Ch.94

I stood and walked on two legs for the first time in thousands of years. Daniel Jackson asked what I'd done and to his surprise, he caught me when I stumbled as I slurred, telling him ascended beings can take form again. I groaned at the light and spent the next few days telling Daniel I didn't remember anything from being ascended because the knowledge was too much to process for a human form.

I stood before the columns and saw all the gate addresses before writing them down in a journal Daniel gave me along with the compensation equations for planetary shift. Daniel pulled me to another chamber when I finished and showed me the walls of hieroglyphs. I shook my head telling him I didn't read the language or pictographs, I was more of a military man before I was with the ancients and even afterwards I worked on weapons and high energy output compensation equations.

He frowned and I shrugged. "Weapons and power generation. I can make a tactical nuke out of household items or build a solar reactor from basic technology of the twentieth century earth or beyond. I don't work in languages or history much. Mostly I just killed evil things and put down threats or made weapons to do so when I wasn't ruling a kingdom."

Daniel didn't know what to think so he asked about my life before the Atlantis and I frowned, saying I should remember it, but it was fuzzy, like I'd locked it away as well. I shrugged. "Guess I wanted to start over or the others don't want me to know something. Either way it feels good to feel with flesh again."

I left the dark chambers and stood outside, sighing as I felt the warm sand beneath my feet. Daniel said I should wear sandals or something but I shook my head. "My body is immortal. Nothing can kill me for good which frustrated the others when they were flesh because they wanted to be like me. All I can think when I try to imagine immortality is that it's a curse rather than a blessing."

Daniel seemed surprised. "Really? To see and do so much? To watch history unfold?"

I shrugged. "If you had my immortality you'd have to watch Sha're grow old and die, to watch whatever kids, grandchildren, friends, passing acquaintances, do the same. There's a reason the mythological gods were never happy Daniel, and I'm not talking about the aliens that pretended to be them either. I can't imagine the things I've forgotten and suddenly I'm happy I have forgotten them if only for a time while I journey as flesh and blood once more."

I spent most of the year amongst the locals, teaching them to make glass from sand, showing them how to store water and make underground reservoirs. I mapped out a good portion of the planet, made several oasis with some few fruit seeds, clay, silt and what dirt I could dig from under the sand. Their lives became much easier with moisture collectors, an underground cave system fortified with glass and wood.

I'd showed them how and they'd built a small city underground out of the heat. What's more the glass reflected light so one torch would last half a mile or so with special mirror glass reflecting it. The entrances were hidden under tent flaps covered by sand. The city went to each reservoir with the oasis's on top as markers to denote where the entrances were.

The rooms were quite large and soft beds were made of hide, blankets of fur and such. The reservoirs were filled with clean water and using animal fats, some basic flower resins and oils, soap was made for them. I mined some naquadah as Daniel called it from what the people told him and used it to make tools, teaching them to forge, build and grow.

They went from a basic Stone Age level society to a near Middle Ages level society within the span of a year. I'd even built a basic plumbing and shower system into their city and homes, using the sun's heat to heat the water a bit during the day for hot showers if they wanted. Daniel toiled away with his studies and I gave the men repeater crossbows with naquadah tipped arrows.

I even made my own saltpeter and reloaded their old shells from the Ra rebellion, giving them more ammo to work with. I sort of ran out o naquadah then so I taught them to read, write and do mathematics all the way to basic calculus. The kids picked it up faster and Skaara and the warriors learned combat from me. I even taught some of the women and teens self defense.

From martial arts to tactical combat, within a year I turned barely blooded kids into warriors who knew how to find advantages, not stand in the open and aim for weak points in armor. They were a bit hesitant to try it on me, but I pulled the bullets and arrows out before healing so it was fine. They called me a god and I shook my head, telling them I was human like them and all humans healed, I just did it a lot faster so I couldn't die.

When Jack and the others returned after he sent a Kleenex pack through, he bitched about telling Daniel to keep the gate buried. I lowered my hood and told him. "It wasn't Daniel that unburied it and he's not the king of these people. It wasn't his decision to make and it isn't yours either Colonel."

Jack scowled. "You-"

I nodded and he was shocked when his hand didn't go through me. I smiled. "Yes, me. I asked that it be unburied to try and jog my memory. I seemed to have forgotten a great deal in my haste to become corporeal again."

Daniel told them to join us for the evening meal and I left him there, turning to a beautiful woman I hadn't had the pleasure to meet last time. I held out my hand. "My names Oz, former king of a country on another world, former ascended being and current physical immortal. I don't remember a lot of my past, but I'd think I'd have remembered a beauty like yourself."

She caught herself and spoke. "Big, I mean, Sam, Captain Samantha Carter. But you can call me Sam."

I smiled. "I like Samantha, it's more than simplicity and a beautiful name. Unfortunately I don't know if Oz is short for something. I'm so old I doubt I ever knew."

She raised an eyebrow. "Old?"

Daniel answered for me as I sat down beside Skaara. "Oz is over four billion years old and from what he explained before he took on human form, he's from another reality. He's an unkillable immortal human that has a specific genetic mutation that made him rapidly heal to the point where he doesn't age and he revives from basic molecules if he's burned to ashes."

They were shocked and I shrugged. "I don't remember it. I think the other ascended blocked my memories or I did to start over. Immortality is a curse after all, not a blessing."

Jack asked. "So if I were to shoot you?"

I picked up a knife and opened my shirt, cutting into my chest and pulling out my still beating heart. It was gory and even Sam grimaced, but the watched my chest heal. "I'd heal slowly as my body forced the bullet out of if it's in the head, I might be brain dead for a few hours until the bullet is attacked by my body and turned into waste."

I tossed the heart into the fire as it stopped pumping and Sam asked. "Doesn't that hurt?"

I shrugged. "It does, but I seem to have an extremely high tolerance for pain. What doesn't kill me and all that fun stuff."

I took a bowl and downed the contents, sighing. "Almost pure ethanol and I can't even get drunk. A waste of alcohol."

Skaara offered Jack some and he tried it, coughing. "Moonshine? What have you been teaching these people?"

I pointed to Daniel. "That one's on him. I suggested wine, but he wanted to try and see how alcohol effected me."

Skaara chuckled and a major tried it. I didn't care to learn his name. He coughed and Skaara offered Jack a lighter before Jack told him to keep it. Daniel asked about the other being like Ra and said they must've come from another gate.

Sam said the gate only goes here and I chuckled while Daniel said he was wrong. He gestured to me. "Before he became an amnesiac, Oz told me the story of the the gate builders and I can safely say it goes to several galaxies of worlds at least."

Sam spoke up. "I was there, we ran hundreds of permutations."

I passed her my journal as Daniel told her. "But you didn't have what you need."

She took it and I tapped the last page. "You said you don't have a dialing device on earth. That's why you weren't getting anywhere. Your computers don't calculate for planetary shift and interstellar drift or alignment of stars and the effects a black hole can have on a inter dimensional matter bridge."

Jack asked if I was speaking English and Sam clarified. "Wormhole sir and he's speaking my language, geek."

He looked to me. "So smart and big?"

I grunted. "I prefer to fight, but I was a weapons expert and power generation mechanic in my time amongst the gate builders for five million years give or take a thousand years. Basically I make things go boom and built highly advanced power generators. If those went boom entire star systems would be vaporized. The gate builders didn't do anything small even when they built microscopic robots."

Sam asked if the journal was it and I shook my head. "That's about a thousandth of the whole gate list on the cartouche."

Daniel spoke up. "I'll show them. The sandstorm has nearly passed anyways."

I nodded slowly and stood. "I'm going to feel the sun again."

I turned to Skaara. "Set up a flanking position and get the men behind cover. I don't want any surprises. If another like Ra is using the gate to take people I don't want them coming here and surprising us. I'll be within earshot so yell and I'll come running if they come here."

Skaara saluted me like he did Jack and Jack told his men. "Kawalsky, you and Ferretti give them a hand and radio us if there's contact."

Daniel told Sha're. "Go with the others to the bottom chambers. We'll be back soon."

I headed outside and Sam asked where I was going. Daniel told her that I just did that sometimes, go outside and feel the sand beneath my feet. Skaara said it was sun sickness or heart sickness cause only one of the two would make someone do that on Abydos. I ignored them and laid on a rock nearby, watching a scorpion and a wasp fight.

Sam and the others passed me as the Scorpion and wasp both died before the babies on the mother scorpion's back ate them both. Hours later I heard shouts and came running. I shot down three Jaffa and threw a knife into Apophis's hand device. I took three staff blasts to the head before I was out for a while from the last one to the back of the head.

I woke up while they were leaving and saw the gate coordinates before throwing knives into the last two Jaffa leaving with Skaara and Sha're. They were shoved through as the Jaffa stumbled through with them. I climbed up to my feet and patched up those I could help, calling for assistance to get the injured to safety.

Most of the Jaffa had died in the attack, but two had lived and now it would be a race to saving the lives of our people. I drew on my near ascended abilities and healed as many as I could that were in critical condition before getting too weak to stand, drained. There were three dead natives and and one dead officer. I told Jack and the rest what happened, explaining that I had the gate address to the planet they went through memorized.