Free 06 - Siren Song by Jamie Duncan, Holly Scott - (ebook by Undead) Page B

ha’tak, whose shadow sliced across the city and blocked out the light of twin moons,
the complex seemed reassuringly familiar. The Goa’uld weren’t innovative. They
organized their space predictably. It wouldn’t be hard to find their way out
again, after they’d taken care of the Jaffa. After they’d taken care of Aris
Boch.
    Up ahead of her, the Colonel’s fingers tapped out an uneven rhythm on his
thigh as he walked; he was counting, too. When he turned his head to look down a
passageway, she could see him in profile. His face was expressionless. Behind
her, Teal’c was probably making a similar survey of the complex, although for
him it would be more of a refresher course than anything else. A hundred years
following prisoners through the corridors of Goa’uld mother-ships and bunkers
would leave their mark in his memory, indelible as the lines in his palm. Even
though she knew from experience where the brig was within the rectangular base
of the structure, she counted hallways anyway. Her mind was still a little
unruly and not counting meant thinking about Daniel.
    He would be conscious, she knew. He’d watch his hands move, and the gestures
would be all wrong. When Daniel was Daniel, he would read the writing on the
vault door and his fingers would spread out, steepled and stiff above the
incised figures—all those dancing human forms and intersecting curves that
looked like animals balanced on mountains or wave crests—and he’d follow along
each line like the physical movement of his hand through the air could restrain
his brain a little, keep it from rushing ahead. Sebek wouldn’t know this. Sebek
would use Daniel’s hands all wrong.
    Sam balled her fists. The Colonel’s hands hung open at his sides. She took a
few deep breaths and made her fingers uncurl.
    “Here,” Aris said. The entourage stopped, two Jaffa on either side of the
cell door.
    The brig was a little different from the ones she’d been in on the
motherships. The same exterior wall of horizontal bars, a door set into a solid
wall, activated by a code on a touchpad. There were two other cells, one on
either side, both empty. Sam thought of the people she’d seen scrabbling up the
piles in the mine, following the carts, stumbling back down again into the
black-rock darkness, or the ones sleeping huddled up against the fractured walls
of the city, trying to absorb some of the dissipating heat of the day from the
stone. They were rags and angles, and when they watched the Jaffa pass with
their prisoners, there was nothing in their eyes, not even fear. Aris didn’t
even turn his head to look at them. The whole planet was a prison. Sebek didn’t
have much to be worried about.
    She couldn’t think of Sebek without the image of Daniel’s face invading her
mind. Sebek would carry Daniel’s weight wrong. He wouldn’t tilt his head back
and let his mouth fall open while he was thinking; “the genius guppy look” the
Colonel called it sometimes, when he was pretending to be annoyed. Daniel would
feel the wrongness of Sebek’s gestures, the horror of them. She shuddered. Sebek
had smiled. He’d raised Daniel’s head, and there had been blood on his lips, and
he’d looked at her.
    The roaring in her ears made her feel sick. She followed the Colonel into the
cell, stepped aside to let Teal’c in after her. They all turned to face Aris.
    “You son of a bitch,” the Colonel said, matter-of-factly, like he was noting
how old Aris was, or that it was raining outside.
    “I told him to work faster,” Aris answered. “Now, he’ll work faster.” He
slapped the panel on the wall. “On the bright side, maybe now I won’t have to
break any more of your fingers,” he added as the door slid shut.
    “Well, there’s that,” the Colonel replied with a bitter half-smile. He walked
to the open bars of the exterior wall so that he could watch Aris walk away,
taking three of the Jaffa with him. His jaw worked for a moment,