SGA - 14 - Death Game (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Shortly after the sun passed its zenith a servant came along the stern deck with water and bread and cheese, which John and Teyla ate sitting along the rail. John cast an eye forward to the canopied section where presumably Tolas and the most important passengers were. “They’re not starving us anyway.”

“Which makes sense if they’re not sure what we are,” Teyla said. The seas were calm and the skies blue. The galley skimmed over the waves light as a sea bird. It would be an enjoyable adventure, were it not for the end they now suspected waited for them—the Wraith, set up as gods over a captive people who literally provided them nourishment. “Thank you,” she said to the servant, taking the cup from his hand. “May I ask you who the people are on the very forward deck?”

He glanced in that direction. “They are participants in the Games. Competitors in the Games of Life.” He nodded quickly and hurried away, as if he had been told not to spend overly long.

“Competitors in the games?” Teyla said.

John shook his head. “No way.”

From where they were it was easy to pick out Jitrine among the passengers on the forward deck, but she was not the only one who was elderly. There were two men who seemed older than she was, one of whom was crabbed and bent. There were five or six others, a tall bearded man who stared out over the sea, a boy and girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, and several women who didn’t look like athletes.

Teyla shook her head. “Those people cannot be competitors. Can you imagine Jitrine and that young boy in some kind of sport against the others?”

“Foot races, track and field…” The crease between John’s brows deepened. “Any kind of boxing or wrestling… Can you see Jitrine boxing or wrestling?”

“She is an elderly woman, and she is hale, but no,” Teyla said. “Either these games are not tests of strength and speed, or…”

“They’re a hoax,” John said. “Some kind of excuse to give these people to the Wraith. Jitrine was clearly Tolas’ prisoner too and she said there was a long story about why, about tribute and how the people in The Chora didn’t want to pay it.”

“Because it was too heavy,” Teyla said. It made a grim sort of sense. “The tribute is people, John. Those participants in the games are the tribute. Unwanted people.”

“People somebody has a grudge against,” John said. “Nice. The Olesians at least bothered to accuse people of a crime before they stocked the Wraith’s feeding pen. These guys pretend they’re sending them to compete in the games.”

“It causes less resistance, I imagine,” Teyla said. “After all, if one is not being sent anywhere bad, why should people object?”

“But they do,” John said grimly. “That’s what Jitrine was talking about. Too much tribute. Too many people just disappearing. Too many friends and family asking too many questions. It gets dicey for a ruler to have lots of people disappear.”

“And then we just wander in to fill the quota?” Teyla’s eyebrows rose. “We take two spots and that is two less local people Tolas has to find. No wonder he wants us to behave. If we start raising a fuss, people will wonder about what is going to happen, where people are going. If we are just traveling along nicely, it is nobody’s problem.”

John nodded. “Very convenient. If we don’t turn out to be useful, we count toward Tolas’ tribute.”

“We will have to see what opportunities present themselves,” Teyla said.

John looked at her. “How’s your arm?”

She flexed it experimentally. “It hurts, but it seems that the swelling is better today. I will not be able to fight two handed, but it is my left arm. I can certainly use a pistol, and if I have a stick I will fight one handed.”

He looked as though that was better than he’d feared. He’d seen her fight one handed before with her sticks, and she could usually beat him. And a stick was usually an easy weapon to find.

“How is your head?”

John winced. “Ok.”

“Truly?” Teyla prompted. “Do not tell me you can do things you cannot.”

“I’m still a little dizzy,” he admitted. “It comes and goes.”

Teyla nodded. “We will take this as it comes.” If John admitted to being a little dizzy, he was truly not well. But then it had been less than forty eight hours since he had a concussion. He probably would still be in the infirmary back in Atlantis. “Dr. Beckett would have you still in the infirmary.”

“Yeah, well. Carson’s not here. And if he were, we’d be out of this soup.”

“Let us hope so,” Teyla said.

***

“There’s some dried blood on the dash,” Carson Beckett said. “Not too much.” He was bent over the console of the wrecked jumper. Through the broken windscreen the air was thick with the birdsong of the oasis, hot and dry. “A bit on the dash and some smears on the armrest, like a man with blood on his hands put them there.”

“How bad is it?” Rodney asked, climbing over the rear seats coming forward.

Carson raised his head. “I’m cautiously optimistic. No bodies. No large amounts of blood. No bullet holes or spent casings. This much blood? Someone injured, yes. But certainly not losing blood in a life-threatening amount. From the location, on the control board, I would guess it’s Colonel Sheppard’s.”

“Wonderful,” Rodney said darkly.

“No sign of Teyla, no blood anywhere else. What have you got back there, Major Lorne?”

Lorne leaned around the door that divided the cockpit from the back. “Two P90s gone, two packs gone, survival gear gone. Teyla’s jacket’s gone. Paper from a field dressing on the floor. Somebody was hurt, but not so badly they didn’t bandage it up with a field dressing and get moving. They took weapons and survival gear, and there’s no sign of a fight. I’m guessing they walked out of here.”

“Why?” Rodney demanded.

“I don’t know,” Lorne said. “How would I know? But it doesn’t look like they were prisoners when they left. They had time to get all the stuff they’d need. They had water, food, medicine.”

“Perhaps they hoped to make it back to the Stargate,” Carson said. “I know that’s what I’d do.”

“Me too,” Lorne said. “And the colonel’s done desert survival before. When I was at the SGC somebody said something about it. Afghanistan, I think?”

“There’s a lot of desert between here and the gate,” Rodney said. “And it’s hot. Did I mention it’s a desert?”

“That’s our next thing,” Lorne said. “We’ll check out the desert between here and the gate. The most likely thing is that they took the survival gear so they’d have a good shot at walking back to the Stargate. Chances are they’re somewhere along the way. If not, we’ll recenter our search pattern here and continue radio calls. They can’t be too far.”

“Not on foot,” Rodney said.

“We’ll find them before lunch,” Carson replied.

“When have I heard that before?” Rodney asked.

***

Radek strolled along the deck of the merchant ship, wiping off his glasses on the hem of his shirt. Not that it did much good. His shirt was soaking wet with salt water, but at least it got some of the streaks off his glasses. Other than wishing for a hearty lunch, Radek felt—actually, pretty good. He had never thought he was the sort of man to be shipwrecked and spend the night clinging to an overturned boat in a storm and come out of it fresh and cheerful. Perhaps fresh was stating it too strongly, as a hot shower and a very large bowl of soup would be welcome just now. They weren’t dead, and that was quite a lot. Maybe there was something to this action hero adrenaline high that others talked about.

Radek ambled up to the captain where he stood astern and put his glasses back on. He waited for the man to turn to him before he spoke. “So, these games,” he began casually.

The captain gave him a broad grin. “You think your friend might win? There is only one winner.”

Radek put his hands in his pockets. “One winner? How do the games work?”

“It’s one game,” the captain said. “The Games of Life. It’s a game of skill and strength both. It’s good to be a big strong fellow, but that’s not enough.” He tapped his temple. “You have to have it here. You have to have brains. Skill and strength both, or you will not survive.”

“Survive?”

“It can be deadly,” the captain said with a shrug. “If you’re not fast and clever enough.”

“How does it work?” Radek asked. “An arena or…”

“A labyrinth,” the captain replied. “There is a huge maze underground. It has traps, it has dangers, it has monsters in it, they say. There are obstacles and that does not even count the other competitors. The first person to get all the way through the maze is the winner.”

Radek waited, but the captain didn’t go on. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. You go in with no weapons or tools, and you come out at the other end. The first person who makes it is the winner and they are rewarded with a big purse and sent on their way. There are lots of bets placed on who it will be. The gods themselves like to bet. The thing that’s hard, you see, is that you have to solve the obstacles which requires cleverness, but you also have to hold your own against the other competitors in a fight, and there are traps that only a strong man can defeat. So it is a very special champion who can do both.”

Strength and cleverness at once. Radek had a thought. “So do competitors never team up? If my friend and I, for example…”

“One winner,” the captain said. “One of you walks out. That’s the catch. One of you is a rich man and one of you belongs to the gods. People have tried it before, teaming up, but someone always betrays the other at the end. So now everybody knows better than to do it. Why help someone who will stab you in the back at the finish line?”

“Belongs to the gods? Is that a euphemism for death?”

The captain blinked. “No. Belongs to the gods. The competitors are dedicated. They become the property of the gods. One man walks away the winner. The rest belong to the gods to serve them.”

“Not such a good bet then,” Radek said. A very neat way of getting people to place themselves in slavery. Diabolically clever, actually.

“Not if you want to walk away, little man,” the captain said. “You help your friend, but do you think he’ll be the one to let you walk out at the end while he stays?”

“I do see your point,” Radek said. He ambled away, back down the deck to where Ronon stood. Ronon looked up as he approached and he leaned on the rail beside him and related what he had learned.

When he finished, Ronon frowned. “That’s not a plan.”

“Indeed not,” Radek said. “Very clever, of course. A labyrinth, a maze, lots of obstacles… I’m sure it is intriguing.”

“If you could see it.”

“What?”

“If you could see it. How do the spectators see it?” Ronon asked.

Radek blinked.

“Look,” Ronon said. “A bunch of people go underground. They fight. Somebody comes out the other end. So what? That’s boring. It’s only interesting if you can see the fights.” He leaned on his elbows, his eyes on the sea. “On Sateda we had radio, just like you guys do. There were people who narrated sporting events on the radio so if you couldn’t get there you could hear what happened, but it wasn’t the same as being there. Five, ten thousand people would come out for big championships. Huge crowds. That was part of the fun, being there with your Kindred yelling for your champion. If nobody could see it? If it all happened underground and you never had any idea what was going on, just waited for somebody to come out? That’s not exciting.”

Radek nodded slowly, his eyes on Ronon’s face, his mind whirling. At last he said, “My friend, there is something very wrong here. Something on this world is not at all as it should be.”

Ronon looked at him sideways, curiously.

“They are not supposed to have the technology to do this, but they must have a way of seeing what is happening in the labyrinth.”

“They have cameras, like the Genii?”

“Maybe. That is not out of the question. We have seen that the Genii have achieved analog broadcast.” Radek looked around them, up at the mast and forward to the livestock on deck. “But do you see anything to suggest this society has that level of technology? Or that these people know anything about it?”

“No.” Ronon shook his head. “The Genii tech—it’s maybe fifteen or twenty years ahead of where we were on Sateda. Not a full generation. Your stuff is maybe a couple of generations. It’s better.”

Radek snorted. “You mean the stuff you’ve seen is. I did not grow up with this. Do you think we had cell phones and laptops in Czechoslovakia in 1980? I grew up in a house with a woodstove, and then one with a pre-war oil furnace. I did not see a computer except when I went to polytechnique. Nobody had computers at home, not even in the West. In the East? Perhaps a great university would have them. We had the radio and the streetcar. If you were very lucky you might have a TV, and then if you could make the rabbit ears work for you, you might pick up German broadcast television.” Radek smiled. “The station in Nuremburg showed Star Trek in reruns. That is how I saw it, grainy from the mountains, on a black and white television set. But we did not have these things. I was not running around with my laptop talking on my headset then. There is hardly a moment in time of difference between the technology I grew up with and that which you did.”

Ronon blinked. “I thought you guys had all this stuff.”

“It is all new.” Radek shrugged. “Even the Americans did not grow up with all this, though they had more tech in their homes in the West than we had. And much of what you are seeing, Ronon, is Ancient technology. We’ve had it a year, and some of it we can make work. Lots we cannot yet.” He looked out to sea once more. “But it is wrong and you have found it. They must have some way of watching the games. And if they do, they are lying about a great deal, like the Genii, or…”

“Or we’re in a lot of trouble,” Ronon said.

Chapter Seventeen

The merchant ship did not so much glide into the port of the Holy Island as creep, sails reefed and oars out, making its way very slowly through the heavy traffic. Two great stone quays shielded the harbor filled with smaller boats, while above on the steep hillsides of the town, buildings clustered. The ones nearest the water were somewhat ramshackle houses of wood, but the ones higher up were stone, with painted columns and wide porches offering vistas of the sea that must be simply stunning. The highest tiers were reserved for palaces and temples, bright with red and gold paint. The symmetry and beauty reminded Radek of the Dalmatian coast, or possibly of how the islands of Greece must have looked in their heyday. He had never been to the islands, but perhaps it was like this—tier upon tier set in lavish greenery, while beneath it the blue sea glittered in the sun.

Certainly the scene looked like a spectacle out of Plutarch. Beside the largest quay, a massive galley with scarlet canopies was tying up while musicians played a fanfare. Soldiers marched off in gilded array, spears catching the sunlight, headdresses sparkling with gold. In their midst a number of officials walked, shaded by fans held by half-naked servants. Behind, in procession between lines of guards, others walked to the music of drums.

“What is all that?” Radek asked the captain.

“Tribute ship,” the captain said, glancing across the water. “From King Anados of Pelagia, to tell by the markings. The Pelagians always put on a fine show! They’re very rich, and the king likes everyone to know it. Of course that means their tribute is more too, so it’s not all good.”

It was indeed spectacular. Radek expected pacing cheetahs any second. It was something, he thought, to see these things as so few on Earth ever did, to see things that no one would believe even if he could ever speak of them. There was a bit to be said for going off world, really.

“Who are those people?” Radek asked, gesturing to the cluster of assorted people at the back of the procession between guards.

“Tribute,” the captain said. “They’re contestants in the Games.” He shrugged and went back to yelling incomprehensible nautical things at the sailors, who were trying to bring the merchant ship in to a smaller dock.

Ronon came and stood beside Radek. “Impressive,” he said.

“Those are contestants,” Radek said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. “But something is not right there. That boy is very young. And that old woman? Surely she is not an athlete? It does not seem likely that she has wagered her life on a contest in a labyrinth.”

“
They
haven’t,” Ronon said flatly.

“Who?” Radek put his glasses back on again.

“There,” Ronon said, pointing, but the gesture was hardly necessary.

Toward the back of the procession among the others were two unmistakable figures—Sheppard and Teyla.

“Don’t react,” Ronon said, squeezing his arm.

“Right.” It was good to see them alive and in one piece—at least they seemed to be in one piece, walking bareheaded up the street in their black BDUs. Sheppard had a white bandage over one eye, but they did not seem badly hurt. Radek had begun to wonder if they were dead, and had troubled himself in the night keeping that thought at bay. Not dead, and not badly injured. But just as surely prisoners. The guards around them carried spears and they seemed watchful.

“They must have been captured,” Ronon said.

Radek nodded. “And something is not right. You had a good point about seeing the contest, and this…” He shook his head. “We must find out what is going on here.”

“We need to rescue them,” Ronon said.

“Of course we do,” Radek said. “But first we must find out what is happening. All is not as it appears, and we must not walk into a trap. If we do, we will not be able to help them or ourselves.”

Ronon’s brows rose and fell. “Excuses?”

Radek sighed. “Do you think I am such a coward as to just leave them? Is that what you have decided?”

Ronon regarded him steadily for a moment. “No,” he said. “You’re ok.”

“I am glad you think so. And I am not suggesting for a moment that we leave them. But we must think how to do this. We are in the middle of a strange city, and they are surrounded by guards. We have no weapons except your pistol, and no way off the island. The games do not start until tomorrow, and Colonel Sheppard and Teyla are both strong. We must do this by stealth, Ronon, so that we have the best chance of success. It will do them no good if we are merely captured as well.”

“Ok.” Ronon crossed his arms. “We need to know where they’re going.”

“Then let us depart this ship as soon as it comes to the dock and follow the procession,” Radek said. “We are strangers, but since there is a great festival there must be many people here who are oddly dressed and known to no one. We mingle with the crowd and find out what we can.”

“It’s a plan,” Ronon said, but he plainly hoped the plan turned into action soon. Radek only hoped that action would not be precipitous.

***

Teyla looked about the Holy Island with interest. She hoped that would not seem odd. After all, they were travelers who had never been here before, and the sights were indeed impressive. Surely a certain amount of curiosity would seem natural.

John had lifted his head and was walking straight ahead in the procession with a firm step, but she saw how his eyes darted one way and another, saw the tension in the set of his shoulders. Then he glanced at her, one eyebrow quirked, and she knew what he meant. When there was an opportune moment in the crowded streets, they would try to break away.

The way uphill was very crowded indeed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people lined the narrow streets, looking out from windows and porches of houses, cheering and shouting at the spectacle. Tolas and the other officials walked in great state beneath fans, surrounded by guards in glittering array. From time to time one of them would wave, or toss something into the crowd that set off screeches and a scurrying frenzy—small coins or candies, treats or amulets—Teyla could not tell. But whatever it was, it stoked the crowd to an even greater volume, pressing in on the procession and being pushed back in turn by the cordon of guards.

Where they were, toward the end of the procession, this was having a very salutary effect. The number of guards directly around them had diminished from eight to four, two walking on each side. The crowds were loud and people pushed one another, trying to get closer to see better, or to be in a better position for the tosses of goods. Once they got among the crowd it would be difficult to get to them, and from what Teyla could see the city was a rabbit warren of houses and lanes crowded closely together, leaning over one another on the steep hillsides, with terraced gardens and walls of various heights protecting buildings and streets. Fruit trees and growing plants filled the gardens, providing still more cover. If they could slip away from the guards, it would be very difficult to find them again. And perhaps it would not occur to Tolas to look until they reached their destination.

John stopped and bent down as though to retie his boot laces, and Teyla nearly ran into him. She saw, beneath his bent head, how he swiftly untied it before he made a production of tying it again.

Only one of the guards hung back. “Come on, now,” he said. The last of the other contestants passed them, two guards bringing up the rear.

“Sure,” John said with an affable smile as he stood up, ambling along behind them. Teyla had to admire the grace of it. They were now in the very back, with only one man behind them.

He did not need to say anything. She saw the set of his shoulders change an instant before he moved, and she was ready.

They were at a turn of the street, where it proceeded steeply uphill. Two small lanes ran into it, and there was a little square with a fountain, crowded tight with people pressed together. Behind the procession the crowd was breaking up.

John bent again, as though reaching for his boot, but this time he came up with a roundhouse that connected squarely with the last guard’s jaw, knocking him backwards just as Teyla seized his spear and broke it across her knee. Six feet long it was of no use to her, but a three foot section was very useful indeed. John darted back down the processional way with Teyla a step behind him before there were even shouts of alarm.

Dodging among the startled spectators, the broken shaft held to her side, there was no need to actually strike anyone. Most of the calls were not screams for help, but simply cries of startlement, with the occasional comment on how rude it was to shove past people.

Behind them, up the street, there were cries of alarm, but it had all happened so quickly, and at the end of the procession, that most of the guards now had to get through the crowd of spectators.

John dodged down a side street and Teyla followed. He did not even wait a moment before he took the first side turn, then leapt up a low stone wall covered in creeping vines and clambered onto the terrace above. Teyla followed. They slipped through the branches of three small fruit trees that hung low, then climbed over another wall into the alley behind a large house that faced the street above. No one was around. The inhabitants were probably in the front of the house watching the procession, or if this street was not one of the processional ways, perhaps they had gone down to watch. They hurried around the corner of the house and John flattened himself against the rough stone wall. He was breathing more heavily than she might expect, but he put his finger to his lips. She slipped in beside him and he leaned out a fraction, looking back.

There were no sounds of near pursuit. Away beyond the walls were shouts and music, but whether alarm or just the normal sounds of the festival she could not tell.

“It appears we have gotten away cleanly,” Teyla whispered.

John nodded. He turned away, checking in the other direction up the narrow space between houses, high walls rearing on both sides. It appeared this space was used as a refuse dump and sometime privy, as it stank badly. At the front of the houses it was masked from the street by a large bush and a dwarf fruit tree. They peered out.

The street ran steeply downhill to their right, presumably to join the lower street the procession passed on, while to the left it twisted around the side of the hill, houses and garden walls abutting it.

“Come on,” John said, and stepped out sharply, strolling along the side of the street going uphill. Teyla followed. It was true that if no alarm had reached this area it would be more suspicious to dart across people’s gardens than to simply walk along the street purposefully.

Around the curve there was a drop to the left, a stone restraining wall along the edge of a bank that went down steeply toward the port. Above, to the right, a magnificent house took full advantage of the view, porches spread to catch the breeze.

“Over the wall,” Teyla said. “Let us stop and plan.” The wall was nearly as tall as she, and John had to help her up with her hurt shoulder, but once they sat in the shadow on the other side of the wall they were perhaps as safe as they could be. They could not be seen from above unless someone leaned over the wall and looked down, and the wall covered them from the houses above. Below, rough scrub and rocks made it a tough clamber of about forty feet to the trees and garden walls of houses. From the flat roofs of the houses below they would be visible, but at a distance that would make it difficult to tell who they were or what they were doing. Beyond, the sea stretched, the port off to their left. A few clouds littered the sky, perhaps signs of thunderstorms to come in the night.

John let out a long breath. “Ok.”

“That was well done,” Teyla said.

“I thought so.”

For a few moments they sat there companionably.

“Now what?” Teyla asked.

John pulled the radio out of his pocket and checked it again. It was still on standby, the low battery light on. If anyone had called they would have heard it. Which was in itself worrisome. What had happened that there had been no rescue team? Had the rescue team likewise run into the Wraith cruiser? Were even now Rodney and Lorne prisoners of the Wraith or, worse yet, dead?

John brushed his hair back from his bandaged brow. “There’s one flyable ship on this planet. The Wraith cruiser.”

Teyla twisted around to look at him. “Do you have any idea how to fly a Wraith cruiser?”

“No. But it has a comm board. And maybe I can figure it out. We captured that Dart a few weeks ago. I’ve had a look at the tech.”

“That Dart was blown to pieces,” Teyla observed. “I did not know there were anything like operable systems.”

John made his so-so gesture. “Not really. But Zelenka figured some of it out.”

“Radek isn’t here. And we have no idea where he is,” Teyla said. “I am sure if anyone could figure out how to operate a Wraith cruiser it would be you and Radek, but to take the ship and fly it, the two of us?”

“Maybe,” John said. “It’s a thought.” He lifted his hand to his eyes, looking out to sea. “But I’m done waiting to be rescued. If they could have, they would have by now. We have to assume we’re on our own.”

Teyla nodded slowly. “Then we need a plan.”

“First we need to find the ship,” John said. “They must have it parked somewhere. If most of the people don’t know about it, we’re looking for a hangar or a private airstrip of some kind. This island isn’t that large. If it’s here, it’s close by.”

“If I were the pilot,” Teyla said slowly, “I should want it in the palace complex. It would be easier to conceal that way, and it would be possible to reach it quickly in the event of an emergency. I would not want to put it somewhere I must then reach on foot, which might take some time.”

“You’ve got that right,” John agreed. “It looked like that Wraith cruiser on Olesia was capable of a vertical takeoff. Which means they could be in pretty close, tucked away in a building or a courtyard or something. They wouldn’t require a runway, like a 302 does.”

“Is that a big advantage?” Teyla asked.