Serpent's Vow

28: Circumstances of Existence

"You took a baby as a host?" Jack cried in offended fury.

"I took the host that was presented to me at the time," Kaiba replied calmly, his sharp blue eyes meeting Jack's evenly. "It was either that or die."

"You could have chosen someone else," Jack snarled. "Anyone else."

"No! I couldn't," Kaiba snapped, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "I could barely comprehend anything beyond my first instinct to survive let alone make a decision as complicated as choosing a potential host."

"Not my problem."

"No," Kaiba said, deliberately looking away from the colonel and speaking in an even and controlled tone. "It was mine. It should never have been mine, but reality is hardly fair. Setesh took away any chance I may have had to choose a host by forcefully implanting me in an unfamiliar, immature human. I didn't choose this, nor was I pleased with it at the time. However," his gaze flickered back to O'Neill, "I did choose to take advantage of the circumstances I found myself in rather than wallow in misery and disappointment."

Jacob went over Kaiba's words another time in his head. It still made no sense. It wasn't uncommon for immature symbiotes to be kept in tanks if there were no Jaffa in need of a new symbiote readily available. It was the best way to maintain control of and limit the potential influences on the young symbiotes. It was also a way to protect the vulnerable symbiotes while they were too young to protect themselves from threats effectively.

It also wasn't unheard of for the immature symbiotes of dead Jaffa to escape their pouch and take the first available host in the vicinity. It was a natural survival instinct. Escape and survive or remain in the dead Jaffa's body and die.

But to deliberately implant an immature symbiote that hadn't been exposed to a Jaffa and therefore had a smaller chance of a successful blending into a host? That was not common practice at all. For a queen to be subjected to something as brutal as that was surprising and, judging from the horror emanating from Selmak's mental presence, downright offensive.

To make matters worse, the host had been an infant. Jacob remembered the birth of his daughter, Sam. She'd been so small and precious. He'd been terrified of holding her because what if he squeezed too hard and hurt her? For a child of that age to be implanted with a Goa'uld, an immature Goa'uld... It was horrific.

Both Jacob and Selmak were of one mind on this. Selmak's 2,000 years of memories gave Jacob an idea of how things should be from the early days of the newly spawned Tok'ra. There were even a few memories of how things were with the System Lords' implantation rituals. It was considered a sacred thing when a new System Lord or a queen was implanted.

The young, mature symbiote was given the chance to choose a host. The implantation was delicate and required much care on the part of the Goa'uld and Jaffa overseeing the ritual. If something should go wrong, then death was a very real possibility for both the symbiote and the host.

Queen symbiotes were a bit trickier. They were feistier than the typical drone Goa'uld. They were also larger and required more time to integrate with the host's body and mind. On the other hand, a queen's hold on a host was also less permanent than a typical drone's. Queens had to spawn, after all.

Some queens, like Hathor, chose to spawn while remaining in their hosts. Others chose to temporarily leave their hosts to spawn. If the queen chose the latter, then they were constantly cared for and their host restrained and kept under control, usually by means of sedation, until the queen returned. It required absolute trust between the queen and those present which were usually the queen's consort, the First Prime, and a select few lo'tar.