“Here,” said Dixon, and held up a bottle of pills. “Have some Tylenol, Major. You look like your head’s about to explode.”
Distracted, she smiled at him. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks, sir.”
Dixon tipped the grunt candy into her palm and waited for her to chew it and swallow. Once she’d done grimacing at the foul taste, he helped her stand and make it to her sleeping bag. He was gentle. Solicitous. A good team leader taking care of his own.
Bastard
.
“O’Neill,” said Teal’c. “Have you been informed we found a naquadah mine?”
Another timely change of subject. “Yeah. Good work.”
“It’s got skeletons in it,” added Dixon, with relish, leaning his shoulders against a handy bit of wall. “Human and Goa’uld. Oh, and naquadah.” He nodded to the lumpy-looking spare pack on the floor. “Brought some back for you, if you’re interested.”
No, Dixon. I wish you hadn’t bothered.
“There’s so much more up there, sir,” said Carter, from the depths of her sleeping bag. “It’s incredible. And we brought one of the Goa’uld skeletons back but — ” She yawned. “I kind of smooshed it when I fell.”
“You didn’t smoosh it,” said Daniel, morose. “You pulverized it.”
“I told you, there’s another one,” she replied. “No need to panic.”
“Forget the old Goa’uld bones,” O’Neill said impatiently. “Teal’c? How do you rate the naquadah?”
In the gentle lamplight the brand on Teal’c’s forehead shimmered liquid gold. “It is the best example of the raw mineral I have ever encountered, O’Neill.”
“Really?”
Teal’c nodded. “Really.”
He’d spent a lot of years training himself to stay cool under pressure. Not to show his feelings. Not to get… carried away. But it was hard this time not to dance a little victory jig. Give Snoopy a run for his money. Teal’c didn’t say things like that on a whim.
Naquadah generators. Naquadah-enhanced warheads. Naquadah-powered defense shields. Naquadah-powered space ships.
Hey, George. Look what we found…
“Okay,” he said. “That’s good. That’s a start. But tomorrow we — minus stumblebum Carter — need to put this mission into top gear.”
“Stumblebum? Hey,” said Carter, sounding sleepy now. “I resemble that remark.”
He snorted. “You certainly do.”
“And by top gear you mean…” said Daniel, edgily.
“We stop pussyfooting around. As far as I’m concerned the social ice is well and truly broken. We’re here first and foremost to establish a trading mission with these people. So, our little medical mystery notwithstanding, it’s time to open up the negotiations.”
Daniel cleared his throat. “Ah… don’t you think I’m the best judge of that, Jack? I mean, I was given express orders to make sure anything we do here doesn’t impinge on these people’s lives or — ”
“Actually, Daniel, I believe your orders were to make sure we didn’t repeat the snafu with the Salish. Have you found anything to indicate we’re in danger of doing that?”
Daniel put down his digicam. “Well, no. The people of Mennufer have a longstanding tradition of trading and as far as I can tell there aren’t any religious restrictions involved. In fact I’m still trying to work out how their religious belief structure functions. Obviously they recognize the existence of Ra and Setesh but — ”
“Okay. Good,” he said. “So we’re not looking at
Adventures with the Salish, Volume Two
.”
“No,” said Daniel carefully. “But, like I say, we could be looking at something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like no matter what we offer them,” Dixon chimed in, “they won’t want to trade.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t they?” he said, baffled. “For crying out loud, Dixon, if you’ve got something to say spit it out!”
Dixon pulled a face. “Well, we found gold and naquadah and gemstones in the shrine at the Stargate.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So what if the Adjoans consider that stuff sacred? What if they’ve got a taboo against trading it?”
Then we’re screwed, aren’t we
? He turned. “Daniel?”
Daniel shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“And yet somehow not worth mentioning, apparently.”
“Jack, I don’t how many different ways I can say this,” Daniel sighed. “Wherever possible I try not to jump to conclusions. That means I need time to do what I do. You never want to give me that time. So I do my best in the time you give me. If you want better, you know what to do.”
A spike of pain pounded viciously behind his eyes. They were
all looking at him, even Carter, who was practically asleep. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t start making noises about trade yet.”
“No. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk to them,
tactfully
,” said Daniel. “About the religious significance of naquadah, and why they don’t have medicine of their own. I’m sorry, Jack. I know that isn’t what you want to hear. But since when have I been in the business of telling you what you want to hear?”
Since never
. “Yeah. Okay. You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
Before Daniel could argue he shoved open the retreat’s door and stepped out into the relief of fresh air and sunshine. Four blank walls, no windows, no natural light at all. Damn retreat was like a coffin. Like a hole in the ground. Memory stirred, claws scrabbling.
Don’t go there. Don’t do it. That was then, this is now.
He found a nice patch of flower-scattered grass and hunkered down on it. Dammit to hell, his head was killing him.
Should’ve grabbed the Tylenol
. Ah, well.
The sun was slowly sinking, the day’s warmth bleeding from the air. A scrim of high cloud was turning baby pink. The village bustled, all those last-minute chores before suppertime. He could hear the sounds of children, laughing. Parents, scolding.
Come on, Charlie. Get your butt in the house, it’s time to lay the table for dinner
.
He closed his eyes, his heartbeat erratic. Behind him the retreat door opened. Footsteps on the pathway. Not Teal’c. Not Daniel. Definitely not Carter.
“Hey,” said Dixon, and joined him on the grass.
If he said nothing maybe the man would go away.
“Doctor Jackson’s pretty passionate, I guess. Takes his anthropology seriously,” said Dixon. His tone was mild, conversational.
Don’t recall inviting you out here for conversation, Dave.
“So,” said Dixon, stubbornly undeterred. “Washington’s got a blowtorch on Hammond?”
He opened his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Figures. What the Stargate program costs, they want to recoup their expenditure.”
If you’re expecting me to have any sympathy for Washington you’re wasting your time
.
“Apart from that, everything else okay back home?” asked Dixon. Not quite so mild, now. Not quite so conversational.
He turned his head. “If there was a problem with your wife, Dixon, don’t you think I’d’ve said so by now?”
Dixon shrugged. “I don’t know. Would you?”
Well, crap
. “Hammond did say to tell you SG-6 was home safe. Your guy Logan’s fine. The other two are still deployed, but there’s no reason for alarm.”
“Good,” said Dixon, and let out a long, slow sigh. “That’s good. I was worried.”
I don’t want to know how he’s feeling. I don’t want to have anything in common with this clown
.
“Someone’s coming,” he said, looking down the pathway. “Looks like the home delivery crew.”
He stood. After a moment Dixon stood too. That young kid, what the hell was his name,
Asbestos, Az-something,
and another youth, unidentified, Daniel would know, walked up from the village. They were loaded down with pots and jugs.
“Yep,” said Dixon. “That’s dinner.”
They went to give the boys a hand.
The shrine of rebirth was housed in a cave eaten into the side of the valley by wind, water and time. Kneeling in reverent supplication before its sacred statue, flickered by candle light, Khenti could feel the anxious thoughts of his fellow Elders kneeling behind him.
“Speak,” he said gently, as beyond the cave’s entrance the evening breeze flowed down the valley and the setting sun gilded the lazy river. “We are alone here. Our words will pass no further.”
“Our strange visitors have magic, Khenti,” said Madu. “They possess the power to defeat the evil spirits living in the earth and in the air. They say they wish to be our friends. If we ask them, they will share their magic.”
Khenti shook his head. “You do not know that.” Indeed, he suspected there would be no sharing without first Mennufer paying a heavy price. The look he’d seen on Jack’s face was the same look to be found on the traders from Zigooola’s other villages.
Nothing is given for nothing. The first rule of trade.
“They said they would help us, Khenti,” Sebak whispered. His surviving family had perished last rebirth. He was a man steeped in unending sorrow. “We must beg them to help us. Rebirth is upon us. Do you not smell its sweetness on the breeze? Do you not feel it scraping over your skin? Adjo is waking. The nightmare comes.”
“Yes. Of course I feel it. Am I not born of Adjo? Every one of us feels it, Sebak. But as Mennufer’s senior Elder I cannot act like a frightened child.”
He did not need to look to know that Sebak was offended. “I am no frightened child!” Sebak protested. “I am a man who fears for the people of our village. Since we were small boys we have seen that with every new rebirth fewer and fewer of us are strong enough to stand against it. Every rebirth we lose more to death. And not just in Mennufer. You know that, Khenti. I fear that when the youngest child among us today is as old as I am he will be the last of our people.”
Panahasi grunted in agreement. “That is if he even lives so long, and who can say if that will happen? Sebak is right. We must ask our visitors for their help.”
“I too think Sebak speaks the truth,” added Madu. “Be guided
by us, Khenti. Ask for help.”
They were foolish, his Elders. They did not understand. Lifting his head he stared at the shrine’s brutal, bestial figurine then turned to face them, glaring.
“
No
, brothers. We must stay silent. If they are told what comes
to us at rebirth they will flee through the
chappa’ai
. They will take their magic
medicines
with them and we will suffer alone, as always we have suffered alone.”
“But they call themselves friends,” Sebak protested weakly. “Daniel has pledged to help us in many ways.”
“Daniel is a good man but he is not their Elder. Jack is their Elder and he is a man with a stone heart for his people. He has come here for a purpose. We have something he desires.”
“The naquadah?” Madu whispered.
“Perhaps,” he replied. “Sam and her friends were climbing near the mine.”
“Then tell Jack he might have the naquadah if he gives us his magic
medicines
,” said Panahasi.
“He will want to know what we need
medicines
for.” Khenti shook his head. “No. Rebirth must touch Jack and his people. Then, when they have shown us their
medicines
can overpower it, we will say to them: the naquadah and anything else you desire is yours, but you must trade us all of your
medicines
.” He frowned. “If it is naquadah he wants. We should make sure of that.”
Panahasi twisted his fingers in his robes. “The other villages, Khenti. Maidum, Abusir, Dahshur… should we not speak with their Elders before — ”
“
No
. These strangers have come through the
chappa’ai
to
us
,” he said fiercely. “Let Mennufer be healed first. Brothers, I am right in this. You know I am right. I am senior Elder. My word is law.”
The breeze sighed. His brothers sighed. They knew he was right… and his word was law.
Baghdad, February 19th, 1991
The French used to call them
oubliettes
. Small windowless dungeons into which men were thrown and left to rot.
Even that would’ve been better than his life right now.
Someone nearby was being beaten. He could hear the muffled screaming. Hear the torturers shout. Broken English, over and over:
Tell us.
Tell us. You know what we want. Tell us or you die. Tell us and we stop
.
They’d been shouting the same thing at him for the past eleven days. Shouting. Hitting. Giving him hell.
Jesus Christ, Frank. What happened to nobody gets left behind
?
The bullets that had dropped him seemed to come out of
nowhere. He’d felt the blinding shock of them, heard the echoes
of the two swift shots bounce around the shadowy Baghdad alley. Smelled the stink of rotting vegetables as he spun then slammed face-first to the ground. Felt the blood spring from his breached body. Shoulder, and scalp.