Daniel sank lower into the couch, curled up with his remote and a cup of coffee. Absently he clicked through the channels, his mind far away from anything he was seeing flash by on the screen.

Two weeks of stand-down while Jack, Sam and Teal'c trained new SGC troops. Daniel knew he'd go crazy. He'd spent most of today in his office, working on projects he'd been pushing aside for months, until General Hammond caught sight of him working and ordered him off the base. Make that personally escorted him off the base - and he'd left word with the base gatehouse that Dr. Jackson was officially on vacation and not to be allowed anywhere near his office for two weeks. For good measure, he'd confiscated his laptop too.

Daniel knew the General was just concerned with his welfare; he'd been working without pause for weeks, and had never really allowed himself to fully recover from the beating he'd taken from Osiris in Egypt. Mentally or physically, he thought with a sigh. In less than a week, he'd lost the professor who had been his mentor during his doctorate program, and the first woman he...don't go there, Daniel, he thought. 

He took a sip of coffee and grimaced.  Cold.  He tossed the remote down on the couch and went to the kitchen for a new cup.

"Coming up on Discovery News - a new archaeological find in Great Britain may answer age-old questions about the existence of King Arthur and his Camelot." Daniel's ears perked up at the teaser coming from the TV, and got back to the couch with his coffee just as the commercials ended.

"King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot - the tales of chivalry and romance that captured our imaginations as children and as adults. Could these tales have some real historical basis?" the announcer dramatically prefaced the news story.

"They all have some basis in reality," Daniel mumbled, blowing on his coffee to cool it. "Trust me."

"In today's Glastonbury, believers in the old legends gather trying to catch a glimpse of the magical land that once Arthur laid claim to - or so the story goes. But one archaeologist is doing more than soaking up the myths and mystery here in the south of England - she's digging below the surface to find out if Arthur really existed."

The announcer cut to scenes of a dig in full swing, a tableau that Daniel was all too familiar with. He smiled a little at the scrappy looking bunch of students, laying out grids in the field, carefully sifting the dirt to disclose any small artifacts, using brushes to gently uncover objects that hadn't seen the light of day in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  The burial mound behind them looked massive, Daniel noted.  Its gently sloping sides were covered in a layer of clover, but a clear opening where the students had excavated stood gaping out of one side, mysteriously beckoning to him.

He felt a curious kind of sadness as he watched. How long had it been since he'd been on a real dig? A real, honest-to-God, scientific dig with no other purpose than to uncover the history below the surface of the earth?

"Dr. Tara Wyatt from UNC-Chapel Hill has been on a quest of her own here in Glastonbury - one to find out if the legend was real," the announcer walked along the edge of the dig until he'd reached the main research area, where he was met by said doctor, who gave him a pleasant smile as she shook his hand. "Dr. Wyatt, can you tell us what you've found so far?"

"Well, Chris, this has been a wonderful dig site. We've found many artifacts here that confirm this was a pre-Roman settlement. What's more, today we uncovered some objects that show signs of a writing system we've never seen before." She guided him and the camera in closer for a look at a tablet they'd found.

Daniel sat up in shock, almost spilling his coffee. He leaned in close to the TV as the camera got a better view of the artifact.

"What do you think you've found, Dr. Wyatt?" the announcer asked, looking over the tablet.

"I have no idea," she said honestly, "but I can't wait to find out." She turned the tablet over in her hands, pointing to some of the symbols. "This doesn't appear to be anything like the other artifacts we've found here..."

Daniel, his eyes still on the TV, leaned over and grabbed his phone, dialing General Hammond's home number. "General Hammond? It's Daniel. Yes, I know...I am...can you turn on the Discovery Channel? I think you need to see something." There was a pause. "Yes, it's exactly what you think it is," Daniel said, still watching the story. "That's Goa'uld writing."

The next day, General Hammond and Daniel watched the entire Discovery News clip again, courtesy of a tape they'd obtained from the local TV station. As the story ended, Hammond looked over at Daniel intently. "It is a Goa'uld artifact. No question."

"No," Daniel said. "And where there's one..."

"There's probably more. I'll contact the British authorities and think up some reason to shut down the site," General Hammond said. "Before they find something they shouldn't."

"Well - I was actually thinking that I could probably go over there, take a look around - see if there's any real chance that they'll uncover something significant," Daniel offered.

"Is that wise?" General Hammond said.

"Is it wise to cause an international incident by shutting down a dig in a foreign country?" he asked.

"You don't give us much credit for our subtlety, Doctor," General Hammond said.  "Maybe some undercover work is in order before we proceed," he finally admitted.  

"I'll be ready to leave tonight," Daniel said excitedly.

"You are on vacation, Doctor - I can always send someone else," he offered.

"No offense, but - I really need to be doing something. I can't just sit around my apartment for two weeks. A trip to Great Britain sounds like just what I need right about now. If I find out there's nothing to be concerned with, then I'll spend a week or so in the British Museum."

Hammond nodded. "Best not to arouse suspicion if we can keep from it. We can always confiscate any Goa'uld technology or artifacts when the dig is over and it passes through customs."

Daniel winced a little at that, but he'd expected it after the artifacts in the Stewart Expedition find had caused them so much trouble. "So do I have your permission to go?" he asked hopefully.

Against his better judgment, Hammond nodded. "You have a go. If you need any assistance while you're there, there will be backup through our bases in the United Kingdom."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Daniel assured him. "But - it's good to know that they're available, just in case," he said.

"Any idea how you'll get on the dig site itself?" General Hammond asked. "I can get you some authorization...."

Daniel shook his head with a small smile. "I won't need any help getting onto the dig site, General. Believe me."

Daniel walked onto the dig site until he came to the tent that the archaeological team was using as their base for storing and sorting artifacts. The security guard escorting him pointed to where Dr. Wyatt was working intently on recording some information on a laptop. He thanked the man and walked toward her.

"Hi - Dr. Wyatt?" Daniel held out his hand. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson."

She gave him a quick smile before shaking his hand, but was immediately distracted by one of her students. "Welcome to our dig - what can I do for you, Dr. Jackson?" she said, looking off toward the site.

"I..uh...saw your piece on Discovery News..."

"You and everyone else, it seems. That's the last time I let the university talk me into something like that," she said, waving at one of the students to stop what they were doing and come over. "It's brought every lunatic in the south of England down to this site."

"Really?" Daniel asked.

"Present company excluded, I'm sure," she said hastily.  "Listen, I don't mean to be rude, Doctor, but we're kind of busy here, so..."

"I actually was interested in the artifacts you found in the dig - the language you couldn't decipher. You see, linguistics are my specialty, and maybe I could help out - you know, with the translation," he said, following her around as she left her laptop to check on a student's work.

"I can't afford to pay another linguistic expert, Doctor, but I appreciate your offer," she said.

"I wasn't actually thinking of charging you," he said. She stopped suddenly. "I could work with your other linguist - maybe together we can make sense of it."

"You came all the way to England to work for free?" she asked, really looking at him for the first time.

"Well, actually, I'm sort of already on vacation - but this sounded like more fun," he said, with a smile.

"Well, I guess if you're working for free, I can't help but get my money's worth," she said. "So welcome.  You can check in with the guards for an ID."

"Thanks," he said, "Any chance that I might meet your other linguist..."

"You just did," she said over her shoulder as she walked away. "Come back in the morning and we'll get started."

The next day, Daniel walked onto the dig site, showing his ID to the guard as he entered, and went to where Dr. Wyatt was talking with her assistant. He caught the conversation they were having as he approached.

"Tara, do you know what you're doing?" her assistant said as he took back the printout he'd given her on Daniel.

"I know that I can't turn down free help if we want to close this dig by fall, Chris," she said, glancing over his shoulder at Daniel as he approached. "Besides, you checked him out on the net - he's for real, right?"

"Well, his archaeological and linguistic abilities are for real, yes. But his reputation, well...."

"I don't care if he's thought to be a little unorthodox," she said, smiling a little.

"Unorthodox? Tara, he's a nut."

"I see that the academic community still holds the same high regard for me," Daniel said, giving Tara a tight smile. Chris turned around in surprise.

"Dr. Jackson, this is my assistant, Chris Taylor. Chris was just taking his foot out of his mouth," she said.

"Dr. Jackson," Chris shook his hand briefly. "I think I need to get back to the site," he said.

"Come back by later, and let me know how things are going," she said. She turned to Daniel. "I'm sorry you overheard that."

"That's okay - I guess I'd be a little suspicious of me too," he said. "So when do we get started?"

"How about we take a look at what's been found so far?" she said.

"And that's all we've been able to find," Dr. Wyatt said, showing Daniel the last of the artifacts that bore what she had jokingly dubbed the "Camelot" script. Daniel breathed in a sigh of relief at the items found. All of them appeared to be either stone tablets (minus any page turning devices) or bits and pieces of metal that could have been part of jewelry or garment decorations. No ribbon devices, no technology of any type. He could give General Hammond a report that the danger was minimal at this point. He felt guilty as he realized that he'd probably be called on again to identify all these items when they passed through customs - and were seized. He looked over at Dr. Wyatt, who was carefully stowing some of the artifacts away.

"Any ideas on the translation so far?" he asked her, as he began to make notes of the text.

"Not really. We've been so busy trying to get everything possible out of this dig before we have to close down for winter that it's been too hard to concentrate on the finer points of translation." She leaned over him as he looked at the inscription he'd copied. "How about you? Any thoughts?"

Daniel had already translated this bit of text, but shook his head in response to her question. "No clue. It's fascinating, though," he said, with a small smile.

"It is that," she said, sitting down beside him. "You know, the rumor is that these contain the lost history of the real King Arthur," she said, running her hand over one of the stone tablets.

"Really?" Daniel said, not looking up. "And what do you think they say?"

"I don't care what they say, Dr. Jackson," she said candidly. "It could be just a collection of tax records, for all we know. What's important is the language itself - and the people it belonged to. That's what interests me."

He watched as she continued to look at the tablet. "You can sometimes tell a lot about a people by their writing - have you ever noticed that?" she asked.

"I have, actually," he said, pausing in his work to listen to her. "And what does this text tell you about the people who wrote it?"

"Well - they're intelligent. The language is very complex. They're arrogant, maybe even cruel. Look at the hard edges of the script, the bluntness of it. Even in looking at it, you feel as if every word is a command." She sighed a little. "This isn't even close to any of the pre-Roman languages indigenous to this region. I've already sent digital pictures of all the script back to my lab in Chapel Hill. This winter, I'll have my work cut out for me, studying this closer," she said.

Daniel's heart sank a little as he heard this. Digital pictures? One more loose end, he thought. You're not the only one who has their work cut out for them, Dr. Wyatt.

"There are a lot of things about the sites I've dug on here in England that don't make sense, but this one is the most mysterious I've ever seen," Tara said. "Have you ever been on digs like that?"

"Yes, actually," Daniel said, leaning back against the gentle swell of the burial mound's side and looking up at the stars. 

Dr. Wyatt and her students were taking turns at staying the night on the dig site, to prevent any unwanted visitors from disrupting the work they'd done. Daniel had volunteered to stay with her this evening, partly because his jet lag was keeping him awake anyway, partly to find out more about the Goa'uld artifacts the dig had uncovered - and partly because he was enjoying talking to someone who actually understood his chosen field.

"There are so many unanswered questions on this continent - things like Stonehenge and the other stone circles, these burial mounds, all the chalk figures across the fields in southern England - it makes me wonder if the Celts really learned all this on their own, or if there was someone before them - someone more ancient still," she continued.

"Like a race of people from another continent?" Daniel asked.

"Like a race of people from another world," she said, then laughed a little. "I guess that sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it?"

"Uh, yeah - kind of," he said, still staring off into the sky.

Tara turned to look at him. "I thought of all people you'd be open to an idea that's a little, well - non-traditional," she said.

"Given my past history?" Daniel asked.

"You did have some pretty radical ideas of your own," she said. "Yes, I did a little homework, Dr. Jackson. Wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so," he said. "And it's Daniel."

"So Daniel - were you ever able to prove any of those radical ideas?" she asked.

"If I had, wouldn't I have written a book by now or hit the lecture circuit?" he said.

She thought a moment. "Depends on how radical they actually turned out to be, I guess," she said, standing up and dusting off her jeans. She wrapped her arms around her sides, and stared out over the plains as the sky began to be marked with pink and orange. "Sunrise," she said, nodding toward the horizon. "I think it's safe for us to leave. The rest of the students will start arriving soon and Chris can lead the dig today."  She smiled over at him.  "How about some breakfast?"

He smiled back.  "Yeah, that would be great."

Daniel awoke with a start, almost falling out of the narrow bed as he reached for the phone, which was ringing loudly right by his ear. He squinted at the bright daylight coming in his window as he answered. "Daniel Jackson."

"It's Tara - I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked, excitement in her voice.

"Ah...no, what gave you that idea?" Daniel said, fumbling for his glasses.  He was a little jealous that she sounded so awake after a night spent at the dig site.  For all he knew, she never even went back to the farm where she'd been staying after she dropped him off at his B&B.

"Good - because I knew you'd want to see this." He listened closer as she continued. "We've found something out here - something big."

"Big, as in..."

"It's some type of door, down inside the burial mound. We're clearing away the earth around it, but we've already been able to tell that it's got writing on it that matches the language we've been trying to decipher. I thought you'd like to see it," she said.

Daniel was already out of bed and halfway into his clothes. "I'll be right down there," he said.

"Good - I'll meet you at the site."

Daniel hung up the phone, and finished getting dressed quickly. A door, he thought with an edge of panic. With Goa'uld writing on it. His recent experience in Egypt came unbidden to his mind. What if it was a ship, hidden away until a Goa'uld needed it. Worse yet - what if the Goa'uld who needed it was still inside....

He bolted out the door.

"What do you think?" Tara asked in excitement as Daniel looked at the door they'd uncovered.

I think I'm going to be sick, Daniel thought to himself. The door, standing almost six feet high, looked to be made of pure gold. In rows on it were unmistakable Goa'uld symbols. Its condition, even though it was still covered in some places with dirt and grit, was pristine.

"It's amazing," he finally found his voice, and turned to Tara. "But why do you think it's a door?" he asked.

She looked at him a little strangely. "Well, because it's...doorlike," she finished, motioning toward it. "What else could it be?"

"But there's no handle, or hinges," Daniel said, looking it over carefully along the edges. "It looks like it's simply sealed up against the wall."

"Like a tomb," she offered.

He turned. "Or maybe it's just some wall decoration, or..."

"Daniel, you must have been no fun at all on digs when you were a student," she said jokingly. "Where's your imagination?"

"So - what now?" he asked. "Are you going to try and open it?" he said, dreading her answer.

"Tomorrow - it's too late tonight to really get started on it." She looked around at her students, whose eyes were bright with excitement. "I need you guys to keep a lid on this, okay? We've got too many spectators out there as it is, and I don't want someone getting wind of this and trying to steal it, okay?"

They all nodded, including Daniel. Except he had no intention of keeping anything he'd seen a secret for long.

"So what have you found out, Doctor?"

Daniel stifled a yawn as he answered General Hammond. "Well - it is Goa'uld. I haven't found any technology yet, but the writing is unmistakable. There are quite a few artifacts, and she's already sent digital images back to Chapel Hill."

"We'll sanitize the shipment of artifacts when it returns to the states, Doctor, and we can take care of the files as well," General Hammond said, startling Daniel a little with his grim efficiency.

"And there's something else," Daniel continued. "They uncovered a door today."

"A door?" The concern in General Hammond's voice telegraphed over the line loud and clear. "What kind of door?"

"A big...gold one, sir. Goa'uld inscriptions."

"Saying what?" General Hammond felt like he was pulling information out of Daniel - quite a change from normal.

"Lots of things I didn't have time to translate," Daniel said. "But it's not what's on the door that's worrying me - it's what might be behind it."

"You mean there could be a Goa'uld in there?"

"Possibly - yes," Daniel said. "It doesn't look like the door has been disturbed, and it hasn't been fully uncovered yet, so any mechanism for opening it is still hidden."

"Stay there, Dr. Jackson. I'm going to have a detachment sent over to assist you with recovery after we have the British government shut down the dig."

"Shut down the dig - isn't that going to raise some eyebrows? Not to mention what will happen when an Air Force unit shows up to ...."

"Do you have another option for me, Dr. Jackson? I didn't think so," he continued. "I'm going to have someone contact you after we get the message to the archaeological team that they're shutting down."

"God, this isn't fair," Daniel mumbled half to himself, thinking of Tara and the work she and her students had already done. "Shutting down the dig like this."

"Would you like to try and explain the fact that an alien might be in stasis under that mound to those students, Dr. Jackson? Fair doesn't apply here. It's a matter of security."

"I'm not questioning that, it's just...." he stopped. "I'll be waiting for the contact."

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