The Gate room on the far side of the wormhole seemed a little too clean for Jack's comfort. The MALP reconnaissance video showed a tidy little place with featureless granite walls and a slot of a door. If the disarray of Jack's own bunk was any clue, someone on the far side of that Gate had to be housekeeping.
But, there were no signs of Goa'uld technology in the room, no writings to give away who might live on the planet. The "dial home device" was intact. And SG-1 was a first contact team. Which meant the address was an appropriate mission.
Colonel O'Neill hated going off so blindly to their destination. Just because they hadn't seen that the natives were hostile, didn't mean they were friendly. He was glad he'd packed two extra clips of ammunition.
The briefing concluded. While Teal'c, Sam, and Daniel went down the stairs, Jack paused to look through the window at the Stargate two levels below. Inactive, it looked like a big, round, thin washer standing on edge, with ineffable symbols embossed on its surface. Stargate Command had only begun to explore the planetary destinations that could be encoded with its thirty-nine glyphs, taken seven at a time. And then there were the mysterious addresses which used eight. The universe had become a very large place, and Jack was one of the privileged few who could walk out into it.
General Hammond stood silently beside Jack, probably thinking similar things. He too had had an occasion or two to set foot on another world, even to the point of saving Jack's team. With the rare threats that made it back through the wormhole, Jack doubted even the janitors at SGC could say the project was less than the greatest adventure of their lifetimes.
His three team-mates stepped into view on the floor of the Gate room. Jack wondered idly if the Stargate meant something different to Teal'c. The Jaffa had spent most of his life on Chulak, a world under Goa'uld domination, which might have given him a less romanticised view of the "cha'apa-ai". To Teal'c, Stargates and interplanetary travel were probably just part of the background, like automobiles were to Jack on earth. Well, maybe more like jet aircraft. The average Jaffa lived a somewhat impoverished life as a slave and a human incubator for Goa'uld larva. Only the soldiers and priests enjoyed any privilege.
"Uh, General?"
Dr. Coleman's voice interrupted Jack's thoughts. The scientist stood uncertainly at the door of the conference room. Both men turned.
"Dr. Coleman," the General graced, "Come in. What can we do for you?"
"Hi Colonel," she said airily. Jack smiled. Though nearly thirty, the woman seemed terribly young. The Colonel had to wonder if her naive demeanor was a side effect of the Goa'uld having frozen her age while it was in residence.
"Yeah, General. Dr. Frasier called me--Mayborne was acting up--I just spoke to him--I mean the Goa'uld--in the infirmary," she began. "It thinks the Tok'Ra are coming to kill it."
Jack raised an eyebrow. Mayborne was, well, not his favorite person. While he wouldn't wish a Goa'uld on anyone, there was some part of him that thought Mayborne deserved what he got.
The parasite inhabiting Mayborne was very picky about with whom it would speak. It frustrated every effort at interrogation by simply hiding within the Colonel and refusing to answer. The beast would talk to Margaret, and it would talk to Sam, probably because they had each once been hosts to Goa'uld. But it had not revealed its name to anyone.
Daniel worried its secrecy meant the name was one they would recognize.
Sam's voice came from the stairwell, "Colonel, you coming?"
"In a minute."
While Sam was in the briefing, it was logical that Margaret had been called to deal with whatever had come up.
As far as Jack was concerned, the Tok'Ra could dice this Goa'uld into catfood. On those few occasions when it had taken control of its host it had acted entirely too much like Ra for Jack to have any other use for it.
Teal'c theorized that the parasite was a Ra-descendant, with some of Ra's memories and behaviors genetically encoded to it.
"Are they going to kill it?"
"I don't know," Hammond answered.
"Then how can you send it? It is a sentient being."
"So is Colonel Mayborne," replied Hammond.
"I wouldn't go that far, personally," quipped Jack. Though Mayborne had partly redeemed himself in Jack's eyes by once saving the base, he was still a pain in the ass.
Margaret grinned. "Now Colonel O'Neill , I could debate that with you but I won't. Other than our confining Mayborne how much has this Goa'uld done to him?" she continued. "The thing hardly ever comes out."
"It took possession of the Colonel without his permission. And if Mayborne weren't confined I'm sure it would be active more often."
"We can't expect it to die on our command. I'm not fond of Goa'uld, but I have a hard time faulting a creature for trying to survive. It lived in me for at least two years before anyone knew it existed, and nothing bad happened."
"Nothing we found out about," Jack said. "If you feel so strongly about it, why not volunteer to be its host?" He thought he was being sarcastic.
Margaret looked squarely at Jack, with a very grave expression. "If the Tok'Ra are going to kill it, I may have to. It never hurt me or anyone around me."
Impulsive as ever, thought Jack. He remembered watching the marine biologist jump fully clothed into a dolphin tank.
"I don't think you really mean that," said the General, "But as its former host I will take it on faith that you know enough to make an informed decision if the time comes--and I do mean 'if'. I will check with the Tok'Ra about their plans and get back to you."
"General, just....'Tok', meaning 'against'. 'Ra', meaning, well, 'Ra'. This Goa'uld is of Ra's line. Do you think the Tok'Ra are really going to help it?"
"I don't think you have to worry about that," answered Hammond.
"They may seem more enlightened, but the Tok'Ra are still Goa'uld."
"So is that thing in Mayborne's head. Look, I don't much care what one Goa'uld does to another so long as they keep us humans out of the way." Jack blinked with his most engaging smile. "Now, I've got a wormhole to catch, so if you'll excuse me."
"Damn!" said Margaret, breaking into a grin and shaking her head, "Where did you learn to do that?"
The men chuckled.
"Margaret, we will do our best to be just to all involved parties," said Hammond. "Now, don't go near Mayborne again. If that's what is on the Goa'uld's mind, it might do something desperate. If you do host it again I want it to be a decision, on your terms, not an accident."
"I understand."
Jack made his way down the stairs to the gate room; Margaret tagged behind.
She caught up with him as he reached the blast doors.
"Can I watch you go off?"
"Sure," he said. "Just don't stand in front of it when it first opens up."
"No kidding," she said.
The room rumbled as each of the seven chevrons was locked. The Stargate spat a turbulent spatial distortion into the room, resembling an underwater explosion in the way it refracted light. Then, the gate settled to its traveling state, a stable interface in space looking like nothing so much as the surface of a glowing pool.
He knew Margaret had watched the Stargate before. Still, the awe was evident in her face. Jack had long since overcome the open-mouthed gawking phase, but he hadn't lost the awe.
His team hefted their packs.
"Where is that?" asked Margaret, looking at the chevrons.
"That's P5X--well, it's out there."
"What's on the other side?"
"The MALP says it's a room."
She chuckled. "That's informative." She looked at the chevrons again, and her brow furrowed. "Don't you ever worry that something is going to happen between the time you send the MALP and the time you get there?"
Jack shrugged. "No, control always monitors the video signal when we re-open the gate. If there were any trouble, we'd scrub the mission."
Margaret nodded. Jack knew the woman was as curious as anyone about the worlds beyond the gate, but her past experience as a Goa'uld host here on Earth had made her especially cautious. For the moment she was content to analyse biological data brought back by the SG teams, without setting foot across the threshold herself. Hammond was still considering whether she was temperamentally suited to field work.
"Can I look at the surface up close? I miss the ocean."
"Just don't fall in," Jack said. "Its a hell of a lot bigger out there than the ocean."
Teal'c and Daniel had already stepped through the gate; Sam was waiting for him at the top of the platform. Margaret walked up the ramp with Jack, and stopped a few feet from the rippling, glowing surface. Sam and Jack stepped into the wormhole. It occurred to Jack there was something nice about being walked to the gate, like being seen off at the airport.
He was gripped by the familiar, unimaginable frost of the Stargate. The physicists insisted that travelers were de- and re-constructed on a subatomic level on each end, which meant he had neither eyes nor ears during travel, but to Jack it always seemed he was aware of star-fields passing by, and heard a rushing squeal. The experience was terrifying, beautiful, profound, and completely inexplicable.
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