Two strangers had come through the large central device, but Daniel wouldn't do the first contact stuff. Mitchell could handle it. Way better than Daniel, at the moment. And where were those blankets when he really needed them? It was so cold in here. He was shivering, and dizzy even though he was perfectly still and flat on his back. He kept his eyes tightly closed.

His hand was a stupid, painful, dead weight, like a block of wood, without any feel aside from the inextinguishable fire. Or rather, his hand was just one example of the pain that engulfed him completely, hands, feet, head, back and chest alike. It didn't make much sense, because he'd only brushed the wall with the tips of his fingers, but, of course, it had been an Ancient punishment for picking the wrong one, and who could tell where that would lead.

Mitchell was speaking with one of the strangers, the one who hadn't fallen down unconscious. Daniel just heard the words, but couldn't grasp their meaning.

"So, where do we start?"

"We don't. Not until Galen comes around."

"We don't know if he's ever going to come around again. He's got a better chance of coming around about anywhere else than here."

"I'm not going to risk it. Neither should anyone else. Even though it's just one wall we can't date, you know what it could mean. Nerve gas, we all die. Room temperature falling, we all die. What happened to this alternate version of you could happen to us. And whatever Daniel's got right now, I'd rather not try it either."

Daniel heard his name--how did this stranger know his name? But no, of course he did, Mitchell had told him. If he'd only stop hurting all over, he might be able to start thinking again.

"Maybe we need to try something else, then. Ancient wall goes first, right?"

"It does, but-"

"Cameron, that's not going to work, we know Ancient technology is way more advance than that-" Sam's urgent tone registered even in Daniel's hazy mind.

"I'm just amazed we haven't thought of this before," Mitchell's answering voice was firm.

There were steps shuffling to and fro, and then, all of a sudden, a loud crash, and another, just a bit more silent, like an echo.

Daniel started at the unexpected sound. He could feel the panic getting him again, the agitation he had tried to avoid all along, because he knew that it'd not be good, not after he'd got that shock from the wall. But he couldn't help it.

There was a heavy weight on his chest, a cover stone crushing him, like his parents. He could feel his heart fluttering desperately.

Mitchell watched the silver plate bounce back from the wall and crash to the floor. The wall stayed dark. No lights. Either it was the wrong one, or then it just hadn't done anything. As far as he could see, there hadn't been any consequences, so either it hadn't been wrong, or then it'd just caused something that worked slowly or was hard to notice. There was only one way he could be sure.

Without saying a word, hoping to avoid any useless comments from the others, Mitchell marched to the wall and put his hand on it. The text lit up instantly. It was the right one. So, tossing inanimate things at the walls to activate them obviously wouldn't do. They'd just have to touch them like they'd done before. Well, of course it couldn't be that easy.

"So, Eilerson--next wall, please."

"I'm not telling you, you'll just get us all killed," he answered stubbornly, turned his back to Mitchell and walked away, towards Galen.

Mitchell followed, of course. They didn't have time for this.

"Eilerson-"

A worried call from Teal'c cut him short. "Colonel Mitchell, Daniel Jackson appears to be in distress."

Instead of running to Jackson, when he knew he'd not be able to do anything to help, Mitchell continued where he'd been going in the first place, to Galen's side.

Eilerson had knelt next to him, and looked up at Mitchell, giving him a faint smile.

Galen had opened his eyes.

Mitchell just couldn't resist the urge, so he knelt closer too, and said, "So, how's our Sleeping Beauty doing?"

"Beautiful as ever, but asleep no more," Galen replied silently. It looked like he wasn't doing that bad.

"I've got good news for ya. We're going out," Mitchell told him.

"Cameron? Is he awake? Galen? Daniel could use some help," Carter yelled from Jackson's side.

"You up to doing some more miracles, Beauty?"

Galen closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and sat up.

"Help me up. I'll see what I can do."

Both Eilerson and Mitchell offered their arms, and Galen accepted all their aid. When he was on his feet, he shrugged them off. For a while, he just stood there, hanging his head.

"Everything all right?" Eilerson asked, sounding sincerely concerned.

"In time, everything will be. Until then, we'll have to do with what we have."

He walked over to Jackson, stopping only for a short glance at the remains of the alternate SG-1 on the floor.

When Galen got to Jackson's side, he placed one hand on Jackson's chest and took out the crystal he'd held before--a healing device of some sort, Mitchell figured, since it'd showed up every time he was healing someone.

Mitchell had only been away from Jackson for some minutes, but he was looking a lot worse now. It probably had to do with the trickle of blood making its way out of the corner of his mouth, joining the one flowing from his nose. His breathing came in short, rapid gasps. As Galen held his hands in place, it slowly began to even out and slow down.

Mitchell thought it looked like Galen was really getting somewhere, that Jackson was starting to look a bit better off. Still, Galen shook his head as he withdrew his hands.

"Daniel?" Galen asked softly.

Jackson's eyes opened just a little. They were so bloodshot they looked more red than blue. He peered at Galen and asked, "Who're you?"

"Galen."

He frowned slightly and closed his eyes again. Both Eilerson and Galen were staring at Mitchell as if they had something important to say, but didn't want to say it here. Mitchell sighed, stood up and walked away from Jackson again. The two others followed.

"So. Speak."

"We must get out soon. I can't heal him."

"He's looking better to me," Mitchell frowned.

"It won't last. All I can do is a few tricks that offer a moment's relief. They won't last, and soon he'll be too sick for me to do anything at all. I believe it's a viral hemorrhagic fever of some sort, but to prove that, I'd need a blood sample and the proper equipment to study it. I'm not sure I could come up with a cure even then."

"So, are we all going to have it?" Eilerson was obviously mostly concerned for himself.

"I can't tell. The way we've all been in close proximity to him, most of all, to his blood, which might be highly contagious, suggests that it's more than likely."

"Anyway, what I had to say was, I need to go through my idea of a wall sequence with Daniel, and then we can try it. Though that one wall's a wild card. It could go anywhere," Eilerson gestured towards the unknown wall with the seven symbols.

Galen's eyebrows had climbed an inch higher at the sight of it. He took a few steps towards the wall and said, "I know this."

Eilerson looked like he was about to jump and hug Galen. "Really--you do? Honestly?"

"It's the Code I have been following for most of my life."

"What code--what's it-" the foreboding expression on Galen's face stopped Eilerson's questions short. "Uh, never mind. Can you tell how old it is?"

"It was set down a thousand years ago."

"A thousand years before our time? As in, 1200 CE?"

Galen nodded.

"Then we've got it! We've got an exact order, and it's not a guess anymore!"

"You've got to double-check with Daniel before we take a shot at it?" Mitchell asked.

"I think I'd better. Just in case."

So, back to Jackson's side it was, then. Mitchell did agree with Eilerson. It was better to have two people thinking this over, rather than just one. They'd all learned their lesson about what the cost of one single mistake could be. And he did trust Jackson a lot more than Eilerson, no matter how sick and feverish he was.

"Daniel, you with me here? We've got the walls figured out, right? Ancient first, then Sumerian?"

"Sumerian... Not Egyptian?"

"No, there's no Egyptian in this room. That was the first room, Daniel. This is the fifth. The one where we get out. Ancient, Sumerian, Linear A, how's that?"

Daniel gave a little cough, and answered, "Right. Yes."

"Then, Galen recognized the one we didn't know as some techno-mage thing that's from the 13th century. So that would be next. And then the Bach piece."

"No, no," Daniel muttered. "Chinese."

"Chinese... You think that particular text is that old? You sure about that?"

A silence, a few rattling breaths, and a nod.

"You're probably right... And if you are, you saved us from at least one mistake with that. So, Chinese is fifth, then Bach. How old do you think the goa'uld text is?"

"Not."

"Not old? But it's older than the Mal Doran text?"

Another nod, another small cough, and another stream of blood running down Daniel's chin.

Daniel knew what was going on. He knew he shouldn't tell anything. It was just the Replicator-Sam trying to get to the Ancient knowledge stored somewhere in his mind. She was using some truly strange methods to get there. And he couldn't resist it. Somehow, he thought he had to answer. That it was the right thing to do, even though it wasn't. The paradox was tearing his mind apart, just like the pain was shattering his body.

"Tennyson, Goa'uld, Mal Doran... Then the ISA declaration, though you would know as little about that as I do about Goa'uld."

Daniel didn't know what to say. He wasn't really sure what this apparition, this hallucination, was talking about. He remembered the texts, he remembered they must be put in the right order, but he couldn't recall why, or what that had to do with the knowledge of the Ancients. So, he just nodded.

"And we'll finish with the post-French, and then that unrecognizable text from the first room."

First room. The white glow from the ceiling. The Dodecagon. Something that he should know, something important, but he just couldn't remember.

He was back in the small room on the replicator ship, with Sam standing in front of him. Except that it wasn't Sam, not really, just a human-form replicator made to look like her. And before Daniel could do anything--as if there was anything he could do--her hand morphed into a sword, and she struck him, running it right through his chest.

With all the hurt he was already suffering, that one stab didn't feel as bad as he'd have expected. But he could feel its effects, he felt the blood filling his chest, flowing out of the corner of his mouth. He couldn't breathe. He was going to die. Unless he could ascend again. But where was Oma?