Max and Steve began breaking down the smaller crate and arranging the cords and lighting stands so they could be bundled and carried into the chamber. They dragged the generator as close to the entrance as they could manage.

"I don't know if we're going to have enough cord Steve." Max said studying the bundles.

"Don't worry about it Max, we'll make it work. Half the stuff on these digs ends up jury rigged anyway; we'll probably end up basically living here once the lighting is set up."

"You're the boss." She said and continued securing the lighting and cables.

"Max why are you a secretary?"

"What?"

"Okay you're like way stronger than me; you don't know a damn thing about academia or ancient history . . ."

"Your point?"

"You're a weirdo." Steve said and grinned. She shoved him in the chest and knocked him down, grinning she stood over him.

"Yeah, but I'm well paid." He grinned at her and she hauled him to his feet.

"Look I'm more than a secretary, obviously you dunder head but I like the work, it's easy, Adam's a great boss and hey when I'm really lucky I get to go to the jungle and argue with bitter grad students." Steve held his hands up defensively. She bent to her work and shouldered a hefty load.

"Coming?" She challenged the student. He shook his head and took the last, smaller bundle. She led the way this time, she clipped her flashlight to her belt and used her hands to balance and secure the load. She heard Steve walking behind her.

"This is going to suck Max." He called.

"Yeah but this way we only make a couple trips rather than a dozen, or can't you hack it bookworm?"

"Screw you pencil pusher." He hollered back. They ceased the chatter a few minutes into the trek, concentrating on breathing and not cramping up. Finally Max reached the chamber. She dropped down to the floor with a relieved sigh.

"Come on Steve almost there." She called. She unrolled her bundle and guided by her flashlight began untangling the cords and setting up the light stands. She unfolded the stands and set them aside focusing on the cords. If they didn't have enough cable to reach the generator she would be seriously annoyed. She focused on the work and accepted Steve's bundle when he crawled out of the tunnel.

"Adam where do you want these?" She called to the other immortal.

"At least one for each corner." He said distractedly.

She nodded and began setting up the stands. She and Steve continued working. The soft scratching of Adam's pen on paper and their few exchanged words the only sounds in the long dead chamber. Finally they had everything inside the chamber arranged as well as they could without light.

"Okay why don't you head out first, you can get the generator set up and I'll follow with the cable." She said to Steve. He nodded wearily. While the massive walls of the pyramid helped insulate the chamber from the jungle heat there was little ventilation and the air inside had become hot and close from their exertions. He scuttled into the shaft and vanished.

"Adam? What's wrong?" She asked concerned.

"I'm fine Max. This is an astounding discovery." He didn't look away from his notebook. She studied his hunched shoulders and intent expression. Adam may be into languages but she suspected there was more at work here.

"Sure look I'll bring some rations down next time. If you're going to live down here you'll need food." He didn't acknowledge her as she left. Max was annoyed at Adam's attitude but not entirely surprised. These academics were a completely different social species. She shook her head and looped a length of cable across her chest. Using the step ladder in front of the passage as a boost she levered herself into it and began humping the cable up toward the entrance.

Sweaty and annoyed she emerged to discover Steve kicking the crap out of the generator. She sighed and adjusted the cable on her shoulder. The sun was up and Max could hear the approach of the other members of the dig. She sighed and wiped at her forehead. Digging her legs into the loose jungle soil at the lip of the entrance, she tugged on the cable loosening a few more feet of length. Satisfied she hauled the lot over to the uncooperative generator and dropped it next to Steve.

"What's up?"

"Damn thing won't turn over."

"Well, how's the battery?" She asked and bent to look.

"I assume Dr. Pierson is in the chamber?" A querulous voice demanded snottily.

Max turned and met the gaze of the other egghead on the dig. A Doctor Emil Stackhof, also known as pompous pain in the ass. But he was very good at his job and actually managed to get along with Robinson most of the time. Both Robinson and Stackhof were too grateful to have Adam at the dig to act up too much but help was help, whether that help was a grad student or an assistant was irrelevant. She grinned predatorily at the little dictator and smirked.

"Yes, doctor, he sure is." She said brightly and returned to tinkering with the generator with Steve's help. Steve bit his lip to avoid bursting into laughter as his eyes met hers.

"I see. I will be continuing my work on the surface, please see that Carl joins me when he arrives." Stackhof said pompously ignoring the fact that Max wasn't actually his assistant. She waited until he had turned his back and begun to stalk regally up the pyramid before flipping him off.

"Wow, these next months are going to be interesting." Steve said shaking his head.

"I have authority issues, particularly with assholes who have no authority over me. I mean honestly what is with these two?" Steve shrugged and opened the engine compartment on the generator.

"I don't know they're very good at their specialties so people let them get away with bullshit I guess."

"Whatever, here's an idea, did you prime the pump?"

"Prime what?"

She chuckled and leaned over him pressing a pop-it on the Carburetor. Fuel swirled into the little ball. She jerked the starter cord and smiled as the little motor coughed caught and turned over. It purred along for a few minutes happily.

"Cool, now we need to haul some fuel down here." Steve said. Max's stomach growled.

"Lunch would be good too; I told Mr. oh-so-busy downstairs that I'd bring some food for him."

"No problem." Steve said. They began heading back up toward the camp. Max listened to the strange lullaby of the utterly foreign jungle creatures and thought.

In the chamber Adam was continuing his note taking. With the now working lighting system his work increased its pace. His eyes were fevered and his pencil down to a nub. He wiped sweat from his face and kept working. The mortals could never know of the true translation of this wall, they could never know that the legend inscribed on it was no legend but a fact.

"This tastes terrible." Max said wincing over her plate of rehydrated macaroni and cheese.

"Yeah but it's supposed to be nutritious." Steve said pouring hot sauce on his own portion.

"Yeah I think I'd rather be less nutritious in this case. Is all the food you lot have this inedible?"

"Pretty much. Hot sauce helps." She sighed and accepted his bottle. She thoroughly doused her portion and choked it down.

They cleaned up their meal and Max slipped a few packets of rations in her cargo pockets on her work pants, strapped a machete to her right leg and picked up two cans of gasoline.

"Going to war?"

"I like to travel in style, pony up or shut up boy." She challenged and headed back to the site.

Steve groaned and gripped two more cans of fuel and began hauling them behind Max. They arrived at the generator shortly Max filled it with her first can and then stacked the other three. Steve mumbled something about joining Dr. Robinson and headed up the exterior of the pyramid toward Stackhof, Robinson, and Carl. Max shrugged and wriggled into the shaft. She heaved a relieved sigh as she plopped into the chamber.

"I suppose it would be a huge no-no to grab a pickaxe and raise the roof of that thing huh?" She asked Adam rhetorically as she reached into her pockets and retrieved the food.

"ADAM!" She shouted Adam twitched blinked and smiled at her.

"Good lord, what does it take? A freaking bomb going off?"

"Sorry." Adam said somewhat sheepishly and set his notebook aside, he was careful to close it and place it out of reach. Max sat next to him and watched him open a packet of noodles and add water from a canteen.

"Look I'm supposed to be your assistant right? So let me assist."

"Max you've done more than enough for one day. This whole lighting set up would have taken these idiots days to set up without you. You have done plenty."

"Yeah I worked my tail off but there is still something bothering you, something about this chamber and do not try to feed me that 'find of the century' crap. You were worried about this the moment you saw this thing."

"Max, you do not know me as well as you sometimes think. There are some things that I will reveal to no man or woman. This is one, content yourself with that." Max glared, she felt her rage hot and familiar in her gut, the machete felt heavy at her side.

"Fine Adam. I'll make myself useful up top." She said quietly.

He did not reply as she scrambled back into the passage. He listened to her soft shuffling steps until they faded away. Picking up his notebook he studied the translation.

And the gods in that place were all powerful and cruel. They owned the day and the night and the people trembled before their might. Their voices were as thunder, their gaze the light of the stars. They demanded much of the people including their children. The Chapa'ai claimed the children in the name of the gods and sorrow ruled there. The people cried out to their gods and death came and dwelled among them, the gods grew wroth and denied the people the brilliance of their presence. The people rose as one then and buried the Chapa'ai less the gods should return.

Adam sighed and scrubbed his face. There was more both before and after the last passage. But he was so tired and the warnings sent tremors through his soul. He would heed his master's words; the Goa'uld must never be allowed to return to earth. If they realized the Tau'ri, the first people had achieved such massive technical advancements the cowardly Goa'uld would be afraid. They would seek to destroy the Tau'ri governments and regain control. Or simply exterminate all life on the earth. Adam whispered a prayer to the long dead gods of his nearly forgotten youth and hoped fervently that the Chapa'ai at least still lay entombed in the hard earth of Egypt. He closed his eyes and cursed his fortune.

Max was busily organizing the cook tent and trying not to die of sweating. She had decided that she hated the jungle, she hated it the way raggedy ass alley cats hate water, the way that . . . well a lot. She sighed and sat down on a beat up camp chair.

Adam was pissing her off. They had a good relationship based on trust and respect and he was definitely hiding something and shutting her out. Okay so he was over a thousand times her age and the best survivor she knew but it still pissed her off something fierce.

Her right hand strayed to the hilt of the machete. Her lips creased in a thin humorless smile. She felt the urge in her belly. It had been a month since her last challenge a month without the heart stopping rush of facing off against an equal opponent, a month since the hot savoring of a kill. She shook her head and stood up. And if she had anything to do with it, it would be at least another three before she had a chance to indulge again. She sighed and got up. She was exhausted and sunset would arrive in another hour. She was tired of babying Adam so she would hit the sack, get a full night's sleep and try again in the morning.

Max stripped, sponged her sweat slick skin with a sterile sponge and slipped into her sleeping bag. She was unconscious seconds after her head hit the slick nylon. She didn't dream and slept through the night until two hours after dawn. She woke slowly the sounds of the jungle treading on her dreams. Her eyes snapped open; she was momentarily confused by the tent roof. Sighing she sat up and spotted Steve sitting at a table piled with paperwork and books at the far end of the tent.

He was working steadily and seemed oblivious to her. She shrugged and slipped out of the sleeping bag. She dressed quickly not bothering to be quiet. She padded up behind him in her stocking feet and dropped a hand onto his shoulder.

"HOLY-" he cried jumping and then relaxed glaring at her.

"You are such a pain in the ass." He said and sighed.

"I'm a pain the ass?" She chided. He sighed and gave her a speculative look.

"You've riled the nest chicky."

"What? Is that like your mixed metaphor way of saying that I pissed off your boss?"

"Yeah it is." He said and smiled as she leaned into him. Sex was not as much fun as the kill but it could substitute, for awhile. She lingered close enough to smell his sweat and then pulled away.

"I need food." She said over her shoulder and slipped out of the tent. Steve let a long low sigh, shook his head and returned to his notes.

Adam had hardly moved from the day before, his skin seemed pale and huge bags lurked under his eyes. Max leapt into the chamber and shouted ta-da only to trip over some of the lighting cables and crash to the floor in a bruised heap. She peered up from the shattered shreds of her dignity at Adam's laughing face.

"Ouch." She said and stood up carefully, her skin itched as the bruises healed.

"You mister Pierson are taking your skinny yet firm ass up to the light of the stinking fetid moist jungle day." She said and got a firm grip on his upper arm.

"Okay. I need to review some of my notes anyway." He said smirking at her.

She harried him into the passage and out the entrance. They walked back to the camp in companionable silence. Adam set about making a breakfast for himself and while he worked Max angled to snatch his notebook from his back pocket. Steve arrived and began chatting up Adam and making his own meal. Under the distraction of their conversation Max managed to hook the pad of paper out of Adam's pocket and slip out of the tent. She tucked it into her cargo pocket and went for a walk.

She could appreciate the beauty of the bizarre and exotic jungle particularly the ancient dance of death and rebirth being played around her. She smiled at the noises around her. The death cries and the scent of rich earth. If it wasn't so damn hot she could learn to live here. She found a small clearing and drawing her machete she began to familiarize herself with it the balance of it, the curve of the blade, the best angles to strike out at, its weaknesses and what portion was the strongest to block with.

Satisfied she began running through a few forms and exercises losing herself in the purity of mind and muscle, reaching for the imagined kill. She heard movement beyond the glade and tensed her muscles to react. Adam emerged looking displeased. She continued her workout flowing into and out of defensive and offensive stances.

"Give it back." Adam said softly. She altered her movements to bring her closer to him face to face. She dropped the machete to her side when she was close enough to feel his breath on her sweaty face. She leaned against his firm chest and stared into his eyes while fishing the notebook out of her pocket. He took it grimly.

"I didn't read it." She said softly and leaned away from him.

"Max, Max, Max, I wish you would leave this alone." She sighed and strapped the machete back into place.

"Leave what alone Adam?" She asked harshly.

"I brought you here to get you out of Seacouver, to give you a change of pace. You've been a great help but leave the translations to me."

"Robinson and Stackhof are dicks. Only Steve is worth talking to."

"You're bored all ready?"

"No I . . . I'm restless."

"You haven't killed lately." He said knowingly. Her eyes flashed dangerously.

"Max you have a compulsion, one which usually works in your favor. This can be a test for you, a test of your strength. If you cannot control yourself here, where there is no one else but us, then. . ."

"Then I'm a monster. If I can't control myself and I have to . . . do things then you'll kill me?"

"No, but you'll become a target for others."

"Ah, you mean Mac."

"He is what he is Max, he may love you but he will kill you if you even threaten an innocent mortal life, let alone take one."

"You're thinking of Byron." She said softly. Adam's eyes clouded briefly.

"Think of yourself Max fuck Steve if it makes it easier but you must control yourself."

"Heh, maybe I'll meditate." She said jokingly but her heart wasn't in it. A shadow of fear settled over her heart. Adam was right; she could become a monster very easily out here if she wasn't one all ready. She left the clearing leaving Adam alone with his notebook.

Steve was still in the tent working away. She studied him speculatively, she could screw him, it would help for a while but she suspected the need would return and be harder to resist. She sighed and headed back into the heat. During her training with Macleod he had emphasized the importance of inner control and tranquility. She had paid him lip service in that regard but she had paid attention to his calming and meditation techniques. She selected a quiet spot within eyesight of the camp and sat carefully. She focused on her breathing and just her breathing keeping it even and steady.

At first it was very difficult to block out the cloying humid heat and jungle racket. But gradually the heat and noise faded, her world consisted of the steady rasp of her breathing, in and out in and out. Slowly she began focusing on the coiled violence within, she ran through her most memorable battles, the closest calls, the most satisfying deaths. With aching slowness the terrible pressure, the god-awful need began to slack off, began to fade even. She opened her eyes. Hours had passed. The camp was alive with activity, the smell of beans drifted to her. Adam was sitting in front of her.

"Did it help?" She nodded but remained silent, speculative, wondering at the change in her. Adam helped her to her feet and back to the camp. Glad that she had been distracted from the notebook and even happier that she was finally beginning to control her darker compulsions. He held the tent door open for her and watched as she settled on her cot.

Satisfied that she would be safe and sound where she was he left her lying and staring at the ceiling of the tent as though it might hold the answers to the universe. She stared and thought and felt. She traced the root of her rage, past her violent and unnecessary death, through her shaky young adulthood and into her pre-teen years. To the abuse and cruelty heaped on her by a drunken mother and heroin addicted father, well meaning once loving people twisted by their needs into monsters.

A tear crawled down her cheek, not for the abused and twisted child she had once been but for the battered souls of her parents. She felt her hate for them, the joy she'd felt at turning eighteen and finally being free of them. The cold satisfaction of knowing her father had overdosed and her mother's liver was failing the twisted glee of standing over their graves and knowing absolutely that they would never raise a hand or voice to her again. She could pity them but she wouldn't forgive them.

She blinked and shook her head. She raged yes, but it was a tool as well. She shook off the lethargy lingering from her meditation and got to her feet. She felt an urge to walk. Her feet led her down to the pyramid. She stopped and knelt at the entrance, her movements felt alien but right. She knelt for an unknown length of time muscles complaining. Finally she rose gracefully and approached the shaft she opened her mouth and spoke. The words were nonsense slippery and alien, but they felt right, her tongue and lips twisting and dancing to the strange syntax and syllables filled her with a sense of purpose. She waited allowing a sense of calm and love to fill her then she entered the shaft, on all fours and slowly crawled toward the chamber. She entered reverentially as a penitent before a priest slowly she raised her eyes and beheld the golden eyes of her god.

Adam dropped his plate and went rigid.

"Dr. Pierson?" Steve asked concerned. Adam shook himself and retrieved his plate.

"I'm okay Steve just had a thought." Adam said and smiled. He cleaned up his meal and hurried to the sleeping tent.

"Max?" He asked peering in seeing her empty cot he turned from the tent and darted back to the cook tent.

"Has anyone seen Max?" The four academics gave him perplexed looks and negative answers. He turned on his heel and sprinted toward the pyramid. Dread sinking its claws into his heart.

"Oh god Max no no no." He hissed between his teeth as he raced along.

He slid to a stop at the entrance and all but leapt into it. He paused as a bright light lit the far end but the silent generator proved it couldn't be the lighting system they had installed. He swallowed hard and moved along faster. As he entered the chamber terror wrapped its long cold fingers around his heart.

Before Max's prostrate form stood a god. She wore the visage of a beautiful Native woman her cool brown eyes gleamed with the unnatural light of the Goa'uld. She wore exotic garments richly stitched with strange foreign designs. She was speaking to Max in Goa'uld.

"Little warrior you will serve us well. I ask that you leave those you travel with, kill the old one and return to your home. There is something you must find for us."

"I will obey my god, my master, my mother."

"It is a book dear one. A man called Daniel Jackson holds it. He is in your land far from here. It will be difficult, and dangerous, he is a powerful warrior and has dangerous allies. You may have to kill him. You will know the book by its cover; it will show an image of my symbol."

"My heart yearns to kill for you holy mother."

"And you will my child, you will destroy for us. Go now before you are found go and complete your tasks."

"At once mother." The Goa'uld's form shimmered and faded but not before it locked eyes with Adam, Adam watched its features twist in surprise and rage but it was gone a heartbeat later. Max remained still for a moment and then stood robotically and began to move toward the shaft her eyes open but not seeing.

"Max!" Adam shouted and stood in front of her. She startled stumbled and fell to her hands and knees. Her eyes were unfocused and wild as she stared up at him.

"Adam? What are you doing here?" She demanded.

"Max why are you here?" He asked urgently. She looked around the chamber in confusion.

"I don't know, I was sitting and thinking, I felt like going for a walk." She said and outlined her journey to him. He pulled her close to him and ran his fingers through her hair.

"I'm going to tell you a story." She shivered and leaned into him unshed tears gleaming in her eyes as she remembered the kindness and love she felt flowing from the beautiful woman.

"There was a man once. He was a decent man and loved his family; he worked hard for his people and was faithful to his gods. His wife was a beautiful woman, she had four healthy children. The gods were good to the people, they demanded only what the people could give and the people were happy to give, happy to serve their gods happy to be loved by them. '

'As the man grew wise he began to wonder at the gods they were good to the people they did not send famines, or storms, or pestilence upon the people but they did not answer the people's prayers. They did not send relief from illness, they did not send water when the rains were late, they demanded that people who were kind to one another send the god's their children and their precious stones. '

'The man came to dread the holy days when the gods would walk among them. He feared that one day the god's would see his wife's fine children and want them for their own use. So the man asked his wife and her children to stay away from the holy temple during the high holy days, to avoid the gods and hide from their priests. The wife loved her husband and obeyed his wishes. '

'The priests noticed the man's family was absent and questioned him. He . . . he was forced to tell them where the children hid with their mother. The priests seized his family. They bound him and forced him to watch the gods as they inspected his family as they chose first the two male children and sent them to the priests to be trained in the ways of the god and the two girl children were sent to the gods through the Chapa'ai. They made him watch as his wife was punished for her love of her husband, as her love was twisted into hate of the good man who defied the gods with his love for her and her children." He stopped tears streaking his face, his voice too constricted to go on.

"So the man's family was taken from him. The man was left bound for days with no water, the screams of his loved wife in his ears for company. He grew weak, his mind played tricks on him and he . . . begged, and pleaded with his wife and her offspring, trying to make them understand his fear and love for them. The children struck at him with knives and sticks deriding his supposed love, his wife appeared to him taunting him with her broken body . . . he lost his mind.'

'Finally the priests came to him; they released his bonds and brought him to the inner chamber of the temple. He lay on the cold perfect stone and prayed to die. But the gods he prayed to laughed at him. The god appeared to him, with glowing eyes and a terrible voice. He mocked the man's attempts to hide his family, his defiance of the gods, his . . . his love. Then the god put a hand to the man's head and forced a terrible destructive agony through the man's body and drove him into oblivion." He was crying openly now Max forgotten by his side. His hands absently played with her short curly hair.

"They destroyed the man, burned his fields and home, salted the land. His name was banished from the people's memories and his existence . . . erased. He became a ghost wandering near the land of his people, a demonic presence, a thief. The man drifted lost among the barren lands of his people for many, many years. '

'One day a man came to him, he called the outcast friend and offered him kindness. He taught the outcast about the god's and their cruelty. He gave them a name, he called them Goa'uld. The gods he said were men and women just like the outcast and his people, what gave them power was an evil creature within. Their magics and powers could be used by any person with the right knowledge. The gods were false and the children offered by the people were taken to far off places and used as slaves, the precious stones decorated their goods and homes. The outcast felt a rage in his heart." Max shivered against Adam's ribs.

"The man's friend began to teach the outcast and love him, the man called him master. Finally the master took the man back to his people. The temple of the gods lay in ruins, the Chapa'ai was gone and the people had fled. The master told the outcast that his people had rebelled against the gods and won, that the gods had left their world forever but that they could return. The master asked the outcast to be his guardian, to watch and protect the world, to guard against the Goa'uld and their evil lest they should return and destroy the people."

A heavy silence filled the chamber.

"The glowing mother she was Goa'uld?"

"Yes Max. I don't know if she was really here, or if she was a recording, or she may even be buried here, further deeper in the temple. I don't know but I think this Daniel Jackson can help us."

"How?"

"I don't know I don't understand how a Goa'uld could be here let alone what a modern man in our world could have to do with the them. I think we have to go home, back to Seacouver, I think she may contact you there."

"Adam?"

"Yes?"

"I love the mother."

"I know."

"She wants me to kill you."

"Yes she does."

"But you're my friend Adam; I don't want to kill you."

"You're my friend Max, I know that."

"But, Adam, I really want to."