"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did, Daniel," Jack noted, continuing his trek toward the outskirts of the planet's civilization. "I distinctly heard you say it." Both Teal'c and Sam followed silently behind, sharing looks of stark boredom and growing discontentment.

"Why?" Daniel demanded, rounding on Jack. "Why? Why...why...why why why would I...EVER say that?"

"I don't know!"

"Sir-"

"Wait!" Jack ordered, holding his hand up to Sam, who rolled her eyes and retreated to the safer area next to Teal'c. They had been on TL4-332 for an hour, and for exactly fifty-three minutes of that time, Jack and Daniel had been arguing. About a set of words. And about who was more pathetic, the colonel or Daniel. Sam thought it was a toss up. Still, it was beginning to concern her that a conversation about who had or who needed a more exciting sex life was neither appropriate nor, to her chagrin, even mildly interesting. It was that part about it not being interesting that bothered her the most. For some reason a good, lascivious bar room discussion about sex sounded like exactly what she needed, and she knew it wasn't going to be found while listening to the two numbskulls in front of her. She rubbed her head and decided she must be ovulating.

Jack draped one arm across his weapon and with the other hand, jabbed Daniel in the chest. "Did you or did you not say..."

"No! I didn't!" Daniel insisted, swatting Jack's hand away.

"Sir-"

"What? What? What is it, Carter? Huh? What?" Jack barked, his hands sailing away from him, and then he stopped, looked at her strangely and said, "Carter, are you wearing cologne?"

"Um, no. Sir, if I may," Sam said, stepping between the two men, eyeing the colonel with suspicion. The argument had gone on long enough, and they would reach the outskirts of the city within minutes, so a cease-fire had to be reached. Otherwise, Sam felt sure her report would read something like, "Upon reaching the city center, the natives shot the colonel and Doctor Jackson, and I, for one, couldn't have been happier." So she waited until the petty bickering halted before she began. "Sir, we're one hundred meters outside the city, so in the name of diplomacy, I think we should clear this matter up."

"Just what do you think I've been trying to do, Major?"

Sam glanced at the squinty-eyed senior officer a moment while she decided not to tell him what she really thought he was doing. "Sir, with all due respect-"

"Tell him, Sam," Daniel said, patting her on the shoulder, pointing at Jack, feeling prematurely vindicated.

"Yes, Carter. Do!"

"Actually, Daniel and sir," Sam said, taking a step back, knowing her words would be cold comfort for each of the men, "you're both wrong."

"See!" Daniel said, sticking Jack in the chest with his finger. "See! See! What?"

"Well, yeah," Sam said, bobbing her head up and down, hoping she wasn't setting herself up for a court martial. "Neither of you is correct."

Jack shook his head and said, "No, that's not--"

"--not possible," Daniel finished, after which he and Jack shared a petulant glare.

"Actually, it is," Sam corrected them. "Ya see, sir, what you mistook as Daniel's rather...well, pathetic admission," she began, and then held up a hand to thwart Daniel's attempt to interject, "wasn't actually an admission at all. And what you mistook, Daniel, as the colonel's misrepresentation of your words isn't the crux of his problem."

"Okay, then, Carter, what exactly is my problem?" Jack asked, and then frowned, and then glared at his underlings, warning them with an eye not to take the easy route.

"Yes, sir, well, it seems to me this started when you heard what you perceived as a confession of sorts out of Daniel," Sam said.

"It wasn't a confession of sorts," Jack said, beginning once again to speak as animatedly as his gestures. "It was a full blown disclosure of facts! And by the way, Daniel, it's not like it comes as much of a surprise."

"Ya know, Jack, it shouldn't astound me that a person of your...your..." His hands formed wild circles, his eyes darted blindly across the terrain. "...and and and and...could possibly be as...as..." Daniel stammered, spinning first away from Jack and then toward him, leaning nearer and nearer, pointing defiantly, then throwing his hands in the air, allowing a frustrated guffaw to escape his lips. "But then again, it does."

Jack slapped both hands to the side of his skull and grimaced. "Okay, let me just recap: Huh?!?"

"I believe what DanielJackson is endeavoring to say," Teal'c said, coming to stand next to Sam, "is that you may have misrepresented his intentions in the matter."

Sam ground her hand into her eye. "Look, sir, let me bottom line this for you."

"Bottom away, Major," Jack said, clearing the proverbial floor with one swoosh of his hand and blushing when he began to think about Sam's bottom for some inexplicable reason.

"When you accused-"

"Aht!" Jack intoned, holding up a hand. "See? Right there! I never accused anyone of anything."

"Yes! Yes! Yes, you did!" Daniel cried, pointing accusingly at Jack, bouncing off his toes.

"Sir, if you'd allow me to go on," Sam said, becoming increasingly frustrated by the two, wondering if they'd even get into the city before friendly fire took out each of them. "When you...said that Daniel secretly..."

"I never said secretly."

"That's true," Daniel agreed, nodding. "He out right said I AM BLATANT about it! You! I mean, of all people, Jack, you..."

"Okay, this is getting nowhere," Sam said, shaking her head. She took Daniel by the elbow and walked him ten paces to the east. "Teal'c," she called back, "keep Colonel O'Neill in that spot. Got it?"

"I do indeed," Teal'c said, drawing his hands behind him, staring at Jack.

"Ya don't have to get snippy, T," Jack mentioned. Teal'c tilted his head and raised one pensive arched brow. Suddenly, as if a whisper glanced his ear, he was staring off, absorbed by a secret only he was privy to. "Teal'c?"

"It is my symbiote."

"Oh, yeah? What's up with Junior?"

"I do not believe there is a Tau'ri word for it," Teal'c tried to explain, while a slight smile began to twitch in the corner of his mouth. "Perhaps we should no longer speak of it."

Jack stepped away and said, "Perhaps not."

"Okay," Sam said, pacing to a central spot between the two men, "this is a matter of grammar-Daniel's assertion, and pride-the colonel's assertion. Now, sir, what you might have heard Daniel admit was that he lived vicariously through you. Is that correct, Colonel?"

"Yes. Exactly," Jack said, nodding, and then he stood on his tippie-toes to yell over Teal'c's shoulder. "And you do, Daniel! Admit...it...Oh. Sorry, Teal'c."

Daniel's mouth opened with the full intention of hurling a barrage of epitaphs Jack's way, but Sam halted his progress. "Now, Daniel, your point in this...this...basically the stupidest disagreement you two have ever engaged in-and, sir, I swear if you interrupt me with your spiel on the sins of ending a sentence with a preposition, I'll tell Janet you were accosted by a romantic farm animal," Sam warned, and Jack stood down immediately. "Thank you. So, Daniel, you weren't so much disagreeing that you live vicariously through the colonel, so much as you were disagreeing with the redundancy of using the two words together."

"Exactly!" Daniel stated.

"So," Jack began, "saying your fantasy life revolves around my real life adventures is redundant. So what?"

"No, I'm not saying that is the redundant part!" Daniel yelled. Sam stepped toward Daniel, prepared to hold him back from lunging at Jack.

"Then you admit it!" Jack called back.

"O'Neill, I believe your silence in the matter would expedite this situation," Teal'c told him, placing one large hand on Jack's chest. "And I believe that silence should take place now."

Jack scowled at the Jaffa, then took an imaginary key from his pocket, turned it against his pursed lips and threw the key over his shoulder. Jack raised his eyebrows to Teal'c and sneered. Teal'c ignored the colonel, lost to a different sensation, one that brought shallow breaths and quivering lips.

"Teal'c?" Jack said.

"A moment, O'Neill."

"Junior's...?"

"Quite."

"Right. Got it. Carter, you were saying?"

"Thank you, sir. Now, Daniel," Sam continued, tapping him on the shoulder, then gently squeezing his shoulder, which became caressing and fondling of his shoulder, "um, did you, uh, say you lived vicariously through the, uh...colonel?"

"No, I would never say that," Daniel said, studying with apprehension the hand running over his body.

"And why not?" Sam asked, drawing her hand across his chest, his pronounced pecs, his smooth ribcage, his...She felt a rush of warmth through her, suddenly noticing the firmness of his musculature, the scent of his conditioner, the sensual way the sun glinted off his lenses. She felt things inside her that she hadn't felt in months, years, a lifetime. She felt things she didn't know she wanted, needed, had to have. She felt like...

"Because," Daniel said, interrupting Sam's trip into alter-ego eroticism and removing her hand from his chest, "the word vicarious already implies experiencing sensations and moments through another, and so by saying 'vicariously through,' I would be saying 'I live through you, through you.' Which I don't. On either accounts, I might add," Daniel called out, across the divide.

"So, you see, sir," Sam said, clearing her throat, stumbling away from her friend, "Daniel was merely disagreeing with your grammar." Sam, once again in control of her raging hormones, was rather pleased with herself that she had been able to sort through the banality of the conversation. She was also pleased that she had been able to control her impulses, which were to take Daniel to the ground and force him to call her "sweet mama."

Jack scowled, pushed his fingers up through his cap and scratched his head. "Grammar, huh?"

"Yes! Maybe you've heard of it?" Daniel cried out, enunciating each word like an offended sorority girl.

"Yeah, and I've also heard a gross rationalization when I've...heard one. Or...whatever," Jack mumbled. His head throbbed, and so he decided to end the suffering by plowing ahead into a different kind of suffering-chaperoning Daniel into the cultural center of an unexplored planet.

And he so didn't want to do that. He wanted to...Well, he couldn't quite express what he really wanted to do, not without being charged with assorted counts of sexual misconduct, so he put a lid on his libido and stammered on. "Alright, let's just...just..." Jack rolled his eyes and adjusted his cap. "Carter, Teal'c, take the bricked section of buildings, see what you can find. Report every quarter hour."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, much relieved, and she and Teal'c headed off to have a look-see.

Jack stood his ground and glanced over at his team's anthropologist and his personal pain in the ass. "Well, Daniel," he began, his voice undulating with peevishness, "if you think you can tear yourself away from your grammar books and your back pedaling, maybe you and I could..." Jack said, waving noncommittally toward the remaining buildings a hundred meters from their positions.

"Maybe we could..." Daniel began, sheepishly trying to put aside the fact that he had wasted much of the day and a great deal of oxygen arguing endlessly with Jack. Daniel was light headed and a little disoriented. Unfortunately, he thought it had nothing to do with the argument, but everything to do with the surprising and not so welcome tightness in his BDU's. Last time that happened he was 15 and in the middle of his undergrad. So, Daniel did what he had done then-shoved his hands in his pocket and attempted to adjust. "Um, maybe if we..."

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"It's what we do."

"Yes, it is," Daniel agreed, and the two men began to walk slowly and in silence toward the city, while Daniel shook out first one leg, then the other.

While they walked, a barely perceptible sound floated across the span between the city and the two men. It brushed against Daniel's ear, and he said, "Did you hear that?"

"Your apology? No," Jack said, and then the insistent thumping of a preponderance of a bass found its way into Jack's ears. "You mean that?"

"Yes," Daniel said, turning more fully to the buildings.

Jack strained to pick up more sounds-low, reverberating notes, punctuated by a constant staccato rhythm. "Is that...music?"

"Well, I'm not sure," Daniel said, and they began to walk in the direction of the sounds. "Funny," Daniel added, "I'm suddenly reminded of Homer. Sirens."

"Daniel, can we leave 'The Simpson's' out of this? And that is definitely music, not a siren," Jack said, motioning toward the building.

"No, not...not..." Daniel began, but felt enough of his finite powers of explanation had been wasted already, and let it drop.

Jack stopped to listen more attentively to the subtle sounds drifting closer to them. The music began to take more shape as the sound of synthesized melody lines floated through the air. A niggling of familiarity crept into Jack's brain, and he felt his mid-section begin to thrum in a curious, not-so-bad sort of way. "Daniel, does this...music sound..."

"No." Daniel flatly refused to acknowledge the fact that he knew exactly what type of music it was. Unstructured, with no chord progression to speak of, totally without nuance--it was a bass line, a rhythm line, and an occasionally manufactured woodwind. It was the music of long, boring Saturday nights spent alone in his apartment with nothing to keep him company but a beer and a rewind button.

Jack closed his eyes and listened some more. The percussive twang of a slap bass ground against his libido. "No, really. It sounds to me like..."

"I'm sure I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Daniel said, his voice an octave higher than normal. "I wonder if Sam and Teal'c have found anything."

A growl, a moan, and a long line of screaming affirmations split the air, and Jack stared at Daniel. "Okay, that I know."

Daniel turned toward the bricked section of town and began to retreat. "Yeah, I think I'll see how Sam's doin'..."

Jack grabbed him by the sleeve and, his eyes sparkling with adventure, dragged Daniel toward the non-descript building. "Time to be vicarious, Daniel."

"Oh, God," Daniel muttered, following along.

While they walked, the music rose, undulating throughout the air-a sensual concert of computerized background music. The music poured out of speakers set atop buildings, bounced off walls, and surrounded the empty streets with a driving, enticing meter. Jack and Daniel searched the empty streets for the origin of the canned music, opening doors to buildings that were dark and void of life.

"What? Did we stumble upon the planet of Midi?" Jack asked, poking his head around a corner.

"You know, I was thinking," Daniel said, straightening his glasses on his face, "when the MALP came through, it didn't exactly show us anything. Maybe...maybe this is...is dangerous. Did you consider that, Jack? I mean you don't know. We could-"

"Hello!" Jack exclaimed, standing in the threshold of a door he had opened.

"-die here," Daniel continued, closing his eyes, and clamping his hand over them just in case any image might burn through.

"Daniel, I think I did just die," Jack said, smiling lasciviously. "And apparently, I've gone to heaven. Join me, won't you?" he said, patting Daniel on the shoulder and pulling him into the building.

A large room, broken up into four smaller areas-one that looked like a sparse office; one decorated to resemble a stable; one room that was the spitting image of a B-movie laboratory; one that was a little too scary for Daniel's taste--lots of chains, ropes, candles. Scary. Jack's lips twisted up at each corner and his eyes sparkled.

Each room was garishly lit. Each room was wired for sound. Each room was teeming with undulating bodies in various levels of dress.

"I think we owe it to our country to introduce ourselves. Don't you, Daniel?" Jack stated, taking a bold step inside the room. A buzz of energy stopped him, as if a thousand fingers had suddenly touched him all over his body. Some fingers more insistent than others. "Whoa!"

"Force field?"

"Um..."

"Energy field?"

"Well..."

"Jack, you seem a little..."

"Yeah. I know." Quirking a strange expression between surprise and joy, Jack took another step into the invisible plane, and once again was met by an enticing reverberation that neither let him pass, nor did anything to dissuade his advance. In fact, it was not entirely unenjoyable. Truth be told, it was entirely enjoyable, and it seduced him to test it over and over and over, and faster and faster and faster...

"Holy..."

"Uh, Jack?" Daniel said, watching the strange behavior over the top of his glasses. "Didn't you know that was going to happen?"

"Yes, Daniel. I did."

"You okay now?"

Jack stumbled back and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. "Actually, I feel..."

"Maybe...maybe I don't need to know that."

"Nope. Probably not." When Jack regained his composure, they both focused their attention on the participants. While they watched with bemused and terrified expressions, Daniel began to postulate.

"Well, I guess that would explain the..." Daniel began, twirling his hand in the air, unable to take his eyes off the activities, "I mean, in light of their...recreational, um...that would explain the long, cylindrical, protruding, rather masculine-"

"The phallic symbol at the gate?" Jack tossed back, catching his breath.

"Um, right."

"The one you said was a plug for the event horizon?"

"No, that was Sam's idea. I thought it was a..." Daniel stopped and craned his neck to the side, unable to ascertain which leg belonged to which participant, "...monument. Or...maybe a...statue erected--"

"Yes?" Jack said, glancing back at Daniel.

"Or should I say built to..." Daniel stared at the configurations and gyrations of men and women, women and men, men and men, women and women, men and women and other women. Throw in an animal here and there, a vegetable, a pair of rubber gloves. Daniel drove his hand under his glasses and scoured his eyes. "The point is that isn't...obviously...what it is."

"No," Jack agreed, "it isn't. It would seem to be an advertisement. If you will, a...a..."

Daniel pointed to a couple and mentioned, "Coming."

"Attraction," Jack added.

"Precisely."

Both men stopped and stared. Jack bit the tip of his tongue, while Daniel's eyes fluttered just over his glasses.

Jack flipped his hand toward the invisible field that separated them from the games. "You think that barrier is..."

"Yes, I do," Daniel said, acutely aware of the affect it had had on Jack.

"Maybe I should..."

"No, you shouldn't."

Jack thought about Daniel's rather curt answer and said, "Nope. Probably shouldn't. But you should."

Daniel glared at Jack.

"And I don't mean just once. I mean many times, Daniel. I think it would do you a world of good."

Their attention was drawn to the office set, where they witnessed unauthorized use of a copy machine.

"She's, um...she's very..." Daniel began, unable to find the exact word, or to breathe.

"Limber?" Jack offered.

"That, too," Daniel said, crossing his arms across his chest, trying diligently to allow his anthropological training to supercede his repressed adolescent urges.

Suddenly, lights flashed in the mad scientist's lab, and two scantily clad women herded in another woman who was flailing but with very little conviction.

"Ten bucks says she's not wearing any underwear," Jack said, leaning toward a blinking Daniel.

When her clothing was easily ripped from her, Daniel turned to Jack, astonished. "How did you know that?"

Jack shrugged and pulled a brief, proud smile.

As Jack and Daniel watched, their heads lobbing from one side to the other in unison, strange, almost incoherent observations rolled off of their tongues.

"That...that can't be possible," Daniel said, wincing in sympathy for one young woman's internal organs. "I mean...that's...that's just...wrong."

"Done that. Done that. Like to do that," Jack said, waving his hand toward individual displays of fornication. "Done that. Wouldn't be caught dead doing that..."

Daniel continued to look on with concern. "Now that HAS to be hard on the knees."

"See that woman over there?" Jack asked, guiding Daniel's attention to a magenta-tressed participant.

"The one with the spike heels?"

"They all have spike heels," Jack said.

"No, that's not entirely correct," Daniel mentioned. "That one has on leather hip boots."

"Yeah, okay, but...See the one with the long feather earrings?"

"Hold on," Daniel said, squinting. "The man in front of her is blocking the view with his...Oh! He's, um, he's...talented."

"Yeah, so you see her?"

"Actually, I can see more of her than I should legally be allowed to see without a medical license."

"She reminds me of a woman I dated in the seventies," Jack proudly stated.

"She looks like her?"

"No."

"She sounds like her?"

"Not exactly."

"I take it you two were very close," Daniel sarcastically replied.

Jack, never taking her eyes off the redhead, said, "Close enough for me to really admire her technique."

"Yeah, that's, uh..." Daniel began, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Um, Jack, we're friends and all, but you know that whole 'need to know' protocol?"

"I think I may have heard of it."

"Maybe you should, I don't know, consider enacting it here. Now."

Back in the saddle again, upside down and clinging to a set of reins, a happy couple of cowboys was having their saddle sores checked out. Daniel frowned and pressed a finger to his lips. Words and definitions shot through his mind. Years of matriculation flipped across his consciousness, and still he could find no way to describe what he was looking at. He simply pointed, shook his hand near his face, shrugged his shoulders and let his lips open and close, open and close.

"Those can't be real," Jack testified. "Neither can those. Those--possibly."

"Yes, but, how does one augment that?" Daniel said, nodding his head in the general direction of masculine greatness.

Jack swallowed and lifted his brow in respect. "I don't think he had any toys when he was a child."

"Okay, that, now, I can't see anyone doing that." Daniel's eyes widened at the sight of amoral acrobatics. "I mean, come on! The spine can't possibly bend in that direction!"

"I've seen that one at a circus," Jack said. "Of course, they used a net."

"And I assume they didn't use the trained horses in quite the same way," Daniel added.

"Well," Jack began. Daniel, who was deeply concerned with what Jack was on the verge of sharing, gawked at him, so Jack clarified. "Not all circuses are the same, Daniel. You ever been to Borneo during Fleet Week?"

A couple struck an interesting pose employing unusual angles, and a word thrust into Daniel's mind. "Oh, Nagabandha!" he brightly stated before he could stop himself.

"Who?" Jack asked, glancing at Daniel.

Daniel turned from the couple only briefly to eye Jack before explaining. "Um, Nagabandha. The Elephant. It's, um...from the Kama Sutra. It's...it's..."

"You know the Kama Sutra?" Jack said.

"Of course," Daniel said. "It's a culturally significant text. This," he said, motioning to the bodies in motion, "is culturally significant."

"Daniel, the only thing significant about it is they're getting laid. A lot! Has it really been that long for you?"

"Jack, just because we come from a Puritanical society where where where sex is seen as as as as something to be...hidden, doesn't mean many other societies have the same hang-ups," Daniel said, and at the same moment watched a man being strung up by his hands while a latex-clad she-devil taunted him with a cat-o-nine-tails. "Apparently, this society has their own set of hang-ups, so to speak."

"So to speak," Jack reiterated.

"I mean," Daniel went on, hoping that by talking on a learned level of the recreational events within the room, he would be able to separate the cultural interest from the oh-my-gawd, "thousands of years ago, the people of India were studying sex as a science and an art. The Tantric practitioners discovered...countless sexual positions-"

"Discovered?" Jack asked, turning to Daniel with undisguised dubiousness. "Kind of like I 'discovered' my..."

"Going on," Daniel interrupted, "they...that is these students of the art found that there were a number of...of...positions that provided benefits and greater pleasure and intimacy during...Oh, dear God! Do you think they meant to do that?" he asked, pointing both hands to a couple glistening with sweat between stable walls. When they began to squeal, Daniel began to nod. "Yes, I suppose they did."

"Well, that's something you don't see everyday," Jack announced, turning his attention to the laboratory, "and isn't that a crying shame?"

"As I was saying," Daniel said, closing his eyes, feeling for his racing pulse, "what they found was that by cataloguing the different positions, assigning names and and and coupled meters-"

"Speaking of couples," Jack pointed out, impressed with the man's stamina and genes, "but I don't think it's quite a meter..."

Undaunted, or working very hard on appearing so, Daniel went on, "-the citizenry was able to learn to be more attentive about the very natural process of lovemaking, and thereby-"

"Ya know, leave it to you to take all the fun out of free porn, Daniel!" Jack cried, throwing his hands in the air.

"I'm just saying," Daniel added and then pushed his glasses up farther on his nose.

"Well, cut it out."

On droned the music. The smell of hairspray and burning candles filled the air. Ruby red lips that never smeared dotted their vision. Jack and Daniel watched with entranced curiosity.

"Sidhra," Daniel casually mentioned.

"Another position?"

"No. Sidhra Singh. I was her TA, which, by the way, means 'teacher's assistant,' in case you were thinking..."

"Which I was."

"That's why I thought I'd...Anyhow, Sidhra taught the section on Eastern Philosophy and Culture. I was her...assistant." Daniel's cheeks began to explode with color.

Jack glanced sidelong at Daniel. "Did you assist your teacher often?"

"Yes. Kind of a 'hands-on' education, if you will."

"And was she pleased with your scholarship?"

"Many, many times," Daniel said, unable to take his eyes off the groping hands and clenched muscles.

"Well, good. An education is a terrible thing to waste."

"I've always thought so."

"Colonel O'Neill," Sam's voice intoned over the radio.

Jack turned from the gathering of celestial bodies of porn, as if hiding it from Sam's voice, and clicked on his radio. "Yeah, Carter. What is it?"

"Sir, all we've found is a building that, from the looks of things, is a petroleum refinery," Sam reported.

Jack and Daniel exchanged knowing looks and in unison said, "Lubricant."

"Sir, would you like us to take a sample?"

"Yes!" Jack ordered, his voice cracking.

Daniel grasped his radio and shoved it close to his mouth. His voice came out a tad more desperate than he wanted. "How much can you get?"

"Carter!" Jack cried. "I want you and Teal'c to dump the contents of your canteens, now! Do you understand? Fill them up with the...the..."

"Petroleum product," Daniel said, his eyes closed in embarrassment.

"Right, the petroleum product and meet us at the gate. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said. "Sir, have you come upon anything yet?"

Daniel's face reached a deeper shade of red. Jack rubbed his eyes and said, "Not yet, but it's a possibility."

"Should we stay longer?" Sam asked. "I mean, while we're here, shouldn't we give it everything we've got?"

Daniel washed a hand over his face.

"No, I think we've seen enough, Major," Jack said.

Sam's voice crackled over the radio as she went on. "It seems rather wasteful to pop in and out of here without reaching some sort of satisfaction."

Daniel wove his fingers together and crushed them onto the top of his head.

"Carter, just do what you need to do and...meet us back at the gate," Jack said, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head at Daniel.

"Sir, I mean no disrespect, but it would blow if we..."

"No, Major, it wouldn't," Jack cried. Daniel leaned up against the doorjamb, the strength in his knees suddenly gone. Jack knew exactly what he was going through. "Now you have your orders. Meet back at the gate. Now!"

"Yes, sir," Sam said, and ended the transmission.

Jack yanked his hat off his head and ran a shaking hand through his hair. "Um..."

Daniel pushed himself from the wall, shoved his hands yet again in his pockets, did a little dance and said, "Yeah. We should probably..."

"And soon! I'm thinkin'..."

"Right."

Jack and Daniel took final glances at the sensual surroundings and turned to leave, but not before Daniel made one final observation.

"That was the Marjara, or Cat, with a smooth transition into Ekabandha, or Knot," he said, walking away from the tutorial.

"Sidhra Sing?" Jack asked.

"Oh, she sang, alright."

"You know," Jack began, shaking his finger, turning back to the room, "just to be certain, maybe I should try to make contact one last time."

Daniel grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. "Jack!"

"What?!"

"Obviously, that thing is some sort of alien technology," Daniel said, trying to reason with the unreasonable.

"Obviously, but..."

"And obviously it's meant to...to stimulate," Daniel said, brushing his hands across his eyes, hoping Jack hadn't seen him taking furtive glances at Jack's burgeoning interest in the force field.

"Is it that obvious?" Jack asked, shifting his weapon in front of him.

"Sadly, yes," Daniel said. "Wouldn't it also stand to reason that it's somehow affecting your...your..."

While thought of shriveling appendages made other parts of his body shrivel in sympathy, Jack quickly stepped away from the room. "Good point."

"I thought so."

Jack and Daniel bid silent farewells to the participants and glumly left the building. Outside, in the bright daylight, Jack turned to Daniel.

"Daniel, just out of curiosity, would you happen to know the Jaffa word for 'horny'?"

"I don't think there's a direct translation, but the closest would be...and remember, this is only an educated guess at what derivation of their language's euphemisms might..."

"Daniel!"

"Sangra-kree. I think."

"Sangra-kree."

"Sangra-kree."

"Kay."

For the first hundred meters away from the city, Jack and Daniel walked side by side in silence. Slowly, Daniel's expression began to change from pinched to fluttering, and his hand reached inside his vest and produced his journal. Jack watched him take notes while tripping across the rocky ground.

"Daniel? Daniel, what are you doing?" Jack asked. Daniel furiously continued to scratch out words and symbols into his journal. "Daniel!"

Daniel's shocked expression shot up. He looked at Jack blankly, played back Jack's question, and said, "Oh, I'm...um, I'm taking notes."

"Dare I ask why?"

"For, um, you know, my..." Daniel said, waving his journal in the air.

"So, these would be...more on the personal level than the professional level."

"It's all research," Daniel said, opening to the page he had been working on.

"Kind of like the research with which you assisted Dr. Singh?"

"So, Jack," Daniel interjected, shoving his journal back in his vest, "what are we going to say to Sam and Teal'c?"

"I'll think of something," Jack said.

"Well, think of something quickly, because here they c--...I mean...here they..." Daniel coughed and pointed instead. "There."

Twenty meters away, Teal'c was attempting to pull his arm away from Sam's hands, having to step sideways to gain his independence. Sam plowed a hand into her head and blushed.

"Carter? Teal'c? You, uh, get the stuff?" Jack asked, his fingers twitching in anticipation of taking possession of the petroleum product they had found.

"Yes, sir. It's right h--"

Jack snatched it away from Sam before she could utter her last word. He tore off the top, dipped a finger in and began to whimper.

"Sir?"

Jack snapped the cap back on and tried to control the quaver in his voice. "We should get this back to the SGC ASAP!"

"I agree!" Daniel stated.

"But, sir..."

"Sam!" Daniel blurted out. "Jack says we need to get back, so I think we should do what the man says. Now, let's get hoppin', Missy!"

"Excuse me?"

Teal'c, beginning to pick up on Jack and Daniel's overwhelming need to return to the SGC, entered the fray. "I believe DanielJackson is correct, MajorCarter. It would seem our quick return to the SGC would be most advantageous."

"So, what are you saying?" Sam asked, looking from one man to the next for an answer.

"What I'm saying is..." Jack began.

"...is we should..." Daniel tried to go on.

Teal'c ended it with, "Run."

"Yes, run!" Jack said.

"Fast!" Daniel added.

"But, sir..."

"No buts, Major," Jack said, bringing another round of the libidinous redness to his face. He thrust his sunglasses over as much of his face as he could, rounded out his hat and began to jog. "We don't know what's in that stuff, and I am ordering you to get right on it...or, get...busy working on...or..."

"I think what Jack is trying to say," Daniel offered, "is it's imperative that we find out as much as we can about the..."

"Petroleum product," Jack said.

"Right. Thank you. Petroleum product right away. So, you know, move yer ass!"

Sam shook her head, astonished at the men's insistence and collusion, but an order was an order, so she began to jog as well.

Half a kilometer from the gate, Jack pulled up alongside Teal'c.

"So, T, how's junior?" he asked, going step for step with the Jaffa.

"My symbiote is..."

"Sangra-kree?"

Teal'c came to a dead halt and stared at Jack.

"Apparently, there IS a translation, and it seems to be universal," Jack said, tipping his head, taunting and empathizing with Teal'c in the same breath.

"Indeed," Teal'c said, walking past Jack, glancing at him momentarily before beginning to run again.

"We're almost there!" Daniel cried, urging them on, picking up speed.

Jack shook his head and began to jog to catch up with his team.

One foot in front of the other, an easy rhythm, Sam and Daniel led the team, until the sight of the gate was before them. And then the site of the statuary.

And then Sam began to stumble.

Daniel grabbed her by the elbow and prodded her to keep up. "Sam, let's go. You have work to do. No time to dawdle. Chop chop."

"Daniel, um, did you ever notice," she began, slowing her footing, taking in the massive and erect structure, "how much that looks like a-"

"Yes, ancient civilizations and phallic symbols-kind of go hand and hand," Daniel told her, reaching for the DHD. "You know, fertility, virility, masculinity-yadda yadda...Let's go!!!"

Sam ran her trembling hand against the great, stony length. "But it's so...so..."

"Big, large, impressive, manly...God, why did it have to happen now?" Daniel cried, watching the center orb fade before depressing the final cartouche.

"Problems, Daniel?" Jack asked, joining him at the DHD.

"I keep putting in the symbols, but just when I get the final one..."

"Gatus interuptus?" Jack said.

"Don't be an ass," Daniel replied, dialing the address again.

"Maybe, under the circumstances, you should leave...ass out of it," Jack said, shielding his reaction on the capillary level from the rest.

"My God, this is..." Sam went on, stroking with vigor the girth of the form.

"Major," Jack ordered, "you're needed over here. Daniel's having a...difficult time dialing home." Jack turned back to Daniel and patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Daniel. It happens to all men. Well, not me, but..." Daniel impaled him with a deathly eye.

Sam wrapped both arms as wide as she could spread them around the stone façade. "Just imagine the possibilities..."

"Carter, step away from the dong!"

Sam's head swung around, flush with excitement. "Oh, yes, sir. Coming...er, I'll be right there, sir."

"It is rather awe inspiring," Teal'c said, eyeing the statue.

"What's the problem, Daniel?" Sam asked, stepping next to him.

"I don't know. It's like it's...like it's tired, or something." He began again pressing the address for home. Sam leaned over to inspect the undercarriage of the DHD, and when she did so, her bare hand came in contact with base.

"Wow! This thing is hot," she said, shaking out her hand.

"Hot?" asked Teal'c. "In what manner of speaking?"

"Probably not the sangria hot you're thinking," Jack told him, and then sidled up to Sam. "Major? What's the word?"

"The word is..." she began, kneeling to get a better look at the pediment. When her face came back out from underneath, it was speckled with obvious embarrassment. "Sir, it looks like it's been used once too many times without someone checking the dip stick."

Jack and Daniel's eyes met, as did their words. "Needs lube." Daniel averted his focus, and Jack pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well, yeah. I guess you could say that," Sam said. "But where are we going to-"

"It's just no fun being the brains of the outfit," Jack whispered, hugging the canteen of lubrication to his body. He caressed the sides of the container and spoke in tones of great remorse. "Here, Carter. Use this. Take it. Go on. But...be gentle."

Sam's featured screwed up in confusion, but she took the canteen away from Jack and began to spread the contents over the entire DHD. A tear began to gather in Daniel's eye. Once the lubrication was applied, Sam wiped her hands on the seat of her pants, and Jack had to clutch Daniel's arm to keep from falling over.

"There," she said, "I think that should help." Sam looked at her hands, felt the strange tingle. "Holy Hannah..."

"I think it's working," Daniel said, pushing and prodding the symbols feverishly. "Yes, yes. Come on, baby!" The gate began to spin, round and round, its lights flashing, its chevrons pulsing. "Yes. Yes. A little more..."

Jack clenched the strap of the canteen and crushed it between his teeth.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, just one more..." Daniel groaned, thrusting his hand out to jab the final symbol.

Teal'c's eyes rode up the entire length of the supple, penile figure.

Daniel bit his lower lip and whispered, "I'm right there. Work with me, baby..."

Sam found herself inexplicably entwined around Daniel's leg.

Seizing the side of the DHD, Daniel cried out, "YES!!"

A burst of fluid, a propulsion of energy and matter, jutted toward them, overwhelming them with its brilliant, satisfying release. All four members of SG1 fell to the ground, twitching and panting, spent.

Jack was the first to speak, his eyes blinking, his mouth dry. "Damned if I don't have a craving for a cigarette."

"I feel like taking a nap," Daniel said.

"Daniel, we never just talk anymore," Sam said, turning toward her friend who disregarded her with all his might.

Teal'c stared up at the statue, smiling, a hand on his thudding heart. "Sangra kree..."

Upon hearing Teal'c's voice, Jack's mind began to work once again. "T!" he cried out. "Do you still have a sample of the lu...petroleum product?"

"I do indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c said, sitting up and offering his canteen to Jack.

Jack jumped to his feet, grabbed the container, and ran to the gate, protecting the canteen as if it were the Crown Jewels, and suddenly realized his team wasn't following him. "People, on your feet! There's work to be done! Reports to write! Analysis to be...analyzed!"

"Yes!" Daniel agreed, hopping to his feet. "And I'm hereby volunteering my time and labor in...in ANY capacity toward the investigation of your find, Sam."

"No, no," Jack said, shaking his hand. "I'm the leader here. I decide who gets to do what, and I think it's high time I took more of an interest in Sam's work."

"Sir, with all due respect..."

"No, Major," he went on, "I believe I owe it to us all to...aide you in this investigation. Get my hands dirty, as it were."

"Actually, Jack," Daniel said, lifting a finger in his defense, "I'm the one with the science background. If anyone has the means by which to...bring this experiment to fruition, it would be me. That, and I'm a much younger man."

"My cylinder is just as... graduated as yours," Jack stated.

Daniel nodded and smirked. "Yes, but I have more propane in my Bunsen burner."

"Well, I have a whole spectrum of analytical tools of which you've never even dreamed, my young friend," Jack proudly boasted.

"And I could check on viscosity levels all night," Daniel said, and then he turned to Sam, settling his gaze heatedly on her. "And I do mean all night, Sam."

"Stop it!" Sam cried, covering her ears. "Whatever is in that canteen isn't going to test itself, so let's stop all the bickering and get it back to the SGC."

Daniel and Jack glared at one another and stepped through the event horizon. Teal'c nodded in reverence toward the stone structure. Sam pressed the center crystal of the DHD, shutting down the gate, and smiled.

"Oops," she said, popping the crystal out of place. "I guess we're stuck her until I can figure out how to fix that thing."

"It would appear so," Teal'c said, the corner of his mouth raising. "Major Carter, will you be needing assistance?"

Sam smeared her hand across the slick surface of the DHD, turned toward the Jaffa, and purred, "You don't know how bad."

The End.