Dragon and Slave

CHAPTER 21

Jack thought his heart had been trotting along at a pretty good clip before. Now, as he stared into Gazen's face, he could feel it going into sprint mode.

"I don't understand," he said. "What do you mean, selling me to you?"

Gazen gave him a smile as thin as a con man's promise. "Oh, of course," he said.

"I forgot. You knew nothing about that, did you?"

"I still don't—I mean—"

"You see, we have a problem here," Gazen went on. "The problem is that he's still sitting out there at the spaceport. If he'd really sold you as he claimed, don't you think he'd have taken off for parts unknown the minute he had his money?"

Except that Gazen's payment hadn't been made in cash, Jack knew. It had been in the form of credit, good only at the Ponocce Spaceport. Uncle Virge couldn't go anywhere else, at least not if he wanted to spend that money. He opened his mouth to point that out—

And strangled back the words just in time. He wasn't supposed to know anything about the deal, after all, including how the payment had been made.

Mentioning the credit line would be a dead giveaway that he was still in contact with the partner who'd supposedly sold him into slavery.

And from the look in Gazen's eyes, he realized with a creepy sensation, that was exactly what the slavemaster had been fishing for. Proof that Jack wasn't what he claimed to be.

Jack's mouth was still open, waiting for words to come out. "He's probably trying to get me out," he improvised. He could hear a quaver in his voice, one that had nothing to do with his acting skills. "Maybe trying to work a deal with the authorities about that burglary charge."

"Very good," Gazen said softly. Either Jack's act hadn't fooled him, or else he wasn't ready to abandon the bluff just yet. "Stubborn loyalty, naive unthinking trust. Honor among thieves. Is that it?"

"I don't know about honor," Jack said. "But he is my partner. We've been together a long time."

"Of course," Gazen said. "Tell me something. Just for my own curiosity, you understand. Are you an actual member of the Daughters of Harriet Tubman? Or are you simply a stupid young fool they talked into doing this job for them?"

Jack blinked. "A member of what?"

"Don't insult my intelligence, McCoy," Gazen said, his voice abruptly as cold as Neptune's north pole. "If that's even your real name. I was watching just now as we discussed that useless Noy kid. You reacted far too strongly for a simple professional thief. I know the type, and none of them cares about anything but the continued safety of his or her own skin."

"I don't care about Noy," Jack protested. Even to his own ears the words sounded lame. "I don't care about any of them."

"Of course not," Gazen said, clearly not believing a word of it. "Did the people who hired you happen to mention that they've been a splinter up my fingernail for longer than you've been alive? Or that I hate everything and anyone associated with them? Hmm? Did they?"

And then, suddenly, the name clicked. The Daughters of Harriet Tubman: the building Draycos had spotted across from the gatekeeper's house. "I don't know what you mean," he insisted. "I never even heard of them before."

"Still, I have to admit they've come up with something new this time," Gazen went on. "Usually they try official protests or attempts to interfere with Chookoock family business. Sending in a thief to steal our records is beyond even their usual level of insolence."

He tilted his head toward his computer. "I trust you had no trouble with my files?"

"I didn't touch your computer," Jack said. "I told you, I only came in—"

"Of course, as they say, it doesn't always take a genius to create a clever plan," Gazen cut him off. "Sometimes an idiot can fall over one by accident."

He smiled faintly. "But as they also say, you can't make lox without smoking a

few fish. In this case, you're that fish."

Again, he flicked out the slapstick. Jack flinched away, the movement sending another splash of pain through him. But the tip of the weapon passed harmlessly past his left shoulder. Gazen was just playing with him. "What that means is that you're going to disappear," the slavemaster continued, his voice as calm as if he were ordering dinner. "You will be prepared for service; and then you will be quietly smuggled off-planet and delivered to your new owners."

He waved the slapstick idly. "Leaving your friends at Tubman to sit around their meeting rooms, sipping their tea and eating their scones. Wondering occasionally whatever happened to you."

A heavy silence filled the room. Jack tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat were as dry as a summer's day in the Gobi. Certainly he'd been in tighter situations than this one, facing ruthless people like Snake Voice and the enemy mercenary he'd dubbed Lieutenant Cue Ball.

But all the others had at least seen him as a person, someone to be manipulated or squeezed or maybe bargained with. Gazen saw him as nothing more than an old hat he might sell for a little pocket change.

And somehow that fact was more chilling than any of the man's veiled threats.

Death he could face, and maybe talk or wiggle or con his way out of. A

lifetime of slavery stretching out in front of him was a more horrible thought.

And for perhaps the first time, he truly understood why it was that Draycos hated slavery so much.

Draycos.

And suddenly the spiderweb of fear and pain Gazen had spun with his words and slapstick collapsed into the proper perspective. Jack wasn't alone here, after all. Not by a long shot.

And humming away almost within arm's reach was Gazen's computer. Already up and running, with all the passwords already entered.

Exactly the situation he'd been looking for. A kaleidoscope of possibilities flashed across his mind like the lights of a broken status board. He could do it; right here, right now. A simple order to attack, and he would get to see the expression of horror on Gazen's face as he saw a poet-warrior of the K'da come boiling out of Jack's shirt collar.

Not that the expression—or the face—were likely to last very long. Slapstick or no slapstick, the dragon would make hamburger out of him in nothing flat.

Jack could dig out the mercenary data, they could cut their way through however many Brummgan guards were loitering around outside, and head for the main gate. It was almost too easy.

And then he took another look at Gazen's face. He was watching Jack closely, like some interesting specimen squirming under a microscope.

No, not like a specimen under a microscope. Like an approaching spaceship that seemed way too harmless to be real. A ship that somehow, somewhere, had hidden weapons that had to be located and identified.

The setup wasn't almost too easy. It was too easy.

This was a test. The whole thing; from the humming computer, to the deliberate mention of Noy's sickness, to even being in here alone with Gazen.

The slavemaster was trying to goad him into some kind of reaction. Feeding him rope and waiting for him to take it, obligingly tie a noose, and hang himself.

Which meant Gazen's apparent helplessness was an illusion. The first move Jack made in that direction, and it would be as if somebody had dumped a bucket of Brummgas over his head.

He took a careful breath, quieting his emotions. No, Gazen was still motivated by money, and Jack was worth a lot of it. According to Uncle Virge's eavesdropped timetable, there were still a few days before they would be ready to ship him off the planet. He would continue to play innocent—or at least as innocent as he could under the circumstances—and wait for the right opportunity.

An opportunity, and a timing, of his choosing. Not Gazen's.

"You're taking this remarkably well, I must say," Gazen murmured into Jack's thoughts. "Perhaps you're expecting to be rescued? If so, I'd advise you to lay that hope to rest. It won't happen. Guaranteed."

He slid his slapstick back into the holster at his waist. "Or perhaps it's just that you're too stupid to comprehend the fate that awaits you," he added in a nastier tone. "Perhaps a small taste will help spur your imagination. Guards!"

The door slammed open, and three Brummgas bounded into the room. Their headlong rush seemed to falter, the rear one almost stumbling over the other two, as they caught sight of Jack still sitting quietly in his chair. "Yes, Panjan Gazen?" one of them said, looking uncertainly between Gazen and Jack.

"He needs more of a lesson than the regular hotboxes can provide," Gazen said.

His dark eyes focused one final time on Jack's face. Then, as if in complete dismissal of Jack as both puzzle and person, he turned back to his computer.

"Take him away," he said over his shoulder, "and put him in the frying pan."