Battlefields

by Ellen Caldera

Chapter 6
Killing Time

Hock-spit tailed us back through the building and out into the bitter slap of frozen wind. It actually felt good to get out of there, even if it was cold enough for Satan himself to be wearing ice skates.

Fraiser was hustled off in Hock-spit's wake, tucked in among part of the pack of ever-present, smelly hulks of guard. Off to pick Dr. Kadina's brain in preparation to...well...pick Daniel's brain. I ended up standing out in the slosh of semi-solid mud - carefully upwind of the other half of the mongrel hoard - and watched the sun rise, burning over low, shadowed hills and melting its way slowly upwards through a gray sky.

I watched three more sunrises on Torrhena, and an equal number of sunsets, each one a variation on the theme of red and gray and blackish purple. Some mauve thrown in one time. Witnessed the rising of an odd little chain of several barren moons late one night. The rest of the time the sky was blanketed in layers of cloud and snow or freezing rain. Funny how the sky always cleared just enough at dusk and dawn to see the sun.

I paced the days away across ground that went from frozen, to slushy, to soupy and back again, sometimes huddled down into my coat, my wool cap pulled over my ears against the blowing sleet, sometimes looking up at the swirling gray sky sans hat and sans jacket, with the wind raking through my hair and sneaking down my shirt collar. I ate a couple of times - don't really remember what it was, apart from tasting like onions - sucked down the odd cup of ice-cold brackish water redolent of fermenting hops, slept a little when Fraiser broke away from her medical conference and insisted I do so.

They gave us the use of a small room in one of the buildings - not the admin building or the cellblock, thank God. The accommodations were spartan, but serviceable, with creaky cots and rough gray blankets.

We even got a visit to the bomb shelter - gray and nondescript, of course - one night during an air raid. The fighters sounded like a cross between a death glider and a helicopter, the explosions were muffled but respectable, and the craters in the mud and a couple of the buildings were suitably impressive. We also spent a couple hours getting friendly with the floor under our cots while some snipers got picked off out of the hills. And then there was the daily brisk march of fresh troops out of the base and the constant straggling trickle of last week's or last month's returning leftovers. All in all, just your standard issue military conflict.

The Tok'Ra missed most of the fun. They left the day after Daniel disappeared back behind the front lines, but Marty stayed for a while. I didn't bother asking him if the Tok'Ra had gotten all the cool new toys they wanted. Quite frankly, I didn't give a flying fuck.

Marty made himself scarce initially. Left me to my pacing, interspersed with intermittent attempts to surreptitiously pace right out of the camp. Raised the hounds every single time and ended up with me serving as their wayward sheep all the way back to the center of the complex. It seemed we had no choice but to wait.

Every so often, Marty would reappear, usually when I was standing still long enough to rest for a few minutes and consult with my knee on the approach of the next storm. His timing was so exact I could swear he was keeping a constant eye on me, but I never felt like I was being watched - not by him, at least - and I never caught him hovering.

He'd say hello and stand with me without forcing any chit-chat, then he'd go away again when I went back to pacing. I appreciated the thought, but it started to get on my nerves eventually. I wasn't getting anywhere by pacing, either, except deeper into the mud. So I dug out my deck of cards - still in my jacket from that last mission to the lizards and bromeliads planet - and taught Marty how to play gin.

Actually not the best choice in the world since it reminded me of Daniel, but Marty got to beating the pants off me pretty quickly, which is something Daniel has never managed. Losing got old fast, so I suggested we switch to poker, then blackjack, then "go fish," which I changed on the spur of the moment to "go fuck yourself." Marty gave me a funny look at that. I don't doubt he knew exactly what the expression meant, but I'm sure he also knew it wasn't directed at him. I think he was probably envisioning a different person every time he said it, just like I was. I've got a long list.

After she'd scraped the bottom of Kadina's barrel, Fraiser even sat in for a few hands. I'd be willing to bet she's got a long list, too. She certainly didn't seem terribly impressed with Karievesh medical technology and offered several vague mutterings on putting more effort into grinding bodies up than on piecing them back together. She was grateful, though, to have at least some sense of what she would be dealing with when Daniel returned - and dammit, he would be coming back.

Fraiser's not much better at waiting than I am, so around about noon of the fourth day, she started nattering on about what she'd learned. And damned if I not only listened, but actually understood what she was saying. See, waiting tends to do one of two things to me. Either I get so focussed on the thing I'm waiting for, I'm oblivious to just about anything else, or I'm trying so hard not to think about the thing I'm waiting for, I'll put all of my attention on just about anything else. So Fraiser's lecture on the inner workings of the brain was getting about 95 percent of my attention, with the other 5 going toward considering the odds of Marty having any six's.

The three of us were parked in the middle of Mud Central on some empty weapons crates - guess what color - slurping down some of the local equivalent of coffee Marty had rounded up for us. Amazingly enough, it didn't taste the least bit like onions. Or beer. Had sort of a cinnamon flavor to it. A touch of vanilla, too. But not too sweet. Just bitter enough to have the peel-your-eyelids-back kick of the strongest truck stop coffee back on Earth.

Fraiser rifled through her cards, rearranging and considering her next move. "So there's the reticular activating system, or RAS. No wait, let me back up to the thalamus. The thalamus is sort of like the brain's central switchboard. It routes the signals coming in from the body to the appropriate parts of the brain for processing. Martouf, got any six's?"

"No, Doctor Fraiser, I do not. Go fuck yourself." His eyes flashed briefly as he said it. Must be one off Lantesh's list. Or maybe he was expressing his disapproval of Marty getting coarse and crude with his language. Or maybe he was just pleased Marty was beating the pants off me - again. How the hell should I know? Who can know the ways of snakes other than the snakee, and I wasn't in a frame of mind to ask.

Besides, now I knew who was hoarding six's. And it was my turn. Sweet. "Captain, do you have any six's?"

She gave me a disgusted look and tossed three cards down on the table, then took a gulp of her drink before getting back to the wonders of the brain. "Part of what the RAS does is to regulate overall activity in the brain, and in a sort of simplified sense, to disconnect the cerebrum from the rest of the brain when you're asleep."

"Uh, cerebrum?" I tapped the top of my head, asking for confirmation. Hey, it'd been a long time since I'd taken a biology class. So I needed a little refresher on all the gobbledygook - cerebrum, cerebellum, thalamus, hypothalamus, medulla oblongata. God, there's a lot of shit crammed in there.

Fraiser nodded. "Yep, the stuff on top. The biggest part of the brain - the gray matter, where you think and feel and remember. So when you're asleep, your cerebrum is sort of cut off in its own little world, processing memories, rearranging the input you've had during the day, kicking out dreams here and there. But the RAS makes sure the thalamus doesn't send any of those impulses back out to your body. So if you dream you're running, you don't actually start running."

Marty's turn. "Colonel O'Neill, do you have any kings?"

Damn. I had just picked up a second one, and I hadn't asked anyone for kings yet. Lucky son-of-a- snake. I flipped the cards across the table to land in front of him.

"So getting back to this device Volish invented," Fraiser said as she contemplated her cards once again. "What it does, in a nutshell, is to act as a substitute RAS. The real RAS is taken offline and the gray matter ends up spinning its wheels. No input getting in from the outside world, no conscious output going to the body. But there's still output from areas like the brain stem, cerebellum, diencephalon - the parts of the brain that keep the autonomic functions going. Like respiration, digestion, circulation, metabolism - all the things you don't have to consciously think about, thank goodness, or we'd never get anything done."

I leaned toward Marty and said in a low tone of voice, but plenty loud enough for Fraiser to hear, "Yeah, like a certain doctor making her play sometime in the current century."

She quirked half a smile at me. "Very funny, Colonel. And while I'm busy laughing, why don't you just hand over that five you've got."

What the...? Oh, I guess I had asked her for five's back at the beginning of the game. I tossed her the card, and then shook my head in disgust as she laid down a complete set of four. How the heck had she managed to draw the other three five's? Lucky daughter-of-a-human. OK, my turn. I needed a moment to regroup and form a new strategy. "OK, so the doohickey sort of does a brain switchboard impersonation, right?"

"More or less."

"And?"

"Hmmm. Are you sure this isn't going to interfere with you making your play sometime in the next century?"

"Nah." I waved a deprecating hand at her. "I can multitask."

"OK." She laid her cards face-down on the table and picked up her mug, wrapping both hands around it. Uh-oh. That meant I was in for some serious big words stuff. Well, I had asked for it. "As part of the mimicking process, the control chip extrudes a mass of fibers into key parts of the brain so it can substitute its own commands for the commands that normally come from the cerebrum. The programming in the chip governs what the body does instead of the person's conscious mind. The chip can even work with other parts of the brain to invoke skilled movements the person has never learned, or enhance those the person has learned, such as..." She paused, frowned, set the mug down and picked up her cards again. "Oh, like...shuffling cards. Or hitting a baseball."

Why did I get the feeling the first thing she was going to say was firing a gun? Killing someone efficiently and effectively, with or without weapons. I sat up straighter and snapped with more force than I'd intended, "Marty, got any six's?"

"No, Colonel O'Neill," he said gently. "You have already obtained all of the six's."

Oh. Yeah. Right. I drew a card and tucked it into my hand without even looking at it, then straightened all my cards into a neat stack and set them carefully down on the table in front of me. "Look, why don't we just quit beating around the bush here, Captain. Just tell me what you think Daniel's chances are, assuming - and I'm going to go right ahead and assume away here - assuming he ends up in more or less one piece after that substitute programming is done pushing and pulling him every which way."

Her cards were still in her hands, tightly clutched. She ignored the "more or less one piece" part and backtracked to the chances. "If by `chances' you mean the probability of successfully removing the chip, then his chances are very good. Tristan was actually right when she said it was a simple procedure. The chip is implanted close to the surface at the back of the neck. In fact, I think I felt it earlier. There was a bit of swelling and a small bruise, but I didn't think it was any different from Daniel's other injuries. In any event, I can simply snip it out. Nothing terribly invasive."

"OK." I nodded once, slowly. She made it sound so simple. Slice and stitch and it's gone. If only... "But what about the fiber network? That stuff's buried pretty deep, isn't it?"

"Yes." She paused, eye me suspiciously. So I'd been paying attention. Again. Twice in less than a week. So what? "But I don't think the fibers will need to be removed. They're organic, made via a process similar to the way neural cells are formed in a developing fetus, but using a subroutine in the chip programming to provide the blueprint instead of DNA. The pseudo-neurons are highly efficient. In fact, that's part of what allows them to take over from the natural RAS. The rest of the brain actually prefers to interact with the more efficient cells. But unlike normal human neurons, these artificial cells are highly unstable. Without the chip to constantly maintain it, the network eventually breaks down and its components are absorbed into the surrounding tissues."

"Oh. OK." I sighed and squeezed at my forehead with one hand while gripping my knee with the other. Should be. Still too damn many questions, and no answers to be had without waiting it out, seeing what happened. "What about the amnesia?"

"That should cease after the chip is removed. The memory loss was almost certainly caused by the substitution of the false RAS and the virtual separation of the cerebrum from the rest of the brain. Put simply, there was no input reaching the parts of the brain necessary to even be processed into memory, either long- or short-term. The partial memories he does may have been formed during periods when the chip was overloaded with trying to process too many commands at once and the natural RAS was able to temporarily reestablish partial control. The brain is a very complex system, and manipulating an entire human body takes a tremendous amount of processing power."

Yeah, I guess that explained why I couldn't muster the energy to move at that moment. Too much garbage cramming the neural pathways to get any signals out to the body. Way too much nauseating, shitty garbage, and as much as I wanted not to think about it, I couldn't stop the avalanche of thoughts.

Fraiser apparently took my silence as a request for further information. Or maybe she was just talking to make noise, fill the space. I don't know. She was saying something about the separation of the cerebrum caused by the chip also being responsible for the lack of pain response. No signals getting up to the gray matter to even be recognized as pain, so short of massive physical injury...

I reached over and found her arm without looking, squeezed firmly, pinched off the flow of words. Slowly removed my other hand from over my eyes, gingerly picked up my cards and fanned them out. "I think it's your turn, Marty."

So we went on drawing and shuffling and rearranging cards while the sun crept across the sky and slipped in and out of cloudbanks. Gray cloudbanks, as ever. But now every single "go fuck yourself" - certainly mine, probably Fraiser's, and maybe Marty's as well - was exclusively for Adren Volish.

Amazing how mind-numbing repetitive tasks can be. In the end, you're not even thinking about what you're doing. No longer needing the distraction that originally led you to a deck of cards and something like coffee. Not thinking, the body running on autopilot, the mouth mechanically spitting out brusque requests for cards interspersed with the rapidly losing in meaning "go fuck yourself." Not even registering anything outside of your little circle of reality - three crates, one folding table, a trio of mugs, one deck of cards. A little space of muddy ground. Two companions. Misery loves company, ya know?

And then someone or something goes and rips that cocoon of oblivion wide open, dumps you unceremoniously back into the living, breathing, dying world. In this case it was Imaga, his battle armor dented, scuffed and mud-splattered, the white hair plastered with dirt and water into a gray skullcap, blood smeared lividly across one cheek - the only spot of color other than the sharp blue of his eyes. Sad, soulful eyes. Why hadn't I noticed that before? Or had they changed sometime in the last few days?

He was alone, straight from the field. So this was it. The end of the road. The final reckoning. The Grim Reaper come to gloat over those who had lost and were left behind. I swallowed, working to reconnect my brain to my tongue, finally managed enough for two words. "Daniel's dead." A statement, not a question. I refused to lower myself to asking that question, requesting anything from this person.

"I..." He paused, and a spasm rippled across his face. "I do not know. He evaded me, deep in Feloren territory."

But that meant - A sudden spark of exhilaration jolted through me. Oh hell, yes! That meant Daniel was still alive and kicking. I slammed my fist onto the table, sending cards skittering. I was grinning like a silly fool, knew it, didn't care. "Hah!" I jumped up, shoved my face into Imaga's, poked a finger into the middle of his chest. "That just shows how much you know, asshole. Blew your tidy little plans, did he? So sorry you won't be getting the chance to slit Daniel's throat after he does your dirty work for you."

Imaga blinked impassively at me. "No, Colonel, it is you who does not understand. I was simply the back- up plan, there to make sure Volish was brought to justice if there proved to be some flaw in the programming we implanted in your friend."

I pulled abruptly away from him, folded my arms across my chest. "Yeah, right. More like you were wanting to say hello to your old buddy the mad scientist. Uh-huh," I added, pleased at the startled look on his face. "Tristan told us all about your dirty little secrets, you slimy son-of-a-bitch."

I was expecting him to get angry, maybe even try to deck me, but he stood perfectly still, a sudden chill breeze lifting a small clump of his hair and make it flutter briefly. "I have no secrets, Colonel. That is part of the price I have paid for my transgressions, as is my customary silence. However, I have received permission to temporarily break with silence in order to bring you what news I have of your friend. Whatever you wish to know, if I have the answer, I will give it."

I was taken aback. That simple? Spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag? But he had been a scientist, after all, and I guess being allowed to talk freely about anything must've been like a virgin getting his first piece of ass. "OK," I said, narrowing my eyes at him. "For starters, how about telling us what condition Daniel was in the last time you saw him. And where and when was that?"

"Late yesterday afternoon. Outside the Feloren town of Semayna. Not far behind the line of battle. His course through Feloren territory was convoluted, mostly by necessity to evade enemy troops. In fact, he consistently circumvented rather than confronted any squadrons or scouting parties, so he had not sustained any injuries. He was not even showing appreciable signs of fatigue, despite not sleeping or eating in three days. Tracking him was...difficult."

OK, so I suppose I had to thank that piece-of-shit brainfucker chip for that much. "So you're telling me you lost him?"

"Yes." Face still, eyes controlled, body poised. He'd screwed up royally, but at least he wasn't making excuses. And I was sure Tristan was absolutely furious at the glitch in her tidy plan. That was something.

He blinked rapidly a few times, but the rest of his face remained perfectly still. Then he added something completely out of left field. "He saved my life." It took me a second to realize he was talking about Daniel. "I was surrounded by a Feloren patrol, one of those he had managed to elude. The leader was moving in for the kill when your friend subdued her. Rendered her unconscious along with the rest of her unit, although I doubt with any permanent damage. Blunt, quick blows to the backs of the heads with the butt of his weapon, but not with excessive force. Just enough, no more."

No excessive force? Just enough... "Hang on just a sec. You're telling me he was careful not to kill them? Or even really hurt them?" Did that mean Daniel was still hanging onto himself somewhere in there?

"Yes." Imaga looked confused. "He was never programmed to kill Feloren. We did not tamper with the existing programming more than was absolutely necessary. Of course, we suppressed the drive to attack Karievesh soldiers and civilians in order to prevent any further slaughter, but beyond that, we simply added a new imperative - the compulsion to find and eliminate Adren Volish. We felt it best to keep the alterations to a minimum since we were uncertain we had a clear grasp of all the subtleties of the coding."

"Oh. Right." Damn. Thought I had something there. But wait - "You said he saved you. He had no reason to engage those soldiers other than the fact that you were there and probably about to be killed." Imaga nodded. Oh yeah. I took a deep breath. "In fact, the original programming probably would've had something in it to allow him to recognize the Feloren as friendlies and not attack them."

Another nod, even more confused than before. Oh yes. "So the programming had absolutely squat to do with Daniel saving your sorry ass." Yes, yes, yes! That had to be it. All the pieces fit. Shit, it was a logical progression worthy of Carter or even Daniel himself. And Daniel was definitely still there. Despite everything, despite having his brain infiltrated with all kinds of shit that had absolutely no business being there, despite having his body commandeered and knocked around like a goddamn punching bag, he was still in there. Him. Daniel. Not some unnatural "it" using Daniel's body. It was Daniel who had saved Imaga and done it without killing anyone else. Daniel and no one else, the guy with the stubborn streak a mile long and a chip - pardon the choice of words - on his shoulder when it came to saving an entire planet or just one person. The guy with the knack for getting under my skin like splinters soaked in lemon juice. God bless him and keep him that way.

It was a high, a real rush, the first positive development in oh so many days. But like any high, I came crashing down off it when Fraiser asked, "But you have no idea where he is now?" Oh hell. Shit, shit, shit. I can be such a stupid fuck at times. That's what happens when you let emotions get hold of you. You completely forget the nitty-gritty essentials. Like it wouldn't matter in the slightest whether or not Daniel's brain was still tick-tocking along if his body ended up dead, seeing as the brain has this habit of going out of business pretty soon after the body closes shop.

"I'm afraid I have no idea. I tried to track him, but I wasn't able to pick up the trail again. He was gone, without a trace. I made my way back here and reported to the Thellok." He shifted uncomfortably, and I wondered if she'd been responsible for that blood on his cheek. Oddly, the thought didn't give me any satisfaction whatsoever. "The Thellok has said," he began hesitantly, stopped and cleared his throat, then started again. "She has said if your friend has not returned in three more days' time, you will be allowed to return to your own planet through the Stargate."

"Oh, that's mighty wide of her," I said softly, looking right over Imaga's shoulder towards the admin building. "Mighty wide. But it ain't gonna happen, not unless Daniel's with us. See, I've got this little rule about not leaving people behind - even if I don't like 'em, and I happen to be kind of attached to this one. So you can just tell Tristan - No, actually, I think I'd like to deliver this message myself."

I went to brush past him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me to an abrupt halt. "I'm afraid that will not be possible. The Thellok is deep in the midst of planning sessions for a major campaign."

We glared at each other for a few moments. No more sadness in those eyes, if it had ever been there. Maybe I'd imagined it. Hell, who was I kidding anyway. Sure, Daniel saved his life, but Imaga was still a soldier, loyal to his commander. Protective of her even if he would never be more than Tor-thellok to her.

I twisted my arm out of his grasp and took one step back. Just one. Wasn't gonna give him any more than that. "I guess that explains why we haven't seen hide nor hair of her in the last few days. Far be it from me to disturb the plotting of the great Thellok Tristan. So maybe you could deliver the message for me next time you see her?"

He eyed me warily, but said, "I could do that, if the message is brief."

"Oh, yeah. It's brief. Just three words, in fact. Tell her this - go fuck yourself."

Imaga raised an eyebrow, but that was all. He didn't comment, didn't say he would deliver the message or that he refused to do so. He simply made a squishy pivot on his heel and slogged away across the mud.

I suddenly felt like I was standing in a thick, gloppy puddle of glue. Or quicksand, sucking at my feet. It took some effort to take the few steps back to my packing crate and lower myself onto it carefully enough that I wouldn't slide right off and onto my ass in the mud. I doubted I'd be able to pick myself up again.

I propped an elbow on my knee and leaned my forehead against my hand, the other hand absently sliding cards around the nearest section of table. I heard Fraiser and Marty settle back into their positions, felt the air shifting around me as they moved, sensed the pressure of their eyes coming to rest on me. "There's really no sense in you hanging around here any more, Marty," I said with a weary sigh. I looked up at him, not quite focusing on him, not wanting to deal with whatever I might see on his face. "I appreciate everything you've done, but I assume you're free to go whenever you want. I'm sure you've got other business to take care of. Goa'uld bases to infiltrate, spying to do, raids to plan. You know - all that rebellion stuff."

Martouf didn't respond for a moment, and I was beginning to think he might actually protest and insist on staying for a while longer, when he nodded and said, "Yes. Of course. But do not hesitate to call upon me if you have further need of my services. Both myself and Lantesh would be happy to assist in whatever way we are able."

"Yeah. Thanks." There was a time I would've told him where he could stick his offer of assistance. After all this, though, not to mention that business on Netu, I was willing to accept it, even the Lantesh part. Sort of a package deal.

After Marty left, I gathered up the scattered cards, tapped them gently into a precise stack, shuffled, suggested a game of blackjack. Hah. Yeah, that was me all right. Jack of the Foul Black Mood - no longer caring to ignore or distract myself from my rotten bad temper. I flicked cards across the table, slapped them down in front of myself with vaguely satisfying force, tapped them on their edges in irregular rhythms. We played a dozen hands, every one of which I lost, so either Fraiser's a card shark in a lab coat, or I was desperately throwing the cards around, hoping for good luck to take over and run the game for me.

I finally shoved the cards into one big, haphazard pile and left them there, reached for my mug and knocked back the last bit of cold liquid. Made my stomach churn. "Explain something to me, would ya."

"Sure, if I know the answer. So don't go asking me what the meaning of life is or anything like that."

That managed to pull a trace of a smile out of me - barely there and quickly gone. "How is it that Daniel was able to remember more when we use the Tok'Ra memory device on him? I mean, if most of that stuff wasn't getting up into his gray matter to be stored in the first place, where was all of that coming from?" I had a feeling I knew the answer, wasn't entirely certain I wanted it confirmed, but the idea had turned into an itch and I had to scratch it, even if it bled.

"Well..." She sighed, leaned forwards, propped her elbows on her knees and let her hands dangle. "I've been thinking about that." Damn. I was half-hoping she'd say she had no idea. "I think - possibly - and this is just a guess, but it seems to make sense - that the Tok'Ra device was pulling stored material from the chip. I mean, it's not just the fiber network simulating the RAS. The chip itself sort of acts as a surrogate cerebral cortex - remembering, learning, considering, deciding. A very sophisticated artificial intelligence."

I looked down, shifted my foot back and forth in the mud, intently studying the resultant patterns of smeared bootprint. "So Daniel was getting all that crap dumped into his own brain because the memory device was pulling it out of the chip and tossing it out where his brain could get to it?"

There was a long pause. I didn't look up. Didn't dare. Didn't want to see the accusation. It might not have been there, but still - it very well might've been. I was the one who gone and got the damn thing after all. I was the one who put the Pandora's Box within Daniel's reach.

"Maybe," Janet finally responded. "But like I said, it's just a guess. And it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The video recordings..."

"Yeah, yeah." I cut her off. I didn't want to hear it. At that particular moment, in that particular place, looking across to the horizon and seeing that the clouds weren't going to clear for their sunset display on that particular day - realizing that that particular day was number thirteen since Daniel had gone his separate way coming home from P4X119 - I wasn't in a frame of mind to be kind to myself. I was only interested in digging in my heels and doing whatever had to be done. Even if it meant doing nothing. Waiting. More waiting.

Chapter 7
Casualties and Survivors

Two more days passed. Two ungodly long days. I gave up on playing cards, gave up even on pacing. Just stood and stared. A lot. Don't really remember what I was staring at, although I'm sure it was gray and muddy. Didn't even think much. The next day would be the day we would be "allowed" to go home, although I had no doubt the so-called choice of whether to go or stay would boil down to one right answer and more than just a single zap from a Karievesh gun for getting it wrong.

It was night, well after dark, and I was lying fully dressed down to my boots and wide awake on top of itchy wool blankets when there was a commotion out in the encampment. Not a returning soldiers kind of commotion. Not even an imminent attack commotion. Subtly different, more fractured and confused, Tristan's name liberally sprinkled throughout. Then my breath caught as I picked up one other word, the most important word in all that gabbling - Butcher. I never thought I'd be happy to hear that term, knowing it was being applied to Daniel.

I was up and out the door in a matter of seconds, leaving Fraiser cursing at herself for having taken her boots off. I knew she'd be right behind me, bootlaces flying and medical bag in hand. I hoped she wouldn't need the latter, but alive was alive. I'd take it however bloody and banged up it was.

I dodged, shoved and wove my way around the rapidly accumulating mass of spectators. The epicenter of the forming vortex of bodies was a pair of figures clad in black plating - Thellok Tristan; and the one with the helmet, visor pulled down, had to be Daniel. There was something in his build, in his stance, in his presence that told me it was him. He was still in there, inside that body and skull, just waiting to be let out again.

I wanted to run in and yank him back, haul him straight to the Stargate, willing or not, injured or not, brain-fried or not, but there was no way I was going to get through that press of bodies - not without a machete or a machine gun. So I waited. Again. Just a few minutes longer. I had waited this long. I could handle just a few more minutes.

Fraiser skidded to a halt beside me, and I put a hand on her shoulder, pressed down and squeezed firmly. It was finally going to end. Maybe not be resolved or dealt with, but at least over and done with.

The illumination was dim - silver from the chain of moons, blue-white from the compact light sources carried by some of the soldiers - and further diffused by the wet, clinging mist hanging in the air. Making everything ghostly, uncanny, surreal.

Daniel had something in his hands, was holding it out toward Tristan, some kind of bundle wrapped in mottled cloth - splotched black and white like the skin of some animal. He let go, let it drop, but hung onto a corner of the wrapping. Three objects fell out and made a muted thunk on the wet ground - one large and round, two smaller and oddly lumpy.

Daniel took several steps backwards, started to turn. Then slowly, so slowly I thought I was imagining it at first, he began to lean forwards. The movement rapidly gained speed, and he sprawled face-first into the mud. And lay there, unmoving.

Fraiser jumped forwards ahead of me, but I was only a few steps behind her. We closed the short distance rapidly, dropped to Daniel's side, rolled him over carefully. I cursed and fumbled at the helmet's chin strap while she checked his pulse, made a quick visual assessment of what she could see of his body. No idea where he got the armor. Didn't want to know, quite frankly.

"Oh God." Fraiser's voice sounded small and lost, muffled by the heavy air. I jerked my head up, heart racing even faster than it already had been. She wasn't looking at Daniel, though. Her eyes were fixed on something else, her breath coming in short, foggy pants. She was looking at the ground down past Daniel's feet. I followed her line of sight, my head turning slowly, reluctantly.

Imaga was there now, crouched near the ground, examining the objects that had fallen from the bundle. Tristan was at his shoulder. "Well?" she demanded impatiently.

"That's him," Imaga replied quietly.

That's him? Him who? I squinted, leaned over a little further. Winced as the light Imaga was holding played over what he was scrutinizing so carefully.

The mottled cloth - the dark spots were blood. And the objects - a severed head and a pair of hands, one hand cleanly separated at the wrist, the other one looking as if it had been wrenched off, jagged bone fragments translucent and shining wetly in the light. Oh my God.

I pulled my eyes away. Tried to abort the images that were flooding my mind. I couldn't help it. I knew firsthand how things like that happened. It was inevitable that the how and the who would try to come together in my head, but I'd be damned if I'd just let it happen. It wasn't him that had done it. I didn't want images that were nothing but lies.

Fraiser was evidently going through her own struggle, although I can't really guess what it might have been. She just about never sees the shit actually being done, after all. Just gets to put the pieces back together again after the fact. She blinked hard and slow a couple of times, twitched, shook herself, then went back to digging in her bag.

I finally got the helmet off, tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed. Thunk in the mud. Like a severed head. Christ.

Daniel's face was dirty, bruised and blood-spattered. Muscles slack, eyes closed and mouth open. But he was breathing, thank God. And there were flickers of movement behind his eyelids.

I let Fraiser take over, sat back on my heels, looked back toward Imaga and Tristan. He was saluting her in fist across the chest fashion. She returned the gesture, brisk and efficient, then turned and stalked back toward the admin building. Back to her sanctuary. Her room of brightly colored windows into hell.

Imaga returned his attention to the trophy - the gory proof of Tristan's victory. Already shoved to the back of the great Thellok's mind, no doubt, chalked up on the scorecard and then dismissed in the way death and brutality can only be dismissed when you're in the thick of it. It would come back to haunt her later, though. I sincerely hoped it would. Maybe one day she'd even truly regret how crassly she'd used a man she didn't even know.

But Imaga wouldn't forget. The look on his face - akin to what I'd seen on the faces of men and women alike, trailing their fingers lightly across the thousands of names inscribed across a black granite wound in the earth, frozen in a moment of silent grief as they come to the one name they're seeking. In the same way those men and women had touched the Wall, Imaga reached down and gently drew his fingers across the surface of Volish's face, pulling the eyes closed. Then he straightened up, looked one more time at what was left of his former colleague, and spat on it.

Fraiser didn't take long to determine Daniel was unconscious - yeah, I caught that one myself - but stable enough for travel. I think she wanted to cut and run just as urgently as I did - before someone who didn't know who Volish was or why parts of his body had been toted back to the Karievesh camp decided Daniel still needed to be lynched as payment for Karievesh body parts scattered on Feloren soil.

Oddly enough, it was Imaga who helped us bug out. Got us over to one of the ground cars - even helped carry Daniel the couple of hundred wet, mushy yards to get there - then drove us back to the Stargate. He didn't say a single word the entire time, just took care of business with a minimum of looks and gestures. I didn't try to get him to talk, and neither did Fraiser. There was really nothing left to say - to him, about him, about his world or his war.

Imaga didn't get out of the vehicle when we reached the 'Gate, but he did stay there with the door open until we got the wormhole established and lugged Daniel up the steps to the event horizon. We set him down there and paused to catch our breaths and to get a better hold on him before we went through. Didn't want to loose our grip and have him get tossed out the other end. That would've been one insult too many.

Before we picked Daniel up again, I turned back toward the waiting ground car, squinted until I could see through the mists and scattered patches of fog to Imaga's face, dimly lit by the soft illumination of the control panels. I gave him a half-wave, half-salute - a thank-you for doing what little he could. He seemed to understand. He crossed his arm over his chest and inclined his head in a slight nod. Then the door of the transport slid closed and the vehicle hummed off over the battered and broken terrain.

I took one last breath of Torrhenan air and blew it out in a long plume of steam. A few short steps across the event horizon, bodies split apart and sent screaming across the galaxy, and we were home.

Home, but still very much in the woods.

Daniel's final visit to Feloren territory had left him with some additions to the collection of minor injuries he'd already amassed, which Fraiser diligently cleaned, stitched and bandaged. More worrisome, though, was the fact he wasn't waking up. He was in a coma of sorts - caused, Fraiser surmised, by a combination of factors. Exhaustion, dehydration, shock. The end of the secondary programming after he'd brought the evidence of Volish's death back to Tristan. Possibly a conflict between the overlaid programming and the original programming, ending up with the chip stuck in the "on" position even though it no longer had anything to react to - no Karievesh, no Adren Volish, no Torrhena.

Bottom line, the fiber network still seemed to be blocking the real RAS. Blocking input to and output from the real Daniel. He was still trapped inside his own head, and the only way to liberate him seemed to be to remove the chip. But that was no big deal. Doc Fraiser was on the case. Simple procedure. Right?

A whole slew of tests later, every body function measured and checked and rechecked, Fraiser finally went ahead with the surgery. As thoroughly as she had studied the Karievesh medical files, and grilled Dr. Kadina on top of that, she still seemed apprehensive. That's really not like her, but I guess it's understandable considering the last time there'd been an attempt to surgically remove something alien from an SGC member's brain, it hadn't turned out well. One gravestone with the name "Kowalski" can attest to that.

Carter, Teal'c and I set up our vigil in the waiting room, filled up the coffee mugs. Even Teal'c sipped at a cup, liberally laced with cream and sugar. Ever since Urgo, he'll partake every now and then, only thankfully in much smaller quantities and at lower temperatures.

We didn't say much to each other - a continuation of the habits we'd developed over the past couple of days. The most talking I'd done during that time was at the debriefing where I laid out the whole sorry mess - while Fraiser evaluated what kind of physical mess she had laid out on the exam table in her infirmary.

I still remember the look on Carter's face when we came back through the 'Gate. Haggard, like she'd hardly slept the whole time Daniel was gone. Relieved he was back, of course. Other things, too - things tied into the filth and the blood, the black plating still strapped onto his body - and what the blood and the armor represented. She'd seen the same cold, hard evidence, after all, and this was a certain measure of confirmation for her. I knew she'd reason herself into knowing it wasn't Daniel who had done those things, but still - it was an image she didn't need.

We were only on the second round of coffee when Fraiser appeared in the waiting room, fully decked out in scrubs, the mask still on her face. My stomach lurched so hard I thought I was going to spew coffee all over the place. She was visibly shaken, and her hand trembled as she hooked a finger over the edge of the mask to pull it down. No. No, no, no, no. Not after all we'd done, everything we'd gone through to get him back.

But then she actually laughed. A nervous grin spread over her face. Shit. Was she losing it, cracking up right in front of us?

"Janet?" Carter said softly, tentatively, impending grief held rigidly in check.

Fraiser waved a hand and shook her head, pulled the surgical cap off and scrunched it up with the mask she was already holding. "It's OK. He's all right. We just moved him to recovery."

I did a full turn, waving my hands at the ceiling and ending with my hands on top of my head. "Jesus, Janet, you scared the shit out of me!"

"Oh. I'm sorry." She turned to toss the cap and mask into a bin in the corridor and wobbled as she nearly lost her balance. "Ah... I need to sit down."

Teal'c stepped forward and took her elbow, guided her to the nearest chair. Carter pushed a mug of coffee into her hands, said, "Decaffeinated," then sat and tucked her hands between her knees. "So what happened?"

Fraiser took a gulp of coffee, dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, blew out a quick breath. "The surgery was successful. The chip was close to the surface, embedded under the skin at the back of the neck. Not impinging on any brain or spinal tissue whatsoever. The fiber network is another matter altogether, but I left that alone, apart from snipping the terminal ends connected to the chip." She paused, took another sip of coffee.

"We used a local anesthetic. Less risky than general anesthesia, and there wasn't a need for it anyway since he was already unconscious. But as soon as I snipped the last fiber...he woke up. Fully alert and very agitated and disoriented. Startled the living daylights out of me. I honestly didn't think the effects would be that immediate. We ended up having to heavily sedate him so we could finish the procedure and close."

"Whoa," Carter said, leaning forwards and then sitting up ramrod straight. "But he's OK now?"

"Yes. Yes, absolutely. Give him a few hours to rest, get the sedatives out of his system, then you can go in to see him. We'll have to keep him under observation a few days, monitor him closely to be sure the fiber network is breaking down and there are no aftereffects, but everything looks good right now."

We were all so relieved, so thankful, felt so much lighter with the lifting of that one burden - he was alive, he would live - that we were lulled into a comfortable illusion for the next few hours. Everything was going to be OK. Everything had turned out fine. Once again. One more hair's breadth escape.

We went to the commissary and ate. We talked, we laughed. Carter even told an offcolor joke, which Teal'c, being Teal'c, raised an eyebrow at. Actually, I think Teal'c was a bit more guarded with his optimism than Carter and I were being. Kind of hard to differentiate that subtle of a shading with him, and I wasn't exactly intent on interpreting facial expressions at the time, least of all those of a customarily stoic Jaffa.

When we all trooped down to recovery at the appointed time, we were a little deflated by Daniel's lack of responsiveness. He was tired, that was all. He'd been through a lot. He'd just had the back of his neck sliced open, for Christ's sake - and woke up midway through. I think that would be enough to drain the yap and yammer out of even me. It was a short visit, closely chaperoned by Doctor Fraiser, her arms folded tightly across her chest, enforcing the five-minute curfew.

The next day wasn't any better, though, or the day after that. Or the next day or into the next week. He slept a lot, or at least pretended to. Half the time when I dropped by, his eyes would be closed. I think he was mostly avoiding talking to anyone or even looking at the world around him, limited as it was to gray concrete walls and IVs and medical monitors. Even the few times when I did catch him sitting up in bed, there were still dark circles under his eyes - eyes that refused to meet mine, to meet anyone's. He hardly ate, barely spoke outside of terse, superficial answers to direct questions.

Physically he was improving, although that was hampered by his lagging appetite and the frequent disturbances when he did really sleep. Nightmares. Waking up screaming more than once, but usually just setting the monitors to wailing with elevated pulse and blood pressure and respiration - symptoms that were often present even when he was wide awake. Post-traumatic stress with a chaser of depression.

What did I expect anyway? He'd been through hell, and he looked the part.

Fraiser tried various medications, which he took without protest or comment - and all of which had little to no effect. She brought in a psychiatrist - not MacKenzie - who reported slow progress. Actually, I think calling it "progress" was being optimistic. The only difference I saw was less staring at the walls or ceiling during his rare periods of wakefulness and more staring at his hands. Maybe Fraiser should've brought MacKenzie in. That might've at least gotten a definite reaction out of him.

Carter brought him cookies - which remained untouched or ended up being eaten by the nurses. Teal'c talked to him - a lot, in fact. I don't know what about because he always spoke in very low tones and would stop when I came into the room. That seemed to...I don't know that "help" is the right word for it. It did something, brought Daniel back to the land of the living a little bit - but only to make him feel the pain of his fractured memories, judging from the look in his eyes after Teal'c had been there.

I talked to Daniel, too, about what teams were offworld, doing what, what kind of rocks and various other assorted junk they were bringing back. Even brought him a few pieces that Rothman insisted would be fascinating to Daniel. He did turn them over in his hands for a few minutes, but then handed them back to me without a word. I tried to get him to play cards with me, even resorted to attempting to entice him with chess, but he wouldn't bite. Or speak. He had the rolling over and playing dead part down pretty good, though.

I finally ended up playing solitaire on top of the blanket at the edge of the bed, accompanied by a running commentary of any and all stupid and inane bits of trivia and pieces of gossip I could come up with. I even made up some pretty wild stuff that likely would've gotten me sued or slapped in the face by the subjects of the stories.

Nada. Nothing I could honestly term a reaction or a response. I was staring at the cards, considering throwing in the towel for the day, when his hand appeared in front of my face. He grabbed my wrist, squeezed it hard, whispered, "Jack, please. Get - Get me out of here." I looked up and was stunned to find myself looking into eyes that were actually...alive. Or at least, trying very hard to cling to life. The eyes of a drowning man with one word on his lips. "Please."

I went straight to Fraiser, told her I was taking Daniel home. She gave me a look that said she clearly thought I was off my rocker, but when I told her he'd actually asked me to get him out of there, she paused for a moment - a very long moment - then conceded. Amazing the reaction one little sign can get. A supposedly dead person twitches; a comatose person opens his eyes; a virtually catatonic archeologist begs a favor.

When I went to tell him he was being released, he was already up and trying to dress himself. I guess he was planning on going no matter what Fraiser had to say. Not that he was doing such a great job of getting ready for the great escape. He'd apparently yanked the I.V. out himself judging from the bloodstain seeping through the plaid of his shirtsleeve. His belt was still unbuckled, his shoes were unlaced, and the two shirt buttons he'd managed to get fastened were in the wrong holes. Civvies - that damn plaid shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, all just shy of being ready for the rag bin. Comfortably worn. His favorites. Where they'd appeared from, I had no idea. Probably another Fraiser touch, but I doubt this was quite the release from her care she had in mind.

I asked him if he wanted me to call one of the nurses to help him - I knew he wasn't going to let me do it - but he gave me a terse "no" and doggedly kept at it until he had himself all buttoned up and tucked in. He refused the Band-aid I held out to him. The bleeding had already stopped. Too late for the favorite shirt, not that he seemed to care. He was completely focused on getting the hell out of there, but quite frankly, I had my doubts he'd make it all the way topside unassisted. His face was flushed from the exertion of getting up and getting dressed, and besides that, he'd hardly eaten or slept in days. That's enough to make even Teal'c a little unsteady on his feet.

Daniel gutted it out, though, walking along as steadily as he could manage, eyes straight ahead, faintly nodding at those who greeted him, ignoring those who stared at him or avoided looking at him. Kind of made me wish, not for the first time, that there was some kind of weed killer for grapevines.

Once he'd settled into the passenger seat of my truck, he slumped back and took a deep, shuddery breath. He was sweating, a thin sheen on skin gone pale. I didn't comment, just let him be as I pulled out of the parking space and headed for the guardhouse and the open road. Sunny day, the occasional cloud scudding across the sky, light breeze stirring through aspen leaves, cool outside but warm and quiet inside the cab of the truck. The only sounds were the hum of the wheels on the road and the wind sweeping around the truck, catching with a whistle in the cracks of door and window.

I was beginning to think Daniel had fallen asleep when he asked where we were going.

"I kind of assumed you'd want to go to your apartment," I said, glancing at him as he opened his eyes and sat up, facing forwards, staring at the road ahead of us.

"No," he said softly, with a hint of what I took to be sadness. "Can't... I just can't."

"OK. My place then. I think I've got some Campbell's Soup in the cupboard."

He snorted, a harsh and bitter sound. "No thanks. All I really want is a good, stiff drink. Make that several."

My eyes flicked from him to the road, trying to assess if he was serious. Seemed like he was. "Umm, I'm not sure that's such a great idea."

"I don't care," he said with a bit more force, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes again. "I just need...something. I don't know what. Some way to just...stop thinking for a while. I can't stop thinking about it."

Not surprising, Daniel being who he is, but still - it wasn't easy to hear him say it. Another confirmation. But I guess you don't get anywhere until you face up to what's twisting your gut in knots. There's only so long you can shove pain back down before it ends up hell-bent to strangle you.

Booze wasn't going to help him, though. I've been there. I know. But I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to convince Daniel of that. Not with words. He'd just have to find out for himself, find his own way of coping. So we went back to my place, but before I let him near anything that could be classified as alcohol, I insisted he eat something. He didn't even argue. Just headed for the kitchen and started rummaging through the cabinets, managed to find some crackers and peanut butter I didn't realize were in there. He sat down at the table and started munching away, his jaw working mechanically, each swallow hard and slow.

I think he probably would've gone on like that until he gagged. Not like peanut butter is the easiest thing to swallow on a good day. I went and opened the refrigerator door, looking for something to offer him to wash it down. Plenty of beer. An open can of Coke, definitely flat by now. The remains of a gallon of milk, two weeks past the expiration date. OK, so it'd be beer. One or two bottles, he'd be zonked, and that would be that. He'd end up with enough of a hangover to realize there were no answers to be found either in a drunken haze or its aftermath. He always catches on lickety-split. I was hoping this would be no exception.

I set a bottle down on the table next to him, took one of my own, twisted the cap off and leaned back against the counter as I took a swig. Daniel barely paused between bites of cracker as he absently popped the top off his bottle and took a long pull - several swallows worth. And then he slammed the bottle down on the table so hard I'm amazed the glass didn't shatter. His hand flew up to his mouth and he was up and sprinting down the hall toward the bathroom a split second later, the chair he'd been sitting in hitting the floor like an afterthought. The sound of gagging and retching was quick to follow.

I just stood there, strangling my bottle with one hand and gripping the edge of the counter with the other. Damn it all to hell. What had I been thinking? The smell, that taste...reminiscent of the water on Torrhena. Fraiser had explained to me at some point during the past few days that Daniel was likely to have strong reactions to smells associated with what had happened to him. Taste as well since that's closely related. Even more so than a person would normally have. Seems that smell bypasses the thalamus on the way to the brain, so that was the one input that wasn't blocked by the implant Volish put in Daniel's head.

Cursing at my stupidity, I emptied the contents of both bottles down the drain and ran several gallons of water from the tap, then disposed of the carcasses in the trashcan in the garage. By the time I'd done that and opened the window over the sink to clear the last of the smell, the gagging coming from the bathroom had stopped. There was a flush followed by the sound of running water. I walked down the hall slowly, wanting to give him time to compose himself, so by the time I poked my head around the edge of the open doorway, he was sitting on the closed toilet lid, head in his hands.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Hey, no big deal. I should've known better. I mean, Fraiser told me..." I trailed off, thinking maybe it would be better if we just didn't talk about it at all.

He shook his head, looked up at me briefly, his eyes quickly jerking away from my face and darting all around the room as he spoke. "No, it's OK. It's just that I remember the smells. Really, really well. Stale water, a fermented smell, like the - like the beer. Cold air, wet, damp. Musty, moldy. Blood. Lots of blood. Vomit, rotting bodies, burnt flesh. God. All mixed together." His shoulders heaved and he shoved a knuckle into his mouth and bit down. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, but he shrugged away from me, lowered his hand to his lap, took a few deep breaths.

"So how much do you really remember? Other than the smells?" It was a difficult question to ask, and I was sure it wouldn't be easy for him to answer, but with Daniel, the quicker you can drag something out in the open, the better. Otherwise, he'll stew on it endlessly, let it eat him up inside for so long it becomes a part of him. I wasn't about to let this become part of him any more than it had to be.

"Bits and pieces mostly. Before I was captured. Then with you and Janet in the prison cell. The recordings. A little bit when I was searching for Volish. There was someone following me. I think I helped him even though there was something - from the chip, I guess - telling me I shouldn't. And then there was the other stuff the Karievesh added on. I remember the compulsion... It was overwhelming. I had to find him, had to kill him, had to..." His hands were clenched in his lap now, shaking, his thumbs rubbing back and forth across the joints of his index fingers. "I know what she wanted - the evidence. I remember that. I don't remember actually doing it, but I can fill in the blanks." He paused for a moment, caught his breath. I put my hand back on his shoulder, and this time he let it stay there. "God, I hated him so much, and it wasn't all the programming in that damn chip. I hated him - I still hate him - for what he did, what he was doing, to me, to other people, to all the victims. The dead and the dying. The ones I killed with my own hands."

Watching him tear himself up like that wasn't easy, even though I knew it was necessary. To be perfectly honest it made my blood boil. Because of Volish, the sick, sadistic bastard. Because of Thellok Tristan and her part in the whole awful mess. Plus I was plenty angry - rip-roaring angry - at myself for letting her manipulate all of us like that. Oh, and for thinking that another mindfuck - and a Tok'Ra one at that - was a good idea. I might've even been a little bit angry at Daniel, God knows why. Maybe for insisting on using the memory device.

Somehow, though, I was able to put all of that aside and managed to say in a relatively calm and controlled voice, "It wasn't you, Daniel. You didn't do those things. You're not responsible. No more than Sha're was responsible for what Ammonet did."

That shook him, just as I'd hoped, kicked him right in the heart and the gut. He looked up at me with a wild and terrible grief in his eyes, but it burned bright and fierce like a flash of gunpowder and was just as quickly gone. He slumped over, buried his face in his hands. "You're right." The words were muffled, barely touched by conviction, but at least they were there. "I know you're right. But that doesn't make it any easier to live with."

"I know. It hurts like hell. It'll keep you up nights, maybe on and off for the rest of your life." He looked up at me, the shadows slipping and slithering all around his eyes. Some new ones in the collection, painfully dark. "You know, a very good friend of mine once gave me kind of a strange answer when I asked him if he was OK. He said he wasn't - but he would be. That's probably one of the most honest things anyone's ever said to me. Not pretty, not terribly reassuring, but the truth. You'll be OK, Daniel. Trust me on that one. Trust yourself."

He stared at me for a long moment - dumbfounded, confused, hurting, upset, scattered and uncertain - but he finally nodded, let the barest sliver of a sad smile creep into his face for just a few seconds. It was a start.

I gave his shoulder a quick shake and let go. "How about we go sit out on the deck, get some fresh air? I could order some pizza. Or some Chinese. I think there's even something left in that bottle of scotch Carter gave me for my last birthday. Real smooth stuff. That should go down easier."

So we went and sat under the wide, clear sky, bright and achingly blue, washed with sunlight and wisps of cloud. Sipped at the last of the scotch, ate fried rice and moo goo gai pan, listened to the radio - classical stuff, nice and soothing and noncommittal. Didn't talk. Just shared the solitude, the feeling of life going on all around us. Watch the sun set and the stars come out, one by one. Simple things. Everyday things. Meaning of life things. The things that let you know it'll be OK, if you're just willing to let it. I believe that. I really do.

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