Jack groaned as he came to. His head was throbbing like he'd just been on a three day bender. He looked around. He was in a room. Three doors, benches against the walls, a table in a corner. And... full of women and the women were just... watching him. Warily. Several moved to cradle heavily pregnant bellies and others looked at him as if he could snap at any moment. At the moment, though, he didn't feel up for much more than shifting into a sitting position.
He looked closer at the women. Aside from those who were heavily pregnant, he detected smaller pregnant bellies on more than a few. In all there must have been a dozen and a half women, all of whom appeared to be in some stage of pregnancy.
A couple yards away, Sam was sprawled inelegantly and face down across the stone floor. He stretched one leg towards her and nudged her calf with the toe of his boot. "Carter." No response. He nudged her harder, cleared his throat and said her name louder, "Carter!" The women flinched back from strength of his voice. But still, Sam didn't stir.
Jack looked back over at the women. "Water?"
One, who looked very young and also very pregnant pointed towards a door where several buckets were lined up against the wall.
Jack pushed himself up to his knees and then, when his head stopped spinning, onto his feet. A wave of nausea rolled up and he had to wait for it to pass. Once it had, he made his way to the buckets and found them equipped with dippers. He took a long drink to soothe his parched throat then took the dipper, full of water, over to Sam. From his place standing over her, he nudged her shoulder. "Hey Carter, wakey, wakey." She groaned. He dropped, creakily, to one knee next to her and placed a hand on the back of her neck. "C'mon, Carter. Up and at 'em."
"Sir?" she slurred and blinked her eyes slowly a couple of times. Between his headache and her reaction he figured they were both likely concussed. He helped her into a sitting position then passed her the dipper of water. She drank gratefully.
"You back with me?"
She nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."
"Good. 'Cause I have no idea where the hell we are."
She looked around the room, slowly, likely taking in the abnormally high proportion of pregnant women the same way he had. "Weren't we just on a tour of the city's defensive facilities?"
"By the way I've got to piss I'd say that was a while ago."
"I feel like I've been drugged."
"And conked on the head," he agreed.
"Yeah. Daniel and Teal'c?" she asked.
He just shook his head. He canted his head in the direction of the women. "Who do you think they are?"
"I don't know. Have you asked?"
He could forgive her peevish tone considering their circumstances.
"Ladies," he directed their way, "where are we? And who are you?"
One of the women stood, her dress flowed down around her and accentuated her heavily pregnant belly. "We are the bearers. And you are in Trinigoth, the mining camp."
"Mining camp. Great."
"The bearers?" Sam asked.
"Pregnant," he said and cocked his head in the direction of the women.
"All of you?" Sam asked loudly enough to be heard throughout the room.
"We are all with child, yes," the standing woman said.
"Where are the men?" Sam wondered.
"And the not-so-pregnant women?"
"You are in the bearers chambers."
"You got a name?" Jack asked the woman.
"I am called Farren."
"Well, Farren, I'm Jack and this here's Carter. You wouldn't happen to know how we got here, would you?"
"You were brought by the bringers and left here to awaken. It is what they do with all new residents."
"Residents?" Sam asked.
"Like hell."
"When new ones come to the camp, like you were, they sleep."
"Sleep, passed out, potato-"
"Sir," Sam warned.
Farren continued, "Soon, the overseers will come for you."
"That doesn't sound good," Jack muttered just loud enough for Sam to hear him.
"But food will come first," the young woman who pointed out the water spoke up.
"Yes," Farren said, "and you must eat. You have been here all night and soon, the midday meal will arrive."
"At least they'll feed us, sir."
"It is the bearers who will feed you," Farren said, "not the overseers. We will share with you what we have."
"Hey, look," Jack said, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of taking food from pregnant women, "we can wait until we get to wherever we're going."
"You cannot. You will not be provided for until you are assigned a living station. And we are well considered, better than the rest. You would do well to take what we offer you."
"A living station would be great, but I'd settle for a bathroom."
Farren smiled, "There are toilet and bathing facilities through that door." She indicated the door near the buckets of water.
Jack smiled gratefully and turned to Sam. "Ladies first?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Two men brought lunch on two large rolling carts. The shelves were filled with bowls of fruits, plates of meat and bread, and pitchers of juice. As Farren had indicated, even once all the women had filled their plates there was plenty of food to be had so Jack no longer felt bad and pushed Sam towards the food first, then put some onto a plate for himself when she was done.
Having been captive before, and more than one time, Sam wasn't quite sure what to make of this place. They'd been left alone and fed well - though if Farren were to be believed it's not that Sam and the colonel were well fed but that the pregnant women were. But... how bad a place could it be if the women were cared for so well?
"The mining camp," Sam asked after she'd slaked the worst of her hunger, "it's for mining naquadah?"
"Yes," Farren said. "Though we also mine the jewels that run amongst the veins of naquadah."
"How often do new residents," he said the word but his face screwed up like it tasted bad in his mouth, "come to the camp?"
"Seldom," Farren said. "This is my second child and you're only the fourth and fifth I have seen."
"What's going to happen when the overseers come for us?"
"That I do not know, exactly. I was born into the camp, I know only what I have heard."
"What have you heard?" Sam asked.
"That our ways will be explained to you and you will be assigned a place to live."
"Well, that sounds relatively harmless," Sam said to the colonel. "Doesn't it all just sound a little too... nice?"
"Well, we've been in worse spots, I think. But in my experience things that are normally too good to be true usually aren't."
"Mine too. So now what?"
He got that what the hell look on his face and got up to try the door the food had come through before. It was unlocked.
"You should not leave," Farren said. "The overseers do not lock us in but we are forbidden from leaving."
"What happens if you leave?"
"It has been a long time since anyone has attempted it, but there are stories of residents being put to death."
"Well, there's the first shoe," the colonel said and closed to door.
"What if there are guards somewhere?" Sam asked.
"Without our weapons and without having any idea what the layout of this joint is, I'm not sure we attempt an escape right now."
"We'll get a free tour at some point anyway," Sam said. "Eventually the overseers will come for us. It's a rather innocuous name, don't you think? Do you think this could all be a misunderstanding?"
"Drugged and/or conked on the head, Major."
"Right," she said with a nod. "Not a misunderstanding."
"And yet, we were left here with these ladies who have taken pretty good care of us so far."
"We are not captives here," Farren reiterated. "We are residents."
"And none of you want to go anywhere besides this room?" the colonel asked incredulously.
"We are only confined to this room because you are here. If you were not we would use that door," Farren pointed behind Jack and Sam, "to access our living stations. This room is where we socialize and take our meals, away from the fray that can be the main dining room."
"Fray?" Sam asked quietly so only the colonel could hear.
"That's the sound of the other shoe being untied," the colonel said.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
A couple of hours after lunch the colonel seemed restless while they waited on the overseers to arrive. "How long is this supposed to take?" Jack asked Farren.
"I cannot tell you," she said somewhat apologetically.
"I'm going nuts here," Jack muttered.
Sam reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of the crap he'd loaded into his pockets before the negotiation meeting had started. He'd always needed something to do with his hands and she had a tendency to take things from him, so he'd learned to be prepared with lots of stuff in his pockets.
He accepted the handful of strings, paperclips, and pebbles gratefully. "Thanks." He stuck it all into one pocket but came back out with a pebbled that he rolled between his fingertips.
"So, the women don't work the mines?" Sam asked Farren.
"The bearers do not. The others do."
"And you think that's what we've been brought here to do? Work the mine?"
"All residents must work."
"What if you don't want to work the mines?" Jack asked her.
Farren looked confused. "All residents must work."
"It's like she's been brainwashed," Sam said quietly to the colonel. "All residents must work? But in the city we saw plenty of people who lived perfectly normal lives."
"It's a worker's faction, like on the ice planet."
"Only... nicer?"
"We don't know that yet, Major."
"Do you think Daniel and Teal'c are here somewhere?"
"You think this was set up by the '928 government?"
She shrugged. "I don't know." Sam asked Farren, "Is there somewhere else, like this, where other new... residents... are taken?"
"No. They all come here."
"So we have to assume Daniel and Teal'c are still safe and are working on getting us out of here," the colonel said.
"Do you think this has something to do with the negotiations?" Sam asked him. "The last thing I remember is the tour. You?"
"Well, I don't remember being drugged and dragged into captivity, if that's what you mean."
"The last thing I remember is being shown the land to air missiles."
"Me too."
"So, something must have happened then."
"Yeah, we were taken captive," the colonel snarked.
"I meant we must have been attacked somehow."
"That could be where the druggy feeling comes in."
"And some drugs have been known to cause a sort of amnesia."
"Well, I'd say we're both experiencing a little of that."
"Yes, sir."
The colonel turned back to Farren. "You said the others who were brought before, that they were... asleep... like Major Carter and I were?"
"Yes, and they awoke similarly distressed."
"And with no memory of being brought here?"
"Yes."
"Does this sort of thing ever happen to the residents?"
"No," she said, "never to the residents. Life is not easy here for the miners, but the overseers are fair."
"What about the rest of the residents?"
"There can be... trouble," she said carefully. "For the single women especially."
The colonel glanced at Sam uncomfortably. "How so?"
"Women are outnumbered by the men nearly five-fold."
"Ah," the colonel said with understanding.
"I can take care of myself, sir." She said it, she meant it, but it didn't mean she wasn't a little nervous about this new revelation.
"You should not, not if you have Jack to pair with you. It would be safer to be a pair."
Sam didn't like the concern in Farren's voice. Not one bit. "Paired," she said nonplussed.
"There are men who force the women to bed," the young woman who pointed out the water said.
"Only the single women?" the colonel asked.
"Sometimes the paired women." The implication was clear: if the women were left alone, bad things could happen.
"You're sticking with me, Carter."
Not a single part of her wanted to object. Even if it weren't for the threat of rape, tactically, being with him was the better bet. "Yes, sir."
After that there was quiet for a while. The colonel toyed with the pebble he'd taken out of his pocket until that didn't interest him anymore and he switched to linking his four paper clips together then pulling them apart.
"The last meal will come soon," Farren said after a long, indeterminate while after which Sam had counted all the stones on the floor, twice.
"We've been here since last night," the colonel said. "The overseers should come for us soon, too, yeah?"
"Yes. You have been left longer than most."
"I'm ready to get this show on the road," the colonel said and Sam had to admit he'd been getting more fidgety as time passed, almost jumpy. He was a man of action. The waiting had to be killing him.
Soon enough after that the door at the back of the room, the one that led to the living stations for the bearers, was unlocked with an audible snick.
The colonel spun on his heels and faced the door likely thinking the same thing she was: the food came through the other door.
"Okay," he said, "let's do this thing."