STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths (32 page)

“Carter! Come on!”

The colonel was pulling her back. Sam had been so fixated on the spreading chaos at Daniel and Teal’c’s feet that she hadn’t noticed the matching fissure moving just as quickly in her and the colonel’s direction. The collapsing earth spewed a cloud of dust in the air and she lost sight of both Daniel and Teal’c. She tried calling out to them, but the rumbling was so loud now she could barely even hear herself. She thought she could make out two indistinct forms moving through the haze, about a half dozen meters away. Hopefully they were no worse off than she and the colonel.

Beside her, the colonel coughed raggedly. Sam squinted at the scanner in her hand, wiping a layer of dirt off the digital readout. The next shockwave was still building strength, but they were running out of time. The walls on either side had already been weakened by the first quake. Another strong one would bring them down. At the very least they needed to find the next doorway. It would give them some measure of protection. Not a lot, but it was the best they could do.

“Sir, we need to go. These walls —”

What felt like an enormous hand thrust Sam backwards as the ground buckled and heaved. She landed next to the colonel, both of them dazed. Through her slightly foggy state she heard the colonel curse.

The sickening sound of crumbling stone made her focus. The upper ledge of the wall on their right was swaying in and out of her field of vision. Any second, gravity would claim it — and she and the colonel were right in its drop zone.

“Colonel, watch out!” Sam shot to her feet, grabbed his arm, and pulled him up. The huge stone block landed right where his head had been, the collateral fallout of smaller stones and pebbles catching them both in the back as they stumbled out of the path of the collapsing wall.

Ahead of them, along the passageway, more sections of the wall swayed dangerously. Sam exchanged a look with the colonel. Going forward was going to be just as dangerous as staying put, but neither of them had any better ideas.

“How long until the next one?” he said.

The energy reading had dropped back to its baseline, but this time there didn’t seem to be any indication of another surge building up. At least, not yet. “I don’t know, sir. It seems stable, for now.”

“Right. For now. In that case, why don’t we —”

They both felt it at the same time. The ground began to vibrate, only slightly at first, but with ever-increasing intensity. “I thought you said —”

“It’s not a quake, sir,” she insisted. The readout showed the energy level as unchanged.

The ground under their feet continued to shake so much that her teeth started to rattle. Sam felt like she was standing on a jack-hammer.

“C-c-c-c-art-t-t-t-ter?”

There was a terrible cracking sound. Sam looked up, expecting to see another chunk of the wall breaking loose, but she couldn’t find where. She felt a tapping on her arm. It was the colonel. He was pointing.

The fissure that had opened during the first quake had spread. They could see it, like a zipper, slowly but deliberately splitting the earth in two. It had already covered half the distance to where they stood and it didn’t give any indication of stopping. If anything, it was speeding up.

“Sir, I think we’d better —”

“Yeah.”

Dodging the fallen sections of wall, the two of them sprinted down the passage, away from the fissure. When they rounded a curve, Sam and the colonel drew up, both breathing hard. They were a safe distance away from it now, well out of its path.

Or not.

Unbelievably, the fissure appeared to be following the curve of the passageway, leaving an ever growing cloud of dust in its wake. Its path was too precise to be random.

“Is it me, Carter, or is that damned thing chasing us?” the colonel panted.

“Actually, sir, I was just thinking the same thing. I don’t think it’s a natural phenomenon.”

“Let’s not stick around to find out.”

It was getting more difficult to see as they ran. The passageway acted like a channel, keeping the thickening air contained within its walls. An umber fog enveloped them and Sam could feel the grit of fine sand in her eyes.

“There!” the colonel shouted, suddenly shoving her through a doorway that had appeared on their left. Their momentum hurled them against the far wall as they tumbled through and they leaned against it catching their breath again.

But only for a moment.

As if it had some kind of malevolent consciousness guiding it — and Sam was almost certain now that it did — the fissure rounded the corner with ease and followed them into the new passageway. For just a heartbeat it seemed to pause, as if waiting, and then, with another round of violent shaking, began heading toward them again. As they ran, the unmistakable sound of crashing stones told them that the walls themselves were crumbling in its wake.

Ahead of her the colonel stumbled, but righted himself before he fell. Sam’s heart thudded in her ears. She knew his knee could be unreliable at times. If it were to suddenly give out now —

Sam refocused her thoughts. Deal with problems when they came up. Not before. The only thing she needed to be thinking about now was how to get out of this. Turning corners hadn’t really slowed the fissure down much, but it was the only strategy they had until they could get to where they were going. Wherever the hell that was.

She saw the next doorway before the colonel did and yelled for him to turn. Instead of listening to her, however, he shook his head and grabbed her arm, preventing her from going through.

“Dead end!” he shouted in response to her disbelieving look. “There’s a pattern. I’ve been keeping track —” His voice was raspy. They were both getting winded easily in the filthy air. “We’d have been goners if we’d taken that way.”

So that was how he’d known which way to go. She should have guessed. Although she wasn’t sure what surprised her more, the fact that he’d actually discovered a pattern to the maze, or that he’d managed keep track of it in all this chaos.

When the next opening appeared on their left, he pointed and they managed to cut swiftly into it, this time without colliding with the wall. The colonel dragged her to the right just as the collapsing ground rounded the corner behind them.

“Sir, we need to get to the end of this maze.” Sam raised her voice so he could hear her. “I can’t explain why, but I think if we can make it there, we might be safe.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he hollered back. “Look — go there!” He was pointing at a doorway to yet another level. “Take a right!” he added, just before they skidded through.

Sam did as he told her, trying to regain her stride once they’d taken the corner. She didn’t see the wall until she nearly crashed into it. It was a dead-end.

She didn’t need to hear the colonel to know what he said; the curse was readable on his lips as he pounded both fists on the solid rock.

The fissure had only just entered the passage where they were. Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed to have turned this corner more slowly than before. Something about that nagged her. In fact, the whole thing was bothering her, although she couldn’t put her finger exactly on why — apart from the obvious, of course. Death by fissure wasn’t exactly how she planned to go.

“Carter, are you listening to me?”

Turning around Sam saw the colonel had laced his fingers together and was making a step for her with his hands. His intention was obvious. He wanted to boost her over the wall.

She looked up. With his help she’d barely have enough reach to get herself up the rest of the way.

Sam shook her head vehemently.

“Damn it, Carter. Get up there. That’s an order!” He was shouting at her now, his face a dark cloud of irritation.

“I wouldn’t be able to pull you up, sir,” she shouted back. “But maybe you can pull me.” If he were atop the wall and she could get a good enough grip on the bare stone, she might be able to climb up far enough for him to reach her. Sam laced her own fingers together and held them out for him to step into.

“Carter, this isn’t open for discussion!” the colonel yelled.

“Exactly, sir!”

He glared at her and cursed again, but finally the colonel stepped into her hands and Sam boosted him up the wall. The sudden weight was more than she anticipated, and for a moment she worried she couldn’t lift him high enough, but finally Sam felt his other foot find her shoulder and then his weight left her altogether as he struggled to pull himself up to the top.

Sam looked over her shoulder. The fissure appeared to have moved in the opposite direction, away from them. But as she watched, it changed course and was heading back her way. She had a minute, at most, before it reached her.

The likelihood of the colonel being able to reach her was slim at best. Part of her had known that when she’d sent him up first. Rock climbing had never been her forte. She’d never make it high enough for him to get a hold of her.

There was another option, though. If she acted quickly, there still might be time to jump over the fissure before it got too wide and go the other way. It was as much of a long shot as trying to scale the wall, but it was better than just standing there, waiting for the chasm to swallow her up. And maybe — just maybe — it would follow her instead.

She couldn’t risk telling the colonel. It would be better if she just took her best shot. If she made it, he could chew her out later. If not —

“Carter!”

Sam looked up, squinting into the bright light, and saw that the colonel was reaching down with some kind of cloth in his hand. It took her a second to realize it was his tunic, which he must have taken off, because now she could see he was bare-chested, hugging the top row of stones.

Stretching, she could just touch the edge of the sleeve with the tips of her fingers.

Close. But not close enough.

Cracking earth and tumbling rocks sounded behind her, and Sam turned back to see that the fissure had advanced even closer. In those few seconds she’d lost the option of trying to leap over it. If nothing else, it made the decision easier.

Putting as much power as she could into her tired legs, Sam jumped. The tunic fluttered away from her grasping reach and she landed empty handed. Trying to keep her eye on it, she jumped again. This time she managed to get her fist around it, but not with enough fabric for a sustaining grip. Frustrated, Sam slipped back down the wall to her feet, feeling the fissure’s vibrations through the bottom of her sandals.

She had one more try before it would be over. Above her, the colonel was hanging precariously off-balance in order to lower the tunic as much as possible. He wasn’t even yelling at her to keep trying. They both knew it was this time or never.

With what little room she had, Sam backed up to get a running start. Even if she managed to grasp the dangling sleeve, this was going to hurt.

The fissure was almost to her. Time was up.

Two long strides got her there. She leapt up on the last one, using her momentum to give herself greater height. For one horrible moment Sam thought she’d misjudged her reach, but then she felt the coarse linen fabric against her hand and she grasped desperately for it.

She was rewarded with a handful of cloth a split-second before she slammed into the stone wall. Her grip faltered momentarily, but only slipped a bit before she clutched the sleeve again and held on. Below her she could see the ground collapse into the ever widening chasm that had reached the base of the wall.

For what seemed like an eternity, she swung there, taking deep, steadying breaths. Already she could feel the perspiration on her hand. Any time now, her grip would start to fail.

Above her, Sam heard a groaning noise, and there was a sudden jerking on the fabric. The colonel was trying to pull her up from his already compromised position, but all he’d succeeded in doing was setting her to swinging a little harder.

Sam felt the fabric slide through her fist just a fraction more.

“A little help, here, Carter!” the colonel grunted down at her.

Pulling herself up as best she could with her one hand, Sam swung her free arm up and managed to grab onto the tunic just below her other fist. That felt a lot more secure. Looking up again she realized just how impossible it was for the colonel to do anything except hold the makeshift rope in place. How he hadn’t fallen himself, she had no idea.

“Sir, just anchor it. I think I can do the rest.”

“You might want to hurry.” He was looking past her.

Craning to glance down, Sam saw that a large crack had already begun to work its way through the first course of stones. As more ground gave away, it would be only a matter of time before the whole wall would cave into the abyss.

Twisting around, Sam kicked out toward the wall and managed to find some purchase with her feet. With that as support, she scrambled, hand over hand, toward the top.

Sam was so focused that the colonel’s hand appearing suddenly in her field of vision startled her. Grateful, she grasped it and allowed him to pull her up the final few feet until she could swing her legs over the top and straddle it.

He was breathing almost as hard as she was. Sam could see sweat beading at his temples and running down his neck to his chest, where a dozen or so bright red puncture marks dotted the area around his heart. They looked relatively fresh, the skin around them still raw.