Angels & Vagabonds - Part 2
Daniel heard the click behind him, then a soft hiss. Pivoting, he glanced at the doorway. Something shimmered up from the stone floor, transparent and electric, and he heard Teal'c shout. He glanced out, down the narrow flight of steps, squinting because he'd taken off his clip-on shades and his eyes had adjusted to the shadows in the room.
“Teal'c?” he said. He took two more steps toward the temple doorway, just enough to take him outside and to the top of the stairs.
The hiss and shimmer rose around him, and something pushed against his chest and legs. It was like walking through water--heavy resistance, a thickness and pressure against his skin. The tingle started on his face and hands. It spread to his chest and legs before covering him. He pushed forward one more step and the tingle spiked into a sharp jolt and slammed him backwards.
He hit the wall shoulders first, the air slammed from his lungs. With a gasp, he slid down to the stone floor, ears ringing, vision rimmed by black, and eyes watering so hard it seemed like tears. Bracing his hands on the stone floor, he put his head back, blinked hard, and struggled to breathe.
He heard Teal'c shouting, couldn't find enough air to answer, but he found a sharp ache in his right shoulder.
It's okay. It's okay.
He wanted to say the words, didn't manage more than a raspy gasp, but his chest lifted as he sucked a gulp of air down his throat. He was shaking, he figured out that much, and his muscles twitched as if he'd been hit by a zat. Looking up, he blinked again as the room spun. But he seemed to have all his body parts, and he'd only had the air knocked out of him.
Teal'c yelled his name again, so Daniel crawled onto his hands and knees, and pushed up to his feet. Joints loose, the back of his head and his shoulder pounding, he staggered to the door. He got there in time to see Teal'c push a hand into that shimmer.
Standing at the base of the stairs, Teal'c stepped into the glow. The shimmer around him looked like dust caught in sunlight. He moved slow, as if fighting a strong current, and the shimmer sparked silver, dazzled, and Daniel's throat tightened. Pressing up to the doorway, he shouted, “No--don't!”
Frown deepening, Teal'c glanced up at him, and then the shimmer sparked into his staff weapon.
The explosion hit just as Teal'c was thrown back. The staff lit in the middle like a firecracker, the trigger point flashed, and Teal'c was flying back as the staff blew, parts somersaulting with him, the largest chunk imbedding itself into the ground next to his head. It happened too fast and too slow, and Daniel watched, fists clenched, the scream jammed in his throat, his stomach jolting with churning adrenaline.
Heart slamming into high gear, Daniel started out of the temple again. He stepped from cool shade into the sunlit doorway, tried for the steps, and ran straight into his side of that shimmer. It threw him back on his butt on the temple floor this time, left him staring at the dark blue and white stars--Nut's sky body--painted on the ceiling. Every muscle screamed and his bones ached with a low, deep throb.
He gasped for air. His two canteens dug into his lower back with sharp pressure. Another struggling breath and he stopped shaking long enough to twist and push up on one palm, rough stone scraping his skin. The shimmer was gone, so he crawled back to the doorway.
Teal'c was still on the ground, his staff in two parts, half of it thrown thirty feet from him and the other half stuck in the ground beside his head like a knight's broken pennant. Daniel willed the man's chest to rise, or for him to move, or show some sign of life. Nothing happened.
Pushing up to his feet, Daniel put a hand out and almost pulled it back, but he forced himself to touch that damn shimmer.
It pulsed under his touch, glowed, pushed back at him, and the harder he pushed, the brighter it glowed and resisted. It tingled soft, not electric, and burned like ice. He ran his hand across it, seeking any opening, but there wasn't one, so he pulled his hand away, glanced at the reddened skin left behind, then he looked down the stairs.
Teal'c still wasn't moving.
He should be. Even with all those ragged cuts over his right arm and the right side of his face and shredding the side of his vest, he should sit up and open his eyes and maybe lift an eyebrow. He should glance around with the disdain of a cat who'd been insulted by being tossed out of the house. Only he wasn't doing any of those things. Panic shuddered through Daniel. Then his radio crackled.
“Daniel--Teal'c, report? What the hell did we just hear?”
Jack's voice, steady as ever. Tense but even. Daniel took a breath, let the voice steady him. Sweat dripped into his eyes, so he wiped at it with the back of his hand and reached for the radio on his shoulder. His fingertips hurt and he winced when he pressed the button, but he ignored it. “Jack, Teal'c is down. He's not getting up. We're at the temple. It--seems we triggered something.”
“Hang tight. On the way.”
Glancing around, he took in the single doorway; no other exits, not even a window, just carved stone in a bare room. No visible controls. Not even an altar to serve as a focal point. Hang tight? God, what else could he do?
#
It took them a little over an hour, even at a steady double-time jog to get to the temple, and Jack was cursing in his head at every step. Why the hell didn't they ship ATVs through the 'gate or single-man flyers? He hadn't signed up with the Air Force to be a damned Marine, but here he was hoofing it across yet another desert. He should get Carter to come up with some transport they could assemble on this side of the 'gate, but he knew it'd never happen. No budget for it, no recognized need.
They weren't supposed to be exploring these days, just stepping through and stopping on the doorstep to test for minerals or trade for technology or grab a quick look at anything that might have military application. They weren't supposed to hike miles to see a temple. So this was going to look like Daniel was the reason this mission had gone belly-up. Ah, hell.
His temper kept him going--that and Carter pushing hard, her long legs matching his stride. Where did she get that energy and stamina? But he knew where, because he'd trained part of it and the rest came from the same worry driving him. At least Daniel had sounded okay--but Teal'c down? Never good. It took something more than nasty to put Teal'c on his ass.
It looked worse than that when they crested the last low hill and he saw Teal'c on his back and no sign of Daniel. Jack thumbed his radio. “Daniel, where the hell are you?”
The voice that came back sounded tired and braced. “Uh, still in the temple, Jack.”
The temple? The friggin' temple? What, he couldn't be bothered to come out and look after a friend? Only that was so wrong that Jack's worry kicked up to full afterburn. “Daniel?” He put all that worry and a ton of warning into the word, wanted whatever it was Daniel hadn't yet told them. They covered the distance to Teal'c at a run, and Carter went down on her knees next to him.
Unclipping her pack, she pulled it to her side and dragged out a med kit. Teal'c didn't twitch, but Jack could see his chest lifting and falling with uneven breaths, so the guy wasn't dead. But he looked too close to it.
Staying on his feet, finger on the trigger and safety switched off, Jack called out Daniel's name, yelled it instead of using the radio. He looked up to see Daniel in the doorway of the stone temple, at the top of a couple of dozen steps, maybe twenty feet away.
Without a word, Daniel put out a hand like he was about to wave. He touched something and it shimmered in front of him. Jack stared at it, wasn't sure what he was seeing, so he walked forward.
He stopped at the base of the stone steps when he heard a faint hissing like a light bulb about to burn out. Lifting a hand, Jack touched...something. It pushed back against his palm, pulsed with a shimmer under his fingertips, and he jerked his hand away. “Carter?” he barked out. Twisting, he glanced at her.
She had lifted her head and must have seen that shimmer because she let out a breath of air and muttered, “Holy--crap.” Then she asked, “Energy field? Force shield?”
He shook his head because he had no idea. Turning, he yelled up to the temple, “Daniel?”
Daniel was already ahead of him and waiting. He had his arms folded around him, and frowned and answered, that tired edge in his voice, “Yeah, I'm stuck. How's Teal'c?”
“What the hell happened?”
Daniel shrugged. “I--I don't know. I--” Lifting his hands, he broke off, and he sounded dazed enough Jack knew there was more behind that confusion than the shock of seeing Teal'c get knocked off his feet. But he couldn't get to Daniel to find out what the more was--like maybe a concussion. So he started walking.
Staying next to the hum, Jack walked a perimeter around the temple. He kept jabbing the muzzle of his P90 into air, kept getting silver-gold sparkles and the stink of ozone. Walk two steps, jab and watch the sizzle. And, yeah, it made a nice big circle around Daniel, seemed to stretch out about twenty feet in all directions. No way to get close to the man. Or that temple.
With no other options, Jack stalked back to Carter and Teal'c. His first aid skills sucked, always had, but he could do the basics better than anything he could do with whatever had Daniel stuck in that temple. He shot a look at Carter.
She looked back, worry in her eyes, mouth set. Nothing good here, in other words, and she wasn't leaving Teal'c. “Sir, he's lucky to be alive.” She gestured to the pieces of staff weapon, and Jack took in the burns and cuts on Teal'c right hand; his weapon had blown, and that meant lucky wasn't the half of it. Carter had bandages over the worst of the cuts, but Teal'c still didn't have his eyes open. “I think that energy field may have dampened the full blast, absorbed part of it. It's the only thing to account for why Teal'c isn't in more than a few pieces.”
“Uh, the field tossed him back.” They both turned and glanced at Daniel, and he went on, and Jack let out a breath to have Daniel with them at least good enough that he could start a lecture. “It tossed me back as well. It seems as if it responds with kinetic force to whatever acts against it. It's not exactly like a Goa'uld personal shield. It's, uhm, a lot thicker. Slow moving objects can't get through. And--” Daniel gestured toward the damaged staff weapon, his frown going tight and pulling lines to his forehead. “I think it interacts with naquadah.”
Standing, Jack walked to the edge of that hum and stared up at Daniel. “Can you turn it off?”
Daniel's mouth flattened. He lifted a hand, let it fall. “I'd barely stepped inside, when it--”
“So you stepped on the trigger?”
“No. I didn't. I've looked around and there aren't any controls inside. No triggers. Nothing. It's just a stone room. The architecture is definitely Egyptian. Early Dynastic, with similarities to the complex around Netjerikhet, or Djoser's, step py--”
“Daniel? What about a way out?”
“Oh, well, uh, there is writing--some hieratic, but mostly hieroglyphs, as you'd expect in a temple. No Goa'uld script. I haven't had time to do a full translation, but I think--” For once, Daniel cut off his own theory. He bit his lower lip and turned to the side.
Jack demanded, “What? You think what?”
But Daniel shook his head. He wasn't saying.
Unable to get in the guy's face, frustrated at that and with having a man down, Jack let his temper flare. Turning, he stalked back to Carter and Teal'c. “Carter!”
She jumped when he shouted her name, glanced up worried, just before her expression flattened to angry. Then she looked at the temple, at Daniel, and her mouth twisted as if she'd swallowed poison. She spat out the next set of words. “Sir, we need to get Teal'c to medical attention. Now.”
Jack looked from her to Teal'c, then back up to Daniel in that damn temple. Carter couldn't get Teal'c to the 'gate on her own. Even with the two of them, it'd be a struggle--so she knew what she was asking. They had to leave Daniel. Shaking his head, Jack looked for other options. A soft groan from Teal'c saved him from having to make a choice.
Kneeling in the sand, Jack rested the flat of his hand on the other man's chest. “Teal'c?” Eyes blinking open, Teal'c focused a stare on him, so Jack asked a stupid question and hoped for the answer he wanted, “You okay?”
Stare going unfocused, Teal'c didn't answer. Damn and damn and damn. That kind of disorientation was not good, and Jack started thinking about hemorrhaging in the brain and how quick that could kill.
“Can you stand?” he asked. Teal'c didn't answer that one either, but he frowned like maybe he'd understood and blinked like he was trying to get to an answer out. His lips parted, then pressed closed. Over pain was Jack's guess. So he turned to Carter. “Help me get him on his feet.”
She glanced at him, eyes sparking as if she didn't think this was a good idea, but she moved to Teal's left side, and that meant she didn't have any better plans. They got Teal'c upright and then to his feet, where he swayed, eyes still unfocused and dull, mouth slack, and Teal'c never looked like this, which sent Jack's worry off the scale. He glanced up at the temple once more.
Daniel was still in the doorway, arms folded and feet braced wide. He looked even more worried than Jack felt, deep lines etched on his face, his stare locked on Teal'c, the round shades over his glasses reflecting back the scene.
Then Daniel nodded and said, his voice too reasonable and too calm, “Go on. I'll be okay.”
#
Forcing his mouth to curve, Daniel hoped his expression looked like a smile. God, will you please just go. Teal'c looked drunk off his ass, which had to mean severe head trauma. Not good. But maybe his symbiote could heal him, or maybe it was as stunned as Teal'c and not able to do much of anything. God, they had to get Teal'c back to someone who could figure out what had happened, and what needed to be done. Someone who could help. And it wasn't like he was going anywhere--or that there was much of a threat to him here.
Go. Please go.
He wanted to say the words, but he didn't. Instead, he forced himself to stand still. He kept his fingers clenched on the sides of his vest as he stared at Jack. He couldn't say anything more because Jack was supposed to give the orders. But they had to leave now while they had daylight. The sun was already past its zenith. Night couldn't be far. And he really hoped nothing came out at night on this world.
But the place felt as dead as all reports had indicated, and not much of anything was getting past that energy field. One bit of good news in all the bad.
Pulling in a breath, he waited for Jack to reach the same conclusion; they had to get Teal'c back, so they had to leave him. Besides, it wasn't as if they weren't coming back. His fingers tightened on the stiff material of his vest. Of course they would be back.
Oh, god, this isn't working, please just go before I lose it here.
Jack, thankfully, nodded, then turned, his movements abrupt. He hesitated once more, glanced over his shoulder, his expression unreadable behind the dark sunglasses. “Next time you want a few more hours with a temple, find an easier way to get it.”
The words were supposed to be a joke, sarcastic, not cutting. But Jack was strung so tight, they came out sharp. Daniel overlooked that, read Jack's stance, the hesitation and uncertainty--he was more than hating his inability to resolve this. So Daniel pitched his answering tone to dry sarcasm. “I'll put in a requisition in triplicate.”
The barest smile edged Jack's mouth and slipped away. Sam--ah, poor Sam--couldn't even smile. She glanced back, eyes big and hurting, then she looked away and put her head down. Jack turned as well, slung an arm around Teal'c, and the three of them started a slow, awkward pace back to the Stargate, Teal'c stumbling so badly between the others that Daniel had to swallow hard. But he made himself stay where he was and watch his friends leave. Just in case it was the last time.
They'll be back. Teal'c will be fine.
The truth was he didn't know if Teal'c would live, and his friends were leaving him alone on a dead world.
But he'd been alone before.
Hell, he'd been left behind before. It wasn't fun, ever, but he had that experience and could deal with it. When he added up the years, he'd been alone most of his life. Nothing new there. But he'd never been utterly alone, left on a world without anyone or anything.
Well, maybe that once, when he'd slipped over to another reality with that mirror. And, oh, yeah, there was that time with the temple and the crystal skull and what the hell had Jack called the radiation--Nintendos? He's also been left with Nem. Damn--why did this keep happening to him?
Shivering, he shut down the memories, but they kept coming back like circling vultures, because it was about to happen yet again.
He'd be left on an empty world, and those other times he'd at least had giant aliens show up, or had Nem, or a hope that even on a dead world insects or animals could still be alive underground. This place didn't even have that. No, this was just…nothing. Which led him to thoughts of Sam's particles that blinked out, and how if you erased a man's name maybe you did erase more than his memory.
Ah, cheerful thoughts to go with being stuck in a stone room a galaxy far from everyone. But it was better to dwell on the philosophical implications rather than to think about how he had one full canteen and one half empty, and none of them had packed with the intent of being here more than a few hours. No, he didn't want to look at the practicalities of survival.
He didn't have a pack or a sleeping bag--this was supposed to be a day trip. He had a notebook, and he had whatever extra bits and pieces he could find in his vest. And he had a gun--swell. And friends who had to leave.
As soon as Sam and Jack crested the hill, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and turned away. He hunted for his notebook, pen and flashlight. With the sun on the down side, it was getting dark in the room. He only had that long slant of light from the doorway.
The light was enough to start with the walls again, working from the left side of the door. He'd have to sort out if the hieroglyphs should be read left to right, or top to bottom, or the opposite of all that. Once he had that settled, he'd do a full translation, ignore what he already suspected from his initial scans. He'd pretend for a short time that he didn't know anything about this temple.
By then, Jack and Sam would be back. They'd bring good news about Teal'c, and Sam would be brilliant and find a way to get him out of here, and Jack would be relieved and happy, not raking him down for getting stuck.
But even as he crafted the story, he knew that there was a very good reason why myths--all the stories mankind told itself--endured over long ages. It was because sometimes truth was just so unendurable.
Go to Part 3
“Teal'c?” he said. He took two more steps toward the temple doorway, just enough to take him outside and to the top of the stairs.
The hiss and shimmer rose around him, and something pushed against his chest and legs. It was like walking through water--heavy resistance, a thickness and pressure against his skin. The tingle started on his face and hands. It spread to his chest and legs before covering him. He pushed forward one more step and the tingle spiked into a sharp jolt and slammed him backwards.
He hit the wall shoulders first, the air slammed from his lungs. With a gasp, he slid down to the stone floor, ears ringing, vision rimmed by black, and eyes watering so hard it seemed like tears. Bracing his hands on the stone floor, he put his head back, blinked hard, and struggled to breathe.
He heard Teal'c shouting, couldn't find enough air to answer, but he found a sharp ache in his right shoulder.
It's okay. It's okay.
He wanted to say the words, didn't manage more than a raspy gasp, but his chest lifted as he sucked a gulp of air down his throat. He was shaking, he figured out that much, and his muscles twitched as if he'd been hit by a zat. Looking up, he blinked again as the room spun. But he seemed to have all his body parts, and he'd only had the air knocked out of him.
Teal'c yelled his name again, so Daniel crawled onto his hands and knees, and pushed up to his feet. Joints loose, the back of his head and his shoulder pounding, he staggered to the door. He got there in time to see Teal'c push a hand into that shimmer.
Standing at the base of the stairs, Teal'c stepped into the glow. The shimmer around him looked like dust caught in sunlight. He moved slow, as if fighting a strong current, and the shimmer sparked silver, dazzled, and Daniel's throat tightened. Pressing up to the doorway, he shouted, “No--don't!”
Frown deepening, Teal'c glanced up at him, and then the shimmer sparked into his staff weapon.
The explosion hit just as Teal'c was thrown back. The staff lit in the middle like a firecracker, the trigger point flashed, and Teal'c was flying back as the staff blew, parts somersaulting with him, the largest chunk imbedding itself into the ground next to his head. It happened too fast and too slow, and Daniel watched, fists clenched, the scream jammed in his throat, his stomach jolting with churning adrenaline.
Heart slamming into high gear, Daniel started out of the temple again. He stepped from cool shade into the sunlit doorway, tried for the steps, and ran straight into his side of that shimmer. It threw him back on his butt on the temple floor this time, left him staring at the dark blue and white stars--Nut's sky body--painted on the ceiling. Every muscle screamed and his bones ached with a low, deep throb.
He gasped for air. His two canteens dug into his lower back with sharp pressure. Another struggling breath and he stopped shaking long enough to twist and push up on one palm, rough stone scraping his skin. The shimmer was gone, so he crawled back to the doorway.
Teal'c was still on the ground, his staff in two parts, half of it thrown thirty feet from him and the other half stuck in the ground beside his head like a knight's broken pennant. Daniel willed the man's chest to rise, or for him to move, or show some sign of life. Nothing happened.
Pushing up to his feet, Daniel put a hand out and almost pulled it back, but he forced himself to touch that damn shimmer.
It pulsed under his touch, glowed, pushed back at him, and the harder he pushed, the brighter it glowed and resisted. It tingled soft, not electric, and burned like ice. He ran his hand across it, seeking any opening, but there wasn't one, so he pulled his hand away, glanced at the reddened skin left behind, then he looked down the stairs.
Teal'c still wasn't moving.
He should be. Even with all those ragged cuts over his right arm and the right side of his face and shredding the side of his vest, he should sit up and open his eyes and maybe lift an eyebrow. He should glance around with the disdain of a cat who'd been insulted by being tossed out of the house. Only he wasn't doing any of those things. Panic shuddered through Daniel. Then his radio crackled.
“Daniel--Teal'c, report? What the hell did we just hear?”
Jack's voice, steady as ever. Tense but even. Daniel took a breath, let the voice steady him. Sweat dripped into his eyes, so he wiped at it with the back of his hand and reached for the radio on his shoulder. His fingertips hurt and he winced when he pressed the button, but he ignored it. “Jack, Teal'c is down. He's not getting up. We're at the temple. It--seems we triggered something.”
“Hang tight. On the way.”
Glancing around, he took in the single doorway; no other exits, not even a window, just carved stone in a bare room. No visible controls. Not even an altar to serve as a focal point. Hang tight? God, what else could he do?
#
It took them a little over an hour, even at a steady double-time jog to get to the temple, and Jack was cursing in his head at every step. Why the hell didn't they ship ATVs through the 'gate or single-man flyers? He hadn't signed up with the Air Force to be a damned Marine, but here he was hoofing it across yet another desert. He should get Carter to come up with some transport they could assemble on this side of the 'gate, but he knew it'd never happen. No budget for it, no recognized need.
They weren't supposed to be exploring these days, just stepping through and stopping on the doorstep to test for minerals or trade for technology or grab a quick look at anything that might have military application. They weren't supposed to hike miles to see a temple. So this was going to look like Daniel was the reason this mission had gone belly-up. Ah, hell.
His temper kept him going--that and Carter pushing hard, her long legs matching his stride. Where did she get that energy and stamina? But he knew where, because he'd trained part of it and the rest came from the same worry driving him. At least Daniel had sounded okay--but Teal'c down? Never good. It took something more than nasty to put Teal'c on his ass.
It looked worse than that when they crested the last low hill and he saw Teal'c on his back and no sign of Daniel. Jack thumbed his radio. “Daniel, where the hell are you?”
The voice that came back sounded tired and braced. “Uh, still in the temple, Jack.”
The temple? The friggin' temple? What, he couldn't be bothered to come out and look after a friend? Only that was so wrong that Jack's worry kicked up to full afterburn. “Daniel?” He put all that worry and a ton of warning into the word, wanted whatever it was Daniel hadn't yet told them. They covered the distance to Teal'c at a run, and Carter went down on her knees next to him.
Unclipping her pack, she pulled it to her side and dragged out a med kit. Teal'c didn't twitch, but Jack could see his chest lifting and falling with uneven breaths, so the guy wasn't dead. But he looked too close to it.
Staying on his feet, finger on the trigger and safety switched off, Jack called out Daniel's name, yelled it instead of using the radio. He looked up to see Daniel in the doorway of the stone temple, at the top of a couple of dozen steps, maybe twenty feet away.
Without a word, Daniel put out a hand like he was about to wave. He touched something and it shimmered in front of him. Jack stared at it, wasn't sure what he was seeing, so he walked forward.
He stopped at the base of the stone steps when he heard a faint hissing like a light bulb about to burn out. Lifting a hand, Jack touched...something. It pushed back against his palm, pulsed with a shimmer under his fingertips, and he jerked his hand away. “Carter?” he barked out. Twisting, he glanced at her.
She had lifted her head and must have seen that shimmer because she let out a breath of air and muttered, “Holy--crap.” Then she asked, “Energy field? Force shield?”
He shook his head because he had no idea. Turning, he yelled up to the temple, “Daniel?”
Daniel was already ahead of him and waiting. He had his arms folded around him, and frowned and answered, that tired edge in his voice, “Yeah, I'm stuck. How's Teal'c?”
“What the hell happened?”
Daniel shrugged. “I--I don't know. I--” Lifting his hands, he broke off, and he sounded dazed enough Jack knew there was more behind that confusion than the shock of seeing Teal'c get knocked off his feet. But he couldn't get to Daniel to find out what the more was--like maybe a concussion. So he started walking.
Staying next to the hum, Jack walked a perimeter around the temple. He kept jabbing the muzzle of his P90 into air, kept getting silver-gold sparkles and the stink of ozone. Walk two steps, jab and watch the sizzle. And, yeah, it made a nice big circle around Daniel, seemed to stretch out about twenty feet in all directions. No way to get close to the man. Or that temple.
With no other options, Jack stalked back to Carter and Teal'c. His first aid skills sucked, always had, but he could do the basics better than anything he could do with whatever had Daniel stuck in that temple. He shot a look at Carter.
She looked back, worry in her eyes, mouth set. Nothing good here, in other words, and she wasn't leaving Teal'c. “Sir, he's lucky to be alive.” She gestured to the pieces of staff weapon, and Jack took in the burns and cuts on Teal'c right hand; his weapon had blown, and that meant lucky wasn't the half of it. Carter had bandages over the worst of the cuts, but Teal'c still didn't have his eyes open. “I think that energy field may have dampened the full blast, absorbed part of it. It's the only thing to account for why Teal'c isn't in more than a few pieces.”
“Uh, the field tossed him back.” They both turned and glanced at Daniel, and he went on, and Jack let out a breath to have Daniel with them at least good enough that he could start a lecture. “It tossed me back as well. It seems as if it responds with kinetic force to whatever acts against it. It's not exactly like a Goa'uld personal shield. It's, uhm, a lot thicker. Slow moving objects can't get through. And--” Daniel gestured toward the damaged staff weapon, his frown going tight and pulling lines to his forehead. “I think it interacts with naquadah.”
Standing, Jack walked to the edge of that hum and stared up at Daniel. “Can you turn it off?”
Daniel's mouth flattened. He lifted a hand, let it fall. “I'd barely stepped inside, when it--”
“So you stepped on the trigger?”
“No. I didn't. I've looked around and there aren't any controls inside. No triggers. Nothing. It's just a stone room. The architecture is definitely Egyptian. Early Dynastic, with similarities to the complex around Netjerikhet, or Djoser's, step py--”
“Daniel? What about a way out?”
“Oh, well, uh, there is writing--some hieratic, but mostly hieroglyphs, as you'd expect in a temple. No Goa'uld script. I haven't had time to do a full translation, but I think--” For once, Daniel cut off his own theory. He bit his lower lip and turned to the side.
Jack demanded, “What? You think what?”
But Daniel shook his head. He wasn't saying.
Unable to get in the guy's face, frustrated at that and with having a man down, Jack let his temper flare. Turning, he stalked back to Carter and Teal'c. “Carter!”
She jumped when he shouted her name, glanced up worried, just before her expression flattened to angry. Then she looked at the temple, at Daniel, and her mouth twisted as if she'd swallowed poison. She spat out the next set of words. “Sir, we need to get Teal'c to medical attention. Now.”
Jack looked from her to Teal'c, then back up to Daniel in that damn temple. Carter couldn't get Teal'c to the 'gate on her own. Even with the two of them, it'd be a struggle--so she knew what she was asking. They had to leave Daniel. Shaking his head, Jack looked for other options. A soft groan from Teal'c saved him from having to make a choice.
Kneeling in the sand, Jack rested the flat of his hand on the other man's chest. “Teal'c?” Eyes blinking open, Teal'c focused a stare on him, so Jack asked a stupid question and hoped for the answer he wanted, “You okay?”
Stare going unfocused, Teal'c didn't answer. Damn and damn and damn. That kind of disorientation was not good, and Jack started thinking about hemorrhaging in the brain and how quick that could kill.
“Can you stand?” he asked. Teal'c didn't answer that one either, but he frowned like maybe he'd understood and blinked like he was trying to get to an answer out. His lips parted, then pressed closed. Over pain was Jack's guess. So he turned to Carter. “Help me get him on his feet.”
She glanced at him, eyes sparking as if she didn't think this was a good idea, but she moved to Teal's left side, and that meant she didn't have any better plans. They got Teal'c upright and then to his feet, where he swayed, eyes still unfocused and dull, mouth slack, and Teal'c never looked like this, which sent Jack's worry off the scale. He glanced up at the temple once more.
Daniel was still in the doorway, arms folded and feet braced wide. He looked even more worried than Jack felt, deep lines etched on his face, his stare locked on Teal'c, the round shades over his glasses reflecting back the scene.
Then Daniel nodded and said, his voice too reasonable and too calm, “Go on. I'll be okay.”
#
Forcing his mouth to curve, Daniel hoped his expression looked like a smile. God, will you please just go. Teal'c looked drunk off his ass, which had to mean severe head trauma. Not good. But maybe his symbiote could heal him, or maybe it was as stunned as Teal'c and not able to do much of anything. God, they had to get Teal'c back to someone who could figure out what had happened, and what needed to be done. Someone who could help. And it wasn't like he was going anywhere--or that there was much of a threat to him here.
Go. Please go.
He wanted to say the words, but he didn't. Instead, he forced himself to stand still. He kept his fingers clenched on the sides of his vest as he stared at Jack. He couldn't say anything more because Jack was supposed to give the orders. But they had to leave now while they had daylight. The sun was already past its zenith. Night couldn't be far. And he really hoped nothing came out at night on this world.
But the place felt as dead as all reports had indicated, and not much of anything was getting past that energy field. One bit of good news in all the bad.
Pulling in a breath, he waited for Jack to reach the same conclusion; they had to get Teal'c back, so they had to leave him. Besides, it wasn't as if they weren't coming back. His fingers tightened on the stiff material of his vest. Of course they would be back.
Oh, god, this isn't working, please just go before I lose it here.
Jack, thankfully, nodded, then turned, his movements abrupt. He hesitated once more, glanced over his shoulder, his expression unreadable behind the dark sunglasses. “Next time you want a few more hours with a temple, find an easier way to get it.”
The words were supposed to be a joke, sarcastic, not cutting. But Jack was strung so tight, they came out sharp. Daniel overlooked that, read Jack's stance, the hesitation and uncertainty--he was more than hating his inability to resolve this. So Daniel pitched his answering tone to dry sarcasm. “I'll put in a requisition in triplicate.”
The barest smile edged Jack's mouth and slipped away. Sam--ah, poor Sam--couldn't even smile. She glanced back, eyes big and hurting, then she looked away and put her head down. Jack turned as well, slung an arm around Teal'c, and the three of them started a slow, awkward pace back to the Stargate, Teal'c stumbling so badly between the others that Daniel had to swallow hard. But he made himself stay where he was and watch his friends leave. Just in case it was the last time.
They'll be back. Teal'c will be fine.
The truth was he didn't know if Teal'c would live, and his friends were leaving him alone on a dead world.
But he'd been alone before.
Hell, he'd been left behind before. It wasn't fun, ever, but he had that experience and could deal with it. When he added up the years, he'd been alone most of his life. Nothing new there. But he'd never been utterly alone, left on a world without anyone or anything.
Well, maybe that once, when he'd slipped over to another reality with that mirror. And, oh, yeah, there was that time with the temple and the crystal skull and what the hell had Jack called the radiation--Nintendos? He's also been left with Nem. Damn--why did this keep happening to him?
Shivering, he shut down the memories, but they kept coming back like circling vultures, because it was about to happen yet again.
He'd be left on an empty world, and those other times he'd at least had giant aliens show up, or had Nem, or a hope that even on a dead world insects or animals could still be alive underground. This place didn't even have that. No, this was just…nothing. Which led him to thoughts of Sam's particles that blinked out, and how if you erased a man's name maybe you did erase more than his memory.
Ah, cheerful thoughts to go with being stuck in a stone room a galaxy far from everyone. But it was better to dwell on the philosophical implications rather than to think about how he had one full canteen and one half empty, and none of them had packed with the intent of being here more than a few hours. No, he didn't want to look at the practicalities of survival.
He didn't have a pack or a sleeping bag--this was supposed to be a day trip. He had a notebook, and he had whatever extra bits and pieces he could find in his vest. And he had a gun--swell. And friends who had to leave.
As soon as Sam and Jack crested the hill, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and turned away. He hunted for his notebook, pen and flashlight. With the sun on the down side, it was getting dark in the room. He only had that long slant of light from the doorway.
The light was enough to start with the walls again, working from the left side of the door. He'd have to sort out if the hieroglyphs should be read left to right, or top to bottom, or the opposite of all that. Once he had that settled, he'd do a full translation, ignore what he already suspected from his initial scans. He'd pretend for a short time that he didn't know anything about this temple.
By then, Jack and Sam would be back. They'd bring good news about Teal'c, and Sam would be brilliant and find a way to get him out of here, and Jack would be relieved and happy, not raking him down for getting stuck.
But even as he crafted the story, he knew that there was a very good reason why myths--all the stories mankind told itself--endured over long ages. It was because sometimes truth was just so unendurable.
Go to Part 3