Catch you on the flip side

Part Eight - Crazy Scheme

Hammond stared at the tacky-looking red phone on his desk. He knew that sometime in the next hour he would have to stop procrastinating and pick up that phone, call his boss, the Boss. The President had always taken a keen interest in the Stargate Program, and wished to be kept informed of any developments, including the more domestic concerns of base personnel. More than that, the President was on friendly terms with SG-1, and from what Dr. Frasier had told him, half of the unit was deteriorating rapidly.

Teal'c's Kelnor'rem had lasted several hours, during which, he reported, they had at first shown improvement, and then reverted to their mentally troubled state. Humans, it seems, possess a generally more 'disquiet mind' than Jafa, which means that meditation, however successful, has little lasting effect on the untrained subconscious.

When the General had visited O'Neill and Carter a little over thirty minutes ago, they had both been placed in physical restraints due to their repeated attempts to beat themselves over the head with nearby objects in an attempt to do what Frasier's drugs could not.

He felt helpless. Clueless.

A sudden, impatient rapping on his office door jolted him from his melancholy thoughts.

"Enter," he snapped.

Dr. Jackson virtually bounded into the room, wearing the familiarly animated expression on his face that usually meant he'd made a discovery.

"General, I found it!"

"It?" Hammond prompted, feeling his own tense excitement rise at the prospect of a solution to all this.

"Well, ah, I've been looking into the history of the Dionen--" he hesitated as he saw the General's eyebrows raise in question, "-- It's what I think was the name of the population on P3X-663, so called because they worshipped the god Dionysus, who we know from Greek mythology was..."

Hammond flashed him a get-on-with-it look.

"Moving on, I found another text, this time written in Ancient, which acted as a sort of Rosetta stone for me to understand the rest... including the correct operation of the coin. General, I know why Jack and Sam are going crazy. They used the coin without knowing the proper method, sort of like accessing the internet without anti-virus software."

"You're saying they have a virus?"

"Err, no, I'm saying they were vulnerable to attack. The text talks about the precautions the priests had to take to avoid "becoming many", getting overwhelmed by the voices. They could single out individuals to talk to and return safely into their bodies."

"How will this information help Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter?"

"I'm not sure. But I'm pretty confident I could use the coin properly myself, and go ask someone who could help -- the voices."

"Oh no you don't. There's no way I'm losing another member of SG-1 to that damned artefact!"

"General I can do it! I know exactly what the priests used to do to operate the device. At least let me try!"

George kept his hard gaze on Daniel for several seconds, in his mind steadfastly reaffirming his denial of the idea and at the same time knowing that SG-1's lunatic schemes almost always worked, and it was very probably the only thing which may save Jack and Sam. He looked back at the red phone, wondering if, in the next hour, he was going to have to report the loss of three people to the President.

"Proceed, Dr. Jackson."

- - - - - - - - -

As he stood in the centre of his tiny quarters, his papers, tablet-rubbings and textbooks all around him, with Dr. Frasier and General Hammond standing by and the blue Dionen coin in a steel dish before him, Jackson had to admit to himself that he was scared witless.

He'd been overplaying his confidence in order to get the General's permission, but truth be known he only had his best guess at the translation of the ritual which would hopefully enable him to do what had last been done around 1500 years ago. He fervently hoped this whole thing wouldn't be a spectacular failure resulting in him losing his sanity too. Daniel had a fairly good idea of what it was like to be insane, and after the chaos of the Machello incident he'd been particularly appreciative of his mental faculties.

"Whenever you're ready, Dr. Jackson." Janet's voice, though clinical, held an audible touch of concern.

Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He began to repeat the words of the ancient text, having learned them by heart, and hoping his pronunciation was correct. The translation meant, 'Fathers who live in the middle-world, hear me. Mothers who exist without Time, listen. Children of Dionysus, join me to serve our lord with wisdom.'

He repeated the foreign words three times, each time dipping his hands into a prepared bowl of yellow-ish solution, which was just sulphur in salt-water. Again, the archaeologist hoped that his translations of the substances were correct. Sulphur was to be found in plentiful supply on P3X-663, giving an attractive yellow tint to the landscape, and there were vast oceans and briny lakes.

Finally, hands dripping, he picked up the coin and concentrated hard on nothing. At this point the knew that thinking of something or someone in particular may ruin the whole thing and send his conscious flying off to visit them. Instead he emptied his usually cacophonic mind and listened.

Standing beside him, Dr. Frasier had taken her eyes away from the monitoring devices to watch Daniel's face intently. She saw the muscles in his face slacken and he swayed backwards, about to fall. Stifling her instinctive exclamation, so as not to break his concentration, she caught him and, as a nurse rushed up to help, they lowered him onto a futon just behind.

In the silence, everyone watched and waited.

End of Part Eight