Chapter 5
"How is he, Doctor?" General Hammond asked as each member of the group around the conference table instinctively leaned in to hear the answer.
"You all know we almost lost him when you first brought him back," Dr. Janet Fraiser reported, a line of worry creasing her forehead. "We managed to get him back and he's stable for the moment. But his tox screen's a mess. He was pumped full of a drug that, as far as I can tell, seems to be part tranquilizer, part hallucinogen and part inhibition relaxer, along with a smattering of other elements I've never seen before let alone could identify. It was throughout his system.
"His blood count was also dangerously low which exacerbated the effect of the drug. I couldn't find any apparent wounds to explain the blood loss, so it appears someone took some samples before sending him back. We've given him transfusions and his blood count is almost back to normal now. We're also continuing to pump fluids into him to try and dilute what's left of the drug in his system."
"Prognosis?"
"The best I can give you right now, General, is guarded. Physically, he'll recover, but until he wakes up and I can assess the cognitive damage, I can't really give you an assessment on his mental condition. The closest comparison I can make regarding the drug right now is that its identifiable components are similar to those in central nervous system depressants, like Rohypnol."
"Isn't that the one they call the date rape drug?" Carter asked, perplexed.
Fraiser nodded. "In that context, it's used to relax the inhibitions of the person it's given to, making them more receptive to suggestion, or in more severe cases totally unable to resist what's being done to them."
"Could they have been using the drug to try to get information out of him?"
"Possibly, General. There's no way to tell for sure at this point."
"He can tell us when he wakes up," O'Neill said.
"Maybe not, sir," Fraiser replied. "One of the most common side effects of Rohypnol is an almost total loss of short term memory regarding the activities engaged in while under the influence of the drug. One of the reasons it's used in date rape situations is because it leaves the victim unable to identify the assailant or sometimes to even remember that they've been assaulted. If the drug used on Daniel has similar properties, he may not remember anything about what happened to him while he was under its influence. And considering the massive quantities of it that were in his system, the memory loss could be even more severe than usual."
"Would the memory loss be permanent?" Carter asked.
Fraiser shrugged, "As I said before, I have no way of knowing. This is an alien drug. Even though its chemical composition is similar to Rohypnol, there's no telling how the unidentifiable components fit into the equation. The brain is very complex, and we don't totally understand how it processes memories in the first place. We do know there's biochemical and electrical activity involved. It's impossible to know whether the drug interferes with the brain's ability to store memories at all or whether it simply causes the memories to be processed in a way that makes them difficult for the brain to access."
"Like a computer program written in one programming language can't be processed by a computer using a different language?" Carter asked.
"Exactly."
General Hammond leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. "Major Carter, what is the status of the alien equipment in the console room?"
"As you know, sir, the only thing Daniel said when he came back was to take out the crystal to keep 'them' from following. I immediately pulled the replacement crystal he had given me before this all started out of the console . . . and smashed it." The admission that she had allowed her emotions to so completely overwhelm her scientific practicality came hard. "The console appears to be dead again, and, as far as I can tell, there are no active power sources in the room at this time."
"Are there any more spare crystals?"
"Yes, sir. There are several in the storage compartment."
"But none are in the console."
"The ones that were there when we first arrived are still in it, except for the one we replaced."
"I don't want anything else destroyed until we can get some kind of report from Dr. Jackson," Hammond gave Carter a pointed look and she looked away in embarrassment, "but in the meantime, I want all of the crystals pulled from that console and placed in the storage compartment and all of our people recalled from P3X-846. I also want preparations made so that particular stargate address can be locked out of the dialing computer immediately if I determine from Dr. Jackson's report that we are in imminent danger from anyone at the other end of that transport device. I don't want anyone else down there until we know exactly what we're facing."
"Yes, sir," Carter and O'Neill responded in unison. Carter added, "May I bring some samples of the crystals back with me for analysis, sir?"
"As long as you're sure they pose no threat to anyone on this base. Dismissed."
"Hey, how ya doin'," O'Neill asked cautiously, looking down at Daniel, who was sitting under a tree, his back against the trunk, staring up at the sky.
Daniel tore his gaze reluctantly from the clear blue sky over Cheyenne Mountain and focused on his three friends standing there, looking so concerned.
"You know what they say. Any day you're still alive to tell the tale is a good day. After three weeks trapped in the infirmary, it's just good to be out in the fresh air and able to see the sky again."
"Speaking of telling tales, have you remembered anything?" Sam asked gently.
Daniel closed his eyes in resignation, wishing fervently that people would stop asking that question. "Bits and pieces all jumbled together. I know Nirrti had something to do with it all, but the details seem to dance right outside my line of sight. And every time I reach for one it fades away."
"Perhaps it is better if you do not try so hard to remember, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c interjected. "I have discovered that some memories, especially unpleasant ones, will most often surface when you least wish to think about them."
"Maybe that's true Teal'c, but it would be nice to have a choice about it. For all I know, what I've forgotten could be vitally important to the Stargate program and our battle with the goa'uld. I know Nirrti has something to do with it. That automatically makes it bad. Another one of her crazy experiments gone haywire, I think. Janus was a goa'uld. I remember that much. No big surprise there. There was a woman, no two women. Or one woman who was two. God, I sound insane."
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree, tempted to start smashing his head against it to shake the information loose. "I hate knowing there's another chunk of my life that's just gone. At least for the period when I was ascended I have some idea where I was and what I was doing there. This is just a great big blank, except for some B-horror movie type flashes. And it doesn't help to know that because of the hallucinogen in the drug, what little I do remember may not even be right."
"Janet says you're going to be just fine," Sam said soothingly. "Hold onto that right now and let the rest take care of itself. It's possible it may all come back to you later. In the meantime, Dr. Benedetto was hoping you'd be willing to help him translate the inscriptions from the transport room."
Daniel sighed heavily at the thought. He knew that once he got back to his normal routine, he would probably feel better, but he couldn't get rid of the urgent sense that the answers he was looking for were important and that they were right there in front of him, just waiting for him to fight hard enough to get to them. "Give me another day or two, okay."
"Whenever you're ready," O'Neill said. "Nobody's going to push you."
Daniel nodded and gave his friends a half-hearted smile before turning his gaze back to the clear blue sky overhead, continuing to search for answers that stubbornly refused to come.
On the other side of the galaxy, Larinda stood on the parapet of the temple looking up at the clear blue sky over Remana. Instinctively, her hand went to her swelling belly and she gently caressed it, feeling the wonder of the new life growing inside her -- the life that would be the salvation of her people.
Janus was dead, as was Nirrti, but they had left all their data behind in the computer in the central temple. Thanks to that last struggle for control with Lysandra, Larinda knew what they had been planning and why. She had been able to access all of the data on the failed experiments and had spent the last few weeks studying it intently. It sickened her to know that the priestesses had been lied to and used for centuries to accumulate the data, but at least now it would be put to good use. And knowing she was the only one left who had the knowledge to do it was all that kept her going most days.
She knew how to save her people from the madness that was consuming them and would do what had to be done. Her child and the vials of blood that were safely in storage were the keys. But having to live with what she had done to obtain them was its own punishment. And it was made all the more ironic by the fact that, since the pregnancy had begun, Lysandra had not even tried to take control of their body. "I know you believe you can just wear me down," she murmured softly to her Other, "but it won't work. You think you'll wait it out until I'm too physically and emotionally worn out from all of this to fight back, then you'll step in and take over after I've done all the hard work. But I'm stronger than you'll ever know. And I'm not going to let you harm my child!"
Grasping the wall of the parapet to steady herself, Larinda turned her gaze back to the sky, trying to accept that there could be no respite, however brief, from the sea of regrets that wanted to drown her. She would have to continue to live every moment of the day with the memory of his face -- the pain and betrayal etched in it for those brief seconds between his realization of what she'd done and when the drug had done it's terrible work. And the memory of how pale and still he had been as he lay on the transport platform before she sent him back to his people. And the knowledge that she might never know the truth about her greatest fear -- that she may very well have killed him herself after all she had tried to do to prevent the others from doing it.
"I'm sorry, Daniel," she whispered to the sky. "I'm so sorry it had to be this way." With one last wistful look at the sky and a silent prayer that she could find some peace from the haunting memories, if only for a little while, she turned and slowly made her way back into the temple, bracing herself for the difficult work that still lay ahead.
THE END