The Barque of Heaven Page 10

  "Nothing. Jack, it's only nine or ten feet down. The obelisk is resting on bare earth. There's nothing."

  "Has it been broken off, eroded by the water?"

  "No. The stone is smooth, polished even, like this." Daniel reached up to run a hand along the polished border of the carvings above his head. "If it had eroded, there would still be traces."

  "Okay, maybe it's on one of the other sides. Take a breather, Daniel. I'll do the next side."

  Jack swam past Daniel, around the comer of the obelisk. He traced his hands down the stone, following the carvings to where they ended eighteen inches under the water. He filled his lungs and sank, fingers roaming the polished surface all the way down to the silt it rested on. He bobbed back up for air, then repeated the maneuver along the length of the stone to the far corner. His questing hands met nothing but cold, slick stone.

  Jack came up gasping air and blowing water out of his nose, Daniel's anxious face only a foot away from his. Silently, Daniel rounded the next corner and proceeded to examine the third side. Jack took over at the next corner, groping his way along the fourth side and finding no answer.

  Back at the first side he had examined, Daniel trod water, eyes searching the carvings above him. "This doesn't make sense. It should be here."

  "And yet-no address. Where else would they put it?"

  Daniel twisted around, as if expecting to see another stone monument he had missed. Apart from the Stargate and DHD there were only drowned buildings in sight. If it was hidden inside one of those....

  "The whole point of this Trial is for people to find the addresses and move on. It would be somewhere safe, where storms and age wouldn't erode it."

  "So it must be here."

  "Yes."

  "But it's not."

  "No."

  "So, where is it?"

  "Aakhut Shetat. "

  "Bless."

  "Thank you. Actually, it's the line carved above the sun disk." Daniel shoved his wet hair off his forehead and backstroked a little to get a better view, dragging Jack along on the tether.

  "Which means?"

  "Revealed to you the Secret Horizon."

  "Ah. And? So?"

  "The Aakhut Shetat, the Secret Horizon. It's from the Egyptian sacred astronomy, meaning the chamber or temple where the god resides."

  "Somewhere hidden?"

  "Possibly."

  "And can be `revealed to you'?"

  "Perhaps."

  "By ?"

  "Ashebu."

  "What?" Jack scowled at Daniel, sure that his gentle prodding had been coaxing Daniel in the right direction, only to have him skew off at a tangent.

  "The password, Ashebu. It means Flame Dweller."

  "Okay. That helps us how?"

  For a moment Daniel stared blankly at Jack. He glanced back up at the disk carved near the crown of the obelisk. "The sun god-Ra-flame dweller... maybe it's hidden behind the sun disk?"

  Jack shrugged as best he could while treading water. "Worth a try, Daniel."

  Daniel looked up at the panels of glyphs carved below the sun disk. "Okay, ignoring the random passages into which they translate, if we focus on the hieroglyphs themselves... running from top to bottom, they hold no special meaning-but, oh... clever. It's hidden in plain sight. There's a line of symbols running from right to left through the passages to form the words `Secret Horizon'."

  Jack followed Daniel's gaze up the side of the obelisk. Naturally, they were out of reach.

  "Jack, help me up."

  A lot of fumbling and splashing later, Jack was attempting not to drown while boosting Daniel six inches out of the water.

  "Ah khet, " Daniel said softly. "The glyphs are giving slightly when I push them. She" t Neter.." From above came a grinding sound, echoed below by a gurgle as Jack went under. Daniel wriggled out of his grip and slipped into the water, pulling Jack back into the air.

  "It worked!" Daniel indicated the sun disk, pulling apart like an opening flower. From inside the revealed cavity, an oval piece of stone was ejected, glancing off Jack's head before disappearing into the water.

  "Ow!"

  They both scrabbled madly to catch it before it was lost. Daniel snagged it, held it up to the light, and was relieved beyond words to find the much needed address carved into its surface.

  Jack glared at him, rubbing his abused head. "Are you done?" he enquired.

  "Yes. We've got it, Jack." Daniel beamed happily at him.

  "I'm so glad," Jack muttered.

  Daniel splashed back to the roof, eager to warm up and dry out, towing Jack behind him like an overgrown, cranky buoy.

  Half an hour later, Sam returned with Teal'c. Colonel O'Neill and Daniel pulled them out, offering compact towels and power bars to help restore some body heat.

  The team hunkered down along the eaves of the roof, surveying the salvaged boxes tethered around the Stargate's supports. Teal'c's Herculean effort had retrieved everything from the FRED: tents, sleeping bags, spare tarps, food, ammunition, clothes, survival gear, Sam and Daniel's tools.

  "Way to go, T. Thank you." Colonel O'Neill slapped the solid muscle of Teal'c's shoulder and stood.

  The sun was only a half-hour or so away from sliding under the watery horizon and its warmth was noticeably waning. They had a little less than five hours yet before moonset.

  Dressed once again in their dried clothes the four worked quietly together, repacking provisions and gear, bearing witness to the spectacular sunset and the rise of a huge, brilliantly white moon that cast such effective light that their flashlights remained unused.

  Daniel sat next to Sam, methodically writing up his notes while she worked on the MALP's comm unit. After a couple of sidelong glances, he spoke cautiously. "Sam, you're okay, aren't you?"

  She smiled at him briefly, then bent her head over the electronics in her lap once more. "I'm alright, Daniel."

  "It's just...." Awkwardly he touched the slashes in her jacket, legacy of the knife fight. "It can't have been easy."

  Easy. The knife slipped in very easily, actually. Sliced through cartilage and tissue like cutting a cake.

  "It wasn't. It had to be done. It's over now," she said shortly.

  More dead eyes to haunt me in the night.

  "How do you cope with...." He flapped a hand in search of words that would not hurt.

  "I guess you deal with it a little bit at a time, Daniel," she replied softly. "You don't dwell on it, but you don't forget either."

  And I'm so very glad you don't have to deal with it, too.

  Daniel's hand squeezed hers, an offer of the sympathy and support she relied upon.

  "Ahh." The colonel returned from a trip to the latrine, plunked himself down next to them and fished out his shaving kit. Slightly below them, Teal'c sat drifting into kel'no'reem, like a big, placid, golden Buddha.

  "So, you're not going to miss this place when we leave, sir?"

  "Are you kidding, Carter? All this water makes me pee every ten minutes. Give me dry land any time." He grinned wickedly as Daniel darted a disconcerted look at the water they had been swimming in together.

  Sam choked back a laugh, then stood and moved higher up the roof to stand sentry, listening to the men talking below her.

  "So, Daniel, what's the deal with this Barque of Heaven?" the colonel asked.

  "Uh, well, in mythology it was one of the names for the solar boat in which Ra traveled the night sky, or the underworld. The Ancient Egyptians saw the setting of the sun each day as a death, if you will. Ra traveled through the dark of the underworld each night, battling serpents, facing challenges and passing a number of gates until he was reborn as the sun in the dawn of the new day."

  A flicker of white caught Sam's eye. She turned but saw nothing more threatening than the water around them. A brief chill prickled her neck, then it was gone. Shaking her head, she walked slowly along the spine of the roof.

  "Serpents, huh?" Suspicion filled the colonel's voice as he turned D
aniel's words from their historical context to a whole new meaning.

  "Yes."

  "Challenges and...?"

  "Gates." Daniel finished for him, staring over at the Stargate.

  "Seems Ra took the mythology a bit too literally," Sam called down.

  "Yeah."

  "Teal'c, you ever heard mention of this Barque?" the colonel asked.

  "I have not. Many System Lords bestow grandiose names upon their biggest vessels. It is possible this is the name of Ra's premier Ha'tak."

  "Uh, oh." Daniel turned back to look at them, eyebrows bobbing with concern.

  "How many Ha'taks does a System Lord have?" Sam asked.

  "Oh, there's a joke in there, somewhere," the colonel muttered.

  "To my knowledge, Apophis had only two such vessels. However, the resources at Ra's disposal were legendary. It is quite likely he had several at least."

  "So, the one we blew up over Abydos might not be this Barque of Heaven."

  "If this Trial does terminate within a Ha'tak, I do hope that is the case."

  "Sweet. Get some sleep, Daniel. Carter, I'll relieve you in an hour."

  Daniel put away his notes and secured the waterproof bags in his pack. He stretched out, head pillowed on his pack, and pulled a space blanket over his shoulders. The colonel followed suit and Sam settled down to guard duty.

  Four hours of sleep in shifts, followed by a rationed hot meal, saw them preparing to enter the cold, briny water. With uniforms this time stowed in their packs, the team was shivering in the cool night air. One by one they slipped into the water and under the moon's waning light, headed for the Stargate.

  Teal'c swam with Daniel Jackson to the DHD while O'Neill and Major Carter bobbed in position to one side of the vortex's path. With one hand anchoring himself to the DHD's supports, Teal'c boosted Daniel up the side of the pedestal to where he could cling precariously to the decorative sweeping side panel. He dialed the coordinates, meticulously checking the symbols from the stone tablet he had hung from his neck in a macrame of cord.

  When the chevrons were glowing, he voiced the password.

  Ashebu!"

  Obligingly the Stargate burst to life, the blue light of the vortex reflecting on the lake's surface. Together they hoisted their packs, gear and weapons up into the wormhole. As soon as the last box was gone they began the equally difficult task of hauling themselves out of the water and into the event horizon.

  "Teal'c, can you get yourself up and through the 'gate on your own?" O'Neill asked, one hand plunged into the open wormhole.

  "I can, O'Neill."

  "Great. Give me a boost up."

  Teal'c obliged and with several helping hands pushing, O'Neill was up and slithering into the Stargate's cold embrace. Major Carter followed next, then Daniel Jackson propelled by a solid shove from Teal'c. Left alone, Teal'c surged up out of the water and plunged head first into the Stargate.

  For a couple of minutes the wormhole remained open, the moonlight shining brightly off its surface. Eventually, the motion sensing capability of the event horizon tripped the power connections and the wormhole collapsed.

  The water smoothed out and the Stargate sat alone under the beauty of the moon's light.

  GATE FOUR

  Cradle of Asar

  heir awkward entry into the wormhole ensured an equally undignified exit, although Jack found that entering the vortex headfirst gave him a much stronger impression of actually flying than just walking through it. Such fanciful thoughts ended abruptly, when Carter slid out of the Stargate and collided with him as he was struggling to his feet. She bowled him over like a ninepin and they both crashed over their boxes of equipment, piled in a jumbled heap just beyond the event horizon. Daniel rolled out of the Stargate next, nimbly dodged any collisions and came to his feet with graceful aplomb. He sidestepped just in time to avoid Teal'c who slithered out, head-butted the MRE container and, bringing his knees up, rolled sideways over another box.

  "Well, that was fun." Jack, finally on his feet with MP5 gripped firmly, started scanning the surroundings.

  Arid, scrubby land stretched away from the Stargate platform, breaking up into ancient, eroded watercourses that cracked the land like the smile lines on his old grandpa's face. The world seemed poised on the cusp of night, the afterglow of a set sun fading rapidly into the horizon to the right of the Stargate. Two moons, one a deep yellow and the other bright white, had already started on their nightly journey.

  "Oh, wow. Look."

  "Carter? What?"

  She was staring up at the beauty of the night sky; darkening velvet studded with thousands-millions-of stars, many burning with a hot blue or golden gleam seldom seen in Earth's skies.

  "Whoa, now that is something." Jack craned his head up and over, trying to take in the magnificent panorama. "Hey! Well, I'll be... looks like we've got an old friend."

  The others turned as he pointed to his discovery. Perched in the sky, just over the rim of the Stargate, sat a very familiar constellation.

  "Orion." Daniel smiled in recognition. "Hello, old friend. It's a lot closer and upside down, but it's the same configuration."

  "That it is. And there," Jack's finger traced up to a much brighter, blue-white star at the bottom of the saucepan, "is Rigel. Which means my old buddy Beetlejuice is right down... there." He pointed out the dimmer reddish glow of Betelgeuse at the opposite end of the constellation from Rigel.

  "I'm not so sure, sir," Carter said quietly. "This planet would have to be in direct alignment with, and relatively close to Earth, for a star formation to appear the same in both skies"

  "Well, I'm willing to suspend belief this one time, major."

  "Nothing's coming out on the camera." Daniel said. "The Ancient Egyptians knew Orion as the home of Osiris. It was a constellation that bore good omens."

  "Perhaps the blessings of Orion will bestow good luck upon our journey," Teal'c mused quietly.

  Somewhat comforted to have a-possible-familiar friend above them, they turned back to the Stargate. Daniel scrambled through the ring, finding the moon-clock in the gloom.

  "Fifteen hours, twenty minutes till moonset."

  Jack completed his second three-sixty survey; nothing stirred within sight, but with the ground so broken up and buried in deep shadows there were any number of hiding places in the dried out creek-beds that snaked past their position.

  Need a new metaphor O'Neill.

  A light wind wafted past their wet bodies, ruffling his chest hair and sending them all shivering despite the warmth of the air. Returning to the bottom of the platform steps, Carter and Teal'c completed their own recon and traded a rueful glance at their appearance.

  Jack felt oddly proud that they both still looked capable and somewhat lethal despite their lack of clothes. Daniel's lean body made him appear quite the soldier, belying the impression of the affable anthropologist his baggy BDUs created.

  "Alright, we're clear," Jack decided. "Let's get some clothes on before we catch pneumonia. We'll secure the gear, bury it near here somewhere. We can't drag it all around with us and I don't like leaving it visible."

  It was an order followed gratefully as they rubbed themselves down and slid into dry clothes. A depression in the earth behind the Stargate provided a burial site for the excess equipment, hidden under a tarp liberally covered with dry soil and stones. Their packs, already filled with as many essentials as possible, rested heavily on their shoulders. Jack tried the DHD, not expecting any response but still annoyed when Earth's address refused to lock.

  "So. Where do we go from here?"

  Teal'c and Daniel were sharing binoculars, staring at a small rise in the landscape, nearly a kilometer away, but easily visible in the double moonlight.

  "Jack, I think there's something man-made up there," Daniel announced. "At least it doesn't look natural. Might be worth investigating."

  Waving the team on their way, Jack fell in at the rear. Teal'c led them over the broken ground, f
ollowing dried streambeds, scrambling up and down crumbling banks. Small, gnarled bushes with spiky leaves snagged at their clothing as they pushed past.

  Twenty minutes into the trek Jack paused on the bank of a wadi, his gaze following the fantastic shadows thrown up by the jagged landscape. Then, with shocking force, something hit him hard on the back of the knees and he was down, rolling into the creek bed in a cloud of dust. He hadn't even stopped sliding when a figure launched itself at him, landing on his chest in a barrage of snarls and spittle.

  Jack brought his weapon up with lightning reflexes, jam ming it under the chin of his attacker. Was this a person? Hands flailed at his face, long tangled hair whipped at his eyes. He pulled the MP5 back a couple of inches and let fly a good solid crack at the face. It swung away under the force of the blow then back again, features twisted with rage and something much darker, not wholly sane.

  A woman?

  Her hands closed around his throat and squeezed viciously. Again he thumped the gun stock into her face, producing nothing more than a feral smile. Dimly, through the blood pounding in his ears, he could hear his team shouting but his attention was riveted to the woman's face above him and the eyes that glowed: hotly, hideously white. A jolt of pure fear lanced through him.

  No!

  Steely fingers pressed on the hinge of his jaw, forcing his mouth open. The woman's mouth was gaping and something moved sickeningly in its recesses. Jack gurgled in panic, bucked and twisted for all he was worth but the woman remained plastered to him like a limpet. The head of that thing emerged past her teeth, fangs bared and frill extended. Faster than thought, it shot from her mouth, body covered in its already dying host's blood.

  Panic blanked Jack's mind. Eyes squeezed half-shut, his hands still ramming the gun into her throat, he barely saw the large dark hand fly out of nowhere, grab the Goa'uld a scant inch from his clenching mouth, and haul it away.