Mitchell entered the upper level of the Ancient chamber and searched for Sam. He couldn't see her anywhere in the chamber. He patted Daniel's shoulder. 'Hey, Jackson. Where's Sam?'

'Over there.' Daniel waved vaguely in the direction of the lower level.

Mitchell skipped down the stairs and looked around. He was about to yell at Daniel again when he caught sight of a pair of Air Force issue combat boots sticking out the bottom of a console. He crouched down beside the Colonel's legs and tried to see what she was doing. Her body was half-way into a hole in the wall. 'Sam? What are you doing?'

Her head rose a millimetre. 'Hey, you're back.' She wiggled out of the work-space. 'One of the consoles has a short I was fixing it.' She said motioning back at the hole.

Mitchell nodded and reluctantly dragged his attention back to his orders. 'General O'Neill has reported the visit of the Tok'ra and the status of the Ancient weapon to Bra'tac and Teal'c.'

'How did they take it?' Sam asked clambering to her feet.

Mitchell rose with her. 'Bra'tac went off to organise an emergency Council session. Apparently Ba'al probably did have something to do with the weapon not being destroyed; Cral'k was involved.' He paused as she made a face. 'The General was planning to stay for the session and then head back to the SGC. Teal'c will update us on the outcome.'

'OK.' Sam nodded. 'Anything else?'

'Just that I should remind you and Daniel to stay away from the chair.' Mitchell said with a smile.

'Funny.' Sam said dryly.

'Can I do anything to help in here?' Mitchell asked looking around.

'You read Ancient?' Sam asked already knowing the answer.

Mitchell shook his head. 'You want me to go guard outside?'

'Sorry,' she said with an apologetic smile, 'I know it's not the most exciting duty.'

'You and Daniel do your thing and Teal'c and I back you up. I get it.' Mitchell said. 'And it's all good to me. Besides,' he continued with a wicked grin, 'on our last mission when I was doing guard duty I got zatted and knocked out; not exactly unexciting duty.'

'That isn't the norm.' Sam retorted.

He gave a look of blatant disbelief.

'Well, OK.' Sam admitted. She gave a wicked smile of her own. 'We are SG1 after all.'

'Yes, ma'am.' Mitchell agreed happily.

'Check in every hour. I want an early warning if you get zatted again.' Sam ordered as he gave her a salute and headed back up the stairs.

She sighed and headed over to Doctor Lee. 'How's it going Bill?' The scientist was examining all the information they had been able to pinpoint on the unusual power source.

The small round man scratched his beard and gestured at his laptop screen. 'I can't understand this.' He admitted. 'My Ancient is a little rusty but if I'm reading this right I think there is some kind of an energy field being used to access sub-space in another dimension a bit like the technology you came across on P9X391.' He shook his head. 'How the ZPM produces the charge to access the dimension…' he shrugged helplessly.

'Keep at it, Bill.' Sam said. 'It sounds like it might be useful information.'

She checked in with the other scientists including Kyrel and Tolam who had rejoined them before she went upstairs to sit next to Daniel. 'Anything?'

'On why the Ancients came to Dakara, yes. On how we turn the weapon off, no.' Daniel admitted. He gave a frustrated moan and leaned back in his chair to take his glasses off and rub his eyes furiously.

'OK. Well, maybe this gives us a start.' Sam said encouragingly. 'Maybe if we understand more about the context of the weapon we'll understand how it works.'

Daniel reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a ration bar. He opened it almost absent-mindedly as he waved back at the console. 'OK. From everything we and the Atlantis team have been able to work out the Ancients built the city of Atlantis on Earth but they suffered from a plague and took Atlantis to the Pegasus galaxy to escape it. Ultimately they met the Wraith and they came back after losing the war with them. Eventually, most Ancients were able to ascend or left Earth.'

'Right.' Sam agreed.

Daniel took a bite of the bar and chewed enthusiastically before he waved back at the monitor. 'This is where it gets interesting; we were wrong.'

'Wrong?' Sam's brow creased in confusion.

'Wrong.' Daniel gestured sending a spray of crumbs across the room. 'According to this, the Ancients didn't even evolve on Earth.'

Sam stared at him. 'But…'

'They came from another part of the universe trying to escape some kind of religious crusade.' He wrinkled his nose. 'Something like the Inquisition.'

Sam sighed, her blue eyes rueful. 'That would explain the lack of evolutionary evidence back on Earth for a race predating our own evolution.'

Daniel nodded and swallowed the mouthful of food he had taken while she spoke. 'They didn't even go to Earth first.'

'They came here.' Sam surmised.

'And built this outpost and some Stargates which they call Astral portals.' Daniel said waving a hand at the building around them. 'They started to explore and realised the galaxy was fairly empty and lifeless. And that's all I've got so far.' He popped the rest of the ration bar in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

Sam patted his arm. 'It's more than we had a couple of hours ago.'

Daniel grimaced. His blue eyes snared hers. 'You know how I told you about being in the diner talking to Oma and Anubis?'

'I remember.' Sam said quietly.

'Anubis told me that the weapon was originally intended to seed life in the galaxy not to destroy it.' He looked at her seriously. 'Could he have been telling the truth?'

Sam considered it for a moment. 'I guess.' She shifted in her seat and gestured. 'All life has an electrical current running through it; it helps keep cellular cohesion, transmits neural transmitters and generally keeps the body working. The way we think the weapon works is to send a disrupter wave through sub-space which, if set at the right frequency, will interrupt the electrical current.'

'And the interruption is enough to cause everything to lose cohesion.' Daniel concluded. 'Like with the Replicators.'

'Right. Now, theoretically, you could create a wave that somehow initiated or amplified the electrical current rather than disrupting it,' Sam said, 'but you would have to have all the building blocks that make up the chemistry of life already present.'

'So you go out sprinkle the essential ingredients, zap it all with a giant microwave and a few millennia later you have intelligent life.' Daniel muttered.

'Well it's not really a microwave but yes, you've got the general idea.' Sam frowned. 'If that is what the device was originally used for I think it was modified later to be used as a weapon.'

'That would make sense when you think about.' Daniel said crossing his arms.

'How do you mean?' Sam asked perplexed.

'Say the Ancients came here first, created the machine and seeded life – maybe they even stayed here at Dakara a while – but then there was obviously some kind of disaster and the outpost got buried. They left, found Earth, built Atlantis, everything proceeds as we think it did. Only they get back and they're worried about the Wraith following them…'

'And they decide to use the machine as a weapon.' Sam concluded. 'If the Wraith did get to this galaxy and attack in the same kind of numbers that had overwhelmed them in the Pegasus galaxy, they would be able to destroy all of them easily in one go.' She chewed her lip. 'It's possible that the Wraith would require a different disruptor setting to humans or Ancients even; our various evolutions happened in different galaxies and the weapon can be set very precisely.'

'So the Ancients come back and build the city and monuments on the surface here.' Daniel said. 'And it could explain why they tunnelled back to this part of the lost buildings – they needed access to the control chair.'

'It's a great theory, Daniel,' Sam said, 'but…'

'But it doesn't help us find a way to destroy the machine. I know.' Daniel sighed.

She patted his shoulder as she got up. 'Keep at it. I'm going to help Bill with the power source.'

'OK.' Daniel was already leaning forward, his blue eyes returning to the text on the screen.

It was another three hours before Sam ordered the study team to take a break. They all spilled out into the warm Dakara sunlight for some air. The three SG1 team-mates automatically took up a guard position on the ground in front of the group of scientists who rested by the side of the mountain.

Sam turned her face up to the sun and breathed in deeply. The air in the chamber was a little stale and it was good to feel the breeze over her skin.

'I've been meaning to ask you who was the Tok'ra who visited?' Daniel asked curiously.

'Delek.'

'Oh.' Daniel smirked. 'Bet Jack was pleased.'

Sam gave a small smile. 'I can't say I was pleased to see him myself.' She gestured with her canteen. 'The Tok'ra never visit us without a hidden agenda.'

'Rule number eight.' Mitchell said sagely. 'The General told me that that was rule number eight.'

Sam rolled her eyes. 'Well, he was right. They were going to use us to get here so they could destroy the machine themselves.'

'Nice,' commented Mitchell.

'What did Jack say when he found out?' Daniel asked his eyes alight with interest.

'He told Delek not to let the iris hit his ass on his way back through the gate.' Sam grinned.

Mitchell hooted with laughter as Daniel chuckled.

'Sounds like Jack.' Daniel commented smiling. He rubbed his knees. 'So the Tok'ra have a spy in Ba'al's court.'

'A compromised spy.' Sam said. 'There's no way Ba'al didn't leak the information on the weapon purposely. He was hoping to stir up the anti-Tau'ri feeling again.'

'And using the Tok'ra as the messengers guaranteed him that the Jaffa would have reacted badly from the start.' Daniel murmured.

'Hopefully, the Jaffa will go for the idea that Ba'al interfered with the weapon being destroyed and we're only reporting his meddling rather than tying to meddle ourselves in their decision.' Sam said.

'But we do want the weapon destroyed, right?' Mitchell said.

'Right,' Sam agreed, 'but we don't want to make it appear to the Jaffa that we're trying to dictate what they do.' She sighed again. 'We're hoping the fact that we have a counter-measure will help convince them that we don't really have an interest in the outcome of their decision.' She found herself pinned by two sets of blue eyes.

Daniel found his voice first. 'We have a counter-measure?'

'Sure.' Sam lowered her canteen from her lips. 'Didn't I mention that to you guys?'

They both shook their heads.

'Oh.' Sam gestured with the canteen. 'Well, we have a counter-measure.'

'How did we get a counter-measure?' Mitchell asked bemused.

'I…er…built this morning.' Sam admitted.

'You built it this morning?' Daniel repeated. A worried look sparked in his eyes. 'Sam…'

'I designed it when we thought Anubis was going to push the button.' Sam said defensively. 'All I needed to do was refine and adjust it a little.'

'Wow.' Mitchell said. He took another sip of his water and suddenly clued into the way Daniel was frowning at Sam and the way she was avoiding the archaeologist's gaze. He looked from one to the other as he screwed the top on his canteen. He wondered at the uneasy tension between his team-mates. He got to his feet. 'I'll go and…uh…check on the others.' He motioned behind him and moved away.

'Thanks, Cameron.' Sam said absently.

'Sam,' Daniel began as soon as Mitchell took a couple of steps away from them.

'Daniel, I'm fine.'

'Sam, you're the only one who can use the control chair and now you're building counter-measures to Ancient technology in the space of a morning?' Daniel argued. 'Doesn't that remind you of…?'

'How the General acted when he had the Ancient repository downloaded into his head? Yes, I know, Daniel.' Sam admitted grumpily.

'So?' Daniel pressed gesturing at her. 'Shouldn't we be calling the Asgard or something?'

'Carolyn didn't find anything wrong with me,' Sam protested, 'and I'm not speaking Ancient.'

'Yet.'

'Daniel, the General's symptoms followed a regular pattern; he began to talk in Ancient, then he began to build things and he was always going to be able to use the chair in Antarctica because he has the gene.'

Sam recited the information so fluently that Daniel realised that she must have thought about it a lot herself. 'Maybe we should stop looking for a way to switch the weapon off and start focusing on what activates the chair.' He suggested.

'I'm not the priority, Daniel.'

'Says who?' Daniel muttered.

Sam smiled. 'I appreciate the thought and if I start talking in Ancient then believe me I'll be the first back into that chair to find out what's going on.'

'Maybe we should use the chair anyway.' Daniel said. 'We're not finding much on the weapon trawling piece by piece through the system.'

'It's tempting.' Sam admitted hugging her knees to her.

'You know not using the chair wasn't really an order.' Daniel mused. 'More like a suggestion.'

'Daniel…'

'And Jack's not coming back here.' Daniel commented. 'He's going back to the SGC.'

Sam pondered it for a moment. 'It would be a lot quicker.'

They looked at each other and both swiftly got to their feet.

Sam waved at the entrance as they passed the resting scientists and Mitchell. 'We're heading back in. You guys stay out here a while longer and rest up some more.' She was gone before they could answer hurrying after Daniel down the passageway. They stood in front of the chair for a moment.

Sam crossed her arms over her chest. 'I'm having second thoughts.' She admitted. 'Maybe this isn't a good idea.'

'Come on, what's the worst that can happen?' Daniel coaxed.

'I wipe out all life in the galaxy.' Sam said dryly.

'OK, bad question.' Daniel said. He gestured at the chair. 'What if you only focus on switching the weapon off?'

'Right.' Sam took a step up to the chair.

'Hey!' Mitchell's yell had them both turning guiltily towards the upper level. His blue eyes narrowed on them suspiciously remembering the ninth rule. 'General O'Neill's on his way down the path with Teal'c.'

Sam and Daniel exchanged a concerned look and quickly took the stairs to the upper level. They all made their way back outside just in time to greet their visitors.

Jack frowned as they all came to a halt outside the mountain. He took his baseball cap off and rubbed a hand through his damp sweaty hair. 'Carter, Daniel. Any luck on finding a way to destroy the weapon?'

'No, sir.' Sam reported.

'We've barely made a dent into the information in the system, Jack.' Daniel added folding his arms. 'It could take days, months even, before we find anything useful.'

'I thought you might say that.' Jack sighed.

'What happened with the Council, sir?' Sam asked.

'The Council agreed to destroy the weapon, Colonel Carter.' Teal'c answered.

'That's good news.' Sam said.

'Indeed.' Teal'c said with satisfaction.

'They're going to blow the thing up. We just wanted to check you hadn't found another way of doing it. I've been invited to stay and watch.' Jack said cheerily. 'Want to come?'

'Thank you, sir but I have a lot to do here.' Sam said with a smile.

'Daniel?' Jack asked. 'I hear there's going to be popcorn.'

'Thanks but on balance I'd really rather not watch an Ancient artefact blown to a million pieces, Jack.' Daniel said dryly.

Jack smirked at him and his brown eyes drifted to Mitchell. 'How about you, Mitchell?'

'Me?' Mitchell asked.

'Colonel, you don't mind me borrowing the Colonel for a little while, do you?' Jack asked his chocolate eyes gleaming at Sam with amusement.

Mitchell looked hopefully at her. 'I mean if there's going to be popcorn and all…'

She rolled her eyes. 'Go. Have fun.'

Mitchell broke into a grin. 'Thanks, Sam.'

'Great.' Jack slapped his cap back on. 'We'll see you all later.' He looked back at Daniel and Sam. 'And don't use that chair; that's an order.' He smiled at their disgruntled expressions and gestured for Teal'c to lead the way to the weapon.

The Jaffa bowed to his two team-mates and led the General and Mitchell away from the mountain. It took them a little while to reach the Ancient temple that housed the weapon. The area was teeming with Jaffa.

Bra'tac hurried out to meet them. 'The bomb is set. We should get to a safe distance.'

They took up a position a sensible distance away but with a good view of the front of the doorway leading to the inner chamber which held the control table. The rest of the Council stood beside them and behind them a significant number of Jaffa had gathered to watch.

'So how are we going to blow up the weapon?' Mitchell asked.

'We will use a naquadah enhanced bomb, Colonel Mitchell.' Teal'c responded. 'It will destroy the control table from which the weapon can be accessed.'

'Cool.' Mitchell murmured.

Bra'tac pointed at the chamber suddenly. 'It is time.'

The words had barely left his lips when the ground shook below their feet and a fiery ball exploded out of the mouth of the chamber.

'Sweet.' Jack commented when the fire died away. He was already moving forward, Teal'c, Bra'tac and Mitchell close at his heels. Jack waved his arms to dissipate the black billowing cloud of smoke as he stepped through into the chamber. The darkness was suffocating and he coughed trying to get his breath. He switched on the light on his P90 and swept it around the room. Mitchell followed his example. Their beams fell on the rectangular shape in the centre as more Jaffa entered bringing with them more light to examine the space.

Jack came to a sudden halt as the smoke drifted away; Teal'c came to stand one side of him; Mitchell, the other.

'OK.' Mitchell said. 'This could be a problem.'

'Ya think?' Jack asked sarcastically.

Teal'c stared at the intact control table the bomb had failed to destroy and frowned. 'Indeed.'