by Graham, Jo
The men on deck were lean and bearded, wearing sweaty linen tunics that came to their knees, but they called out readily enough as they came alongside the little fishing boat.
“We have been shipwrecked!” Radek called back. “We are the only survivors!” Which sounded much better than ‘we are aliens from another planet who have stolen this boat without knowing how to sail it.’ That seemed a potentially problematic story. Stealing boats might be as illegal here as it was on Earth. It probably was.
In no time at all the sailors threw down ropes, and Ronon climbed up easily. Radek looked at the swaying rope with trepidation. This had never been his favorite part in the gymnasium. In fact, he’d never managed to climb the rope in his life.
Ronon leaned back over the side. “Give me your hand,” he said, and pulled Radek up as though it were nothing.
Towering over the sailors on the deck, his massive forearms bared, Ronon looked like some hero out of legend. They gave him a wide berth.
The one who might be the captain, a little better dressed, spoke. “You don’t look like fishermen,” he said doubtfully.
“My friend here is a warrior of great renown,” Radek said, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “We took passage with the unfortunate fishermen, but last night there was a terrible storm.”
The captain eyed Radek skeptically, though he seemed to accept readily enough that Ronon was a mighty warrior. And certainly they knew there had been a storm. That was absolute truth.
Ronon looked dour and flexed a few muscles for effect.
“I am a scribe,” Radek said, waving his forefinger about. “I tell his mighty deeds.” He was suddenly very grateful that his polytechnique school had required ancient history. He could manage all these cultural things as well as Teyla. And certainly he could play the scribe.
At that there were a few nods and grins. The captain looked at Ronon, or rather looked up at Ronon. “He’s yours?”
“Yeah,” Ronon said.
The captain shrugged. “To each his own! It’s good luck to rescue the shipwrecked. After all, one day it may be us. We’re bound for the Holy Island with cargo. We’ll take you and your boy there if you like, and then you’re on your own.”
“Sounds good,” Ronon said gruffly.
Radek felt the blood rush to his face. Oh really. That sort of ancient cultural thing.
One of the crew looked at Ronon speculatively. “You’re not planning to enter the Games of Life are you? Because I’d put some money on you.”
“I might,” Ronon said even more dourly. Apparently he thought the role required extreme taciturnity.
Rather than…whatever Radek’s required.
“Tell me of these games,” Radek said chipperly. “My friend is ever anxious to try his sword against new opponents.”
From the gales of laughter that broke forth Radek gathered this was a worse double entendre in their language than in his native Czech, and he cursed the Stargate’s translations for the millionth time. It probably didn’t bear repeating in Satedan either, from the way Ronon gave him an absolutely incredulous look underneath his brows.
“You are ambitious, little man!” the sailor who had mentioned the games said.
The captain frowned, however. “You do not know of the Games?”
“We’ve come a long way,” Ronon growled. “I’m not looking for trouble.” He frowned in a way that suggested that anyone who helped trouble find him might not be made very happy. “And if you’ve got any water it would be a good thing.”
At that a skin bag of water was produced, and Ronon drank before he passed it to Radek. The water was stale, but Radek hadn’t realized quite how thirsty he was. Yes, it had only been ten or twelve hours, but they had been exerting themselves quite a lot, swimming in the towering waves and then bailing. He stopped himself before he finished the skin, both because he remembered that it was a bad idea to drink too much at once, and because Ronon might also want more. He had not drunk deeply before he passed it on.
Most of the sailors had lost interest and gone back to their work, and even the captain was forward looking up the mast at something.
“What the hell?” Ronon said in a low voice.
“I do not want to say we are from another planet,” Radek said. “That might be very imprudent.”
“No shit, with Wraith here,” Ronon said. He hunched his shoulders as though the transmitter was still there beneath his skin, a habit that would no doubt die hard. But Carson had removed the transmitter more than a month ago. The Wraith could no more find Ronon than any other individual human on this world. “Did you have to say…”
“I do not need to know what I said,” Radek said quickly. “We need to know how long it is going to take us to get to a port and what is going on and how we can get passage from this island to the mainland where the gate is. Unfortunately we have nothing to trade at the moment.”
“Nothing you’d like.” Ronon grinned wolfishly, and it took a moment for Radek to realize that was a joke.
“Very funny,” Radek said.
Ronon stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles. “Wonder what these games are. Maybe I could win us some money.”
“If they have a coinage based economy,” Radek said. “Perhaps some sort of gladiatorial combat?”
Ronon nodded. “If it’s to the touch it might be worth a try. I don’t know what these guys think is good.”
“You are very good,” Radek said. He’d heard Sheppard all but wax rhapsodic about the Satedan’s fighting skills, and it took quite a lot to impress the colonel. “If it is not mortal combat it might be worth a try. It sounds as though these people have gambling, and perhaps you could win passage.”
“Everybody has gambling,” Ronon said. “I’d try it. See what you can find out.” He stood up and leaned on the rail in the wash of the wind.
“I should find out?”
“You’re the talker, aren’t you?” Ronon looked at him sideways. “What do I keep you for?”
“You are getting too much into this role,” Radek grumbled, but he ambled back along the deck to try to strike up a conversation with the captain.
***
The jumper took off from the island very precisely. Carson was being incredibly careful. Which suited Rodney just fine. He was all in favor of not crashing the jumper again. And not repairing the jumper again. He would really like to find everyone, go home, have dinner, and sleep in his own bed sometime this year.
“Ok,” Major Lorne said, coming forward and sitting down in the shotgun seat ahead of Rodney. “Let’s head back toward the gate. We’ll start there and fly concentric circles going out, starting with, say, a ten kilometer radius and working our way out in 20 km increments.”
“That’s going to take quite a bit of time,” Carson said.
Lorne nodded. “Yep. But if they’re on hand held radios we need to make at least a couple of passes within range or we may miss them, and the range varies based on weather, humidity, and whether or not they’re indoors. It’s more likely they’ll be close to the gate than on the other side of the planet, so let’s start near the gate and work our way out. That way the other side of the planet is the last choice.”
“That actually made sense,” Rodney said.
Lorne looked over his shoulder at him. “Thanks, doc. I do try to make sense sometimes.”
Carson shook his head. “Where could they have gone?”
“They got off the island somehow,” Lorne said. “We’re just going to have to make radio sweeps. Unless Dr. McKay can do something with the life signs readings?”
“Sorry, no,” Rodney said shortly. “Dr. McKay cannot. The people on this planet are human. Which means there’s no possible way to tell the difference between our people and them on the life signs detector. And the EM fields given off by our equipment are too faint to pick up unless we’re right on top of them. At which point we would have had them on the radio for ten minutes already.”
“I can’t bel
ieve they’re missing again,” Carson said.
“Yes, well,” Rodney snapped. “Maybe it’s time to face the facts that we aren’t very good at this. Week before last we were taken prisoner by the Olesians and tied up in a hut. The week before that Cadman and I got sucked up by a Wraith Dart. Two weeks before that we spent 24 hours running around the woods in deadly solar radiation trying to catch Off-His-Gourd Ford while Ronon wanted Carson to operate on him in the wilderness with a penknife and a toothpick like something out of MacGyver. Before that…oh yeah. Before that we were besieged by an incredible number of pissed off Wraith. It’s just possible that we’re doing it wrong!”
Carson looked at Lorne as if to say, what did you expect?
“Well, what do you suggest, doc?” Lorne said. “Pack up and go home?”
“No.” Rodney set his jaw. “There’s too much to learn here.”
“Then we take some chances,” Lorne said. “I’m sure if you don’t like being on the gate team that Dr. Zelenka wouldn’t mind taking your place.”
“Zelenka?” Rodney could hardly believe his ears. “Zelenka doesn’t even like to go off world! And he’s agoraphobic or something.”
“You’re claustrophobic,” Cadman pointed out from behind Rodney’s seat.
“Was anybody talking to you? I think not,” Rodney snapped.
“I’m just saying,” Cadman said.
“It’s much worse to be agoraphobic than claustrophobic, from the point of view of a gate team,” Rodney said. “After all, we don’t do a lot of spelunking. But we do kind of have to be outdoors under the sky.”
“I thought you didn’t like that,” Lorne said.
“Only when there’s dangerous solar radiation,” Rodney replied doggedly. “You were incredibly careless. I bet if Carson checked your sperm count he’d be appalled.”
Cadman made some noise that sounded like a stifled sob.
“I don’t need his bloody sperm count!” Carson said. “It’s not a fertility clinic around here!”
“My sperm are just fine,” Lorne said, but he didn’t sound too confident. As well he should not. It was no laughing matter.
Cadman made another strangled noise.
“Look,” said Carson in his best consulting physician tone, “It’s not as though he won’t make more. The kind of long term radiation damage you’re talking about, Rodney, is not something you’re going to get in a day from solar radiation on a habitable planet. The human body is a lot more resilient than you think. In eight to ten weeks Major Lorne’s sperm will be entirely normal. Unless he were planning on impregnating someone immediately, he’d probably be fine. And you know that sperm quality doesn’t necessarily have any physiological side effects. Most men with poor sperm motility don’t even know they have a problem.”
“Do we have to keep talking about this?” Lorne asked.
They were all spared replying by Cadman interrupting. “Look!” she said, pointing ahead. “That can’t be good.”
They were passing over desert and scattered oases, the green of the canopy of groves of palm trees bright against the sands. One, however, was different. A dark line cut across the green, a trail of broken trees and snapped off branches, culminating in a dark spot nearly at the edge of the desert.
“Something crashed,” Cadman said.
Rodney cursed.
“They hit the energy shield too,” Carson said. “Oh, hell.” He had already begun the turn to investigate. Even from this distance it didn’t look good. This was not a controlled landing like theirs. This was much, much worse.
“Ok,” Lorne said, standing up. “Everybody, it’s search and rescue time. Cadman, you take the perimeter.”
Rodney felt ill. They passed close over, seeking a landing site just beyond the trees, and he saw what was left of the other jumper. It lay half buried in dirt and sand, the windshield broken and one of the drive pods completely missing, its side scorched as though by fire. If Sheppard and Teyla had been lying injured in that thing for two days… He couldn’t help but imagine, though he would much rather not. If they’d been lying dead in that thing for two days, while he couldn’t get the crappy DHD to work…
“Dr. Beckett?” Lorne said.
“As soon as we’re down,” Carson said grimly, and Rodney knew he was thinking the same thing. Or perhaps blaming himself for the time lost when they skimmed the energy field themselves. “I’m on it.”
Lorne clasped his shoulder briefly. “I know you are, doc,” he said. “Let’s move out!”
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.
Jo
hn 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?”
