He took a branch out of the patchwork bag, shiny green leaves gleaming in the firelight, and dropped it on the marble in front of Carter.
"Take it," he said to her. "When you wake tomorrow with the blood of friends in your mouth, you will thank me for what comfort the gods allow."
uch as he wanted to, Jack couldn't hate the old guy. Sure, he'd tried to poison them; sure, he was foisting off suicide pills on Carter and Daniel with gay abandon. But there was a kind of dignity to it that was tough to argue with. Daniel had palmed some of the leaves and baggied them - when he'd seen Jack looking, he'd sworn it was for analysis later, back at the SGC. And Jack had let him do it, and he wasn't really sure why. Maybe because he knew Daniel. He wouldn't have trusted himself with an easy out, in that situation, but Daniel had been through hell and back, not just once but at least twice, and suicide had never even occurred to him.
Carter... two days ago, Jack would have said that Carter could be trusted with anything up to and including the nuclear football and launch codes. Now... not so sure. She was quiet, watchful, looking at these skinny refugees with new awareness. She wasn't just the visiting Western missionary who could drop off powdered milk and cheese and run back to the Sheraton; she was in this thing, body and soul. One of them. One of the victims, maybe for the first time in her life. Jack was used to it, and he knew it came as no shock to Daniel and Teal'c, but Carter was having a real learning experience. And he was keeping an eye on the shiny green leaves, just in case.
Laonides was answering Daniel's question about Artemis. In true archaeologist fashion, he was asking after origins, history, the shape behind the shadows. Not that it was going to help them much, Jack strongly suspected, but that was Daniel - full disclosure. He listened with half his attention as he watched a woman across the room lying on the floor - a skeleton in rags - drag in one meaningless breath after another. No life left in those eyes. Just a fatalistic sense of waiting.
"The goddess Artemis feeds on slaughter," Laonides was saying. "Our deaths are meat and drink to her. Once she ruled this city in peace, so the legends say, but for a thousand years, she has consumed it, destroyed it, drained it of life. Our worlds, where the Chappa'ai reaches, feared to make war on her, and began to send sacrifices to appease her. So it has been. So it will continue. It allows our worlds, our people to live in peace."
Daniel was stung. "You can't - you can't just continue to placate her. She's killed thousands - "
"Hundreds of thousands," the old man agreed, unmoved. "And our sacrifices allow millions more to live. It is the duty we owe our families, our states and our worlds. Would you not do the same?"
"No," Jack said, and bit down on a cracker. "I'm all for duty and sacrifice, don't get me wrong. But the time comes to take the fight to the enemy, not just survive."
"She is a goddess." Laonides made an unfamiliar motion with his hands; some kind of shrug, Jack thought. "Goddesses do not die. Men die, and so will we all. But go to her temple, and you will die quickly, and to no purpose. Stay, friends. Stay and live for a time. You are not unpleasant, as company."
Yeah, like I'd bed down here, with you at my back. The old guy looked harmless and well-meaning, but the poison had been a dead - no pun intended - giveaway. He had a knife out for them, one that would come in the dark and in the back. They had too much he wanted.
Unexpectedly, it was Teal'c who spoke up. "I served a god for many years." His deep, booming voice echoed through the room with warmth and power, and everyone turned toward him. "I tell you that the gods can die, and they are not truly gods. You owe them no worship and no obedience. You must fight for your lives, if you would live free. This I have learned."
And Jack was genuinely proud to know him, too. That little speech had cost him. There was a solemn, respectful silence in the room afterward, and then Laonides inclined his head in acknowledgement. "But we are not fighters," he said. "We cannot do more than die, and you will need more than just you four to kill a god."
"You'd be surprised," Carter said, and gave him an urchin's smile that wiped out whatever lingering doubts they had about her half-black collar. "Unless you can suggest somebody, of course. We wouldn't turn down help."
"The Dark Company," one of the women murmured, keeping her eyes down; Laonides sent her a quelling glance, but didn't speak. "Honored father, perhaps the Dark Company would speak with them."
"Perhaps." Laonides crossed his arms, sat back and frowned fiercely. "It is a dangerous thing to do, to approach them. I have done it only twice, and both times nearly paid with my life. Are you bold enough, friend Jack? To risk so much?"
"Who's the Dark Company?" Carter asked, and Jack pretty much knew the answer just from the look Laonides gave her. The look that lingered on the half-black collar at her throat. He remembered the first murder victim they'd seen, bleeding out his life and whispering the name.
Hunters. Had to be. The same dark, elusive shadows that had been tracking them, on and off, since the beginning.
Laonides shrugged. "Survivors, like me. By day, they cling to who they were, but by night they are a killing pack. They are fewer, these days. I do not think you will find help there, but they hate and fear the goddess, this much is true."
"Where do we find them?"
"Closer to the temple," he said. "There was a great theater, once. They shelter there by day. But they are strong. Be wary."
"Oh, I'm always wary." He locked eyes with Laonides, and knew his own expression was as hard and cold as any of those shattered marble statues. "Feed these people."
"Which...?"
"The ones you're letting die in the comers," he said, and tossed over another unopened NIRE. Chicken Parmesan. Rice. Pound cake. "Get `em ready to move."
"Move?" Laonides' expression slid toward a frown. "This is our only safe haven. Where should we - "
"Next time you see us, we're taking you to the Stargate. Chappa'ai. And you're going home to tell your folks that Artemis is out of business." Jack stood up, checked his watch, and nodded at the others, who quickly gathered up their stuff. "Get ready."
Laonides rose too, dignified despite the tattered robes, the ratty hair and beard. A survivor, no question about it; Jack recognized the strength, he'd seen it in the darkest holes of prison camps and battle fields. Strength wasn't always honorable. Sometimes the strong got strong on the blood of the weak.
The man reached out and grabbed his elbow, and Jack let him do it. "Don't promise such things," he said softly. "Don't raise our hopes. Disappointment is a fatal thing, here."
"I'm telling you you're going home," Jack repeated. "You decide what you want to believe."
He slid on his sunglasses, armored up, and glanced at Carter. She nodded.
"Six hours left before sunset," he said. "Let's get as far as we can."
The air outside was still, dry and oppressive.
Daniel fell in behind Jack, watching the uneven lurch of his friend's shoulders. Jack's ankle had started out bad, gotten better and was on the downhill slide to worse again, but he knew better than to suggest that Jack take a rest. They didn't have time, and there wasn't anything that felt safe anymore. They needed answers, and they needed to get out of here before things... got worse.
The collar at Daniel's throat felt warm - not blood-warm, warmer than that. As if something electronic was at work inside of it. He didn't feel different, but he wasn't sure he'd know if anything changed; Sam had been caught by surprise, after all. Maybe he wouldn't notice a thing until he took the knife out of Jack's belt and slashed it across -
Disturbingly, it was way too vivid. Blood on pale dust. Jack's face turning to whitewash, draining of life.
Daniel swallowed, felt his Adam's apple constricted by the collar, and found something else to look at than Jack's knife, Jack's sidearm. I shouldn't be armed anymore, he thought, and remembered that Sam was armed too, and Sam had saved their lives back there in the ambush. Conditioning. Maybe the collar only worked during the daytime when you let yo
urself think too much.
He was too close on Jack's heels, and recognized it when Jack looked around with a harassed expression. Behind the sunglasses, his face was drawn and tired. Jack can survive anything. He'd known that since Abydos, since seeing the man tap into some unimaginably deep core of strength to stand up against Ra the first time, against Apophis the second. Daniel, on the other hand... Jack might think of him as brave, but it wasn't bravery, it was blindness. He just didn't understand when to step back, most of the time. All his life, he'd had to defend himself by simply being more stubborn than anybody who attacked him, either physically or intellectually; he hadn't known when to back down with Ra, and it had killed him. Sheer luck that he'd been revived by Ra's sarcophagus; sheer luck that he hadn't managed to get himself killed with Apophis, after flinging himself in the line of fire too many times.
He had to admit, dying didn't hold much terror for him. Living seemed infinitely more intimidating.
"Daniel," Jack snapped, andhe realized he was crowding him again. He dropped back, into a cold middle distance. Teal'c was behind him, bringing up the rear; Sam was pacing along in front, demonstrating a loose animal grace that was like her usual stride, but more immediate and less controlled. As if she'd forgotten to pay attention to her body, and what it was doing now was what it was made to do.
It was - admit it, Daniel - mesmerizing. He pulled his gaze away from her, back to the ruins around them. He'd given up trying to collect artifacts; he'd never be able to carry any more, and the batteries were dead in the cameras. Even his note pages were filled. A city of wonders, of amazing things, and it was just scrolling by as he tramped through it, heading for another fight.
If he needed more proof that he wasn't a soldier, this was it; he wanted to stop, run his hands over the intricate, delicate carving on a cracked plinth, or get on his knees and dig a gold-filigreed, half-rotten timber out of the rubble. Then again, if he needed more reason to hate the Goa'uld - not likely - all he had to do was look around him. This had been beautiful, once. Humans had made this out of their sweat and dreams, and a Goa'uld had taken it away for nothing but her own bloodthirsty satisfaction.
What if it's Share? What if, when I face Artemis, she's looking at me out of my wife's eyes?
He hadn't shown the picture to Laonides; he wasn't sure if that meant he' d just forgotten, or if he hadn't wanted to know the answer. If the Goa'uldpossessing Sha're was named Artemis... no, impossible. Artemis had been haunting this place for a thousand years, accord ing to Laonides. Of course, he'd only survived four Hunts, which by Daniel's calculations must have been about fourteen months...
"Dammit, Daniel, quit walking on my heels," Jack snapped irritably, and Daniel blinked and realized that he'd been drifting again. "Go up with Carter."
Daniel stepped around him and jogged up to pull even with Sam, who shot him a sideways look and wiped dust from her face. She was drinking from her canteen, and offered it to him; he took it and rinsed his mouth. Brackish, tepid, delicious. He was too used to the water on Abydos to complain about the quality.
"You okay?" she asked him. He nodded. Her blonde hair was sweaty at the ends, sticking to her forehead and cheeks, and she still had that faint flush in her cheeks, like fever. "Good. Talk to me. I keep wanting to - " She took another swig and fastened the canteen back in place. "Pull ahead."
Run, she meant. Lope like a tiger through these dusty streets, looking for signs of life. Daniel felt a headache dig in dull claws behind his eyes, and took off his glasses for a minute, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I keep crowding Jack," he admitted, and checked his watch. "Still three hours until sunset."
She didn't acknowledge that at all. She kept moving her eyes restlessly, looking from one hollowed-out doorway to another, not as if she was nervous but as if she was looking for something. Walking close, he could feel the burning-wire tension coming off of her. She was working hard at this, at being Sam.
"Is it my fault?" she asked suddenly, and he saw her hands go tight and tense around the weapon hanging from its sling. "The colonel, Teal'c - why aren't they affected? Why me? Why you? Why are we so much worse?"
He didn't answer immediately, because the same questions had been running through his head all day, in various shades of guilt and denial. He'd come up with a dozen explanations, none of them satisfactory; there was just no way to know. Maybe it was some innate ruthlessness. Maybe it was some buried experience, coming out. Maybe it was nothing but blind luck. From the violence with which it boiled out of her, Sam had been thinking about it much harder, and with much worse results. "Sam... it's going to be okay."
She sucked in a sudden breath that spooked him, and he looked around to see if there was anything about to pop up and kill them. Nothing. She had a blank sheen of tears in her eyes, before she blinked them away. Fast.
"What is it?" he asked, very quietly.
"You sound... God. How can you sound like that, like you're not having these thoughts? These feelings?"
"What kind of..." But he knew. He'd had that vision, nearly erotic in its intensity, of the knife, the blood. He'd been watching her move and admiring her predatory grace. "I don't know. How do I sound?"
"Like you don't want to kill people. Like you forgive me for wanting to." She let out a long breath. "Three hours left. Laonides said that tonight I was going to..."
"Forget what he said. Sam, you can do this. You can hold on. I know you can."
Her smile came, bitter and twisted. "Yeah? You barely know me, Daniel. Until yesterday you couldn't even decide whether to call me Captain or Doctor." She attempted a smile, and failed miserably. "If I lose it... you'll stop me, right? Don't let me hurt anybody. No matter what you have to do."
It probably wasn't the time to mention that she had advanced hand-to-hand training, military experience, and the best he'd managed was to shoot just straight enough to pass the minimum marksmanship score for the M9.
"It's a deal," he said. "If you'll do the same for me."
"You didn't answer my question. Is it me? Is this happening to me first because I'm - " She made a gesture with one hand, frustrated and vague. "Wrong, somehow?"
"No! No, Sam..." He glanced back. Jack and Teal'c were still out of earshot, he thought. Jack was having to limp faster to keep up with their accelerating pace, but he was doing it, teeth gritted, face set like stone. "I think it's random." He didn't, really, but there was no point in making her believe anything else. "If it were some kind of measure of violence, why not Teal'c? He's fought all his life. And Jack, God knows Jack's got plenty of experience at it. Why wouldn't it make them the hunters? Wouldn't they be better at it than the two of us?"
She was listening, however unwillingly. "So maybe it goes against type?"
"Or maybe it just pulls on what we're afraid of," he said. "Teal'c and Jack might be just as afraid of being prey as we are of being..."
"Predators."
"Exactly."
She hesitated, then said, "Are you? Afraid?"
Some part of him wasn't afraid at all. He'd fought before, when pushed to it, but he'd never gone looking for it. Maybe that had been self-preservation; he'd always been the new kid, the strange kid, the unwanted kid. He'd learned to take beatings, but never to give them. It was a darkly, liquidly seductive feeling, knowing that he was going to change that... and that he had no choice in the matter.
"Yes," he lied. "But you're going to look out for me, right, doctor?"
She gave him a fragile shadow of a smile. "Right, doctor."
They stopped for a rest about thirty minutes further on, in the shade of a massive half-destroyed portico. More bodies inside, mostly skeletal. No collars, again. Teal'c - who had more energy than any of them - scouted the rubble piles, then came back to crouch next to Sam. Like her, he didn't let his eyes stop searching for long.
"Captain Carter," Teal'c said. "I must take your weapons now."
"No," she said. Not aggressively, but there wasn't any room for discussion about it,
either. She had her head down, examining her MP5 and wiping away dust; when Teal'c just sat, unmoving, she looked up and focused those wide blue eyes on him. Daniel felt the impact from two feet away, but Teal'c didn't flinch.
"I do not wish to fight you," he said, with unexpected gentleness. "Whether you wish to fight me is a thing you must decide for yourself."
Sam flinched, blinked, and looked away.
"I too have felt the heat of battle. It is a seductive thing. Jaffa are trained to resist, because we must follow the orders of our masters without question," Teal'c continued. "There are meditative techniques. Tonight, I will teach you."
"Tonight, I probably won't be able to listen," she said. "But if I am... I'll try, Teal'c." And she reached out and put a hand on the man's massive arm. Daniel was struck by how delicate she was, next to the Jaffa; even with both hands, she probably couldn't have spanned his bicep. "Thank you."
It might have been a trick of the shadows, but Daniel could have sworn he saw something like a smile on Teal'c's normally impassive face. "If you wish to thank me, you can surrender your weapon. Otherwise, I must explain to O'Neill why I have not been able to comply with his order."
"Can't have that," she said, and eased the nylon strap over her head. In Teal'c's hands, the MP5 looked like a particularly deadly toy. "Everything, right?" At his nod, she gave over the M9 and knife as well.
And then Teal'c's eyes met Daniel's.
No, that thing inside of him said, that alien thing that was so much a part of him it was almost like the obscene invasion of a Goa'uld. Don't let him take it. You need it. What ifSam turns on you?
What if she does? he argued with it reasonably. What am I going to do? Shoot her? Cut her heart out? Both things held vivid, almost sensual images. He shied away, revolted, and before he could think too much yanked the pistol from his belt and handed it over. Teal'c made it disappear as efficiently as a stage magician. Once the knife left his hands, Daniel felt a surge of relief so strong it was almost sickening. Have to use your hands now, the thing in him said, grinning, and that had images, too, strong ones, dark ones.
Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon Page 15