` - understand alien cultures, even the ones with root languages that may not be familiar to us," Carter said. They both grinned like schoolkids left in charge of the candy store. "We just have to analyze it and retrofit the - "
Jack rolled his eyes and said, in infinite careful patience, "Kids? Let's stick to the program. I'm sure these fine folks," not to mention me, "have better things to do than listen to technobabble."
Daniel took offense. "It's not technobabble, Jack, we're talking about a breakthrough that could change - "
"Life as we know it, yadda yadda, I'm more interested in finding out how to get off this rock." The suppressed fury in his voice had a bracing effect. Some of the glow faded out of Daniel's eyes, and Carter looked positively chastened. "Now. Gran - Alsiros here said something about tribute. What's that mean?"
Daniel cleared his throat. "Well, it's actually kind of fascinating. You remember the story of the Minotaur?"
"Um... Ugly monster. Maze."
"It's a little more complicated than that, but yes. The important thing is that the Greeks sent a regular tribute of victims to Crete for the Minotaur, who was a divine mixture of man and beast and ate human flesh." Daniel indicated the black robed men and women. "Well, so far as I can tell, there's no Minotaur, but Colonel Jack O'Neill, meet the tribute from Sikyon. The people we saw come through before we were -um-
"Sandbagged?" Jack contributed sourly.
" - before we were sent through the Stargate were the tribute from Chalcis. I assume there must be groups from Mycenae and Delphi here, or on the way."
"Because...?"
"Obviously, there's someone or something here that they want to appease, the same way the ancient Greeks wanted to appease the Cretan monster."
Oh, that was a happy thought, and yep, it had Goa'uld written all over it. And Daniel's enthusiasm for it made Jack's guts clench up. Don't think you really want to make friends with the monster Danny boy. Although, hopefully, a couple of high-velocity rounds in the monster's ass might make it a little less hungry.
Alsiros had had enough. He pulled himself up to a stiff, unbending height, looked down his nose at Jack, and said, "We will leave now to make our way to the temple."
"Temple?" Daniel turned to him immediately. "Where?"
"It lies at center of the Great City." Alsiros frowned at him, the way he'd frown at a puppy puddling the carpet. "Were you given no instruction?"
"No, we were sent - well, without instructions. Which are...?"
Jack let Daniel keep up the conversation, content to watch over the rest ofAlsiros's party. Nothing special there. They all looked scared, but mostly determined; the youngest one, the girl - Iphigenia - clung to her brother's arm with both hands, big brown eyes sneaking nervous glances at Jack from time to time.
The brother didn't seem to approve. He turned to her, whispered something, and she looked down, cheeks burning.
"The sun is setting." Alsiros interrupted the flow of Daniel's questions to point at the faded bluish disk sliding down behind the horizon. "We may not waste any more time with your foolishness. I will tell you what you need to know in order to give honor to your people." He looked as if they should have been grateful. "You must make your way to the temple, and Artemis will judge your bravery. Your heart will be weighed before the eyes of the goddess, and you will join the Divine Hunt."
"Okay, hold on... hunt?" Jack asked. "What kind of hunt? And that heart-weighing, that's not literal, right?"
Alsiros shook his head impatiently and stalked away. The kid, Pylades, spoke up. "The Divine Hunt," he said. "Our sacrifice keeps our people safe. If we are judged worthy, we'll join her company and serve her in the temple. Otherwise..." He gave Iphigenia a glance and kept whatever he'd been about to say to himself. "The goddess knows a pure heart. I hope to see you in the temple."
He followed Alsiros, who was already striding through the rubble and heading for one of the two sagging doorways. The rest of the black-robed group straggled after, talking excitedly.
"Well, that was the end of a beautiful friendship," Jack said. "What now?"
"I guess we find the Temple of Artemis," Daniel shrugged. "Listen, won't the SGC have some kind of protocol when we don't check in?"
"Oh yeah."
"Which is...?"
"They'll open the wormhole to send a message through to us." Jack squinted at the sun. "If we miss more than two contacts, they send SG-2 in after us. Major Dixon's in command while Ferretti's still in rehab."
"They'll look on Chalcis first," Carter said.
Jack nodded. "Acton's bunch will have a real nice story. They saw us to the gate, waved bye, don't know what the heck could have happened. Unless SG-2's real motivated to thump an answer out of somebody, we can't count on rescue showing up here any time soon....Options?"
"Sir, the temple's the only landmark we have so far. If that's the center of this place, maybe that's where we find the missing piece to the DHD," Carter put in. "Shouldn't we follow them? Alsiros seems to know where they're going."
"His type always do. Teal'c. Get up high, take a look. We need a lay of the land."
Teal'c nodded, handed his staff weapon to Carter and lunged up the tallest pile of rubble, then vaulted up again onto the nearest standing wall, athletic and graceful as a cat. The top of the wall was narrow, but he balanced like an acrobat, rock-steady, and turned in a slow circle.
Jack shaded his eyes against the dying glare of the sun. The wind must have been pushing hard at Teal'c, but the Jaffa didn't seem bothered. "See anything?"
"Yes," Teal'c said. His voice sounded odd. "The city stretches for many miles. It is vast and ancient. Much of it is in ruins."
"Any sign of a temple?"
"I cannot say. There appear to be some large intact buildings in that direction." He pointed. "But the streets are narrow, and many are blocked. It is a difficult path."
"Guess Alsiros was right," Jack said. "Probably good to get a head start, then, if there's some Goa'uld time limit to this thing. And he never answered me about the heart-weighing issue. Anybody else bothered about that?"
Teal'c jumped. Just... jumped, right down from a height of about twenty feet or so, easy as if he'd been jumping off a foot-high step. He landed with flexed knees, straightened, and extended his hand to Carter. She smiled and handed over his weapon.
"Well, I don't know," Jack said, straight-faced. "You stuck the landing, but the Russian judge only gave it a three....Daniel, Alsiros seemed a little hairy about the sun going down. Any idea why?"
"Well, it's getting colder. It'd be nice to find some shelter." Daniel rubbed his hands together, then clasped them under his armpits.
Teal'c spoke up. "I located a defensible position when scouting, O'Neill."
"Lead the way." They all looked at him. "What?"
"Sir... not that I'm doubting you, but are you sure you're in shape to make any kind of a hike right now?" Carter asked.
He tested his ankle and found the pain level about a six on the Jack O'Neill Scale of Debilitation, which meant he could soldier on effectively. He'd hit an eight once, when he'd blown out his knee the first time on the parachute drop. Came close to a nine in a Baghdad prison. He figured by the time he hit a true ten, he'd be dead anyway.
"I'll be fine," he said.
They all exchanged looks.
"What?"
"Nothing, sir," Carter murmured.
He followed Teal'c across the confines of the courtyard, trying hard not to limp. Familiarity with pain bred contempt, so it got easier as he went along. It looked like there had originally been several exits from the courtyard where the Stargate sat, but with the walls collapsing it was more or less open ground with random cover.
More walls at sharp right angles outside of it, these still standing and at least two stories tall. They were completely enclosed, looked like, except for two narrow alleyways, one to (he checked the compass on his watch) east and one to west. Presuming he could read an alien planet's magnetic
field the same way as back home. Ought to ask Cartel.
And yet... no.
"The shelter I located is in this direction. Also, I believe these streets are unblocked for much of the way." Teal'c pointed. Opposite from Alsiros's tracks. Jack made a move-out gesture.
Even though Teal'c kept the pace slow and easy for the sake of Jack's ankle, it was tough. Carter kept hovering behind him, clearly worried, which left Daniel at the rear; Jack glanced behind, and sure enough, Daniel was lagging fifty feet back, busy looking at the walls, rubbing his hand over them with an interested expression.
"Captain, this is why he doesn't hold down the rear. Oh, Daniel?" he called back.
"Yeah, just a minute."
Jack rolled his eyes and nodded Carter toward him; she went to round him up. Daniel immediately tried to enlist her to his side. "Captain - Doctor - take a look at this. What do you think? These reliefs - "
"Not now, Dr. Jackson." Carter's voice was brisk and professional.
"But the reliefs... it's just that the material of these walls doesn't match what - "
"Daniel." A little more steel under the friendliness. It brought Daniel up short. "Time and a place."
He froze for a second, then nodded. "Right. Sorry." He moved out, shot Jack a look, and went past him to walk behind Teal'c.
When Carter joined Jack again, he gave her a slight nod. "Nice Daniel-wrangling. Of course, you're still new at it. He's being polite. It'll get tougher."
She snorted a laugh and dropped back to follow.
All in all, it seemed like the longest walk of Jack's life, which given his history was saying a lot.
Teal'c led them around a right turn, then a left, then another left. Blank walls, broken by toothless doorways that led into darkness, or into more alleyways. What had Alsiros called this place? The Great City? Maybe once, but it had been years since this place had seen anything like civilization.
"Jack!" Daniel's voice, thick and urgent with alarm. Jack paused, turned and looked. The younger man was crouched down on hands and knees beside a pile of fallen bricks.
Jack controlled a flash of pure temper, fueled by pain and exhaustion. "Archaeology later. Shelter now."
Daniel reached behind the rubble and pulled something free. He held it up to catch the last cold blue rays of the sun.
A skull, more yellow than white.
"It's not ancient," Daniel said quietly. "Probably not more than a few months old. The bone's not even bleached yet. There's more back here, but it's all been disarticulated. Tom apart and dumped."
Jack forgot about his ankle. "Animals?"
"I don't see any sign of gnawing. The bones aren't scattered." He sat back, considering. "There's no collar. Some clothing left, but no collar."
Jack looked at Carter. She was frowning, but she lifted one shoulder in helpless commentary. Nothing they could do. They didn't even really know what it meant.
"O'Neill." Teal'c was up ahead, and he stepped back from an open, darkened doorway. "There is more."
The smell warned Jack long before his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the room; the roof was missing, but it was still murky.
"What is it?" Daniel asked, coming up behind him.
"More bodies." He counted and came up with twelve. "Fresher ones, smells like." He flicked on his flashlight to take a look, and wished he hadn't. Combat prepared you for a lot of things, but that still didn't make it easy to stomach. Not if you were lucky.
"God," Carter murmured from behind him as he moved to a second corpse. Tough to tell how long they'd been here; decomposition was pretty advanced, to the point that it was difficult to tell the men from the women. "Sir, this one's been hacked to pieces."
"Yeah," he agreed. Behind him, he heard boots scraping, and Daniel bolted outside to heave. Not an unreasonable response; Jack had done it plenty of times. "Whatever happened here, it was violent. Any of these collar things?"
"No sir. None of them have them. The clothes are gone, too. Scavenged, maybe?" She gulped, fighting nausea. He jerked his head toward the exit.
He and Carter stepped out into the relatively cleaner air of the alley - hallway? - and he looked to Teal'c. The Jaffa was silent.
"Goa'uld?" Jack prompted.
"The Jaffa do not kill in such a manner unless no other weapons are available to them," Teal'c replied. "I - have never seen such a thing on any Goa'uld world. Death, yes. But this was not done by Jaffa."
"Somebody's holding the right end of the knives. Swords. Whatever."
"Agreed. We should be alert."
Jack nodded, one sharp jerk of his chin. "You said you found shelter."
"It is defensible, O'Neill."
"Even better."
Teal'c led them around two more comers, a sharp right, over a pile of rubble from another fallen wall that it took Jack two tries to make it over. That raised his pain index another half a point on the scale.
In the shadows, half blocked by another crumbling wall, lay a blind doorway. Darkness inside. Jack held up a closed fist to bring the team to a halt - naturally, Daniel didn't notice at first - and used the penlight to check out the interior. Looked good - one empty room, no windows, no corpses. He limped in and rested his back against one thick wall with a silent sigh of relief. Damn.
Teal'c settled at the door, facing out, watching the alley outside. A thin, fading band of sunlight crawled over the outside wall and disappeared, and everything started going dark. Carter, without any prompting, broke out the portable stove for warmth, and began laying out rations. Daniel was drawn over to make some half-hearted jokes about the macaroni and cheese. Jack let his throbbing, protesting body rest up, and nursed a small amount of water like sipping whiskey. The stove radiated a warm orange glow, but didn't do much to heat up the space. Jack finished his water and held up a hand to Carter.
"Yo. Captain. Toss it."
"Anything in particular you're hungry for, sir?"
"Whatever." She tossed one, and he fielded it without effort. He'd long ago formed the opinion that all MREs were the same, it was just psychology to label them differently. But then, as Carter had pointed out back at the SGC, he'd never met military chow he'd actually liked, and he had to admit, the modem MREs were a hell of an improvement over the old crap. "Teal'c? You eating?"
"I am not hungry."
"It's here if you want it."
Teal'c nodded in acknowledgement without taking his eyes off of the empty alley outside. He hadn't forgotten the room back there, the dismembered bodies. Well, Jack hadn't either. He had a hunch he'd be seeing it again when he closed his eyes.
Daniel and Carter were talking in low voices, something about the Stargate and translation again. Jack let the words wash over him without worrying about the meaning, realized he'd forgotten about the MIRE in his hands, and opened it up to wolf down the main course - turned out to be tuna with noodles - and the lemon pound cake. Peanut butter and crackers for later, if he got snack-hungry.
Almost before he'd finished swallowing the last sticky bite of cake, he felt his body relaxing.
The wall felt soft as that feather bed he hadn't used, back on Chalcis.
Just before his eyes slid shut, he saw Carter and Daniel, huddled together over the warmth, talking like old friends, and he thought, if we get out of this alive, we're going to make a damn fine team.
Then it all slid away, or he did, into darkness.
.t was strange, Daniel thought, that he was having the time of his life right now, trapped on an alien planet with the threat of death hanging over him. But for the first time in a long time, he was feeling useful. He had puzzles to solve, things to care about, someplace to be and people to belong to. He'd had that on Abydos, for a while. Not so much before. Losing it - and Sha're - had been the hardest things he'd ever endured.
Dan'yel. In unguarded moments, he could still hear her voice, as if she was just behind him, out of sight, and when he slept he woke up believing her warmth was curled next to him. Until reality
came into hard, clear, cold focus. Empty bed, empty soul, empty life.
He'd felt useless ever since. This felt... better, being here. Doing this.
Crazy as that was, under the circumstances.
Captain Carter was tugging at her neckband again. He knew how she felt; he kept catching himself pulling on his own, trying to loosen it, trying to find the hidden catch to take it off. When she saw him watching her she gave a guilty little smile. "Itches," she explained. He nodded. "Want something to eat?"
"Sure."
She dug out supplies, and inspected an NIRE package with a slight, undeniably cute frown between her eyebrows. "Country Captain Chicken. Apart from the obvious jokes, that just doesn't seem very appetizing." She held it out to Daniel, who shook his head. "I'll save it for the Colonel. He'll probably get a kick out of it..."
She made it half a question. Daniel saw her looking toward O'Neill, but Jack's chin was down on his chest, his olive-drab baseball cap pulled down low, his arms folded over his chest, foot elevated to bring down the swelling. Fast asleep. Jack had put on a good front, but it had been pretty obvious to anybody who knew him that his ankle had been bad enough to sideline any of the rest of them.
"Jack? Yeah. Probably."
"I'm just thinking, you know him better than I do."
Daniel paused in the act of reaching for a package labeled JAMBALAYA. "I do?"
"Sure." Captain Carter's shoulders raised and lowered in a toocareful shrug. "You were on the Abydos mission together. You've logged more time."
"Well... yes. That doesn't mean I know him. I mean, I like him, and I respect him, but so far as knowing him... it's not that easy. Jack's not exactly the type to open up."
"You aren't either," Carter observed.
Daniel felt his eyebrows go up. "And you are?"
"Sure." She ripped open a package - not the Country Captain Chicken, whatever that was - and sorted through the contents. "I grew up a military brat, my father's an Air Force General, I kissed my first boy at 14, and I like fast cars."
"That's it?"
"The highlights." She grinned at him. "I always meant to be an astronaut, until I found out about the Stargate, and then I couldn't think of anything else. End of story. Trust me, I'm not that complicated."
Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon Page 7
