CHAPTER 4

 It was always a reach. Daniel was quite used to starting off his briefings by snatching the remote control, for the monitor, out of Jack’s hand.  For whatever reason Jack was always looking at it as if he were trying to figure something out. What that could possibly be was beyond Daniel. It worked just like a VCR remote!
 

Looking to the head of the table, Daniel nodded to General Hammond, “are we ready yet sir?”

 Hammond answered with a question of his own, “that would depend on if Major Carter was supposed to be here.”
 

O’Neill replied, “she’s up in the infirmary with Doctor Frazier sir.  She said she might be late.”

 Till now Teal’c had been quietly sitting across the table doing his various eye brow exercises, or at least Jack supposed that is what they were. Now the alien, with the golden emblem on his forehead, asked,  “nothing serious I hope?”

 Jack shrugged, “nothing, she needs advice on something I think.” 

 Daniel took the distraction to grab the remote away from Jack.

Jack sunk back in his chair after that. Then he waited for Daniel to look away before trying to recover the remote. Finally Daniel wound up having to shield it with his body.  As he did Daniel just had to know, “Jack do you even know how to program your VCR?”

 That caused Jack to stop. He squinted and asked, “you can program a VCR?”

 An eye brow shot up over the alien’s right eye. Teal’c then responded, “Indeed you can O’Neill. I would not be able to view my educational block of instruction on Earth Culture if this were not the case.”

 Daniel was afraid to ask but did anyway, “Cultural education?”

 In his usual stoic manner, Teal’c answered, “Springer.”

 Now General Hammond could no longer ignore the situation. “Teal’c,” Hammond said earnestly, “are you sure this extra job is a good idea? I mean you’re not exactly…”
 

“General Hammond,” Teal’c said as politely as a Jaffa could, “if it is your wish that I no longer engage in such activities then I would find myself compelled to abandon my current worthwhile pursuits.”

 There was a ring in the Jaffa’s voice that George Hammond was detecting. It sounded like something went unsaid, “and?”

 Looking straight forward and at no one in particular, Teal’c responded, “and I would also be Kuna kal-shak kree.”

 All eyes went to Daniel for a translation. Daniel stuttered, “loosely translated he’s saying his woman would run off like in a country and western song. Although Teal’c didn’t put it quite that delicately.”

 Teal’c only nodded his head, politely, to Daniel, “indeed.”

 That left the air thick with silence as Hammond found himself in another one of those moments. This command had a lot of those. He finally let out his breath, “Doctor Jackson why don’t you go ahead and start. Unlike Colonel O’Neill here, I’m sure Major Carter actually reads your reports. She can catch up.”

 Quickly jumping to his feet Daniel used the remote to call up his first set of slides, “all right. What we are obviously looking at here is the tablet brought back by SG-16.” 

 Daniel pointed to the writings in the pictures, “here we see what would appear to be standard Goa’uld text. Only problem is that this tablet is older than any such writings we’ve ever found.”

 Hammond simply shrugged, “so does this mean that the Goa’uld actually left their home world a lot earlier than we once thought?”

 “Well not exactly,” Daniel walked back to the table and began flipping through his notes, “you see I think what we are seeing here is concrete evidence that like everything else, the Goa’uld stole their writings from an even older race. A race that obviously knew how to use the Stargate. A race that was around at the same time as the ancients.”

 Hammond held out his hands in a questioning gesture, “didn’t we determine the Ancients were once human?”

 “Human like,” Daniel replied.  “You see General, there is still a lot we don’t know about how the intergalactic alliance, and the whole civilization for that matter, collapsed. There are all kinds of holes in the story. I would like to think that it isn’t important but I’m really thinking it is.”

 Jack was rocking back in his chair yawning, “how so?”

 “Think about it Jack,” Daniel groaned, “who introduced them to naquada? Who allowed them to figure out humans were better hosts than the Unas? Who allowed them to figure out how to use the gate in the first place?”

 Hammond shook his head in an attempt to assemble this puzzle, “I thought that Ra came to Earth and found humans.”

 Daniel pointed to the text on the screen, “or maybe it was the other way around General. We went there.”

 With another raised brow, Teal’c asked, “why would you think that Daniel Jackson?”

 “A lot of different reasons actually,” Daniel weighed which of the various ones he cared to throw out. He decided to point to some of the inscriptions, “you see this part of the text here. It’s dissimilar to any Goa’uld writing we’ve encountered before.”

 Teal’c nodded, “that is true. I am unfamiliar with it as well.”

 “Yes,” Daniel mentioned rhetorically. “I’m not totally unfamiliar with it though. A similar script was found right here on Earth about 70 years ago, in Egypt, I believe. The script was never dated and it was just considered to be some kind of stone aged pictographs but this tablet here shows a definitive grammatical structure.”

 Hammond considered the information, “so is there anyway we can date it now?”

 “Um,” Daniel shrugged, “no. You see we only have the notes of the man who found it. What he actually found it on has never turned up since. It is fairly ignored by the academic community as a whole for that reason alone.”

 Jack rolled his eyes, “but you don’t, surprise, surprise.”

 Daniel went on, “Well I wouldn’t say I paid it that much mind. Actually my interest in it till now was mostly anecdotal. You see the archeologist who reported it was kind of a legend in my field. That is if you believe half the stories surrounding him. A guy by the names of Jones.”

 Jack watched the Jaffa’s eye brow raise and then mimicked it before telling Daniel, “Jones you say. Sounds like your kind of guy Daniel. Nice and nerd like.”

 “Actually Jack,” Daniel relished his words, “if anything they ever said about this guy is true he kind of reminds me of you.”

 “Ah,” Jack nodded thoughtfully, “a dashing, resourceful, hero type, out saving the world.” Jack broke down in an accusing tone as he pointed to everyone in the room, “and don’t nobody go calling me MacGyver.  I hated that show. That guy was a wussy. What kind of moron goes into dangerous situations without a gun? And that hair? Ouch!”

 “Actually Jack,” Daniel walked by and patted him on the shoulder, “the similarity I was thinking would best be described as, smart ass.” As an after thought he added, “besides I always thought you looked more like Kurt Russell.”

 Ground shaking revelations were a normal occurrence in the briefing room so it passed right by Jack without mustering so much as a shocked look. Instead he answered the ringing phone next to him, “O’Neill.” Whatever he heard on the phone was a lot more shocking, “all right we’ll be right up.”

 Hammond stood, “what happened Colonel?”

 Now Jack was on his feet, “that was Carter. She asked for you too.  Seems Doc Frazier just got a very serious phone call from off base.”