02 - The Price You Pay Read online

  It was as if they had stepped from ancient Greece into medieval Germany, without even a pause for the fall of Rome along the way.

  “It’s so clean,” Jackson murmured, watching with open-mouthed delight as a young man clambered across a steep roof, laying out a complex design in yellow flower petals against the brown thatch. “So pretty.” As in many of the oldest Earth cities, the part of the building facing the street was a shop, with each street specializing in its own wares. The one they were walking along at the moment was occupied by weavers, and Carter kept pausing to touch the materials displayed for sale, rubbing them between her fingers as she examined the patterns, colors, and designs.

  “Looks nice and peaceful,” O’Neill agreed, his voice carefully neutral. He and Carter exchanged knowing glances. Both of them had seen the devastation of Sarajevo, the smoking ruins of Kuwaiti oil fields. Once those places had been “nice and peaceful” too. O’Neill could even remember a time when Beirut, Lebanon, was called the Paris of the East. That was before merely human conflict had overwhelmed that peace. How could M’kwethet maintain “peace” and know about the Goa’uld too?

  Whatever the M’kwethet knew about the parasitic aliens, it had nothing to do with conflict. And that was too weird for words, in O’Neill’s humble opinion.

  “Got any estimates about population, Daniel?” the colonel went on. “Any more ideas on technology?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” The archaeologist paused for a moment. “I see a lot of very healthy people; that’s always a good sign. For population, at least of this city? Anywhere from twenty to fifty thousand. Look up there, in the hills.” He pointed. “See the way the houses are built on the hillside? They’re surrounded by vineyards and fields. But the roads are dirt or stone. Transportation’s still pretty primitive, but it looks like they have aqueducts and irrigation. I haven’t seen any steel yet.

  “Let’s go this way,” Jackson went on, picking yet another relatively broad street at right angles to their route, for no particular reason. “Maybe we’ll see some more stuff.” He led off, his head swiveling back and forth as he tried to see everything they passed. This one featured potters, and they could glimpse shelves upon shelves of ceramic wares, hear the roar of a kiln firing in someone’s backyard. A woman was operating a kick wheel, the lump of wet clay transforming like magic into a tall, elegant vase in seconds.

  Children played tag, dodging around them, laughing and shouting, using O’Neill as a hiding place. He held still until one of the others ducked around him, and the whole flock ran off again. The colonel followed after Jackson and the others, content to let the scientists gather data for the moment.

  The potter cut off the vase and set it on a shelf to dry, letting the wheel spin to stillness as she got up to wash the slurry from her hands.

  Down the street, merchants began to close the shutters of their shops, lowering the woven awnings. Bits of cheerful conversation drifted past the team as the work day ended.

  There was absolutely nothing threatening in sight.

  It just wasn’t natural.

  “Is it just me, or does anybody else have the beginnings of a bad feeling about this?” O’Neill inquired, elaborately casual.

  “I also feel apprehensive,” Teal’C rumbled.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s what you get for being rhetorical.” Carter’s hands were tightening about her sidearm. Potter Street was beginning to fall into shadow, and its decorations were almost complete. They passed fewer and fewer people, and all of them seemed to be going the other direction—back to the center of town, to the Gate, to the Agora.

  “How long until ‘evening’?” Teal’C asked, looking at the sky.

  They stopped, indecisive, and the Earth natives instinctively looked at their watches before realizing how irrelevant Earth’s chronology was in this alien place. It had been well over two hours since they had stepped through the Stargate.

  “Well, it looks like the neighborhood is calling it a day,” Jackson observed. “Probably getting ready for the evening meal, or whatever function was being set up in the banquet hall.”

  “The Agora,” O’Neill insisted.

  Jackson tilted his head and, after a moment, smiled. “Agora,” he conceded.

  O’Neill grinned, having won at least one naming issue. “I suppose we could head home for dinner, but I think I feel like eating out tonight. Let’s go see what Mom’s home cooking is like.” He led them back in the direction of the banquet hall.

  As they walked they could hear music, erratic and atonal, as if an alien orchestra was tuning up. O’Neill grimaced. Jackson developed that curiously intent look that meant he was deep in the throes of cultural analysis. Carter merely winced and kept on slogging; Teal’C remained, of course, impassive.

  More and more people were filling the streets now, all heading in the direction of the M’kwethet Stargate. They pushed past the team, chattering happily; children shrieked and ran, pelting each other with flowers. Young girls stared and pointed at them, giggling behind their hands, and then ran ahead of them. Everyone seemed to have a goal, a place to go and a deadline to meet, and looked extraordinarily happy to be so engaged. It was a celebration, and M’kwethet was well prepared for it.

  By the time they came in sight of the central marketplace, the square was packed with people and humming with subdued excitement. A substantial portion of the city population, it seemed, had managed to cram itself either into the square or onto the roofs and balconies of the buildings surrounding it. Carter, being the shortest member of the team, took a cue from several children and climbed up on the stepped base of one of the columns to get a better look.

  “They’re gathered around the Gate,” she reported. “Lined up on either side as if they’re waiting—yes! There it goes! The Gate’s opening!”

  With a hollow whoosh, silvery plasma spurted from the circular Gate. O’Neill glanced around at the natives, expecting expressions of terror, or at least apprehension. Instead he saw eagerness, expectation. All around the Gate platform, what had earlier been a market square was now an assembly area for hundreds of people, watching tensely. The crowd shifted restlessly, and the team wormed their way through, closer to the focus of attention. At the top of the ramp, waiting, were the three Rejected Ones the team had met earlier. They were attired much more formally now. Alizane wore a long red dress, belled out at the knees, with a double apron of a darker red trimmed in white overlapping in front and back. Her sleeves were long and tight, belling at the shoulders. The square bodice was also trimmed in white, and she wore a tall hat that looked like a cone with the tip nipped off, laced once again with white.

  The men were dressed in matching red tunics that came to mid-thigh, pinned at each shoulder with a knot of white. Their sandal straps, dyed dark red, wound up their legs to their knees. On their heads they, too, wore the tall hats. It looked as if Karlanan had shaved for the occasion, with a few clumsy nicks in his chin to show for it.

  The three of them stood well back from the Gate, out of reach of the billowing plasma, but still on the platform.

  As the plasma collapsed back to become the shimmering surface of the Gate, silence fell over the crowd, as if they were collectively holding their breath.

  And then, stepping out of the molten circle, came a humanoid figure. The team’s hands clenched their weapons, and Teal’C raised his staff reflexively.

  It was not a Serpent Guard.

  It was a young man, dressed in a spotless white tunic knotted at the shoulders and a plain gray collar. He was followed by another, similar young man, then a young woman.

  As they walked down the ramp, one after another followed them out of the Gate, and the silence broke with screams and cheers. An older woman, her hair streaked with silver, broke out of the crowd and flung herself at one of the newcomers. She was followed almost immediately by others, mothers and fathers and younger siblings by the look of them, welcoming the travelers home. The newcomers came looking for
greetings, and they got them. Disregarding all protocol, family members ran up the three steps, grabbing the newcomers as soon as they were recognized. Perhaps a total of a dozen came through the Gate, all young, all unarmed. All, clearly, coming home, to a tumultuous and glad welcome.

  And then the crowd at the Gate moved down the steps, and the team watched as the rest of the natives of M’kwethet watched, holding their breath, waiting. Long moments passed, and the cheering died away as the newcomers looked over their shoulders, and the families that greeted them wiped away joyous tears to watch the shimmer of the Gate remain undisturbed.

  The Gate shut.

  The shimmer disappeared.

  An empty circle of stone stood on an empty platform in the middle of the marketplace.

  No more young men and women were coming through the Gate.

  And somewhere in the crowd, in the silence, a mother wailed in anguish. After a moment she was joined by another, and then a third. The crowd murmured in sympathy and drew away from the wails, migrating instinctively toward joy.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The sound of inconsolable moaning, coming from several locations near the team, raised the hairs on the back of Daniel Jackson’s neck. He knew that sound too well—it echoed in his heart and soul every time he remembered his last sight of Sha’re. Looking around at the rest of his colleagues, he could tell his friends knew as well as he did what the sound represented. O’Neill’s brown eyes were hard, his jaw tight; Carter blinked rapidly at gathering tears. Teal’C seemed unmoved until one glimpsed the shadows in his eyes, the massive fingers tightening around the shaft of the energy lance he carried.

  As Daniel watched, the people of M’kwethet began a slow migration up the broad avenue to the portico of the Agora. The farther the newcomers got from the weeping women, the more free they and their families felt to express once more their own joy. Songs broke out as they poured through the columns and into the banquet room.

  “It looks like some got away,” Carter said, as the team pulled itself together and began to follow the crowd. “I don’t understand.”

  “Or they were sent back.” Jackson’s voice was raw. “‘Rejected Ones’? Isn’t that what Alizane called them?”

  “I didn’t think the Goa’uld ever let go,” O’Neill said thoughtfully. “Apophis seemed pretty happy to kill off anybody he didn’t want. Teal’C, what’s going on?”

  Teal’C shook his head slowly. “I do not know,” he answered. “I do not understand this, either.”

  “Maybe we ought to join the party and see if we can find out.”

  Despite the light, flippant tone O’Neill used, there was an edge to his words. He was clearly angry, his eyes following the last of the mourners as she stumbled past them, supported by her grieving family. It was Atena, the woman who had first welcomed them to this world. As they watched, she doubled over, hiding her face in her apron as she sobbed. She was surrounded by men and women and children, also weeping, supporting her as she stumbled away from the Gate. The family headed down one of the side streets, and one or two cast resentful glances at the team as they went.

  “Well, we were invited.” Carter was angry too.

  “Yeah.” Jackson shoved his glasses up and set his jaw. “Let’s go find out.”

  Inside the newly set-up banquet hall, all restraint caused by the mourning families had been thrown off. A long, narrow table at the end of the room made space for Alizane and her friends, the returning young people and their families. Hardly anyone even looked up at the camouflage-clad Earth team standing in the entry way; they were too busy sharing food and drink and song and laughter. The noise level was just slightly lower than the average rock concert.

  Alizane Skillkeeper, however, noticed the newcomers immediately. Passing a golden goblet to Karlanan, who sat beside her, she rose and stepped around one of the Returned Ones, laughing lightly at some remark made to her, and headed directly toward the four. Up close, they could see that the white trim on her dress and hat was made up of dozens of seed pearls.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, keeping her voice low and smiling brightly at the nearest partiers as she led them further into the room and off into a corner, near one of the smaller tables. Several of the occupants of the table looked up, offering a pitcher of frothy brown liquid until they saw the grim look in Alizane’s eyes. Undaunted, they shrugged and laughed, turning back to their conversation.

  “Oh, now you want to talk,” O’Neill remarked snidely. He was still studying the crowd, especially the individuals who had come through the Gate. Unlike the rest of the M’kwethet citizenry, they were dressed in simple white tunics with gray collars; as he watched, one of them drained a cup and defiantly tore off the collar and threw it to the floor. The others looked stricken at the gesture, until Karlanan roared his approval and urged the rest to do the same. With some urging, they did so, but they were uneasy about it, as if removing the collars was a serious infraction of the rules of polite society.

  Alizane ignored the activity at the head table. “Before, you were an annoyance, interrupting our preparations for the Returning. Now you are a problem. The people are beginning to ask questions. Who are you, and where are you from? Why are you using our Gate? Are you from the Goa’uld?” The questions came rapid-fire, without pause. She looked at each of them in turn, expecting answers as a right.

  “One thing at a time, please.” O’Neill was not inclined to concede her authority just yet. “We told you already, we’re not from the Goa’uld. We’re from Earth, and we’d like to talk to you, too. For one thing, we’d like to know what you use your Gate for, and how much you know about the Goa’uld.”

  “Maybe sometime when you’re not so busy,” Jackson put in, with a meaningful look at his teammates. More and more of the people not immediately involved with the families were paying attention now to the exchange.

  O’Neill thought about glaring at the archaeologist, but gave up on the idea. Jackson was incurably civilian. Besides, he seemed distinctly uneasy about something in particular, instead of just feeling spooked about the general ambiance.

  And, well, standing around in the middle of a party was possibly not the best place to conduct interstellar negotiations anyway.

  O’Neill decided to let it go this time and grill Jackson later.

  Alizane, on the other hand, wasn’t as willing to drop the subject. She seemed to waver between pursuing the discussion and letting it go. The arrival of Jareth—of the Manyflowers?—appeared to convince her to back off, at least temporarily.

  “Be welcome to our Returning, strangers,” the older man welcomed them, giving the woman a chiding glance. “Sit with us and share the time of our greatest joy. Eat and drink and sing.” He held out an oval metal tray that looked like brass, with engravings outlined in green oxidation. It held four ornately carved wooden mugs filled with the same frothy brown liquid they’d been offered earlier.

  The four exchanged glances, and then Jackson reached out to take one of the mugs, lifted it in a toast, and drank. “Thaaaaannnnnnnnk…” he gasped, breathing through his mouth.

  “Daniel?” Carter asked, worried.

  Jackson raised one hand, gasped once or twice, and shook his head. An abrupt flush had colored his fair skin. “Whoa! That has a kick to it.” He breathed deeply again. “Really clears the sinuses. Thank you,” he went on, addressing an amused Jareth.

  “Usually one sips this drink,” Jareth advised him with false gravity.

  “Now you tell me.” Jackson reached for another mug and passed it to O’Neill, pushing it into the colonel’s hands. “Try it. Slowly.”

  O’Neill shook his head. “Nah, I think I’ll be the designated driver this trip. Carter, you try. A little sip.”

  Carter, torn between resentment at being the designated guinea pig and interest in the strange brew, accepted and sipped gingerly. Her reaction, while not as pronounced as Jackson’s, indicated general approval. “Not bad, sir.”

  “Join us,” Jar
eth repeated. “Please. The discussions we need to have can wait until after the celebration, as we first planned.”

  “The matter is important,” Alizane snapped. “We need to know who these people are.”

  “You were willing to wait until you got the party decorations up,” Carter pointed out. She put the cup on a nearby table, freeing her hands. “A little while longer shouldn’t make any difference. Unless you’re expecting more guests.”

  The other woman gave her a poisonous glare. “I have asked the Returned Ones, and they know nothing of you. You are strangers. We need to know why you’re using our Gate.”

  Jareth smiled, set down the tray, and slipped an arm around Alizane’s shoulders. “Come, Skillkeeper. It’s the time to rejoice at the addition to our numbers, not to challenge peaceful visitors.” He pointedly did not glance at the hands hovering near sidearms. “This is a joyous time. Grief will come later, as it always does. Leave it until later.” He led the woman away, casting an apologetic look over his shoulder at O’Neill. The colonel shook his head. He didn’t envy the other man the task of sharing power, or whatever it was, with an unpredictable, bubbling volcano.

  Once the two had returned to the head table, Carter glanced at O’Neill for permission. When he nodded, both Carter and Jackson moved out into the banquet room, eventually joining a group of beribboned young people at a lower table. Carter seated herself between two blond young men and began a banter that could almost be called flirting; Jackson was asking a young lady for an explanation of the design on a cup.

  O’Neill accepted a small loaf of brown bread from a passing servitor and chewed thoughtfully, watching his two teammates talking and laughing and drinking, while Teal’C frowned and remained stubbornly on guard. “Ah, to be young again,” the colonel remarked ironically. “I used to be able to stay up and party all night like that, how about you?”