Oh yeah.
The ledge was just a ledge, no beckoning entrance to a warm and cozy cave with piles of marinated mammoth steak stored inside.
"Crap!" he whispered, struggling back to his feet. This time the dizzy spell was bad enough to make him grope for support.-
The hill slowly stopped spinning, and as that weird sizzling sound in his ears subsided he heard a noise that had nothing to do with his blood pressure bottoming out. At least he didn't think so… John gingerly sidled closer to the edge, praying that the next bout of dizziness wouldn't make him lose his balance.
"Crap!" he said again, quieter though more emphatically.
He'd heard right. It was footsteps The trail ran along the hillside directly below the ledge, and on it Brother Star was heading for the river. Swimming was out, considering the weather, so he probably planned on catching his lunch-unless he'd somehow got wind that they'd made it out of the caves and planned on catching someone else entirely… Either way, Elizabeth was down there on her own and in no shape to run and hide.
And given the shape you're in, John, you haven't got an ice cube's chance in hell of winning a wrestling match with that guy!
True, but he did have the element of surprise. Plus, Brother Star was lugging along a nice, big, heavy-looking haversack, which should be cumbersome enough to slow him down at least initially. At any rate, doing nothing wasn't an option.
Brother Star-in enviably dry clothes, by the way-was walking at a brisk pace, clearly alone, clearly unconcerned about what lay either side or ahead of him. He did, however, check his six periodically, which struck John as more than a little odd. Ill feelings among the brethren? Or perhaps Brother Star had made off with this fall's dope harvest.
They might get a chance to discuss it later.
If John survived this.
He peered over the edge for one last, measuring glance and snapped back into the cover of a boulder. Flattened against cold stone, he did the math. Roughly an eighteen-foot drop, he guessed, which should give him plenty of momentum. Below, Brother Star was approaching the target area.
John took a last deep breath, pushed himself off the rock face and jumped. The trajectory was just so, slamming him onto Star's shoulders like some deranged, outsize monkey. Star staggered forward under the weight, sent them both tumbling to the ground in a series of a soggy thuds. The first impact of landing on top of the man had detonated a sparkling burst of agony in John's head, half blinding him. Barely able to stay astride his stunned victim and struggling to ignore the pain, he tried to place a left hook, missed by a mile.
The second attempt was even less successful. Meanwhile, Star lay flat on his back, staring up at his attacker with a look of disbelief in his eyes. If anything, that look intensified when John's third attempt barely grazed the man's shoulder.
"At least defend yourself!" John hissed, somewhat insulted by the fact that apparently he didn't rate a proper fight.
"If I defended myself, you'd be dead," Star said earnestly. "You hit like a girl."
Somehow that took the wind out of John's sails. There also was the minor issue that he had a point. So far Star had saved him a fortune in plastic surgery, and the furtive undertone of amusement in his voice indicated that it probably had little to do with rules about not hitting guests.
Deciding that it might be better for the remains of his dignity not to reduce the man to tears of laughter, John folded and rolled off his not-so-victimized victim. "What are you doing here?" he grunted.
Star sat up and straightened himself out. "I was looking for you. The cascades upriver are the only other exit from the cave system I could think of, so I was hoping you'd somehow make it there. Where're the other one and the Elizabeths?"
"Why?" Though the man didn't present any obvious threat, John was a long way from trusting him. For all he knew this was some elaborate charade designed to capture any potential survivors.
"Colonel, please" Star actually sighed. "I'm trying to help you. True, we all believe that Brother Moon is right. You shouldn't be here, and none of us wants to cease to exist when you do whatever you're going to do to Charybdis. Having said that, there were several of us who didn't agree with just dumping you in the caves. In the end it was a majority decision, though… you see?"
"Oh yeah. Clear as day. Death by democracy."
Star had the decency to wince. "We just… we just want to live."
"So did my and Elizabeth's doubles."
You could see the blood drain from the man's face. "They're…
"Yes, they're dead. Happy now? They drowned to give Elizabeth and me a chance to make it out of there."
The words managed to achieve what John's hapless flailing earlier hadn't. Star flinched as though he'd received a knockout blow. "I'm sorry. I truly am. I… I don't know what to say." Scrambling to regroup, he angled for the haversack he'd lost in their one-sided tussle, fished around inside it, and at last seemed to find what he'd been looking for. "Maybe this'll help to convince you." He held out Junior's Beretta.
John snatched the gun, unsafed it, and trained it on his would-be rescuer.
"Brother Moon explained its purpose to us. You can shoot me if it makes you feel better." Star gave a tired shrug. "I guess I would if I were in your shoes. But there are only three projectiles left."
"Never mind." Feeling like an idiot, John lowered the Beretta. "I think I'll keep that in reserve for the time being."
With a small jerk of the head at the sidearm, the man said, "Sister Dawn isn't too keen on what happened either. She is in a, uh, position of trust and took it while Brother Moon was asleep. And this." More rummaging in the haversack produced the cloak remote for the jumper. "We figured that way you could go someplace safe."
John took the remote, too, weighed it in his hand. "You do realize that we can't leave the planet, don't you, Star? Elizabeth tells me Brother Moon tried to send us through the gate, without much luck. For the gate to work he would have to come with us."
Star looked uncomfortable. "He can't. I… well, I guess Elizabeth explained about the flower."
"The drug, you mean."
"Yes, I suppose you could call it that…"
"No doubt about it."
"Where's Elizabeth?" asked Star, obviously figuring that a change of topic was in order and adding, "I won't tell anybody, I swear."
"I left her near the shore. She damn near drowned." Suddenly aware of how long he'd been gone, John shot to his feet and would have keeled over if Star hadn't leaped up and caught him. Dangling from the man's grip, he scrubbed a hand over his face and stopped when he realized that even that much pressure seemed to set his eyeballs ablaze. "I've got to get back. I need to get some firewood. She's hypothermic… cold."
"And so are you." Star carefully leaned John against a tree. "Can I trust you to stay upright on your own for a minute?" When he got no answer, he took a step back, observed that there was no discernible list in either direction, and gathered his haversack. Slinging it over his shoulder, he took hold of John's arm again and said, "Let's go. I've got dry clothes and food in there, and you can get changed once we get that fire going."
"Why are you doing this?" John murmured, unsure of why he was quibbling with anything, except perhaps that dry clothes and food sounded too good to be true.
"I guess because Sister… because Elizabeth believes that that's what we ought to be about."
Chapter seventeen
"Do you think it ever stops raining here?" Teyla sounded frazzled.