"I volunteer to take part in this ceremonial race," Teal'c offered. "It is likely to turn out to be little more than a hunt."
"Teal'c, no--no one's going. We'll figure out something before that," Colonel O'Neill said firmly.
The colonel was still holding on to Daniel, as if trying to keep him from falling apart. Unfortunately, it would probably take more than a firm grasp to help him, and there was only so much Sam could do. The antibiotics would only work if he had bacterial pneumonia, and no amount of drugs of any kind would fix internal bleeding. She tried hard to convince herself that that wasn't what was wrong with him--that the small amounts of blood he had coughed up were just a freak side effect of the infection--but she couldn't be sure. And even if it was, fluid gathering in his lungs would have much the same result.
At least Daniel was still slightly better off than the Colonel had been when Sam had been stuck with him in Antarctica--as was the Colonel. O'Neill would definitely not be walking on that leg for a while, but she was surprised that it didn't look worse than it did, even though he'd been running around the ruins with it for hours. Without question, it was clear that neither of them would be up to the dinosaurs' ceremony.
That left her and Teal'c. Out of the two of them, Teal'c would probably be the better pick. He understood some of the dinosaurs' language, he was a better tracker than she, and stronger, if it should come to fighting. Nevertheless, she suggested,
"I could go as well, sir. Now, we don't know the rules of this race--it might offer one of us a possible way out. If they really send two beings to find their way out of the maze, like lab rats in a labyrinth."
"Yeah, except that unless I got it wrong, they won't accept a human as the winner," O'Neill was still against the whole idea. "Anyway, do we know when this race is gonna happen? In ten minutes or sometime tomorrow or this time next year? We might have more than enough time to wait for SG-2... If only Barney could get us our radios."
"Tonight," Daniel commented, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. "It happens--tonight."
Jack was finally convinced enough that Daniel wasn't going to faint right away, and set him to rest on the ground again. Even under the burning rays of the afternoon sun, the heat emanating from him was impossible to miss. If he had pneumonia and nothing more to it, sleep would probably be a good thing, but Jack was afraid to let him. He was afraid that Daniel wasn't about to fall asleep, but about to... To slip away from them. Horrible as it was, Jack was almost glad that his breathing was so loud. It would be hard to miss if he should...
Setting his fevered friend down, Jack fervently tried to think, to figure out their options. They really hadn't got that many. Whatever the exact time of that mad race was, the backup would probably not reach them in time. More importantly, now that the dinos had taken their radios, they had no means to let the cavalry know where they were. SG-2 might just reach the ruins and get captured too. After all, they hadn't got the slightest idea of what was going on here.
The cage was well built, leaving them without any chance of breaking out of it. The keys--Jack didn't know who had the keys. It didn't look like anyone was keeping constant guard anywhere nearby. Maybe the younger Goa'uldosaur had the keys in that leather belt. Jack couldn't say he was much of a judge of character when it came to dinos, but that Goa'uldosaur had felt like the nastiest of them all. Meaner than its old man, or granny, or whatever its relationship to the ruler was. No way they were going to get the keys from it.
Barney was their best hope. A very faint and uncertain hope at that. They had no idea of his motivations, if he was sincere in wanting to help, and if he was in any position to help them anyway. Jack wanted to believe in him, but, for crying out loud, he was a meat-eating, hunting dinosaur, smart and talking of not. Definitely the weirdest ally he'd ever had. And out of all the people he knew, Daniel was the only one that could make friends with the monster from Jurassic Park.
So, no matter how hard he thought, the only plan Jack came up with was waiting for Barney to come back. If he would come back.
He stared at his watch. 5 PM. 5:01. 5:02. The minutes were dragging on so very slowly. No sign of Barney. Teal'c had translated that the dino had promised to come back 'later'. Whatever that meant.
Carter was poking at the food on the tray. At least the nuts and dried fruits should be safe enough, and maybe the cooked meat as well.
"Wonder what kind of a creature that was," Jack noted, pointing a finger at it. "One of the little ones, or the huge big things that walk on all fours, or what."
"Looks like chicken," Carter noted. That, of course, made Jack think of Daniel right away, and he turned his head. Teal'c was keeping him company again. They were talking about the dinos' language, or at least Teal'c was. Daniel was mostly just nodding or shaking his head. At least he was still awake, and not looking significantly worse. Maybe the medication Carter had given him really had helped.
And the meat really did look like chicken, it was the same color. Jack tore a piece of it, and took a bite. Just like chicken, or maybe crocodile. On the other hand, crocodile tasted like... chicken.
"T, Daniel, you'd better try some of this stuff too. I've got this feeling that we've a long day and night ahead of us."
Teal'c nodded and walked to take a closer look at the tray, but Daniel just shook his head. Jack made his way over to him, and offered him some water from the canteen, since they weren't quite sure about the water the dinos had brought. He accepted it with a grateful smile.
They had all fallen silent for a while, Teal'c and Sam chewing some dino food, Jack eyeing Daniel with concern like he'd been doing for most of today, and Daniel staring ahead with glazed eyes and breathing heavily.
The unmistakable sound of claws clicking against stone told them that a dino was approaching. All eyes turned to see who it was--Jack helped Daniel sit up again so he could see as well. Not that Jack could tell one dino from the other. They looked all the same to him.
Teal'c could, apparently, since he declared, "Barney has not betrayed our trust."
Barney greeted them in his familiar growl, and Daniel replied something that sounded equally freaky.
The dinosaur went on explaining for quite a long while, with Daniel commenting a croak here and a grunt there. Then, Barney pushed something into the cage from between the bars. The key, Jack thought, hopes rising for a while, but he instantly saw that wasn't it. Teal'c stepped ahead to accept it. It looked like a thin, small slab of stone. An artifact for Daniel, Jack thought. Teal'c had clearly had the same idea, since he brought it over. With that, Barney growled a hasty goodbye and went away.
"Its story was complex, and I could not follow all of it," Teal'c explained. "However, it made clear that nothing can be done to prevent the ceremony from taking place, or to keep one of us from participating in it. As to the rest, it had went somewhere, and brought this, and I caught little more than that, except that he will try to return again."
Daniel was peering at the stone slab, his forehead crinkled with concentration. "Yes--a library--I think. Abandoned--history. Interesting--no help."
Daniel's intermittent speech was nearly as hard to figure out as a distorted radio conversation. So, the dino had been to a library and brought them--what, an interesting piece of abandoned history? The 'no help'-part didn't sound promising, though.
Thinking was so hard. Concentrating was nearly impossible. It took huge effort to listen to the dinosaur... Barney, like Jack had named him--his real name was something like Ghhrrwuaghr... It was amazing how the language was grammatically just like Goa'uld, lexically so near to the archaic forms of the language Daniel knew, but phonetically so completely different... Of course, it was natural, due to the anatomy of the dinosaurs' speech organs...
"What do you mean, no help?" Jack asked, calling his rambling thoughts back to the issues at hand.
He could offer them no help for now, Ghhrrwuaghr had said, probably meaning that he couldn't get the keys, or medical help or some such... But that he would try to come again later, if he could, although it was difficult, with all the preparations for the celebration... And visiting the prisoners too often would not do, since the prince, called Rrragrathssh, or some such, was suspicious of anything out of the usual--probably because he wanted to take power for himself, removing his senile father from the throne...
Jack was staring at him questioningly. How was he going to put that all into words when he could hardly speak at all? All he got out was, "No help--later--maybe..." before he started coughing again.
Luckily, it wasn't a particularly bad bout, and recovered quite quickly. He peered at the stone tablet the dinosaur had brought. He'd expected it to be in the odd writing he'd seen on the walls, but instead, it was written in an old form of Goa'uld--probably contemporary to the very first years of Ra's rule in ancient Egypt.
"I cannot read this writing," Teal'c told.
Daniel didn't need to say a thing to that. He was already reading the text. He was hardly even aware of the way everyone was staring at him in silence, let alone of the fact that he was still leaning on Jack's shoulder.
The text was so amazing that even though it didn't offer them any help, Daniel was glad Ghhrrwuaghr--Barney had brought it. It was an official letter from the System Lords--signed with their names, many of which were awfully familiar, including Ra and Belus... The text declared that the addressee, a Goa'uld by the name of Wahera-Hurugh--clearly a finer spelling of a dinosaurian name--formerly known as Garcath--which was a Goa'uld name Daniel had never heard before, but that was not surprising, considering the fact that he'd disappeared out of history, never taking a human host and entering Earth mythology, like...
Jack was shaking him gently, and he realized he'd been starting to nod. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes on the text again. It declared that, due to Garcath's failure to respond to earlier claims against him and his unwillingness or inability to follow the generally accepted rules and recommendations, Wahera-Hurugh was thus deprived of his status as one of the System Lords, and more than that, outcast, excluded from the society--and even more than that, his fleet destroyed... There was no mention of the Stargate--as if they hadn't know it was here--was it possible that they didn't, that it had been lost in the rainforest for millions of years?
But clearly, the other System Lords had left this Goa'uld trapped on this planet, on his own... He must have been too strange, too savage, even to the other Goa'uld. Since he did not rule anymore, he had probably met his end on this planet, stabbed in the back by one of his own offspring, one of which ruled now, though just about to be removed in the same manner... And here SG-1 were, caught, at their mercy.