(Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman. I do own my Spiderman jeans. I do not own Doc Ock, though I'd like to. That doesn't matter because he's probably not going to be in this fic. I just like to mention him. grin

I do not own Stargate SG1, or Daniel Jackson, as much as I'd like to. I do own my SG1 boonie.

Also, thanks to Jewel59 for her point out of a biggish blunder of mine in this chapter. I fixed it!

And Navi-Zero? Who is Cypher?)

Spider In The Gate

Chapter 2: Translation

9/1/04

This is what he loved. Deciphering words, symbols previously meaningless into valuable connotations and lyrics. The written word was intoxicating to him, the clean shapes, the hidden meaning, that instantaneous, incomparable moment of comprehension when the meaningless shapes became something so, so much more.

Daniel Jackson pushed back his boonie, squinting up at P4X's two pale suns, then back at the stone tablets at his feet. P4X-728 was a desert planet, all white sky and wide, sandy horizons. From where he stood, Daniel could see the long wall stretched in a black line as far as he could see in either direction. Waist high and perfectly straight, the wall was topped with evenly-spaced plaques carved from some onyx stone. Each plaque, about the size of a palm, was pristinely engraved with a short column of arcane figures. The two larger tablets, directly in front of the Stargate, which was imbedded in the low wall, bore more characters in tidy vertical columns. Daniel knelt and ran his fingers over the characters. Sand crunched behind him, and a long shadow fell over his shoulder.

"So," said General Jack O'Neill conversationally, looking out over the sand. "It's a wall."

"Er, no," said Daniel vaguely, standing up and brushing the sand from his hands. "Well, it is, but... These say something about an epidemic that led to a war." He indicated the large plaques, then put his hands in his pockets, looking somberly at the wall, which was starkly dark against the blinding white sand. "I think it's a memorial. Each of the smaller plaques has a name."

Jack stood in silence for a moment, until Sam and Teal'c jogged up. "The UAV's up, sir," she said shielding her eyes with one hand. "I've set it to follow this wall, see how far it does. SG-7 followed it for..."

"A week. I know," Jack answered irritably. "Can we go now? We're due for downtime, and I'd rather not have to set up camp in a giant Zen garden." Daniel nodded, understanding Jack's unease. Now that he knew, or at least suspected, the purpose of the wall, the empty silence of the desert was unsettling. Not even wind relieved the utter silence, nor had it ever done so. The sand stretched out in all directions, as flat as still water. Not even air moved on this dead planet.

"Ops can monitor the UAV from home," Sam said, looking over her shoulder. Teal'c said nothing, but Daniel could tell by the ready way he carried his staff weapon that he too disliked this world.

"Good," said Jack with certainty. "Daniel, dial 'er up! There's a fishing hole and a beer back on Earth with my name on them."

Daniel dialed up the coordinates on the DHD, trying to decide if he had sufficient research to do as an excuse not to go fishing with Jack. Sam must have been thinking the same thing, because over the 'kawoosh' of the opening wormhole, he heard her say "I can't wait to get back to my naqueda generator."

As soon as they stepped through the Stargate, Daniel felt better.

"Sandy," remarked Jack to no one in particular with an expression of distaste. "Have fun watching it on the UAV channel. It's really off the wall." He unslung his P-90 and left the gate-room, whistling. "I'll see you later, kids. If you need me, too bad. There's no phone in my tackle-box!"

"Have a good trip, Jack," said Sam to Jack's fast-retreating back. An officer that Daniel didn't recognize got in Jack's way, and conferred with him for a moment before being waved in Daniel's direction. He came up to him, slightly nervous, and offered him a thin, slightly shaky hand. "I'm Captain-Doctor Reels. I've read all about you, Dr. Jackson, and I have a request for you. It seems that the NID is still active. One of the agents that you described in the affair with Teal'c's friend was also described two weeks ago, in a kidnapping situation in New York City. Sp- Someone found the victim this morning, alive. She speaks a language that nobody's been able to identify."

Curiosity aroused, Daniel followed the captain out of the Gate-room while Sam and Teal'c headed for the showers. "Do you have a recording? A transcript? Maybe I'll recognize it."

"No, I'm afraid not," said Reels, shaking his head. "Apparently, speech is difficult for her. She's said a few words, a dozen, maybe. She's quadriplegic, Dr. Jackson. She's been fitted with a tracheal tube. When they found her, she had some sort of apparatus implanted in her. According to the hospital that removed it, it's made of a metal they've never seen before. I'm asking you to go to New York and see if you recognize her language. If she's a security risk, we need you to bring her back here."

"Do you think she's from off-world?" Daniel asked. Reels shook his head.

"I don't know what to think, sir. Your plane leaves in half an hour, if you want to go."

"Yeah, of course," agreed Daniel instantly.

"You don't have time to stop at your house. Do you have the things you'll need here in the mountain?" Daniel nodded. "Good. Now, here's the number and address of the hospital. She's still in their ICU. but her injuries, while confusing, are mild."

"Wait, I thought she was paralyzed. How, exactly, does that fit in the 'mild' category?"

"That's not a recent injury. But apparently, the people who abducted her performed some sort of surgery. The doctor who's treating her is very interested to know what they found, and so am I. He faxed over her x-rays. Here, you can take them with you." He handed Daniel a yellow envelope. "You can look at them on the plane. There's not much time"

"All right, thank you," said Daniel, nodding. "What's the rush? Anything else?"

"Yes," said the captain-doctor, looking at the pale pink memo in his hand and chewing at his lip absently. "Apparently, the press has already marked her as unusual. A tabloid called the Daily Bugle sent some reporters and a photographer to see her early this afternoon. Her story will run in tomorrow's edition. If she is a security risk, I need you to find that out as quickly as possible."

Daniel sighed. "Well, that complicates things a little. Is it just me?"

"You were our first choice. We need someone who can talk his way out of anything, and who understands subtlety. That means you."

"Ah. I'll be going then, I guess." Casting a last, habitual look at the closed Stargate, Daniel strode out of the room. He jogged up three levels to his office, grabbing the duffle bag full of clothes that he kept stashed there for emergencies. He hesitated a moment, then packed a stack of reading material, his tape recorder, and a few select sources for any of a dozen languages before running out the door.

The plane was waiting for him when he reached the air-field, a comfortable, fast little plane with a crew of three and no passengers save him. Take-off was uneventful, and after double-checking to see that the steward wasn't in his part of the small cabin, he pulled out his 'reading material.' Comic books were Daniel's guilty pleasure. If Jack ever found out, he knew, he'd rib him mercilessly. Jack had never thought of Daniel as an adult to begin with. But Daniel had never been convinced that comic books should be reserved for children. He saw comics, when he really thought about them, as an older, purer form of story-telling, closer to culture's verbal roots. Pictures and words, enough details to evoke images of intense, important action and emotion, but sparse enough to allow the imagination to evoke its own responses: heroism, nobility, awe. Too well did Daniel know that there were real heroes in this world, but they were infrequent and all but invisible. Comic books, and the mythic truths that lay behind them, were important.

And then there were the rumours that belonged in comic books, but weren't. Daniel, scholar (geek) that he was, knew the rumours. He knew that at least some of them were true. A man did fly around New York City on webs. A school north of Albany did train an army of children. A man in his first psychology class had been able to 'see,' even with blind eyes, and he could... Well, Daniel was no hero. He was just... a good man. Good at what he did, good at what he had to do. Good with languages. There was nothing special about that. And in outer space, Daniel knew that an entire race of creatures knew only hate, and greed, and revenge. What were heroes to that? A few special men and women with unusual (freakish) abilities here on this small planet. Abilities to heal oneself, to breath underwater, to understand any language, what good were these against an entire race of super-villains? Was it even right for these heroes (freaks!) to save (serve) mankind? Daniel was flying to a state where only a year ago, a dozen children (mutants!) were crucified by the race they didn't even know they had to save. What if they knew everything? No, there is nothing to find out. Not about Daniel. Nothing at all that the important people don't already know. He can't turn invisible or shoot laser beams out of his eyes. He's not bright red with a stone hand or blue with a prehensile tail.

Yet, whispered a younger part of Daniel's mind as he tried to pretend that comics were only stories. Yet you hide. You hid in school behind big glasses and books that you'd already read and teachers whose subjects you'd already learned. You never took an IQ test, never took your SATs. You hide in a mountain with an alien and all the books you've ever read and a man who doesn't believe in mutants.

You hide from already knowing what they're trying to teach you. From already knowing what's written on the next, unturned page. And now you hide from two cancelled death certificates, a wake, and no grave. When the public hunted mutants in the cities, you convinced Jack to let you off-world and you convinced yourself that it was for the rocks. He set down the comic book and buried his head in his hands. The voice did not relent. You haven't been back to New York since you found out. There was nothing to find out. Of course not.

Daniel drifted off to sleep somewhere over the Midwest, dozing restlessly from dream to dream. When turbulence woke him up over New Jersey, all he could remember was a vague sense of words and letters with no meaning. He was clammy with chill sweat and a headache pounded behind his brows. He forced himself to look at General Hammond's file on the girl, but most of the medical details meant nothing to him. They would if you'd let them.

By the time the plane landed, Daniel had stuffed his irrational fears back into their rational boxes. The comic books were just stories once again, and New York's biggest problem with a gap in its skyline and a girl in one of its hospitals. As he disembarked, a black car was waiting for him. The driver was a silent, black-suited type and he took him straight to his hotel without a single word exchanged. Daniel checked in at the front desk, but did not go up to his room. Instead, he shouldered his bag and headed out into the city, choosing to reach the hospital on foot.

His hotel was in a good part of town, but as he headed east, the buildings got shabbier, the alleys darker. Daniel almost laughed when three young men came out of a stoop and started to tail him, not even trying to be subtle about it. Seven years ago, before Jack and the Stargate and Abydos, Daniel would have been ideal prey for these hoods; absent-minded and physically inept. But this Daniel had been through Unas, Goa'uld, and Jack's courses in unarmed combat. Pausing to look at an unappetizing display in a deli window, he covertly examined his would-be muggers.

He didn't like what he saw. Of the three kids, two of them were bigger than he was and all three were built like Jaffa. The smallest one, who trailed a little behind his cohorts, was smiling predatorily and playing with a butterfly knife, flipping it open and shut. Daniel knew he couldn't take all three of them with that knife in the nix. He walked faster. Ahead of him he could see the bustle of a main street. Too well did he know that the best way to win was to deny the battle. The muggers probably wouldn't attack him in front of a hotdog vender and a crowd of tourists.

Behind him, the boys began to hoot and threaten even as their footsteps broke into a run. He ran too, hoping to outrun them, but then another pair of thugs stepped out of an alley ahead of him. He ran straight into them and strong arms grabbed his, spinning him around to face the followers. "Where you goin' so fast?" growled the knife-wielder. "Eh, army man?"

Daniel cursed himself for not changing after the mission to P4X-728, then brought his heel down viciously on the instep of the nearest goon. One arm thus freed, he slammed an elbow into his other captor's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and doubling him over.

He was off to a good start, but five against one were impossible odds. The biggest of the gang threw a punch that glanced off his temple, leaving ringing lights in its wake. He stumbled back, pushing the bag at them. "Take it, it's nothing. I don't have a wallet."

"Yeah, sure ya don't, soldier," jeered a thug. Another punch flew, and another, driving Daniel against a wall. His head bounced off the bricks, and the knife man grabbed his throat, forcing his head up while the thugs pinned his arms. He struggled futilely, but then cold steel pricked his throat and he stilled. One of them fumbled through his pockets, but he'd been half-honest. He never took a wallet off-world. It was in his bag, in the pocket of his spare jeans.

Before he could do anything more in his own defense, the knife man disappeared in a streak of blue and red. Before the other four registered this, they were gone too, yanked upwards by a fine grey net. So freed, Daniel looked up and caught a glimpse of his rescuer, a slim, costumed form on the wall, with opaque silver eyes and a quizzical tilt to his head. The hero waved jauntily down at him, tossing him his duffle bag and securing the thugs to the underside of the fire escape with some sort of webbing. "It looked like you had everything under control, buddy," he quipped, dropping to perch on a trashcan, all knees and elbows and angles. "But everyone can use a helping hand, right?"

Daniel picked up his bag and re-shouldered it, brushing a drop of blood from the underside of his jaw. "Thanks," he said stiffly. "But I was all right."

"Hey, hey," said the vigilante, raising his hands. "No need to be a martyr. I'm a good guy. Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." With a leap and an out-flung arm, the hero ran up the nearest wall and disappeared onto the building's roof, leaving behind a conflicted Daniel Jackson and five trussed street kids.

Rubbing at his nicked jaw, Daniel reached the main street and found a police man. Once told the story, the cop laughed easily.

"About ten minutes, you say? Well then, we'll come along and pick them up in about half an hour." When Daniel looked puzzled about the delay, he laughed again and explained. "When Spidey webs a guy up, he ain't going nowhere. And I mean nowhere. That goop of his is damn hard to get through. Worse'n super glue. But it'll dissolve eventually, and that's when we'll pick those thugs up and run 'em in."

Daniel declined to come down to the station, deciding instead to continue towards his original destination. He walked with a native's familiarity now, on streets that he knew, avoiding the dark by-ways and alleys. He kept his eyes on his feet to avoid seeing the sights of this city, the architecture that had so delighted his mother and the press of humanity that had engaged his father, only glancing up to avoid being trampled into that architecture by that press. Eventually, a vague awareness of a red light and a roar of traffic stopped him at a street corner. Resolutely abandoning his melancholy thoughts, he looked around and jumped in surprise.

Standing next to him and looking very much as though he wished that his suit had pockets stood Spider-Man. Not looking left or right, just gazing at the cross-walk light with a forced air of nonchalance, tapping a toe lightly in impatience. He turned to Daniel, raising a hand in recognition. "I hate these wide streets. I can't just jump over." He held out his hands, palm up, and shrugged self-consciously. "Ran out of web after tying your friends up." He flexed his wrists. "Did you tell the boys in blue where I left them?"

"Yes," said Daniel. "Are you, are you following me?"

"Me?" said Spider-Man, his hand to his chest in mock indignation. "Not at all, pal. I'm just on my way to visit a friend." Then the light changed and he was away, sprinting across the street and scaling a supermarket. At a more pedestrian pace, Daniel followed. He bought a pomegranate at the market and ate it as he walked, licking the thin juice off his fingers, wrapping the seeds in a handkerchief and pocketing them. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at Mercy Hospital and checked in at the front desk. A shallow-looking young woman sat there, smiling vapidly up at him.

"Dr. Jackson?" she said redundantly when he told her his name and why he was there. "And you're here to visit one of our Jane Does? Do you know which one?" She blew a pink bubble, her fingers poised above her keyboard. Daniel checked the folder from his bag.

"Er, she was admitted to the ER about eight this morning, the quadriplegic kidnapping victim?"

"Oh, you mean April!" exclaimed the girl, popping her bubble neatly.

"She's been identified?" Daniel asked, surprised.

"No, sorry. We just call her April 'cause she was our fourth Jane Doe today. January, February, March, April, get it?" She pulled up a file on her screen, still popping her gum and talking. "Now she's a weird one, you know. Most of our Does are drunk or dead, not paralyzed. Okay, here she is. And you're expected, so I can let you up even though visiting hours are over. She's in room L19, up in the new Osborn Wing." She gave him directions and he took the elevator up twelve floors to the private room where "April" had been moved only an hour ago.

An airman at her door stopped him and asked for an ID. As Daniel fished it out of his bag, he glanced down the hall, where a middle-aged woman sat in a small waiting area, watching him avidly and talking very fast into a small recorder. "Who's she?" he asked, indicating the woman with a jerk of his head. The airman rolled his eyes expressionlessly and handed back his military ID.

"That's Jessica Jordan, sir. A reporter for the Daily Bugle. She's been here all day, hoping for a glimpse of something unusual. The doctor should be back any minute, sir."

"Ah, thank you, but I'm not a 'sir.' Don't let the uniform fool you. I'm just a civilian consultant." Nodding, the airman stepped aside and Daniel entered the girl's room. It was a nice room, brightly lit by large windows with a panoramic view of the city, but the girl in the bed didn't seem to be able to appreciate it. She was laying back, staring at the ceiling. Her face looked pale and bruised above the tangle of tubes and wires that covered her chest. His movement must have caught her eye, for suddenly her gaze shifted to meet his. Her eyes were an indeterminate shade of grey, made even more colorless by the amber length of her hair.

"Er, hello," he said, stepping to the other side of the hospital bed. "My name is Daniel Jackson. Do you understand me?"

No response. She just kept looking at him, then her eyes shifted to a point behind him, out the window. Her face broke into a huge, shining grin. Perforce, Daniel turned around to look and found himself, for the third time in an hour, face to face with blank white eyes set into a red mask. "Now who's following who?" quipped Spider-Man as he jumped from the windowsill onto the room's ceiling. He held up a finger to his mask when Daniel opened his mouth to call for the guard. "Ah, ah, ah," he admonished quietly. "Four's a crowd. I'm just here to visit my friend." He perched in an upside down crouch above the bed and waved to its occupant. "How're you doing, girl? They changed your room. I would have been back sooner, but it took me a minute to find you all the way up here."

Daniel scowled faintly at the masked man, still undecided about whether to call the guard. But the girl was beaming, obviously delighted to see the bug. Then she opened her mouth and let loose a halting string of syllables. Daniel froze with recognition even as Spider-Man cocked his head uncomprehendingly. The girl was speaking Asgard. It was a language that Daniel had rarely heard; only in the history tapes that Thor had given him. His species must speak it among themselves, but Thor, Loki and the other little grey men that Daniel had met only spoke English to their visitors. But he had heard it, he knew it, and now he was hearing it from the lips of an adolescent, quadriplegic human girl, being spoken to a humanoid with the abilities, tendencies, and for all Daniel knew, proclivities of a spider. Just when he thought his job couldn't get any weirder. Tentatively, he spoke up in kind, fumbling in his bag for his notes recorder. Hello.

The girl's eyes snapped back to him, widening in shock. Hello, Daniel repeated, drawing closer. My name is Daniel Jackson. What's yours?

Asa, she said simply, watching him with curiosity. You understand me?

A little, Daniel demurred, smiling with the satisfaction of translation. Can you tell me where you learned this language?

Her brow furrowed. From Father. Where else does a child learn to speak?

Where else indeed? Who is 'Father'?

Father is Father. My Father.

Patiently, Daniel tried to persist, but he was interrupted by the doctor's arrival. When he saw Spider-Man, still on the ceiling, the man yelled for the guard and the hero flipped out the open window, clinging to the glass by his gloved fingertips. "I was leaving anyway. These two conversationalists were making me feel left out." Tossing off an irreverent salute, he scuttled away, scrambling down the sheer glass wall and out of sight. The guard muttered into the radio on his collar and the doctor came over to stand at Daniel's side, checking the readings on the bank of monitors above Asa's bed.

"He was just talking to her," Daniel said, staying out of the way. "She seemed really happy to see him."

"He's been hanging around, if you'll forgive the pun, ever since he brought her in this morning. This is at least the third time he's been to see her. We keep moving her room, but all our rooms have windows, and she gets pretty upset if we close them. I've told the guy he's not welcome here, but he pays no attention. I don't know why the city allows freaks like him such free reign." The doctor looked at Daniel for the first time. "Or the military, for that matter. You must be Dr. Jackson." He offered a dry, papery hand. "I'm Dr. Mitler. I take it you've seen April's file?"

"Asa," Daniel interrupted. "Her name is Asa. She told me."

"Oh good. You understand her. We've gone through all of our interpreters and none of them even recognized the language. It's really a first, for the military to get involved in a Doe case like this. So, what is the language?"

"It's an, um, obscure European sub-dialect," said Daniel. It wasn't exactly a lie. The Asgard language was at the root of a great many European languages, including English. Probably. "Can I have a few more minutes to talk to her?"

"Take all the time you want. I'll be doing my rounds on this floor if you need me. I would be grateful if you could get some contact info out of her. You know, anyone we can call to come pick her up." He jotted a few notes on a page by the door and left, closing the door behind him. Daniel turned back to Asa.

Did you understand any of what I said to that man? he asked, gesturing past the door. Or is this your only language?

My sister speaks your language, she said brightly, if unhelpfully. But I don't. Not yet. I will learn, Father says, but I haven't. She made the facial equivalent of a shrug. My sister's good at languages, not me.

Who is your sister? Daniel asked. We could find her, and then you wouldn't be alone here.

Asa is my sister, she said matter-of-factly. I would like her to come back.

She has the same name as you?

Sometimes, she said with another facial shrug. But sometimes she says her name is My-ya. She stumbled over the awkward, un-Asgardian pronunciation. My-ya Tom-pson. She said that when she was mad at Father.

"Mia Thompson," Daniel repeated, writing it down on a slip of paper from his pocket. Is she your older sister, or your younger sister?

She is my sister sister. We are the same. But I am . . . newer.

Daniel puzzled over her word choice. Newer? You mean, you are younger than Asa? Mia?

Asa bit her lip with small, white teeth. Daniel noticed peripherally that they were baby teeth, even though she looked like a young woman in her mid-teens. Father found her first, and then made me to match. But I don't match very well. Asa is not still like I am. She can walk and breath and function the way she should. She is not broken. She frowned thoughtfully. That's why Father sent us away. Because I am broken.

Daniel thought he knew what the situation was. Asa, did your father look like you? Like the other people you've seen around here?

No, she said, as if it were an obvious fact. He isn't like anyone else. He's small, and his eyes are like Enta's, but black, not white. Bigger than yours.

So he's an Asgard! Daniel exclaimed triumphantly. He was startled when she paled and bit her lip again.

I'm not supposed to say that word. That's Father's secret. I couldn't even tell Asa.

Daniel hastened to reassure her. No, don't worry about it. I won't tell anyone. His thoughts were racing. If Asa's Father was an Asgard, and he made her to 'match' this Mia Thompson, than she was a clone. A badly botched clone, and not the first botched clone that Daniel had met. There was Jonathon, Jack's teenaged clone, made by the renegade Asgard Loki. But Loki had been arrested by the other Asgard years ago. How long ago did Father send you and Mia away?

Asa rolled her eyes up and ran her tongue around the inside of her teeth, obviously counting. Five, I think. Five years. He left us in a field in Min-ne-sotah. Asa brought me here on the way to Ex-a-Vee-yair's school, but then she left me and Enta found me.

Enta? The Asgard word was unfamiliar to Daniel. It doesn't have to be.

That's what I call him. He crawls and makes webs like the entas on Father's ship. Asa called them Spye-ters.

"Spiders," said Daniel, cooling. Right. His name is Spider-Man. But where did Mia go?

I don't know, she whispered, her eyelids drooping. She took me away from the Ehn-Eye-Dee and then she put me somewhere where she said I'd be safe, and she said she was going to find someone to help her, but she never came back, and then Enta came and brought me here.

"Hey, Dr. Jackson?" Daniel jumped at the doctor's voice from the door, which he hadn't heard open. "Did you find out anything?"

"Just a second, please." Daniel turned back to Asa. I'm going to leave now, and let you get some sleep, but I promise I'll be back, and I'm going to take you somewhere safe.

Will you find Asa? Asa asked, her eyelids losing the battle with gravity.

I'll try, Daniel promised. He stepped around the bed and followed Dr. Mitler out into the hall, shutting the door quietly behind him. I'll need... He paused, closed his eyes, and shook English back onto his tongue like a coat. "I'll need to take her with me back to my base hospital. When can she be moved?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest," said the doctor confidently. "She's been through a lot."

"That's an understatement," agreed Daniel. "Alright. I'll make arrangements, tell the police what I've found out, and I'll be back around two tomorrow afternoon."

(In case this was confusing, inside the brackets is when Daniel and Asa are speaking Asgard to one another. My overall knowledge of the latest 2 seasons of SG1 is very imperfect, so please don't try to poke too many holes in it. That said, constructive reviews are always appreciated. After this, I don't think that the chapters will be so rigidly separated between Peter and Daniel.)