But he knew he had to buy time, play this one carefully. If he just asked straight out, they were hardly likely to help him. “Well,” he said, “I have some blood, and sure, sometimes it feels a little old–”
But the Amam wasn’t listening. It jerked its head towards Jack’s silent guard, its chin jutting upwards, and bared its teeth with a hiss. It was then that Jack realized what was so unsettling about this situation, what was so wrong with this creature compared to the other Devourers they had encountered so far. They had been cold, emotionless, calculated. This one was plain, tinfoil hat, batshit crazy.
Without a word, the grunt turned and left the room.
“Hey,” called Jack, to its retreating back, “you don’t wanna stay a while? Split a six pack? Watch the game? Not leave me with Charles Manson here?” But the door closed and he found himself alone in the room with Crazy. With a grimace, he turned back to face his new companion. “I’m gonna miss that guy.”
Crazy rounded the table and came towards him. Jack tried not to recoil as it leaned in as if taking his scent. The thing drew back and cocked his head. It looked down and to the side, as if searching its memory for some forgotten knowledge. “You… hunger. You require food.”
“Um, no,” he replied, not exactly relishing this bizarre attempt at hospitality — Hansel and Gretel had probably had a similar offer. He ignored the sudden growling of his stomach at the thought of food. His last MRE had been in Aedan’s camp and who knew how long ago that had been? “I never eat standing up,” he said.
But evidently Crazy had either forgotten the offer or hadn’t been that interested in Jack’s response because it turned back around to the table of equipment and thrust out its hand, pointing at the space next to him. Jack took this as a summons and keeping as much distance between him and the alien as possible, approached the table. “This is some pretty cool stuff you got here,” he said looking down at the array of gadgets.
Although, in truth, ‘gadgets’ was doing these objects a disservice, because they were quite beautiful, each of them rendered in exquisite glass and metalwork. He was sure Daniel would have had a field day, but for his part, Jack could at least appreciate how pretty they were.
The Amam ran his hand lightly across their surface, with something that looked almost like reverence. “Such beauty,” he murmured, in a way that made Jack doubt that it was speaking to him directly. “The gods who left their children. They made them and then they left them. Salvation or damnation. The choice was simple.”
“Look,” said Jack, “I appreciate that you people are just trying to get on with… with whatever it is you’re getting on with here.” Crazy’s head spun towards Jack, as if it had only just remembered he was in the room. Unnerved, Jack plowed on. “All I’m saying is, we don’t want to intrude and I’m willing to forgive the whole ‘imprisoning us and trying to eat us’ thing if you can help me out. The Ancients. Do you know them? I mean, do you know who they were?”
The Amam squinted at him and for one weird moment Jack felt like the crazy one. It looked to the table and back to Jack, then reached out and picked up one of the objects that lay there. It was a transparent disc of colored glass about the size of a dinner plate, edged in metal. From the center, were radiating rows of characters that looked similar to the writing that had so fascinated Daniel on the screen back in the lab. Ancient, he guessed, or something like it. “Touch,” said the Amam, holding out the disc. “I must see your blood. Touch.”
“Oh, I’d better not. I’m sure you have some sort of ‘You break it, you buy it policy.’” Crazy hissed, baring its teeth, and Jack recalled the even more vicious teeth on the palm of its hand. He took a breath and gingerly took the disc from the alien and turned it over in his hands. The writing on it was gibberish to him. Daniel, of course, would have been able to figure it out, but right now he was hoping that Daniel was at least a mile away. “Listen, I really think you’ve got the wrong guy. I just–”
The disc sprang to life. Beams of light spread across the ceiling of the vast room before contracting into myriad tiny pinpoints. He was no expert, but Jack knew a star chart when he saw one. He scanned the constellations, searching for any he recognized. He wondered if it was the Milky Way, and where among all those tiny points, Earth might be. That’s where Carter would have proven useful.
I am so the wrong guy.
But, as his thoughts dwelt on home and where among the stars it might be, the light show began to move, like a ship moving at sub-light.