Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave

  "I am," the Jantri with the pitcher said as he set it down in front of Jack. As he did, a few drops of water sloshed out onto the table.

  "They're twins, by the way," Maerlynn said, taking the cup from Grib and filling it halfway from the pitcher. The sound of the splashing water made Jack's mouth feel even drier. "Now be careful," she warned as she handed him the cup. "You don't want to shock your stomach with too much all at once."

  The water seemed a little oily, with a variety of mineral and chemical flavors and odors. Jack had never tasted anything so good in his entire life. He gulped it down, spilling some of it over the edge of the cup and down his cheeks in his haste.

  He set the cup down, panting slightly. "Can I—?"

  "Of course," Maerlynn said, already starting to refill it. "Just be careful."

  He drained three more cups before Maerlynn called a halt. "All right, that should do for a bit," she said. "Let that get into your system, then you can have some more."

  She beckoned. "In the meantime, you're probably pretty hungry."

  Noy popped into view at Jack's elbow, holding a rectangular piece of wood with a fat, folded green leaf on it. "It's stuffed cabbage," the boy told him as he set down the board. "We saved it for you from dinner."

  "For me?" Jack asked, his stomach growling. Between the fatigue and thirst, he hadn't realized just how hungry he really was. His mouth would probably be watering if he'd had any liquid in his body to spare. "How did you know I was going to be let out tonight?"

  "We didn't," Noy said. "But if you were, Maerlynn wanted to be ready."

  "We don't have any flatware or plates, I'm afraid," Maerlynn said. "We have to leave all that in the meal hall. But I'm sure you won't mind eating with your fingers just this once. Well, go ahead—eat up."

  Cautiously, Jack tried a bite. The cabbage leaf was a little soggy, and the rice and diced vegetables inside were of course stone cold. And like the water, it tasted better than anything he'd ever eaten in his life.

  Also like the water, it vanished quickly. "Thanks," he said. "I needed that."

  "I knew you would," Maerlynn said. "The Brummgas don't take very good care of people they put in the hotboxes."

  "Of course not," Jack said with a snort, retrieving the three grains of rice that had escaped onto the table and licking them off his fingers. "What's the point of punishing someone if you're going to pick them up and dust them off afterwards. I'm surprised they even let you save me some food."

  The twin Jantris exchanged glances. "Well, they didn't exactly let us," Noy said. "We sort of sneaked it out."

  Jack blinked. "How?"

  "That's enough talking for now," Maerlynn said before Noy could answer. "Jack needs to drink a little more water, then get himself to bed. Morning starts early around here, Jack, and I imagine you'll be put out on the line tomorrow."

  "Out on what line?" Jack asked, pouring himself another cup of water.

  "Picking rainbow berries with us," Maerlynn said. "They grow on thorny bushes along the edges of the forest."

  Jack grunted as he drank. Probably the bushes he and Uncle Virge had seen on the flight in. "Sure, why not? They've got all these slaves anyway. Might as well give us something to do."

  Below the mop of white featherines, Maerlynn's forehead wrinkled. "You're wrong if you think it's just make-work. Rainbow berries are a valuable commodity, and you can't use robotic harvesters on them."

  "You have to look at the colors to see if the berries are ripe," Greb explained. "Machines can't read it good enough."

  "Well enough," Maerlynn corrected him. "Actually, you probably could make a robot harvester that could do it. But even if you did, you'd have the problem of giving it a soft enough touch to pick them without damage. And you'd have to make the whole thing small enough and flexible enough to get between the branches without knocking off all the unripe ones."

  Jack nodded as he poured himself more water. "In other words, if slaves can do it, why bother trying to come up with a machine?"

  Grib made a sniffing sound. "One of those," he muttered to his brother.

  Greb nodded. "See you tomorrow, Jack," he said, taking Grib's arm. Circling the table, they headed to a pair of empty cots that had been pushed together and lay down on them. Jack frowned toward Maerlynn. "One of those what?"

  She shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "They were born here," she said. "Slavery is the only life they've ever known."

  "So was I," Noy spoke up.

  "That's different," Maerlynn said. "Your folks never accepted this life the way Greb and Grib and their parents did. Yours never gave up hoping for freedom."

  "Are they still here?" Jack asked, glancing over his shoulder at the other slaves.

  "No," Maerlynn said gently. "They're . . ."

  "They're dead," Noy said, an odd note of defiance in his voice. "My dad was beaten to death after he tried to escape. After that, my mom got a fever and she died, too."

  Jack grimaced. "I'm sorry," he said, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. "I didn't know."

  "Of course you didn't," Maerlynn said. "No need to apologize. Would you like to clean up any before you go to bed? I'm afraid the only showers in here are cold water."

  Jack shivered. "Thanks, but I'll pass. I think I'd rather sleep anyway."

  "I understand," Maerlynn said. "Noy, would you show Jack to his bed?"

  "Sure," Noy said. "What about his clothes?"

  "There's a sackshirt on his bed," she said, getting to her feet. "He can sleep in that."

  "Okay," Noy said. "Come on, Jack."

  He led the way down the line of cots to an empty one beside the two where Greb and Grib were lying, talking quietly to each other. "This one's yours," Noy said.

  "Thanks," Jack said, nodding to the two Jantris as they looked up at him. They nodded back and returned to their conversation.

  "Oh, and this is Lisssa," Noy said, pointing to the cot on the other side of Jack's.

  A Dolom girl lay there, her thick, tile-like scales looking dull and dingy in the dim light. She was curled up on her side, her back to Jack and the Jantris, her attention on a crudely carved stick she was turning around in her hand. "She's a Dolom," Noy added.

  "Yes, I know," Jack said. "Hello, Lisssa. My name's Jack."

  Lisssa turned her head halfway around. "Hello, Jack," she said, and turned back to her stick.

  "She's kind of quiet," Noy explained. "Sorry."

  "That's okay," Jack said. "Quiet is good. Where's this sackshirt Maerlynn mentioned?"

  "Right here," Noy said, pulling a wad of cloth from under the pillow. "Go ahead and get undressed."

  Jack glanced back at Lisssa. He hadn't had much privacy back in the Whinyard's Edge, either. But at least there he hadn't had any girls in the barracks. Even if most of the girls here were aliens, the whole thing felt a little uncomfortable.

  Noy must have seen something in his face. "Don't worry about it," he said, very quietly. "No one looks at anyone else here. You learn not to."

  "Yeah," Jack said. On the other hand, he doubted anyone here had a full-body tattoo of a dragon plastered across his back.

  Still, there was nothing for it but to go ahead. He shook out the sackshirt and laid it out on. the bed. It was exactly what he would have expected from the name: a sack, open at the bottom, with arm and head holes cut out at the top.

  Noy seemed to be studying a section of floor near the head of Jack's bed. Bracing himself for the inevitable reaction, Jack pulled off his soggy shirt.

  The boy didn't even look up. Jack glanced around the room, frowning, as he picked up the sackshirt.

  Nothing. No one jumped to their feet, no one stared and pointed, no one gasped or whistled or snorted or even breathed extra hard. As far as he could tell, no one even saw him.

  He slid the sackshirt over his head, covering Draycos up again. So they really didn't look at each other. He pulled off his shoes and socks, and was working off his jeans when Maerlynn arrived with a basket. "Put your c
lothes in here," she instructed, holding it out. "I'll have them ready—"

  "Five minutes!" a loud voice called from the doorway, cutting her off.

  Jack looked that direction. A large, ugly, deeply tanned man with a thick gray-black beard was standing just inside the room. He was wearing the same slightly shabby clothing as everyone else, but with a bright red sash running from shoulder to waist.

  The man glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on Jack. For a couple of seconds his gaze lingered, as if he was sizing up the newcomer. Then, without another word, he turned and left.

  "That's Fleck," Maerlynn said. "He's what we call a trustee."

  "He helps the Brummgas keep us in line," Noy added contemptuously.

  "Now, now," Maerlynn said soothingly. "He's a slave just like we are. We all have different jobs and duties, and that one's his. I was starting to say, Jack, that I'll have your clothes ready by morning."

  "What, in five minutes?" Jack asked.

  "That just means lights off," Maerlynn said. "I've been here long enough to know my way around in the dark. Now, you get yourself some sleep. You too, Noy."

  "Okay," Noy said, moving toward a cot on the far side of the Jantris. "G'night. G'night, Jack."

  " 'Night," Jack said. "And thanks."

  He pulled down the thin blanket and got into bed. The mattress and pillow were lumpy, like they'd been stuffed with wood shavings or irregularly shaped beans. Still, the cot was long enough for him to stretch all the way out. That already put it two steps above the hotbox.

  He was still trying to hammer out the major lumps when the overhead lights went out.

  The sounds of activity stopped at the same time. Clearly, the rest of the slaves knew the routine well enough to be ready when bedtime came.

  Ready, and probably eager. After a few days laboring out in the fields, Jack thought glumly, he would probably be the same way.

  Jack had planned to stay awake long enough for the rest of the slaves to get to sleep, and then discuss the situation with Draycos. But the hotbox had drained him more than he'd realized, and he found he simply could not keep his eyes open.

  Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  Draycos waited until everyone in the long hut was asleep. Then, sliding off Jack's arm, he dropped to the rough wood of the floor. Senses alert, he padded silently between the rows of cots to the door.

  The door had been left open a few inches for ventilation. He looked carefully at the door jamb, mindful of the sorts of alarms and tripwires he and Jack had found in the gatekeeper's house. But there was nothing like that here.

  He poked his head halfway through the gap and stood motionless for a minute, watching and listening and tasting the outside air. There were no guards or patrols nearby, at least none he could detect. Shouldering the door open, he slipped down the steps and out into the night.

  There were no outside lights, either. But between the starlight and the glow in the sky from the city to their west, there was enough light for K'da eyes to see by.

  There was an even brighter glow coming from the direction of the slaveowners' mansion. Draycos bared his teeth toward it, the tip of his tail twitching with contempt and disgust. Every thread of his being longed to take on the Chookoock family and their despicable slave trade.

  But this was not the time to bring justice to these people. His task tonight was much simpler: to learn the enemy's territory.

  He began with the slave colony itself, circling each of the two long sleeping huts and then briefly nosing around the other buildings. In one of the smaller structures he could hear running water and the sounds of someone moving around. Maerlynn, he decided, sacrificing some of her precious sleep time to wash Jack's clothing. The other buildings all seemed to be deserted.

  Next, he extended his search beyond the buildings, moving out in a standard spiral pattern. Remembering their aerial survey from the Essenay, he made a point of watching for concealed guard posts, especially in the forest areas.

  Again, nothing. He ran across an occasional hut nestled into the trees along the way, each one about three times the size of last night's hotbox. But there was no scent of Brummga near any of them. It was as if the Chookoock family, having purchased these people's bodies and minds and souls, simply expected them to stay where they'd been put.

  On the other hand, he had to admit, where else was there for them to go?

  The nearest section of the perimeter wall was to the northwest. He set off through the forest in that direction, running lightly across the matted leaves, dodging around trees and bushes. Every hundred paces he stopped to listen and smell for patrols or guard stations. But still there was nothing.

  The ground near the wall included several rolling hills. Choosing one that would give him a good view, he moved to the edge and climbed the tallest tree he could find. If his estimate was correct, he should now be high enough to look down on the wall and into the center of the curving X-shape. Moving carefully out onto one of the upper branches, he pushed aside the leaves.

  And got his first really good look at the barrier he and Jack were going to have to cross.

  It was every bit as impressive as he'd expected. The antiaircraft lasers Uncle Virge had warned them about were there, all right. He could see the larger lenses of long-range weapons set into the white ceramic every ten feet or so, with the smaller lenses of shorter-range lasers arrayed between them. Between the lasers were long, narrow grooves that were most likely the flame jets Uncle Virge had also mentioned.

  Long-range lasers for high-flying aircraft. Short-range lasers for smaller, lower-flying vehicles that might try to slip through the ten-foot gap between the larger weapons. And flame jets to kill anyone who tried to simply climb over the wall.

  The Brummgas seemed to have covered all their bets here. But as Uncle Virge might say, that only meant it was time to cheat.

  Because if the fire from the flame jets could be blocked, even for a single minute, Jack might have time to scramble over without harm. And in a forest, the obvious candidate for such a barrier was a tree.

  He worked his way around to a different side of his tree and studied the edge of the forest. But no. The Brummgas had been smart enough to cut back the forest along the whole length of the wall.

  Not very far, but far enough. No one would be able to chop down a tree and have it fall across the wall.

  A pity, too. Barely a hundred yards away he could see a hill that was actually taller than the wall. A tree cut from there would have been perfect.

  Or could it still be done?

  For another minute he studied the tall hill. If he and Jack cut down one of the trees and rolled it to the base of the wall . . .

  But again, no. Any tree thick enough to block the fire would be too heavy for him to lift to the top of the wall. If Jack still had the climbing gear he'd used at the gatekeeper's house, they might have been able to rig something up.

  But Gazen had taken that away with the rest of Jack's burglar equipment. And Draycos somehow doubted he and Jack would have time to search the mansion for it.

  Could Uncle Virge do something, then? Use the Essenay to haul a tree trunk or ceramic bar to the top of the wall to block the flame jets? But that assumed the Chookoock family had no defenses against an attacker who was too clever to simply try to fly over their wall. Surely they'd planned for something like that.

  Regardless, he couldn't risk the Essenay to find out. So the wall was a dead end. But then, he reminded himself as he climbed head-first down the tree, he'd expected it to be. Time to try a different approach.

  Maerlynn had called the barrier between the slaves and the Chookoock family grounds a thorn hedge. With the darkness, and his own limited viewing angle beneath Jack's shirt, Draycos hadn't noticed any thorns as they were driven through the gap the night before. But as he approached the hedge this time he could see that the name was quite accurate.

  In fact, the hedge was almost an encyclopedia of thor
n types. There were rows and rows of tiny ones, the kind that would snag and tangle clothing. There were extra-long ones, sturdy enough to stab all the way through Jack's palm should he be careless enough to hit it hard enough. And there was just about every other length in between.

  Draycos arched his tail as he studied it, marveling at the design. Either the Brummgas had interwoven several different types of thorn bushes and vines together to create the hedge, or else they'd genetically combined all the various thorn types into a single, incredibly nasty plant. Either way, it made for a serious barrier.

  He followed the hedge to where it ended against the wall, then traveled its length all the way in the other direction. There were, he discovered, only three openings in the thorns. Two of them were wide gateways, clearly designed for cargo vehicles. They straddled roads that headed into the lumbering and mining areas. Both of those gaps were protected by smaller versions of the metal-and-ceramic gate Gazen had brought them through into the Chookoock family grounds. The third was the smaller gap the Brummgas had driven through on their way to lock Jack into the hotbox.

  A gap with no guards and no gate. Open, inviting, and apparently unprotected.

  Right.

  He eased toward the gap with the same caution he would use in approaching a dozing Valahgua assault battalion. Twenty feet away, he spotted the sensor disks along the sides, half hidden behind clumps of leaves. Another five feet, and he was able to see the connecting wires woven in among the branches. Another five, and he could hear the faint hum of the electronics.

  He didn't dare go any closer. Clearly, the opening was a trap, designed to lure in any slave who might be thinking of sneaking into areas where he wasn't supposed to go.

  But then, a poet-warrior of the K'da hardly needed to use an opening to get over a ten-foot hedge. Neither did a human boy with a K'da warrior as an ally.

  Moving away from the gap, he headed eastward. A hundred yards in that direction was a low bush a few feet from the hedge. Draycos maneuvered his way carefully between bush and hedge, fully aware that the longer thorns might be able to slide between his golden scales and draw blood. Rolling onto his side, he extended his claws and began to cut his way into the hedge.