ansostuff | Woe to thee

PART SEVEN

When the white light disappeared and Jack had got his vision back he instinctively started to assess the situation. Carter was to his immediate left, blinking owlishly as he just had done. Teal’c was right in front of him, looking as if nothing had happened, merely waiting for the others to gain their composure. Daniel on the other hand was lying in a heap on the floor, clutching his stomach and rocking to and fro in slow motion, his eyes wide open and teeth clenched tight in pain.

“Daniel!”

“Jack. What just happened?” Daniel asked, blinking in confusion and unclenching his jaw as Jack crouched down beside him and placed one hand on Daniel’s hip, another on his shoulder, trying to still the rocking motion.

“We got zapped,” Jack looked around the room a little more. “We’re alone. Jama didn’t get zapped with us.” There was nothing there, just the four of them. “How are you feeling?” He asked, turning back to Daniel who now had stopped rocking but did no attempt at getting to his feet.

“Daniel!” Sam exclaimed as she got her bearings, she too crouching down beside Daniel.

“Ow,” Daniel complained as he sat up with his friends’ help. “That hurt,” he said still keeping his arms protectively over his stomach, moving around on the floor to look around.

“Are you injured? I thought you said you were feeling better.” Sam took one of Daniel’s hands in hers and felt for his pulse. It was fast.

“Thought I was too,” Daniel said, groaning. “It’s just a cramp.”

“Daniel! What did I just say?” Jack growled.

“I know, but I didn’t know it was coming. I can’t predict these things,” Daniel shot back.

“Let me have a look,” Sam said, watching as Daniel kept holding his hand protectively over his stomach. Putting his other hand down to the floor and out of the way, she moved to unzip his vest and jacket, yanking his t-shirt out of his pants to have a look. Jack sat back against the wall and leaned Daniel up against himself, lifting him under his arms and pinning Daniel’s flailing arms to his sides as if it would still Daniel’s vocal protests while Sam checked him out.

“I was feeling better. It’s going away now. Sam, your hands are cold. Don’t do that!”

“Let her see, Daniel,” Jack chided, holding his friend tighter.

Sighing, Daniel wearily leaned his head back against Jack’s shoulder and let Sam palpate his stomach. Being zapped had left him drained of energy and at this point the only thing he was feeling was a persistent ache that continued to get worse in waves and constantly increasing nausea. Shivering at as his skin was exposed to the cool air of the chamber they found themselves in, Daniel tried to preserve warmth by curling up.

“Just a sec, Daniel,” Sam said, gently pressing her fingers into Daniel’s abdomen, looking for resistance. “I can’t feel anything, except that you’re a little warm. I’m no doctor, sir, I don’t know.” Looking to Jack she continued, “His stomach is soft, though; that’s always a good sign.” As Sam pressed her fingers deeper Daniel’s breathing sped up and he turned an interesting shade of green. Roughly pushing Sam aside, Daniel lunged to the side, in too much of a hurry to get away, leaning on Jack’s bent leg and throwing up this morning’s coffee and apple.

“That was disgusting,” Jack commented, rubbing Daniel’s back through the vest and holding his head up. When he was done, Daniel leaned on Jack’s leg for a moment, catching his breath and wiping his hands over his face. Sitting back, he allowed Jack to be his cushion for a moment longer as he got his breathing under control and made sure no repeat performance was going to happen in the immediate future.

“It’s probably the gallstones Janet found,” Daniel explained, tugging his clothing back down and sitting up fully.

“That actually makes sense,” Sam said, helping Daniel to his feet. “I’ve heard that gallstones can be painful, but they’re mostly harmless.”

“Yeah,” Daniel took some small sips of water from the canteen Sam handed him and wiped his hands and face with the sweaty bandana that previously had been wrapped around his head. Tucking the smelly piece of cloth into a pocket, Daniel drank some more water and slowly got to his feet, grateful that the water seemed to stay put. He could live with the pain, but if the nausea kept assailing him like it’d done now, he knew he’d be lying in a curled heap in a corner pretty soon. It not only aggravated the now-constant pain, but made it nearly unbearable while the bout of cramps lasted. Feeling cold and drained, he finished tucking his t-shirt into his pants and zipped up both the jacket and the vest to conserve as much heat as possible.

“I’ll get you some Tylenol 3s,” Jack said, patting Daniel on the shoulder, starting to look for the med kit that was in Daniel’s pack. He was starting to regret not forcing the issue and sending Daniel home once he’d started showing signs of feeling sick. “The minute we find a way out of here, you’re going home.” Jack immediately started to look for a doorway, cursing under his breath when he couldn’t find any apparent exit.

“DanielJackson, if you are able, I believe you should see this,” Teal’c said as soon as Daniel had swallowed two of the stronger Tylenol and got to his feet.

“What is it?” Daniel came over to where Teal’c was standing, studying the wall his friend had mentioned.

“These walls appear to be covered in writing. It is a riddle.”

“It’s the same writing as the scroll. Whatever this is, it’s clearly meant to be for the people on this planet. Jack, I think we’re still on the planet. We’ve just got transported somewhere.”

“By who?” Jack asked. “Jama?”

Looking more closely at the symbols and writing on the wall, Daniel wasn’t immediately recognising what the riddle was, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t solve it, given time. “There are some Asgard runes here,” he said, indicating a line of symbols like the one that read PI on Cimmeria. “This definitely doesn’t translate into PI though. I don’t know what this is.”

“I knew it!” Jack exclaimed. “The thing that brought us here was an Asgard phone. I hope Thor’s home.” Looking around the room, Jack yelled, “Hey Thor! You there? Thor? Buddy?”

Daniel chuckled. “That’s not going to work, Jack. You know that.”

“I do not understand, O’Neill,” Teal’c said, looking confusedly at their surroundings, expecting someone to explain why Jack was yelling at Thor.

“I think this is like that place we encountered on Cimmeria,” Daniel said. “These symbols do look like a riddle. Maybe the Asgard placed it here so that only those they deemed worthy,” Daniel made quotation marks in the air, “could get in contact with them. That’s why these people have been fleeing all their lives. They’ve lost contact with the Asgard and Anubis saw his chance and enslaved them. If Thor knew that Anubis was chasing them across the galaxy he’d do something about it. Jack, I think this planet once was a part of the protected planets network and that they at some point in time, a very long time ago, either did something that made them fall out with the Asgard or in some other way lost contact with the Asgard so they don’t know what’s been going on here.”

“They fled, Daniel. Would the Asgard protect them when they moved to another planet?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps they protect the people as well as the planet. Earth’s protected, but I don’t think it says anywhere in the treaty that the Asgard will protect us if we move to another planet. I have to go back and check to be sure.”

“Fine, we’ll do that later. Or we can ask Thor. But let’s assume for now that they do protect Tubris, wouldn’t they protect Tuberous as well?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s in our agreement that if we flee to another planet we wouldn’t be protected. I’m sure the same goes for the Tuberous. Maybe the Asgard are monitoring the planet now and recognise us from Jama,” Sam said. “That doesn’t explain the illusion though.”

“Maybe that was just that, an illusion, to create yet another distraction?” Daniel guessed.

“One problem here though,” Jack said. “Why would the beam not transport Jama here with us?”

“Perhaps he was sent back before we were transported here. Or maybe it can tell the difference between races, just like Thor’s Hammer on Cimmeria could tell Teal’c from us. Maybe there is some way to detect Jama’s gene. If the Gate can do it I’m sure Thor could. That is if the Gate can. It sounds a bit far-fetched to me, but it might be possible like Sam said. Thor would know.”

“That does indeed sound like a plausible explanation,” Teal’c said. “Because of the gene Jama and his people possess it might be possible to distinguish them from us. There is, however, one problem with your theory, DanielJackson.”

“We didn’t need an interface to get beamed up. I don’t think the cylinder, uh, Circulus would let us communicate with the Asgard though. Remember, neither the Cimmerians or the K’Tau had any idea how the Hammer or obelisk worked.”

“They didn’t have any technology that could be interfaced with the obelisk,” Sam said. “I don’t know if the Circulus would either. It just isn’t how the Asgard do things.”

“I know.” Daniel started studying the riddle again. “So, on one hand we have a cylinder that’s somehow some form of advanced technology that leads to something we can’t figure out what is because the interface for it is simply gone. On the other hand we have a civilization of people who just won’t be found and then somehow, we find evidence that leads us to believe the Asgard are involved.”

“Don’t forget Anubis,” Jack said.

“I really don’t know what to make of this,” Daniel sighed.

“There is yet another problem,” Teal’c continued.

“Yeah, I know,” Daniel sighed and wrapped his arms around himself again, “there’s no Asgard hologram here. Unless we find that we can’t be sure that whatever zapped us here is an Asgard transporter after all.”

“Indeed.”

“But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been one,” Sam said. “Let’s check this place out, see if we can find out some more. If this is a communications platform then there should be some Asgard technology here somewhere. And you did find some runes, so I’d say the Asgard is definitely involved in this.”

“Carter, Teal’c, you look for the technology. Daniel, what about these riddles, do you think you can solve them?” Jack asked, shining his flashlight on one of the walls.

&&&&&

“Sam, I’ve been thinking,” Daniel said after studying the inscription on the walls for a while. “There is something else about our theory that doesn’t make sense. The protected planets treaty clearly states that no planet under the Asgard protection could advance to a point where they surpassed the Asgard.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s been bothering me too. But Daniel, we don’t know that the technology on either planet was that advanced. What we’ve seen is more advanced than ours, but there are cultures more advanced than us that are protected by the Asgard as well. Thor said we were the Fifth Race, that we’d grown advanced enough to learn of their existence, remember? If the Tuberous’ gene is a bi-product of what Anubis did to them, the Asgard wouldn’t take that into account and consider the Tuberous more advanced than us. I’m thinking it was their original state of development – both mental and technological – that earned them the Asgard’s protection, not their current state.

“I think that the reason or at least one of the reasons, why this planet either isn’t under the Asgard’s protection any longer is because of what Jama did to those jammers. Maybe the plague that helped destroy these people is a side-effect of the gene they possess or something Anubis inflicted them with when he couldn’t use them any more, wanting to destroy all evidence of his experiments, Jama is still responsible.”

“There’s that,” Daniel agreed, leaning against the wall for support. “Or the plague could be a natural occurrence. If there’s something in the water it can affect crops, animals and people, no civilization would let it get so far that it destroyed them a second time without doing whatever they could to stop it. If they’d been through it once, don’t you think they would do everything in their power to find a way for it not to happen again? I don’t know what caused that plague, but I’m sure you’re right Anubis had something to do with it.”

“There might also be proof in the soil samples SG-13 collected. We won’t know till we get home. But what if they did find a way for the plague not to hit them again, but something went wrong anyway, by their own or Anubis doing?” Sam said, scanning the room for any signs of technology hidden within the walls. “Jama fiddled with the frequency jammers but he didn’t invent the plague. Bottom line is that whichever way we turn this, Anubis is the one eventually responsible.”

Daniel nodded and they continued to work in silence. Jack paced the room, poking at whatever he could find that jutted out from the walls, but nothing brought them closer to an answer and nothing lit up or sprang out of the wall. Sighing heavily and getting tired of waiting for his scientists to finish he asked, “Carter, have you found anything yet?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said, putting the scanner away and pulling something out from within the walls. “It’s definitely of Asgard design,” she said, already moving the glowing control stone around on the interface.

“How long?” Jack asked, staring at the spot-lighted circle in the middle of the room, expecting Thor to beam in any minute. Across from him, on the other side of the circle, Daniel was leaning sideways against the wall, leaning forward with one hand on the wall, the other on his stomach and his eyes closed, breathing fast. Clearly the Compazine wasn’t doing its trick and he was about to throw up again.

“I don’t know, sir. I can’t say for sure what this terminal does.”

“Okay, well keep at it. Teal’c, Daniel, anything on the riddles?” Jack asked when it was evident Daniel wasn’t going to throw up after all.

“Not yet,” Daniel said when he’d caught his breath.

“They are most difficult,” Teal’c answered.

“Well, hurry up then,” Jack started pacing the room impatiently. He wasn’t all too happy about Daniel working in the condition he obviously was in, but that brain of his did miracles on a daily basis, and if Daniel felt up to continuing, Jack wouldn’t stop him now. But once they found a way out of here…

“Jack?” Daniel turned to look at him. What are you doing?

“Daniel,” Jack stopped his pacing and looked at his friend. You don’t look so good.

“Jack!” I’m fine.

“Daniel,” Jack sighed.

“Hey,” San said, interrupting their one-word conversation. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Excellent!” Jack walked over to her, expectantly looking at the lit circle again. “Well?” he demanded when nothing immediately happened.

“I think I’ve found a way to contact the Asgard. Now we just have to wait.”

“Great. How long,” Jack asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“How much time has previously passed when you have attempted this?” Teal’c asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted, “maybe a few minutes.”

“Here’s a thought,” Daniel said. “Why didn’t the beam leave Teal’c behind?”

“Because of the Hammer, you moron, they probably modified all the transporters after the incident on Cimmeria,” Jack said, a little worried that Daniel hadn’t thought of it earlier. But since none of them had, he supposed it was all right for Daniel to be a little dense about this glaringly obvious fact as well.

“Right, sorry.” Daniel slid down against the wall he was studying, bending his knees while keeping his arms wrapped around himself.

“Hey,” Sam said, sitting down beside him. “How are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, guys. I really don’t feel so good,” Daniel admitted. “I truly was better, but now I think my stomach has got a mind of its own.”

“Daniel!” Jack said urgently, sitting down on Daniel’s other side, reaching for his clothes to check his stomach again. Daniel swatted his hands away.

“Stop that,” Daniel wrapped his arms tighter around himself. “I’m just nauseous again. I’m sure it’ll pass if I sit down for a bit.”

They had to wait now anyway, so why not make the best of it and rest a little, Jack decided. Daniel’s breathing sped up a few times, but it was only false alarms and each time he settled again, though he was getting increasingly pale and his eyes were starting to look somewhat glazed over. “You want some more Tylenol?” Jack asked, starting to feel somewhat desperate about his friend’s health. He reached a hand over, placing it on Daniel’s forehead. “Damn it, Daniel!”

Daniel looked at him bleary-eyed. “What?”

“Sorry,” Jack said, softening his voice. It wasn’t Daniel’s fault he got sick now. He had been looking much better and hadn’t been hindered in his work when they got back to Tubris, so Jack couldn’t blame Daniel. He’d acted responsibly. It was just dumb luck. “I’m just worried. And you’re running a fever.” Daniel closed his eyes in response and let Jack rest his hand on his head. He felt too tired to bother about pushing it away. The several false alarms were draining what was left of his energy and Daniel shivered a little with the combination of cooling perspiration and elevated temperature.

“It’s not been four hours yet, sir, I don’t think he should have any more just yet,” Sam said. “How about some water?” Sam unclipped her canteen and handed it to Daniel. “It might help.”

“Thanks,” Daniel drank a few sips, but the water immediately protested on the way down and Daniel quickly handed the canteen back. “On second thought, I think I’ll just take a nap since we’re not going anywhere for a while. I’m really tired.”

“Daniel?” Despite knowing the Compazine would make Daniel somewhat drowsy, Jack was alarmed at his friend’s truthfulness about how he was feeling. Usually Daniel would never admit to how he was feeling, but they were off-world, and that made a big difference. To let down his guard like that, Daniel had to have so much confidence in this being an Asgard phone that he was able to relax his defences, trusting his friends to look out for him.

“Its okay, Jack, I’m sure I’ll feel better once I’ve slept a bit.” Daniel reached for his pack and put it under his head as a pillow.

“Wait,” Sam said, worried as Daniel evidently was too tired to make a proper pallet for himself. “That’s not very comfortable. Here,” she handed him her jacket and pulled out one of the emergency blankets from her vest pocket, spreading it over him.

“Thanks, Sam,” Daniel smiled. A little while later he slept, snoring lightly.

“I’ll watch Daniel, you two see if you can figure out more of this stuff while we wait,” Jack said.

&&&&&

Daniel woke an hour later, feeling much refreshed, at least when he wasn’t moving. As he sat up a low whine could be heard and he got to his feet in one swift motion, the blanket still clinging to his body. Shrugging it off, he reached for his Beretta, yanking it out of its holster, cocking it and aimed it straight ahead, his eyes not even fully open yet.

“Whoa, Daniel! Easy,” Jack said, not a little proud that Daniel could be triggered into action at the slightest sound especially considering how he must be feeling. “It’s just Thor.”

“What?” Confused, Daniel looked around the room, understanding where they were. Embarrassed he holstered his gun again, picking up his blanket instead, tucking it into his pack. “Sorry. I just thought that...”

“I know what you thought,” Jack said gently. “And I’m glad you can spring into action that quickly, but you can take it easy now. We’re not going into battle. Anubis isn’t here.”

“Greetings, Daniel Jackson,” Thor said. If the little guy could show amusement, he was clearly smiling now. “I am glad you are awake.”

“Thanks, Thor. When did you get here?” Daniel asked, feeling a blush starting at the base of his neck and covering his entire face. What on earth had he been dreaming since he could snap out so quickly? Jack was right, he’d clearly been afraid Anubis would come and find them too. Daniel was usually a slow riser and never had trigger-reactions to being woken like that. He’d learned to sleep lightly when they were on missions, but now he hadn’t been feeling well and there was no sign of danger here. His subconscious must have thought it safe to fall properly asleep. Shrugging as the dream eluded him, he looked at the others. Sam and Teal’c were still studying the technology they’d found in the walls and Jack was standing beside the lit circle in the middle of the room.

“Just now. You were woken by my arrival. You are not well?”

“I’m fine,” Daniel said, still feeling like his whole face was on fire. But the nap had helped and he was feeling much better – again.

“Indeed,” Thor answered. “I am much impressed by your speed and reaction time.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said, still blushing. He could feel he had a low-grade fever by how his entire body ached, but it wasn’t too bad, and his stomach had settled for now even if it still ached. Feeling the need to change the subject he asked, “So, can you help us?”

“We haven’t had time to explain why we called him yet, Daniel,” Jack said.

“Ah. Well, do you want me to do it?”

“That’s okay, I’ll do it. You just sit back and rest.” Jack said.

&&&&&

“What do you think?” Jack asked after explaining about their theories and their meeting with Jama.

“Mostly you are correct in your assumptions,” Thor said. “The Tuberous, or the Tubris if you will, are protected under the protected planets treaty. Many, many years ago, they were living as a peaceful race like the Cimmerians or the people of the K’Tau like you’ve met before, but someone started to experiment with their genetic makeup, hiding among them as a scientist. We believe that to be Anubis. This is happened a very long time ago, before we even knew he had come back into the galaxy. This was before he attempted to ascend, which means his host was a human of flesh and bones. The Goa’uld has, as you know, the ability to sound like its host and cover up its existence to unsuspecting people, and we believe this is what Anubis did.”

“It’s just like the Kull warriors,” Sam said. “Anubis has been experimenting with human hosts for as long as he’s been around. Poor people, The Tuberous must always have known they got advanced abilities as they grew older, but as he said, Jama didn’t know how they can do what they do. Daniel, did either the scroll or the tablet say anything about this at all?”

Daniel shook his head. “No, there’s no indication of Goa’uld involvement except for the mention of the powerful being that forced them from Tubris and chased them.”

“Yes,” Thor said, “that would be Anubis’ doing.”

“So,” Daniel said. “Anubis has been after these people since the beginning of time. They got genetically altered, and developed the ability to destroy things or make things with their minds. But when things got too far for Anubis liking he struck them with the plague, more or less eradicating the entire population in one fell swoop. Apparently these were intelligent people to begin with and at some point understood what happened.”

“Yes, that is why they fled the first time. They couldn’t evade the plague any more and needed to preserve what was left of their population before it died out completely. They found Anubis out, and somehow he disappeared from their world for a time. Yet the damage was done and as new generations were born they were born with the same altered gene. As time went they developed as a race and the gene developed with them. Anubis had succeeded,” Thor said.

“And so he chased them, wanting to learn what had happened to them and continue his research.”

“Yes,” Thor added sadly.

“And when Jama changed the frequency emitters they fled again.”

“Indeed.”

“Why couldn’t you protect them?” Jack asked.

“We tried. But Anubis grew too strong for us. We too were not as evolved as we are now, and he was too strong for us at the time. There was a period in the Tubris’ history where we could not help and it was during that time they fled to Tuberous. When we later came to see how they were doing, the planet was destroyed and we could not find them. We returned back to Tubris but could not find them there, either.”

“So that’s why both planets are protected,” Daniel asked.

“Indeed. Like on Cimmeria and K’Tau, we created their religion as a means to mask our existence and watched over them. We even placed a device much like the obelisks on Cimmeria on Tubris so that they could contact us.”

“You did?” Daniel asked. “Where is it now?”

“It should be there,” Thor said. “But if much of the planet is ruined, it is likely it too has been destroyed.”

“Do you know where the people are now?” Jack asked.

“We do not. We had hoped you had found them since my ship detected you on this planet. We have been monitoring Tubris and Tuberous for quite some time now, but no one has contacted us. We saw that you arrived and brought you here.”

“Jama clearly didn’t know about your existence,” Daniel said. “Otherwise I’m sure he’d try. Is there an, um… Asgard phone on Tuberous?”

“An Asgard phone?” Thor asked, cocking his head to one side.

“Yeah, you know that pillar with the red stone that transport those who touch it into a hall where they can talk to you. It’s something like the obelisk on Cimmeria. An Asgard phone,” Daniel explained.

“No, there is not.”

“Why didn’t you create one there as well?” Daniel asked.

“As I said, we fell out of contact with them for a time after they first moved there. It was simply not done.”

“And when they fled back to Tubris the one that once had been there had fallen into ruin.”

“Indeed.”

“They could be hiding in another section of the galaxy,” Sam guessed. “Or they could just be hiding from you. Tuberous was destroyed by Anubis just a few centuries ago, and we’re guessing that they came back here but we can’t find them. There was an illusion in the ruins that we thought was a hidden passageway to where they were hiding, but it revealed nothing more than more ruins.”

“You did not attempt to contact us?” Thor asked, confused.

“No, we were looking for a building that we found the last time we were here, but it had gone. In the meantime we met one of the Tuberous and he activated an object for us that we thought would be the key to finding them, but when we got to where the building was supposed to be it was gone and we were zapped here.” Jack explained. “There is also the small matter of this Jama who we met on 789,”

“That’s Tuberous,” Daniel interjected.

“Yeah, there,” Jack said. “Anyway, he wasn’t of mush help either, except he made this thing that we’d found glow and we thought that was the key to find the Teletubbies.”

“Tuberous,” Daniel patiently explained.

“You have this object here with you?” Thor asked. Daniel nodded. “May I see it?” Daniel held the cylinder out so Thor, who was appearing as a hologram, could see it. It was still glowing. “It is of Tuberous design,” Thor mused. “It is not something required to contact us.”

“That’s what we figured out,” Daniel put the cylinder back into his pack. “Do you know what it’s supposed to do?”

“I do not,” Thor shook his head.

“Jack, we never got around to ask Jama exactly what it would do once it worked again,” Daniel said regretfully. “Unless we find the Tuberous we’ll never know what it really was for. It’s like you said, Thor, I’m sure the obelisk to contact you must have been completely destroyed. We didn’t find any runic inscriptions when we searched the ruins.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jack said. “These people have some pretty advanced technology. Do you allow that? I mean, you have repeatedly said that we Earthlings are primitive, but these people are far more advanced than us.”

“Yes, their technology has come far, but it is not as advanced as you think, and its development has not gone too far.”

“Jama said they were talking about making ships. Perhaps they did,” Sam said. “I don’t know how advanced those ships would be. On the other hand at least Jama had no idea that the Stargate could transport them to other planets except to Tubris. I think it’s mostly an illusion that as well. I think these people have done everything they could to hide who and what they really are in hopes of Anubis never finding them again.”

“You are correct,” Thor said. “You are very intelligent and far from primitive, Major Carter. Indeed, none of you are primitive,” he said, looking at all of them. “Please, tell me about this Jama.”

“He’s the man we found on Tuberous,” Daniel said. “He’s a criminal but also a historian and has been living there alone for 200 years if what he told us is true. He came with us to Tubris and I don’t know where he is now. He didn’t get transported with us up here, wherever here is.”

“You are still on Tubris,” Thor answered. “I do not see any other life-signs on the planet.”

“So, it’s safe to assume he was sent back to Tuberous as he predicted,” Daniel said.

“I do not understand,” Thor blinked questioningly at Daniel.

“He said he couldn’t leave Tuberous, that the crimes he had committed forced him to stay there till the memory of what he’d done was wiped from existence or something to that effect.”

“I see. It is likely that the rest of the people still are on this planet and are monitoring his existence and somehow can remotely transport him back again. These people have become very advanced if they remotely can transport people from one planet to the other. I shall have to contact them. I shall also have to look for Jama on Tuberous once we are done here. I am curious as to why they can hide from my sensors. I should have detected their existence if they still are here.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Sam said.

“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed.

“I must admit,” Thor said, “that due to the war with the Replicators this ship is not up to our best of standards. I had to procure a small and old vessel to travel here once the beacon that alerted us of someone entering this cave started transmitting. I’m afraid my sensors might not be completely reliable. I will however attempt to fix them.”

“Take us with you; we would like to meet them as well,” Daniel said. “Please. We really need to help these people. They’ve been fleeing and lived in hiding for centuries. If you can’t help them, maybe we can.”

“I cannot promise you that, Daniel Jackson. But we will try to locate them,” Thor said.

“That is if they want our help,” Jack said sarcastically.

“Jack! We have to at least try!” Daniel said angrily. He stared at Jack, eyes wide open, eyebrows meeting his hairline, arms spread wide. He needed to do something – anything for these people.

“Indeed,” Thor agreed. “We will try.”

“Daniel?” Jack objected. “What are you doing? Last time I checked you were puking your guts up and running a fever.”

“I feel much better. The nap helped,” Daniel said dismissively, too eager about the potential of finding the Tuberous to be bothered about a little stomach ache that seemed to continue to diminish as time passed. “Don’t you see, Jack. Thor can take us to these people and we can get the answers we’ve been looking for! I’ll take another nap.”

Thor cocked his head again at that, looking at Daniel. “Are you ill?”

“I wasn’t feeling so good earlier, but as I’m trying to explain to Jack here, I’m feeling a lot better.”

Jack sighed and Thor blinked, looking from Jack to Daniel and back again. “No,” Jack said. “You’re going home.”

“What?” Daniel was getting angry. “Why?”

“Because if we go with Thor and there is a battle or something unforeseen happens, as it usually does with us, puking on your enemies may disgust them, but it won’t make them go away. Daniel, you know this, right?”

Now it was Daniel’s turn to sigh. “Yeah, but I had to try, okay?”

“I understand,” Jack said, patting Daniel’s arm.

“For Dr. Jackson to return, you will have to come aboard my ship first. I can beam you down to the planet’s surface from there and you may use the Stargate to get home.”

“Okay, fine,” Jack said.

“Whenever you are ready,” Thor said. “Stand here and I will beam you aboard my ship. You can contact the SGC from there.”

“Okay then,” Jack said. “I guess we’re going. Thanks, Thor.” Gathering their things, SG-1 went to stand where Thor now had disappeared from and waited for the white beam to snatch them away. As the white light appeared Daniel said dejectedly, “I never got to figure out those riddles.”

Jack was about to answer when the beam descended and swept them away.

Part eight