"Don't leave me," Iphigenia whispered to him, and buried her face in his chest. "Please don't leave me again!"
"I won't," he soothed her, and stroked her tangled brown hair. "It was the only way. You couldn't outrun them. But you're safe now."
"Safe from...?" Daniel asked. "Pylades, it's okay. You can trust us. We're not going to hurt you, either of you. You'll be safe with us."
From the narrow set of the kid's brown eyes, he wasn't buying it. Iphigenia, though, was; Jack could see it in the way she sneaked glances at Daniel, color rising in her cheeks. Oh, great. Daniel seemed to have that effect on the young, innocent ones. And just as clearly, Daniel had absolutely no clue.
"Who was chasing you?" Jack asked. "Jaffa?" He gestured at Teal'c, with an apologetic shrug in the man's direction. Teal'c accepted it stoically.
"They were from Mycenae," Pylades said. "I did not know them."
"How do you know they were from Mycenae?" Daniel asked.
Pylades frowned at the question. "It was obvious."
"From...?"
"They wore the colors."
Well, at least the bad guys were color-coded. That helped. "What colors would those be?"
For answer, Pylades produced a scrap of fabric, bloodstained - pale yellow. Jack rubbed his fingers on it, thinking, then handed it to Daniel. "Look familiar?"
"It's like what the man this morning was wearing."
"So he was from Mycenae." And maybe Pylades had been the killer. Damn. Nothing confusing about this, was there?
Daniel must have seen the thought passing over Jack's expression, because he shook his head and gestured toward Pylades' tunic, which was torn and grubby, but not bloody. "He'd be soaked, Jack. Like Alsiros."
"Alsiros!" Iphigenia suddenly grabbed at Daniel's hands and held them tight. "Is he alive?"
"He's fine," Daniel assured her, and gently extricated himself. "He's, ah, praying. We left him food and water. He'll be all right."
Pylades and Iphigenia exchanged a look, and Jack saw the grim light come back into Pylades' eyes.
"What?" he asked them.
Pylades focused on him, and said, "Alsiros killed two of us. He went mad. You should have slain him where you found him. I would have, only..." He glanced at Iphigenia, who had tears in those big brown eyes. "... Only my sister was so frightened. We ran, like the rest. Then the men of Mycenae came after us."
So, bad guys not color coded. Not a help. "Daniel? What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know. Pylades - before Alsiros went mad, did he say anything, do anything...?"
"He slept," Pylades said. "I kept watch. I saw him wake and stand, looking at the moon, and then he took his knife and went to Kalman, who was asleep. Before I could raise the alarm, he had stabbed him. Not - not killed him. Kalman ran, and Alsiros - he ran after. We all saw him - " He stopped, unable to go on. Jack realized suddenly just how young the kid was. Strong, yeah, but nowhere near old enough to handle something like this. "When Kalman was dead, Alsiros came back. We ran, we all ran, but he caught Siria..."
"But he didn't say anything?" Daniel asked gently. "You're sure?"
"He said... something about the moon. About running in the moonlight. It didn't make any sense."
Jack had a sudden hot, vivid flash of the dream, of running in the cold silver moonlight, hunters swift and fatal on his trail. He thought he saw something in Daniel's eyes, too, but then the younger man looked away.
"It's getting dark," his sister said. She was sitting, with Pylades, in a deep shadow thrown by the walls; her disordered long hair glowed orange in the setting sun. "We should - we should hide."
Pylades nodded. "We're safe now," he said. "Look at their weapons. They're fierce warriors. They will protect us now, and no one can harm you."
Jack looked up just an instant before the rubble shifted; Carter appeared at the top, face stained with sunset. Her eyes were unreadable as she looked down at them. "Found something, sir," she said. "It's not great, but it's pretty defensible."
"Big enough for a couple of houseguests?"
"Don't see why not."
"Lead on, Captain," he said, and hoisted Pylades up by an elbow. Pylades kept hold of Iphigenia's hand, drawing her with him. "Kid. Stay with us, right? Safety in numbers."
Pylades nodded.
Dinner was another round of MREs, washed down with tepid water and - in Daniel's case - instant coffee. Pylades and Iphigenia gamely tried everything. The Chili Mac went over gangbusters, along with the fruit; Iphigenia nibbled on her oatmeal cookie and abandoned it, and Pylades ended up scarfing them both. Jack, drawing the short straw, ended up with the Escalloped Potatoes and Ham, which he'd always pretty much loathed. He tried to talk Teal'c into swapping, with no luck. Invoking command privilege over entrees seemed a little petty.
Daniel, who didn't seem to notice or care what the hell it was he was eating, was busily grilling Iphigenia about life on Sikyon. She was shy, but eager to give him details about everything from hair styles to shopping in the market; Daniel made copious notes. Pylades, after watching with a brother's jealous care for a while, must have decided that Daniel posed no threat to his baby sister's virtue; he came to sit next to Carter instead.
"You are a woman," he said.
Carter's quick, vivid smile flashed for the first time in hours. "Yeah, thanks for noticing."
"On Sikyon - women do not carry arms. Or fight. Men do that for them." He sounded defensive about it, Jack thought. "It is not seemly. Do not your men defend you?"
Jack choked down a grin. "Wanna field that one, Captain?"
"It's not quite that simple, Pylades. My people believe that anyone should be free to choose their own path - men or women alike. If I'm suited to be a fighter, then I can be a fighter. Although personally, I admit I like flying." Pylades gave her an uncomprehending stare, as if the word didn't translate. "Flying. In the air. In machines."
"Your words are foolish," Pylades said. "Men cannot fly. - Women," he added belatedly.
"Well, they can with a little help."
"No one should wish to fly." Pylades shook his head, and pointedly looked away to end the conversation.
"Who in their right mind doesn't like flying?" Jack asked, with a quirk of his eyebrows.
"Army, Navy, and Marines, sir."
"And there's a reason they're not on my team, Captain. I believe I did qualify it with right mind."
She gave him the smile, then. The uncomplicated approval of it eased some of the tension that had accumulated in his guts. Maybe she hadn't been acting odd, after all. Maybe that black spot on the necklace had nothing to do with it - Daniel's was still pure white, after all, and he'd been the one popping off shots and channeling Wild Bill Hickok. "Any thoughts about tomorrow?" he asked her.
"I guess we have no choice but to keep heading for the Acropolis," she said. "Every other building we've seen has been gutted or destroyed. The place is a complete ruin. The chances of finding anything to help us get home in any of these wrecks is, well, pretty small."
They were camped in one of those wrecks; this one, according to Daniel's enthusiastic flood of explanation, had probably been a private home, and they were bedding down in what would have been a front receiving room. It still had a roof and four walls. Jack wasn't entirely happy with the open back door, which looked out on a dead, dry garden and a broken fountain, not to mention a warren of other partially destroyed rooms, but it was the best they'd found. Teal'c was keeping watch at the back, Jack at the front, and they'd be taking shifts through the night.
They'd found bodies here too, long-dead skeletons that probably dated from when this city had died. Daniel couldn't tell much about them, except that at least three had been children, one just a baby. They'd left them huddled together in the back room where they'd found them. Jack, seeing a glint of gold around the baby's bony arm, had gestured to Daniel; Daniel had just shaken his head and walked away.
Jack already liked him, but he liked him a hell of a l
ot more for that.
"Let's get some sleep," Jack said, loud enough to cut through the still-enthusiastic dialogue going on between Iphigenia and Daniel. "Carter, Daniel, we'll wake you at 0300."
Nobody protested; truthfully, Jack thought, every one of them with the possible exception of Teal'c was pretty much wrung out. Daniel and Carter stretched out on the thin bedrolls, pulled blankets over their heads, and within minutes Jack heard the light sound of Daniel's snores. Carter slept silently - military training - and Iphigenia and Pylades curled up in the comer together, back to back. No self-consciousness about sleeping so close together, Jack noticed, but then, different planet, different customs. Daniel and Carter had unconsciously left a good amount of space between them, even though the chill was settling in deeply.
Jack blew out a breath, saw it spread out silver on the air, and hugged his hands under his armpits.
It was going to be another damn long night.
Hours passed in silence. Jack watched the night go from ink-black to silver, washed in the thick moonlight; nothing moved out there, but there was a feeling to it. Sinister. Maybe it was imagination, but he didn't think so. He remembered the mosaic back on Chalcis, the ruined city, the moonlight, the sense of danger lurking in shadow. It occurred to him, kind of cheerfully, that somebody had been here to see that scene, so maybe there really was a way off this rock.
Although it was way too easy to believe, here in the darkness down the throat of night, that there wasn't any hope - that all that was left was a futile, desperate struggle and an ugly death. But he'd faced that before, many times, and it didn't drag on him the way he knew it would the others. Daniel might be resistant to it, too. For all his imagination and quick intelligence, Daniel could be amazingly dense when it came to recognizing danger. Carter, on the other hand... all the sensitivity, none of Jack's hardening. He knew she was tough, or he wouldn't have picked her for the team, but she hadn't been tested the way Daniel had, or Teal'c. It took special hardness to make it through something like this without breaking.
And now she was whimpering in her sleep again, making sounds of real distress.
Jack left his post and shuffled over to her, wincing at the strain in his still-sore ankle, and put a hand on her shoulder and shook gently. "Captain," he whispered. "Captain Carter."
She came awake with a galvanic shudder, straight up, and he saw the shine of sweat on her flushed face.
She also came up with her combat knife in her hand. Jack threw himself back instinctively, before his brain even reported the flash of movement, and felt the tip of the knife dig into his tac vest a second before ripping free in a diagonal line.
"Captain!" he barked, and grabbed her arm. He twisted, hard, felt her fighting him but adrenaline and training, not to mention superior upper body strength, won out. She dropped the knife with a metallic klang and spun up to a fighting crouch. "Captain Carter!"
Everybody woke up. Teal'c came to his feet, but didn't abandon his post.
It took long sweaty, skin-crawling seconds before the sanity crept back into those wide eyes, and finally Carter swallowed hard and whispered, "Colonel?"
"What's left of him," he said in disgust, and looked down at his vest. Another inch, and he'd be picking up his guts with both hands. "Any particular reason you want to field-dress me, Carter?"
She sucked in a deep, shaking breath. "Sony, sir. I was -
"Dreaming, yeah, got that." He engaged her eyes and held them. "You okay?"
"Yes sir."
"I'm not asking for the P.C. answer, Captain."
"And I'm not giving it." A deep, convulsive breath. "I'm good, sir."
Daniel, up on one elbow watching the drama, had frozen in place, as had Teal'c; when she followed up the declaration with a murmured, "Sorry, bad dream," Daniel rolled back flat and closed his eyes in relief.
Teal'c kept watching, expressionless and tense.
Jack wasn't buying her apology; she had a pale, shaky look he didn't like. And it might have been his imagination, but she looked fevered - flushed, eyes glittering. Reaction time a little too fast. In the pale reflected moonlight and the half-light of the camp stove that kept the room moderately warm, he caught sight of her collar, and the moonstone in the center.
The dark mark on it was larger, nearly a full quarter. Like Alsiros's.
"Turn around, Captain," he said, and made a twirling motion when she didn't respond. She did, unwillingly, and turned her head to try to catch sight of what he was doing. "Nothing personal, Carter." He moved her hair off her neck and looked first at the unbroken skin - no stealth invasion by Goa'uld, at least - and then at the silvery mesh of the collar. It was seamless. He probed at it with his fingers, looking for some kind of catch, then had her turn to face him again. This close, it was impossible not to feel some discomfort. He compensated by focusing hard on the objective - the damn collar. She was breathing shallowly and fast.
When he reached out, she blocked him with a fast upraised arm. "Don't, sir," she said hoarsely. "Don't touch it."
"Why not?"
"Because - " Her eyes were a little wild. "Just don't."
He felt his frown groove deeper. "Carter - "
She put a hand up over the collar, not as if she was trying to rip it away - which was what he wanted to do - but as if trying to keep it on.
Okay, something was deeply wrong here.
"Why me, sir?" It burst out of her in a shaking rush. "Why is this happening to me? Why nobody else?"
"I don't know, Captain."
"Is it just that I'm the only woman, or - "
"Alsiros went faster than you did," he reminded her. "One or two nights, he was over the edge. Maybe it's body chemistry. Maybe it's magnetic waves. Hell, Carter, for all I know, we're right behind you. Stay focused. You're not crazy."
"Maybe not yet," she said, and forced a shaky smile.
"Maybe not ever."
They both flinched at the high, thin, panicked sound of a scream. It ripped the fabric of the night, echoed, multiplied. Echoes? More than one voice? Jack took a step back, saw Teal'c turning to face him too, face wiped blank in concentration. Daniel rolled groggily up for the second time.
The screaming was close. Very close.
Carter darted around him, grabbed her MP5, and hit the door at a run.
"Captain!" he yelled, but she was already gone at a dead run. "Captain, halt! That's an order!"
No way he could keep up with her, not with his ankle; he tried anyway, running until the fiery ache crippled him and he had to sag against a crumbling wall, hissing in pain. Somebody ran past him, flat out - he thought it was Teal'c, at first, until he felt a ham-sized hand closing on his shoulder to support him from behind.
Daniel. Daniel had been chasing after Carter. Going like a goddamn track star.
"I'm fine!" Jack lied. "Go go go!"
Teal'c abandoned him and loped on, running after Daniel, and damn, where had Daniel learned to run like that? Well, Abydos, probably. He'd had plenty of time toning up, chasing after the Abydonian kids up and down sand dunes. He would have been training them, same as he'd trained them to use the ordnance that the first Stargate mission had abandoned there.
Bad time for Daniel to decide to be a hero, and dammit, there was no way Jack was going to keep up, his ankle was folding up like wet cardboard the harder he pushed it. It was pulsing now, sickening red/ purple pulses that thudded in time with his heartbeat.
He rounded the next corner in time to see Carter climbing a mountain of rubble, cresting it, and disappearing on the other side. Teal'c and Daniel were kneeling next to a crumpled dark shape in the moonlight - another black-robed tribute victim, this one a woman, her throat slashed. Blood slid in dark sheets over the stone, and Daniel's hands were covered with it as he tried to stop the bleeding.
No good. Daniel sat back and looked up at the moon. Blood-flecks on his glasses, splashes on his face. He looked exhausted and ill.
Jack remembered the flash of the knife in C
arter's hand, and felt a sickening drop at the pit of his stomach. God, no.
Daniel must have read the thought in his face. "She didn't do this," he said. "She - she went after the one who did."
Jack keyed the radio. "Carter! Captain Carter, break off pursuit and get your ass back here, now!"
"She can't," Daniel said, and scrambled to his feet. "She can't stop now."
"Daniel!" Jack barked, and hobbled toward them as fast as possible. "Stay, dammit - "
But it was like Daniel couldn't hear him, or didn't care; he hit the pile of rubble at a run, scrambled up with hands and feet, and slid over the top out of sight.
Jack felt a sudden strength-sapping wave of weariness, outright fear, and looked at Teal'c. Was it just his imagination, or was there something there, too? Some sense of futility, of uselessness, of inevitability?
"Teal'c," he said hoarsely. "Go after them."
The Jaffa nodded and took off after Daniel and Carter. Jack sucked in heavy, blood-tasting breaths and looked at the scene again. Bloody corpse, bloody footprints leading up to the mountain of rubble.
This is going so far south it's meeting north.
And he didn't understand why. Daniel was headstrong, but he wasn't stupid; he wouldn't go after Carter against orders, he knew he'd be lousy as backup. And Teal'c should have been way ahead of him. It was as if..
As if they'd all changed, in small but telling ways.
Yeah? Is that why you weren'tfaster on the uptake? Why you didn't grab Carter and slam her down before she could make it out of the shelter? Why you couldn't stop Daniel just now?
Jack turned, a slow, limping circle, looking around. There was a dark doorway to his left. He took it, found a half-fallen wall that he managed to roll himself over, then a shortcut past the massive pile of fallen wall that blocked the street.
He limped grimly on, knowing that whatever was happening, he was going to be too late to stop it.
We left those kids alone back there. In the fast press of events, he'd forgotten Pylades and Iphigenia, and that wasn't like him, he should have snapped out orders to protect the camp, should have kept command...
Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon Page 11
