City of the Gods Read online

  CITY OF THE GODS

  "Jack! What are you doing, why aren't you..." Daniel stopped in his tracks and stared at him. His low voice was filled with apprehension. "Why is it so hot up here?"

  Dabruzzi ran past them without pausing. Jack coughed, then coughed again, clinging to the pain searing his throat, an anchor against a different pain, one he could never articulate.

  Something wriggled inside his cape. He glanced down at the miniature dog, Spiffy. They hadn't been able to find the tunnel to the surface until it had jumped out of the cape and scampered up behind a rock fall. The animal had saved them, but it might have only delayed the inevitable. Jack reached in, unconsciously reassuring it with a gentle pat, feeling its warm life against his hand. "Our friendly neighborhood volcano decided to erupt all over the Stargate." He swallowed the grit in his mouth and stood.

  Daniel's eyes opened wide in disbelief. "What about Sam and the other kids?"

  "They're dead." Jack's voice was as cracked and brittle as the cinders that covered the ground. "They're all dead."

  CITY OF THE GODS

  SONNYWHITELAW

  To the men and women of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who helped when others said it couldn't be done.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Sabine C Bauer for inviting me to play, and then holding my hand, Sally and Tom for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and my children for unconditional support while I was living on a planet far, far away.

  Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival... a survival of a hugely remote period when... consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them Gods...

  - HP Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness

  PROLOGUE

  heer stockings and a crisp blue uniform wrapped her in formality. Neither afforded protection against the cold, but after the bitter nights in the lava tunnel on M4D-376, Major Samantha Carter was inured to it.

  Her short-heeled regulation shoes tapped across the tiled floor of the Washington DC building. The sound merged with the crowds of briefcase-carrying five hundred dollar suits, assorted federal types and military uniforms. Heating ducts, murmured conversation, shuffling papers and other sounds - felt more than heard - made up the white noise of civilization.

  While Sam waited for the guard to process the man ahead, she glanced outside. In the distance, a snow-speckled rainbow serpent of umbrellas undulated along the sidewalk. She began to remove her overcoat then decided against it. Ineffectual against the DC winter, it offered subliminal protection against the surrealism of the ordinary.

  The image on the television screen above the guard's head switched from the charred and smoking remains of a school bus to two bloody-faced children, the only survivors of the latest suicide bombing. Israeli soldiers darted around the site with tiny colored flags, the types used to mark body parts, in an all too familiar ritual. Close captioning informed her that tanks were already rolling into the Gaza Strip. Retribution would be swift. Her lips thinned in anger. In the heavens beyond, the `gods' waged war across time and space and dimensions incomprehensible to mortal man, while below, on an inconspicuous and until recently forgotten planet, the inhabitants squabbled like children.

  The guard took in her singed eyebrows and burned cheek. His normally dour expression fractured into a smile. "Long time no see, Major Carter. Racking up the frequent flyer points?" A polite way of asking if she'd been in the Gulf

  "I logged over one hundred hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War. Is that tough enough for you? Or are we going to have to arm wrestle? "

  His bemused look met Kawalski's, but he said nothing, the first of many nothings in the years ahead. Naively assuming that all she needed was to earn his respect, she had no idea that he had been intimidated by her mind.

  "Something like that," she replied, her lips curling into a tired, socially polite smile.

  The scanner declared her harmless. No, no weapons, just a trace of naquadah, a little-known protein marker and a unique collection of antibodies in her blood. Oh, and attitude reborn.

  Returning her orders, the guard waved her through. She knew the way but felt displaced, lost amid the familiarity. It would take time to readjust. No big deal, she'd had to readjust her worldview on a weekly basis for the past five and a half years. Kind of hard not to when you were on a different world every week. Sam winced; despite his claimed aversion, cliches had been Colonel O'Neill's forte.

  The elevator doors opened and a cluster of tissue-wielding secretaries dabbing their drippy, pink noses piled in. Yet another flu was making the rounds through the poorly ventilated building. Sam stood back; she'd catch the next car.

  "...and the Setesh guard's nose... dripped!"

  Despite herself, she smiled. Not at the joke, although she now understood its humor, but at the memory of Teal'c's rare, full-bodied laughter. Complex, and driven by a need only generations of slavery could inspire, Teal'c had viewed the world without the clutter of ambiguity.

  Her life was one long ambiguity. Perverse, really, for as a young woman she had taken refuge in things that defined order: mathematics and the military. Then she'd proceeded to burst through the envelope of everything mankind held sacred, from physics to religion.

  Tightening her grip on her briefcase, Sam stepped smartly into the next elevator. She pressed the button with a still-bandaged hand; a few minor bums, nothing to get excited about. All things considered.

  An Air Force colonel deftly slipped between the closing doors. He glanced at the floor indicator then pulled off his heavy overcoat, scattering flecks of powdery snow around. "Well," he said, returning her salute, "at least we had a white Christmas."

  But no peace, and an inept and tragically failed goodwill. Sam noticed his gold wings and designator. Great, a fighterjock, Special Ops trained and all.

  The colonel did a double take. "Carter? Sam Carter?" He pushed back his cap to reveal friendly green eyes. More white flakes slid from the cap's plastic cover and joined their companions puddling on the floor.

  Her polite smile turned into a grimace when she shook his outstretched hand; the damned burns hurt. "`Cobra' Burnett?" She'd RIO' d for the 'Cobra'- then Captain Burnett - during the Gulf War. He'd never done her the disservice of treating her like a woman. Or a scientist.

  "I like women, Captain; it's just scientists I have a problem with. "

  "You know, you really will like me when you get to know me. "

  "Oh, I adore you already. "

  She banished the memory, consigning it to the place where all exiled emotions resided, and focused on Colonel James Burnett. Ruggedly good looking and square jawed, his military rigor camouflaged an underlying core of genuine compassion. Burnett was the sort of man who never hesitated to kill an enemy soldier but would rescue a spider stranded in a bathtub.

  O'Neill had been like that. They all had. Part of it was their innate humanity; something Daniel Jackson had never let them forget.

  "Still test flying, sir?" she said.

  "Best job in the world. What about you?"

  Her smile slid to the floor, melting with the fallen snow. She had touched the faces of gods and found them wanting, journeyed to Hell and back, seen worlds destroyed and the heavens in flames, and stood impotently by while men and women - indeed, entire races - died. "This and that," she replied softly.

  Burnett's eyes dropped to her ribbons, poorly concealed by her overcoat. Puzzlement clouded his features. "You saw action in... deep space telemetry?"

  Maybe it was time they changed her cover story. It was pretty hard to earn an Air Medal by sitting under a mountain pee
ring at a computer screen. Sam rocked her head equivocally. "You know about that?"

  "I heard you were stationed at the Pentagon for a while, and then transferred out to Cheyenne Mountain `bout five, six years back. Never joined NASA, huh?"

  She offered up another smile, crystallized, frozen, brittle. Never fulfilled your dreams, huh? On the contrary, although some had turned into nightmares. She'd even bummed the odd ride on a shuttle. "Something came up, sir."

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Burnett gestured for her to precede him. "Doesn't it always?"

  Sam shot him a knowing look. Boy, you got that right.

  "Looks like we're headed in the same direction," he added, his curiosity intensifying.

  "Looks like it," she replied noncommittally. Maybe it was time to lose the coat; things were about to warm up.

  The ponderous ticking of a bronze wall clock was unreasonably loud in the oak-paneled office. Major General George S Hammond, the CO of Stargate Command, stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed outside on the falling snow. Some things were a constant, like winter snow in DC. Sam wondered if General Hammond took comfort in that.

  Expensive leather armchairs and a wood and glass coffee table inhabited a comer of Lieutenant General Vidrine's office. Vidrine sat cleaning his newly acquired glasses with a white handkerchief. In the chair opposite, Colonel Burnett was staring at him in disbelief.

  "We appreciate this is a great deal to take in, Commander," said Vidrine, awkwardly stuffing the handkerchief back into his pants pocket. "Hence the unusually informal nature of this briefing." He carefully replaced his glasses. "Damn, I hate these things. Be thankful you still have 20:20 vision, Colonel."

  The incredulity radiating from Burnett was as palpable as the heat from the ersatz log fire. For long seconds the only sound in the room was the incessant tock, tock of the clock. "With all due respect, sir," he said. "Are you serious?"

  General Hammond turned from the window and came to join them. "I've never entirely understood wormhole physics." The leather chair gave a soft creak as he sat. "However, I can assure you, Colonel, that General Vidrine is not spinning you some fanciful yam. The Stargate is real, and Major Carter is the world's leading authority on the subject."

  Sam met Hammond's look. Depending, of course, on which world he was talking about.

  "Major Carter also developed the first naquadah reactors, and was involved in much of the concept designs for the Prometheus Project." Vidrine's eyes hardened almost imperceptibly; he would brook no argument. "That's why she's here."

  Sam sat a little straighter; she read the General's subtext clearly. The death of Colonel Jack O'Neill, Dr Daniel Jackson and Teal'c had been the excuse the Pentagon needed to clip her wings. She was too valuable an asset to waste on reconnaissance missions. Even working at the SGC posed unacceptable security risks, as evidenced by her encounter with Adrian Conrad. And let's not forget her near death at the hands of the computer entity.

  She had seen him through the eyes of the cameras, for the Entity had already uploaded her consciousness to the computers. His stance, his expression, everything about him said he would sooner put the weapon to himself. But duty, something he had always placed above his own needs, dictated his actions.

  Duty. Sacrifice. She'd seen a lot of sacrifice lately.

  "That was in bad taste. "

  Daniel's nose wrinkled. "That was in bad taste, Jack, "

  "That's what I said! "

  `No, I meantyour `bad taste 'pun was in bad taste. "

  The Laurel and Hardy comedie noire continued until the next decapitated body slid down the blood-slickened steps. Dark burgundy flowed thickly across the Avenue of the Dead, trampled by the feet of participants and spectators alike, lapped at by a million buzzing flies and a dozen rat-sized dogs. It clung to the moistureladen air copper-sweet in her nostrils and throat. But it failed to dislodge the stench of roasting flesh as the orgy of sacrifice went on and on and...

  Vidrine sighed and crossed one leg over the other. "This may sound trite, but I know what you're going through, Major. I've been there, we both have." His expression remainedunchanged, although his eyes glinted with the memories of every man and woman who had ever died under his command.

  But no one, not even General Hammond, could possibly know the horrors she'd witnessed.

  "No one's questioning SG-1's actions or your report," Vidrine continued. "However a first hand account will assist Colonel Burnett in understanding the enemy, and in so doing, the goal of the Prometheus Project."

  Sam's nostrils flared, the only visible sign that she was gagging her emotions. The military taught you to be detached, dispassionate. Well, there would be no problem with that from now on.

  "Major," General Hammond said in a gentle, almost paternal voice. "What exactly happened on M4D-376?"

  You mean, what happened to the Colonel, Daniel and Teal'c? I don't know, except that I should have been able to save them. They depended on me to save them. And I failed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  n his office in the depth of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, Dr Daniel Jackson juggled the receiver from one ear to the other. "Hello?" he repeated, moving a precariously balanced pile of books from the chair. Teal'c had arrived in his office just as the telephone started bleating. "Who is this, please?"

  "I wish to speak to Nicholas Ballard. Now!" demanded the overloud voice from the phone.

  "Nicholas Ballard," Daniel replied in a slow, measured tone. Although his grandfather enjoyed the occasional visitor, the old archeologist was happiest when left undisturbed. The Mayan pyramid and crystal skull transport system on the planet designated as P7X-377 would take a lifetime of study.

  "Still as imbecilic as ever. Do I need to repeat everything?"

  Daniel pulled the receiver from his ear and frowned at it. Nope, that didn't provide any clues. "If I knew to whom I was talking, I might be able to help." He gestured for Teal'c to sit down.

  "I was informed that Ballard was released into your custody. What would one call that, the madman leading the lunatic?"

  Okay, that narrowed it somewhat, but he couldn't quite nail it. "I'm sorry, but I'm a little too busy to exchange insults, so if you will excuse me - "

  "Wodeski, Professor Stanislaw Wodeski. I must speak with Ballard. Immediately!"

  Oh. That brought back fond memories. Daniel slumped into his chair and moved the telephone receiver a safe distance from his ear. Wodeski never employed a normal voice when a shout sufficed. "Uhm...Nick's currently unavailable, Professor."

  "Don't mess with me, young man. Where is he?"

  "I'm afraid I can't tell you." Daniel couldn't prevent a note of satisfaction creeping into his voice. "I could pass Nick a message when I see him, in... ah... around six months?"

  Loud spluttering from the phone prompted Teal'c's eyebrow to arch a millimeter. Daniel added, "Perhaps there's something I could help you with, Professor?"

  "The paper, you young fool! The Mayan temple he claims to have found in Belize, the one that mysteriously vanished. I need to see it!"

  Daniel rolled his eyes. The passage of time had not enhanced Wodeski's diplomatic skills. Nick had spent years vainly trying to persuade archeological and anthropological journals to publish his paper on the temple and its crystal skull, now locked up at the Smithsonian. Vitriolic attacks on his reputation by people like Wodeski had driven the old man into a psychiatric hospital.

  Feigning obtuseness, Daniel said, "The paper or the temple?" He placed the receiver on his desk, stood and looked up. Archive boxes perched like unwanted tax files on the shelf above. He pulled one onto his desk. A swarm of dust motes followed in its wake.

  "The paper, of course!" Wodeski bellowed.

  The unmarked box was gray and tattered with age and neglect, or perhaps regret. Daniel lifted the lid, sending more dust spiraling into the air. "Why?" he replied, his voice tinged with a suspicious edge.

  When the telephone squawked, Teal'c declar
ed, "I believe your caller is in pain, Daniel Jackson."

  The collection of documents inside the box included a thick ringbound book. One of many volumes that Daniel's grandfather had bequeathed him, it was a journal filled with notes and observations fromNick's expeditions to Belize. Daniel took it out and opened the page bookmarked with a red tab. There were a few lines of Nick's familiar handwriting, followed by a series of meticulously copied glyphs. On the page opposite was a sketch of a crystal skull.

  "It's funny you should ask, Professor," said Daniel without picking up the phone. "I have a copy of Nick's paper and all of his research notes right here." Handing the open journal to Teal'c, he rummaged around the box, unconsciously spurred on by the smell of old paper.

  Wodeski sighed loudly in defeat. Daniel looked up, but he was more interested in the way Teal'c's eyes moved across the glyphs, reading in the zigzag Aztec fashion. Except these glyphs weren't Aztec, or Toltec, or even Mayan.

  "I...may have found similar glyphs," shouted Wodeski. "In a tomb I've recently discovered beneath the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Send Ballard's paper and notes to me. I'm staying at the Hacienda San Miguel."

  The man's arrogance was surpassed only by his conceit. "Sorry" Daniel replied without a hint of regret. "Can't do that, Professor."

  "Why not?" It was not a question; it was a demand.

  "Because I don't believe it would be in Nick's best interest. If, however, I could see an example of the glyphs that your team discovered, I could confirm if they're the same."

  The telephone went deathly quiet. Teal'c turned the page, and his eyebrow notched higher. Daniel put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, and said, "Teal'c?"

  "Are not these glyphs similar to those that you and Merrin's people discovered inside the pyramid on Orban?"