“What about the translation?” Michael Webber asked, his curiosity verging on hunger.
“First, Cassie is dead the second those people get their hands on the translation, and second, it’s classified.”
“Classified? That thing is ten thousand years old! How can it be classified?”
“I could explain it to you, but then I’d have to shoot you. I’d rather not. Messes up the carpet. Mindy wouldn’t like it.”
“Will you ever let me know?”
“We can’t, Michael. I’m truly sorry,” Colonel Carter said gently and stood.
He gave a crooked grin that made him look years younger. “You’re not really aliens, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” said Teal’c, dodging a foul look from O’Neill.
The grin brightened into a laugh. “Still not at liberty to reveal your identity, I see. Far out.” Then Michael Webber turned serious again. “Can you at least tell me if you’ll be going after the kidnappers? I’d like to help if I can.”
A grim look in his eyes, Daniel Jackson finally glanced up from the document. “We’re going to Santorini,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Oh, we are, are we?” O’Neill cocked an eyebrow. “Who put you in charge?”
Daniel Jackson held up the document, then turned to Michael Webber. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare plane, would you?”
Chapter 15
A trickle of sweat slid into her eyes. Cassie stopped climbing, wiped her face on her sleeve, and took a drink from the water bottle they’d given her.
Dizzyingly far below she could see the camp, crawling, insect-like, with tiny people. Past it stretched an expanse of water— two, three miles perhaps, it was difficult to guess— to the shores of Santorini. It was dotted with the white triangles of sails and shot through with the arrowhead wakes of motorboats. Halfway along the coast she could see a small town, houses huddling against a steep mountain flank and painted in the glowing white and blue of Greece. All of it radiating picture postcard perfection.
“Wish you were here,” she muttered grimly and took another sip of water.
Her guard— not Number Two, who seemed to have disappeared without a trace, but some equally sullen-looking local guy— closed in, grunted something, and poked her with the barrel of his gun. She arched her back, away from the muzzle, screwed the cap on the bottle, and started climbing again.
The slope faced southwest, with the afternoon sun beating down relentlessly. Black, porous rock— basalt or something else volcanic— soaked up the heat and inflated a shivering bubble of torridity over the cliffs. Nothing grew here, apart from a few specks of masochistic lichen.
Gasping for air, she finally reached the ledge where Number One had stood a minute ago. He’d disappeared around a jutting nose of rock. Keeping as far from the edge as the trail allowed— not terribly far and definitely not reassuring— Cassie sidled along the ledge and toward the outcrop. A whispery breeze stroked an illusion of freshness across her face, just enough to dispel any suicidal notions she might have harbored about taking a dive into the cool, blue-and-white relief of the ocean eighty yards below.
Three more cautious steps brought her around the outcrop. A few feet away Number One was waiting, guarding what looked like the entrance to a cavern.
“About time,” he said and jerked his chin at the shadows of the cave. “It’ll be cooler in there.”
Great. Nobody in the world she’d rather go spelunking with!
Cassie was tempted to simply tell him where to shove this whole crazy hike, but curiosity won. Besides, he probably wouldn’t give her an option anyway.
“Stay close. It’s a labyrinth down there.” He switched on a small flashlight and disappeared into the shadows.
One thing was true, Cassie decided as she followed him in. It was cooler. Not by much, but the drop in temperature sure was noticeable. The footing had changed, too, she realized. The ground, though still the same volcanic rock, was even, polished almost, as if someone had smoothed it down with a grinder.
No… not a grinder. Too perfect for that.
She stopped, bent over, pretending to tie her shoelace, and touched the rock. It felt glassy. Cassie swallowed a soft gasp of surprise.
Some kind of energy tool. No two ways about it. The finish was unmistakable.
Did her captors know?
“I told you to stay close!” Number One snapped.
“Coming! Jeez!” she snarled back, straightening up and stumbling after the halo of brightness from his flashlight.
It seemed oddly dull in here, with the rock gobbling up light as greedily as it swallowed heat. There was no moisture on the walls, nothing that would throw back so much as a spark, just blank, utter blackness. The creep probably had a point. If she got lost down here… Cassie suppressed a shudder, cast a glance over her shoulder, only to realize that she could no longer see the mouth of the tunnel. That same impenetrable darkness hung behind them like a giant cork in a black bottle.
And her watchdog was gone.
This time the shudder would come, whether she liked it or not.
Why wasn’t the guy following any longer?
Scared of what lay in wait inside this cave?
“Hey!” she called. “Aren’t you missing something?”
Number One stopped, turned toward her, his face an eerie black and white mask in the glow of the flashlight. “What?”
“The goon who was supposed to keep me in line. Where is he?”
“None of the local labor are allowed in here.” He smiled an ugly little smile. “Naturally, two enterprising souls decided to check out the cave anyway. They met with an unfortunate, very nasty accident. Ever since, curiosity levels have taken a dramatic downturn.”
“And you’re not scared to be all alone with me? Oooh. What a big, brave boy!”
Taunting the man probably wasn’t a good idea. She couldn’t say what possessed her, except that lashing out, even verbally, felt better than being plain scared. It occurred to her that this might well be the reason behind Jack O’Neill’s tendency to provoke people into rearranging his face and other parts of his anatomy for him. The habit had driven her mother nuts, but Cassie thought she understood now.
Number One didn’t react. At least not outwardly. He merely turned away again. “Keep moving.”
She briefly contemplated staying put, forcing him into a reaction, but that need to find out what this was all about spurred her on. Less than ten minutes later, she saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Then again, she doubted that it would improve her situation in any appreciable way.
The dim, glowing patch in the distance gradually grew and brightened as they approached. There was an odd kind of hum, too. Cassie couldn’t quite place it, but it was welcome after what had seemed an eternity of only the sound of their footfalls and her own breath.
The tunnel opened out into a cavern, brightly lit and cluttered with equipment, including— now she recognized the source of the humming— a generator that fed a battery of lamps mounted on stands. Among other things. Off to one side stood a desk, on it a state-of-the-art computer. The woman working on it Cassie hadn’t seen before. She barely acknowledged their arrival. With a brief nod at Creep Number One, she turned back to her task, whatever it might be.
Cassie tried to make sense of the symbols flitting across the monitor, but was distracted when another man appeared from the back of the cave.
Creep Number Two.
So this was where he’d disappeared to.
“We’re almost there,” he said to Number One. “Told you we’d get it, even without that sheet of gibberish the old man dug up.” Then he noticed Cassie, scowled. “What’d you bring her for?”
“She might be useful,” Number One replied curtly and slanted a sly look at Cassie. “After all, we’re well aware that her birthplace isn’t Toronto. Who knows? She might be able to communicate with our ice lady. Maybe they share a hom
e planet?”
Our what?
And how the hell did they know that she—
Another bank of lights snapped on, making the generator groan. Brightness flooded the corner of the cave where Number Two had been hiding. Set into the rock— if it was rock; the surface seemed different from the surrounding walls— was something that looked like a cupboard with a glass door. Except, it certainly wasn’t a cupboard. You didn’t keep people in those.
To the right of the door was some kind of control panel, elaborately crafted and unlike anything she’d ever seen on Earth. Or on Hanka for that matter. Colorful touch pads glowed gently, invitingly almost, as if they were trying to persuade her to hit one and see what would happen.
A gut feeling insisted that the technology and design weren’t Goa’uld. In an odd kind of way they looked too… benign for it. But still, if Creeps Number One and Two and the computer chick were planning to activate the device, God knew what they might unleash. Or whom.
Cassie stared at the woman behind the glass door. Sleeping Beauty, she thought, a few years on. Apparently Prince Charming had been unavoidably detained. Despite the wild strands of gray-brushed hair and the crow’s feet that were just noticeable through the frosted smudge of the glass, her age was difficult to tell. She could have been forty or sixty or anything in between. Her dress, a sleeveless flowing affair, pale blue and cinched beneath the bust, undoubtedly would have been the height of fashion in ancient Greece.
The woman’s chest rose as she took a slow breath. It was a barely perceptible motion, and for several seconds Cassie was convinced it had been a trick of the mind. Then the chest sank, and she took an involuntary step back.
“She’s alive!”
“Oh yes,” replied Number One, sounding almost reverent. “And there’s no telling how long she’s been down here. The document we’ve asked Dr. Jackson to translate for us was found in an adjoining chamber. It’s ten thousand years old.”
A stasis pod! That’s what it was. “You’re not planning to open it?” Cassie gasped.
“You bet we do, honey.” Number Two smirked at her. “What? Scaredy-cat?”
“If you make a mistake she could die.”
“And how would you know about that, Cassandra Fraiser from Toronto? Careful, my dear. You’re giving yourself away here.” Number One’s chuckle was as grating as his pretense of politeness. “But we shall just have to take that risk. Or she’ll have to, rather. Needless to say, we’ll do our best not to make any mistakes.”
The woman at the computer cleared her throat. “I’ve got it. Ready when you are.”
“Good.” He didn’t bother to turn around. “Open it.”
The only reply was the clatter of keys being pushed. A final, emphatic clack— the ‘Enter’ key?— and the lights in the cavern dimmed a fraction as the pod began to draw power from the generator. The colored pads on the control panel began to glow and wink out again in a seemingly haphazard sequence. Blue and green and amber and pink. The door seal gave, and Cassie could have sworn she felt the tickle of a draft on her skin when chilly air escaped from within the pod, to be replaced by a golden glow that brightened gradually as if it were warming the sleeper. And perhaps that was exactly what it did.
As the door began to slide open, hard fingers dug into Cassie’s shoulder. Number One was pulling her back. For once she didn’t resist.
What if it was a Goa’uld after all?
The thought filled her with a leaden dread she hadn’t known since she was a child. Her mouth went dry, and she swallowed hard, struggling to keep herself from shaking. Every ounce of common sense she had ordered her to run.
Too late.
The sleeper— the ice lady— stirred.
Frozen in place, Cassie watched as fingers clenched and extended, muscles tensed, skin curled under a veil of goose bumps that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The mouth opened a little, showing a hint of teeth, and the sleeper drew a deep, lung-stretching breath. Then she did something absurdly mundane. She yawned. Hard. It made her appear so workaday and harmless.
What could be more natural than waking?
The sleeper opened her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked, and stepped from the pod. “You are not supposed to be here.”
Cassie heard the sharp ratchet of a gun being readied.
“Don’t move!” barked Number Two. “You’ll do exactly as we tell you!”
Not likely. And wrong.
The woman raised her hands, fingers pointing up, palms facing forward.
Tiny hairs on her arms stood on end, and Cassie could feel the energy charge building. Number One let go of her shoulder and stepped forward, maybe intending to defuse, maybe intending a threat.
“Don’t!” Cassie yelled. “Get back!”
And this, too, came too late.
Instincts tapped into a force her conscious mind never acknowledged she had, a mere split-second before the energy bolt slammed into the cavern like a giant mallet of liquid air.
Chapter 16
“How is he doing?”
It was the ever same question, in different permutations and from different sources. By now Carson Beckett had heard it often enough to make him want to scream. In this particular instance, though, such a reaction might be inadvisable.
This time, the person asking was Dr. Weir. She had stridden into the infirmary moments ago, proving once more that the grapevine of Atlantis was functioning exceedingly well. Carson couldn’t for the life of him remember calling her or giving any of the nurses orders to do so. As a matter of fact, not a single one of the bystanders who’d materialized over the past four hours or so had been called, and even pointing out the infection hazard couldn’t keep them away. They knew as well as Carson that Atlantis’s automated quarantine system would prevent any serious risk on that score. Which was one piece of good news at least. Still, he wished them all to… some other place, because he and his staff were busy enough without shooing them back from the isolation tent that surrounded Mr. Rodriguez’s bed.
None of which was any reason to rise to the curmudgeonly heights of Rodney McKay, he reminded himself. Distracting or not, these people were here because they cared. Young Salvador was a popular lad. Especially with the ladies, it seemed.
“Carson?” Elizabeth Weir’s voice interrupted that particular train of thought. “How is he?” she asked again.
“Not good, but we’ve got him stabilized for the moment,” Beckett said. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, and he swatted it away with the back of his hand. “Let me get out of this portable steam bath, and I’ll give you a full update.”
“Thanks. I’ll be waiting for you in my office.” She turned around, scanned the huddle of concerned parties, and sighed. “Look, I know you’re worried about a colleague, but this isn’t helping. I want you to clear out of here and let Dr. Beckett and his staff do their jobs. That’s an order. We’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Carson could have kissed her. He’d delivered roughly the same speech at fifteen-minute intervals, but this time people actually started filtering out the door. Being the leader of the Atlantis expedition rather than a lowly chief surgeon helped, he supposed.
“Praise be!” his head nurse muttered under her breath. A little more distinctly, she added, “You go ahead, Doctor. If anything changes, I’ll contact you immediately.”
He nodded his thanks and went to subject himself to a thorough if dermatologically questionable decontamination process. Fifteen minutes later, scrubbed rosy and reeking of bleach, he walked into Elizabeth Weir’s office where the usual suspects had gathered. In addition to Elizabeth, who sat behind her desk and a barely touched sandwich, John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, and, naturally, Rodney McKay had taken various perches— some more suitable than others— around the office. Ronon Dex was the only one standing, propping up the wall with one shoulder, arms folded across his chest.
“Any news?” Elizabeth asked as soon as he stepped through the door.
<
br /> “No.” One of the two visitors’ chairs was still up for grabs, and Carson dropped into that. Circumstances notwithstanding, it felt kind of nice to be off his feet for a bit. Only drawback, the sandwich sat smack in his line of sight. “Rodriguez’s temperature is coming down since we’ve put him in ice packs, which is the good news, I suppose. When his boss found him in the lab, he was seizing though, so there may be some brain damage. But I can’t be sure about that until he wakes up, and so far he’s showing no sign of it. Also, we can’t keep him on ice indefinitely.” In a considerable act of willpower, Carson tore his gaze away from the sandwich. Unfortunately his stomach had rather enjoyed the view and now gave a rumble of very audible annoyance. He blushed. Noises aside, it felt wrong for him to have something even approaching an appetite under the circumstances. “Uh… pardon me.”
“When have you last eaten, Carson?” Without waiting for an answer, Elizabeth pushed the plate his way.
In point of fact, Dr. Beckett had just sat down to lunch when the emergency call from the biogenetics lab came in. Now he told himself that he was preventing a metabolic disaster, snatched a slightly soggy triangle of whole meal slices slapped around who-cares-what-as-long-as-it’s-edible, and tucked in. “Thanks,” he mumbled between two bites.
“Have you found what caused it yet?” Teyla sat on a squat filing cabinet and was watching the disappearance of the sandwich with polite fascination.
The question, predictable as it was, put a dent in Carson’s appetite. The current bite congealed to an unwieldy lump, and he swallowed with difficulty. “Oh, aye,” he confessed, a little grumpily. He was as certain as he could be, pending the results of the blood test.
“Have you got anything to add to that or are you just waiting for the suspense to kill us?” snarled Rodney.
“It’s a virus.” Carson put down the second half of the sandwich. His appetite had well and truly deserted him. “And it may be airborne, though that’s never—”
STARGATE SG-1: Transitions Page 11
