"Bored!"

"Of course you are."

Vala sat on the ground in front of the mostly removed mound of soil that had built up against the back wall of the temple, and balanced a large spotlight on her knees. Every so often, when her concentration waivered, she would look up to find Daniel looking down at her, soil brush mid-swish and a scowl on his face.

"We've been here for hours!" she protested, jiggling the light and knowing full well she was annoying him. "Hours! I don't know why you couldn't just put this light thing on a stand thing and let me go with Sam."

"Because you left the light thing at the gate-"

"Unintentionally."

"Still left it there! And Sam was going on a hospital tour, which you agreed, quite loudly and in front of our hosts, would be a waste of your time."

"Cameron? Muscles?"

"At the barracks watching the equivalent of gladiatorial games."

"All those men in skirts wielding their little knives at each other. Infinitely more fun than watching you fawn over a wall full of squiggles."

"It's writing. And you know full well women aren't allowed at the arena."

"Yes," Vala huffed indignantly, "about that-"

"I know what you're going to say, and normally I'd agree, but we're not talking about a patriarchal society that oppresses their women."

"Really, Daniel? Then what are we talking about?"

"A millennia-old tradition where the men are the protectors. You've seen the Mekrit women. Do any of them look particularly oppressed to you?"

"Positively joyous. Actually, a little too peppy if you ask me."

"There you go."

Vala dropped her head to her chest and blew out a long breath. "So bored!"

"How about you put the light down on the ground, angle it up towards the upper right quadrant of the mural, and come and give me a hand with this last sedimentary layer?"

"I get to dig?"

"No, you get to take one of my other brushes and start carefully removing the soil from the outer edge of the mural. And when I say carefully-"

"You mean with baby strokes."

"Just... just be careful."

Vala sorted a brush from Daniel's roll and stood alongside him. The outer edges of the mural were chipped and fallen away. It was easy to see where layers of color and mosaic had been and where fragments still remained, but this section of the wall had definitely been exposed for longer than the rest. She gently teased at clumps of soil, loosening them enough to fall away naturally or with a minimal amount of help. Where Daniel was working, the mural was more intact but covered in a thicker crust of clay from the original bank that had formed around it over the centuries. She watched him working the groves between tiles with his little brush, flicking and swishing, at times applying more pressure than she was prepared to use.

Daniel knew his trade.

"Here," he said, and handed her his flashlight, "hold this while I work this last layer of soil away. I can almost see an image forming in the center of the wall. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, this whole wall was devoted to this one central icon."

"Then what were the rest of the tiles for?"

"I think they formed a kind of frame and canvas."

"Like a picture?"

"No real purpose except to be decorative. I mean, the framing of the mural is quite a common feature of ancient Greek art, but the content generally fills the frame."

"This isn't the same?"

"No. And there's something else. Most Greek art is heroic; an attempt by the artist to portray the human form through beauty and strength."

Vala took a couple of steps back, which widened the beam from the flashlight to cover a greater area of wall, revealing the image in almost its entirety. "Well," she said in a dissatisfied tone that only served to play up her boredom, "I haven't been so disappointed since I failed that little ink blot test."

"Oh!"

"Don't tell me you find this... this... whatever this is to be interesting?"

Daniel tucked his brush into his vest and reached for his radio. "Sam, come in."

"Go ahead."

"I've just discovered something you're going to want to see."

~oOo~

Sam looked up at the darkening sky and over to a nearby grove of trees whose branches were being tossed about in the growing wind. There was a strong smell of ozone in the air, a hint that rain was definitely on its way.

"Well," she said, turning her attention back to the tiny digital camera screen Daniel was playing back his recording on. "It certainly explains a lot."

"Indeed it does," confirmed Teal'c.

Vala stood off to one side with her arms crossed and one foot tapping the ground in clear frustration. The wind was whipping her hair about her face, and she made no attempt to push it back. "Would anyone care to tell me what Daniel and I found?"

"It's a Touchstone, right?" Cam asked. "The... Madronans? You guys found one of these things there."

"More like returned. Maybourne's rogue SG team stole it from right under the Madronans noses." Daniel shut the recording down and closed the screen. "The Touchstone was used to maintain the weather on Madrona once it had been terraformed."

"The Madronans knew how to use the Touchstone, but not the technology behind it," Sam added. "We never did find out who terraformed the planet. And there are any number of options there."

"The Ancients?" Vala asked, hopefully. "Seems like the sort of thing they might do."

Daniel bent down and put the little camera back in his pack. "The technology isn't Ancient. They're not the type to go leaving huge statues behind to mark their existence."

"No, just huge cities."

"About that..." Sam looked over at the old temple and then back to Daniel. "The depiction in the mural is just the Touchstone, nothing else?"

Daniel frowned for a moment. "The statue?"

"Wouldn't it make more sense to paint a complete picture?"

"Only if we work on the assumption that the statue on Madrona was left by the same people who created the Touchstone and terraformed the planet. It's just as likely the Madronans built it specifically for the Touchstone. High Priest Roham was the only one who knew how to calibrate the device, indicating that it was regarded by the Madronans as an object of worship."

"Which begs the questions of how they discovered the Touchstone in the first place."

"Honestly, I don't know." Daniel shrugged. "We didn't exactly stick around for a history lesson, despite the invitation."

"All really good questions, but we've got a dinner to get ready for." Cam bent down and picked up Daniel's pack, thrusting it at him. "And I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving."

"Yes. About that dinner..." Daniel started to say, but Cam was already walking in the direction of the city. "He does know the protocols, right?"

Vala hooked her arm through Daniel's and ushered him forward. "I don't know, but why don't you tell me all about them while we walk."

"Ah, Mitchell? Wait up!"

TBC