The sun had long since set, and the afterglow was nearly gone from the sky, when Markhtin finally paused and pointed up to a dark spot on the slope far above them. “Up there,” he said between pants.
Carter followed his gesture and scanned the slope, looking for the way up. “All right,” she said. “Getting up there in the dark is going to end up with somebody breaking a leg. We’ll make camp here and go for it in the morning.”
CHAPTER NINE
“There is a difficulty,” Teal’C greeted her with the sunrise.
Carter groaned and rolled to a sitting position, rubbing her eyes. This world didn’t even have coffee; she didn’t want to hear about difficulties at this point. She wanted to hear about hot bubble baths and good food and a soft bed and warm blankets. And no decaf.
Oh, well. Maybe in her next life.
“What is it?”
“Two of the children are sick.” Teal’C sounded a bit unsure of himself—a rare occurrence. Because the Goa’uld larva he carried conferred an exceptionally high level of immunity, he himself was never sick. Before the larva had been implanted he’d been subject to all the ills humanity was heir to, but that had been a very long time ago. “I do not know if they can travel.”
“What’s going on?” she demanded, crossing the area to the blankets spread out on the ground. The others crowded around behind her silently.
The sick ones were Markhtin and Maesen. Their eyes were closed, and a film of sweat covered their foreheads, but they were trembling as if with cold. Carter wasn’t a medical expert, but she’d had enough field training to recognize fever when she saw it.
“What is it?” Dane asked, and as she glanced up at him she realized that all of them were looking to her as the person with all the answers. It was bad enough when adults did that; kids actually expected you to have answers for life’s little tragedies. “What’s wrong with my brother?”
“He’s sick,” she said, feeling foolish, “I don’t know why. Did they eat something different from the rest of you?”
“No.” Even the levelheaded Clein’dori sounded frightened. “They woke in the middle of the night. They complained of aching in the head, and they coughed and sneezed, like your friend. Then they lay down and wouldn’t wake up.”
Like Daniel? Could the kids have caught Jackson’s cold? Did Jackson have a cold this time, instead of the ubiquitous allergies?
And if that was the case, then they had a viral infection, and there wasn’t anything she could give them to cure it. Maesen and Markhtin might be the first to succumb, but the rest of them would certainly come down with it too.
And if they didn’t have resistance to the common cold, it might actually kill them. According to the story they’d heard the day before, the Goa’uld had taken sickness away from this world. Now the Earth team, putative allies against the aliens, had brought it back.
Carter took a deep breath. “All right,” she said, with far more certainty in her voice than she actually felt, “this is what we’re going to do. We need to get them under shelter, probably in that cave up there. We’re going to keep them warm, make sure they get plenty of liquids and rest. And we’ll stay with them until they’re well again.” She thought about mentioning the analgesics in her pack, glimpsed the incipient panic in Dane’s eyes, and decided against it. There weren’t enough to go around, and Dane was far too likely to jump to the conclusion that any medicine she carried was supposed to work miracles. She’d hang on to the little bottle of aspirin and hope they could work through the infection and pain without it. “Let’s go.”
It took several hours to get the two sick teens up to the cave. The last part required Teal’C to carry them, one at a time, cradled in his arms up a path so steep that it made Carter particularly grateful they hadn’t tried it in the dark. He disappeared into the cave for the second time, and then his voice echoed out at her.
“Captain Carter. You must see this.”
She scrambled up the last bit and was startled to find a bright, steady illumination coming from deeper in the cave. Following the path of the light, she slipped and slid down a narrow passageway to find a high, arched pocket in the earth.
As she brushed dirt out of her hair—the passageway had a low ceiling—she looked around to see lamps glowing in several niches in the walls. Polished metal set behind them and angled toward the roof provided indirect lighting. Clein’dori and Yahrlin moved briskly around, lighting more lamps, while Teal’C was settling Markhtin in an actual, real cot against the rough stone wall.
The two casualties were covered, Carter noted, with warm blankets. For a refuge in the wilderness, the kids had done pretty well for themselves.
“Are we going to die?” Eppilion asked in a very small voice, catching sight of her.
Teal’C interposed a question. “What about Daniel Jackson and Colonel O’Neill?” he asked. “Should we go at once to inform them?”
Getting back to her feet, she shook her head. “We can’t bring this sickness back to the city. It’s going to have to run its course and they’re going to have to develop antibodies before we can go back. There’s too much risk.” She took a deep breath and looked around at the refugees still on their feet. “The rest of you should know that you might get sick too. This is a common thing on our world, a trivial illness that only lasts a few days.” I hope, she thought. “I want you to tell me if you start feeling chills or if your head hurts or you have trouble breathing. Meanwhile, I need to know what we have available here to help us.”
“Maybe we should have gone to the Choosing,” Yahrlin said fretfully. “We’re being punished for running away. The elders told us we had to live up to our responsibilities, and now look.”
“You aren’t going to die, dammit,” Carter snapped, hoping desperately that it was true. “This isn’t any big deal. It’s just that this is a new sickness for you, and your bodies have to learn how to fight it. We’re just going to stay here for a little longer than we planned, that’s all.”
Maesen, lying at her feet, coughed and groaned.
“Somebody give them some water and cool cloths for their faces. Yahrlin, Eppilion, you’re elected. Clein’dori, Dane, I want some answers. What is this place, where did all these supplies come from, and who found it?”
Teal’C, watching her take command, didn’t ask his question again. Meeting his eyes, she knew it was still going through his mind as well: What was happening to therestofSG-1?
That was a totally different bridge, and they’d cross it as they came to it. For right now, she had to keep six kids alive and under control and in quarantine. There was always the possibility that Daniel had infected half of M’kwethet already, of course, but that wasn’t something she could deal with now. One problem at a time. One piece of one problem at a time.
She marched Clein’dori and Dane back over to the nearby table and sat down with them. The wooden chair creaked under her weight, and little puffs of dust escaped from the joints, but it held. The young ones were a bit disconcerted when Teal’C joined them. His chair creaked even louder than the others.
“Okay,” Carter repeated, “what is this place? You knew it was here, didn’t you?”
Markhtin’s twin cast a worried glance back toward his brother before answering. “We all knew about it—”
“There were stories,” Clein’dori corrected.
“All right, there were stories.” The young man looked annoyed. “We used to tell each other about a place up in the hills where our people would go and hide when the Goa’uld came, before we made our peace with them.”
“So this is that place?”
“Not exactly.” Clein’dori picked up the tale, oblivious to Dane’s irritation at having it taken away from him. “There were only stories. But some of us liked to go explore in the hills when we were young, pretending it was the old days. We found some of the places where our people hid, and we brought more things up here.”
“So the Council already knows all about this p
lace and they’re going to show up any minute.” Carter felt like throwing her hands up in the air and giving up, abandoning them. If they were going to run away, did they have to be so obvious about it?
“Oh, no!” Dane was shocked. “It’s a secret. We’ve never told anyone about it.”
“That was part of the game,” Clein’dori added. “In the old days, there might be traitors. So we were very careful.”
No doubt these kids thought they were the only ones ever to invent this particular game based on ancient oral tradition. It never occurred to them that every generation of potential Chosen had heard the same stories and had gone hiking in the same hills. Judging by the age of some of this furniture, Carter was willing to bet that the supplies in the hill caves had accumulated over decades. Alizane, Jareth, and Karlanan might even have brought some up here themselves.
“If they have not come yet, they may not come at all,” Teal’C rumbled, echoing her own thoughts.
That was a possibility: The Council might choose to adopt a posture of official ignorance in order to allow a few of the more volatile members of their society to believe they had an outlet for escape from the biannual fate of their people. According to what Carter had picked up in discussions with Jackson about cultures and how they served the needs of their members, that would make sense.
Or maybe they really didn’t know. Maybe the kids were right and it was all a carefully kept secret. After all, the Council was made up of those who didn’t run away from the selection, so maybe they had never been let in on the secret by the few who actually had the courage, or the cowardice, to run away.
And if that were the case, there were probably search parties combing the hills for them at this very moment.
Carter had to remind herself that there was no evidence that M’kwethet was able to field large numbers of organized search parties. They weren’t an aggressive people; the closest to this kind of situation they might have to deal with would be lost children who wanted to be found, not people who were deliberately hiding. The stories were very old, after all.
“All right,” she said. “Here’s the plan. I assume there’s a good source of water in this cave?”
Clein’dori nodded vigorously.
“And there’s food. Okay. We’re going to stay up here until everyone is healthy again, and then we’re going to go back to the city.”
Dane looked frightened suddenly. “They’ll punish us.”
Clein’dori was exasperated. “Of course they will. So what? No matter what they do, it’ll be better than…” she glanced at Teal’C and stumbled into an embarrassed silence.
“I understand,” he said reassuringly. “And I agree.”
From across the width of the cave came a long, harsh series of coughing and a moan. Carter winced. Next time they were going to have to do a better job of physicals before they ventured onto a new world.
Always assuming there would be a next time, of course.
Always assuming that the team would be reunited, and able to get home again.
Assuming. She hated assumptions. They were nasty treacherous unproven things and they’d trip you up every time.
They’d be okay, Carter told herself. It was just a matter of camping out for a few days, and they had food. They’d be fine.
“Speaking of water,” she went on, “what does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”
For a place that appeared to be peaceful, agrarian—downright bucolic—M’kwethet had a reasonably sophisticated detainment facility, O’Neill thought. Not only was it considerably cleaner than the usual dungeon, but how many dungeons sported white marble floors anyway? High-quality marble, too, with lovely light-gray veins tracing through snowy stone.
Veins.
Maybe they wouldn’t want to get their floors all messy with blood and stuff.
He could hope, anyway.
Stretching, he set his weight against his left arm and pulled. This turned out to be a mistake, as he’d suspected it would; the metal cuff around his wrist bit deep, and the short chain fixed to the wall didn’t give an inch. He tried again with the other arm just to be sure.
Now his wrists had matching bruises.
He was chained in a small alcove, able to see directly in front of him but not to either side. The level of light was comfortable enough, though he couldn’t identify its source; no flickering, so probably not firelight, and besides, he couldn’t hear crackling or smell burning. His field of view included part of a door, an empty alcove opposite, and in between a wide expanse of floor interrupted by thick columns carved in a spiral pattern, and a highly polished, new-looking wooden table with cuffs at both ends and a large wheel for a headboard. It reminded him irresistibly of a rack. Maybe that was one of the innovations the Goa’uld had gifted their slave stock with?
Not even an enraged mob was able to do too much damage to his fatigues, but the remains of his shirt had been cut away by the Chosen, the Rejected, and the rest of them, the better to aim their blows, no doubt. It was all very cliché. Any minute now Maleficent would come barreling through the door, long fingernails twitching for his eyes.
“Daniel?” he yelled. “Daniel, can you hear me?”
Holding his breath, he listened.
Wind: he could hear the wind, so there must be a window nearby, and he couldn’t be too far underground. All the dungeon traditions said there ought to be water dripping somewhere, but he couldn’t detect it.
He couldn’t hear anything else, really. Just the wind. No background noises, no marketplace sounds, no restless movement of guards. Just wind, and the cheery clanking of chains. Most certainly not an answer to his call.
“Daniel!” he bellowed once more.
Nothing.
How likely was it that he was the only prisoner in all of M’kwethet? Come to think of it, the metal staples holding the chains to the wall did look shiny and new.
Not very. It wasn’t likely that the people of an alien world had built a marble prison just in case Jack O’Neill from Earth should stop by, start a riot, and need chaining to a wall all night. He didn’t think his reputation had spread that far.
Although if it had, the marble was certainly a nice touch.
No; time to quit being snide and think. Assess the situation.
First, start with his physical condition. Bruises aplenty, a loose tooth and a nicely swollen lip. Rather surprisingly, no broken bones, not even ribs. He took a deep breath, as deep as possible, expanding diaphragm and rib cage to their fullest, and got no more than a mild warning twinge. Okay, maybe a cracked rib. No big deal.
Headache, from concussion. That happened when you got knocked out. His vision wasn’t blurry and he wasn’t too dizzy. Again, no big deal.
Muscles: sore, getting stiff. Being chained to a wall had distinct disadvantages, particularly when it went on for several hours at a time. His shoulders were beginning to burn from the tension—he was holding his arms up in order to relieve the pain of the iron cuffs. Still, if he could just get loose, he could do whatever he needed to do.
Weapons? Nope. They’d taken his pack, his gun, the works. He probably didn’t even have the knife in his boot anymore; that familiar pressure was gone.
That left the team. Where the hell was Daniel? Given his own relatively untouched condition, he couldn’t believe they’d killed the archaeologist. The people of this world might have an Alizane or a Karlanan here and there, but for the most part they were just too meek to show that kind of aggression. Daniel wouldn’t be dead. That must mean he was being held somewhere else. M’kwethet was a small place, so it couldn’t be too far away.
Carter and Teal’C—well, he had to trust that the other half of the team (“the better half?” a little voice in the back of his head inquired ironically) had made it away clean. Carter’d said there was a problem. Most likely it was related to the missing Candidates; Markhtin was one of the ones she’d been talking to.
Operating theory: Carter and Teal’C had pers
uaded at least one and maybe more of the Candidates to skip the Choosing. That would account for her needing to talk to him and for the fact that at least one she’d met had chosen not to be Chosen. Based on the reaction of the crowd, this didn’t happen very often, and the idea of picking somebody else to take the missing kid’s place didn’t go over well at all.
Obviously the Council members thought he was involved. So he could expect interrogation. Well, he’d done that before, and it was nearly his least-favorite team sport in the whole world—his eyes squeezed tightly shut in an involuntary effort to banish certain memories. It almost worked. He allowed his mind to veer away into more ironic analysis, but the little voice that never really went away pointed out that as a defense mechanism, irony had its weak points. It was really rusty in places, in fact.
And his operating theory could be full of used cattle feed. Jackson, Carter, Teal’C, all of them could be dead because he’d failed to spot the missing DHD. The Council could be coming, with the knives and snakes and acid—or worse, his opinion about the nature of the people here could be dead wrong, and they could have captured and be torturing the rest of his team. His responsibility: the grimly efficient Jaffa, the naif archaeologist, the infuriatingly scientific captain, screaming…
He could hear his own breath coming in harsh, angry pants, and he grabbed back control of himself. He wasn’t going to let his imagination run wild. He wasn’t going to lose it over a few chains, he told himself firmly; why, handcuffs could be taken in a whole different context sometimes. He tugged again, experimentally, but the fixtures didn’t give any more than they had the last time.
He was getting thirsty, and it had been a long time since that burrito in the marketplace. So it had been several hours, maybe even all night, although he didn’t think he’d been out that long. The light level was frustrating; he couldn’t tell anything about the passage of time.
One of the tricks of interrogation was making the victim want to see the interrogator, if only for the company. Damned if he was going to fall for that one.
[Stargate SG-1 02] - The Price You Pay Page 9
