SG1-17 Sunrise (9 page)

“They were in our heads, Daniel! They were screwing around with our minds. And what did we get out of it? Nada. Zilch.” He slammed his fist against his chest. “Nothing but a pain in the goddamn ass.”

“We saved those people from slavery,” Major Carter said, her back still turned. “That counts for something.”

“Not enough,” O’Neill growled. “And, just so we’re clear, this time we’re here for the shield. And that’s all. Got it?”

“Well, you can’t just…”

The rest of Daniel Jackson’s protest faded from Teal’c’s ears as he saw a shape detach itself from one of the buildings in the darkness beyond the plaza. “O’Neill.” He raised his weapon and dropped into a defensive crouch. “Someone approaches.”

“Carter?” Teal’c heard the snap as O’Neill unsafed his weapon.

“Nothing this side, sir.” Her voice was tense, but calm.

Then, from the shadows, stepped the slender figure of Rhionna Channon, her hands raised. “It’s me.”

“Are you alone?” Teal’c peered into the darkness but could see no other movement.

“Entirely,” she said, stopping some distance away. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. I was obliged to dine with my father tonight. He would have become suspicious had I not attended.”

Keeping her covered, Teal’c rose. Behind him, he sensed O’Neill moving forward. “I guess they’re already wondering where we are.”

“Yes,” she said. “The Elect Guard have been deployed to search. We must leave this place before sun-up.”

“Must we?” O’Neill stepped forward, his weapon leveled. “And where
must
we go?”

At his side, Daniel Jackson sighed. “Jack…”

“
Daniel
.” He shifted his weapon, using it to indicate Rhionna Channon. “I’ve got a better idea. We stay right here and you tell us what you know about the shield.”

The woman lowered her hands. No longer dressed in the gown in which she had attended the chapter, she was once more attired as if for hard work. “I cannot tell you all you wish to know,” she said, her gaze holding O’Neill’s. “However, I will take you to a woman who can.”

“Bring her here.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. “You must trust me, Colonel O’Neill. The Elect will tell you nothing of
Sciath Dé
—it terrifies them. But I can. I can help you, but you must come with me—you must trust me.”

“And why should I do that?”

Folding her arms across her chest, Rhionna Channon appeared as intransigent as O’Neill. “Because, if you want to find God’s Shield, you have no choice.”

* * *

The city after nightfall was just plain weird, and Jack couldn’t help thinking back to Daniel’s talk of war, plague, and disaster. There was definitely something post-apocalyptic about the dark, empty skyscrapers that loomed along the outskirts while the city’s tiny heart flickered with the plasma-glare of 180” screens hanging from the sides of buildings.

Rhionna kept them far away from the light as she led them through the city, and Jack was grateful—if only because he was spared from having to watch more of the god awful soap being pumped out into the streets.

“You’d think they’d get bored,” Carter murmured.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Daniel said. He was a couple of steps in front, head turning from side to side as he tried to take it all in at once. “If this is the only entertainment they can get, the only culture permitted…”

“It is the only culture they want,” Rhionna said, glancing back at them. There was anger in her dark eyes, a flare of frustration. “They are like animals at the trough, eating only what they are given, without question.”

“But you question,” Daniel said. “What makes you different?”

Her expression sharpened and she looked away. “What I have seen,” she said with a frown. “What I will show you.”

It was the truth, Jack thought, but not the whole truth. There was something she wasn’t telling them.

Up ahead, a knot of people suddenly appeared around a corner. Rhionna stopped dead, breathing something under her breath. It was difficult to make out details, but Jack knew a soldier when he saw one and instantly raised his weapon. Teal’c and Carter did the same, only Daniel lifted empty hands. “Daniel,” Jack hissed, jerking his head in a get-behind-me motion.

Daniel ignored him, of course. “Who are they?” he said to Rhionna.

“The Elect Guard. Stay here.” Over her shoulder she glanced at Jack. “Lower your weapon.”

“I don’t think so.”

The soldiers had also stopped, taking up a defensive posture as one man detached himself from the group.

“Captain Tanner,” Rhionna said, walking toward him.

“Brother Camus thought you would have some hand in this business,” the captain said. He spoke quietly, more anxious than angry. “Would that I had not discovered you.”

“Then look with blind eyes, Captain,” she said. “I am taking them to the Badlands.”

Badlands?
Jack exchanged a look with Daniel who just shrugged.

The soldier spared them a glance. “Tonight? Rhionna—they
staked three in the Burn just yesterday. Three found in the tunnels. It’s not safe.”

“This is my only chance to show them.”

“But to what end?”

“To…” She hesitated. “They need information. Does not the Message teach that we should help those in need?”

With a snort, Tanner said, “I had not thought you paid so much attention to the Message, Rhionna.”

“Only when it is in my interest to do so.” Reaching out, she touched the man’s arm. “They seek
Sciath Dé
. If they can find it…”

The captain looked from her face back toward SG-1. “You have no reason to trust them; did they not come from the Other Place?”

“Tanner, you know we must question all we are told. Everything we know of the Other Place is told to us through the Message. How can we trust it?”

He looked down at his boots, thinking. At Jack’s side, Carter mouthed ‘Other Place?’ When Tanner spoke again, it was in a voice so low that Jack could barely hear him. “Very well, this night my eyes are blind to you and my men will keep their silence. But go quick, Rhionna Channon. The Elect fear these strangers.”

“I know,” she said. “And that is why we should trust them.” She squeezed his arm. “My thanks, Captain Tanner, to you and your men. I know what you risk.”

Then she turned back to Jack and beckoned them forward. “We must hurry. This way.” With that, she disappeared around a corner.

Carter broke into a jog to follow, Daniel and Teal’c on her heels. Jack brought up the rear, casting a glance at the soldier watching them with serious eyes. Neither spoke, but in the gloom Jack saw an honest face and gave the man a nod. Tanner did the same, then spun on his heel and returned to his men.

Clearly there was much more going on in the Ark than met the eye.

And Jack hated that.

Gripping his weapon more tightly, he followed his team. As he rounded the corner, he saw Rhionna crouching in the middle of the road, staring at the pavement.

Jack drew closer. “What’s going on?”

Tension in her face, Carter shot him a look. “Secret passage.”

“Not secret,” Rhionna said, grunting with effort as she lifted a heavy metal plate from the road. “But hidden from these
òinseach
.”

The foreign word held enough bile not to need translation. And, anyway, Daniel didn’t seem to be paying attention. His gaze was fixed on the gaping black hole Rhionna had just opened up. “Down there?” he said with a rasp in his voice.

Jack felt something thump hard in his chest, a beat of alien panic. Jonah’s panic. Carter shuffled her feet, fingers turning white where she grasped her weapon. And Daniel glanced up at the night sky as if drawing strength.

He remembered, like half a half-forgotten scent, his first day in the mines. Except he’d never been in the mines and it wasn’t really his memory.

Other memories were, though; memories of unremitting labor and lightless, stifling heat. The tasteless slop, the constant hunger, the hopelessness—

“What’s down there?” Carter’s voice broke into his thoughts.

Rhionna looked up, the distant light of a dozen television screens catching in her eyes. “They are service tunnels—engineers use them to maintain the city’s water and sewage systems.”

“No boiler rooms, then?” Jack said, mostly for the benefit of his team.

Daniel’s mouth curled toward a bitter smile, but Carter’s gaze remained locked on the metal ladder leading down into the dark.

Rhionna frowned. “Boiler rooms?”

“Never mind.” Jack took a breath and pushed the memories aside—over the years he’d grown accustomed to locking certain thoughts into little dark rooms, and this was no different. “You wanna tell us where we’re going?”

He met Rhionna’s gaze, taking the measure of her. She
stood up, unfazed by his scrutiny. “Outside the Ark. This is the
only way to leave. You will have to trust me, Jack O’Neill.”

“I guess I will.” He flung a look at Teal’c, who nodded—it wasn’t exactly approval, more like agreement, but it was welcome; Teal’c’s instincts were always on the money.

“There is light in the tunnel,” Rhionna said, without waiting for more of an answer. She swung onto the ladder, slipping down fast and sure, and Jack was reminded of a firefighter.

“I’ll take point,” he said, stepping onto the ladder and testing his weight on the iron rungs; they felt solid. “Teal’c, cover our six.”

With that, he started to climb down and tried not to imagine the crushing weight of a mile of ice above his head.

* * *

Sam had never in her whole life felt claustrophobic. Yet, as she reached the bottom of the ladder and blackness pressed in around her, her breaths came short and sharp. She grabbed her weapon, the weight in her hands familiar and comforting, but the clamor of the power plant still echoed in her mind and incipient panic clawed at her chest.

Then light flared, a magnesium-bright lantern held aloft by Rhionna. Sam forced the tension in her shoulders to ease and in the bone-white glare saw Daniel squinting and turning away. He looked strange with his short hair, less like Daniel and more like Karlan.

She didn’t like it down here, in the depths.

“I don’t like it down here.” Daniel’s words were all but drowned by the scrape of metal on stone that ricocheted down the tunnel. Teal’c had shut the manhole cover.

Sam took a breath and let it out slowly.

“This way.” Rhionna turned to lead them out into a wider space.

Sam followed, aware of the colonel falling in beside her. She didn’t look at him, afraid that in this place she might see another man looking back. To distract herself from the confusion of memories, she focused on understanding exactly where they were.

The tunnel was rough-hewn, but with enough conformity to suggest that it had been excavated mechanically rather than by hand. The stone was gray and dry, cut on a gentle downward slope, and through the center of the tunnel ran three large pipes supported at intervals by struts. Her footsteps scuffed on the stone, but all was not silent and, in the distance, Sam could hear the hum and clank of machinery.

She tried not to hear the steam-hiss of boilers.

“We’ll go down here,” their guide said, stopping before what looked like a cage. It took a moment for Sam to interpret the shadows well enough to realize it was an elevator. Of sorts. Rhionna rattled open the door and stepped inside, lifting her lamp high. “It’s not far once we get down.”

“How deep does it go?” Daniel asked as they all piled in.

“Almost to sea-level.”

The ride down was teeth-rattling and very fast; Sam had to brace herself against the side of the cage to keep her balance. Daniel’s eyes were wide, but the colonel just grinned.

“Cool,” he said, as they juddered to a halt.

“Indeed.” Even Teal’c had cracked a small smile.

They followed Rhionna through another long tunnel, at the end of which, finally, crouched a heavy, barred door. It looked like an airlock and Sam couldn’t help wondering what it was designed to keep out.

Rhionna slung the lamp’s handle over a peg on the wall, its light dancing wildly in the tunnel. From her pocket she fished a scarlet bandana, tied it low across her brow, then she tugged out a pair of makeshift sunglasses. “You have sunwear?” she asked, gesturing toward SG-1. “I noticed that you wore it when you first arrived here.”

The colonel pulled out his shades. “Bright out there?”

“Fierce,” she said. “Dawn has broken and we are beyond the dome. Cover what you can.”

Despite her unease, Sam’s interest was piqued. “The dome acts as a UV filter?”

Rhionna’s quick gaze fixed on her, assessing. “If you mean it protects the people inside from sun damage, then yes, that is what it does.” She turned toward the door and began to spin the wheel that kept it locked. “The Ark protects them from many harsh realities.”

The first thing Sam noticed as the door swung open was the stark light. The second was a dry wash of heat, permeated by an unbearable stench. She put her hand to her nose. “God, what’s that?”