Heart's Desire (40 page)

For a moment, it did feel unreal, like looking at a picture postcard of somewhere he'd been stationed and knowing that the real place was dirtier and colder. He had the sudden feeling that unless he turned around right now and walked back into the pyramid, when he did, Kawalsky wouldn't be sitting by the fire bragging to Skaara, and Sha're wouldn't be shaking her head and offering to go find her wayward husband for them. Because…

He wasn't going to finish that thought. Absolutely not.

“There's nothing wrong,” he said. “Except maybe that you've been out in the sun too much.” He clapped Daniel on the shoulder. “Come on, Sha're's probably ready to march up here and drag you in by the ear.”

“She wouldn't do that,” Daniel said. “Probably.”

“You don't want to find out,” Jack said. He headed down the stairs with Daniel behind him. Halfway down, there was a faint rumbling in the distance, the grumble of thunder like the sound of stone moving on stone.

“Storm coming?” Jack asked.

“We get them from time to time,” Daniel said. “They can be pretty dramatic.”

“So let's not go out in it,” Jack said. “We'll stay nice and dry and have another cup of tea before we have to go home.”

“You're probably right,” Daniel said as they came back out into the biggest of the rooms where the Abydonians made their homes. Jack could see his team from across the room, sitting cross-legged at Daniel's hearth, Kawalsky still apparently telling some lengthy story with Skaara and a handful of other boys as his admiring audience. “We'll probably be fine in here.”

T
here was a knock on the doorframe, and Sam spun around, startled.

“Ready to go, kiddo?” Jacob said. “Your mom's waiting out in the car.”

“Almost,” Sam said. “I just want to finish looking over these experiments one more time. There's something that really bothers me.”

“Sam,” Jacob said, shaking his head at her. “It can wait, right? Ask your friends to come along if you want.”

It was tempting. There wasn't any urgency in a sense that things had been too easy for them from the beginning. Not unless it meant that everything she thought she knew about the last two years was the result of something that was currently affecting her mind.

“Actually, I don't think it can,” Sam said. “I think there may be something seriously wrong, and I need to figure out what it is.”

Jacob frowned, and then shrugged rueful agreement, his expression softening. “What can I say to that? Of course the job comes first.”

“That's right,” Sam said, with a sudden sense of relief she couldn't explain. “Not that I wouldn't like to take the evening off, but right now what I want most is to figure out this problem
—”

The floor suddenly shook violently under her feet, and she reached frantically for the gravity drive. She had been sure she'd shut it off, but maybe it had malfunctioned. She hadn't really meant it that she'd be happier if something went badly wrong.

She stumbled as something hit her in the shoulder, knocking her off-balance, and then threw up her hands for protection against a shower of dust and chips of stone from above. In the distance, there was the ominous rumble of stone.

I'm in the caves under the Ancient ruins,
Sam realized
, and we have a problem.

“I
t is the kind of trick the gods might well play on our people,” Teal'c said. “To allow us to believe that we are free of them, only to betray us into showing them open rebellion in order to crush us utterly.” The thunder rumbled again, closer and more menacing.

“And then where would they be without us? We were the source of their power,” Bra'tac said. “They would never destroy our whole people. And even if they tried
—” He spread his hands. “Here we are, strong and whole, with ships to serve us and an army at our backs. The hand of the gods is not raised against us. They are dead, Teal'c. Nothing more than stories to tell our children's children about the days when we were not yet free.”

“There is nothing I want more,” Teal'c said.

“Then stop worrying.”

“Tell me how we were able to achieve such a great victory in so little time,” Teal'c said. “Or why it was not done generations before, if it were so easy. You said yourself that I am hardly the first to believe that the Goa'uld are not gods.”

“Can you not believe that you are the first with the skill to lead others to believe it as well?”

“And what of weapons? How were we able to arm ourselves, and to take possession of so many Goa'uld ships while losing
—
as you said
—
only a few Jaffa? How is it that we can survive now without the symbiotes that have enslaved us for so long?”

“The knowledge of the Tau'ri,” Bra'tac said easily.

“Perhaps,” Teal'c said, but the answer did not satisfy him. He remembered well Major Carter telling him that the creations of the Tau'ri were science, not magic, and that they required time for understanding and testing before anything new could be created. There was something wrong here, some deception, and it troubled him more than anything that Bra'tac would not see it. “If so, why do I not remember it? Why is today's celebration more clear in my mind than last night's battle?”

“You are weary,” Bra'tac said.

“Not so weary that it should be affecting my mind,” Teal'c said firmly. “I remember boarding Apophis's ship, but not the planning of the battle. Tell me of that, if you can.” He hesitated, but a cold weight in the pit of his stomach made him press on. “Or can you not?”

He expected a stern rebuke as Bra'tac stood, but instead Bra'tac came to stand before him, laying a hand on Teal'c's arm and looking down at him with solemn eyes. “Let it be, Teal'c,” he said. “There is no more need for so many questions. Be content.”

“If we have traded the lies of the false gods for another lie, we have won nothing.”

“We have won our freedom,” Bra'tac said. “That is what we have spent long years fighting for.”

“There can be no freedom without the truth,” Teal'c said.

He felt himself jolted, and for a moment he thought that Bra'tac had struck him. Then he realized he was standing in a stone cavern bathed in a blood-red light, and that the room was shaking as if it would collapse at any moment.

“This is a problem,” Major Carter said, shielding her face from chips of stone that were now showering down on her.

“Nice of you to join us,” Daniel Jackson said, the words coming out in a rush. “Help me figure out how to turn this thing off.”

“It appears the device of the Ancients was indeed effective,” Teal'c said. It had seemed vividly real, every detail, Drey'auc's hair warm against his face and the sounds of his people celebrating their freedom…

“How about we agree not to talk about that right now,” Daniel Jackson said, his voice sounding strained.

“Agreed,” Teal'c said as Major Carter moved forward to investigate the device. He glanced around the chamber. Keret was standing gazing blankly at the wall, his open hand still held in front of him as if he gripped a weapon. Reba lay sprawled on the floor, her eyes now open but as blank as Keret's.

A few steps away, O'Neill stood staring into space, his own face empty. “Colonel O'Neill,” Teal'c said urgently. “You must wake up.”

“I tried that,” Daniel Jackson said. “It's the device. I think there must have been some kind of safety measure originally, probably some kind of priesthood or staff for this place who could turn the device off if the user… well, if the user didn't want to come back.”

“Which implies there is a way to turn it off,” Major Carter said.

“Yeah, but we don't know how. And I think that's the problem. After the Ancients left, people kept finding this place and turning on the device. They just didn't have anyone who knew how to turn it off, or who could even break free of the illusion long enough to try to turn it off, and so I think a lot of them just… stayed here.” He nodded pointedly toward the skeletal remains on the floor.

“We could just take Colonel O'Neill and leave,” Major Carter said.

Daniel Jackson looked skeptical. “What if that doesn't snap him out of it? If we leave and can't get back down here later to disable the device
—”

“We snapped ourselves out of it,” Major Carter said. “Presumably the colonel can too.”

They looked at O'Neill, who was still staring contentedly at the wall.

“Presumably…”

“If I can't figure out how to turn this thing off, we're going to have to try it,” Major Carter said. “This whole cliff could collapse over our heads pretty much any time now.”

“And then we what, rappel up a cliff with three unconscious people during a landslide?” He frowned. “I mean, not that they didn't repeatedly threaten to kill us and each other, but I would feel bad about just leaving Reba and Keret here to be crushed by falling rocks or eventually starve to death.”

“We came down the stairs,” Major Carter said without looking up, her attention on the device.

“Okay, so maybe we can
—”

“Here's the thing,” Major Carter said, turning. Her voice was very deliberately calm, the tone that Teal'c had learned to associate with imminent explosions. “I have no idea how to turn this thing off without pulling it out of the wall and taking it apart, and even if I had the tools to do that, I don't think we have the time.”

“What do you suggest?” Teal'c said.

“We shoot it,” Major Carter said. “Daniel, I know it's an incredibly old alien artifact
—”

“That's turned into a deathtrap,” he said. “I think you may be right.”

“What of Colonel O'Neill? If he is still under its power when it is destroyed
—”

“In a couple more minutes, it's not going to matter, because the roof is going to come down and crush this thing,” Major Carter said. “We can destroy it now, or we can watch it be destroyed while we get killed by falling rocks.”

“Your point is well-made,” Teal'c said. He armed his zat'ni'ktel, wishing for the greater firepower of his staff weapon, and aimed it at the center of the violently-shaking heart.

J
ack opened his eyes to the sound of thunder. No, not thunder, but an ominous rumbling that was growing louder. It felt like it was raining, though, although when he stretched out his hands, what was showering down on them was dust.

“Sir! We have to get out of here!” Carter shouted, tugging at his arm.

He shook his head, taking in the scene in disjointed images. The heart-shaped carving on the wall was blackened and charred, as if it had been struck by lightning. Keret was dashing for the entrance, his hands protectively over his head as stone showered down, and Daniel was hauling Reba up by the arm, propelling her toward the doorway.

At the same time, he could still see in his mind's eye the flickering torchlight on Abydos. It still felt like he could steer Daniel across the room to his hearth to sit down and drink some tea, and trade war stories until it was time to walk back to the room where the gate rested that would take him swiftly back to the mountain. He'd be able to get home in time for dinner—

“Sir!”

He started moving, then, driven by the urgency in her voice, and after a few steps rational thought kicked back in. He started choosing his path more deliberately, heading for the entrance while trying to avoid the columns that were visibly toppling. “Did you shoot that thing?” he yelled, raising his voice to carry over the din of falling rock.

“Teal'c shot it!”

“Good!”

He hung back at the doorway, making sure Daniel and Carter were out before he ducked under the archway himself, willing it not to collapse on him as he did. Teal'c was in the hallway waiting for them.