by Jamie Duncan
Someone knocked his hand away.
“Just a minute,” O’Neill said. He was right in front of Aris. When Aris opened his eyes to glare at him, O’Neill glared right back. He held up a warning index finger, and then added the one from the other hand for extra emphasis. “Hold on.”
Jackson climbed to his feet. Over O’Neill’s shoulder, Aris saw the woman turning toward him, arms open, waiting for someone to embrace her. She looked at Aris for a moment and then dismissed him as she focused on Jackson alone. The smile that tugged at her lips was seductive, mischievous.
“So much to offer me,” she purred, but the smile faltered, became instead a down-turned frown of compassion. “And yet, so much you cannot comprehend.”
Jackson bowed his head. His shoulders slumped into a curve of sadness. The woman cast Aris a long glance and then angled her head so that she could look into Jackson’s face. “I can help you. I can help you see.” She leaned even closer and whispered right next to his ear, “Give this to me.”
At that, O’Neill spun around, keeping a restraining hand in the middle of Aris’ chest, and said, too loudly for the gentle light, “Oh, I don’t think so.”
The woman raised her head slowly, aimed her mirrored gaze at him. She bared her teeth again with a hiss.
“He’s classified. Everything in there is top secret. And you can bet on never getting clearance.”
“Jack—” With his eyes squeezed shut, Jackson looked anguished. “If I could just see… if I could see that time when I was ascended—please—”
“You aren’t giving anything to anybody. Especially that. And that’s an order, by the way.”
Somewhere, distantly, Aris could hear a child crying, a thin, weak wail. “I’m so hungry,” the woman said, the sound of her voice verging on a whine. “I’ve been alone so long. I need.”
“You need,” O’Neill repeated. “You need. I thought it was about helping him.”
“Be quiet, Jack,” Jackson interrupted him wearily. His hand came up in a pushing-away motion and fell again. Jackson’s eyes opened, heavy-lidded, and he looked down at her. Aris burned inside, but didn’t move. Not yet. The far away sound of crying was doubled now by something else, an agitation like a bug caught in a bottle, a buzzing of uncertainty. O’Neill looked at him, and Aris could see it there, in his face. Something not right. Something…
“Tell me your name,” Jackson said in a voice Aris imagined people used with lovers. He leaned into her, like he was falling. Closer, and closer still. The woman was within inches of Jackson’s face, staring into his eyes as if she could see his soul.
She straightened, smiling. “Lorelei,” she said, and beneath the word, a vibrating hum.
Jackson’s head snapped up, the spell broken, alarm widening his eyes. “What?”
“You know, you could have come with us from the start,” Sam whispered to Brenneka, as they crept toward the vault. They hugged the wall, clinging close to its security, with the others ahead.
Brenneka turned her head. The patterned scarf holding back her hair slipped down, and she tugged it back again. “I’m not sure I should be here now.” She wrung the shaft of the staff weapon between sweaty hands. “But maybe the Nitori will make use of you, too.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile that made the scar on her cheek twitch. “You are certainly a trial.”
“But you let your people help us,” Sam said. It was the only explanation. Without her permission, they could never have come away with weapons from the secret cache.
Brenneka inclined her head in acknowledgement. “And if they will meet the god on the road, well, someone has to—”
“Watch their backs,” Sam concluded.
“Watch their backs,” Brenneka repeated, as if testing out the phrase. Another brief grin appeared and fell away. “A few weapons are no great loss. Those can be replaced. People cannot.”
“No,” Sam said, thinking of Behn and Frey, and their sightless, open eyes. A burning sensation cut at her as nausea welled again. She pointed ahead, to where Teal’c was crouched. “We’re close now.”
“Yes,” Brenneka said. She laid a hand on Sam’s arm, her strong fingers digging through Sam’s sleeve, into her skin. “Do not disappoint me,” she said, and Sam knew it was not an order, but a plea. She nodded.
“We’ll do our best.”
Ahead, Teal’c held up a closed fist, a signal to stop and get low to the ground. Sam pulled Brenneka down, then gestured to the others. Ahead in the gloom of the tunnel, Jaffa armor gleamed dully against the shadows. Sam pointed at their shapes, then whispered, “There are only two. We’ll take them.” Brenneka gave her a sharp look, but nodded her agreement.
Sam crept up to Teal’c’s side, staying low. He made a series of gestures to confirm what must be done, though he needn’t have bothered. They’d been teammates so long that their strategy agreed: Sam would take the shorter Jaffa, on the left, and Teal’c the taller, heavier man on the right. Zat fire was not quiet and would draw attention, so the attack would have to be silent.
On a count of three, Sam’s fingers flashing the intervals just as before, they rose and took their victims. Sam held the knife tight and drove it home high, into the carotid artery while her other hand covered a grunt of surprised pain. Out, and then a cut straight across the throat; it was quick, efficient, and bloody, and she shoved the Jaffa away from her before the spray could become a shower, soaking her clothes. The second time within hours she’d killed in hand-to-hand, something she would try hard to forget. She gestured to Brenneka and the others to come forward into the vault chamber. Their stares, admiring and wary, made her stand taller.
“We shall not have much time,” Teal’c said, watching the corridor behind her. “We must move into the vault.”
Sam nodded, her entire focus on the open doorway. Teal’c stepped forward, but she caught his arm. “Wait,” she said. The bloody knife was still in her hand. She tossed it toward the opening; it bounced off an invisible barrier and thudded to the ground. “There’s a force field.” All her attention shifted to the once-dead mechanism to the right of the door, which now pulsed a muted yellow glow from its recessed panel. She turned to look at her miniature army. They were spread across the chamber, bedraggled, their hopeful eyes trained on her movements. “Teal’c,” she said, lifting her chin in their direction.
A moment later, Teal’c was arranging them into a makeshift battle formation, teaching them by placement alone how to take cover, how to choose a vantage point, and Sam felt the ghost of a smile cross her face as they watched him carefully, learning from him. At least this was something he could offer, something they would not refuse to take.
The device seemed as incomprehensible as ever—of Ancient design, but like nothing she’d encountered before. Still, the principles should be the same, and she knew those. She pressed closer to the wall, drawn toward it; the anxiety was smothering her, pulling her in. She had to get in there. It was more than a desire to get to the Colonel and Daniel, much more. With one hand, she reached into the recessed device and began feeling around for a mechanism or panel.
“Major Carter,” Teal’c whispered. “Perhaps it is not within the panel itself, but somewhere else within this chamber.”
She turned to look at him, and a brief spark of anger welled, then died. Of course he was probably right, but why hadn’t it occurred to her before, while they’d been sitting trapped in there, with all the time in the world to figure it out? A few choice bits of profanity floated through her thoughts, but she didn’t say them out loud. Instead she took out her flashlight and began examining the walls, looking for seams and cracks. Not ten feet from the vault door, she found the panel, covered over with rock and sand. Teal’c wedged his strong fingers beneath the edge and helped her pry it loose, and she stared in dismay at the workings within.
“Is it not a simple crystal control panel?” Teal’c asked, looking at it.
She shook her head, already dissecting the innards with her eyes. “No. B
ut I think…” She began shifting the controls around, without conscious will. Her hands had taken over, assembling new pathways for the crystals, as if she had the plans in her own mind. “I think this will work.”
Teal’c was staring at her, but she ignored him and forced herself to work faster. Nothing was more important than getting in there.
“You feel it too,” Teal’c said, as if his meaning were clear. Sam understood him. The desire to move, to hurry, was eating her alive.
“Yes,” she breathed, her hands a blur.
“Why would the Ancients have constructed a force field if this place were meant to be found and used?” Teal’c asked, under his breath. He was too close to her now, his shoulder bumping against hers, and she jogged him with her own arm, shoving him away. “We should not succumb to these desires.”
“No,” Sam agreed. Her hands moved faster and faster.
“Perhaps the discomfort the symbiotes feel—that we all feel—is a warning,” Teal’c said. He was jostling her, crowding her space. Irritation flared in Sam. Teal’c was graceful. If he was pushing her, it was deliberate, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“If the thing wants us to go away, then why is it pulling us closer?” she demanded, slamming another crystal home. Teal’c caught her hand and yanked the next crystal away from her. She glared at him. “Why would this thing try to chase us away and then pull us in? It doesn’t make sense, Teal’c. Think about it!”
“The Ancients were wise about such things,” he said, his expression troubled.
“Teal’c,” Sam answered, and it was all she could do not to shout it, “if they didn’t want people to get in here, they should have destroyed it. Now give me the goddamned crystal!”
“Perhaps they could not,” Teal’c said. “Perhaps there was an overriding reason.” He stood and backed away from her, and Sam surged to her feet, her hand outstretched.
“The Colonel is in there, Teal’c! Give it to me now.”
“Daniel Jackson also,” Teal’c reminded her.
Sam looked into his eyes. Nausea filled her belly with cold pain while a growing certainty overtook her. “You want this technology for yourself,” she accused, stepping away from him. “That’s why you don’t want me to bring down the shield. You’d do anything you had to, to defeat the Goa’uld, wouldn’t you? Even sell out your friends.”
“You speak nonsense, woman,” Teal’c said, his voice lowered to a feral growl, his muscles tensed.
Sam felt the truth of her words like the blood in her veins, and she hissed, “I’m not one of your Jaffa women. You don’t order me around. Just the opposite.”
Teal’c’s fingers tightened around the crystal he held. “You would prefer a weak opponent, one of your human males, would you not? Someone you can more easily overpower.” He leaned closer; his voice dropped low, and he said, “You will not overpower me. Nor will I allow you to prevent me from taking what I wish. I am fully recovered now.”
For a long moment they stared at each other. Sam felt her rage building, seeping out from her pores and covering her. She lunged forward, reaching for the crystal. Teal’c let it fall. She stopped, horrified, expecting to hear the sound of shards exploding as it shattered, but it landed intact, spinning on its edge before rattling down flat on the stone. At that instant she was in motion again, strikes flying toward Teal’c’s face, at the wound on his side, all her energy focused on removing the threat.
She never felt the blow he landed on her cheek, but the ground was beneath her, and darkness slammed down over her.
Sixteen, and sitting at the kitchen table, shouting at her father. Her career defined over her tearful objections as her life was laid out for her, piece by piece in brochures and careful planning, as her course was charted steadily: the Academy and pilot training; a stellar progression of assignments, and then she’d head for space. In that hour she’d seen how much her father wanted her to succeed, how proud he was of her intellect. How much it meant to him that she become everything he had never been able to be.
Voices. Someone was speaking. Through the fog of intense memory, and the pain of her throbbing jaw, she heard a boy’s angry voice—Aadi’s voice. “Don’t hurt her! Don’t!” She tried to rise, got an elbow under her back, but couldn’t seem to get moving.
Another voice—Brenneka, his time. “So, Jaffa. You prove yourself to be everything we have suspected you are, and worse. You show us you are without respect for others, and care nothing for us, or even for your friends. Tell us now why we should follow you.”
“Brenneka,” Sam croaked. The fog was lifting from her mind, chased by pain, and Teal’c knelt beside her. His hand beneath her back steadied her. “It’s not his fault. It’s this damn place.”
“Major Carter,” Teal’c said urgently. His stricken expression made her want to laugh, and cry. Without knowing which impulse to follow, she let him help her up, then smiled at him, though the simple act of drawing her lips up made her entire face ache. “Major Carter, I did not—”
“I know, Teal’c.”
He stopped speaking, but his jaw was clamped tight, and a muscle twitched there, betraying his tension.
“I am grateful my people are unaffected,” Brenneka said softly, touching the growing welt on Sam’s face. “We have much to be grateful for, it seems.”
“Major,” Aadi said, yanking at her shoulder. “Jaffa are coming.”
Sam glanced at Teal’c, alarmed. Her ears were ringing from the blow, and she could barely hear.
“Aadi is correct,” he said.
He held out his prize crystal to her, and she took it from his hand, with a last look to be sure he was himself again. Not that she trusted her judgment so much right then. A lingering flare of mistrust welled within her, but she pushed it away, tried to keep herself in her head, to focus on the game plan, and ignore the erroneous data her body was supplying. But the pulling, yanking urge was back, compelling her to hurry, and the game plan folded into it seamlessly. She had to get in there, now. Even the Ancients wouldn’t have a say.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” she said aloud, though Teal’c already knew.
“We will cover you for as long as it takes,” Teal’c answered.
It was not an answer, because they might not have as long as it would take. But Sam would take what she could get. She crouched by the panel, closed her eyes, and let her hands be led again. No time to waste on false ideas of her own brilliance. This was beyond her now. They had nothing left to lose.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Daniel heard the name—Lorelei—but it brought him up short, staggered him a little, because he heard it twice: once from her lips and, a fraction before that, in his head. The echo was dissonant, grating. The light seemed to make everything float, fathomless, and he’d been pulled by it, the ease of it, the gentleness of it. Give this to me, she said without speaking, and he’d wanted to give it all to her, the bits he couldn’t remember, everything he knew, everything he’d been trying so hard to protect from Sebek. Not to share it, but to hand it over, give it up. Give up, give up, give up. He imagined the relief of it, to give it away, and the yearning for that was almost enough to make him cry. Sebek was there too, turned inside-out, opening wide, giving it all up because she’d said she’d return in kind. They were there together, Daniel and Sebek. Both of them, willing. Nothing but willing. He could feel her mouth already, gently drinking, and her crooning was in his throat—give up, give up, give up - like the truth, like wine, like the perfect fix for the perfect addiction. So good But then there was the dissonance, the hitch: Lorelei.
It was like a sudden connection, a radio finally tuned to the proper channel, and all at once the disconnected parts of his brain were speaking to each other. Lorelei. He’d been thinking of her for a long time, he realized, through all the winding corridors, that irresistible cord twisted in his chest and pulling him forward, onward. Thinking of siren songs, of mermaids and sailors pulled to their deaths by compulsion, irres
istible impulse.
Lorelei. It wasn’t her name at all, just a thought he’d had, a comparison his mind had made. She had taken this from him, directly from his mind, and he hadn’t even known.
The maze was a treasure, more information here than he could imagine in one place. He couldn’t open his eyes wide enough to take it in, couldn’t even make a space big enough in his head to accommodate the idea of it: the memories, the feelings of who knew how many species, how far flung, how advanced. Wonders, she’d said. Yes. It was wonderful. Sebek practically slavered at the thought of what he could grasp here, what he could use. His thoughts were purpled with the rhetoric of aggrandizement, nothing but golden thrones, vast Jaffa armies kneeling, the populations of whole planets bowing and laying their riches at his feet, System Lords abased and begging.
But then, there was this cord, twisted, taut, and it was different from lust for knowledge or power. It wasn’t lust for anything so simple. It was yearning, pure like a single voice singing a perfect note, a sound that made everything in him vibrate in sympathy. He wanted so hard that he could feel it like a fist under his ribs, like anguish, and his hands opened and closed around nothing, and all he could do was go forward, forward, and Sebek’s plans for dominating the galaxy and his own longing to know were pale reflections of that wanting, like a myna bird reciting Shakespeare, like humans singing the songs of angels.
And he looked down, saw himself in her eyes, distorted, smaller and broken and alone, and he wanted nothing but to fall, to give. Anything to take him closer. Her touch burned his skin with cold.
Lorelei. His brain had been trying to tell him for hours, days maybe. Lorelei sat on the rocks on the Rhine, and she sang a song of longing, and the sailors drowned in it.
“Lorelei,” she said, plucking the name from his mind.
He was drowning.
But now he knew it.
