SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne by Steven Savile Page A

like you are scattered across the galaxy.”
    “Like us,” Keen corrected, absently.
    “Like you,” Iblis repeated.
    “Are you trying to tell me you are not one of us?”
    “I was not born under this sky, if that is what you are asking.”
    “Rubbish. Have you looked in the mirror, my friend? Your bone structure, your coloring, your eyes, even the aquiline shape of your nose is classical Corvani. There are a thousand statues that could have been sculpted with your face as their model. Stop playing foolish games. My patience is wearing thin. You wouldn’t want to wear it through,” he inclined his head meaningfully. Iblis followed the look, and the inference. It was a long way down.
    “Humor me, Keen,” he said, and then lowered his gaze. If Keen was half as aware as Iblis gave him credit for, the man would realize this was the first time since Iblis had come into his service that he had ever averted his gaze. When the Goa’uld raised his head again a peculiar golden tint suffused his eyes. His voice, when he spoke was different, too. Metallic. Cold. “I have such violent delights to show you if you have the strength to stand at my side, human. Such pains. I have walked a hundred worlds.”
    “But that’s impossible,” Keen said. He stumbled back a step, his certainty already eroded. Iblis smiled, the humorless smile of a man who delighted in unpinning the certainties that anchored the listener’s world in all the realities he thought he knew.
    “Is it? I could talk to you of the frozen gardens of Kabul, one of the wonders of the universe I am sure. Every plant, tree, every shrub there is frozen into an unchanging vista that catches the light and turns it into diamonds in the air. I could describe the still waters of Tania and its submerged city where the man-eating sharks swim through the crystal hive of tunnels that make up the sunken city. I could talk to you of Mitko or Paribas where evolution has twisted humanity in duals, where brother and sister inhabit the same flesh and war for dominance. There is so much you haven’t seen or even dared imagine, Corvus Keen.”
    “Shut up, shut up, you are making this nonsense up. Shut up unless you want me to take your tongue, Iblis.”
    “These places all have one thing in common, Keen. They are places where my people once ruled. My people, Keen. The Goa’uld. We were your gods, Keen. Can you comprehend the power we had? We owned the suns and the moons and the stars. We oversaw the worlds and you worshipped us.”
    “Impossible. That is not how it was. The scripture says — ”
    “And who penned those precious scriptures? The humans my kith and kin scattered throughout the galaxies. Your people were slaves.”
    “Why tell me this?” Keen asked, shaken and obviously unwilling to believe.
    “Because I can. Because it serves my purpose. Because I believe, finally, I have found a human worthy of the knowledge. Because the worlds are out there waiting for you to conquer. Because this world is yours and it is not enough, is it? Because you are not thinking.”
    As shocked as he was by Iblis’s revelations, Keen bristled instinctively at the insult. Iblis could not help but smile.
    “Then prove me wrong, man. Think. The Corvani and the Kelani
are
different. This is fundamental to your core beliefs, is it not? But ask yourself: why are they different? Because we brought you here from different worlds. That is your answer. Yes, you are both strains of humanity. Like vermin, humans flourish no matter how filthy the conditions of their existence.”
    “You brought us here?”
    “Yes,” Iblis said.
    “But how?” Keen stared at him. Iblis could hear the thoughts running blindly through his mind. They all returned to the same one: but how? How when you appear so young? How could you colonize a world when it was young? How could we not know? And the truth was they did know. The deep-seated loathing that existed between the two species the Goa’uld had