06 - Siren Song (37 page)

“Whoa,” O’Neill said from behind him.

“Yeah,” Jackson answered.

These guys were the masters of understatement, Aris thought. He had no idea
what he could do with the contents of this room, but that didn’t matter much. It
was his. He could feel it sizzling inside him, making his brain sparkle. Better
than
roshna.
Better than… anything.

Jackson started to move, and Aris shot out an arm to catch him across the
neck, stopping him before he could get ahead. “This is mine, remember?” Aris
said.

“I thought it was for your
people
,” O’Neill said acidly from behind
him.

“I am my people.”

“You don’t even know what you have here,” O’Neill went on. “You don’t know
anything about it. You can’t even use it.”

“It doesn’t want either of you.”

His voice low and distant, Jackson was still straining against Aris’ arm.
For a second, Aris was surprised that he could hear him at all, because the
light seemed
loud,
as though it should be drowning out every sound but
its own celebration. But Jackson’s soft voice carried clearly, making the
silence of the room apparent, and Aris got that free-falling feeling again.
Instead of stamping his boot, he shoved back against Jackson, who barely budged.

“It doesn’t want you,” Jackson whispered again, and his eyes were wide with realization. “It wants us.” The last words weren’t soft
anymore. And the eyes weren’t blue anymore. Gold flashed there and the mouth
twisted into an arrogant sneer.

Aris pushed himself away from Sebek and raised his gun. O’Neill took a step
back, too, and he looked pained, betrayed, resigned. Sebek’s gaze slid from Aris
to O’Neill, narrowed, assessing. His hands closed into tight fists, the tendons
in his arms standing out, muscles flexing with withheld violence.

Around them, the light lunged and pulsed, flared white-hot and then went out
completely.

The memory of light swirled across Aris’ retinas, hot blue and slow-burning
red. He blinked it away, and then the only thing visible in the place was the
tiny flicker of the power-indicator in the grip of his blaster.

After a long pause, O’Neill offered a hissed assessment: “Crap.”

“Yeah,” Jackson replied, in Jackson’s voice.

“Dark,” O’Neill added.

“Yes, seems that way, doesn’t it?” Jackson said. Pause. “Does anybody still
have a flashlight?”

Aris snapped open a pocket on his thigh and pulled out his light, aiming it
in the direction of Jackson’s voice before turning it on.

What he saw wasn’t Jackson or even Sebek’s ugly smile, but his own face,
twice, distorted grotesquely. He jumped back and snapped the blaster out to the
length of his arm, barely keeping his finger off the trigger. As his eyes
adjusted, he saw that the ghosts were reflections in a pair of mirrored eyes.
The tiny scales around them shifted a little as the mouth below opened into a
sharp-toothed smile, and the movement sent rainbowed sparks of light dancing
across Aris’ extended arm. He backed up another step and tilted the light so
that more of the woman came into view—or didn’t, really, as it turned out. For
a second he thought she was wearing armor like his. When he moved, the black
shapes on her shoulders and chest moved as well, and he realized that this, too,
was a reflection. She seemed to fade from existence below the waist, but when
the light played across her invisible legs, more sparks flickered across the
floor and over Jackson’s boots.

Jackson was still there, behind her, O’Neill beyond him, braced for a fight
in contrast to his earlier glib tone, with his head tilted so that he could see
around Jackson. Aris noticed that the woman didn’t cast a shadow, and he
wondered what O’Neill was seeing. Probably Aris aiming at nothing, or maybe an
outline, like the sun lighting the curve of a planet. O’Neill saw
something
though, because he grunted and tilted his head the other way before saying,
“Huh.”

His expression rapt, Jackson took a step forward. Aris shifted his aim.

“Back off,” Aris ordered.

Jackson blinked rapidly a couple of times, raised a hand to wave Aris out of
his field of attention, and took another step. One stride brought Aris close
enough to angle his arm over the woman’s shoulder and plant the blaster in the
middle of Jackson’s chest.

“I said back off,” Aris repeated evenly. Beneath his arm, the woman stood
motionless. Her mirrored eyes were a couple of inches from his chin, looking up
at him. He let his gaze slip down to meet them, but his own distorted face
glared back and he looked quickly away. Where her body came close to his—not
quite touching him—he could feel a chill, a dry cold parching his skin under
his armor. He could picture frost feathering upward across his chest and stifled
a shiver.

The woman opened her mouth again, ran her pink tongue across her lips. She
looked over her shoulder at Jackson. When she turned back to Aris, she said,
“Shhhh.”

Aris
felt
it pass over his skin like water seething up a beach.
Jackson’s eyelids fluttered and closed. He felt it too. O’Neill’s raised fist
loosened and fell to his side.

“At last,” the woman said. Her voice was rich and low, but thin, like an echo
of something else, something far away. The frost seemed to crackle, crystals
growing, spearing through Aris’ brain. He had to clench his fingers tighter
around the light to keep from dropping it and rubbing at his temple instead.
“Have you come for what I offer?”

Jackson’s answer was barely a breath of sound. “Yes.”

“Daniel,” O’Neill warned.

Jackson’s head snapped around to look at him.
“Yes,”
Sebek said.

The woman smiled again. She stepped away from Aris and ducked under his arm
to walk a slow circle around the three men. Where the light hit her, she seemed
to flare into existence, sending more slivers of color across the floor, over
their skin and clothing as she passed them. Aris tried to make out first Sebek’s
and then O’Neill’s face in her eyes, but failed. It didn’t matter. He knew what
he’d see: Sebek’s expression triumphant, O’Neill’s wary.

Her circuit completed, she stopped in front of Sebek and rose up on her toes
to look closely at his face. He bowed his head toward her, his mouth opening as
if waiting for her kiss. The jealousy that knifed through Aris’ chest made him
growl, but the woman held a hand out to him, palm outward and, although Aris had
been starting to move, he stopped, his changing momentum carrying him back onto
his heels.

“I have waited for someone to come. Someone with the intelligence to take
what I have to give,” she murmured, her lips almost touching Sebek’s. “You are
beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t get too close to him, if I were you,” O’Neill said from the gloom
beyond the circle of light. “He’s not as beautiful on the inside.”

Her hand almost touching Sebek’s hair, she hesitated, shifted her attention
to O’Neill. “Are you?”

He hesitated too. Finally, he answered, “No. Not really.”

Her smile seemed oddly satisfied when she met Sebek’s unflinching stare, her
hand still hovering above the side of his face. “I can give you everything,” she
said, drawing her middle finger—still not touching—down across his cheek,
along his jaw, up and over his bottom lip. Sebek’s eyes slid shut again, and he
shuddered visibly.

“Like what?” O’Neill asked.

This time, when she shifted her gaze, it was a sharp movement of irritation.
“Everything,” she repeated, her voice colder, like a shard of glass. She waved
her hand at the space around them, and the light in the walls started to flow
again, subtle, muted. “All that is in this place. Everything I protect.” Her lips pulled back a little, showing
more teeth before she modulated the expression into a smile. “Powerful things.”
She caressed Sebek’s lip, her finger a hair’s breadth away, and he shuddered
again. “Violent things. Beautiful things.”

“Yes,” Sebek said, the hollow rumble of his voice softened so that he almost
sounded like Jackson.

Aris’ vision dimmed and, instead of the room and the woman and Sebek swaying
and stupefied in front of her, he saw a star field, a planet banded in red and
yellow, a space station silhouetted in front of it. Arcing around from the night
side of the planet were a dozen arrow-head ships. The space in front of them
flickered with weapons fire as they bore down on the station. There was a pulse
of light from the station, and in an instant the smaller ships were gone, not
even debris left to show they’d ever been there.

Aris staggered and recovered, blinking hard. When his vision cleared, he
found O’Neill hunched over with his fist in his eye, Sebek where he had been,
eyes still closed, but a smile broadening on his face.

“Free me and I will show you more. All of it,” the woman breathed against
Sebek’s lips. “The time is short. We must go now, before all this is lost.”

“You won’t be giving him anything,” O’Neill said, his voice strained as he
straightened to face her squarely. “He’s not the kind of person you want to be
doing business with. Now, me, on the other hand—”

This time, Aris didn’t contain his growl. With a quick shift of his weight,
he leaned around Sebek and the woman and aimed a shot at O’Neill’s head. O’Neill
caught the movement and ducked when Aris fired, the shot going over the target
and into the wall. Sparks showered out and the screech that came with them
sliced through Aris’ head so painfully that he dropped the flashlight to cover
one of his ears. He was still reeling from it when Sebek caught him by the
throat, slipped a foot behind his ankle, and threw him to the floor.

“Don’t.” It was Jackson, now, who leaned all his weight into keeping Aris still under him. He was as powerful as Aris knew he would be,
his strength augmented by Sebek’s, and his grip on Aris’ wrist was viselike,
squeezing until Aris’ fingers opened and the blaster clattered free. He brought
his face close to Aris’. “You aren’t helping.”

Around them, the light surged like heaving breath, white-hot, shadow-cold,
and the screaming voice rose, thinned, stretched taut to a keening that faded
from hearing until it ended in a heart-wrenching sob. A child crying,
inconsolable.

Aris turned his head, looked past his empty hand at the woman, whose head was
bowed. She was shivering.

“You must not destroy each other,” she said, her voice muffled. “You have
much to give. So much to take.”

Beyond her, O’Neill stood in the wild light, framed by the ugly black scar on
the wall. His face was twisted, winced up on one side against the noise. Aris
wondered what her tears would look like. If they could slice open skin.

After a moment, her shivering eased, and with the change, the lights changed
as well. The room was bathed in a pale, shifting blue glow, like sunlight seen
from underwater, and time seemed to slow down. Aris felt Jackson loosen his
grip, and he took the opportunity to shove him away and roll to his feet.
Jackson remained where he was, lying on his back on the floor, arms splayed,
gazing upward. When Aris snagged his blaster again and aimed it down at him,
Jackson only snorted out a small laugh and kept staring at the ceiling. In spite
of himself, Aris smiled and let the blaster fall against his thigh. He had no
fight in him. The light was lilting. He was drifting. Distantly, he knew that
this wasn’t right. Nothing here was right, but the thought was far, far off, and
the woman was right there, looking up at him, and even without real eyes, she
looked beautiful, better than
roshna.
His blood felt hot even though the
room was cool and he was floating.

O’Neill was still on one knee, cradling his injured hand. His eyes were
squeezed shut. He was perfectly motionless, a tight knot of resistance. As Aris
sank into the calming light, he felt pity for O’Neill.
Give in,
he
thought, and the thought had a high, thin voice.

O’Neill didn’t look like he was giving in. Poor bastard.

“Soon this place will die, and all here will be lost,” the woman said, with a
sad smile. “But I have it all, here. Millions of memories. The lives of
thousands. Wonders.” She laid a hand on the side of her head. Aris noticed that
each finger ended in a silver talon. “I can give you what you seek. If you take
me out of here. If you take me out.” She was looking at O’Neill, but her gaze
slid away, slipped across Aris, and settled on Jackson, whose eyes were closed.

“I was right,” he said. “I knew it.”

“Take me out and I can show you.”

The words seemed to echo inside Aris’ head, coming and going like waves on
sand. His eyes drifted shut. He swayed on the ebb and flow, and nodded numbly.
He held out his hand toward her—he could see her without his eyes—

Someone knocked his hand away.

“Just a minute,” O’Neill said. He was right in front of Aris. When Aris
opened his eyes to glare at him, O’Neill glared right back. He held up a warning
index finger, and then added the one from the other hand for extra emphasis.
“Hold on.”

Jackson climbed to his feet. Over O’Neill’s shoulder, Aris saw the woman
turning toward him, arms open, waiting for someone to embrace her. She looked at
Aris for a moment and then dismissed him as she focused on Jackson alone. The
smile that tugged at her lips was seductive, mischievous.

“So much to offer me,” she purred, but the smile faltered, became instead a
down-turned frown of compassion. “And yet, so much you cannot comprehend.”

Jackson bowed his head. His shoulders slumped into a curve of sadness. The
woman cast Aris a long glance and then angled her head so that she could look
into Jackson’s face. “I can help you. I can help you see.” She leaned even
closer and whispered right next to his ear, “Give this to me.”

At that, O’Neill spun around, keeping a restraining hand in the middle of
Aris’ chest, and said, too loudly for the gentle light, “Oh, I don’t
think
so.”