SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne (33 page)

While Kane fought the good fight, Sam, Jack, Daniel and Teal’c searched the ruined facility. They were looking for one of three things: the point of origin glyph, the Stargate or the Goa’uld. They found none of them. Instead, what they did find were logs of the experiments the Corvani scientists had been working on. Sam poured over them with grim fascination and revulsion. So many of them seemed to be obsessed with testing the stresses that the human body was capable of withstanding — tests conducted in similar situations — tortures that offered vital clues as to the effects of G-Forces and such on the test subjects. The columns were all neatly filled out, the data recorded, including the final stresses at which the test case expired. It made gruesome reading. Sam explained what she had found.

Jack reached out and closed the log book. “Move on.”

In another part of the facility they found the treasure room — it was more like a graveyard of lost things. Wallets, purses, shoes, belts, anything that might be of value, was piled in the center of the room by the new arrivals to be sorted later. O’Neill closed the door, wanting nothing to do with this macabre horde.

And then they found the rooms where Kelkus carried out his experiments on those brought in to the facility. This was the worst of it by far and only Teal’c had the stomach to enter.

They all knew what he was looking for: the Goa’uld.

Teal’c refused to believe the creature was dead, and until he’d seen the body neither did O’Neill.

They didn’t find the Goa’uld. Somehow it had found a way out of there before the noose could close around its neck — which meant it had a way out. If they couldn’t find the creature at the very least they could find that and the hunt could continue.

What they did find, stashed away in the loot was the GDO.

* * *

Iblis had left the facility soon after taking his new host.

It was all part of his plan, allowing himself to seemingly be taken by surprise by the man with the low velocity weapon. Of course he could have raised his personal defense shield. He could have crushed the human like some insignificant ant, but Iblis was playing a long game — a shell game. It didn’t matter which shell the Goa’uld inhabited at any given time. That last one had served its very brief purpose, getting him closer to the Mujina. The creature had some very peculiar mental barriers that protected it from direct invasion: he had needed it to welcome him in, to surrender itself. In essence, to love and trust him. It had welcomed him in, and now it was his and all because it was lonely. How simple the creature was to manipulate. By the time his shield shimmered into effect the fifth bullet had undone his old host body. Nothing could have stopped the last one. Had the man shot him in the head, well then there would have been no rebirth, but he did not. He wasted his bullet stopping the pump rather than shutting down the brain. It was typical of the sentimental way the humans thought of their flesh, distilling both love and hate and placing them within the heart despite the fact that they had no place being there. Those were cerebral emotions, born in the brain. It was inevitable that the betrayed brother would aim his last shot for the heart.

This new form was more appealing, and had some rather unusual benefits that would be well worth exploring further, but for now Iblis concerned himself with the secrets locked within the creature’s head. The Mujina shared all of its memories willingly, allowing Iblis access to the thousands upon thousands of souls it had tasted, all of those dreams and fears and memories. And in those stolen pasts he found the Shol’vah. He took the traitor’s life and devoured it. Know your enemy. Know his weaknesses. Know his strengths. That was the art of war at its simplest. And through the Mujina, Iblis knew Teal’c. It knew them all: Colonel Jack O’Neill, the man who had failed his own son, Daniel Jackson, the man who could not save his wife, and Samantha Carter, the woman forever a disappointment to her own father, Jacob… the Tok’ra! Her flesh and blood had been taken as a host by the wretched queen’s spawn — that was worth knowing. It would have to stay away from this one lest she sense its presence within this false flesh. These were its enemy. These Tau’ri who failed everyone around them when they needed them most. It did not fear them. Indeed, through the Mujina, it felt another emotion all together: pity. It pitied them. Iblis closed off that part of his new host. In normal circumstances it would not have allowed any trace of its host to survive, but the Mujina was different. It was more than human. Its gift was useful to the Goa’uld.

Iblis used the rings to transport himself back to the city.

They were looking for the Stargate. Of course, it wasn’t there, and without the correct glyph they would not be able to return home. Iblis wrestled with the desire to simply snuff them out as opposed to simply expediting their return home. Keep your enemies close, keep your treasures closer still. It seemed that it had much to thank them for as they waged their war on the System Lords. They could be an unwitting tool. This was a new way of thinking for Iblis. It was almost, dare he admit it, human. It was devious and cunning and lacked the god-given rightness of Goa’uld beliefs. He smiled as he delved deeper into the Mujina’s memories and understood, recalling its traumatic escape from its prison. The gate had not merely lost contact and slipped, the wormhole had failed catastrophically. This intrigued the Goa’uld. It was rare for a gate to fail, rarer still that the travelers should survive. Of course, as a result, they were stranded. This changed things. No one would be looking for the Tau’ri. They would assume they were already lost. They were already dead to their world so no one would miss them if he finished the job. Already wheels spun within mental wheels. Kill or be killed. That was the way of life. Death was not such a bad place for them to be.

But there was an alternative. The Mujina’s voice was strong inside him. It wanted to help them. He felt its loyalty to its liberators. It was quaint. The creature was so used to showing everyone their heart’s desires now it had a chance to not only show, but to give the Tau’ri everything they wanted. It could open the door that would take them home. By absorbing the Mujina and opening up his mind to it Iblis had given the creature the one thing it knew its companions wanted: the glyph that represented this world on the Stargate. It was ironic, if nothing else. The Mujina knew it was inside him, it fought Iblis for what it wanted. The creature was no simple host. It was strong in ways that Iblis was not used to. It resisted in ways Iblis was not used to countering. But the gifts it granted far outweighed the difficulty the Goa’uld had in subjugating its personality. It gave the Mujina what it wanted. It would not kill the humans unless it absolutely had to.

In the two days before Iblis revealed himself, careful to never be close to the woman, Carter, the Goa’uld made calculations and complex predictions based upon the star charts and other data constructed by Corvus Keen’s astronomers. The fool had been so sure it was his destiny to rule the stars themselves, as though his impure blood could ever be a match for the might of the System Lords. Still, the obsession had proved its worth. With the charts, Iblis was in a position to replicate the conditions that dragged the wormhole off course.

Even with the Mujina to soften his psychology, Iblis did nothing that did not serve his own purposes. That was the nature of the beast.

So for two days Iblis worked to save them, and then finally, when he was ready, he emerged from the shadows.

* * *

 
“I know where the Goa’uld hid his laboratory,” the Mujina said, seeing the distrust on the Daniel’s face. It was sat cross-legged on the floor when they found it, drawing glyphs in the dirt. It knew he would recognize them for what they were. “Let me help you.”

Over and over he marked out the glyph for Kushmara. It was almost laughable how blind these humans were.

“I don’t think so,” O’Neill said. “You’ll stay very still and speak when you’re spoken to unless you want to end up with your head in a sack again. Understood?”

“I only want to help you,” the Mujina said. This time he scraped out the sign of the Earth. He couldn’t have been more obvious if he tried. “That is all I ever wanted. I swear to you. I did not ask for you to see your dead son’s face in mine. That was your need, not mine. I only wanted to help you.”

O’Neill refused to look at the creature and his anger was sharp. “No more helping.”

Daniel Jackson sat down beside it. It could smell the blood on him still. And inside, the grief that losing his wife caused. “Jack, you should see this.”

The Mujina masked its smile. Daniel traced the outline of the earth glyph. He knew what it meant.

“What is it now, Daniel? Has your pet monkey written a line of Shakespeare in the dirt?”

“As good as,” Daniel said. “I think he’s telling us how to get home.”

That caught O’Neill’s attention.

“Do you know what this is?” the earnest young human asked the creature. It shook its head. “Where did you see it?”

“It was inside the fat king’s mind when I touched it.”

“Is it possible?” Jack said, looking at the lines traced in the dust. “Could Corvus Keen have known the glyph for this planet?”

“It’s possible he knew it without even knowing what it meant,” Daniel said, then he traced a couple of sharp lines around the symbol and suddenly it looked uncannily like the symbol of the Raven Guard.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” O’Neill said.

Daniel leaned in close. “Tell me, have you seen this?” He asked the Mujina as he drew a circle in the dirt. It was a crude rendition of the Chappa’ai. The creature smiled. It knew what he wanted more than anything in the world. He wanted to go home. It nodded, “Yes, yes, the big eye that looks from place to place, that is where Iblis took it. It is there now. I can take you to it. I can show you.”

* * *

But it wasn’t the Mujina that met them, it was Jubal Kane.

The man held out his hand to O’Neill, shaking it. “You have done a great thing for my people, but the fight is not yet won.”

“But you’re the right man for the fight,” O’Neill said.

“Perhaps, but I would be a fool not to ask you to stay and help.”

“We’ve got our own war going on, Jubal. Speaking of wars, where’s the damned Mujina got to?”

They had no way of knowing what the creature had offered him to lie for it. “It is dead.”

“How the hell did that happen?” O’Neill asked.

“I don’t know. I found it in the old chapel where it had made its nest. It had cut its own throat and bled out. I will see to it that the poor animal is laid to rest.” He looked at Sam. “Perhaps you would stay?” He asked, with a smile that said he knew she wasn’t going to say yes.

She ducked her head slightly, returning his smile. “Where they go, I go,” she said.

Jubal Kane turned to Teal’c. “What about you big guy? You know Kiah’s not stopped talking about you since you carried her out of her house like that. You’re the kind of hero I could use as a Number Two.”

O’Neill and the others looked at Teal’c. He hadn’t mentioned anything that had happened while they had been parted. “I am honored, Jubal of the Kelani, but I must return with O’Neill.”

“Well, you guys know where to find us,” Jubal Kane said.

Together they walked through to the chamber where Iblis had had the Stargate stored.

“You’re going to want to keep this covered,” Daniel said. “You don’t want any more Goa’uld coming through.”

“I was thinking of burying it,” Jubal said.

“That would work.”

The DHD had been broken open and had a number of Goa’uld crystals wired into it. Sam had no idea what they did, but assumed it was something Iblis had done to power up the gate so that it was able to dial out.

“Is it going to work?” O’Neill sounded dubious.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Sam said, punching in the first co-ordinate the Mujina had scratched out in the dirt. The chevron locked into place. She smiled back at the others. “Looks like we’re going home.” She punched in the rest of the co-ordinates for the SGC, each chevron in turn locking into place. The ambient glow behind the chevrons themselves flared red as the final one encoded. And then the familiar quicksilver film stretched across the eye of the Stargate, the crystal blue surface agitated as the event horizon of the wormhole established itself at the destination. The ripples surged, exploding outwards in an unstable vortex, before being sucked back in to the churning surface. The difference in the dialing sequence puzzled her, but with the gateway home established she wasn’t going to question it.

Sam stared at the rippling blue portal, knowing she was only five steps away from home it was hard not to just run through it.

“Send the signal, Major Carter. We’re going home.”

Sam activated the GDO, sending SG-1’s call-sign out through the ether.

The Stargate wavered, the wormhole flickering as though about to lose contact. It held but there was no way of knowing how long it would continue to do so.

“What the hell just happened?” O’Neill demanded.

“I don’t know,” Sam said.

“What I mean is: ‘is it going to hold or is it going to collapse when we’re halfway home?’”

“I don’t
know
!”

“Fine,” O’Neill narrowed his eyes. “Daniel, Carter, Teal’c. Go go go!”