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Symbiosis It was a dead world. Not just an empty planet, devoid of people like others they had visited, but a dead one. Colonel Jack O'Neill stared at the wasted expanse before him and felt physically sick. He'd been all over Earth and seen the worst humans could do to one another - hell, he'd done some of the worst things humans could do to one another - but he'd never seen anything like this anywhere on Earth. The sere landscape stretched out as far as the eye could see. No trees, no bushes, no grass; only the brown and grey of the dust and the rocks around the Stargate and a dark, empty city of metal and glass on the plain below them. The images sent through the MALP and the UAV had prepared SG-1 for this desolation, but seeing the transmission couldn't compare with experiencing the actual sterility of the planet's surface. The air was thin and metallic in their lungs and the barren view sent a shudder down their spines. The wind bit into the exposed flesh of their cheeks and hands and beneath them the lifeless dirt blew restlessly over the bare ground. Carter hunkered down to sift dust through her fingers. "I've never seen such devastation before," she murmured. "I have," Teal'c stated, a note of sadness in his voice. "Apophis would leave the worlds of his enemies in a state to deny any possible re-use. Once, we returned to such a planet and I observed the ruin with my own eyes." "Except the Goa'uld didn't have anything to do with this, Teal'c," Daniel said softly. "The UAV indicated no signs of Goa'uld presence at any time in the history of this planet." Teal'c pondered this. "Were not the people of this planet technologically advanced?" "Yes. The UAV readings showed the civilisation possessed a significant level of technology." "Enough for the General to authorise our coming here," Daniel added. Jack grimaced. "But not enough to save them from whatever happened." "They might have destroyed themselves like Sarita, sir. Or the natives of P4X-636." "Sarita?" "The planet near the old Tollan home-world." "And P4X-636?" "Orlin's planet, sir." Show-offs! "Y'know, seeing this kind of place completely restores my faith in humanity," Jack declared, sarcastically. Descending the stairs, he scuffed the dusty ground beside the DHD then eyed the opened casing warily. "Are we sure the DHD's repairable, Carter?" "The MALP images showed nothing we couldn't fix using our plans, sir." "Would you mind checking it? I'd hate to be in a situation where we need a quick exit and have to cold-dial." She crouched down in the dust and peered into the damaged base of the DHD. One arm extended into the tangle of technology within, cataloguing the damage. "We're fine, sir," Carter confirmed a moment later. "The damage is fairly minor and won't be more than a couple of hours' work." "A couple of hours, huh?" Jack checked his watch and made a quick decision. "Right. You and Daniel get started on the job. Teal'c, we're gonna scout around the area - just in case something's managed to survive in this place." He caught his teammate's eye and the pair of them began to explore the area. Behind them, the wind keened through the Stargate - a dirge for a dead world. * Sam found it strange to be looking at ancient-style engravings on metal and glass. It was like walking into the lobby of a modern skyscraper in downtown Manhattan and discovering some calligraphic artist had inscribed poetry on every available inch of space. This building was made of the same kind of material as all the other buildings in the city: stone, metal, glass - but in a vastly different style. It soared into the leaden sky, spires of metal and glass spearing at the air above. Three hours had passed since they arrived on the planet. For most of that time, Sam had worked on the DHD while Colonel O'Neill kept an eye out for anything nasty. He also checked in on Daniel and Teal'c, who went down to the empty city in the valley once it became evident that the job on the DHD really would take a couple of hours. He peered over her shoulder and asked questions. When he didn't understand the answers she gave, he wore a track around the Stargate by pacing. Once she was done, they had called back to the SGC to let the General know that things were going as planned and then headed down to the city. They found Daniel and Teal'c in what was probably the entranceway to the building - a short passage leading to a corridor that curved away in either direction. Teal'c was inspecting the engravings around them, while Daniel stood before the shiny wall, looking over a set of inscriptions that had been boxed within a frame, one hand hovering over the characters, as if he could suck the meaning from them by mere contact. "So, Daniel," the Colonel drawled as they walked up to the archaeologist. "What happened to these guys?" Rapt in the engravings, their teammate took a moment to answer. "Um…they became extinct?" "Funny, Daniel. How did they become extinct?" "I don't know, Jack." "You don't know?" "I can't read the language." Daniel frowned. "It seems to be very similar to some ancient Chinese variants I've seen…but the way the glyphs repeat…it might be phonetic rather than pictographic… I'm taking videos to cross-reference when we get back." Lifting the video camera, he began taking recordings, "Before you guys got here, I spotted some pictograms on the other side of this building, I'd look at them, but I don't think they're likely to hold much information about what happened to these people." Daniel glanced at Teal'c. "We couldn't find the public library, so no 'newspaper' equivalents." "Carter?" Blowing dust off a panel, Sam regarded the interface with interest and unhooked her pack to rummage around in it for one of her meters. "Their technology appears to be more advanced than ours, sir." "But they never got off the planet?" "The DHD was broken, sir and apparently they didn't have the technology to compensate for stellar drift. This is the only Stargate we know of in this area, so there was nowhere for them to go." "What about space flight?" "The race for space on Earth was fuelled by international rivalry between the USA and the USSR, Jack," Daniel reminded him absently. "What's that got to do with it?" "I'm just saying the same factors don't apply. Perhaps these people didn't have the same drive to reach the stars that we did on Earth." "Perhaps they did not possess technology capable of flight through space." "I don't think so, Teal'c. From the level of technology they we're looking at here, it's reasonable to assume they'd have been capable of space travel. It could be their space program was run from another city." "Well," Daniel sat back on his haunches, taking his finger off the recording button. "There aren't any signs they were destroyed by another race. While you guys were fixing the DHD…" "While Carter was fixing the DHD," the Colonel corrected, meticulously. "…Teal'c and I were looking around." A lift of the shoulders indicated his bewilderment, "If they evacuated this city, then they didn't stop to take much with them. We poked our head in some of the buildings and while it looks like some places where cleared up, others are just…there - as if the people left." The narrative was taken up by Teal'c, "Had there been a war, there should be debris, signs of the dead. We found neither." "On the Volian home-world there were no signs the Aschenn had eliminated their civilisation," Sam offered. "The Aschenn wanted the Volian planet for farmland," Daniel reminded him. "The way they wanted Earth for farmland." "The way they wanted the whole damn galaxy for farmland," drawled the Colonel. "They wouldn't want a ball of dirt like this, though." He glanced at the metal of the wall and flicked it, with a metallic ting! "Any idea what this stuff is, Carter?" Busy taking readings off the panel she'd uncovered, Sam glanced up at the metal thoughtfully. "Could be a trinium alloy, sir. If I can get a scraping of it, I'll take it back to the labs and run some tests on it." "Scrape away, Major." He smiled benignly at her and she pressed her lips together in a subdued grin as she went to work. "I think I'll check out what's down corridor number one…" Daniel looked up from the video hurriedly. "I'm done here, Jack. I'll come along." He shifted his pack and followed the Colonel. Their voices drifted back along the corridor. "Chinese, huh?" "Might be an offshoot of one of the of the really ancient dynasties." "Hung? Tan? Chop-suey?" "The Xia dynasty actually. Probably the most advanced humans on Earth during the Bronze Age." "What about the Goa'uld?" "That's why I said humans, Jack." "Oh." Teal'c walked a little way along the passage, quietly observing the structure of the place. Sam prised up the panel and glanced over at her teammate. "Does this city resemble anything you've seen before in your travels, Teal'c?" "It does not, Major Carter. The Goa'uld sought either to destroy such civilisations once they discovered them, or to avoid them as much as possible. Such a people as this would have been made slaves and the Goa'uld would have stolen their technology and used it for their own ends." Sam glanced over the design of the technology beneath the panel she had levered up. She was struck by the elegant simplicity of the parts. "Their technology was certainly advanced enough," she murmured, studying the workings of the machine. "It appears to be based along our lines - electrical impulses rather than crystal energies like the Goa'uld and Tok'ra use…" The panel she was holding lit up with a soft glow and she nearly dropped it in shock. Placing it back in its position, she took one step back from the wall and glanced over at her teammate who lifted his head as the translucent ceiling panels began to emit a similar glow. Their radios crackled, "Carter?" The Colonel spoke in the tones of the long-suffering. "This place just got turned on. We've got overhead lights and glowing panels with coloured buttons that Daniel is not touching!" The tail end of the sentence sounded like he was barking orders at the archaeologist, as a muttered comment from Daniel followed. "The overhead lights have come on here too, sir." "So what did you touch?" "I prised off one of the panels, sir. I didn't touch any of the workings…" Daniel's voice piped up. "Their systems are advanced enough to be sensitive to human tampering. Perhaps it was on 'sleep' mode'." "And you just woke up the guard-dog." The hints of exasperation in his voice betrayed her CO's state of mind and Sam grimaced. "Sir, there was no way of knowing what security measures they had in place. Or that they would still be in working condition given the state of the planet." "Never mind, Carter. Take Teal'c and go for a wander around the other side of the building - see if there's anything we can take back through the gate." The Colonel paused, "And try not to wake anything else up 'without knowing', huh?" Sam grimaced at the reproof. She was about to reply when Teal'c cut in, "O'Neill, if MajorCarter knew which technologies to leave asleep, she would not wake them." In surprise, Sam glanced over at her friend and saw the slight gleam of amusement in his expression. Five years had developed a subtle 'Tau'ri' sense of humour in the Jaffa. "And if she doesn't know which sleeping dogs to let lie, then she should leave them all alone!" Trust the Colonel to get the last word in. Sam smiled. "We're starting along in the opposite direction to you and Daniel, sir." "Report if you find anything." The curving corridor was about four metres high and four metres wide. The walls were made of the silvery metal, somehow extruded in one long flat surface without seams and marked with the same kinds of symbols in irregular patterns and shapes. "Whatever this writing means, it's certainly used a lot," she murmured. "This was the central building of the city. It may have been a place of religious ceremony." "Then these would have been the 'sacred writings'," Sam finished. About two hundred metres along the curving passageway another corridor branched off like a spoke from the rim of a wheel. Teal'c peered in, then glanced over his shoulder at Sam and began to walk along it. Sam followed behind him, noting the dust that lay thickly on the floors - she was a little surprised that Daniel wasn't sneezing his sinuses out yet. Dust bunnies played gleefully in their wake and as she glanced behind she saw the imprints of their footsteps, two trails of clotted dust showing someone had been here. They were perhaps halfway down the corridor to the end. Another fifty metres along was an opening through which a bluish light was visible. The writing on the walls started sparsely at the junction with the main corridor and got much more crowded as they approached the end of the passageway. Here and there, doors hung open. A glance in several of the doors showed empty metal shelves glinting dully through layers of dust. The rooms were dark, the main lighting evidently not stretching to these rooms, although Sam could find no light switch. In one room, Sam's P-90 torchlight illuminated objects shrouded by years of dust and she took one cautious step into the room as her radio crackled. "Teal'c, Sam, we've found a…well…I suppose it could only be called a chamber." "I have discovered it also." Teal'c stated. Sam heard him both through the radio and down the corridor. She emerged from the room and walked towards the bluish light to stand beside her teammate at the chamber's entrance. She walked into the room, turning around to get a better view of the chamber. Like the atrium of a skyscraper, the chamber was divided into two sections - two semi-circles of radii eight or nine yards. A glass wall - the same substance as the chamber walls soared up as far as Sam could see in the filtered blue light. It was frosted with the same ubiquitous writing that the designers of the building had placed on the walls of the corridors. On the other side of the glass, Colonel O'Neill waved at them and clicked his radio. "Got any brilliant ideas on what this chamber was used for, Carter?" Daniel was nowhere to be seen. "None, sir." She could hear his voice through the wall as well as through the radio. A glance at the partition showed that several of the characters had not just been carved into the glass wall, but perforated the wall. While Teal'c watched with raised eyebrow, she traced her fingers along the glass and cautiously poked her fingers through the holes to the other side. Strange. Something prodded her fingertips. She glanced up to meet the Colonel's amused gaze through the glass. Pulling her fingers back, Sam smiled wryly at him. Caught in the act. "Shouldn't go poking your fingers into holes like that, Carter," he told her. "Might have been something nasty there to make your fingers fall off." "Thanks, sir," she responded. "No charge. So this room doesn't have a purpose apart from some nice central lighting and somewhere you can go to poke your finger through holes in glass walls…" As Sam opened her mouth to tell him she had no idea, the tinted blue glass walls of the room began to glow. "I think we're about to find out what it was used for, sir…" The Colonel had already grabbed his radio and bellowed into it, "Daniel?" "Uh…I think I just…" The characters in the walls began to shimmer, some flashing a bright, searing gold. Sam looked up at the writhing writing, then turned and ran for the passageway. Instinctively, she knew it would be a mistake to be in the chamber when it happened. Whatever it was. She saw Teal'c reach the entrance to the chamber as the world around her flashed into incandescent white. In that explosion of energy, Sam saw dark turn light and light turn dark, as if her eyes had suddenly become like camera film: reverse-colour oriented. She felt a curious sensation of prickling, her skin crawling in atavistic reaction… Then it stopped. The world returned to normal, colours taking on their customary hue, the reactions of her body restoring themselves. She kept running, her momentum carrying her on down the passageway away from the strange room. Over the radio and echoing through the chamber and down the corridor, she heard her CO demand, "What the hell did you just touch, Daniel?" "Uh… I'm not sure, Jack. But I activated something..." "Ya think? Carter, Teal'c, you guys okay?" She glanced at Teal'c who was standing motionless in the curved corridor. "We're fine, sir." Sam walked up to her teammate. "Teal'c?" It took him a moment to respond. "Major Carter?" "Teal'c, are you…" With incredible grace, the big man buckled at the knees. Sam managed to get under his arm before he actually fell down. She lowered him gently. "Sir, Teal'c's just collapsed." As she reached to take his pulse, she saw his chest rise and fall. So he was still breathing. A quick check for injuries revealed nothing - but that flash of light had obviously affected him. "Carter?" "Sir, he's still breathing, no apparent injuries, he just…collapsed. We're going to have to get him back to the gate." "We're on our way." * "Janet says he'll be fine once he comes out of kel no reem." Sam sat down opposite the two men with her tray of food. "Nothing out of the ordinary in his blood work or ours, so the chamber doesn't affect ordinary humans and his symbiote is probably fixing up whatever it did to him." "That's a relief," Jack said. He looked pointedly at Daniel. Daniel scowled at his friend. He'd just about had enough of Jack's hassling. In the hours since they had arrived back home from P5W-709, he'd endured numerous comments from the older man about not fiddling with stuff when off-world. First in the infirmary as they went through post-gate check-ups, then in the locker rooms as they showered and now in the commissary where they sat with Sam, eating dinner before they headed off home. "You've made your point, Jack." "I make a point of this every time, Daniel…but the message somehow never gets through!" "I didn't know it would do that." "We never know what anything does off-world - that's why we don't touch it!" Jack glanced over at Sam. "And that goes for you, too, Carter!" "Sir?" "Turning on the power systems or whatever so Daniel could go and flash us all." Some personnel at the next table gave the trio an odd look and Sam's mouth curved in a slight grin. "Uh, sir…" Jack grimaced, ignoring the people watching them and took another forkful of macaroni cheese before pushing the plate away. "The meals around here must be getting worse," he grumped. "I was hungry when I got in here, but this is disgusting." "My meal's fine," Daniel offered cheerfully. So it was a petty way of needling his friend; Daniel was at the point of not caring. "Lucky you," Jack said sourly and slid his glass of Jell-O towards him and dipped his spoon in, "Ah, Jell-O…" Sam took a bite of her own meal, then glanced down at her plate. "My lasagne doesn't seem to have its usual flavour," she noted, reaching for a glass of water. "Ugh!" Jack spluttered, dumping the spoon into the wobbly red mass. "What've they put in the Jell-O?" Sam's eyebrows shot up in alarm. She reached for her glass of Jell-O and took a spoon of her own dessert. "Tastes okay to me, sir." She grimaced. "Maybe it's a little bland…" Leaning back in his chair, Jack shrugged. "They must be having a bad day in the kitchens… I'll get some takeaway on the way home." Sam didn't answer. A frown crossed her forehead and she leaned forward to scoop up a fork of the macaroni cheese from her CO's plate. Daniel stared at her. The familiarity implicit in eating Jack's food was out of the ordinary for Sam, to say the least. "Uh, Sam…" "This tastes fine to me, sir," she managed. "Do you mind if…?" "Knock yourself out, Carter." Jack glanced sideways at Daniel. Daniel dumped his fork into his potato salad, having reached the end of his tether. "O-kay, Jack! I touched the panel! It was the wrong thing to do! Now would you just leave it alone…?" He trailed off. Across the table from them, Sam was eating the macaroni cheese like her life depended on it. The fork moved from the plate to her mouth to the plate to her mouth while Daniel watched in stunned amazement. A glance at his companion showed Jack was similarly surprised at Sam's intensity - and also highly amused. "Carter, you can slow down, you know." Her pace didn't abate one iota. She didn't even seem to hear him. "I don't think the macaroni is gonna make a run for it," Jack drawled. She glanced up at him, astonished. "Sir?" "You're practically inhaling the food…" Daniel explained. She glanced down at the nearly empty plate. "I…" Blue eyes looked up at the two men watching her, open surprise in her expression. "I guess I was hungry." "I guess," their teammate remarked sardonically. Leaning over he took a forkful of her lasagne, chewed it cautiously and grimaced, swallowing it a moment later. "Nope. Not much better." He prodded the plate back to Sam's side of the table. "Are you sure you're not coming down with something, Jack? Maybe…" About to suggest that Jack go and be checked for a stomach bug or something like that, Daniel found himself once again without words. Sam had taken up the plate with the lasagne and was now consuming it with the same single-minded absorption with which she'd eaten the macaroni cheese. It was like watching a starving person presented with more food than they'd ever seen in their life. She wolfed the lasagne down with as much focus as Daniel had ever seen her give a piece of alien technology. More, perhaps. The people at the next table had stopped eating, their jaws landing somewhere in the vicinity of their laps as they watched Major Samantha Carter hoe into the meal as if it were her last. One of them swore in soft disbelief as she scraped up the last of the lasagne and looked at her dessert. She stared at it carefully for a moment, then reached out and took Jack's glass of red Jell-O and began to eat. Without asking for permission. A stray thought in Daniel's head pointed out how stupid it was that he should be concerned about Sam's omission of common courtesy instead of the fact that she had now eaten almost twice her usual meal and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. "Uh, Jack…" A glance at his friend showed only amusement at Sam's peculiar behaviour. Whatever had gotten into Sam, she was going to live with Jack's teasing for weeks. If Daniel was honest, it was funny to see the usually composed Major losing it over a meal, but he was more concerned with why she was behaving this way than with the behaviour itself. The red Jell-O was gone. She scraped up the last few bits and pointed her spoon at the glass of blue Jell-O. "Sir, if you wouldn't mind passing…" Jack passed her the blue Jell-O, strangely enough omitting to comment on his 2IC's hunger. The blue Jell-O went the way of the red - and just as fast. As the last scrap of blue vanished, she sat back in her chair, finally content. Well, Daniel thought, for once bereft of words to describe his state of mind, I am officially weirded out… "Had enough, Carter?" She gave Jack a faint smile. "Yes, sir." "Uh…Sam, are you feeling okay?" They looked at him and Daniel had the slightly bewildering feeling from their expressions that he'd spoken in another language. He asked the question again. "I'm fine, Daniel. Why?" "You just ate Jack's meal as well as your own." She glanced down at the table, suddenly shocked. And that was the kind of behaviour Daniel expected from her. "Oh! Sorry, sir." "It's okay, Carter, it didn't taste too good anyway." Daniel put his fork down, food forgotten. "Okay guys, I think we need to go back to the infirmary." Again, Daniel got the feeling he'd spoken in another language. The same expression crossed their faces. What is he talking about? "We just came out of there, Daniel. Why would we wanna go back?" "Uh… Look, I want to see Janet about something," he dissembled. It just happens to be about you two and the weird way you're both acting. "About the planet. You guys were in the room when the chamber activated, maybe you can…uh…help explain some things…" As excuses went, it was pretty lame and he saw them exchange Let's-humour-him glances before Jack shrugged and stood. "Don't forget we've got a briefing in thirty minutes. Where we have to explain to Hammond…" Jack paused for a moment, before he continued speaking, "…why Teal'c is in need of kel no reem after what was supposed to be a simple recon with a snatch-and-grab element." "Jack?" The pause worried him. "Daniel?" "Are you sure you're feeling okay?" He earned a glare from his friend, "I'm feeling fine, Daniel. What is it with you tonight?" I'm wondering the exact same thing about you, Jack. "Nothing." He followed them to the door and as they reached it. Jack wavered for a second before he righted himself, Sam's hand catching his elbow. "Sir…?" "I'm fine, Carter," he said grumpily. "A momentary dizziness caused by nothing worse than not enough sleep." Her concerned expression didn't change and Jack frowned at his 2IC, irritation in every line of his face. He glanced from her to Daniel and grumped, "You know you guys fuss as much as a pair of maiden aunts." He pushed past them. "Didn't you want to see the Doc, Daniel?" "Uh…" Daniel glanced from Jack to Sam. "Yeah. Let's go." They stepped into the elevator and Jack jabbed the button for the infirmary floor. With its customary lurch, the elevator began descending. With an uncustomary lurch, Jack collapsed in much the same manner as Teal'c had hours earlier. He didn't fall more than a couple of inches before his team-mates realised what was happening and got under his arms, propping him up. "Whoa…" Was Jack's voice a little hoarse? "Momentary dizziness again." Trying to get his legs under him, Jack managed to stand upright for one second. He took his arms off their shoulders, only to sag once more. "Sure you're fine, Jack," Daniel snapped. Worry made him sharper than he intended to be. "Janet is definitely going to be checking you out a second time!" "'m fine…" Jack mumbled. His voice was definitely hoarse. Whatever was happening to him was happening fast. Daniel glanced at the red LED display of the floor indicator. Two floors to go. "Sir, 'fine' doesn't usually mean collapsing in the elevators." Jack didn't answer, his head gently listing until it rested against Sam's temple. Over their friend's head, Daniel saw the brief second of worry in Sam's eyes before she masked it. One hand reached up to Jack's throat as his head lolled further back. "His pulse is really erratic, Daniel…" "Can we carry him?" "I think we might have to. I'm not sure he's conscious." As she spoke the last word, Sam's voice jerked in slight panic. "Sam?" Daniel glanced over at her. Jack's head had lolled back, his face turned into Sam's neck, cheek resting against the side of her throat in unusual intimacy. Her expression clearly said that only the arm over her shoulders and the confines of the elevator prevented her from bolting. The doors opened, revealing the startled expressions of a couple of orderlies just coming off duty. "Get Dr. Fraiser," Daniel said as they half-carried, half-dragged Jack out of the elevator. When the orderly glanced from Jack to Sam, eyes huge, he frantically searched his brain for the woman's name and added, "Please, Jodi?" Jodi blinked, nodded and ran back to the infirmary, calling for Janet. * Janet put her head in her hands, stumped. The soft hum of the med lab equipment made a pleasant background noise around her. She'd cleared the Colonel from his post-gate inspection not three hours ago. In that time, his red blood-cell count had fallen dangerously low. A blood transfusion had helped the Colonel recover somewhat, but in spite of the donation he was still dangerously weak. Despite his complaints, he'd been confined to one of the beds where Daniel and Sam were presently attempting to keep him occupied. She'd never seen anything like it - and she'd seen a of of strange things in her time as the SGC's Chief Medical Officer. The death of large numbers of red blood cells should be a long-term development, not something that happened in a matter of hours. Of course, in the SGC, anything could - and frequently did - happen. There was a footstep at the door. "Dr. Fraiser?" The title indicated that General Hammond was addressing her as a commanding officer, not as a friend. "I thought you cleared SG-1 in their post-gate inspection." The tone of voice indicated he was, as the Colonel would probably say, 'not a happy camper'. His best officer was out of action for an unspecified condition of which no sign had previously been found, in spite of having been prodded, pushed, examined and inoculated to the hilt three hours previously. That reflected badly on the medical staff who had performed the inspection. "Sir, at the time of release, the Colonel was in perfect health." She wasn't making excuses. If it had been the fault of her or her staff, Janet would have had no hesitation about taking the blame. She and her people were human. They could make mistakes. But the results were undeniable. "These are the results from the Colonel's blood test during the post-gate inspection," the file was flipped open with the most recent inspection results on top. She laid the second file beside it, "And these are the results from the blood test we just took. In a few hours, his red blood cell count has dropped dramatically. They're just dying off. We're giving him blood transfusions as fast as we can, but whatever is killing off the blood cells is working faster than us." "What will happen to him?" "Red blood cells carry oxygen between the lungs and the cells of the body. Without sufficient oxygen, the cells die and the body wastes. If insufficient blood gets to his brain, he could suffer brain damage… Sir, from all accounts, this has something to do with the chamber they found themselves in. We need to know what its purpose was - what it did to the people. It might contain a key to why the civilisation of P5W-709 vanished - some virus or disease which wiped them out." General Hammond regarded her vehemence with concern, "Dr. Jackson did a video of the writing on the wall…" "But I can't translate it off the top of my head," said a voice from the door. "I'll need someone who can read Ancient Chinese scripts fluently - I can speak it and do the basics, but the written language is beyond me." Dr. Jackson stood by the door of the lab and raised his hand to tap on the door, "Er…knock-knock." The thought struck Janet that Daniel had been hanging around Colonel O'Neill too much. "Do you have anyone in mind?" "I think Lieutenant Satterfield has Chinese ancestry," Daniel frowned. "But I'll check the personnel files. What I actually wanted to talk to you about was…uh…Sam." Seeing he had the attention of both officers, he explained, "She ate Jack's dinner." Janet blinked. "Sam ate the Colonel's dinner?" "And her own." Daniel quickly described what had happened in the commissary and Janet felt her disbelief increase. Not that she doubted Daniel's truthfulness, but…she had a hard time imagining Sam encroaching on the Colonel's personal space like that. It just wasn't like Sam. "…didn't even seem to realise how much she'd eaten until I brought it up." "Doc!" The yell came from the infirmary bed. Sam was leaning against the Colonel's bed, her hands planted firmly on the sheets, her shoulders shaking as she tried to stand upright using the bed as a prop. The Colonel had one hand under her arm and was trying to gain some leverage, but his grip kept slipping. Skidding across the floor, Daniel tucked his head under Sam's arm, pulling her up and hauling her over to the next bed over in the infirmary. "Sam?" Sam's shoulders were heaving as she hunched over her torso, "Hurts. Everywhere." Flushed skin, bloodshot eyes, shallow breathing… Janet placed her forearm against Sam's brow: the other woman was burning up. Completely different from what had occurred with the Colonel - but Janet would bet half a year's pay it had something to do with the pair of them being caught in the chamber Daniel mentioned. "We'll take a blood sample and check if it's the same thing that the Colonel has. Can we get something to bring her temperature down…?" Janet was only peripherally aware of the hands of the other medical staff around her, as she began taking a mental inventory of what the symptoms Sam was suffering could mean. In the background, she could hear Daniel say something, which the Colonel responded to. Then Janet heard Teal'c's deep steady voice speaking. It looked like 'junior' had managed to fix whatever had been wrong with Teal'c and the Jaffa was back in action. It was moments like these that Janet wished there was some way to communicate with the larval Goa'uld - maybe it could tell her what the hell was wrong with Sam. "Janet, her blood pressure is extremely low…" "Okay, I'm taking a sample of her blood…" Prepping the blood sample tube, Janet efficiently found the vein, swabbed the spot and inserted the needle. It filled up. Fast. Too fast. Alarmed, Janet reached for a cotton ball and pressed down to stem the flow as she removed the needle. Within moments, the cotton ball was a sodden red mass under her gloved fingertips. She laid the tube down and replaced the cotton ball - but that one stained red just as rapidly. Janet's brain ran through the possibilities. Haemophilia? Sam wasn't a haemophiliac - she would never have been accepted into the armed services if she had been - and female haemophiliacs were rare. But then, the Colonel had become abruptly anaemic…why shouldn't another condition manifest itself in Sam? Turning her head, Janet ordered, "Kevin, I want that sample tested ASAP - look for any blood disorders…" "Janet…" Sam's whisper was husky. "Sam? You'll be okay…" If we can just work out what's happened to you… But Janet kept that to herself. "Need to give blood." "Give…?" Abruptly it clicked. An excess of red blood cells in the body was causing the flushed skin, bloodshot eyes and bruising. Low blood pressure would result since the body didn't need all the oxygen being passed to it from the bloodstream. If the build-up continued for too long, then Sam's internal organs would collapse under the strain - probably why she'd first had trouble breathing. And the temporary solution was for Sam to donate blood. She didn't dare ask how Sam had known she needed to give blood. Could it be like the time the Colonel ended up with the Ancients' database loaded into his brain? Then, Colonel O'Neill had known he needed to go somewhere, but not how he knew or exactly where. Maybe this was the same. Whatever it was, Janet wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Sam had accurately guessed she needed to give blood and Janet concurred as an MD, then she was going to give blood. "Get me one of the donor bags immediately…" The orderly moved swiftly. Behind her she heard Daniel's exclamation, "Janet, Jack's just…" "Get Warner on it!" Janet responded as she got the needle in Sam's arm and the donor bag began filling up with Sam's blood. Moments later, Ron Warner was calling for a transfusion for Colonel O'Neill. "His blood pressure is up, same symptoms as before…taking a sample…" It was less than a minute before the bag was full. Sam was breathing significantly easier, but Janet frowned, pressing her lips together and made a decision, "Get me another bag…" By the Colonel's bed, Warner informed her of the situation, "Janet, he's down on RBCs again. He's getting another transfusion…" The second bag began filling and Sam's skin was resuming its usual paler colour. Halfway through the bag, Janet decided that was enough and stopped the transfusion, shaking her head in bewilderment. She'd never seen anything like this before. The only way the body would start over-producing red blood cells would be if there were some kind of a bone marrow defect. It would be congenital and obvious from an early age - if such a child made it through infancy at all. She glanced up at her patient. "You okay?" Sam nodded. "Colonel O'Neill?" "He's stabilised," Warner reported from the bedside. "But we're gonna need more supplies of B neg and O neg - if this keeps up we'll be out of our stock in a couple of hours." "Contact the Academy hospital and see what they've got. And send out a request for donors on the base - we might as well restock now - but no personnel who are due off-world in the next forty-eight hours." A grunt came from the other bed. "I'm fine. Just…a little tired." Typical O'Neill. Everything was 'fine' until the man was comatose. Janet glared at him, then turned back to Sam. "The Colonel is developing acute anaemia, which explains his collapse in the elevators. We've got some blood samples of both of you to work on - there was nothing in your blood work to indicate these symptoms after your post-gate, but for the time being I need you to rest." She eyed Sam intently, "Do you think you can manage that?" Sam grimaced. "I don't really get a choice, do I?" "No," Janet replied, unsympathetically. Her friend would work herself into the ground if she was given the option and had done so more than once. She moved around the bed, catching the eye of the General and nodding to indicate that his two best officers were in a stable condition for the time being, before she turned to the two men who stood watching the whole situation with a tense expression. "All right, Daniel, Teal'c…time to get blood samples from you." "But I wasn't even in the chamber…" "It might not have been the chamber at all, Daniel. We checked the usual suspects, but that doesn't mean you haven't picked something else up from the planet." Behind her she heard Hammond tell the Colonel, "Colonel, your team was scheduled to go off-world tomorrow afternoon. In the light of this situation, I'm standing SG-1 down until such a time as Dr. Fraiser can assure me you are in perfect health." Naturally, the man grumbled. "Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir." Accustomed to the Colonel's unique sense humour - and his 'insubordinate' manner, the General merely shook his head and left, but he caught Janet's eye just before leaving the infirmary and she saw the smile lurking at the corner of his mouth before she turned her attention back to the reluctant patients before her. "Right, gentlemen, we've done this before…" * Teal'c watched with an interested eye as Dr. Fraiser pointed out the slides of blood work up on the x-ray examination boards. "What Major Carter appears to have come down with is nothing like Colonel O'Neill's condition. The Colonel is suffering from the acute and abrupt deterioration of red blood cells - a condition he didn't have when he was cleared after post-gate examination. Major Carter has developed an excess of red blood cells in her system - see the increased number of erythrocytes - which is why her skin is flushed and she bleeds and bruises so easily. Teal'c shows no sign of it, for which we probably have his symbiote to thank. Since Daniel shows no sign of either condition, presumably it has to do with the chamber they were caught in while on the planet." "Good one, Daniel," O'Neill growled from his bed. Both O'Neill and Major Carter had been allowed out of their respective beds, but were forbidden to leave the infirmary. Dr. Fraiser wished to keep a careful eye on both of them to protect against a relapse. "Hey, I didn't know…" "And that's exactly the problem…" "Colonel, Doctor…" General Hammond interrupted them. "Dr. Fraiser, do you have any idea how to reverse the changes?" The brunette shook her head, "Sir, the kind of technology which could change a person's biochemistry is beyond anything we have here on Earth - and although we haven't had the time to run extensive tests, it does appear that it's their biochemistry which has been changed. Blood transfusions stem the tide for the Colonel - but we're running out of supplies." She pulled up another enlarged slide and flipped it up on the light-board to display it more clearly. "However, in both Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter's blood work, there is a new protein element visible." Pointing to the slide, she traced her finger over a long sausage-shaped molecule. "It's present in both their bloods, but isn't apparently interfering with any other functions. Presumably it's a by-product of whatever occurred to them in the chamber." General Hammond looked from the slides to the Doctor. "Is it dangerous?" "Not apparently, sir." "Not apparently, Doc?" "Colonel, we haven't yet had the time to do an in-depth study of what is affecting you. Based on what we've seen so far, this is my best guess." "Oh, well, if it's your best one…" Teal'c hid his amusement at O'Neill's disgruntled murmurs. O'Neill disliked the feeling of helplessness, as did Teal'c. They were men of action, who had no qualms about going into battle, or hesitation in doing what must be done to achieve the necessary result. In areas such as this, however, when a warrior was the victim, the waiting was a source of deep frustration. Dr. Fraiser fixed O'Neill with a firm look, "Neither Dr. Jackson's, nor Teal'c's blood work has come up with the protein so I'm presuming it's linked to whatever the chamber did to them. Teal'c's symbiote must have fixed the imbalance…" "Way to go, Junior!" "…but Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter don't have that option." "No kidding." General Hammond gave O'Neill a stern glance and asked, "Do we have anything more on what the chamber was used for?" Daniel Jackson tapped his finger on some files he'd brought. "I've started translating the text with Lieutenant Satterfield, General. We've gotten some of the text from the building translated - but we don't seem to have the parts relevant to what the chamber does. Most of what we've gotten so far is a kind of history of the people. It seems that the civilisation of P5W-709 used up the resources of their planet to such an extent that thousands began dying from starvation as food and resources became limited. They worked out some kind of a temporary solution - but the writings we have aren't very specific about it. It probably has something to do with the chamber Jack and Sam got…er…stuck in." "Ya think?" O'Neill glared at Daniel. Daniel glanced towards the General, ignoring his commanding officer. "If we could go back and examine the writings in the building we might be able to determine more about the use of the chamber in the civilisation…" "Dr. Fraiser?" "Sir, there is no reason that Dr. Jackson and several others couldn't return to the planet - as long as they're careful not to set the device off a second time. It would provide some valuable insight into the nature of the change inflicted on the Colonel and the Major." The General considered it a moment. "Very well. Teal'c, Dr. Jackson, you have a go. I'll assign Major Griff, Captain Harris and Lieutenant Satterfield to SG-1 temporarily." "Uh…sir…" "Colonel, I doubt Dr. Fraiser will clear either you or the Major fit to go off-world." "Doc?" "Definitely not, sir. You're remaining in the infirmary until we can be sure you're not going to faint again." "I don't faint!" O'Neill received an amused glance from Major Carter, "I don't!" General Hammond ignored O'Neill's protests, informing the others, "You'll ship out at 1500." * The planet was still as desolate as Teal'c recalled the first time he'd stepped through the Stargate. The devastation reminded him painfully of planets Apophis had razed to the ground - planets where Teal'c and his men had executed the people they could find, burned their crops and orchards, slaughtered their livestock - all to display Apophis' power and might. He regarded the city landscape. In many ways, it looked like an ordinary city of Earth, except for the broken-down structures, the steel pylons clawing in empty silence at the sky. Teal'c wondered what kind of people had lived here, whether they had been like the people he had met on Earth or if they were like other advanced cultures he'd met in his travels both as a member of SG-1 and as First Prime to Apophis. Daniel and the Lieutenant were already working on the glyphs, while the two other personnel assigned to SG-1 - Major Griff and Captain Harris - did some judicious exploring. Teal'c kept an eye on Daniel Jackson and Lieutenant Satterfield and listened to their translations. The Lieutenant seemed somewhat awed at being allowed off-world. As Teal'c understood it, she had not been due for assignment to an SG-team for a few more months yet. She seemed levelheaded, but as she looked around at the buildings of the city, Teal'c recognised the same kind of delight Daniel Jackson had displayed in the early days of their travels through the Stargate. This one would bear watching. In her excitement, she might do more than was her intention - as Teal'c had observed Daniel Jackson doing many times before. "…that looks like the Egyptian glyph for food…" The Lieutenant frowned and tilted her head, "Uh, the pattern of the lines here…it looks like the Chinese word for 'offering'." "Like a sacrifice?" "Yes. Sir." The title was tacked on the end. Lieutenant Satterfield had a prevailing shyness in the presence of Daniel Jackson, which Teal'c attributed to a youthful infatuation on the part of the officer. It did not seem to concern his teammate. "But…one made freely." "So…the process involved eating and drinking somehow…or maybe…wait. Some of the sentences…" Daniel shuffled through his notes. "Ah…ah…yes! We thought the sentence structure was strange on that other wall - it was actually the right way around - when you start reading it from left to right and then at the end of the line read right to left… So, instead of the process performing the change requiring eating and drinking…it changed the consumption patterns of the populace…" "But that makes no sense, Dr. Jackson. It says 'feed off the land'…" "'…by the hand of the one who tills it…'" Daniel added. "Yes. But if the next line reads backwards, then it says, 'feed of the one who is fed'…" Teal'c considered. If the chamber was indeed used to enact a change upon people and was designed to enable a populace to reduce the drain on their land, then would it not make sense to somehow enable the two people to live on the resources of one? There had been many times during a campaign against some System Lord's armies when Apophis' men had merely sat themselves down to hold out a siege, knowing the enemy had limited resources and would be required to give in or starve. "Daniel Jackson." "Teal'c?" "You have said that the text reads that one should feed off the land?" "Yes." "And the other should feed of the one fed off the land." "Yes." "There are two sides to the chamber. Perhaps it was done such that one person would work the land and feed their partner. Then they would feed from their partner." "But how would that…" Daniel Jackson stopped dead in the middle of his pacing. "Oh, no…" Without a further word, he headed out the door, leaving behind him a bewildered Lieutenant and a puzzled Jaffa. "Dr. Jackson…" The Lieutenant jogged after him. "What…" "We have to report in." Teal'c caught up to his teammate within a few strides and followed him in the direction of the city gate, which led to the path up out of the city to the Stargate. "Daniel Jackson, why is this situation of such concern to you?" His teammate sighed, as if a little irritated by Teal'c's failure to glimpse what Daniel had comprehended about the nature of the changes produced on O'Neill and Major Carter. "Janet said that Jack was suffering from anaemia - a lack of red blood cells. She said that Sam was suffering from an excess of them - that was why they had to take blood from Sam." Lieutenant Satterfield didn't understand it, "Dr. Jackson…" "It's a symbiosis of two people - one gains sustenance from the land, the other gains sustenance from the first. Two people living on one person's resources. That's how Jack and Sam have been changed. The protein in their blood must act as an equalizer, so differing blood types could still exchange blood…" "That would mean a lot of blood transfers," Lieutenant Satterfield noted. "If they'd used blood transfers." "What else would they have done?" Daniel grimaced, "They would have drunk the blood. Straight from the vein." * Janet stared at the results under the microscope in disbelief. Okay. It was late. She was tired. Maybe she'd gotten the samples confused and put the same blood into the blood. With painstaking care, she checked both samples and refocused the microscope. If what she was seeing were true, it would be a medical breakthrough. The only question was: was one test sample enough to risk the Colonel's life on? Since Daniel, Teal'c and the others had gone off-world, Colonel O'Neill had collapsed two more times, each time requiring a blood transfusion to restore him to health. By contrast, whatever affected Sam hadn't recurred. If Daniel was right, then Sam should have a relapse shortly after dinner. Janet checked the slide again, took a deep breath and frowned. She trusted Daniel's leaps of intuition, but to risk the Colonel's life on a fragment of translation and one of Daniel's gut-jumps? I guess it wouldn't be the first time, she thought to herself. The whole idea of a chamber capable of changing a person's physiology and biochemistry was… astonishing. It rated up there with snakes instead of immune systems and sarcophagi into which fatally injured people could come out alive and whole. One more blood test, just to check - although there was no real way to tell if the different blood type would 'take' or not. Only the real thing. And if it didn't work, it could kill the Colonel. "Dr. Fraiser, the dinner's arrived for the Colonel and the Major." "I'll take it in, Karen." As she came in the door of the infirmary, a paper plane soared past her head, narrowly missing her cheek. Instinct caused her to flinch and she jerked her head around to follow the flight of the toy. As she turned back to look at her patients, she saw Sam stifling a laugh. The Colonel was lying back on his pillows staring innocently up at the ceiling, his hands folded on his chest. Janet walked with brisk steps to the bed. "For that, sir, I'm going to take another blood test." He jerked up to look at her, his eyes taking in the tray and the needle and vial next to it, before he relaxed, "You were gonna take a blood test anyway, Doc." "Ready for dinner, Sam?" Janet addressed her friend, ignoring the glaring Colonel. A few moments later, Sam had a plate of what was probably lemon chicken steaming before her. Commissary food was never gourmet, but when you were hungry it was good - as long as it was edible. "I guess I get mine…?" "After the blood sample." "Figures." He offered his arm, "You know, if my neighbour sees this arm, she's gonna freak. She's already convinced she's living next to an axe murderer. I'll go home and she'll have the cops banging on my door trying to arrest me for drug dealing." "Wear long sleeves," Janet told him unsympathetically, although she stifled a laugh. "Now why didn't I think of that?" He drawled with marked sarcasm and this time Janet allowed herself to grin openly. The sample was quickly drawn and she took the vial away as Sam handed the Colonel his dinner. As she prepared the culture slides, she listened to the conversation between them in the next room. "Your dinner any good, Carter?" "Pretty tasteless, sir." A pause. "Yours smells nice." "Well, it doesn't taste it…" "Do you mind if…?" "Go for it." There was the clink of plates being exchanged. Janet blinked, her mind on the conversation between the two officers rather than her work. Daniel had mentioned Sam eating the Colonel's lunch and both she and General Hammond had been surprised. Usually the Colonel and the Major were scrupulously careful about appearances. There was a pause, then the Colonel added dryly, "I guess it meets with your approval then?" No answer came and Janet took one step towards the infirmary, intent on seeing exactly what kind of an exchange was taking place - then changed her mind and went back to her testing. Some things were better left unknown and unspoken. Under the microscope she examined the Colonel's blood sample, noting the lack of erythrocytes - red blood cells - in the sample. By contrast, Sam's sample - taken from her earlier this afternoon - was positively teeming with the red disks. Carefully, she dropped a little of Sam's blood sample into the Colonel's blood sample… And the two samples mixed. They mixed. All right, the next step was… "Carter!" The exclamation brought her to the door of the infirmary before the Colonel could yell, "Doc!" He'd hauled himself out of bed to help Sam sit upright, one arm around her back, holding her up. He trailed IV line and monitor wires behind him like a marionette come to life. Janet pushed him out of the way without remorse. "Colonel, get back into bed!" "Doc…" She ignored him, yelling at one of the orderlies, "Nina, I need two sample bags and the transfusion gear now! Ron, will you get in here and rewire the Colonel! Now would be just the time we'd need him to collapse." The grumble was more to herself than anyone else, but she glimpsed the smile that briefly flashed across Sam's face as her friend struggled with the changes in her body. If Daniel's correct, then her body must go into an 'overdrive' state shortly after a meal. Probably produces several million more red blood cells per minute…enough to cause a collapse within a few minutes of a meal…the…transfusion would have to take place shortly after - and I'm notgoing to speculate on how they did that… Thank God, Daniel had the tact not to explicitly state it in the communication… Drawing blood from Sam was easy - the blood poured out and Janet made a mental note to get a sample of bone marrow from her friend. If they could reproduce the stimulation of the bone marrow to produce more blood cells in people with bone marrow defects, then it could be used to aid haemophiliacs and anaemic. The transfusion was three quarters of the way through and Sam looked like she was breathing easier. Then the Colonel went into arrest. Not just collapse this time, but arrest. The monitors wailed their message of alarm and Janet spared a glance from Sam's blood donation to the Colonel. He looked a waxen shade of pale under the natural tan of his skin. "Ben, one milligram of epi." Ron was giving orders. "Nina charge to one hundred…" "Clear!" Sam's hand closed around her wrist, effectively stopping her from stepping up to the Colonel's bedside. Every instinct in Janet screamed to be there working on the Colonel, but Ron had it under control. So she stayed there, trying to keep an eye on the rate at which the donor bag was filling and listen to the conversation behind her at the same time. "Epi is in…" "Two hundred joules…" "Charging…clear!" Another jolt of energy went into reviving Colonel O'Neill and it was as though time suspended, seconds trickling through the air like thick molasses dripping from a spoon. Then, through the sounds of the medical staff working around him, Janet heard the tinny 'beep' of the EEG and with a peculiar rush, the normal flow of time resumed. Sam's hand released her and Janet glanced at her patient's face. The woman was nearly as pale as her sheets and Janet suspected it had little to do with the blood donation. "He's still critical, we need a bag - make it two - of B neg…" "Hold that," Janet heard her own voice interrupt as she withdrew the needle from Sam's arm and placed it carefully on the tray. "We've got two bags here…" "Janet…" "Ma'am?" "Major Carter is O pos, Janet…" "I know what her blood type is - do it!" "Janet…" "Ron, trust me. Just give him this…" She offered the bag and after a stunned moment, someone took it from her hand. Then Ron was standing next to her, talking softly as Nina prepped the bag for the transfusion and Ben monitored the Colonel. "Janet, do you realise the liability we could be in if the Colonel dies from the transfusion?" "Giving him the compatible blood hasn't fixed him, Ron. He's still in need of a transfusion every couple of hours. Try this." "And if it fails and he dies…" "Then his luck finally ran out." Janet forced herself to sound callous, if she was going to convince Ron, she had to convince herself as well. "But I don't think it will. This is Dr. Jackson's call as much as my own, Ron. I've run the tests. You have to trust me on this…" It was a leap of faith into the dark of the night. Thank God he trusted her. "Shit, Janet, I hope you know what you're doing." Then the other doctor was gone and attending to Colonel O'Neill again - much to Janet's relief. Janet stuck a tissue bandage on Sam's arm and met the clear blue gaze head on. While the Major's eyes couldn't strip the soul quite the way the Colonel's could, she had a disconcerting ability to make you want to tell the truth. "Janet, what did Daniel say?" She wasn't going to explain it in full detail to Sam right now - but she owed her friend a brief explanation at the very least. "Right now, you're producing more haemoglobins than your body can cope with while the Colonel doesn't have enough haemoglobins. Daniel thinks that the overflow from you should go to the Colonel." Sam nodded once, thinking it over. "What about clotting from different types?" "I ran some tests. Your blood types aren't clotting when they mingle any more. The chamber appears to have stimulated something in you, which is now creating new protein chains. The protein chains must act as an equaliser for your blood types - so your blood can transfer to the Colonel." "So after the transfusion, he should be okay?" "Yeah." "It's going in." There was a grim note to Ron's voice. "Monitoring vitals…" The silence was tense, with the various infirmary staff giving Janet sideways glances, while she gritted her teeth and prayed Daniel was right. Then, "He's stabilising." Nina sounded astonished. "Vitals improving…" Thank God. "Pulse is regular, no reactions…" Ron glanced up at her sharply. "Is this that new protein in their blood?" "I ran the tests. The types mingled." "This changes everything we know about blood types…" "No kidding," Janet muttered. The other doctor gently pulled back the eyelids to get a look at the Colonel's eyes, only to have his hand batted away by an irritated - and awake - Jack O'Neill. "What is this? The poke-and-prod exchange?" He blinked a couple of times. "I guess I blacked out again, huh?" "You had us worried for a few seconds, Colonel." "How's Carter?" Janet glanced at Sam, saw the quirking smile and let it pass. "Major Carter is fine. Better than you, actually." Naturally, he turned his head to see her with his own eyes. A brief smile accompanied the gruff reply as he met his 2IC's gaze, "Tell me something I don't know, Doc. You okay, Carter?" "Yes, sir. All fine." "Good. Warner, would you stop hovering?" Janet turned back to Sam and mouthed: Oh boy. Sam bit her lip to restrain laughter. Yup, Colonel O'Neill was definitely better. * The planet definitely didn't improve on closer acquaintance. It was still quite distinctly a barren ball of dirt, the air didn't taste any better the second time around and the city still looked spooky. As far as Jack was concerned, the one bright spot in the whole situation was that the blood transfers from Carter actually seemed to work. He was no longer collapsing every couple of hours - although he was pretty sure Doc Fraiser was keeping a very close eye on him - and he felt okay in all other respects. He wasn't even hungry. Okay, so it might have been embarrassing to have to hand Carter her breakfast - just a little. One of the peculiarities of this thing he and Carter had was that the one who received the transfusion from the other had to feed the one who gave the transfusion. Not hand-to-mouth feeding, thank God - Jack hardly wanted that kind of gossip about Carter spread about the base - but he'd had to hand her plate over to her before she could actually eat the food. And Janet had been watching. He supposed it wasn't the first time. After that first double-portion, Carter had settled back into eating a single portion at mealtimes. The Doc thought it might be something to do with the initial phase of the change. The first meal was double the size so the body could use the extra energy to adjust bodily processes to what was happening, but subsequent meals were as usual. They were halfway to the city, Major Griff and Captain Harris having come to greet them. Apparently Daniel and Satterfield were still working on the translations with Teal'c down in the city. Griff was chatting with the Doc and the Captain was listening intently. Beside him, Carter was staring off into space, her legs moving, her hands resting on the butt of her P-90, but an expression in her eyes, which said she was light years away. "Dollar for your thoughts, Major?" She blinked and her brow wrinkled. "Sir?" "Well, I figure your thoughts are worth a bit more than a penny." The slightly embarrassed smile he got was well worth the quip. "Uh, thanks, sir. I was just thinking about the people who lived here. I mean, this kind of solution for a resource problem - firstly for someone to think of linking two people so they could live on one set of resources, then for them to develop the technology which was capable of changing them so they could do so…" Okay. Typically Carter-esque thoughts. "Dollar for your thoughts, sir?" That was way overpricing his thought, but he appreciated what she was saying. "Actually, I was thinking it's nice to be out of the infirmary. Not so nice to be on this ball of dirt, but a change of scenery is better than counting ceiling tiles again." "I don't know if this qualifies as 'scenery', sir." "Well, it's better than grey tiles on the ceiling, that's for sure. And better than my paper aeroplane graveyard." The corners of her mouth tipped upwards, "I loved the expression on the night orderly's face when she walked into the middle of your 'landing site'." "Huh, yeah, I thought she was going to pull my plug for a minute, there." "She was a bit annoyed at your mess." "My mess? My planes all landed on-site, if I recall correctly. No offence, Carter, but you throw paper aeroplanes like a girl." She laughed. "Sir, I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but I am a girl." For that, he gave her a quick once-over glance, head to toe, quirked his eyebrows at her and grinned. "Yeah, I kinda noticed." He kept his voice low enough that Janet, Griff and Harris walking in front of them wouldn't be able to hear them. Carter looked embarrassed, but at least she didn't look away. "It's that obvious, is it?" The blue eyes twinkled, daring him to say something. So he did. Maybe it was the changes that had happened to them, but for some reason, the usual inhibitions weren't in operation today. "Yes. Very definitely obvious, Carter." Her mouth tipped up at the corners, "Thank you, sir." "Anytime, Major." Jack returned the smile, before changing the topic of conversation. Going any further would just get out of familiar and comfortable territory and into realms that were better left unexplored at the moment. "Do you think this…thing that happened to us…can be undone, then?" "It would make sense. If they could do it in the first place, they'd need a way to undo it. What if one person in a pairing died? That would leave the other without support. They'd want to be able to 'reset' the change so they could set up that person in another pairing…" "What if they just made it so half the population were set up one way and the others were set up the other way and anyone could get a transfusion from someone else?" She considered that, her lower lip briefly pressing upwards in thought. "That's a possibility, sir. It would mean they wouldn't have to worry so much about having to reset the change each time someone died - and would make it harder for us to be changed back." Her sideways glance held amusement and reproof. "Aren't you supposed to be the optimistic one, sir?" "I'm taking a vacation." "Did you put in the leave application form?" "Ah, see, I knew there was something I forgot to do before we left." She laughed and Janet turned around, brows arching inquiringly at Jack. He spread his hands wide and gave her his best 'Who, me?' look and she turned back to Major Griff. It wasn't a good situation - Jack knew that. Apart from the gossip - which, thankfully, Fraiser and Warner had managed to keep to a minimum - there was also the fact that he and Carter were now 'linked' through this blood-transfusion thing. At least, that was according to the little Fraiser had been able to tell him about Daniel's transmission back to the SGC. Not that he had a problem with Carter, per se. Jack had eyes and he could see perfectly well out of them; but while Carter looked good, the situation didn't. They already had greyish marks on their records with regards to 'over the line' behaviour - grey marks that were only stopped from becoming black by the grace of Hammond. Truthfully, Jack didn't give a stuff about his own career - he'd done his time, paid his dues, said his thing; but Carter was still young enough to have a bright future in the AF. He had no problems with screwing himself up, except that he'd no longer be able to take care of his team; but to screw up Carter's career would be a bigger mistake than even he was willing to make, both as her CO and as her friend. Hopefully, Daniel would be a bit more explicit about exactly what had happened to them in the chamber when it was just a few people he trusted. Jack wanted to know exactly what was wrong and what was happening to him - and what the ramifications of it were. And, of course, how the hell to get back to normal. No way was he gonna fly a desk while his team was out getting themselves into trouble. No way. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. Hell could freeze over and take his balls with it first. Carter's question broke into his determined thoughts. "After this is over, do you think the General will be sending a team of scientists out here to look at the technology?" "Permission to join the research team denied, Major. Ah!" He held up one hand as she opened her mouth to protest. "I'll be telling Daniel exactly the same thing." He needed his people where he could keep an eye on them. Exasperation flickered over her face. "Actually, I wasn't going to ask for a temporary transfer, sir. I was just curious." "Oh." He hadn't expected that. "Well, Fraiser seemed pretty excited by the possibilities. I'm kinda surprised that you weren't drooling at the prospect of studying that stuff…" "It is interesting," she admitted. "But after what's happened…" A corner of her mouth pulled up in a lopsided smile. "I'd still love the chance to look at it - but the initial fascination isn't as strong." Jack followed her gaze down to the city, where there were three figures coming up the road towards them. "You may have to argue with Daniel, though." Jack snorted, amused affection for their teammate coming through. "I may have to argue with Daniel?" Carter just grinned as the figures approached them and Daniel's voice wafted up towards them on the acidic breeze. "Hey guys!" * "I was standing here, she was standing there. The walls began to glow, I ran for the exits and zap!" Colonel O'Neill threw his hands up in the air. "What more info do you want?" "Sam?" Daniel looked tired and anxious. He was really taking this whole guilt thing pretty badly - and the Colonel's attitude wasn't helping much. Admittedly, he was unnerved about the whole 'controlled vampirism' thing, which Daniel and Satterfield had explained to them on their way down to the city, but so was Sam and she didn't think she was being irritable and moody. Mind you, irritable and moody was mother's milk for the Colonel on a bad day. "That's pretty much what happened on my side, too, Daniel." Daniel sighed and pulled off his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "Then I'm stuck. No ideas left right now." "I think we all need a break," the Colonel declared, surprising them. "I could do with something to…eat…" Halfway through his sentence the realisation sank in as to exactly what his sustenance now was. Sam grimaced and left her side of the chamber without another word. Janet moved to intercept her and she held up one hand. "Not right now, Janet." Inside the corridor leading from the chamber, she picked up her fatigue jacket and turned to her friend. "I'm going for a quick walk out in the city. I'll take my radio so you can contact me." Janet hesitated, then nodded. At least she understood what a strain the situation was. "Okay. I'll let the others know. Just don't go too far - or be gone too long." Sam nodded. She got out of the building before Daniel or the Colonel caught her. While she could put Janet off, the guys were harder to send away - particularly the Colonel who outranked her during off-world missions. The streets were bare and grey and the wind gusted through the crumbling and rotting structures. Again the chill emptiness of the place struck her like a blow to the gut: the sheer desolation of the city. These people, with all their knowledge and their technology, had eventually come to nothing. They'd found a way to change their body chemistry so one person could eat from the produce of the land, while the other found sustenance from the body of the first. It was, in an abstract way, a very clever solution for a resource problem. It was in the practicalities of the situation that Sam found herself stuck. If things had ever looked questionable between her and the Colonel, Sam had always been careful to keep things professional between them. She didn't have the latitude of Daniel and Teal'c - both as an officer of the USAF and as a woman in a position of great influence and respect in a military organisation. Being friends was easy enough - and yet still fraught with pitfalls in the form of gossip and rumours. So the situation was unnerving. Oh they'd find a solution, all right - the question was how this would affect their working relationship. Just as things had been tense for a while after the memory stamps of P3R-118, this would interrupt the easy friendship they'd been developing these last few years. Absently, she kept track of which turns she took, where she traversed the streets and roads of the deserted city. Glass windows were shattered; cement crumbled, and here and there glinted the rusty-red spark of corroded metal. The central building was the most distinctive - built in an almost cathedral-like style, while those around it looked merely like the standard buildings of any major US city. Blocky steel-and-glass constructions, left abandoned and presumably deserted when the population began dying. She paused at the entrance to one of the buildings, glancing in at the desk, which stood there - the iron and wood structure visibly rotted away. It looked like this place hadn't been cleared out before the people who worked here died. Stepping over shards of broken glass into the foyer-like area, she peered with curiosity at the boxy structure sitting on the desk. This civilisation's equivalent of a computer? Other things had survived, too. A coffee mug balanced precariously on the edge of the desk and next to the boxy object was a wide-lipped ceramic bowl - probably used for the paraphernalia of office equipment. It stood empty now - coated with layers of dust. A brief whimsy touched Sam: if she opened the drawers of the ancient and decaying desk, would she find the odds and ends of someone's working life on this planet as it had been at the time that their race died out? Like Pompeii, she mused, glancing around the room. History and archaeology were Daniel's specialties, of course, but over the years Sam had developed a casual interest in such things archaeological - in the same way that Daniel had deepened his interest in things scientific through his association with her. Disaster struck and they left the bits and pieces of their life behind. The radio interrupted her thoughts with a click and a hiss. "Carter? Where are you?" Sam briefly contemplated not answering at all, but her silence'd only worry him. "I'm in one of the buildings, sir." "Which one? You might like to come out, Griff and Harris don't think these buildings are all that safe." Emerging into the street, she looked up and down the length of it and spotted the tall lean figure of her commanding officer standing along the next junction of the streets. "Just down from you, sir." He turned, saw her and began walking towards her, holding something in his hands. As he got closer, Sam realised it was an MRE - apparently heated, since it was steaming in his hand - her lunch. "Found anything interesting?" "Just an empty office," Sam indicated the shattered plate-glass and the desk which stood solitary in the semi-darkness of the building remains. "Well…" He glanced down at the MRE in his hands, "I…brought you lunch. Janet figured you probably wouldn't want company right now, so she sent me with lunch and a transfusion bag…" He trailed off, looking like he wanted to scuff his boots. Sam stifled the brief spurt of irritation at their state of affairs and took the MRE from him. "Thanks, sir." "It's still pretty hot," he commented dryly, handing her a fork. "So don't wolf it down the way you've been eating everything else lately." She glared at him, but didn't respond verbally. The first attempt at peeling back the cover of the MRE with one hand was unsuccessful and in the end, she had to get the Colonel to hold it while she opened it. Then, as she balanced it in one hand with her fork in the other, she stepped back into the gloom of the lobby. "Carter…" "It should be relatively safe, sir," she said around a mouthful of mushroom-and-beef something. Probably made with chicken, too. Frankly, Sam didn't care what it was; for an MRE it tasted absolutely divine. One of the benefits of the change - one of the very few benefits. "See, it's the relatively bit that has me worried." But he stepped over the threshold into the lobby and walked over the crackle of glass and dust to the desk. "Daniel's gonna love this," he said, echoing her earlier thoughts. "As if he isn't already in love with the building." A grimace crossed his face and Sam instinctively knew he was thinking about the activation of the chamber they'd gotten caught in. "You've been fairly short with Daniel lately, sir." That was a cautious enough way to tell her CO that he was being an asshole. Sometimes he realised and acted on it on his own, sometimes he needed a little push. "He did get us into this mess." The restless fingers, deprived of the MRE to hold, were tracing patterns into the dust on the table. "He's working to get us out of it." "I know. I'm just…hell, it would be nice if once in a while he wouldn't get us into trouble." The Colonel picked up the ceramic bowl and examined it absently. "That's unfair, sir. We've all had our share of getting into trouble." "His just seem to be the most memorable. It's not like we're back in our first year as SG-1, Carter. He knows not to touch things when he doesn't know what they do…" "He's Daniel." That was explanation enough. "Yeah." The bowl was replaced on the table, but upturned. In an absently affectionate gesture, the Colonel patted the domed base of the bowl, and then glanced up to meet Sam's amused gaze. "What?" "Well, you're touching that…" "It's a bowl, Carter. What kind of damage is it going to cause?" She had to concede the point. Her fork scraped the bottom of the tray and the noise dragged his attention from the desk and the upturned bowl. Dark eyes fixed on her. "Did you want to go back to the others?" She didn't particularly want to, but, as the previous day had shown, after meals was a dangerous time for her. "Yeah." They meandered out to the street, Sam tapping the empty MRE tray against her hand in absent rhythms. "You never answered my question about a science and research team coming out here, sir." "We originally came here for the tech, Carter. And since we don't have to argue with anyone's beliefs about the wrongness of giving tech to 'primitive' people, fight a war, or make questionable allies to gain the technology, I think it's pretty safe to say that Hammond will be sending a follow up team to bring back what they can find." He caught the look in her eye, "But not us. I thought you said you didn't want to study this place anymore." "It's still a bit unnerving…but it's fascinating. The power of a technology which can change a person's body chemistry. This is way beyond anything we have, or anything we've seen in most civilisations. The closest similarity would be the creation of the primta among the Jaffa - destroying their immune system and…" The ache struck suddenly. Her whole body throbbed and her temples were experiencing twinges in something like the start of a headache. The sensation spun her off-balance and she felt her legs give way. "Carter!" He caught her arm, levering her up and she grabbed hold of his shoulder, grateful for the support. "Guess it's time for that transfusion, huh?" She'd dropped the tray and the fork, leaving them to rattle around on the ground. The Colonel had turned to face her, his hands under her arms holding her up. Sam concentrated on breathing - Janet said that as her bone marrow started producing excess red blood cells, the capillaries in her lungs would get swollen and she might have a hard time breathing. He let her down gently to the kerb and sat down beside her with a wince, pulling out the transfusion bag. "Okay, I've only done this a couple of times so…if I puncture a couple of veins in the process…we'll have matching bruises." In spite of the dizziness, Sam laughed and offered her arm out as he rolled up her sleeve. "Don't think I'm taking advantage of you here, Carter," he added as he carefully felt for the vein along her inner arm. "Wouldn't dream of it, sir," she replied, still smiling. The needle went in smoothly and the blood began seeping into the bag resting in her lap. In the absence of anything to lean back on, she let herself drift sideways a little, so the Colonel's shoulder was bolstering her. While he gave her a sharp look, he didn't say anything about it, but kept up a stream of chatter as he attended to her arm, everything from Satterfield's crush on Daniel, to Griff and Harris' reports on the surrounding city. The talk worried her a bit. While he wasn't a man of few words, he wasn't the kind of person to fill in gaps just because they needed filling. Something was bothering him - and she was willing to bet it was their situation, probably for the same reasons it was bothering her. As the dizziness faded and breathing became easier, Sam managed to ask, "Are you okay, sir?" Dark eyes glanced over at her and she saw him briefly contemplate some diversionary comment, before he said, "I haven't collapsed yet." There was another pause before he glanced at her, meeting her gaze with shadowed directness. "I wonder how they actually did the blood exchange." Sam had wondered herself - but she wasn't sure she'd like the answer. "It would have to be…neat, sir. At three meals a day, transfusions would be messy." As would…other forms of blood transfer. She didn't say the words though. He understood her allusion. "To say nothing of bad for the veins," he muttered as the bag quickly filled. "Do you think this is gonna be enough?" "You're the one who'll have to have it transfused to you, sir. Do you think it's enough?" "I hardly have any idea of how to judge…" He grimaced. "Okay." He pulled a wad of tissue and pressed it down over the entry point, pulling the needle out. "Hold that down, will you?" She pressed down on it as he looked for somewhere to put the needle down so he could roll up his own sleeve. "Are you going to use the same needle?" Sam reached to take the needle from him and after a moment, he laid it in her hand. "Doc said there wasn't any reason not to…" He was rolling up his sleeve as he spoke. "You don't have any diseases, Carter - and if you did, then I'm in trouble anyway…" One hand reached for the needle, but she pulled it away from him. "You're supposed to be holding that down," the Colonel indicated the tissue as he spoke. "It's fine, sir." She handed him the bag. "Hold this up, it needs gravity." "Bossy," he muttered. Sam ignored the jibe and began looking for veins in his already-bruised arm. His skin was warm under her fingers as she sought a vein that hadn't already collapsed. "Got a swab?" "Doc didn't give me any. Just stick it in, I've had worse." She knew he had and carefully slid the needle into his outstretched arm. "Hold the bag up high, sir." The transfusion was completed without any trouble, although halfway through he complained that the arm holding the bag up was getting sore. Sam got him to hold the needle where it was and took the bag from him as it deflated. "No dizziness?" she asked as the remnants of the bag drained into him and she pulled out the needle. "None." He took a deep breath as Sam put the tip cap back on the needle and wound the used transfusion bag around it. "Although that may change when I stand up," he added. "When I finally feel like standing up, anyway." Sam understood how he felt. She wasn't in any mood to move either. The wind, previously unnoticed, whistled around them with biting chill. "We're okay, aren't we?" It was an unexpected question from him. If anything, she'd have expected him to avoid the topic. "Yeah." They were friends and colleagues and they were okay. She'd worry about dealing with any ramifications later. "I'd like to know how they did it, though." He snorted, amused affection at her comment. "I'd like to know how to undo it, Carter." "That too, sir." More silence. A comfortable and pleasant peace in a place of desolation. "Guess we'd better head back before Doc decides we've both collapsed. She handed me the bag and the dinner and told me to be back in ten or she'd send Teal'c looking for us." "It might be a bit late for that, sir." Sam indicated the tall man making his stately way towards them. "O'Neill, Major Carter," his eyes ran over them both. "Dr. Fraiser and Daniel Jackson were concerned about your absence." "We're fine, Teal'c." The Colonel's gesture encompassed them both. "See? No collapses." Teal'c regarded first one, then the other. "I see, O'Neill. Since you are well, Major Carter, Dr. Fraiser would like to see you back at the chamber - she wishes to consult with you regarding the technology of these people." "Thanks, Teal'c." With a half-smile at her teammates, Sam headed back the way she'd come. The distant rattle and scrape of boots on cement behind her indicated that her friends were following at a more leisurely pace. She made her way back along the deserted streets to the central building and let her mind wander as her feet kept the pace. Within her, the scientist wanted to know how the transfer had taken place, but the military officer was adamantly against it - it would only cause trouble. Sam refused to think about the consequences if they couldn't undo what had happened to her and the Colonel. It would probably mean his retirement, almost certainly their reputation and definitely SG-1. Positive thinking. They will find a solution for this. In the lobby of the building Daniel was still studying the glyphs all over the walls. His head turned as he heard her come in and he turned to her. "Hey. Are you okay? Jack went after you…" "Yeah, he found me," she answered easily. "I'm fine." She caught the very intent, penetrating stare. "Really." "Okay." He didn't look like he believed her, but he was willing to let it stand. "How's the translation going?" She looked over the pattern of writing on the walls. "Have we found anything interesting?" "Oh, there's interesting stuff," Daniel said wryly. "Just nothing that looks like it'll help you and Jack." His eyebrows moved anxiously across his forehead, "Are you sure you're okay?" Sam shook her head in resignation and walked past him. "I'm going to talk to Janet." "I guess that's a yes," she heard him mutter behind her. Janet was found in the chamber, leaning against one of the walls while reading a notepad. A little way away Lieutenant Satterfield was standing in the middle of the chamber staring at the glass wall dividing the central chamber into two halves. Janet was shaking her head. "Is Daniel's writing usually this difficult to decipher?" Sam took a glance at the scrawls on the notepad Janet showed her. "It can get worse. That's actually quite good." "Ah," Janet grimaced. "I never had to read his notes before they got typed up by some unfortunate airman." She heaved a big sigh and put the notes down. "Dinner was okay, then?" "Dinner was fine." "And the transfer?" "Fine." Janet nodded. "Well, you seem okay and I haven't heard any yells from outside, which means that the Colonel hasn't yet collapsed…" She sighed, "We're not any closer to getting a cure for you, though." Sam touched her friend's shoulder. "Yeah, I know. Daniel said the same thing." "Uh…Major Carter?" Satterfield's tentative inquiry came from across the room. "Lieutenant?" "In your report to General Hammond you mentioned touching the wall between the two sides of the chamber. But Dr. Jackson doesn't have any record of it in his report." "Daniel was in the corridor at the time," Sam said. "That was how the Colonel and I got caught in the chamber." The Lieutenant indicated the wall. "Do you remember which symbol you touched?" Sam walked over to the part of the chamber where she'd been and began looking at the symbols carved into the glass. "Not really, I'm afraid," she said. It was something of a struggle to remember exactly what she'd touched - she hadn't been paying attention to the actual glyphs. "It was about the level of my shoulder…somewhere around here…" "Was it one of the symbols carved all the way through the glass, or only halfway?" Satterfield came over to where she was standing and studied some of the symbols. "All the way through. I poked my fingers through the hole and the Colonel prodded them." Sam stared at the young Lieutenant. "You think…" "Ma'am, almost all the symbols below six feet are ancient Chinese medical terms. This one means 'growth', that one means 'shock'. The one Dr. Fraiser is about to touch means 'fertility'." Sam turned in time to see Janet yank her hand back, alarmed. "So, what symbol do you think Major Carter touched, Lieutenant?" "Judging by the symptoms she's exhibiting…probably this one, ma'am." Satterfield indicated a symbol just beside her. "This one means 'balance'." A step away from the wall improved Sam's ability to see the symbol the Lieutenant was pointing at. "I guess…" She tilted her head and tried to envisage how everything had looked when she'd been caught in the chamber. "Yeah, it could be." "You think the chamber was used to cure all different kinds of diseases, not just set up the population in balance with each other?" Lieutenant Satterfield was a lot more cautious about declaring an opinion than Daniel. "It seems that way, ma'am." "So touching it again and submitting to the…the process should reverse it?" Janet asked. "It's just a suggestion, ma'am." Janet looked to Sam. "I guess we don't have much else to lose." * Of course, it didn't work. Maybe it was the tinny taste of the air, or the desolation of the planet, but Daniel could feel a headache coming on as he paced the chamber. "We're missing something…something…" He hated not being able to solve a problem. "Daniel, sit down," Jack ordered from the other side of the glass. "You're making me restless." Daniel looked from Sam, leaning against the wall on his side of the chamber, to Jack, visible through the glass. "I'm making you restless?" Jack was the king of restlessness. They'd tried various combinations. Sam poked her fingers through the hole again, Jack touched them, and Daniel activated the chamber. Jack and Sam swapped sides and they repeated the process. No change, although Jack tried some gum and seemed to find it okay-tasting. They discussed touching other symbols, but Janet was concerned - especially since some of the symbols seemed a little vague as far as description of what changes were effected on the subjects. They were all inside the chamber, discussing the options left to them. Satterfield seemed depressed that her idea hadn't worked and was looking through the notes and muttering to herself. Teal'c was inspecting the board that operated the chamber and Janet was somewhere outside. Then Sam fainted. She just folded up like a rag doll, sliding down the partition wall. Satterfield yelped as Sam nearly collapsed on top of her. Daniel yelled for Janet as he got under Sam and laid her out, frantically checking for a pulse. Jack's cry of, "Carter!" echoed through the partition and a moment later the radios buzzed with Teal'c's voice. "Dr. Fraiser, Major Carter requires your assistance in the chamber now!" Sam was breathing, but her pulse was racing and her eyes had rolled into the back of her head. Daniel felt her skin - cold and slightly clammy. "Get some blankets," he ordered Satterfield. The girl scrambled to her feet and ran for the equipment just outside the chamber. A moment later, Janet was kneeling beside her, "What happened?" "She collapsed… Just fainted…" Janet checked Sam's pulse, gently feeling either side of her throat and frowned in concern. "She usually eats first…" She pulled out the transfusion bag with the needle. "Where's Colonel O'Neill?" "Jack?" Daniel thumbed the radio on as Janet inserted the needle into Sam's arm. "We're coming, Daniel…" A moment later, two shadowy figures appeared in the corridor and began pelting towards them. "Doc?" "It's not filling up…" Panic flitted across Janet's face and she pulled the needle out. "She's not producing the blood cells, but we can't feed her while she's unconscious…" Something was trying to get Daniel's attention like a banner waving in the corner of his mind's eye. Something significant…they were missing something significant… "Can we give her…I dunno…an IV drip or something?" Understanding seared itself into his brain like synaptic lightning. "We don't need to," Daniel interrupted, looking at Jack. "You need to eat. Then we'll transfer her blood to you." They stared at him in surprise. "Hang on, Daniel," Janet held up her hands, "You're saying that when we swapped them around…" "We also changed their body chemistry - in the opposite way. So now Sam is dependant on Jack's blood. That's why she fainted." Please, just take my word for it. Sam doesn't have the time for an argument. Perhaps some of his urgency was evident in his expression, because Jack just raised his hands. "Okay, whatever. But I can't take any food from her if she's unconscious, Daniel…" That was a problem. Solved easily enough. Daniel fished a ration bar out of his pocket and placed it in Sam's hand. "Take it." After a hard glance at Daniel, Jack did so, opened it and began to eat. 'Eat' was the generic term for what happened to the ration bar. It vanished in seconds as Jack wolfed it down. Janet met Daniel's eyes and Daniel quickly scrabbled through his pockets for something else - damn, it looked like he was going to have to hand over… Jack eyed the Musketeers candy bar Daniel placed in Sam's hand while Teal'c turned on his heel to get an MRE. "You've been holding out on us, Daniel." "On this planet I'll take all the bonuses I can get, Jack," Daniel defended. They weren't supposed to sneak anything non-standard off Earth in case of contaminating ecological balances of other planets, but considering this planet didn't have an ecological balance to speak of, he'd felt okay about bringing a stash of candy through. The candy bar was rapidly consumed and on the other side of Sam, Satterfield's eyes were big as saucers. After all, it wasn't every day that a junior officer watched a senior officer seriously lose his table manners. Janet was busy monitoring Sam's state. "Her pulse is stable, but not as strong or steady as I like…" "Hey, if there was something else to eat…" An MRE was handed from Teal'c to Daniel, who laid it in Sam's limp hand. Jack picked it out a moment later and began eating with relish. "Dow, if Garber hab saib…" Jack swallowed a mouthful of thick gloopy substance. "If Carter had said how good this stuff tastes when you're changed, I'd have let her be the…" he paused in speech, still chewing thoughtfully, "…the whatever-it-is-she-is-now from the very beginning…" Janet was issuing orders to Satterfield to collect the sleeping gear to fit around Sam while Jack munched away at the MRE. As the gear came, she glanced over at Daniel, standing at a loose end. "We haven't got any leads in the translations?" He shook his head. "Janet, I don't even know what we're looking for." They'd gone over different panels in the walls, trying to work out how the chamber operated, to get a clearer idea of what it did and what it could do. How it did what it did would have to be looked at later. Right now, the priority was to undo whatever had happened to Jack and Sam. Easier said than done. Daniel sighed and levered himself up using the glass partition, just as Janet ordered Jack to sit down and prepare himself for the transfusion. Taking a step back from the wall, Daniel studied the writings again. The partition wasn't very thick - not much wider than the width of Daniel's middle finger. The symbols carved all over the glass were about the size of a man's hand. Those carved all the way through the wall were smooth-edged, while the ones carved only halfway into the glass were rougher - not quite frosted, but close. Satterfield came up beside him, staring at the glyphs on the wall. "I'm sorry my idea didn't help, Doctor." He gave her a brief smile. "Well we worked out how to operate the chamber at least. It's just a question of working out which glyphs mean what…" It occurred to him that Satterfield was no longer paying attention to him. Her gaze had drifted beyond to where Sam had collapsed. Janet, it seemed, had gone to fetch something from the bulk of their equipment outside the chamber. In the meantime she had left Teal'c to keep an eye on the officers and the tall man was down on one knee, his gaze intent on the man who had crouched down beside Sam. Sensing Daniel's gaze on him, Teal'c looked at Daniel, his expression both confused and concerned. Jack had his back against the glass wall dividing the chamber to keep his balance. There was a wince on his face - probably as his position agitated his bad knee. Without paying any attention to anyone else in the room, he began easing their still-unconscious teammate into a sitting position, fending off Teal'c's attempts to get him to stop. Sam's head lolled on her shoulder and Jack carefully leaned it back until it was resting over his shoulder. Then he leaned forward, his throat lying against hers, staring at a point some few feet in front of him with an intent expression. Moments passed and Satterfield whispered, "What is he doing?" "I don't know," Daniel said, walking towards his friends. Jack's complete absorption in whatever happening was disconcerting and Sam looked peculiarly vulnerable in her unconsciousness. There was a swift, indrawn breath from the door as Janet came in. "What…?" She moved briskly over to where the two officers sat. "Teal'c?" "I believe that O'Neill and Major Carter are enacting the blood transfer." Daniel had to hand it to Janet; she only blinked once before her mind accepted this and the questions piled up in her expression. She didn't give them voice, though - not yet. Whether Teal'c had spoken from a guess, on instinct, or from careful observation, Daniel admitted that his friend was probably right. In spite of his initial fears about vampirism, the transfer of blood from person to person would have had to be easily achieved. Considering that the transfer took the place of a meal, actual vampirism was messy and would have damaged the physiology of the population, possibly more than even this chamber could fix. Why not a hug? Jugular to jugular, a hug would provide the physical closeness necessary for such a transfer without necessarily requiring a deeper intimacy. There was the problem of the actual blood transfer…but if they could cause bone marrow to begin over-producing blood cells in one person, while causing blood cells to die off in another person and creating a protein which enabled the two blood types to merge… If they could change human physiology, then surely a localised transportation of matter from one place to another - the matter being blood and the place being one person's body to the next - was an easy exercise. Sam shifted, eyes fluttering. Her movement appeared to galvanise Jack, for he blinked twice and shifted himself so Sam's head was just resting on his shoulder. "Carter?" Her eyes flew open. "Sir?" She sat up, breaking the contact with her commanding officer and regarding him with surprise. One hand went to her forehead, rather like a person getting up the morning after a big night drinking. "Ohhh…" "Are you okay, Sam?" Janet knelt down beside both Colonel and Major and began visually checking them over. "A bit dizzy…I think I fainted." "You did," Jack offered. "Very inelegantly, too, I might add." One corner of Sam's mouth pulled up in a reproving but amused glance. "Thank you for the appraisal, sir." "Quite welcome, Carter." Janet seemed intent on checking everything over for both her patients. When Jack eased himself back up again - noticeably using the wall as leverage, she ordered him to stay put while she checked Sam over. Jack glanced over at Daniel and arched his brows. "Do I have something painted on my forehead?" The rustle of notes indicated that Satterfield had found something infinitely more interesting than staring at a superior officer, but Daniel stared back for a moment longer, refusing to back down, before he pursed his lips and went back to studying the wall. Questions could wait for later - until after he'd worked this out. And as he stared back at the blue-green wall with its carved glyphs, Daniel realised how he could get his friends back to normal. * "For every symbol carved through the wall's surface, there's another one exactly like it which is only carved halfway into the surface," Daniel Jackson declared, much like a conjuror producing the fabled rabbit from his hat. "Jack and Sam touched each other through this symbol carved through the wall." He pointed at the relevant marking, "Now there's the same symbol carved over here on this side of the wall," he indicated a section of the glass partition to his left, "And the symbol is carved over there on that side of the wall." Teal'c pondered his friend's statement. It wasn't that he didn't trust Daniel Jackson's judgement, only that the concept, which this planet and its people had used for the continued survival, was…unusual. "So the Colonel and I have to touch the half-carved symbols before the chamber is activated to have this thing reversed?" "That's my theory." Major Carter looked at Colonel O'Neill who returned her gaze. "I guess we might as well give it a go," he shrugged. They cleared out the chamber once again, only Major Carter and O'Neill remaining behind. "So what are we supposed to do, Daniel?" "Touch the carving," came the long-suffering reply through the radio. After a moment, "Are you ready?" "Ready, Daniel." That was Major Carter, her serene voice projecting none of her concerns about playing 'guinea pig'. "Ready as we'll ever be." Once again, there was the brilliant flash of light, superimposing strange images on the insides of Teal'c's closed eyelids. The matter of being caught in the chamber had been surmised to be mildly debilitating to Teal'c and his primta, but both had recovered after a time. Nobody else had expressed an interest in seeing what the chamber did to human physiology without the benefit of having touched the symbols in the wall. They ventured cautiously into the chamber, Major Griff tossing O'Neill a rations bar as Dr. Fraiser offered Sam a piece of chocolate which had apparently been filched from Daniel Jackson's 'stash'. The two officers ate and stared at each other through the partition. "Tastes fine to me, Carter," O'Neill said at last. "You?" "Normal, sir." There was a pleased smile on Major Carter's face. Similar smiles began appearing on the faces of the other people present. "Doc?" "Well, I'll have to run more thorough tests, but it looks like things have been sorted out." Janet glanced up at the light that A deep sigh escaped O'Neill. "Good. Now, can we go back home? I'm in dire need of a steak so bloody it's still breathing." "Actually, Jack, I was hoping…" O'Neill was undeterred. "You're going to be disappointed you know." "Like I said, I was hoping…" "Permission denied, Daniel." The tone of voice was amused but firm. O'Neill would not be gainsaid on this matter. A big sigh issued from Daniel Jackson as he and O'Neill headed for their exit corridor. Major Carter's mouth quirked at the exchange and she exchanged smiles with Dr. Fraiser as they left the chamber. "It seems incredible that they developed such a powerful piece of technology and yet couldn't save themselves," the Doctor murmured, staring up at the filtered light of the distant sun. Walking ahead of her, Teal'c recalled other civilisations which had been technologically powerful, but who had not been able to save their people or their world from destruction. In particular, the Tollan had possessed powerful weaponry, but had not been able to save either themselves or their morals in the end. "You'll have a chance to study it later, Janet," Major Carter said, half-laughingly. "Right now, I just want to go home. For once, I'm more than happy to leave the study of this stuff to someone else - at least as long as it's on this planet. A steak - slightly better cooked than Colonel O'Neill's recipe - sounds perfect." On cue, the radios buzzed. "Hey, Teal'c, Carter - what do you say we do O'Malleys tonight?" Teal'c allowed himself a smile. It would naturally be O'Neill who organised the outing. "O'Neill, are you certain that you, Major Carter and Daniel Jackson are permitted upon those premises?" "Hey, it's been two years…they're under new management now…I think we're safe." "As long as Daniel doesn't start any more fights when people call him names," the Major said cheekily into her radio. Daniel Jackson protested, "That was under special circumstances…" Major Carter continued to gently tease Daniel Jackson as Teal'c reflected on the people of P5W-709 and his friends. The balance of life between the paired population reflected the balance of relationships between any society of social beings. It was a balance which SG-1 themselves had showed through the years - trusted friends and close team-mates - a balance which waxed and waned from crisis to crisis and yet which ultimately held true in all times. The state that had been placed upon O'Neill and Major Carter had been a physical and medical representation of the emotional and mental reliance that Teal'c's teammates had on each other. Indeed, it represented the reliance of all SG-1 on each other and on the people around them - Dr. Fraiser, General Hammond and the many people who worked at the SGC. No man - or Jaffa - was an island. Certainly not when that man, woman, or Jaffa was a member of SG-1. *
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