STARGATE: EXPLORER

by Lady Grey
Alpha/Beta by Jude

December 29

Olympus

The chief priest's eyes glittered with avarice as he gazed inside the small but exquisite box laid at his feet. His wrinkled face creased into a pleased smile as he lifted his eyes to meet those of the Artisan lord who had brought this tribute for him, along with a small cabinet for Zeus. "Our god will enjoy this new treasure," he said softly, his voice quivering with excitement. He reached into the smaller box and pulled out a wide golden collar and matching cuffs, gifts meant for him.  He put them on, caressing the cold metal with greedy fingers.

Daniel watched in silence as Scout played his role. "Would you like to see our homage to Zeus?" asked Scout warmly, smiling and giving the priest a small bow.

"Yes! Yes, of course. A priest must examine and sanctify any offerings to Zeus before they may be presented to our god." The old man tore his attention from his shiny baubles and studied the other container with interest. 

As Scout opened the small cupboard's door, Daniel studied the priest's rapturous expression as he saw what the Furlings had brought to the great temple of Zeus: a small device encased in a glass cylinder, inside of which were delicate, thin spirals of gold twirled upward from a star-shaped base, not quite touching at the top of their individual arcs. Each of the spirals supported a chain of sparkling, polished gemstones, floating and twirling beside the golden metal swirls, all with no visible means of support. The cage formed by the spirals housed a bright light at the center, flickering like a flame but radiating all the colors of the spectrum like a living rainbow, reminding Daniel of the pleasure-inducing light-works in the Goa'uld pleasure palace SG-1 had explored years ago.

The glow was suspended in the center of the precious metal framework, with no apparent source for the light, and it bathed the interior of the temple with a hypnotic display of multicolored illumination. The priest gasped as he stared at it. "What is this wondrous thing?" he whispered in awe.

"It is very old," Scout answered dramatically. "We found it on another world, in an ancient temple devoted to Zeus, and now we are restoring it to him, as a token of our respect." He bowed again, deeply. "It is called the Eternal Light." 

Daniel thought Scout was putting on a great show; he almost believed the story himself, except their whole party knew the truth. The device had been built by the Furlings with this specific purpose in mind: to play upon the ego of a megalomaniac who wouldn't be able to resist such an amazing toy. The device had a tracking beacon surreptitiously built into the base; the hope was that it would be given directly to Zeus, thus enabling the Furlings to keep track of the Goa'uld's movements. Witnessing the priest's reaction, Daniel had no doubt the Furlings had predicted correctly.

He glanced around the temple interior, letting his attention wander as Scout plied the priest with more flattery. A forest of majestic fluted limestone columns surrounded the opithodomos, the outer area of the temple where the public gathered to await religious ceremonies. Brass braziers held brightly burning fires lifted high off the hexagonal-tiled marble floor. There were few worshippers there at that time of day, most engaged in the business of earning their livelihoods, and only a handful of junior priests moved about in the shaded opithodomos.

"Come, come," the high priest gushed, his eyes wide as he glanced between the Furling device and Scout, whom he assumed to be an Artisan king. "You,” he gestured toward Janet and Jet, since they had carried the chest into the temple, “must bring the Eternal Light to the naos and place it upon the altar."

After receiving Scout’s nod of agreement, they lifted the heavy case, and the entire entourage followed the priest into the pronaos, an inner room where votive offerings had been made.  Here the space was lined with bronze shields, and the mosaic walls were painted with brightly colored murals depicting Zeus creating the world, the adoring races who worshipped him arranged at his feet.

The priest opened a pair of massive bronze doors, leading the party into the naos, the heart of the temple, where a giant chryselephantine statue of Zeus sat gazing paternally down on a huge altar from his gilded, bejeweled throne.

A tide of emotion swept through Daniel as he gazed up at that stone face through the visor of his helmet. Part of him was filled with awe at seeing a treasure from Earth's distant past. This had to be the statue sculpted by Pheidias in 438 BC! It exactly fit the description recorded by Pausanias; the original was said to have been destroyed or carried off 800 years after it had been built.

The statue stood nearly forty feet high, its head graced with a crown of gilded olive branches, its skin made of sheets of ivory that had turned brown with extreme age. In his right hand, Zeus held a figurine of Nike, goddess of Victory, and in his left a tall scepter topped with an eagle. The golden mantle draped over Zeus' shoulder and lap was decorated with inlaid animals and lily-flowers, and his sandals were also gilded. The throne was adorned with symbols of other gods, connecting the Greco-Roman to the Egyptian with Sphinxes, the Graces, the Hours and other representations of Victory.

Daniel moved his gaze to the base of the statue, where he read the line of text inscribed in ancient Greek on the right foot: "Pheidias, son of Charmides of Athens, made me." He was looking at a piece of Earth's precious lost past, the genuine article, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  He wanted to cry with joy at the discovery, but as he lifted his eyes to that beautifully sculpted, handsome face, he was filled with cold hatred, and his heart was hardened.

It was Zeus, all right.

Daniel would never forget that face.

He watched as Jet and Janet set the treasure chest on the altar under the priest's direction. They removed the device from the box and set it down at the feet of the statue, where the rainbow light sparkled and flashed off the gilded surface, making it almost seem alive.

"Is that our guy?" asked Rose through the earpiece.

Daniel nodded reflexively, then remembered his head was covered by the s'resh helmet. "That's him. No doubt about it."

The high priest bowed deeply before the statue, then turned to face the visitors with a smile. "Zeus will be pleased," he stated huskily. "The Artisans will be treated with the honor and respect worthy of such a gift. You will sit with me in the balcony at the arena tonight and bear witness to the might of our god." He clasped his hands together and gave them a polite nod.

Scout hesitated. He glanced at Daniel, quickly, subtly, but Daniel read the question in his eyes and understood that the elder wasn't sure if he were supposed to acknowledge or decline the invitation.

"I think you should probably accept," Daniel advised him through the microphone.

The Forest elder bowed slightly. "I would be delighted." He signaled his party, and everyone pivoted to leave the inner temple.

Daniel was in the lead now, but as he faced the exit, he stopped, staring.

The massive brass doors were engraved with a star map, showing the location of every world under Zeus' control. Some had been freshly incised into the metal, presumably representing recent acquisitions by the Goa'uld overlord. The information was invaluable, and Daniel wanted to record it. He knew there was a setting in the s'resh controls for just such a thing, but couldn't remember the commands.

"We need to get a picture of these doors," he snapped, walking slowly toward them. "Does anyone remember how…?"  Daniel smothered a curse, his opportunity lost as a pair of junior priests opened the doors for them, hiding the panels from view against the walls.

Once they were outside the naos and out of earshot of the acolytes, Scout spoke to him softly. "The map has been recorded in all our thoughts, but I will show you how to work the controls in the tools of your s'resh, at a later time. For now, we shall return to our lodgings."

"Oh. Right." Daniel had forgotten about the nightly memory recording, and promised himself to make better use of it as a research tool.  He also needed to learn to be more patient with himself and not focus on his perceived failures. The mission wasn't about being perfect, but to be observant and offer his best performance, while trusting his teammates to deliver theirs. If he let himself get too wrapped up in self-recrimination, he could miss something important.

Scout laughed a little, his eyes twinkling. "Don't forget your first days among us, my friend. There are other possibilities you may not remember." His message was cryptic.

Daniel didn't press for an explanation, since they were still in public, but he mulled over what the elder had said all the way back to the marketplace and the Artisan house, still uncertain of Scout's meaning.

Once inside the building, they all opened their helmets. None of them had had time to record the star chart in the temple, and he doubted the quick glance he and the others had would be able to encompass every detail of the huge maps. How could the Furlings have managed?

"We've had extra eyes watching over us, friends," Scout declared to the humans, turning his eyes on Daniel, "just as we watched you from the beginning." He held out his hand, palm up, as if to offer a gift, but his hand was empty.

Daniel heard a familiar hum, barely audible, and the air above Scout's palm began to darken into a familiar shape.

Daniel gaped at the revelation. "Claire! You've been here all along?"

"Holy crap!" exclaimed Rose, sitting down on the nearest piece of furniture.

"Indeed," added Teal'c, his eyebrow lifted in surprise. 

More and more of the Sky Clan began to appear, some seated on furniture, others hovering in the air near the ceiling, still more zooming in and out of the doorways. A few Forest Clan people materialized in the corners as well, each clad in helmeted s'resh from head to toe, revealing their race when their visors opened. 

A memory of Daniel's first meeting with Forest Clan burst into his consciousness, and he recalled how the aliens had seemed to appear out of the shadows of the trees as they trekked toward Shahr. His eyes widened as realization struck him like a thunderbolt. The Furlings had often reminded him they'd been watching him since the moment he stepped through the stargate on their world. Now, he understood that many of them had been invisible, observing him up close, even when he'd been with SG-13, his every step and action under their direct scrutiny.

Not once had he ever been alone.

For a moment, he felt like a fool not to have made the connection sooner. The evidence had been there all along; he just hadn't paid enough attention to what his senses had been telling him. The quiet drone of tiny wings was a sound he'd been accustomed to screening out on Earth; insects were routinely ignored on his world and his mind filtered out the sound unless they got close. He'd heard them all along, and never noticed.

"Third Race," Daniel said aloud, reminding himself and his human teammates with whom they were dealing. "The Nox can make themselves invisible, heal injuries and raise the dead. The Ancients built stargates, and the Asgard…" Daniel shook his head, struggling to take it all in, sort it all out. "The Four Races shared their knowledge with each other. Whatever we've seen the others are capable of, we should expect from the Furlings."

He met Scout's acknowledging gaze and added, "You may have been in exile for millennia, but you had all that knowledge when you were marooned on Furdani, and you've obviously maintained a lot of it." 

Scout shrugged. "The Nox, Asgard and Ancients may have made advances after our exile that we don't know, just as we may've made discoveries beyond their capabilities at that time, but you're correct in your assumption. We still have much left to reveal to you and your people." 

And the Furlings had had every reason to be cautious. They'd been betrayed by those they'd once called friends and allies, nearly destroyed by them. Once burned, twice shy.

Daniel accepted their revelation in the spirit in which it had been intended, a sense of disgruntled acceptance settling into him. So much for what remained of his perception of privacy. Now he'd be listening as well as watching for observers when he wanted a moment alone.

"So, I take it someone was able to record the star chart on the temple doors?"

"Yes," Claire answered, taking to the air again and hovering in his line of sight. "We have images of the entire temple complex waiting for you to study. It is already in the database." She gestured toward his chest and the controls on his suit. "We have been recording all the events surrounding us from the moment we arrived."

Daniel closed the helmet and accessed the information on his visor. After quickly viewing what he needed, he sighed with relief and folded the helmet back into the collar of his s'resh. "Okay, that's two things you have to teach me now. Cloaking could come in very handy in the field." 

"Ditto," said Colonel MacFarland with a wide grin, a mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes as her gaze slid to Teal'c. "No tellin' what a gal could get up to, if she were invisible.  There could be... shenanigans."  Her eyebrows waggled at him suggestively.

"I am forewarned," Teal'c countered, a sidelong glance at Rose enhanced by a tiny smile from the big Jaffa. "My senses are keen, and I will be aware of your presence, if you should attempt to steal upon me in secret."

"When you least expect it, T-Bone," she taunted him, slapping his shoulder playfully.

His retort was a single arched eyebrow, daring her to try.

"Not touching that conversation with a ten-foot pole," Daniel mumbled.  It was obvious that Teal'c and Rose had hit it off, already behaving like long-time friends. Still, it was fun to see them playing like that. He suspected there might be pranks pulled at some point between them, and just hoped they'd harass each other and leave him out of the hi-jinks.

"We'll enjoy a refreshing meal, take a little rest and then have another lesson on the operation of your s'resh," announced Scout. "When we finish, we'll go to the arena for the gladiatorial contests." 

Platters of individual-sized meat pies, small casseroles, hearty sandwiches and blocks of cheese were being delivered as they spoke.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Daniel agreed, reaching for a plate and loading it up, starting with one of those tantalizing meat pies.

End Chapter 23

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