"If he can't know it, then how did he speak it?" Jack asked, pointedly. "What did you say?" he asked before anyone could answer the first question.
"He asked-" Ian started, but it was Berag who answered at the same time.
"I asked if he understood what I was saying, and he answered yes."
Jack looked at Ian, who nodded his agreement.
"It's not Ancient?" Jack asked Daniel.
"No. It doesn't even have the same sentence structure or-"
"It is an ancient language," Berag repeated. "One that even my own people do not use often – and never share with strangers."
"Well then how-"
"I don't know, Jack," Ian said, interrupting before he could ask him the question again. He was as stymied by the sudden knowledge as any of them – and undoubtedly moreso. "But I'll tell you this much. Fisai here is almost twenty years old, has three sisters - all older – and two brothers who are younger. He's a skilled tracker and hunter, and has quite a crush on a woman named-"
"How do you know this?" Fisai asked, shocked and blushing just a little.
"Beats the shit out of me," Ian told him. "But I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"What of me?" Berag challenged. "What do you know of me?"
Ian frowned.
"You're his grandfather."
"How old am I?"
Now Ian faltered.
"I'm not sure. Fifty?"
"How can you not know?" Jack asked.
Daniel snapped his fingers, excitedly.
"Because Fisai doesn't know!" The archeologist turned to Fisai. "How old is he?"
Numb, the young man shrugged.
"I'm uncertain. Older than my grandmother, but not-"
"I'm sixty-two summers," Berag told them, looking at Daniel – like everyone else was.
"See?" Daniel asked, smiling and looking awed at the same time.
"See what?" Jack asked, looking as annoyed and baffled as everyone else.
"What's his favorite color?" Daniel asked Ian, gesturing to Berag.
"I don't know."
"What's Fisai's?"
"Yellow."
The young man looked surprised.
"How did you-"
"He knows what you know," Daniel explained. "Not what the others know. Just you."
"Why just-"
"Because you healed him. It has to be the connection."
Fisai frowned – just like everyone else – and now the people who had been gathering nearby were listening closely as well.
"I have healed people before, Daniel," he told the archeologist. "None of them-"
"But when you do it…" Daniel asked, searching for the right words. "Do you… link with the person in any way?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know…" Daniel wasn't used to fumbling for words, but he was definitely doing it just then. "Do you get into their minds? Or let them into yours?"
"It's only a brief contact," Berag answered. "An instant, no more."
"Long enough for Ian to read his mind, though."
"I didn't read his mind, Daniel…"
"Not on purpose."
Ian scowled.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It only makes sense, Ian," Daniel said. "You know everything about Fisai and nothing about Berag – except things that Fisai knows."
"There's no way he could have learned everything about the kid just from that short contact, Daniel…" Jack pointed out.
"You are incorrect, O'Neill," Teal'c said, speaking for the first time. "When a symbiote comes in contact with the host, the knowledge it gains about the host is instantaneous. The knowledge passes from one to the other in only a heartbeat."
"I know nothing about him," Fisai objected.
"You were distracted," Daniel reminded him. "And you don't have the memory Ian does."
"No one has the memory Ian does," Jack added.
Ian scowled.
"So what do we do about it?"
"Nothing we can do about it – is there?" Daniel asked Berag.
The old man frowned.
"I must discuss this with the others. You will please remain here."
He turned and walked back towards the other people who had been watching, and after a moment's hesitation, Fisai rose and walked off as well.
Jack frowned, watching them.
"Where the hell else would we go right now?"
OOOOOOOOOO
Nathan Brooks watched the Stargate in front of him intently, his handsome features set in what was obviously a concerned expression – although he seemed to be trying to hide it.
"Sir?"
The general turned, not surprised to see Sam had moved up beside him. He'd heard her coming, after all.
"Major?"
"It's normal for them not to check in right away."
Which was her way of telling him not to worry.
"I told them to check in when they arrived."
Sam smiled.
"Maybe they forgot?"
"Or maybe they were attacked when they emerged from the Stargate?"
He immediately felt guilty for even bringing up the possibility. After all, Sam was waiting for her husband – and the father of her infant son – to return, just like he was waiting for Ian to get back. He had no right to worry her just because he was nervous about his boy being off on some crazy offworld mission.
Luckily, she didn't seem to even be fazed.
"Jack's easily distracted. Especially if Daniel found something interesting. There was nothing in the probe's reading to indicate that anything was in the area that would threaten them."
"You're not worried?"
"No, sir. I won't worry unless they don't check in later."
Nathan nodded, and sighed softly.
"You're probably right, Major."
He'd still worry, but maybe not so much. She was far more used to this waiting thing than he was, after all.