Jack glanced over at Gordon. “You think they took it?”
She shrugged and said, “It would have been a crystal – from the size of the hole it’s roughly spherical, about ten centimeters in diameter.” She glanced at him. “It would have looked like an enormous gemstone.”
“So they took it and sleeping beauty woke up?”
“It’s a theory.”
At the moment, it was the only one. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “We really need to find this snake.”
“Yes sir.”
From the other side of the chamber, there was a sudden scuffle. “How dare you? I will not be manhandled!”
Jack looked over and saw Teal’c, one hand on Gordon’s shoulder, moving him away from Daniel. “You are interfering with work you do not understand,” Teal’c said. “I will not permit it.”
“You are in no position to permit or—”
A shout from up top startled them all. The room rang with sudden silence, all eyes focused on the black gap that led out of the long barrow. There was no other sound.
Jack stood up, reaching for the handgun under his coat. No one else moved. “Monroe?” he called.
“He won’t hear you from in here,” Gordon said.
He had a point. “Teal’c, with me. Carter, keep an eye on things down here.”
“Jack?” Daniel was looking at him, white-faced in the dark. “Be careful.”
By the time he was in the narrow passageway leading up to the surface, Jack had his Beretta in his hand. So did Teal’c. He signaled a stop at the bottom of the ladder that led up to the surface and they both stood and listened for a good minute. There was no sound but the wind whipping around the outside of the shelter.
“Stay close,” Jack murmured to Teal’c and climbed the short ladder until he could see out into the shed. The door stood open and sunlight gleamed across the snow outside, low and pale gold. Dazzling. Inside, all was quiet. Moving silently, Jack climbed the rest of the way out and gestured for Teal’c to follow.
Slipping on his sunglasses, he moved to the door. Teal’c took the other side and they paused again, listening. Still nothing but the wind. On Jack’s nod, they left the building at the same moment, back to back and weapons raised.
“Clear,” Jack said. He could see nothing but snow and the distant mountains.
“There are footprints,” Teal’c said.
Jack turned and looked where Teal’c was indicating. A trail of footprints in the snow led around to the far side of the shed. “Monroe,” Jack guessed.
The sky was pale blue, the sun a ball of fire just above the horizon. The world had been transformed from the dark into something beautiful, and yet still Jack felt a sense of menace. A low buzz at the base of his neck. Danger.
He glanced at Teal’c. “You sensing anything?”
“I do not sense the presence of a Goa’uld,” he said. “Yet I do sense something.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Something.”
Keeping his weapon drawn and ready, Jack followed Monroe’s footsteps around to the back of the shed. Maybe there was nothing wrong. Maybe the guy had cried out when he tripped on the ice. Maybe he was taking a pee. Maybe he’d tripped while taking a pee.
Or not. As they rounded the corner, Monroe’s red coat was brazen against the snow as he crouched, looking at something on the ground. Jack stopped, glanced at Teal’c. He only lifted an eyebrow, but Jack interpreted it as, Your call.
Lowering his weapon, Jack said, “Hey, Monroe, whatcha got?”
He didn’t respond.
Jack’s finger moved to the trigger. “Hey, Monroe!”
He turned then, looking at them from behind his mirrored sunglasses.
“Found something?” Jack said, still not getting any closer.
Monroe nodded.
“What?” Jack stepped closer, but not too close, as Monroe stood up to reveal the body of a man lying in the snow. A very old, very dead man with the remains of a scraggy beard and a face that wouldn’t look out of place in a museum. “Stay back,” he warned Monroe. Keeping his weapon leveled on the corpse, he toggled the radio on his shoulder. “Carter, Daniel – get up here. We’ve found our dead guy.”
It took an hour to get the body back inside the shed – Gordon, inevitably, insisting on ‘preserving the integrity of the find.’ Jack didn’t blame him. The thing needed some preservation; it was starting to stink.
Daniel had taken one look at the corpse’s face and turned almost as white as the snow, and then he’d left the shelter and gone to sit outside in the sunshine. Odd behavior for Daniel, but Jack didn’t have time to handle it right away. The first thing he had to establish was whether the thing had ever had a snake in its head. And that was pretty difficult with Gordon fussing over the body like a mother hen and Monroe sitting there without taking his eyes of the corpse for a moment.
Carter hovered close to the door, glancing outside every so often, obviously worried about Daniel.
“Teal’c?” Jack said. “Let’s take a walk.”
They headed outside, gathering Carter along the way. Daniel was some distance off, sitting sideways on one of the snowmobiles and gazing out across the icy plateau toward the mountains. The wind stirred the fur around the edge of his hood, the sun glinting off his sunglasses.
“Hey,” Jack said as they drew closer, “you okay?”
Daniel shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
He shook his head, frowned. “That thing…” He shuddered. “That was—” He lowered his voice, glancing back toward the shed. “I’m sure that’s the face I saw at the window.”
“I can see why it freaked you out,” Carter said.
“Can you? I can’t.”
“Come on,” Jack said. “Seeing that thing staring back at you in the middle of the night?”
“No, it was more than that.” He still sounded freaked out, Jack realized. “I froze,” Daniel said. “It totally paralyzed me. The fear, I mean. I’ve never felt anything like it. Never.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, at the same spot Jack could feel a knot of tension tightening in his own neck. “And I can still feel it.”
“I think we’re all feeling a little strange,” Carter said. “I know I am. Maybe it’s the jetlag and the lack of normal daylight.”
“Atmospheric pressure?” Daniel asked her, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
“Maybe not that.”
Jack blew out a breath. “Okay,” he said, “first things first. Teal’c, Carter – anyone sensing anything snaky?”
Carter glanced at Teal’c, as if looking for confirmation, then said, “No sir.”
“I concur,” Teal’c said. “If the body was possessed by a Goa’uld, it is no longer present.”
“Which leaves the question, where did it go?”
“Perhaps it encountered another human?” Teal’c said. “It would certainly require a more…robust host.”
Jack nodded and glanced back at the shed. “Monroe?”
“I do not believe so. I do not sense the presence of a Goa’uld.”
“I’m not getting anything either, sir,” Carter said.
Daniel pulled off his sunglasses, rubbed at his eyes. “You know,” he said, “there is another option.”
“Which is what?”
“That it isn’t a Goa’uld at all.” He spread his hands, defending the proposition before anyone could argue. “I didn’t see its eyes glow.”
“What else could it be?” Carter said.
Daniel shrugged. “The draugr were said to be bodies possessed by undead, unquiet spirits. Maybe it’s something we haven’t encountered before?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts, Daniel,” said Jack.
“Three years ago, you didn’t believe in aliens.”
“Not the same.”
“Isn’t it?”
Jack pulled off his watch cap, scratched his itchy head. He hated when Daniel did this, challenged what they thought they
knew. “Look, whatever this thing is – or was – we need backup.” He looked at Carter. “We need to get that radio working.”
“Yes sir. I think I’ll be able to fix the antenna if the weather holds.” She glanced at the sun, still rolling along the horizon. “We’ve got a couple more hours of usable light too, if we head back now.”
“Then do it. We’ll—”
“Wait,” Daniel said. “We can’t just leave that thing here, unguarded.”
Jack looked at him, trying to gauge how serious he was being. “Really? It looks pretty dead.”
“It looked pretty dead last night. Standing at the kitchen window.”
“Daniel…”
“It’s evil, Jack. Don’t ask me to explain. I can’t. I can only tell you how it made me feel – how it still makes me feel. That thing…it’s malevolent. We can’t just leave it here.”
Something cold ran down Jack’s spine, despite the sunlight. There was just too much honest fear in Daniel’s eyes to ignore.
“I will stay and stand guard tonight,” Teal’c offered.
Jack nodded. “Yeah, not alone you won’t.”
“Sir—” Carter began, but he cut her off.
“You and Daniel head back to the camp,” he said. “Take Monroe and Gordon with you. Get the radio working and brief the SGC. We’ve missed our last check-in, so they’ve probably contacted NASKEF by now.”
“Yes sir.” She threw an uncertain look at the shed. “You want me to bring over some provisions later?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of MREs in my pack. We’ll be eating better than you guys.”
Daniel shook his head, jumped down from the snowmobile. “Forget the MREs,” he said. “Just make sure you’ve got plenty of ammunition.”
Chapter Five
As soon as Daniel stepped into the cabin he could smell it: death. It was the same stench that had seeped from the ancient corpse. And that, in itself, was unusual. Wrong, even. Ancient corpses shouldn’t smell like this.
“It must be on our clothes,” Sam said, sniffing at the sleeve of her coat. “From when we were moving the body.”
Daniel nodded because it was the only plausible explanation. But, then, what did plausibility have to do with their current situation?
“I need to fix the antenna,” Sam sighed, with a dubious glance out the window at the fading daylight, “but then I’m taking a shower.”
Pulling off his parka, Daniel threw it onto one of the chairs. The last thing he wanted to do was shower; he felt like he didn’t dare turn his back on the world for a moment. “I don’t like this place,” he decided.
“No,” Sam agreed. “It feels… I don’t know, exactly. It feels…”
“Wrong?” Daniel supplied.
“Yeah. That’s it. Everything feels wrong.”
He sighed, suddenly weary. “Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For dragging you up here, spoiling your Christmas.”
“You didn’t – on either count.”
“But still…” He gestured around the cluttered cabin, the darkening windows. “I’ve had better Christmases.”
“I’ve had worse,” Sam said, then obviously forced a smile and gave Daniel a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Hey, at least we’re spending it with friends, right?”
He shrugged in acknowledgement, but couldn’t help throwing a look toward the lab, where Gordon and Monroe had disappeared. “Not only friends.”
“Ignore them,” Sam said. “They have no idea what’s going on here.”
“And we do?”
She smiled at that. “At least we understand the parameters.”
“Doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” Daniel pointed out. The parameters were as wide as the galaxy.
Sam shrugged and pulled her hood up, preparing to go back outside and tinker with the antenna. “We’ll figure it out,” she assured him. “We just need some backup.”
He wished he could be so certain. But Sam hadn’t seen what he’d seen; she hadn’t felt the incomprehensible terror that had drawn him toward the corpse even as it had repelled him. And Sam was an eternal optimist, a firm believer in understanding the universe in order to fix it. But what if not everything could be understood; what if not everything could be fixed?
As the door closed behind her, letting in a squall of icy air, Daniel turned back to the silent room. From the corner of his eye he could see the kitchen, the window a darkening square of glass behind the sink. He didn’t look at it directly, could feel his heart pumping hard. He felt like his blood had been suffused with adrenaline all day, that his head was thumping with it. He needed to do something, to act, not sit around in this cramped little cabin.
He scrubbed fingers through his hair and wished he’d stayed behind with Jack and Teal’c. At least then he’d know where the thing was; he’d know it wouldn’t appear at that damn window again. His fingers made fists in his hair and he found he couldn’t breathe, his chest crushing tight in rising panic.
“Damn it,” he hissed, just as he heard footsteps coming from the lab.
Embarrassed, he dropped his hands and looked up to see Monroe walking slowly into the kitchen. He was still wearing his coat, his woolen hat pulled down over his ears.
Daniel turned away, trying to drag himself back together. The last thing he wanted was the pompous academics to see him lose it. They already thought he was crazy and there was no need to confirm it. But he couldn’t shake the panic, couldn’t stop his heart thundering in his chest. What on earth was wrong with him?
Behind him he heard a cupboard open, the rustle of food packaging, the sound of Monroe eating. And still Daniel’s skin crawled, making it impossible to stand still.
“I need to talk to Dr. Gordon,” he blurted, heading toward the lab. It was just an excuse to move, to get out of there. To do something. Monroe didn’t answer but Daniel didn’t care.
It helped a little, getting away from the window’s baleful glare, and Daniel always felt most at home in research labs, surrounded by the immutable artifacts of the past.
Dr. Gordon glanced up from the microscope he was peering through when Daniel entered, his hard face growing harder still when he realized who was invading his space. “What do you want?”
“You brought back some samples?” Daniel said. “From the body?”
“Naturally,” Gordon said, and pushed shut his desk drawer with his foot.
“I don’t suppose I could take a look?”
“No.”
Daniel sighed. “Fine.” At least he had photos of the Asgard inscriptions to work on. He didn’t want to return to the living quarters, to the kitchen, so he found a chair as far from Gordon as possible and pulled out his camera. “Mind if I use your computer?” It would be easier to translate them if he could print the images.
Gordon didn’t look up. “All my files are encrypted.”
“I’m not interested in your files,” Daniel said, and didn’t explain any further. He was weary of the argument. He just wanted to do his job and go home. And since when had that ever been his attitude?
He shook his head and ejected the CompactFlash card from his camera. This place, he thought, is driving me crazy.
It wasn’t as simple a job as Sam had hoped. Not only was the antenna itself broken, but the guy lines that had anchored it to the roof of the hut were gone and, without them, there was no way the antenna would stand up. Especially not in this kind of weather.
She pushed the hood of her coat back to peer up at the darkening sky. The sun was below the horizon now and its lingering twilight was being mopped up by heavy clouds. She could maybe take the pieces of antenna inside and figure out a way to strap them together, but mounting it back on the roof was going to be a problem without the guy lines. Especially now that it was dark. Oh, and also snowing, she realized as a couple of thick flakes landed on her sleeve.
“Dammit,” she growled, and kicked a clump of snow in frustration. She’d promised
the colonel she could fix it. He was relying on her to call for backup. And now she was letting him down. She hated letting people down. “Dammit,” she said again, with more vehemence.
She turned her face away from the wind, watching snowflakes fly past in the light from the cabin windows. She toggled her radio. “Colonel O’Neill, this is Carter. Over.”
“O’Neill, go ahead Carter.”
“Sir, I’m having trouble getting the radio working. Weather’s closing in again, and I’ve lost too much light.”
“Understood. Everything’s quiet here, it can wait until morning.”
“Yes sir. Sorry, sir.” She winced; she hated apologizing too.
There was a pause, the radio equivalent of a sigh. “You can only do what you can do, Carter. Check in at 1700 hours. Out.”
Disgruntled, Sam made her way back to the cabin, dragging the two long pieces of antenna behind her. How was it, she wondered, that she could fix a dozen different kinds of alien technology but a simple radio was defeating her? A radio and the weather.
She left her snowy boots and coat in the cloakroom, dripping with everyone else’s gear, and padded in her socks into the living quarters. There was no one there, although the kitchen looked like it had been raided. And, back inside, she realized she could still smell the stink of the corpse. Perhaps it was in her hair? It was too short to actually sniff, but she figured a shower wouldn’t go amiss. Maybe it would help her shake off the persistent tension building at the base of her skull too.
By dint of being the only woman in the cabin, she’d been given the guest quarters – a tiny room, just big enough for a cot bed, but complete with an en suite shower. She wasn’t about to turn that down on any principle of equality.
With some relief she stripped out of her clothes and stepped into the small cubicle. The water was hot, even if space was limited, and she stood there beneath the water for a long time, just letting it flow over her. Letting her thoughts flow too.
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