Need more info on this story? In that case, look at the first chapter.
A path is found to a new beginning.
Authors note: In case I haven't said it already, many apologies for the delay with my stories.
Chapter Three: Diverging Paths
Sam.
She struggled against the binds of unconsciousness. Thick, heavy strands of exhaustion bore her down like lead weights. The voice, nagging her with her own name, didn't help matters any.
Sam!
It was now accompanied by a pounding noise, flesh on metal. It sounded familiar.
Sam, c'mon, open up.
Open up? Well, it would be a start. Let's go with the eyes for now.
Cautiously, she opened one eye, a little surprised at the low light level in her lab. Everything was so dark and still. It was utterly unlike where she had just been...a thought which dissapated the instant it occured, taking with it a memory of a place of such unearthly peace and beauty that she felt hollow for a moment at not remembering it...whatever IT was.
"Sam, it's me, Daniel."
She opened her other eye and stared at her door. Of course, how could she not recognize Daniels voice, even whilst half-asleep? Turning on her back, she swung both feet over her bunk and got up. The distance to the door was covered in five long strides, where she wrenched open the heavy steel door, revealing Daniel Jackson in mid about-to-knock stance. "WHAT?"
The archaeologist recoiled a little at the volume of her voice; the tone probably helped there, too. She instantly regretted her harshness; it was hard to get angry, and stay that way, at this man. "Sorry, it's just...I haven't been sleeping well lately."
To Jackson's credit, he was quick to recover. "It's okay, I was just wondering where you were and if you were all right. With a yell like that, it'd be hard to think not."
Sam Carter groaned, rubbing her forehead. "Daniel, I really don't need another dose of heavy sarcasm and flippant boyish meddling right now, okay?"
"All right but, in that case, you might want to skip the briefing entirely. Jack will undoubtably say things if you're fifteen minutes late without a better excuse than you 'were tired.'"
Sams head snapped up like a rubber band. "Briefing?" Not bothering to wait for Daniels response, she hurried to her bunkside. The digitial clock there read 11:13. "Oh crap!" Every nerve and muscle fiber in her body quickly went into emergency meeting mobilization mode. She had never been late in her professional life, not once! Of all the times to start dozing on the job.
A wide-eyed Daniel took a cautious step into Major Carters lab, feeling like a possum in the middle of a six-lane highway. Sam was moving around so fast and so frenzied that it was hard to avoid her and stay on his feet at the same time. Fortuneately, years of bumbling around the galaxy had made him mostly immune to minor mishaps that situations like this might cause. Any third-party observers would think him an acrobat at the way he managed to dodge the blur of a blonde-haired scientists whizzing around the enclosed room. She gathered charts, file folders, some black blockish thing, her PDA, a laser pointer, and, last but not least, a notepad and stuck the numerous items in pockets and under her arms in an attempt carry them all at once. "Uh Sam, sure you don't want a hand with some of that stuff?"
"Nh, thth ohay Dnnl, ut tnks," Sam spoke through a mouth gripping her multi-chromatic pen that she had developed several weeks ago. Taking one last quick look at her lab, Sam nodded and raced out the door. Daniel, thrown for a moment, raced after her.
"Sam," Daniel called from behind her "you sure you're feeling okay? If not, there's nothing wrong with saying so and skipping the meeting altogether." She didn't listen and kept running. Inside her head, thoughts kept throwing themselves at her conscience. Late, late! How could she have let it happen? So much depended on her, and she let a little weariness overcome her? Way to go, Major, keep this up and maybe you'll let your guard down around the Goa'uld, killing SG-1. Then you'll have PLENTY of sleepy time, cause you'll be DEAD.
The corridors streaked by on her way to the elevator. It was only when she was within twenty feet of them that she realized it would take longer getting down to the 28th level by machine than on foot. With that in mind, she bypassed the metal doors and darted for the stairs. She vaguely registered the sound of Daniel colliding with someone behind her. Must have been Sgt. Siler; he shouldn't stand in the way of hurried scienitists like that.
Two minutes of frantic running, jumping, and dodging later, she emerged in the briefing room. Colonel O'Neill was making a paper football with a report of some sort, General Hammond was leafing through a folder, and Teal'c was staring intently into space. She knew that look; it was his 'I am waiting patiently for someone who does not have the decency to maintain a habit of strict punctuality' look. Great, now she was even starting to wear thin on Teal'c. Her disgust and revile for the new Carter jumped several notches.
General Hammond looked up as she skidded to a halt in the doorway. "Ah, Major, glad you could make it." 'Well, I KNEW he would be dissappointed in me. That doesn't hurt as much as it could, I guess.' "Have a seat." She nodded absent-mindedly, watched her immediate CO out of the corner of her eyes. When she reached her spot at the table, she let the items she was carrying flop to the hard wooden surface.
Sam had just managed to get her things in order when an out of breath and flustered Daniel stumbled into the room. "Sorry. I was...uh...got...lost." He glanced at her quickly. "Looking...for Sam, that is. I thought...she might have been in her lab, but she wasn't, so I looked in the commissary. Not there. So I asked around the scientists and, it turns out, she was tending to an emergency upstairs in-"
'God this is painful. I can't let him do this. My fault, I own up to it.' "I fell asleep sir. I wasn't here because I forgot to wake up in time for meeting." 'If I can't control anything else in my life, I can at least tell the truth'
Jack looked up from his paper football. "Carter? Asleep?" He turned to Hammond. "Sir, I recommend we write this down on the calendar as the FIRST ever day Major Carter actually took some time off because of pure exhaustion."
"Colonel," Hammond rumbled warningly.
"It'll be great, sir; a new holiday in the military. Carter day, celebrated by not showing up to work, sleeping in, and general absenteeism from boring meetings, paperwork, and such. Any seconds?" He raised his hand to indicate the method of supporting his idea.
No one else in the room even needed to look at the bases CO to know the proper response. No other hands were raised to accompany O'Neills. Hammond must have seen the look on her downcast face. "Colonel, open your mouth one more time without permission and there will be trouble." The colonel lowered his arm. "Right. Now that we're all here, let's get this meeting underway."
------------------------------------------
The meeting had been called in response to a report from the Tok'ra that Anubis' super soldiers were beginning to see action across the galaxy in large numbers, wreaking havoc among the Goa'uld. The Tok'ra, as such, had lost several operatives in high-ranking positions to lesser Goa'uld system lords. It was the forgone conclusion that, coupled with his massive armada, these creatures would give Anubis all the brute force he needed to overwhelm any opposition to his conquest of Earth. Unless they found the Lost City, and soon, the Tau'ri would be no more.
Since it seemed that their current method of testing gate addresses wasn't turning up anything very close to the Ancients stronghold of advanced technology that could be the salvation of Earth, General Hammond had ordered each of the members of his premier team to come up with recommendations for a new direction to take their search. Teal'c had recommended forging several exploratory teams of rebel Jaffa. It would give them the extra eyes and ears they may need to pick up a clue as to the Lost City's whereabouts. Colonel O'Neill had thought that a visit to the former Tollan homeworld may provide a few high-tech gadgets that could be used in the defence of Earth. Since it had been nearly two years since Anubis' forces, led by Tanith, had ravaged the peaceful civilizations new home, perhaps, he proposed, there was some possiblity that a small expedition could explore what was undoubtably now a planet of ruins and salvage some technological miracle that would neutralize Anubis' advantage over them.
Then there was Daniel. If it wasn't for the fact that most everyone in the room loved the man like a brother (or, in General Hammond's case, a son), he'd have been killed several times over by now. He had been up before them lecturing on the possibilities of the Lost City's location for well over ninety minutes. He'd started by going over the few facts they'd learned about the Lost City and branched out to a number of ideas he thought might help everyone else think of ways to shorten their search. After that, he'd gone into possibilities HE had considered for the city. Each possible location was listed, of course, with a list of the criteria that seemed to support the idea that the Ancients bastion of tecnnological power might reside there. This had constituted the bulk of his time before them.
As boring as the meeting was, Sam had retreated into her thoughts. It wasn't that the subject matter they were covering wasn't interesting, it was just that she simply wasn't interested in it. It was a rather hard distinction to make, especially if you were like her and interested in practically everything.
As it was, though, nothing could drag her thoughts out of the mud at this point. 'First I let myself go to pieces for weeks over what Grace did to me without even putting two and two together to see it was her. Then I completely blow up in my superior officers face; he's right to draw out his decision on how to punish me for that, make me suffer. Finally, the icing on the cake, I'm late for a vitally important meeting which may very well determine the fate of both the planet and humanity combined. God, how far I've fallen.' What made the situation even worse was the feeling that, despite the amount of thought she had put into the matter, there was something with the whole Grace situation she was missing. A piece of the puzzle was loose, so small against the backdrop as to be indistinugishable, yet, and she knew this in her very core to be the absolute truth, more important than she could possibly imagine.
A light thud from across the table caught her attention. O'Neills head had landed on the table on top of his crossed arms in front of him.
"Colonel!" Came the accusatory remark from the General.
"Sorry sir," her COs voice was rather muffled coming through his arms and the table. "I think I need to go to the infirmary." When the rest of the table had spent a few moments in shocked silence, he elaborated. "I think, with Daniels help, I've developed a mild case of narcolepsy."
"Jack, this material is important."
"All eight hours of it?"
"That's enough, Colonel." Sam tuned out the rest of the conversation; it didn't concern her. Besides, that important thing she knew was there but had forgotten was nagging at her again. Shaking her head slightly, she tried to focus on Daniels presentation. When that didn't work, she instead tried focusing on her own presentation materials. No luck; her mind was in the ionosphere and gravity wasnt't cooperating to bring it back down.
Slowly, she let out a long breath. Some scientist she was; all the evidence was in front of her and she couldn't remember some stupid little detail. Science was about logic and problem solving, yet here she was, unable to resolve the simple matter of remembering some...item or other that had previously occupied a great deal of her time. It should be as simple as finding thoughts that seemed associated with this nebulous item and tracking her thoughts throughout the recent past to see when she had dwelled on such things. That ALWAYS worked in the past, so why did it now yield zilch? It was like a gigantic, mile thick wall had been erected around the thought she needed, denying it to her. So far, the thing was totally impregnable.
Her head lolled a little, exhaustion and self-pity dragging down her spirits. Her right hand moved to prop up her head, turning her eyes towards the display screen. 'A sign, I need a sign. God, please, help me. Show me what I have to do.' She tried to keep her eyes open, to focus on something. Her gaze wandered the screen, looking for a suitable visual anchor, something for her mind to-
She froze. Every strand of her being was suddenly alight with anxiety, excitement, and a rising light of hope. Slowly, Sam rose to her feet, pushing her chair out behind her. As her feet carried her to the display board, her hand snatched a marker from the table. The bickering voices of her comrades was a faint drone in the distance, an unimportant detail in the vast scheme of things. Reaching the display screen, Sam took in the sight before her: a stellar carto-graphic map showed a planet in the inner Orion constellation, P5V-496. There was data displayed in small charts and graphs next to the rotating model of the planet, displaying atmosphere, geological, and biological reading of the surface, as well as marking the location of the stargate. What really caught her eye, though, was the gate address. It seemed...familiar, important, right...but not wholey so. Struggling with her memory, she traced her index finger over each symbol, digging in the recesses of her mind for some confirmation that she was on the right track.
At the briefing table, Teal'c, who had not participated in the bickering match in which Hammond, O'Neill, and Jackson were engaging, studied her moves carefully. Jack, turning to Teal'c for support in his argument, noticed his friends distracted look and followed his line of sight to the Major at the head of the room, doing something on the display screen. Hammond caught onto his 2ICs focus quickly. After noticing that Jack AND the general were both distracted, Daniel looked up to see Sam doing something to the display screen with a marker. "Uh, Sam?"
She paid him no heed. She couldn't, not if she wanted to get this all out for everyone to see. Her hand moved quickly for a few moments over several over the symbols. The entire room was dead quite except for the sound of black felt marker on plastic. Four pairs of eyes traced her every move, wondering what in the world she was doing.
Moments later, Sam paused, checking her work to see if it felt right. It did, all of it. A small smile began to tug at the sides of her mouth. Finally, she had it!
"Major?"
Hammonds deep voice shocked her out of her triumphant reverie. Spinning to face him, she replied, "Yes, sir?"
"What exactly are you doing?"
She paused. 'How best to put this? How do I make them understand? How can I get them to trust me on this when I can't think of a single reason they should?' Marshalling her courage, Sam replied, "I believe we should investigate this gate address sir."
More silence. Daniel broke it first. "Why?"
'Here goes...' "I believe, based on some information I got out of some...calculations...recently that this," she ran her fingers over the gate address, which now had four of its first six symbols x-ed out, new symbols below them, "may contain valuable secrets we could use in our fight against the Goa'uld." It wasn't a lie, technically; she DID think something vital to Earth's survival lay at this gate address. Her 'calculations' were namely the simple mental trial and error routine of finding the symbols that didn't seem to fit in Daniel's address and then finding the correct symbols to replace them. And the information was simply an overwhelming feeling that now soared through her mind, the psyhchic equivilant of 'Gotcha'
The colonel was the first to respond. "Space guns, maybe?"
Wondering silently if he ever thought about anything high-tech besides ways to blow something up, Sam decided to go for total honesty now. Something about the way her immediate CO was eyeing her made her suspect he saw through her little truth-bending just a moment ago. "Quite honestly, sir, I have no idea." She thought there was a sign of dissapointment in General Hammonds eyes. A remote memory flickered at the back of her consciousness. "All I know is that it referred to this place as a source of last hope, some sort of repository or something."
She was expecting the next question, but not from Teal'c. "Where did you find this information, Major Carter?"
"Daniel's artifcats," the reply leapt from her mouth before she had a chance to check it. 'Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.' "I crossreferenced some of the symbols on a number of artifacts Daniel asked for my help with and came up with this," she gestured behind her, taking the opportunity as all other eyes in the room glanced at the display screen to shoot Daniel a meaningful look. He seemed to understand. When General Hammond asked about this development a moment later, Daniel played along, saying it had seemed so insignificant as to be not worth mentioning, unless it turned out something of value.
A still, expectant silence descended on the briefing room once more, centered around the head of the SGC, awaiting his next command. Deep in contemplation, he appeared a statue, waiting out the slow march of time; after a moment, he spared her a glance, then let his gaze fall back to the table again. Sam held her breath, not daring to hope he would grant her permission to explore the address she had produced, for fear some nameless force would sense her desire and make Hammond say otherwise.
"Colonel," the general finally spoke, "do you have objections to testing Major Carters address before seeing if the Tollan home- world is still standing? Colonel!" Jack was making a paper airplane out of one of Daniels handouts. His head jerked up as the general yelled at him. "Any objections?"
No one missed the blank look of lostness on his face. "Uh...no?" He looked at Carter for a moment. "No, no sir," he answered, this time with a smile and much more confidence. Carter let out her breath in a silent sigh of relief.
"Very well then," Hammond went on. "Major, if you'll accompany me to the control room, we can get started." With that, the meeting ended and Sam followed her superior officer into the control room, followed by the rest of SG-1, all eager to see where their resident genius would lead them to next.
TBC
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A path is found to a new beginning.
Authors note: In case I haven't said it already, many apologies for the delay with my stories.
Chapter Three: Diverging Paths
Sam.
She struggled against the binds of unconsciousness. Thick, heavy strands of exhaustion bore her down like lead weights. The voice, nagging her with her own name, didn't help matters any.
Sam!
It was now accompanied by a pounding noise, flesh on metal. It sounded familiar.
Sam, c'mon, open up.
Open up? Well, it would be a start. Let's go with the eyes for now.
Cautiously, she opened one eye, a little surprised at the low light level in her lab. Everything was so dark and still. It was utterly unlike where she had just been...a thought which dissapated the instant it occured, taking with it a memory of a place of such unearthly peace and beauty that she felt hollow for a moment at not remembering it...whatever IT was.
"Sam, it's me, Daniel."
She opened her other eye and stared at her door. Of course, how could she not recognize Daniels voice, even whilst half-asleep? Turning on her back, she swung both feet over her bunk and got up. The distance to the door was covered in five long strides, where she wrenched open the heavy steel door, revealing Daniel Jackson in mid about-to-knock stance. "WHAT?"
The archaeologist recoiled a little at the volume of her voice; the tone probably helped there, too. She instantly regretted her harshness; it was hard to get angry, and stay that way, at this man. "Sorry, it's just...I haven't been sleeping well lately."
To Jackson's credit, he was quick to recover. "It's okay, I was just wondering where you were and if you were all right. With a yell like that, it'd be hard to think not."
Sam Carter groaned, rubbing her forehead. "Daniel, I really don't need another dose of heavy sarcasm and flippant boyish meddling right now, okay?"
"All right but, in that case, you might want to skip the briefing entirely. Jack will undoubtably say things if you're fifteen minutes late without a better excuse than you 'were tired.'"
Sams head snapped up like a rubber band. "Briefing?" Not bothering to wait for Daniels response, she hurried to her bunkside. The digitial clock there read 11:13. "Oh crap!" Every nerve and muscle fiber in her body quickly went into emergency meeting mobilization mode. She had never been late in her professional life, not once! Of all the times to start dozing on the job.
A wide-eyed Daniel took a cautious step into Major Carters lab, feeling like a possum in the middle of a six-lane highway. Sam was moving around so fast and so frenzied that it was hard to avoid her and stay on his feet at the same time. Fortuneately, years of bumbling around the galaxy had made him mostly immune to minor mishaps that situations like this might cause. Any third-party observers would think him an acrobat at the way he managed to dodge the blur of a blonde-haired scientists whizzing around the enclosed room. She gathered charts, file folders, some black blockish thing, her PDA, a laser pointer, and, last but not least, a notepad and stuck the numerous items in pockets and under her arms in an attempt carry them all at once. "Uh Sam, sure you don't want a hand with some of that stuff?"
"Nh, thth ohay Dnnl, ut tnks," Sam spoke through a mouth gripping her multi-chromatic pen that she had developed several weeks ago. Taking one last quick look at her lab, Sam nodded and raced out the door. Daniel, thrown for a moment, raced after her.
"Sam," Daniel called from behind her "you sure you're feeling okay? If not, there's nothing wrong with saying so and skipping the meeting altogether." She didn't listen and kept running. Inside her head, thoughts kept throwing themselves at her conscience. Late, late! How could she have let it happen? So much depended on her, and she let a little weariness overcome her? Way to go, Major, keep this up and maybe you'll let your guard down around the Goa'uld, killing SG-1. Then you'll have PLENTY of sleepy time, cause you'll be DEAD.
The corridors streaked by on her way to the elevator. It was only when she was within twenty feet of them that she realized it would take longer getting down to the 28th level by machine than on foot. With that in mind, she bypassed the metal doors and darted for the stairs. She vaguely registered the sound of Daniel colliding with someone behind her. Must have been Sgt. Siler; he shouldn't stand in the way of hurried scienitists like that.
Two minutes of frantic running, jumping, and dodging later, she emerged in the briefing room. Colonel O'Neill was making a paper football with a report of some sort, General Hammond was leafing through a folder, and Teal'c was staring intently into space. She knew that look; it was his 'I am waiting patiently for someone who does not have the decency to maintain a habit of strict punctuality' look. Great, now she was even starting to wear thin on Teal'c. Her disgust and revile for the new Carter jumped several notches.
General Hammond looked up as she skidded to a halt in the doorway. "Ah, Major, glad you could make it." 'Well, I KNEW he would be dissappointed in me. That doesn't hurt as much as it could, I guess.' "Have a seat." She nodded absent-mindedly, watched her immediate CO out of the corner of her eyes. When she reached her spot at the table, she let the items she was carrying flop to the hard wooden surface.
Sam had just managed to get her things in order when an out of breath and flustered Daniel stumbled into the room. "Sorry. I was...uh...got...lost." He glanced at her quickly. "Looking...for Sam, that is. I thought...she might have been in her lab, but she wasn't, so I looked in the commissary. Not there. So I asked around the scientists and, it turns out, she was tending to an emergency upstairs in-"
'God this is painful. I can't let him do this. My fault, I own up to it.' "I fell asleep sir. I wasn't here because I forgot to wake up in time for meeting." 'If I can't control anything else in my life, I can at least tell the truth'
Jack looked up from his paper football. "Carter? Asleep?" He turned to Hammond. "Sir, I recommend we write this down on the calendar as the FIRST ever day Major Carter actually took some time off because of pure exhaustion."
"Colonel," Hammond rumbled warningly.
"It'll be great, sir; a new holiday in the military. Carter day, celebrated by not showing up to work, sleeping in, and general absenteeism from boring meetings, paperwork, and such. Any seconds?" He raised his hand to indicate the method of supporting his idea.
No one else in the room even needed to look at the bases CO to know the proper response. No other hands were raised to accompany O'Neills. Hammond must have seen the look on her downcast face. "Colonel, open your mouth one more time without permission and there will be trouble." The colonel lowered his arm. "Right. Now that we're all here, let's get this meeting underway."
------------------------------------------
The meeting had been called in response to a report from the Tok'ra that Anubis' super soldiers were beginning to see action across the galaxy in large numbers, wreaking havoc among the Goa'uld. The Tok'ra, as such, had lost several operatives in high-ranking positions to lesser Goa'uld system lords. It was the forgone conclusion that, coupled with his massive armada, these creatures would give Anubis all the brute force he needed to overwhelm any opposition to his conquest of Earth. Unless they found the Lost City, and soon, the Tau'ri would be no more.
Since it seemed that their current method of testing gate addresses wasn't turning up anything very close to the Ancients stronghold of advanced technology that could be the salvation of Earth, General Hammond had ordered each of the members of his premier team to come up with recommendations for a new direction to take their search. Teal'c had recommended forging several exploratory teams of rebel Jaffa. It would give them the extra eyes and ears they may need to pick up a clue as to the Lost City's whereabouts. Colonel O'Neill had thought that a visit to the former Tollan homeworld may provide a few high-tech gadgets that could be used in the defence of Earth. Since it had been nearly two years since Anubis' forces, led by Tanith, had ravaged the peaceful civilizations new home, perhaps, he proposed, there was some possiblity that a small expedition could explore what was undoubtably now a planet of ruins and salvage some technological miracle that would neutralize Anubis' advantage over them.
Then there was Daniel. If it wasn't for the fact that most everyone in the room loved the man like a brother (or, in General Hammond's case, a son), he'd have been killed several times over by now. He had been up before them lecturing on the possibilities of the Lost City's location for well over ninety minutes. He'd started by going over the few facts they'd learned about the Lost City and branched out to a number of ideas he thought might help everyone else think of ways to shorten their search. After that, he'd gone into possibilities HE had considered for the city. Each possible location was listed, of course, with a list of the criteria that seemed to support the idea that the Ancients bastion of tecnnological power might reside there. This had constituted the bulk of his time before them.
As boring as the meeting was, Sam had retreated into her thoughts. It wasn't that the subject matter they were covering wasn't interesting, it was just that she simply wasn't interested in it. It was a rather hard distinction to make, especially if you were like her and interested in practically everything.
As it was, though, nothing could drag her thoughts out of the mud at this point. 'First I let myself go to pieces for weeks over what Grace did to me without even putting two and two together to see it was her. Then I completely blow up in my superior officers face; he's right to draw out his decision on how to punish me for that, make me suffer. Finally, the icing on the cake, I'm late for a vitally important meeting which may very well determine the fate of both the planet and humanity combined. God, how far I've fallen.' What made the situation even worse was the feeling that, despite the amount of thought she had put into the matter, there was something with the whole Grace situation she was missing. A piece of the puzzle was loose, so small against the backdrop as to be indistinugishable, yet, and she knew this in her very core to be the absolute truth, more important than she could possibly imagine.
A light thud from across the table caught her attention. O'Neills head had landed on the table on top of his crossed arms in front of him.
"Colonel!" Came the accusatory remark from the General.
"Sorry sir," her COs voice was rather muffled coming through his arms and the table. "I think I need to go to the infirmary." When the rest of the table had spent a few moments in shocked silence, he elaborated. "I think, with Daniels help, I've developed a mild case of narcolepsy."
"Jack, this material is important."
"All eight hours of it?"
"That's enough, Colonel." Sam tuned out the rest of the conversation; it didn't concern her. Besides, that important thing she knew was there but had forgotten was nagging at her again. Shaking her head slightly, she tried to focus on Daniels presentation. When that didn't work, she instead tried focusing on her own presentation materials. No luck; her mind was in the ionosphere and gravity wasnt't cooperating to bring it back down.
Slowly, she let out a long breath. Some scientist she was; all the evidence was in front of her and she couldn't remember some stupid little detail. Science was about logic and problem solving, yet here she was, unable to resolve the simple matter of remembering some...item or other that had previously occupied a great deal of her time. It should be as simple as finding thoughts that seemed associated with this nebulous item and tracking her thoughts throughout the recent past to see when she had dwelled on such things. That ALWAYS worked in the past, so why did it now yield zilch? It was like a gigantic, mile thick wall had been erected around the thought she needed, denying it to her. So far, the thing was totally impregnable.
Her head lolled a little, exhaustion and self-pity dragging down her spirits. Her right hand moved to prop up her head, turning her eyes towards the display screen. 'A sign, I need a sign. God, please, help me. Show me what I have to do.' She tried to keep her eyes open, to focus on something. Her gaze wandered the screen, looking for a suitable visual anchor, something for her mind to-
She froze. Every strand of her being was suddenly alight with anxiety, excitement, and a rising light of hope. Slowly, Sam rose to her feet, pushing her chair out behind her. As her feet carried her to the display board, her hand snatched a marker from the table. The bickering voices of her comrades was a faint drone in the distance, an unimportant detail in the vast scheme of things. Reaching the display screen, Sam took in the sight before her: a stellar carto-graphic map showed a planet in the inner Orion constellation, P5V-496. There was data displayed in small charts and graphs next to the rotating model of the planet, displaying atmosphere, geological, and biological reading of the surface, as well as marking the location of the stargate. What really caught her eye, though, was the gate address. It seemed...familiar, important, right...but not wholey so. Struggling with her memory, she traced her index finger over each symbol, digging in the recesses of her mind for some confirmation that she was on the right track.
At the briefing table, Teal'c, who had not participated in the bickering match in which Hammond, O'Neill, and Jackson were engaging, studied her moves carefully. Jack, turning to Teal'c for support in his argument, noticed his friends distracted look and followed his line of sight to the Major at the head of the room, doing something on the display screen. Hammond caught onto his 2ICs focus quickly. After noticing that Jack AND the general were both distracted, Daniel looked up to see Sam doing something to the display screen with a marker. "Uh, Sam?"
She paid him no heed. She couldn't, not if she wanted to get this all out for everyone to see. Her hand moved quickly for a few moments over several over the symbols. The entire room was dead quite except for the sound of black felt marker on plastic. Four pairs of eyes traced her every move, wondering what in the world she was doing.
Moments later, Sam paused, checking her work to see if it felt right. It did, all of it. A small smile began to tug at the sides of her mouth. Finally, she had it!
"Major?"
Hammonds deep voice shocked her out of her triumphant reverie. Spinning to face him, she replied, "Yes, sir?"
"What exactly are you doing?"
She paused. 'How best to put this? How do I make them understand? How can I get them to trust me on this when I can't think of a single reason they should?' Marshalling her courage, Sam replied, "I believe we should investigate this gate address sir."
More silence. Daniel broke it first. "Why?"
'Here goes...' "I believe, based on some information I got out of some...calculations...recently that this," she ran her fingers over the gate address, which now had four of its first six symbols x-ed out, new symbols below them, "may contain valuable secrets we could use in our fight against the Goa'uld." It wasn't a lie, technically; she DID think something vital to Earth's survival lay at this gate address. Her 'calculations' were namely the simple mental trial and error routine of finding the symbols that didn't seem to fit in Daniel's address and then finding the correct symbols to replace them. And the information was simply an overwhelming feeling that now soared through her mind, the psyhchic equivilant of 'Gotcha'
The colonel was the first to respond. "Space guns, maybe?"
Wondering silently if he ever thought about anything high-tech besides ways to blow something up, Sam decided to go for total honesty now. Something about the way her immediate CO was eyeing her made her suspect he saw through her little truth-bending just a moment ago. "Quite honestly, sir, I have no idea." She thought there was a sign of dissapointment in General Hammonds eyes. A remote memory flickered at the back of her consciousness. "All I know is that it referred to this place as a source of last hope, some sort of repository or something."
She was expecting the next question, but not from Teal'c. "Where did you find this information, Major Carter?"
"Daniel's artifcats," the reply leapt from her mouth before she had a chance to check it. 'Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.' "I crossreferenced some of the symbols on a number of artifacts Daniel asked for my help with and came up with this," she gestured behind her, taking the opportunity as all other eyes in the room glanced at the display screen to shoot Daniel a meaningful look. He seemed to understand. When General Hammond asked about this development a moment later, Daniel played along, saying it had seemed so insignificant as to be not worth mentioning, unless it turned out something of value.
A still, expectant silence descended on the briefing room once more, centered around the head of the SGC, awaiting his next command. Deep in contemplation, he appeared a statue, waiting out the slow march of time; after a moment, he spared her a glance, then let his gaze fall back to the table again. Sam held her breath, not daring to hope he would grant her permission to explore the address she had produced, for fear some nameless force would sense her desire and make Hammond say otherwise.
"Colonel," the general finally spoke, "do you have objections to testing Major Carters address before seeing if the Tollan home- world is still standing? Colonel!" Jack was making a paper airplane out of one of Daniels handouts. His head jerked up as the general yelled at him. "Any objections?"
No one missed the blank look of lostness on his face. "Uh...no?" He looked at Carter for a moment. "No, no sir," he answered, this time with a smile and much more confidence. Carter let out her breath in a silent sigh of relief.
"Very well then," Hammond went on. "Major, if you'll accompany me to the control room, we can get started." With that, the meeting ended and Sam followed her superior officer into the control room, followed by the rest of SG-1, all eager to see where their resident genius would lead them to next.
TBC
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