Mitchell was shouting at Galen, trying to wake him up, but since Mitchell's voice kept growing louder, Daniel figured he wasn't getting anywhere.
Daniel was freezing. It was so cold in here. And he knew it'd happen to them all. They'd all freeze to death unless they could get Galen to power the Veraeda again. It was all his fault. Of course he had never meant to touch that wall, but no matter how dizzy he'd been, he should've known better, should've stayed far enough to prevent anything like this from happening.
"Damn it, there's got to be something we can do!" Mitchell yelled, and stopped his useless shouting for a while.
Someone was wrapping a blanket around him. It didn't help a whole lot. His teeth were chattering.
"Are you still cold, Daniel Jackson? Shall I acquire another blanket?"
Teal'c. Why wasn't Teal'c wrapping himself in blankets instead? He'd get cold too. He'd freeze as well.
Daniel shook his head at Teal'c, trying to tell him to take care of himself.
"Still nothing?" Max said, somewhere farther away.
"Nothing whatsoever. I'd take him for dead if it weren't for the fact that he's still breathing and all that," Mitchell answered. They were talking about Galen.
"That's bad. Really bad, because I'd rather not go on with the walls if he's not around to help, just in case we've got it wrong."
"You've got something on the walls? A possible order?"
"Almost. I recognize all except for one text, but I can't read all of them, so I can't be sure of the dates..."
"So, you can't do it?"
"No--I... Well. No, I can't do it. I know that that text, for example, is written in cuneiform, but that's just the script, and I can't read it. I need to know the language, and something about the contents, to be able to date it. With Daniel's help, I'm pretty sure I can. At least we can get a very good guess for an order. Even if Daniel doesn't know a thing about the one single text that I can't recognize, at least we've got eleven out of twelve. Best we've ever had."
"Except that Daniel's in absolutely no condition to help you, so you'll just have to do better on your own."
Right. They were speaking about Daniel as if he wasn't here at all. He was still here, he was still perfectly conscious, though just more than a bit puzzled. Why weren't the others the least bit worried about freezing to death? They didn't have the time to start figuring out wall combinations, as good as the chances might seem.
"Can't you just write the texts down and show them to him?" Sam joined the conversation.
"No, no--first of all, it'd take lots and lots of time to copy each of the walls exactly, and even then, I might still make mistakes. No, it won't do."
Daniel got it now. He'd figured out what was going on. They weren't freezing. They were out of the freezing room already. No one else was cold, just him, because of the fever. Because of the Ancient disease. So, that was why he felt like this. One thing still hadn't changed, though--they had to get out, soon, or they would die. He had to help them get out.
"No, I can--" he tried to say, but it wasn't loud enough for Max or Mitchell to hear. Teal'c, who was a lot nearer, heard perfectly well, and placed a hand on his chest to keep him down.
"No, you should remain as you are."
"I can--read cuneiform. Max can't."
"Look, Mitchell. Cameron. We've got no other way out, and if we don't figure it out, we're all dead. I don't see any other way," Eilerson said matter-of-factly.
"Yes! Let me," Daniel managed a bit louder.
He heard approaching footsteps, and then the blurry forms of Sam, Mitchell and Max emerged above him.
"Right. It's not like you're going to touch the walls ever again, you'll just take a quick look at them, it's not going to kill you--is it?" Mitchell asked, sounding like he tried to reassure himself. The last words weren't aimed at Daniel, but at Sam. Daniel didn't hear or see her answer.
"Daniel? If you're ready... Teal'c, let's help him up."
Daniel tried to help them, to get his feet under him and get on them, but it wasn't much good. Teal'c practically lifted him up, and Mitchell offered his arm too, so that he had someone supporting him on both sides.
As he stood up, the darkness lurking at the edges of his vision suddenly jumped forth, and for a while, he couldn't see anything at all. And the way he felt--what he had felt when he'd been lying on the ground, what he'd thought had been awful, had been easy compared to this. He just hung in Teal'c and Mitchell's grasp and tried to keep breathing, and not to throw up again.
"Daniel, you all right?" Mitchell asked, concerned.
He couldn't say anything, he had to wait a moment, just a while, maybe it would get better, even if just a bit...
In a moment, his vision cleared again, enough for him to see the people around him, the Veraeda, and the walls. All there was to see.
"Ready," he whispered, and took a tentative step. He felt the room tilting and turning around him, but he took another step, with Teal'c and Mitchell following and supporting and actually doing most of the work. But he could do this. And he had to. The walls. The way out.
Mitchell didn't like this at all. Jackson should've just concentrated on staying alive, instead of having to work on these goddamn walls again, but Eilerson was right, they had no choice. Even if they could wake Galen up, which they apparently couldn't, they probably still wouldn't be able to switch rooms again without killing him. Besides, hey, this might actually be very, very good. They might get the right order and open the walls, and finally go home.
Teal'c and Mitchell pretty much dragged Jackson over to the wall Eilerson had pointed to them.
"That's the one I really need some help with. It's been a very long time since I've last read any kind of cuneiform writing, and I can't place this exactly. So, Daniel, if you can say anything at all..."
Jackson just nodded slowly, and stared at the wall for a good long while. Mitchell waited, listening to the strained sound of his fast breathing, feeling awfully impatient.
"Sumerian," Jackson finally rasped.
"It's Sumerian? Good. How old? Any estimate would do."
"Old. 2500."
"Yes, that's very good! That means it doesn't overlap that one other text. But we'll go these through one by one, if that's OK by you?"
Jackson gave another tired nod, and turned his face to the next wall. Mitchell motioned to Teal'c that they could move a few steps that way.
"It's Latin-based, I can read it, but I have no idea of where it could be from," Eilerson told.
Jackson had hardly looked at it for two seconds, when he started laughing. It sounded awful, completely breathless, but hopefully it was a good sign.
"Mal Doran," he offered as a vague explanation.
Mitchell wondered if he'd heard right, or if Jackson was just being delusional.
"Mal Doran, as in, Vala Mal Doran?" he asked.
Jackson nodded, but didn't say more than that, except for "Contemporary."
Of course, the people of a world where Vala had used to be a Goddess had called their trials Mal Doran after her. Maybe the text had to do with that. It made sense, as extremely weird as it was to run into her name in this place. If the texts really were generated totally at random, then this was some coincidence.
"So, it's the same age as you, 21st century? Now, as to the next one..."
Jackson shook his head.
"Never seen anything like it?" Eilerson sounded defeated.
"No."
"I think I have, actually, but I don't think I've ever heard of a name or a date for it. And it's odd that there's just seven signs there, doesn't look like much of a text. Well. That's the one wall we won't be able to date."
They went on. Jackson seemed to be handling it surprisingly well, really. They had the Ancient text as always, a bit of Chinese, some Goa'uld, something that Eilerson and Jackson agreed was a really strange, futuristic form of French, and then, a text that said nothing to Jackson, but Eilerson stated it was something called the "Constitution of the Interstellar Alliance, written in Pak'ma'ra".
So, they were halfway through the room, when Jackson's knees gave in, and he would've fallen down without Mitchell and Teal'c.
Mitchell really thought Jackson'd better have a break. "Want to lie down for a while?" he suggested.
Jackson shook his head vigorously. After a while, he got his feet back and supported at least most of his own weight again. He turned his attention to the wall.
"Linear A."
"Yep. Nice and clear and easy," Eilerson replied.
Next one--Mitchell frowned at it. He recognized it right away. It wasn't writing, it was music, all the lines and notes and things carved into that stone slab.
"And this is something I can read too, so we can just move on, and Daniel needs not bother at all, even if he could read it, which I doubt. It's the third Brandenburg concerto, third movement, by Johann Sebastian Bach."
Jackson didn't protest to that one. At the next wall, he gave a slight groan. Mitchell couldn't tell if it was because of the text, or just the pain. Eilerson did seem to have an idea about that, since he answered it with,
"I know. It's annoying, isn't it? But I think we can be pretty certain about it. I still think it's got to be from the future, so we put it last, and that's it. Unless that one completely unrecognizable text comes last after all... But that's to be seen."
Now that Mitchell looked at the text, it did look pretty familiar. He'd seen something just like it, though he'd not spent a long time looking at it. It was one of the texts from the very first universe, the Dodecagon they had gated to. One of the texts they had never been able to date, since they hadn't gotten past the first six.
Just one text left, and then they'd have gone the full round. The last text--Mitchell couldn't believe his eyes. Plain English. He could read it just as well as the next man. Not that it said much to him, though. It was a poem. He skimmed through the lines, not really reading it, until one ominous word caught his eye.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
"An excerpt from Ulysses, by Lord Tennyson, from the 1840's, at least in our universe," Eilerson said.
"Same," Jackson agreed in a ragged exhalation--and went completely limp so suddenly that Mitchell almost let him fall. Luckily Teal'c was on his guard, and caught him. They eased him down to the ground, and Mitchell sought for a pulse. Faint and fast, but still there. And it had been the last wall.
"Eilerson? Are we going home?"
"We've got an exact date for all but three texts, and of those three, I've a very good guess for two. Just one wall still escapes us, and that's not likely to change. But it's just one."
"Yeah. Just one. We can handle this. We're going home."
Author's Ramblings: Did I ever mention how much I like Reviews? The previous chapter left me wondering if the whole "bunch of people piled in a heap in front of the mirror" thing was a bit over-the-top. Now, my real question of the day is... I never figured this'd end up being my longest story so far, but that just seems to be what's happening. So, it's a bit long, but I hope it's not boring, at least. If it is... Well, you should probably let me know, though I don't know if I can do anything about it. :-l