04 - The Morpheus Factor

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

“Yes, where is Vair?” O’Neill repeated. “He was here a few minutes ago, wasn’t he?”

  Eleb looked confused. “Vair is here. See, he comes.”

  Sure enough, the red-furred one was making his way through the milling crowd toward them.

  “Vair, so good to see you again,” O’Neill said. “If we are seeing you, that is.”

  Now it was Vair’s turn to look confused, and a three-fingered hand crept up to his cheek, where a raw red patch took the place of a line of fur. “I am here. Where else should I be?”

  “We were hoping to discuss that with you,” O’Neill said grimly.

  “This is not the time for such talk,” Etra’ain interrupted. “This is ceremonial. Eat well so that you may sleep well too.”

  Vair shifted a smudge pot out of the way and sat down beside her, opposite the team, and reached for a handful of soupy grain, apparently relieved at the change of subject.

  Frasier looked at the team members. They exchanged bland glances, and Daniel rubbed reflectively at his nose. The doctor hoped that Jackson wasn’t going to have a sneezing fit. The filters would never stand up to it.

  But the immediate danger, if it was danger, passed, and the archaeologist asked Etra’ain, “When we left before, we were fighting. Why have you welcomed us back with a feast?”

  Carter and O’Neill rolled their eyes—trust Daniel to ask the one question they’d rather not bother with. He, of course, was hot on the trail of an apparently aberrant cultural norm and leaned forward intently for the answer.

  Etra’ain’s purple three-tiered eyebrows arched high. “We did not wish you to go. Now you have come back. Of course we welcome you. How else should it be?”

  The other Kayeechi around her looked at each other as if to say, It’s obvious. Isn’t it?

  “You do realize we’re going to leave again,” O’Neill said dryly.

  “That will be when that will be,” she said, waving a hand gracefully.

  “Que sera sera,” Carter muttered, forestalling O’Neill, who had opened his mouth to make exactly the same remark.

  “That’s really interesting,” Daniel said, reaching for another piece of bread. “Do you welcome all your enemies that way?”

  Etra’ain looked startled and then profoundly offended. “You are not our enemies! We would never share food with enemies. That thing”—she indicated the cage—“is our enemy. Not you.”

  “I see,” Daniel said in a tone that indicated he didn’t see at all.

  “You’re in the habit of fighting with your friends then?” O’Neill inquired acidly.

  Once again, Etra’ain was startled and then indignant. “Never with our friends.” Then she paused as a sudden thought hit her. “Do you have no leesee in your world?”

  The five from Earth looked at one another. “I guess not,” Daniel said. “We don’t know what that is.”

  “Leesee. Neither enemy nor friend. Waiting.”

  “A-huh.” It explained a lot. Maybe.

  Vair nodded vigorously.

  “So,” Carter said to him, “when you came—”

  “Leesee,” he interrupted hastily. “You are not yet our friend or our enemy.”

  “Really,” Jackson murmured, and when Carter tried to ask her question again, he offered her another piece of bread, rhapsodizing about how wonderful it was.

  It was late by that time, and Etra’ain courteously suggested that perhaps her guests would care to spend the night and rest before continuing their journey. After some protracted discussion, during which the twilight deepened, the teammates agreed that perhaps spending the night would be a very good idea.

  After many smiles and reassurances, the five were finally alone.

  “He didn’t want Etra’ain to know what he had done,” Daniel explained later when they had finally broken away from the feast and been escorted to the cave of dreams. “He didn’t want you to ask him about it in front of her.”

  “And if Etra’ain doesn’t know about it, maybe the rest don’t either,” Carter said. “Our little red guy may have ventured out on his own without authorization.”

  “That still does not solve the problem,” Teal’C pointed out. “He may be able to return. He may still tell the others what he has done and how they may do likewise. And we do not know for certain that he himself is not still in the Complex, even though we have seen him here.”

  “Thank you, Teal’C.” It was a masterful summary and definitely not what O’Neill wanted to hear. “We know what the problem is. I’m entertaining solutions now. Anyone?”

  “I think it really is Vair,” Carter said. “Here, I mean. I never saw anything that indicated they could be in two places at once. Has anyone else?”

  The others shook their heads. Frasier, busy setting up her equipment, listened in fascinated silence.

  “And he shows the mark where the general pulled out some hair. I think he came back with you, sir. Or he came back anyway.”

  “I would rather not spend the rest of my life with a little scarlet furry guy following me around, thank you very much,” O’Neill said. “How do I get rid of him?”

  There was a small silence. No one made any suggestions. From the looks on their faces, Frasier thought SG-1 had all reached the same conclusion, and they didn’t like it much.

  She couldn’t see a way around it either. Evidently, this particular Kayeechi had a way to hook into O’Neill’s mind and then step out of it into the surrounding reality. The fact that it hadn’t happened with any of the others was not evidence enough that it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen sometime in the future—not a comforting thought. And the only way they could be sure O’Neill was going to be permanently rid of Vair was if Vair was gotten rid of. Permanently.

  She didn’t like that thought, military necessity or not.

  “All right,” O’Neill said at last, sliding his backpack off his shoulders. “Let’s get this show on the road. Janet, you’re the boss. Where do you want me?”

  She chose to ignore the teasing innuendo and finished the last battery connection. The black box hummed to life, and she twitched a few dials to check its responses.

  “You sound like you’re not taking this very seriously all of a sudden,” she said, looking up at him from her kneeling position on the dirt floor.

  “I’m a doer, not a dreamer.” It was a lame joke, and it fell as flat as it deserved to. “I just want to warn all of you, the first person who says, And then I woke up, is going to spend a lifetime on KP duty.” He sat down beside Frasier. The rest of the team gathered around, seating themselves to watch.

  “Well, sir,” Frasier said, testing one last connection and untangling one last wire, “I hope you do your dreaming well, because I saw something that looked an awful lot like a WR shell lying beside that cage with the—creature—in it.”

  Carter sucked in a sudden breath.

  “‘WR’?” Jackson asked, pushing his glasses up on his face.

  “War Reserve,” O’Neill translated grimly. “Weapons components. Why didn’t you say something earlier, Janet?”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have accomplished anything except interrupting the party, and it looked like we had to get through that to get here. Besides, I could have been wrong. I’m not as familiar with those things as I could be.”

  “Carter or I could have told you whether you were wrong,” he said. For an instant irritation showed in his voice, and then he took a deep breath. “Never mind. It is or it isn’t, there isn’t anything we can do about it right now. Let’s get me hooked up to your machine, Doctor, so you can put me under and we can find some way to deal with this mess.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Okay,” Carter said as O’Neill stretched out on the ground and Janet began attaching electrodes. “Daniel, you’re the one who went walking around. I vote we follow you. Wherever the heck it is we’re going.”

  Daniel nodded earnestly. “As soon as Jack’s asleep.”

  As Janet moved to activate the
black box, Jack O’Neill caught at her hand. “Aren’t you going to wish me sweet dreams?” he asked, the hint of a challenge in his voice.

  She looked down at him and the corner of her mouth twitched. “Not this time, Colonel.”

  “No fun at all, Major.” He folded his hands over his chest in pious repose, and she switched the machine on and began monitoring his brain activity.

  “Look,” Teal’C said suddenly.

  The team turned to see Vair standing in the mouth of the cave, staring at the recumbent figure of Jack O’Neill, his skull now dotted with black electrode tape. Janet paused, looking to the team for guidance, unwilling to Jet the colonel remain vulnerable if danger threatened.

  “Vair. Hello. Greetings,” Daniel said, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have come to offer you mor’ee-rai,” the little alien said, staring past Daniel to Frasier and O’Neill. “You said before that you wished to see clearly.”

  “Ah,” Daniel said, glancing back at the recumbent colonel. O’Neill, watching the exchange, closed one eye. “Thaf s… that’s very kind of you. Thank you. We certainly do appreciate that.”

  Vair edged around Daniel, trying to get a better look at the man on the floor, the woman kneeling beside him, and the strange contraption he was attached to by black strings. Daniel knew the little alien could have no idea what the stimulator was or how it was used, but Vair’s efforts still made him uneasy. He interposed himself between the little alien and O’Neill.

  “Oh, look,” he remarked, in an effort to distract the other. “You’ve hurt yourself. What happened?”

  It got Vair’s attention. He looked up at the archaeologist towering over him, and one three-fingered hand crept up to touch the raw place on his face where a patch of fur had been ripped away.

  “It is nothing,” he said, edging back from the Tall One in a sudden access of caution. “Nothing. Here… here is the mor’ee-rai.” Producing a small pouch from somewhere within his tunic, he held it out to Daniel. “This will help you see clearly. As you wish to see.”

  Daniel accepted it, turning it over in his hands to examine the awkward workmanship. It was a badly sewn piece of dark brown leather, discolored in places by the crude tanning process, about the size of the palm of his hand. He could feel the crunch of crumbled vegetable matter sliding around inside it.

  “We thank you for your gift,” he repeated and shifted closer to Vair as if by accident.

  Vair stepped back abruptly. “Place it in the pot and burn it,” he said. “I will go now. Sleep well.”

  “Oh, no doubt,” O’Neill remarked with heavy irony as the Kayeechi vanished into the night.

  “Well, I guess you’ve got your sample, Janet,” Daniel said. “I wonder what it really is?”

  “Most likely not the herb that allows visitors to distinguish reality,” Teal’C observed. “It is likely that the Kayeechi expect to plunder our dreams once again.”

  “Maybe we ought to let one of us use this?”

  Daniel opened the pouch and poured a small amount of brownish-gray powder into his hand. “So we know what they expect us to see?”

  “Maybe we need it to see the colonel’s dream,” Carter agreed.

  “If we use it, how will we know whether we’re seeing his dream or not?”

  The five of them stared at each other, nonplussed.

  “It should not make a difference,” Teal’C said slowly, as if testing the idea as he verbalized it. “However the Kayeechi accomplish it, whether through telepathy or some other process, they make dreams real. With the filters, we will see reality. Without them, we will see the dream. But there may not be a difference, if the dream is strong enough. The only way is to try to repeat Daniel’s experience. He did actually walk in my dream.”

  They considered the suggestion.

  “That means it’s up to you, Jack,” Daniel said at last. “Janet, are you sure you can maintain him at a dream level?”

  The doctor nodded. “The only problem is whether he has enough practice in realizing that he’s dreaming and controlling its direction,” she said.

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Carter told her with a show of confidence.

  No one was fooled.

  Janet looked at O’Neill. “Ready, sir?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he responded, scratching around the drying glue of one electrode. The doctor checked the connections one more time.

  “Sweet dreams, sir,” she said and turned on the power to the stimulator.

  O’Neill struggled for a moment to stay awake. They could see him fighting to keep his eyes open. In only a few moments he lost the battle, his face relaxed, and his breathing slowed and deepened.

  Frasier held up one hand. “I want to bring him into the dream state a little more slowly,” she said. “Give me a few minutes.”

  The team stood waiting, self-consciously staring at their leader and each other, and pointedly not looking out the mouth of the cave to see what, if anything, had changed. The indicators on the stimulator glittered and bobbed and finally steadied.

  “Okay,” she said at last as O’Neill’s eyes began darting back and forth under closed eyelids. “We’ve got ignition. If this is going to work, it should be working now.”

  “Okay, boss, now what?” Carter asked Jackson. “You were the one who went walkabout before. Lead on.”

  “Well,” he said, suddenly uncertain, “all I did was walk out of the cave.” Suiting action to words, he squared his shoulders and stepped outside the rough mouth of their shelter.

  The others followed him.

  And they found themselves… elsewhere.

  “What place is this?” Teal’C asked, looking around. It was no longer twilight, but high noon, and the landscape was, if possible, even more desolate than that of P4V-837. They were standing by the side of a one-lane road whose edges were crumbling into the surrounding dirt. The glare of the sun against the pale earth made them squint, and sweat began beading on their foreheads.

  “It looks like the Nevada Test Site,” Carter said. “I thought we would be with the colonel. What happened?”

  “I wasn’t with Teal’C when I walked in his dream,” Jackson pointed out. “It’s not just one person’s perspective. It’s a whole world. If Jack’s dreaming about the Test Site, he’s created the whole thing.” He looked around with interest. “I’ve never been here before. Is there anything alive out here?”

  “There is a scorpion by your foot,” Teal’C advised him. Jackson jumped. The pale yellow scorpion curled its tail over its back derisively and skittered away.

  “Hey, where’s the cave?” Carter asked, turning in a complete circle to take in all of their surroundings. “I thought with these filters we were immune to whatever was in the air. Shouldn’t we be able to see the cave?”

  There was no cave anywhere in sight, only yellow-white dirt spotted with chamisa and sage as far as the eye could see. Where earth met sky, the two blended together in a featureless haze.

  “It’s more than just the incense then,” Jackson concluded. “They’re messing with our minds.”

  “I hate when that happens,” Carter grumbled.

  “Where should we go then?” Teal’C asked, sticking to the problem at hand. “If this is your test site, then at least we seem to be in the correct dream. If a nuclear test is in process, this is not a good location.”

  “Good point,” Jackson concurred. “Excellent point, in fact. Sam, get us outta here. Where would be the most likely place to find Jack?”

  “The control point,” Carter said. “That’s where the observers will be. If he’s dreaming about a nuclear test, I’d rather be there than anyplace else anyway. It’s in a bunker underground usually.”

  “Yes, but where?” Jackson wanted to know. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if he expected to find a mushroom cloud lurking, ready to jump out at him and say, “Boo!” Or perhaps, “Boom!”

 
; “It could be miles from here,” she admitted. “The Test Site is a big place. We need a car of some kind.”

  “I hear a vehicle,” the Jaffa announced. They looked around, but somehow none of them were looking in the right direction when the jeep first appeared, rattling down the crumbling road toward them.

  “That’s convenient,” Carter said wryly.

  “It’s a dream,” Jackson pointed out. “These things happen in dreams.” As he spoke, the jeep, innocent of either driver or passengers, came to a stop beside them.

  “But it’s not our dream. Is it real?” Carter eyed the car nervously.

  Daniel kicked at a tire. It thudded hollowly. “Would you rather walk?”

  She decided to concede the point. The three of them got into the car and waited for it to move on.

  Nothing happened.

  “Why isn’t it moving?” Teal’C asked.

  “Maybe it figures we know where we’re going.”

  Daniel scanned the bleak horizon. “Riiiiight.”

  Finally Carter got into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The motor started, and she depressed the clutch and the gas pedal.

  “Where are we going?” Daniel said, having relinquished leadership of the expedition to Carter with substantial relief.

  “Point Alpha,” Carter told him. She set her hands lightly on the wheel and looked around as the jeep started rolling down the crumbling road. “That’s where the observation and data recorders are when they did tests.”

  “Which way is that from here?”

  “It’s a dream. I’m not sure it matters.”

  Moments later, she applied the brakes. Before them loomed the mouth of a tunnel, a hole in a giant cliff where moments before there had been no cliff. The road entered the hole. To the right and the left was more desert, bland and unhelpful.

  The tunnel looked very much like the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain, but here there were no guards standing by, no barbed wire, only a blank semicircular hole in a sheer granite face.

  They got out of the jeep and found themselves standing in a large room filled with people.