Dragon and Slave

CHAPTER 6

Between all the preparation, the long walk from the spaceport, and the burglary itself, it had been a long, hard day. Despite the uncomfortable position the hotbox forced on him, Jack soon fell into a deep sleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night he woke up again, shivering, to find that his gold-scaled K'da blanket had vanished. Draycos had reached the end of his six-hour limit and had returned to two-dimensional form against Jack's skin.

Wrapping himself in his blanket, thinking unkind thoughts about K'da endurance, he huddled in the cold and tried to get back to sleep.

He awoke again to find a bright edge of sunlight streaming in under the hotbox door. The chill of night was gone, and the temperature in his prison had become quite comfortable.

But that relief turned out to be as short-lived as Uncle Virgil's temper in a card game. Within minutes, or so it seemed, the hotbox went from cozy to warm to uncomfortably warm.

And it got worse. Soon the thin metal behind his back grew hot enough to burn skin that lingered against it for too long. Once again he pressed Maerlynn's blanket into service, folding it between his back and the wall.

Sometime around noon he drifted off into a restless sleep, full of strange and feverish dreams. Old memories mixed with images from past and present. He saw Uncle Virgil, tall and arrogant, wrestling with Draycos as he shouted out safecracking lessons to Gazen and a group of Brummgas.

The dream faded away and was replaced by another, this one featuring some of the mercenaries he'd met in the Whinyard's Edge. Under Sergeant Grisko's shouted direction, Jommy Randolph and Alison Kayna recited one of Draycos's poems, getting half the words wrong.

At one point he was back aboard the Star of Wonder, only it also seemed to be the Essenay's dayroom. Seated across the table from him, Cornelius Braxton and his wife were arguing about Orion Arm history, the future of Braxton Universis, and the price of mangoes in Sumatra. On the table between them was a huge pitcher of water, an inch out of Jack's reach.

Once, he thought he woke to hear voices calling to him from outside the box.

But by then his brain was so blurred that he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.

It was all so foggy, in fact, that when the hotbox door finally swung open and a

Brummga ordered him out he assumed it was just another dream. He had slogged across the sand, and was stumbling through a patch of clover-grass before it finally dawned on him that he really was out.

"How do you feel?" a familiar voice asked quietly from his side.

Jack blinked the sweat out of his eyes and looked at the pineapple-skinned Ysanhar walking beside him. That was why his arm felt odd, he realized suddenly.

Maerlynn was walking beside him, holding that arm in a steadying grip. "I'm okay," he croaked, trying to pull away from her.

"Just relax," she told him, not loosening her grip in the slightest. "You're not in any shape to walk on your own."

"I can do it," Jack insisted. Privately, though, he had to admit she was right.

Hazy patches were chasing each other across his vision, and every couple of steps he briefly lost track of which way was up and which was sideways. The sun had disappeared behind the trees of the nearby forest, and he shivered violently every time a breeze cut through his sweat-drenched clothes.

But he was human, and he had his pride. More than that, he was Jack Morgan.

He could do this on his own.

Maerlynn was having none of it. "Oh, come on," she chided. "Give your pride a rest, all right? Besides, if you fall on your face I'm the one who'll have to pick you up."

Jack's knees buckled briefly, and the flicker of pride faded away. "Yeah," he muttered. "Okay."

She led him into one of the long buildings. Just as the outside had looked like a broken-down version of a Whinyard's Edge barracks, so too did the inside.

Most of the space was taken up by a single room, with rows of narrow cots lining the walls on both sides. At one end, in the direction Maerlynn was leading him, there was a small open area with a couple of dilapidated tables and a few rickety chairs. At the other end was what appeared to be a small washroom.

And packed into the room were slaves.

Jack found himself staring as Maerlynn led him between the rows of beds.

There were at least a dozen different species represented, he saw, from thick-scaled Doloms to feather-covered Jantris to even a handful of humans.

Most of them were on their beds. Some were sitting on the edges of the cots, talking quietly with their neighbors or fiddling with cards or small trinkets.

A

couple were whittling with what seemed to be homemade knives.

But the majority of the slaves were lying down. Lying stretched out on backs or sides, or lying curled around themselves in postures of fatigue or hopelessness.

A few of them looked up as he and Maerlynn passed. Most didn't even bother.

"I've made you up a bed with my other children," Maerlynn said as she led him to the open area and sat him down at one of the tables. "You'll want to sleep soon—a session in the hotbox drains a person more than you might think. But first we need to get you something to eat and drink."

"This him?" an eager young voice asked from Maerlynn's other side.

Jack tilted his head to look past the Ysanhar as the newcomer came into view around her. It was a human boy, maybe six or seven, short and thin. His hair was carrot-colored, with a faceful of freckles behind the deep tan.

"This is him," Maerlynn confirmed as she pulled up one of the other chairs and sat down diagonally from Jack. "This is Noy, one of my children. And I believe I

heard the guard call you Jack when he let you out?"

"That's right," Jack said, frowning. A human boy was one of an Ysanhar's children? "Jack McCoy."

"Nice to meet you, Jack," Maerlynn said. "Officially, anyway. Noy, where's the pitcher?"

"We've got it," another voice said.

Jack turned his head, fighting a fresh wave of dizziness as he did so. Coming toward them from the other end of the room were two Jantris, their greenish-purple feathers glistening in the low glow of the overhead lights.

One of them was carrying a battered metal pitcher carefully in front of him, while the other held an equally battered metal cup.

"Thank you," Maerlynn said. "Jack, these are Greb and Grib. Greb was the one I

told you about, who was watching out the window when the Brummgas brought you in. Be careful with that, Greb." "I am," the Jantri with the pitcher said as he set it down in front of Jack.

As he did, a few drops of water sloshed out onto the table.

"They're twins, by the way," Maerlynn said, taking the cup from Grib and filling it halfway from the pitcher. The sound of the splashing water made Jack's mouth feel even drier. "Now be careful," she warned as she handed him the cup. "You don't want to shock your stomach with too much all at once."

The water seemed a little oily, with a variety of mineral and chemical flavors and odors. Jack had never tasted anything so good in his entire life. He gulped it down, spilling some of it over the edge of the cup and down his cheeks in his haste.

He set the cup down, panting slightly. "Can I—?"

"Of course," Maerlynn said, already starting to refill it. "Just be careful."

He drained three more cups before Maerlynn called a halt. "All right, that should do for a bit," she said. "Let that get into your system, then you can have some more."

She beckoned. "In the meantime, you're probably pretty hungry."

Noy popped into view at Jack's elbow, holding a rectangular piece of wood with a

fat, folded green leaf on it. "It's stuffed cabbage," the boy told him as he set down the board. "We saved it for you from dinner."

"For me?" Jack asked, his stomach growling. Between the fatigue and thirst, he hadn't realized just how hungry he really was. His mouth would probably be watering if he'd had any liquid in his body to spare. "How did you know I was going to be let out tonight?"

"We didn't," Noy said. "But if you were, Maerlynn wanted to be ready."

"We don't have any flatware or plates, I'm afraid," Maerlynn said. "We have to leave all that in the meal hall. But I'm sure you won't mind eating with your fingers just this once. Well, go ahead—eat up."

Cautiously, Jack tried a bite. The cabbage leaf was a little soggy, and the rice and diced vegetables inside were of course stone cold. And like the water, it tasted better than anything he'd ever eaten in his life.

Also like the water, it vanished quickly. "Thanks," he said. "I needed that."

"I knew you would," Maerlynn said. "The Brummgas don't take very good care of people they put in the hotboxes."

"Of course not," Jack said with a snort, retrieving the three grains of rice that had escaped onto the table and licking them off his fingers. "What's the point of punishing someone if you're going to pick them up and dust them off afterwards. I'm surprised they even let you save me some food."

The twin Jantris exchanged glances. "Well, they didn't exactly let us," Noy said. "We sort of sneaked it out."

Jack blinked. "How?"

"That's enough talking for now," Maerlynn said before Noy could answer. "Jack needs to drink a little more water, then get himself to bed. Morning starts early around here, Jack, and I imagine you'll be put out on the line tomorrow."

"Out on what line?" Jack asked, pouring himself another cup of water.

"Picking rainbow berries with us," Maerlynn said. "They grow on thorny bushes along the edges of the forest."

Jack grunted as he drank. Probably the bushes he and Uncle Virge had seen on the flight in. "Sure, why not? They've got all these slaves anyway. Might as well give us something to do."

Below the mop of white featherines, Maerlynn's forehead wrinkled. "You're wrong if you think it's just make-work. Rainbow berries are a valuable commodity, and you can't use robotic harvesters on them."

"You have to look at the colors to see if the berries are ripe," Greb explained.

"Machines can't read it good enough."

"Well enough," Maerlynn corrected him. "Actually, you probably could make a robot harvester that could do it. But even if you did, you'd have the problem of giving it a soft enough touch to pick them without damage. And you'd have to make the whole thing small enough and flexible enough to get between the branches without knocking off all the unripe ones."

Jack nodded as he poured himself more water. "In other words, if slaves can do it, why bother trying to come up with a machine?"

Grib made a sniffing sound. "One of those," he muttered to his brother.

Greb nodded. "See you tomorrow, Jack," he said, taking Grib's arm. Circling the table, they headed to a pair of empty cots that had been pushed together and lay down on them. Jack frowned toward Maerlynn. "One of those what?"

She shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "They were born here," she said.

"Slavery is the only life they've ever known."

"So was I," Noy spoke up.

"That's different," Maerlynn said. "Your folks never accepted this life the way Greb and Grib and their parents did. Yours never gave up hoping for freedom."

"Are they still here?" Jack asked, glancing over his shoulder at the other slaves.

"No," Maerlynn said gently. "They're..."

"They're dead," Noy said, an odd note of defiance in his voice. "My dad was beaten to death after he tried to escape. After that, my mom got a fever and she died, too."

Jack grimaced. "I'm sorry," he said, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. "I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't," Maerlynn said. "No need to apologize. Would you like to clean up any before you go to bed? I'm afraid the only showers in here are cold water."

Jack shivered. "Thanks, but I'll pass. I think I'd rather sleep anyway."

"I understand," Maerlynn said. "Noy, would you show Jack to his bed?"

"Sure," Noy said. "What about his clothes?"

"There's a sackshirt on his bed," she said, getting to her feet. "He can sleep in that."

"Okay," Noy said. "Come on, Jack."

He led the way down the line of cots to an empty one beside the two where Greb and Grib were lying, talking quietly to each other. "This one's yours," Noy said.

"Thanks," Jack said, nodding to the two Jantris as they looked up at him.

They nodded back and returned to their conversation.

"Oh, and this is Lisssa," Noy said, pointing to the cot on the other side of Jack's.

A Dolom girl lay there, her thick, tile-like scales looking dull and dingy in the dim light. She was curled up on her side, her back to Jack and the Jantris, her attention on a crudely carved stick she was turning around in her hand.

"She's a Dolom," Noy added.

"Yes, I know," Jack said. "Hello, Lisssa. My name's Jack."

Lisssa turned her head halfway around. "Hello, Jack," she said, and turned back to her stick.

"She's kind of quiet," Noy explained. "Sorry."

"That's okay," Jack said. "Quiet is good. Where's this sackshirt Maerlynn mentioned?"

"Right here," Noy said, pulling a wad of cloth from under the pillow. "Go ahead and get undressed."

Jack glanced back at Lisssa. He hadn't had much privacy back in the Whinyard's Edge, either. But at least there he hadn't had any girls in the barracks.

Even if most of the girls here were aliens, the whole thing felt a little uncomfortable.

Noy must have seen something in his face. "Don't worry about it," he said, very quietly. "No one looks at anyone else here. You learn not to."

"Yeah," Jack said. On the other hand, he doubted anyone here had a full-body tattoo of a dragon plastered across his back.

Still, there was nothing for it but to go ahead. He shook out the sackshirt and laid it out on. the bed. It was exactly what he would have expected from the name: a sack, open at the bottom, with arm and head holes cut out at the top.

Noy seemed to be studying a section of floor near the head of Jack's bed.

Bracing himself for the inevitable reaction, Jack pulled off his soggy shirt.

The boy didn't even look up. Jack glanced around the room, frowning, as he picked up the sackshirt.

Nothing. No one jumped to their feet, no one stared and pointed, no one gasped or whistled or snorted or even breathed extra hard. As far as he could tell, no one even saw him.

He slid the sackshirt over his head, covering Draycos up again. So they really didn't look at each other. He pulled off his shoes and socks, and was working off his jeans when Maerlynn arrived with a basket. "Put your clothes in here," she instructed, holding it out. "I'll have them ready—"

"Five minutes!" a loud voice called from the doorway, cutting her off.

Jack looked that direction. A large, ugly, deeply tanned man with a thick gray-black beard was standing just inside the room. He was wearing the same slightly shabby clothing as everyone else, but with a bright red sash running from shoulder to waist.

The man glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on Jack. For a couple of seconds his gaze lingered, as if he was sizing up the newcomer. Then, without another word, he turned and left.

"That's Fleck," Maerlynn said. "He's what we call a trustee."

"He helps the Brummgas keep us in line," Noy added contemptuously.

"Now, now," Maerlynn said soothingly. "He's a slave just like we are. We all have different jobs and duties, and that one's his. I was starting to say, Jack, that I'll have your clothes ready by morning."

"What, in five minutes?" Jack asked.

"That just means lights off," Maerlynn said. "I've been here long enough to know my way around in the dark. Now, you get yourself some sleep. You too, Noy."

"Okay," Noy said, moving toward a cot on the far side of the Jantris.

"G'night.

G'night, Jack."

" 'Night," Jack said. "And thanks."

He pulled down the thin blanket and got into bed. The mattress and pillow were lumpy, like they'd been stuffed with wood shavings or irregularly shaped beans.

Still, the cot was long enough for him to stretch all the way out. That already put it two steps above the hotbox.

He was still trying to hammer out the major lumps when the overhead lights went out.

The sounds of activity stopped at the same time. Clearly, the rest of the slaves knew the routine well enough to be ready when bedtime came.

Ready, and probably eager. After a few days laboring out in the fields, Jack thought glumly, he would probably be the same way.

Jack had planned to stay awake long enough for the rest of the slaves to get to sleep, and then discuss the situation with Draycos. But the hotbox had drained him more than he'd realized, and he found he simply could not keep his eyes open.

Within seconds, he was fast asleep.