Chapter 8
There was an inevitable delay while SG-7 was debriefed and cleared through medical, so it was early the next morning before the teams could meet to discuss the results of the survey.
Jack waited until everybody was seated, then got straight to the point. "So, Reynolds," he said. "What's the scoop?"
"I'm no geologist," Reynolds answered, indicating one of his team members. "Solomon here's the man you want."
Sam nearly choked on her coffee. "As in Solomon the Wise?"
Across from her, the young lieutenant glared briefly at his CO before turning to Sam. "Nickname, ma'am."
Beside her, Daniel covered a snicker with a cough, hastily rearranging the papers in front of him in an attempt to cover his amusement. Sam felt her own lips twitch dangerously. "So, Lieutenant…"
"Soldarini, Ma'am."
She nodded. "What did you find out?"
"Dakara is similar to Earth in many ways," he said, punching up an image on the view screen. "Including the fact that its crust appears to be composed of an ever shifting array of tectonic plates." The image rotated and pulled apart, showing a group of six tectonic plates arranged like the pieces of a child's jigsaw puzzle.
"Is this antique thingy perched on the edge of one of those plates?" Jack asked.
"Not exactly, Sir." Soldarini touched a few keys on the keyboard and a new image appeared on the screen. It was a high altitude aerial view of Dakara, probably taken by the crew on the Prometheus.
"You see here?" He pointed at a line of mountains that ran along the northern edge of the main continent. "And here?" He pointed to another, this one along the southern edge. He tapped a few more keys and the image magnified to reveal towering ranges the likes of which didn't exist on earth. "These are convergent plate boundaries, and they're caused, at least in these cases, by one tectonic plate sliding underneath another one."
Sam glanced at Jack just as he decided he'd had enough. "You're trying to tell me that a mountain range thousands of miles away almost shook Daniel off the edge of a cliff?"
Soldarini shook his head. "Theoretically, it's possible, Sir. But no, I don't think it was the case this time. Nobody reported feeling the tremor except the members of SG-1. I was just getting to that."
"Then get there already."
Sam ducked her head to hide a smile. Some things never changed. Soldarini, relatively new to the SGC and not used to Jack's ways, looked flustered.
"I was just going to say that it was doubtful the convergent zones and respective fault lines were the cause of the quake SG-1 experienced."
"Well why didn't you just say that, then?" Jack grumbled.
Soldarini, thoroughly deflated, took his seat.
"So?" Jack asked. "What exactly did happen, then?"
When an answer didn't appear to be immediately forthcoming, Jack turned to the team's CO. "Reynolds?"
Reynolds exchanged an uncomfortable look with his teammates before answering. "We don't exactly know, Sir."
"You don't know?"
Reynolds shook his head.
Jack sighed. "Seventy-two hours of off-world reconnaissance with nothing to show for it. The number crunchers are gonna love this news."
"Actually, Sir, that's not entirely true."
"Oh?" Jack sounded skeptical, but he dropped his pen, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. "Do tell."
Reynolds turned to Sam. "Didn't you say the Jaffa were interested in starting an agricultural community on Dakara?"
"That's what they're hoping, yes."
Jack leaned forward abruptly. "Farming? On Dakara? Big rocks, hot sun, annoying quantities of dust… That Dakara?"
Sam nodded.
"You have got to be joking."
"Actually, she's not," Daniel said. "The Jaffa have found written records that support its existence thousands of years ago."
Jack shook his head. "Wow," he said under his breath. "That's some drought."
"Actually," Reynolds said, "we found proof of what must once have been a fertile valley." He stood, moving over to the keyboard and punching up another image. He pointed. "Here."
Daniel studied the image for a moment. "That's not far from the device."
Reynolds nodded. "About thirty clicks as the crow flies."
For a few seconds the only sound in the room was that of Jack's pen drumming a restless rhythm on his notepad.
"Tell me this," he finally said, directing his words to Soldarini again. "Can you guarantee that there are no fault lines near…?" He waved a hand at the map. "Daniel's gadget?
"Guarantee as in a hundred percent, Sir?"
Jack nodded.
"No, Sir. It would take years of research to gather enough data to prove that."
"Fine, then. How sure are you?"
"Sir?"
The pen dropped back to the table with a sharp click. "I mean," Jack said with exaggerated patience. "Are we talking a fifty-fifty chance? Seventy-five twenty-five? What?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say there's about an eighty percent chance the area's safe."
Jack had the pen back in his hands now, and he rolled it back and forth between his palms while he considered the options. Finally, he turned back to Daniel.
"How important is this thing, anyway?"
"Without getting a closer look at it, I couldn't say," said Daniel.
"Sir," said Sam, "I'd really like to get a look at it myself. From the pictures Daniel brought back, it looks like something the Ancients might have created, which means that it's probably a highly advanced piece of alien technology."
"And you just can't wait to get your hands on it," Jack said.
"With all due respect, Sir… Yes." She knew she'd let too much attitude slip into her voice when he looked sharply at her. She dropped her gaze back to her notes. This was neither the time nor the place to provoke a confrontation.
Several seconds passed, and then he finally sighed in resignation. "You've got forty-eight hours."
Sam swallowed her relief. Forty-eight hours off world, away from Jack, with a new device to distract her. There really was a god.
"But I want Teal'c at the site with you," Jack said, pointing a warning finger at his former teammates. "And no heroics. If that rock so much as twitches, the deal's off."
