The sun was setting by the time Daniel Jackson got back from the base camp. Though the twisting streets of Nagada were in shadow, a stifling heat seemed to radiate from the adobe-brick walls of the buildings around him.
A wasted day, Daniel though moodily. The problem was, most of his days seemed wasted—spent in meetings with the Elders, or translating for the Earthling du jour. His hieroglyphics literacy courses had gone to Sha'uri and some of his brighter students. All he had time for was the advanced English class. On rare occasions he managed to snatch a few minutes for pure research.
Abydan culture was a treasure trove for an Egyptologist, ancient ways of life and thought perfectly preserved like an insect in amber. Even more fascinating, if somewhat gruesome, were the ways of Ra's empire. From the hidden histories and folk tales came tales of striking personalities—people who had been worshipped as gods. Some of the tales were nightmares, recollecting Ra's cruelties or Hathor's massacre. Some were garbled tales of great constructions raised, of battles between gods.
Daniel found them all fascinating—when he could wedge a little space into his schedule. Unfortunately, his schedule generally seemed devoted to meetings to change the very culture he wanted to study.
Like today, when I played glorified tour guide to General Close-to-the-vest West. Oh, he'd been there as Kasuf's representative, to speak his piece for Nagada and Abydos. West had upped the ante a little, but not too much. Daniel feared there wouldn"T be enough to cushion the painful transition Abydos would have to make. The day had been a double waste—he'd been taken from things he could have done well to be virtually ineffective, telling West things he didn"T want to hear.
Daniel was abruptly reminded of his student days, when the department head would shepherd well-heeled types through museum workshops to generate the wherewithal for another dig. That's what he'd been doing today—playing administrator, the one job he'd always hated.
He rounded a bend in the road and stopped short. Squatting against a wall, head lolling, was a man with a chipped pottery bowl in front of him. His eyes were closed, and insects crawled on his face.
Some sixth sense warned the man of Daniel's presence. "Please, lord, spare a coin..."
Daniel hurried on. There never used to be beggars in Nagada. Families took care of their own. Or, he reflected with a chill, Horus guards disposed of indigents.
Everywhere he looked, the old, pre-revolutionary society seemed to be breaking down. The malaise showed in the repairs made after the udajeet strafing attacks. The new buildings and patched walls were done in a slapdash manner. Why craft and carry bricks with pride after seeing the Earthlings' machines move tons of dirt and sand?
Daniel felt a stab of relief as he finally reached his home. Within the mud-brick walls the rooms were cool—and dark.
"Sha'uri?" Daniel called, although it was obvious his wife wasn"T home.
He fumbled around, finding an oil lamp and fighting it from a banked fire. Well, this was just perfect. Here he was, home after a hard day of pissing the time away, and the lady of the house was nowhere to be found.
Daniel ventured into the kitchen area and poked around in the larder. Frankly, it looked pretty bare. And he wasn"T quite sure what to do with the stuff on hand.
The problem was, Daniel hadn"T gotten the hang of Abydan cuisine. Back on Earth, his notions of home cooking had revolved around Spaghetti-O's and microwave meals.
He was flopped on a pile of pillows, trying to read by the flickering flame on the lamp when a tired-looking Sha'uri finally came in.
"There's nothing to eat—at least, nothing I could make," he said, rising to his feet. "So, what's up? You're kind of late."
"Father and the Council came to a decision about the offer from the general," Sha'uri announced. "Unless you were able to get better terms."
"He doesn"T care what happens here as long as he gets his gold quartz," Daniel said bitterly. He glanced at his wife. "I'm surprised the Council took so long to decide on the deal."
"Oh, the agreement came quickly enough," Sha'uri said. "They were asking me which people we could spare from our literacy classes to work with the scientists from Earth. The job requires people who can both read hieroglyphics and speak English. And, of course, we don"T want to strip your English class—"
"Wait a minute!" Daniel interrupted as her words finally penetrated. "I'm in charge of those classes. Don"T you think I should have been consulted?"
"We wanted to begin—what is the phrase? start the ball rolling?—as soon as possible," Sha'uri said.
Daniel knew she was nervous. She didn"T usually stumble over idioms like that.
"Father arranged a good rate of pay for the translators, as you may remember," Sha'uri went on. "The Council thought the quicker we were ready, the better."
"That's the sooner the better," Daniel said. "I still want to look over the roster."
"Do that," Sha'uri replied in annoyance. "You complain about overseeing the tasks of others till you have no time to work yourself. But when someone tries to relieve you of that labor, you insist on playing the overseer anyway. You can"T—" She snapped her fingers. "What is the word?"
"Delegate," Daniel interjected. Then he wished he hadn"T opened his mouth.
"Always correcting!" Sha'uri flared. "Always you act like an overseer!"
Coming from a person just recently up from slavery, her choice of words was deliberately provocative. Daniel had seen the overseers at work in the mines of Nagada. Ra's brutal Horus guards had carried a blast-lance in one hand and a leather lash in the other.
He held up a hand. "Just because I want to make sure things are done right—"
"You don"T think I could sort through for the best translators?" Sha'uri demanded. "Must I be your student forever?"
Daniel sighed. More and more of late, their evenings had been marred by arguments. Usually they were over trivial things, but it meant going to bed angry with each other.
It seemed that the honeymoon was definitely over.
"Sha'uri, I'm tired. I spent the day doing a job I'm not good at, and perhaps missing a job where I could have been useful. If I take what I'm doing too seriously at times, ifs because I've never handled so much responsibility."
He rubbed a hand over his face. It felt gritty. "All I want is some rest, some food—"
Uh-oh. Bad choice of subject change.
"Oh, yes, you talk all the time of how we're partners—until you come home and expect me to have a meal all ready for you. My father and mother were better partners. They worked together in the mines—and when he had to, Father could come up with something to eat for Mother, Skaara, and myself."
"1 can cook—sort of. But this isn"T the kind of food I'm used to from back home."
"Your splendid planet Earth, where everything comes in little boxes and people have wonderful lives that make us look like savages." Sha'uri had worked up a good head of steam by now. She went to another section of the kitchen and dug out a pair of packages. Daniel recognized them from the Marine camp—Meals, Ready to Eat.
"If Earth is so wonderful, why don"T you go back?" Sha'uri demanded.
Daniel became exasperated. Hadn"T he explained it often enough? "The StarGate on Earth is guarded. If I went for a visit, I might not be able to come back."
"And why should that worry you?"
Sha'uri's bitter words brought Daniel up short. "Hey, my life is here now. You're my wife—"
"Am I? I've talked with some of Colonel O'Neil's Marines. We didn"T marry under the forms of your world. If you're so committed to me, why do you keep cadging those ugly little cloaks you put on before we make love?"
Daniel flushed. It was bad enough, dealing with the military joshing as he begged for condoms. Now to be criticized for his precautions—
"Sha'uri, I told you, that's to protect you. These are crazy times. Neither of us wants to be saddled down with a baby."
When he saw the tears trickling down Sha'uri's face, he wished he'd made his point more gently. "We've talked about this. You don"T really want a baby right now." He gulped. "Do you?"
"Yes—no! You don"T understand what ifs like!" Sha'uri's voice was hoarse as she spoke through her tears. "In the days before, under Ra, no one knew how long they'd live. Children were the only way to reach toward the future. Of course, Ra took a crueler view. The Horus guards used to say, 'Breed early, breed often—make more workers for Ra.' "
She stared at Daniel with red-rimmed eyes. "Things may have changed, but the old ways remain. Some of us—young ones, like Skaara—we see that new times need new customs. But it's easier to free ourselves of Ra than to change the ways of thinking—especially for the older folk. My father keeps expecting grandchildren—the sooner, the better. He hints, and asks, and pokes about..."
"Then we'll have to tell him to wait," Daniel said.
Sha'uri's eyes filled with renewed tears. "There is another answer we could give," she faltered. "Maybe I can"T free my mind from the old ways, either."
Daniel tried to be logical, pointing out the inconvenience, the problems, a pregnancy would cause. His fledgling academy would lose Sha'uri as a teacher and translator. She responded that Abydan women worked in the mines almost to birthing time. Surely she'd be able to do the same in a sit-down job.
Then Daniel played the health-care card. He'd prefer to wait until Earth doctors and medicines were available.
"But they'll be coming now, under this agreement with the general," Sha'uri said.
In the end, there was only one argument left to him, one he didn"T wish to use. Daniel Jackson was scared green of fatherhood. "I'm committed to you," he insisted to Sha'uri. "I love you, I want us to be together. We should be enjoying this time. To bring in a kid—I think it's too soon."
The discussion went downhill from there. Daniel ended in full retreat, disguised as storming out the door.
Should have taken the MRE with me, he thought, striding through the dark streets. His stomach was roiling with tension. But when it finally settled down, hunger pangs took over.
Daniel set a course for the building that housed the Council of Elders. With luck, he might be able to horn into a meal there—eat at government expense. Maybe he could take Kasuf aside, ask him to cool it with Sha'uri—
The little square in front of the adobe hall was full of people. Some were shouting, others had their fists raised. Daniel had been on Abydos long enough now to recognize accents. By their speech, these were members of farmer clans from outside Nagada.
"We came many miles to bring our petition!" one farmer cried. "Why will the Elders of Nagada not hear us? We cannot spend another day waiting to catch their ear. Let us come to them now!"
Another man complained more sharply. "These Elders grow fat on the tools and coins they get from the Urt-men!"
The linguist in Daniel wondered where the guy had appropriated the English word "Earthmen." Obviously, it was a case of street phonetics, a term reproduced by word of mouth. Pidgin English had come to Abydos.
So, apparently, had protests by the have-nots against those perceived as the "haves."
In a way, Daniel was reminded of his college days. There was the same mixture of a few vocal types fronting a large crowd waiting to see what would happen. But this wasn"T campus politics. These were people in deadly earnest, coming before their government for a hearing, and, hopefully, justice. By Abydan tradition, they had the right to petition the Elders.
They'd picked a lousy day for it, though. Kasuf and his confreres had been closeted the whole day, listening to General West's offer, negotiating with him, debating the proposal, then deciding how to implement scarce resources to meet their end of the bargain.
By now they were tired old men who wanted rest, not wrangling.
As far as the farmers were concerned, there were secret deals afoot to make the Nagadans richer—and the farming clans poorer.
The vocal minority led the crowd in a rush for the doors, intending to put their case forcefully.
Then the doors opened and militiamen marched out. The Abydan militia organized by Sha'uri's brother Skaara was not a spit-and-polish outfit. His citizen soldiers wore their street clothes, robes of brownish homespun. Usually the only clues of military organization were proficiency in maneuvers—Skaara drilled them mercilessly—and the weapons they carried.
The unit deploying to cut off the mob was armed with M-16 rifles recovered from the battlefields outside Nagada. These militiamen also wore another item of military salvage—the new Kevlar helmets issued to American troops. In the torchlit square, the coalscuttle helmets gave them the appearance of cloaked Nazis moving into battle.
Confrontation quickly turned to bloody riot control. The protest leaders tried to push through, and were met with rifle butts. Apparently, the militiamen were under orders not to fire. No shots rang out, but there were plenty of broken heads and bloody faces.
The militia troopers ruthlessly drove the angry farmers about halfway across the square. There, the resistance of the hustled protesters began to stiffen.
Surprisingly, the militia riot squad broke contact, stepping back. The farmers were preparing a charge when a single rifle shot resounded across the square.
The sound came from above. Daniel and the protesters looked up to find a line of militiamen strung across the roof of the Elders' hall. They leaned across the waist-high parapet, aiming their rifles down at the crowd. The unspoken threat was enough. When the militia officer on the ground told the farmers to disperse, the crowd began melting away.
The least committed went first. They'd have to be back at their farms before sunup to begin a new day in the fields. More and more of the protesters drew away, until all that remained were the real fire-eaters—and those too banged up to move quickly.
All that was left was the mopping up. The helmeted riot-control line moved forward again, chivvying the last of the protesters away. At least they were more sparing with their gun butts.
Daniel stared, so spellbound by the unpleasant spectacle that he didn"T notice the militiaman advancing on him until it was nearly too late.
"Get moving, scum!" The hard-eyed trooper reared back with his rifle. Instinctively Daniel moved to grapple with him. A flurry of movement from the corner of his eye gave an instant's warning. Daniel twisted as another militiaman charged in, ready to smash his face with the butt of his M-16.
The guy's face seemed vaguely familiar under the Fritz helmet. His features slackened in shock when he apparently recognized Daniel. Stepping between the struggling pair, he waved back his snarling comrade.
"He ain"T one of the troublemakers," he said. "Look at the yellow hair. That's the chief's brother-in-law!"
The first militiaman let down his gun, giving Daniel the disgusted look reserved for innocents who interpose themselves in police actions anywhere.
Daniel found himself a little breathless as he asked the other to give him a safe-conduct across the square to the Elders' hall.
The rope and wood bridge under Skaara's feet swung slightly in the breeze. He stood equidistant between the watchtowers that flanked the main gates of Nagada. The height gave him a vantage point to observe inside the city as well as beyond its walls. He lowered the binoculars he'd aimed toward the central square. "They're leaving," he said. "We've won."
Baki, the young warrior who stood beside him, called down to the group of messengers crouched by the gate, ready to run. "They're breaking up, but keep ready. We may still have to call out more men."
"I don"T think so," Skaara said. "The fight seems to be knocked out of them."
In Baki's hand, a field radio crackled to life, reporting the retreat of the disruptive elements. Skaara sighed. "And you told me I was crazy to train a troop to control crowds."
"I just didn"T think you could convince any of our men not to shoot first," Baki responded. "A volley or two into that crowd would have dispersed them sooner, with a lot less effort."
"At too high a cost," Skaara said.
"We're not that low on ammunition," his lieutenant objected.
"That's not the price that worries me." Skaara's face was grim as he surveyed the square again. His line of men had almost cleared it completely. "Crack a man's head, and he gets up and perhaps fears you. Kill him, and you spark a feud with all his relatives."
"That makes sense," Baki admitted. "But why are we up here, commanding through runners and radios? Are you afraid of blame in case things went wrong? After all, your father is in that hall—"
"That's why I couldn"T be there," Skaara cut him off. "Those people were coming to complain to Kasuf—to protest against him. How would they react if Kasuf's son came forth to drive them away?"
Baki gave him an eloquent shrug. "That's politics, not war."
"Wrong," Skaara said. "Politics is war—merely carried on at a slower speed. Mark my words, Baki. We're fighting a war right now."
He could feel the uncomfortable glance from his subordinate, even though Baki said nothing.
Good old Baki. He was a survivor from the very beginnings of the militia. They'd begun herding mastadges together. Baki had been one of the boy commandos who'd defied Ra and fought to save the captured Earthmen. Half of those young rebels had died from the blasts of the Horus guards and their udajeets. Baki had been promoted to command his own troop in the expanded militia. Skaara trusted him as his chief aide.
Yet Baki didn"T understand the battle that faced them.
Skaara had formed the militia for two reasons. First and foremost, he'd wanted to protect his home and family. Both had proven so terribly vulnerable when Ra's wrath had fallen on Nagada.
He'd also had a dream of leading brave forces through the StarGate to bring the revolution of Abydos to other worlds in Ra's former domain.
That dream had been put off as Skaara had organized a larger militia to defend against the avarice of the mining company that had come from Earth. It had been a shock for Skaara to learn that all allies were not necessarily friends. The ones who had originally come with Colonel O'Neil—Lieutenant Kawalsky, the little one, Feretti, Daniel, who had married his sister—they had proven themselves. Feretti and Kawalsky had helped him train his fledgling recruits. Even the great O'Neil had given him advice.
But they had also nearly gone to war against him. Only the arrival of a battlecraft from Ra's empire had averted that conflict.
Still more problems had come with victory. New volunteers swelled the ranks of the militia, some of them joining on the battlefield as they picked up guns. There was status to be enjoyed from being a soldier. Some looked for power. Others wanted to settle old scores. Too many men, both in Nagada and the farming lands, wanted guns for their own uses.
The influx of manpower had been too much for Skaara's trained cadres. Some units were now commanded by men who had never shared Skaara's dream. Even among those who could be trusted—Baki, the troops in the square—the hope of expanding freedom had been postponed.
How ironic, Skaara thought. My dream helped build a potent weapon. But that weapon may shatter in my hand to kill the dream that birthed it.