Chapter 2

KAWOOSH!

Birds in the nearby trees flew off in surprise as four figures emerged from the Stargate with the ease gained from years of practice and habit.

"Carter, get your soil samples. Teal'c, stick with her. Just cuz the U.A.V. didn't find any life, that doesn't mean there couldn't be someone…, or something… around here. Daniel, fer cryin' out loud, slow down!"

The young archeologist had not even paused after they exited the Stargate, and was heading straight for the odd black stone object the M.A.L.P. had seen. There was so much more to it than what he had been able to see from the M.A.L.P. feed. Daniel's heartbeat quickened to match his pace as his anticipation of some great discovery grew.

There was a three-sided pillar about five and a half feet tall surrounded by ten boulders, each with one glassy smooth side facing in toward the pillar. Each side was less than vertical, leaning in on each other like a very steep three-sided pyramid that angled even more drastically about a foot from the top and tapered to a sharp point. Each of the surrounding boulders was roughly hewn on the outside and about three feet tall, and each was only a foot and a half from the next, creating a tight circle with the pillar in center. These eleven objects, so precisely positioned, looked like they where made of black obsidian.

Daniel ignored Jack's cursing and walked between the boulders, and as he did so, something happened that made him freeze. The moment he entered the circle, golden light had flashed out of the sides of the pillar and out of the smooth sides of each of the ten boulders. It was small and faded off slowly, but Daniel had sunspots in his eyes from it.

Jack saw the flash and hurried to join Daniel inside the circle to see if he was O.K. Sam and Teal'c ran after him.

"What happened?"

"There was a flash…did you see it?"

"Yes Daniel, we saw it" Jack growled none too kindly. Then forcing is voice into a more friendly and consigned tone, he said, "Are you ok?"

Daniel took his glasses off and rubbed his lightly watering eyes. When he opened them the spots of color were gone. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good. Now what the hell did you touch?"

Why is it always something I did? Aloud, Daniel exclaimed defensively, "Nothing! I must have activated something when I came inside it." He indicated the circle of boulders by spinning around with his arms extended like one of those old painted tin toys that moved because of the pull of gravity on them when you pumped the knob in the top to make it spin. Those were the days.

Sam dug into her pack and pulled out one of her many instruments. To Jack this one resembled an oversized graphing calculator with an antenna on it.

"There is some sort of energy signature and traces of radiation here, Colonel…nothing dangerous," Sam said, walking into the circle. "In fact," she continued as she walked towards the pillar, "my guess is there's an energy source inside of this."

"Hang on." Daniel said suddenly. "This wasn't here a second ago."

The sides of the pillar – which had appeared as smooth as glass just moments before – were now covered with script, and half way up each side of the pillar was a hand print with fingers clearly defined, but right next to each other instead of splayed apart as one is accustomed to seeing.

"This is like one of the four writings we found at Heliopolis." Daniel said in awe.

"Asgard?" Jack asked hopefully.

"No…"

"Ancient?"

"No…It must be either from the Nox or the Furlings, but since I've never had the chance to ask Lya what the Nox written language looks like…hang on a sec…There are symbols mixed in here that I've never seen before…Actually, they make up most of the text… "

"So? Can't you just figure out the rest and work from there?" Jack asked warily. He knew what was coming. He was going to have to sit and wait until Daniel had either translated the whole thing or realized that it couldn't be done…and if Daniel couldn't do it, nobody could.

"Actually, no. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, let alone what it might sound like…" Daniel's voice trailed off as he continued to look at the symbols with child-like fascination.

Jack looked around, starting to take in the landscape. Bright white sand that glittered in the sun surrounded the Stargate and the device, as it was now being called, and the tree line began just a few meters off, making an almost perfect circle with the Stargate at its center. It was as though the trees were a slowly advancing army, bound and determined to wipe out the last signs of what might have been a beautiful beach thousands of years ago. The land sloped down gently towards the 'gate. The M.A.L.P. still sat obediently in front of the 'gate, waiting to be sent home.

Jack sighed audibly. "Well, normally I'd leave Teal'c here with Danny, and Carter and I would go have a look at that other thing, but it's too far away if something went wrong…I don't suppose I'm going to get you to leave here anytime soon, am I?" Jack asked Daniel, wondering why he even bothered.

A muffled "nope" reached him from the opposite side of the pillar.

"Great."

"This appears to be a human hand print. Would that not suggest that the Nox most likely built this device, DanielJackson?" Teal'c asked as he joined the others inside the perimeter of boulders.

"Possibly, but since we've never met a Furling we have no way of knowing that their hands aren't just like ours…but this definitely rules out the Asgard. This print is way too big…" His voice trailed off as he placed his hand in the print to demonstrate the perfect fit.

All at once, the three sides of the pillar burst into life again, but this time with blinding white hot intensity.

Oops.