Suddenly coming nose to boots, Sam jolted, saving herself from landing in an undignified heap by sitting back on her rump quickly. Sam blinked, and looked up, directly into the Colonel's grinning face and Daniel's sheepish grin.

Chapter 13

"Carter!" The Colonel was still grinning. "You look great. Stripes are definitely you."

Sam's ears flattened again and Daniel couldn't smother his grin as he added, "Oh definitely you. You look good Sam. It's nice to see you up and about. We were getting worried about you."

Sam decided to ignore the comments about her stripes. That didn't mean she wouldn't forget it though. Sam looked at Janet as she approached the trio. "Somehow I don't think you two came down here just to give Sam a hard time." Janet spoke, her arms crossed, looking sternly at the two men, who shifted under her gaze.

The Colonel coughed, "We just wanted to say hi. See how Carter was doing and all. Teal'c says hi too, he had to go meditate. Oh, and Danny boy here thought Carter would like to play with this gizmo thing." The Colonel looked down at Sam, who was now looking curiously at the laptop and several other small objects that Daniel was carrying.

Janet led the way back to Sam's bed, stooping to lift Sam unto the bed before the Major had a chance to contemplate jumping up there herself. She didn't think Sam was quite ready for anything like that just yet.

Daniel placed the laptop on the bed in front of Sam. The other things were speakers, which Daniel plugged into the laptop before powering it up. Sam watched with interest, and was startled as Daniel sneezed into a Kleenex. "Sorry Sam." He said, his voice muffled in the Kleenex. Janet left, and returned as the laptop finished booting up with some pills and a glass of water for Daniel. "Forgot to take your allergy medicine again Daniel?" Janet smiled at Daniel. Daniel accepted the pills and water with thanks, swallowing them quickly before starting up the voice program. He then quickly showed Sam how to use the software.

Sam studied the screen, than carefully used her front paw to tap out a few letters on the keyboard. It was tricky trying to hit the keys she wanted. With a little time and patience however... A disembodied vaguely feminine computer voice sounded from the speakers. "Um... Hi." It said.

Jack grinned. Genius yes. Public speaker, no. She'd actually typed out "um." Jack decided to tease her a little. "So, Carter. I hear they could use a good mouser in the storeroom on level 22." His grin widened as he heard an unmistakable growl from Sam and the computer said "Sir!" He could swear she managed to make the machine sound miffed.

Daniel stepped in before Sam said (or did) something to her CO that she might regret. He didn't think the air force could court martial a cat, but around this place, nothing was ever a sure thing and he didn't want to take any chances. "Uh Sam, I took the liberty of putting the recordings and photos of the device and the room it was in on the computer. I thought you might want to see them." Daniel leaned across Sam and pulled up the information, and started telling Sam about his theories of the change being some sort of ritual or rite of passage or religious event, and Sam responded with her own theories of the transformation.

Lacking the dexterity of ten sure fingers, Daniel had to wait patiently as Sam slowly typed with one paw, lightly tapping each key one at a time. She soon learned to leave the minimum of words she could and still be understood. It took her a bit of practice and quite a few mistakes at first, but the two of them soon started throwing wild ideas back and forth, the conversation degrading quickly into techno babble, as Jack liked to call it.

Jack watched the two with their heads together. Sam's small unfamiliar form in a posture of listening or concentration, ears forward, tail twitching occasionally. Daniel was sitting on the bed in front of her, occasionally sneezing or blowing his nose or rubbing his eyes. Looked like his "kids" were handling things well. But he didn't expect anything less, especially not from those two. Place a problem in front of them and they'd study it from all angles to the exclusion of all else, forgetting to eat, or even to sleep. It wasn't much of a stretch that given a problem to mull over those two would even forget Sam was a stuck in a cat's body. Besides, Jack knew his team was strong, closer than family. They had made it through worse; they would find a way to beat this thing too.

A/N: Just a few words on the voice thingy. There were some speculations in the reviews as to whether or not Sam would be able to use it. It's my story, and I decided that she could.

So there, neener neener. :oP

Just kidding. Actually, I thought, my cat can type. Well at least she can open a surprising array of windows, close windows, and delete important things just by walking across the keyboard. So just imagine what Sam can do, knowing how to operate a PC. Besides, if the Entity could do it one handed after only being able to control part of Sam's body (remember Janet saying it was as if Sam had suffered a massive stroke) I figure Sam can type with one paw. Also, by this point in the story, Sam is much more familiar with her new body and moving around is much easier for her. Besides, I never said it would be easy. Later chapters will deal more with the voice thingy and why it's not the best thing since sliced bread, at least in Sam the cat's case. But it does come in handy sometimes.