“How to hide—” Alizane stopped in midsentence to look at the older man, who suddenly flushed deep red beneath his gray beard. “Oh, no. Surely not.”
“What?” demanded Karlanan.
Alizane and Jareth were still locked in each other’s gazes, and so Alizane managed to catch the tiny shake of the head Jareth gave her. When she broke the exchange she carefully did not look at Karlanan. “Nothing. Nothing at all.
“I think we ought to take our visitors up on their willingness to volunteer to take the places of our Chosen Ones,” she went on determinedly. “I think we ought to Choose them, in fact. They should go as part of the tribute, and then let us forget them.
“The others will be back, I’m sure. But I will vote against killing them. If the visitors take their place, there’s no reason to punish them so long as the tribute count is met.”
“And what of two years from now? What if the Candidates run away then, too? Will we have visitors from other worlds available then to take their places?” Karlanan was on the verge of an explosion.
“If it happens again two years from now, we will find a way to handle it then. We can take that time to better teach the young what their duty is.” Jareth tried to placate the younger man.
“With the others walking around to show them how easy it is to avoid being Chosen? They’ll have to die,” Karlanan insisted. “They’ll have to die in shame, so everyone can see it’s worse to run away than it is to be Chosen for the sake of our people.”
Alizane and Jareth looked down at their hands. “We’ll deal with that later,” Jareth said. “Not now.”
Meanwhile, Samantha Carter leaned over one of the rough cots, smoothing damp, dark hair away from Maesen’s forehead. The young girl coughed, the force of it lifting her from the surface she lay upon, her head rolling from side to side. Even without a stethoscope, Carter could hear fluid sloshing in the girl’s lungs.
Several feet away, Dane sat beside his twin, patiently feeding him pieces of fruit picked fresh from trees growing near the cave. Carter had tasted it; it had the sharp taste of citrus. Maybe it was jam-packed with Vitamin C and an instant cure. At least Markhtin seemed to be doing a little better. Carter had tried feeding Maesen the fruit too, but the girl had slapped her hands away and muttered unintelligibly.
“She needs to sit up,” the captain told Yahrlin, who stood nervously nearby. The boy nodded and continued to stand, wringing his hands and staring at his sick friend.
“Well, go get something she can lean on!”
Yahrlin jumped and fled. Moments later he returned with a large pillow. Between the two of them they managed to lift Maesen up, set the pillow against the wall, and lean her back against it.
She didn’t appear to know what they were doing, but at least she breathed a little more easily. “Keep talking to her,” Carter told the boy. “If she seems to come out of it, try to get her to take some water with fruit juice in it.” She got up, wiping her hands on her tunic, and went outside, looking for Teal’C.
“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” she told her colleague in a low voice. Teal’C was sitting beside a tall tree, taking advantage of the shadow, watching their back trail.
He nodded soberly. “I agree. The boy may recover, but the girl will probably die. Have the others become sick?”
She shook her head. “No, just those two. I know Maesen was sitting next to Daniel at the banquet, but so was Clein’dori, and she isn’t sick at all. Their immunity levels must be really different.”
“Perhaps Maesen is particularly susceptible.”
“Seems like it.” She ran her hands through her blond hair. “I don’t feel like I can leave them, but I really want to know what’s going on with Daniel and the colonel.”
“I would be recognized if I returned to the city,” Teal’C pointed out.
“I know. It’s got to be me. But I’m going to try to stay with the kids at least tonight. I gave her the last of my aspirin an hour ago, but it doesn’t seem to have helped much.”
Teal’C looked up at her, his usually stolid expression revealing sympathy. “You are doing everything you can, Samantha Carter. Do not blame yourself.”
“But she’s just a kid,” Carter replied, her eyes stinging at the unexpected comfort. “I brought her up here to save her, not to let her die.”
“You are doing everything you can,” the big man repeated.
“It isn’t enough.” She shook her head fiercely, as if to throw away despair. “All right,” she went on. “Tomorrow they’re sending the Chosen out. I’m going to be there, and find out what’s up with Daniel and O’Neill. You’ll have to stay here and keep an eye on the kids. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and Maesen will have a miraculous recovery between now and then.”
“Perhaps,” Teal’C agreed gravely. But he was only doing it to make her feel better, and it wasn’t working at all.
The Chosen sat cross-legged on the floor before the members of the Council, listening hard. Occasionally they nudged each other and indicated O’Neill and Jackson, sitting at the back and sorting through their packs, looking for the signaler, their weapons, rations, and everything else they’d brought along. The Council had clothed the out-worlders identically to the rest of the Chosen. Jackson had worn similar clothing on Abydos and didn’t mind in the least; O’Neill had decided that a miniskirt wasn’t his look and couldn’t figure out where to put his knees.
The two had noted with grim respect that the Council didn’t have the most recent returnees present to answer questions; when the Chosen asked, they were told that the Returned were resting and celebrating with their families. It was a good way to keep raw, recent memories out of their reach.
“They had you chained?” Jackson asked for the third time, eyeing the raw circles around O’Neill’s wrists. O’Neill was busy ignoring the question, slathering antibiotic cream on them and wrapping them with gauze from the packs. After a moment of watching the other man trying to wrap one wrist by holding one end of the gauze in his teeth, Jackson took it away from him and quickly made a competent field dressing. When O’Neill raised an eyebrow, Jackson informed him, “Learned first aid in the field. Not too many doctors on digs.”
O’Neill grunted thanks and kept sorting. Whoever had searched his stuff had made a real mess of things. But at least it was all still here; he shook his head in wonder as his boot knife turned up too and slid it back into its sheath with relief.
Up at the head of the room, Jareth was talking. “When you go to the world of the Goa’uld, you will find it strange, but there will be those who will instruct you as to the proper behavior.”
O’Neill grunted again, sarcastically.
“Tell me again about this wonderful plan of yours,” Jackson prompted softly.
“If you can think of a faster way to get access to a DHD, you let me know.” The answer came through clenched teeth. “If there isn’t one here, and a Jaffa can come and go, they have to have portable ones. All we have to do is find one.” He was beginning to have doubts himself, doubts that usually waited to make an appearance until some time after he found himself in deep kimchee, not before. This was not good.
The others around them glared, as if they were talking too loudly in a movie theater, and the Councilors coughed to regain their audience’s attention.
“You will find that the servants of the Goa’uld will put you to work in familiar areas. I myself was a gardener.” Jareth smiled, and the audience realized they were being prompted to chuckle. “The science of the Goa’uld is very great, and it is beyond our understanding. The wise among you will not seek to discover more about it.”
O’Neill didn’t have to look up to know that Jareth was staring directly at him.
“You will be provided a place to eat and sleep. For each tribute, it has been different, so we cannot give you more information about it.”
Yeah, thought O’Neill. Don’t tell them about the crammed-into-a-dungeon part. It’s a real downer. He wonde
red if that bit of information meant that each tribute had gone to a different world. It certainly would be convenient if they ended up on, say, Chulak. At least they knew the neighborhood.
“Remember always that you go to serve, not the Goa’uld, but your world.” He took a deep breath and began to step away from center stage, when a voice came out of the crowd.
“What about the larvae?”
O’Neill and Jackson exchanged glances. So Carter and Teal’C had spoken to some of these Candidates.
Jareth turned pale. Karlanan stepped forward to take his place. “I spent two years in service,” he blustered. “I never saw these ‘larvae’ you mention.”
Jackson snorted softly.
“We saw. One of the strangers has a giant worm in his belly. Ask them.” Heads swiveled toward the Earth team members, and Jackson started to get to his feet. O’Neill grabbed his arm, pulling him down, and got up himself.
“What you saw was true,” he said. “My friend Teal’C was a Jaffa, serving the Goa’uld, and he carries a Goa’uld larva inside his body.” He was going to continue when his gaze met Alizane’s. He couldn’t figure out whether her expression was belligerent or pleading. Either way, she was making it clear that with one more word out of him the deal would be off. He continued standing, more than willing to engage in a stare-down contest with her, but kept silent. He’d told the truth. He wondered how the Council would spin it.
“That is for the Jaffa,” Alizane said sharply. “None of you are Jaffa.”
True enough, as far as it went.
“What happens to those who don’t come back?” piped up another voice.
Ah, the $64,000 question. O’Neill allowed a small smile to play about his lips. He wondered how many times this question had been asked, and what standard answers the government of M’kwethet had developed for it.
“Some are Accepted permanently into the service of the Goa’uld,” Alizane admitted. “This has never been hidden from you.”
“Do they serve by being eaten alive by worms?” The voice was shrill, and others in the group were trying to calm the speaker.
“I have never seen that,” Alizane stated flatly. “Nor has Karlanan. Nor has Jareth.”
“What about the Rejected Ones who just came back?” someone else demanded. “What have they seen?”
This time Alizane allowed herself to lose her temper, or at least appear to. “I have told you upon my honor that none of your Council have seen such a thing, and we were each part of a different tribute. Why should you think the latest tribute is any different? You’re listening to aliens. Who knows if they’re telling you the truth or not?”
The Candidates looked back and forth between their Councilor and the strange tall visitor from another world. Whispers rose and fell as they debated.
Alizane allowed the discussion to go on for a minute or two and then slapped her hand flat on the table. “Enough,” she said. “Go and meditate. The Gate will open soon. You will need to dress in the proper robes; all else is being prepared. Remember you are honored to serve M’kwethet.”
“Yeah right,” O’Neill muttered, sliding back down and tugging at his tunic. “I hope the proper robes are more proper than this damned thing.”
Samantha Carter pulled the rough brown cloth closer around her face, wrinkling her nose at the scent of raw lanolin. She leaned heavily on a rough stick, stumbling to the side of the alley to get out of the way of traffic. A shopkeeper glared at her and she ducked her head, pretending to examine the piles of dirt-encrusted brown vegetables in the shallow tray before her. She would have reached for a closer look, but her fingers were far too well manicured to be a native of this world. M’kwethet had not yet discovered pearlescent pink nail polish.
The merchant glared at her again. “Are you going to buy, old woman?”
Carter shook her head feebly and turned away. As she did so, a woman stepped into the street, calling her husband to close up the shop.
It was nearly time. Carter melted into the crowd and picked up speed, heading for the square.
She’d had a late start from the cave in the uplands, and had run the last six miles to the city, afraid all the while that she would arrive too late. She’d been relieved upon reaching the outskirts to find that daily life in the city appeared to be going on as usual. She’d had just enough time to catch her breath when the natives began a leisurely process of closing up shop.
Once again the open area of the market square was filling up from the edges in, leaving a path from the columns of the Agora to the Gate. The captain hesitated, then began working her way toward the columned portico. The kids had no idea where the Council might hold prisoners, but the Agora, like the building they named it for, seemed to be the center of government. It was a logical place to start.
The sun was high in the sky, throwing shadows almost straight down. Once in the shade of the portico, Carter let the robe loosen and fall back for a moment. Someone might spot the brightness of her hair, but the relief from the heat was worth the risk as she stretched and rotated her neck.
Voices from within the building caught her attention, and she reluctantly drew the robe up again and pressed back into a little alcove formed by a pair of supporting columns.
“I never was a cassock kinda guy, either,” she heard a deep, sardonic voice say.
O’Neill? Easing her hand between the folds of the brown robe, she slid her fingers around the butt of her automatic and risked a quick peek around the column.
Not a dozen yards away, young men and women were selecting piles of white clothing from a long table under the supervision of the Rejected Ones. Several of the Chosen were already undressing, slipping out of their outer garments and discarding them, pulling on the long white robes and belting them about the waist.
And sure enough, there was O’Neill, holding up a white robe by the shoulder seams. There was a bruise on one side of his face, and he was moving carefully, as if in pain. He lowered the garment and she got a good look at his mostly bare, welted torso. She couldn’t refrain from a wince of sympathy.
Not far from him, Daniel struggled with a wide, colorfully woven belt, knotting and reknotting it, pausing in between to push his glasses up on his face. At his feet was his knapsack. At one point he knelt to rummage around in it, retrieving something to store in the fold of the belt.
Both men were barefoot. Neither seemed to be under any restraints, though the Rejected Ones, garbed in formal red, were watching them carefully when not helping the younger ones get dressed. The newly Chosen were keeping a safe distance away from the two men from Earth, not speaking to them, avoiding their gaze. Their body language made it clear that they didn’t want to be associated with the strangers in any possible way.
She couldn’t exactly come in blasting. Aside from the little detail of all the innocent kids around, she didn’t have enough ammunition. Of course, the Council wouldn’t know that.
Still she hesitated. There was something very wrong with this picture.
Holding her breath, she pulled the gun free and deliberately rapped the barrel twice against the stone column. The distinctive sound of tempered steel against stone chimed softly.
A few of the Chosen paused, looking up for the source of the strange sound. O’Neill laughed, said something low to one of the crimson-clad Chosen, and moved away, toward her.
Daniel looked up, confused, then at a silent signal from O’Neill asked the newly returned Goa’uld reject for help with the sash, stepping neatly between the M’kwethet and the colonel.
“Where are you going?” Karlanan said harshly.
“Just looking for a little privacy to change clothes in,” O’Neill said smoothly. “People on my world don’t usually strip down in public.”
“Your friend had no problems.”
O’Neill smiled painfully. “Oh, he’s a scientist. They’re expected to be strange.”
“You must stay in sight.”
O’Neill sighed theatrically and raised
his voice just a little. “Look, Karl, we made a deal. We still don’t know where our friends or your kids are, so Daniel and I are going in place of your kiddies. I’m not going to back out.”
Carter couldn’t stifle a gasp.
“I expect my people to protect those kids who don’t want to go,” O’Neill went on, still pitching his voice to the corners of the room. “In fact, if they were right here, I’d make it a direct order to keep those kids out of harm’s way.”
Daniel was staring at him, his hands still on the broad sash.
Carter was staring at him too, even though she could see only the colonel’s broadly muscled back. There were some interesting scars there, she noted wildly, but nothing crippling and recent; that told her something about how he’d been treated, but…
“If they were here right now, in fact,” O’Neill went on, “I’d tell them to bring the kids back once we were gone. Bring ’em back and await developments.”
Developments? Had the man lost his mind?
“But they’re not here,” he concluded. “So I just have to hope that somehow they get that message. We’re not stealing your kids, Karl. But they’re not gonna be Goa’uld chow, either.”
Carter held her breath as Karlanan, fist clenched, moved closer to the colonel.
“Now, now, Karl. Modesty, modesty.”
Karlanan growled.
O’Neill deliberately turned his back on the Rejected One and looked over the hem of the robe. “I’m glad my people aren’t here,” he said precisely. “But if they were, I’d order Carter to wait until after the Gate opens.” He paused. “Daniel, you’ve got the bread crumbs, right?”
He couldn’t find her in the shadows of the columns, she was nearly certain. But he knew she was there, somewhere. And he’d given her a direct order, if only she could figure out what it meant. Bread crumbs?
Laying a trail to follow home?
After a confused pause, Daniel patted his waist, over the broad, folded belt. “Right here.”
So they must have the things from their backpacks. Their weapons, maybe? Even more important, the signaler?
02 - The Price You Pay Page 11
