The Thoroughness of the Thief
by Cleo the Muse

"How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved!"
-- Sigmund Freud, The Letters of Sigmund Freud

"I expected you to be on the other side of the galaxy by now, love," Yvondra Amicass grinned, appreciatively eyeing the tight leather bodice her friend had managed to pour her not-inconsiderable upper torso into. She just had to get one of those for herself.

"Bad news travels fast, does it?" Vala Mal Doran smirked, languidly stretching out in the booth opposite the information broker. "Actually, I would be there already, if I didn't need a little something from you, first."

The former lo'taur of Svarog feigned innocence. "From me? Oh, Vala, what could you possibly need from me?"

Vala leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand. "I'm sure there's something."

"A treasure map?"

"Got one of those."

"A valuable information crystal?"

"I think I know where one of those could be."

"A perfectly salvageable Goa'uld ha'tak?"

Vala straightened up. "Really?"

"Fresh out, sorry." Yvondra smiled wickedly at the answering sullen pout, continuing to count suggestions off on her fingers. "Let's see... Goa'uld marriage bracelets?"

"Already own a pair."

"Access codes to the Tau'ri Stargate?"

Vala leaned back, imperiously flipping one hand in Yvondra's direction. "I think that's what I'm looking for."

"Sorry, love, those codes are as preciously guarded as the cats in Bastet's palace."

The thief crossed her arms. "I can't believe I came all the way here just to find out--"

Yvondra waved a hand. "I might know another way through their 'Gate, if you're willing to listen."

"How much does 'willing' cost me this time?"

The broker steepled her fingers together, leaning across the table conspiratorially. "Well, the Tok'ra have expressed an interest in a rare object known only as the Livanna Crystal. I don't suppose you've heard of it have you?"

"I may have heard it mentioned before," Vala replied, looking thoughtful as she tapped her chin with her forefinger. "Something to do with solar energy? A prism, maybe?"

"Might be," Yvondra replied. "Whatever it is, they sounded like they really wanted it."

"Well, maybe I can find out where this crystal might be. In the meantime, what news from the War of the Lords?"

"Not the 'War of the Lords' any longer, love. More like the 'Bore of the Hordes'. The Jaffa are trying to found a new nation, the Tau'ri have been curiously quiet, and the Tok'ra are looking to undermine everyone and turn the whole galaxy into a morass of political intrigue. Certain brave fellows are attempting to found their own dynasties; the Lucien Alliance has swelled their ranks with disillusioned Jaffa and their respective al'kesh; and the remaining Goa'uld are either dead, out of power, or too stupid to realize the Jaffa they once commanded have actually taken charge of their affairs for them." She paused, angling her head to one side curiously. "Have you been out of the loop, love?"

Vala gave a very un-ladylike snort. "'Out of the loop'? You might say that. You might also say I've spent the better part of the last two months kow-towing to every whim and whiny request from an idiot archaeologist who should've been shot several years ago."

Ouch, Yvondra thought, eyes widening in surprise at the vehemence in her friend's tone. Things must not have gone too well. Rather than directly asking, though, she asked, "So what's the last bit of news you'd heard?"

"That the Jaffa Rebellion had defeated the armada of Baal in orbit of Dakara."

"Well, the rebel Jaffa forced Baal to flee, then went after Anubis. Turns out, Anubis was going after the weapon at Dakara at the same time, and they passed by one another going. Just as the weapon was about to fire, eyewitnesses reported that Anubis threw up his hands as though warding off an invisible attacker and vanished in a flash of blinding light."

"Ring transporter? Asguard beam?"

"Neither. He left all his clothing behind when he disappeared."

"Ew."

Yvondra looked amused. "It's not what you're thinking, love."

"I wasn't thinking anything."

"Right. Some of the Jaffa took it as a spiritual sign that the Goa'uld reign was ended, and declared themselves freed by the powers of the 'true gods'."

"What do those not prone to delusions think?"

The broker leaned closer. "That your fiancé did it."

"Fiancé? Oh, you mean Daniel. He's not my--"

"Have you or have you not been packing those 'marriage bracelets' around for a few months, intending to use them on a certain unwitting Tau'ri?"

"Well, when you put it that way... And what do mean, my Daniel did it?"

"When you last saw him, Benitar oh-so-diplomatically told you Jackson had been reported killed in action, correct?"

"It was Mektil actually, and as I recall, I told him what a ridiculous assumption that was," Vala replied haughtily. "He wasn't really dead, was he?"

"Actually, he was, love." Yvondra let it sink in for a moment before she decided to stop Vala's inevitable outraged sulk by saying, "Of course, the key word is 'was'. 'Was' dead."

"Then he wasn't disintegrated along with the Replicator ship."

"No, it seems more likely he went extra-vehicular without a protective suit."

"Ew!"

"Definitely. The Tok'ra really don't know what happened, actually--though they have their suspicions--nor are the Tau'ri being very forthcoming with specifics."

Vala frowned. "I thought the Tau'ri loved extolling their victories to the known universe. Leastwise, that's what the Tok'ra have led me to believe."

Yvondra gave a short bark of laughter. "I wouldn't say 'extolling'. They've never denied any of the claims of victory attributed to them by the Tok'ra tendency to overstate everything else." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that's probably because any bragging about their victories would probably have made them a higher-priority target to the System Lords."

"Yes, probably. But you're getting off-track." The thief reached one hand up to play with a strand of hair dangling free from the clip which held the rest off her neck. "What do you mean, my Daniel did it?"

Ah, that famous Mal Doran persistence! Yvondra chuckled to herself. "Jackson was conspicuously absent during the battles with the Replicators and Baal. Then, just after Anubis' disappearance two weeks later, Jackson reappeared without a scratch. Coincidence? The Tok'ra don't think so."

Vala arched an eyebrow. "Even a sarcophagus won't revive a person dead for that long."

"Exactly why the Tok'ra are suspicious, love. Of course, no one would tell me what their suspicions were, but I got the impression the Tau'ri didn't deny it."

"Interesting."

Yvondra grinned. "Isn't it, though?" She steepled her hands together on the table before her. "Now... What have you been up to these last two months?"

"Not much," Vala admitted. "I 'Gated to the address Benitar provided, only to find out the man who had the tablet was a widowed archaeologist obsessed with the Ancients."

The broker choked. "That sounds familiar," she remarked with a grin.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Anyway, the archaeologist--Malikai was his name--had apparently been expecting the Tok'ra to send a research assistant for some time already, which Benitar failed to mention. I spent two months digging in the dirt with instruments too small to make effective eating implements! I had to label every broken tool, every pottery shard, every rock I dug up and precisely notate its location on a sheet of paper!"

Oh, Vala, to have to exercise such patience! Yvondra laughed to herself. "So what took you so long? Surely it didn't take you two months to find the tablet."

"Oh, getting to the tablet wasn't hard at all," Vala assured her. "Getting the cipher to decode the damn thing took a lot longer. After about a month he finally stopped talking about his dead wife long enough to say he thought the tablet placed the treasure on Earth."

"Really? What a coincidence."

"Isn't it though? Anyway, a month later he finally stopped talking about the dig long enough to tell me how to decode the dumb thing. That night, I took it and ran!"

"You poor thing," the former lo'taur laughed. "I'm sorry you had such a hard time."

"Well, I tried to shorten things a bit, really. He was quiet and polite at first, so I played 'hard to get', then 'dangerously seductive' when that didn't seem to work. Even still, I think the only way he'd have looked at me twice was if I'd looked just like his dead wife." She pursed her lips contemplatively. "In retrospect, I probably should have covered my body in Ancient writing: maybe then Malikai would have noticed I was female."

Oh, there's an image, Yvondra grinned, not having any difficulty imagining just that. "In the end, you still got what you set out to get."

Vala wagged a finger. "Not everything. How do I get through the Tau'ri Stargate to retrieve my Daniel? So I can get my treasure, of course."

"Oh, of course, love... But I still need the Livanna Crystal."

The thief heaved a martyred sigh, reaching down the top of her bodice and removing an orange data crystal from its well-cushioned resting place. She slid it across the table and sat back, crossing her arms. "This treasure had better be worth it," she pouted sulkily.

The broker tucked the crystal into the pocket of her vest, simultaneously retrieving a disc-shaped crystal of her own. Six symbols were etched across the surface. "The 'Gate address to a world the Tau'ri call Alpha Site. From there you should be able to convince them to contact Jackson. Of course you'll have to convince him you need to go to Earth."

"That's a lot of indefinites."

Yvondra spread her hands. "It's the best I could do, love. Like I said before, the Tau'ri have been strangely quiet since the defeats of the Replicators, Baal, and Anubis. Even the Tok'ra have had their last major tie to the Tau'ri severed when Selmak and his host, Jacob Carter, died. Still, the Tau'ri maintain the Alpha Site as an off-world outpost whereby you might gain access to the Tau'ri 'Gate." She pointed at the disc. "Memorize those symbols well, as the crystal will shatter when it goes through the event horizon."

"I'll keep that in mind," Vala promised, standing.

"You do that." She stood as well, walking to the door with her friend. Placing a hand on each of Vala's shoulders as they stood just outside the entryway, she smiled. "Vala... good luck. May you get what you're after."

"Oh, I will certainly do my best."

Yvondra then waited until Vala was almost around the corner before she called, "Vala!"

"What?"

"Apparently his first wife was given to him. Don't play 'hard to get', all right?"

An impish grin was her only reply.

Author's Notes:

And there ya have it, Ladies and Gents! The very last "The Thief" story before "Avalon". I may need a bit of a brain-break before plunging into the season nine stories, but hopefully it won't take too long.

As for the Convention, I "innocently" explained to Chris Judge and Michael Shanks that it was my first convention ever, and that I had been told I should ask about "something called the Puff and Ruffle"! Oh, the groans of agony those two made before standing up and proceeding to demonstrate!

And to the person at the Convention who believed in birthday conspiracies: well, I have my driver's license that proves it. It's also astatistical fact that 2 out of 22 randomly-chosen people have the same birthday... in a room of about 250 SG-1 fans, there are going to be SEVERALpeople there who are having birthdays!