02 - The Price You Pay

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  “Daniel!”

  * * *

  Elsewhere in the stone palace that was the center of government of M’kwethet, Daniel Jackson woke to find himself lying in a firm bed with a soft pillow, between cool, rough-woven linen sheets. For a moment he imagined himself back on Abydos, and turned to seek Sha’re.

  Sha’re, of course, wasn’t there. What was more, the very act of turning his head triggered a pounding headache and reminded him of other impact points all over his body. Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his vision was clearer, and Jareth of the Manyflowers was leaning over him, a blurred look of concern writ over his kindly face.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Well, yes.” Why did people always say such idiotic things, he wondered, and then gave a mental wince. Clearly he’d been around Jack far too much. “Yes, thank you.”

  Jareth nodded and indicated a small table next to the bed. It held a simple pewter cup (Oh, they’ve got alloys, the archaeologist in him noted) filled with what looked like water, a plate of fruit and odd-shaped bread, and, he was grateful to see, his glasses. “It is morning now. Would you like to eat?”

  He was, Daniel discovered, ravenously hungry. Still, he levered himself up cautiously, well aware of fleeting aches and pains, reaching automatically first for the glasses and blinking. The look of concern snapped into focus. Once upright, he started to take a sample of the fruit and then stopped himself. “Where’s Jack?”

  A look of pained disgust wiped away Jareth’s concern. “Your friend is elsewhere. He isn’t harmed, I assure you.”

  Daniel swung his feet around the side of the bed, covering himself with the brown-threaded, cream-colored sheet. It really was very much like the cloth of Abydos. “Can I see him?”

  Jareth sighed and seated himself in a carved wooden chair beside the bed, facing him at an angle to allow Jackson access to the table. “Not yet. We have a terrible problem, and you must help us.”

  “What kind of problem?” Jack would be exasperated at him, but he couldn’t help it. He always responded to problems by trying to help. It would get him killed one day, Jack lectured him. Maybe today was the day. “And why can’t I see my friend?”

  “Your friend is not inclined to be cooperative,” the older man said, smiling at his own understatement. “For his safety, and our own, he is held elsewhere. Please, eat.”

  “Not inclined to be cooperative.” Well, that could describe Jack O’Neill sometimes. Daniel found himself tearing a piece from the loaf of bread (not much sand, the academic in him noted; that would help account for the generally good shape the natives’ teeth were in), thought about it, and decided to go ahead. Starving himself wouldn’t help. He was careful to sniff the water before drinking, but it smelled exactly like water, and he wasn’t at all sure he could detect any drugs anyway.

  Jareth waited patiently as Daniel chewed and swallowed, finishing the bread, peeling and sectioning the tart fruit and devouring a couple of pieces of that as well before resuming the conversation.

  “What kind of problem do you have?” Daniel repeated, finishing the last of the water.

  Jareth refilled the cup from a plain gray pitcher before answering. “The Choosing has never been disrupted before as it was yesterday. It was a disgrace. Some of the Chosen were not even present. Tomorrow the Gate will open, and the Chosen must be ready. Where are the missing Candidates?”

  The bread and fruit threatened to make a reappearance. Daniel swallowed hard and pushed the glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “You mean the kids you’re sending to the Goa’uld.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. I won’t do anything that involves sacrificing human beings to the Goa’uld.”

  “You don’t understand,” Jareth pleaded. “We must fill the tribute. This is our way, has been for more than a thousand years. It keeps us safe.”

  “Yeah, you’re safe, and they’re being sent straight to hell.”

  Jareth straightened as if slapped. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know what happens to your tribute once the Goa’uld get their hands on it?”

  The older man got up, began pacing nervously from one end of the small room to the other. His sandals slapped on the marble floor.

  “Of course I know,” he said, waving his hands to punctuate his words. “I myself was a Candidate. I was Chosen, and I was sent. I have been where they are going. I am a part of the Council, I conduct the Choosing, only because I myself have been Chosen. I am one of the Rejected Ones, sent back by the Goa’uld to maintain the tradition.”

  “And the supply of new hosts for Goa’uld larvae, and zombies for Goa’uld adults?” Daniel asked acidly. He couldn’t block out of his memory the last time he had seen Sha’re, the evil blankness behind the eyes he loved. And these people submitted their children to that on purpose?

  Jareth stopped in midstride and stared at him, mouth open. He opened and closed it a few times before he found the words he was searching for.

  “What is…” He stopped, thought better of it, and began again. “You don’t understand. That is the risk we take, the price we pay for our peace and freedom. We must do this, otherwise they’ll destroy us.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you to fight?”

  “They would destroy us.” The words hung in the air between them, simple, unanswerable. “Rather than have us all die, we send them a few. And of those, some nearly always return home.

  “But they will destroy us, unless you tell us where the missing Candidates are.”

  “Sorry, can’t help you.” Daniel felt a sneeze coming on as a breeze found its way through the little window. His head was feeling a little stuffy, too. “Look, I want to see my friend. Now. Where are my clothes?”

  Frustrated, Jareth shook his head. “You don’t understand. You have to help.”

  “Nope.” Daniel felt his answer was almost O’Neill-like in its brevity. Jack would be proud of him.

  Other issues were beginning to make themselves known, however. He had to have the signaler, the device that opened the iris on the Gate back home. If they ever found a way to dial home, the iris had to be open. What had the Council done with it?

  Most of all, and immediately, he needed a bathroom. He wondered if the Goa’uld had provided their zoo animals with running water.

  Apparently they had. Once Jareth understood his question, the older man nodded briskly and pointed to what looked like a side wall. In fact, it was an alcove, containing an actual sink with faucets and a utilitarian hole in the floor. Another faucet above the hole served to flush waste away.

  He’d seen worse, in places alleged to be more civilized than this one.

  His clothes and belongings, however, were another matter. Jareth declined to provide any information on their whereabouts. After some debate on the subject, Jareth left Daniel standing in the middle of the room, wrapping the sheet about himself for what warmth and modesty it could provide.

  What would O’Neill do in a situation like this? he wondered.

  Whatever it was, Daniel was certain that the colonel wouldn’t let a little nakedness stop him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Your friends are dead,” Alizane announced, with no preliminaries. “We found them in the hills this morning and killed them. Where are the Candidates?”

  O’Neill tilted his head to one side, examining the female Councilor. He was damned tired and no longer concerned with maintaining the pristine state of the floor. His arms hurt, and he wasn’t even a little interested in the attractiveness of the woman before him, not even a little impressed by the pair of bodyguards accompanying her. “Bullshit.”

  Alizane blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s a word we use on our world to tell people we know they’re lying,” he explained kindly.

  One of the bodyguards hit him, rocking his head back hard against the wall. Well, he’d seen that coming. He rubbed the blood fro
m the corner of his mouth off on his shoulder and tested cautiously for more loose teeth. Nope, not this time. He hadn’t even lost the one that was already wobbly. The guy had absolutely no talent at all. In fact, he was rubbing his knuckles surreptitiously, as if he’d hurt his hand on O’Neill’s jaw.

  “The Gate opens tomorrow morning,” Alizane said, desperation coming through in her voice. “The Candidates must be found.”

  “Well, hey, if you need to make up the numbers, why don’t you volunteer?” he jeered. “After all, you’ve been there before. No big deal, right?”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. There was nothing like putting ideas in their heads, was there? From the look of sick terror that flashed through the woman’s eyes, he could tell there was no way she would ever go back to the Goa’uld. They’d have to come after her and drag her back, kicking and screaming.

  But they couldn’t drag her back.

  There had to be a way to open the Gate from this side.

  He’d had lots of time, hanging in chains all night, to try to figure out how to get out of this one. Try as he might, he could think of only one way.

  “You said the Jaffa came through the Gate to tell you when to get the tribute ready. You’re sure it was a Jaffa, not a Goa’uld?”

  Alizane snorted, whether at the implication she didn’t know the difference or at the role reversal of prisoner interrogating captor he couldn’t tell.

  “Tell you what,” he said, speaking rapidly in order to put the proposal on the table before his own sense of survival cut in. “You need to make up the numbers, right? We’re not going to give you the kids. But if you give us our clothing and our packs, Daniel and I will go instead.”

  Her mouth was open to shout at him again. She closed if, staring at him incredulously.

  “I mean it,” he urged. “Send us. You know what it’s like there—you don’t really want to send the kids into it. You don’t really want to lose anybody, do you?” He hoped she wouldn’t realize that she was the one who held all the cards in this hand. She was hesitating, thinking. Behind her, the two guards moved restlessly, and she held up a hand to silence them.

  “Come on,” he urged. The chains clanked as he moved forward, pushing his idea. “Look, what have you got to lose?”

  If the Jaffa could open the Gate without a DHD, then he could too. All he had to do was watch, follow, find out how they did it.

  Then they’d have a chance to get Carter and Teal’C back, too. He hoped.

  Of course, that depended on a lot of things happening exactly right on the Goa’uld world. But at least it was a chance, however small, however crazy, and it was something he could influence.

  One step at a time, he reminded himself, holding his breath as he watched the woman chewing her lip. A deep line drew itself between her brows as she considered it.

  “The Candidates,” she said. “What about the Candidates?”

  “The kids will show up after the tribute gets sent. They’ll be safe then, right? No reason for them not to come home.” For one crazed moment he thought about offering to import Jimmy Carter with a full pardon for the deserters, but he managed to restrain himself better than the chains did.

  “When the Goa’uld see you they’ll know we failed.” She was considering the idea, at least. About to reject it, maybe, but considering it.

  “Not if you give us some idea what we’re walking into,” he argued. The chains rattled again. “Come on, Alizane, you don’t want to sacrifice those kids either. You don’t want to put them through what you went through.” He was repeating himself now, but only because it seemed to be his strongest argument. However much the Council prattled about how honorable it all was, they didn’t really want to pay tribute. They just couldn’t see any other alternative.

  Once again, she flinched as his words hit home. “We do this because we must.” She was almost pleading for understanding now and unconsciously confirming his assessment. “Not because we want to. It is necessary to safeguard our lives, our way of life. Surely you can understand that.”

  What he understood, O’Neill thought, was that these people were just not seriously into this torture business. Not that he objected to that part, of course. But they also rejected anything that hinted at real suffering. Maybe that was why they were so willing to accept Goa’uld domination—no intestinal fortitude.

  “No, I don’t understand,” he snapped, letting his anger show despite himself. “I don’t see how you can close your eyes to what happens after you send those kids through. And I happen to think that freedom is worth fighting for.”

  “It isn’t worth the death of all our people.” The platitude seemed to give her strength.

  “Just some of them, right? Well, you’d better add us to your tribute then, because we’re not going to give away your kids.”

  “Enough.” She raised an exasperated hand. “Enough!”

  That afternoon the Council of the Rejected Ones of M’kwethet met in formal session, behind the closed doors of the centermost room of the Agora. Most of the day had been taken up by an intensive debriefing of the Returned, in a ritual effort to try to discover as much as possible about the Goa’uld. As always, there was nothing new to tell. They went through the Gate. It was cold. They saw great wonders. They served. Some were taken away and never came back.

  It never changed.

  Nonetheless, upon returning, the Rejected Ones were intensively debriefed for every possible snippet of information about the Goa’uld they could recall. Out of every group that returned, perhaps half would commit suicide within a year, unable to manage the memories they did have.

  Now they were considering a new problem.

  “Were you able to find out where they’ve taken the missing Candidates?” Karlanan challenged his two co-Councilors. His fists were resting on the table, and he was hunched over them, knotted with intensity.

  “No,” Alizane and Jareth answered at almost the same time. The three of them looked at each other and at the pile of otherworldly items stacked on the table between them: strange metal rods, boxes, cloth bags, knives.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think they know,” Alizane added. “The other two must be hiding them up in the hills somewhere. One of them is a Jaffa, so perhaps we shouldn’t look very hard.”

  “I don’t know what to advise,” Jareth admitted.

  “We have to find them,” Karlanan growled low. He lunged to his feet, fast enough that Alizane, sitting opposite, pushed back startled in her chair. “We can’t send a short tribute. We have to have the full twenty.”

  “The O’Neill suggested that he and Jackson could go instead,” Alizane said, her voice uneven. “He seems to think he’ll be able to… I don’t know what he thinks he’ll be able to do. I’m sure he has some plan, though.”

  “Whatever plan he has will probably get us all killed.” Karlanan’s eyebrows drew together, and his lower lip twitched. “I think we should kill them ourselves, maybe send the Goa’uld their bodies, with an explanation. And we should find those six and send them all, to teach the others that they can’t evade their duty. What if next time everyone refuses to be Chosen?”

  Jareth and Alizane nodded soberly. “We can’t afford to set a precedent,” Jareth said. “But at the same time—perhaps we can pretend that nothing is wrong if we just send those two outworlders instead. It isn’t as if the Goa’uld actually pay any attention.”

  The other two shared a wryly reminiscent glance with the older man. Each of them had been Refused from a separate Choosing, sent back as insufficiently attractive or interesting or healthy for the Goa’uld that season. Perhaps they’d just not met some completely different, thoroughly alien criteria. Over the centuries M’kwethet had tried to figure out what the Goa’uld wanted, in order to stave off their fury. They’d never figured it out. Once or twice the entire contingent of Chosen had been Returned, contemptuously, and shortly thereafter, each time, death had reigned over the
city. Once the entire contingent had been Selected, and no one had been Returned at all. That occasion was still marked by an annual day of mourning.

  “I don’t think we should send the Goa’uld dead bodies,” the woman said thoughtfully. “They might take it as a challenge, perhaps.”

  Karlanan snorted. “They know we would never challenge them. We’re not insane.”

  “But apparently there are some worlds out there with insane people,” Jareth interjected, reaching for some of the strange, shiny metal objects the strangers had carried. “They actually think they can fight, perhaps even win. Maybe they can.”

  The other two stared at him. After a moment Jareth smiled sheepishly, letting the heavy metal object fall back onto the table with a solid clunk. “It’s nonsense, of course. Forgive me for even suggesting it.”

  “Karlanan, what progress have you made in finding the Candidates?” Alizane turned away from the older man and back to Karlanan, refusing to even acknowledge Jareth’s temporary aberration. “You sent out the searchers. What have they found?”

  “Some of the missing took food and clothing,” the younger man answered grudgingly, similarly ignoring Jareth. “Not much, though. Their parents and sibs, at least the ones who witnessed their going, all said they were in a hurry, but at least three said they would be back soon.”

  “Soon, as, in time for the opening of the Gate?”

  Karlanan shook his heavy head. “There’s no way to know.”

  “I suspect they plan to wait until after the Gate opens and closes again before they’ll return to the city.” Jareth was still trying to recover from his earlier remarks. “They’ll think they’re safe then.”

  Alizane shook her head. “From the Goa’uld, perhaps, at least until they come through to punish us. But how shall we deal with them? We have to do something.”

  “Kill them.” Karlanan was single-minded. “They must be punished.”

  “Perhaps it would be better to spend our time planning how to hide from the Goa’uld,” Jareth insisted.