W is for Wile
Anise was a fool; a child among the most junior of the Tok'ra, despite her many centuries among their ranks. Sure, she had the promise of becoming one of their most exceptional scientific minds, but she also had a naivety that meant most of her 'brilliant' work was clouded by her reputation for stumbling, sometimes blindly, upon solutions to problems.
One of her other shortcomings was her love for the tactile feeling of handwriting. Tallan looked at Anise's open journal, to the details of her latest creation and its' unpromising results. He smiled smugly, noting the errors she had made with her calculations and how swayed her hypothesis was because she simply believed she was right.
None of this mattered now that his plan was slowly unfolding. Anise was crucial to his next move. He shadowed her from time to time, as any good teacher would—backing up her theories with his practical wisdom, borne from more than a millennia of life studying the sciences—and encouraging her research down a path that would lead to particular results. All the while, blinding her to the minuscule flaws in the device she had created.
Tallan was not Tok'ra. He guessed, if he had to define his being, he would regard himself as a Goa'uld spy, for that was exactly what his purpose among the Tok'ra was. He had lived with them for most of his considerably long life: waiting, watching, and only feeding back to his master the most crucial of information. He slotted in perfectly with their society. No one knew of his ruse, of how one of his former hosts had been captured by his master, and how he had taken that Tok'ra's place and never allowed the host to surface again. Each subsequent host was silenced with equal ease.
In one corner of Anise's laboratory sat the very device she had developed to counter the latest threat to the Tok'ra. It was innocuous looking, and it was also defective… to a degree. There was no way Tallan could let the device work exactly the way Anise suggested it would. Fortunately for him, several members of the Tok'ra had already been exposed to this device, with a range of results that left Per'sus and the rest of the High Council in two minds over its effective use.
Of course, what no-one on the High Council knew was that the technology to turn someone into a za'tarc was of Tallan's making. And that the device itself was safely in the hands of his master and awaiting its next target.
As the Tau'ri became more active in the affairs of the galaxy, the age-old ways of the Tok'ra and their chain of operatives was coming to an end. In some ways, the roguish nature of the Tau'ri made it easy for the Goa'uld to focus their energies inward to the internal issues among the System Lords, but in other instances it made their struggle that much harder with the rise of the Free Jaffa movement. In the end, his master had decided to further his own standing among the System Lords by breaking up the proposed Tok'ra-Tau'ri alliance.
Tallan saw the beauty in the plan, the simplicity of sitting back and watching from afar as the two sides played a blame game over the deaths of their most prominent leaders, at a time when they should have been trading treaties and making promises that ultimately neither side would adhere to. He had seen it all before, when one System Lord offered the branch of peace to another, for the purpose of joining forces against a third. War inevitably never ends well for either side.
Traps had been set, plans laid, and Tallan's place on the High Council—and his ability to subtly cast doubt over Anise's solution to the detection of za'tarcs, while still appearing to support his student—had guaranteed that he knew the movements of every operative in their ranks. And further ensured that when the time came and the device was turned on against the Tau'ri, the results would cast further uncertainty over the fledgling alliance.
"Tallan?"
Momentarily startled at the intrusion into his thoughts, Tallan looked up to see Martouf framed in the entrance to the laboratory. He smiled amiably and closed Anise's journal.
"Martouf, my friend. You are well?"
"I am. Your presence is required in council chambers."
"Anise?"
"Already there and waiting for you."
"Yes, yes. I am quite sure she is." He lifted the journal and tucked it under one arm. "Sometimes I wonder how she manages to rise in the mornings, being as forgetful as she tends to be." He patted the journal for good measure, as if it was his reason for being in her laboratory in the first place. "I see you are packed and ready to leave?"
Martouf shrugged the shoulder his travel bag was slung over. "The council would send me to the D'Char system to investigate an uprising among Amaterasu's Jaffa ranks. But of course," he said after a moment, "you are well aware of my mission."
Tallan nodded sternly. "Ah, yes. More loyal Jaffa turning against their god. Amaterasu's forces are vast, her hand reaches far. Caution is advised, my young friend."
"Well noted." Martouf bowed slightly and turned, setting off down the corridor towards the council chambers, leaving Tallan once again alone in the lab. There was no doubt Martouf and Lantash would be safe because Tallan had already ensured their return. After all, they had another more important mission in their future. The young Tok'ra was his master's perfect candidate: the one operative who had the unfailing trust of both the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri, and thus the perfect choice to ensure the proposed alliance between the two sides would never come to be.
For now, Martouf and Lantash had no idea of what really awaited them in the D'Char system, and Tallan's device would ensure they would never remember.
Tallan left Anise's laboratory and made his way to the main council chambers, where the High Council would soon be in session. Planning for the forthcoming Tok'ra-Tau'ri alliance was high on the agenda today. He had notes to make, opinions to give, and more plans to devise.