A sickeningly familiar scenario. "Disappears where?"
Quadesh stilled, hands tightening around the slim tube. "Here, Colonel. They are brought here."
Holy crap. His mind raced back to the creatures, hungry and violent, on the stairs. "What happens to them?"
"I do not know. But none return. I suspect they are killed."
He was probably right, it was the MO of every tin-pot dictator he'd ever encountered. Tortured, dehumanized. Then murdered. Was that who they'd encountered on the stairs? Escapees? Inmates? He lowered his weapon, slightly. "Why are you telling me this?"
Stepping forward, Quadesh's voice dropped. "So that you can tell your people. Stop them from signing the treaty with Kinahhi and instead help us to gain our freedom!"
Us? An image flashed into Jack's mind; the woman cradling her lost child, drowning in grief. "You one of them?" he demanded coldly. "Do you plant bombs? Kill kids?"
Quadesh's face paled. "No! No, you misunderstand Colonel. I have never--" Closer still, his amber eyes were full of fear. "This is the first time I have dared to act against the Security Council. I am not a murderer, Colonel O'Neill. I swear to you." And then, hastily, he held out the narrow tube he'd been clutching. "Please, take this as a gesture of my goodwill."
Reluctant to let go of his weapon, Jack studied the tube suspiciously. "What is it?"
"What you need," Quadesh insisted, a hint of a smile returning. "It is why you have come here, Colonel."
Jack raised his eyes. "And why have we come here?"
"You wish to rescue your friends from a planet trapped within the event horizon of a black hole." The hand proffering the metal cylinder began to tremble. "You wish to understand our gravitational technology."
And how the hell did he know all that? "Says who?"
Quadesh bit lightly on his lower lip, eyes shifting as if considering his options. And then his narrow shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug. "Your Ambassador."
"Crawford?"
The Councilor nodded. "He told Councilor Damaris that he'd overheard you talking with Major Carter."
That night when he couldn't sleep, out in the courtyard. "The rat-bastard!"
"It is all here," Quadesh promised. "All the schematics held in the Kinahhi database - a copy, of course. They will not know it is missing and it is more than your Major Carter will glean here." He glanced over his shoulder, pushing the tube towards him. "I must go before I am missed. Please, Colonel, consider my plea."
His lips suddenly dry, Jack stared at the tube. Dare he take it? Could he live with himself if he did? The Security Council had already refused to trade the technology, so taking the schematics was tantamount to stealing from a would-be ally. It went against everything he stood for, everything he'd fought for when he'd brought down Maybourne's rogue NID agents who'd been doing the exact same thing.
And Kinsey! If he got wind of this it would be the end of Colonel Jack O'Neill. And if Jack went down, he had no illusions about the rest of SG-1. Kinsey was after their blood.
But none of that changed the fact that Henry Boyd and his team were still out there, still lingering in terror on the point of death. Or that this was probably their best chance of getting home... And nobody gets left behind.
Letting go of his gun, he reached out and let his fingers close slowly over the cool metal tube. A glimmer of satisfaction passed through Quadesh's eyes as he stepped backward.
"Thank you, Colonel." He bowed, hands pressed over his heart. "The people of Kinahhi thank you."
Jack said nothing; he hadn't done it for the people of Kinahhi and he didn't deserve their thanks. "I need a way out," he said by way of a reply. "Not the stairs."
Quadesh nodded and pointed a slender finger towards a thick pillar standing at the far end of the chamber. "In there is a conveyor. It will take you to the surface."
Jack gave a curt nod. "I take it we won't be discussing this again?"
"We will not," Quadesh agreed. "I just pray that I was not seen leaving the city." Then, with a short, nervous nod he turned and hurried into the shadows. Jack watched as he touched something on the mosaic surface of a pillar and a door slid silently open. Quadesh looked back once and gave a half-hearted gesture of farewell before he stepped inside and disappeared.
In the silence that followed, Jack hefted the slim tube in his hand. It was light, weighed almost nothing. And yet it was heavy with danger, possibility and risk.
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Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon Page 24
