Chapter 19
Not for the first time, Colonel O'Neill found himself wondering why on earth scientists were allowed off world. They were often trapped in their own little fantasies; they never made any sense; their goals were often at odds with the military purpose of a mission; and, most annoyingly of all, they had magpie-complexes: if knowledge sparkled, then they were easily distracted by shiny things.
Apparently, the grand truth of the galaxy was that a nerd was a nerd was a nerd - no matter what planet he came from.
"Jonas," he said irritably, scanning the forest trail they had originally used to escape the mountains. "Tell me again why we're risking our butts out here?"
The Kelownan was busy juggling his notes as he fought to translate the stone door of the underground complex, a pen hanging out of his mouth and a focused scowl on his face. He looked up, grabbing the pen, clearly planning on answering that question but O'Neill raised a hand abruptly.
"Make it good," he added flatly.
"There's got to be a reason why this place became the domain of Isis, Colonel," Quinn responded eagerly. "I just need to understand--"
"No!" O'Neill gesticulated emphatically with his hands. "No, Jonas! Just... no!"
The Kelownan historian gazed at him in mild reproach and O'Neill felt his temper hike several more degrees at the expression. He had put up with this for over five years from Daniel Jackson. Having had to endure it for the past twelve months from Jonas Quinn as well had been a nightmare.
"This isn't a sight-seeing tour, Jonas," he snapped. "It's a rescue mission. We were supposed to get in, get the Tok'ra, get out and be home in time to watch the Simpsons! Now we're up to our necks in Jaffa, who are going to discover us if we stay here much longer, I want you working out how to read that damn gate, not tell me why a bunch of snakes are painted onto a wall!"
Jonas glanced passed the angry Colonel to study Major Carter's face. She looked tense and wary but there was also a hint of sympathy in the glance she returned. He turned his attention back to O'Neill. "Sir," he said patiently. "According to what Doctor Jackson wrote, Isis was a goddess who possessed great knowledge. More knowledge than any other Goa'uld, in fact. Her name meant 'Queen of the Throne' - she was responsible for the power the rulers wielded; she knew the secrets of the universe; Colonel, she was even called the Lady of the Words of Power..."
He trailed off as he saw O'Neill's nostrils flare in frustration. Before either of them could speak, however, Carter inserted herself smoothly into the conversation.
"Okay, Jonas," she said calmly. "Isis was an important Goa'uld but how is that going to help us understand this Stargate?"
"Right," Quinn waved his pen at her and began digging through his notes. "Right here, look," he twisted the notebook around so they could both see it. The scrawl across the page was, for the most part, in Doctor Jackson's hand but every so often, Quinn had added a few notations of his own, clarifying or expanding something the original owner had written.
There was an image drawn onto the page, something that looked, to Carter's untrained eye, awfully like a rather fat, twisted and broken ankh. Quinn tapped it with his pen. "There? You see that?" he exclaimed. His eyes darted between the pair of them and his enthusiasm dampened only slightly when he realised they were still confused. "How about this?" With the pen, he drew a line through the middle of the image, effectively cutting it in half.
"Oh my," Carter breathed, staring. "Sir!" she exclaimed, turning on the thoroughly bemused Colonel. "You remember the two halves of the master control crystal that Anise found in the Hall of Apophis?"
"Yeah, the broken thing, that might work the gate. If we're lucky," O'Neill muttered.
"Yes sir," Carter gestured to the notebook. "Well, that's what the crystals will look like when put together."
"That thing?" O'Neill peered at the now defaced notebook image. "Okay, none of us have ever heard of a DHD as whacked out as the one we've got on this planet, let alone a master control crystal shaped like a squashed gingerbread man. So what's a picture of it doing in one of Daniel's old notebooks? I know for sure he wasn't psychic, even if he did always like to think he should be."
"It's called a tyet," Quinn explained quickly. "It's known as the Knot of Isis. To the Ancient Egyptians, knots held great power and few knots held anything like the power of the Knot of Isis," he glanced down at the image in the book. "According to Ancient Egyptians, the Knot of Isis was a red stone or glass and sometimes called the Blood of Isis as a result. Egyptologists assumed that meant it was made out of carnelian or something else familiar to people from Earth."
"But they could have been describing the master control crystal?" Carter speculated, her eyes gleaming.
Quinn excitedly waved the notebook at her. "There was a belief among Egyptologists that the ankh was regarded as some kind of key that unlocked the gate of death - and the tyet is related to the ankh but possibly with a much older origin that predates Egyptian civilisation. Which means it might originally come from a culture other than the Goa'uld."
Carter chuckled at that. "Well, considering ancient humans buried the Stargate after the defeat of Ra to prevent his return, they must have felt like it had become a 'gate of death'."
"Exactly," the Kelownan smiled. "Maybe the belief even stemmed from a memory of this Stargate instead of the one on Earth. Isis did have a role in selecting the dead, maybe she brought them here to do that?"
O'Neill shuddered at the enjoyment the pair seemed to take at discussing this subject. Personally, he could take it or leave it. As long as he could get the bottom line out of all this babble, he'd be happy. Right now, however, he was struck by something much more immediate. "Doesn't look much like a knot to me," he observed blandly.
"Well, no," Quinn agreed patiently. "But that's what it is," he tucked the pen into the page as a impromptu bookmark and closed the book. "Colonel, I don't know what the symbols on the gate mean and the Tok'ra don't have a clue either. But, sir, I think Isis did. I think that's why her presence is all around that throne room. She set up a base here, not Ra or Apophis - on Earth, snakes were associated with Isis too, not just the sun disk," he gestured to the imagery on the stone door. "Somewhere in these chambers, there has to be a clue about how to work the Stargate," he tapped the notebook emphatically. "Colonel, she knew how to work this Stargate, I'm certain of it - and if she knew, she might have left a record here that we could use."
He took a deep breath. "It's the best plan I've got."
O'Neill looked slowly around the clearing. He threw the forest trail another nervous stare before turning back to gaze at the stone door. "Carter, how many chambers have we found so far in this place?"
"Uh... I think we're up to ten, sir," Carter replied immediately. "Teal'c has investigated more of them than we have."
He nodded slowly and let his dark eyes drift to Quinn's hopeful face. "So, let me get this straight. You want to translate every glyph on this stone door and in ten - maybe more - underground rooms just in case a dead Goa'uld left instructions on how to use this planet's Stargate... and that's the best plan you've got?"
The Kelownan grinned and nodded.
O'Neill eyed the grin, a sour expression on his face. "Ya know, Jonas, it's really annoying how you get more cheerful the worse things are."
Quinn chuckled. "Just looking at the bright side, sir,"
"There's a bright side?" the Colonel looked incredulous.
"Oh yes," was the earnest reply. "We finally have a chance of translating the Stargate!"
O'Neill stared at him for several moments. "Oh yeah," he muttered. "Things are really looking up!"
"Hey guys," Jacob poked his head around the door. "Everything okay out here?"
"Oh, couldn't be better," O'Neill said sarcastically, heading back into the underground complex. "We have a chance of translating the Stargate now!"
"That's good news, Jack," Jacob replied.
The Colonel glared at the Tok'ra as if offended by Jacob's upbeat tone and stalked off past him, disappearing into the gloom beyond.
"Did I say something?" the Tok'ra asked Sam blandly.
His daughter chuckled and shook her head. "Dad, if we're going to get this Stargate translated, we're going to need everything Anise's team has on the hieroglyphics in this place. Jonas thinks the answer lies with them."
"You better come inside then," Jacob said. "Sin saw a small army of Jaffa heading in this direction from the window in the throne room. It's not safe---"
He trailed off, interrupted by the abrupt howl of a Jaffa hunting horn. Moments later, several others took up the cry. The sound reverberated around the doline they were standing in as if the warriors were merely yards away.
"Inside! Now!" Selmak hissed in obvious alarm and too surprised to debate it, Quinn and Carter obeyed the symbiote immediately. They paused only long enough to make sure the door was completely sealed and heard the sound of hurried footsteps behind them as O'Neill raced back to their location, gun in hand.
"How close?" he demanded hoarsely.
"We didn't wait around to find out, let's get back to the others," Jacob set off at a flat run, the three humans hot on his heels.
When they burst into the throne room, they found the three Tok'ra packing up all of their equipment with an attitude of carefully controlled panic.
"Have they found us?" Anise demanded as soon as she noticed their return.
"I do not believe so," Teal'c was standing near the base of the steps that led to the window, his body as still as stone, head tilted slightly and a look of intense concentration on his face as he listened to the horns. "The Jaffa are training, learning how to co-ordinate their tactics by sound when sight cannot be relied upon."
That news didn't seem to reassure the Tok'ra. "Then if they're concentrating on training for the hunt they will be looking for tracks to follow," Sin said severely.
"And will most likely find the trails we left," Ilithya was frowning as well.
"We must leave now, before we are trapped inside this complex," Anise agreed and her attention suddenly turned to Jacob.
"I fear we already are," Selmak replied slowly. "The horns sounded very close to the entrance. I would not recommend we attempt to leave until the Jaffa have left this area."
"Which will be...?" Anise demanded.
Selmak didn't respond, instead he looked directly at the only Jaffa in the room.
"If this terrain proves challenging, the Jaffa will not depart for many hours," Teal'c replied simply.
"And what if they find us?"
Teal'c gave the Tok'ra scientist a cool stare. "Then we will fight or die."
"We will most certainly die!" Ilithya exclaimed. "We are trapped and outnumbered!"
"Alright, alright," O'Neill flung up his hands, which incidentally still held his P-90. Achieving the effect he wanted, which was everyone's attention as they nervously eyed his gun waving, he continued on in his best command tone. "T, can you tell from the horns how many Jaffa are likely to be out there. Roughly?"
"A moment, O'Neill," Teal'c turned back to the window, closing his eyes, his brow furrowing slightly as he listened to the distant activity intently. The seconds dragged by in silence, pierced only by the restless fidgeting of Sin and Anise as they waited impatiently for the Jaffa's response. Outside, the horns continued to blow and, if anything, seemed to be coming closer rather than moving away. "I detect five horns, O'Neill," Teal'c said at last. "There is normally one horn for five Jaffa."
"Right," the Colonel said in a crisp tone. "Let's assume for the moment that we're outnumbered three to one. We've got the entrance and the tunnels wired and we know this complex better than they do. Carter, did you identify any place we could blow ourselves a new exit if it comes to it?"
"Yes sir," the Major replied. "But it'll give away our location so I don't recommend it unless we're out of options. Dad did say the Tok'ra have a couple of those tunnel-making crystals on hand if we need them."
"Not many," Selmak added firmly. "Enough for a short, emergency tunnel but no more. This is an option we cannot afford to rely on."
O'Neill nodded. "Alright, people, listen up," he ordered. "This is what we're gonna do. Jonas, you bring Anise and her lot up to speed on your theory. Find the information you need to get that blasted gate working. You're out of time, so work fast. We'll worry about how to get to the gate when we know if we can use the damn thing. Jacob, you're with the rest of us. We need to find a room we can defend - one Carter can blow to hell or you can tunnel us out of if we have to run. I want somewhere we can hole up in without getting trapped."
They all stared at him.
"Any questions?" he demanded.
"What theory?" Anise demanded, staring at Quinn.
"Any important questions?" O'Neill snapped impatiently.
The Tok'ra archaeologist's eyes flashed furiously.
"Anise," Selmak said softly. "We have no time for this. Jonas Quinn will explain everything you need to know," he turned to O'Neill. "There are no questions, Colonel."
O'Neill eyed the other three Tok'ra, not liking the expressions on their faces as they stared at Selmak. The ancient Tok'ra gazed silently back at his peers. His tone had been unmistakable - his confirmation had been more a command to his fellow Tok'ra to obey the humans for now than to reassure O'Neill.
"Right, people," O'Neill snapped. "Let's get to work!" He headed off deeper into the complex but felt a prickle of unease snake its way down his spine. He wasn't worried about the Tok'ra obeying him - the snakeheads had got obeying self-preservation instincts down to a fine art and right now, even they knew O'Neill's expertise was their best chance of survival.
No, what he was instead suddenly worried about was how long it would be before they stopped obeying Selmak.
The last thing they needed was dissent in the ranks but now every military instinct the Colonel possessed told him that he might find more trouble amongst his allies than out there among his enemies. Leaving the Tok'ra to Quinn in the throne-room, he indicated for Teal'c to take point then tried to ignore the pressure building up behind his eyes as he whispered a silent promise that he hoped was more paranoia than premonition.
So help me, God. If the Tok'ra do anything stupid that screws us over, I'll damn well shoot them myself.