O'Neill woke up to find himself nose to nose with Carter. During the night they had shifted closer to each other, instinctively seeking warmth, and now he could feel her breath in his cheek. He lay perfectly still for a moment, enjoying the stolen moment of unabashed staring, tracing ever line of her face with his eyes in the hope he could commit it all to memory; keep it as a secret to share only with himself in quiet moments of contemplation. All the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Not to mention other things....
A twinge from his bladder drew him out of his reverie. He struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain from his leg and staggered outside to.... O'Neill refused to call it a toilet.... to the /privy./ Trying to convince himself that it was no worse than any of the toilets he had used on various alien planets he concentrated on the various knotholes of the wooden wall....
.... /Ah/....
"Sir? Sir, are you outs-- oh."
Carter had apparently woken up with much the same thing on her mind as he commanding officer.
"One moment Carter..."
He turned around. Carter was blushing faintly, or perhaps it was the remnants of the pink flush of slumber. "I've been thinking sir, there must be someone we have to get clothes from. And more food. And--"
"I know Carter. I guess we'll ask the doctor when they come. So much for the welcome wagon..."
There was no razor, so O'Neill was denied the opportunity of a shave, which irked him irrationally. He wasn't a great fan of shaving, often sporting a fairly healthy growth of stubble. He felt somehow it was justified, after years of yearning as an adolescent for just /one/ extra hair one his chin, that he could wander round with a beard now and again.
Grant was always clean-shaven. That was something O'Neill had noted; feeling particularly scruffy next to the lawyer on one of their brief meetings. He'd rushed out of the house and... well, he was fairly certain that he'd shaved in the last forty-eight hours... maybe a bit longer... And Carter had looked at him and laughed. "This is Jack," she'd said, "My CO. Late night last night sir?"
And Grant had made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, any humour failing to reach his eyes as he'd studied O'Neill.
"So this is the Jack I've heard so much about."
"I'm sure some of it must have been good."
O'Neill growled, unable even to splash cold water on his face to distract himself...There was a knock at the door and O'Neill offered a silent prayer of thanks to the god of desperate men. A distraction.
He opened the door to a slightly cringing young woman dressed in brown sackcloth. "Hello. I'm to doctor. They told me your leg was injured."
"Yeah," said O'Neill, still blocking the doorway.
"Can I examine it?"
"Yeah." He stepped aside.
Carter entered from the privy. "Oh. You must be the doctor."
"Indeed. If you would take a seat, sir."
The examination did not take long.
"You will be fit to work by tomorrow, as long as you take care not to excessively exercise this leg," the doctor said.
"Uh. I've got a question," said O'Neill, "Where do we get water from? And fresh clothes? And more food for the larder?"
"Oh!" The young woman looked surprised for a moment. "The village. It is no more than half a mile to the north. Just follow the track-way away from the Palace. Turn left," she added in case they hadn't understood.
When she had left O'Neill stood up. "Right. To the village then, Carter. Let's go."
"Sir, I'm not sure if it's wise that you walk on that leg. I'll go myself, I can be back an hour and--"
"Let /us/ go, Carter," O'Neill said, through gritted teeth.
Carter met his eyes and decided not to push her luck. "Yes sir."
*
The track-way was obviously a cart path, the ruts in the road running outside hoof-prints. There was a crispness in the morning air, the sky so blue it hurt to look at, straining the eye. On either side of the track there were fields, full of rippling crops. O'Neill limped, slowing their pace considerably from what it would normally be. The walk took half an hour. On a good day, Carter reckoned she could have completed it in fifteen minutes. At a run, five.
They passed the well first, no more than a hundred metres from their house. A hundred metres more was another house like their own, grey washing hanging limply on a line outside. The houses seemed to be evenly spaced along the track-way, exactly the same in design.
The village itself consisted of nothing more than a small shop, a butchers, what looked like a tavern of some sort, and a nondescript building bearing the plaque 'Provisionals.' There were barns a few hundred metres away and beyond that more fields of waving corn.
O'Neill pushed open the shop door. The bell on the door chimed hauntingly and the shopkeeper, ancient and deeply wrinkled, jerked awake.
"Hhhmmm?" he said.
"Uh. Hi. We're new in the neighbourhood and we were just wondering where it is we buy... you know, clothes and things like that," O'Neill said.
The man gave O'Neill a knowing look. "This is for spending reward coupons," he said in a voice cracked with age. "You want next door. If you're new."
'Provisionals' turned out to be a huge warehouse, where a faded sort of woman was sitting behind a huge counter.
"Yer new," she said wearily as soon as they came in, Carter half-supporting O'Neill once more. "I'll get yez some clothes and boots and explain things to yez. Hang on."
She disappeared behind the racks of clothing that stretched wall to wall, reappearing with an armful of brown sackcloth robes and two pairs of boots. "These ought to do yez. Now, if yez need anythin' yer come to me an' I'll try and get it for yez. Yez know about the working, don't you? Well, if yez works hard yer gets some coupons and yez can spend 'em next door. That's for treats. What else does yez need? I'll get yer a razor sir, and a shovel for the privy. There's some rope yez can have for a washing line, and some tubs. And soaps. Anything else yez be wantin'? Couple o' blankets mebee, for sleepin'?"
O'Neill, hypnotised by the bizarre accent, nodded.
The woman threw everything into a huge tub and passed it with some difficulty to Carter. She leaned forward, to signal a private conversation from O'Neill. "Yer man's sicken, any fool can see that. Them buggers at that Palace do that with some of the new arrivals. They knock 'em sick for a while. He'll be fine after a few days. Yez better come down to the village once yer settled in an' that. Yez needs company when yez first gets here, believe me. They'll be plenty like yer. Go to the tavern. Got any littluns?"
"No," Carter replied.
"Good. It's no place for a child, here. No life for the mites. I should now, I was one. Born here. A lot of us are. But never enough! That's why they keep tekkin more. From all over the place. Different planets, or so they say. We watch out for one another here, yez understand?"
"Yes," said Carter, "I understand."
"Go on then. Yer'll be workin' no doubt tomorrow. Go to the Palace. Get some rest."
With some difficulty Carter hauled the bucket outside, O'Neill assisting as much as possible.
"She thought we were married," said Carter, thoughtfully as they struggled homeward. She kept calling you 'my man.'"
O'Neill couldn't think of a reply to that statement. "Funny accent she had. They don't all talk like that."
"She was born here. I bet the doctor wasn't. They take people from lots of different planets she said... I wonder if they're all as agriculturally based as the one we were visiting...?Hmm. I doubt it. The doctor was quite competent....But if they're from a higher technological background, why do they live in these houses...?"
"Carter..." O'Neill said warningly, and she stopped, slightly shame-faced.
"Sorry sir."
"It's not that I mind listening to you answering your own questions..."
"Sorry sir."