Fostering Relations

by Aelfgyfu

"So the UAV shows a small but developed civilization that seems to have successful crops despite an arid climate," Daniel concluded his portion of the briefing. "We can't tell from the UAV what technologies they may be using to achieve this growth"—he pressed a button on the remote to replay the images of surprisingly green fields surrounded by parched soil and what looked like just plain dust— "but a mission to the planet is definitely in order."

General Hammond smiled—a little indulgently, Daniel thought, but he'd happily take indulgence if it would get him on the planet. No one would say this would be a walk in the park, because saying that always doomed a mission, but he knew the general would be happy to give them a relatively safe one right now. Sam had spent the last couple of weeks recovering from injuries inflicted by a Kull Warrior chasing her around what had been the Alpha Site, and this would be her first mission since being declared fit to go off world again.

Sam pointed out that the UAV hadn't detected any radiation or EM signatures that would indicate advanced technology, but the UAV had missed things before.

"Many times," Jack contributed not quite under his breath.

Sam was undaunted and added that she was quite willing to investigate. "The area appears to get very little rainfall. There are very few trees and, besides the fields, only that garden by the ziggurat. Everything else looks like desert. I'd like to know how they irrigate their fields, sirs, even if it's without technology."

Daniel tactfully didn't point out that not all technology required electricity, nuclear energy, or naquada, but he decided that he'd tell Sam later about the great engineering accomplishments of the Persians, Romans, and Aztecs. Much later.

The general asked a few more questions but ended the briefing with the magic words, "SG-1, you have a go" and set their departure time for 1700, to arrive after the planet's sun was up but while it should still be relatively cool. "I recommend you all get a little sleep between now and then."

"Thank you, sir," Daniel said as his military teammates stood when General Hammond did. He was glad to see that Sam showed no lingering stiffness when she rose.

Sam seemed pleased about the mission, Teal'c seemed unmoved, and Jack seemed . . . annoyed.

"1700! So just when I should be knocking off for the day, I have to start a whole new work day," Jack said in obvious disgust as soon as Hammond disappeared into his office. "Why can't all planets be in the same time zone?"

"It is in the same time zone," Daniel pointed out, he hoped in a reasonable tone.

"As what?" Jack asked incredulously.

"As Tokyo," Teal'c answered before Daniel could. Daniel managed to hide his surprise.

Jack's astonishment quickly faded to the same look of disgust while Sam tried to stifle a giggle. Daniel didn't even try to hide his grin.

"Did you put him up to that?" Jack asked, jabbing a finger at Daniel.

Daniel just waved a little as he turned and left the room, leaving Jack to hassle Teal'c if he felt like it. No one ever bugged Teal'c for long, not even Jack; bothering Teal'c offered very little satisfaction and carried with it certain risks.

In the elevator, Daniel checked his watch. Almost noon—he should have plenty of time to get ready for the mission, except that he knew Jack would come after him to make him go eat and then take a nap. Since their return from Central America, Daniel had been trying to humor Jack a little by giving in to some of the nagging. Jack didn't really show it, but Daniel knew the whole adventure must have scared the hell out of him. A minute or two later, and Jack would have found Daniel in pieces. Pretty small pieces, most likely. Even Sam's injuries hadn't gotten Jack off his case—and he felt a little guilty for hoping that they would. Not that he wanted her to get hurt, but at least since she was hurt, couldn't it make things easier on him?

His musings reminded Daniel to stop by Bill Lee's office on the way back to his own. Bill didn't talk about Central America, hadn't since he left the infirmary following their return. Daniel didn't want to ask directly, but Bill definitely seemed more nervous than he used to, and Daniel was concerned. He'd given the other man some space, but now it was time to say something. His friends would do the same for him, he was sure. Whether he wanted them to or not, he thought with half a smile.

"Hey, Bill," he said, sticking his head into the lab.

"Daniel! Wait—back out!" A goggled Doctor Lee waved his arms frantically, and Daniel pulled back into the hall and flattened himself against the wall for good measure. He was ready to relax again when a bright flash of light hit his eyes—pretty impressive, considering he'd been looking at the wall opposite Bill's door, and the concrete of the wall was not very reflective.

Daniel stood where he was, blinking the spots away. He heard voices from inside the room and wondered who else was in there.

Suddenly Bill rushed out the door, a huge pair of dark goggles pushed back on his head. "Are you okay?" he asked urgently, starting to put a hand on Daniel's arm but then pulling it back and just kind of waving it apologetically. "Sorry! I didn't know you were coming! I should have closed the door! I—"

"Yeah, closing the door might have been a good idea," Daniel said, blinking some more but resisting the temptation to rub his eyes. It wouldn't help, he knew. "What are you doing?"

"Well, you know our usual flash-bangs don't work on Kull Warriors."

"Yes, but we've got a weapon we can use against them now."

"But maybe we can adapt the technology from their armor to protect our people from Goa'uld shock grenades!" Bill pointed back into the lab, and Daniel followed him in.

"Better now, Sergeant?" Bill asked, and Daniel recognized the owner of the second voice he'd heard.

"Like I said, it helps, but not as much as those goggles you're wearing," said Siler, who was rubbing his eyes and standing very close to where the flash-bang had obviously been set off. Next to him on a table sat a pair of wrap-around sunglasses that looked rather . . . homemade. "But it's better now, sir."

"Yeah," Bill said apologetically. "We've still got to work on those filters. But definitely an improvement over the last ones we tried, right?"

"Yes, sir," said Siler. "But I think I really need to replace some burned-out relays on level 18." The long-suffering sergeant left, but he had to put his hands out to find the doorway properly.

"Bill," Daniel asked, trying not to sound accusing, "why are you experimenting on Siler?"

"With Siler, not on Siler," Bill insisted. "He likes it. Gives him a break from changing relays and such."

Daniel frowned at Bill, letting him know he wasn't fooled.

Bill sighed. "The Marines refused to do it anymore. I could have Hammond order them," he added, "but some of them were starting to get really mad at me, and I have a home and family."

Daniel felt a laugh bubbling up at the thought of Marines annoyed but unable to do anything about it. He tried to contain it, but it came out as sort of a hiccup. It wasn't funny to Bill. The Marines would never lay a finger on any of the civilians—General Hammond and Jack O'Neill made damn sure of that—but they could be pretty scary. "Pardon me," he said.

"Sure." Bill hardly seemed to have registered Daniel's odd sound. "The composite materials in the Kull Warrior's suit are hard to reproduce! But it's great stuff! The energy-dissipating potential is phenomenal. It's not just the strength of the warriors themselves; the armor prevents. . . ."

Daniel only half listened to Bill as he looked around the lab some more. He felt a little guilty, ignoring most of what Bill was saying as he accused Jack of ignoring him, but he really couldn't follow the technical details. He picked up the sunglasses. They looked solid black. He held them up and squinted through them, trying to see the hallway light or the one work light Bill had going in the lab.

"They're peril-sensitive," Bill said with a chuckle.

"What?" Bill loved to make movie and tv references, but Daniel usually didn't get them.

"It's Hitchhiker's—you know what . . . never mind."

Daniel tried sliding them on over his own glasses; he could at least show some interest in his friend's project, even if he didn't get his jokes. "It's all pretty dark—no, wait, I can see better now!"

"I turned on the overheads," Bill's voice said from farther away than Daniel expected. He hadn't been able to make out Bill walking over to the switch for the main lights.

"Oh," Daniel said, removing the sunglasses.

"That's the other problem. On the one hand, they don't offer perfect protection. On the other, they're about as hard to see through as these." Bill waved his own, much larger protective goggles.

"So I guess I won't ask for a pair for our next mission," Daniel said with a smile.

"I wouldn't." Bill put his goggles down on a table and walked back to Daniel, who handed him the sunglasses.

"But you didn't come looking for sunglasses." Bill said.

"No," Daniel said. Inspiration hit. "I was gonna grab some lunch in the commissary. Wanna come?"

"Really?" Bill brightened noticeably. Daniel had to admit he couldn't remember asking Bill to eat with him before, though he considered him a friend, especially now, after all they'd been through. Of course, he didn't usually ask anyone to eat with him; his teammates would sometimes drag him out, or he'd run to the commissary by himself to grab something quick so he could get back to work. Occasionally he'd sit down with someone already there, like Nyan.

Bill continued to tell him about the remarkable physical properties of the armor on the way to lunch. Some of it did sound interesting—the material was lightweight and flexible but very strong—but Bill kept throwing in chemical names that meant nothing to Daniel. He mostly made appropriate noises. Both men got sandwiches, widely agreed to be the safest of the commissary's offerings, and found a table.

"So, how have you been?" Daniel asked cautiously at a lull in the conversation—well, it had become almost a monologue.

"I'm fine," Bill said quickly. "How are you? You said you're going out on another mission?"

"Yeah, tonight. We've got an arid planet with a small population and this fantastic ziggurat—a very large structure with a temple at the top," Daniel explained. "Maybe what the Tower of Babel was supposed to be like."

"Oh," said Bill. "So Major Carter's all right now?"

"Yeah, she's fine. Janet certified her fit for off-world travel two days ago, and she's eager to go."

"You guys seem to heal fast," Bill said.

Daniel held his sandwich still in mid-air for a moment, but then he took a quick bite to cover his reaction and buy himself some time. He was really going to say something to Bill this time; this was as close as Bill had come to mentioning his own injuries. As he tried to formulate a response, a familiar voice shouted from the doorway, "Here's where he's hiding! You know, I never would have thought to look here!"

The rest of SG-1 trooped into the commissary together. Great timing. Daniel set the sandwich down on the plate and tried quickly to gather his thoughts.

Bill jumped to his feet. "I'll just take this back to the lab," he said, clutching his sandwich.

"No, no, no—you don't have to leave!" Daniel protested.

"But they're your friends. I don't think they want to talk to me." Bill looked at the trio working their way quickly through the line.

"Are you kidding? Sam understands—" Oh, he didn't want to make it sound like he didn't understand anything Bill said. Daniel started over: "Sam understands what you do a lot better than I do. And Teal'c is very interested. Jack—Jack always pretends he's not interested. He does it to me all the time."

Bill hesitated. Daniel knew that Bill liked to talk, but he buried himself in his work and only saw a few other scientists on a regular basis, and presumably his family. And Siler. Company was probably good for Bill.

"And if you run out with your sandwich," Daniel pressed, "Jack will hassle you for eating on the run." He added, more to himself than to Bill, "Something else he does to me all the time."

To Daniel's surprise, Bill sat back down. But Jack started in again on Daniel before he'd even sat down with his chili, telling him they'd checked his office and Sam's lab and the gym before they gave up on getting him to come to lunch and went by themselves.

"It was my idea," Bill said, keeping his eyes on his plate, while Daniel was still trying to figure out why Jack would be looking for him in the gym half a day before they went on a mission.

Vaguely troubled by what seemed like an unnecessary attempt to defend him, Daniel corrected Bill, "No, actually, it was mine."

Jack stared at Daniel and then Bill. "What is this, a date?"

Bill just blinked and looked away. Fortunately, he didn't try to respond.

"Bill was just telling me about the work he's been doing on the super-soldier armor." Changing the subject was usually effective with Jack.

Soon Sam and Bill were covering the same ground that Daniel had covered with Bill, but faster and with even more technical language, and Jack started a side conversation with Teal'c about whether the Kull Warriors had any actual tactics or just relied on brute strength and stupidity. Daniel was wishing he had left when Bill wanted to go. But Bill seemed more at ease, so it was worth it. Daniel did end up excusing himself first so that he could finish pulling together his notes for the mission; the notes he'd made for the briefing weren't quite enough. The architecture looked more like something from the area of Iran than Egypt, as he'd mentioned at the briefing. Egypt was still the culture with which he felt most comfortable, and he wanted more references. He never knew when something significant might turn up, and wanted to be damned sure he wouldn't miss it when it did.

*****

Jack didn't really mind changing time zones as much as he said. Embarking on a new mission gave him energy no matter what time it was, and he'd been able to grab a two-hour nap before gearing up, which was pretty good in his experience.

Daniel was walking in a minute or two early, with Carter, talking and waving his hands. No matter how much he talked about the agriculture and other potential technologies, his real motivations on this mission were clear. When he mentioned the ziggurat, he talked fast and made bigger gestures, though he seemed to be trying not to talk too much about it. He was giving the military what they needed to hear to justify a mission, and Jack certainly wasn't going to call him on it today. Or maybe even this year, he thought, as he eyeballed his teammates out of habit, making sure they had all their equipment, all secure.

Seeing Jonas's excitement at meeting new peoples, sometimes even enemies, had stuck in Jack's craw. More than once during that year he'd tried to remember the last time Daniel was genuinely enthusiastic to meet someone, only to remember the obvious answer: Kelowna. Daniel had been so intrigued to meet people whose historical developments seemed so close to Earth's. The fascination turned to horror as he saw better than any of them that Kelowna was about to repeat Earth's mistakes, and on an even worse scale. Jack would push that out of his mind, but when was the last time before that? The best he could come up with was when Daniel met that Unas and convinced it not to eat him, but learning of Rothman's death had put a damper on Daniel's enthusiasm pretty quickly.

They'd stopped doing—what should he call it?—diplomatic missions before Daniel's death and ascension, though no one had made a deliberate determination to take them off those missions, as far as Jack knew. And archaeological missions, too. Seeing Daniel's thrill at reading the ancient records on P3X—the planet with the incredible shrinking protective dome—had been a huge relief, not just to him, but to Carter and Teal'c, he was sure. Daniel's sympathy for the survivors of the Stromos, evident even while he was recovering from the invasion of his mind, convinced Jack that his teammate was well and truly back. At the same time, he'd been sorry to see Daniel go through more guilt and worry over other people who mostly couldn't care less about the original inhabitant body they were using. They were damned sure going to do some of the missions Daniel wanted this year.

Jack finished his visual checks on his teammates without much conscious attention to it. Everyone was properly kitted out, and the two scientists were raring to go.

"Ready, SG-1?" General Hammond's voice came over the intercom.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Jack replied.

"Godspeed, SG-1," Hammond said simply.

A little rush—no, a big rush—and then they were on a hot, dry planet that almost made Jack wish they still came through the wormhole with a little bit of ice on them. There was enough of a wind to make sand blow around and sting his face a little. And this was the cool part of the day? He squinted around. No one was near the Gate, and the area was barren enough that they'd see: a few scrub bushes, some rocks, a lot of dust. No shade, and it must already been nearly a hundred degrees.

"The sun's been up, what, about two hours?" Daniel asked Carter.

"Closer to an hour and a half, I think," Carter corrected. "Glad I brought the SPF 60."

"I'm sure it's cooler at night," Daniel said apologetically, turning more towards Jack. "The sun has already started heating things up."

How the hell could Daniel tell what Jack was thinking? All he had done was look around! Jack scowled, but Daniel was with Carter, checking out the DHD, and he missed Jack's expression completely.

Teal'c was obviously continuing his visual survey as well but found nothing worth reporting. They could see shapes on the horizon that looked like the village the UAV had shown. They could even see the ziggurat Daniel wanted to see; it was a small, fuzzy shape, but the ground was so flat that the tall structure was apparent even at this distance.

They fell into their usual formation without Jack having to say a word and proceeded to the village. The breeze was short-lived, for which Jack was glad; it didn't make things cooler, just stirred up dust. After about ten minutes they were near the small village, which consisted of what looked like simple, whitewashed clay brick buildings, most of two stories, a few of three.

Before anyone could appreciate the architecture further, two children darted out between the buildings, one obviously chasing the other, and froze at seeing the strangers. SG-1 froze as well. Then Daniel, being Daniel, took a step forward and called out a greeting in English. The boys screamed and ran back the way they'd come.

"Well, that was a good start," Jack said.

"Did you see their robes?" Daniel was unfazed. "They looked like linen! And the colors!"

Yes, Jack had actually seen their robes; it was his job to notice things. He hadn't realized that they were linen, but he had seen that they were blue with white trim. He'd also noted that the boys wouldn't have looked out of place on Abydos. Daniel started after them.

"Daniel, let's hold here," Jack warned. "I'm sure someone will come out any moment now."

"Didn't you say that cotton wasn't made on Earth until after Ra had closed the Stargate?" Carter asked, and Jack suspected her question rather than his order had made the archaeologist stop.

"Yes! The Abydonians had apparently invented cotton themselves, independently of Earth—unless our archaeological record on Earth is incomplete, which is always possible, of course."

"Welcoming committee," Jack said as two women came slowly between the buildings.

Daniel stepped forward again. Jack rolled his eyes, although Daniel couldn't see it. A step forward here, a step forward there, and pretty soon Daniel was half a dozen paces ahead of them—and blocking any decent shot at anyone he was meeting. Jack had thought for a while it was cluelessness, but after a few years Jack had begun to suspect it was deliberate. He stepped forward while moving a little farther to the side to have a good angle. The women didn't appear armed, but their robes had generous folds, and there were rooftops and windows everywhere.

Daniel greeted the women in English. They stayed a good twenty meters away, not quite stepping out from between the two buildings. They looked at him with identical frowns.

So Daniel tried another language. Jack recognized it as Abydonian. Their expressions didn't change. And so on with another language, and so on, and—and then one of the women said something. Now Daniel was frowning. He answered her. The woman said something else.

"Daniel?"

"Still working on it," Daniel said, and then continued.

As Daniel and the women traded words with neither side understanding perfectly, as far as Jack could tell, Jack could see the boys slinking back between the buildings, followed by an older man who barked something at the women. One turned and said something to the old man in a dismissive tone and then returned to watching her companion trade words and phrases with Daniel.

"Daniel. Jack. Sam. Teal'c," Daniel said, pointing to each one in turn.

"Golshun," said the speaker. Daniel repeated the name. "Vahara." She pointed to her companion.

"Vahara!" Daniel exclaimed. "Jack, this might be Old Persian!" He said a few more words, a little haltingly.

"Or not," muttered Jack.

But Golshun, though she was still frowning, seemed to understand and responded. Daniel answered her, again a little slowly, and they definitely seemed to be getting somewhere.

The old man had come up behind the women and was obviously demanding to know what was going on. Vahara was shushing him, but finally Golshun said something to the man, then something to Daniel, and waved the group to follow them.

Daniel started after her without hesitation, of course. Jack sighed. He hated it when he couldn't understand the natives. "Daniel, what's going on?"

"Well, I think it's related to Old Persian, but it seems to have diverged somewhat. I actually tried Kurdish and Iranian, and she showed some recognition, but—"

"Daniel! Where the hell are we going?" The whole team was now walking between the buildings. Jack wished he had enough control of his team not to walk further into foreign territory until after they'd answered questions like that . . . but what the hell.

"I don't know," Daniel answered without concern. "Oh!—there's a market!"

They emerged between the buildings. The women had waited right at the edge of the square for them. The place was pretty impressive, really. There were buildings on all four sides, some right against each other, but every few houses, there would be space enough for people to walk between. On two sides, it looked as if the houses were more than the one row deep on the square. The houses were all whitewashed, but some had decorative work painted above or beside the doorways and windows.

The open space had a stone fountain at its center. Water bubbled up a central spout—wait, that seemed to be metal—and then splashed into an upper basin, which dripped into a broader lower basin. There were metal cups hanging by handles from the upper basin, and a man had taken one off to get a drink from the upper basin. Not Jack's idea of hygiene, but then, few planets shared Jack's idea of hygiene—much of Earth didn't, as a matter of fact.

Around the edges of the square were many wooden stalls with rough cloth coverings selling various goods. The ground was dirt, but it seemed free of rocks, and somehow it wasn't as dusty as the ground outside the village. Maybe all the people packed it down better. There was a smell of sweat, but there were also more delicate, spicy smells. With a pang, Jack thought of Abydos, and he looked again at Daniel.

Daniel was standing there with the women, his mouth slightly open. Both women were grinning.

"Guess they've impressed him," Jack said to Carter.

"Wow," Carter said. "It looks like they have a surprising amount of trade goods!" She pointed to stalls and began reciting, "That one looks like they're selling plain cloth; that one seems to sell weavings; that—"

"I can see, Carter. And so can they. We've got their attention."

The talk around the square was dying out, and more and more people were turning to look at the strangers. Their desert camos didn't exactly fit in with the robes, primarily white but often with pink, blue, or orange trim at the edges. Again Jack was struck by the appearance of the people. Maybe Daniel could see some difference, but he thought they'd all fit in on Abydos. If only it still existed. But this village did indeed seem richer than anything Abydos had to offer.

Several people, both men and women, approached the team. Daniel spoke with them, they talked back, and Jack was none the wiser.

"Would it kill him to interpret once in a while? It's what we pay him to do," he grumbled.

"It's among the things you pay me to do, and I'll interpret when I get enough to be worth translating," Daniel said in a silky tone, either to annoy Jack or to avoid alarming the natives, then slid seamlessly back into whatever language it was. Old Persian, he'd said, right?

A loud laugh from a man made Jack start just a little. The man clapped Daniel on the arm. Daniel grinned and talked some more. He seemed to be picking up speed a little.

"Daniel?"

"I think we're getting somewhere."

Suddenly a woman was at Jack's elbow jabbering.

"Nope, sorry. No sprechen Old Persian."

She seemed undeterred and continued to talk, but she slowed down and made exaggerated faces, as if he were a baby.

"No hablo. Je ne parle pas . . . whatever."

The woman grinned as if he'd just made a joke, which in fact he had.

"Daniel, are you sure they don't speak English? Maybe they're just having us on?"

Daniel tossed a pained look his way and then went back to smiling and chatting. Teal'c and Carter seemed to have gained buddies as well. Jack sighed.

*****

It had taken a couple of hours, but Daniel had finally gotten comfortable enough to have a real conversation with these people. They were now finishing lunch in what must have been the home of one of the wealthier families. The ground floor was actually slightly sunken, so that one stepped down into it, and they were lounging on pillows at a low table and really enjoying the food—or at least he and Sam were, and Jack hadn't been complaining. Beer at a meal usually made Jack happy.

Despite the great distances in time and culture, somehow the food reminded Daniel of Abydos. The fragrant herbs, especially the coriander in the meat stew; the cheeses; the beer; and the heavy use of bread, even if it wasn't quite the same as Abydonian bread; all reminded Daniel of the now-lost planet he'd called home for a time.

But the language was very different. He focused on that to pull himself out of his nostalgia. Now that he'd gotten the hang of the different vowels, he could follow a fair amount. Unfortunately, Old Persian was not one of his best languages. He wasn't sure how much of the trouble he was having with vocabulary was due to his own rustiness and how much was due to language divergence, but at least the syntax seemed the same. Or mostly the same. Occasionally a giggle suggested to him that he'd committed some malapropism. But his interlocutors were happy to find synonyms to explain words he didn't understand or to rephrase entire sentences.

The people here insisted on talking to his teammates as well, despite the fact that his teammates only smiled and nodded. They seemed to be speaking very slowly and in short, simple sentences. He did explain more than once that his teammates didn't speak the language at all, but that only caused more giggles. He began to suspect that they found his friends' efforts to be polite in the face of gibberish amusing.

There was an awkward moment when Daniel explained that they'd come through the Stargate; they too used the word "Chappa'ai." The Goa'uld must have spread the term here too. Their hosts seemed very nervous at the revelation, but Daniel reiterated that their interests involved learning and trading, and they wanted a mutually beneficial relationship.

Jack, of course, asked about the sudden silence, but Daniel was able to allay his fears. The people didn't seem frightened, really. A little nervous, but certainly not hostile.

Gradually he managed to learn a little about the planet. They did in fact know of the Goa'uld; they spoke carefully then, apparently wanting to consult the local priest before they told him too much. But they were apparently not very worried about the Goa'uld's return. They had heard of Jaffa but never seen one, and they obviously did not recognize Teal'c's tattoo as an indication that he was one. Daniel explained very carefully that Teal'c was a Jaffa who had turned against the Goa'uld. It would be bad if the priest recognized Teal'c and they were immediately branded deceivers for not mentioning his identity up front. The people were uniformly surprised at the revelation, but most seemed quite comfortable with it.

He got the biggest reaction by telling those at his table that their ancestors had probably come from Earth.

Again, the people turned reticent; the priest had final say over how much of their learning could be shared with him.

"If you were simply from another village," said one man, "there would be no problem. But from the other side of the Chappa'ai. . . ."

"You have other villages?" Daniel asked in some surprise. Granted, it was a small settlement, smaller than Abydos, but many planets only seemed to have one inhabited area near the Gate.

Everyone laughed at his question. "Of course! One is half a day's walk from here, another other a little further, and in another direction," Vahara told him. "How could we only have one village? We grow most of our food here, but the cotton is grown several days' walk from here, where the river runs freely."

Daniel took the opportunity to ask about their irrigation. He was not surprised that they had nothing of what Sam would consider technology, but they had a very effective hydraulic system that not only watered the fields, it supplied the fountain in the square, even during the dry season—which this was.

After lunch, they were invited to join in the nap everyone took in the heat of the day. The table was cleared and set to the side, some of the guests left for their own homes, and rugs were laid out on the floor. The fact that it was below street level helped keep the room a little cooler than the outdoors had become.

Jack insisted on standing watch, and Daniel gratefully indulged in a nap. He hadn't had time to sleep before their departure, and struggling along in the language, combined with frequent breaks to clue his teammates in about what was going on, could be exhausting in its own way.

He awoke before his hosts stirred, however, and he stole a few moments to make some notes before the others awoke. He'd been told at lunch that after the nap someone would take him to meet the head priest.

*****

No way in hell was Daniel going off alone with some local to meet the priest, and Daniel must know that, Jack thought as he glared at the other man.

"Daniel, I'd like to see the fields; do you think you could ask someone to show me to them? I know they aren't running any equipment, but I'm still interested in seeing how they irrigate and what they grow," Carter interrupted in an obvious attempt to mollify Daniel.

It worked. Daniel spoke with one of the women, and soon she was leading Carter from the room. Teal'c went with her, ostensibly for protection, but then Jack realized that left him alone with Daniel, with no back-up if the man stayed stubborn.

"I'll just tag along. You know, even if I overhear, none of it will mean anything to me."

"But what if he wants to show me something that he doesn't want to show you?" Daniel argued.

"As long as I can still see you, we're fine," Jack said with a smile that he knew would irritate Daniel. He waited. He could tell Daniel was trying to decide whether he should just drop it and let Jack come along or spend more time arguing—thus delaying his meet-'n'-greet with the priest.

Reason won out quickly this time, and soon three of them were marching in the direction of the ziggurat.

"Hope Carter doesn't forget to reapply her sunscreen," Jack said, but it was to himself, since Daniel remained deep in conversation with their guide, an old man who looked like a stiff breeze might blow him away but who still managed to keep a good pace through the heat.

"Did Carter check the ozone here? Maybe more gets through here on Earth. Is there any SPF 100?" Jack tried again a couple of minutes later. Daniel didn't even deign to turn and look at him.

As they drew closer to the ziggurat, Jack could hear the excitement in Daniel's voice, even though he couldn't tell what the men were saying. He could even feel a bit of the excitement himself. Maybe it was Daniel's tone, his voice going faster and higher than usual, like a record sped up just slightly, but maybe it was the structure itself. The thing had to be nearly ten stories high! It was a wonder of engineering. And the bottom levels were painted a vibrant green, the middle tiers were the color of plain dried clay, and the top ones had a blue-purple tinge to them. One set of stairs ran straight down the middle of the building, leading to what appeared to be the only door, near the top.

They had to walk through what appeared to be some old ruins to get to the ziggurat itself, and then they broke off and went to the surprisingly lush garden next to the structure rather than going straight up to the temple. A man greeted them with a little surprise. Daniel exchanged a few words with him.

"Jack, this is Kudadad," he gestured at the smiling priest. Then he named Jack to Kudadad with some words Jack didn't understand. Jack waved.

"Kudadad was told to expect me," Daniel said, with just a little added weight on the pronoun, "but not you."

"Don't mind me," Jack said to the priest directly. "Don't speak the language. Speak as freely as you want."

Daniel emitted a slight snort and then, presumably, translated more or less what Jack had said. Probably less rather than more.

"Okay, Jack," he said after a bit. "We're going to sit in the garden. Think you can behave?"

"Where you go, I go," Jack smiled.

"You didn't answer the question."

"What do you think I am?" Jack was genuinely a little annoyed, and it must have showed.

"Sorry." Daniel raised his hands. "Just—don't interrupt. Don't keep asking me what we're saying, because it's rude, and you'll only just tell me how dull and useless it is anyway."

"I'm wounded!"

Daniel just shook his head and walked with Kudadad. Their guide said a few more words and departed, and Jack followed the other two men under a trellis. They sat down on a bench, and Daniel and Kudadad seemed to be getting on like old buddies reunited.

It was a beautiful garden, and it seemed cooler here than it had just outside it. Jack looked at the plants, but he didn't know much about plants. Carter knew more. Maybe he could show her the place later. He walked around the little brick paths laid out, staying close to Daniel, but Daniel appeared in no danger of anything worse than a sore throat from talking too much. And that wasn't very likely; the man could talk for days with hardly a break, it sometimes felt like. The garden was shady enough they weren't even at risk of a sunburn.

After Jack had walked the paths nearest Daniel for almost thirty minutes, Daniel broke off to say, "Jack, could you stop that?"