Part 18 (2/2)
”Maybe.” She flashed him a quick smile. ”I won't know unless I look.”
”You've got five minutes,” he said, resisting a smile of his own.
”Yes sir.” Jamming the alien weapon into her belt, she got down to work.
One shoulder wedged against the doorway, Jack stood watch while Carter poked about in the lab. After a couple of minutes, he saw Teal'c peer cautiously around the end of the corridor. Jack lifted his hand in greeting as the others approached. ”Hunter was right,” he said. ”All our gear's in here.”
”Well that's lucky,” Daniel said, sounding dubious. ”Why does it make me feel like something's about to go horribly wrong?”
”Bitter experience?”
”Yep, that'll be it.”
Hunter shook his head. ”You can't be dawdling here,” he said, glancing nervously back down the corridor. ”Ain't safe.”
”Here,” Jack said, offering Hunter the Amam's weapon. ”Take this. It'll make you feel better.”
”O'Neill?” The slight question in Teal'c's voice was enough to suggest disapproval.
Jack shot him a look. ”My enemy's enemy, Teal'c.” He turned back to Hunter, layering his words with a tone of command. ”He's not gonna hand us over to the zombies.”
Hunter glanced down at the weapon, then up at Jack before he reached out and took it. ”You can trust me.”
For now, maybe. But he couldn't keep his gaze from the symbol Hunter wore on his forehead and all he said was, ”Cover the corridor while I get my gear.” He didn't have to ask Teal'c to stay with him.
While they took position at the door, Jack followed Daniel into the lab and retrieved his vest and weapons, leaving his pack until they were about to move out. He was relieved to see that nothing had been tampered with and he felt a h.e.l.l of a lot better being properly armed again.
”Wow,” Daniel said as he shrugged on his tac vest, ”this place is amazing.”
”Reminds me of your office,” Jack said, glancing around the cluttered s.p.a.ce. ”Full of junk.”
”Or fascinating artifacts and highly advanced alien technology?” Daniel suggested absently, his attention already caught by something he'd seen.
In the center of the lab was a bank of consoles where Carter stood gazing at something with her usual intent focus. Around the edges of the room, on a kind of work bench, there were numerous gizmos and gadgets, some of which were taken apart. Most looked as bizarre and creepy as the rest of the s.h.i.+p, but a few were more familiar and some were definitely Goa'uld. He spotted a disa.s.sembled zat on the far end of the bench and reached out to pick it up, turning it over in his hands.
”Daniel?” Carter said, glancing up from the console. ”Do you recognize this language? At least, I'm a.s.suming it's a language...”
Daniel was on the other side of the lab, but he headed gamely over to where Carter stood and peered at the screen. ”Oh, it's definitely a language,” he said with sudden interest. ”Okay, wow, this is fascinating.”
”It is?”
”Ah, yes. Yes, very.”
As Daniel bent closer to the screen, Jack glanced down at the zat in his hands. It looked beyond repair, at least beyond his skill, and he dumped it on the bench and headed back to the door. ”Teal'c,” he said, ”go get your stuff.”
Back braced against the doorframe, he kept one eye on the corridor and one on Hunter. ”You've been here before?” Jack guessed.
Hunter nodded, but kept his gaze fixed on the corridor behind Jack. ”We're collecting intel,” he said. ”On the s.n.a.t.c.hers.”
”Intel?” Jack said, surprised by the word.
”For Hecate,” Hunter explained.
”Right.” For the Goa'uld - it was important to remember who he was dealing with here.
”Huh,” Daniel said suddenly, standing up straight behind the console. ”That's unexpected.”
Jack waited for him to elaborate, but he either forgot he'd spoken out loud or got distracted, because he was bending over the screen again, squinting at the text. Jack glanced at Carter, who just gave a small shake of her head and a shrug.
”Daniel,” Jack said. ”What does it say?”
”Oh,” Daniel glanced up over the tops of his gla.s.ses. ”Ah, I can't actually read it.”
Jack's eyebrows rose. ”You can't read it?”
”No.”
”And yet... ?” He gestured toward the console. ”'Unexpected', you say?”
Daniel nodded. ”Yes, I definitely wasn't expecting the language to be a derivative of Ancient.”
”Ancient?” Carter echoed in surprise. ”Really?”
”Oh yeah,” Daniel nodded. ”Without a doubt. Ancient was its root language - a long time ago, obviously.”
”Obviously.” Jack ran a hand through his hair, trying to quell his frustration. ”So, what, these are some kind of flesh-eating zombie Ancients, now?”
”I have no idea,” Daniel said, with obvious delight.
”Okay.” He took a breath. ”Carter?”
”I can't interrogate the database, sir. There's data streaming, but the interface isn't responding.” She grimaced in annoyance. ”I'm sorry, sir. I don't think there's anything here that can help us open the gate.”
He acknowledged what he'd suspected with a nod. Not what he wanted to hear but there was no point in wasting time on a dead end. He headed back inside to get his pack. ”Right,” he said, ”we'll move out and -”
”Wait!” Daniel's head was tipped to one side as he squinted at the screen. ”Just - Okay, wait, I might have something. Huh...”
He'd disappeared down the rabbit hole again, but Jack figured they could spare a couple of minutes. If anyone could figure it out, it would be Daniel. ”Two minutes,” he warned him, slinging his pack over one shoulder. ”And then we're outa here.”
If he heard, Daniel didn't respond. Jack glanced at his watch, marking the time: he wasn't joking about the two minutes.
It was evening back home, he noted. The sun would probably be setting. Hard to imagine, in this place, that home was still out there, that its billions of people were still running about oblivious to the threat they faced from so inconceivably far away. Hard to imagine that he'd been one of them, once. Oblivious.
Perhaps because he was thinking of home, something on the cluttered lab bench caught his eye. Was that... ? He peered closer. It was. Half buried beneath something that might, once, have been a Goa'uld hand device he saw a familiar symbol: Earth. Reaching out, he knocked the debris away to reveal a small, square block that looked like it could have been made out of polished soapstone. Five of its sides were smooth and blank, and the only thing on the sixth side was the symbol for Earth. Weird, he thought, that it would be here. But then he remembered the girl, Elspeth, with the symbol tattooed on her arm. Resistance, she'd called it, a symbol of rebellion.
”Okay,” Daniel said behind him, talking to Carter, ”so the thing is, I don't think this is actually a spoken language at all. The syntax is impossible...”
<script>