It took an hour of steady walking to reach the coordinates of the energy readings. Except for a few tracks there were no signs of human life. What SG-1 found was a cave and hidden inside the cave was a temple. Daniel flicked on his flashlight and was in archaeological heaven.

"It’s definitely Ancient." He immediately pulled out his camcorder and started filming the walls, moving clockwise around the room.

Annika started moving in the opposite direction with her own recorder, carefully making sure she captured every glyph on the screen.

The two met up in the middle. Daniel then proceeded to film the small pedestal in the centre of the room.

"Okay, so where’s this thing we need?" Jack asked, reappearing after making a perimeter check with Teal’c.

Sam had remained just inside the entrance, making sure no unexpected visitors turned up.

The moment the final member stepped foot into the room there was a slight humming and the walls lit up, eliminating the need for torches.

"Who touched what?" Jack demanded, pointedly looking at Daniel. Usually it was the archaeologist who inadvertently activated these things in his excitement to unravel the mystery of whatever they had found.

Daniel shook his head. "Wasn’t me this time." He sounded pleased by the notion.

"I think it was you, sir," Sam hesitantly suggested. Even though they were now officially a couple, the two officers had decided that while on missions the verbal chain of command would be maintained. "Nothing happened until you entered."

"Perhaps the technology was able to detect the Ancient gene within O’Neill," Teal’c speculated.

"Or perhaps it was activated because we all entered," Annika mused.

"Psychic flash?" Jack quirked an eyebrow.

"No, just a theory."

Daniel was already lost in translating the walls. "This is fascinating…" He ran his fingers over the glyphs as he read.

"Nuh uh, no touching!" the colonel reminded.

Daniel automatically moved his hand a couple of inches away, but still followed the script. "It’s a history. Seems that this temple was built at the time when they were just learning about Ascension, part of the population had Ascended and the others were on the way to Ascending. A new Menace began to expand throughout the universe, setting themselves up to be Gods, enslaving any worlds they came in contact with…"

"The Goa’uld?" Jack butted in.

"Noooo…" Daniel drew out the word absently as he continued reading. "If it were the Goa’uld they would have said ‘Goa’uld’…They describe them as rogue dissidents of themselves…the Menace were unable to attain true enlightenment and fully ascend to the higher plane of existence, however they were able to gain some of their abilities. Those who had Ascended banded together with the ‘Yet to Ascend’ and devised a weapon to destroy the rebels of their species."

Sam frowned. "What happened to their non-interference rule?"

"Maybe it doesn’t apply to their own kind," Teal’c conjectured.

"Or perhaps it predates the rules." Annika made her own suggestion.

His teammates discussion fell on deaf ears. Daniel was lost in his translations. "…The weapon was used and the threat was eliminated. The massive power of the device was determined to be too dangerous to be left in the hands of any one being…so it was broken down into two parts. Two Ascended volunteered to hide the pieces, ensure they were adequately protected, then they were to retake human form and commit suicide so that the location of the weapon would remain secret…"

"Why didn’t they just destroy it?" It seemed like a perfectly logical solution to Annika, much less complicated not to mention less violent.

"…Hmmm? Oh," Daniel moved on to the next wall. "It seems they had a powerful seer who predicted that the weapon would be needed again…but not by those who created it…Another threat emerged at the same time…beings who scavenged and stole their technology…"

"Goa’uld?" Jack tried again.

"…They called themselves the Goa’uld," Daniel hadn’t heard the colonel’s comment, but he inadvertently confirmed his question. "And appointed themselves the reigning Gods of the galaxy. The Ascended tried a different method of attack on these beings, genetically altering species from the world inhabited by the Tau’ri …"

"They really love our little blue marble, don’t they?" Jack quipped.

"…The animal was designed to kill the Goa’uld. However after the first generation their genetic code mutated and the offspring began to kill indiscriminately, killing Goa’uld, human and animal as it chose…the beings were rounded up and transported to another planet, void of human life…The Ascended realized that in trying to help, they had in fact done more harm than good and decided that they would no longer interfere with the lives of mortal species…"

"Daniel," A feeling of dread knotted the colonel’s stomach. "Don’t tell me that these things were dumped on this planet."

"…One of the beings entrusted with hiding the weapon determined that the Goa’uld could not be allowed to gain access to this device and hid it on the planet the mutated animals were relocated to…"

"What did I just say?"

Jack’s sarcasm yanked Daniel’s mind back into the temple. "What?"

The older man rolled his eyes at the bemused expression on the archaeologist’s face. "Never mind." He gestured to the walls, "Does it say precisely where this weapon thing is?"

"Not yet."

"I would be more interested in this creature that kills the Goa’uld." The warrior in Teal’c was never far from the surface. "We saw no evidence except for human on our journey here."

"Me too," Sam added, "especially if it kills indiscriminately."

Daniel had returned his attention to the walls. "We’re safe in here. It says that the ‘protectors’ can’t come within…" He recalculated the Ancient numerology into their system. "…twenty meters of the temple."

"So we can all just relax until we work out where this device is?" Annika casually leant against the pedestal, only to jump away when a beam of light shot up from the middle. "Holy shit!"

"You are as bad as your fiancé," Jack declared. "First rule when dealing with these old things, is don’t touch!"

"But, Jack, it’s my job to touch things," Annika protested.

The colonel opened his mouth to deny it, then realized that in truth that was one of the primary reasons Annika had been hired.

Sam tried unsuccessfully to hold back a laugh, even as they gathered around the activated device. So far it was doing nothing except giving off more illumination.

"New rule!" the team leader announced. "When off-world, don’t touch anything until I say so."

"This device is similar to the one on Earnest Littlefield’s planet," Teal’c observed.

"Oh, so that would mean to turn the page, you’d do this," Annika waved her hand through the light. She caught the apoplectic look on Jack’s face. "But I’ve already touched this one. I thought you meant anything else we find."

Jack gave a long-suffering sigh. "Peachy. How did I end up with two ‘touchers’ on my team who don’t listen to me?"

Daniel grinned, joining them around the light. "Just lucky I guess."

"How’d you know about turning the page?" Sam asked curiously.

"I saw a silent version of the whole mission the day I met you guys," she answered, but her attention was on what was happening to the light. "I’m guessing that this is an image of the ‘protectors’."

It had condensed down into the shape of a bizarre looking animal.

Jack forgot his ire at the novice of his team. "Damn, that’s one demented looking Fraggle."

"Fraggle?" The question came from Daniel, however everyone else except for Annika, wore confused expressions.

"Let me guess," Annika grinned, "you loved Philo and Gunge."

"The Trash Heap has spoken! Nyeah!" Jack imitated the voice of the rat-like creatures from the children’s show. "I bet you loved Red."

"Nope, she was waaay too energetic for me. I loved Sprocket. No one ever believed the poor pooch."

"What language are they speaking?" Sam whispered to Daniel.

"Don’t recognize the dialect," the linguist chuckled.

"Excuse us," Sam interrupted Annika and Jack’s ‘discussion’. They both looked a bit sheepish.

"It kind of looks like a basilisk. I guess the Ancients missed a few during the relocation," Daniel mused. "Bird like head with a cock’s comb, reptilian body…but traditionally they don’t have feet. I use that term loosely because there is little known about what a basilisk actually looks like. The mythology states that anyone who came in contact with one, died."

"Died in what manner?" Teal’c asked.

"Numerous ways. Looking a basilisk directly in the eyes was said to cause instant death. Some references say they could turn things to stone like Medusa. Others that they could shatter rocks and kill plant life with their breath or voice. Their bite or sting supposedly made their victims flesh fall off their bones." Daniel was searching his memory for any details. "There was a story of a man who apparently killed a basilisk using his spear, however the basilisk’s poison traveled through the spear killing not only the man but the horse that he was riding."

"So a bullet would work?" Jack enquired.

Daniel shrugged. "In theory I suppose. But this is a mythical creature and a rare one at that. It’s mentioned almost in passing in Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology, then later on during the Renaissance, but only the odd sentence here and there. There has been speculation that in reality the basilisk is nothing more than exaggerated stories of the Egyptian cobra."

"Any known predators?" Sam interrupted before the scholar could go off into full lecture mode.

The anthropologist tapped his chin in thought, then his blue eyes widened and fell to Annika. He began quoting a mix of obscure texts. "The venom of weasels is fatal…so fixed the decree of nature that nothing shall be without its match…Weasels can bite a basilisk to death. Men put them in caves where the basilisks lie hidden. The basilisk might look daggers, the weasel cared not but advanced boldly to the conflict. When bitten, the weasel retired for a moment to eat some rue, which was the only plant the basilisks could not wither, returned with renewed strength and soundness to the charge, and never left the enemy till he was stretched dead on the plain."

"It’s scary what hides in that brain of yours," Jack half smiled, "and yours." He looked at Annika, meaning her advanced preparations of the rue and weasel. "Let’s see what the next exciting chapter reveals." He moved his hand through the image.

The light blinked out.

"Well, that’s a let down."

The colonel was forced to eat his words when the dome of the pedestal flipped up and the sides split open like a flower.

They all leant forward to peek inside. Nestled in the depths of the structure was a clear jewel the size of a basketball, cut into the shape of a pentagon.

"Holy Hannah," Sam breathed, "that’s the biggest diamond I have ever seen."

"I assume this is what we have come for?" Teal’c asked the psychic.

Annika shrugged. "I think so." She hesitantly reached out her hand, then paused looking at Jack, remembering to request his permission.

He nodded.

When her fingers touched the stone, she could feel the potential power radiating from it. "This is it," she confirmed. As she pulled away, an image flashed in her mind. "Sam, give me your GDO, quick. Daniel, your camcorder." The urgency in her tone made them comply without question. Annika put both machines, plus her own camcorder inside the pedestal with the stone. With a flick of her wrist she waved her hand over the top and the four ‘petals’ silently slid shut again and the dome flipped closed.

"What was…?" Jack broke off at the sound of approaching footfalls.

Hurriedly Jack, Sam and Teal’c moved towards the entrance, weapons at the ready. Daniel and Annika ducked down behind the pedestal, drawing their handguns.

A skinny man, holding a burning torch in one hand and writing materials in the other, hesitantly entered. His mouth fell open to find the room lit up. He dropped the torch in shock when Jack moved into his line of sight aiming his P-90 at him.

"How did you light the room?" The question stumbled from his mouth. It was clear the man had not seen a gun before from the way his eyes darted across the weapon and dismissed it as unimportant.

"They came on by themselves." Daniel stood up, holstering his gun. "Hello, my name is Daniel Jackson." He introduced the others. "We don’t mean you any harm."

The man gave a start when the others cautiously made themselves visible. "Why…why are you here? Wh…where did you come from?"

"We came through the Stargate…" At the man’s blank look he added, "Through the Chaapa’ai."

The man nodded in understanding.

"We came to explore this temple. To view the…uh…scriptures of the ones who built it." The archaeologist kept his voice low and non-threatening, forcing the man to move closer to him to hear. Teal’c and Sam moved to block the entrance to prevent the man from leaving.

He barely noticed that he was effectively trapped inside. "You can read the symbols?" He sounded excited.

After a glance at the colonel, who nodded, Daniel replied, "Yes, we can."

The man held out his hand, a smile wreathing his face. "I am Polter. My handler would be eager to meet you. He has been trying to decipher the walls for sometime now, but has been unsuccessful."

Jack’s eyebrows shot up at the term ‘handler’.

Daniel also was concerned. "By handler do you mean master?"

Polter considered the reference. "That would be an adequate description. Please, you must come to the village. I have an appointment with my handler when the sun reaches its zenith. You must tell him of the walls."

"Can you give us a few moments to discuss it?" Daniel enquired, and the man bobbed his head in agreement, moving to the corner of the room to give them some privacy.

SG-1 formed a huddle, however Teal’c kept his eye on the stranger, who was trying to work out where the light was coming from.

Jack spoke first. "Annika, what does you radar say about this guy?"

She shrugged. "I don’t sense any form of deception from him…"

"I hear a but coming."

"His aura is very pale, almost non-existent."

"Why would that be?" Daniel asked.

"I don’t know, it’s like he doesn’t know himself well enough for his aura to project his mindset," Annika gave a little huff of frustration. "It doesn’t make sense, I mean the man is what? Forty years old? He must have developed some sort personality in that time."

Daniel spoke up, "I’d like to know more about these ‘handlers’. If Polter is a slave, why would he have an ‘appointment’?"

"If the ‘handlers’ are the ones who are responsible for creating the energy field around the village, maybe we can find out about the technology." Sam was always eager to unravel a technological mystery.

Teal’c was still watching Polter, but he added his own opinion. "From the crude writing implements and the torch, I would conclude the people of the village are not as advanced as we are. I would not consider them a threat."

"Has everyone forgotten about the demented Fraggles roaming about this planet?" Jack demanded.

"Polter has no weapons," Daniel pointed out. "If there is a threat he would at least have a knife or a bow and arrow, a spear."

"Maybe the basilisks died out? A lot can happen in thousands of years," Annika sounded doubtful. If the basilisks were no longer alive, then what was the point of her premonitions? It was possible she supposed, that she had picked up snippets related to the past rather than what will be.

"Okay, we’ll check out the village for an hour or two and then head back to the Stargate." He moved towards the pedestal, getting ready to remove their hidden stash.

"Jack, leave them," Annika whispered, raising a hand to her forehead, indicating her vision. "We’ll come back for them. The villagers don’t need to know about what we found."

Daniel gestured to Polter to join them. "We’d like to visit your village."

The man smiled. "Come, it’s this way." He led the way out. "But it’s not my village, it’s just ‘the village’."

The team exchanged puzzled frowns at the correction. Either the people of this planet took everything literally, or they were missing something. Daniel tried to coax more information from the man to find out which, but his answers were vague to the point of uselessness. It was like he had no inclination or curiosity, except where the temple was concerned. The village was ‘the village’, simply because it was the village. To Polter no other explanation or title was necessary, it just was. To the anthropologist who liked to know the ins and outs of whatever cultures they encountered it was a very frustrating walk.

The team visually scouted the buildings as they walked down the streets. The architecture looked mostly Ancient Greek by design, and the clothes of the people they passed also matched the era. The actual people on the other hand were a various mix of human races.

"You have an interesting mix of people," Daniel observed. Unless it was a trading planet, it was unusual to find such an eclectic combination.

Polter looked confused. "The color of our skin and fur is immaterial. We are all the same on the inside."

Daniel hastily apologized. "I meant no offence."

He shot a quick look at his teammates and knew they were thinking the same thing. Fur? Add that to handler and the connotations were not pleasant.

The deeper they moved into the village, the more uneasy Annika became. All the people they had passed had the same pale auras. She could accept that perhaps one or two were having an identity crisis, but a whole population? Something was seriously wrong with these people. Plus she felt those eyes boring into her back again. They were being watched, studied. She glanced at Teal’c. He had picked up on the sensation earlier, like she had. The Jaffa was gripping his staff tightly in front of him, one hand ready to twist the weapon into action.

"This was a bad idea," Jack whispered. He had his own built in radar that had saved his butt numerous times over the years, and right now he felt like he was in a sniper’s scope. He saw Daniel move closer to Annika, instinctively trying to protect her. Sam fingered the safety catch on her gun, slipping it off.

"I concur," Teal’c kept his voice low. "The villagers are not the threat." He motioned with his eyes upwards. They all surreptitiously followed his gaze. For a moment they saw nothing, then there was the merest flash of a grey cloud.

"What was that?" Sam asked quietly.

"You saw it?" Annika was surprised. "The grey shadow?"

They all gave a single nod.

"I guess the rue really does enhance second sight. Took a while to kick in though."

"That was an aura, right?" Daniel looked to her for confirmation. He’d seen other auras through the visions Annika shared with him.

The psychic nodded. "But an aura of what? There wasn’t anybody there."

"It’s different from the villagers." Sam was using the temporary ability to scan the people.

Jack was also making use of the induced second sight. He paused in his tracks, doing a full one-eighty.

He was just turning towards his teammates when Annika felt obliged to warn, "Shield your eyes when you…"

Too late. The colonel winced when he saw the bright blue surrounding SG-1, then his lips turned up into a lopsided grin. "Sweet! We glow!" His mirth was short lived as he caught sight of another grey shadow, hovering on one of the roofs. "I think a game of Marco Polo is called for."

"Sounds good to me." Annika straight away reached for Daniel’s hand, who clasped hers tightly. Though it didn’t take a lot of concentration to use the Nox hiding trick, her mind wouldn’t be totally focused on dodging the villagers.

Daniel gave her fingers an encouraging squeeze. He would be able to guide her if it were required. Hell, he’d carry her if necessary. For whatever reason when Annika began the complicated twists and turns of wrist and fingers to manipulate the air around them, Daniel’s free hand developed a sudden crick. He twisted his own wrist and fingers to relieve the tension.

Softly Annika counted down, "Three, two, one."

The team knew when they shimmered from sight by the startled cries of the surrounding villagers. Immediately they spun on their heels and headed back the way they had come. They carefully sidestepped the people, keeping the others in their field of vision, making sure no one got left behind.

Suddenly the grey shadows started emerging from everywhere, from rooftops, balconies, inside alleys, leaping down to ground level to search for the invisible team. Their abrupt disappearance had caused confusion to whatever they were.

Daniel and Annika paused for a moment beneath the canopy of a market stall, letting a pair of villagers, oblivious to the recent commotion, walk by them. After making sure the way ahead was clear they darted out into the street shoulder to shoulder.

They were just ducking behind a wooden cart to let a larger group of people go by when out of the blue they were struck forcibly from above and slightly behind. Something had barreled into them with such speed that they were crushed to the ground, knocked out instantly.

The colonel had been bringing up the rear and saw the couple go down. By a stroke of uncanny bad luck one of the grey shadows chose that particular spot to jump down from the balcony above. The shadow wavered for a moment, then a solid figure emerged in the cloud and Jack was looking at an evolved version of the demented Fraggle from the cave. It was sitting flat on its ass, cushioned by his unconscious teammates, a bemused expression on its face. Crap!

Their predicament became worse when one of the villagers actually focused his eyes on the colonel. Obviously, now that Annika was out for the count she couldn’t maintain the Nox hiding thingy. Double crap!

He pointed his P-90 at the stunned Fraggle. "Get up and off them, nice and slowly." Fired a warning shot at the wall above the Fraggle’s head, when it simply gaped at him. "Now!" From the corner of his eye he saw Carter and Teal’c making their way back to him, their own weapons cocked.

Two grey shadows appeared behind them, flickered and then two more Fraggles were visible. Before he could shout a warning the creatures opened their mouths and a screech like a thousand nails being scraped across a blackboard pierced his ears. His blood felt like it was boiling and his body convulsed. Jack saw his teammates collapse before he totally blacked out.

A  A  A  A  A  A

Terree couldn’t believe his fortuitousness. When the call had come through his wrist receiver that the strangers had disappeared he had been irked. During his watch of the village he had summoned the subject he’d been using to transcribe the cave, after deducing that it was the only place of interest for the strangers to go. Terree sent him up, implanting the idea that if he should meet anyone at the cave to be hospitable and invite them to the village. Should have known not to entrust such an important task to a subject, even if the subject was unusually intelligent for its species. The Seniors had been pleased with the news that three Reviled were on the way to the village. That is until the group of five had magically disappeared before their eyes. All of the Bassats had been ordered to search for the strangers and they were under strict instructions to make sure all of them were alive. One or all of them possessed the power of invisibility and the Seniors wanted to know which one it was.

He had immediately joined the search, jumping down from his post on the balcony and amazingly had landed literally on top of two of the strangers. They had shimmered into view and then a second later the Reviled had reappeared. Terree had been the first to hypothesize from his rather comfortable ‘seat’ that it was one of the two subjects beneath him that controlled the invisibility. Before he could record this theory into his wrist device the grey haired Reviled had aimed the black object in his hands and a projectile narrowly missed his head. The menace in his tone had sent a shiver of fear down his spine, not that he would ever admit it to anyone. It was an unpleasant sensation, one he had no wish to experience again.

Terree had tightened his voice box and controlled the pitch of his cry so the sound waves would only render the grey haired Reviled unconscious. He was still under orders not to kill, no matter how much instinct told him to, no matter how much that nagging fear made him want to. The Reviled had naquadah in their blood and the Basset’s voices were specifically tuned in to destroy the mineral when required, whether it be ore in the ground or within a living body. Surely his part in the capture of the strangers would be beneficial to him. Maybe now the Seniors would give his theories the respect they deserved.