When Daniel entered the briefing room in the morning, it was to see Jack reading a memo. "Alright, who are you and where’s the real Jack O’Neill?" He asked with a grin.

The colonel scowled. "Very funny." He slid the brief note across the table to Teal’c.

The Jaffa scanned the paper. "Hmm."

Daniel’s curiosity was piqued. "What is it?" He reached for it.

"A message from Aris Bosh," Sam was tapping a pen against the table. "It seems that some of Bes’s Jaffa managed to get to the escape pods before Thor blew up the ship. Annika’s ability to fight off the ribbon device has come to the attention of the System Lords. She’s now on their most wanted list, right alongside us."

"How do you think she’ll take the news?" Jack asked quietly.

The archaeologist considered Annika’s mindset. "I think she’ll get a kick out of it."

"If we tell her."

Daniel gave a snort of laughter. "Jack, you won’t be able to hide it."

"She’s not omnipotent."

"This is the sort of thing that she always picks up on," Daniel defended Annika’s abilities. "She may not know that’s she’s picked up on it, but I bet that within five minutes of her entering the room she’ll say something related to this wanted poster."

"Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?"

"Okay, fifty bucks says Annika gets a vibe."

"You’re on." Jack fished out his wallet and laid a crisp note on the table.

Daniel deposited his own money next to it. "Be prepared to lose."

A few minutes later the sound of Annika’s whistling could be heard from down the hall.

Daniel’s face lit up into a grin. "You lose." He reached for the notes only to have Jack snatch them away.

"She’s not even in the room yet," he protested.

"Doesn’t matter. I still win."

Teal’c tilted his head, listening to the melody. "Daniel Jackson is correct."

Jack kept hold of the money. "What are you talking about?"

Sam also recognized the tune echoing through to the room. "Sorry, sir. You lose."

Annika’s whistling turned to slightly off key singing. "De da de da da daaa…I’m a cowboy…" She appeared in the doorway, absently juggling a clay tablet, a bottle of pills and a mug of coffee. "…On a steel horse I ride…" She laid her burden on the table. "I’m wanted…"

Daniel, Sam and Teal’c added their voices to hers to finish the lyric, "Dead or alive!"

Annika grinned, then frowned in confusion as everyone except Jack erupted into laughter. "Is my singing that bad?"

Still laughing Daniel pulled her onto his lap and planted a kiss on her lips. "Thank you, My Angel. You just won me fifty bucks." He rubbed the fingers of one hand together towards the colonel. "Come on, Jack. Hand it over."

Grudgingly he released the kitty. "If I ever make it to Vegas, I’m taking you along."

"Sorry, Jack. Annika’s my lucky charm." Daniel’s arms tightened around her.

"What am I missing?" Annika demanded.

Teal’c answered. "O’Neill and Daniel Jackson gambled on your psychic abilities."

"Hmmm." She studied the two men. After a moment she plucked the money out of Daniel’s hand and stuck it in her pocket.

"Hey, I won that fair and square," Daniel protested.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Who had the epiphany?"

"Er…you did…"

"Right, so I won the bet." She patted his cheek. "Don’t worry, I’ll put it to good use. So what did I pick up on?"

Jack handed her the memo. "Welcome to the club."

They all watched her read the short note, waiting for her response.

She gave a dramatic sigh. "Well, this makes it official. Can’t be a member of SG-1 without being on the Goa’uld’s hit list, can I?"

The others chuckled.

"What’s my asking price?" she asked with a straight face.

"A years rations, dead or alive."

"Is that all?" Annika pretended to be affronted. "Have to see what I can do to raise the stakes."

The general entered and they got down to business.

The MALP had shown unusual energy readings about three klicks from the Stargate. It was confined to a specific area like a dome, but the shape was irregular. The UAV had taken pictures, however the energy signature disrupted the shots so that only static was sent back. Using infrared it was able to detect life forms moving inside the dome from their body heat. In the opposite direction of the Stargate there had been intermittent lower bursts of energy, different from the other area.

"Without knowing what the local inhabitants are like, I’m tempted to scrap this mission," Hammond informed them.

"No, we have to go." The words were out of Annika’s mouth before she could stop them.

"Care to tell me why I’d send my flagship team to a world we know nothing about?"

She was tempted to say, ‘It’s what we do,’ but this mission was too important for her to screw it up with being a smartass. "Because there’s something we need on that planet."

"What?" Jack asked.

"Something here," Annika pointed to the area on the map with the sporadic energy readings. "I don’t know what precisely, only that it’s part of a device…built by the Ancients."

"Any idea what sort of device?" Sam prompted.

Annika thought about the visions she’d had when she’d read the mission brief. "Specialized…only the right people can use it…use it only once."

"For what?"

She gave a sigh of frustration. "No idea. For all I know it could be a cosmic hair dryer."

"Have you seen anything else about the mission?" Daniel asked.

Annika nodded. "But it changes constantly. I look at the report and we positively have to go. I look at you three," she gestured to Jack, Sam and Teal’c, "danger, instinctual hatred, like a dog hates a cat. I look at Daniel and my reflection in the mirror and there’s still danger but also curiosity, not friendly, cold and clinical, scientific...and blankness."

"Blankness?"

She nodded giving a slight shrug. "Like a slate wiped clean, ready to be written on again. I don’t know if that’s symbolic or a literal picture of something we will see."

"That does nothing to encourage me to authorize this mission," Hammond frowned.

"We need whatever it is," Annika was adamant.

"Sir, we could avoid the locals, and only go to that area," Daniel suggested. "There were no life signs at the second place." It was the first time Annika had ‘fought’ to go on a mission. If her instinct was that strong then he was prepared to back her up regardless of the risks.

Hammond raised an eyebrow at the team leader asking for his thoughts.

"Annika hasn’t been wrong yet, sir," Jack began slowly. "If she says we need whatever it is, then I’m willing to go get it."

"Okay, the mission is a go," Hammond announced. "Now what is all this?" He gestured to the items Annika had brought in.

"I don’t know how or why, but they are related to the planet we’re going to. This," the psychic shifted the clay tablet towards Jack, Sam and Teal’c. The rectangle was divided into a grid of twelve squares. Each square had a different symbol on it. Since Annika was used to working with her hands, she’d taken to recreating parts of her visions in physical form. "You need to remember this sequence…" Annika tapped out the series of five symbols. She saw Jack open his mouth and answered his question before it could be voiced. "Don’t know why."

Daniel craned his neck around to study the icons. "I don’t recognize the language."

"Won’t need to." She gestured to him and herself, "We need to remember this one." She typed out another series of five.

The members of SG-1 dutifully committed their sequences to memory, not bothering to ask about her reply to Daniel. If Annika were able to be more specific she would have been.

"And these," she shook the bottle of pills, "they’re dried rue. We need to take these."

"As in take them along or eat them?" Sam asked.

"Both."

The general read the label. "For what purpose?"

"Traditionally, rue has been used for medicinal purposes." Daniel dredged up the information from his memory. "The Ancient Egyptians and Greeks used it to ward of the Evil Eye. Hippocrates used it for an antidote against poisons. Don’t know if there is any proven scientific basis for it, but Michelangelo and Da Vinci used it to enhance their ‘inner vision’."

"You mean it’s a hallucinogen?" Hammond wasn’t going to let SG-1 use a drug that impaired their senses.

Annika butted in. "No, the opposite. Inner vision refers to second sight. Removes the illusion, like the auras I see."

"I’ll allow you to use these only if Doctor Fraiser confirms that they are safe to use," the general’s voice was firm.

Once Annika heard the ultimatum she fought down the urge to object. She instinctively knew that if they were not dosed up on the herb the consequences could be disastrous. She’d wait until Janet gave her opinion. If it were negative, only then would she speak up.

The base doctor was summoned.

"As a herbal remedy rue has a number of uses. Helping with everything from headaches, high blood pressure, colic and indigestion. But it also has been known to induce abortions. As of the last blood tests neither Sam nor Annika is pregnant," Janet glanced at the female members of the team, "I don’t see that small doses would be harmful, General."

Annika heaved a sigh of relief.

"Okay, people, you disembark in half an hour."

When the general left the team swallowed two of the herbal capsules and then set about collecting their gear. As they gathered in the ‘gate room Annika’s brow furrowed.

"Something wrong?" Daniel asked, slinging his pack over his shoulder.

"No." Annika adjusted the straps to her own kit. "I have to tell the general something, but I can’t remember what."

The Stargate began to spin. When the wormhole ka-whooshed the team started up the ramp.

Annika suddenly remembered what had been eluding her. Walking backwards towards the event horizon she called up to the control room. "General, there’s a delivery that should arrive today, addressed to me. Don’t send it away, he…er, it… will be useful for when one of the teams come back."

"Which one?" His voice rang out over the speaker system.

"Don’t know," she shrugged, then hurried through the wormhole before he could ask any more questions.

When she rematerialized on the other end she gave a shiver from the icy dematerialization process.

"What did you order?" Daniel was curious.

"Well, it’s kinda on loan from the zoo." Annika was eagerly gazing around at the alien planet, taking in every little detail. "It’s a weasel."

"A weasel?" He couldn’t hide his surprise.

"Yeah." She gave him a helpless look. "Had a gut feeling that for whatever reason the little fella needed a vacation from his enclosure."

Jack couldn’t contain his bark of laughter. "I’d love to be a fly on the wall when it arrives."

"I’m glad we’ll be off-world," Annika grimaced. "I believe they have a rather strong fragrance about them."

Sam was getting their bearings from the handheld electronic map. "We should head that way." She pointed east.

"We’re being watched," Annika murmured.

"I too have the sensation of unseen eyes," Teal’c confirmed.

Everyone was immediately alert, shifting their hands to their P-90s, keeping them at the ready.

"Let’s move out, campers." Jack took the lead. "Keep our peepers open."

SG-1 headed off into the surrounding forest.

A  A  A  A  A  A

Terree observed the five strangers emerge from the Chaapa’ai. He fought back the ingrained urge to bite three of them, killing them instantly with his natural toxin. Even after thousands of years the reactive response was still genetically part of them. The Senior members would be pleased to have not only two fresh subjects to study but three of the Reviled to sacrifice. ‘Visitors’ were few and far between and the Bassats had had to ration the ritual sacrifice to one per symposium. Currently they only had one left. He remembered a few cycles back when there had been none of the Reviled and they were forced to substitute a subject. It still riled him that it had been one of his subjects that had been killed. Teree was almost positive the Seniors had purposefully chosen his subject because of his unusual theories regarding the cave.

He expected the strangers to head straight to the village. All the others had wanted to investigate the energy readings being emitted from the holographic devices. It was the largest social experiment the Bassats had devised to date. There were over two hundred subjects involved. The results so far had been interesting. The human refusal to mate with their offspring was the issue being explored. They were the only animal that consciously rejected the concept due to genetic links, despite the fact that many of the offspring were superior to the older of the species. Survival of the fittest did not seem to apply to the bipedal life forms at least where ‘relatives’ were concerned.

The strangers instead headed in the opposite direction. The female Reviled was studying a small machine in her hand. She pointed and they all trooped off with black devices poised in their grip, their expressions wary, alert.

The bracelet on his wrist silently vibrated against his skin. Time for his shift at the village project. Terree almost glided across the grass, his skin blending with the greenery like a chameleon. It was a useful part of their genetic make-up they used at will to make them invisible to the naked eye. He’d tell the Seniors about the strangers. Perhaps if he were lucky the two subjects would be given to him to replace the one sacrificed. Surely providing three Reviled deserved some reward?

He thought about his pet project as he slid over the fields. The cave was an anomaly that intrigued his scientific mind. He and all generations before him had been unable to enter. Not from lack of trying, but because whenever one of his species moved within a radius of fifty paces of the formation they were struck down with intense nausea and their vision was temporarily blinded until they moved away. Terree had experienced this malady numerous times during his attempts to cross the invisible line. He was now forced to use one of his few personal subjects, sending one of the more intelligent ones to explore inside. The subject had described a temple with thousands of glyphs on the walls, however the language was unfamiliar to him. Terree had the subject start to transcribe the glyphs by hand as his request for a recording device had been denied. The project was deemed a low priority. It was a slow process. With two new subjects he would be able to triple the information gathered. As yet he’d been unable to decipher what had been delivered to him.

Terree approached his post, inclining his head slightly at the observer he was to replace.

He nodded in response, handing over the notes he had taken. "Subject sixty-seven and one-twenty-eight have renewed sexual relations, without subject eighty’s knowledge. We have maintained the memory block that they are mother and offspring. Currently they are in building fifteen. The Seniors have requested that subject eighty be persuaded to unexpectedly return to building fifteen and for you to record the confrontation."

Terree patted his pocket that held the vials of MM-3 he would dust over subject eighty to make his mind malleable to the suggestion. "I shall attend to it presently." The village subjects no longer needed a dose of the stronger versions of the drugs MM-1 and MM-2 injected into their blood stream. They had been exposed for such an extended period of time that a small inhalation would be enough.