She could feel the stone warm against her palm, and she started to speak to Jack, but her thoughts were interrupted by a blurry, dizzy image in her mind. She grimaced and squinted, trying to focus and get some clarity.
And then it was gone.
Pain slammed into her...
And her breath was knocked forcefully from her lungs.
- - -
- - -
Ch 47: FLUIDITY
- - -
"Sam!"
"Sam!"
He was shaking her, trying to get some response from her.
She seemed to be conscious, just not responding to him.
She was sprawled on her back, where his forceful yank had thumped her down.
She groaned, "I thought you said you'd break my fall?" she asked querulously, while squinting up at him.
He grinned- she was allright. "Sorry, I guess I wasn't fast enough," but he didn't sound apologetic to her.
"Ugh! Why did you yank me off?" she asked while pushing herself to a sitting position.
"You weren't answering me. I called out to you several times, but it was like you were in some kind of trance," he explained and then waited for her to tell him what she'd experienced.
"I didn't hear you," she admitted.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
She did have some bruises. Both on her backside and on her chest and midsection where the harness had dug in forcefully. But she wasn't about to complain and give him a chance to stall their next attempt.
He watched her knowingly and reached over and loosened the harness, but didn't take it off. She took that as a sign that he was still willing to discuss another try.
"So what happened?" he asked.
She took a breath and marshaled her thoughts, "I saw the 'Gate power up... and the inner ring started to move," and he nodded, "and then I saw the white-orange event horizon... just sort of appear... no kawoosh," she matched his description from ten days earlier. "The stone started to warm beneath my hand... and I saw this... fuzzy image... I couldn't make out what it was... I was trying to focus on it when...," and she gestured at the ground next to her to indicate what had happened next.
He nodded again, "Yeah, that pretty much jives with what I saw... all except the warming thing and that fuzzy image – I could just see the event horizon, the gate slowly spinning – and you standing there completely deaf," he ended accusingly.
"Sorry," she apologized.
A few moments of silence passed as they each processed what had happened. What they knew and still didn't know.
"We have to try again," she finally ventured.
He studied her and then reluctantly nodded.
"You're going to have to give me some time to figure out what's going on," she warned.
"How much time?" he asked warily.
"How long did the whole thing take last time?" she asked for data. "From the time I touched the stone to the time you pulled me off?"
"Thirty seconds or so," he estimated.
She was surprised. It hadn't felt that long.
"Allright, you time the next one... and we'll set a time of two minutes. Then you pull me off?" she proposed.
He was quiet. She was the scientist. He didn't have any good rational for countermanding her recommendation. And two minutes did sound reasonable.
He nodded. "Two minutes," he sighed, and he knew it would be two of the longest minutes of his life. "Unless something changes and looks dangerous," he appended.
She couldn't disagree with that, so she nodded her agreement, but then requested, "Can you try to pull me away a little less... forcefully?"
He stared at her for a moment and then silently nodded with a rueful grin.
They reset the camera.
He set his watch.
She dusted herself off and allowed him to retighten the harness.
Stepping back to the side of the 'Gate, she waited for him to get set. He started the camera and then counted off, "Three, two, one, mark," and he set his watch timer and then grabbed the rope as she placed her hand back on the etched panel.
- - - - -
The 'Gate lit up almost immediately, the inner ring started moving, and the orange-white event horizon snapped into existence.
She felt the stone warming quickly under her palm and then the image returned.
She lost track of her physical surroundings as she focused on the image in her mind.
Blurry... indistinct.... moving... shifting.
She tried to focus, but it was difficult... the scene was upsetting her equilibrium... making her stomach churn a bit as the fuzzy images morphed and swirled.
She tried harder. Trying to focus. Trying to understand.
And then it started to clear a bit. Just a bit.
The images kept swimming around, and she couldn't determine up from down... but then some of the forms started to sharpen... one was a long, cylindrical shape.... stretching and shrinking... another... was a curved plane...?
And then pain slammed into her.
The images were yanked away.
She clenched her eyes shut against the vertigo and intense nausea.
Darkness with afterimages filled her vision.
- - - - - -
"Sam?" he was shaking her gently.
She groaned.
"Sam?" he tried again and received a moan and then she opened her eyes to look at him through slitted eyelids.
"What happened?" she asked in a tired voice.
"I think I'm supposed to ask you that," he returned with a small smile. "But since you asked, your two minutes were up and you were ignoring me again... so...," and he waved his hand at the ground where she lay.
She groaned again and then relaxed back on the ground.
"Are you ok?" he asked with concern in his tone.
"I think so," she replied with her eyes still closed. Trying to ignore the pain from the bruises of landing hard on the ground – again. "Next time we do this, we are definitely figuring out a way to cushion this landing," she declared and knew without looking that he was grinning at her complaints.
"Sorry about that," he replied... although his tone was anything but apologetic, "But gentle tugs got no result. You stood there like a statue... so I..."
"Yanked," she supplied with a quirked eyebrow.
He nodded ruefully and then asked, "So, what happened? Anything new?"
"It started the same... the 'Gate powered up, the inner ring started moving, the white-orange event horizon... with no flushing outwards first...," she started and he nodded his agreement. He'd seen all of that. "The stone warmed up faster this time... and then I saw some blurry images... swirling and changing shape and size... gave me a little vertigo," she admitted and then continued, "Finally things started to sharpen a little, but everything was still moving... still fluid... there was this one... cylindrical shape that got longer and shorter... and something that looked like.. a curved plane... and it was undulating and twisting... and then that was it... next thing I know I was flat on my back again and looking up at your handsome face," she concluded.
"Ahhh, well at least I know that your vision isn't impaired," he returned quickly and with a sly grin.
She just gave him a low groan for a response.
"Well so far, I don't see how we can use this to 'Gate offworld," he gave a preliminary assessment.
"Not yet, but we need to try again. And for a little longer," she pointed out.
He stared at her, "I'm really not liking this whole deaf-trance-thing you've got going on with the 'Gate here," he stated.
She grimaced but forged ahead, "We'll just increase the sessions incrementally. We'll try 3 or 4 minutes next time and see if we get any improvements."
He stared at her and then shifted his gaze off into the distance for a few moments. Finally bringing his eyes back to her, he nodded reluctantly, "I don't like it, but we'll give it another go."
"Right," she replied as she started to push herself up.
"After lunch," he declared.
"It's only 1000," she protested.
"That's right," he agreed as he stepped forward to undo the harness, "We're going to take a few hours off. Maybe fish a little, or take a walk... or whatever. And we can think about... this... and what to expect next time," he explained. "Then a little lunch... and we can come back around 1400."
"1400?!" she returned with surprise and consternation. A four-hour break???
"1400," he returned firmly. "Look, this research stuff is your bailiwick, but making sure that you sleep, eat right, exercise – and relax – that's my arena," he explained to her bemusement. "Now, I've been good about agreeing to the experiments – much better than I want to be, believe me – but now, we do the next four hours my way. At 1400, we go back to science and you're in charge again," and he waited for her response.
To his surprise, she gave him a simple, "Yes sir," accompanied by a slight look of amusement. Well, he didn't care if she found his demands amusing – as long as she went along with them.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ultimately, an early lunch was followed by a few hours fishing. Their new fishing spot was a little ways upstream from where the landslide had occurred. Although Sam didn't fish, she didn't fall asleep either. She was replaying the images of what she'd seen while touching the 'Gate. Trying to figure them out.
Jack watched her out of his peripheral vision and wished he could order her to take stop thinking for awhile... to take a real break... but he also realized that here he'd accomplished more than they'd ever been accomplish back at the SGC! Sam Carter had left her experiments for a four hour break – complete with sitting by a stream... fishing... or rather watching him fish... Ok, he admitted she wasn't watching him fish, but at least she was in the vicinity of fishing. Maybe some of the Zen would rub off, he thought with amusement.
- - -
At 1400, they were back at the 'Gate. To soften her 'landings', they had piled up jackets, empty duffel bags and any other loose piece of soft material that they could find.
Jack strapped her into the harness.
The camera was ready.
"We did two minutes last time and I think the images were just starting to clear up a bit – so how about four minutes this time?" she proposed.
"Three," he sent back quickly. He too had had several hours to think about what was next.
She considered negotiating for something in between three and four, but then simply decided to acquiesce - this time. She nodded, "Allright, three," she agreed.
He gave her a small, grateful smile and set himself over the camera.
"You're going to try a softer pull again this time?" she asked hopefully.
His grin grew a little and then he nodded, "I'll try a softer tug, but if you don't budge, I'm hauling your ass out of there," he declared.
She nodded again and then turned back to the etched hourglass.
"On my mark," he intoned as he started the camera and then let his hand hover over his watch timer, "On three, two, one, mark!" and he started the timer and grabbed the rope with both hands.
- - -
She pressed her hand on the cool stone and closed her eyes.
She could hear the 'Gate spinning.
She could feel the stone warming under her palm.
And then the images swam in front of her eyes.
Drifting, bobbing, morphing.
Liquid, not solid.
Mostly whites on dark blues, with streaks and shimmers of colors.
The cylinder appeared again.
Stretching and shrinking.
And then the curved plane resolved itself.
And then another plane.
The two surfaces never touched.
Both in constant motion... rippling and twisting.
Vertigo turned her stomach.
The area between the two rippling planes dropped off into infinity.
The cylindrical shape stretched and stretched, becoming thinner and thinner.
Turning into a thread that rippled and twisted between the two planes.
She watched the moving serpentine thread for awhile and then focused on one of the rippling surfaces. There was texture to the flexible planes... they appeared to be streaked with fibers... fibers of light... fibers that caused an iridescence and streaky rainbow effect.
It was beautiful at the same time that it was disconcerting.
No up or down.
The only objects that she could see were in constant motion.
Watching the colorful fibers, the surface appeared to be sliding out from under her at a very high speed. Creating the illusion that she was sliding uncontrollably into the infinite depths between the two moving surfaces.
She moved her focus back to the thin thread stretching between the streaming planes.
The thread wandered aimlessly and loosely between the two planes.
Meandering back on itself in loose loops.
Pain slammed through her and the images vanished.
- - - - -
She clenched her eyes shut and then tried to relax.
She knew where she was.
"Sam!" he was calling her.
"Yeah," she sent back without opening her eyes.
"Tell me you're allright," he demanded.
"I'm allright," she replied obediently.
"Thanks. Now are you ok?" he asked with true concern.
"Yeah, just give me a minute," and she forced herself to relax a little more.
"Sam?" his hand was on her shoulder and his tone was tinged with worry.
She carefully opened her eyes and squinted up at him, reassuringly, "It just takes a minute to get reoriented," she explained and he nodded uncertainly.
"So, the soft pull didn't work?" she asked.
"Not even close," he sent back definitively.
"Ah," she returned with a rueful smile. "So that was three minutes?"
"A very long three minutes," he confirmed.
"I... completely lost track of time," she confessed.
"Well, it was three minutes, trust me," he returned. "Three lo-o-ong minutes of watching you stand there like a statue while the gate spun around and that weird white-orange event horizon glowed creepily."
She stared at him with an unfocussed look, her mind assimilating his observations with what they'd already seen. When she didn't speak after a few moments he prompted, "What did you see?"
She looked back at him, startled out of her reverie, "Oh, sorry... I was just thinking," and then before he could make a comment, she continued, "I saw these two... curving rippling surfaces... they never touched, but they moved fluidly... and they seemed to be sliding by at high speed. The cylindrical object from before got thinner and thinner until it was barely a thread. The... thread... moved and twisted and curled and looped around," and she paused.
"Nothing that looked like a stone doughnut with weird symbols?" he asked.
She shook her head, "No, I didn't see anything ringlike... and I didn't see any characters or numbers... nothing like gate addresses," she admitted.
"So, what is it?" he questioned.
She shook her head, "I don't know yet."
He nodded and ran his eyes over her. She'd pushed herself up onto her elbows, but hadn't attempted to get up yet. "Are you ok?" he repeated his earlier question.
Surprised, she met his eyes, "Yeah, I'm fine," and she realized that he was questioning her lack of movement, she added, "Just preoccupied," and she gave him a small grin of embarrassment.
"I suppose you want to try this again?" he asked with a knowing and reluctant tone.
She smiled, shrugged and looked down and then back up at him, "We still haven't figured out what this does or what it's for... If we can use it to connect with Earth's 'Gate, we have to keep trying," she restated what they both knew.
Sighing with resignation, he held his hand out to help her up.
- - - - - -
Four minutes this time.
The stone seemed to warm more quickly under her hand each time.
The moments of blurry fuzziness quickly passed and the familiar shapes resolved themselves rapidly.
Two twisting, rippling planes of fibrous light rainbows, with an elongating and glowing thread stretching and extending in the space between.
She searched for anything resembling a Stargate.
Anything resembling hieroglyphics, characters or numbers.
Anything that could show them how to control the 'Gate.
But she could see nothing like a 'Gate or its controls.
She concentrated on the twisting, stretching fiber.
Watching its movements.
Trying to discern any patterns or objectives.
Trying to decipher a motivation to its movements.
The fiber grew and stretched and then relaxed and thickened.
It twisted first one way and then another.
Never actually touching back on itself.
Never touching the two twisting planes.
It was as if they were magnetically repelling each other.
Her eyes scanned the space between the planes, the space towards which the fiber was extending and reaching. Her eyes scanned the darkness and slowly she could begin to make out small pinpricks of light. They looked like stars in the night sky.
The epiphany struck her solidly.
- - -TBC
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