Dragon and Thief d-1

by Timothy Zahn

  The other heenas, without any sound or reaction, continued toward him.

  Jack backed up to the stack of crates, his heart pounding in his ears as he did the math. There were six heenas in front of him, plus the dozen he'd already spotted just around the corner. That made eighteen, plus any more that might be skulking around somewhere else.

  Problem was, there were only seven cartridges left in his tangler. He had a spare clip, but he doubted he'd get a chance to use it. The dead maintenance worker was grisly evidence of how fast a pack of heenas could move when they wanted to.

  "Do not fire," Draycos said from his shoulder. Jack had just enough time to frown—

  And then, with the usual surge of weight, the dragon sprang off his chest and shoulder, shoving aside shirt and jacket as he emerged.

  Only this wasn't the nice shiny golden dragon Jack had rescued from the wrecked K'da ship.

  This dragon was pure black.

  Jack gasped with surprise. Draycos landed on the graytop directly in front of the heenas, his head and forelegs low, his tail arched over his head like a scorpion's. For maybe half a second they all just stood there, the six vicious pack animals and the single K'da warrior facing them. The heenas bared their teeth; Draycos gave a low, warning growl.

  As if that was the signal they had been waiting for, the heenas attacked.

  The one in the lead leaped directly toward Draycos's snout, its claws extended toward his face. The other five charged toward the dragon's sides, two toward his left and three toward his right, veering wide to keep out of reach of his forelegs. Jack had been right; the heenas were fast.

  But Draycos was faster.

  The heena going for the dragon's face went first, spinning away with a single startled squeak as Draycos batted it aside in midair with his paw. Even before it disappeared around the side of a stack of crates, the dragon had jumped sideways over the two heenas coming in toward his left, escaping from the center of their encircling maneuver.

  They spun around and shifted direction. This time, all five charged him together.

  Slashing with his forelegs, moving almost too fast for Jack to see, he batted them away one by one into the gloom.

  Jack stood with his back against the stack of crates, his tangler hanging almost forgotten in his hand as he watched Draycos send them flying. His mind flashed back to the leaps the dragon had made aboard the Havenseeker; clearly, K'da had tremendous muscular strength.

  Draycos was down to his last enemy when the ones that had been feeding around the corner came charging at him, probably alerted by the noise. Two broke off from the pack and veered toward Jack, who snapped out of his paralysis in time to get them with another tangler shot. The rest headed straight for Draycos.

  Six-to-one odds had been no contest. It was now quickly apparent that even at twelve to one the heenas didn't have a chance. Draycos waded into the pack, slashing and biting, his tail whipping about with blinding speed and deadly accuracy. Twice it looked to Jack as if they were surely going to overwhelm him, but both times he leaped out of their midst just in time. Landing outside their circle, he continued his slashing attack at the ones on the edge, throwing the whole pack into confusion.

  And then, without warning, he leaped straight back toward the stack of crates behind Jack. Automatically, Jack ducked; and as he glanced up, he saw a heena dropping toward him from the top of the stack. Before he could even start to bring up his tangler, Draycos intercepted the attacker, batting it away with his tail.

  The dragon's momentum carried him back into the crates, but like a cat he twisted around and got his feet up in time. For a second he hung there on the boxes the way he had from the tree outside his wrecked ship, his brilliant green eyes looking brighter than ever against the black scales. Then, shoving himself off the crates, he landed again on the graytop between Jack and the heenas. Crouching down with his tail raised, he gave another growl.

  That was enough for the heenas. Still without a sound, they turned and scattered, scurrying around the stacked crates and vanishing into the dark.

  Jack hadn't realized he was holding his breath. Now, he let it out in a huff. "Wow," was all he could think to say.

  Draycos's neck twisted around, his eyes searching the shadows for more enemies. Then, slowly, he straightened up and turned back to Jack. "Are you injured?" he asked.

  "No," Jack said, gazing at the dragon in fascination. At close range, he could see now that the scales weren't entirely black: the little sliver of red at the edge of each one was still there. "No. I'm fine. Thanks to you."

  Draycos cocked his head to the side. "Yet you seem disturbed."

  "Just a little sandbagged, that's all," Jack assured him. Was the gold color starting to creep back into the dragon's scales? "You've been calling yourself a warrior; but up to now all I've seen you do is zap people with their own weapons and fire missiles from the Essenay's control board. I didn't know you could fight like that."

  "A warrior must be adept in all forms of combat," Draycos said.

  "I guess so," Jack said. No mistake; Draycos's scales were definitely turning gold again. "That color change is pretty cool, too."

  "It is a side effect of K'da combat rage," Draycos told him, lifting up a foreleg to study it. "Our blood is black. As it flows more strongly to our muscles, some of it displaces the color in our scales. Do humans not have a similar danger response?"

  "Not really," Jack said. "Well, maybe a little," he corrected himself. "Our faces get hot when we're mad or scared. On some people it shows a little."

  "Ah. Interesting."

  "Yeah," Jack said, glancing around. "Can we get out of here now?"

  "Do not worry." Draycos peered one last time into the shadows, then suddenly turned and leaped. Reflexively, Jack jerked back, whapping his head against the crates. The dragon hit his upper chest above his shirt and melted back onto his skin. "They will not bother us again," he said, sliding along Jack's body until his head was back in its usual place on his right shoulder. "Shall we continue?"

  Jack rubbed the back of his head. He was never, ever going to get used to this. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."

  Chapter 10

  They reached the far side of the warehouse without any further trouble. "Okay," Jack said, waving a hand around. "This was the pick-up area. What now?"

  His answer was a sliding movement along his right arm. Before he could say anything, there was the familiar sudden weight, and Draycos burst from the sleeve of his leather jacket.

  Sending an equally sudden flash of pain through Jack's wrist as he left. "Ow!" Jack yelped.

  The dragon hit the graytop and twisted back around. "What is wrong?" he demanded.

  "You almost broke my arm, that's what's wrong," Jack snapped, clutching his wrist where Draycos's emerging bulk had compressed it against his jacket. "Geez."

  "I do not understand," Draycos said, stepping close.

  "This is leather," Jack said, hooking a finger in the jacket's cuff for the dragon's inspection. "See? Leather. Leather doesn't stretch. This is a snap holding the sleeve cuff together. See? Snaps don't stretch, either."

  "I see," Draycos said. "I apologize."

  "Yeah, it's okay," Jack muttered. The pain was already starting to fade. "Only the next time you want to go out that way, let me know first, okay? Give me a chance to unsnap it."

  "No need," Draycos said, tossing his head in a way that reminded Jack of a horse. "I will not do that again."

  "Good enough," Jack said. Beneath the jacket sleeve his shirt felt odd. Popping the snap, he gave it a quick look. Draycos's careless exit hadn't been enough to pop the jacket snap, but it had had no trouble popping the button off the shirt cuff.

  "That was my fault, too?" Draycos asked, stretching his long neck to peer at the sleeve.

  "Don't worry about it," Jack told him. "I've been on my own long enough to know how to sew on buttons." He shook his head. "I bet I'm the only person in the Orion Arm who needs dog flaps in my wardrobe."

>   "Pardon?"

  "Skip it," Jack said, resnapping the jacket sleeve. "I repeat: what now?"

  "We will investigate," Draycos said. He looked around, then padded off.

  Jack watched him go, rubbing his wrist as he groused silently to himself. Coming here had been a complete waste of time. He knew it, Uncle Virge knew it, and if Draycos had any brains he'd have known it, too.

  So how and why had he let the dragon talk him into this in the first place?

  On the other hand, he'd already seen Draycos pull some pretty cool tricks out of his hat. Maybe there really was a chance.

  He hoped so. He really did. After all the scams and thefts he'd helped Uncle Virgil pull off, it would be pretty unfair if he had to stay on the run for something he didn't even do.

  Speaking of Uncle Virgil...

  With a sigh, he reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out the old police EvGa scanner Uncle Virgil had lifted from somewhere a few years ago. Getting his comm clip out of another pocket, he attached it to his shirt collar and turned it on. "Uncle Virge?"

  "About time," Uncle Virge said. "What took you so long?"

  "We ran into a little trouble," Jack told him, activating the EvGa and keying it to run its data transmissions through the comm clip. "You getting the signal?"

  "It's fine," Uncle Virge said. "What sort of trouble? Was it the dragon's fault?"

  "Hardly," Jack said. "We ran into a pack of heenas. Draycos was the one who got us out of it."

  "I see."

  Jack frowned. There was an odd tone in Uncle Virge's voice. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You should have called," Uncle Virge said. "You should have let me know."

  "There wasn't a whole lot of time," Jack pointed out dryly. "Besides, what could you have done?"

  "That's not the point," Uncle Virge said. "I don't like you being out of touch with me for so long."

  "Hey, you were the one who didn't want me transmitting until we had the scanner hooked up," Jack reminded him. "Traceable radio signals, remember?"

  "Of course I remember," Uncle Virge said huffily. "I just didn't think you'd take so long to get there."

  Jack frowned. "What's gotten into you, anyway?" he demanded. "Come on, let's hear it."

  There was a short pause. "What's gotten into me is your new friend," Uncle Virge said, lowering his voice. "I don't trust him. We know practically nothing about him, you know. Him or his people or his situation. He could be spinning us a complete rainbow and we'd never know it."

  "You mean like the rainbows you're always spinning on me?" Jack couldn't resist pointing out.

  "Exactly my point," Uncle Virge agreed. "As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. And you know as well as I do that a con man's first job is to convince the pigeon he's far too good a person to even think of doing anything dishonest."

  "Uh-huh," Jack said, nodding. He got it now. "It's not so much that you don't trust him. You just don't like him."

  "You see any reason why I should?" Uncle Virge countered stiffly. "All right, no, I don't like him. I don't like the way he's giving orders and taking charge of everything. I especially don't like the way he keeps trying to fill your head with this warrior-ethic claptrap of his."

  "He is not filling my head," Jack protested. "Besides, what's claptrappy about it?"

  "You don't think it's claptrappy to risk your life and safety just to keep an enemy from burning his little hands?" Uncle Virge asked pointedly. "Back on Iota Klestis, remember?"

  "Well... okay, maybe that was a little strange," Jack had to admit. "But—"

  "Did it gain you anything?" Uncle Virge persisted. "That's the scale you have to measure everything against, you know. Do you think that thug will be grateful enough to do you a good turn if you ever meet up with him again?"

  "Well, no, probably not," Jack had to admit that one, too. "But it didn't hurt us any, either."

  Uncle Virge sighed. "That's not the point, Jack lad," he said. "It could have hurt you a lot. It could have given his friends time to grab you, or to find the ship. But that's not the point, either."

  "Then what is the point?"

  "That this noble K'da warrior bit sounds fine when you read it in a storybook," Uncle Virge said bluntly. "But in real life, it just doesn't work."

  Jack looked over at Draycos, prowling along a row of large storage lockers that lined the warehouse wall near the entrance to the tube. "It seems to work okay for Draycos," he said.

  "I'm sure it used to," Uncle Virge countered. "It's easy to be grand and noble when you're a soldier, surrounded by lots of other soldiers. It's quite a bit different when you're alone. Did you ever hear of the Dragonbacks?"

  Jack frowned. "No."

  "They were a small group of idealistic, do-gooder soldiers that came out of Trantson about a hundred fifty years ago," Uncle Virge said. "Each of them had a small dragon tattoo on his back just between his shoulder blades. Said it gave them strength and courage."

  "Sounds Chinese," Jack offered. "Dragons were a big deal in their ancient legends."

  "Actually, they did claim they were inspired by some obscure Terran Chinese or Japanese story," Uncle Virge said. "Of course, they also said they were descendants of the Knights Templar of Terran Europe, so who knows what they were thinking. If they were thinking at all."

  "Sounds like you don't like them."

  "What's not to like?" Uncle Virge countered. "The whole group died out maybe ten years after they got started."

  Jack puckered his lips. "Because they tried to be helpful?"

  "Because they got involved with other people's problems instead of taking care of their own," Uncle Virge said. "That's the lesson here, Jack lad. You have to look out for yourself, because no one will do it for you."

  "Jack!" Draycos called.

  Jack looked up. The dragon was standing beside one of the lockers about thirty feet away, his head turned in Jack's direction. "Something?" Jack asked.

  "Perhaps," Draycos said, his tail twitching. "Come."

  Jack was at his side a few seconds later. "What is it?"

  "This storage unit," Draycos said, poking his snout at the door. "It is alone of all the others in having this attached to it."

  Jack frowned. Stuck across the door beside the lock mechanism was a small sticker with red edges.

  A sticker with some very interesting words:

  PROPERTY OF BRAXTON UNIVERSIS, INC. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Beneath the words was one of the most recognizable symbols in the Orion Arm: the Braxton Universis corporate logo.

  "I do not read your word-symbols," Draycos went on. "What does it say?"

  "It says the stuff inside is the property of Braxton Universis," Jack told him. "And that casual snoops like us are to keep our hands off."

  Draycos's green eyes glittered. "Yet you said all their material should already be gone."

  "Yes, I did, didn't I?" Jack agreed, studying the lock.

  "How's it look, lad?" Uncle Virge asked from the comm clip.

  "Not too bad," Jack said. The lock was sturdy enough, but it didn't look too complicated. Certainly not for someone who'd studied under Uncle Virgil. "Looks pretty standard for this type of locker. I wish I'd brought some real tools, though."

  "What will you do?" Draycos asked.

  "We call it breaking and entering," Uncle Virge said, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. "Not something a noble warrior of the K'da would do, I'm sure, but it's better than staring at a locked door and wondering what's inside."

  "You said you had a sensor device," Draycos pointed out, gesturing to the EvGa in Jack's hand.

  "Sure, but it won't see through locked doors," Jack told him. "It's a police EvGa, an evidence-gathering sensor. It can pull up fingerprints and dust and fiber samples, but not much more than that."

  "Then let us first use it," Draycos said. "Afterwards, perhaps there will be another way to look inside."

  "Such as?" Uncle Virge asked.

  "No, he
's right," Jack spoke up quickly. There had been a challenge in Uncle Virge's voice, and he didn't want to sit here listening to the two of them argue. "I'll start with the locker. Ready?"

  "Ready," Uncle Virge muttered.

  It took five minutes for Jack to run the EvGa over the front of the locker. There were dozens of fingerprints, plus various alien smudges and finger marks. Uncle Virge dutifully logged each one as the sensor picked it up and analyzed it. "A waste of time," he grumbled about every other minute. "A whole army of people could have come through here in the past two weeks."

  "Yet this locker warns others to stay away," Draycos pointed out.

  "It doesn't say not to touch," Uncle Virge countered. "You almost done, Jack?"

  "Finished," Jack said, lifting the EvGa away from the door. "What's the grand total?"

  "We've got eighteen separate sets of human prints," Uncle Virge said reluctantly. "There are also finger marks from two different Jantris, three Parprins—"

  He broke off. "Three Parprins and...?" Jack prompted.

  "Two different Brummgas," Uncle Virge finished, sounding intrigued.

  Jack looked at Draycos. The dragon was looking back at him. "Brummgas," he echoed.

  "That's right," Uncle Virge confirmed. "Well, well. Small universe, isn't it?"

  "Are Brummgas not common among your worlds?" Draycos asked.

  "They're common enough," Jack told him, determined not to jump to any conclusions here. "They specialize in low-voltage muscle."

  "Pardon?"

  "Strong backs, weak minds," Jack explained. "Mercenaries, guards, heavy lifting—that sort of thing. There's no reason to make a connection with the Brummga we ran into on the Havenseeker."

  "I understand," Draycos said. But he nevertheless sounded thoughtful.

  "Can we get on with this?" Uncle Virge suggested.

  "Right," Jack said, looking around. Even after hours, someone was bound to wander this direction sooner or later. "We'll do the floor around the locker now."

  "You're joking," Uncle Virge protested. "What in the name of buttered toast do you expect to find there? That whole army will have walked by, too, you know."