99

Tempus Fugit

"Kiss you?" Of all the things Evree might have anticipated that Konaseus would demand, that was not one of them.

"Is it so terrible a request?" Konaseus inquired, watching her like a hawk. He laid down what he had been tinkering with, ran one hand up the loose sleeve of her garment, enjoying the feel of the silky skin that he caressed. "You must know that I desire you, that I mean us to be together. And yet, all I request is one kiss."

Evree was hard put not to flinch away from his touch. Nor could she think of a way not to comply with what he asked of her without ruining everything. She was sure that if she were completely held in sway by the drug, she would already be kissing him enthusiastically. The longer she delayed, the worse it would look, and the more suspicious Konaseus would be. "I was merely surprised at how little you ask," she improvised. "I make such an unmerited request, and all the recompense you require is a kiss."

"Not recompense," Konaseus corrected her. "Merely reassurance. I need to know that you trust me. And that I can trust you." He slowly removed his hand from her arm, and picked her up as easily as he had the fateful day he had begun her addiction, and set her atop the high bench he had been working at.

"But I do trust you," Evree declared, letting the pendant hang free. She was going to need to be drugged to get through this. "And you can trust me." She slid her delicate hands around his massive neck and tilted her face upwards. The only thing that kept her from losing what little breakfast she had eaten was closing her eyes and thinking of O'Neill.

&&&&&

Teal'c too was now peering out the grate, and it was his sharp eyes that first caught the flutter of brilliant silk, wafting in the servitor's wake. "It is Evree," he announced loudly.

Sam and Daniel immediately joined them, and by the time they had reached the door, Evree was in plain sight. She was scrubbing furiously at her mouth with the back of her hand, and something gold glittered and swung from the hand she held at her side. Then, she saw them all gathered at the grate, stopped wiping her lips and rushed to greet them, fingers twining through the bars.

"It is good to see you," she exclaimed in a rush. "Are you all well?"

"We're fine," Daniel assured her. They were all checking her out carefully. She didn't seem to be as caught up in the throes of withdrawal as Jack had said she was, though. "What about you? I thought you had gone off the drug."

Evree let out a helpless sigh and displayed the pendant. "Konaseus found another way to deliver the drug," she explained. "If I do not allow myself enough to quell the symptoms, then I think he will..,"

"Just find another way to administer it," Sam finished for her. "Some way that you can't get around."

Evree nodded. "That was my thought as well," she replied. "Well, mine and Draylea's. But we must leave this place soon." There was a slight hysterical edge to her voice. She fought a moment to control it, then asked, out of the clear blue, "Samantha, do you have any of that candy with you?"

Sam had a secret, or not so secret passion for horehound candy, and usually had a few pieces on her. She generally didn't have to worry about people mooching it off her, because hardly anyone liked it. "You hate my candy," she pointed out. Then, she remembered the way Evree had been wiping her lips, as if they were contaminated, and understanding followed. She hurriedly fished out the candy. "Here," she said, thrusting it through the grate to Evree, who immediately popped it into her mouth. She made a face at the taste, but did not spit it out. "Why on earth did you..?" Sam glanced at Jack and cut the question short.

"Konaseus needed some token of my cooperation," Evree mumbled around the sweet. "It was the only way he would allow me to see you." She bit down on the hard candy and hurriedly disposed of it, to facilitate speaking, and added tactlessly, "He has an enormous tongue. I thought I would choke on it."

"Too much information," Daniel muttered. He tried to blank the mental images, and wasn't doing too well at it.

"Way too much information," O'Neill agreed. The only good part about it in his eyes, aside from being able to see her, was the fact that Evree had obviously found the experience unpleasant. Well, so did he, but there were more pressing matters on the agenda. "So, how's the baking going?"

"Baking?" Evree was mystified, but it didn't stop her from looking into his eyes and drinking in the sight of him.

"I believe that he is referring to the symbiotes your are to breed for Konaseus," Teal'c elaborated. He had been among humans far longer than she and had become accustomed to their speech patterns. Particularly O'Neill's.'

"It will be soon," Evree replied. She was behaving even more seriously than ever, and her knuckles were white where she gripped the grate. Jack reached up and gently unlocked the death-grip she had, lacing his fingers through hers.

"If Konaseus suspects the offspring are defective," Evree whispered loudly. "I have a plan."

"What plan?" O'Neill demanded. If he could put his own personal plan into action, it would involve kicking the crap out of Konaseus.

"I still have the bracelet," Evree answered in the whisper that was no whisper. "He failed to disarm me."

"Maybe because he never realized you were armed," Sam suggested. The rest of them had obviously been packing, but Evree's weapon had always been kept out of sight.

"That's my girl," Jack said approvingly. He was beginning to think they'd get out of this one after all.

"Will you be able to use the weapon against him?" Teal'c queried. "Having to remain addicted to that drug..,"

"Now that I know it for what it is," Evree broke in. "I can counteract the effects to some small degree. And knowing what will happen to all of you if I fail gives me a great deal of incentive." Her face went completely blank for a moment, then she regretfully disentangled her fingers from O'Neill's. "I must go to him now," she stated. "It is time."

&&&&&

"Everything is ready and waiting, sir," Dr. Frasier reported to General Hammond.

"Now all we need is for SG-1 to return," Hammond remarked grimly. They were several hours late to report in now, but he was going to give them twenty-four before he sent in anyone else. He also tried to prepare himself for the possibility that this might be the one time they wouldn't come back. He'd lost good people before, and would again, but he had never been able to accept such news with complete equanimity. And the day he did would be the day he retired. This time for good.

"General," Janet began hesitantly. "I'll do all I can for Evree, you know that. But there is a very real chance that she won't survive withdrawing from the drug."

"I gathered that from your report, Doctor," Hammond replied. "You just do the best you can, like the rest of us." But once again, as he had many times before, he wondered if his best couldn't have been a little bit better.

&&&&

Instead of sending a message with one of the mechanoids, Evree went back to Konaseus.

"I assume that you have a birthing tank prepared?" she inquired the moment she was in his presence. She gave an instant's thought to how ironic it would be if, with all his contingency plans he had failed on that score.

"Of a certainty, my queen." Konaseus rushed to her side. "But you should have sent for me rather than exert yourself so."

"I do nothing that will damage the offspring," Evree stated quietly, while thinking to herself that she had already done the damage.

"I must take your word for it," Konaseus conceded. "But it is some distance from here to the birthing chamber I've prepared." Evree saw a small movement, his hand slipping beneath his robes and guessed that he had some sort of remote control hidden there.

In a remarkably short time, a device that had every appearance of a sedan chair arrived. Every appearance save for the fact that it hung in mid-air on its own with no one, not even robots to bear it. The awkwardness of the otherwise elegant contraption lay in that it hovered above the floor higher than Evree's waist. She looked hopelessly at Konaseus, who laughed, lifted her up and deposited her within.

&&&&&&

'This is going to be the most dangerous part,' Evree thought to her host as Konaseus escorted the floating sedan to the appointed place. 'We will be much more vulnerable apart.'

'And there is no way you can birth your young without leaving me.' Even on a strictly mental level, Draylea sounded tired, and in pain, and Evree felt a stab of guilt for getting her host into such a predicament. 'Stop that,' Draylea ordered gently. 'We are in this together. It would not be fitting if I shared in the pleasures and none of the dangers.'

'But I made the decision for both of us,' Evree pointed out. 'I did not even think to consult you, and I should have.'

'I would have said something if I had seen anything to object to,' Draylea rejoined. 'You make certain to give me credit for that which I have done well, but yet you insist on taking all the blame upon yourself.'

'You are accusing me of hubris?' Evree asked ruefully.

'You are, after all, Goa'uld,' Draylea observed dryly. 'I believe it is a genetic trait.'

'No longer Goa'uld, I think.' Evree was completely serious now. 'I am Tok'ra.'

&&&&&

Jack was trying not to pace the confines of the cell, but it was a struggle. The point that Evree had made to Draylea about being more vulnerable apart had occurred to him as well. And it wouldn't take much for Konaseus to keep them apart if he took a notion to either. He sighed.

Sam approached him cautiously. "I know you're worried about her, sir," she said softly. "We all are. But we can't do anything about it right now, and you're just going to make yourself crazy imagining worst case scenarios."

"Believe me, Carter, I would dearly love to stop," O'Neill replied solemnly. "But it's not easy. In fact, it's damn near impossible."

&&&&&&

Evree allowed Konaseus to lift her down out of the sedan, she really didn't have any options there, but she was beginning to believe that he was now making excuses to touch her. And, as he set her down and released her, his hands 'accidentally' brushed up against her breasts.

And she dared not say a thing.

Then, before she knew it, he was lifting her up again, so that Draylea could lay in repose on a high couch while she birthed her young in the nearby tank.

'If it would appear that he intends to harm you,' she silently gave Draylea last minute instructions. 'Have no thought for me. Try to save yourself.'

'I won't leave you, Evree.' Draylea at her most stubborn.

'You will not be able to be there for me if he kills you,' Evree pointed out sensibly. 'I hope he will not, but I don't know what he has in mind for me. Farewell.' As she thought the final syllable, she left her host, and truly felt her vulnerability as Konaseus scooped her up to place her in the birthing tank.

&&&&&

"There are five of them," Konaseus remarked over an hour later. Before she had well and truly gotten settled back into her host, actually, and thankful that she could do so.

"I have yet to hear of a Goa'uld having a single birth," Evree replied apologetically. She really felt that she would prefer to be alone now, rather than have to view the children she had deliberately made dysfunctional. Their very presence was a reproach. "I did attempt to keep their numbers down, since you require but one."

"Then I shall observe them and choose which one I believe to be the most suitable," Konaseus declared, peering into the tank. He turned to look at Evree. "Have you any recommendations?"

Evree tried to shrug nonchalantly. "They are newborn," she pointed out. "They are much of a muchness now. Besides, why hurry to decide? It will be years before they are mature enough to take a host."

"I have a device that will enable me to accelerate their maturation," Konaseus replied, trying to appear modest.

"Are you not afraid that it will damage them?" Evree asked a little too sharply for her supposed condition. "It has been my experience that nature has reasons for its methods."

"Feeling maternal?" Konaseus looked at her quizzically.

"I bred them so you could take a symbiote," Evree answered softly, a quick inhalation of the drug just preventing her from snapping at him. She hoped that he would believe her initial reaction had to do with being separated from her host while birthing. "Not to be laboratory animals."

"The device has already been tested," Konaseus assured her. From his extensive research, he knew that Goa'uld were not nurturing creatures, and yet, here was Evree, apparently fretting about the fate of her young. He finally concluded that it could be but another consequence of the drug and decided to let it go at that. "Would you care to observe the process for yourself?"

Now in truth, Evree would rather face down Anubis than to watch Konaseus' machine age her defective children prematurely. But she had more than herself to consider. A great deal more. "I'm sure it will be most fascinating," she declared, fluttering her eyelashes at him. "You are a very clever man, Konaseus."

Konaseus' massive chest seemed to expand. He beamed down at Evree approvingly. This was how she should be behaving. "Together we will overthrow Anubis and the System Lords. Then, my queen, the universe shall be ours."

&&&&&

"How long?" Janet asked of no one in particular. She and General Hammond had both given up the pretense of getting anything accomplished and were spending most of their time hanging around the gate room, praying for SG-1's return.

"Seven more hours," Hammond replied. He was determined to stick to it, even though he knew that each passing hour decreased the chances of SG-1 returning alive and well.

"General, I know it's a delicate situation," Frasier said, turning to look at him. "But the longer Evree is addicted to that drug, the harder it's going to be to get her off it. And the smaller her chances of surviving the withdrawal will be."

"I'm aware of that, Doctor," Hammond responded, eyes firmly on the iris as if he could cause it to open by the sheer force of his will. "While I don't like it any better than you do, may I remind you that Evree is older than both of us put together? And that she knew there were risks going into this."

"And I have no doubt that she thought whatever the risks were, Colonel O'Neill would be able to protect her," Janet commented softly.

&&&&&

"If she dies, it'll be my fault," O'Neill said, staring out the grate. "She trusted me to protect her."

"Jack, I'm sure she wouldn't blame you if something happened," Daniel soothed. "You've done the best you could under circumstances no one could imagine. We all know that. Including Evree."

O'Neill shook his head. "You've never seen that look in her eyes," he reflected sadly. "Complete and utter trust, just like you'd get from a kid. And this will be worse than letting a kid down, because that usually doesn't involve someone dying."

"I don't think I've ever seen you act so.., defeated, before," Daniel remarked. "You've been in closer scrapes than this before, Jack. We all have."

"The only way I can think to put it is that each and every one of us knew exactly what was at stake coming into this," O'Neill stated. "But how can someone who's been around hundreds of years and can fully expect to be around hundreds more really accept the fact of her own mortality?"

"You're saying you don't think she believes she can die?" Daniel was dumfounded. That may have held true for most Goa'uld, but Evree? "Maybe you ought to take another look at her scars before you imply that she feels indestructible," he suggested. "Evree is not your typical Goa'uld."

"She's not your typical anything," O'Neill agreed and then some.

&&&&&&

Evree dutifully watched as Konaseus used a remote control to wheel the birthing tank into the next room where he wanted it. Evree felt and suppressed a feeling of disdain. No wonder he was so corpulent, he had machines doing everything for him. But honesty compelled her to admit that not too terribly far in the past she had been equally lazy, the only difference being that she had had human slaves rather than machines.

She could see, however, why the tank had to be moved. Konaseus' device took up most of the available space.

"If you will accompany me, my queen?" Konaseus gestured to a tiny control booth. "Some shielding is required," he explained. "For mature beings, there are some unpleasant side effects."

Evree followed him obediently enough, though if asked, she would have said that being in such an enclosed space with Konaseus was not something she would have done by choice.

"If we are in here without even a window to look out," Evree commented. "Then precisely how am I to observe your device's operation?"

Konaseus smiled the condescending smile of the technologically superior. "Here." He flicked a button, and a screen lit up with a view of the young swimming in their tank. "There is no transparent material that I have found that will provide adequate shielding."

"If it is so dangerous," Evree argued, aware that she was skating on thin ice, but wanting to know. "Then how is it that you are so certain it will not damage the young?" It also, she thought, might provide and excuse if he did have a method for determining that the young were defective.

Again with the condescending smile. "It is only those fully grown who have anything to fear," Konaseus replied. "For them, it will merely stimulate them into maturing more rapidly." He flicked another button, and a low hum ensued, and the tank was illuminated in multi-colored lights. The hum changed pitch, and became a shrill whine that caused Evree to cover her ears with her hands.

Then, abruptly, it all ceased.

"That is all?" Evree asked incredulously. To her eye, the young in the tank looked no different than before.

"It has begun a process," Konaseus explained patiently. "It will take a few hours for the entire process. We have just set it in motion."

"I see," Evree murmured. "Then may we leave here?" She looked at him apologetically. "It is so very close in here."

"Of course, my queen." As they left, he pointed to one of many incomprehensible read-outs on the device. "See here?" He pointed. "This indicates that they have already, collectively, gained ten grams in weight." He rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. "Just a few more hours."

"Just a few more hours," Evree echoed. She smiled weakly at him. "We never did finish our tour. Can you show me how you run this all by yourself?"

&&&&&

"I see her," O'Neill announced, unable to keep a tinge of excitement out of his voice. He was hoping to get a few words in with her. Almost as soon as he had the thought, though, it was shot down. "Konaseus is with her."

"What are they doing?" At the moment, Jack and Teal'c were squarely in front of the grate. It didn't leave any room, and Sam couldn't see over their shoulders any better than she could see through them.

"It appears as though they are finishing the tour we started," Teal'c replied.

"I guess that must mean she's already given birth," Daniel observed. "I wonder who's idea the tour was, though."

"Evree's," Jack stated definitely, then rolled his eyes.

"Was this something the two of you planned, sir?" Carter's voice was ever so slightly reproachful. If they'd made a plan, they should have let the rest of them in on it.

As O'Neill shook his head, Teal'c felt compelled to ask, "Then you infer it was Evree's idea from the facial contortions she directed this way?"

"She was trying to wink," Jack explained. "She just can't seem to get the hang of it. But she insists on trying."

"So Evree must have some sort of plan," Daniel mused.

"Or maybe she's just getting the lay of the land," Sam remarked. "None of us has seen any part of this place that might be called a sensitive area. And with all of his technological toys, there's almost got to be one."

"Maybe it's both," O'Neill murmured reflectively. "She might have a plan, but needs more information before she decides it's feasible." A faint ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. "She's not stupid. And she's done pretty good at improvising."

"We know Evree's smart," Daniel commented. "But from what we've seen, Konaseus probably makes it to the genius category. So I suppose the question is, Is Evree smart enough to outwit him?"

"Konaseus may be more intelligent," Teal'c put in. "But I do not believe he has spent much time interacting with others for a long time. That may give Evree an advantage."

"So, basically, we're betting Evree's street smarts over Konaseus' book smarts," Jack said thoughtfully. "I think I'll take a little bit of that action."

"I don't think we have a choice," Daniel stated, and wished he could feel a little more confident about it.