Rebellion (7 page)

directives. One, i'm supposed to get this mine up and modernized. Two, I'm to handle any disruptions from outside sources-that means marginalizing this Daniel Jackson character." He shrugged. "I don't see any problem there. He's offered to teach the locals English. But we'll offer English classes that will knock the natives' socks off.

Audio-visual. Multimedia. We've already hired an educational TV company to make it as slick as possible. I'm figuring how many portable generators we'll need to run the video screens." Lockwood brought himself back to the task at hand. "And finally, I'm supposed to do all this while managing a profitable production of ore from the mine operation as it exists now." "But you're holding to production figures that I told you are too high." Preston's pudgy face was tight with disapproval. "I thought the figures cited by the Elders at Nagada were excessive, and you've inflated them." "It's a level of production that this mine has achieved in the past, according to our military sources."

"Yes. I was there with one of those military sources. He told me the only way those figures were achieved was by using the whole city's population as slave labor. This great god Ra or whatever was working them with guns to their heads. How do you expect to match that?"

Annoyed, Lockwood went back to riffling through reports. "My mandate is to achieve the highest production possible from the get-go. You copy?

This quartz stuff is apparently very valuable, judging from its price per ton. It's also very versatile, because research centers all over the country are screaming for it. And we've got to provide the stuff-in bulk." He tried to sweeten this annoying subordinate. "So I'll have to ask you and the local labor force to sweat a little until we get modern methods in to pick up some of the slack-" "'Pick up the slack?"' Preston echoed. "There's no way we can modernize part of that operation without disrupting the rest of it. These people have been working that deposit in the same manner for thousands of years. There's no way you're going to come in with hoists and ore conveyors and not joggle their elbows.

You're not even considering a training curve for using your new technology. Production at that mine is going to go down-perhaps steeply-before it heads up." "Thank you for your consultation," Lockwood said. "I think you're wrong. Why don't you let me worry about modernizing the place while you do the job I need you to do. You just keep these Abydos people as productive as possible during our teething pains." Lockwood gave Preston a wintry smile. "Until we have the machines in and can afford to get rid of most of them." "Meals, Ready to Eat." The bald supply officer looked dubiously at the amount O'Neil was requisitioning. "For the number of men you're taking, this will be a six-month supply." "We don't know if reinforcements will be needed,"

O'Neil replied. "I thought you were expecting to get supplies from the local people." "We expect to," O'Neil said. "But I want to make sure we don't strain their resources-and I want a reserve." It's just a case of trucking the stuff here and getting it through that StarGate thingie,"

the supply man said. O'Neil hid a smile. There spoke a man who'd never been through the StarGate. He wondered how the man would feel about the

"StarGate thingie" after it tore him down to atoms and squirted them a million light-years through a tunnel that didn't obey THREE-dimensional geometry. The bald officer moved on, his hand scratching in puzzlement through the fringe of hair around his vast expanse of scalp. "Now, about all this ammunition." He squinted at the quantity requested. "You intend to run a whole lot of livefire exercises?" "I don't know who or what we may end up shooting at," O'Neil said. "But I don't want the balloon to go up and have us stuck without enough ordnance to handle whatever happens. Besides, we may get reinforcements, and I want bullets for them as well as food." "Um-hmmm," the bald man said. "A chicken in every pot, and a Stinger missile for every man." He tapped another figure on the requisition list. "You want more Stingers than we sent to Afghanistan for their entire holy war. And the towel heads on this-um, Abydos-are so backward they'd probably think a bow and arrow was hopelessly high-tech. Why do you think you'll need so many hand-held missiles?" O'Neil restrained himself with difficulty. "I need the Stingers because General West turned me down on building some hardened SAM sites." The officer stared at O'Neil in disbelief. "You wanted to set up fortified surface-to-air missile sites on this planet? What for?

You think the Russkis are going to sell the towelheads-" This time he caught O'Neil's disapproving look. "Ah, the natives have a couple of AirForce surplus MiGs that we'll have to defend ourselves against?" Then understanding dawned on the officer's face. "Oh, maybe you're concerned about flybys from the people who built the StarGate." He tried a joke.

"Are you sure Stingers are effective against flying saucers?" O'Neil didn't laugh at the man's heavy humor. "I could give a rat's ass about flying saucers." His face grew more somber as he remembered the combat gliders his second in command, Lieutenant Kawalski, had had to dodge.

Not to mention Ra's own spacegoing palace. "It's the big flying pyramids that worry the crap out of me."

On the Abydos side of the StarGate, a sudden wash of energy spurted outward from the toroidal quartzose ring, then formed itself in a vortex pointing in the opposite direction. Then the energy flux stabilized into a shimmering lens shape, like a glowing liquid jewel in a golden quartz bezel. An instant later, that jewel-like illusion was destroyed as a ripple disturbed the shimmering surface, and a human figure formed and was spat out. Eugene Lockwood's first step on an alien planet was more like a humiliating belly flop. From his briefing, he knew he was inside a giant pyramid, in a good-sized hall. What he didn't expect was the godawful racket of a gasoline-powered generator powering a temporary light system. The explosions of the machine's internal combustion engine echoed off the dressed-stone walls. Lockwood moved from the StarGate chamber down a hallway to a wider room set with what appeared to be beaten-copper disks vertically arranged on the floor and ceiling.

His briefing described this room as the site of some sort of shortrange matter transmitter. Beyond was a rising ramp, a huge stone gallery, which then widened into a pillared entrance hall. Here he caught up with the people he'd come to see-the UMC blasting team assembling demolition charges around the narrow exit to the outside world. In contrast to the generous proportions of the inside passages, the entrance itself was a virtual bottleneck, barely as wide as the height of a tall man. Lockwood cast an anxious glance at the planted explosives as the team wired up the detonators. "You're sure this will work?" he asked the head blaster, a short, red-faced man who worked with a slightly soggy, unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. The look the explosives expert gave his boss was almost hot enough to set off the blasting charges. "We've checked the load-bearing limits of the stones, and we know how to site a blast. All our shaped charges will do is widen that doorwayunless you want to bring all the equipment you send to this joint in small pieces."

"But it won't harm the StarGate?" the nervous Lockwood pressed. "That doodad is about as far from the discharge as you can get," the demolitions expert replied. "But we're gonna set up some blast shields just in case." He ran an experienced eye over his subordinates' work.

"Perfect," he declared, his cigar at a jaunty angle. "When this blows out, we'll use the rubble to help widen the ramp leading up to the door." They unspooled detonator wires backward to the StarGate chamber.

More men and materials were arriving from Earth. Heavy steel shields and braces moved forward to block the entrances to the StarGate and transporter rooms. "We're ready to go," the blaster announced. So Lockwood did, heading back to Earth. It seemed that no sooner had he arrived and pulled himself together than the blaster came hurtling out of the StarGate. "Crank 'em up, boys!" he cried to the other workers in the converted missile silo. If the noise in the StarGate chamber had been loud, the roar that filled the converted missile silo was deafening. The heavy engines of the earthmovers stationed in front of the StarGate throbbed with power, a low counterpart to the cycling of the gate itself. Lockwood felt a moment's sympathy for the Army sentries permanently posted at the transition point. The tumult was like a physical blow. Those poor grunts must be practically numb. THREE

bulldozers stood ready to move to Abydos. The first ground its way up the expanded and strengthened ramp to the rippling energy lens, moved through, and disappeared. Remembering his own disorientation, Lockwood fervently hoped that the driver remembered to cut the engine as he hit the threshold. The StarGate cycled down, giving the first machine time to move out. A few minutes later, power was fed again to the alien construction, and the second earthmover passed through. Lockwood waited until the third construction digger had arrived on Abydos before risking the

StarGate again. He arrived to find that the bulldozers had already cleared the blast-shields from the passageway. Following gingerly after the throbbing mechanisms, Lockwood and the blasting chief retraced their steps through the chambers and up the ramp. As they reached the entrance hall, the executive could see that there was much more light coming in.

The slit-like gap in the wall was no more. Instead, a much wider opening allowed the glare of Abydos's THREE suns to pour in through a cloud of rock dust. The new, improved portal would require some work-broken stone at the ragged ends of the blast needed to be shorn straight, perhaps a concrete arch would have to go in place. But the new adit was more than wide enough to accommodate an earthmover, as one of the bulldozer operators demonstrated as he jockeyed his machine forward to push away the first load of rubble. "It's a start," Lockwood conceded. And we didn't bring the roof down on ourselves, he silently added. The outward-directed force of the blast, combined with the long, tube-like set of chambers behind it, had the same effect as the crack!

of a rifle shot-except on a much more massive scale. And this "rifle"

was aimed directly at the city of Nagada. The blast wave didn't hurt anything-the explosion was too far away and the city too sturdily built.

But the sound struck the inhabitants like a sonic boom, a more impressive experience, since only one of them-Daniel Jackson-had any experience of jet planes. Daniel abruptly declared an end to his advanced hieroglyphics class when the dull booming sound pulsated through the air. "What the hell could that be?" he muttered as he set off through the streets in search of Kasuf. Daniel found the town leader in consultation with several of the other Elders. They adjourned to one of the spidery watchtowers, hoping to get a long-range glimpse of whatever was going on. Kasuf's face was stiff with dread, and Daniel could understand his concern. The last things to come from the great pyramid had been udajeet gliders lancing down out of the sky on a terror mission, lancing bolts of destruction into the helpless city. A couple of Skaara's home-guard members came into view, running madly up the dunes. One fired off a rifle shot into the sky while the other gesticulated in the direction of the pyramid. Kasuf drew himself up.

Whatever was going on out there, it would have to be met and dealt with.

He called an order, and several howdah-equipped mastadges came galumphing down the crooked streets. Well, Daniel thought, they'd ride out in comfort and the best possible local speed to investigate events.

The massive gates of the city opened, and the eavalcader was that mastadgecade? a bemused Daniel wondered-set off. Skaara had turned up from somewhere to join them as they careened their way over the brownish dunes. Soon enough they reached the young watchers, who accorded Skaara snappy military-style salutes. Their report, however, was less precise.

Apparently, there had been a tremendous explosion at the pyramid where Ra's spacecraft had docked. Afterward, a roaring yellow machine appeared. Seeing this, the boy commandos had fled to spread the word.

Daniel frowned. Could something have gone wrong with the StarGate? For a second an unworthy part of him hoped so. Better that he lose his connection with Earth than see the culture of Abydos torn apart by corporate wolves. They topped a dune and came into sight of the pyramid.

Daniel saw bulldozers and wreckage, and a red haze descended over his vision. The front face of the pyramid was no longer a perfect sweep of limestone. The base had been blasted, and a huge rent had been torn in the stone. Instead of the severe, tight arch of the old entrance, rubble was now being shoved to either side of the old entrance ramp.

Among the wreckage were the pair of stone obelisks which had once flanked the ramp. Kasuf and his compatriots sucked air between their teeth in shock. More workers marched out of the violently expanded gateway. Some went to work shoring up the breach they'd created. Others began laying gravel over the stony rubble and mixing cement. Apparently, they intended to expand the rampway to THREE times its original width.

That would allow heavy machinery like the bulldozers to roll down without problems-not to mention big trucks. Daniel was so angry, he flung himself out of the howdah before the mastadge stopped moving-and nearly got himself stomped on. After managing the avoid the mastadon-like beast's huge, klutzy feet, Daniel began running for the ramp. "What the hell are you guys do-" He skidded to a stop after confronting something he hadn't noticed in his anger. There was a military presence around the pyramid. Marine troopers in desert camouflage were aiming rifles at him. Slowly, Daniel spread his arms to show that his hands were empty. "Hey, guys. No gun, see? I speak the same language you do, right? You can't shoot me. I'm the translator."

An all-American civilian type with the word executive written all over him came storming down the ramp. "What are you people playing at-Lawrence of Arabia on mutated camels? You could have gotten hurt, wandering into a construction zone." "Yeah, well, we didn't see any warning signs up about getting crushed or shot," Daniel retorted. "Our only clue was the explosion when you blasted our pyramid." "Your pyramid? I believe our Mr. Draven made it clear that we required unlimited access to the StarGate." "But we didn't know unlimited access'