He took a step forward as the door opened and Aedan Trask strolled into the cell. He was still armed, although the weapon dangled casually from a hand hanging loose at his side. “Ah,” he said, smiling, “you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“You shot us.” Jack put himself between Aedan and Carter. “How do you think I feel?”
“Apologies for that,” Aedan said, although he didn’t sound very apologetic. “This is a dangerous world, eh? But no harm was done. The stunner only disables you for a short time.”
Jack glanced past the man’s shoulder but couldn’t see anyone else. The door opened onto a narrow passageway and he could see more light at the end of it and hear a bubble of chatter. He wondered how hard it would be to rush the man, to grab his weapon. If Carter had been less incapacitated…
He heard her scramble awkwardly to her feet behind him, no doubt thinking along the same lines. Unfortunately, so was Aedan Trask. He lifted the weapon, aimed it loosely in their direction. “No need for any of that,” he said. “You’re not our prisoners.”
“Really? Then I gotta tell you, your guest rooms suck.”
From behind him, Carter said, “Where are our weapons?”
“In a safe place,” Aedan said. “You’ll have them again when you leave. In the meantime, your friends are enjoying our hospitality.”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Are they, now?”
Stepping back from the door, Aedan gestured down the passage with his weapon. “See for yourself. Your friend, Teal’c, woke quickly from the stunner and we didn’t use it on your injured companion. Meagan, our medic, is treating him. Come on.” He flicked his head towards the door. “It’s a cold night, but the fire’s warm and we’ve food to share. You’re welcome here, Jack O’Neill and Carter.”
“It’s Sam,” she said, moving on wobbly legs to stand next to Jack. “My friends call me Sam.”
Aedan smiled. “Sam,” he said. “Come on, your friends are waiting.”
With that he turned his back on them, leaving the door open, and headed down the narrow passageway. If they’d wanted to jump him, now was the perfect moment.
Jack looked at Carter, silently asking her opinion.
“I believe him, sir,” she said with a shrug. “For what it’s worth.”
He wanted to say, It’s worth a lot. But all he allowed himself to say was, “Me too.” And then he headed out after Aedan, forcing himself to leave Carter, still woozy from the stunner, to follow as best she could.
“There.” The woman — Meagan — sat back on her heels and admired her handiwork with a pragmatic eye. “You’ll be more comfortable now, Daniel.”
He lay on his back on a straw pallet, his shirt pushed up to expose the gash in his side. Meagan had washed out the FastClot and he felt better for it. There was no new bleeding either, which he took as a good sign. Then she’d covered his wound with a herbal poultice that she claimed would prevent infection — interesting, he’d noted through the pain, that she knew the word ‘infection’ — and redressed the wound with a sterile dressing from Daniel’s pack.
As she tied off the bandage, Daniel opened his eyes. The worst of the pain was over now and he could concentrate on the world again.
“Daniel Jackson.” Teal’c sat at his side, watching him with the steady focus he’d learned to interpret as concern. “Would you like me to administer a dose of morphine?”
Yes, he thought. And no. He started to tug his shirt down, but Meagan batted away his hands and did it herself with an irritated tsk-tsk. She was one of the oldest women in the group, although it was difficult to judge her age accurately in the smoky yellow light of their lamps. He thought he’d put her at about forty. Not old by American standards, yet she was clearly treated with the reverence of an elder here and it was unsurprising given that everyone else looked so young. Her hair was graying, braided and beaded like all the others, her eyes merry with lines around them that crinkled when she smiled. “Morphine?” she said, considering the word. “What is that?”
“It helps with pain,” Daniel explained, wincing as he shifted to allow her to readjust his shirt. “But it leaves you pretty out of it.”
Meagan frowned at the expression. “It clouds your mind?”
“Yes,” he said, and glanced at Teal’c. “Maybe later?” He wanted to talk to these people while he was still lucid, first and foremost about the whereabouts of Jack and Sam.
Teal’c nodded and turned his eyes on the rest of the room. He was uneasy, but that was an improvement on his previous state of ‘extremely pissed off’.