eyes tight shut. We don't want to aggravate them."

He slipped the filthy dressings off over the archaeologist's head, and 
surveyed the damage, thinking that it was bloody fortunate the young man 
wasn't able to see his reflection. Andy folded up two soft cotton pads 
and prepared to press them gently into the hollows of his eye sockets.

Jackson opened his eyes.

Quickly, Sheldrick cupped his hands over the younger man's face. "Dr 
Jackson..."

"I didn't see anything," said Jackson quietly.

"You shouldn't have done that. You're risking..."

"What am I risking?" cut in the other man. "Blindness? I'm already 
blind, or hadn't you noticed? I've been trying to convince myself that 
I'm healing under all these wrappings, and I just opened my eyes and I 
didn't see anything."

Hands pressed close to the archaeologist's face, Andy could feel his 
breathing, fast and sibilant, against his skin. "Come on, lad," he said. 
"We'll be home soon. You've done so well this far."

"Oh good," said Jackson bitterly. "I'm glad you think so. Because I've 
been really trying. I've been trying to be positive, to help even when I 
can't really, to not feel like the fifth wheel I am, to believe everyone 
when they tell me it's okay and I can hear the lies in their voices- 
I've been trying so fucking hard." He leaned back, and Andy moved with 
him, keeping his eyes sealed, safe from the sun's warm rays, so 
destructive to delicate tissues and damaged nerves. When he spoke again, 
the hard edge had disappeared from his voice, replaced by tired 
plaintiveness. "Just tell me how bad it is, please? I'd ask Jack, but 
he'd just say everything's fine. Which it isn't."

"It's..." Andy hesitated, then sighed. "I'll tell you the truth, son. It 
doesn't look great right now. But I'm only a field medic; you'll need a 
specialist when we get back. Daron and Cerian know their stuff. I think 
you've had the best treatment you could have had, under the 
circumstances. Other than that, we won't know until we get you home."

Jackson nodded. "Thank you," he said. Then: "You can take your hands 
away now. I've shut my eyes."

Andy removed his hands- gently, in order not to cause the younger man 
more pain- and recommenced the renewal of Jackson's dressings. After a 
moment, he said: "My sister, Carol, she's partially sighted. I was 
seven, she was four. Dad was doing some DIY in the garage, and she 
rushed in to show him something. Ran straight into the bench, knocked a 
whole jar of paint stripper down on to herself. Into her eyes." He began 
to wind the new strips of clean material around the archaeologist's 
forehead. "Look, I know it's not platitudes you want, but she does okay. 
She's married, lives just outside Gateshead. I have a niece and nephew. 
The point is, there are worse things."

"Yeah," agreed Jackson softly. "There are worse things. Want to hear one 
of them? I'm married, too. The Goa'uld took my wife. And if I can't see, 
how can I look for her?"

Andy's fingertips were moist where they had touched the younger man's 
cheeks. He pretended not to notice, and wiped them dry on his sleeves. 

* * *

O'Neill and Caliburn lay flat on their stomachs on the crest of the low 
hill which overlooked the large clearing below them. Rhys studied the 
scene carefully, listening closely as the Colonel pointed out the 
bizarrely shaped ship, the patrol strategy adopted by the bird-helmeted 
guards and the force field generators creating the triangular pen in 
which the terrified Keltoi were huddled together. 

It reminded Rhys of the sheep dog trials his grandfather had taken him 
to as a young boy: the trained dogs responded to their master's whistles 
and calls, using the power of fear and bared teeth to drive the sheep 
first in one direction and then the next, until the helpless, frightened 
creatures were herded into the fold, and the gate shut behind them. 

"Hemmed in like animals," he observed grimly.

"The Goa'uld never signed up to the Geneva Convention," said O'Neill. 
"Or anything else for that matter." He frowned. "All those people are 
Keltoi."

"I noticed." Caliburn shuffled forwards on the fragrant earth. "Only two 
guards. Where do you think the other two are?"

O'Neill jabbed a thumb in the direction of the pyramid ship. "In there, 
I guess. With our people and Horus. Now there's a pleasant thought." He 
looked at Rhys. "There's no point shooting at the Jaffa from this 
distance. That armour's too good. We'll have to take them out hand to 
hand."

Rhys looked at him. "Tell me, Colonel, do you enjoy making life 
difficult for yourself?"

O'Neill grinned. "Gotta have something to get out of bed for in the 
morning, Major." 

* * *

O'Neill flattened himself against the trunk of a tree at the outer edge 
of the clearing, listening to the footfalls of the patrolling Jaffa 
guard as they crunched past him over the fire-ravaged ground. Caliburn 
had taken up a similar hiding place about ten yards off. He caught the 
Major's eye and nodded.

Cautiously, Jack peered around the curved trunk, estimating the distance 
between himself and the nearest corner of the corral. The flickering 
blue light which formed its sides made it difficult to tell exactly what 
was happening inside the pen, but no one appeared to be seriously hurt. 
That was good: everyone would be mobile once they were free. 

One face, distorted and wavering through the barrier, bobbed up and 
down. Had he been seen? Damn, thought Jack, the last thing they needed 
was to be unintentionally given away by one of the people they were 
trying to help...

He saw a slim hand rise and make a small wave in his direction. Yes, he 
had been spotted. Who was it? Well, let's see, he thought: dark skin, 
white hair- who do I know who looks like that? Oh yeah, about five 
hundred people. 

The figure moved, and he saw a dark diagonal band crossing its upper 
body.

Daron?

Jack grinned. Daron. Just the girl. He could rely on her not to betray 
his presence inadvertently... but a distraction would be really useful 
right now. Really, really useful. He wondered if the Keltoi were 
telepathic in the least. Daron, we could really use...

Daron threw her head back and screamed, a piercing shriek that brought 
both the guards running towards the pen. 

Jack made a mental note to buy Daron dinner at some point, when her 
culture advanced to the point of inventing restaurants, and broke cover. 
Off to his left, he saw Caliburn do the same, and they raced towards the 
two Jaffa guards, who faced away from them, peering in through the 
wavering force field, demanding to know what was wrong with the female 
prisoner at the back. 

Caliburn reached his first, and took him out with a single blow to the 
back of his unprotected head with the butt of his weapon. Jack tried the 
same tactic with the second guard, but this man was faster, and his 
hawk's head helmet slid up around his skull before the strike could 
connect. There was a clang as metal hit metal, and the vibrations 
carried back up through Jack's arm all the way to his shoulder. 

The guard drew back a fist, and made ready to hit him. Jack parried the 
blow, but he was defending himself from a poor stance, at a bad angle. 
And now his gun was the wrong way round to use quickly. 

The jewelled eyes in the sides of the sharp-beaked head-dress twinkled 
at Jack maliciously. 

And disappeared.

The Jaffa slumped to the ground at Jack's feet, like a punctured 
inflatable doll. O'Neill looked down, and saw the group of three small 
entry points in the overlapping plates of the helmet. 

"Apparently there's some structural weakness at very close range," said 
Caliburn.

Jack wasn't sure, but he had a faint suspicion that might have been the 
Major's hitherto well disguised sense of humour coming to the fore. "We 
need to disrupt this, ahh, this," he said, making vague motions the 
direction of the forcefield.

"Agreed." Rhys unclipped a small charge from his belt and threw it to 
Jack. He took a second one for himself. "Let's try one to a post."

Jack moved as close to the barrier as he could and motioned at Daron to 
come closer on her side. The field seemed to dampen sound as well, and 
he had to shout several times before she indicated that she understood. 
While he and Caliburn set the charges, Jack watched Daron make sure her 
fellow prisoners moved into the far point of the triangle. O'Neill spun 
a hand in the air, and, understanding, she made them turn away from him, 
covering faces and bare flesh. 

They had taken all the precautions they could. 

"Ready?" he asked Caliburn.

The Major nodded.

"Five second timer, on my mark... Now."

Jack clicked the tiny switch at the back of the charge and retreated, 
covering his ears with his hands. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, 
three Mississippi...

The twin charges exploded.

Damn. Two Mississippis out.

Uncovering his ears, Jack looked around in time to see the energy 
barrier on the near side of the pen flicker and disappear. Daron was 
among the first to emerge.

"The guards came for your friends," she said, and pointed at the pyramid 
ship: "They are in there. I saw them go in."

Jack nodded. "Okay. We'll take it from here. Daron, your people are 
leaving here. It's not safe any more, not now that one Goa'uld has found 
you."

She looked at him in incomprehension. "But... where shall we go? Where 
else is there?"

"Believe me, there are plenty of other places," Jack told her: "But we 
can talk about it later. Take all these people and make sure they get to 
the Stones, okay? We'll follow you once we've got the others. Do not go 
back to the village, understand? Straight to the Stones."

"To the Stones," she repeated. "I will." She cast a worried glance in 
the direction of the pyramid ship: "You will get them out?"

"We will," said Jack.

"Or die trying," added Caliburn.

And that, Jack decided, probably wasn't a joke, of any sort.

                         *******************

Six

Getting into the pyramid had been easier than Rhys had thought it would 
be.

A quick circuit of the outside of the ship- O'Neill assured him it was a 
ship, however much it looked like an ancient monument- had revealed a 
section of the outer surface which was slightly different in texture and 
tone to the area around it, and which was about the height and width of 
a door. A search of the two Jaffa bodies, at the Colonel's instigation, 
then showed that one of them wore a deep red jewel, set into a silver-
gold holder which twisted around his left hand. Rhys removed it, and 
when he pressed it against the hollow beside the door, the stone or 
metal or whatever the hell it was simply melted away in front of them. 

They proceeded carefully at first, not wanting to stumble across any 
more Jaffa, but speeded up when it became plain that the ship was empty, 
quite deserted. As they passed yet another sphinx statue carved in light 
coloured stone, Rhys shook his head in bafflement. When he did get home, 
he was in for the debriefing of his life. So you were inside the alien 
craft, Major? What was it like?

Well, sir, it was a little like the Egyptian Rooms at the British 
Museum.

O'Neill held up a hand. "Hear that?"

Rhys nodded, and they ducked behind one of the many functionless pillars 
which lined the hallway. At the far end of the corridor, the two 
remaining Jaffa came into sight, supporting between them...

"Shit," whispered O'Neill. "Carter." He looked at Caliburn. "When they 
get close. Okay?"

Rhys nodded silently.

They waited until the Jaffa had drawn alongside them, and then made 
their move. There were no complications this time, and the two guards 
were felled swiftly and easily. Carter, deprived of the support she had 
been receiving from them, collapsed, and O'Neill caught her, lowering 
her carefully to the ground. "Carter. C'mon Carter." His face hardened. 
"What the hell did they do to you?"

"I'm all right." She was conscious, but seemed to be extremely weak. 
"I'm not injured. I was held under a high gravity field. Pretty crushing 
experience."

"That's my line," said O'Neill, and grinned at her, obviously relieved. 
One down, two to go, thought Rhys. He handed O'Neill his canteen, and 
kept a look out as the Colonel offered Carter the last of the water.

She finished it, then pushed the bottle away. "The Goa'uld is called 
Horus..."

"Knew that."

"It wants the Keltoi to be its Jaffa."

"Knew that too."

"It wants to..."

"Captain," interrupted O'Neill: "I know explaining things is pretty much 
why you get up in the morning, but just take it easy for a second, 
okay?"

"Sir," she said: "We brought it here."

"What?"

"It was looking for the Keltoi... It must have some kind of technology 
that can sense the wormholes opening. When we opened the wormhole at the 
Stones in Cornwall, when we used the Gate to follow you, it used that to 
track them down." Her eyes shut, whether in exhaustion or guilt Rhys 
could not tell. "We brought it here," she repeated.

O'Neill laid a hand on her shoulder. "Then that's one mistake we won't 
make again," he said.

"Captain," asked Caliburn: "Where is Horus holding Hart and Pinker?"

With a tremendous effort, Carter opened her eyes, sought and found Rhys' 
gaze. "Hart is dead."

Oh shit. Fuck, no. No, no, no.

"We could find Horus' sarcophagus," said O'Neill.

Carter shook her head weakly. "Between the cell and the central chamber 
I've seen most of the ship. I don't think it's here. Look how small this 
ship is. Probably a landing craft. Bigger ship in orbit."

"How did it happen?" asked Caliburn.

"Horus has a surgical technique for implanting non-Jaffa with the larva. 
Hart took the herb, the snakesbane. With that much of it in his system, 
he and the larva both died when Horus tried to implant him." She shut 
her eyes, and her head dropped. "He knew exactly what he was doing. He 
didn't want to live as a slave."

"And Pinker?"

"Pinker did." 

"Oh, I think that's a little unfair."

Rhys turned, and saw what the news of his Sergeant's death had made him 
overlook. Pinker was advancing towards them, one hand holding a weapon 
which Rhys could not readily identify, and the other clutched to his 
stomach, where his open, bloodied shirt hung open to display the fresh 
cuts in the flesh of his abdomen. He was staggering on his feet, but he 
was upright, and he looked quite capable of using the gun or whatever it 
was to deadly effect. 

"It's not that I wanted to live as a slave," he said: "It's just that I 
wanted to live."

//And besides// added Horus from his side, a faint smile playing around 
those piercing bird's eyes: //It is not slavery. It is service//

* * *

"Daniel Jackson."

Daniel woke with a start, and shifted Teleri's small bulk where she 
pressed against him, dozing lightly. Then he changed his own position: 
he had been sitting with his back pressed against one of the Stones 
which ringed the Circle for too long, and his neck hurt. With one arm 
cradling the little girl, he reached out with his other hand and found 
Teal'c's shoulder. The Jaffa had made it- just about- to the Stones, but 
once there he had collapsed and had all but lost consciousness. He would 
not be going any further without help.

"I'm right here," said Daniel.

"It is cold."

There were many words Daniel could have used to describe the forest, and 
cold wasn't one of them. Humid, stifling or close perhaps; cold, no. 
What Teal'c meant, of course, was that it was he who was cold: but 
phrasing it in that way would have doubtless sounded too much like a 
complaint to get past his internal editor. It was typical of the Jaffa, 
Daniel thought, that even when dying he would not permit himself to 
gripe. He slipped off his jacket, trying not to disturb the girl 
sleeping against him. "Here, take my coat."

Working by touch, he laid the jacket over Teal'c, trying not to smother 
him accidentally by putting it over his face. "How do you feel?"

"I am... very tired."

"Yeah," said Daniel. He kept his voice hushed, not wishing to wake 
Teleri. "Me too."

"I have a request."

"I'm listening." Not, he thought, that there was much else he could do.

"I wish you to convey a message to my wife and son. Tell them..." He 
stopped. "Tell them I am sorry for the disgrace I brought upon them. 
Tell them I am sorry I did not return."

"No," said Daniel. "No. Listen to me. Everything will be..." He broke 
off, unable to make himself say the words, realising how banal they 
would sound, both to Teal'c and himself. Jack might have brought it off, 
with his own particular variety of vehement, tunnel-visioned optimism; 
Daniel couldn't. Was everything going to be all right? He didn't know, 
and to insist otherwise felt like a betrayal. 

"If it comes to it," he promised, "I'll tell them myself."

"...Thank you." The words were barely more than a breath, and Daniel 
thought that if he had not been concentrating entirely on listening, he 
might have missed them.

* * *

Jack looked at the 'zat gun in Pinker's right hand for some time noting 
how, while the rest of the man was shaking, his fingers weren't. There 
was a very faint shimmer in the air around the Horus child, and he 
guessed that the Goa'uld was using an energy shield around itself. 
Slowly, Jack stepped over Carter's legs, so he was standing in front of 
her. Rhys straightened up and assumed a position beside him.

"Please put the guns down," instructed Pinker.

Jack turned his weapon around so that he was holding it by the barrel, 
and carefully set it on to the ground between themselves and the 
Goa'uld. Rhys did the same.

"So," said O'Neill easily to the child as he stepped backwards again: "I 
don't think we've had a chance to get acquainted yet. I'm Colonel Jack 
O'Neill, this is Major Rhys Caliburn. I would have done the 
introductions before now, except that you were trying to kill us."

The boy smiled. //I am Hor-sa-Isis. I am Hor-nedj-her-itef. I am Hor-pa-
khred//

Jack smiled in return. "Can we call you Hor for short?"

"O'Neill," said Caliburn warningly, "I really wouldn't antagonise it if 
I were you."

"Oh, I think it's probably pretty much antagonised already, Major. 
Aren't you, Hor?"

//I am not antagonised. I am wounded. I have offered the gifts of life; 
I have offered the joy of service, and I have been rejected. It is 
hurtful to me//

"That's not how the Keltoi see it," said Caliburn, and Jack could see 
that the same idea had occurred to the Major as to himself: Pinker was 
weak, still in great pain from the surgical procedure he had only 
recently undergone. The longer they could keep Horus talking, the more 
chance there was that he would lose concentration, fumble the weapon, 
something, anything. After that, Jack thought, surely they could 
overcome the child, protective energy shield or no.

//Enough of this// snapped the boy. //If the last of Ra's Jaffa will not 
serve me, you will// He looked up at Pinker: //Jaffa, subdue them//

Pinker nodded, his face flushed and shiny with sweat. He raised the gun, 
and fired.

There was a bright blue flash, and Horus fell.

Jack stared. The discharge had been at point blank range, close enough 
to cause the Goa'uld's shield to feed back on itself. The boy fell to 
the floor, limp and inert, but still breathing. 

Pinker sagged against a pillar, and exhaled slowly. 

"Mr Pinker," said Caliburn, his voice coloured with equal measures of 
surprise and gratitude: "Thank you."

O'Neill began to help Carter to her feet. "We're leaving and taking the 
Keltoi with us," he said. "We've got about four hours to get to the 
Stones. It's tight, but we can do it. Can you walk?"

Pinker shook his head. "I'm not coming."

Caliburn took a step towards him. "Don't be ridiculous, man. We'll get 
you home and..."

"And what?" broke in Pinker angrily. He put his free hand to his stomach 
and grimaced as he touched the lips of the garish X drawn in his flesh. 
"Look at me. Look at me. If I go back now, I know what they'll do. 
They'll rip me open to get a better look at this thing inside me. And 
I'll die." He looked at O'Neill and Carter. "That's how it works, isn't 
it? Once Jaffa, always Jaffa."

"We didn't let that happen to Teal'c," said Carter. "It doesn't have to 
happen to you."

"I don't work for the same people you do," said Pinker bitterly. "I'm 
not going back to be a freak and a curiosity. I'm not going back to 
die."

"You can't stay here," said Jack.

"Yes I can. And don't think about trying to force me." Pinker lifted the 
'zat gun, just high enough to remind them he still held it. "I'll knock 
you out and you won't make it back to the Circle." He looked down at the 
bodies of the two Jaffa guards and the tiny, inert frame of the Goa'uld. 
"Did you kill the other two?"

O'Neill nodded.

Pinker knelt, a simple motion made more difficult by the pain he was 
obviously experiencing. He lifted Horus and cradled the boy in his arms. 
"I'll stay with him."

"And what do you think he'll do when he wakes up and remembers you shot 
him?"

Pinker smiled bleakly. "Nothing, if he has any sense. He needs me. I'm 
his last Jaffa. And I need him." He turned and began to walk away from 
them, along the corridor.

"Pinker," called Jack.

The other man looked back. 

"Come with us."

Pinker shook his head. "I'm letting you go, aren't I? Get out of here." 
The smile, empty and haunted, returned. "It may be the last good thing I 
ever do."

* * *

They were outside the ship before Jack remembered the third point on the 
to-do list.

"Larva," he said suddenly, stopping in his tracks and nearly causing 
Carter, who he was supporting, to fall over: "Dammit, we can't leave 
without a larva."

Caliburn looked back at the sealed pyramid ship behind them. "Shit."

Carter straightened up between them, and Jack could tell she was 
beginning to recover from her ordeal. "What about the two Jaffa out 
here?"

Caliburn shook his head. "They're dead."

"Larvae might not be, yet." She broke away from them, and stumbled 
across the deserted clearing in the direction of one of the fallen 
guards. Jack followed her, and found her industriously removing the 
nearest man's armour, revealing the slit in his belly. She grimaced, 
shut her eyes and forced her hand deep into his flesh. "I really... 
really... really don't like this."

Caliburn was pale. "You should try watching yourself."

"I can feel it," reported Carter. "It's still moving. It's alive."

"Okay," said Jack: "Next question: what the hell are we going to put it 
in?"

"Water bottle," suggested Carter, and Rhys passed over his canteen. But 
the mouth was too narrow, and it was clear that the squirming larva 
would not fit through it. 

"Can't we just carry it?" asked Caliburn.

Jack shook his head. "They die within minutes in the air. It needs a 
liquid environment. Preferably inside a Jaffa. But since none of us is 
suitably equipped, suggested potential alternatives would be 
appreciated." 

There was a brief pause. Then Carter said: "I think I have an idea, sir. 
But you're not going to like it."

Jack checked his watch. Only three and half hours left to get back to 
the Stones. "Spit it out, Captain."

Carter looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Uhh... That's kind of the 
idea..."

* * *

"Daniel. Daniel, you're hurting me." 

Daniel started out of numbness, and realised that his gentle patting of 
Teleri's hair as she lay against his chest had somehow mutated into a 
harsher, less tender action. He was dimly aware that the little girl had 
been trying to break him out of his self-absorbed reverie for some time 
now; he could not remember exactly when he had stopped responding to 
her, but it could not have been long after Teal'c had fallen silent for 
the last time. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean 
to..." He reached out with his free hand and felt for Teal'c's wrist, 
squeezing and pinching a variety of different ways before finally 
finding the slow, fading beat of the Jaffa's heart. "Teal'c?" he said. 
"Teal'c?" There was no response, and Daniel guessed that he had slipped 
into unconsciousness. He supposed he should be grateful that he was 
still alive. 

Teleri shifted in his arms. "Daniel, do you know any stories?"

"Well, I, ahhh..." Well, he thought, yes, a few. A few hundred books' 
worth of deconstruction and analysis of the folk tales and legends of a 
dozen ancient cultures. "Yes. Would you like me to tell you a story?"

"Yes." She snuggled closer to him.

Sure, thought Daniel, why not. If nothing else, it would take his mind 
off the current situation. But what to tell? Egyptian mythology would be 
tasteless; Sumerian was a little obscure, Inuit too bloody, Greek or 
Roman perhaps...

"Daniel," the child prompted.

He thought rapidly, and made decision. "Okay," he began: "Once upon a 
time, there were three bears. They all lived in a house in a forest..."

"What's a bear?"

"Well, it's a..."

"Teleri!"

"Mama!"

The little girl leapt up from his arms, and Daniel heard the sounds of a 
joyful reunion somewhere close by. There were more noises- the sounds of 
a group of newcomers emerging from the forest. 

"Jack?" he called. 

"He stayed behind," said a voice beside him. "The Goa'uld took your 
other friends. He said he would follow us."

"Daron?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "How is Teal'c?"

"He lost consciousness a little while ago," he told her. "I can't wake 
him."

He heard the rustle of her clothing as she leaned past him. "It is the 
sleep deeper than sleep. There is nothing more we can do, except wait."

Which was just fine, thought Daniel bitterly. He was becoming 
exceptionally good at waiting.

                         *******************

Seven

The pain was excruciating.

Jack stopped, doubled over, and cried out as another bolt of searing 
heat shot through his stomach. He felt as if he was being slowly 
eviscerated. An intense feeling of nausea swept over him, and he fought 
the urge to vomit. That would not be a good thing to do right now.

He felt a hand support him, and looked up to see Carter's face, pale and 
concerned, float into focus next to Caliburn's. The Captain looked like 
death warmed over, but she was walking unaided now. 

Which was more than Jack could say for himself.

He attempted to grin at her, but he suspected that the result probably 
looked more like a rictus on his face. "I'm never... eating sushi... 
again."

It wasn't much of a joke; nevertheless, he was rewarded by the briefest 
of smiles from Carter. "How do you feel, sir?"

Jack tried to get up, but the pain was like a staple in his side, 
folding him in two and making ordinary movement impossible. "Like an 
apple... with a maggot inside it."

"Can you keep going?" asked Rhys.

"...Don't think so."

The Major hooked one of Jack's arms over his own shoulder, and Jack 
accepted the support gratefully. They began to move forwards again.

"How long..." O'Neill asked Carter: "How long... in stomach 
acid...d'y'think?"

"We should make it to the Stones in about two hours," she told him. "So, 
ahh, a bit more than two hours."

"...Scientific opinion...?"

"Sheer bloody mindedness," said Caliburn. "Come on."

They kept moving.

* * *

"What was that?"

Andy dropped down on to the ground beside Jackson, and laid a hand on 
his arm to alert the archaeologist to his presence. "That noise was the 
wormhole opening," he said. "Your people back home did the job. We're 
going to start moving the Keltoi out." Behind him, Sheldrick could hear 
Doyle coaxing and cajoling the first group of refugees towards the 
swirling maelstrom of light and sound which had appeared at the centre 
of the circle. Andy could detect a certain undercurrent of agitation in 
the hum of Keltoi voices coming from the crowd, but less than he might 
have expected, given that Doyle was asking for volunteers to jump into a 
blue tunnel to nothing in the ground. The tribe's oral history had 
recorded this place as their origin and their refuge, and that belief 
was soothing them more than any number of reassurances from either 
himself or the Corporal could. 

Andy lifted Teal'c's arm and felt for his pulse. The dull throb, when he 
finally succeeded in locating it, was faint and irregular. The Jaffa's 
eyes were open but glassy, and he seemed to be in some kind of waking 
coma. "I want to send your friend through in the first party."

"No," said Jackson.

"Doctor," said Andy quietly: "There's nothing more I can do for him 
here. And your people must know ten times more about his physiology than 
I do. He stands a better chance..."

"He stands a better chance here," insisted the archaeologist. "He needs 
a larva. And there aren't any on that side of the wormhole. So he's 
staying here until Jack and Sam and the others get back and bring him 
one, and I'm staying with him."

Andy fought down a sigh. "So I suppose trying to get you to go back now 
would be a waste of breath too?"

"Tell you what, Lieutenant: I'll go when you go."

Sheldrick was about to muster an argument, then saw the determination in 
the younger man's half-hidden expression, and thought better of it. 
"Right you are then, lad," he said, and went to help Doyle.

* * *

//Jaffa? Jaffa!//

The Horus Child blinked, opening its speckled hawk's eyes and struggling 
to sit up. 

"They're gone," Pinker told it from his seated position on the floor 
against the far wall. "They're dead."

The boy put a hand to his head, and emitted a high pitched, childish 
moan. Then he looked up, straight at Pinker, with a dull glare of 
malevolence. //You betrayed me// Horus lifted his hand, unfurling the 
fist like a talon, revealing the focal node of the weapon he wore. 

"Oh that's clever," said Pinker with weary disgust. "Kill me too. Then 
you'll have no Jaffa at all."

//I cannot trust you//

"Of course you can trust me. I'm one of your incubators now. I can't go 
home and I can't stay here. So all I have left is to go with you. I'm 
the most loyal servant you've ever had, Horus."

The boy smiled. //Jaffa...// he began.

"No," interrupted Pinker, holding up a hand. "Not Jaffa. Not servant. My 
name is Stephen." His voice became harsh: "I may need you but you need 
me as well. I'm all you've got. I will give you service, but on my 
terms."

Horus hesitated, his thin, child's arm still extended towards Pinker in 
an attitude of hostility. Then he closed his fist, turned his hand over, 
and reached towards Pinker in a gesture of welcome. //Stephen// he said, 
//You are my First Prime, my aid and my help. We will stand together 
against my enemies, and you will be blessed as I ascend to greatness 
once more//

Pinker crawled towards the child, and took hold of the offered hand. So, 
he thought, this is how deals with the Devil get made. 

//Do you know why I take the form of a child, Stephen?//

Pinker shook his head. "Why?"

//Because they are pure. There are no distractions, no interruptions to 
my thoughts. The host's mind is easily erased, and there are no lusts of 
the flesh to control, as with the adults. The physical weakness is a 
privation, but it is worth it. It permits me to focus entirely on my 
goals. You will discover just how focused I can be//

Pinker nodded, and released the boy's hand. He knew nothing of the 
mechanics of the relationship between the alien and its host, but he did 
not doubt what the Goa'uld said. No, his doubts arose elsewhere. A child 
might be pure, but it was also half-formed. The brain Horus had adopted 
as its home was not mature, and presumably subject to the same lack of 
development as that of a normal child. Horus might believe itself 
entirely in control of the boy and his thoughts, but Pinker wondered how 
much of a child's raw savagery and naivete had been transferred to the 
Goa'uld. Horus had probably been a youth for so long that he had 
forgotten what it was like to be otherwise.

He sat back, and grimaced as a twisting, writhing sensation began 
somewhere below his stomach, caused by the thing within him turning and 
squirming. He placed a hand over the bright, jagged-edged slit in his 
belly in an effort to quell the nausea. It didn't help.

//We will know greatness, you and I// promised Horus.

Pinker smiled, and felt sick.

* * *

The crashing noises emanating from somewhere beyond the wall of foliage 
which ringed the circle of stones caught Sheldrick by surprise, and he 
raised his gun into the firing position, wary of some last minute 
attack.

Then he lowered it, grinning widely in relief. "Major!"

Caliburn eased O'Neill on to the ground as Carter appeared out of the 
vegetation behind them. He looked around the nearly empty circle, and 
the open wormhole at its centre. "Did Daron and the others get here?"

"Yes, sir. The whole population's been moved out." Andy's hands moved 
over O'Neill's stomach, searching for the bullet wound he knew must be 
there, judging from the way the man was clawing at his abdomen and 
groaning. But he couldn't see any signs of bleeding. "What happened to 
the Colonel?"

"We brought a larva back for Teal'c," explained Carter, and for a second 
Andy didn't see the relevance of the remark. Then he understood, and 
together with Caliburn, they helped O'Neill to his feet once more and 
dragged him across the circle, to the spot where Jackson and Cerian were 
waiting by the comatose Jaffa.

The archaeologist couldn't see what was happening, but he must have 
heard them approaching, because he raised his head at the Colonel's 
stifled cries. "Jack? Are you okay?"

"...Oh yeah. Peachy..."

"It's all right, Daniel," said Carter, and Andy saw the younger man's 
expression beam under the bandages as he recognised her voice. "We found 
a larva but we didn't have any way to carry it. We figured stomach acid 
would take longer to kill it than fresh air."

"Stomach acid?" repeated Jackson. "Oh, God, Jack, you didn't..."

O'Neill interrupted him by gagging and pitching forward. Andy and 
Caliburn held him up while he retched into the dirt. On the second or 
third heave, one end of the larva became visible, poking out from 
between his lips. Cerian caught it between her thumb and forefinger, and 
pulled it out. 

"Is it still alive?"

"I do not know..."

"Wait, it's moving."

"Get it into him. Now."

Cerian carried the larva to Teal'c's side, and Andy and Carter knelt on 
either side of him, each gently holding open one flap of the pouch in 
his stomach. O'Neill rolled over the in dirt behind them, and gasped.

"Ease it in," said Carter. "Careful now."

"It's okay," said O'Neill faintly. "I'm all right."

"I have it," said Cerian.

"I'm just about all right."

"Nearly there," said Andy.

"Thank you for asking."

And the larva disappeared.

"Your concern is touching," said O'Neill, and passed out.

Caliburn stood up, and looked down at the unconscious Jaffa. He could 
see no change or improvement in the man's condition. "Is he going to be 
all right now?"

Carter sat back on her heels, her exhaustion suddenly apparent. "I don't 
know. We tried."

Caliburn nodded. Andy looked up at him, and realised something for the 
first time. "Major, where are Hart and Pinker?"

"Pinker's not coming back with us," said Caliburn. "Sergeant Hart is 
dead."

Black in the corner pocket, thought Andy. Play the predictions game. 
Everything will work out perfectly. Or else not. 

He nodded, wanting to know how it had happened, but able to tell from 
the grey expression on Caliburn's face that this was not the time, or 
the place. 

The Major motioned towards the open wormhole. "Come on, people. Let's go 
home."

* * *

Rhys nearly fell over as he stepped forward out of the wormhole: the 
effect of falling feet first into the event horizon but emerging on the 
other side standing was more than sufficient to knock his sense of 
balance out of kilter. Instinctively, he moved down the ramp in front of 
him, conscious that the others were somewhere close behind.

"Major Caliburn!"

Doyle was helping an injured Keltoi man into a wheelchair which a 
medical orderly was making ready to push away. The concrete-walled vault 
in which he found himself was crowded, but there were nowhere near five 
hundred people in it. As Rhys watched, three men in US Air Force 
uniforms shepherded a group of twenty or thirty Keltoi out of the vault. 
Rhys nodded, impressed. There was apparently a system in place for this 
kind of contingency, and it was a good one.

There was a noise something like a squelch from behind him, and he 
turned around just as Sheldrick and Cerian emerged from the wormhole, 
bearing O'Neill between them, closely followed by Jackson and Carter, 
who were supporting Teal'c.

"Are you the last?" he heard a man's voice ask.

Carter nodded, and allowed Teal'c to sink down on to the ramp. The 
Colonel, just about conscious again, collapsed beside him, while Jackson 
felt around for the low railing at the side of the gangway.

Rhys stared at the thing at the top of the ramp.

"My God," he said. "That's a Stargate?"

"It is," confirmed the same voice which had spoken before. Rhys turned 
again, and found himself facing a shorter, somewhat older man. "General 
George Hammond. Welcome to the SGC."

"Major Rhys Caliburn. A pleasure to be here, General."

Hammond nodded, and looked up to the thick blast windows set into the 
wall on one side of the vault. "Close the iris."

"My God," said Rhys again. When the shield had closed, the system of 
interwoven metal plates sliding over one another to seal the Gate 
completely, Rhys looked at the ramp, and saw O'Neill grinning at his 
expression. 

"Whaddya think, Major?"

"I think it's..." Caliburn hesitated, searching for the apt word: 
"...cool. Very cool indeed."

O'Neill kept grinning.

Hammond's expression, on the other hand, was somewhat more stern.

"Perhaps, Colonel, you would like to explain how you get sent to England 
to observe a scientific phenomenon, and arrive home four days later 
through the Gate and with a small community in tow?"

"Well, we..." The Colonel stopped. "We sorta..." He broke off again. 
"Y'know what? I'm a little flaked out. Fill him in, Major, will ya?" And 
he lost consciousness again.

"Caliburn," said Cerian anxiously.

"It's all right," he reassured her: "You'll be safe now. Ahh, General 
Hammond, may I present Cerian. She's in charge of these people."

The General smiled, and addressed the Keltoi healer with an old-
fashioned respectfulness which Rhys had thought had all but died out. 
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms Cerian." He looked in the direction of 
O'Neill, Carter, Jackson and Teal'c, who were ranged along the gridded 
ramp which led up to the Gate, displaying various levels of 
consciousness. "Since it doesn't appear that I'll be getting a full 
explanation from any member of SG-1 in the near future, may I suggest 
that we remove ourselves to my office? Major, ma'am?"

Rhys nodded and, gently taking Cerian by the arm, followed the General 
out of the Gate Room.

                         *******************

Eight

Monday August 23

"No spicy foods," said Dr Frasier, handing Jack the list she had just 
completed printing out: "No acidic foods. No fried foods. No fruit. No 
dairy products, except milk. No carbonated drinks, no tea or coffee, no 
alcohol. No red meat."

Jack scanned the list with increasing despondency. "What's left?"

"Bread. Plain pasta. Steamed white fish and vegetables."

"Yum."

Frasier raised an eyebrow. "I know it's boring, but if you don't want 
your stomach lining to resemble raw hamburger for the rest of your life, 
I suggest you keep to it for the immediate future." She leaned forward, 
across the desk: "And don't go eating any more Goa'uld."

Right, thought Jack glumly, like he needed to be told. 

The SGC infirmary, after one of the most hectic periods of activity it 
had seen, was quiet once again, with the result that the Doctor had more 
time to devote to O'Neill's newly developed stomach ulcer problems. The 
Keltoi population, after receiving initial medical treatment on the 
base, had been moved to a wing of the military hospital at Fort Carson, 
along with Daniel, who was in a specialist unit at the same location. 

"How'd the operation go?" Jack asked.

"I spoke to the surgeon this morning. It's early yet, but he thinks 
Daniel should keep his sight."

Jack nodded. "Good." Good didn't even begin to cover it, but it was the 
best word he could think of, for the moment.

"Whatever was in the poultices the Keltoi put on his eyes, the damage 
caused by the acid burns was much less severe than it might have been." 
Frasier sat back and sipped her coffee. "He's very lucky he's not 
blind."

Jack grinned. "Blind is relative. I've seen him have lengthy 
conversations with fire extinguishers when he's not wearing his 
glasses."

Frasier returned his smile, but concern underlay her features, and Jack 
knew why it was there. Teal'c had been half-dead when they returned, 
while himself, Carter and Daniel had scarcely looked better. Frasier was 
a military doctor, and she did her job with efficiency and detachment, 
but she was also a friend, and friends suffered when the people they 
cared about found new ways to damage themselves. "You were all very 
lucky this time," she said. "Very lucky."

"Yeah," said Jack. "I know." He cast a glance through the connecting 
window in the wall of Frasier's office. "Is Teal'c awake?"

"He was when I checked on him."

O'Neill excused himself and wandered out into the ward, still holding 
the depressingly long list of forbidden foods the Doctor had given him. 
As he sat down by Teal'c's bedside, the Jaffa's eyes opened dozily. "You 
look about as sharp as I feel," Jack told him. "How's Junior Mark 
Three?"

"My body has accepted the new larva."

"Well, good. Now try to look after this one. They're pretty damn 
difficult to come by."

"O'Neill..."

Jack cut him off. "If that's going to be an apology, I don't want to 
hear it. You have the right to be free. I'm only sorry it didn't work."

"If I could choose to be otherwise," said the Jaffa slowly, "I would. 
But in the meantime I have... sufficient freedom." The conversation was 
tiring him, and his eyes began to drift shut.

"I always thought freedom was an all or nothing thing," said Jack 
softly. But Teal'c was already asleep.

* * *

"Daniel!"

Daniel attempted to brace himself for the collision he knew was coming, 
but without sight he was unable to prepare fully for the sudden impact 
of Keltoi child into his open arms. He lost his balance and fell 
backwards, a peal of excited girlish giggles ringing right next to his 
ears.

"Owww, Teleri. Watch it, I'm bruised."

She clambered off him, and when she next spoke he could hear the pout in 
her voice. "Is it true? That you don't need my eyes now?"

He reached out and felt her slip her small hands into his own. He lifted 
her arms until her fingers rested against the fresh set of bandages 
around his eyes. The last set he would need. "No, I still do. But I'll 
have my own eyes back again soon."

"My eyes were just as good," she sulked.

"Yes they were," he told her solemnly. "And I was grateful for them." 
She would never really understand how grateful. 

"The lass is just fishing for compliments, y'know."

Daniel grinned at the Newcastle accented voice which floated down to him 
from somewhere above. He stood up. "Andy?"

"Aye. Teleri was asking after you. When she heard I was coming to say 
goodbye, nothing would please her but to come too."

"You're leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning," said Andy. "Back to a civilised country, with good 
pubs and real sports, where you can get a decent cup of tea."

Daniel grinned. "On behalf of my nation, I'm wounded, Lieutenant. Is 
Corporal Doyle here?"

Andy chuckled. "Oh, there's no rush to talk to him. He's not going 
anywhere."

"Excuse me?"

"He's only gone and got himself a job. They're putting him on one of 
your SG teams."

"How?"

"Your General asked him, and he said yes. The unit's given him an 
official secondment. He's right chuffed."

Daniel wasn't entirely sure what right chuffed meant, but he assumed it 
was a desirable mental state. "Andy, I'm sure if you wanted to stay on, 
we could..."

Sheldrick broke in before he could finish. "I got asked too. I said no. 
Exploring's well enough, but I'm a soldier by profession. I wouldn't 
want to do that too often."

"I guess it's not everyone's cup of badly-made tea." Daniel held out a 
hand, and after a moment felt it grasped and shaken firmly. "Thank you. 
For everything."

"Aye, well," said Sheldrick. "Any time, lad. When do those bandages come 
off?"

"In about a week. Then it's dark glasses and no going outside for at 
least two months. But the surgeon thinks I could be back at work by the 
end of October."

"So you get to keep looking," said Andy.

"Yes," replied Daniel quietly. "I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't."

* * *

The valley was wide and fertile, and a silver-blue river gushed and 
splashed through its heart. A stiff, cool breeze blew- it was the 
beginning of spring on P4S-657, and there was still an edge of bitter 
winter in the air. Clouds, grey and solid, rolled across the sky above. 
Lieutenant Colonel Murphy had declared the place desolate when he had 
led the three other members of SG-6 as well as Cerian and Caliburn out 
of the Gate which stood at the far end of the valley. Rhys begged to 
differ. This was no paradise, but it was a good land, a land that could 
be built on and farmed. A land that could become home. It reminded him 
more than a little of Snowdonia and the valleys where he had grown up.

Beside him, Cerian shivered, even under the thick jacket which had been 
provided for her, and Rhys recalled that she had lived her entire life 
in the jungle's suffocating heat. She had never, until now, known cold. 
"What do you think?" he asked.

"It is..." She hesitated. "It is not the forest."

"Nowhere is going to be the forest," he reminded her gently. 

"Yes. I know."

"Besides, that place was brutal. There are no fever trees here, no 
poisonous flowers. Your children will thank you for bringing them here."

She smiled. "It is just that this is all... so very new to me. I have 
spent my life choosing between one herb and another. I never thought I 
would have to choose between worlds."

He touched her shoulder. "You'll make the right decision."

"And the choice after that? And the one after that again?" She shook her 
head. "I am a healer, Caliburn, not a leader. I do not desire this 
responsibility."

"The best leaders are usually the ones who don't want the job."

She looked at him. "I have spoken with the remaining members of the 
council. They are of a mind with me. We are like children, stepping 
beyond the village gates for the first time. We need a guide, one who 
knows the ways of other worlds."

Rhys blinked. "Cerian," he said: "What you're asking..." 

"The best leaders are those who do not wish it," she chided him.

He shook his head. "I am honoured, but..."

"You are Keltoi," she said. "At least say you will think on it."

"Yes," said Rhys, unconsciously adopting her mode of speech, "I'll think 
on it."

* * *

"Daron."

The Keltoi woman was standing on a small bridge in the Japanese garden 
which had been constructed in the grounds of the hospital at Fort Carson 
for the benefit of recovering patients. Daron had not been injured, but 
in the absence of sufficiently sized alternatives, the entire Keltoi 
population was being temporarily housed in one of the facility's wings. 

Daron looked up as Sam joined her on the bridge over the shallow coi 
pond, and smiled, although Carter could see that her eyes were red and 
tired. Sam leaned on the bridge's wooden rails beside Daron, and peered 
over with her into the limpid water below. Twin reflections stared back 
up at them, broken from time to time as fish came to the surface to 
gobble at crumbs of food.

"I like it here," said Daron.

Sam wasn't sure what she meant. "Our world?"

"Oh yes. But here especially." Daron gestured around the garden, taking 
in the silent order of shrubs and raked gravel. "It is... ordered. There 
was never order in the forest."

"Cerian says you've been spending a lot of time here."

Daron nodded. 

Sam took a breath. "Daron, I wanted to tell you about Derek Hart."

The Keltoi woman shook her head, a gentle motion which was echoed by the 
image in the pool beneath them. "Cerian says it is foolish to mourn for 
one I did not know."

"Well, Cerian's not right all the time." Sam placed her hand softly over 
Daron's where it rested on the rail. "He made a choice between living as 
a slave and dying free. He understood what freedom means to your 
people."

Daron nodded. "It is a fine thing to be free," she said quietly. Then 
she lifted her head and looked at Sam, with eyes which were far older 
now than when Carter had met her first. "But I think that if I could 
choose, I would have him at my side now, and a Goa'uld within him."

She began to cry, and Sam held her and murmured comforting words to her 
as they stood together on the bridge over the pool in the tidy Japanese 
garden.

* * *

The knock at the door of his temporary quarters within Cheyenne Mountain 
came just as Rhys was folding one of the Keltoi homespun tunics which 
Cerian had given to him earlier that day. He was holding it tucked under 
his chin, folding the sleeves inwards, as O'Neill entered. Rhys looked 
up to find the Colonel appraising him with a critical eye. 

"Oh yes, it's definitely you. I'm told off-beige is the colour this 
season."

Rhys shrugged. "I'm going to look out of place no matter what, but I 
might as well try to blend in however I can."

O'Neill nodded, and deposited the bag he was carrying on the bed. 
"What's this?" asked Rhys.

"A few essentials. I asked Daniel for a list of the ten things he missed 
most while he was away. Then I ignored it and got you these instead." He 
rolled his eyes. "Daniel's list included things like dictionaries."

Rhys opened the hold-all and rummaged around inside it. He lifted out a 
rectangular black object, and looked at O'Neill doubtfully. "Walkman?"

"With headphones and rechargeable solar batteries. It has a radio too. 
You might even be able to get the BBC Off-World Service."

Rhys closed the bag. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." O'Neill sat down on the end of the bed. "You know, 
you'll be on your own once the last party goes through. If the Goa'uld 
really can detect Gate activity and trace it, the Keltoi will be safer 
if they go incommunicado for a while."

"The General explained."

"You're sure about this?"

Rhys nodded. "It's a matter of kinship." He set the tunic to one side 
and took the chair opposite Jack. "They've asked for my help. I can't 
walk away knowing they might still be in danger, that that child-thing 
could still be looking for them." He shook his head. "The Goa'uld are 
one hell of an adversary, Colonel."

Jack stood up. "Yes," he agreed, "but they can't pull together when it 
counts. Good night, Major."

"Good night, Colonel."

Rhys waited until the door had closed behind him. He lifted the little 
black walkman and flicked it on, popping the miniature 'phones into his 
ears. Then he went on packing for the journey ahead.

                         *******************

Epilogue

The night was still and cool. It usually was at this time of year.

Even in summer, Colorado's elevation ensured that warm sunny days faded 
into chilly nights. Now the summer was nearly over, and Jack could feel 
the first sharp bite of cold in the air. 

He shifted his position on the garage roof, searching for a warmer spot 
on the asphalt. The roof had absorbed a lot of heat from the sun's rays 
during the day, and was still comfortably warm. 

Next to him, the telescope sat on its tripod, lens cap dangling at the 
end of a long cord. He had not realised until after he had climbed on to 
the roof and set up the instrument that tonight he didn't want to look 
at anything specific. He just wanted to look.

He scanned the heavens, his gaze falling naturally on the most familiar 
shape in the northern sky. Jack had pointed out Ursa Major's six bright 
stars to Caliburn. The Welshman thought of the constellation as a 
plough; to O'Neill, it was the Big Dipper, the sky's ladle. Its smaller 
relative, the Little Dipper, hung nearby. He looked further into the 
night, and saw the age-old, familiar shapes. There was Orion the hunter, 
Gemini the twins, Hercules the legendary hero. Leo, the lion, was 
setting and partially hidden.

He reached out a hand and patted one leg of the telescope's stand. The 
Stargate was not the only way to explore the galaxy. He had taken up 
astronomy almost by accident, after a late night conversation with 
Catherine soon after the first return from Abydos. She had spoken of her 
lifelong passion for the stars, and had described and named the 
constellations for him with infectious enthusiasm. That conversation had 
triggered long-buried childhood memories, recollections of sitting on 
the porch of his grandfather's house in the mountains while the old man 
told him the stories behind the patterns in the stars. That talk with 
Catherine had reminded Jack of something he had almost completely 
forgotten. It had awakened in him a sense of wonder he had thought was 
lost beneath layers of cynicism and grief. The next day he had bought 
the telescope, and written his letter of resignation. 

Sometimes you find your own path, he thought. Sometimes it finds you. 

He had been lucky. He had been lost, and somehow he had stumbled back on 
to the right path. Or had been guided back to it. By the stars, perhaps. 

So, he asked the distant lights, if I'm so damn lucky, how come I can't 
sleep?

There was a simple answer to that, although he was reluctant to use the 
word, even in the privacy of his thoughts. Children had nightmares; 
grown men with careers and responsibilities did not. But, he admitted to 
himself, the reason why he was lying awake on his garage roof at half 
past two in the morning wasn't too many good dreams. 

Frasier was right: they had been lucky. His dreams tonight- and in many 
recent nights- had shown him a place where that luck had run out.

Jack thought about that other possible world, one where Teal'c was dead, 
Daniel permanently blind, and Carter turned into an incubator for a 
Goa'uld larva. One where the Keltoi were slaves again. One where Horus 
had more resources than four Jaffa and one Glider. 

He rubbed his fingers into his eye sockets, and made an effort to banish 
the dark thoughts. C'mon, Jack, he told himself firmly, quit brooding. 
You're not doing yourself any favours.

He sat up, wincing as the movement provoked a stab of pain from the 
stomach ulcer he would be nursing for some time to come. He replaced the 
cap over the telescope's lens and carefully twisted it into place. Then 
he swung his legs down over the side of the garage roof until his feet 
found the uppermost rung of the ladder balanced against the guttering. 

As he began to climb down the ladder, he looked upwards one final time. 
The eclipse was long over, and the moon was just the moon again. It was 
no longer the black and sinister mass which had engulfed the sun in the 
sky over Cornwall. The night's single silver eye gazed impassively down 
on him.

Jack frowned. Something Daniel had said suddenly took on a new 
significance. One of Horus' many names: Horus-Foremost-One-Without-Eyes. 
The god worshipped as the face of the sky when neither the sun nor the 
moon could be seen. At the eclipse.

Jack had missed this eclipse; he had looked away as the Gate opened 
between the Stones and he had not seen totality. 

There would be other eclipses.

The End.