SALT OF THE EARTH
by
ELG

TITLE: Salt of the Earth
AUTHOR: ELG
AUTHOR PAGE: ELG
CATEGORY: Action/Adventure, Angst.
SPOILERS: Major spoilers for ‘Between Two Fires’ and ‘2001’. Minor Spoilers for other S1-S5 episodes up to ‘2001’.
SEASON / SEQUEL: Season 5, second half. Takes place after ‘2001’.
RATING: R
CONTENT WARNINGS: Whumping of member of SG-1. (Sorry, Daniel). Mention of persistent emotional cruelty to member of SG-1. (Not my fault as the show writers did that, not me. I actually like Samantha Carter and would let her keep all her attractive men friends rather than ascending them or murdering them right, left and centre). Mention of previous minor character(s) death(s). Some possible romantic implications in Sam’s feelings for Narim.
SUMMARY: Deeply affected by the events of ‘2001’ and ‘Between Two Fires’, Sam begins to question everything, including her own judgment. When SG-1 find a breakaway community of the Tollan who have apparently sabotaged the crops of the indigenous population Sam is ready to believe the worst. But are her suspicions justified?
STATUS: Complete
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic was released from the charity zine Mercy in Action put out by Jmas on her site Ancient’s Gate and edited by Scribe to benefit www.mercyinaction.org.uk, a charity which Scribe works tirelessly to support. Thanks to the zine producer and zine editor contributing all their valuable work for nothing, all the proceeds of this zine go to charity. Scribe is editing submissions for a multi-fandom gen zine to benefit Mercy in Action again this year. The zine will be released this summer; fandoms to include Stargate SG-1, Angel, Good Omens, Lord of the Rings, and Without A Trace.
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

Salt of the Earth

To save your world you asked this man to die:
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier (1955) W.H. Auden

Prologue

Carter wondered if it would drive her insane in the end. Like Malakai, lured on by that image of his wife turning to smile at him, thinking the solution must lie in the next experiment or the next, while all the while a hundred worlds were trapped in a perpetual yesterday-and-today that never quite made it to tomorrow. She knew as well as any of them what deceptive things images could be. She could hold her mother's photograph in her hand a dozen times a day if she wanted to. Smile at that smile she still remembered creasing the corners of blue eyes that loved her; but she would never feel those arms around her again. She could never ask her for advice. Never call her up and cry down the telephone because her father was a thousand light years away and would never be entirely human again; could never tell her she'd killed an enemy today, or left another friend to die alone.

Colonel O'Neill had pictures of his son in a box he wouldn't let her look inside. Daniel had a photograph of his dead wife on his desk. She'd seen pictures of his dead parents too. They all knew being able to see those faces didn't make the people they depicted any less dead.

So why was this any different? Carter opened her hand and there he was again. Narim, semi-transparent and shimmering, yet perfect in every detail. There was his face, his voice. She could literally hold him in the palm of her hand. There were times when that was enough to convince her he must be still alive. But she couldn't feel anything - not a hint of warmth, the barest memory of flesh - and she knew he was probably just as intangible as he seemed; only a fingertip away and yet unreachable forever.

Like Martouf whose body heat she had felt draining away into hers along with his blood...until the Tok'ra had snatched his corpse away from her to try to save the symbiote inside him. She wondered how the Tok'ra of all people hadn't realized they couldn't truly save Lantash without saving Martouf as well. They knew what it was like to be blended. Surely they also knew how it felt to be ripped apart. Had Lantash tried to reach him as the zatarc blotted out everything else but its own treacherous message? Had he screamed when they tore him from his dying host? She didn't know how Roshar had died. It might be inside her somewhere, but perhaps it was a truth with which she would never be able to cope. Perhaps there were some things one should never have to know. Like what the Aschen had done to Joseph Faxon after she'd left him there with no possible route home.

By comparison it was only a minor ache in her heart to wonder if Orlin had remembered her after he ascended or if, now his loneliness was cured, she had receded from his memory like an old dream.

When she felt the dampness on her cheeks, Carter looked up at the ceiling in shock. Was there a tile off the roof? Why hadn't she heard the rain? But the ceiling was white and blandly unmarked; not a hint of moisture. She touched her skin and felt the wetness against her fingertips. Cautiously she touched her damp finger to her tongue, tasting salt. She hadn't even known she was crying. She had to stop doing that. It was going to happen in the SGC. People would start talking about Doctor Mackenzie again. The Colonel would look at her sideways waiting for her to start seeing more invisible people or hearing imaginary voices. Teal'c would hide his concern behind an impassive gaze as he followed her like a bodyguard, wanting to hurt whatever was hurting her, while all the time knowing as well as she did one couldn't do more than shadowbox with grief. Daniel would worry, and look hurt if she brushed him off when he asked her if she wanted to talk about it. But what was there to talk about? What was the point in talking about any of it? She wanted to kill the Goa'uld who had killed Martouf; demand Hammond relented and allowed her to lead a team back to the Aschen world; find out which Goa'uld Tanith served and make him pay for what he had done to the Tollan. But most of all she wanted to take a dead woman by the throat and shake her as she screamed: "How could you do it!"

Complacency was one step away from stupidity, and the Tollan had been guilty of both. They had relied on their technology so completely that when it had failed them they had been left with no other resources. Apparently not even their own integrity. Only Narim had shown that - and paid for it with his life. He had done the right thing, and his people and planet had been ripped apart by a maelstrom of deadly Goa'uld fire. Just as Teal'c had done the right thing and Daniel's wife had died. And she had done the right thing and Martouf had died. Why was it that doing the right thing always carried such a high price?

The sound of the phone ringing made her jump. Carter slipped the hologram Narim had given her back into the box in which she kept it and hastily wiped her cheek on the back of her hand before she snatched up the telephone. "Yes?"

"Sam...?"

Daniel. Concerned and trying not to show it but failing dismally. What was the point in having your only brother living all the way over in San Diego where he couldn't see how lonely you were if fate insisted on supplying you with an adopted brother you hadn't asked for, didn't want, and couldn't now live without.

She sighed. "Hello, Daniel."

"Want some company?"

His question hung in the silence while her mind answered: Yes. Yes, please. Don't leave me alone with the dead for one more night. "Really, I'm fine." She didn't want someone checking up on her. She needed to get through this alone, and she would, the same way she always did.

"Well, I'm bored and lonely." If she'd had a videophone he would have been giving her the big blue eyes treatment and she would crumble at once. Even with just his voice to use against her it was difficult not to give in.

"Where's the Colonel?"

"He's taken Teal'c to the movies."

"He didn't ask me." Carter wasn't really hurt but she tried to sound it.

"It's not that kind of movie." Daniel's disapproval could have given points to a maiden aunt. After a slight pause, he added in mild perplexity, "He didn't ask me either."

Carter grinned despite herself; trying and failing to imagine Daniel sitting in the furtive darkness of some sweaty movie theater, three red Xs neon-glowing on a sign outside while tributes to the plastic surgeon's art writhed mechanically onscreen. She could just imagine his commentary on the mythic archetypes the moviemakers were unconsciously utilizing, not to mention the inadequacies of the plot. "I bet he hasn't really taken Teal'c to see a dirty movie."

"They might have gone to a strip joint. Jack said they hadn't decided."

Carter shook her head. "They're probably lagging some pipes, Daniel. They just want you to think they have a more interesting life than you do." She sometimes thought Daniel had gotten off lightly not having the Colonel as a big brother when he was growing up. No doubt any playground bully who had ever picked on Daniel would have regretted it very soon afterwards but she could also imagine the fraternal teasing would have been merciless.

"I could lag pipes." He still sounded hurt.

"But why would you want to? Come over." She carried the phone into the kitchen as she spoke, checking her supplies. "I have imported chocolate. A brand new box."

"Belgian chocolate?"

"The best. And good movies. No bumping or grinding guaranteed."

"Okay." He sounded happier already. "I'm leaving now. I'll get some wine on the way. Don't start on the chocolates until I get there."

"I promise."

It was only as she put down the phone, still smiling as she did so, that Carter realized she had just given Daniel the invitation he'd been angling for and she'd been determined not to extend. She shook her head in disbelief. "How does he do that?" She caught a glimpse of her reflection and realized those tear tracks were a dead giveaway. Just time to wash the traces from her face and put on some make-up. Daniel would bring wine, probably more than one bottle, and within a couple of hours she would be baring her soul to him, the way she always did, but for the moment at least she was going to make an effort to tell herself she could get through this alone and without sharing her feelings with Daniel, or anyone else, about exactly how angry she still was with the system that had failed the Tollan people and cost Narim his life...

***

One

As he stepped through the 'gate to a dust-dry welcome from a barren landscape, O'Neill wondered if Daniel had gotten a chance to talk to Carter yet. It was a matter of weeks since they had 'gated home from Tollana at a sprint while that world went up in flames behind them; since Narim had been lost in the maelstrom of vengeance Tanith's unknown boss had unleashed upon the Tollan. He had been trying to ask Daniel how Carter was doing for the last couple of days but Daniel had been caught up in some translation he wanted to get finished before the mission started; a set of circumstances that always made him absent-minded and tetchy, not to mention prone to pulling caffeine-fuelled all-nighters at the SGC.

Those were the occasions when if Daniel let him into his office at all, he never listened to anything he said. Daniel would just make vague noises of agreement, pretending he was paying attention when he obviously wasn't. On the last occasion, as a test to see if he was being listened to, O'Neill had asked if it was okay if he started pimping Daniel's favors to the marines to raise money for the Christmas raffle. When Daniel murmured distractedly, "Good idea..." he'd decided this conversation was officially a waste of time and had given up.

He cast a sideways glance at Daniel now but the man was oblivious of him, turning a slow circle to take in the desolation. The sparse patches of vegetation were withered to straw-colored skeletons. A miserable wind wailed in from the east, throwing dust in their eyes. O'Neill reached for his shades as Carter crouched down to take a soil sample. He wondered if there was a way to know just by looking if the loss was still gnawing at her. With Carter it was hard to tell.

"It looks like drought," Daniel said before she finished shaking the earth into the solution. He looked across at O'Neill then. "We might be able to help."

O'Neill cleared his throat, feeling the dust clawing at it. "Maybe. If there's anyone left to help."

They followed a road whose clay surface had cracked into crazy paving past more withered vegetation, more skeletal trees. O'Neill associated drought with heat but it was chilly here; a landscape sandblasted by a perpetual wind. When he took off his shades to wipe the film of dust from their dark surface a piece of grit flew into his eye, causing an outbreak of industrial language.

Daniel pulled O'Neill's hand away as he rubbed at the offending grit, holding his head to peer into his watering eye. "Damnit, Jack, hold still. Stop blinking."

"I'm not blinking," he protested, blinking.

Daniel tilted his head over and sluiced out O'Neill's eye with the water bottle Carter wordlessly handed him.

"That's wet!" O'Neill protested as it ran down his neck.

"Water generally is." Daniel blotted his face with a handkerchief O'Neill really hoped the guy hadn't sneezed into recently. "Stop fussing."

"You try having a pint of freezing cold water tipped down your neck and see how enthusiastic you are."

"You want to spend the rest of your life with a piece of grit in your eye?"

Before he could come up with a suitable rejoinder, Carter shone a light in his eye, peering at his retina to check for scratching, before pronouncing him unharmed. "You're fine, sir. I can't see any damage. But you should probably keep your sunglasses on from now on."

He glowered at her. "Ya think?"

She and Daniel exchanged one of the long-suffering looks that always twanged his guilt string. He muttered a 'thank you' at them and they exchanged a little smile. Damn, but they knew him much too well sometimes. He shoved his sunglasses back on. "This planet sucks."

Looking around at the bleak landscape he wasn't entirely surprised when even Daniel didn't argue with him.

***

Night was falling when they saw the light up ahead. Teal'c wordlessly pointed to the hollow and O'Neill made out the red-gold glimmer of a smoky fire showing through the flapping door of a beehive-shaped hut. They approached cautiously, he and Daniel exchanging a glance as they did so, Daniel giving him the 'let me go first, I'm a linguist' look while he gave Daniel the 'what if they're armed and they kill you?' look. As usual, they compromised, Daniel calling out from some distance away to ask if there was anyone there while O'Neill, Teal'c and Carter all primed their weapons in readiness. O'Neill made sure he stayed close enough to give Daniel a decisive shove onto the floor if anyone looked like shooting first and asking questions later. When the door flap was twitched back to reveal a small girl in a ragged dress, followed a second later by a haggard but decidedly unarmed man in his thirties, Daniel didn't give him even the glimmer of an 'I told you so' look, too busy smiling and holding out a hand to the newcomer while trying out various languages in which to assure the man and his daughter that they were peaceful travelers from the Planet Earth. It was at times like this O'Neill was reminded there was a good reason why he was quite as fond as he was of Daniel Jackson.

Daniel was smiling in gentle invitation as he said, "My name is Daniel Jackson. This is Jack, Major Carter and Teal'c..." The mobile hands pointed to each of them in turn. They had done this so many times now but Daniel always sounded as though the moment of meeting each new people, encountering each old civilization, was as exciting as the first. To him it probably was.

The man was holding a hand to his chest in imitation of Daniel's gesture. "Rudiju." He pointed to the child. "Sitabana."

O'Neill had long since given up trying to impress upon Daniel that he should really introduce him as 'Colonel O'Neill' with emphasis on his rank. He just made up for Daniel so often casually demoting him by standing up extra straight and looking every inch the leader. In nine cases out of ten it obviously worked as few of the new people they encountered assumed Carter was the one in charge, although he suspected Carter always got a bit of a kick out of it on the occasions when they did. He just knew that if they ever did encounter some Amazonian warrior women civilization she was going to have a whale of a time looking mock-regretful and explaining it was just the local custom that they had to go and eat old turnips with the yaks or whatever while she got to dine in style at the head table. He liked to think she would draw the line at them being used as sex-slaves to perpetuate the Amazonian warrior women species though, even if only because he, Daniel, and Teal'c might actually enjoy that part.

Rudiju invited them in with a beckoning gesture and a few words O'Neill couldn't understand. Daniel nodded in gratitude, turning to make sure O'Neill was on the same page, before making to step after the man. O'Neill touched Daniel's arm, a brief pressure, holding him back, then moved in front of him so that he was the first one to step through that doorway to whatever welcome awaited them on the other side, just in case. He felt Daniel's sigh gust against his ear as he walked past him, reluctantly allowing O'Neill to go ahead of him into the smoky dimness of the hut but clearly thinking it was an unnecessary precaution. O'Neill found the smile tugging at his mouth before he could stop himself. The man really had not changed.

The smile died on his face as his eyes adjusted to the light from the campfire. He counted twelve people huddled inside the hut, attempting to warm themselves on the smoke from a few burning sticks: three men - one very old, one in his forties, the one who'd beckoned them inside; four women - two in their twenties, one with a baby at her breast, one in their forties, and one in her sixties; and four children - the eldest of which was no more than eight. All looked as if they hadn't eaten in days; hollow-eyed; clothes all ragged; and with a look about them of people who had been stunned by misfortune. They seemed to have passed desperation to reach a kind of numbed acceptance at which O'Neill immediately chafed. Even if it was only the weather that had done this to them rather than a deliberate action on the part of other human beings, he still felt a flash of anger at it; at anything that had not just sapped their bodies, but their spirits to such a degree that they all looked very close to the point where there was nothing left to them but to lie down and die.

When Rudiju held out a bowl to O'Neill containing a tablespoonful of thin gruel, O'Neill automatically went to shake his head, but Daniel's hastily whispered 'Take it' stopped him in his tracks. He looked at Daniel in disbelief and saw the familiar blue eyes pleading with him to just do what he was told. Forcing a nod of thanks, O'Neill reached out and dipped his finger in the food, licking it from his finger and smiling as if it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

Daniel murmured, "They've shared their food with us, so now we can..."

The brief hand gesture towards their vests was all the hint O'Neill needed. He passed the bowl to Daniel, very aware of the children's dark eyes watching the food move away from their own stomachs, and dug hastily into his vest, pulling out PowerBars while Carter and Teal'c did the same thing. He unwrapped the first one and offered it to Rudiju.

Daniel spoke quickly, "Thank you. Now will you share with us?" He repeated it in a different language which Rudiju evidently understood.

O'Neill had thought the man might not realize what a PowerBar was, but he clearly smelt that it was food at once, taking it from O'Neill with a nod of thanks, before beginning to break it into pieces and hand it out to the children. Carter and Teal'c also handed their rations over to Rudiju for him to distribute. Daniel licked a mouthful of the gruel from his finger and gave the young woman O'Neill had also assumed to be Rudiju's wife a smile of gratitude, making an expression of pleasure and murmuring something complimentary. When Daniel introduced himself she nodded her head and pointed to herself saying "Abana", then pointing to the baby in her arms and saying "Rudiju-ta-sherit".

"'Little Rudiju'." Daniel's smile was almost too sweet sometimes, reminding O'Neill of how rarely he saw it. He wondered if there was a Daniel in an alternate universe somewhere who had never lost his parents, never been rejected by his grandfather, never lost his foster parents, never felt unwanted and unloved, and so who smiled all the time, reached out and touched people instead of waiting for them to touch him, maybe even belly laughed, rich and loud and confident.

Oblivious of O'Neill's scrutiny, Daniel was pointing to Rudiju, holding his hands a foot above one another to show a small size. Abana smiled and nodded and the old woman leant forward to nod as well, pointing between the baby and Rudiju, saying something O'Neill didn't need to be a linguist to know translated as saying that her son had been just like her grandson as an infant. He had a jolt of recognition of his own grandmother holding out embarrassing photographs of him as a baby to Sara on a visit and then insisting on showing her a sepia picture of his father as a baby as well; both of them bald and toothless and unashamedly naked. A picture of Charlie as a baby in the same pose had sat on his grandmother's mantelpiece next to the others for ten years. And now he was the only one left of those toothless, grinning babies, and he was going to have to do something spectacularly positive with his professional life to make up for the misery he had wrought in his private one.

Daniel held out a finger to the baby and it gripped it at once. As Daniel smiled down at the baby and it gazed back at him with unblinking curiosity, O'Neill felt that familiar pain which always stabbed at him when he thought of Daniel's losses. His hatred for Apophis was still so sharp it sometimes took his breath away. Daniel should have been the father of a child he could hold; not stepfather to a son born of rape, and doomed to be an exile of the system lords. He should have been father to an ordinary child, not some mystical creature who spoke in riddles and taught with dreams, and whom Daniel loved but might never see again. Except no child of Daniel's would ever have been ordinary. Damnit, that was something else Apophis had stolen from the universe, the children Daniel and Sha're should have had; strong and brave and brilliant and beautiful; children to grow up into extraordinary and dazzling adults who could baffle and madden and enlighten people like him. His own mistake had robbed him of the chance to be a father to his own child; but the system lords had robbed him of the chance to be godfather to Daniel's, and he resented them for that as well, because he would have been the best godfather to Daniel's kids any children ever had. He could have been a bad influence in all the best ways... Or maybe he just wanted a time machine so he could go back and adopt Daniel at the point when he had been abandoned for the third time by the death of his foster parents.

He thought about that alternate universe Daniel again, but there was also always the worry that perhaps that Daniel, the one who had only ever known love and security, might not have needed Jack O'Neill the way this Daniel Jackson did. Perhaps only a Daniel who had lost as much as Daniel had would take so much reassurance from the occasionally testing friendship of a crabby old soldier with shot knees and a gaping hole in his heart where his son should have been. He had gotten so used to being needed by Daniel that the thought of losing that was almost as painful as the thought of Daniel's losses.

Daniel was still looking at the baby; the dark-haired, dark-eyed son this fair-skinned, blue-eyed American could well have been the father of if his beautiful wife had been left to have a life with the man she loved instead of taken by the Goa'uld. O'Neill wondered if he would ever tell Daniel that half the time when he and Hammond did things Daniel disapproved of, like edging down the road of gaining alien technology by whatever means necessary to try to ward off the Goa'uld, it was of Daniel they were thinking.

Looking around at the interior of the smoky hut, O'Neill could take pride in the way his team had gone into action without needing a single word from him; seeing to the needs of the starving while at the same time gaining all the information they could. The children were chewing on the PowerBars but they looked as if they could do with something hot; he gestured to Rudiju to ask if he could use their fire to heat coffee and broth. He doubted anyone here would be turning their nose up at even USAF macaroni and cheese. The man nodded, much less wary now. Carter was encouraging the women to eat, smiling at them in a way that banished all doubts despite her short hair, strange clothing, and the P90 in her arms. Daniel was talking to Abana while the baby still held onto his finger, and she was responding to his smile with less shyness now. O'Neill caught the word 'Abydos' and then 'Ra'. Rudiju had turned back to Teal'c. It occurred to O'Neill that if Daniel and Teal'c could both speak their language, these people must be descended from ancient Egyptians, like the people of Abydos.

"Ra brought them here?" He looked at Teal'c enquiringly.

Teal'c gave him a brief nod and then went back to talking to Rudiju and the other adult men who were drawing the pattern of Teal'c's tattoo on their foreheads in obvious enquiry. Daniel seemed to be telling Abana about food on Abydos; she and the woman next to her, who O'Neill thought might be her sister, chiming in with what could well have been recipes, while Carter quietly handed food to the oldest woman.

O'Neill dug out the orange drink and began to dissolve the crystals into a beaker which he handed to the bravest of the children, a boy a few years younger than Sitabana, fascinated by the process of the crystals fizzing into liquid color. The child wrinkled his nose at the sweetness but swallowed dutifully before passing the beaker to his sister so she could take one sip before passing it on. The concept of drinking a whole glass of anything was clearly alien to them and O'Neill felt a spasm of guilt just for not having been hungry or thirsty in a while. He had to remind himself forcibly that he had known starvation in his time, not to mention all kinds of other things he never wanted these children to have to find out about.

Every time Daniel saw Jack with children, he felt another pang of loss on the man's behalf that he was no longer a father, and a pang of loss on Charlie's behalf too because not only had Jack lost the chance to see his son grow up to adulthood, Charlie had lost all those days and years with a father who loved him. Daniel had seen enough of Jack's parenting skills over the years to know the man was a natural, and despite the many injustices in the galaxy which Daniel had been forced to accept over the years, Jack losing his son was something to which he could never truly reconcile himself. It was just so unfair that the part of him which still believed in cosmic justice puzzled over it in disbelief, trying to find a justification for it, a pattern that made sense, but he never could. It was just wrong that Jack should have lost his son, and if he'd believed in an omnipotent deity Daniel would certainly have wanted to take it up with Him the second he was inside the pearly gates to demand an explanation.

Teal'c was explaining how the MRE's worked with the air of someone to whom these things were as strange to him as they were to them so that there was no possible loss of face on the part of Rudiju and the others for not having encountered such food before. Sam was quietly getting the women to rehydrate themselves with energy drinks, while Jack had taken on the task of feeding the children. He didn't even seem to be doing it consciously; he had at least one ear on the conversation Teal'c was having with Rudiju; clearly trying to make sense of a quite complicated dialogue with only approximately four words of Ancient Egyptian he recognized; so he was wearing his baffled and vaguely aggrieved expression. But he was also pouring orange liquid down the throat of a toddler while automatically pretending that he was going to eat the chocolate cookie on offer if the four year old didn't grab it, with the air of someone who had spent so long trying to get small children to eat strange new foodstuffs they weren't too sure about that he could do it in his sleep. The children were starving but wary and the food was so unlike food as they knew it, they kept looking to Jack for reassurance that this really was edible and not some particularly cruel trick that was being played on them.

After he had seen Jack with the crystal Charlie and his understandably distraught ex-wife, Daniel had dreamt that it was Jack who had come to collect him from the orphanage; except Jack had been the same age he had when Daniel had first met him, while Daniel had been a child of eight. When he'd tried to get Jack to listen to his explanation about something Egyptian, the man had asked him how long it was since he'd eaten; given him a worried lecture about skipping meals; refused to let him have any coffee because the caffeine would stop him sleeping but handed him a mug of hot chocolate before showing him to Charlie's old room and telling him it was bedtime. There had still been the bloodstain on the carpet; all of the posters on the walls, the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, and Charlie's books in the bookcases. It had still been a room completely occupied by the dead boy, with nowhere for Daniel to find a place for himself.

When Daniel had said he didn't want to sleep there, Jack had looked so sad and tired, that Daniel had started to cry, and said he would if Jack wanted him to, but he wasn't Charlie and if they wanted him to be they were never going to love him as much, because he couldn't play softball, and he'd never hit a home run. He'd woken up with the scent of blood and chocolate in his nostrils, still pleading with Jack not to blame him because he wasn't Charlie, and decided straight away that was one weird dream he was never telling Mackenzie.

Jack was trying to persuade the kids that the crackers were food and were even better food with the jam on them while he waited for the MREs to heat. Daniel privately thought Jack deserved an Oscar for those 'yummy' faces he was making as he had never known Jack to get any of those crackers down yet. He always gave them to Daniel with a disgusted wrinkle of the nose and told Daniel he could buy him a pizza when they were back on Earth to pay him back. The kids were asking Jack if it was bread but as Jack had no idea what they were asking him, he was just miming eating it with many expressions of delight while mixing some more orange drink with his free hand.

The last time Daniel had suggested that it might not be a bad idea for Jack to learn some Goa'uld, Jack had gotten snappish and said that it might not be a bad idea for Daniel to learn how to handle a P90 either but he wasn't insisting on it, so why didn't they just both stick to what they did best? Daniel had quietly gone off with Sam and asked her to teach him how to use a P90 to certificate level so the next time he had this conversation with Jack he would be bargaining from a position of strength. But the next time he'd brought it up, Jack had given him a reproachful look and said that he'd always sucked at languages and what was the point of keeping a linguist and then jabbering yourself? As Daniel had given him his best narrow-eyed glare, Jack had said with an apologetic wince that he meant 'jabbering' in its most positive sense. Daniel had told him that for his first lesson he could go and ask Teal'c what 'Ha'taaka' meant, before stomping off to his own office.

Later Jack had come around and got underfoot a lot so Daniel couldn't ignore him and would have to talk to him, if only to tell him to put that artifact down now before he broke it. There were times after they'd had what Ferretti annoyingly insisted on referring to as a 'little spat' when Jack really reminded Daniel of a Labrador who having thrown up on the couch wanted to be reassured it was still going to get its evening walk. Then there were other times when Jack felt like the rock which was the only thing Daniel could cling to when the tempest of life was doing its damnedest to drown him.

Jack evidently noticed Daniel watching him with the children because he gave him a look of confusion as he fished the first MRE out of the water. "What?"

Daniel smiled. "Nothing." He turned back to Abana, asking her more about the newcomers in the West, all the time aware of Jack ladling broth out to hungry children while darting Daniel the occasional questioning glance.

When enough food had been distributed to give everyone a good meal and the children were curled up by the fire to sleep O'Neill beckoned to the rest of his team. He relied on Daniel to make the polite explanation and farewells, and the man didn't let him down. O'Neill satisfied himself with a quick nod at Rudiju before leading the way outside. They made camp in the next hollow but, not wanting to take any of the little firewood in the area from Rudiju's family, did without a fire. The soil was thin and grayish; wind-stripped of any goodness. When O'Neill bent and crumbled a handful it trickled through his fingers as dry as dust.

They pitched two tents; one for Carter and Teal'c, the other for O'Neill and Daniel. O'Neill had long since put a ban on Carter and Daniel sharing a tent as they immediately reverted to acting like naughty schoolkids and even if they didn't actually read under the covers with a flashlight, did whisper theories to one another for most of the night. Both of them had a bad habit of forgetting the time when they were working on something and he had lost count of the occasions he'd had to pack them off to bed at three a.m. because they'd got wrapped up in some damned alien gizmo. Carter did at least look abashed and do as she was told when he pointed out the hours remaining before their next mission, but Daniel would generally argue, and was not averse to using pouting, pleading, and occasionally the whole big blue eyes 'Please, Jack...' performance to try to get his own way.

Thinking about all the times he'd caved under the influence of Daniel's technique, O'Neill shifted uncomfortably and wrapped his space blanket around his shoulders more warmly. He looked across at Daniel who was shivering in his own blanket and gazing longingly back at the comfort of the hut. O'Neill knew Daniel would have happily curled up amongst a bunch of total strangers and slept the night away with them, but O'Neill had never felt that it was a necessary part of a first contact team to go native three steps over the threshold.

"So..." He touched Daniel's ankle lightly with his booted foot. "Spill. How did they get here? Who's the local Goa'uld...?"

Between them Teal'c and Daniel seemed to have uncovered a lot. Ra had brought these people to the planet and ruled over them with the same tyranny as he had the people of Abydos. But then another god had come and told them Ra was not the only god, he was a false god, but if they followed the teachings of their new god instead they would be protected from false gods like Ra. Then had followed a period of prosperity for Rudiju's ancestors.

"Sounds like the Asgard." O'Neill looked at Daniel enquiringly. "Wouldn't you say?"

"The name he gave them was 'Heimdall' who was one of the Vanir, so I'd say, yes, definitely. But they don't speak any Norse, they still speak a variant of Ancient Egyptian. Heimdall doesn't seem to have asked them to adopt any of his customs, just to break free from their slavery to Ra. The land is called Tadesh and they are the Tadeshi. Which I think is just a variant of 'Ta' meaning 'land' and 'desher' meaning 'red', but..."

"No Thor's hammer as we came through the 'gate."

Daniel gave him one of his best 'must you always state the blindingly obvious' looks. "We noticed."

O'Neill resisted the urge to stick his tongue out; reminding himself in time that without a campfire Daniel wasn't going to be getting any more coffee that evening. "I'm just saying if this place is under Asgard protection there should be a hammer."

"This world is no longer under Asgard protection, O'Neill." Teal'c politely handed the water canteen to Carter as he spoke. "Another race recently came through the Stargate, who were not Goa'uld but were able to dismantle the hammer."

O'Neill shook his head. "The Asgard really ought to put some kind of burglar alarm on those things."

Carter took the water canteen with a brief smile of thanks but her voice sounded brittle. "I think we've seen evidence of every advanced race getting over-confident about how failsafe their technology is."

Daniel nodded. "Which is fine when it's the Goa'uld. Not so good when it's the Asgard or..."

As he seemed unwilling to finish, she said it for him: "Or the Tollan."

Thinking about Narim, O'Neill winced, and darted Carter a quick look to see how she was taking things. He knew he was probably being something of a coward about it, but he'd long since decided that Carter's emotional problems were probably better dealt with by someone else, like Fraiser, or Daniel. Or even Teal'c. He shared the talking to Teal'c burden equally with the other two, but he took full responsibility for taking care of Daniel, even though he sucked at the up close and personal stuff, because he happened to be better at it than anyone else. And as Daniel was easily the most difficult person on the team, as well as having probably the worst emotional baggage, he reckoned that exempted him from being the person Carter confided in. Not that she'd ever shown a lot of interest in wanting him to be the person to whom she confided her innermost whatevers, so he hadn't exactly bailed on her. He just got the occasional guilt twinge on occasions such as now when he was reminded that he hadn't really asked her properly how she was doing since the loss and presumed death of first Narim and then Faxon.

Teal'c looked briefly at Carter and then continued evenly. "The other race is more technologically advanced than that of Rudiju and his people."

O'Neill cocked an eyebrow. "As in...weaponry?"

"From Rudiju's description it is possible."

He made the mistake of glancing across at Daniel for his reaction so saw that disappointed headshake. He returned his gaze unblinkingly. "What?"

Daniel shrugged. "Nothing."

"Our standing orders are to..."

"I know." There was a flash of warning in Daniel's eyes. "I just don't happen to think what guns they have is necessarily the most interesting aspect of every new people we meet."

O'Neill hesitated. Memories of Euronda made him swallow the retort which first came to his lips. After a brief pause, he looked back at Teal'c. "Did Rudiju mention how long the drought has been going on for? How many people are involved? Is it just this area...?" Yes, Daniel, I do know all those questions too. I do care about the humanitarian aspects of our job, believe it or not. And maybe if you didn't jump all over me about the humanitarian aspects of our job on every damned mission I wouldn't play the hardass military guy quite so often.

The information came in between snatches of what wasn't quite a disagreement with Daniel but at times came perilously close. Sometimes he couldn't resist trying to get in the last word on the subject himself. He really should have learned by now that Daniel was never going to allow that.

"...and while it might not always be the most interesting aspect of the people we're meeting, Daniel, it's still something we need to know..."

"Yes, and what does that say about us?"

He really hated those sarcastic little smiles Daniel gave that went nowhere near his eyes. Better to ignore him when he was in this mood or they'd just end up fighting. God, sometimes going on a mission with Daniel was like going to a dinner party with Sara. The 'I can't take you anywhere' looks could come just as thick and fast. And he wasn't being influenced by Daniel, he really wasn't. He wanted to know how many people were poised on the brink of starving to death as much as he did. He just couldn't be unaware of Daniel, that was the trouble. Every time he said anything now he was aware Daniel was hearing it, either nodding in agreement, or wincing, or preparing to murmur 'Jack, don't you think...' in his ear. It was like having a freakin shadow who was also second cousin to Jiminy Cricket. Anyone would think that before he had Daniel attached to him by an invisible thread all he'd done was blunder around knee deep in blood killing people and laying waste to every country he visited. Well, if Daniel was in this mood he was just going to talk to Teal'c. So there.

"So there could be thousands of people affected by the drought to the east?"

"Indeed."

"So how come the other race with the technology in the west aren't doing anything about it?"

Daniel glanced across at him. "Because advanced races with advanced technology don't have anything to gain from helping primitive people who are starving to death?"

Carter was looking anxious. She hated it when they fought. Come to that O'Neill hated it when they fought too. Her tone was conciliatory. "Daniel, there might not be anything they can do. If Rudiju's people are wrong and the drought is just as a result of climactic change..."

"Is there a possibility it isn't because of...climactic change?" O'Neill enquired, looking between them.

Carter nodded at Teal'c. "Hard to say. But according to Teal'c's conversation with Rudiju, some of his people are blaming the strangers."

"Well, that always happens, doesn't it? Or do Rudiju's people think they did something to make the rain stop?"

Teal'c shrugged gracefully. "According to the account of Rudiju, O'Neill, the rain was far heavier this year than ever before. Rudiju said 'The strangers came and the rains came with them.' At first Rudiju's people thought they brought great fortune upon them for the crops bloomed with the rainfall but then the crops died as if poisoned."

"What?" Daniel leant forward. "I didn't realize there was more rain. Abana told me the crops withered and died before they could harvest them."

"Rudiju asserted the rain must have been poisoned because the crops were dying in the ground. He said this has always been a dry country, ever since Ra brought them here. But in the past although their lives were not easy, there was always enough to sustain life. Only with the coming of the strangers had their crops been poisoned from the skies. Some of them are very angry."

Carter shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. I can understand a more technologically advanced society that might have access to some kind of weather control trying to increase the rainfall per annum..."

"Wouldn't they have to have one of those touchstone things...?" O'Neill looked around for confirmation.

"I wish we could have worked out from which culture the Medronian people evolved," Daniel said wistfully.

O'Neill gave him a look of disbelief. "Yes, that keeps me awake at night as well."

"It would have been useful to know whether the touchstone was Goa'uld technology or Asgard technology or Ancient technology or someone we haven't encountered yet," Carter put in.

O'Neill really hated the way she did that subtle backing up of Daniel without actually coming right out and admitting that was what she was doing. Of course it wasn't quite as annoying when she did it on his behalf but all the same...

Teal'c said calmly. "The significant questions in this case seem to be whether or not the strangers did indeed affect the weather patterns of this planet, and if they did so if their intentions were benevolent or malign."

O'Neill shot him an approving look. "What he said. Let's work out what actually happened here instead of all this speculation without...data." That sounded pretty scientisty, he was moderately proud of that.

"And how are we supposed to do that exactly, Jack, without talking the matter over?"

O'Neill darted Daniel a glance that would have cowed a marine but Daniel didn't even blink. He'd have done better to go with hurt rather than angry. His hurt look usually made Daniel crumple in double quick time. O'Neill decided to stand on his dignity and ignore him.

Carter jumped in quickly. "From what we know so far I don't think we can really come to any conclusions although..."

Back and forwards, facts and speculations. Daniel talking about the need to discover the cultural roots of the other race who had landed here; where they'd come from; how long they'd been here; what their intentions were towards Rudiju's people. "Presuming the rains coming just after they arrived is just a coincidence, they don't seem to have had a lot of contact as yet. They're not oppressing Rudiju's people in any way, but they're not actually assisting them either. It could be something as simple as a language barrier..."

"They could really want to help but the fact they don't speak the same language is stopping them?" O'Neill made no attempt to disguise his cynicism.

"Yes." Daniel gave him a level look. "It could be that simple. Or they could just not care. But I hope that's not the reason."

O'Neill certainly wasn't a historian like Daniel but having Irish ancestry he knew all about the potato famine. A million and a half men, women, and children left to starve to death just the other side of the Irish Sea from the relative wealth of Britain. Even when food had been sent over from England too much of it had been hijacked by greedy landlords to do a lot of good. Whole villages had died of hunger. His ancestors were among those who had fled across the sea on a coffin ship to try to escape the famine. Daniel might know more things than he could ever imagine but O'Neill still felt he knew better than Daniel did what the human race was capable of.

O'Neill rose to his feet. "Okay. They may have technology we want. We may have skills they could use. Either way it would better if they averted the crisis on their own doorstep rather than ignoring it, so we should let them know what's going on, for their sake as well as Rudiju's, if the locals really are blaming them."

It was just his bad luck that it should be Carter's turn to take first watch, meaning he and Daniel had no excuse not to retire to their tent. He had often thought they were too cramped in these tents; when things were less than wonderful between them, they felt positively claustrophobic. The cloud-sooted stars outside were sending a chilly blue light through the flap, making Daniel look ghostly, his breath still visible as he blew on his fingers and darted O'Neill a sideways look that might well spell trouble.

To head Daniel off from the usual lecture, he said: "How's Carter doing anyway?"

"She's angry."

"Angry?" That hadn't been the response he expected for some reason.

Daniel turned over in his sleeping bag, lowering his voice. "People she cares about keep dying, Jack. Sometimes she gets to be the one to choose whether or not they die. Wouldn't that make you angry?"

"I'm not a..." O'Neill thought about Carter accidentally overhearing this conversation and grimaced at the direction of the tent flap. "You know."

"Soldier?" Even in the dim blue lighting he could see Daniel giving him that level look which meant he wasn't going to let him get away with anything. "Someone who thinks they should always keep the civilians safe but who also always has to do their duty even if their duty means pulling the trigger or following orders or saving the planet at any cost?"

O'Neill narrowed his eyes at him. "I was going to say 'woman'. They're different from us." He looked Daniel up and down. "Different from me anyway."

Daniel's withering look would have stripped paint. "They still get angry."

Don't get mad, get even. The Goa'uld had killed Martouf and Narim. They were the reason Orlin had been exiled for all those years. He could even make an argument to say they'd killed Faxon. The SGC sure as hell wouldn't be cozying up with people like the Aschen, trying to make treaties with aliens for their technology, if it weren't for the threat of the damned Goa'uld hovering over their world like a storm cloud. Aloud he said only, "Remind me not to take her parking space for the next few months."

"Jack..." Daniel looked genuinely pissed with him now. And yes that had probably sounded crass, but he couldn't cope with it, that was the bottom line. How the hell did one cope with a 2IC who'd lost so much in such a short time and yet just said 'I'm fine' whenever anyone asked how she was doing?

"She won't talk to me about it, Daniel. Okay? I asked Hammond if we could go back for Faxon and the answer was no. I don't know if she blames me or..."

"She doesn't blame you." Daniel sighed. "She blames herself."

"Well, that's just dumb."

"She cut the line. She left him there. She had no choice but she still did it." He read the challenge in Daniel's eyes, the reminder that he'd had no choice when he'd left Daniel to die on that ship but he hadn't actually shrugged the action off with a light laugh either.

O'Neill rubbed his eyes. "Carter knows she did the right thing. Like you say, she's a soldier. It comes with the territory."

"So does feeling lousy about it afterwards." Daniel said it quietly, not arguing with him for once, just wanting some acknowledgment that they were allowed to grieve, to be irrational, to cry, break things, and rant against the unfairness of it all.

O'Neill sighed, shrugged, and conceded the point. He didn't really want to be having this or any other kind of conversation with Daniel right now. If he started thinking about all the wounds they all carried he'd never step through the 'gate again. Sometimes you had to live in denial just to live at all. It didn't mean you were callous; it just meant you didn't want to end up in a padded cell. If you went around feeling everything as deeply as Daniel did you tore yourself to pieces on the general unfairness of life. Sometimes you just had to simplify things for yourself. Apportion blame to an enemy you could kill then find a way to kill them. Otherwise you'd just go nuts. He knew how that felt. He knew how it felt to hurt so much inside with self-hatred and grieving he couldn't even draw a breath without it feeling as if it was searing his heart from within, and he never wanted to step into that particular abyss again. Sometimes the only way to survive was not to care so damned much or at least to narrow the focus of the people you cared about to the ones you had a reasonable chance of keeping safe. If you kept bleeding for the whole universe, sooner or later you were just going to end up with empty veins. He couldn't say any of that to Daniel though. He'd never be able to explain it and even if he did he'd never get Daniel to agree. Much easier to close his eyes and pretend to be asleep.

"Jack...?"

O'Neill sighed. Ten minutes of pretending to be asleep and Daniel clearly wasn't fooled. He raised his head, feeling the nylon rustle against his skin. The starlight was just as chilly but the inside of the tent was noticeably warmer from all the heat they were throwing off. When he spoke his words were barely visible. "Daniel...?"

"What are the objectives for this mission?"

"What they always are."

"Explain it to me."

"To make a difference."

He saw Daniel blinking at him in the bluish light, confused, perhaps actually wrong footed. O'Neill shrugged, trying to pretend he didn't care about Daniel's answer to the question he was about to ask. "You don't believe that?"

"Yes. I believe that. I just wasn't sure if you still did."

O'Neill wondered why he would ever have assumed that Daniel would stop surprising him. "Some days I remember it better than others."

There was a pause before Daniel said quietly, "I never think of you as the person who stops remembering that, Jack. Or Hammond. It's just..." He waved an arm expressively and O'Neill knew what the gesture encompassed. Paperwork and secret orders; red telephones and red tape; Kinsey, Simmons, and Maybourne; the three stooges of professional paranoia. "Don't you feel sometimes the Pentagon spends as much time preventing us doing our job as it does helping us to do our job?"

"They're the ones funding the project. If they pull the plug..." He shrugged. "I don't want to ever see the Stargate under a dust cover again unless it's because the Goa'uld are all deader than jellied eels."

"I know. Me too." Daniel sighed and lay back down. "But we shouldn't have to justify maintaining something so...incredible. Do those idiots at the Pentagon really not understand how lucky we are? It was a gift to us from the Ancients and we're the first people on this planet to get the benefit from it. A gateway to all those worlds, all those cultures. There's so much out there and we haven't even scratched the surface yet."

"It costs seven and a half billion a year, Daniel. The only justification the Pentagon can give Congress for spending that money is because of the ongoing threat to the Goa'uld and our assurance that the Stargate program is the best way to prepare a defense against that threat."

Daniel shook his head. "No one wants to defeat the Goa'uld more than I do, but even if the Tok'ra wiped them out tomorrow, the Stargate Program should still continue. Think of all we've learned. All we've still got left to learn."

"I know." O'Neill closed his eyes. He never wanted Daniel to lose that excitement; that mule stubborn conviction that knowledge for its own sake ought to be enough; that ache in his voice he got when he was talking about the sheer wonder of the universe out there; impatient that Jack couldn't get it, but unable to believe that he didn't, because who wouldn't be inspired by it, seduced by it? But it still scared him how easily he could lose Daniel to the lure of that thirst for knowledge even now. He had too vivid memories of watching him slipping through his fingers, deaf to all reason, seduced by a shimmer of swirling lights: a universal language; the key to all understanding; the fatal anchor binding Daniel to a crumbling castle above a pitiless sea. He thought of Daniel summoning fire from sand, spinning the MP-5 in his hands, like the world's most wayward child with the universe's most deadly new toy. In another universe Daniel was probably the leader of a cult of dangerous dreamers on the FBI's Most Wanted list. In too many other universes he was probably very dead; it wasn't only cats killed by curiosity.

"Jack...?"

Daniel's anxious voice. O'Neill rolled over to look at him. Judging by his expression, Daniel was concerned for him and perplexed by him in equal amounts. A frown dented his forehead. "Are you okay?"

O'Neill sighed. "You're a one-man migraine."

Daniel blinked at him. "I'm just afraid we've been given this incredible gift and we might be squandering it."

"You know what I'm afraid of?"

"What?"

"That one day that Great Unknown you're so damned fond of is going to kill you right before my eyes."

There. It was said. After all those years it had come out of nowhere and was spoken in the faintly rustling nylon-scented darkness.

There was a pause before Daniel said, "Every new discovery carries an element of risk. Every time we step through that 'gate..."

"I know."

"Then why me especially?"

"If no one had ever stuck a fork in a light socket and we found a fork and a light socket, Carter would really want to know what would happen if you put the two things together, but if I gave her an order not to try it, she'd do as I said. But you'd just wait until my back was turned and tell yourself I'd be glad you'd done it later, because we really needed to know what happened when you pushed that fork in there."

There was a pause before Daniel said in a small voice, "No, I wouldn't."

"Yes, you would."

"I would not."

"You would too." O'Neill gave him a look of exasperation. "You know damned well you would!"

"Wouldn't." But it was a very muted and somewhat worried retort.

"Would." O'Neill said it firmly.

There was a long silence before Daniel said defensively, "I can't change who I am."

"I don't want you to!"

O'Neill's emphasis made them both start. He growled and reached for his flashlight, switching it on to get a close-up of Daniel blinking at him in confused compassion, clearly shocked by the depth of feeling in his tone.

O'Neill scratched his jaw in embarrassment. "I really don't want you to change. I just don't want you to die."

Daniel looked distressed by his distress. He shrugged helplessly. "Jack, I don't know what you want from me."

O'Neill growled again, thumping his sleeping bag to try to make it more comfortable. He doused the flashlight, muttering irritably, "I just want you not to scare the crap out of me. Is that too much to ask?"

He heard Daniel sigh in resignation. "No, Jack."

Great, now he felt as if he'd kicked a puppy. Daniel was so damned long-suffering with him. He understood O'Neill better than O'Neill understood himself. He put up with his unreasonable days, his bad tempered days, his determinedly ignorant days, his impatient days, his downright evil bastard days and still stuck by him, supported him, sometimes even when he thought he was wrong, and always, always, always gave him his friendship, without restraint, not to mention his knowledge, his courage, his affection, and his loyalty. And perhaps all he'd ever asked in return was that O'Neill should be the guy Daniel knew him to be capable of being, but whom O'Neill thought had died with Charlie. "I don't want you to stop getting excited by swirly things and squiggles, Daniel. I just don't want you to be so fascinated by them you don't notice if they're on the wrong side of a bottomless ravine."

"I know." Daniel sighed again.

O'Neill felt like a heel. "Just - come and tell me you want to take a better look at them first and if it's feasible and won't endanger all of us too much I'll try to find a way across the ravine. Okay?"

He saw the flicker of Daniel's rare smile in the darkness; the man shaking his head at him but smiling too. "Okay."

He felt the fist around his chest unlock its grip a fraction. "Promise?"

"Promise."

O'Neill lay back down. "Thank you."

"What brought this on anyway?" Daniel asked as he snuggled down sleepily into his nylon cocoon.

O'Neill thought of all the times Daniel had terrified him and decided there was no point in even starting to enumerate them now. "Nothing."

Daniel tugged his sleeping bag up around his ears before saying drowsily, "Jack, sometimes I think the most intriguing mystery in the universe is you."

O'Neill was obscurely flattered but he tried to keep his shrug casual. "Well, if you can't unravel me, Dannyboy, no one can."

But Daniel's regular breathing told him that his fascination was clearly not enough to ward off sleep. O'Neill sighed, shook his head, then reached across to twitch across the mosquito netting. One thing he had learnt from wandering the galaxy in quest of brave new worlds was that some insects were universal, and all shared the same talent for finding their way through the smallest gap to human skin.

***

The new dawn came in slowly, a gradual lightening from darkness to monochrome before the distant mountains were edged with flame. The morning was no less chilly and arid than the night; their words white smoke in the feeble daylight; Daniel shivering and wrapping his arms around himself as he trudged along in caffeine-deprived misery. He seemed ridiculously young, the way Charlie had looked at the soccer practice he'd insisted O'Neill took him to sometimes. Charlie's breath silver mist in the gathering darkness; body too small for the kit he'd never gotten the chance to grow into.

Carter's hair was turning the most beautiful shade of red-gold in the sunlight while even the fact a tuft of Daniel's was sticking up like a cockatiel's crest didn't alter the way he looked - which was exactly the way O'Neill would have preferred his teammates not to look if they were likely to be encountering another Hadante situation any time soon. O'Neill glanced between the two of them in mild disbelief. How could they look so damned fresh-faced and clear-skinned after the miserable night of sleep they'd both had? How could they look so damned young? Carter and Daniel, the poster children for geekdom. No wonder Alar had thought the Tau'ri were all freakin Reichskind back on good old Mother Earth. Was it fair that people as good-looking as those two should also have been first in the queue when the brains were being handed out? Probably not. He briefly tried to envisage Carter as a Miss Small Town America in a swimsuit with a toothpaste commercial smile stuck on as she told the judges how much work she did for charity. The snort of laughter was ripped from him before he could stop himself.

Two pair of blue eyes looked at him in confusion.

"Jack?"

"Colonel?"

He could see Carter poised on the brink of testing the air for some hallucinogenic or demanding a blood sample pronto. Daniel was just frowning at him. O'Neill wiped the grin off his face as best he could. "It's nothing." He toyed with saying 'Was just picturing you in a swimsuit, Carter' but then remembered in time that underneath the combat uniform Carter was still a woman and what's more a woman carrying a P90. He made the mistake of meeting Teal'c's eye and got a full Jaffa withering glance. He glared at him defensively. "What, I can't think now?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow in what was a clear 'huh' gesture and stalked majestically past. Carter and Daniel were exchanging pitying looks, no doubt mentally bringing forward their plans for his retirement home by a few more years. He suspected them of looking at brochures when his back was turned. One day Daniel was going to tell him he and Sam were taking him for a nice drive in the country before depositing him in some grimly cheerful holiday camp for old folk in Florida. Well, not if he had anything to do with it they wouldn't.

Glancing between them he wondered if they ever did discuss what was going to become of him when he was too old to go through the 'gate and too bored to sit behind a desk. What were they planning to do themselves? Marry and have kids? Be lab rats? Write papers on incomprehensible things that no one but they and a handful of others would ever understand? Retire off world? On world? Become Tok'ra?

He glanced back at Carter. Surely once had been enough for her. Or would the lure of that knowledge prove too much for her to resist? She could be with her father for the next few hundred years. Perhaps that would be a bribe she wouldn't be able to resist when age started to make itself felt in her joints; the fear of her mind becoming woolly began to prey on her; the realization that she still had so much to do.

He wrinkled his nose, not liking the idea of Carter as a Tok'ra but having to admit it seemed to be working out fine for Jacob. He turned to look at Daniel who was gazing around in search of interesting buildings that had not yet materialized. Was he always going to be like this? Or was he going to lose that sense of wonder? O'Neill moved closer to him, automatically checking the landscape as he did so. It was empty and cold and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. The mountains were distant still, the road rutted but clearly enough defined that there was no difficulty about choosing their route.

"Daniel..."

The man turned to look at him. "Jack?"

"What do you see yourself doing once you leave SG-1?"

Daniel blinked at him in mild surprise. "You're assuming we're going to live to retirement age and that the Goa'uld or the Aschen won't have annexed the planet by then?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Hey, always prepare for the worst but plan for the best. So, would you go back to academic...stuff?"

Daniel gave him a wry smile. "How? 'Well, here's an interesting artifact I found on... Actually I can't tell you where I find it because that's classified. But what it told us about the Minoan culture was fascinating because... No, actually I can't tell you that either, because that's classified too...' I think I've emptied enough lecture halls in my time."

"What then?"

Daniel shrugged. "I always figured I'd be too busy taking care of you."

O'Neill felt obscurely warmed by that. He darted him a quick look. "You and Carter aren't just going to...dump me in a retirement home then?"

Was that a guilty glance exchanged between the two scientists? Then Daniel was shaking his head. "Wouldn't dream of it." Damn. Daniel was wearing his butter-wouldn't-melt innocent look. That was the way he'd looked at Arris Boch when saying: 'We're sorry. Is this deal still on the table?' Except O'Neill obviously didn't warrant an eyelash bat to sweeten the deal.

"Huh." O'Neill glowered between them. "You've already picked out the damned home."

"No, sir." Carter had her wide-eyed look. "Daniel's promised not to put you in a home." There was a pause before she wrinkled her nose apologetically. "Well, not unless you become really..."

As she didn't finish the sentence he raised an eyebrow interrogatively. "Really...what?"

Teal'c gave him a pitying glance. "I believe the phrase Daniel Jackson used was 'ga-ga', O'Neill."

He gave Daniel a look of accusation. "You three actually talk about this stuff?"

Daniel was definitely looking both shifty and guilty now. He glanced at O'Neill from under his eyelashes, employing a hundred watt 'don't be mad at me' expression. "We were just...planning ahead."

"I'm only nine years older than you." O'Neill strode in front of them, picking up the pace so Daniel would be made very aware that he might be fit but O'Neill was fitter. "And my head isn't so full of...stuff it could go 'pop' any minute. It's more likely you two will be the ones packed off to the retirement home to dribble into your cornflakes while I'm still happily fishing the lakes of Minnesota."

Daniel caught up with him, darting him another look to see how mad he was. He moved in closer, nudging O'Neill with his shoulder, re-establishing contact. "We were kidding."

"You'd better have been." O'Neill could still feel himself bristling with all the indignation of a cat that had walked under a lawn sprayer. He made the mistake of looking at Daniel and got a full whammy pleading look. Turning to glare at Carter who was also looking full of remorse didn't help his resolve at all. He growled under his breath and said to Daniel, "I want it in writing that you're going to take care of me when I'm old and difficult however old and difficult I get. And I want it witnessed by Hammond and Jacob so it's good on any world we end up on."

Another remorseful look from Daniel. "Yes, Jack."

He was aware of the mountains away to the right, the flat lands away to the left, the chill plains behind them, grass eaten down to the roots; a part of him always alert for danger that might come from the skies, the ground, thin air, even as he demanded confirmation he was going to be properly taken care of by his long-suffering teammates.

O'Neill glared at Carter to avoid the guilt pangs glaring at Daniel was giving him. "And if anything happens to Daniel you get custody instead. And if you're married with three kids by then - tough, you'll have to convert the garage."

Carter looked dismayed. "I have my Harley in there."

"It can sleep on the damned sidewalk. You coddle that bike."

O'Neill could actually see Daniel trying to envisage Carter having a happy domestic life with an old and difficult Jack O'Neill lodged in the garage. Daniel winced as the chill breeze blew dust against his cheek. "I'll take care of him, Sam."

The look of heartfelt relief Carter shot Daniel was downright insulting. As O'Neill marched on at a pace which he sincerely hoped would cause Daniel to break out in a sweat, he thought about that last annoying report Simmons had submitted to the Pentagon with a malicious CC to Hammond. Among the many accusations leveled at his unit, the SGC, and Hammond's leadership of it, had been the claim that SG-1 'bears less resemblance to an efficient military team than it does a dysfunctional family unit'. Simmons had gone on to recommend that they were all separated and no longer allowed to play with one another as they were clearly all a bad influence. He had also said that Carter's Tok'ra memories needed to be extracted and he suspected her of having an insubordinate attitude. Attagirl, Carter. Simmons had also written that Daniel should never have been on a military field unit in the first place and was unquestionably insubordinate. That's my boy. Simmons had finished the character assassination of O'Neill's team by remarking that the loyalty of 'The Jaffa' was questionable and his attitude was 'hostile'. Go, Teal'c. There had been other complaints but they had mostly focused on them being too emotionally connected to one another; Hammond's judgment being undermined where they were concerned because of his emotional ties to them; O'Neill 's judgment as a leader being affected by his inability to accept that losses in a military environment were occasionally inevitable. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Daniel, Carter, and Teal'c's judgment being affected by their emotional attachment to O'Neill... Yadda, yadda, yadda.

When he'd passed on the gist to Daniel, the archaeologist had blinked at him in bemusement. "He's saying it's a problem that we don't want each other...to die?"

"Apparently."

Daniel had puzzled over that for a minute before shrugging helplessly. "Is it?"

O'Neill had scratched his jaw. In his heart of hearts he knew Simmons had a point. And he knew Hammond knew it too. But he was damned if he was going to admit that out loud. "Not as long as we don't let it interfere with the integrity of the mission."

"Well, we don't do that, do we?" Daniel had sounded fairly confident, turning back to some piece of linen with faint markings on it, which was apparently fascinating to those who understood hieroglyphs.

O'Neill thought about the time he'd left Daniel on Klorel's ship. He hadn't let it interfere with the mission there. The time he'd tried to stay with Carter when he'd thought they were both going to die. Okay, possibly not the most professional behavior ever but the mission was over and there was no threat to Earth. And damnit he'd zatted her. Twice. How much proof did Simmons need that he was capable of Doing The Right Thing even if it did involve the loss of one of his teammates? Okay, bullying Hammond into letting him take Carter, Teal'c and himself to P4X-347 because Daniel was dying in the infirmary was another gray area, but he'd only risked their lives, not the planet, and he hadn't messed up a mission. The devastating pain it had cost him to leave Daniel behind, zat Carter, think Teal'c was dead, well, that never made it into his reports so Simmons could hardly pin that on him.

"Jack...?"

He'd looked up to find Daniel gazing at him with a puzzled expression.

"What?"

"We don't let it interfere with our missions, do we?"

O'Neill sometimes had to remind himself that this was the only unit Daniel had ever known. He thought this was the way things were in the military: you bonded like superglue with your teammates and they became your whole world. He didn't know it wasn't always like this. That you trusted these people with your life and would risk your own life for them, fought with them, knew you might die with them or might have to zip them into a body bag, tried never to leave them behind, but they weren't generally people you loved.

O'Neill grimaced. "We do the best we can. I don't see they can ask any more of us than that."

"Me neither." Daniel had given him one of those searching looks. "Not of any of us." The including you had been silent but O'Neill had heard it all the same and been grateful for it.

O'Neill had noticed Daniel was trying out that dumb hairstyle where a bit stuck up again. Most people got this stuff out of their system when they were teenagers, but Daniel was as slow on some things as he was fast on others. Carter and Janet had both told him it was fashionable and looked 'cute' on Daniel but he just thought it made him look like Daffy Duck. And anyway Daniel wasn't a puppy and had no business looking 'cute' at his age. O'Neill reached out and ruffled Daniel's hair out of any semblance of fashion.

"Jack...!" Daniel swatted at his hand too late, trying to comb his hair back into some semblance of order with his fingers. Daniel gave him a reproachful glance. "Don't do that."

"Couldn't resist." O'Neill patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, I'll let you buy me a cup of coffee to make it up to me for wearing that damned hair gel."

"How is it hurting you exactly?" But Daniel had put down the artifact and got to his feet albeit with a long-suffering sigh.

"Hey, I'm the one who has to look at it..."

O'Neill looked across at Daniel now. He was shivering despite the pace they were making, long legs covering the ground easily, not even slightly out of breath. "Any idea how long these new guys have been on the planet?"

"Only a few months."

"And they've made no attempt to contact Rudiju's people?"

"No."

"And Rudiju's people?"

"Too busy trying to deal with the effects of the crops dying to have the time or the energy. Although from what Teal'c says that could change..."

O'Neill thought about that and couldn't make it sound like anything other than a plan that would get a lot of people killed. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"Let's hope Rudiju's people are mistaken about the newcomers being to blame."

"But the newcomers have good technology?"

Daniel gave him one of those sideways looks that always made him want to throw a book at him. "They have advanced technology, Jack, there's nothing to say that any of it will be 'good'."

There were days when O'Neill wished he could go back in a time machine so he could whisk the small boy who had once been Daniel away from a childhood of abandonment and isolation. And there were times when he just wanted to go back so he could drop beetles down the back of his neck, shove him into the nearest puddle, and say "sez you, Geekboy!" without seeming childish. Now was definitely one of those times.

O'Neill resisted the urge to look around for beetles but made a mental note to make sure Daniel delivered on that 'taking care of Jack' pledge in the future, and to be especially difficult at regular intervals just to pay him back for days like this.

***

Daniel felt his heart jump in his chest as he saw the pyramid; towering, majestic and all-too painfully familiar; past and present worlds colliding in one breath-stealing instant. He was a child in Egypt playing beneath the shadow of Giza; a graduate student staring in hungry fascination while the echoes of that child's laughter intermingled with memories of his parents' screams. He was standing in the dazzling Abydonian sunlight realizing he was truly on a new world and had no way to get himself or anyone else back home again.

"The structure appears to be of Goa'uld design."

Teal'c's emotionless appraisal jolted him back into the present and he darted a glance at the Jaffa. The chilly sun was glinting off Teal'c's staff weapon, gilding the gold brand of Apophis on his forehead. Teal'c was always so implacably calm; as maddening in his matter-of-factness as he was comforting. Daniel was sometimes afraid that he might also forget that beneath that stoic surface were all manner of half-healed wounds. The Goa'uld symbiote in Teal'c's pouch might fuse his broken bones, repair his flesh, staunch his severed veins, but it had no ability to heal the loss of a murdered father or a murdered lover; nor to fill the gap a family had left.

Daniel knew how it felt to have a relationship end badly, the bitter sense of failure that left in its wake. He and Jack got drunk together every year on the anniversary of Jack's wedding day while Jack said he was over it, or looked at old photographs, or threw an empty bottle through a window. Teal'c never did that. Daniel didn't even know on what date Teal'c and Drey'ac had been married. After all the time they had spent together, Teal'c was still something of an enigma to him. So he didn't know now if when Teal'c looked up at that Goa'uld-designed pyramid he was thinking of the Tau'ri slaves who had probably died laboring at its construction; or of the Goa'uld he had once served; or of some world and some event Daniel knew nothing of, another wound that none of them had glimpsed yet.

Daniel felt a hand on his arm and turned in surprise to see Jack looking at him. "Okay?" The man was trying to seem and sound casual but there was unmistakable concern in his voice; the hand on his shoulder staying where Daniel could feel its warmth. No difficulty knowing what Jack was seeing when he looked at this pyramid; Daniel could practically see the sands of Abydos reflected in his shaded eyes.

Daniel found a reassuring smile for him although it hurt to think of Sha're and he knew Jack knew it. They could lie to one another about being 'over' things but they both knew the pain only lessened with time, it never really went away. "I'm fine."

A brief squeeze of his shoulder, a briefer touch on his back before the hand was withdrawn. "So, big Goa'uld structure then?"

"Looks that way." Daniel turned to Teal'c. "Don't the Asgard usually remove Goa'uld architecture when they annex a planet?"

"Apparently only if the structures are of military significance."

Sam took off her forage cap to run a hand through her hair. "Teal'c, isn't it a landing platform for a Goa'uld warship?"

Daniel looked at Sam's stance; curious but wary; gun ready but eyes assessing not just for danger for but every piece of information she could glean; scientist and soldier locked in eternal conflict? Or perhaps, unlike Daniel, she had found a way to marry the two sides of herself. Perhaps he just had to face the fact that she was a career soldier every bit as much as she was an astrophysicist, whereas this damned gun was never going to feel comfortable in his arms. Sometimes when he thought about his companions' chosen careers he supposed he should feel isolated; cut off from them and their ideologies; but he never had. The more he knew of them, the more he had it confirmed that they were all very similar under the skin.

If Shifu's dream had taught him nothing else, it had taught him there were a hundred paths to reach the same destination. He had it in him to be a murderer every bit as much as Jack did. He had killed helpless Goa'uld symbiotes which Sam had shirked from destroying because of a hatred she could understand but didn't feel. He had forgiven Teal'c for murdering a wife he loved and missed more easily than he had forgiven Jack for appearing to become someone he didn't know. He knew Jack thought he was a good man - positively needed to believe that Daniel was a good man - could still remember the shocked disbelief on Jack's face when he had turned into that spoiled tyrant-in-training who had giggled while Jack collapsed to his knees in exhaustion. It had probably exactly matched his expression of shocked disbelief when Jack had revealed himself to be another Makepeace who trashed their friendship with a malicious smirk while swigging down another mouthful of ice-cold beer.

Teal'c was telling Sam the various ways the Asgard might have booby-trapped the pyramid so that any Goa'uld attempting to land their ship there would meet their end; that he had heard of such things on abandoned planets before now; it was one of the reasons the Goa'uld did not like to leave worlds unattended for too long.

Jack was gazing narrowly at the pyramid as though he suspected it of trying to play some trick on them, assessing possible dangers as every step made them smaller and the pyramid larger, towering above them higher and higher as though to point out their utter insignificance.

"They really needed a place this big to stick one bandaged stiff?"

Daniel blinked in surprise as Jack's nudge in his ribs.

"There was a bit more to it than that."

Jack waved a hand at the structure, clearly unimpressed. "Which Earth one is this one like again?"

"The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza."

Jack looked at the pyramid and then looked back at Daniel. "And that tells us...?"

"About Ancient Egyptian civilization or...?"

Jack glared at him in his best 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent archaeologist' fashion. "Well, given the fact we're approaching a possibly hostile new race I was thinking more on the lines of what-are-we-getting-into-now...?"

Daniel returned his gaze levelly. "A really big pyramid, Jack." As the man narrowed his eyes murderously Daniel held up his hands in defeat. "Jack, it's a Goa'uld structure. It tells us as much about these people as it would have told them about us when we were using Cronos' tel'tak."

"It was in fact a 'Hatak', Daniel Jackson."

Daniel darted Teal'c a glance but the Jaffa's face was impassive. He exhaled. "Whatever..."

"Whatever."

He and Jack exchanged a glance as they realized they'd both said the same thing at the same time. It was always a little embarrassing when that happened.

O'Neill cleared his throat. "It would have told them we were smart enough to steal it."

"Or that we'd got lucky."

Daniel realized Jack was glaring at him again and busied himself scraping at a stain on his jacket, pretending total absorption in the task while Jack lasered him from indignant brown eyes. He just thought it was odd that every time SG-1 went on a mission without him they apparently had some life and death struggle against the odds with either murderous Jaffa or flesh-punching pixie dust. When Daniel went on a mission without SG-1 he usually had a nice quiet time excavating an archaeological site.

Daniel had a sudden memory of a snarling Unas coming towards him at speed; of that light matrix hologram dazzling him with its beauty... Well, okay, not every mission he went on without Jack was a cakewalk but it did seem to be that every mission Jack went on without him was a life and death struggle. Surely every now and then Jack, Sam and Teal'c ought to just go to a planet, have a look around, and then came back again? Jack was always complaining about Daniel's habit of getting damaged but at least Daniel had never gotten himself beamed up onto a bug-infested Asgard ship while on leave.

He'd just gotten himself hand-deviced half to death by a rogue banished System Lord which had murdered his old tutor and taken his ex-girlfriend as a host while supposedly safe at someone's funeral. Okay. Touché.

Daniel blinked as they passed under the shadow of the pyramid, the sun blotted out; so similar to the one on Abydos that Daniel was sure that Jack as well as he was probably getting flashbacks with every pace. He could remember standing outside the entrance looking down at a Jack on his knees. The feel of that staff weapon in his hand, knowing he was going to have to take life, that he'd probably die afterwards but knowing all the time it was the right thing to do. Remembered his exasperation with Jack later because he needed the man to come up with some strategy to save them all and instead he was ready to die, and to kill innocent people right along with him, for nothing and no one, some stupid order from the military when life was so incredible and so precious, and why couldn't the man see that...? He darted a sideways glance at him, needing the visual proof this wasn't the same man who had no more use for life, reassuring himself with Jack's solidity.

Jack was looking unenthusiastic about passing into a dark tunnel; holding his gun with that deceptively casual air which Daniel had come to recognize meant the man's trigger finger was itching and the hairs on the back of his neck were probably standing up. Daniel could see the silver glint of his hair under his forage cap, the scar bisecting his eyebrow, the darkening of his jaw from a faint sprinkling of stubble. Jack looked wary and tough and ready to be hostile but he certainly didn't look suicidal. Daniel wondered if Jack was just being careful or if something was tripping his soldier's instincts; something intangible in the air which Daniel, not being a military man, wasn't getting.

They passed into the main chamber; Daniel's eyes soothed by the torch-lit dimness but inwardly flinching from this painful familiarity. He exchanged a glance with Jack and swore that just for a second he saw those Anubis guards reflected in the mirrored lenses of Jack's sunglasses. Then Jack was nodding at him to make their presence known while moving a little in front of him to protect him from whatever might answer his call.

As they took another two steps a light flashed each side of them. Jack immediately tried the reload mechanism on his P90 then swore under his breath. He raised his weapon, looking incredulous. He glanced at the other three in disbelief. "Did that just...?"

Sam looked around in confusion. "Yes, sir, it did."

"What?" Daniel peered at Jack's gun in confusion.

Teal'c held up his staff weapon, expression wary. "We appear to have been disarmed by a device very similar to that employed by the Tollan."

Jack was already examining a wall panel. He slapped a rectangular object on the wall angrily. "Exactly like the one employed by the Tollan."

Daniel looked around at the interior of a pyramid which was unmistakably of Goa'uld construction. "Are you sure?"

"Hey, take it from the guy who stole one. I know what these babies look like."

Sam straightened up from examining the device, flinching as the sunlight from the entrance raked across her eyes. "The colonel's right, Daniel. This is definitely Tollan technology."

"But the Tollan are..." Daniel tried to think of a tactful way to phrase it and finished with a lame, "on Tollana."

Sam looked across at him, weary resignation warring with the gratitude in her eyes. She was probably tired of them pussy-footing around her, not mentioning Martouf, Orlin, Narim, Joe. Dead. Gone. Presumed dead. Believed gone. But for all their inept attempts at tact she seemed grateful they were thinking of her feelings.

"Some of them must have managed to escape from Tollana when the armies of Tanith attacked."

Teal'c was looking at Sam as he spoke but to Daniel's surprise he saw no flicker of hope in her eyes. She massaged her temple with her free hand, wincing a little. "I doubt it. But when Narim and I were going through the public records on Tollana I found references to a time in their history when there was a fundamental disagreement within the Curia."

"About?" Jack prompted.

"Manifest destiny." Sam looked apologetic as Teal'c turned to her for an explanation. "It's an old justification for the act of...perennial expansion, often into the territory of others."

Daniel sighed. "'The fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.'"

"This sounds very similar to the philosophy of the Goa'uld."

Jack looked stung by the comparison. "Hey, we only wanted Texas." As Daniel opened his mouth he held up a finger. "Don't tell me 'it's the same principal'. I know it's the principal and I don't care. We're still not Goa'uld." He glanced across at Sam. "And neither are the Tollan."

"No, but apparently their population projections told them that if they continued to breed at their current level then they would decimate the sustainable resources of their world. They either had the choice of voluntarily restricting their own reproduction to remain within sustainable levels or expanding their territory to include other worlds. There was a major disagreement on the subject." Sam pressed a hand to her forehead, rubbing it as she spoke. "Some argued that because of the Goa'uld and Asgard habit of 'seeding' planets that could sustain life with humans 'harvested' from Earth most planets that could sustain human life would already be occupied, that the resources involved in finding planets that could sustain human life that weren't occupied would be too great to justify, and that there could be no justification for settling on words that were already occupied. The other side argued that given their superior technology, the benefits they could offer to a population already in residence for peaceful co-habitation outweighed any disadvantages and should be explored." She shrugged. "When the vote went against them, a splinter group stole two Tollan vessels and went in search of other worlds. That was the last the Tollan heard of them."

Jack was looking less than happy. "I don't care who they are. I don't like people who disarm me without so much as a by-your-leave."

"Well, whoever is living here we need to talk to them." Daniel raised his voice. "Hello? Is there anyone home? We're peaceful travelers from the planet..."

"Who are you?"

Daniel jumped and wheeled around to see a gap opened up in the stone wall that hadn't been there previously and several men standing there observing them. He blinked in surprise. "We're explorers. We came through the Stargate." He made the explanation automatically, as he'd made it so many times before, while the welcoming committee stepped out into the chamber to observe them more closely.

They seemed as anachronistic in these surroundings as did SG-1, clean-shaven, well fed, and dressed in the same modern lightweight clothing he associated with Narim. Darting a quick glance at Sam he saw her wince at the sight of them, a still open wound obviously being twanged by this reminder of the friend she'd lost, then she was rubbing her forehead again. She obviously had a headache. He wondered if it was stress causing it, or just the shock of seeing more Tollan reminding her too painfully of the loss of Narim.

"I am Councilor Tomar, this is Commander Altan..."

Daniel shook hands automatically, noting as he did so that while Tomar wore dark grey, Altan was dressed in pale blue. A civilian and military hierarchy clearly, one that would understand the same dualism in their team. "I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill." He stressed his rank. "Major Samantha Carter and Teal'c."

He saw Jack give him a look of mild surprise and wondered why. He did know Jack's rank after all, he just didn't happen to think it was the most interesting thing about the man, or think that stressing they were a military unit, which might suggest aggression to some people, was a very good idea when meeting new people with whom one wanted to set up a dialogue.

Tomar looked enquiringly at him as Altan was looking at Jack. Daniel turned to look at Jack as well, trying to indicate tactfully that the military man was the leader here however they did things on their world. Tomar nodded to him before addressing Jack. "You have arrived in a time of...flux for our people. We are only newly arrived on this world ourselves and still attempting to establish our presence here, but we are always willing to meet with others of our kind."

The look on Tomar's face was less convincing than his words and Daniel could see Jack wasn't a hundred percent convinced himself. His question was nothing if not to the point. "Are you Tollan?"

Daniel ducked his head to hide a grimace, deliberately not meeting Sam's eye so they wouldn't exchange one of those 'oh boy' expressions that always got Jack so cranky when he caught them doing it. He would personally have said something about how grateful they were for the welcome and that they liked meetings others of their kind as well but Jack had always been a pretty direct kind of guy.

Tomar's eyes widened in surprise. "You know of Tollana?"

"Yup." Jack wasn't giving a lot away. "Old version and new one."

Altan took a step forward. "Then we have much to discuss."

Tomar beckoned to them. "Come, let us dine together. We can exchange what we know."

Jack pointed a thumb back through the entrance doorway. "One thing we know and I reckon you should too is that half the population of this planet seem to be about to starve to death."

Tomar nodded gravely. "We are aware of the situation and are attempting to find a solution to relieve the problem, although there are still some..." He darted a glance at Altan. "Some matters are still being discussed by the Curia."

Daniel felt the familiar surge of irritation he had felt so many times in the past when a course of action was crying out to be taken because it was the only right and sane thing to do and people were quibbling about paperclip requisitions. "Well, I hope you're planning to discuss them pretty quickly because those people aren't going to last more than a few weeks without some help." He was aware of Altan darting him a venomous look but ignored it. Military men did that whenever their authority was questioned; that wasn't a good reason for not questioning their authority. He turned to look at Jack only to find the man returning Altan's hostile glare with interest.

Jack gave Altan another quelling look and then turned back to Tomar, jerking a thumb at Daniel as he did so. "What he said."

Daniel blinked in mild surprise, unable to stop that warmth spreading through him because Jack had just backed him up so emphatically in public. He darted the man a quick grateful look and got a brief nod back. He had to admit life was a lot more pleasant when he and Jack were being nice to one another than when they were fighting like cat and dog. The necessity for fighting like cat and dog just seemed so pressing at times.

"Colonel O'Neill, you must trust me when I say that we are intending to do all that we can to help these people." Tomar beckoned to them again and this time they followed him through an archway that led into a second smaller chamber, the walls completely covered with Goa'uld inscriptions.

Daniel was dimly aware of the other Tollan exiles, many wearing darker versions of the uniform Altan wore and carrying some kind of weaponry which didn't interest him much. What did fascinate him were the inscriptions on the walls. Row after row of them, and not simply decorative. He couldn't resist going closer for another look.

He could hear Jack, Sam and Teal'c all conversing with the Tollan in the background. Jack was being pretty forthright about the state of Rudiju's people and his irritation about having his gun rendered useless. Sam was being more conciliatory, breaking the news about the fate of the first Tollan homeworld gently. Daniel wondered who was going to tell them about the fate of the second one. Teal'c was interjecting the occasional comment about the Goa'uld.

The Goa'uld. Daniel ran his fingers across the hieroglyphs. Ra. An angry and triumphant Ra staking his claim to this world and this vengeance. The gold relief seemed to leave no doubt as to what had happened here. A weapon of great and terrible power; used and then discarded...

He suddenly became aware that everything had gone very quiet, and looked over his shoulder to see why. Everyone was staring at him, Tomar in disbelief, Altan with disconcerting concentration, gaze riveted on Daniel as though Daniel had just become the most fascinating thing he had ever seen in his life. Daniel automatically looked to Jack for an explanation. The man briefly laid a finger across his lips and then pretended to scratch his jaw just as Altan darted a look at him to check for his reaction.

Tomar started forward, eyes full of hope, holding out a hand to indicate the walls. "You can read this script? You understand it?"

Daniel darted another glance at Jack who was giving him a look of fixed intensity. Daniel stalled, unconsciously copying Jack as he scratched his jaw. "Well...um..." He darted another look at Jack whose expression was clearly saying 'No' to someone who knew him as well as Daniel did.

"No." Daniel gave an apologetic shrug. "Unfortunately on Earth the Ancient Egyptian script and language parted the ways a long time ago. The language as it's now spoken bears no resemblance to the language as it was written in hieroglyphs, leaving scholars with no means of knowing how to pronounce it or read it." He was trying to lie without lying and it was tricky. "To...transcribe written hieroglyphs we would have needed a reference of some kind in a language already known to us and...um...we don't have many inscriptions left because of erosion and grave robbing and...things..."

Okay, he sounded lame and unconvincing and he knew it, but until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone that had been the state of play on his planet as far as translating hieroglyphs went, and until he'd traveled through the Stargate to Abydos no one from Earth had heard Ancient Egyptian spoken in several thousand years. It was a lie for this time and this history but in countless alternate universes it was probably still the truth, so on a pan-dimensional scale that made it more like a white lie.

He risked a look at Jack who gave him a smile that looked a little forced; more of a 'well at least you had a go' expression than a 'you did good' look but still more positive than negative. Tomar was looking disappointed; Altan suspicious.

Tomar turned to Teal'c. "You surely must know how to...?"

Teal'c said imperturbably, "The Goa'uld ban all forms of writing from those who serve them. It is forbidden for any servant of the Goa'uld except a holy scribe to write in the medu netcher."

Daniel had to admire the way Teal'c had just answered the question honestly without actually answering the question. He needed to take lessons from Teal'c on that one day.

"'Medu netcher'?" Tomar prompted.

Daniel had his mouth open to answer before he remembered that he shouldn't. Teal'c answered impassively. "The language of the gods."

Tomar concealed his disappointment with a sigh and beckoned them to the table. He murmured an apology for the benches upon which they were forced to sit. Daniel tried to get a seat opposite Jack in case any more tricky questions came up and they needed to communicate without arousing suspicion but Altan firmly directed him to a place further down the table. It was only as he sat down that Daniel realized this was the same seating plan Alar had used on Euronda when he had physically and ideologically tried to drive a wedge between Daniel and Jack.

As the glass was placed by his elbow, Daniel flinched from it and darted a glance at Jack for reassurance.

The man was putting a hand over the top of his glass and saying 'No' firmly. The 'Thank you' was very much an afterthought. He looked up and across at Daniel, gaze very intense but for once too difficult for Daniel to read.

Then Tomar was asking what they did and Jack explained that they traveled to new worlds in search of technology to aid them in their battle against the Goa'uld and the defense of their planet.

Daniel waited for him to add that they also sought out other things but when Jack seemed to think that was enough of an explanation sighed and added that they were also trying to make contact with the scattered people of Earth harvested by the Goa'uld to be hosts so many centuries before. That they wished to learn more from these people about their own past and also to forge new bonds of friendship with them.

Jack shrugged when he finished. "Yeah. That too."

"So you are seekers after knowledge as well as weaponry?" Tomar enquired.

"You could say that." Jack sounded carefully non-committal.

Daniel resisted the urge to glare at him but said with much more emphasis, "Yes, exactly."

Altan looked between them, face unreadable. "Are those not contradictory objectives?

Daniel had his mouth open to response when Sam spoke quickly. "We think of them more as complementary. In the past a Goa'uld tried to destroy our planet and although we're protected by the Asgard from Goa'uld attack at the moment, we have no way of knowing how long that treaty will hold. A treaty was made by the Asgard with the System Lords on our behalf, but the System Lords change as their power increases or wanes."

Teal'c added impassively, "Of the three Goa'uld who came to negotiate with the Tau'ri, one is dead, one is an exile, and only one is still a System Lord. In the past one Goa'uld has sometimes gained ascension over the other System Lords. So, for their planet to be defended the Tau'ri also need to find ways to defend themselves against any Goa'uld who might threaten them again."

"And knowledge is also power," Daniel put in crisply, shooting a defiant glance at all three of his teammates in case they looked like contradicting him. He could feel the straps of his pack digging into his shoulders, the weight tugging at him noticeably now that he wasn't moving. When they were walking he hardly noticed it any more but as soon as they stopped he suddenly became aware of that dead weight sitting on his back like a corpse. Casting a glance around at his teammates he saw none of them had taken off their packs so sighed and resigned himself to feeling like a tortoise for the rest of the meal.

He darted another glance at Jack, wishing there was some way to tell him that although he'd just backed him up on this strategy he didn't approve of it and he was going to expect a damned good explanation from Jack later as to why he wasn't allowed to tell Tomar what exactly was written on those hieroglyph covered walls...

***

The gold walls were shimmering at her spitefully; indecipherable symbols swirling while the lighting glistened across plastic-feeling plates and cold cutlery. Carter had never known a headache like it. As they'd entered the pyramid her temples had started to throb and now it had built up to the point where she felt as if someone were beating a great brass cymbal on the inside of her brain. She glanced at her teammates to see if it could be something in the pyramid that was affecting them too. Daniel was looking shifty but that was because he didn't like lying. The Colonel was looking unreadable but if he had a headache the world usually got to hear about it pretty fast so she presumed he was also fine. Perhaps it was just coincidence this pounding in her head had started as they entered the pyramid. She rubbed at her temples again, trying to assess these Tollan objectively yet knowing her judgment was affected by more than this pain in her head. So far she had only seen things that made her mistrust them.

There was the way they had become so excited when Daniel was examining the wall panels that seemed to depict some kind of weapon. The fact Colonel O'Neill had told Daniel to lie was a clear pointer that something seemed wrong to him too. She'd always trusted the Tollan in the past. It hadn't bothered her when they'd been disarmed by those devices the colonel had later pretended to steal. The place was safe. Their technology superior and apparently infallible. She had hated Narim's use of the word 'primitive' but she had been able to understand Omac's reasoning. If she had given technology to a planet which had proceeded to blow itself up then she probably wouldn't have wanted to make the same mistake twice either. She had allowed herself to be seduced by that society; relating to its clear logic and reliance on science in a way she would never admit to either Daniel or the Colonel. And she'd been wrong. When their technology had failed them, so had everything else. She'd lost more than Narim; she'd lost another piece of herself; the one that believed in the purity of science. All their knowledge had availed them nothing at all when it came up against something it couldn't solve, and when they'd been destroyed that knowledge had been destroyed with them. Why hadn't they asked for help? Why had they arrogantly assumed that because they couldn't solve this problem no one else could either? Because the people of Earth were too primitive to be able to help them? Yet the people of Earth had driven off the Goa'uld while Tollana had burnt like old newspapers.

Carter rubbed her temples again. She felt not just sick with the pain in her head but furious too. She wanted to pick up this perfectly formed glass and hurl it at those shimmering gold walls. How could clever people have been so stupid? And how could she have been stupid enough to believe in them in the first place?

"Major Carter...?"

She turned to see Teal'c looking at her in concern. She touched his arm gently. "Hey, Teal'c."

"Are you unwell?"

"Headache," she murmured back. Tomar was explaining how they had come to travel there to the Colonel, who had that bored look on his face, but she could see Altan focusing on Daniel; like a wolf closing in on a lone deer.

Teal'c shifted in his chair, wincing as he wrapped his arm around his guts. She increased the pressure on his arm. "Teal'c...?"

"It's nothing." The bead of sweat trickling down his face contradicted his words. He conceded the point with a sigh. "My symbiote is growing increasingly restless."

The clamor in her head was getting louder and louder. She wished vainly for Tylenol and for Daniel to have been seated close enough she could ask for a couple of his migraine tablets again. She didn't even care what Tomar was telling the Colonel now. Whatever it was, she suspected it was probably another lie. They weren't helping the Tadeshi even though they had food enough to share; they were letting those people starve in their mud huts because they were afraid of them. The Tadeshi were primitive after all. What possible communication could there ever be between them...

"Major Carter..."

She tried to find a smile for Teal'c even though she still felt more like smashing something. "It's just a headache and...it's a bad time of the month."

The Colonel would have looked embarrassed and probably told her that was too much information but Teal'c just nodded sagely and then patted her gently on the arm.

***

Daniel darted Sam an anxious look. Her face was closed off; angry; but her eyes were full of pain. If they hadn't been on a mission he would have suggested they got very drunk together and bitched about the general unfairness of Life, the Universe and Everything. But as he seemed to be in the middle of having to lie to a suspicious Tollan military commander he hoped she would understand the sympathetic looks he was sending in her direction and what they signified.

Altan said smoothly, "It would surely be of great assistance to all those of us threatened by the Goa'uld if we could find a means to understand their language."

Daniel busied himself with his food. It seemed to be of some kind of corn or wheat-based food, nutritious no doubt, but not particularly tasty; still food that he felt a little uncomfortable eating when he thought of Rudiju's people starving in the barren landscape outside.

"You'd think," Jack put in.

Altan's gaze didn't waver from Daniel. "You are the one with the knowledge of the ancient cultures of your planet?"

Daniel couldn't pretend his meal was so exciting he hadn't heard that question and looked up. "That's right."

"So there are ancient languages you can translate?"

Daniel tried to keep his expression as blandly innocent as possible. "Yes. Some."

"So, if we could provide you with a text translated into several different languages one of which was one you recognized and one of which was Goa'uld, you might be able to understand the Goa'uld alphabet at last?"

"We don't think they have an alphabet, as such." Daniel took a sip of the liquid with which someone had half-filled his glass to give himself an excuse not to meet Altan's eye. "We think it might be more...symbolic. It's a language where it's very difficult to determine if it's ideographical or phonetic..."

Altan's gaze was unblinking, like a hawk who had sighted prey. "But if we provided you with a Goa'uld text accompanied by a transliteration in a tongue you can read...?"

"Yes." Daniel had to meet his gaze at last. "In theory then yes, I could."

"Are you familiar with any of these languages?"

Altan pushed a small box forward that looked not unlike Daniel's laptop and a screen slid up noiselessly. The images on it were obviously playing both sides of the small screen because he could see the reflection of them laying odd shadows across Jack's face as well as on the table top.

And suddenly he was back in that underground chamber with Ernest Littlefield beside him and incredible revelation making his veins sing with the promise of knowledge only a tantalizing fingertip away from his grasp. The old man's desperation as he tried to make Daniel understand that even this was meaningless if there was no one with whom to share it. Jack's fingers on the back of his jacket yanking him down those stairs and jolting him back into reality. Jack had scared him for a second. It was too soon after the man had pounded him; too recent a reminder of how much stronger than him Jack was. He'd had to believe their relationship was more than this; more than Jack being older and stronger so ultimately Daniel had to do what he said. That he had enough respect for Daniel as an adult and an equal to respond to his plea to be treated like one. The look on the man's face as he'd let him go that told Daniel Jack wasn't going to leave him here, which meant if Daniel elected to stay and be stranded here then Jack would be stranded too...

Runes. Asgard runes. Jack speaking Latin to him. Cruvus, what is that...? Nu ani aquinatus, ic quabi de un... Feeling so helpless because he was the only one who could help him and he wasn't helping him. Jack trying to make himself understood while his brain was taken over by something he couldn't control or understand, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Jack standing on the ramp while Daniel tried to tell him if he did this, if he left, he might never be able to come back. Jack just looking at him with that odd mixture of compassion and knowledge while Daniel had no idea if he understood a word he'd just said to him, and had even less idea as the man walked up the ramp and away from him into the Stargate if he would ever see him again. The waiting had been endless. The relief at getting him back had been like having every vein in his body suddenly start running with brandy instead of blood. He still remembered how patient Jack had been as Daniel followed him around for days afterwards asking him if he felt okay, if his head hurt, if he remembered anything, anything at all?

The Asgard. The Nox. The Furlings. The Ancients. The meeting place of four alien races who between them must surely hold the secret which would defeat the Goa'uld and more than that must know so much it made Daniel's head spin just to think about it. And Altan was saying that there was an inscription the Goa'uld had copied into their own tongue.

He reached out, trying to trace the inscriptions with his fingers. Good grief this was incredible. The Goa'uld hieroglyphs were telling the story of Ra. The legend of the destruction of mankind so mangled by Budge in his 1912 translation. And this was the Asgard and Ancient transliteration? And what was that other language? The one he hadn't seen before? He tried to read the runes but they were out of focus, the video footage of them very faint when compared with the hieroglyphs. Older, they were older. Then this had been an Asgard world first. Taken by the Goa'uld then taken back by the Asgard. Layers of history. Layers of knowledge.

Daniel turned to Altan, unable to hide his excitement. "Where is this from? Is this inscription somewhere in the pyramid?"

"No."

He knew Altan was watching him closely, had recognized his excitement, and was probably suspicious, but he didn't care. This was an astonishing find. "Where then? Somewhere near here?"

"Daniel..."

He could hear that hint of warning in Jack's voice and okay, he was trying not to look too much like a kid in a candy store but didn't Jack get what this meant? He looked across at the man and saw from his expression that whatever it meant to Jack wasn't what it meant to Daniel. Jack was looking decidedly underwhelmed.

"It was uncovered in a temple a few hours walk from here." Altan touched something and the image vanished, the screen sliding down, taking the inscription with it. "Would you like to examine it more closely?"

"Yes." Daniel didn't hesitate.

"No." Jack's voice held more than a hint of warning in it now. "At least not yet. We have more important things to focus on right now."

"Jack...?" He looked at him in disbelief. Didn't Jack get what this meant? With a text translated into the Ancient they could make so much headway on translating other Ancient texts and if they could learn to understand the language of the Asgard which Thor had so persistently refused to teach them...

"Daniel..." Jack looked him in the eye, voice warning and pleading at once; gaze a mixture of 'don't make me come over there' and 'please, just this once don't be difficult...'

"But..." He gave Jack a full begging look, trying to convey in a glance just how important this was; what it could mean; how the secret to saving the planet and destroying the Goa'uld might not lie in ion cannons and naquada reactors but in ancient script; in the power of words.

"Not now."

Because I say so... Just because... plant boy... It's never over with you and it's always the same damned thing...

Daniel curled his hand around his fork.

Shut up, Daniel, is that clear enough for you...?

When he looked back at Jack the man was talking to Tomar about the people caught up in the famine. What was being done for them? What was the hold up? His voice was even and calm but every few words he was darting a glance at Daniel to see what mood he was in. Daniel gave him a look to show that he didn't agree with this decision and he thought Jack was missing the point.

Altan said with a shrug, "It's up to you, Doctor Jackson, of course, but there is a small group of my men heading out to the tomb tomorrow morning so if you wanted to accompany them you would be guaranteed protection on the way."

Daniel looked at Jack hopefully. Jack gave him a 'will you please quit it?' look, half pleading, half bullying, but aloud he said, "I'm going to need Daniel here with me tomorrow. Right now we're all a little more concerned about the people on this planet who are starving to death. Right, Daniel?"

He met the man's gaze for a moment. The wanting was still there, the need to know, his resentment that something so revealing could be whisked away from him just by the military and its damned protocols, but hand in hand with that came the weight of their friendship; all they'd been through together; all they owed one another because of it; all those times of near-death and actual pain; times when they'd watched the other one hurt in front of them; or sat on uncomfortable chairs in the infirmary and waited for the other one to wake up. Daniel sighed in defeat, feeling sick with the thought of having to let yet another vital piece of information slip through his fingers. He couldn't keep the resentment and disappointment from his face as he looked across at Jack. "You're the colonel, Jack."

As if from a long way away he could hear Tomar explaining about the difficulties of producing the excess food quantities necessitated by the crisis affecting the previous inhabitants of the planet when their food production was based on a hydro-ponic system.

Sam was the only one who was following the conversation. "But surely your food production isn't affected by the drought? Narim told me that..."

She broke off then and Daniel saw the raw pain flicker in her eyes. She feigned a cough and Teal'c patted her back very gently, going along with the play-acting. Sam took a moment to sip some water and in the gap Tomar had smoothly filled the silence.

"No, our resources are not wholly dependent on the rainfall of the planet, however, the levels of salts even in a non-recirculating system does eventually become a problem which only reverse osmosis can solve..."

Something about rainwater being of great importance to the system. He couldn't follow it. He kept seeing that script in his mind's eye. Asgard runes and Ancient script...

Jack standing on the ramp looking so damned tired and possibly lost to all of them forever. Willing him to come back to them with all his might; knowing that nothing else mattered, not even the language of the Ancients as long as Jack came back. He looked across at the man then to find Jack looking at him. Jack's questioning expression. Jack had been following his thought process okay and getting ready to be defensive or conciliatory or overbearing, however Jack was intending to play it this time, then he'd seen Daniel change mental tack and lost the thread.

Daniel sighed in defeat. He seemed to have lost the ability to hurt Jack's feelings. He hoped it was a temporary problem but for the moment at any rate, the Asgard language was just making him remember how close he had come to losing the man forever and how devastating that had felt.

He looked up to find Jack looking at him curiously and mouthing 'You okay?' in concern.

Daniel sighed and shrugged. He gave a reluctant nod.

Jack gestured around the table in a 'well, join the hell in the conversation then' way and Daniel sighed again. Jack always looked weirdly and comfortingly anachronistic in this kind of setting. If Daniel walked into a different culture a different environment it seemed logical to him to adapt to it. To wear the clothes of those people, adopt their customs. Jack wouldn't. Jack was a pioneer, and he would stand out like a sore thumb in a different environment until that environment accommodated him. If another world didn't have C-Span Daniel would have accepted that he would have to find a different hobby. Jack wouldn't rest until he'd found someone who knew how to mess with electronics and would keep describing how great hockey games were until they built him an intergalactic satellite dish just to get some peace and quiet. People like Jack had built places like Las Vegas. Man's ultimate triumph over a nature whose limitations he was not prepared to accept. Jack denied this. He insisted that when he'd been on Edora he'd fit right in but Daniel didn't believe it.

Jack did however fit into that uniform in a way Daniel never could. He'd complained to the people handing him his BDU that the damned thing wasn't made right and couldn't he have one like Jack's until at last in exasperation the guy handing out the uniforms had told him it was nothing to do with the clothing just the way it was being worn. Daniel had retired chastened and the next time he'd pulled on his BDU to find it was two sizes too big and baggy in all the wrong places while Jack's had fit him like a second skin, he'd just sighed and accepted it.

Jack didn't look at home in a pyramid with golden hieroglyphs glinting from every inclining surface. He looked resolutely and deliberately out of place but managed to do it in a way that made the pyramid seem wrong. Daniel squinted across at him speculatively. He'd always really wanted to show Jack some of Ancient Egypt but he had a horrible suspicion that if he took Jack to the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Kings would start looking subtly shabby and out of scale as it tried and failed to accommodate the resolute twentieth century North Americanness of Jack O'Neill.

As a fierce glare from the object of his thoughts made Daniel notice how long it was since he'd joined in the conversation, Daniel realized Teal'c was talking:

"If this world is only of sufficient fertility to be able to sustain its existing population would it not be wiser for your people to seek a different world in which to settle?"

"There are things about this world which make it very attractive to us."

Jack scratched his jaw. "That wouldn't be trinium by any chance, would it?"

Daniel saw Tomar's eyes widen in surprise. "You are aware of this element?"

Jack gave him a level look. "Oh, it's amazing what people as primitive as us are aware of."

Sam cut in quickly. "We know it's a vital component in Tollan technology. But I agree with Teal'c. However technologically advanced you are, you still need to eat, which means you still need to grow food, and although I haven't had a chance to analyze the soil samples I took yet, the earth here seems very poor to me."

"Our environmental surveyors assure us that with a higher rainfall there will be a great increase in fertility here. The land can sustain our two cultures as long as the weather patterns are more favorable."

Jack drummed his fingers on the table lightly. "So it was you messing with the rain then?"

Tomar looked a little abashed but faced Jack with dignity. "We need a supply of fresh rainfall to guarantee the efficiency of our hydro-ponic food production and also to guarantee that the existing population gain a good harvest."

Daniel leant forward, intrigued despite himself. "You can do that? You can change the weather?"

"With our technology it is not difficult," Tomar assured him. "From experiments on other planets we know that even a desert landscape can be restored to greenness and fertility with sometimes only a slight increase in the annual rainfall."

"So you were just trying to help them out?" Jack wasn't making much of an effort to keep the cynicism from his voice. If he'd been closer, Daniel would have kicked him under the table. Jack never seemed to have realized there was a better way to go than confrontational.

"Yes," Tomar responded with great emphasis. "We hoped to bring them a fine harvest which would help to cement the bonds between our two cultures."

Daniel just caught Altan's bored shake of the head. Teal'c had evidently seen it too as the Jaffa turned an enquiring gaze upon the military man. "You do not agree with this policy?"

Altan shrugged. "On the basis of the aerial survey undertaken by our pilots, there is no possible meeting of minds between our 'culture' and theirs. They have no technology of any kind. They still believe in gods and demons. Our anthropologist argue they would be more likely to accept us as other gods than as fellow human beings. If nothing else it might prevent them attempting to wage war upon us."

Jack shrugged. "Well, what do you know, a soldier agreeing with an anthropologist. That's something you don't see every day."

Daniel took a sip of wine to stifle his first retort and then addressed himself to Tomar. "But your Curia felt that to deceive the existing populace and to pretend to be something you weren't would be morally wrong?"

Tomar nodded. "Exactly."

Jack added, "Of course, starving to death the way they are at the moment, they're not really in a position to wage war on anyone. By the time the next harvest comes there's going to be a lot fewer of them which makes them much less of a military threat."

Tomar drew himself up proudly. "Colonel, I assure you, our intentions towards the existing populace are nothing but benign. We wish to help them. We wish to improve their situation and in time to share our knowledge with them. Our ultimate aim is for a fully integrated society."

Again Daniel just caught Altan's look of displeasure.

Sam said quietly, "So if all you did was increase the rainfall why did the Tadeshi crops fail?"

"That is the name of the people who live here?" Tomar looked surprised.

Teal'c nodded. "It is."

"Do they still worship a god of Goa'uld identity or Asgard identity?"

"Asgard," Teal'c replied. "You have not answered Major Carter's question."

Tomar looked deeply uncomfortable. "We do not know why the crops failed. It makes no sense to us that they should have done so."

"None of that superior technology helping you at all...?"

Daniel looked around for a bread roll to throw at Jack.

Sam's intervention was more tactful. "Tomar, I'd really like to take a look at the machinery you used to bring about the rainfall. Maybe I can..."

Tomar looked at her in surprise. "You believe that you might detect a flaw our own scientists have missed?"

Daniel was glad he hadn't found that bread roll and glared at Tomar. "The Asgard ask Sam for advice."

Sam looked uncomfortable. "Yes, Daniel, but only because they wanted someone who could come up with a stupid..."

She was within range so he did kick her under the table albeit far more lightly than he would have kicked Jack.

Her 'ow' of protest was drowned out by Jack and Teal'c also chipping in.

"Major Carter's scientific acumen has solved many apparently unsolvable problems in the past..."

"Hey, what do you have to lose?" Jack's shrug was casual but his eyes were steely. "Or to hide?"

There was a fractional pause before Tomar conceded the point. "Then I will ask one of our scientists to show you our hydro-plant tomorrow."

"Is there a laboratory where I can analyze the soil samples I took...?"

Under cover of Sam's conversation with Tomar, Daniel leant across the table, murmuring conversationally to Jack, "While Sam's doing that why don't you and I go with Altan's people to look at that temple where...?"

"No." Jack poured himself some water so as not to make eye contact.

Before Daniel could tell him what he thought of someone who spent all of zero seconds giving a reasonable request his consideration, Tomar was getting to his feet and everyone else was too. Daniel realized dinner was over and they were now being shown to their room for the night.

"For your own protection we would suggest that you do not explore the interior of the pyramid without one of our people on hand to guide you."

Tomar's request was polite enough but Daniel wasn't exactly surprised when Jack looked him in the eye and said, "Why?"

Altan answered at once. "Our surveyors tell us parts of the pyramid shows signs of instability the reason for which we have not yet been able to ascertain..."

"Have you done a geological survey? What about earthquakes?"

Looking at his teammate's cynical expressions, Daniel realized he was the only one who was buying this story even for a minute and he wasn't too convinced himself. Pyramids tended to be built to stay up. But for the moment he was more interested in the literal writing on the walls. He was trying not to look at the hieroglyphs with more than a perplexed and regretful eye but every now and then some of the script would be so fascinating he could feel himself getting sucked in. He definitely saw the symbol for Seth. Then something about Ra 'crushing beneath his feet and all those who dare to worship the wrongdoer...' proved so fascinating he couldn't help squinting at it curiously. Jack and Teal'c both simultaneously elbowing him in the ribs knocked the breath out of his body so completely he couldn't even splutter out a protest.

Still trying to get his breath back, he was only hazily aware of Tomar apologizing for the hospitality he could offer them. The man was explaining something about the way their technology was as yet only working imperfectly because of the high density of naquadah in the walls adversely affecting it. It took Daniel a couple of minutes to realize Tomar was apologizing because there were no biothermal sleeping chambers.

While Jack was still gazing at the man in disbelief, Daniel leapt in quickly with an explanation about them having their own bedding and just needing somewhere dry for the night.

With many more words of apology from Tomar they were shown into a small oblong chamber which reminded Daniel a little of the statue niches at Khafre. Daniel murmured something which he hoped was suitably grateful and then as the door closed turned to Jack with a look of enquiry. "Just as a matter of interest why exactly am I having to pretend I can't read or write Ancient Egyptian?"

Jack returned his gaze levelly. "These are Tollan. We know the Tollan have technology we want. We have knowledge they want. I don't want you giving anything up for free we need to bargain with."

Daniel didn't hide his disappointment. "And here I was thinking you didn't want to hand over the blueprints for possible Goa'uld weaponry to people who might not use it well."

"That too."

"Silly me for the thinking we were actually on the same page for once." He tugged at the quick release strap on his pack then tugged again irritably when it didn't come loose.

As he turned around to get his pack, Jack caught his arm, squeezing none too lightly to get his attention. "I don't think Goa'uld and Tollan technology combine well. I do think we need to find a way to try to defend ourselves from the Big Bad Goa'uld, and a renegade bunch of Tollan who don't have problems with sharing what they know seem like a good bet to me."

"You never learn, do you?" Daniel shook his head. "Every time we try to win this war by gaining superior technology all we do is take ourselves one step closer to turning into the Goa'uld."

"That's bullshit." Jack snapped the word out sharply, spinning Daniel half around so he could get at his pack for him, tugging at the straps as he spoke rapidly: "The Stargate is a piece of alien technology, Daniel, and you think it's the best thing since sliced bread. That light show doohickey on Ernest's World was a piece of alien technology, and you cried for a month when we couldn't take that home."

"I did not cry." As Daniel tried to turn his head to argue with him, another angry yank on the straps shoved him forward a step. "Ow!"

"Sorry. And you didn't shut up talking about it for a month anyway."

"They're different kinds of technology."

"It's all the same." Jack lifted the pack from his back, yanked out the bedroll and shoved it at him.

"No, it's not all the same. Thank you."

"You're welcome. And yes it is."

"So the walking through walls things are the same as those bombs Tanith got the Tollan to build?" Daniel demanded, rubbing his shoulder where the strap had pinched him while clutching his bedroll with the other hand.

"Essentially. Yes." Jack gave him a look that dared him to argue and had just a hint of smugness about it at having used 'essentially' before Daniel or Sam could.

"No, they're not. The one has no purpose except to kill people, the other has no military purpose at all."

"It does if you use it for a covert op."

Sam had her 'must you two do this in front of me' look again. She rubbed her temple as she spoke. "Daniel, the bombs and the wrist devices do essentially use the same phase shift technology."

Jack pointed a finger at her, looking insufferably pleased with himself as he did so. "That's what I said."

Daniel glared at him. "So a ploughshare really is just a sword that hasn't been hammered into shape yet?"

"You could say that." Jack was so obviously hedging his bets.

Teal'c interjected quietly, "By that reckoning is one culpable in providing a race of farmers with ploughshares to better assist in their harvest if in the future they use them to make weaponry?"

Jack winced. "What?"

Daniel gave Teal'c a look of approval. "That's a very good question."

"Yeah. A very good question that has nothing to do with what we were just talking about."

"Oh you mean a very good question to which you don't happen to have an answer?" Daniel countered. "Why can't I go and look at that temple tomorrow?"

"Because you can't."

Daniel stared at him in disbelief. "That isn't an answer!"

"Okay, because we have no evidence the temple even exists. Because I think Altan is up to something. Because I'm not splitting my team even further when we're already undermanned for what this mission is turning into. Because I happen to think the people starving to death are a little more important than a bunch of squiggles on a wall someplace. And most of all because I say so."

"Because you say so?"

"Colonel! Daniel!"

As their names were snapped out like pistol shots they both turned to look at Sam in surprise. She still had a hand up to her head. Jack blinked. "Carter...?"

"Sam...?"

"If you don't both stop squabbling like eight-year-olds I think I may have to kill you. No disrespect intended, sir." She rubbed her temple apologetically.

Jack looked across at Daniel. "Are you getting flashbacks to what happened that time Makepeace called Fraiser a 'bedpan commando'?"

Daniel gave Sam an apologetic grimace. "We're sorry."

"Daniel's especially sorry because he's the most annoying." Jack added. "I'm only slightly sorry because I was right."

As Daniel opened his mouth to make a retort, Teal'c said sharply, "Daniel Jackson. Major Carter has a headache." Daniel unwilling subsided but his gaze told Jack he would get him for that later.

Jack avoided his gaze with the skill of long practice by deciding to look very busy and military. Daniel hated it when he did that. Jack pulled his sleeping roll out from his pack, saying briskly: "Carter, I want you and Teal'c to take a good look at that rainmaking stuff of theirs tomorrow. Find out if it really was just an accident they wiped out those crops."

"Yes, sir." Sam still had her hand pressed to her forehead.

Jack winced in sympathy. "Migraine?"

"I don't get them."

Daniel had to hide a smile at the swiftness of Sam's response. Sam rarely complained about physical ailments, or anything else really. He presumed that was because of being a woman in the forces. It had to be gender related because Jack was also an Air Force officer and he yelled the place down if he got a splinter in his toe. So not admitting to suffering from migraines was very typical of Sam. He said gently, "Well, it sounds as if one may have got you."

She sighed and conceded the point, slumping down on her bedroll still rubbing her temples. "Maybe."

"Take some Tylenol, Major, that's an order."

Daniel reached into his pockets for his migraine tablets and tossed them to her. "These are stronger."

"Get some sleep," Jack told her.

"It's just a headache." She took the tablets, gratefully accepting the flask of water Teal'c proffered her to wash them down, then smiled at Daniel. "Thanks. Sorry I yelled at you."

He smiled back. "It's okay. Sorry Jack was so annoying."

He saw that little smile she couldn't suppress which she had to duck her head to hide. Then Teal'c was guiding her to lie down and covering her with his coat. Daniel looked fondly at the Jaffa, thinking of how gentle he always was with both Sam and himself when someone with so much strength and experience could have despised them for Sam's gender and his lack of military skills. But he had never so much as raised his voice to either of them and he had been tirelessly patient. Daniel remembered that Teal'c had been very gentle with his son as well. Did he think of them as children or equals? He sometimes forgot how much older than them Teal'c was. How many decades he had lived through before they had even been born.

Daniel shook out his own bedroll, putting it near the wall so he could quietly translate some of the panels once Jack was asleep. The low level lighting was at just the right brightness to make transcribing possible without being glaring enough to annoy. He could understand why the Ancient Egyptians and the Goa'uld loved gold so much. It was extraordinary the way it shrugged off time without tarnishing or fading. Copper plucked from the seabed had to be slowly chipped free from unsightly deposits. Gold gleamed as though it had gone overboard only the day before. He could never quite get over the shock of it glistening in the soil; or behind old partitions; everything else dusty and faded; old wall paintings lost their colors, weapons of iron corroded, headstones were eroded by time, fingerposts for forgotten dead now rendered nameless by the passage of time, but gold endured eternally unscathed...

"Earth to Daniel...?"

It was a quiet sigh from Jack, resigned rather than exasperated, the nudge against his shoulder unexpectedly gentle.

He looked up at him in surprise, whispering, "What?"

Jack sat down next to him, automatically straightening a crease in Daniel's bedroll. He kept his voice low: "I don't trust Altan."

"I got that," Daniel murmured back.

"He wants this stuff translated pretty badly." Jack tapped the wall and its hieroglyphs dismissively.

"Well, I only do good translations so I'm definitely not the right guy for the job." Daniel saw the look Jack gave him and winced in apology. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."

Jack gave him another look of exasperation. "What I'm trying to say here is - be careful."

Daniel gave him a look of exasperation right back. "I'm not the one thwarting him. You be careful."

"I will if you will."

Daniel held out a hand. "Deal."

Jack slapped his palm lightly in agreement. "I'm going to take Carter's watch. Can you do an hour extra? Apparently Junior's a little...off."

Glancing across at Teal'c, Daniel noticed the Jaffa was sitting more awkwardly than usual. There was not the serene expression on his face he had come to associate with kel-no-reem. A frown creased Teal'c's brow and he looked uncomfortable. Daniel looked back at Jack for an explanation.

The man shrugged. "Don't ask me. Teal'c just said he needs to do some extra deep kel-no-whatever to try to sort the snake out. He's been trying to keep it from Carter because apparently she's been feeling like crap since she got here too."

Daniel looked back at their other two teammates. "Are they going to be okay...?"

Jack held up his hands helplessly. "I don't know. I don't want to bail on Rudiju's people but half an SG team isn't as much use to them as a whole one, so if those two aren't better in the morning we might have to pack up out of here, head back through the 'gate and get Hammond to send in a diplomatic unit to try to get both sides talking to each other."

"Leave me here."

"What?"

Daniel could remember a time when that disbelieving-incredulous-irritable expression of Jack's had really gotten to him but now that was just the way Jack looked sometimes and he wasn't going to let it annoy him.

"I could liaise between Rudiju's people and Tomar's people..."

Jack tapped the paneling. "What does this say?"

"That Ra is the only god."

"What about the stuff in the entrance hall?"

Daniel gave him a look of pleased surprise. "You knew it was an entrance hall?"

"You mean that's what it's called?"

"Yes. It's really a classical structure of Entrance Hall, Court... I'm sure there's an inner sanctuary that way and..." He noticed Jack's expression. "Okay, the hieroglyphs in the entrance hall said something about Ra casting down his enemies with weapons of terrible power."

"Okay, here's a question for you. You're a guy who's landed on a planet that only has enough resources to feed one group of people and already has a bunch of people in residence. You've been looking for a place to stay for a while, chances are your resources are getting a little low, there might have been some disagreement about your judgment in setting off on this little voyage in the first place and you don't really want to take off again. You've gained possession of what you think is the old base of a guy who used to rule half the galaxy and you think some of the stuff on the walls might be a blueprint for how to use some of his old weapons. You've got some pretty good weapons of your own but if you use those the good guys on your side are going to recognize you were the one that did it..."

"Okay, okay, I get your point." Daniel held up a hand. "I just think it might be a good idea for me to tell Tomar that I could interpret for him and Rudiju and try to..."

Jack continued smoothly, "These people turn up, one of whom you suspect can read the stuff on the walls but he says he can't. Then he admits to someone else on your side that he can read the stuff on the walls and would really like you to help forge a new friendship with the other people on the planet who probably number a lot more than you do. Do you a) pat him on the head, give him a cookie, and tell him to run along and build a new dawn of peace and prosperity between your two cultures? Or b) take him off to a dark corner somewhere and beat the crap out of him until he tells you where the Goa'uld weapons are?"

The hieroglyphs gleamed at Daniel dully. He could see a variation of the shemshet, the sign that was still exercising the minds of Egyptologists as to what exactly it was supposed to signify. Ancestors. Followers. An instrument of execution and judgment like the fasces carried before Roman magistrates. He could have had a very happy time just tracing this panel and trying to put that scene of Ra into context. An intellectual exercise deciphering a few more pieces in the puzzle that was the history of Ancient Egypt. But no, because he was on a military field unit now, engaged in a battle with body-stealing aliens. So this could be a blueprint for weaponry, a proof of some old alliance between System Lords that might still be extant and dangerous, or the empty posturing of a long dead Goa'uld. Daniel sighed for a time when Egyptology hadn't been life and death, just the life between birth and death that he'd chosen for himself. Then he remembered the chain snapping, the coverstone falling, and thought that perhaps Egyptology was always meant to be life and death to him.

"Daniel..." Jack slapped him lightly on the arm, exasperated and worried at the same time. "Stop drifting off."

"I haven't had any caffeine in thirty-six hours," Daniel protested. "I can't concentrate without caffeine."

"Well, try." Jack took off his forage cap and ran a hand through his silver hair. "I'm not the one who's supposed to have to do all the thinking on this team. What with Carter's PMS and your caffeine deprivation my brain's starting to hurt."

"Okay. We need to find out if they were trying to help Rudiju's people or kill them off when they increased the rainfall, and if they were trying to help we need to find out why it didn't work."

"I think it's sabotage."

They both turned around to find Sam sitting next to them, still rubbing her temples.

"Carter, you're supposed to be asleep."

"The only way I can stop thinking about how much my head hurts is to try to work out what I need to look for tomorrow."

"Tomar seemed genuinely bewildered by what had happened," Daniel put in. "I think he's honest."

Jack sighed impatiently. "Daniel, you thought Hathor was a nice girl who just needed love and understanding."

"Well, when you had your head full of purple mist, so did you," Daniel retorted.

"No, I didn't. I still thought she was dangerous I just really wanted to see how she looked naked."

"Colonel, if you and Daniel could just not fight for five minutes, I'd appreciate it." Sam clasped a hand to her temple, clearly trying to think around a thumping headache. "I agree with the Colonel about Altan. I think he sees Rudiju's people as a threat and I think he did something to the rain-making technology so it poisoned the harvest. My worry is that the Tollan technology is so in advance of the equipment I'm used to working with that I'm not going to pick up on whatever Altan did. I think Teal'c and I need to cultivate someone among the Tollan who also had suspicions, but that's going to take time and time is what Rudiju's people don't really have."

Jack said, "Just do your best, Major."

Sam shot him a look that was borderline venomous. "That would be a little more reassuring if you ever bothered to listen to what any of the problems are you expect me to solve, sir." She winced and rubbed her temples again. "Sorry."

Jack pointed at her bedroll imperiously. "Carter, I am ordering you to get some sleep. Now."

"Are you ordering Sam not to have PMS as well, because I think that would actually be a violation of her biological...?" Daniel broke off as Jack gave him his most indignant 'Could you not undermine my authority in public...?' glare.

Sam gave them both another apologetic look. "Goodnight."

As soon as she was earshot Jack turned back to Daniel. "Give her chocolate."

"What?"

"You have to give them chocolate when they're like this. Otherwise they're...dangerous." As Daniel looked unconvinced, Jack rolled his eyes. "Just trust the guy who was married for fifteen years and never got bludgeoned to death in his sleep, will ya?"

Daniel sighed and dug around in his vest until he found a Snickers bar. He made his way quietly over to where Sam was lying with her eyes closed and her forehead creased in pain. Looking across at Teal'c he saw the Jaffa shifting uncomfortably as he wrestled with meditation that didn't seem to be working. Daniel imagined the Goa'uld symbiote in Teal'c's pouch wriggling in angry discomfort; its venomous soul refusing to meld with Teal'c's to heal either of them. Daniel thought about how it must feel to have the child of your enemy forming your immune system; an act of treachery by your own body, forcing you to need the thing you despised and hated as much as it needed you. He shuddered.

Without opening her eyes, Sam murmured, "Are you going to give me that chocolate?"

"Do you want it?" Daniel held it out to her in surprise.

Opening her eyes she held out a hand. "Are you nuts? Give it to me now!" She grinned as she said it but he didn't miss the wince as even the low level lighting obviously speared her aching head.

He felt another pang of guilt as he saw her undo the wrapper. "I meant to leave it with Rudiju and I forgot."

"Right now I'm really glad you did." She bit into the chocolate and sighed in relief.

"So, Jack was...right?" Daniel couldn't conceal his disbelief at the thought of Jack knowing more about how to handle women than he did.

"Didn't Sha're ever get chocolate cravings that made her want to kill you?" Sam enquired, still tearing her way through the bar.

He thought of their arguments; usually a frustrated outburst from Sha're he had never seen coming. Her bursting into the room with the 'gate co-ordinates to throw spoiled food at his feet, waving her arms in the air, eyes sparking with indignation, breathtaking in her beauty. He would stand there with his mouth open, dumbstruck by her anger and by how lovely she was, how magnificent she looked. She would usually grab him by the hair, yank him in close and kiss him so hard and so deep and so well that his brain would melt. Then she would slowly-slowly draw her lips away from his and say: "If you want dead dry stone you can have it but I will be in our home..." Then she would spin around and make a hip-swaying exit. Only the way he would usually trip over his tongue at that point caused any delay in him downing tools and stumbling after her while his blood cells all flooded south. He darted a sideways look at Sam. "No. Never."

"What about Sarah?"

Daniel wrinkled his nose. "She wanted to kill me quite often - even before she was inhabited by a Goa'uld. But I don't think it had anything to do with chocolate."

"It wasn't on a monthly cycle?"

He shook his head. "More like weekly. By the end more like...daily. She thought I was throwing away a brilliant career and she found it very frustrating."

Sam indicated the dusty chamber. "Little did she know one day all this would be yours."

Daniel grinned. "You're mean when you have PMS. Next month can I fix you up on a date with Simmons and ask you to carry a tape recorder?"

Sam grinned back but then winced and put another hand up to her head. "Daniel, I swear I have never had PMS like this before. Earlier I wanted to beat you and the colonel over the head with a club."

"Janet feels like that all the time."

She laughed but then shook her head. "I don't though. Well, not often. What if there's something seriously wrong with me? What if I'm dangerous?"

"Do you want to kill me now?"

Sam looked him up and down. "Only if you have chocolate you're withholding from me."

Daniel went through all his pockets and then shook his head. "I'm not, I swear." He got to his feet. "Just promise me you'll kill Jack first."

She nodded. "That's a given."

He patted her gently on the shoulder and left her still wincing from the lighting and chewing her way ravenously through the last of his Snickers bar.

As he reached Jack the man said quietly. "I heard that."

"We were only kidding."

"If Carter goes loco with a P90 it's not going to be pretty."

"Lucky for us the Tollan spiked our guns then."

"She still has a knife."

Daniel looked back at her and then wrinkled his nose. "I think we're safe."

"She said she wanted to beat us over the head with a club!"

Daniel shrugged. "Janet's told me she has fantasies about wiring us up to things that the Spanish Inquisition would have been ashamed to own."

Jack started at him in disbelief. "That's sick."

"Well, apparently we really are that annoying, Jack."

Jack shook his head. "Given how pissy women are how come they don't run the world?"

"Spiders and chocolate." Daniel lay back down on his bedroll. "The chocolate keeps them pacified and they know they need us alive to remove spiders from the bath."

Jack glanced across at his 2IC in incredulous amazement. "Carter is frightened of spiders? The woman fights System Lords for a living."

"You're frightened of bugs."

"I'm not frightened of them, I just don't like them. There's a difference between not liking something and being frightened of it."

"Well, you weren't too happy when you saw that cockroach on P3M-671."

"It was the size of a football!"

"You yelled so loudly we thought you'd been shot!"

"Okay, that does it!" Sam got up, marched over to where they were and slammed her P90 down on Daniel's bedroll. "You need to keep this for me until morning. And this." She pulled out her sidearm and handed it to Daniel. "Oh and this." She slipped the knife from her sheath and tossed that onto the bed. "Goodnight."

Daniel exchanged an 'oops!' look with Jack before murmuring a subdued and apologetic, "Goodnight, Sam."

Jack looked over at Sam and Teal'c then shook his head. "Get some sleep. I'll wake you in two hours."

"Okay."

As Daniel snuggled down into his bedroll, Jack added, "No translating hieroglyphs when you're supposed to be sleeping."

"Good night, Jack." Daniel waited five minutes and then looked over his shoulder to check Jack's attention was elsewhere before beginning to decipher the next panel along. There was hemu the steering oar, probably representative of the guiding powers of the universe and not to be confused with the more commonplace hepet oar. But Ra wouldn't command his scribes to commend the glory of the four corners of the heavens except as the four corners of the heavens commended him. What if the interpretations of some of those paintings in the tomb of Nefertari were wrong? If the bulls represented an imperfect alliance with Cronos then...

"Daniel. Don't make me come over there."

Daniel remembered that he was going to have to do Sam's watch as well as his own tonight and that he had a full day's work ahead of him tomorrow. Not to mention that Jack was one of the most intolerant people he knew when it came to understanding how interesting hieroglyphs were. He decided closing his eyes and going to sleep might be a very good idea.

***

O'Neill woke to the surface hum of Goa'uld technology. He knew that sound on an instinctive level along with the other sounds he could now identify within the space of a single second on waking. He knew the dark silence of his own home, the clock ticking by the side of the bed, the musty male scent of his own sweat. He knew the disinfectant tang of the infirmary, the muted bleeping of monitors. He knew the subtly different aromas of Daniel's apartment on the occasions when he woke up there after a party, the different ticking of a different clock permeating his hangover. He knew the split-second of longing that came with some awakenings from nostalgic dreams of Sara, inhaling a scent that had been so present in his subconscious but was no longer there. But this was a Goa'uld hum, which could mean Tok'ra tel'tak or System Lord prison cell, and quite possibly impending violent painful death.

A glance around the room reminded him where he was: in some gold-paneled chamber in an abandoned Goa'uld pyramid now in the ownership of renegade Tollan. A moment's reflection also told him Daniel should have woken him up by now. The last watch had been his. He looked around in irritation expecting to see Daniel oblivious to the hour sketching squiggles from the walls and murmuring incomprehensible gibberish to himself. But Daniel's bedroll was empty, except for Carter's useless weapons in an untidy pile at the foot of it half-concealed by Daniel's jacket. He checked the time again. Definitely his watch and should have been for the past hour.

"Daniel?"

No answer but his call woke up Carter, who jolted into consciousness before immediately clasping a hand to her head.

"Colonel?"

"He's probably just in the bathroom. Wake Teal'c." As O'Neill headed out of the door he was fighting the knowledge that Carter looked like crap and if Teal'c wasn't waking up when he yelled Daniel's name, the guy was seriously under par. As he headed for the bathroom he reminded himself that it would be just like Daniel to forget to wake him. He might have had some misguided belief O'Neill needed more sleep or he could have been caught up in translating those hieroglyphs and not noticed the time. He tapped on the bathroom door. "Daniel? Are you in there?" The moment of silence swelled as he waited for it to be filled with Daniel's reply, then hung there, empty. He tapped on the door again, more loudly this time. "Daniel...?" The door swung open and he stepped inside.

The Goa'uld décor was still in the process of being redecorated by the Tollan; the gold gradually being replaced by gray. The Tollan had installed a more recognizable shower cubicle than the weird ones the Goa'uld went in for which O'Neill had gingerly grappled with on the Tok'ra tel'tak in the past. The Tollan toilet couldn't tell him a lot as Daniel was a polite guy who always put the seat back down anyway, but when he checked the sink there were a few tiny bristles which looked as if they had come from Daniel's chin. Tomar had told him they would have this bathroom to themselves; Teal'c didn't shave, and he hadn't yet so this meant Daniel had been in here this morning; knowing the archaeologist's behavior patterns, probably about four a.m. If he were afraid of falling asleep on watch Daniel would usually make himself more coffee. If coffee wasn't working or was unavailable, and they were in a place with a bathroom as opposed to camped out in a field somewhere, he would shave to wake himself up. Several times O'Neill on past missions had been disconcerted to find Daniel waking up in the morning with a jaw without even the lightest shadow of stubble.

O'Neill checked his watch again. They'd lost an hour at the end of the evening with Carter's PMS attack and Daniel's reluctance to go to sleep so he and Daniel had decided he would do two hours then Daniel would do three hours then he'd do the last two hours. Daniel was supposed to call him at 5am. It was now almost 6am.

"O'Neill? Is Daniel Jackson missing?"

He turned to find Teal'c with a hand to his head. "Looks that way. You okay?"

Teal'c put a hand to his abdomen. "My symbiote has been increasingly restless since we entered the pyramid."

"Do you need to get back to the SGC?"

Teal'c shook his head. "I would prefer to stay here and search for Daniel Jackson."

O'Neill beckoned him into the bathroom and after a raised eyebrow the Jaffa obliged. O'Neill switched on one of the faucets, letting the water gush out to baffle any listening devices. "I think Altan may have made his move."

"You believe he has abducted Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c's expression showed what he considered a fitting punishment for such a crime.

O'Neill put a hand on his arm. "Yes, but as this is Altan's home turf and this is a hell of a big place to search, we need to be smart about this. We don't have a lot of time, Rudiju's people are starving to death and Daniel's AWOL."

"Tomar said their technology was being affected by the naquadah in the pyramid."

He turned around to see Carter in the doorway and hastily beckoned her inside. He closed the door behind her. "Did you buy that?"

She rubbed the back of her neck reflectively. "There may be some truth in it. I think Tomar believes it anyway."

"Why? We have a Stargate with naquadah in it and an iris made of trinium. They both work at the same time." O'Neill was pretty proud of having worked that out.

"But they work independently. It's a little more complicated than having machinery utilizing both elements."

She sounded impatient at having to explain something so obvious and he gave her a quelling look. "Except we know trinium and naquadah worked just fine together in the weapons Travell had made for Tanith too. Therefore I say they work together and Altan was lying through his teeth."

Carter rolled her eyes. "Well, I bow before your superior scientific analysis, Colonel."

He looked at her in disbelief wondering where the hell his usually by-the-book 2IC had gone and who'd put this waspish harpy in her place. "Don't get snippy with me, Carter."

Teal'c rumbled quietly. "This is not helping us to locate Daniel Jackson."

Giving Carter a last glare, O'Neill pointed in the direction of the chamber where they'd spent the night. "I think Altan was watching us on some kind of monitor last night. Even if he couldn't hear everything we were saying he would have seen Daniel looking at those hieroglyphs. And he would have seen Daniel and me appearing to argue."

"You were arguing, sir."

He gave her a look of exasperation. "No, we weren't. We were just doing what we always do."

"That's because what you always do is argue."

He held up a finger. "Don't start with me, Major. My point is that nothing Daniel and I were saying to each other last night meant anything but Altan might not know that."

Teal'c looked thoughtful. "You suspect that Altan may have mistaken yours and Daniel Jackson's habitual childish squabbling for a more serious ideological disagreement?"

"Yes." O'Neill took in what Teal'c had just said. "What? It wasn't 'childish squabbling'!"

"Yes, sir, that's exactly what it was." Carter massaged her neck again, twisting it around in an effort to get relief from what was clearly a humdinger of a headache. "And, if you don't mind me mentioning it, it's as annoying as hell."

"I concur." Teal'c nodded gravely.

O'Neill gave her a look of exasperation. "Carter, just how long is this PMS of yours likely to last?"

She shrugged. "Hard to say."

"Well if you don't want to be a corporal by the time this mission is over could you make just a little effort to overcome it?"

She had the grace to look slightly abashed. "Sorry, sir."

O'Neill ran a hand through his hair. What with Daniel having disappeared, Teal'c looking like death warmed up, and Carter having turned into the PMS Bitch from Hell, he already had a hunch this wasn't going to make his Top Ten Favorite Missions list. "Okay, you two go check out the technology. Find out what Altan did to screw up the crops. Get proof you can show Tomar and pray he isn't implicated too."

"What of Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c pressed a hand to his guts, sweat trickling down his brow.

"I'll find Daniel. You two just get out of this pyramid and over to the hydro-whatever place. Get the evidence against Altan." He patted Teal'c on the shoulder, gave Carter a last wary look in case she started snapping at him again, and opened the bathroom door.

It was only a mild surprise to find Altan waiting in the corridor outside. The Tollan commander looked both perplexed and suspicious to see to rest of SG-1 all sharing the same bathroom.

"Colonel O'Neill...?"

O'Neill brazened it out with a shrug. "Can I help you?" Following the man's gaze to the other two he said casually, "We're very close, do everything together, even brushing our teeth. Any idea where Daniel is?"

"He didn't tell you?"

O'Neill tried to disguise his burgeoning loathing for this guy. "Never said a word."

"He came to me this morning and asked to be included in the team I was sending to the temple we found to the north west. I presumed you had given him your permission."

"Well, I hadn't." O'Neill had no trouble faking his irritation. "Damnit, Daniel. I don't have time for this today. Okay, can you give me directions or something? I need to go and fetch him back."

"I will send some guards with you to ensure your safety. As we have rendered your weapons ineffective, that is the least we can do."

The reminder wasn't wasted on O'Neill. He knew a subtle threat when he heard one. "Yes, I really don't appreciate that little Tollan trick, by the way."

Altan ignored that statement completely. "If you go to the entrance hall, Colonel, two of my men will conduct you to the temple where Doctor Jackson is studying the alien script. However, I trust that you will share the result of Doctor Jackson's translation with us?"

"Of course." O'Neill gave him a mirthless smile. He looked at Teal'c and Carter. "Keep in touch."

Carter nodded. "Yes, sir."

As he walked towards the entrance hall, O'Neill was rapidly turning over possibilities in his head. All his instincts were screaming at him that Daniel was still in the pyramid but the pyramid was huge. The chances were the guards Altan was sending with him were the same guards who'd helped grab Daniel. There was also the possibility they were people just doing their job who genuinely believed Daniel was up at that temple place, but somehow he doubted it. The one possibility he didn't buy not even for a second, however, was that Altan might be telling the truth. He and Daniel might have the occasional argument but they didn't lie to one another unless they had to, and they didn't break promises.

O'Neill didn't share Daniel's problem with heights. He didn't like standing on balconies when a teammate was precariously swaying on the outside eight storeys above the very hard sidewalk, but on the whole he preferred high ground to low ground. You could see further and you could get the jump on your enemies. This mountain track up to the place where the temple was supposed to be was steep enough to have the two 'escorts' Altan had supplied sweating freely but not steep enough to make this soldier's head swim. The two Tollan were called Vyen and Iztak. Vyen was the smaller of the two with sandy colored hair and large even teeth. Iztak's sweat was too pungent for comfort, like a civet, or a man with a bad conscience. They were both larger and younger than O'Neill was, but they were out of condition, the product of a lifestyle where everything was provided and nothing was ever very difficult. When they'd pointed out to him there was no point in him bringing his P90 as it no longer worked, he'd seen the smugness in their eyes. When he'd said he just felt comfortable with it so he'd bring it along all the same if they had no objection, they'd shrugged and exchanged the kind of look the young and arrogant so often had on their faces when dismissing those they considered inferior.

As he'd followed them up the path he'd wondered if the way the two Tollan looked to him was what Homo sapiens looked like to grizzly bears. Creatures who thought they were top of the food chain just because they'd got lucky enough to develop opposable thumbs and make some useful tools. But without those tools they were just thin-skinned mammals, their instincts dulled by too many generations of complacency, and which most of the time were too dumb to know when they were in the presence of something dangerous. A man with a rifle in his hands thought he was better than a bear just because the bear hadn't invented guns. What the man forgot was that the bear hadn't needed to invent anything because he was built to kill without need of artifical assistance. With those teeth and those claws it could outrun any man and take his head straight off his shoulders no trouble at all, so if that gun jammed the man was always going to be messily dead.

Now he was taking a moment to scan the landscape through his field glasses. He could see all the way over to where Rudiju's hut was. He could also see the fields with their withered crops; the reddish dust so unlike the fertile soil of the Mid-West or even the Land of Light. The land looked parched; dried up and starting to wrinkle, thirsty for the rain. When he swung his binoculars around he could see Carter and Teal'c, ant-like figures toiling unsteadily from one sleek plastic and metal covered sphere to another. The shiny new Tollan temporary laboratories looked out of place and out of scale next to the looming menace of the Goa'uld pyramid. What he couldn't see was Daniel.

O'Neill put down his glasses, a muscle twitching in his jaw. He looked at the two guards who despite the pause while he scanned the landscape were still breathing hard. Altan was right to be wary of Rudiju's people on this evidence. The Tollan weren't natural soldiers. They had never known true hardship and he doubted they could fight. All that lay between them and unknown thousands of possible enemies was their technology. If word got out they had food they weren't sharing, Rudiju's people might attack. People did when their children were starving and they had nothing to lose. And, despite their technology, if the others attacked them, the Tollan might well be defeated.

O'Neill could sympathize with Altan's predicament. If you didn't trust the rest of humanity to be humane and you knew you were handicapped by a Curia who were militarily naďve in their thinking and would inevitably provide you with people not intelligent enough to make it as a scientists on the grounds they must then make good soldiers, you might get a little paranoid in this situation. But kidnapping O'Neill's teammates was never an option even when someone's back to the wall, and he was going to make Altan realize that.

"Ready to go?" He strode out, his long legs easily covering the ground, his boots sending little chips of stone to bounce back down the track. They were caught off guard, still trying to catch their breath, and clearly not happy about him getting ahead of them. Perhaps there really were scientists working at the temple whom Altan didn't want seeing him. There was a bend in the track just ahead, conveniently curving past an outcrop of rock and a screening bush with tiny mottled leaves and long black thorns that looked as if they had been made spiteful with thirst.

He heard the two guards start to run as he increased his pace further, loud and clumsy behind him, not sure if he was escaping them or simply impatient. He rounded the bend, darted behind the outcrop and waited. Their lack of any instinct as soldiers didn't let him down. Iztak ran ahead of Vyen, the two of them panting in crocodile formation instead of side by side. He put Iztak at two hundred pounds easily, and O'Neill's P90 slammed into his chest sent him barreling backwards into his companion with crushing force. They crashed to the ground, spinning dangerously near to the edge, Iztak unintentionally pinning Vyen beneath him. O'Neill had the weapon plucked from Iztak's hand before he'd finished moving. He kicked Vyen's gun over the cliff, the weapon tumbling noiselessly past scree and scrub. Kneeling on Iztak's chest, O'Neill pointed the Tollan weapon at his face. "Where's Daniel?"

"Get him off me..." Vyen groaned faintly.

"Tell me where Altan took Daniel and I might."

When there was no reply from any of them O'Neill dug his knee harder into Iztak's chest. "I'm going to count to three and then I'm going to kill you and throw your body over the edge of this cliff. Then I'm going to hope that Vyen here is feeling more cooperative than you are."

"You would not do that." Iztak tried to sound confident but his eyes betrayed his doubts.

"Watch me." O'Neill looked at his watch. "One."

"Please, we do not know," Vyen gasped out breathlessly.

"Two." O'Neill glanced at the cliff edge. "Ooh that's a long way down. Better make sure I've got this on the maximum setting. Would hate you to still be alive when you hit the bottom."

"Colonel, we do not know where your friend is." Iztak was staring at the cliff edge as if mesmerized.

"Three." O'Neill shook his head regretfully. "Bye, Iztak. Can't say it was nice knowing you..."

"Wait..." The man held up a hand. "I do not know where Commander Altan took Doctor Jackson but I do know in which section the security cameras are no longer working."

O'Neill looked at him grimly. "I need more than that."

"Please. Commander Altan ordered us to sabotage some of the security cameras last night. He may have taken Doctor Jackson there."

O'Neill privately thought that was very likely but tried not to look as sold on the idea as he was. "Maybe."

Iztak was talking rapidly now, the thin mountain breeze whipping at his short hair. "I can draw you a map. And give you my security card and password. I have maximum clearance. My card will take you anywhere."

O'Neill thought for a minute and then got off his chest. "Okay. Map. Card. Password. Now."

He watched critically as the two straightened themselves out. Vyen seemed to have a broken arm which he didn't feel too badly about given the fact they admitted they had been under orders to stun him them dump him. He thought it more likely they were under orders to kill him then dump him but he was willing to give Altan the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer just because he could understand how trying to get any kind of military service in working order under the Tollan was probably a nightmare. Vyen's ineptitude in having to bind up his own arm when he had grown up in a society where medical aids rushed to your assistance within five minutes of you hurting yourself would have been laughable except that O'Neill really didn't like seeing people in pain. He impatiently bound up the man's arm for him while snapping at Iztak to hurry it up.

"If you were in a field situation you'd need to draw a plan faster than that," he told him.

Iztak looked at him helplessly. "I cannot remember how many doors there are in the third sub-level."

"Well, you should do." O'Neill finished binding up Vyen's arm. "You're supposed to be a soldier. You're supposed to know your environment. What if you got attacked in that place? It's only the fact it's your home ground that would give you any kind of advantage."

"We have technology that disarms any other weaponry," Iztak protested.

O'Neill gave him a withering glare. "Can it disarm a spear? A knife? What about a stone axe? My team got jumped by cavemen once. We had MP5s and a staff weapon. They had big rocks. They were still winning easily until SG-3 turned up and saved our butts. You need more than technology to win a war."

"The Goa'uld have never troubled us," Vyen returned, holding his arm against his chest.

"Last I heard the Goa'uld had wiped out every other Tollan except for you. You have technology they want and your ion cannons don't work on their ships any more. You need allies and you need a damned sight better sense of self-preservation than you have at the moment. What you don't need to do is go around pissing people off who are trying to help you by kidnapping their teammates."

Iztak held out a card a piece of paper to O'Neill tentatively. "This is my security card and code. These are directions for how to reach sub-level three."

"Took you long enough." O'Neill pocketed the items and then set the weapon he was carrying to stun. He looked between them both. "Now tell me what possible motive I have for keeping you alive. Seeing as you've told me everything you know and given me everything I need."

Vyen and Iztak exchanged a worried glance. "You would not do that," Iztak protested.

O'Neill fired twice, hitting them both with a stun charge, then dragging them off the path, sticking them behind the rock where they couldn't accidentally roll off the cliff when they were waking up. He arranged Vyen's broken arm carefully so it wouldn't get more damaged but couldn't help thinking it might do all the Tollan some good to remember what good old fashioned pain felt like from time to time. The Goa'uld were running half the galaxy while these guys sat behind their technological fence and officially designated the enslavement of their own species Someone Else's Problem. He slapped Iztak on the arm as he straightened up. "To answer your question, no, I wouldn't, but somebody else might."

As he walked back down the mountain with Iztak's weapon in his hand and his security card safely inside his pocket, O'Neill said aloud, "I swear you guys make Daniel look streetwise and cynical."

***

The room was too small for two people with such strong wills and opposing agendas. Daniel felt the cuffs around his wrists chafing his skin. He didn't like being a prisoner. And he didn't like the look in Altan's eyes which suggested the man was rapidly losing the last of what had probably always been a pretty scanty supply of patience.

He met his gaze defiantly. "My friends aren't going to be happy with you, Altan. And Sam has PMS. I just think you should know that."

"O'Neill believes you are several miles from here examining inscriptions in a temple."

His heart did give a momentary lurch then. Would Jack believe he'd do that? Maybe two years ago, but now...? He had to hope Jack would know he wouldn't do that. Not without telling him. Not when Jack had specifically asked him not to. Not when... Daniel looked up at Altan's face and decided he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of even thinking Jack might believe that. He looked Altan in the eye and said quietly, "He knows that isn't true."

"He did not even question it. He was most displeased with you."

Another lurch of anxiety but he hoped nothing was showing on his face. "Trust me, he knew you were lying. Jack always knows when people are lying."

Altan loomed over him threateningly. "So do I. And you are lying to me now, Doctor Jackson. You understood those symbols perfectly. I know they refer to a weapon of some kind and I know it is somewhere on this planet. Tell me what it is. Tell me where I can find it."

Daniel sighed inwardly. There was no way he could see this situation not getting messy and painful. Looking around the small chamber in which he was being held prisoner, it didn't help that the hieroglyphs gleaming triumphantly from the walls spoke of the wrath of Ra, the strength of Ra, the majesty of Ra. Reminding himself Ra was dead didn't stop him remembering a naqadah-enhanced bomb ticking down closer and closer to zero. And that in its turn was reminding him of that vast chamber filled with bombs of terrible power and phase-shift technology that had so nearly been given to Tanith's unknown unnamed master.

"I ask you again..."

For the first time in his life, Daniel would actually have been pleased to see Doctor MacKenzie. It seemed to him that what Altan really needed was a psychiatrist. Probably for tri-weekly sessions for about the next twenty years. What he didn't need was an archaeologist who kept thwarting him, but unfortunately that seemed to be Daniel's allotted role in this particular scene.

Daniel met his gaze, face as expressionless as he could make it. "I don't know." He tried to say it matter-of-factly.

"I know you're lying!"

Altan slammed his hand against the wall uncomfortably near to Daniel's head. The man reeked of frustration. And Daniel could sympathize, he really could. He'd had evenings at Jack's house where the man had paced the room just like this, saying: "They could help us and they're not. We saved their lives, damnit!" Wounded because the Tollan didn't think they were to be trusted with the technology that would save them.

Daniel had mixed feelings on the subject. He hated being helpless against the Goa'uld, protected only by a piece of paper which officially designated them slaves of another race when enough ion cannons would mean they could destroy those stealers of other people's bodies and other people's souls. But did he believe the North American military were the right people to whom the Tollan should give a weapon of enormous power? No. Did he believe they would only use it against the System Lords and never against a domestic opponent? No. There was no right answer to this problem. Now he was in the position of withholding potentially life-saving technology from the Tollan and he had never had more sympathy with the late Omac.

Altan paced up and down again. There were two other guards in the room. Large impassive men covertly watching their commanding officer, half repelled, half fascinated by his dangerous intensity. These were the ones that had snatched Daniel from the bathroom that morning. He hadn't heard them come in as he was shaving, just looked up to see them in the mirror. Then they'd pounced.

"You are endangering our entire race!" Altan wheeled around and strode back to loom over him menacingly, his eyes dark with anger.

"Only if you choose to believe the Tadeshi are a threat to you," Daniel answered evenly. "I don't believe they are. I believe you can make peace with them."

"I don't care what you believe." Altan's fingers tightened in his hair, jerking his head back angrily. He put his face very close to Daniel's. "I will not allow you to put my people at risk."

Daniel felt the man's breath against his mouth, smelt his sweat, the heat from the man's body a dangerous warmth inches from his own skin. He gazed into Altan's eyes, half mesmerized by the baffled rage he saw there. Altan had been born into the wrong race. He was throwback to Earth ancestors from a different era with a different mentality. He must have been a square peg in a round hole his entire life.

"Only you can endanger them by dragging them into a needless conflict. The people on this planet need your help. Not your enmity."

"They are even more primitive than you are. You admit yourself that they blame us for the failure of their crops. For all we know every time the lightning flashes overhead they may take it as a sign from their gods to attack us." Altan twisted Daniel's head round, forcing him to look at the hieroglyphs. "Translate these instructions."

Daniel licked his dry lips. "No."

Altan abruptly released him and stepped back.

Daniel held his gaze, trying to get the man's attention. "Why do you want to go to the negotiating table with a super weapon behind your back? If you have an overwhelming military advantage over the Tadeshi, what incentive do you have to listen to them?"

Altan was taking something from his pocket; small, shiny, metallic, with glowing lights. Very similar to every piece of Tollan technology Daniel had encountered in the past. He just had a suspicion this was something much worse. Altan was trembling slightly as he brought out the object but his voice was conversational. "When I was seventeen I created this device. After experimenting on myself I discovered that used in conjunction with a particular drug it could cause a severe level of pain that left no permanent injury."

Daniel grimaced. "Your parents must have been so proud."

The look of pure venom the man darted in his direction made him wish he'd held his tongue, especially when Altan advanced on him. "They insisted I saw a therapist. It was stated on my records that I showed signs of an abnormal mental make-up. I was forced to attend a special center for those who deemed potentially criminal in their outlook."

Gazing into those twin pools of baffled rage, Daniel licked his lips again. "For inventing it? Or using it?"

Altan loomed over him. Daniel could feel the hard edges of the chair on which he was seated digging into his skin. "I have never used it on anything except myself." Altan stared at him for a moment. "Until now."

"Well, don't change the habit of a lifetime on my account - "

But Altan was already taking a pen-like object which Daniel suspected was the Tollan equivalent of a filled syringe from his pocket. Altan pulled his arm up, thumb furrowing the inside of his elbow as he searched for a vein.

"This isn't going to achieve anything." Daniel tried to keep his voice low and soothing. "You have no reason to fear the Tadeshi. As you said yourself their level of technology is much lower than yours. You could help them. You don't need to drive them out."

Altan touched the 'syringe' to Daniel's skin and he felt his skin go momentarily numb; then there was the sense of chemicals flooding into his body. Of course it made sense that a Tollan injection would be painless and its effects more or less instantaneous, but he still found it bizarre to have a would-be torturer administering drugs via technology which didn't even make the subject suffer a pinprick.

"I know there are the blueprints for a weapon of great power somewhere in this script." Altan slapped his hand against the golden hieroglyphs. His voice already sounded as though it was coming from the other side of a curiously silent sea. "When you have translated it for me and we have the means at our disposal to defend ourselves, that is the time to negotiate with the Tadeshi. Twice our race has almost been destroyed by trying to negotiate with others."

"Travell let the Goa'uld blackmail her into doing something she knew to be morally wrong. That's not the same as talking to the Tadeshi. And history has shown that it's sometimes a lot safer to go out amongst the populace and share your bread with them than wall yourself up in your palace while they starve." Daniel had never been so aware of his own skin. He could almost feel the blood flowing through his veins. If a gnat had alighted on his arm he would have felt it like a physical blow. "If the Goa'uld come with weapons you haven't banked on they will destroy you, but if the whole planet is united in its determination to fight back..." He felt a little dreamlike, nauseated, hyperaware of everything, from the hieroglyphs suddenly clamoring so loudly for his attention, a sensory overload of gold and information, to the scent of Altan's perspiration. He struggled to maintain his concentration despite the cotton candy someone seemed to have stuffed into his brain. "All weaponry ever did was kill people. Alliances are worth more than that. Talk to the Tadeshi, Altan."

"How can we talk to them when you will not tell us their language?"

He knew that was a fair question. He didn't wholeheartedly agree with this deception but Jack had asked for it and Jack was often right about military strategy. Daniel was certainly intending to teach these Tollan enough Ancient Egyptian so that they could communicate with Rudiju's people, and he couldn't see that Jack would object to that. It was only the hieroglyphs that were dangerous, not the spoken word.

"Teal'c has already said he is happy to act as an interpreter for your people and the Tadeshi when you're ready to distribute the food. You don't need to be able to write the language to speak it. Don't live in hostility and fear when you can live in..."

"Peace and harmony...?" The man loomed over him so suddenly Daniel jumped. Altan touched his face, even the pressure of the man's unexpectedly smooth fingertips feeling as sharp as a slap. "Do you feel this?"

"Yes." Daniel tried not to wince. Altan's face was only inches from his. He could hear the man's heartbeat, sense his doubt, see the mingled trepidation and excitement in his dark eyes.

"And this...?" Something cold and metallic was slipped under his t-shirt to touch his ribs.

"Yes." He was still gazing half-hypnotized into Altan's eyes when the pain jolted through him, excruciating white heat fizzling through his nerve endings. He jolted and cried out as his body spasmed in response and saw Altan shudder with horror at his reaction.

"Tell me!" Altan demanded.

"Oh God..." Daniel gasped back to full sentience, waves of pain beating around him like a flock of angry bats. He gazed at the man in accusation, fear and resentment thrumming through him along with the aftershocks. "You don't need to do this."

"I'm doing what needs to be done." Altan grabbed him by the hair and abruptly yanked him out of the seat to slam him face first against the wall. As Daniel yelped from the contact, body still shuddering with the shock of feeling so much so acutely, Altan breathed into Daniel's ear harshly, his breath unbearably warm: "Translate this and the pain will stop."

"No." Daniel twisted his head around to look at him. "You don't want to go this way, Altan."

Altan's response was to reach under his t-shirt again and apply the device to Daniel's spine. The jolt thrust him against the hieroglyphs, he cried out again, every nerve screaming a protest.

Daniel shuddered violently as the aftershocks tore through him, frying every nerve, sweat pouring down his back, every fine hair on his body standing on end. He had been thrown harder against the wall by the impact and he could feel an ankh sign imprinting itself on his cheekbone. He snatched a breath, sucking it in between the waves of pain and twisted around to let Altan see the accusation in his eyes. "Looks like the therapists had a point about you."

The backhand sent him slamming into the corner, the gold script proving no cushion as he crashed into it, his hideously over-sensitive nerves screaming a protest as they were so brutally bruised by the words he was refusing to translate. He couldn't control the shudders of reaction as Altan loomed over him, angry with self-hatred. Daniel gritted his teeth, blinking away the tears of pain in his eyes to glare at the man. "This isn't right and you know it."

Altan reached down and grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt, yanking him to his feet and then shoving him into the corner. His gaze betrayed horror he was trying to conceal without success. He pushed Daniel back against the wall and then loomed over him. "Don't make me do this." It was as much a plea as a threat.

Daniel was still fighting to regain control while his body shrieked in dismay at what had just been done to it; his nerves flinching from the thought of another jolt of agony. He was horribly aware of the smell of Altan's sweat and anger as the man's body pressed against his. He could feel Altan fraying like a violin string on the point of snapping. Having ventured so far into the swamp of the unacceptable, perhaps the man felt there was no turning back. Daniel moistened his lips while his heart thumped against his ribs. "Be careful, Altan. A little more and you may get to like it."

He saw the anger and self-hatred flare in Altan's eyes again, then a hard palm connected with his cheek; plain flaring from the slap, exploding behind his eye, thrumming down to his ear. As he gasped, he felt the cold metal placed against his ribs again, saw Altan brace himself, the man giving a barely imperceptible shudder before the pain was tearing into him and through him like a vulture's claws...

***

Carter cricked her neck back into place and pushed another sample under the Tollan microscope. These temporary laboratories were made from a combination of entirely artificial white and silver materials, which without the decorative water effects that had softened the interior of the buildings on Tollana seemed sterile and even a little oppressive. Or perhaps that was just her mood at the moment. Perhaps it was Daniel having been kidnapped that was oppressing her, not the antiseptic surroundings. At least her headache had receded a little, as had her desire to kill innocent passersby.

Teal'c was checking the Tollan system for any signs of physical tampering. He had told her his symbiote also seemed a little more at ease since they had left the pyramid. Teal'c suspected there might be a device left by Ra so the Jaffa of any rival System Lord would be adversely affected, but neither of them had time to search for it now. She was just relieved these particular laboratories were outside of the pyramid, unlike the other ones Teegan had offered to show her.

Carter was grateful for the Tollan technology and even more grateful that Narim had shown her enough of the way it worked in the past that she wasn't making a fool of herself in front of a woman ten years younger than she was. For the first time she could understand the annoyance Colonel O'Neill felt about having to deal with 'moppety' cadets. She liked Teegan, but her blind faith in the infallibility of the Tollan technology was a little trying to her already strained temper. With her temples throbbing faintly like a far-off percussion band and one of her teammate's missing, believed being questioned with cruelty, Carter was not feeling in the mood for anyone's unquestioning certainty about a system she had already seen fail its populace twice.

Looking up from the fragment of dried wheat she was trying to analyze, Carter watched Teegan add a few drops of clear liquid to the soil in her test tube. It turned pale blue. Teegan shook her head. "The same result."

Carter ran a hand through her hair. "These plants were killed by an excess of sodium chloride. But how?"

Teegan input the data then shook her head. "The computer can find no method by which so much of this mineral could naturally occur without a serious fault in the filtering process. No such fault has been detected."

"Have you run a full diagnostic...?"

Teegan gave her a pitying glance. "Of course. Several times. The system is reporting no faults."

"Well, we know that can't be right." Carter could still feel that faint throbbing in her temples. It had receded but it was still there. She hoped it wasn't going to make her miss something obvious. "These plants were killed by an excess of salt. All of their root system and the surrounding soil are saturated with it."

"The system is self-regulating. It could not accidentally produce so much sodium chloride and there is no record of it having done so within its own files."

"But we know it did." Carter tried to crick her neck back into shape.

"No, Major Carter, we only know that the plants were killed by an excess of sodium chloride," Teegan corrected her.

She was spared having to answer by Teal'c and Sammis coming back into the room.

"Anything?" She prompted.

Teal'c shook his head. "I could detect no signs of tampering, however, Sammis and I have obtained the samples you requested from every part of the system."

Sammis placed a box white and silver box filled with assorted phials, plastic boxes and test tubes on the work surface beside her. He looked between Carter and Teegan eagerly. "I could write a program to ask the computer to detect any system errors it might have been programmed to overlook."

Teegan looked bewildered. "Why would you want to?"

"In case of sabotage," Sammis responded.

"No Tollan would sabotage her or his own technology." Teegan looked faintly amused by the idea. "And the people who live on this world are apparently too primitive to -"

"Could you not use that word?" Carter requested shortly. As the girl gave her a nervous glance she realized she must be appearing less than sweet-tempered. It was probably because of the still-faint throbbing in her temples that she didn't much care; or perhaps it was just too frustrating to be confronted with this complacency again so soon after it had killed Narim. She looked into Teegan's shocked blue eyes. "These people are dying because of something your people did to their crops. Their children are starving to death -"

She felt Teal'c's warm fingers rest briefly on her shoulder. "Major Carter is correct. Accidentally or on purpose you have done great harm to the inhabitants of this world. I believe you should leave no possibility unexplored as you attempt to rectify that damage."

Teegan looked hurt. "We were not trying to injure them. I don't believe any Tollan would deliberately harm another race, particular one more prim -" She broke off to cast a glance at Carter and then continued quickly, "with less advanced technology than our own."

Carter thought of Counselor Travell, trapped like an insect in amber by the machinations of Tanith; eyes dark with desperation as she was forced to face the reality of murdering their allies to save their own necks. "Frightened people don't always do the right thing, Teegan."

"I still believe you have misjudged us." Teegan looked between Carter and Teal'c proudly. "Just because a small group of other Tollan did not behave ethically when they were under threat does not mean that we would react in the same way." Evidently seeing no softening in Teal'c's face, Teegan turned to Carter. "Did you not say it was a Tollan who blew up the weapons of destruction the Goa'uld had forced the Tollan Curia to provide?"

"Yes." Carter felt the loss of Narim sweep through her again. It was like a wave on a beach, overlapping other waves. Too many losses in too short a time. She was still gasping from the last one when the next one hit. Perhaps it had already hit. Perhaps Daniel was... She had to remind herself quickly that if Altan had taken Daniel it would be for the knowledge he possessed. There was nothing to be gained from killing him. She made herself remember Narim; to stop ducking away from her memories of him. It hurt so much, but she couldn't wall him up forever. He deserved to be remembered. She found her voice with an effort. "It was a Tollan who destroyed the weapons. He was a very brave man. We owe him our lives."

Carter thought she had managed to sound both calm and dispassionate but the sympathy in Teegan's eyes seared her. Teegan picked up the box of samples Sammis had carried in and placed it between Carter and herself. "Let us try to discover what caused the crops to be destroyed, and if it was a malfunction in our technology which brought it about. If it was, I promise you our people will make reparation to the inhabitants of this world. We are not bad people."

"I know." Carter sighed, seeing the pleading expression in the young woman's eyes. She did know that. She didn't believe the human race was inherently bad either. She had met far more people who could be classified as 'good' in her time than 'bad'. But it would only take one man to sabotage the filtering system to cause famine across the whole planet, and she knew from her experience on Tollana that when, their technology failed them, people who relied upon it to solve all their problems sometimes threw ethics straight out of the nearest window. Aloud she just said, "Okay. Let's get to it." But the eloquent glance she exchanged with Teal'c before she bent back over the test tube suggested to her that he also thought their cynicism was entirely justified.

***

"Tell me!"

O'Neill barely recognized Altan's voice; muffled by the heavy ornate door but still leaching out into the dimly lit corridor, distorted with desperation. O'Neill increased his pace at once. He didn't like desperate men having his teammates under their control. That tended not to work out well for teammates.

"Altan, you don't need to do this..." Daniel's soothing voice; pleading for reason to reassert itself.

Altan's response was revealed a second later, when Daniel's cry of pain echoed down the corridor. O'Neill broke into a run. Even with the aid of Iztak's map it had taken him longer than he liked to find the right sub-level, but that cry from his teammate did at least tell him he was very close to his objective. He pulled the security card from his pocket and swiped it through the Tollan door lock. The Tollan technology didn't look right stuck onto the Goa'uld panel work; cool, modern grey and white trinium-powered doodads fighting uneasily with all that naqadah-powered Egyptian gold. For a moment he thought he'd typed in the wrong password, then the panel noiselessly slid back and he was stepping inside the room.

Altan's shout covered the sound of him entering the room, the echoes reverberating from his despairing cry: "Tell me!" The guards didn't even look in O'Neill's direction, too mesmerized by what was taking place on the other side of the room. The room was oppressively small, ostentatiously gold, and stank of human sweat and human pain.

"Tell me..." Altan's voice was harsh with despair, as though he were the one who had been tortured. He had Daniel jammed face first against the paneling, the fingers of his left hand twisted in Daniel's short brown hair, twisting Daniel's head round to the side, Altan's face very close to Daniel's, eyes closed as he seemed to inhale his prisoner's scent, sweat trickling down his face and leaving dark stains under his armpits.

Daniel had a livid bruise on his cheekbone and O'Neill felt his anger go up another notch at the sight, his fingers tightening on the Tollan weapon he carried. But Daniel's expression as he looked at Altan was curiously compassionate and his voice was quiet as he said, "Don't."

Altan sounded close to tears. "Why are you making me do this? Why?" Shuddering, Altan reached under Daniel's t-shirt. O'Neill didn't even see the object in his hand. He just saw Altan turn his head away, then flinch violently as Daniel's cry of pain tore straight through both of them.

Furious O'Neill started forward. "Get away from him, you son of a bitch!"

As O'Neill shouted out, the guards both turned their heads to look at him in disbelief. They were still gaping bovinely as the stun blasts from his borrowed Tollan gun hit them in quick succession.

Altan let go of Daniel as though he had burned his fingers, staring at O'Neill in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Just passing by." As Altan made to reach for his weapon, O'Neill jerked up the Tollan stun gun. "Don't."

"Good to see you, Jack." A smile lit up Daniel's face despite the bruise on his cheekbone. They exchanged a glance as he assessed Daniel's condition, noting the bruises and the tremors. But he also saw the relief in Daniel's eyes and realized he was just what Daniel needed to see right now, standing there with a Tollan weapon in his hand, body language asserting his control of the situation from the top of his forage cap to the tips of his dust-stained boots. There were times when, whatever Daniel might say to the contrary, he knew Daniel was glad O'Neill was a soldier, that he was six foot two in his socks, and could deal with people like Altan when reason had failed.

O'Neill gave Daniel as much of a smile as he could manage given how angry he was. "You too. You okay?"

"Yes." Again, the look Daniel gave Altan was more compassionate than hostile despite what the man had just been doing to him. "Actually I think I'm in better shape than he is."

O'Neill jerked the weapon at Altan again. "Uncuff him. Don't try anything because I am more than willing to kill you right now."

He saw the flicker of something that looked curiously like relief in Altan's eyes and then the man was reaching into his pocket for another Tollan whirligig. Altan passed the card through the middle of the cuffs, light fizzling as he did so before the cuffs slid back without a sound. "You should have told me what I wanted to know." Against all reason he sounded reproachful.

Daniel rubbed his freed wrists gingerly before returning the man's gaze. "At least you know now, Altan."

Watching the two of them, O'Neill felt he was observing, not torturer and victim, but pupil and tutor.

"Know what?" Altan was still gazing at Daniel as if he were the most fascinating and maddening puzzle he had ever encountered. O'Neill could remember how that felt. Sitting next to this man-child on strange new worlds while the light of an alien campfire dimmed the stars and spat sparks into the air. That shaggy head full of more information than he could even imagine; knowing things O'Neill could never know; able to get people to do what he wanted sometimes, it seemed, just by willing it. But a head also so full of knowledge there had apparently been no room left for the basics he had always thought were essentials for day-to-day survival. The guy who could translate strange wedge shaped patterns in the sand as easily as O'Neill could read a book yet didn't know when not to argue with an angry six foot four marine when it was a hundred degrees in the shade.

Daniel licked his lips, wrapping his arms around his body and flinching a little where his fingers put pressure on his skin. "That you didn't enjoy it after all."

Altan gave another curious little shudder. "No." Then he recovered and stepped back. "My soldiers will find you."

"Your soldiers couldn't find their own asses with both hands." O'Neill looked the man in the eyes. "Have fun, Altan?"

Altan flinched. "I need the information your teammate possesses."

Daniel was swaying as he walked across the room, the bruise on his cheekbone a dull painful-looking purple. O'Neill grimaced at the sight, having to fight his first impulse to zap the hell out of Altan right now. "Nothing like combining business and pleasure though, is there?" He couldn't keep the savagery from his voice. The fact he'd been too slow to stop Daniel getting that last zap from that nasty little implement Altan had used not improving his temper at all.

There was a curious dignity in Altan's gaze as he also looked across at Daniel. "Doctor Jackson knows the truth."

O'Neill gave Altan a look of loathing, voice too low for Daniel to hear: "I know what torturers are like."

"He's not a torturer, Jack."

So much for Daniel not being able to hear him.

Daniel turned around, face unclouded despite the way he was shuddering with reaction. "He just wanted to know what I know."

O'Neill gave him a look of exasperation. "And he tortured you to get you to tell him."

"But he didn't enjoy it."

O'Neill held Daniel's gaze. "That's why he isn't dead yet."

"You are stopping us from defending ourselves." Altan took a step towards O'Neill. "You haven't the right."

O'Neill jabbed a finger at him. "Do you know what the other Tollan did with the last batch of trinium we gave them? They used it to make bombs for the Goa'uld that could get through our iris. People with technology so advanced you can blow up a solar system with one of their discarded hairdryers but who can't manage even basic defense of their own planet are a menace to everyone including themselves."

Altan stabbed an accusing finger back at him. "Who are you to dictate to us?"

"The guy who just took out four of your supposedly hand picked troops," O'Neill countered. "You don't need bigger and better weapons, Altan. You need to stop being so damned complacent about your superior technology."

"If I were complacent I would not fear the Tadeshi!" Altan retorted. "You should address that accusation to the Curia. They are the ones who are convinced these people are no possible threat to us."

"If your people hadn't kept themselves so isolated from everyone else, they might have had some allies when the Goa'uld struck." Daniel was trying to lace up his boots without touching them. O'Neill could see marks on his wrists and finger-shaped bruises on his arms where he'd presumably been manhandled out of the bathroom but Daniel still sounded curiously calm. "Talk to Rudiju's people, Altan. Fix whatever you did to their crops and -"

"We did nothing to their crops!" Altan protested. "All we did was increase the rainfall."

O'Neill shook his head. "I know you sabotaged that rainmaking machine and I'm going to nail you for it."

"I did not sabotage anything."

Altan looked so indignant O'Neill felt a tiny spasm of doubt. He shrugged. "Sorry, but I'm finding that a little difficult to believe."

Altan abruptly pressed a hand to what O'Neill had presumed was a decorative button on his uniform. It glowed silver as Altan spoke into it rapidly: "All guards to subsection three, quadrant four oh two, apprehend Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson immediately. Treat them as armed, hostile and -"

"You son of a -!" O'Neill fired the Tollan weapon and Altan crumpled from the blast, falling unconscious to the ground. He turned to Daniel. "Time to go."

Daniel had already stumbled to the door and was waving a hand in front of the panel to try to make it open. O'Neill used Iztak's card again, grabbing Daniel's arm to tug him after him then snatching his hand away again as Daniel yelped.

"What did I do?" O'Neill looked at him anxiously.

Daniel winced apologetically. "Drugs haven't worn off yet. Everything hurts."

Being careful not to touch him this time, O'Neill asked, "Can you run?"

Daniel looked less than certain but at the sound of running feet approaching fast nodded. "Yes."

O'Neill pointed down the corridor. "Prove it."

Daniel ran. After a last look at Altan, O'Neill ran after him, while behind them both the sound of Tollan guards approaching at speed sounded louder and louder.

***

Teal'c had spent most of the day exploring the Tollan laboratories. He had tried to make radio contact with O'Neill several times to no avail. Although concerned for O'Neill and Daniel Jackson he also had faith in their resourcefulness and intelligence. He knew neither of them would let harm come to the other if they could prevent it, and having assessed the military abilities of the Tollan he also had no doubt that O'Neill would be more than a match for any guards Altan had sent to capture him.

He had spent many hours examining both the 'rain making' machinery and the hydroponic plant wherein the Tollan food supplies were being assembled. He had found a storage facility where thousands of bags of produce had been put ready for when the Curia gave their approval for the food to be distributed. He was shown detailed maps of the surrounding area with the places with the Tadeshi settlements marked on them and an estimate of numbers. The survey had been undertaken by a special 'famine relief task force' to whom he had spoken at some length. They had been given a huge temporary facility along with the task of solving the Tadeshi's famine problems. He found them enthusiastic, frustrated, and defensive. Enthusiastic about the prospect of saving the lives of the indigenous population; frustrated by the delays in distributing the food they had produced in readiness, and defensive about the failure of their first attempt to help out by increasing the rainfall. They all expressed bewilderment at the death of the crops and said they had already minutely checked the physical and computer systems for errors. They did admit to him however, that their computers were all acting oddly, as were the communications devices, and had been since they had landed on the planet.

His symbiote had been unsettled and restless all day but its acute discomfort of the night before had receded considerably.

It was late afternoon when he returned to the temporary laboratory where Major Carter was still examining the samples he and Sammis had supplied earlier. Neither Teegan nor Sammis were still in the laboratory and he wondered if Major Carter had ordered them to go elsewhere so that she could think. He had found Sammis' unceasing flow of questions trying himself, and like Major Carter, he could feel his temper was still a little frayed.

"Major Carter...?"

She smiled in relief when she saw it was he. "Teal'c. Did you find anything?"

He sat down beside her. "Those given responsibility for alleviating the famine of the Tadeshi people seem most sincere in their desire to help."

She sighed. "So do all the Tollan I've spoken to so far except for Altan." She tapped the computer console. "And even he has been completely up front about his objections. They're in the public records along with everything else."

Teal'c picked up a withered piece of herbage and examined it critically before placing it back on the white work surface. "Have you discovered any cause for the failure of the crops that can be traced to sabotage?"

Major Carter turned the screen around so he could see it better and pointed to her findings. "All the crops were totally saturated with sodium chloride - salt. So was the surrounding soil." She reached around for a box containing more withered looking specimens of greenstuff. "These are different."

"Those are samples taken by the Tollan before they increased the rainfall?"

She nodded. "Yes. After analysing the soil they decided increased rainfall followed by a nitrogen-rich crop grown and left to rot back into the soil would increase its fertility considerably. They hoped the increased rainfall would give the populace a glut of wheat meaning they could afford to set some land aside to work on improving the soil. These crops have no signs of salt in them. Nor does the surrounding soil. Whatever was done to the crops was done only since the Tollan have arrived here and I think it has to be as a consequence of them increasing the rainfall. But there are no signs of tampering with the system."

Teal'c looked around. "Where are Sammis and Teegan?"

Major Carter rubbed at her temples again. "Writing a program to install into the computer system to check for anomalies the computer might have been programmed to ignore."

"We are teaching them to mistrust themselves."

His tone was non-committal but the look she gave betrayed a conscience as uneasy as his own. "Do you blame us? After what happened on Tollana?" That unspoken After what happened to Narim hung between them. He wondered if she knew how much they cared on her behalf as well as their own. How much they wished they could have prevented the losses she had suffered in recent months. He did not know which he feared more; that her sorrow would become too great to bear or that she would simply close herself off from it, become brittle with denial of the true extent of her grief.

"No." He rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "What happened on Tollana must not be permitted to happen here."

"It only needs a handful of people to betray an entire race." Major Carter bent back over the computer screen, gaze raking it as if the answers must lie there somewhere.

"And people with the best of intentions," Teal'c added.

There was an exclamation of annoyance and they turned to see Counselor Tomar in the doorway, Teegan and Sammis were standing sheepishly behind him. The man's usually mild face was dark with anger. "So it is true? You did ask these people to meddle with our computer system?"

"It wasn't 'meddling'," Major Carter put in.

Tomar placed two see-through computer disks on the work surface. "It is an unauthorized alteration to the system. It should have been put to the Curia and any modifications agreed by all."

Sammis gave them an apologetic look. "The computer sensed what we were trying to do and alerted the security forces."

"Your concerns about the possibility of sabotage should also have been made to the Curia." Tomar looked between them in disbelief. "You have abused our hospitality and our trust." He waved a dismissive hand at Sammis and Teegan. "Leave us. You will be given the opportunity to justify yourselves to the Curia later."

As Sammis and Teegan walked from the room, Teal'c laid a restraining hand on Major Carter's shoulder before she could answer. "If Commander Altan has indeed kidnapped Daniel Jackson as we believe, then surely it is you who have abused our trust?"

"What evidence do you have to support that accusation?"

"He lied to Colonel O'Neill. He said Daniel had gone to look at the temple after the Colonel had told him not to."

"And you know this is something your friend would not do?"

Teal'c admired the way Major Carter's face barely twitched. "Absolutely," she said. Only because he was standing behind her, did Teal'c see her cross her fingers behind her back.

Major Carter turned the computer screen so Tomar could see it. "I've read the minutes of the meetings. Altan repeatedly stated that he thought it was unwise to supply the Tadeshi with Tollan food until you had ensured the earth here was fertile enough to replenish your stores."

Tomar faced her unflinchingly. "Our computer systems have been disrupted since we arrived here. Our hydroponic plant is not functioning at full capacity as yet. If we give the Tadeshi the amount we need to save them, it may be that we will starve ourselves. Commander Altan argues that they might blame us for the failure of their crops and be intending to attack us. He feels that to strengthen them just as we weaken ourselves is unwise unless we are confident of our technological superiority."

"You do not agree?" Teal'c pressed.

"No." Tomar returned. "Nor does the Curia. We have overruled his objections. But I believe Commander Altan has been honest about his intentions throughout. It is not necessary to agree with his opinion to think him capable of sabotage. I know him to be a man of high moral principles."

"So was Counselor Travell," Teal'c told her.

"She thought she was doing the right thing for Tollana," Major Carter confirmed. "She was only trying to protect her people."

"According to your reports, she committed murder. She falsified reports. She was willing to assist the Goa'uld in their desire to destroy other races to save her own. We would not behave like that."

"It only takes one person..."

Tomar held up her hand to silence them. "I understand you lost a friend because of the actions of the Curia on Tollana, Major Carter. I think you are letting that loss affect your judgment. You do not trust us because those other Tollan would not share their technology with you and because when their technology failed them they made the wrong decision to protect their world. But we are not them and we are not trying to harm the Tadeshi people."

He must have seen the lack of conviction in their eyes because his own flashed with annoyance. "Can one not be afraid of something without wishing to destroy it? We are afraid the Tadeshi could harm us for something we did not do. Yes. We know there are more of them than there are of us. But the Curia have still voted to give them as much food as we can spare. We are still using many of our resources trying to discover what was done to their crops and how we can rectify it. We are not the people you think we are." Tomar turned to look at Teal'c intently. "Did you trust Counselor Travell?"

Teal'c met his gaze. "Yes. I did."

"You thought she was a person of high moral principles?"

"Yes, I did believe that to be the case."

"You feel betrayed by what she did?"

"Yes." Teal'c was not going to deny it. "We all do."

"If she'd come to us we might have been able to help." Major Carter leaned forward.

Tomar looked between them with curious dignity. "You think we are arrogant and complacent, do you not? Slaves to our own technology? But would we be here on a new world seeking a new life if we were people who blindly followed the rules of others? We wish to help the Tadeshi. We wish to make a life upon this world with them. We do not want to starve to death ourselves or see others starve. We do not wish to do battle against people who fear us because we have more technology than they do or who will use our technology to hurt themselves or others. You should not hold us accountable for the actions of others or pre-judge us because of them."

Major Carter picked up a handful of soil and leant forward, holding it out to Tomar. "If you weren't trying to kill the Tadeshi, why is their earth full of salt?"

"I do not know, Major Carter. But I know that only if you put aside your prejudices can we solve this mystery." Tomar's eyes pleaded for understanding. "You must trust us."

Teal'c had never seen Major Carter look so unreachable, her face was cold as alabaster, her eyes chill blue jewels. "I don't."

Tomar's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Then how can we solve this problem?"

Major Carter turned back to the computer. "I don't need trust. I just need data."

"But if you believe us to be guilty your data is already flawed."

Teal'c looked between them. Major Carter's whole body was set in resistance. She would not look at Tomar and the anger coming from her was palpable. Teal'c was also haunted by the image of those starving children. "We are trying to uncover the truth," he said quietly.

Tomar shook his head. "You are trying to find us guilty of a crime we did not commit."

"Does the temple exist?" Teal'c pressed.

"It does."

"And it contains the inscription Commander Altan showed to Daniel Jackson last night?"

The evasion in Tomar's eyes was unmistakable. "It may be that the inscription Altan showed to your colleague was from a different structure."

Major Carter darted him a searing glance. "Then you knew Altan was lying to Daniel and you didn't say anything."

"Was Doctor Jackson not lying to us when he said that he could not translate the language on the walls?"

"If your intentions towards the Tadeshi are as benevolent as you say, why do you want the language translated?"

"How can we communicate with them if we have no means to do so?"

Teal'c looked between the two of them and said quietly, "This is not helping the Tadeshi."

"Counselor!"

They all turned to see gray-clad security officers breathless and decidedly out of sorts. "Our long range scanners detect a considerable number of people approaching the pyramid. They seem to be carrying crude weapons of some kind. The computers estimate that they will be here in a matter of hours."

***

The radios were on the fritz. He didn't know if that was the Tollan technology or just the same naqadah problem Tomar had claimed was interfering with the Tollan communications device as well. Either way they were on their own until they could make their way back to where Carter and Teal'c were hopefully nailing Altan for being the sabotaging bastard O'Neill just knew him to be.

He hadn't seen any Tollan stuff in a while. There had been a big sign on one of the walls that looked as if it might be a warning of some kind and after that there had only been Goa'uld lighting and paneling and that low level hum of Goa'uld technology which always made his teeth itch.

"Can we..." Daniel waved a hand at him, holding his side and panting for breath.

O'Neill stopped, automatically glancing over his shoulder to see if they were being followed but there were no footsteps now. No signs of pursuit. He looked back at Daniel who was shivering, cooling down much too fast despite the sweat drying on his forehead. Being hurt on purpose always took it out of you and there was no telling what side effect those drugs might have. "You okay?"

Daniel winced apologetically. "Stitch in my side. Give me a minute."

O'Neill lifted up Daniel's t-shirt to look at the dull red marks Altan's device had left on his skin. Each point of contact had left two dark crimson contusions with other bruising radiating out from the center. He felt the muscle tense in his jaw, could feel his face shutting down.

Daniel said gently, "I think he's been afraid for years he might enjoy hurting someone on purpose. I think that's what the therapist told him when he was a teenager. And all the time he hated it. He just didn't know he hated it until he tried it." He shivered again, wrapping his arms around himself, goose bumps standing up on his skin.

"Well, I'm thrilled we got to clear that up for him." O'Neill took off his jacket and put it around Daniel's shoulders. "Here."

"Thanks." Daniel pushed his arms into the ready-warmed jacket at once, giving him a look of surprised gratitude as he did so that more than made up for the chill breeze that was now caressing his skin.

O'Neill could never quite get used to the way Daniel took him and his protection for granted nine times out of ten and would then be so grateful for some minor act of consideration O'Neill hadn't even really thought about. He had noticed Daniel's total lack of surprise on seeing him enter that room. Daniel hadn't even bothered asking how he'd found him. He'd obviously just expected that O'Neill would find him somehow. And that was pretty typical. He could save Daniel from a killer Goa'uld and not get more than a vague nod of acknowledgment before Daniel went back to a translation, and then get a total 'my hero' reaction just for fetching him a cup of coffee. He supposed the day they stopped surprising one another was the day their friendship would become as routine and boring as any other kind of marriage.

O'Neill gave him an assessing glance. Despite the shivering and the bruises, Daniel didn't seem traumatized. O'Neill wasn't convinced that it didn't hurt as much if the person torturing you wasn't enjoying it, but it obviously made a big difference to Daniel. Psychologically he seemed almost unscathed by what Altan had put him through. Physically his pupils were normal sized and he seemed pretty compos mentis too. O'Neill rested a hand on his forehead. The skin felt warm and clammy against his palm but Daniel didn't flinch this time. "Are the drugs wearing off?"

Daniel nodded. "The running would have upped my heart rate, which probably worked it through my system faster." O'Neill's expression must have revealed how he felt because Daniel gave him a 'don't be mad' look. "Honestly, Jack, it really did hurt him more than it hurt me. And I was lying to him."

"I'd still like to punch his lights out." He hadn't meant to say it aloud but when he saw Daniel duck his head to hide a little smile of pleasure he was glad he had. He pretended he hadn't seen it, indicating the walls. "Any idea how we get out of here?"

"Well, if this was an exact copy of the pyramid temple of Khafre then we'd be home and dry because we'd be in the inner sanctuary and there would be an exit just along there."

"But...?" O'Neill prompted.

Daniel shrugged apologetically. "The layout of this temple stopped following the same pattern as any of the Giza pyramids about half a mile of corridor ago." He ran a hand across the wall, looking at the hieroglyphs. "It's the same story as in the main court. All about Ra's defeat of the traitor who dared to ally himself with Seth against him. There's a lot about Ra's great might and terrible anger and how none can stand against him because he is all powerful and all knowing..."

"Still looked like a second-rate drag act to me."

Daniel was running a finger across the hieroglyphs, needing to touch them as he mouthed their names quietly to himself. Even knowing they were the symbols of the false gods who had stolen his wife, his life, and a big chunk of his innocence, didn't seem quite enough to take the gloss off these golden symbols for him. O'Neill peered over his shoulder, briefly wondering how it felt to be able to read this stuff. "Pretty pictures," he offered, looking at Daniel sideways for a reaction.

Daniel gave him a little smile. "Yes."

"So what does it say?"

Daniel indicated the wall stretching a mile into the dimly gold-lit darkness. "All of it?"

O'Neill pointed to a panel at random. "That part."

"It says that after his defeat the allies of Seth 'scattered like seeds of corn in the wind'."

"Poetic." O'Neill picked another likely cluster of symbols. "What about that?"

" 'But the great god Ra knows all and knowing all knew where to find them and their slaves. In his wrath he tore the earth asunder and cast the slaves of the traitors into a pit of fire'."

O'Neill couldn't help feeling a surge of pride at the way Daniel could do that. Sure, sometimes it was annoying. But it was also a really neat trick to do at parties when other SG teams were around. It took that anthropologist on SG-8 half a day to translate something Daniel could do straight away.

"What was the stuff about a weapon Altan was so interested in?"

Daniel was still tracing the symbols with a curious finger. "It wasn't in the hieroglyphs. It was a wall relief showing Ra holding a sphere with rays of light coming from it and his enemies all lying dead at his feet."

"I don't suppose he'd written up plans of how to make one, had he?"

"Not exactly."

Seeing Daniel grimace, O'Neill's eyes widened. "Daniel...?"

The younger man gave him a sideways glance. "There was one picture showing Ra ascending in a circle of light and the sphere being left behind. You don't need to be able to read Ancient Egyptian to know that means there might be a powerful weapon around here somewhere."

"Ready assembled?" O'Neill shook his head. "Ra wouldn't leave that lying around when some other Goa'uld could come along and pick it up."

"I think he left it for Heru'ur. He claimed this world in both their names. He destroyed the previous inhabitants and presumably the Goa'uld they worshipped, then brought in new slaves to worship himself and his son."

O'Neill remembered Apophis's attitude to Klorel. As Teal'c had explained it to him, in Goa'uld society, the sons of System Lords had to make their father's proud and know their place or they risked getting killed before they became a threat, but there was still a connection there.

"So why didn't Heru'ur claim it?"

"Because the Asgard stepped in." Daniel shrugged. "At least that's what I presume happened." O'Neill saw that sideways look. "If you'd let me go to the temple..."

"Daniel, what have I told you about strange men inviting you to take a look at their etchings? Are the words 'ulterior motive' ringing a bell here at all?"

Daniel gazed wistfully back down the corridor. "Just because Altan told us about it doesn't mean the temple doesn't exist."

"And just because you want to believe it's there doesn't mean it does exist." O'Neill slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Come on, let's find a way out of here."

"What was Tomar talking about last night? About some of the pyramid being unstable?"

O'Neill shrugged. "I don't know. Some crock they'd come up with because they didn't want us snooping around, I think."

Daniel nodded. "Yes. I think they just haven't found the weapon yet and don't want us finding it before they do."

They rounded a corner to yet another passageway. The lights were dimmer here, and the panels not even plain gold, just undressed stone. There had been no signs of any Tollan technology for a while and O'Neill thought Daniel's theory was probably correct. This was an unexplored corner of the pyramid and the Tollan didn't want it giving up its secrets to anyone but them. The air smelt musty, even a little damp, like the smell of dying seaweed on the beach, but the faint thrum of Goa'uld technology was stronger than ever. Turning another corner he was disconcerted to find they'd hit a dead end. He looked at Daniel who shrugged. "I guess we have to go back."

O'Neill waved a hand. "This layout isn't reminding you of any Great Pyramids I Have Known then?"

"It's reminding me of how the architects of the pyramids used to put in false doors and dead ends to confuse grave robbers, certainly."

"False doors?" O'Neill felt his curiosity piqued. "Do they have spears that come out of the walls if you tread on the wrong stone as well?"

Daniel gave him one of those long-suffering looks O'Neill had grown to hate over the years. "In real life or in computer games?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Only asking." He reached out and thumped the wall a few times, then shook his head. "Doesn't sound hollow."

"Or unstable." Daniel suddenly peered at the wall. "That's odd."

"What?"

Daniel stroked his fingers across the surface of the wall. "The rest of is just bare stone but here there's the eye of Ra again. I think it's glowing."

O'Neill noticed a tiny pinprick of light on the opposite wall from the one Daniel was examining. "Um, Daniel..."

"What?" Curiously, Daniel waved a hand in front of the eye.

O'Neill was just in time to see the light blink off on the wall and then blink on again as Daniel's hand passed across it. "I think you might just have broken a circuit."

Daniel looked at him in confusion. "A circuit doing what?"

Before O'Neill could answer, the flagstones beneath his feet abruptly melted away, salt air snatched at him greedily and he found himself plummeting into chill, dark nothingness.

***

For the hundredth time, Carter tried to work out how a heavier-than-normal rainfall could lead to drier soil. The Tollan had shown her the amount of rain they had manipulated and the ground would have been saturated, enough to soak, not just the soil, but to raise the water table beneath. Yet when the water had finally seeped away, the crops left behind had been ruined, and had promptly withered and died. It only made sense if there had been something in the rain that had destroyed the crops. Some part of the process had leached into the wrong section and been included in what should have been the clear fresh water that had fallen from the artificially created rain clouds.

It was clear that there was something wrong with the Tollan computers; and if sabotage had not been the cause of the contaminated rain then it must have been computer error. Although the technology was far more complicated than that of the SGC, and in many cases incomprehensible to her, Carter knew enough to see that the reading weren't consistent. If she ran a test three times she might get three different answers. Some parts of the databank couldn't be accessed at all, and that included most of the translation program; data constantly winking between Tollan and English. The pain in her head was now so constant and so intense she had to keep putting up a hand to check that there really wasn't a chisel driven into the front of her brain. Their archive material was corrupted; most of the files inaccessible, others showing only gibberish when she managed to get them to open. The problems were not showing up in the automated systems that lay outside of the pyramid but within the pyramid the Tollan technology was undoubtedly on the fritz.

She and Teal'c had spent more fruitless hours looking for solutions while their instincts were to go and look for their missing teammates. Neither Daniel nor O'Neill were answering their radios; which told her nothing, because she and Teal'c couldn't contact each other by radio if they were standing in the same room. As soon as they were back in the pyramid, she had started to feel a relentless pounding that felt like a headache that was happening to her whole body, while Teal'c was sweating painfully as his symbiote squirmed with discomfort. When she closed her eyes against the pain she could visualise herself as a collection of molecules that might, at any moment, be ripped apart and scattered like space dust. It felt as if it took a conscious effort on her part to hold herself inside her skin; as if it were only an act of will that prevented her from dissolving.

Forcing herself to concentrate on the problem at hand, she wondered if the sodium chloride problem could after all lie in computer error; if the Tollan had acted in good faith but their technology had once again let them down. But Daniel was missing, and she knew Altan had lied, and there were his objections, recorded in the meetings, saying there wasn't enough food and these people could be dangerous and Daniel was missing. And he and Colonel O'Neill disagreed sometimes, and Daniel could be...focused - okay, obsessed - when he thought something was important, but they had all gone through the misery of thinking their teammates lost at various times and one thing they did not do, ever, was just wander off without a word.

Carter knew the Tollan were untrustworthy because... because Narim was dead. Not for one minute had it occurred to any of the Curia to approach the people of Earth and ask for their help. It stung her that they could be considered so insignificant. Daniel had tried to talk to her about it, pointing out that the Tollan hadn't approached the Nox either. So great had been their fear - and perhaps their shame at being unable to solve this problem by themselves - that they had hugged their fate to them, seeking any solution to save themselves, even one that involved the murder of their own people, the betrayal of friends to whom they owed so much. What made it worse was that she had always looked up to Travell. The woman had combined such poise and dignity with such power. Nothing had ever seemed to make her lose her composure. Despite being so tiny, her physical fragility had always been concealed by the effortless command of a born leader.

How could she? How could she?

She thought back over the scenes a dozen times a day. Looking for fissures. She had thought Travell's behavior strained at Omac's funeral but had put it down to grief at the loss of an old friend. The uncharacteristic volte face by the Curia, the sudden offer of those ion cannons, had set off all their warning alarms, but what could they do except pursue such an offer when it could mean another way to defend themselves from the Goa'uld that left them as more than a sub-clause in the Protected Planets Treaty? The truth had revealed itself slowly and she had been more in sympathy with Narim than any of her teammates. She too had not wanted to believe that the Tollan system had failed. It had seemed to be based on truth, and justice, and, above all, the logical application of scientific reason to make the world a better place for its citizens. Science carried to its logical conclusions; funneled into technology that meant the Tollan were safer and healthier; could live in a world without crime, cruelty, ignorance, or superstition. But when their technology failed them, so did their principles, and the technology of these Tollan was no longer reliable.

Teal'c was watching from the window, voice calm, face impassive, but she knew that he had seen other famines, other wars, seen things that she could only dream of when her dreams became nightmares; things Jolinar had seen and she hoped that she would never remember.

"The Tadeshi will soon be here. It may be that Rudiju will be amongst them. It may be that he would listen if..."

"If we told him what?" She gazed up at him, the light from the window gleaming from his golden tattoo. "That the Tollan didn't poison their crops?"

"Yes." The expression in his eyes was steady and kind. He was too comforting sometimes; so was Colonel O'Neill. They all understood one another too effortlessly, and she could feel his sympathy radiating towards her, unspoken and yet still a tangible entity; like a third person in the room; a room that also contained her grief.

"What if they did?" She had thought about it, over and over, and it seemed as if it might be all too fitting that they were standing in the symmetrical gold-plated tyranny of a Goa'uld pyramid. In her mind's eye she could still see those strange transitions from god-like décor, that Berlin drag act kitsch-come-Old Kingdom-majesty being gradually overlaid by the grey and glass world of the Tollan. On that world of volcanic ash, a grey blizzard of burning air, the Tollan had been refugees. When they had been trying to recover Skaara they had been judge and jury. On their last meeting they had been betrayers. She had no idea what these people were, but while the Tadeshi had spurned the pyramid as a place of their oppressors, the Tollan had embraced it as their own.

"Teal'c these people have almost no food left, which means they have almost no strength left. If the Tollan are a danger to them and need to be driven out of this place then this is their last chance, now, before the famine wipes most of them out, and while the Tollan weaponry is disrupted by these glitches in their technology. In a month it may be too late. If we ask the Tadeshi not to fight back, we may be condemning them to death. I can't do that. I can't ask them not to take their only chance to throw out the people who may be killing them."

"The Tollan have no fuel left to travel from this world. If they cannot stay here, then we are condemning them to death instead."

Carter ran a hand through her hair. "I can't make this choice. I can't choose who gets to live and who gets to die. Not again."

Teal'c gazed back out of the window. "Omac was an honourable man. So was Narim."

She flinched at his name, still seeing him standing there while his world was destroyed behind him, people running and screaming, and fire arrowing from the skies, buildings exploding in shards of glass and stone and body parts, all that knowledge and gravity and calm and beauty lost forever.

"Counselor Travel was willing to give the Goa'uld their technology to save her own people."

"But to do so she had first to murder Omac and break the most sacred rules of her people. And we will never know if she would have been willing to do as she was directed to do by Tanith and send the bomb to Earth."

Despite that hitch of hatred in his voice over the name 'Tanith', Teal'c sounded so grave and calm and infuriatingly reasonable, but Carter couldn't remember the last time she had felt this angry for this long. Usually she was able to get through the hundred petty injustices a day that life seemed to delight in throwing their way. But this went deeper, this was a slow burn that felt as if it was only going to lead to an eruption. She closed her eyes and saw her hand holding a knife, cutting a rope; heard that crackly transmission again: All defenses failing...our ships attempting to escape are being shot down...I just want you to know that...

Just want me to know what, Narim? That you don't regret it? That you do?

"We saved them." That was in no possible way what she had been intending to say. There were people coming with weapons, using the last of their resources to try to drive out the ones who they believed were going to condemn them to starvation so that they could steal their land, and she had to decide what to do. But... "We saved Omac and Narim and the others. It was what the Stargate was for. It felt so right and so simple. It was a way to do good, and then... They were so wise. They had technology and scientic knowledge that were a thousand years in advance of ours and..." She turned to find that Teal'c was blurry but coming toward her. "How did we end up killing them?"

His hands closed on her shoulders, and she was so glad of the warmth of his fingers, something tangible and reliable she could feel through the cotton of her t-shirt. "We did not. Major Carter, it was Tanith who gave the order to fire upon Tollana, not us."

"We made Narim destroy the weapons. Maybe if we had told them to give Tanith the weapons and then found a way onto the ship and..."

"Major Carter..."

She had to blink to clear her vision and found Teal'c still gazing at her, not a shadow of doubt in his brown eyes.

"The mistake was theirs. They should have called upon us or one of their other allies and asked for assistance. They should never have made the weapons. The people of Tollana were betrayed by a handful of officials who acted against their own traditions and laws. Omac and Narim were honourable men who made an honourable death."

"There should have been another way, Teal'c! They should have thought of something else. We should have..." Again she saw the knife cutting through the rope. "I should have thought of something else."

"We are not to blame for the fate of the people of Tollana." His grip on her shoulders tightened even as his voice became very gentle: " You are not to blame."

"Help us."

Carter wiped her eyes hastily and turned to find Tomar standing in the doorway. "Where's Daniel?" she demanded.

He looked shaken up. "We do not know."

"I'm tired of being lied to, Tomar."

"This is the truth. We do not know the current location of either Doctor Jackson or Colonel O'Neill."

"Altan kidnapped him. I know he did. And I know that..."

"Yes, I did." The tall soldier stepped into the room behind Tomar. "I had him brought to me by armed soldiers. I...questioned him." He seemed unreachable as a wall except for that slight hesitation before 'questioned' that set off wailing sirens of warning in Carter's mind.

Teal'c and Carter both stepped forward impulsively, Teal'c saying ominously: "If you have injured Daniel Jackson..."

Altan looked implacable and unrepentant. "He has not suffered any lasting harm, but I no longer know where he is. He left with Colonel O'Neill some time ago. My soldiers attempted to follow them but lost them somewhere in the pyramid. That is the truth."

The last thing Carter wanted to do was believe a man who had just admitted kidnapping her teammate, but the fact was she did believe him. There was something pig-headedly unlikable about Altan, but there was also something in his lack of imagination that spoke of dogged honesty. Which meant that Daniel had been well enough to outrun Altan's soldiers when he had left the room where he was being 'questioned' and that Colonel O'Neill was with him. Her anxiety dropped a little from a point-of-panic spike to more manageable levels. Okay, Daniel wasn't alone and wasn't badly hurt; that left the problem of the Tadeshi and their dead crops and their overwhelming hunger and the confused technology-challenged Tollan who might or might not have organized a genocide.

Altan continued evenly: "We need the weapon left here by the Goa'uld. If we had access to such a weapon - one unaffected by the atmosphere of this world - then we could maintain an equilibrium with the people of this world and prevent harm coming to either side."

"You mean, if you hold the balance of power then you can frighten them into not rebelling against you even though you have clean water and available food and they have neither of those things?" Carter didn't even attempt to disguise her cynicism.

Altan only nodded. "Exactly."

Tomar stepped forward: "You come from a landmass that is rich in natural resources, and with a climate that is temperate, do you not?"

Carter thought of seas, mountains, great rivers, forests, deserts, those vast areas of prairie and farmland. "Yes."

"But there are other landmasses in your world that are not so rich in natural resources or fortunate enough to be so fertile, are there not?"

Evidently some of the computer files were still accessible that dealt with the planet Earth. Carter found herself strongly resenting having her whole world being an entry in someone else's databank, especially the databank of a people who probably had them filed under 'too primitive to be allowed access to our technology'. Unwillingly she conceded his point. "Yes."

"How then do you peacefully co-exist with these people? Is there not resentment at your great wealth when set beside their comparative poverty? Do you not maintain weapons capable of destroying their lands many times over to keep their resentment in check?"

Carter knew this rage had nothing to do with her hormones. This was not a fertility cycle. This was like having a migraine in every single nerve. "You don't need a weapon of mass destruction, you need to talk to the people out there and convince them that you're no danger to them. Only you're too arrogant to want to have to deal with them as if they're as good as you are, because they're 'primitive'. Only the difference between them and you is that their people haven't sold out any other worlds or their own kind because they're too full of themselves to admit they need help!"

Her anger echoed off the walls of the pyramid. Tomar stepped forward. "We are admitting we need your help. We are asking for your help, Major Carter. Without it, we will be forced to fire upon these people and many will die, many of us, and many of them. We need you to help us to avert such a disaster."

Carter felt her anger fade a little to be replaced by the realization that she was not sure that she had a strategy to call upon to help people she did not believe or trust. Perhaps she and Teal'c might have some influence upon Rudiju but even as she automatically picked up her useless P-90 and began to walk towards the light streaming in from the world outside, she had no idea if she should use that influence to tell him to attack these people while they still had strength to do so, or to lay down their weapons...

***

O'Neill woke with a groan. Everything hurt in the way that things only did hurt when he had fallen a considerable distance onto something unyielding. His back ached. His knees ached. And they ached with that particular nerve-twanging venom that told him there was a storm coming, or he had strayed too close to an unfeeling body of water whose salt tides tugged at the thin threads of his cartilage like a kitten torturing a ball of yarn. Swearing under his breath, he tried to sit up and found that he could, although not without a lot of protests from his aching joints.

"Daniel...?" He whispered his teammate's name carefully as he reached for his flashlight; not wanting to alert any hostiles in the area but definitely wanting to know if his teammate was alive and conscious.

"Mnggh...?"

Alive then. He wasn't sure if that was a conscious person's inarticulate mumble or not. Wincing, O'Neill swiveled on his bruised seat, coccyx clamoring in a way that suggested it had taken at least some of the brunt of the fall and was none too pleased about it.

"Daniel...?" he hissed fiercely. "Are you okay?"

"No."

Daniel's unhappy small boy voice. The one that always made him sound as if he was going to sit down and sulk until someone gave him a candy bar.

"Did you break anything?" Where was that damned flashlight?

"I think it was already broken."

"What?" His fingers closed on the light and he hit the switch. The blue-white beam revealed stone that had broken into uneven steps on which he was somewhat precariously balanced. The walls were greenish but not natural rock; smooth blocks of stone upon which there were all kinds of pictures and writing, most of it half eroded. Turning carefully, his beam picked out Daniel sitting huddled amongst a mess of broken granite about ten feet away. The stone eye of a decapitated crocodile statue glared at him balefully. Beyond the broken statue were some spectacular ruins of what looked as if it had once been a temple, all soaring pillars and cracked pavement, not to mention a few thousand feet of wall covered in half-eroded hieroglyphs. No way in hell was he going to get Daniel away from this place without a fight.

Daniel combed a flake of stone out of his hair with his fingers as the flashlight picked out a trickle of blood running down his cheekbone. As O'Neill winced in sympathy, Daniel rubbed his elbow plaintively. "I landed on Sobek."

O'Neill tilted his head to look at the angry crocodile. "He looks a little pissed." He tried his radio again. "Carter...? Teal'c...?" There was a irritating crackle of static but nothing else. Resisting the urge to curse only with difficulty, he switched it off.

"I don't think I broke it." He sounded defensive but not entirely convinced. Clearly a reasonable doubt existed in Daniel's mind that he might indeed have shattered an important statue to little tiny bits.

O'Neill fought the urge to roll his eyes while thinking Trust an archaeologist to care more about broken artifacts than broken bones. "Are you okay?"

"My head hurts." Daniel gave him one of his most reproachful looks; as if this was in some way O'Neill's fault.

"Well, don't blame me. I didn't even land on you. And it wasn't me who broke the circuit." O'Neill got to his feet, not without a lot of complaining from his muscles and tendons and with some wincing. He steadied himself on the wall as his knees yelped at him. "Can you walk? This place looks about as stable as a third world dictatorship."

"Evolved people refer to them as Developing Countries, Jack." Daniel clutched at the wall, trying to pull himself up while his head clearly swam sickeningly.

"Just stay there." O'Neill limped over broken fragments of a shattered statue to reach him.

Daniel - foolishly - reached up to his cut head and pressed it much too hard. "Ow! Ow! Oh..." The transition from 'pay attention to me and my ailment' to 'wow, interesting thing I really want to look at' was so swift it was like someone pressing a switch. O'Neill rolled his eyes and continued to scramble over broken parts of a granite crocodile to reach Daniel, who was balanced precariously so as to avoid standing on broken statuary while peering intently at the wall. "I think this could be a..."

"Daniel." The sharpness of his voice got the younger man to look at him, a little open-mouthed at his ragged temper. O'Neill mentally counted to ten. "Before you go off to the land of the fascinating wall-squiggles can we talk about your head?"

Daniel pursed his lips in that slightly defensive way he had around authority figures whose authority he would really like to question. "It hurts."

"Do you have a concussion?"

"I don't know."

"Did you land on it when you fell?"

"I don't know." Daniel's gaze was already straying back to the wall.

O'Neill could see that, above the water line, it was indeed decorated with lots of faded paintings, many of which depicted people in attitudes of worship to a crocodile-headed weirdo. He waved a hand in front of Daniel's face and the wall to reclaim his attention. "Name? Date? Name of the President of the United States?"

Daniel, despite having multiple PhDs, could on occasion look as if he would have trouble taking a remedial English class. This, unfortunately, was one of those times. "What?"

Sighing, O'Neill realized he had miscalculated. He wasn't talking to Daniel Jackson, equal, friend, SG-1 veteran of innumerable missions to innumerable worlds, competent professional and reasonably proficient amateur soldier; he was talking to Daniel Jackson, archaeologist, a man almost impossible to lure away from new artifacts even with candy, caffeine, or threats of serious bodily harm. This was going to take some managing, and as Daniel clearly had a thumping headache right now and had recently been tortured, he couldn't even yell at him. "Okay, let's try something a bit easier. Who is the general in charge of the SGC?"

"General Hammond."

"What's the name of the god whose statue you may possibly have broken?"

"Sobek."

"How annoying do you think I find you being such a ditz on a day-to-day basis?"

Daniel's gaze had strayed back to the wall art and O'Neill already had less than his full attention. "Ummm...you don't find it annoying at all? You find it...charming?"

"No, that would be Carter. She finds it charming, I find it annoying. I find it very annoying." Seeing that Daniel was already reading hieroglyphs again, O'Neill's voice rose a little at the end and Daniel gave him another reproachful look.

"Jack, I really don't think it's a good ideal to be yelling down here. This is a very unstable structure."

"Daniel, I'm trying to establish if you have concussion!"

"Well, I think it's a pretty good bet it's not helping my headache for you to go on yelling like that."

"How. Long. Were. You. Unconscious?"

"I don't know." Daniel showed him a shattered watch. "I may have blacked out for a while. The next time I woke up you were yelling at me. Look at this."

"I need to look at your head." Wishing for one of Fraiser's nifty little blinding lights to check Daniel's pupils - not least because having that light shone in your eyes was really annoying - O'Neill sat him down on a convenient lump of statue and tilted his head back, demanding that he focus on how many fingers he was holding up. He dug out some lint to clean off the blood from the cut and found it was jagged but not as deep as he'd feared. The skin around it was already swelling and bruising but it didn't look deep enough to have damaged the bone. There was also the fact that Daniel had a head made from reinforced concrete.

Daniel pointed to the wall. "Ra did this."

"Gave you concussion?"

"Cast down the temple of Sobek and placed his own pyramid in its place." He considered the point. "But I suppose by destabilizing the previous structure and putting this one down on top of it without due care and attention we could pin the concussion on him too."

"Let's." O'Neill took his arm, and as Daniel showed no sign of moving, sighed. "We need to get out of here."

"Jack, this could be important."

This time O'Neill unashamedly rolled his eyes. "You know, just for once I'd like us to find some scribbles on a wall and for you to go 'When you've seen one hieroglyph you've seen 'em all'."

Daniel gave him one of his patent-pending 'being long suffering in the face of incredible provocation' looks and pointed at the wall. "Sobek brought people here from Ancient Egypt and made them worship him as his god. They were probably from Shedyet in the Fayum region." Evidently seeing that O'Neill looked blank, Daniel helpfully translated: "That's Medinet el-Fayum to you, Jack."

No, that's a lot of meaningless syllables to me, Daniel. I don't carry a map of the Middle East in my head. Most people associated Black Ops with garroting and sniper fire; Daniel seemed to think it meant O'Neill had hidden depths as an expert on Arabian and Egyptian culture.

Daniel gave a gasp that O'Neill at first thought must be pain, his concern automatically spiking until he realized belatedly it was one of those orgasmic little sounds Daniel made when on the brink of some discovery that usually necessitated O'Neill becoming very very bored.

Sure enough the excitement in Daniel's voice could hardly be contained: "This is really interesting."

O'Neill sighed. A hundred snarky comments were just bubbling in the back of his throat, but he had learned through trial and painful experience that sometimes it was better just to shut up and let Daniel get it out of his system. Daniel was tracing hieroglyphs with his fingers while murmuring in Egyptian under his breath.

"What's it say?" O'Neill demanded.

"'I am Sobek, who dwelleth amid his terrors. I am Sobek, and I seize my prey like a ravening beast.' It's from the Book of the Dead."

"Is that the one you can't read from without raising a mummy?"

Daniel gave him a Look. "No, that was just a very stupid made up idea in a movie. I read from the Book of the Dead all the time."

"And you have proof that you're not raising a mummy every time you do that?"

"Jack!" Daniel stabbed a finger at the hieroglyphs. "We are standing in a Goa'uld temple, or rather what's left of a Goa'uld temple, to the glory of Sobek, upon which Ra put down his own temple. Look at these inscriptions - all to the glory of Sobek, the god who controlled the waters of the Nile. People used to feed the crocodiles who lives in the Nile to appease him; they were a very important part of the hold Sobek had over his subjects. Not just crocodile-headed Jaffa and staff weapon blasts, but big scary reptiles with big scary teeth swimming around in the main source of fertility in the land. That's nature and technology as well as your power as a god working for you every day. So, we're left with two questions."

"You're not going to be shutting up any time soon, are you?"

"The first question is why did Sobek leave Earth? Going by these inscriptions, I'm guessing it was because of the evil of Ra, who betrayed their alliance. Put that together with the inscriptions in the temple above us and I think the truth is that Sobek discovered a weapon and Ra wanted it, and when Sobek wouldn't give it up he had to flee from his territories on Earth and set up here with the people he had brought with him. The second question is...why here...?"

O'Neill sighed. "I don't know, Daniel. Please enlighten me, as I'm bruised all over and standing in a ruined temple with a pyramid balanced precariously on top of me, not to mention trying to avert a definite famine and possible war, there is nothing I'd like to know more right now than why Sobek came here."

"Me too. So, why don't you let me do a little research and then maybe we'll both know."

Well, O'Neill thought resignedly, I walked right into that one, didn't I?

***

They turned the sand to a pale red smoke on the horizon line. Carter gazed through the field glasses, thinking of all the soldiers who must have stood where she was standing, watching wronged men march steadily closer, sunlight gleaming on makeshift weaponry held by all too woundable flesh and bone. She had never before stood in this place and not known on whose side she should be fighting. Altan was giving terse orders to his men, their communicators still only working fitfully even outside the pyramid. Their weapons would no doubt work as well, but Carter doubted they had the stomach for this fight. It was too long since the Tollan had needed to do battle with anyone else. They were better fed and better prepared and they had undoubtedly superior weaponry, but she doubted they had the heart for this kind of messy death.

Sammis and Teegan were standing near to Teal'c, as if he was the only thing they still found comforting in a world where there could be a chance they had poisoned another race's crops and where even computers could no longer be relied upon. They looked absurdly young; not just smooth skin and glossy hair, but in their eyes there was only the first glimmer of a shadow. Their belief system was still fresh and newly minted and had not yet had time to corrode around the edges.

Carter deliberately averted her eyes from their anxious faces. Teal'c would defer to her in this situation; would accept her leadership. She had tried Colonel O'Neill and Daniel repeatedly on the radio with no luck. Chain of command meant that it was now up to her what order she gave. She and Teal'c could walk across this sand and lend their undoubted expertise to the Tadeshi whose children were dying of starvation while the Tollan congratulated themselves on not being primitive and Narim was dead, dead, dead.

My actions have forced my people to fight a battle we may very well lose. The least I can do is stay and fight with them.

Narim had died because he had done the right thing. He had destroyed the weapons the Goa'uld would have used to destroy the people of other worlds, condemning his world to destruction in the same moment.

Teal'c said quietly: "He was indeed a man of great courage and honour."

She looked up at him, the solid comforting bulk of him, a symbol of slavery on his forehead and a symbiote in his gut, and all that nobility and integrity in his heart. "How do you always know what I'm thinking?"

Teal'c half-smiled. "Practice."

"It's starting to freak me out, Teal'c."

Teal'c gazed impassively at the approaching line of people, the swirl of dust surrounding them from the dead land someone or something had poisoned. This was taking the last of their strength, the last of their determination. Only people whose children were starving could have got even this far.

"What do you propose that we do, Major Carter?"

She moistened her lips, feeling the dust against her dry mouth. She wondered how it felt to sit there helplessly as your milk dried up, watching your children shrivel with lack of sustenance in your arms. You must feel as if you were the one killing them, something wrong with you to not be able to provide them with the nutrition they needed. It was one of the most basic needs; right after the urge to procreate; the need to protect and sustain those so created. These men were no longer providers, not hunter-gatherers or farmers any more. They must sleep and wake to the sound of their children's hunger. No wonder they had come here, with the last of their strength, not as supplicants but as soldiers.

"The right thing." She half-smiled although she had never felt less like smiling. She could almost feel herself hardening like old clay, on the very point of cracking. "I just don't know what that is."

Teal'c laid a hand on her shoulder, voice low enough that only she could hear it as he said huskily: "I believe that you do."

I'm torn between half a dozen contradictory role models, she thought wryly. The Tok'ra were ruthless in their pursuit of freedom. Martouf, with whom she remembered all too clearly and painfully being in love, her own memories merging to the point of total confusion with those of Jolinar, had seen no harm in sending the corpse of Apophis back through the 'gate to the custody of Sokar, even though it meant the guiltless scribe in whose body he resided would also be revived, also be tortured, instead of being returned to the land in which his friends and family had died so many years ago. Her father had always believed that the hardest path was invariably the right one. Colonel O'Neill had closed the iris on Alar. Teal'c had murdered an unarmed man to save others. Daniel had gunned down the infant symbiotes in their holy urn. These were the best and bravest and most honourable people that she knew.

Who was she to decide what was wrong and right? She had cut the rope that left Joe Faxon behind to be killed. Perhaps her judgement couldn't be trusted. These people were starving and the Tollan were liars and betrayers and...

And Narim had also been a Tollan. The Omac who had trusted them against all his instincts and reason and been murdered for adhering to his beliefs had been a Tollan. She remembered him taking Daniel's hand. Remembered Narim trusting her with his innermost feelings so she would always know the warmth of that moment when she had realized that she had conjured these emotions in another.

"Major Carter..."

And, of course, in the end it was easy. Separated from her own grief and betrayal and guilt and disbelief at what had happened on Tollana, this situation was a simple one after all.

She lifted her head. "We try to stop a war, Teal'c, because as long as there's a chance we can find another way we should keep looking for it."

Perhaps, on reflection, she spent rather more time with Daniel than the other men in her life, but, he did have the great advantage over the others, that even when he died right in front of her, he always came back. She appreciated that trait of his more even than his many other virtues. Not that she wouldn't possibly have loved him even more if he had made less of a habit of dying right in front of her in the first place but at least he didn't permanently abandon her to grief and silence the way the other men in her life tended to do.

Carter dropped her gun that no longer worked on the sand and began to walk towards the approaching army. This was Daniel's job, of course. And, on condition that he wasn't currently dead or injured in any way, she was reserving the right to be very irritated with him for not being here right now to do his job. She was the scientist - he was the communicator. That was how things worked in a team. Everyone had their own allotted role, and hers was handling the science and backing up the colonel in a military capacity, and Daniel's was talking to the natives. You owe me chocolate, Daniel, she thought. And if I don't die in the next ten minutes, I intend to collect.

The sun was low and angry and they really had beaten their ploughshares into swords; she could see the edges of once-useful tools now twisted into weapons of war. In her mind's eye she could see those pictures Daniel had shown her on Abydos, the ones he had been shown by Sha're, of the people overthrowing the tyranny of Ra. But the Tollan weren't the Goa'uld. The Tollan were refugees who had come to a place where the technology upon which they had always relied was failing them, and who were unprepared and frightened and in need of her help. Just as the Tollan on Tollana had been, but they had not asked for her help. They had given her no means to assist them at all, and now they were dead, and Narim with them, and these were the only ones of his people left, and there was absolutely no question, now she thought about it logically, that if he had been standing here with her, he would have wanted her to try and save both sides of this divide.

She realized she was going to need Teal'c with her to translate, and then, as she felt as much as saw him fall into step beside her, knew that he had realized that too.

"What do you propose that we tell them, Major Carter?"

There was a wavering line of angry people coming towards her out of that red shimmer of dust, the sun bright enough to show her the edge of crudely-sharpened weaponry, the rust that already looked like blood. She had no weapon of any kind and just one of those unidentifiable bladed objects could take off an arm she would never get back.

"Why don't we buck all recent trends and try the truth."

Teal'c nodded, grave and impassive, the edge of the sunlight just catching the gleam of his tattoo. "A wise choice."

"Great," Carter murmured. "I represent the reliance upon superior technology and military strength that may have poisoned their crops and you represent the Goa'uld race who originally enslaved them on this miserable dust bowl. Why wouldn't they listen to us?"

She was never going to get tired of seeing Teal'c's smile. It was something that came along too rarely, like a birthday present she actually wanted, but it always made the day seem better. "Why not indeed, Major Carter?"

And then they were entering the vanguard of dust that went before the Tadeshi like silent heralds, and she was trying to find the words that might avert a war.

***

He had hoped that Daniel's research would lead them to move in an upwards sort of direction, as the sooner he was not underneath a Goa'uld pyramid the happier he would feel, but Daniel began following a line of hieroglyphs that led down and along, and demanded that O'Neill came with him as the official flashlight carrier for this particular mini-expedition. O'Neill thought it was borderline suspicious the way the same Daniel who could be a total klutz when it suited him became Daniel Jackson, man of perfect balance, when he was scrambling after an archaeological find. Displaying the sure-footedness of a mountain goat, Daniel jumped from one edge of a ledge to another and then began to climb down a wall using handholds that O'Neill thought were at least half imaginary. "What are you holding on to?" he demanded as Daniel edged along a ledge, while still murmuring under his breath.

This place was definitely creeping him out. It didn't even have that low-level hum of Goa'uld technology; it was just dead and damp and cold and empty. All the people who had painted the pictures Daniel was looking at right now were dead. They had been slaves to a Goa'uld who had abandoned them to a horrible terrifying death under thousands of tons of painted granite when another Goa'uld moved into town. And now they lay down here, so completely forgotten that no one even remembered they had ever existed.

A chill breeze touched the back of his neck and O'Neill shivered, turning around quickly, hand automatically going to a gun that wasn't there. Ghosts; this place must be full of them. People like the ones in that hut, scraping a living just above starvation, except the ones up there were free and still alive and the ones down here had died enslaved. Following his line of thought, O'Neill shone his flashlight around the cavernous place, the beam turning damp sooty shadows into dazzling triangles of blue-white-lit stone. Rubble, pillars, doorways into chambers that were now blocked by fallen masonry and broken statues. But no bodies. Not even a skeleton. Ruins ruins everywhere and not a corpse to stink.

"Jack..." A plaintive complaint from a dark-dazzled Daniel, who gestured imperiously at the wall to his right. O'Neill glumly shone the flashlight where he was told. He was sure there had once been a time when people jumped to it when he gave them an order. If he had fallen through a floor with Carter he could have told her what to do and she would have done it, and she would probably even have given him a 'yes, sir', which would have been nice. Then he remembered that Carter had turned into the PMS Bitch From Hell on this trip and so would probably have told him not only where to shove his order but might even have tried to demonstrate.

Sighing, he let the white light flicker over yet more pictures of crocodiles - or rather the remnants of pictures of crocodiles, because the inscriptions weren't exactly in the best possible shape. Still, no corpses, and no smell of decomposition. It would have been nice to think that everyone had got out alive, but that didn't seem likely. Perhaps it had all happened so long ago that there wasn't a trace left of any of the dead, not even a fragment of bone. The absence of corpses should have been a comfort but for some reason it was just making him antsy.

Daniel was talking rapidly as he balanced on a ledge while trying not to actually touch anything: "What was the source of Sobek's power over the people? They believed he controlled the Nile. That's the difference between life and death, between fertile lands and desert. Compare Abydos and the land controlled by Ra on earth. Climactically and geographically similar wouldn't you say?"

O'Neill had a feeling that whatever he said at this point was going to lead to Daniel talking very fast about gods and rivers and probably crocodiles. It really was easier to give in and surrender to the inevitable. "I guess."

"But the land we've seen so far isn't similar to the Nile, is it?"

"No," O'Neill answered dutifully. "No big river and no crocodiles."

Daniel beamed at him over his shoulder. "Exactly."

"Exactly...what...?" O'Neill demanded.

"Look at the pictures, Jack. Look at them."

O'Neill looked. Everything was half-obscured by erosion but in between the worn patches he could see waves. He could see crocodiles. Big scary-looking ones. He could see people in boats hauling fish out of the water on lines. He gestured with the flashlight. "This is the Nile?"

"No." Daniel pointed to another set of pictures much higher up, waving his hand when O'Neill didn't immediately shine the flashlight where he wanted. O'Neill flashed it twenty feet higher up, wondering when exactly he had gotten so good at being Daniel's assistant around ruins. The pictures up there were clearer and showed boats on a crocodile-filled river wending its way between temples and fields of crops, all the humans toiling away at their fishing and farming beneath a crocodile headed human figure who was presumably Sobek. The crocodiles in those pictures were dark green in colour and looked smaller than the grey ones in the pictures below. He thought about mentioning that to Daniel to show that he was actually paying attention but Daniel was already pointing to the pictures above and then below. "That's the Nile. This is here. This is where Sobek fled to, taking his subjects with him..."

O'Neill gazed at the pictures again and saw sails and people fishing and tending crops and bowing down before the crocodile-headed Sobek and feeding the crocodiles that were swimming in the waters. "It doesn't look anything like this here."

"I know. We need to find out what happened."

"You really think it's relevant to what's happening to these people now?" He actually wasn't arguing for once, just checking. Sometimes Daniel's brain moved so fast that he had already made a connection between one event and another, the relevance obvious to him although it might not be to another who was still some mental leaps behind; sometimes he was just so caught up in what he was researching that he could forget everything else.

"Yes, Jack. I think there is something wrong with the land and that's why the crops are dying and why the people will soon be dying and the answer to it may lay here." Daniel swung himself off the ledge onto another piece of low walling, balancing carefully so as not to dislodge anything. Then he was off again, with O'Neill having to follow him, knees complaining bitterly in a way they usually only did when close to the sea. Evidently crashing through a floor to land in a ruined temple brought out the ornery side of his cartilage.

"Can you shine the flashlight here, Jack?" Daniel checked some more hieroglyphs and then swung himself back up between two broken pillars, before heading off at speed, now on the other side of a gaping crack from which a musty salt smell was emerging. Daniel jumped the crevice and hared across a flat expanse of uneven paving to clamber up another pile of rubble, all the while talking at a rapid and incomprehensible rate.

O'Neill could only trail after him, pointing the flashlight where directed - usually a few minutes after Daniel wanted it - while demanding explanations that he didn't receive as Daniel ignored him to read more hieroglyphs, before setting off on another crazy scramble over pillars and fallen stones, this time leading him up a wall, from which he could lean down and read more hieroglyphs without actually touching them. As far as O'Neill could see he was using his knees as a grip and nothing else.

"For crying out loud, can you hold onto something, Daniel?"

Daniel ignored him to put his head on one side, reading some more hieroglyphs that were circling a broken pillar. "Okay, there was originally an alliance between Sobek and Horus. That would explain the layout of Kom Ombo. Then Sobek allied himself with Seth and had to flee Earth when Seth was defeated by Ra."

"Just come down, will you? You're making my feet hurt."

"In a minute..." Daniel murmured in a tone that told O'Neill that not only was Daniel not listening to him, he wasn't going to be shifting away from that inscription for a good long time.

Sighing in the resignation born of long experience, O'Neill carefully wedged the flashlight so it continued to shine on the inscription Daniel was examining and moved away to do some exploring of his own. He immediately discovered that outside of the small area of artificial light, the darkness was blinding. He closed his eyes to adjust, doggedly counting to ten, and then opened them to find the blackness had become a more traversable twilight. His other senses geared up to compensate for the shadows and he realized the smell was even stronger on this lower level and it smelt...damp.

Green up the walls to past head height, waiting in the darkness with a loaded revolver and a silencer fitted; the damp digging in, making him aware of how every bone in his skeleton interconnected, every ball and socket joint singing a protest that whined down every nerve. Aware that the Dead Sea was where you came to get well; a health spa full of healing minerals, and here he was wearing a balaclava and waiting to take another human life. The world baking out there, sunlight and daylight and tourists calling to one another, and him taking refuge in a tomb of some past invader. Cleopatra had opened a pharmaceutical factory here in days gone by, he'd been told. He'd assumed Whitely was making it up but sure enough, it had been confirmed in the guide book in the hotel. He wondered what it would be like to be the ordinary tourist he was pretending to be; how it felt to be the people out there who didn't have to kill anyone today. His lips were dry and when he licked them he could taste it, the salt in the air, the salt in the sea, and now in his skin and hair and mouth...

O'Neill opened his eyes. "Daniel..."

"...don't understand why these inscriptions are so badly damaged. They don't appear to have been broken off in the destruction of the temple and there's no way that natural light could have..."

"Daniel!"

Daniel gazed at him from a position dangling dangerously from a broken wall by his knees as he attempted to read inscriptions upside down.

"First of all - come down from there right now now before you break your neck. And second of all - I know why your inscriptions are corroded."

"You do?" Daniel gazed at him hopefully, short hair fanning down from his head. If he had still had the locks he'd had when they first met he would have looked like an upside-down StruwwelPeter.

"I'm not talking to you while you're making like a bat and hanging from a wall. I mean it, come down."

Sighing at his unreasonable attitude, Daniel hauled himself up with no visible effort and then climbed down over more broken statuary, being very careful where he put his feet, which pleased O'Neill for a moment until he realized it wasn't a fear of tripping and falling guiding Daniel's actions so much as a fear of damaging the inscriptions. Daniel sprang over a fallen pillar and then gazed at him expectantly.

"Lick your lips," O'Neill told him.

Daniel did so tentatively. "Um...?"

"What do you taste?"

"Well, me and..." Enlightenment widened his eyes. "Salt. I taste salt."

"So do I." O'Neill indicated the ruins. "That would corrode your inscriptions, wouldn't it? Salt air? Salt water?"

"Yes. Temples by the sea are invariably more corroded than those that lie inland." Daniel looked around at the ruins again and then began scampering over the fallen pillars, checking inscriptions and gently touching the stone. "Of course - eroded by water and salt. Ra didn't just sink the temple, he sank the land and the sea. Sokar built his temples by the sea. That's what those pictures are showing. His temple by the sea. But why here? Why not find somewhere more like the Nile?"

"Because he was a god whose power lay in his connection to real life creatures not just Jaffa with staff weapons. You're the one who said it." O'Neill picked up the flashlight and shone it from inscription to inscription. "Forget the mythology, Daniel. Look at what we're seeing. Crocodiles, lots and lots of crocodiles. That's why he chose here because this was once a place with crocodiles, and salt water ones, going by the pictures - the really big really scary kind. They go back further than the dinosaurs on earth. Maybe they're around on other places too. I always thought the Unas looked as if they could be distant relations of..."

Daniel caught O'Neill by the jacket and began to yank him towards the edge of the stable platform of rock. "We need to get some samples."

"What?" O'Neill shone his flashlight down between a crack in the pavement and saw what looked like the gleam of water, but there didn't seem to be a way to get to it. "Are you nuts?"

"Jack, this is the proof that Tollan didn't poison the land."

"What?"

Daniel sighed as if he thought O'Neill was being deliberately dense; which he actually wasn't, not that it wasn't fun to wind up Carter and Daniel by doing that on a fairly regular basis, but in this instance he was genuinely confused.

"All they did was make it rain."

"What?"

"You know how a water table works?"

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Daniel, how long have you known me? Have you ever heard me mention water tables? Have you ever seen even the faintest indication that I research water tables for fun?"

"I've never heard you mention crocodiles before either, but you seem to know the difference between fresh water and salt water ones."

He was going to have to concede that one, shrugging. "Discovery Channel. Program about the SuperCroc - those two scientists were so doin' it."

Daniel was giving him one of those little frowns as he kept walking. "Anyway, you were a parent. I thought they had to know everything."

O'Neill thought back to a million questions he had been asked over the years about how the sky stayed up and how gravity worked and what would happen if the sun exploded and where rain came from and why dogs walked on four legs and why couldn't they have one and what was the point of algebra anyway...? The pain hit him, as always, remembrance of a hand holding his that never would again, but he could smile at some of the memories, too. Home runs hit and the jubilation of a touchdown won, and always the questions, the never-ending stream of them. "Well, okay, yes, we do. But you stall and look it up in an encyclopaedia or you tell him to ask his mother. There's always a way round actually having to know everything. So, what's the deal with the water table?"

"Altan was telling the truth. All the Tollan did by making it rain was raise the existing water table, which is already very high, on account of being an entire submerged sea, and full of salt water, which leeched into the soil and killed all the plants. They were just trying to help and they brought about a famine, but that was never their intention. They really are innocent. We need to get some proof."

And then he did get it, and even mentally acknowledged that Daniel had actually been right and he did know this stuff and should have been capable of working it out. "Do you know how difficult it is to concentrate on geology when you go around dangling upside down from crumbling ruins?"

Daniel caught his arm and tugged him over a fallen pillar, under an archway that seemed to be held up by hieroglyphs, and over a tumbled wall. Daniel clambered over more broken stones, hissing under his breath if he dislodged anything despite the fact the chances of this temple ever being examined by an archaeological team were as remote as O'Neill picking the winning numbers for the lottery. There were still no skeletons, and for all that he didn't particularly want to be looking at any skeletons, O'Neill couldn't help feeling it was odd, and possibly a little worrying. Daniel was still talking, of course, which was sometimes comforting, as it was usually a good rule of thumb that if Daniel was talking, he probably wasn't dead, although O'Neill always bore in mind the possibility that one day he would wake up after a staff weapon blast and find that Daniel was talking and they were both dead but Daniel hadn't noticed yet.

He followed Daniel over another wall and under an archway and then Daniel gave a little cry of triumph and clambered over some more rocks and another piece of broken pillar and there was a stairway leading down into slimy green water, the taste and smell of the sea in the air unmistakable now. Daniel said over his shoulder: "That was a good call on the salt, Jack."

"Well, I'm not just a pretty face, you know."

"I know."

All these years he'd known Daniel and O'Neill still had no idea if his brains had just been praised or his face dissed.

Daniel pulled off his jacket and began to advance down the semi-submerged steps. Thinking of how slippery with slime they must be, O'Neill hastily grabbed his hand. "Hold onto me."

"Thank you." Daniel gave him a sweet smile before crouching over the brackish water.

"No, you can't taste it," O'Neill said at once.

"I wasn't going to." Daniel dipped the jacket into the water, letting it get saturated, swirling the heavy cotton around in the water.

Still holding onto Daniel's hand, O'Neill shone the flashlight over the water. The walls of the broken temple rising up on the far side, the water a deep cold darkness. When the surface of the water moved under the light of his flashlight, he was intrigued; directing the light to follow the 'V'-shaped ripples overlapping each other in diminishing folds. He peered into the depths, trying to work out where the current was coming from to make the water act like this, but there was just darkness, a heavy weight of salt water, trapped and chill. Then the light bounced off something darker even than the water, just beneath the surface, following the ripples - making the ripples -

O'Neill yanked on Daniel's arm as hard as he could, hauling him away from the submerged steps just as the huge scaly head rose out of the water, jaws yawning wide before they closed on the sodden jacket. The crocodile jerked its head round to the side, yanking the jacket to the left and Daniel with it. O'Neill felt his own hand, wrist, arm and shoulder jolt, and then his body whiplash at the impact as the crocodile thrashed its head the other way, O'Neill barely bracing himself against loose stones that gave way beneath his boots as Daniel kept hanging onto the jacket. "Let it go!" O'Neill yelled at him.

Daniel looked at the jacket he was holding and said 'Oh!' opening his hand just as the crocodile spat out the mouthful of cloth and lunged at the flesh and blood creature holding onto it. Daniel releasing the jacket onto its head and temporarily blinding it was the only thing that stopped the huge reptile seizing Daniel in his jaws. O'Neill yanked him up the stairs, already scrambling up them himself, the light of the flashlight randomly spearing walls and towering pillars. Daniel had gone from a dead weight to someone doing some useful scrambling of his own, but the crocodile had successfully shaken off the cloth and was throwing itself up the stairs, body twisting from side to side as it used the impetus of its long thick tail to propel itself forward at worrying speed. O'Neill hauled Daniel over a broken pillar and behind him before pointing the Tollan weapon at its huge head. He fired two blasts that cracked rock; the sound deafening in the underground cavern; shoving Daniel over another pillar, and another pile of broken stones, before daring to look back. There was no sign of the crocodile and he aimed the flashlight where it had been, letting the light beam across rock and slime and the dark restless water whose surface was still quivering.

"I think that proves your crocodile theory," Daniel observed breathlessly. He looked a little shocked but certainly didn't have any crocodile-jaw-sized holes in his body, O'Neill was relieved to see. Daniel's gaze went back to the ragged remnants of the water-logged jacket and O'Neill could just see him working out the distance between where they were now and where it was, while trying to estimate crocodile speeds on land.

Quietly O'Neill said: "If you're even thinking about going back for that I am empowered by the United States government to shoot you."

"It's your jacket," Daniel reminded him.

"I'll get another. Let's go." He turned away, feeling everything come into focus. Of course, that was why the lack of skeletons had been bothering him, because it suggested that something had eaten the dead and it might still be around to eat them. His instincts had been right on the money there; he just wished they'd bothered to communicate with his brain. He also had two team members in a possibly hostile environment, a famine to cure, and himself and Daniel to get back to the surface. He shone the flashlight at the walls, trying to see a way up. Daniel gently pushed his wrist over to the left and O'Neill looked without enthusiasm at an Escher-like confusion of staircases leading nowhere amongst a forest of broken pillars.

"That part looks the most intact, and I think we could climb from there back to where we came in."

O'Neill took in handholds and footholds, his knees already singing a protest at the thought of all that climbing, but it was true that the top of that crumbling temple would place them very near a ledge from which they could probably scramble back into the pyramid; supposing it didn't collapse on them first, and that still was a way back into the pyramid.

"So, a couple of hours of really painful effort and we'll be back in a building full of Tollan trying to capture us."

"Sam and Teal'c will be there, too," Daniel offered.

"Great, if the Tollan don't shoot us, Carter will for withholding chocolate."

"We didn't," Daniel protested. "We gave her everything we had."

"Speak for yourself." O'Neill pulled a squashed Snickers bar out of his vest and broke it in half, handing one piece to Daniel. "Tell her and we're both dead."

Daniel ate it ravenously, licking the last piece from his fingers before meeting O'Neill's quizzical gaze. "I didn't have breakfast this morning."

Shining the flashlight over the array of pillars, stones, and broken statues they were going to have to climb to get to the top of the temple, O'Neill sighed, clipped the flashlight to his vest and looked at Daniel. "Want to go first?"

"Sure." Daniel swung himself over a pillar and onto a fallen statue of Sobek. "Just try not to damage anything."

O'Neill looked at the crushed remnants of the temple, pictures of slaves marching endlessly around a broken pillar until the salt ate away their pigment and the rock beneath; until they were nothing but shadows and ghosts, the faintest impressions in eroded stone, a whisper in the darkness, a vague sense of unease that such a tragedy could take place and eventually there would be not a trace remaining to prove that the dead had ever even lived. "Right, because that's definitely going to be a priority."

"What?" Daniel called over his shoulder.

"Nothing." Sighing again, O'Neill followed Daniel's footsteps onto the shoulder of a statue of a long dead Goa'uld, muscles aching a protest, and lips already cracking from the sting of salt in the air.

***

Standing in the dust, that line of silent people watching her with hostile eyes as she talked to Rudiju, Carter thought again that Daniel owed her a great deal of chocolate.

It had been a huge relief when Rudiju recognized her and Teal'c, and held up a hand to tell the others to allow them to approach. He had shown them kind hospitality on their last meeting, and now showed them equal politeness as he listened to what they had to say, but it was very difficult to tell from looking at his face, whether she was convincing him or not.

"...These people are not Goa'uld or Asgard. They aren't gods and they don't pretend to be. They're just ordinary human beings, like you. But they have...developed in a different way. Where you live closely with the land and the seasons, they have become reliant on machinery..." She had to show him her watch, show him her field glasses, the Geiger counter, her radio; trying to explain circuitry and electronics to people who had never seen them.

She was also starting to get why Daniel used his hands so much when he was talking, it was taking all the self control she had to not windmill her arms in her efforts to be understood.

"They don't know how to live without technology, but their technology doesn't work properly on this world. Something in the soil or that the Goa'uld left behind is making their computers malfunction."

She had to give Teal'c a good few minutes to try to find an ancient Egyptian equivalent for 'computers' and 'malfunction' but Rudiju nodded gravely when Teal'c finished and they both looked back at her, so she supposed it had been achieved somehow.

"They want to help you but they're afraid that without their technology they may not be able even to feed themselves on this world. They did make the rain fall..."

As that was translated, Rudiju stepped back and then turned to the people listening, waving his arms to get their attention before shouting out what she had just told him.

Speaking quickly, Carter added: "But they did it to help you. They thought it would make your crops grow again. They don't know why the crops died."

Rudiju turned back to her and asked her a question she didn't understand. Looking to Teal'c for an explanation, he translated: "How, if they are not gods, can they make the rain fall?"

"They have very advanced technology." Carter winced apologetically at Teal'c, wondering how he was going to translate that.

Teal'c spoke rapidly to Rudiju, pointing to the emblem on his forehead, sinking to his knees, and then rising up again, making a gesture of rejection, and turning away. She could not understand the words that came out of his mouth - and was that truly because she could not understand it or because she refused to allow the memories Jolinar had left her to become too much a part of her life? Was it in her mind, somewhere, the ability to understand every word? For the moment it was just noise to her. The memories something sleeping; like a lioness she tip-toed around every day; otherwise like a painting in the rain, the colors would bleed and spill between the memories of the dead host and the dead Tok'ra and herself. But she could understand what Teal'c was showing from his actions, how his belief had withered and why.

Teal'c nodded to Rudiju and then said quietly to Carter: "I have told Rudiju that the power of the Goa'uld also lies in their technology - technology stolen from other races. I have told him that I once mistook technology for proof that the one I served was truly a god, but the Tollan have never used their power to make others believe that they are less than them. I have told him that in my time travelling through the Stargate I have seen many things that looked as if they must be miracles, yet they always have an explanation in reason and in science. I have told him that the root of all true miracles lies in the curiosity of each race to discover more of the world that surrounds it."

Carter nodded. "Okay, I'm covering the science, you're covering the philosophy. Between us we add up to almost one whole anthropologist."

Rudiju spoke again and Teal'c nodded his head gravely. "Rudiju asks why the crops failed. He asks why, if these strangers mean his people no harm, his people are dying while the strangers are not?"

"We don't know why they failed," Carter hated admitting it. This was her area of expertise and she wasn't coming through. She had tested the plants and the soil and the machinery and the computer and come up with the same answer every time: the earth was full of salt; the plants had sucked up the salt through their root system and withered with the shock of it. What she didn't know was why. She explained about the salt as best as she could; she even tried to explain about running tests to identify the cause of the salt. "These people..." She pointed back to the pyramid and the waiting line of anxious Tollan. "They do not understand the workings of the earth and the sky any more. They know what their machines tell them and what is in their hearts. Now their machines are lying to them and they feel...lost and as if nothing can be trusted any more."

There was a long pause before Rudiju nodded gravely and then spoke again. Somehow Carter knew what he was saying even before Teal'c translated it; it was there in his eyes.

Carter nodded. "You want to know what is in their hearts."

Rudiju nodded too, even before Teal'c had finished the translation. "Djedwi." Tell me.

A flicker in her memory, Roshar touching her fingers to Martouf's face, whispering: Tell me. Tell me lies if you must, but tell me we will see each other again...

She shook her head to clear it and looked back at the line of Tollan. There were only so many dead men she could think about in any one given day. Narim and Joe Faxon were still gaping wounds. She could not start peeling at the scar tissue that was Martouf. The Tollan looked vulnerable in their neat grey uniforms, hair shiny and short, those insignificant weapons clasped in what would probably be sweat-slicked fingers. She remembered Narim handing her that small device in which he had recorded his emotions, closing her eyes briefly to remember that sensation, that warmth and respect and burgeoning love, and she knowing how it felt to be him. A race that invented such a device was not one that had any use for deception.

She turned back to Rudiju. "There is good in their hearts, Rudiju."

Teal'c translated so swiftly it felt as if it truly were she and Rudiju conversing.

"You believe this? You believe it absolutely?"

"Yes." She nodded. "I believe it absolutely. I think they want to help you. I don't think they poisoned your crops, or if they did, it was an accident because their technology failed them."

"You recognize that our strength is ebbing? That if we do not defend ourselves now, we may not be able to in the future?"

"I know."

"Yet you advise us not to fight?"

"I think that you should offer them your friendship so that they have no need to fear you. I think you should accept from them the grain they will offer you. I think that you should work together as equals on this world to try to make the crops grow again." She had not even known that was what she believed until she said it out loud, but as she heard herself saying it, she recognized it for truth. It was what she believed. Or I'm just channelling Daniel because he's not here to do the 'friendly travellers' thing. Either way, in this moment, it's what I believe that I believe.

Rudiju nodded to her, asked her, through Teal'c, to wait a moment, and then turned to his people and began to talk. Some angrily disagreed with him, others nodded, words following and occasionally overlapping words. Some gesticulated at the pyramid, others pointed to the dust-dry land. It must have cost them a great deal to come here. There would have been other discussions like these, many arguments for and against marching on these people. Perhaps some of those amongst the mass of Tadeshi had come without conviction, still hoping for a peaceful solution, but others must have pushed themselves to this point, to this last ditch attempt to defend themselves against those they believed to be their enemies, and they might not want to stop. If adrenaline was carrying them forward, the fear and anger giving them strength in place of the food denied to them, they might not be willing to relinquish their emotions; it might be all that was keeping them on their feet.

"Would it help if I spoke to them?"

Carter turned in surprise to find Tomar standing beside her. He looked nervous but determined.

"Yes." She almost shoved him at Rudiju, desperate for him to make his own apologies, and also to show them that their enemy was just another human being like them.

Tomar nodded and turned to Teal'c. "Will you translate for me?"

"Gladly, Counsellor Tomar."

Carter took a step back as Tomar began his earnest consultation with Rudiju; others of Rudiju's people also stepping forward to demand explanations while Tomar stumbled his way through words that were at first far too full of technical specifications before he began to talk more sensibly about how they had hoped to help, how much they wished to live in peace with the Tadeshi, how they did not understand why the rainfall had done so much damage to the soil and the crops when they hoped it would do so much good.

"We didn't mean any harm."

Sammis and Teegan appeared at her elbow, breathless and far less neat and shiny than when she had last them. She saw they were being followed by a straggling line of scientists and civilian Tollan. Only the military hung back - giving an impression of implacable efficiency behind weapons that might or might not work.

Teegan nodded. "We were trying to help. We don't know why it went wrong. We've run all the tests we can think of."

At least they were meeting as equals. Carter stepped back, letting Teal'c translate, feeling the nerve-deep migraine recede the longer she was away from the pyramid. She tried to imagine what would have happened if she and Teal'c had not been there. Would these two races have found a way to communicate anyway? Or would Altan's voice have been heard and this conflict degenerated into a war?

She could feel the Tadeshi anger ebbing a little; even those who had gesticulated most violently at Rudiju when he had proposed listening to what the strangers were telling them, were now joining in the disagreement, engaging with the Tollan instead of mentally designating them a faceless enemy that needed to be killed. Some of their words were angry and accusatory but Tomar was showing more leadership skills than Carter had given him credit for, listening gravely to their words - as translated by Teal'c - and then explaining their position.

The Tollan were no longer assured and superior. She doubted the word 'primitive' was even passing through their minds, and it certainly wasn't passing through their lips right now. Teal'c translated a passionate speech about the wife and children one Tadeshi had been forced to leave behind because they were too weak to make this journey, and how he could not return to them without grain. At which point Teegan revealed that under her twenty-something assumption of poise, she was both young and human after all, by getting tears in her eyes and assuring the angry Tadeshi that the Tollan had grain for them and were very sorry for what had happened to the crops, truly they were, while Sammis nodded penitent agreement, his pale round face shining with sincerity.

Carter could almost see the Tadeshi anger fading, like air seeping from a balloon. It was far easier to summon up murderous hatred towards people who were nameless and faceless and did not gaze up at you tearfully and offer you food and apologies. Taking off her forage cap to wipe her brow she still felt that Daniel owed her a great deal of chocolate but felt less inclined to want to thump him. Glancing back at the pyramid she saw Altan was talking to two people, the tallest of whom was gesticulating at him in a way that seemed to be promising later retribution. Altan, surprisingly, looked a little sheepish. The shorter of the two people grabbed the arm of the tallest and began to tow him in the direction of Carter and the Tadeshi.

It was only then that she realized it was O'Neill and Daniel; so familiar that she had not even recognized them; some part of her brain accepting them with so little question it had not even bothered to identify them. She grabbed Teal'c's arm.

"Daniel and the Colonel are coming."

Teal'c spun around to look and she saw the relief she was feeling mirrored on his face. He patted her briefly on the arm before turning back to the Tadeshi to continue with his job as an interpreter.

Tomar looked a little guilty as he saw Daniel and O'Neill, wincing in a way that confirmed a deception had been practised. Daniel had a gash on his forehead but seemed none the worse for wear, running as quickly as he could on the dusty ground. As he drew level with them, he beamed at Carter and Teal'c and panted: "We know where the salt came from."

Teal'c held up a hand to stop the various chatter. "Where, Daniel Jackson?"

"A submerged sea." Daniel slapped a panting O'Neill on the shoulder. "Jack worked it out."

O'Neill snatched a breath and pointed to himself. "Not just a pretty face."

Carter was torn between relief and irritation that after all her anxiety for them they had come back so resolutely themselves. "Yes, sir. Are you both okay?"

"The Boy Wonder is probably concussed." O'Neill shrugged. "But apparently we're not worrying about it. My knees hurt and I have a bruise the size of Michigan on my... Well, never mind where it is, let's just say that if Fraiser tries to stick with a needle in the usual place when we get back home, they're going to hear me yelling in Denver."

"I believe they usually can, O'Neill." Teal'c's smile revealed his relief nevertheless.

Daniel clapped Carter on the arm, giving her a brief but dazzling smile that evaporated the last of her anger. "You two seem to have got them all talking. That's great work, Sam."

"Well, our anthropologist wasn't available so Teal'c and I had to step in. What happened to you two?"

Daniel grimaced. "You know how Tomar told us some of the pyramid wasn't very stable?"

"Yes."

"Turns out he was telling the truth." He turned back to the Tadeshi and made Rudiju a polite and respectful greeting. Then he began to talk so rapidly in Ancient Egyptian that she wondered how exactly he ever got enough air.

Teal'c translated with a quiet majesty that contrasted oddly with Daniel's waving hands and swift gabble: "Your ancestors were brought here by the Goa'uld, Sobek, who was driven from his first territories by his war with Ra. He claimed to be the crocodile god and sought a place where he could command the same fear as on Earth. He had his temple built beside a sea of salt in which swam great lizards with jaws filled with terrible teeth..."

***

Daniel had got his trip to the temple, after all. O'Neill had tried to think of a good reason why he couldn't go but he had been overruled by Daniel giving him what Carter and Janet had long since designated The Blue Eyes of Disbelieving Reproach. Under which onslaught, O'Neill had promptly folded like a paper airplane in a shower of rain. As a sign of good faith, Daniel had translated the inscription in the pyramid and explained about the weapon to both the Tollan and the Tadeshi and how it had been a device invented or stolen by Ra which was used for terra-forming new worlds. Used on an existing world it had caused earthquakes, floods and a new shape and form to the existing landmass. Daniel had put it more poetically and in Ancient Egyptian, at least to the Tadeshi, but that had been the gist.

Tomar and Rudiju had exchanged information, Rudiju filling in many of the gaps that explained what had happened in their mythology, while Teal'c explained to both sides what that probably meant in the way of Goa'uld politics.

While Daniel had been off examining the temple, she and Teal'c had confided to Tomar about how uncomfortable the pyramid made them, how it made her head and teeth and eyes and joints all ache unbearably, and how it made Junior squirm and writhe like a worm on a hook. He had immediately consulted with Altan who had admitted that he had removed the local equivalent of Thor's Hammer from the Stargate and left it in the pyramid to be examined at a later date. He had been intrigued by the different technology of the Asgard and hoped to find a means to replicate it. Sammis and Teegan had far too happily set about looking at the device, apologising to Carter and Teal'c when they accidentally cranked the dial up the wrong way, before declaring themselves able to comprehend at least some of how it worked. They had explained to an uncomfortable Carter and Teal'c that the Asgard device had not in fact been fully switched off, as they supposed, but had been exerting a low pulse the entire time, one detectable to those with protein markers or live symbiotes in their bodies, although no problem to anyone else. When Carter had suggested through gritted teeth that switching it off might not be the worst idea they'd ever had, Sammis and Teegan had apologetically complied. At once, the relief had been so delicious that Carter had cancelled her mental plans to have them horribly killed, and as her previous antagonism dissolved, admitted to herself that perhaps having a constant migraine in her nervous system had been making her a little bad tempered. She and Teal'c had suggested to the Tollan that they put the device back on the Stargate after they had gone, as their ion cannons were not going to be effective against Goa'uld attack these days, but they might at least be able to stop them coming through the 'gate.

Tollan medical staff and a small group of Tadeshi had taken some kind of solar-powered vehicle to the outlying villages to take food and water to those who had been too old, young, or sick to travel, and those willing to do so had been brought back to the pyramid to receive medical treatment. The Tadeshi had instructed the Tollan in the use of the few local herbs that had survived the drought and dousing with salt water while the Tollan explained how their own medicine worked. It was all, as Colonel O'Neill had mentioned, looked pretty damned entente cordiale.

Daniel had come back from the temple, slightly deflated that the inscriptions he had hoped for were not, in fact, on the walls of the cave. The fact that there had been instructions there for how to reach the weapon Heru'Ur had hidden and that he and the team with him had unearthed the weapon had not consoled him at all. "I don't want to move landmasses, Jack. I want a transliteration of Goa'uld and Ancient."

The Tollan and Tadeshi had consulted over the weapon and decided that taking it apart very, very carefully and then scattering the pieces far and wide was probably the best idea, so that neither side could threaten the other with overturning their land. The Tollan were already working on constructing a desalination plant and on using their technology to map the layers of stone and water beneath the current surface of the planet to check for areas of instability. Excavation was already planned to access an area of the submerged sea in the hope of utilising it as a productive eco-system. As O'Neill had also pointed out, there seemed to be plenty of work to keep both races busy for a very long time to come.

Tomar had admitted the inscription they had shown to Daniel the first night in the pyramid had come from a different planet they had visited on the way to this one. A world so desolate that they had rejected it after the briefest survey, and which, in any case, had not had a Stargate. Daniel had still asked for and received the co-ordinates of that world, and Carter suspected there would be a call put into the Tok'ra asking for the loan of a ship five minutes after they were back through the 'gate.

In the meantime, she was sitting on the steps of the pyramid, watching the sun begin to sink, glad not to have that migraine in her nervous system but realizing it really was that time of the month now and that she still desperately wanted chocolate. She was also still extremely pissed that Daniel and O'Neill had got to enjoy the science part of the expedition while she had been stuck with amateur anthropologist duties, and was mentioning as much to Daniel, and not for the first time.

Sitting outside the pyramid looking at the sun sinking lower in a bruised golden sky, Daniel said patiently: "I'm just pointing out that I'm not complaining about you and Teal'c doing my job."

Taking a seat next to him, Carter took off her forage cap and ran a hand through her hair. "There is literally nothing I wouldn't do for a Snickers bar right now. I wouldn't just sell my soul to the Devil - I'd sell yours and the colonel's as well. And I'm just saying that I should have been the one to work out where the salt came from. That should have been something I got to do."

"You got to bring peace and possibly even prosperity to two almost-warring nations."

"Do you know how many tests I ran? Do you know how many hours I spent squinting through microscopes and rechecking data? Have you any idea how much time I spent..."

O'Neill's shadow fell over both of them. "Carter, let it go."

"Not for a very long time yet, sir."

O'Neill looked past her to Daniel. "Did you point out the bringing peace and prosperity to two almost-warring nations thing?"

Daniel nodded. "Already covered it."

She gazed between them in disbelief. "You rehearsed what you were going to say to me?"

"You're scary right now," Daniel explained.

Carter rolled her eyes. "Have I ever - when in my right mind and not possessed by any alien entities - hurt either one of you even when provoked?"

"Well, there's a first time for everything."

Carter sighed and kicked her foot in the dust. "I should have got that the salt was in the water table. It's obvious. If it wasn't sabotage and it wasn't computer error then it had to be salt that was already in situ which, because of the habitually low rainfall..."

Another shadow fell across them, shielding them from the burnished dazzle of the sinking sun. Teal'c gazed down at her kindly, haloed with a red-gold light. "But we had not yet eliminated the possibilities of sabotage or computer error, Major Carter. Had we done so I am certain you would have realized the truth in time."

Carter smiled up at him. "Teal'c always says the right thing."

"Yeah, well, Teal'c's a suck-up," O'Neill observed.

Teal'c ignored that to say loftily: "Counsellor Tomar and Commander Altan have asked that we should all be present for the signing of the treaty between their race and the Tadeshi, O'Neill. The ceremony is about to begin."

O'Neill nodded and fell into step beside Teal'c, both of them striding purposefully towards the entrance through which Tadeshi and Tollan were already making their way. Daniel got to his feet and held out a hand to Carter, who took it gratefully.

"You did good, Sam," Daniel pointed out, gently.

"So did you." She straightened his jacket, trying to make him look a little less rumpled and wondering why he was never supplied with anything that fitted him properly.

He spoke tentatively: "I think Narim would be glad that there are still some of his people left alive."

She thought of his hologram, holding him in the palm of her hand; remembered him sharing his feelings with her; his resolve in the face of danger; his quiet determination to do what was right, not what was easy. "Yes." It hurt. It would always hurt. She knew that from the loss of her mother and Martouf. But it did dim a little over time. Went from an open wound to another old scar.

"It's okay to miss them," Daniel offered gently. "It's okay to want to break things sometimes. It's okay to say that sometimes life just really isn't fair."

"The colonel said that." Carter half-smiled at the memory. "But he added an adverb before 'fair'."

Danel looked at her sideways. "Teal'c said you think the Tollan are dead because of us."

"In part, I suppose they are." Carter looked at the setting sun, gilding the gold on the pyramid, shining on the half-built desalination plant, on the line of tents set up for those uncomfortable with setting foot in the place of their past oppressors, green-coated Tollan doctors tending to children no longer dying of hunger and thirst. Rudiju's family were in one of the tents, getting ready to return to their own village with the grain and seeds the Tollan had given them, a practical apology for the destruction of their crops. It would take time but the races were already working together; some of the Tadeshi showing an interest in learning the medical skills of the Tollan; some of the Tollan eager for practical assistance in the realities of farming on this world.

"But these people are alive in part of because of us."

He slipped his arm through hers and she leaned against him, grateful, not for the first time, that he was warm and breathing, and not dead and cold somewhere. "Narim once gave me a device so that I could experience what he felt in his heart." She looked at him, the sun burnishing Daniel's hair in the sunset. Ahead of them Teal'c was walking with majestic grace, O'Neill with the striding determination of someone who wanted to be home an hour ago. "I know that something of Jolinar is still inside of me, not because of a protein marker, not because of what the result would be if someone tested my blood, but because I remember how it felt to be her. And these people are alive in part because I remember how it felt to be Narim..."

Daniel nodded, getting it, the way he invariably did. "We carry the dead with us, Sam. They're part of us. And I like to think that the more good we do, the better they sleep." He pressed his lips briefly to her temple, his breath against her skin, his hand gripping hers, the hand of the living, bone and flesh and skin warmed by a heart that still beat, a friend she hadn't lost today; his lips only a little roughened by the sear of too much salt.

The End