Like where the hell she was.
Unwilling to move just yet, she patted around and, much to her surprise, found soft, dry surfaces. That ruled out the jungle, which had a habit of being either hard and damp or squishy and sodden. It also was notable for a shortage of beds, and she was lying in a bed. Plus, she no longer reeked of bacterial rot, hell hog dung, and God knew what else. Somebody had bathed her, put her into clean clothes—clean sheets at the very least.
None of which explained where the hell she was.
Her eyes had drifted shut again while she wasn’t paying attention, and now she forced herself into another effort to open them. Lids scraped over eyeballs coated with ground glass, but aside from that she was feeling better than she had in days. Less feverish, less woozy. Her leg didn’t hurt, and that was very welcome news.
Of course it still didn’t explain where the hell she was.
The room was on the smallish side, filled with the spicy, resiny scent of wooden wall panels and ceilings. No windows, though light filtered in through an open door and a couple of carved screens, inset into the wall and separating the chamber from the hallway outside. The carvings looked familiar. Figures. Daniel had called them Baklava, Balaclava, and Meyer. Or something. She probably was hanging around Colonel O’Neill too much.
The Colonel.
Daniel.
Events crashed in on her like a collapsing roof and yanked her up from the bed, bolt-upright amid a swirling cloud of fear and panic. No, not panic. You can’t afford panic, Major! Concentrate on the situation.
She was the sole occupant of the room—no more than she’d expected—and the hallway seemed deserted. Okay, this could officially be declared weird. Unless she’d skipped a page, she should be held prisoner, in some state-of-the-art Goa’uld facility with a bunch of Jaffa (identical or otherwise) clomping up and down outside the cell. Instead, open doors and a bed. The latter had been a godsend, and the former she wasn’t going to quibble with. High time to check out the neighborhood.
The sit-up had caused no side-effects, so she probably was alright to get up. Sam flung back the cover, a wispy sheet of silk and merely perfunctory in the heat, stood and toppled over, pole-axed too suddenly to break the fall. Her shoulder and hip took the brunt, slamming into an unforgiving stone floor with enough force to make her teeth rattle.
For a few seconds she just lay there, dazed, then she contracted into a curl, whimpering softly when the movement jarred parts of her body that didn’t want to be jarred ever again. Cheek pressed against the coolness of the tiles, she groped through the fog in her brain, trying to think, because that at least didn’t require any form of motion. What had happened just now?
… gravity will win, because that’s what gravity does…
Physics 101.
But gravity can only win when the system’s out of balance. She hadn’t been out of balance, had she? Sat up straight, both feet firmly on the ground, both—
Both?
She couldn’t remember because, once you’d learned to walk, it was just one of the things you did without giving it a second thought, like breathing. Of course breathing was different in that it was a reflex and didn’t have to be learned, so—
Quit stalling.
One palm pressed against cool stone, Sam eased herself over, the skin on her back spiking into goose-bumps where it touched the floor. T-shirt shrunk in the wash? She slid her hands over her chest and realized that she was wearing some kind of crop-top, tight-fitting and embroidered. Last time she’d worn something along those lines, she’d ended up in a harem. Fingers glided on across a bare midriff feeling warm and little sweaty, but no longer fever-hot. Just below the waist, more fabric, light and loose and silky. A sari. Cute. She’d blend right in with Nirrti’s cronies.
Nirrti.
Time to get going.
Deciding to ignore the order, her hands kept exploring, and her right leg was in collusion. The knee bent, pulled up, for her fingers to feel taut muscle under the silk. All present and correct, and it really didn’t seem necessary to continue the study, but her body was determined to do its own thing. Left leg. The bad leg. Better not to do anything too wild. Gently. Gently now. Her hand brushed a hip, reached down, found a thigh, angled for the knee, clutched a fistful of empty silk.
“No.”
The terror that had been spinning in shiny whorls ever since the fall—from grace, from all that defined her life—cascaded up her throat, stifling a need to howl, turning it into soft keening, the sound of an animal trapped. She’d known, of course, from the instant she’d lost her balance; just as she’d known that it would have to come to this. But she’d wanted it to happen on her terms, be there, be awake when it happened, so she could find a way of dealing with it. Nirrti had taken that from her, too, like she’d taken everything else—Janet, Teal’c, Daniel, the Colonel.
No wonder the room had been left unlocked and unguarded. Dr. Samantha Carter, Major, USAF, wasn’t going anywhere. The thought brought a laugh that sounded like a death rattle to her. Then the need to howl came back, kept in check only by her resolve not to give anyone that satisfaction—not Nirrti, not anyone. Instead, her fists, balled tight enough to drive her nails—short and unglamorous but practical, because Sam believed in things practical, like having two legs—to drive her nails into her palms. The fists started pounding the floor, a trick she’d picked up from Colonel O’Neill. He’d use it to channel pain, but after a while the slow thud-thud also became soothingly hypnotic. Besides, there was little else she could do.
Thud-thud. Lie on her back, stare at the ceiling, pound the floor. It wasn’t the end of the world. Thud-thud. Not as long as she kept her fitness reports up to scratch. There were plenty of amputees in the armed forces. Thud-thud. Amputee. She rolled the word over in her mind, not ready to say it out loud—if she’d ever be. She’d get a desk job. Not the end of the world. Thud-thud. Except, it looked like a damn close second when the thing you loved more than anything was the thrill of going through the Stargate. Thud—
A barely noticeable drop in temperature stroked over her incomplete body. Someone was standing in the doorway, blocking the light, casting a shadow. The fists froze mid-thud, and her right hand unfurled and, obeying years of training and habit, shot to her hip, where the holster used to be and her sidearm.
“You won’t need your gun, Major, even if you had it.” The voice sounded calm, almost diffident, and vaguely familiar.
Familiar enough to pique Sam’s curiosity, and she finally tore her gaze away from the ceiling. Nothing much there, anyway. The shadow filled the door, broad-shouldered and well over six feet tall. Teal’c’s bulk, but not Teal’c’s voice. She levered herself up on her elbows, watched him slip into the room as furtively as he’d arrived at the door. She was curious now—even if it didn’t translate into caring what happened to her.
At two meters distance she recognized him, resisted the impulse to scuttle backward and away from him. After all, she didn’t care. “You!”
“Easy, ma’am.” He crouched by her side. “I’ve got no intention of harming you.”
She almost believed him. In the past three days he seemed to have aged ten years—they had to be traveling in the same time zone, Sam thought wryly. His eyes were bloodshot and heavily ringed, and the haggard face clashed with the folkloristic outfit. Bare chest, baggy pants, and no shoes—the latter explained why she hadn’t heard him coming. Then she noticed something else, and it tipped the balance. “Last time I saw you, you had a pouch and a tattoo.”
“No, ma’am.” Master Sergeant Macdonald shook his head emphatically. “You didn’t see me. I’m the original.”
“Sure,” Sam grunted noncommittally. “So you’re saying you’re not the one tried to shoot me out of a tree?”
More headshaking. “That was the prototype. If it’s any consolation, when Nirrti heard you’d kicked the snot out of him, she got so pissed she terminated him and the entire line.”
“While lettin
g you stroll around at will?” There probably wasn’t much point in picking at the inconsistencies in Macdonald’s story, but what the hell? Sam pushed herself up a little more. Her shoulder ached.
“She isn’t. Letting me stroll around at will, I mean.” He winced and shrugged it away, whatever it was. “Look, I probably haven’t got much time. We need to get going.”
That settled it. If blind men could be Marines, she could stay with the flyboys. “Where? And how? You gonna carry me?”
“Come again?” His eyebrows headed north. “Look, Major, I realize you’re Air Force, but even you guys have been known to walk on occasion.”
Holy crap! He really did have vision problems—or was lacking some basic numeracy skills. “Sergeant, last time I looked I was a leg short.” Sam’s breath hitched for an instant. She’d said it. It was real now. “I may be wrong about this, but I think it might put a crimp into that walking thing.”
“Goddammit, not you too!” Macdonald started swearing a blue streak. When he came up for air, he leaned closer, mumbled an apology, and slapped her hard. “Look at it! Look at your legs, Major! What do you see?”
“Stars!” she hissed, but for a moment—maybe because stark fury blotted everything else from her mind—the veil tore, and Sam saw empty folds of silk fill out, take shape, taper down a calf to reveal an ankle and foot, complete with five toes and a set of blisters. She reached out reflexively, responding to a need to let other senses confirm the impossible, but before her fingers could touch the fabric, it deflated again and the image—vision—delusion—dissolved.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Macdonald asked quietly, a pinch of triumph spicing his tone.
“What? Why?” She had no idea how to phrase the question, let alone what the answer might be.
“It’s that b—that witch, Nirrti. She’s messing with your head.”
“How?” It provoked a shrug. Sam thought of Janet and that inconceivable act of betrayal. “Dr. Fraiser?”
He nodded an affirmation. “Dr. Fraiser, me, my men, too. We started killing each other to get here, to be chosen.” The lines of fatigue on his face deepened, and his complexion turned gray in the mellow light fingering through the screens. “We—”
“If what you’re saying is true, it’s not your fault, Sergeant.”
“The hell it isn’t! That clone of mine has got my body, my mind, he’s me—and he goes and strings one of my own men up on the temple wall to be eaten alive.”
The kid’s pale face, pleading eyes, bloodied body leaped out at Sam in living color, and she struggled to breathe under that crushing weight of guilt and responsibility. “For what it’s worth, he wasn’t eaten alive,” she whispered. “I shot him. There was nothing else I could do for him. I’m sorry, Sergeant.”
“His name was Gonzales.” He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he glanced at the door, the hallway. “We have to go. Here, let me help you up.”
Threading his arms around Sam, Macdonald lugged her to her feet… foot. Knowing—or having a strong hunch at least—that her leg was exactly where it was supposed to be didn’t make a difference. She felt as though someone had ordered her to levitate. “This won’t work,” she muttered.
“Hey, Major, you ever hike someplace really cold?”
Antarctica sprang to mind. “Yes.”
“Ever froze your toes? Same difference. You can’t feel them, but you still can walk.”
The memory triggered by his query had nothing to do with Antarctica. It was fresh, and it hit hard enough to make her gasp.
“Major?” The sergeant’s voice barely registered.
Daniel is gone.
Two identical Jaffa, a pair of twins in a tug o’ war over a floppy toy, have Colonel O’Neill strung between them. He doesn’t seem to notice; a mix of rage and grief boiling behind his eyes, he stares at the spot where the ring transporter disappeared.
Sam, like so much deadwood, is still lying on the floor of the vault. One Jaffa pins down her shoulders, another her ankles, and Nirrti crouches next to her.
“What the hell do you think you’re—” A backhand across the face snaps off the Colonel’s protest.
Nirrti’s hand opens on a healing device concealed in her palm. “You do not wish her to die, do you?”
The device hovers over Sam’s leg, its glow rising from amber to deep red. It’s wrong. All wrong. All freezing. The pain is icy, eating its way outward from the bone, freezing nerve and muscle, and wrapping Sam in a glacial cocoon she can’t escape. Somewhere outside Colonel O’Neill is shouting, the sound of his voice blending into a fabric of agony that seems to draw down the ceiling to stifle her. She hears herself scream, thrashes against the hands holding her down, and finally, mercifully, passes out.
“Major!” Macdonald was shaking her.
A ruse within a ruse within a ruse, like some goddamn Russian doll—or the mirror cabinet at a fun fair, and Sam was rapidly losing track of which way to turn or what to think. Or whom to trust, for that matter. She pushed the sergeant away, her balance precarious on an unfelt leg she’d tentatively ordered not to give under her. Like St. Peter following Christ across the Lake of Galilee—if she lost faith, she’d sink. But it seemed as though Macdonald had told her the truth on this count at least. Her weight poised in a way that should have sent her sprawling again, she remained vertical. It was in her head—but what else had Nirrti done to her?
She shelved the question as not immediately relevant and glared at the sergeant. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
His hands flew up in a Whoa! gesture, and he smiled at her coolly. “Common sense and training kicking in, Major? Don’t worry, I probably wouldn’t trust me either. Fact is, your reputation precedes you. They say you’re smart.” He closed in a step, making it a struggle for Sam to hold her ground. “You asked me why Nirrti lets me wander at will. She knows I can’t run. If I go anyplace I shouldn’t go, she reaches in there”—he tapped the side of his skull—“and I stop breathing, simple as that. If she wants me to come to her, I come, like a dog on a leash. If she says contact your superiors, I do it, and I tell them what she orders me to tell.
“What I want? I want to get out of here. Go home, get reinforcements, free my men. You’re gonna make it possible. You’re gonna knock out whatever gadget Nirrti uses to screw with my head. In exchange, I’ll take you along with me. Fair enough?”
He sounded convincing. Sounded being the operative word. Sam decided to sniff at the bait. A little. “How does Nirrti communicate with you?”
“I told you.” He did that skull-tap thing again. “She reaches in there.”
“So what makes you think she won’t notice what you’re up to?”
“I never thought that for a moment. But she’s a little busy right now, so we’ve got a window. When she starts looking for me, you’ll be the first to know.” Macdonald sucked in a deep breath and looked straight at her. “There’s a good chance I’ll sell you out.”
And that, Sam admitted, had to be God’s own truth. He couldn’t be that stupid, could he? Unless it was a ruse within a ruse within a ruse. Then again, her options were few and far between. One point needed clearing up, though. “It’s not fair enough.”
“What?”
“Your deal. Before I do anything else, we go and get Colonel O’Neill.”
“Out of the question, Major. Who the hell do you figure is keeping Nirrti busy?”
Reeling back might have been a relief. As it was, Sam didn’t dare to, for reasons static and tactical. Nirrti, who enjoyed turning children into bombs or programming their bodies to self-destruct, was busy with the Colonel. It didn’t bear thinking about, so why did her brain, with the brutal zeal of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, latch on to the notion of blood and screams?
“If you’re trying to persuade me, you’re failing, Sergeant.” She choked it out, bristled at herself for that weakness.
“We’ve got a motto, ma’am.” Macdonald’s voice carried a trace of pity. “Se
mperfi. Don’t for a second believe I forgot.”
“We got something like that, too,” she replied softly but didn’t elaborate. Macdonald was right. If Colonel O’Neill was to have any chance at all, she’d have to play it the sergeant’s way. “What kind of gadget are we talking about?”
“Damned if I know, Major.” He gave a crooked grin. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”
“Great,” muttered Sam, already starting on a mental sift of everything she’d ever read or heard about mind control. Holding out an arm for the sergeant to steady her, she added, “Let’s go. I can think and walk at the same time.”
“To sum it up, the men are in good health and symbiote acceptance is one-hundred percent across the board.” The nerdier of the two xenodocs stabbed the air with a white, maggoty-looking finger and leaned further into the table. “However,” he intoned and followed it up with a theatrical pause.
“However what?” barked Frank Simmons, whose tolerance for histrionics had reached zero.
His arm hurt, he’d had too much excruciatingly bad coffee while waiting out the medical exams, and he was tired to death of the posturing and the monumental waste of time these people subjected him to. And now the hatchet-faced brunette set her features into a scandalized pucker, van Leyden made placating noises in his direction, and Crowley gave a long-suffering sigh.
Simmons allowed himself a couple of breaths, inhaling air so depleted of oxygen it felt like chicken soup. No wonder he was getting fractious. For the past two hours they’d been cooped up here, in the com shack, the chosen conference venue by virtue of its being off-limits to practically everybody, and had listened to an interminable litany of test results, which could have been summarized in two minutes flat.
The minuscule room was stuffed with electronics gear, leaving just enough space at the center to accommodate a table and a handful of chairs. A single window looked out across the plain, toward the moon’s horizon and a sky filled with the swollen belly of the planet above, which did nothing to ease the encroaching sense of claustrophobia. What was more—and Simmons finally admitted it—he had a pretty good idea as to the precise nature of however.
07 - Survival of the Fittest Page 28