03 - The First Amendment

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  Teal’C pursued the moth creature and its prey with single-minded determination. While it would be good to have Carter and O’Neill to back him up, he felt no particular responsibility to Kinsey. The reporter was expendable. Daniel Jackson was not.

  He lost sight of the winged thing as he entered the streets of Etaa. They weren’t streets, really, just wide dirt tracks between the low fences that set off the family compounds from each other. Because the compounds were all roughly circular, the concept of a straight path did not exist in Etaa. Teal’C vaulted some of the fences in his effort to maintain a line on the direction the moth had taken. Such an action should have been greeted with questions, protests—it was very rude not to use the gates. There was nothing, only silence, and an occasional small powdery black splotch against the yellow ground.

  Other than that, the place was scrupulously clean. The Etaans did not litter, left no trash to clutter the streets of their home. A large trash pit downwind of the city held the decaying organics that were the refuse of a culture with low technology. The people of this world knew quite a bit about veterinary herbs, a little about smelting, and once they had known nothing at all about Jaffa.

  He could hear the sound of his own footsteps on the dry, dusty ground, but nothing else. He stopped to listen.

  The window slits in the houses around him were usually covered with thin woven cloth, neatly pinned to the inside wall of the house. Now the coverings were torn loose, flapping out the windows or lying limp on the ground, not even fluttering in the bit of a breeze. The doors, usually open in a sociable society, gaped like dead jaws. Teal’C risked a quick glance inside each large thatched building but didn’t bother entering; the moth’s wingspan was such that he didn’t expect they’d be inclined to take a victim—prisoner? prey?—inside one of the houses.

  He was right. He rounded the side of one of the larger family compounds to the central corral and saw the moth—several moths. Several, acting exactly like any army’s work detail, were intently tearing apart one of the granary huts; golden and brown grain was already spilling out on the ground at their feet as they fastened their jaws deep into the thatch and pulled. The toughly woven vines gave way as easily as butter.

  At one end of the cleared area more moths lay on the ground in a heap. He could detect movement, but had the clear impression they were injured.

  At the other end of the clearing was something new, not characteristic of Etaa, a clumsily constructed structure of poles perhaps ten feet high and thirty feet long, holding several large dark cylindrical objects bound in a thick yellow rope.

  On closer examination he realized that some of the “poles” were actually limbs of—presumably—dead moths. The barbed claws of the legs served to support the construction; the multiple bent joints of the legs contributed to its ramshackle appearance.

  That it was a sturdy structure, however, there was no doubt whatsoever. Not only did it support the weight of several other very large objects, but as he watched, the moth used its horizontal jaws to yank its prey off of its own talons. Jackson made no sound and did not resist, flopping limply. The moth heaved his body up, carefully hung Daniel Jackson on one of the projecting hooks, and began wrapping him in ropes of thick yellow silk spun from its own body.

  Kinsey couldn’t see the tower from the depths of the town, but he had the general direction and considerable motivation. As he ran he kept looking over his shoulder until he tripped yet again, and then he put his head down and started watching where he put his feet.

  In a few minutes he found himself slipping on a layer of black that covered much of the street before him. He had almost fallen, and had paused to try to catch his balance, when he looked up to catch a glimpse of patterned brown wings lifting over him. He scrambled into a nearby doorway, out of sight, and leaned against the wall, panting heavily.

  He could still hear the ominous flap of wings overhead, and tried to hold his breath. It did no good; he had run too far and too fast not to try to pull air into his lungs. He settled for breathing through his mouth until he could control the frantic gasping. By that time the thump of wings against air had faded away. He spared a glance around the interior of the house: bedding area, firepit, a rack of interlaced rods holding something woven, a child’s doll.

  He picked it up to look more closely.

  It was a simple carved doll, with sticks for arms and legs, two eyes gouged into the soft wood and a wide smile underneath. A scrap of rough red cloth was carefully knotted around its waist for clothing; a short piece of string hung around its neck for a necklace.

  It was the first evidence he had seen, other than the houses, that there were actual people, human beings, here; and even that had been difficult to grasp, because the doors were taller than he was used to and the windows set higher in the walls. But the doll looked exactly like dozens he had seen in the poorer areas of the American South and in villages in the Baltic and out in the Australian bush. Strictly homemade and much loved by some child who was no longer around anywhere.

  Humans on other worlds are much the same as they are here on Earth. Children play with dolls—

  There was no time to search the place. Listening, he couldn’t hear the telltale sound of tripartite wings any longer, and so he peeked out the door. Nothing, no one was around. Not even the moths.

  He was more cautious then about moving from place to place, looking for signs of the other aliens as well, expecting at any moment to see triangular mantis heads at the end of long, flexible necks peering over a thatched roof at him. The tubenecks, after all, had some kind of flame-throwing, projectile weaponry, while he wasn’t sure what kind of weapons the moths wielded. He’d seen both Jackson and Teal’C held in some kind of paralysis while the moth had descended to take its prey, so they had to have something.

  But as far as he could see, the tubenecks were all outside the city, while the moths held the inside; perhaps that was why the tubenecks had responded first to the sound of the Gate being activated.

  That didn’t mean they couldn’t attack without warning. He decided to keep an eye out for them as well, just in case. At least the damn things couldn’t fly. He hoped.

  He ducked from circular building to circular building, moving toward the city wall until he could see the single remaining intact guard tower, perhaps two and a half “normal” stories tall. O’Neill had mentioned something about tall people on this world, and their homes were proportional.

  He debated about whether to call out to attract the attention of the other members of the team. He had no way of knowing what the moths could hear, and he didn’t want to attract their attention and end up impaled like Jackson. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the sagging body swinging from the curved, eight-inch barbs, or the slowly blossoming dark stains that spread from the top of the man’s fatigues where the hooks held him in place beneath his captor’s abdomen. The memory made him abandon strict caution.

  “O’Neill!” Kinsey called hoarsely as he arrived at the bottom of the tower, trying simultaneously to keep his voice down and project it.

  He ran for the steps and nearly tumbled in his haste to get through the door. He had barely managed to pick himself up, wiping the ubiquitous greasy black powder off his hands, when O’Neill appeared in the doorway from the floor above.

  “Don’t shoot!”

  O’Neill was already raising his weapon to point at the roof.

  “It’s Jackson. The moths got him, picked him up and carried him off, your buddy went after him, sent me—”

  For a moment shock held O’Neill still, as if he were torn between two decisions.

  “Get up here,” O’Neill said at last, his face pale. “I want you to see something, and then we’re outta here. Save your questions until later.”

  Kinsey looked around, confused, scraping black powder off the soles of his shoes. “What is it?” he demanded. “What are you going to show me? What’s more important than—”

  “Carter, brief him. And make i
t brief.”

  Carter stepped forward and led the journalist over to the inner-side window, pointing out the broad black path that cut the town in half. Meanwhile, O’Neill assembled her gear and his own and did a careful check from both windows.

  “Yeah, I saw that stuff. What is it? It’s all over everything.”

  “We believe it’s all that remains of everything that lived here,” she said. “Look at this curtain.”

  Then she showed him the bit of metal. “The Etaans didn’t have the capability to process metal to this extent,” Carter informed him. “This had to be from one of our people.” She held the scrap to her shoulder, showing him the damaged insignia next to the complete one representing one rank higher.

  To his credit, Kinsey grasped the implications only a second later. “What kind of weapon could—Could carbonize people so completely? There aren’t even any bone fragments,” he asked. “And the stuff it didn’t touch, like that curtain—it looks completely undamaged, but a centimeter away it’s just not there anymore. What did this?”

  By that time O’Neill was down the steps and out the door, and Carter made it clear that there was no more time for questions as she followed him. It was irrelevant anyway, at least to the crisis at the moment. They had more important problems to deal with.

  “You were working over to the north,” O’Neill said. “Which way did it take him from there?”

  Kinsey opened his mouth and shut it again, temporarily unable to distinguish compass points. O’Neill was watching, the fire in his eyes beginning to erupt from smolder to flames. Kinsey realized abruptly that he was dealing with a very dangerous, and very, very angry man. The graying colonel was not about to surrender one of his own without a fight.

  “It went into the town,” he said at last. “It carried him in. Your guy, the, uh, alien—”

  “His name is Teal’C,” Carter snapped.

  Kinsey swallowed. “Teal’C. He followed it, him. Jackson was hurt.”

  “Bad?” Both team members were completely, focused on him.

  Kinsey nodded. “Real bad.”

  “Keep up and keep quiet.”

  And keep out of my way, Kinsey silently finished the instructions. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  They spread out, circling separate family compounds rather than keeping together and narrowing the scope of their search. It meant that the three of them were out of each other’s sight for a considerable interval, but they covered much more ground that way, and at the moment O’Neill was more interested in covering ground than imperfect safety. He remembered all too well what those claws on the moth’s legs had looked like. And wasn’t it just like Daniel to take point and then get distracted by some bit of unusual cultural artifact, forgetting everything he knew about staying alert? The scientist was a good fighter when he had to be, but deep down in his soul he’d rather have his nose in a book.

  He would not allow himself to think about Daniel as a friend just now. He was an objective, and they would by God achieve that objective and take him home with them. Period.

  They met Teal’C on their way to the central market. Carter sighted him first and whistled sharply to attract the attention of the others. The Jaffa jerked his energy staff into the ready position at the sound and then put it up as he recognized the people converging on him. He looked somewhat worried, O’Neill noted, which meant that for Teal’C he was most likely frantic. This was not a good sign.

  “There are seven of the flying beings in one of the secondary kraals,” the Jaffa reported. “They have four captives, including one of the other aliens. AH but Daniel appear to be dead. The flying creatures do not seem to know what to make of the human victims.”

  “Lead on.”

  “We also experienced some kind of effect that could have been the force field Major Morley described,” the Jaffa went on as they jogged steadily deeper into the city. Teal’C’s sense of direction was unerring as he led them through one family compound after another. O’Neill was beginning to feel like he was running the hurdles, given the number of fences they crashed over. The Jaffa wasn’t even out of breath. “It was associated with a high-pitched sound.”

  “You think it could be mechanical?” Carter asked as they slowed at last. Her voice was very low, could barely be heard at a distance of six feet.

  “No. It seemed to be made by the creature itself. I saw no machines.”

  “Probably evolved as a way to paralyze prey.”

  It was more evidence that the fliers were on an even lower level technologically than the Etaans, too, O’Neill thought. That argued that they were actually native to this world. That the Etaans had simply never before encountered them in all the hundreds of years they’d occupied the planet was sheer luck. In O’Neill’s experience a lot of good luck like that eventually turned bad.

  Only a few minutes later, they were gathered at a vantage point that allowed them to see the moth compound.

  Teal’C had said the flying creatures didn’t know what to make of humans. Watching the activities of the moths around the kraal, O’Neill had to agree. One tubeneck hung on what looked like a drying rack, next to a cow; two Etaans; and Daniel. The others were obviously dead, with gaping holes through which they could see bones, internal organs, fatty tissue. O’Neill chose not to believe that Daniel was too, though there was an awful stillness to the younger man. What O’Neill could see of Jackson’s face was white as a sheet. He was trussed awkwardly in gelantinous-looking yellow bonds, hanging like a suit of clothes tossed onto a hook, his jacket soaked with blood that had flowed down almost to his knees. They had to get him out of there fast before he simply bled to death, but at least he hadn’t yet been gutted.

  Having identified his target, he surveyed the enemy troops.

  Two of the moths were obviously injured, dragging ragged wings and broken limbs behind them as they crawled across the open space toward the shelter of one of the huts. Two of the other five appeared to be conferring, standing almost upright with wings spread, heads spinning back and forth as they tapped each other on the thorax area with their first pair of legs. The other three were busy dismantling what had once been a nearly-full granary, packing grain into body pouches.

  Carter was running the camcorder again, focusing on each alien in turn. “Do you think this is an indigenous species, sir?” she asked softly, her words obscured by the recorder held to her eye. “I don’t see much sophistication in anything here.”

  “We don’t know,” O’Neill said harshly. “It may not have to be sophisticated to do the kind of damage we saw. Teal’C, that black stuff we’ve been seeing is the remains of the Etaans. We’re not sure how, but they were reduced to carbon, and from the looks of it, it happened incredibly fast. Tell me the Goa’uld don’t have this one.”

  “They do not,” the Jaffa confirmed. “I have not seen this effect before. I think even Apophis would have second thoughts about confronting a race with such power, even if they are otherwise primitive.”

  “Oh, peachy. That’s all we need. More incredibly powerful alien races that don’t like us.”

  “Well, we don’t know that they don’t like us,” Kinsey said, as if trying desperately to find a reasonable, positive note somewhere. He too was a bit pale, and looking anywhere but at the scene in the kraal in front of them. “I know this is horrible, but—but they don’t even know us. It could all be a mistake.”

  O’Neill gave him an icy look. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t like them. We’re not going to wait around to find out whether or not this was just a giant misunderstanding—a few thousand people lived in this town, and so far as I can tell they’re all dead. And we are going to get Daniel out of there and cut and run. Starting immediately.”

  “How?” Kinsey said, still being reasonable. But O’Neill had turned away, deliberately putting the journalist out of his mind, while he worked on solving that very problem.

  Their vantage point was i
nside the kraal fence, on the other side of one of the secondary houses. Holes had been ripped through the thatch, making it easy to see what was going on. Carter had wormed her way into the house itself and was getting tape as near the aliens as possible.

  Suddenly she checked herself in the middle of one of her sweeps of the compound and wriggled back to the rest of them. “Daniel, sir. He’s coming to. He’s alive.”

  Jackson was definitely still alive—they could see him moving feebly, hear him groaning as he regained consciousness. An unexpected wave of relief washed over O’Neill. At least Daniel hadn’t been injected with something paralyzing and set aside for later dining delectation. Or maybe he had and the stuff just didn’t work on humans. Whatever. The other victims were dead. Daniel really was alive, they had proof, and a part of his mind was profoundly grateful, and profoundly determined to keep the young scientist that way.

  As Carter returned to her filming, Teal’C moved over to Kinsey and tapped him on the shoulder. The reporter jumped, startled. Teal’C silently indicated the pack on the other man’s back and then pointed to the fence behind them. After a moment of cross-purposes, Kinsey helped the Jaffa remove the pack and watched in fascinated amazement as the three-foot-long backpack unfolded and transformed into a seven-foot-long transport sled. Without saying a word, the Jaffa lifted the sled over the low fence and began moving it around the compound, toward the rack upon which Daniel hung, moaning softly now as he twisted helplessly against his bonds.

  “I need flamethrowers,” O’Neill muttered under his breath, moving up beside Carter. The two moths that had been communicating with each other in the center of the kraal seemed to have finished their discussion and chittered orders of some kind to the three looting the grain bin. The two injured aliens had crawled to the base of one of the living huts, gouging deep scars in the ground as they used their claws to drag themselves along. Their brown-and-black wings blended neatly against the mud and thatch, providing excellent camouflage.