Title: Wherever You Go, There You Are
Spoilers: Nothing new.
Rating: Um, PG just to be safe. Minor language.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG1 and Farscape are owned by lovely, wonderful people. I am not among them.
Author's note: Um, sorry? I know it's been ages since I last posted - many thanks to the wonderful folks who stuck with me. I promise the last couple of chapters will follow this one shortly.
Wherever You Go, There You Are: East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)
"Meanwhile, back at the temple..." Daniel said softly to himself, running his fingers over another line of Ancients' writing. The others would be back soon and he wanted to finish this wall before Jack ordered them all to the 'gate.
Zhaan knelt next to him. "Have you found something else?"
"I'm not sure." Daniel ran a hand over his head. "Teal'c," he called to his friend, "Does this make any sense to you?"
Teal'c joined them and read over the alien text. "It appears to be written in the manner of a Stargate address."
"Yeah. Except I don't recognize these."
"Perhaps this group of Ancients encoded coordinates to hide them from potential enemies."
Daniel nodded. "It would confuse anyone who saw the DHD and tried to match the symbols to the coordinates. We would have to break the code to find out where they went." He rose and paced a few steps, looking at the rest of the markings. "Or - given that we've never seen any other coded Ancients' text..." his voice trailed off.
"Yes, Daniel Jackson?"
Daniel gave him one of his "you're not going to like this, but since you asked I'm going to tell you anyway" looks. "Well, um, it could be the coordinates for another Stargate system."
Teal'c just stared at him.
"I know you're thinking that's impossible," he said, punctuating his words with broad hand gestures reminiscent of his academic days, "but we're talking about the Ancients here. They built one Gate system; why couldn't they build another? It's like building a bypass around a big city - that way you have two routes in case one of them has a traffic jam or accident."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, so there are protocols built into the current system for those situations." Daniel paced some more, this time wandering randomly, thinking out loud. "Okay. So what about too much traffic? Two ways in and out of heavy traffic areas, where the alpha gate is always active. Or..." he stopped pacing and whirled to face the others, "this system is unique to this group of Ancients."
Zhaan considered the idea. "Renegades?" Seeing Daniel didn't understand the word, she pointed to herself and Aeryn, and after a moment, pointed also at Teal'c.
Teal'c caught her meaning. "Perhaps they were dissidents or refugees, and built the second network to escape from their world."
Daniel nodded. "But how do we know they're the good guys? They could have escaped from jail. They could be government-overthrowing zealots. For all we know, they could be inmates from the Ancients insane asylum." He stopped short at Teal'c's raised eyebrow and held up a hand to acknowledge his...temporary personality adjustment. He really had to learn to ignore that little "Jack" voice in his head. "Of course, it's still possible these Ancients were a scouting party. A new system might have been a dedicated network, used only to check out new planets and move certain groups of explorers."
"Built as they reached each new planet. If that is the case, Daniel Jackson, then how can they have been cut off from their home?"
"This is, um, an excellent question." Daniel walked around to recheck the earlier text. "Okay, try this. They're connected to -639. Which becomes a problem, because they start looping in time. So somebody contacts them from home, fills them in on the situation and they build a second system to get around it."
Teal'c considered this theory. "This planet was not connected to the network Major Carter found during the - looping - incident."
"That we knew of. Or maybe there is a way to control which Stargates are connected. We really need Sam."
"Ask and ye shall receive, Dr. Jackson." Jack's voice came from the temple entrance, followed almost immediately by Jack himself. "Although I resent the implication that Carter is better at answering questions than I am."
Carter headed for Daniel as John joined Aeryn and Zhaan. "What's up, Daniel?"
"You tell me." He waved a hand at the writing in question. "What does this look like?"
Jack, giving Aeryn and Crichton plenty of space to quietly argue, joined the rest of his team at the wall. "Like somebody had too much time on their hands?"
Sam ignored her CO and knelt next to the writing, running a hand over it. She looked up in surprise at Daniel, who said, "Yeah. That's what Teal'c and I thought."
Jack took a closer look. Actually, the writing looked like that of a three-year old, but then the strangest things fascinated the two scientists.
"I suppose they could have substituted other patterns to represent a different part of the galaxy," Sam mulled. "But we've never seen that before."
"So it's not all that likely," Daniel finished her thought.
"It could be in code."
"Someone who just stumbled on the temple wouldn't connect it to the 'gate."
"Or vice versa."
"Which could be why there's so much distance between the 'gate and the temple."
"If they left it behind for the next group to find..."
"And that group lost the key to change the symbols back..."
"It could explain why the first group was cut off from the others."
Jack wandered over to Teal'c and asked, "You keeping up with this?" Teal'c nodded. "Cause I've lost track of who is saying what," Jack continued.
"Well, there is another possibility," Daniel said cautiously. Sam raised her eyebrows in question. "Another network."
Her eyes grew wider as she considered the idea. "If they could build one..."
"Why not another? Exactly."
Now this Jack understood. "Excuse me," he said in a dangerously level tone that caught even the attention of the others across the room. "Are you saying there's another Stargate around here?"
Sam pursed her lips, thinking. "Not necessarily, sir. Given the Ancients' level of technology, they could have built an entire different network using the same Stargate and added a device to switch the DHD between networks."
"Like a train track," Daniel added.
"Exactly."
"Why?" Jack clipped the word sharply.
"That's the big question. It could have been simply to relieve congestion on the main network."
"Or as an extension to the main system, built as they explored."
"Or," Jack drew the word out, "they could have been criminals. Pirates. Outlaws."
Daniel gave Teal'c an 'I told you so' look. "That's possible, but then why did the Ancients on P4X-639 contact them for help?"
"Desperate people do desperate things, Daniel."
"Yes, Jack, but if they were the bad guys, why did they build this?" Daniel waved a hand at the entirety of the temple. "Why leave a record if they were running from something?"
"They weren't the bad guys," John said, walking away from his argument with Aeryn. "The Ancients I met were looking for a place to coexist, not conquer."
"Yeah, we've heard that before," Jack said. "You know, the Goa'uld build temples, too. Big ones."
"All I'm saying is, whatever reason they had for being here was probably a good one. And any other time I'd love to stay and find out what that reason was. However, I have more pressing concerns at the moment," John said, looking back over his shoulder at Aeryn.
Daniel and Jack shared a look, a silent conversation.
"What?" John asked.
Daniel shrugged, "I don't think there's anything else we can do here that will help."
"You haven't finished, have you?" Sam asked.
"Daniel's right," Jack said. "As fascinating as all this is, it doesn't have anything to do with Crichton."
"I still don't understand why we have to convince them. What exactly did General Hammond say?" Sam asked.
"That he needed some assurances from John." Daniel looked at Crichton. "I assume he meant something about not sharing your experience with the general public."
"Well, that should be easy enough. I'm sure nobody's going to have any questions about me disappearing from Earth orbit and reappearing in Colorado."
Sam shook her head. "That still doesn't make sense. We can arrange a cover story that's close enough to the truth."
"And Aeryn?"
"It's nothing we haven't done before." John gave Sam a questioning look, and she shrugged. "Military operations have their advantages. We can arrange a background that won't be questioned."
"Yeah, the thing is," Jack said, "Hammond knows all this. So what's the problem?"
"Only one way to find out," John replied. "Let's go talk to the man."
"Right." Jack waved a hand at the temple entrance. "Just follow the yellow brick road. Or in our case, the track we've worn walking back and forth between here and the 'gate." He followed Crichton, Aeryn, and Zhaan out, Teal'c walking a step behind. O'Neill spoke over his shoulder, "You'd think if they were so advanced, they would've built a faster way to get from here to there. A moving sidewalk, a subway, a transporter - something. "
Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
Daniel waited until they were a few steps ahead, and handed Sam's package to her. She looked at it sadly. Daniel said, "Yeah, I had the same thought."
"There's really nothing here that can help?"
He shook his head. "Aeryn's never seen anything like it, and although John might be able to help us with his information about the Ancients, I don't think it's a strong enough argument."
"We shouldn't need a strong argument."
"We shouldn't need to ask," Daniel said pointedly.
"I'm not leaving him, Daniel. Whatever it takes..."
"Carter! Daniel!" Jack's voice echoed back inside the ruins. "Let's go, kids. It's a long walk."
Daniel shrugged. "We'll figure something out."
Sam nodded, shouldered the pack, and the two exited the temple.
When they caught up with the others, Jack was still ranting about the trip to the Stargate. He turned to his 2IC. "Carter, don't you think it might be useful to have some means of conveyance on little jaunts like this?"
"I suppose so, sir, but everything we have moves slower than walking speed."
"You mean we can put a man on the moon, but we can't build something that covers ground faster than the average person?"
"Well, actually, sir, we haven't been able to put a man on the moon for about 25 years."
"Get out."
"After the Apollo-Soyuz docking and Skylab, we didn't have any reason to keep making the rockets. It would take us several years to even get the production lines running again."
He turned to her, eyes wide in mock amazement. "Makes our little adventures around the galaxy seem all the more strange, doesn't it."
She, just barely, kept from rolling her eyes at her CO. "Yes, sir. If you like, Colonel, I'll bring one of those motorized scooters for you on our next mission."
"Actually, Major, I was thinking of something more along the lines of a jet pack. Why roll when you can fly?"
Daniel, walking in front of his teammates, said to Aeryn and Zhaan, "Don't worry. We're really much, um, smarter, than we seem."
Zhaan nodded kindly, while Aeryn looked askance at John. He said, "Yeah, I know. How did my kind ever get this far?"
