Chapter nine
"Streamers," said John's junior twin, something between bafflement and exasperation in his voice, and nosed the jumper clear of the Stargate.
"Pretty!" chirped Elizabeth. It made a change from her trying to shoot people or bash their brains out and generally reenacting Stephen King's Misery.
Behind them the wormhole disengaged. In front of them opened the control center-a control center-or what was left of it; a clamshell grotto, dappled with sunlight spearing through a shattered ceiling and wreathed in honeysuckle and a whole bunch of other creepers that clung to anything that would hold them. Woven in among them were strips of cloth, dyed in all colors of the rainbow and fluttering in a gentle breeze. They were the only thing that moved beyond the view port; of the people who must have put them up there wasn't a hair in sight.
The jumper glided from the grotto, through a stand of giant cedars, and out onto a sheltered clearing, hovering to a stop right at the edge. If Sheppard Junior's debriefing was anything to go by, this landing was a heck of a lot softer than the one before last. John was still trying to wrap his head around the information and figure out whether or not to believe even half of it. Then again, he found he didn't actually care all that much. Not after having woken up in a locked storeroom with his head hammering and his nose in a plateful of thin air a la mode, which was what Elizabeth had expected him to survive on. On the upside, you puked a lot less on an empty stomach. It had taken hours until he was clearheaded enough to assess his situation and realize that, before long, he'd be too weak to move and claw his way out of there through a ventilation duct. The one thing he'd never anticipated in the days of hide and seek that followed was that he'd end up saving himself. So to speak.
Of course, the entire notion of the doppelganger and having to rescue the galaxy could have been brought on by massive frontal lobe damage, but if that was the case, he'd go with the hallucination. It was preferable to reality.
"You coming… sir?"
A generous dash of irony in his own voice yanked him out of the reverie. Then again, if you couldn't take mockery from yourself, who could you take it from? That aside, it might be a good idea to try and stay focused.
As John shoved himself from his seat, the vertigo struck again and he took a couple of deep breaths. "Coming," he murmured and hoped the process wouldn't entail pitching forward and flat on his face.
The rear compartment did a wild shimmy and snapped to a halt, abruptly enough to make him stumble and reach for a handhold. He grabbed his own arm. So to speak.
"It's alright," his double said. "I've got Elizabeth."
Meaning, Let's not embarrass one another by mentioning our slightly-worse-than-mint condition. They could be tactful if necessary.
John gave a grateful nod and gingerly walked down the ramp behind Major Sheppard and whatever version of Dr. Weir this supposedly was. They'd decided to take her through the gate to find the original who, with any kind of luck, might just have a fix on the location of one of the McKays. Because one thing was certain: without Rodney they-he-wouldn't stand a snowflake's chance in hell of making Charybdis un-happen. And that, apparently, was the name of the game.
Unfortunately, there was no welcoming committee made up of originals, doubles, or third parties. The clearing was as deserted as the grotto had been, and they'd have to go look for whomever had put up the carnival decorations around the Stargate. A hike was just what he needed, John thought grimly. What both of them needed, he amended with a glance at his twin's awkward limp.
Behind them, the hatch of the jumper closed, and the cloaked ship vanished from view. Out here the air was warm and pregnant with the scent of flowers and something else… incense? It smelled good enough to eat. From somewhere among that green, fragrant screen of plant life drifted birdsong and the rustle of small animals going about their small animal business. Elizabeth drifted off into the glade and began picking the pink and purple flowers that grew in abundance.
Peaceful.
John harbored a deep distrust of all things peaceful. They usually weren't.
He exchanged a quick look with his alter ego who, going by his frown, was on the same page-surprise! — and checked the life-signs detector. "There's twenty-odd readings southeast of our position."
"How many?"
"I'm concussed. I could be seeing double."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not rely on that." Sheppard Junior pulled out the Beretta they'd taken from Elizabeth; the only weapon they had between them. He hesitated a moment, then held out the gun. "You want it?"
It was tempting, but John shook his head. "Like I said, I could be seeing double."
"Fair enough. What do you want to do?"
"Sneak in, see what we can see " Which would be a tall order with Elizabeth in tow, but leaving her behind was out of the question. John thought for a moment. "It's a surprise, Elizabeth. We have to be very quiet." She was so wrapped up in her hunt for flowers that she didn't listen. A shaft of brilliant sunlight breaking through the branches spun a halo around her head, and for the first time in what seemed like ages she looked serene. Despite his reservations against things peaceful, John hated the idea of shattering that serenity. "Elizabeth`? Do you hear?"
As if to prove him right, the sunbeam vanished without warning, dulling colors and casting the glade into murky shadows that were deepening by the second.
"I don't like this," she murmured, looking up at a sky that was rapidly turning ink black above the canopy.
She'd barely said it when a bolt of lightning struck the ground mere yards away from them. Instantly the air was filled with the amp-laden stench of ozone, and a roar of static electricity drowned out Elizabeth's scream. A quick glance at Junior assured John that it also worked wonders for his cowlick. Above, the clouds spun into a giant charcoal swirl; its dark core glowering down at them like a malevolent eye.
It was gut instinct rather than meteorology that made him yell, "Take cover!"
The next bolt exploded where they'd been standing mere seconds ago. A jumble of limbs, they lay in the underbrush at the edge of the forest, and Junior gasped, "Damn, that was close! Call me paranoid, but it feels like somebody's taking potshots."
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you," intoned Elizabeth, making the Johns look at each other in surprise.
While they were still staring, something crashed through the canopy and struck the ground near them with a solid crack. A second missile followed, then a third and fourth and tenth, in quick succession and picking up speed, until a whole barrage of fist-sized hailstones shattered branches and chewed up foliage and piled heaps of icy baseballs into the clearing. But louder than the rest of the infernal racket was the constant clang of ice on metal.
"Crap!" Junior hollered over the barrage and pointed in the direction of their cloaked ship. Not so cloaked anymore. There was a squarish, ice-free patch of fern and moss, above which more baseballs were bouncing in midair. Kinda obvious… "We've got to get the jumper out of here."
"Too late!" Tapping the screen, John thrust the life signs detector at his alter ego. "The natives are heading for shelter. Our way."
.'Crap!"
Yeah. He'd got it the first time. The best they could hope for was that the abovementioned natives would be too preoccupied with getting out of the storm to pay much attention to any oddities in their front yard.
Dragging Elizabeth with them, they backed deeper into the trees. As if on cue, the intensity of the hailstorm doubled. Apparently the local weather gods were intent on pounding them into the ground. Huddled against a massive fir, they tried to get as much protection as they could. It wasn't much, though it hardly mattered, because through a gap in the bushes John now watched the first of the natives stagger onto the clearing and toward the grotto.