It was only a fraction of the zat’s full power, but it still paralyzed her for a second. As soon as she saw Teal’c hit the energy of the shot flooded through her, jerking her hard backwards as her muscles spasmed, filling her vision with light, her ears with a stuttering whine. She staggered, tried for a moment to regain her balance, but the strength had gone out of her. She sagged to the floor.
As she collapsed, Teal’c was already on his knees. She saw him fighting the effects of the beam, but there was never any hope of overcoming it. He reached out, skin still crawling with brilliant serpents of light, and then topped face-down.
“Teal’c!” she shouted, uselessly.
“Silence!” Carter looked up to see the zat’s head flick in her direction. “On your feet.”
Behind the weapon, the First Prime’s face was set hard. Carter tried to raise herself, gingerly, but her first attempt failed. Her muscles were still weakened by the residual energy. As she tried a second time, the man made an exasperated sound, put his gun away and reached down to take her arm.
He hauled her upright as his companions gathered around Teal’c.
Carter watched them lift him. “Is he all right?”
“He lives, for now.” The man released her, watching her carefully. To make sure she didn’t fall again, Carter guessed. His master had probably demanded she be delivered intact.
“What do you mean, for now? What’s going to happen to him?”
“That does not concern you.”
“Of course it concerns me!”
The First Prime raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I should have made myself clear. His fate is utterly beyond your control, and yours hangs in the balance. Therefore, you would do better to focus on what is about to happen to you.”
The four Jaffa were standing around Teal’c, holding him upright. One of them pressed a control on his wrist armor, activating the transporter. As Carter watched, the rings dropped down around the little group, surrounding them in a cage of stone for a moment before light flooded down.
“No,” she breathed.
When the rings rose again, they were empty.
Carter found herself staring at the place Teal’c had been. For a moment, the suddenness with which he had been taken almost felled her, as brutal as the zat’s stray charge. She had been in the Jaffa’s company so long, since the Pit of Sorrows had swallowed them both and flung itself up towards the stars, that for a second or two she had to fight back a wave of panic.
The hallway around her felt very large, and very quiet.
She took a breath, straightened her back, and forced herself calm. The panic retreated. In a way, its threat had been a positive thing — the spark of adrenaline it had brought served to sharpen Carter’s senses. It was a lesson she had learned long ago; fear was not always the enemy, as long as it was kept on a tight enough leash.
And standing in the depths of a Goa’uld starship, an unknown distance from Earth, unarmed and alone and with no immediate prospects for escape, Carter knew she had to keep the leash very tight indeed.
“All right,” she said coldly. “What happens now?”
“You are to be presented to my master,” the First Prime replied. “The God, Neheb-Kau.”
Carter lifted her arms a little way from her body and looked pointedly down at herself, at her sodden jeans and stained cotton shirt. “Like this?”
“Better that, than with a hundred of Ra’s victims on your skin.”
The dust, she thought. And the expression on the man’s face told her that he took no pleasure in the notion. She stored that knowledge away, along with the tiny measure of hope it brought her.
This Jaffa, this First Prime, seemed as repulsed by the Ash Eater’s works as she was.
“Since you put it like that…” She ran a hand back through her hair. Drying in the hall’s cool air, it was starting to stick uncomfortably to her scalp. “So. When does he want to see me?”
“He commanded that you be brought to him as soon as you were cleansed.” The Jaffa glanced warily up the hallway, towards the big golden doors at the far end. “Against my counsel.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “His curiosity is mighty. Now, walk with me. And do not try to escape again.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” she said grimly. The gold-clad guards lining the walls were just as motionless as when she had arrived, but Carter knew just how fast their staff weapons could be brought to bear if she was foolish enough to try anything. If she was honest with herself, even Teal’c’s attack on the Jaffa was probably ill-judged. She had little doubt that these men would have cut down their own First Prime, without hesitation, if it meant protecting their God from danger.
Instead, Carter had decided to follow the basic military doctrine that, when faced with overwhelming odds, a soldier should retreat and gather as much intelligence as possible. Her life, and Teal’c’s, might depend on her discovering everything she could about their situation. Now looked very much like the time to start getting some answers.
The Jaffa was nodding her forwards. Carter set off, keeping her pace measured, as regular and unthreatening as possible, as she began to walk up to the golden doors.
It took longer to get there than Carter had estimated. The hallway was very long indeed. The First Prime’s footfalls matched hers the whole way. And as they passed each set of guards, the golden men dropped to one knee in perfect and practiced sequence.
Unusually, the doors did not slide apart when she reached them. Instead, they swung inwards, silent and heavy. Carter stepped through, into flickering gloom and hazy air.
The ceiling of this new chamber was somewhat higher than that of the hallway, but it still felt oppressive. It was a wide, square room, lit only by burning lanterns set into alcoves. The rear wall sloped oddly, and the centre of the floor was dominated by a low, stepped platform, topped with a golden throne. There was a door to either side of the chamber, each guarded by two more of the Jaffa Carter had seen in the hallway.
The air smelled of lantern-smoke and spices.
Behind her, the doors swung closed; Carter felt a slight brush of the air they displaced as they moved. A moment later the First Prime appeared next to her. ”Human,” he said quietly.
“Yes?”
“I say this not for your well-being, but for my own. Should the God choose to remove his mask, you may find the sight unsettling.” His voice lowered further. “You will keep your eyes longer if you do not react.”
“Unsettling?” There was something in the way he had spoken that Carter didn’t like at all. “What do you mean?”
“Pray you do not find out.”
Carter hated it when people made cryptic statements at her, then refused to follow them up. She was about to say so when a sound rang out through the room; a soft, metallic chiming. It rang three times, then silenced.
A door to Carter’s right, behind the throne, slid aside.
Through it stepped two more Jaffa guards. Then a pair of human slaves, one male, one female, naked but for loincloths and thick chains of gold at their wrists and throats. Their scalps were shaved, their eyes were ringed with kohl. They looked utterly terrified.
Behind these two walked the God, Neheb-Kau.
As his First Prime had hinted, the Goa’uld’s head was enclosed in glittering mechanized armor, gold and gleaming like the death-mask of a pharaoh. His shoulders were similarly adorned, and he wore a jeweled pectoral across his chest. The rest of him was concealed in long robes of silk, utterly black.
Next to her, the First Prime dropped to one knee.
The procession continued walking behind the throne. Behind Neheb-Kau paced a tall, robed man, his face gaunt and frowning, and behind him two more Jaffa. As Carter watched the guards spread out, taking position on either side of the platform. Neheb-Kau made his way to the throne and sat, carefully, while the slaves stepped behind him. The robed man stood to the God’s left, beside the throne.
Once everyone was still, Neheb-Kau
raised a hand. “Kafra, rise. Introduce our guest.”
His voice was high, a thin rushing behind his mask, yet backed with the unmistakable echo of a Goa’uld parasite tugging at human vocal chords. There was a strangeness to it, a liquid, pestilent quality, and the hand he had raised was withered and skeletal, the flesh of it blackened like rotted fruit.
No wonder his First Prime — Kafra — had warned her about what lay behind that metal face.
“My Lord.” The Jaffa got up. “This is the human we discovered within the Pit of Sorrows. We found her with the First Prime of Apophis.”
Neheb-Kau’s mask tilted a fraction. “You are a long way from home, human.”
Carter had seldom felt further. “I know.”
“I wonder if you do.” The God leaned forwards, the silk of his robes whispering. “Perhaps I should explain your situation. You were discovered, armed, aboard my personal property, in the company of the First Prime of a rival System Lord. You attacked my Jaffa, killing one of them. My technicians tell me that you had attempted to access the control systems of the Pit of Sorrows during its journey, no doubt to prevent it reaching me.” He settled back again, and spread his ruined hands. “And now you stand before me, aboard my throneship, and do not even afford me the proper respect. Tell me, why should you not die now?
“Because I’m not your enemy,” said Carter. She hoped it was true. “Neither is Teal’c — he doesn’t even serve Apophis anymore.”
“He does not? How can this be?”
Carter wondered how far she should go with her explanation. Not very far at all, she decided. “He chose to work with us… With me, instead. Against Apophis.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of a long story…”
Silence descended upon the chamber, broken only by the faint clatter of golden chain links. The slaves were shivering.
And then Neheb-Kau chuckled. It was a dry sound, like leaves rustling at the base of a dead tree. “So, the First Prime of Apophis has defied his God, and now serves the Tau’ri. What do you think of that, Djetec?”
The robed man’s voice was a hiss of rage. “It is a blasphemy, my Lord.”
“Manners, Djetec. Apophis is no concern of ours. I would rather a renegade Jaffa on my ship than a loyal envoy of that tedious little insect.” The mask turned to Kafra. “Where is this Teal’c?”
“With your ka’epta of surgeries.”
The word was like ice in Carter’s chest. “Surgeries?”
“He is merely undergoing medical tests. As a Jaffa, his physiology is known to us — the tests will provide baseline data on the state of the Ash Eater.”
“So he won’t be harmed?”
Djetec glared down at her. “He is responsible for the death of one of our Jaffa. Should he not be punished?”
Carter glanced across at Kafra. To relate what had happened in the Pit of Sorrows, at least as she saw it, would place the blame firmly on him — it had been he who had fired first, in the fear and confusion and the dust-laden darkness. She didn’t know how much trouble that would get him into, but she suspected it would be a lot, and not the kind she would wish on anyone.
And he had, in the past little while, started to show her at least a kind of respect.
“That was a…” She searched for the best word. “A misunderstanding. I don’t think your men expected to find us in there, and we just wanted to get out.”
Neheb-Kau’s eyes glowed, subtly. “Kafra?”
“It is possible, my Lord. The ch’epta who entered with us were afraid. One cried out… Perhaps the situation was not as clear-cut as I had thought.”
At that, the robed advisor leaned down towards Neheb-Kau’s mask. There was a brief, whispered exchange. Carter tried to listen in, but the chamber was too full of echoes.
Then Djetec straightened, and Neheb-Kau spoke aloud. “Human, you tried to steal the Ash Eater from me. Attempted to access the Pit’s control matrix.”
Carter shook her head. “That’s not true.”
“The damage you caused has been catalogued,” said Djetec.
“I’m not denying that we tried to access the control system, but we weren’t trying to steal anything. We were just trying to get home, that’s all. When the Pit took off we were trapped.”
“I am told you very nearly succeeded,” replied Neheb-Kau.
“We did?”
“Indeed. Given more time, you would either have taken control of the Pit’s primary systems, or caused the hyperdrive to explode.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, the throne room seemed rather cold. “Okay.”
“Which implies considerable knowledge of our technologies,” Neheb-Kau went on. “You say you have worked against Apophis, alongside your traitorous companion. In so doing, have you learned of our machines?”
“I know something about them.”
The mask tipped, quizzically. “Impressive. You are a scientist among your people?”
There was little point denying it. “I am, yes.”
“As am I.” There was something in the Goa’uld’s awful voice that might even been a smile. “I too study technologies alien to my race. And have been persecuted. Human, we have much in common.”
That drew a swift, sideways glare from the thin-faced advisor. Carter could see that the man had not approved at all of the comparison, but if Neheb-Kau had noticed, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed almost eager to engage with Carter.
“You have questions,” he was saying. “We scientists always do. Let me answer them for you.” He reached to his pectoral and pressed a gem.
The room shivered. There was a grating, a deep, sonorous grinding, continuous and powerful and frightening, like vast blocks of stone sliding one against the other. For a moment Carter couldn’t determine what the sound was or where it was coming from, until she realized that the sloping rear wall of the chamber was moving.
The entire wall was sliding downwards, and at its upper edge, the glossy black of its facing gave way to an even deeper darkness.
It was a window, she realized. The wall was a viewport, a section of the ship’s angled outer hull that was as transparent as air. Outside, she saw space, a velvet night spattered with diamond pinpricks. Entranced, she stepped forwards, hardly even seeing the gold-clad guards bringing their staff-weapons to bear on her, or the naked slaves cowering behind the throne. She was looking at the stars.
Samantha Carter had seen the depths of space before, untold times. But not like this. The stars were wrong. Their profusion was impaired, misshapen. At the top of the viewport she could see hardly any, but as the sliding wall dropped entirely away she saw that there were far more below her.
And along the right-hand side of the viewport, there were none at all.
It took Carter several seconds to work out that there was a planet there, a dark crescent, almost featureless against the night. Its surface was black, with just a faint, ruddy glow of reflected sunlight giving it any solidity at all. If Carter concentrated on it, she could just make out a texture, a slow roil of cloud, but as soon as her eyes moved it was gone again. Black on black, impenetrable.
It was an oddly disturbing sight. Carter had never seen a world that looked so utterly dead.
The ship was above the ecliptic plane. If the whirling disc of the galaxy could be thought of as horizontal, her voyage aboard the Pit of Sorrows had taken her up, either directly or at a steep angle. The ship was still aligned in the same plane, so there seemed to be more stars beneath Carter’s feet than above her head. It was a strange feeling, vertiginous and dizzying.
The grinding of the viewport shield had ceased, replaced by a softer noise. Behind her, the platform was rotating.
“It has a certain beauty, does it not?” Neheb-Kau’s voice was hushed, even the Goa’uld vibration behind it suppressed. “From the surface, even more so… A magnificent desolation, an endless sea of ash beneath a leaden sky…”
Carter couldn’t think of anything less attractive than the corpse-world beyond the window, but she r
efrained from saying so.
“My Lord,” said Kafra, his voice strangely subdued. “If I may leave your presence briefly?”
“The sight too much for you, old friend?”
“There is a matter I must attend to. A minor thing. I shall be but moments.”
“Very well.” The Goa’uld waved him away, as one might shoo away a fly. “Human, forgive my First Prime. He finds this world disturbing. You and I are of sterner stuff.”
Carter watched Kafra walking out, the golden doors swinging open at his approach. “It sounds like you’ve been down to the surface.”
“Long ago. But I never forgot it. Human, I have seen wonders beyond your comprehension, worlds of ice and fire.” He was almost whispering now. “But nothing I have experienced matches this nameless world. Nothing. It affected me greatly.”
Carter looked back at him, and past him. At the black chamber, lit with small fires, the low ceiling, the silent and terrified slaves… “I can see that.”
A thunderous expression had appeared on Djetec’s face. Carter spoke quickly. “But what brought you all the way out here?”
“Legends,” replied Neheb-Kau. “Rumors. Scraps of data collected over a thousand years. The lost history of the race which ruled the galaxy long before the Goa’uld.”
“The Ancients.”
He laughed. “Those sickly fools? Before even them… Long before, when the stars were young, they left this world and built an empire to which even the Goa’uld cannot aspire. Human, as we are Gods to you, we would be worms before them.”
No wonder Neheb-Kau had sought the place out, Carter thought. The promise of any technological advantage would draw such a creature like blood draws a shark. Not, judging by the state of his vessel, that it had done him much good. “But they must have died out too, surely?”
“Ah, that is the one true answer, human.” Neheb-Kau gestured at the black planet, his rotted hand sliding horribly from his robe. “They are indeed gone, dead and vanished as though they never existed. Their hunger was too great.”
“Hunger?”
“For energy. At the start, to power their machines, their starships, their civilization. But over time, they adapted themselves to feed on pure energy itself. And as they became more powerful, they in turn required more power.”
STARGATE SG-1: Oceans of Dust Page 20
