"Amazing."
The archeologist turned in a half-circle, holding his lantern high.
"The Goa'uld database was right—there is a chamber beneath Stonehenge!"
The man's companion, an older fellow carrying a gun, looked at his bespectacled friend irritably.
"Daniel," he said, "I'm sure that this is very thrilling, but couldn't we be doing something better with our time off? Like having fun?" His head tilted to the side. "Do you know what fun is, Daniel? It's not what we're doing right now."
Dr. Daniel Jackson sighed.
He'd been hearing his friend's complaints the entire trip from Cheyenne Mountain, and he was getting more than a little tired of listening to basically the same thing over and over.
"Jack, I know you'd rather be out fishing right now," he said, "But I wasn't the one who decided that all of us had to come. That was General Hammond's choice."
"Well, he coulda chose someone else," Col. Jack O'Neill muttered.
Daniel stopped and pointed.
"Look: a door."
"It's 'doors', Daniel. Look: doors."
Daniel gave him a look and walked over to the doors. Jack started to follow but stopped when a voice crackled through his radio.
"Colonel? How's it going down there?"
Jack lifted a hand to his radio and responded:
"Oh, fine, Carter. Just finished coming down a great big honkin' staircase, and Daniel's found some doors. How are things on your end?"
"Well, the tourists actually aren't causing any problems. However, the hippies are being a bit persistent."
"You could always come down here."
"No, thank you, Sir. I'm sure you and Daniel have got everything covered."
Jack considered calling Major Samantha Carter a wuss, but decided against it.
"Check in every half hour, Major," he said, "And keep an eye on those UNIT guys."
"Yes, Sir."
"Jack?"
The Colonel bit back a sigh and turned to join Daniel in this monumental waste of time.
The archeologist had taken a thick plank off of the doors, and was now looking at Jack almost expectantly, a hand clasping one of the great doors' handles.
Jack glanced down at the board, commenting in his dry way ("Yep, definitely where the Gou'ald would keep their worst enemy"), and then carelessly shoved open the doors.
Before the duo was a dusty, cobwebbed chamber. In the center of it stood a large box.
Jack raised his eyebrows.
"O-kay."
He looked over at Dr. Jackson. Daniel's eyes were wide with wonder, and he walked into the room as though in a trance.
He glanced over at the box for a mere second, and then proceeded directly to the chamber's walls. The ancient stone was covered with alien script of many, many different kinds.
Daniel's fingers ran across the engraved surface, his eyes drinking in the strange letters and symbols.
These were the languages of entire civilizations he'd never even heard of, and here they were, right at his fingertips.
Amazing.
Daniel began walking, his gaze searching the various alien texts.
"Goa'uld should be in here somewhere… Ah!"
He stopped, his hand hovering over a particular language. Goa'uld.
Jack approached the mysterious box, his curiosity growing.
The cube was close to his height, its surface a deep black and its sides engraved with peculiar designs.
Jack reached out to touch the strange object.
"I wouldn't do that, Jack."
O'Neill's hand jerked back, and he looked over at Daniel. The archeologist had turned away from the wall and was staring at Jack gravely.
"What?" Jack demanded
"It's a warning," said Daniel.
He looked at the walls.
"All of these languages probably say the same thing," he mused, "A message telling anyone who might come here to stay away."
"Daniel."
Doctor Jackson turned back to Colonel O'Neill.
"What does it say?"
Daniel looked at the wall, then back at Jack.
"It says, 'Beware of the Pandorica'."
