Anybody home?
Jack, it may as well be the moon out here.
If there ever was anybody home, they've been gone 100,000 years or more.
This world is most definitely Tal lak.
Though it once supported life, it is now extinct.
Well, the probe picked up an EM source coming from something.
My guess,...
.. that thing.
I have the same EM frequencies we picked up from the probe.
Sir, this artefact, or whatever it is, is definitely the source.
Are we in danger?
No, sir, I don't think so. Not at the moment.
But... I mean, this is incredible!
If Daniel's right, this has been doing this since Neanderthals were on Earth.
Ah, that takes me back!
Look at this writing. It's so tiny.
What does it do?
It's maintaining an interior temperature of 33° Fahrenheit.
It's generating an electromagnetic field and emitting small amounts of radiation.
Well, I knew that.
Why does it do that?
- I'm trying to make a threat assessment. - I don't know what it is,...
.. but it's got a power source more advanced than anything we've ever seen.
It's a time capsule.
Well, that's an educated guess, but...
Imagine your civilisation is facing a great cataclysm and you know it.
Wouldn't you leave something behind that told whoever came after who you were?
- Or how you died. - Imagine what you could learn...
.. about your own fate.
When a Goa'uld's world is taken by another,...
.. he may leave behind the means to destroy the conqueror.
It might be a booby trap?
Booby?
We're not talking about the Goa'uld here.
This civilisation went to great pains to leave this artefact behind.
Like a... message in a bottle.
- You buyin' this, Teal'c? - The benefit may outweigh the risk.
Earth could sure use a power source that lasts for thousands of years.
All right. Pack it up. Let's go home.
Yes, sir.
We have the package, sir. I advise level-3 precautions.
Wormhole disengaged. Support teams, go!
Careful. It's heavy!
Start a spectral analysis right away.
And input an imaging of the outer surface into the computer.
Everything go as planned?
Oh, one small step, one giant leap, sir.
We'll debrief in one hour. Welcome home, SG-1.
Well, we can add two more elements to the periodic table.
Lieutenant, I'd like to record this.
Whatever you say, Captain.
Try to relax, Graham, or it's gonna be a long day.
It's not the artefact.
He gets nervous like that every time he's around you.
Maybe a crush.
Uh... we're recording now.
Thank you, Lieutenant.
Oops.
Hey, the artefact! Notice the writing.
So tiny it can't be read by the naked eye.
- What does it say? - Uh, we think it's a set of instructions.
On... how to...?
Open it. We think it, uh... opens.
There's the equivalent of 1,000 pages of text on the exterior surface alone.
What about the interior?
We know very little. Dr. Fraiser's running a positron emission topography.
You know I have the highest respect for your abilities,...
...but the NID wants a look at the thing.
I recommend against shipping the artefact anywhere just yet, General.
Since the orb's function has yet to be confirmed,...
...it is best for it to remain in close proximity to the Stargate.
You're scheduled to visit P4G-881.
A primordial world with no civilisation, so no need for an archaeologist.
I'm willing to delay that mission for 24 hours...
...in order to confirm your theory.
- That's not enough time. - But we'll take it.
Thank you.
Okay, let's try another X-ray series.
Y- axis this time.
Sam?
Yeah.
Okay.
Up until now I've been assuming that this is a sort of page one.
It's isolated from the other groupings. Now I'm thinking it's numericaI.
- It may be the basis of their mathematics. - Right. That's what I thought.
So if these smaller symbols represent exponents...
Then this sequence grows exponentially to become a very big number.
Right. And that is...
...information I can't use.
Good morning, campers! Sleep well? I did!
- Oh, it can't be morning. - Ah, but it is. We ship out at 1300 hours.
Jack, talk to General Hammond.
Nope. I want you both rested and ready to go. That's an order.
Yes, sir.
Jack, come on!
Daniel,...
...SG-1 is a field unit, you know that. Can't have it both ways.
When we get back, you can... visit.
We've got a spike! An EM spike across the wide band!
What?
Interior temperature is increasing - 40° Fahrenheit.
Captain?
- We haven't done anything. - Maybe we woke it up.
- 60°! - Radiation levels?
Uh, alpha particle generation within the object's...
.. magnetic field has increased 4... 600%!
Sir, I recommend we return the artefact to P5C-353 now!
Go tell them to start dialling.
Go!
100°!
Any idea what we're dealing with here?
No, sir.
Whoa!
I think we can rule out time capsule.
Start dialling in P5C-353!
- By whose orders? - Colonel O'Neill.
- Do it. - Yes, sir.
- Dr. Jackson? - It's the artefact, sir. Something's wrong.
Temperature is still increasing - 110°.
We'll need to put our suits back on.
We'll just open the gate and throw it back through.
Teal'c, give me a hand here.
It does not wish to be removed.
That's too damn bad.
Chevron six encoded.
Out of the way, people!
Chevron seven locked.
Get outta there!
- Put the base on full alert! - We need a medical team.
Security to the embarkation room! Medical team to the embarkation room!
Teal'c...
Kill it!
Oh, God...
Sir, the uh... Stargate.
Shut it down.
Colonel!
It goes right through his shoulder into the concrete.
- Oh, my God! - Get something to support his legs.
- Okay, what can you tell me? - I don't know, but it's still hot.
Temperature's 133.
This wound is too clean. There should be more trauma.
Where's Teal'c?
It's gone through the scapula.
Teal'c!
Shoot it!
- Sir! - Shoot it!
I suggest you observe from the control room.
Everybody out of here!
Teal'c, fire when ready.
With respect, General, this is a mistake.
Why?
We don't know how much staff energy will go through into the colonel.
Your objection is noted.
Do it!
Again!
- No change. - Sir, it just absorbed the energy.
This weapon is ineffective. I shall try another.
No!
Sir, that staff energy's gone somewhere. We could be feeding it what it wants.
I want a cutting torch down there.
If it's made of the same alloys as the shell on the orb itself,...
...then it is several hundred times stronger than steel.
Sir, with your permission?
Colonel O'Neill,...
.. this is going to take some time.
I don't give a damn...
...what Colonel Maybourne says. I've made my decision.
Unless I am ordered otherwise, I'm not allowing anyone in or out of this facility...
...until we can send the damn thing back where it came from.
No, General. Thank you.
The NID people want to see it.
After what it's done to the colonel?
Especially after what it's done.
They're hoping we've found a weapon to use against the Goa'uld.
- All I can tell them is what it isn't. - General, I don't know what to say.
I wanted the artefact to be something wonderful.
You have nothing to apologise for, son.
We've brought things back from all over the galaxy.
One of them's finally snapped us in the ass.
We managed to collect a significant amount of data, sir.
Then I suggest you get to it. Dismissed.
This is Hammond. Lock up the mountain. Authorisation code red-beta.
Initiate Wildfire.
Attention. Level-4 quarantine is now in effect.
Switching to internal power and life support.
Hot.
I know.
You've a very high fever caused by an infection.
I'm gonna give you a broad-spectrum antibiotic to help fight it.
The artefact's internal temperature just levelled off at 149° Fahrenheit.
Sergeant.
Your progress here is unsatisfactory.
Can't go any faster, sir. This is the hardest stuff I've ever come across.
Then I will delay you no further.
We're gonna need everyone's help. Colonel O'Neill is alive but in trouble.
The data we've managed to gather is all in the base computer.
It's not much but it's all we have. Use it.
Don't rule anything out or make assumptions.
I'll lead the translation team.
And we'll be working out of the astrophysics lab.
Any questions?
- So we're dealing with a weapon. - That's an assumption, Captain.
All right, let's get to work.
- How is he? - He's developed an infection.
I've given him antibiotics which, amazingly, have slowed its progress.
- Why is that amazing? - I think you should see this.
It's mobile, like a bacteria.
But small, like a virus, and slightly radioactive.
Definitely alien. And they also seem to bond in chains.
And it's infected the colonel.
This is why I wanted you to see it.
I took this from the colonel's uniform around his wound.
It's infected his clothes as well as living tissue?
It's metabolising the fibres as if it was living tissue.
Like a form of necrotising fasciitis.
Flesh-eating disease?
- Okay, you said slightly radioactive. - Yep.
Lieutenant!
We used ultraviolet when we tested the iris's structural integrity.
- Right. - Yep.
Uh... Let's get some UV units in the gate room.
Teal'c? Colonel?
It's gonna get a little dark in there for a few seconds while we try something.
Bringing up the UV lights...
...now.
Oh, my God!
This is an even bigger problem than we thought.
Captain Carter?
What's happening to me?
This organism can eat through virtually any substance. Even concrete.
This entire complex is made of concrete.
Worse than that, it's got a taste for the base wiring.
Which means it'll affect or rather infect our computers and communications.
Then we need to kill it. How do we do that?
We've sprayed around the mainframe with a pesticide,...
...but it hasn't even slowed it down.
What was that you just gave me?
Tetracycline. It's kept the infection at bay in Colonel O'Neill...
...and it seems to work prophylactically. But, sir, I'll need more...
Absolutely not! A Wildfire directive means nothing in or out. You know that.
Sir, Simmons's infection is even more far gone than Colonel O'Neill's.
But he's allergic to tetracycline, and the alternatives I have on base...
Don't make me repeat myself, Doctor.
With your permission, sir, I'd better get back to the infirmary.
- Captain... - Sir?
I need your honest assessment.
Can we beat this?
Like the colonel always says - never give up.
I'm not sure, sir.
Maybe it's time to consider evacuating personnel through the Stargate.
I've thought of that, but to where?
There's no guarantee that we can stop the organism coming with us.
We don't have the right to infect another world.
There are a number of uninhabited worlds.
Albeit most are uninhabited for good reason.
Even if we could evacuate,...
...practically every one of us is now infected by the organism to some degree.
Without antibiotics we'd all be like Lieutenant Simmons by now.
The survivors would run out of supplies in a few days.
They'd have that much time to find a solution.
It's not worth the risk in my opinion.
We don't know what the orb would do if we tried to activate the Stargate again.
Very well. We'll make our stand right here, Captain.
Yes, sir.
It won't take us without a fight, sir.
Damn right it won't.
- Teal'c... - I am here, O'Neill.
- It's hot. - The fever burns within you.
You?
The symbiote I carry appears to protect me.
Way to go, junior.
Doctor Fraiser will find a cure.
Teal'c, you don't have to stick around.
Undomesticated equines could not remove me.
Wild horses, Teal'c.
It's...
That's a joke.
You told a joke.
Don't make me laugh, please.
Very well.
You're a good man, my friend.
As are you,... my friend.
Sir!
I'm just about through here.
It's moving!
Teal'c...
It will not allow us to free you, O'Neill.
God... help...
All right.
If this is page one and this sequence of numbers indicates exponential growth,...
...what does that mean?
It could represent the growth pattern of the alien organism.
So far its spread has followed an exponential curve.
All right. So from that we can extrapolate that it's a warning.
This organism will continue to expand exponentially until...
...what?
Until we die?
I mean, if that's what it says,...
...what's the point of saying it?
Try turning the page. Maybe the answer's there.
Right.
Hey...
How's the pain?
It's not too bad.
Well, I'm gonna give you something for it anyway.
Hey!
If you see Captain Carter...
Tell you what, Lieutenant,...
...she has to come down soon for her booster so...
...I'll make sure I send her over.
I was right. The staff blast gave the organism energy it needed to spread.
It's reproducing because we fed it.
- Damn! Why did I let them do that? - Okay, so it feeds on energy.
How do we use that? It feeds on everything.
- Have the CO2 levels gone up? - Yeah. The scrubbers are handling it.
Like fire. Add energy and fuel, it burns hotter and longer,...
...but it can't live without one thing.
- Oxygen. - Yes!
- We can't either. - But at least we can slow it down.
- What's happening? - It's gotten into our computers.
Keep working.
This way! This way!
You can't come this way, Captain. It's eaten through a steam pipe.
Hello!
Somebody!
- Somebody! - Hello?
Daniel!
I'm stuck in here. Get the doors open.
Hurry up!
It's eating through the control panel.
- Sam! - I'm okay. I'll explain later.
General, sir, I have something.
What is he doing?
Teal'c is trying to stop the spread of the organism.
- Tell him to stop. - Why? It's working.
Only because the fire is consuming the oxygen in the room.
It feeds on energy.
Sir, I'm asking you to trust me.
Teal'c!
Stand down.
We're going to try another approach.
Okay. The organism needs oxygen to reproduce.
Since we're on internal life support,...
...we can adjust the CO2 and lower the oxygen levels.
How low are we talking?
We'll start at 8%, but we have to start now.
- Do it. - Yes, sir.
General Hammond! You should see this.
Auto self-destruct has been initiated.
I didn't touch it. The self-destruct countdown just started on its own.
General?
In the event of containment failure, Wildfire kicks in automatically.
We have to stop the autodestruct.
We have a duty to make sure the organism does not leave the mountain.
With all due respect, sir, you don't understand.
It can feed on a staff blast's energy. How far do you think it will spread...
...if the autodestruct goes off?
I need two officers to override.
The organism's invaded our computers. It won't recognise our codes.
The internal clock's been activated. We can't stop it without the computer.
Then the organism will be fed enough energy to spread across the whole Earth.
I blew it.
I screwed up.
I also believed we should retrieve the object.
It was my decision.
If we are to meet the challenge of the Goa'uld and further your race,...
...risks must be taken.
Your decision was correct.
Your idea seems to be working.
It slowed the progress of the organism by almost 90%.
Don't jump up and down now or you'll get my other patients excited.
In a completely anaerobic environment, the organism just goes dormant.
All we've done is buy ourselves a little time before...
I gotta get back to work.
Before you do, would you stop by to see Lieutenant Simmons?
How's he doin'?
Thanks.
Graham?
Captain Carter!
We're fighting this thing. You just gotta hang in there.
Before I...
I just wanted to say...
...how much...
How am I doin' so far?
You're doin' just fine.
Come here!
- Who? - What? Anybody. Just... come here.
Look at this.
Wait for it...
There.
- That symbol's on the artefact. - Yes, it is.
It's trying to communicate with us.
What we thought was gibberish may be the aliens' attempt to communicate.
The symbols could also be from the random files from our earlier research.
No. I didn't start working on this until after the computers went down.
What might they be trying to communicate?
They could be saying, "Take me to your leader", for all I know. I have no idea.
The point is that they're trying.
We haven't considered that we may be up against an alien intelligence.
We've treated it like a disease, a plague. Not once have we stopped to listen.
How do we do that?
- We let it grow. - What?
We increase the oxygen levels. We hit it with another staff weapon blast.
We let it do what it's been trying to do.
The opposite of the advice you've been giving me up to now.
Which is it, Captain?
General, we both know what will happen if we don't try something.
The organism bonds together in chains.
What if it can only express that intelligence once it reaches critical mass?
But even then it'll be communicating in a language that I can't translate...
...without a point of reference.
Maybe Colonel O'Neill didn't just get in the way.
Dr. Fraiser said there was no blood.
There is practically no trauma around that wound.
Yet that's just not possible.
- Unless it did it on purpose. - Yes!
We have to cut off his medication, sir.
Are you out of your mind?
If you do so, O'Neill will die.
He'd want us to try, I know it.
Communicate with the organism through Jack?
Yes! I think that's what it's been trying to do all along.
Oxygen levels now 30% above normal.
Sir?
Sir, I don't know if what we're about to try is a good idea or not.
But you have a right to know. You might not survive it.
Okay, Teal'c.
Again.
We have to. Again.
No pulse.
Good morning, campers.
This...
...is truly a strange feeling.
Colonel?
Yes. He is here.
Who else are we talking to?
We...
...are also here.
- My name is... - Hammond.
Yes.
O'Neill knows.
Then you should also know we mean you no harm.
You awoke us.
We have only recently become aware of your existence.
You would have returned us...
...to our former world.
- We believed you were a threat to us. - We feared you.
And your fear would have destroyed us.
Millennia ago...
...our world was dying.
We could no longer...
...live there.
For this reason,...
...we created the orb.
Where you have slept for 100,000 years.
Yes, Daniel.
Waiting for someone to come along, like us, and take you through the Stargate.
So it was written on the orb.
Once exposed to the atmosphere of a living world,...
...we went forth.
And multiplied.
So it was written.
Auto self-destruct in four minutes.
- We cannot go back. - And we cannot allow you to stay.
O'Neill feels this as well.
However,...
...you have allowed us no alternatives.
General, we're almost out of time.
This place, admittedly out of our ignorance,...
...is about to be destroyed by an explosion.
Such energy only serves...
...to nourish us.
We will multiply...
...and consume...
...your world.
If you would allow us to restore our communications,...
...we could stop that from happening.
We would survive.
O'Neill desires this...
...as well.
He wishes...
...to live.
But what of us?
P4G-881!
It's primordial. Lots of oxygen and sunlight.
Like this world was a quarter of a billion years ago.
We can't open the Stargate without the computers.
You would send us there?
Through your Stargate?
We would.
- For what reason? - So that we both may survive.
We'll take you there ourselves! Please!
Everything just shut down!
God help us.
Auto self-destruct in two minutes.
Sir, I think the computers are rebooting!
Start dialling P4G-881 as soon as they're up!
Yes, sir.
Auto self-destruct in one minute 30 seconds.
Chevron one engaged.
Chevron two engaged.
Chevron three engaged.
Chevron four engaged.
Auto self-destruct in one minute.
Chevron five engaged.
Chevron six engaged.
Chevron seven locked.
Auto self-destruct in 30 seconds.
20 seconds.
10,...
.. 9,...
.. 4, 3,...
Autodestruct is aborted.
Auto self-destruct aborted.
Nice work.
It is good to see you alive and well, O'Neill.
- Welcome back, Jack. - We thought you were gone for good, sir.
Wild horses, Captain.