XIII

"Obviously, it's a power supply problem. The crystals we picked up from Iaerona are a different magnitude to the others. I told him. I drew out a detailed schematic. But did he even take the diagram with him? Oh, no. 'You must rest, Rodney. I have studied interfacing issues carefully, Rodney. Everything is under control, Rodney.' As if we don't all know who it was who shorted out the crystals on that portable cooling unit trying to convert it into an ice-cream maker. 'Inexplicable power surge' my ass."

For a man with a serious respiratory problem, McKay sure did manage to talk a lot. Ford shifted position and tried not to sigh too audibly.

It wasn't that he didn't like the doc. There was something inexplicably loveable about him - which was, clearly, nature's way of ensuring that he survived long enough to make use of that ginormous brain before somebody shoved him out an airlock. But sitting with a McKay who was bored, cranky, and confined to the infirmary while there was something scientific going on elsewhere could only be a masochist's idea of fun.

Apparently, he was a masochist. Or maybe he was just feeling guilty.

"...And why am I wearing scrubs, anyway? Do they expect me to hop out of my sickbed and join in when they're short-staffed for surgery? Because I did very well in biology, actually, but I'm not that good at cutting into things when they're, you know, pulsating and squishy - although, frankly, I can't see how I could do a worse job than the nurse who did my last oxygen treatment, do I look like my nose is at a forty-five degree angle? But still, I don't see why I can't wear my own clothes. Is the treatment somehow compromised by the introduction of comfortable nightwear? I'm convinced this is some freakishly controlling plot of Carson's to stop me from making a break for it. I mean, pink scrubs? Who in their right mind orders pink in a medical setting? Surely the point is for it to be actually visible if your patient starts spouting blood everywhere."

"Uh-huh," Ford said, chin a heavy weight where it rested on his palm.

"Exactly. He's keeping me prisoner here for some nefarious scheme of his own. I'm sure Elizabeth told him to do it to give Zelenka a chance to get at my notes. She's a diplomat, it's always 'let the other scientists have their fair turn, Rodney'. What she fails to realise is that the other scientists don't get their fair turn because they use their fair turn to screw up all the progress I've made and then I have to work doubly long hours to fix it. So, really, this little plot of theirs isn't giving me time off at all - it's an anti-vacation! They're increasing my workload. At the very least they should allow me access to my laptop."

"Uh-huh," Ford said, and carefully repositioned his elbow before it slid too far over and he ended up slumped on the floor.

"See? You see the sense in that. Anybody who isn't an insane megalomaniac Scottish medical tyrant can see the sense in that. So can you bring it to me?"

"What?" Ford blinked, waking up at little.

McKay waggled an impatient hand at him. "My laptop. I need to doublecheck those equations before Zelenka takes out the city's entire supply of bean casserole and moves on to the vegetable samosas."

"I'm pretty sure- wait, we have samosas?"

"Doctor Manuelsson's attempt to do something edible with that weird purple stuff we traded for with the Vidreenans."

Ford raised his eyebrows. "That was a vegetable?"

"Well, we're fairly sure we ruled out animal, although the jury's still out on... mineral..." McKay let out a high, squeaky cough, like a dog-toy being stepped on.

"You okay, Doc?"

"Fine," he said, at a pitch well out of his usual register, and clamped his mouth shut.

Ford could see his face going redder and redder and his eyes beginning to water. He stood up to get a nurse. McKay waved his arms in angry semaphore.

"I'm fine!" he attempted to repeat, and lost the battle in an explosion of helpless coughing.

Somehow, Ford didn't think Doctor Beckett was going to relax those 'rest and no stress' rules just yet.

"Thor. Buddy. Come on, you owe me. Or... him. Both of us. Road trip to the Pegasus Galaxy?" 'Jon' grinned optimistically. "It'll be a blast! We can kick back, have a few beers..."

Sam had to smile at his enthusiasm. He was different from the General, in ways that the scientist in her couldn't help mentally cataloguing. Maybe it was the new, peaceful life he'd had a chance to adjust to, or maybe it was simply the fact that this was a Jack O'Neill who'd never felt the burden of commanding from outside the front lines. Her CO wore his promotion well, but it sat heavily; she couldn't help but think he'd aged more in his months as a General than he had in the seven years prior.

Thor tilted his head in a way that she thought connoted sorrow or disappointment. "I regret, O'Neill, that I cannot spare the time away from my duties to convey you to your destination," he said. "However, I will attempt to ascertain whether there are any Asgard ships scheduled to travel through that sector of space." He disappeared from the conference room in a blaze of bright white light.

"Yeah, thanks for that, buddy!" Jon called into empty space after him. He started to drum his fingers on the tabletop.

"We haven't had contact with the Atlantis expedition since their departure," Daniel said, with deliberate casualness. "Really, if Jon's going to go, we should send a team along with him to touch base with them."

"We don't know what conditions are like out there," Sam chimed in. "It would have to be somebody with a lot of experience of gate travel."

"Somebody who can read Ancient," Daniel said, nodding his head.

"And somebody who's up-to-date on our current understanding of their technology," Sam added.

They both looked at Teal'c.

"I would accompany O'Neill on this quest regardless of his destination," he said calmly.

Fine. Put them both to shame, why didn't he?

Jon waved a hand airily. "I appreciate that, T, but you don't need to play bodyguard on this one. We both know I'm not the original article." There was a slight twist of bitterness to the words, which hurt, and a larger dose of resignation, which hurt more. It was harder to separate the two O'Neills in her mind now that Jon had grown into his adult face.

Not really Jon, the niggling little voice of her conscience insisted on reminding her. That was just a convenient fiction to make it easier on everybody else. In his own head, he was still Jack.

Teal'c inclined his head. "On the contrary, O'Neill, you are still the original article, merely... copied."

Sam could see a million possible Xerox cracks flowing through the young clone's mind.

"Actually, the... other... original article is probably going to be making the trip with us anyway," Daniel stepped in. "You heard what Thor said. He has the same condition as Jon has, only less advanced."

"And it may not stay that way," Sam said suddenly. "Remember, the General has been exposed to the-" she was not going to call it an Ancient headsucker device, she was not going to call it an Ancient headsucker device- "effects of the Ancient knowledge repository again since the time he was cloned, and the transformation had time to advance a lot further. His brain is already more altered than Jon's was at the beginning."

"Oh, my brain's been plenty altered for a long time." Jon gave her a wry look. "General?" he added incredulously.

"You didn't notice?" Daniel said.

"I was a little preoccupied by the low-flying pigs." He raised his eyebrows. "When, why, and what kind of recreational drugs were involved?"

Yeah. Drawing a mental line between this familiar-faced high schooler and her CO wasn't going to be a major problem at all.

Jamie was beginning to get decidedly twitchy. After the first flurry of excitement following his arrival on the base, he'd been dumped somewhere that was too well-appointed to be called a cell, and too well-guarded to be called a guest room. He'd sat there for just long enough to start wondering if he was ever going to be let out, and then collected and escorted to some kind of briefing room. There was a big window running along the length of one wall, but all he could see through it was a security shutter.

His escort led him over to the table and then took up a guarding position against the wall. These military types weren't nearly so overtly threatening as Hawkins and his thugs, but their silent professionalism was still intimidating.

The office door at the far end of the room opened, and the older O'Neill emerged. He was now wearing the same drab green uniform as everyone else on the base seemed to, but his version had stars on the collar. Jamie might not be able to recognise most of the lower orders of rank insignia, but he definitely knew what stars meant.

Ohcrap.

"So." O'Neill rested his hands on the tabletop and gave Jamie an unreadable look. "James Thomas Preston, age sixteen, of Mountain Springs High School. Care to explain what you're doing here?"

Jamie explained.

The General listened to his babbling intently, pressing for clarification on a number of points; could he draw a picture of the artefact, did it do anything apart from glow, how many men had he seen at the biotech company?

He also said things like: "A moped?" and used terminology like "glowy stone football thing" and "Bat-toaster". The longer Jamie talked to him, the more an utterly crazy yet somehow beguiling suspicion grew.

"Jon's not your cousin, is he?" he said, after the questions finally tailed off.

"He tell you that?" The General's face revealed nothing. But it was a very familiar kind of nothing.

It was crazy. But what was crazy, in a world of glowing footballs, ray guns, genetic experiments and little grey aliens?

"He's a clone, isn't he?" Jamie said boldly. "He's you."

A resemblance, no matter how amazingly close, was no reason for such a wild conclusion. But it wasn't just a face; it was mannerisms, words... and most of all, it was Jon. A teenage boy who could move like a trained ninja. Who could recite episodes of The Simpsons practically word for word, and then turn around and not know some facet of pop culture any kid his age could hardly have avoided. Who liked being pursued by teenage girls just fine... until one of them made a genuine effort to catch him, at which point came absolute terror.

Jon was an extremely weird kid. But only mildly strange for a fifty-year-old stuck in high school.

The General made a pouty face as he contemplated, and Jamie mentally upgraded that to 'moderately strange'. But he was sure he was right.

"We're gonna have to have you sign some confidentiality agreements," O'Neill said finally. Jamie knew that oblique hint that the answer might be classified was as close to confirmation as he was ever going to get.

He accepted the paperwork soberly. At school a couple of days ago, if someone had dropped this on him as a hypothetical situation, he probably would have been talking about rights, freedom of information, how the military couldn't hold a damn thing over the heads of somebody who hadn't sworn an oath to them. Here and now, it never occurred to him to argue the instruction. He wasn't sure exactly where he was, how he'd got here, or what kind of crazy secrets he'd stumbled into the edge of, but it was obvious these things were of life and death importance. He might, just, possibly have spent some time up in orbit with an honest-to-God alien, but he knew he could never tell anybody.

He owed that much to Jon.

Jamie signed and initialled the sheets, reading them through even though the military jargon quickly blended together into one big blob of 'just keep your mouth shut, okay?' He was on the curve of the final 's' when a blaring alarm went off and sent his pen skidding across the paper.

"Unscheduled off-world activation," a voice announced over the klaxon. The only part of that Jamie really understood was 'unscheduled', but that combined with the alarms was enough to set his heart to racing unpleasantly. The military did not usually smile on unscheduled things.

He saw General O'Neill stiffen in a way that he recognised from Jon. Add forty years and a uniform, and it was suddenly obvious that he was looking at a man preparing to go into battle.

O'Neill stood up.

"You're going to have to go back to your room for a while," he said. Jamie got up and let the guards escort him out without arguing.

As he left the briefing room, he saw the shutter on the window starting to go up, but the door had closed behind him before he had the chance to see what was beyond it.

Sam arrived at the gate room just as her father was stepping through the wormhole.

"Hey, Sammie." He gave her a tense nod as he strode down the ramp, eyes already sliding past her to settle on General O'Neill. Clearly, this was more than a cursory follow-up visit.

"Jacob." The General gave a nod of his own as Daniel skidded into the room to join them. Sam instinctively kept an ear out for Teal'c, but his measured tread never arrived. He must have stayed back in the conference room with the General's clone.

How much must it burn for Jon to hear the gate activation, and know he no longer had the clearance to run down and check it out?

Her father bowed his head and let Selmak take over. "General O'Neill, we bring troubling news. Our scientists have finished decrypting the data recovered from the laboratory on Kelshan."

"Baal's installed that engine in a ship." The General's supposed inability to remember technical details mysteriously disappeared when there was serious business on the line.

"A modified personal transport," Selmak confirmed. "The craft has the outward appearance of a tel'tak, although it is considerably more advanced."

"Well, that's not so bad, is it?" Daniel volunteered. The General cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, yes, Baal with an Ancient interstellar engine, bad, obviously. But he can't declare war from a tel'tak. At most he could man it with, what, half a dozen Jaffa?"

"Not Jaffa." Her father took the reins back from Selmak, and regarded them all with a serious downturn to his mouth. "There was more on that crystal than just technical data. It seems technology and Goa'uld mechanics aren't all Baal's been acquiring."

"He also got a great deal on his tel'tak insurance through Geico?" the General suggested. Her father ignored him.

"It seems Baal had Teshram take care of another request for him before he disbanded the project. Just before he took off in his new ship... he picked up a vat of freshly matured Goa'uld symbiotes."

Lieutenant Brand's quick fingers danced over the interface. He was working from memories of things he'd never had the chance to put into practise before, but the Goa'uld words scrolling across the screen bore out the fact that everything was running smoothly.

Fortunately. Having to report that the engines were failing this soon after leaving Lord Baal's base would not bode well for his future career. Or survival.

"The engine is now running at full efficiency," he reported aloud.

He straightened up, and found himself looking into the dark eyes of Major Hertzberg. The memory of Brand's first encounter with the man surfaced. When the Major had first been assigned to SG-6, Brand had considered him just another dumb marine; the SGC equivalent of a Jaffa, there to provide muscle and little else. He had proven his worth in that role in several firefights, but right now, Brand's experience with Goa'uld and Ancient technology made him a considerably more valuable member of the team.

A fact that clearly didn't sit well with his nominal 'superior'. Hertzberg's lip curled in a scowl. "There's no need to be so proud of the fact you failed to break it."

He ignored that with a lofty smile, and headed toward the bridge to give the good news to their leader.

"Lord Baal. The Ancient engine is successfully integrated with the craft, and we should reach the city of the Ancients in approximately six days as the Tauri reckon time. Exactly as you anticipated."

The senior Goa'uld turned around from his inspection of the starscape, and smiled beatifically.

"Of course. Am I not a god?"

He knelt before the feet of his master. "You are, my Lord."

At least until he became accustomed to this new host, and gathered the intelligence necessary to bring about a takeover. Baal was old, his host a primitive; the Tauri were much more advanced than the pathetic scraps of humanity the so-called System Lords had taken millennia ago. And his own host had the greatest knowledge of all of them. The only threat to his dominance was the female, Sorvino, who understood the writing of the Ancients. He would have to make sure he tortured that knowledge out of her before he had her killed.

After all, the city of Atlantis must hold many prizes... but it took no intelligence at all to realise that so much treasure kept for one was better than shared among five. It was convenient to coexist with his fellow Goa'uld for now, until their guise of an SG-team had got them inside. After that... well, there was room for only one god in a galaxy, and he fully intended to be it.

Somewhere deep down below the surface level of his mind, the voice of the former Lieutenant Brand was still screaming defiance. He ignored it. It would fade away completely, given time.