by Timothy Zahn
"I'll tell Colonel Frost," Alison threatened.
Striding over to the intercom on the nightstand, Dumbarton jabbed one of the buttons. "Colonel?" he said. "Dumbarton. She's being uncooperative."
"I just want a little privacy," Alison called toward the intercom.
"You think you've got something we haven't all seen before?" Frost countered.
"Colonel—"
"You got two choices, kid," Frost cut her off. "Take 'em off yourself, or Dumbarton and Mrishpaw will do it for you." There was a click, and he was gone.
"Well?" Dumbarton asked.
Alison glared at him. "Fine," she gritted. Rolling to the opposite side of the bed, she put her hand on the edge of the mattress as she threw off the comforter and swung her legs over the side.
And to her horror felt a surge of weight on the back of her hand as Taneem dropped off onto the floor.
Alison clamped down hard on her tongue, potential disaster flashing in front of her eyes. Taneem clearly had it in mind to hide under the bed. Only it was a pedestal bed, fastened to the deck, with barely a three-inch overhang.
For the moment, the K'da was out of the mercenaries' view. But Dumbarton was already headed back around the side of the bed, clearly intent on catching up with Alison and making sure she didn't waste any more of his time. As for the Brummga, all he had to do was unglue his big feet from the floor and take three paces to his left and he would likewise get the shock of his life.
"Come on, come on," Dumbarton growled.
"I'm coming," Alison snapped back, pretending her foot was tangled in the comforter as she lowered her hand toward the crouching K'da and tapped her fingertips vigorously on the side of the bed.
To her relief, Taneem got the hint. A dragon paw grabbed on to Alison's wrist, and a moment later the K'da was back on her skin. "No room," Taneem whispered.
"I know," Alison whispered back. "Off my left foot, when I signal." Making a show of freeing herself, she stood up. "Can I at least change in the bathroom?" she asked aloud.
Silently, Dumbarton planted himself directly between her and the bathroom door and folded his arms across his chest. "Fine," Alison growled, coming around the bed toward them. "Would you at least get me one of the robes from the bathroom?"
"Sure." Dumbarton looked at the Brummga, jerked his head.
The big alien turned and lumbered off. "Thanks," Alison said, unfastening her belt, her eyes darting around the room. With the Brummga's back toward her, and Dumbarton's attention about to be elsewhere, getting Taneem off her body without being seen ought to be easy enough.
But that was only the first problem. In an open room like this, there were precious few places something the size of a small tiger could hide.
And then Alison's eyes fell on the computer desk in the corner. It would be a tight fit, she knew, but it should work.
Provided she could make Taneem understand what she wanted.
"Don't think I'm not going to go straight over to that computer and log a complaint when this is over," she warned Dumbarton, walking up to him and looking him straight in his eye.
"I'm sure the colonel's real scared," Dumbarton said dryly.
"He should be." Out of the corner of her eye, Alison saw the Brummga disappear through the bathroom door. Lifting her left foot past Dumbarton's legs, she wiggled her ankle furiously.
She nearly lost her balance as Taneem shot out the leg of her jeans. The K'da hit the deck silently, her neck turning back and forth as she looked around. Alison held her breath . . .
Then the long neck straightened, and Taneem headed off in a fast lope toward the desk. Ducking under the modesty panel, she rolled over onto her back and reached all four legs up toward the underside of the desktop itself. Because Alison was listening for it, she heard the faint scrunch of claws digging into wood.
And the gray-scaled K'da body pulled upward and disappeared behind the panel.
"I'm going to need more clothes, too," she told Dumbarton as the Brummga emerged with the robe and tossed it on the end of the bed. "At least one more outfit, plus a nightshirt or something to sleep in."
"Check the closet," Dumbarton said shortly. "There's probably something in there you can use."
"Oh," Alison said as she turned and snatched up the robe. "I never thought of that."
Dumbarton snorted under his breath. "Some criminal mastermind," he muttered.
Alison smiled to herself. Being underestimated, her father had often said, was nearly as good as not being noticed at all.
Half an hour later, when they brought back her clothes, Alison was sitting at the desk, her knees helping to support Taneem's weight, pounding out the indignant entry she'd promised into the ship's log.
Dinner was served at seven o'clock that evening, ship's time. By then Alison had found and disabled the two microphones that had been sewn into her clothing while Frost was having them scanned.
The colonel was apparently not the type to give up easily.
She and Taneem ate together in silence, finishing off the entire selection of food that had been provided. Alison wondered if her seemingly vast appetite was going to raise any red flags among Frost's men. Still, she was fourteen, and fourteen-year-olds' appetites were the stuff of legend. Hopefully, that would be the conclusion Frost would draw from the next nine days' worth of cleaned plates.
Later, with Taneem again riding her skin, she pulled out her array of gadgets and began double-checking all of them. Her life was riding on this job, not to mention the lives of all those K'da and Shontine out there. Whatever it took, she was going to succeed.
If only to see the look on Jack's face afterward.
* * *
Chapter 7
The Great Assembly Hall turned out to be the long structure straddling the river that Draycos had noticed on their flight into the canyon earlier that day. A good two hundred feet long and thirty wide, with open sides and a wood-and-weave roof, it was supported by a set of wide, ten-foot-high stone pylons sunk deep into the edges of the river.
The positioning of the Hall puzzled him for a while until he remembered that with the high canyon walls, the crops spread out along the floor would receive only limited sunlight each day. Whatever land lay beneath the Hall would receive none at all. The Golvins had therefore built the structure over the river, which couldn't be farmed anyway.
Dinner was a crowded and noisy affair, with at least two hundred of the aliens present. Jack was seated at the One's table, laid out just beneath a tall thronelike chair at the northern end of the Hall. From the flurry of one- and two-syllable names being tossed around the table, Draycos concluded that the boy had been seated among the very top crust of the canyon's social structure.
But while the Golvins chattered and laughed through the meal, Jack himself was uncharacteristically quiet. He was polite enough, answering any questions put to him, and smiled and nodded "when appropriate. But his heart clearly wasn't in any of it.
Draycos's chance came late in the meal, when local custom apparently required the diners to get up and mingle with those of different rank. Jack left his seat as well, but instead of milling around he went to the side of the Hall. Leaning his elbows on the waist-high wall, he gazed out at the moonlit canyon around them. "Jack?" Draycos called tentatively from his shoulder.
"Right here," the boy said, his voice sounding as distant as the rest of him.
"I need to check out the shuttle," Draycos told him, trying without success to read the boy's face. "Is the area clear?"
Jack took a deep breath, as if forcing himself out of distant thoughts, and glanced around. "Looks okay," he said. Turning a little, he stretched his right arm over the wall and let it dangle downward.
Draycos slithered down the boy's arm and popped out of his sleeve. A quick snap of his front legs, and he had caught the outside of the wall with his claws. For a moment he hung there, confirming for himself that the area was clear of observers. Then, with a last look at Jack's troubled face, he let g
o and dropped onto the edge of the cropland below.
There were at least eight different plant species being cultivated in the canyon, Draycos had noted during Jack's walk that afternoon. Generally, there were two to four different types in each of the plots marked off by the narrow irrigation channels.
The farmers probably saw the arrangement as an efficient way of using the different needs of the different plants. A poet-warrior like Draycos saw instead the possibilities of having differently sized plants to move through. Flicking out his tongue every couple of breaths to sample the subtle odors of the area, he headed downstream toward the landing pit and the shuttle.
He was halfway there when he spotted a lone Golvin on the far side of the river moving along the walkways between the crop plots, heading the same direction Draycos was.
Draycos froze, crouching down beside a wide stand of wheat-like plants, frowning to himself. The alien wasn't carrying any tools, so he probably wasn't going out to work in the fields. He probably wasn't simply going for a stroll, either—he was behaving far too furtively for that.
And aside from the crops and a couple of the apartment pillars, the only thing in this direction was the shuttle.
Draycos lashed his tail thoughtfully. Unfortunately for him, the Golvin didn't have to worry about being seen out here. Draycos did, which meant that in a straight head-to-head skulking race through the cropland, the alien would almost certainly reach the shuttle first.
But there was nothing that said Draycos had to keep to the cropland.
The river water was cool, but not nearly as cold as he'd thought it might be. He slipped beneath the surface, leaving only the top of his head above water, and paddled quickly and quietly toward the landing pit.
He reached it well before the Golvin and eased up out of the river. Crouching in the shuttle's shadow with the water dripping off his scales, he gave the vehicle a quick look.
As he'd seen on their earlier trip, the passenger compartment contained front and rear bench seats, each capable of seating three Golvins. There was also a wide hatchway in the rear of the vehicle, he could see now, probably leading to a storage area.
But there was no connection between it and the passenger compartment. If Draycos wanted to be able to see anything, the storage area was out.
The Golvin was only about seventy feet away now. Scooping up a small stone from the riverbed, Draycos wrapped the tip of his tail around it and flipped it, sling style, over the alien's head.
It landed with a soft rustle in the plants behind him. Startled, the Golvin spun around, his head wagging back and forth as he searched for the source of the noise.
And with the other's back turned, Draycos popped the shuttle's rear door and slipped inside.
Pulling the door closed again, he lay on his side on the rear seat floor and looked around. The back of the front bench seat was upholstered with a thick dark blue cloth, he saw, as were the rear seats. Extending a claw, he cut the cloth away from both the bottom and the side edges of the front seat, creating a wide flap.
Rolling onto his other side, he did the same with the cloth extending down from the front of the rear seat. Then, flipping both flaps up, he lay down on the floor and arranged the flaps on top of himself.
It was an absurdly simple deception, and in the full light of day it wouldn't hold up for a second. But the night was dark, and the Golvin out there was in a hurry. Chances were good he wouldn't give the rear seat even a first look, let alone a second.
The front driver's side door opened, and Draycos braced himself. But from the quick and shifting pressures on the seat cushions in front of him, it appeared the Golvin was intent on just getting in and getting away.
A few seconds later, the shuttle lifted off into the night. Cutting hard away from the center of the canyon and the party still going on in the Great Hall, they headed up. Draycos eased the corners of the flaps away from his eyes and settled in to wait.
They'd been flying for nearly an hour when Draycos's sense of balance told him they were starting down. The starlight was joined now by a diffuse glow reflected from the shuttle ceiling, indicating the lights of civilization below. Draycos arranged the camouflaging flaps over himself again, and a few minutes later they were down.
The door opened, there was another quick shifting of the Golvin's weight on the seat, and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Draycos gave it a twenty-count. Then, pushing aside the flaps, he eased up to the level of the window and looked out.
They had landed in a large parking area, apparently not far from the spaceport where the Essenay had arrived a few hours earlier. Surrounding the landing area on three sides were squat buildings housing various small shops.
And on the fourth side was a single, large building. Above the door, in glowing letters, were the words InterWorld Corporation, NorthCentral Semaline.
Draycos felt his claws scratch gently against the shuttle floor. So that was the reason the Golvin had sneaked away from the big celebration. He'd had an urgent offworld message to send.
Right after Jack's arrival at the canyon.
Fifteen minutes later, the Golvin emerged from the InterWorld building and headed toward the shuttle at a fast jog. Draycos was back under his camouflage flaps before the door was pulled open. Once again, the Golvin didn't bother to check his rear seat before taking off.
This time, that inattention was going to cost him.
The flight back to the canyon was uneventful. Draycos waited patiently . . . and as the Golvin eased the shuttle into the landing pit, the K'da silently brushed aside the flaps and rose up behind the other. "Don't turn around," he growled.
The Golvin jerked as if he'd been hit by a bolt of lightning. Reflexively, he started to turn his head.
He brought the movement up short as his cheek came up against a waiting K'da claw. "Who are you?" he gasped.
"I ask the questions," Draycos said. "You sent an InterWorld message. What was the message, and to whom did you send it?"
"I sent no—"
He cut off in a strangled gasp as Draycos pressed the claw firmly into his skin. "What was the message, and to whom did you send it?"
"I have no name," the Golvin said, his voice starting to take on an edge of panic. "Only a number."
"Give me the number."
The Golvin did so. It was a long number, and Draycos could only hope he would be able to remember all the digits. "Now the message," he said.
The Golvin didn't answer. Draycos prodded him again—"I was just to let them know if another Jupa came to the canyon," he said, the words practically tumbling over themselves in his effort to get them out. Apparently, no one had told him there might be danger involved in this little errand.
"And then what?"
"That's all," the Golvin said. "I was just to tell them. That is all I know."
It probably was, too, Draycos knew. No one would be foolish enough to trust a pathetic creature like this with any genuine secrets. "You will tell no one about this conversation," he said. "And you will make no further trips outside this canyon."
"I will do as you say," the Golvin said. "You may trust my word in—"
The rest of the promise was lost as Draycos slapped him firmly across his neck below his ear.
He slumped down in his seat, unconscious. Draycos waited a moment to be sure, then opened the rear door and slipped outside.
The Great Hall was quiet and dark, he noticed, the party apparently over. Still, there might still be stragglers wandering around the cropland. Lowering himself once again into the river, he headed upstream.
He reached Jack's pillar without incident. The bridge the Golvins had constructed was the obvious way up, but it might be interesting to see if he could climb the ivy plants the way the Golvins did. Setting his front claws into the mesh, he started up.
It was a mixed success. The ivy was strong enough to support his weight and was solidly rooted into the stone. But Draycos's claws were sharper than w
hatever small barbs or hooks the Golvins had in their hands that allowed them to climb. He had to be constantly on the alert lest he slice through the plants and dump himself onto the ground.
If worst came to worst, he decided, it would probably be faster to ignore the plants and dig his claws directly into the small cracks in the stone, the way he'd done on his way out of the Great Hall.
The apartment, when he reached it, was dark and quiet. But a quick tasting of the air confirmed that Jack was there, and that the boy was alone. Padding silently across the main room, he slipped into the bedroom.
"About time," Jack said quietly from the bed. "I was starting to wonder if you'd gotten lost."
"My apologies," Draycos said, coming up to him. "I ended up taking a small side trip."
"Sounds interesting," Jack said. "By the way, if you're hungry there's bread, meat, and fruit in the refrigerator."
"Thank you," Draycos said, suddenly realizing just how hungry he was.
"Don't thank me," Jack said with the first touch of humor Draycos had heard from him all day. "The One caught me slipping some food into my pocket from the serving platter and told me that wasn't necessary, that they would supply whatever I wanted for breakfasts and midnight snacking."
"Very kind of him," Draycos said, changing direction back to the door. "If you don't mind . . . ?"
"No, help yourself," Jack said. "I can't vouch for what kind of meat it is, though."
"There are many species of animals who live in deserts," Draycos reminded him.
"Maybe," Jack said doubtfully. "But in a farming area like this, I'm guessing most of what they get is some sort of rodent."
"Or fish."
"Oh, right," Jack said, his voice brightening. "Yeah, that sounds a lot better. Good. Go have some fish."
The platter in the refrigerator was a welcome sight, piled high with thin strips of dried and seasoned meat. Draycos ate his fill, not actually caring what kind of creature it had come from.
And when he was finished, he returned to the bedroom and told Jack all about his unplanned trip to the city.
