02 - The Price You Pay

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  Mafret stepped back from the table, as if creating more than physical distance between herself and O’Neill’s words. “Go back to your room,” she snapped, “before I call the Jaffa to discipline you.”

  O’Neill rose to his feet and looked down at her. “I’d like to assume you just don’t know any better,” he said, his voice still soft. “But I think you do. And that makes you even worse than they are.”

  She opened her mouth to make outraged protest, and he raised one hand to forestall her. “Oh, we’ll go.”

  Daniel stood up hastily behind him.

  “But you know the truth, Mafret, and you know that being the daughter of Ahmose won’t be enough to save you if Apophis decides to take you. So you make sure you stay safe, and never go outside. Because the monster’s gonna get you otherwise.”

  The two of them left her staring after them.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Samantha Carter knelt beside the pallet, her hands on her thighs, and wished she’d studied medicine instead of astrophysics.

  Before her lay Maesen, her brown hair fanned out on the coarse woven pillow. Her breath whistled in and out of her lungs, every breath bubbling loudly enough to be heard across the cavern. Her eyes were half open, staring at nothing.

  Clein’dori knelt gracefully beside her, the glass in her hand half full of a thick green liquid. “Here,” she said, sliding an arm underneath her friend’s head and shoulders. “Mae—drink this—”

  The lifting action resulted in a distinct sloshing sound from the girl’s lungs and a spate of weak coughing and gagging. Maesen resisted ineffectually. When Clein’dori allowed her to lie back again, the sick girl’s lips were rimmed with green.

  “What is that?” Carter asked softly.

  “I found a saying in the chests by the wall,” she said, equally softly. “It spoke of plants and mixtures to be used for sickness.” She sat up and brushed long blond hair back over her shoulder. “We haven’t needed such things for a long time.”

  “Because the Goa’uld cured all your diseases.”

  Clein’dori nodded, her blue-gray eyes remote. “We’ve never had sickness until you came.”

  The unspoken accusation hung in the air between the two women.

  “On our world,” Carter said, feeling as if she were making excuses, “this is a little sickness. We have so many, we fight them off and become strong so that a little cold is nothing.”

  Clein’dori let loose a little sigh. “Perhaps that’s why you’re so eager to fight the Goa’uld,” she said, smoothing Maesen’s hair away from her sweat-slicked forehead. “You spend all your time fighting. You even fight sickness.”

  “If we don’t fight, we die.”

  “Whereas we do not fight. And until now, our people lived.”

  Carter closed her eyes. “Are you sorry you came with us?”

  Behind them, Teal’C and the boys crouched over a small fire, cooking something that smelled of roasted meat. Markhtin had thrown off the infection fairly quickly, though he still had a runny nose. Maesen, though, had gotten steadily and rapidly worse. Now, even though Carter didn’t want to admit it, she was dying, drowning in the fluids accumulated in her lungs.

  Clein’dori set the cup aside, catching it as it tilted against a pebble and threatened to spill the remains of the rough medicine.

  “No,” she said at last. “I’ve seen the thing that lives inside of your friend Teal’C, and it frightens me. What he has told us of how the thing grows, how it takes over human beings, frightens me. It frightens me more that even if I were Rejected and came back to my home, I might have a child one day that would be used so. So, no, I’m not sorry. And I’ll keep my children from the selection as well.

  “But I wonder how many of my friends will die for my selfishness.”

  “You could wonder too how many will live, in the long run, along with your children.”

  Maesen coughed again, gagging. A line of green mucus trailed out of the corner of her mouth.

  Clein’dori wiped it gently away. “I do wonder,” she murmured. “I do.”

  On their way back to their room through the labyrinth of halls, Jackson and O’Neill caught sight of one of the Jaffa guards, following at a fairly discreet distance and making no effort to hide himself. They carried with them the clothing Mafret had provided: the same tunics everyone else wore, a matching set of plain gray metal collars, and something they finally decided must be underwear.

  The Jaffa kept following, sometimes no more than a dozen paces behind.

  If nothing else, it provided an incentive to find the right path back without doing too much hesitating at the intersections. Fortunately, O’Neill had a good memory; he wasn’t the type to ask for directions, particularly of a Goa’uld slave. When they had regained their room and closed the door behind them, they could distinctly hear the “thud” of an energy staff grounded in parade rest.

  “Get the feeling Mafret doesn’t trust us?” O’Neill asked ironically.

  “Would you?”

  O’Neill grinned without humor. “Nope. Not as far as I could throw us. But I’d do a little better job of restraining my prisoners. Looks like these folks don’t get too many escape attempts.”

  “Yeah.” Jackson was tired, suddenly. They were going to break out, he knew it, and if they were lucky they would even make it back to M’kwethet. Right back where they started. And Sha’re was just as far away as ever. “Maybe they think we’re going to restrain ourselves.”

  It was a lame attempt at a joke, and O’Neill didn’t even bother to acknowledge it. He was standing on the bed beneath the window, lifting himself up to peer outside. “I don’t know what that stuff was she gave me,” he remarked as an aside, “but it works pretty good. Maybe we should try to get hold of some to take back with us.” After some struggling, he managed to get his head and one arm through the opening.

  “Are you planning to go out that window?” Jackson asked when the other man’s efforts abruptly stopped.

  O’Neill slid back inside. “Uh, no. Looks like it’s about six stories straight down.”

  “I thought we were on the ground floor!”

  “I think the ground kinda tilts.” For a moment O’Neill looked nonplussed. “We could try to get past Alphonse.”

  “And go where, exactly? And how many alarms will we set off in the process? Don’t we need some idea where we’re going first?”

  “You know, Daniel, there are times I don’t like you much… got any better ideas?”

  Jackson settled cross-legged on one of the other beds. “Yes, as a matter of fact. If this city is built on the model of many ancient Earth cities, then that wide avenue runs down the center, and we’re at one end and the other important buildings are at the other. I’m betting that big building we saw is the one where the Gate is. It’s probably where Nekhmet lives, too.” Where Sha’re is. “Let’s take the opportunity to rest tonight. If Ahmose is going to give us our ‘duties’ tomorrow, we may be able to get there without killing anybody along the way.”

  “Unless Mafret tells him otherwise.”

  Jackson shrugged. “That’s the chance we take. Meanwhile, I’m tired.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Daniel, are you getting sarcastic in your old age?”

  Jackson shrugged and smiled.

  O’Neill drew a deep breath. “Okay. We probably won’t have time to discuss this in any more detail later, so let’s review the plan:

  “We have to find the bracelet—what Mafret called the Jaffa’s Key. And we have to figure out how to use it. Once we do that, we open the Gate and go back to M’kwethet to get Carter and Teal’C, and then hop back to Earth.”

  Daniel swallowed. O’Neill had given him some idea of what he was planning back on M’kwethet, and it had sounded insane at the time. Now there was no way to pretend that the other man could actually pull off a miracle. “There’s no way we can activate that Gate without anybody no
ticing. There’s the guard, or operator. And there were other people in that room.”

  O’Neill let go a long breath. “I know that. But we’re going to get away with it because this is the only chance we’ve got.

  “First we have to find a Key. If we get really lucky, we can replace that console operator and nobody will notice. I’m betting there’s a lot of traffic that goes through there, but there’s quiet times too. We’ll work our trip in with all the other traffic going through. Make it look like just business as usual.”

  “What if they catch us at it, and can tell where we’ve gone? They’ll send troops after us.”

  O’Neill smiled. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?” He didn’t point out that if something like that happened, it would mean they were likely already dead. Daniel decided he was grateful for the discretion. “Maybe you’ll just have to make like the Marx brothers and lead them in circles for a while. But we’re going to take the first available opportunity, Daniel, so be ready.”

  O’Neill sounded confident—but he always sounded confident. It was part of being a leader, part of inspiring the troops. But Jackson wasn’t a troop.

  He was a scientist, and the theory behind this attempt was so full of holes it made his head spin. Carter and Teal’C probably had a much better chance of survival if they stayed exactly where they were for the rest of their natural lives.

  But O’Neill’s job was to get them home, even if the road led right into hell, or Apophis’ front hall.

  Which, in fact, it did.

  “What about the transport trick Nekhmet used?” he asked, in a last-ditch effort to restore some rationality to the conversation. “What if we find ourselves back in that meadow?”

  O’Neill closed his eyes briefly, and Jackson realized suddenly how very tired the other man really was, even after his long nap followed by a night’s uninterrupted sleep. “I’m betting they won’t pull that stunt around either the console or the Gate,” he said at last. “Nekhmet waited until we were well away before he did it, and all the supplies came with us. They wouldn’t want to toss their Gate or DHD around. The trick may even be keyed to that particular part of the floor.”

  “So he really didn’t do it at all. It was mechanical.” For some reason, that disappointed Jackson; it was a lot easier to resign himself to battling a race that was omnipotent. If they weren’t, it meant he and O’Neill really did have to follow through and try this madness, because they might actually get away with it.

  And if they didn’t get away with it, it would probably be his fault.

  “Get some rest, Daniel,” O’Neill advised. “Big day on the slave block tomorrow.”

  The next morning they were awakened by relentless pounding on their door, followed by Jaffa with energy staffs prodding them to their feet. Jackson overheard O’Neill muttering something about boot camp, but he didn’t have the time or inclination to ask questions as they were herded out the door and down the hall. They barely had time to pull on their clothing, and spent the trip down the hall trying to figure out how to put on their collars. Others, similarly rousted out, joined them in a steadily widening stream of humanity.

  The one time Jackson hung back he saw, out of the corner of his eye, an energy staff rise and fall, and heard a stifled cry. O’Neill had seen the same thing. Both of them picked up their pace. Along the way they picked up the rest of the tribute group. O’Neill had been ready to throw his collar away when he noticed that everyone in the group except the tribute from M’kwethet was wearing them. It seemed to distinguish between the newcomers and the old-timers. He decided instantly that he blended in better as an old-timer.

  They found themselves herded into a room large enough to hold seven or eight times their number. The others from M’kwethet clumped together for security’s sake, and whispered among themselves. The room continued to fill with others, also dressed in the plain kilts, tunics, and head-cloths of the human slaves, who looked at the newcomers with mild curiosity.

  Their attention was rudely yanked away by the entrance of Ahmose, followed by his daughter and a couple of Jaffa guards. It wasn’t entirely clear whether the Jaffa served as escort or whether Ahmose, too, was in custody. Still, the sight of the Jaffa was more than enough to silence the crowd.

  “Welcome to the service of the Great Ones,” Ahmose announced, his voice pitched high in an effort to carry to the back of his audience. Evidently he wasn’t in custody after all. The fact that he rated a Jaffa escort, then, surely meant he must be fairly important. “Those of you who are new to this service will receive today the first of your duties. You will carry them out excellently, without question, without complaint, and you will prosper. Fail to do so, and you will die.”

  The newcomers murmured wordlessly. Jackson found himself stretching to see over the people in front of him. He’d managed to snatch up his glasses on the way, but now had to take them off to polish away a smudge. One of these days he was going to get surgery or something, he promised himself, so he wouldn’t be so damned helpless. One of these days. He felt in his belt for the reassuring cool metal of the signaler. Still there, thank God.

  Vision-enabled once more, he stretched again. Yes, that blur focused now into Mafret, standing demurely behind Ahmose with her hands folded prayerlike in front of herself. She looked nothing like her father, Jackson thought, and a good thing too, considering that Ahmose was almost certainly bald beneath the skullcap he wore.

  O’Neill had drifted away, closer to the front of the crowd.

  Mafret stepped forward.

  “This is Mafret. You will obey her words as you obey mine.”

  Bowing, Mafret gave her father a tightly rolled scroll. He made a production out of untying it, removing caps from either end, and opening it, stretching a length of thick white paper. It looked like actual papyrus, Jackson thought.

  “This is the command of the Great One.”

  At the words, the audience began to go to their knees. Those who were slower found themselves encouraged by blows from the Jaffa, who were now moving among them. Jackson, who had more or less expected the reaction, was already on his way down. O’Neill waited until the very last moment, engaging in a staring match with Mafret all the while. Her face was impassive as he finally went to his knees. O’Neill was spending a lot of time on this mission trying to stare down women, Jackson thought.

  Ahmose looked over the kneeling assembly with almost as much satisfaction as if they were actually kneeling to him. “Even so shall you greet the commands of the Great Ones. Never shall you look up to them, for their gaze is death to mortal kind.”

  Their eyes glowed, true, Jackson acknowledged silently. But the death came from the ribboned hand weapons they wore.

  He wondered how many of those in the room were tribute from other worlds like M’kwethet and how many had been born here on Saqqara. Some had probably been kidnapped by force from other worlds, too. But everyone here seemed to know generally what was going on, which argued that Saqqara might be a special case.

  “Thus say the Great Ones: Some among you will come to the House of the Great Ones, and some will go forth to labor in the fields and mines. In all things you will serve the Great Ones.”

  Jackson was getting pretty sick of hearing the Goa’uld referred to as “Great Ones.” He could only imagine what O’Neill must think about it.

  In fact, O’Neill wasn’t thinking about mere nomenclature at all. He was paying careful attention to Mafret, whose gaze still strayed from time to time in his direction. If she kept it up, one of the Jaffa was going to notice, and that was never a good thing.

  “Here you will be taught your duties by Mafret. Heed her—”

  A gasp rippled through the tightly packed crowd, originating from the back of the room. Several of those kneeling were sent sprawling as a double line of Serpent Guards in full regalia, red cobra eyes glowing, marched into the room and forced a corridor from the door to the trembling Ahmose. Between the Guards came Nekhmet.


  As Nekhmet entered, Ahmose and Mafret too went to their knees, and a moan of terror rose from the crowd. In seconds, what had appeared to be an impressive dignitary, giving advice and instruction to the uninitiated, was reduced to the same level as the rest of them: mere human slave.

  “Ahmose!”

  The pudgy little man whimpered. When the silence stretched out, he began to crawl forward on his belly, his face pressed to the floor. O’Neill managed to tilt his head to one side enough to see Mafret shrink back against the wall as her father crept to the Jaffa’s sandaled feet and began to kiss the floor before them. A glance upward confirmed that Nekhmet was wearing the bracelet still. It was probably a badge of his authority when it wasn’t opening Gates.

  Had Teal’C had a Key? He’d never mentioned one. Maybe it was something new. Maybe only a very few of the Jaffa were permitted to use portable DHDs. There was no telling.

  But if there were only a few, his target conveniently narrowed itself directly to the man in front of him.

  Nekhmet stared down at Ahmose, a little smile playing about his face. Finally he repeated, almost tenderly, “Ahmose. Rise.”

  Ahmose came to his knees, his head still bowed, his chin still pressed to his chest.

  “I seek the tribute from M’kwethet,” Nekhmet informed him. From the other side of the room, not far from where Daniel Jackson crouched, came an involuntary cry. The smile broadened. “You will send them all to the house of my lord for his pleasure. I would show my lord, when he comes, the manner of tribute that M’kwethet sends him—its aged and halt, instead of the young and strong.”

  O’Neill sucked in a breath. “Aged and halt” could only refer to himself and Daniel. And “the house of my lord”—if Daniel was right, that meant they were going to be sent directly to the building where they had arrived, the building that housed Apophis. If the Goa’uld lord saw them, he would certainly recognize them from several unpleasant encounters in the past. And Apophis would try to obtain the transmitter that unlocked the iris protecting the Earth Gate.