Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave

  It was a slow, delicate operation. The hedge was a confused tangle of branches and vines, and he often had to cut each one in three or four places to free the piece he needed to move.

  Even trickier was the need to work behind the first layer of branches, leaving that group intact. It might be days before he and Jack were ready to move, and he couldn't afford some sharp-eyed Brummga noticing a growing hole in the hedge.

  He couldn't even cut the front layer away, work behind it, then wedge the branches back into place. Most plants changed color or texture after they'd been cut, and that would be as much of a giveaway as an open hole.

  He worked for about an hour, until the tingling in his scales warned him that the time was approaching when he would need to return to his host. Stuffing the pieces of hedge he'd cut under another bush, he headed back to the slave colony.

  All was as he'd left it, except that the sounds of washing had ceased. Slipping through the open door of the long hut, he returned to Jack's cot.

  The boy was sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging slightly open. Stepping to his side, Draycos touched a forepaw to his hand and slid up his arm in two-dimensional form. He traveled along the arm, toward his usual position across Jack's back, arms, and legs.

  And as he did so, there was a soft grunt from the next cot.

  He froze in place, his eyes darting that direction. The Dolom girl, Lisssa, was propped up on her elbow. Staring into the darkness in Jack's direction.

  Draycos felt his breath catch like ice in his lungs. Had she seen him come in? Worse, had she seen him climb onto Jack's body?

  He held still, silently cursing his carelessness. Yes, he was tired and hungry; but that was no excuse. He had a duty to his people to survive, and to keep his existence a secret.

  For a long minute, Lisssa didn't move, either. Then, blinking twice, she lowered herself back onto her cot. A minute later, her slow breathing showed she was again asleep.

  Carefully, Draycos finished positioning himself across Jack's back. He still wasn't sure what, if anything, the Dolom had seen, but it now seemed unlikely she had seen anything too obvious. Surely she would have screamed the hut awake if she had.

  Wouldn't she?

  On the other paw, she was an alien, of a type he had never met or studied. Perhaps screaming simply wasn't in her species' makeup.

  He gave up the effort. Whatever came of this, if anything, it would probably wait until morning. He and Jack would deal with it then.

  Nestling himself against Jack's skin, feeling the renewing energy flowing from his host, he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  "Listen up," Fleck said, glaring down at Jack. "I'm only going to explain this once."

  "Yes, sir," Jack said, using the meekest voice and manner in his repertoire. Up close, Fleck was even uglier than he'd looked across the sleeping hut. His tanned face had tiny pockmarks all across it like the craters on an asteroid, his eyes were bulging and bloodshot, and his beard seemed to be going bald in spots.

  He was also bigger than he'd seemed. It would probably be smart to stay on his good side.

  "All right." Fleck waved along the line of bushes, which were growing so close together that they were practically a hedge all by themselves. "These are the rainbow berry bushes."

  He reached to the nearest of the stubby branches and swung it up, exposing the neat row of fingernail-sized berries clinging to its underside. "And this," he said, pointing to one of them, "is a ripe berry. You see the color pattern, the way the red at the stem blends into yellow, and then into green and blue?"

  "Yes," Jack said, trying hard not to be sarcastic. It was pretty obvious, actually.

  "Yeah, I know—it's obvious," Fleck growled. "But this part isn't."

  He turned the berry over in his thick fingers. "Look here in the middle of the blue. See that little dot of purple? That's very important."

  He turned the berry back around. "So is this ring of little bumps right where it connects to the stem. You don't have both of those, you don't have a ripe berry, and you leave it be. Got it?"

  "Got it," Jack said, nodding. Okay; so it wasn't quite as simple as it had first looked.

  "I hope so," Fleck said warningly. "Because if you mess up, the Brummgas will catch it. And then you'll be in trouble."

  "Like I'm not already," Jack muttered under his breath.

  "What was that?"

  "I said I got it," Jack said aloud. "This isn't exactly brain surgery, you know."

  "And you're not exactly a brain surgeon, are you?" Fleck pointed out. "Here's your bowl."

  He handed Jack a container that looked like an extra-deep pie pan with a long leather strap strung between two points on the rim. "You want me to show you how to use it?"

  "I think I can figure it out," Jack said. He looped the strap around his neck, letting the container rest against his stomach. "Close enough?"

  "I guess maybe you are a brain surgeon," Fleck said sarcastically. "Just one more thing."

  He plucked the berry he'd identified as ripe and set it down gently into Jack's bowl. "Don't just toss it into the bowl. You do that, you're likely to crush the ones on the bottom. Damaged berries get you in trouble with the Brummgas, too."

  He took a step closer to Jack, looming over him like an especially unfriendly rain cloud. "And if you're in trouble with the Brummgas, you're in trouble with me. Got it?"

  Jack grimaced. Staying on Fleck's good side might be harder than he'd thought. "Got it."

  "Then get to work."

  Turning, he stalked away. "Don't worry about Fleck," Maerlynn said, stepping over to Jack's side. "He talks grouchy, but mostly he's all right. Go ahead and get started—I'll watch and see how you do."

  She watched for ten minutes before she seemed convinced he did indeed have the hang of it. "You're doing fine," she said. "I'll be down the line over here. If you have any questions, just ask."

  "I will," Jack said. "Thanks."

  She headed away along the edge of the bushes, toward where Jack could see Noy and Lisssa picking. "I still think you could build a robot to do this," Jack muttered, turning back to his bush. "You could at least make a scanner to help out."

  "Perhaps it is a hammer problem," Draycos suggested from his shoulder.

  Jack turned one of the berries over. No purple spot. "What's a hammer problem?" he asked, moving on to the next berry in line.

  "It is from one of the sayings Uncle Virge has quoted to me," the dragon said. " 'When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.' "

  "Yeah, he quotes that one to me, too," Jack said. This one had both the purple spot and the bump pattern. Plucking it from its stem, he put it in his bowl. "If you've got a whole bunch of slaves, everything you're doing looks like it ought to be done by slave labor. That's more or less what I said yesterday."

  "I am merely confirming your reasoning," Draycos said. "I went out and examined the wall last night."

  "Great," Jack said. "I was going to suggest that, but I fell asleep before I could talk to you. How's it look?"

  "Every bit as dangerous as our examination from the Essenay indicated," the dragon said. "I do not believe we will be able to escape that way."

  Jack shrugged. "No problem," he said. "I was expecting we'd have to go out through the gate anyway."

  "True," Draycos said. "On the other hand, you also expected we would be leaving by today at the latest."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jack growled, glaring down his freshly-washed shirt at the dragon's snout, draped across his collarbone. "This is just a little setback."

  "Of course," Draycos said.

  "And sarcasm won't help, either."

  "I was not being sarcastic," the dragon protested. "The good news is that there do not seem to be any patrols in the slave area. That means we will have freedom of movement."

  "That could be handy," Jack agreed. "Anything else? Wait a second," he interrupted himself softly. Out of the corner of his eye, he had pick
ed up movement.

  "Hey, Jack," Noy's voice came from that direction. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay, I guess," Jack said, turning around. "It's not that hard."

  "No," Noy said doubtfully, peering into Jack's bowl. "But you're going to have to work faster than that if you want to eat tonight."

  Jack frowned. "What?"

  "You have to fill your bowl by dinnertime," Noy explained. "Otherwise, no dinner. Didn't Fleck tell you?"

  Jack looked off to the left. Fleck was off in the distance, pacing back and forth behind a group of Jantris. "No, he didn't tell me," he growled. "How full does it have to be?"

  "Up to here," Noy said, pointing to a line about half an inch below the rim of the container.

  "Got it," Jack said, a sinking feeling swirling in the pit of his stomach as he stared into the nearly empty bowl. "Then what?"

  "You take your bowl over there," Noy said, pointing to a pair of tables set up in the shade of a tall tree. "The Brummgas show up between five thirty and six. You bring them a full bowl, and they give you a meal ticket."

  "A what?"

  "A meal ticket," Noy repeated. "It's a little metal square you can trade in for dinner in the meal hall."

  "And no ticket, no dinner?"

  "Right," Noy said. "So I'd better let you get back to work. I just wanted to say hi."

  "Thanks," Jack said. "And thanks for the warning."

  "No problem," Noy said, moving away. "See you later."

  He wandered off toward another spot in the tangle of bushes, stopping every few feet to check the nearest branches. "That was awfully nice of Fleck, wasn't that?" Jack muttered toward his shoulder as he turned back to his work.

  "Perhaps there was no malice intended," Draycos suggested. "He may merely have forgotten to tell you."

  "You don't even believe that one yourself," Jack said. "The guy just thought it would be funny for me to listen to my stomach growl all night."

  He stopped short, a jolt of conscience suddenly hitting him. "Which reminds me . . . I didn't save you any of my food last night. I'm sorry."

  "That is all right," Draycos assured him. "There was no practical way you could have done so with Maerlynn and the others watching."

  "I know, but . . ." Jack ran out of words.

  "Do not worry about me, Jack," Draycos said into the awkward silence. "I am a poet-warrior of the K'da. I am accustomed to hardship in the line of duty. You must not worry about me, but keep your full attention on the task at hand. Agreed?"

  Jack sighed. "Agreed."

  "Good," Draycos said. "I am working on a plan that I believe will allow us to move undetected into the Chookoock family grounds. From that point, it will be up to you."

  "Okay," Jack said. He'd finished the upper branches of this particular bush; kneeling down on the soft ground, he started checking the lower ones. "From that I assume the hedge is wired?"

  "Yes," Draycos said. "The gap we were brought through has many sensors attached. How did you know?"

  "Because an open gap like that is about as obvious as an elephant at an anteaters' tea party," Jack said with sniff. "These Brummgas are not exactly mental giants. I hope you aren't going to try to disarm them by yourself."

  "I am not going to disarm them at all," Draycos said. "I have begun carving a tunnel through the base of the hedge at a secluded location."

  "There'll still be all the rest of the grounds to get though after that," Jack pointed out.

  "True," Draycos said. "As I said, that part is up to you."

  Jack snorted. "Thanks. Loads."

  CHAPTER 9

  There were two breaks that morning, each one a big fat five minutes long. Most of the slaves took the opportunity to sit down and stretch tired muscles. Jack, in contrast, worked straight through both.

  A longer, twenty-minute break came at noon, accompanied by a cup of what Maerlynn called nutrient broth. To Jack, it seemed more like flavored water with delusions of souphood. But it tasted all right, and he had to admit he felt better after drinking it.

  He worked through most of that break, too, holding his soup cup with one hand and sipping from it as he picked.

  It was midafternoon, and Fleck had just called another five-minute break, when he first heard the music.

  He paused and looked around. It was a delicate sound, clear and precise and clean. Ethereal, even, if he was remembering that word right. The kind of music that would fit perfectly with a movie scene of a tropical paradise.

  Which made its presence in the middle of a slave colony like a sweetly smiling kick in the teeth.

  "Where is that music coming from?" Draycos murmured.

  "I don't know," Jack said, straightening up and looking around.

  And then, an old man came into view from around a curve in the bushes. He walked slowly, as if his knees were tired or stiff or both, and on his head he wore an amazingly wide-brimmed hat.

  And in his hands he carried a musical instrument like nothing Jack had ever seen before.

  Jack blinked, wiping the sweat off his forehead. The instrument was mostly metal; that much he could tell from the glints of sunlight off its surface. Sections of it looked familiar, too, as if the old man had put it together from pieces of a half dozen other instruments. The part he was blowing into seemed to have come from a flute, but there were also valves from a trumpet and possibly a tuba. Other parts Jack didn't recognize at all.

  He glanced around. The only other slave nearby was Lisssa, leaning half into her bush as she strained to reach some berry deep inside the tangle of branches. "Hey, Lisssa," Jack said, stepping over to her. "What's with the musician?"

  She made a sound like a horse snorting. "It's the Klezmer."

  "What's a Klezmer?"

  "I look like an encyclopedia to you?" she retorted. "That's just what he calls himself."

  "Okay, okay," Jack said soothingly. "I was just asking."

  "And I'm just telling," Lisssa said sourly. "Probably means 'leach' in some human language."

  Jack frowned. "Leach?"

  Lisssa snorted again. "Take another look."

  Jack turned back. The Klezmer was walking slowly along the line of berry pickers now. Each of the working slaves turned toward him as he passed.

  And to Jack's surprise, each dropped some berries into the container looped around the Klezmer's neck.

  "Okay, I give up," Jack said. "What are they doing?"

  "Like I said, he's a leach," Lisssa growled. "Story goes his eyes have gone too bad for him to pick berries. My eyes so cry over him."

  "But don't the Brummgas have some kind of . . .?" Jack floundered.

  "What, retirement plan?" Lisssa asked scornfully. "Don't be ridiculous. We don't work, we don't eat. Period."

  She shrugged in the Klezmer's direction, the thick scales of her shoulder scratching against the branches with the movement. "So he's got this scam going. He plays music and pretends he's not begging. And everyone else gives him berries and pretends it's not charity."

  Jack studied her right ear, about all of her face he could see through the branches and leaves. There had been an odd emphasis on the last word. "You don't believe in charity?"

  Reluctantly, he thought, she pulled back from the bush and turned those dark eyes on him. "Are you that naïve?" she asked bitterly. "Or are you just stupid? We're slaves. Slaves. The bottom of the bottom of the stack. Charity is for people who have something extra to give. Not us. Here, no one looks out for you but yourself."

  "What about Maerlynn?" Jack asked. "Seems to me she's trying to look out for us."

  "Oh, right," Lisssa countered. "Maerlynn. She helped Noy's parents, too. They both ended up dead. She helped Greb and Grib's uncle. He wound up dead, too."

  Her eyes flicked over Jack's shoulder. "And let's see what good all her good intentions do for anyone now."

  Jack turned around. Coming up behind the Klezmer was another of the open-topped cars like the one they'd used to bring him to the slave colony. Inside, he cou
ld see two Brummgas: one an adult male, the other much smaller and younger. The car coasted to a stop and both of them got out.

  "Quick—look busy," Lisssa warned, sticking her face back into the bushes.

  Jack took a long step to the next bush over and got back to work, watching the two Brummgas out of the corner of his eye. They began walking slowly along the line of working slaves, the younger one jabbering to the older.

  And suddenly the air seemed full of tension.

  "What is it?" Jack murmured toward Lisssa. The Klezmer, he noted, had stopped playing and was standing off to the side, stiff and silent. "An inspection?"

  "Worse," Lisssa hissed from inside her bush. "Crampatch's spoiled brat of a daughter is back for a new toy."

  Jack frowned. A toy?

  The two Brummgas kept walking, the younger one pointing here and there and making questioning noises, the older one answering her back. Lisssa was right, Jack realized: it was exactly like she was a kid in a toy shop. A kid trying to talk her father into buying her one of everything.

  And then, the daughter stopped suddenly, her jabbing finger becoming insistent. Her father answered; she pointed all the more violently. He shrugged and said something.

  And from the line of bushes stepped one of Lisssa's fellow Doloms. The older Brummga gestured, and taking his daughter's arm he turned back toward the car. Setting his collection bowl carefully onto the ground, the Dolom followed.

  Behind him, Lisssa hissed something vicious sounding. "May her body swell up and burst," she muttered.

  "What's she going to do with him?" Jack asked.

  "Probably paint him," Lisssa said, biting out each word like it was a piece of bad-tasting gristle. "That's what she usually does when she takes Doloms. She thinks our scales look like a paint-by-number mosaic, just waiting for her to decorate. May she and her family be cursed forever."

  She made a deep rumbling noise that seemed to echo in her chest and throat. "Or maybe she'll decide to try carving designs in him again. She did that once."