"So three weeks in a palace by the beach?" Jack smiled, then turned to Teal'c, you don't have to hang around. Why don't you head back and let Hammond know what's going on?" he insisted.
"Very well", Teal'c nodded. Loren bowed his head down like a child, "And then you'll leave?"
Jack looked over at Carter who was jotting something down on paper, "I think we all will. Right?" Carter looked up with satisfaction, "Yeah. He should return to normal with the rest of us."
Loren smiled widely, "I can go with you?"
Jack patted the boy on the back, "Sure. Come on. Let's go see Teal'c off," they walked out of the light room, and to the steps of the Stargate, "You like ice cream?"
Loren frowned, "What's ice cream?"
Teal'c turned around before going through the Stargate, "is there anything you will need, O'Neil?"
"Tell Hammond to send some food, sleeping bags and a carton of Cherry Garcia."
"Cherry Garcia?" Teal'c questioned while he walked through the Stargate.
"Col., can you come in here?" Sam called to Jack from the light room. Loren followed quickly, "what is it?"
"Well, I was doing some calculations and I think we may be here longer then I thought."
"What do you mean?" Jack frowned.
"Well, you see, I thought that by lowering the amount of energy or radiation slowly, that it would finally dissolve and we wouldn't go into any type of withdrawals-"
"But?" Jack interrupted.
"Well, if Daniel decoded the writings on the wall correctly, then this code he couldn't deceiver may be the quantity of the amount of the drug in the device. And if that were true, then even if we did lower the amount coming out, it may still have an effect on us because there's more of it left."
"So, if we blast this thing on, then it'll all go out, problem solved."
"That's not a good idea sir, we would surly die. And it wouldn't be instantaneous. Our systems would slowly shut down, our blood flow would become clumped-"
"Ok. Bad idea. What were you thinking?" Jack asked as Daniel came in with a paper and pen.
"I think the best thing to do is to lower it as far as we can without turning it off. That way, when it does run out we wont go into a huge withdrawal, and the only downside is that we will be here longer depending on how much is left in the machine."
"How do we find out how much is left?"
"Well," Daniel interrupted, "this machine has been on since Loran was a boy, it could be years more, or minutes. There's no telling."
"Great," Jack nodded his head, "Loran, is there anyway to check how much is left in it?"
Loran thought for a moment, "there may be."
"Anything would be great," Daniel prompted Loran. The boy disappeared for a few moments then came back with a small triangle shaped stone.
"My mother gave this to me, she told me never to lose it," he said while feeling around underneath the machine. Finally he felt something familiar, he slid the stone into the spot and everything began to shake.
"Everyone back!" Jack pushed everyone behind him as he noticed something coming up from the ground. Everyone's mouths dropped open when a tiny hourglass implanted in a gigantic triangular stone rose all the way up to the ceiling.
"That's interesting," Jack nodded his head then slowly turned to Carter who had a grip on his arm. She let go inconspicuously, never making eye contact with him.
"It's an hourglass," Daniel examined it carefully.
"How much time is on it?" Carter asked. Loran looked at it carefully, "I'd say about 7 moons."
"7 moons?" Jack questioned. Daniel was quickly adding up the time in his head, "That's approximately six months…or years?"
"Years?" Jack's eyes grew large.
"No. Months… I think," Daniel scratched his head.
"Alright, here's the plan. We'll stay here six months, and if there is no improvement at that time we will go to plan B. I'm going to call Hammond," Jack shook his head and went back into the gate room, "from three weeks to six months. Oh joy."
TBC