Author Notes: All comments and suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your time.

What NOW!

When Thor said he needed the SGC to help the Asgard re-settle some special people, O'Neill was justly suspicious, but it sounded like an opportunity for him to step through the Gate like old times. Nice change of pace, Gate out, gather up some folks escort them to a new home; help 'em settle in. Gate home in time for supper. The SGC would never miss its commanding officer for one day.

While Thor explains why he can't make this quick and easy transfer himself, team members listen carefully. It sounds straightforward and this in itself ought to be sufficient warning to SG-1 but Thor knows his humans.

"The small colony," he explains, "that SG-1 will be moving is a group of special Asgard. When we prepare a clone that is to receive a consciousness, the procedure will occasionally produce a unique individual. These special clones are not suitable for receiving a transferred Asgard mind. They are all flawed in some way. Many are empaths without the neural network required by Asgard intelligence."

"Huh?" O'Neill puzzled and eloquent as always, frames his own question.

Thor explains empathy to O'Neill. "These unique Asgard receive emotional input the way you receive sound as input. They can feel everything someone near them feels. We believe it is how they communicate if they are even able to do so. Earlier contact has indicated that either a lack of emotion or intense emotion affects them profoundly. The harmony of their existence seems to depend on a moderate level of input. Too much emotion creates an overload, too little and they shut down."

"So why do they have to move?" Daniel is a people person even though the objects of his concern aren't human.

"They are being re-located to make room for a scientific population." Thor accepts human curiosity as a desirable trait but understands that it requires special handling. The Asgard commander came to the SGC ready to explain as much as it took to get SG-1 to take on the task, but hoped that some information might not have to be revealed until later - if at all. "The presence of a true Asgard is damaging to the clones. They are confused by the lack of emotion found in us. Three hundred years ago, we tried to transport them by ship in an earlier re-location effort. Within moments, those we had transported had died. The process was apparently too disruptive to their nervous systems."

"So you've been putting them out of the way, all in one place for how long, hundreds of years?" The harshness Daniel finds in the intelligent Asgard threatens his reputation for tactfulness. "You drop them off, abandon them until you need their planet for something!"

Quite unexpectedly, Thor finds himself on the defense. "We are responsible for their existence and have provided them with a world suited to their needs. Their frailty has kept us at a distance. Those few clones that remain on the planet can only be rescued by Stargate, by non-Asgard guides, by you. These are the only true empaths in the galaxy; we would never leave them on a planet where they could not live safely and their existence is not a well-known fact. We have kept them secluded to keep them safe. They are at once fragile, rare and simple in their manner of living. What the Asgard have in intellect, these clones have in empathy."

O'Neill has found the reason the Asgard need humans for this task. Once again, Thor has turned a human trait into an Asgard asset. O'Neill isn't going to let him get away without admitting humans are at least equal to the Asgard in some respect. "So you need us to dial up the Gate and escort them through because we're more like them than you are?"

"Because," Thor points out, "all problems cannot be solved by intellect, some situations are best solved by instinct and experience. Knowing which route will provide the best solution is, however, a product of intellect."

O'Neill hasn't learned to recognize when he's been bested by Thor. He believes having the last word is intellectual victory. "So you need us because we're better at figuring things out?"

"Yes, O'Neill. Will you go?

O'Neill, smiling in unrecognized defeat, has the last word...and as usual, with an Asgard request, that word is "Yes."

Two hours after Thor's departure, the MALP is sending back images of a virtual Garden of Eden. If the Asgard made this planet as a home for their unusable clones, they took great pains to make them comfortable. A meadow and forest are scanned by the MALP; the images would be a photographer's delight. No artist's brush could create a more beautiful and serene landscape.

O'Neill ought to be more suspicious of perfection but he's itching to get back into the field. SG-1 is ready for an easy mission and with O'Neill along it will be like old times.

In vests and shirtsleeves, the SG-1 of old steps off the SGC ramp into...Eden?

They drop through the Asgard Stargate six feet down to a narrow canyon floor covered with heavy plant growth. Above them the Stargate teeters on a rocky ledge perhaps fifteen feet down from the cliff top.

Before they can take their bearings much less sort out what happened to the alluring meadow and forest, Teal'c shouts and shoves them out of the path of the tumbling Stargate. The ground shakes beneath them as the stone ring comes to rest leaning at a sharp angle against the canyon wall, framing a startled SG-1.

Safe from the traveling Stargate, the four of them sag against the canyon wall, surveying a world that in no way resembles the MALP transmission. The canyon extends as far as they can see in either direction; its walls rise vertically above them as high as thirty feet. The only break visible in the sea of green that carpets the canyon floor are a few tall boulders rising above the heavy growth.

O'Neill, petulant, takes issue with the circumstances. "Carter, where'd the Asgard planet go?"

"Sir, I dialed correctly. Just not this." She indicates the leaning Stargate, barren canyon walls and thick vegetation. "Where's the MALP, sir?"

Months of missions without O'Neill fade as though they'd never happened, as though he'd never been gone. SG-1 doesn't cater to him as a General any more than they once did as a Colonel.

Teal'c has waded several steps out into the heavy growth and climbing up on a boulder shouts and points toward a thick mound of green growth, "O'Neill!"

"What NOW!" It's enough that the Asgard Stargate may be out of commission, O'Neill doesn't want anything else to happen for just a little while.

"It's the MALP, O'Neill, it's upside down." He's pointing to a spot half way across the canyon floor. With the other hand, he's pulling branches of a plant away from his legs.

Not seeing any reason to join Teal'c out in the aggressive shrubbery, Carter makes her survey from behind the leaning Stargate. "General, there's no DHD here and this isn't where the Gate was yesterday."

O'Neill's quick day out for old times sake is beginning to make a desk covered with folders a bit more attractive. More to himself than the others, "I had actually forgotten how really screwed up simple missions can get."

"Carter, Daniel, figure out what happened that could move a Stargate in one day. Teal'c, you're with me, we need to get the MALP upright." Giving an order is the easy part, giving the right order is more like guesswork in these situations. O'Neill is guessing that he and Teal'c, mostly Teal'c, can get the MALP turned over and back into service.

The two men wade out in the direction of the MALP. The greenery is nothing more than a solid mass of brambles, grown and over grown, woven together to create a successful barrier. A barrier not only protecting the MALP from human touch but a barrier that flexes with millions of tiny thorns piercing multiple layers of cloth and skin alike. O'Neill stops the painful advance. "Teal'c lets cut these things down, make a path to the MALP."

Not much time is required to demonstrate that the plant life is not only thorny but also tough. Cutting it releases a thick sticky sap with a fragrance that rivals, and wins out over, skunk. They try breaking a path by stomping down the offending growth. A perfect climate has created a resilient plant, more like rubber than wood. It won't stomp. For half an hour, the two hardy warriors, victors over many a galactic menace, cut, stomp, kick, cuss and wage a losing battle with shrubbery.

Frustrating doesn't even come close to describing O'Neill's attitude at being bested by plant life. Teal'c keeps his own counsel but it's clear by his bloodied hands, arms and face that the matter of the brambles has taken its toll in flesh and dignity.

Carter and Daniel, brainstorming behind the leaning Gate, are as yet unbloodied by the hostile plant life. O'Neill, shredded and sticky, wafting an eye-burning aroma spies the clean-cut archeologist and the neat tidy scientist. His eyes narrow in their direction, he fills his lungs, firms up his stand on the spongy layer of vegetation, "Carter, Daniel, you gotta see this." It doesn't take a student of human nature to know what O'Neill is planning.

Picking their way with careful steps through the hacked smelly leaves and thorns, Sam and Daniel make their way out to where O'Neill stands embedded in the deep mat of alien flora.

"Geeze Jack, can't you make a path through this stuff?" Daniel isn't usually insensitive to the condition of his teammates. The one time he is, the price is high. Whatever caused him to lose his footing in the foul smelling thorns must have been something on the ground under the green mat. O'Neill wasn't quite close enough to keep him from falling into the fetid mass.

Carter leans to help him to his feet; her own verbal analysis of the lack of progress toward the MALP stops before it is spoken. O'Neill and Teal'c stand, poorly made up bloody Halloween ghouls, innocently displaying full toothed grins.

"So what are you going to do about this thorny problem?" She can't help but be amused by her own rare pun. But to insure her own stable footing, she backs away from her commander several paces.

"Burn it! Teal'c, do the honors please. Clear the area around the MALP."

Teal'c prepares his staff weapon to ignite the fierce greenery guarding the MALP. The first tiny flame flickers, sizzling in the damp lush greenery. "Hit it again." There is viciousness to O'Neill's order. The staff weapon flashes a second time. The singed shrubbery explodes with a deafening clap into a massive fireball. In seconds the once timid spark of flame is rolling down the full width of the canyon consuming the bramble carpet in a roar of super heated air.

In the smoke, noise and heat, four figures take off, high stepping at a record pace in the opposite direction of the cleansing flame.

The MALP is free of the brambles.

The fire burns itself out somewhere beyond visual range of SG-1. When the smoke clears at the Stargate, they make their way back to the now visible MALP. The burnt shrubbery crunches underfoot emitting soot and the odor of singed feathers with each step. The inferno altered the appearance of the area, but has done nothing to enhance its attractiveness.

Waiting for the MALP to cool, O'Neill wants an explanation. His day in the park has not met expectations. He is more disappointed than military. "Carter, Daniel, what's going on here?"

The scientist and the archeologist exchange a glance, each assigning the unpleasant explanation to the other. Neither wants to be the barer of news that will create an unhappy General. They hesitate, each waiting for the other to speak first.

"What!" O'Neill loses patience easily.

Carter goes first. "There must have been an earthquake. That's the only explanation we can come up with which would explain what we see here. If we're right, the DHD is still up there where the Stargate was yesterday when the MALP first came through."

Daniel's information is no more comforting. "Once we get up there, we can still dial out. The establishing vortex will dig out a hole at the base of the cliff where the Stargate is balanced. To pass through the Stargate, we will have to get back down here and crawl behind the Gate and roll up over and into the event horizon."

O'Neill has stood, silent, listening to the description of an activity only a mountain goat could execute and that no man with bad knees would even consider. Daniel never describes anything by voice only, his hands are part of his verbal skills and in gesturing as he describes, he has pointed O'Neill's attention to the edge of the cliff above them.

Along the precipice, SG-1 catches sight of a clutch of large dark eyes in tiny gray heads. Clearly, SG-1 is the focus of their attention, the entertainment for the afternoon. Almost at once, the tiny audience vanishes.

"If they are our hosts," Teal'c points out, "they appear to be no more than children."

"Asgard don't have children, Teal'c, that's where the whole problem comes from. It's a...scientific impossibility." O'Neill, ever proud of his extensive technical knowledge eagerly shares it. "Carter can explain it in detail. Later."

With four shoulders at it, the MALP is righted. It's burned, dented and unable to move on its own. Once the sprung panels are pried open, SG-1 has some welcome supplies. They have water that is hot, a medical kit that has insufficient ointment to tend to their multiple wounds, and nothing that even remotely resembles a ladder capable of reaching the top of the canyon wall. The tired humans lean against the damaged MALP considering their options.

Above their soot blackened heads a dozen tiny gray hands and a chittering babble signals the arrival of a rope ladder. The full length of it comes snaking through the air to rest on the ground at Daniel's feet.

"Jack, do you see this?"

"Daniel, it's a ladder. In sociable circles, one end of it would still be up there." O'Neill points toward the group of small gray heads. "All of it down here is not necessarily a good sign."

SG-1 groups around the useless rope ladder, faces up-turned, expecting a second ladder to be offered with one end properly secured. They wait. O'Neill calls to the small Asgard without response; then has Daniel call his standard greeting to them. Still no response.

The tiny gray faces lean over the cliff face motioning for SG-1 to join them at the top; gesturing to the useless pile of rope. O'Neill, on the canyon floor, pantomimes the act of climbing, shouting instructions as though volume will compensate for his lack of linguistic skills. There is no communication.

Tired, soot covered, stinging from hundreds of tiny thorn pricks, SG-1 sets out by twos in opposite directions searching for a way out of the canyon. Above them the tiny Asgards scamper along the cliff top following first one pair of humans then the other, swarming in either direction. Their continuous jabbering signals their approach or departure like a chirping alarm.

Teal'c's radio breaks up the party. He and Carter have located a possible route up out of this little acre of Eden. The path he points out is on the opposite side of the canyon from the leaning Stargate - not where they would choose to be. It is no more than naturally occurring stones protruding from a gently sloping section of the canyon wall. But it looks more like a way out than the steep walls and piled rope ladder back near the Stargate.

When SG-1 regroups at Teal'c's location, O'Neill is back to planning ahead. "Teal'c, we better bring that rope ladder with us, if Daniel's description of going home turns out to be accurate, we're going to need it."

Teal'c turns back toward the Stargate, following orders. The chatter from the cliff top becomes a frantic sound, a wail of grief. The Asgard group moans in harmony, a depressing groan of sorrow fills the canyon.

"Teal'c, stop!" Just because Daniel isn't the one who usually gives the orders, doesn't mean he doesn't know how. On his command, the Jaffa stops, stands frozen waiting for instructions.

"What NOW!" O'Neill doesn't like losing control and he feels it slipping away with every passing minute.

"Come back in our direction." Daniel instructs. Teal'c turns taking a step in Daniel's direction. The sad chorus becomes the chirping babble again. "They don't want us to separate! Jack, they are communicating with us."

"Daniel, there is no need for all four of us wade through this sticky soot. Sorry Teal'c." O'Neill is often short tempered for reasons only he knows. Right now, there is no question where his irritation is coming from. "Teal'c, take off, just get back as quickly as possible. Carter, up the steps. Daniel, do what you want." Knowing that he will do what he believes is right regardless of orders, O'Neill saves himself the effort of further instructions. "I'm going to wait here for Teal'c. You pacify our hosts however you wish."

Daniel stays on the canyon floor hoping not to alarm the tiny Asgard.

As expected, the Asgard scamper back and forth between the men at the path and Teal'c's progress to collect the ladder. By the time the three men reach the top of the cliff, neither their tiny hosts nor the Air Force Colonel are anywhere to be seen.

O'Neill shouts for her first at full volume. No response. Then by radio, not even static answers him. "Daniel, would those, those, Asgard have taken her?"

"Why would they? They didn't seem to want us to separate."

Teal'c circles the area looking for tracks. "O'Neill, the area is so covered with tiny footprints that I can make out only two prints belonging to Colonel Carter. Here at the edge of the cliff. If they trampled her other footprints, there would likely be some trace, there is none. It's as if the tiny Asgard somehow carried her from this point."

"Sam would never quietly submit to being kidnapped." Daniel voices what they are all certain of.

O'Neill, recalling that missions were actually work, looks for a reason, "Carry her off to where? Why? Fan out look for a trail. He takes a direct line toward the forest, shaking his head, manufacturing deep, exhausted sighs for an effect ignored by his companions. "This day just keeps getting better. I don't remember missions being this screwed up."

Across the trampled meadow, just into the edge of the forest, O'Neill finds Carter's utility vest. A few more steps beyond the tree line and the forest opens into a small clearing of beaten ground. More tracks in a tangle of directions. "Over here." O'Neill's radio message sounds hollow in the quiet of the forest. "I think I've found something." Teal'c approaches from the left without alerting the mosquitoes. Daniel arrives at O'Neill's position accompanied by a herd of invisible buffalo. The small group of humans fan out, moving deeper into the forest following Teal'c's lead and hundreds of tiny footprints.

Half an hour of tracking puts them no closer to the missing woman and a lot closer to darkness. Like breadcrumbs along the path, they have gathered up a jacket, a web belt, one military issue boot, and a pair of socks.

Darkness finally forces O'Neill to decide whether to continue searching or retreat and begin looking again with daylight. "Let's flag this area and go back to the meadow. Teal'c, you and Daniel get down to the MALP and bring up a tent and medical kit and anything else you can carry. I'll wait in the meadow, just in case."

"Jack, we can't leave her with them!"

"Daniel, calm down. Think about it." This is the O'Neill of the old missions, sorting through details, some he accurately recalls, some not, to arrive at a decision. "They are Asgards, not wild cave men. If we set up a camp, we'll be better able to care for her when we do find her. We'll continue the search in the morning. If I thought her life was in danger, you know I'd be out there with torches and a dozen SG teams. If the little guys frighten her, they won't like sensing what she feels and if they're smart, they'll run like hell to get out of her way. Now," his hand out inviting Daniel to follow Teal'c down the slab steps, "please help Teal'c."

"Jack," O'Neill can't ever remember Daniel letting him get away with anything, "can you even imagine how mad Sam's gonna to be when she realizes she's being left out there!"

"She'll be fine, she's an officer with ample training. For cryin' out loud, she's among people who are thirty inches tall with arms and legs like little sticks." O'Neill has had a dose of the old days and has found it less glamorous than he remembered. "She'll be fine, worry about the Asgard if you need something to spend your energy on. Carter can take care of herself if need be!" True as he knows this to be, being a General hasn't insulated him from her anger, he's seen that raised chin and those eyes fixed on his shortcomings, but night is no time to be stumbling around on strange ground.

Backing away in the direction Teal'c has taken, Daniel yields to his commander's orders with a final observation. "Boy, are you gonna get it."

The truth of Daniel's words sends O'Neill kicking at imaginary barriers in the meadow he longed for only this morning. He absently circles the open space along the edge of the forest. "I could be home with a beer and a stack of harmless reports. Nobody ever got tongue-lashed by a stack of papers. I don't need to be here, pricked to death by smelly thorns, sticky and covered with soot. Someone else could have dumped the MALP on its top, tipped over the Stargate, burnt up the canyon and lost an Air Force Colonel. Anyone can do these things, I shouldn't have to do everything!" The longer he walks, the louder he talks...to himself.

For most of the distance, he isn't aware of the small sounds following him. Approaching the end of the meadow's perimeter a presence in the dark edge of the forest comes to his lagging attention. His pace slows; his hearing tunes in the shuffle of leaves and branches. Slowly turning to face the sound, he leans down, cocking his head to catch the faintest murmur. One step toward the trees and the rustle in the undergrowth becomes a frenzied rout of tiny feet on the run. The Asgard, who have been watching his tirade, take off in a chattering retreat. At the top of his lungs O'Neill encourages them in their retreat. "Go ahead, make her mad see what that gets you. You think you've seen angry hornets. You keep her. You deal with her. See how you like it!"

Yelling always makes him feel better. It doesn't matter about what, or even why, just yelling. So it is that, feeling resigned to leaving Sam with the harmless little Asgard until daylight, O'Neill turns away from the trees, contentedly smiling, to face Teal'c and Daniel.

Now there are three people making him regret a simple little mission for old time's sake. O'Neill is sure that his assessment of Carter's situation is correct but there is a part of him that isn't as comfortable with her absence as the General in him should be.

An hour before daylight, Daniel is on watch. He sits on a rolled sleeping bag, his back to the cliff's edge, some distance away from the low fire between O'Neill and Teal'c. When he's on watch, only his eyes move. He can sit frozen long enough to blend into the landscape; mentally sifting new data, re-working and revising theories. What his body doesn't need in energy, his mind makes use of. The stillness this alert form of meditation creates around Daniel gives him an advantage over his teammates who find that to remain alert, they must be moving.

The tiny shadow that passes between the stone-like man and the dying fire might have escaped notice in the unsure light between dark and dawn; but Daniel doesn't miss it. He sits, without changing either his position or his breathing, watching the tiny creature carrying a small bundle approach the sleeping men. It circles the motionless mounds at a distance, closing on them, peering at them as if to identify each.

When the figure stoops, placing its bundle next to O'Neill, Daniel stands, sending the creature scurrying toward the trees looking back toward the campsite. At a run, Daniel heads toward the sleepers quickly but not before the Asgard reaches the edge of the meadow and blends into the trees shrouded by pre-dawn darkness.

"Jack, Teal'c, get up, get away from the fire!" The two men are up and moving away from both the fire and Daniel. Alerted more by his tone than his warning, they run, falling to the flat ground for lack of any real cover. Behind them, Daniel stands, listening, a short distance from the empty sleeping bags. A dozen careful light steps puts him within reach of O'Neill's rumpled bed.

Motioning to the crouched men out in the meadow to come back, Daniel kneels lifting the corner of the sleeping bag. With both hands, he lifts the Asgard's bundle, handling it as he would a fragile artifact. "Jack, she left it for you." Daniel, smiling at the huge black eyes showing above the coarse blanket, hands his commander a bundled infant.

The infant Asgard is scarcely longer than O'Neill's hand. The General hands the tiny bundle to Teal'c before the Jaffa is aware of what he is accepting. "O'Neill, this is an infant. You told me the Asgard did not have children. How can this be?"

"Yes, Daniel, how can that be?" When Carter isn't there to take the heat of surprising events, O'Neill has Daniel in reserve.

"Jack, a female brought the child into camp, circled you and Teal'c there at the fire and then lay the infant next to you. She gave it to you!"

"Female?"

The question in O'Neill's voice brings Daniel to the point of intentionally patronizing the General. "Teal'c, please explain 'female' to Jack. I'm going to look for Sam."

They head for the woods to resume their search. Following their own trail from the evening before, they come to the clearing where they had turned back. Teal'c leads in the direction of the only trail; Daniel, the designated baby-sitter, follows. O'Neill, alternately mumbling and shouting, brings up the rear.

"Daniel, why would they just give away a baby? It doesn't make sense...of course, very little of the last twenty-four hours makes sense, but why? Who gives away their children?" O'Neill grumbles on.

"Jack, they probably gave you this infant in exchange for Sam. They might intend to keep her. Don't ask me why until I've had time to study them."

"Why me?" A whining general is not a pretty sight.

Daniel tries to put what little they know into some rational order. "Well, you were the only one yelling at them about her. Remember, they don't understand words, they weren't 'hearing' what you were saying, they were sensing what you were feeling. And...evidently what you were feeling was...loss, they believed they could fill that loss by replacing Sam with the infant. They sensed they had taken something...precious from you and so they gave you something precious to them." Daniel has hit a nerve, the grumbling and moaning from the rear of the formation stops.

When Teal'c, at the head of the column, twists toward Daniel, an understanding smile is the only communication.

For less than half and hour, they have followed what there is of the trail that follows a stream through heavy underbrush. Some distance ahead of them and off to the side, there is noise that doesn't mesh with the sounds of a forest waking up. Brought to a silent halt by Teal'c, the men drop to their knees taking cover. Across their field of vision not ten yards away on a parallel course, a figure encased in white clay and draped in garlands of vine, taller than the Asgard, strides full of purpose toward the meadow. The Colonel has freed herself.

Teal'c and Daniel sum up what they see with three words spoken in hushed voices. "She's really mad!"

O'Neill exhales and forces a grin. "Let's give her time to cool off."

"O'Neill, she isn't going to...cool off. Did you see what she was carrying? A boot and a tee-shirt."

Daniel is finally able to make sense of something. "Jack, the Asgard have fashioned Sam into their 'Mother Earth'. The white clay, the leaves and all, she's their version of our culture's Mother Earth. A deity, In some cultures, the Mother Earth figure is the primary deity; symbol of fertility. The most important thing to early development was a way to ensure good crops, plenty of game, healthy children and Mother Earth was the deity they honored in hopes of achieving this. I'll know more when I've talked with Sam."

"By the look of her, I'm guessing asking her anything about the Asgard might not be a good idea for a little while. Plan B. Teal'c, you and I will head toward the canyon looking for the place where the Asgard crossed between here and the DHD. Daniel, you take the infant back to camp, find out what Carter has learned. Stay in camp. We'll keep in touch." O'Neill, thankful for command, frames tasks to suit his disposition.

Daniel is free to disagree and does so. "No, no way. Your decision left her out there so they could, could, well you saw her. You go to camp, Teal'c and I will find the Asgard path over to the DHD."

"Who's in charge here!" O'Neill has no recourse when civilians won't follow orders.

Teal'c's advice to the cowardly General. "O'Neill, take it like an adult human male."

Daniel hands over the tiny Asgard. "If you go into camp carrying a baby, you might buy a little sympathy. Teal'c lets put some distance between us and camp!"

O'Neill wanders aimlessly back and forth across the path headed in the general direction of the meadow camp. The infant Asgard has been sleeping, but the General knows this probably won't last. So, with divided purpose, he is anxious to get to Carter, who has probably learned a lot about these Asgard; while on the other hand, he'd rather not have to face a woman covered in clay and twigs, robed in grape vines.

Stumbling into the meadow, mud covered and exhausted, Sam Carter, finds the camp SG-1 had set up. Over twelve hours ago, hundreds of tiny hands encased her in hardening clay. Two thoughts now consume her. One, to get the mud washed off skin that is beginning to crack beneath it; and second, to violently take the life of the first member of SG-1 she comes in contact with.

She gathers up a complete uniform and heads back across the meadow to the stream in the forest; she's ticking off the things that she's got to do - get cleaned up, find SG-1 and explain to them that the Asgard believe they have stolen a child. That these Asgard have children is something she hasn't had time to sort out. Her mind races over what has to be done. And done fast.

Following the trail around a stand of large trees, Jack O'Neill runs squarely into a pair of large gray-green eyes surrounded by cracked white clay and twigs.

Language is a funny thing. Just when you need to be at your best with it, the faculty deserts you. General O'Neill suffers just such a desertion. "Carter, nice dress."

"YOU left me behind! What, did you think, they're just wee folks, they won't hurt her. They'll be the ones to get hurt. You did didn't you, that's just the rational you'd use when it got dark." Her voice is low and even, a sure warning that a bigger storm will brew unless he is very careful, but O'Neill is his own worst enemy.

"What's the big deal, I was right, they didn't do you any harm. I had to make a command decision, happens all the time. Besides, you got a new outfit out of it." He might have gotten away with reminding her about command if he hadn't gone that one step further. Without thinking, he reaches out, tweaking a leafy sprig poking out of the hardened clay on her hip.

The slap was a surprise; Carter wasn't the slapping kind. It isn't dignified, but nothing else about this mission is either. O'Neill doesn't think he deserved it. "Hey, I'm carrying the baby!"

The clay coated colonel pushes past him before the red on his face fully ripens into the shape of her hand. Rubbing the soreness with one hand, cradling the infant with the other, he watches the flip of the twigs and the sway of the vines stalk off up the trail. Aloud but to himself, "I ought to follow her to keep them from recapturing her. But if she thought I was anywhere near that stream..."

"O'Neill, respond!" Teal'c's voice on the radio, snaps the General back into command.

"Go ahead."

"The canyon ends less than a mile from the Stargate. We have crossed over and located the DHD."

"Teal'c, dial home, get SG-18 and their hoisting equipment out here to set the Gate back up."

"Jack," Daniel either curious or thoughtful, O'Neill can't tell which, "is Sam all right?"

"She's fine. I told you she wouldn't get hurt." In O'Neill's voice, there is emphasis each time he says 'she'. Daniel hears it and really wishes he'd been there for that meeting.

"Jack, we can't dial out. The Asgard have the DHD surrounded. There must be hundreds of them. I thought Thor said it was a small colony?"

"Say again!" O'Neill, knowing Thor, is pretty sure he heard Daniel correctly, but needs time to reshape the mission goal and his next meeting with the Asgard commander.

"Just go with the flow, I think I know what the problem is." He knows what the problem is all right; it's a tiny bundle with huge black eyes. "Carter, can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Colonel, respond."

Silence.

"Sam." O'Neill finally changes his approach, revealing his concern for her.

Silence.

"What NOW!" This is NOT the mission the desk-bound general imagined. "Teal'c."

"Yes, O'Neill.

"What are the Asgard doing?"

"Daniel Jackson and I are being...herded...back toward camp."

"Herded?"

"Jack, they have surrounded us and are moving like a gentle wave carrying us along. I'm almost sure they want us all together in one place?" Daniel keeps his voice and tone monotone hoping that it transfers to his emotional state.

O'Neill believes that somehow Carter and the infant are linked to the actions of the Asgard clones; if he allows everyone to gather in one place and he's right, they can straighten out the misunderstanding. If the Asgard were trading the infant for Carter, SG-1 can solve the misunderstanding simply by returning the infant and demonstrating that they are re-claiming Carter. Or, if he's wrong and O'Neill only briefly considers this, they could be completely over run by sheer Asgard numbers and all be turned into clay covered, vine draped icons of nature.

With limited options, O'Neill heads in the direction Carter took when she headed for the stream. He's got to know what she knows about the Asgard and know it before the army of clones reaches the campsite. With the infant cradled at his elbow, the General growls and gripes his way along through the undergrowth.

"General," her voice startles him out of his grumbling monologue. "You're headed in the wrong direction, sir." She is back in uniform with only traces of the white clay clinging to her face and hair. The General resists the temptation to remove any of it.

"Carter..." wisdom finally overcomes his desire to amuse and he changes direction in mid-sentence. "I've been lost since we got here! Let's get back to camp."

"I should apologize, sir..."

"Let's just get this mission over with, then we'll decide what if anything else needs to be said or done."

"...but I'm not going to... apologize." She is standing at attention but the harshness is gone from her voice.

"Colonel, we've got a bigger problem here." He knows there aren't going to be any charges brought against her. By the pure genius that fits him for field command, O'Neill, without a second thought, lets it pass as an incident of mutual indiscretion. As for the lack of an apology, 'Well,' he thinks, trying not to smile at her, 'It just might have been worth it. The only thing on this mission that has been.' To cover his personal thoughts, "Report Colonel."

"Sir, there are probably thousands of Asgard on this planet. The variety of flaws in the Asgard clones over the centuries has somehow produced a viable civilization. True they aren't the geniuses that Thor and his kind are, but they are a society. When Daniel has a chance to study them, he'll be able to shed more light on the culture that's developed. Sir, how can we justify up-rooting a culture and moving it to another planet for the convenience anyone, even the Asgard. These clones aren't clones anymore. They are a race separate from Thor's. He must not have realized there were so many here, that there are infants here."

O'Neill isn't so generous, "Oh, he knew something was up, he just knew better than to tell us before we agreed to take on the job."

Carter has taken the tiny infant from the general and unwrapping the bundle, examines the baby Asgard. "Sir, this is something none of Thor's people have seen in thousands of years."

O'Neill peers at the miniature boy. "Yep, you're right."

The wave of Asgard escorting Daniel and Teal'c can be heard before they are seen. The air is filled with their chattering hum and the scuffle of tiny feet. The group swarms over the meadow and around the campsite gathering SG-1 together where O'Neill and Carter have been waiting. Between them on a sleeping bag, the Asgard baby lays awake and quiet.

"Colonel Carter, are you unharmed?" Teal'c takes no notice of his commander.

"I'm fine Teal'c, a little stiff from the dry clay, but fine. Thanks for asking."

Daniel wags a finger at the discoloration on O'Neill's face. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing. I just got to a close to a low hanging branch."

The wave of escorting clones has backed away from the grouped humans. At the edge of the forest, the Asgard stand watching SG-1 as though waiting or listening for something or someone.

"Daniel, what are they doing?" O'Neill doesn't want to be forced to accept any situation he doesn't understand.

"Jack, listen to them, you can hear them if you listen with your mind, your heart."

"Daniel, I'm listening to them with my ears and you know what I hear? We could be in big trouble here if we make one wrong move...and we don't know what that move might be. Do you see how many of them there are now? Tell them they can have the baby back, but we want to keep Carter. Can you focus your attention on that."

Out of the forest surrounding the meadow, from all points, clones silently merge with those already present. They close into a circle with a low babbling song and begin to move, tightening the circle. Their sheer numbers dwarf the humans.

"Everyone, study the trees, don't look at them; be calm. Sam, bring the baby. Jack, Teal'c kneel." Daniel is down on one knee motioning them down in a protective arc around Carter.

"Daniel?"

"Jack, you haven't had to trust me lately, but this would be a good time. They need to see that we will protect Sam, that we revere her. Sam, hold the baby out to them."

When the men have knelt, the hum and faint babble from several hundred Asgard clones stops, leaving a heavy silence in its place. In the sea of clones, there isn't the slightest movement or sound. They stand, gray statues closely gathered, all eyes on the group of humans. A pair of tiny hands reaches out to take the infant from Carter, then; another pair gently touches Daniel, lingering on his cheek.

Over the hushed meadow and the silent army, a vapor-cloud rolls slowly in from a distance, signaling the arrival of an Asgard mothership in low orbit. In thirty seconds, the crowded meadow is emptied; leaving SG-1 still huddled in a tight group when the transport beam activates.

Aboard the Asgard vessel, Daniel, abruptly and without preamble, takes the Asgard High Commander to task. Daniel hasn't seen the mission the way Thor did or even the way O'Neill did.

Daniel has closed on Thor, towering over the Asgard in his passion to see justice done. That one race could cast off a part of itself grates on Daniel's humanity. "They 'told' me about the 'big ones'. That's what they call you, 'the big ones.' You never came back to check on them. You just kept dropping them off over the years and never thought to see how they were doing?

Towered over by the tall human, Thor holds his ground facing Daniel's onslaught. "You believed that because you made them, you have the right to do with them as you please. You didn't even know them well enough to understand that separating the group was what killed them, not your transport technology. If you'd transported all of them at once, they would all probably have lived."

"You think of them as property. They have become a race apart from you. They will not be separated and you will never be able to find them if you come in ships. They will only see you if you arrive through the Stargate."

"Dr Jackson, we understand and share your concern, but we once truly believed that the clones were not suited to Asgard society. That they were better off here where they could form their own culture. We are prepared to acknowledge that error." Thor is an intellectual being coming to grips with an idea that will alter his society, and the Asgard future.

Daniel is reluctant to accept Thor's easy acceptance and O'Neill finds himself considering some less-than polite way to end Daniel's rampage. The General's sense of diplomatic responsibility has been skewered by the irate scientist. "For crying out loud Daniel, you've made your point."

"No, Jack, I haven't...but its this. The viability of a society rests in its diversity. The very thing the Asgard needed to survive, they culled out in search of intellectual perfection. If they are in trouble now, it's of their own making...Now...I've made my point."

"Carter, Teal'c," O'Neill motions for the calmer members of SG-1 to corral the agitated archeologist out of earshot.

O'Neill shifts away from Daniel's intensity. "So, Thor, nice of you to drop by. What brings you to this part of town? I thought you couldn't come here?"

"When Stargate command notified me that you were overdue, and they couldn't reach you through your reconnaissance vehicle, I felt the risk was warranted. Once the clones had cleared your campsite, it was safe to transport you."

O'Neill isn't entirely pacified. "You knew there was more than just a small colony here? Why didn't you just tell us how many there were? What did you think we'd do? Did you know there were thousands there?"

"No, O'Neill, the Asgard records indicated that only fifty-one clones should have been here. We needed someone we could trust with our cloning secret to come here and report on their condition. True, the re-location directive was something of a ruse; we needed to know if the population was healthy. We were as surprised as you were to discover that in the last several hundred years they had acquired the ability to reproduce. The High Counsel regrets not being confident enough in SG-1 to reveal the true nature of the mission."

O'Neill is pleased with his ability to 'see through' Thor. "Now that you know more about these Asgard I take it you and the grateful High Counsel will see that they receive all the benefits of Asgard citizenship." Not exactly the way Daniel would have phrased it, but O'Neill is sure that he would agree.

"Of course. They may be the answer to the Asgard's current problem with cloning. From them we may be able to reverse some of the less desirable effects of long-term cloning. The Asgard are again in your debt." Thor nods his appreciation to O'Neill and to Daniel across the room.

The General gathers up his team. "I take it, our work here is done. So, if you'll put the Stargate back in place, it's time we went home. I've got paperwork waiting for me."

Mission Ends

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