by Stargate
Daniel Jackson stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning down at the `gate room. The bruises on his face exaggerated his brooding look. Fortunately, he had sustained few injuries when the tunnel beneath the Pyramid of the Sun had collapsed. Equally fortunate were those outside, for the structural integrity of the pyramid appeared to have been unaffected by Professor Wodeski's use of the crystal skull.
Teal'c placed a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. He did not wish to instill false hope in Daniel Jackson, but he had great faith in O'Neill and Major Carter. "They have survived much worse."
"The water was hot, but not enough to bum them," said General Hammond. "And the FRED that came through the `gate carried rocks and instruments. They should have been able to salvage food and supplies from the second vehicle."
"But you heard something hit the iris," Daniel Jackson said, his voice filled with unease. "Twice."
"A great deal of rubble, including tree branches, came through with the water before we got the iris closed. Those thumps were most likely caused by more debris."
"Or Jack and Sam."
"I do not believe so." Teal'c pulled out a chair, sat down and calmly clasped his hands together on the briefing room table. "Something prevented O'Neill and Major Carter from entering the `gate, otherwise they would have done so prior to the water reaching them."
Teal'c understood Daniel Jackson's concern, but nothing could be done until the Stargate was operational. Worrying about events over which one had no control seemed to be something at which the Tauri excelled.
General Hammond regarded Daniel Jackson with knowing eyes. "I'm as concerned as you, Dr Jackson, but Teal'c's right. Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter - and you and Teal'c - have a knack for surviving against the odds. Your own escape from the pyramid is a case in point. Now, why don't you sit down and tell me exactly what happened?"
Daniel Jackson touched the place on his head where the beam had struck and briefly rendered him unconscious. "Teal'c managed to pull me out just in time." He sent Teal'c a grateful look, and added, "The local authorities have assumed that Wodeski and the guards died in the quake. Engineers are concerned that any attempt to recover the bodies will result in further cave-ins. They've advised that everyone stay well clear of the excavation site until Mount Popo settles down."
"That could be months from now," said General Hammond. "Teal'c, are you certain the skull transported the professor from beneath the pyramid?"
"Indeed I am," Teal 'c replied. "Professor Wodeski was in a large cavern at the end of the tunnel, holding the skull in a manner similar to that which is depicted on the codex. Regrettably, I failed to reach him before he vanished."
"That doesn't necessarily mean he left, does it? He might just have become invisible to you."
Teal'c had been unable to see the `giant alien', Quetzalcoatl on P7X-377 because his symbiote had prevented him from making the necessary phase-shift. The experience had been one more reminder that, despite his freedom from service to Apophis, he was still enslaved at the most fundamental, spiritual level. For, as Master Bra'tac had learned on Kheb, no one who carried a Goa'uld within them could hope to achieve that to which many Jaffa ultimately aspired to, Ascension. "When Professor Wodeski disappeared," he replied, "the skull fell to the ground, and the light that had been coming from it vanished. I believe this indicated that he was no longer present."
"I agree with Teal'c, General," said Daniel Jackson. "Just before I was knocked unconscious, the light and shuddering stopped, which would signify the transfer was complete."
"The cavern and tunnel then began to collapse," Teal'c added.
"Nick said that Wodeski would be taken to another planet, not P7X-377. Now that the cavern has gone, the professor can't return to Earth," Daniel Jackson finished.
General Hammond sat forward and picked up a file from the table. "I read some of your grandfather's reports about the pyramid on P7X-377 being both a source of power and a network transport hub, but I didn't entirely understand them."
Daniel Jackson accepted the file and opened it. "I remember this one," he said after reading the first few lines. "Nick can get a little carried away, but essentially what he learned was that Mesoamerican pyramids, while constructed using similar architectural and engineering techniques to the much earlier Mesopotamian Ziggurats or Egyptian step pyramids, were used for entirely different purposes.
"We know that the pyramid shape has unique properties that focus energy in the same way that the shape and material in the walls of a sound studio can enhance or alter the quality of sound. Early last century, a Frenchman named Bovis discovered that recently dead animals, like rats, found inside the pharaoh's chamber of the Khufu Pyramid mummified instead of rotting. A radio engineer named Drbal subsequently discovered that placing a blunt razor blade one third of the way up in a model pyramid causes the blade to re-sharpen."
Teal'c looked at him in surprise. General Hammond smiled and said, "I remember trying that myself. It was one craze in the '70s that actually worked."
"It certainly did - still does," replied Daniel Jackson, closing the file and pushing it to one side. "Drbal patented the process. It works because, when correctly aligned with the Earth's magnetic field, the natural resonance set up within the pyramid shape realigns the crystalline structure on the cutting edge of the blade.
"The Goa'uld used the pyramids at Giza as landing platforms, but the pyramid shape is critical to channeling power throughout their Ha'taks. The `giant aliens' - Quetzalcoatl's race - also use the natural resonance in the pyramid shape, but as chambers that focus the energy to transport people from place to place."
"Via crystal skulls." Hammond nodded. "But how would your grandfather know where Professor Wodeski was taken?"
Daniel Jackson turned and looked down at the technicians working on the Stargate. "I have no idea. That's why we need to see him."
Teal'c followed his gaze. It was evident that Daniel Jackson's anxiety was not for Professor Wodeski, but for O'Neill and Major Carter. Despite his earlier words, as General Hammond and Daniel Jackson continued to talk, Teal'c found that he, too, could not shake off a measure of concern for his friends.
CHAPTER FIVE
sn't that a little cliched, sir?"
"Quetzalcoatl! Chocolati Quetzalcoatl!" A cluster of children dressed in brightly feathered cloaks danced around the Colonel like displaced birds of paradise.
He shot her a disarming grin. "C'mon Carter, it's what GIs do. And don't give me that Daniel stuff about ruining their teeth or messing with their culture. If we'd gone with your idea of feeding them vegetarian RCWs - "
Sam smiled and shook her head in resignation. Except for the Orbanians, a relatively advanced society, and the alien Quetzalcoatl on P7X-377, they'd encountered few Mesoamerican cultures. Until the Colonel had made like Santa Claus with the chocolate bars, the children, twenty-one in total, had cowered in terror. Well, one of them hadn't been cowering then, but he sure was now.
Crouched in the comer by himself was a youth of about sixteen, naked except for a burlap loincloth and a tarry black coating on his skin. When Sam had stepped into the cave, he'd been holding an upraised knife over a little girl lying on a slab of rock. The other children had been standing clustered together, obviously frightened, but making no move to stop what looked to be a sacrificial ceremony.
The girl had screamed - not at the raised knife, but at the sight of Sam. When she'd grappled the boy and wrested the knife off him, it hadn't helped the situation. If anything it had sent the other children into a panic. Nothing she and the Colonel said or did had been able to calm them, until he'd hit on the idea of the chocolate bars. The children now clustered around O'Neill - but refused to let her anywhere near them. Sam figured she looked pretty scary after being near-drowned and half-frozen to death. But then the Colonel hardly looked much better.
While the children were distracted, she checked the cave. Boil ing water gurgled out of a large crack in the wall, and into a seri
es of circular pools separated by bridges of mineralized deposits. Some of the pools were wide and shallow, while others were deep enough to bathe in. Tendrils of steam gently caressed her ankles, and everything glistened wet in the low light. An entire civilization of bioluminescent organisms had adapted to the warm, moist environment.
Kneeling, Sam tested the water temperature with a cautious finger. It was definitely boiling, but not scalding. A nearby, deeper pool was somewhat cooler, the perfect temperature for a bath. She itched, literally, to climb in and soak away accumulated aches and pains, mud and cold.
The child who'd almost been sacrificed - she could only have been seven or eight - tentatively approached from behind. Reaching out a chocolate-coated hand to touch Sam's hair, the little girl declared in wonder, "It is the color of the sun!"
Sam slowly turned around. "Hi there, my name's Sam. What's yours?"
"I am Two-water," the little girl replied shyly. She offered Sam a hesitant smile and a battered posy of flowers.
"Oh, they're beautiful." Sam brought the pitiful little bundle of coral-colored blossoms to her nose, and inhaled. They smelled of wild jasmine and frangipani.
Two-water's eyes lit. "Chalchiuhtlicue?"
"You insult the goddess with your paltry gift," barked her erstwhile executioner.
Two-water cringed and hid behind Sam, but not before the youth leaped to his feet and cuffed the little girl hard enough to knock her feathered headdress askew.
"Hey! Leave her alone!" Sam fended off the boy and placed herself between him and Two-water. The younger children screamed and ran to the far comer of the cavern.
"Kids? Kids! We're not gods. We're..." O'Neill shot Sam a look of entreaty.
"Travelers," she said, crouching and putting her arm around Two-water. "Peaceful travelers from a... a faraway land." That gen erally worked.
"Long way away." O'Neill gestured with his arm.
An older youth, this one wearing a bright feather cape and beautifully patterned loincloth, ventured, "From Omeyocan?"
The Colonel's face screwed up. "Acapulco," he muttered. "Great, Daniel, just great."
"Acapulco?"
"No, no!" Sam said quickly. Without Daniel they had no idea what they were getting into. "My name is Sam and this is - "
"Jack," the Colonel replied. "And you are?"
"Muan-zac. It means White-owl. That is my sister." He pointed to Two-water, who now clutched Sam's hand. "Ifyou are not gods," White-owl added, his expression turning solemn, "then you must allow the apprentice priest, Heart-eater, to sacrifice us before Chalchiuhtlicue comes through the Chappa'ai and steals our souls."
That had a nastily familiar ring to it, with the matter-of-fact delivery adding an extra chill. The expression on O'Neill's face reflected the sick feeling in Sam's stomach.
Without warning, Heart-eater lunged for Two-water and snatched her away.
"Hey!" Sam managed to grab a fist-full of Heart-eater's long hair, jerking him to a halt. Someone tackled her from behind, knocking her, Heart-eater and Two-water down. The little girl scrambled away while Sam wrestled with... White-owl? Then Heart-eater began kicking her. She grabbed his ankle and twisted him to the ground.
They might only have been teenagers, but they were wiry, strong and they'd obviously been trained in personal combat. Somewhere between pinning Heart-eater to the floor and pulling White-owl's surprisingly powerful hands from around her neck, Sam saw that the Colonel was having his own problems. And it made her blood run cold. The screaming children had run at him, apparently in an attempt to stop him from reaching a youngster who had picked up Heart-eater's knife. The little boy held the handle so that the stubby dark blade was angled inwards. Eyes squeezed shut and mouth set in a determined grimace, he evidently intended to thrust it into his own chest!
"No!" cried Sam. Abandoning all attempts to subdue her attackers without hurting them, she jabbed an elbow into White-owl's stomach then shoved Heart-eater into one of the deeper pools.
The Colonel reached the would-be suicide first, but only after knocking down some of the younger children. Wresting the knife from the boy, he yelled, "Okay, everyone, that's enough! Nobody's feeding anyone's hearts to some god!" O'Neill looked sternly at them all, but Sam saw the anguish in his eyes. "You hear me? Nobody here is going to die."
The children's screams gradually subsided into sobs and sniffles. Something small and black scampered across the cave. Two-water scooped the animal - it looked like a skinny, bald rat with big ears - into her arms, and clung onto it. Looking at Sam, her voice was tremulous as she said, "I don't think you're the bad Chalchiuhtlicue, are you?"
"No, I'm not." Sam tried to inject reassurance into her reply, but the adrenaline-induced tension now fed a deep-seated revulsion and anger. She met the Colonel's brief, knowing look. His jaw was clenched. What sort of horrors had this `bad' Chalchiuhtlicue perpetrated on children that they preferred death?
Clutching his chest where she had hit him, White-owl's face cleared and his eyes lit in a way that reminded Sam of Skaara. "You really are Quetzalcoatl," he gasped. "And the true Chalchiuhtlicue!"
She was about to deny it, but O'Neill shot her a warning look. Unless they wanted to deal with a bunch of hysterical kids hellbent on killing themselves, or each other, or something, they were going to have to play along until they figured out what was going on. She reached down to help Heart-eater from the pool. Time to build some trust.
"Then why," he asked, accepting her hand but frowning suspiciously, "did you take our fire priest, Blood-feaster, into the Chappa'ai?"
Sam reflexively tightened her grip on Heart-eater. He smelled awful, but she couldn't sense a Goa'uld in him, or any of the chil dren.
"Because the fire priest was wrong!" White-owl declared forcefully.
Heart-eater's eyes rounded and he began shaking. "You blaspheme against Tzcatlipoca? He will strike us all down!"
"Not while his brother has come to save us." White-owl beamed at O'Neill.
The Colonel's face had adopted a familiar blank expression. "Ah...what makes you think we took Blood-blister?"
Instead of answering, Heart-eater peered into Sam's eyes, as if seeking something he was terrified of finding. "Blood-feaster brought your children to you and Quetzalcoatl, oh Goddess of Water. Then the one who guided us through the Ohtlin ictlan, the Roads of Mictlan, jumped from Blood-feaster's arms." His eyes flicked to the shivering creature that Two-water held. "It ran before the Chappa'ai just as it burst forth in the Great Tear."
Sam glanced at the animal. It was a bald Chihuahua, small enough to have avoided the vortex that had undoubtedly killed their priest. "When did this happen?"
"A day past, Goddess."
A brief spasm of guilt gripped Sam. Then again, their arrival may have stopped the children from being sacrificed. Or worse.
Heart-eater blurted miserably, "I am but an apprentice priest to Tzcatlipoca, oh great Chalchiuhtlicue. Having no knowledge of what this sign meant, we fled into the secret chamber beneath the Chappa'ai. But the tlaloque spirits who turn the rain to cold white death..." Again, he hesitated, and looked at White-owl. "We returned here where there is warmth, for we knew you would be angered if your children were damaged. When you sent a flood to drown the Chappa'ai, we thought... Please, Goddess, I meant only to serve!"
Sam released Heart-eater's hand. He skittered backwards until he lay prostrate before them. The Colonel went to speak, but then all of the children kneeled and bowed their heads - except Twowater, who tugged on Sam's hand and asked, "You are going to take us to the Emperor's garden and set us free, Chalchi, aren't you?" The little girl's eyes were full of desperate hope.
The others raised their heads and began to fire off questions. "Then we will no longer be slaves?"
"We can go home to our parents?"
"We will not be sacrificed?"
But Heart-eater howled in despair, "Then the world will surely end!"
"Replay that," ordered General Hammond. "One frame
at a time."
Sitting in front of him in the SGC control room, Sergeant Harriman's fingers flew across the keyboard. On the screen, the two seconds of speckled, milky gray-green came into focus again, then the MALP transmission from M4D-376 spluttered and died.
A few thousand gallons of putrid water pouring through the `gate the day before had not put Hammond in a good mood. His first instinct had been to tear a new orifice in Dabruzzi's anatomy. But the man's look of disbelief, which rapidly transmuted into agonizing self-reproach, had been painfully familiar; Hammond had seen it in the mirror countless times. Dabruzzi's entire existence was now focused on recovering Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter.
"There!" Daniel pointed to the top of the screen. "Go back and freeze the last frame."
Hammond looked at him. `What did you see, Dr Jackson?"
Daniel bounced on his feet like a nervous cat until Harriman replayed the MALP transmission. "That!" cried Daniel. "Right there - that's ice." He turned a worried face to Dabruzzi.
The big volcanologist squinted at the image. "Yeah, you're right. The ice and moraine at the southern end of the valley must be acting as a natural dam. Given the volume of water..." His eyes flickered as he did some rough mental calculations, then his whole bearing altered. "I've SCUBA dived under ice caps. Despite the particulate matter in the water, there's a lot of light getting through. But that's ice all right, no more than a few inches thick. That's the best news yet." He almost slumped in relief.
"Would you care to explain, Dr Dabruzzi?" Hammond said.
"They would have been pounded some by the wave front as it passed, but both Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter trained in ditch and recovery, right?"
Hammond nodded. A lot of good people washed out of flight school because they couldn't handle being tossed into rough seas weighed down with heavy gear, parachutes, or worse, still strapped to Martin Bakers. O'Neill and Carter had dealt with both simulated and real situations with the same aplomb they applied to everything else.