Chapter 14: Deus ex Biliskner

"I ought to be on that team."

Apparently, the other Sam felt much more free to use her baby blue eyes to her advantage, for General Hammond had clearly grown immune. "As true as that may be, Sam, you're not going through that Gate if for no other reason than the fact that your father would murder me in my sleep."

She huffed, crossing her arms as she turned to stare through the glass at the other SG-1 – the team that would be going to retrieve the device without her. Beside her, Daniel looked a little smug.

"Dial the planet," the general ordered.

"Initiating dialing sequence," Sergeant Harriman responded immediately, and the Gate began its slow spiral.

Before it could get too far, however, an all-too-familiar light began on the ramp and spread until it enveloped the entire space, shining through the massive windows into the Control Room, as well. And then, as abruptly as it started, it shut off, leaving one tiny little alien standing on the ramp.

This SGC was apparently not used to Asgard transportation beams, for the entire security contingent and SG-1 leveled their weapons on the visitor. "Hold your fire!" Sam yelled through the microphone.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, but she was already halfway to the stairs and only vaguely heard the general's order to abort the dialing sequence.

"I knew it!" she cried as she burst through the blast doors, ignoring the other soldiers and heading full-tilt for the little gray man on the ramp. "I knew someone was messing with me!"

"My apologies, Major Carter."

Daniel skidded to a halt at her heels, General Hammond not far behind him. "Sam?" the younger man asked again, his eyes playing ping-pong between her and their uninvited guest. "What's going on?"

"This is Thor," she explained... then second-guessed herself. She was, after all, in an alternate universe. Or something. "You are Thor, right? I mean, you look like Thor, you sound like Thor, but..." For an Asgard, that wasn't saying much.

"Indeed."

"Good. This is Thor," she repeated to the other two. "Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet."

"Asgard?" Daniel nearly squeaked the word. "You're... you're one of the four ancient races! We've only read about you. We didn't even know you still existed!"

"We do not to interfere with races less advanced than ours for fear of altering their natural evolutionary path," Thor explained, though Sam knew it was the 'lite' version of the explanation – the Protected Planets Treaty with the Goa'uld forbade it. "Unfortunately, that policy has been broken, and I had no other choice but to contact you to right our wrong."

"Which makes it my turn to ask the question: what's going on?" Sam pressed.

"Loki."

Of course. She sighed.

"Who is this Loki?" General Hammond asked.

Daniel jumped at the chance. "He's part of Norse mythology – the trickster, troublemaker. Although as the myths evolve, he becomes more and more malicious and a threat to the established order of things."

"Yup," Sam drawled. "That's Loki." Shooting the alien a dirty look, she added, "I thought you guys reined him in."

"In that reality," he insisted, "we have."

"But not in this one. So what did he do this time? And why me, and not his favorite guinea pig, Colonel O'Neill?" Then again, she didn't know where the colonel was, exactly, so maybe neither did Loki. "Scratch that last part. Why me?"

The alien blinked. "I believe he wished his experiments to cause as little disruption as possible. Your scientific abilities are much the same in both."

As awed as Daniel was, he clearly didn't enjoy being toyed with; he crossed his arms. "Well, you can tell him he failed. We've been seriously disrupted."

"What was the intent of this experiment?" General Hammond pressed, concerned.

"The Replicators are a serious threat to our way of life in this universe as well as Major Carter's," he explained. "However, the cause here is nearly lost. Loki believed that if he could find a way to transfer a consciousness between two realities-"

"Their loss could be your gain," Sam interrupted. "He planned to move the remaining Asgard to our reality to bolster the race and better their chances."

Thor gave the tiniest of nods. "He attempted the procedure on a human first, to ensure that the process was feasible before risking the life of an Asgard."

Sam shot him the dirtiest look she could possibly muster.

"Now that we know that it is possible, their beings will be split among many universes, for, as you know, duplication within a reality leads to entropic forces that even we cannot control. It will, in a way, allow us to revive some of our race that we lost long ago."

"Wait – the dead ones?" Daniel exclaimed. "He's going to send the survivors here to other realities where they're already dead? That doesn't make any sense. How do you intend to resuscitate their bodies, exactly?" A second thought hit him, and anger once again tinged his voice. "Or do you just intend to steal other people's bodies, like you did to my wife?"

None of the above, but that was an awfully long story. "The Asgard, uh, reproduce asexually." She chose not to notice the uncomfortable look on Hammond's face at that. "They clone their physical forms and transfer their consciousnesses into them, so it wouldn't have to be a replacement. They could simply put it into an empty shell."

"Oh," Daniel said, his tone sheepish.

Sam turned back to the alien on the ramp. "Thor, as much as I'm sure these guys would love to chat with you... I want to go home. Tell me this is reversible."

"I have been told that it is," the little gray man confirmed. "For Loki's sake, that must be the case."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "You're not from here, are you? You're my Thor. You came to bring me back."

"That was risky," Daniel commented.

"If Major Carter cannot return to her own world, I fear that both our races are doomed. It was worth the risk."

Ignoring the surprised looks on every face in the room, she asked, "So what now? How do we fix this?"

"I will transport us both to the Asgard vessel in orbit," he explained. "We will complete the transfer from there."

"Wait!" Daniel cried. "You can't leave yet. I mean, you can, but pass the message on that we want to talk to you. The other you. Our you."

"I am afraid that is not possible. The Biliskner was destroyed by Replicators several of your years ago. However, I will send Freyr, the new supreme commander of the fleet, to share what information he can before it is too late."

Thor had a point – the subsection of the Protected Planets Treaty that prevented the Asgard from helping humans advance didn't mean much anymore if the race was dying out. There would be no one left to enforce their side of the treaty, anyway. Sam offered him a sad smile. "Give me a minute, would you? And then you can beam me up."

"Very well." With another flash of light, the alien disappeared.

Sam turned slowly to face Daniel, only to find him – as she'd expected – staring intently back. "Well," he said softly, "this is going to be quite the awkward goodbye."