Makepeace skidded down the slope amid rolling gravel and dirt kicked loose by his boots. His men stumbled after him on the precarious footing, following the path he and Andrews had taken earlier. Earthquake damage littered the way, but nonetheless he navigated the rocky debris swiftly, not wasting any time worrying about safety.
He slipped when a patch of ground crumbled underfoot, caught himself, and rushed on. Behind him, he heard Johnson ask if he was all right, but ignored the question. Something deep inside him—something he refused to dwell upon—told him they had to hurry.
Down the slope they ran, up a short rise, then down again. The exit from the city came into view. Makepeace looked past it, down to the pair of bright, canary colored roads that waited on the flat area at the city's edge. The unnatural yellow was stark against the blue striated landscape. He'd never seen anything so beautiful.
Two death gliders buzzed overhead without attacking. Sitala must've gotten over her rage already, and it looked like she still wanted live prisoners. The gliders were probably just tracking SG-3's movements. So far.
That wouldn't last, but soon it wouldn't matter.
He paused, focusing on a barely perceptible sound, and his team came up beside him. Johnson said, "Colonel, what—?"
"Quiet," Makepeace said. "Listen."
From far away came a faint rumble, like a distant jet liner. A dark blot appeared on the horizon.
"Another train," Henderson breathed.
"It made sense that Vara had more than one available," Makepeace said. "Come on, we won't have much time once Sitala figures out what's going on."
SG-3 hurried the rest of the way down to the roads. A leading dust cloud rose as the train sped closer. A harsh wind kicked up, and heavy, black clouds moved in to blot out the sun. As the sky darkened, a flash of lightning seared the men's retinas then faded. Thunder sounded, drowning out the roar of the train. Watching the storm, Makepeace felt anticipation and a fierce sense of satisfaction.
The streamlined transport tube decelerated and stopped to hover before them. The door slid open. Before the ramp had finished extending Makepeace yelled, "Get on! Move it!" and gave each of his men a shove as they boarded to hustle them faster. He vaulted through the entrance right on their tails.
The transport sealed up. It shuddered and lurched, toppling the men off their feet. Then it started moving back in the direction it had come from.
"It can change direction on the same road?" Henderson said, scrambling across the floor to stare out the transparent sidewall.
Andrews winced and rubbed his butt. "Not gracefully."
Makepeace's knees felt bruised from the fall he'd taken. He scooted to the back of the train, seeing the emerald city recede into the distance.
And then the strangest thing happened: the city began to melt. The towers and arches dissolved, their sharp, faceted features liquefying into rounded lumps. Emerald rivulets ran freely into the earth. Everything dwindled away like a sand castle in the waves.
A few moments later, the last green humps vanished. Varayimshaeta's city was gone.
A frisson ran up Makepeace's spine, a nagging memory surfaced.
"Huh," he said.
"Sir?" Johnson asked.
"I finally remembered where I'd seen that china pattern before. It was my grandmother's. I haven't seen it since I was ten." She'd passed away that year, he remembered. He hadn't seen that china since, not until he had eaten off it in that city. And now it was gone again, like everything else Varayimshaeta had created for SG-3. He bowed his head, remembering two perfect little fetuses that he had consigned to death.
Johnson looked at him like he was crazy. Maybe I am, Makepeace thought.
The storm churned, the thick clouds rotating, gathering into bands and circular knots. Lightning flared, striking the ever more distant mountains. Blue-gray desert flashed by as the train rocketed back toward the Stargate. Makepeace couldn't be sure, but it seemed like the vehicle was traveling even faster now than it had when SG-3 had first been conveyed to Varayimshaeta's city. He wondered just how fast these things could move.
"Four-hundred parazong-zu-horu" bubbled up into his thoughts. The answer was incomprehensible to him, as he had no idea what a parazong-zu-horu was. He suspected that he could figure it out if he wanted. He just needed to do a little mental dredging and compare the results with the measurement systems he knew. He had no intention of even trying.
A pair of death gliders swooped down, weapons firing, the energy blasts raising clouds of dust and debris. The men ducked instinctively. The tinted, transparent walls made them feel exposed and terribly vulnerable. There was no false sense of security to be had; the threats outside were all too visible.
"They missed," Henderson said in a strained voice.
"They aren't trying to kill us. All they have to do is get us to stop, or knock us off the tracks," said Andrews. He stroked his rifle and watched the death gliders zoom up, back toward the clouds.
Makepeace said, "If they knock us off the tracks at this speed, we'll be dead, anyway."
"Not if Sitala's got a sarcophagus."
"We've already had this conversation."
Andrews didn't reply, he just continued to finger his rifle. A tense, forbidding atmosphere seemed to fill the space between Makepeace and Andrews. Johnson and Henderson studied their two teammates with wary curiosity. Johnson frowned and opened his mouth.
Makepeace glared at him and said, "Not now."
Johnson shut his mouth again.
The death gliders returned, strafing the train even closer this time. Explosions ripped the ground on either side of the cabin. The percussive force shook the train.
Makepeace watched helplessly, his hands clenched into fists. There was nothing he could do, nothing any of them could do. Except trust an enraged, alien computer to protect them.
Incredibly, that trust was not misplaced.
The greenish-black swirls of clouds overhead formed into small, tight whirlwinds. The tips of the vortices stretched down to touch the Goa'uld fighters. The death gliders ruptured and exploded, their pieces flung wildly across the arid countryside. Makepeace watched with a cold smile, while his men swore and marveled as the funnel clouds unraveled and vanished. Somehow, the train hadn't even been jostled.
Localized mini-tornados seemed quite an effective weapon against small aircraft. Makepeace wondered how they'd do against Sitala's ground forces, and wondered why Varayimshaeta hadn't employed them back at the city. He thought hard about that, but no solid, unquestionable factoid revealed itself to him. Instead, a vague impression of impotence arose, the feeling centered on the city itself. Apparently, the city and its grounds had been off limits. He figured the limitation was due to some strange, built-in programming that Varayimshaeta couldn't override. Then again, the real reason might be something else entirely. He had no way of knowing what the problem was.
The capricious nature of the downloaded information in his head frustrated him.
Two more death gliders appeared and attacked the train. More mini-tornados formed, shattered the craft, and dissipated.
Andrews made a satisfied noise at the demise of the death gliders. "That's really something," he said. "I'm sure glad Vara's on our side."
"Wait until we get to the Stargate," Johnson grumbled. "It'll probably be swarming with Goa'uld. Sitala's an idiot if she didn't lock it down first thing."
Makepeace's gut—or maybe something else that he didn't want to ponder too deeply—told him it wouldn't be a problem. "Vara will take care of it."
His men gave him uncomfortable looks. Johnson asked quietly, "You're sure, sir?"
Makepeace nodded. "I just hope we get off this dirtball in time." Now where the hell had that come from?
"In time for what, sir?"
Johnson's question echoed his own thoughts. Makepeace's stomach churned, but again no solid answers were forthcoming. He shrugged. "I'm not sure. Something bad."
Henderson said, "Something bad, like irradiating the planet again? That got rid of the Goa'uld before."
Andrews gnawed his lower lip. "Yeah, but it was only a temporary solution. Remember, Vara said it was going to chase off the Goa'uld for good this time."
Varayimshaeta's words echoed through Makepeace's brain. "The World will be purified, and made safe for all time," he said. He deliberately didn't think about how or why he remembered the exact quote, but something in his brain tickled his consciousness with an uncomfortable, non-human literal-mindedness.
"That does sound permanent."
"Vara could always blow up the whole planet," Henderson said carelessly. "That's pretty permanent."
Everyone went very still.
Johnson turned to Makepeace and asked, "Colonel? Can Vara do that? Commit suicide like that?"
"I don't know." But he suspected. Oh, yes. Makepeace was too aware that he was capable of suicide under the right conditions, and over the last few days it had become obvious that Varayimshaeta had absorbed more from him than just English.
Henderson said, "Whatever Vara does, it'll wait until we're through the Stargate, right? That's what it said, that it wanted to get us off the planet before it did anything drastic."
Under the scrutiny of his men, Makepeace restrained himself from fidgeting. "That was the gist of it," he said, hoping Varayimshaeta would hold by its words. "But it's not exactly sane and stable, at least not by our standards. If Sitala provokes it any worse than she already has..."
He didn't have to finish that statement. From the looks on their faces, his men all got the picture.
The landscape zoomed by, moving at a sickening speed. Makepeace forced himself to watch, controlling his stomach, hoping it was fast enough. Nearby, Henderson sat on the obsidian floor, checking and rechecking his weapons, saying nothing. Every so often Johnson would look outside and mumble a quick prayer. Andrews didn't pray, at least not to any benevolent god, to judge by the occasional bursts of profanity that issued from his mouth. Makepeace didn't care what deity intervened, as long as SG-3 got off the planet before Varayimshaeta implemented its ultimate solution to its Goa'uld problem.
Two more death gliders strafed the train and were efficiently dispatched by mini-tornados. After that, Sitala must have wised up, because there were no more direct attacks. Six death gliders flew in formation overhead, but didn't harass the train. Instead, they zipped forward, following the yellow roads, and disappeared on the horizon. All four men knew they'd be waiting for SG-3, along with any other troops that Sitala had left there to secure the Stargate.
Unless Varayimshaeta intervened.