Chapter 3

Jack lay on the ground, mind foggy and vision nonexistent at first, but slowly grew to blurry and spotted at best. This must be what it feels like to be hit with a hundred of those damn Gould shock grenades at once. He groaned and sluggishly tried to roll over. A few feet away from him he could make out the shapes of Daniel, Sam, and Teal'c as they began to stir too.

Jack dug has hands into the sand as he tried to stand up. His hands disappeared deep into it. It was cold…not like sand that has been in the shade for hours on a hot summer's day…No, this was much colder. This was ice cold, and there was way too much of it.

Snow.

Jack stood up as his vision finally cleared, just knowing he was going to dread the sight around him.

Snow, everywhere. Well, not quite everywhere…there was what looked like a lake a few meters away, but nothing else met the eye except snow and trees covered in it.

Daniel settled his glasses back onto his nose as he got up from the ground. "What just happened?"

"There was a great flash of light. It impaired our vision much like Goa'uld shock grenades do, but only for a moment. It also seems to have rendered us all unconscious for a prolonged length of time." Teal'c said matter-of-factly.

Jack ripped the Velcro cover off of his watch. Normally correct down to the second, it was currently flashing portions of unreadable numbers, as if the battery was struggling to stay alive but losing the battle. "My watch is on the fritz."

"So is mine, sir. My instruments detected a huge energy spike from the device. It may have wiped the program chip in our watches clean. Luckily the casing on the rest of our equipment seems to have shielded it." Sam said, once again looking at the oversized calculator. She then packed it away and began taking in the surroundings. "Ah, sir? I think we have a problem."

"Which one, Carter?" Jack asked irritably, starting to get the ominous feeling that this was going to be another one of 'those days'. "The fact that we are surrounded by snow, the fact that we don't know what time it is, or perhaps the fact that we are surrounded by snow?"

"Um, actually sir…you're not going to like this…"

"What?"

Sam squirmed as Daniel and Teal'c stared off into the distance, and then just got it over with.

"The Stargate is gone."

Jack whipped around. It was gone. The Stargate, the DHD, even the M.A.L.P. was gone. The body of water he had barely taken note of a minute ago was exactly where they used to be.

"O.K. What the hell is going on here?" He looked to Sam, who usually had an answer for his rhetorical questions, but this time even Carter looked confused. He looked around to the other two members of his team. Teal'c seemed perplexed, but his stony features did not allow for any more interpretation. Daniel kept looking back and forth from the pillar to the lake, wide eyed.

When Daniel saw Jack watching him, he knew it was only a matter of seconds before…

"Daniel!"

Uh oh. He winced.

"How many times have I told you 'don't touch anything'?" Jack roared.

"How was I to know it was going to knock us out and move us away from the gate?"

"I don't know, but that's not the point!"

"Actually, sir, I don't think the device has moved us anywhere," Sam broke in, trying to rescue Daniel from the Colonel's verbal thrashing. "The dip in the land where the water is now was there when we gated in, and the tree line is farther away than before, but essentially the same."

"So what? This thing," Jack roared, gesturing violently at the pillar over his shoulder, "made it snow, dropped a ton of water over there, froze it, and now the gate is under the water? What is this thing? A giant Touchstone?"

Sam shook her head and looked back down at her gadget while Daniel started pouring over the symbols on the pillar again. Teal'c couldn't do much to help except stand guard while they tried to figure things out. Jack, meanwhile, was getting very cold and it was bringing back some very unpleasant memories.

"O.K. Daniel. I'm giving you permission just this once. Do whatever you did before again."

"Whoa, hang on Colonel. I don't think that's such a good idea," Sam interjected quickly.

"Why not, Carter? If he does it again it might undo whatever it just did!"

"But if it doesn't, we could end up in a much worse situation."

"Worse than this?" Jack asked, gesturing towards the foot of snow all around them with open arms.

Sam prayed for patience and continued with a measured tone. "Whatever this device is, it somehow uses a massive amount of energy to change the landscape. If Daniel sets it off again it could put things back to how they were, or it could change everything in a totally different way. We could wake up with a glacier sitting on top of us and no way out. And if the power source runs out –"

"O.K. O.K.! I get it! Daniel! No touchy!" Jack said, cutting Sam off. He had shuddered when Sam had said the word 'glacier'. She, who knew better than anyone how much he hated the cold… "So…we're stuck here until you and Daniel can figure out how to work this thing?"

"Ah, that's not going to work, Jack." Daniel spoke up as he stared at the figures on the pillar, hands pinned tightly behind his back. "I don't have any references for these symbols, and even if I did, without being able to gate home and get them they're useless. But…"

Here it comes again…I'm not going to like this… Jack rolled his eyes. "But?"

"We obviously need shelter. If the 'gate is under the ice of that lake there is no way for us to get it out anytime soon, and we don't have our nice warm winter jackets on."

These words rang true as Sam started to shiver. The planet had been a pleasant 55 degrees when they had arrived, so they had only their light weight green field jackets for warmth. On a planet that was now covered in ice and snow, that just was not going to cut it.

"If we can make it to that city," Daniel continued cautiously, "we will not only find some shelter, but we might find something that will tell us what this thing is and what it's for."

"You do realize that the city is fifteen clicks away. It usually takes us five hours to get that far on foot, and that's without a foot of snow to deal with…"

"I know, Jack, I know. But what other choice do we have?"

Jack stood still, wheels turning. The cold was really getting to him. Daniel was trying to ward off the numbness creeping into his hands, jamming them into his pockets. Even Teal'c showed some signs that he actually felt the cold, placing his free hand in his pocket for warmth while his other hand clutched his staff weapon.

God, I hate being choiceless!

"Alright, but we're really going to have to book it. It looks like the sun is going down, and once it's gone we had better be inside or we'll be in some real hot water."

"That is incorrect, O'Neill. By that time we will in fact be deep in snow at sub-zero temperatures, most likely dead."

"Teal'c, remind me to get you a book on metaphors and have Daniel translate it for you when we get home."