STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths

by Susannah Parker Sinard

  The last thing Hammond wanted was to explain how the statue might have been damaged. He rarely allowed his frustrations to show, and taking his aggravation out on inanimate objects was not his normal practice. In this case, though, it may have yielded an unintended benefit.

  The newest addition to the SGC’s team of archeologists picked up the magnifying glass and squinted through it. Maybe he was getting old, but the red-haired young man didn’t look a day over sixteen. Hammond wasn’t even sure he’d started shaving yet.

  Balinsky still hadn’t spoken, so Hammond kept talking. “I’m no expert, but it looked like hieroglyphics to me — or at least some kind of writing.”

  The archeologist was examining the back of the statue now and gave a low whistle.

  “Doctor? Any idea if it’s of significance?”

  Balinsky blinked up at him. “Yeah, I’d say so.” He offered the glass to Hammond but held on to the statue. “This is very cool. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Certainly not this old.”

  He positioned the artifact behind the glass so Hammond could see where he was pointing. “It’s really a puzzle of sorts. The statue is made up of different sections, all of which can rotate.”

  Balinsky demonstrated by twisting the statue at various places. Because of the symmetry, it still looked perfectly normal — except the markings Hammond had seen earlier were no long distinguishable. “But, when you align them just so…” Balinsky twisted the statue again. “You’ve got a word. Or, in this case, a name.”

  “What name?” Hammond was trying hard to be patient.

  “NebtHet. She’s the Egyptian goddess of —”

  “I’m familiar with who she is, son. Thank you.” It wasn’t much of a discovery after all, then. Anise had already told him who the statue was meant to represent.

  “But sir, here’s what’s really amazing about this.” Balinsky’s voice went up a bit in excitement. “When you line it up to say ‘NebtHet’ on the front, look what happens on the back.” He turned the statue over and offered it back to Hammond to examine. At first it just looked like random indentations on the surface, but when Hammond held the magnifying glass to it, he saw something else.

  “Doctor, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

  Balinsky grinned at him like a kid on Christmas morning.

  “If you think you’re seeing gate symbols, sir, then yes. And there are six of them. It’s a gate address.”

  Chapter Thirty

  THE COLONEL’S directive to keep moving was easier said than done. There was a definite uphill grade to this path. Sam felt it not so much in her legs, although they were getting fairly tired, as in her lungs. The same foul air that had been impossible to see through was just as impossible to breathe. She could even taste the dirt in her mouth, the grittiness of it scratching the back of her throat. It didn’t take long before she and the colonel were wheezing as they ran.

  If there was any good news, it was that they seemed to have outpaced the fissure for the time being. The wall had slowed it down, or maybe it was the uphill climb. Although the more Sam thought about it, the less sense either explanation made. Regardless of what was causing it, the act of physically splitting open the ground shouldn’t require any extra effort in the presence of a wall or an inclined slope. That nagging feeling was back. It was almost as if —

  “Sir, I was just thinking.” It took her a moment to get her breath. “None of this makes any sense.”

  “That’s not exactly a news flash, Major.”

  “What I mean is, why kill us now? They had plenty of opportunities before. Why bring us back together only to kill us this way? There’s no logic to it.”

  Sam saw the colonel shrug before a fit of coughing overcame him. When it had subsided, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and she realized that he had a fine layer of dust covering his entire face — in fact, he was entirely coated with dust. Looking down at her own arms, she saw she was too. Little wonder they were having a hard time breathing.

  “Maybe the experiment is over,” the colonel offered, finally. “Instead of outright killing us, they just open up the ground and let us fall in.”

  “That’s an awful lot of energy and effort just to kill off four people.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one who said it didn’t make any sense.” He spat out more dirt.

  “What if they’re not trying to kill us?”

  The colonel looked skeptical.

  “What, then? It’s just playing tag?”

  “Well, not tag, exactly,” Sam replied. How to explain what she was only just piecing together? “But what if this is still just part of the experiment? I’m pretty sure I saw the fissure slow down when we were trapped at that dead-end. It was almost like it didn’t want to catch up with us, like it wanted to give us time to find a way out.”

  “How considerate.”

  “What I’m saying, sir, is that we might be able to slow down without increasing our risk. If it’s intention isn’t to harm us, then it should keep a safe distance.”

  The ground shifted beneath them with no warning and a loud crack reverberated like a single gunshot. She’d forgotten about the earthquakes. It was as if someone was still determined to shake the whole place into nothing but a pile of ruins.

  Sam heard the colonel shout, but it came a split-second too late. The silhouette of the falling wall darkened the ground in front of her a heartbeat before it came crashing down. She’d half-turned, a reflex to both the colonel’s warning and the looming shadow, which was all that saved her from being crushed. Instead, a chunk of rock clipped her left shoulder, spinning her around and knocking her into a section of wall that had already collapsed. As she landed, Sam half-heard, half-felt the sickening crunch of bone just before her left side went momentarily numb. Her vision dimmed for a few seconds and a freight train roared in her head.

  Through the fog she saw movement. Strong hands were lifting her off the rocks, guiding her to her feet. A face resolved into focus, close in front of hers.

  “Come on, Carter. No lying down on the job.”

  She shook her head and instantly wished she hadn’t. The numbness was replaced by a sharp, piercing pain, stabbing her left side. Each breath Sam tried to take felt like inhaling shards of glass. Cracked ribs. Maybe a punctured lung. It was hard to tell with the air already being so hard to breathe.

  “Sorry, sir,” she muttered, finally. Something flickered in his eyes for a moment — concern, maybe? — but it was replaced by a critically assessing gaze. He’d had enough broken ribs himself to recognize the symptoms, she was sure.

  “We’ve gotta —”

  “You go, sir. I can’t run. I can hardly —” She took a deep measured breath in order to get the last word out. “Breathe.”

  “Good thing we caught a break then. Come on. I’ve gotcha.” The colonel positioned himself on her right side and brought her arm up to his shoulder. Sam felt his left arm go around behind her, supporting her back, his hand careful to avoid the tender spots on her left side. She appreciated his gesture, but there was still no way they could outrun the fissure like this. She would only slow him down.

  The ground was still trembling with aftershocks. But it wasn’t until the colonel guided her away from the wrecked wall that Sam realized they weren’t continuing through the passageway. Instead he was carefully picking their way over the very rocks that had nearly killed her. When she looked up, Sam saw why.

  It wasn’t just the wall next to her that had collapsed. It was as if someone had tipped over a row of dominoes. Wall after wall had tumbled down, knocking against the wall in front of it. The entire maze, or what was left of it, had been destroyed. Across the piles of rubble, no more than an eighth of a klick away, was a small building that had to be their destination. It was the only thing still standing.

  “Look, company.” The colonel nodded off to their left. Sam could see two other people working their way through the ruins toward the building.


  Daniel and Teal’c.

  The colonel called out and both men turned toward the sound. They seemed to have fared slightly better. At least they were both walking unaided.

  Sam could breathe a little easier now. As long as she didn’t try to talk too much, the pain in her side was tolerable. She disengaged from the colonel’s shoulder and tried a few tentative steps on her own.

  “I’ll be okay, sir, thank you,” she said in response to his questioning look. “I just had the breath knocked out of me, that’s all.”

  Whether he believed her or was just letting her save face, Sam had no idea. He nodded and moved off, but only a little way. Close enough to be ready in case she went down again.

  Not that she’d let that happen.

  It took a lot longer than it should have to reach the building, but finally they staggered up to the last debris pile. For something as impressive sounding as The Hall of the Two Truths it was a lot smaller than she’d imagined. It was relatively plain, too, made out of the same stone they’d found in the rest of the maze. One single, tall doorway stood right in the middle, flanked by two massive stone pillars which rose up to a flat canopy over the entrance. The large wooden door was closed, giant hinges on either side suggesting that it probably opened inward. There was no sign of a lock.

  Daniel and Teal’c were still working their way through their own labyrinth of broken walls. Both of them were covered with umber dust, not a single glimmer of gold visible on Teal’c’s forehead. Flecks of shattered stone clung to Daniel’s hair.

  Another strong tremor sent everyone staggering. Daniel nearly lost his balance, but Teal’c steadied him before he went sprawling. Sam took a moment to appreciate the scene. It was only hours ago that she’d thought she might never see them again.

  “Uh, Carter?”

  The tone of the colonel’s voice brought her back from her momentary lapse of attention. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the ground. Pebbles and tiny bits of dirt were vibrating around his feet. The low rumbling, which had never really stopped, was getting stronger again. But it wasn’t the sound she’d come to associate with the quakes.

  It was the other sound. The one that had been chasing them for the better part of an hour.

  She and the colonel both looked behind them.

  “Crap.”

  That was an understatement.

  “It’s a legitimate gate address, sir. The computer matched it with one from the Ancient database. We just can’t get it to connect.” Harriman had dialed the gate three times already. Hammond was about to order a fourth attempt.

  “The Goa’uld will keep a gate open during an attack so that no one can dial out,” Colonel Reynolds pointed out. His team was geared up and standing by in the gate room. “We’ve seen that happen before.”

  “Or the gate could have been destroyed,” offered Harriman, immediately looking like he wished he hadn’t spoken.

  Hammond turned to Reynolds. “If someone’s keeping the door jammed open, that only works for thirty-eight minutes.” It might be the very last straw he had, but Hammond was going to grasp it. “I want that address redialed every five minutes for the next hour. Maybe we’ll get lucky and beat them to the punch.” With a sigh he clicked on the microphone. Seven heads swiveled in his direction at the sound.

  “SG 3 and 16, stand by. This could take a while.”

  The fissure had returned. And it seemed to have met up with its other half, the part of it which, Sam guessed, had been pursuing Daniel and Teal’c. The two rifts had devoured everything in their respective paths, and now, as they rejoined, they made an enormous arc across the maze.

  As the ground began to shudder violently, everything behind the conjoined fissures began crumbling. It was like watching the sinking of a ship. Bit by bit, getting nearer and nearer, the land disappeared from sight, plummeting down into an ever expanding canyon.

  It would reach them in minutes.

  The colonel was already waving Daniel off but Daniel continued to stumble toward them. The roar of splintering rock and crumbling soil made it nearly impossible to hear, but the colonel yelled at him anyway.

  “Get the hell out of here, Daniel!” He gestured vehemently again toward the structure. “Just go in the damn building!” The colonel took a step forward just as the ground beneath him buckled. Sam saw him go careening back, off-balance.

  The wave hit her a second later and with it another nauseating sensation of vertigo. There was nothing solid beneath her feet. The ground just vanished, leaving her and the colonel suspended, for one impossibly long second, in midair.

  Everything moved in slow motion.

  A low, mangled shout came from the colonel as he windmilled his arms, trying to regain his balance. Sam could feel the updraft of the collapsing soil spraying against her back as the gaping maw opened beneath them. Together they began to fall back into the bottomless chasm.

  Until two strong arms seized them.

  Teal’c stood there, legs spread wide for balance, grasping each of them by the arm. For a terrifying moment Sam was afraid that their backward momentum would pull Teal’c in as well, but he was strong enough to withstand the force. With evidence of only a little effort, he pulled them both back to solid ground.

  There was no time to thank him. Sam could still feel the instability of the soil under their feet. In a moment this section would give way too. They had to get to the building. It was their only chance.

  Daniel, for once, had listened to the colonel and already made it to the door. With the full force of his weight he was trying to push it open.

  The ground was quite literally falling away from their heels as they ran. The stabbing in Sam’s side returned with a vengeance as her lungs demanded more air, but she pushed past the haze of pain and focused on Daniel. They were almost there.

  A single stone step was all they needed to reach to make it to safety.

  Or, at least, what they assumed would be safety. If the building also began to collapse —

  Daniel had managed to open the doors so that one person at a time could squeeze through. It was good enough.

  One more earth shaking rumble rattled Sam’s teeth. All around them — all around the entire building — the ground fell away. All that remained was the building in front of them, perched on what she could only guess was an island of rock in the midst of a vast canyon.

  They’d run out of time. They’d run out of space. The last bit of soil was disintegrating under their feet.

  They dove for the step.

  For one horrifying moment she thought they hadn’t made it. But then Daniel’s hands were pulling her forward followed by grunts and exclamations from Teal’c and the colonel as they piled onto the steps after her.

  Blowback from the falling ground made it nearly impossible to see, and even more difficult to breathe. Between spasms of coughing, the colonel was shouting for them to get inside. Half feeling her way, Sam followed the shape that looked like Daniel and squeezed through the partially open door. There was a familiar, lurching sensation and she tumbled forward onto a floor that was hard and cold and solid. More importantly, it was absolutely motionless, with no indication that it was going anywhere at all.

  And laying there with her fractured ribs piercing her side so excruciatingly that she couldn’t even speak, not going anywhere was all Sam really cared about.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  IT TOOK Jack a few minutes to adjust to the dim light. And the silence. After the roaring and rumbling destruction they’d just escaped, the absolute stillness in this place was downright creepy.

  The other thing that was creepy was that he was pretty sure that they’d ended up someplace besides the other side of the doors they’d just stumbled through. It was like Carter had said, kind of like using the rings — only not. That would explain the sense of vertigo he had when he finally hit the floor after what seemed like just a second too long in the air. And why there wasn’t a single tremble from the homicidal ear
thquake that had chased them here.

  Beside him, Carter moaned. If the pallor of her skin was any indication, those ribs had to hurt like hell. But Daniel was already seeing to her, so Jack accepted Teal’c’s outstretched hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  “You okay, Carter?” She’d pushed herself up to all fours, although that looked like it had taken some effort. Nevertheless she nodded.

  “Yes, sir. Just give me a minute.”

  “Uh, Jack —?” Daniel was looking past him, frowning. Teal’c too, was staring. Jack had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what he saw when he turned around.

  He was right.

  It wasn’t the high ceiling with its sunlit windows reflecting light off the blindingly white pillars. It wasn’t the marble floor which gleamed as if no foot had ever before stepped on it, or the matching marble walls which made the place feel like a cross between a tomb and an art museum. It wasn’t even the long center aisle lined on either side by a row of life-like statues, or the elevated dais at the far end.

  It was who was waiting for them on that dais.

  Goa’ulds — what else could they be, in those get-ups? — about a dozen of them, give or take. And something else that made Jack’s blood chill. The Ammit was there, sitting patiently like some perverse dog next to what appeared to be a giant set of scales.

  “Oh this does so not look good,” he muttered under his breath.

  He raised his P90 just as Teal’c brought up his staff. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Carter reflexively reach for a zat she didn’t have.

  Teal’c unexpectedly shifted his aim toward the left row of statues. Daniel gasped quietly.

  “I believe it is actually worse than it appears, O’Neill.” Teal’c spoke without taking his eyes off his targets. “The statues are alive.”

  Shit.

  Teal’c was right. Jack could now see that they weren’t statues at all. As far as he knew, statues didn’t move. But these did. More Goa’ulds, like the rest of them, and each and every one of them was staring at SG-1.