Death Game

Chapter Twenty-One

Radek jerked awake at a cry, but before he was even properly conscious it stopped. He lay there in the darkness, wondering what it was that had awakened him. Not goats, though the shed smelled strongly of them. Perhaps a dog in a different yard, or a sound outside in the street.

Ronon was awake. He could hear his breath in the dark, quick gasps half stifled.

Radek rolled over. In the dim light that came in from the window he could see Ronon lying open eyed on the straw, his pupils huge and dark in a face rendered paler in silhouette. It came to him in that moment that Ronon was still young. How old had he been when he became a runner? Twenty, perhaps? Like Edmond Dantes, tragedy had stolen his youth, made him older than his years. He looked terrified, as though surfacing from some terrible dream Radek did not even care to speculate upon. He would not want Radek to know it.

And why should he not be frightened? One ought to be, trapped without resources hundreds of kilometers from the Stargate, on an alien world full of Wraith. Surely this was not the first time Ronon had been in such circumstances, all the more reason to be afraid. All the more reason to be plagued with bad dreams.

Loudly and distinctly, Radek stretched, turning over and reopening his eyes as though for the first time. “Ronon?” he whispered.

“Yeah?” His voice sounded almost normal.

“I cannot sleep,” Radek said, allowing a note of apology to creep into his tone. “Nerves, you know. Talk with me.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

A distraction, at least. He would not be able to dwell upon whatever it was while keeping up a conversation. “It does not matter,” Radek said. He waited a moment, as though the idea were suddenly striking him. “It is your turn for a story.”

“I don’t remember any,” Ronon said.

“A poem then,” Radek said.

Ronon turned his head and looked at him. “Are you a poet?”

“Me? No.” Radek shrugged. “I am an engineer, and I have no gift for words. But there are some I learned in school that stick with me, and some others I carry around here.” He tapped his temple. “My father said that the ones you know are the ones that can never be taken from you. You can pull them out and enjoy them wherever you are, whenever you wish, no matter what may happen around you, with no one the wiser. And so there are a few I know. So few, I am afraid. I am a scientist, and I have no gift of memory.”

Ronon nodded, rolling onto his back, looking up at the low ceiling of the shed. It was a long time before he spoke, and Radek had almost decided he would not. “We learned some in school too. A lot of them. I used to know the first fifty lines of the Yennam Cycle straight off. But I’ve forgotten them now.” His eyes were shadowed in the dimness. “You wear them out when you think them too much. They get holes in them and you forget them.”

Radek nodded. “I can see how that would be,” he said gently. He is like the old men, Radek thought, the ones who tell you they do not remember the war, and perhaps they are not lying.

A silence fell. Ronon cleared his throat, his voice almost a whisper, but growing stronger.

When he had been silent a long moment Radek spoke again. “That is lovely,” he said. “What is it part of?”

“It’s about a king a long time ago,” Ronon said. “He was murdered by his brother while they were hunting in the marshes.” He shrugged. “It’s not just the Wraith who fight wars. We’re pretty good at killing each other too.”

“I know,” Radek said. He wondered if it would be too much to reach out and clasp Ronon’s shoulder. Probably it would. So he did not. “I shall sleep better now,” he said, but did not close his eyes until after Ronon did.

“We can find them,” Rodney said. “We’re not giving up on them.” He felt only a little better for a few hours sleep, but surely coffee could fix that. Coffee could fix anything.

Elizabeth Weir folded her arms across her chest. The door to her office was shut, so that no one could hear her conversation with him and Lorne. “I’m not saying we should, Rodney. But you’ve been searching for two days and found nothing. I need to hear a plan that’s going to work. Your present plan seems to be to fly around in circles and hope you bump into them. I think you need to rethink this.”

Major Lorne straightened his shoulders. “We are following a search grid, ma’am.”

“And following that search grid, how long will it take you to complete a full survey of the planet?” Weir asked.

“Six days,” Lorne said, and Rodney winced. “Give or take a little.”

“Six days.” That was Elizabeth at her most skeptical. “Six more days flying around the planet twenty four hours a day.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Lorne said, “It’s not going to take six days to find them. They’re not going to be on the other side of the planet, and we’re proceeding methodically outward.”

“Do you know they’re not on the other side of the planet?” Elizabeth asked. “You don’t know where they are or how they might have gotten there. You’ve already searched the area near the crashed jumper, near the Stargate, and near where Zelenka and Ronon were supposed to be.”

Rodney leaned forward on the desk. “Just what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you need to consider indigenous modes of transportation. And you need to consider the planet’s inhabitants. They’re human. Don’t you think it’s likely that our people have made contact? Don’t you think it’s more likely that they might have sought assistance and food from the people who live there than that they would be wandering off in a random direction? Why would Colonel Sheppard or Dr. Zelenka go stand in the middle of the desert or a trackless forest? Give our people credit for a little common sense. Let’s apply some logic as well as method to the search.”

“I’m doing this by the book, ma’am,” Lorne said. “A search grid is the recommended way to find people.”

Elizabeth pulled Rodney’s laptop toward her. “I know you’re doing it by the book, Major. But we need to be a little more flexible, and take other factors into account. We know our people. We know what they’re likely to do. Now let’s look at this together. Where were the population concentrations that you observed?”

It seemed that only moments later Ronon was shaking his shoulder, that Radek must have barely closed his eyes. “Time to get up,” Ronon said.

Radek blinked and scrabbled for his glasses, which had slipped off. “Yes, yes. I am coming,” he said.

Ronon stood up, stretching his arms. It was still raining, though not nearly as hard as the night before. A chilly, gray morning — not the best for games. But perhaps it would distract the guards from their duty. He certainly would not want to be standing out in the rain for hours.

In the pre dawn darkness they made their way through the sleeping city, down a broad, curving path that led along the edge of a sharp drop. Poles marked the sides of it, sodden banners dripping from each one. Radek was sure in bright sunshine it made a fine show, but in the damp dawn it looked rather sad.

Ronon stopped ahead of him, holding his hand out. “There,” he whispered.

Below, where the path curved around, was a small paved area delineated with more banners. Beyond it, in the side of the hill, was an archway of white stone that gleamed in the dim light. He did not see any guards.

“This way,” Ronon whispered again, and slipped effortlessly off the path and into the jumble of rocks on the steep hillside, moving from one to another with surefooted grace.

Radek shook his head. He was likely to break his neck that way. Still, the best he could do was try to follow.

He must have been loud, for several times as they worked their way closer Ronon looked back at him with annoyance, but the sound of the rain covered all. A gloomy, dark morning with little to recommend it, Radek thought. He slipped on a jagged rock, sliding half way to his knees and banging his left elbow painfully. Ronon looked around again. He made a hand motion that Radek chose to interpret as ‘stay down,’ and so he did so while Ronon crept closer, almost invisible against the stones.

It seemed to Radek that Ronon was gone for a very long time. When he did return, climbing back toward where Radek waited, his expression was grim.

“What is it?” Radek whispered as Ronon sank down beside him.

“Wraith,” Ronon said.

“What?”

“There are Wraith here,” Ronon said. “That Wraith cruiser we saw day before yesterday? It must be set down somewhere around here.”

“It has not sounded like a Culling,” Radek said. Though admittedly his experience in such things was limited, he imagined it would involve a lot of shouting and fleeing.

“It’s not a Culling. These people are working with the Wraith like the Olesians were,” Ronon said. “Which explains where they’re getting this tech stuff. The two regular guards were down there and there was a Wraith with them. One of the masked guys, not one of the long haired guys.”

Radek sat very still. A horrible thought had occurred. Looking at Ronon, he saw the same thought written on his face. “Tribute,” Radek said.

Ronon nodded slowly. “Wraith like games. That’s why they make Runners.”

“This is a game like that,” Radek said. “A contest where everyone loses.”

“They let one guy go at the end and feed on all the others,” Ronon said. “It makes sense. They like to play with their food. I bet they’ve got a nice comfortable TV room somewhere and are watching the whole thing on camera, making their bets. It’s how they do with Runners, when they can. They send these video feeds after you, drones to follow you around and catch the action on tape.”

Radek shuddered. This man had spent seven years on the run from this. He could not even begin to imagine what that must have been like. “And they have Sheppard and Teyla,” Radek said.

“And a bunch of other people too,” Ronon said grimly. “Those people we saw on the ship. The old lady. Those kids.”

Radek shook his head. Truly, he should not be surprised by the scope of evil. But it was nice to think it less than it was, a constant mistake of the optimistic. “What are we going to do?”

Ronon smiled, and it was not a nice smile at all. “We’re going to screw up their little party. Are you with me, Zelenka?”

“Absolutely,” Radek said.

Teyla dreamed, and in her dream she was in Atlantis. She walked through the corridors like mist or smoke, the way it seemed to her when she reached out to the Wraith during the siege, when it seemed to her that she stood upon a hive ship. She walked through Atlantis, and doors opened ahead of her as they always did for John. They opened at her thought, live and bright in her mind.

Teyla came into the control room, the banks of machines humming quietly to themselves. The room was light and cool. Only the people were gone. Wraith manned every console. The daylight through the tall stained glass windows gleamed off long white hair.

She recoiled, backing into the doorway, as the nearest one turned. “Welcome home,” he said. Before she could scream, before she could so much as move, he bent his head, hair falling forward like a torrent of silver.

At the communications console the other Wraith did the same, ornamented leather whispering as he inclined his head in deference.

“The Osprey queens are always the most beautiful,” the first said, raising his eyes to her. “And the strongest. Atlantis is yours. What is your will, My Queen?”

She froze, horror creeping upward in her throat. She stretched out her arms, tight sleeves of white leather ornamented with silver, long greenish hands, the backs of them protected by bracelets of silver mesh fastening to wrist and first finger, ornamented with tiny gemstones. A Wraith queen’s hands.

A third Wraith stepped around the last console, his chin high and eyes bright. “Welcome home, My Queen,” he said. “You see we have saved the best for you.” He reached back behind the console, jerking someone forward into the light. With a swift motion, he shoved Sheppard to his knees, a torn gag stoppering his mouth beneath his eyes glittering with fear and pain. His shirt was open at the collar, the pulse jumping in his throat, ready and waiting…