Shawn was getting pretty desperate. Not that he hadn't been desperate before, but things were getting worse and worse as far as he was concerned. He looked at the watch that Daniel had given him for his birthday and decided he'd been in the ship for about eight hours, and lost for the majority of that time. He'd had no luck with the sensors on the ship. They'd told him that the planet had a fairly earth-like atmosphere, but that was about it. And he only knew that because he knew what the Earth's atmosphere was made of, so he'd recognized the same elements when they flashed on the heads-up. He didn't know if there were people down there. Or Goa'uld. Or a Stargate, which he was beginning to think may be his best bet for getting home. But the worst of it was, Shawn really had to pee, and holding it was starting to be painful.

He was going to have to decide sooner or later – sooner, really – if he was going to try landing on this planet, or not. And he wasn't actually all that certain that he could land the thing without crashing. He was pretty sure he could. He'd done that on the simulator enough times.

He decided that he'd go down and do a low-level flight over the planet. If there were people on the planet, he could avoid them seeing him by using the cloaking device, which he DID know how to employ. And if there were Goa'uld, he'd be able to avoid them as well, and know that it wasn't a place to stop. Not even to pee.

The boy nodded, although there wasn't anyone around to see the motion, and took a deep breath. Reentry wasn't such a big deal in an Asgard ship, except that it was the first time Shawn had done it, which made it a bit spooky. He angled the ship properly; and felt the beginnings of turbulence. He knew from the lessons he'd been taking with the Asgard that the forces outside his Attacker should be ripping the craft to pieces and burning it up, but the shields and the aerodynamics of the craft were so well balanced that all Shawn really had to do was keep the nose up a bit and make sure that his shields were actually engaged. Which he'd done immediately. This was the only time he'd be exposed, since the cloaking device couldn't hide the heat signature of reentry, so he tried to angle his descent as sharply as he dared, hoping to go down as swiftly as possible.

~*~

"This isn't your fault, you know?"

Jack looked up and saw that Carter had entered his office without him noticing.

"Did you draw the short straw?"

Sam shook her head. "Daniel did, but I took pity on him."

Jack sighed. "You shouldn't have bothered. I know it's not my fault. Well, most of it isn't anyways. It's Thor's fault."

"Then why are you-"

"Sitting in here? What do you call it? Brooding?"

Sam nodded.

"What am I supposed to do, Sam? I can't go look for him. The Asgard can't find him, I'm certainly not going to be able to climb into an F-15 or a Stealth and go find him. If I knew where he was, I'd go get him."

"I know."

"A million things could have happened to him."

"I know."

"If the Goa'uld-"

"They won't."

"You don't know that."

"I have to believe it."

The door opened again, and Daniel and Teal'c came in.

"Damn it, Daniel. Knock first-"

"You don't knock on my door."

"Oh..." Jack sighed. He just didn't have the heart to have one of those conversations with Daniel just then. No matter how much fun they normally were. "Fine. Come in."

He and Teal'c came and sat in the chairs by O'Neill's desk. Brand new chairs, since no one ever came to O'Neill's office. Sam was sitting on the edge of his desk.

"You know..." Daniel said softly, more to break the silence. "You gotta wonder just what the Asgard were trying to train Shawn to do."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Anyone can learn to pilot an Attacker," Daniel said. "One pilot isn't going to make much difference as far as the battle with the Goa'uld is concerned. What else do they want from him?"

Jack's eyes went speculative.

"Good point. What did Thor say they were teaching him, Carter?" He hadn't been really listening, but he knew Sam had.

"Languages, Science, Math and History." Carter replied after a moment's thought.

Jack couldn't see anything in the four that might have something to do with an Asgard agenda that had nothing to do with the Goa'uld. Of course, he didn't really expect to. But he was hoping one of the others would, and they were all coming up blank, too.

"We could simply ask," Teal'c suggested after a few silent minutes.

"They wouldn't tell us." Jack said, scowling. "If they wanted us to know, they would have come out and said it already." He tapped his finger on the desk, absently. "I'm going to find out, though. Once we get Shawn back."

Sam nodded. Jack hadn't completely given up on the boy. That was good.