The long single file of mastadges covered ground with their peculiar ambling gait. Most of the hairy, skinny-legged beasts bore packs on their backs—the caravan's cargo of food. But there were outriders and caravaners as well. In the lead, caravan master Menna leaned forward in his travel-worn howdah, scanning the dunes around them.
The farming enclaves where they had traded were far behind them now. The caravan was in the high desert, where of late, too many human lice were to be found—raiders in search of food.
Menna shifted the rifle he carried braced against his hip. He hoped that the working weapon and the dummy his son carried at the rear of the caravan would be enough to keep any would-be reavers at bay. If not, he had two magazines worth of ammunition—sixty shots.
In his mind Menna ran over the demonstration the warrior Sek had given him, dry-firing the M-16. He wished he could actually have fired the weapon for practice, but every bullet was worth its weight in silver. He'd just have to be content—
Menna stiffened in his seat. His eyes, roving the dunes as usual, had caught a glint of metal ahead—an unsheathed blade, he thought.
"Bata," he called to his son, "bring up the other weapon. The rest of you sons of mastadges line up on either side of us. Look ready for a fight."
The outriders formed a rough skirmish line, fingering the clubs and knives they carried in case of trouble. With luck they'd show the skulkers in the dunes that they weren't to be trifled with. Whoever made that glint would disappear, waiting for easier prey.
Menna went to engage his weapon. "Ra's ass!" he swore when instead he released the magazine.
He snatched for the other magazine, seating it quickly but not chambering a round, when a flare of pure energy lanced from one of the dunes. The bolt caught Menna in the chest, superheating the fluids in his chest cavity.
The caravan leader literally exploded.
Menna's son Beta watched in horror as the caravan's defensive line disintegrated. Men and mastadges plunged away from the horrible form that moments before had been their boss.
Other forms appeared out of the dunes—the raiders charging in to reap the rewards of their ambush.
Bata threw his useless weapon away, urging his mastadge toward his father's mount, which stood frozen, honking in terror at the smell of burnt meat.
The M-16 lay across the palanquin. Bata snatched up the weapon, aiming it to spray across a knot of men rushing towards him. Their leader was brandishing a particularly nasty-looking blade.
As he futilely jerked the trigger, the blast-lance in the dunes fired again.
Bata's mount reared on its spindly legs. A lifeless form toppled from the howdah, the rifle still gripped in its hands.
Pa'aken had watched the caravan trickle its way from dune to dune, following its progress with the distance watchers the Urt-men had brought to Abydos. He'd salvaged the binoculars from a dead Army officer in the killing fields outside Nagada. But he'd been too late getting to the battlefield to secure one of the wonder weapons.
By the time Pa'aken had arrived, warriors of the Urt-men had returned to the field, separating the wounded from the dead and discouraging those enterprising souls who were trying to loot the burnt-out personnel carriers.
Pa'aken had just tucked the glasses into his robe when he'd been evicted. He still felt a bit put out. Imagine attending the greatest battle in the history of Nagada, and having only binoculars to show for it!
That might change today, he thought greedily, surveying the oncoming file of burdened beasts. They've got two guns over there.
Normally, his band would never think of attacking a caravan so heavily armed. But he had an extra blade up his sleeve this time...
Crouched beside Pa'aken, Hay ran his knife across a whetstone. The monotonous scrape-scrape-scrape began to get on Pa'aken's nerves. Besides, sound carried out here in the high desert—something city men never seemed to realize.
"Will you stop that?" he finally demanded in a tight hiss.
"As you wish, lord," Hay replied sarcastically, using the term of address usually reserved for a Horus guard. He held the blade in the sunlight, examining it critically. "Looks sharp enough—"
Pa'aken snatched his fellow thief's arm. "What kind of idiot shines light across a blade in an ambush?" he rasped.
One glance through the binoculars showed that Hay had given them away. The caravan master was bringing his men into a defensive line. This might be too difficult a proposition....
A blast-bolt lashed out. That did for the caravan master. Pa'aken rose to his feet. The choice was out of his hands. "Up! Now! Take them!"
Members of the raider band erupted from the Hands, rushing to take the disorganized line. Pa'aken clutched his staff as he charged down the dune, He'd always been good with the long stick, and it was useful against a mounted foe.
Hay was in the lead, waving that damned knife of his.
A figure on mastadge-back aimed a rifle at them, and the blast-lance flared again. Then there was no time for fancy shooting. They were mixed in with the enemy, fighting hand-to-hand.
Metal flashed in Pa'aken's face as he twisted aside. He could feel the slash of pain across his cheek, then the slow ooze of blood. Even as he moved, his staff battered the arm wielding the knife. In quick succession the rider lost his weapon, his seat, and his life as Pa'aken knocked him to the ground and bludgeoned him to death.
Clapping a hand to his bleeding face, the bandit leader quickly surveyed the field. The caravaners were finished. Most of them were stark on the sands, except for the few that were riding for their lives.
A couple of his men were bruised or bloody. And Hay's knife glinted in the sun not far from his outstretched hand where he lay, brained by an outrider's cudgel.
Exactly what he deserved, Pa'aken thought. He bent to retrieve the caravan master's rifle, shaking sand from the barrel. He'd have to search carefully. Somewhere there might be more bullets.
As Pa'aken arose, he saw another figure coming toward them over the sand. The newcomer moved with his hood up, his cowled shape seeming to shimmer in the heat haze from the sands. The weapon he carried was as tall as Pa'aken's staff, but it gleamed gold in the burning sunshine.
"Was my contribution worthy of its reward?" the late arrival asked in a quiet voice.
Pa'aken gazed at the blast-lance with naked greed. But the stranger had proven himself too formidable even to allow the hope of stealing that weapon.
With a snarled order Pa'aken ended his men's pillaging of the pack animals.
"As we agreed," he said to his powerful new ally. "You get first pick of the loot, Khonsu."
Lieutenant Charlton was not a happy camper as he reported to Jack O'Neil. "Some of our people on long-range reconnaissance found another caravan wasted."
The colonel frowned. Desert raiding was becoming serious enough to have an impact on the Nagadan economy—and his own force's supplies.
But Charlton had worse news to impart. "Six locals killed and just left out for the local wildlife. Even so, the recon boys could tell that two of the dead had been toasted by a blast-lance."
"Won-der-ful." O'Neil bit off each syllable. Raiders with Ra's technology represented a new low in the high desert war zone that had developed in the last couple of weeks. Regular patrols by the militia and O'Neil's forces had kept the areas around the base camp, the city, and the mine relatively safe. Inside Nagada was another story. Despite Skaara's best efforts, the place was turning into Dodge City. Scavenged Earthly ordnance was being used in faction fights all over the town.
"What do we have next?" he groaned. "Drive-by shootings on mastadge-back?"
"I couldn't say, sir," Charlton said almost primly. "But Skaara is here to see you."
O'Neil was inwardly amused at the lieutenant's faint unhappiness. Charlton wanted to tack on a proper military rank to the leader of the Abydan militia. But Skaara had resisted the urge to name himself generalissimo, or even acting colonel. He believed in leading without ranks. O'Neil only hoped his young friend could make that notion stick.
Nonetheless, Skaara gave the colonel his usual crisp salute as he entered the office. His face went pale as O'Neil passed on the long-range reconnaissance report. "If the sand scum have gotten weapons like that, we have troubles indeed."
He sighed. "And here I thought I had good news to report. My people caught a caravan trying to smuggle two blast-lances out of Nagada."
"Where were they going?" Charlton wanted to know.
"The farmers." Skaara made the term sound like a curse.
"I thought you were bringing some of Nakeer's people into the militia," O'Neil said. The deal between the two head Elders had been one of the few bright spots in the present political scene.
"Oh, some of the farmers are good fellows," Skaara admitted. "But even if I could trust Nakeer—which is not necessarily a sure thing—his people have as many factions as mine. I know there have been farmers in town, offering lavish amounts of food for any guns—pardon, weapons—they can get their hands on."
He gave the Marines a sour smile. "Certain merchants have been very annoyed—the farmers have been driving prices up."
"Where did the blast-lances come from?" O'Neil wanted to know.
"Probably they came from some of the shot-down udajeets out on the battlefield," Skaara said. "At least they're not militia items. I checked our stocks, both here at the ship and in the arsenals."
He looked as if he'd taken a large bite of rotten fruit. "But rifles and grenades were missing. Urns of ammunition turned out to be mainly filled with stones. My people have been selling to the farmers and the factions in town—Ra damn them, some of them probably belong to the factions."
"We'd heard about fighting in town," CNeil said diplomatically.
"And what they're fighting over is weapons," Skaara burst out. "The only good thing is that sometimes the fighting uncovers a faction's cache. We had an explosion in a ruined building after a firefight. The place burned down. We found several bodies, grenade spoons—and what might be the remains of another blast-lance."
He looked helplessly at his former mentor. "But we can't search every mastadge going out of the city for contraband—or burn down every house where weapons may be hidden."
"It's what you may have to do," O'Neil said unhappily.
"The Elders would never agree to such a course."
Translated, that meant Skaara couldn't go against his father, or the deal with Nakeer.
"Then you'll have to do your best to protect the weapons you're responsible for," ONeil said. "Close the arsenals. Put the rifles and ammunition in the hands of those you really trust. The blast-lances here are reasonably safe—they can't be smuggled through our camp. In town, you may want to gather your blast-lances at your headquarters."
O'Neil stepped to a footlocker, rummaged for a moment, and produced a large padlock and key. "Put this on the door. Then put people you absolutely trust outside that door."
"What's been getting into Gary Meyers?" Barbara Shore asked as she paged through the latest set of translations on her desk. A flood of material had hit the translators after Pete Auchinloss had managed to pry it from what passed for mainframe computers aboard Ra's Eye. Even Gary Meyers had been pressed into service. "This stuff looks... coherent!"
"Maybe it's more a case of what Gary's been getting into," Mitch Storey smart-mouthed.
"Do tell," Barbara said. "Maybe we can get some more of it for the rest of the staff."
The bearded technician shook his head, his lips twitching. "It's dumb gossip. I shouldn't have said anything."
Barbara said nothing, just training a pair of piercing brown eyes on him.
"All right. The new girl on the project, Faizah. I hear Meyers is all over her."
"Is that a trace of male ego I detect, darlin'?" Barbara inquired sweetly.
"Bruised male ego," Mitch admitted. "Hey, I checked her out. There was a major babe alert when Faizah came on board. But either Meyers has latched on to her professionally—or she's hooked up with him personally. I hear she wraps him right around her little finger."
"Good," Barbara said. "Gary needed someone to take the starch out of his shorts."
Storey looked a little alarmed. "But if she's sleeping with him—"
"They've managed to make beautiful translations together," Barbara finished for him. "This stuff is clear, concise, and best of all, it make sense to me as a scientist. We'll try her on the next batch from Auchinloss alone. And if she works out the way I think she will—we have a new star translator!"
Sha'uri stepped quietly down the stairwell, away from the command deck. She hated herself for standing there, eavesdropping on the conversation between the two Earthers, especially since she and Barbara Shore had become friends. But although she hadn't understood all the slang, two things seemed perfectly clear. Her husband's people seemed frighteningly casual in their approach to sex and relationships. And Faizah seemed to be exploiting that casual attitude to further her interests.
The uncomfortable question arose—had she done it before?
Had she done it with Daniel?
"Are you nuts?" Daniel Jackson hooted with laughter, "Faizah and Gary Meyers?"
Slowly his laughter faded as he tried to understand what was bugging Sha'uri. Because something definitely was.
"What's wrong with Dr. Meyers?" Sha'uri asked. "I've heard you say that he is respected in your field— more than you were."
"The guy's a stiff!" Daniel burst out. "Faizah could do much better."
She could? Sha'uri thought. With whom?
Daniel stared at his wife as he chewed a piece of bread. She can't be jealous of Faizah on the job. He tried to edge around the subject. "I think I did the right thing, putting her on the project. From what I hear, Faizah has helped clear up a bunch of those technological hieroglyphics."
"Yes. Dr. Meyers speaks very highly of her, too."
Daniel swallowed a little too hard. Why was Sha'uri giving him the old skunk-eye? "What does that mean?"
"Just that it's interesting how many men think Faizah is quite remarkable. Especially men from good old sleep-with-anyone-you-feel-like Earth!"
"Barbara Shore certainly isn't a man. And she thinks that Faizah is an exceptional translator," Daniel said reasonably.
Perhaps he'd have done better not invoking a woman who'd admittedly pursued him back on Earth.
The discussion that followed was not at all reasonable.
But it was quite heated.
Faizah looked at her teacher with wide eyes. "But why shouldn't I be friendly with Gary?" she asked in astonishment.
"It just gives people the wrong idea," Daniel said in an uncomfortable voice. "You work under him—"
He bit off that sentence while he was still ahead. Hoo-boy!
Faizah's face radiated puzzlement. "But I call you Daniel, and I learn under you."
Daniel was very glad that Sha'uri hadn't heard that comment.
He retreated to the proprieties of teaching. "I shouldn't have phrased the sentence that way," he said stiffly. "Although there's an accepted sense of working under someone's direction, there's a double meaning—"
A sort of naughty comprehension came over Faizah's mobile features. "Oh, yes, we have that, too. We call it 'agreeable work'!"
Looking into her laughing eyes, Daniel had to admit that farmers often had a more barnyard simplicity about procreative matters.
"But who would object—oh. It's Sha'uri, isn't it?"
Again, Daniel had to credit his star pupil's quick mind.
"Things don't seem to be getting any better between you, do they?" she said.
"Just bigger and better arguments," Daniel admitted.
It seemed that the more difficult it became to talk to Sha'uri, the more understanding Faizah became. At first Daniel had just spoken in generalities, trying for a second opinion from a woman of the same age and culture. But oddly, their conversations had grown more specific—and downright personal—while also broadening into discussions of policy and politics.
"I've been thinking about why Sha'uri feels troubled." Faizah spoke in that odd combination of innocence and forthrightness that reminded Daniel of the midnight talk fests of his university days.
"She's one of the people who had the most to lose when the world changed," Faizah said. "Think about it. She was one of a very privileged few on this world. Her father was the virtual ruler of Nagada, in the absence of Ra or the Horus guards."
The girl shook her head. "I guess there's a little bit of Ra in all of us. When people have power, they want to keep it. I saw that when I met Gary. He had to be the boss. Maybe it's the same thing here. Kasuf still runs Nagada, with your help. Skaara leads warriors. And Sha'uri... found you."
"I—ah, think you're oversimplifying," Daniel said, his voice constricted. He'd always considered his marriage a piece of almost Hollywood luck—the end-of-the-movie scene where the hero weds the chieftain's daughter.
But what had Sha'uri gotten out of the bargain?
Faizah was still talking. "It must be hard, I suppose, to face what Abydos has become if you're still connected to the old ways of things. Like children. Old fogies—"she smiled at the idiom—"tell me I ought to be married and pregnant by now. It's one of the reasons I was glad to leave home. I can't tell you how glad I am to be here, making a future for my possible children rather than making children for a possible future."
She was very serious now. "I mean, I've got the rest of my life for kids. With the work we have to do now for Abydos—opting out now would be just about the same thing as—as treason."
"That's a pretty strong statement, young lady," Daniel said. "We've talked a bit about how things work on my world and how they work here. But what you're talking about now sounds very much like what we Earth folk call politics."
" 'Politics.'" Faizah repeated the word as if she were tasting it. "If that means how I think this world should be—well, you might not like it."
"As long as the program doesn't start with 'Round up all the Earthmen and kill 'em,' I think I can take it." Daniel smiled.
"I belong to a group called Freedom," Faizah said. "Some of the more extreme members might like your idea."
Daniel's smile faded. "I'd heard that some of this faction stuff was getting out of hand."
"But—but—!" Faizah stumbled over her words. "We thank you for what you've done. Without the Earthmen we'd still be a slave planet. But we're not so grateful that we'll follow every order—or even suggestion—that comes through the StarGate."
Thinking of the bitter struggle with the United Mining Cartel, Daniel had to admit the young woman was right.
"We can't stay with the old tribal ways," Faizah went on. "That would leave me back home, planting fields—and being planted with babies. Learning to write is good. Everyone on Abydos should have that, if only to read the hidden histories. Once we all know where we came from, we can decide on a destiny for this world."
"And what do you think that should be?" Daniel asked.
Faizah shrugged enchantingly. "I'll be honest—I don't know. But I feel that maybe the people on Earth had the right idea when they buried their StarGate."
She raised a hand toward his shocked expression. "I don't mean for thousands of years—maybe for a century or so." Faizah smiled. "So the people who live on Abydos can just get to work building their world—undisturbed."
Daniel found himself smiling at his student's audacity. I wonder how General West would react to that, he wondered. His cold, drafty door into the unknown being slammed shut—from the other side!
Then Daniel suddenly found Faizah's plan less funny. How would West react to a movement that would cut off his only supply of Ra's wonder quartz?