Chapter One

The only certain freedom is in departure.

-Robert Frost-

General Hammond watched from the observation deck of the gate room as a brilliant swirl of watery blue exploded below and the Stargate Command's star team prepared to disembark on their latest mission.

The room he looked down upon was a dull gray, aside from the swirling blue in the center of the unthinkably large ring that cast waving reflections of light upon the walls around it. The four members of SG-1 stood in front of it, silhouetted by the light of the gate, and the general could imagine what was going through each members' mind, even without being able to hear what they were saying.

Jack, as usual, was highly impatient, evidenced by an overuse of wise-cracks and liberal jabs at the team archeologist, which seemed to only draw snickers out of the surrounding guards that always inhabited the gate room. Daniel, of course, was oblivious to the whole thing. After finding out the planet they were going to be visiting had the usual over-abundance of plant-life, Dr. Fraiser had made certain to prescribe Daniel enough antihistamines to last through the trip, and plenty extra, just in case. He was too busy checking to be absolutely certain that he hadn't forgotten them to notice Jack's not-so-subtle jokes at the expense of the civilian 'geek'.

Teal'c was his stoic self, as always, in spite of Sam's excitement over the latest mineral deposit they hoped to mine from this planet. Many times, the general thought Teal'c understood her better than her team leader, but when she resorted to technical jargon, it was as lost upon him as it would be upon any warrior. Unlike Jack, however, the near silent Jaffa realized that she needed to voice her ideas to somebody, and it didn't much matter if that someone only occasionally raised an eyebrow or answered with a very intelligent, "Indeed."

By the time the gate was locked and ready for transport, the entire team had gone into "professional" mode. They had learned quickly that in this job, you could never know what to expect on the other side of that deceptively calm pool of blue. As they stepped toward the gate they moved as a single smooth unit, their order established without having to say a word.

As they disappeared with a bare ripple through the blue, and the gate disengaged with a final dying flash, the general sighed to himself and said his ritual prayer for the team. "God, just don't let them get killed." After a few moments to be sure that the team wouldn't have to make an emergency return home, the general nodded slightly to himself, and returned to his office, leaving the SGC to go about it's own business. If anyone needed him, they would know where to find him.

"ACHOO!!" Daniel tried to stifle his sneeze before it began, but he failed miserably. This time, it had only been moments through the gate before the attack had come.

"Daniel…?" Jack's voice had that vaguely annoyed sound that could mean anything from, 'Daniel, please stop baiting the snake who is about to kill us' to 'Daniel, what the hell did you just say?' The archeologist cringed inwardly, cutting his eyes at Jack to see if he was truly annoyed, or just trying to get on his nerves. In the next moment, he decided the colonel was simply trying to irritate him, so he ignored it and reached for a handkerchief.

He was vaguely amused to note that Jack continued to keep his eyes open for possible danger, even as he asked, "What happened to those new, high-powered antihista-thingies...?"

"Guess they aren't as powerful as Janet thought," Daniel remarked, distractedly, as he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his nose. After this brief moment, he seemed to recover from whatever irritation had caused the sneeze, and stowed the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Either that or there are more allergens here than she expected..." His comment trailed away in a characteristically distracted fashion, as he started away from the gate.

While Teal'c, Jack, and Sam continued their usual sweep of the area immediately surrounding the gate, Daniel moved forward to explore the same area. The stargate was located in the center of a strange, perfectly circular clearing in the center of a forest that was slightly off-setting. On the one hand, it seemed remarkably like something you would find on earth, but unfamiliar plants, trees, and birds combined to form a vague feeling of "wrongness".

From the steps immediately in front of the stargate, Daniel followed a narrow stone pathway. These stones caught his attention, for each was inscribed with strange, foreign symbols. They seemed to form some sort of language, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen. It seemed vaguely...Celtic in origin, but he couldn't be certain. He sent a quick glance toward Jack, and found that the leader was still sweeping the clearing. Since there seemed to be no trouble at hand, he pulled off his backpack and swiftly pulled out his camera. Leaving his backpack behind, Daniel started up a video, and took careful records of each stone in the pathway.

At the end of the pathway, a large stone had been set up, covered with the same sort of strange symbols. After taking a close-up of this first stone, Daniel panned around the clearing, ignoring the roaming soldiers in favor of focusing on the eight other stones set up around the clearing. Each was about twice his own height, covered in symbols that could be decorative, some sort of language, or even both. Each stone, however, was topped with a much larger, unique symbol that was visible even from the other side of the clearing. "Must mean something..." he muttered to himself, and then turned back to the original stone.

Another glance proved to Daniel that his teammates had finished screening the forest surrounding the clearing, and were impatiently waiting for him to finish his work. "Jack...I'd like to..."

"No."

Daniel blinked, simply staring back at Jack. The soldier's amused, knowing expression simply served to infuriate the scholar, but he retained tight control of his temper, as always. "But you didn't even hear what I was going to..."

"No. You can't stay here and play with the rocks, Daniel. We need to stay together. Wait until Sam finds her..." Jack glanced to Sam, and Daniel knew, from experience, that he was trying to remember just exactly it was that she had been going on about before they stepped through the gate. "...Pretty...rocks. We'll come back if it's safe."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "So Sam's rocks are more important because...?"

Jack looked straight back at Daniel, and in a deadpan, he replied, "Hers can make big honkin' space guns. Let's move it out, kids."

Frustrated, Daniel sent an exasperated look toward Sam, but she simply ducked her head to hide her amused smirk and walked passed Daniel to follow Jack. His next resort was Teal'c...but the silent Jaffa had already disappeared into the forest, taking point.

With a sigh of surrender, Daniel rushed to pick up his backpack, picking carefully through the underbrush to catch up. Before leaving the clearing, he sent a final look toward the rocks he desperately wanted to examine, but then gave in to Jack's order and rushed to catch up while clumsily pulling his backpack onto his shoulders.

"So. What is it?"

Sam didn't allow her team leader's faux curiosity to distract her. Daniel was still pouting at her side. She felt sure that being forced to deal with an annoyed commanding officer and a pouting archeologist in the same day should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Instead of saying any of this aloud, however, she simply glanced up and with her patented, 'I'm Carter so I can't possibly be joking' face, she replied, "Could be one of your big honkin' space guns, sir."

"Really?" Col. O'Neill replied, managing to look surprised and hopeful at the same time.

"No, sir."

A long pause ensued, in which Sam watched her commanding officer's expression melt from confusion, to realization, to annoyance, and finally settling upon vague amusement. "No, really, Carter. What is it?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure, sir," she finally said, getting down to business. "It's completely different from any of the technology we have previously encountered."

Sam stepped back to survey the entire object. Nestled half-hidden in the brush, they had found what at first appeared to be a large stone, half the size but very similar to those in the clearing around the Stargate. However, upon closer inspection, Daniel had discovered that this one actually seemed to have moving parts. Several knobs on the front were simple enough, marked with strange symbols that Daniel could not immediately translate. Buttons at random intervals along the side lit up when they were touched. Experimentation proved that they only responded to a warm touch. Otherwise, it didn't appear to have any obvious purpose. There didn't seem to be any access panels to allow examinations of the inner workings of the device. Finally, she threw up her hands in defeat. "Perhaps when Daniel has a chance to work on translating those symbols we'll know more. Frankly, I have no idea what it's for."

"Daniel?" Col. O'Neill directed at the archeologist, who was still involved in poking and prodding at the device.

Daniel glanced up, blinking owlishly as though surprised to be addressed. Thoughtfully, he pushed his glasses back into place on his nose, and explained with a slight shrug, "It looks vaguely familiar, but I would need some reference material to be sure. It might be the same as those in the clearing. I didn't really get a good look at those."

Col. O'Neill pointedly ignored the not-so-subtle jab, and nodded sharply. "Right, then. Make a note of the location, and we'll come back if we have time. Off we go, kids."

This time, Daniel didn't bother trying to complain about the lack of time. He simply remained silent as he packed up his notebooks and pencils, and returned his pack to his back. Sam felt a little sorry for him, but there really wasn't anything she could do. She really didn't know what the device could possibly be used for. For all she knew, it could be decoration.

The report had said that this planet was inhabited by sporadic small clans of nomadic peoples. Perhaps they'd be lucky enough to encounter one. That ought to make up for Daniel's disappointment.

"No."

"But Jack.."

"No."

"You're not even…"

"No."

"Stop saying…"

"No. Nonono. No. And did I mention? No."

Daniel and Jack faced off at the top of a ridge overlooking a small collection of plain dome-shaped buildings that appeared to be made of the same reddish-gray mud that they had been walking on for the past hour. Jack had his usual nonplussed expression, quite aware that he had the final say in the matter, and firm in his stance against the archeologist. Daniel, by contrast, was steaming, glaring at Jack with his usual determination.

Carter let her pack drop to the ground and used it as an impromptu seat. Once Daniel and the Colonel both decided they weren't going to back down, it could take up to an hour for a compromise to be reached. Sam just hoped that the team leader didn't decide to pull rank on the civilian. If O'Neill continued to do that, one of these days Daniel was going to give up and ask for a reassignment. Carter wasn't sure if her superior knew just how close he'd come already, but she hoped he had at least a bit of sense about the matter.

"Why are you being such a butthead?"

Jack smirked, his arms crossed and chin held high in his 'fearless leader' posture. "Did you just call the ranking officer on this mission a 'butthead'?"

Sam swore silently to herself. This wasn't going to end well.

"I'd call you what you deserve, but I have more class than that. Look, you've kept my hands tied for this entire mission. Why can't you guys do whatever it is you do, while I go talk to the locals? They're farmers, not warriors, and frankly, I think their religion is based on one from Earth that values peace above all. In the worst case scenario, they'll just refuse to talk to me, and I'll be stuck waiting for you until you return. So how about it? I'll go talk to the locals, and you guys go…do whatever it is Sam wants to do with her rocks."

"Daniel?"

"Well, Jack?"

"No."

Daniel looked like he might explode at any moment, as Jack refused Daniel's carefully thought out argument without even considering it. "Were you even listening to me?"

"Actually? No, not really."

It was very rare for Daniel to be struck speechless. Sam considered warning O'Neill that it wasn't a good idea to push Daniel beyond certain limits. She really couldn't understand why he was so determined to disallow everything that Daniel wanted. Usually he at least found something to occupy the civilian on these peaceful missions.

Suddenly, Daniel's look of confounded, open-mouthed shock shifted to one of realization. "You're punishing me."

Jack shifted slightly, and Sam knew that Daniel was on the right track. Silently, she updated the tally in her head… Daniel: 1, Jack: 0.

"What are you talking about?" Jack snapped, looking over Daniel's shoulder at the settlement below. "Just because I don't want you to go alone into the midst of possibly hostile aliens…"

But Daniel had sunk his teeth in and wasn't letting go. He jumped in before Jack could finish, more certain now that when the idea had first struck him. "No, no, no. This is about that incident in the gym the other day, isn't it? Jack, I knew you were thick, but I had no idea you were capable of this sort of pettiness."

The guilt on Jack's face was unmistakable to those who knew him, even if he did fancy himself to be very good at hiding his emotions. It was all Daniel needed to know that he had struck a chord, and with an angry little noise, he picked up his pack. "I'm going down there whether you like it or not, Jack. I'll keep the radio on, so just call me when you're done."

Without looking at Jack, Daniel turned, adjusting his pack so that it would sit easier on his shoulders, and began the search for a path down the ridge to the alien settlement.

Carter cleared her throat a little, and glanced over at Teal'c, while Jack was distracted with fuming. "So…What's happened in the gym the other day?" Due to her gender, she tended to miss out on a lot of the goings on between the boys during their between-mission training sessions.

Teal'c glanced to her from where he stood with stoically crossed arms, but she was certain that she could see the slightest twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Daniel Jackson successfully accomplished the frelshak maneuver on Colonel O'Neill."

Sam blinked, uncertain what Teal'c could mean by that. Before she could ask, Jack interrupted, letting her know that he was still paying attention, even if he was distracted by watching his civilian slowly climbing down the dangerous slope.

"That's Teal'c's way of saying he knocked me on my ass."

In the end, Jack allowed Daniel to go his own way, though he stood on the ridge a little longer than Sam might have expected. He even pulled out his binoculars to watch the initial meeting and introductions. It wasn't until he saw Daniel conversing with the residents of the settlement on obviously friendly terms that he finally put away the binoculars and instructed them to head out.

In the next several hours, Sam forgot all about the tiff between her fellow team members in the excitement of what she found. It turned out that there were even larger mineral deposits on this planet than she had imagined, and most of them would be incredibly useful to create the weapons they were constantly developing to fight the enemies of Earth. The only problem was that it would involve an extensive mining procedure. This, of course, meant that they had to get permission from the residents of the planet before they could act any further.

Jack had conflicting feelings about this. Sure, he wanted those weapons, but it turned out that Daniel would have had reason to do what he wanted, even if Jack had succeeded in stopping him at the ridge. Sam had to give him credit, though. When she gave him the news, he took it in stride, and before long they were headed back to the settlement to meet up with their wayward archeologist.

Before dinner, Jack checked in with General Hammond and let him know the state of affairs on the planet. He received permission to stay as long as necessary to procure the necessary agreement from the people of this planet, so Jack left him with a promise to check in the next evening at the same time.

Dinner was not exactly a pleasant affair for the colonel. It took place out of doors in a central clearing of the village. The men sat at a table on one side of the clearing, while the woman congregated around a table at the other end, which meant that Carter was stuck separated from the team by another ridiculous local gender norm.

O'Neill sat in the honored seat directly across from the chief of the settlement, who was seated in the center of the long table. Daniel was seated directly to the chief's left, while Teal'c had taken a seat on Jack's right. The chief seemed determined to smile Jack to death, which necessitated more return smirks than Jack was accustomed to giving.

To make matters worse, these people were purely vegetarians. Jack crunched on his lettuce as a distraction from the smiling chief, but he lacked a certain enthusiasm that most of the diners seemed to have. What he really wanted was a nice rare steak, but it wouldn't be the first time that he compromised what he wanted for the sake of a mission. He was just glad that the food was fresh.

On the bright side, Daniel consistently chatted up the chief of the clan, in an obvious attempt to distract him from Jack's relative sourness. This left Jack free to ponder how to address the subject of a treaty between earth and these nature-loving hippies. As usual, once he had decided on a tactic, he initiated it without any thought to whatever Daniel might have had planned.

"So, Chief…Earl, was it?" Jack said, interrupting a very involved discussion between Daniel and the chief concerning some aspect of their religion.

Daniel cleared his throat, muttering under his breath, "Irl."

Daniel still hadn't figured out that Jack mispronounced things on purpose to annoy him. Or maybe he had, and that just annoyed him more. An interesting prospect for the colonel, who enjoyed irritating Daniel almost more than he enjoyed snake-baiting. "That's what I said. Chief Earl. This is a very nice dinner and everything, but we have come to visit you for a reason."

The chief placed the carrot he had been nibbling back on his plate, leaning back slightly and regarding Jack with a calculated gaze. As far as Jack could tell, there was nothing to distinguish this chief from any of the other aliens present. He wore the same simple garment, made of rough fabric of a slightly off-white color. His head was covered by a kind of turban that seemed to indistinctly remind Jack of the middle east. The sun-weathered and craggy face, however, was what caught Jack's attention. The clear blue eyes of the man held a spark of cleverness that Jack was not about to discount. However, in the end, the chief simply nodded his head, as though bidding Jack to continue.

"Yes. Well…" He glanced toward Carter at the women's table, separated from their own on the other side of the clearing, and silently cursed the culture's morals that dictated no woman should sit down to eat with a man. "It seems that there are some…rocks on your planet that could be very useful to us. We want to trade with you for them."

The chief looked puzzled, and Daniel shot Jack a less than subtle warning glance. Jack knew that look, and just shot Daniel a scornful look of his own. He wasn't an idiot. You don't tell a peaceful people who worship nature that you want to dig up their precious earth to build weapons. He had learned that lesson by now.

"I cannot imagine what you intend to do with them," Chief Irl said, at length. "Of course, we honor Mother Don in all of her incarnations, but I have seen the wonders of which your people are capable. How is it possible that the stones in our fields could be of value to one such as yourself?"

For once, Jack paused to think over his reply before he spoke. Daniel looked on nervously, but for once managed to keep his big mouth shut. "Well," Jack said, slowly, keeping half an eye on Daniel to make sure he wasn't saying anything that would offend. That was the one blessing in Daniel's attitude…Jack could tell he was about to misstep by just watching for signs that Daniel was about to cut in. "You see, there are certain…things in the rocks on your planet which don't exist back home. Of course, we don't expect you to just hand them over. There are many ways we can help you in return. Medicine, technology… For example, we could supply you with a better way to irrigate those fields of yours."

The chief was obviously interested, and Jack felt as though he was making headway until the man finally spoke. "I would love to agree to this, but unfortunately, this is impossible."

Jack bit his tongue to keep from cursing out loud. Somehow, he managed to keep a pleasant expression on his face, but the frustration was boiling under the surface. "And why not?"

"It is not up to me, of course." The chief's eyes seemed to be mocking Jack, and he restrained himself from punching the infuriating man in the face by virtue of toying with a decorative leaf that had been abandoned on his plate.

"Oh?" Jack replied, trying to sound nonchalant. "In that case, who is it up to?"

"It is up to the gods and goddesses."

Jack had heard this before, and it was all he could do to keep from screaming in frustration. He gave a look to Daniel that he knew that archeologist would interpret correctly. Time for the civilian to take over.

Daniel nodded slightly, with his usual sort of flustered absent-mindedness that seemed to ingratiate him to everyone he met. "Chief Irl… If it doesn't offend you to ask, is there any way that we could appease the gods?"

This question caused the chief to grow thoughtful, and it became obvious to Jack that the man was much more likely to be helpful to Daniel. It figured.

"Well, Calan Gaeaf begins at sunrise. You could meet the gods and ask them yourselves."

Daniel's eyebrows shot up, and Jack knew that the archeologist must recognize the term. "Oh! Calan Gaeaf, of course. I think I might be familiar with it. Would it be permissible for us to honor the gods by participating?"

The chief smiled broadly, and Jack knew that Daniel had yet another new alien friend. "Of course! The gods welcome all of nature's children. You may sleep in the guest home."

That seemed to settle things. The rest of dinner was uneventful, but Jack couldn't help but be a bit nervous about Daniel's promise to participate in an unfamiliar ritual. Even if he thought he knew what the ritual was, he had no way of knowing how it had changed over the centuries. It made Jack's survival instinct itch, but he just couldn't figure out what was bothering him so.

Unable to enjoy the dinner, Jack remained at the table just long enough to avoid being completely rude, and then excused himself. With any luck, Jackson would take the hint and join him shortly so they could discuss this little ritual of his.