AN: Post S3/Shades of Gray - adventure/mystery w/humor and angst. At the core of it is the Daniel/Jack dynamic. The stage is set by an event years before SG-1 made their first trip through the gate.
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SMALL MEASURE OF VALUE
Prologue
***1952*** An archeological dig site somewhere in Great Britain.
"Doctor, where are you?" The worried voice of his future brother-in-law came from below, off to his far right.
"Up here." Annoyed, Melbourne Jackson slapped the flashlight against his palm, not daring to move in the sudden darkness. "On a cliff shelf. Six or seven feet above you."
"What did you say about green?" Abruptly, a circle of yellow light at the foot of the cliff hopped across the stone wall to his left, fading steadily as he watched it move closer. By the time it found him, he barely cast a shadow against the dark stone behind him. "Whoa, my light's about gone, too. Wait there, Doctor Jackson, I think Claire brought the lantern for back-up."
"Waiting, Mr. Ballard." Melbourne sighed as Liam half-blindly backed out through the rough tunnel entry created with dynamite that afternoon. Wait, was it his imagination or was the cavern gradually taking on an odd greenish glow?
No, that was quite probably a simple reflection from the nearby shallow subterranean pool. Still, the oddly entrancing, luminescent shimmer didn't seem to be coming from any angle. If he didn't know better, he would have attributed that soft ethereal green-blue light to his earlier discovery. True, he had seen more bizarrely unnatural things than this in the dank, maze-like bowels of Egyptian pyramids during the war.
Maybe they weren't stones, after all, but huge triangular-shaped gems. But how on Earth would they get themselves literally fused into solid rock?
Okay, review the facts, Melbourne.
Liam Ballard, younger brother to his beloved Claire, had hired him to find what he had called a dynastic stone. A highly-valued gem that he had claimed stolen from his grandfather's church in Ireland. Claire professed to knowing nothing of such an artifact, and Melbourne, after three months in Liam's company in the field, could not shake the feeling that Claire's brother was somehow manipulating him, telling him half-truths to placate him for some reason.
"Mel? Honey, where are you?" Golden light appeared at the tunnel mouth far below and grew steadily brighter as Claire Ballard called out. "Mel? Liam said you needed the lantern. I can't see -- Ohh! MEL, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WAY UP THERE?"
Jackson swallowed a caustic remark. "Claire! Dear woman, I need more light than that to get down! Where's Liam?!"
"He went back to the jeep saying that he needed more blast charges."
"More blast…?" Melbourne quickly reached out to snag the rope a few inches from his side. "Claire, tie the lantern to the rope, would you? I have an idea!"
Claire hesitated by the tunnel entry, watching the rope sway inches from the cavern floor. "Umm, all right." She went over and clumsily fastened the rope around the lantern's handle, stepping back as it jerkily made its journey up the uneven rock face, clinking, clattering metal grating into rough stone. As Melbourne untied the lantern and looped it inside his belt, he felt it's heat through his dust-laden trousers, but he ignored the discomfort and swung from the ledge.
"MELBOURNE! NO!" Claire screeched, hastily covering her eyes.
"I'm okay, " he wheezed, barely able to catch his breath. Climbing had to be his least favorite thing in his chosen profession. The rope felt tightly secure around his middle, however, and after a few unnerving slips, his boot found a jagged crack wide enough to step down in. He wasn't quite eye level with the lowest stone. Triangular in shape, it was elongated at the top, its edges rounded. The smooth aqua-green surface seemed luminescent. Tiny, crudely-carved symbols were visible on its inverted sides. Leaning back, he saw that each stone apparently contained three tiny symbols in an odd pattern that could have originated with the Stonehenge designs. Yes, each appeared different, but in exact alignment somehow. Pre-Britannic? Druid? Not his field of study, but he did have associates in the academic world who could identify the markings. Maybe.
Ignoring his fiancée's impatient urging, Melbourne snatched out his journal and hastily copied to paper whatever he could see in the light available.
When Liam finally returned, he found Jackson sitting wearily on the rock floor next to the lantern writing notes. "Did you find anything of interest about the stones?"
Melbourne offered a shrug, clapping the notebook shut. He stuffed it into a duffle bag lying beside his hip. He didn't ask the whereabouts of the blast charges "It's late, I'm hungry. Early tomorrow, we'll get the long ladder from the jeep so you can get a look at them, if you like. As for me, I have little doubt they're more than ritualistic symbols," he lied, avoiding the other's gaze, "of a long-dead Druid culture."
"Yes, that's sounds plausible. Until the morning, then."
Melbourne was up at dawn to find, as he had half-expected, Ballard's bedroll gone from the edge of their encampment, the fire cold. Even as he pulled on his clothes, nagging common sense chided him not to entertain the impossible. Unheeding, he snatched the lantern and raced back toward the open cavern. No discarded pickaxe or other rock-digging tool tripped him at the entrance, but a pervasive metal smell hit him as his light penetrated the interior to show the long ladder propped against the craggy stone wall inches from where three green stones should have been fused into the solid rock.
He lifted the lantern higher and stared in open-mouthed astonishment up at the three empty, dripping hollows. No, that just could not be possible. Resisting a brief urge to clean his glasses, he scrambled up the ladder for a better look. Yes, all three of the stones were -- gone, the holes left in their wake like polished glass and dripping with water as if somehow each had been melted inside. Bizarre.
They had been solid stone, for Heaven's sake.
"Melbourne?" Claire shuffled sleepy-eyed out of the entrance, practically dragging the other lantern behind her. "Where's Liam?"
Jackson rushed back down the ladder to check the packed dirt. Fresh boot prints. Discarded flashlight batteries. Curious, he picked one up. "Yeeow! The cursed thing is HOT!" In reflex, he tossed it away to flexed sore fingers. The small battery casing landed, dripping steamy, acid brown liquid. Very strange. "Your brother's gone," he solemnly informed her, seeing her eyes dip to the battery graveyard.
"I, I don't understand. Gone where?"
Melbourne sighed. "I'm sorry, but I don't think he needs our help anymore."
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Part 1 - ARC OF LIGHT
Chapter 1 - Evacuate Now or Get Trampled.
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"I still don't get how you can overlook a whole planet, Carter."
"The system is far from perfected, sir. Even enhanced calibrations can't always be properly aligned to specify certain spatial coordinates each time."
"Daniel?"
"Um, our computer's not perfect; some planets just… well, slip through the cracks."
"Thank you."
"Jack, you can hardly blame Sam for that."
"No? Is she not the one with her fingers in the pie?"
"I fail to see how her preference of eating confections applies to our situation, O'Neill."
"Yes, but mind you, those same fingers are also responsible for recovering a questionably lost PCX-388."
TBC.....
