Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave

by Timothy Zahn

  No. Before he could allow Jack through the hedge, he would have to do a thorough check of the area on his own. He would have to examine the grounds, search for hidden guard posts, and study the outside of the mansion itself. His task was far from over.

  And perhaps it was because he was thinking too much about the task ahead that he made it to within sight of the thorn hedge before he noticed the faint taste of Brummga in the air.

  He stopped abruptly, dropping flat into the shadow of a bush, silently cursing his lack of attention. A well-known route, a routine duty—that was where a warrior faced the greatest threat of trap or ambush or simple mistake.

  It was a good and timely reminder. He could only hope it hadn't already been a fatal one.

  For a long minute he lay in the shadows, his nostrils and tongue sampling the air. There was definitely a Brummgan presence nearby; the scent was too strong to be simply left over from the day's activities. But the light breeze kept switching directions, hindering his efforts to pin down a location.

  And then, as he strained every sense, he heard a soft cough.

  Soft, but loud enough. His pointed ears twitched onto the direction, his eyes probing the darkness.

  There he was, sitting beneath the same type of bush Draycos himself was hiding beside. A Brummgan soldier, complete with infrared-view detectors and a short but nasty-looking automatic weapon.

  Sitting where he had a perfect view of the spot where Draycos had been digging his tunnel through the hedge.

  Slowly, carefully, Draycos gave the rest of the area a complete check. He spotted two more Brummgas, similarly equipped, one in another shadow, the other beneath a sheet of camouflage webbing.

  One of them Draycos could have handled, had he decided that such a move would aid their goal. But with three of them in widely spaced positions, an attack was out of the question. Slowly, carefully, he began to crawl back the way he'd come, his belly pressed tightly against the ground. Not until he was a hundred yards out of the watchers' sight did he finally stand fully upright again.

  The taste of defeat on his tongue.

  So all his work, all his cleverness, had been for nothing. The Brummgas had spotted his tunnel, and had set a trap for him. It was only the fact that they couldn't possibly have anticipated the arrival of a K'da warrior that had prevented them from nailing him on the spot.

  What they were expecting, clearly, was one of their slaves. And if they were smart enough to watch one end of the darter's hole, they were probably smart enough to be watching the other end, too.

  Earlier, he had left Jack and the hotbox without much more than a quick and casual check of the area. There hadn't been any alarm, which meant he must not have been spotted.

  He didn't know yet how they'd managed to miss him. But however it had happened, he knew he couldn't count on being that lucky twice in a row. This time he approached the slave colony like the warrior he was supposed to be: slow, alert, and flat on his belly.

  He hadn't noticed anything odd when he'd left, and now he discovered why. For one thing, the enemy observer was off to the side, where he could watch the doors into the two sleeping huts but didn't have a clear view of the three hotboxes. For another, the observer wasn't a Brummga. It was a human.

  Not just any human, either. It was Gazen himself.

  Draycos looked across the starlit patch of ground, watching Gazen idly fingering his rifle. Under normal circumstances, he could easily tell one human scent from another. But having just spent an hour in the hotbox with Jack, and a particularly strong-smelling Jack at that, he hadn't noticed the taste of Gazen in the air.

  He twitched his tail in annoyance. First he had wasted time with thoughts of vengeance. Now he was wasting equally precious time making excuses.

  For two months he had been trying to gently push Jack toward the path of a K'da warrior. He had tried to teach the boy to think and behave with a sense of justice and honor, instead of reacting like the selfish thief his Uncle Virgil had raised him to be.

  Now, he wondered if perhaps some of the training had ended up going the other way.

  He twitched his tail again. More rationalization. More excuses.

  More wasted time.

  All right, he ordered himself firmly. So Gazen himself was here. That meant he was taking this attack on the thorn hedge very seriously. And given that Jack was the newest arrival, he might have expected that Gazen's suspicions would immediately have turned his direction.

  But apparently, that wasn't the case. If it had been, Gazen should have found a place where he could watch the hotboxes as well as the sleeping huts.

  Unless he didn't know Jack had been kicked out of his bed for the night.

  Draycos let his jaws crack open in a wry smile. So all unknowingly, Fleck had in fact done him and Jack a huge favor. If he hadn't gotten Jack in trouble, Draycos might very well have strolled out of the sleeping hut tonight straight into Gazen's waiting hands.

  Carefully, he began backing up again. They'd been saved by the thinnest of eyelid scales, the kind of luck every warrior hoped for. But that didn't mean there was any reason to throw a congratulatory party, either. Their main escape plan had just been discovered and neutralized. That meant they would have to fall back on Plan B.

  Unfortunately, as far as he knew, they didn't have a Plan B.

  Jack was asleep when he reached the hotbox, his hand jammed under the door to give Draycos a way in. The boy didn't wake up as Draycos slipped up his arm and settled into his usual position across his back. The two of them had a lot to talk about; but the hotbox still held some of the day's heat, and he might as well let Jack sleep while he could. There would be plenty of time to talk later when the growing cold drove him awake.

  That point arrived two hours later, when Jack began shivering in his sleep. Draycos managed to postpone it another half hour by returning to three-dimensional form and using his body to help keep the boy warm. But eventually, even that wasn't enough.

  Jack listened in silence as Draycos related the night's activities. "That was a close one, all right," he commented when the K'da had finished. "Thanks to Fleck and his low-rent friends. A shame we can't ever tell him—I'd love to see the expression on that ugly slap-catcher face of his."

  "It would be interesting," Draycos agreed. "I presume, then, that you no longer wish to make him eat the spilled berries?"

  Jack waved a hand. "The bugs have probably gotten to most of them by now, anyway."

  He shivered violently. "I just wish I'd thought to bury that blanket Maerlynn gave me in the floor here. It would have come in handy."

  "As a matter of fact, I did bury it," Draycos told him. "I thought it would might be bad for Maerlynn if you were found with it. Unfortunately, it is no longer here."

  "Maerlynn must have dug it up afterward," Jack said with a sigh. "Too bad."

  "The point is that we now have a serious problem," Draycos said. "I would have no difficulty myself jumping over the hedge. But I could not carry you over without risking injury to you."

  "That just means we'll need another way over, that's all," Jack said. "Over, or through."

  Draycos felt his ears twitch. "You have an idea?"

  "I think so," Jack said. "It'll take some fancy timing, but if I can pull that part of it off it should work."

  "May I ask what you have in mind?"

  "Sure." In the dim light, he saw Jack smile tightly. "You remember Greb mentioning a couple of days ago that his and Grib's hatchday was coming up in three weeks? I thought we might throw them a little hatchday party."

  "In three weeks?" Draycos asked, frowning.

  Jack shook his head. "Life is uncertain," he said. "Let's do it now."

  CHAPTER 12

  The Brummgas let him out of the hotbox an hour or so after sunrise, just about the time the place was starting to warm up to a decent temperature. The rest of the slave colony was quiet, with everyone no doubt taking advantage of their day off to catch up on some sleep.

 
; All except Fleck. The ugly man was waiting with the Brummgas, a bowl in his hand. Without a word he held it out toward Jack and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Sighing to himself, Jack looped the strap around his neck and trudged off. It was, he knew, going to be a long, lonely, tiring day.

  He reached the rainbow berry bushes to find he'd been wrong on all three counts.

  He wasn't going to be alone. Maerlynn was already there, along with Greb and Grib and Noy and a half dozen others.

  All of them already with small piles of berries on the ground beside them.

  "What's this?" Jack asked, blinking in surprise as he looked around. "I thought this was Tenthday."

  "Good morning, Jack," Maerlynn said cheerfully. "Yes, it is. Better get these piles picked up right away, before someone steps on one of them."

  "I'll help," Noy offered. Stepping carefully over his own pile he trotted over to Jack and put in the few he still had in his hands. "Grib's pile is the biggest—we'll get those first."

  "But—" Jack said, still bewildered as he let Noy lead him over toward the twin Jantris. "Isn't this your day off?"

  "Sure," Noy said. He turned his head away from Jack and coughed. "But it's your day off, too. We wanted to help you."

  "We saw what happened," Maerlynn explained as Noy carefully scooped up Grib's pile of berries and laid them gently in the bowl. "It isn't fair to punish you for a rule you didn't know."

  Jack stared down at Noy as the boy moved to Greb's pile and started gathering the berries into his hands. Selfishness between thieves and con men was something he knew very well. Help between soldiers he could sort of understand—after all, their lives might depend on each other.

  But none of the slaves working here had a single thing to gain by helping him out. In fact, it could well be exactly the opposite. "Won't you get in trouble?" he asked. "I mean, that Brummga wanted me to sweat all day."

  "Maybe that's what he wanted," Maerlynn said. "What he said was that you had to bring in a full bowl of berries if you wanted to eat. He never said you had to fill the bowl yourself."

  "But that's what he meant," Jack argued. "Don't get me wrong—I appreciate the help. But I don't want to get you into trouble."

  Maerlynn smiled, an oddly sad look on her face. "We're already slaves, Jack," she said gently. "How much worse trouble could we be in?"

  Lots worse, the obvious answer flashed through Jack's mind. But for once in his life, he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. These people all knew the risk they were taking for him. They were taking it anyway. "Thank you," he murmured instead.

  "We have to stick together," Maerlynn said quietly. "If we don't look out for each other, who else will?"

  "No one, I guess," Jack said, thinking about what Lisssa had said once about charity and looking out for yourself.

  Lisssa herself, naturally, was nowhere to be seen.

  "So let's get a move on," Maerlynn said firmly. "It's our day off. Let's get this finished and go relax."

  With all those hands, and with only one bowl to fill, they were done in less than half an hour. "And that's that," Maerlynn said as Jack dropped in the final handful. Right to the line, he confirmed with a sort of guilty satisfaction, and not a single berry over.

  "Now we'll put them inside the hut, under your bed, until the Brummgas come to pick them up," Maerlynn said as they all trooped back to the colony. The place was starting to come alive, Jack noted, with several of the slaves moving about. "And then we'll be done for the day."

  "So what does everyone do on Tenthday?" Jack asked. "Aside from laundry, I mean," he added as he spotted a pair of Compfrin females carrying grimy-looking bundles.

  "In the morning we mostly just rest," Noy said, pausing to cough. That cough had been getting worse all morning, Jack had noted uneasily. It was starting to sound wet, too, as if fluid was gathering in his lungs. "In the afternoon we usually play games," the boy went on. "Some of the grownups like to carve or make things out of wood."

  "There are often repairs that need to be attended to," Maerlynn said. "Beds sometimes fall apart, or some of the cooking or serving equipment breaks. The Brummgas aren't very good about maintaining this end of their land."

  "You like chopball?" Greb asked. "We're going to play some later."

  "Haven't ever played," Jack said. "But I had an idea for something else we might do. You said you and your brother had your hatchday coming up, right?"

  "Right," Grib said. "We'll be sixteen. Almost adults."

  "We're already molting," Greb added proudly, running a finger across his chest. "We should have all our adult feathers before we're seventeen."

  "A lot of Jantris don't even start getting their feathers until they're seventeen," Grib said. "That's what Maerlynn said. She reads a lot."

  "She said that meant we were percocious," Greb said.

  "That's 'precocious,' " Maerlynn corrected him. "That means you're growing up faster than the average Jantri."

  Or else it just meant the Brum-a-dum year was a little longer than the Jantri standard. But Jack wasn't about to bring that up. It would only kick off a new topic of conversation, and he might not get in another word all morning. Getting a Jantri to shut up was like trying to sweep back the tide with a paintbrush. "I'm sure you are," he said instead. "So what do you say we have a party."

  Both Jantris blinked in unison. "A party?"

  "I'm not sure we can do that, Jack," Maerlynn put in warningly. Clearly, she didn't want to get the twins' hopes up and then squash them like an overripe berry. "There isn't any extra food we could use. Or anything we could make special treats from."

  "That's okay," Jack said. "A party doesn't need treats. All it needs is fun and entertainment."

  "Like what?" Noy asked eagerly.

  "Well, you already mentioned games," Jack said. "We might be able to get the Klezmer to come over and play a few tunes."

  "Oh," Grib said, sounding a little disappointed. "We get to hear the Klezmer all the time."

  "Or," Jack added smoothly, "I could put on a magic show."

  Both twins straightened like they'd been poked with sharp sticks. "A magic show?" Grib repeated excitedly.

  "A magic show?" Noy echoed, his face glowing. "Can I come, too?"

  "Absolutely," Jack told him. "It's for anyone who wants to come and watch."

  "Can we do it now?" Greb asked, grabbing Jack's arm. "Can we?"

  "Hang on, hang on," Jack said. "I've got a few things I have to do first. My laundry, for one thing—this shirt reeks."

  "No, no, no," Grib insisted. "Now, now, now."

  "I also have to put together some props," Jack said firmly. He couldn't afford to start the show too early, after all. "How about we do it right after lunch?"

  "Okay," Grib said. "Can we tell the others?"

  "You can tell everyone," Jack assured him. The bigger and more noticeable the audience, the better. "I've got to go now. See you at lunch."

  He had expected there to be a mad crunch at the tiny laundry facility, what with everyone trying to clean their clothes on the same day. But to his surprise, the slaves had the whole operation down to a science. There was a posted list that assigned time at the machines by bed groups, and those in each group seemed to show up exactly on that schedule. Jack's group was next, and with a little coaching by one of the other slaves he got his laundry going.

  He should have guessed they would have it organized, of course. These people had been here for years, after all. Some of them, like Greb and Grib, had been here their whole lives.

  It took a little more work and ingenuity to assemble the props he needed for his show. He was able to borrow a set of drinking cups and some small vegetables from the kitchen, but the cards and coins he needed for some of his best tricks turned out to be a challenge.

  Eventually, he wound up sending Greb and Grib scrounging all around the colony. They returned triumphantly an hour later with five coins and a genuine if slightly ragged deck of cards. The fact that the scroungers were
Jantris also meant that the news about the show got out more quickly and effectively than if Jack had sent out engraved invitations.

  Which meant that by the time he stood up in front of the berry collection table, practically the whole colony had turned out to watch.

  "Good afternoon, everyone," Jack said, picking up three potato-like vegetables he'd borrowed from the kitchen pantry. "Welcome to the first annual Greb and Grib hatchday celebration. I'd like to start the show with a little bit of juggling."

  He tossed one of the potatoes into the air and caught it. "There we go," he said. "Like it?"

  "You call that juggling?" someone called scornfully.

  "Yeah, we want to see you juggle all of them," Noy added.

  "Oh?" Jack asked, acting surprised. "Well . . . sure."

  He threw one potato in the air and caught it. Then, shifting it to his other hand, he threw the second into the air and caught it. "Is this what you mean?" he asked as he did the same with the third potato.

  "No!" screamed all the children. "All together!"

  "Oh," Jack said again. He tossed all three potatoes upward, making sure one of them went higher than the others. "Like this?"

  "No!" they screamed again.

  "Well, gee, then." Jack caught the two lowest potatoes as they came down, one in each hand, and sent them back into the air. "In that case—" he caught the third, tossed it up through the center of the pattern "—I don't know—" the two potatoes came down again, and he sent them back up "—what else to do."

  He waited until the smattering of applause had faded, then switched to a more standard three-ball rotation. "My uncle taught me that one," he said, shifting this time to a circle pattern. "I had another uncle who was cross-eyed. Let me show you how he juggled."

  He went through his juggling routine, then switched to some sleight-of-hand tricks. The last time he'd done this, back when he and Draycos had stumbled into a Wistawki bonding ceremony on the Vagran Colony, he'd had the dragon there to help with the performance.