Dragon and Judge

CHAPTER 13

The click of the stateroom door being unlocked was their only warning. "Quick," Alison muttered, thrusting out her hand to Taneem.

Fortunately, they'd had a lot of practice in this lately. The K'da was up her sleeve and out of sight before the door even started to open. Alison even had time to flip her notebook back from the lock mechanism diagrams she'd been drawing to the pages with a far more innocent journal entry.

"Morning," Frost said as he strode into the stateroom. Dumbarton and the Brummga Mrishpaw were trailing behind him. "Enjoying your vacation?"

"Oh, it's great," Alison said. "Especially the sun deck. Are we going to be able to get another volleyball game going by the pool again before the formal dinner?"

"Cute," Frost growled. "I've got a job for you."

"If it involves scrubbing decks, the answer is no," Alison warned.

Frost's lip twitched. "It involves opening safes."

Alison raised her eyebrows. Taneem had told her Frost had suggested to Neverlin that she practice on the ship's safes. But it had sounded like Neverlin had scotched the idea.

Apparently, Frost had decided differently. This could be highly interesting. "What kind of safes are we talking about?" Alison asked.

"Let's find out," Frost invited, gesturing toward the door. "Grab your stuff."

The safe was a big walk-in vault with a keypad lock, unimaginatively hidden behind a panel at the back of a closet in one of the staterooms. It was, fortunately, a brand Alison had often worked with.

Even more fortunately, the closet's cramped space meant she could work without Frost or anyone else staring over her shoulder. That meant she could make a big show of the operation, dragging out the procedure and making the whole thing look more complicated than it really was.

She worked her sensors first, spending a couple of hours taking all the readings she could think of. After that, she took a few duplicates, just for show. Then, sitting down comfortably with her back pressed against the vault door, she sifted through the data while Taneem did her K'da over-the-wall magic.

She sat there until Taneem signaled by lightly touching her back with her claws. Then, declaring it to be lunchtime, she asked Frost to have some food delivered to her and returned to her stateroom.

There, after making sure no one had planted any new bugs in her absence, she and Taneem compared notes.

It was just as well that they had. Alison's own inspection had given her all she needed to get the vault open. But Neverlin had added an extra bonus to the vault that her sensors hadn't picked up.

There was a self-destruct mechanism on the inside of the vault door, designed to incinerate everything inside the vault if not properly disabled. It probably wouldn't be very healthy for anyone standing just outside at that moment, either.

Fortunately, Taneem's scouting had also shown the key to disarming it. The bomb was wired through the keypad, which meant that some special code had to be entered before the actual unlocking code was used.

At that point, the rest was fairly easy. Alison had already assembled the MixStar deciphering computer packed into her belt and the soles of her shoes and was running her data through it. All she had to do to fix the self-destruct problem was make sure to wait until the computer had extracted two separate codes instead of stopping with just one.

She had the two codes and was halfway through her meal when Frost returned. "You ready?" he growled.

"These things take time, Colonel," Alison said. She took another look at his eyes—"Fortunately, I've had all the time I need," she added hastily.

"Good," Frost said coldly. "Let's go."

Alison braced herself. "I want something in return."

Frost stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, deliberately, he turned back around. "What did you say?" he asked quietly.

"I want Morgan's papers back," Alison said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I'll trade them for getting the vault open."

His forehead wrinkled. "Why? What are they worth to you?"

"I don't know yet," Alison said. "That's why I want them back."

For a moment Frost gazed hard at her. Then, to her relief, he gave a casual shrug. "Fine," he said. "Of course, my associate will probably want to see them when we get to Brum-a-dum."

"Then he can ask me nicely," Alison said, trying to imagine Arthur Neverlin asking nicely for anything. "Is it a deal?"

"Sure," Frost said. "You can have the papers as soon as you get the second safe open."

Alison froze halfway out of her chair. "The second safe?"

"Think of it as practice," he said blandly.

Alison grimaced. "Just exactly how many of these safes are there?"

"Four," Frost said. "But I don't know if I'll want you to open all of them. We'll see." He gestured. "You coming?"

Alison sighed. "Well, the volleyball game was probably off anyway," she said. "Sure, let's go."

The rest of the operation turned out to be something of an anticlimax. With all the careful prep work behind her, plus Taneem's scouting, all Alison had to do was punch in the two codes the computer had given her, twist the handle, and pull open the vault door.

"There you are," Alison said.

"Good work," Frost said, taking her arm and pulling her out of the closet and away from the vault. "You can take the rest of the day off."

"Thanks," Alison said dryly. As if she had any other pressing matters on her hands anyway. "Unless you'd like me to start on the other safe?"

"Tomorrow," Frost said, stepping into the vault. "Dumbarton, take her back to her room."

Neither Frost nor any of his men bothered her any more that day. Alison and Taneem spent the time working on Taneem's safe-cracking lessons, breaking only for dinner and a hot bath before bedtime.

And now that Taneem had actually seen the inside of a safe, she seemed to catch onto the theory even more quickly than she had before. In two days, when they reached Brum-a-dum, she should be ready.

At least, Alison hoped so.

The next day went pretty much the same as the previous one. After breakfast Frost collected Alison from her stateroom, and with Dumbarton and Mrishpaw in tow took her to another part of the ship. Her second project turned out to be a small safe inside a desk in a very luxurious office.

Like the vault, the safe was keypad-operated. Also like the vault, it again took her the entire morning to run her tests and scans. The safe's smaller size meant that Taneem didn't have as much room for her over-the-wall trick, but she was able to see enough to confirm that this time there were no booby traps. After lunch and the computer analysis, Alison opened the safe, and was dismissed again back to her room.

But unlike the previous day, this success came with an extra bonus. Frost himself delivered Alison her dinner tray . . . and with the food he brought her the shoulder bag full of papers she'd taken from Virgil Morgan's lockbox.

Privately, Alison had expected him to go back on his promise once he'd gotten his half of the deal. Perhaps he'd found enough of interest in the two safes that he felt Alison had earned herself a small reward.

Now she just had to make sure her work paid off.

The bag itself was the obvious target. But because it was so obvious, it would be the first thing Neverlin's people would check.

Fortunately for Alison, she had something a little more subtle.

It took her nearly half an hour, working slowly and carefully, to slide one of the needles from her sewing repair kit into concealment inside the edge of one of the larger pictures from Morgan's collection. The transmitter's range was fairly limited, but as long as she was within a few hundred yards she should be able to pick up the signal just fine.

Back on Rho Scorvi, Frost had bragged about having exotic technology that wasn't even on the market yet. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him that two could play that game.

Just after noon the next day, ship's time, they reached Brum-a-dum.

The trip in was like the trip out from Semaline, only in reverse. The Advocatus Diaboli's pilot found a nice, out-of-the-way orbit to park the ship in, someplace far outside the normal traffic patterns. Then Frost, Alison, and the rest of the inbound group climbed aboard a shuttle and headed in.

Once in atmosphere, they were routed to a regional-sized entrypoint that, if Alison was deciphering the Brummgan script correctly, was named Ponocce Spaceport.

They breezed through customs without even a token inspection. Outside, a half-dozen cars were waiting, each equipped with a Brummgan driver and armed guard wearing close-fitting helmets and armored tunics done up in red, black, and white.

Frost led Alison to the first car, the rest of his mercenaries sorted themselves out into the others, and they were off.

"Can't say I'm very impressed by this friend of yours," Alison commented as the driver wove them in and out of the traffic. "Doesn't he even have a landing pad big enough for that shuttle?"

"He's got room for thirty of them," Frost assured her. "But there was a little problem with the defense transponder system a while back."

Alison nodded to herself. Jack, undoubtedly, and his little sneak escape a couple of months ago. "Not a big problem, I hope."

"Not really," Frost said. "But the simplest solution was to just shut down the transponders. That way, if anything tries to go over the wall—well, let's just say nothing will make it more than halfway over the wall."

Ahead and off to the right, between the other buildings, Alison could see glimpses of something tall and white. "Let me guess," she said. "Laser antiaircraft defenses?"

"And flame-jet antipersonnel ones," Frost said. "Don't worry your little head. We've got things covered."

Alison hid a grimace. So when it was time for her and Taneem to make their break, they were apparently not going to be going over the wall.

The bits of white Alison had seen turned out to be the outer boundary of their destination estate. But instead of being just a simple vertical slab, the wall was shaped like a breaking ocean wave, with the bottom section angling inward while the top section angled back out. The very tip of the top part curved over and downward, in fact, curving nearly back up beneath itself, again exactly like a breaking wave. The whole thing was about thirty feet high and appeared to be made of some sort of hardened ceramic.

Which meant she and Taneem wouldn't be going through the wall, either. They were, she noted uncomfortably, starting to run low on exit options.

The estate's main entrance gate was as impressive as the wall itself, and just as intimidating. It was made of more white ceramic, with gold-colored metal straps that were probably mostly there to impress visitors. Eight armed Brummgas were waiting in front of it, all of them dressed in the same red/black/white uniforms.

The car stopped by the guards and each passenger showed an ID card. One of the guards looked ominously at Alison after her failure to do likewise, but he nevertheless waved them through.

The gate opened and they continued on into the sort of elaborately designed and beautifully sculpted landscape Alison had expected. Half turning, she saw that each of the other cars in their convoy was undergoing the same ID check.

She also saw that the breaking-wave shape of the wall was duplicated on its inner side. An overall X shape, then, with an overhang on both sides to discourage trespassers and escapees alike.

Or maybe she was being unfair. Maybe the Brummgas just liked the look of a frozen white ocean on their property. Offhand, she wouldn't bet on it.

The house was also impressive, in a stone-faced mausoleum sort of way. The driver stopped at the front door, and with another group of Brummgan guards in attendance Alison and Frost went inside.

Standing in the middle of a huge foyer, glowering at their approach, was Arthur Neverlin.

Alison swallowed hard as they walked toward him, Frost's hand pressing against the small of her back to make sure she didn't dawdle. "So here she is," Neverlin said as they came up to him. His eyes flicked briefly to the bag over her shoulder, then back to her face. "The little girl who's going to solve all our problems."

"Kayna, this is my associate, Mr. Arthur," Frost introduced her. "Mr. Arthur, Alison Kayna."

"Really," Neverlin said. "How do you know?"

Frost's forehead wrinkled slightly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this little girl apparently doesn't exist," Neverlin said coldly. "I've done a complete check of all official Internos systems. There's no record of her anywhere."

"And this surprises you?" Alison countered calmly. "I wouldn't be much use if anyone could just punch in my name and pull up my life story."

"Don't be a fool," Neverlin growled. "You think your name means anything? I also put in your age range, your full description, and those two scars on your left shoulder and lower rib cage."

Alison looked sharply at Frost in sudden understanding. "That's right," he confirmed. "You didn't think Dumbarton and Mrishpaw were just looking for cheap thrills when they made you take your clothes off, did you?"

"So who are you?" Neverlin asked.

"I'm Alison Kayna," Alison said, looking back at him. "As for the records, maybe you just didn't look hard enough."

"Or not in the right places," Frost said. "Let me guess. You were born and raised on an non-Internos world?"

Alison shrugged. "Could be."

"Perhaps Colonel Frost didn't make the situation clear, Kayna," Neverlin said, his voice quiet and very snakelike. "We aren't playing games here. You play games, and you don't live to see the sun go down. Do you understand?"

"Very well," Alison assured him, her mouth suddenly dry. "I also understand that you need my services." With a supreme effort, she forced herself to look Neverlin straight in the eye. "And if it comes to that, I doubt Mr. Arthur is your real name, either."

For a long minute no one spoke. Alison could feel Taneem sliding restlessly across her skin, and quietly put a hand against her ribs. Under the reassuring touch, the K'da settled back down. "You take chances, girl," Neverlin said at last, his voice dark. "Far too many of them."

"I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't like taking chances," Alison said. "So where's this safe you want me to open?"

Neverlin looked at Frost, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "You certainly picked yourself a wildcat here, Colonel."

"I think she can pull it off, sir," Frost said.

"We'll find out." Neverlin turned back to Alison. "After she has a proper field test."

Briefly, Alison wondered what would happen if she mentioned that Frost had already given her such a test. Two of them, in fact.

But she resisted the temptation. At the moment, Frost was at least a little on her side. The satisfaction of watching Neverlin's reaction to the news would hardly be worth making Frost want her dead.

"But that can come later," Neverlin continued. "First, we're going to the medical suite."

"What for?" Alison asked, tensing up again.

"What do you think?" Neverlin countered. "We're going to get your fingerprints, your retina pattern, your iris matrix, and your DNA profile." He raised his eyebrows. "As you said, maybe we just didn't look hard enough."

"Whatever makes you happy," Alison said, feeling her muscles relax a little. None of those tests would require her to undress far enough to reveal Taneem's presence. "In fact, since you're so keen on this, how about we make it a race?"

"What do you mean?" Neverlin asked.

"Your identity check against my safecracking skills," Alison said blandly. "We'll see which of us gets to the mother lode first."

Neverlin smiled thinly. "You're playing against my weakness, Kayna."

"You like long-shot bets?"

"Very much," Neverlin said. "And I always win them."

Except for that one long shot of trying to blackmail Jack Morgan into helping him murder Cornelius Braxton, Alison knew. But this was hardly the time to bring that up. "Then we're on?"

"Absolutely," Neverlin said. "You win, I pay you an extra twenty thousand for the job. I win, you open the safe for nothing."

Alison cocked her head as if thinking about it. "That seems fair," she said.

It wasn't, of course. With Neverlin's control over when Alison would be allowed to start working the safe—only after he decided she was ready—he could easily manipulate the timing of the contest to guarantee he would win. As usual, Neverlin's supposed long-shot bets included a stacking of the deck.

Still, a records search would help keep them busy. Maybe busy enough that neither would remember where he'd seen Alison's face before.

"Excellent," Neverlin said, beckoning to the group of Brummgas standing behind her. "As soon as the medical formalities are out of the way, Colonel Frost's men will get you settled in your room. Oh, and I'll take that." He pointed to the shoulder bag.

Silently, Frost reached over and pulled the strap off Alison's shoulder, warning her with his eyes to stay quiet. He crossed to Neverlin and handed him the bag. "And then tomorrow," Neverlin went on, fingering the bag thoughtfully, "you can start proving you're as good as you say you are."

He gave her a smile that didn't reach all the way to his eyes. "And," he added, "you'd better be right."