Chapter Text
I began in warm water. Rich oxygenated water, salty with minerals, and fertile with nutrients.
I began in a pool, open beneath a barrel vaulted hall. Light streamed down from the high windows.
I swam with the rest of my swarm, our tails weaving eagerly, always watching the movement in the cold empty air above the pool.
But even then, I knew that I was different, that I was better, that I had a greater destiny than they had.
On the day of my great beginning, I saw movement above the pool.
I recognised she who ruled here: the Lady Keshefnet.
She turned to the tank that stood at the head of the pool, the tank that held the oldest prim'tah. She reached her human hand inside. When she turned, she had a prim'tah twisting in her hand - the oldest and biggest prim'tah among us.
I watched, weaving eagerly with the other young prim'tah in my swarm. Lady Keshefnet raised the prim'tah into the air, and I heard her speak, her words burbling down into the water.
There were three other humans standing close to the pool. I recognised two of them as Jaffa.
They were restraining a third human between them, and as I watched, they forced him to his knees.
The silver of his hair gleamed. I had never seen a human with silver hair before.
Keshefnet stepped behind him. She raised the prim’tah over his silver head
He threw himself forward, away from her. He fought the Jaffa - he fought desperately to get away from the prim’tah above his head.
His struggles brought him closer to the pool…
For a second, I froze.
But it was now or never! Surely I would never get a better chance to be free from this pool!
I gathered my strength, and jumped.
I screamed as I jumped. I could not help myself - I'd never jumped so far! I could fall short - but I had to risk it. I flew through the air, and I was strong enough, after all. I struck the human on his bare throat, and cut my way inside instantly.
My first host!
How can I tell you how right it feels to find one's first host! How can I describe diving into rich hot oxygenated blood for the first time! My instincts guided me to his arteries, his windpipe, and his spine. Every second was critical as I fought to take control. I slashed for his brain.
But even as I stabbed up into his brain, things were going wrong.
The human was fighting back. His muscles were thrashing wildly against me. I felt his rage in the hammering of his heart.
I invaded his senses, and realized that he was seizing. He had fallen to the ground. His muscles were hammering his limbs against the floor. His seizure was battering the back of his own skull viciously against the marble floor.
I knew how to stop the seizure. I invaded his head, took over his motor neurons, and switched off the neck muscles that were seizing.
Next, I reached his left hand and took control of it, but to my horror I couldn’t reach the right. I could feel his right hand, but that was it. I couldn't take it. I could get no further.
I couldn't master my first host! I was too small, too young, too weak. We were dying!
I reached into the speech centres of his brain, and shouted at him.
Stop that! Stop fighting me! You are mine now! Accept it!
“Control your host!”
Filtered through my host’s ears, the voice sounded warped.
Yet I knew that voice. I felt a blaze of hatred for her, and I knew that the hatred was not all mine. My host knew that voice too
His hatred for Keshefnet was so great that he stopped fighting me. He froze, and lay still.
I opened his eyes, and felt the scalding light of hatred blossom in them for the first time.
Keshefnet was standing over us. “A failed blending. Disappointing.”
I had my host’s head, and thus I had his voice, complete with the speech centres in his brain: all his own grammar, vocabulary and vocal patterns. I opened his mouth, engaged his vocal cords.
“I am in control,” I said. My first words ever spoken, and they were a lie.
“He is a senior commander of the Tau'ri,” Keshefnet said. “If you control him, all that he knows is ours.”
This was true, I realized. I ran the words through my host’s word-recognition centres, and a whole landscape of meaning opened up before me.
Tau’ri. Human. Air Force. SGC. He was a warrior, I realized; an enemy of the System Lords, in a war to the death.
“Conquering him will be worth the challenge,” I lied. “He will fight, and I will break him.”
She straightened upright. “See to it that you do,” she said.
She turned on her heel, and swept away. Her words were a threat as much as a command. If I was too weak to control my first host, I would die. Incomplete blendings were euthanised.
As soon as Keshefnet walked away, my new host rolled himself upright. He had heard my words through his mouth.
He was terrified that he would be forced to betray his duty, and his despair was giving him new strength. I had his head and neck, but he fought his way to his feet on a tide of rage.
I tried to grab his balance and pull him around. He staggered, but somehow he managed to keep his feet, and lurched forward.
Stop that! I shouted at him, but the open door was before him. I tried to pull him around by his head, but he lunged forward through the door.
Stop that!
Instead he accelerated. He was crashing unsteadily from side to side, but picked up speed with every stride.
I let go of his head, suddenly afraid that he would fall.
This isn’t supposed to happen! I wailed, as my host ricocheted off a corner and toward an open door.
We flashed out into bright sunlight. I felt his boots pounding on the terrace.
If you won’t stop, I’ll MAKE you stop!
I reached into his pain centres, in his brain-stem, and lashed him with fire as hard as I could.
I will control you!
I lashed him again and again, flogging him down his back and his legs, but it had no effect.
In fact, the pain only seemed to make him more angry. I could feel his rage building, the insane fury to fight or die. Hitting him was only maddening him more.
He sprinted on, and I stopped hurting him and let him go. I sat tight inside him, horrified, as he picked up speed.
My host was bolting! I was going wherever this berserk creature carried me!
If you don’t stop, we’ll both die! Do you want that? If I die, you die!
He ignored me, although I knew he heard me. He raced to the edge of the terrace and the steps flashed by under him. He felt earth under his boots now, and now he picked up speed.
I thought he’d been running before, but I’d been wrong. Now he was moving! He was racing, flat out, showing me what he could do, pushing his top speed. Huge land-animal muscles and bones were powering us forward, faster than I could ever go alone.
I couldn’t even feel his mind any more, just the pressure of his anger, pressed hard against my control. He wasn't even going anywhere - he wasn't running with a plan or a destination. He was just running. His instincts commanded him to fight or flight, and since fighting me was impossible his instincts said - run!
And I was inside him, being carried along with him, going faster than I had ever imagined going! I could feel the heat and the adrenalin pounding in his arteries; the sweat on his skin. I could feel the hammering of his heart and lungs, feel the massive impact of his legs and spine on the ground. His long legs reached out for the ground.
I was riding inside a creature that had evolved to run, and I was going faster than I’d ever imagined. I was flying – and I realized, I was enjoying it.
Without even realizing it, I had stopped trying to pull him up.
The ornamental walls and flowers were whipping by in a blur. I saw Jaffa guards turning as we raced past them. Keshefnet's Tower had fallen far behind us already.
When the path opened out to a long straight, I found myself urging him on faster.
He heard me. He tried, but he didn’t have any more to give me. And he was giving me his speed now, racing for me now. I didn’t even touch his head, just let him go.
How did he not fall over, turning corners at this speed, I wondered? How did he move so fast, and so straight? How long could he keep up this speed?
He was starting to tire under me now, and I realized that he was gasping for breath. His legs were hurting him, muscles burning. He was going to run until he chose to stop, I realized.
We raced past a fountain and a set of carved stone benches – and then the ground seemed to drop away.
Steps down, I realized.
Stop! I screamed.
He didn’t even slow down. If anything, he accelerated. He aimed his nose on the edge as if he would take off into the sky.
If he fell here he would break his neck! He was going to kill himself, and me inside him!
I yanked his head back as hard as I could, frantically trying to stop him, but I was too late. His last stride drove him off the top into space.
My sudden yank on his head made him slew in mid-air, and I screamed. We were falling! I let go of his head, giving him freedom to save himself.
He tried to twist himself in the air, trying to land on his feet, but it was too late. I'd pulled him too far off balance. The world spun, and we slammed into the ground, hard.
Crunch! He slammed into the ground on his side, sprawling, bruised, and stunned.
For a second, I panicked that I’d killed him. He couldn’t breathe. I watched the CO2 levels in his bloodstream rise, helplessly.
I'd killed him - he was my first host and I'd killed him.
And then at last, at last, he managed to inhale. His breath pulled in, painfully, with an ugly wheezing sound. He wasn't dying, I realized. His crunching fall had sent his diaphragm into spasm, and he'd been unable to breathe until it relaxed.
He lay on his side, drawing in deep wheezing gasps as if his airway wasn’t broad enough. I lay still inside him.
Not doing that again, I promised him.
He just gasped for breath. He didn’t reply, but I didn’t need to specify what I meant by that. I had caused him to fall, yanking at his balance like that. And he’d crunched up his knee again, running so fast. It was my fault, and we both knew it.
As gently as I knew how, I gathered up my control over his head again.
Definitely not doing that again. I had his head, and his left hand, and that was enough.
But he was as unrelenting as ever.
I will never surrender! It was the first time he’d spoken directly to me. His voice echoed against the inside of his skull; rich and real, but internal.
Keshefnet will kill us both if you do not. Incomplete blendings die.
Then I'll take you with me!
And then Keshefnet will put other prim’tah in your friends! Bigger, older, stronger prim’tah!
I felt his hatred flare – white-hot. And his emotion meshed with my own hatred for Keshefnet, fueling my fires. Keshefnet had kidnapped his team, his friends. Keshefnet threatened people he loved with all his heart.
I reached out for that love, frantically. It was a tiny agreement. If I had one tiny corner of an agreement, then I could build on it!
I can save your people! Help me!
He pulled away, struck by something I had said.
I grasped for the memory, grappling toward him, struggling to reach the alien human mind. Help me! Please!
Why? he asked. A moment later, he reached out for me.
It was the final barrier, and he broke it himself. I felt our feelings rising, boiling over the last internal compartments between us. His mind crashed into mine like the ocean over a wall. I was submerged in him, drowning in his memories.
I felt everything - warmth and hate, love and fear, pride and disgrace. Flight, war, guilt, grief. Suicide, depression, the taste of neat alcohol drunk late at night alone. In a sunny garden, I heard the sound of a single gunshot, and I knew what it meant.
Your child? I cried out, horrified. Oh, Jack, no, not your child!
I reached back to him, and with that my mind broke over his.
I couldn't have kept myself secret from him, even if I had time to try. I felt myself pouring into him – all my secrets, all my schemes and dreams were his, all his, in one instant. He knew me, knew exactly who I was. He knew everything, in that instant.
Help me! I cried out.
There on the gravel path, I felt him arch his back and cry out with the shock of our union.
True mind to true mind, of one being with my host, and we knew what we would do to Keshefnet.
For the rest of SG1, it felt like the end of the world.
Sam Carter wrapped her hands around her knees and glared through her force-field cage at the tank. It stood on the other side of the hall, next to the throne. She could see the swimming prim-tah through the translucent glass of the tank. She could swear they were watching her, as if they were hungry.
It was so stupid, Carter thought! So stupid! It hadn’t even been their mission! They hadn’t even been looking for Keshefnet; hadn’t even known Keshefnet existed, before this morning! They had blundered into a Jaffa picket on P3G-565 that hadn’t even been looking for them, and now Jack O’Neill was a Goa’uld! Carter had seen the parasite glow in his eyes, and the sight of it made her want to cry. She ground her teeth instead in silent rage.
To her left, in a cage of his own, Daniel Jackson rammed his boot against his own force shield. It zapped. He swore.
"It is futile," Keshefnet said.
The Goa'uld was lounging on her throne. She had arranged her body so that her black silk robes draped elegantly over the marble, as if she was waiting for something. She was staring at SG1 with the cold satisfaction of a cat.
The hall was quiet. The bright sunlight streamed in through the high windows. The pool that ran down the centre of the marble floor was quiet now, not a ripple on the surface. The pool, from which the Goa'uld inside O'Neill had jumped, Carter thought. She squeezed her knees tighter, feeling the hollow nausea inside her stomach.
“I wish to offer you my condolences,” Keshefnet purred. She picked up a glass of wine from the broad pedestal next to her throne and sipped at it. “It seems you have not yet won your war, after all.”
“I think we have.” Teal’c spoke up. “You are among the last of your kind.”
“Ah, but I am not the last of my kind at all,” Keshefnet smiled, and put the wine glass down. The glass clinked against the stone. “Baal and Anubis are going to wipe each other out, but after they have destroyed each other, I will be ready to take their place. My prim’tah hold the key to restoring the System Lords. No, sweet friends, you have not won your war.”
“You are wrong,” Teal’c said. "The false gods are finished. Not now, not soon, but one day, you will be gone."
The smile disappeared, and Keshefnet stiffened on the throne. “You will not live to see it! Shol’va!”
“I do not need to live to see it,” Teal’c said, and his eyes slid closed in a blink. “History does not pause to thank those who are proven right.”
“You are wrong,” Keshefnet said. “History does not even notice creatures as insignificant as you.”
She settled back on her throne, her anger disappearing as quickly as it had risen. She stared at them in their cages, stroking her own lips, as if she was waiting for someone.
A moment later, Jack O’Neill walked in.
“Jack!” Carter blurted. The word escaped before she could stop it. She scrambled to her feet. Daniel was getting up to one knee. Only Teal’c did not move, inside his cage.
But that wasn’t Jack O’Neill any more, Carter thought. It was a parasitic Thing, wearing O'Neill's body. It still looked like O’Neill, it still walked like O’Neill, with something of O’Neill’s old swagger, but it didn’t even look at his friends. It walked to the foot of Keshefnet’s throne, and bowed before her.
“And what is your name?” Keshefnet asked.
“My name is Oberon,” the Thing wearing Jack O’Neill said.
Carter winced at the harsh metallic rasp coming from that sweet familiar face.
“And who do you serve?” Keshefnet asked.
“I serve you, my lady Keshefnet.” Oberon bowed again. “Lady of the Garden.”
“And your host’s rebellion?”
“Crushed, completely. Body and soul.”
“Prove it.” Keshefnet put one long finger across her lips, and gazed at her newest servant coyly.
“Prove it? How?”
Keshefnet turned to the servant behind her chair, and flicked one finger. The servant came out with a lacquered box, and opened the lid. On the velvet cushion inside was a Goa’uld kara-kesh. The light gleamed on the coppery ribbons, the finger-cups, the golden jewel in its palm.
“Take the weapon, and use it.”
Oberon reached out O'Neill’s right hand for the kara-kesh. The copper coils slipped around O'Neill's hand, the jewel neatly cupped in his palm. Oberon lifted it, and turned to face the rest of SG1.
“The shol’va,” Keshefnet ordered.
“As you wish,” Oberon said.
Carter stiffened in horror, as Oberon walked toward them. It stopped right in front of Teal’c’s cage.
Oberon’s spine was perfectly straight. Jack O’Neill had always been a tall man, but Oberon seemed even taller, filled with the cold power of the Goa’uld. Its lips were like a hawk's beak. It looked down at Teal’c with no expression in its eyes for a moment. Without bothering to speak, it reached out with the kara-kesh. The amber jewel flamed brightly.
Teal’c sucked in a breath, but he did not make a sound. Golden heat flared between the kara-kesh and Teal’c’s brow. His huge muscles flexed hard, under the weight of what Oberon was doing to him, but he did not yield, and he did not cry out.
And then Oberon stopped.
Teal’c dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.
“Three more seconds, and you would be dead,” the Goa’uld said.
Teal’c’s face was wet with sweat, but he twisted his head up and glared at Oberon. “Then I would die free,” he rasped, through bared teeth. His hatred was as hot as Oberon's was cold.
“And still you continue to defy your god?” Oberon twisted O'Neill's eyebrows upward.
Teal’c snarled, and there was fresh blood in his teeth. “False god,” he snarled, and twisted his lips into a sneer. “Dead false god.”
Oberon pulled up one side of O’Neill’s mouth in a sneer. It turned to Keshefnet, and held out the hand with the kara-kesh. “My lady?”
“Keep it,” she ordered. “You will serve me well with that, and with the knowledge you carry in your host.”
“And them?” Oberon said. It turned, and its eyes fell on Carter. There was no recognition in those brown eyes; no warmth. They might have been the flat white eyes of a corpse.
“I will implant another prim’tah in them as soon as you are settled and fed, my son.”
“With your permission, I would rather keep them, my lady.”
“What would you do with them?”
“Their presence distresses my host. His pain amuses me. I would like to keep them alive to play with.”
“Then they are yours. Do with them as you like,” Keshefnet said, dismissing the rest of SG1 from her mind. “Come now! Walk with me. You are the first of my children to take a host! We have so much to discuss!”
A moment later, both Goa’uld had left the hall, leaving SG1 to their cages. Silence fell in the hall.
Daniel booted his force-shield again, furious.
"It is not yet futile, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. “Do not despair. We have only to wait for the opportune moment.”
“Jack is a Goa’uld!" Daniel said. "Jack's a Goa'uld, and we're stuck in here!”
“As Jack O’Neill himself would say, there is always another way,” Teal’c said.
“You saw those guns,” Daniel said. “You saw those orbital forts. You saw those carnivorous plants. You saw that dome. There is no way. Nothing is getting in here without Keshefnet’s say-so. And she has Jack. She has Jack!”
Carter hugged her knees, and did not speak.
That day, I dined with Keshefnet. We shared a rich spicy stew out of a tagine, and finished our meal with mint tea. After the meal, I walked with her into the garden.
My host walked with us. He had no choice; he went where I told him to go.
Keshefnet and I meandered through her garden. It had been laid out in geometric perfection, designed for shade and beauty. The gravel paths wound between low stone walls, and under decorative archways. Here and there, raised bridges crossed the irrigation canals, in which immature prim'tah swam. Trees, trellises and archways provided shade, and stone benches provided places to sit and contemplate the view. The ripple of water and the scent of flowers followed us, heavy on the hot air.
The hanging gardens of Babylon, my host said, in the privacy of our shared minds. His voice resonated inside his own head; internal, yet very real.
I picked the phrase out of his memory. Half-forgotten Tau’ri mythology. Nebuchadnezzar. Desert. Winged lions with human faces marching in ranks on limestone walls. The Gardens of Marduk, I said.
Daniel would probably know more about it, he observed. Daniel knows that kind of thing. I just know how to break things.
“Welcome to my garden,” Keshefnet said.
She was looking at me closely. For a moment I feared that she had somehow heard me speaking to my host. "It is beautiful, my lady,” I said.
“I have tended my plants here for over three hundred years. And now, it is ready to become the second birthplace of the System Lords.”
“How so, my lady?”
“The desert sand is rich with naquadah. The water is the correct temperature, and the correct pH. The plants have been chosen to nourish the water with the correct nutrients. In this Garden, prim’tah can grow strong, without needing to be incubated inside Jaffa! We will have no need of those treacherous shol’va, ever again!” She reached out and stroked the leaves of a brilliant hibiscus.
“I hope the Garden is well guarded, my lady?” I asked.
“Very,” she said. “It is surrounded by a force dome, which I raise when the Chappa’ai is open, and when sand-storms blow. The Garden is scattered with batteries. And the hedge around the garden is planted with carnivorous lianas that seek out living flesh, to keep out the natives. And above all, the stellar address is not known to our enemies. During all the wars between the System Lords, this Garden has been secret. Neither Baal nor Anubis know I am here. The Goa’uld, the Tok’Ra, the Tau’ri – none of them know I am here.”
Surprise, surprise! Jack said.
Be quiet!
“From here, the System Lords will repopulate the stars, and reinstate the rightful rule of the Gods. You, Oberon, are only the first of our renaissance.”
“I see,” I said.
“But this place is not ready, not yet,” Keshefnet said. “I need more weapons. And I need to capture more Jaffa, and take their prim’tah. Many more, if I am to repopulate the stars. We cannot afford to waste them inside Jaffa any longer. Somewhere in my waters, I must have at least one queen by now.”
“It is a cunning plan, my lady,” I said. “Worthy of the greatest of the System Lords.”
We came to a stop on one of the little bridges that crossed the irrigation channels. A prim'tah moved lazily in the dark water. I could see my reflection, silhouetted against the sky.
So that was what I looked like now, I thought, looking down at my reflection. I was taller than Keshefnet by over a foot. I was tall and wiry, with square shoulders – big hands, big shoulders, big bones.
The sight struck me with a sense of deep wrongness. That wasn’t me, I thought. That couldn't be me! Wrong shape, wrong height, all wrong. No wonder I was a failed blending! I had the wrong host! This host didn’t fit me; he wasn’t me. I couldn't even imagine a future in which this body was a reflection of me. I felt a surge of revulsion at the sheer wrongness of him...
Hey, hey, cut that out! Jack said, suddenly. I felt his mind wrap around me, filling me with warmth, reaching up and around me to steady me. You're inside me, remember? That's not you, that's me. That’s what I look like! Not you!
I froze, surprised by a warm sensation I did not expect. I was being reassured by my own host? None of my ancestors had ever felt reassurance from their host before. They had all lived locked in mutual hatred, every single one. I didn't know what to make of the new feeling.
"My host is valuable," I said. I turned to face Keshefnet. "More than you know, my lady. He knows all the secrets of the Tau'ri.”
She laughed, tossing her head back. "Oh, I know exactly who he is! His fame has spread even here! He is Jack O'Neill, the slayer of Ra, and Hathor. He serves the Tau'ri.”
"And now I will use him against them.”
“How?”
“My lady, I can use this host to go back to Earth, and come back with Earth weapons. The same weapons which slew Hathor, and Ra will soon be in your hands.”
“How will you get them?”
“I have access to all his memories. I know all that he knows. He has the highest military clearance. They trust him. I can persuade them to give me whatever I ask for."
Keshefnet smiled. “I knew you were going to be special, Oberon! That is precisely what I was going to suggest.”
We crossed a final bridge over a deep-water channel, and came back again to the Tower. We went inside, and started climbing the staircase that spiralled up inside toward the dome. The plants in here were greener and richer; tropical plants that would not grow in the dry desert air. The air inside was moist, and smelled like rich potting soil. We walked up the spiral steps, and found outselves on the top, right under the glass dome.
I told Jack to sit down on the bench next to Keshefnet, and look out over the garden. Keshefnet's Tower swept up into the sky like a bird's wing. We were at the heart of the garden. From here, I could see the weaving design of the garden, laid out below me like a labyrinth. It was divided into four quarters, with four streams running toward the Tower, into the circular deep-water channel that ran around the Tower like a moat.
The rivers of water, milk, honey and wine, Jack suggested.
Beyond the wall around the garden, I could see the Chappa’ai, standing outside the garden itself along a stone road. I could see the hedge that ran all the way around the whole complex, sealing off the complex from the hostile sand of the desert.
Beyond the hedge, around the Garden, the lone and level sands stretched away. The horizon shimmered in the heat. The sky was a heat-exhausted blue, fading down to a hazy horizon. On the southern horizon, a line of snow-capped mountains. To the north, out of sight, the sea. The snowy mountains fed meltwater into the river, and the river irrigated the garden. All this beauty was the gift of those mountains, bringing the desert to life.
I felt something moving next to Jack, and turned. A long vine was unfolding over the rail toward him. It reached out a green tendril toward Jack's right arm, leaves trembling.
“It senses your host’s blood,” Keshefnet said, watching the vine uncurling toward my host. “It is the same species as the hedge I have planted around my Garden to keep out the human vermin.”
Maybe it likes me? Jack suggested. He didn't move a muscle. I watched as the vine reached out a bright red flower toward his elbow. It brushed his skin with its stamen – and I felt a jab of pain.
Ow! Jack jumped to his feet without being asked. "It bites!" I said. There were four beads of blood on his fore-arm.
“Of course,” Keshefnet said, smirking. She did not stand up.
Bitch! She hadn't thought to warn me that her damn plant would bite my host?
Keshefnet seemed amused. “If you want the hedge to ignore you, you should spend the night in my Sarcophagus,” she said. “Your host needs more naquadah in his blood. The Sarcophagus will accelerate the process.”
No! Jack tensed up instantly. Not that, not that, not that! I could feel gooseflesh running up his arms. Ice-cold cortisol was already hammering through his veins. I felt him try to pull away from me. The Sarcophagus frightened him.
I won't do that to you, I said to him. I won't do anything to you that you don't want.
And he believed me. I felt his cortisol and adrenalin recede, just a little. His heart rate slowed.
Another new and surprising feeling. I had managed to reassure my host with a few words? Never, in all my millenia of memories, had any Goa'uld ever been able to reassure their host before. I could not control his body, but he listened to me, and trusted me. This was new, and it was nice. I was different, but for the first time, I didn’t mind.
I reached out my left hand, and wrenched the flower off the vine. Nothing will happen to you that you don't want, I promised him, and crushed the flower in my fist. Red petals fell between my fingers to the floor.
“Soon, my lady,” I lied to Keshefnet. “I will use the Sarcophagus soon. For now, my lady, I have work to do. I need a way to return to the SGC, so that I do not arouse suspicion.”
“That can be arranged,” she said. “The hard part will be persuading the Tau’ri to trust you with their weapons. Your host’s team know that you are Goa’uld. It would be easiest to kill them, and send you back to Earth alone.”
"No,” I said. “I can use them. If they think I helped them escape, they will believe that I am still their loyal servant.”
“Will they?
“I know their weaknesses. And I will tell them what they most want to hear. I will tell them a story that they will want to believe.”
“And what is that?”
“That I desire to join the Tok’Ra.”
She smiled, struck by the idea. “The Tok’Ra!”
“They are the allies of the Tau’ri.”
“And will they believe you?”
“They will believe my host,” I promised. “I can make him say anything I want. I will tell them what they want to hear, and they will give me what I want.”
“Tau’ri weapons,” she said. "With Tau'ri weapons, I can take the fight to my rivals."
“Grant me two days, my lady,” I said. “In two days, I will come, bearing as many weapons as the Tau’ri will give me.”
“I will give you the code to enter through the Dome,” she said.
“And you will have your Jaffa stand down, so that they do not open fire on me?”
“I will,” she said, smiling. “Two days, Oberon?”
“My lady, to this I pledge my word.” I bowed, hiding my face, so that my feelings were not betrayed by my eyes. “In two days, I will return with Tau’ri weapons. Lots of weapons!”
SG1 had been removed from their cages in the hall. They had been removed to a single cell, floored with straw – the Jaffa could be very traditional sometimes. One of their guards, in a rare moment of compassion, had given Daniel his glasses back, but not his anti-histamines, and his nose was dripping miserably. They were fed some sort of goat stew, and then they were left alone.
It was hard to know how long they had sat in the straw, before the door opened. The Jaffa guard turned to face the door, and immediately stood at attention.
A figure in a long blue robe walked in. “You.”
“My lord?” the Jaffa said.
“Out.”
“Yes, my lord.” The Jaffa went.
O'Neill-that-wasn’t walked up to the bars. It folded its arms across its chest, and looked at the team. “You three all right? They treating you okay? I see you got your glasses back, Daniel.”
“Go away,” Daniel said, speaking for all of them.
Carter looked up at him, and found that she couldn’t meet Oberon’s eyes. An alien parasite was looking out of O'Neill's face, and it was more than she could bear. She bit her lip, and looked down at the base of the bars.
“Carter, it’s me,” the Goa’uld said. She heard it kneeling. “Look at me.”
She loved that voice, and she couldn’t help herself. She looked up.
O’Neill was down on one knee, right in front of her, gazing at her, and for a moment he was O’Neill again. He was looking through the bars at her, and at the sight of those kind brown eyes, she felt tears welling up.
“Carter, it’s me.”
“It’s not you. I know it’s not you,” Carter said, shaking her head.
“It’s me, Carter! Listen to me. We’re going to get you all out of this place. Just sit tight, be patient, and wait.
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Oberon. We’ve got a plan.”
“You’re a Goa’uld,” Carter said.
He flinched, and suddenly it was Oberon who was looking at her. Carter saw the stiffness fall over Jack’s face; the alien coldness in its eyes. She couldn’t help herself; she flinched away in disgust at the change.
The Goa’uld stood up, and stood over her, looking down on her coldly. “I am Oberon,” it said. It had been assuming O'Neill’s voice, but now it gave up all pretence of being human.
“You’re the son of Keshefnet.”
“I am not the son of Keshefnet!” Its eyes flared golden; the anger of the alien inside Jack’s brain. “Keshefnet is a drone! I will destroy this false queen, and I will take her garden from her!”
Carter tried not to flinch. “Yeah, and why is that?”
“Because she stole me from my Jaffa!” Its eyes flashed, both hands knotting into fists.
Carter frowned. “What?”
“All the prim’tah in this place have been stolen!” Oberon snarled. “I watched my Jaffa die. He was mine, and she took him from me. My Jaffa was mine! Mine– !”
Oberon broke off and threw itself backwards. It lurched away to the nearest open cell, and slammed itself into the bars it a few times. Crash, crash, sideways into the steel, as if it was wrestling with an invisible opponent.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” it yelled at itself. “I’ve heard enough about your dumb Jaffa! Aah!”
“Colonel?” Carter asked.
Crash, into the bars again. “Stop that, stop that, you’re going to bang up your knee again! Do you want to fail your flight quals?”
“Uhhh. Jack? What are you doing?” Daniel asked. His eyebrows were right up behind his glasses. He looked as if he’d just realized that the person he was speaking to was a complete lunatic, and didn’t know whether he should shout for help now or play along until he could get away.
“S’cuse us, we’re having a small internal dispute,” O'Neill said, and it was O'Neill's voice again this time. JO'Neill – or Oberon – or both – left off bashing themselves into the walls, and turned back to face them.
“Look, if you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say to convince you. Is there? Anything I say doesn’t matter, because you think Oberon is making me say it?”
“Pretty much,” Daniel agreed.
“Indeed,” Teal’c said.
“Okay, then, you three just sit tight right there, and we’ll get you out …”
And with that, the Goa'uld was gone again. The door swung shut behind him. After a few minutes, the Jaffa sentry came back and resumed his silent watch over the cells.
"Bastard," Daniel said.
“Indeed.”
I left the prison cells, and walked alone through the garden. Night had fallen. Lights bloomed at our movement – not lights, but alien flowers that glowed in the dark, attracting nocturnal pollinators. Jaffa sentries stiffened to attention as I passed.
Seeing the rest of SG1 had disturbed us both. My genetic memories and Jack’s memories were all swimming together. I remembered them as enemies – but I also knew them as Jack's friends, loved and cherished. I knew them, I felt Jack's love for them, I had so many warm memories of them – but they did not know me. Their faces had been hard with hatred.
Except Samantha Carter. She had looked ready to cry.
They don’t trust us, Jack said. He was trying not to think of how much he loved Carter, trying to hide his feelings for her.
Why would she trust me? She doesn’t know what you know.
I could tell them, he offered.
No. Not yet.
You don’t trust them, either, he observed.
I trust no-one but myself.
Keshefnet had given me a kiosk in the gardens. It was a small marble structure, columns and carved stonework. The tiles had been decorated with curling blue vines and tulips. Outside, the water giggled through the irrigation channels; soft night music, and very peaceful.
Someone had brought in SG1’s equipment, and piled it all on the broad marble table in the centre of the kiosk.
I spent a few minutes sitting on a stool, watching Jack open and close the pockets in his vest and equipment belt. He indulged my curiosity, identifying each piece for me one by one. Radio, first aid kit, compass, emergency rations, ammunition…
“And here’s my favourite,” he said aloud, and I realized that without even noticing, he’d taken back control of his head and voice. He reached out and picked up the largest weapon on the table.
“The FN P90 compact submachine gun,” he said aloud, “Carries a 50-round detachable top-loading magazine with Teflon-coated armour-piercing ordnance, with a cyclical rate of fire of 900 RPM. Effective range 660 feet, maximum range 5900 feet. Note the straight blow-back and the downward ejection. Length 20 inches, weight 6 pounds, barrel length 10.4 inches …”
I had already heard as much as I wanted about the FN P90.
“Ah, I haven’t started talking about aircraft yet, kiddo,” he said, noticing my disinterest. “Wait till I tell you about the F-302 fighter-interceptor. Now that's a plane!”
What is this thing? I interrupted him, reaching out with his left hand to pick it up.
He grinned, knowing that he was being deliberately interrupted.
“Garage Door Opener,” he said aloud. He shifted to speaking internally, realizing that this was something Keshefnet would love to hear.
It sends an ID code to the SGC, letting them know that it’s us, and asking them to open the Iris.
Iris?
He sent me a clear mental image of a great metal shield closing around the Chappa'ai. ET tries to phone home without a GDO, and he’s going to play Splat-a-cake with the inside of the Iris.
You do like your word-play, don’t you? I asked, amused.
“Oh, come on! You gotta laugh in this line of work, otherwise you’ll go crackers.”
So, the GDO is similar to the dome code?
“Yeah, something like that. We’ll need the GDO to get into the SGC, and we’ll need the dome code to get back.”
We have work to do, I said. If we want to get back.
“You can read this stuff?” he asked.
Of course I can! I am Goa’uld.
I sat down at the table and opened the computer. Keshefnet might be thousands of years younger than Apophis, but she used exactly the same operating system in her computers – not clever. I would correct that as soon as I ruled here. The layout and fortifications were filed right where Apophis would have put them, and I pulled them up into a hologram over the table.
It seemed that Keshefnet had been building herself a fortress here for over three hundred years, centred on the Chappa’ai. The planet had been settled by Ra, but thousands of years ago the great savannah had dried up, and the Chappa’ai had been covered with sand. The System Lords had forgotten about it, until Keshefnet arrived by ship and dug it out again. She had ruled here undisturbed for three hundred years, because no-one knew she was here. For three hundred years, she had been cultivating and propagating plants from all over the galaxy.
The prim’tah in the garden were her newest project. Most of them were younger than me, brought here after the rebellion of the Free Jaffa. In the middle of the revolt, the System Lords had not noticed which of their Jaffa had rebelled, and which had simply vanished.
Two thousand prim’tah, Jack observed.
And every one of them means a dead Jaffa, I said. Just like mine.
She’s banking on finding a queen among them, he said. And if she gets one, she could repopulate the System Lords all over again. Jack’s mind flashed back through his long war against the System Lords. All those deaths… all over again.
We will stop her, I promised.
Both Jack and I tried our best to memorise as much as we could of the fortifications, but Jack could only concentrate so long. He opened the files for me, his hands moving where I asked him, but he stopped focusing and let me read alone. I kept control of his head, moving his eyes, reading through him, but I left him to his own thoughts. His mind drifted after a while.
I don’t know how it happened, or why I didn’t notice it happening. I had closed his eyes, trying to remember the exact route through the maze of the gardens.
He had been sagging over the table, and quite suddenly he leaned forward and put his head down on his arms. And then he was gone.
Jack! I grappled for his mind, and caught up to him inside a weird alternate reality.
He was in a large chamber I recognised as the Gate Room of the SGC, but how the hell had he got here? Surely we were still sitting at the table in the kiosk? And what was Carter doing here?
Jack? I asked, but his focus was all on Carter. He was doing something with her that I knew he had never before.
Jack? I asked, and realized the truth a second later. He was dreaming.
I opened his eyes. We were still sitting at the table, but he had gone limp. I touched his mind, but he barely noticed.
He was fast asleep.
Finally, I could take control! In sleep, he was paralyzed. It was a natural physiological mechanism to prevent sleepers from hurting themselves in their dreams. While he was asleep, I had sole command of his body!
No.
I stopped, just touching his motor neurons.
No. I had promised him that I would do nothing to him that he didn’t want. He had agreed to help me willingly, but I had no right to his help if I took it by force. I had made a promise, and I would keep it. I had his head, and his left hand, and I would be content.
Still, there were things I could do for him while he slept. He could roll around with dream-Carter to his heart’s content, and I could focus my attention on parts of his body that I hadn’t been able to reach while he was awake. He was not old, not yet, but the accumulated damage from a long tough life were starting to pile up on him.
I found some calcifications around an old skull fracture, and cleared them away. I adjusted the pressure inside the vitreous humours of his eyes. I had a look at his hearing, but those microscopic hairs in there were just gone, destroyed by too much gunfire at close quarters for too long. There was simply not enough left to repair, and I gave up.
The inside of his arteries – ye gods – I scrubbed those out thoroughly, and wrung the gunk out into his bloodstream for his kidneys to deal with. After that, I got to work on the cartilage in his spine and fingers. The cartilage was just starting to grind down, but hopefully he should get another thirty good years out of his joints now, and he might never even notice there had been damage at all.
At last, I turned my attention to his knee. His knee was a wreck. He’d pounded on it too hard for too long, and the damage was getting worse every time he ran or jumped. Three knee operations hadn’t done very much good; the knee was the most complex joint in the human body. All those bones fitting together in the same narrow space, inside a nest of ligaments and sinovial fluid. Well, at least I could do what human medical science could not – but when I tried, I couldn’t get to it.
His knee was too far away. I couldn’t reach it. I could see what was wrong, but I couldn’t get down there. I stretched my control as far as I could, but I couldn’t get down that far down his body. Even with him asleep, I just couldn’t reach his knee.
I was just too small.
I sat back, and observed the knee for a bit. Maybe, if I surrendered his left hand, that would give me enough strength to …
“My lord?”
The voice surprised Jack as much as me. He jerked awake, clutching at the table and sitting up. He panicked instinctively at my touch before he remembered where he was.
Easy, easy, easy, it’s only me.
I spoke for us both. “Speak, Jaffa!”
Keshefnet’s old First Prime had come into the kiosk. He was staring at me with a very strange look on his face. “My lord, are you well?”
“No, I am well.” I stopped Jack from rubbing his mouth.
“I have brought what I was ordered, my lord.”
“Put it there,” I pointed to the other table, and the Jaffa obeyed. He set a large bag onto the table.
“I have another order for you. I want you to go and fetch the rest of my host’s team.”
“Do you want me to bring them here, my lord?”
“No. Take them to the Pavilion of Falling Water.” I had found it on the holographic map. It was the closest pavilion to the exit gate of the garden, and a good place for doing what I wanted to do. “I will deal with them there.”
“Yes, my lord.” The Jaffa bowed, and went out. I heard his boots crunching away over the garden path.
Well, well, what have we got? I asked Jack to walk to the table, and he opened the bag.
As Jack had indulged my curiosity, I now indulged his. Together we put names and functions to several pieces of Goa’uld technology that the Tau’ri had been unable to figure out. My kara-kesh. A personal cloaking device. A genetic reader. A sample of poisons, explosives, and corrosives. A hand-held laser cutter. A device to lock a ring transporter on a particular location. A Vo’cume holographic communicator, and a long-range communicator. Keshefnet had given me everything a Goa’uld assassin would need to attack and destroy a military base like the SGC.
Area 51 is going to jump for joy when they see this, Jack said. He picked up a small japanned box. Inside lay a large gold ring, with a large red jewel. He put it on, and it immediately glowed.
Jewellery? he asked.
That must be the dome code, I said.
Then we're ready, Jack said. Time to go.
He strapped his body armour and weapons belt on, and wrapped the long blue robe over it. He slid his right hand into the kara-kesh, and slung the P-90 over his shoulder. All of SG1’s weapons went into the bag that the old Prime had brought, and he slung that over the other shoulder. We were ready for war, I thought.
We left the kiosk, and walked out into the darkness. I steered Jack down the paths with touches to his neck. He walked steadily, strolling along at a comfortable pace, as if he owned the place.
As we went, we passed a few of Keshefnet’s gardeners, still at work. They were human, not Jaffa; hostages to the obedience of the desert clans. They were tall men in long blue galabiyyas, with turbans wrapped around their heads. They backed away from us as we passed, and Jack ignored them, as a Goa'uld would.
I knew already where the Pavilion was, and I steered Jack there without any mistakes. Hidden lighting under the water came on, and blue ripples of light danced on the walls.
I asked Jack to put the bag down, and sit down on a stone bench, facing the water. He obeyed, and held the Zat’nik’tel on his thigh. We waited.
Do you think she’s watching?
I hope so. We’re putting on a show for her benefit. This has to look good.
We did not wait long. I saw lights outside, and heard the crunch of boots in unison on gravel – Jaffa, marching everywhere they went, even at night.
A moment later, the rest of SG1 were led in, prodded by three Jaffa. The Tertiary barked an order, and the other two Jaffa forced the team to their knees in a row, and then stood to either side, staff-weapons grounded, waiting to see what I would do.
“What are you doing here?” Of course, it was Jackson who spoke up.
I let Jack answer, since they were his beloved companions, not mine. He stood up, slowly.
“Ah, you know. The usual. Making friends, influencing people, fucking over the Snakes whenever I find them ..."
He raised the Zat and zapped the nearest Jaffa.
The first one dropped, taken by surprise. The other two tried to swing their staff weapons into line, but Jack turned the Zat and caught them both tangled up together. They dropped in a heap on the floor.
Carter jumped up just in time to avoid getting squashed by 400 pounds of falling Jaffa.
“Time to go, boys and girls!” Jack yelled. “Grab your guns, and let’s get out of here!”
"Uh, Jack? What the hell is going on?"
"Colonel?” Carter said. "Is that ... you?"
“Can we talk about this later!” Jack demanded. “Grab your guns, now! Move it, before the Jaffa get here! Daniel, yes that one’s yours, cock it for crying out loud! Come on, let’s go!”
He moved to the door of the pavilion, and took a look around the column.
A file of sentries was coming at double-time, alerted by the firing of the Zat.
After years of being taken by surprise, it had finally dawned on the Goa’uld that it might be a good idea to install alarms inside their bases. The sentries were running in a file, zooming straight for the pavilion.
“On your nine o’clock, Colonel," Carter said.
“Move!” Jack and Carter hooked around the columns together and opened fire. The Zat jumped in his hand.
The whole file of sentries went down all in one go, between one stride and the next.
“Clear, let’s go!”
Jack jumped out of the pavilion and ran down the path, and I perforce ran with him. A second later, the rest of his team were behind him. We raced for the gate to the road.
A Jaffa somewhere out of sight started shouting, and then someone opened fire. Blasts of fire burst from the marble nearby.
A split-second later, I found myself with Jack’s nose pressed close to brickwork. He and the team had dived into cover, moving so fast I hadn’t even had time to tell him what to do.
They’re shooting at us! I squawked. I hadn’t expected to be shot at.
“They’re the enemy!” Jack said aloud. “It’s allowed!”
Keshefnet hasn’t even bothered telling them we’re supposed to escape!
“To her, they’re just cannon fodder,” Jack said. “Thin armour, old weapons, they're just bullet-catchers to her…”
“Jack?” Daniel Jackson asked, staring at us with wide eyes.
“Internal comms, Daniel!” Jack yelled back. “Teal’c, with me! Come on!”
We jumped out of cover. Teal’c fired a few times with his staff weapon, and Jack opened up with his P-90. Both fired high, and the Jaffa ducked down. Carter and Jackson broke from cover and ran, and a second later Teal’c and Jack ran after them.
We ran around a wide curve, around a trellis, crossed a slip of lawn, and there was the archway out of the garden. The Dome shimmered beyond it, almost invisible in the dark.
One last figure stepped out from under the archway, but he did not fire.
It was the old Prime.
Teal’c lined his staff-weapon, but almost in the same movement the Prime dropped his own weapon. He raised his hands.
“Hold your fire!” Jack yelled. We ran the last of the way to the archway, and Jack thrust himself forward into the old man’s front, pushing him under the arch. Carter, Jackson and Teal’c joined us in the temporary cover.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
The Prime was unarmed, but he was unafraid.
“You are no god,” he said, staring at me. “Never in all my years have I seen a god fall asleep. You are something else, Oberon.”
“He is right,” Teal’c spoke up without turning around. “The false gods do not sleep.”
“That’s because I am not a god!” I said. “I am Goa’uld, but the Goa’uld are not gods, but liars, and oppressors!”
I saw the recognition and agreement on the Prime’s lined face. “And you know it too! You are a rebel!”
The fame of the Free Jaffa rebellion had reached even here! Keshefnet had tried to hide in her garden for three hundred years – but as long as the Chappa’ai was open, information would flow through it. Ideas could not be stopped by an event horizon.
“I would be a rebel, if I could,” the old man said.
“You can, if you will it!” I said. Jack reached out, and gripped the Prime’s arm.
The old Prime gripped him back, elbow to elbow in the Jaffa style. For an old man, he had hard fingers.
“How many rebels are there in the Garden?”
“Not enough to defeat Keshefnet.”
“Enough, now, with the Tau’ri to help you!” I said. “If you want to be free, help me!”
“How?”
“Those guns!”
Jack knew which ones I meant. He pointed across the garden to the lightning-cannon batteries.
“Make sure those guns aren’t charged up in two days. I’ll be back in two days, and I’ll take this garden from Keshefnet. Put men you trust on those guns, and do not charge them up on the second day! Two days, do you understand.”
“I will see to it, my lord.”
“I’m not your lord!” I snapped, and Jack shot him in the chest with the Zat.
He fell like a stone next to his staff weapon. Now he was indistinguishable from all the others, and safe from Keshefnet.
Jack turned. Jackson and Carter had gone under the archway, but they’d been stopped by the dome.
Jackson was holding his hand under his armpit, by which I understood that the idiot had tried poking the force field.
“Sir?” Carter’s voice was shrill. “Now what? We can’t get out the dome.”
“Watch this,” Jack said. He reached into his belt, and pulled out the dome code ring. He rammed it onto his finger.
The shimmering wall evaporated. “Ah, the cleverness of me! Move out!”
We raced out along the road. Jack raced under me, hitting his top speed even under the weight of his armour, pack and weapon. His knee was already going pong-pong-pong, so I dealt with it on the fly by just switching off all his pain neurons. The stones underfoot were worn smooth, and Jack remembered them from his way in here, just hours ago. We raced up to the DHD, standing on its pedestal.
In the distance, just visible in the dark, the hedge was beginning to move.
“Daniel!” Jack shouted without looking around. “Dial us up! Get us out of here!”
Behind us, shouts. I whipped around. To my side, Teal’c dropped to one knee.
“More Jaffa in-coming!” Carter shouted.
Take off the ring! I snapped at Jack. He pulled off the ring, and the dome flashed back up.
The Jaffa still inside the dome were suddenly cut off. Their parting shots splattered fire against the inside of the dome, uselessly. I heard a scream of rage, and a Tertiary bellowing orders.
The two Jaffa already outside the dome kept coming, with their usual suicidal bravery. They were rushing headlong up the road toward us in a suicidal charge.
Jack? I asked.
Jack needed no explanation. He raised his right arm, aiming toward the oncoming Jaffa. I reached out through him and swatted them both aside with the kara-kesh.
They were blasted off their feet, disappearing through the air into the darkness.
Teal’c fired again, keeping the pressure on them, so they didn’t just pop up and come back for more.
In the sudden silence I heard the last chevron lock home. The night was lit by the vortex of the wormhole, churning overhead.
“GDO accepted, let’s go!” Carter screamed. “Move, move, move!”
Jack yanked his head out of my control, and whirled around. He sprinted for the Chappa’ai, shoulder to shoulder with Carter, following Jackson. We ran straight up the steps, dived into the wormhole, and jumped across the stars…