MEMOIRS OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Retired)
Part V
Chapter Six
By Arrietty
2006
Once we arrived on the planet, I was pleased to see that the weather was behaving itself. It was quite a march to the cave, so I shouldered one of Janet’s packs, while my own was on my back. Janet was carrying the other pack; she had decided not to bring anything personal with her as Janet’s things in my universe would, hopefully, still be there.
As we walked, Janet started to ask me more about my experiences regarding the alternate realities I had come across. I found I left out quite a bit, as the memories were just too painful, but I did tell her about the mirror and finding the controlling device in my pack from the mud planet.
“Jack, which controlling device do you use now, the original one or the one off the mud pool planet?”
I stood dead still. “D’oh!” I brought my hand up and hit the heel of my palm against my forehead. ‘How could I have been so dense?’
“That must be it. Thank you, Janet.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind me.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“Come on, I haven’t got time to explain,” I puffed. “I’ve got to see if this works.”
Adrenalin was pumping through me as we arrived back at the cave; Janet started to drool over all the doohickeys. “Sam would love these; shall we take some back to her?”
“Not from here, Janet. This isn’t my reality. Anyway there is too much, and we have enough to carry.”
I pulled out the mud planet controlling device and started to rummage along the shelves looking for the similar device, one like I had touched so many months ago and had started this whole alternate reality fiasco.
“Got it!” I announced triumphantly and waved it under Janet’s nose.
I compared the two devices, one was a slightly different colour and had a dial that you clicked around while the other was smoother and to change the settings you just touched it with your fingers and lights blinked on and off along the sides.
“Janet,” I looked up at her distressed. “I don’t know what to set this one to.”
“How do you change it?” she questioned.
I handed it over to her, immediately the lights that were already blinking stopped as I let go of it. She prodded and poked at it, but it wouldn’t work.
“It’s not working.” Concern was in her voice and face as she handed it back to me.
Immediately, it sprung into life as soon as I touched it. I looked up at her with a smirk on my face. “Looks like I have the magic touch.” I waggled my eyebrows and looked at the device more closely. “I still don’t know what setting to put it at.”
“Why don’t you set it the same as the other one for this reality? You said that it was very close to yours.”
“I could try that, but I think I will try and remember first.”
I placed the device onto the bench where I had first found one like it months ago, then thought back to when I first encountered this device. ‘Three blue lights flickered down the right side, followed by four red on the left, and lastly one yellow one on the top. As I had withdrawn my hand, it had made a squealing sound, then I fell back and it went dark.’
“Here, Janet, take my hand, I don’t want us to get separated.” ‘Or leave you behind.’ I clasped her small hand in mine, feeling awkward with my pack on my back and one hooked over one shoulder, but I needed both hands free. I reached out with my other hand and touched the device, remembering the lights from before and it immediately sprung into life, and the lights reversed themselves automatically. Yellow at the top first, then four down the left and then three blue lights down the right side. Removing my hand, the squeal it caused was almost ear shattering. I pushed Janet against the pillar and with my free hand I touched the cool surface of the mirror. Lights danced around the cave, and then it began to spin around us interspersed with bright white and coloured flashes of light. Slowly the lights began to darken and I felt Janet’s hand slowly slip from mine, just before I fell to the ground, unconscious.
~*~
“Jack, Jack!” I heard the distressed voice of Janet as I came to. “Where are we? It’s so dark.”
I opened my eyes at this, and tried to peer through the inky blackness, but I couldn’t see anything. “Hopefully, my universe,” I replied.
Pulling out my flashlight, I switched it on and swung it around the interior of the cave. Janet scrambled over towards me as I slowly stood up. I couldn’t see any opening anywhere, though the shelves were stacked high with doohickeys, just like in the original cave and some of the caves in alternate realities I had visited. I checked my watch; it had only been a couple of minutes since I had touched the mirror.
“Come on.” I gestured to Janet to keep close, and walked over to where the entrance of the cave should be. I remembered the original cave hadn’t had an entrance until it had rudely woken me up. I shone the flashlight over the rock face, but everywhere I looked I could not see any fissure or door.
Janet started to push parts of the wall, to see if there were any hidden locks or openings. I hefted my second pack, which had slipped down, back up on my shoulder and reached out to do the same. Immediately, the rock face melted away at my touch and bright light assaulted our eyes as the midday sun streamed in through the cave opening. Once again something had only worked for me and not Janet; this brought me to the conclusion that these objects and the cave were put there by the Ancients. Why it was only on this reality I was not sure, but so far it was.
I stepped out of the cave into the sunlight and checked the surrounding countryside. It was identical to the first planet I had been on. The only difference was the dirt track that meandered its way through the hills in the direction of the Stargate. I cautiously looked at the darkening clouds in the east; it looked like a storm was brewing and I didn’t want us to be caught in it.
“We had better hurry, Janet. I don’t like the look of that storm.”
“What storm?” Her head spun around on her shoulders as she looked right, left and then behind her.
“That one.” I pointed east.
“Clear blue sky. I don’t see any storm.”
A tendril of hope began to travel through me, “Janet what do you see?”
“Forest.” She pointed to the dark forest on our left. “Long waving grass,” she said, pointing in front of her, “and hills in the distance.” She then pointed to where I could see the hills and along the right of us where more hills were.
“Okay, first of all, there isn’t any long grass here, short scrubby stuff over there, and a long dirt track all the way to the hills in the distance.”
“I can’t see it.” She frowned, looking puzzled and, I have to admit, a little wary of me.
“Janet, do you trust me?” I asked.
“Yes, but not your eyes at the moment.” I grinned at her reply.
“Watch this,” I kicked the dry dirt road and a cloud of fine dust floated up around my boot before settling on the black leather surface.
“Wow! Where did that come from?” She crouched down and ran her finger through the dust on my boot, leaving a clean black line.
“Follow the yellow brick road.” Humming the tune to that particular song, I started along the track walking fast. This was so my reality; weird road, weird cave and weird planet all added up to my universe.
“Why the hurry, Jack?” Janet puffed out as she tried to keep up with my long strides.
“This is my reality, Janet, I am home. I need to get off this world to find out for sure though, and the sooner we do that the better.” I grinned down at her, and she smiled back.
It happened when we were nearly at the Stargate. We had past the creepy forest, and even Janet had felt that. A loud screeching sound rose up from amidst the large group of trees behind us, the sun then began to sink fast down over the horizon and the track disappeared into long dry brittle grass. The clouds that I had seen earlier were building up fast, like you would see on science documentaries when they speed up the film. It was freaky. Janet was nervously looking around her and I was keeping an eye on that forest - whatever or whoever was making that sound was coming from there. I had the feeling that when we met ‘it’ we would not like it one little bit.
The hairs stood straight up on the back of my neck and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach coiled itself up through my innards. Recognizing this as fear, I yelled, “Run!” The whole forest was moving towards us, the screeching sound increased with intensity as the trees loomed closer and closer. With one last look back, I ran towards the Stargate.
I wasn’t fast enough, and the trees began to surround us. I couldn’t see how they moved or that they were moving, but they were just closer to us.
“Janet, I’ll hold them off; dial Kelowna.”
“I don’t know the address,” she stated.
I handed her my precious sheet of paper. “Dial this one,” I said, pointing to an address. She ran to the DHD as I fired my zat at the approaching trees that now seemed to be gliding along the ground. The zat only stopped them briefly before they continued towards me; the screeching sound seemed to come from behind them, driving them forwards. I heard the whoosh behind me then turned and ran for the Stargate, shoving Janet in front of me through the shimmering blue portal.
After we arrived on the other side, the Stargate shut down behind us. Without wasting time, I turned to Janet. “I’m sorry, Janet; there’s no going back.” She nodded. “We are both stuck in whatever alternate universe we are in.”
~*~
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