A/N: Ok, spent all Saturday writing this chapter, now I got to get back to my homework. Heads up to AngelSC for reminding me of the tried-and-true method I use in this chappy. As for everyone else, if you have any more suggestions for Jack's stunts, make them now, because this story's winding to a close. Thank you, all you reviewers, it's great you're having as much fun reading as I am writing. I'll update as soon as I get a break in my homework. Cheers!
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Way # 77 – Gunshy
The bed was low and flat and wide, the mattress stuffed with some sort of grain, similar to buckwheat. The sheets were a drab off-white and rough, softer than burlap, but not by much. Despite that, it was a welcome place to sleep, and more comfortable than some of the places his sleeping bag had been camped out on in the past. The pillow was stuffed with the feathers of some native animal, big, poofy grey feathers, and more than made up for the rough sheets and lumpy mattress. Next to his bed sat some sort of nightstand, carved from a tree-trunk, with an oil lamp and a single drawer. His pack sat on the floor next to the nightstand. On the other side of the nightstand was another bed, and beside that a third, all with the same simple arrangements.
He should have known. He really should have, but instead he went to bed without his wrist-watch. It was buried in his pack instead of on his wrist so he wouldn't be woken up by its 6:00 alarm. Daniel didn't like getting up early, he never had, and although he tried to when he was offworld, in the end he'd always end up sleeping in. That became his downfall again and again, because Jack was always an early riser. This morning it had been an itch, while he was somewhere in between sleep and the waking world, and he'd reached up to rub his nose, only to be surprised by a strange sensation when he did so, a fluffy, sticky substance all over his face. Opening his eyes and pulling his hand away to look at it, he gazed a moment without understanding at the white foamy stuff, blinking away sleep from his eyes. He heard a scuffling and some snickering and the bedroom door swing open and slide shut, and brought the foam closer to sniff, running between two fingers, and concluded it was relatively harmless, merely shaving cream. He glanced around the room for the culprit but he was nowhere near. Leaning up in bed, Daniel searched for the glasses he had left on the nightstand, getting them a bit smudged in shaving cream as he located them and put them back on his face. Glancing around some more he caught sight of Teal'c, who was sitting quietly on one of the chairs and cleaning his staff weapon. The Jaffa gave him a somewhat unreadable look as Daniel blinked at him.
"O'Neill has already left to join MavenKaysor for breakfast."
"Oh."
Daniel rubbed at the cream on his glasses and eye and tried to get it off and rub it on a less offending spot on his face. He looked around a moment for something like a kleenex, realized the culture didn't have such an equivalent sitting handily by the bedside, and instead got out of bed and went over to the connecting bathroom. He took off his glasses and set them down on the counter and grabbed a hand-towel hanging on the wall to wipe the shaving cream off his eye. Then he smeared the remainder all around his face and opened his toiletries pack to get a razor, figuring there was no need to waste good shaving cream. Glancing up, he caught Teal'c's eye in the mirror. Daniel commented,
"Getting a bit unoriginal, isn't he?"
Teal'c looked back down to the weapon he was cleaning, the weapon's head in his lap as he opened it to partially dismantle.
"Indeed," he agreed in his usual gruff tone. Daniel dipped the razor in the bowl of water and sighed as he began to shave.
"It's been this way for quite some time now. I'm getting tired of rubber snakes and whoopee cushions."
"Perhaps he has 'lost his touch'," Teal'c suggested, probing the interior of the staff weapon with a small metal rod. Daniel shook his head.
"I don't think that's it. To be honest I think he's gone gunshy."
Teal'c raised a brow and gave Daniel a questioning look. Daniel nodded at him in the mirror.
"You know. His pranks didn't used to be this lame. I doubt he's run out of ideas. He might be immature and narrow-minded at times but he's never short on creativity."
Teal'c gave a slight indication of a smile and a nod, and murmured,
"Your observations on others are usually most accurate, DrJackson."
"Thanks." Daniel dipped the razor in the bowl and shook it about, and returned it to drag across his face. He stared a while in the mirror, lost in thought.
"Ever since the alarm clock incident on that Naquadah World . . . his heart hasn't been in it, you know? It's starting to get worse than when he just jumped on me in the mornings."
"I am curious as to why you consider it worse."
Daniel tapped the razor against the side of the bowl.
"I dunno, at least then he was enthusiastic about it. He's still afraid of getting too rough. He's been giving me all the wussy stuff on the missions."
Teal'c glanced up with a grave expression.
"You believe his judgment as commander has been affected by this?"
"A little, yeah. I won't claim to have the same training as the rest of you guys, I know I'm just the civilian on the team. But I've been through a heck of a lot worse and came out without being killed. I'm not helpless. I don't need special treatment. I don't want special treatment."
Teal'c nodded and seriously informed him,
"You have proven to be a most capable warrior in battle, DrJackson."
Daniel laughed slightly. "Yeah. Thanks. I, I think he knows that too. We've all been through a lot together. I guess it's just, whenever emotions start getting involved, he gets all paranoid. . ."
Teal'c slid the head back into place and it reconnected with a kerzappy sound. He looked to Dr. Jackson.
"You mentioned the phrase gunshy. What did you mean by it?"
Daniel blinked and said,
"Ah, gunshy. It means. It comes from when you had a negative experience handling a gun when you're young. Accidental gunshot wound or something. Makes you nervous about using one again."
"As I thought. The Jaffa have a very similar expression."
"I'm not surprised."
"The solution of such a syndrome was to force the young Jaffa into a situation requiring them to defend themselves."
"Sounds a bit unfriendly."
"It is necessary."
Daniel pulled on his shirt.
"Well that might be true in your case but it doesn't seem to help in mine."
Teal'c put away the small tools he had used in cleaning his weapon.
"Perhaps it can be of use after all."
Daniel frowned as he zipped up his pants.
"How?"
Teal'c leaned the staff on the floor and gave a small smile.
"It would seem you merely need to convince ColonelO'Neill that he is not attacking a helpless victim. Some sort of counterattack on your part would be appropriate."
Daniel stared at Teal'c a moment and broke out into a grin.
"Teal'c! Are you telling me to pull some stunt on Jack?"
Teal'c answered cautiously,
"I am not, DrJackson. I am simply offering a possible solution for you to consider."
"Uh-huh." Daniel sat on another chair to put on his socks.
"And would you happen to have any specific ideas on what this possible solution would entail?"
Teal'c hesitated, but then agreed quite eagerly,
"There are several tactics that have occurred to me."
Daniel chuckled as he laced up his shoes.
"How do you think Jack would feel about you conspiring against him with me?"
"I have helped him in the past with the respected Tauri tradition of 'practical jokes.' As I have come to understand them, it would be considered fair for you to exact your revenge."
Daniel smiled at the Jaffa warrior.
"All right, Teal'c. Why don't you tell me more about these tactics of yours."
……………………………………..
"Hey, Carter."
Sam looked up from her work.
"Oh, hi, sir. You're actually a bit early. The presentation's not scheduled until twenty minutes from now."
"I am? I could've sworn I read it for right now. . ."
"That's okay, sir. You can go back to helping give the Maven our tour of the facility, if you want. The General told me he's been quite a talkative guest."
Jack blinked, tossed a nervous glance over his shoulder, and observed hesitantly,
"I, uh, am well aware of that. I had breakfast with him this morning. I was kind of hoping to limit my contact with him . . ."
Sam gave him a reprimanding look,
"Colonel! We're supposed to be friendly to our new allies."
"I know. I'm doing my part to ensure our relationship continues to be friendly. That's just going to require a little less contact."
Carter smiled at him in sympathy.
"I guess you could help me finish up here. As long as you don't touch anything."
Jack took a seat on one of the lab benches,
"Sounds good to me. Whatcha up to?"
Sam gestured to the pile of madness on her lab table,
"I've been spending all morning trying to find a way to properly interface this piece of equipment with our own technology. I think I finally got all the kinks worked out."
"So this thing is pretty kinky, huh? What's it do?" Jack asked, grinning.
The Major gave him a look and then went back to dinkering with the little machine.
"The Maven called it a Yaza-Guno. I'm not exactly clear on all the details. It has to do with light and sound. The light it generations is on a specific spectrum, and the sounds on specific frequency, that correlate so that they represent different mathematical formulas. It's a model."
Jack peered at her blankly. She paused and tried a different tack,
"It's a music box with lights."
"Oooh."
"Ran on a very strange source of energy. The entire thing is mechanical, not digital, yet highly complex. It was not easy getting this thing to run on our power, believe me. Heck, it took half my time just figuring out how it worked. It's really fascinating . . ."
Jack moaned, dropping his head in his hands.
"You're making me reconsider which the better of two evils is right now, Carter. I just might rejoin that Mr. Kaysor at this rate."
Carter rolled her eyes.
"There's no reason to be dramatic, sir. I need you to do me a favor, all right?"
Jack straightened up in his seat.
"Huh? Me? Involving this thing?"
"Don't worry, sir, it's nothing difficult. I just need to get one of the Maven's tools he lent me from storage, I'll be right back."
Jack's eyes went a little wide and he protested,
"Wait a minute! Why can't I just go do that? I can be a gopher, I don't want to touch this thing!"
Sam put a hand on her hip and gave him a skeptical look,
"Do you know what an alien harmonic recalibrator is? Could you pick out from a group of other tools?"
Jack considered her a moment and then relented,
"All right, no, but I'm telling you Carter, go find some hapless victim elsewhere, I don't-"
"Colonel, look. All I want you to do is watch it, okay? That's all."
Jack paused. "That's all?"
The Major nodded. She pressed something and the small machine warmed up. Rods began to rotate and spin and little lights blinked on and off, and it emitted a quiet whirring sound.
"Ooo . . ." Jack murmured, entranced by the machine.
"Look, if it starts making noise, just press the little blue button, okay?"
Jack nodded slowly, still glued to the machine, but then snapped out of it and went,
"Wait! No! Hold on, Carter!"
"See? Right there, that little blue button at the base."
"Major."
"I swear, sir, that's all you have to do," Carter insisted, hovering next to him, wanting to leave.
"What if this thing explodes on me or something? What if the noise I hear is the wrong noise? What if-"
"Any noise at all, sir."
"It's making noise right now."
"Okay. Any noise at all besides the noise it's making now."
"Carter!"
"I'll be right back, I swear. The Maven will be here soon, I just need to make one last adjustment. You'll be fine, sir, I'm sure."
Jack didn't agree, but he stopped protesting, and Sam took that as consent and began to leave the room. Jack nervously watched her go and then lost his courage. He yelled at her,
"Carter! I thought you said I could help as long as I didn't touch anything!"
"You'll do fine, Colonel. You probably won't even need to do anything."
With that, she vanished from the lab. Jack swallowed and looked back to the machine whirring on the lab table. There it was, blinking and moving about. Stupid thing. Jack scowled down at it.
"You get me in trouble and I'm gonna smash you," Jack growled at it. Then he considered how effective it would be to threaten a light-up music box. Probably not much.
He watched it like a hawk while Sam was gone. The device was small, no bigger than a bread box, more like toaster-sized, really. It had a fat oval base and a series of long, curved mechanical rods spurting from the base. They reminded him of the diagrams he'd looked at of the planet's orbits in the solar system. Each curved rod was moving independently of the others, spinning around and around in a circular orbit, forming a complex series of moving rods. The rods had small blinking lights attached to them and motion was dizzying and it looked like the rods ought to run into each other in their orbits but never did. They blinked on and off, green, blue, red, purple, yellow . . . sort of soothing to look at. Jack quickly grew to like the machine, whatever it was.
Then the music started playing. Jack raised his brows, startled when it began to emit the sounds. They were plinky and metallic and he'd be darned if they didn't sound exactly like old-fashioned music boxes. Sam was right, the blinking of the lights and the notes seemed to correspond with each other. It was quite nice.
"Ack!"
Jack jumped a little when he remembered he was supposed to be doing something, and he nervously examined the base of the machine. There was only one button, which was very good. It gave him no chance to confuse it with another button. Yet, something about it now deeply disturbed him. The button was no longer blue, it was now red. Carter had called it the little blue button. The goddamn thing had changed color on him. Should he still push it? He quickly examined the machine for other buttons or thingies and found none. He swallowed as it merrily plinked away, wondering what would happen if he didn't push the button. He had to! It was still the same button, after all, it had just changed colors! Red usually meant something bad, but, Hell, this was an alien culture, so maybe red was a good thing to them!
"Argh!" Jack groaned and quickly reached out and pushed the little button, before he could change his mind. He braced himself but nothing seemed to happen. He peered curiously at the device. It continued to tinkle and blip, blink and whirr along. Huh. That didn't seem so bad. Did it . . . did he press the button hard enough? Did it register? Was it supposed to do something different? Jack pondered this when suddenly the behavior of the machine dramatically changed. The music became different, faster and more higher-pitched. The rods began to rotate more quickly and lights blinked faster. Jack watched it nervously. He didn't like this new sound. It was whiny and sort of painful to listen to. And it just seemed to be going faster and faster. Jack's eyes gradually grew wider and wider as he witnessed the little music box go into overdrive, spinning at an incredibly insane rate, lights flashing nearly nonstop, screechy music coming from it like a dying Goa'uld or something equally horrid.
"Shit! Make it stop! Make it stop!"
Jack got up from his seat and backed up a step or two, getting that sinking feeling in his stomach that something Very Bad was about to happen, something he should not be near the epicenter to. Oh, it was bad. It was screeching so loud they no doubt could hear it from all the way down the corridor. Jack winced, his teeth set on edge, holding his hands up as if readying to block himself, and then the worst of all his fears were realized. The machine made a sudden, violent sound, sort of like a mechanical belch ripping through the gears, all its lights flashed bright at once, and the spinning rods smashed into each other's paths and went flying apart.
At this time, Carter came back from her trip, harmonic recalibrator in hand, coming up from behind Jack. She followed his gaze to the machine on her table.
"Uh . . ." she said. A small amount of smoke floated up from the machine, and it made a small sputter sound, but other than that was quiet. Jack squeaked in surprise at Sam's "uh" and whipped around to see it was her.
"What . . . happened?" Sam asked, gazing at the carnage wide-eyed. Jack nervously explained,
"I watched it! And—and—it started playing music! So I pressed the button like you said! Except, only, it was suddenly a red button instead of a blue one-"
"Wait a minute! You pressed the RED BUTTON?"
Jack stopped short and stared at her.
"There was only one button on the base. You said so yourself. So I pushed it when it made noise. Just like you said. Except it had turned red instead of blue."
Sam shut her mouth and winced.
"Urrrgh. I, uh. Mm. I meant blue button. Not if it was red. Red is . . . red is very bad."
Jack looked agape and cried,
"That's what I thought! But—but-"
"Calm down, it's all right. We might still be able to fix things, sir, hold on."
She went over to the remains of the machine to examine. Jack followed carefully from behind.
It did not look good. Sam examined the machine for a little bit, prodding it with her borrowed tool for a moment. Jack gazed about at all the metal rods, sprayed across the whole table and off onto the floor in all directions. Carter set the tool down and called it.
"Yep. Looks like it's toast, sir."
Jack glared at her, quickly getting angry.
"I'm going to sound like a broken record, Carter, but did I NOT WARN YOU? Did I not SAY I should NEVER touch something on this Table of Evil of yours?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd press the red button, sir," Carter said reasonably.
"THERE WAS ONLY ONE BUTTON!"
"Excuse me . . . are we interrupting?"
Both Jack and Sam looked up from the lab table to the doorway. There was the Maven, and there was the tired-looking General. Carter plastered on a fake grin and approached them cheerfully,
"Maven Kaysor! Welcome to the science lab!"
"Thank you very much Samantha Carter," the Maven accepted jovially,
"Thank you very much indeed. It's exciting to be here. The General tells me this is where much of the magic happens in the base."
"Oh, well. The General's very, ah, kind, sir. We do a lot of the initial examination here of new technology, but then it gets sent over to the Pentagon . . ."
"Yes, yes. This is definitely where the excitement's at. And you're the mistress of this realm, aren't you, now? Ruler of the alchemy lab? Indeed. I'd love to see more, Major, this whole place. I'm thrilled and honored to be a part in all this. My, my, look at this place, looks expensive indeed."
"Aah, Major Carter. I believe we came here to see a demonstration, were we not?" the General interrupted. The poor guy did look a bit run-down after being the personal tour guide of their new ally for most the morning. A guy can only take so much chatter.
"Er. Yes, General. About that . . ."
Kaysor clasped his hands together eagerly.
"Ooh yes, the Yaza-Guno I leant you people. How's that going? Having fun picking at things and examining them, are we? I knew you'd enjoy that. One of our finest devices, that machine. We're quite proud of it, indeed. I was looking forward to seeing the thing working on your stronger fuel source. Fun bit of experiment, won't it be? I promise it will be a real treat for the eyes as well as the ears. It's much like poetry, you know."
"A-hem, yes. Well, Maven sir, about that. I did get the device functioning on our fuel source for a time . . ."
Suddenly the middle-aged man spotted Jack, who had been cowering behind Carter, and he came up and clasped the man's shoulders cheerfully.
"Colonel O'Neill! Aaah, so good of you to make it! I'm pleased you're here to witness this demonstration with us! Haha, didn't even see you back there at first, mind my manners, good sir."
"Er. Yeah. No problem." Jack said quietly.
Kaysor beamed,
"Oh, you truly have a brilliant commander on your hands, General Hammond, if you don't mind me saying so. We had the most splendid time this morning discussing his missions on the SG-1, didn't we, Colonel? It's such a blessing to meet such wonderful, hospitable people. I think that you shall especially be able to appreciate this, O'Neill, to see my fine craft in motion. You'll see what a delight it is."
Jack looked sick to his stomach.
"Carter, tell him," he hissed.
"Uh . . ."
"Tell him what?" Hammond asked suspiciously. Carter swallowed and braced herself, looking highly uncomfortable.
"Well, sir. As I was trying to explain. I got the device working for some time. And, uh . . . well there was a problem, sir . . ."
The General didn't seem yet aware of the magnitude of the problem, for he didn't look too concerned.
"I see. Will you be unable to demonstrate at this time then?"
"Uh. You could say that, sir, yes . . ."
Jack winced so that the two of them had similar expressions of deep, suppressed terror. It didn't take the General too long to pick up on it. The Maven was less than intuitive in this instance and stood by innocently with a curious expression.
"I get the impression this problem is worse than you're letting on, Major."
Sam bit her lower lip.
"There was a bit of an accident," she relented, stepping aside, so that they could see the lab table. They followed her gaze. The General's expression was rather blank, as he wasn't even sure what it was he was looking at. The Maven was unreadable at first. He slowly approached the table.
"Oh . . . my. The . . ." he reached out gently to touch the singed shell that used to be the Yaza-Guno.
"The . . . emissary . . ."
Jack gawked and looked at Carter with horror.
"Emissary?" he squeaked. The General shifted nervously.
The Maven turned with a sober expression and looked to Sam. He explained,
"The, ah, this device was given to me by my father, and to him by his father, and to him by his father's father, and so on . . . it's been a part of my royal heritage for generations. It was prophesized that one day it would play a very important role in the friendship of a new people, from another world . . . that is why it was my gift to you. I had hoped—I had believed—that its destiny was to be fulfilled now."
Sam looked at him with total bewilderment.
"You never told me any of that when you said you'd loan it to me! You acted like you had many devices of this type and that it was worth the risk for such an experiment, with a very real chance of possibly damaging it!"
Kaysor nodded to her.
"I know. You were not meant to be told. To be aware of the gift's true value would have undermined the test."
The General looked at the Maven sternly and asked,
"What kind of test, Kaysor?"
"The test," he said, "Of whether the prophecy was true."
He turned and gestured to the charred remains of the alien machine.
"I want to know exactly how this happened," he said, anger creeping into his voice. The General blinked and looked to his Major somewhat helplessly and pleadingly. Jack couldn't stand it any more.
"I did it," he confessed loudly,
"I blew up your machine, Kaysor. It was an accident, Carter only left me alone with it for a minute. I'm- sorry."
The General raised a brow at Carter and asked her,
"You left him alone with the machine?"
"I only had him watch it for a minute," Carter protested.
"You, Colonel O'Neill? But why? I had thought you'd be so appreciative of this device . . ."
"I told you, it was an accident! Machines hate me, all right? I come within five feet of them and they explode!"
The Maven took a paranoid step backwards and looked at Jack strangely.
"Are you saying that a curse has been placed upon you?"
"Er, uh, well. I don't know, there could be, for all I know . . ."
"Colonel, why don't you let me handle things," the General said tersely, cutting Jack off.
"I want to know exactly how you caused the machine's demise," Kaysor demanded. Jack waved at the remains,
"Carter told me to press the button if it started making noise so I did!"
Kaysor frowned in confusion.
"I do not understand. That should not have destroyed it."
Jack shrugged. Carter helpfully added,
"Um. He said the button was red at the time."
The Maven suddenly went stiff as a board.
"The button was red? You pushed the button when it was red!"
Jack swallowed. He quietly answered,
"Yes. I pushed it when it was red. I thought it didn't matter."
Kaysor snarled and shook his head.
"I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. I can't associate with a culture that'd have a man push a button when it was red! What kind of lunacy teaches a man that sort of twisted logic that such a thing would be a good idea!"
Jack opened his mouth to respond, but had no idea what to say. He looked to the General, who looked as helpless as Jack did. He looked to Carter, but she didn't have any help to offer either. He looked to the Maven, the short man scowling and glaring, all worked up in a huff. This was insanity. Jack pressed his hands together and looked at the alien man with his most humble and miserable look,
"Please, Maven Kaysor, sir, I really do give my deepest and most sincere apologies. It truly was an accident, please believe me."
The Maven looked less than forgiving and Jack continued to beg piteously,
"I was ignorant of your technology, sir, I can't . . . please don't hold my whole culture accountable for one stupid mistake that I've made. It's entirely my fault, not theirs, sir. I accept the blame entirely, and any punishment there might be. Don't let this destroy all our chances of friendship, I . . . that would be such a waste, sir, please don't."
Kaysor looked to be considering him. He rubbed his thin thoughtfully.
"Well," he murmured reluctantly,
"The destruction was caused by only a single individual, due to extreme negligence. I might be able to accept some kind of compensation from the individual in its place . . ."
Jack looked briefly to his comrades, who nodded at this, so Jack agreed eagerly,
"Yeah, yeah, okay, good! Compensation."
Kaysor looked at him sternly.
"You swear you wish to do this? It will require signing a statement proclaiming full responsibility for the death of the Emissary of Kaysor. Your plea would be based on extreme negligence."
Jack winced and asked,
"Would you mind slightly altering that to just 'negligence' or perhaps 'slight negligence'-"
"And a promise of full personal compensation for the emissary's death due to extreme negligence! Do you agree?"
Jack gulped and nodded.
"Yessir, of course sir. I agree."
"Good," Kaysor huffed. The man sniffed and lifted a delicate hand to point,
"Now run along to do my bidding, knave, for you've just agreed to be my personal caretaker for the remainder of your natural life."
Jack blinked and then exploded,
"WHAT!"
"Not so loud, knave. I wish you to fetch me my tools from the supply storage and clean up this wretched mess. We'll be taking it back at once. I have much work for you to do."
Jack stood there, jaw agape, simply beside himself. He looked at his friends who were speechless and their usual useless selves.
"General," Jack croaked. Hammond took a moment to compose himself and then nodded curtly.
"You heard what the man said, Colonel."
Jack sputtered in utter disbelief.
"But sir!"
Hammond raised a brow and commanded,
"No butts, Colonel. I expect you to carry out the orders you're given."
Jack stared long and hard at the General, trying to discern if the man was serious or not. He certainly wore a dead-serious expression, but then again, didn't he always? He looked to his last possible friend of the lot, Major Carter, and gave her his most sweet appeal.
"Carter . . . you guys aren't going to honor such an unrealistic demand, right?"
Carter hesitated, chewing her lower lip and avoiding eye contact.
"It, uh, the General's decision, sir," she said quietly.
"Wh—all right, all right, that's it. This is ridiculous. This is just . . ." Jack began, unable to even find the words. He stared at the faces watching him expectantly around him. His brows rose up, and something didn't feel right. He looked back at Carter.
"Major," he said, but she still refused to look up.
"Samantha."
He caught her blue eyes at last and held them mercilessly. She stumbled and stuttered.
"I, ah, sir, I'm sorry, but . . ."
She emitted a strange sound. She held a hand over her face and coughed, looking away. Jack stared, then reached out and grabbed her wrist, taking her hand away from her mouth. Catching a smirk on her face.
A smile. She cleared her throat and tried smothering it, but it was too late.
"What's going on? Why are you smiling?" Jack demanded.
Sam looked mightily embarrassed and looked at her commanding officer with apologetic eyes. In between snorts, coughs and snickers, she said,
"It wasn't my idea, sir."
Jack turned on the other two with accusation in his eyes. Maven Kaysor was grinning but quickly stepped up to defend himself, saying,
"I wish I could take credit but I was merely invited by your friends to take part in such a jest."
Jack snarled, "What jest? Carter, what have you been spreading around—I'll have your butt in the sling for this and don't think I won't-"
Sam took a few paces back and protested,
"Please, Colonel, it was Teal'c that came to us-"
"Teal'c? How could Teal'c do this?" Jack stopped, shocked at this notion.
"It wasn't anything important, sir, don't worry. You didn't destroy the emissary . . ."
Jack wrinkled his nose at her.
"The device was a child's toy, actually . . . we have many like them," Kaysor put in. Sam continued,
"The Maven helped me rig this one to explode at the push of a button . . ."
Jack stared at the two in disbelief.
"I rather think the knave part was a nice touch," Kaysor observed jovially.
Jack looked to General Hammond.
"Sir?" he asked. The older man gave a slight apologetic shrug.
"Considering your history I didn't see any harm in cooperating."
Carter giggled, and Kaysor smirked. Jack frowned, glowering, and said,
"It's not like I didn't know you were all messing with me."
The Maven agreed cheerfully,
"Ah, but of course! A man of your genius would surely be used to seeing through such shallow deceptions by your comrades. I'm glad our foolhardy jocularity troubles you not."
Jack glared and pointed,
"I knew. As soon as you put me in charge of that thing, Carter, I knew that wasn't right."
Sam smiled and apologized,
"I'm sorry sir, but I couldn't resist. As soon as I heard Daniel's idea I couldn't just-" Sam stopped short, in the manner one does when realizing they have said something they shouldn't.
"Daniel? You said—you said it was Teal'c!"
"Ah, well. Yes and no. It was Teal'c that invited us all to be involved. But, uh, the whole idea with me and the device, and Kaysor and the emissary . . ."
The General gave Jack a cheerful look.
"It certainly added something interesting to my day," he said, clearly pleased at having a distraction from the talkative Kaysor. And an entertaining distraction at that. Great. So Jack was a source of entertainment now.
"Well I'm so glad you found it all so amusing. Whatever it takes to entertain our guests, sir. No trouble at all-" he turned to the Maven,
"We Earthlings love some good jocularity at the behalf of our friends, sure. Troubles me not in the slightest—unless of course you still expect me to be your knave?"
"Ah, no, Colonel, that won't be necessary."
Jack thumbed towards the mess on Carter's table,
"So you won't be needing me to get that?"
"I'm sure I can have someone else clean that up, sir," Sam said.
"I see. All right then."
Hammond cleared his throat.
"The Maven and I should be moving along . . . we have a tour to complete."
Jack grunted,
"Oh, yes, of course. Don't let me keep you. You don't want to miss the rest of the tour, you know. Have fun, Kaysor."
The Maven offered a hand,
"No hard feelings, Colonel O'Neill? I was most sincere in what I said about you. It's just I also like a people that don't take themselves so seriously that they've lost all sense of humor."
Jack studied the man a moment, and then took his hand, smiling reluctantly, giving it a hearty shake.
"You have a good sense of character, Kaysor. Welcome to the base."
"Thank you, sir, thank you very much. I hope we shall talk again soon. Good day, O'Neill."
Jack watched the two of them leave. Carter sighed in relief.
"I'm glad you're not mad, Colonel. Teal'c had suggested looking upon it as a positive opportunity to share in respected cultural traditions."
Jack raised a brow.
"He did, huh? He's a pretty manipulative diplomat, isn't he?"
Sam nodded and admitted,
"He was very convincing."
Jack sighed and observed,
"I suppose I'm partially to blame for rubbing off on him. Maybe I've become too good of a teacher of Tauri customs."
Sam agreed, "Probably."
Jack looked at her. After a pause of just staring at her, she asked,
"What?"
He crossed his arms.
"The General and an outsider, I can let off the hook easily. But I don't know about you."
"I felt terrible the whole time, if that makes you feel any better," she said coyishly.
"Oh, come off it. Don't tell me you didn't thoroughly enjoy being totally mean to me."
She gaped. "Mean? I wasn't mean!"
"Oh yeah. Oh, you knew how scared I was of that stupid thing. All this button-pushing—God! What was with the red button pushing!"
Carter laughed, looking half-terrified of being smacked, but unable to resist.
"Well you can't be the one to have all the fun, can you?"
"Apparently not."
They were quiet a moment, and then Sam started giggling again.
"Carter. Shut up."
"Sorry sir. It's just the color-changing button really was funny."
Jack sighed the sigh of a long-suffering man.
"Why the Hell did it change color anyway?"
Carter smirked, and then grinned.
"What?"
She started laughing again, a delightful, savoring-the-anticipation look in her eyes.
"What?" Jack pressed forcefully.
"That was part of Daniel's idea."
Jack frowned in thought. It suddenly became very clear to him who the mastermind behind the scheme truly had been all along.
"He really did design it down to the last detail, didn't he?"
"I give him all the credit," Carter agreed.
Oh, Daniel knew him too well. Jack became lost in thought.
"Sounds like I owe him another visit."
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