Of the Sand 7
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Chapter Seven: Chakra
Night passed without disturbance. Midway through the night they switched watches with Jack falling into a light doze while Teal’c simply meditated.
People started waking up about an hour or two after sunrise. They could tell this only by the faint light that managed to make its way into the room. The light increased significantly when the doors were opened, which woke up the last few sleepers.
Sam was already hard at work on the mirror when Daniel finally woke up. He rubbed his face as he wished for coffee. Despite sleeping for most of the day yesterday and through the night, he still felt groggy. Coffee would have cured that, he was sure, but they had been unable to find anything resembling coffee at the market, much to his and everyone else’s dismay.
Vala was the only one still asleep when Daniel got up and grabbed a piece of fruit for breakfast. Vala, Sam, and Jonas were the only ones in the room at the moment, although Daniel could faintly hear the others’ voices coming from outside. Daniel nodded at Sam and Jonas before sitting down with the tablet that he had found the day before.
The scroll about chakra made the tablet easier to read. For one, the scroll was more modern than the tablet, which meant that he could now recognize several more characters, and for the other, Daniel now understood what the tablet meant when it talked about chakra. Understanding chakra made the subject of the tablet more worrisome, though. Creatures of energy, demons, being sealed inside of people. It reminded Daniel of the Ori even more, considering the connection that might exist between chakra and the energy that the Ori lived off of.
Daniel had a suspicion that there was a Stargate somewhere on the planet. While texts appeared to them to be in a foreign language, the original language of the planet, they could understand the natives’ spoken words. Plus, there was the fact that Daniel could almost instinctively understand what the texts said when he didn’t concentrate on the actual words. The Stargate probably wasn’t close by to their location, but there was hope that it existed. Daniel hadn’t mentioned it to anyone just yet, but he was fairly sure that the others knew of it. They spent so much time around the Stargate, after all, that they were familiar with the affect that it had.
Daniel put aside thoughts of the Stargate and focused back on the tablet and the other pieces of writing that had been found. It was fascinating.
Meanwhile, more effort went into making the room livable. More junk was cleared from the floors and parts of the room were sectioned off more clearly. The area that they were using for sleeping was left alone, partially because of Vala and also because the area was out of the way enough already. The space that Sam was using with the mirror was left alone, but portioned off further. Beyond that, the only other area that they divided off was a space to cook near the entrance of the room. For the most part, they planned to cook outside, but they were sure that there would be times when they wouldn’t be able to. Sandstorms were the biggest threat, given that they were in a desert climate, but that wasn’t the only possibility of disaster.
Traps were created outside on the cliff face. They didn’t have motion sensors with lights, but they did have two generals, one lieutenant colonel with another one advising, a Jaffa, and a thief when Vala finally woke up. The group was able to set a few good traps, mostly warning them of anyone coming close to their hide out.
“We should wait as long as we can before heading back into town,” George said when they broke for lunch. “And we’ll send a different team next time.”
“So as to not start a pattern,” Jack agreed.
“We don’t need to rush in this circumstance. We have shelter and supplies, so we can stand to take our time in learning about the culture of this world,” George said.
“Which means we shouldn’t give ourselves away too soon,” Cam said.
“Exactly,” Jack said.
“So, has anyone figured out this chakra thing yet?” Vala asked.
“No, but I really want to,” Jonas said.
“I bet if anyone could, it’d be Daniel,” Jack said. “He’s used to doing weird things.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s possible for all of us to do it,” Daniel said. “I might have a few ideas thanks to being ascended and receiving Merlin’s memories, but we’ve all had some experiences with alien technology.”
“So, how do you think chakra works?” Jack asked.
“I can only speculate at this time, but if we focus in a particular way,” Daniel trailed off.
“Well, that’s helpful,” Jack said.
Daniel frowned. “Here, I’ll try.” He formed a hand sign from the scroll and concentrated. Slowly his skin began to glow a faint blue. He kept it up for a minute before releasing that and the hand sign.
“Ooh, let me try,” Vala cheered. She mimicked the hand sign and concentrated. Nothing happened for a minute, but eventually a faint glow came from her skin. She could only keep it up for a few seconds before it faded. “It’s hard.”
“Should we even bother to learn this stuff?” Jack asked, still watching Vala.
“It could be useful, I guess,” Cam said.
“I’m going to learn it,” Vala said, forming the hand sign once more. “I want to at least learn how to do the henge. Imagine, you could look like anyone with that technique.”
“Easier to steal stuff that way?” Daniel asked, giving her a knowing look.
“It would be good for certain ops,” Cam mused. “I mean, there were several missions that I wished we could have blended in a bit better.”
“It would be useful if we ever got back to our universe,” Jack said. A determined look settled on his face. “I won’t be pushed aside like the other clones.”
“It’s different on this side of the fence,” Sam acknowledged.
“So, we learn how to use chakra and then we go back and steal the socks off of SG1,” Vala cheered.
“Show us again, Daniel,” Cam said. He formed a facsimile of the hand sign and frowned at it. “Is this right?”
“Like this,” Vala said, showing Cam how to put his fingers. “And then you just concentrate.”
Vala and Daniel went around helping everyone with their hand signs before they settled down to glow blue themselves. ‘Just concentrate’ wasn’t the best advice ever, but that was all that Daniel and Vala could really say. It worked, but it was different from anything that they had every really done. Yet, even with the vague advice, they were all able to glow blue at different strengths. Next to Daniel, Teal’c had the strongest glow, but Vala and Cam were fast catching up.
At the end of it, Daniel felt confident enough to attempt the henge. He formed the hand sign from the scroll, concentrated and called out the name of the jutsu. He briefly flickered to look like Jack’s current form before he collapsed.
“Woah,” Jack called out as he caught the young archeologist.
“Daniel,” Sam and Vala called out at the same time.
“Let me look at him,” Janet said as she hurried over. She checked his pulse while making sure that he was breathing properly. She frowned when she laid her hand on his forehead. “He’s got a fever.”
“A fever?” Jack asked. “How’d he get a fever?”
“This is a new world and we currently have new bodies, it’s not so surprising that he’s caught something,” Janet said. She shot Daniel a worried look. “What is surprising is that it’s taken hold of him so quickly.”
“What do we do?”Sam asked.
“Let’s get him inside,” Janet said as she stood up. “We need to get him cooled off and I need to take another look through the supplies that you brought back.”
“Do you think that we could be sick as well?” Jack asked. He surrendered Daniel over to Teal’c to carry in, seeing as the Jaffa was still the strongest amongst them. Teal’c carefully carried Daniel inside the room and the others trailed after him. Daniel was put down on the nearest bed and Sam scrambled to dampen a cloth that was put on his head.
“We won’t know until later,” Janet replied, giving him a quick look to check him over. “I have no idea what this is and why it’s affected Daniel so badly.”
“This chakra seems to take a toll on the body, not unlike exercising, could it have worn Daniel’s defenses down?” Jonas asked.
“But Teal’c glowed just as much as Danny did, and longer, too, and he isn’t down for the count,” Jack pointed out.
“The trip down to town seemed to take a lot out of him, though,” Cam said. “When I got up for night watch, Daniel was asleep.”
“Yeah, I noticed that last night, but I just thought it was the lack of coffee,” Jack said. “I didn’t know that he was sick.”
“You weren’t the only one, Colonel,” Janet reassured as she came back to the group. She only brought back one bottle from the collection of medical supplies that they had brought back. Of course, they weren’t stocking an infirmary, so the group had mostly bought bandages and the like.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jack asked.
“If we can get the fever down.” Janet cracked the seal on the bottle. “I want to see if we can wake him up and get him to take this. From what I’ve been able to determine, this is the local ibuprofen.”
“Yeah, that’s what we figured when we picked it up,” Jack said, “but is it safe for Daniel to take it?”
“It should be,” Janet said. “We should also see if we can get him to drink as much as we can.”
“Come on, Danny, wake up,” Jack said as he tapped at Daniel’s cheeks. Daniel moaned and shifted, so Jack tapped again.
This time Jack was rewarded by Daniel’s eyes cracking open. “Jack?”
“Hey, Danny,” Jack replied, grinning in relief.
“How do you feel?” Janet asked, moving to check his vitals again.
“What happened?” Daniel asked as he shrugged to sit up. Janet lightly pushed down on his chest to stop him.
“You just collapsed, Daniel,” Jack answered. “If you were that tired of teaching us, you could have let us know.”
“What?” Daniel asked.
“You’ve got a fever that we’re trying to get down,” Janet said. She held up the ibuprofen pill and the cup of water. “I want you to take these.”
“How’d I get sick? I was fine just a bit ago,” Daniel said as Jack helped him sit up.
“New bodies, remember?” Jack asked as he helped Daniel up.
“How could I forget?” Daniel asked, holding up a shrunken hand to make his point.
“You just got hit harder than the rest of us,” Jack continued as if he hadn’t heard Daniel.
“So the rest of us are going to get sick?” Daniel asked, looking towards Janet for confirmation.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Janet said, “but I’m hoping that’s not the case.”
“Me too,” Daniel trailed off, dropping to sleep once more.
“If I had my infirmary I’d be able to figure out what he’s got,” Janet grumbled to herself.
“Doctor?” George prompted.
She just shook her head and sighed. “I have no idea what we’re dealing with here. It could be anything from a simple cold to some kind of alien virus. We’re in an entirely new environment here with nearly blank slates for bodies and we’re flying blind here.”
“It’ll be okay,” Sam said, putting her hand on Janet’s shoulder.
“I just wish that I had a lab where I could test to see what this is and how serious it is,” Janet said.
“We passed a clinic on our way out of the city, right?” Jack asked Teal’c.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Cam asked, grinning at Jack.
“It’s too far for Daniel to travel,” Janet pointed out. “He needs to be kept cool and even at night he’s not strong enough to walk. And I’m not sure if I should allow anyone of you to try and carry him there.”
“Yeah, we can’t take Daniel there,” Jack said.
“But we can take his blood there, can’t we?” Cam completed.
“Take a sample there to test?” Janet asked to clarify.
“Would the clinic even do that?” Sam asked.
“Never know until we try,” Jack said, flashing a quick smile.
“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try another way,” Cam added.
“When would you like to leave?” George asked.
“As soon as we can,” Janet replied.
“Right, let’s get ready and go,” Jack said as he stood up. “Teal’c and Cam are with me.”
“I’m going with you,” Janet said, standing up with a determined look. “Daniel will have enough watchers for now and it’s only a fever at the moment. He’ll be fine until we get back.”
“Given how you’re possibly the only one of us who would be able to do the tests, I can’t argue,” George said with a sigh. “Just be careful.”
“Watch over Daniel for me,” Janet replied with a nod. She turned back to the grocery bag with a purpose. “I just have to get a sample from Daniel and I’ll be ready to go.”
As Jack, Teal’c and Cam got things together to travel across the desert during the day, Janet carefully made a small cut on Daniel’s arm and collected some of his blood in a glass vial. She bandaged the cut and then got ready to go with the rest of the group. The vial of blood was heavily insulated in a pouch tied to Janet’s belt through the trip in the hot sun.
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Chapter 8
Chapter Seven: Chakra
Night passed without disturbance. Midway through the night they switched watches with Jack falling into a light doze while Teal’c simply meditated.
People started waking up about an hour or two after sunrise. They could tell this only by the faint light that managed to make its way into the room. The light increased significantly when the doors were opened, which woke up the last few sleepers.
Sam was already hard at work on the mirror when Daniel finally woke up. He rubbed his face as he wished for coffee. Despite sleeping for most of the day yesterday and through the night, he still felt groggy. Coffee would have cured that, he was sure, but they had been unable to find anything resembling coffee at the market, much to his and everyone else’s dismay.
Vala was the only one still asleep when Daniel got up and grabbed a piece of fruit for breakfast. Vala, Sam, and Jonas were the only ones in the room at the moment, although Daniel could faintly hear the others’ voices coming from outside. Daniel nodded at Sam and Jonas before sitting down with the tablet that he had found the day before.
The scroll about chakra made the tablet easier to read. For one, the scroll was more modern than the tablet, which meant that he could now recognize several more characters, and for the other, Daniel now understood what the tablet meant when it talked about chakra. Understanding chakra made the subject of the tablet more worrisome, though. Creatures of energy, demons, being sealed inside of people. It reminded Daniel of the Ori even more, considering the connection that might exist between chakra and the energy that the Ori lived off of.
Daniel had a suspicion that there was a Stargate somewhere on the planet. While texts appeared to them to be in a foreign language, the original language of the planet, they could understand the natives’ spoken words. Plus, there was the fact that Daniel could almost instinctively understand what the texts said when he didn’t concentrate on the actual words. The Stargate probably wasn’t close by to their location, but there was hope that it existed. Daniel hadn’t mentioned it to anyone just yet, but he was fairly sure that the others knew of it. They spent so much time around the Stargate, after all, that they were familiar with the affect that it had.
Daniel put aside thoughts of the Stargate and focused back on the tablet and the other pieces of writing that had been found. It was fascinating.
Meanwhile, more effort went into making the room livable. More junk was cleared from the floors and parts of the room were sectioned off more clearly. The area that they were using for sleeping was left alone, partially because of Vala and also because the area was out of the way enough already. The space that Sam was using with the mirror was left alone, but portioned off further. Beyond that, the only other area that they divided off was a space to cook near the entrance of the room. For the most part, they planned to cook outside, but they were sure that there would be times when they wouldn’t be able to. Sandstorms were the biggest threat, given that they were in a desert climate, but that wasn’t the only possibility of disaster.
Traps were created outside on the cliff face. They didn’t have motion sensors with lights, but they did have two generals, one lieutenant colonel with another one advising, a Jaffa, and a thief when Vala finally woke up. The group was able to set a few good traps, mostly warning them of anyone coming close to their hide out.
“We should wait as long as we can before heading back into town,” George said when they broke for lunch. “And we’ll send a different team next time.”
“So as to not start a pattern,” Jack agreed.
“We don’t need to rush in this circumstance. We have shelter and supplies, so we can stand to take our time in learning about the culture of this world,” George said.
“Which means we shouldn’t give ourselves away too soon,” Cam said.
“Exactly,” Jack said.
“So, has anyone figured out this chakra thing yet?” Vala asked.
“No, but I really want to,” Jonas said.
“I bet if anyone could, it’d be Daniel,” Jack said. “He’s used to doing weird things.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s possible for all of us to do it,” Daniel said. “I might have a few ideas thanks to being ascended and receiving Merlin’s memories, but we’ve all had some experiences with alien technology.”
“So, how do you think chakra works?” Jack asked.
“I can only speculate at this time, but if we focus in a particular way,” Daniel trailed off.
“Well, that’s helpful,” Jack said.
Daniel frowned. “Here, I’ll try.” He formed a hand sign from the scroll and concentrated. Slowly his skin began to glow a faint blue. He kept it up for a minute before releasing that and the hand sign.
“Ooh, let me try,” Vala cheered. She mimicked the hand sign and concentrated. Nothing happened for a minute, but eventually a faint glow came from her skin. She could only keep it up for a few seconds before it faded. “It’s hard.”
“Should we even bother to learn this stuff?” Jack asked, still watching Vala.
“It could be useful, I guess,” Cam said.
“I’m going to learn it,” Vala said, forming the hand sign once more. “I want to at least learn how to do the henge. Imagine, you could look like anyone with that technique.”
“Easier to steal stuff that way?” Daniel asked, giving her a knowing look.
“It would be good for certain ops,” Cam mused. “I mean, there were several missions that I wished we could have blended in a bit better.”
“It would be useful if we ever got back to our universe,” Jack said. A determined look settled on his face. “I won’t be pushed aside like the other clones.”
“It’s different on this side of the fence,” Sam acknowledged.
“So, we learn how to use chakra and then we go back and steal the socks off of SG1,” Vala cheered.
“Show us again, Daniel,” Cam said. He formed a facsimile of the hand sign and frowned at it. “Is this right?”
“Like this,” Vala said, showing Cam how to put his fingers. “And then you just concentrate.”
Vala and Daniel went around helping everyone with their hand signs before they settled down to glow blue themselves. ‘Just concentrate’ wasn’t the best advice ever, but that was all that Daniel and Vala could really say. It worked, but it was different from anything that they had every really done. Yet, even with the vague advice, they were all able to glow blue at different strengths. Next to Daniel, Teal’c had the strongest glow, but Vala and Cam were fast catching up.
At the end of it, Daniel felt confident enough to attempt the henge. He formed the hand sign from the scroll, concentrated and called out the name of the jutsu. He briefly flickered to look like Jack’s current form before he collapsed.
“Woah,” Jack called out as he caught the young archeologist.
“Daniel,” Sam and Vala called out at the same time.
“Let me look at him,” Janet said as she hurried over. She checked his pulse while making sure that he was breathing properly. She frowned when she laid her hand on his forehead. “He’s got a fever.”
“A fever?” Jack asked. “How’d he get a fever?”
“This is a new world and we currently have new bodies, it’s not so surprising that he’s caught something,” Janet said. She shot Daniel a worried look. “What is surprising is that it’s taken hold of him so quickly.”
“What do we do?”Sam asked.
“Let’s get him inside,” Janet said as she stood up. “We need to get him cooled off and I need to take another look through the supplies that you brought back.”
“Do you think that we could be sick as well?” Jack asked. He surrendered Daniel over to Teal’c to carry in, seeing as the Jaffa was still the strongest amongst them. Teal’c carefully carried Daniel inside the room and the others trailed after him. Daniel was put down on the nearest bed and Sam scrambled to dampen a cloth that was put on his head.
“We won’t know until later,” Janet replied, giving him a quick look to check him over. “I have no idea what this is and why it’s affected Daniel so badly.”
“This chakra seems to take a toll on the body, not unlike exercising, could it have worn Daniel’s defenses down?” Jonas asked.
“But Teal’c glowed just as much as Danny did, and longer, too, and he isn’t down for the count,” Jack pointed out.
“The trip down to town seemed to take a lot out of him, though,” Cam said. “When I got up for night watch, Daniel was asleep.”
“Yeah, I noticed that last night, but I just thought it was the lack of coffee,” Jack said. “I didn’t know that he was sick.”
“You weren’t the only one, Colonel,” Janet reassured as she came back to the group. She only brought back one bottle from the collection of medical supplies that they had brought back. Of course, they weren’t stocking an infirmary, so the group had mostly bought bandages and the like.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jack asked.
“If we can get the fever down.” Janet cracked the seal on the bottle. “I want to see if we can wake him up and get him to take this. From what I’ve been able to determine, this is the local ibuprofen.”
“Yeah, that’s what we figured when we picked it up,” Jack said, “but is it safe for Daniel to take it?”
“It should be,” Janet said. “We should also see if we can get him to drink as much as we can.”
“Come on, Danny, wake up,” Jack said as he tapped at Daniel’s cheeks. Daniel moaned and shifted, so Jack tapped again.
This time Jack was rewarded by Daniel’s eyes cracking open. “Jack?”
“Hey, Danny,” Jack replied, grinning in relief.
“How do you feel?” Janet asked, moving to check his vitals again.
“What happened?” Daniel asked as he shrugged to sit up. Janet lightly pushed down on his chest to stop him.
“You just collapsed, Daniel,” Jack answered. “If you were that tired of teaching us, you could have let us know.”
“What?” Daniel asked.
“You’ve got a fever that we’re trying to get down,” Janet said. She held up the ibuprofen pill and the cup of water. “I want you to take these.”
“How’d I get sick? I was fine just a bit ago,” Daniel said as Jack helped him sit up.
“New bodies, remember?” Jack asked as he helped Daniel up.
“How could I forget?” Daniel asked, holding up a shrunken hand to make his point.
“You just got hit harder than the rest of us,” Jack continued as if he hadn’t heard Daniel.
“So the rest of us are going to get sick?” Daniel asked, looking towards Janet for confirmation.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Janet said, “but I’m hoping that’s not the case.”
“Me too,” Daniel trailed off, dropping to sleep once more.
“If I had my infirmary I’d be able to figure out what he’s got,” Janet grumbled to herself.
“Doctor?” George prompted.
She just shook her head and sighed. “I have no idea what we’re dealing with here. It could be anything from a simple cold to some kind of alien virus. We’re in an entirely new environment here with nearly blank slates for bodies and we’re flying blind here.”
“It’ll be okay,” Sam said, putting her hand on Janet’s shoulder.
“I just wish that I had a lab where I could test to see what this is and how serious it is,” Janet said.
“We passed a clinic on our way out of the city, right?” Jack asked Teal’c.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Cam asked, grinning at Jack.
“It’s too far for Daniel to travel,” Janet pointed out. “He needs to be kept cool and even at night he’s not strong enough to walk. And I’m not sure if I should allow anyone of you to try and carry him there.”
“Yeah, we can’t take Daniel there,” Jack said.
“But we can take his blood there, can’t we?” Cam completed.
“Take a sample there to test?” Janet asked to clarify.
“Would the clinic even do that?” Sam asked.
“Never know until we try,” Jack said, flashing a quick smile.
“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try another way,” Cam added.
“When would you like to leave?” George asked.
“As soon as we can,” Janet replied.
“Right, let’s get ready and go,” Jack said as he stood up. “Teal’c and Cam are with me.”
“I’m going with you,” Janet said, standing up with a determined look. “Daniel will have enough watchers for now and it’s only a fever at the moment. He’ll be fine until we get back.”
“Given how you’re possibly the only one of us who would be able to do the tests, I can’t argue,” George said with a sigh. “Just be careful.”
“Watch over Daniel for me,” Janet replied with a nod. She turned back to the grocery bag with a purpose. “I just have to get a sample from Daniel and I’ll be ready to go.”
As Jack, Teal’c and Cam got things together to travel across the desert during the day, Janet carefully made a small cut on Daniel’s arm and collected some of his blood in a glass vial. She bandaged the cut and then got ready to go with the rest of the group. The vial of blood was heavily insulated in a pouch tied to Janet’s belt through the trip in the hot sun.
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Chapter 8