FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
CHAPTER EIGHT: PLANNING THE ESCAPE
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Sheppard leaned against the side of the saloon on the edge of the large city Garillion, half hidden by empty wine and liquor crates, listening to the old men as they gossiped about yesterday's events "up on the hill." The group of four were wizened and aged, playing a game of cards as they discussed the world they rarely took part in anymore, out here on the outskirts. The bottle of wine Sheppard had bought for them twenty minutes ago, delivered by a very tired waitress and offered to them as a "thank you gift for old veterans," had been heartily received and almost completely drunk in the span of twenty minutes, further loosening their tongues.
Of course, at nearly four in the morning, one had to wonder how they weren't all comatose from the amount they'd probably been drinking all night.
Still, as it turned out from their conversation, Connam had been right. The Governor was arrested for treason, and the King was coming the next day to see him tried. Many of the Governor's people, including his wife and children, were imprisoned, to be transferred later on in the week to a prison somewhere else on the planet. The old men whispered and laughed about all this, taking the events in stride. They'd been around too many years not to find the politics of their world both terrible and amusing at the same time.
Sheppard closed his eyes, willing them to move on to his teammates. He'd wandered around the city for almost an hour before coming across anyone speaking as freely as these old men. But, as of yet, they'd not spoken of...
"What are they doing with the arms dealers?" one of the old men suddenly asked, laying down a card with something that looked like a snake on it. "I understand two of them are women," he raised a lecherous eyebrow, "pretty ones at that."
"Hanging 'em," a different old man said, "Before the king gets here. I think Commander Chanee wants their bodies to greet his majesty as he rolls in here around noon." He snorted as he laid down another card, then spit on the ground. "Serves the scum right."
"Still," another old man snatched up the card his friend laid down, "It's a shame if they're pretty. Don't like seeing pretty things hurt like that."
"Eh, don't let looks deceive you," the first one said, wagging a finger. "I heard these people are the worst of the worse. Killed ten of the king's guard trying to escape. The smaller woman's deadlier than a snake and the big man's worse n' a stampede of drams. I heard them other two, the older woman and the other man, gots con-mans' tongues—probably the most dangerous of them all. No," he shook his head, "they're in a deadly business. Always comes to a deadly end."
Sheppard leaned back and shut his eyes for a moment, wondering at the strangeness of it all.
The one who'd asked the original question drew a card. "What time's the hanging."
"Early. Eight in the mornin's what I heard." The one with all the answers sniffed, wiped a hand on his nose and then on his jacket and leaned forward. "Y'all are going, right?"
Three muttered assents answered him, and the same man nodded, grinning toothlessly.
"Here's hoping for some squealing, eh?"
The others laughed, and a disgusted Sheppard pushed away. He didn't want to hear anymore.
Finding an alleyway, he slid down the darkened street and knelt down to peer at his watch in a sliver of light from a window. It was still about an hour before dawn. Three hours to the hanging.
Moving again, he soon came to the corner of the alley and looked out on a larger roadway, then up.
The road curved up away from him, rising towards the height of the pass. Up there, he could make out the massive stone citadel on the cliff top, the massive structure overlooking and dominating the valley from above. Fires were lit along the crenellations, highlighting the thickness of the walls. At the base, he knew, there would be barred windows...dungeons.
"Right," he whispered, adjusting his weapons under the thick woven cape he'd borrowed from a handy clothesline, "here we go..."
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Connam leaned against the doorframe in his little shack, regarding the sleeping man in the little room in back. Doctor McKay was lying on a small cot with his head turned towards the far wall, so the merchant trader couldn't see his face.
For a little while, he just watched the other man breathe.
He'd managed to muscle the doctor in here a couple of hours ago, the younger man almost insensible. He'd considered trying to clean his wounds, but...didn't really see the point. Besides, he hadn't promised to take care of this man, just to let him stay here.
Connam didn't believe in doing more than he'd agreed.
But he also didn't go back on his bargains.
Quietly, he backed out of the room and shut the door separating it from the main room of this small shack. The fire behind crackled and sparked, and the bedroll Connam had laid in front of it looked inviting. He'd stayed up to finish completing his books, but there was no point in not sleeping now.
He glanced at his watch, a nice electronic one he'd purchased from a man in Garillion the last time he'd been on this planet. People here knew of technology, as did everyone on the main trading planets, they just didn't need it that much. He'd gotten this watch for a pretty good price. Adjusting it, he set the alarm for 9:00 in the morning, then headed over to the bedroll.
Tomorrow would be an interesting day.
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Sheppard had watched the comings and goings into the kitchens near the base of the Citadel for a while. The rooms were cut into the base of the cliff, and a bright, hot yellow light poured out of the doorway leading inside, sharply cutting into the darkness of the night. The staff were in the process of starting the day, greeting the various vendors bringing fresh grain, fruit, vegetables and meat up the road from the city below, soft hisses escaping their mouths to float on the breeze. Discussion was clearly about the events of the day before, about the veracity of the tales running around town.
Sheppard grimaced, sliding closer to a large hay cart. Meeners in a nearby corral stomped and snorted at him, seeing him there even if no one else did, but they soon got used to his presence when he stayed still for a little while.
He was waiting for an opening.
A squeal burst out from inside, followed by some angry swearing.
Sheppard's eyebrows arched as, all of a sudden, two or three small furry rodent like creatures burst out of the door. A second later, a flurry of people, men and women, followed them out, shaking brooms and screaming, clearly incensed, while the vendors not taking part watched and laughed.
Sheppard grinned. As the people fanned out across the courtyard, he slipped between some the vendors carts...got near the door...glanced inside...then ducked into the temporarily empty kitchen.
He was in.
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Thwack...bump...thut.
Thwack...bump...thut.
Thwack...bump...thut.
McKay grimaced, shifting a little on the cot he was lying on.
Thwack...bump...thut.
Thwack...bump...thut.
What the hell was that noise?
Thwack...bump...thut.
Thwack...bump...thut.
"Would you please stop that?" he hissed, his voice a scratchy whisper. "Some of us are trying to sleep."
The noise stopped.
For about ten seconds.
Thwack...bump...thut.
"I said, stop that!" McKay sat up abruptly, eyes flying open in annoyance, and he stared at the end of the cot.
Steve McQueen glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, gave an insolent smirk, then threw the baseball at the wall of the shack. It hit the wall with a "thwack", the floor with a "bump" then landed back in his hand with a soft "thut."
He made to throw it again.
"Stop it!" McKay demanded again, "That's annoying!"
"I know," the other man replied. "That's the point." He looked at McKay, his eyebrows lifting questioningly, "Isn't it?"
McKay blinked, taking in the bedraggled U.S. military outfit, the name "Cpt. Hilts" emblazoned on the man's shirt, just above his heart. He could hear someone speaking German through a window, and the sound of crickets on the breeze. The smell of urine and sweat was strong in here. Swallowing, he realized where he was. He was in the Cooler with Captain Virgil Hilts, the "Cooler King." And this was a dream. Shifting backwards on the cot, he dragged the green army blanket with him and leaned against the wall.
Hilts grinned suddenly at him, and threw the ball again. McKay followed the arc, the near perfect symmetry of it, all the way until it hit Hilts' hand again. Thwack...bump...thut.
"You have to keep moving," Hilts said. "You have keep trying. You can't give up. No matter what happens."
Thwack...bump...thut.
"But," McKay swallowed, "Fifty men died because you escaped. Fifty people we'd come to like. We knew their names, their faces...we'd come to care for them. What was the point?"
Hilts arched an eyebrow, "They were good men." Thwack...bump...thut.
"They were your friends."
"Yes," Hilts grinned again his one second grin again, before the features fell flat again. "They were." He threw the ball again. Thwack...bump...thut.
McKay shifted up again, "But...don't you get it? They'd still be alive, wouldn't they? If you hadn't all escaped. If you hadn't run. If you had just stayed still...stayed safe..."
Hilts shook his head, the undaunted expression on his face unwavering.
McKay didn't understand. "Are you stupid! They're all dead! They escaped and they DIED!"
"No, they didn't," Hilts snapped back, turning to stare at him again. "If they hadn't tried, they'd be dead, even if they were still breathing." He turned away, raising the ball again to throw it. "And we'd do it all over again. All of us."
Thwack...bump...thut.
McKay stared at him, breathing heavily, and he looked down. He could feel the sweat on his face, and he reached up to try and wipe it off. He paused when he saw the red on his hands. Blood?
Thwack...bump...thut.
He looked up again. Hilts had his attention on the baseball again, throwing it against the prison wall with accuracy.
Thwack...bump...thut.
"Why?" McKay asked finally. "You'd do it all again...Why?"
"Because it's not your nature to give up," Hilts replied. He turned slate-blue eyes to McKay, eyes boring into the other man, almost through him. "Are you sorry you knew them?" he asked sharply. "Are you sorry you knew Grodin and Gall and Ford and Dumais? Are you sorry you know Sheppard and Teyla and Weir and Carson and Ronon? Are you sorry you stepped through that Gate and found Atlantis? Are you?"
McKay's bottom lip trembled, and he shrugged, "Maybe..."
"Liar!" Hilts threw the ball again, but this time it hit the wall with an almost explosive force, the aim off. McKay jumped when it spun towards him. Hilts grabbed it before it hit, snatching it from the air at the last minute. He was standing now, leaning over McKay, a sneer on his face. He placed the baseball on McKay's chest, and started pressing it down on his sternum with an almost painful force.
"Don't you get it? You think you can hide from yourself? Stay in here, stay 'safe?' You can't. It's not in your nature." Hilts shook his head, snorting in derision. "You're not what Ford said you were, McKay. You know what a friend is. He told you to go back to the jumper, and you knew where it was, but you didn't, did you? Why not? Why didn't you run away from him then? He let you go, and you stayed with him. You knew he was crazy, but you went after him. Why?"
McKay just blinked.
"That's what I thought." Hilts snorted, straightening up, drawing the baseball back to his own chest, "Now the others need your help. You can either stay here, hiding, telling yourself you don't care, pretending you're only interested in your own self, or you can do something to try and help them." He backed away, tossing the ball in the air and catching it. Then he smiled, "You're going to help them, McKay. You can't stop yourself. It's time you quit fighting it and remembered what it was like to be alive again...to be you again."
McKay lowered his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked up again. Sheppard stood there now, watching him, rolling the baseball between his hands.
"What do you say, Answer Man?" Sheppard asked, smiling genuinely and tossing the baseball playfully in the air. "Time to wake up?"
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TBC...thank you all so, so much for your reviews! And those of you spotting my little name plays...LOL! Every name's on purpose, except Garillion, which means nothing except that I thought it sounded cool. I think I read too much Dickens as a kid--I can't help but hide meanings in things. At least I didn't have Connam buy the motorcycle from the son of a Harlean named David, eh?