Disclaimer: As usual, the characters and settings do not belong to us and we will try to do justice to their creators.
This is my translation of a fanfic written in French with my friend Marion and this is our first stargate fanfic, so please be indulgent…
We are eager for yours comments, you can contact us at marion.c@frisoo.freesurf.fr and egwene@caramail.com.
The action takes place sometime during season 5 (so Daniel is not « dead » yet).
Chapter 5Colonel O'Neill made a sign for his team to be ready to guard against all eventualities. They switched off their torches and posted themselves behind the columns, waiting for this mysterious person to appear. The waiting seemed to last forever for the SG1 members. On one side of the corridor, Sam and Jack had their P90 in hand, ready for use, whereas on the other side, Teal'c was already aiming at the newcomer with his Goa'uld lance and Daniel had his handgun out of his holster.
At last the shadow got closer and they were able to make out a man in his fifties, wearing blue dusted shirt and pans, he was alone and did not seem to be armed.
He was slowly approaching their position when Jack decided to show up. He made a step towards the middle of the passage and found himself face to face with the mysterious individual.
The stranger let out a scream and stopped dead.
"Who… who are you? What are you doing here?" he stammered.
The other members of the team had joined Jack, they switched on a torch to light the passage. Daniel answered.
"We are explorers from a planet called Earth, we mean you no harm," he said, stretching out a hand as a sign of his good will.
But the stranger did not look convinced by Daniel's reassuring tone and he made a step backwards.
"Wait. My name is Daniel Jackson and this is Colonel Jack O'Neill, major Samantha Carter and Teal'c; we are… hum…"
"Lost," Teal'c broke in.
The alien was not reassured in front of the team's threatening attitude, he was staring at the arms Jack and Sam were still holding. Daniel made a silent request and they lowered their weapons.
"What's your name?" he went on with a friendly tone.
"Hulkin."
"Excuse me, Hulkin, but you might be able to help us. We entered the pyramid to study these texts, " Daniel said, showing the inscriptions on the columns, "but we can't find our way out."
"There is no exit," Hulkin answered with a sigh.
"We came in by a door!" Jack yelled in exasperation. This mission was really turning into a nightmare.
"I did not say there was no entry, I said there was no exit."
"This is not possible!"
"Jack, calm down. Hulkin, could you explain yourself?" Daniel offered with worry, "starting with who you are."
They all sat in a circle in the middle of the corridor, waiting for explanations.
Hulkin cleared his throat before starting to tell his story. He seemed more at ease.
"I come from a world called Derion. We discovered the Stargate about 50 years ago but we did not know how to operate it, until some archeologists found the control panel about two month ago. We decided to start exploring the planets we could communicate with."
"Up to that point, our stories have a lot in common," Daniel said softly.
Hulkin went on.
"6 months ago, we have discovered this planet and that temple. I was appointed to decipher the inscriptions that cover the columns, it is a language we had never seen before and my superiors were curious to know what we could learn here. I came with a team and we entered the pyramid. A few hours later, we realized we would not be able to get out."
"You mean you have been stuck here for 6 months?"
Hulkin smiled at the astonished look on Jack's face. He had a resigned look in his eyes.
"More or less."
"How did you manage to survive this long?"
"With my team, we had brought water and food supplies for several months, the translation was to be a difficult task."
"And were is your team now?" Teal'c asked.
Hulkin lowered his eyes and hesitated before answering.
"Dead. When we first tried to get out of the temple and failed, my companions were demoralized but we went on. Several months later, when it became obvious we would never get out of here, they preferred a quick death rather that starving in darkness."
"And you have been walking for 6 months in that corridor without ever coming upon an exit? I don't see how that's possible."
"That's exactly what the others said. I don't see why this is so difficult to believe, you told me yourselves you were lost."
"The others?" Daniel asked with curiosity.
Chapter 6
"Yes, a group of four persons, they were trying to translate the inscriptions as well."
"By the way, did you succeed in translating the text?" Daniel asked.
"I understood certain parts but I think there must be some kind of code to read it because the sentences do not make sense otherwise."
"Absolutely, look, you only need…"
"Daniel!" Jack groaned, "there are more important things to consider just now."
"That group, how long ago did you see them? Who are they?" Sam asked.
"I met them about three days ago. They were translating the columns. They were strange: they had two voices; they made me think of some legends on my planet."
"Are there pyramids on your planet? And what about your culture?"
"Daniel!" groaned the colonel once more, "you will have this conversation when we're out of here. Now, find us a way to locate Jacob and his men and a way to get back home."
"Why didn't you stay with the others?" Teal'c asked.
"They would not believe me. And they were fascinated by their translation."
"Excuse me, but you say there is no exit and yet you walk as if you were looking for one. I find that a little odd."
"In fact I am looking for the first column, the one where the text begins."
"And how do you intend to find it? "Jack asked, not convinced.
"Excuse me Jack, but I think that by reading the text we could find the beginning and reconstruct the whole text. I believe it's our best chance to get out of here. The answer is probably written on these walls!"
"He is right, sir. We can't go on aimlessly. Hulkin is proof enough we will find nothing that way."
"All right."
Daniel stood up, followed by Hulkin. And they both started the translation after Daniel's explanations of the code. Teal'c sat between two columns and began to Kelno'reem. Sam took her watch turn, Jack set up comfortably and fell asleep.
Two hours later Daniel and Hulkin were moving between columns for their translation, Teal'c had not moved. Sam went to wake up her commanding officer so he could take his shift.
"Sir, your watch turn."
Jack turned back to face the translators and realized they were going afar.
"Daniel, stay with us, please! Daniel! Daniel! " Jack yelled, slightly upset.
Since his friend did not respond, Jack turned to Sam.
"Can you warn Teal'c and join us? I think our friends have lost themselves in the inscriptions!"
"Yes, sir."
Jack strode to the anthropologist and Hulkin to stop them while Sam and Teal'c were gathering their equipment to join the others. Once everybody was reunited, they set up for a quick meal.
"So Daniel, have you found an exit door yet?"
"Jack! Come on, not yet! I can't read the Ancient language fluently. But we have made significant progress on that temporal trap story. It appears to be some place built by the Ancients to lure Goa'uld and imprison them. They made known amongst the System Lords that this temple was filled with technologies completing and extending the power of the stargate."
"And surely our dear friends could not resist the temptation!"
"The story doesn't tell."
"Shouldn't we have found corpses if that was so? " Teal'c interrupted.
"Rabat-joie… " Jack sighed.
"Could somebody explain me who the Goa'uld are?"
SG1 told their new friend about those they had so often fought, about the Tok'ra to which the people he had met belonged, they talked about the different people they had met…
"I understand better some of the passages I read. Even if I didn't have the code, I was able to find some coherent sentences. They mentioned some planets. It made me think of what your friends were talking about when I came by them. Apparently, the text they were reading was telling of the pyramid construction and its technology."
"Do you realize what this means, sir? It could give us an excellent hint to find our bearings!"
"If we could find them!"
"There might be a way." Daniel muttered.
Chapter 7"Explain yourself."
"It's quite simple, in theory, at least. This is some kind of labyrinth like the ones we have in legends from the Ancient Greece on Earth."
"Up to that point, we agree, but I don't see how this could help us to get out."
"Let me finish. In that kind of place, the architect always built another exit to escape if he were to be locked up inside, which frequently happened. A secret passage if you may. Some think the constructors of the pyramids in Egypt did the same."
"And you have just found this secret passage, right?" Jack asked.
"Well, no, but I have not looked for it. We were concentrating on translating the columns but the key may be somewhere else."
At these words, Daniel and Sam stood up, they looked at each other and understood they had the same idea, Sam lit up a torch as Daniel took his notebook and they headed for the wall on their right, behind the columns. The rest of the team and Hulkin also stood up and joined their two companions.
"Daniel?"
"Hum? Yeah, Hulkin. You see, we focused on translating the text on the columns and we forgot there were also inscriptions on the wall behind. Since the text was offering a logic account, we didn't have the idea to look somewhere else."
"I see what you mean… The story on these columns may just be nothing more than a lead, a way to direct ourselves."
"Exactly."
"Look," Daniel pointed a part in the text, "the language is the same but there is no trace of the different signs that compose the code we have deciphered on the columns."
Daniel lit another torch and opened his notebook while Sam and Hulkin were inspecting different parts of the wall. Teal'c and Jack had took up their weapons and stood watch in the corridor.
Suddenly Daniel turned his head, he compared what he had just read on the stones in font of him and what he had noted in his book a few hours earlier.
"The sentences are the same," he mumbled with astonishment.
"What?" Hulkin asked, standing up.
"The sentences are the same, the ones on the wall and the ones we have translated on the columns."
"In that case, your supposition on a secret passage was incorrect, Daniel Jackson."
"Not necessarily."
Daniel passed his finger on certain parts of the text written on the wall.
"The sentences are the same, but here they are at random and don't build up a logical sequence. Furthermore, the same part of the text is repeated several times, in different places."
"Wait a minute," Sam interjected, "we agree on the fact that this pyramid is some kind of temporal trap. Well, I took time to think about that while you were trying to translate the text, and I came up to the conclusion that we are not in a single corridor."
Teal'c and colonel O'Neill closed up to listen to her explanations.
"In fact, the only explanation to this apparent continuity is that each time we change section, we pass, without knowing it, though some kind of EM field which projects us towards the next section at random.
"Carter?" Colonel O'Neill asked with a sigh.
"Sir, this corridor is full of turns and intersections but we can't see them and we don't control where we are going."
"And how is that helping us find Jacob?"
"We only need a way to make these intersections visible."
"I'm listening."
Sam looked at colonel O'Neill and sighed. She was going to answer when Daniel whose eyes had not left the wall interrupted her.
"This part is in relief."
He pressed a sentence of the text with his hand and swiftly all heard some kind of an electrical vibration. The four members of SG1 and their new friend turned towards the wall, they backed a few paces to the middle of the corridor, as they did not know what to expect. The noise grew louder, suddenly, making all conversation impossible. And then the wall moved and a new passage opened before their eyes. The vibration stopped.
"Daniel, where does this passage lead?"
"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it takes us back to the first part of the corridor we have explored."
"How did you reach that conclusion?" Sam asked curiously.
"The sentence I pressed was referring to the part of the text I had translated there."
"If you're right, we should be able to find my father easily."
"Hulkin, what was the text the Tok'ra were translating when you met them about?"
"The construction of the pyramid, but it was three days ago already."
Daniel pressed the sentence in relief again and the passage closed. He made a few paces to his left, walking along the wall and lighting it with his torch.
"Here we go. There's a sentence relating to the construction of the pyramid," he said pointing at some part of the text with his torch.
And before Jack or anybody else could say a word, he pressed the wall and a new passage opened. Jack and Sam walked in first, followed closely by Hulkin, Daniel and finally Teal'c. The passage was dark but they could clearly see an opening a few meters ahead. They strode resolutely when suddenly a Zat discharge went pass Jack's head.
Chapter 8Jack threw himself back behind a column on his left, followed by Sam who was pulling Hulkin along, while Daniel and Teal'c were taking cover on the right side of the corridor.
The members of SG1 pulled out their weapons and took combat positions. While responding to the shots of the adversaries they still could not see, they made their way in the corridor, from one column to the next. All of a sudden, Jack caught a move in font of him and ceased fire.
"So, Jacob, that's how you treat friends?"
The gunshots stopped immediately.
"Jack, is that really you?"
While all the persons present walked out of behind the columns, Sam dashed to Jacob.
"Dad! How are you?"
"I'm OK, what are you doing here?"
"That's a long story. Malek came to tell us you didn't come back."
"And with our usual generosity, we came to look for you," Jack concluded.
Teal'c' wasn't paying attention to the discussion and was watching the source of light.
"O'Neill! This is no way out we have found! It appears to be some kind of Goa'uld lighting source. I have already seen such things."
"Exactly. We found that during one of our explorations. It takes little room, long for hours and can be reloaded," one of the Tok'ra explained.
Jacob used the interruption to make the introductions. Then came the time for the explanations.
"How did you manage to open a passage in the wall?" started Kaleb.
Sam and Daniel explained all the discoveries they had made up to that point: the code on the columns, the reading of the walls, the sentences in relief… as well as their suppositions: the working of the maze, the reason for the construction of the pyramid… Jack and Teal'c watched the corridors again. Then it was Jacob, Kaleb, Garik and Nolbe's turn to tell what they had discovered.
"We had also understood the code and we suspected the presence of turns in the corridor. We have translated a passage that will surely help us find the exit," Jacob explained.
Jack, immediately very interested by what he had just heard, left his watch position and came closer with Teal'c.
"We have translated a passage about daylight. But we never saw any opening in this pyramid, beside the front door."
"It doesn't mean there is none. I think there are thousands of sections in this corridor. We surely haven't seen the tenth of it! "Jack said, fatalistic.
"I have been in here for six months and I haven't seen any opening."
"He's right Jack. Anyway, I think it's worth a try!"
Everybody look at the colonel with attention, waiting for his decision.
"You may be right. All right. So Jacob, where is that passage?"
Jacob stood up immediately and went to the wall on his left. He looked for the text for a few minutes without result. Jack ended hailing him, exasperated.
"So, have you lost something Jacob?"
It was Selmak who answered.
"We must have passed though one of these EM fields you told us about. I am looking for a sentence that could help us to the place where that passage was written."
"If you told us what else you have read at that place, we might help," Sam broke in.
And so Daniel, Sam, Jacob and Garik looked on the walls for an element of orientation whereas Nolbe, Kaleb and Hulkin rested, the other two standing watch.
After an hour, Sam, Garik and Jacob called the others simultaneously.
"That's it, I think I've found it!"
They looked at the three sentences and decided to use the one Sam had discovered.
"It might be reasonable to leave a distinguishing sign to mark the sections of the labyrinth we have already visited," Teal'c suggested.
"This is an excellent idea. We could use pieces of cloth."
Daniel immediately tore a pocket from his jacket and dropped it on the floor. Everyone took his pack and Sam pressed on the sentence she had found. A passage opened. Once they were all through, the translators rushed to the walls.
After twenty minutes or so, nobody had found any sentence referencing to daylight. They decided to come back to the last section. Then they tried Garik's sentence.
In the same way, they looked on the walls for a sentence about daylight. Fifteen minutes were enough to make sure they had not found the right section. They came back to their staring point again. Then it was Jacob's sentence, also followed by failure.
"That's enough. I think everybody needs rest. We have been up for almost 20 hours. Let's get back to the passage where we met, sleep a few hours and start again the search," Jack ordered.
Nobody found anything to say. Sam dropped a pocket like Teal'c and the colonel had done in the last two sections. Then they walked through the passage and install themselves to sleep.
Six hours later, when Daniel woke up, he saw Nolbe standing watch, Sam and her father were looking for indications on the walls. The others were still asleep. Sam hailed her father. She showed him a passage. Daniel got up to join them, frustrated he could not hear what they were saying. When he arrived near them, Sam turned to him.
"I think it's the right one this time. Lets wake the others."
In five minutes, everyone was up, ready to leave. They walked through a new passage. Kaleb found immediately the sentence about daylight. They looked at one another and Hulkin pressed the sentence in relief.