Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief

Should he have moved before Raven murdered the Wistawki citizens, then? Should he have leaped out and stopped that from happening? Or should he have done something afterward, perhaps, before they put Jack to sleep?

  But no. With Raven's arm pressed around Jack's throat Draycos hadn't been able to see properly, but his hearing hadn't been blocked. Never at any time had all three of the enemy been within range for a quick one-one-one attack, and anything else would again have been risking Jack's life.

  Risking it for nothing, too, since it seemed clear that they didn't plan to kill him. At least not right away.

  Now, of course, it was too late for action of any sort. Jack was fast asleep, drugged by the chemical Raven had injected into his skin. It was one thing to grab the boy in mid-leap and carry him up onto a balcony. It was a different matter entirely to try to run with him balanced across his back.

  No. For the moment the enemy had the upper hand. Draycos would have to watch, and wait, and be patient. If they wanted Jack alive, they must also want something from him. That meant they would eventually have to wake him up. Once Jack was again able to move on his own, there would be time to think about escape.

  The group reached the spaceport and went inside, making their way around the outer area where the tubes connected.

  Draycos eased an eye just far enough up on Jack's chest to see out the V of his shirt. Eventually, he knew, they would reach a ship.

  Eventually, they did.

  It was a rather impressive ship, if Jack's spacecraft was a proper standard to judge by. It was nearly twice as big as the Essenay, with an elaborate sleekness about it that implied wealth and social position. Or at least with the Shontine it would have implied that. He studied the craft as they walked toward it, noting its shape and design and features as best he could. Someday he might need to identify it.

  Raven, still in the lead, stopped at the bottom of the gangway and waited for the others to catch up. "All right," he said when they were gathered together. "You know the rendezvous point. We've already lost two weeks with the kid's disappearing act; the boss will skin all of us alive if you don't get him there fast."

  "After all this, he'd frinking well better cooperate, too," the one named Drabs grunted.

  "Let the boss worry about that part," Raven told him. "You just concentrate on getting him there in one piece, all right?"

  "Should we not do a full-body search of him first?" the Brummga asked.

  "What for?" Raven scoffed. "Weapons? Escape gear? Pretty tricky to use something like that when you're sound asleep."

  "In my profession we do not take unnecessary chances," the Brummga countered stiffly.

  "In mine we do what we're told," Raven said, just as stiffly. "You strap him to the bunk, you give him a booster shot every twelve hours, and that's all you do. You don't feed him, you don't bathe him, you don't read him bedtime stories. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Perfectly," the Brummga rumbled.

  "You off, then?" Drabs asked.

  Raven nodded. "I'm going to be late as it is. You just get the kid to the boss as fast as you can burn fuel. I'll see you later."

  "Right," Drabs said. "Good luck."

  Raven nodded and headed back along the tube. Lugging Jack along with them, the others went into the ship.

  The trip was much quieter than Draycos had expected it to be. From what he'd gleaned of the Brummga's attitude, he thought the other might disobey the orders about searching Jack. If that had happened, and if he had discovered Draycos, the K'da would have had a difficult decision to make.

  But no one searched Jack. In fact, except for the injections Drabs gave him twice each day, no one paid any attention to him at all. It was exactly as if they were couriers delivering a package.

  The trip was also quite boring. More than once Draycos thought about going off and exploring the ship, particularly during the hours when everyone seemed to be asleep. But there was no way for him to know what kind of monitoring system might be in place to keep watch on the rooms and corridors. The Essenay had such a system—Uncle Virge had made a point of bringing that to his attention early on—and it seemed unlikely that people who engaged in casual murder would neglect such basic security.

  He also gave considerable thought to the idea of overwhelming the crew and taking over the ship. Once Drabs's injection schedule was interrupted, Jack would surely regain consciousness. Together, they ought to be able to fly this ship somewhere to freedom.

  But again, not knowing exactly what he was up against made that an unacceptably risky move. With only Drabs and the Brummga aboard, he would have had a good chance of defeating them before they realized what was happening. But from the bits of conversation he was able to overhear when Jack's cabin door was open, it was clear that there was a flight crew, as well. Their numbers, their locations, and their routines were all unknown.

  Over and over again, his military instructors had told him that a good warrior never took foolish chances unless there was no other alternative. The alternative here was to simply wait.

  So he waited. That didn't mean he had to like it.

  Finally, after three long days, they arrived.

  Back on Vagran, Drabs and the Brummga had carried Jack through the streets like a drunken friend being taken back to his ship. At this end of the trip, they were better prepared with a collapsible stretcher, set up just inside the hatch. The Brummga carried Jack there and laid him on it. Then he and Drabs rolled the boy down the gangway to a waiting ground vehicle.

  The back of the vehicle had no windows, but Draycos managed to get a few glances before the doors closed on them. They were in another spaceport, a much bigger one this time. Bouncing along in the darkness inside the vehicle, he wondered if they had reached their final destination or would be transferring to another spacecraft.

  The ride was quite short, no more than a few minutes.

  There was movement outside the vehicle, and then Drabs opened the rear doors and he and the Brummga rolled Jack's stretcher out onto the ground.

  Rising from the ground beside them was the most impressive spacecraft Draycos had seen yet.

  He peered out at the vessel as the Brummga rolled the stretcher toward the gangway, a strange sensation stirring inside him. A Shontine ship of this size and design would be either an expensive private yacht or else the business spacecraft of a major corporation. He knew he couldn't jump to that same conclusion in this unfamiliar region of space; but even so, it certainly appeared that someone with great wealth or power or both was interested in Jack. Very interested indeed.

  But why? What would anyone want with a young human adrift on his own?

  Or was there something about himself that Jack hadn't told him?

  It was as he was thinking about that, and studying the ship, that he saw the word-symbols written on the hull beside the entrance.

  A fresh surge of emotion flowed into him. Words! Identification words, perhaps. Maybe even the spacecraft's name.

  Except that Jack was unconscious and couldn't see them. And Draycos couldn't read human word-symbols.

  The K'da stretched his claws in and out of their sheaths in agonized frustration. It was a vital clue, possibly the precise clue Jack needed to learn the truth behind all this. He couldn't afford to let the opportunity slip away.

  He would just have to memorize the symbols, that was all. Memorize their shapes and their positioning, so that he could reproduce them later.

  But even as he realized what he had to do, he knew with a sinking feeling that the task was beyond his capabilities. There were too many letters there, and his visual memory was simply not good enough to hold their shapes over the hours or days that might elapse before he could show them to Jack.

  He would try—he would certainly try. But he knew that he would fail.

  Unless . . .

  He smiled grimly to himself. No, he couldn't memorize the letters' shapes. But perhaps there was another way. A way that only a poet-warrior of the K'da could use.


  Gazing at the symbols as the stretcher was rolled toward the ship, he set to work.

  CHAPTER 16

  The first thing Jack noticed as he worked his way slowly back toward consciousness was that his neck felt funny.

  Not that it hurt. It didn't, really. But it definitely felt funny.

  Abruptly, he realized why. He was sitting upright in a chair, with his head bowed down toward his chest. The funny feeling was coming from the back of his neck, strained as it was by the pull of his head.

  He was fully awake now. But that didn't mean the rest of the world had to know it. There were soft voices carrying on a quiet conversation somewhere nearby, and there was an equally soft light showing against his eyelids. Maybe if he let them think he was still asleep, he would learn something that would help him get out of here.

  Or even figure out exactly where "here" was.

  It might also be a good idea to take a quick inventory and see what kind of shape he was in. Aside from his neck, which was starting to feel a little stiff now, nothing hurt. Not even his shins, which should still be tender from Draycos's misfired balcony leap. The fact that they weren't meant he'd been kept asleep for at least a couple of days.

  A couple of days of travel time? Probably.

  Which, unfortunately, meant he probably wasn't on the Vagran Colony anymore.

  So much for getting to the spaceport where the Essenay would be waiting. He hoped Uncle Virge had figured that out by now and gotten off the planet.

  The lack of pain was the plus side of his physical condition. On the minus side, his stomach felt very empty. Being asleep without eating for a couple of days would do that, too. With his nose six inches from his chest, he also noticed that he was starting to smell a little.

  So they'd drugged him with something, tossed him aboard a ship or transport, and lugged him some unknown distance across the Orion Arm. The big question was, where?

  The other big question was, why?

  "Good afternoon, Jack," a voice said.

  It was all Jack could do to keep himself from jerking with reaction. If he lived halfway to forever, that was one voice he knew he would never, ever forget.

  It was the cold, heartless, snakelike voice he'd heard on Iota Klestis. The voice of the man in charge of the group sifting through the wreckage of the Havenseeker.

  Maybe even the man who had ordered the K'da and Shontine ships destroyed in the first place.

  "You can lose the act," the voice said, going even colder with impatience. "My instruments tell me you regained consciousness some thirty seconds ago. Don't waste my time."

  Slowly, blinking his eyes a couple of times, Jack raised his head.

  He was in a small but very nicely furnished room, seated in a chair across from an ornately carved wooden desk. The way the furniture was fastened down, he guessed he was aboard a spaceship.

  A group of lights on the desk had been arranged to shine directly into his face. They weren't painfully bright, at least not once his eyes adjusted to them, but they were more than bright enough to wash out his view of whoever or whatever was seated on the other side of the desk.

  He also noted that his hands, resting in his lap, were handcuffed together. He'd missed that in his earlier inventory.

  "Okay," he said, squinting his eyes a little against the glare of the lights. Fleetingly, he wondered what had happened to Draycos, then put the thought out of his mind. He had enough troubles of his own right now. "I'm awake. What now?"

  "I want your uncle," Snake Voice said, his voice coming from behind the lights. "Where is he?"

  Jack grimaced. Obvious, of course. They were busy cleaning up loose ends, and Uncle Virge and the Essenay were a very sizable loose end. "I don't know," he said.

  "I'd advise you not to lie," Snake Voice said, his voice going still colder. "We know perfectly well that he didn't simply desert you on Vagran. You either have a prearranged rendezvous point, or else there are several possible places where you can meet. I want the list."

  Jack shook his head. "Look, I really don't know where he is," he said, putting some pleading into his voice.

  For a moment Snake Voice sat quietly. Jack forced himself not to squirm, wondering what would be next. A major interrogation, probably, as they tried to find out who else he might have told about the K'da and Shontine.

  Then, of course, they would kill him. When he didn't come back, he wondered distantly, would Uncle Virge be smart enough to go to the Internes Police with his story?

  Would they believe him even if he did? A ship's computer wasn't exactly a legal witness.

  "Well, then, I suppose we'll have to say goodbye," Snake Voice said at last. "If you can't deliver your uncle, then you're of no use to us. We'll just have to kill you and find someone else to help us."

  Jack blinked again, nearly missing the threat as his brain latched onto the last part of the sentence. Someone to help them? Was this some sort of lame trick?

  And then, with a sudden flash of hope, he realized he'd gotten it all wrong. Snake Voice wasn't here to clean up loose ends on the K'da and Shontine thing, because Snake Voice didn't know Jack was the one who'd stumbled into that mess. This was something else entirely.

  And they weren't looking for Uncle Virge, the ship's computer. They were looking for Uncle Virgil, the professional thief and con man.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "Are you talking about a job?"

  "That's none of your concern," Snake Voice said. "My business is with Virgil Morgan, not some half-grown nephew."

  "Oh," Jack said, cocking his head a little to the side. "Gee, that's too bad. Because if you want to talk to Uncle Virgil, you first have to talk to me."

  "Watch your mouth, kid," another familiar voice threatened from behind Jack.

  He looked back over his shoulder to see Drabs standing guard by the door. "Oh, hello, Drabs," he said, waving his handcuffed hands cheerfully. "Lieutenant Raven step out for a minute?"

  Drabs started to sputter something—"So the boy knows your name," Snake Voice said icily, cutting the other off in mid-sputter. "Both your names. That's very clever, Drabs. Very clever indeed."

  Drabs looked about as unhappy as Jack had ever seen a man look. "Sir," he said, his voice pleading. "It's not—I mean, we didn't—it was the Brummga. He—"

  "Enough," Snake Voice cut him off again. "I'll speak with you later. Now. Jack."

  Jack turned back to face the lights. "Yes?"

  "I don't think you realize the seriousness of the situation you're in," Snake Voice said. "Not only did you gun down two innocent Vagran citizens, but you then fled the jurisdiction."

  Jack's stomach tied itself into a knot at the memory. "You mean I was kidnapped," Jack corrected him. "And it was Raven who shot them, not me."

  "I have three witnesses who will swear in court that you were the one who pulled the trigger," Snake Voice said calmly. "Assuming the case ever reaches a court, that is. Alternatively, the whole unpleasant incident could simply end up in the Vagran Police 'unsolved' file."

  Jack glared past the lights. "The phony theft thing wasn't good enough for you, huh?" he said bitterly. "You had to kill a couple of innocent Wistawki to get me on the hook?"

  "In my experience, no one is truly innocent," Snake Voice said offhandedly. "As to the rest, it was you who ruined the previous frame-up."

  "Yeah, right," Jack muttered. "Stupid of me. How dare I try to clear myself?"

  "And none of it would have been necessary at all if your uncle hadn't made himself so difficult to find," Snake Voice concluded. "If you dislike your current position, take it up with him."

  "What, there aren't any other con men in the business anymore?" Jack asked, fishing for information.

  There was a short pause, and he had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that Snake Voice was smiling at him. "Like uncle, like nephew. Virgil Morgan was always squeezing stones, too, trying to pump information out of them."

  Jack shrugged. "Can't blame me for trying."

/>   "Oh yes, I could," Snake Voice said. "But I won't. And no, I don't want his con artist skills. What I want is his considerable talent at opening large and well-protected vaults. At that, he's the best there is. And I'm accustomed to having the very best."

  "Okay," Jack said. He'd squiggled around long enough, and it was clear now that there was only one way to play this. "What's the job, and what's the pay?"

  "As I told you before, that's none of your concern," Snake Voice said.

  "And as I told you before, if you want Uncle Virgil you have to talk to me," Jack countered. "I mean, there's not much point in being retired if anyone can get hold of you just by picking up a phone."

  There was another silence, a long one this time. Jack kept his eyes focused between the desk lights, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was back there. But the best he could do was a vague outline that could have been a man. It could just as easily have been a shaped bonsai tree.

  "I must have missed his retirement party," Snake Voice said at last. "Very well. Drabs?"

  A few clunking footsteps, and Drabs appeared at Jack's side, glowering down at him. Gripped in his hand was a small metal suitcase. "You sure you want to do this, sir?" he asked. "Personally, I don't trust this kid farther than I can spit him."

  "If he crosses us, you can go to Vagran and watch his execution," Snake Voice said. "Open it."

  Still glowering, Drabs hoisted the suitcase onto Jack's lap and popped the catches.

  There was only a single item in the suitcase, nestled snugly in the center of custom-fitted foam packaging: a slender metal cylinder, eight inches long and three in diameter. A number was stamped into one end: 407662. There were also a handful of connectors and valves jutting out at various places.

  "There's a cylinder just like this one in the purser's safe aboard the passenger liner Star of Wonder," Snake Voice said. "The job is simply to replace that cylinder with this one."

  "Ah," Jack said, trying to sound casual. "Just like that."

  "Just like that," Snake Voice assured him. "A simple enough job for a man of Virgil Morgan's talents."