Daniel felt his heart pound as they approached the village. A village he'd never seen before. He started to sweat, his hands began to shake and unshed tears burnt his eyes. It was a dead ringer for Ver Isca and he couldn't stop seeing the image of Vala burning. SG-1 entered the village square and stopped the first person they saw. It was Geron, one of the elders who'd negotiated with them. He was a short, skinny old man with grey hair. He smiled and nodded obsequiously at Sam. Mitchell had taken a dislike to the guy during their negotiations insisting he didn't trust him and calling him mealy mouthed. Daniel had spent both visits in the ruins and hadn't met any of the villagers. Even though he was anxious to find out what they knew about Vala, Daniel decided to let Sam and Mitchell speak to the man.

"We're looking for our friend. Her name's Vala Mal Doran. She was here on our both of our visits but stayed in the old stone building by the Gate." Sam gestured to Daniel. "This is Dr. Jackson; he's the scholar you allowed to investigate the building. Vala left before the rest of the team. She was headed for the Gate but when we returned home she wasn't there. We've discovered that she never left your planet."

Geron looked uninterested and insisted no one had seen the woman. Mitchell thought he was lying, trying to hide something. He had a bad feeling about Geron and glared at the old man. Daniel started on a detailed description of Vala but before Daniel could finish the old man repeated "No one has seen her."

As he turned away Daniel said "She spent some time playing with a child the first time we visited your planet. Surely someone would know the boy. I don't know how old he was but his name was Lauren."

A small group of women, smiling and laughing, were walking by; they carried woven baskets and appeared to be shopping. Daniel barely looked at them. Just enough to see they were dressed like the women of Ver Isca. One of the women looked about thirty, thin, with a pretty face and flashing green eyes. Her long brown hair hung down her back bound in one thick braid. She'd been laughing but when Daniel said the name Lauren she cried out. Geron grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away from them. She threw herself onto the ground and on her knees she looked pleadingly up at Daniel.

"You've seen him? How is he? He just left a few months ago. Please, sir. I beg you. Where is my baby?" Tears were streaming down her face as she pleaded with Daniel. Geron and another older woman put their arms around the young woman's shoulders and pulled her up. Geron hissed "Be quiet. You know it isn't possible. Lauren couldn't have come through the Wall. He's too young. He'll return when his Inbetween Time is finished. Just as it's always been."

The woman continued to cry. "But their friend, this Vala. How could she know his name?" Turning again to Daniel, tears spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks, she asked. "Did she tell you what he looked like? Please! I need to know."

Daniel said to her, "I don't know anything else. Just that he was a young boy. They played in a meadow and picked flowers."

Sam spoke up. "He was small, thin, with thick brown hair and bright green eyes. His pants were brown and he wore no shoes."

The woman smiled. "That's him. That's my Lauren. Any excuse to take off his shoes and run through the grass."

Daniel looked surprised at Sam's description of the boy. She quietly told him "Vala was very taken with Lauren. She said he had sad eyes and looked lonely, as lonely as she felt."

"Lonely? Why would Vala feel lonely? She has a whole base full of friends." He looked at his friend and when they didn't answer his voice got louder as he insisted "She has us! She has me!"

"Does she DanielJackson?"

Daniel felt guilty but ignored Teal'c and continued questioning the woman. "I don't understand. Where's your son? Tell me how to find him. Maybe Vala's with him."

Geron pulled the woman away guiding her towards a nearby house. "You should lie down and rest, Myir. These outsiders are confusing you."

Daniel stepped between Myir and Geron. "Geron, what did you mean by 'he couldn't have gotten back'? Where did he go?"

Geron put his hand on Daniel's arm as if to push him away. "This is not your business. We told you that you could not stay if you interfered with our way of life. If you do not leave we will revoke the mining agreement."

Suddenly Myir shoved Geron, pushing him to the ground. There was now a small crowd gathered in the square. No one helped Geron as he slowly got up. The young woman, Myir, turned to the villagers. She was agitated and yelled "Their friend met Lauren. She played with him. He must have come back through the Portal."

One of the men asked in a trembling voice. "Did they see my Rina?" Turning to Sam he began to describe his child. "She has yellow hair and blue eyes. She smiles and laughs all the time." His face fell. "At least she did before she went through the Wall. She's been gone for three years now."

Mitchell had been listening closely. "Okay Geron. Spit it out. What's happened to these children?"

Myir looked closely at Mitchell. She felt this man would be willing to help her if she could make him understand. These outsiders had come through the Gate. Their friend had seen Lauren. She felt she should trust them. The man's eyes were kind and she could tell he was concerned about the children.

"Geron, tell them about the Wall."

"No, they do not understand our laws. If we try and change the rules our lands will be destroyed."

The man who'd asked about his daughter spoke. "Myir is right. Tell them. Maybe they can protect us from the Unknown Ones."

Another man in the crowd yelled. "If the Unknown Ones are still watching us. Maybe they have gone. It has been many years since they last destroyed our land with their fires. No one still alive has seen them. My grandfather's father never saw them. But you, Geron, and the rest of the Elders teach us that we must obey these laws or be punished."

"Everyone will be punished! Not just the ones who don't obey. You must not talk like that. You will have our planet destroyed for your selfish desires. You do not respect …"

Mitchell raised his hand to stop Geron's rant. "I'm sure you can tell us about this Wall without breaking any rule. Help us understand how you live. Where are these kids?"

Myir and Rina's father spoke together. "Tell them."

Geron looked nervous but agreed. "I will explain but nothing must change. We must protect ourselves." He glowered at Mitchell but grudgingly began to speak.

"The Unknown Ones are powerful and cruel. Many generations ago they came here and took our children into that building by the Gate. When we tried to stop them they punished us. They killed many people with their fire. They burnt our crops and destroyed our land. We were given the rules to follow. Not all of the children were returned. Only the very young. We were told that when they became spirits they were to be sent through the Portal. And that they would return to us when they were finished with them. So the cycle began. When the children develop their ability they must enter the Portal. They return after their "Inbetween Time" and they are once again fully human. There are those that said no children returned until after the Unknown Ones left our world. But that cannot be true. As long as we obeyed the laws our children have come home. The warnings of the Unknown Ones were made clear. They demonstrated the consequences of our disobedience. You can see the great circles of burnt ground on our most fertile farm land. We must continue to obey or they will return to punish us. Nothing grows on that land and our children continue to be cursed. That is proof of how great is their power even now, so many years later."

Mitchell encouraged the man to continue. "Before we get to this Wall business just what is this curse?"

Rina's father attempted to explain. "The ability starts when a child is between three and four years old. Once the Elders are aware of the child's development they are taken to the Portal in the Wall and sent through. They start the Inbetween Time. The child will return through the Portal around twelve years of age. Their ability will have faded and their memories from the Inbetween Time will be lost once they are home. They can't tell us about life in the Inbetween, but are healthy and unharmed. In the first few minutes after they return some are able to pass messages to the parents of younger children still behind the Wall."

Teal'c asked "Do all of the children return?"

The only answer was an old woman who began to cry and was comforted by her friends.

Mitchell asked. "What the heck is this 'ability'? And why does it make you lock them up?"

Geron protested "We do not lock them up. They pass into the Inbetween Time. As all must do before they may return, no longer a danger, ready to rejoin their people."

"So, help us out here Geron. Tells us more about this 'ability'."

The old man was shaking in fear. Constantly looking back over his shoulder as if the Unknown Ones would appear and strike him down. "They become spirits and are no longer fully human. They come and go as they please and we are unable to control them."

Daniel entered the conversation "Just what kind of bad things do these kids do that you need to control them? Are they violent?"

Myir laughed. "Lauren didn't like to take his bath. He would sneak away through the wall of the bathroom and return with his younger brother and place him in the tub."

SG-1 looked confused. Sam spoke first. "What was so dangerous about that?"

"I thought it was very clever. Even his brother would laugh when he found himself in the tub. But one of the neighbors saw him and called the Elders."

Rina's father defended them. "They have been told that to let a child who is a spirit stay on this side will incur the anger of the Unknown Ones."

"Maybe if there were Elders who were mothers things would have been different." After Myir spoke there were mummers of agreement from the other women in the crowd.

Mitchell asked Sam. "Do you think they're going in and out of phase at will?"

Sam shook her head indicating that she didn't know and continued to ask questions. "How did he bring his brother through the wall? Was the boy old enough to have developed his own ability?"

Geron explained "Such a child has only to keep their body in contact with another and they can move as spirits along with the child."

"Will it work if they just hold hands?" asked Daniel.

"Yes, that would work."

"That must be how Lauren got Vala through the Wall. She'd have gone with him willingly."

Sam disagreed. "I don't think they can return through the Wall once they're inside. I can't imagine there hasn't been a toddler who tried to run back to their parents if they could go back through the Wall. Lauren must have found another way to come and go. He must have been able to get into this world without coming through the Portal in order to spend time with Vala."

Mitchell looked confused. "How does this Wall work? I didn't see anything along the road."

Myir tried to explain. "You can see nothing until you are very, very close. Even then there is just a shimmer. But it is like the Portal if you try and walk through it. You can't."

"So you can see through it. Do you ever see any of the children?"

"Never. And through the Portal everything is black."

"Maybe he went under it. Sam, what do you think this wall is made of?"

"I need to take a look at this Portal. Geron, would you please take me."

Geron glared at Sam. "No. That is not possible."

Myir spoke. "I will take you."

Sam followed the woman into a large building across the village square. It looked like a meeting hall and at the front of the room was a large doorway. Behind this portal was a shimmering black surface.

"Well, it's a force field of some kind. I'll need to spend some time checking it out before I can give you any definitive answer."

Daniel walked up and stuck his hand into the darkness. A loud hum was heard and he was instantly thrown backwards as if he'd received a strong electrical charge. He stood up and waved off his friends saying "I'm fine. It didn't even hurt."

"Somehow it recognizes that you don't have the ability. Has this happened before?"

"At times parents have tried to follow their child. But they are no more successful than you. Even though they have seen it happen many times before, still they try to follow when it is their child."

Mitchell turned to Teal'c. "That's not any big surprise. If anything I'd be surprised if parents didn't try every time."

"Indeed, ColonelMitchell."

Geron explained. "It is the role of the elders to restrain the parents at the time of the passage through the Portal."

"Yeah, but I bet some of them make it to the Portal in spite of your 'restraint' don't they?"

"I'll have to go back to SGC and return with some instruments and tools. I need to take some readings so I can try and figure out what's going on. I can't tell anything definite without more information. Maybe it's genetic. But then why would they lose the ability as they grew older? They appear to travel through solid matter which may be a type of phasing ability but they still stay in this reality. Maybe there's a damping field behind the Wall. I need some time and maybe Dr. Lee to give me a hand."

"I'm starting to believe that building wasn't a temple or a library or a gathering place. I couldn't make sense of it before but now I'm wondering if it was a laboratory. A lot of bad guys took a shot at genetic modification and good old fashioned human experimentation. There were a few sheets of what I thought were polished stone covered with text. I was only able to decipher a few lines. There was mention of something not going correctly and giving up, abandoning their work. They left for another planet to try again. It didn't occur to me that it referred to a scientific project."

Mitchell was angry. "So, they just left the guinea pigs on their own, trapped in the maze they created?"

"I doubt they even thought about them. They had no reason to stay and no interest in these people's lives. They intimidated them into submission but I don't think they cared what happened after they left. I'd like to take a look at the damage they did to the land as part of the intimidation." Sam spoke to Geron "Could you show me on the way to the Gate? Just a quick look?"

Myir smiled at Sam. "You do not need him. I will take you there."

Myir showed them a path off the main road between the village and the Gate. Geron and Myir followed SG-1. Myir had a hopeful smile on her face while Geron glared and muttered to himself about curses and punishment.

Soon Sam was squatting next to a huge circle of scorched earth. "I think this was caused by a blast of intense heat. The ground has been turned into what appears to be glass. If I had to I'd guess it was pretty old. It's hard to determine age on other planets. How long has it been since this happened?"

Geron hesitated before replying. "According to our records it has been thirty lifetimes."

Daniel began to calculate. "Using a rough estimate of twenty years per generation that's close to 600 years."

Mitchell said "You know guys. There's a pretty good chance they ain't comin' back any time soon."

Sam stood up. "Let's not worry about that now. I need to get back to my lab and grab some stuff. Then we can come back and try to get through that Portal." She looked at Daniel's expression and added. "Then we can find Vala. I'm sure she's in there playing with all those juvenile delinquents."

"Maybe I should go back and try walking through it again."

"Daniel, if it hasn't worked for all those parents over the years why would you think it would be any different for you?"

"Because Mitchell I …"

"What? Because you love her? Believe me those parents all loved their kids just as much. Now back to the Gate and make it snappy we've got a rescue mission to set up."

"Indeed."