Oondalagnak

part 2

They jogged silently across the barren, dusty plain. O'Neill's long legs helped him keep pace with his younger teammates as they traveled hard and fast over the open ground for hours on end.

When they finally took a break, O'Neill was winded, but, he saw with satisfaction, no more so than his companions.

"Onee Chak," they repeated.

"No, no, just Jack," he tried again.

"Chus Chak," they smiled.

He pointed at the native who'd started the conversation. "You? Your name?"

"Too pa'e."

"Toupe' " Jack mimicked.

"Gra'raff."

"Giraffe."

"Chan'la."

"Chandler."

"Hom'ra."

"Homer!" O'Neill pronounced with delight.

"Fal' fa."

"Alfalfa."

So they were his team: Toupe’, Giraffe, Chandler, Homer and Alfalfa. Oh, yeah, and Onee Chak.

"So, kids, where are we going?" he asked. They just looked at him, blankly. Lordy, this was going to be a long six days. Where the hell was Daniel when you needed him?

Jack knelt down to the ground and drew a crude map showing the town, the desert-like plain, and the mountains he could see ahead. He named each thing, pointing to the real thing, then to the map. Finally one of the natives, he thought it was Toupe', smiled and seemed to understand. With his short, stubby finger, the native pointed at each of the group, then drew a wavy line from where they were, across the plain, toward the mountains, and then looping back to the town. Jack smiled.

"So, up there, get the stuff, come on back. Got it. Piece of cake."

"Caaak," they repeated. “Chak.”

“Cake. Jack,” he pronounced carefully.

“Chak."

The Colonel sighed. Yup, six very long days.

In a few minutes, he and the boys got to their feet and started jogging again.

They were making good time, having already passed several of the other groups of contestants.

Night fell. For a while, that made the going easier as the cooling darkness enveloped them. It never really got dark, though, as the first moon was already high in the sky when the sun set. The second moon came into view hours later, keeping the landscape light enough to see.

The long hours of travel were beginning to wear on the team. O'Neill thought they were in front of the other groups now, though in the dim light it was hard to tell. Toward dawn, Jack had insisted the group take an hour to rest. Napping any longer would be counterproductive-- they'd get so stiff they wouldn't be able to keep moving. But going entirely sleepless, while it was possible now, would catch up with them later.

It hadn't been easy, getting the team to realize they should sleep. Most of them didn't want to. Jack was quickly frustrated and out of sorts, angry, fueled in part by being tired, but mostly by not being able to explain the benefits of a short rest now.

Finally, patience gone, he'd simply curled up against a sand dune, wrapped in his jacket, hat pulled low over his face. He'd heard them shuffling around uneasily, not wanting to leave him behind, and then, finally, coming back and curling up next to him. It was like sleeping in the middle of a nest of puppies, Jack thought as he dozed off.

------------------

An hour later, his watch chimed. He'd rested enough to help himself, though that tired buzz was well ensconced in his brain, that little nagging headache one got when the body was experiencing the start of sleep deprivation.

The water was gone before noon. Even Jack's canteen no longer bore more than a mouthful when Giraffe suddenly let out a yell and deviated from the trail. O'Neill wasn't sure what was happening, but he followed the boys. They were clustered around an odd looking plump plant, laughing and pointing. It vaguely resembled a barrel cactus, thought the Colonel, the kind one found in the desert, containing enough moisture--of course. Similar thing. The boys were looking at him gleefully, and he smiled as they pulled out their primitive knives and cut away the top of the plant.

Dark brown hands dug into the soft, mushy flesh of the plant.

Jack joined them. Tentatively sticking a finger into the gooey, gelatinous mass, he brought it up to his nose and sniffed it carefully. Hmm, didn't smell bad, didn't smell like much of anything. Cautiously, he licked the tip of his finger, surprised at the sweet flavor. Moist and sweet, moisture and energy in one source.

O'Neill smiled, savoring the flavorful fluid.

-------------------

Daniel hurried to find Sam, who had been relegated to women's work- i.e., spinning yarn, sewing clothes, grinding flour and preparing meals. To say she was upset was an understatement.

"Sam!" Daniel called, searching her out amid the group of veiled women chattering in the cookhouse.

"Sam. I need to talk to you," he told her urgently.

"Okay," she agreed with relief, waving at the headmistress, as she thought of the old woman, pointing from herself to Daniel to outside. The woman nodded, giving Sam her permission to leave.

Daniel hadn't said anything. Suddenly his grim look registered on Sam. "What is it? The Colonel? Did something happen?" she was peering around.

"No. Not yet. But I discovered something, when I was reading."

"They let you read?" Carter asked with obvious envy.

"Ah, yeah.” Daniel grinned sheepishly. “But Sam, listen. What I read, about this ritual, the quest for the Fodder of the Gods..."

"They were just going to harvest some grain or something, right?"

"Not exactly. Sam, it takes six days because they have to travel across the wasteland, up and over a mountain, gather up the sacred fodder, and haul it back here. And it all has to be done while the double moons light up the night. Because once the dark of the moon returns, anyone not back through the city gate will most likely be eaten by those Bearcat things we saw on the UAV tapes. They hunt in packs in the dark. No one's ever survived a night out there, if they didn't make it back before the dark of the moon."

Sam shivered. "The Colonel will make it. He's good at this stuff, Daniel."

"Sam, to make it there and back, in six days, it means they have to travel all day and all night. Six sleepless nights, almost no food, and they don't take weapons because they're too much to carry. I know Jack is tough but..."

"Daniel, do you know about SEAL training?"

"What does that have to do with this...?"

"The Colonel took SEAL training, when he went into Special Ops. They do this thing called Hell Week, where they run SEAL recruits through a week of round the clock training, no sleep, no rest. They pick only the best to even consider for the course, and they still wash out 70%. He did that, he can do this."

"Jack did that?" Daniel's estimation of his friend and CO went up another notch. A week without sleep, that was inhuman. No wonder on missions Jack seemed not to sleep. In fact, the archaeologist thought back to some of their early missions and realized O'Neill probably hadn't slept at all. SEAL training. That was reassuring. But wait. "Sam, that was what, 20 years ago?"

"No, not quite," her confident smile suddenly got a little less confident. "But he's inventive..."

"He's also got a bad knee and he's old enough to be his competition's father," Daniel shook his head, worried. "And he doesn't know the rules, Sam. He doesn't know why they have to get back, or what will happen when they don't. I gave him a rough translation before he went, but I didn't *know* all the details, and now he's out there and he doesn't know." Jackson glanced worriedly at Carter. "He doesn't know that it's more than just a game. It's a contest for all our lives. Sam, they only let the first eight teams back in the gate. Come back without the fodder, or be team number nine and you’re locked out. And they send the losers' whole clans out with them."

Carter's eyes were wide in disbelief. "What? They send people outside the gate? For the creatures to eat?"

"It's population control," Daniel waved his hand at the walled village around them. "I’ve been reading old scrolls, the ones that tell about these people’s history. The Goa'uld that brought them here built this city for them. These people don't know how to quarry or move stone or raise walls, so they're incapable of expanding it. This is all the space they have, and all they'll ever have. They’re afraid to go outside the walls except during the double moons, when the creatures won’t hunt because it’s not dark enough. If their population grows too much, they'll all starve. So they practice survival of the fittest. And since we’re in the contest, just like the natives, our fates are tied to the results. If Jack and his team don't survive, neither do we."

“Wait. That doesn’t make any sense. Why don’t they just send us back through the gate? We’re not here to use any of their space or consume their supplies.”

“Any other time of the year, and they probably would have been friendly, polite, then just sent us happily on our way. The priests and the leaders had a meeting this morning, and it ended in shouting. The priests won the argument, Oolagak got shouted down, and I don’t think that’s good news for us: since we’re here at the time of the ceremony, we’re considered a clan, Jack’s our clan representative, and we are subject to the ritual and its rules, as well as the rules of the city. Winners earn a place, not just a garden plot but a place in the town, inside the safety of the walls. Losers get cast out into the wilderness. Oondalagnadak is banishment and banishment equals death.”

----------------

Midway through the second afternoon, Team O'Neill left the desert behind and made it into the foothills. The heat was less of a factor now, but they had to climb, and in their ever increasingly wearied state, that was difficult. Little Homer was having trouble keeping up, but, following Jack's lead, the others took turns helping him.

Even the Colonel's longlegged strides had been reduced to weary plodding. Thank God for well broken in boots, he thought as they stopped for another rest.

Their breaks were no longer filled with chatter, they were all too tired, sitting with heads hanging, several of them collapsing to the ground to sleep like the dead for the 15 minutes each hour they were allowing themselves to rest.

The natives had long ago decided to let O'Neill lead. He didn't know if, before they'd left the village, someone might have told them that he was a warrior leader among his own clan. Or perhaps their culture simply respected age, Jack thought, shaking his head over that Daniel-ish thought. It bothered him, though, that he knew so little about this place, about their task, or about what dangers might await them. There was definitely something dangerous about this quest, other than the simple need to be first. He just wished he knew what it was. O'Neill hated traveling in the dark, and he didn't mean night time.

He had to trust to let the others choose their path, now. O'Neill simply didn't have enough information to stay in the lead, so instead he took up their six and followed, eyes always alert, helping Homer.

He was a cute kid, Homer was, Jack thought, if one ignored the odd multi-colored skin that covered half the boy's face. Most of the natives had that pebbly, parti-colored skin, though they appeared human in all other ways. They were all small. He hadn't seen an adult that was more than five feet tall. Ol' Doc Fraiser would love this place, he thought idly. She'd actually be tall in this group.

They traveled quietly now. The Colonel wasn't sure if there were any dangerous predators they were hiding from, or just feeling the need to avoid the other teams. For good or for bad, they had seen no one else since early that morning.

They were soon high in a mountain pass, the natives searching diligently for something among a series of small valleys that branched off the main flat meadow. Suddenly, Jack heard high pitched yelling.

Instinctively, he spun and ran toward the sound, arriving breathlessly at a small valley.

Chandler and Giraffe stood there, waving their arms in excitement.

O'Neill looked around, seeing nothing unusual.

The boys were chattering, loudly, excitedly. Finally, one of them pointed to a small grove of trees.

Well, for lack of a better word, Jack called them trees. They were sort of like palm trees, maybe more like Earth’s bamboo plants; tall slender stalks with fern-like leafy clumps growing near the tops. "This is it? This is what we came for?" O'Neill asked. He didn't get an answer, and shook his head. Well, he guessed this was what they were supposed to be gathering.

Quickly, the tired group began digging at the base of the trees with their knives, then pulling the plants out of the ground before yanking the thick, three foot long, fan shaped leaves off the top. O'Neill watched intently for a moment, then waved his arms and yelled, "Stop."

They kept on working.

The boys began to smile.

Okay, thought Jack with an answering grin. His height could make this easier. They wouldn't have to dig, cut or pull the plants. He could pull off the leaves and the natives could bundle them.

That helped for a while, until the blisters formed.

Jack sighed.

This was going to be a long day.

--------------------

Even here in the mountains the day seemed hot. Jack wiped sweat from his forehead as he continued reaching high above his head to pull leaves off the trees, ignoring the steady ache in his shoulders. Their stack of fodder had grown steadily. Finally, with the pile of leaves now standing almost four feet tall, Toupe' looked around at the group, and everyone nodded.

"Okay, so now that we've got this stuff, how do we transport it?" He looked around to see Alfalfa diligently braiding several long vines into several lengths of rope, knotting it carefully. "Crap, now we have to carry this stuff?" Damn, his back was killing him already, his knee was sore from three straight days of nonstop activity and they had a long way to walk. There had to be a better way.

Jack looked around at the valley, considering. Shit, the trees they'd cut down first, they'd do. Grabbing several of the lengths of vinerope Alfalfa had created, he walked over to where the light but sturdy bamboo like tree trunks lay. Selecting a pair of slender, eight foot long lengths, he crossed them about two feet from one end, forming a sloppy off-kilter ‘X’ shape, securely lashing them together with the rope.

The boys stared, muttering among themselves.

"Here, see," Jack piled several bundles of the precious fodder atop the makeshift travois. "It's a travois. Native American thing for pulling loads. Easier than carrying. Much easier." He showed them how it worked, and the natives began smiling. “Travois. Carries things.”

"Trav-oyy," they repeated.

"Yup, that's it, travois," Jack smiled through his exhaustion.

Cobbling together four travois, and dividing up the load among them, O'Neill sent one scout ahead, and left Homer to carry the extra water and fruit packed into makeshift net bags that the Colonel had shown them how to construct from braided vine.

After a one hour nap, Team O'Neill headed for home.

-----------

The Colonel was beginning to feel good about this little adventure. Sure, he'd been coerced into doing it, but actually, he never minded a nice little camping trip. And the kids were good company, even if they couldn't really talk to each other. True, they didn't laugh at his jokes, but they did follow his orders, followed them better than a certain wayward archaeologist who spoke the same language. Sort of.

Still and all, it would be nice to actually be able to talk to someone again.

Soon.

They hadn't seen a sign of the competition since they'd left the mountains. O'Neill was sure they were well ahead of all the other teams, and they'd be back to the village in much less than six days. Hell, they'd probably win the competition, unless something went wrong.

---------------

Go on to part 3