Chapter 17

Their guard escort had stopped just past the river, allowing Sam and the colonel to make their way alone back to wherever they had come from. But she had no doubt that they were being watched and followed. The Kalam were not foolish enough to let them go without seeing how they managed to return to their "ship." Fortunately the sun had set and darkness began to shroud them, and the aliens were no match for a Special Ops veteran. The colonel set a course in the opposite direction from the tel'tac and under the cover of night they zigzagged their way through the bleak landscape until he concluded that they had eluded any followers. Only then did they double back toward their craft.

O'Neill radioed Jacob to tell him they were on their way, and they picked up their pace.

They hadn't been happy leaving Teal'c and Daniel behind, but the Wydra had been deaf to the colonel's pleas and arguments. O'Neill, well versed in knowing when to cut his losses, had wisely backed down. They would retrieve their teammates on the way to extracting the children.

After they had covered some distance, Sam broke their silence. "Colonel, did you see your daughter?"

His boots made soft footfalls in the dirt. She could see only the outline of his tall form against the black sky. The voice that answered was so tender it was almost unrecognizable. "Yeah."

"She's okay?"

An alien insect chirruped nearby. "She's good." He didn't say more, and she didn't press him.

Sam thought of their aborted conversation on the tel'tac. She had come this close to telling him aloud how much he meant to her, how much his leaving, if that's what he chose to do, would devastate her. Now she sent a little prayer of thanks up to the gods of spacecraft that the tel'tac had chosen that moment to malfunction. She had no right to intrude on him with her feelings. Her feelings - their feelings - had no place in the world they inhabited. And he had enough on his plate. So she might as well suck it up and let him do whatever he had to do without the burden of her needs interfering.

She stumbled slightly.

"Carter?"

"Just a rock, sir."

They strode on a few more paces.

"What did you learn back there?" he asked suddenly.

She swore silently. In her preoccupation she had forgotten to pass him her intel. She recounted their time spent with Viorel ("So she was kidnapped too?" he said with surprise), their excursion to the Hall of Knowledge, and the drug that gave long life and perfect health.

"How long a life are we talking about here?" he asked before she could get to the side effects.

"I think we're talking forever, sir," she said.

She heard a soft whistle, and he turned to her in the darkness. "You mean they're immortal?"

"I think so. At least I'm pretty sure."

"That has a familiar ring to it. Goa'uld, anyone?"

"Right. Only instead of a sarcophagus they use a drug. Viorel said only those killed in accidents died."

"No wonder they're so smug," he said. "Y'know, I've never understood the big appeal of immortality. Life is too hard for it to go on forever." He was silent then, and they tramped on.

Sam wondered if he was thinking about all they had suffered in their many battles, or about the pain of losing his son. Forever is a long time to live with struggle and grieving memories. On the other hand, what if she could keep this relatively youthful body forever?

She said, "Think about it, Colonel. Just think of all you could accomplish if you weren't hampered by illness, aging, and death. All you could learn, all the discoveries you could make, the books you could write." His head turned toward her. "Okay, the books I could write. But if we could get our hands on that drug, sir, we could virtually wipe out disease and-"

"Carter!"

She clapped her mouth shut.

"What's the downside?" he said. "There's always a downside."

The colonel's question reeled her in from her fancies, bringing her back to the ugly reality of the Kalam drug. "It's a big one," she said. "Sterility."

He grunted. "Kind of a whopper."

"Right. It's also why they're androgynous. The drug suppresses their sex hormones. They're completely asexual."

He was quiet for a beat. "Completely?"

"As far as I can tell, they have no sex hormones at all."

"You mean they don't…?" He left it hanging.

"They don't even think about it, sir."

He was silent for a half dozen footsteps. Finally he said, "Forever is kind of a long time to go without sex, don't you think?"

Sam glanced at him next to her in the darkness, at his tall frame, his strong back, his long legs tramping steadily onward, and felt a flush sweep over her. Quickly she turned her gaze to the horizon, where the soft glow of an impending moonrise had appeared.

"Not worth any book you'd write, I'd say," O'Neill said.

"No, sir." Most definitely not.

They skirted a clump of scrubby trees and crested a slight rise. "What's the thing going on tomorrow morning that they mentioned?" he said.

Sam sucked in a breath sharply. She realized they had gotten off track regarding the urgency of their mission. "The abducted children are going to be administered the drug tomorrow morning," she said.

"What!"

O'Neill had stopped so suddenly that she had gone on a pace before she was aware. She turned around. "It's an initiation rite. At sunrise."

"Can the effects of the drug be undone?"

"Apparently not. Viorel said they've tried to reverse the effects, with no success. It's a permanent change once the person is administered the drug. Sir, if we don't get them out of there tonight-"

"Right, I get it."

He took off then, and Sam had to practically sprint to keep up.

~o~

Jack cursed the limited amenities on the Goa'uld cargo ship. What he needed was a hot shower; what he got was a sponge bath in the Goa'uld version of a sink.

The intel Carter had given him had sent his mind spinning and he'd left it to her to bring Jacob up to speed. Splashing water on his hot face, he was grateful that the Jaffa didn't go in for mirrors on their ships. He didn't want to look at his lined face, his gray hair. Who would want to live forever looking like that? Like old White Hair - what was his name? - Broken.

All this living forever crap left him cold. It sounded so great on paper, but it always came with some kind of catch: the Goa'uld with their sarcophagi and their insanity, the Pangarans with their loss of natural immunity. And now the Kalam and their sexlessness.

He shivered, and not because he was cold. Immortality wasn't the way nature worked. It was just plain wrong, and the wrongness of it was reflected in the way things went south whenever people tried it. He remembered something General Hammond had said once when faced with two Samantha Carters, their own and one from an alternate universe: It just doesn't sit right. Some lines aren't meant to be crossed. A man of immense good sense, Hammond was.

And an eternity without sex? Where was the fun in that? Sure, he'd resigned himself to most likely never having sex with Carter, at least not in any foreseeable future. But to live an eternity without even any desire for her? That deliciously painful desire that warmed his nights and lent a seasoning to his days. He rubbed his fingers roughly through his hair. The prospect was unthinkable. Besides, the Kalam weren't missing only sex, but everything that went with it: passion, romance, marriage, children, grandchildren - the whole messy business that was love and family.

If SG-1 blew this operation, his little girl would grow up into adulthood facing an endless, sterile existence, an eternity in which she would never know the caress of a lover or the joy of holding her own children in her arms.

Banging open the door of the lavatory, Jack rejoined the others.

"Holy Hannah!" Jacob was saying. "Immortal and sterile?"

"Right, Dad," Carter said.

"Did Carter tell you why we have to move out asap?" said Jack.

"She did, Jack. Everything's ready to go."

"Good. I'll draw up a schematic of the children's quarters so we all know what's where."

"Jack?" O'Neill turned around to face Garan. He'd almost forgotten about the kid. "Major Carter said you saw Jaira. Did you see Naytha too?"

"Sorry, Garan. She wasn't with the kids."

Garan's face pinched. "Do you think she's there? That she's okay?"

"The kids all looked okay," he tried to reassure him. "Jaira looked fine. Naytha was probably resting or something."

Garan nodded, his fists clenched at his sides. "She does that, takes naps. She gets so tired. The baby is due soon. What if…?"

"Don't go there." Memories of Sara being rushed to the hospital two weeks early rose in Jack's mind. "We'll get her out and she'll be fine. Just keep telling yourself that." He turned to his major. "Carter, have we got some paper?"

"Daniel brought a notebook," she said and crossed the room to Daniel's stuff.

Jacob stepped close to him. "So you saw your daughter?"

"Yeah."

"What's she like?"

Jack looked off into the middle distance, seeing the child's face, the freckles, the eyes that were so much like his. His throat felt strange. "She's…." Damn. Why couldn't he say something?

"The most beautiful thing in the world, right?" Jacob said.

He looked at the older man, who was smiling at him. "Right."

Jacob looked across the cabin at his daughter pawing through Daniel's knapsack. "Believe me, I understand."

O'Neill considered the younger and elder Carters with a new feeling. Previously he and Jacob had only their service in the Air Force in common. Now there was something else. They were both fathers of daughters. Jack gave his head a little shake. It was all so new and strange.

Carter returned with a spiral notebook. "Daniel never leaves home without it," she said with a grin.

Jack thrust feelings, tender and strange, aside and turned his focus to the problem at hand. "Okay, folks, here's what we're gonna do."

~o~

Teal'c, seated on the floor of the guest quarters to which they had been assigned, was practicing his modified kelno'reem - modified since he stopped carrying a Goa'uld symbiote inside him. Now, with the symbiote gone and replaced by injections of the drug tretonin, he did not achieve the same state of consciousness to which he had once been accustomed. Daniel Jackson had told him it was more akin to the Tau'ri practice of meditation. Nevertheless, Teal'c still found that it calmed his mind and focused his perceptions.

Since they had been escorted to these rooms - and ascertained that an armed detail of guards was posted outside their door, rendering escape virtually impossible - he and Daniel Jackson had availed themselves of the opportunity to impart to one another the information each had gleaned on their separate excursions to the Hall of Newcomers and the Hall of Knowledge. Teal'c had told his friend about what he and O'Neill had seen in the children's building: not only the Edoran children, but other, unknown children as well.

From Daniel Jackson Teal'c had learned of the drug Silak'ha, how it was the cause of the Kalam's infertility as well as their health and immortality.

Now, as Teal'c breathed in and out deeply and slowly, he pondered the folly of human beings. It was indeed without measure. Why would a person desire to live forever? He was content with the Jaffa life span of approximately 150 years. Humans never appeared to be content with what nature provided them. Always they desired more, and always they paid a heavy price.

He opened his eyes. The room was empty, Jackson having retired to their sleeping quarters a short time ago. The lights were dimmed, but there were no candles. It was difficult to meditate without candles. He closed his eyes again and thought of the next day's initiation rite, of which Jackson had also informed him.

"And we're stuck here, helpless!" Daniel Jackson had said, banging his fist against the wall in frustration.

"I have no doubt that Colonel O'Neill is preparing action as we speak, Daniel Jackson."

"No doubt." Jackson had looked out the window at the lights of the city below them. "Jack's going to be madder than hell when he finds out."

"Indeed."

Teal'c had observed O'Neill's tension as they had been conducted through the children's building, as well as his tenderness when he finally met his daughter. Watching him with the little girl, talking softly to her about her doll, had brought a smile to Teal'c's lips. For his friend, who had lost a child in the most tragic of ways, to find that he had another child was a gift beyond measure.

But Teal'c also knew that this could become a weak point for O'Neill. His friend's need for this child might express itself in unpredictable ways. A man's love for his child could make him reckless. Teal'c knew that from his own experience. He would need to keep a close watch on O'Neill when his friend returned. And that he would return tonight, ready to extract the children, Teal'c was certain. O'Neill would not tolerate the possibility of his child being injected with the Kalam drug.

He heard footsteps, and opened his eyes. Daniel Jackson entered the living area, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Were you not able to sleep?" Teal'c asked him.

"No."

"You would do well to avail yourself of this opportunity to rest, Daniel Jackson. I do not doubt that O'Neill has planned his rescue for the small hours of the morning. We would benefit from clear minds and swift reflexes." None of them knew exactly what the diurnal rhythm of this planet was, but O'Neill probably wouldn't risk any movement until he was sure the city was well asleep.

Jackson looked at his watch, then at the door. He pulled a ration bar from his pocket and began to eat it. Their hosts had delivered food on trays to them, which sat untouched on the table. "You're probably right, Teal'c, but I wish we could get ourselves out of here. It would be one less thing for Jack to have to do."

"I am certain he would understand our inability to escape our confinement."

Their radios squawked. Their hosts had not taken them when they had divested Daniel and Teal'c of their weapons. Perhaps they hoped to listen in on any communications.

"Teal'c, Daniel, come in," came O'Neill's voice.

Teal'c pressed the button. "Teal'c here."

"How are things? Are they treating you okay?"

"Our accommodations are most agreeable. We are being treated well."

"We've sent word to our government and we're just waiting for an answer. We probably won't hear back from them till tomorrow."

"Understood, O'Neill."

"Is Daniel there?"

Jackson thumbed his radio. "Where else would I be, Jack?"

"Funny." And then O'Neill spoke to Dr. Jackson in another language. Teal'c was fairly certain it was Spanish, a language he occasionally heard spoken in Colorado Springs.

"Donde estan?" O'Neill asked.

Teal'c recognized one word of O'Neill's question: donde, where.

Dr. Jackson, after an initial look of surprise, replied easily in the same language. "Estamos en el mismo edificio como antes. Tercer piso. Y hay guardias."

From the occasional word that Teal'c recognized and Jackson's hand gestures, he was able to discern that his friend was informing O'Neill of their location in the same quarters they had occupied previously.

More information was exchanged, then Jackson said "Si" and clicked off his radio. To Teal'c he held up two fingers. Two hours.

Teal'c nodded and was about to resume his kelno'reem when a soft knock on the door sounded. The door slid open to reveal a distraught-looking Viorel.