CHAPTER TWO
At seven o'clock Friday morning, SG-1 returned to Cedarna, accompanied by SG-9. Instead of being met by Esha, Derdri greeted them, explaining that Esha was attending to another matter. There was something in the woman's manner that concerned Daniel.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
The woman hesitated fractionally. "Yes, but I am sure it will be resolved. Come. Let us go to the hall so that we may talk."
"After today, SG-9 will be taking charge of working out the trade agreement," Jack explained once they reached the meeting room and introductions had been made. "They're experts in stuff like this."
"Does this mean that you will not be coming back here?" Derdri's gaze flitted toward Daniel, then quickly away.
"I would like to continue being a part of this," the archeologist replied, "but my time here would have to be limited since I'll be going on other missions with my team, and I have duties at the SGC as well."
"We would not wish for you to be burdened with this, Daniel," the Cedarnan said earnestly. "If these men are skilled in agreements of trade, we will trust them to be fair and wise in their dealings with us. You need not continue coming here."
Puzzled by her attitude, which seemed to indicate that she didn't want him to come back, Daniel said nothing.
A short while later, SG-1 walked out of the meeting hall, leaving the discussion of the agreement to the other SG team.
"Is it my imagination or did she seem kind of eager to end Daniel's relationship with these people?" Jack asked.
"She did seem pretty insistent that he didn't need to stay a part of this," Sam admitted.
"Which I find rather odd considering how friendly they all were to us yesterday."
"I wish I could talk to Esha," Daniel said. "I wonder where he is," he pointed a finger at Jack, who'd opened his mouth, "and don't say anything about animal sacrifices or magic rituals."
"I wasn't going to say that."
"Yes, you were."
"No, I wasn't."
"Were."
"Wasn't."
Daniel looked at him piercingly. "Then what were you going to say?"
"Uhhh . . . just, um. . . ." He looked at his teammates, who were all staring at him expectantly. "Oh, leave me alone."
At that moment, Daniel spied Esha in the distance. The man was walking hurriedly across the street.
"Esha!" Daniel called, breaking into a trot, his teammates behind him.
The man spun around, and, for a brief moment, there was a look of panic on his face.
"Daniel, I-I did not realize that you and your team had returned. I have been attending to an important matter."
"Yes, that's what Derdri said. Is there some kind of trouble?"
"You need not concern yourself with it," Esha said quickly.
Just then, another man came running up. "Esha, he has gotten worse!" Then he noticed SG-1, and his face went pale, eyes widening in fear.
"Return to your duties," Esha told him. "I will come as soon as I can."
The man hurried off.
"Okay, what's going on here?" Jack asked. "First, Derdri acts like she wants to shoo Daniel off the planet as quickly as possible, then we see you acting all squirrelly, and, now, that guy looks like he's ready to have a heart attack when he sees us."
"Please. It would be best if you did not ask," Esha said, beginning to look a little like a cornered animal. "It is a private thing."
"Oh, now that's just not gonna cut it, not if we're going to be doing business with you people."
Normally, Daniel would tell Jack that they didn't have the right to pry into the Cedarnans' private business, but something was definitely going on here.
"Who was he talking about when he said that someone had gotten worse?" he asked. "Is somebody sick? If that's the case, maybe we can help."
All at once, the man before them seemed to wilt. His shoulders slumped with defeat. "You were never supposed to know," he murmured. "It is always kept secret from those who visit our world, especially from those who have been chosen."
"What's always kept secret?" Jack asked. "Chosen for what?"
"Come with me," Esha responded in a tone of resignation.
As they headed toward the south end of town as the man started to explain. "You know of our problem with a low birthrate. When our doctors began to realize what was happening, they thought it would be the end of our people. They tried so many things to fix it, but nothing worked. We are all blessed with long lives, but that would not prevent the demise of our people if there were too few children to take the place of those who died of old age, illness and accidents. In the years since this problem began, our numbers have been dwindling. At one time, there were many of us. Now, our numbers are so low that many villages and towns no longer have people to live in them. As I have said, occasionally, visitors come and decide to make this their home. Those who are not already married are encouraged to wed and to produce as many children as possible. Those children and the children after them help to increase our numbers a little, but, as I have said, in time, those descended from the ones who took up residence here become infertile like everyone else."
"We know why, Esha," Sam said. "It's because of a chemical in your water. It's a type of spermicide, a poison that kills sperm. Because of it, your male population doesn't produce enough, which makes it less likely that they can father children. It might also make a woman's uterus, her womb, hostile to the sperm, causing them to die before they reach the egg."
Esha stared at her. "Our water? We knew that the problem lie mainly with the men since newcomers who bred with native women were able to give them children, though not as many as a couple who were both newcomers. But we did not know the reason for the problem. If it is in the water, then there is nothing we can do except leave this world."
"We might be able to fix it, Esha," Daniel told him in spite of Janet's request not to say anything yet. "We can't be sure yet, but our doctors and scientists are working on coming up with a way to neutralize the chemical."
The Cedarnan met his eyes. "If you can do this, you will have saved our race." His expression turned to regret. "But it may be that, once you have learned what we have done, you will not want to help us."
"What did you do?" Jack asked, getting a bad feeling in his gut.
"I will show you."
Ahead of them was a building that looked different from all the others. It appeared more modern. Esha told SG-1 that it was their hospital.
"As I was saying, our people were desperate for a way to save us from extinction," he continued. "Because the problem appeared to be mostly with the men, we considered sending our women to other worlds to find men to impregnate them. But, though some women were willing to do that for the sake of our people, it was decided that we did not want to disrespect our women by treating them like breeding stock."
"Thank you," Sam said with emotion, not sure that she'd want to have anything more to do with these people if they'd forced the women to do something like that.
"Also, we were concerned that some of the men they chose might not be . . . suitable. Our way of life and our beliefs are very important to us, and we worried that some of the children born of these men we knew so little about might grow up with unwanted character traits. It is well known that if a man has a quick temper, it is possible that his children might inherit that temper, and we feared that children born from those off-world unions might destroy the peace we have here or seek to do things that would harm this world."
"Makes sense I suppose," Jack said. "Still waiting on you telling us what you did."
They entered the building, and SG-1 saw that it was, indeed, a hospital. Esha led them down a hallway to a locked door, which he opened. Beyond it, the hallway continued.
"One day, a group exploring the area around the great weapon discovered an underground chamber," Esha revealed as they continued down the hall. "The chamber had several devices in it that were far beyond our level of technology. In time, our scientists discovered what some of the devices were for. One of them has helped our people to survive."
Esha paused at another door and turned to Daniel. "Please forgive us. We only sought to save our people."
He opened the door and stepped inside, SG-1 following him. In the room were four people gathered in a corner. Seeing Esha and the people from Earth, they stepped aside to reveal a young child dressed in a loose, knee-length tunic. The boy was sitting on the floor in the corner, his face completely devoid of emotion, eyes staring sightlessly. He was rocking slightly, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. There was something about the child that struck a familiar cord in all of SG-1, but it was only Daniel who realized what he was seeing.
"Oh my God," he whispered.
Sam looked at him, seeing the stunned and horrified expression on his face, "Daniel?"
"It's me," he whispered. "That's me."
"What?!" Jack exclaimed. He stared harder at the boy and realized that Daniel was right. The resemblance was undeniable. He turned to Esha, furious. "You cloned him?!"
The man cowered before Jack's fury. "Please. You must understand. We were trying to survive. When we realized that one of the machines could make . . . copies of people, we saw it as a way to preserve our race. But to copy our own people was not acceptable to us. For everyone to see a duplicate of themselves almost every day of their lives would be almost unbearable. We value each of our people's uniqueness and individuality. The decision was made to go to other worlds and seek out men and women we believed to be good people, people that we would be happy to have as a part of our society. Blood or skin samples were taken from them that could be used to make what you call clones. The clones of the men, when they grew to adulthood, would mate with our women or with the clones of off-world women and give them children." Esha met Daniel's eyes. "And when people came to visit our world, if there were any among them whom we thought were the right kind of people, we would take samples from them, too. We would be honored to have one such as you living among us, which is why you were chosen."
"And were any of the rest of us 'chosen'?" Jack asked bitingly.
"We got a sample from Samantha," Esha admitted.
Sam was stunned. "You mean there's a clone of me, too?"
"No. She has not yet been created. We can only do one at a time and must wait until that one has finished developing before doing another."
"Finished developing?" Sam asked. "You mean when they mature to adulthood? We're familiar with cloning. We've run across other races that use it, and some of them accelerate the growth of the clones so that they reach maturity in a matter of hours or days."
Esha shook his head. "They do not grow to adulthood in the machine. We do not know why, but the age they are when they come out of the machine varies. Some are infants, others are young children. None are over the age of nine years. We do not know how to change this, and we are afraid to make any alterations to the settings on the machine."
"What's wrong with him?" Daniel asked, looking at the clone of himself.
"We do not know. This has never happened before. He seems healthy, so we have wondered if it has something to do with the memories."
Daniel's head snapped about. "He has my memories?"
"Only the memories that you had at that age. If we do not give them memories, they are like newborn infants and must be taught everything that a baby must learn."
The archeologist turned back to the little boy in the corner. He appeared to be around eight years old. . . .
Suddenly, Daniel was striding across the room, pushing the Cedarnan scientists out of the way. He sat on the floor and gathered the boy into his arms.
"It's okay, Danny. I'm here. I've got you," he murmured, holding the child tight. "I know how much it hurts, Danny, but I won't let you be alone. I swear I won't. It's going to be all right."
Listening to Daniel's words, Sam realized what was going on. "Oh, God." She looked at her C.O. "Daniel's parents, sir."
"Ah, crap!" Jack cursed. "Dammit all to hell."
"What is it?" Esha asked, worried.
"Daniel Jackson witnessed the violent death of his parents when he was a mere child of eight," Teal'c explained.
"Three guesses on what memories you just gave that little kid," Jack growled, very clearly not happy with the Cedarnans.
"I-I-I am so sorry," Esha stammered, horrified. "We did not know this. The machine downloads the memories to coincide with the age of the child. We could not have known about this trauma that Daniel suffered."
"How did you even get his memories?" Jack asked.
"That device!" Sam blurted out. She turned to Jack. "Derdri showed me a device that she said was sometimes used to transfer knowledge from one person to another."
Esha nodded. "They were found in the chamber. The devices work with the machine that creates the clones. There are only two of them. One was shown to you so that it could record everything from your memory. The other was shown to Daniel."
"Then you lied about using them as a teaching aid."
"No, it was not a lie. We do sometimes use them for that. We can limit how much they record."
Daniel had gotten to his feet, carrying the boy, who was still unresponsive. "I'm taking him," he said firmly. Seeing the look on the archeologist's face, nobody in their right mind would dare to say no. He'd probably shoot anyone who got in his way.
"Yes. Yes, of course," Esha quickly said. "I am so terribly sorry. We did not know."
"Yeah, well, now you do," Jack stated, glaring at the man. "I want that sample of Carter's blood. You are not going to make a clone of her. And you had better not try to make another one of Daniel or you are going to be very, very sorry."
Esha gestured at one of the scientists, who rushed out of the room. He came back a moment later with two vials of blood, handing them to Sam.
"That's all of it?" Jack asked.
"Yes. There is no more."
"Then we're outta here."
SG-1 left the hospital, Esha following a pace behind them.
Jack spoke into his radio. "Harris, this is O'Neill."
"Harris here, sir," answered the leader of SG-9.
"Did anyone take a sample of yours or any of your team's blood?"
"Uhhh . . . no sir."
"Any of you suffer any unexplained scrapes or cuts?"
There was a brief pause. "No, we're all fine, sir."
"Good. Did anyone show you a doohickey that they said is for transferring knowledge between people?"
"No, we haven't seen anything like that."
"Then head back to the gate. We're leaving."
"Sir?" Harris questioned in surprise and confusion.
"You heard me, Major."
"Yes, sir."
None of the other members of SG-1 made any comments. Sam could understand why her C.O. was angry. This was sort of like when Loki made a clone of him without his knowledge. That hadn't happened all that long ago, and he was still ticked off about it. This was reminding Sam of the time that Harlan secretly made robot copies of them. The colonel hadn't been very happy about that either.
Teal'c, too, could understand Jack's desire to get them and the other team off this planet. They could not trust the Cedarnans not to clone another one of them.
As for Daniel, he wasn't paying much attention to what was going on. His mind was focused on the child he carried, who was still showing no signs of awareness. He hung limply in Daniel's arms, his small blond head lying still on the archeologist's shoulder.
Daniel had no clear memories of those first few hours after seeing his parents killed. The first memory he had was of waking up in a hospital. The hospital staff had been kind, but they didn't have the proper training to deal with a severely traumatized eight-year-old. A child psychologist was sent in to treat him, but Daniel had already descended into a world of silence, and the woman couldn't break through. He vowed that the same thing wouldn't happen again.
As the Stargate activated and SG-9 began going through, Esha looked at Daniel with deep sorrow in his eyes. "Please forgive us," he begged. "We did not mean to harm you or the boy."
"Come on, Daniel. Let's get out of here," Jack said.
Daniel allowed his friend to lead him through the gate. Seconds later, they stepped onto the ramp at the SGC. Hammond was in the gate room.
"SG-1, would you care to explain what's going on?" He started at the child. "Who is this?"
"Well, General, we found out a few things about how the Cedarnans were attempting to increase their population," Jack replied. "We weren't so happy with what we learned."
"This boy?"
"Is Daniel, sir."
Hammond blinked in confusion. "What?"
"It's a clone, sir," Sam explained. "They cloned Daniel, and they would have cloned me, too, if we hadn't found out."
Hammond was at a loss for words for a couple of seconds. "I see. All right, get the boy to the infirmary and get yourselves checked out. We'll debrief in an hour." He looked at Daniel, who was staring down at the child, his expression that of anger, worry and anguish. "Make that an hour and a half."
Jack nodded. "Yes, sir."
Janet was more than a little surprised when she saw Daniel coming in carrying a child.
"Daniel, who is this?" she asked, coming forward. And then she got a good look at the boy's face. Her eyes widening, she looked back and forth between Daniel and the child.
"Amazing resemblance, ain't it, Doc," Jack said.
"I don't understand."
"He's me, Janet," Daniel told her.
"He's. . . ." Her eyes filled with comprehension. "A clone?"
"Yes," Sam confirmed.
"Bring him over here."
Daniel followed Janet to an exam bed. He laid the boy he had begun to think of as "Danny" upon it. Janet looked the child over, frowning in concern.
"He appears to be in a deep state of catatonia. What caused this?"
"I guess they'd call it post traumatic stress disorder nowadays," Daniel replied.
"PTSD? Over what?"
Daniel didn't reply, so it was Sam who spoke up. "How much do you know about Daniel's childhood?"
"I have his entire medical history."
"Then you probably know what happened to him when he was eight."
"Eight?" Janet frowned, trying to recall something specific. Then she remembered. "He lost his parents. He was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. The psychologist classified him as. . . ." Her voice trailed off, and she looked at the little boy. "Please don't tell me this child is remembering that."
"Wish we could, Doc," Jack responded, his voice tinged with anger.
"The Cedarnans give each clone the memories that the original had at that age," Sam explained. "As luck would have it, Daniel's clone stopped maturing in the machine at the physical age of eight, apparently right at the moment that Daniel witnessed his parents' deaths. That's likely the last memory Danny was given."
"Okay, I need to run some tests on him, and the four of you need to get your exams," Janet stated.
"I don't want to leave him," Daniel said. "He needs to know that he's not alone."
Janet gazed up at him in sympathy and understanding. "We won't leave him alone, Daniel. We'll take good care of him."
Daniel looked down at the fragile-looking little boy, whose blue eyes were staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. He took hold of Danny's hand. "I'll be right back, Danny," he said. "I promise."
He reluctantly left to go get his post-mission exam, though he insisted that it be done where he could keep Danny in sight. He watched as Janet and her nurses examined the boy, drawing some blood for analysis.
As soon as he got back from the MRI, Daniel immediately went back to Danny. There appeared to be no change in his condition.
"We got some of the bloodwork back, and, so far, everything appears normal," Janet told him, "at least physically. He does have your blood type, so the chances are greater that he is your clone rather than. . . ."
"My son?"
"I had to make sure, Daniel."
"I understand."
"We'll get the results back on the DNA tomorrow." The doctor stared down at her patient. "To be honest, I'm at a loss on how to proceed. If this was an ordinary case of a child who had suffered a traumatic incident, I'd have a child psychologist come in to treat him."
"But what he's remembering happened thirty years ago, and it didn't really happen to him. He didn't really see it." Daniel's eyes met Janet's. "But, in his mind, he did see it, Janet, and, as far as he's concerned, it's 1973, and he just witnessed the horrible death of the only family he had, except for a grandfather who couldn't spare the time to be a real part of his life. When this happened to me, there was no one there for me, nobody to give me what I needed to get through it. I had to get through it on my own. I won't let it be that way for him."
"We won't let that happen either, Daniel," the doctor assured him. "Danny will get all the love and attention he needs." She looked at her watch. "You need to get to your debriefing."
Though he'd rather have stayed with Danny, Daniel left the infirmary and headed for the briefing room. His teammates were there when he arrived.
"How's Danny?" Sam asked.
"The same."
"I'm so sorry this happened, Daniel. I wish we'd known beforehand."
"Should have known that those guys were a little too friendly and too eager to share their technology," Jack muttered. "The price tag always seems to be higher than what we're led to believe."
Hammond came in and took his seat at the head of the table. "SG-9 has already been debriefed. They reported that the Cedarnans they spoke with never gave any indication of what was going on. The people were still eager to come to a trade agreement with us."
"Well, that sure isn't going to happen now," Jack stated.
"Colonel, in spite of what happened, the fact remains that the Cedarnans have technology that may be of benefit to us."
"Oh, come on, sir. You can't tell me that we're still going to go through with it! They cloned Daniel without his permission, and they'd have done the same thing to Carter. They've secretly cloned who knows how many other people. What's to say that, if we send someone back there, they won't get cloned, too?"
"We could take precautions to see that wouldn't happen. Colonel, I understand your feelings about this, and I agree that it appears we can't trust the Cedarnans, but I'm not the one with the final say on this."
"Yeah, well, you, and I, and all the bigwigs making the decisions aren't the ones who are getting the short end of the stick in this deal. Daniel and that little kid in the infirmary are."
Everyone turned to the archeologist, who was staring at the table.
"Doctor Jackson? What do you have to say about this?" Hammond asked gently. "I've been filled in on some of the story by Doctor Fraiser, so I know what's going on."
Daniel took a deep breath and lifted his head. "I'm angry that the Cedarnans did this, especially since we trusted them and were trying to help them. Cloning any person without their permission is wrong. Though I know that they didn't anticipate what would happen with Danny, the fact remains that they created a child that will not only have to live with the memories of the death of his . . . my parents, but also with the fact that he's a clone. We won't be able to hide that from him. I don't know what that's going to do to him." He paused. "But . . . I can understand why the Cedarnans did it. They were doing what they thought they had to to save their civilization."
"You've got to be kidding me," Jack said. "You're actually going to forgive them?"
"'Forgive' is too strong of a word, Jack, at least right now, but, like I said, I do understand, and I can sympathize with them and their plight." He glanced at Sam, who gave him a tiny smile of understanding.
"So, what is your opinion on what we should do?" the general asked.
"I think that we should try our best to correct the problem that started this whole thing. And, if we can't, I think that we should find a planet for them to move to, one that doesn't have tainted water."
"That's an awful lot of effort to spend on people who were doing something that was ethically wrong," Jack stated.
Daniel turned to him. "And what would you have us do? Take away the cloning machine and lock the planet out of the dialing computer? How would it be less ethically wrong to condemn their entire civilization to extinction? They were fighting to survive, Jack. Yes, they did something that was wrong, but it was to save their world."
Daniel returned his gaze to Hammond. "What I propose is that we don't go back there until either Janet has something to neutralize that chemical or we've determined that it can't be done. If we make that neutralizer or can move them to a planet with clean water, eventually, the effects of the chemical will disappear. It'll take a while, but, in time, they will be able to reproduce normally. In the meantime, to keep their numbers from dropping further, there are other things we could do. If we remove the need for them to clone people, they won't do it anymore, and we won't have to worry about going back there and trading with them. We need to cure the problem, not turn our backs on it."
The general nodded. "You do have some valid points, Doctor Jackson. All right, I will discuss this with my superiors. Right now, though, there is another issue to deal with, namely, that little boy. Obviously, it is out of the question to return him to the planet, so we must decide what to do with him. Considering the traumatic memories he has been given, he will need to be placed with a family that can devote a lot of time to helping him recover. And then there's the issue of him being a clone, a fact that, as Doctor Jackson pointed out, cannot be kept from him forever. This is a rather touchy situation and must be handled with care."
"I'll take him," Daniel and Jack said simultaneously. The two men stared at each other.
"Daniel."
"Jack."
"Do you really think it's a good idea to take care of . . . of yourself?"
"Jack, I've been taking care of myself for a very long time now, and I seem to have done okay so far."
"That's a matter of opinion."
Daniel's glare let Jack know that he didn't appreciate the remark.
"What I'm saying, Daniel, is that I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be the one to take care of Danny. It would be way better for me to take him."
"Why?" Daniel's voice held that little note that everyone at the table recognized as saying, "I'm getting very irritated right now but I'm going to hold onto my temper."
"Well, because, for one thing, you don't have any experience raising a child, and I do."
"Did you have any experience before Charlie was born?"
"Well, no, but that's not the point. A kid like Danny would be better off with someone who knows what they're doing."
The second the words were out of Jack's mouth, he knew they had been a big mistake. Daniel's eyes had taken on a distinctly frosty look that made the colonel feel like the air conditioning had suddenly been turned up full blast. And since there wasn't any air conditioning going, Jack knew the deep freeze was being caused by the archeologist, a very pissed off archeologist.
"First of all, Jack, I find it rather insulting that you think I'd be so inept as a father," Daniel snapped out.
"I didn't mean—"
"Secondly," Daniel interrupted, not letting Jack continue, "there is one very important thing that you're failing to understand. That little boy in the infirmary is me. Everything he is feeling right now – all the pain, fear, disbelief, and numbness – is what I felt thirty years ago when I watched my parents get crushed to death underneath a coverstone."
Utter silence descended like a lead weight on the room.
"So, as far as I'm concerned, I am the only one who knows how to take care of him since not another person on this base or anywhere else can know exactly what he is experiencing right now and what he needs to keep him from withdrawing into himself and not coming out of his shell for the next year."
No longer able to meet Daniel's eyes and hide what he was feeling, Jack's gaze fell to the table as the archeologist continued.
"I'm the one who knows what needs to be said and done when he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, trembling so hard that the whole bed is shaking. I'm the one who knows what it's going to take to get through to him and prevent him from spending the next three months in complete silence, never uttering a word. And when he starts to wish that he'd died along with his parents, I'm the one who knows what words are going to make him realize that his mom and dad wouldn't have wanted that, that they'd want him to live."
'Oh, God. Is that what happened to Daniel?' Sam thought, her eyes stinging with unshed tears.
"Trust me, Jack. He is in a very, very dark place right now. I know, because I was in that same dark place."
Another moment of silence fell upon the room. Even General Hammond and Teal'c were visibly shaken by what Daniel had said.
At last, Jack looked up, and everyone saw the pain in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Daniel," he said quietly. Everyone wondered if his words were for what he had said earlier or because of what his best friend had gone through as a child. "You're right. Danny does need you. You are the right one to take care of him."
"I can give you as long a leave of absence as you feel that you need, Doctor Jackson," Hammond said gently, thinking of what this man had gone through all those years ago and the tough road that Daniel's clone had ahead of him.
"Thank you, sir. If it's okay with you, I'd like to go back to Danny now. There's really nothing more I can contribute to the debriefing."
"Permission granted, Son. And take your time on your mission report. Taking care of that child is the most important thing right now."
