40

Just Like Human

"Well, it looks like the first moon is a bust," Jacob sighed. "One down, two to go."

"If I were a planet destroying weapon," Sam murmured. "Where would I be?"

"Very amusing, Major Carter," Teal'c observed. "But not particularly useful."

Sam was still thinking. "Dad," she said abruptly. "What's the range on these sensors? Would they be able to penetrate a deep, underground bunker?"

"As a matter of fact, they're designed for it," Jacob replied. "Even if it's through solid rock. Nice try, but no cigar."

"Could you explain to me the parameters on the new stealth capabilities?" Teal'c requested.

"If we're in orbit around them, they can't see us," Jacob replied succinctly.

&&&&&&

"Oh great Lord." The Jaffa knelt in front of his god. "Long range sensors detect a Tok'ra ship scanning the moons."

"Curious," Ahriman muttered. "One would think they would scan the planet first. But then, who can know how a Tok'ra thinks?"

"Do you wish us to destroy the ship?" The Jaffa found it difficult to believe that Ahriman was not in a towering rage.

"Leave them," the Goa'uld directed with a negligent wave of his hand. "They will not find that which they seek." He barked out a laugh. "Let them waste their time on a fool's errand."

&&&&&

O'Neill was waiting impatiently outside of medical for Evree to emerge from the daily check-up that Dr. Frasier was currently insisting upon. True, since they were back at the SGC, he didn't really have to monitor her every movement as he had outside, but he felt uncomfortable letting Evree out of his sight.

A diminutive female, made half a head taller by the hair piled atop her head exited the medical facility. She was wearing a smartly tailored pantsuit in a charcoal-gray pinstripe. The businesslike look was softened by the rosy pink blouse with ruffles down the front. She was damn good looking, but she didn't belong here.

Then, he did a double take. "Evree?"

Evree did that little twirl that seems to come with female DNA. "Do you find it.., suitable, O'Neill?"

Jack gave himself a mental shake. "Yeah, he muttered. "Suitable. Just the word I was looking for."

Evree regarded him gravely for a long moment, her features set in lines of schooled impassivity, but O'Neill could almost swear that he saw a touch of disappointment in her eyes. This had to be the limit, he thought. A Goa'uld fishing for compliments?

"I am pleased that it meets with your approval," Evree remarked, the typically haughty Goa'uld tones setting in.

Before Jack could pull himself out of trouble, or, quite possibly, dig himself in further, Daniel came around a corner.

The linguist halted in his tracks, and a low whistle escaped from his lips, almost as though it were of its own volition.

"Wow," Daniel remarked in tones of awe. "You look absolutely amazing, Evree."

"Do you really think so?" Evree beamed at him, and fluttered her eyelashes.

Jack thought that he might just toss his cookies. A Goa'uld fishing for compliments was one thing, but one who went in for feminine simpering at masculine approval? It was bad enough when a human woman did it, but a Goa'uld? It was just wrong. It was then that he noticed that Daniel and Evree were moving down the corridor arm in arm, totally oblivious to the fact that he was there.

&&&&&&

"Two down, one to go," Jacob said tiredly, well aware that he didn't really have to keep count, but doing it anyway. So far they hadn't managed to turn up anything.

"Let's hope the third time's the charm," Sam quipped. They were all finding this search to be frustrating. The had set out so certain they would find something.

Teal'c stared at the sensor readout intensely. "Your charm may have worked, Major Carter," he remarked. "There is an anomalous reading originating on the third moon."

"Why don't we just take a closer look then?" Jacob suggested.

There were no votes against.

&&&&&&

Ahriman entered the control room which in and of itself was unheard of. He went about his occasions and expected his extensive staff to come to him to keep him informed of events. He seldom went to the bother of investigating things for himself.

"Lord?" One of the drones rushed up to him lest they be accused of slighting him and all suffer Ahriman's wrath.

"The Tok'ra ship, does it still hover amongst the moons?" Ahriman asked, his tones giving no clue as to his emotional state.

"It has scanned the first two and is just moving on towards the third one, Lord," came the answer.

"Put it on the view screen that I may observe it," Ahriman ordered.

Haste was made to obey the order, and soon, a theater-sized screen lit up with the image of the Tok'ra ship making its orbital approach to the third moon.

As the ship approached the third moon, a ray of light shot out from the moon's surface right towards the unsuspecting ship.

&&&&&&

"We near the star system where Ahriman resides, Lord Anubis," the functionary informed him.

"Good," Anubis said approvingly. "Let us see if Ahriman can make good his promise to deliver a new queen into my hands."

&&&&&

"It looks like we're to be treated to yet another official visit," Hammond informed O'Neill. "The secretary in charge of covert operations, no less."

Jack made a face. "Pity they all can't just choke to death on their own red tape," he commented. "I take it they're still trying to decide whether or not we're going to be allowed to give Evree asylum?"

Hammond nodded. "You ought to know as well as I do that the bureaucrats can't make a decision without questioning it a dozen times."

"Not to mention assigning committees to go over all the information and ask questions that you either can't answer or to which the answer is so obvious that they shouldn't have had to ask," Jack observed. "Do you think they'll actually be able to come to a decision before our three days are up?"

"It's anybody's guess," Hammond replied. "But I think that they'll probably come in under the time limit, if just. What I'm afraid of is that they're going to put me in a position where I'll be forced to choose between sending an abuse victim back to her abuser or disobeying orders."

"I'm sure that whatever they come up with we'll be able to find a loophole we can use," O'Neill responded. His heart wasn't exactly in that one, though. Too many lawyers too used to making use of the loopholes themselves could draft a set of orders that was airtight.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," the general said. "Jack, you've spent quite a few hours with her now. Do you think that Evree is playing us along?"

"Sir, if I said either yes or no," O'Neill answered. "I'd be making as big a guess as the red tapeworms. Part of me wants to believe her, to take her behavior here at face value. The other part of me says..,"

"That a Goa'uld is a Goa'uld," Hammond finished for him. "I'm afraid that's what I think too."

&&&&&&

While O'Neill was consulting with General Hammond, Daniel had Evree parked in front of a television while he organized his notes. It was not easy, because Evree kept interrupting his train of thought with questions.

"Daniel, what sort of place is that?" Evree pointed to the screen.

With a long-suffering sigh, Daniel directed his attention to the show that his Goa'uld charge was watching. Little more than a quick glance was needed for him to identify, if not the specific place, which probably didn't exist outside of a studio lot, then, at least the genre.

"It's a bar," he said shortly, then realized that not only did that not really explain anything to Evree, but that if the tables were turned, he would probably be as full of questions as she. "It's a place where humans go to socialize and drink."

Proving once again just how observant she was, even when watching a sitcom, Evree asked, "And only the adult humans do this.., 'socializing'?"

"Children aren't allowed where alcoholic drinks are served," Daniel replied, seeing that he had left one vital piece of information out of his explanation.

"Humans imbibe ethanol?" Evree inquired. Her tones were that of horrified fascination. "Is it not a poison? And why do they do it willingly? And why do they not die?"

"Slow down, one at a time." Daniel raised his hands in surrender. He guessed the paperwork could wait. Heaven knew that it certainly wasn't going anywhere. "It can be toxic in large amounts. The system can handle small amounts of it, though. And people drink it because.., because it helps them to forget their troubles. For a little while."

Evree pondered on that for a while. "Daniel," she said, suddenly even more serious than before. "I should like to go to a bar."

&&&&&&

"We are locked in a tractor beam," Teal'c observed. "Communications are out as well."

Jacob looked at his daughter. "I'm sorry, Sam," he apologized. "I should have been more cautious, should have known better than to go right up to a strange place under the control of a hostile entity."

"I didn't hear anyone saying no," Major Carter responded. "Dad, no one's to blame. It just happened. Instead of trying to place the blame, what we need to do now is to figure out how we're going to get out of this mess."

"I'm open to suggestions," Carter, senior replied. "What I want to know is how did they know we were here to grab hold of? The anti-detection device should have prevented it"

"You said that it hid us from those beneath us on the surface," Teal'c pointed out. "Does that mean we were visible to those elsewhere?"

"Oh damn," Jacob muttered. "Sam, I..,"

"Later, dad," Sam interrupted. "We have more important things to do now."

&&&&&&&

"You want to take a Goa'uld to a bar?" Jack asked in shocked disbelief. "Are you nuts?"

"I didn't say that I wanted to take her," Daniel amended. "I said that Evree expressed a desire to go to one."

"And what exactly did you say to her that made a bar sound so attractive that she just had to see one?" O'Neill demanded.

"Well, uh," Daniel hemmed. "It might have had something to do with me saying that drinking helped people forget about their problems."

"Guess who's going to feel in need of a drink?" Jack shot back, arching an eyebrow at him. "Daniel, I had a hard enough time persuading Hammond to take her out in broad daylight. And then, I made sure that I kept her away from people. It's kind of hard to avoid people in a bar."

"Maybe we could bring in a bottle and persuade her to do her experimenting here?" Jackson suggested. "After all, if alcoholic amnesia is all that she's interested in, she doesn't really need the bar. Just the booze."

O'Neill sighed. "We can try," he replied, sounding less than hopeful. "But don't pin your hopes on it. And I'm not even sure that I could get the okay on that much. It might tend to make the general's blood run cold at the thought of a drunk Goa'uld."

"On the other hand," Daniel interjected. "It might gain us some information. In vino veritas, and all that."

"In what, what?" O'Neill asked. Before Daniel could answer, he waved his hand dismissively. "Forget it. I'll go ask if we can take her to a bar. But you're going to owe me big time on this one."

"And why would that be?" Jackson asked suspiciously.

"Because I have to spend my first trip to a bar in over a month, not drinking and babysitting your pet Goa'uld," Jack snapped.

&&&&&&&

"Despite having the ship in full reverse, we are losing ground to the tractor beam," Teal'c said. "We need to do more than just resist its pull, since that is obviously not working."

"Is there any way we can interrupt the beam?" Sam suggested. "I mean, if something else crossed the beam's path in front of us, wouldn't the tractor beam pull it in and let us go?"

"It sounds good," Jacob said grudgingly. "But how are you going to arrange to have something get between us and the tractor beam?"

"I noticed some packing crates in the cargo hold," Sam remarked. "Is there anything important in them?"

"Nothing that's as important as getting the three of us out of here in one piece," Jacob replied. "But, honey, I don't think those crates will mass enough to disrupt the beam. Even if your idea works."

Sam started rummaging around in her backpack, and eventually extracted something that looked like a lump of children's modeling clay. "C-4," she said triumphantly. "Never leave home without it."

"You believe then that the shock of the explosion will break us free?" Teal'c inquired. "You will, of course, require timers for your bombs."

Sam fished out a few more items from the depths of her seemingly bottomless backpack. "And just what good would C-4 be without timers and detonators?"

"That's my girl," said Jacob fondly. "You know, it just might work."

&&&&&&

"How did you get the general to agree to this?" Daniel asked O'Neill in a loud whisper. Not that he needed to have bothered. The bar was loud enough, busy and bustling with a Friday night crowd.

"I used that line you gave me," Jack hissed back. "About the booze loosening her tongue." He gave his friend of look of consternation. "I sure as hell didn't expect it to work."

"Evree wasn't about to settle for anything less," Daniel muttered. "Not after hearing someone on that tv show say that it was unhealthy to drink alone."

"You did explain to her that not everything on tv is the God's honest truth, didn't you?" Jack asked accusingly.

"I tried," Daniel replied. "I'm just not sure whether or not it sunk in. None of the civilizations that Evree has had contact with has had anything like American television programming."

O'Neill belatedly turned his attention back to Evree and found that she had ordered another drink. It had to be a different one, because the first one had been some frothy, white concoction. Now, it was something pink with one of those ubiquitous little paper umbrellas in it.

"Since you've suddenly become such an expert on these things," Jack said grumpily. "Did anyone tell you that it's not a good idea to mix your drinks?"

"I wanted to try a lot of different ones." Was it Jack's imagination, or was the Goa'uld pouting?

"When you feel like your head is going to fall off tomorrow morning, don't say that I didn't warn you," O'Neill remarked.

"You're always so gloomy," Evree drawled. O'Neill didn't think he'd ever heard a Goa'uld drag their words out so slowly and lazily. The alcohol must be hitting her already. She cocked her head and regarded him thoughtfully. "You're not unattractive," she murmured musingly.

Jack almost choked on the non-alcoholic beer he'd been sipping. This just could not be happening.

"Of course," Evree went on. "The nurses in the infirmary think that Daniel is cute." She leaned around O'Neill to see Daniel. "How do you like being cute, Daniel?"

"I can't say that I've given it much thought," Daniel muttered.

Evree's attention span, which had been deteriorating at an alarming rate switched to another topic. "What are those people doing?" she demanded, indicating a small crowd on the tiny dance floor that the bar boasted.

"They're dancing," Jack replied sourly. "Haven't you ever seen anyone dance before?"

"Not like that," Evree answered, paying particular attention to a couple swaying together and looking like they were attached to each other with super glue. "I should like to try that."

"I don't dance," O'Neill said quickly.

"My bum knee has been bothering me," Daniel lied just as quickly. "I'm sorry, Evree."

"Then," Evree announced. "I'll just have to find someone else to dance with me." And before either one of them could do or say anything, she slid off her stool and headed towards a table where three men sat.

"We're going to end up in a bar fight, aren't we?" Daniel murmured unhappily.

"Probably," Jack answered, downing the last of his drink. "And without any alcohol to soften the blows." He sighed. "I think I find Goa'ulds that are trying to kill us a lot easier to deal with."