Amazon Nation

Written by Calle Dybedahl

Meeting Strangers

"It's an alien infection," Dr Janet Frasier said. "She must have picked it up on the last planet they went to."

Sam was looking up at her colleagues from an infirmary bed. She didn't feel particularly ill, just a bit flushed and warm.

"Is it serious, Doctor?" General Hammond said.

"Not yet, General," Janet said. "But it might become serious if I don't start treatments immediately."

"I understand," Hammond said. "Is there anything you need?"

"I will need complete isolation for me and the patient, and a total shutdown of all electrical and electronic equipment," Janet said. "That, and time."

"It will be done."

Suddenly, the room was dark and all the people gone. Only a few candles lit up Sam's bed, which had also been decorated with roses. A white curtain surrounded the bed. Steps came from outside it, and Janet made her way inside.

"Hi," she said. "How is my favourite patient doing?"

"Kind of hot," Sam said.

Janet smiled at her.

"Don't I know it," she said. She smiled down at Sam and started unbuttoning her lab coat.

"This treatment is kind of experimental," Janet said. "But I think you'll like it."

The lab coat started sliding down her shoulders, revealing nothing but bare skin beneath. Sam followed it with her eyes, eagerly taking in every square inch of disrobed Janet. The coat was just coming down to the beautiful doctor's breasts, when...

...Sam woke up, abruptly sitting up straight and gasping, in her own bed in her own house.

God, she had such a love-hate response to that dream. It'd stay in her mind all day, distracting her from whatever she was doing. She'd be walking around the SGC as a half-zombie, hoping to see Janet and at the same time hoping not to. Wanting to be close to her, and wanting to stay away. Seeing without touching drove her nuts, but seeing was better than nothing.

She glanced at the alarm clock. Just after four in the morning. Almost an hour before she had to get up. Well, at least that gave her time to take care of the most immediate frustration.

Sam laid down again, closed her eyes, reached down under the blanket and tried to pretend that her hand was smaller, softer and not hers.

A few hours later, Sam walked into the SGC briefing room and, to her surprise, did not find SG-1 there. Instead of Jack, Daniel and Teal'c around the conference table, there were Dr Fraiser, Lt Hailey and Lt Satterfield.

"Hi," she said as she sat down in her usual chair. "What's going on?"

"Search me," Janet said. "I only know that General Hammond asked me to be here."

She gestured to the two young women on the other side of the table.

"This is..." she began to say.

"We've met," Sam interrupted. She turned to the pair of lieutenants.

"I didn't know you guys had been posted to SGC yet," she said.

"We kinda haven't," Hailey said. "We've just been training and reading reports for the last few months, until they got us here in a terrible hurry last night."

Sam leaned back. "Well, that's the military for you," she said. "Hurry up and wait."

"Ladies," General Hammond said some time later, after he'd dropped a stack of thin folders on the table and sat down. "You probably wonder why you're here."

Nobody protested.

"Two days ago," he said, "SG-8 encountered indigenous population on P5X-8859. Despite some initial friction, they managed to establish friendly communication with them."

Hammond paused briefly after that, as if to leave a space for somebody to make a smart-arse comment. Since none seemed to be forthcoming, he went on.

"To every outward appearance, the natives seem to be a primitive people. They dress mostly in skins, they display no weapons more advanced than crossbows and they have a basically agrarian economy. However, there are some anomalies."

He pointed the remote control at the video setup in the corner of the room and pressed play. The monitor came to life.

On the screen, two athletic young women dressed in what looked quite a lot like leather bondage gear obsessively decorated with fur and feathers were running towards the edge of a thick forest. They were running very fast, but apparently with little effort. When they reached the trees, they both kept running up a tree trunk. Having reached the lower branches, they rapidly disappeared into the greenery jumping from branch to branch.

"Neat," Lt Satterfield said.

"That's not possible," Lt Hailey said. "Nobody can run up a tree like that."

"Are they human?" Sam asked.

"We don't know, Major," Hammond said. "They look human enough, but there is some reason to believe that's not the case. And one of those reasons is why you are here now."

He looked at the four serious faces around the table.

"There are no men on P5X-8859," he said. "Only women. They know well enough what men are, and threatened violence if the male members of SG-8 did not immediately gate home. Furthermore, they claim to have been living there for more than a century, and Lt Summers saw one woman who appeared to be about five months pregnant."

"And you want to know how that is possible," Janet said.

Hammond smiled.

"That I do, Doctor," he said. "There clearly seems to be some kind of advanced biological technology at work here, and even if that's not something we can get our hands on these people could be valuable allies."

He handed out the folders that had been stacked in front of him to the four women.

"These are the reports from lieutenants Summers and Rosenberg of SG-8. We have approval from the people of P5X-8859 to send a team of four women as a diplomatic delegation. Since we have no all-female SG team, this one has been formed specifically for this mission. Your temporary assignation is SG-X, and Major Carter is in command. You leave for P5X-8859 in two hours, and you will stay there for one week. Your mission is to try to figure out as much as possible about them, while retaining friendly relations. Any questions?"

"No, sir!" chorused from around the table.

The first thing that struck Sam after she stepped through the gate to P5X-8859 was the heat. The second was the smells.

Unlike the temperate climate of most Gate sites, this one was clearly subtropical. The air was not noticeably cooler than her skin, and while the landscape was still predominantly green the vegetation was of a distinctly different kind than the usual pine-dominated forest. This was the frantic variety of a place where things grew easily and the only way to compete was hyperspecialisation into a particular ecological niche. Just from where she stood at the steps to the Gate she could see dozens of different kinds of plants. She had no doubt that once they got off the plain and into the forest they'd find hundreds or thousands more.

Behind her, the Gate closed.

"This is another planet?" Satterfield said. "It kinda looks like New Zealand, except it's a lot warmer."

"Most Gates are on terrestrial-type planets," Sam said. "And this one is more exotic than most, actually. Usually they all look more or less like southern Canada."

"Or Egypt," Janet said.

"Or Egypt," Sam agreed.

"The village is supposed to be five miles north of here, right?" Hailey said. "Better get going if we want to get there before dark."

"The day here is 25 hours," Sam said. "But you're right. Let's be off. I'll take point. Janet, after me. Satterfield next, then Hailey."

The four of them set off north at a brisk pace.

As Sam had thought, the variety in plant life was even greater once they got into the woods. Surprisingly enough, the insect life was almost absent. Not that she was complaining. Bugs were usually the most annoying kind of life on any planet. So far, this one would've made a more than decent vacation resort. Even the gravity was a little lighter than back home, giving them all a nicely light feeling.

"Major?" Hailey's voice was only barely loud enough for her to make out.

"Yes?" she said.

"There's somebody up in the trees, following us."

As soon as she'd got the words out, women started falling from the trees. In a few moments they were entirely surrounded by leather-clad young women pointing swords at them. They all wore large masks that covered all of their heads and most of their necks.

Sam held her hands well away from her body.

"We come as friends," she said. "We were given permission to enter your lands."

One of the women came a couple of steps closer.

"Are you the ones from the stone ring?" she said.

She was quite impressively muscular, Sam saw. Not in a bulky bodybuilder fashion, but in the less obvious athlete fashion. Sam knew that she herself was in very good shape, but she still got a feeling that she didn't want to end up arm wrestling this one.

"We are," she said.

The woman took off her mask. Behind it, she had long dark hair and a good-looking, friendly face.

"Then I bid you welcome to the Amazon Nation," she said. "My name is Varia, and I am regent while our queen is absent."

From behind, Sam heard Janet make a strange half-strangled noise.

"I am Major Samantha Carter," Sam said, for the moment ignoring Janet's odd reaction. "These are my companions, Doctor Janet Fraiser, Lieutenant Maria Satterfield and Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey. It is an honor to meet you."

She held out her hand towards Varia, who responded in kind. Sam managed to quickly readjust from a normal Earth-style handshake to the wrist-grabbing variant that Varia was aiming for. The Amazon's muscles felt hard as rock under her hand.

"Come," Varia said. "We will guide you to our village. Tonight, we will hold a feast in your honor. Tomorrow, the queen will be back and the diplomacy can begin."

"Excuse me," Janet said from behind Sam. "A question, if I may?"

"Of course," Varia said.

"What is your queen's name?" Janet asked. "Just so we know how to address her politely, when we meet her."

"My apologies," Varia said. "I forget you are not from this world, and so has not heard of our most glorious queen. Her name is Gabrielle, queen of all the Amazon nations."

This time the strange little sound came from Hailey. Sam chose to ignore it.

"We're looking forward to meeting her," Sam said.

"I know she is eager to meet you as well," Varia said. "But come, let's be off. The feast awaits!"

The village was larger than Sam had expected. It was almost a small city, even if it had no buildings with more than a single story and they were all built out of wood. The general layout was of a large circle with radial streets, the many huts forming a border between the forest and the large clear circle in the center. That circle was obviously where the feast would take place, and the four Earth women were taken directly there. They were shown to a low platform, completely covered with thick soft furs and large pillows, where they were bid to sit down and rest. More leather-clad young women brought wine, fruit and honey-based sweets, and then they were left more or less alone. There was still a lot of activity in the town square before them. Benches were being set up, as was low tables. A huge fire burned in the center, and entire small animals were being roasted on spits over it.

Satterfield leaned back on the pillows and drank deeply from a silver cup set with red stones.

"I could get used to this," she said. "This wine isn't half bad."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Sam said, also lounging among the furs and pillows. "This far into a jump, it's much more common that we're running for our lives while taking fire from Jaffa."

"Sam," Janet said. She'd sat down next to Sam and looked a bit tense. "There's something really strange going on here."

Sam put her hand on her P90. "What?" she said.

"I don't know if it's a problem," Janet said. "But at least Varia is a fictional character."

Sam tensed. "You think she's a Goa'uld pretending to be a god or a hero? I didn't sense anything when I shook her hand."

Hailey snorted derisively. "Only of the Goa'uld have been watching Xena," she said. "And even then they'd more likely have gone for the gods there."

"Xena?" Sam said, confused.

"The TV series," Janet said. "Varia looks exactly like the character from the show, except maybe for being a bit more muscular. The vegetation, the village, them calling themselves the Amazon Nation, the way they dress, having a queen called Gabrielle, it all fits."

"But that's not possible," Sam said.

"I don't know," Janet said. "Maybe they're something like the Nox. Maybe they picked all this out of the mind of someone in SG-8 and are projecting the appearance to put us at ease. Maybe something else."

"Well," Sam said. "We'll just have to be wary. Try to see if they show any signs of turning hostile. Keep an eye on them."

"That will not be a hardship," Hailey mumbled.

They sat still and silent for a little while, watching the frantic activity in the square. Over by one side, a bunch of Amazons were setting up drums and other instruments. In the middle, another group were busy pouring sauces over the roasting meat.

"So you watch Xena," Sam said towards Janet, unable to keep the question in any longer.

"Hah, watch it," Hailey said. "I saw her at a Xena convention in Colorado Springs, wearing a long blonde wig and dressed up as Callisto."

Slowly but surely a blush spread across Janet's face.

"Really?" Sam said. "Tell me, what does this Callisto dress like?"

Hailey looked thoughtful for a moment. "Kind of like a black leather and iron studs version of the girls here," she said.

Sam tried to imagine Janet dressed like that and failed utterly. It was just too far from the prim white lab coat Janet she usually saw. She turned to Hailey.

"Got any pictures?" she said.

"Sam!" Janet said.

Sam laughed.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm just kidding."

Janet looked away. "Good," she said, and for a moment Sam thought that she looked disappointed.

"All right," Sam said, deliberately reverting the topic of discussion. "So this place seems to the patterned after a recent Earth TV series. But we haven't seen anything threatening, and nothing that looks remotely like typical Goa'uld behavior. All we've really seen so far is a large bunch of scantily clad young warrior women setting up for a party. So we keep to our orders. We stay, we observe, and we join in the festivities enough to be polite but not enough to get intoxicated. Everyone clear on that?"

It seemed that everyone was.

The sun rose bright and early the next day. Sam noticed this very clearly, since she was still lying on the honored guests' platform and sunshine stabbed her brutally in the face. She groaned and covered her eyes with her hand.

In spite of the fact that she herself had done almost nothing, it had been an interesting night. She'd followed her own orders and not drunk very much wine, but she suspected that some of the things they'd been offered to eat had contained various psychoactive substances.

Or maybe it was just the experience of having a group of half-naked beautiful young women hand-feeding her delicacies that had made her head swim.

She closed her eyes, removed the hand from in front of them and tried to shake her head clear. When she felt like she could think somewhat, she raised herself on her elbows and opened her eyes.

The square looked less like a disaster area than she had expected. Of course, in this place there would be no empty beer cans or crumpled-up wrappers covering the ground. That helped a lot. Much of the eating had been done without serious use of utensils as well, with many things wrapped in bread or eaten directly from fingers -- one's own or someone else's. Sam had a vague memory of having eaten a grape directly from an Amazon's navel. She hoped intensely that that was no more than wishful thinking or a dream, or she'd never be able to look Janet in the eyes again. Not that she really thought that her friend would take it badly, but if she was to come out to her she wanted to do it with a whole lot more dignity. And planning. And decades into the future. Or centuries.

The platform itself looked much as it had when they'd first seen it. Which, granted, was like a large flat wooden space covered with heaps of furs, so it was kind of hard to mess up. Now, there were a few large serving bowls with leftover scraps of food here and there, and quite a few more or less empty wine skins and goblets. There were also three Earth soldiers, two of which slept.

Three? Sam frowned and looked around. Lt Hailey was nowhere to be seen. And now that she thought about it, another dim memory from the night was of the young lieutenant asking for permission to go off with a bunch of Amazons to "gain their confidence and gather information".

Yeah, right, Sam thought. I know what 'information' she was after, and it's not the kind Hammond was thinking of when he sent us here. Although Jack and Daniel would probably love to hear all the details...

She sighed. She really couldn't blame the girl. If Sam herself had ended up at a party like this when she was that young and angry, she'd have been in hog heaven too. These days she was less young, less angry and her tastes were... narrower. She looked down to where Janet's sleeping head was resting on her thigh. She'd known Janet long enough and heard enough about her ex-husband and old boyfriends to know that nothing would ever happen, but she still couldn't get rid of the empty longing that filled her every time she saw the doctor's beautiful face.

Well, if nothing else the years had taught her how to push her feelings aside and let her rational mind make the decisions. Most of her life was way better then she'd ever dared imagine. So what if her love life sucked?

A groan and some movement came from the fur-covered lump that by deduction must be Lt Satterfield.

"Good morning, lieutenant," Sam said. "Sleep well?"

The furs moved and a black-haired head appeared.

"Morning, Major," Satterfield mumbled. "Damn, but these chicks know how to party, don't they?"

"I guess they do," Sam said.

"I mean, those drums," Satterfield said. "I danced until I thought my legs would fall off."

"Yeah," Sam said. "You were quite popular down there, as far as I could see from here."

"Oh. Yeah. That was a little strange," Satterfield said. "I mean, everybody but me was totally lesbian and they sure didn't hesitate to show it."

"I know how you feel," Sam said. Only I've felt like that every single time I've been to a party, except this one.

"So, what do we do today then?" Satterfield said.

"Mill about, I guess," Sam said. "Try to be as nosy as we can get away with. Wait for this queen of theirs to return and want to see us."

"Right," Satterfield said. Groaning and grunting, she made her way out from under the furs. "I'll go find the latrine," she said once she'd finished.

Sam nodded. "Just keep your radio on so I can reach you," she said.

"I can't believe I fell asleep at the party," Janet said. "I haven't done that since med school."

She and Sam were walking around the village, just looking at things and getting looked at by the Amazons.

"Well, you did," Sam said. "As did I and Satterfield."

Janet slowly shook her head and smiled.

"Must've been the marijuana cookies," she said. "I'm not used to that stuff any more."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "Marijuana cookies?" she said.

"Yes," Janet said. "You know, the little round ones. You were eating them like popcorn."

"So that's what they were. No wonder I was feeling dizzy!"

Janet looked at her with an expression somewhere in between amusement and exasperation.

"Samantha Carter," she said, "for such a terribly intelligent woman you really are adorably naive."

And you, my dear doctor, have a real talent for taking a stick to the anthill of my emotions, Sam thought as irritation at being called naive mixed with elation at being called adorable.

"Let's hope they don't decide to do a drug test on us when we return," she said out loud.

"If they do, we can always blame the aliens. That seems to work for those SG-1 people every time they do something they shouldn't," Janet said.

"Yes," Sam agreed. "Those rascals!"

They walked in silence for a time. Sam's emotions settled back to normal, although much more slowly than usual. Being surrounded by lots of women who had no inhibitions about displaying more than just friendly physical affection for each other made it a lot harder for Sam to ignore her own feelings.

"Have you noticed something?" Janet said after a while.

"What?" Sam said.

"Nobody here seems to be older than their mid-twenties. And pregnant women seem to come in pairs."

"I can explain the second one," a voice said from behind them.

At first, Sam didn't recognize the woman behind them. She was short, probably slightly under five feet. Her hair was blonde, and like everyone else in the village she looked well trained. Also like everyone else, she was dressed in a mixture of leather, feathers, wooden ornaments and body paint.

"Lieutenant Hailey?" Sam asked, still not sure that she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

"Yes, sir," Lt Hailey said from under her war paint.

"That's not regulation uniform," Sam said.

"No, sir," Hailey said. "Following orders required changing to unorthodox dress, sir."

"What?"

Hailey grinned.

"Making friends with the natives, sir. I'm being taken into a kind of lodge for young Amazon warriors," she said. "I managed to impress them with my kickboxing skills last night. They dressed me up like this for the initiation ceremony tonight."

"Kickboxing?" Sam said, amazed. "You were practicing kickboxing with the Amazons last night?"

"Among other things, sir," Hailey explained.

"Ah," Sam said. "And being in this lodge won't conflict with your position as a US Air Force officer?"

"No, sir," Hailey said. "The Daughters of Aphrodite is a cross-tribe lodge, and it's taken for granted that loyalty to one's tribe always comes first."

"Tribe?" Sam said.

"The Daughters of Aphrodite?" Janet said.

"That'd be the SGC, sir," Hailey said. "And it's not what it sounds like. Or, well, it is what it sounds like, but not only that, if you see what I mean, doctor."

"We'll trust your judgment, lieutenant," Sam said.

"You said you could explain the pregnancies?" Janet said.

"Right. Apparently, when two Amazons are very much in love and want to have children, they go to the temple of Aphrodite and make the proper sacrifices at the altar. Aphrodite judges their love for each other, and if she finds it strong and pure, a golden glow surrounds them for a minute or so, and then they're both pregnant. I got the impression that the kids will have traits from both mothers, so I guess the glow does some kind of melding of their genetic material."

"A goddess taking care of their reproduction?" Sam said. "Ok, now I don't like this any more. What kind of offerings does she want?"

"Jewelry, candy or pornography, sir."

Both Sam and Janet stared at Hailey.

"What?" Sam said after a little while.

"Jewelry, candy or porn, sir. And I was also told that if you leave fish you might get struck by lightning on your way home."

"That does not sound like any Goa'uld I've ever heard of," Janet said.

"No," Sam agreed.

"Also," Hailey said, "they claimed that Queen Gabrielle is a sometime lover of Aphrodite's. So maybe you can get some sense of what this goddess is like from talking to the queen."

"Yes, maybe we can," Sam said. "Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Good work. Keep it up. Good luck with your initiation."

Queen Gabrielle received the Earth delegation after dinner, in her own house. Which, unlike all other buildings they'd seen in the Amazon village, actually qualified as a house rather than a hut. It had more than one room, it had windows covered with thin oiled skins to let in light and it had a raised floor. The room right inside the front door was obviously a reception room. There were several low armchairs, covered with the ubiquitous thick furs. There were oil lamps, low tables, incense burners and, in the back facing the front door, a highly decorated and rather comfortable-looking wooden throne.

"I was told there were four of you?" was the first thing the Queen of the Amazon Nations said to the diplomatic delegation from the planet Earth.

The queen was standing in front of her throne. She was not very tall, just a couple of inches taller than Janet. Her hair was blonde with a reddish tint, and her skin was pale. She wore dark red knee-high soft leather boots, a short leather skirt and a leather top in matching colors. At the sides of her boots two three-pronged knife-like weapons were sheathed, and at her hip a vicious-looking metal ring hung.

"One of my people was offered to join a group called the Daughters of Aphrodite," Sam said. "I gave her leave to attend an initiation tonight. I hope I have not caused any offense, your majesty."

"Of course not," the queen said. "Please sit. And call me Gabrielle."

As they sat down and Gabrielle told an attendant to bring wine and fruit, Sam took the opportunity to lean close to Janet.

"Does she look like her TV counterpart?" she whispered.

"Exactly," Janet whispered back. "Down to the hair style!"

"Maybe I should start watching that series," Sam mumbled as she leaned away from Janet again. Out of the corner if her eye, she saw the doctor give her a long, questioning look.

"So," Gabrielle said when they were all comfortably seated and the refreshments had arrived. "What can I do for you?"

"Well," Sam began, wishing that Daniel could've been there to take care of the diplomatic stuff. It really was not her strong point. "We have come through the stone ring, which we call a Stargate, from another world."

Gabrielle nodded. "I know what it does," she said.

Sam stared at her. "Excuse me?" she said.

"I know what the Stargate is," Gabrielle repeated. "I have even used it occasionally. So you can skip that part and jump directly to who you people are and what you want from us."

"You...how?"

"Aphrodite told me," Gabrielle said. "And provided the coordinates."

"Right," Sam said. "Of course."

She took a deep breath and tried to gather her scattered thoughts.

"We come from a planet we call Earth," she said. "After we found our Stargate and figured out how to use it, we started exploring. In the course of that exploration, we came into conflict with the aliens known as the Goa'uld. Since then, we also seek help in that struggle, in the form of allies or technologies."

It was probably a lot more straightforward and honest than Daniel would've put it, but it'd have to do. If nothing else, it seemed kind of risky to try to be less than honest with Gabrielle. There was simply no way of knowing how much the woman knew.

"I see," Gabrielle said. "And is there anything in particular you think you can get from us?"

"No, not really," Sam said. "We only came here in the hope that there might be something. Remember, our original mission was simply to explore. To meet new peoples and get to know them as friends. Simply being on speaking terms with your people would count as a successful mission for us. Anything else would be a bonus."

"Well," Gabrielle said, giving them a warm smile, "I don't think that'll a problem. You seem to fit in quite well here, so far."

"Yes," Sam said. "It's a very nice village you have, and your people have been very friendly."

And hot, she added to herself. I've never seen so many attractive women gathered in the same place before. Which is kind of strange, actually.

"I'm glad to hear that," Gabrielle said. She leaned forward on her throne, resting her elbows on her knees and looking intently at Sam.

"It hasn't happened in a long time that we have encountered any new Amazon tribes," she said. "But there are old traditions for what to do when it happens. As queen, I have to obey those traditions, or my Amazons will stop following me."

"All right," Sam said. "What do the traditions say?"

"Do you have the right to make binding agreements for your own queen?" Gabrielle asked.

The images of either the President or General Hammond as queens were not really ones Sam wanted in her mind. She did her best to push them out.

"Yes," she said, "I have. As long as you do not ask too much from us, that is."

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow.

"Is there anything we might want from you?"

"Well, I don't know," Sam said. "Medicine perhaps? Technical knowledge?"

"We don't fall ill," Gabrielle said. "And we have all the technical knowledge we want."

"What do you mean you don't fall ill?" Janet said.

"Just what it sounds like. We don't fall ill."

"Ever?"

Janet sounded incredulous.

"Ever. And we heal very quickly from injuries."

Janet looked like she was about to protest when Sam interrupted.

"I guess trade will not be a problem then," she said. "Which means that we're well inside my authority to make agreements. If that's what those traditions of yours say to do."

Gabrielle leaned back and smiled.

"The traditions give two options," she said. "One is that the two tribes fight, and the losing tribe becomes part of the winning one."

"I don't much like that sound of that," Sam said. "We're not here to fight. Besides, at the moment there are a lot more of you than of us."

"There need not be out-and-out war," Gabrielle said. "Single combat to the death between the queens or their chosen champions is quite acceptable."

Sam tried to smile. She didn't particularly like the thought of fighting Gabrielle, to the death or otherwise. The memory of the tape with the two Amazon women effortlessly running at way over Olympic-winning speeds across the field played for her inner vision.

"What's the other option?" she said.

"The tribes chose to join together as partners, to help and protect each other to the best of their abilities."

"And that is done by...?"

Gabrielle smiled. "The two queens, or their chosen champions, go through a marriage ritual on behalf of their tribes."

Sam sat stunned. Well, it was the logical opposite of a fight to the death, as far as she could see.

"I guess this would involve everything that a normal marriage would?" Janet asked, her voice sounding unusually husky and emotional.

Sam almost twisted her neck, so fast did she turn her head to look at her friend. Janet's cheeks were flushed. Her gaze was intently focused on the Amazon queen.

"Oh yes," Gabrielle said in reply to Janet's question. "Everything."

"I volunteer to be your champion in this matter, Major," Janet said.

"What?!" Sam said.

Janet looked up at her. "Please?" she said.

Sam felt like she'd suddenly fallen into an alternate universe. Janet was volunteering to have sex with another woman? Eagerly? Almost begging to? Without warning, what Sam had thought was solid and unchangeable reality had changed, and now it was as if someone had stuck her thoughts and feelings into a blender and set it to 'obliterate'.

"Sure," she heard herself saying. "If you're sure you don't mind."

Janet turned back to look at Gabrielle. She even licked her lips as she did so.

"Oh, I'm sure," she said.

Gabrielle stood up.

"Excellent," she said. "The ceremonies proper will start tomorrow at sunset. The priestesses will come to fetch your champion at dawn, for the purifications and preparations."

The Amazon queen grinned at them.

"I so prefer this way to war," she said. "If you'll excuse me, I have things to set in motion. The guards will see you to your hut. I gather you never actually made it there last night..."

The hut was built for six people. There were six narrow beds, spread evenly along three quarters of a circle, with the head ends closest to the fireplace in the middle. The remaining quarter of the circle was a common are between the fire and the door. Its earthen floor was generously covered with thick furs. On the wooden walls and under the thatch roof, many small decorative objects made out of leather, feathers, wood and many-colored beads hung. Most of them were axes, knives, bows or other primitive weapons.

On the furs, near the fireplace, lay four standard issue US Air Force backpacks. Next to the backpacks stood four pairs of standard issue US Air Force combat boots. In the fireplace, a fire happily burned in spite of the warm night outside.

None of them had said a word on the way back from the queen's hut. Or, at least, Sam thought none of them had said anything on the way back. She had to admit to herself that as preoccupied as she was with the possible revelation she'd just had, she would only have had a fifty-fifty chance of noticing Armageddon.

"I'm going to bed," she distantly heard Janet say. "Got an early morning tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess you do," Sam heard herself say. It felt as if her mouth was operating on autopilot. Luckily, the autopilot in question seemed to be connected to her diplomatic self rather than her honest self.

"I'm, er, going, er, out," Satterfield said.

Sam looked up at her. The poor girl looked completely lost. Probably had no idea what had happened to her two superior officers, and suddenly felt very alone and a really long way from home.

"Fine," Sam said. "You, er, keep an eye on things."

"Sure," Satterfield said. She vanished out the door with an obvious look of relief on her face.

Sam turned her head and looked towards the fire. On the other side of it, between the two centermost beds, Janet was preparing for bed. She'd unbuttoned her pants, and as Sam watched she pushed them down. All the way down. Revealing the luscious curves of her firm behind, her smoothly toned thighs, her pretty knees, her adorable calves...

"I'll be right outside," Sam blurted out and fled through the door.

Sam remained outside the hut for quite some time, sitting in the grass next to the path leading up to it. There was a solitary tree there, which she could sit under and lean against. Above it, the sky was clear and full of stars. The constellations were unfamiliar. It was tempting to try to figure out which star she could see that was closest to Earth. Old Sol itself was too small and dim to be seen from this distance, but some of the local giants should be visible. Canopus, almost certainly. Maybe Sirius. Too bad she'd need a spectrograph to identify them.

Too bad there were no spectrographs for people's thoughts and feelings. Life would be so much easier if she could just point an instrument at them and know what they were like. None of this observing and guessing and figuring out. Most of all, none of this horrible getting it wrong.

Four and a half years. For four and a half years she had been dead certain that Janet Fraiser was straight as an arrow. Air Force officer. Divorced. Perfectly normal. No reason to believe that she held any secrets.

Except that when she put it into words like that she got a nagging suspicion that exactly the same thing could be said about Samantha Carter, if one replaced the divorce with a couple of ex-boyfriends. It wasn't like she hit a perfect six point zero on the Kinsey scale, after all.

"Major?"

Sam looked up. Lt Hailey was standing in front of her. Many of her feathers and ornaments were ajar, crushed or missing entirely. Her war paint had got smudged in quite a few places, most of them kind of suggestive.

"Oh," Sam said. "Hi. I thought you'd be gone all night."

"So did I," Hailey said. "But they're taking me on a trial hunt a bit before dawn, so they sent me back here to catch some sleep. On the theory that if I stayed at the lodge house I wouldn't get any. Which is fair."

A happy grin swept like a flash of lightning across Hailey's face before it returned to its usual dour expression.

Sam couldn't help smiling with her.

"Better get some, then," she said. "Wouldn't want you to shame us at the hunt."

"Nah, that should be no problem," Hailey said. "I was top of my class in sharp shooting."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"They're letting you use your P90 to hunt with?"

"Yeah. Weapon of choice and all that. So how did the diplomacy go?"

"Well, I think," Sam said. "Our tribe is symbolically marrying theirs. Tomorrow Queen Gabrielle and Dr Fraiser will perform the marriage ceremonies."

Hailey's jaw dropped. "Doc Fraiser is getting in the sack with Gabrielle? Holy fuck, and here I was thinking that I had got lucky!"

The grin returned to her face, and stayed there this time.

"It's going to be pure murder not to be able to talk about this at the next con," she added.

Sam tilted her head a little and looked inquisitively up at the lieutenant.

"This would be a big deal there?"

"Yeah, kinda!"

Hailey fell silent for a few moments, searching for words.

"Many fans think that Gabrielle is insanely hot," she tried. "To the point where the actress who plays her has some straight women drooling over her. So getting to shag the actual real Gabby? Yeah, that'd sort of be a huge deal."

"I see," Sam said. "You'd better get that sleep, Lieutenant. You won't be shooting very well if you're too tired to see."

"Yes, sir," Hailey said. "Good night, sir."

Sam sat under the tree for hours, doing her best not to think. In that particular case, her best turned out not to be very good at all. The thoughts just kept coming. She laid down in the grass and looked up at the leaves. They slowly moved back and forth in the soft night breeze. The Amazon village had gone to sleep, and the human sounds had faded. In their place came the sounds of a living land. Leaves rustling. Cicadas chirping. Some large predator roaring in the distance. Birds whistling. Unidentified things going bump in the night. Lt Satterfield swallowing a curse in mid-word when she banged her foot against the door while trying to sneak into the hut unnoticed.

So, according to Hailey, there still was a chance that Janet was straight. Mostly, at least. Since she'd obviously been interested in Gabrielle, there was certainly some interest in women there. Which left an opening for Sam.

All she had to do was be as attractive as a sexual fantasy come to life.

She closed her eyes and groaned. It just wasn't fair! Hailey's comment had made it seem quite possible that Janet was straight after all, but for some reason that didn't make it as easy to push away her feelings as it'd been for the past four and a half years. It felt as if her libido had been wakened like some ancient dragon, that now refused to go back to sleep.

It had been stupid to believe anything other than that Janet was straight. After all, she knew enough about her friend to know that she was. Yes, she herself might have had a couple of boyfriends, but none of those relationships had lasted very long or went very far. Janet had been married, and she knew that that had only ended because of the husband's philandering.

Sam's eyes flew open.

Did she know that?

She trawled through her memory for that late night in the mess hall. It had been after some near-disaster or another, and they had all been high on too many hours of no sleep and elation at having survived. They'd got to talking relationships. Daniel had asked Janet how her marriage ended. Janet had said something, and before anybody had had a chance to ask her to elaborate Jack had went off on a loud, ranting tangent. But what was it she'd said, exactly? Sam knew it was in there in her memory. She had that sort of mind. Things just stuck there, like mosquitos in amber. Particularly things that interested her. And Janet had always interested her a lot.

"So, Doctor," she heard Daniel say in that long-past time. "What killed your happily married life? Something less dramatic than a Goa'uld possessing your mate, I hope?"

"Oh," Janet had said, "there was another woman."

"Isn't that just like 'em!" Jack had interrupted before she could go on. "There's always another damn woman! Present company excepted, of course."

Janet's old sentence echoed through Sam's mind. There was another woman. Only that. No more, no less. No "Oh, I found my husband with another woman" or "Oh, my husband ran off with another woman". There just plain was another woman.

Slowly, a thought snuck into Sam's mind.

This, she could actually ask Janet about.

Asking if she liked to screw women? Definitely not possible. Asking about the role another woman had in breaking up her marriage? Quite possible. Kind of scary, but possible.

Sam got up from the ground. Through the door to the hut she could see the bed of smoldering coals that used to be the fire.

She drew a deep breath. Right. This was it. As silently as she could, she entered the hut. She undressed as much as she ever did in the field, and carefully laid down on her bed. Every small creak from the wooden frame sounded like an ear-splitting cry from Hell in the silence. Once down, Sam made sure to lie very still for some time, to give the others a chance to get back to sleep. And, also, trying to make up her ambivalent mind about if she wanted Janet to be awake or not.

"Janet?" Sam eventually said, very softly.

"Yes?" came the reply from the bed next to hers.

"You used to be married," Sam said, still very softly.

"I did," Janet confirmed.

"You once told me it ended because of another woman," Sam said.

"It did."

"I kind of assumed that meant your husband cheated on you."

"Most people assume that," Janet said.

"But it's not what happened, is it?" Sam said.

"No."

"You cheated on him."

"Yes."

"With another woman."

"Yes."

"Just checking," Sam said, even more softly than before.

And then the hut was silent.

"Varia?"

The dark-haired Amazon looked up from her breakfast.

"Samantha," she said when she saw who had spoken to her. "Sit down. Have some porridge."

Sam sat down across the table from her. The table itself was very long, with outwards-slanting legs that supported a bench on each side. At the moment, it was still very early and most of the village hadn't yet arrived, so there was plenty of room.

"Can I ask you a few questions?" Sam said.

"Only if you eat something," Varia said. "You won't be thinking clearly if you haven't eaten. This porridge is very good with honey and crushed nuts on it."

Rather than argue, Sam grabbed a bowl from the stack at the center of the table and put a ladle of porridge in it.

"This marriage ceremony," she said.

Varia raised a silencing finger at her.

"After you have eaten something," she said. "The honey and nuts are over there."

Sam sighed. She didn't feel at all hungry, but eating seemed to be the sacrifice she had to make in order to get something out of the Amazon. She drizzled a generous amount of honey on her porridge, spread some crushed nuts over it and dug in.

It was much tastier than she had expected. The porridge seemed to be made out of several different kinds of grains, and it had herbs and dried fruit in it. The honey had a distinctly flowery taste that the nuts complemented nicely.

"Hey, this is good," she said.

Varia smiled. "Of course it's good," she said. "What do you think we are, barbarians who don't know how to live well?"

She looked on while Sam put in another few spoonfuls.

"All right," she finally said. "Now you can talk."

Sam swallowed what she already had in her mouth.

"What happens during the marriage ceremony?" she said. "And before? I mean, if it starts at dawn and goes on all night, there must be quite a few things happening."

Varia thoughtfully took another spoonful of her own porridge.

"Are you sure you want to know?" she said.

Sam nodded. "I have to," she said.

Varia raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Whatever is going to happen, what my imagination dreams up is worse," Sam explained.

Varia nodded in understanding.

"All right," she said. "The first thing that happens is that both brides are fetched from their homes by priestesses dressed in the masks of Darkness Maidens. That part you should already have seen."

"I did," Sam agreed. "It felt strange having people bowing to me."

Varia tilted her head. "You are a visiting queen," she said. "No matter your own traditions, this means something to us."

"I didn't say it was wrong or that I didn't like it, just that it felt strange."

"Fair enough. From their homes, they're taken to the hot baths for the ritual cleansing."

This time it was Sam's eyebrows that rose. "Hot baths?" she said.

"There are hot springs near the temple. We've built baths around them. If you're going to keep interrupting this will take all day."

"Sorry," Sam said. "Although maybe that might be just as well," she added under her voice.

"Right," Varia said, pretending that she hadn't heard the last part. "They're taken to the baths. Which have two separate halves just for these kind of things, so the brides can be kept separate. They spend some time in the warm pools, and a lot more time in the herb-scented steam chambers."

Varia glanced up at the sun.

"In fact," she said, "that's almost certainly where they are now. They'll stay there for a few more hours, until the heat and the herbs have them nicely relaxed and calm."

Sam couldn't help interrupting, distracted as she was by the thought of Janet in a steam room. "The herbs have them relaxed?" she said.

"There aren't only sweet-smelling ones," Varia said. "Some are relaxants and aphrodisiacs."

"You drug them?!"

"They are there voluntarily," Varia said. "Unless you forced your champion?"

"No, of course not!"

"So, given that they're going to be intimate with someone they don't really know, they get every aid we can give to make the experience as pleasurable as possible. We believe that the marriage ritual predicts how pleasant the alliance will be."

Sam swallowed. "Ok," she said. "That makes sense, I guess."

"After the herbal steam baths," Varia went on, "they lunch on a variety of well-chosen dishes. They remain in the bath houses, so they don't have to dress or move around very much."

Sam's mental image of a naked Janet in a steam bath immediately switched to a naked Janet lounging on a divan being fed morsels of food by just as naked young Amazons. She swallowed heavily.

"After that, the dressing starts. Their hair will be carefully arranged. They will be massaged with scented oils, some of which contain more of the herbs from the steam rooms. Their bodies will be decorated with henna. Finally, they will be dressed in clothes designed to reveal and entice more than to hide and protect. There will be seamstresses present to adapt the clothes to the bodies of the brides, so that everything fits perfectly. Minor things may also be done to cover, for example, scars that the bride in question aren't proud of."

Sam's imagination was running amok. She could feel her face burning, and other parts of her were also getting hot and bothered.

"All this must be finished before the sun sets," Varia said. "Because when the sun's disk touches the horizon, the brides are escorted from the bath houses up to the temple by honor guards dressed in the masks of the Maidens of Light. One bride is led to the temple's eastern door, the other to the western one. They both go inside alone, while the guards spread out around the temple to make sure that they won't be disturbed. Once inside, the brides meet each other, and spend the night consummating the union under the watchful eye of the goddess Aphrodite. If everything goes well, they emerge together through the main entrance at dawn. If not, Aphrodite tosses them out during the night through the same doors they came in."

"If all goes well?" Sam said.

"Aphrodite has some standards," Varia said. "If the brides haven't got it on at all by midnight, she tends to get bored and pissed off."

Varia patted Sam's hand, which was holding a forgotten spoon in a white-knuckled grip.

"That almost never happens," she said. "Don't worry. Oh, and you may see your champion while she's having lunch, if you wish."

(Part two is here.)