Dragon and Thief

Chapter 15

The Brummga took charge of Jack, holding the sleeping boy upright with one of his massive arms around his waist. Raven went through his pockets, taking the comm clip, the multitool, and the police EvGa scanner. Then, with Raven walking ahead at point and Drabs lagging behind in rearguard position, they headed back toward the spaceport.

Leaving Draycos still resting unnoticed against Jack's skin, fuming quietly to himself.

He should have acted sooner. He should have acted, period. He should have ignored Jack's warning to remain quiet when Raven first appeared on the scene. A leap from the shoulder would have knocked Raven's gun away from Jack's neck, and it would have been the work of half a second to deal with the human.

But then Raven's two companions would have opened fire from their concealment. Could he have neutralized both of them, as well?

Draycos let his claws stretch out of their sheaths against Jack's chest in frustration. Even with the enemy's advantage in numbers and positioning, he felt sure he could have defeated all three of them.

Or at least, he could have if he had been on his own. But he wasn't on his own. Jack wasn't trained, either in combat or in evasion. If Draycos had made a move, the boy would most likely have been killed.

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.