02 - The Price You Pay

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  The people were dressed in colorful tunics both striped and solid, with elaborate hems or none at all, tied at the shoulders and falling to knee-length, their feet either bare or wrapped in leather sandals. Broad belts tied the tunics at the waist, with fringed ends hanging nearly to the ground, and some of the men wore woven, tasseled caps of red and blue and white—now that part looked more Turkish than Greek, somehow. No one looked either excessively poor or excessively wealthy, and he couldn’t spot any beggars or cripples in the crowd. That alone was unusual.

  But nobody ever said human social evolution had to be absolutely consistent. The weather was mildly Mediterranean too. A soft breeze blew the smells of the goats away. It was humid but not hot, the sun shining almost blindingly on the white stone of the nearby buildings. A few clouds could have been reflections of the city. One or two broken columns and cracked walls simply gave the place character—he found himself looking for souvenir sellers. There might actually be some under the striped awnings, propped with thin sticks against the pavement, that shaded merchants and their customers.

  The city itself was set in a kind of bowl, maybe a caldera. The broad street that rose up to the Agora building could have continued beyond it to the brown, rocky hills, spotted with more trees, that defined the horizon. The difference between the trees in the hills and the ones in the city was striking, as if rain ran off the surrounding area and concentrated here to feed the thirsty vegetation. Not a very defensible location; the field of fire from those surrounding hills would be as focused as the rainfall. They were sitting ducks if anyone decided to lay siege to the place.

  “They’re not scared,” Jackson, peering around from behind him, said.

  It was true. The Athenians were startled to see them, obviously; the rapid conversations springing up here and there were proof of that. But they weren’t afraid. They were staring at the newcomers, talking softly and nudging each other, taking several hesitant steps forward. It was almost as if someone or some ones had been expected, but not so soon.

  Which did not bode well for this planet, given what usually came through Stargates, O’Neill thought grimly.

  At the same time, whoever was expected, it obviously wasn’t three men and a woman dressed in green-tan-and-black-splotched heavy cotton and combat boots, carrying backpacks and rifles.

  “Are they going to understand us this time?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “No telling until we try,” Carter answered. “We haven’t figured out yet how the Gates affect our ability to speak or understand languages. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “We come in peace,” Daniel said, raising one hand and stepping forward.

  O’Neill rolled his eyes. Scientists!

  “That is not wise,” Teal’C muttered.

  “When did that ever stop him?” O’Neill asked.

  “Never.” Teal’C hadn’t quite got the knack of rhetorical questions yet.

  The people in the marketplace milled around, nudging each other, trying to find a spokesman to deal with this camouflage-clad set of apparitions manifesting through their Gate. Finally a middle-aged woman dressed in reds and browns, balancing a large woven basket full of vegetables on her hip, stepped forward, looking up at them from the base of the stone platform.

  “Who are you? Are you Rejects?”

  “Well, that answers one question, anyway,” Carter said. “I guess we can understand each other without a translator this time. That’s convenient.”

  “We’re—we’re friends. My name is Daniel Jackson,” Jackson said. Then, over his shoulder to the rest of the team, “Are we rejects?”

  “Never been rejected in my life,” O’Neill responded, sotto voce. As expected, Carter glared at him.

  “What is a Reject?” Teal’C asked, frowning. His deep voice carried across the crowd. As he stepped forward, some of the natives spotted the mark, gold lines within a gold oval, embedded in the skin of his forehead. They pointed and whispered, clearly recognizing it.

  But they still weren’t afraid. It didn’t make sense. How could they know the mark of the Serpent Guards and not be afraid of what it meant?

  Daniel, exhibiting his usual finely honed sense of self-preservation, was halfway down the platform, peering earnestly through his glasses at the woman who had spoken. “I’m sorry,” he was saying. “We don’t understand. What are Rejects?”

  “Those who return,” the woman answered, baffled at his failure to grasp the obvious. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

  Daniel sneezed, and the woman stepped back, startled. “Sorry,” the archaeologist apologized. “It’s just allergies. We’re from Earth.”

  The word meant nothing to the natives.

  “They must have been taken long ago,” Daniel said over his shoulder. “They don’t know Earth.”

  “Maybe they just never called it that,” Carter pointed out.

  “Yeah, you ask me, I’m from Chicago,” O’Neill said. Teal’C frowned at him again.

  “Could you, er, take us to your leaders?” Daniel had redirected his attention to the woman in front of him, missing O’Neill’s groan of disbelief—not untinged by jealousy at having been beaten to it—entirely and probably deliberately.

  The woman stared up at them thoughtfully, with special attention to Teal’C. “Our Council is busy preparing for the celebration,” she said. “We didn’t expect anyone so soon. If you are sent by the Goa’uld, they will want to speak to you immediately, of course.”

  “Sent by…” Daniel began, aghast.

  “We want to speak to them,” O’Neill said sharply, asserting his authority. “As soon as possible.” He stepped down off the platform and looked around, one hand resting casually on his sidearm. “Can you take us to them, please?”

  Some of the natives were impressed by his presence and bearing. The middle-aged woman wasn’t. She looked him up and down, her mouth twisted in doubt, and then shrugged. “Very well,” she said, hefting the basket. A younger man came forward and took it from her, staring curiously at the newcomers.

  “What’s your name?” Carter asked the woman, following O’Neill down the steps.

  Jackson winced.

  O’Neill sighed, figuring they were going to get the standard cultural touchy-feely lecture as soon as they were alone: if the woman hadn’t volunteered her name in response to Daniel’s, there was probably some taboo or something that prevented her from providing it, and asking was too, too rude.

  “Yeah, what is your name?” the colonel asked.

  “Atena,” the woman said unwillingly.

  Atena. Athenaeum. Clearly it was meant to be.

  “What do you call this place?” he asked as they made their way through the crowd pressing around them.

  “M’kwethet,” she responded.

  “Gesundheit.” Damn. Athenaeum would have been a much better name. The woman looked at him blankly, and he shrugged, smiling. Atena looked away, as if the rules of politeness forbade her from asking for an explanation of that bizarre word. Apparently whatever translated English didn’t do the same for German.

  Atena led them down the main street out of the marketplace, directly toward the building lined with tall, graceful columns that O’Neill stubbornly insisted on thinking of as the Agora. The others in the marketplace watched them, still murmuring among themselves. The team strode along quickly, observing the porches overhanging the street, the glimpses of life through open windows and doors. There were more shops along this street, but there were also old men and women sitting in the sun, gabbling and pointing at them as they went. Some called out questions to Atena, which she ignored with lofty dignity.

  In a few minutes they arrived at the broad porch and stood within the row of columns in the shade. The columns, at least thirty feet tall, sent stripes down the sunlit marble. One or two of the natives exchanged greetings with Atena, sending the visitors curious but unthreatening looks.

  Here, too, the elders sat, some playing a
game that looked like three-handed chess, some merely gossiping. Three or four young children sat in a rough semicircle before one old man, listening attentively as he read to them from a scroll held open on his lap.

  Daniel, of course, paused to check out the architecture, probably identifying it as Ironic or Dori or some such. At O’Neill’s summoning glance, Carter hustled him up the steps after the rest of them, to the shaded portico. “This is kinda a nice place,” Daniel said, looking around.

  “It seems so,” Teal’C agreed gravely. O’Neill blinked. It wasn’t often that Teal’C agreed to any such thing.

  Still, he didn’t feel that icky prickling at the nape of his neck. The sunlight was warm, the shade cool, the air—at least now that they were away from the goats—clean and fresh and sweet. He couldn’t hear any shouts of alarm or anger anywhere.

  Really, it was too good to be true. Something was missing. Where was that familiar cozy feeling of dread and doom?

  He thought about it for a moment and decided it really was present after all; he just couldn’t figure out what was triggering it. Yet.

  Atena, who was the closemouthed type, led them through a high, arched portal into a large inner chamber currently lined with low tables and benches. A number of other doorways at the far end of the hall indicated that the building was considerably more extensive than this single room, large and cheerful though it might be. Light poured in through tall, broad windows that opened out onto the front portico. Children aged anywhere from six to the mid-teens scurried about, arranging sweet-smelling branches and setting fresh torches into sconces, climbing up ladders to put not-quite-sheer drapes in place to cover the plain walls. Now that they were completely out of the sunlight, the temperature had dropped noticeably. Daniel sneezed again, then coughed. Atena blinked.

  “Wait here,” she said, and left them standing there, bemused. The children giggled and pointed and whispered but never stopped their preparations.

  “Going to be quite a party, sir,” Carter said. Unlike Jackson and Teal’C, O’Neill noted, Carter didn’t seem to be any more at ease in this place than he was. “Wonder who it’s for.”

  “Probably not us.”

  “Uh, no.” Daniel sneezed again, apologetically. “Sorry.” His voice sounded clogged.

  As they spoke, Atena returned through one of the doors at the far end of the room, followed by another, younger woman and two men. She nodded to the SG-1 team and made a quick exit, evidently feeling her task was complete and glad of it.

  “Who are you?” one of the men said. All three of the newcomers looked tired and impatient and rather apprehensive at the sight of the team.

  Of the two men, one had a neatly trimmed gray beard and mustache. He was athletic, but beginning to put on weight. The other, in his late twenties or early thirties, looked as if he would much rather be out playing tennis than swaddled up in rust-colored robes and stuck indoors. He kept glancing around the room, as if checking up on whatever progress the children had made; he was practically dancing on the balls of his feet in his impatience to get away. The woman was midway in age between the two, her features sharp and intent, with dark brown hair beginning to silver at the temples and bright gray eyes.

  “We’re from Earth,” O’Neill said. He was beginning to think he could do this spiel in his sleep by now. “I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill. This is Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Teal’C.” He watched the three carefully for their reactions, especially to the Jaffa.

  None of them seemed especially awed by the man with the golden symbol embossed in his flesh, but they were clearly surprised to see him, recognized the mark, and were respectful and wary of him. They nodded deeply to him, and only as an afterthought to the rest.

  “We’re looking for the government of this place,” Daniel added helpfully.

  “Yeah, would that be you?” O’Neill asked, eager to cut to the chase.

  “We are the Rejected Ones,” the woman said. When the team looked blank, she elaborated, “It is our duty to oversee the comfort of M’kwethet. What do you require?” Her question was addressed to the Jaffa, despite the fact that O’Neill was doing the talking.

  “Daniel,” O’Neill said, stepping back to make room for the young archaeologist to come forward. “You’re on.”

  Daniel Jackson took a deep breath. “Um, we’re looking for the ones who can speak for the whole planet—er, all the people of M’kwethet. We need to warn you of a great danger, to offer you our help and alliance. We come from a place, er, a long way away.”

  “My name is Alizane Skillkeeper,” the woman said. “This”—the older man—“is Jareth of the Manyflowers, and this is Karlanan. If you wish to speak to someone, speak to us. We are the Council of the Rejected Ones of M’kwethet.” The look on her face indicated that she really, really hoped they didn’t want to speak to anyone at all and if they would just go away it would be a tremendous help. She kept looking at Teal’C, as if waiting for him to take over direction of the discussion.

  “And quickly, please,” Karlanan snapped, then moderated his tone with an apologetic glance at the Jaffa. “As you can see, my lord, we have much left to do, and very little time. We thought you were the Ones Returning, and we haven’t even set up the final selec—”

  “Now, now,” Jareth chided him. “All will occur in good time. It always has, and always will.” He smiled at the team. “I’m sure that our visitors understand why we are preoccupied at the moment, but if necessary—”

  The two younger ones exchanged exasperated glances and visibly reined themselves in.

  “Do you bring instructions from the Goa’uld?” Alizane demanded. “If so, we are eager to hear them, of course.”

  Once again picking up his jaw with some difficulty, O’Neill choked out, “Hell, no!”

  The Council members exchanged befuddled looks. “But you came through the Gate,” Alizane sputtered, as if they had denied it. “Atena told us you came through the Gate.”

  “We’re not from the Goa’uld. We’re from another world, called Earth.”

  The Council communed wordlessly for a moment, with Karlanan glancing frequently over his shoulder, obviously torn between dealing with their visitors and overseeing the hall decorations.

  “If you are truly not from the Goa’uld, then we really do not have time to speak to you just now,” Jareth explained at last. “You are welcome to join us at the banquet tonight, of course, and we will be pleased to hear you after the celebration, but this is quite a busy time. Come back this evening, please.”

  And with that, the Rejected Ones turned on their heels and walked off, their sandals making a rapid patter against the marble floor, leaving SG-1 staring after them dumbfounded.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Oh, dear,” O’Neill said, resting the stock of his rifle on the edge of an elaborately carved table. The feet of the table were tree roots, the legs tree trunks; the surface of the tabletop was a mass of low-relief leaves, with birds peeking out here and there. He looked at the table again and shifted his rifle to the floor instead. A little girl, her hands full of flowers, smiled shyly at him until he moved out of her way.

  “‘Oh, dear’?” Carter repeated. “Surely you can come up with something better than that. Sir.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, it sort of covers all the bases,” Jackson said. “Obviously they’ve heard of the Goa’uld.”

  “I have heard of these people, as well,” Teal’C said abruptly. “I have not been here before, but I have heard of them.”

  “Well, spit it out.” O’Neill wasn’t in the mood for broad hints. “Who are they?”

  Teal’C blinked, deciding not to take the remark as a literal invitation, and lifted his massive shoulders in a shrug. “I know only that this is a source of supply for Apophis, and that I was never ordered here. It was never considered a hostile or a dangerous place.”

  “Which would indicate what? That Apophis didn’t see a need for high security here? These people don’t l
ook like slaves.” Carter gazed at the decorations rapidly being completed around them. “What kind of supplies?”

  “All kinds.” Teal’C spoke with utter finality.

  O’Neill glanced at the big man’s midriff, where an infant Goa’uld nestled, and shuddered. “I don’t suppose we have to ask you to elaborate on that.”

  “Maybe we should look around some more,” Jackson offered. “Since they seem to be kind of busy.”

  O’Neill thought about it. “Well, I guess there are worse ways to kill time before the party.” The warm, cuddly feeling he’d tried to harbor at first about this world had disappeared entirely. Maybe it was the lack of panic in the eyes of the Rejected Ones—and what kind of name was that for a government, anyway?—when they mentioned the Goa’uld. Of all the people they’d met so far, only the Nox were unconcerned about the Goa’uld. Everybody else was at least wary of them. Why were these people different?

  The four team members made their way out of the inner hall and back into the sunshine, somewhat at a loss.

  M’kwethet—city, nation, planet?—was clearly gearing up for a major celebration. The preparations in the banquet hall were repeated all over the city. They picked a side street to explore at random, and had to duck and weave among ladders propped against freshly whitewashed walls, and avoid snagging themselves on garlands of flowers looped from window to window.

  “This part looks like the Schwarzwald,” Carter observed. It was true; away from the central marketplace and the Agora, the architecture had changed. Now, instead of the elegant marble columns, they walked between stuccoed wattle-and-frame houses, with window boxes filled with a riot of flowers overhanging the narrow streets. The streets themselves were cobbled or bare dirt instead of paved with flat slabs of stone, and they rose and fell steeply as they followed the contour of the foothills.