The Barque of Heaven Read online

  "Nice to know some things stay the same, no matter what planet you're on."

  Goa'uld script filled Daniel's viewfinder, translations automatically springing to his lips. "`Kneel ye before Ra, mightiest of gods, all who come before him'."

  Jack made a face and walked on along the sphinx's side. "As Teal'c would say, Dead False God."

  The causeway continued on from the rear of the sphinx- a hundred meters walk to a short wall enclosing the temple. Inside stood a forest of thick columns supporting a roof of massive stone slabs that soared high over their heads. Walls, columns, roof: all were heavily carved and painted in vivid reds, greens, blues and golds, the bright white of the stone barely managing to peep through in places. Dotted around outside the temple were small open-sided stone shelters, each consisting of a roof and four supporting pillars. In the background rose the pyramid, almost incandescent in the sunshine and dwarfing even the stunning height of the temple.

  Jack winced as a reflected shaft of sunlight lanced through his glasses. He looked over at Daniel, his complaint dying as Daniel stared up, delight and awe spreading across his face, his mouth open, unable to find any words to express what he was feeling.

  "Jack," Daniel finally croaked out. "Do you see?"

  "I'm seeing it, Daniel, I'm seeing it." There was a beat of silence, then Jack sighed in defeat. "Okay, what am I seeing?"

  Daniel drifted forward a couple of feet, arms gesturing expansively around him.

  "Jack, this is Ancient Egypt. These buildings, the sphinx, the-the pyramid; this is how the temples and monuments in Egypt looked, thousands of years ago when they were first built." He turned to flap a hand at the pyramid, its crown a blaze of light. "The limestone covering, the gold capstone-they're the same features many of the great pyramids initially had, particularly at Giza... where the Stargate was found." Daniel trailed off as yet more evidence of the Goa'uld's interference in human history slammed home.

  "The Abydos pyramid is brown," Jack remarked, derailing Daniel's train of thought.

  Daniel stared at Jack. "Abydos was only ever home for slaves who worked the naquada mine. It was functional. This," he turned back to the colorful glory quietly waiting before them, "it's too decorative." Brow creased in thought, he waggled a finger at him. "This is significant, Jack."

  Jack's eyebrows rose skeptically. "Exactly how so?"

  Daniel turned and began striding swiftly towards the temple, armed with camera, notebook and the eager anticipation of a puzzle to be solved. He called back over his shoulder, spurring Jack into a jog to catch him up.

  "I have no idea."

  Teal'c paused in his fourth circuit of the perimeter around the Stargate platform, the silence heightened by the soft susurration of the foliage growing along the river bank, gently moving in the warm breeze. A pleasing place, were it not for the lack of a ready exit.

  His eyes roamed over the Stargate, then focused through the ring on Major Carter's legs stretched out in the dirt, the rest of her body obscured by the squat mushroom shape of the DHD, as she patiently disconnected the black filaments from the operating mechanism.

  Teal'c brought his gaze back to the Stargate itself, standing silent and mysterious as it had surely done for many thousands of years. The gray naquada surface showed no sign of wear; harsh sun, sand-filled scouring winds, rain and even time itself had failed to tarnish its simple elegance. The inner track with its thirty-nine symbols nestled snugly in the outer ring, waiting for the next command to open itself to the universe beyond.

  The chevrons gleamed under the bright sun, each as recognizable to Teal'c as old friends; a lifetime of using the Stargate network had brought familiarity and no little respect. He absently noted each glyph was correctly depicted. Nothing appeared untoward, except... tiny black filaments snaking out of the sand piled around the base where the ring disappeared into the platform's support.

  Teal'c dropped to one knee and gently brushed the sand away. Tendrils of black wound up out of the surface of the outer ring itself and led into an oval object melded onto the flat side of the Stargate.

  Straightening, Teal'c reached for his radio. His open mouth closed as the speaker crackled to life with O'Neill's voice.

  "Major, Teal'c? Report."

  "Sir, I'm halfway through disconnecting the device on the DHD. Another twenty minutes and we should be able to give it another go," Major Carter's voice rang out, echoing slightly in the quiet air.

  "Good job, Carter. T?"

  "O'Neill, the Stargate perimeter is still secure. Also, I have just discovered another device attached to the Stargate itself."

  Major Carter popped her head up from behind the DHD. "Really?" She scrambled up and jogged over to him.

  "Oh, swell," sighed O'Neill. "Well, we're heading to the temple. Check in every thirty minutes. Out."

  "Acknowledged, O'Neill." Teal'c shifted aside to allow Major Carter access to their newest problem.

  "Oh, boy."

  Teal'c acknowledged her look of exasperation and the two of them got down to work again.

  Daniel led Jack, circling the temple cautiously. Built to the same gigantic proportions as the sphinx, it towered into the clear blue sky, rows of columns shouldering the burden of the thick slabs of granite forming the roof.

  Behind the first building, a covered walkway led to a walled court. With a leap and scrabble they peered over the top of the wall to see inside. Amid exotic shrubs and tall palm trees stood five slender obelisks, all with markings etched deeply into their white stone and golden capstones. At the opposite end of the garden, another walkway led into an even larger building, this one with solid, bare walls. They dropped down and completed their circuit around the building.

  "Before we go in, I want to recon that pyramid," Jack said. "It looks deserted, but we need to check it out regardless."

  Reluctantly, Daniel pulled himself away from the beauty of the temple and followed Jack along the causeway to the pyramid. Although it seemed close by, its size made judging dis tance difficult, and it was a long, fifteen minute hike in the heat before they set foot on the ramp leading up to the only visible entrance. Fighting back a sense of deja vu, he walked next to Jack, past the two obelisks standing sentinel at the foot of the ramp, up to the vast portico at the top which was flanked by two thick pylons. Stale, cool air drifted from the dark entrance.

  They quietly edged through the opening and were enveloped by darkness. Pulling off their sunglasses, they peered into the shadows of a bare, pillared hall. Like Khufu's pyramid on Earth and Abydos's own, the stone walls bore no inscriptions. The first hall gave on to a second, then a third, until finally, they found themselves standing in a chamber.

  The beams from their flashlights picked out the closed iris of a ring transporter on the ceiling, but nothing else. This room, too, was bare. For a brief moment, Daniel's mind overlaid another scene-hand-woven curtains between the pillars, rumpled bedding behind them, smokeless fires burning cheerily, the scent of bread and meaty stews filling the air, the chatter of people, happy and at peace. But that had been another time, another world, and this room was just empty.

  "Let's go." Jack looked at him for a moment, then headed back the way they had come.

  Daniel nodded, pushing down the grief that threatened to surface inside him, and silently followed.

  Back at the main entrance to the temple, Jack slowly led the way into the forest of stone, cool darkness once again swallowing them. The further they advanced down the central path, the more he felt the sense of immensity; the vast weight of stone above seemed to press him down to insignificance. Each column they passed revealed another avenue stretching away in broken shadows. Shafts of sunlight slanted down through small gaps between the rows, each ray illuminating the decorations on the pillars in brilliant flashes of light. Painted scenes of Ra crushing his enemies, being worshiped and feted by his adoring people wrapped each column, some figures reaching twenty feet high and still dwarfed by the overall height of the pillars th
at disappeared in the gloom some hundred feet above them.

  Jack flipped on his flashlight and followed Daniel as he meandered around, his muttering loud in the stifled silence.

  "Incredible... workmanship... outstanding... `Mighty is he'... obviously the written word is permitted here... `great task'... `will be proven'... oh, look at that!"

  "Daniel?"

  "Jack, this is-wow-a treasure trove of information about Ra."

  "Well, nice as that is, does it say why we're stuck here?"

  Daniel walked past him and plunged further into the darkness. "I'm sure we'll find some answers, Jack. I'm going to have a look in the courtyard."

  Jack ambled along behind, always keeping Daniel in sight. For a moment Daniel's body was silhouetted against the sunlight streaming through the open doorway, then he was out in the walled garden, staring up at the row of obelisks.

  Daniel half-turned as Jack stopped beside him, unable to completely tear his eyes away from the beauty before him.

  "The Ancient Egyptians believed the obelisk was a shaft of light sent from the sun god," Daniel said quietly. He leaned backwards, trying to capture the fine details in the camera's viewfinder.

  "Yeah, I've always preferred Asterix, myself" Jack pushed through the reedy grasses toward the covered walkway at the opposite end of the garden.

  "Very funny." Daniel caught up to him then fell behind once more, attention captivated by figures on the third obelisk.

  Jack stepped into the second enclosed building, his footsteps echoing on the polished granite floor. No columns here, just a vast hall, empty but for an alabaster altar and a gilded throne set upon a platform at the rear. The flashlight's beam played along the walls, chasing dust motes drifting in the still air. There were no carvings here, no drawings or pictothings, but ownership of the place was announced quite emphatically by the enormous golden Eye of Ra hanging above the throne.

  Jack flipped it the bird and turned away. Rejoining Daniel in the courtyard, he said, "There's nothing in there, just a big of chair and an Eye of Ra thingy."

  "Really?" Daniel's brow creased in thought.

  "Got anything?"

  "I think so." Daniel tapped the carvings before him. "This mentions a test. There was something similar on the columns inside." He broke off to stare at the plants bending gently in the breeze. "What does this remind you of?"

  "Uhm," Jack huffed and searched for inspiration. "Really bad falafel I had in Alexandria one time."

  "Jack. Think about it. We have a pyramid. We know the Goa'uld used pyramids to land Ha'tak ships. We have a sphinx guarding the way from the Stargate, loudly proclaiming this planet belongs to Ra. We have shelters and kiosks spread all over the place and we have a huge temple, just waiting for a lot of people to come and pay homage to their god."

  Daniel took a breath and gestured at the assortment of structures around them.

  "There are no dwellings, no places for common folk to live and work. No kitchens, no food gardens, no pottery workshops; nothing to show people lived here. This-this is all temporary. It's a fairground."

  "A fairground? "

  "Well, maybe not a fairground but a place where some kind of significant event occurred. Ra and his people came, they did... whatever, and they left. Probably on a regular basis."

  "And this event could be linked to the Stargate not opening?"

  "That's what we'll have to find out."

  Jack stepped back as Daniel dropped his pack to the ground and set to work.

  As darkness swallowed the light and heat of the sun, Jack called for a meal break and debrief. They sat together along the top step of the Stargate platform, eating MREs and watching the sun be sucked below the horizon in a final, protesting blaze of fiery red. Jack set aside his empty meal container and attacked the packaging of his pound cake.

  "Okay, kids, where are we at?" he asked.

  "I have extended my perimeter patrols to the top of the hills on both sides of this valley, O'Neill." Teal'c paused to squeeze more hot sauce onto his beef franks. "There is nothing to be seen in either direction, other than sand dunes. We appear to be secure here."

  "Good to know, Teal'c," nodded Jack. "Carter?"

  "Well, sir, I disconnected the filaments from the DHD, but without them the power supply completely disappears, both on the DHD and the Stargate. Reconnect them and the power flows through but no outgoing wormholes will form. Frankly, I'm stumped." Carter glared at the cheese and crackers in her hands as she spoke.

  "Could we get a wormhole going with an external power source?"

  "Possibly. We don't have anything with us that would come close to the wattage we need. The prototype naquada reactor back at the base might generate the required amount of energy, but it's not fully tested yet. I think lightning is out too. We could ask the general to send through some truck batteries, but without an engine to keep them charged I don't know how long they'll last."

  "What about Teal'c's little pal down here?" Jack disposed of his cake with economical bites and gestured at the small device almost hidden in the shadows at the base of the ring. Shaped in a half-oval of highly polished black stone, it was no more than ten inches wide.

  Carter rose and walked around the ring to stand frowning down at the device. "This is even stranger than the device on the DHD, sir. I can't detach the filaments connecting this to the Stargate at all; they're sunk right into the material of the ring and I can't cut through them. There are no writings of any kind, only nine gemstones inset along the outer rim, and eight of them are glowing."

  Daniel finished off his bean and rice burrito and moved to stand beside Sam for another close look. "What's the panel in the center for?" he asked.

  "Beats me, Daniel."

  "Think a little C4 would dislodge it?" Jack suggested.

  Carter blanched and Daniel stared at him. "Well, it might be an idea to get a little more information before you start blowing stuff up, Jack."

  He shrugged, not discarding the option. "So, what have you got for us, Daniel?"

  "Well, we have plenty of inscriptions to work with from the hall of pillars and the obelisks in the garden, but they're all scattered fragments, not a continuing text as I would expect."

  "Do these passages give any information about what took place here, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.

  Daniel dug out his notebook. "Maybe, possibly... not. I'm not sure, actually." He sped on before Jack could offer a comment. "For instance: `Mighty is the power of Ra.' `He commands all before him.'' On bended knee will supplicants come before the Greatness of Ra.' `The Trial of the Moons will receive only he who is worthy.' `Greatly will the successful one be welcomed by Ra.' The phrase Trial of Moons is mentioned several times. I really need more information before I can make a proper assessment, but I'm sure there are more clues there. We'll find the answer to this."

  "Daniel's right, sir. With a little time we can work this out," added Carter.

  Jack swallowed a little gloat of pride in his team. How easy it was to keep up morale when they did it all for him.

  "Perhaps there may not be as much time available as we would wish," said Teal'c, squatting in front of the device on the Stargate.

  Not counting Mr. Pessimism, of course.

  "Teal'c?" Jack leaned over sideways to get a better view.

  "Eight of the nine gems are illuminated. It would seem to indicate a countdown of some kind."

  "With one to go until-what?"

  "Maybe it goes the other way, sir. Eight more to go before...," Carter made a gesture halfway between uncertainty and something blowing up.

  "Sweet." Jack pulled a face. "The SGC is due to dial in any minute now, so...."

  Right on cue, the Stargate churned to life once again and Jack moved to the MALP to give their report to Hammond.

  "It sounds like this situation may take some time to resolve, Colonel, " Hammond said. "Quarter Master is assembling additional supplies, enough to see you through for a month. Also, SG2 is on standby in c
ase you need extra manpower. We've had no reply from the Tok.... "

  The Stargate snapped off, aborting the general mid-sentence.

  "What the hell?"

  "Uh, I'll check it out, sir." Carter scrambled to the DHD and resumed rummaging through its innards.

  "This might be coincidental, but the 'gate cut off at the same moment the sun disappeared." Daniel gestured past the ring at the horizon and the fading glow from the now vanished sun. "I was watching it."

  The chevrons on the Stargate reactivated. Six, seven red crystals glowed brightly but the wormhole failed to engage. After a minute, they winked out, then sprang alight once again. To no avail.

  "It would appear that we may indeed be stranded here," Teal'c said with doom-like calm.

  "Okay. Teal'c, you and Daniel head back to the temple, see what you can find. Carter, let's see what we can do with this thing."

  Several hours later, Teal'c was strolling slowly through the temple, a powerful flashlight playing over the disjointed phrases and sudden declarations carved into and painted all over the pillars. As he passed, Daniel Jackson shifted restlessly inside a circle of battery-powered lamps, near the temple's central row of columns. Many inscriptions, in the familiar dialect of the Goa'uld, praised the `god' Ra, proclaiming his beneficence and majesty in a way only sycophantic priests desperate to gain the favor of their god could. This temple bore little resemblance to those erected in honor of Apophis, where the writings, praises, prayers and appeals began to the left of the entrance and ran continuously around the walls until they ended at the opposite side of the doorway.

  The haphazard method of inscription here was confusing and causing no small problem to Daniel Jackson as he searched, translated and attempted to piece together a puzzle without knowing where or how many pieces there were.