Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon (23 page)

"Dammit, Daniel, quit walking on my heels," Jack snapped irritably, and Daniel blinked and realized that he'd been drifting again.
"Go up with Carter."

Daniel stepped around him and jogged up to pull even with Sam,
who shot him a sideways look and wiped dust from her face. She was
drinking from her canteen, and offered it to him; he took it and rinsed
his mouth. Brackish, tepid, delicious. He was too used to the water on
Abydos to complain about the quality.

"You okay?" she asked him. He nodded. Her blonde hair was
sweaty at the ends, sticking to her forehead and cheeks, and she still
had that faint flush in her cheeks, like fever. "Good. Talk to me. I keep
wanting to - " She took another swig and fastened the canteen back
in place. "Pull ahead."

Run, she meant. Lope like a tiger through these dusty streets, looking for signs of life. Daniel felt a headache dig in dull claws behind
his eyes, and took off his glasses for a minute, rubbing the bridge
of his nose. "I keep crowding Jack," he admitted, and checked his
watch. "Still three hours until sunset."

She didn't acknowledge that at all. She kept moving her eyes restlessly, looking from one hollowed-out doorway to another, not as if
she was nervous but as if she was looking for something. Walking
close, he could feel the burning-wire tension coming off of her. She
was working hard at this, at being Sam.

"Is it my fault?" she asked suddenly, and he saw her hands go tight
and tense around the weapon hanging from its sling. "The colonel,
Teal'c - why aren't they affected? Why me? Why you? Why are we
so much worse?"

He didn't answer immediately, because the same questions had
been running through his head all day, in various shades of guilt and
denial. He'd come up with a dozen explanations, none of them satisfactory; there was just no way to know. Maybe it was some innate
ruthlessness. Maybe it was some buried experience, coming out.
Maybe it was nothing but blind luck. From the violence with which
it boiled out of her, Sam had been thinking about it much harder, and
with much worse results. "Sam... it's going to be okay."

She sucked in a sudden breath that spooked him, and he looked
around to see if there was anything about to pop up and kill them.
Nothing. She had a blank sheen of tears in her eyes, before she blinked
them away. Fast.

"What is it?" he asked, very quietly.

"You sound... God. How can you sound like that, like you're not
having these thoughts? These feelings?"

"What kind of..." But he knew. He'd had that vision, nearly erotic
in its intensity, of the knife, the blood. He'd been watching her move
and admiring her predatory grace. "I don't know. How do I sound?"

"Like you don't want to kill people. Like you forgive me for wanting to." She let out a long breath. "Three hours left. Laonides said that
tonight I was going to..."

"Forget what he said. Sam, you can do this. You can hold on. I
know you can."

Her smile came, bitter and twisted. "Yeah? You barely know me,
Daniel. Until yesterday you couldn't even decide whether to call me
Captain or Doctor." She attempted a smile, and failed miserably. "If I
lose it... you'll stop me, right? Don't let me hurt anybody. No matter
what you have to do."

It probably wasn't the time to mention that she had advanced
hand-to-hand training, military experience, and the best he'd managed was to shoot just straight enough to pass the minimum marksmanship score for the M9.

"It's a deal," he said. "If you'll do the same for me."

"You didn't answer my question. Is it me? Is this happening to me
first because I'm - " She made a gesture with one hand, frustrated and
vague. "Wrong, somehow?"

"No! No, Sam..." He glanced back. Jack and Teal'c were still out
of earshot, he thought. Jack was having to limp faster to keep up with
their accelerating pace, but he was doing it, teeth gritted, face set like
stone. "I think it's random." He didn't, really, but there was no point
in making her believe anything else. "If it were some kind of measure
of violence, why not Teal'c? He's fought all his life. And Jack, God
knows Jack's got plenty of experience at it. Why wouldn't it make
them the hunters? Wouldn't they be better at it than the two of us?"

She was listening, however unwillingly. "So maybe it goes against type?"

"Or maybe it just pulls on what we're afraid of," he said. "Teal'c
and Jack might be just as afraid of being prey as we are of being..."

"Predators."

"Exactly."

She hesitated, then said, "Are you? Afraid?"

Some part of him wasn't afraid at all. He'd fought before, when
pushed to it, but he'd never gone looking for it. Maybe that had been
self-preservation; he'd always been the new kid, the strange kid, the
unwanted kid. He'd learned to take beatings, but never to give them.
It was a darkly, liquidly seductive feeling, knowing that he was going
to change that... and that he had no choice in the matter.

"Yes," he lied. "But you're going to look out for me, right, doctor?"

She gave him a fragile shadow of a smile. "Right, doctor."

They stopped for a rest about thirty minutes further on, in the shade
of a massive half-destroyed portico. More bodies inside, mostly skeletal. No collars, again. Teal'c - who had more energy than any of
them - scouted the rubble piles, then came back to crouch next to
Sam. Like her, he didn't let his eyes stop searching for long.

"Captain Carter," Teal'c said. "I must take your weapons now."

"No," she said. Not aggressively, but there wasn't any room for
discussion about it, either. She had her head down, examining her
MP5 and wiping away dust; when Teal'c just sat, unmoving, she
looked up and focused those wide blue eyes on him. Daniel felt the
impact from two feet away, but Teal'c didn't flinch.

"I do not wish to fight you," he said, with unexpected gentleness.
"Whether you wish to fight me is a thing you must decide for yourself."

Sam flinched, blinked, and looked away.

"I too have felt the heat of battle. It is a seductive thing. Jaffa are
trained to resist, because we must follow the orders of our masters
without question," Teal'c continued. "There are meditative techniques. Tonight, I will teach you."

"Tonight, I probably won't be able to listen," she said. "But if I
am... I'll try, Teal'c." And she reached out and put a hand on the man's massive arm. Daniel was struck by how delicate she was,
next to the Jaffa; even with both hands, she probably couldn't have
spanned his bicep. "Thank you."

It might have been a trick of the shadows, but Daniel could have
sworn he saw something like a smile on Teal'c's normally impassive
face. "If you wish to thank me, you can surrender your weapon. Otherwise, I must explain to O'Neill why I have not been able to comply
with his order."

"Can't have that," she said, and eased the nylon strap over her
head. In Teal'c's hands, the MP5 looked like a particularly deadly
toy. "Everything, right?" At his nod, she gave over the M9 and knife
as well.

And then Teal'c's eyes met Daniel's.

No, that thing inside of him said, that alien thing that was so much
a part of him it was almost like the obscene invasion of a Goa'uld.
Don't let him take it. You need it. What ifSam turns on you?

What if she does? he argued with it reasonably. What am I going to
do? Shoot her? Cut her heart out? Both things held vivid, almost sensual images. He shied away, revolted, and before he could think too
much yanked the pistol from his belt and handed it over. Teal'c made
it disappear as efficiently as a stage magician. Once the knife left his
hands, Daniel felt a surge of relief so strong it was almost sickening.
Have to use your hands now, the thing in him said, grinning, and that
had images, too, strong ones, dark ones.

He didn't let himself look at Sam at all. He remembered Laonides
saying that the hunters preyed on each other, too. If she turns her back
on me...

But she wouldn't. Captain Samantha Carter, even under alien
influence, was much too smart for that.

"Yo," a shadow said, and Daniel squinted up to see Jack's face
haloed by cold blue afternoon light. "Up and at `em. Let's move. I
want to find these Dark Company guys before Werewolf Hour."

"Not funny," Daniel sighed.

"Yeah." Jack studied him, then offered him a hand up. Daniel
shook his head and managed a smooth, athletic sort of grace coming
up - easier than he'd expected, actually. His legs felt steady, and his
body centered and running a little hot...

... a little hot, like Sam's.

Oh, God.

Jack was still looking at him, those dark eyes sharp and knowing.

"Tell me," Daniel said, and pointed at his collar.

Jack jerked his chin once. "Coming up on half full. Been rising all
afternoon."

He took off his glasses and dug the heels of his hands into his
eyesockets until he saw multicolored stars and rockets. Jack looked
so tired. It was indecent to feel so damn good.

This shouldn't happen.

"Daniel," Jack said, and he felt the man's hand fall on his shoulder.
Couldn't control the flinch. "We're gonna get through this."

"I know." He carefully put his glasses back on again. "I know,
Jack."

"You good to go?"

From Jack, that was as good as a three-minute speech, followed by
a hug. Daniel gave him a faint, wintry smile - best he could manage,
or had since Sha're had been taken away - and left the shelter of the
portico to step out into the late-leaning sun.

Jack grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back, off balance,
stumbling, a second before an arrow - an arrow - hissed past him to
shatter on a conveniently-placed piece of fallen roof.

"Cover!" Jack yelled, and bodily shoved Daniel toward some.
"Carter! Down!"

He and Teal'c weren't dropping, though. They were armed and
deadly and scanning the ruined buildings facing across from them.

Jack held his fire, even when another volley of arrows cut the air,
arched, and fell short. One slid to a stop at his feet.

"Jack?" Daniel asked urgently. Jack shook his head.

"They want to see what kind of firepower we've got. Otherwise
they'd have hit us already."

Chess. It had surprised Daniel, how good a player Jack was, but
he supposed it shouldn't have; you didn't reach the exalted rank of
Colonel without having an advanced grasp of tactics. It was on the tip
of his tongue to demand his gun back. Or the knife, the thing inside
whispered. Yes. The knife.

He broke out into a cold, trembling sweat as he watched dark shad ows separate themselves from the buildings opposite and step out into
the clear daylight.

They wore black tunics - the thick long robes of the tribute sacrifices cut into rough knee-length chitons, tied with rags. A kind of uniform. At least ten, that Daniel could see immediately, all men. They
were armed with the familiar bronze daggers, a few with battered
swords and spears, and two with homemade bows. The arrows were
fire-hardened, carefully shaped sticks.

"Declare yourselfl" one of them yelled. He was young, blond, and
either hadn't been here long or wasn't genetically prone to beards.
Daniel's stubble was thicker after only - God, had it only been two
days? "What world?"

"Earth," Jack said. "Hi. Wanna quit trying to impress us?"

The men exchanged looks, and the two archers lowered their
weapons. They kept arrows on the strings, Daniel noticed, and he
was pretty sure that they could aim and fire in about the same time it
would take Jack to let loose with the MP5.

"The boy spoke of you," the blond said, and took a couple of steps
forward. "He said you were friends to him and the girl."

"The boy - ah. Pylades." Jack's expression eased, just a little.
"He's okay?"

"We let him pass our ranks. I tried to tell him, but he would not
listen." The blond shrugged. "Most abandon their loved ones, when
the moon takes them. He was different. The girl - he was determined
she would live, even at the cost of his life."

"Where'd he go?"

"To the Temple." The man held out his hand and turned it over, a
gesture like pouring something out onto the ground. "A waste. I told
him the goddess would slaughter them, but he paid no mind. His sister had a vision, he said. She is a seer."

"You let them go."

"She is a seer. Should I argue with the gods?" He jerked his chin at
Jack. "I am called Eseios. I lead the Dark Company."

Daniel stood up, slowly, and saw that Sam was coming out of
cover too. Teal'c stayed where he was, statue-still, with his staff
weapon raised to fire.

Every one of the men in the black chitons had a fully black stone in their silver collars. Not one of them had bloody hands.

"Two of you may stay," Eseios said, and pointed at Daniel and
Sam. "Two must go. It is not safe for you here, past night. This is our
hunting ground."

Jack walked down the steps to stand face to face with the man - he
was taller, Eseios broader and more muscular.

"We're going to the temple," Jack said. "We're going to take
down the Jaffa, find Artemis and kick her snake-infested ass. Want
to help?"

Eseios blinked at him, and for a second he looked very young.
They all did. Daniel remembered Skaara and the boys on Abydos,
training grimly on the Earth weapons to be ready to kill. These young
men hadn't even been given that choice.

"You think to destroy a god?" Eseios asked doubtfully.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack said. "And if you ask me, looks
like this one really needs killing."

Eseios looked at him for a long time, then turned on one callused
heel and walked away. When Jack didn't follow, he stopped and made
a firm gesture.

"No offense, but we've been offered as much local hospitality as
we can stand," Jack said. "Let's talk out here."

"Out here is not safe for you," Eseios said. "Unless you think that
your death will accomplish this god-slaying; and I warn you, I have
seen a great many men die. She lives yet."