And then he spotted it. A glint of metal, all right, resting along the top of the carpet.
A tripwire?
Carefully, he set his foot back onto the floor. Just as carefully, he eased down into a crouch for a closer look.
It was a tripwire, all right. In fact, it was a set of five tripwires, running not quite parallel to each other along the floor, directly across the path from the bathroom to the bedroom door.
Jack smiled tightly. No one put tripwires in their own bedroom. Not even Brummgas were that stupid. This had to be something Gazen had thrown together in the half hour since making his deal with Uncle Virge. A bonus challenge, something the average thief would never expect.
Luckily for Jack, he wasn't an average thief. Stepping carefully between the wires, he continued on.
The doorknob was gimmicked, too. A fairly sloppy job, really; but then, Gazen hadn't had that much time to play with.
No sonics or laser-grids or field-effect alarms greeted him as he eased the bedroom door open. Stepping out into the corridor, he closed the door silently behind him and headed for the stairs.
He ran into three more alarms along the way, including two motion detectors and another set of tripwires. Now that he knew the score, though, he spotted them easily and had them neutralized in a couple of minutes.
The safe was "hidden"—though Jack hesitated to even use that term—behind a decorative wooden slab mounted on the wall. One end of the slab held a Brummgan-style clock, with all twenty-six hours of their day marked off, while the other sported a dozen military-style ribbons.
Gazen had missed a bet: the slab itself wasn't wired. Either the slavemaster had run out of time to set his booby-traps, or else he hadn't expected Jack to get this far.
The safe was a standard keypad type, thought by many to be impossible to break into. Not exactly a piece of cake, but hardly a plate of stale cabbage, either. Pulling out his equipment, Jack set to work, resisting the urge to see how much of Uncle Virge's promised half hour he had left. He wasn't supposed to know about the deal, after all, and if Gazen noticed him looking at his watch he might wonder why.
Maybe that had been the real reason for putting all those extra alarms in the gatekeeper's bedroom and hallway, in fact. Maybe Gazen wasn't so much worried about testing Jack's abilities as he was in trying to cheat Uncle Virge out of that extra ten thousand per minute.
If that was his goal, the safe itself was going to be a disappointment for him. It might look like a top-class system, but under a spark-catcher stethoscope it turned out to be as electronically noisy as any Jack had ever cracked. Less than five minutes after he started, he set down his equipment, worked the handle, and swung the safe door open.
And as he did so, the darkened room suddenly blazed with light.
CHAPTER 4
Jack spun around so fast that he almost lost his balance, remembering to look startled and terrified. "Wha—?" he gasped, his voice breaking off into an astonished squeak.
That last part didn't take any acting at all. Suddenly, it seemed, the whole room was filling up with Brummgas. Each of them wore a close-fitting helmet and a sort of armored tunic done up in a bright pattern of red, black, and white. Some of them were waving slapsticks his direction; others had handguns out and pointed.
There was only one thing to do when facing that many weapons. Jack froze into a statue, making sure his hands were open and in full view of everyone.
The next few minutes were a swirling tangle of movement and noise and confusion. The two Brummgas who got to Jack first grabbed him and pulled him away from the safe. They ran their large hands over his whole body like bread-making machines gone crazy, pulling off his jacket and comm clip, emptying each pocket, even tearing off his belt with the hidden money pockets on the inside.
Then they passed him off to another pair behind them and began gathering up his backpack and the rest of his equipment. His new handlers searched him again, then handed him off to the next in line, who passed him to the ones behind them. Jack wondered if he was going to make it all the way around the room before someone figured out what exactly to do with him.
But then this last pair of Brummgas spun him around, and Jack found himself face to face with a human male.
He was a big man, muscular, with shoulders nearly as wide as those of the Brummgas standing around him. His face was lined and unshaven, his hair cut short in military fashion, and his clothes looked like they'd been thrown on hastily in a very dark room. The effect was almost comical.
Until Jack looked into his eyes.
They were cold eyes. Hard eyes. Eyes that held no mercy, no kindness, not even a hint of human feeling.
An eerie sensation tickled between Jack's shoulder blades. He'd seen eyes like that before, on some of the most vicious criminals Uncle Virgil had known. A man with eyes like that was hardly even human anymore.
"Well?" the man asked softly.
It was the slavemaster himself. Gazen.
Jack took a deep breath. He'd had a whole spun-rainbow excuse all set up and ready to go, a tangly story full of tears and panic about a bet with school friends, and how he would never, ever do it again if they let him go. It was the sort of story a professional thief would be able to launch into on a second's notice, just that much more evidence that he was worth the price Uncle Virge was asking for him.
But as he stared up into those eyes, it suddenly didn't feel like a good idea to spin such an obvious lie for this man. "I guess I picked the wrong house," he said instead.
Gazen's lips might have twitched. "I guess you did," he agreed.
His eyes flicked to Jack's Brummgan handlers. "Bring him," he ordered.
Without waiting for a response, he turned his back and headed for the door. Wrapping their hands around Jack's arms, the two Brummgas dragged their prisoner after him.
After the crowd that had burst in on him inside the house, Jack had rather expected the yard to be crawling with Brummgas, too. But aside from a pair of long, squat cars parked in front of the house everything looked the way Jack had left it. Apparently, Gazen had decided there was no point in waking up the whole neighborhood over this.
The Brummgas stuffed Jack into the back seat of the first of the cars, wedging him between them. Gazen got in the front beside the driver. They made a tight U-turn, and with the second car following closely behind they headed toward the white wall.
Jack had caught glimpses of the wall on his way to the gatekeeper's house. But it had been dark, and the wall was set far enough back from the street that he hadn't gotten a close look.
Sitting pinned between two Brummgas, his view wasn't that much better. Still, it was the best he was likely to get, at least from the outside. Slouching down as far as he figured he could get away with, he peeked out the window.
The wall was more impressive at ground level than it had been from several thousand feet up. For one thing, its thirty-two-foot height seemed taller now that he was looking up at it. For another, although Uncle Virge had been right about the wall's X-shape, he'd missed the fact that the top part curved over and downward, nearly circling up underneath itself again.
The effect was like facing a huge, mile-long wave that was getting ready to break over the approaching car. Not the most pleasant image Jack could think of.
The gate was as impressive as the wall itself, made of more of the wall's white ceramic and laced with gold-colored metal straps. Six more armed Brummgas were waiting there, all dressed in the same red/black/white as the group in the gatekeeper's house. The Chookoock family colors, he decided. As the two cars drove up, the gate swung open.
"Stop the car," Gazen ordered sharply, sliding down his window.
The vehicle braked to a hard stop beside the guards. "Who ordered the gate opened?" Gazen bit out.
"I did, Panjan Gazen," one of the Brummgas said, taking an eagerly lumbering step forward. "I knew you were in a hurry—"
"You opened the gate without checking identification?" Ga
zen demanded.
The Brummga stopped short. Too late, his walnut-sized brain was starting to realize that Gazen hadn't stopped to compliment the staff. "But—"
He ground to a halt, whatever excuse he was about to make apparently getting lost somewhere between brain and mouth. Gazen stared at him in silence for a few more seconds, long enough for even a Brummga to work out that he was in big trouble. "You will check my ID," Gazen continued, his voice quiet. "You will check the IDs of those in the car behind me. You will then secure the gate. After that, you will report to the Guard Master."
The Brummga's mouth was hanging slightly open now, his breath coming in heaving surges like a drowning man coming up for the third time. "Yes, Panjan Gazen," he managed. "Uh . . . your identification?"
Gazen waited another two seconds, then slid a wallet from his inside pocket and handed it over. The guard opened it, looked inside, then handed it back. "Thank you, Panjan Gazen," he gulped. "You may proceed."
Still staring at the guard, Gazen gestured the driver forward. The car pulled through the gate and headed down the winding driveway.
Jack studied the terrain carefully as they drove, looking for the hidden guard stations Draycos had pointed out from the air. With only muted accent lights scattered around the garden, though, they were completely invisible.
"And what about you?" Gazen asked, half turning to look at Jack.
"Sir?" Jack asked.
"You like our wall, do you?" Gazen said. "You were studying it on our way in."
Jack had thought he'd been subtle enough in his examination that no one in the car would have noticed. But even from the front seat, Gazen had caught on.
That made him both very observant and very smart. Not a good combination to go up against.
Definitely not a good combination to lie to. "It's very impressive," he said. "Kind of looks like a really big ocean wave. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before."
"And just like a really big ocean wave, it will kill you if you try to challenge it," Gazen said pointedly. "Remember that."
"Sure," Jack said. "What . . . uh . . . what are you going to do to me?"
Gazen turned back around to face front. "We'll discuss it inside."
Like the wall, the main house was more impressive at ground level than it had looked from the sky. Earlier, Jack had noticed that the place had been designed to look like a section of rocky cliff face. Now, up close, he could see that it had also been designed to be a fortress. The front door was flanked by armed Brummgas, most of the windows were protected by thick rock overhangs, and a dozen gun barrels peeked out from slits just below the roof line.
Either the guards at the door were smarter than the ones at the gate, or else the word had been hastily passed ahead of the incoming cars. Whichever it was, Gazen and his whole group were made to show their IDs before they were allowed inside.
The entryway was huge, extending two stories up, with nearly enough floor space for a small freighter like the Essenay to fit inside. The walls and angled ceiling were covered with paintings, layer-portraits, light-twists, and other works of art. Sculptures and elaborate decorated pillars were scattered around the floor, their weight sinking into a thick blue carpet. At the far end a double-curved wooden staircase led up to a second-floor balcony.
He caught glimpses of other expensively decorated rooms leading off the entryway, but Gazen didn't pause long enough for him to get a good look at any of them. He led the boy across the room, up the staircase and across the balcony, and down a corridor that was only slightly less elaborate than the rooms downstairs. Coming to a plain, unmarked door, he pushed it open and gestured Jack inside.
The room was just as plain as its door. A small desk, a padded desk chair, a metal guest chair facing the desk, and that was it.
That, plus a pair of rings set in the floor for anchoring a prisoner's legs. The whole place had the unpleasant look of an interrogation room. "Sit," Gazen ordered, circling the desk and sitting down.
Gingerly, Jack sank into the other chair. "The rest of you wait outside," Gazen added to the guards, his eyes steady on Jack.
The Brummgas obeyed without comment. Gazen waited until he and Jack were alone, then leaned slightly forward, his arms resting on the desktop. "Well," he said, his tone almost casual. "I don't suppose I have to tell you the kind of trouble you're in. Breaking and entering is a serious crime on Brum-a-dum, good for five to twenty years in a penal colony."
His eyes hardened. "Breaking and entering Chookoock family property is even more serious," he went on. "That one can earn you an immediate death penalty."
"I didn't know," Jack said in a low, pleading voice. So here he was, all alone with Gazen. No leg cuffs, no handcuffs. And as far as he could tell, Gazen wasn't even armed.
Of course, the big man did outweigh him by at least two to one. Still, a panicked, desperate kid might still take the chance.
Which meant that this was a test. Gazen was trying to see just how cool under pressure Jack could be.
"Of course you knew," Gazen said calmly. "Don't play stupid. Your partner sent you there specifically to try to steal the gate codes."
"No," Jack protested. "No, he didn't tell me what I was supposed to get. He didn't tell me any of that. He just said to get whatever was in the safe. He never even told me whose house I was breaking into. It's his fault, not mine."
Gazen's expression didn't change, but Jack could see a slight tightening at the corners of his mouth. First Uncle Virge had offered to sell Jack to him, and now Jack was trying to shoot all the blame straight back at Uncle Virge. Both of them perfectly willing to sell out the other at the drop of a biscuit.
It was exactly the way Gazen should expect a couple of self-centered criminals to behave. Probably the way he would behave himself in the same situation.
At least, Jack hoped so. This whole thing hinged on Gazen believing the situation was exactly as Uncle Virge had presented it. The minute he suspected there was something more going on, Jack was dead.
"It doesn't really matter who knew what," the big man said. "You were the one caught with your fingers in the fudge mix. That makes you the one skip-dancing on eggs."
Jack swallowed hard. "Is there anything I can do to, you know, make things right?"
"Such as?"
"Well—" Jack shrugged slightly. "Maybe I could . . . you know, work off my punishment?"
"And how exactly do you propose to work off twenty years worth of prison time?" Gazen countered. "Are you suggesting you work for me for the next twenty years?"
Jack grimaced. "I was hoping I could pay it off a little faster than that," he said. "Maybe I could help you with a job or two?"
Gazen lifted his eyebrows. "Are you suggesting I hire you to commit crimes for me?"
"No, no," Jack said hastily. "I just thought I could maybe help you out in some way."
Gazen leaned back in his chair again, studying Jack's face. "All right," he said at last. "Perhaps there is something you can do. I'll look into it."
He got to his feet. "And while I do, let's put you somewhere safe. Guards?"
Jack slowly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. So it had worked, exactly the way he'd told Uncle Virge it would. Gazen would now lock him up somewhere, he and Draycos would escape and get to one of their computers, and with luck they would be able to track down the mercenary group they were looking for.
Behind him, the door swung open. "Yes, Panjan Gazen?" one of the Brummgas asked.
Gazen gestured to Jack. "The boy needs a lesson," he said. "He needs to know the cost of crossing the Chookoock family."
He looked back at Jack . . . and for the first time since the two of them had met, the big man smiled.
Not a pleasant, cheerful, human smile, but something dark and vacant and as cold as a penguin's footprints. "Take him," he ordered softly, "to the slaves' hotbox."
CHAPTER 5
The Brummgas led Jack out the back of the house to a row of ope
n-topped cars. They shoved him into one, three of them piled in around him, and they turned onto a smooth road built of dark stones fitted neatly together like pieces of an extra-long puzzle. With the soft clicking of stone edges beneath their tires, they headed off away from the mansion.
And suddenly this plan wasn't looking nearly so good anymore.
The road wound its way through another section of formal garden, then past the open sports field they'd seen earlier from the air. Beyond the field a ten-foot-tall hedge stretched across the grounds, as far to both sides as Jack could see in the backwash from the headlights. The road led them through a narrow gap in the hedge, just barely wide enough for the car.
Beyond the hedge, the landscape was rougher and wilder, with none of the careful maintenance he'd seen in the grounds near the house. The fancy stone road ended at the hedge, too, turning into a more ordinary stone-embedded blacktop.
They had left the Chookoock family's personal compound. Now, they were in the working areas of the estate.
The slave areas.
Jack stared out into the glow of the headlights, trying to remember the layout he'd seen from the Essenay. But it was all rather vague in his mind. His plan had always been to get into the main house, and once it was clear he wasn't going to get there by going over the wall he'd mostly lost interest in the grounds themselves.
But Draycos would have paid attention, he knew. The K'da warrior was very good at details like that. That would help.
He only hoped it would help enough.
They were coming up on the edge of a forest when the headlights finally picked up a group of buildings ahead. At first glance, the setup reminded Jack of the Whinyard's Edge training camp, with a couple of long barracks-style buildings mixed in with a few other structures of different shapes and sizes.
But at second glance, it was clear this was a very different sort of place. The paint on the buildings was peeling badly, and in many of those spots the bare wood was discolored and rotting. The steps leading up to the various doors were rough and unfinished, some of them with the bark still attached to the wood.