As usual, Daniel answered, though it was unclear whether he actually thought Jack wanted information or was, in his own wry way, being sarcastic right back. "Well, I suppose anything's …possible."

"Did you understand me all along? Right, that's fair. Am I allowed to stand up now?"

Jack exchanged glances with Carter. An aura of total incompetence radiated from the cowering stranger, but Goa'uld had fooled them before, plenty of times. And Sam couldn't help thinking that it was incredibly opportune that he had run through the gate the while the iris was so temporarily incapacitated.

Shaking his head in mild disgust, Jack held up a hand to the gunners. "Hold your fire. You, hands on your head and stand up slowly."

"Uh, I might need my hands to get up, actually… Yeah, that's definitely broken. I thought I might have hit something on the way through. I sort of had to jump. There's a bunch of rocks around the portal. No worries, I can patch that up, doubt it's more than a hairline fracture. But it's really very painful now that I think of it. If I pass out you can probably just kick me. Just a minute, half a lifetime of medical school and I should be able to fix a cracked tibia." With a pained grunt, the man rolled over and sat up, wrestling out of the cloak.

He looked young and reasonably handsome, in a deathly-pale, angular, overly tattooed sort of way. His expression was dreamy and unfocused, half-hidden by shaggy black hair that seemed to explode any direction open to it, wherever not bound by coppery-looking ornamentation. The All-American Goth Boy fresh from a Celtic Amerindian convention. Face twisted in a grimace of pain, he roughly hauled a bloody, non-responsive leg to a more comfortable angle and improvised a splint with the cloak and his belt in about half a minute.

"Alright, that'll hold. Now, on my head, did you say? Funny, I've always heard 'on the ground,' but your way really makes more sense. You could have all sorts of things on the ground, but what're you going to do, store bombs in your hair? Talk about an occupational hazard. I'm sorry, am I talking too much? Just let me know if I'm talking too much. I'll shut up. Could I get a boost? Not meaning to be a bother, but I was never much for that agility thing. That's my wife's job, really. Was. Either way I can't really get up from here. Oh, wait, forgot to ask, am I in friendly territory? You look pretty military, did I get my lingo right? Friendly something or other, I'm sure of that. One of my brothers is military. Maybe was military, since I haven't heard from him in months. But no more shooting? It's making me all panicky and that usually leads to an asthma attack or two."

Teal'c set down the deathstick of shiny orange doom, strode purposefully across the room, and hooked his arm under the man's, hauling him unceremoniously to his feet. "Colonel O'Neill, this man is not a Goa'uld."

Sam nodded. "He's right, sir."

"Yeah, you can tell? It's kind of a defense mechanism of mine. I just seem too incompetent to be dangerous. It throws people. The downside is I really am that incompetent. Thanks for the boost, my friend, mind if I lean on you a li—Oh dear God and all that is holy you're a Jaffa. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Could have gone anywhere in the galaxy and I get home invasion part two! Last time I listen to my mother about anything. First time, too, actually. Look, if you're just about to hand me over to more of those damn parasites I'm just slitting my throat right now. Or I would if… Damn, lost my knife. Why do these things always happen to me? Wait, I might have a razor somewhere…"

Teal'c looked down at the man from the very awkward angle necessitated by the difference in their respective heights. "There is no need to harm yourself. This planet is not in the hands of the Goa'uld."

"Right, because I always believe what Jaffa tell me. That's never, ever steered me wrong. Well, unless you count getting my wife turned into a Goa'uld, my daughters made hostages, my immediate family killed, and my life's work stolen! Was that the right note of sarcasm? I'm not very good at it. And that was collectively the Goa'uld, not Jaffa, so I don't even know what I'm talking about. But you're still… Not nice. Damn, I'm terrible at insults. Let go of me!" The man wrenched his arm away from Teal'c. Without the support, he promptly fell over and was unconscious by the time he hit the floor.

"Medical team, stat!" O'Neill called over his shoulder. To Carter, he said, "Think we can trust this guy?"

"Hard to say, sir." Carter swallowed, looking down at his unconscious figure. "That he's not Goa'uld doesn't prove anything. I mean, the chances against someone coming through just as the iris was down are astronomical, but I can't think of how it could be planned. If I were to follow my gut instinct, I'd say he's okay."

Dr. Fraiser swept in at that. "Infirmary. This looks pretty bad."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, no one likes a broken leg, but is that really bad by our standards?" He seemed to catch the incongruency in his own statement. "But if it's just a broken leg… why did he lose consciousness. Right."

"Do we need to institute a quarantine, Doctor?" Hammond asked, surveying the goings-on with casual disdain.

"You can't catch starvation, sir." Fraiser held up one of the man's arms. His long sleeve slid back to reveal a wrist no wider than a little girl's. "This man has been malnourished and undernourished for quite a while. From his complexion it's safe to guess he's also anemic, and definitely running a high fever. You could say the broken leg is the straw that broke the camel's back, but he was probably on the point of collapse as he came through the gate."

"He also mentioned an asthma attack as a possibility." Daniel quailed under Fraiser's mildly irritated glance in his direction. "…Just trying to be helpful."

"Well, I'm sure there are inhalers somewhere. Come on." She led the medics out of the gate room.

O'Neill turned to Daniel. "Your 'helpful' track record isn't very good, now is it?"

Daniel appeared not to notice the criticism. "Does anyone have any idea what he might have meant by 'taking directions from a necklace?'"

"I believe I can answer that question, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c held up his hand. "He dropped this object when I helped him stand." In his palm rested a small stone on a chain, carved with the dialing code for earth.

Is "dialing code" the right term? I couldn't think of it. Feel free to correct me.