By Biltong

Xenophobia at it's very worst.

"It’s not that I don’t like you. Please believe me. It’s just our policy. I bear you no ill will at all."

The strange man looked up from his labors, the blood and sweat covering his face failing to disguise the look of pure fury in his eyes.

"You shot me," he said, the tone of his voice so devoid of emotion I quickly leveled my energy weapon at him again. Given half a chance, this one would try something.

"Yes I did," I said calmly.

"Under the instructions of the high council."

I pointed at the spade he held in his hands.

"Dig."

He glared at me.

"Why? So you can bury me here?" He gestured to the dry field. "I’m not stupid you know. I can see the places where the earth has been disturbed."

He straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow, wincing at the wound he found there.

"Did you make the people that came before us dig their own graves too? Or did they bake to death in this crappy heat first?"

I pointed my weapon at him, saying nothing until he resumed to dig.

"I agree, today is a bit hot, but our methods are not inhumane. I merely follow orders, and my orders are to keep our society racially pure by stopping all and everything that steps through that ring."

"Not everybody is Gou’ald," he bit out, his spade making a clunking noise as he broke through the hard earth. "Some of us are peaceful explorers."

"Maybe," I sighed, "and I really bore you and your team no malice, however my orders are clear, shoot at all intruders that enter through the ring."

"You almost killed Teal’c," he muttered.

"The brown one?" I continued when he deigned to reply. "My aim was off, I had intended to get all four of you with one blast. At least I have you."

I gave him a wide smile. ‘ You should have seen the indecision, him or you. Finally they decided he was the worst off."

"They will return," he said flatly. "They will return and…"

"Die," I said quietly, watching this gray haired alien closely.

"We will not tolerate the impure on our world."

His expression turned bitter.

"Why you arrogant xenophobic…"

There. I casually set the setting of my energy weapon on high as the man’s muscles bunched in preparation to jump me.

Puny person. He was half my size and still he wished to try to escape.

He was quick, I grant you that, but I was quicker.

……………….

I had taken the time whilst he had lain unconscious to walk to the nearest village and requisition a chair and large sun umbrella.

As the alien had said, the day was getting hotter as it wore on, and I saw no reason why I should suffer.

The alien, on the other hand, I had no qualms about. I cracked open a cool drink and slaked my thirst, watching as his fair skin began to redden and blister in the sun.

Finally, he began to stir.

"Aah God."

"I am pleased to see that you still survive."

He rolled onto his side and regarded me through reddened eyes.

"Barely."

He coughed, struggling for breath and waved a hand at my weapon.

"You fire that again and you will be digging this hole on your own."

True, he did look a bit sick under all that blood and dirt. Not that I cared.

I wasn’t paid to care.

"Get up and dig."

For a moment, I really thought he was going to refuse, and then he slowly climbed to his feet.

"My friends will return," he said flatly, "and when they do, I will kill you personally."

His expression left me in no doubt that he meant what he said.

"Luckily for me, they will not return."

"They will."

He dug his spade into the ground with a thud, as if to emphasize that statement.

"And even if they do return, I will be ready and waiting for them by the time the third jewel is lit."

I shook my head.

"No, your people are not stupid. They will not return."

He had stopped digging again and only resumed when I gestured with my weapon.

"No one gets left behind," he muttered, shoveling dirt angrily.

"You got left behind," I said smugly, "so that statement is clearly false."

His face dropped and he swayed.

"Well, yes, I was, but they had Teal’c to think of."

I had no idea what he was talking about. Nor did I care.

"Dig."

He glared at me.

I moved my weapon slightly.

"Dig or die."

Death stared at me from behind those brown eyes, but as long as he was on the wrong side of my weapon, I just didn’t care.

I was not paid to care. Not at all.

"Why should I dig?" he asked belligerently. He gestured to the hole he had dug.

"This is a grave. Why should I dig my own grave?"

"Nonsense," I sneered.

"This isn’t a grave. This is just your punishment for defiling our culture."

My excuse sounded lame even to my ears.

He suddenly staggered, and had it not been for the spade propping him up he would have fallen.

His apparent weakness worried me. He still had plenty of work to do.

"Bull, he said roughly, using the spade as a crutch. "You intend killing me."

He nodded to the hole.

"I have seen this back on my planet as well. People forced to dig their graves only to end up occupying them."

He made his unsteady way towards me, ignoring my leveled weapon.

"I refuse to be another nameless victim."

I suddenly realized he was close. Too close.

"Stay back."

His snarl was pure malice.

"No."

Frightened, I leapt from my chair; in doing so, I sent the umbrella shading me spinning to the ground.

"Stay back."

I fired my weapon at where I assumed him to be, the bright afternoon sunlight blurring my vision.

"Bite me."

His strange expression coincided with the clang of his spade hitting the side of my head.

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

"He was a real prick."

My team nodded in total empathy.

"We could have been their allies, helped prepare them for the day when the Gou’ald returned in numbers, but nooo"

I lapsed into reflective silence, my team content to wait.

"That ‘you-are-different-and-therefore-must-die’ rhetoric should have died out in 1945."

Finally, Carter stirred, taking one of my bandaged hands in hers.

"I’m just glad that you’re okay," she said softly. "We thought that monstrous thing had killed you."

I gave her a look.

"I’m hard to kill," I said. "You should know that by now."

I lay back and stared up at the ceiling, relishing the infirmary’s coolness against my superheated skin.

"Although it was a close thing."

"That’s for sure," a familiar voice said. Doc Fraiser.

She perused my chart.

You have second and third degree burns over 40% of your body."

She shook her head, her eyes sympathetic.

"The sun there must have been brutal."

"So were the people," I said watching her through suddenly heavy eyes as she added something to my IV.

"So were the poor misguided xenophobic people."

EINDE

BeTa Tested by CiGiK