04 - The Morpheus Factor Read online

  It didn’t seem to be a particularly harmful idea, and O’Neill agreed, thinking that this world, at least, was turning out to be relatively low stress, all things considered. The biggest problem was the little ones looking over their packs and weapons. Teal’C gently shooed the little ones away.

  “What are these?” Brown asked.

  “They’re for our protection,” O’Neill said bluntly. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt, so we don’t want you to touch them.”

  Brown smiled and put his hands behind his back, though he cast a longing look at the rifles and Teal’C’ energy staff. Thenceforward, O’Neill and Teal’C were careful to keep their weapons out of sight, and provided no more information about their capabilities.

  “Sir,” Carter said, “I’m pretty sure the Kayeechi have already guessed that ‘the other side of Nothing’ is another world, or at least very, very far away. Our appearance is very different from theirs, but that doesn’t surprise them. They’re taking it for granted that our clothing and packs are nothing like anything they have. That says to me that they’ve met others from far away.”

  “Agreed,” said Jackson. “They’ve got stories about seeing people come through the Gate before.” The natives were building a good-size bonfire out of the remains of the woven food platters and other odds and ends. “Not recently, but not Goa’uld either. I think we should see if we can identify who else might be using the Gates. They could be allies.”

  “Or enemies.” Teal’C took the words right out of O’Neill’s mouth.

  Daniel ran a hand through his blond hair, the sign of too familiar exasperation with the military mind. “Or enemies, yes. But they don’t seem to have a problem with people who come through the Gate, only with their surrounding neighbors. The usual territorial disputes over farming lands, and something they call mor-ee.”

  “What? Something that didn’t translate?” O’Neill asked snidely, then reconsidered. “I heard you talking to them about the Gate earlier, but I missed this part. You have any idea what this mor-ee stuff is?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Not yet. It could be something with ritual significance. It almost looks like they think we can help them with it.”

  “Absolutely not. Make that clear to them, Daniel. We’re not getting into it. We’re here to look for help for Earth. That’s the primary mission, as you so kindly reminded me.”

  “I know. I’ve already said we aren’t interested in taking sides with anyone, but I’m not sure they accept it yet.”

  “Look, they’re getting ready to light the—” Carter interrupted. “Whoa! Look at the colors!”

  “Look at the damn smoke!” O’Neill snapped.

  He was feeling unduly impatient, maybe because he was hungry while everybody else had gotten to eat already, and the smell of smoke made him even hungrier. Still, he had to admit that the smoke billowing from the bonfire was very pretty, in its own way—multiple colors, as if the fuel had been dampened with chemicals. He hadn’t seen anyone adding anything suspect to the pile, but there was enough leftover food to account for it, and then of course the nature of the woven platters themselves. He blinked as a vagrant breeze blew the fragrant air into his eyes, and he tried to remember what he’d been talking about earlier. A dull throb of alarm went through him, then died away as he caught another lungful.

  The scent of burning vegetable matter hung heavy on the air while the Kayeechi yelped and spun and sang and rattled metal together to make a tinny orchestral sound. The smoke made their eyes water, and Daniel sneezed, but no one remarked on any other effects. The dancers spun and hopped and followed an intricate invisible pattern around their visitors, and as each alien passed, it would hold out a clawed hand to one of the humans and beseech him or her to join in the dance. Teal’C, of course, had no problem refusing; the Jaffa was far too dignified to participate in such things, and besides, he was sniffing at the air as if seeking something that he couldn’t quite remember.

  Jackson and Carter each glanced at O’Neill before shaking their heads regretfully. After all, the dancing looked like fun; the dancers and the audience changed places at random or as the dancers tired and dropped out, laughing with their neighbors as they collapsed to the ground. Then one of the neighbors would jump up and join the line of gyrating, singing Kayeechians.

  The humans watched, occasionally trying to pick up the rhythm of the song, bobbing along unconsciously when it approximated something they knew. The pleasure of their hosts was infectious. It was very hard to believe that they could possibly constitute anything like a threat.

  However, SG-1 had long ago learned to believe six impossible things before breakfast, so they kept their eyes open as they kept time, and when Shasee made his way through the finally thinning crowd they were prepared for business.

  “Tomorrow, we can bring you pictures of our other visitors,” Shasee said as a few more diehards spun by. “Would you like to see them? We have had many, many visitors here. Perhaps they are your friends.”

  “Pictures? We’d love to see them right now,” Carter said instantly. “If you have pictures—”

  “No, no. The pictures are not here. We have sent for them. You are our guests. Let us show you more of our land.”

  “Actually, it’s getting kind of late,” O’Neill started to decline. It was, in fact, getting very dark; there didn’t seem to be any moons out to relieve the blackness of the sky. The idea of sleeping was wonderfully attractive somehow.

  “Forgive us! Of course, you must rest. Come, let us take you to our guest camp, where you can be comfortable. Tomorrow we will talk more, and you will tell us all about your world and all the others who use the hole in the sky.”

  Jack closed his eyes and sighed. It would be better, he thought vaguely, for the team to set up its own camp away from the aliens, but they seemed so… friendly. And it would require so much effort, and he was so tired.

  His brow furrowed a little as he struggled to grasp an odd feeling that there was something wrong about all this, but Shasee took him by the hand and tugged gently, and it was easier just to follow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Shasee led the team to a quiet glen, close enough to still be able to hear the music from the party, but far enough away that it wasn’t particularly disturbing. The clearing was bounded by a perimeter of small bronze dishes set in a loose circle perhaps fifty feet in diameter and a dozen feet apart; the air was permeated with the scent, not unlike cloves and cinnamon.

  “What’s this stuff?” O’Neill asked, indicating the smouldering dishes. Away from the bonfire, he was feeling not more alert, perhaps, but not quite as fuzzy. Or perhaps fuzzy in a different way. He felt for his sidearm just to make sure it was still there.

  “It is to protect from insects,” Shasee said blithely. “We have many night insects that bite. This keeps them away.”

  “Oh,” the team chorused.

  “In that case, thanks,” Daniel added. The precaution made so much sense.

  With that, Shasee skipped away, whistling cheerfully.

  Daniel sneezed.

  “Is this stuff going to give you trouble, buddy?” O’Neill asked him.

  The archaeologist shook his head, then carefully drew a deep lungful of scented air and let it go. The breeze freshened and lifted the threads of smoke around them.

  “No,” he said at last. “I can see getting sick of the smell after a while, but I think I’m okay. It really isn’t too bad. And we could always put a couple of these out, I guess, if it gets too bad.”

  “It reminds me of Christmas sugar cookies,” Carter remarked. “Makes me hungry.”

  “Yeah, it does at that.” At Teal’C’ inquiring look, O’Neill shrugged. “A religious holiday. Lots of great food.” O’Neill broke out a couple of Power Bars in lieu of an actual meal and settled down to chew, remembering the flavor of apple in his mouth. “Pies. Sweet potatoes. Roast beast. The good china.”

  Teal’C nodded, understanding. “The Jaffa celebrate su
ch feasts, but they do not smell like this.”

  “You know,” Carter said, staring into the small campfire, “we ought to have a Christmas party this year. We could hold it in the Officers’ Club. Invite the general. Maybe some of his staff. Put up a tree.” She glanced at Teal’C. “It’s part of the celebration, decorating a tree with candy canes and popcorn and—”

  “Will you please stop talking about food?” O’Neill groused. He was folding the wrappers into careful, precise little squares and tucking them back into his pack.

  Carter grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  Having exhausted the subject of Christmas, they laid out a security perimeter and then set out bedrolls, with O’Neill claiming the first watch. The other three team members yawned and stretched out.

  “Amazing place, isn’t it?” Daniel said thoughtfully, staring into the new constellations that powdered the night sky. “Who could have imagined this kind of architecture? It’s like those old comics of Space City I used to read about when I was a kid.”

  He didn’t appear to notice his teammates staring at him as if he’d grown a third head.

  “Did you get a load of that tower?” he went on. “It must be thirty stories—What? What’s wrong?”

  “Daniel,” O’Neill said slowly, “what are you talking about?”

  “The city. Where we just were. Where the Kayeechi live.”

  “There is no crystal tower,” Teal’C stated definitively. “The dwellings in this village are built of thatch and hides. They represent a very limited use of tools.”

  “Are you nuts?” Now it was Carter’s turn. “Granted, it’s not the Jetsons, but it isn’t Mud Holler either.”

  “Mud Holler?” O’Neill repeated, thoroughly confused.

  What have you used in the pots?

  What we always use, Most Thoughtful One. The mor’ee-rai.

  They are not responding properly. They should have seen one shape. I called one single shape for them. How is it that these are different?

  They came from Nothing.

  They bring with them great powers. We need them. The Narrai are gathering, and there are too many of them this time.

  The strangers will not go to sleep! They spend all their time talking to one another. In the council of the Kayeechi, the thoughts were wild with frustration. They must sleep! How can I seek if they will not open their minds to me?

  What shall we do? The response was respectful, not cringing, not obsequious.

  Take them to the Place of Dreams. They must sleep tonight.

  Carter waved an impatient hand at her superior officer and sat up, looking at Teal’C and Jackson, who were staring back at her and at each other with nearly identical expressions of total confusion. “It looks a lot like a modern U.S. city,” she said. “Okay, so there aren’t any cars, but those houses were frame and stucco, and I saw a couple of brick facades.” She turned to O’Neill in appeal. “Sir, what are they talking about?”

  “Damned if I know,” O’Neill said slowly. “On the other hand, I’m not sure that I know what you’re talking about either. I didn’t see any of that stuff. I saw tipis. And if we’re really in some futuristic city, how come we’re camping out under the trees?”

  Jackson opened his mouth to reply and then shut it again, thoughtfully, staring at the team commander.

  “We do all see trees around here, right?” he demanded.

  “What trees?” Carter interrupted, clearly startled. “There aren’t any trees around here. This is the middle of a city.”

  The three men stared at her.

  “There aren’t?” Daniel sputtered. “It is?”

  “Oooooh-kay,” O’Neill said quietly. “Carter, if there’s a city around here, you’re the only one who sees it. Or at least I think you are. Daniel, what do you see?”

  “Gardens,” the archaeologist responded promptly. “Formal gardens. Reminds me of Versailles. There’s a building in the distance, but only one. It’s white stone, about three stories tall. The crystal tower is somewhere behind it.”

  O’Neill blinked. “Teal’C?”

  “Farmland,” the Jaffa said. “I agree, there are no trees, but this is not a city. There are many small plots of land under cultivation, separated by wide dirt roads. We are standing on such a road as I speak.”

  All four looked down at their feet.

  “That’s not a dirt road, Teal’C,” Carter said earnestly. “It’s some kind of artificial surface. We’re standing in the middle of a street. There’s a big building with glass windows right over there.” She lifted one hand to indicate what appeared to O’Neill to be a particularly large and spiky tree.

  “That’s topiary,” Daniel said, bewildered.

  “That is a farm cart,” Teal’C contradicted.

  “This is confusing,” O’Neill summarized.

  The four members of SG-1 stared at each other.

  “Well, Colonel?” Carter said, with a clear this-is-why-you-earn-the-big-bucks air.

  O’Neill closed his eyes and took a long breath. “I’m going to count to ten,” he said quietly. “And when I reach ten, I’m going to open my eyes, and I’m going to be back home in bed. Right? One. Two. Three. Four—” His eyes snapped open.

  He wasn’t home in bed, but Shasee stood before him, grinning up apologetically. His teammates were still there too, all of them looking around, comparing all too contradictory notes.

  “So very sorry,” Shasee repeated for the third or fourth time. “This is not where you are supposed to be after all, after all. Let me take you, honored visitors, to a safe sleeping place.”

  “Unless I get some answers right now, the only place we’re going is back to the Gate and home.” O’Neill detached a silver-furred, three-digit hand from his arm and glared down at the little alien. “Shasee, why do we all see different things here?”

  “Mistake, mistake. Confusion, oh, terrible confusion.” Red, who was named Vair, joined his fellow. “This is not the place to sleep. This is the wrong place. Come with us to the right place.”

  “Uh, you brought us here to begin with,” Daniel pointed out to Shasee. “Why is it the wrong place all of a sudden?”

  “We did not know you could see the shapes,”

  Vair answered. “All see different shapes. Yes, you do—not good. We need to fix the shapes. Much less confusing.”

  “Are you projecting images into our minds?” Daniel asked.

  The two aliens looked at each other as if the question were as confusing as the circumstances the team found itself in.

  O’Neill watched the two natives struggle with the question and its answer and relaxed infinitesimally. He still got no sense that the Kayeechi were a threat to himself or his people, even if the differing realities each of them perceived could be deadly dangerous if they needed to defend themselves.

  He was of two minds about the situation. One part of him had definitely decided to haul ass back home, out of this place where no two of them could agree on what they were looking at. The other was wildly curious about it all and insisted that nothing they’d seen looked like it would hurt them.

  Well, that roc maybe.

  But they’d all seen the roc. Maybe they should have asked some questions about that at the party.

  “Confusion,” Vair responded finally. “All is confusing. We are so sorry. Please come to a place not confusing.”

  “I’m all for that.” O’Neill was glad to gather up his little band and follow the Kayeechi to a new location, temporarily postponing the whole issue. They left the glen and followed a path—everyone agreed on that much. Up a little hill—yes, they had consensus there too—to their new location.

  “Okay, Vair, Shasee. What is this place we’re in now? How is it different from where we were before?”

  Vair lit torches set in walls, providing a pleasant, if not overbright, level of illumination.

  “This is a safe place,” Shasee said earnestly. “This is the Place of Dreams, where you can rest safely. Please. Rest.
Sleep. Accept our apologies.”

  O’Neill hiked a skeptical eyebrow.

  Vair and Shasee withdrew, still assuring them that this new location was, “A good place, a safe place.”

  Once the aliens were gone, the four team members looked around cautiously.

  “Cave?” asked O’Neill.

  “Cave,” confirmed Teal’C.

  Carter and Jackson were also convinced that their new camp was in a cave, or at least a shallow depression in the side of the little hill. The place was deep enough that the far end would have been in permanent darkness if it hadn’t been for the aromatic torches that flared from the wall sconces. The floor had been swept clean of rocks and debris and there were no signs of previous residents likely to take exception to the newcomers.

  O’Neill wasn’t satisfied. “I’m not happy about this,” he said, “but I’m not unhappy enough yet to turn tail and run. Tomorrow morning, we’re heading back to the Gate.”

  “Why not just review the field tapes and find out which one of us was right?” Carter asked.

  “Brilliant,” Jackson said, and without waiting for orders, he pulled out the camcorder and hit the playback button.

  The tape was blank.

  “Oh, now that’s just not fair!”

  “It looks like the tape got exposed—”

  “It puts us exactly where we were five minutes ago,” O’Neill said. “And we’ve been in lots worse places—I think. Get some sleep. I’ve still got first watch.”

  Daniel sneezed again. O’Neill glanced at him and then at the torches set a meter or so apart in the walls of the cave.

  “Those torches aren’t going to do much for my night sight. I’m going to put most of them out. Any objections?”

  The others shook their heads and once again set out bedrolls while O’Neill tamped down one torch after the next. Short of total immersion in their water supply, which was not an option, he couldn’t stop them from smoking, but at least they weren’t burning with an open flame anymore and the glare was considerably lessened. His night sight gradually improved as the flames went out. He left one torch lit at the very back of the cave just for reassurance.