Ceremony

The caravan traveled at a fairly breakneck pace. Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill were exhausted when it finally came to a halt, sometime after the sun had already set. In fact, O'Neill looked as though he might literally pass out. Sam took the smallest drink of water she possibly could before passing the bucket through the field to Teal'c. The Jaffa gave her an approving look as he took it over to their leader. She didn't even make a pretense of eating the food. She hadn't done anything, that handful from earlier would last her until tomorrow. O'Neill and Teal'c needed it more.



“Any ideas on how it works?” Daniel asked finally, gesturing to indicate the force field walls of the cage. They had been quiet during their entire ride after the break.



“I... the buckets have to be keyed to force field somehow. which means there has to be programming somewhere in the buckets themselves or in the platform. I've been looking at all of the panels on the 'floor', but there doesn't seem to be any significant pattern. I tried to peel up the floor material earlier, but it won't budge. My fingernails probably aren't long enough. If I had some kind of tool... maybe the handle from the bucket would work...” she took the waste bucket, which neither she or Daniel had used yet, and tried to prise the handle from it.



“Ah... Sam.... you had probably better...” Daniel’s voice held a tinge of warning, but she had almost removed the handle.



A searing pain coursed through her and she swore. The pain stopped, and then started again abruptly. She dropped the bucket and fell. She turned to glare at her attacker. He was a burly man with coarse dark hair covering his chest, arms and head. He grunted something at her, and apparently didn't like her response, as he thrust the pain-stick through and hit her again. This time she only felt the pain for a moment before passing out, briefly. A brief jolt of pain brought her to again.



“Say, ik-e-the, Sam,” Daniel's voice prodded.



“Eee...k...they,” she slurred, trying to match the nonsense syllables she heard. Word. It was probably a word that Daniel knew and she didn't. That made sense. She felt her muscles spasm and she heard someone else screaming. Jack She huddled and lifted herself to her knees, trying to get a better look, trying to cry out...Daniel's gentle hand on her shoulder prevented it.



“Don't, Sam,”he choked. “They'll stop in a moment. Don't let them see that it affects you...then, they'll prolong their fun.” Daniel's voice was thick with unspoken words. “They leave if they don't get the right reactions.”



Sam blinked and made her face look as impassive as she could. She choked on bile, and held back tears that were threatening to spill. Daniel looked very pale in the darkness and she could see his shoulders were hunched and tense. Teal'c simply stood stock still, face completely blank, staring into the night.



And as Colonel O'Neill quit screaming, the man standing over him threw up his arms in a gesture of disgust. Hairy walked over to him and the started talking, rapid syllables that meant nothing to her, but apparently Daniel could tell what they were saying, or at least was trying. He was listening intently, at any rate. Sam held her breath, hoping they would go away and leave them alone. And then Daniel made a whimpering noise, and they walked over.



“No...” Daniel spoke softly, and the men started speaking to him earnestly and leering. Daniel cleared his throat and tried to argue, it was clear that his grasp on the language was pretty minimal, he spoke haltingly and occasionally interspersed his arguments with English. “acceptable....damage....worth more...,” eventually, he added softly. “Please don't make us do this.” Apparently it worked, because the men walked away, arguing with each other and one of them jabbed O'Neill with the pain stick once for good measure on their way out.



“Daniel?” Sam looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he was hugging himself earnestly. He scooted as far away from her as he could get.



“They wanted us to put on a show,” he choked the last word out. “I convinced them that we would be worth more...” Daniel trailed off. “They want to sell us as slaves, Sam. Pleasure slaves. And I...” Daniel stared at his knees.



Sam took the waste bucket back and began earnestly to try and get the handle off. They really needed to get out of here. She glanced outside, Teal'c was taking care of the Colonel. Finally she snapped the handle off and began to try and peel at the material. It was futile, nothing seemed to get it too lift. She threw the bucket handle away in frustration and cursed as it flew out of the force field. Great. She shivered, and finally noticed that it had grown quite cold, and that the planet's moon had all but disappeared from the sky.



She noticed that Teal'c was keeping watch, and that O'Neill was sleeping very close to him. In fact, Teal'c was holding him.



“Body heat generates much warmth, Major Carter,” Teal'c intoned softly and Sam sighed. She inched closer to Daniel and immediately felt better. He was staring into space. She curled against him.



“Daniel,” she whispered after a few moments. “What did I say?”



“Hmmm?” Daniel shifted a bit, still shivering.



“Earlier, with the guard.”



“Oh. As far as I can tell you said “I’m sorry.” You really did a number on that particular one when we were first caught.”



“Oh. Well. I'll have to think of something else tomorrow,” she said as lightly as she could. She touched Daniel's shoulder. “Rest. Don't worry, we'll get out of this, it's what we do.” Daniel closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. They would get out of this. She fell into a fitful sleep with that thought in her mind.