02 - The Price You Pay

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  “No,” the other man demurred. “Jaffa do not party.”

  “What a surprise.” O’Neill shook his head. “Do you have any idea why Daniel would have decided to postpone a perfectly good discussion?”

  “Perhaps he felt that it was a public place, and if the conversation had continued that Alizane Skillkeeper would create a scene which would not be conducive to progress in negotiations.”

  O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “You think?”

  Teal’C raised a brow back, and O’Neill smiled a little.

  Then he shook his head. “Something’s still seriously bugging me about this place—I feel like I left the water running or something. I think I’m going to do a little prowling around, see what I can see. Stay here and keep an eye on the kids, will you?”

  “Captain Carter is a competent warrior,” Teal’C observed.

  “Yeah, well, just in case. And I notice you don’t say much about Daniel. He needs you.”

  Teal’C nodded and took up a position of parade rest, as inconspicuous as a tiger at the party. He ignored the surreptitious glances coming from several of the tables and maintained a steady scan of the entire room, from the head table at one end to the rows of connected tables filled with what appeared to be ordinary citizens at the other end of the room.

  Meanwhile, Samantha Carter was enjoying herself. It wasn’t often that she felt she could let her guard down on a new world, but sitting at this table felt like the good old days back in the dormitory. The twins sitting across from her looked at her with the same awe she used to get from freshmen when she was a senior counselor.

  “Is it true you’re from another world?” Dane asked, filling her cup again. She nodded thanks and drank deeply. The stuff didn’t really have that much of a kick.

  “Yes,” she answered. “We’re from Earth.”

  “What’s Earth like?” Dane’s brother, Markhtin, wanted to know.

  Sitting next to him, Daniel gave her a crooked little smile, letting her know she was on her own for this one.

  “Well,” she temporized, “it’s beautiful. A lot like your world. Blue skies, green trees. We haven’t been here very long, you know, so it’s hard to make comparisons.”

  “Do you serve the Goa’uld on Earth?”

  Markhtin gave him a scornful glance. “Of course they do.”

  “No, we don’t,” Daniel contradicted firmly. “We’re free. And we’re fighting the Goa’uld.”

  The twins, and several of their companions who had eavesdropped on the conversation, looked blank, as if unable to process this idea.

  “It’s true,” Carter said. “We fight the Goa’uld.”

  “But why?” a girl sitting farther down the table wanted to know.

  The two team members from Earth blinked. “Because we want to stay free,” Carter said at last, taking a piece of fruit from the tray between them. After a moment she realized she had absolutely no idea how one went about eating it. Dane smiled apologetically, taking it from her and peeling away the fuzzy outer skin to reveal large, meaty golden seeds. He popped one out to place in his mouth before handing the fruit back to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, prying one of the seeds loose. The skin burst in her mouth, releasing a tart juice and sweetish pulp. “Hey, this is really good.”

  “It’s my favorite,” Markhtin said with a proprietary smile. “Do you have anything like that on your Earth?”

  “Pomegranates,” Daniel supplied, watching Carter’s expression. “Only pomegranate seeds are red, not yellow.”

  Markhtin looked put out that his favorite wasn’t as unique as he thought. Daniel hastened to change the subject yet again. “So this party is to celebrate your people coming back from the Goa’uld. How long does the celebration continue?”

  “Oh, it started days ago, with the last contests,” Dane said. “And it will go on until the Chosen are sent out.”

  “We’re the winners,” Markhtin announced. At a glare from one of the others at the table, he added, “Everybody here, I mean.” He looked at the SG-1 members. “Except you, of course.”

  “What do you contest for?”

  Carter looked up sharply at the tone of Daniel’s voice. He was asking the question as if he already knew the answer.

  “To be Candidates for the next Choosing,” Markhtin replied proudly. “That’s us.”

  “And you’re chosen for… ?”

  “The next group to go to the Goa’uld, to the honor of M’kwethet and our ancient agreement.” The last phrase was recited as if by rote.

  Carter and Daniel exchanged looks and simultaneously reached for their cups. This was going to take some more discussion.

  “You know,” Daniel said carefully, “there are reasons you might not want to do that.”

  “It’s the highest honor we have!” someone down the table said indignantly.

  In the shadows, Teal’C stirred, then subsided again.

  * * *

  O’Neill took his time walking back down to the square, paying attention to the shadows and the glow of moonlight on white stone, trying to figure out why his feeling of unease was growing with every step. It wasn’t as if he was being followed—he was all too familiar with that particular sensation. And it wasn’t even, exactly, the bizarre attitude the inhabitants of this world seemed to have about the Goa’uld. There was something else.

  Something wrong.

  Something missing.

  Something.

  The awnings over the small shops had been pulled down. The little windows and low doors were black holes that he stared into, trying to analyze the feeling. It wasn’t as if something was watching him—not even the stray dog sniffing through the garbage twenty feet away was paying him any attention. Several times he stopped, staring at the walls, the stars, the cobblestones, his frustration growing. It made no sense, none at all; if there was something seriously out of synch on this world, it was Daniel Jackson’s job to notice it, and Daniel hadn’t said anything. Except, of course, interrupting his discussion with Alizane, but whatever was bugging him had nothing to do with the Council members. It was something else. He just couldn’t put his finger on it, and he ought to be able to….

  The marketplace was deserted at this hour, filled only with shadows. The Gate loomed over it, a brooding stone circle standing atop the three-step platform; a pair of moons provided barely enough light for the rim to cast a shadow. O’Neill stood in the middle of the circle of shadow and turned in place, surveying the square yet again in the different perspective of darkness. A few lights showed through windows, but all the noise and life of the city was up the hill, at the Agora. The Gate might have been nothing more than an oddly shaped monument, standing in lonely glory on top of the platform.

  His fingertips tapped nervously on the butt of his pistol, making a soft brushing sound. It wasn’t even as if it was too quiet; the dog was snuffling, a cluster of insects buzzed from one bit of debris to another, a bird chirped sleepily to itself.

  He turned again.

  Gate.

  Buildings, streets, decorations. Everything was exactly the same as it was when they’d arrived, only a few hours before. Maybe it was just the unusual circumstance of arriving in the middle of a busy town. After all, how often had the Goa’uld put Gates and all their associated technology right in the middle…?

  Associated technology.

  O’Neill spun, searching, a cold chill wrapping its fingers around his gut. Gate. Platform. Buildings. Shops. Everything normal, everything where it should be, except—

  Where was the Dial-Home Device?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the darkness, O’Neill swept from one end of the square to the other, his search thorough, efficient, studying every wall, every pile of garbage, even the stones paving the streets to see if somehow they formed the symbols the Gate system used. The team carried with them a signal device that would open the iris barrier at the Earth Gate, but they had always depended on finding a DHD on the other end to ope
rate the Gate for their return home. The DHD, the Dial-Home Device, was the control panel, the giant keyboard that encoded the Gate symbols. Normally it was quite close to the Gate itself, usually taking the form of a large flat dome of concentric circles, with the series of alien symbols matching the ones on the Gate set on push-plates. Pressing the symbols programmed the Gate to open the wormhole home. Gates opened in only one direction; you couldn’t open one, go through, and then turn around and go back. So there was always a DHD with the Gate—always.

  Not this time.

  There was nothing like a DHD anywhere in sight.

  He quelled a cold surge of panic. It had to be here somewhere. It had to. If it wasn’t, he and his team were going to be stuck here, on a world that couldn’t possibly have the technology to build a new operating console. They’d be at the mercy of whoever was on the other end, and from the sound of Alizane’s questions, the other end meant Goa’uld.

  Maybe Hammond would send a team after them to find out what happened—but that would just mean another Stargate team trapped forever.

  “Exactly what did you think you were doing, Colonel?” He could practically hear Hammond erupting all over him, and couldn’t blame him. The first thing, always the first thing to do when entering enemy territory was to secure the line of retreat. He’d been so busy gawking at being gawked at, he hadn’t even bothered to look, didn’t even notice that the DHD wasn’t there. He’d led his people away and let the Gate shut behind them exactly like a trapdoor.

  He could see himself answering, too. “Well, sir, there was this garden path we went wandering down…”

  No. No time for jokes now. He stopped, forced himself to take a deep breath, then another. Good thing the others weren’t around to see him running around like a beheaded chicken. All right, so he couldn’t find the damned thing. That didn’t mean it wasn’t here. The natives, or at least the Rejected Ones, would certainly know where it was. They were accustomed to the Gate being used, so certainly they must know how to do it themselves. Daniel and Teal’C might not think that talking to Alizane in public was a great idea, but right now he was going to reconsider that idea.

  Or not. Don’t overreact, he told himself. There wasn’t any point in letting the whole planet know that the four of them were isolated and alone with no way home. First consult with the rest of the team.

  Taking another deep breath, he squared his shoulders and started back toward the lights and music and laughter coming-from the Agora crowning the distant hill. Time to share the bad news and figure out what to do next.

  “Garden path?” Teal’C interposed, confused. “I did not see a garden.” O’Neill opened his mouth to explain and then shrugged. Teal’C frowned a little more deeply. It was one of those mysterious cultural things, then. He would demand an explanation later. Though it would never do to let O’Neill know, he rather enjoyed putting the colonel to the trouble. It never failed to exasperate the other man. It never stopped Teal’C from baiting him, either.

  Jackson, who got the reference, was also frowning, and as always his expression failed to disguise his inner feelings. “Jack?”

  O’Neill took a deep breath, thinking as he did so that if he kept it up, he’d end up hyperventilating for sure. “Er, yes. In a manner of speaking.”

  He’d pulled the other members of the team out of the banquet hall with some difficulty. Both Jackson and Carter were reluctant to leave their new friends, and were already beginning to show signs of having overindulged in that brown drink. Their companions at the table were reluctant to let them go, but a glare from Teal’C made them subside, however reluctantly.

  Once outside, Carter and Jackson were sufficiently sober and sufficiently professional to register shock and alarm at the idea of the missing DHD, however. Now, standing together some distance from the colonnaded portico of the Agora, they put their heads together.

  “It’s got to be there shomewhere,” Carter slurred, then corrected herself through sheer force of will. “Somewhere. Doesn’t it? Teal’C?”

  “I have never visited a world which did not have one,” the big man admitted. “Presumably the one here is hidden somewhere, perhaps to prevent inadvertent activation.”

  O’Neill considered the possibility that a kid could open a Gate while playing, and shuddered. “Okay. I’ll buy that. But it does mean that we’re stuck here until we find it. I don’t plan to camp out in the village square, and I don’t think I want to ask our hosts for the address of the nearest motel just yet. So come on, folks, we’re going for a little hike out of town.”

  Carter shook her head. “Waitaminit, shir—sir. We need to finish some ver—very important confersations back at the party.”

  O’Neill stared at her incredulously. “Just what the hell is in that brown stuff, Captain? I gave you an order.”

  Jackson raised a placating hand. “No, wait, she’sh right. If we just go”—he swung around in an erratic circle, arm outstretched, presumably indicating whatever direction they might take—”well, that’s shushpitious. The kids might follow us. Besides, we were in the middle of this really intereshting convershation. ’Bout Goa’uld. And stuff.”

  Carter nodded dumbly, her eyes huge and pleading.

  O’Neill turned on Teal’C. “I thought I asked you to keep an eye on these two.”

  Teal’C’s expression remained bland. “I observed them very carefully at all times. They did not appear to be in danger.”

  “Incapacitated is not danger?” O’Neill threw up his hands in disgust. “I hate this world. I want that in the record: I hate this world. Go on back, then. But no more liquor. That’s a direct order, you hear me? And I expect you back out here in…” He grabbed a number out of the air. “Twenty minutes. Otherwise we’re going to come in after you, and I promise you it won’t be pretty. Understand?”

  Carter saluted, in a wobbly fashion. Jackson jerked his head up and down and nearly fell over. The two of them supported each other up the steps, and O’Neill glared at the fourth member of the team.

  “Some baby-sitter you are,” he snarled.

  “People on your world sit on babies?”

  “I don’t suppose we could claim there was some mysterious alien influence on the two of you?” O’Neill asked the next morning, surveying the ruins of the two scientists before him. When Carter and Jackson had left the banquet the second time, their friends had followed, waving fond farewells, but had made no effort to follow them away from the Agora. After a good hour’s walk, the team had made their way out of the city, climbing up into the low hills surrounding it. They finally made camp by a small waterfall on a bluff that overlooked the city but was remote from the houses that terraced the hills.

  O’Neill and Teal’C had awakened with the sunrise, made a small fire and heated field rations. Jackson and Carter had tried to ignore the whole concept of morning, moaning and hiding their heads. Apparently the brown drink had a particularly nasty afterlife. “Or are you both just cheap dates?”

  Jackson flinched and made a pleading gesture, probably related to the volume of O’Neill’s voice. Carter, who knew that the deceptively pleasant voice of her commanding officer wasn’t any louder than usual, surreptitiously dry-swallowed aspirin from her field pack instead.

  “Share, Captain,” O’Neill ordered gently. Her attempt hadn’t been surreptitious enough. She took a deep, careful breath and handed the bottle to her fellow hangover victim. The plastic top clattered on the rocks at their feet, and they winced simultaneously. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ for the alien influence theory.

  “On the one hand,” their team commander went on, still in a conversational tone, “I don’t think Hammond would consider a hangover an adequate excuse for failure to report for duty. I think I’d have to agree with him.

  “On the other hand, my team is clearly not up to snuff.”

  He sounded regretful. Carter gave him an apprehensive, bloodshot glance.

  “There’s always the possibility that M’kwethet
holds the secret of the ultimate cure for the morning after, though.”

  “That would be worthwhile,” Jackson mumbled. “Definitely worthwhile.” He fumbled with the bottle, struggling to replace the snap-on cap.

  “Then there’s the offensive capability of M’kwethet booze,” O’Neill went on. “I see a lot of casualties here. Fifty percent. Impressive.”

  Carter glared.

  “However, all that is absolutely irrelevant, because if we’re ever going to get home again we’d better all shape up and fly right. I invite you to go duck your heads under that waterfall and see if that will help. I think the water’s above freezing…”

  Some time later, the team gathered in a rough circle, seating themselves on rocks tumbled off the side of the hill. Jackson’s wet hair stood up in spikes. He looked slightly better than he had half an hour before. Carter had improved, too, though perhaps not quite as much. She looked as if the whole experience had been filed away in the back of her mind as Let’s Not Try That Stuff Again Ever.

  “Okay, people, let’s recap,” O’Neill said briskly, as if drafting a mission report. “We arrived on NPR seven six three zero niner to find the inhabitants preparing for a celebration and were invited to participate. Our esteemed scientific staff felt that full participation would assist in gaining the inhabitants’ confidence.”

  “Hmph,” chorused the esteemed scientific staff, clutching their heads.

  “The natives, who call the world M’kwethet, were celebrating the arrival of a bunch of kids through the Stargate,” O’Neill went on.

  “We were unable to ascertain their point of origin,” Teal’C put in.

  O’Neill nodded. “But based on the way they were welcomed, it looked like they were coming home.”

  “Home from where?” Jackson challenged blurrily. Not even a hangover could keep a good scientist down. At least his enunciation was improving.

  “Unknown at this time.” O’Neill took a deep breath. “It also looked like not everybody made it back, based on the reaction of some of the natives.”