Bridge Between Worlds

by Tilt 

Doctor Daniel Jackson sighed as he looked through his car's windshield at the stately house, the neatly trimmed hedges, the several varieties of rose bushes in full glorious bloom that lined the driveway. Catherine loved her roses; one of the perks of being retired, she'd joked once. Daniel was glad. After a lifetime alone of teaching and the frustrations of fighting for the Stargate, Catherine deserved any happiness she could get.

Maybe it was time to take some of the grandmotherly advice she had so often impressed upon him.

The maid answered the door only a moment after his knock. She showed him into the smaller kitchen parlor and went to go inform Catherine of his arrival. Catherine's house could have been a museum -- a lifetime of archaeology had filled her home with artifacts large and small. Many were quite valuable, but most were smaller pieces of more personal sentiment and greater worth as exemplars of the cultures that had produced them. Archaeologists were all packrats at heart, he supposed. As a child he'd had a treasured box full of "artifacts" just like any child; but he supposed not every child had burial goods from the tomb of a minor pharaoh, nor could every child recite the full history, function and cultural significance of the scarabs and the tiny crude carvings of cats, baboons, jackals and crocodiles.

"Daniel," Catherine said as she came into the room, holding out her hands as he turned and took the few steps into her welcoming hug.

"Catherine," Daniel said softly as he gently returned the hug. She was so tiny he was always afraid he'd hurt her if he hugged too hard. But there was nothing weak or frail in her spirit, and he suspected never would be. As she gently pushed him away to look up at him he tried to smile when he saw the amulet of the Eye of Ra on its beaded cord around her neck. A legacy of happier days, that amulet. He'd asked Jack to return it Catherine as they stood before the Stargate in the pyramid of Abydos. Shau'ri had been at his side, and Jack's eyes no longer held the coldness of his deathwish. "Where's Ernest?"

"The golf course," Catherine said, smiling. "Whatever else has changed in the world, he can still chase a little white ball around an empty field."

Daniel laughed a little at that. He'd never understood golf either.

"You look like hell," Catherine said with her usual forthrightness. "Given the stories I've heard lately I shouldn't be surprised."

Still holding her hands, Daniel shrugged slightly. "I'm just ... tired, Catherine."

"Tired my ass. You're exhausted, in more ways than one."

Daniel found himself smiling a little. He didn't have the energy to lie to himself anymore, much less to her. He'd never get away with it anyway. "I'm thinking of leaving the project. They hired me to translate the coverstones and figure out how the Stargate worked, and Shau'ri is gone. I've no real reason to stay anymore."

Catherine looked up at him consideringly, worry in her eyes. "Where would you go? Archaeologists have long memories, I doubt you could get a place at a university."

"I don't know," Daniel said. "I hope I can sign up for a dig somewhere. Maybe if I go somewhere other than the Middle East I could sneak in through the back door before anyone noticed. Peru, maybe?"

"It's Jack, isn't it? That undercover mission he just did. General Hammond said it was rough on you and Samantha and Teal'c." Catherine peered up at the averted eyes.

"It had to be done," Daniel said flatly, still looking down at her hands holding his. "Jack followed his orders and he did what he's trained to do. He infiltrated those rogue SG teams and brought them back to face court-martial and criminal charges. The Asgard and the Tollan and the Nox would have broken ties with us if he hadn't done it, Catherine. We need the Asgard. We have no other space-based defenses."

"That's Hammond and the Joint Chiefs talking," Catherine said. "You're mad as hell."

Daniel shrugged again. "I'm tired of everything being about weapons, Catherine. They don't want archaeologists or anthropologists or even linguists. They want translators. My own personal stake in the fight is gone now. I think it's time I moved on."

Catherine began to lead him toward the French doors leading to the gardens. "I may have an idea. I have someone I want you to meet."

***

"Henry, this is Doctor Daniel Jackson," Catherine said as she led Daniel by the hand out onto the marble-floored patio.

As they approached a figure sitting on the stone balustrade surrounding the patio turned and rose stiffly to his feet. Eyes as piercingly blue as Daniel's own met his gaze. White-haired, scruffy with a few days' worth of equally white stubble, the old man's gaunt face split into a lopsided grin as Catherine came forward. His clothes were somewhat rumpled -- old brown corduroys, a cream-colored button-down shirt and a dark gray overcoat. Leaning against the balustrade was an ebonywood cane, and above it on the balustrade a battered fedora hat.

"Henry Jones," he said as Daniel approached. He held out a hand and Daniel shook it. Jones peered at him for a long moment, nodded as if agreeing with himself on something. "You're Nick Ballard's daughter's boy?"

Daniel blinked. "Yes. How did you guess?"

Jones chuckled. "You look just like him. He was one of my grad students, way back when dinosaurs walked the earth."

"Henry," Catherine said with a laugh. "Behave yourself."

Jones shook his head, still grinning. "Catherine says you're an archaeologist. What's your specialty?"

"I have several, actually," Daniel said as he sat down on one of the stone benches that ringed the patio. Catherine sat down beside him and he glanced at her and smiled. "In archaeology, the Middle East specifically and western Europe in general. In linguistics, pretty much everything from the Ganges west until you hit the Atlantic."

Jones just stared at him for a long moment. "Sanskrit?"

"Of course. And Farsi, Pashto, Urdu --"

Jones held up a hand. "I get the picture. Greek and Latin?"

"Of course."

"What about Tibetan and Nepalese?"

"Not really, except for what's derived from Sanskrit or Pali. I don't speak Pali, by the way, but I can read it fairly well." Daniel shrugged while Catherine grinned smugly at Jones' astonished expression. "Why?"

Jones sat down again on the stone balustrade and picked up the battered old hat, turned it in his hands for a moment before answering. "I'm looking for someone for an ... expedition, I guess you'd call it. In the Himalayas."

***

Daniel sat stunned in Catherine's parlor while she saw Dr. Jones to his daughter's car. The afternoon was growing late, the sunlight taking on that angular amber color. He drank absently from the tall glass of iced tea Catherine had given him, grateful for the liquid coolness.

"The sword of Alexander the Great," he said quietly as he heard Catherine's footsteps behind him on the hardwood floor.

"The magical sword of Alexander the Great," Catherine corrected him fondly as she came and sat down beside him on the sofa. "Henry never does anything halfway. If it's not magical or cursed he doesn't bother to go after it." She gave him a conspiratorial grin. "There's no money in plain old ancient junk."

Daniel snorted a soft laugh and shook his head, his eyes focused on a tiny perfume amphorae on the small marble-top table across the room. "It's people like that that give archaeology a bad name."

"It's people like that who gave you the Stargate, dearheart."

Daniel turned to her again. "Your father wasn't a graverobber, Catherine."

Catherine smiled. "Neither is Henry. Or at least, he outgrew that kind of thing. Around about when he was Jack's age, I think." The smile fell from her face then. "It's when he started to believe in something more than just a paycheck."

"Probably just started realizing he was getting too old to bring back the high-stakes finds," Daniel said.

Catherine looked at him for a long moment, her face suddenly solemn. "No. He realized that money and glory mean nothing when you're facing death; and that miracles can happen even when you think you don't believe."

Daniel let it drop. "Well... at least he didn't immediately think I'm squirrelly just because I'm Nick's grandson. Or ask about that damned crystal skull."

"He didn't have to. He's gone round and round with Nick about that thing ever since Nick found it," Catherine said, smiling. She patted his hand where he'd let it fall onto his knee. "But what do you think? Can you find that sword he's looking for?"

Daniel turned his hand in hers and squeezed her fingers gently. "I'll have to do quite a bit of research -- I've only been to India once, a side trip after a dig when I was in college, and then only for a week. Brush up on my Sanskrit and Greek. Find all the source materials." He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. "It's everything I've been missing, Catherine. If I could I'd leave tomorrow."

"If you could?"

Daniel nodded. "We're going off-world this week. And I'll have to find someone to take my place on the team before I leave anyway."

Catherine didn't speak for a moment, then squeezed his fingers in hers. "Daniel -- don't make any decisions yet. Think about it. Find someone to take your place; I'd expect that might take a while given the need for security checks and such. Give it some time for things to get back to normal with Jack. If you still feel the need to leave once you've found someone to replace you, then go."

Daniel sighed wearily. "Catherine, I don't want to stay with an outfit that thinks nothing of manipulating and deceiving its operatives. That's not the kind of place I want to be."

Catherine just looked at him with somber eyes for a long moment. "Just give it some time. That's all I'm asking."

Daniel didn't really want to agree. But he nodded anyway.

***

"Boo!"

Sam yelped and automatically whirled toward the voice behind her, giggling already as she turned in Daniel's arms and lightly slapped his shoulder. "You startled me, you bastard."

Daniel's brilliant blue eyes echoed his laughter as he kissed her cheek. "I'm glad to see you too, Sam. Have fun this weekend?"

"Five hundred miles and not a squeak of trouble out of the bike," Sam said before hugging him back. She wrapped the leads of a handheld sensor unit into a neat coil and tucked it into the unit's hard plastic casing. "Worth all the trouble."

"I think you're getting the hang of having a hobby that doesn't involve ripping atoms apart. I'm so proud," Daniel said with a smirk. He helped her lift one of the metal cases of empty sample vials up onto her lab workbench, ready to be loaded onto the FRED for another team later that day.

"Your turn now, I've done my bit."

"I have a hobby, wench. Singing lurid folk songs in obscure dialects."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then simultaneously burst out laughing, giggling as they fell into each other's arms again, holding each other up.

"Come on," Sam said finally when they could breathe again without setting each other off into further bouts of giggles. She moved out of his arms reluctantly and pulled him toward the door of her lab. "Help me get the MALP ready. We've got less than an hour."

"Your wish, as ever, oh light of my life," Daniel said, still grinning and following her out. Sam rolled her eyes and shook her head as she pushed open the door of her lab.

As they left, they didn't see Jack standing just at the bend in the corridor outside Sam's lab. He watched them go in silence, smiling wistfully at their antics. Then he pushed himself away from the wall and followed them.

***

The first thing one saw when the elevator doors opened on Level 25 was a poster hung on the wall opposite. "WATCH OUT FOR ROBOTS" was lettered in bold red over a comic picture of a lanky soldier in SGC green fatigues losing his balance and flailing helplessly on the point of falling down as four spherical flying robots whizzed around his head and a pair of small rover bots ran over his toes. The warning was best heeded. SGR -- Stargate Robotics -- tended to allow their creations free range of the entire SGC during the testing phases of their development.

They came to a set of double doors, beside which was another poster in the same style. "MeRV and the Fruit Loops" was lettered over a drawing of one of the small rover type robots on a grassy hillock, the four spherical flying robots in different bright colors circling above it. As Sam pushed open one of the doors something beeping raced out of the door at their feet and into the hallway, swerving before it hit the wall and careening down the corridor like a demented silver rat.

The Stargate Robotics unit had been formed eighteen months before when funding had been approved for research and development of a more extensive robotic recconnaisance program. The unit was under the de-facto command of Sergeant Randall Kroeger, one of the original MALP technicians who had joined Stargate Command soon after the project was reactivated following the appearance of Apophis and the return mission to Abydos. The other two members of SGR were civilian experts -- Anthony Wearandt was a computer systems expert specializing in artificial intelligence applications; Matilda Weaver was a genius in robotics design. At present their greatest creations were the Mobile Recconnaisance Vehicle "mothership" rover and the four flying sensor robots that communicated with it. Dubbed the "Fruit Loops" for their distinctive colors -- Cherry, Grape, Lemon and Lime for red, purple, yellow and green -- they were intended to replace both the MALP and the UAV for preliminary recconnaisance. They took advantage of an unusual natural property of naquadah; running an electrical current through a thin foil of pure naquadah caused that foil to float, and to raise and lower in altitude with the fluctuations in voltage. Mass seemed to have no effect on the phenomenon. SGR had once driven a fully loaded FRED onto a sheet of naquadah foil and kept it hovering three feet off the floor for more than half an hour. With the addition of tiny ducted fans to maintain balance, the four sensor robots could fly quite steadily and very quickly to altitudes up to twenty thousand feet.

Beyond the double doors was a large open room dominated by a huge table on one side and an obstacle course laid out on the floor on the other. Racks of bins full of parts and tools dominated the long wall on the other side of the table and cables and hoses hung from the ceiling waiting ready to be connected at need. The table itself was full of half-completed forms, parts and tools. Flat-screen monitors hung on extendable arms over the table, most displaying screensavers at the moment. Other rooms opened off the main one; through one of them they saw the wheeled forms of the half-dozen MALP probes waiting ready to be loaded onto the freight elevator. Voices came from down a short corridor to another room.

"Major Carter, Dr. Jackson" Matilda Weaver called a moment before she came down the corridor. "The MALP's ready to go."

"How'd you know it was us?" Daniel asked as the short, slightly pudgy woman waved them after her toward the MALP room.

"Because Randy's had Lime hovering over the door for the last ten minutes, waiting for someone to open it. It slipped out when you came in. One thing the little guys can't do is open doors." As she spoke she went to a wall rack of computers beside the door and typed in a quick stream of commands. The third MALP in line came to life with a hum of power and the clatter of the maintenance umbilical cable falling from its connection point as the robot released it. Sam took the remote controller from the rack beside the computers and began directing the MALP toward the short corridor leading from the room to the freight elevator. Daniel coiled the maintenance cable and put it aside as the rover trundled slowly out of line.

"Any idea when you'll be ready for off-world tests?" Sam asked Matilda as they followed the MALP.

"We could begin human-controlled tests in the next couple of weeks, using only the MRV and one of the sensor pods," Matilda answered. "That's with Randy on-site controlling through the MRV. We have three trials planned for each pod by itself, then two at a time with various combinations, then all four. By that time, Tony should have the AI programming ready for a live free-range uncontrolled test." Matilda shook her head and shrugged. "If all goes well, a year. But hopefully the tests will be successful enough to return useful data." She chuckled with a grin. "I'm getting tired of the budget committees telling us we're wasting money on toys and games."

"If they only knew," Sam said as she followed the MALP into the elevator. "Coming with, Danny?"

"No, go on up, Sam. I'll go on up to the control room," Daniel answered as the doors closed. "They really think you're wasting money down here?" he asked Matilda as they left the MALP room.

"We've spent all this money with only one thing to show for it so far, Dr. Jackson -- the mapper bot. And they weren't impressed."

"But that thing is brilliant. I could have used it a hundred times in the last few years, not to mention the civilian applications --" Daniel stopped as he saw who was in the room with Sergeant Kroeger. "Jack."

"Daniel."

Their eyes met briefly before Jack looked back to the computer monitors. Sergeant Kroeger was wearing virtual reality goggles and a glove controller on one hand with a wireless joystick controller in the other. Two of the half-dozen monitors were showing the view being transmitted through the virtual reality goggles -- Daniel recognized one of the corridors several levels above, seen from somewhere near the ceiling. People were walking by beneath, oblivious to the tiny spherical robot hovering silently above them. The view suddenly lurched and blurred as Sergeant Kroeger directed it out of its hiding place. Daniel got a glimpse of the elevator doors at the end of the corridor before the view shuddered and blurred again, and suddenly the monitors were showing a view he was quite familiar with -- Teal'c's dark face, eyebrow raised inquisitively.

Jack burst out laughing. "Danny, look, T caught --"

The weary look in Daniel's eyes stopped Jack's laughter cold. Daniel saw the sudden concern, the worry so plain in the brown eyes. But he didn't want that worry, he didn't need that concern, when he knew how easily Jack could manufacture any emotion that would serve his purposes. He dropped his gaze from Jack's, turned away and left without a word.

***

Sam nodded up at the MALP operator in the control room and turned off the remote control, then crossed to the armored door leading into the corridor. A few seconds later she was standing beside Teal'c where he stood behind the MALP operations monitors. The big Jaffa was peering down curiously at the green spherical sensor robot in his hands.

"A most ingenious device," he said quietly.

"It is, Teal'c. If all goes well, one day soon it's going to replace the MALP and the UAVs." She grinned a little at the Jaffa's muted curiosity. "And if we give Dr. Weaver half a chance, in twenty years we won't even need SG teams at all."

"A combat force composed entirely of mechanical entities would pose little threat to the Goa'uld," Teal'c said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Sam said, grinning up at Teal'c when he tilted his head slightly to see her expression. "They don't feel pain, they don't need to eat or drink, they don't get sick, they can't be taken as hosts, they don't feel fear, they never give up..."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding.

"Hey guys," Daniel said as he joined them. The Stargate began spinning and the first chevron locked. "What d'you think it'll be this time?"

"Trees," Jack said quietly behind them as he climbed the stairs into the control room. "It's always trees, Danny."

Daniel didn't answer, but he didn't have to as the wormhole whooshed into the gate room and retreated again to the shimmering silvery-blue pool of radiance bounded by the great metal ring. In a moment the MALP was industriously climbing the ramp.

"MALP away," Norman said as the rear end of the robot probe disappeared through the event horizon. "Reaching destination in eight seconds."

They watched the countdown as the MALP traveled the thousands of lightyears to its destination, and then the confirmation as it arrived. Another few seconds and transmissions began arriving as the MALP surveyed its surroundings.

The Stargate at the MALP's destination was inside a structure. Smooth walls, a round room, a very high ceiling. Directly in front of the MALP was a huge open archway leading out into further open spaces. As it turned its camera arm they saw an identical archway to the right, dark and empty. They didn't see a DHD immediately, but as the MALP turned its cameras behind itself they saw a familiar triple-circle pattern on the wall which was a safe distance behind the Stargate.

"Could that be the DHD?" Daniel asked. "Can you zoom in on it?"

The MALP operator was already doing so, and the picture blurred and then cleared again. The symbols were clearly visible, inset flush with the surface of the wall. Daniel asked for a screen capture of it and moved to an empty terminal to study it.

There were no decorations save for the DHD symbols inset in the rear wall, and no other doors. The MALP was moved to the darkened archway and directed to shine its lights through, illuminating a wide curving staircase made of the same smooth substance as the walls. The substance looked like sandstone, or perhaps some kind of concrete or poured building material that resembled sandstone, a warm honey-tan that didn't vary in color. The high ceiling held only a bright opaque white circular area directly above the Stargate which provided a diffused and quite bright light. The Stargate itself seemed to be suspended on pilings several centimeters off the floor; it seemed intact and in very good condition.

"Sam, is this one of the planets that isn't on the Abydos chart?" Daniel called as they watched the MALP move toward the other open archway.

"Why? What did you find?" Sam asked as she moved to look over his shoulder. Jack silently moved to join her at Daniel's shoulder.

Daniel was studying the image of the DHD symbols. He traced around the triple circle with one finger. "For one thing, every DHD I've ever seen has had the horns of Isis around the edges. For another, there's no central crystal. This central circle is red, yeah, but it could be painted on. It's flat and looks flush with the wall."

"Looks like glass," Sam said. "It's reflecting the light. It could be crystal. It could be a DHD, just not built like any we've ever seen. Let me check and see where this address came from."

Daniel sat lost in thought as he studied the image, chin in hand and elbow propped on the desk.

"O'Neill," Teal'c said suddenly.

Exclamations of surprise began to circulate around the control room as the MALP left the immediate area of the Stargate through the open archway. What they saw through the robot's cameras was more than enough to inspire such surprise.

Jack hurried to join Teal'c at the monitor. A second later Daniel too was peering nearly speechless at the scene unfolding.

The architecture was vast in scale. The MALP was now rolling across an open balcony that looked to be hundreds of meters long and at least a hundred wide. To the right the balcony simply ended with open air -- no railings, no walls to prevent falls, just empty air. The ceiling over the balcony was even higher here, at least a hundred feet high. The MALP operator directed the robot toward the open edge of the balcony, stopping some twenty feet from the edge. They got one glimpse of gleaming metal forms far below, moving with a human-like grace, walking across the even vaster spaces beyond the balcony. The MALP's camera got a split-second view of a matching balcony across the width of the unknown structure, and more of the giant gleaming metallic humanoid forms made small by the distance.

Abruptly the wormhole vanished in a burst of dissipating energies, cutting off the tantalizing pictures.

"The wormhole was disconnected from the other end, sir," Norman said.

"Close the iris, just in case," Jack said quickly, nodding as the titanium shield cycled into place.

"Major Carter, Doctor Jackson, we'll need preliminary analysis," General Hammond said. "Colonel, given what we've seen here I think it would be wise to get Doctor Weaver's assessment as well. SG-1, I'll expect your analysis for mission briefing at 1300."

"Yes sir," Jack answered. "Come on, kids, looks like we've got a live one. Four hours 'til showtime. Carter, get that video on the mainframe, I'm heading back down to Robotics."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said as Jack turned for the stairs. The Jaffa held up the spherical sensor robot. "I believe this belongs to Sergeant Kroeger."

Jack grinned and took the bot. "You betcha."

Daniel sighed as Jack disappeared clattering down the stairs.

"Oh, and Daniel?" Sam called as she sent the videos to the mainframe.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"This planet -- it's not on the Abydos chart. Whoever these people are, they're not connected to the Goa'uld."

***

"Based on measurements of shadow length of a known quantity -- the Stargate itself -- the room containing the Stargate is twenty-one meters in height and in diameter." Sam hit the button on the remote to switch to the next picture, the computer results of the MALP's sensor readings. "Ambient temperature, seventy degrees Fahrenheit; Gas spectrograph readings indicate high oxygen to carbon dioxide levels and some negligible variations on nitrogen and other gases as compared to Earth-normal. The light source might possibly be artificial, the material filtering the light might be biasing the spectrum analysis. Sonar readings on the walls indicate they are solid, uniform in composition and density, and made of a substance comparable to volcanic rock. The Stargate seems to be in a stable mounting constructed of the same material as the walls. It is not on a dais or raised structure, but due to the 'Gate being mounted slightly above the floor we should expect that first step will be a bit of a jolt."

Sam switched to the next picture, a screen capture taken from the last few seconds of the MALP's transmission. "The structure seems to be some sort of multi-storied rectangular hall with at least one open mezzanine on the long sides of the structure. Based on what we already know, the other mezzanine is a little bit more than half a mile away. The lower floor past the mezzanine is approximately one hundred meters below. There could be further levels above, but the MALP didn't observe any. Then there's the machines." Sam stopped and nodded to the roboticist. "Dr. Weaver?"

For a moment Dr. Weaver was silent, looking down at her clasped hands on the table before getting to her feet. She took the remote control Sam handed her. A split-screen image appeared, an enhanced and magnified image of one of the humanoid machines on the left and a line drawing obviously taken from the image to the right. "First off, let me warn you that these things may not be entirely machines. For one thing, they're too big to go through the Stargate standing upright -- estimates are a little bit over forty feet tall and depending on the materials and metals used they could be anywhere from twenty to thirty tons. These things couldn't really fit into the room where the Stargate sits, and the stairway through the dark archway is much too small. So my best guess is that these machines are some sort of vehicle or possibly armor."

"Armor?" Jack said. "As in the 'knights in shining' type or --"

"Both, Colonel. Armor as in 'knights in shining' and armor as in the sort we all watched running across the deserts of Iraq on CNN ten years ago. And I think I've seen evidence of weapons as well." Dr. Weaver switched to another magnified portion of a screen capture, blurry and indistinct. "This is a very magnified view of the arm of one of these machines. See this dark area here? This darkest spot here is round, and these slightly lighter streaks leading from it could be carbonized -- I'm sure you've seen just such markings on the weapons of fighter aircraft that have been in combat. Those markings could be from weapons fire."

"The entire architecture seems scaled up to accommodate these machines," Daniel said as Dr. Weaver handed him the remote and sat down again.

"Except for the room where the Stargate is," Sam said. "As Dr. Weaver said, the staircase through that dark archway is of smaller scale as well. I agree with Dr. Weaver. There must be a human or at least humanoid presence there, or at least something smaller than those machines."

"I agree," Daniel said. He used the remote to switch to a view of the odd DHD markings on the wall behind the Stargate. "This could very well be a perfectly functional DHD, just in a form we've never seen before. This planet is one of the most distant we've ever seen -- most of the symbols correspond to those on other very far planets we've been to. There are also two unknown symbols. I'm assuming one of them is the origination symbol for this planet. The differences are that this version does not have the horns of Isis that we've seen around all other DHDs we've encountered, nor does it have a central dome-shaped activation crystal. The center circle is solid red and reflects the light as if it is glass or possibly crystal. It could be the activation crystal. Or the entire DHD could be simply a decoration, a reproduction of the DHD that once accompanied this Stargate. But if you'll notice, in support of Dr. Weaver and Major Carter's theory about a human presence, the center of this DHD is approximately five feet from the floor -- a good height that an average sized human could easily reach all the symbols."

"So it could indeed be a functioning DHD?" General Hammond asked.

"It's possible, sir," Daniel agreed. "I'm not prepared to say for certain."

After a moment of silence, General Hammond turned to Teal'c. "Teal'c, do the Goa'uld make much use of robots?"

"No," Teal'c answered. "Slaves are preferred. Such mechanical contrivances are disdained."

"That's probably because any culture that's advanced enough to produce robots or artificial intelligence would be too tough of a nut to crack for them," Dr. Weaver said. "Seems like they go after the easy targets -- pre-technological worlds. They might have the firepower to go after more advanced cultures, but they'd be cut up so bad that they don't want to risk it."

"Dr. Weaver is correct," Teal'c said. "The Goa'uld often rely upon fear and intimidation as a less costly means of control. A culture possessing scientific means of investigation could learn of ways to counteract their technologies, such as you have done here at Stargate Command."

"These people may not have ever encountered the Goa'uld," Daniel said. "This planet is not on the Abydos chart."

"Sir, don't the Tok'ra owe us a favor or two?" Jack asked as Daniel fell silent again.

"How so, Colonel?"

Jack shrugged a little. "Carter could figure out how far this planet is from some other planet we've been to, the closest one that we know for certain has a working Stargate. We could borrow a tel'tak and a pilot, have'em sit somewhere out of range and come in to pick us up if this DHD doesn't work. We run for the nearest Stargate and come home. If we can't make nice with the natives, the Tok'ra could give it a try."

"Given the potential benefits, I agree with you," Hammond said. He nodded decisively. "I'll make a formal request and explain the situation. Major Carter, if you'll do those calculations for the nearest safe Stargate, we'll send it through. Report back here at 1600 hours. We may have to delay your departure until tomorrow. Thank you for your assessments, SG-1, Dr. Weaver. Dismissed."

***

"Well, here we go again," Sam said as she and Daniel walked down the corridor together toward the elevators.

"Here we go again what?" Daniel asked.

"We have no idea if that DHD thing on the wall works. We may not be able to get home. We're actually thinking about 'Gating into a place with giant, possibly hostile robots and a culture obviously far in advance of our own. Doesn't that seem just slightly suicidal?"

"They don't have to be bad guys, Sam. And we have another way home," Daniel said as he punched the elevator call button.

"Which may not work and end up getting a tel'tak and a Tok'ra killed, not to mention ourselves. If they've got robots like that they'll undoubtedly have ships," Sam answered. "Big gigantic ships with very large and powerful guns."

"I think you've been around Jack too much," Daniel said.

"You've been around me much longer, Danny," Jack said at his shoulder.

Daniel yelped and jumped at the quiet words, whirling away to put some distance between them. "Damn it, Jack! Do you have to sneak up on people like that?"

Jack blinked, pretending to think. Then he smirked slightly. "No."

Daniel glared at him. After a moment he looked away and the slight smile faded from Jack's face. He followed the archaeologist and his second in command into the elevator.

"It'll be fun, kids," he said in the silence as the elevator started downward. "Adventure, excitement, giant robots. Big puzzle for you, Danny. If they're not on the Abydos chart they might not be from Earth, right? You get to figure out something entirely new."

"I doubt it, Jack," Daniel answered flatly. "You'll only want me to learn enough of their language to tell them we want their weapons and naquadah and make indirect threats about the Goa'uld. That's all we really want from people these days, isn't it?" He shook his head as the elevator doors opened on his floor.

"Danny --"

"Say hi to your dad for me, Sam," Daniel said as he slipped out the door. "I'll see you at the next briefing."

The heavy elevator door slid shut and Jack pounded the wall with one fist. "Damn it! What's it gonna take, kowtowing and yelling 'I'm not worthy'?"

"Might be a good place to start, sir," Sam said. Jack turned to glare at her as the elevator doors opened again on her floor. She shrugged slightly and left him staring after her, trying to figure out if she was serious.

"I'm trying!" Jack yelled after her as the doors closed again.

***

Daniel picked up the book and turned to tuck it into its place in his cluttered shelves. "Any book, any time, Teal'c. There's nothing here that you couldn't understand or shouldn't read."

"The philosophical writings of the Tau'ri are of most interest to me, Daniel. There seem to be many similarities between the practices of the ancient Greeks and those of my homeworld," Teal'c said quietly.

"There are, Teal'c, and a great deal of ancient Egyptian as well due to the influence of Apophis. Now, what would you like to try this time?"

"I am most interested in the Oracle of Delphi." Teal'c stopped and turned toward the door a moment before Sam appeared at the door.

"Hey, guys. Quitting time," Sam said cheerfully.

"I'm staying, Sam, I've got some things I have to catch up on," Daniel said, peering up at the shelves. "Oracle of Delphi. You've read almost everything I have so far as books are concerned, Teal'c. So we'll start on the journals and magazines. Would you like some more general information on oracles and oracular practices? Most ancient Tau'ri cultures had some form of oracle. It might give you some perspective as to how the Oracle of Delphi fit into the scheme of things."

"Yes, Daniel, it would be most appreciated."

Daniel smiled, pulled two books from the shelves and handed them to Teal'c, then went to his computer. "Let me run these searches and we'll see if we can get some reprints. What did your dad say about this next mission, Sam?"

Sam was holding the small framed picture of Shau'ri that Daniel kept on his desk. She smiled sadly at the picture and put it back, well out of the way of the scattering of papers, books, pens and computer keyboard. "Dad said he couldn't say yes or no til he'd had a chance to speak to the rest of the Council. Sel'mac said yes. I'd call it a hung jury."

"I'd call it yes," Daniel said, sitting down at his computer again.

"Symbiotic relationship, Danny. It means Sel'mac listens to Dad," Sam admonished.

"It also means she gets to nag him all night until he agrees with her," Daniel answered. "There's another word for 'symbiotic relationship', Sam. It's called marriage."

"Ha ha. Is he right, Teal'c?"

The amusement in the Jaffa's dark eyes was plain to his two younger teammates. "DanielJackson is correct. Although at times I would characterize it as a parasitic rather than symbiotic relationship." Teal'c shrugged slightly. "But this is merely a personal observation."

"Don't worry, Teal'c, there's probably thousands of years of anecdotal data to back that hypothesis up," Daniel said as he keyed in a search request on the website of a religions and philosophy academic journal. "Guys, since you're both here..."

Sam and Teal'c both looked at him as he stopped and chewed on his lip for a moment nervously.

"Guys, I -- As soon as I can find someone to replace me, I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Sam asked, stunned.

"Yeah." Daniel looked away. Sam realized he was looking at the picture of Shau'ri. "Catherine hired me to decode the cover stones and figure out how the Stargate worked, Sam. Then we had to find Shau'ri and now she's gone. Because of the nature of the fight against the Goa'uld and the constant battles with Kinsey and the budget committees, we have neither the time nor the resources nor the interest in archaeological or anthropological research on any kind of meaningful scale. I'm not just a translator, Sam. And I'm not a soldier. I want to do the job I love, the job that I've been training for literally my entire life. Sure, I know all these languages but between them my staff covers them all. They can train others. I'll find someone who can take my place on SG-1. I won't leave you guys hanging, but -- I want out."

Sam stared at him in astonishment. "But where would you go?" she asked. "I mean, when Catherine found you everyone thought you were a kook."

"I've had an offer. I haven't said yes yet because I knew it would take time to find someone to replace me. But I'm going to." Daniel stood up and pulled her into his arms. "I'll miss you, Sammy." He freed one arm from around her and held it out to Teal'c. "I'll miss you too, Teal'c. You'll take care of Sam for me, won't you?"

"Of course," Teal'c answered gravely, clasping hands with Daniel. "It is unfortunate that your life's path must now turn away from us, Daniel."

"It is, Teal'c." Daniel sighed and gave Sam one more squeeze before letting her go. "It won't be for several weeks yet, maybe several months. So let's just get on with our work, okay? I promise you I won't leave without saying goodbye."

The sad look was back in Sam's eyes, but at his words she nodded quickly, squared her shoulders. "You're right. I'm for home. Dad said he'd get back to us in the morning. We've got a tentative go at 0900 tomorrow."

"I'll be there with bells on," Daniel said, grinning.

Sam couldn't help laughing at that. "And bows?"

"Sammy, for you I'd even wear pointy shoes."

That got Sam giggling. She wiggled her fingers in farewell as she left, laughing too hard to speak.

***

"We don't have anything close enough to get to this planet in only 48 hours," Jacob Carter said the next morning. "But we do have a tel'tak that could make it in 70. The problem is, that tel'tak and its pilot are involved in an operation at the moment. We hope he'll be sending us confirmation that he's made it out successfully within the next day. We could leave instructions for him to divert to pick you up. If we don't hear from him, we have an al'kesh that we could send from the homeworld. But that would take at least 96 hours." He looked around at the members of SG-1, then back to the computer screen showing the MALP video. "I agree with Sam, if these people are this advanced they will certainly have spacecraft. They may be able to detect a cloaked ship. The tel'tak or al'kesh could be chased or fired upon. If these people are humanoid we may have a very difficult time finding you. We don't know this planet. Given that, Jack, I think your pick-up point should be at the Stargate itself. It'll be the most easily detectable object for our sensors."

"Unless the planet's full of naquadah," Jack said.

"In which case, Sel'mac and I will dance a happy jig because it means we get a vacation on a tropical island on a planet with no name. Want to come along?" Jacob grinned at their laughter. Then he sobered as he took up the starchart of the relevant sector and read the galactic coordinates again. "It's very far out. We have almost no information about that sector. There's a minor Goa'uld who once claimed this area, Fea, but we've heard nothing of her for several decades. What we did know indicated she wasn't very powerful."

"I knew they had to have their underachievers stashed away somewhere," Jack said with a smirk. "Ninety-six hours? That should be enough time to get us into trouble."

Teal'c turned to look at him silently, raising an eyebrow in eloquent inquiry. Sam rolled her eyes and looked across the briefing table to Daniel, who was writing something in Arabic on his notepad.

General Hammond looked at each member of SG-1, briefly and silently noting the subtle and not so subtle communications going on between the four of them. O'Neill was far too quiet -- the sarcasm was the same but seemed forced. Still in the doghouse, dealing with the hurt feelings and misunderstandings generated by the necessities of his undercover mission some two weeks before. Teal'c and Major Carter were being civil toward him, even friendly, beyond the strictures of commander and subordinates. Doctor Jackson, however, seemed determined to ignore him whenever possible, equally determined to continue with the destruction of their friendship that O'Neill had been forced to initiate during the sting operation. Hammond would never have believed Daniel Jackson could be capable of such coldness, even more so as it was directed at Jack O'Neill.

The classic immovable object and irresistable force.

Well, it would just take time.

"All right. Jacob, we'll take you up on that offer of the al'kesh. I wouldn't want to jeopardize any of your operatives or the information they could bring you, and an al'kesh would be better in a fight should it come to that. It also gives us 96 hours for a first contact. Colonel O'Neill, plan on that chamber where the Stargate is placed as your pick-up point should it be necessary. Jacob, can your sensors pick up a Stargate activation?" Hammond asked.

"Yes. We can even tell if it's an originating or destination."

"Good. If your pilot picks up an originating signal within two hours of that 96 hour window, assume that SG-1 has managed to dial out and return via the wormhole. Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill, you'll be taking Tok'ra communicators but use them only if strictly necessary. The signals may be picked up." Hammond looked around the table again. "All right. Pack up and report for departure in one hour. Dismissed."

***

"All right. Everybody stick together. The gate activating on that end is gonna be as obvious as a one-man band. I'd say it's almost certain someone will come running the minute we step through." Jack shrugged to settle his backpack's weight a little more comfortably on his shoulders. "Carter, first thing you do is stick that little homing beacon thingy somewhere around the Stargate. Teal'c, you check that stairway. Danny, you and me, we've got the other doorway. If the place is still empty you can get some pictures off that balcony. Then if there's still no one there we'll try that staircase. After that, we'll play it by ear."

They all watched as the Stargate began to cycle, and the wormhole burst into life in a brief explosion of watery brilliance. It retreated and settled to its normal rippling veil and they all turned to look up at the control room.

"Ninety-six hours, Colonel O'Neill. Good luck and Godspeed. SG-1, you have a go."

Jack and Sam saluted, Daniel waved farewell. Together they climbed the ramp, stopping at the top to click off the safety catches on their guns. Jack looked at them all, the watery light playing across their faces -- Sam's eager, Daniel's slightly worried and Teal'c's serene.

"One more time, this time in four-part harmony," Jack quipped. And stepped forward into the event horizon.

"At least it wasn't 'Play it again, Sam'," Daniel grumbled.

"Not after I threatened to slap him last time," Sam said sweetly, grinning. "Shall we?"

They went through together laughing, Teal'c at their back.

***

They emerged from the wormhole and landed hard on their feet but it was no rougher than skipping a step descending a staircase. Jack was already at the open archway, peering out and around, as Daniel, Sam and Teal'c emerged. Teal'c activated his staff and immediately moved to the darkened archway. The Stargate deactivated with a burst of light and displaced air and was empty again. Sam took the homing beacon transmitter from one of the side pouches on her backpack, peeled the backing from the adhesive strip on its side and attached it to the underside of the Stargate in the shadow of one of the mounting brackets. Daniel took up a place at the other side of the archway across from Jack and took out his handheld digital video camera, waiting for the signal to move out.

"Teal'c?" Jack asked in a loud whisper.

"Nothing yet, O'Neill," the Jaffa's deep voice said quietly behind them.

"Stay there. Carter, Danny, let's go." Jack tightened his grip on his P-90 and whirled out the archway, swiftly scanning the immediate area.

Nothing showed itself on the vast balcony. It was darker now, the lights above dimmed over the cavernous open hallway below. The mezzanine opposite was dark. Daniel walked quickly to within a few feet of the edge and switched the camera to take single pictures, readjusting it for the dim lighting conditions for greater contrast.

"Sir? I've found the MALP."

"What's the word, Carter?"

"I'd call it a write-off, sir."

Daniel glanced over toward Sam in between pictures. Several yards away, Sam was standing next to the remains of the MALP. It was demolished, blackened and burnt. And as if to underscore the point it was literally flattened as if some giant foot had landed inexorably on top of the robot probe, grinding it into the floor. Given what they'd seen through its cameras, a giant foot probably had.

"Sounds like 'beware of the dog' to me," Jack muttered. "Danny? Couple more."

Daniel nodded and raised his camera again. "Jack, this place has at least five more levels. And there's a waterfall."

"Waterfall?" Jack asked as Daniel lowered the camera and tucked it away into its pouch on his belt. Sam came to look too. The far wall of the canyon-like hall was at least two miles distant, but the faint rumble of the waterfall cascading down it was quite distinct. The catchpool at the bottom narrowed into a channel that flowed straight down the hall's length, shimmering in the dim light from far above. It disappeared through another high archway at the nearer end of the hall, dropping away and out of sight in black darkness.

"Wow," Jack said. "Let's go."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said through their radios.

"What, T?"

"There are voices below in the stairwell," Teal'c said. "They are approaching."

"Come out here with us, T." Jack nodded as Teal'c appeared at the open archway and joined them. "Back against the rear wall, in the corner," Jack directed. "Two less directions to worry about."

Sam and Daniel hurried to comply. They'd all taken only a few steps when something very large vaulted up over the edge of the mezzanine and landed gracefully on its feet several dozen yards away, coming to rest with a thud of metal on stone and a chorus of blasts from small attitude control jets. In seconds half a dozen more had landed behind it and arrayed in a tight semi-circle around them, huge and menacing and unbelievably quick for something so large and mechanical. Each was distinct, the hulls of the great machines worked in clever decorations of various metals and intricate patterns, stylized snarling faces of unknown animals, sunbursts, sinuous spirals and flames.

They were works of terrible art, all the more so for that each was obviously pointing at least two arm or shoulder-mounted weapons at SG-1.

Daniel swallowed nervously and reached to unhook his P-90's sling strap from around his neck.

"Daniel, no," Jack said at his side, clearly meaning it as an order.

Daniel ignored him. The voices from the stairway were now in the room of the Stargate and a few seconds later three obviously human -- or at least mostly human -- forms burst from the archway, indistinct in the dark. Daniel slowly knelt and put his P-90 on the floor at his feet, and equally slowly slipped his Beretta out of its holster and left it beside the rifle.

"Damn it, Danny, don't you ever listen to me?" Jack said tightly.

Daniel took three steps forward toward the three humanoid figures who were now weaving between the feet of the giant robots to confront him. "Hello? My name is Daniel, we're explorers from a planet called Earth."

The figure in the lead called out a rapid staccato phrase and three of the giant robots suddenly blazed with yellow lights from shoulders, heads and torsos. Daniel winced and held up one hand to block the light as his eyes tried to adjust, heard Jack cursing behind him. More words from the humanoid who had spoken, a guttural language that reminded him of German. He tried repeating his usual greeting in German, but before he could complete it he felt hands grab his wrists and pull him forward.

"Danny!"

"Daniel!"

He heard Teal'c's staff firing, and a brief scuffle and gunfire as Jack and Sam tried to follow. But in a moment he was too busy trying to keep his balance on the wide, shallow stairs leading down into darkness as these unknown people all but carried him away from his teammates and friends.

***

They weren't entirely human. Daniel realized that as soon as they came out into the light. His first confused impression as he twisted about trying to pull his arms out of their grasp was of a delicately formed, slightly oversized and definitely pointed ear.

His second impression was that they were slender, pale-skinned, deceptively frail and amazingly strong. That could have been because there were two of them dragging him along while the third ran ahead of them shouting in their guttural but oddly musical language. They were all dressed identically in what he took to be some sort of uniform, some sort of black velvet-like material in close-fitting long-sleeved tunics with matching black trousers of looser cut made of some light slithery silk-like material.

They emerged from the comparatively narrow stairwell into a short hallway of more human-sized proportions, one end of which simply opened out into the emptiness of the great gigantic cavernous structure beyond. They rushed him across and into another stairwell, brighter this time and with several more figures awaiting them at the bottom. Two others fell in behind his captors, pushing him from behind as the first two dragged him along. Down another flight of stairs, this time curved sharply, and they emerged into another high-ceilinged, immense structure of several levels ascending into dim altitudes. Human-sized balconies and terraces spiraled up into the twilight distances, vines and flowers cascading amidst fountains and smaller waterfalls. He barely had a moment to glimpse a huge stained-glass window, several stories tall and unbelievably intricate, before they dragged him to the side and under a trellised archway into another darkened hallway. Then again into bright light, more people chattering. He was lifted bodily onto some sort of table and abruptly all hands were gone from his arms and shoulders. Before he could do anything to take advantage of it a reddish light flashed above him and he was slammed back onto the surface beneath him.

"Danny! Danny where are you?"

Jack's voice. The radio on his shoulder. He'd forgotten -- He was surprised when they didn't try to rip it away from him, but he couldn't move to hit the transmit button anyway. This was some sort of energy beam -- he spared a thought for his camera, his GDO, the radio -- they'd taken his backpack sometime during the mad rush down all those stairs. He heard rapid words among the crowd surrounding him, and a swift hand darted into the reddish light and snatched the radio from his shoulder, the ripping sound of the Velcro right by his ear. Then one reached into the red light to take his glasses while another quickly fitted some sort of small cold devices over his ears and forehead. They pulled their hands out of the light with some difficulty, and the one on his left said a quick phrase to someone else in the crowd.

Daniel felt an odd tingle begin just over his ears inside his head, and his world went gray. His body went numb all over. He could still hear, and see the bright light above his head. After a while the light above receded into a single point, shining like a star in a sea of black.

***

All that money the government spent on my training, and I can't keep a near-sighted geek from wandering away and getting himself killed.

It was moments like this that told Jack O'Neill that maybe it was time to pack it in and go back to designing airplanes. He obviously just wasn't cut out to be a soldier, no matter what the Air Force kept telling him.

Then again, despite fifty years of turning out astronauts the Air Force was just not on the same page as Stargate Command. Hell, they weren't even reading the same book.

"Danny!" He tried the radio again as more people came flooding up the stairway and through the room with the Stargate, and then yelled as he was caught and pulled toward the stairs. He struggled to hold on to his P-90 but felt hands taking his handgun and the zat, felt someone take his knife. He heard Carter trying to fight her captors off, her high-pitched yell echoing in the stone stairwell. They came out into another hallway and got a glimpse of some of these people running ahead of the group, carrying their equipment and weapons. One of them peered down at Teal'c's staff in wonderment before handing it off to a subordinate and gesturing their captors forward into another darkened stairway.

They came out eventually into a dim high place, an open hollow place several stories tall, terraces and balconies draped with vines and flowers, the great intricate stained glass window dark with night but still impressive by sheer scale if for no other reason. They were standing on a sort of landing or perhaps one of the many terraces, a half-circle of mosaic marble tiles beneath their feet, bounded by a low stone planters filled with more of the big-leaved vines with large white flowers. Their captors pushed them down onto the edge of the planters where the upper edge widened into a bench, half a dozen of them watching over them. The entire place was silent save for the tiny trickle of water somewhere nearby. It was cool, there was a constant light breeze ruffling the vines and flowers, and the light scent of the flowers and water. Jack turned to try to peer over the other side of the planter on which he sat. Floor level was at least thirty feet below him, too far to jump. Their captors surrounded them, standing easily, some so confident as to fold their arms on their chests and stare with frank curiosity.

"I don't think they're quite human, sir," Carter said quietly at his side. "Did you see their ears?"

"Such modifications are easily produced through genetic manipulation," Teal'c said from beyond Carter's shoulder. "I have seen such cosmetic modifications often in my service as First Prime. Many of the false gods are amused by such novelty."

"I don't know if it's a cosmetic modification, Teal'c," Sam said. "It might be natural for their species. They're all of the same basic build -- skinny, sort of --"

"Stretched out," Jack said.

"Slender, sir," Sam corrected.

"They're white as a sheet too," Jack said. "I think you're going to be a hit here, T."

Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."

"Danny," Jack said into the radio at his shoulder. "Danny?"

There was still no answer from the archaeologist. The six slender figures surrounding them watched curiously, one of them chattering something to the others briefly.

A figure came running down the side hallway to their right, but this one was slightly more muscular than those who were guarding them. Where the slender people all had masses of long hair of ebony, spun-gold or red-blond that fell in bone-straight floods, this newcomer had a mass of red-brown waves loosely gathered into a series of colorful ties. It was a guess on Jack's part, but the half-dozen who guarded them looked to all be males; this newcomer was definitely female, the facial features slightly rounder and with the obvious curves of a female body under the velvet-like material of the black tunic. A fast conversation in that German-sounding language and the newcomer nodded once, whirled, and raced back down the hallway she'd arrived from.

"Hey!" Jack called to their captors. "What did you do with Daniel? Only one archaeologist to a customer, and we saw him first."

Their captors just stared at them silently. One of them moved to lean on the wall of the planter at the end of the semi-circle and his hair fell back from his neck. Something small and oval-shaped gleamed darkly at the side of his throat in that spot under the ear at the hinge of the jaw. He glanced around at the other slender forms. "Carter, that one over here, the one that just sat down? You see that thing on the side of his neck? What is that, jewelry?"

"I don't know, sir, it could be anything. Looks like a gemstone of some kind."

"It appears they are all wearing these gemstones," Teal'c said quietly.

Jack tried to speak to them again. "What have you done with Daniel?"

The six glanced between themselves, then the one who seemed nominally in charge straightened abruptly and turned to walk into the hallway where the female had disappeared. The remaining five closed ranks, trading a few soft words between them.

There were voices in the hallway, and two of their captors came out leading Daniel between them.

"Danny!" Jack jumped to his feet and rushed forward to the archaeologist, Sam and Teal'c at his heels. Their captors allowed it, moving away as Teal'c and Jack ducked under Daniel's arms to hold him up and led him to where they were sitting. "God, Danny, what happened?" Jack asked once Daniel was sitting safely.

Sam knelt in front of him, checking for wounds, lifting his head to look into his eyes. Daniel tried to smile wanly down at her, lifted a hand to pat her hand on his cheek reassuringly. Jack and Teal'c sat down on either side of him.

"Sir, he's got one of those gemstones on his neck," Sam said worriedly as her fingers found the small hard ovoid lump beneath his ear.

"It's all right, Sam," Daniel said softly. "It's a translator. They realized I wasn't a threat when I put my guns down." Daniel quirked a small smug grin at that and glanced sideways at Jack. "And lucky for all of you they realized you were firing at them trying to get me back."

"Danny, it's not all right. Can you take that thing off?" Jack tugged Daniel around to look at him closely, his fingers finding the translator gem and trying to pry it off with his fingernails.

"Ow! Jack, quit it! Yes, I can take it off if I want!" Daniel said, batting Jack's hands away. "But it won't come off from you trying to rip it out of my neck! It operates on mental commands. I think a certain mnemonic word and it'll come right off." To prove the point he closed his eyes, put a hand up to catch the gemstone as it abruptly fell from his skin. "See?"

"Can I see, Danny?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, but it won't work for you, Sammy," Daniel said, handing her the gemstone. "They're keyed for the specific person. They have a sort of scanner like an MRI, they do a scan of your neural patterns and program the translators for the individual person." Daniel shrugged. "It doesn't even hurt, just sort of makes you go fuzzy for a while."

Sam was peering at the gemstone in her hand curiously, holding it up to the light spilling from the hallway trying to see if there was anything inside. For all she could determine it was a cabochon jewel, a dark ruby red in color, about two centimeters long and one wide at its widest point, smoothly flat on one side, flawlessly clear. Shrugging, she handed it back to Daniel and he immediately put it back in its place below his ear. It stuck as if glued to his skin the instant the flat side touched his neck.

Daniel looked up at their captors and gestured to Jack, Sam and Teal'c, speaking rapidly in that guttural, German-like language as if he'd been doing it all his life.

"What are you telling them?" Jack asked quietly as their captors nodded their understanding.

"That we'd prefer not to be separated," Daniel muttered back in English. Then he lapsed back into the other language, obviously introducing them as he said their names.

The leader, one of the males with a fall of ebony hair that matched the color of his uniform, spoke rapidly and at some length while Daniel listened and answered when he was obviously asked a question. Jack, Sam and Teal'c stayed quiet, knowing he'd tell them anything relevant. Then the leader gave them all a considering glare and turned to a subordinate, giving a swift set of instructions before turning away and down a staircase they hadn't seen on the other side of the low wall of planters.

"Guys, we have to behave ourselves," Daniel said as their captors gestured for them to get to their feet. "They'll give us our stuff back but they're going to keep us in a secured place until they decide what to do about us."

"Probably just the usual, Danny," Jack said tensely. "Three quarters of the people we meet want to kill us the minute we come through the Stargate."

"These people won't," Daniel said. "They're obviously more advanced than that. They want you all to go through the scanning process so you can get translators. It doesn't hurt and it'll be a lot easier to deal with these people if we can all talk to them. You especially, Jack, as you're the one in charge."

"Daniel, we just met these people, how can you be so sure they won't hurt us?" Jack said angrily.

Daniel stopped abruptly and turned to confront his team leader. In the half-light from the entrance of the hallway he looked very annoyed, blue eyes blazing behind his glasses as he glared into Jack's eyes. "Have they hurt us? Despite the fact that all of you tried to fire on them? They left you your radios, your GDOs, they only took mine away because they would have been damaged by the scanner and they gave them back the moment the scan was done. Were you hurt at all when they brought you down the stairs from the room where the Stargate is? No. Yes, Jack, they are obviously far superior technologically, on a par with the Tollan, the Nox and the Asgard. If they wanted us dead we'd have been dead the moment they saw us. They realize we're of a lower technological level than they are. The simple truth is that they can afford to be curious because there is no way in hell we could hurt them. So let them do the scan, get your translator, and let's start doing our jobs, shall we?" He turned and headed down the hallway, already chatting with two of their captors in that oddly musical harsh language.

Jack glared after him, trying to think of something to say.

Sam, wisely, said nothing. Instead she reached for Teal'c's hand. He tilted his head to look down at her serenely, and then fell into step with her as they followed Daniel.

After a moment they heard a muttered imprecation in Latin behind them, and Jack joined them.

***

The night above the fortress throne city of Alaharu was clear again after the mists of the previous day, the path of diamond brilliance that was the blaze of the galaxy fully visible rising from the northeastern horizon. The Path of Adal some still called it, despite the fact that their science had long ago identified it as the galaxy of which their worlds were a part. The ancient religious name just sounded far more poetic, and despite those thousands of years of science the dominant Tilindran culture still preferred to retain the beauty they had found among the planet's indigenous population. Roughly half of the place-names extant on the throneworld of Oriyan retained their original Adalandai names. It was less so on the other six worlds of the Empire; the Adalandai were native only to Oriyan, and of all the peoples who had been overtaken by the Empire they were the only ones who retained their full identity even long after they had joined inextricably with the invading Tilindrans.

The two tiny moons of Oriyan were low in the east and south, bare irregular slivers of gold and white. Other slivers of silver, needles of light, kept pace with the planet below, occasionally turning to take up new positions, spawning the odd tiny sparks that formed new patterns before racing away like purposeful shooting stars. The buffeting winds, that which came down from the mountains inland cold and smelling of the eternal snows and that which came from the sea warm and smelling of salt, made all above twinkle and shimmer as the upper atmospheric turbulence occluded the light. The winds were what made the mists that Alarahu was famous for, often arising mysteriously from nothing, appearing literally out of thin air in moments to turn bright sun to foggy gloom. Again the poetic Tilindran spirit took this as given -- a city that wrapped itself in veils of fog, calling the winds to shroud itself away.

Alaharu was a city of towers. The spires of the noble houses built in terraced rows against the sea cliffs twisted upward into the night, roofed in silvery and golden metals, imported granite dark and imposing and marble softly glowing. The lesser folk of the town contented themselves with the native volcanic basalt, black and easily worked, built into comfortable lesser towers of round or square design, squat and homely. Above them all, built partially into the sea cliffs on the northern seaside edge of the city, the massive heart of the fortress city clawed for heaven itself -- the palace of the House of Draelen, the royal house of the Empire of the Seven Nations.

Many lights still glowed in the towers of the palace, mostly in the Commandery wing where the Empire's military command worked all hours. Stretching ten miles along the cliffs, the palace, Commandery and Assembly buildings seemed to encrust the city heights like a line of dark giant birds huddled on their rocky faces. The royal residence held pride of place at the seaside edge. Twenty-one towers rose in softly glowing silvery splendor. Of those twenty-one, not the tallest and not the most ostentatious, one tower dark and silent with night's peace held the fate of seven planets in contented slumber.

***

"First, we have an incursion situation. You're needed at the Commandery."

Talynara Kai rolled over and away from the warm darkness of Areelyn's night-black hair as gentle amber light bloomed in the high-ceilinged tower room. "Incursion? From the frontier? Vanix or Elidon?"

"Neither, First. There's been an incursion in the Commandery itself."

"What?" She threw back the thick quilted silkwool blankets and slid out of the warmth, shaking the thick mane of mahogany brown hair out of her eyes as she moved quickly toward the corridor leading to the pool room. "That's the second time in a day. How? Who are they?"

"We don't know yet, First. But they seem to be no threat. One offered himself for neural scan and we've given him a translator. We'll know soon enough." The Captain of the Queen's Guard -- Tragat, an old friend of Areelyn's and Talyn's from their days as young cadets -- moved quickly away as Talyn rushed past into the bathing room.

"Tal? Tragat? What's going on?" came a soft voice from the bed.

Tragat turned back to answer his Queen. "An incursion, Ard-tran, in the Commandery. We have contained them. One volunteered for scans. The First is needed for decision on what shall be done with them."

"Are they a threat?" Throwing her long, bone-straight ebony hair back over her shoulders, Areelyn sat up against the pile of pillows at the head of the huge bed. Her ice-blue eyes regarded her Guard Captain steadily, uncaring of her own nakedness, her delicate fragile form white as fine marble against the cream color of the sheets and pillow covers. Coming up through the ranks of the Empire's military soon dealt with any modesty of the body.

"No, Ard-tran. They seem to be somewhat primitive, but they did possess several communications devices and some apparently advanced energy weapons along with primitive projectile weapons." Tragat turned as Talyn rushed back into the room gathering the mane of mahogany hair back into a set of loose ties of the royal colors of purple and yellow. The large green jewel beneath her left ear gleamed in the light as one of the Queen's chambermaids came into the bedchamber with her arms full of a fresh black uniform. "First, the scans on the man who volunteered indicate that these people are almost identical neurologically to pure Adalandai. The translators needed very little calibration."

"Interesting. Any idea where they came from, how they got here?" This last was muffled as she pulled the black tunic over her head.

"None at this time, First. Shall I post double guard here? They were able to appear despite the shielding over the Commandery, they would have no trouble appearing anywhere in Alaharu." Tragat turned to his Queen expectantly.

"Double guard, nothing!" Areelyn said, kicking away the blankets "If they can get into the Commandery then I'm just as safe there as here. I'm going with you!"

"No you're not," Talyn said, smiling lopsidedly at her Queen. "You're staying right here and going back to sleep. I don't want you anywhere near them until we're sure they're no threat." She turned to Tragat. "Yes, post the double guard. Four in the room here, four in the corridors below. I want Lancers on watch outside the tower, one for each airt of the compass. I assume you've already alerted the Lord Guardian and begun scans of the throneworld system. You will stay here, Ree, until I say otherwise. I can't play chellyanach without knowing where all the pieces are."

Areelyn looked up mutinously at her Guard Captain and her First Lord of War. "Have you forgotten who is Queen here?"

"No. That's why I'm ordering you to stay." Grinning, Talyn leaned across the bed and kissed the pouting lips, then laughed as Areelyn abruptly grabbed the sides of her head and kissed her back with considerably more angry passion.

"Deal with this, and later I will deal with you," Areelyn said in a silky growl. She reached over to the small ornate table beside the bed and retrieved a round silvery-clear cabochon jewel and pressed it to the hollow of Talyn's throat just above the black tunic's neckline. It stuck instantly and flashed with white light for a moment before resuming its transparency. "Now go."

"At your command, Ard-tran," Talyn said, a laugh in her voice. She kissed Areelyn's forehead quickly and turned to go.

***

"Hell of a jail cell," Jack said as he let his pack fall to the floor in the middle of the room and looked around.

"Indeed," Teal'c said at his side. "A most comfortable place of holding."

The woman with the red-brown hair they had seen before among their captors -- Sonaya, she had informed them was her name -- had led them up into the complex of vine-bedecked terraces and balconies they had seen while waiting for Daniel. It was the middle of the night and the entire place was eerily silent even though Sonaya told them that these suites and apartments were the housing of the military command staff. This section of the huge cavernous hall where they had begun this adventure was apparently residential and diplomatic; Sonaya indicated they would be housed in some spare officers' quarters until the First Lord of War decided what was to be done with them. Jack had been expecting some kind of bare room, hopefully with a bed. Instead, Sonaya left them in a suite of rooms that could have been a cross between a late medieval castle and a five-star hotel.

The floors were made of slate, patterned in some subtle and intricate geometric design. There were woven rugs at various points that reminded Jack of the braided rag rugs his grandmother used to make. The furniture was all of dark wood, handmade, carved and knobbly and very heavy, upholstered in cushions and pillows in rich jewel-tone colors. There was a small fireplace in one corner, a fire already burning merrily within and giving off a faint scent like pine and cedar combined. The walls were beautiful stained wood to about waist height and then marble to the ceiling with a line of inlaid tiles of sinuous stylized animal motifs just under the ceiling. A narrow table against one wall held what was obviously food -- fruit, something that might have been some kind of nuts, and a metal pitcher with frost on its sides that must be some kind of drink beside a collection of silver cups. There was a very comfy-looking leather sofa arrangement that ran along two of the walls. The outer wall was mostly windows, deep-silled windows that each contained an upholstered window seat thick with pillows. The window in the middle was a set of doors, open at the moment, leading out into the dark. The golden-amber glow of the small floating globes of light near the ceiling gave the entire place a homely cozy feel despite the high ceilings.

"Looks like we each have a bedroom," Daniel said from one of the doorways in the far wall. Light bloomed inside the room as he stepped inside, revealing light-colored wood paneling, more of the braided rugs over slate floors, and a low bed big enough for four. A long bench built into the wall opposite the door was upholstered similar to the window seats, pillows and furs of some sort.

"Wow," Sam said from out in the common room of the suite. Daniel left his pack just inside his room's door and ducked back out to see what she had found.

Sam was standing at a doorway between his room and the bedroom Jack was currently exploring. It was obviously a bathroom of some sort; there was a very large, very deep bathtub built into the floor against the wall. Steaming water cascaded constantly in a flat curving sheet from a wide aperture in the wall some few feet above the pool. There was a round skylight dominating the ceiling, some kind of light-colored stone tiles on the walls and gray marble underfoot. There were small wooden boxes on a low bench at the foot of the pool, what Daniel suspected must be soap of some kind. "Wonder what those are?" he asked Sam, pointing to matching round devices in the ceiling and floor in the corner opposite the pool.

"No idea," Sam said, shaking her head. "But I don't see any towels. Could be some sort of air-drying thing."

"Don't see a toilet either. Maybe they don't have them?" Daniel asked.

"Oh no, over here behind the door," Sam said, opening the door wider to reveal a smaller door behind it leading into a tiny dark room beyond. "Not that different from ours. Some things are universal, huh?"

"For humanoids with a gravity-driven digestive track, anyway," Daniel answered with a grin.

"That bathtub looks heavenly," Sam said, nodding to it.

"Get in line, girlfriend," Daniel answered, grinning.

Sam giggled and slapped his shoulder affectionately.

"Holy shit," Jack said from the balcony outside the open French-door type window in the common room. His voice held such astonishment that they all hurried to see what he'd found.

The doors let out onto a wide stone balcony. The enclosing wall came up to the middle of Daniel's chest but they could all see over the edge easily. What they saw made all of them clutch at the thick granite stones in mute but undeniable amazement.

A city stretched out below them, lights twinkling throughout the ten-mile expanse from the cliffs over the ocean and up the sides of the two mountains that formed a rough triangle with the sea as the third side. They were at the highest point on the tall cliffs at the north end of the city, high on one side of the Commandery. Below them towers, metal-clad or plain stone, granite or marble or basalt or fancifully carved wood, amber light glowing in windows where folk stayed awake late, small floating passenger vehicles moving silently in the streets below made tiny with distance. There was a buffeting capricious wind that seemed to come from several different directions, sometimes warm, sometimes cold. Two miles away they could see the shimmer of the ocean.

"It's the galaxy," Sam said suddenly. She pointed upward in explanation. "Edge on."

The thick streak of stars that stabbed across the sky, twinkling fire in all the colors light could be, outshone the glow of the two tiny irregular moons floating in the middle heights above the horizon. This planet was so far out on the edges of the galaxy that the distant galactic core and the spiral arms became the unmoving fire of stars across the black sky. Jack gave a low whistle of astonishment at the incredible sight, then pointed to the slowly moving slivers of light that drifted in formation across the field of stars.

"Ships," Jack said. "In orbit."

Teal'c nodded in agreement. "Indeed. They are anchored above this city, O'Neill."

"Definitely worth the trip, kids, just for the view," Jack said.

They fell silent, simply looking down at the city below. There were no wide streets, and very few straight ones for that matter; it reminded Daniel of ancient cities of the Middle East now having to accommodate a modern population with twisty cobblestone-paved streets that had been just fine for foot traffic and the odd donkey cart a thousand years before. At the base of the cliffs the towers seemed finer and more ornate, clad in metal roofing with finials or stylized animals. A defensive wall cut across parallel to the cliff face about a mile distant, and beyond that the towers and buildings were much more humble. In the center of the city was a great open square, flat and gray in the darkness. Jack pointed suddenly down to it in mute excitement as he saw the two tall robot forms standing silent sentinel in the middle of the square, turned back to back.

Sam shook her head slowly. "It's like a fairy-tale city, with technology as the magic."

Daniel thought he couldn't have put it better himself.

But Jack, as usual, was a few pages back. He had taken off his translator and was peering at it in his hand worriedly. "Man, I hope these things aren't bombs or mind-control devices or something. I'd hate to wake up clucking like a chicken. Someone would have to die."

"Look at those robots, Jack. Look at those ships up there. I don't think there's anything we have at the SGC that they're going to want," Daniel said with a sigh.

"Teal'c, have you seen anything so far that says Goa'uld to you?" Jack asked. Daniel glared at him and Jack gave him a patently false smirk back.

"No. I have not," Teal'c said quietly. "Though Apophis would greatly desire this world and all its wealth. Any Goa'uld would, though the inhabitants would quickly defeat any false god who attempted it."

"Moth to the flame," Jack said, nodding his understanding. "They're kinda stupid that way."

So much to learn here, for each of them. And they had less than four days to do it.

They'd do it better, Jack decided, after a few hours sleep. It would be morning soon enough, and their captors would surely deal with them at their leisure.

"Come on, kids," he said. "Let's get some rest while we can. And no sitting up writing, Danny, we'll need you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning."

They followed him back inside without complaint. Jack wondered if they were all as suddenly weary as he was with the enormity of the task ahead.

***

"Just one mouthful, Teal'c," Daniel warned. "Not half the mug like you usually do. At least until you're certain it's safe."

Teal'c raised his eyebrow briefly at Daniel's warning, then slowly took a sip of the cold liquid Daniel had poured into a cup for him from the metal pitcher. Clear golden in color, lightly sweet and tasting oddly as if one had taken the scent of roses and the taste of cherries and combined the two. Fruit juice of some sort. He blinked as he felt his symbiote wriggle, but it was not in distress. "It is fruit juice," he decided gravely. "It is good."

"Is it safe?"

Teal'c nodded decisively. "It is safe."

"Good. It's a good sign. Now the nuts."

Teal'c took a handful of the nutmeats from the large bowl beside the pitcher and put one in his mouth, chewing tentatively. Similar to walnuts, he decided. Or perhaps hickory nuts. Major Ferretti had several walnut trees on the grounds of his home and often brought bags of the nuts to Teal'c when they were in season, claiming they were much better fresh off the tree than the kind one got in the grocery stores. His symbiote did not react with alarm to the first mouthful of these alien almost-walnuts, so he ate another. "They resemble walnuts," Teal'c reported to an anxious Daniel. "They are safe."

"Daniel, they told us we were neurologically and genetically almost identical to some of their population," Sam said sleepily from the door of her bedroom. "I don't think they'd put anything here that would poison us."

"Probably not, Sam, but this is a different planet. There might be something that would make us violently ill that wouldn't affect them." He gestured to Teal'c. "The people of Chulak were seeded from Earth; Teal'c is genetically identical to us, his ancestors came from Earth. Junior will pitch a fit if Teal'c eats or drinks anything that could harm him, and take care of the effects as well." He reached over and put a hand on the big Jaffa's shoulder with a grin. "And I'm not letting him make a pig of himself until we're sure it's safe."

"Like you could stop him if he's hungry," Sam said, smiling as she came to join them. She hugged Teal'c with one arm while she reached for one of the silver cups with the other. "So the juice is safe?"

"Yes," Daniel said as she reached for the pitcher. Teal'c was now eating one of the round green-skinned fruits from the basket beside the nuts, and looking quite content. "Looks like it's all safe."

"Good. I'm not in the mood for MREs." Sam poured herself a cupful of the juice and tasted it. "Oooh. This is good."

"Yes," Daniel said slowly. He rubbed a hand through his hair, disordering the strands still damp from his first bath in that amazing pool-tub. He could have stayed under the wonderfully hot water for hours. "But I've no idea what I'm going to do for coffee."

Sam stopped drinking and looked at him worriedly. "Oh."

A snort behind them and they turned to see Jack rubbing his eyes. "You brought those pills?" he said, his voice scratchy with sleep.

Daniel grimaced. "Yeah. But I still want my coffee."

Jack shook his head as he dropped onto the leather sofa against the wall and stared at the low flames in the small fireplace. "Good thing you were never in Special Ops, Danny. Three days in, you're just getting set up for the hit and run out of coffee the day before you're supposed to whack your target. Next thing you know, the CIA is trying to explain why you left a body count in the hundreds."

Daniel didn't reply, just poured himself a cup of juice and grabbed two of the fruits from the basket. Teal'c had already opened the window-doors and left them open to the breeze -- warm this morning, and smelling of salt from the ocean. Daniel wandered outside into the bright sunlight to look down at the city as he crunched through the fruit.

The city was even more amazing in the daylight. Small ships or atmospheric craft were flying or hovering, obviously passenger or possibly cargo craft. The great square in the middle of the city was alive with people walking across the empty expanse. The towers decorated in metals glittered or gleamed in the bright sun. He turned to look up at the walls of the Commandery around him; a dark rust-red stone, other balconies above and below and to the sides. The Commandery was a long building, some three miles of long high walls of several stories on the very edge of the cliffs. If he could look straight down from the balcony, he'd be looking down several hundred feet into the narrow streets and towers below. A round building of dark gray stone bulked large beyond the Commandery. Beyond that and rising above in silvery glittering spires, what looked like a miniature city of elaborate towers on a promontory of its own overlooking the ocean.

"When you've got a minute today, explain to them about your coffee and ask if they'd give you something that would heat up water," Jack said quietly at his side. "Or ask if you could fire up your camp stove out here on the balcony. You brought that coffee that comes in the tea bags, right?"

Daniel turned to look at his team leader. Jack wasn't looking at him but out over the city, a cup of the fruit juice in his hands. Daniel looked at the averted profile for a long moment. "Teal'c says all the food's safe."

"Yeah," Jack answered. He shrugged. "Should have known he'd hog the walnuts."

Daniel grinned a little at that. Jack was always eager for the bags of walnuts Ferretti foisted off on all of them. He'd taught Teal'c how to crack them by squeezing two together in his hands, and ever since Teal'c had secretly delighted in making it look easy.

"Your allergies giving you trouble?" Jack asked quietly.

"No. I got Janet to give me enough antihistamines to last me a month. I shouldn't have any trouble. I've got that new injector too. In the usual place, the right-hand side pocket on my pack." Daniel looked down into his cup of juice, knowing Jack was looking at him worriedly.

Jack was silent for a moment. This was the first conversation they'd had since before that damned undercover mission that hadn't been angry or truncated by Daniel's selective deafness. But the subjects pertained to the operations at hand -- Daniel knew his allergies were a liability that could effect the safety of the team. As his team leader, Jack needed to know where the spring-loaded injector was kept to avoid any delays in getting the epinephrine into Daniel's bloodstream. It was literally a life or death situation if it got that bad.

"Carry it with you at all times while we're here," Jack said. "You and mushrooms, Danny. Never the twain shall meet, got it? For all we know these people nosh on them three times a day."

Daniel nodded silently.

Jack looked at him for a long moment. Then he put a hand on Daniel's slumped shoulder briefly, turned, and went back inside.

***

It was mid-morning before they ventured out of the surprisingly unsecured door of the suite. Daniel quickly made note of the pattern of silvery dots on a black placard on the wall beside the door -- numbers, he assumed. They set off down the hallway they had traversed the night before and soon came out onto the curving shallow rampway that seemed as ubiquitous as plain stairwells would have been on Earth. It didn't wind in a complete spiral around the entire core of the building; the immense stained glass window that took up one side of the building necessitated some graceful shallow stairs at the switchbacks.

"Oh my God," Sam breathed when they came out into a spot where they could see the interior of the building.

Daniel almost echoed her astonished exclamation. The huge stained glass window was in full glory, glowing with the sunlight, painting every inch of the interior of the building with colors unbelievably rich. They could see the patterns clearly now. A streak of gold bisected the window from floor to ceiling; along that streak of gold, seven roundels of different sizes and swirled colors, with the largest and most prominent roundel of swirled blues, greens and whites in the center. Smaller roundels of single colors were at seemingly random spots throughout the remainder of the window, like bubbles. A sinuous ribbon of silvery gray wound between the larger roundels, looking very much like one side of a double helix pattern.

"It represents the Empire," called a strong male voice from below. "The Seven Nations, and their moons."

All of them looked over the side of the balcony toward the voice. One of their guards from the night before was standing in the spot where Jack, Sam and Teal'c had been kept while Daniel was scanned for his translator.

"What do we need the translators for, everybody here speaks English," Jack muttered.

"No he's not, Jack. Your translator's doing its job," Daniel answered quickly. He looked back to the slender, black-clad man standing waiting for them below. "The Seven Nations?" he called down.

The man below nodded once. "We have much to discuss. Wait there, I will join you."

The black-clad man turned into the hallway below and in a few seconds he appeared literally out of the wall at the bend of the nearest switchback some few yards away.

"I knew these people had to have elevators," Jack said with a smirk.

"Indeed," Teal'c said gravely.

The guard stopped some few feet in front of them. They saw he was one of the two black-haired men who had been guarding them the night before. "My name is Tragat," he said quietly. "I am the Captain of the Queen's Guard. I have been sent to bring you to speak with the First Lord of War."

"Works for me," Jack said shortly. He turned to survey his team. Sam and Daniel had their cameras and notebooks; Teal'c looked serene as always, ready for anything. He nodded, glad they had it all together today. SG-1 at its best. He turned back to Tragat. "Let's go."

***

"They're on their way," Auliya said as she received Tragat's signal.

"Good." Talyn didn't take her eyes from the great holographic display. The sphere of influence claimed by the Empire was depicted in miniature, the seven star systems with all their planets and moons picked out in sparks and lines of light. The icons indicating elements of the Starfleet were deployed throughout, on constant watch at the vulnerable frontier areas beyond the systems of Vanix and Elidon. The black cloud of the great nebula beyond Elidon disguised any forces that chose to risk an attack in that quarter; Vanix bordered a vast region of asteroids, a lawless wasteland of bandits and tramps. The inner systems were in little danger, but Vanix and Elidon were rich enough prizes to tempt many.

"Any speculations on the anomalous organism carried by the dark-skinned one?" Talyn asked as one of the technicians brought the current status report of the fleet.

"None at this time, First. It seems dormant. It did not react to the scans, nor interfere with them. It does not appear to be in direct interaction with its carrier," Auliya answered. Tiny and delicate in appearance, Auliya sithna'Suria possessed a flood of bright red-gold hair that she kept tightly braided and coiled around her head in the traditional military way. Her sharply pointed ears and the finely-drawn contours of her face bespoke her pure Tilindran noble blood. The simple black standard-issue uniform of the Starfleet with the silver embroidery of her rank of Ship's Command at the collar and the purple and gold badge denoting her assignment to the Queen's Command spoke of her chosen life in the Empire's military services.

"Have you found their ship? Nor any sign of how they entered the Commandery?" Talyn asked as they moved to the banks of communications and sensor stations for the palace complex and the city at large.

"No, First. There were no idications of any landings, no incursions registered at any time." Auliya's face shifted to bewilderment. "It is a bald-faced mystery, First. We have no idea how they came to be here."

"That is not good," Talyn said in dry understatement. She stopped and read through the status report of the fleet still in her hand, scanning it quickly as she ran one finger down the small screen to scroll through. "I will speak to the Lord Guardian."

Auliya nodded. "At once, First."

Talyn went to stand before another holoprojector and waited as the call was placed to the flagship of the Empire's defense forces. A second later the familiar image appeared -- Eruin sithna'Draelen, at present Heir of the Empire, Princess of the House of Draelen, Lord Guardian of the Empire, known to her troops and her enemies alike by her battle-name of Bloodsong. Besides and despite all of that, a friend closer than the blood ties that marked her as cousin to the Queen. A tall, flame-haired throwback in a family that ran to delicate and ebony-haired, Eruin had come up through the ranks with her younger cousin, and had in fact been Areelyn and Talyn's first commander on their first tour of duty as Navigator and Tactical officers. Her grin of greeting spoke of her high spirits -- Eri loved a mystery.

"Eri," Talyn said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Tal. Can't I leave you two alone for three days -- three days! -- without having to pull your tails out of the fire?"

Talyn blinked at the smiling image of her kinswoman-by-marriage. "You are Lord Guardian. Wherever these -- people -- came from, it is your job to stop them. And long before they are found skulking around the Commandery."

"I did my job," Eruin announced, emphasizing the first pronoun. She gestured to her Tactical officer off-camera and Talyn nodded as the sensor logs downloaded to the Commandery computers. "We've gone over the sensor logs twice, looking at them so hard our noses were pressed against the screens. We saw nothing that was not scheduled, on any frequency, for either incursion. No gravitational anomalies, no anomalous comm traffic, no indications of traffic in the overheaven. Nothing, Tal. As far as we can determine, they appeared from nothingness. And I don't mean subspace, either. We could have detected that."

Talyn was silent for a moment, thinking. Eruin, long accustomed to these brooding moments of silence, simply watched her.

"Stay on station here-above," Talyn said slowly after a moment. "Auliya, location of the Lord Marshal and his fleet?"

"Vanix, First. On station at the heliopause. Prince Thoren and his scout group are on station beyond Elidon's second moon," was Auliya's instant answer.

"He'll be returning with the refinery ships," Talyn said thoughtfully. "Iril and his group will be heading out tomorrow to replace them. Very well. Eri, I'm off to get some answers."

Eruin grinned again, nodding. "I'll be waiting."

"You'll hear first thing," Talyn answered.

"Take care," Eruin said in farewell, and the hologram vanished.

"Have they arrived?" Talyn asked as Auliya fell into step beside her as she turned for the wide double doors, nodding as technicians and officers alike put fist to shoulder in salute as she passed.

Auliya's eyes went distant for a moment, querying her neural communicatior. "Yes, First. Tragat has taken them to the smaller Assembly conference room."

"Good. And our Queen?"

Auliya looked down at the floor under their feet for a moment as they entered the hallway, trying to hide her sudden smile. "The Ard-tran awaits us at the entrance to the Assembly, First."

Talyn heaved a long-suffering sigh. "She never stays where I put her."

***

"This place is incredible," Sam said as they emerged from the connecting corridor from the Commandery into a curving concourse of subtle grays and tans. Sunlight streamed through a roof that seemed composed entirely of skylights, gleaming off highly polished mosaic floors. Marble walls of white and dove gray accented by upholstered wooden benches at intervals along the inner walls. The outer walls were mostly long windows, admitting even more sunlight. There were archways at intervals along the inner wall that gave a view into a great round chamber of darker marble, rows of handcarved chairs and tables along the sides. A raised dais on one side held a single large chair of simple design, obviously an antique from the signs of long service. Directly across from it against the far wall was another dais bounded by an ornate wooden railing, also containing a chair of lesser nobility but no less antiquity. There were lecterns at the midpoints of the other two sides of the chamber, in front of the rows of chairs. The middle floor between them all was empty save for a fantastic mosaic tile circle depicting the same design they had seen in the stained glass window in the Commandery.

Tragat stopped so they could look their fill into the chamber. "This is the Assembly chamber."

"How are those who serve on the Assembly chosen?" Daniel asked. Sam took his notebook as he got out his camera.

Tragat was silent for a moment. "Chosen?"

"Are they elected? Or appointed?" Daniel asked. "Or is it hereditary?"

"Ah," Tragat answered with sudden understanding. "The Assembly consists of the heads of the noble houses who rule each of the Seven Nations. The Ard-tran has also appointed a representative from among the governors of the prominent moons, though so far their influence in the Assembly is collective rather than individual. Between them the moons have a single vote, and if they cannot agree then they have no vote at all. Also the Grandmaster of the Guilds, who speaks for all the Crafts. The First Lord of War, the Lord Guardian and Lord Marshal. Normally the Heir would also claim a place, but at present the Ard-tran's cousin the Lord Guardian is Heir Presumptive. She holds both places but chooses to speak as Lord Guardian."

"So your Lord Guardian is a woman?" Jack asked as Daniel snapped a couple more pictures.

"Yes. We have no prejudice of gender." Tragat looked among them, nodded slightly at Sam. "May I assume it is the same for your people as well?"

"It's beginning to be," Sam said.

"Major Carter is an original," Jack said. "She's gone up against this prejudice of gender thing both in the military and in her field of expertise." Jack glanced at Sam and grinned lopsidedly at her look of warning. "She's not the only one, just one of the first."

"I see," Tragat said. "Obviously the Assembly is not in session at the moment. The next scheduled session is several days from now. The High Court is in session today, however."

Several minutes' walk around the curving concourse and they began to hear voices. They began to see people gathered on the benches along the walls, clustered at the archways watching the proceedings below. Tragat stopped them again and cleared one of the archways to afford them a moment's glimpse into the High Court chamber.

Similar in design to the Assembly chamber, the High Court was less ostentatious in decoration. Daniel was irresistibly reminded of the British Parliament. The entire chamber was of dark wood, simple designs for the most part though there were some of the ubiquitous sinuous animal designs on the railings and as gargoyle-like corner decorations. At the far end was the raised dais where the seven Judiciars sat. Those bringing cases before them stood in the mosaic circle at the center of the floor -- again the design of the Seven Nations. Instead of the carved chairs the surrounding walls contained rows of upholstered benches with wooden backs. At the moment there was a richly-dressed man at the center of it all, speaking earnestly up toward the Judiciars. Several men in similar dress occupied the first row of benches just behind him, apparently his supporters.

"He is the Grandmaster of the Mining Guild," Tragat answered in reply to Daniel's question. "They have found a planetoid in the asteroid field beyond Vanix; they have asked permission of the Ard-tran to tow it into the inner systems for ease of operations. It would require the use of military ships, you see. The other Guilds immediately filed suit against the Miners for that this planetoid would increase both their wealth and their land holdings by an unreasonable degree. The other Guilds do not want such a precedent, and neither do the noble houses." Tragat shrugged slightly and they turned away. "I think it wise the Ard-tran is leaving this to the discretion of the High Court. They make reccomendations to the Ard-tran. She may or may not agree with them, but in cases such as this it is politic to do so."

They walked on and Tragat led them to a rampway that dipped below the concourse and spiraled down the outer walls into the building's lower levels. The light here in this lower level came from some kind of extruded clear crystal inlaid in the ceilings and masses of natural quartz as functional sculptures in corners or wall niches.

"It is natural sunlight," Tragat explained when Sam asked about them. "There are collectors atop the roof, spun-crystal fiber. I do not know exactly how it works -- I was Command Path, not Sciences -- but the crystal fibers gather the light and enable it to be channeled wherever we will. The crystals in the ceiling and elsewhere merely radiate the light that is gathered. An ancient technology, but useful."

Sam thanked him for the explanation but said nothing further. She knew the technique, something similar was just beginning to be used in buildings on Earth, mostly in Asia and the Scandinavian countries that were actively promoting alternative energy technology. On Earth, it was still an expensive prospect to outfit a building with such technologies; paradoxical as those technologies were meant to save money. Here, it was an aesthetic decision since obviously this culture had long since conquered the problem of scarcity of energy.

This lower level was the first low-ceilinged place they'd seen so far, scaled down for the average humanoid. While the walls were still a highly polished dove gray they were made of some sort of granite instead of marble with simpler designs in the floor and no ornamentation. The corridor curved around and ended in a three-way junction of corridors that curved away around round walls. Tragat led them down the middle corridor and in a moment they entered a room about the size of the Assembly and High Court rooms in the level above. The outer wall was all glass, floor to ceiling windows that gave a view of a grassy area that rose after a distance into a low hill topped by a small copse of trees. The wall at one end held a large flat screen obviously meant for audio-visual. The long stone table was granite and marble with a hemispherical crystal in the center. At the end of the table opposite the screen was a somewhat larger and more elaborate antique wooden chair, obviously the Queen's place. The two dozen or so other chairs were simpler and identical, with at least another dozen or so extra against the walls.

"The First Lord of War will be joining us shortly," Tragat said. "If you would, please, make yourselves comfortable while I call for food and drink."

"Anywhere but there, huh?" Jack asked, nodding at the chair at the end of the table.

Tragat smiled slightly. "It would be... politic, yes."

"Yeah," Jack said, walking to the windows. "Same thing where we come from."

Tragat nodded. "I will only be a moment."

Daniel dropped into a chair as Tragat left and sprawled bonelessly for a moment with a long happy sigh. "Do we have to go home? I mean, is there really any reason we can't stay here for, oh, gee, I dunno, ten years or so?"

Sam dropped into a chair on the other side of the table. "No reason. I can get Dad to bring us our mail and our paychecks." She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "This place is beautiful. Everything we've seen is incredibly beautiful. Any excuse for decoration, y'know? But it's all tasteful. I haven't seen anything over the top. What do you think of it, Teal'c?"

Teal'c had gone to stand with Jack at the windows. "I agree. A most prosperous society, yet with little need for ostentatious display."

"You're both right," Daniel said, pulling himself upright in his chair. "If you think about it, we haven't really seen art for art's sake alone. You don't see big oil paintings or corny sculpture. It's always things that are meant to serve a function, furniture or floors or buildings. Things that get used for something."

"We see beauty in function before form," said a new voice at the door. A woman stood there, a head shorter than Tragat who followed her in, fit and seeming much more robust of form than the slender Captain of the Guard. Long shaggy mahogany brown hair was gathered in a loose braid woven with purple and yellow cords, framing a round face that might have been called homely if not for the force of the personality animating it. As she came around the end of the table they saw her ears were not pointed at all -- the first person they'd seen who did not have pointed ears. She was dressed in what looked like a field-combat uniform not very dissimilar to their own green SGC field uniforms save that hers was all black. There was an embroidered badge on the sleeve at the shoulder, concentric circles of purple and gold, but no other ornamentation or rank insignia. And she wore two jewels, one emerald green in the usual translator position and a larger clear crystal in the hollow of her throat. She stood at the table at the right of the Queen's chair as Tragat sat down at the first chair at the left.

"Showtime," Jack said to Teal'c. The Jaffa nodded and they moved to chairs opposite Daniel and Sam.

As the First Lord of War assumed her usual place at the table two other women filed in behind her. One, a tiny thing with her long red hair braided and coiled around her head in the black field-combat version of their uniforms, took one of the chairs near the door. The other was perhaps an inch or two taller with her ebony hair in an identical braided and coiled arrangement. She was dressed in the long-sleeved velvet and silk outfit common to the Queen's Guard with a thin stripe of intricate bordering in purple along the tunic's hem and at the cuffs of the sleeves. Both wore translator jewels and clear crystals at the hollows of their throats, so surely the second jewel was for some purpose and not just mere ornamentation. This second woman also took a chair near the door.

"My name is Talynara Kai," began the First Lord of War. "I know only your names and the fact that you appeared in the Commandery apparently out of thin air. We will find your ship, or whatever means you used to gain access. Obviously you know of our capabilities -- reprisals will be at the Queen's discretion, but rest assured they will be swift and overwhelming. Your cooperation could earn your people a warning and enough time to evacuate at least a tenth of your population. If they choose not to heed the warning, it is not our concern."

"Ship?" Jack asked.

"We didn't come here in a ship," Daniel said. He turned toward the First Lord of War and began to explain. "We came here through the Stargate. We're explorers from a planet called Earth. We came here with peaceful intentions, not as an invasion force. I realize how you might think that we did come here with intent to invade, since your Stargate is in your Commandery. But we did not come here as an invasion force."

The First Lord of War remained standing, looking from one to another of them consideringly. "You're rebels, from one of the moons?"

"No," Daniel said. Across the table, Jack shook his head in mute support of his answer. "No, we're from another planet, from outside the -- uh -- Seven Nations."

Another silent perusal from the First Lord of War. "Then you came in a ship?"

"No," Jack said. "No ships."

"They do not know of the Stargate," Teal'c said to his teammates.

Daniel and Jack both turned to look at the Jaffa in astonishment and sudden comprehension.

"Teal'c's right," Sam said. "Daniel, I think you'd better start with that."

"How can they not know about the Stargate when they have it sitting in the middle of their Commandery?" Daniel asked.

"We have often encountered those who know nothing of the true nature of the Stargate," Teal'c said.

"Well, yeah, Teal'c, but none this advanced," Daniel agreed. "Okay, let's start this over." He turned back to the First Lord of War and Tragat. "When you found us last night, we were just outside a room that contained a -- a very large metal ring. Along the inner track there are thirty-nine symbols corresponding to certain prominent constellations. Six of these symbols provide a set of galactic coordinates to a destination, and a seventh symbol standing for the planet of origin. These symbols are input into the Stargate by means of a device we call a Dial-Home Device -- we don't know it's real name, but the acronym 'DHD' works for us. The Stargate forms a wormhole through spacetime that allows travel to another Stargate at the intended destination. We arrived through your Stargate last night. That proves that your Stargate still works, but we may not be able to return home through it. Your DHD is not like any we've ever seen, and if you don't know about the Stargate and how it works then you -- or your ancestors -- might not have known enough to bring the DHD along if it was moved anytime in the past. There is something that looks like a DHD on the wall of the room where the Stargate is -- but there's every chance it's just a reproduction of the DHD that once controlled your Stargate."

The First Lord of War just stared at Daniel in silence for a moment, then her flinty eyes flickered to the others. "Tragat, where were they found?"

"The first tier on the western side of the Canyon of Night, First."

The First Lord of War was silent again for another long moment. "I know the place. This ... Stargate, as you call it, is a sculpture. Nothing more."

"Oh fer cryin' out loud," Jack said suddenly. "Danny, you said they didn't do art!"

"They don't, Jack, they must think it has some kind of significance or it wouldn't be here. Look," Daniel said, turning back to the two at the end of the table. "There's a simple way to prove what I'm saying. We need to see if we can get back home through this Stargate anyway, so take us there and we'll see if it that DHD works. Obviously we have a lot to discuss and we'd like to notify our people that we'll need more time than we anticipated here. So take us there and we'll see if it works. If it doesn't, well, you still need to know about the Goa'uld."

"Should the Goa'uld become aware of your Empire, they would attempt to conquer and enslave your entire population," Teal'c said quietly. "Your prosperity and technology would be irresistible to them. They are scavengers and parasites. They would not rest until your Empire and all your worlds were under their control."

"That's right," Daniel agreed. "We didn't come here just to explore. In a way, we came here to warn you. And to offer alliance against the Goa'uld."

"Alliance?" The First Lord of War asked flatly. "What could you possibly offer in an alliance?"

"You tell me," Jack said. He sat back in his chair and looked at the woman across the table. "We showed up out of thin air, in the middle of your military command. If we were here to invade, we'd have had you by the balls in less than an hour."

There was a long, tense moment of mutual silence.

The First Lord of War looked from one to another of SG-1 and then flickered her gaze past Sam's shoulder to the two women sitting by the door. Then, as if she'd received a signal of some sort, she nodded once. "Tragat, have the first tier cleared, and the corridors from the door of the Commandery. We'll give them their chance."

"Actually we may need two," Daniel put in apologetically. "There are two possible symbols on your Stargate which may be the originating symbol. So we may have to try twice to connect."

"Assuming the DHD works," Jack added.

"Auliya, message to the Lord Guardian. I want full sensor scans of the Commandery for the next hour. Tell her the mystery may soon be solved." The First gestured to SG-1. "Let's go."

"Sam, have you got your GDO?" Daniel asked as they followed the Guard Captain and First Lord of War out of the room.

Jack glared at him and pulled up the sleeve of his green BDU shirt to reveal the device strapped to his arm. "Hope you know what you're doing, Danny."

Daniel shrugged a little. "So do I, Jack."

Behind them, Auliya and Areelyn traded small smiles.

***

"Enjoying yourself?" Talyn asked in an undertone to the woman standing just behind her right shoulder. Daniel and Sam were examining the DHD-like decoration on the wall behind the Stargate while Teal'c watched over them. Jack was standing beside the great metal ring, waiting for his archaeologist and astrophysicist to decide they were ready. Talyn was well aware he was checking on the small device that Sam had attached to the underside of the Stargate, but she had said nothing. It served her purposes to let them think they had some measure of control.

"Their story is fascinating," Areelyn murmured. "If they are telling the truth, we have a long and exciting Assembly session ahead of us. Several, I should think."

"And if they're not?"

"Then you get to kill them," Areelyn answered back. "As always."

"If they're telling the truth -- " Talyn stopped as Daniel and Sam turned to call to Jack that they were ready to try and began moving toward Talyn and the others gathered at the archway leading to the stairs.

"It's a clever design," Sam said.

"So it's a real DHD?" Jack asked.

"I think so," Sam said. "It's been rebuilt as an integral part of the wall. The central crystal opens up to get to the crystals inside for maintenance. I don't see anything burnt out, so it should work. Daniel, which two symbols do we need to try?"

"These," Daniel said, sketching swiftly in his notebook before turning it to show Jack and Sam. Teal'c peered over their shoulders, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Whoever built this arrangement knew how Stargates work," Daniel said as he showed the symbols to Talyn. Areelyn and Auliya peered over her shoulders to see as well. "An originating wormhole explodes forward, an incoming wormhole explodes backward. They put the DHD where they wouldn't be caught in the event horizon as it forms."

Talyn blinked down at the symbols drawn and then flicked her glance sideways to Areelyn at her shoulder. "Record this," Talyn said. "Suit up and transmit this to Operations."

"Yes, First," Auliya said. She and Areelyn both understood the hidden order -- if anything should happen their Cymats would give them the best protection and hopes of escape. In the absence of the First Lord of War, Auliya's duty was to protect her Queen. They moved out of the other archway into the larger area beyond. They took a few running steps and jumped.

Before they could land again flickers of gray appeared around them and metal began to appear out of nothingness, lifting the two up, surrounding them, encasing them, growing about them into familiar giant forms. Within only a heartbeat, no more than three seconds at the most, two of the robotic forms stood confidently on the wide mezzanine, turning gracefully to face the way they'd come.

"My God, Doctor Weaver was right," Sam said. Jack, beside her, was staring at the two behemoths with his mouth hanging open and eyes wide. The two Cymats were works of art. Auliya's was silvery-gray and copper-red, the torso armor worked in a scaled pattern that resembled a bird's spread wings radiating from a central spiral roundel in the center. The ovoid head also had wings on the sides, cleverly disguising the workings of twin communications aerials. Areelyn's was a bright chromed silver-white, almost glowing in the indirect light, decorated with an incredibly detailed depiction of a stylized sun disk, thousands of swirling rays and tongues of flame etched and inlaid in dozens of different metals, giving it a shimmering reddish-gold iridescence. The pattern was continued on the legs and arms, flames radiating upward from the huge feet and rubberized four-fingered hands. Both Cymats had the concentric-circle purple and yellow badge of the Queen's Command on the left arm.

"I have got to get me one of those," Jack said, eyes still fixed on the mechanical forms as they both lowered to kneel on one knee just outside the archway.

"I think you've watched Independence Day one time too many, Jack," Daniel said, mostly to hide his own amazement.

"Hurry up and convince these people we're kosher," Jack said, nudging Daniel with his elbow without taking his eyes from the two Cymats.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "We need your GDO, Jack."

Jack shoved his sleeve up and ripped the Velcro fastenings free, sliding the device off.

"Jack."

"What?"

"We're about to fire up the 'Gate, you might want to move."

Jack blinked, shook his head and glanced around, saw Daniel standing there looking at him expectantly. "Oh."

"Uh-huh. Oh indeed," Daniel answered. "Big watery explosion."

"Yeah," Jack said. "C'mon, Teal'c, let's go -- I dunno, find something to do."

Teal'c watched Jack edge out the archway and closer to the two waiting Cymats. "Indeed," the Jaffa intoned, and followed him.

"Sam?" Daniel asked as he moved to the DHD. "Got that note ready?"

"Yep," Sam answered, holding up the folded bit of notebook paper.

"First try. Here goes." Daniel began punching in the symbols. There was no reassuring click as the symbols were pressed, but each began to glow and hum softly, creating a complex and dissonant chord. As the seventh symbol was pressed the Stargate began to whirl and the chevrons began to lock with jolts that they could feel through the floor. Daniel and Sam quickly got out of the path of any possible backlash from the 'Gate, moving quickly to the side of the great ring. By the fourth chevron they could feel the familiar vibrations begin. These increased, rattling the Stargate in its mountings, and by the seventh the two Cymats were leaning forward to poke their massive ovoid heads closer to the archway curiously.

The wormhole exploded outward, the watery illusion of the event horizon roaring into the room, boiling and lashing just short of the walls. It retreated in seconds to the normal rippling puddle of shimmering light. Daniel quickly keyed in his GDO code and Sam ran forward to toss through the note she'd prepared wrapped around a spare pen and secured with a rubber band to give it a little more weight on its flight through the wormhole.

Talyn came forward slowly, eyes filled with wariness as she approached the event horizon.

"It's all right," Sam said. She reached up to touch her fingers to the iridescent energy wall, causing it to ripple. "It's perfectly safe now."

"You came here through -- that?" Talyn asked.

"Yes. We use our Stargate quite a bit -- " Sam stopped, straightened and looked up at the wall of energy, and then ducked quickly out of the way. A split-second after she did the event horizon abruptly burst out of existence with a loud whip crack of displaced air.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, rushing to her.

Sam shook her head, blinking, as Daniel held her steady and looked at her worriedly. "I felt it destabilizing. That close to the event horizon -- felt like someone was walking over my grave."

"Carter?" Jack asked as he appeared beside them, Teal'c at his heels.

"I'm all right, sir," Sam answered. She gathered herself and turned to her commanding officer. "Colonel, the Stargate should have been stable for much longer than that. Even a Stargate without a constant source of power should be able to maintain a stable wormhole for a matter of several minutes, not just a few seconds."

Jack looked over at the huge metal ring, biting his lip in thought. "You told the folks back home to send us a postcard?"

"Yes, sir. Should be five to ten minutes."

"Good." Jack turned to the First Lord of War. "Well, there you have it. Our people should be sending back something in the next few minutes."

Talyn looked from one to the other and then out the archway to the two Cymats still kneeling, the massive heads tilting as the two inside the machines focused on her and SG-1. Then she glanced toward the stairway to see not only Tragat but several of the Guard awaiting her orders.

And at that moment, the Stargate began to dial.

"C'mon," Jack said, waving his team and the First Lord of War to the side of the Stargate as the second chevron locked. Tragat joined them against the wall as once more the vibrations mounted, and then the violence of the incoming wormhole splashing illusory watery coils to within a few feet of the DHD on the wall behind the metal ring.

Something fell out of the event horizon and rolled a few feet away, and three seconds later the wormhole vanished again.

Jack went forward to see what the SGC had sent through and found one of the standard-issue field packs. He picked it up, unzipped the top and looked inside. Then he laughed at the first thing he saw.

"Danny, I think this one's for you," he said, and tossed something toward Daniel.

Daniel caught it, realized what it was almost instantly.

A box of Kleenex, with the words "Get Me A T-Shirt -- Feretti" in red across the side.

"I'm gonna kill him," Daniel muttered.

"No you're not," Sam said as she and Jack continued to look inside the pack. She pulled a package of Hershey bars out. "He sent us chocolate."

Jack left the pack full of goodies to Daniel and Sam and Teal'c and turned to the First Lord of War expectantly.

Talyn looked up at him consideringly, then glanced out toward the two Cymats still kneeling beyond the archway. "It seems we have much to discuss."

"Ya think?" Jack asked. "Seems to me that we've got something to trade with after all. We've got Stargate know-how, you've got giant robot battle suits and ships. We're not just galactic tourists. The Goa'uld are getting more powerful every day and the only way we've found to stand against them is to work together."

"Then perhaps you had best speak to our Queen," Talyn said.

"I'd be happy to."

Talyn smiled frostily and nodded to the two Cymats. They stood and the metal began to part and draw away, layers vanishing into nothingness, the two women inside riding the controlled fall down to land safely on their feet as the last of the machinery disappeared from around them. Talyn held out her hand and Areelyn came to her side.

"You have already, Colonel O'Neill. May I present Areelyn of the House of Draelen, Imperatrix Ardana of the Empire of the Seven Nations." Talyn glanced at Areelyn's mischievous smile and then back to Jack. "And, if I may add, my handfast lifemate."

Areelyn laughed softly at that and turned to Jack. "It is not often we have seeming enemies become potential friends. Be welcome to the Seven Nations, Colonel O'Neill. Shall we take this somewhere better suited for talk? As Talyn says, we have much to discuss."

***

Within the hour deployment schedules were shuffled and the Lord Marshal recalled from his patrol of the Vanix frontier. Areelyn called for an emergency session of her Council and Assembly for the following morning, allowing for travel time for those currently on duty in the Empire's far-flung territory. Then when all was in motion, Areelyn and Talyn invited them all to their tower in the Palace complex where they could rest in comfort while SG-1 made some sort of beginning at relating to an Empire so vastly removed from the galaxy at large that they had never even heard the word "Goa'uld."

***

The Ard-tran's tower, though for sake of security not the most obvious among the twenty-one of the Palace complex, was nevertheless fit for a monarch ruling seven planets and some fifty-plus moons. Built in the spiraling conical design common among the nobility, it was on the edge of the complex and so had an excellent view of the ocean below and the seaside quarters of the city. The outer walls were wound about with the rampways and landings of a wide turret walk that began at the tower's ornate ground-level doors and wound upward around the walls to end at a tiny solarium at the tower's pinnacle. In between, windows and doors on the landings provided entrance to the rooms within. There were benches built into the walls at each landing, sometimes fancifully made to resemble animals in what Jack was coming to recognize as the signature style of the culture.

The Queen's personal rooms were actually quite cozy, not at all what they had expected for the place of a Queen. The walls were of gray granite speckled with quartzite bits, making them sparkle where the sun touched them. Deep windowsills with window seats upholstered with thick cushions and the shaggy pelts of some sort of animal, the kind of thing you wanted to curl up in on a rainy day with a book. More thick furry pelts on the floors, some like a reddish-brown sheepskin and others an iridescent black that rippled with hints of green and blue in the indirect light. There were low carved wood tables between wide sofas covered in patterned and embroidered fabrics in a loose square in front of a fireplace. Shelves built into the rock of the walls held all sorts of royal knick-knacks -- flawless gemstones the size of Jack's fist, priceless antiques, fragile cylinders made of beaten gold incised with lines of tiny script, a crown long since retired due to the unavoidable damages of time and use and now kept lovingly dust-free in honor of the dozens of previous monarchs who had worn it with such pride. A smaller, more homely shelf full of what were obviously personal tokens, things Jack recognized instantly despite their alien origins: unit insignia, holograms showing young hotshots grinning around a small fighter craft, another showing Areelyn and Talyn standing together, arms around each other's waists, in what were obviously their formal dress uniforms. Another larger hologram showed a beautiful red-haired woman and a giant bear of a man, arms around each other looking into each other's eyes in what was obviously a fiery kind of love. Jack grinned a little and raised his mug of wine to the two in the hologram, glad someone in this crazy universe had that kind of love.

And wishing he had it himself.

Daniel was talking himself hoarse. All of them were, but Daniel most of all. He was so excited, so eager, so happy to know everything he could possibly learn of life in the Seven Nations. Areelyn and Talyn were curled up together on one of the couches, drinking impartially from each other's silver goblets as they took turns asking or answering Daniel's questions. Jack smiled, hearing laughter behind him. Carter and Daniel were so excited they were giggling like loons.

It had been a while since he'd heard that kind of laughter. Maybe all this would work out after all.

He wandered out through the open window-door onto the walkway landing where a quieter discussion was taking place.

"How ya doin', T?" he asked as he joined them.

"I am well, O'Neill," Teal'c said serenely. "Captain Tragat and Lieutenant Sonaya were formerly assigned to the Empire's defensive forces. They have been explaining the structure of command."

"Ah yes," Jack said, grinning a little. "The path the buck takes on its way from General to lowly Airman." He leaned against the walkway crenellations beside Teal'c. "I realize this may be classified information, Tragat, but could you give me a general idea as to how the Cymats work? How you control them, where they are exactly before you hit the 'on' button, that kind of thing?"

Tragat smiled slightly, his sharp thin face lighting with enthusiasm. "I am not an engineer, mind you, but the Cymats exist in the subspace area bounded by the form outline of the Cymat cen