River of Stars Ch 5 bit – pets

Nudging his glasses up, the archaeologist eyed the Tok’ra. “So do you hate all of Kanzeon’s priests, or is Dr. Genjyo a special case because he happens to look like her nephew?”

“Nothing just happens where Kanzeon is involved,” Jacob said grimly. “Konzen Douji is dead. I don’t know what kind of game she’s playing with the Asgard, but-” He shut up.

“Huh,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Sounds like a pretty important guy. For a clerk.”

Two gazes met. Held against each other-

“We need to know,” Sam insisted.

“I guess you do.” Jacob deflated slightly. “Not Konzen Douji. His pet.”

“His pet?” Hammond echoed in disbelief.

“I was putting this together for Dr. Jackson anyway…. This is the first time Konzen really came to our attention. A little over nine centuries ago.” Jacob set the holoprojector on the table, and the throne room was back.

With a few differences. A lesser Goa’uld bowed before Kanzeon, holding a chain attached to-

Goku, Daniel thought, and knew the rest of his team was equally stunned. He looks only twelve, but – that’s Goku.

Only – nine centuries ago? It can’t be Goku. Can it? “Is there sound?”

“Sure, but it won’t do you much good.” Jacob touched a control-

Just as the golden-eyed kid in a familiar limiter pulled free in an audible chime of heavy chains, leaping up to grab some of a stunned Konzen’s hair. “Wow! It’s just like the sun!”

In Ancient.

“Let go of me, you little monkey!”

Konzen spoke Ancient? With an effort, Daniel kept his jaw from dropping. Sure, Kanzeon had the sutras, meaning she could probably translate the language. But Konzen was speaking it, fluently as Goa’uld.

“What a charming little creature,” Kanzeon mused in Goa’uld, as Konzen tried to detach gold strands and the kid kept finding more ways to cling on. “We’ll keep him.”

“Ah, my lady….” Jiroshin was visibly sweating. “You can’t even keep a houseplant alive.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I never said I would keep him.” Her grin was pure mischief. “Konzen.”

“What?” the blond snapped, looking rather like the losing end of a fight with an octopus.

And apparently that distraction was all the opening the kid needed to climb Konzen like a tree, and latch onto his neck like… well, an orphan monkey. Though the way small teeth nipped at the corner of Konzen’s jaw was pure wolf cub, affectionate and wild.

Jack muttered a curse under his breath, obviously expecting the usual Goa’uld reaction to an annoyance. As in violence.

Only Konzen seemed more frozen than angry, violet looking down into gold as if the world had gone suddenly sane-

The holo blinked out.

“We didn’t think much of it at the time,” Jacob admitted. “What was one more youkai when Kanzeon had thousands? Only for a Queen, she keeps pretty good records of her experiments. And this one didn’t seem to have any. It was like he’d just appeared on the planet. And after what you just saw, there were rumors about Konzen… well, honestly, there were always rumors about Konzen. Most of which boiled down to, don’t make him angry.”

“Or else?” Jack prompted.

“Don’t know,” Jacob shrugged. “There’s no hard facts of him going after anyone. Physically, at least. Heck, he was a vegetarian. Never seemed to get angry, either, no matter what kinds of messes his pet got him into. Pretty much just maintained a constant low level of pissed. Like a certain colonel I could mention.”

“You imply there were new rumors,” Teal’c said levelly, before Jack could snark back.

The Tok’ra looked as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Take it you noticed the gloves?”

“The kote?” Sam wondered. “Isn’t that just a style on Shangri-La? Dr. Genjyo wears them-”

“Which I should have warned you about before, but you told me the priest was one of your people, George,” Jacob said angrily. “I thought he was just playing a part. What’s the universe coming to when one of your men joins up with Kanzeon’s damn chanters?” He held up a hand to ward off questions. “We’ve never been able to find the weapon Kanzeon’s made on them, and they’re all fanatics who’d rather die than talk. They seem to activate it under cover of a religious chant, and it has various nasty effects on the nervous system. Or did you not notice the man Genjyo grabbed is catatonic?“

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