Chapter 13 Looking for the Light
It was almost a week later before Colonel Mitchell's backside was in a position to undertake a mission of any kind. He endured being the butt - quite literally - of not only SG-1's jokes but almost everybody else on the Hammond as well. His team mates were all secretly very proud of him – Cameron was nothing if not a good sport.
Teal'c and Simon had gone back to the SGC to bring General Landry into the loop of what was happening at the other end of the galaxy. The Jaffa would then travel on to Dakara, to negotiate with his comrades on behalf of the Tau'ri, the SGC and the people of these oddly orbiting planets.
Daniel discovered that the two small worlds were called Kallios Prime and Kallios Lucem. He came onto the bridge a day or so later looking hopeful.
"Lucem is Latin for 'light'," he told Samantha.
So it was only Mitchell, Daniel and Vala who prepared to go down to the suface of the second planet a few days later, but just as they were about to leave Colonel Carter came sidling in, grinning, zipping up her combat vest.
"Joining the party?" Mitchell enquired, fiddling with the fastenings on his own vest pockets.
"If that's okay?" she asked, smiling.
Her fellow Colonel grinned. "The more the merrier," he decreed.
"I did ask Landry," Sam told him, "I reminded him that SG-1 tend to attract trouble like a magnet, and four of us going down there could only be better odds than three. Strangely enough, he agreed straight away!"
Mitchell shook his head, smiling, inwardly agreeing with every word.
Sam did a thumbs up to the technician at the transporter controls and in another moment all four of them were standing on the surface of Kallios Lucem.
If they'd expected to find a beautiful, glowing, light filled city they were sorely disappointed. The transporter beam had plonked them down in the middle of a drab little square, at the end of a dull looking street, in a glum coloured town. The houses were brown, and the roofs were brown – the cobbles on the roadway were brown, even the steps around the Stargate, which was visible in some kind of parkland in the distance looked brown. The front doors had been painted in different colours, and there were plants in pots and trees scattered about, but even these couldn't cheer up the whole 'brown-ness' of this little world. The gloomy colour seeped everywhere and made everything else seemed washed out.
The people seemed cheerful enough however, welcoming them into their houses, showing them books and parchments and all the stone tablets that Daniel could possibly wish for. Yes, they knew of the mine that held the crystals. Yes, they could take the team to the mine tomorrow – it was some distance away and a license was required to hire the local horses. The food was decent and the alcohol strange but palatable.
It seemed a pleasant place to live, and yet – and yet – there was something that Cameron couldn't put his finger on. He fell into talking with Sam about it – they both agreed it was almost as if something was missing.
Vala came up behind them as they were chatting. "I agree," she pulled at one of her hair bunches and twirled it between her fingers. "It's like, like – whatever happened was lost so long ago that no-one remembers even what it was."
"Yes…" Sam said, slowly. "Yes – I know what you mean."
"Maybe what they lost came out of the big hole in the ground which Daniel's staring at," Vala added, conversationally.
"The what?" Carter's head whipped around at her.
"The big hole in the ground. There's another cobbled square behind the first one. It's even dingier than the first. It looks horrid. The houses are taller there – the man said it was originally the main square. Did I tell you about the man? The man who Daniel's talking to? He's not very interesting – he insists that this is the City of Light, but there are no lights in it! No street lamps at all. He says that they weren't allowed. The Gou'ald didn't let them have outside lights – why do you suppose that this is? Did I say that the little square is horrible? And Daniel's being boring?"
She stopped yabbering at last, gazing with wide grey eyes at the other two.
"Hold on," Mitchell put his hand up. "Backtrack a minute there, Princess. What's in the ground?"
"Nothing," Vala shrugged. "There's a hole. Whatever was there, isn't now."
The two Colonels' looked at each other.
"Can you show us where it is?" asked Sam.
- o - o -
Daniel was indeed standing looking at a large hole in the ground. It was perfectly round in shape, and looked to go down about three feet into the soil. At the bottom was a further small circle – Cameron couldn't quite catch sight of what it was – approximately twelve inches in diameter.
"What's at the bottom?" Sam asked, curious.
"For many, many years now there has been nothing in there," the local man told her. "But legend tells us that once the small basin at the bottom was full of crushed naquadah."
"Naquadah?" Daniel and Sam spoke together.
He nodded. "Yes. The Gou'ald forbade us to place any naquadah in there, ever. It was punishable by death."
"Why would they do that?" Vala enquired, peering down into the hole.
"To hide something." Daniel had taken his glasses off and was polishing them. Definitely a sign of some serious thinking going on in that beautiful head, thought his girlfriend.
"Hide something in that hole?" To say that Mitchell was puzzled would be an understatement.
The archaeologist shook his head. There was a gleam in his eyes. "No, no – not that. I think that they were hiding the whole world."
"What?" Mitchell screwed up his eyes, bemused.
His team mates, to a man, looked at Daniel as if he was bonkers. He gave them all that wide eyed look which he did so well. "Don't you see?" he continued excitedly. "This is the City of Light! We know for sure now. But where are the lights? There are no lights anywhere outside. So every night, this planet is plunged into complete and utter darkness. It's hidden, in a way, don't you see? Metaphorically speaking! The Gou'ald wanted to keep it hidden – because of the power of the lights!"
"Because of the weapons?" Mitchell asked.
Daniel shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Not fully. I mean, we know that you can use the crystals - the Aureogues - for weapons, and maybe that's what the Gou'ald also used them for, but what if they found out that they did something else as well? If their original use wasn't to make weapons with at all?"
"Because…" Sam said, slowly, "the people of this planet wouldn't have known anything about naquadria. It's only found on Kelowna. So if they were using the crystals for something…"
"They'd be using naquadah!" finished Daniel, triumphantly.
"Naquadah.." Mitchell rolled the word around his mouth, slowly. "And so..?"
"Lights! It makes perfect sense! The use of those crystals with naquadah was a source of lighting for this planet. And the Gou'ald forbade the people from doing this, because they wanted to use the crystals themselves to blend with naquadria and make weapons! I mean, I know we don't have any evidence that they ever used them in this way, but.."
"They probably found better technologies," Sam interjected, "but decided that it was better to keep these people in the dark anyway. Quite literally."
The local man was listening spellbound.
"We have much naquadah on this planet," he told them. "Our mines have plentiful supplies. And we have many, many of those small jewels which you seek. Many women wear them in jewellery now, we did not know of their true purpose!"
"Can you collect them all?" asked Daniel, excitedly. "Can you get people to bring as many as they can to the square, say, tomorrow evening?"
He nodded.
"Jackson?" Mitchell said, frowning.
"In the museum!" Daniel was almost dancing, he was so excited. "On Vala's planet! There was a large device there – with the map reader I borrowed from Shay - it would fit in the hole I'm sure. It had places for jewels too – well, I think it did. Around the edges – what if we brought it here? With some naquadah? See if it works?"
"Are you talking about that old piece of rubbish that's been stuck in the museum for mules' years?" Vala snorted. "That thing that looks like a cross between a squashed mushroom and a table?"
"Donkey's years?" Sam suggested, smiling.
The alien woman screwed up her nose. "Whatever. Donkey's, mules, asses – that's funny isn't it? Asses? On account of calling someone's backside an ass. So – is the animal named after a bum? Or is a bum named after an ass? They say 'bum' in England you know, not 'butt'. And they don't say 'ass' either they say –."
"Vala!" Daniel was scowling. "Back on track now!"
"Arse," retorted his girlfriend, loudly. "Anyway…." She narrowed her eyes at the archaeologist. "That thing in the museum - it's called the 'Lignum In Lucem'. Did you know that?"
Her beloved dropped his head to his chest, sighing, before he looked up, pulled her to him and kissed her soundly on the lips, one hand cupping her chin.
"Tree of Light," he told them, a huge grin spreading across his face. "Lignum In Lucem translates from Latin as 'Tree of Light'."
TBC...