Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 10 - The Old Man of the Mountain
The scrubby pine forest dimmed as the sun sank towards the horizon, providing respite from the heat of the day. The scurrying sounds of animals and strange hooting calls of birds echoed between the trees as the group made their way up the winding trail towards Joost’s isolated cabin. Marka’s expression was darkening, too, as they drew closer.
“She doesn’t approve of him,” Dr. Haas said quietly, relaying the young villager’s discontented words to the others. Major McNair had gone back to the village to rest, leaving only Dr. Haas and Marka to accompany SG-17 to the reclusive man’s cabin. “She won’t say exactly why, but she doesn’t.”
Kathleen glanced worriedly behind her at Marka. “Does she have any tips on how we should approach him?”
“If it were up to her, I don’t think we’d be going at all,” Dr. Haas replied.
“I shall remain outside to keep watch,” Ked’rec offered, as the group rounded the bend into Joost’s clearing. “It does not appear that there will be a great deal of room inside his house.”
“All right,” Kathleen agreed. With swift, silent steps, the Jaffa split off from the group, heading off to patrol the edge of the clearing, while the others made their way up the path towards the cabin.
The rough-hewn wooden door swung open, and a man stood in the open doorway, staring warily at the group of strangers. Joost was only in his late 40s, but his hair was heavily sprinkled with gray, and his face bore the weathered lines of someone who had had a hard life, and one spent mostly outside in the strong sun. His eyes were pale blue, and narrowed sharply as he gave an inquisitive glance at the odd clothing and equipment of the Stargate personnel.
Kathleen met his eyes directly, and a matching spark rose to answer his look, along with a smile. Finally – someone on this planet who’s curious! she thought. Now this, I can work with… “Dr. Haas, could you translate, please?” The other woman nodded, and Kathleen looked back up at Joost, offering another smile as she began, “Hello. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we were hoping that we could speak to you for a while.” She spoke slowly, leaving gaps for Dr. Haas to translate, but Joost was looking at Kathleen, listening intently to the unfamiliar language as she spoke it. “We’re explorers. From very far away,” she added, not going into any more detail than that for now. “We’re trying to get an idea of what this area is like, and you seem to be in the best place of anyone to observe the environment – the plants and wildlife. And the water,” Kathleen added, after a slight hesitation. “You have your own source of water here, don’t you?” Joost nodded slowly. Behind her, Kathleen could feel Marka starting to tense uncomfortably. “I’m curious about that, too.”
Throughout the speech, Joost’s expression had been softening, and while he didn’t exactly smile, the crinkles around his eyes rearranged themselves in a slightly more benevolent way as he nodded. “Come in.” With relief all around – except for Marka, who hung back with a disapproving glower – the group stepped inside. “So, are you from the coast?” Joost asked, through Dr. Haas, with another inquisitive look at the visitors’ strange clothes as they tried to arrange themselves around the small, sparsely-furnished cabin. “We haven’t had much trade with them lately, but I didn’t think that things had changed quite so much.”
“No, we’re from…er, farther away,” Kathleen said awkwardly.
Joost nodded, taking in the information with a thoughtful expression. “Well, it’s good to see travelers again, at least. There hasn’t been anything going on in this part of the riverlands for years.” He shot a disapproving look at Marka, who bristled upright at the implied insult, but she said nothing in return.
“It’s good to find someone who’s interested in meeting travelers,” Kathleen offered, along with another smile.
Joost rolled his eyes, but good-naturedly. “I wouldn’t be living out here if I wanted to talk to people. But it’s better than what’s going on in the village.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the village!” Marka snapped suddenly, breaking Dr. Haas out of the steady rhythm of her translation. The botanist looked back and forth between the two locals, startled and uncomfortable, but continued to translate, even as Marka’s unfocused anger rose. “Just because you think that you’re too good for the rest of us – “
“It isn’t that,” Joost retorted. “You’re too caught up in that brown water to see what it’s doing to you.” He turned to Kathleen again, speaking with greater force as he explained, “It’s changing them. Drinking that water makes them lazy, and tired all the time. You’ve seen the village? The fields that don’t have any crops in them? The houses that are standing empty around the edges, because there aren’t any people in them? Nobody’s having children anymore, are they?”
“We’re happy with the way we live! We have everything we need.” Marka protested, with rising anger, but the slow cadence of her words drew an ‘I told you so’ look from Joost.
“My father could see what was happening,” Joost went on, looking back to the visitors. “Trade was going down even then, because nobody had the energy to go down the river to the coast. They just sat around and drank that water. My father always wanted to move out of the village, but never managed to do it. Still, he spent most of his time out in the woods – he’s the one who taught me how to fend for myself. So as soon as I was old enough, I came out here.”
“You build this place yourself?” Joe interjected, with faint admiration in his voice. Dr. Haas looked back, surprised at the laconic Tok’ra’s participation, but she translated anyway, drawing a small, proud smile from Joost in response as he nodded.
“It wasn’t easy,” Joost continued. “But it was better than staying in the village. Better than being around all those people all the time. And better than keeping on drinking that water. Although it wasn’t easy to stop drinking it,” he added, his eyes growing shadowed and distant.
“How bad was it, when you stopped?” Kathleen asked, her voice soft with sympathy.
“Bad,” Joost said quietly. “Bad enough that I couldn’t get into the village for a few days. Bad enough that I thought…” He shook his head sharply, dismissing the memories, but Kathleen and Reinhart exchanged worried looks as they recalled Major McNair's illness from just a brief period of withdrawal. Joost's frown lingered while he continued. “The cranberries helped. But it took a while for me to figure that out.”
“Cranberries?” Kathleen repeated, looking quizzically at Dr. Haas for confirmation of the word.
Joost nodded. “If you eat enough cranberries, it doesn’t matter how much of the brown water you drink – it won’t have any effect. My father said that that’s how we got along in the past. But nobody eats cranberries anymore. My father taught me how to prepare them, but they’re hard to cook. Nobody has the energy to figure it out these days. Just like everything else,” he said, with a pointed look at Marka, who glowered back.
“It’s just like methadone!” Reinhart exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him, varying degrees of puzzlement on their faces. The young lieutenant flushed a little, and struggled to explain. “Well, methadone is used to treat heroin addiction. It acts on the same receptors in the brain that heroin does, so it blocks the heroin from having any effect. It sounds like these cranberries work the same way.”
“So that’s the cure?” Kathleen started to smile, startled and relieved by the simplicity of it all.
Reinhart hesitated. “Well, not exactly…”
“You can get hooked on methadone just like you can on heroin,” Joe put in. Another round of surprised looks was directed towards him, and he shrugged, muttering. “Saw a lot of it at the VA.” He pushed back Orieth’s tentative wave of sympathy at the shared memory, and let out a snort that drew a few more curious looks.
But Reinhart was already talking again. “That’s right. So we have to make sure that the same thing won’t happen with the cranberries.”
”All right,” Kathleen nodded. “Let’s take samples and get the chemistry folks back at the SGC on it. And we’ll ask them to get some Earth cranberries, too,” she added with a grin. “If the same chemicals are in Earth cranberries, then we’ll be able to get this thing fixed in no time.”
Reinhart glanced over at Marka, who had resumed glaring at Joost. “Except if they don’t want to fix it,” he said quietly.
“Well, we’ll still need to – “ A sharp rap at the wall cut off Kathleen’s next statement. Outside, framed dimly in the moonlight, Ked’rec had come to attention, his head was cocked, silent and listening. A few seconds later, Joe heard it too – a low grumbling sound that rose higher and opened up into a roar.
“Hagadis!” gasped Marka.
[Coming up next: When Dinosaurs Attack! – and the party’s very first combat.]