STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths Read Free

mechanism creaked to life. Two panels slid back above the control pad and the dome-shaped core, about a half-meter in diameter, slowly rose through them, humming loudly as it broke the surface and stopped. It was hard to tell with the sun still visible, but the dome seemed to be glowing with small pinpricks of light. It began, very slowly, to rotate.
    “Pretty,” commented Jack. Daniel and Sam both ignored him. Sam was walking around the device, studying it from all angles, consulting her scanner. Jack waved his hand over the top through the minute rays of light.
    “Should you be doing that?” asked Daniel, warily. Jack withdrew his hand at once.
    “It should be safe. As far as I can tell it’s just — light,” reported Sam, puzzled. “No radiation at all, that I can detect. No other kind of energy, either.”
    “Not like that other light-thingy — the one that made us all a little nuts?” Jack asked. Daniel had just been thinking the same thing.
    “No, sir. This is just — light.”
    They all stared at it.
    “So. I’m thinking, Ancient disco ball?”
    Daniel rolled his eyes at Sam, only she was giving Jack a peculiar look. He recognized a light bulb moment when he saw one.
    “I’ll be right back!” She took off at a quick jog toward camp, returning a few minutes later with a tarp, and Teal’c trailing behind her.
    “Daniel, how high do you think this building was originally?”
    He thought for a moment. “Based on the size and shape of the stones, I’m thinking it was —”
    “Domed,” she supplied.
    Daniel nodded, surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
    “Just a hunch. How high, would you say?”
    Daniel did some quick figuring. “Probably about six meters, give or take, at the center.”
    Sam was nodding. She began unfolding the tarp, giving each of them a corner. At her direction they held it over the top of the device and then stretched it out, lifting it over their heads.
    “Carter?”
    “We can’t simulate the building exactly, sir. We don’t have enough height, obviously. But this should test my theory. Or, your theory, actually.”
    Jack looked surprised. “You mean it really is an Ancient disco ball?”
    Sam smiled the first genuine smile Daniel had seen on her all day.
    “Not exactly, sir. But close. This would probably work better after it’s completely dark but — Everyone hold it as high above your head as you can.”
    Daniel stretched his arm up over his head, and for good measure balanced on his toes. The others did the same.
    “Now, look up,” Sam instructed. Daniel did his best to balance his position and tilt his head back. The pinpoints of light were shining on the underside of the dark green surface, but not in a random pattern or a perfectly ordered one, for that matter. Instead, they were clustered in different groupings. It looked familiar. He’d seen this before.
    “Constellations,” he said. Then it dawned on him. “It’s a planetarium — or, at least, the Ancient equivalent of one.” Of course. If the roof were domed it would be exactly like the ones on earth. The slow rotation of the device showed the progression of the stars as they ran their course in the night sky.
    “A planetarium?” repeated Jack, incredulously. “We came all this way to look at a planetarium?”
    “So it would seem,” replied Teal’c, calmly.
    “What about the ‘great power’ and ‘gods doing our bidding’ thing?”
    “Well,” Daniel replied. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? To an unsophisticated civilization, the ability to reproduce the stars and emulate their movement across the heavens would have seemed like making the gods of the sky — the constellations — bend to their will. They would have probably considered that fairly powerful magic.”
    “It’s a planetarium ,” complained Jack.
    “I know. To you and me, nothing remarkable, but to them —”
    “Fine. Great. We came. We saw. We missed the gift shop, but that’s okay. If we pack it up