“Okay,” said Jackson, as they stopped and regrouped. “I think we should split up. Spread out. Get these people used to the idea there’s a whole new world out there waiting for them.”
“All right,” said O’Neill. “But watch your step, campers. Play it safe, play it simple.” He glanced at the sun, then at his watch. “Two hours, then we meet back at the retreat to compare first impressions.” He looked at Teal’c. “You need a cover story in case anyone else asks about your forehead. It’s a birthmark. That should be easy enough to sell.”
“Indeed,” said Teal’c.
Jackson was frowning. “Speaking of physical imperfections — no offence, Teal’c — how nosy do you want us to be? Should we be asking about the causes of these people’s scarring and other problems?”
O’Neill didn’t answer for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Not unless you come across someone who’s sick right now, which means we could be at risk. Then we can get a bit pointed. Otherwise, don’t mention it. It’s not like we’re doctors. Fraiser and her team can do a medical follow-up later.”
“Yes, sir,” said Carter.
“Okay then,” said O’Neill. “Let’s do it.”
Jackson didn’t need a second invitation. He headed straight for their audience of villagers. “Hi, hello!” he greeted them, smiling widely. “My name’s Daniel. It’s wonderful to meet you all. Please, don’t be alarmed by us. We’ve come to make friends.”
“Jeez, he makes it look so easy,” Carter muttered under her breath, then marched over to join him. Immediately she was mobbed by the young girls and women in the crowd, who pointed and giggled and squealed at each other. With a long-suffering glance back at O’Neill she pulled off her cap, shoved it into a pocket and surrendered to the inevitable.
“Damn,” said O’Neill, sounding affectionately amused. “Wish I’d let Daniel bring his camera, now.”
Dixon grinned. “She’s a hit, all right.”
As Teal’c withdrew to find some other villagers to befriend, he and O’Neill stood together and watched the fascinated women of Mennufer mob Carter then drag her away to face some kind of female-only initiation rite.
He frowned. “You think she’ll be okay?”
“Sure,” O’Neill said, careless. “Carter can handle herself.”
Jackson was deep in animated conversation, waving his arms around for extra emphasis. The villagers laughed and pelted him with questions, as comfortable with him already as though he were a long-lost brother come home for the holidays.
O’Neill sighed. “She’s right. He does make it look so damned easy. He smiles at people and they’re his instant best friends.”
He didn’t sound envious, or resentful. He sounded resigned and beneath that… proud. Dixon looked at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, What is it with you, O’Neill? Why do you let him get away with so much?
But if he asked he’d be shut down, shut out, and for the first time since he’d met the man O’Neill was talking to him like he wasn’t a bitter enemy.
“So,” he said casually, “I like the look of the river. Wouldn’t mind seeing how they catch fish around here.”
It was a loaded comment. A lure. He knew from Frank that O’Neill liked to unwind with a rod and line.
Here’s hoping he’ll take the bait…
“Yeah?” said O’Neill. “I was looking at the river myself.”
“Then let’s check it out. We can always split up later.”
O’Neill treated him to a long, considering inspection. “You think we’re going to bond over fish, Dave?”
He had to smile. “Jack, at this rate I don’t see us bonding at all. Not even with a vat of superglue. But will it kill us to climb in the same boat for half an hour?”
“Probably not,” O’Neill conceded. “But I make no promises.”
Leaving Jackson to his admirers, they headed for the river.
Ten minutes before the two-hour deadline, Sam trudged into the Elders’ retreat. She was the first one back. Worn out, with her body clock ringing strident alarm bells, she collapsed with a relieved groan onto one of the palliasses.
Two minutes later she was joined by Colonel Dixon.
“Hey,” he said, smiling. He was nearly always smiling. She was beginning to wonder what it’d take to get him into a foaming rage.
On the other hand maybe I don’t want to know. Cheerful people like him and Daniel are way too scary when they go darkside.
“Hey, Colonel,” she greeted him. “Did you have a nice afternoon?”
“Major, I had a great afternoon,” he said expansively, dropping onto another palliasse. “How about you?”
She pulled a face. “I don’t know about great. It was certainly interesting. Mostly, though, I just kept freaking people out with my hair.”
His smile widened to a melon-eating grin. “Oops.”
“That’s easy for you to say, sir,” she retorted, and rubbed at the knotted muscles in the back of her neck. “I saw you on the river. Were you fishing?”
“I was,” he said cheerfully. “So was O’Neill.”
She’d seen that, too. But her colonel had been in a separate boat. So if Dixon had been hoping they’d have any kind of private and personal conversation, the idea had clearly been neatly torpedoed.
Trying to outsmart Jack O’Neill was a waste of time.
“Did you catch anything?” she asked.
“Three fine fat cousins to a trout. O’Neill came back empty-handed. He was not amused.”
She wanted to say, If you know what’s good for all of us, Dixon, don’t even think about gloating, okay? But she couldn’t. So she just smiled, and nodded, and changed the subject. Again.
“I had a pretty good look around but I didn’t see anything made of gold or naquadah or containing any precious minerals. Did you?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Only mud brick and reed thatching as far as the eye could see. And I couldn’t find squat to suggest anything to do with the Goa’uld, either, except for the Ra and Setesh glyphs painted all over the place. They even paint them on their little boats. Their coracles.”
“No Goa’uld is a good thing,” she said, wishing she could take off her boots and massage her aching feet. “God. I’d kill for a bath.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Three,” said Daniel, coming tiredly through the open door.
She shoved a nearby palliasse at him. “Do they have that kind of plumbing here? I didn’t see any. Because I’m a girl they assumed all I cared about was weaving and cooking.”
“Oh, Carter, you’re such a tomboy,” said O’Neill, tramping in with Teal’c at his heels. “And yes, there’s plumbing. Kind of. Cauldrons of bathwater are heating as we speak.”
“Bless you,” said Daniel, slumping onto the floor. “I take back nearly every mean thing I’ve ever thought about you, Jack.”
The colonel’s eyebrows shut up. “Nearly?” he said, but didn’t pursue the provocation. Instead he sat on the fourth and final palliasse. Teal’c, indefatigable as ever, took a position by the open door.
“So Mennufer seems pretty straightforward,” said Daniel. “Peaceful, but culturally limited.”
“A lot of scarring on faces,” said Dixon. “Other signs of past illness. But I didn’t see any sick people.”
“Me either,” said Daniel. “Or any kind of rudimentary hospital. Did anyone?”
“No hospital. And everyone I saw looked as healthy as a horse,” said O’Neill. “But after what happened on — on — ” He tapped fingers to his forehead. “Little bald naked white guys — those stupid plants — ”
“PJ2-445,” said Dixon. And when everyone stared at him, added, “Sorry. Eidetic memory.”
“Photographic,” said Daniel to the colonel.
O’Neill glared. “I know what eidetic means.” He glanced at Dixon. “The secondary definition, by the way, is ‘really, really irritating’. As I was saying, after what happened on 445 I don’t want to
take anything for granted. It’s not normal to have nobody so much as sniffling in a village this size. See what you can find out, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded. “I’ll do my best. But — ”
He stopped as a young boy from the village appeared in the doorway. “I am come from Khenti,” the boy said, his eyes wide. “A feast in your honor has been prepared. You must come now. Mennufer will dance for you.”
“Hot diggity,” muttered the colonel. “I can hardly wait.”
“Thank you, Azibo,” said Daniel. “We’ll be right there.”
As the youth withdrew, the colonel stared at Daniel. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’ve memorized every name of every villager you’ve met since we got here, plus the names of their pet dogs.”
“There are no dogs in Mennufer, O’Neill,” said Teal’c.
“All right. Their pet onagers,” said the colonel, glowering. “What the hell is an onager anyway?”
“A wild ass,” said Daniel, clambering to his feet.
“Well, it takes one to know one,” said the colonel. “Come on. There’s a feast. In our honor. We mustn’t be late.”
Sighing, Sam stood. So much for resting and bathing.
“And tomorrow,” O’Neill continued as they headed for the door, “while I’m letting Hammond know we’re still alive and kicking, you guys are going to locate that mine.”
She looked at him sidelong. “We are? How?”
He looked right back, a wicked glint in his eyes. “You’re the genius, Carter. You’ll figure it out.”
The food at the feast was plain, but generous. Stewed goat, boiled corn, some kind of greens seasoned with hot oil and pepper. Honey and nut cakes for dessert. They ate, they danced, they bathed and then returned to the Elders’ retreat, dead on their tired feet.
As they burrowed into their sleeping bags the colonel voiced what Sam suspected they were all privately thinking.
“So. Is it my imagination or did everyone in the village change the subject whenever rebirth was mentioned?”
Daniel yawned hugely. “No, it looks like rebirth’s off-limits to outsiders. I’ll try again tomorrow. But it might take a while to get them to open up, Jack. I have to be careful, I can’t go trampling all over their special rituals and customs.”
“Don’t see why not,” the colonel grunted. “You trample over mine all the time.”
“Oh please,” said Daniel, around another huge yawn. “Watching a hundredth rerun of The Simpsons is not a special ritual, it’s a tragic obsession.”
In the retreat’s darkness, someone sniggered. Sam thought it was Dixon. Snuggled into her sleeping bag, she grinned to herself.
“Hey,” said the colonel. “You say potayto, I say potarto. Now go to sleep. I want to head for the gate at first light and the rest of you’ve got a busy day of hiking ahead of you.”
“Actually,” said Daniel, who couldn’t seem to abandon the habit of talking himself into unconsciousness, “I thought I’d stay behind in the village. I’m not going to find out much on rebirth or anything else if I’m wandering in the wilderness.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever,” the colonel muttered. “Now shut up before I shut you up with a choke hold!”
Wisely, Daniel did as he was told.
As planned, the colonel left them next morning just as the sky first tinted pink and gold with the rising sun.
“You’re in charge, Carter,” he said briskly, loudly enough for Colonel Dixon to hear. “Happy hunting. Bring me back some nice souvenirs. Anything naquadah-shaped would be just fine.”
She had to smile, though the burden of his expectation was heavy. “I’ll try, sir.”
“All things being equal I’ll be home well before sunset.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Be careful.”
He tugged his cap more firmly on his head. “You too. See ya.”
Standing on the path outside the retreat, she watched him as he moved swiftly and silently through the still-sleeping village. Dixon came up behind her and whistled softly. “What do you want to bet he could retrace his way back to the gate with his eyes shut?”
“I know he could,” she replied, as the colonel was lost from sight. “It’s one of his things.”
“Yeah,” Dixon snorted. “So I’ve heard.”
She shouldn’t say anything, but she couldn’t help it. “From Colonel Cromwell?”
“Yeah. Frank always said that when it came to navigation O’Neill was more homing pigeon than human.”
“He was right,” she said, thinking of a parachuting accident and nine days in the desert. Then, afraid of where the conversation might lead, she stepped aside. “Excuse me, Colonel. I’ve got an appointment.”
Dixon’s eyebrows shot up. “A secret rendezvous?”
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “That’d be it, sir. No, I’m just going to check with Khenti before we go tramping around the valley. The colonel didn’t have a chance to ask him last night, so I organized to meet with him this morning. Better safe than sorry, you know?”
He gave her a look of approval. “Good idea.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be back ASAP.”
Khenti was waiting for her on the river bank. They stood side by side, watching the newly risen sun spark highlights from the slothful water. There were no coracles out for fishing. At the previous evening’s feast one of the villagers, Narmer, had explained that the river’s bounty could not be abused. Mennufer took enough fish for its own needs and not a single fin more.
“Not even for trading?” Daniel had asked, surprised. “Don’t the other villages want your fish?”
“Yes,” Narmer replied. “And we trade it, in the trading season. We do not trade now, for rebirth is upon us.”
Daniel leaned forward, so eager. “Really? Why don’t you trade during rebirth?”
But Narmer had changed the subject… and for once Daniel had taken the hint.
“So, Khenti,” she said now, with a respectful nod. “I have a question I would like to ask, if I may.”
Khenti’s answering nod was gracious. “You may. I will answer if in answering I serve Mennufer.”
Diverted, she considered him closely. “This village is everything to you, isn’t it? The village, its people… they’re your whole world.”
His smile was pleased, yet somehow enigmatic. “You are an observant woman. Yes. Mennufer is the center of my life. I will serve and protect it until the last breath leaves my body.”
“As would any great leader,” she replied.
He smiled again, acknowledging the compliment. “Where is Jack? I have not seen him.”
If they ask, don’t lie, the colonel had said. But don’t give them chapter and verse either.
“He needed to speak with our people, Khenti.”
Khenti’s dark eyes appraised her. “Your people are far away, Sam.”
She nodded. “They are.”
“And yet you can speak with them?”
“Yes. We can.”
It was a cool morning. The breeze swirling round the wide bowl of the valley held a fading nip of winter. Behind them the village was vibrant with life. Goats bleated. Onagers sawed the air with rusty voices. Children squealed, roosters crowed. Already there were workers in the fields, tilling soil, planting seeds, nurturing the crops that had been planted during the cold weather and were ready, nearly, to greet the sun.
Avoiding Khenti’s piercing gaze she marveled instead at the extraordinary survival story all around her. That these people’s ancestors had managed to overcome the traumas of being ripped from their home world and transported across the galaxy, that somehow they’d survived the battles between Ra and Setesh and created lives with meaning and value, that their descendants still thrived here after three thousand years…
For all our faults we’re a remarkable species.
“Sam,” said Khenti. “I have been patient. I have not asked questions. But I am senior Elder of Mennufer and all here encompassed in your eye sits in my p
alm, that I might be its protector. I will not press you about Jack and where he has gone, or how he will speak with the Elders of your people. He is your Elder and you owe him obedience. But when he returns we must speak openly of things. I think you know this. I think you know many things, that I must know too.”
Turning to him, Sam released a long slow sigh. “Yes, Khenti. I agree. I regret I can’t tell you any more than that but I have my orders. I hope you understand.”
Khenti clasped his hands and bowed his head. “You are obedient to your Elder. That is something I understand and respect.”
Thank God for that. “Khenti, what I wanted to ask is this. Are we permitted to explore your valley, or is it taboo?”
“The shrine of rebirth is sacred and only for the Elders,” said Khenti, after a moment. “Everywhere else may be walked. Why are you interested?”
She hesitated. The colonel still hadn’t given any of them clearance to discuss the mission objective with the Elders or the villagers. Here I go again, tap-dancing round the truth… “Well, Khenti, like Colonel O’Neill said yesterday… it’s what we do. We travel to distant places so we can learn about them and the people who live there.” God, she felt like crossing her fingers behind her back. “Your valley is very different from the valleys we have at home.”
And that wasn’t exactly lying. Because no, Earth valleys didn’t usually contain Goa’uld mines.
“But Sam,” said Khenti, after another considering pause. “There is nothing to see. Trees. Rocks. Bracken.”
And naquadah. “Perhaps,” she said, carefully, almost holding her breath. “But still… we’d like to learn more about it, if you have no objection.”
“I have no objection,” said Khenti. “But you must not go near Mennufer’s shrine.”
Please God, don’t let it be anywhere near the mine entrance… “Of course not. If you could just point out where — ”
“There,” said Khenti, turning to indicate an area of valley behind and to the left of the village. “There is where you may not tread.”
Oh, thank God. It was nowhere near the mine’s probable location. She smiled, relief bubbling like champagne. “All right, Khenti. We’ll keep well away from that area.”