Back in the briefing room, the group reassembled, minus Dr. Fraiser.

"His story about random dimensional rips flies in the face of conventional physics!" Carter 
was nearly ranting. "He has to be lying."

"Major Carter," Teal'c asked, "have you not encountered things on other worlds before that 
conflict with your knowledge of physics?"

"Well, yes, we have. But Teal'c, this is different. He's talking about magic and randomly 
occurring dimensional portals."

"Well," Daniel interrupted, "We do know that travel to other dimensions is possible, or at 
least I do. From personal experience."

Teal'c cocked his head at Daniel. "You are referring to the parallel dimension you 
inadvertently visited?"

"Yes. I don't think it's such a stretch to say that he might have come from another dimension 
as well. And we've all seen technology that could be considered magic before. Perhaps where 
he's from, there's a device that produces a type of energy we're unfamiliar with."

"If that's the case, it might be possible for multidimensional vortexes to materialize at 
random." Carter said thoughtfully.

O'Neill started to ask her to clarify, but thought better of it. "That doesn't matter. We 
can't trust him."

"Why not?" Daniel asked.

"Daniel, he claims to have visited hell....SIX of them. Now, do we really want to trust a guy 
who admits he just came out of hell into your laps?"

"Well," Daniel retorted, "I think we have to assume that if he has visited hell that it was 
inadvertent."

"Why?"

"Because no one would willingly visit any hell from any mythology ever written. He claims to 
travel the dimensions through random portals, so isn't it possible he went through one to a 
world he would have rather avoided?"

Carter interrupted. "You're both assuming hell exists."

"And who's to say it doesn't?" Daniel shot back. "Do you have any idea how many cultures 
refer to a place of eternal punishment for people who live bad lives?"

"Interesting as this all is," Hammond, who had been listening up to that point, said, "Our 
real concern is his offer to help. Can we accept it?"

"I do not see any reason why we could not." Teal'c put in.

"I don't know sir." Carter said.

"He seems friendly," Daniel put in, "and if he's anything like the Haup'Taur we've 
encountered before, he'll be useful."

"Indeed. If he is like the Haup'Taur we have encountered in the past, he will quite powerful. 
And we will not be able to hold him here against his will."

"But he came from hell!" O'Neill repeated.

"He's obviously powerful." Daniel said thoughtfully. "I mean, we saw him heal those wounds 
right in front of our eyes. He came through the gate with no weapons, even though he claims 
to have been in hell and seemed to have been fighting a running battle."

"As well," Teal'c added, "he seems to have a deep hatred of anyone who keeps slaves. I 
believe he can be trusted."

"They've both got good points sir." Carter agreed.

Hammond looked at O'Neill. "Colonel?"

O'Neill looked at the others in the room. "Oh, what the hell. But I recommend keeping a close 
eye on him sir."

"Then it's agreed. We'll see what help he can offer as soon as Dr. Fraiser finishes with 
him."

"I just did." Dr. Fraiser walked into the room. "No symbiotes and he's in perfect health. 
There's not even any scar tissue from the wounds he had when he came through the gate. 
Frankly, I'm stumped."

"A lot of cultures believe in the healing powers of the human mind." Daniel said. "Maybe this 
is just an extreme example.

"Maybe. I just don't know."

"Well, let's go find out what he can offer. Doctor, have your patient meet us in the control 
room."

 
When Rafgar was led into the room, the first thing that caught his eye was the metallic cover 
over the rift generator, which Major Carter had called a stargate. It was glowing red hot. 
"Looks like they're about to punch through that thing."

Carter looked over her shoulder at him. "According to our calculations, we still have about 
20 minutes before that happens."

Hammond glanced at him. "That's our problem. Our enemy is technologically superior in every 
aspect. We don't know for sure what kind of numbers they can send through the gate and they 
have a lot more experience than we do at this kind of warfare."

"Why not just open your barrier and send a grenade through before they can react? That'd blow 
their partial beam cannon and buy some time."

"The wormhole is one way." Carter answered him. 


"Oh...I hate those."

"Why's that?"

"One way rifts always seem to get me into trouble."

"It's not a...oh never mind."

Hammond looked at her and back up at Rafgar. "Can you help?"

"Right now?" Rafgar shrugged. "I doubt it. I'm an explorer, not a scientist. When the 
fighting starts, though, I can be a force to be reckoned with. Especially in the absence of 
wizards and other psychics."

"It is very likely that you will not get that chance." Teal'c put in. "It is a common practice 
to throw a grenade like device through the stargate to disable the defenders before sending 
warriors."

"Sounds nasty."

"Indeed it is."

"So, what?" O'Neill put in, "You want us to wait for them to come through and you'll help us 
fight?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, it doesn't look like we can stop them....unless..." Rafgar thought for a second. "How 
does that barrier work, exactly. If it were just a metal plate, the particle beam would have 
vaporized it by now."

"Actually," Carter answered, "it is normal metal. It works because it's too close to the 
event horizen for matter to reintigrate when it comes through the wormhole."

"In that case, there may be something I can do. You say that it will fail in 20 minutes?"

"Roughly. Why?"

"When it goes down, I can replace it with a telekinetic wall. I can't say for sure how long I 
can hold it, but it'll buy some time."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps you will not need to hold it for more than a few seconds."

Everyone in the room looked towards him, puzzeled. Hammond spoke first. "What do you mean 
Teal'c?"

"Without first disabling the defenders, it is very difficult to successfully invade a world 
through a stargate."

Rafgar stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So what you're saying is that if I put up a wall long 
enough to block their stun grenade, or whatever it is, we should be able to take them?"

"History suggest that we should sustain few casualties defending the gate. We should be able 
to shoot the invading Jaff'a before they realize we are still active."

Hammond looked from one to the other. "Can you do it Rafgar?"

"No problem."

O'Neill cut in. "Sir, we're talking about letting an army of hostiles just walk through our 
gate."

"I have done this before Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c said matter-of-factly. "Last time, I lost 
only a half dozen warriors and was able to destroy the invading force."

Everyone in the room looked to Hammond expectantly. "Do it."