By Biltong

"Who is she?" I asked, feeling my scalp contract. The woman reflected in the MALP's eye looked so sad, so - tragic.

"I don't know sir," Carter said, shaking her head. She sat at the keyboard, her fingers delicately splayed on the keys and looked fixedly at what the MALP was capturing, which was essentially no movement at all.

The woman sat on a small rock, her feet ankle deep in mud, and to all intents and purposes, acted like a statue.

"Is she dead?" Daniel asked, sounding really spooked. Inane question number one for the day. I reigned in my impatience and made to answer, but General Hammond beat me to it.

"If she were dead, Doctor Jackson, do you think she would be sitting there on that rock like that?"

Daniel looked down at his boots, suitably chastened. "Guess not." He immediately bounded back, as he almost always did. "So why is she there? And more importantly, where are the rest of her race?"

"I have no idea," General Hammond said. He now sounded as bothered as the rest of us.

Maybe it was because the woman wasn’t reacting the way she ought to. I mean, wouldn't you jump in some way if a stone circle whooshed into life and then spat out a mechanical contraption?

I know I would have. Hell, any intelligent person would have.

Not this woman.

She sat there, a threadbare blanket of some kind wrapped around her, staring at us through blank eyes set in a gaunt ebony face. As I watched, a fly of some sort landed on her face and crawled to the corner of her mouth, as if desperate for water. But there was water aplenty - the MALP had already shown us that.

"She looks like something out of National Geographic," Daniel muttered, and I had to agree.

"Any signs as to what she's doing there?" General Hammond asked.

"Like signs of a war maybe?" I asked, garnering myself some odd looks. But I knew why I was asking that question. I had seen such pitiful people before in my life. Then they had been known as refugees.

"Nothing sirs," Carter said, moving the MALP camera so that we could see beyond the woman.

"Just that."

They all peered at the picture with varying expressions of puzzlement on their faces. For me, it just confirmed what I had suspected all along.

"What the hell?" Daniel murmured.

The ground had been churned up into a muddy quagmire, as if a herd of buffalo had recently gone through, leaving muddy destruction in its wake.

And one human. Let's not forget her. In a way, I was surprised. I had expected to see more than just one person.

"What in the hell?" General Hammond mirrored. "Show us more," he ordered. "Let’s see if we can get a handle on this."

Carter obligingly retracted the lens, allowing us to see that the muddy destruction stretched straight to the horizon.

"What could have caused that?" Daniel asked. "Animals?"

"It's a possibility," Carter said dubiously. "Although I doubt it."

"Indeed," Teal'c concurred. "It would take a considerable amount of animals to bring about destruction such as this."

"Then what?" General Hammond asked, sounding exasperated.

"Humans." I said, my voice sounding hollow. I had never hoped to see such a thing again in my lifetime.

"What?" Hammond asked, turning to face me. "Colonel?"

My eyes met his. "Humans," I reiterated.

I leaned over Carter’s shoulder and tapped at the screen, my fingernail making a faint clinking noise. "Look there."

General Hammond saw immediately to what I was referring to, as I'm sure, did Teal'c. It took the others a bit longer.

"Is that a footprint?" Daniel said eventually.

"It is indeed," Teal’c confirmed, shooting me an admiring look which I ignored. "Considerable footprints."

"Good God," Daniel said, the light finally dawning. "You mean they left her to die?"

"Yes," I replied, staring out at the window and down at the soothing blue of the open wormhole. Nevertheless, I felt their eyes on me. "I have seen such things before. Here - in Africa."

"Survival of the fittest animal is paramount," Teal'c rumbled. "Most being know this."

"Survival of the fittest," I echoed. "That cliché holds sway all over the galaxy, I guess."

I snorted, the sound seeming so sad, as if even my very soul were aching.

"There is no arable land left," I said, turning back to face them. "When that happens the people move on."

"But it rained recently," Daniel said. "Surely that would have helped?"

"Too little too late," I replied, my voice sounding harsh, even to my ears. "You cannot add water to dust and expect to grow crops."

I returned my gaze to the stargate, my heart crying out to the poor woman trapped forever on the other side of the wormhole.

There is no life left there," I continued. "Apart from perhaps cholera. Cholera always thrives in situations like this."

"Situations? Cholera?" Daniel asked, sounding horrified.

""Death and disease," I said. "When there is nothing left and all the goodness has been leeched from the land, then Cholera arrives, with death its constant companion.

"What causes it?" Carter asked. She was deliberately keeping the MALP away from the woman, for which I was glad.

"Water on bad ground," I replied, turning and staring into her wide blue eyes. "Bad sanitation. They probably welcomed the rains, forgetting that their drinking water should be kept separate from any other water." I shook my head, remembering. "I can understand how hard it is. When you have seen no water for months and months, and then suddenly get deluged with rain, it is beyond impossible not to just drop where you are and drink from the puddles that are forming right in front of your eyes - quickly, quickly before they all evaporate again."

"A fatal thing to do," Daniel said huskily. "Rainwater is impure anyway."

I shook my head, smiling slightly. "You’re wrong, Danny. "Rainwater in Africa is as good as it gets. It’s here in the so called ‘first world’ where it’s polluted."

I laughed humorlessly. "In fact, had they managed to save the rainwater in barrels of some kind, they could have survived. Unfortunately, they did not do this, and Mama Afrika, sitting so still and sad, is suffering as a result."

Carter slowly swiveled the camera back to the woman.

"Cholera?" she asked, her face pale.

"More than likely," I said. "She has all the signs."

No one asked how come I knew this.

"Bring the MALP home," General Hammond ordered after a moments hesitation, as I knew he would.

"Sir?" Carter asked, even as her hands tapped on the keys.

"General?" Daniel asked, looking appalled. "Why?"

"We have enough problems of our own," General Hammond sighed; his face pale and tired in the control room light. "We cannot add to them by taking on the problems of others."

The tragic part of that was that I agreed with him.

EINDE

Beta Tested by CiGiK - Cape Town - Sunday October 26th 2003