Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 characters, concepts and storylines do not belong to me; only the original characters are mine. This story was written purely for fun: no money is being made. All financial consideration rights for Stargate characters and stories belong to MGM Entertainment. Names, characters and locales are used fictitiously.

Note: Daniel Jackson began his undergraduate years at age 16 at UCLA. The following story refers to a chapter from Daniel's life as he starts his first year as a graduate student at UCLA, at age 19. This story makes the assumption that it's either probable or at least possible that Daniel would not yet have developed his trademark theory about the Egyptian pyramids at age 19. His theory wouldn't have arrived fully formed, but would have evolved only after some difficult searching and personal trials. Another assumption is that his certitude about his theory did not primarily come from the kind of hard, demonstrable, verifiable facts or data that is considered scientific evidence. Otherwise, we would have expected a better reception from the scientific community regarding his theory. Related episodes: A Hundred Days; Prisoners; Maternal Instinct; The Tao of Rodney.

Thanks to M.C., L.W., and E.Q.

Mines of Discontent

Chapter 1

P5C-768.

The lights flickered, and then in the merest of seconds, both towers of the huge naquadah mining complex went dark. Within another few seconds, the extensive grounds area covering about one square mile was completely enclosed in darkness.

Five thousand inhabitants waited, paralyzed.

Just prior to the outage, O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, Jackson and Dr. Frasier stood inside the complex discussing the reason they'd come to Edora: to investigate the occurrence of five suicides among the workers in eight days. And then the power went out, enveloping everyone and everything in pitch-black darkness.

Daniel asked, sounding stupefied: "What the hell is going on here?"

Jack spoke with a bite in his voice: "Five suicides, and now this. Damn it, what next?"

Carter spoke as calmly as possible: "The air filtration or life support systems may be affected. I'm going to find the building engineer."

Teal'c said, "I will accompany you, Major Carter."

o0o

Approximately twenty-four hours ago, SG-1 arrived on P5C-768, Edora, the planet where Jack O'Neill had once spent a hundred days, waiting for rescue. Within the year that passed, a mining treaty had been signed and naquadah extraction begun. Now, the order had come from the U.S. President's chief-of-staff that SG-1 should investigate conditions here and determine whether supervision was adequate. The administration feared that the agreement itself might be in jeopardy, and nothing had a higher priority for the U.S. administration.

SG-1 had already spent some hours investigating, analyzing and discussing the situation:

Janet: "Everything that's happened is suspicious. Five people committing suicide in eight days? I want to talk to the families."

Jack: "One of them put a bullet in his temple. Takes guts to do that. Or insanity."

Sam: "Another one stuck a knife in his heart. Who can do that?"

Teal'c: "Indeed. The last suicide, death by hanging, was more traditional by Tau'ri standards but no less disturbing."

With potential health factors anticipated as a potential cause for the deaths, Dr. Janet Frasier was on board for the mission. She said, "I heard one of the men had a wife and three small children."

Daniel: "I heard that only one of them didn't have children."

Jack: "Where did the worker who shot himself get the gun?"

Teal'c: "I have noted a contract requirement that any worker on Edora be permitted to own a firearm."

Jack: "Compliments of the U.S. administration."

Daniel: "Could the fire rain have anything to do with all of this?"

Carter: "It seems unlikely. Edora's fire rain occurs every year, with no known negative effects. The kind of meteor shower that caused such havoc a year ago, when we were here, only occurs every hundred and fifty years or so. But Janet and I will keep looking through the medical backgrounds, the environmental issues, and anything else we can turn up. We've only just begun to look at all the angles."

o0o

When the power went out, Sam and Teal'c left to find the building engineer by the light of flashlights. The seriousness of the situation was immediately apparent because even the back-up power was lost.

The building engineer, previously working in a mining facility in the U.S., had replaced the original building engineer two months ago when power problems first surfaced and emergency indicators started going off sporadically without any known reason. In two months he had learned a lot about the politics involved in the mining operation, especially the money issues and contract restrictions that complicated everything. For starters, he was the only experienced building engineer and his job included supervising a number of minimally trained "helpers." When Sam and Teal'c found him he told them, "You don't have to introduce yourselves, I know who you are. My name's McKeller."

Tall, silver-haired, with a medium-build and talkative, McKeller explained that this sort of thing had happened before and could have been prevented. "Damn it. Too many corners were cut building this place. Sub-par materials, inferior workmanship, design flaws, you name it. Everything about the construction of this place is below specification. It's a nightmare."

He stopped to call two helpers and direct them to the main generator room to check the indicator panel while he himself looked at the natural gas lines. He suspected some fraying of the main power cables followed by water seepage draining near the cables, causing a short which led to the blackout, and he planned to use battery-powered fans to dry the cables out. The problem with the back-up generator was a whole other matter.

"They hired the architect who designed a corporate headquarters on Earth, and then just duplicated the design plans, simply tripling the size of every dimension. It's ridiculous! The G-Tower has twelve floors but it's as high as a thirty-six story building on Earth. You know what that means? Each floor has ceilings three times higher than you'd expect. There should be enough room, but a lot of it is empty space. Even with the remodelling they did later, saving money was the only real goal. They should have known it wouldn't work."

McKeller stopped to catch his breath, and then started up again. He said, "Transplacement of a building from non-original blueprints designed for some completely different purpose has never worked and this mining complex is the perfect example." Granted, the engineering for the M-1 to M-3 mining levels was completely original, and they did some other minor modifications, but still: "They rushed everything through, there's too many design flaws. It just doesn't fit ... I mean, we're housing 5,000 people here!"

The mining complex encompassed2,400,000 sq. feet of workspace on a 50 acre parcel, set off some distance from the Edoran village. Not counting the M-1 to M-3 underground sub-levels where the mining was done, the U-Tower stood nine triple-size stories high and the G-Tower stood at twelve triple-size stories. After the devastation of the previous year's fire rain, the Stargate had been dug-out and the DHD recovered intact. The Stargate had been moved and was now positioned on the 11th floor of the G-Tower. A conveyor belt took the naquadah ore from the mining sub-levels beneath the U-Tower, under the Main Atrium and then through a winding tunnel inside the outer shell of the G-Tower up to the Stargate forexport.

Standing above the underground mining sub-levels, the U-Tower handled day-to-day concerns for the mining operation: supply rooms, equipment storage rooms, electrical rooms, mining and engineering equipment rooms and conference rooms. The U-Tower also handled food preparation, maintained a cafeteria and provided living quarters for the thousands of workers. UEC Corporate had their offices in the U-Tower, including the 9th floor office of the General Manager, who was the top UEC official, and the 4th floor office and work space for his assistant, the Manager-in-Chief. UEC's top man, the General Manager, functioned as the main liaison between UEC and the Representative Council, Stargate Command, and the marshal's headquarters here on Edora. His assistant, the Manager-in-Chief, acted as a more hands-on supervisor for the workers and was less visible outside the U-Tower.

The G-Tower held offices and luxury suites for members of the Representative Council from the various planets who had workers on Edora. The Representatives all had staff and so their needs occupied quite a large percentage of space in the tower. When Stargate Command personnel or SG units were on Edora, they stayed in rooms in the G-Tower. The G-Tower also operated as a for-profit luxury hotel, so that visitors from any planet could stay in the ultimate of comfort with all the amenities: luxury suites, shops, a gymnasium, a night-club, a barber shop, a beauty salon. The 5th floor even housed a full-size bowling alley along with a video arcade. A medical clinic occupied part of the 2nd floor. The Stargate sat on the 11th floor, and above was the 12th floor Presidential Suite, waiting empty until the day the American President made the visit he promised he would.

Sam asked, "Where's the original building on Earth?"

McKeller said, "Maryland? Delaware? Somewhere on the East coast." He shrugged, he didn't know for sure.

McKeller went on from where he'd left off:"Then you've got all the million demands to satisfy the General Agreement. Don't get me started on that subject. There's just so many competing interests. The company, the workers, the five different unions, the political angles from the Representative Council, the Edoran representatives, on and on. It'll make your head spin."

Mine worker contingents included groups from P2Q-463, P2X-416, P3A-577, P2A-509, PWW-98C, P26-007, a number of other planetary groups and a couple of dozen Edorans. There were also Americans and Russians, who generally filled management or lead-worker positions, had the proper clearances and had signed strict non-disclosure agreements; and a small number of non-mine worker Edorans, who by a provision in the General Agreement were granted key positions, especially positions as Gateroom Operators. In all, over 5,000 workers, administration and other staff had been assembled on Edora, with the work under the over-all direction of a company named Unified Edora Contractors (UEC).

McKeller told them, "There are five different unions and they all have a separate contract. That provision where the Edorans got key positions was a sticking-point, but now that it's in there it's iron-clad." He took off his eyeglasses and wiped them clean with a paper towel. "The inter-planetary, multi-union contract is two hundred fifty pages long, and that's only Part I of the nine-part agreement. It's called the Edora Mining General Agreement."

As McKeller talked they were walking by the light of his flashlight and lantern and their own flashlights, on their way to examine the back-up generator. McKeller went back to the subject of cost-cutting: "The reason for the architecture transplacement: cost cutting, pure and simple."

Sam: "Without regard for anything else, it sounds like."

"Exactly. And that titanium iris shield on the Stargate ... you know, don't you, that UEC didn't put a cent into it? They demanded it be built, but American taxes paid for it. Nobody else had any money. UEC's motto was, 'If you build it, we will come.' And they did, damn it! They got everything they wanted!"

McKeller could get himself quite worked-up. They went through an area adjacent to the mail room and arrived outside the building, where a shed housed the back-up generator. By the light of the lantern and their flashlights, the engineer inspected the back-up generator. He could see it was physically damaged, but why? He moved some equipment around, looking in all directions with his flashlight, and then said, as if musing to himself, "Well, how do you like that?"

Sam asked, "What is it?"

McKeller, pointing his flashlight up at the roof, said, "Look. Must have been a stray meteor strike. Came right through the roof."

They all stood looking up for a minute. He said, "This'll take a while to repair. We'll have to order some parts. But that's O.K., the main power should be back up within another hour. Maybe sooner."

They got ready to go back inside. Teal'c asked, "Mr. McKeller. Have you some theory regarding the cause of the suicides?"

The engineer had an answer ready. He said, "Well, the only reason anybody is here is for the naquadah, and the money it generates. I would say, follow the naquadah."

Teal'c answered back, thoughtfully, "Indeed."

o0o

Deputy Green had been dispatched by the marshal to investigate the U-Tower after a report of the smell of gas. He was tired from the long hours the job required, but still quite alert. He thought, eight more weeks and I'll be off on three weeks of personal leave. Back in the States, seeing my friends, doing the clubs, kicking back.

In his duty belt he carried a Monadnock expandable baton and a Glock 17. But he'd felt little confidence about being armed, lately, what with all the firearms he'd seen workers carrying all over the complex. And since the suicides, everything here was getting crazy. He thought, I don't care what anyone says, that fire rain makes people crazy.

Using a flashlight, he went up through the U-Tower floor by floor. He stopped at the fourth floor crossover, watching the fire rain for a minute, maybe two; then it was Marshal Griggs, calling him on his radio. He answered, assuring the marshal he'd cover every floor and then check-in with a group of Representative Council members who were meeting with UEC's General Manager on the U-Tower's 9th floor.

...

Marshal Griggs was an African-American from Los Angeles and, at six-foot nine and over three hundred lbs., he was the tallest and biggest man on the planet. Appointed as marshal to enforce the General Agreement provisions and maintain order, he found most of his time was spent functioning as a liaison between the Representative Council, SGC, UEC, the various worker unions, the Edorans, and now, SG-1. He had his hands full. Originally in charge of a team of ten deputies per shift, cost cutting now had it down to just three per shift; on his own shift, besides himself, he had only Deputy Sparks at the monitor console and the roving patrol, Deputy Green.

It was hard enough working under Earth's Council Representatives; officially he was under civil rather than military authority and answered directly only to the two Representatives from Earth. Those people, he swore, were complete idiots. They had almost no comprehension of the day-to-day realities here on the planet. But what made it harder was that he also unofficially answered to Stargate Command and to various Council Representative VIP's, who seemed to believe he worked exclusively for them. In fact, too often he got orders from three different directions, asking him to implement completely conflicting orders.

He and his wife, who was back in Los Angeles, had been trading audio discs via the Stargate to stay in touch, and after nine months she always summed-up what she was hearing in his descriptions the same way; she'd say, "It sounds like the usual chaos. It sounds like nothing's changed since the day you got there."

He'd been here on Edora since the inception of the mining complex, which was about nine months ago. But he didn't plan to be here much more than another six months, because he didn't like anything about the way things operated: he didn't like the role law enforcement played here, or dealing with the VIP's or the crazy way the General Agreement was set up or the cost-cutting that had his shift now down to the three of them. He didn't like UEC getting everything they wanted while everyone else had to wait in line, including the Edorans who were getting pushed around. Including his own headquarters office, which had hardly any funds to work with. Hell, he didn't even have an extra firearm to hand-out if a situation arose where he needed it. The marshal's HQ armory was empty; since the opening of the mining complex it had never yet been provisioned. He kept asking and he kept waiting but it never happened.

Besides all that, he missed his wife back in Los Angeles. The original plan was for her to eventually move to Edora, but that idea quickly dissolved as he saw how it was here. Six more months, he told himself, and that's it. He yawned, sleep deprivation had been taking its toll. He was glad to have SG-1 on site, he could use all the help he could get. Especially lately, since the suicides, and now this, reports of the smell of gas in the U-Tower. Not only workers but Representative Council members too had reported it. The problem, according to McKeller, was that the smell was diffuse, spread-out everywhere, but spread-out only on certain floors. It was as hard to explain as it was to track down. He decided to close his eyes for a few minutes. Sparks had things under control at the monitor console. SG-1 was out watching the fire rain, and again he had the comforting thought that he felt much better having SG-1 on site. He closed his eyes. He didn't know when he'd get another opportunity like this anytime in the near future.

...

Sam and Teal'c went out to join Jack, Daniel and Dr. Frasier, who were sitting outside the main Atrium, watching the fire rain.

Daniel said, "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Janet responded, "Spectacular. I could sit here watching all night."

The fire rain would last for another few days. Edora's annual fire rain was a meteor shower like nothing seen on Earth.

"I still wonder," Daniel said, "can it really be just a coincidence that they've had five suicides in eight days - I guess it's nine days now - and that this run of suicides has been exactly concurrent with the fire rain? How can there not be some connection? Maybe something similar to the effects of Earth's lunar tides, or maybe something more like our full moonphenomena on Earth?"

Sam still didn't think that was the direction to go; she was more inclined to see a connection to naquadah exposure, or something else that involved the mining operation's effect on workers. Sam had tremendous expertise on the subject of naquadah, from previous missions with SG-1 to on-going research she'd pursued on Earth, and she knew there were a number of cases on record with the naquadah factor that involved suicide. But their search for clues in this case, so far, had come up empty.

Sam didn't want to make Daniel feel as if his ideas were being dismissed out of hand, so she simply said, "We'll keep checking on things like that, Daniel, but so far ... nothing."

But then Janet spoke up, "Sam and I feel there's more likely to be some association with naquadah ... though we just haven't found anything so far."

Jack said, "I agree. Sam, you said that was the engineer's idea too, follow the naquadah ... and the money."

Sam replied, "Sir, Janet meant that we want to continue looking for some biological or environmental connection which might involve the naquadah."

Jack replied, "Well, let's check both angles. You and Janet can continue searching for any kind of medical connection, and tomorrow Teal'c and I'll get out there and try to track down leads in case there's been any kind of outright foul play. If there was, maybe that'll still lead us back to the money issue - and the naquadah."

o0o

Deputy Green had checked every floor but found no smell of gas or any sign of anything out of order. He'd also checked with the Council members on the 9th floor, where they were meeting with UEC's General Manager in his super-size luxury suite. Finding everything in order there too, he started back down.

He stopped at a window on the 6th floor. From where he stood, he could see the members of SG-1 sitting outside the Main Atrium, watching the fire rain. Green looked out at the lit-up night sky. There were times, a half-minute here, a half-minute there, he thought, when it looked like a 4th of July fireworks out there. He had to admit it was a beautiful sight.

The floor was deserted and covered in darkness. He'd just started towards the stairwell when he heard something in the darkness at the far end of the hallway. A rustling, shuffling sound, like someone walking with flip-flops on, or clogs? Couldn't make it out. Whoever it was was at least 35 or so yards away and his flashlight helped very little at that distance, unable to pierce the shadows. He waited, looking, listening ... until he detected movement ... someone very slowly moving towards him. Green called out, "Hello? Who's there?" but got no response. Now perhaps 30 to 35 yards away, whoever it was was still covered in darkness. Green fingered his Glock and called out, "Hello?" but again got no response. He yelled, "Show yourself!" At 25 yards Green could now see a man, moving towards him, slowly, deliberately, with his eyes fixed on Green and with a gun raised right at him. The man had no expression on his face, looking stone cold and robot-like, completely focused with his eyes and his gun locked on Green. Green pulled out his gun and called out, "Stop! Identify yourself!" and once again, "Stop! Identify yourself!" No response, the man still moving forward. Green didn't want to shoot him but the man was now at 20 yards then maybe 17,16,15 ... when Green dropped to his knee and opened fire.

...

Some time earlier, back outside where they were still watching the fire rain,Daniel began to feel a vague unease, hard to pin down but gradually asserting itself as a presence in his psyche. It started when he got here, as turning the suicides over and over in his mind had turned to somber brooding. But he didn't exactly know whyhis thoughts kept pulling them there, or what it meant. As he sat quietly with the others tonight, watching the last nights of the fire rain, it occurred to him that it felt a lot like a migraine coming on, something he hadn't experienced since his college days at UCLA. It'd been so long since he'd had a bout with migraine he'd almost forgotten how rough they could be. Migraine or not, he wished he could pin down the source of his deepening unease.

Daniel said, "Jack, I'm going to take it in early. Been feeling kind of tired tonight."

Jack asked, "Just tired? Are you sure that's all it is? Daniel, even by flashlight you're looking a little green under the gills."

Daniel answered, "No, it's nothing. I'll see you all in the morning."

Sam, Teal'c and Janet said goodnight. Daniel left and Jack watched him go inside, wondering whether Daniel really was alright. Jack and the others went on watching the fire rain, enjoying it as some time passed and then finally, the power returned and all the lights came back on. There were cheers and clapping and smiles all around. And then, from the direction of the U-Tower, screams and shouting:

"There's been a shooting, there's a man down!"

"Up on the 6th floor! Call the medic!"

SG-1 quickly responded to the scene. Deputy Green was standing over the body, apparently a mining worker, shot three times in the chest.

Deputy Green: "I've never shot anyone before."

Sam checked his breathing and his pulse and said, "He's dead. But this time it's not a suicide."

Green: "He had his gun pointed right at me. Gave me no choice."

Teal'c was kneeling, examining the worker's gun. He looked up at Jack and said, "O'Neill, this man's weapon has no ammunition."

They all looked at each other, surprise and shock on their faces.

Jack, shaking his head in disgust, said, "It's another suicide. What we call suicide by cop."

o0o

Back in his room, Daniel was unaware of the latest suicide. When the power came back on, he paid little attention. When he'd retreated to his room by the light of a flashlight, his mind was elsewhere. For one thing, the migraine that had been shadowing him for hours was now beginning to hit him full force. Parallel to that, thoughts about suicide and certain memories preoccupied him. Daniel paced around his room, reflecting on events long past, including some very dark days, long before he'd ever joined SG-1.

Suicide was a subject Daniel had encountered before first-hand, a tangled tale that involved close friends from a time many years ago. It started when he was nineteen years old and just beginning his first year of graduate school in Los Angeles at UCLA. Daniel had thoughtthat story ended in Larnaca, long ago; then and there he'd let it all go and moved on. But could it be starting over again ... as if it were a recurring nightmare, back to haunt him?

Or was it just the migraine, making him vulnerable? He couldn't tell, but he'd already begun playing and replaying certain strange portions of that story in his mind over and over again, looking for something he may have missed, or misremembered, or misunderstood. He remembered that first day, how it started, the house on Selby Avenue, his roommates: Geyelyn Daericour, Rae Rae Mintz, Jonathan Herschell and an old girlfriend, Suzanne Bek. Also, particularly, Clemm Crawford, whose face came floating through his memory too often lately, as if Clemm's presence were stuck somewhere in Daniel's unconscious, with the reason why somehow precariously just out of reach.

Daniel sank back in his bed, his head pounding with the migraine. His mind drifted in and out of clarity, from the subject of the suicides, to old memories, of Suzanne, of Clemm. Until at some point he drifted off, into a troubled sleep.

o0o

Next morning, after Teal'c finished his morning session of kelnorim and found O'Neill, they joined Carter, Dr. Frasier and the medic in the Medical Office on the G-Tower's 2nd floor. Dr. Frasier was poring through computer files, trying to ascertain as much patient history of the deceased as possible. Sam was assessing naquadah in the blood of the men who'd committed suicide and compiling data for the naquadah levels of all other workers too.

Jack asked, "Getting any closer to finding a pattern?"

Janet answered, "Not yet. She walked over to a chart on the wall, which had a listing of each death. She said, "Before this began about nine days ago, there were no known cases of suicide here on Edora. Right now, the profile of the suicides looks like this: two took lethal doses of drugs, one shot himself, one put a knife in his chest, one hanged himself. Two were Vyans from Vyus, P2Q-463. They were the first. Then came the American, then the Russian. The fifth was from P2A-509. The last, the suicide by cop, as you called it, was an Edoran."

Teal'c said, "The death of the Edoran is most unfortunate."

Jack added, "You got that right. I hope that Edoran's death doesn't escalate the whole damn political situation here. Carter, what have you got?"

Sam said, "Well, sir, Janet and I are looking at environmental toxics as a trigger. Aside from heavy metals, we're interested in looking at the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are sometimes found in industrial discharge - things like chlordane, toxaphine, mirex, PCB's ... all very toxic.

"And mining can result in releases of cadmium and mercury - both toxic. We'll be looking for cadmium and inorganic compounds with mercuric chloride and organic compounds with methylmercury - which is the most toxic."

Sam looked at Janet who said, "Typical symptoms of toxicity include tingling in the hands and feet, then later, tunnel vision, slurred speech and problems with balance."

Sam continued, "And we'll also want to check into radionuclides - whether readings show more than what we'd normally expect as naturally occurring in the Edoran rock and soil or whether it's somehow occurring as a result of the mining - such as Polonium-210, Uranium-235 and Uranium-238."

Jack: "Carter, what's the bottom line here?"

Sam: "Sir, the bottom line is, we've got a lot of variables to check." She looked at the Colonel, wondering if she should continue, regarding the naquadah.

She said, "And then there's the naquadah factor."

Jack: "You're getting closer to the naquadah connection you were looking for?"

Sam: "No, the naquadah's another variable. Sir, none of these chemicals and compounds are likely to cause psychological imbalances on their own. They make people sick over time but no psychological manifestation is primary. As for the naquadah, every person on this planet has naquadah in their bloodstream. At low levels we've never observed any noticeable psychological effects, but put naquadah together with any of these other chemical ingredients and ... well, we just don't know. It'll take some time to analyze and interpret."

Teal'c: "Major Carter, where would these toxic discharges arise?"

Sam: "We should check any sites that have run-off for mercury and cadmium and we should check for chemicals from the sewage treatment plant, the waste incinerators, or any other points of industrial discharges. Also, we should look for sites on Edoran lands that may have naturally-occurring accumulations of anything toxic, that we can't account for otherwise."

Jack: "What exactly do you want me and Teal'c to do?"

Sam: "Sir, we need you to go out and take a lot of samples."

Jack: "O.K., you got it. After that's done, if we have time, we'll try to talk to some of the villagers. See how they feel or if they know anything."

Sam said, "That'd be good, sir."

Jack asked Dr. Frasier, "What's Daniel's status?"

"The medic checked-in on him and told me Daniel's pretty much incapacitated with a migraine attack. I'm planning to look in on him as soon as I get a chance, though that may be a while."

o0o

It was an early spring day, beautifully comfortable, with a clear sky, sunshine and a breeze in the air. Jack and Teal'c were combing the extensive mining complex grounds via specially-designed Segway vehicles, a powerful, super-sized model called the PT-ENV which was further modified by military engineers for rough terrain. Besides their larger size, the vehicles had super-charged motors and the most durable gyroscopic sensors to deter tilting.

They explored the adjoining lands surrounding the lake and a forested region covering about five square miles, working hard and efficiently and covering a lot of ground, stopping to inspect and take samples for chemicals, heavy metals, and various potential eco-toxins. They found sites with grimy run-off, sites with foul-smelling sewage, with garbage which was caked dry and strewn around everywhere and clumps of unrecognizable, foul-smelling liquefied plant matter. At one point Jack said, "Sam's going to love this." Teal'c responded, "She will not."

For many hours they continued to drive and scour the area. They were focused on their work and otherwise quiet for a long time, each man lost in his own thoughts. They continued making inspections and taking samples, increasingly aware that the damage might eventually outstrip what the planet could absorb. When SG-1 first came to Edora about a year ago, they had seen water lilies in the lake. Not anymore.

Teal'c had taken the time to scan large portions of the General Agreement. He knew the document included provisions to address the environmental concerns of the Edorans. For example, all refining was prohibited on Edora to reduce poisonous fumes and noxious gases, though he wondered if it was still being done "under the radar," as the Tau'ri would say. For certain, there was little in the way of enforcement of waste disposal regulations, with the rampant toxic drainage they'd seen. In any case, aside from the dangerous toxins, the influx of 5,000 workers was having a major impact on the planet.

Teal'c said, "O'Neill, there's potential here for significant ecological damage. Indeed, even for disaster."

Jack nodded, understanding full well what they were seeing.

Teal'c asked, "Why did they accept the Agreement?"

Jack answered, "T., I think they knew the mining would come whether they wanted it or not. If they got on board, at least they'd have a say in what happens."

With every clump of potential eco-disaster, Teal'c's heart fell further. He had only sympathy for these simple people, who seemed to be in a no-win situation. Jack was quiet too, lost in his own thoughts. His mood wasn't particularly bright, either. Teal'c had heard O'Neill talk, more than once, about the woman he'd known here on Edora while he waited for rescue. Her name was Laira. He wondered what she thought about the mining agreement, and about everything they were seeing here now? Teal'c asked, "And the woman you once spoke of ... Laira, do you intend to see her?"

O'Neill hesitated, vaguely irritated by the question. He said, "Good question, Teal'c. When I figure out my intentions, I'll let you know." And then he added, drily, "But thanks for asking."

They drove on, finishing up and then heading back. Jack thought, if he had a choice, he'd be in Minnesota, fishing. He'd been mildly irritated by Teal'c's question about Laira, but he knew the source of his irritation was with himself - because he'd not yet decided what he should do. Whether he should see her. It might just be a convenient excuse, but nevertheless, the current situation really did demand both his time and his attention. Even so, his top priority, as always, was getting Carter, Teal'c, Daniel and Dr. Frasier home again, preferably in one piece. It wasn't about seeing Laira or avoiding Laira, or about saving the planet from ecological disaster, though that'd be nice. His mission was to investigate the rash of suicides and then bring every member of his team back home safely. That was the priority, that was his bottom line.

o0o

The Manager-in-Chief for UEC and his top assistant, Che, were in the Chief's work office adjacent to his living quarters on the U-Tower's 4th floor. Che sat at the Chief's monitor console, monitoring the U-Tower grounds outside.

"Che, keep those monitors on the Segway drivers."

"Are they SG-1?"

"They are."

Unknown to the Colonel and Teal'c, as they moved from the inner grounds area into the outer grounds and on through the lake and distant wooded areas, they were under constant observation at almost every point, their movements under watch by the Chief's cameras.

Che was the Chief's most trusted comrade. More than a work assistant, he was an old friend, his "amigo" and confidant, the only one here who was privy to all the Chief's secret projects. He liked working the cameras, as much as he liked being the only one the Chief entrusted with this kind of assignment. If Che wasn't available to do it, the Chief would do it himself.

Che typically made a camera tour that went from thedock elevator to the delivery gate to the north and south mantrap doors, to the three mining level bulkhead doors and then on to a look at the mining conveyor belt at dock A and B. Although UEC was prohibited from installing cameras in the engineering rooms or anywhere in the G-Tower, they also maintained cameras, rarely used, covering the grounds outside. Che usually spent little time on the outside grounds, since the main focus was on the U-Tower interior which housed the workers and UEC's offices, but now he maneuvered the cameras in the plaza outside the U-Tower towards the outer grounds, which extended for more than a mile in the direction of the Edoran village.

Standard and disguised cameras were linked by fiber-optic cables directly to the Chief's office on the U-Tower's 4th floor: over two hundred cameras spread throughout the U-Tower, the mining levels below, and the grounds surrounding the complex. The extensive surveillance system was expensive, provided by UEC only because the Chief demanded it. It was essentially all aimed at the workers. Che felt like he knew every nook and cranny in the U-Tower and outside grounds, but privately he questioned the need for all the effort spent watching the workers. Once, just recently, he asked his boss straight-out, "Chief, why do we spend so much time watching the workers?"

The Chief responded, "Che, the workers are mentally and emotionally undisciplined, you know that as well as I do. Even our own men, our legitimistas, are not up to par - not up to the level they should be, and much less so the general workers."

Che said, "The Segways are moving out of camera range. Do you want me to activate the ultra-sonic sensors?"

The Chief answered, "Yes, follow them with the sensors and record their conversation on Recording Unit K, in case I need to analyze something later."

Che had been with the Chief a long time: they met in Mexico at the Universidad De Las Americas in Puebla, east of Mexico City. They had classes together but never spoke until they recognized each other one afternoon at the local shooting range just outside Puebla. The Chief's Spanish was strictly rudimentary, but Che's English was excellent. They introduced themselves and talked, but what first made the Chief an admirer was that Che was a perfect shot with handguns, and his ability with rifles was even more impressive. The only one who was a better shot than Che - was the Chief.

Che remembered how the Chief enlisted him for "the Cause" right then and there, that afternoon at the shooting range, and how they'd been together ever since. The Chief told Che his skill with deadly force was essential for his Cause, and so too, were his high ideals. Because in the eighties their ideals were those of revolutionaries. Che's real name was Ernesto, but the Chief told him, "I'm going to call you Che, after Ernesto Che Guevara, the South American revolutionary. Che Guevara was a very great man." Yes, Che thought, at that time we were all revolutionaries, socialists, atheists, radicals of every stripe. But the Chief spoke of an entirely different kind of revolution, one that captured his imagination, just as it did for many others.

He remembered a daytrip with the Chief from Puebla to Mount Popocatepetl, which was southeast of Mexico City and a ninety minute drive from Puebla. They drove for miles mostly in silence, until they arrived at their destination. Fourteen monasteries stand on the slopes of Mount Popocatepetl. It was on that daytrip that the Chief first explained the nature of his experiments, how they fit into his plans, what it all meant and what their revolution could do for ordinary people.

Che gave up everything - everything about ordinary life, to join the Chief. From that point, all that mattered was the Cause. As the Chief began to tell them then and told them still, "Let it be one for all and all for one, and one and all for the Cause."

The Chief, who'd been looking at another monitor, now looked up and interrupted Che's reverie. He asked, "Che, are our legitimistas on schedule with their exercises this morning?"

"They are, Chief."

"Forty-five minutes transcendental meditation, forty-five minutes zazen?"

"The T.M.'s complete, Chief, the zazen's in progress as we speak."

"Alright. Those unsatisfactory reports I've been seeing, has anyone been reporting late for work this week at the mining levels?"

"Just Elbanco and Ramiro, yesterday. Otherwise, all on time."

"Those two again," the Chief said, shaking his head. "Che, I've got some work to do in the surveillance equipment room. Call me if you need me."

The Chief walked out of the console room, his thoughts turning to his old teachers, Master Sunam Simun and Master Fu. The Chief had practiced zazen meditation under Zen Master Simunin Arizona in the Fall of 1986, until after six months he decided his work there was complete, telling Master Simun he knew "the sound of one hand clapping." He said he knew the sound because he'd heard it, "clear as a bell." The Master was doubtful and responded, "You misunderstand, that's not the kind of answer which signifies you've seen your true nature. Furthermore, young man, it's not my practice to condone drug-fueled enlightenment." Looking skeptical, the Master added, "You have a long way to go before you'll have an authentic validating experience." But the Chief left anyway; he was traveling soon to Tibet. There he met Master Fu, who became his instructor in transcendental meditation and the bardos.

The Chief walked through his own personal work area, which took-up about half the U-Tower's 4th floor; he had 12,000 square feet of work space. He wished he had even more, because he needed every square foot of it for his experiments, and for everything else too. After leaving Che at the monitor console, he walked through a room that housed his own extensive kitchen facilities and proceeded through other rooms that housed a fully-equipped chemistry laboratory with controlled environment chambers, isolation chambers and his research greenhouse. His lab had everything: huge freezers, CO2 incubators, peristaltic and centrifugal pumps, ministat circulators, a DNA electrophoresis unit, enzyme freezers, a cross flow filtration membration system ... everything he needed or might ever need for his all-important experiments.

Ah yes, the experiments. Master Fu had criticized the direction he was taking with his experiments, challenging him at every step along the way. Master Fu told him: "The bardos of the after-life are nothing to play with. There's a danger in such experiments. A chemically enhanced road to ascension is playing with fire."

The Chief: "There's a lot at stake. I have to try."

Master Fu: "You haven't seen the emotional void of the soul-less ones. Chemicals subvert the development of the will." The Master spoke softly and delivered his words with his eyes looking up to the sky, his hands pressed together as in prayer. "Ascension must be freely chosen, and requires a strongly developed will."

It was in 1987 that the Chief had come to Tibet; he'd arranged for a meeting with the Tibetan monk, who was addressed asMaster Fu. The Master had students from around the world and spoke several languages. The Chief wanted instruction in transcendental meditation and a chance to learn the bardos, the after-life stages described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Master Fu: "After separation from the physical body, as we continue our journey through the bardos, our intention should be to reach the clear, white light of final release. The transit through the bardos is not the time to stop and experiment, you must keep going, past the ascended planes, to nirvana. Trying to ascend and re-enter the physical body, simultaneously, is extremely know nothing of avichi, which means the waveless. You risk getting trapped there, in that gray, twilight world without vibration. You could lose everything, and by that, I mean your soul."

Approaching his medical lab, the Chief stopped to move some equipment; it was hard to find a clear path. Later, he'd call Che in to help him rearrange some of the heavier pieces. He needed the coagulation, electrolyte, hematology and histology analyzers on one side, and the oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers, the EEG and MRI machines on the other. The X-ray, ultra-sound and the various pieces of neurological diagnostic equipment could stay where they were.

He felt lucky to have everything his research required. He reached into a storage refrigerator and pulled out a human head, only partially decomposed. He checked the refrigerator's various compartment temperatures, which were each set for the optimum stabilizing temperatures for the various body parts: livers, hearts, brains and other human organs. The temperatures were fine. He double-checked the lower compartment holding several PVC bags of blood serum; it was set correctly, perfect at 37.5 F.

Next, he moved towards his walk-in refrigeration unit, where he stored his most prized pieces: two complete human cadavers, one in perfect condition, the other partially decomposed. They'd been excavated and retrieved from the Edoran burial grounds. He and Che had gone undetected and they were extremely careful; no one would ever know.

Again, the Chief's thoughts went back to Master Fu's admonitions, the criticism of his experiments, the skepticism towards his scientific method. Yet equally prominent in the Chief's memory was the Master's instruction in the practice ofTantric yoga. When he'd come to Tibet, intending to get instruction about the bardos, he'd got much more than he'd expected: Master Fu was knowledgeable about the Tibetan Buddhist yoga of Tantric sex, with its emphasis on developing the kundalini sexual energy towards the goal of enlightenment. In conjunction with this study, the Master directed long discussions and practice sessions focused on the Kama Sutra, with its description of positions for sexual intercourse and prescriptions for creating exotic, erotic atmospheres. Even more unexpected, Master Fu had an almost eccentric fascination with the subject of lubrication: he'd spent countless hours on the subject. The Chief laughed out loud at the thought of it.

He put those thoughts aside, he had to get back to the business at hand. He left his medical lab and finally arrived at a room that focused on surveillance. The room had bio-amplifiers of human metabolism used in conjunction with ultra-sonic sensors and transducers to measure distance and velocity. There were white noise generators, magnetic field generators and bionic smell generators. There was "bionic ear" equipment which used something like radar, bionic vision equipment, motion sensor equipment and special light sensors that could penetrate into the shadows. And the Chief's camera equipment was much more state of the art than anything in the marshal's headquarters office, using cutting-edge optics with a much higher resolution than ordinary cameras, and which had lens options similar to those used by NASA on the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Of course the equipment was expensive, but they had a benefactor who agreed to foot the bill if the Chief deemed the surveillance operation necessary. And the Chief insisted it was necessary, to keep the workers in line. Directed mainly at the U-Tower, this now posed a bit of a problem for the Chief because there was no provision for everyone based in the G-Tower, including SG-1, which had its rooms and operations allbased in the G-Tower.

The Chief had SG-1 in his sights while they sat outside the Atrium watching the fire rain, and he had no problem tracking them while Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c rode the specially-designed Segway vehicles out towards the Edoran village. But inside the G-Tower he'd be blind, if he hadn't worked to find contacts, informers who were willing to take money in return for giving him valuable information. And it worked. Thanks to a handful of informers in strategic positions, the Manager-in-Chief knew when they were sleeping and when they got up, when they left their rooms and where they went, almost every minute of the day. The Chief considered himself a master of surveillance, and probably rightfully so.

As for the suicides that SG-1 was out investigating, the Chief had personal knowledge about how they occurred, though certainly, he wished it hadn't come to that. The suicides were bad news mostly because they brought SG-1 to Edora, and their arrival could move everything towards an all too soon end-game. He wasn't worried, he had plans and back-up plans. Nevertheless, plans or not, the Chief wasn't inclined to underestimate SG-1; there was more to SG-1 than the spineless, sniveling Daniel Jackson.

17