Chapter 12

Jack, Daniel, Teal'c and Janet left the med bay to go 'explore' Thor's ship. It was the first time that they had unrestricted access and the time to look around. Almost every other time they were onboard they had pretty much been running for their lives. The only exception was when they had gotten lost in space aboard the Prometheus. Thor had towed them home, and then they were off to his galaxy to help with the Replicators. They had spent most of the time aboard their own ship but had visited Thor on several occasions over the journey.

"Jack where we goin'?" Daniel was naturally the first to break the silence. He didn't even make it thirty seconds.

"To the bridge Daniel where else?" Jack knew he had mentioned a tour of the ship to Doc Fraiser, but really there was not much to see. "We need to contact Hammond and update him on the situation. Carter may almost be done, but Dr. Magnus has not even gotten in the pod thing yet. So we are looking at potentially another few hours."

Everyone else held their tongues and didn't talk for the rest of the very short trip. Jack stopped at a door and touched the crystal waiting for the door to slide open. When it did, instead of stepping into the room Jack reclosed the door. At the inquisitive looks from his team, he muttered "Storage room." With a sheepish look. "Must be the next one up." The continued a few more feet and tried again. "Ah, better!" Jack walked into the room and proceeded to the control panel. Thankfully, he had plenty of training on how to use the Asgard system. He almost wished he knew more about engineering as having this type of communication system back on earth would be nice.

He moved one of the crystals and from the perspective of the people standing in front of him nothing appeared to change. Jack however looked around the room, turned in a full circle and reached for the control crystals again.

"What happened Jack? Did you do it wrong?" Daniel was really interested to see this technology again. He had been an observer once, and it was the strangest thing to watch.

"No Daniel, not wrong. They are just not in the briefing room is all. Hang on." He moved the crystal to a different part of the terminal and tried again. After shaking his head in disgust, he tried a third time. This time he appeared to see find what he was looking for.

"Ah, Sergeant where is the President and General Hammond?" The remaining team members could not hear a response from their side, but Jack clearly did. Daniel knew what to expect after watching Jack talk to the Asgard in the Hall on K'Tau asking for their help. Janet and Teal'c however looked fascinated. "Thank you, Sergeant. If you can please ask them to stay, so I don't have to chase them down I would appreciate it."

Jack again reached for the crystal before glancing at the team. "They are in the gate room apparently. Third time is a charm." He placed the crystal back on the pedestal and waited a second. "General Hammond. Mr. President, how is the tour going?" Jack stayed quite for a few minutes looking back and forth between what Daniel assumed were the two men that Jack greeted.

"What do you mean that he is on a planet without a gate?" He paused for a second. "Sir if the Tok'Ra can give you the coordinates for the planet, I'm sure Thor wouldn't mind swinging by to give them a hand. It would mean we could get to Jacob faster." He paused again. "Yes Sir, I will wait twenty minutes and call you back. Where will you be so I don't have to hunt you down?"

"Thank you sir." Jack started to step away when he appeared to remember something. "Ah, sir. Quick update on the situation up here. Carter is almost done, but it appears that Dr. Magnus is waiting to see the results from her daughters scan."

"Actually Jack…that's not what happened." Daniel stepped forward. "Jack can you hear me?"

"One second Sir." Jack moved to the side almost as if he was looing around someone.

"What is so important that I had to put the President on hold?" Jack was starting to look frustrated.

"Actually, Helen refused to undergo the tests. She backed out at the last minute wanting to know what would happen if she refused. We had just pulled Ashley out when you and Teal'c came back. I don't know if she will be tested, she had not decided by the time you dragged us away."

"You couldn't have told me that sooner?" Jack demanded to know.

"Not like you gave me a chance Jack." Daniel griped at him.

"Okay hold on." Jack turned back to what Daniel assumed was General Hammond and started filling him in. "No Mr. President, I will not force the issue. If she does not do this willingly, then it will not happen." Jack stopped talking again for a minute listening to the conversation that was happening on Earth.

"No Sir, as someone who has experienced being experimented on by several alien races against my will, I will not force that on anyone. However, I don't think that it will be an issue. It has a lot to do with trust and allowing her to make the decision herself with no pressure from us will go a long way." Jack paused again. "Yes Sir, 20 minutes in the briefing room."

Jack moved the crystal one last time on the pedestal and stepped back. "Well kids we have a little bit of time before we have to report back. Turns out that the Tok'Ra are again attempting to move to a planet without a stargate. Without a mothership it is taking several trips back and forth. They have no way of contacting Jacob until the ship is ready to go back, but that could take several days."

"You mentioned something about us going to pick him up? I don't think that that will be a problem, but given the treaty with the Goa'uld, I don't know if Thor can help them to move." Daniel had done some reading about the protected planets treaty after they were included in it. But is was very long, very boring and he still had not made it all the way through.

"I didn't exactly say Thor would help them to move Daniel, but if Hammond gives them that impression, then they may be more willing to cough up their location. Not my fault if the treaty prevents Thor from helping. But maybe we will get lucky. Look how fast he scooped up all the Goa'uld forces on Samaria. If he could do that, it would take hours not months to get everything moved."

"Hey Doc, can you explain what Thor was talking about back there? Once we get in there with Carter, you three will skim over it so fast because you all will know that your looking at." Jack had gotten an idea of what they were talking about, but a more detailed description would really help.

"Of course Sir. On the previous scan from Dr. Magnus, the source blood that they injected was attached to her DNA. It was not something that she was born with and for the most part looks like it attached itself to the portion of her DNA that controls aging. I would really wish that I could run the test on the rest to see where it attached itself in them." Janet paused for a second. "The difference with Ashley's DNA is that she was born with it. It is not attached, but part of her DNA itself. Whereas theoretically Dr. Magnus could reverse hers, Ashley cannot. Now currently this part of the DNA strand is dormant. Almost like he body doesn't know what to do with it."

"What does this mean for Major Carter Dr. Fraiser?" Teal'c was the one to lead the conversation where Jack really wanted it to go, but was afraid to ask.

"It means, that since Sam was technically born with it, it will have incorporated into Sam's DNA just like Ashley." She looked at the three of them hoping that she understood what she was trying to say.

"So it could mean that it is not active in Sam then either right?" Daniel was always the hopeful one.

"Its doubtful Daniel. Loki would have had to activate it to see how it evolved or there was no purpose behind the experiment." They all looked at each other. "I'm just guessing here, but it could be that he activated it at birth and somehow her body knew when to stop aging…not sure how that would work though. Or It could be that he came back and activated it around the same time that…" She looked over at Colonel O'Neill.

"What Doc, just spit it out." Jack demanded.

"At the same time he cloned you Sir." This caused a stir among the group. "Maybe we need to throw you in one of those pods Sir. Even after everything with Jolinar, we never noticed the anomaly to Sam's DNA, it was never something that we were looking for. We weren't looking for it in you either Sir. Neither was Thor. His only goal was to fix John and make it so that no one could tamper with your DNA after that. What if the damage had already been done?"

"Crap! This day just keeps getting better and better." Following Jacks comment the four of them sat in pensive silence until it was time to call the SGC. As O'Neil began walking back the pedestal to make the call, they heard Thor over the intercom announcing that Sam was up.