Before Mac had even thought about turning her head to look for the newcomer, something warm and furry came into contact with her back as their four-legged friend skidded to a halt after racing over from its perusal of the interior of the barn. So instead of fixing her attention on the spot in the distance at which Harm stared, Mac turned to look at the green creature, curious as to why it was acting the way it was.

Its fur was bushed out, making it appear the same size as the others of its species back on its own planet. The hairs on the back of its neck were vibrating so fast they appeared only as an indistinct blur. And whereas the creature had spent most of the weekend up until then purring in a very feline manner, it was now emitting a loud growl which reminded Mac that she had at first thought of it as a bear-like creature, with the feline comparisons only occurring to her later. Its legs were bent, keeping its body lower to the ground than usual, an air of tense, furious readiness emanating from its every pore.

Realising that the creature considered whomever was approaching to be a threat, and reasoning that there was a good chance it knew more about what was ging on than any of the humans present did, Mac turned to Harm with the intention of pointing the creature's behaviour out to him.

But she stopped as she opened her mouth to speak.

There was a look of frozen horror on his face, and something going on behind his eyes that she couldn't quite put a finger on.

~You see, Tau'ri? You cannot escape the vengeance of the Gods.~

~Nothing's even happened yet.~

~Oh but it will. You will see. You and I both know who approaches. Fortune and trickery will not save you now.~

~When's fortune saved me from a Goa'uld?~

~The former host that shot you. It was a Marine, firing from close range. Only luck saved you then. And had that Aesir not been in orbit, you would have died in that Admiral's office.~

~That wasn't the vengeance of the Gods. That was a confused kid trying to beat the creature that stole his mind.~

~An action set in motion than by the Gods.~

~The Goa'uld wanted me alive. Killing me would not have served their purpose. A Sarcophagus will only work for so long after death.~

~Only fortune and trickery saved you from me, and from my father.~

~I prefer to think of it as strength of will.~

~My father was killed by a traitorous Jaffa.~

~That's not trickery on my part. You're willing to concede the fortune thing, then?~

The part of Harm's psyche dominated by Apollo's ghost sneered at Harm. ~I concede nothing to you, Tau'ri. Your petty arguments are beneath me.~

~You're dead, snake. You only exist in my head. My 'petty arguments' are all you have left.~

~You think I couldn't supress all that remains of you if I chose, and walk about taking your body as my own?~

~If you could, why haven't you done that already?~

Silence.

~You can't, can you? You'd need to have a part of me left to fool people into thinking nothing was wrong. You completely supress me, you can't access my memories. Like how Sam can only access Jolinar's memories when she's dreaming them. Other than that she only gets feelings.~

~You know nothing.~

~I'm right, aren't I? If you completely supress me, you won't be able to access my memories, so you won't be able to masquerade as me. My guys wouldn't hesitate to kill me if they thought you'd taken over and I couldn't get back in control. So you'd be dead. But if you stay where you are now, in a corner of my mind, you at least have something like an existence.~

~That is not so.~

~Of course not. Not exactly. If you can take over when we're off planet with no-one around, you could get to a gate and get off the planet. You can do all the trappings of still being a symbiote, the eyes and technology and stuff, but you'd feel wrong to other Goa'uld. And my healing's better than it was, but not as good as when a symbiote is controlling the process. You'd never have your status back. No, you're better off right where you are.~

As Harm snapped out of the trance-like state in which he communicated with his dead tormentor, the newcomer drew near enough for him to be completely certain that his assumption about their identity was correct.

His conversation with Apollo had given him an idea. Muttering under his breath an instruction to Mac and his father to "play along, okay?" he tilted his head back slightly and stared straight into the newcomers' eyes. He then spoke, distorting his voice as if a controlling symbiote were in charge. The words dripped with reptilian arrogance.

"You have come a long way in vain if you seek to avenge my death, Sister."