"How's T doing, Carter?"

Sam looked up at Jack, her face etched with worry. "Still out cold and his pulse is very erratic." She took off the robe she'd been wearing over her BDUs, rolled it up and tucked it under the Jaffa's head.

"How's your hand?" Jack crouched down beside her.

"The numbness is gone," she replied, allowing him to take her right hand to see for himself.

He lightly brushed his thumb over the pink spots on her finger pads that looked like slight burns. "You're sure?"

"Positive," she assured.

When Teal'c had been hit with the energy weapon, Sam had been the closest to him. While trying to fight off the guards arresting them, she had managed to lay her fingers to Teal'c's neck intending to search for a pulse. However, a residual charge running through her fallen teammate had zapped her. Her cry had been more of surprise than pain and she had lost all feeling up to her elbow. It had taken a good five minutes before she'd been able to wiggle her fingers.

Unable to do anything more for Teal'c at the moment, her gaze took in their surroundings, landing first on Daniel. The linguist didn't seem to be having much luck in getting the guards to even acknowledge him, let alone getting them to speak. Annika appeared to be having just as much luck trying to get through to Keelah. Jack was prowling, undoubtedly doing what little recon he could in an eight by eight cell. Shifting her legs to sit more comfortably, she felt the atmospheric reader press into her thigh. She pulled the device from her pocket and activated it to take a current reading.

The beep of the machine announcing the reading complete drew the attention of the guards. Well, at least we know they're not deaf.

Sam didn't need Daniel's translation to know they were demanding she hand the device over to them.

"You want it, you come and get it," Jack snapped. "Please, I dare you."

Whether Daniel translated the team leader's words literally or more diplomatically, she couldn't tell, but they made no move towards them.

"Chickens," Jack muttered, then gestured to the reader. "Anything to share?"

Sam studied the analysis. "There's no trace of the mineral in here."

"That's significant?"

The blonde shrugged. "Probably not. It's just curious."

Jack went back to his pacing and she flicked back to the previous readout where the mineral levels had been off the scale. When they escaped from here, she hoped there would be enough time for them to collect a raw sample along the way. She had a theory as to where they could easily acquire some and having it would help her research. The information she had been able to glean back at her lab was only the mineral's effects. Even if they couldn't set up trade negotiations, having just one sample would make it easier to determine if it was naturally occurring or a result of tampering, like the naquadria on Kelowna. And it wouldn't be like they'd be 'stealing'...at least no more than what every team did when they took soil and water samples on a mission, it was just a rock. Just a rock. A rock that could potentially turn the tide in the fight against the Goa'uld in their favor.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Dad!" Sam looked up from the slide she was studying under the microscope. Before she could get up to give him a hug, he had taken a couple of quick strides and had wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Rumor has it, you have a new element to add to the periodic table."

Jacob hid a chuckle that his daughter had her discovery so close at hand even though she was clearly working on another project. "Have you thought of a name for it yet?"

"Nope."

"And you found it in a prim’ta?" He bent closer to study the diagram. Felt Selmak’s curiosity as well.

"Uh huh, it was bound to the nuclei of its DNA. We think it might be the cause of the symbiote’s odd development."

"Can we see it?" Jacob had been informed of the circumstances of how the SGC had gained the specimen. He didn’t particularly care either way about the senator’s abduction. He hadn’t had any personal experience with the man, but he knew he had been a pain in the ass and a dangerous adversary to the SGC and specifically to SG-1. He and Selmak were more fascinated by the description of the deformed symbiote.

Sam hopped off the stool and went over to the glass-fronted fridge that was filled with various canisters that had to have the contents temperature regulated. She removed a sealed metal canister, and entered the combination to the electronic lock. There was a soft hiss as the canister released and she lifted the lid that also acted as a handle. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

The Tok’ra’s reaction was unexpected. Jacob reeled back, almost crashing into the desk in an effort to put as much distance as he could between him and the exposed symbiote. His eyes flashed in the rarely seen glow of Selmak forcibly taking control of her host’s body. "Seal it back up!" she gasped, a hint of panic in her dual tone. "Immediately!"

Eyes wide, Sam quickly resealed the canister. Practically threw it back into the storage fridge and followed her dad out into the corridor where he had staggered. He was leaning forward, resting his hands on his knees sucking in haggard gasps. "Dad? Selmak?" She studied his face, which had turned ashen. Would admit to being a little afraid when she saw the glow of his eyes blink on and off, as if the Tok’ra had no control of who was the dominant personality.

After a few seconds the golden reflection dimmed and Jacob gave his daughter a weak smile. "We're okay, Sammy." He could feel Selmak trembling inside him.

"What happened?"

"It was an instinctual reaction from Selmak's genetic memory. We weren't exposed long enough for it to hurt us."

"Hurt?"

He held up a hand, forestalling any further questions from his daughter. "I don't have the details myself. Just give Selmak a sec to compose herself."

Sam waited anxiously until the Tok'ra was once again standing normally, the distant look in his eyes telling her he was listening to Selmak.

Eventually he gave a low whistle. "Talk about a Pavlov's dog reaction." Took another steadying breath before launching into as much of an explanation as he could. Selmak wasn't exactly coherent at the moment, which in itself scared him. "There is a legend, a kind of Goa'uld urban myth, dating back to the earliest days of Goa'uld domination, about a substance that can incapacitate a Goa'uld...sends them insane. Apparently a minor Goa'uld of little note set down on an uninhabited planet to lick his wounds and conduct repairs to his ha'tak after a successful takeover attempt of his holdings by one of the major players. Planning to set it up as his new home base, the Goa'uld conducted routine scans of the planet. He discovered an unidentified ore in the surrounding hills and ordered his Jaffa to dig it up for analysis.

"At first there were no ill effects, but by the end of three weeks, the Jaffa had become ill and aggressive and the Goa'uld was acting erratically. The Goa'uld, still having the presence of mind, put two and two together that it was the ore that was the cause. Realizing how dangerous the ore was to him and the Goa'uld in general, he took the ha'tak into orbit and destroyed the planet. But the repairs were only half done. The weapons overloaded, fried the engines and drained most of the power cells. Their exposure to the ore was too prolonged for the symbiotes to regenerate and even the sarcophagus couldn't help them. With no one well enough...or sane enough, to repair the ship, the power eventually ran out and those on board died, either killing each other in an insane rage or suffocated.

"Lord Yu discovered the ghost ship some eight centuries later just floating in space. He gained the back-story from the ship's log and from the writings of the Goa'uld's scribe, who was human and was thus unaffected. Yu also identified the threat this ore could be to the Goa'uld as a species. He took the sample, which had survived in a sealed containment vessel and called an emergency summit with the other System Lords. The decision was made that the sample would be taken to their Queens. From the next spawning all Goa'uld had included in their genetic memory the scent of the ore and instructions to destroy any planet where it was found without question."

"And that's what this mineral is?" Sam's eyes were wide.

Jacob nodded. "Sorry, Sammy, looks like the Goa'uld stole your glory over your new element."

She waved the 'credit' away. It wasn't like she could announce it to the scientific community anyway. She frowned, comparing the legend to how the SGC had gained the mineral. "But that makes no sense. From what Daniel and Teal'c described, the Jaffa they took this from was healthy, fully functional."

Selmak's primordial survival instinct kicked in and she growled that the planet had to be destroyed at all costs. Jacob had to really concentrate to keep his tone level for his first instinct was to talk louder than the voice in his head. "It's possible that if the Jaffa are living on the planet where this mineral is, the symbiotes evolved. That exposure to continuous minute quantities let them build an immunity to the insanity." He paused as he gleaned more information from his very distressed symbiote. "There's more. Another Goa'uld apparently overcame the instinctual response to obliterate the substance. The theory was that the ore he found wasn't a pure sample so the instinct wasn't as strong. He tried to overthrow Ra by exposing him to it. The attempt failed and Ra interrogated the Goa'uld for decades trying to get him to give up the location of where he'd gotten it. He became like the Goa'uld version of the Man in the Iron Mask, no one knew who he was, or where he came from, or what became of him."

"Wow." Sam didn't know what to say. Her interesting discovery had just possibly become one of the most significant weapons in their fight against the Goa'uld. She tried to stem the mounting excitement inside her. While this element could kill a Goa'uld, it also meant that it could kill her dad if unleashed on the Tok'ra base.

Jacob knew his daughter well enough to know the dilemma she was fighting. "This is a monumental find, Sam. It could tip the scales against the Goa'uld." For the moment he pushed aside his concern about Selmak's continued almost rabid reaction. "Having this is no different from the NID toxin of which we have stockpiled and concentrated." In his head he heard Selmak screech, 'It's completely different!' She was on the point of hysteria and he had to fight to keep his consciousness in the primary position. "How is it different?" he asked her, confused. "It's actually less of a threat. It takes weeks of exposure before the effects become permanent, it's not instantaneous like the toxin."

"It destroys what makes us, us!"

Her rambling only confused him more, but Selmak wasn't in a fit state to explain. He concentrated on trying to calm her down. Until he could get a rational answer, he didn't want to alarm Sam to the 'problem' he was dealing with. Out loud he asked, "You've no idea where these Jaffa came from?"

"None," she shook her head, relieved to have his support. "But with this new knowledge you can bet every effort will be made to find them or at least other sources of the mineral." She had an idea. "In fact, I can run a trace now." She moved back into the lab and began accessing the MALP program; clicking on the list of items it automatically took readings of during its initial recon. "I can add the element to the standard list of search parameters. And back trace it to previous missions as well. If we can find a natural source, it would be easier than trying to synthesize it from scratch."

Jacob visibly shuddered and the blonde quirked an eyebrow in question.

"We don't get sick, Sam," he shrugged, though in his head Selmak howled a protest at actively seeking out the mineral and creating more. "To have something that by simply breathing it in could kill us is unnerving." His comment prodded a moment of lucidity from Selmak and he slowly began to understand what was freaking her out so much.

"You've forgotten what it's like to be just an ordinary, vulnerable human," Sam teased, though there was a hint of seriousness in her tone. The devastating effects of the Cupidian virus were still very much present in her mind.

Jacob grimaced. "I'm sorry, that was a thoughtless thing to say considering recent events here." While Sam tapped at the keyboard, he found his eyes straying to the computer screen. It took a couple of seconds for him to register that Selmak was enforcing her will against him. Jacob jerked his head away to stare at the wall, shocked. Never had the Tok'ra done that before in such a sneaky and underhanded way. There were also other disturbing thoughts that were not his own running through his mind. "Excuse us for a moment, Sam."

Her concern for her father's well being returned, and some of the excitement that had welled inside her at having a possible weapon against the Goa'uld, shrank.

Jacob gave his daughter's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I just need a private word with Selmak."

"Okay."

He headed for the nearest private bathroom, for it was the only room he could think of that would have a mirror. He needed to look at himself, or rather look at Selmak, for this chat. He'd barely closed the door behind him when he rounded on the being living inside of him, fixing a glare at 'himself' in the mirror. "What the hell has gotten into you?" he demanded silently.

All he received in answer was troubling silence.

"Manipulating me to spy over Sam's shoulder. Devising ways to hack into the SGC computers to get the mission report. Working out the best place to plant an explosive to blow up the lab. This is not you!"

"It is me!" Her cry trembled through his mind. He could also feel her shame at what she had tried to do. "The compulsion to destroy the mineral is ingrained into my soul. I do not know if I am strong enough to resist it."

Jacob felt another shudder ripple through him and he realized that it wasn't fear of the mineral, but fear that she wouldn't be able to control herself. "I wouldn't let you do that."

"You may not be able to stop me." Her embarrassment and guilt at her vulnerability of what was a manufactured response over which she had no control, was clearly evident. "This urge it's so strong...I...I do not want to hurt you, my friend."

"You won't." He tried to inject as much confidence and support into his tone as he could. "We'll fight this together."

The sigh Selmak gave was a little shaky. "Thank you, Jacob."

"But perhaps we should remove ourselves from temptation."

Admitting her fears and the hold the basic instinct had on her, helped her to regain self-control even if it was a tad shaky. "We should. But not before we warn the Tau'ri of the dangers of having that mineral in their possession." She paused taking an extra moment to compose herself further. "And by 'we' I mean you. This instinct...the only way I can fight it now is to go into a state of deep meditation."

Still struggling to calm herself, Selmak outlined the threat. When she finished, the face that stared back at him in the mirror was pale. "I'll make sure they understand. Find peace, old girl."

She welcomed his teasing at the term of affection he chose, it gave normalcy to what had turned into a very abnormal day. "You're no spring rooster yourself."

"The term is 'spring chicken'."

"You'd prefer I'd use the sexless reference of the infant gallus gallus domesticus?"

He chuckled, "Well, 'spring gallus gallus domesticus' doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but it's entirely up to you."

Her returning chuckle was a trifle strained. "Good night, spring rooster."

"Rest well." He waited a few minutes before leaving making sure Selmak was entirely in a meditative state.

Sam finished entering the components of the mineral into the MALP program, then started a search for the element from previous missions. She wasn't hopeful that they'd get a hit. If it had been in any of the soil or air samples they'd taken, then surely they would have discovered it before this. Thinking about what her dad had told her she added the instructions to begin the search with the planets that had no signs of Goa'uld habitation. While the computer started sifting through the list accumulated over the last nine years, she couldn't help but worry about her dad. Despite his assurance that locating more of the mineral was a good thing, she felt there was something he wasn't telling her.

The quiet beep of the computer made her jump. Glancing at the monitor she felt a flutter of excitement and surprise at the box flashing on the screen indicating a positive match. She clicked on the reference number to bring up the relevant file. "Holy Hannah." She was on her feet in an instant and almost barreled into her dad returning. "Dad! We got a hit-"

Jacob held up a hand stopping her from giving any more details. "Don't tell me anything about its location."

"Why not?" Considering his support to find the mineral she didn't understand his attitude now.

"Because it's not safe for you that anyone with a symbiote knows you have access to it." He led her back to the stool. "Sit down, Sam, I've got to explain a few things about Selmak's reaction."

Perplexed, she did as asked.

The Tok'ra took a second to figure out how to begin. "As much as they want to deny it, a symbiote is a fragile being. As you know they rely on the host's body to survive. They can give strength and good health to a host, but not to themselves. Take them out of a body and those gifts mean nothing. The only thing they have for themselves is the power of their minds. If they lose that they are nothing more than animals."

Sam nodded, wondering why her dad was giving her a beginner's course on the beings she'd spent over eight years studying.

"This mineral takes away their control and they will do anything to stop that."

"Okay, so we have to be careful who we tell about it."

Jacob could tell that she wasn't grasping the severity of the situation. "No, you don't understand, Sam. This instinct imbedded in the symbiote psyche is powerful. It's like the tides, it can't be stopped. You cannot tell anyone about this mineral, especially not the Tok'ra or the Free Jaffa. The only reason I'm able to stop Selmak from taking control and destroying that monstrosity you have in the jar, is because it's so diluted within the carcass. It's reduced the compulsion somewhat. If it were a pure sample, I wouldn't have been able to stop her from destroying the carcass...nor stop her from attacking anyone who got in her way to try to stop her."

Sam unconsciously sat back in her seat, distancing herself from the Tok'ra as the significance hit her. "Selmak would have attacked me?"

Jacob nodded. "She wouldn't have been able to control herself. Think of it like a psychotic rage of a drug addict." He tried to dispel the immediate wariness in his daughter. "Selmak has put herself into a deep state of meditation. She won't come out of it until she is certain she has a handle on the instinct." The blonde relaxed somewhat and he continued on. "This mineral is too important a discovery for you not to investigate it further, I realize that, Selmak realizes that, but having it makes Earth a target from everyone, including your allies. If the Goa'uld even think you have this mineral, they will band together to destroy you, there will be no hesitation from them to blow up this planet...they won't care about the Protected Planet Treaty with the Asgard, won't care how many of them die to destroy the planet." He paused, adding one more fact that would ram home how dangerous possession of the mineral was. "Selmak basically came out and said that the Tok'ra would fight alongside the Goa'uld to get rid of it."

Sam let out a slow breath. Her mind was jumping around with a mix of emotions, everything from worry and fear to more analytical thoughts of scientific and military procedure. The very seriousness of what her dad had told her also made her earlier excitement come back. That there was such a strong reaction imbedded into the symbiotes' genetic memory only meant that this really could be the key to the destruction of the Goa'uld. Her thoughts then skipped ahead to the positive notion that they would be able to eventually use it as a weapon and the ensuing mission. "If we do get to the point of a covert op, we'd have to hit the Goa'uld all at once...and capture can't be an option. With a memory device they wouldn't need to torture to find out where they came from."

"If it gets to that point, we have a pill we give to our undercover operatives," Jacob said grimly, offering what help he could. "Not even a sarcophagus can revive them. I can get you a supply in the next few days."

"We're possibly months or years away from getting that far," Sam pointed out.

"Better to get them to you now, that way we won't know when the op's taking place."

"Thanks, Dad." She gave his hand a squeeze.

He returned the gesture, clasping both of his hands in hers. "Be excited, Sam, but be very wary too."

"We will."

"Let's go tell George and then I'll leave."

With a quick bounce to her step she entered the briefing room. Was surprised to see Daniel sitting in on the debrief. She held up the reports in her hand. "Sir, sorry for the interruption, but we need to go back to that planet!"

Hammond raised an eyebrow at the colonel's entrance. "We were just discussing that possibility. The inhabitants have a universal language pill-"

"George, please stop," Jacob's voice was strained as he felt Selmak stir within him. He was pretty sure she hadn't comprehended that little detail but he couldn't take the risk. "I can't hear any of the mission details."

The general frowned. The Tok'ra's grim expression contradicted his daughter's eagerness. "Okay. Why don't you both explain why you think there should be a return mission?"

Sam quickly launched into a rundown of what she had learned about the mineral, reciting the legends Jacob had told her and how she had discovered the mineral was on the planet SG-5 had just returned from. "But there's a huge risk in us acquiring more of the mineral."

"Colonel, didn't your initial findings state that there was no evidence of it being harmful to humans?" Hammond asked.

Sam nodded but it was Jacob who picked up the explanation. "The danger lies in a symbiote's reaction to the mineral."

"We understand. Thank you for alerting us to the threat." Hammond could see the strain his friend was under. "I can assure you that any action we may take will be done with the utmost confidentiality."

Jacob gave a curt nod of farewell and spun on his heel to leave. Hurrying down the corridor, he tuned out the voices that started up again in the briefing room. Despite the risks involved, he couldn't help but think that this discovery was a good thing. He knew Sam was already thinking of ways to concentrate the element into an effective weapon, providing they could get more samples. He just prayed that the secrecy of the project wasn't breached before they completed it.

He was distracted from his thoughts as the stairwell doors opened and Annika bounded out, dragging Keelah behind her.

"Out of the way!" The exuberant redhead looked ready to burst with pent up excitement.

Pressing himself against the wall to let the two women pass, he quickened his pace to the 'gate room. Obviously the psychic had had a vision of some sort regarding the planet, otherwise she wouldn't interrupt a debrief, and it involved the SGC's newest alien guest... He stopped the thought from going any further. He didn't want to extrapolate any more details, couldn't risk it. He looked up to the control room at Walter. "Sergeant, please dial the Tok'ra home base."

The technician gave a curt nod and immediately began entering the 'gate sequence.

Jacob forced his eyes to remain pinned to the Stargate, refusing to let them stray to the window of the briefing room above. He couldn't hear them talking, but didn't want to take the chance that he'd inadvertently lip-read a key word. As soon as the wormhole billowed out, he hurried up the ramp, hopefully leaving all thoughts of the mineral behind him.