She s.n.a.t.c.hed back her hand, wincing. "Sorry, sir."
Expecting another sour complaint, she was amazed when he just said, "Nah, it was only my eye. I"ve got a spare."
Bottling her surprise, not quite knowing how to respond, she found her sleeping bag in silence and crawled inside, pulling it up right under her chin against the chill of the cave. Away from the fire the damp stone seemed to be pressing in all around them. She shivered.
They were all quiet for a moment, lying close together in the darkness. Outside she could hear the muted sounds of their hosts settling down for the night, low voices and the rustle of their straw pallets. It was comforting, in a way, and she could feel herself start to unwind for the first time in days - maybe months. Aching muscles sank into the scant comfort of her bedroll, her eyes closing as sleep stole up on her. Next to her, Daniel yawned. None of them had slept much the night before and she felt safe here - the colonel hadn"t even bothered to set a watch.
"So... zombies, huh?"
Despite the tension stacked up between them, Sam smiled; the colonel sounded like a kid telling scary stories after lights-out at camp. "Whatever they are, sir, I think we can rule out the cast of Thriller."
"It is most likely that they are Goa"uld," Teal"c said.
"Flesh-eating snakeheads?" The colonel gave an exaggerated sigh. "Is it me, or is this whole situation CATFUed, Carter?"
"What?" Daniel said, puzzled. "Cat food?"
Sam snorted a laugh, mostly born of stress and exhaustion, and then found that she couldn"t stop.
The colonel didn"t laugh, but she could hear a smile in his voice when he said, "No giggling."
And that made it worse, made it harder to stop laughing, and for a moment - a moment - it felt like old times, like things were normal again.
Shifting on his pallet, Daniel said, "Okay, what am I missing?"
"Carter? Care to translate for our linguist... ?"
It took her a couple of tries before she could get a grip on her giggles. "CATFU, Daniel," she managed at last. "C.A.T.F.U. Completely and Totally, um, "Fouled" Up."
"Ah. Military humor. Ha ha."
"Cat food," Sam laughed again. "This situation is Whiskas, sir."
Daniel chuckled and even the colonel huffed a quiet laugh. Silence fell for a while as their laughter subsided, a good silence, as if they were all enjoying the rare moment of camaraderie. It was probably the first time they"d laughed together since before Edora.
But eventually the moment pa.s.sed and Daniel said, "You know, I think Teal"c might be right about the Goa"uld."
"You think they"re flesh-eating snakes?"
"Well, no. I mean, I don"t know about the flesh-eating part, but I do know the term Amam."
The colonel shifted. Now that her eyes were used to the dark, Sam could see him loop his hands behind his head and settle in for the long haul. "Let"s hear it then."
"It"s quite simple really," Daniel said. "The Book of the Dead describes a set of demonic ent.i.ties that harrow the dead in the between-realm of the afterlife. They"re known as Devourers, or Amam, who feed on parts of the body and soul."
"Sounds like fun."
"Well, they are demons..." He cleared his throat. "Teal"c, have you ever heard of the Amam, or any kind of "undead" creature?"
"I have not," Teal"c said. "But it does not follow that they do not exist. I have not encountered everything in this galaxy."
"True," the colonel said. "You haven"t even encountered my lake yet."
"Is that an invitation to fish, O"Neill?"
"Maybe it is."
And maybe, Sam thought, it was something about this darkness that was lightening the colonel"s mood because somehow he was more himself now than he had been in weeks. And she felt lighter for it too, because perhaps it meant he wasn"t so lost to them after all.
"You know," she said, "these Amam could just be the Jaffa of a new System Lord who"s come in here and wiped out whoever used to be in charge."
"That"s what I was thinking." Daniel turned toward her, his gla.s.ses glinting in the faint light seeping around the door. "They"re probably Jaffa mythologized into "undead" creatures by whatever Goa"uld first ruled this world. Perhaps they"ve even taken on the persona of Amam?"
"And don"t forget the sarcophagus," Sam added. "I mean, talk about rising from the dead..."
"Yes! I think we can say we"re not dealing with real live - or is that real undead? - zombies."
"I hope you"re right," the colonel said, "because Night of the Living Dead spooked the h.e.l.l outa Teal"c."
"It did not, O"Neill."
"He"s just saying that. He was watching through his fingers."
Sam grinned, she couldn"t help herself. "At least one thing"s clear, sir. Whoever these "Devourers" are, they can use the Stargate network. And that means there"s a way home."
"My thoughts exactly, Carter." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I can"t believe I"m about to say this, but it looks like tracking down the flesh-eating-snakehead-zombies is actually our best chance of getting off this rock."
Sam smiled into the darkness and, after a moment, Daniel said, "You know, Jack, it"s at times like this when I... I just..."
"...wonder where it all went wrong?"
"Yep, pretty much."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Hope was starting to fade, that was the worst of it. After three days without contact, or the slightest sign of SG-1, hope was starting to fade. He could do without a lot of things - sleep, food, good news - but hope was critical. Without it, everything started to collapse. And George Hammond could see hope fading in the faces around him every time the Stargate opened and SG-1 didn"t walk through.
Take now, for example. Standing at a comfortable parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back, Hammond watched as SG-2 traipsed down the ramp and the wormhole fizzled closed behind them. Shoulders slumped, they looked defeated as Major Ferretti glanced up at the control room and shook his head: another hope dashed, another planet crossed off the list. There weren"t many left.
Leaning forward, Hammond pulled the microphone toward him. "Welcome back, SG-2. Debrief in one hour."
Not that it looked like they had much to report, but he wanted every possible detail. You never knew what would become important.
Sergeant Harriman looked up from his station as Ferretti"s team handed over their weapons to the SFs and trudged out of the gate room. "Sir?" he said. "We have a scheduled contact with Tollana. Shall I send "Situation Unchanged"?"
"Yes, go ahead." Hammond repressed a sigh, preferring to keep his feelings to himself around his people. The less they knew about what was going on with the Tollan the better, but the base was full of smart people and he couldn"t keep their frequent contacts secret.
He watched as the gate started to spin again, Harriman counting down the chevrons until the seventh locked and the wormhole erupted into the gate room. In a couple of moments the message had been sent and the wormhole collapsed. Another ten hours before the next update, and by that point they"d be half a day away from the trade negotiations that were meant to spark off the whole operation.
Come on, Jack. He sent the message out silently into the cosmos. Get your team home. But there was no response and the Stargate remained still and mute.
"SG-3 is due out at 1800 hours, sir," Harriman reported, interrupting his thoughts. "No scheduled activations until then."
"Thank you, son." He thought for a moment, then added, "Would you ask Colonel Makepeace to report to my office before he gears up?"
"Yes sir."
Leaving Harriman to his work, Hammond trudged up the steps to the briefing room. For the first time since SG-1 had gone missing he was starting to contemplate the idea that they might not be coming back, that they hadn"t simply fallen victim to a glitch in the Stargate network and that something nasty, something deliberate, had befallen them.
Jacob"s warning was still fresh in his mind: there were a lot of Goa"uld looking at Earth with hungry eyes. And if any one of them knew that their relationship with the Asgard was hanging by a thread - and that that thread was in the person of Jack O"Neill - then wouldn"t it be in their interest to get him and his whole team out of the picture?
There was another option that was even darker, in its own way. But if Maybourne had somehow gotten wind of their plan, then what better way to sow the seeds of distrust between Earth and her allies than to abduct SG-1 and continue to steal from their friends? With the SGC"s flagship team implicated in the collapse of their alliance system, the Pentagon would be more inclined than ever to adopt the aggressive policy toward off-world relations for which Maybourne and his ilk had long been pushing. The whole situation would play right into their hands.
Stomping across the briefing room into his office he shut the door and slumped down into his chair, letting it rock back under his weight. Truth was, if that happened, General Hammond wasn"t sure he could continue to serve, because that policy would ultimately lead to destruction - not just of Stargate Command, but potentially of the whole planet. They had enough enemies out there without making enemies of their friends and, to put it bluntly, there was no amount of military hardware they could steal that would protect them better than the alliances they had spent almost three years forging.
Someone rapped on his door and he looked up to see Makepeace standing there.
"Come," he said, switching on his desk lamp to alleviate the gloom.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Makepeace said as he stepped inside.
Hammond nodded. "Shut the door, Colonel, and take a seat."
A muscle in Makepeace"s jaw tightened, a spike of anxiety, as he closed the door and perched tensely on the chair in front of Hammond"s desk. Very different from O"Neill"s studied nonchalance, he couldn"t help noting. Makepeace managed to be at once hard and tense, like iron under stress. It was his strength, no doubt, but also a weakness. Hammond had always suspected that O"Neill"s flexibility, his propensity to bend - the rules, his ideas, and his strategy - was at the core of his talent for leadership. But, that be as it may, O"Neill wasn"t there and Makepeace was.
"Colonel," Hammond said, picking his way through the conversation carefully, "there is something I need to brief you about regarding SG-1."
"Sir?" His hands were fists, resting on his knees.
"Regarding the need to bring them home." Makepeace"s brow furrowed, but he didn"t say anything and Hammond continued. "You may have noticed that we are in close contact with the Tollan at the present time."
"Yes sir."
"That"s because our alliances, both with the Tollan and the Asgard, are in a fragile state. We are trying to rebuild them, but it"s proving difficult - especially without Colonel O"Neill. As you know, he is a particular friend of the Asgard."
Makepeace gave a curt nod. "Yes sir, I understand." A beat, then "Can I ask why our alliances are so fragile?"
Hammond spread his hands flat on the desk and tried to decide how much he could reveal. It made him angry, furious, that he should be forced to doubt his own people, that the treachery of one of their own had driven his allies to demand this secrecy. He looked across the desk at Makepeace, fixed him with a searching look, and made his decision: he couldn"t keep his teams working in the dark any longer. "There have been some thefts, Colonel. Technology and weapons, stolen from our allies by a rogue off-world team operated by Colonel Maybourne."
Makepeace"s face was like granite. "I see."
"The disappearance of SG-1 has only exacerbated the situation," Hammond continued. "Some among our allies suspect them of complicity, and they"re using that against us, to justify ending their alliances with us."
A long silence fell as Makepeace absorbed the news. Stoic as ever, he didn"t even look surprised. "Those alliances have always been a raw deal for us, sir," he said eventually. "Maybe we"d be better off without them, relying on our own knowhow instead."
"Better off without them?" Hammond repeated, aware of the edge creeping into his voice. "Colonel, those alliances are the only things that have kept this planet safe."
Makepeace nodded, but then said, "But maybe we relied on them too much, sir. Maybe we should have built up our own capability instead."
It was an old argument, he was weary of it. "Maybe we should have," he conceded with a sigh. "And maybe we relied too much on Colonel O"Neill"s friendship with the Asgard. But we are where we are and it would certainly serve our enemies" interests if the Asgard withdrew us from the Protected Planets Treaty."
Makepeace shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. "But that"s not an imminent danger, is it, sir?"
He hesitated before he answered, but there was no point in hiding the truth. "Colonel, if we don"t find Colonel O"Neill soon, I believe it"s a very imminent danger."
Makepeace stood up, paced the length of the room and back again. "What kind of timescale are we talking about, General?"
"We"re talking days, Colonel."
"Days?"
"Our allies wanted O"Neill to -" He stopped himself before he said more; he daren"t talk about the SGC mole. But, if they didn"t retrieve SG-1 soon, all secrecy would be moot because there"d be a Goa"uld fleet in orbit and then everyone would know everything. Of course by then it would be too late and, instead of searching for SG-1, they"d be scrambling around looking for an Alpha Site and wishing like h.e.l.l the Appropriations Committee hadn"t put the kibosh on O"Neill"s plan. He ran a hand over his head, trying to scrub away the panic. It was dangerous and only ever produced bad decisions. "Colonel," he said after a moment, "I"m telling you this because there"s a chance that SG-1 has been abducted by those who would profit from the collapse of our alliances. And I need you to factor that possibility into your search."
"You mean the Goa"uld?" He stopped pacing and fixed Hammond with a probing look. "You think the Goa"uld might have done this deliberately, to damage our alliances?"
"The Goa"uld," he said. "Or Maybourne."
"Not Maybourne."
Hammond lifted his eyebrows at the colonel"s vehemence.
"He -" Makepeace broke off. "He"s a slime ball, sir, but he"s not a traitor."
"Son, Colonel Maybourne is nothing but a traitor: self-serving, conniving, and unscrupulous." He c.o.c.ked his head, studying Makepeace"s unyielding features with sudden doubt. "Don"t tell me you"re sympathetic to his cause?"
"Absolutely not, sir, but he"s an Air Force officer. He wouldn"t harm his own people."
Hammond shook his head. "I don"t know who his people are, anymore, Colonel. But there"s too much at stake to rule out any possibilities."
Makepeace frowned. "Yes sir. I understand."
"Give it some thought," Hammond said, studying the troubled expression on Makepeace"s face. "Anything your team can discover, or remember, that might shed light on the whereabouts of SG-1 will be valuable."
"I"ll do everything I can to locate them, sir," he promised. "I"ll -" He cleared his throat. "Everything I can, sir."
Hammond nodded. "I know you will, son."
After Makepeace had left, Hammond sat in silence for a while. On his desk, the red phone gleamed dully in the light of his lamp and he stared at it until it blurred. It had always looked ominous, recalling as it did those long fearful years when Earth had been poised on the brink of mutually a.s.sured destruction, but today it seemed to take on an even graver significance. If O"Neill wasn"t back before the scheduled mission to Tollana then he"d have no choice but to make the call, but until then he was determined to cling to what little hope remained and to carry on believing that next time the Stargate opened it would be to welcome his people home.