O'Neill took a step forward – just one – and tried to keep his expression non-threatening. He ended up with his trademark half-smile, half-wince, in anticipation of things about to go in a direction that he'd really rather they wouldn't. Namely South. "I don't think so."
Either sensing the same trouble ahead that O'Neill did, or simply in an effort to keep the Colonel from exploding yet another cultural landmine, Daniel rushed to intervene. "Ah, what Colonel O'Neill means is that where we come from, marriages – er…bondings – must be voluntary on both sides."
Polytus smiled bemusedly. "Of course. The people of Nisia have similar laws."
Daniel blinked, mouth open, the wind having been effectively removed from his sails. "Oh. Well…okay, good."
Teal'c addressed the Basileus. "Did you not say that Major Carter must remain here?"
Polytus smiled when he turned back to the woman who had already so obviously bewitched him. "It is my hope," he said to her, "that you will consent to stay and be my queen."
"Oy," O'Neill said under his breath, looking away to scan the room again out of habit, doing a threat assessment just in case things turned dicey.
Carter tried a tentative smile, apparently aiming for damage control, now. "That's…quite an offer. And I'm flattered, really. But I belong on my world, with my people."
Slowly the smile faded from Polytus' face, becoming something less than pleased. "You will not stay?"
Carter's expression was apologetic, but firm as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, but no."
"That is most unfortunate," Polytus said, all traces of benevolence leaking away from his features. His face now more accurately represented that of a leader…stern and commanding. When he spoke again, his words sounded like an order. "The laws of Nisia mandate that you must consent to the bonding voluntarily. I insist that you reconsider."
Carter's respectful politeness dimmed over the course of a blink, leaving only the fixed resolve of a soldier in her eyes. Beneath the composed exterior O'Neill could see traces of the person who had once – upon perceiving that her new CO judged and dismissed her as a woman first, a fellow officer second – challenged him to an arm-wrestling contest to prove she was just as capable as he was. Hints of dangerous warning entered her voice. "My answer is no."
"Then you leave me no other option but to keep you here until you agree," Polytus replied, as if it were the most logical conclusion in the world.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Daniel interjected. "It's against the law for you to force someone into marriage, but you can force her to change her mind?"
The Basileus ignored him. "Take them below," he commanded the guards, then turned back to Carter. "I will send for you on the morrow; please, for the sake of yourself and your friends, reconsider my proposal."
There was enough sincerity in his entreaty to set off warning bells in O'Neill's mind, but there was no opportunity to question the ruler further, for his guards immediately moved to obey their orders.
SG-1 was escorted out of the throne room and back through the labyrinthine corridors. Several winding stone staircases down, they were led from the room into a large cavern beneath the castle. They were not alone. The cavern was filled with workers, most of which were shackled to their posts. Each had been outfitted with a pickaxe, and several more workers labored to transport rock debris out of the way in crude carts. One of the debris retrieval crew was a small boy of about nine. He was covered in grime and his large eyes stared at the newcomers as they were marched past. Carter tried a smile and waved at him, but the boy ran away.
O'Neill surveyed the workers as they passed. They scurried about with the mindless purpose and dedication of ants, but O'Neill could see the fatigue in their eyes and exhaustion in the way they struggled to keep swinging. He saw gaunt faces and too-thin bodies, and he grimly followed the guards to their cell.
Having deposited their charges, the guards left SG-1 alone in their new home. O'Neill had undoubtedly endured worse, but the area was certainly going to be cramped for four people. The cell was roughly divided into two separate, miniscule areas. The "front", which was the section immediately before the iron bars, consisted of a single platform jutting from a low spot on both the left and right wall, and they would serve both as benches during the day and bunks at night. The "back" was an even smaller section to the rear of the cell containing a straw-covered pallet that rested upon the floor, which was composed of tightly packed dirt. Off in the furthermost corner was a crude latrine.
As the bars slid home with an ominous clank, O'Neill scrubbed a hand over his face. "Why are there always mines?" He addressed everyone and no one at once. "Did you ever notice that? Every time something like this happens, we're sent to the mines."
"Well, we did come here to trade for naquada, and it doesn't exactly grow on trees," Daniel pointed out.
"Yeah," O'Neill grumpily agreed. "So, any theories on how we get out of this?"
Teal'c had made it his first order of business to test the strength of the bars. Finding them too strong to bend or dislodge, he turned his back on them. "Escape will not be possible this way."
Daniel returned to the bars from pacing the length and width of the tiny alcove cut into the rock and looked out into the hallway that led back to the main cavern. O'Neill had observed him doing this enough times in the past that he had finally asked Carter once if she had any idea what he was doing. She had, of course, and informed him that archaeologists always knew the measure of their own strides so that – if they were ever in the field without access to their equipment – they would always be able to ascertain the dimensions of a dig or site. For his part, Daniel seemed to do it automatically, without even thinking about it.
"Well," Daniel said, "there's sort of a strange mix of cultures on this planet. They called Polytus "Basileus", which was originally an Ancient Greek term for 'big man', or 'chief'…way back at the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution when social stratification first began. Only later did it come to mean 'king', but that's a natural sort of evolution that probably would have happened anywhere. The figures painted on the doors upstairs, though, would have been found much further North than that region at that time."
"But he was dressed like a Pharaoh," Carter interjected. "And Egypt's on a totally different continent."
"You're right," Daniel replied.
"So…what?" O'Neill asked. "Whatever Goa'uld brought them here took a sample from a few different cultures and dumped them all in one place?"
"Not necessarily," Daniel said. "In the middle of the Bronze Age there was a huge migration of Indo-Europeans into Greece. The Indo-Europeans were coming from up around the Caspian and Black seas. The migration occurred over several centuries, and they merged with the existing culture. And," he said excitedly, "Greece traded all over the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, including with Egypt. So I'm guessing that these guys were transported here from somewhere over the course of those few centuries. It's the only way there'd be representation from all three cultures here."
"And this was how long ago?" O'Neill wanted to know.
Daniel pursed his lips, looking around again. "About four thousand years, give or take a century or two."
Teal'c's dark eyes took in the crude bars and jagged walls of their cell. "They do not appear to have progressed very far technologically since that time."
"No," Daniel agreed. "But on Earth, after the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures flourished, there was some big, mysterious, devastating something that caused the whole region to backslide into the Iron Age from about eleven fifty to eight hundred B.C. Maybe something similar happened here, but for longer."
"The Goa'uld might have had something to do with that," Carter suggested.
Daniel nodded. "That's entirely possible. I don't see any evidence of them now, though."
"Well, something tells me they're not mining naquada because it's so shiny," O'Neill drawled. "Anyway, this is all fascinating, really, but it doesn't answer my question."
"Sorry, Jack, but nothing's leaped out at me, yet. I'll try to talk to Polytus again in the morning when he sends for us."
"No dice, Daniel. He only wants to talk to Carter." O'Neill turned to his second in command, who was definitely looking tense, again. "I hate to say I told you so," O'Neill continued, "but…well, no, I really don't hate saying it."
Carter closed her eyes, something wearied in her expression, and her head drooped. At the same time, there was a hint of color creeping into her cheeks. It was an interesting combination, eliciting an odd agglomeration of responses in him. On one hand, he did enjoy the pretty blush she wore. She was always cute when she was off balance. Hell, who was he kidding? He always thought she was cute, period. And he did like being right. But at the same time the fawning attention from the locals and the demands from the Basileus had obviously made her uncomfortable. They had maybe even made her feel responsible, although she'd done nothing wrong. Suddenly he felt like a bit of a heel for his comment, which was only compounded when Carter muttered, "You were right, sir."
O'Neill grimaced, tapping restless fingers against his thighs. "Yeah," he said cheerlessly. "Well, look, maybe it can work to our advantage."
"How?" Daniel wanted to know. Teal'c was also looking at him expectantly.
"Well, Carter could agree to this thing…"
"What?" she interrupted.
"…and," O'Neill plowed on, "after the ceremony she tells him she left the oven on, or something, she'll be right back, and then we all get the hell out of here."
There were several beats of incredulous silence from his teammates, then:
"You wish for Major Carter to marry Polytus?" Teal'c asked.
O'Neill really did not wish it. In fact, the whole idea was sort of making his insides clench and twist unpleasantly. But that was beside the point. "Look, guys, it's not like we've got a lot of options, here."
"Sir, I'm aware of that," Carter said hesitatingly. "But with all due respect, I don't think I could do it. I mean, agree to it with no intention of following through. It just doesn't seem right. Beyond that, what he's demanding is wrong. It's a matter of principle, sir."
"And while your integrity is admirable, Carter, he's hardly got our best interests at heart." O'Neill made the argument, but at this point he wondered how much of it was overcompensation. Because really, he didn't like the idea of his 2IC having to agree to an offworld marriage to get them out of this situation. But then he worried that maybe his thoughts were obvious to the others. If maybe the more unprofessional of his feelings for Carter were on display to them, like the hem of a slip showing beneath an old lady's skirt, which everyone saw but ignored for the sake of kindness. The concern that he might be perceived as being soft on Carter sent him in completely the other direction in an attempt to mask his true sentiments. "Desperate times, Major."
"Yes, sir, I know. And if that's what it comes down to, then that's what I'll do. I just…I guess I'm also just a little anxious about what he might expect from me."
"Sam's right," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Once they married she'd be held accountable to Nisia's laws. Who knows what sort of punishments they reserve for a woman who disobeys her husband, here? We can't risk it. Right now, the only thing working to our advantage is that we're not from around here."
O'Neill gestured to encompass the confines of their tiny prison. "You call this an advantage?" His tone was flippant, and he told himself it wasn't to cover his relief over the agreement that Carter shouldn't marry the Basileus. It wasn't.
Nope.
The next morning they all rose with sore backs and cricks in their necks. Though the sleeping arrangements had been sufficient – with one alternating member of the team always on watch, that freed up the two "bunks" and the pallet in the back of the cell for the three sleeping – the cold, hard stone had done nothing but create new aches and pains in O'Neill's body.
He sat up painfully and massaged the back off his neck with one hand. Across from him, Daniel had also risen and was now sitting on the edge of his platform, holding his head in his hands. "Ow," the archaeologist said.
"A truer word was never spoken," O'Neill agreed. He looked – slowly, so as not to further agitate the gigantic kink in his neck – toward the rear of the cell. "Rise and shine, Carter."
"Already up, Sir," came the reply, and then his 2IC stepped into the cell proper. She looked a little brighter-eyed than her teammates, no doubt due to the fact that she'd spent her night on the straw-covered pallet.
She had automatically moved to bunk on one of the stone platforms the evening before, her military training dictating that officers take positions more dangerous than civilians' whenever possible. She had reluctantly moved to the back, however, when O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c all claimed that they preferred not to sleep on the scratchy straw.
Carter's expression had been dubious, indicating her disbelief in their story, but she hadn't put up a fight. While her acquiescence was surprising, it was fortunate for O'Neill since it meant that he wouldn't have to make it an order. The funny thing was, they all knew that she'd be the target of any potential incursion, and she knew that they knew that. Logically, she then also knew that by shuffling her off to the rear of the cell, each member of her team was putting her as far away from danger as he could, placing as many people as possible in between her and the entrance.
But she'd said nothing, and neither had Colonel O'Neill. Unvoiced acknowledgement was something at which they were both supremely skilled, and Teal'c and Daniel had followed their lead.
Now, O'Neill stood and went to the bars. Down the hall, he could hear the stirring of the workers in their own cells. The guards had marched SG-1 past a whole string of them on their way down the previous evening; the tiny rooms had been empty, then, but obviously the morning's work was about to get under way. "I wonder what it would take to get some bacon and eggs around here?"
Carter joined him at the bars. "Where's a tin cup when you need one?"
"Actually, I don't think they have tin here. If they had tin, they'd have learned how to make Bronze by now, like the cultures on Earth did. But everything we've seen so far is made of iron."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c started, "you spoke of the technological relapse in ancient cultures of the Tau'ri. What was the cause?"
"Uh, well, no one really knows for sure," Daniel said. "It's sort of a mystery, actually. There are a lot of theories, ranging from internal strife and civil war, to natural disasters that caused a system collapse. But whatever actually happened, there's definitely evidence of some major destruction that occurred around twelve hundred B.C. Mycenae was absolutely gutted by fire. Palaces everywhere were destroyed, there was a massive population decline in central Greece, but then people showed up on the coasts, as if they were running from something. Trade collapsed, and the whole region plunged back into the Iron Age."
The archaeologist's tone was enthusiastic, and his hands gestured animatedly as he became caught up in his impromptu history lesson. "The most popular theory, actually, involves some records of the Hittites, in which they – and the Ancient Egyptians, interestingly enough – claimed that they'd been attacked by 'sea people' from the North and East. The theory is that these invaders came down from the North, knocking cities out as they descended, pushing people out who then had to flee to coastal areas."
"Goa'uld attacks?" Carter asked.
Daniel looked uncertain. "It's possible…in fact, it would explain a lot. But I don't know that we can leap to that conclusion based on the evidence available. I don't know which System Lord would have made the Hittites and Egyptians think of 'sea people' when describing him, but there are still a lot of them we don't know about, yet."
"Heads up," O'Neill commanded, and his team stiffened, immediately on the alert. "We've got company."
Everyone backed away from the bars and moved closer together. A new quartet of guards arrived before their cell, unlocking it so that two of their number could deliver four bowls of food. Upon inspection, O'Neill discovered about what he'd expected: in addition to always being thrown into the mines, crappy prisoner food was apparently another requirement of the whole "getting captured" experience. Their "breakfast" was a thin, watery gruel that sloshed around in the bottom of their bowls, reminding O'Neill quite a bit of the "nourishment" they'd been provided on the prison planet where they'd first met Linea. With no way of knowing when they'd be fed next, he indicated that his team should eat up.
Their guards waited for them. When SG-1 had finished, one of their sentinels took the empty bowls and they all stood back to let the team empty into the corridor. Without any conscious thought, O'Neill and Teal'c maneuvered it so that they walked with Carter safely between them. Daniel brought up the rear, occasionally attempting to converse with the uncommunicative guards.
A short while later, they all stood once more in the opulent room before Polytus. The eyes of the Basileus lit up at the sight of Carter, and he immediately descended from his throne to greet her.
Not the rest of them, O'Neill noticed, just Carter. The man was absolutely fixated on her. "Have you reconsidered?" he asked.
To Carter's left, Daniel cleared his throat and drew her gaze. A silent exchange passed between them, and Carter turned back to Polytus. "I'll answer you, but I'd like you to please listen to my friend first, for just a minute."
Polytus blinked, and while his lips remained fixed in a smile, it was obvious by the cold light in his eyes that he was displeased with her request. "Of course," he said after a moment, and turned with exaggerated politeness to Daniel. "Please, say what you will."
Daniel opened his hands, palms out, in an unconscious gesture as he spoke. "First of all, let me say that we mean absolutely no disrespect to you, your laws, or your people. We came here in peace, only to negotiate trade and to exchange information. But what you're asking of Major Carter is considered wrong by our people, and I think it's best if we were to just leave, for now."
"I'm afraid that is quite impossible," the ruler said. "I cannot release her, no matter her decision. She must remain here. I need her; I must have her."
"Yes," O'Neill sighed, not surprised. "Who mustn't?"
Carter shot him a look, which O'Neill returned with an innocent one of his own. Then his second in command turned back to their captor. "Look," she said, devoid of all pretenses of pleasantry, "I'm not staying here with you. I don't know you, I've got very important work on my own planet, and I really don't like guys who don't take 'no' for an answer. Nothing you say will ever convince me to agree, so you may as well just let us go."
There was no mistaking the mournful expression on the ruler's face, but whether he felt true sorrow or not was inconsequential. "Then you leave me no choice," he said, and gave a slow nod to one of his attendants. The young man brought forth a long, slender box; he held it horizontally level while the Basileus opened its lid. Inside, nestled amid layers of a filmy material similar to the hangings around the throne, was a rod of some sort.
It was about the same thickness as a Jaffa staff weapon's grip, but half the length. Pure white in color, it also sported a knob at one end and a flattened point at the other, like a crayon. Though there were distinct differences, it reminded O'Neill uncomfortably of a Goa'uld Pain Stick.
Immediate tension rippled through the four members of SG-1. Before any of them could take action, however, Polytus signaled again to his guards, who swarmed in to preemptively restrain O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel. Two more moved to grab one of Carter's arms each, holding her immobile. Save for them, she was left alone before the Basileus, but she never flinched as he approached her. "I ask you again to reconsider. What I am about to do will not be pleasant for either of us," he said regretfully.
"Then don't do it," she bit back. "You're the one with all the power here. No one's forcing you."
"I must change your mind," he said.
Carter's chin jerked up defiantly. "I'll never agree."
Polytus winced and then – appearing as if he were really dreading the result of his own actions – took one final step toward Carter, touching the end of his staff to her temple.
