Death Game

Chapter Nineteen

“I am most unhappy,” Radek Zelenka said to no one at all. He stood under a flimsy awning which did little to keep off the pouring rain, while lightning flashed so close that the thunder seemed almost simultaneous. Instinctively he counted as his father had taught him as a child, one thousand one, one thousand two…

Crash. Less than a kilometer away, including vertical distance. “Radek”, his father had said long ago, “you should learn how fast sound travels, how far from the flash you are. It is not for lightning. It is for artillery shells. The muzzle flash warns you. The count tells you how far you are away and whether the shells will reach you. I remember once…” His voice had trailed off, his face closing in a way Radek knew too well, not tight but blank.

“I’ll remember,” Radek had said. “I’ll learn.”

And he had, of course. The first time he had watched the Wraith bombardment flashing against Atlantis’ shields, he had started counting. It gave him the circumference of the shield with comforting accuracy. He wished his father were still alive and that he was not cut off from Earth forever that he might tell him. It is as useful in another galaxy as it was over the Vltava.

The lightning leaped again, illuminating the square in front of the palace on the Holy Island like a strobe light, the thunder a second behind. One thousand one…

On the other side of the square a party was coming around the corner of the buildings, not hurrying as people will do who have been caught out in a storm, but walking slowly and purposefully. Soldiers, he thought. In the intermittent flashes their shields might have been riot gear. Soaked to the bone, his hair plastered to his scalp with rain, Radek watched. The square was almost empty. Of course it was. Most people had fled inside. Only he, who had no home or lodgings to hurry away to, huddled under this dripping awning, his back against the wall. But then he had watched like this before, in cold rain.

Escorting prisoners, he thought. Their careful gait, their measured distance from someone in the center of the rank — prisoners.

The next flash of lightning showed what he wanted to see and what he dreaded. Sheppard, head down, his hands bound behind his back, the rain dripping off his sodden hair. He did not look up. Closely guarded indeed — four men tight around him.

And Teyla. Her arms were also bound, but she lifted her head as though he had shouted, as though he had called her name in a voice audible over even the crashing thunder, her eyes unerringly seeking his. They widened, as though she could not believe she saw him and he wanted to jump up and down, to assure her that it was really he. But of course he didn’t. When someone you know is being arrested you must not react. You cannot help them if you are also arrested. Their life may depend on you staying free.

And so Radek did nothing. He stood beneath the awning and watched while the rain dripped down from his soaked pants to his bare feet, wishing for the hundredth time that his shoes had not been lost along with his laptop and radio. Running about the island barefooted on the uneven paving and questionable refuse was not at all comfortable.

Up the steps, Sheppard first. Under the portico. Through the broad doors, the guards still with them.

Radek took off his glasses and squinted into the rain and gathering dark. As wet as they were, they were next to useless. Sheppard and Teyla did not seem injured, and they were prisoners in the palace. They were tightly guarded, but seemed alert. Now he had only to wait for Ronon to get back from his scouting expedition and they should plan what to do.

It would be very nice, of course, to have some dinner. The bit of bread and rough wine they’d been offered on the merchant ship as a courtesy to shipwrecked men had been at midmorning, and it was now after dark. A lovely bit of beef, or even one of the mess hall’s ubiquitous hot dogs would be extremely welcome just now. For that matter, Radek thought he could tuck into an MRE with unfeigned enthusiasm. But. They had no money, and there did not seem to be the sort of public feast that accompanied some festivals. Or perhaps there usually was, and the rain had put an end to it. In any event, food did not seem likely unless Ronon had an idea better than armed robbery.

Well, Radek thought optimistically, perhaps the rain would be their friend in any event. It would be very hard for sentries to keep careful watch, and they might be careless. They might prefer to shelter inside rather than stand guard properly, whether Ronon and Radek tried the palace or the maze. It might after all serve them.

Sticking his hands in his wet pockets, Radek leaned back against the wall. Ronon should be along soon, and they would move on to the next thing.

“This is more like it,” John said, twisting around as the guard held him at spearpoint while another untied Teyla’s hands. He had to duck not to hit his head on the ceiling. The cell was low and dark, with no exterior window and a door of solid, heavy wood.

Teyla grunted, and he knew the roughness of being untied had jerked her injured shoulder painfully. There were four guards, and with the spear point against his chest there were few options at the moment. Teyla seemed to have concluded the same thing, as she backed away from the guard who had untied her instead of stepping forward into a kick. The one with the spear to John’s breastbone backed off, and an instant later slammed the door behind him. The heavy sound of the bar on the outside falling into place was clearly audible.

“John?”

“Yeah.” He reached out a hand, groping blindly. With the door shut and no lamp, in the absence of a window the cell was pitch dark. He felt her hand on his arm and knew she must have reached too. “Are you ok?”

“I am well,” she said. “It only hurt when he jostled it.” He imagined that she shrugged. “We may as well sit down and be comfortable,” Teyla said, carefully drawing him down to sit beside her on the floor.

He flailed out with one hand searching for the wall and was rewarded with barked knuckles. Yes, the wall was close. John turned around, leaning against the wall. “Much more homey,” he said. “Kind of predictable, actually.”

Teyla laughed. “I am glad to see that our current lodging suits you better than the last two!”

“It just seems more honest,” John said.

He heard her shuffle around and her shoulder brushed his as she settled back against the wall beside him. “I would prefer the other lodging,” Teyla said. “Somehow I am not expecting that this will come with a nice dinner and Jitrine to look at your head.”

“My head is fine,” John said stubbornly.

“Then why were you dizzy earlier?”

“Because I have a concussion.”

“I had noticed.” Her voice was smiling.

John leaned his head back against the wall. “They’re going to let us out of here tomorrow if we’re in these Games. It’s just overnight. So we might as well try to get some sleep.” If he closed his eyes he couldn’t see the dark.

“Radek is here,” Teyla said.

His eyes popped open. “What?”

“When we were being taken through the square in front of the palace I saw him,” she said. “He was across the square, and I’m sure he saw me.”

“Are you sure it was him? It was raining pretty hard.” John hadn’t seen him, but he’d been concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. It would have been bad to have to puke from dizziness in front of a pile of guards.

“Yes, I am sure it was Radek,” Teyla said, but her voice didn’t sound certain. “I saw the reflection off his glasses. It might have been a man who looks like him, but we have not seen anyone in this culture with glasses. And he was watching me.”

“No Ronon?” If Zelenka and Ronon were here that was the best news he’d had in days.

“I did not see Ronon, but surely Radek could not have gotten here by himself. And he was not a prisoner. He was just standing there under an awning of a shop in the marketplace along the main city square.” Her voice was stronger now. “They must be here,” she said. “Ronon must be here too. And if they know where we are they will try to get us out.”

“Big if,” John said, but he couldn’t help but feel his spirits lift. Ronon trying to get them out was worth a good deal. And while Ronon was new to the team and he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain he’d been right about the Satedan, he was sure that Zelenka wasn’t about to give up on them. He and Teyla were good friends, and he’d shown a remarkably stubborn streak the few times John had worked with him. They might get some backup here after all.

Unless Ronon and Zelenka walked right into the Wraith.

“They will try,” Teyla said.

“The Wraith.”

“I know.” He heard her sigh in the darkness. “But Ronon has been fighting the Wraith for years. He will not underestimate them.”

Which was true. “We’ll just have to stay sharp and be ready for an opportunity when it comes,” John said.

“And for that we must sleep,” she said.

“Right.” There was a long silence.

John stretched out his legs in front of him stiffly. Ok, maybe this escape attempt wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had. He’d managed to trade a comfortable room for a hole in the ground. Not an improvement. And his chances of sleeping were about nil. Somehow sitting in a cell waiting for something to happen wasn’t really relaxing.

Teyla let out a long sigh.

She wasn’t sleeping either. Probably for exactly the same reasons, possibly coupled with an inner monologue of all the things she’d like to say about what an idiot he was to stage an unsuccessful escape attempt that not only didn’t get them away, but also left them in a worse situation than they’d started with. But she wouldn’t say it. It took a great deal to get Teyla to openly criticize him.

Like the time he’d disobeyed Elizabeth’s direct order and hauled Teyla into the middle of a plague that it turned out he was immune to and she wasn’t. She’d had a sharp word about that.

But mostly when she thought he was being a total ass she’d just look at him with one eyebrow quirked, as if to say, “Is that your final answer?” That expression always gave him pause.

Of course, if he hadn’t crashed the jumper in the first place, then they wouldn’t have been captured and none of this would have happened.

“Look,” John burst out. “I’m sorry, ok?”

“For what?” Teyla sounded mystified.

“For crashing the jumper.”

“You did not intend to crash the jumper,” Teyla said reasonably.

“If I’d done a better job flying, we’d be fine,” John said.

“If you had done a worse job flying we would be dead,” Teyla said.

They sat there in the dark in silence for a long time. He wished he could see her face. He had no idea what she was thinking. Maybe she was asleep.

Teyla sighed, and he heard the sound of cloth rubbing against stone as she shifted position. Not asleep. They couldn’t sit here in silence for ten hours until morning.

“Your turn,” John said.

“My turn for what?”

“For a story.”

He heard her let out a long breath, her shoulder almost against his. “It is, isn’t it? What kind of story do you want?”

He shrugged. “Any kind of story.”

“I know lots of stories,” Teyla said. “You have to pick something.”

It came to him, the story he wanted. He wondered if it were taboo, something she shouldn’t talk about. But if it were, she’d probably just say so and he’d apologize. This was Teyla, after all. “Tell me about the dead city,” John said. “The one across the water from the Stargate, from the camp where I met you on Athos.”

She paused a long moment, and when she began again her voice was low. “There are many stories about Emege That Was.”

“Is it wrong to ask?”

“No.” He could almost see her shake her head. “But there are so many that I must decide which ones. So many stories of my people are about this city, and about those that lived there long ago.” Teyla paused again. Then she spoke again, in the formal cadences of what he had begun to think of as her storyteller’s voice.

Once and away there was a city called Emege. Once, when the Ancestors ruled, it was a city like any other. People lived in it and worked and raised families and grew old, all under the protection of the Ancestors. And the Ancestors gave to the people of Emege great treasures, and for a while some dwelled there, shedding their grace on their children.

But shadows come, as shadows always do, and the Dark Bird stirred. One by one the Ancestors went from Emege, drawn by troubles far away. “It will not affect you,” they promised. “It is only that we have a war to fight, one you cannot understand.”

You are thinking now, John, that this story is true. I did not know whether it was or not, until I came to Atlantis, but now I think it is. I think it has a seed of truth, the kernel of that long ago war between the Ancients and the Wraith, as the Ancients were pushed back and back, until all they held was Atlantis.

You see, then the Wraith came. Their cruisers swept over the planet and their vast hive ships, Culling and Culling and Culling. The people of Athos were food for the great armada that besieged Atlantis.

Emege held for a very long time. The Ancestors had given to the people of Emege a great and powerful gift, and beneath the virtue of its power many refugees crowded into the city, the last, safe place on our world. A year and a day, the poets say, Emege held against the Wraith, but at last the virtue was gone from the gift and the city fell. Queen Death stalked the streets and she slew for the love of it, men, women and children alike. Her men dined on the children of Emege, that it might never rise again.

And we cried out to the Ancestors, “Why have you abandoned us? We are your children! We are the daughters and sons of your house! Why do you not come through the Ring with your weapons and your ships? Why have you left us?”

There was no answer. There was never any answer, only the sweep of black wings as the Wraith hunted and hunted. In their wake starvation walked, abandoned markets and abandoned fields scoured by frail scarecrows in rags, gleaning half spoiled food by night. It hardly mattered that the Wraith came less and less. There was nothing left to destroy.

And then in the ruins of Emege a young man came up, and his name was Arda. “I have been their prisoner,” he said. “I have stood in the feeding pens of the Great Armada, and have returned to tell of it. Death was slain by the power of the Ancestors, but in doing so it has taken all their power and virtue from The World That Is. They are gone, and they will never return. It is of no use to plead for them. We speak to a dead gate, and the waves that reached up and consumed Death have also swallowed them. We are alone, the last children, all that is left.”

“I have stood in the feeding pens,” he said, “and they have released us, for they are glutted on our brothers. They have put us out to pasture, as a man will let his flocks run loose to forage when their fodder is too expensive, knowing that he can always round them up again later, when he is hungry. What use to keep us aboard their ships, more than their chambers can hold, when left to ourselves we will forage? We can always be hunted at will.”

And at that the Last wept, knowing they were the last people in the world, and in time they too would be hunted.

“Do not despair,” Arda said. “They will not come here again for a long time, for even evil must sleep, and when they do we will be ready for them. The Ancestors are gone, and their magic and virtue. Now we live in the world of men. But men will not prove so weak as the Wraith may think.”

And they said to him, “If the Ancestors could not prevail, with their might and wisdom, surely we have nothing? Surely we are kine who will be harvested in our time.”

Arda spoke again, and his words were hard and true. “Does it not come to every man, that in time his mother is gone from him? When we are children we cling to her skirts and seek her for every good thing. She is our happiness, and without her we will starve or die of cold. Every man is born of woman, and we need her with all our strength. But to each of us comes a time, late or soon, when his mother is gone. Sometimes it is that death takes her soon, leaving us mewling and weak, hoping that some other will take us in and care for us. Sometimes it is that death waits, and our grandchildren sit on her knees when, honored, she passes into that night with her century. But sooner or later, every man stands alone. Sooner or later, his mother cannot save him. The Ancestors are gone, as a mother from us all. We must stand like men, like men and women of good age who are bereft but not cowed. We are not infants who will die without her touch! We are not crawling children, who do not know right from wrong! We are youths, perhaps, who should have known her wisdom and care for many years, but who must stand as men even before our time. And stand we shall.”

And so we did. In time, the towers of Emege again pointed to the sky. In time, her streets lived again, and lights blossomed behind the windows of her houses. The Wraith slept. Two generations passed before they came again, and then three before the next time. Sometimes as much as a century passes between Cullings. Sometimes it is only a few years. Sometimes the Cullings are light, a Dart or two through the Ring, a dozen people lost. Sometimes thousands die, cities falling in flame and sorrow.

But always we know this — this is the age of men. We live, and living hope. Our mothers cannot save us. The Ancestors will never return. The world is what we make of it.

And in that some of us find nothing. That which will be, will be. There is little point in striving, if our efforts will be brought to nothing. And some of us find instead hope. We are not weaker than the Wraith, nor stupider. In time, we will find a way, for everything there is under the sun changes.

That is the story as I learned it, but now I will tell you another. Stories are truth. Stories are life. This is the story Elizabeth Weir told me, and in it she adds another thread to the loom.

Once there were a beleaguered people, forced back and back and back by the Wraith, their warships lost, their numbers trimmed to the bone. Once, the Ancestors submerged their city beneath the sea, that they might stand a little while longer as the last of their kind. Once, they listened to the last of their transports destroyed, their kin screaming their last breaths into vacuum, and they knew they were alone. They could not save their children. They could not save themselves.

Their story ends, as stories do, in the blue flare of a gate. They left their city to sleep beneath the sea and walked through a gate with their children and their bundles, with their parents and foodstuffs for the journey. They walked through a gate.

They walked into your world, into the light of your sun, with their children and their bundles, their parents and their stories. They came to places familiar and strange, and they walked the lands of your world as the last of their kind, the elder children of time.

And where they went, stories followed them. They taught men to build and taught them to govern, and here and there they left something else, for they were not so different from us. They left their cast of face, the shape of their hands, a river of blue-black hair, a pair of green eyes. They dwindled and they vanished, leaving mystery behind.

The story begins, as all stories begin, in the blue fire of a gate. There was a chair beneath the ice, and she woke at her son’s touch. There was a city beneath the sea, and she came to life when her son called her. All that ever was, still is. All that may be, yet may be.

As orphans separated by tragedy and war seek each other across the decades, so we seek each other now, your people and mine, brothers and sisters, children of the Ancestors.

So I believe.

Silence fell, all the darker for the visions conjured by her voice. For a moment John had almost seen it, the Giza gate open in hot sun, the Ancients stepping through with their parcels and their sleeping infants, glancing behind as though they could see what they left. They stood in his world, not at the end of their story, but at the beginning of his history.

Once, in the Neolithic, some farmers along the Nile became what we call the Nagada culture. The first line in the textbook, the first slide in the presentation, the opening credits of the documentary.

They came from this gateroom, walked through his gate, leaving Elizabeth to cover the consoles carefully with plastic, and walked into his world as exiles. They left the systems on standby, powered down instead of destroying the city, because like Teyla’s people they hoped.

They hoped that sometime their children would walk back through that door.

“Hope is the White Bird,” Teyla said. “And her wings beat with unbearable strength.”

“Yeah,” John said, and squeezed her hand in the dark. White snowfields of Antarctica and the chair glittering like polished glass, a tossed coin rising in the air and flashing as it fell. He had no words for this thing. He was not like Teyla or Elizabeth, who could conjure visions in the dark, make people believe the impossible. But he saw it. He understood, her warm hand clasped in his. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” John said, and hoped that made sense.

“No,” she said. “It never does.”