Administrator Caulder sat at his grand place facing the magnificent windows that sang to Brenna's soul as she stood waiting for his reaction to the latest numbers from the mining endeavor. She was sorely tempted to turn around and stare out at the cityscape instead of watch Caulder's dour face as he read. It was night on the surface and the dimmed lights reflected like ghosts on the glass of the dome. The closest Brenna got to the dance of shadows was the flicker of fires to heat food and warm bodies. It wasn't the same.

"These look promising," Caulder said and snapped Brenna back to the man before her.

"Yes, I think so."

"The work seems to be progressing well. Is there any estimation when the first of the recently excavated mineral ore will be suitably prepared for use in the machines?"

Brenna nodded as she answered, "We're expecting the first batch to be ready for use in two days."

"Good. You're doing well, Brenna."

"It is an honor to serve, Administrator."

"Yes. Now, one matter I must broach with you... the Earthers have contacted the government head and asked permission to return within two days, which has been granted."

Brenna nodded and took due note of the news. The Earth world had remained in contact with their world even after the disappearance of SG-1 and the eventual conclusion that all had been lost outside the dome. Brenna usually got a fair warning when possible that more soldiers from the planet Earth were coming if only to keep a closer eye on Jonah, Carlin, and Thera. So far it had never escalated into a problem, but Caulder was very careful with his newly acquired workers. It had a lot to do with the fact that the government wanted to maintain diplomatic relations with the planet Earth. Their meddlesome tendencies aside, the Earthers were resource-rich and technologically on close to equal ground with the natives of Brenna's world. There was much to offer and much to be gained as long as the Earthers' curiosity was curtailed. Caulder and his kind had learned their lesson with SG-1.

"I'll take the necessary precautions," Brenna assured. Necessary precautions which simply meant keeping the team occupied. She'd order a thorough medical examination of Thera and she'd have Carlin and Jonah working over-time in the mines until their Earth-kin were gone.

Caulder nodded then asked, "Has there been any further 'discoveries' in the mines?"

"No, Administrator. I begin to think that will be an isolated incident."

"We can only hope so, Brenna. Even still, I expect to be informed immediately of any further discoveries and the nature of them."

"Of course."

"Return to your duties."

Brenna dipped her head. "It is an honor to serve," she recited and left the room of the sprawling vista to return to her station underground.


Carlin turned circles in the tel'tac scout vessel. He was himself and apart at once. He could see through his own eyes and see himself. He was wearing an outfit at once unknown and fitting to him. Green pants and jacket with a black vest and a boonie hat stuffed in his pant leg pocket. He was wearing glasses and the world was brought into sharp focus.

Carlin looked once more around the tel'tac. It was brightly lit, the walls almost glowing golden. The cargo hold was empty and Carlin was drawn to the pentagonal door. He stood before the smooth dark panel and at first he was stymied. Then he knew where to look and turned his head to locate the control panel of six rectangles in three rows of two. Suddenly it made sense and he knew what to do.

Carlin reached out and pressed one square. It glowed green under his touch, maintaining its luminous hue until Carlin stopped exerting pressure. Carlin's hand moved as though by muscle memory and it input a pattern. On the final contact and green glow the door hissed and pulled up and Carlin jumped back when he found himself face to face with a large man. Taller than him by a head, dark-skinned, bald, with a golden symbol branded on his forehead.

Carlin blinked at the man who must surely be an enemy but there was no reaction of fear from him and the tall stranger was looking at Carlin like he knew him. Carlin felt the man's name crawl up his throat, on the tip of his tongue.

Carlin flinched and opened his eyes. The barracks were alive with the sounds of sleeping bodies wall to wall. The red-tones and shadows of the room quickly reoriented Carlin and distanced him from the world of his dreams. Determined to go back to sleep, Carlin turned on his side, pulled his thin blanket up tighter around him, and closed his eyes.

Enough remained of his dream, however, for him to recall he'd been on a ship like the one in the mines. It had been well-lit instead of cloaked in shadow. There had also been a means to open the door...

Carlin's eyes shot open once again as the sequence on the panel burned into his memory. He desperately tried to remember the layout of the ship in the mines, trying to remember if such a panel had been present on that ship. The task was not exceedingly difficult.

Despite Brenna's order that the room be forbidden to all the workers, Carlin had been captivated by it. There was something in its walls that spoke to him, waited for him to figure it out. He'd taken to sneaking into the room to study the walls and the details of the cargo hold whenever possible. It was more frequently than Jonah or Thera would ever suspect and Brenna would be furious if she knew just how much time Carlin had spent in the off-limits room.

For two weeks he'd been returning to the small room, and slowly things started to coalesce in his mind. The language on the walls came loose in his brain like a rusty hinge finally oiled and he found he actually read the language well. He was able to skim over the raised markings almost as easily and swiftly as he did writing in his own language. The walls of the room, however, told him very little. It was mostly passages hailing praise to Lord Babi.

Even if the script on the walls had been less than elucidating Carlin could not stay away. There was something there he had to find, to uncover, and he went back again and again searching for that elusive truth which continued to stubbornly evade him.

Because he knew the room from one corner to the other from so many clandestine visits was the reason that when Carlin tried to recall a detail, such as the wall panel near the door, he remembered quickly that there was indeed a panel that matched the one in his dream.

He only had to wonder if the code that unlocked the one in his dream would do the same for the door on the ship in the mines.

Carlin, deciding his actions in the moment, sat up in bed as quietly as possible and looked around for signs of anyone else awake. There were only the still forms of his barrack-mates and the snores of more than a few individuals.

Carlin carefully slipped out of bed and began to pad toward the entrance/exit to the barracks. No one noticed him abscond and Carlin's luck similarly held all the way to the west wall of the caves. The night shift mining crew was there and Carlin's efforts at stealth grew tenfold. The night shift foreman, Kaegan, knew Carlin well and knew very well that he wasn't on her crew. More than once he'd come close to being caught by her in his nighttime excursions to the ship but so far she'd never actually seen him steal away into the mining tunnel. Hopefully his good fortune need only hold out one more time before he discovered the secret to the ship.

Carlin crept and wove his way between equipment, carts, rocks, and other workers until he'd reached the mouth of the tunnel and slipped into the shadows, broken only by the regularly placed lanterns. Carlin snatched up a lantern on his way inside and went directly toward his target. As soon as he reached the first branch leading to the ship he knew he was safe because Brenna had closed down that entire offshoot in the interest of deterring anyone from looking into the mystery at the end.

Carlin's feet almost knew the walk without him and he quickly reached the hole in the stone and the ship's side and ducked inside. The walls of the ship tantalized him as it had from the start. He felt the most comfortable here as opposed to any other place in the caves. It seemed to call to him, his for only he knew the language on the walls and the tale in the glyphs.

The marks, however, were not why he had come tonight.

Carlin went to the door and his lantern's light barely touched the panel next to the sealed entrance. Carlin allowed one small smile then tried to recall the sequence from his dream. It was remarkably intact and vivid for a dream but he wasn't about to question his lucidity.

Carlin reached up and depressed the first rectangle and was rewarded by a green glow and a rush in his veins.

Carlin input the rest of the series then held his breath, waiting.

For a second nothing, then a groan and creak as the door (obviously damaged) ground upward and in doing so exposed an entirely new dimension of the mystery to Carlin.

He was almost giddy with anticipation and excitement.

Carlin inched into the dark room beyond and waved his lantern about to get a lay of his surroundings. The control room, and he knew that's what it was, looked exactly as part of him had expected it to look. A dead console in the center and beyond that two seats, a pilot and copilot of sorts. The windows were a wall of red rock.

Carlin moved around the room and soon noticed the two shapes slumped in the seats at the front of the ship. Carlin suppressed a sense of dread as he crept forward until finally he was at the side of the pilot's chair.

The figure was an armored body, long since dead. The skull and agape jaw of white teeth were proof enough that the ship had crashed long ago. Carlin looked to the floor where, among the metacarpal bones of the Jaffa's hands, he saw a staff of unusually balanced and contrived design. He knew it was a weapon and more than simply a method of hitting someone, but how he knew that he could not say.

Carlin stepped back and surveyed the room for anything else. He couldn't wait to tell Jonah and Thera about this. First, however, he wanted to know if there was any more information about the fate of the ship and of the planet before he pried himself from the vessel.

Carlin moved to the console at the pilot's location, wincing at the petrified corpse he had to stand beside, and surveyed the controls. They were in the language he could read with frightening ease and when he found a promising toggle he pressed down on it.

The ship sputtered to life, at least partially, and literally 'sputtered'. The lights flickered sickly and a coughing wheeze of overtaxed, long-dead engines spat at him.

Then a broken voice that nearly sent Carlin into a dead run before he realized it had to be a recording. By the time he calmed himself the glitch in the system had jarred loose enough for him to make out the words uttered by the disembodied voice. It was deep-pitched and speaking a tongue that, until that moment, Carlin had only heard in his head.

Carlin listened, fascinated and elated by his find, until the words being conveyed over the speakers actually began to sink in. Then he frowned and began to back away from the bodies.

"Oops."