lit_gal | Dark, Still Water

Dark, Still Water
SG1/Sentinel Crossover
Gen/Pre-slash, take it however you like, but I don't think nookie is going to fit into this plot. Of course, I'm not saying there won't be sequels.

When one of Daniel Jackson's friends goes snooping into the wrong computer network, the SG-1 team comes to Cascade to find her before the NID can. But the local detective assigned to assist them--and his very strange anthropologist partner--complicate an already complicated mission.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen | Part Seventeen | Part Eighteen | Part Nineteen | Part Twenty | Part Twenty-one | Part Twenty-two | Part Twenty-three | Twenty-four

There are bad ideas... and then there are BAD ideas. ;)

Teal'c watched as O'Neill circled the village in what might appear to be a random pattern generated by his own boredom. However, his random path intersected each shadowed corner or possible cover in the dusty square where Daniel was sitting cross-legged in the dust talking to Lianch of the Tol people.

Daniel explained the Tau'ri war against the Goa'uld, and as usual, the villager's eyes went to Teal'c. This world was poor, a collection of stone huts huddled around a communal fire pit, but even here they knew of the Jaffa who served the gods. Teal'c stood very still and tried to appear non-threatening as Daniel started on that oft-used explanation. After weeks of not working as the others were weaned from the light on P4X-347, the familiar words were a comfort. With SG1 unable to leave the world where they had grown addicted to the light, Teal'c had spent time with Bra'tac, following his former master to the rebel world where he was training new warriors to fight the rebellion Teal'c had started. When Teal'c had followed O'Neill's lead on that day years ago, when he had turned against Apophis, he had never expected that others, including his own former master, would follow him onto his path. To know that others had followed you onto your path was far more daunting than the quick death Teal'c had expected.

The thought of paths brought Teal'c's musings back to the other person he had spent time with. Blair Sandburg had happily taken on the establishment, sweeping away decades of research and redefining Hyperactive Sensory Awareness. The term was less spiritual than Sentinel, and Teal'c still did not know if that meant the young shaman was on the right path. His small room in Bethesda was thick with books and charts and printouts, but Teal'c had seen not a single candle. It was most unsettling. Only the knowledge that Blair continued daily communication with Jim Ellison gave him hope that the young shaman would eventually seek out his true path. Only a tao qua ca tec'ma'te i cal mah would feel such need for an anchor. And now, his work with military personnel with HSA had become a second anchor.

However, despite his desire to encourage Blair's spiritual quest, Teal'c had resolved to follow Master Bra'tac's advice. One might be assisted in finding the path, but once that path was opened, one must choose to walk it alone. Teal'c could help in this no more than Ellison could.

"So, the mining rights?" O'Neill prompted from the far side of the nearly-empty square, his arm resting on the end of his weapon.

"Working on it," Daniel said in a tone that warned O'Neill to not push at this juncture. O'Neill subsided, returning to his previous task of patrolling the area. Carter shifted, her eyes scanning the village, either watching for enemy or searching for evidence that the people of this planet used the rare iridium alloy her samples had yielded. The heavy rocks that made the foundations of the buildings had veins that gleamed dimly, but they did not appear to mine or work the metal and the Goa'uld did not use this alloy although Carter had been most excited by her tests.

"Your people are great indeed if they fight the untrue gods," Lianch suggested slowly, his long grey-white hair catching the bright sun as he nodded. He looked over at Teal'c, and Teal'c simply looked back.

"My people are only as great as the allies who assist them," Daniel offered carefully. "This metal in your ground would help us stand up against the Goa'uld."

Lianch leaned back on his heels and picked up a stick to poke the fire that burned in the huge central cooking hearth that dominated the center of the village square. "To ally ourselves with you is to stand up against the Goa'uld," he said slowly. Teal'c could tell from Lianch's body language that the man had fears regarding taking such a step. Clearly, Daniel saw the same thing.

"We could offer you help building defenses, additional resources in the way of food or technology. My people have a plow that never needs sharpening. You could till your fields in half the time." Daniel leaned forward, stopping just short of touching Lianch's knee.

Lianch was nodding. "The offer seems fair since we have no need of rocks." He smiled. "I often have need of fewer rocks in my fields. However, to take such an action that would affect the village is a matter of importance to everyone."

Daniel was nodding in perfect time with Lianch. "I understand. I'm only asking for a chance to make our case in front of everyone."

Lianch frowned at him. "Are you Bermiddlt that you would speak with everyone?"

The ones who had built into the Stargate technology that eased the communication between peoples and cultures, however, the word bermiddlt defeated their technology, suggesting that the word had cultural ties which did not allow it to translate directly from one language to another. Teal'c had noted the same phenomenon with "kree" which was never translated. In fact, when Daniel had attempted to explain "kree," he had used many different words, because the cultural meaning did not exist in English.

Daniel leaned back. "I don't know that word."

Lianch looked immediately disturbed.

"We may use another word for it," Daniel hurried to explain. The circles in which O'Neill wandered grew tighter as the colonel closed the distance between himself and Daniel. "Can you explain what the word means?" Daniel looked at the leader of the Tol people with wide eyes and empty hands.

Lianch tilted his head and leaned all the way back on his heels as though so surprised that he couldn't quite catch his balance. "A bermiddlt speaks to all."

Daniel nodded, but didn't say anything as he looked at Lianch expectantly. Lianch opened his mouth, as though confounded by the need to explain such an obvious term.

"He speaks of a shaman," Teal'c offered. He now remembered having heard his term for tao qua ca tec'ma'te i cal mah in the distant past.

Daniel looked over to Teal'c in surprise, but Lianch was nodding, clearly relieved that the Tau'ri knew of the idea even if the word was different.

"Do you know one?" the old man asked.

"Yes," Teal'c offered at exactly the same time O'Neill offered a curt, "No."

O'Neill glared at him, and Teal'c amended his original answer. "No."

Unsurprisingly, Lianch was staring at them all as if they had turned into men driven mad by the sun.

"We don't generally talk about our shaman," Daniel tried to ease Lianch's fears, telling a version of the truth that he could accept. Teal'c doubted the man would appreciate the whole truth--that the Tau'ri did not talk about their shaman because, for the most part, they believed such men and women to be insincere or insane. Perhaps that was why Blair Sandburg was so reluctant to walk the path open to him. Teal'c did not believe that Blair cared that much for the good opinion of others, but perhaps the good opinion of Jim Ellison was enough for him to abdicate his position as a shaman.

"It is a wise people who hold their bermiddlt close," Lianch agreed, obviously comforted by the answer. "But to make this agreement would require all the tribe's approval, the living and the dead. We share a bermiddlt with a great many villages, so it would be many seasons before ours could return, but if you have one with such talents, we would be glad to share the Bermid'cate."

"No need to wait, we can go to this Bermuda thing right now. Daniel's good with talking to people," O'Neill said with forced cheerfulness. O'Neill understood the tactical value of deception, but on the issue of the soul and those who spoke to the soul, deception came with such danger that Teal'c could not allow his friends to walk such a treacherous path out of ignorance.

"You are a bermiddlt?" Lianch asked Daniel, awe in his voice.

"No," Teal'c said firmly while O'Neill said, "Yes." This time Teal'c did not amend his answer.

Daniel looked at O'Neill for a moment in desperation before he turned back to Lianch. "I have talked to shamen and have been offered the path, but I'm not actually a shaman myself," Daniel said slowly. "I haven't gotten any farther than speaking to a person who..." Daniel stopped, and Teal'c suspected that he was struggling with a way to define "ascended" to these simple people. The translation the Stargate technology provided could cause confusion with such complex terms.

"Exists in another reality?" Lianch provided.

Daniel smiled. "Exactly. But if that is acceptable, I would be happy to speak to the others in the Bermid'cate."

Lianch had dropped his stick earlier, and now he picked it up and resumed his stirring of the embers of the communal fire. "The Bermid'cate is a place of great danger for those who walk the path. I would not wish to risk a new friend on such a perilous journey."

"Dangerous?" O'Neill abandoned all pretense at boredom. "How is it dangerous?"

With a shrug, Lianch stirred the embers to life. "It is no danger to those of us not touched by the path of the bermiddlt. I do not pretend to understand the dangers posed to those who walk the shadowed paths of life."

O'Neill frowned, and Teal'c could almost feel the frustration radiating from him like heat from the summer sun. "Would you mind us checking it out, you know, just to make sure that we understand any possible dangers?"

"We don't want to offend your ancestors or break any taboos," Daniel hurried to offer before Lianch could speak, "but if you want us to trust one of our bermiddlt, you have to understand our concerns."

"I do, and it speaks well of your people that you show such concern." Lianch tipped his head so that his long, white braid fell off his shoulder and swung free. A young boy with bare feet came darting out of a low building. "Tehsee will show you to the place, but I would ask that Daniel not go." Lianch jabbed his stick into the fire, allowing the flames to capture it. "If your feet have been shown the path but you do not walk it, you should not go to this place."

"That's okay, Danny's going to stay here with me." O'Neill walked over and dropped a hand onto Daniel's shoulder, his knee pressed to Daniel's arm. "Teal'c, you and Carter check out this place and make sure that whatever shaman we bring these people, he isn't going to get lead poisoning."

"Yes, sir," Carter answered. She smiled at the boy Tehsee, and Teal'c could tell that the boy was smitten by her smile. He was verging on manhood, and Carter would be featuring prominently in his dreams for many weeks judging by his flush. He scrambled, tripped over the end of a piece of firework, and then used the momentum to dart forward.

Carter smiled, and Teal'c had difficulty restraining a smile himself. It would not honor the young man to make jest of his awkwardness, but Teal'c remembered the day when Carter would have had the power to make him trip over his own feet. Amused by the boy and worried about the danger this Bermid'cate posed, Teal'c followed far enough behind to provide adequate cover as he escorted Carter to this sacred place.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Well, sir, it looks like we just need to pony up one shaman, and we can have that iridium contract," O'Neill opened the debriefing. The general was not fully seated before O'Neill made his announcement, and for a second, General Hammond hovered an inch above his seat.

"One... shaman, colonel?" General Hammond pushed aside the folder with the technical information on P3X-116.

"One tiny, little shaman. We don't even have to give him away, we just need to loan him to the Tol long enough for the Tol's dead ancestors to give us the okay on the mining rights."

"Jack," Daniel warned with the deliberate pronunciation of just his name. O'Neill smiled smugly at Daniel. An expression that would have provoked rage in most people just caused Daniel to roll his eyes.

"It's a little more complicated than that," Daniel started to explain.

"Not really. Actually, we could have already gotten the approval only Teal'c had to go and ruin it when I tried passing Daniel off as our local bone, rattle and drum guy."

Teal'c raised his eyebrow at such an incomplete description.

"I'm not a shaman," Daniel pointed out.

"Ah, but you're as close to one as we get. I mean, the quality of geeks around this place does not inspire confidence. We are low on any sort of geeky type who can understand people. We have geeks for gadgets and rocks, but precious few we can pass off as a shaman. Felger would suck, and Nyan doesn't exactly have the whole lying thing down. He's never going to get laid if he doesn't learn to..."

"Colonel!" General Hammond interrupted. He took a deep breath. "Do I understand that you agreed to have our shaman contact their afterlife to ask permission to mine the iridium?"

"It makes you miss the good old days when we just wanted to bomb the Russians, doesn't it, sir?" O'Neill raised his coffee mug and stared at it morosely for a second before drinking.

General Hammond didn't answer, but from his sigh, Teal'c assumed that the man would agree if he politically could. In many ways, enemies such as the Goa'uld were to be preferred over those, like the NID, who acted out of good intentions and stupidity. The loss of Makepeace had particularly bothered Teal'c. A warrior who had followed O'Neill into battle and risked his life many times had been tempted into cooperating with an enemy because he had believed their lies, and Teal'c had no doubt that Makepeace had believed the NID lies only because the NID themselves did.

"I thought we might ask Dr. Coombs..." Daniel started. Surprisingly it was Carter who interrupted him with a derisive laugh which she quickly cut off.

"I'm sorry, sirs," she offered, "but Simon Coombs? He's..."

"He's good with math and he could do it... probably." Daniel's mouth twisted into an expression which did not communicate confidence.

"He'd start talking about Romulans or warp drives." Carter turned her attention from Daniel to the general. "Sir, I don't think Coombs can handle this. After Daniel, Nyan is our best with first contact."

"No, Nyan is the best with hieroglyphs," Daniel argued.

"He did handle his own with the Gamali," O'Neill mused.

"Because he had to. He's not trained," Daniel insisted, his tone making it clear he did not want to discuss this farther. The linguists and social scientists were, ultimately, under Daniel's leadership, and O'Neill nodded, accepting Daniel's decision. Teal'c had to agree that Nyan was, after Daniel, most skilled in first contact, perhaps because he did move so slowly and carefully when working with others. However, Daniel was loath to allow the young man too far into dangerous territory.

"He's better than Coombs," O'Neill slipped in, but by doing so after acknowledging Daniel's domain, he received only an annoyed look in return. "But since we actually do have a shaman on the payroll, I say we bring in Sandburg. He is on the payroll now, right?"

"You want to pull Blair into this?" Daniel said with a laugh. "Ellison will gut you and hang your body out for the crows if you even suggest taking Blair through the Stargate."

General Hammond ignored the outburst. "Colonel, I don't see why we need to bring in outside personnel for this. What exactly do the Tol want out of this shaman?"

"They want him to go to a sacred spot and shake a little rattle, say a few words, ask the ancestors for permission to dig," O'Neill answered. "And frankly, after the mess with the Salish, I'm voting that we actually do check in with the ancestors first. I don't expect the ancestors to talk back, but you just never know, sir. SG11 has never quite been the same after getting zapped on PXY-887."

General Hammond leaned back in his chair, silent for a moment. "Colonel, is there any chance that, like the Salish, the Tol might be hosting a more powerful species?"

O'Neill made an exaggerated shrug and turned to Carter, inviting her to give her opinion on the question. She made a face that clearly indicated her own ignorance on the issue. "There were no signs of advanced metalwork or power sources, and the sacred Bermid'cate is really just a lake with heavy concentrations of carbon and a dense dinoflagellate population that causes it to be almost black."

"Is it dangerous?" General Hammond opened the planetary file, his pen jotting notes now that they were not discussing shamanism. It remained a mystery to Teal'c how a leader as wise as Hammond could discount the power of shamanism.

"I wouldn't drink it, sir," Carter said, opening her own file and studying the test results from the samples she had taken. "Long term exposure would probably cause a rash or mild respiratory problems if you breathed in the organisms, but its concentrations are only slightly higher than on Earth when we have red or black tides in the coastal regions. So, no sir, it's not dangerous."

"See? It's safe. So I say we 'gate in, introduce them to Sandburg, have Sandburg beat a drum or something, and then pop back home. All good."

"We don't even know if Mr. Sandburg is available," General Hammond pointed out.

"He was finishing up his dissertation when I talked to him last week," Daniel offered. "Knowing Blair, it's already done and perfect, and he's stressing over the placement of captions on his tables."

"Blair?" O'Neill gave Daniel an incredulous look. "I saw his quarters. The kid leaves his shit everywhere, so I'm guessing he's not exactly the type to stress out over captions."

"You have no idea." Daniel reached over and patted O'Neill on the arm as though reassuring a particularly young or stupid child. "This is his research, his life's work. He wants to change the world with this. He's stressing over every period."

Teal'c frowned. "But has he not already caused great change?"

"Some," Daniel agreed. "Not as much as he'd like."

Teal'c nodded in understanding. He was in much the same situation. He had changed much for the Jaffa, but having the task of overthrowing the System Lords only half-done, he had left the world most disordered and dangerous. He wondered if Blair felt the same. "But we should also consider that Lianch claims that this place is dangerous for those who are true shaman. If we take Blair Sandburg, we should also take Jim Ellison."

"Oh no, that is just a bad idea," O'Neill said surprisingly quickly. Teal'c raised an eyebrow in a tacit request for an explanation. "I don't care if you call it Post-Combat Hypersensitive Disorder or Hyperactive Sensory Awareness, it comes down to the same thing--he's not reliable in the field."

"I have to agree with the colonel," the general added. "If we invite Mr. Sandburg in, that does not change military policy on having those with P... HSA in active combat. Detective Ellison is not eligible to go through the gate."

"Sir," Carter cleared her throat, "I hate to point this out, but Blair was able to see Daniel after he was shifted out of our dimension, and he clearly contacted Oma Desala at least once. It could be that the Tol are talking about a danger that is in an adjacent dimension that only a shaman would be able to perceive."

"Aw, crap. You just had to go and bring up the shamanic powers, didn't you, Carter?"

"Yes, sir," Carter answered without even an attempt to look apologetic for O'Neill. "We should have some TER's on hand in case there is something more than just a lake there."

O'Neill got a thoughtful look on his face. "Would a TER really stop someone like Oma?"

"No." Daniel said the word firmly, and no one at the table contradicted him.

"Dr. Jackson," the general interrupted the silence that followed Daniel's answer, "could I get a report on any in-house personnel you think might be able to handle this situation? I don't want to bring in Mr. Sandburg unless we need to."

Daniel nodded. "I'll get that together by five."

Teal'c listened as the remainder of the debriefing covered mineral deposits and logistical realities on a world with very little rain but rare thunderstorms and floods that swept the land clear of all but the hardiest structures. He did not doubt that Hammond would call in Blair Sandburg. Teal'c did not approve of impersonating a shaman, but even if General Hammond decided to perpetuate such a fraud, Teal'c did not believe that anyone at the SGC could, realistically, convince the Tol people. O'Neill had not lied about Nyan's unfortunate inability to lie well, and most of the scientists were not used to interacting with living cultures. Ann Foster might do well, but with her pregnancy, she was banned from gate travel.

No, Blair was clearly the right choice if the Tau'ri wanted the mineral rights. Teal'c was simply not as convinced that it was the right choice for Blair. Unfortunately, Teal'c had no other alternative to offer.

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