Way to go, Mitchell. He had really screwed up big time. Instead of getting them anywhere nearer to escape from this place, he'd just made things worse. And it wasn't just that he was hurt.

Of course, he hated being hurt. Hated being shot at with who knows what Ancient stuff. Hell, it felt like someone had blown a hole right through his left shoulder, but he told himself that he was tough and could handle it. After all, it was nothing compared to what he'd went through in the Antarctic. He'd be walking around without any trouble at all as soon as they managed to stop the bleeding and wrap some gauze around the wound.

What he really hated was that in getting hurt, he'd probably made things worse for Jackson, too. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out that Jackson would be blaming himself now, thinking that he'd failed Mitchell, while no one else thought that was the case. Mitchell had forced him to guess, and if anyone was to blame, then it should be Mitchell. Not that anyone was going to be blamed. Starting a fight when they were stuck here indefinitely would be a very bad idea.

From where he was lying, Mitchell suddenly spotted something moving in his peripheral vision, and turned his head. Jackson was struggling to get up, to see what had happened. He was wavering. He shouldn't be getting up. Mitchell tried to shout to him, to tell him that it was all right, that he should just stay where he was. He didn't know if Jackson heard it. And then Jackson was crashing towards the floor. Once again. Mitchell was quickly losing count on how many times he had witnessed him faint. Only this time, it wasn't because of Vala and the bracelets, and they were nowhere near to the infirmary.

Teal'c was crouched by Mitchell's side with his back turned towards Jackson, so he couldn't see that anything had happened. Carter was by his other side, but all her attention was on his wound. She wasn't looking in the right direction.

"Sam -- T -- one of you -- go check if Jackson's OK-"

Carter lifted her gaze from his shoulder, and he could see her expression go from worried to extremely worried, veering towards dismayed. But she had her hands literally full of work. She couldn't just stop halfway through bandaging him.

Luckily there were two people around who were, if not really safe, at least sound. "I will go, Colonel Carter," Teal'c said.

Before Teal'c had time to give any news, Jackson spoke up himself, revealing that he was quite alive, for now.

"Teal'c? How long?" he asked.

"If you mean to ask how long you remained unconscious, it was merely seconds."

"Mitchell?"

"Colonel Mitchell is being tended to, and he is not in immediate danger of death."

"Unlike Jackson himself," Mitchell noted to Carter in a low voice.

Carter shrugged, but she did call out, "Teal'c, could you bring him over here?"

"If we just got ourselves a pair of beds, some tubes and wires and things that go beep, we could call this an infirmary," Mitchell joked, as Teal'c set Jackson down next to him.

Carter was still working on Mitchell's wound, so Teal'c started checking over Jackson.

Mitchell turned his head to one side to look at Jackson face to face, and found he was staring right back.

"Sorry, Jackson, I got the blonde nurse."

"So... you're clearly not dead yet."

"Yeah, as if you didn't know it takes more than one Ancient staff-blast-wannabe to get rid of me. And I've got this hunch that you're not dead either."

"I guess not," Jackson said, and paused for a while, frowning, with the look that he wasn't sure if he should go on. But he did. "For a while there, I thought I was."

"You and everyone else in this room, Jackson. From no on, no sudden movements, no standing up, definitely no walking, all right? Carter?"

"I'll second that. Fainting like that when trying to stand up is probably due to low blood pressure, which in turn might be due to a lot of things. I think we'd all feel more secure if you'd just stay still, Daniel."

"Sam -- how am I supposed to figure out the texts on the walls if all I can see is the ceiling?"

"So, maybe we'll have to bend the rules a bit," Mitchell answered before Carter got there. "But you could always start with that diary, right?"

"Right. There's years and years of notes in it, so it might take months for me to finish it."

"Just read the good parts, Jackson. The ones about opening the doors, and maybe that ice-mirror-device."

What makes this planet particularly interesting is its high gravity. It is curious and surprising that an intelligent form of life has actually developed in such an environment. Their physical appearance is different from most we have encountered, distinctly non-humanoid. These inhabitants call their word the Rowgh and themselves the Roskw. Their way of life is simple and nomadic, closely connected to the animals they call the Ler. Their material culture is not very complex. Ioannes insists that we go and see what becomes of them later. He is eager to learn how their language will evolve, when they will develop writing, and what it shall be like.

Daniel dropped the tablet on the floor and closed his eyes. He was wasting time. One of the Duodecim had an interest in languages. His name was Ioannes, and he was not the one who had written all this. If one of the devices on the tables contained Ioannes's notes, that might offer the key to understanding the texts and getting out.

He didn't want to ask others to run errands for him, but they surely wouldn't let him go and skim through the things on the tables himself. It was annoying, really, that though Mitchell's injury was every bit as spectacular as Daniel's, there we was, leaning against his pack and playing cards with Teal'c, while Daniel got the tiptoe treatment. Everyone was so afraid he'd just drop dead all of a sudden that they wouldn't even talk to him in a normal tone, let alone about anything serious or distantly exciting.

Not that he could blame them. When he had passed out, he had, for a moment, thought that that was it. Instead, he was feeling better again, for the moment, at least in some strange meaning of the word. At least he didn't feel his heartbeat unless he purposely concentrated on it. On the other hand, he had happily accepted a few blankets, and he was still feeling cold and shivery. Thirsty, too, especially since the others had been as cautious with giving him water as they were with everything else, and they were already counting their supplies and saving them so they could last as long as possible.

The longer it took him to arrange the walls, the longer they'd need to spend here. He didn't know how long they'd been here already -- he had smashed his watch when he'd fallen down after he'd touched the wall. It had certainly been several hours. Maybe half a day. Couldn't be a full day yet.

Ioannes. The Ancient linguist. Daniel could do with his knowledge right now. So he'd just have to ask for someone's help.

"Sam? What're you up to?"

"Working on one of the devices on a table."

"Could you try and look for something for me? Anything that looks like another of these computers, or some other way of writing down notes?"

"Sure thing."

If there was something there, Sam could definitely find it. Daniel picked up the diary again. He scrolled to the next page, which revealed a detailed description of the physiology of the Roskw, which mostly resembled huge worms that had limbs and big brains. A biologist would've probably found it extremely interesting, but at the moment, Daniel just couldn't care less. He scrolled on, through several pages of notes on the Rowgh planet, its climate, its geography, and a few comments on how the visits had gone from the point of view of the observers. Still nothing that might be even remotely useful. He skimmed through the next pages, until one sentence caught his attention.

We have known and studied technologies that allow us to visit alternate universes long before we entered this galaxy. The device is stable, the transition simple and without risks to the traveler, unless they should remain too long in a universe with their counterpart.

The quantum mirror. Familiar stuff. Daniel had been there himself, visited several alternate universes at different times. But maybe this would reveal something new.

The universes we have accessed so far have never been too far removed from our own, and the scope that the standard device offers has been tried and found limited. Some, Ansoi among them, have long argued that this is not enough, that it only scrapes the surface of all the possible, infinite universes that actually exist. That since the very beginning of our universe there has been the possibility of changes that could have altered its shape in countless ways. That there must be universes out there where our very race has never been born, universes where the vast world, the countless stars and belts of galaxies are and will ever remain lifeless and empty, and others which are the home to forms of life far stranger than what we have seen.

Yes, Daniel could certainly go with that. That there might be universes out there far stranger than those where Teal'c was still Apophis's first prime and Jack and Sam were married. Universes where there might be no Earth, or no humans. And others where Earth and humans were drastically different from what was now. He was anxious to see if the text was going where he thought it was.

Ever since the Duodecim first came together, Ansoi as one of the founding members, one of its main goals has been to find if these universes truly are there, and to discover a way to visit them. Thus their first project, one of the greatest, was to travel far, far back in time to build the Dodecagon, at a time as near to the beginning of everything as they dared, so it should remain, empty, perfectly sheltered, shielded and hidden from outsiders, in all those universes we would visit later. But the device itself still remains inoperative, after years of research.

The large device really was what they had suspected all along -- an advanced version of the quantum mirror. It was the one thing around which this entire research base had originally been built. They had actually traveled in time to build it when the universe was still young, so it would exist in all times and universes. It was amazing, grandiose, working not on a galactic or a universal scale, but multi-universal.

Daniel stopped reading. He knew he was getting agitated, even more so than before. No matter how the others had tried to protect him from it, he could do it all by himself, protected or not. This was a discovery far wilder than even the stargate system, and here they were, stuck inside it, unable to get out, to tell anyone of it. They might all die here right next to it and no one would ever know.

And all of a sudden, he was falling again, loosing all ability to concentrate and think properly. It had happened so fast that he could hardly believe it. His awe and amazement were fading into panic, only it was different than before.

There was a heavy weight on his chest, like one of those cover stones that had crushed his parents. Against it, his heart was fluttering like the wings of a butterfly crunched in a slowly closing fist.

He hadn't even told the others. They still didn't know what the device was. Might never know.

The diary fell to the floor with a clatter.

Playing cards with Teal'c wasn't a whole lot of fun. It wasn't just that he had the perfect poker face, he was also a very good player. Mitchell kept losing to him. It was doubly annoying combined with the continuous sting in his shoulder that made it extremely difficult to keep his cards steady in his shaky and weak hands. But at least time was passing more quickly when he had something to do, annoying as it might be.

Mitchell had placed himself so that though they gave Jackson all the peace and quiet he could get in this room, he could still see him all the time. Teal'c had done the same. They both saw how the hand that had been holding the Ancient computer above Jackson's face went limp. Maybe it was nothing, again, just a passing bout of weakness, but in the current situation, Mitchell couldn't help thinking the worst every time something went wrong.

Carter had been on her way towards Jackson, carrying a load of Ancient devices gathered from the tables. She tossed them all to the floor, ran to Jackson's side, checked for breathing and pulse -- and turned to look at Teal'c and Mitchell, shaking her head.

Talking about cold, sinking feelings, this came pretty close to crash landing an F-302 on the Antarctic and sitting there, alone, freezing.

Teal'c had already leaped to help Carter. Now, it was Carter doing mouth-to-mouth and Teal'c doing compressions, working in perfect coordination as if they had done it before.

For the first time since he'd been hit, Mitchell stood up. His feet were every bit as shaky as his hands, but he told them to behave, since they were not injured, and he had to get moving.

He made his way to the nearest table, leaned on it and gazed at the things on it. They hadn't checked through every single bit yet. If these were everyday stuff and items that the Ancients had thought they might need when running from their world to escape the plague, wouldn't they probably contain medical supplies? Ancient healing devices? Not that he had any idea what they might look like, and they might require the Ancient gene from anyone trying to use them.

He cast a glance at Jackson. Carter shook her head again. No change.

He gazed at the table. Silver platters. Silver plates. Small silver things with black decorations. Large silver things with large stones in them. And no idea about what to do with any of them. Last time Mitchell had tried to make things better, he'd ended up making things worse. If he'd start punching buttons at random, he might do it again.

He felt his legs giving in, and put both elbows on the table for support. No, he really wasn't going to collapse, too, so they'd have to worry for him and let Jackson go. No way. Agony flaring in his shoulder, hands clutching the table's edge, he slid down to the floor.

"Carter? Jackson?" he called out.

Carter looked like she was about to break out crying, or just break apart in general. They had all been on edge these hours they'd spent here. The fact that everyone had stayed so calm so far proved how professional they all were, and how much they had faced before. But if they lost Jackson... No, not going to happen.

"Keep going, Sam, Teal'c... Just keep going. Daniel's staying right here with us."

If Carter should give in and say Jackson was beyond their help, then Mitchell would step in and go on himself, no matter how hard it'd be to do CPR with half his shoulder blown off.

He started crawling towards Jackson.

A strange, faint sound rang in his ears, and at first he thought it was just in his head. But it was coming from the ice-mirror-device. He turned to look at it. The ice-like surface was shimmering a bright, pure white light. In a flash, it burst out from the mirror and started spreading slowly outwards from it, a wall of light.

When someone activated the stargate, the vortex lashed out and vaporized everything in its path. When someone activated this device -- he hoped it wasn't like that. His first thought was to back away from the light, but it was approaching so fast that he had no choice.

He was the closest to the ice-mirror, so it hit him first. And passed right through him. It felt strange and unpleasant, but not actually painful. Like liquid electricity. In a few seconds, it went through the others, and disappeared into the walls. Absorbing this kind of stuff was why they were there, after all.

He looked at the device again. Two figures were slowly taking shape from thin air at the side of the block nearer to Mitchell. It looked like they were made of ice, same as the device before it was activated. They looked humanoid, or more than that, like humans. One's fingers contacted the surface of the device, with the other's hand placed on his elbow.

Carter's voice, filled with emotion, made Mitchell turn his face away from the ice sculptures.

"Daniel!" she uttered.

Jackson had opened his eyes. Back among the living again. Whether it was because of Carter and Teal'c, or that odd wall of light that had come from the device, he couldn't tell.

"Sam -- 's okay -- Better now," Jackson gasped.

The room suddenly looked darker. The light from the activated device had went off. Mitchell looked at it again, and saw that the figures were no longer made of ice. They really were two humans. As he watched, the one who wasn't touching the mirror, a bald man in a long black coat, fell down, straight on his back, like a felled tree.

The other man had sand-colored hair and brown clothes with lots of pockets. He pulled his hand away from the mirror and turned to face the room, and SG-1.

Of course, he came to face four weapons aimed right at him, though two of them were more than a bit shaky.