*A/N: The bold text is a telepathic voice, to differentiate it from emphasized or sarcastic words. PS. There's an Indiana Jones reference somewhere in here... :)
Jack began backing away. "Okay, that's it," he said, "we're leaving."
Daniel was still examining the inscriptions on the rock. "No, but there must be something concealed in here to help us get home!"
"Daniel!" Sam spoke quickly to keep him from opening the container, "We don't know what kind of technology wiped out the MALP, and we don't want to risk the same."
"Yeah, if it's all the same to you, Daniel, I'd prefer not to have my face melted off by whatever's in the box," Jack added.
"Hello?"
All three glanced at each other, each wondering why another would ask such a thing. Gradually it dawned on them that none of them had spoken. An eerie silence settled over the group.
"Is someone there?"
Jack saw Sam wince. "What?" he asked.
Sam shook her head, "I'm just hearing voices is all."
Daniel blinked, "I am, too."
"As am I," Teal'c agreed.
"Well, I'm glad we all heard that," Jack observed, "for a second I thought it was happening inside my head."
Sam shuffled her feet nervously, "Sir..." she stammered, "I, ah, I think it did."
Jack looked at her sidelong. "What?"
"I think we're hearing the voice within our thoughts, not actually with our ears."
Daniel began to look worried, "Like Urgo? You think we've been implanted again?"
Sam shook her head. "No, not implanted; it's—"
"Who are you?"
At the sound of the voice, all noise died. SG-1 began scanning the shadows to perhaps find the telepathic "speaker."
"Who are you?" Jack asked, looking back toward the doorway and wondering if the person might be in another hut.
"I am Peace. You have come through the Stargate, Colonel O'Neill?"
Jack's grip on his weapon involuntarily tightened. "How did you know my name?"
"And the Stargate?" Daniel added under his breath.
"Dr. Sam Carter was just thinking about how worried you were, how you've been very annoyed ever since you left the Command."
Jack shot Sam a look, but she only shrugged in acknowledgement.
"I also happen to know that you couldn't get to this place without a Stargate or Starbridge."
"Peace?" Daniel called, looking around the hut.
"Yes?"
"Where are you?"
There was a pause. "You didn't come here for me? You don't know where I am?"
"Until you spoke," Sam tried to explain, "we couldn't even be sure anyone was here."
"But you knew, Sam."
Carter smiled, "Well, I kind of expected—"
"Okay, I'm sorry," Jack cut in, "this is cool, talking to a voice in our heads and all, but to get back to Daniel's question: where the heck are you?"
"I'm in here with the stone pod you are all thinking of as the crypt."
Everyone involuntarily stepped away from the object and stared at it.
Peace's voice came again, "No, I'm not dead or disembodied. Yes, you can open it."
Sam shook her head, "Sorry; it's just that, well, the first time we saw this—pod—it kind of destroyed our surveillance equipment."
"Oh yes, that. I, ah...may have inadvertently destroyed it... accidentally. I sensed it when it first arrived, and I mistook its electronic signals for intelligent consciousness—"
"So when you tried to interact with it like you're interacting with us," Carter supplied, still looking around for any sign of a corporeal form, "it registered a bolt of light and your telepathy fried the circuitry."
"I moved it away from here in hopes that whoever sent the thing could retrieve it and leave before you knew anything about me. I didn't realize you would not have any means of returning, and thus be forced to seek me out."
"Hey, I'm still all for leaving, if that's what you want us to do," Jack said, wondering if looking in every direction as he spoke increased his chances of finding the right direction. "All you need to do is tell us how."
"All right," Peace's voice responded, "but you all need to stop looking around in different directions at the same time! It's making it difficult for me to communicate clearly. And who is the fifth member of your company?"
Jack, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c glanced at each other; was there another, invisible person in their midst?
"Fifth person?" Daniel repeated.
"Well, I don't know if person is the correct term; it doesn't seem human, and it seems quite a bit underdeveloped, too."
"I believe you are referring to the Goa'uld symbiote I carry within me," Teal'c suggested to the ceiling. "It is neither a member of our team, nor a consciousness you need waste any energy pursuing."
"Good," Peace's voice sighed, "it didn't sound very friendly anyway."
"So...Peace," Daniel began slowly, "can we see you?"
"I don't know." Her voice was gentle, almost laughing as the crypt suddenly glowed with a white light. Everyone covered their eyes, and when they looked again, in place of the crypt stood a long, smooth white pod. Cradled within the pod was the body of a woman. The entire body was encased in one continuous shoulder-to-toe jumpsuit, the ears were covered in some smooth substance, and the eyes remained tightly shut, sealed by external means.
"Can you see me?" the voice asked.
"Yes," Daniel answered, "if you are referring to the woman in the pod."
"I am," Peace answered.
Sam slowly approached the pod. She reached out to touch the woman, but gasped as a plasma force-field deflected her hand.
"I cannot be disturbed in any way," Peace protested. "Not until the appointed time, anyway."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"The right people will know how to operate this pod. Meanwhile, it's safer for you if this pod remains sealed."
Daniel recalled the warning messages scrawled on the crypt. "Peace," he began to ask, but she knew what he was going to ask.
"Why am I so dangerous?"
Daniel nodded, but caught himself, "I'm sorry; I meant, um, yes."
"It really has to do more with my potential than actual danger."
"How so?" Carter asked.
A light chuckle rippled around the room. "That is a very long story."
Jack shifted impatiently. "Well, that's interesting, maybe we can come back later and find out, but for now—meaning no offense, of course—we really want to know how to get off this rock!"
"I do not take offense, Colonel," Peace responded, "though it is my understanding that you really don't care whether or not you cause offense, so long as you make your point."
Jack acknowledged this observation by raising his eyebrows toward her inert form as she continued.
"I am sorry, but I have no idea, myself, how to get off this—yes, Colonel, you're right it is—asteroid. More than likely my trip was meant to be one-way, in spite of all the promises they made."
"Who are They?" Sam asked.
