Title: Theoretical Astromedicinal Biology

Chapter: 11

Authors: Kiki

A/N: Yes, I did leave it in a nice spot for you guys to hang didn't I? lol. EXAMS ARE OVER… (falls over in relief)….evil, evil things…see…if I'd had Daniel or Sam with me, woulda aced it all, no problems. But nooo…Hammond had them on some mission….damn.

Anyway… here's the next part…

XxXxX

Previously, on Stargate SG-1…

With that, he extracted the orb, letting it the excess drip for a few moments, before stepping forward to place it on the top left hand sheet of paper. It sat still, purple ink pooling slightly around its base, before it started to roll. First down and then across…

"Oh my god…." Daniel said. Jacob nodded in agreement, quite speechless whereas Teal'c simply looked on in utter fascination.

It spelt out a word that only one person in the room could recognise: praeposterus.

xXxXxXx

"Invert." Daniel said suddenly. All eyes turned to him. He shook himself out of his reverie to explain, pointing at what had just appeared to them moments ago. "Uh…the…uh..The word, that word means 'invert'."

"What else could it mean?" Jacob asked.

"Bek'kiboo' Teal'c said, and everyone knew that he was offering the word in another language.

"Gegenüber." Jack supplied.

"What?" Daniel and Jacob both asked. Teal'c merely looked on.

"German word for invert. Also means opposite."

"Oh." Daniel said. "Well this could mean a lot of things. It could mean retrace our steps, or…"

"Perhaps this word describes how we must decipher a message." Teal'c spoke up.

All eyes turned to the seemingly innocent orb that had brought havoc to their life within it. It now lay still and motionless, propped up against a book, streaks of light colour stone revealed from where the ink-covered orb had contacted with paper.

Jacob sighed, breaking the silence. They were wasting time. "All I know, is that right now we're going backwards."

Teal'c jerked his head up sharply, causing Jack and Daniel to look at him oddly. "Daniel Jackson. What is the definition of the word aretsopearp?" Teal'c asked urgently.

"Err…as far as I know, the stem retopearp means to 'gravity acts' in ancient Rodmillian. Aretsopearp I suppose would probably be more like 'to drop." Daniel asked confused. "Why?"

"The words are slopped towards the left. Therefore, I merely read the word backwards." Teal'c explained.

"And in turn reversed them. Good, Tee!" Jack said, catching on, bending over to pick up the pieces of paper, "I get it! We need to drop it!" Daniel looked at him with slight alarm.

"Uh Jack. We don't know what could happen if we dropped that thing. It could be a bomb on a timer for all we know. We should probably run a few more tests before we do anything. Besides, the material it's made out of, it would probably shatter!" Daniel reasoned.

"Who cares?" Jacob argued. "My daughter is going to die if we don't do anything. And I'm fairly sure the Goa'uld'll eat us alive anyway without her. Your point?" Daniel nodded a little in consideration, mentally weighing up the pros and cons. He eventually decided to let him do what he wanted, which knowing Jack, would be what he intended to do.

Jack was getting annoyed; this wasn't something that should even be up for debate. He understood there were risks, and Daniel ever the conscience of the team, would be the first to raise it up. But he was also sure that there was no more harm to come out of that thing. He looked at its position on Jacob's palm, and made a decision.

"Woops!" He reached out and swatted the sphere from its perch.

"JACK!" Too late. The orb had started its descent and almost instantly smashed against the concrete floor, but it didn't shatter as predicted. Instead of breaking into shards, the Orb split into two cracked hemispheres, each revealing a solid core.

Stepping forward, Teal'c carefully picked up one of the halves, when the cracks gave way and dropped off leaving something resembling a solid with hemisecliptical cross-section. Everyone jumped. Puzzled, the Jaffa cautiously set it on the ground and tried to handle the other hemisphere, only to have the same thing happen. Teal'c handed one of the hemisecliptical shapes to O'Neill.

"Did we break it?" Daniel asked sarcastically, stepping closer and picking up the other piece.

"No." Jack said suddenly, "I think it's supposed to be like this. The words meant 'drop' and 'reverse' right?

Seeing Daniel's nod of confirmation, he grabbed the second piece out of the archaeologist's hands and raided Daniel's stock of papyrus, just to make it authentic. Once more, he swathed one of the pieces of stone in purple ink, his hands shaking slightly. He pressed the where the edge of the curved surface and flat surface of the inside of sphere met, against the papyrus.

Slowly and carefully, Jack guided the stone so that its curved surface had rolled across the papyrus. Once finished, he lifted the stone to reveal stamp-like print left on the surface. Mindful not to smudge the print, he nudged the papyrus over to Daniel who picked it up, fascinated.

While he was studying it, Jack repeated the same thing with the other piece of stone. Jacob and Teal'c went to join the archaeologist who was frowning at the parchment. A squiggle here, and a squiggle there. What did it mean? He'd never seen a language like this, on first glance it looked Ancient, but it was devoid of the straight edged blocks that Ancient characters possessed. If he tried to read it as Ancient characters, none of what he could comprehend made sense at all.

Daniel had never been one to refute that two heads were better than one, so he requested help, "Jacob. I need to talk to Selmak for a sec. Would you mind?"

Jacob lowered his head to allow his symbiote to take control, "Yes, Dr. Jackson?"

"Have the Tok'ra ever encountered any language that is related to Ancient or Latin, and is backwards?"

"There was that script on Dakara, Dr. Jackson. However, those writings were upside down and only involved turning a stone. I'm afraid I do not know of any other language similar to what you have described."

"Thanks Selmak."

Selmak nodded, and let her host take over once more. Teal'c picked up the other sheet up papyrus with a different set of imprints on them, studying them with deep concentration. "Daniel Jackson. Are some Ancient writings not symbols representing equivalent English letters?"

"Yeah, they are," Daniel said, brow furrowed, "Why?"

"Perhaps if we translate them, we may learn more."

Seeing reason, Daniel followed his friend's suggestion. Flipping open a notebook he proceeded to translate the supposed Ancient writings into English letters. To his surprise, every one of the Ancient symbols had a direct English translation. Within a few minutes, he'd compiled a translation roughly five lines long. The letters were jumbled and appeared to lack any rule or order.

"Great. I don't recognise any of it!" the linguist stated, frustrated. He threw the notebook where it almost fell into the sink, into what had been the contents of Jack's stomach.

The colonel deftly saved the book, and looked up at his teammate, concerned at the outburst. Looking around he could see the tension. The young archaeologist looked like he was about to burst, and sounded like he was swearing in Abydonian. Teal'c had a vein in his forehead that look ready to burst and his jaw was set. Jacob's eyes kept flashing at random intervals without lowering his head, a sure sign that Selmak was taking control from him in response to his internal outbursts.

Jack looked at his own tense legs which were set and locking him into his seat. He tried to relax them, feeling the blood rush into them in a hot torrent. His own neck was strained from tension. He absentmindedly reached his hand over to the tap, turning it on to wash away the stenchful commissary food that was partially digested. Smiling as he saw Daniel scowl at him for getting splashed, he turned his eyes to casually run over the words of the notebook in his hands.

His eyes widened. It couldn't be that simple. Or ironic.

"Tsisay niay Igpay atinlay."

Not for the first time, all eyes turned to him, "What did you say?" Daniel asked. He seemed to recall the language being spoken, but he had no idea what it was called.

"Annyday siay tupidsay." Jack said with a smug, self-satisfied grin on his face. After all, it wasn't often he beat Daniel in his own field.

"Stop calling me stupid Jac..." Daniel glared at him, and then cut himself off. "Oh no. Please don't tell me that…"

"Oh yes, Daniel. It seems that the all-knowing, mature Ancients dudes, which build the big bad weapons, once used using pig-latin."

"But its so! So…."

"Stupid. Yeah. We know. But that's what it is. You asked for latin. It's latin. You asked for reversed. It's reversed…relatively speaking."

"No, I agree with Daniel. This doesn't fit with the timeline. The Ancients predate even the Tok'ra, there is no way they could have invented pig-latin without the existence of the English language. Therefore, it's not possible that that's the language this message is written in."

"Then perhaps the English language should not be called English." Teal'c stated. They all pondered this for a moment.

"Well they had time machines did they not?" Jack asked, exasperated. "Teal'c remember that time, on P4X 639, they had that time loop machine? And didn't Carter mention something about something called as Ancient 'puddle jumper' once? Can we just try this, please?"

"Okay…then assuming that this IS written in pig-latin." Daniel said slowly, "And my childhood memories serve me correct, this part is all some background information. But this part that looks like it's a riddle some kind reads. 'Down att ancient ice shall you find the cure of cheh which you seek.'

"Come on Daniel. At where?" Jack snatched the book out of the hands of his friend, earning himself a glare. "Those ancient dead guys may be smart, but they should probably resit kindergarten. Why the hell are there two 't's for the word at?"

Daniel snatched the notebook back. He checked. There were in fact, 2 T's.

His eyes widened and he look up. "Of course!" he exclaimed.

"I think I know where the cure is."

XxXxXx

Don't you just love it when I leave you guys dangling…edge of your seats…. Next chappie up soon! Exams are well and truly over…THANKS THOR! LoL. Shouldn't be long till next update.

BUT, see if you guys can answer this science question (I seriously got asked this once, thought not in an exam): Where would you find an iris. My Answer: On the Stargate.

Mind you…I didn't end up getting any points for it, but my teacher thought it was amusing enough.

kiki