Stargate Atlantis: Halcyon Page 12

  Daus drew on the pipe. "You are your mother's daughter, Erony. You have so little artifice." He chuckled. "It pleases and saddens me in equal measure to see her reflected in you."

  Her lips thinned at the attempt to deflect her. "Father," she said again, "I would know your thoughts if I am to understand the reasoning behind today's events."

  He placed the pipe on a stand and sipped the blackbrandy. "To rule, one must know the color of a man's heart, one must understand the truth behind the pretty words that would-be allies bring to our table. These outworlders take the measure of us and we must do the same. I brought Sheppard and his party to the war to watch their reactions. How they view us shades how we will deal with them."

  "What did you learn?"

  Another dry chuckle. "That the gallant Lieutenant Colonel is, under all his weapons and wargear, just a commoner at heart. And too, that he and his splinter think us too harsh and ruthless."

  "What value is there in that? Surely we should court them, make Sheppard think well of us."

  Daus waved her into silence. "No. We are Halcyons, we do not hide what we are. Let them understand the truth of our society. There is no point in obfuscation."

  Erony was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, it was difficult to keep the taint of accusation from her words. "Is that why you sanctioned Palfrun's petition for the Hounds?"

  "He made the request in good order. What would you have had me do?"

  "Deny it," she retorted. "In such a small skirmish, over so trivial a matter as an argument over, what was it? A gambling debt, or some such? In other conflicts, on other days you would have dismissed Palfrun's petition out of hand. Why not today?" She shook her head. "It was unwarranted."

  "So you challenge my interpretation of the codes of conduct, is that it? You wonder if allowing the use of the Hounds was a fair ruling?" He shifted and sipped more drink from the schooner. "I am Lord Magnate, my dear. The codes are mine to direct as I see fit. I make the rules, Erony. Never forget that."

  She colored. "I have not. But I must ask you why. Please explain it to me."

  "If any other made that demand of me, I would have them dispossessed on the spot and flogged in the square." Daus put down the glass. "But to you, I will give an answer. It is simply this; today it was my desire to test the mettle of these Atlanteans, to cut to the core of them. Are they worthy of Halcyon's friendship? Have they the same steel in their bones as we do?" He looked away. "I believe I found them wanting."

  "If that is so, then why are they still here?"

  The Magnate gave his daughter a heavy-lidded glare. "Because they may be of some use to us. Kelfer has searched his records for any scraps of intelligence on these men from Atlantis. He has found reports to corroborate their claims about the Precursor City, of conflicts with the Genii and their many battles against the Wraith. It is possible they have knowledge that can be of use to the Fourth Dynast."

  "Knowledge," Erony repeated bleakly. "You refer to..."

  "Our `problem'," said Daus. "Sheppard's people may be able to assist us."

  She frowned. "Why not simply ask them, father? Sheppard spoke of making formal treaty between us, would not this be a firm step toward such a partnership?"

  "Halcyon has no partners, my dear, only equals or lessers, and these Atlanteans do not appear to be the former. I will not reveal our dilemma openly! That would be tantamount to bearing an open throat to a wildcat. No." He shook his head. "For now we watch and appraise them. I expect you to be most prudent in this." The Magnate took her hand and held it. "Our Dynast keeps Halcyon stable, Erony, it always has. We must maintain our dominion for the good of our world, our people. You know that to be true."

  "I do," she replied.

  Her father smiled. "Good. Your mother would be so proud to see you now, strong and regal, doing what is right for our planet. It fills me with joy to know you stand at my side in this."

  "I do," Erony repeated the words, her eyes focused on the broken sword.

  "Can we discard these cloaks yet?" said Ronon. "This cloth irritates me."

  Sheppard resisted the urge to scratch his neck where the rough-hewn robes rubbed at his skin. "Just drop the hood. We can't chance being seen by one of the nobles or their men. Not yet, anyhow."

  Ronon looked around. "I don't think we're going to run into any high class types down here, do you?"

  The colonel followed Dex's gaze. He had a point, Sheppard had to admit. The narrow streets of the lower city were grim and more than a little stinky. It was a far cry from the perfumed halls and elaborate decor of the High Palace. John glanced up over his shoulder and saw the tall towers and minarets of the Magnate's complex rising over the roof slates of the tumbledown apartment blocks and factory shacks of the metropolis. The palace looked even larger from down here, and he didn't doubt that was the way the nobles wanted it, casting a subtle oppression on the common folk just through the size and shape of the massive building.

  Sheppard had expected it to be a lot harder to get down to the lower levels than it actually was; in fact, there were several poorly-guarded funicular railways leading into the wide city sprawl, and it had been relatively easy for Dex and the colonel to sneak aboard a carriage full of soiled laundry on its way downward. Ronon noted that the defenses on the outer walls of the palace were more geared toward keeping people from getting in, than they were for keeping people getting out. The return trip would be a tougher prospect, but for now Sheppard wasn't thinking about that. He pulled the brown robes closer as a gust of cold wind fluttered past them. The two servants they'd encouraged to lend them the garments were currently guests of Mason and his men, and would remain so until this little covert operation was dealt with. John patted the Beretta pistol concealed in his hip holster in an unconscious gesture of self-protection. To Ronon's displeasure, he had insisted they go lightly armed, and Sheppard had made doubly sure that both of them were carrying the paper dockets Erony had provided on the monorail, just in case things went south and they had to reveal themselves to someone in authority. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, though.

  They kept walking, leaving the district where they had disembarked behind, moving on the edges of crowds, keeping to the shadows. Sputtering gas lamps with oily flames were popping on all along the streets, and now and then raucous hooters sounded as heavy steam trucks growled past over the cobbled road.

  The lower city was busy with people moving back and forth, and it had the cold and impersonal edge that John remembered from some urban centers back on Earth. It was similar enough to make him uncomfortable, different enough to make him realize how far from home he was. The city was a mixture of shantytown barrios, red stone buildings and archaic industrial constructions that were better suited as the backdrop to a lurid, turn-of-thecentury Jack the Ripper movie than a modern metropolis.

  Ronon looked up as a wide blimp droned overhead, low enough that they could see the shapes of men moving around inside the control gondola. "Bigger than Daus's warship," noted the Satedan, "slower too. Cargo carrier, maybe?"

  "Could be." John's gaze shifted as they passed an alleyway. He caught sight of a huddled group of figures, sheltering in doorways or under old, torn awnings. They were dirty and hollow-faced, eyes blank. He caught the scent of sickness from them.

  Another truck rolled past in the direction of the funicular railway station, laden with tones of oval, greenish fruits. Sheppard had seen the same things on the dinner plates of noblemen in the palace. "Food for the Dynast," Dex opined. "Daus likes to live big."

  Sheppard jerked a thumb at the vagrants in the alley. "They don't live so big down here."

  Ronon nodded. "Ghettos are ghettos, no matter where you go.

  "Yeah." The two men kept in the flow of people, and ahead of them the crowds grew thicker as the radial streets fed out into a wide-open plaza, walled on all sides by more sheer-faced tenements. Many of the buildings were covered with scaffolds or giant billboards dominated by artwork of Halcyon soldiers or port
raits of a smiling Lord Daus. Sheppard's lip curled at one particular image, which showed the Magnate rendered in heroic proportions, dispatching a horde of demonic Wraith. He didn't need McKay to read the accompanying banners for him; he knew propaganda when he saw it.

  "Look there." Dex tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. Across the plaza, past the thronging crowds, one billboard-sized panel shifted and stuttered as black-and-white images rolled over it. Immediately, John realized they were looking at a massive film screen being fed from a concealed projector. Whoops and cheers went up across the people in a wave of noise as crackly organ music played from speaker horns arranged on towers dotted across the square. A broad regimental crest appeared on the screen and martial music blared. The image changed to scenes of battle, men with steam-rifles rushing over trenches, rolling tanks, biplanes and blimps.

  "It's a newsreel," said Sheppard. "Hey, maybe we'll get a cartoon as well."

  "Halcyon on the March!" A cultured voice brayed from the speakers. "In battle against the Wraith, our brave soldiers lead the fight!" More cheers greeted footage of Fourth Dynast troopers milling around a downed Dart on an arid sand dune, and then a slow pan over a dozen dead Wraiths piled like cordwood. "Halcyon's supremacy remains unassailed! Forward to victory, says the Lord Magnate, and forward to glory!"

  Sheppard watched as footage unfurled of Daus, heavy with his regalia, advancing down the steps of the High Palace with Vekken and his other adjutants behind. The camera lingered for a second on Erony, who forced a smile for the lens. A few young men standing close by made lecherous catcalls and whistled.

  "She's popular," noted Ronon.

  Daus's voice boomed from the speakers, a speech made up of platitudes and belligerent rhetoric; but Sheppard wasn't paying attention. He was watching a gangly youth with a red headband shouting to be heard over the sounds of the speakers. The agitator was thrusting pamphlets into the hands of anyone who looked his way. The colonel caught the odd word here and there, something about "Magnate", "unfair", "traitor". When Daus's face filled the screen again, the youth booed and spat. As Sheppard looked, he saw a few other figures with the headbands dotted amongst the crowd, reds moving in the tide of gray.

  John thought about Dex's comment. "Guess we can't say the same for her dad, though."

  The tone of the newsreel changed; the propagandist opening segued to something that reminded Sheppard of Sunday night NFL score round-ups on ESPN. The narrator was calling out kill tallies and battle reports. Blocky strings of text marched up across the bottom of the screen in a teletype.

  A bearded, middle-aged man in a leather jerkin next to John patted his pockets frantically and cursed. He turned to Sheppard and thrust the bag in his hand at him. "Here, be a gentleman and hold on to this for me a trice, would you? I can't find me slip!"

  "Uh, okay." John took the bag. It was full of ugly-looking vegetables, dark red like sweet potatoes. They smelled a little off and his nose wrinkled.

  The man produced a piece of paper from a pocket and held it up, comparing the numbers on it to those on the screen. Sheppard saw other people doing the same. The man's face twisted in annoyance. "Ah, for wound's sake!" He tore the slip into confetti and brushed it from his hands. "Never the score, hey? Never the blade-forsaken score for old Rifko!"

  The colonel had seen enough horse races to recognize the face of a losing bettor when he saw one. "Bad luck?"

  "Bad? Bad? Ah, laddie, it's been a dozen cycles since I've had a win, if it's a day. I'm in for a change of fate, I know it, but when it will strike me, that's unknown." He blew out a breath and sighed. "Ah well. There's always a war tomorrow."

  "Yeah..." Sheppard noted. "So you bet on the outcome of the skirmishes, then?" He handed back the bag.

  The man gave him an odd look. "Well, don't everyone?" He studied Sheppard and Dex. "Ah, but you're from the country, are you? I seen the way you looked about, like your necks are on a swivel. Don't get the tickers out there in the fields, right?" He gestured at the film screen.

  "That's right," nodded John. "We're both from out of town."

  The other man smirked and spread his hands. "Well, then. Welcome to the capital, lads. Don't let the tall buildings scare you!"

  "We'll try not to," said Ronon.

  "I'm Rifko Tenk," he said, "a kitesmith."

  "He's Ronon Dex, I'm John Sheppard."

  Rifko laughed. "John the Shepherd, you say? Sorry to tell you, you won't get much work hereabouts! No herd beasts in these neighborhoods! Men would eat them soon as look at them!"

  "Food's in short supply here, then?" asked Dex.

  Tenk shrugged. "When isn't it? Ah, you scoff what you can." He hugged the bag closer to him. "Bit o' meat when you can find it."

  Sheppard smiled, trying to keep the man at his ease. "That right? We thought that things in the, ah, capital would be different. Plenty of food and wine, servants and shiny silverware..."

  Rifko laughed even harder than before. "What's that you say? Oh, maybe that's so up yonder in the palace, but down here..." He pointed at the cobbled street. "Down here, laddie, a man is lucky if he sees clean water and a fruit without a speck of mould on it once a month!"

  "And that's no wonder!" came a new voice, high and strident with agitation. Sheppard turned to see the gangly youth with the headband coming closer, stabbing a fistful of papers at Rifko's chest. "Nobles take it all, every fig from our lips! What they throw to the pigs after a feast could feed a downcity family for a week!"

  "Here, now!" snapped Rifko. "We don't want none o' your red-talk!"

  "How many have to die from the bone-rot before we stand up and say no more?" The youth thrust a leaflet at Sheppard and John took it on reflex. The paper was rough and poorly cut, printed with bright red ink that came off on his fingers. The Ancient text was a mystery to him, but the presentation was clearly angry about something. The kid's fierce demeanor made it clear what that was. "Poverty and disease run in our streets! Daus is a traitor to Halcyon who feathers his nest while we all starve-"

  "Enough of that!" snarled the older man, shoving the agitator away. "Be off with you, before the peace officers come and strip us all for just being near you!" Rifko shook his head, turning away. "Blathering fool!"

  Ronon watched the youth stumble away, a thunderous look on his face. "Does that happen a lot?"

  "Too much these days," noted Rifko. "Fair gives me a headache it does." He nodded in the direction of a doorway. "I feel the need for an ale to settle my nerves. Care to join me, country lads?"

  "Sure," said Sheppard, "lead the way."

  They found a table in the corner of the room where they could get a good look at the comings and goings inside the decrepit pub. Rifko was clearly a regular, evidenced by the way the barkeep greeted him and the nods that came from other drinkers as they wandered through.

  "Bet this is a new sight to you, eh?" said the man, pointing at the gas lamps dangling from a ceiling brown with tobacco smoke. "I hear there's only candles and lanterns to be had in the country."

  "Nice place," said Sheppard, surveying the room. "The last tavern we went to was kinda dead."

  "Literally," said Ronon, taking a seat.

  Rifko brought a battered steel jug and three metal mugs to the table and poured out a dark, bitter brew. "On me," he grinned. "Consider that a proper greeting from the Magnate himself."

  Sheppard contented himself with a sip, but Dex downed the tankard in one. "It's good," noted the Satedan, pouring out some more.

  Rifko blinked, and studied Ronon as if noticing him for the first time. "They breed you lads big out on the farms, don't they?"

  John took in the men and women around them. They had the look about them of people who were used to a life of hardship, the kind of beaten-down faces that accepted their lot with grim determination and dogged tolerance; but beneath it all there was a faint, directionless tension, the ghost of unspent anger. The same expression was reflected in the kitesmith's eyes. "Rifko," he began, "let me ask you somethin
g. These battles that the nobles are always fighting. Do you think it's right?"

  "Right?" The man sipped from his mug. "War is war. If we didn't put up a fight, the Wraith would cull us all, wouldn't they?"

  "I'm not talking about fighting the Wraith. I'm talking about the Dynasts fighting each other."

  Rifko eyed him. "What do you mean?"

  "Wouldn't life be better if the nobles didn't spend all that time killing each other's troopers? I mean, how much does it cost to feed and arm all those soldiers? Wouldn't it be better if they spent some of that money on keeping people housed, or with food on their tables?"

  Sheppard saw a moment of indecision in Rifko's eyes, but he covered it with another swig of beer. "Look, that's how it goes. It's the way it's always been. The nobles have their little tussles and men like thee and me are always open for paid service to `em, should we want it. Keeps things stable."

  "Peace is more stable than war," said Ronon in a low, intense voice. "The Magnate could have that if he wanted it."

  "Aye, well..." Rifko gave a mirthless chuckle. "His Lordship likes to keep the little pups nipping at each other, so they say. Stops them from biting the big dog, if you catch my meaning."

  "Daus makes the barons fight among themselves so they can't threaten him. Yeah, we've seen that," noted Sheppard.

  "What was all that about `bone-rot'?" added Ronon.

  The man frowned. "You not have the bane out in the hills, eh? Count yourself lucky, then. I don't reckon there's a single family in the city that hasn't lost one of their number to that accursed sickness. Comes up on the weak, it does. Not a fair way to die, oh no."

  "And your government doesn't do anything about it?"

  Rifko leaned closer and spoke quietly. "See here. Now there's barely a man who wouldn't want a better life... What kind of fool would say no to that? But there's not a jot a kitesmith or a countryman can do about the set of things. I hear talk now and then of lower echelon barons with thoughts turned to moderate ways, of elections, public works and democratic votary, but nothing comes of it!" He shook his head. "And I doubt anything ever will. So we live our lives, try to make the best of it."