SG1-17 Sunrise (22 page)

“I think it was a prototype of sorts,” Muirne was saying. “As far as I know, they built it before the Ark.”

“They?”

“The men of Knowledge, those who were cast out.” She smiled. “Ennis Channon and his ilk, I believe, call them heretics, though their only heresy was wanting to help their people survive the Great Flood.”

We are helping our people survive an ice age…

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. “We found them,” he said. In his mind, he saw the open grave, the skulls with holes in them. “I think we found them on
Acarsaid Dorch
. They’d been killed.” He stopped dead in the street. “Wait! Are you telling me they were killed because they were trying to prevent this flood?”

Muirne shrugged. “Ours is a dark and bloody past, Colonel O’Neill, but I’m not a gatherer of stories. Speak to Sorcha Caratauc if you wish to know more. I only know that they built this place as a refuge, the first of several, with the Ark being the last and the greatest. A shelter for all against the coming floods, a place of refuge until… Well, then we return to children’s stories, hmm?”

“If this is a refuge, then why’s it empty? There are thousands of people in the Badlands who could come here. Why doesn’t Faelan bring them?” As far as he could tell the vast spaces and empty buildings could shelter countless more people.

Muirne’s gaze drifted back to where Faelan stacked barrels and crates with his men. “It was his intention to do just that. He had a plan…” She sighed, a sad sound. “He was so consumed by the idea back then, so sure it would work. Hardly more than a boy he was, though I doubt I’ll ever see him as anything else. Back then he still had that drive. He still had dreams.” She paused, as if considering how much to say. Jack kept silent, curious despite himself to hear the story. It was hard for him to imagine the cynical Seachráni as an idealistic youngster.

“There was a girl, you see,” continued Muirne. “I think there often is in such cases. She gave him hope.”

“Rhionna Channon,” said Jack.

Muirne looked at him in surprise. “You know her.”

“She, uh… She sailed with us to the Cove.” Considering the woman’s affection for Faelan, Jack decided not to divulge the full details.

“She came back? She is with him again?” In contrast to the wary reception Rhionna had received among the
Seachrání
, this woman seemed to almost welcome the news.

“Maybe you’d better ask Faelan about that.”

Muirne rolled her eyes. “For all the response I’d get. He’s tight-lipped, is our Finn. Even with me.” She shook her head. “It was Rhionna who told him about the
Tearmann
and the other places like it. She learned about them from Sorcha. I suppose you’d say it was Rhionna’s idea in the first place. We were living at the Cove then. Cramped and overcrowded.” Her smile held something nostalgic. “It was home of a sort, but not a place to raise children.”

“You’re Seachráni then.”

“We all are, Colonel, though many of us no longer take to the water.”

“So it was Faelan who brought you here?”

She nodded. “He wanted to create a real sanctuary here, a place of safety, where his people could be happy. I think he hoped for too much though. He worked too hard trying to bring it to pass and for a while it seemed that his plan would bear fruit. But then…”

“Then?”

Muirne fixed him with a shrewd gaze. “A storm. Bad it was, but not the worst we’ve weathered. This place is over two hundred years old, Colonel O’Neill, and these buildings were derelict all that time. That night, two of them collapsed when a section of the dome caved in; three families died here, buried beneath the rubble, and Faelan has carried them with him all the years since.”

This was a burden Jack understood all too well. And he understood how hard it was to let go. “Wasn’t his fault.”

Muirne shrugged. “At night we still must burn oil lamps, and the dome does nothing to keep out the heat. Our crops wilt beneath the sun, and we are always hungry. Like Faelan said, Colonel, look around you. This is not the future he dreamed for his people.”

“At least he tried,” said Jack, watching the hive of activity in the compound. “Y’know, some might say that he even succeeded.”

Going by Muirne’s smile, she was pleased that Jack got it. “Yes, some might say that. Not Faelan though. He only sees where he failed. He only remembers those people who died. He doesn’t see the gratitude of those whose lives are better because of his actions.”

“Those people,” asked Jack, “would they call him their leader?”

Her eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Would you?”

Jack shook his head. “He’s too angry.”

“Sometimes a leader needs to be angry. Sometimes they need that fire.”

With a purse of his lips, Jack conceded the point, but then said, “He’s bitter though. That’s never a good thing.”

“He’s young. He needs someone to temper that. When he met Rhionna, I thought…” She let the sentence trail off. “I’m still proud of him, Colonel O’Neill. Never doubt that.”

An earlier suspicion of Jack’s solidified at those words. “What mother wouldn’t be?” he observed.

Muirne’s answering smile was confirmation enough. Then she glanced over his shoulder and her smile widened. Jack turned to find Faelan walking towards them, wiping his face with a rag. His eyes narrowed and shifted between Muirne and Jack, as if he knew he’d been the subject of their conversation.

“You’ll stay for the evening meal,” said Muirne.

Faelan shook his head. “I can’t, it’s not safe to delay much longer. Which is part of the reason I’ve come. To warn you –”

“About the storm.”

“You already know?”

Grinning, Muirne patted her son’s cheek. “Remember who it is you’re talking to, boy. You think I haven’t tasted it in the air for a week now? You think I can’t see what sits on the horizon? We’ve already closed off the unstable sections. We’ll be fine.”

Faelan nodded and looked down at the rag he twisted in his hands. Then he cleared his throat. “There’s another thing. The people I brought with me. There are families among them, children. They can’t stay at the Cove any longer.”

“There is room for them here,” said Muirne, clasping his shoulder.

His throat worked as he swallowed—gratitude or shame?—but when he spoke his voice was steady and matter of fact. “Keep them safe.”

“Always.”

“If…” He heaved a breath. “If the storm is as bad as we think, I might never be able to come back here.”

Muirne shook her head. “I’ll see you again,
leanbh
. I’ll see you again.” She placed her hands on either side of his face, her eyes bright now. “Ah, Finn, my warrior boy. What burdens you have on your shoulders, eh? Won’t you let someone share them for a while?”

But Faelan drew back. “
Slán,
máthair,”
he said, his voice breaking on the last word.

“
Slán, my boy. Goodbye, and go well.” But she spoke to her son’s retreating back, and Jack had no choice but to follow Faelan back to his ship.

The lights
flickered, but the electronic lock didn’t move. Cursing under her breath, Sam kept her ID card poised in the slim crack between the door and the frame. Her back ached, her shoulders were stiff, and she waited for a chance that might not even come any time soon.

A low rumble filtered down into their windowless cell, and Sorcha lifted her head. “It comes,” she said. “No more than a day.”

“The storm?” Sam glanced up at the ceiling as if she could see through it to the sky above.

“I can feel it. If we were outside, I could smell it.”

Teal’c hovered at Sam’s side, ready to rush the door. “Sorcha Caratauc,” he said, “do you believe this storm will overwhelm the place you call the Cove?”

She sniffed, pulling her arms closer to her chest. “I’m no Seachráni, I have not their weather-lore. If Faelan says the Cove will stand, then it will stand.”

“But he didn’t,” Sam said, blinking her eyes back into focus on the lock. Any minute now the lights would flicker and the lock would disengage… “It was pretty clear he thought the Cove was in danger, even if he didn’t say as much.”

Sorcha grunted. “Perhaps.”

“Which means Daniel and Jonah are in danger.”

There was a pause, enough time for her stomach to clench and a flush of angry heat to color her face. Then Teal’c said, “Major Carter?”

Through gritted teeth she growled, “I’m fine. Slip of the tongue.”

Another roll of thunder filled the room, not the sharp crack of a storm overhead, but the low snarl of a distant and menacing beast. Again, the lights flickered but the bolt did not move. Sam spat another curse.
Come on, come on
… She needed to get out of this place, needed to move. To
do
something.

Behind her, the theme of
Sunrise
began to swell. Again. The music scraped across her skin, jangling claws snatching at the breath in her lungs. “Come on!”

* * *

In the distant height of his lodging, the topmost apartment in the Chapel, Ennis Channon did not watch the replay of the most recent chapter of
Sunrise
.

Instead he stood at the window, looking out through the opalescent protection of the Ark toward a dark horizon. Smudged by the dome, he could still see the crouching clouds menacing the sunset. He could still see the flash of white light, hear the distant thunder.

A storm was coming.

Fear churned in the pit of his stomach, an anxiety even his devotion to the Lord could not quell. For though his daughter was already lost to him, he could not help but think of her out there, amid the violence of the storm. His fingers clenched, and he imagined them around the neck of the Seachráni scum who had stolen his child and corrupted her soul, turned her against the light of the Sun and cast her into this black and vicious storm.

But in truth, her blood was not solely on the hands of Faelan
Garret. Even now, within the
Sunrise
building, Tynan Camus was at work on a new chapter of the Message, indifferent to the Rhionna’s plight, damning her without mercy, though she was guilty of nothing except misguided compassion.

As lightning tore across the sky, Ennis could not help but question the god who could call such a punishment just.

* * *

The lights dipped, distant thunder growled, and Major Carter’s hiss of triumph cut through the momentary darkness.

“Got it.” She was crouched before the door, one hand pressed
flat to its surface, jamming the slender ID card between the bolt and the frame. “Teal’c, get this open.”

Only when he moved to stand behind her, surveying the narrow crack, did he understood the flaw in her plan; the door opened inward, and there was no handle, nothing on which to obtain purchase. The lock might have been deactivated, but the pressure Major Carter exerted to stop it from reengaging kept the door firmly closed. He ran his fingers down its edge, nails slipping as he tried to pull it open. Had O’Neill been present, he would have voiced an appropriate expletive.

“Damn it,” Carter hissed, when she realized the problem. “We need some kind of lever.”

Teal’c’s gaze strayed to the wall-mounted television on the far side of the cell. The now familiar voices droned above a background of syrupy music, and he lifted an eyebrow in sudden anticipation. “Sorcha Caratauc,” he said, marching across the room, “step away from the screen.”

One hand either side of the television, he tested the weight and then yanked at the device with a sudden movement. A spark of protesting electronics flew up, metal ground against stone, and the screen blinked to black. The cell fell into silence, bar the fizzing of torn cables, a silence which he shattered by dropping the screen to the floor.

“Umph,” Sorcha grunted. “Would that more screens suffered the same fate.”

Bracing one foot against its back, Teal’c wrapped both hands around a strut of the metal bracket that had fastened the television to the wall. He pulled and it came away, a shard of plastic casing clinging to one end.

Major Carter grinned at him over her shoulder. “Nice.”

Knowing that the disturbance might well have triggered an alarm, Teal’c dropped to his knees, cheek pressed against the cool floor, and slid the twisted metal bracket beneath the door, then turned it so that the bent end caught. “Keep the card in place,” he told Major Carter.

It was the work of a moment. The door gave, the locking mechanism came free of the frame, and Major Carter rocked back onto her heels and dropped her arm. “Good work,” she whispered, rising into a low crouch as she peered out of the cell. “Clear,” she said, glancing back at him.

With a nod, he moved to take point. Behind him, Major Carter said, “Sorcha, stay close. If we meet any resistance, just keep out of the way. Teal’c and I can handle it.”

The old woman snorted. “I’ve taken care of myself these fifty years or more, girl.” Nonetheless she did as Major Carter had bidden as Teal’c shoved open the door and stepped into the corridor outside.