It was a joke. Only a joke.
"Leave me alone!"
No reply this time, but miraculously that indefinable pressure lifted. The voice was gone. For now. For the most part. She slowly pushed herself up, no longer trusting the peace, needing to get out of this hall never to return. Shadows of laughter still hung in the air like a foul smell, and she couldn't bear it.
Across the room, at the end of an alley of pillars, opened a tall arch, curtained by a cascade of water that glittered like diamonds in the sunshine. This was the only exit, unless she were to turn back, and she knew she couldn't do that. Not if she wanted to go home. Carefully groping her way from pillar to pillar, half expecting her body to go berserk again and trying to avoid the stares of the faces, she edged closer to the arch. It reminded her of the Stargate, and this familiarity calmed her.
She feared the water, though. Yesterday, parched with thirst, she'd drunk from the stream and got violently ill. As far as she'd been able to tell from the symptoms, it had been a mild form of botulism. Mild because you didn't usually survive once you experienced double vision and respiratory impairment. She'd dragged herself to a small, dank cave at the bottom of the falls where she'd spent the night, shivering and heaving. Some time after midnight she'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, only to be woken at sunrise by the jungle's dawn chorus. She hadn't wanted to leave, but the voice had reasoned with her for a long time, warning her to climb the cliff, lest her captor would find her.
Not her captor.
"Teal'c," she whispered defiantly. "His name is Teal'c, and I'm glad he's alive."
There was no answer. She hadn't expected it, because she and the voice had had this one out, too. The voice had known all along that she was lying, seeming amused-pleased, actually-rather than angry about it. But she should move on. She had to. And the only way to go was through the arch. If she tried to turn back, the skipping and whirling and whistling would start again.
The cascade beyond the arch sparkled, painting rainbow patterns of light on the floor. It looked nothing like the water in the stream. This looked pure, utterly perfect. As she inched toward the brilliant curtain, one hand gingerly relinquished its contact with a pillar. The stone, unchanging and immobile on her skin had reassured her. Anchored her. She was scared of letting go, but unless she let go, she wouldn't be able to find the way home. Slowly she extended her arm, fingertips scoring transparent furrows into the veil of water.
It was cool. Cool and delicious and inviting, and it smelled of sunyellowed summers and racing home after school to head out to the swimming hole. It smelled safe. She watched a sheet of water slide up her palm and to her wrist like a shimmering glove. It lifted bits of dust and dirt, rinsed them away, and left her feeling clean for the first time in days.
Smiling, Janet abandoned her last hold on the pillar, stepped onto the broad stone threshold under the arch and stood misted by spray for a moment. Something wonderful lay beyond that curtain of water. Home.
The thought drove her forward, through the cascade, her bare feet losing the ground almost instantly, and she fell, fell, fell, shattered the black mirror of a pool, and sank, aching from the impact, into airless silence. It was so cold, her first instinct had been to gasp. Icy water searing her throat and lungs, she slid deeper into blackness, unable to tell if her eyes were open or if her body even tried to swim.
Then her toes touched the bottom-soft and bumpy, though it wasn't silt. It felt like fabric and skin, but she couldn't allow herself to care, couldn't help whomever had drowned here before her. Pushing herself off with more strength than she'd believed she could muster, she shot back toward the surface, black fading to charcoal fading to insipid green.
Her lungs were screaming for air, and a madly sucked-in breath made her convulse with coughs and sent her under again. Flailing and kicking, knowing that, if she went back to the bottom, she'd stay there, she paddled for the rim of the pool, only to find shining stone walls; black obsidian, too high to reach the edge and too perfectly crafted to leave any cracks for purchase. And even if she could have reached, her arms and hands were cramping with cold.
Wasp, she thought. Wasp in the lemonade pitcher, flitting and buzzing until its tracheae were clogged with sugary yellow liquid, and then it suffocated. Very slowly. But first it'd go all still.
She turned onto her back, let herself drift to save what strength she had left. Shining black walls on three sides around her. Twenty meters away, in the shadows at the far end of the pool, tumbled the dark veil of the cascade, endlessly, brilliantly lit only at the very top, where the arch was.
Do you beg my forgiveness?
"I'm sorry," she croaked through a hurting throat. "I shouldn't have sent you away. It was disrespectful."
The surge of laughter, boisterous and mocking, was as awful as it had been in the throne room.
What makes you think you could send me anywhere?
"I-,,
You are nothing. I am everything.
"I realize that."
Do you beg my forgiveness?
'Tor what?" She genuinely didn't know.
You did not ask my permission to bathe.
It was true. She hadn't. She hadn't even considered it. The voice was right to be offended.
"Please forgive me," she whispered, fighting back tears. "Please."
As the voice remained silent, the shadows deepened, and she began to sob, terrified of dying without having been granted absolution.
Very well. I shall forgive you this once. Have you finished bathing?
"Yes! Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much." Water lapped into her mouth and down her throat, tasting stale and putrid.
Then you must get out now
"But I-"
Words turned into indistinct burbles as she sagged beneath the surface. Punishment. It was her punishment for refusing the voice. She had to get out. Had to try at least. The voice wanted her to. Choking and jerking desperately, she raised her head above the water.
A ray of sunlight pierced the foliage far above, burned the shadows of the pool, and picked out the relief in the pool wall. A hand, set in a circle, and the sunbeam seemed to have ignited a warm welcoming glow, a warmth that promised rescue and safety.
Janet knew she'd seen it before, couldn't recall when, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that she touched it.
Breaths like hiccups, coming in short, ragged heaves and too loud. Way too loud. Sam Carter pressed her face into the crook of her arm to muffle the sounds. She shouldn't be cold. Not when she could taste the viscous heat of the jungle, steaming from black soil and trickling from leaves. Viscous, icy heat that hauled her body into a spasm of shivers. She fought it down, trying to remember why it was important not to be heard. Nobody here to hear her, was there?
Besides, it was raining. The monsoon cloudburst tattooed a machinegun rattle on the foliage and fizzed into vapor the second it penetrated the canopy. Humidity had to be at a hundred percent, and if you breathed it was instant emphysema. White mist everywhere, reducing her surroundings to coiling phantasms. Nothing seemed solid anymore, everything had become spongy and gluey, like the mire under her feet. Her fingers tightened around the air root of a mangrove she was clutching for fear of cutting loose and drifting away.
Ten yards to her left, invisible through the steam, though she would have found it blindfolded-she'd been staring at it most of the night-was the spot where the hell hog had died, flailing and snorting and screeching, fangs bared and slick with mud and blood. The others had trotted up and down along the edge of the swamp, agitated by the sight of one of theirs being killed over something as soft and weak as her; red marble eyes shining with scary intelligence, as if to say that, if she ever ventured out of the bog again, they'd be waiting and she'd be toast. Or maybe to tell her that the hog that had hurtled after her into the swamp would burrow up through the mud and-
"For cryin' out loud, Carter! Get a grip!"
It didn't work. The words were what the C
olonel would have said-close enough, anyway-but her voice, reedy and cracking with thirst, sounded nothing like his. Didn't sound like her own either. Maybe the hell hogs had eaten that, too.
"Get a grip," she whispered. "Get a grip."
The one thing guaranteed not to get her out of this, were feveraddled speculations about porcines that IQ-tested in the top two percentile. And it wasn't just her who'd have to get out of this. It was Teal'c and Janet as well, and they were her responsibility.
Responsibility.
Good word. Six syllables that excused a multitude of sins.
Duty was good too. And shorter. Snappier. Best used for murder.
But it hadn't been murder, had it?
What then?
Mercy killing?
Where was the mercy in shooting a fellow human being like some lame horse or rabid dog?
But she'd done it. She'd done it, and there was no getting away from it. No escape. No choice. Just a duty.
After yesterday's-yesterday's?-encounter with Macdonald the Jaffa, she'd doubled back onto the path, retraced his steps, followed those ungodly, inhuman screams. Tactically stupid, yes, but what else was she supposed to have done? Could have been Janet screaming that way. Or Teal'c. Less likely, but still, he was her res- pon-si-bi-li-ty.
Whose responsibility had the kid been? Crowley's? Norris's? Who'd write that letter to his parents, his siblings, his partner?
We regret to inform you... of what? Training accident?
He'd been a Marine.
But he isn't a Jaffa, that much is glaringly obvious. Before suspending him from a lintel, somebody has seen fit to dress him in something flimsy with leather straps. All around him the hell hogs dance their frenzy, snapping and gouging. She seems to have forgotten how to move or feel and wishes he'd stop screaming, just for a moment, to let her sanity reassert itself. And then the screams do stop, just for a moment, just long enough for his lips to form one word.
Please.
He isn't asking for her to come and cut him loose. They both know there's no way to get to him, and even if she could, it would be too late.
Please.
Sam flees into the comfort of memory, back to an afternoon on the shooting range with her father a lifetime ago. She unsafes the Beretta, adjusts her grip just like Jacob had shown her
"There. Watch your right thumb, Sam. If your knuckle sticks up, the slide'll skin it on the recoil."
and sights on a smile ofpure gratitude that explodes the memory. Her hands start shaking, and she forces herself to relax and aim again, praying he'll forgive her relief at his being a stranger not a friend.
She squeezes the trigger gently, oh so gently, a kiss of a kill, until the report of the gun smothers the roar of the hell hogs. In the leaden silence that follows the kid's scent must have changed. No more fear no more pain, no more life, no more appeal. The beasts back off, squealing their displeasure, and wheel around to come for her Against all instincts and training, Sam empties her last clip into the mass of bodies, howling out her grief and
Mud-gloved fingers scrabbling for hold on the mangrove roots, she resurfaced coughing up a throatful of gunk. It was the third time since the hogs had chased her in here that she'd lost her grasp and gone under. There couldn't be a fourth. If they were still stalking her-well, too bad. She had to get out, get warm again, go back. She owed it to the kid. His screams had led her back the to ruins and the Stargate, and where the gate was, there had to be a DHD. Mostly. She pushed away insistent images of a prison world with no DUD and a charming old lady who could have taught Slobodan Milosevic a thing or two about mass murder. Hadante had been nearly as cozy as this, whatever it was called.
Hand over hand, arms and shoulders cramping with exhaustion, Sam hauled herself toward the edge of the bog. The mire sucked at her waist, her hips, her legs, unwilling to let go and give up its prize. Finally she crawled onto dry land-dry being relative. Not a trace of the hell hogs now, only the prints of countless trotters that had churned the ground. The devils had been dancing... She raised her head, letting the torrential rain rinse her face and clear her mind.
Getting to her feet took five fun-packed minutes, but eventually she was hobbling through the fog, propped on Macdonald's staff weapon, every step pumping liquid pain from her leg into the rest of her body. Halfway to the ruins the rain stopped and the sun came out again, stabbing through the canopy and infusing the mist with blinding radiance. It lit up a weather-blackened statue, overgrown with vines and purple orchids, that slouched between the trees. The face was long and patrician, almond-eyed, and the full mouth smiled. Sam didn't know or care at what. Daniel, were he here, might spin his own theories, doubtlessly bang on target, but as far as she was concerned the statue was a signpost. The outer perimeter of the ruins and the place where the kid had died lay less than two hundred meters east of here.
Still no hogs. The only sounds were the slow patter of drips on leaves, the tentative hoots of animals emerging from shelter after the rain, and her own breaths. She'd cut the kid down, she decided suddenly. Cut him down, bury him, get his dog tags, so that-
The twig snapped with the noise of a gun going off. It had come from behind and to her left, and if she'd had an ounce of agility left, she'd have dropped flat. Under the circumstances, her best option was to freeze in the shadows by the statue and inch around as quietly as she could until she had a fix on whoever or whatever was out there.
A few minutes later she knew that she was dealing with whoever. Two whoevers, to be precise. She'd smelled them. The Marine Jaffa obviously had a locker room somewhere around here; the bastards had the nerve to reek more or less clean. Soap, deodorant, mouthwash. Not too much, just enough to stand out from the pervasive backdrop of jungle rot and make her ache for a shower. On the upside, they didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of sniffing her; she'd long lost the last whiff of civilization, thanks to a potent mix of fermenting swamp, stale sweat, and the fetid stench from her leg wound.
They were good. The breaking twig had been a glitch, perpetrated by Whoever Number One who'd now changed course and would pass her position somewhere to the right. Whoever Number Two was beyond good. He was spooky. You didn't hear him and you didn't see him-almost. He slipped through the forest as smoothly and silently as a wisp of fog, and if it hadn't been for Crest or Colgate, he'd have been on top of her before she knew what was happening. Sam could have admired his technique for hours. Unfortunately, after turning a wide circle to check his tail, the Phantom Menace came wafting straight at her and running was out of the question.
The staffweapon felt reassuringly heavy in her hand. She could take him out now, without his even noticing that she was there. Tactically it'd be wrong, though; Number One would hear the blast and ride to the rescue, and he'd be primed and ready to fight. She might end up killing them both. A waste, because she needed somebody to explain what the hell was going on in this place-and Number Two had just been volunteered for the job. She'd disable him and, if necessary, kill Number One.
Ahead, a dark shape glided in and out between patches of mist the first time she'd actually had a visual on him for longer than a splitsecond. Oh yeah, Number Two was real alright, not the product of a fever dream. Fingers closing around the staff weapon in a combat grip, she eased further behind the statue. A human shadow filtered from the mist and flitted across sprawling ferns, and she heard his footfalls now, light and irregular, mimicking the random sounds a jungle creature might make.
Her body tensed in preparation for the attack. It was simple, all about angles and leverage; Teal'c had shown her the basics. The movement patterns were stored in her mind, an indelible blueprint. Ignoring the bolt of pain that shot up her leg as she stepped out for the turn, Sam whipped the weapon into a smooth loop to gather speed and momentum. Driven by the solid bud of metal at its tip, the staff swung out, sheared into an arc, sliced through a shout, hit its target. The force of the impact rattled through her arms, but she did as Teal'c had taught her, s
pun with the motion to face her prey, ready for attack, and... bit back a cry.
The blow, too fast-too goddamn fast! -for him even to bring up his arms and protect himself, had struck the side of his head. He looked at her, impossible and uncomprehending, then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
"No." Weak and pleading, the word rose on a tremor that racked her entire body, chilling her inside out. Her second homicide in as many days. And this one, this one-
A ferocious tackle ripped her legs out from under her. Tumbling into a white-hot sea of agony, she passed out before she even struck the ground.
Maternal Effect: Condition where the subject's visible characteristics are not determined by its own genotype but by that of the mother.
irrti regretted bringing the woman in so soon. Watching her bumble through the forest, hurting and muttering defiance, had been droll. But there were other considerations now; more important considerations. The human, Simmons, was playing his own game; one Nirrti was not privy to. Whatever his plans were, it seemed only wise to thwart them-without overtly appearing to do so. Who better to achieve this than the goddess of deceit and destruction? If she went about it intelligently, drollery could be derived from this, too. A great deal of drollery, she contemplated with a smile. Shame only that the latest installment of Simmons's gifts had arrived too unexpectedly for her to unleash the beasts. The fulfillment of that unspoken promise would have to wait a while, but anticipation was a thrill in itself.
Then her gaze fell on Master Sergeant Charles Macdonald, and her smile died. He cowered in a comer, drooling at her like a whipped dog. The raw flesh on his forehead where she had personally removed the skin and with it the tattoo-he was unworthy of wearing her sign-undoubtedly smarted less than her displeasure. On the table beside her couch stood a plate of chilled fruit; sliced mango, lychees, papaya, glistening with juice. A sweep of her arm sent the plate flying. It shattered on the floor, and her dog flinched at the noise. The stone tiles were spattered with soft, sticky wedges of fruit.
Stargate SG-1: Survival of the Fittest: SG1-7 Page 14