Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1 (29 page)

"A Goa'uld," came a rumble from the door. Tea-ugh had finally
chosen to contribute to the debate, however cryptically.

Kelly scowled at him. "A what?"

"They're an alien race." Jackson fiddled with his spectacles.
An irritating habit. Why couldn't he see his optician and get them
adjusted?

"Like him?" she asked, cocking a thumb at the alien specimen
present.

"No. More like large, spiky... snakes."

"Well, that settles it then. Meleq is usually portrayed as a bull,
isn't he?"

"Professor, they can look any way they like. They're parasites.
They burrow into the back of your neck, wrap around the brain
stem, and take over. They're not exactly pleasant."

Oh please! She was willing to concede that he might have been
right about the Giza pyramids, but this was just too much. Never
mind the optician. He needed to see a shrink.

"Ridiculous," she blurted.

Something in his face shifted, hardened his features and made
him look twice his age. "You should have told that to my wife," he
said. "The Goa'uld who took her was called Ammonet. In the end
it killed Sha're. I watched her die. She wasn't laughing."

Kelly bit her lip. She wasn't sure she believed him, but the pain
looked genuine enough. Even he wouldn't joke about something
like that, would he? He had encountered real life, and in ways
she'd never imagined. Never could have imagined. And she'd put
her big foot right into it.

"I'm sorry, Jackson. I..." She cleared her throat, fished for
something to say. "I didn't realise you'd been married."

"Yeah, well... It was a long time ago." The half-hearted flash
of a smile didn't reach his eyes. "I don't know what these people's
idea of Purification involves. But I do know that Meleq is scheduled
to put in an appearance. And that's very, very bad news for

He broke off abruptly, staring past her and at Tea-ugh. The
alien's stance and body language had turned tense, watchful. Then,
in a fluid, lightning-fast motion, one large hand tore open the door
and the other hauled the eavesdropper into the room.

It was Ayzebel, pasty-faced and flustered. As well she might be.
Outrageous behaviour.

"I say!" spluttered Kelly. "That's not

"Teal' c."

The soft command had come from the astrophysicist, and
the alien released their hostess. Trying to collect herself, she
nervously smoothed a ribbon of greying curls that tumbled over
her shoulder.

"Forgive my foolishness," she whispered hoarsely. "I meant no
harm. I merely hoped to hear news of my son."

"And I suppose you couldn't have just asked?" observed Jackson
in a tone that gave her the lie ever so politely.

"I..." Fingers fluttered back to that strand of hair and started
twirling. "I was afraid."

"Sit down, Ayzebel. Please."

The Carter girl rose and fetched a chair that had been pushed
up against the wall by the bed. For a moment Ayzebel hesitated,
then she did as she was told, reluctant and uncomfortable. The two
women looked at each other, measuring, and at length the younger
one spoke.

"Ayzebel, we know. Hamilgart told us."

"Aie!" Shuddering like a cornered animal, Ayzebel slumped
forward over her knees and began to rock. "Ale... Ale..."

Good God! What kind of indiscretion were they talking about?
Mass murder? High treason? And shouldn't the authorities be
notified in this case?

"Please, do not disquiet yourself, Lady Ayzebel." When he
wanted to, that bear of a man - of an alien - could sound as soothing
as a well-tuned cello. "I gave your husband my word that we would
not betray your secret."

Gradually the rocking stopped, the head came up again, and she
gazed at him dumbfounded. "But, Lord Spirit, how -"

"We don't believe you did anything wrong, Ayzebel," Carter said quietly, urgently. "Tell me, how much did you overhear just
now?"

The pale cheeks flushed crimson, and she stiffened a little,
eyes still tinged with suspicion. Finally she seemed to come to a
decision.

"Not much. I did not dare to approach for a long time. But
enough to know that you wish to help your friend. If you... If you
will let me, I may be able to aid you."

The accommodation was four-star dungeon class, and unless
he learned how to seep through floor cracks, it was home. Until
further notice.

"Deodatus! You're troubled."

Oh yeah. He'd forgotten to mention - it catered for two. Which
maybe wasn't a bad thing, although, given the choice, he'd have
opted for a less perceptive cellmate. Billy Ray Redneck would
have done nicely. Or Senator Kinsey, at a pinch. It'd have given
him something to strangle. This guy was too close to being on his
team. And in case anyone was wondering, his team were the folks
he'd royally pissed off. Again. For a change. As soon as he got out
of here, he'd have to do some serious groveling. Industrial strength
groveling with cake.

Tertius looked up from a crouch, interrupting his examination
of the bowl of slop that tried to impersonate their gourmet meal.
"Deodatus?"

"I hate being shut in."

Lie. No. Half-truth. The honest answer would be I hate the
moment they'll come for me and Ilose control over what happens to
my body, my mind, my soul... And nobody, but absolutely nobody,
was ever gonna hear him say it.

"Who doesn't?" Tertius' eyes narrowed and he smirked. "Be
grateful this doesn't move."

"Thanks for the memories."

The crossing back to Tyros had been less turbulent than the
journey out, which still hadn't made a blind bit of difference. Like
Miss Marple before him, Tertius had been treated to a full and
lengthy expose of the inner life of Jack O'Neill.

"Remember what you said to me, Deodatus?"

"I said a lot of things. Mind giving me a pointer?"

"You didn't think my people would just shrug and move on
without me, did you? My people won't either."

To underline this exemplary drill in wishful thinking, Tertius
grabbed the bowl and slammed it on a cockroach the size of a tennis
shoe. The slop splashed on the flagstones, mingling with squashed
cockroach to create what would appear on tomorrow's menu as the
Chinese Special: Chunky Goo.

"Did you have to do that? We could have found another one and
raced them."

"Are you listening to me?" The master chef turned over the bowl
and covered the Roach Suey. "Our men will be coming."

Last time Jack had checked, the legionnaires were either dead
or wounded or inhabiting their own honeymoon suites down the
hall. "What men?"

"Let's start with the fifteen the Tyreans couldn't find in the
garrison."

"Who are stuck on an island."

The Mona Lisa look returned with a vengeance.

"Okay. They're not stuck. You had a boat hidden somewhere. So
that's fifteen guys. Against this? Sweet!"

While being escorted to their deluxe domicile, Jack had grown
a whole new appreciation for the temple precinct. It was among
the more solidly built fortresses he'd ever seen. The courtyard
and colonnade were the refined part to impress the casual tourist.
Beyond it lay an inland version of Alcatraz, with a maze of narrow
corridors, three-foot walls, and barred gates at every corner. Add to
that a few dozen guards, and it left you puzzling over how Tertius'
raid on the temple could ever have succeeded in the first place...

Unless the Tyreans had let it succeed. To fan SG-1's enthusiasm
for a strike against the Phrygians? Maybe. Of course, what
Kandaulo couldn't have foreseen was SG- I's CO and his pet Brit
being gang-pressed into a pleasure cruise and developing rather
more background information than desirable. The logical step
for the priests would have been to unobtrusively eliminate the
witnesses, right? Right. And that, by the way, was -

"Sit down, Deodatus! Or at least stand still. I'm getting dizzy."

"Good. Then you know what it was like on that pesky ship."

God's gift was in an obstinate mood and kept trailing his circles
around the cell. If you closed your eyes, you could almost believe
you were going somewhere. Until you walked into a wall. His
specialty. Preferably head-first. What would Oma Desala have
to say about that? If you suffer from a migraine, the marble was
quarried a long time ago. Sounded like the real thing, even if
candles didn't feature. Hey, he could -

"Please!"

Tertius kept staring at him, until Jack finally ground to halt. It
immediately set him on edge.

"So, what do you think your men'll achieve against this?" he
asked, mostly to say something, and to gloss over an encroaching
sense of helplessness that drove him crazy. He knew when he'd last
felt it, and he didn't want to go there.

"Sit! Down!"

Without warning, Tertius jumped up and pushed him back
until a stone edge struck his calves and he folded onto one of the
platforms that served as cots. The man held on to his shoulders and
stood looming over him.

"Would it please the Tribune to look at me?" he requested, oddly
formally, as though to make up for the drill yard tone earlier.

The Tribune didn't have an option, did he? By now the Tribune
knew the Primus Pilus well enough to anticipate that the Primus
Pilus wouldn't budge until the Tribune damn well did as requested.
Jack glanced up, careful not to reveal whatever the man was
looking for.

"Good." Tertius smiled a little, the glimmer of a torch catching
in his eyes. "You've been imprisoned before, yes?"

"Once or twice." Or three times or a dozen, but twice it had been
memorable enough to count.

"What did they do to you, Deodatus?"

You gotta be kidding... "So, what do you think your men'll
achieve against this?"

"No! What happened to you?"

I met some bottom feeder of a snake who'd enjoyed a previous and deeply fulling host-symbiote-relationship with the Marquis
de Sade.

"Forget it, Tertius. I don't want to talk about it."

The eyes wouldn't let go. "It's not forgotten. It's in here with
you."

The hell it was! It was out there, on some remote pissant planet
that wouldn't know daylight if the sun shone!

"Tell me," said Tertius.

"I can't!" That much at least was true. Jack slowly removed the
hands that pinned him into place, but didn't get up. "I can't."

Tertius flopped on the platform next to him. "Did you ever trust
anyone enough to tell them?"

The guy had got the wrong end of the stick, but Jack wasn't
about to point it out. He didn't trust himself enough, that was the
long and the short of it. If he ever talked about it, hearing his own
words would make it real, and he'd have to acknowledge what had
been done to him. Face it. Just how, pray, were you supposed to
face the intolerable? And in the unlikely event that you actually
found a way, then what? Go nuts? Become an axe murderer?

Bottom line was, he preferred the tried and tested method.
Worked with insurance salesmen as well: Say you're Evel Knievel
and slam down the phone. If you did it often enough, they'd go
away. Like this would. Eventually it'd slink off to some shadowy
recess of his mind and fester there. But at least he wouldn't have
to acknowledge it.

He leaned back against the stone wall, shivered a little when
its coolness penetrated the tunic and reached his skin. "Why the
honey?" he asked.

"What?'

"Marcellus - Tullius? - made me drink honey? Why?"

The response was a burst of laughter. Unlike him, Tertius had
mastered the art of accepting defeat gracefully. "You are hopeless,
Deodatus. But I shall answer you, just to teach you how it's
done. We give honey to newborns to strengthen them, and we
strengthened the new life within you, the soul about to be reborn,
the same way."

"Sounds easy."

"It isn't. In order to be truly reborn you must leave your old life
behind. You can only do that by facing it first."

Wrong end of the stick, Jack's ass! Time to change the topic.
"So... What do you think your men'll achieve against this?"

More chuckles. "Nothing on their own. They've alerted the
other settlements. Their warriors will band together, and then
they'll come for us. We don't leave our people behind."

"I noticed. Did I tell you I trust you?" Jack tried for a grin and
nearly got there.

"You mentioned the possibility."

"Yeah, well... It's a strong probability, I guess."

"Don't rush on my account." The smirk was audible. "I wish
there were a way your team could join our soldiers. It's a shame
that we can't contact them."

"They'll contact us."

Tertius sat up and peered at Jack, staggered. "Is that a possibility
or a probability?"

"It's a fact. We don't leave our people behind either."

"You trust them."

Evidently not enough. Else he'd never have come up with the
cockeyed notion that they might have engineered that avalanche.

"They won't think any less of you." The bastard had backflipped onto the old subject.

And no, they wouldn't think any less of him. But that wasn't what
scared him. Being pitied was. Pity, commiseration, compassion, you
name it, hovering in their eyes and behind their smiles and around
their words, from the moment they found out and sympathetically
ever after. Poor Jack. Poor O'Neill. Poor Colonel. And that would
make it real too.

"Tertius, does the phrase flogging a dead horse mean anything
to you?"

"Dammit!" Dr. Jackson felt for his glasses, which were safely
tucked away under the robe. Unfortunately, they constituted an
anachronism that would have blown this obstacle course of a
disguise out of the water.

In addition to being about an inch too long for him, the costume came with a headscarf, held in place by a leather ribbon. The look
was decidedly Mosaic, and the loose bit in front tickled just above
his left eyebrow. Daniel blew upwards, with the result that the fabric
fluttered and sank back to tickle a different patch of skin. Super.
Then again, it seemed to work. The few times they'd encountered
purple blurs on the road, reactions had been between respectful and
dismissive.