"The testing movement is in grave danger of perpetuating a mythological meritocracy in which none of the measures of merit bears significant demonstrable validity with respect to any measure outside of the charmed circle." (D.C. McClelland)

At 0930 hours the commissary was all but deserted, breakfast being over for the day and lunch not yet on the menu. The occasional snack-seeker who popped by rarely lingered longer than to snatch an apple or a bread roll.

General Hammond stood in the doorway, regarding the two personnel seated at one of the otherwise empty tables. One Jaffa, and one particular colonel.

"Colonel O'Neill," he said, approaching.

The one so-named -- known more familiarly as 'Jack' when he and 'George' Hammond went fishing -- made an aborted attempt to duck behind Teal'c, before composing himself. "Morning, General," he replied, in a voice that indicated the missing 'good' was no oversight.

"Colonel O'Neill, where have you been for the past hour?"

"In my office," responded Jack, absorbed by something before him on the table. "Until about ten minutes ago. Isn't that right, Teal'c?"

"I concur," said Teal'c, seated adjacent to the colonel.

"Then you need to get one of the maintenance staff to check your phone," said Hammond, moving around Teal'c in order to confront his second-in-command. "I was trying to get through for half an hour on a matter of some urgency."

"What is it, sir?" Jack finally looked up, an unaccustomed expression of anxiety on his face.

General Hammond, his view no longer impeded by Teal'c, stared at his second-in-command and what he presumed was the man's snack on the table in front of him. He'd seen a good many odd things in his time at the SGC, but Colonel O'Neill's homage to the Leaning Tower of Pisa -- constructed in a tasteful arrangement of bacon, eggs, and layers of bread, with sausages poking cheekily out from mounds of mashed potato -- came close to beating them all. (General Hammond in this instance was lucky he had no recollection of the colonel and Teal'c in full golfing regalia breaking all sensible distance records during one of the SGC's more recent encounters with oddity.)

"What are you doing in here, son?" he inquired, his authoritative stance superceded somewhat by concern. "I'm certain I saw you eat breakfast --"

Teal'c, carefully segmenting an orange, responded in place of the tongue-tied colonel. "O'Neill is suffering... 'butterflies' I believe is the term he used."

"Butterflies?"

"Yes. In his stomach. From what I understand, he thinks that by feeding these... butterflies, they will cease to disturb him."

Hammond eyed once again the mound of food. "Colonel O'Neill, you aren't seriously going to eat all that?"

"Well..." Jack poked a fork halfway into the pile and pulled out a tomato. "It's leftovers," he mumbled. "It'd go to waste if I hadn't volunteered to eat it. Starving millions in Africa and all that..."

Teal'c frowned. "That I do not understand. How will eating more than your stomach's capacity help the starving millions in Africa?"

"You've just pointed out a fundamental flaw in the advice given to millions of American children by their mothers," said Jack. "I put it down to women's logic."

"Then you expect to beat Major Carter in the forthcoming intelligence evaluations," nodded Teal'c.

As Jack um'ed and ah'd, General Hammond attempted to explain for the tenth time the purpose of the IQ evaluations to the Jaffa. "These tests are not a competition, Teal'c, I assure you."

"Daniel Jackson disagrees."

"Dr Jackson... Dr Jackson has certain interesting viewpoints on the subject," admitted Hammond, having the previous day witnessed a dumbfounded Major Ferretti on the receiving end of one of the doctor's most erudite arguments. "However, it suffices for the moment that these tests are a part of military protocol, which, along with fitness and psychological evaluations, are designed to assist in the assessment of each individual's strengths and weaknesses in order that we might all function more effectively together as a team."

"You know, you almost sounded convincing there," said Jack.

General Hammond sighed -- a thing he tended to do a lot around a certain colonel. "I don't personally see the necessity for re-evaluation of personnel who have earlier in their careers undergone such testing --"

Jack interrupted, obviously having relocated his confidence somewhere in the midst of the mashed potatoes. "Oh, but they've got these fancy new tests, sir, and they've got a whole bunch of military guinea-pigs just waiting to --"

"-- but -- Colonel O'Neill! -- but these tests are being applied as a standard to all new recruits and it was considered appropriate that everyone's tests could be directly comparable, regardless of years served."

"How much is all this costing, sir?"

"It's relatively inexpensive, Colonel."

Jack shook his head and laid his fork down for a moment. "There goes the Christmas party," he said mournfully.

General Hammond pulled himself up to his full height. "Colonel O'Neill, I did not come here to debate the issue. I came here to inform you that SG-1's evaluations have been moved forward. Colonel, have your team in the examination room within half an hour."

"But sir! I'm in the middle of my dinner!"

"Do not worry, General Hammond," said Teal'c. "I have observed O'Neill's culinary methods on many occasions. He will be finished in time."

"That's what I expect to hear," said General Hammond. "Thirty minutes, Colonel."

As he turned and left, Jack whispered to Teal'c, "Crap. How'd he find me?"

Teal'c regarded him with an expression that almost passed for surprise. "O'Neill, it is well known, particularly by one as astute as your general, that a state of nervousness induces within yourself the urge to eat."

"I'm hungry, Teal'c," said Jack around a mouthful of food. "That's all. Just hungry. It's a while since breakfast."

"Which breakfast would that be, O'Neill? Would that be the one you consumed at 0600, or the one you had at 0800?"

"You are getting awfully cheeky in your old age."

Teal'c accepted the compliment with a slight muscle twitch in his forehead. "As Daniel Jackson frequently says, I have been 'hanging around' you too long."

"Well, thanks to these IQ tests, you might not be for much longer."

"Why would that be?"

"I'm going to flunk out," said Jack with resignation, gathering an extra-large forkful to pacify himself.

Teal'c sat silently for some time, intently observing his friend eat. Finally, he responded. "If you did not eat so much, this would not be necessary."

"Ah, Teal'c, you've lost me."

"You are referring once again to your butterflies, and the fact that they make you feel ill. I assure you, if you continue to eat as you do currently, you will most certainly become extremely ill during the course of this test, for which your butterflies would be entirely blameless."

Teal'c was surprised at the response this most sensible piece of advice elicited. His friend, about to bite into a sausage, burst into loud and prolonged paroxysms of mirth. The force of his laughter, and the consequent loss of control in his right arm, caused the sausage to go flying off the end of his fork, landing neatly in between Teal'c's segments of orange.

"Thank you, O'Neill, but I had no wish for a sausage."

Retrieving the sausage, Jack explained. "Flunk. Flunk, Teal'c. It means, to fail. To fail a test. Nothing to do with --" he shook his head, his momentary humor quickly forgotten. "How can they expect you to sit this test, when there's stuff about Earth you simply don't know... and you're way smarter than me. "

"I am not," replied Teal'c. "I am merely different."

"Well, Daniel and Carter are certainly smarter," argued Jack.

"They, also, are merely different. Daniel Jackson has assured me that there is no reason to fear this test. It is, he says, merely a product of the intermediate cerebral development of the Tau'ri, posited on an immature conception of cognitive processes."

"And you understand that?"

"No, I do not."

"Do you agree with it?"

"I have never had reason to doubt Daniel Jackson."

"Good enough for me," said Jack, tucking in once again to his meal.

The butterflies lay in wait, biding their time.

Daniel muttered to himself as he translated the inscription on an obelisk from a photograph taken by the recent probe to PJ2-152. "... the might of the... of the... hmm, must be some sort of culturally specific reference, probably the actual name of the tribal group, must remember to check that... the might of our tribe; all who lay upon us -- that would be, all who oppose us, Jackson -- no, in fact, it would be, in the context, all who visit vengeance upon us -- vengeance, that's interesting, vengeance, as opposed to a more general term such as 'war', that's significant -- all those who visit vengeance upon us will be rendered ... hmm, rendered as -- is that...? I'm not sure... damn photographic reproductions --"

Jack, as yet unacknowledged, lolled in the doorway of Daniel's lab, counting the signs of caffeine deprivation currently being displayed by the archaeologist. Empty coffee mug, check one. Continually reaching for empty coffee mug, check two. Talking to himself didn't really count, but that utterance of 'damn' certainly did -- check three. Head shakes. Bizarre hand movements. Jack, considering rescue, swung his gaze to the coffee-maker in the corner to see if a pot had been brewed... wait, where was the coffee-maker, anyway?

"Rendered as," murmured Daniel, aborting a movement to the empty mug once again, "rendered as -- oh, of course! all who visit vengeance upon us, all vengeance visited upon us, will be given back tenfold as penalty, and tenfold more by our God who protects us..."

"Having fun, Daniel?"

Daniel did not look up. "Go away, Jack, I'm in the middle of --"

"Sorry, no can do. We've got to go officially re-establish your genius."

"What? Oh, the IQ tests. Surely it's not time for --"

"Hammond moved them up," said Jack.

"Oh." Daniel returned his gaze to his translation. "I wonder if 'God' here refers to a typical omnipresent or spiritual god, as opposed to a tangible physical manifestation --"

"Daniel --"

"I mean, as in a Goa'uld, Jack. If the inscription refers to a Goa'uld --"

"Daniel. We have to go."

"In a minute, Jack."

"NOW, Daniel."

Daniel huffed, and pouted furiously at the photographs on his desk, before rolling his eyes and getting to his feet. "I don't know how anyone expects me to do my job if I'm being constantly interrupted by IQ tests, and technicians installing new power points, and people 'borrowing' my coffee-maker, who obviously haven't taken the time to actually look up 'borrow' in the dictionary and discover it doesn't mean 'keep on a permanent basis' --"

"No coffee?" repeated Jack. "You haven't had any coffee today?"

"Unless you count the vending machine at the other end of the floor -- which I don't, by the way -- no. Well, when I woke up I had two cups, but that was --" Daniel glanced at his watch and looked suddenly panicked, "-that was hours ago."

Jack, thinking of how he would feel if his breakfast in triplicate had been denied him, could commiserate. "Carter has a coffee machine, doesn't she?"

"Yes. Yes she does," Daniel nodded. "I bought it for her."

Thoughtful, that was Daniel. He had bought one for Jack, too. Actually, over the years he'd bought several for Jack -- Jack had a habit of breaking them.

"Well, Teal'c was supposed to be collecting her," said Jack, as they walked to the elevator, "but we can stop off there. There's plenty of time." Well, actually, there was less than ten minutes, but they couldn't start the tests without them. Right?

As the elevator rose, Jack's butterflies, obviously startled by the fluctuation of gravity, reactivated. Damn. Still, he was prepared, with two emergency energy bars in case of such crises. He pulled one out of his pocket, regarded Daniel, pulled the second one out. The things he did for his friends...

"Have you eaten?" he said to his companion.

Daniel's eyebrows raised at this obviously foreign sentence construction. "What?"

Jack proffered him the second energy bar. "I'm told it helps your concentration to eat before these test things."

Daniel eyed Jack's offering dubiously. "I'm sure a subclause of that adage recommends the consumption of food, as opposed to..." he took the bar and handled it carefully, "... to whatever they put in these things."

"Who cares? Tastes good."

By the time they reached Carter's lab, Jack had persuaded Daniel, through example and lots of noises of enjoyment, to mostly eat the energy bar. From Carter's lab, he could hear a similar to-and-fro taking place to that which he had just participated in at Daniel's lab.

"Just one more minute, Teal'c. It's important for the accuracy of the assay that I complete this sequence in a single session."

Teal'c's voice could be heard answering. "O'Neill had calmed somewhat when I left him. I do not wish him to become agitated again. It will affect his performance on the evaluation negatively."

"Oh, he's got nothing to worry about, Teal'c. He's way smarter than he lets on."

"Nevertheless, he worries."

"He's like my father used to be when I was a kid," said Carter, certainty in her voice, "always pretending he didn't know stuff just to boost my confidence."

Er, Carter, about that 'pretending' thing... "All right, kids! Let's move it!" boomed Jack, as he and Daniel entered the lab.

"Sir!" Carter, fooling about further in with some machine-thing, jumped in startlement. "You didn't... I mean..."

"It's okay, Carter, I'm flattered by the comparison. Now, if you'd been comparing me to Maybourne, we'd be having a talk." He clapped his hands. "Come on, Daniel, quick! Make your coffee. Carter, you've got thirty seconds. We've got to get moving!"

"Yes, sir," said Carter, quickly scribbling on a pad. "Almost finished, sir."

"O'Neill." Teal'c appeared to be motioning to him, in a typically subtle Teal'c-manner.

Jack sidled up to him. "What is it?" he whispered.

Teal'c likewise lowered his voice. "We have confidence in you, O'Neill. You will do well on this test."

"Thanks, Teal'c."

How embarrassing. Everyone seemed to think he was having some sort of panic attack about this. He was a colonel in the USAF, Special Forces trained, for god's sake. He'd faced a lot tougher things than this. A lot tougher.

"Daniel, Carter, all ready? Good. Okay, genii, let's get going."

Teal'c and Carter exited the room, but Daniel continued to fiddle at the coffee machine. About to call him again, Jack subsided when Daniel turned to him, an odd expression of uncertainty on his face.

"Er, Jack..."

"What is it?" Please God, Carter had not forgotten to stock up on Daniel's favourite coffee-beans...

"Er, the plural for 'genius'," said Daniel. "In the context you used it, it's actually, er... geniuses, not genii."

Tried, and failed. Jack could accept that. No problem. "That's why you're one, and I'm not," he said, with as much equanimity as possible in the circumstances. "Just... Daniel?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"Save it for the test, okay?"

"Right. Sorry. Nerves," Daniel explained.

"You're nervous?"

"Caffeine withdrawal. All fixed now." Daniel held his filled mug aloft.

As they left Carter's lab together, Jack wished his own nerves could be quashed so easily. The energy bar had held them at bay so far, but they hadn't even made it to the examination room yet...

"SG-1, I presume?"

Taking note of the suit's insignia, Jack saluted. "Yes, Colonel. Colonel Jack O'Neill."

"Colonel Griffith. You're fifteen minutes late!" The exam supervisor, while returning the salute, stared at him in outrage.

"I'm sorry, Colonel, but time was lost while we averted two potential situations. First we were forced to return to Carter's lab to retrieve her troll --"

"I beg your pardon? Her --?"

"Troll. Troll, Colonel Griffith. Show him, Carter."

Carter presented the man with a small, rubberised, blue-haired doll. "It's my good-luck charm," she explained. "I haven't taken a test without it since junior high."

"And then," continued Jack, "we had a minor crisis in the previous corridor when Daniel ran out of coffee, and we were forced to retreat to the vending machines in order to obtain emergency supplies." Jack didn't think it was necessary to mention that he had, during Daniel's relapse, taken the opportunity to stock up on a couple more items of food. That hadn't been the primary goal, after all; merely a fortuitous outcome.

"Well, hurry up and take your places, please!"

SG-1 moved quickly to obey. However, upon observing the exam room properly, Jack was instantly struck with an acute case of exam-o-phobia. Too much floor, too many blank walls, too many too-quiet people seated at isolated desks. Flimsy, narrow, no-room-to-rest-your-elbows desks, spaced out in ordered rank and equal distance. Did they use a ruler to get it all exactly right? SG-2 and SG-6 were already seated, tense looks on their faces, rustling pages with that irritating crisp snickering specific to fresh-off-the-press paper. At the front, another suit stood, hands on hips, eyeing the latecomers. The second suit had beady eyes. Really beady eyes, like the eyes in a painting; the sort that seemed to follow you, and only you.

Jack didn't want to be here. At all.

The situation obviously had a different effect on his major.

"Oh, this takes me back," said Carter, sounding nostalgic. "I'm almost looking forward to this!"

Jack stared at her. "Have you been taken over by a Goa'uld?"

Teal'c answered. "I believe she has not, O'Neill. I would sense it."

"SG-1, please take your seats!"

Jack, in regressive juvenile instinct, took the desk at the rear in the right-hand corner. In the opposite back corner Ferretti -- obviously an inheritor of the same instincts -- gave him a thumbs-up and winked. Jack wouldn't be surprised if a spitball came from that direction at some point in the exam.

Meanwhile Daniel, clutching his two cups of coffee -- one ceramic, one styrofoam -- had remained stranded near the doorway. "Excuse me. Excuse me, but I don't see any more examination papers."

"Here, you can have mine," offered Jack. "I don't mind."

"You can have mine, too," called Ferretti.

The first supervisor intervened. "Take a seat, and I'll collect another set from the front. And you can't have those cups in the examination room."

"Oh, don't tell me," said Jack. "He could have the answers written in the styrofoam at the bottom."

"It's policy," said the supervisor. "That goes for all trolls," he added to Carter. "Anything that can't be secreted in a pocket, must be surrendered."

Carter pocketed her troll with equanimity.

Daniel took a gulp of coffee from the styrofoam mug, grimaced, then tilted his head back and sculled the contents. "Actually, it's more bearable when consumed that way," he observed, before handing it to the supervisor. "Here. Show me where in this cup I could possibly have hidden any prompt, notation, or cheating contrivance of any sort, and I'll gladly surrender it."

The supervisor, in lieu of comprehension, took the cup and examined it minutely. "You can keep it," he said, handing it back. "But I'll have to confiscate the other one."

"Done." Daniel poured the contents of the ceramic mug into the styrofoam cup, and handed the former over.

For a moment, the supervisor looked as though he might say something, then obviously he thought better of it. "I'll get you a set of papers," he said, taking the cup to the front of the room for the custody of the second supervisor.

Jack leaned over to Daniel. "Bet you get bladder-burn," he whispered.

"Bet you get acid-burn from chronic indigestion."

"Got ant-acids," said Jack smugly.

Daniel took a seat at the table between Jack and Ferretti. "Maybe you have, but you can't use them. The viewing of the ingredients list, for instance, could be considered a direct attempt to subvert the accuracy of your test result." He rolled his eyes to illustrate the ridiculousness of it all.

The first supervisor returned and handed a set of test papers to Daniel, then deferred to the supervisor at the front of the room, who proceeded to issue instructions. "There are three separate components to this test. The first two will be timed, the third will not. I'll now ask you all to take the top answer sheet, the top sheet only, and fill in your details."

The easy part. Rank; Colonel. Last name; O'Neill. First name... curse his parents, anyway. Didn't it ever occur to them that a family tree of Jonathan O'Neill's could get extremely confusing for future generations? Still, he supposed he was lucky to get saddled with the diminutive 'Jack' rather than, well, Junior, for instance. 'Junior O'Neill.' Jack shuddered. It didn't bear thinking about. Speaking of which --

"Hey Teal'c!" called Jack. "you know, I've figured out the reason you don't have any butterflies is because Junior eats them!"

"Yeah, hey, who's sitting your test, Teal'c? You or Junior?" chimed in Ferretti.

"No talking at the back!"

It was. God it was. It was high-school all over again. The sudden urge he had to projectile a spit-ball at the supervisor proved it.

"Butterflies?" whispered Daniel. "Oh, wait. I get it."

"Quiet! Has everyone finished filling in their details? The test will commence in precisely one minute."

Jack wondered if they'd get a proper launch countdown. T minus 59, and counting. The butterflies were firing up...

Fifteen minutes into the examination, and Daniel was taking this unique opportunity to observe the behaviour of people in most instances not recently exposed to a formal scholastic environment, as they coped with the demands of the test itself within their limited ability to manipulate their environment to their personal comfort level. Teal'c, for instance, was displaying a wider range and freedom of gesture than Daniel had seen from him in the last four years, as he puzzled over what was no doubt in his mind one of the practicably impervious but necessary rituals of the Tau'ri. Compared to Sam, who had barely lifted her head; her pencil-hand moving strongly and steadily down the column on the answer sheet. Like Daniel, Sam was well prepared for the idiosyncrasies of the test; both of them existed equally in an academically demanding environment as they did in the more immediately challenging, unpredictable, often dangerous environment typified by SG-1's off-world explorations and experiences.

As for Jack; earlier he had tried to relax by making his usual humorous observations, but the no-talking rule was, Daniel could tell, seriously beginning to hamper his friend's concentration level. In the field, Jack could remain still and silent as a rock, for many many hours, if such a task was required by the situation. However, this was not a life-or-death situation, and Jack was never one to willingly sacrifice his personality because someone equal in rank to him had given a general order. He didn't often do it when someone of superior rank gave him a direct order, as General Hammond could attest. Right now, Jack was afflicted with the worst case of the fidgets that Daniel had ever seen, restricted in scope, if not in affect, by the lack of objects at his disposal with which to fiddle. So far Jack had sharpened and resharpened his two pencils, played with the buttons on his insignia shirt until one popped off, and found all sorts of short lived yet obviously acute itches on various parts of his body. He had also attempted a no-doubt unwitting sabotage of his answer sheet by repeatedly rolling up and flattening the top corners.

And... what was Jack doing now? Uh oh. He wasn't... he was. He was scribbling...

Why was Daniel staring into space like that? They had a test to be doing, for chrissake. Of course, Daniel could probably complete the thing in ten minutes if he so chose. He was probably, Jack considered, just toying with it, waiting for the appropriate moment to leap upon the test in earnest and beat it into submission. Geniuses -- check! -- had odd ways of getting their kicks.

Jack turned back to his paper. Let's see... find the next picture in the sequence. Right, this was just the sort of thing that was essential for a field colonel in the USAF to be able to do. Jack stared at the puzzle. The next picture... for crying out loud, none of them fit. None of them. It was a trick. He re-read the instructions. "The correct piece may be upside down, or even reversed". You had to be kidding. What was the point?

And now Daniel was looking at him warningly. What? What? He wasn't doing anything, just scribbling... in the margin... Crap. The instructions had specifically said not to do that. It might affect the computer's ability to read the answers, or something.

Jack banged his pencil in frustration. It snapped in two. Oh great.

Jack gave up and called time-out for the moment. The butterflies were bouncing off the walls of his stomach. Time for a snack.

Sam was multi-tasking. Filling in her paper neatly and accurately, while sparing a thought for each of her team-mates. Daniel, she knew, was fine. The colonel had fixed him up with coffee, and the only problem she anticipated there was the well-known diuretic effect of coffee on the digestive system. She supposed Daniel had to give in sooner or later; sooner, if the distant look on his face was any indication as to his state of urgency. If the colonel had been less distracted by exam nerves he would probably have taken bets on it.

Teal'c, across from her, also seemed to be coping reasonably well. She wasn't sure why it was necessary for him to take the test. Although the more recent versions of the various IQ tests available had ironed out many of the Anglo-American-centric pitfalls, she was sure that his origin, being not of this planet, let alone culture, could cause him some confusion with the terminology used in the paper thus far. Question 20, for instance, posed a standard mathematical problem using distances travelled by trains on a track -- did Teal'c even know what a train was? They didn't have trains on Chulak, and she wasn't sure he'd ever had reason to be exposed to them. Not that one needed to know what a train was in order to answer the question, but it could certainly, given further occurrences of unfamiliar cultural terms, conspire in cumulative effect to disrupt a person's concentration. The snowball effect. A non-scientific term, but a wonderfully evocative phrase nevertheless.

A surreptitious rustling sound could be heard from the back of the room. Methodically marking the correct box on the next question, she glanced around to discover the source. Ferretti was pulling the most hideous face as he contemplated his test paper. Daniel had stopped staring into space and was frowning in the direction of the colonel, while the colonel himself was... unwrapping a chocolate bar. Sam had the feeling that, if ceramic mugs were not acceptable, then chocolate bars definitely weren't. Turning back to the front, she saw that the remaining examiner -- the other had left the room a little earlier -- had not yet noticed. Perhaps he wouldn't. Perhaps... perhaps it would be a good thing if the examiner did notice, she reconsidered. Colonel O'Neill had been tapping, and scrunching, and shuffling for several minutes now. It was a little distracting. Burning off some verbal energy would probably be good for him.

Teal'c had gone to some length in the past few days to ascertain the purpose of their upcoming examination. Aware of his perplexity, Daniel Jackson had undertaken to educate him.

He commenced with a brief lecture on the history of intelligence tests, explaining to Teal'c that the first IQ test, administered approximately 150 years ago, set out as its agenda to prove the validity of the social strata system as a representation of immutable biological laws of superiority and inferiority. Which Teal'c had understood to mean that the Tau'ri had hoped to find that people who were in positions of power were much cleverer than their foolish subjects. The tests, Daniel Jackson said, had failed to prove this. And further, as he was about to illustrate, things had really not changed that much. In his opinion.

Daniel Jackson could, of course, speak from experience, as he had been the subject of many such tests throughout his life. As Teal'c already knew, Daniel Jackson had experienced much academic and social segregation, beginning in childhood, as a result of his outstanding performance on these tests. Major Carter was another who had been frequently subjected to these tests, and had also achieved outstanding results. Major Carter had explained that in fact these tests were simplistic attempts to quantify an innate quality in humans that was not definitive and isolable, but rather multivarious and implicit in every thought or act a person performed. That IQ tests were merely more sophisticated forms of aptitude tests, which tended to predict what was usually extremely obvious from the outset.

Daniel Jackson, in comparison, had been most impassioned as he continued his 'brief' lecture, mentioning -- amongst a plethora of examples -- how further revisions of the IQ tests had resulted in the labelling of certain ethnic groups as intellectually inferior because their culturally acquired system of learning conflicted with the cultural learning evaluated by the tests; that the tests were even used in Hitler-esque (a diversionary lecture was needed at this point to explain the meaning of 'Hitler-esque') cleansing policies to sterilise lowly-performing persons in an attempt to purify the species of the Tau'ri.

At this point, Teal'c had become concerned. Implications of showers disguised as 'gas chambers' had caused disturbing scenarios to be constructed in his head. Perhaps, he thought, Colonel O'Neill had much justification for worry.

Sensing his confusion, Daniel Jackson had assured him that nothing involving showers of dual nature, or anything even approximating physical harm, would happen as a result of this test. The important thing to remember, he had said, was that IQ tests had been invented as a tool to justify the status quo of social division, and that their sole function, in his opinion, was still to act as a tool of division. Which was the point at which he launched into another lecture, explaining to Teal'c about the development of the cerebrum in humans, that according to analysis of archaeological finds of hominids at various points on the evolutionary ladder, brain-size did not begin to increase significantly until after tool-usage -- and its consequent cultural apparatus -- had been well established. Intelligence was not separable from culture, it had no context outside of it, Daniel Jackson stated. At various appropriate moments, the Goa'uld, the Tollan, and the Asgard were invoked. With the mention of the Asgard came the part Teal'c had quoted to O'Neill over flying sausages, that IQ tests were a product of the significant gap between the relative technological advancement of the Tau'ri in the last two centuries, and the still intermediate-level evolution in cerebral development. To conclude; much cerebral evolution had yet to take place so that as yet poorly understood and defined processes of mental functioning could be more properly investigated outside of the restrictive interpretations of the current culture of the Tau'ri.

Teal'c, although he was not familiar with much of the rhetoric employed by Daniel Jackson and Major Carter, thought he had understood. Now that he had the empirical evidence in his hands, he was revising this. Major Carter, for instance, had clearly stated this was an aptitude test which made obvious predictions about people. However, he did not understand at all what qualities about a person could be easily predicted by one's ability to match the correct missing piece into a larger pattern that looked very much like knitting. Teal'c did not at all see what cutting pieces out of sweaters had to do with intelligence at all.

This, he had observed, was not a feeling specific to himself; O'Neill's hair had taken on the appearance of unravelled wool as he continually clutched at his temples. Major Carter, as a contrast, appeared happy, but then Major Carter always appeared happy. Daniel Jackson had, for much of the period of the test so far, looked uncharacteristically bored; however, at the moment he had removed his glasses and was manipulating his facial muscles in a manner akin to Major Ferretti. Perhaps it was some form of tension release in lieu of the ability to rise and walk around.

Teal'c turned back to his test. Then again, he considered, perhaps it was some sort of signal to O'Neill, who had seemed to be in the process of consuming yet another 'snack.' Teal'c was certain they had been instructed not to eat or to remove items from their pockets in case such acts could be construed as cheating. Although he did wonder how, if these were truly the intelligence tests they claimed to be, one could possibly cheat at all...

Daniel Jackson's voice could be heard whispering imperatively. "Jack!"

Teal'c turned again, to see O'Neill proffering the chocolate across the aisle to Daniel Jackson. "Want some?" asked O'Neill.

"At the back! You! Colonel O'Neill of SG-1!" The supervisor, it seemed, had at last noticed the event that had been unfolding behind for some time.

"What? What'd I do?" O'Neill sounded most aggrieved.

The examiner came forth. "You were told at the start that no eating is to be allowed in the examination area."

"Look, I was hungry. It's a while since I last ate."

Daniel Jackson appeared to be having sinus trouble at this point. He did this often when O'Neill told an untruth.

"You can't expect a person to sit here for hours and not once eat or drink anything," O'Neill continued. "That causes a decline in blood sugar levels, which causes a decline in performance, am I right, Carter?"

"That's what Janet is always telling Daniel," she agreed.

"There you go. You ever met Doctor Fraiser?" O'Neill addressed the supervisor once again. "Trust me, you don't want to get on her bad side. She'll have you in a bed attached to various instruments of torture before you can say 'Apophis.'"

"Why would he say 'Apophis', O'Neill?" enquired Teal'c.

"Don't try it on, Teal'c," said O'Neill, waving his remaining pencil. "I'm wise to you by now."

Teal'c subsided, satisfied. The examiner, however, was not.

"Everyone, please get on with your tests. Now, Colonel O'Neill --"

In the midst of the first period of boredom Daniel could remember experiencing for some time, broken only by an internal lament over all the things -- more interesting, important things -- he had to be getting on with back at his lab, a thought had occurred to Daniel. He had hesitated to mention it...

... until now. Now that the examiner was about to possibly eject Jack from the test. Daniel could not let his stubborn, underconfident, overstressed friend sabotage his test result more than he already had, because Jack was military and for better or worse, needed to complete this test, whereas Daniel --

"Excuse me."

The supervisor broke off what he had been about to say to Jack, and glanced at Daniel. "I said, everyone get on with --"

"Excuse me," insisted Daniel, "but I'm not sure I need to."

"Finished already, Dannyboy?" drawled Jack.

"Don't call me that."

"You can have mine --"

"No, thank you, Jack." Shut up, Jack, I'm doing you a favour. "It actually just occurred to me that my presence here is possibly superfluous."

"We talking 'meaning of life' stuff here?"

"No, Jack. Jack, be quiet for a moment. You see, the point is, I'm a civilian. I don't think I'm actually required to sit this test."

"Now he figures this out."

"Nobody else seems to have," Daniel pointed out.

"Yes, but I'm not the genius here."

Daniel let that one slide; he still felt unsettled at his tactless correcting of Jack's use of plurals earlier. To the supervisor, he said, "You haven't received instructions about dealing with ranking civilians in a military establishment? I mean, I presume you're a representative of those who advised the necessity of the tests in the first place..."

"Well, yes... but I..."

Teal'c broke in. "General Hammond specifically requested that I sit the test, as I am officially under the jurisdiction of the military. However, such a directive might not apply to you, Daniel Jackson."

"Your superior never mentioned it?" asked the supervisor hopefully.

"No, he didn't. If you're uncertain," said Daniel, "then I suppose I could continue, now that I'm here..."

"I think that would be best," agreed the supervisor, looking very much like the wind had been taken out of his particular sails. Exactly the result Daniel had hoped to achieve. Now if only Jack could be co-operative in turn, then a crisis could be averted completely.

The subdued supervisor turned back to Jack. "Colonel O'Neill. If you hand the chocolate bar over right now, I won't mention this incident to anyone."

"All right." Jack, for once, capitulated, pausing only to take a large bite from his chocolate before handing the remainder over. "But I better not see any nibbles out of it when you give it back."

The supervisor took the chocolate gingerly. "I'm sure you won't."

As the examiner turned and walked back to the front, with a cursory reminder for everyone to continue working, Jack again leaned towards Daniel.

"Thanks, Danny." Then Jack picked up his pencil, and started work once again.

Daniel was pleasantly taken aback. Not just that Jack's sparing use of sentiment rendered the rare thank you or apology completely genuine; he was more surprised that Jack had actually understood the subtext perfectly. A moment later, Daniel smiled wryly, shaking his head at his own folly. He had momentarily fallen into Jack's most abstruse and effective trap; the one by which Jack sold himself short in a 'one with the herd' camouflage manoeuvre. But Daniel by now knew Jack better than that. Daniel knew Jack; as his team leader, as General Hammond's chosen second-in-command; as his occasional bane, and, most importantly, as his friend. Jack might worry about his ability to perform at an IQ test on command; Daniel knew people who had performed in the superior and very superior range on such tests who were perfect head-in-their-rear sciolists with little substance and plenty of rhetoric; and he had met some of the most amazing people he had ever known on a sparsely populated desert world called Abydos, very few of whom, given their lack of education, could perform to their innate potential on an IQ test, but who in the most important ways outshone the majority of the people Daniel had encountered in his many years on Earth. Skaara, his brother-in-law; Kasuf, his father of the heart... and Sha'uri, the smartest of all; more quick-witted than any of Daniel's Earth peers; Sha'uri who had seen right through him in a way no one had ever done before. And no one had done since... except Jack.

No, the concept of an individual and measurable Intelligence Quotient, though quaint, held no validity for Daniel. As his studies in the fields of archaeology and anthropology had validated, human cultural development did not transpire through the efforts of a few intelligent people, but through actual survival needs presenting as social needs; those social needs dictating the extraordinary expansion of the cerebrum in a very short evolutionary space of time. Not vice versa. Intelligence could never, in his opinion and in the opinion of a small but increasing group of others, be separated from a social and cultural context. The concept of IQ did a grave disservice to people like his Abydonian friends and family; to Teal'c; to Jack. It even insulted himself and Sam -- the very people whom IQ tests labelled as 'superior' -- by presuming to judge them on the basis of restrictive, insular and preconceived estimates -- make that, guesses! -- of what constituted intellectual worth, all apparently to be revealed by the singular application of an all-too explicit apparatus onto what were actually complex and implicitly functioning subjects; subjects who were people, not machines. An IQ test became simply a measure of who could act the part of a computerised machine better than another.

Perhaps, Daniel considered, he himself had been a machine once. A lonely, parentless, dispossessed child, he had believed in the importance of his externally validated intelligence, had worked hard to justify the labels thrust at him in order to fulfil himself. And he had succeeded, beyond his widest and wildest dreams. Yet always with an empty place inside, a place he did not examine; a place that other people, somehow, seemed to sense. As a young adult he had formed superficial relationships with a few people, trying to capture what he saw occurring unproblematically between most others -- friendship, warmth, love. After a while he stopped trying, accepting his path as the brilliant loner, ridiculed for his insight and research and still achingly dispossessed. And then... a car in the rain, an offer he had nearly turned down, a military base. A meeting with a man even more machine-like than himself -- Jack, but not the Jack he now knew. A puzzle, quickly solved -- he had always been good at that sort of thing -- a trip through 'his' Stargate and... Sha'uri. Simply, Sha'uri. She didn't just open him for herself, she unselfishly opened him up for everyone. Including for himself. She changed... she had changed everything. The smartest person he had ever met. How could an IQ test measure what she had done? Even words... even words could not be shaped to fit. Simply... Sha'uri.

He still mourned her deeply; but the light that she had given him shone in his every interaction, enabled him for the first time in his life to accept the light that others had to give him. His friends. Those people he chose, and who chose him. .. he looked ahead at Teal'c, at Sam; he looked to his right at Jack. These people. Sha'uri had given him the precious ability to accept the choice, and the magical experience to be chosen back.

Test, Daniel, he reminded himself. Oh, that was disturbing. His voice of reason had sounded momentarily like Jack.

Coming down from his epiphanical musings, Daniel saw that Jack had started to work in earnest on his paper, and was pleased for Jack's sake. If there was pressure on any of them to perform, it was Jack. He himself was non-military, and Teal'c was a class of his own, jurisdictional dictates aside; as for Sam, Daniel knew she was enjoying the opportunity to flex a few idle bits of grey matter. But Jack, as C.O. of SG-1, as Hammond's direct subordinate, as bane of certain powerful people in the Pentagon and the Government; not to mention constantly in the presence of two popularly assumed geniuses (Daniel wasn't convinced of the validity of such categorisation, or its application to himself)... put it all together, Jack had a lot riding on this inopportune overhaul of the military's personnel database. No wonder he had seemed overly stressed the past few days.

He would have to have a talk later with Jack, similar to that which he had engaged in with Teal'c -- no, scratch that idea, Teal'c was a receptive audience, Jack was an antagonistic one. But a talk. Yes. He wished he had had the opportunity to talk to Jack on the subject prior to the test, but Jack had been avoiding both Sam and himself for the past few days, always claiming to be just going somewhere else when they had encountered him. The rub of the 'genius' factor, Daniel had guessed, and was once again annoyed at himself for correcting Jack earlier. In fact, probably the last person Jack would want to talk to after the test would be Daniel. The best thing to do would be to give Jack the privacy to work off his nervous energy alone tonight, and talk to him tomorrow when things had settled down somewhat.

Sparing more than a thought for his most difficult friend, Daniel at last set to his paper once again.

The next day, Jack lounged in Carter's lab, playing with a pipette. "So, how do you think you did?"

"Sir?" Carter, in a lab coat and glasses -- never out of fashion, thought Jack, because it was never in -- seemed to be occupied producing some sort of light show.

"The IQ test. Remember?"

"Oh, that. I don't know sir. The usual, I suppose."

"What would that be, the usual?" Jack asked casually.

"I don't really know, sir. I stopped paying attention a long time ago. My father was always more interested in that sort of thing."

Easy for a genius to say, thought Jack. His butterflies still hadn't settled down despite his attempt to quash them under three servings of McDonald's the previous night. "So, you're saying you don't really think much of IQ tests..."

"To be honest, sir, a crossword puzzle is more of a challenge for me." Carter looked up abruptly. "Oh, I don't mean that to sound... I just mean, I can always improve my word power, but IQ tests are really a waste of time. This one was no different to any of the others I've taken. Less useful, in fact, as performance-oriented tasks weren't included, nor other forms of variant testing that really help to form a less biased picture of --"

"Okay, Carter. How accurate are they?"

"Well, it's not my area of expertise at all..." Carter performed more special effects by bouncing the laser off a glass-type thing. "I do know that there is a standard error rate of significant proportion, due to factors influencing the individual at the moment of the test such as mood, anxiety, health... those sorts of things, sir. That's not to mention the even more significant error rate attributable to the idiosyncrasies of the test itself. If you talk to Daniel, he'll be quite happy to fill you in. He knows more about it than I do."

"He does? I thought IQ tests were supposed to be scientific."

"They're not at all, sir. They're distinctly not. They're based on assumptions that have never been validated. Sir, no one can even prove that there is something that is specifically 'intelligence' that actually varies from individual to individual. Sir?"

"Yes, Carter?"

"If you're planning to stay, you might want to put on a pair of glasses. I'm about to increase the spectrum..."

"No, it's okay, I'm outta here. Those lab glasses do nothing for my C.Q."

"C.Q.?"

"Coolness Quotient," Jack informed her. He left, shutting the door behind him without even being asked.

With such food for thought as had been provided by Carter, it was not surprising he found himself a couple of minutes later outside Daniel's lab. Poking his head around the corner, he saw Daniel once again pouring over photographic enlargements, muttering to himself at a much less audible volume than the previous day. Definitely an archaeologist who had achieved optimum caffeine levels.

"Jack!" Daniel, obviously having sensed him, looked up from his notes. "I think I've almost definitely established that the inscription on the obelisk from PJ2-152 refers to a Goa'uld."

"Almost definitely, huh?"

"There's a particular pictograph on the obelisk which we've seen before on- why are you smiling like that?"

Jack entered and sat down in the spare chair beside Daniel's desk. "No reason."

"Right. Well, anyway, while we couldn't initially work out the significance of the pictograph on the previous world, we did at the time encounter evidence of somewhat recent Goa'uld activity. Now, further to that, I've examined other pictures from the probe to PJ2-152 and it seems --"

"Daniel."

"What?"

"It's lunch-time. Let's go eat."

Daniel scrutinised him, as if trying to find some hidden intent behind the simple instruction. Then, surprisingly, gave in without an argument. "Okay," he said, arranging a couple of photographs and standing. "I guess I can take the time to eat. I've made significant progress this morning, compared to yesterday."

"That's good."

"The variable, of course, being a decent cup of coffee. Look, Jack," he pointed, "the person who borrowed my coffee-maker must have returned it, because it was here when I arrived this morning."

Jack glanced at the corner, where the coffee-maker once again resided. Looked back to see Daniel still scrutinising him.

"You... it was you," said Daniel. "You got it back for me."

That intense tone; was he mad? "Ah..." Jack trailed off.

"You have no idea what a relief today was compared to yesterday." No, not intense-mad. Just intense-surprised. "But, Jack... I never told you who borrowed it..."

"Figured it out," shrugged Jack. Easy. Why would a person want to borrow Daniel's entire machine, rather than simply ask for a cup? Conclusion, it was to be used for a group of people. What kind of groups on this base would gather in the type of informal situation where one was free from constraints of rank and consequent appropriate behaviour? Answer; civilians. After designating civilians who regularly gathered -- such as the civilian nursing staff -- as secondary possibilities, he was left with certain maintenance staff, science staff, and cultural-expert staff. Ruling out the maintenance staff as not being the type to gather around a pot of coffee, it became a simple matter of shanghai'ing a couple of Degrees in the commissary. The second had suggested a name, and Jack had threatened to haunt the suggestor unless he was taken to the appropriate person immediately.

The appropriate person turned out to be that kind of small woman who exuded bossy virtue and followed it up with her mouth. Jack had been reminded all-too-clearly of Doc Fraiser. This particular small scientist claimed to have further need for the coffee machine. Fortunately, Jack had borrowed Teal'c on his way out of the commissary, and the big man had proceeded to prove his worth. "I am larger, and heavier than you," he informed the scientist. She had been undeterred -- "What are you going to do, sit on me?" Teal'c, as was his style, remained unimpressed by her confronting manner. "No. I shall merely stand in your doorway, until such time as you choose to surrender Daniel Jackson's coffee machine." The scientist, obviously impressed by Teal'c's ability to completely fill said doorway, handed the machine over without further ado.

Daniel moved past him, as Jack waved him out of the lab. "I really appreciate it, Jack."

"No problem."

"She -- the one who borrowed it -- she didn't give you any trouble?"

Ah. That explained why Daniel had been reluctant to retrieve the machine himself. "I had Teal'c with me," he admitted.

"Good move. Should have thought of that myself."

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "Guess that's why you're the genius, and I'm the team leader." Team leaders being entirely expendable... first man into the lion's den, down with the sinking ship and all that...

Daniel came to a halt in the corridor, and said vehemently, "Well, of course that's why, Jack!"

Jack, taken aback by Daniel's unforeshadowed moodswing, stuttered out, "That's why what?"

"You... you're you, Jack, not me -- and thank God for that!"

"What?" Seemed Daniel was having grammar troubles of his own.

"I know you're still worried about the test," said Daniel, waggling a finger at him. "You shouldn't be. Jack, would you... would you believe me, or a number on a piece of paper? Which would you trust more?"

"Well, considering I'd probably have to get you to translate..."

"Quit doing that! Just, quit it for a moment!"

Okay, Daniel was pissed about something. Rule of thumb -- never get on the wrong side of pissy-Daniel. Time to be humble. Jack took a step closer. "Daniel, I... I don't understand what you're saying, okay?"

Daniel touched his fingers to his temples -- momentarily dislodging his glasses -- breathed out, rearranged his glasses, put his hands back down. "Sorry. I'm not making any sense, I know. I just... you know who the two smartest people I've ever met are?"

"Uh, Carter, and... don't know the other."

"No," said Daniel, shaking his head in punctuation. "Sha'uri... and you."

"Daniel, you don't have to boost my ego..."

"No, I'm serious."

He was too; his words accompanied by intense-Daniel-look number three -- complete earnestness and honesty. Jack took a moment to puzzle it over.

"That IQ test," added Daniel, "doesn't measure anything important. IQ tests are just little games, devised by people who consider themselves to be superior, and thus create these little tests to prove their own superiority."

"I did really badly, Daniel," admitted Jack. "I couldn't concentrate at all. My mind was blank for the first half."

Daniel reached out, pulled on his arm, led him towards the elevator. "Don't worry about it, Jack. If you're right, and your result comes out really badly, I'll bombard General Hammond with all the appropriate research Sam and I can muster, with specific regard to error rates, case after case of genius diagnosed as retardedness, case after case that proves the environment and method of administration of the test can significantly adversely affect the performance of many individuals... I mean, the lack of duel-hemisphere stimulation in that exam room alone was almost tantamount to torture --"

"Daniel. Daniel." Jack looked down at the hand still resting on his upper arm. Daniel rarely touched anyone. "It's okay. I believe you. I trust you."

"Well... good. I will. I'll do it." Daniel, too, noticed where his hand was, and gave Jack's arm a quick squeeze before letting go.

They had arrived at the elevator, and Jack pressed the button and stood facing the elevator. Aware, given the nervous shuffling beside him, that Daniel hadn't finished.

"Jack?"

"Yes, Daniel." Jack looked sideways.

"That, 'test'," Daniel met his eyes, took a breath, self-conscious but determined, "that test doesn't tell me anything about the Jack O'Neill who is my friend." Then, arms about himself, he looked away.

Jack felt hot. He knew how hard it had been for Daniel to say that -- not because it wasn't true, but because... because saying that sort of stuff was hard. Very hard. He and Teal'c had done this affirmation ritual before, but... somehow that was easier. With him and Daniel... "Um, Daniel..." Jack focussed blindly on the elevator doors, found he was hugging himself in a mirror of Daniel's pose. "Daniel, I... I..."

"I know, Jack."

Jack tried another sideways glance. Daniel's face was almost as red as he could feel his own to be. Turning back to the doors, he nodded furiously to himself. "You... good. Okay, then."

As the elevator doors whooshed open, two identical sighs of relief could be heard underneath. Jack, recovering quickly -- he was team leader, after all -- commandeered the controls, and pushed the button of his choice. As the elevator rose, Daniel, still flitting his eyes nervously, noticed something was not quite right.

"Wait. Where are we going, Jack?"

Jack, in lieu of the right words, was going out on a limb here. "The surface."

"The commissary is on level --"

"I know where the commissary is. I need steak. Prime, juicy, fresh-cooked steak."

"But my translations --"

"Steak," said Jack firmly. "O'Malley's."

"Your bossiness rivals Janet's," complained Daniel, nevertheless checking his pocket for his wallet.

Jack almost shook with relief. It was okay. They were cool. No fallout from the touchy-feely stuff.

"That's why I'm team leader," grinned Jack.

ONE WEEK LATER...

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

General Hammond looked up from his perusal of a particularly lengthy print-out of what appeared to be names and figures. "Take a seat, Colonel."

As he took the indicated seat, Jack peered across the desk for a closer look. "Whatcha got there?"

"These, Colonel O'Neill, are the results of the IQ evaluations taken by personnel on this base a week ago."

"I figured that," said Jack, nevertheless feeling a prickling on his skin at the words 'IQ.'

General Hammond looked up. "I called you in so that I could congratulate you personally."

The general seemed to be in a good humor, which Jack hoped he could take as a good sign. "Congratulate me?"

"Yes. Well done, son. You scored an IQ of 60. You are the first certified moron to be given the rank of colonel in the United States Air Force."

"You're forgetting Maybourne," deadpanned Jack.

Hammond regarded him sternly. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Quickest method, sir, would be to push me through the wormhole into Chulak."

"That wouldn't make the computer happy. The result would still stand."

Jack had that sinking feeling. "You're not... you're not going to make me sit the test again? I barely survived the first time!"

"At the moment," Hammond explained, "you're throwing the whole system out. The powers-that-be can't have a moron in a position of command -- not officially, anyway," he added at Jack's snide look.

"Sir, if I'm a moron, I'm a moron," argued Jack. "How will repeating the test make a difference?"

"I'll refer you to exhibit A," said Hammond, handing him a piece of paper. It looked familiar, Jack thought, recognising the dog-ears, the chocolate smear through Answer 21. Yes, there was his name, 'O'Neill, Jack (Jonathan)' at the top.

"It was decided by the assessors," continued Hammond, "that you scored below range not because you're intellectually deficient, but because your test paper was unable to be read properly by the computer. Notwithstanding all the scribbling out, the notations on the side where you explained about accidentally filling in the wrong question, coupled with the impressive and proportionately accurate drawing of an F1-11 in the margin; the final verdict was that the computer couldn't differentiate between your answers, and numerous chocolate stains."

"Ah. About that --"

"Chocolate stains, Colonel?"

"Blood sugar problem," muttered Jack.

"Next time, eat before your test."

"Yeah, next time. Bring it on."

As his subordinate slumped dejectedly in his seat, General Hammond softened his voice. "It's probably for the best, son."

"I don't see how."

"The chocolate scored a higher IQ than you did."

What do you know. The old man had made a joke. Pity it had to be at his expense. Jack, sitting up to attention, tried a diversionary tactic. Having anticipated such an outcome, he had a plan. A plan that had the support of a couple of very important people. "Sir, I have a recommendation to make."

"What's that, Colonel?"

"After talking about this possibility with Daniel and Carter earlier in the week, I think my poor performance on the test reflects a deep-seated and severe aversion to formal learning structure and the corresponding impersonal environment in which such learning takes place."

The general raised his eyebrows, obviously impressed. "That's a direct quote, isn't it, Colonel?"

"Straight from the horse's mouth," said Jack. "There's more. What I just said, coupled with absence of right-brain stimuli to offset the negative effects of... of what needs to be offset. Sir."

"Which all means what, Colonel?"

"Carter and Daniel think that it would be, er, expedient if I be allowed to take the second test in the familiarity of my own home --"

"Now that's going a bit far --"

"Or, failing that, some other familiar, non-threatening environment. Somewhere I spend a lot of time, which has positive associations --"

"No, absolutely not," said the general emphatically. "You are not taking your test in the commissary."

Now there was a thought. Surrounded by the appetising -- somewhat appetising -- aromas of food; that would be left-brain, right-brain, and underlying primitive survival instinct all suitably accounted for.

"I'd consider allowing you to use your office --" continued Hammond.

"How about Daniel's lab?"

"Dr Jackson's lab?"

"He's got this chair, sir," explained Jack. "I've sat in it so much, it's kind of got my shape. And there's this space on his desk where my elbow has worn a patch -- elbow space is very important. And I can get plenty of right-brain stimulation there. Sir." Give the man enough 'sir's, he'd agree to anything through sheer shock.

It seemed the tactic was having the desired effect. The general breathed out a heavy sigh, looked momentarily introspective, then met the eyes of his subordinate with a more than a touch of amusement in the resigned expression. "All right, Colonel. I'm receiving a new batch of tests tomorrow for those who were off-world or ill or otherwise unable to take the tests on the day. Fortunately the test questions are not the same as those two weeks ago, so you can take one of these when they arrive. But, Colonel, this information is not to be shared with anyone. I don't want it to be said I played favourites."

Rising to his feet, Jack nodded his agreement. "Thank you, General."

"You're dismissed, Colonel O'Neill."

Jack had nearly made it out the door, when General Hammond added, "Just what is right-brain stimulation, anyway?"

Pausing, Jack attempted to evoke the appropriate information. It was catalogued in his mind from his interpretation of Daniel's 'word-picture punctuated with hand movements' explanation, but his personal mental imagery was not as logical as pure language, and re-translating the idea into words -- as happened all too often -- defeated him. Instead a rather lewd joke popped into his mind about certain private activities and double-handed techniques. Given present company, he discarded that option, and simply replied, "Er... better ask Daniel, sir. He didn't coach me to remember that bit."

"I'll do that."

The corridor was deserted. And Jack, as his mind was wont to do, had discovered a slightly cleaner way of making his joke. Turning back, he said, "I do remember one thing he told me."

"Which is --?"

"It's nothing to do with under the desk activities, sir."

Leaving a flabbergasted General Hammond behind, Jack walked down the corridor, swaggering a little. With Daniel as his supervisor -- he hadn't told Hammond that bit, but Hammond always gave in to Daniel so it wouldn't be a problem -- with Daniel as his supervisor -- Jack for some reason always found a hard-at-work Daniel to be a soothing presence, and Daniel had promised not to mutter too much under his breath while he worked on translations -- in Daniel's lab, with Daniel as his supervisor, Jack had no more worries.

This time he'd blitz the damned test.

© February 2, 2001 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.

Author's Personal Disclaimer: This is in no way supposed to represent any of the accepted IQ evaluations in use by professionals today. 'Properly administered' (sic) IQ tests are much more complicated and involve not only written, but verbal exchange and performance assessment. Nor is it supposed to be an accurate representation of military procedures.

Author's Note: This was triggered by an enquiry on the SG1HC list, regarding IQ levels for SG-1. Written in a hyper, sleepless, 72-hour burst.