03 - The First Amendment (15 page)

“Like today wasn’t?”

O’Neill glared. But Carter
had
managed to field that grenade, so he
left it at that.

* * *

Frank Kinsey was served dinner in his quarters that night, a
decent—last?—repast of pork chops, spinach, applesauce, salad, coffee, and even
ice cream for dessert. They left him with a briefing manual that he understood
to be standard material for new personnel joining the Stargate team. Between
that and the TV set tuned exclusively to CNN, he was expected to entertain
himself for the evening. He didn’t have to hear the soft click to know that he
was locked in.

The TV made a comforting stream of background noise as he paged through the
manual. Most of them, he noted without surprise, focused on tactics—what
information would be available to a team and how they could use it. Apparently
“probes” were sent through the Gate to gather data before actual living people
went through—a precaution he approved of, but one which didn’t always work,
judging from the shape those soldiers had been in coming back.

The books also noted that “Before any teams are sent through the Gate, the
existence of a DHD on the target site is
always
verified ahead of time.
Return to base must be originated from destination. Teams cannot return through
a passage originating on the base.” A DHD, he gathered, was the mechanism used
to open the—passage?—between two predetermined points. The notation had an air
of “learned
that
one the hard way.” He also noted with amusement the
discreet reference about returning “to base” rather than “to Earth.”

And apparently one passage couldn’t be opened on top of another, which
explained Morley’s frustration when that other team came back, interrupting him
before he could finish opening the Gate himself. Kinsey wondered where he would
be right now if Morley had succeeded in putting in all the proper codes to open the Gate first. A new world? The book didn’t say.

“Teams are cautioned to send the iris signal before entering the passage for
return. If the signal is not sent, the iris on the base Gate will not be opened.
Each member of the team will be equipped with a signaling device.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, so he filed it away in his ever-increasing
store of Questions to Be Asked.

As he read, he listened with half an ear to the steady stream of news. China
was still upset over the bombing of its embassy and its loss to the Americans in
women’s soccer, and still indignant that anyone could possibly believe they had
needed to steal nuclear miniaturization technology from the United States. The
Patchen Lama had measles. The Euro was down against the dollar and the Common
Market was contemplating trade sanctions against the United States. Russia had
publicly requested that Washington butt out of the latest India-Pakistan crisis.
There were more rumors about AIDS being deliberately imported to black
communities in California. Unemployment on the Lakota reservation officially hit
86 percent. Mir’s orbit continued to degrade. Islamic fundamentalists in Indiana
were taking exception to efforts by Christian fundamentalists to convert them. A
world’s record opal had been discovered by a three-year-old boy in Australia. A
Nazi war criminal had just died in Argentina. Drug terrorists continued efforts
to bring down the government of Colombia. Seventeen died in an airplane crash in
Indonesia.

O-bla-dee, o-bla-da. Don’t they have any idea what’s out there?
Kinsey
wondered, glancing over at the neatly folded fatigues set out on the desk, with
boots lined up precisely under them and a cap resting on top. He was reasonably
sure that this uniform, unlike the one he’d been issued long ago when he’d done
his own military service, would actually fit.
Why do they spend all their time squabbling with each other like a bunch of spoiled
brats, when there’s a whole universe out there?

Because they don’t know. And I’m going to be the one to tell them.

A cold shiver of delight ran up his spine. Talk about the scoop of the
century! And it was going to be his, all his. They’d know the name Kinsey
forever. It would be in all the history books—the man who revealed the truth
about the stars. Who unified Earth.

Castro denounced the United States for further attempts to assassinate him.

Survivalists in northern Nevada were in the fifteenth day of standing off
local and federal law enforcement personnel, claiming that God had declared them
a sovereign country.

The FBI and the U.S. Navy apologized for their rush to judgement over the
explosion aboard the
Iowa,
while refraining from naming anyone
specifically responsible for the rush in the first place.

Three Israelis were arrested in New York for spying on the Lebanese
delegation to the UN.

Life on Earth went on, blissfully self-absorbed.

Frank Kinsey hugged himself and paged through briefing books on life in outer
space.

Still, when Jack O’Neill led their little party up the ramp to the shimmering
pool that was the Stargate, Kinsey abruptly couldn’t believe they were serious.
If he hadn’t seen, less than twenty-four hours before, with his own eyes, real
human beings stumble out of that circle, he wouldn’t have come anywhere near
that maelstrom of blue energy. He was still jumpy from the very sound of it; as
soon as the bodiless voice intoned, “Chevron seven encoded; Gate activated,” it
had
roared
open. Or not exactly “open”—he couldn’t see through the Gate
anymore. It didn’t look like something one
could
walk through. It was as
if whatever lay beyond the Gate was pressing against it, as if the Gate were a
dam holding it back, and when the iris opened and the portal was activated, it
gushed through and then settled back into equilibrium.

He had serious doubts about the sanity of the first person to actually walk
through that thing.

But they were looking at him with exaggerated patience, that look that said
We know you’re scared but we’re too polite to say so,
and so he gritted
his teeth and marched after them.

It wasn’t fair, really. The four of them were loaded for bear, with rifles
and sidearms and all manner of wicked things, and all
he
had was a set of
borrowed fatigues. No cameras, no tape recorders. Though he noticed enviously that both Carter and Jackson carried camcorders—so records
did exist, and maybe under the Freedom of Information Act—

O’Neill went first. As he touched the surface his body seemed to disappear,
as if he were walking into a pool of mercury. He was followed immediately,
without hesitation, by the blond Major Samantha Carter. As they disappeared,
technicians at the foot of the ramp were doing hasty last-minute checks of the
supplies on the transport that would be going with them. It was a cute little
mini-tank with treads almost as large as it was, an all-terrain vehicle built
for worlds other than Terra. Someone had stenciled F.R.E.D.. on its side. It
probably stood for something; yet another question to be asked. But not right
now. Right now an opaque shimmering mirror awaited him.

The others were waiting for him to go next—Jackson made a little bow and an
After you, Alphonse
gesture, while the tall black guy, Teal’C they called
him, simply stood waiting, holding a long staff, a modern-day Roman centurion in
battle fatigues. Teal’C always looked like he was frowning mightily, but that
seemed to be nothing more than the way his features had settled on his face.

He was going to tell the world about this.
Humanity’s Gate to the stars
stands in lonely grandeur at the top of a metal ramp that rings beneath the
booted feet of—

The future and fame awaited. So he took a deep breath and held it and
followed where O’Neill and Carter had led, into the mystery.

And found himself gasping, tumbling, falling, through a live, twisting,
writing tunnel of blue light. It was
cold,
much colder even than the
interior of the mountain. He had never felt such cold, sinking icy fangs deep
into his bones and not letting go. He couldn’t see the others. He knew he had
walked into something, but once in it he lost all sense of sight and touch. All he knew was that it was cold, bitter cold, and he was tumbling,
falling endlessly. He was alone, he was dying, he was… Frank Kinsey
screamed as he was pulled through the shimmering surface. He didn’t mean to. He
couldn’t help it.

Thinking back on it later, he decided that if he couldn’t hear himself
scream, no one else could either.

It sounded good, anyway.

He had no idea how long he fell. After a while it reminded him of a cartoon a
colleague had had posted on her computer: three men falling, screaming, labeled
“Bottomless Pit.” The second panel, labeled “Twenty Years Later,” was the same
three men, still falling. But now they were casually examining their
fingernails, kicking back on nothingness.

He was reasonably sure it wasn’t actually twenty years before he fell out of
cold eternity and into somewhere else, and he knew for certain he hadn’t gotten
blasé about it.

He was thumping and rolling across some very, very hard ground, completely
disoriented and out of breath. He was no longer in an artificially illuminated
cave in the guts of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado; he was outside, under bright
sunlight, and definitely somewhere else.

“What the hell—” he began as soon as he could get words out. But as he picked
himself up he saw O’Neill and Carter already on their feet, Jackson stepping
away from a Stargate identical to the one in Cheyenne Mountain, and Teal’C
leaping gracefully out of the blue energy field, not one whit fazed by the
experience. Almost immediately afterward came the transport, following Teal’C
like a large mechanical puppy.

“Where—” he said before he could stop himself, and then he did stop,
open-mouthed. No matter where—it wasn’t Earth. It couldn’t be.

The air smelled funny. Like pecans and walnuts and Brazil nuts. He had the
sensation he was looking through rose-colored lenses; everything seemed to be
tinted pink.

He felt groggy, heavier somehow.

There were three moons in the sunlit sky.

At first it didn’t register; he saw three roundish pockmarked circles up
above him and didn’t know what they were. Then he looked at them again, his head
snapping around so hard he almost gave himself whiplash. Those were moons.
Moons. Three of them.
Three.
In shades of pink, from deep rose to
delicate pearl. And it was daytime.

The last time he’d seen three moons in a single sky, George Lucas was
responsible. But this was not a movie theater, or if it was, someone forgot to
clean up all the rocks he’d bounced over.

And they were huge, too. The darkest one took up a good sixteenth of the sky
and seemed almost within arm’s reach. He reached up to try to touch it and
staggered, losing his balance and falling in a heap.

“You cannot touch the satellite,” Teal’C informed him gravely.

“I thought it was a moon,” he sputtered.

“It is,” Jackson responded. Jackson was checking over the gear draped all
over the mechanical puppy. The others had barely given the sky a glance, and
were paying no attention at all to the wonder overhead.

For the first time, it really sank in. He’d been awake all night thinking
about it, but never really believing it in his bones until this moment: He was
somewhere
else.
Somewhere with three moons, a place that smelled like a
Planter’s processing plant.

“As I said,” Teal’C added. His characteristic frown deepened minutely. “You
should get up.”

Teal’C specialized in unnecessary advice, Kinsey decided. He got up again, trying to get used to weighing about thirty-five
pounds more than he did five minutes ago.

“Wow.” It was a totally inadequate remark, but he felt he had to say
something.
“One giant step” had already been taken. Besides, it was more
like one giant thud in this case. He rotated one arm experimentally, making sure
it was still in its socket.

A roar like thunder echoed to the—west? Instantly, the team was on the alert,
scanning the horizon.

“What was that?”

But O’Neill was waving them over to a small copse nearby and didn’t look like
he was ready to act as a tour guide. The other three team members took off at a
businesslike jog, the cart trundling behind, and Kinsey had to scramble to keep
up.

“What
was
that?” he repeated as they ducked into cover.

He could have sworn that Carter glared at him. O’Neill made an abrupt
downward motion with his hand, and Kinsey opened his mouth again, determined to
get an answer.

“Shut up,” Jackson whispered harshly. “That was weapons fire.”

Well, at least he had an answer. He looked around at the—no, they weren’t
really trees; they were more like upright vines, with tendrils snaking out to
each other for support. Wherever light hit the vine, it pulsed outward like a
beating heart, broadening its absorbent surface area. Distracted, he held one
hand over one of the broad areas and watched fascinated as it shrank in the
shadow.

The thunder rumbled again, and he looked up to see O’Neill studying him. The
colonel looked as if he was beginning to regret the whole idea of bringing
Kinsey along.

His next words supported that perception.

“Carter, I want you to go back to the Gate and shove our friend here back
home,” he said.

“Yes sir.” The blonde major responded promptly and without the least sign of
reluctance. Kinsey could have sworn that if anything, she was happy about the
order.

“Wait! You can’t. I haven’t, haven’t seen anything yet. I mean, where’s the
fire, Colonel? Where’s the crowded room?” He was babbling, wild to stay. There
were
aliens
out there, and he wanted to see!