Aris Boch dropped his ship out of hyperspace beyond the defense perimeter. The planet that floated in the middle of the forward viewscreen was a thin crescent of light, not much bigger than his thumbnail. The orbiting ha’tak was closer, an oblique pentagram, the central pyramid gleaming gold like a tooth. The mothership looked no bigger than Aris’s palm, and he couldn’t help covering it with his hand and closing his fingers into a fist around it. When the voice of the duty officer growled out of the com demanding Aris identify himself, Aris dropped his hand and thought of replying with a few well-placed volleys. But modest little cargo ships like his tel’tak didn’t have weapons, did they? And if they did, the Goa’uld must never know. He dutifully recited his pass-codes while letting his ship drift closer, riding the momentum he’d picked up before jumping to hyperspace above Relos.
As the numbers and letters rolled off his tongue, he let his gaze scan the outer ring of the ha’tak, a familiar game, picking his targets. The mothership seemed worse for wear— although in better shape than its counterpart on the planet’s landing platform— and in a number of places the shielding was patchy and the interior decks were exposed to hard vacuum. He could make out the tiny, insect-like flitting of repair drones swarming around a new breach and snorted out a laugh. One dead-on plasma burst would tear open that whole section and cripple the ship, if anyone wanted to take the planet. But that was just it: nobody did. The ha’tak bristled at nothing, defended the planet from nothing but the galaxy’s indifference. Aris drifted on.
His authorization received, he goosed the sublight engines and vectored toward the planet. For a moment, the ship shuddered and Aris was pushed back in his seat while the inertial dampeners struggled lamely to realign forces. The hyperspace drive gave a hiccup, and a hyperspace window partially formed ahead of the ship only to collapse again, sending a wave of distortion out in all directions. Over the com, the duty officer barked a query, and Aris grumbled a reply, the last bit about trashy Goa’uld workmanship prudently kept under his breath.
He couldn’t afford to be too picky. After destroying the last one, he’d been lucky to get a ship out of Sebek at all. It was bad enough to have pissed off Sokar by ditching not only his Tok’ra target but the consolation prize— Teal’c— as well. That had been nothing, however, compared to coming home by Stargate empty-handed: no tel’tak, no payment, no useful intel to sell to Sebek, and hoping he wouldn’t be killed the moment he stepped through the ‘gate. Two-and-a-half years was long enough to go without transportation, to play nice with a Goa’uld and trade without a position of strength, to have to travel by ‘gate and by paying passage or, more often, by stealing transportation offworld lest he lose the independence of his income. But Aris was a patient man, and if the tel’tak he’d been given was barely spaceworthy, well, it was still spaceworthy, and that was enough. He’d had time to build up Sebek’s trust, such as it was, and to pay attention to what was going on in the galaxy.
If all went well, he wouldn’t be forced to serve the Goa’uld much longer.
That thought brought him back to the planet, which was now a half-circle as the tel’tak traced its slow arc dayward. Nightside, there were no lights visible at all— not that he expected any— although he could imagine that, back when that first Goa’uld ha’tak had lunged into orbit from hyperspace, there had been at least a hint, something tantalizing, a glitter of occupation. Now there was only the rumple of cloud cover— and darkness. Today, as usual, a storm was spinning in the southern hemisphere, on the edge of the terminator, its arms outflung across a quarter of the world, its eye blankly staring upward. From here, though, he could smooth it with his thumb. But he kept his hands on the controls and squinted as the sun flared on the curved edge of darkness, flooded the cockpit with hard, white light, and blotted out the stars.
From space, his planet was beautiful again. He could imagine it as it was before the Goa’uld had come, before his people had been slaughtered and the young ones enslaved. The sight of ha’taks settling down to the ground, the screams of terror and the death that surrounded them all, were fresh in his memory. It had been hard to overcome his hatred, to smile and joke and deal with the Goa’uld, to find ways to flatter them and nurture their greed, increasing his value to them. He’d long ago traded his integrity for the sake of his life and the lives of those he had a duty to protect. But he hadn’t been able to protect them, in the end, and the life of a hunter was much the same as that of a slave. He had no options, no way out, no true freedom. It was simply a form of servitude more pleasant than the choking death in the bowels of the mines.
Aris adjusted the velocity and let the ship fall into the planet’s gravity well, angling toward the northern hemisphere where the storm’s tattered edges meant wind and rain and numbing cold. The heat shielding held up against reentry, but warnings flared in red on the holographic readout on the viewscreen. Goa’uld script made everything— even good wishes, he suspected— look nasty. He turned off the alarms and hung on while the ship bucked down through the churning atmosphere. The pilot interface translated into mere numbers the hazards of wind sheer and gravity and all kinds of resistance, so his struggle to keep the ship from spinning was more mental than physical. Still, the muscles of his arms tensed anyway, corded with the effort even though his touch remained light and nimble on the controls. Overtaxed, the inertial dampeners went offline, and for a second Aris was pulled in two directions at once when the ship barrel-rolled and the internal gravity fought with the planet’s. He shut the ship’s gravity plating down, got the tel’tak flying straight and upright again, skimming a ceiling of roiling clouds and buffeted by sheets of rain.
There had been a moment in his youth, a day when he’d had to make a choice. The risk had been great when he’d snapped the neck of a faithless Jaffa whose fear of his god was not enough to keep him honest. His prize could have earned him instant death, but it impressed Sokar enough to give him the tools he needed: access to the Stargate, and basic weapons. From there Aris had built his reputation, first with Sokar, and then with other Goa’uld who understood the value of barter for things they couldn’t obtain without drawing too much attention to their activities. He was indiscriminate in the jobs he took. He couldn’t afford a conscience, even when it kept him awake at night.
He leaned forward a little and peered down at familiar territory. From this altitude, the mountain ranges, one for each finger on his right hand, were parallel creases running north to south, divided by bands of snow and, in one vast valley, the black snake of a river. Dayward, there was an angled cage of white and grey, shafts of sunlight spearing between banks of clouds and setting a distant ocean on fire. But the clouds closed ranks and the scintillation of water dulled to steel once he turned the tel’tak inland, gliding downward until it seemed to scrape the bare peaks with its belly. Here, the turbulence was worse, tossing the tel’tak like a die in a cup, so he slipped into the widest of the valleys and followed its curving path into the shelter of the cliffs, lower and lower, until he could make out individual trees on the valley floor and the rubble of the moraine that lay scattered behind the retreating glaciers.
It was a circuitous route, but from down here he didn’t have to see the scars in each of the two valleys on either side, dayward, nightward, where the cities used to be. Now there were only fields of tumbled stone below the mountains, the black scoring of orbital bombardment still visible above the treeline.
At the end of this valley, the glacier hung precariously from the edge of a cliff, spilling itself in a waterfall that, even in the early morning light, was brilliantly turquoise. Aris leveled off at the next plateau and then plummeted again, pulling up at the river’s surface and shooting out the end of the valley, through a notch between sheer rock faces and over the open plain below.
Here, the darkness lay at the feet of the mountains like a panting dog, heavier, dirtier. The cargo ship slipped between layers of smog. Below it the river fell away, blackened and sickly, sliding over the last of the plateaus into the city. There were a few lights here, haloed in the sooty air. Someone was home.
“Home,” he said out loud, with a twisted smile. The word tasted like acid on his tongue. He circled around the golden apex of the pyramid that rose from the black clouds like a parody of the mountains around it, and aimed the ship at a landing pad obscured by banks of steam belching from valley floor.
Inertial dampeners, Jack decided, were overrated, or maybe Aris Boch hadn’t bothered with them when he went for the upgrade package on the tel’tak. Either way, Jack was happy he had a pilot’s stomach, because the ship was bouncing around like a cork on a stormy sea, and the green cast of Daniel’s face meant he was taking the metaphor a little too seriously. After a moment of complete weightlessness the floor rose up under them, only to fall away again. Jack hooked his fingers into the strap of Daniel’s empty holster and yanked him down onto the floor before he could fall on top of Jack and break something important.
Teal’c was braced with one wide hand and one foot on either side of the frame, his shoulders hunched. The ship lurched one way and then overcorrected, throwing Carter into Jack and sandwiching him between her and Daniel. Jack slumped even lower against the wall, gasping against the weight of his own bones.
Once he managed to lift his head a little, he found Teal’c on his knees. “Aris Boch has increased the internal gravity,” Teal’c said between gritted teeth. He collapsed onto the floor and rolled laboriously onto his back.
“No kidding,” Jack managed, before the world telescoped to a bright prick of light and winked out.
When he opened his eyes, he was still on the floor, feeling like his limbs were being held down by sandbags. It took a second for him to register that he was half right. Carter had fallen onto his left leg and still lay draped face-down over him, her spiky blond hair hiding part of his boot.
“Heavy,” Daniel said and after a beat drawled, “Man.”
“Very funny,” Jack replied with a grimace as he got his elbows under himself and levered himself up. The weight was easing a little now. Daniel’s face started to go green again. “Don’t you dare,” Jack warned him and wiggled his foot next to Carter’s head. “C’mon, Major. My leg’s asleep.”
With a groan she managed to get to her hands and knees.
“What the hell was that?” Jack demanded. He pulled his leg out from under her and circled his ankle. Pins and needles stabbed all the way to his hip. He flipped open his watch. Twenty minutes.
“Maybe malfunction in the gravity plates, sir,” she suggested to the floor. “Or maybe a black hole too close to the hyperspace window—”
“Or maybe I like to see you flopping around like brentle fish, all disoriented and easy to handle,” Aris Boch said from the doorway. With a swift kick, he deflected Teal’c’s off-balanced lunge and, slamming him into the deck, stood on his spine and rammed the muzzle of his gun into the back of Teal’c’s neck. “Stand up,” he ordered, jerking his head toward the door. “Play nice and I won’t kill anybody. Yet.”
Daniel heaved himself to his feet and, steadying himself against the wall, said in a low, steady tone, “I’m not going to help you if you hurt them.”
“I’m going to hurt them if you don’t help me,” Aris replied, mimicking Daniel exactly.
“Oh, please,” Jack growled. The two men— Aris broad-shouldered in his armor, Daniel in rumpled BDUs— stood on opposite sides of the cargo bay and stared each other down. Jack resisted whistling the opening bars of Rawhide. All they needed was some blowing tumbleweed and a lurid sunset to give them dramatic shadows. Jack shifted his weight impatiently. After a day of sitting on his ass, it was time to move. “Can we take the standoff outside? This place is giving me a headache.”
And it was. Whatever Aris had done to the gravity plates, being on the ground wasn’t helping, and Jack still felt like there were lead weights around his ankles. When they filed out ahead of Aris and his gun, Jack was pretty disappointed to discover that the problem wasn’t with the ship but with the planet.
“Oh great,” he muttered. “One of those.”
Carter stumbled across the threshold into the grey light and said, “Gravity’s substantially higher than Earth’s.”
“Yeah, got that.” Jack tried not to drag his feet. It was undignified.
“Welcome to Atropos,” Aris said, and swung his free arm expansively to take in the whole landscape.
Suddenly, the gaudy golden interior of the tel’tak didn’t look so bad.
Atropos wasn’t exactly a pretty planet. Once upon a time it might have been a lovely vacation spot; Jack could see the appeal of the sweeping mountains and waterfalls. But now even the water seemed depressed by the place and fell with sluggish oiliness, made heavy by silt. The sun was a bleary eye peering between two peaks, and the mountains cast cold shadows into the valley beneath them.
From their vantage point on the landing above the valley, Jack followed the biggest of the rivers as it made its tortured way between its banks and into the city below. Its black gleam was visible between the tumbled angles of buildings designed, it seemed, after the school of ramshackle. There were a few crooked spires still standing. One tower in particular curved up above the rest like the fin of a shark and glowed dully, silver edged with sunrise-red. Jack wondered what kind of sea monster was cruising under the chop. The rest of the city, though, looked like it had been kicked over by a bratty kid on the beach, whole sections flattened around the familiar footprints of orbital bombardment. The craters’ edges were probably still black, their bottoms still crackling glass, but it was hard to tell because the city had sort of scabbed over, and a motley collection of tents and lean-tos and makeshift structures encrusted the blasted spaces.
On its landing platform in the middle of the city, dwarfing even the shark’s fin tower, the mothership caught the light, honey and red, the only patch of real color in the valley. It could only be described as smug. Pretentious. Jewelled. Squatting in the rubble of a civilization. In short: Goa’uld.
Jack took stock. Pretty as it looked at first glance, the ha’tak, in his estimation, was actually not in great shape. There was some serious scoring on the central pyramid, and there was a lot of heavy equipment hunkered down at the edge of the platform. He couldn’t make out much detail, but there was definitely a sizable hole in the outer ring. He filed all this away. Sebek: discount bin Goa’uld. Check. But even a crappy Goa’uld was still a Goa’uld. And Jaffa by any other name would still shoot on command. Most of the time. He exchanged a glance with Teal’c and got a raised eyebrow in reply.
Down below, lights were coming on here and there, winking tentatively as the sun blinked, clouds closing the valley in, and the world got a little darker and suddenly colder. Jack zipped his jacket up to his chin and coughed out a plume of breath.
“Atropos. Greek,” Daniel recited to no one in particular. “Along with Clothos and Lachesis, one of the Fates who spin, measure, and cut a human being’s thread of life.”
“Short thread, I’m guessing,” Jack added.
Aris scowled. “That’s what the Goa’uld call it. We have another name.”
“Of course,” Daniel said, looking interested. “What is it?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not ours anymore.”
Daniel’s expression bordered on sympathetic. Jack kicked him in the ankle.
It was clear what the Goa’uld saw in the place. In the flank of the mountain on the opposite side of the valley gaped the entrance to the mine, dark, toothless, drooling a steady stream of workers and wagons heaped with black rock. On the next plateau down, the refinery groaned and belched fire, and the steady thumping of the crushers stomped through Jack’s chest and made his heart stumble. How long, he wondered, would it take for that sound to grind a guy’s bones to dust? If he were lucky, he reasoned, the stench would kill him first.
“Nice,” Jack said sourly. The air was acrid and tasted a lot like rotten eggs, if the eggs had been soaked in gasoline. The back of Jack’s throat was worn raw after only a few breaths.
Beside him, Carter had a hand over her mouth and nose. “Is that sulphur?”
“It is not,” Teal’c answered. “But it is a by-product of the smelting. Extremely toxic with long exposure.” His scowl was eloquent. “I have seen many naquada operations, but none on this scale,” he went on, his eyes roaming the valley. “The devastation is extensive.”
“Your capacity for understatement never ceases to amaze,” Jack said and turned to Aris. “Tell me again why you want to save this place?”
Aris said nothing, but as he turned to look at the city, his controlled expression opened for a second, long enough to bring that sympathetic look back to Daniel’s face. This time, though, Daniel had moved out of kicking range.
“It’s not the place that matters,” Aris answered finally. Jack waited for the zinger, but it never came. Instead, Aris waved his weapon toward the mine. “That way.”
“Great. Another mine,” Jack said. He glanced in Daniel’s direction, but Daniel was busily looking elsewhere. Jack turned his attention Carter’s way. “You ever get the feeling we’ve really done it all?”
“So much talking,” Aris said. “And yet, there’s nothing I want to hear you say.” The tip of his blaster against Jack’s ribs underlined his point. It took all Jack had not to turn around and try to rip the thing out of Aris’s hand. Instead he set his jaw and started moving.
None of the people would meet Daniel’s eyes.
This was the first thing he noticed; the second was the fact that all of them looked hungry. Not starved, but not well-fed. As he made his way down through the dark mine shaft beside Teal’c, pebbles slipped out from beneath their feet like a rolling carpet, making each step uncertain. He stuck his arms out for balance, but didn’t take his eyes off the endless stream of workers filing out of the mine.
“Teal’c,” he said, under his breath. Teal’c turned his head slightly, but didn’t speak. “Are they all slaves?”
“It would appear so,” Teal’c answered. He watched the parade of men, women, and children in threadbare clothes for a moment, then said, “It is clear the Goa’uld do not care if these people die in the mines. They do not intend to take them as hosts.”
Daniel skidded to a stop; Sam crashed into him, nearly knocking him headlong down the hill. Teal’c’s hand on his arm steadied him. He looked back at Aris. “You said it isn’t the place that matters. You mean it’s the people that matter, don’t you? It’s not about profit.”
“Still talking,” Aris said.
“I stop when I hear answers,” Daniel said.
“You’ll stop when I say stop.”
“Good luck with that,” Jack said to Aris. “Threatening to shoot him doesn’t work, either.”
“Nice,” Daniel said. Jack ignored him. Daniel directed another question to Aris. “But what do you need us for? We can’t do anything for you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Aris took a long, appraising look at Daniel. “You and Major Carter over there have what I need.”
Daniel glanced back at Jack, whose face was closed, his lips pressed hard together. “Care to elaborate?” Daniel asked. Jack moved a little closer, and Aris twisted sideways so Jack was in front of him rather than behind.
“You’re a linguist, Doctor. A translator. Major Carter here knows math. But none of this will be of any use to you if I have to kill you for not shutting up. Now move.”
“You won’t kill us if you need us,” Daniel began, but as soon as he said it, he realized his mistake.
Aris pointed the gun at Jack, then at Teal’c. Eyes on Daniel, he agreed, “True.”
“Right.” Daniel nodded slowly and turned back toward the path down into the mountain. He didn’t look at Jack, but said in a low voice, “Maybe Sebek was exiled here. That would explain why Yu was so quiet about it.” Ahead, a bedraggled woman raised her eyes to his, and curiosity compelled him to hold her gaze until she looked away.
“Perhaps Yu considered death too good for his enemies,” Teal’c said. “It is not unusual for a minor Goa’uld to be sent to a world of living death for punishment.”
“Indentured and sent off to a crappy planet,” Jack said. “Sounds about right.”
‘Crappy planet’ was really a bit of an understatement, Daniel decided. ‘Hellhole’ was maybe more accurate. They left the main tunnel for a narrower branch that angled, if anything, even more steeply downward, then another and another, until Daniel could feel the whole weight of the mountain on his head. The acrid air inside the mine was thick and heavy with dust that dimmed the lanterns and coated all exposed surfaces. The workers who labored upward past them were shadowed with it, their eyes dull white and the round circles of panting mouths shockingly pink in dust-dark faces. It was even colder in there than it was outside, as though all the winters since the mine was opened had settled into the stone. Bones would feel like stone before long in there. A mind could die before a body did, with nothing to stare at but black stone and dust, or the back of the person ahead, or one’s own feet pacing the same path over and over.
A contingent of six Jaffa came up behind Daniel and the team, and the straggle of slaves shrank back against the wall, all eyes averted. After they’d passed, Daniel caught one or two of the slaves making a sharp, snapping gesture with their fingers, but seeing him, they dropped their hands and their expressions of hatred fell away, replaced by that blank dullness, empty despair. Somehow, he was encouraged. A glance over his shoulder showed him that Aris kept his own eyes straight ahead or on his own prisoners as if the slaves weren’t there, three feet away from him. He paid no attention when one bowed old woman trailed her fingers across his armored thigh as he passed.
They trudged on. And on. After a few more turnings, there were no more slaves. The air was a bit clearer here, but the darkness between the light sconces seemed more oppressive. Daniel shortened his pace a little to come closer to Jack.
Finally, Aris stopped before a poorly lit chamber. “In here.”
Daniel ducked his head and moved down a short ramp into the large open room. Three walls were the same dark rock as the rest of the mine, but directly ahead, a single slab of metal rose from the floor of the cave to the ceiling. Man-made, definitely, and covered with symbols— simple glyphs. In spite of himself, a thrill of anticipation rose in his gut. Something new, something he hadn’t seen before, or looked for; something he hadn’t known existed. He stared, fascinated, at the tiny symbols.
“Do you know what it is?” Aris asked him.
Daniel could feel the others moving closer behind him, but he had eyes only for the glyphs. “I have no idea,” he said and smiled a little. It was another way of saying that he’d know soon enough. All translations were puzzles, made just for him. Jack’s hand on his shoulder interrupted that thought, and he turned away, reluctantly. “It’s…obscure,” he said, in response to Jack’s telegraphed warning. Of course he wasn’t going to give anything away. “I don’t recognize it.”
“That’s too bad, because the price of your freedom is an open door.” Aris settled himself on a rock beside the door, one hand resting casually on his weapon. At his feet were signs of excavation, like someone had been digging around and later refilled the hole.
“Why is it so important?” Sam asked.
Aris leaned back, opened his mouth to answer. Then, as if he thought better of it, he paused. He glanced up at the door, and his expression changed subtly before he said, “If you can’t open that door, my people are going to die. All of them.”
“Why?” Daniel asked softly.
“Sebek wants whatever is in there. But,” Aris indicated the door with the muzzle of his blaster, “he can’t get to it.”
“And he’s taking it out on your people,” Jack said sourly.
“Yes.” There were shadows in Aris’s eyes, and for a brief moment Daniel felt sorry for him.
Aris took a breath, then reached to his belt for a tiny packet of blue roshna. He emptied it into his canteen. “Major Carter, I don’t suppose you found a way to break the cycle with this. Did you?”
Sam’s face was pale. “We worked on the sample you gave me but didn’t have much luck.”
With a shrug, Aris said. “Fair enough. At least you tried.” Still, in spite of his response, his eyes were shrewd when he shifted them to Daniel.
Daniel knew he didn’t have to point out that their focus had not been on helping Aris but on figuring out if the roshna he and his people were addicted to also was responsible for their resistance to Goa’uld implantation. Thinking about it gave him a vaguely bitter taste in the back of his mouth. One more compromise they’d made over the years, one more opportunity they’d seized.
Aris upended the canteen and downed the contents, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sebek doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way. It’s making him crazy.”
“How can you tell?” Jack said. “Is it the bombastic ranting or the penchant for gold loincloths?”
“None of his scientists could break into it, so he had them all killed. Ripped their hearts out, right here on the floor.”
Daniel glanced down. Nothing under his feet but black rock. “That’s…not comforting,” he said.
With the canteen, Aris tapped the metal door, producing a hollow ring that echoed through the chamber. “Either you’ll get into this thing for me, or I’ll find another use for you.”
The symmetrical patterns seemed vaguely familiar to Daniel— matched figures stretching the length of the door, slightly off-center— but he couldn’t make a connection. “There are still some gaps in my memory. Without my translation tools, I may not be able to help.”
“Oh, you’ll be of use to me.” Aris leaned forward, his brown-golden eyes black in the dimness. “You’ll open the door, or I’ll trade you for roshna. Either way, you’ll serve a purpose.”
Daniel nodded, but he looked to Jack, who was the final decision-maker in this arena, no matter whose gun was on them or what options Daniel might think they needed to pursue. They couldn’t speak freely, at this point, and he had no alternatives in mind. Jack might, but he’d have to wait for his opportunity to arise. Jack was staring at Aris with a thinly veiled hatred, bold enough to make Daniel clear his throat for attention. Even with that unspoken signal, it took several more seconds for Jack to shift his gaze to Daniel. “I might be able to help,” Daniel offered, not at all certain it was true.
Without a word, Jack gestured up at the door with one hand, then dropped his arm to his side in disgust. Tacit permission to proceed.
All the way across the door, lines of glyphs repeated, dancing and taunting Daniel. He traced them with his fingertips, waiting for them to tell him what he needed to know to identify them. Deep imprints, stamped into metal, uniform and strong. It was a bold language. He followed the line of symbols to the right, letting touch lead him.
“There’s a mechanism here,” Sam said. She was scouting around on the right edge of the door. “Maybe some way to open the door, with this.”
“We’ve tried that,” Aris said. “If it ever worked, it doesn’t now.”
Daniel’s fingers ran off the edge of his canvas and into something more familiar. He pointed at the inscription in front of his face. “I don’t know what the rest of this is, but that’s Ancient.”
“Great,” Jack muttered.
“Are you able to translate this, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked.
“More or less.” Daniel turned to them. “It says, ‘He who is locked in here shall die.”
“I’m guessing that means ‘do not open’,” Jack said.
When Daniel met Jack’s eyes, he read the change of plan clearly: No more. Shut up.
Apparently Aris saw it too, because he growled, “I don’t need a genius linguist to tell me that a locked door means ‘keep out.’” In one fluid movement he rose and grabbed Jack by the wrist. The gun to the side of Jack’s head, he twisted Jack’s arm behind him, straight out, and bent Jack’s wrist with his thumb in the middle of his hand so that Jack’s fingers splayed and he sank to his knees. Dexterously shifting his grip, he pinned a little finger and started to bend it back. Jack winced once before his expression went stony.
Daniel made his face settle into a determined but reasonable cast. “I’m telling you what I see, that’s all.”
“You have to see more than the obvious. Maybe the concept of the death of thousands is too abstract for you. Maybe I need to put this in concrete terms.” Aris pressed harder on Jack’s finger. “For instance, this finger is the morning shift in the mine.” Jack’s expression didn’t change, but he hunched forward a little more.
Holding out a placating hand, Daniel licked his lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sam and Teal’c were poised in a way that suggested they were already plotting their moves. “I get it,” Daniel told Aris levelly. “I get the concept, believe me. I don’t need any demonstrations.” The concept was all too clear, embodied by an empty planet that had once been his home, and a people who no longer existed.
“Daniel,” Jack warned through gritted teeth.
“Jack.” He waved behind him at the door. “The Ancients, Jack.”
“The Goa’uld, Daniel.” Jack clamped his teeth shut when Aris twisted a little harder.
“Start reading,” Aris ordered.
“Don’t,” Jack said.
“Start reading,” Aris repeated.
“Jack—”
Aris twisted again, and even from where he stood Daniel could hear the pop of Jack’s finger breaking. Opening his mouth wide, Jack let out a gasp that didn’t become a shout. Then he locked his jaws again.
Under Daniel’s feet, the floor lurched. He was aware of Sam yelling something, of Teal’c pulling her back with a hand on her arm, but it suddenly seemed like they were on television, separate, flattened, unreal. His ears started ringing. He leaned his back heavily against the door and, spreading a hand out beside his waist, let his fingers fall into the lines and angles of the strange script. He could feel the meaning in them vibrating through his fingertips. A memory stirred— a silver-backed fish darting under black water— and faded. He let go of the wall and rubbed his temple with his knuckles. He’d seen this script before. Behind his eyes, he could feel the pressure of wind blowing up from an ocean, the smell of salt, warm grass. The Ancient words seemed to bruise his backbone and the pain anchored him. His fingers found their way back to the alien script. Still on his knees in Aris’s grip, Jack glared into the space in front of him, breathing hard.
“Easter,” Daniel whispered. He rolled onto his shoulder and pushed himself away from the door with one hand. He let his head fall back, and his eyes trailed the script from right to left, from left to right, drifting downward until they fell on the familiar shapes of the Ancient letters. They were layered on top of the original incised writing, as incongruous as graffiti on the Parthenon.
Behind him, Jack grunted and there was a muffled thud as he fell forward onto the stone floor. Outside the crushers on the plateau pounded their unrelenting rhythm and sent their vibrations deep into the mountain, through bedrock, into Daniel’s bones, a shuddering like music you can’t dance to. The Ancient letters seemed to float in front of the cryptic text, fuzzed around the edges as they jittered a little in front of Daniel’s eyes, keeping time with the pounding in the mountain or maybe the pounding of his heart— he couldn’t tell. He heard a gust of breath as Jack sat up and cradled his hand against his chest. Aris’s boots scraped the floor. The sounds were too bright, and in Daniel’s mind’s eye there was a transitory gleam of fish scattering, memory dispersing, coming together— the smell of ocean, warm grass bending away from a salt-wind. Beneath the rumble and the shiver of the mountain, beyond his breathing, beyond the blocky, interlocking segments of the Ancient warning, he could see blank-eyed faces turned away from the sea.
“Easter,” Daniel said again, more firmly, nodding.
“Easter,” Jack repeated, his voice thin and breathy with not shouting. “As in bunny?”
Daniel turned to him, smiling, but the smile faded when he saw Jack’s face. The hiss of wind in grass was lost to the grinding of the mine, the mass of the planet bearing down on them. Daniel leaned against the door again, let it take his weight. “As in Island,” he said.