Heart's Desire (39 page)

And she couldn't help feeling that Janet ought to be taking any hint of a weird symptom a little more seriously. They hadn't yet encountered an alien substance that had caused a serious health problem
—
it wasn't as if her symptoms were likely to be a sign that she was developing amnesia or some kind of contagious disease
—
but that was really pure chance. They were exploring alien worlds, and the fact that so far they hadn't had to deal with any serious consequences just meant that they'd been lucky.

A lot luckier than she would have expected. Not that it was possible to calculate the mathematical probability of something going seriously wrong on an SG team mission, but the fact that they'd been exploring the galaxy for over two years and nothing had gone seriously wrong yet seemed… wrong.

Right
, Sam said, shaking her head at herself.
Way to appreciate your good fortune, there.
It was an amazing opportunity to start with, getting to explore the galaxy and discover things she would never even have dreamed of before she joined the program. It would have been worth… well, a lot more than just putting in a lot of overtime… to get to see things no one else from Earth had ever seen.

And if she could see those things, and make most of the technology they found work the first time she tried it, and go home at five o'clock without leaving anyone in the infirmary for her to worry about while she was gone, why in the world was she complaining?

And why was she wondering whether she was being ungrateful when she'd started out wondering how they'd gotten the Goa'uld hand devices to work? It was too neat a distraction, the kind of unanswerable question about feelings that she had hated in school. There was at least one genuine problem here: the unexplained gaps in her memory.

She also wasn't entirely satisfied with Janet's account of how they'd gotten the hand devices to work. It sounded plausible, except that she could remember being certain that the only way to use the devices was to have the protein marker that showed that you'd once been a host. More than that, she was almost as certain that controlling them would require some element of skill. Somehow they'd managed to learn to use the hand devices without hurting anyone in the process, without ever having even talked to anyone who'd learned to use them as a host.

It was certainly lucky.

Or unbelievable.

T
eal'c woke before dawn, unsure what had disturbed him. The sound of people celebrating still carried from the street outside, but there was nothing alarming in it, only the quiet sound of conversations and laughter now hushed out of some respect for the hour. The shrieks of excited children could no longer be heard; all but the oldest must be asleep by now, whether in their beds or in quiet corners of the palace.

Beside him, Drey'auc was still sleeping, although she stirred a little against him, pulling a blanket up higher against her shoulder. He slipped out of bed without waking her and dressed quietly, prompted by some inner restlessness it was hard for him to put a name to.

Perhaps it was only that on such a night, it was hard for him to sleep, even after such a long day. They had returned to Chulak in triumph in the early hours of the morning, already weary from the long night's battle. Their ships had defeated the forces still loyal to Apophis, and then they had boarded his ha'tak.

He remembered vividly making his way into the chamber where Apophis cowered on his throne. He had waited until Apophis saw him, until he was sure that the false god recognized his former First Prime, and then he had fired and watched the light go out of Apophis's eyes forever.

There was something strangely unsettling about the image, a feeling that only strengthened as he glanced back at Drey'auc, still curled sleeping under the covers, her dark hair spread across her pillow. Teal'c went out as quietly as he could, hoping that the evening air would clear his head.

He walked, head bent to avoid being drawn into conversation by anyone still celebrating. He had heard his fill of congratulations, and while he could not deny his pride in them, he doubted they were the balm he sought for his mood. He gave little thought to the direction he walked, and found himself at the gate of Bra'tac's house without being aware of having decided to go there.

He shook his head at himself. He could hardly wake Bra'tac in the cold hours of the morning to tell him of a sense of nameless unease. There was the flicker of a lit lamp on the house's veranda, though, and as he hesitated, Bra'tac called to him quietly, “I thought you might come.”

Teal'c went in through the gate and ascended the steps to the veranda. “Why is that?” he asked, settling onto one of the stone benches that overlooked the side garden.

“You seemed troubled, earlier,” Bra'tac said.

“I have no reason to be,” Teal'c said slowly. “This is the day that we have long dreamed of. Perhaps it is only that I regret that we could not achieve our victory without the deaths of other Jaffa.”

“Very few,” Bra'tac said. “Almost all had already come to see the wisdom of our cause.”

“So they had,” Teal'c said. “In so few short years…”

“The truth is obvious once it is laid before us,” Bra'tac said.

“It must be so,” Teal'c said. “And yet I remember that for many years I struggled with the idea that the Goa'uld were not gods, even once I knew that you believed the same.”

Bra'tac smiled sideways. “Perhaps you are more persuasive than I was. You cannot argue with the results you have achieved. You have led us all to freedom.”

“And the Goa'uld to their destruction,” Teal'c said.

“Surely you do not regret it.”

“Never. I suppose I have been thinking of the words of Daniel Jackson.”

“The Tau'ri overcomplicate things,” Bra'tac said.

“Even so. He spoke once of his regret that to destroy the false gods, we must also kill the hosts that they have taken. He remembers well that his wife was nearly taken by the Jaffa who searched Abydos for potential hosts for the children of the gods.”

“We must make some sacrifices,” Bra'tac said. “Besides, they did not take Daniel Jackson's wife, did they?”

“They did not,” Teal'c said. “But I would have, had I been the one who was sent to Abydos. She was both beautiful and brave.” Apophis had praised him for bringing strong hosts, believing them the most likely to survive the implantation process, and had never known that Teal'c had hoped that the strong-willed ones would become thorns in the sides of the gods who possessed their bodies.

“Many things could have happened that did not,” Bra'tac said. “You must think of our victory, and of the work still to come. It will take time for us to build a new government for our people.”

“More time than it has taken to achieve this victory,” Teal'c said.

Bra'tac gave him a sharp look. “What are you implying?”

It would have been easy to say that he was implying nothing. Easy, but untrue.

“Think back to where this rebellion began, in the days when I first left our people to join with the Tau'ri.”

“It did not begin with you,” Bra'tac said, a warning heat in his expression. “Or in your time.”

“Very well. To when we first openly took up arms against the Goa'uld. It has been mere months
—”

“Longer than that,” Bra'tac said. “Nearly two years.”

Teal'c frowned. “And yet I remember Drey'auc standing by me when few others would rally to my cause. If there were so few who believed, how were we able to face the Goa'uld without being destroyed?”

He broke off at a low rumbling in the distance, glancing up at the sky by force of habit. There were no ships there, only the flash of heat lightning across half the sky. It might not be a bad thing for it to rain, to drive the last of the celebrating people indoors to their beds.

“A few is not none,” Bra'tac said when the sky quieted. “Not every attack requires an army. With stealth and good planning
—”

“I think not,” Teal'c said.

Bra'tac frowned. “You cannot argue with what was accomplished,” he said. “Unless you imagine that this is all somehow a great trick.” He shook his head, quiet anger in his voice. “You cannot imagine that I would deceive our people in such a monstrous way.”

“I know you are true,” Teal'c said. “But it would not be the first time that the false gods have lied.”

“N
o reason you took the Abydos mission?” Daniel asked, still looking like he wasn't satisfied with Jack's explanation. Jack shook his head. When Daniel got his teeth into some mystery, he hung on like a terrier, worrying at it until he wrung answers out of it. It wasn't a very comfortable process if you were on the other end.

“No reason,” Jack said firmly. “My number came up for the mission and I did what they told me to. Like you said, why would I volunteer for a mission like that when I had a wife and kid?”

“Why do you think they picked you?”

Jack shrugged. “My winning personality?”

“I'm just wondering,” Daniel said. “If we hadn't been able to defeat Ra, was there a back-up plan?”

“Go home and bury the gate,” Jack said. “Or blow it up, although Carter says now that wouldn't be as easy as we thought it was.”

“I'm just wondering if it might not have seemed like a better idea to some people to blow up the gate on this end.”

“So now you're an expert on military strategy? How about sticking to translation?”

“I'm getting some idea of how the military mind works,” Daniel said. “And you're avoiding the question.”

“It wasn't a suicide mission,” Jack said. “And I wouldn't have volunteered for one.”

“I thought you said you were assigned the Abydos mission. You didn't volunteer for it. Right?”

“Either way,” Jack said. “You think General West would have sent a team through that gate never intending for me to bring them back? You're out of your mind.”

“No,” Daniel said. “I mean, why would he think you would go along with that? It's not like he thought you were suicidal. It's not like he thought you were the kind of man who wouldn't really care if he blew himself up and took anybody who was on this side of the gate with him.”

Jack gave Daniel a sharp look. “What's the matter with you?” There was something in Daniel's tone that made the back of his neck prickle.
Someone walking over my grave
, he thought, and frowned.

“It's not me I'm wondering about. It's all this.” Daniel waved a hand, apparently taking in the entire landscape around them. “Think about how things worked out. We defeated Ra, and everybody went home in one piece and lived happily ever after.”

“That's how it works sometimes,” Jack said. “Those are good days.”

“Doesn't it seem maybe just a little too perfect?”

Jack shook his head. “It's not perfect. Perfect would be nobody ever getting stung by a giant bug or stuck in an ice cave for days or trapped in a virtual reality device that's sucking out our brains. Perfect would be Charlie cleaning his room without me asking him to.”

“That'll never happen,” Daniel said.

“Tell me about it. I don't believe in perfect. I just believe in pretty damn good, and that's what things are these days, and I'm not about to argue with that.”

“And how can I argue with that?” Daniel asked quietly, as if he wasn't even really talking to Jack.

Jack frowned at Daniel, trying to figure out what had gotten him into this mood. “What's got you acting like this?”

Daniel shook his head as if to clear it. “I'm really not sure. I just have this feeling that there's something wrong with… well, with everything. Doesn't something feel wrong to you if you really think about it? Like all of this is just a little unreal?”

Jack looked out across the pyramids. The sun was setting over the desert, staining the sun red, and the evening air was growing cold. The torchlight from the nearest entrance to the pyramid shed a welcoming glow.