Death Game

Chapter Six

John woke, and for a few moments couldn’t remember where he was. Not this again, he thought, and then it came flooding back, the crashed puddle jumper, the desert, the doctor who had stitched up his head. Morning light came in through the small window high above. Teyla was sleeping on the other side of the bed, drawn in on herself like a child, her bad shoulder uppermost.

Right, he thought. Morning. Captured. Out of here. Very important things. By now Rodney had surely called for backup, and Lorne’s team would be looking for them in a second jumper. Best to get on the radio and give them something to look for.

He sat up and a wave of dizziness washed over him. Not good. But on the other hand he wasn’t nauseous. In fact, he was starving. That was good. John had been hit over the head enough times to know that was a good sign. If you’re hungry, you’re probably not dying.

Gingerly he got one of the energy bars out of his jacket pocket. That would help. Munching on it, he tried the radio. “McKay, this is Sheppard. Come in. McKay, this is Sheppard.”

Only static answered him. They were probably out of range. The hand held radios worked less than a hundred miles, and Rodney didn’t know where they were, so the second jumper would have to fly patterns broadcasting to find them. He flipped the radio to standby to save the battery. It would alert him when there was a signal.

Teyla stirred and sat up. “Anything?”

John shook his head. “Nothing yet. They’ll have to fly patterns. I wish there was some way to alert them about the cruiser first.”

“Lorne will be careful,” Teyla said. “They will know something must have happened and will exercise caution.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

“It hurts,” she said. “But it is an ache, not a sharp pain. I think it is bruised muscles, and they will heal. How is your head?”

“Better,” John said. “I’m hungry anyhow.”

“We must have Carson see to you when we are back in Atlantis,” she said. “I’m sure he will have much to say about having you in the infirmary again!”

“Yeah, well.”

The door opened to admit Jitrine with her bag. She was accompanied by a young girl in a much-washed tunic who put a tray down on the table and left. This time the soldiers did not come in, but stood outside the door until the girl left, then closed it and barred it.

Teyla got to her feet. “Why are we prisoners?” she asked. “We have done nothing, and we must speak with Tolas.”

“And why are you a prisoner too?” John asked.

Jitrine’s eyes narrowed. “The local officials in The Chora hate the King in Pelagia, and they resent all Pelagians, especially those with wealth and education. I was foolish enough…” She glanced away. “I will spare you the tale of my folly, but needless to say I offended Tolas, and since I am here, many auri from Pelagia with no means to send a letter, I am at his mercy. And he, like many others, is angry because the tribute due the King has recently increased.”

John scratched his ear. “Local tax problems. I get it. What do you know about the Wraith?”

“The Wraith?” Jitrine looked genuinely confused.

“Perhaps you know them by another name,” Teyla put in. “They are tall, pale men with white hair, and they feed upon humans.”

Jitrine shook her head doubtfully. “I have never heard of such,” she said.

“We saw a Wraith cruiser,” John said, frustration in his voice. “We know there are Wraith on this world.”

“There may be,” Jitrine said. “But it is a point of logic that the world is vast. Because there are Wraith on this world does not mean I have seen them.”

Teyla glanced at John as if to say, true enough, so he didn’t press it. “Have you seen their ships?” Teyla asked. “Small, pointed, very fast? Airships?”

“The sky streaks?” Jitrine asked.

“Sky streaks?” John said. “What do you mean?”

“We sometimes see streaks in the sky, thin clouds being etched across the heavens as though an architect drew a line on stone. Sometimes we see a silver point at the leading end,” Jitrine replied.

“Contrails,” John said with a nod. “They’re made when the ships pass through certain kinds of weather.”

“I have seen those,” Jitrine said. “But I have never seen anything like the men you describe.”

Teyla frowned. “Perhaps you have been fortunate,” she said.

One of the guards banged open the door. “Enough time,” he proclaimed, and looked past Jitrine to them. “Tolas will see you in the third hour.”

“Thank you,” Teyla said to Jitrine as she was hurried out. Then she looked at John doubtfully. “They have never known a culling?”

John shook his head. “It could be pretty thinly populated, if this village is any indication. Maybe they haven’t been culled in a long time.” He examined the breakfast tray. Something smelled very good. It smelled like… “Scrambled eggs!” He looked at Teyla and grinned in triumph.

She shook her head, smiling. “Now I know you are feeling better. We should eat before we speak with Tolas.”

Dawn came over the desert. The chill of the night gave way to morning warmth. Rodney stretched and yawned and took another drink of the long cold coffee in the thermos Lorne had brought. It was the last of the coffee. Sad. He wondered if there were any of the sandwiches left.

Lorne looked around, then let the P90 rest on the sling around his neck. “The animals seem nocturnal,” he said with far too cheerful a smile for someone who had also been up all night. “No more howling. How’s it going, doc?”

“It’s going,” Rodney said grimly. “I’ve never tried to repattern a main gate control crystal before, in case you’re wondering. It’s very finicky work. Screw up and I’ll damage the crystal.”

“That’s why I brought four of them,” Lorne said.

“Yes, well, I’m glad to know you have such faith in me,” Rodney said, putting his head back into the depths of the DHD. “I’ll get it.”

“Then we dial the gate, get a jumper and the backup team, and go hunt for Colonel Sheppard’s team,” Lorne said. “All in a day’s work.”

Rodney shone his flashlight up inside the DHD, looking for the right circuit. “Somehow I don’t think it will be that easy.”

Sunrise. It was breathtaking, really. The sun rose out of azure waters under a flawless sky sprinkled here and there with rose clouds. A light breeze blew out of the east, stirring the hair on Radek’s forehead.

Ronon sat in the bow of the little fishing boat eating an energy bar, his eyes on the calm sea.

“We could try to get the sail up,” Radek said. “We want to go southwest and the wind is out of the east. It should just push us west, don’t you think?”

“Probably.” Ronon stuffed the last bite in his mouth and stood up. He grinned, and Radek thought there was a flash of ironic humor there. “How hard can it be, right?”

Radek shrugged and looked at the tangle of rope on the mast. “I have never even much liked sea movies. You?”

“I watched Master and Commander with Sheppard. That’s it for me. I was army, not navy, on Sateda.” Ronon climbed over the benches and started untying things.

Radek looked at him sideways. He thought that perhaps they needed to untie the ropes that kept the sail furled and then find the ropes that raised it. “Yes? That is so?” Perhaps he had heard Sheppard mention something of the kind.

“Yeah.” Ronon didn’t look at him. “22 Foot, the Immortals.” He bent his head over the knots. “Four hundred years without being disbanded, with always a man coming back to begin again. That’s over.”

Radek untied the last one on his end of the mast. “You live,” he said.

“That’s over,” Ronon said shortly and stood up, trying to shake out the sail. The heavy canvas was wet and stiff.

Radek put his head down, and after a moment pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “I tell you a story while we do this,” he said. “The day is long. Why not?”

Ronon shrugged, his back to him, and Radek took that for assent.

I was two and a half years old on August 21, 1968, when Russian tanks rolled into Prague. I remember there was fear. I remember my mother was arrested. I was not there when it happened, but I remember the absence of her, the way my grandmother clutched me, a scarf over her hair and her things ready to go.

My grandmother — what is there to say of her? She was a young woman when we were annexed by the Nazis, a young woman when she got out of Prague for Plzen because of the fear of bombs. My mother was born there in the winter of 42, child of one occupation as I was child of another. So you see, my grandmother had done all this before.

I suppose I cried for my mother. I do not remember. She was held three weeks and then released. She was one of the lucky ones. Some disappeared forever, but no one denounced her enough, I suppose. She was guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in a peaceful demonstration. And so they let her go eventually. They could not keep everyone, you see.

She regretted it all her life, I think. She got away free, and so many others did not. It was betrayal to live and be happy.

My grandmother did not think so. “It is stolen,” she told me. “All of this is stolen. Every moment is a moment between the wars. Every moment is snatched from death. You be a thief, Radek. You learn how to steal.”

My father was different. He was nearly twenty years older than my mother, a youth rather than a baby before the war, and he was a serious man. He did not have my mother’s fire. Perhaps he once had, but he never got over the pneumonia he had in ’39, all winter in a work camp before they needed industrial labor too badly to keep them there when they could be building vital things for the war effort, men like my father who were neither Slovaks nor Jews. Those, they killed one way or another. Those like my father, blue eyed with German first names? He had work in a factory. You see he was lucky too. I have it on both sides, the Devil’s luck.

It was not so lucky when time came to go to university. My mother had been arrested as a dissident, though she had not been sentenced. My father had been released by the Nazis. University depended on politics as much as anything, and my family was suspect. I should not have gone to university, except that I was very, very good.

And I am also very, very good at not getting caught. I am simple, you see? I am an egghead. I do not think about politics or sex or religion or any of those things. I do not even know who is in office. I have my head in a book, my mind on physics. I am a little egghead wimp, and I am no threat to anyone. I will toil very nicely in the background, doing things that make the reputations of my professors, and never ask for credit. It is good to have Radek Zelenka on oneâ™ team. He will get it done and never make trouble. I am good at getting by.

I was two and a half when the Russians came. And I was twenty three when we threw them out.

I was there on November 17, 1989. We did not know what would happen. We did not know if the army would fire on us, if the Russian tanks would come as they had before. We had learned what to do about tear gas, and how to help someone who has been beaten. I was there when the riot police came. You may not think I am much of a fighter, but that is not the point. The point is not to fight, but to make a barrier of your own body. The point is to be unmoved. Breathe through a wet handkerchief, and be unmoved. I was not much hurt, just some bruises from the scuffle. I am lucky too.

I was twenty four when we won, when we had our country back.

I got my doctorate at Cambridge, and now I am in a distant galaxy doing things my parents and my grandmother could not have dreamed of. And one day I will go home. I will teach and I will research and I will be astonished by the things that children think of.

Or perhaps I will die here. Perhaps the Wraith will have me one of these times, or any of the other innumerable hazards. If it is so, then it is, but I do not plan for it to be. I have the Devilâ™ luck. It may be true that every moment is stolen between the wars. But you and I, Ronon, we can steal.

Ronon said nothing, but Radek saw the set of his shoulders change. Let's get the sail up, Ronon said.

Wait us, Radek said, and stood on the bench to spread one side of the wet canvas. It would dry quickly enough he supposed, in the sun and wind. Yes, he thought, now we will do it together rather than you will do it for me because I am nothing but a package you are supposed to protect. Perhaps we have come that far.

The breeze spread the sail and the boat began to move, skimming forward over the waves a little faster. It was by no means quick, but better than it had been. They were getting somewhere at least.

Ronon grinned, the wind lifting his hair like streamers behind him. It was hard not to be caught in the beauty of it. The pleasure of an engineering problem beautifully solved, as men had done for thousands of years. How many had stood on the deck of a boat like this, looking off across an unknown sea?

He might be the first men in the world, Radek said. The men who discovered sail.

Because we don't know any more about it than they did, Ronon said, but he was smiling, an unguarded look that transformed his face.

We have theory, Radek shrugged. That must count for something.