"Doctor Jackson! Doctor Jackson!"

Cringing inwardly, Daniel quickly glanced about, trying to find a nice doorway or something to sidestep though and possibly avoid the young man who was insistent on pestering him every waking minute of his stay here at the Antarctic Research Base. It wasn't that Daniel didn't like Roger Cairn, per se, in fact he liked the young Scottish assistant researcher very much. But every time the smallest thing came up Roger would hunt him down and pelt the Archeologist with dozens of questions.

Daniel could hear the young man's footsteps getting closer, his calls becoming more insistant. In a second of self induced panic, the archeologist quickly stepped into a recess in the icy walls and through a door..

Oops, no door.

With a resounding smack o his head bouncing off a outcropping of ice, Daniel fall backwards onto his rear and groaned, clutching his head as his papers went scattering across the floor.

Roger Cairns rounded a corner just at that moment to see Daniel moaning and holding his poor bruised head. The young Scotsman rushed to his superiors air.. slipping on papers and cart wheeling into a heap next to him.

Daniel was too busy cursing the military engineers who hadn't gotten around to smoothening the walls of this corridor so they didn't cast tricky shadows that made him think there were doors through with he could escape from pver eager assistants to notice Cairns was there. At least for a moment. Finally, the young man's own moaning brought him to his senses and he looks at the fallen researcher."

"Roger, what are you doing on the floor?"

"Whut are /ye/ doin on tha floor?" Cairns asked back in a groan as he pushed himself up.

Daniel decided not to answer that because he wasn't the best liar and everyone knew it. So he just ignored the remark and started to gather his papers. "You were calling for me?" he asked as he scooped up a pile of Ancient Translations he had been studying earlier.

Cairns rolled onto his knees and started to help.. then quickly realized he had be asked a question. His excitement rushed back like air filling a vacuum. "Oh, Oh, Oh!" he exclaimed, dropping the few papers he had picked up as he stood and grabbed Daniel by the arm. "Ye gotta come with me, Doctor Jackson!" he said excitedly, almost bouncing where he stood. "Doctor Arliss found something! He found something you need to see."

Daniel would have tried asking what Malcolm Arliss, the Brazilian Archeologist, had found if Cairns had given him half a chance. But the way the young man tugged at him, like some puppy with a new chew toy, made it hard. Resigned, Daniel scooped upwhat he could and was half led, half dragged, down the corridor.

Five minutes later, Daniel and Cairns stood inside a chamber Daniel had never seen before. Like the rest of the Ancient's Antarctic base which stood as a marker for where Atlantis once sat before they flew it away to the Pegasus galaxy, the room was rather large, almost domelike, and was a mixture of strange metallic wall paneling inset into the eternal ice.

But where this room differed from the rest was that in it's center was a globe.. A globe hewn from a solid piece of something like Sapphire and being 6 feet across.. The sapphire glowed faintly, almost with a light of it's own, pulsing.

Beside the globe was Malcolm Arliss. A whipthin man with skin the colour of the darkest coffee wearing glasses, Arliss stood only a few feet away from this new find. As Daniel and Cairns entered, he quickly looked over to them and waved them over, looking almost as excited as the Scotsman. This alone made Daniel wonder what they had really found, aside from a nice shiny smooth ball of very expensive gemstone.

"Daniel!" Arliss beckoned. "The Dig Tea, uncovered this about 10 minutes ago. You have to see this! It's the most incredible thing."

Now Daniel wasn't just curious, he was dubious. Having traveled over the galaxy more times then he could count, traveling OUTSIDE the galaxy, traveling through time, dying, ascending, dying, ascending, descending… Well it was HARD to find many things incredible anymore.

But Arliss, with Cairns helping, made it clear that they had found something of import. So with a sigh, Daniel stepped up beside the dark skinned man and looked at the Globe.

"You know, Arliss, you just FOUND this thing. Shouldn't we get someone like Colonel Carter or one of the other scientists in here? You know, just so we don't end up discombobulated or something?" Daniel cautioned.

Arliss rolled his eyes. "Daniel. You're a linguist! There is no such word as Discombobulated."

"That's not what Jack says. He even used it as a word in Scrabble"

"Daniel, we've been collegues for years and I say this with only the greatest respect. General O'neill is corrupting you."

"Ya think?"

Cairns snickered as Daniel was, for one moment, the carbon but much younger copy of Jack O'Niell. Both the Doctors gave him a look that quickly shut him up, though. He just stepped back and let his bosses do what bosses did.

"Okay, Okay. Look, Arliss. Since we're not dead yet, and believe me I'd know, you can tell me what you've found. So far all I see is a sapphire. A LARGE sapphire, mind you, but still a sapphire.. That, um, seems to glow a bit."

Arliss grinned and stepped closer to the Globe. He reached out to touch it and Daniel leapt foreword, grabbing the Brazilian's hand.

"Damnit, Malcolm, don't DO that. Touching and Glowing Crystals do NOT go together well. Trust me on this."

Arliss tugged his hand away. "Relax Daniel. I've already done this. It doesn't bite. But it DOES do something."

Before Daniel could stop him a second time, the black hand pressed was pressed flatly against the smooth blue surface. At that exact moment the light within grew and flashed, bathing the entire room in a wash of blue white lights.

It took a moment for Daniel to drop his hands from his eyes and let his sight readjust, but when he did he was amazed at what he saw. The Sapphire Globe rippled from within, like the event horizon of the Stargate almost. Blue and silvery waves just below the crystalline surface. Amidst these ripples images appeared. Greens and whites and browns, blurs, that slowly resolved into.. continents.

It took only a few seconds until the entire thing resolved into perfect clarity. It was a globe in the truest sense. A globe of Earth. But with some glaring differences.

All the continents were there, but there we subtle changes to them. North America and Asia were connected. There were at least three small continent sized islands in places Daniel knew there shouldn't be any. Parts of North America, South America, and Europe were flooded with inland seas.. But other then that it was easily recognizable as Earth.

Daniel inhaled sharply and reached out, absently, to stroke the surface of the globe. It was still cool and sooth to the touch, a testament that every he saw was within it.

"Amazin, huh?" Cairns asked. "It's a map."

Arliss fixed his 'look' at Cairns. "We KNOW that Roger. Being Archeologists we tend to realize when something is a map." Cairns winced sheepishly, until Jackson shushed them up with a wave of his hand.

"You realize what this is, don't you?"

Arliss sighed. "A map?" he said. "I think we already went over this."

Daniel growled. "No. Well, yes, it is a map.. But do you realize what it's a map of?"

"Earth?" Roger asked, helpfully. That gained him another 'Look' from Arliss.

Daniel walked around the globe. "Yes, a Map of Earth. Of how Earth was when the Ancients were the dominant race. Before they first left for Pegasus and came back."

Arliss and Cairns looked at Daniel strangely. "You're sure?" Arliss asked, dubious.

Daniel nodded. "I'm sure of it. Hey, you see this?" he asked, crouching down to point to a red circle on the Antarctic coast. He touched it and suddenly a red wire frame hologram lanced out from the surface.. A snowflake design slowly orbiting the planet, as if zoomed in on. Daniel

Gasped and quickly stood up to examine it. "This. This is a schematic of the City of Atlantis. It matches the map Rodney McKay sent us in his download."

Now both Cairns and Arliss were intrigued. They walked over, examing the floating hologram. As Daniel and Arliss began discussing what this all meant Cairns cleared his throat.

Daniel and Arliss turned. "What?" Arliss demanded.

Cairns pointed to the globe. "Uhm, if that's Atlantis then what are those other red circles?

Both blinking, Daniel and Arliss ran over and looked at where Cairns was pointing. Sure enough there was a circle. And another.. and another.. All at different points around the globe. Some on known landmasses.. some on the unknown ones. All together, including Atlantis, there were seven.

One by one, Daniel and Arliss and Cairns touched each circle, and one by one each of them projected a holographic design in the air above them. Each design was geometric, but a few of them were not Snowflake shaped like Atlantis.

But there were cities. Each a different general shape but all symmetrical and all crisscrossed with lines and protrusions like Atlantis was, designating streets and avenues and towers… Daniel touched each map again and a beam of red light passed through them from the globe and outwards to the domed roof of the room. The laser light scattered against reflective surfaces, turning the ceiling into a holographic star map. And Each city had a line that rose to the stars.

"My god." Daniel whispered. "Do you realize what this means."

Malcolm Arliss and Roger Cairns were too dumfounded to say it. They were as shocked as Daniel. Only Daniel could find the words to say it out loud.

"Atlantis wasn't the Only city… it was one of Seven. They all left Earth!"

It was Cairns who finally spoke, his voice shaky. "But where, Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel looked up into the holographic universe. "Out there. Somewhere. And if I'm not mistaken, every one of them went to another galaxy, Like Atlantis went to Pegasus."