Chapter 7

After the debriefing the next morning Jack was annoyed. The russians had shown nothing but silent contempt during the mission, and now it felt like they were taking credit for work they hadn't actually been needed for. Their captain's bragging about how they were every bit as skilled as the other SG-teams and how they should be allowed out on missions of their own bugged him like crazy. He went down to the gym facilities to work some of the frustration off.

Changed, Jack thought some running might clear his head and headed for the treadmills. There were only two in the humble facility and one was already taken. He winced; he'd rather have been alone. Though, on closer inspection, this might turn out interesting - the person huffing and puffing away on the treadmill was doctor Brennan. Maybe he could use this opportunity to probe her a little bit. He got on the other treadmill and nodded at her.

"Hey!" she puffed, her face gleaming with sweat.

"Doctor", he greeted, turning his machine on.

"You can call me Noli", she responded. "You don't have to, but you can." From the looks of it, she'd already been running for some time. Jack would have to get some well-directed questions in before she left if he were to make her reveal anything fishy.

"So, doctor", he said and regretted the choice, because it had come out sounding more harsch than he intended, and added "...Noli." After all, she hadn't done anything to him. Yet. "Let me ask you, what was it that attracted you to SGC anyway?" He turned up the pace and started jogging.

"Well", the scientist panted, "it all sounded kinda blurry at first, but I've always been into astrophysics as well as quantum, so I took a chance, and after the initial interviews, when Hammond swore me to secrecy and told me about the project, I just had to do it, you know?"

"Interested in interstellar travel, are ya?" Jack turned his pace up a little.

"Well, sure, who isn't?" Noli turned her pace down a little. She looked dreamily into the air. "Imagine all that unknown stuff out there. All the pieces missing in the periodic table." Jack looked at her with slight confusion. She understood. "That's why it looks completely irregular, with all those empty spaces. It's supposed to be full, all those missing elements exist, we just haven't found them yet."

Jack tilted his chin up. "Oh." He found his train of thought again. "Like to take some of that stuff home, would ya?"

Noli laughed. "I dunno, depends. I think there are incredibly interesting materials out there, if you wanna talk matter and not... alien cultures and such... Like naquadah, it's..." She interrupted herself and her formerly open looking face closed. "It's interesting." She turned the pace down until she came to a stop and got off. "Well. I gotta go. Nice talking to you, Jack. See you later." She smiled and left for the showers.

Jack's eyes narrowed. She hid it well, but there was definitely something this professor chick wasn't being totally honest about. Maybe Teal'c would be up for some light surveillance around the base. He finished his workout and went to see him.

"I do not understand, O'Neill", said Teal'c to Jack in the cafeteria. "What exactly is it that you suspect doctor Brennan of?"

"It's not that I suspect her of anything, T", Jack whispered loudly, "it's just that I got this feeling. She's up to something, I know it. And I need you to keep an eye on her for me. Can ya do that?"

Teal'c looked down on Jack with an expression resembling contempt. "I can", he answered. He didn't know what Jack was implying doctor Brennan was "up to", but he trusted him, and saw no direct harm in "keeping an eye on her". Personally he had not noticed anything out of the ordinary about her, but then again, they had been in very little contact. Both Daniel Jackson and Major Carter had expressed sympathy towards her, but also somewhat of the same diffuse concern that O'Neill was expressing. Perhaps he had not been as observant as he should.

During the days that followed, Teal'c took special notice in doctor Brennan's whereabouts. She did not seem to tend to any special routines, except arriving around the same time every morning. She would then irregularly move between her office, the offices of Daniel Jackson and Major Carter, and the labs. The uncertainty with which she divided up her workday made it a little difficult to follow her movements, but Teal'c made good use of his skills and the surveillance cameras. A few times his attention caught her wandering around in areas of the base where she had no business, and the last time he made sure to intercept her. She greeted him heartily, revealing no sense of embarrassment that might convey her actions to be knowingly malevolent. He went straight to the point: "Doctor Brennan. What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to get lost so I can learn to find my way", she answered. He reacted to the phrasing by slightly tilting his head.

"A solution so obvious many would not have considered it."

The woman smiled. "You wanna learn something, start from scratch. All knowledge is stronger when built up from the ground."

"Indeed."

Doctor Brennan looked around. "Anyway, I think I've been here before so I'm pretty much done... Do you wanna get lunch?" Teal'c accepted with a miniscule bow.

"You know you can call me Noli, right?" she said as they headed for the canteen.

Teal'c's impression of Noli was the same as the others'. After watching her from a distance for a few days, and then spending a little time with her at lunch, he was undecided. In person, she seemed friendly. Honest. Of a slightly philosophical inclination that reminded him of Daniel Jackson. But to her behaviour when not at work there still was something undefinably odd. Her explanation for walking around remote areas of the base was perfectly valid to him, but it was also strange compared to what he would expect from anyone else. Perhaps she was looking for something, and in that case something she did not wish to ask about so as to let no one know of it.

Teal'c's growing suspicions were further established one evening, when he saw Noli in one of the labs where off-world objects where stored in order to be examined. Teal'c had followed her when he noticed she wasn't on her way home and was standing silently in the dark hallway outside, watching. It was after hours and the other staff had left for the day, leaving the room half-lit. Noli had not bothered turning the lights on and was slowly walking along one of the counters littered with rocks and broken artefacts, looking at the things and lazily running her fingers over them as she passed. She stopped at the end of the counter and crouched down - there was the big rock brought back from PX3-110, sitting on the floor. She tilted her head and looked at it attentatively, then raised her hand and placed it firmly on its surface. The expressions on her face changed as the moments passed - it looked as though she was listening to someone speak. Finally she stood up, gave the rock a tiny smile and turned to the door. Teal'c quickly withdrew and watched Noli disappear around the corner, going home.