CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning, Daniel went to the observation room that overlooked Patricia's room. He was joined a short while later by Janet, who looked like she'd been up all night.
"She slipped into a coma early this morning," the doctor announced sadly.
"Nothing you're doing is helping?"
"I'm afraid not. I've called another briefing."
An hour later, SG-1 was back in the briefing room to hear Janet's report.
"I'm afraid that nothing I've tried so far has done any good," she told them and Hammond. "This thing is resisting every drug I throw at it. The truth is that there may be no conventional treatment we have that will cure this disease."
"Then what about unconventional ones?" Daniel asked. "Marcus said that the sarcophagus cured the disease. The problem was just that, for some reason, the kids became instantly addicted and couldn't survive the withdrawal. You managed to get me through the withdrawal. Couldn't you do the same for her?"
"Daniel, you were an otherwise strong and healthy young adult when you went through the withdrawal, yet there was more than one time when we came close to losing you. Patricia is a seven-year-old child. The odds of getting her through the withdrawal alive are not good."
"So, then, what?" Jack said. "We just let her die?"
"Colonel, if I honestly thought that using the sarcophagus might save her, I'd do it, but I can't put that child through the hell of withdrawal when there is very little chance that she'd survive. I haven't given up yet. I will continue to try various drugs. It may be that I'll eventually find the right combination."
"Drug," Daniel murmured.
Everyone else looked at him.
"What are you thinking?" Sam asked, recognizing the faraway look on her friend's face.
"We need to call the Tok'ra."
"The Tok'ra? Daniel, you're not thinking of having her made a host, are you?"
Daniel shook his head. "No, that's not what I'm thinking. I'm thinking of that drug Egeria used to negate the effects of the sarcophagus. Is there any chance that it might also have prevented addiction?"
Janet frowned. "I suppose it's possible."
"But what difference does it make?" Jack wanted to know. "Wasn't Egeria the only one who had the formula?"
"Maybe not. What if the Tok'ra have it? They might have had it all this time, but never used it because they couldn't get rid of the side effects."
Sam nodded. "It's possible. They would never have used it themselves, not with those side effects."
Daniel turned to Hammond. "Sir, I really think we need to contact them."
"I'm with Daniel," Jack said. "If there's any chance that they can save that little girl and maybe a lot of other kids on that planet, then we need to call them."
"If nothing else, there's a possibility that the healing device will at least work on Patricia."
The general gave a nod. "Very well. I will send a call out to the Tok'ra immediately."
"Let's just hope that they respond right away," said Sam.
Thankfully, the response from the Tok'ra came just three hours later. Upon hearing that it was a medical crisis, Jacob was sent through with a healing device. The situation was explained to him in the briefing room. When they asked him about the drug, he looked at Daniel.
"You told them?"
"Uh, yeah, a couple of weeks ago."
Daniel very briefly explained about the device, then told Jacob who Patricia was and from where she came.
"So, what about the drug?" Jack asked the Tok'ra. "Do you have it?"
It was Selmak who answered. "I'm afraid not. Egeria did give us the formula in the hope that, someday, it could be perfected, but it was lost many centuries ago." Seeing the disappointed looks on everyone's faces, he then said, "Take me to the child, and I will see if I can cure the illness with the healing device."
In Patricia's isolation room, Selmak was introduced to Marcus and Flavia.
"Selmak is a Tok'ra," Daniel said. "Do you know what that is?"
Marcus' eyes widened. "They are the children of Egeria!" He turned his gaze upon Selmak. "You are a child of our queen?"
"Yes. I am among the oldest still living of her children. I was born more than two thousand years ago."
Marcus immediately went to one knee, his head bowed. "My Lord."
"Get up, Marcus. I am not a god nor your ruler."
The man hesitantly rose to his feet.
"Selmak is going to try to heal Patricia, Marcus," Daniel explained.
"He will have my eternal thanks if he can do so."
Selmak stepped forward and extended the healing device over the child's body. His eyes closed, a look of concentration coming over his face. After about a minute, he lowered the device.
"I'm afraid that this device is not powerful enough to cure the disease completely. I have managed to slow its progress and heal some of the damage already wrought, but I fear it is only a matter of time before it claims the child." Seeing the grief in the eyes of Marcus and Flavia, he then said, "I am sorry."
SG-1, Selmak and Hammond returned to the briefing room.
It was Jacob who spoke this time. "Selmak figures that he gave the girl a couple more days, but it really was just a temporary band-aid. You said that these people have a sarcophagus, which does cure the illness but causes instantaneous addiction?"
Sam nodded. "According to Marcus, they've used it on people without the disease, and there was no problem, so that would seem to indicate that there's nothing wrong with it."
"I'd still like to take a look at it just to be sure. I'll need to get some tools and scanners from the Tok'ra base first, though."
Jacob left immediately. When he got back an hour later, Daniel asked if he'd told the Tok'ra everything. Sam's father replied that he'd only told them that SG-1 had discovered a human civilization with a sarcophagus that might be malfunctioning and causing those who used it to become immediately addicted. The Tok'ra wanted more details, but Jacob told them that there wasn't time to explain everything.
"What I'll say when I get back is something I haven't figured out yet," he said in conclusion.
Marcus gated back to Egerania with SG-1 and Jacob. He took them to where the sarcophagus was kept. The Tok'ra ran a scanner over it. The readings indicated that everything seemed to be working properly.
"We can't know for sure, though, without testing it," he said.
"Uh . . . test it how?" Daniel asked.
"Don't worry. We won't put anybody in it. It can be activated manually."
Jacob pressed a recessed switch, and the sarcophagus turned on. He continued the scan throughout the process.
"It only went through one cycle, just as it should," he said. "I had been thinking that, if it was going through multiple cycles, that would explain the immediate addiction. Everything else seems to be working properly as well."
"But what if it's only malfunctioning when there's a, um, body in there?" Sam asked.
"Any volunteers?" Jack asked, not really serious. Therefore, he was surprised by Teal'c's words.
"You may test it upon me."
"T, I was only joking."
"Nevertheless, a volunteer is needed."
"Except for me, he would be the best candidate," Jacob admitted. "The Tretonin would prevent him from becoming addicted, just as a symbiote does."
"And what about the other nasty effects?" Jack wanted to know.
Teal'c pulled out his knife and proceeded to slice open his arm.
"Hey!" Jack hurried forward, pulling out his handkerchief. "What did you do that for?"
"I am now injured. If the sarcophagus is functioning properly, it will heal my injury and not cause any negative effects."
"And if it's not?" Daniel asked.
"If I see any problems, I can shut it down," Jacob replied.
Teal'c pressed the button to open the lid.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jack asked as the Jaffa climbed in.
"I am sure."
As the lid closed and the sarcophagus turned on, Teal'c's teammates nervously watched Jacob, whose eyes were on the scanner in his hands. Within a matter of seconds, the sarcophagus turned off, and the lid opened. Teal'c climbed out, his arm now fully healed.
"You feeling okay?" Jack asked him.
"I feel fine, O'Neill."
"The sarcophagus worked exactly like it should have," Jacob said. "There appears to be nothing wrong with it."
Jack frowned. "Except that it made the kids they put into it addicted. Maybe it only goes on the fritz when there's a . . . littler person in there."
Jacob shook his head, "It wouldn't work that way, Jack. If it was malfunctioning for one person, it would do so for everyone. I'm afraid this confirms that the problem isn't with the sarcophagus itself. The only answer, then, is that there is something about that disease that dramatically accelerates the sarcophagus' effects."
"So, what does this mean?" Jack asked.
"It means that we can't use the sarcophagus to heal Patricia or any of the other children."
"Then, that's it, isn't it. There's nothing we can do."
SG-1, Jacob and Marcus returned to the SGC. The Chief Magistrate had been told the bad news and went straight to the infirmary to be with his granddaughter during the time she had left. The deep sorrow in his eyes tore at all of them.
"Sir, I was thinking that we could give the Asgard a call," Jack said.
"Even if we could get hold of them, they may not arrive in time to save the girl," Hammond regretfully responded.
"But you can at least try. They may even be able to cure the population of whatever this thing is."
The general nodded. "I will put out the call."
An hour later, Daniel returned to the observation window. Down in the isolation room, Flavia was silently crying, stroking her little girl's face. Marcus sat beside her, an arm about her shoulders. They had requested that they be allowed to take Patricia back through the gate so that she could die with the rest of her family at her side, and arrangements were being made for it to be done.
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Jacob enter the observation room.
"This is so wrong," the archeologist said.
"The death of any child is wrong. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children, grandparents even less so."
Daniel glanced at the man briefly, wondering if he was thinking that, as a Tok'ra, he might outlive both his children and his grandchildren.
The archeologist returned his gaze to the dying little girl and her family. "It would tear Egeria apart to see this, to know this was happening to the descendants of Estrania's people."
Selmak was the one who replied. "Yes, it would. Unfortunately, sometimes, you must accept that nothing can be done to prevent a tragedy."
A touch of anger sparked inside Daniel. He looked at the Tok'ra. "Did you learn that from Egeria? The woman I knew wasn't a quitter."
It was Jacob who answered the archeologist's bitter question. "Daniel, there is a difference between being a quitter and accepting reality. We've done everything we can. All we can do now is hope that the Asgard eventually answer your call and can help the rest of that planet's population."
Daniel's gaze went back to Patricia, thinking that the Asgard probably wouldn't arrive in time to save her.
If he could have foreseen the future and known this was going to happen, he'd have asked Egeria for the formula to that drug. But that, of course, was a power he didn't have. If only. . . .
Daniel's thoughts came to a halt as, all at once, an idea blazed into his mind so suddenly that he nearly gasped.
"Daniel, what's wrong?" Jacob asked.
"We need to call a briefing," the archeologist replied.
Ten minutes later, Hammond, Jacob and all the members of SG-1 were in the briefing room.
"I have an idea," Daniel announced. "You're going to think it's crazy, but, if we're careful, I think it could work."
"Hey, I'm all for crazy if it'll save that little girl and the rest of the kids on that planet," Jack responded.
"What is your idea, Doctor Jackson?" Hammond asked.
"We get the formula from Egeria."
There was complete silence in the room for about ten seconds.
"Okay, Daniel," Jack said. "When you said crazy, I wasn't really thinking along the lines of a seance."
"No seance, Jack. What I'm suggesting is that we go back in time."
No sooner were Daniel's shocking words spoken when he saw Sam begin to open her mouth. He quickly held up his hand. "Just . . . just hear me out. Okay, obviously, we can't go back a couple of thousand years and ask her for it since that might mess up the timeline, but there is a time we can go back to, a time when it wouldn't mess things up: when Egeria was on Pangar."
Sam frowned. "But how would we do that? If we did it while she was still in stasis, we'd have to take her out of stasis, put her in a host, ask her for the formula, then expect her to leave the host and go back into stasis. That certainly isn't going to work. And we couldn't do it after she was found by the Pangarans."
"Actually, that's when we would have to do it, specifically when SG-1 was on Pangar. It's the only time in history when we know what was going on there."
"I still don't understand how we could do it. We couldn't put her into a host, and there would be no opportunity to talk to her after she went into Kelmaa's host."
"I'm not thinking of a host, Sam, I'm thinking of the cryogenic capsules on the Stromos and what happened to me."
Jacob jumped in. "Uh, does someone want to fill me in here?"
Very briefly, Daniel explained to the Tok'ra what happened to him when Pharrin downloaded the personalities of twelve of his people into the archeologist's brain.
"My idea," he said, "is that, if Sam can change the technology so that it copies the stuff in a person's brain instead of transferring it and can get it to work for a symbiote, we go in, copy Egeria's consciousness, and temporarily download it into the mind of a human volunteer, whose own consciousness can be stored. In this way, the original version of Egeria's consciousness will still be in her symbiote body. She'll still be there to take Kelmaa's host as her own and fix the problem with the Tretonin. The symbiote and host will still die, and nothing in history will be changed. I was also thinking that, if you could get a DNA sample, we could find out if the Asgard could clone Egeria's body. Then we could transfer her consciousness into it."
There was another moment of silence, only this one shorter. Again, it was Jack who broke it.
"Yep, you're right, Daniel. That's definitely crazy."
Sam's frown was now one of deep thought. "But it might actually work. Daniel, this is brilliant! I'd never have thought of doing this. The biggest problem I foresee isn't getting the technology to copy the consciousness rather than transferring it. In fact, I talked to a couple of the Talthusian scientists, and they said that the first generation of the technology actually did copy rather than transfer. The trouble would be in adapting the technology to work for a symbiote brain."
"We might be able to help with that," Selmak said. "We would have to study the technology and get all the information we could on its creation."
"Yeah, but wouldn't that take a lot of time?" Jack asked. "That's something Patricia doesn't have."
"We may be able to extend the time she has again with the healing device, but there would be a limit to how often we could do that. I really could not say how long it would take to adapt the technology until we see it. It might turn out to be a simple procedure."
All eyes turned to General Hammond.
"Though I have some concerns and reservations with this plan," he said, "I agree that, unless we hear from the Asgard and they can help, it is our best and possibly only course of action. Unfortunately, there is one major problem that I fear may result in it being rejected."
"Which is?" Jack questioned.
"The fact that, in order to get the Tok'ras' help in adapting the technology of the cryogenic capsules, it would be necessary to tell them about the time device. There are people who are very concerned about what might happen if a spy in the ranks of the Tok'ra told the Goa'uld about that device, which is why it was agreed that the Tok'ra would not be told." He looked at the Tok'ra sitting there at the table. "My apologies, Jacob."
"Hey, don't apologize to me, George. Back when Daniel told me and Selmak about that thing, we agreed that it would be dangerous for the other Tok'ra to know. But the fact is that, not only will this save the lives of hundreds of kids, it will also give the Tok'ra back their queen. We'll be able to add to our numbers, which will benefit both us and Earth."
"And what happens if the Goa'uld find out about that device, Jacob? If they learn that you suddenly have Egeria back, they're going to wonder how you managed it."
"All right, then, after we use the time device, we destroy it," Daniel said. "Then there will no longer be any danger."
Hammond shook his head. "I'm afraid that few would agree to losing such a valuable piece of technology. My guess is that they'll say that we need to wait for the Asgard."
"And, in the meantime, Patricia and a lot of other kids just keep right on dying," Jack responded angrily. "How many on that planet are dying even as we speak?"
"I'm sorry, Jack. If it were up to me, I'd be giving you the order to get started."
"But, unfortunately, you're not the president."
"Okay, then if those people put more value on things like that than they do on the lives of children on other worlds, then we offer them something else of value in exchange," Daniel said, starting to feel desperate. "Egeria was a Goa'uld queen. She has all of the memories and knowledge of her lineage. Think about what that could mean for us and our fight against the Goa'uld. She'd have knowledge of technology, of their history, alien civilizations that might have developed into possible allies for us, you name it! After Sam became a host to Jolinar, there were people who wanted to see if hypnosis could unearth some of the memories Jolinar left inside her. We wouldn't need hypnosis with Egeria, and I know that she'd willingly give us any knowledge we asked her for."
Jack studied Daniel, hearing the edge of desperation in his voice and wondering about it. He then turned to his C.O.
"Daniel's right, sir. The military advantages that Egeria's knowledge could give to us would be a lot more concrete than the possible benefit that time device thing might give us sometime in the future if something big enough happens to warrant us using it to change history."
"You both have a good point," Hammond said, "and I certainly agree that Egeria's knowledge of the Goa'uld could be a tremendous asset to us. I will call the president right away and submit everything to him directly."
"You also need to tell him that, this time, we don't have the time for him and all those Washington bigwigs to bandy this about for days. There's a little girl waiting for a cure in our infirmary and hundreds of others on Egerania who are getting sick and dying even as we speak."
"I'll pass on that message, Colonel."
"Sir, the Talthusians let us keep three of the cryogenic capsules to study," Sam said. "They're at Area 51. I can go ahead and have them shipped here and get started on adapting the technology to copy a person's consciousness instead of transferring it. I will have to talk to the scientists from Talthus, of course."
Hammond got to his feet. "Do it. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a phone call to make."
SG-1 and Jacob left the briefing room and went to Daniel's office.
"Okay, assuming that they go for it, we need to put together our plan of action," Jack said. "First of all, how are we going to get Egeria into one of those capsule thingies? They're kind of big to be carrying around."
"Obviously, we couldn't get one of the capsules to where Egeria is," Sam replied. "But I really don't think we'd have to. The active matrix module that stores the sleeper's consciousness is a separate unit. I looked at one, and it would be small enough for someone to carry."
"So, how do we get the matrix thing and ourselves to Pangar? If we go through the gate, we'll be seen."
"In a cloaked cargo ship," Daniel replied, "assuming there's someplace near where they were keeping Egeria that we could park it and not be discovered."
"We could probably hover over the roof of the Tretonin facility and get inside through the access door," Sam suggested.
"And then we'd have to sneak into where they keep Egeria," Jack pointed out, beginning to have serious doubts about the plan. "Teal'c and Jonas didn't do so well with the sneaking part last time."
"Well, we'd have an advantage this time, sir," Sam responded. "With the sensors on the Tel'tak, we'd be able to pinpoint the exact location of all the security guards." She then shook her head. "But how are we going to get a ship? We can't take one with us back in time."
"That shouldn't be a problem," Jacob replied. "The Tok'ra always have at least one cargo ship stashed away somewhere. I know where they all were at any given time."
"Okay, I'm a little confused about something," Jack said. "I thought the Goa'uld had genetic knowledge. Wouldn't all of Egeria's memories and things be in her DNA? Why do we have to use the matrix things?"
"Calling it 'genetic' knowledge actually isn't accurate. It isn't encoded into the DNA like, say, the color of your eyes or the shape of your face. If it was, it would be passed on to each generation completely involuntarily. Egeria would have had no way to prevent it from being inherited by her offspring since it would have already been present in the DNA of her eggs. The truth is that a queen's knowledge is passed on to her children through a mental link. So, no, her memories and consciousness would not be present in a clone of her body, no more than those things would be present in a cloned human body or a cloned Asgard body."
Sam nodded. "An Asgard clone doesn't have a consciousness until one is downloaded into it. Loki would have had to do the same thing when he cloned Colonel O'Neill."
Jack made a face. "How about if we agree never to mention that incident ever again?"
The group resumed discussing the plan, ironing out the details. Sam pointed out that Daniel would have to stay onboard the Tel'tak. It would be bad enough if she, Jack and Teal'c got caught, but if he was there, too, it could seriously impact the timeline since it would reveal that he was going to descend.
Daniel nodded. "There's also the fact that I couldn't let Egeria see me since it would affect what she says to the, um, ascended me. And that brings up a problem I didn't think about before."
"Only one?" Jack asked doubtfully.
"Okay, so I didn't plan out all the details ahead of time when this idea suddenly popped into my head. I figured that we could all work out everything together."
"What is the problem about which you speak?" Teal'c asked.
"Me, or, rather, the ascended me. I know I was there, but, except for when I was talking to Egeria, I have no memory of where I was at any given moment."
Sam began to frown. "And you're worried that, if the ascended Daniel sees us and finds out what we're doing, it'll affect your . . . his later actions." Just then, she realized something. "Uh oh."
Jack stared at her. "You know, Carter, you saying that makes me just as nervous and twitchy as it does when Daniel says it."
"Sorry, sir. I just realized something. Daniel can't be on this mission at all, or at least he can't go to Pangar. If the ascended Daniel sees him, he'll know that he is going to descend someday, and that could have disastrous consequences."
Daniel cursed silently. She was right. If he'd known ahead of time that he was going to descend it would very likely have dramatically altered the way he did things.
"So this means that I'll have no choice but to wait on Estrania as you guys go off on the mission."
"Why not wait here instead?" Jack asked. "It wouldn't do you any good to just sit there on Estrania."
Daniel shook his head. "I'm the only one who can read the Furling language. I have to be there in case there's a problem with the time device."
"Oh. Right. Okay, so you won't be on Pangar, but how are we going to keep your glowy self from finding out what we're doing?"
"There isn't any way, although I should imagine that I probably hung around you guys most of the time."
"Well, before Teal'c and Jonas went off to see what was going on in the Tretonin facility, we were all discussing what we should do," Sam said. "I'd say that would be the best time for us to make our move since the place would still be quiet and not on alert." She asked Daniel if Egeria could be counted on not to tell the ascended Daniel about what they did. He replied that she would if they impressed upon her how important it was that she didn't say anything.
"Actually, in that case, you probably won't able to explain what it is that you're doing," he then said. "It would change the things she says to me if she knows that, in a way, she isn't going to die."
Jacob's head bowed for a moment, indicating that Selmak was about to speak.
"I will have to be there," the Tok'ra stated. "Egeria will trust me and follow my instructions."
They hashed out the rest of the details, then Sam went off to make arrangements to get the chambers sent to the SGC and to contact the Talthusians.
"So, what's the whole story with you and these Talthusians?" Jacob asked.
Daniel recounted the whole story, concluding it by telling him that, after all the survivors had been revived, attention was turned to where they were going to go. Using the coordinates provided by the Stromos, it was discovered that there was a Stargate on Ardena, the planet intended to be the new homeworld of the Talthusians, so the survivors were all sent there.
"What about Pharrin and all the other personalities inside him?" Jacob asked.
"At first, we didn't know if there was anything we could do for him, but then I thought about the Asgard. They're experts in transferring a mind's contents to another body. Not only that but they can also clone people. The Asgard were able to sort out the various personalities inside Pharrin's mind and put them inside clones of their original bodies."
"Yes, and what a terrible shame it was that Martice didn't survive the trip from Daniel's brain to Pharrin's," Jack remarked, clearly not sad about that at all.
Daniel explained. "Three of the personalities that had been inside me were lost in the process of transferring them to Pharrin. The sovereign was one of them."
"What about Tryan and Keenin?" Jacob asked.
"They both made it."
"How the heck did you know which personality went with which body?"
"We have the Asgard to thank for that as well. Don't ask me how he did it, but Thor used his ship's computers to identify each consciousness. After that, it was a simple case of matching each name with the Stromos' passenger records, which included photos."
Jack smiled. "And, to top everything off, Thor found the other two ships on the way to Ardena, we woke everyone up, and gated them all to the planet a couple hundred years ahead of their scheduled arrival. A successful mission all around."
"Let's hope that this one goes as well," Daniel murmured.
A few minutes later, Teal'c and Jacob left. Jack remained, having decided that now would be a good time to talk to Daniel about what he'd noticed in the briefing.
"So, what's up with you?" he asked.
Daniel frowned in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"
"I couldn't help but notice that you were getting pretty desperate when Hammond was saying that the bigwigs would probably refuse to allow the mission. I know you want to save Patricia and don't want any more kids to die on that planet, but I get the feeling that there's something more to this than just that."
"What? You think I have an ulterior motive?"
"Well, this would give you a way to save Egeria. I know she came to mean a lot to you."
Daniel started to get angry. "I can't believe that you could think I'd be that self-serving!"
"Daniel, I didn't mean—"
The archeologist didn't let him finish, his anger growing. "Of course I love the thought of saving her. I wouldn't be human if I didn't. But to suggest that's my primary reason for wanting to do this is insulting and-and-and—"
"Hey," Jack interrupted. "You're right. I'm sorry. I should know you better than to even consider it."
Daniel's gaze dropped as his temper began to cool.
"So, what is it, then, Daniel? I know there's something more."
"I just . . . I just think about how Egeria would feel if she knew that the descendants of the people she watched over were going through this. She'd fight to do everything in her power to save those kids. And. . . ."
"And what?"
"And I feel like, in a way, I am sort of responsible for the situation they are in."
Jack frowned severely. "How the hell do you figure that?"
"You know those memories I regained of when I visited Egeria while I was ascended? Well, I got back another memory, too, of something that must have happened after Egeria died. I was talking with Oma, and she told me that if I had not guided Egeria toward being a Tok'ra, it would never have happened, the Tok'ra race would never have been born."
"And she knew this how?"
"She said that the Ascended had the power to look into the past and see what might have been if events had happened differently."
"Okay, so how does that make you the least bit responsible for what's happening on Egerania?"
"Because if I hadn't interfered and gotten Egeria to change, she wouldn't have sent Estrania's population to that planet. There would never have been a plague, and this wouldn't have happened as a result."
Jack paused. "Yeah, okay, so I guess that sort of has some logic to it, but it's also pretty short-sighted. Daniel, I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of the Tok'ra, but even I can admit that they've probably done a lot over the centuries to put a crimp in the plans of more than one Goa'uld. According to Jacob, the Tok'ra personally brought about the deaths of several of them. I don't know if I want to think about how different things would be if the Tok'ra were never born. It could be a whole hell of a lot worse. So I'm thinking that the good your actions did very likely far outweigh the bad consequences that ended up happening."
After Jack had left, Daniel just sat and stared at nothing for several minutes. He really started to think about what would happen of they got the okay for the mission, and it was successful. Egeria would be alive again. Just the thought of that made Daniel feel like smiling. He'd be able to see her again, talk to her again. He'd be able to tell her all the things he couldn't before.
At home, Daniel pulled out of his desk drawer the photo of Egeria. For the second time, he stared at it. Gazing at the beautiful face, he thought of Arria, Egeria's host. Sadly, there would be no way to bring her back as well. It would be impossible to go back two thousand years and get both a DNA sample and a copy of her consciousness without threatening the integrity of the timeline. But, knowing Arria as he did, he was certain that she'd be happy just to know that Egeria was going to be saved. And, in a way, it would be saving Arria, too. Her memories, her hopes and dreams, who she was as a person were all within Egeria, and they would live on for as long as she did.
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