by The Prophet (prophet@phlegethon.org)
Complete
Drama, Angst
Spoilers for In the Line of Duty
Season 5
FR-C+
Sexual references
Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. The character of Ayesha, the Amahagger tribe and the lost city of Kôr were created by H. Rider Haggard. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author's Notes:
Part 1 of King Solomon's Naquadah Mines, followed by Fortune and Glory and You Call this Archaeology?
The Gooney Bird, or Laysan Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) mates for life, building mound-like nests on Midway Island. Partners perform an elaborate dance each year, prior to mating. Clumsy and awkward on land, they are incredibly beautiful and graceful in the air. The C-47 'Skytrain' troop transport (known in civilian life as the DC-3) was one of the most popular transports of WWII, and was known affectionately as the Gooney Bird.
EA Wallace Budge is one of the great authorities on Egyptology, but his work is badly out of date, and was actually never all that good. If nothing else, he has a tendency in his translations to treat Egyptian theology as monotheistic in the model of Christianity. In the Stargate movie, Daniel Jackson says 'I don't know why they keep printing him': The simple answer is that the copyright is expired, so it's cheap, and his name still shifts copy.
I maintain that there is nothing unmanly about crying at The English Patient.
Acknowledgements:
All hail Sho! Beta-reader non pareil.
The Daniel Jackson shower and vomit scene is dedicated to all the Droolers. They know who they are.
The Prophet, 19th July 2002
Dr Daniel Jackson was something of a mystery to the other people in his apartment complex. They knew him as a quiet, polite sort, always willing to lend a hand if he was about, but frequently absent for long periods of time. He helped the landlady with the garbage, always offered a hand to people carrying heavy things, and always held the door or the elevator if he saw someone coming. Always assuming he did see them of course; sometimes he would simply have his head too far in the clouds to notice anything around him. No-one really knew what he did, only that it must pay pretty well for him to retain an apartment in this complex; especially one that he hardly ever used.
"Good morning, Dr Jackson," Mrs Philips greeted Daniel as he walked into the lobby one Sunday.
"Good morning," he returned, flinching inside. His landlady had a tone of voice she used when she was about to try and set him up with one of her legion of nieces – the Philips family surely must constitute at least half the population of Colorado Springs, he often thought – or one of his fellow tenants, and she was using it now. He shifted his bag of groceries uncomfortably, and headed for the lift as quickly as he could without being rude. To his great relief, she did not call after him.
He shared the lift with Mr Altman and his daughter, Kelly, a fifteen year old history buff who bothered Daniel incessantly with well-meaning questions. She quizzed him on the Amarna period until her father dragged her from the elevator on the floor below Daniel's with an apologetic look. Daniel assured them it was no trouble, and promised to drop off some books for Kelly to read. All of his books would be somewhat above her level, but she would struggle through and come back to him with yet more questions. Daniel did not mind; he felt such interest should be encouraged, and had held Kelly in high regard since she had told him she thought Budge was rubbish.
At his front door, he greeted his neighbour, Dr Alice Whitman – formerly Jackson, a source of endless humorous mail mix-ups and near-breaches of National Security prior to her divorce and return to her maiden name – who was on her way out to church. He fumbled with his keys, and Alice offered to hold his bag while he unlocked the door. She asked after his health, and he said he was well. He unlocked the door, took back his bag, and asked her to give God his regards. Daniel usually tried not to be flippant about religion, but it was an old joke between, if not exactly friends, then at least amiable acquaintances.
Daniel closed the door behind him, went through to the kitchen and set the bag on the counter. As he turned to put a couple of boxes in the cupboard over the breakfast bar, he was more than a little startled to see someone looking back at him,
"Hello, Daniel," she said, in a clipped, upper-class British accent.
"Nyagggh!" Daniel replied, leaping a good four feet backwards and smacking hard into the counter.
"I'm flattered," she said, with wry good humour. "You obviously remember me."
"You…" Daniel began. "You…" He tried again, but with equally little success.
"I…?" She prompted.
"How did you get in here?" Daniel asked, shooting for an easier opening.
"Your landlady let me in," she replied.
Daniel barely listened, but took advantage of the respite to gather his thoughts and complete his original sentence. "You're dead."
"Look who's talking," she responded with a nonchalant shrug.
"But I've only been shot," Daniel replied. "You were blown up. You stayed on that ship to pilot it down. There was a colossal fireball; they saw it in Salt Lake City and half the Mormons thought they'd missed the Rapture or something."
Nefera laughed, delightedly. "Did it destroy their faith?"
"Some of them," Daniel admitted.
"It's so nice to feel you've made a difference," Nefera said. "Don't you think?"
"How are you not dead?"
"I may have lied about the extent of the damage on board the Ha'kal," Nefera admitted. "And about how long I'd have to stay on board."
"Like you lied about being a Goa'uld?" Daniel asked, suddenly becoming aware of the most pressing aspect of his predicament.
"You worked that out then?" Nefera asked. "I thought you might. Glad I wasn't disappointed."
"I got there eventually," Daniel replied, wondering how far he would get to his sock drawer before Nefera could catch him. She did not seem to be wearing a ribbon device, which was a plus.
"I was kind of hoping we could let that little omission of mine slide; for old times sake."
"Did you say Mrs Philips let you in?" Daniel asked, suddenly.
"Yes," Nefera replied. "About to the end of the breakfast bar."
"Huh?"
"You were wondering how far you could get. About to the end of the bar, and anyway, I know the gun in your sock drawer is empty and there isn't a single round of ammunition in this apartment. I told her I wanted to surprise you," she added, switching back to the previous tack as smoothly as she had left it.
"Good job," Daniel allowed. "And she just let you in?"
"Of course not. She wanted to see the ring first."
"Ring?" Daniel began to wonder if he was asleep and dreaming. It would make sense, and might explain his lack of fear.
Nefera held up her hand, on which glittered a beautiful antique engagement ring.
"It's…lovely," Daniel said.
"I know. I told Mrs Philips about it being your grandmother's ring. She was touched."
"My grandmother's…You mean…?"
Nefera laughed. "Well, she wouldn't just let anyone in," she explained. "I had to pretend we were engaged. I was going to…Would you like to sit down?" She asked.
"Yes, please," Daniel said.
"Come through. I won't bite if you don't."
Warily, Daniel walked around the bar into the lounge, and sat on one of his big chairs. "Since when are you English?" He asked.
Nefera took the seat opposite Daniel. "It's an image thing," she told him. "Adds mystery."
Daniel took a moment to get a good look at the woman. She was dressed casually, in a pair of loose jeans and a baggy shirt, instead of an Air Force dress uniform, but there was no mistaking her. It was now almost six months since he had left her, standing in the pel'tac of a Goa'uld assault ship, preparing to crash it into a bulk load of biological weapons. Of course, at the time he had not known she was a Goa'uld, or he might have been more reticent to entrust such a mission to her.
"I was going to dress up a little," Nefera continued. "But I figured your landlady might try to protect you if she thought I was some sort of trampy femme fatale, so I went casual. Shame really, because femme fatale is a good look for me."
"Uh-huh," Daniel said. He could well believe it, although he could not help thinking that she looked pretty sensational as it was. "Could you do the voice?" He asked. "I'm having trouble with reality here, and your talking like a human isn't helping."
"I'd rather not," Nefera replied.
"Why not?"
"Well, you'd start looking at me as though I were a scary alien, which would make it harder to communicate in a meaningful way, and what I have to tell you is pretty important. Also, it took me several months when I first became Charlotte Ashenden to get used to talking like this all the time; I don't want to risk backsliding."
"Speaking of Ashenden," Daniel said. "What do I call you? What is your name?"
"My name is Jane Archer," Nefera replied. "And I have paperwork to prove it. But you can call me Nefera. I like the way it sounds coming from you," she admitted, not helping Daniel's state of mind.
"Alright, Nefera," Daniel said. "Now, don't take this the wrong way because it's great to see you again and it's lovely just sitting here and chatting like a couple of old buddies, and I really do appreciate that you haven't hit, zapped or threatened me once since I walked in – or in fact ever – but just what in the hell do you want?"
"A Ha'kal vessel to call my own, or failing that a nice, sporty convertible; something in a European roadster maybe. A beach house and a comfortable pension; a nice, sensitive guy with strong hands and a sense of humour."
"No, seriously."
"I am serious," Nefera said. "But okay, if you want to be businesslike, I can do that as well. Jane Archer is a professional bounty hunter; licensed and registered, and let me tell you, I do not look forward to rebuilding her hard-earned rep when I have to move on and reinvent myself, as I'll have to do now you know about Jane."
"Nice to know you're not planning my gruesome death," Daniel admitted.
"Never, Sweetie; I owe you too much."
"You do?"
"It was you who suggested I get out and make my own mark on the world, and I'm having a whale of a time. But I digress."
"Yes, you certainly do."
Nefera smiled sweetly, but then her faced darkened, and she really did become all business. "I'm a renegade now," she said. "If the System Lords find out I'm living on Earth, they'll do anything in their power to kill me. That's why I've come to tell you that I've found signs of Goa'uld activity on Earth."
*
"Are you familiar with the work of H. Rider Haggard?" Nefera asked, lifting a backpack from beside the chair and digging inside it.
"Uhm…A little. Why?"
"Have you ever read 'She'?"
"I got about half-way through it," Daniel admitted. "But I found it difficult to read. I guess Ayesha just reminded me of…Wait? Is that your 'evidence'?" He scoffed. "That a character in a book is a little like a Goa'uld Queen?"
"Of course not," Nefera replied, impatiently. "Although you must agree, some of the similarities are striking?"
"Admittedly."
"Now take a look at this," she said, taking a folder full of pages from her pack.
Daniel took the folder and opened it. The pages were photocopies of a handwritten manuscript, entitled 'The Queen of Death', by H. Rider Haggard. "What is this?" he asked.
"An early draft version of 'She'," Nefera replied. "I've highlighted some of the passages. Tell me what you think."
Daniel flipped through the pages until he found a block of yellow highlighter. "The hand grasped the curtain," he read. "And drew it aside, and as it did so I heard a voice, soft and yet touched with the strength of thunder. It reminded me of the distant sound of the seas breaking on the cliffs. 'Stranger,' said the voice in Arabic, but much purer and more classical Arabic than the Amahagger talk – 'stranger, wherefore art thou so much afraid?"
He flicked on a little further. "Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my eyes rest upon her shining orbs, and something like a fire lit them from behind so that their blackness was rimmed with light, and I felt a current pass from them to me that bewildered and half-blinded me."
"There's more," Nefera assured him. "When Ayesha blasts Ustane for her defiance, she holds a stone in her hand that 'burned with the same fire as her terrible, beautiful eyes'. There are about a dozen extra reference to her 'serpent-like grace', to her cold arrogance and the power she exercises over her followers. The Amahagger are described as bearing a tattooed mark upon their forehead, and Ayesha's guards are said to be blessed with perfect health, and to carry a weapon like a serpent wrapped about a spear, which spits fire."
Daniel felt a knot of fear in his gut. "Jaffa?"
"Exactly. The narrator also describes Ayesha having 'breath like honey mead, that soothes and intoxicates', which causes him and his companions to fall in love with her in spite of themselves. The Queen's Kiss, you see?"
"Maybe," Daniel admitted.
"Also, I couldn't help noting that instead of the pasty brunette in the final version, this proto-Ayesha had a pleasingly dusky, Arabic skin-tone. Much sexier."
Daniel smiled at her, before he remembered what he was dealing with. "Where did you get this manuscript from?" A suspicion began in the back of his mind. "It wasn't Martin Lloyd, was it?" He asked, shrewdly.
"Who?" Nefera asked, nonplussed.
"Never mind," Daniel replied, simultaneously concerned and relieved. On the one hand, if this was not one of Martin's cryptoamnesiac stunts, it might be serious; on the other, he dreaded to think what Nefera would have done if she found out her time had been wasted. "So where did you get it?"
"From a bigamist embezzler."
"Huh?"
"Rich guy," she explained. "Ripped off his own company to get richer and disappeared, leaving behind not one but two angry wives."
"How did you meet this charming fellow?" Daniel asked.
"I told you," she said. "Jane Archer is a bounty hunter, with a well-deserved reputation. I tracked the guy down…"
"How?" Daniel could not help asking.
"This very manuscript," Nefera replied. "He had these two lives, with the two women, and they were both very different. In one he was a greeting card executive – which he really was – married to a wealthy, beautiful, joyless heiress. In the other he was a publishing magnate – also true – who tied the knot with a struggling, passionate freelance romance novelist. She also made great pastry."
"Uh-huh."
"Yeah. Insisted on feeding me when I went to speak with her; said I was too thin. Anyway, to cut a long story short, both women wanted him found. The first wanted to sue him, divorce him, rip open his ribcage and swallow his still-beating heart whole."
"Sweet girl," Daniel commented.
"Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but it turned out she had some passion in her after all; she was just expending it all on the pool cleaner while he was out of town. You know, I sometimes feel down about where I've ended up; that's why I take jobs like this one. I meet people who make me realise how much worse I could have it."
"So you tracked the guy…" Daniel began, trying to skip the rest of the story and its accompanying commentary.
"Yeah," Nefera acknowledged, ignoring the hint. "The other wife was just full of gushing forgiveness, and wanted a chance to redeem her beloved, perhaps with the assistance of the US penal system. Anyway, I met them both, and I noticed that both houses had a manuscript collection. Well, old books and manuscripts are pretty collectable, so sales are easy to trace. Sure enough, I was able to run through some auction records until I found three likely candidates, then I checked them out in person. Number two was my boy, living with his third wife in San Diego, managing a bookstore no less.
"I popped by his place on the pretext of being the agent for an interested dealer and his wife let me in. Nice kid; very young and impressionable. I looked through the collection until he got home, then I put the cuffs on him. He was pretty mad with the poor girl for letting me into his study, and madder still when I showed him the warrant. His wife wasn't happy with him at all, so I gave her a few pointers on keeping some of the money when the harpy started circling, in return for a few of the manuscripts."
"Right," Daniel said. "So what makes you think this is evidence of Goa'uld activity?"
"Aside from the contents of the text?" She asked. "Well, I spotted a few references when I was browsing in his study, so I copied this before I gave the original manuscripts to my agent. Now, she's a big collector, which was how I knew this stuff could be traced, and she…"
"Your agent?" Daniel asked, immediately wishing he had not.
"Literary agent," she explained. "I'm writing a book; a kind of fictionalised version of my autobiography. Got to plan for my retirement now I'm mortal. Phia – my agent, Sophia Lyborn – has been a great help; very keen. She says I have talent, and she's usually a right cow so I think she might mean it."
"I look forward to reading it."
"I'll send you a signed copy," Nefera promised. "It's going to be very exciting. A seven hundred year career condensed into a human lifetime; should be page-turning stuff."
"All the usual attractions?"
"Oh yes; it's got sex and violence. Anyway, the point of all this is that Phia's particular love is these kinds of old adventure story. Some people – like my embezzling bigamist – collect manuscripts to have; she gets them to read. Specifically, she likes to read earlier versions that no-one else has read, because it makes her feel superior to them. Now I asked about the glowing eyes, and the voice and so forth, and she told me that they turn up in a fair amount of Rider Haggard's early manuscripts, but he never seems satisfied with the prose, so he strikes them out, then sticks the same themes in the next thing.
"I tried to get something more out of her, but she was playing it close to her chest. Like I said, she likes knowing things that no-one else does. That's where you come in."
"I do?"
"Yes, you do. Basically I need someone to get the information out of Phia. She needs to be loosened up, which means alcohol, and that means dinner."
"You want me to wine and dine your agent so you can pump her for information?" Daniel asked.
"Don't be silly, Daniel," Nefera commanded. "You'll have to do the pumping yourself. She'll likely be suspicious if I waltz into the Penrose Room at the Broadmoor in the middle of dessert and say 'fancy meeting you here'."
"I'm sure she would," Daniel agreed. "And who said anything about the Broadmoor? That's just a little out of my budget."
"Hmm. Well, that's bad," Nefera admitted. "Since you have a reservation there for tonight, and she's going to drop you faster than you can blink if you try to go dutch."
Daniel made a strangled noise. Dinner for two at the Broadmoor would likely limit him to commissary food for the next month. Also, he wasn't keen on being manipulated by a slippery Goa'uld, when he should be sending for the marines to drag her off to confinement. He told her so in no uncertain terms.
"Okay," Nefera said, tightly. "One: This is your problem as well as mine. Two: I'm not asking you to do anything I wouldn't do if Phia liked women. Three: You can claim the money back on expenses or something, and if it turns out there aren't any Goa'uld involved, I'll chip in."
Daniel sighed. "Okay," he said. "So what's the plan."
"You're meeting her in the Penrose Room at seven this evening, where you have a table reserved under the name Smith."
"Smith?"
"Don't worry; she doesn't expect that to be your name. You sent her several emails, hinting that you know she came into possession of manuscripts belonging to my friend the bigamist – whose name at the time was John Dixon – in which you were interested yourself. You are in the position to offer her something priceless and unique in exchange for a look at the manuscripts and any related material that she has in her collection."
"I did?"
"Anonymously, through a Hotmail account. She asked me to track you down though, and I've told her a lot about you, since the alternative would be to claim I couldn't track you from a Hotmail address, and that would be too embarrassing to consider."
"I wouldn't dare ask you to belittle your talents so," Daniel assured her.
"You suggested a meeting in Colorado Springs, and she accepted. I'll brief you on how to behave later, but mostly you just want to be yourself. What you are offering is a complete penultimate draft manuscript of King Solomon's Mines, in which the native girl survives and marries the adventurous naval man; almost unheard of in the genre. Only two copies are supposed to exist, and I know she doesn't have one of those, because I've heard her bemoaning their existence."
"I don't have a complete penultimate draft manuscript of King Solomon's Mines either," Daniel told her.
"And were this a solo operation, that would be a very real problem," Nefera agreed. "Fortunately it isn't, and I have one for you to offer. It cost me a substantial chunk of my savings, so don't screw up my book deal."
"And there's no other way to do this?" Daniel asked.
"Only if I torture her," Nefera replied. "And then I'd have to go through the hassle of getting another agent."
"Wouldn't want that on my conscience," Daniel agreed, stiffly. "Why me?"
"Because I know you," she said. "And because we may need the SGC's contacts later on, and I trust you. Also, as soon as I knew I needed to find someone to romance the information out of Phia, I thought of you, Sweetie. She's just your type."
"Meaning?"
"Vain, possessive, man-hungry and deeply in love with her own power; she's the nearest thing I've seen to a Goa'uld Queen on this planet. She'll just lap you up, Daniel."
"That's kind of what I'm worried about," Daniel admitted. "I mean, what if she wants to sleep with me?"
"Don't worry," Nefera assured him. "Phia may be vain, but she does have cause; and she's not the type to get clingy either."
"That's not the point!" Daniel snapped.
"Well pardon me for asking you to sleep with a hot-blooded knockout, who won't ever expect you to call, for the sake of protecting your miserable little planet!" Nefera retorted.
"It's dishonest."
"What is? She knows what you're after. You're not dealing with an innocent here, Daniel; so don't lose sleep over taking advantage of her."
"Don't you have any moral scruples at all?" Daniel asked.
"None," Nefera replied. "They're inconvenient. But I really don't see what the fuss is about. Now, the table's all booked, and if you don't meet her, she knows where you live and is entirely capable of showing up here to make a hell of your existence. On top of anything else, if your landlady finds out you've been making dates with fancy women and cheating on your charming fiancée – whom she seemed to take quite a shine to, by the way – you could find yourself in a world of eviction, my friend.
"So are you going to get screamed at by an enraged literary agent and probably lose your flat?" She demanded. "Or shall I pick you out a nice tie?"
*
The Penrose Room was a fabulous, romantic environment, but not one that Daniel was in any mood to enjoy. He felt a little like Kermit the Frog, faced with roast beef that cost the same as an Oldsmobile, and had no idea how to behave in this kind of environment. People were dancing for goodness' sake; what if Phia wanted to dance? What if the world was destroyed by a sinister Goa'uld Queen because Daniel Jackson had two left feet?
Oh yeah. No pressure.
"Mr Smith?"
Daniel fidgeted with his tie, which had never felt more like a hangman's noose than it did right now.
"Mr Smith!" The voice by Daniel's table grew more insistent, and Daniel suddenly remember that 'Mr Smith' was him.
"Yes! What!" He snapped, anxiously.
Act jittery, Nefera had suggested. Let her think you're scared so she believes she has the upper hand.
That isn't going to be a problem, Daniel had assured her.
"Are. You. Smith?" The woman asked.
"No," Daniel croaked. "I mean…"
"I'll take that as a yes, Dr Jackson," the woman replied. "I'm Phia Lyborn."
She was not quite what Daniel had expected. From Nefera's ominous hints, he had pictured a big-haired, slightly vapid SoCal blonde, salon-tanned, six-two in stiletto heels, weighing in at a little under eighteen ounces.
Instead, he was faced with a woman just shy of five-foot-ten, with wavy, dark-brown hair. She was lean, but not anorexic, and had little or no tan to speak of. She was certainly as attractive as Nefera had intimated, and carried herself like she knew it. She spoke with a crisp, confident tone, and a Transatlantic accent that meant she could have been an American who spent a lot of time in England, or an Englishwoman who had spent a lot of time in America. Her eyes sparkled with a fierce and incisive intelligence as she scrutinised her dinner date with the intensity of a cat, deciding if a particular mouse might be worth chasing.
Rousing himself from a kind of daze, Daniel sprang up. "Hi," he said, shaking her hand. "Yes. I'm Dr Daniel. I mean Jackson. Daniel Jackson."
"Hi," she replied, amused.
Daniel blushed, and tried to cover his intense discomfort by moving round behind Phia and holding a chair for her.
"You're not what I expected from your messages," Phia admitted.
I can believe that, Daniel thought to himself. "I'm not quite so good in person," he demurred.
"You look okay to me," Phia told him, drawing another blush. Daniel was fairly sure that was her objective. "So," she went on. "Shall we order the wine? Then we can get down to business."
*
Daniel fought the urge to slam the door open and closed, knowing that his neighbours would be asleep.
"Is something wrong?" Nefera asked, making Daniel jump. She must have stayed there all night.
"Wrong?" He replied. "Well, I just had the most fun I ever had without having any actual fun, but other than that."
"What happened?" Nefera asked, concerned. "Didn't you find out…?"
"I got the information," Daniel assured her, sourly. "We spent a fabulous three-course meal plus coffee haggling over exactly what she would show me in exchange for that draft, then she invited me back to her hotel room to see her manuscripts."
"And?" Nefera asked, eagerly.
"And, no sooner was the door closed than she was all over me like ugly on an iguana."
Nefera smiled, fondly. "That's one of Amy Kawalsky's isn't it?"
"Huh?"
"Like ugly on an iguana."
"I guess it is," Daniel admitted. "But anyway; I told her it was all a ploy for the information and it didn't mean anything…"
"You what?!" Nefera demanded.
"Don't worry," Daniel said, bitterly. "She told me she didn't care."
"I guess she wouldn't," Nefera replied. "It's probably more of a turn on for her if you morally don't want to sleep with her, but do it anyway," she mused.
Daniel glowered at her. "Anyway. I got the information and decided not to stay for breakfast." He dropped a bundle of photocopies and a notebook on the table. "Knock yourself out," he invited. "I need to go shower and scrub myself with bleach."
"What is your problem!" Nefera demanded, responding to Daniel's bitter hostility in kind. "What is it that you find so monumentally distasteful?"
"It didn't mean anything!" Daniel snapped, angrily. He looked around, nervously, worried that his neighbours might have heard him. "There wasn't even any pretence that it did. No small talk, no pleasantries; it wasn't even seduction."
"It was just sex…" Nefera protested, exasperated.
"Exactly," Daniel replied. "It was just sex. Without love, affection, or even any respect. So now I feel cheap, and I feel dirty; like I've betrayed a huge number of principles that were very important to me. Don't you understand that? Isn't there some part of your host, buried in that snake-infested skull, that can grasp this very basic concept?"
Nefera began to say something, but Daniel shook his head, angrily. "Never mind," he snorted. "It's a human thing; you wouldn't understand. I'm going to have a shower," he repeated. "Because as much as I hate you for putting me in this position, I despise myself even more for going along with it."
Nefera stared after him in silence as he stormed into the bathroom.
Daniel shoved his head under the shower and tried to wash the memories of the past few hours from his mind. Despite the atmosphere of the Penrose Room, romance had been the last thing on Phia Lyborn's mind. She had essayed a fierce line of negotiation, then launched an immediate campaign to get the two of them into bed as fast as possible; so long as she did not have rush her coffee. He knew he should have stopped things before they went too far. He should have stopped things when Nefera first started explaining her plan, but he kept telling himself that they needed the information, and he could call a halt as soon as he had what they needed; that it would be easier to reason with a human being than with a Goa'uld.
What he had reckoned without was the rapacious will of Nefera's agent. Sophia Lyborn really did have a lust for control that made Goa'uld Queens look like amateurs. It was probably true that the idea of overriding Daniel's moral objections would have made the night's…activities all the more appealing to her. It struck Daniel that Nefera herself probably got a kick out of putting him through it, and he felt vaguely ill at the thought.
"Daniel," Nefera called, warily.
"Get out of my bathroom," Daniel replied, embarrassingly aware of the thinness of the shower curtain.
"I just…I'm sorry," she said.
"No you're not," he accused.
"I am," she insisted.
"Get out," Daniel said again.
"Alright," she agreed. "I'll be in the lounge."
"Great. You do that," he said, his voice straining as another wave of nausea hit him.
The door closed behind her, and Daniel tugged back the curtain so he could make a leap for the toilet bowl before he threw up.
Daniel emerged from the shower feeling wrinklier, but not much cleaner. He had managed to rinse the sick taste away with mouthwash, but he was acutely aware of the gnawing void in his guts. As he came out of the bathroom, he caught a whiff of cooking, and wondered who would be up at this hour. He decided against dressing properly, and instead just pulled on his pyjamas and a dressing gown, before going into the lounge to see if Nefera was still around.
She was, and it was her doing the cooking.
"What are you doing?" Daniel asked.
"Cooking," Nefera replied. "Drink," she instructed, pointing to a large glass of water on the bar.
Daniel picked up the glass and drained half of it in a go.
"I'm making you soup."
"That's very thoughtful," Daniel said, touched.
"I need you to help me go through the notes," she replied. "And that means I need you alert. Once you've got some food back in you, you can start hitting the coffee."
"Are you always so…clinical," Daniel asked, recovering from his moment of affection.
"I'm practical," she replied. "It's how I was taught to be, and seven centuries of training dies hard."
"So is that how old you are?"
"Give or take. Not that old for a Goa'uld," she admitted. "But pretty solid going for an Ashrak."
This confession caught Daniel mid-drink, and he spat water all across the bar. "You're an Ashrak?" He gasped, fearfully.
"Of course," she replied. "Why do you think I haven't tried to kill you yet?"
Daniel's forehead creased in confusion. "Come again?"
"I'm an Ashrak, it's not my place to lead or to conquer. I just do what I'm told."
"But you're Goa'uld?"
"Yes, but I have no ambition; no desire for conquest."
"How is that possible?"
"Fluke of genetics," she replied. "What? Do you think the Goa'uld would train someone to kill their own kind if they had the same lust for power?"
"I never really thought about it," Daniel admitted.
"I live for my work," Nefera told him. "I find satisfaction in getting the job done. That's why I told you I couldn't go on without a master. I was wrong, as it turned out," he admitted. "You gave me a push in the right direction, for which I am truly grateful."
"You're an assassin," he accused.
"Assassin, infiltrator, spy; you've done as much yourself, or if you haven't then Jack has." She ladled vegetable soup into a bowl and handed it to Daniel. "You know, sometimes I'd have to sleep with people to get close to them. Not often," she added. "I was better than that, but sometimes it was necessary. It never meant anything," she added. "Ever. That never bothered me, and I had no idea that it would trouble you. I'm sorry that I hurt you; truly."
Daniel frowned at her for a moment, but then relented. He took the soup and spoon that she offered. "I don't forgive you," he said. "But I'll work with you, for now."
"I can live with that," Nefera accepted. She moved around the bar, and they went back to the coffee table.
Daniel let Nefera study the copies while he finished the soup. "You're a good cook," he said.
She just nodded.
"And the whole act is very…convincing."
"The human thing?" Nefera asked. "I've had a lot of time to work on it. Many times I was just presented to other Goa'uld as Amaunet's handmaiden."
"Didn't they sense you were Goa'uld?" Daniel asked.
Nefera shook her head. "It's not that precise. We don't sense 'Goa'uld', or 'Jaffa'; nor even 'symbiote'. It's just the naquadah concentration that sets us off. In a group of Goa'uld it gets hard to pick out where the sense is coming from, and I could pass for human. On my own I'd usually pretend to be Jaffa; whatever made people underestimate me most. Besides; I've been doing the act almost non-stop since I was assigned to General Keyes. It's almost not an act anymore."
"Oh?"
"Well, it's how I have to live now," Nefera told him. "It's almost who I am."
Daniel snorted, sceptically. "Let's just get on with the reading," he said. "I don't really want to get into a discussion of your personal life."
"Afraid you'll start to like me?" She asked.
Daniel gave a short laugh. "Yeah, right. Pass me the blue folder."
*
"What time is it?" Daniel asked.
"Nearly ten," Nefera told him.
"Read me back what we've got," Daniel told her, yawning.
"Okay," Nefera agreed, picking up a notepad she had been using to take notes. "An early draft of King Solomon's Mines has the usurper's young and beautiful Witch-Queen seducing one of the adventurers, then abandoning him in the mines to be found and rescued by the dancing girl. The Queen has a 'voice like honey, touched with thunder' and 'eyes like burning jet'. Plus she's Arabic instead of Zulu."
Daniel nodded, and motioned for Nefera to continue.
"We have sections of drafts to both stories, in which the guardian tribes have a ritual X-shaped scar cut into their abdomen at their majority, tattooed foreheads, and spears which 'cast a kind of deadly fire' at their enemies. Two sets of mines or caves which are held to contain some ancient power, and a version of Solomon in which the mines produce not diamonds, but 'a crystal a hundred times more valuable, for it can hold the power of the sun, or the fire'."
"A naquadah mine?" Daniel asked.
"We're no closer to finding that out," Nefera admitted. "In that same draft there's mention of the guardians drawing strange powers from the mines; similar to She's powers, that she draws from the Flame of Immortality."
"Okay. This is getting us nowhere," Daniel said. "It's all conjecture."
"Almost all," Nefera said. "But Haggard seems to have been making repeated efforts to write something he didn't quite understand. It's as if he started trying to put something ineffable into words, then gave up and resorted to his own, fertile imagination."
"Great fiction; lousy documentation," Daniel agreed. "What about explorer guy?"
"Alex Curran, MD," Nefera read. "Former naval surgeon turned professional adventurer and hunter. Some of Haggard's diaries cite Dr Curran as a source of anecdotes which inspired his writing, and some aspects of each of the main characters in Solomon. By all accounts, Curran was something of a braggart, a shameless raconteur who would travel widely in foreign lands, before returning to tell wild stories in the London clubs in return for his supper; despite being obscenely rich. Phia's made a number of attempts to buy Curran's own journals from his great-grandson, but the man wants an ungodly sum even to let her look inside them, and there's a pretty hefty charge for even viewing the collection."
"Do we have a name for him? The great-grandson."
"We do," Nefera confirmed. "But no address or anything."
"We can find that," Daniel assured her. "I need to make a phone call." He dragged himself up and into his bedroom. After a few minutes, Nefera followed, in time to see him hang up.
"It's in hand," he said.
"What is?"
"Stuff," Daniel replied, enigmatically. "I think I need to sleep now," he admitted. "I shouldn't have drunk so much coffee though."
"Don't worry about it," Nefera assured him, helping him to take off his dressing gown. Daniel felt too bone weary to protest. "Just lie down." Daniel did so, and Nefera pulled the blankets over him. "Sweet dreams," she said. She kissed him lightly on the forehead, and held her hand in front of his face.
There was a light; then darkness.
*
Daniel woke, feeling strangely alert. He somehow bypassed the usual groggy stage between sleep and full consciousness, and sprang up feeling light-headed, but completely aware. He tried to remember last night, then tried not to. Then he recalled what had happened just before he fell asleep.
"Damnit," he muttered to himself, angry that he could ever have trusted a Goa'uld.
He took a quick shower, then walked through to the living room, where he received a number of surprises. First was that Nefera had not swiped all of the copies and notes. Second was that Nefera herself had apparently gone nowhere, and was in fact making herself at home in his kitchen again.
"Afternoon," she greeted him.
"What did you…?" He began, before trailing off. "Is that bacon?"
"Bacon, eggs, sausages, tomato, toast, griddle cakes, fried bread."
"Do you have a third career as a TV chef?" Daniel asked.
"No; but I still need you working at full efficiency."
"I feel fine," Daniel assured her. "Although very hungry."
"I'm not surprised," Nefera replied, giving him a plate of toast and scrambled egg before returning to the hob. "You've just spent four hours in a regenerative trance; you'll need proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins…well, pretty much all the essential nutrients that you burned through while you were asleep." She came back and slapped down a glass of juice and a mug of coffee, alongside a jug of water. "And fluids," she added. "Otherwise you'll start feeling pretty crappy in an hour or so."
"What did you do to me?" Daniel asked, around a mouthful of eggs.
"I used the hara-kesh to put you into the trance," Nefera replied. "Don't rush it; you'll get heartburn. You said you needed sleep."
"So you thought you'd just…zap me under?"
Nefera frowned at his tone. "I was helping," she said, defensively.
"I would have appreciated some warning," he told her.
"Fork," she replied.
"Huh?"
"Move your fork." He did, and she transferred half the contents of her griddle to his plate. The rest she piled onto a second plate, and joined him at the breakfast bar.
"Did you do the trance thing as well?" He asked.
"No; but I'm always eating for two."
Daniel shivered, and focused on his breakfast. "It's two o'clock, right?"
"That's right. You had a phone call an hour ago; they left an address and said everything was set for five. The address was in Chicago so I booked flights."
"Great," Daniel replied. "I don't get why you're still here," he added.
"Because I still need you," she said. "My resources are limited to hard cash and what little I salvaged from Atum Base, and it attracts the wrong kind of attention if I go around threatening people for information. Better to let the US military do it for me. Besides; I'll probably need the SGC to go after this Queen, if she exists."
Daniel could not help but smile at that. "You're not hoping to find a way home then?"
"I told you. I'm a renegade Ashrak," Nefera replied. "Until a System Lord goes over to the Tok'ra and takes his army with him, there's nothing that could be more scary to the Goa'uld. If I resurface, I'm toast," she added, waving a slice demonstratively.
"So I can trust you?"
"What do you think?"
Daniel searched her eyes. "I think I can."
Nefera smiled.
*
"John Curran," Daniel said, reading from his notes. "Twenty-seven years old. Lineal descendant of Alex Curran, and sole heir to the entire Curran estate. Family emigrated to America in the 1920s and set up in Chicago, moving out to the country when they could afford it. John dropped out of high school, walked out on three jobs his father set him up with and ran up substantial gambling debts. Inherited three-point-six million dollars on his father's death in a drunk-driving incident, and keeps getting richer through a combination of sharp investments and tax avoidance – all handled by clever accountants – and by charging exorbitant sums for specialists to view his great-grandfather's collection and journals. Oh yes," He added. "And let us not forget, charging his sister, Elizabeth – a widowed school-teacher of thirty-one, with two children and precisely nada inheritance – rent to live in a small cottage on the grounds of her family home.
"I don't know about you, 'Jane'; but I'm enjoying this," Daniel said, watching two large airmen loading John Curran into the back of a black sedan.
"How exactly did you manage this?" Nefera asked.
"National security," Daniel replied, simply. "That got us access. As for the rest; he was obliging enough to threaten a member of the USAF with an illegal firearm. I think technically they have to let the police have him at some point, but isn't this just more fun to watch?"
"Stop it," Nefera teased. "This Draconian abuse of power is making me feel all tingly."
Daniel frowned, feeling a little concerned about his own enjoyment of the scene.
"Relax," she told him. "Just because I appreciate the totalitarianism doesn't stop you admiring the natural justice."
"You're a funny sort of Goa'uld," he told her.
"I'm an Ashrak," she replied.
Alex Curran's collection was extensive, and made Daniel want to weep openly. So many artefacts, gathered, stored and displayed without a thought to context recording, and thus rendered essentially meaningless. They were displayed in a kind of private museum, all labelled with rather fanciful and inaccurate names, but barely a mention of their provenance. Furthermore, they were displayed with little theme, so that a range of winsomely posed stuffed animal trophies sat alongside a Zulu idol and a half-sized statue of Sekhmet.
"Amahagger pendant!" Nefera called out.
Daniel walked over, threading past a small troop of monkey drummers. "Very nice," he commented, admiring the piece, a simple flame motif, carved from basalt.
"Daniel!"
Nefera turned sharply at the sound of the voice. "I should go," she said. "Too many questions. I'll catch you back at the hotel."
"Okay," Daniel agreed, by which time she was already out of the room. He moved on to the next case, which held a few geological samples – labelled as a form of fool's gold – and another Amahagger pendant. "Hello," Daniel said to the pendant.
"Daniel!"
Daniel turned as Jack O'Neill entered, with a young woman in tow. "Hi, Jack," he said.
"Daniel; have you seen Ms Curran's brother?"
"John Curran?" Daniel asked. "Yay high? Brown hair?"
"That's him," Elizabeth Curran replied. "I want to know what he's up to."
"Well, I did see him about half an hour ago, being arrested by the Air Force and manhandled into a car."
"Oh." Elizabeth seemed unsure what to make of this. "Well; you should know that these things aren't for sale," she said. "Whatever he told you, they're supposed to have gone to the Field Museum already, but John keeps delaying so he can charge people to see them."
"I'll bear that in mind," Daniel promised.
"He won't hurt anything," Jack promised. "Trust me. He'd rather shoot his own foot off."
"Well…okay. I'd better go and see to Tammy," Elizabeth added. "John's wife," she explained to Jack. "She has an IQ of one-seventy, and an emotional age of about four; when she finds out John's been arrested she'll probably flip and I…honestly wouldn't miss that for the world," she admitted. "Nice to have met you, Colonel; Dr Jackson."
"I think she likes you," Daniel noted, after Elizabeth had gone.
"Don't try to change the subject," Jack warned.
"What subject?"
"The subject of…" Jack did a small double-take, and stared for a moment at the stuffed grizzly bear standing next to him, dressed as a minuteman; musket and all.
"I think one of the Currans was probably big on constitutional rights," Daniel told him.
"You're changing the subject again," Jack accused. "And that's terrible, Daniel. I wouldn't stoop that low."
"You still haven't set a subject for me to change," Daniel reminded him. "And you're just mad I got there before you did."
"What exactly are you doing here?" Jack asked.
"Is this the subject?"
"It is."
"Then I won't try to change it," Daniel said. "I'm following an anonymous tip that suggests Dr Alex Curran's journals may be the source material of several of H Rider Haggard's novels, and also the key to locating an earthbound Goa'uld."
"Okay," Jack admitted. "So who was the woman who told Sam to 'get stuffed' when she called your mobile last night?"
"Jack," Daniel said. "If you are my friend, you will never ask me any questions about last night."
"Daniel. If you are my friend, you know I can't let that go."
"Sacrifices were made for the good of the planet," Daniel said. "Now let us never speak of it again. Was Sam upset?"
"She was pretty stung. She was feeling sorry for you, spending the weekend alone, so when Teal'c and I dragged her physically from the lab for a night on the town, she wanted to invite you along. She didn't expect to get an earful from your floozy."
"She was not my…Never mind," Daniel sighed. He took out a bunch of keys and unlocked the case in front of him.
"Where did you get those?"
"Found them," Daniel replied, defensively. He took out a small rock, and handed it to Jack. "I'll give Ms Curran a receipt; you take that back to the lab and have Sam run some tests. Oh, and this too." He fished out the pendant, a milky, metallic piece, on which was carved a woman with a star over her head.
"What is it?"
"The iconography is of Sothis; a goddess of the inundation associated with Isis. If I'm not mistaken, this particular example is based on a second century copy of a XV Dynasty original."
"And it's important because?"
"Because it's carved from naquadah."
*
Daniel went back to the Hotel Inter-Continental – Nefera's treat, by way of a further apology – and knocked on the Ashrak's door.
"Is that…?"
"The journals of Alex Curran, MD," Daniel confirmed. "Can I come in?" He asked. "This box is rather heavy."
"Oh. Of course, let me help you." She took the box of journals from his arms, lifting it without apparent effort.
"How does having a snake in your head make you stronger?" Daniel wondered, closing the door behind him.
"It doesn't," she replied. "But we can control our host's metabolism means we train faster and better, and we can force the production of adrenaline to temporarily enhance performance. We can also ignore the pain of such exertion, and repair muscle and cartilage damage much faster so that we suffer no lasting ill-effects." She dumped the box on the table in the lounge.
"This room is bigger than mine," Daniel commented.
"Well, you said you didn't need a suite," she reminded him.
"And you do?"
"I like being able to," she admitted. "A lot of times I'd have given my right arm for a private room, let alone something like this. So I indulge myself."
"I thought you were practical?"
"Nothing particularly impractical about this," she assured him. "Besides, it gives us a space to work in that isn't a bedroom." She plumped herself down on a couch, dug into the box and threw Daniel a journal.
"Careful with those things," Daniel chided her. There were about twenty volumes in the box, each fairly thick, and stuffed with loose leaves.
"Sorry. You get started; I'll order some food. We could be here a long time."
Daniel was scribbling another line of notes on his pad when he realised that Nefera was staring at him.
"What?" He asked.
"You enjoy this, don't you?"
"Well, it's not the same as fieldwork," Daniel replied. "But it keeps me from feeling useless."
"See. That's the way I feel about my work," Nefera explained. "I don't see many humans who are like that."
"I'm flattered by your approval," Daniel assured her. "I think I've hit the jackpot," he added, referring to the volume he was currently studying.
"Is that the last one in the box?" Nefera asked.
"Last but one," Daniel replied. "It might have helped if they'd been catalogued; or even left in any kind of order."
"He charged by the hour to look at them. He probably wanted to make sure no-one found what they were after too quickly." Nefera grimaced. "So what've you got?"
"The journal picks up after a missing fifteen month period," Daniel said. "There are newspaper clippings to start with: 'British explorer missing'; 'Adventurer Curran feared lost'; 'Missing explorer found'. It seems he went missing in the mountains of the Hindu Kush…"
"The Hindu Kush?"
"So it says. He turned up six months later, malnourished, half out of his mind with fever and badly wounded, in the company of a native girl."
"Wounded how?" Nefera asked.
"'Dr Curran had suffered multiple cuts and bruises, as well as a clean, cauterised gash to the hip which defied medical explanation'."
"A staff blast," Nefera said. "A grazing hit would create that kind of gash."
"According to these, he came back to England with the girl, whom he announced he was to marry. Whereupon his elder sister had him committed to an asylum and promptly sent the poor thing packing. The journal picks up after he was released from the Asylum, for which he thanks the intervention of his friend, Haggard. There's a lot of bitter invective against his sister, but eventually he tries to set down what he recalls through the fever."
"In 1870, I set out on my great venture," Daniel read aloud. "To seek for the legendary Tomb of Assam in the mountains of Afghanistan. At some point on that expedition, it would appear that I quite lost my wits, so that I am no longer certain what is reality, and what the product of that which my sister dubs 'an overly-romantic temperament'. The journal of my early adventures on that quest are lost to me now, and those events are so occluded by the fragmented recollection of what later transpired, that I can not, with justice, recreate them here."
"What's the Tomb of Assam?" Nefera asked.
"Beats me," Daniel replied. "He mentioned it in that book there," he added, pointing. Nefera picked up the volume and Daniel continued: "Blah, blah, blah mountains; blah, blah, blah swamp…Here we go. I think it must have been in this marsh that I lost my mind, and perhaps it rests there still. Some day I may seek to recover it."
"Overly-romantic temperament indeed," Nefera scoffed, playfully.
"All that I now recall is that one day I fell down in that swamp, and I awoke in a different place, surrounded by Hindoos of most astonishing countenance, for they wore on their brows a tattoo of the sun, the men and the women alike. He goes on to describe how – coincidentally – the heathen ways of these Amahagger could have passed for Christian charity, and how he hit it off with one of the women, who was named Ustane."
Nefera nodded. "Like in Haggard's book. This sounds promising."
"The tribal chief took him to the palace of Kör, where he met an Arab woman of surpassing beauty and terrible demeanour, whom the Amahagger called She-Who-Is-Obeyed. Uhm…Eyes of fire, voice of thunder, yadayadayada… And she approached, and the air became honey sweet with the richness of her breath. I am ashamed to say that I forgot Ustane at once, and had eyes for no other woman.
"He says that she named herself Ayesha, and that he has few clear memories after meeting her. Once that breath fell upon me, my recollection grows still less distinct. One incident only is clear, and that I wish I could forget. For while I abandoned Ustane, she would not abandon me, and for her insolence, Ayesha struck her down. I remember Ustane, standing proud and defiant before that terrible queen, and Ayesha stretching forth her hand. White light burst from her palm, striking Ustane dead upon the instant."
"A hand device."
"He says that Ayesha declared he should be tested, and to that end had him taken into the caverns beneath the palace, where he was to seek the Tomb of Assam. There he faced 'horrors beyond imagining', and fled in madness and despair. He came to in the swamps, where he met the girl, who guided him back to civilisation. He went back to Afghanistan to try to find the girl, but ended up side-tracked and spent almost a year searching without success for the palace of Kôr, before returning home to marry and do his duty to his family."
"Well, that's not much help," Nefera declared. "If he couldn't find the place."
"Perhaps," Daniel said. "But there are maps and charts; details of his failed journeys and all the places the palace was not. Plus the clues in that book you have which he followed in search of the Tomb in the first place. Also, he claims the he brought that rock – the one I gave to Jack for Sam to study – out of Kör; that might give us a geological clue."
"And the pendant?"
"Sadly he stole it from a merchant in Kabul when he was short of pocket change, so it has no provenance. He didn't get it from the Amahagger, but claimed that it was just like one which his Pashtun fiancée had worn. He spent a good half of his fortune searching for Kôr, before his sister forced him to give up and marry a nice English girl. It sounds like he resented his wife for his separation from both Ayesha and the girl he brought home."
"I'm amazed he stayed sane."
"He didn't," Daniel added. "His journals after this one all seem to point to him going slowly nuts. Eventually his sister had him committed again, and he died in an institution. That's why his son emigrated to America; to escape the shame."
Nefera studied the earlier journal, with its references to the Tomb of Assam. "Assam – a legendary figure who…" She looked up at Daniel.
"Absorbed the power of the serpent god by consuming it," Daniel finished. "I know."
"But some of these other myths," Nefera breathed. "That the sun god told him how to gain the snake's power; that he led his people across the stars. I know these."
"I know," Daniel said. "Sounds like a Goa'uld in the service of Ra, taking slaves through the Stargate."
"No," Nefera disagreed. "His people are not the Tau'ri, and he is not the sun god's underling. Assam…Not Assam but Asar!"
"The older form of Osiris," Daniel mused. "But his resting place was found."
Nefera shook her head. "Asar is more than an older name for Osiris," she said. "Daniel. We may hold in our hand the key to the greatest legend of the Goa'uld." Swift as a snake, she lunged across the table and seized Daniel's hands. "We must find the Tomb," she told him, with frightening intensity. "We must!"
*
The next day, Daniel flew back to Colorado with the journals. He had failed to get much more out of Nefera about the Tomb of Asar that night, and in the morning he found her gone. She left a message to say that she would contact him if anything turned up, but it was probably down to him and the SGC now.
Daniel was still in two minds about trusting the Ashrak. On the one hand, she seemed genuinely interested in helping, with her heart in the right place, even if she were entirely clueless about human behaviour. On the other…Well, on the other hand, she was Goa'uld, and it was not as though Daniel's character judgement was entirely flawless. Unfortunately, he had little choice now she had vanished, and he had more or less sealed his options by lying to Jack in Curran's museum.
Daniel sighed. At some stage, he would have to come clean, and at that point, Jack was going to kick his ass.
First stop after arriving at the SGC was the lab. Daniel walked in, and waited while Sam finished whatever it was she was doing with the power saw before making any noises or sudden movements.
"Hi, Sam," he said.
"Hi, Daniel."
"Sorry about the other night. I didn't even know you'd rung."
"It's okay," she assured him. "Just a bit of a shock. How was the date?"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Like a nightmare," he told her. "I really don't want to talk about it, or even think about it, ever again."
"Ouch! That bad, huh?"
"Worse," Daniel replied, in a pained tone, wondering – not for the first time – if he found it easy to talk to Sam about his romantic disasters because she was one of the guys, or because he was one of the girls. "How about you? How was your weekend?"
"Interesting," Sam allowed, warily. "Having dragged me out for a night of unbridled, drunken debauchery fit to have us all bared from every bar, pub and eatery in town, we ended up at Jack's place, eating pizza and drinking beer. I spent a good hour listening to Jack and Teal'c argue about whether we should watch Wolf or Tombstone."
"What did you see in the end?"
"I stuck The English Patient on when they weren't looking," Sam replied. "It was so embarrassing; they both wept like babies. Next time I'm rooting for screwball comedy."
"I'm sorry to have left you to cope with that alone," Daniel said. "How about the samples?"
"Well, I'm doing a few section analyses of the rock to try and determine the source. The 'fool's gold' is definitely naquadah though, as is the pendant. Jack said these are terrestrial samples?"
"So it seems."
"That's impossible though," Sam protested. "Naquadah doesn't occur naturally on Earth."
"Maybe it does and we just haven't found it before."
"Or," Sam suggested. "Maybe it isn't natural?"
"A ship?"
"Or a structure, or Gate; something that's been there a very long time though. But since naquadah doesn't corrode, whatever it is could be perfectly preserved," she added, excitedly.
"That may not be all that's perfectly preserved," Daniel warned.
"Meaning?" Sam asked.
"There may be a Goa'uld Queen involved."
Sam shivered. "Hate them."
"That's probably just because they always try to kill you," Daniel assured her with a grin. "It doesn't make you a bad person."
"I think Jack is a very bad influence on you," Sam told him. "You used to be so quiet and serious."
"I used to be a geek," Daniel admitted.
"You still are."
"Thank God for that. If it's any help, Curran probably found that sample on an expedition to Afghanistan. He may not have found it in Afghanistan, as he seems to have got very lost, but that's where he started."
Sam nodded. "It gives me somewhere to start cross-referencing once we get the mineral analysis back. I should have an idea in time for the briefing."
"Briefing?"
"Haven't checked your emails yet? General Hammond wants to know what's going on, so we're briefing at thirteen-thirty. That's one-thirty to you," she added.
"Once!" Daniel cried, with mock exasperation. "I mistook fifteen hundred for five o'clock once!"
"And we'll never let you forget it."
"I hate you all."
Next stop for Daniel was Jack's office, then the commissary and the gym. Having failed to find Jack in any of these places, Daniel retired to his own office, and found Jack waiting for him.
"You're a hard man to track down," Daniel said.
"So are you, today," Jack replied him. "So I thought I'd wait."
"Good thing I didn't wait in your office. We could both have wasted the whole day."
Jack smiled, but only briefly. "Tell me about your 'anonymous' tip again."
Daniel sighed. "You may want to sit down," Daniel said.
"I'm good."
"The tip," Daniel began, sitting down himself. "Came from Nefera."
"I'm going to sit down," Jack said, and he did. "Nefera? Amaunet's handmaiden? The one you figured out was probably a Goa'uld?"
"One and the same."
"She was the woman at the house? I spoke to the airmen; they said you were there with a woman called Jane."
"Jane Archer," Daniel replied. "It's her pseudonym. She's a bounty hunter with literary aspirations and a rather voracious editor."
"And you didn't think I needed to know this?" Jack asked, sounding pissed.
"I was going to tell you," Daniel promised. "But I wanted to wait for the right moment."
"And when would that have been?"
"I was hoping for sometime around your third or fourth beer; you know, when you're at your mellowest."
"You didn't trust my judgement?"
"I trust your judgement," Daniel assured him. "I was just worried you'd hit me."
"Daniel; when have I ever hit you?"
"Or shout at me, or…get mad because I didn't contact you straight away."
"Why would that make me mad?" Jack asked, angrily.
"Jack…I'm sorry I lied, but I was scared. Scared you'd frighten her off or clap her in irons or something, and we wouldn't find what we needed."
Jack scoffed. "If we clapped her in irons, we'd get whatever she knew out of her, believe me."
"I don't think so," Daniel said. "I don't think you'd get much out of her, even with torture. She's…not like other girls."
"Girls?"
"What?"
"She's not like other girls?"
"Goa'uld," Daniel said.
"You said girls."
"No I didn't."
"Daniel…"
"I meant Goa'uld," Daniel insisted. "She says it's something to do with being Ashrak."
"Ah, for crying out loud, Daniel!"
"Jack. Do you trust me?"
"Daniel…"
"Do you trust me?"
"I trust you Daniel. I just have a few doubts about your taste in women."
Daniel sighed. "She knows something more," he told Jack. "Something about a place called the Tomb of Asar. I think this is big, Jack; I think this is important. We may need what she knows before it's over, and she's not going to give us anything – let alone everything – until she's good and ready."
"So what do you want to do?" Jack asked.
*
Half an hour before the briefing, Sam called Daniel and asked him to stop by the lab again. The results of the analysis suggested an area some distance south of the Hindu Kush, probably in or near to the Suliman Mountains, around about the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Daniel produced a distillation of Curran's notes and maps, and by comparing the geological data with his descriptions of the landscape, they managed to narrow the possibilities down to a small, ill-charted area in Pakistan.
"Swamps, some mountains; isolated location," Daniel said, gesturing to the briefing room screen.
"And the few mineral surveys done anywhere near it match the constitution of the rocks," Sam agreed.
"And you think this bears investigation?" General Hammond asked.
"Yes, Sir," Sam replied. "Whether this naquadah comes from a natural seam or a Goa'uld complex, I'd say it's very imperative that we find and secure it; and eliminate any Goa'uld who might be living there."
Hammond nodded. "I would tend to agree," he said. "Unfortunately, international operations are not within my remit, so I'll have to pass this over to the NID."
"General," Jack said. "With all due respect, I think that's a very bad idea."
"I would – again – tend to agree," Hammond answered. "But I'm not in a position to send a team into Pakistan. To do so would be a breach of my authority, not to mention an act of war; the United States Air Force tends to frown on those unless it really means it."
"I understand, Sir," Jack assured him. "But the NID…"
"Are better placed than the SGC to organise a diplomatic or clandestine solution," Hammond reminded him, firmly. "Colonel, I'm concerned by this sudden display of insubordination."
"Sudden?" Daniel asked.
"From all of you."
Sam looked shocked, and even Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"Major Carter repeatedly refuses to take leave, and I don't like the way Teal'c keeps talking out of turn."
The eyebrow rose even higher.
"I think all of you need a rest; and that's why I'm extending your leave by another two weeks. You should all try to get away from things for a while. Maybe go overseas. I hear Pakistan is nice this time of year."
Jack suppressed a grin. "And you'll inform the NID of this discovery?"
"When I have a moment," Hammond replied. "I've a very busy schedule, and I can't give priority to hearsay and speculation."
"Of course, Sir," Jack agreed.
SG-1 rose and filed out, and Hammond caught Jack by the arm before he went. "Jack," he said. "Try not to start a war."
"I'll do my best," Jack promised.
*
Jack had assembled a fairly substantial arsenal for their 'holiday', including eight rifles, four shotguns and four zat'nik'tels. To Daniel, it looked as though they were preparing to go to war, although someone of Dr Curran's era might just have assumed this was their hunting kit.
"Are you really allowed to requisition weapons from the SGC when you're on vacation?" Daniel asked.
"Technically? No," Jack admitted. "But I'm the second highest-ranking officer in the command, so they cut me a little slack. Besides, this is Colorado; except for the zats I could buy almost any of this stuff legally."
"Maybe more to the point," Sam said. "Can we really get into Pakistan with this stuff?"
"Probably not," Jack replied. "If we go through customs, but that means delays and flights which we have to pay for, so I made alternate arrangements."
"Alternate arrangements?" Daniel raised an eyebrow. "If I ask you if this is legal, would I regret it?"
"Do you consider yourself a law abiding man?"
"Naturally."
"Then yes you would."
"In that case I'll just assume."
"Sir," Sam said. "What alternate arrangements? It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just a little concerned."
"An old friend of mine runs an air freight company," Jack explained. "Over the years she's done a lot of…extralegal work, shuttling people and things to places that they're not supposed to be."
"Smuggling?" Sam asked.
"Well, we don't call it that when the people are US special forces on loan to the CIA."
"Ah," Daniel said. "One of our criminals."
"Can this person be trusted, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
"I'd trust her with my life," Jack assured him.
Daniel grinned. "But would you trust her with something important?"
"Such as the job of dumping a smart-alec archaeologist out of a plane in the middle of the Atlantic?"
"The question is withdrawn."
"Any others?" Jack asked.
"Who is this person?" Sam asked, failing to constrain her curiosity about Jack's past. "What's her name?"
*
"Gooney Bird!" Jack hollered, as the pilot of the DC-3 emerged. SG-1 were standing on a small airfield outside Colorado Springs, where they had been waiting for Jack's mysterious friend for almost an hour and a half. The DC-3 that had landed a few moments ago had 'Gooney Bird Lines' stencilled on the side in bright colours; the company motto was 'Where you need it, when you need it'.
The pilot, a tall, lanky Latina of about Jack's age, grinned broadly as she approached. She was pretty, and had a long nose. She wore oily overalls, and her hair was gathered up under a USAF baseball cap. "Pagliacci!" She called, baffling Jack's comrades completely, before they caught each other in an affectionate bear hug.
Jack turned to the rest of his team. "Major Sam Carter, Dr Daniel Jackson and Teal'c; this is Sergeant Miranda Lopez."
"Retired," she stressed. "Call me Gooney; everyone does."
"Great to meet you," Sam said. "What's with 'Pagliacci'?"
"My old call sign," Jack explained, and Gooney shook hands with his team. "From way back."
"Nice hat," she told Teal'c. Jack cringed; Teal'c had refused to let anyone talk him out of wearing a pith helmet to cover his tattoo.
"So what is this, Amigo?" Gooney asked. "Twelve years, you don't call, you don't write; now this?"
"Yeah, well…You know how it is," Jack demurred.
"Ai; sure I do, Jack," she said, sadly. "How are they; those…things?"
A cloud passed over Jack. "You don't know?"
"Know what?" Gooney asked, concerned.
"Charlie…died," Jack choked. "Sara left me about a year later."
"Ah, man. I'm so sorry, Jack. I had no idea."
"I just figured one of the guys would have mentioned…"
"We don't talk so much anymore," she admitted.
"So, you two go back?" Daniel asked, trying to change the subject.
"Oh yeah," Gooney confirmed. "Nothing I can tell you about without having to kill you though."
"Of course," Daniel replied. "That whole period."
Gooney shrugged, apologetically. "So all you guys for Pakistan?" She asked.
"That's the plan," Sam replied.
"You want to be avoiding customs checks? Regular airports? Baggage inspections?"
"All of the above," Jack agreed.
"Time critical?"
"We're in kind of a hurry, yeah."
Gooney smiled a maniac grin. "No problems, mi amigos. All aboard the Gooney Bird Lines Peshawar express; no stops, no waiting."
"Non-stop to Pakistan?" Sam asked. "In a C-37?"
"Ah, but this is a very specially C-37, chicqua."
"How so?"
"Ah! Do you ask the magician performs his magic?" Gooney demanded.
"Yes, she does," Daniel and Teal'c replied as one.
Gooney shrugged. "Okay. I've made a lot of modifications to the old bird over the years, mostly for endurance. I got eight passenger seats and the rest is hold. If I'm not carrying a cargo load, I can fit that hold to carry extra fuel reserves, take her range up to almost eight thousand miles."
"How far is Peshawar?" Daniel asked.
"Almost eight thousand miles," Gooney admitted, loading their luggage into a side compartment. "So it's going to be a little tight, but we should be fine. Oh, yeah; we picked up that extra passenger in Denver. She's waiting on board."
"Extra passenger?" Sam asked, as they climbed the ladder to the cabin.
"Ah, yeah," Jack replied. "We're sharing this run with a paying customer."
"Hey; you're all paying customers, Jack. I charge you a little less for old time's sake, but this is my only income."
"Sir; you realise this means we can't plan anything en route," Sam warned. "We'll have to…" She stopped, stiffening with fear.
"Please don't let me cramp your style," the fifth passenger said. Teal'c became very still, and Daniel was suddenly very glad that all of the weapons were stowed in the hold.
"Goa'uld!" Sam hissed.
"Hey!" Gooney called back from the cockpit door. "It's touching you guys know each other, but I don't allow fighting in my plane; in any language. If you can't play nice you can all walk to Peshawar."
"We're fine," Daniel assured her. Gooney nodded, looking doubtful, but she disappeared back into the cockpit.
"Sir?" Sam asked, tightly.
"Carter, Teal'c; this is Nefera, who helped us out at the Atum Base."
Sam glowered. "I know you," she whispered.
"Jolinar knew me," Nefera replied. "She helped me to killed the System Lord Scorpion."
"Allowing Apophis to seize his territory," Sam said. "You used her."
"Yes," Nefera admitted, blandly. "I did."
The PA crackled. "This is your captain speaking," Gooney Bird announced. "Please note that we have no fasten seatbelt signs, but believe me when I tell you that if we did then they would be lit. This is a good old plane, but she's a little bumpy, so I recommend you buckle up. We will be landing in or near Peshawar in a little over thirty-six hours, so get comfy folks."
"Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c said, as he took a seat. "It is unwise to trust a Goa'uld, whether she has helped you before or not."
"Which is why I'm not trusting her," Jack replied. "She's here with us because I don't want her anywhere we can't see her, and you, Teal'c, are going to watch her like a hawk every moment you're not performing kelno'reem."
"The love in this cabin is overwhelming," Nefera muttered.
"What is she doing here in the first place?" Sam demanded to know.
"That's a longer story," Jack said. "Which Daniel will now tell you."