It was shocking, to see Daniel and Carter standing next to the Teal'c. It wasn't as if the Jaffa hadn't aged, because he obviously had; there were creases around his eyes and a slightly leathered look to his hands that seemed synonymous with old age, but he had aged at a far slower rate than any of the rest of them. Without his symbiote O'Neill had kind of expected that Teal'c would start aging normally. But he was wrong. Teal'c looked about forty.

"It is good to see you O'Neill," Teal'c said, gripping his arm warmly. O'Neill winced at the strength of Teal'c's grasp, his old bones protesting.

"Good to see you too, T," he smiled, "And even better to have you on board." He rubbed his hands together, almost excited. "Now, if Thor managed to follow my instructions my ship should be in orbit..."

"Your ship?"

"You have a ship?"

"I was not aware that you possessed a ship, O'Neill."

O'Neill met three pairs of surprised eyes. "Did I never say I had a ship?"

"No."

"No."

"Indeed not."

He shrugged. "Okay. I have a ship. It's in orbit. Would you like to *go* to my ship?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Sure."

Teal'c inclined his head.

"Okay," O'Neill replied and pulled a crystal out of his pocket. After a pause he shook it. "Hello?" he said, somewhat hesitantly, to the oval.

There was a beeping noise and O'Neill looked unaccountably relieved. Thor had managed to fulfill his promise and get his diplomatic courier where it was supposed to be, on time too. "Beam us up, Scotty," O'Neill said into the crystal.

Carter snorted with laughter as the transporter beam engulfed them in purple light. She blinked and found herself standing on the bridge of O'Neill's ship.

"Wow," said Daniel, expressing the word flickering in everyone's consciousness.

The bridge was large, certainly far larger than a Goa'uld transport ship. There were three seats at the helm and a Captain's chair, all facing a view screen which was currently displaying a vista of stars. It was obviously Asguardian in design; purple and silver being the predominant colours and various oval stones adorning panels and walls.

"What's she called?" asked Carter, slightly hoarse voiced.

A slight colour rose in O'Neill's puckered cheeks. "The Enterprise."

"Trekkie," Daniel chuckled, fingering one of the helm seats.

"Sit down," O'Neill advised, "I'll bring her on line. It's... ooh, maybe six hours journey time so I can fill you in on some of the finer details..." He sat in the Captain's chair, relaxing into the padded seat. He tapped at a control panel on the right arm of the chair. There was a fain hum; the sound of the engines firing.

A headset rose out of a concealed holding in the left arm of the chair, but O'Neill pushed it back down.

"A neural interface," he explained, seeing Carter's curious look, "Helps with the flying. Not worth it for this journey; the computer can handle it. Bit painful to use the first time but it makes things a little easier."

"I never thought I'd hear Jack the technophobe talking like this," Daniel muttered to Carter and Teal'c.

"Indeed. It seems his time with the Asguard has been most instructive," Teal'c replied.

"Old dogs can learn new tricks," O'Neill called across, still keying in course calculations and rubbing his neck, stiff from a night on Carter's spare bed. Earth mattresses were severely lacking in the comforts O'Neill had become used to.

The hum of the engines increased in amplitude, and despite the inertial dampeners O'Neill fancied that the Enterprise surged forward. "We're off," he announced.

"So... where are we going?" asked Daniel.

*

"Alright! Okay!" O'Neill said, his temper finally snapping, face screwed up in anger, "It's my fault. But I thought we could handle this. I mean, this sort of thing would never have fazed us in the old days... would it?"

"Jack, you said I had to translate stuff. Which is fine, but I thought there might be some sort of common thread with an Earth language... some basis for me to start from. Now you tell me that the Borash are an amphibious race with a language that doesn't even sound like any humanoid tongue the Asguard have ever encountered!!"

"So you're saying you can't do this? Fine!" O'Neill fumed.

"I didn't say that!"

"That's what it sounded like!" O'Neill paused, fighting to gain control of his temper. "Look, the written language is based on Ancient, because the cradle of the Borash civilisation is an ancient... er, Ancient homeworld. They lived underwater in some sort of Atlantean remains."

There was another, longer, pause.

"Well. That's a different then. With a written basis I'm sure I can make some headway. If you'd have said that *earlier-- *"

O'Neill was grinning."You didn't give me a *chance* to say it!"

"Yes I di-"

"Children," Carter cut in gently, "I think that everything is settled."

"O'Neill," Teal'c said suddenly, sharply.

"What?"

"There is something on the view screen."

O'Neill looked up, swore under his breath and ran over to his chair, glancing at the screen and wincing and then yanking his headset out. An alarm started to sound. Ramming it onto his head he swore again, more loudly.

"Everyone stay in the back," O'Neill said tersely, pointing with his thumb to the cargo bay. "Quiet."

From the cargo hold of the ship, barely daring to breath, Carter could only here a muted exchange taking place on the bridge. She heard O'Neill talking quietly, urgently, words indistinguishable until he stopped for a moment and thanked whoever he had been speaking with. He let out a long breath. "You can come out."

They emerged, slightly hesitantly. "Who was it?" asked Daniel.

"A scout ship from a local planetary system. I persuaded them I wasn't a threat," O'Neill replied, pulling off the headset.

"Why did we have to hide?"

"Because this ship emits a false signature, with one life sign. If they saw four of us on screen..."

"Why?" enquired Carter shrewdly, suspecting she already knew the answer.

"Smuggling purposes," O'Neill answered without any trace of shame. "People need to get off a planet sometimes. I'm not adverse to helping the odd person in need get transport out of somewhere. Or animals in one bizarre case..." he trailed off, his face contorted with the frown of remembrance.

Daniel checked his watch. "Still four hours to go," he said.

"Isn't there... anything to do, on your ship?" Carter asked.

O'Neill grinned again, well aware that Carter knew he had the boredom threshold of a four year old. "Yeah. There's a few entertainment features."

He keyed something in to the computer and the view screen disappeared. It was replaced by a menu. "Let's see now..." said O'Neill, "What do we want to play?"

The list was huge. "Do you have a copy of every Microsoft game available on here?" Daniel asked suspiciously.

"Yup. And Nintendo. And Playstation."

"How?" asked Carter, intrigued.

"Thor downloaded them at my request," O'Neill shrugged. "As well as a video library, a picture gallery, a real library of books and some other stuff."

"You've been spoilt rotten," Daniel said, torn between disapproval and jealousy.

"I don't get to use them much," O'Neill argued back, "But space travel is like a long-distance flight. Made even more boring because you can't watch other people suffer."

"I wish to play Pong, O'Neill," Teal'c informed them.

"Pong it is then," O'Neill said, "You can have half an hour each...."