Hello! Now that summer is winding down, I'm back. I'm actually looking forward to winter this year. I'm ready for a break. Enjoy!

Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.

…...

Daniel's ancient Egyptian was a little rusty, or as rusty as one could be with a five-thousand year old dead language, but it was enough like Abydonian that he still had a good grasp of it.

*You speak this tongue?* he called to the two aliens, enunciating as best he could.

The looks of confusion on his teammate's faces were nothing compared to the shock the creatures showed. Their ears went up, their eyes widened, and he had the feeling that, had they had been human, their jaws would have been hitting the ground.

The older one, the one he had mentally tagged as "Mitchell's Friend" rose and stalked gracefully over to where he was sitting. She stood over him, gazing into his eyes intently, as if trying to get the measure of him. He could feel her breath ruffling his hair. The tips of two-inch long fangs poked from beneath her lips. It was more than a little disconcerting to be under such heavy scrutiny by a large predator at extremely close range, but then she began to talk, and he forgot everything but the translation running through his mind. Words were words, no matter what the speaker looked like.

It was hard to pick out those words between all the rumbles, growls, and hisses, but he soon got the hang of it. *You speak like Partners. Why* There was a heavy emphasis on the word partner, and it became capitalized in his mind.

* I speak many tongues. Who are the Partners?*

*Partners. Hunt together, live together. Long ago.*

So intent was he on understanding her speech that he forgot his team, until a not-so-quiet cough came from nearby. "Jackson? You want to let the rest of the class in on this?" Mitchell said, his eyebrows raised.

"What? Oh. Sorry. I just realized that they were making some sounds as they talked that sounded really familiar. It's Egyptian, or rather, ancient Egyptian. It's not very clear, but it's there."

"How in the hell can a dog from another planet speak an Earth language?"

Daniel sighed. "Well, if you'd just give me a moment, I was about to ask that."

*Not dog.*

Daniel looked back at the large black creature still standing in front of him. If anything, she was looming even more. "Excuse me?"

*Not dog. Is Bast.* There was no mistaking the irate tone.

"Jackson?"

"Well, they can't speak English but they certainly can understand it. She heard you call her a dog, and seems a little put out by it. They call themselves Bast, I'm assuming after the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet."

*My apologies.* he said, turning back to her. *My friend meant no offence.*

The alien (or Bast, as he needed to remember) glared over her shoulder at Mitchell for a moment, then fluffed her whiskers at him, an odd croon coming from her throat. Daniel had the distinct feeling that Cam had made a bit more of an impression with his "southern charm" than he originally thought. He thought he might just keep that info to himself until he needed some blackmail fodder later.

Daniel reached out and gently touched the Bast on a foreleg, bringing her attention back to him. *Do you have a name?*

She cocked her head at him.

He touched his chest. "Daniel."

*Dan'yel*

Daniel jerked, despite himself. He hadn't heard his name pronounced like that in a long time. Memories of his lost family tried to overwhelm him, but he shoved them back to where they had been stored years ago. He smiled instead, and nodded. He reached out and touched her chest.

*Eshe*

"What was that, Daniel?" Sam asked. She had been silent so far, watching curiously.

"She just told me her name. Eshe. It means "life". Daniel wanted to keep her talking, to help him understand the language better, so he asked her to tell them about her race, and tried to keep up as she launched into a fast, long explanation.

" They live in family groups, all members interrelated. Their society is matriarchal, led by the oldest female. That's Eshe. This is not their home planet. They come from one where the Bast work beside humans. Partners. Probably humans of Egyptian decent, judging by the language. This group was brought here many generations ago by The Hunter, as they call him. They've been slaves ever since. Even Eshe has never seen their home."

He felt Teal'c shift uncomfortably next to him. Evidently, parts of this were hitting a little close to home.

"Wait." Sam interjected. "If the oldest among them was born here, how do they know what home is like?"

Daniel relayed the question, and got an interesting answer back. "Because she contains the previous matriarch's memories. Not just the one before her but all of them, back through the generations. Some of it is probably from word of mouth story-telling, but I also get the impression that there's some kind of racial memory at work here. Something inherited."

He started to ask more, but at that moment, Vala moaned slightly in her sleep and pressed up closer to his side. Her body was radiating heat in an alarming way. Eshe shifted her focus on her at the noise, and regarded her closely. She leaned down and ran her long, sensitive whiskers across the sleeping woman's face which, unfortunately, woke her up.

Vala opened her eyes and gasped at the sight of the huge black head mere inches from her face and literally tried to merge herself in between Daniel's body and the soil behind them. He grabbed her arms while Teal'c held down her legs, effectively immobilizing her injured knee. "Vala! Vala, it's all right. This is a friend, she's not going to hurt you."

Vala stopped struggling and lay against him, breathing heavily. Too heavily. She tried to speak but it came out as a raspy cough. He dug out his canteen and handed it to her. She never took her eyes off of the Bast as she drank. She jumped when Eshe turned to Daniel and spoke.

*Is sick?*

"Yes."

*Is bite?*

Daniel nodded and her ears angled back, whether in anger or annoyance Daniel couldn't tell. She turned to the younger female and growled something too fast for Daniel to pick up. A moment later the young Bast trotted past them and disappeared into the jungle.

"Daniel? What's going on?" There was just something inherently wrong with such a weak voice coming from Vala.

"Oh nothing, just our resident Dr. Dolittle here has been talking to our new friends." Mitchell smirked at Daniel's eye roll. The smirk turned into a frown of concern as he turned to Vala. "How you doing, princess?"

"I feel like the time I won a drinking contest against an entire crew of smugglers just so I could steal their escape pod and get away, then proceeded to land said pod on a planet where the average temperature was about 150 degrees. In the shade."

"So, your head hurts and you have a fever?"

The look she gave him could have melted ice.

Sam got up and came over to them, rummaging in her pack as she skirted around the big Bast, who was listening to them with interest. She pulled out the first aid kit and tugged two packets of pills out. "Now that you're awake, you can take some stuff. We have some painkillers and some broad-range antibiotics." She opened the packets, and jumped as Eshe pushed her nose forward to smell them. She growled something.

"She says that their medicine is better." Daniel translated as the Bast continued to talk. "She sent her granddaughter to get some."

"How do we know it will work on us, or not have any nasty side effects?" Sam asked.

"The Hunter uses the plants to make a cure for their bites. Apparently it's a prize for the few who actually win his game." Daniel shrugged. "They would know, I guess. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt."

Sam looked at Vala, who shrugged. "It can't make things any worse."

"Okay. But you still need a bandage change. You too, Daniel."

Daniel suddenly remembered the wound on his arm. Now that he thought about it, it hurt. It hurt a lot. It had torn open when he had been attacked, and dried blood was crusted into the sleeve of his shirt and in rivulets across his back. He gently leaned Vala against Teal'c's warm bulk and got up, stretching carefully. There was a vague ache in his muscles that he at first attributed to sitting against the cool, moist ground for too long. He wasn't getting any younger, after all. But as he stood watching Sam change the bandage on Vala's leg, he was slowly becoming aware of some other problems. He was chilled, more chilled than he should be in the heat of the day, cool ground or not. A rhythmic pounding behind his eyes was starting to make itself felt.

Great. Just great.

They all looked with morbid fascination as Sam peeled the bandage away from Vala's knee, and Daniel had a good idea of what his arm looked like at the moment. The skin around the punctures was red and angry looking. Copious amounts of clear fluid seeped from them. While Sam gently swabbed the area and rewrapped it, Vala closed her eyes and leaned against Teal'c, who good naturedly obliged by shifting his body so she was more comfortable.

Sam was heading his way with the first aid kit when a reprieve of sorts arrived. Two Bast came down the washout, the one in the lead carrying a mouthful of leaves. The second was slinking, its head down, in a manner that could almost be described as embarrassed. As it came closer, Daniel couldn't help but notice that this one was male, but without a control harness. He was limping slightly as he crept up to Eshe.

While her granddaughter lay the leaves on the ground near Vala, Eshe growled and moaned at the male for a while, and his head sunk lower and lower, until his muzzle was brushing the ground. Whoever he was, he was receiving a serious dressing down from the matriarch. Then it was over. Eshe gave him a perfunctory lick across his head and went to sniff the leaves that had been brought. The male lifted his head and stared straight at Daniel intently. It was then Daniel noticed a red, raw weal around his neck, and with a start he realized that this was the young male they had left tied to a tree the day before.

…...

"Sam." She looked up at Daniel's warning, and she gasped when she spotted the telltale wound around the newcomer's neck.

The young male began to stalk toward her, his eyes narrowed. It was hard to read the intent in those green-brown eyes, but this particular Bast couldn't be having good thoughts about them. The only thing that was keeping her hand off her sidearm was the fact that Eshe was watching, perfectly calm. The older female seemed to have their best interest in mind, but Sam found herself wondering if there was some sort of clause in the Bast's traditions for revenge.

So it was to her immense surprise that the young Bast, on reaching her, sank to the ground at her feet and rested his massive head on her boots. He rolled his eyes, moaned mournfully, and said something. She looked at Daniel. He had a amused grin on his face.

"He's apologizing and asking if you could find it in your heart to use some of your medicine on him, since we're the cause of his pain." Eshe put in a few words. "This is Eshe's youngest grandson, Ishaq. Yesterday was his first hunt. Even though the females aren't supposed to go out during a hunt, his sister was worried about him and followed him."

Sam looked down at the pitiful lump pinning her feet in place. The moans were starting to sound slightly melodramatic at this point. "I think you're going to live. Let me help Vala, then I'll come look at you." She used the same tone she did when dealing with unruly young Airmen. Ishaq sighed gustily and reluctantly lifted his head, freeing her feet.

Sam sat down to examined the leaves that had been brought. They were tough and faintly aromatic. She asked Eshe how they should be prepared, and waited for Daniel's translation automatically.

His brow furrowed at the response. "Umm, something about drawing out the essence. Or something like that. Maybe in an infusion or tea?"

"I don't like tea," Vala grumbled.

"Tough!" three voices instantly replied.

"I guess I'll be of some use here and start a fire," Cam muttered.

"While you're doing that, I guess I'll see to our poor wounded friend here." At Sam's words, Ishaq scooted stiffly toward her and repositioned himself so that his head rested in her lap. He gazed up at her and crooned. Sam couldn't help but smile. "You're a flirt, aren't you?" The croon turned to groans of pleasure as she began to slather cream into the ugly weal around his neck. She had secretly been wanting to touch that velvety black hide since the first time she had seen him, and she was not disappointed. It was like touching warm suede.

When she had finished putting a dressing on his neck, he lifted his paw and waved it in front of her, and she could see why he had been limping. His pads were worn down and raw in the front, and his claws were cracked to the core and covered in dried blood, bits of dirt and vegetation caught in them. On examination, both his front feet were like that." What happened here?"

This time it wasn't Eshe that answered, but the younger female. She talked for awhile, while Daniel listened quietly. Sadness and anger flitted across his face. "When the males wear the harness, they become blind to everything but the hunt. They don't feel hunger and they are conditioned to ignore pain. When Sagira-oh, this is Sagira, by the way- when she finally found where we had left him tied up she had hardly recognized him, even though this is her younger brother. Because of the harnesses controlling his mind, he had gone mad from not being allowed to continue hunting, and had done this to himself trying to escape. She found him only hours after he was trapped. When she freed him from the harness he came back to himself and she got him out of our rope."

Sam rested her hand on Ishaq's neck below the bandage. "I'm sorry we had to do that to you."

The handsome young male lifted his head and brushed his whiskers across her face in a feather light caress that she needed no translation for. With that she got busy gently cleaning and soothing his battered paws while Cam got the fire going. Soon the leaves were steeping in a metal canteen full of boiling water. Vala was dozing next to Teal'c, who had his eyes closed in meditation. Daniel was sitting next to the small fire, deep in conversation with the two female Bast. Sam spied the red crusted bandage on his arm and remembered she had yet to check his wound.

She finished putting cream around one last cracked claw and patted the huge paw in her lap. "I think you'll be fine, just take it easy for a little bit, okay?" Ishaq bumped her head with his affectionately, and got up to go lay between his grandmother and sister. "Daniel. Your turn."

He glanced up at her, then looked down guiltily. Sam instantly knew the signs of a Dr. Jackson who didn't want to be examined for some reason or another. She instantly got suspicious. He liked to play down anything that was wrong with him, and that's what he was doing now. "Daniel," she said again, in a tone that brooked no argument. He sighed and came over to sit next to her, resignation in every movement. She undid the bandage on his bicep and bit off an angry exclamation. The wound had torn open further, but that wasn't the main problem. The skin around it was streaked with the red veining of blood poisoning, and when she put her hand on his arm to turn it, an unnatural heat radiated from his skin.

She narrowed her eyes at him and he smiled sheepishly. "And when were you planning on telling the rest of us that you were sick too?"

"I had just noticed when you were cleaning Vala's leg. Then I just got distracted. It's not that bad. Really."

She continued to glare at him. His response was to bat his eyelashes at her, something that, like half the other women in the galaxy, she wasn't immune to. And he knew it too, the sneak. Giving in, she shook her head and started to clean the gash. She probably wasn't being as gentle as she could have been, but he bore it as his due and didn't say anything. Just as she was finishing, there was a call in Bast speech from the fire. "Eshe says the medicine is ready."

"Lucky for you," she said, in a tone that told him he would be taking some of that medicine if she had to sit on him and pour it down his throat.

…...

Everyone still had some doubts about this medicine, Daniel included. When they strained the concoction into another canteen, the thick fluid was a dark green and smelled, frankly, green. Vala eyed the cup handed to her with serious misgivings.

"Can't I just wait until we get home and Carolyn can patch me up? I'm sure she won't give me stuff that looks and smells like pond muck."

"Vala, we don't know how long that's going to be," Daniel said patiently. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm going to be taking the stuff too."

"Fine," she said with a sigh. She lifted the cup to her lips and wrinkled her nose. Visibly steeling herself, she gulped down the contents in one go. She gagged and sputtered horribly until someone handed her a canteen of fresh water to rinse her mouth out. She glared at Eshe. "Are you sure this stuff isn't some other form of sadistic amusement your Hunter thought up?"

Eshe huffed in what must have been Bast laughter.

After that performance, Daniel was almost thinking that the slight discomfort he was in was better than the alternative, but Sam was giving him one of her no nonsense looks that said there was no use arguing. Then there was Mitchell, who seemed to be taking an unholy glee in pouring out some of the brew and handing it to him. Even Teal'c was watching him with interest. He sighed. Might as well get it over with.

By the time he finished coughing and wiping the tears from his eyes, all three of the Bast were laughing at him and Vala was smiling in satisfaction. Dear god, that stuff was worse than green NyQuil. He just hoped it worked the first time, 'cause he wasn't taking any more.

"Well folks," Mitchell said while he kicked out the small fire. "Now that we've made our introductions and tended our hurts, we need to plan. So let's talk about this hunt."

Daniel had several questions floating around in his mind, but one was foremost. "Eshe, what exactly happens when someone doesn't reach the compound in time?"

*Trapped. No food. Wait many days, then hunt again.*

Daniel was liking this guy better and better. "She says the Hunter waits until we're weak from starvation, then resumes the hunt."

Sam looked around her. "But this is a rainforest. Wouldn't we be able to forage?"

"Have you seen any birds or other animals in here? All we've seen are insects, most of which are probably poisonous. As for plants, how would we know what was safe?"

"We would not," said Teal'c. "This man has given great thought to this. Perhaps even to the type of vegetation growing here."

"Good point. So, trust nothing. Story of our lives." Mitchell rubbed his chin. "Obviously, we need to get in to the compound and flip whatever switch controls the harnesses. That may be the easy part. Getting past all of the things wearing the harnesses is going to be the hard part."

"Wait, how is getting in the easy part?" Daniel asked, feeling he was missing something. "There are probably sensors or cameras on every inch of that place. There would have to be a door or way in that the Hunter doesn't know about."

"Sure there is, " Mitchell replied smugly. "How do you think me and Teal'c got down here?"

…...

Kind of a slow chapter, but I had to build thing up and explain some stuff before I could go on. It will be more exciting from now on.