"Will you look at that?" Lieutenant Razor gawked through his field glasses like a tourist. "They go on forever."
"You can say that again." Makepeace was glued to his own binoculars. About a thousand meters away, the land turned dark with the shaggy, midnight-blue bodies of grazing animals. They stretched out as far as the eye could see, with great, four-horned heads and massive torsos, making deep-throated lowing noises. "Like the buffalo," he murmured. P3X-254 had gotten a lot more interesting today.
"Sir?"
"The buffalo of the Great Plains, before they were decimated in the 1800s," Makepeace said. "According to reports, the herds stretched so far they seemed to cover the entire continent. At least, it appeared that way to the observers of the time. Remember your American history lessons?"
"Yes, sir." Razor sounded subdued.
Makepeace repressed a sigh. "That wasn't a reprimand, Lieutenant. Just an observation. Lighten up."
"Yes, sir."
Pomerantz said, "There's no way around them, Colonel."
Makepeace had noticed that, as well. "Yeah, I know. Get some video footage, then we'll see if we can find an opening somewhere."
Danko hefted his rifle. "We could try scaring them away, sir."
"And get trampled? Supposedly, the ground rumbled when the Plains buffalo herds traveled from place to place. I'd rather not find out what chaos these would cause in a stampede."
"Yes, sir."
SG-3 got their video, pictures, and sound recordings, then got underway. They spent an hour skirting the edge of the herd, but the calmly grazing animals seemed endless.
"At least they're not afraid of us," said Pomerantz.
Makepeace nodded. "From the sheer numbers, I'd say they probably don't have any natural enemies to thin their ranks. I doubt they're afraid of anything."
"Do you think there's a way to get past them, sir?" Danko said.
"Maybe," Makepeace said. He considered the animals with disfavor. What if these creatures really did cover the grasslands here? Worse, what if they had moved in and closed off the way to the Stargate? In that case, would it even be possible to navigate through the herd? He did not want to find out. "This is not looking good," he murmured, almost inaudibly.
"Sir?" Razor said.
"Just thinking out loud, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir."
So far SG-3 hadn't found anything of note on this planet. There probably wasn't anything to find. Still, Makepeace liked to be thorough. He hoped the blue buffalo-things hadn't cut off the route to the Stargate, but if they had there was nothing to be done about it now. SG-3 would just have to cross that bridge—or herd, he thought with a smirk—when they came to it. "All, right, let's backtrack, try the other direction. If we can't find a way through these things, we'll head on home."
The men turned around. Makepeace didn't figure it was worth dodging the herd again, so they just cut across the grasslands in a straight line, angling slightly back in the direction of the Stargate. If they had to backtrack, they might as well shorten the distance they would have to travel when they decided to return to Earth.
After half an hour of trekking, Danko stopped and stared into the distance. He brought up his rifle. "Colonel, there's something moving over there, and it's not blue and furry."
Makepeace raised his binoculars. Through them, he made out three humans walking briskly in SG-3's direction. Two women and a man. The people were dressed in familiar, tan-colored clothing. "Take it easy, everyone. They look like Tok'ra."
"Tok'ra, here?" said Pomerantz.
Razor said, "I've never seen the Tok'ra before. What do you think they want, Colonel?"
Good question. Why the hell had they taken the trouble to track down SG-3 when they knew the gate address for Earth and had the means to identify themselves to get past the iris? Something smelled bad to Makepeace. He started walking toward the approaching trio. "Let's find out."
His team followed him. They had lowered their weapons, but Makepeace noted that none of them had put on their safeties or shouldered their rifles. Which suited Makepeace just fine. The SGC's first encounter with the Tok'ra—the Jolinar incident—had been ambiguous at best. Later on, his own first, personal encounter with the Tok'ra had been less than wonderful and tended to color his view of them. Intellectually, he understood the need for security, but first impressions were everything.
Still, the Tok'ra had tried to warn the SGC about the danger Sokar represented, and tried to convince Earth to return Apophis to that merciless System Lord. Their representatives would have died with Earth had someone at the Pentagon not finally bought a clue and allowed the SGC to send Apophis's body through the Stargate to Sokar.
These Tok'ra must have gone to a lot of trouble to find an Earth team. Whatever they had to say must be pretty important. He'd hear them out.
The woman in the lead stopped and raised both her hands, showing she was unarmed. Her companions followed suit. "Greetings, SG-3 of Earth, from the Tok'ra," she said.
Makepeace stopped about ten feet away from her. "I should ask how you know who we are, much less how you knew what planet to find us on, but I doubt you'd give me a straight answer. So what's so damn important?"
"We bear urgent news," said the woman. "About your lost comrades, Colonel O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and Samantha Carter."
"SG-1?" Makepeace gaped at her, shocked. SG-1 had been MIA for over three weeks. After they had failed to return from their last mission, SG-3 and SG-7 had been sent out to search for them. They had found Teal'c lying unconscious and severely wounded near the Stargate, but there had been no sign of the others. Everyone believed they had been captured by an enemy force, probably the Goa'uld.
Unfortunately, after awakening from a three-week long coma, Teal'c had been unable to shed much light on his teammates' fate. He had confirmed that SG-1 had been attacked by Jaffa—Horus and Serpent gods, a combination Teal'c had found unusual. He hadn't had the slightest idea which Goa'uld those Jaffa had served, though.
Makepeace stared the Tok'ra woman directly in the eye. "So what happened to them?" he demanded. "Where are they? Are they captives? Are they even still alive?"
"They are alive," she said. "One of our agents reports that they are the prisoners of Hathor."
Makepeace closed his eyes briefly. Shit. He didn't like remembering Hathor. Probably every man who had been assigned to the SGC during its rocky first year of regular operations didn't like remembering Hathor.
"Why the hell did you screw around looking for us?" he asked. His voice sounded harsh, but he didn't care. "You should have taken this directly to Earth!"
"The symbols for the Tau'ri homeworld are well known to the Goa'uld," the male Tok'ra explained brusquely. "We cannot be seen using them at this time. The risk of such discovery is too great."
"Oh, but you're willing to risk being seen with us?"
"This is an uninteresting, anonymous world, all but forgotten by the System Lords and their minions," said the second woman. "The chances that anyone will see us together are acceptably insignificant."
Makepeace noted the unspoken implication, that the Tok'ra hadn't been willing to make the journey to Earth even from this nice, anonymous planet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hated to admit it, but from their point of view it did make a twisted kind of sense. The Tok'ra were primarily spies and infiltrators. They worked from the inside, gathering intelligence and conducting sabotage operations. Paranoia was their middle name. Since they had a well-placed agent to protect, of course they'd do their utmost to avoid suspicion and keep their hands clean.
"This discussion is pointless," the first woman said. "We have a great deal of information to impart, and time for your comrades runs short."
"Fine," Makepeace said. She was right; it wasn't worth arguing over, and it was wasting precious time. "So tell me everything you know."