06 - Siren Song (14 page)

As the guard was opening his mouth to speak, Teal’c—hidden by the door and
the guard’s blind spot—cracked the door open, snaked an arm through the gap
and grabbed him by the neck. Teal’c stifled the guard’s surprised yelp with his
other hand, then stepped into the corridor. He spun the guard around so his back
was against the bars and Teal’c’s forearm was across his windpipe. From inside
the cell, Sam held one of the guard’s arms with one hand and caught his falling
staff weapon with the other. The Jaffa thrashed silently for a moment and went
limp. Teal’c let him slide to the floor, then took the staff from Sam. She came
into the corridor and unclipped the
zat
from the guard’s wrist.

Looking down at him she whispered, “Please tell me I’m no good at that
seductress stuff.”

“You are merely proficient,” Teal’c answered. Sam grinned.

Only an alien male could’ve walked the line that effectively.

“Good,” she answered. “Next time, you get to bat your eyelashes, and I get to
do the strangling.” She stood and whispered to Aadi, who was hovering in the
doorway, “Stay here.” Then she sidled down the hall toward the guardroom, Teal’c
close behind.

It was gloomier at this end, and a rectangle of light fell through the open
door into the hallway. Sam crouched low to duck her head around and peek inside.
She pulled back to lean against the wall beside the door, raising one finger at
Teal’c. Then she took a deep breath, spun on her knee into the doorway and fired
the
zat.

A nice, clean shot. The second guard didn’t even have time to turn his head
from his console. He finally went slack, his head lolling backward as the energy
arced and sizzled around him.

While she was collecting his
zat
and Teal’c was hooking the fallen
staff with his foot and flipping it up to catch it, Sam called up the map of the
complex she carried in her head. The route they’d taken in would be easy to
retrace, but it wound through some high-traffic areas near the entrance. Plus,
there was another problem.

She stepped back into the corridor to wave at Aadi, who looked suspiciously
both ways before trotting up to her.

“How well do you know this place?” she asked. “Have you been in other
sections?”

“Give me a weapon,” he replied.

“We’ll protect you,” she answered. “Look, we need our gear. Would your dad
have kept it with him or turned it over to the Jaffa?”

Aadi set his jaw and looked at the floor. Sam sighed.

“Do you even know how to work one of these?” She held up the second
zat.

“I’ve watched.”

“Are you going to follow my orders?”

He nodded. When she didn’t hand the
zat
over, he met her eyes. “Yes,
I’ll follow orders,” he said with exasperated formality.

. Even though she’d always thought of herself as rather fond of children, Sam
had to wonder if it were possible to keep kids while they were cute and then
maybe send them someplace at puberty until they were human again.
Military academy,
she thought suddenly,
and added,
Sorry, Dad.
She didn’t bother to hide her reluctance as she
gave Aadi the
zat
and showed him the firing key.

He grinned as he hefted the weapon, then looked up and down the hallway. “I
know a better way out,” he said, and pointed through the guardroom door. “That
way.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed, and took point, Aadi behind her, and Teal’c on their six.

When she was at the door on the far side, a double burst of
zat
fire
startled her. She turned in time to see the second guard’s body disintegrate
with a last blurring ripple. Aadi was standing with the
zat
still aimed
at empty space, and his face was alight with feverish triumph.

“He wasn’t a threat. You didn’t need to do that,” she snapped. Teal’c
confiscated Aadi’s
zat
and stuffed it into his waistband.

“One less Jaffa,” Aadi said, his smile wide and defiant.

On the journey through the winding corridors, Aris was careful not to let
O’Neill get too close. He had the upper hand and the advantage of having a plan,
but O’Neill had a score to settle. Of all the things Aris had observed about
O’Neill, his loyalty to his team, and theirs to him, was the most admirable. It
was also the most likely to get Aris killed, now that Sebek had changed the game
by taking Jackson as a host. He would have to stay constantly on his guard. With
the rest of his team held as ransom to his cooperation, O’Neill might start to
think there wasn’t much left to lose. Aris couldn’t let that thought take hold.

There was plenty to admire about O’Neill, but all those things made him
dangerous. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with the plan. It had taken
Aris too long, and he’d sacrificed too much, to get careless now.

The Jaffa followed them out of the bunker, making conversation impossible.
O’Neill seemed unconcerned on the surface, but his sharp eyes took everything
in, and Aris was certain he was making maps and catalogs of useful items in his
head for future reference. It was what Aris would do, in the same situation.
Near the exit, where the poisonous atmosphere the Goa’uld had given them was palpable, Aris
waved a hand at them. “Sebek wants me to bring him alone.”

The Jaffa exchanged glances. These were the dregs of Yu’s army: old men whose
time as warriors was coming to a close, young men disgraced in battle, and a few
of the injured or crippled whose symbiotes couldn’t make them completely right
again. Aris had sized up their capabilities long ago—the same batch of
castoffs had been here since Sebek’s arrival—but he watched O’Neill make the
same assessment, and knew he saw their weakness.

“Sebek has given me no such order,” Na’tak said. He was the most unpleasant
of the entire cadre. Aris had been looking forward to wringing his neck for a
very long time.

“Your lord and master is not himself,” Aris said, with a wry smile. The limp
joke earned him a stone-faced stare from O’Neill. Aris made a note not to press
that wound too hard, “
I
brought them here in the first place, remember? I think I
can walk him to the mine.”

“Very well,” Na’tak said, doing exactly the wrong thing, as Aris had known he
would. “But you are warned, hunter. Be quick.”

Aris resisted the urge to shoot them both. It wouldn’t be productive. “Oh,
very quick,” he said, unable to keep the amused scorn out of his voice. “We’ll
run all the way.”

O’Neill watched them turn and go about their business, in opposite
directions. Water leaked from his eyes—not tears, Aris knew, but a reaction to
the fumes. It happened to all offworlders. Even the Jaffa were not immune to the
poison from the mines. When the sound of the Jaffa’s footsteps had faded,
O’Neill turned back to Aris, waiting. “So,” he said.

“You want to know what I passed to Teal’c, don’t you?” Aris said. O’Neill’s
expression shifted subtly to curiosity, with a quick flash of surprise. Good. If
Aris could keep him off guard, he’d have a better chance of keeping them all
alive long enough to be of use.

“Like anything you say would be even close to the truth,” O’Neill said. He
rubbed his hands over his face and eyes, an irritated gesture, sweeping moisture
away.

“That won’t help,” Aris said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Not that we’ll be here that long,” O’Neill said, challenging Aris to
contradict him. Aris didn’t bother.

“I gave Teal’c a little something to make his stay shorter,” Aris said. He
waited for the expected reaction to play itself out, while O’Neill worked
through his motivations, looking for the angle.

“So he can help your son,” O’Neill said.

Aris inclined his head, let a small smile curve across his lips. “Let’s hope
the Jaffa were a little slower to pick it up than you were. Your people will
need it, when the time comes.”

“Uh-huh,” O’Neill said, as skeptical as if someone had told him he was free
to take his team and walk off this world forever. “And why isn’t that time now?”

“That’s not your concern.”

O’Neill tensed. “Listen. Not to put too fine a point on this, but we don’t
have a lot of options here. And if you’re trading us off for your kid, you’d
better think twice about that. This snake is not going to let your kid go.”

Aris kept his face neutral, but the words registered hard with him,
confirmation of his own instincts. It didn’t matter, though. The situation was
as untenable as it had been even before he’d known for sure Sebek wasn’t a fair
trader. He unholstered his weapon, but let his arm drop to his side without
pointing it at O’Neill. Subtle threats and intimidation wouldn’t work on this
man, but they had mutual experience of each other, and each had seen proof that
the other would do whatever was necessary to gain the upper hand. He triggered
the door and let it slide open so the planet’s atmosphere could rise to meet
them. He hated the sight of his planet now. His son’s legacy, if he survived any
of what was to come. The Goa’uld had a lot to pay for.

“Let me make it clear for you, Colonel. You’re a means to an end. You will
help me appease Sebek so I can get into that vault, and I’ll free your friends.”

“So they can free your son, and get themselves killed in the process,”
O’Neill said.

“Everything comes with a price,” Aris said. Too close to the wound, again.
Anger flashed in O’Neill’s eyes, tamped down in the space of a heartbeat. O’Neill would never trust him. He was too smart to make
that mistake.

“You think you know what’s in that vault, don’t you?” O’Neill was watching
him, a little too closely. He was more perceptive than Aris had given him credit
for.

“Sebek’s not the only one who can benefit from what’s down there. In case you
hadn’t noticed, something down there doesn’t agree with the Goa’uld. If it hurts
them, it has value to me.” There it was—the spark of interest, in O’Neill’s
eyes. Now the groundwork for cooperation was laid. “My people have been enslaved
by the Goa’uld for a long time, Colonel. What would you do, if this was your
world?”

“You don’t do subtle very well,” O’Neill said impatiently. Blatant
manipulation apparently had little effect on him. Not that Aris had expected
anything else. “You know damn well what I’d do.”

“Then we understand each other,” Aris said. O’Neill didn’t respond, but he
would follow the path to its logical conclusion: if whatever was down there
harmed the Goa’uld, it was worth finding. Who would ultimately use it against
the Goa’uld, though… well, that was a question that would be answered later.
Aris was going to make sure it was him. O’Neill would do the same. But Aris had
a blaster and hostages. O’Neill’s friends would have his son and a sense of duty
and decency that meant they wouldn’t use him against his father.

Aris smiled. He dug down into the breast pocket of his armor and withdrew
Jackson’s cracked glasses. “Take them,” he said to O’Neill. “Sebek’s too weak to
heal Jackson’s eyes, so he can’t see very well. He might need these.”

“ffe might?” O’Neill said, without moving to pick up the glasses. Any minute
he was going to make a move to kill Aris; Aris could see it in his eyes.

“Dr. Jackson,” Aris amended. “Sebek is weak. We can use that.” He waited for
O’Neill to accept the temporary treaty implicit in “we”, and the peace offering,
such as it was.

O’Neill took the glasses from Aris’ hand and shoved them in his front
pocket.

The only thing worse than the stench of the planet’s air was the stink of the
mine—a wet, dank smell, like a hundred years’ worth of mildew and rot trapped
in the stifling darkness, and it made Jack sneeze. The irony wasn’t lost on him;
too bad Daniel wasn’t there to rag him about it.

This time, as they descended into the mine, Jack went ahead with Aris right
behind him. Jack counted his steps to focus his thinking; three hundred and
seventy-seven steps, jagging ever downward in circular paths, through dimly lit
passages and narrow, rough-hewn doorways. All the while, he steeled himself for
dealing with Daniel… Sebek. He had to stop thinking of him as Daniel, or he
would never be able to do what he had to do.

By the time they reached the vault chamber, he’d sealed every trace of worry
and fear behind a wall of sarcastic indifference. All that remained was disgust
and anger, because those might still come in handy. If things got too bad, if he
lost control of the situation, he could always provoke the snake into killing
him. Words were a handy weapon in the face of arrogance; smart remarks never
failed to send most Goa’uld into a killing rage. Jack had always known insolence
would serve a purpose one day.

They found Sebek standing in front of the vault doors, his face inches away
from the surface as he ran both palms over the inscriptions. Such a familiar
posture, one Jack had seen Daniel assume a thousand times when he was a hair’s
breadth away from working out a problem—but Jack had already slammed that door
closed. Sebek might look like Daniel, he might even do the things Daniel had
done once, but Daniel was as good as dead while that thing had control of him.
Jack could imagine all too easily what it was like to move through the world
without conscious thought, without control of his limbs or his voice, or even
his memories and dreams. He could only hope Daniel was as unaware of the horror
of it as Jack had been while Kanan was dragging him around the galaxy in search of a captive slave girl.

Even so, when Sebek turned to them, Jack caught himself searching for
remnants of his friend. He couldn’t help it; it was what he wanted to see, and
he looked in spite of himself, careful not to give his intention away. Instead
of Daniel’s intense look of concentration, and the easy smile that usually
followed it, he saw a creature staring out at him through Daniel’s blue eyes, a
calculating gaze that erased any lingering hope. Not that he’d expected anything
different. In an awful way, it made things easier.