This story was originally published in May 2001 by Criterion Press.

Reap the Whirlwind by Sheila Paulson        The stone circle was big enough for four men to walk through abreast--it was built into the doorway of the cavern they'd just entered, invisible from the outside, but very much noticeable once they were inside and turned to look behind them for evidence of pursuit. Del Tarrant wasn't sure if it were stone and not some manufactured product, but he didn't recognize its technology any more than he recognized the symbols around its rim. The thing had the look of a device rather than an artifact, and the other device that stood in front of it at the foot of the ramp that sloped down into the cavern had matching symbols on its face surrounding a raised stone or crystal. Tarrant thought it might be a control panel, although the science was unfamiliar to him. Under better circumstances, Avon might have been interested, but Avon wasn't interested in much of anything lately beyond trying to do penance by keeping Roj Blake alive.        And that was partly Tarrant's fault.        He didn't want to think about the mess they'd fallen into back on that remote world, Gauda Prime. It was a lot easier to think about the abandoned cavern with its weird circle than it was to think about the debacle they'd come through in their two-year search for the missing rebel. Of course Blake had been a conniving, manipulative bastard who had played mind-games with Tarrant in an attempt to determine whether or not he was trustworthy. That the games had done nothing but convince Tarrant that Blake wasn't proved that the man had no sense of judgment. Then, there was Avon, paranoid, psychopathic Avon, who had jumped at Tarrant's desperate attempt to break through the reluctant deification Avon had granted Blake to make him see the trap he thought they'd walked into. Tarrant should have known better, but there had been a healthy element of 'screw you' mingled with the need to shock Avon out of his reaction to the sight of Blake and warn him that they were about to be captured or blasted when he'd said, "He sold us. All of us, Avon. Even you." Blake's maladroit attempt to make peace--"I set all this up"--had failed miserably and he'd paid the price with three laser blasts to the chest and gut. He'd have died instantly if he hadn't been wearing shielding, but at such close range it had failed and the last charge had done serious damage.        If Blake's rebels hadn't broken through at the last possible second and gunned down the troopers about to zap Avon into infinity, they'd all have been dead instead of merely stunned. Vila Restal, reviving quickly once the shooting stopped, had grabbed a groggy and traumatized Avon while Dayna and Soolin had dragged Blake with them, neither woman displaying any particular tenderness for the injured man, and Tarrant had picked his way as rear guard through the rebels of the base, who were too busy fussing over their injured numbers and making sure the Federation troopers were actually dead to even notice that Avon's party had spirited Blake away from them.        Then Vila had called a warning about more Federation troops coming, and everybody had scattered.        With Scorpio gone, Tarrant had simply helped himself to one of Blake's ships and they'd made a hasty take-off and raced three Federation pursuit ships through the system. Somehow, they'd gotten away. Once clear of pursuit, Tarrant, injured from the Scorpio crash on top of the stun charge he'd taken in Blake's control room, had folded in on himself over the controls and hadn't known another thing for twenty hours, when he woke up in the medical unit with a groggy but conscious Blake lying in the next bed.        By that time, things had gone from bad to worse.        The ship was defective--and fitted with no less than three homing beacons that might or might not have been Federation. So somebody was after them, even if super-computer Orac had deactivated them. They'd made it to a system that wasn't on any of the charts and Orac, suddenly excited, claimed there was a solution below and made Tarrant land the ship right outside this cave. Sometimes Orac could get awfully bossy, but the little perspex box had been designed with a healthy dollop of self-preservation as part of its makeup.        They all came to investigate the cavern as possible shelter, even Blake, who was unsteady on his feet and leaning on Avon, whose face was unreadable. Vila, complaining as usual, carried Orac, but Tarrant had long since learned to ignore Vila's whining. The thief hadn't done badly back there on GP. He'd taken out Arlen, the undercover Federation officer, after all. Whether that made up for his sheer nuisance value, Tarrant hadn't quite decided yet.        If Orac had possessed legs, it would have danced for joy. It found the big circle a lot more interesting than any of the rest of them did. Dayna, the huntress, prowled the cave, gun in hand, while Soolin, content that her fast draw could protect her, let her hand hang near her holster while she walked back up the ramp and examined the circle at close range.        Vila set Orac beside the control panel and went over to examine a strange mirror that was mounted to one side of the circle. It was man-high, shaped vaguely like a harp, and exuded an air of such danger that Tarrant and Avon called out in perfect unison, "Don't touch it, Vila," and then broke off to stare at each other in surprise. Blake smiled faintly at their unexpected chorus but said nothing.        "There is danger," announced Orac. "Emanations from that artifact are reaching a high level."        "Define the nature of the emanations." Avon's voice was cold and wary. He wasn't carrying a gun, but then he hadn't done so since GP. On the other hand, even a weaponless Avon was dangerous--and Tarrant couldn't help wondering whether, if he practiced, he could shoot lethal stun bolts with his icy glare.        "The device Vila studies is an artifact of great power. It reacts to proximity."        "Step away from it, Vila," Dayna ordered.        "I wasn't touching it," objected the thief. Probably thought it was valuable. He had snatched something up in his hand from the cave floor, a miniature control panel, perhaps. At Orac's words, he set it aside uneasily, but Tarrant was afraid he'd inadvertently activated something. He had a very bad feeling about this place.        Orac hummed a moment, studying the devices, then it spoke again. "A ship approaches. It is a Federation pursuit ship and it has registered our presence."        "Oh, no," Vila moaned. He looked around uneasily for a hiding place and saw none. The cave had no other exit, at least not one they could easily see.        "What do we do, Avon?" Soolin asked practically. She came down the ramp to join the others in front of the control panel.        Avon opened his mouth to speak and was preempted by Orac. "All of you must touch the mirror," it instructed. "Pick me up now, and hold me as you do so."        Vila's mouth fell open. "Here now," he protested uneasily. "You just said it was dangerous."        In the second after he spoke, they heard the roar of the landing pursuit ship. Touching a mirror wouldn't make it go away. Maybe Orac was losing control, or maybe the power emanations had affected the little computer. They were trapped quite nicely inside the cavern, after all. It was an obvious cave; there was no chance the Federation troopers would overlook it, not when their ship had landed right outside.        Vila hesitated, glancing from Blake to Avon. After Blake's two-year absence, Vila had grown used to Avon being in charge.        Orac's voice rose. "Pick me up." When Tarrant shrugged and did so, Orac continued imperiously. "Touch the mirror," the computer insisted.        Blake and Avon exchanged a glance, then Blake nodded. They migrated in a body to the mirror.        "Touch it in unison," Orac instructed. "Do not dawdle. Do it now."        "Well, all right, then, but I think it's a mistake," Vila muttered and put his hand on the glass of the mirror as the others reached out to do the same.        Energy pulsed out and moved along in a wave, up their outstretched arms, through their bodies, out to travel through the rest of the cave. Tarrant jerked when it passed through him, but it caused no pain. When it was finished, the room looked no different and everyone was on his feet, including Blake. But all sounds of the pursuit ship had vanished. Tarrant cocked his head, listening. No, nothing. He saw Avon and the two women register the fact, and Avon's eyes lingered on the mirror with interest that was partly scientific and partly acquisitive. They drew back from it involuntarily.        "Now, obey me completely," Orac insisted. "Tarrant, you are closest. When I have activated the control panel, you will push the globe in the center." Tarrant deposited the computer beside the panel and waited. Orac hummed and a series of panels depressed fractionally, one by one, and the symbol on each lit from within. As that happened, the big circle came to life and the inner circle spun, and similar designs lit on it. As each one did, a chevron came down over it, perhaps locking it in place, keying in a function none of them understood.        "Step away from the ramp," Orac commanded. "Vila, you will carry me."        "Now I'm taking orders from Orac," muttered Vila unhappily, but he bent obediently to scoop up the little computer, just as it commanded Tarrant to touch the central globe.        Tarrant put his palm on it, and then jumped when, with a great whoosh, something like water shot out of the circle in a controlled burst that reached nearly to the foot of the ramp. He had an idea it was a good thing Soolin had moved when she did, because he was pretty sure it wasn't really water, not when it vibrated subliminally with barely controlled power. It might have incinerated her. Maybe it would incinerate any troopers who tried to pass through it.        A second later, the water, or whatever it was, sucked back and lay flat against the surface of the circle, rippling like water on a pond, or maybe like quicksilver. It thrummed with power.        "And just what is that?" Avon demanded suspiciously.        Orac's voice developed a suspicion of a crow. "It is a stable wormhole. It will translocate us to another world, where we will lose pursuit. The Federation troops outside will be unable to understand what happened and will not follow us."        "Are you certain, Orac?" Blake's voice was weak, but determined. Avon shot him a narrow-eyed glance but gave no hints at how he felt at the rebel leader's presence. Well, no verbal hints. He hadn't moved from Blake's side and his hand was partly outstretched to catch Blake if he should fall.        "Were I not certain, I would not say so. You have wasted far too much of my time with your petty questions. We must now walk through the Gateway."        "Through that?" Dayna echoed. "Are you sure it's safe? After all, the Federation's out there hunting for us. We'll walk right into their hands."        Orac gave a snort of exasperation.        Past the rippled surface, they could hear no trace of approaching troopers. That was strange. Had the device done the same thing on this side as that and vaporized them? Or was the problem worse than that?        "Come on then," Tarrant decided when no one else looked ready to move. Gun in hand, he strode up the ramp and touched the surface with the fingertips of his other hand. At least it didn't sizzle him where he stood. He could feel power emanating from it. A stable wormhole? If so, it was an incredible find, one guaranteed to make the discoverer rich beyond dreams of avarice. Odd that Avon didn't appear to have fully considered that. Was there another portal like this one on a matching world? Was this something like the device Bayban had hoped to discover at the City at the Edge of the World, the one that Vila had passed through safely to the planet he had named Vilaworld? He had returned intact, or at least as intact as Vila ever was. If this came from the same technology, it might be their only hope of escape.        Tarrant said, "Come on," and stepped forward--into an endless twisting tunnel of dark and light that drew them onward inexorably toward an unknown destination. Cold ate into his bones like acid. He was conscious of the others behind him, and then he was pitched out onto a ramp that looked like the same one they had just left. The cave hadn't changed at all; there were the vague carvings on the walls, there was that odd pile of rocks. There was the control device, but the mirror had vanished.        The stresses of the past few days caught up with him, and Tarrant went down hard on his stomach, shaky and dizzy and aching, shivering with the icy chill of the transition.        Vila landed right on top of him and his breath went out in a pained whoosh.        Motion nearby startled him and he scrambled free of Vila, conscious of the others sprawled or staggering nearby. When he raised his head, Tarrant saw a tall, muscular black man gazing down at them, and the tip of an unfamiliar weapon as long as a staff about ten centimeters from his face and three others behind him, two other men and a woman, all of them armed. They weren't wearing Federation uniforms, more like casual fatigues often favored by rebels, but none of them looked ready to spread a welcome mat. One man, whose greying hair showed under the edge of his hat, was clearly in command. He had that air. Tarrant recognized it from his own military experience in Space Command. The woman was as blonde as Soolin, and her unfamiliar weapon was steady in her hand. It looked like a projectile weapon. The third man was younger than the grey-haired one and actually wearing spectacles. They were exceedingly rare in the Federation, although not non-existent. He had a gun, too, but he looked intrigued at the sight of them, as if they had not been what he had expected. Four armed people greeting them was not a good thing.        They had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. *****        "...some evidence of a long-ago settlement," Daniel Jackson theorized. He stood looking down the hill in a slowly rotating circle, drawing in deep, fresh breaths of air. PV4-555 was a pastoral planet at first glance, and the settlement that lay at the foot of the hill looked like a deserted farm village. A couple of the older buildings were made of stone, but the ruins of what looked like sod huts and a barn or two had crumpled into vine- and weed-encrusted mounds over the years. If anyone still lived on the planet, they no longer lived in such close proximity to the Stargate.        The cave had looked promising at first. Daniel had noticed rough carvings on the walls of the gloomy room. As soon as the Gate closed behind them, light had poured into the cave through its empty circle, revealing the opening to the outside world. While Daniel would have liked to study the ancient carvings, the rest of the party had instantly migrated up the ramp to explore the outside world. Daniel trailed behind them, wondering at the placement of the Gate. Had it been his choice, he would have designed the Gate facing outward. He couldn't help wondering why whoever had set up this planet had done it this way.        SG-1 glanced around at the world they had come to. Although this planet was listed on the Abydos cartouche and therefore was known to the Goa'uld, there was no evidence the enemy race had come here recently. The Gate had pitched them out into a cavern, and the only way out of it to the hillside where they now stood was to step through the inactive Gate. They had done so uneasily to survey the world where they had just arrived. Long grasses tangled around the mouth of the cavern and a few of them had crept in over the Gate, to be severed when the wormhole activated. A few vines had even worked their way up the DHD. M.A.L.P. images had shown the dial-home device to be intact, but it looked like it was losing a battle for neatness, if nothing else. Opening the Gate would have killed the weeds that had tried to overtake it. It had been the first thing Major Samantha Carter checked when she came through the Gate. They'd known they were going to materialize inside or underground but they hadn't seen such a layout before.        "Looks like another biggie," Colonel O'Neill observed. Gun in hand, he scanned the hills with a soldier's eye, alert for trouble. Daniel might get caught up in ruins or signs of civilization but Jack was trained to expect threat and his first priority on a new world was to assess it for danger. His instincts had saved their lives on more than one occasion.        But today, it didn't look as if they were going to be jumped in the next few minutes. They could see a long way in all directions, although hills crowded fairly close to their left, and in that space, other than the ruins, there was nothing to suggest that people had ever lived here, or that anyone lived here now.        "Perhaps the settlers simply moved away from the Gate," offered Teal'c. The big Jaffa was at attention, too. He hadn't risen to the rank of First Prime of the Goa'uld Apophis without learning how to watch his back. Staff weapon at ready, he surveyed the terrain away from Jack's field of vision. They did this so instinctively that Daniel was amazed by it. He was still learning such techniques, but to Jack and Teal'c, such protective behavior was automatic.        Sam studied the terrain through binoculars. Always the scientist, she was still a competent military officer, but, like Daniel, she could be caught up in discovery. Today, she wasn't seeing much of anything to tempt her. Old ruins that didn't look Goa'uld might be interesting to an anthropologist, but not to an astrophysicist, and not really to a first-contact team, not unless there was a clue to the locals there--or a hint of information about the Goa'uld.        "I'd like to look at those stone ruins," Daniel ventured. "It's possible that whoever lived here moved away from the Gate to avoid the Goa'uld. If they did, there might be clues down there. Carvings, stone tablets, writing of some kind."        "I do not know this world," offered Teal'c. "When I served under Apophis, we went to many planets to harvest hosts, but I do not believe this was one of them." He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the brightness of the sun. Jack just put on his sunglasses.        "Could another of the System Lords have come here?" asked Daniel. "It needn't be Apophis."        "Possibly, but they would not waste their time unless they had a strategic reason to do so. Perhaps they took away the settlers long ago. Perhaps there were too few and they died out. If this were a mineral-rich world, there would be evidence of mines, but there is nothing."        "Or maybe they just don't use the Gate or like living with a doorway to the snakeheads in their back yard." Jack gestured vaguely off to the east. "After all, we had evidence of settlements over that way."        "Three days walk from here," Sam reminded him. "Unless we come through with motorized transport, we'll have to content ourselves with the U.A.V. surveys or a good long walk. Besides, they looked like pastoral settlements, farming communities." The aerial remote had sent back surveillance reports but had discovered no evidence of settlements closer than a two-day walk of the Stargate.        "Primitive," Daniel replied. "Interesting to study, but nothing to draw the Goa'uld here."        "No evidence of technology, no trace of naquada." Jack shook his head. "Not sure why we're even here, except--"        "Except that the base computer spun out the corrected address for this system and indicated it might be important," Sam reminded him. "Just because something isn't apparent in a ten-minute survey doesn't mean there's nothing to find."        "There aren't even decent ruins for Daniel to play with," Jack said. He nodded down at the abandoned settlement. "That isn't up to par with your usual run of ancient ruins and interesting artifacts."        "No, but there still might be something." Daniel took a step in that direction and halted. "Jack?" He was still not quite comfortable with O'Neill, and because of that, he wasn't pushing quite as hard as he usually would. There wasn't as much fun in making the Colonel rein him in, not when the comfortable friendship had been disrupted.        Daniel didn't want to think about that now. He wasn't even sure if he were punishing Jack by striving to be an exemplary team member or not. He wasn't sure Jack would know, either, and he didn't mind that at all. But he concealed a sigh. This was their first mission since Jack's undercover games with Maybourne's renegade N.I.D. SG team, and all of them were walking a bit on pins and needles.        O'Neill pushed his hat back on his head and rubbed his forehead. His face was tight but when he spoke, he sounded conciliatory. "Go for it. But half an hour, no more. If we don't find anything, we can--"        "O'Neill!" Teal'c called out in warning just as the Stargate started to power up.        "Company coming," Jack agreed and gestured them to retreat into shelter in the cavern again, where they concealed themselves behind some rocks. "Hurry, campers. I know we can hide better outside, but if whoever it is has shown up for a long stay, I don't want to let them have possession of the Gate. We can't allow ourselves to be cut off."        The Gate activated in a swoosh of power as they ducked out of sight and SG-1 tightened their grip on their weapons. If the computers thought this place was important, it could be anybody, including a Goa'uld system lord with a troop of Jaffa. Daniel held his breath and waited. With only the light from the wormhole to illuminate the cavern, it was dim and gloomy, and Daniel could only hope that they would be well concealed behind the irregular stack of rocks.        The party that stumbled out of the wormhole and collapsed on the ramp was almost anticlimactic. From the way most of them fell down or staggered, they were probably making their first Gate trip. Daniel shivered sympathetically at the memory of his own first trip to Abydos so long ago. One of the men went down instantly and didn't get up, a solidly built man with curly hair and a scar at the corner of one eye. Another man with dark hair and the coldest face Daniel had seen this side of a System Lord dropped to his knees beside him to help him. He had an abundance of studs on his black leather outfit. Funny to think someone with such a hollow expression could fuss so well--and so carefully impersonally. Another man, also curly haired but thinner and taller with some healing bruises on his face, went down, too, and the fourth man, shorter with thinning hair, landed on top of him, causing the first man's breath to whoosh out. The balding man had been carrying a transparent box with glowing components inside and it spurted out of his hands and landed beside him on the ramp. Daniel thought he heard it make a sputtered sound of protest. He couldn't have, could he?        Behind them came two women, a blonde and a black woman with very short hair, who staggered momentarily but didn't fall. Their eyes started to scan the cavern for danger. They had guns--all of them but the man in black had guns--but they were confused. Whoever this group was, they didn't seem to be Goa'uld. They looked like fleeing refugees to Daniel.        Teal'c and Jack took advantage of their momentary disorientation to jump out of concealment and aim weapons. Sam was right behind them, and Daniel, who was still trying mentally to place these unlikely Gate travelers in his mind, jumped up and followed.        The two women had their guns up so fast Daniel found himself thinking of Marshall Dillon about to have a gunfight on Front Street. The others went for their guns, too, all but the man in black leather and the balding one. Mexican standoff.        The guy with thinning hair eased off the younger man and assumed a very placating expression. He spread his hands to prove himself weaponless. "Hallo. You're not Federation, are you? You don't look like Federation. We're peaceful, I promise you. We're harmless."        "Yeah, you look it," drawled Jack. "A bunch of Rambos, if I ever saw them. Carter, any evidence of Goa'uld?"        Sam concentrated, using the remnants of Jolinar, the Tok'ra who had inhabited her briefly. She could sense Goa'uld that way, but it didn't come completely automatically to her. She had to work at it. "No, sir. Nothing like that at all."        "What's Goa'uld?" asked the blonde woman. Her hand on the gun was rock-steady, and her eyes measured them all levelly. She didn't look uneasy at all, just ultra competent. "We're...refugees," she added, and it was apparent that her choice of words was conscious and deliberate, selected to reveal as little information as possible.        "This is not a Federation world." The voice came from the transparent box.        "No, it looks exactly like the same cave we were just in," said the younger curly-haired man. "Except that the mirror is missing." He craned his neck in search of the missing mirror, and Daniel had a sudden premonition that things were about to get complicated. What if he meant a quantum mirror?        Jack's gun came around and aimed at the talking box. "What the heck is that?" Teal'c instantly shifted so that his staff weapon covered the refugees.        "Orac," said the man in black in tones that could not be gainsaid, "assess the situation. Where are we? What faction do these people represent?"        "Faction? I am not conversant with political factions in this reality."        "Reality?" half the people there echoed, including Jack, Sam and Daniel. The older man with curly hair didn't speak, but he let Black Leather help him to sit up. He looked like he was recovering from an illness or injury--he was too pale and none too steady and sweating a bit from the exertion of his arrival. The younger curly-haired man just looked like a refugee from a bar brawl, but he had a cocky stance that reminded Daniel of Jack when he was one-on-one with a nasty enemy--like Apophis.        "Oh, now, this is interesting," Jack muttered. "You claim you came from another reality? And what's that talking box supposed to be?" He glanced at the rest of his team and mouthed the words, "Quantum mirror?" Carter nodded to let him know she'd picked up on that, too. Teal'c inclined his head.        "I am not 'supposed to be' anything," the box huffed at him. "I am Orac, the most brilliant computer you will ever encounter. We encountered alien technology, including a mirror device that opens a pathway between parallel dimensions. Pursued by those with inimical intent, I arranged to activate the mirror as well as the circle device, and brought us here. However, we appear to have returned to our place of origin. Yet, this is not the same. It was my understanding that the circle device would translocate us to an alternate planetary destination. If you are not Federation, and it is highly unlikely that you are, then perhaps this reality does not parallel ours with accuracy. I require more information."        Daniel was fascinated. "Do you have the Goa'uld in your reality?" he asked. After all, he'd been in an alternate reality himself; actually, he'd been in two of them. These people had obviously encountered one of the quantum mirrors in their own dimension. That tall, bruised character had mentioned a mirror being missing here. But that would not explain the activation of the Stargate and their claim to have changed realities. The mirror in itself would have been sufficient for that. Daniel suddenly wondered if they even understood what the Stargate did. And what else was involved? Something else had to be. Carter must have thought so, too, because she went up to examine the Gate, and then pulled out a notebook and made some hasty jottings in it.        "Define terminology," prompted Orac huffily. "Please be precise in your questions. Our interaction will be better served if you ask specific questions."        Jack's mouth curled. Pretty clear that he didn't like Orac's tone. Daniel thought it was a little amusing, but he suspected Orac would wear on impatient people quickly. Sam, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to get down beside Orac and dig around inside. Computer technology must be vastly different in the reality these people had come from.        "What are these Goa'uld, anyway?" asked the guy with thinning hair.        At least nobody looked like they were about to start firing. A parallel reality that didn't closely mimic the present one? All the others they had encountered had been almost identical to their own, with one difference: a Goa'uld invasion of Earth. Well, a couple really. Daniel hadn't been in either of them, and Sam hadn't been in the military. But then, thought Daniel, those instances had all been viewed directly from Earth. When he'd activated the quantum mirror the first time, he had instantly Gated 'home' to an Earth not his own. Maybe in their reality, the Goa'uld had never reached this planet, or had not visited it in a long time. Evidently, wherever these people had Gated from, the Goa'uld had no sway.        But then, not all worlds with Stargates were listed on the Abydos cartouche. The Goa'uld might not know of their planet.        "Maybe we should introduce ourselves, said the younger curly-haired man. "I'm Del Tarrant. This is Dayna Mellanby." He nodded at the black woman. "Soolin." She was the blonde who held the gun as if it were an extension of her hand. "That's Vila Restal." He waved his hand at the man with thinning hair. "And these two are Avon and Blake." Avon was the one with the leather who hovered with impersonal protectiveness at Blake's side, and Blake the injured one. Tarrant continued. "Soolin's right, we're refugees. In our dimension--" and he was quick on his feet because the expressions of the entire group had gone through a range of astonished twitches when Orac, the computer, had mentioned alternate realities. "In our dimension, the ruling government, the Federation, is a totalitarian regime, and Blake was one of its leading opponents. We just came from a botched confrontation. Blake was wounded. He is recovering, but a medical or surgical unit wouldn't come amiss."        "You look like you could use one yourself," offered Daniel. "We're not from--"        "Daniel," Jack cut in warningly. "I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill. This is Doctor Daniel Jackson. Major Sam Carter, and this is Teal'c. In case you haven't seen one before, that's a staff weapon he's aiming at you. It's not something you want to mess with. It fires a directed energy blast and it's capable of piercing body armor."        "Do you understand these circle translocation devices?" asked Avon. "They shift to alternate realities? This is the same cavern--I recognize that rock formation. But the mirror we saw is gone, and you don't seem aware of Federation pursuit." He radiated hostility. Maybe he didn't like Jack's Alpha male attitude, or maybe he was just nasty. Daniel wasn't sure, but he had a feeling there was a lot of pain under the opaque protection in his eyes. Daniel had surprised a look like that in his own eyes more than once since Sha're's death. He glanced uneasily at Teal'c's staff weapon. Even Sha're had insisted Teal'c had been given no choice but to blast her, but there were times when he remembered all too vividly. Avon's cold attitude didn't irritate Daniel the way it did Jack, because he could feel the pain under the ice. Jack was a little touchier than normal, too. He'd been on the defensive with his team for the past few weeks. Daniel was starting to wish for a way to break through that and get back to normal.        "This is the first time you've used a Gate?" asked Sam.        "We never even saw one before," admitted Vila Restal. "Gave me quite a start, it did." They all sounded rather British.        Sam edged closer to Orac. "Your computer was able to interpret its function? The knowledge must exist in its programming."        "Orac thinks too highly of itself," said Tarrant. "But it can read other computers."        Jack didn't appear to like the sound of that, but Sam was intrigued. "How does it do that? Does it need a direct physical link?"        "Orac's abilities are not for discussion," said Avon coldly. "Do you have a shelter where we might take Blake?"        "I'm all right, Avon." It was the first time Blake had spoken, but his voice was firm in spite of the physical weakness that ran through it. He didn't mean his answer so much as reassurance as a statement of fact. Something wasn't well between them. The whole team was even touchier than SG-1 had been since Jack's return.        Avon snorted. "Naturally, Blake. Unlike ordinary mortals, you have no need for blood replacement or tissue regeneration. You will simply wave your hand and heal yourself." There should have been amusement in the sarcasm; at least Daniel would have been more comfortable if there had been. But there was not.        "Which wouldn't have been necessary had you taken the time to listen," snapped Blake in response.        Daniel half expected Avon to snarl at him in retribution, but Avon didn't. Instead, he lowered his eyes and said nothing at all, although his hands curled tightly into fists. Vila and Tarrant exchanged worried glances and the two women frowned. Daniel couldn't help wondering what it was about.        Sam abandoned her stalking of Orac. "Colonel, at least two of these people are wounded. If they are, indeed, refugees, maybe we should take them back to the infirmary."        "Good idea, Carter."        Daniel hadn't expected such easy acquiescence, but then he realized that both Sam and Jack were interested in Orac and its potential. If they could duplicate any of the computer's properties, it would be of tremendous benefit to Earth. Orac had evidently been able to analyze the Stargate they found and understand its function and that of the quantum mirror that must have been there, too. It evidently could activate a DHD without a direct physical link. It had gotten the humans out of a tight situation. No wonder they wanted to get Orac back to the base for analysis.        Daniel was more concerned for the people.        He'd gone through a rough time recently himself. He recognized the same symptoms in the people before him. None of them had a shred of happiness in their features. Whatever they'd been through, it had been hard on them, and Daniel felt ready sympathy for them. If the armed Marines back at the SGC couldn't protect the base from them, then there might be trouble but there were only six of them and security at the SGC was thorough. It should be safe enough.        Carter thought of something and held up an arresting hand to Jack. "Orac. You read other computers. Does that mean you could control our computers?"        "Good point." Jack looked uncomfortable talking to a clear plastic box. "What about it, Orac? How do we know it would be safe to take you home."        "Home?" That was Vila, who must be quicker on the uptake than he looked. "You're not from this world, either, are you?" He peeked out through the deactivated Gate at the ruin at the foot of the hill and then at the weapons and equipment SG-1 carried. "No, you're not from here. You're explorers or scouts or something, and you just happened to be here when we showed up. You're not running from anybody, either, even if these Goa'uld you mention don't sound exactly nice. If they're the bad guys, then you're the good guys. At least I hope you're good guys. We are, too."        "Oh, shut up, Vila," said Avon, which, surprisingly, caused the smaller man to light up in delight, only to sag again. Maybe he had recognized that Avon's words were no more than a conditioned response. Something was going on with Avon, and it wasn't a happy something. Daniel had learned enough over the past few years to know that very few things could be easily spelled out in black and white.        "Tarrial cells," offered Blake. "Orac reads Tarrial cells. If your computers have them--"        "The Gate we came through is not likely to possess Tarrial cells, Blake," Avon reminded him sharply. "Perhaps Orac has been holding out on us." Suspicion bloomed extravagantly on his face. He'd picked up on the terminology and remembered that the word 'Gate' had been mentioned. That meant he was alert and quick, and might be dangerous. He looked dangerous. But he also looked sad and weary and painfully self-contained, and while Daniel couldn't trust him at first sight, neither could he reject the man and his people out of hand.        Before Daniel could think about what danger Orac might mean to the base--a speculation that Jack was already considering to judge by his face--the matter was taken out of their hands. With a furious roar of sound, the planet's natives boiled over the crest of the nearest hill, hundreds of them, decked out in war paint and waving spears and crossbows, and they started for the cavern mouth at a dead run.        "That looks bad," Jack muttered. "Dial us home, Daniel." He whipped out his GDO so he could send the recognition signal back to the SGC as soon as the Gate opened.        Daniel was keying in the symbols for Earth before Jack finished speaking, conscious of the rest of SG-1 and the refugees from the other dimension lining up, united in purpose, to defend them from the natives' attack in case they arrived in the cavern mouth before the Gate activated. "Come on, come on," he muttered under his breath, relieved when the Gate whooshed open. They could still hear the natives yelling, getting closer by the second. Could they come through the back of an activated Gate? The subject had never come up, not that Daniel could remember. He hoped a spear through the chest wouldn't be his answer to the question.        Sam went first, so she could explain the presence of the newcomers. They could still hear the tribesmen yelling outside, but since the wormhole filled the entire mouth of the cave, they couldn't see them any longer. Maybe the natives would fear the activated Gate.        Avon steadied Blake, who did not look especially grateful but who accepted the support, and Vila gave a running, panicked commentary. "I knew I'd hate it here. This isn't a nice place. Orac, you great idiot, why couldn't you bring us somewhere safe? We shall all be killed...." But he stood his ground with his gun ready until Tarrant made a shooing gesture at him and then he raced up the ramp and plunged into the Gate.        The two women leveled their guns at the Gate as if they expected the natives to burst through. Jack yelled at them in exasperation, "Go on, through the Gate--now!" Tarrant leaped through after Vila and the women plunged in, too.        Daniel went with them, hanging back only long enough to make sure that Jack and Teal'c were right behind him.        Daniel stepped through the Gate to a face full of guns. A second later, Jack and Teal'c popped through after him. The Gate disengaged. Daniel was pretty sure the natives wouldn't know how to use it, and when it didn't instantly start to power up, Jack relaxed.        Armed Marines were ready and waiting, covering the strangers, who stood staring around the Gate room with wide-eyed interest. They weren't trying anything; they'd have been crazy to do it when they were clearly outnumbered and in a strange place, although Daniel wasn't sure if Avon would make that choice rationally. If he thought someone threatened Blake....        General Hammond, the commander of the Stargate Project, spoke to them from the control booth overhead. "Who have you brought with you, Colonel O'Neill?" he called over the P.A. system. Hammond had grown used to unique occurrences with his teams, and SG-1 had brought home strangers before, but Hammond had also learned to be wary. It was one of the things that made him a good commander.        "Refugees, sir," Jack replied.        "Armed refugees, Colonel," Hammond pointed out disapprovingly.        "We needed the backup weapons," Jack defended that fact. "The planet had unfriendly natives--a lot of them."        "General Hammond, several of these people need to go to the infirmary," Sam called, her eyes raised to the glassed-in booth overhead. "If we can start their treatment, the rest of them can explain their situation to you at the debriefing."        "Consider it done, Major. I want them disarmed while they are here, and then you can take them there. Everyone else assemble in the briefing room in fifteen minutes." *****        Avon hadn't wanted to leave the infirmary. He hadn't said so, but then Avon never did say such things. Tarrant had learned to read his body language, his non-expressions, the tightness of his mouth. Vila, who could read Avon better than anybody else, didn't say a word. He just planted himself warily near Avon while the woman doctor--Fraiser, had it been?--examined Blake. She seemed knowledgeable even if her equipment appeared rather primitive. Another doctor, an older man, started to check out Tarrant.        "I'm just banged up from a ship crash, with a stun blast on top of it," Tarrant replied. "Nothing serious. I don't need to be admitted."        "You'll let us be the judge of that, Captain Tarrant," Doctor Warner said to him. "We do our jobs thoroughly here."        "The docs don't like being second guessed, Captain," Colonel O'Neill said from the door. From the discussion of rank that had taken place on the way to the infirmary, Tarrant got the impression that a Colonel in the Air Force outranked a space captain, and that O'Neill was glad of it. He was in charge of the group that had been surveying the planet and evidently took his responsibilities to heart. There were several armed men in fatigues near the door, guarding them. Maybe Tarrant and his shipmates weren't prisoners, but neither had they been given the key to the city. None of them had resisted being disarmed, not even Avon, although they weren't happy with the fact. It wasn't as if they'd had a choice.        Doctor Jackson appeared thrilled with their presence on this base. Someone had said he was an anthropologist. It occurred to Tarrant that anthropologists in his own dimension--and that was still a little difficult to accept, that Orac had brought them into an alternate reality--didn't study parallel universes, but they did study cultures, and Jackson's questions had been geared to learning about the one the Scorpio crew had come from. While the attractive Doctor Fraiser checked Blake and Avon scowled, Jackson asked deft questions of Dayna and Soolin. Dayna, after one quick glance at Avon, started talking about her home planet, Sarren, where she had lived in isolation with her father, and about the primitive tribes there. Jackson was fascinated, but he wasn't stupid. After a few minutes, he tried to direct the discussion back to the rest of them.        Avon simply ignored the whole thing. He had a high-handed way of doing that, writing off what was going on around him in the grand manner if he decided it didn't involve him personally. Jackson hadn't noticed that yet, but O'Neill had. He bent his head and said something under his breath to Major Carter, who looked up at him quickly, then studied Avon. She had a very knowing face. If he had noticed it, Avon would have hated the look.        "Doesn't anybody want to examine me?" asked Vila loudly. "After all, I've been stunned and imprisoned and chased just now by hairy natives, and on top of all that I've been put into a strange reality, too. Do they have adrenaline and soma here, I wonder?"        "Oh, shut up, Vila," Tarrant said automatically, brushing at Doctor Warner's hands as he examined the pilot's bruises.        "Oh, yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you," said Vila darkly.        "What happens to us now?" asked Soolin from her position near the door. She looked unhappy to have been forced to give up her gun; all their weapons were gone unless Avon had something concealed there amid the studs and leather--though he had been the only one of them who hadn't possessed an obvious weapon. You never could tell with Avon, in spite of his newborn aversion for going armed. But they'd been passed through something like a metal detector, and anything useful taken, "...until we understand your situation," an armed man had told them. Their weapons would be labeled by name and stored in the armory for safekeeping. They were outnumbered here. The Scorpio crew had been forced to comply. Avon's face had darkened, but he had held his peace. Even if he hadn't liked carrying a gun since shooting Blake, he wouldn't enjoy the thought of is people being disarmed.        "We'll have a briefing with General Hammond," Daniel replied. "He'll be interested to hear you used a quantum mirror to come here. We'll want to learn how your dimension parallels our own, whether there was any evidence of Goa'uld involvement there. When we've encountered alternate worlds up till now, we've met with our own counterparts there. This time, we didn't."        "General Hammond will question you," O'Neill put in, more to stop Jackson's flow of words than anything. He probably thought the anthropologist was giving away too much, not that anything he said would matter. The mirror was familiar to them, but that didn't mean they had one here. They could have encountered one when traveling to another world. Evidently they didn't need ships for the process but hopped from world to world through a series of Stargates. And speaking of which....        "What planet is this?" Tarrant asked.        The locals exchanged glances. All right, so they were cautious. Even Jackson didn't answer that one.        "We'll discuss that at the briefing, too," O'Neill said. Period. Full stop. He wasn't going to give anything else away. "What world do you come from?"        Avon's head came up at that. "You assume we would offer information more readily than you offer it yourself."        "You're our guests here," O'Neill pointed out. "We brought you here for your safety. We're not the Federation you've been fighting. I think that entitles us to some answers."        They glared at each other, then Blake spoke. He hadn't said much of anything the whole time, but now he collected himself and pushed away Doctor Fraiser's hands. He looked pale and drained, on the verge of passing out but he held on with the indomitable will he'd displayed ever since they had patched him up on the stolen ship. Tarrant was still annoyed with Blake, but he couldn't help respecting him, too. "We're mostly from Earth," Blake said. "In our dimension, it was the birthplace of humanity. Unfortunately, it was also the origin of the Terran Federation. Which I have been fighting most of my adult life."        "Earth?" Daniel echoed in astonishment. "But if you have no Goa'uld involvement...."        "Perhaps we have," Blake replied.        Tarrant stared at him in astonishment. So did everyone else. "I never heard of any Goa'uld, whatever that is," Vila volunteered, and Soolin shook her head in complete denial.        "Neither did I."        Avon's eyes had landed on Blake the instant he spoke, but now he turned to them with realization in his eyes. "Ah. Yes. Perhaps. I studied history as well, Blake."        And then it came to Tarrant. His mouth fell open. "The dark eras," he said with stunned realization as the clues came together. He didn't have enough information or knowledge to add them up properly, but he had a few hints to go on. How closely would the different realities interact? What made them diverge? "The fall of the Old Calendar. Could that have been caused by the Goa'uld?"        "How long ago was that?" Major Carter asked quickly. She and her team exchanged interested glances, eyes full of speculation.        "Several hundred years," Tarrant replied. "We have some remnants of history from them, but mostly it's repressed. At the time of the fall, little information got through, but I know there haven't been Goa'uld attacks since then, at least not by any beings under that name. The Terran Federation has been death on aliens ever since it arose. When I thought about it at all, I thought it was simple chauvinism, a means of consolidating power, but it could have arisen out of the need to counter an alien threat. Servalan, who was President and Supreme Commander in our time, butchered an entire planet of aliens, the Auronar, with a genetically-engineered plague just to try to get to us." He gestured at his shipmates. "Whether the Goa'uld brought about the fall of the old Calendar, it's possible that only those in power knew about an alien threat. The Auronar were not Goa'uld. Physically they were nearly identical to humans except for a gift of telepathy. But there has been a systematic program of alien eradication ever since the Federation rose. Do you think they were trying to make certain the Goa'uld never came back?"        "But we're on Earth now," Vila put in, to the astonishment of the rest of the Scorpio crew and the displeasure of Colonel O'Neill. When everyone stared at him, he continued hastily, "I heard someone mention it. They said, 'they might be human, but they're not from here, not from Earth.'" He glanced over at Major Carter, who looked surprised and dismayed.        "I did say that, but I didn't think any of them could hear me," she told O'Neill. "Sorry, sir."        "But if they're from a parallel Earth in which the Goa'uld were defeated centuries ago...." Daniel's eyes were wide. "I wonder how they did it."        "We'll resolve that at the briefing," Jack decided. "Somebody better bring Orac. It seems to know how it got you to PV4-555. Or at least how you activated the Gate there in your own reality." His mouth twisted wryly. "I can tell this is going to be good." *****        Everyone but Blake went to the briefing. Doctor Fraiser wanted to do some slight reconstructive surgery that she reported would not be dangerous, and then he'd be put on an IV nutrient solution in addition to standard post-operative care, but she reported he would recover; that the damage done to him was not fatal, that he was simply weak because he had received sketchy treatment and had been given no time to recover. When she was finished with him, she said, he'd recover completely. Avon showed a tendency to hang back at the mention of surgery, but Fraiser brooked no nonsense and stood her ground. Stubbornness in a small, neat package. Daniel, often himself a patient of hers, knew better than to hang around when she had ordered them gone, and even Jack, who tended to push like mad when he was a patient, pitched in to steer their guests away to leave the doctor time to do her work.        The refugees' tattered--and in some cases blood-stained--clothes had been replaced with BDUs, and even the brooding Avon looked more ordinary when he was dressed like everyone else. He seemed indifferent to what he wore, but the fatigues were so different from the studs and leather getup that Daniel noticed the others sneaking measuring looks at him as if he had suddenly become a stranger. Daniel found the man interesting and would have liked to hear his story, but even more interesting was the fact that their reality appeared to have encountered the Goa'uld far earlier than his own had and yet, they had evidently had the science and technology to find a means to drive them off, even if the process had collapsed their Earth's government.        "Earth?" Hammond said, interested. "I wonder if there are copies of you walking around our world." He looked at Orac, as it sat in the middle of the briefing table, humming quietly to itself. Avon had taken a seat close to the computer, maybe staking a claim. "All right, people, let's get to it. You weren't fleeing the Goa'uld when your computer brought you through the Stargate to PV4-555, and you evidently don't know the symbols for the world you came from."        "The caves were identical on the world we came from and the one you call PV4-555," Tarrant said quickly. "I thought it was the same world, but the one we left to come here had no mirror, so it couldn't be the same place unless the natives removed it, and, if your team was there, it doesn't seem there would have been time. I assume the transition through the Stargate is near instantaneous?" He looked a question, but no one answered it, and he let it go.        "We don't even know the name of the planet we left," Soolin offered. When Avon's head came up and he favored her with an icy look, she met it glare for glare. "Avon, the only way we're going to get out of here is to cooperate with these people. I don't believe they're Federation. If the Federation had Stargates, Orac would know about it."        "I do know about it," Orac announced. "Such devices are generally unknown in the time and place we came from, but they had been known by a select few historically, and there are records. Information on their use is generally highly restricted, and actual use of the Stargates has not taken place for a period of at least one hundred Earth-years."        "Do you know about the Goa'uld, too, Orac?" asked Carter, leaning forward with interest.        "Of course I do. I have had access to all history known to the Federation that is available in any computer records. Knowledge of the Goa'uld is even more restricted than the knowledge of the Stargates. However, theories offered in your medical unit were absolutely correct. The regime of the Old Calendar fell at the time of incursions by the Goa'uld. In spite of that, Earth found a means of defeating them."        "What? How?" Daniel cried. If Orac had information that would help them to defeat the Goa'uld, then bringing it here might be the best thing they had ever done, and not simply for Earth.        "That information is not available."        "Oh, that's just ducky," muttered Jack. "The one thing that would help us most, and you can't produce it."        "It isn't that we don't want to," Tarrant put in. "I never heard of the Goa'uld before today, but they sound worse than the Federation. A snake taking over your brain wouldn't be my first choice."        Vila shuddered elaborately. "Nasty. Worse than hairy aliens, let me tell you."        "Let me get this clear," Hammond took back control of the meeting. "In your dimension, the Goa'uld were defeated but the process brought about a dark age or at least the fall of the then-current government?"        "And a great deal of destruction on Earth," Orac concurred. "It took a century to regain the lost ground as a result of the devastation."        "This is the first most of us have heard of this," Soolin said. "But of course the Federation was restrictive; they wouldn't want the knowledge to get out that there might be someone out there more powerful than they were."        "But it was not out there," Orac disagreed. "Records indicate that the Goa'uld threat had ceased to exist in our reality. When I accessed those records, I researched them most thoroughly."        "Orac has a really good bump of self-preservation," Vila muttered. "It wouldn't care if we were in danger, so long as it wasn't in danger itself. I still think Avon should redesign it as an empty space."        General Hammond ignored Vila's frivolity. "Orac, it is my understanding that you are more than a computer, that you are an actual artificial intelligence. Is this correct?"        "Naturally it is. Far superior to any human. I am gratified that you have the wit to appreciate me."        Avon looked as if he would like to disagree, but he didn't. He wasn't the type to volunteer any useful information at all. Daniel wondered if there was any chance that these unlikely people were actually part of a Goa'uld plot. He was sure General Hammond had considered the possibility. Jack was sure to have thought of it. But it seemed unlikely and chancy; Blake really was injured and the people's reaction when they stepped out of the Gate indicated it really was their first time through a Stargate.        Hammond frowned. "I would appreciate you more if you would try to compile a list of possible solutions the Old Calendar Earth people might have attempted against the Goa'uld in your reality. In other parallel universes, the Goa'uld destroyed Earth or came close."        "But not in this dimension?" Avon leaned forward with interest. The scientific puzzle appeared to have pulled him out of his dark mood. "Interesting. Orac, you will research this possibility?"        "Altruism, Avon?" Dayna asked.        "Self-interest. The Goa'uld threaten me."        "Oh yes," muttered Vila. "We know. And Blake."        "You're a fool," said Avon savagely.        "The issue, gentlemen," Hammond cut in quickly, "is both to attempt to learn how your reality stopped the Goa'uld and to deal with your presence in this one. We have discovered from experience that your presence here could pose problems for you if your avatars in this reality are still alive."        "Orac is able to read other computers, sir," Sam volunteered. "It understood the function of both the quantum mirror and the Gate itself and was able to activate the DHD without physical contact. It evidently reads computers which possess something called Tarrial cells. I took a quick look at Orac while we were in the infirmary and it is unlike any computer I have ever seen. I don't have a clue how it functions, not yet. It's almost a life form."        "Do you mean it could read our computers?" Hammond picked up on the threat immediately. Jack's eyes narrowed as he studied the little transparent box. Jack had never really been a high tech kind of guy. He left the science end of things to people like Sam and the base techs. Jack's own genius was in other areas, and Daniel knew he would be on alert the whole time the 'refugees' were here. He didn't appear to trust any of them, and while the arrogant Tarrant irritated him, he seemed to suspect Avon the most, perhaps because he couldn't get a handle on the man. None of them could.        Orac's voice ached with regret. "I cannot read your computers without a direct link. I can read something of the Stargate."        "You're saying the Gate possesses these Tarrial cells?" Sam asked sharply. She looked like she were itching to dig into Orac and find out what made it tick. "We've never encountered anything like that and I've studied Gate technology thoroughly."        "Assuming you would recognize and understand something you had never heard of before today," Avon pointed out. "Orac was designed by a man called Ensor. He was, perhaps, the greatest computer brain to come out of the Federation."        "And Avon says 'perhaps' because he'd rather be called that himself," Vila put in. Teasing? Daniel didn't think he'd have been comfortable teasing the dark man, but Avon merely elevated his chin a fraction and looked down his nose at Vila.        "No, I wouldn't know the terminology for Tarrial cells," Sam admitted. "That's what your dimension called it. Whether it exists here or not, under another title or in another state of development is a moot point. What is important is whether or not the Stargates and DHDs possess elements that can be accessed remotely by powerful computers or AI's. And I haven't discovered anything about either that can, at least nothing other than existing Goa'uld technology." She glanced Avon's way. "I'm not a programmer. My field is astrophysics, rather than computers, but I have to know a great deal about computers to do my work, and I'm the one who deals with the 'Gates and DHDs in the field, if any work has to be done on them. So, if that function is incorporated into them, it's nothing I can isolate based on my experience and current technology."        Avon inclined his head slightly, then he turned to the computer. "Orac, answer this. Do the Stargates and the, er, DHDs possess Tarrial cells or a analog to them?"        "They do not," Orac replied. "However, it possesses a technology that can be accessed using Tarrial cells. It is possible that my creator, Ensor, had access to Gate technology when I was designed. He designed Tarrial cells when he was only eighteen and it altered computer science completely. He worked in isolation on a remote planet, Aristo. I believe there was a Gate there, and I believe Ensor knew of it and understood its function."        Avon jumped in. "If that were the case, why not use the Gate transportation to send his son for assistance when he was dying?"        "The Gate did not function," Orac replied. "It is my contention that it would have been necessary for Ensor to make astronomical calculations to locate appropriate planets, due to galactic shift since the last time of Gate use, plus a knowledge of the symbols that would represent Earth or a planet with appropriate medical facilities, and, of course, there would need to be a working gate on the world he chose. The device you refer to as the DHD may not have existed on Aristo, and, if so, Ensor would have had to use his own computers to activate a Gate. I theorize the DHD might have the ability to deal with the galactic drift. Ensor's field was artificial intelligence, not astrophysics. I could have made such calculations in record time, but Ensor did not require it of me. He provided no information on Stargates."        "Orac's really interested in all this," Vila muttered to Tarrant. "It isn't usually so forthcoming."        "It probably doesn't like the fact that there's an important field out there that it's been unable to access thoroughly." Tarrant turned to Hammond. "We may be refugees here, but we're not without a bargaining chip. Use of Orac should more than pay our way here. And you seem familiar with traveling dimensionally. Would it be possible to return us to our own reality, if not to the planet we originally Gated from?"        At once he had the entire attention of his teammates. "Assuming we should choose to return," Avon said smoothly.        "I should point out that, unless your parallels in our world are dead or very far away, there would be problems with your continued presence in this reality," Hammond returned. "However, since your dimension evidently possessed space travel well in advance of our own, it is possible they were off-world as you were. What was the date when you came through?"        The question stopped Avon and made him tilt his head in thought. A cautious frown settled on his forehead and he studied Hammond thoughtfully. "What year is this?"        Hammond looked at the question from several directions to determine if there were hidden snags in it and finally said, "It's March, 2000."        "That's an Old Calendar date," Tarrant blurted in astonishment. "The end of the Twentieth Century."        "Old Calendar?" Avon echoed and his face developed a particularly expressionless stare. "Yes, it is."        "But what's that mean?" Vila's eyes rounded and he stared from Avon to Tarrant and back again.        "Yes, that question interests us as well, Captain Tarrant," Hammond said. Daniel exchanged a puzzled glance with Sam, and Teal'c, who hadn't found knowledge of the Earth dating system vital to his presence with the Tauri, arched an eyebrow at O'Neill. The Colonel was frowning.        "Because we're over two hundred fifty years past your date," Tarrant replied. "We might not be from your dimension, but we're evidently not from your own time, either."        Orac made a noise that sounded like 'humph'. It might almost have been embarrassment, if computers, or A.I.'s, could be embarrassed.        Avon was on him like Daniel would have been on a promising new language sample carved on an alien wall. "Explain, Orac," the dark man gritted out through clenched teeth. If Daniel had been Orac, he would have been very glad Avon didn't have a large club in his hand.        "Very well. You realize my information on Stargates is several centuries out of date. There have been no Federation studies on Stargates for well over two hundred years."        "And...." Tarrant prompted. The two women exchanged doubtful glances and Vila wrapped his arms around his chest in a parody of fear, although his eyes were considering rather than afraid. He looked like a man who had quickly learned to weigh his options.        "As I had previously stated, galactic shift would have slightly affected all Gate destinations," Orac volunteered. "However, I selected for our destination a planet very near the one we were to have left. I do not know its designation under the terminology you use but I could pinpoint its location, should such be required. Aware of the need of a working 'destination', I chose the nearest world, realizing it would likely still provide a functioning 'address'."        "Yes, that's why we made it safely to the first world we tried," Carter responded. "We are aware of these factors, Orac. What we don't understand is how you could use galactic shift to travel in time, even with the added function of a quantum mirror."        "I doubt I could explain it to someone of your limited intellect," Orac huffed.        Sam jerked her head up in disbelief. Daniel didn't remember ever seeing that particular look of affront on her face. People didn't usually insult Sam for a lack of intellect.        "Oh, now, don't worry," offered Vila. The balding man beamed engagingly at Sam. "Orac says things like that to Avon all the time, and Avon's supposed to be the second-best computer man in the inner and outer worlds."        "Second best? Ensor is dead," Avon pointed out rather smugly. Vila's face lit up and he beamed like the sun. Daniel considered that. Did Vila enjoy Avon's smugness, or was it simply that something had gotten past the man's cold armor, even if it were only ego?        "Suppose you try to explain it," Sam told Orac in a voice that held a challenge and an edge of resentment. "Let us be the judge of what we understand and do not understand."        "Very well. Tarrial cells were designed to create uniformity throughout the Federation, to make computers faster, easier to access, and to make time lags non-existent, even over vast distances."        "Networking between various planets?" Sam's eyes brightened. "Then all computers can do as you do, Orac? Access each other without a direct link?"        "Of course not," Orac huffed. "Computers are not, in general, self-aware. Programming simulates the condition--as it did in the Slave computer," Orac insisted pointedly.        "Slave was the computer on our ship," Soolin put in. "It was destroyed when the Scorpio crashed. It was annoyingly obsequious."        "Makes you wonder if Avon hadn't tampered with the programming," muttered Vila under his breath. He eyed the dark man hopefully out of the corner of his eye.        Daniel glanced sideways at Jack. The colonel hadn't offered much at the meeting, but then computers were not his area of expertise. Instead, Daniel realized, he'd been watching the refugees, assessing them, weighing them up, probably figuring out with pinpoint accuracy which of them were likely to cause the SGC the most trouble. The arch of O'Neill's eyebrow at Vila's comment indicated he was starting to get a handle on the subtext. Good. Daniel knew he could trust Jack to monitor such things. These people had been rebels against an existing and all-powerful government. That probably meant they had forgotten more things about sabotage, high explosives, and devious behavior than Daniel had ever learned. He was sympathetic to their plight, but exposure to Jack O'Neill had made him warier than he'd been in the beginning.        "Slave showed proper respect," Avon said shortly, but Daniel suspected that, under the ice, a slight warmth of amusement hovered.        Orac must have hated being removed from the center of attention. It made a sound that in a human would have been a clearing of the throat and plunged on. "Kindly pay attention. I have too much of my own research to engage upon to waste my time here. Because of Tarrial cells, links can be made through remote computers, with the assistance of coding devices such as a T-P crystal to provide security. Directed properly and with proper passwords, a skilled technician such as Kerr Avon can access many computers. I, however, can access any computer with a Tarrial cell, in spite of passwords, blocks, and distance. It is a pity your computers here are too antiquated to possess them. However, I am able to detect your Stargate and, through it, observe some of your computer functioning. With modifications, it could be easily accessible to me. Such modifications must be made immediately."        Jack made an abrupt motion of denial, and Hammond stepped in again. "That has not been determined as yet," the general said. "Orac, your information has been helpful, but not helpful enough for that. You speak of a means of defeating the Goa'uld threat in your dimension. Evidently, the cure was almost as deadly as the disease, but it might be possible to adapt it here. I don't know what your memory storage capacity is, but I suggest you delve into memories of everything you have accessed and offer us possible solutions."        Orac snorted. "Well, really. It is not my function to save this reality from a threat my own overcame centuries ago."        "No, but they've got the Stargate," Vila reminded the computer. "They could open it up on a nasty world--one all under water, or one that's on fire, and throw you through. Think about it, Orac. That'd be worse than Avon redesigning you, wouldn't it, then?"        "I'd like to go over Orac's specs." Sam turned to Avon. "You're here now and you would appear to be stranded here for the time being. If the Goa'uld menace us, they menace you as well."        "Is your civilization barbaric enough to threaten me because I am not a human?" Orac demanded haughtily.        Daniel didn't want to answer that one. Teal'c, a Jaffa, had been threatened here with such things as imprisonment and dissection simply because of his infant Goa'uld. Humans threatened each other all the time. But what Orac meant, Daniel thought, was whether Orac, as a conscious intelligence, was entitled to the same rights as a human being by law, and the answer was no. At the end of the Twentieth Century there were no known intelligences but human beings. Some wondered about the dolphins, and of course the SGC and those highly placed in the government and the military knew about other races out beyond the Stargate, but there were no laws to protect them, should they be identified. A computer intelligence that could be proven self-aware would be deemed a threat by a large percentage of the population. Jack didn't look especially happy about Orac--or any of the Scorpio crew. Sam was intrigued, but then Sam liked technology. Teal'c would want to know if Orac could help with the process of defeating the Goa'uld, to break the hold the System Lords held over his people. And Hammond would have to look at the bigger picture, to protect this base, this country, and this planet, from potential threats, of which Orac might be one, in spite of its willingness to share information. It could be sharing it very selectively, for all they knew. The people who sat around the briefing table might not be from a parallel reality at all. They might be part of a Goa'uld plot, even if none of them had ever hosted a Goa'uld.        "We have no plans to harm you," Hammond said. "We do, however, have a need to protect this facility, this planet, and this reality, and we will do so. Captain Tarrant, you offered to 'pay your way' through the use of Orac. I would like to assign Major Carter and a technology team to study it. Mister Avon, if you would assist in this area, it would be much appreciated."        Avon opened his mouth to sear the general with a savage rejection, but Vila nudged him with his elbow and Avon shut up, although the scathing glare he bestowed on Vila promised retaliation. He glanced at the doorway, in the direction of the infirmary, as if he had suddenly remembered Blake was being treated and said through clenched teeth, "I will do so."        "Excellent. We shall meet again at 0800 hours tomorrow. We'll see you are assigned quarters."        "And guards?" Dayna asked.        "And guards," Hammond replied without hesitation. "This is a top security base and you people do not have clearance. There will be areas you will not see and questions we will not answer. In our position, you would do the same. We may be able to help each other, and if possible, we shall do so. As long as you do not create a danger to this base, you will be treated well. Our goals appear to run parallel to each other, at least for the moment."        Vila studied Avon thoughtfully, then he said, "Could we see Blake first?"        Hammond considered that request for possible threats, and saw none. "Very well," he said. "SG-1 will escort you there." He rose. "Welcome to the year 2000 and to this reality, people. I hope this will prove a productive encounter." He went out.        Daniel jumped to his feet. "Come on. We'll go back with you. Doctor Fraiser's an excellent doctor. She's had to learn to deal with a lot of things no doctor on Earth ever had to face. Coping with Blake should be easy for her."        Jack picked up Orac before anyone else could do so. Avon made an abortive gesture of protest but didn't say anything, not even when O'Neill beckoned over an airman and put Orac into his hands. "Take it to the lab," he instructed. "And then, hands off until Major Carter arrives." Avon watched Orac borne away, and his eyes were cold and resentful, but he didn't complain. Vila and Tarrant studied him, then raised eyebrows at each other. The moment of comradeship appeared to surprise them both.        Two armed Marines fell in behind them as they left the briefing room, and Daniel found himself walking beside Tarrant. "How did Blake come to be injured?" he asked. He suspected part of the answer already just from watching Avon with Blake, but he wanted to see what they had to say.        The Scorpio's crew grew silent as if a switch had been flipped. Vila opened his mouth and closed it again. Avon turned into a total block of ice. Jack's muscles tended to tighten like that when something went wrong with one of his team, but Jack didn't wear that look of utter desolation in his eyes. Daniel hadn't seen that look lately, but he'd seen it when he first met Jack, and when he heard about the death of Jack's son, Charlie. Without another clue, he knew that, somehow, Avon felt responsible for what had happened to Blake. It explained a lot about the man.        Soolin spoke practically. "Ultimately it was the Federation, making people distrust allies. A Federation agent infiltrated Blake's base. Blake was suspicious and paranoid and he hadn't seen Avon for two years. They...misunderstood each other."        Tarrant's mouth twisted. "Helped along by me," he said wryly. "Everything came together so that there was no choice for Avon but to shoot Blake. In the end, that was a mistake, but none of us could have known that at the time."        Avon didn't say a word. He plodded forward with grim determination while Jack and Sam exchanged glances full of speculation and Teal'c's eyes lingered on the dark man, possibly remembering some of the distasteful things he'd been required to do as First Prime of Apophis. He might understand Avon better than Jack would.        As for Daniel, he felt a sudden sympathy for Avon, even as he realized Avon would not welcome it. He remembered that Blake had accepted Avon's unemotional solicitude, but he had not sought it out or welcomed it. That problem was not resolved, not by a long way. Daniel remembered how he'd felt after Jack had pretended to go over to Maybourne's side and had essentially rejected Daniel's offer of friendship and understanding because, as Daniel had later learned, he had feared he was under surveillance at the time. Daniel wasn't sure he was a hundred percent comfortable with Jack yet, even if he knew that the military had to play by different rules and that a lot more had been at stake than his own feelings. That had been hard on the entire team and they were still shuffling for positions now that it was resolved. Or at least partially resolved. A part of him still felt the sting of that rejection, even if it had not been real.        As if he guessed what Daniel was thinking, Jack shot him a speculative glance. There was doubt in the Colonel's eyes, but he looked away again immediately, and his eyes measured Avon.        "I see," said Sam in a voice that held no judgment.        "This is not your concern," Avon said tightly.        She looked up at him. "I know that. But the safety of this base is my concern."        "I will not harm this base if no one here harms me." Avon's voice was utterly unyielding, but the threat in it was narrowly focused, and it involved the safety of the people who had come with him, no more. He stepped out ahead of them and plunged into the infirmary. The rest of his people eyed each other and shook their heads.        "It's hard on him," Carter said.        "It was harder on Blake," Soolin said.        Vila objected. "No. Blake knows he said all the wrong things. He'd just forgotten how to cope with Avon. Takes time and effort, it does. If Blake can forgive Avon, it'll be a whole lot nicer."        "Nicer," scoffed Dayna. "If you think it's going to be nice, you're on the wrong ship--or rather, you're in the wrong place."        "We're nice," Daniel said, deliberately naive.        Jack started to scoff, caught himself, and eyed Daniel with a discerning eye. "We're really sweet people," he added, and muttered under his breath, "For crying out loud."        Vila surprised himself by chuckling. "That's good," he said as if he'd taken both comments entirely at face value, but Daniel didn't think he had.        Teal'c, with an utterly straight face, said, "We are, after all, the 'good guys'." Coming in his most stoic Jaffa tones, it caused the rest of SG-1 to burst into laughter. After a hesitant moment, Vila joined in, and even Tarrant smiled.        They found Avon talking earnestly to Doctor Fraiser, who had steered him away from Blake's bed. The rebel looked asleep, but his color was good. He had two IVs hooked up and a clean, white dressing covered his midsection. He was breathing deeply and regularly.        "He's sleeping," Janet said in an undertone. "The surgery was actually very minor and it went well. Don't rouse him if you can help it. The wound was not treated properly--oh, I'm sure you did the best you could under the circumstances and it sounds like your medical facilities are geared to allow treatment by non-medical personnel. It saved his life, of course, but now we've made sure there are no complications. Actually, I did a little cleaning up of the wound and a minor stitching, no more. We're giving him antibiotics and nutrients; I've run tests to determine what his immune system can handle. Since you're from a different reality and, evidently, a different time, there are bound to be infections you'd be susceptible to here, but we'll watch out for anything like that." She put her hand on Avon's arm, and Daniel had to hide a smile at the utterly astonished affront that came and went on the computer tech's face before he gently detached himself. "He really will be all right, Avon," she said. "He told me what happened."        There went all expression from Avon's face. He'd give Mister Spock a run for his money; in fact, he made Teal'c look absolutely volatile by comparison. Daniel had to hide a smile.        "Did he?" said Avon in the tone of voice that revealed absolutely nothing.        "Mistakes hurt everyone," Janet said rather cryptically. "I understand how hard this has been on all of you." She looked past Avon to the rest of his team. "I suggest you all get a hot meal before you begin any research to investigate your situation. I know SG-1 will take care of you."        Dismissed, Avon moved past her and stood looking down at Blake. The sleeping man didn't rouse, but everybody else in the room turned to look at Avon. Dayna produced an unexpectedly maternal smile, Tarrant looked measuring. Soolin merely watched with a knowing eye, but Vila grinned. Daniel discovered that he rather wished one of them would go over and sling an arm around Avon's shoulders, even if he didn't seem the kind of man to welcome it.        What did happen was that Jack edged over to stand beside Daniel. He was watching Avon and Blake, maybe reading parallels into what had happened between him and Daniel. He caught the archaeologist's eye, nodded in their direction, and said in an undertone, "I hope they work it out. That kind of thing's tough."        "Yes," said Daniel. "It is." Then, when Jack's face didn't ease its slightly burdened expression, he continued hastily, "I hope they do, too."        Jack's face lightened fractionally, and Daniel found himself wondering when it was he'd learned to make conversation in layers. He didn't think he'd been able to read people so deeply before Sha're.        He drew a deep, regretful breath.        Maybe Jack was good at this layer thing, too, because he reached out and let his hand rest for a second on Daniel's shoulder. They didn't say anything more or even look at each other, but they didn't need to. They both knew they had moved a step closer to resolution than they'd been before.        In the end, it was Tarrant who went over to Avon. Daniel would have expected Vila. The tall man touched Avon on the shoulder, much as Jack had just touched Daniel, and let his hand fall immediately. It was very telling that Avon didn't flinch at the touch or go for a non-existent gun. "We're going to eat now," he said.        Avon turned immediately. He had composed his features. He didn't look all ice, simply a very private man, but for an instant, regret gleamed in the brown eyes. He masked it at once, but Daniel knew he had seen it. Maybe he'd find a way to mention it to Blake later on.        "Well, come on, kiddies," Jack put in as if he knew the term would probably make most of the newcomers resentful and counted on it. "I've had a busy morning, fighting painted natives and being insulted by a computer. I want my lunch." *****        "Sir, there's something I want to point out to you."        O'Neill stopped as Carter caught his arm. "What is it?" He watched Daniel leading their guests to the mess. Teal'c was with them and the two armed Marines at their heels, so they should be okay.        "Did you notice that while Orac explained how it used the Stargate it carefully avoided an explanation of how it made the time shift?"        "Yeah, I did catch that," O'Neill replied. "And maybe I'm not the next Bill Gates, but I thought the sneaky little computer fudged on how it accessed the DHD, too. So, you think these guys aren't on the up and up?"        "I think they may be terrorists who can't even agree among themselves. I don't think they're Goa'uld, or even connected with the Goa'uld, though."        O'Neill nodded. "I watched them when Orac was explaining what it knew, when it shifted over to a generalized statement about those Terrier cells. The others looked shocked about being in the wrong time as well as the wrong reality, but that could have been an act. Except that I think that guy Avon is a few prongs short of a fork, and I'm not sure he could act his way out of a paper bag right now."        Carter nodded. "That was my assessment, too, sir. I can understand it. Think how you'd feel if you'd shot Daniel or Teal'c or me by mistake."        "I'd rather not," Jack replied. He didn't like feeling sympathy for Avon, but he'd felt a little in spite of himself when the guy was hovering over his sleeping friend. Jack wasn't a particularly effusive guy, but compared to Avon, he let it all hang out. After the mess where he'd had to fake out his own team, shoot down Daniel when he was trying so earnestly to understand him in case his house was bugged, he had a really good handle on betraying his friends. That his actions had been a cover, part of a larger plan to retain their galactic allies with the survival of the earth at stake would not entirely soothe poor Daniel, who'd been pouring his heart out. Jack wouldn't have been good at that at the best of times, but he still felt like a world-class heel, all the more so because he knew that, under the same circumstances, he'd have to do it all over again. Sometimes, getting close to people just hurt too much. He could understand it when Avon closed down and did that Mister Spock, no emotions routine. Only thing was, just like Jack, Avon had emotions. Too many of them, and bottled up too much.        "Ah, hell," he muttered.        Carter didn't seem to think it was an inappropriate response. "Yes, sir. I honestly believe that Orac acted independently of them. And I don't feel we can take Orac's assessment that it can't directly access our computers at face value."        Jack started moving after the others. "Wasn't gonna. I don't say those guys have it in for us; probably not. They just want to survive and get their act together. But I'd bet my next paycheck that Orac has a hidden agenda."        "I think so, too. But I also think it's big on self preservation. And I don't think it can directly influence human behavior. It might try to get into the computer system, but I think it's vulnerable to a staff weapon or even a zat. So I think we need to make it clear to Orac from the start that, valuable as it is, this base and this project is more important to us. I want to learn to adapt the Tarrial cell function if at all possible. We'll need the best computer people on the base for that."        "You think those guys at Microsoft would be any good with this?"        Carter chuckled. "It's not like Bill Gates has clearance, sir." She gestured toward the mess. "We'd better get in there. Teal'c will be wary enough, but Daniel's sympathetic to them. It's not that he'd give anything away, but he's not as wary as you are."        "I'll play watchdog," Jack agreed. "And you see if you can get a handle on these Terrier cells." He liked the mental image of a series of scrappy little computer cells barking. Yeah, he just hoped they didn't bite. *****        Vila Restal didn't know yet what he thought of this place and the people in it, but he did know it was military, and he couldn't help thinking of Space Command, even if the folks here seemed nicer. They didn't give the slightest indication that they knew that Blake was a rebel and wanted criminal, and they hadn't for an instant withheld medical treatment for him, for the mildly battered Tarrant, or for any of them. That pretty Doctor Fraiser had claimed they were all run-down; Vila could have told her that. She didn't have any adrenaline and soma, more's the pity, but she had given them vitamin solutions and Vila felt like it had helped. His corpuscles had perked up as a result, even if they were primitive here and used actual needles to poke right into his skin. Tarrant had been suspicious, and so had the women, but Blake had been so tired and drained that he'd just accepted treatment, and Avon simply endured, as he'd been enduring ever since he'd shot Blake and realized how badly he'd screwed up.        Poor old Avon. The sight of his desolate face had more than made up to Vila for what had almost happened on a shuttle over Malodaar, when Avon had sought him out with the intention of ejecting him into space to achieve escape velocity. A part of Vila still hurt over that; he'd always believed that if he stayed safely in Avon's shadow Avon would protect him, even if only as an adjunct of Avon himself. But Avon had nearly killed Blake. Vila realized that it wasn't that Avon had homicidal urges toward either of them. He'd just been pushed to a point where the only thing left to do was to strike out blindly in all directions, no matter who suffered. What got Vila thinking was the realization that Avon suffered more than either he or Blake had, and poor old Avon could never admit it, not without shattering completely and finally.        So Vila hovered. He threw in gentle jibes. He tried to provoke Avon into his usual byplay. Sometimes it worked for a few minutes and gave Vila hope, but usually Avon shriveled up again right afterwards. Maybe being here, safe--if this place really was safe, what with those nasty Goa'uld snake characters lurking--might help Avon. At least, for the moment, he didn't have the responsibility for their safety, and Doctor Fraiser was actively working to heal Blake. Vila planned to sneak in and lay down the law to the rebel leader first chance he got. It wouldn't help anybody if Avon finally came to pieces.        For the first time Vila could remember, he was glad of Tarrant's presence. The crisis had tested Tarrant and proven him worthy of it. He'd stepped into leadership as if he'd been born for it, and watched over all of them, even wounded. Vila wasn't a leader. He'd never been a leader and he never would be. Didn't even want to be. Soolin couldn't be bothered and Dayna was really too young and too inexperienced to do more than defend them all. So, with Avon doing a clam imitation and Vila content with popping out of the shadows every now and then, Tarrant had assumed the position of leader. Vila hoped that Avon would gradually relax, realize what Tarrant had done, and oust him, but Avon wasn't ready for that yet.        Fine. Vila would wait. Avon called him a fool, but he was Avon's fool again. Malodaar was still a bitterness between them, and probably Avon felt guilty. When he was guilty, he never admitted it. He carried it off in the grand manner and pretended it didn't hurt. People who didn't know that thought him a right bastard--and he was one. But that didn't mean he didn't care or feel regret. He'd been incredibly protective of Blake since all this happened. Not care? Poor old Avon probably cared too much. Just couldn't show it.        The food was wonderful. It was hot and plentiful, and it was real food, not synthetics. Real meat. Real vegetables. Real coffee. Vila couldn't believe it. These folks got to eat like this all the time? Unless they were producing their best to impress the Scorpio crew and usually ate processed foods or rations. And if so, they wouldn't be feeding it to the ordinary soldiers, would they?        He rolled his eyes at Tarrant. Of course Tarrant was an Alpha; he'd probably grown up eating stuff like this, the lucky bastard. Vila wondered if it would be possible to get seconds.        Okay, time to think about the people who had rescued them. SG-1 they were called. SG for Stargate, he supposed. Avon had said something and Orac's hasty, incomplete explanation had indicated that maybe these folks hadn't designed the Stargate system but had happened on it and adapted it. The general had said the project was top secret, so the general public didn't know, but that was nothing new to Vila. Didn't matter, either. These people had control of the Stargate. Was that how these Goa'uld aliens had found them? Or had they come to Earth on their own and made trouble? There had been a vid system in the room Vila had been assigned to. Later on, he meant to check it out. The airman who had shown him his quarters had said that computer access was restricted but that he could 'watch television'. He'd turned it on and shown Vila a sporting event, something called 'basketball' with a lot of very tall black men throwing or sometimes ramming a small ball through a circle not much bigger than it was. They had to jump about two meters to shove it through, too. Looked nasty and violent. Then there had been another one with a man and woman talking about having sex. The airman had flipped that off disapprovingly; said it was a 'soap opera', whatever that was. Vila knew about operas. Lots of fat men and women singing in foreign languages. But this one hadn't had any singing. He'd have to check out the 'television' later on.        For now, he watched SG-1. Colonel O'Neill was a hard man, Vila could tell. He had that look in his eyes that marked someone who'd been in combat, who'd done dark and dirty deeds for the sake of his cause or government or whoever sent him out. But he had a sense of humor, too, and Vila recognized something else about him. He was as good at camouflage as Vila was. He'd pretended vast ignorance of computers, but Vila thought he probably knew more about lots of things than he let on. You didn't get appointed to top-secret projects and promoted to being a colonel if you weren't as sharp as a tack.        Something else was going on with O'Neill, too. Vila didn't know what it was, but there was a slight edge of distance between him and the other members of his team. He didn't think it had always been there, but it was as if something had come between them. They were working past it, but sometimes they remembered and drew back a little. Reminded Vila of his reaction to Avon after Malodaar. They weren't going to tell him about it, but Vila watched, wondering if it would help him and his friends or hurt them. O'Neill himself was...well, he wasn't exactly diffident around them. Wasn't that type of man. But there was a slight hesitation. Vila meant to keep an eye on him.        Daniel was very friendly, very sympathetic. Too friendly? And wary about O'Neill, too. Under all that understanding and sympathy he'd dished out to Vila and his friends was something else, a pain that went very deep. He'd had something bad happen to him, all right. Vila knew the signs very well. Tarrant had looked like that after the death of his brother at the Teal-Vandor convention. Dayna had looked like that after her father's death. Daniel had lost someone and he was still grieving. Whatever had happened between O'Neill and the rest of them hadn't helped either. All right. Just because these people got to eat real meat and live in a cushy place with their own gorgeous doctor and zip all over the galaxy like stepping through a door didn't mean they had it easy.        Major Carter. Sam. Pity she wore trousers and he couldn't see her legs like he could Doctor Fraiser's. He'd always been a leg man. Vila had always had a thing for blondes. Sam was a very smart blonde, too. Maybe she was even as smart as Avon. Avon was very smart, but Avon knew things in the fields that interested him rather than generally across the board. Vila didn't know how much people had to specialize here, but it was Sam who was going to be working with Orac. She wouldn't do it alone. This was a military base, so she'd have specialists come in. After the Liberator and Scorpio, and being on their own for so long, Vila wasn't used to having all these people about, but he had to admit it might make it easier for them to get a handle on Orac. Assuming Orac would let them....        Teal'c. Now there was somebody Vila didn't quite get. Vila knew he had a kind of military discipline; he was tough and stoic and unflappable, but he didn't feel like the same kind of military as O'Neill. More like a warrior military. Like old whatsis, Zeeona's father, Zukan, the warlord. He could see Teal'c working for someone like that easier than he could see him working for General Hammond. Yet Teal'c's loyalty appeared complete.        So you had O'Neill, who was in charge of the unit, and definitely military, Sam, who was military in spite of being beautiful and scientific, Daniel, who didn't seem remotely military, and Teal'c, who didn't fit in the usual way. And they worked together. Vila couldn't see something like that happening at Space Command. All nice and uniform, little toy soldiers who did what they were told when they were told, no matter who died of it. He could see O'Neill doing that, but he could also see O'Neill stopping to ask questions and offer his own opinions before he broke down and did it.        No, this wasn't Vila's world. It wasn't anything like Vila's world. He hoped that was a good thing.        Avon ate mechanically, although he did pause and take a second look at his coffee cup. It was a small thing, but it gave Vila hope. Blake was being healed; these people had taken them in and were helping them. Maybe if they stayed long enough, even Avon would be healed. Vila hoped so.        "I want to know about this time travel," Daniel said. His eyes sought out Avon. "You know the most about Orac. Do you think it knows what it did with the time travel, or was it an accident?"        "Using the Stargate and the device you call the 'quantum mirror' was deliberate," Avon replied. Somehow, he didn't seem as hostile to Daniel as he was to the others. "Orac has always had its own agenda. We have to interrupt its research for our own projects." And that was as much as he was going to say. Relieved Vila's mind. He couldn't help wondering if there'd been anything like a truth serum in the vitamin solution.        "What I wonder," said Daniel in a strange voice, "was whether such a time-shift could be controlled--and used to go back into time to make changes in the past."        Suddenly all the other members of SG-1 were alert and staring at him, and Vila didn't think it was just because they, like everybody, had things in their pasts that they'd want to change.        "That would be risky," Sam ventured tentatively. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Daniel.        "Yeah, because you don't know how it would affect the present," offered O'Neill. He cocked an eyebrow at Sam, demanding information, or at least urging her to work it through.        "I thought if I went back to the time when Sha're was taken...." Daniel began. He was silent a moment.        So were the others, and, while Vila didn't know who Sha're was, or even if it was a who and not a place, it evidently meant something to the lot of them. "Daniel," said Sam gently, "I can understand why you would want to do that. But even if it were possible, even if we could trust Orac to take you back in time, there would be consequences...." She glanced at Avon and the others and picked her words carefully, probably for security purposes. "You originally joined the SGC for one reason, to find Sha're. If that had happened differently, if she hadn't...you would not have joined SG-1. And if you hadn't experienced the quantum mirror and learned what the Goa'uld had planned in that dimension, we would never have gone to Klorel's ship, and...." She let her voice trail off.        Daniel's face fell.        "We can't discuss this here," cut in O'Neill swiftly. "Carter, you investigate what Orac might be able to do. Maybe we couldn't go back that far, but...." He went tight-lipped, but his eyes lingered on Daniel, full of sympathy. Daniel didn't see it. He was tracing patterns on the table top with his fork. Misery radiated off him in waves. Whoever Sha're was, Vila would bet all the money he'd won at the Big Wheel--if it hadn't been blown up with the Liberator--that she was dead.        "Daniel, with me," Jack said and motioned him toward the door. Daniel cast an apologetic look at Vila and the others and followed him.        "Daniel Jackson is very upset," Teal'c observed unnecessarily.        Avon lifted his eyes from his plate and studied them all. "Orac has never displayed an ability to travel in time," he remarked. Tarrant looked at him in surprise because it wasn't like Avon to offer information like that. Vila sighed. Maybe they had been drugged. Or maybe Avon had simply gone down so far that he could recognize someone else who was suffering as he was.        Vila heaved a big sigh. Why was nothing ever easy? *****        "Okay, Daniel, I understand where you're coming from," Jack said as soon as they reached his office. He nodded Daniel toward a chair, but Daniel didn't take it. He was too keyed up to sit down. Orac had shifted these people in time. Not only had he done it, he'd shifted them to a time when they might conceivably have some impact. If they could cross-shift to their own dimension in this time, maybe they could do something about the Goa'uld incursion there. They might even be able to find out what had happened; what their world had used to defeat the Goa'uld once and for all, even if the cost had evidently been the shattering of their society. But if Orac could make a two-hundred fifty year time shift, why not one of a couple of months, back to the time when Amonet, in Sha're's body, had tried to kill Daniel, forcing Teal'c to shoot her? How hard would it be to go back and make sure Teal'c had held a zat instead of a staff weapon. Sha're would still have a Goa'uld inside her, but she would be alive, and it might be possible to free her eventually. She was beyond being freed now, but if Orac could take them back in time....        "Do you, Jack?" he snapped. "It's not your loss, so do you really care?"        "What's that supposed to mean, damn it?"        "It means you were pretty comfortable throwing my friendship back in my face a few weeks ago. Or is this some military thing? Personal motives don't matter? Would it be different if you could go back in time and make sure Charlie didn't get hold of your gun--"        Jack's face lost all color and his eyes hardened into pebbles. "Damn it, Daniel, that's going too far."        He knew it was. He knew his words had hurt Jack beyond what was acceptable between friends but he couldn't stop. That moment of shared understanding in the infirmary might as well have never happened. "Is it? How am I supposed to know what's too far any more, Jack? Once I thought I could trust you, that you'd help me when I needed it, but now I know that's not true. You proved that a few weeks ago. Maybe Orac can't go back in time and help me save Sha're, and maybe that's not going to happen, but I can't just let the possibility go without trying to find out, even if you don't give a damn."        "Okay, Daniel." Jack's face was tight, but there was pain as well as anger in it. "If you don't know how damned hard it was to throw all that back in your face when you came to my place, when you were trying to understand, then maybe you never knew me, either. I had to do that, and it hurt me as much as it hurt you, but the whole world was at stake. We can't handle the Goa'uld alone, not with just this planet. Sometimes, when you're military, you get sucked into things that make you sick to your stomach, but you don't have options. I'd rather have gone through torture than treat you and Sam and Teal'c the way I did, but I didn't have a choice. If I could do anything with time travel, I'd go back and change that, but I can't. Sometimes, we have to be bastards, but that doesn't mean we have to like it, damn it. You think Teal'c liked having to kill Sha're? We're in the middle of a war. Wars aren't nice, and they aren't noble. We have to snatch what good we can out of them, and hope that the things that matter don't get broken beyond repair in the process." His anger was gone now. All that was left in his face was a weary kind of pain that made Daniel feel both guilty and irritated.        "Okay, so I'm naive and innocent and unrealistic to think I could trust my friends. Maybe that's a lesson I'd better learn fast. I thought of leaving when Sha're died, Jack, because a part of me believed that was the only reason I'd joined the SGC. But it wasn't. This was my family, the only family I had left...."        "And I shot that down." Jack's voice was quiet. Daniel heard the pain in it. He was silent a moment, and Daniel could find nothing to say. Jack plunged on. "Dammit, Daniel, we all have things we'd want to go back and change. You were on the money. If I could go back and save Charlie, I would. I'd save Kawalsky. I'd save my marriage. You don't think Teal'c has things he'd like to fix? We all would. Damn it, if I thought I could go back and save my son's life, don't you think I'd choose to do it?"        So he could finally forgive himself? Jack had hurt Daniel badly a few weeks ago, but Daniel had trashed him equally badly just now. "I know you would," he said. "But, Jack, what if we can?"        "And what happens then? You prevent Sha're from being taken over, and you don't join the SGC. You don't see the parallel earth in the quantum mirror and we don't Gate to Klorel's ship. The Stargate is shut down and Klorel and Apophis destroy Earth. I save Charlie...." His voice caught, and he cleared his throat savagely. "And I stay in the military and don't have to be recalled for the Stargate mission because I'm assigned somewhere else. Who knows how that would have happened? Ra might have gotten through and found us. And where do we stop? What's to stop somebody like Maybourne from going back and doing a nice little line in rearranging history to suit him? We can't do it, Daniel. The risk's too great."        "I thought the consequences didn't matter, Jack. No matter who gets hurt, we do what we have to do. Isn't that what you just tried to teach me at your house?"        "Dammit! That was when I didn't have any choice. I do this time. We don't know that Orac can control time shifts. It might have been an accident. There might have been a hellacious solar flare on the planet they came from right at the moment they stepped into the Gate. Because they acted like they were on the same one, come to think of it, only without the mirror so maybe they had the same thing happen to us that happened when we got sent back to Nineteen Sixty-Nine. But mucking around with the time line isn't a good idea. We might make it worse."        "Could it be worse, Jack?"        Daniel and Jack stared at each other. "Ah, hell," Jack said. "I'd rather take an axe to Orac than risk this planet. And--things are bad enough already. This is making it worse. I wish we'd never heard of the damn computer." He was silent for a long, brooding moment. "There probably isn't anybody at this project who doesn't have something they'd like to change in their past. I do. You do. We all do. I'd give anything I could to bring Sha're back for you, Danny, but I can't, any more than I can risk going back and saving my son's life. Sometimes, we get miracles--like we did when we got back from Apophis's ship and found out you were still alive. Usually it goes the other way. I'm gonna have Carter check out the possibilities of time travel, but for all we know, the mirror they found was different than the one we had. Maybe it was responsible for the time travel thing. Maybe that planet's Gate was defective. Maybe it really was a solar flare like the one that sent us back to Nineteen Sixty-Nine. There's no reason to think Orac can set it to a specific day anyway, or that we even could change things if we could go back in time. You know what happens when the same person from two dimensions are together. Maybe the same us from two different times can't co-exist in the same place either. And maybe if we could do it, we'd have done it already and know it. Hell, I don't know. And maybe I'll grow antlers and pull Santa's sleigh next Christmas." He heaved a deep, helpless breath.        Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but Jack put up a hand. "Daniel. I am damn sorry about what I had to do to you when I was trying to infiltrate Maybourne's little cadre. I felt like shit about it and I still do. But I can't change it, and if the same thing happened, I'd have to do it again. At least you'd know it was an act if it happened again."        "Instead of being proof for Maybourne that I believed it," Daniel said in a small voice. "Maybe I just don't have the hard edge or know enough about covert ops to understand. But...I'm sorry I said that about Charlie. That wasn't fair of me."        They looked at each other doubtfully. Was the friendship intact, if a little creaky? Was there hope for it? Could they trust each other the way they once had? And did the fact that they could hurt each other so badly in a few well-chosen words mean that there was enough knowledge and understanding between them that they could pick exactly the right words? That was a backhanded optimism, but the thing was, Daniel wanted to trust Jack. He wanted Jack's friendship. And here was Jack, apologizing to him for it. Maybe there was hope. Maybe it wouldn't ever be the same as it had been, but they might be able to build something stronger out of it. Daniel hoped so.        "Yeah," said Jack uncomfortably. "Look, Daniel. Carter will check it out. If there is a way to do it...."        "No, you were right." Daniel squashed down his huge regret. The Stargate wasn't his own personal tool for repairing his life. Ah, Sha're, I'm sorry, he thought bitterly. All this angst over something that might have been impossible in the first place.... He wasn't the only one hurting. Those six people they'd brought home from PV4-555 were out of time and place. They'd evidently gone through a hell of their own. Orac belonged to them, not the SGC. "I was way out of line."        "No, just human," Jack said softly. "I wish we could do it, too." He clapped Daniel on the shoulder. "Anyway, I hope it's...okay."        "Uh, yeah." Daniel wasn't sure he was over feeling so bad about Jack, but he was closer than he had been. He did understand that some things had to override his own needs. The safety of the whole world.... But still....        He pushed that away. "You?"        "I guess."        They hesitated, then they ventured tentative smiles. Maybe that moment in the infirmary hadn't been impossible after all, just one more step in the road to normalcy.        If such a thing even existed.        "Come on," Jack said. "We better go and see what Carter's up to. She's probably redesigned Orac to serve as a DHD remote control switch by now."        "It'd be handy," Daniel agreed and fell into step with him as they set off for the lab. *****        Two steps forward, one step back, thought Jack O'Neill ruefully as he and Daniel joined the others in the lab. He couldn't help being annoyed; after all, there had been nothing else he could have done. But that didn't take into account Daniel's very nature. O'Neill still felt like a jerk, and he suspected Carter had some resentment toward him, too, even though she was thoroughly military and understood the mindset. Teal'c, who had been forced to do some damned distasteful things as the First Prime of Apophis, simply accepted and moved on. Carter, too, had accepted, but Daniel, who, in spite of nearly three years as a member of the team, was still thoroughly civilian. Jack didn't want to change that. Daniel's unique civilian perspective had saved the team on more than one occasion, and it had saved the planet when Daniel had chosen to believe utterly in the information he'd gained in the parallel reality, information no one else had been quite willing to buy into.        Jack was crummy at talking about feelings; most guys were, and even Daniel, who was probably a little better at it than he was, didn't excel. They'd cleared the air a bit just now, that was all. He hoped they could keep doing that without a lot of soul-searching. It made him as uncomfortable as hell. But Daniel's friendship meant too much to him not to want to try.        Avon and the other refugees had all come to the lab with Carter and Teal'c. Short of staying in their quarters and watching soaps and talk shows on TV, there wasn't a lot else they could do. Armed guards stood just inside the door, watching them, ready to act at the first sign of trouble. Carter and Avon sat at the table with Orac, Avon reaching into the weird little computer with a probe tool that looked like something he might have brought with him. Jack had never seen anything like it before, not that that was a certainty. Maybe it was a sonic screwdriver like Doctor Who had. He didn't know about a lot of the tools they used in the science labs, anyway. Carter had a computer hooked up to Orac. Now Jack didn't know a lot about computers, but he didn't think that was a great idea.        "Sure it won't be able to take over the base that way?" he asked as he strode up to join them. "If it can control other computers...."        Carter lifted her head and grinned briefly. "This PC isn't hooked up to the network. It's an independent computer, a brand new one. Some experiments require risky work that we don't want to contaminate the system, so there's always one or two of them that aren't networked. It's safer that way."        "I knew that," Jack muttered unconvincingly.        Carter's eyes moved from him to Daniel and back again and a flash of worry clouded her eyes.        "Orac reads Tarrial cells," Tarrant pointed out. Even in BDU's, he seemed to swagger, and he had been prowling about the lab, looking at things, although not touching any. Maybe he'd been warned not to. He had an intelligent eye, though, and O'Neill realized he was making assumptions all the way. Maybe they wouldn't be the right ones. His frame of reference was--hopefully--too different to gain enough insight to damage them, but he was a captain in their military. Jack wasn't sure how their rank translated; he was a ship captain, which should have had an admiral above him, but instead, there were space majors as the next step up. Tarrant might captain something fast and mobile; somebody had mentioned 'pursuit ships'--possibly comparable to destroyers. So maybe the rank compared to the Army, not the Navy. Hard to say. Still, Carter would have been able to do a lot of damage as a captain. He couldn't assume that Tarrant's ignorance of end-of-the-century Earth meant he wasn't dangerous.        "And we don't have Tarrial cells," Carter said. "With the direct physical link, though, Orac may be able to access information from this computer. That's why I started with a new computer. I wouldn't have put it past Orac to be able to read deleted information. So while it will gain some knowledge simply by seeing how our programs and code are written, it won't gain specific information on anything but the basics of computer functioning and incidental data it can extrapolate from the basic programs. If we are to get use from Orac, we'll need it to have some basic understanding."        "Orac's not malicious," Vila offered. "It won't actively attack you--well, so long as it isn't in its best interests. What it might do is get caught up in research and just ignore us. It does that too often."        "Which is what I'd expect from an A.I." Carter's head was bent over the computer so intently it would probably take Apophis to drag her out of it. O'Neill could hear the excitement thrumming through her voice. "Sir, it's conceptually alien to anything I've ever seen. You wouldn't believe the power that can be packed into one Tarrial cell. It makes a Pentium chip look as primitive as a piece of chalk. Still, that's not unexpected. With the massive changes that are going on in the computer industry daily, it isn't unlikely that we could have something like this in a lot less than two hundred fifty years."        Avon looked down his nose at her as if he took her words as a reproach, that he had personally failed by not having a system even more advanced. "You forget, we had a period of down-time at the end of the Old Calendar."      &nb