Forged Steel
Part Two
Jack's patience was wearing thin. Carter and Teal'c had been gone for nearly two hours checking out the site with the pyramids and the ruins, while he was left keeping an eye on their team-mate and his new friend.
This was all very well, except that Jack was bored. Daniel had been translating the old man's words at first, but as time went on and the speeches grew longer, the linguist ceased to explain, instead choosing to make his own replies to the guy.
In spite of repeated inquiries the old man hadn't seemed to understand Daniel's requests for his name, instead rambling off on other topics as Jack and Daniel exchanged looks of exasperation and resignation.
Privately, Jack was calling him 'the crazy old guy'.
"Well?" Jack demanded after another fluent exchange in Abydonian was completed. They'd been through the basics of the SGC meet-and-greet-101 'Who are you? What are you doing here? Where are your people?' and given him the stock-standard, 'We're peaceful explorers from a planet called Earth...' introduction.
"Um..." Daniel glanced up sheepishly. "Well, I was asking him about Abydos – it seems he hasn't lived there for many years now – although he drops in from time to time. I asked about his family there and he...uh...was telling me about his grandkids."
Old people the world over. Give them a chance to talk about anything and it was kids or grandkids. Jack grimaced, feeling a twinge of the familiar guilt and regret. Grandkids were one more thing Jack O'Neill would go without in the grand scheme of things. "I thought the Abydonians didn't go through the gate while Ra ruled."
Turning to the old man, Daniel spoke in Abydonian, his tongue moving smoothly over the inflections while the old man looked from him to Jack. Then the old man gabbled something, grinning as he indicated Jack. Daniel glanced at his friend, almost embarrassed and replied back.
The old guy chuckled.
"Daniel?"
"Uh... It doesn't translate."
"Sure it doesn't. Translate it for me anyway."
"He...um...said you were very edgy for someone who's done so much."
"And that doesn't translate?"
Daniel took a deep breath. "Well, the actual comparison he used was...'you were like a yagesh with no temma.'"
Daniel was doing it deliberately. Jack just knew he was. "And a yagesh with no temma, means...?"
"It doesn't translate."
All right then. Daniel wasn't going to tell him. Fine. He'd just ask Teal'c later on. The big guy would tell him.
"So what's the deal with going through the gate?" Jack turned the conversation back to the original question he'd asked. "Kasuf said nobody but the gods went through the Stargate."
"Some people did. Most never returned – they probably couldn't find the co-ordinates for Abydos so they could return."
"Or they got captured and killed by someone on the other side."
"Or that. This man, the Returned One..."
"'The Returned One'?"
"Jack do you want to hear this or not?"
"Okay, okay!"
"The Returned One is a legend among the Abydonians of Kasuf's village. He's the only man in living memory to leave Abydos through the Stargate and come back. His family thought he was a little...touched when he returned, but apart from that..."
In other words, he really is a crazy old guy. Jack decided against saying the words out loud as the old man bobbed his head up and down and jumped off the stone. Then he lifted his face up to the sky, holding himself still as if listening for something. Jack and Daniel both looked up with a sense of dread. This would be just the time to discover a mothership coming to land.
No sound.
Jack clicked his radio, "Carter?"
A moment later, the radio crackled noisily. "Sir? Is everything okay?"
He looked over at Daniel, who shrugged and just said, "Yeah, it's peachy around...here..." He trailed off, staring at the crazy old guy.
The 'Returned One', legend of Abydos, was holding his arms out from his body and doing 'airplanes' in the scrubby grass.
Carter's anxious voice buzzed from the radio. "Colonel?"
"Yeah, Carter. We're fine. Our new friend is just..." Jack tried to find a suitable word to describe the old man's childish behaviour and came up blank. "Everything's fine."
"Teal'c is taking a look at the vegetation on the pyramids, sir. It doesn't look like the Goa'uld have been here in centuries."
"O'Neill," Teal'c's calm, measured voice emerged from the radio. "Inform Daniel Jackson that the carvings on the temples are indeed similar to those he showed me in his office."
Jack glanced over at Daniel who shrugged, "Guess I'll be sending back for Dr. Vijaya's diary after all."
The sound of distant thunder made them both look up at the still, clear sky. Alarms began sounding in Jack's mind. He thumbed the radio on, "Carter, Teal'c, report!"
It took a moment for them to respond and when they did, Jack's blood chilled, "Sir, we've got an incoming alkesh."
"Get back to the gate now! We'll hold position – they can't know we're here."
"Copy that, sir." The contact ended and Jack turned to peer into the forest where his team-mates had last been seen several hours ago. It would take them at least fifteen to twenty minutes at a dead run to make it back to the gate. In the meantime, he and Daniel would have to hold the gate – with their unexpected guest.
The suspicious bastard in Jack suddenly started yelling for all he was worth.
If the Goa'uld hadn't been here in centuries, why would they suddenly turn up – within a couple of hours of SG-1's arrival on the planet?
He glanced over at the crazy old man, still doing airplanes in the grass. Call him suspicious and paranoid – and there was no doubt Daniel would do so later – but it wouldn't surprise him one bit if this had all been a trap – with the old guy as the bait.
"He's not a traitor, Jack." Jack hid a grimace, Daniel knew him way too well. Which meant he shouldn't be surprised at Jack's refusal to look at this as a coincidence.
"Daniel..."
The younger man held his gaze. "I didn't tell you the rest of the story – he kept telling the Abydonians that Ra was no god – told them that there were other creatures out there who also pretended to be gods. The Abydonians wanted to believe him, but Ra heard about the insurrection San y'kel – the Returned One – was trying to start and his men tried to hunt him down. He vanished into the desert some twenty years ago and hasn't been seen since."
"How do you know he's not an impostor or that the Goa'uld haven't gotten to him first? Brainwashed him or something? It can't be a coincidence that they haven't been here for hundreds of years and then turn up within moments of our arrival." Jack gestured at the old man who had stopped playing around and was watching them with his head slightly tilted to one side. "Remember what Nirrti did with Cassie the first time we went to Hanka? She was a walking bomb designed to take us in."
"Jack, I don't know how I know – I just do!" Daniel indicated the old guy. "He's like us, Jack. Wanted by the Goa'uld for defying them, if nothing else. Despite his rebellion against Ra, he was one of their own and most Abydonians didn't want to hand him over to Ra. He must have come through the gate and been hunted by the Goa'uld all these years."
"Why would they hunt one crazy old man?"
"Because he fit into the Abydonian society and sowed doubt there – the doubt that you and I later worked upon when showing the Abydonians Ra was an alien impostor. He's been travelling from world to world developing the belief in the locals that the Goa'uld aren't gods. He can do it, because he's just a 'harmless old man'."
Jack looked into the intense blue gaze of his friend, then over at the old man who had stopped his games and was watching Jack back. He jabbered something at Daniel who replied back. The old man grinned and started waving his hands about and making gestures.
With Daniel standing there glaring at him, he didn't have a lot of choice about sending the old guy through. Besides, Jack had seen enough killing in his time to be reluctant to end an old guy's life in the possibility the man might have betrayed them. "Okay, I'm sending you and the old guy back through the gate with the supplies. I'll wait for Carter and Teal'c to get back and we'll head through together."
Naturally, Daniel didn't look happy about that either. "We can send him back alone..."
"Daniel, who else on the base speaks Abydonian?"
It should have been a rhetorical question. Of course, Daniel had an answer, "Ferretti."
"Ferretti's not fluent – and SG-2 was due out an hour ago. I'm sending you back with the old guy, the supplies and the MALP. We'll follow shortly. Don't argue with me, Dr. Jackson – dial the gate!" With an incoming alkesh, the last thing he needed was one more team-member to worry about. And that wasn't even including the possible liability the old man could be.
He wanted to go back through the wormhole with Daniel and the old guy – just to keep an eye on the old man. The appearance of the alkesh was too timely to be coincidental, or so said the tactician in him. But on the other side of the wormhole was Hammond and a whole heap of SF's. Even if Daniel couldn't or wouldn't protect himself from whatever threat the old man represented, there would a whole lot more people than just Jack to do the job.
Daniel had punched in the co-ordinates for Earth and the gate opened.
"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf One-Niner."
"This is Sierra Golf Charlie, go ahead Sierra Golf One-Niner."
"We've got an incoming alkesh, sir, may or may not be related to our...um...guest here. At any rate, I'm sending him and Daniel through the gate with the supplies. Carter and Teal'c are on their way from the site – ETA ten minutes. I'll be holding the gate for them. Take the old guy and get Fraiser to check him out. And I recommend we don't leave him unattended."
"Recommendation noted, Colonel. Do you want reinforcements?"
"Negative. I've got the missile launcher if things get bad. There's no point in sending more people through – we'll be back before dinner. Promise. Sierra Golf One-Niner out."
Daniel was already moving the FRED through as the old man jabbered at him. Then the old man fell silent as the whine of a glider sounded overhead. Jack decided he'd better contact Carter and Teal'c again just to make sure. They hadn't heard any glider-fire, but there was no way to tell... "Guys?"
"Halfway there, sir."
"We do not yet appear to be spotted, O'Neill."
"Right, try to keep it that way. I'll be waiting for you at the gate."
"Sir..."
Jack repeated his words, more slowly and with distinct emphasis. "I will be waiting for you at the gate when you get here."
"Yes, sir." Carter sounded resigned as the radio clicked off and Jack went up the stairs to help move the FRED through.
"Take him through post-gate and have an SF posted on him at all times."
"Jack, he's not dangerous..."
"That alkesh came from somewhere. They knew we were here. Maybe he isn't dangerous and maybe he is. If he's not, no harm done; if he is, we've done our job." Daniel opened his mouth and Jack help up one hand. "Daniel, just go."
"Going!" Daniel turned on his heel, gesturing to the open wormhole with one hand as he looked at the old man and said something in Abydonian.
The crazy old guy muttered something and , from the corner of his eye, Jack saw Daniel turn to look at him, before replying in a resigned tone of voice. The old man snorted something, then tottered up the stairs to the open wormhole and stepped through the event horizon like he was taking a stroll. Daniel met Jack's gaze for a moment, his mouth set in mutinous disagreement, before stepping through with the usual glop.
Jack sighed and turned back, peering through the forest, looking for his team-mates as the wormhole disengaged.
He hoped they were okay.
He hoped Daniel and the crazy old guy were okay.
Damn, he hoped he'd made the right decision.
----
Jack looked through the door of Daniel's office. "Daniel, Hammond's cleared us to go to Abydos."
Daniel leapt to his feet. San y'kel looked up from the book he was poring through, the bright eyes blinking as he regarded Daniel.
"You are leaving?"
Hoping the old man didn't see his eagerness to part company with him, Daniel searched for a suitably diplomatic answer, "Uh, yes. We are going to Abydos to see if my father-by-law's people will take you in."
The old man snorted, "Why should they? I am but a crazy elder, touched by the sun." The gestures of his hands made the signs that indicated madness in Abydonian. He looked around the room, "Can I not remain here? You have many interesting writings that I wish to explore."
Daniel managed to hide a grimace. Since Janet had cleared him, the old man had been 'assigned' to the company of Daniel with an SF to be silently present at all times. It had been all very well for the first hour, but in the confines of Daniel's office, the old man had begun to poke around.
Books had been pulled from the shelves and their contents riffled through before bits of paper were stuck between the pages. The conversation had been more circuitous than just about any conversation Daniel had ever had with anyone – with the exception of the monk they'd met on Kheb, or perhaps the harcesis child Shifu. Any questions Daniel asked were neatly shunted aside by mysterious answers, or further questions.
"These books are written in the language of my people. You would not understand them."
"You could explain them to me."
"Well, you see...I have duties that also require me to be elsewhere..." Daniel didn't really want to say that the old man was frustrating to be around. There was so much that the old man had seen and witnessed, but years of being hunted by the Goa'uld seemed to have made him very close-mouthed about his experiences. Yet San y'kel had managed to avoid the questions Daniel wished him to answer most without seeming at all cagey.
"Ah," thin lips pursed together, "duty is a difficult mistress to serve, Daniel Jackson."
"Daniel?" Jack was impatient to get going. "Are we getting a move on? SG-13 is due to report back in an hour and we don't want to mess up Davis' schedule by forcing them to report late..."
He nodded at Jack and turned back to the old man. "I will leave you with my friend, Sam. She will not understand what you say, but she can...uh...show you some things." He'd been about to say 'keep an eye on you' before deciding that would be too unsubtle. "My friend and I will not be away very long."
Another slip of paper was popped between the pages of a book and the book dumped on the pile of others on the desk through which the old man had fingered. It was a very large pile. "You will take me to your friend?"
"Yes. If you will follow me..."
"Daniel?"
He turned to Jack, "I'm going to leave him with Sam. I'll meet you in the gateroom in fifteen. Is that soon enough?"
Jack shrugged. "You know, if he breaks any of Carter's experiments she'll kill him."
"Given the number of times you've upset something she's been working on, I'm surprised you're not dead at least a dozen times over."
"Hey, it's my natural charm."
Daniel snorted.
"It is!"
End of Part Two