Chapter 17

Lost in thought, Jonas Quinn stood in the centre of the room, at the foot of the nine steps that led up to the great golden throne. He should have been listening to Teal'c but he already knew what the Jaffa was planning to say. His brow furrowed as he studied the relief carved into the wall behind the throne, his fingers nervously shuffling his notebooks.

He hadn't been planning to make extensive translations when he had embarked on this mission to P5-2M7. It was supposed to have been a simple investigation - travel to an abandoned planet and find out what had happened to the Tok'ra science team assigned to study the planet's ruins. Ruins that had not been associated with Ancient Egypt. However, in the year he had spent on Earth, he had learned nothing was ever as simple as it first seemed. He had learned to take his notebooks - Doctor Jackson's notebooks - with him every time he stepped through a Stargate.

Still, he didn't have the kind of resources he really needed for the extensive translation required to resolve their current problems. What he did have was his prodigious memory and it was to that memory, instead of to Teal'c, he was now listening.

"What's up, T?" O'Neill asked as everyone gathered in front of the throne. The Colonel was looking a little harried although Quinn was hardly surprised - the man had been on the move since they had arrived, ensuring they remained beyond the awareness of the Jaffa patrols, scouting the underground terrain and setting up booby-traps for if the Jaffa did actually find them. Considering the stress he was under, he was in remarkable good humour... for Colonel O'Neill.

"O'Neill, that is not the symbol of Ra," Teal'c informed him gravely, gesturing to the huge sun disk that Quinn was already staring at.

"It's not?" O'Neill turned to study it, suspicion etched across his face. "Sure looks like it to me."

"Feathers were not a symbol associated with Ra," Teal'c told him coolly. "Yet they are much in evidence within this chamber."

"So are snakes, Teal'c," O'Neill pointed out dryly. "But apparently that's not enough to prove these digs ever belonged to Apophis."

"Ra was not the only Goa'uld to use the symbol of the sun," Teal'c forged on patiently. "Isis also used that symbol."

O'Neill stared at him, then glanced back at the huge sun disk on the wall. He turned back to Teal'c. "Isis as in wife-of-Osiris-Isis?"

"Indeed."

The Colonel turned to give the Tok'ra a long stare. "Isn't this your area? How come you didn't get this?" he demanded.

All four Tok'ra were frowning and exchanging puzzled looks. "What brings you to this conclusion, Teal'c?" Anise asked him. "We have never heard of Isis adopting the ceremonies of Ra. The Goa'uld have forever been protective of the symbolism they have chosen to use. To steal the symbol of Ra would be akin to stealing his very identity. There is a reason the System Lords have mocked Osiris for adopting the body of a woman. The maleness of his former hosts was part of the identity he chose to represent his power." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "I admit Isis was known for favouring the symbology of birds over that of other things but I have not heard of her adopting the symbols of the sun."

The Jaffa stared at her. "It is something Daniel Jackson once told me," he clarified slowly. "When Osiris and Isis were discovered on the Tau'ri homeworld, and Osiris fled Earth, Daniel Jackson explained to me the known history of Osiris and his queen amongst the Tau'ri," he turned back to the wall. "There was a great struggle for power between Ra and Isis. Through guile and trickery, Isis proved the victor and adopted his symbols in his name to rule over the people. She became the sun that Ra had been, and gained a reputation for governing the power of life, when once she had only been known for having power over death."

"Such symbology was not presented before the System Lords," Ilithya commented thoughtfully. "The Tok'ra would have known if such was the case."

"Well, what was Isis to the System Lords... and to the Tok'ra?" Carter asked them curiously.

"I read that book you gave me." Walking at a swift place through the corridors of the secret research facility they're navigating, he is not blind to the surprise that passes across his companion's features.

"Already? I just gave it to you last night,"

"Quick study," he explains, a little sheepishly. "It's how I got this position at my age."

Quinn dropped his eyes to his notes again. He knew the answer to that as well. Doctor Jackson had possessed a keen understanding of the subject matter and the extrapolations of Earth history he made in light of his understanding of Goa'uld behaviour and society had usually proven accurate. Rarely had his notes led Quinn astray since the Kelownan had replaced him as a member of SG-1.

He had brought nothing with him that would clarify the history of Isis and certainly nothing that would explain this complex satisfactorily. But he had read every thing Doctor Jackson had ever written and owned on the subject of the Goa'uld and Ancient Egypt and could recall the vast majority of it with little effort.

There had been a time when he had considered his photographic memory to be a gift but these days, since encountering first hand the experiments and consequences of Nirrti's quest for a Hok'tar, part of him no longer regarded it as a blessing. There were things he could remember that he wished he had never experienced, things he remembered in vivid detail that he was unable to forget.

He's standing in a corridor, discussing medical reports with one of the facility's doctors. It's up to him to discuss the current status of the stricken scientists with the ruling council. It's not a job he is looking forward to. The council has not had to witness, as he has, the lingering deaths of these men. Once vital, intelligent men in the prime of their lives, slowly being reduced to a mess of blood and sores, before drowning to death as blood pools in their lungs... these men, his friends. He would not wish this fate on even a Tiranian or Andari. No-one deserves a death like this.

And the council... which did not witness these deaths, which should have. What can he possibly say to them that will explain the horror he felt witnessing their deaths, the pointlessness of it all, the powerlessness he feels? Do they truly want victory over Tirania and Andari at this cost? He is the council's chief advisor on ethics of this project. He was born knowing the danger his people live in, the constant fear of being invaded and destroyed by his peoples' enemies but now, now he is beginning to see the cost of victory. Now, he is beginning to wonder if victory at any price is as justifiable as he has been raised from birth to believe.

Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he could hear the Tok'ra and the humans discussing Isis. Tuning them out, he began to flick through his notes. Right now, he wasn't certain what he was searching for but Teal'c had awoken something in him: an instinct; a memory - he wasn't sure what but he knew it was there, in the back of his mind like a restlessly growing seed.

"Hey!"

He looks up and winces inside. It's the commander of the alien visitors, the ones who are responsible for Kelowna's current predicament. He has no words for the High Minister, what can he possibly offer this clearly irate alien?

"Colonel O'Neill," his voice is quiet. "I'm surprised to see you."

Colonel O'Neill, as Quinn has come to expect, doesn't beat around the bush. "I've brought a letter from my superiors to your leaders..." he pauses for a moment, noticing Quinn's companion for the first time. "Hi," he manages in a tone of voice that suggests he really wants to talk to Quinn alone.

Obligingly, Quinn gestures to the doctor for her to depart. "That's... uh... an apology?" he holds little hope that it is, but he tries anyway. He knows the questions his government would ask. He's paid to ask them and yet he himself barely understands what has happened. How can he even begin to come to terms with what is going on, if he doesn't know what questions to ask and what answers exist? So, he asks the questions he knows his government would want answers to. Maybe that way, he can work out what to say - to even his own people.

But where does he stand with these people?

"Yeah. Hardly." Colonel O'Neill's voice is flat. "You see, we know you're lying through your teeth."

Quinn closed his eyes, struggling to focus. Isis. The Mother Goddess. Beloved by her people. That didn't sound like a Goa'uld to Quinn. He opened his eyes and thumbed through the notes, hesitating as he found the hieroglyphs depicting Hathor's name, remembering the SGC reports on her. Another Goa'uld who had a well-loved reputation, a reputation born of addiction and lies. Had Isis done something similar?

The man is angry, and with good reason. Quinn nods wearily. How can he deny that anger in the face of what truly happened? But what can he say? He is Kelownan. He represents Kelowna. He has been raised from birth to defend Kelowna at all costs from her enemies. He does not believe the people of Earth are Kelowna's enemies but he knows in this climate of distrust, tension and cold war, any word he speaks against the stance his government has taken, will be seen as the act of an enemy.

Part of him wants to be an enemy, if the cost of loyalty is this high. The rest of him though...

The rest of him... is afraid.

He frowned, reflecting on the information he had read on the subject of Osiris and Isis. Once a Goa'uld with a reputation for life, healing and wisdom, Isis had been found dead. He scanned the chamber he was in, puzzled. Why on earth would she be found here, in a place that depicted the battle of Ra and Apophis, the eternal war of the sun and the serpent?

She had been a goddess of death, he remembered suddenly. Hovering over the deceased, choosing the dead. A good consort for the King of the Underworld, Osiris. This is how the Tok'ra would have known her, and behind him, he could hear Anise explaining just that. Isis had been a Goa'uld queen who had the power to choose which humans became Jaffa and hosts and which did not. It was in much the same way the SGC reports had revealed Doctor Jackson's own wife had suffered at the hands of Amonet, the queen of Apophis. Just as Apophis had bowed to the wishes of Amonet, Osiris had respected the decisions of Isis.

He sighs heavily. "How is Doctor Jackson?"

The question is polite, nothing more. He already knows the answers. He's seen the consequences for himself. What he doesn't know is whether Doctor Jackson is dead or alive. Whether his suffering has been prolonged, or kept mercifully brief.

"Not good."

Which means he's still alive. Still suffering. He focuses on the Colonel's incredulous reaction and suspects the alien has misinterpreted the reason for the question. Quietly, afraid of saying the wrong thing, he attempts to clarify. "I'm sorry to hear that," and he truly is but again, words are failing him. He's a young man, he has not been in this job long and he is the youngest Kelownan in history to hold the post. Knowledge and intelligence, he is beginning to realise, are poor shadows for experience itself. And right now, he's earning his experience the hard way. He tries to smile but he knows it comes out as a painful grimace instead. "Two of the scientists in that room are already dead. The other two will be shortly. Their deaths were..." he stops. What can he say? No words can convey the horror he felt. The disgust.

Horror.

"...horrific." he finishes lamely.

It's not enough. The words... just aren't enough and, as he looks into O'Neill's eyes, he knows the colonel understands the emotions he's feeling, and feels them himself...

... but he also realises, in that moment, that the alien doesn't understand he feels them too. In that moment, he realises, Kelowna has become the enemy to these people and he is the epitome of everything the alien colonel has come to despise in authority.

He doesn't know what to do.

So where was all this speculation leading him exactly? He rubbed his forehead wearily, wishing he could push the past behind him enough to concentrate on the present. This place... this place was clearly influenced by the Goa'uld wars that had occurred on Earth, it was the only way to explain why the Tok'ra didn't fully understand what they had found, why their experience could not completely translate what was represented here. He and Teal'c could only interpret what they were seeing now because they had extensive access to Doctor Jackson's vast repository of knowledge but Quinn was beginning to suspect that this time Doctor Jackson's notes weren't going to be enough.

What they needed, he realised bitterly, was Doctor Jackson.

And since that was the one thing they couldn't have, he was going to have to make the best of what he had, and get on with it.

So, he reflected, scanning the room in silence. What would Doctor Jackson do in this situation?

Walking through the corridors towards the lab where the bomb research is taking place in, his thoughts are a million miles away from his companion's current focus, which is the ancient temple the naquadria was originally found in. "No offence, I'm just more interested in what's out there, through the Stargate."

Daniel Jackson eyes him askance as they travel, as if he's not entirely certain how to take that comment. For a moment, he seems amused. "Well," he says, almost wryly. "All I can say is that whatever the problems are between your planet's nations, they will seem insignificant when you do find out what's going on out there."

Quinn rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at the snake motifs all around the room. He had certainly found out what was "out there", that was for sure. And it had been far bigger, far more wonderful, and far more terrible, than even Doctor Jackson had suggested.

But he had been right about one thing. In seeing how big the universe really was, in the seeing the extent of the troubles - the wars, the alliances, the technology, the suffering, the joy - Quinn had fully realised just how small and vulnerable his planet really was. Kelowna was just a drop in the ocean - Tirania and Andari were so far away from being significant threats in the grand scheme of things that he could have cried with despair at decades - centuries - of wasted mistrust and paranoia. However, he had released those particular tears after the death of Doctor Jackson. After his confession to General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill that his government - the government he had been raised from birth to believe in to the very depths of his soul - had cheered the results of the weapon accident that had cost five men their lives. Four accidentally, the fifth a voluntary sacrifice to save an entire planet of strangers from extinction.

Kelowna's government hadn't cared.

It still didn't.

Tirania and Andari's governments had never known.

They still didn't.

Quinn regards Jackson with coy frustration, and decides to take a more reasonable approach. That seems to work best with this particular member of SG-1. "Until you give us more details, there's not much else I can do."

Jackson accepts the challenge, again with an hint of off-kilter amusement, as if he's wishing he doesn't find any humour in this situation at all. "Well," he explains, and his tone seems slightly cautious, as if he's trying to feel out his response to avoid causing offence. "Whether you've realised it or not, you've probably seen the evidence right here on your own planet. The temple where you found the gate was obviously occupied by a powerful, technologically advanced race. Now, as far as I can tell from the pictures you've shown me, their civilisation was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion."

Quinn stares at him, not quite sure what to make of the logic behind Jackson's reasoning. "Our scientists have theorised that an asteroid impacted our continent 10,000 years ago. The fallout from that could have easily buried the civilisation of that time."

"Or the race that occupied the gate were experimenting with the very technology you are today and it resulted in disaster."

Jackson's words are loaded, carefully structured. There's so much more the alien archaeologist isn't saying. Quinn can sense it but while Jackson guards his words, he can't get to the core of Jackson's reasoning and it frustrates him. He wants to understand but all of this is so far beyond anything he's experienced before - beyond what any Kelownan has experienced before - that he's having to throw out the rule book and play it by ear. "If what you say is true about the potential enemies out there in the galaxy, we may need these advanced weapons more than ever."

Jackson's breath escapes in a sound that is half sigh, half laugh and Quinn finally realises the source of his odd amusement. Frustration. "I can't deny that," Jackson agrees. "But some very wise people have shown me first hand how a sudden leap in weapons technology by a civilisation that's not ready for it can lead to its destruction."

A year ago, Quinn had been an expert in obeying his government's party line and truly believing in the society he had spent his life serving and studying. He had had no experience in conceptualising his planet as a single entity instead of a chaotic trio of volatile nations. Even when he had turned on his government to help SG-1, what Quinn had wanted and how he could express his need was still so far beyond his expertise that he wasn't sure what to do or how to do it.

Quinn hadn't known how to care for his entire planet but somehow... somehow, this past year of living on Earth and travelling through the Stargate to other worlds, had taught him to do exactly that. He had never witnessed a real life act of heroism until SG-1 had visited Kelowna. It had given him the hope that his world could be a better place; that it could have a better future than the tunnelled focus of hostility, war and deceit that it was currently mired in.

But if there was one thing SG-1's arrival and tragic departure had taught him was that being told something wasn't enough. The only way to learn, to truly know, was by experience. If he wanted to know what a vision of a better world for his planet could be, he had to experience it for himself or he would never find the words to make his people understand.

Quinn mulls that over in silence for a few moments. He is listening and he really does want to understand but... there are still things he needs to clarify. "Given the chance, you would deny us this technology?"

He glances at Jackson to gauge his response but all he finds is measured calm. "I cannot predict what would happen to your people and your planet with or without the weapon. I just wish there was another way."

And that, finally, is something Quinn can understand. The search for better understanding, something beyond what can currently be seen or felt, the sense that what is currently known isn't the whole picture, it's not the big picture, it's just a tiny strand in a huge tapestry that frustratingly lies just out of sight.

Just as he thinks he's beginning to understand what Doctor Jackson is beginning to say... the air explodes and time runs out.

The big picture.

A light-bulb flashed into life in the depths of his mind. There it was, the seed that Teal'c had nudged into life within his mind. The instinct, the memory, he had been grasping so desperately for.

"Hey! Earth to Jonas Quinn!"

Quinn jumped like a startled cat as Colonel O'Neill yelled into his ear. The Kelownan turned sharply to regard him in shock and suddenly realised that every person in the room was staring at him with unsettling curiosity. "Colonel?" he asked, a little confused. How long had people been trying to grab his attention?

"Sheesh, Jonas, what planet were you on?!" O'Neill demanded irritably.

"Mine," he admitted honestly, swinging back to stare at the sun disk with a frown, his brain moving into high gear.

O'Neill stared at him. "Why?" he asked. His tone was a distinctive half-exasperated disbelief that the Kelownan had eventually learned to interpret as the Colonel's attempt to decide whether he should be angry or concerned.

That fateful day on Kelowna, it had been Colonel O'Neill who had managed to break down, into simple terms, the stark reality of what Doctor Jackson had been trying to say. He had left Quinn shaken and disturbed but his impact had been immediate and lasting.

What he had failed to do was understand it hadn't been Jackson's only point. There had been another point to the archaeologist's speech, another lesson to be learned. One that Quinn had sensed back then but which only now made sense.

"I was just thinking of something Doctor Jackson told me."

That day.

He didn't need to say when. O'Neill had stiffened with understanding the moment he spoke the words. "What?" the Colonel asked, a little more harshly than he had intended.

Quinn didn't answer immediately, he was searching for the words, the best way to express something that was little more than intangible awareness. "He was saying, I think, that it's a good thing to see, and understand, the big picture, as long the little details aren't forgotten."

O'Neill stared at him, baffled. "And that's relevant, how?" he demanded.

The Kelownan began to grin. By nature, he possessed a glass-half-full personality and while he had moments when he would despair and lose heart, he couldn't be held down for long. "We're missing the point," he gestured expansively at the room. "Of this... of everything here," he began shoving his notes back into his pack. "I need to get back to basics," he explained cheerfully.

A short time ago, he had wondered in frustration what Jackson would do in this situation. And now Quinn thought he knew.

Doctor Jackson would start at the beginning.

And the beginning, Quinn realised, wasn't here in this room but on the surface with a stone door through which only the Chosen of the Gods could pass. Shouldering his pack, he bolted out of the room before SG-1 or the Tok'ra could stop him.

For the first time in a year, Jonas Quinn felt time stir and begin to march.