Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (11 page)

They reached the far side of the warehouse without any further
trouble. "Okay," Jack said, waving a hand around. "This was the pick-up
area. What now?"

His answer was a sliding movement along his right arm. Before he
could say anything, there was the familiar sudden weight, and Draycos
burst from the sleeve of his leather jacket.

Sending an equally sudden flash of pain through Jack's wrist as he
left. "
Ow
!" Jack yelped.

The dragon hit the graytop and twisted back around. "What is
wrong?" he demanded.

"You almost broke my arm, that's what's wrong," Jack snapped,
clutching his wrist where Draycos's emerging bulk had compressed it
against his jacket. "Geez."

"I do not understand," Draycos said, stepping close.

"This is leather," Jack said, hooking a finger in the jacket's
cuff for the dragon's inspection. "See? Leather. Leather doesn't
stretch. This is a snap holding the sleeve cuff together. See? Snaps
don't stretch, either."

"I see," Draycos said. "I apologize."

"Yeah, it's okay," Jack muttered. The pain was already starting to
fade. "Only the next time you want to go out that way, let me know
first, okay? Give me a chance to unsnap it."

"No need," Draycos said, tossing his head in a way that reminded
Jack of a horse. "I will not do that again."

"Good enough," Jack said. Beneath the jacket sleeve his shirt felt
odd. Popping the snap, he gave it a quick look. Draycos's careless exit
hadn't been enough to pop the jacket snap, but it had had no trouble
popping the button off the shirt cuff.

"That was my fault, too?" Draycos asked, stretching his long neck
to peer at the sleeve.

"Don't worry about it," Jack told him. "I've been on my own long
enough to know how to sew on buttons." He shook his head. "I bet I'm
the only person in the Orion Arm who needs dog flaps in my wardrobe."

"Pardon?"

"Skip it," Jack said, resnapping the jacket sleeve. "I repeat:
what now?"

"We will investigate," Draycos said. He looked around, then padded
off.

Jack watched him go, rubbing his wrist as he groused silently to
himself. Coming here had been a complete waste of time. He knew it,
Uncle Virge knew it, and if Draycos had any brains he'd have known it,
too.

So how and why had he let the dragon talk him into this in the
first place?

On the other hand, he'd already seen Draycos pull some pretty cool
tricks out of his hat. Maybe there really was a chance.

He hoped so. He really did. After all the scams and thefts he'd
helped Uncle Virgil pull off, it would be pretty unfair if he had to
stay on the run for something he didn't even do.

Speaking of Uncle Virgil . . .

With a sigh, he reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out
the old police EvGa scanner Uncle Virgil had lifted from somewhere a
few years ago. Getting his comm clip out of another pocket, he attached
it to his shirt collar and turned it on. "Uncle Virge?"

"About time," Uncle Virge said. "What took you so long?"

"We ran into a little trouble," Jack told him, activating the EvGa
and keying it to run its data transmissions through the comm clip. "You
getting the signal?"

"It's fine," Uncle Virge said. "What sort of trouble? Was it the
dragon's fault?"

"Hardly," Jack said. "We ran into a pack of heenas. Draycos was
the one who got us out of it."

"I see."

Jack frowned. There was an odd tone in Uncle Virge's voice.
"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You should have called," Uncle Virge said. "You should have let
me know."

"There wasn't a whole lot of time," Jack pointed out dryly.
"Besides, what could you have done?"

"That's not the point," Uncle Virge said. "I don't like you being
out of touch with me for so long."

"Hey,
you
were the one who didn't want me transmitting
until we had the scanner hooked up," Jack reminded him. "Traceable
radio signals, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Uncle Virge said huffily. "I just didn't
think you'd take so long to get there."

Jack frowned. "What's gotten into you, anyway?" he demanded. "Come
on, let's hear it."

There was a short pause. "What's gotten into me is your new
friend," Uncle Virge said, lowering his voice. "I don't trust him. We
know practically nothing about him, you know. Him
or
his people
or
his situation. He could be spinning us a complete rainbow
and we'd never know it."

"You mean like the rainbows you're always spinning on me?" Jack
couldn't resist pointing out.

"Exactly my point," Uncle Virge agreed. "As the saying goes, it
takes one to know one. And you know as well as I do that a con man's
first job is to convince the pigeon he's far too good a person to even
think
of doing anything dishonest."

"Uh-huh," Jack said, nodding. He got it now. "It's not so much
that you don't trust him. You just don't
like
him."

"You see any reason why I should?" Uncle Virge countered stiffly.
"All right, no, I don't like him. I don't like the way he's giving
orders and taking charge of everything. I especially don't like the way
he keeps trying to fill your head with this warrior-ethic claptrap of
his."

"He is not filling my head," Jack protested. "Besides, what's
claptrappy about it?"

"You don't think it's claptrappy to risk your life and safety just
to keep an enemy from burning his little hands?" Uncle Virge asked
pointedly. "Back on Iota Klestis, remember?"

"Well . . . okay, maybe that was a little strange," Jack had to
admit. "But—"

"Did it gain you anything?" Uncle Virge persisted. "That's the
scale you have to measure everything against, you know. Do you think
that thug will be grateful enough to do you a good turn if you ever
meet up with him again?"

"Well, no, probably not," Jack had to admit that one, too. "But it
didn't hurt us any, either."

Uncle Virge sighed. "That's not the point, Jack lad," he said. "It
could have hurt you a lot. It could have given his friends time to grab
you, or to find the ship. But that's not the point, either."

"Then what
is
the point?"

"That this noble K'da warrior bit sounds fine when you read it in
a storybook," Uncle Virge said bluntly. "But in real life, it just
doesn't work."

Jack looked over at Draycos, prowling along a row of large storage
lockers that lined the warehouse wall near the entrance to the tube.
"It seems to work okay for Draycos," he said.

"I'm sure it used to," Uncle Virge countered. "It's easy to be
grand and noble when you're a soldier, surrounded by lots of other
soldiers. It's quite a bit different when you're alone. Did you ever
hear of the Dragonbacks?"

Jack frowned. "No."

"They were a small group of idealistic, do-gooder soldiers that
came out of Trantson about a hundred fifty years ago," Uncle Virge
said. "Each of them had a small dragon tattoo on his back just between
his shoulder blades. Said it gave them strength and courage."

"Sounds Chinese," Jack offered. "Dragons were a big deal in their
ancient legends."

"Actually, they did claim they were inspired by some obscure
Terran Chinese or Japanese story," Uncle Virge said. "Of course, they
also said they were descendants of the Knights Templar of Terran
Europe, so who knows what they were thinking. If they were thinking at
all."

"Sounds like you don't like them."

"What's not to like?" Uncle Virge countered. "The whole group died
out maybe ten years after they got started."

Jack puckered his lips. "Because they tried to be helpful?"

"Because they got involved with other people's problems instead of
taking care of their own," Uncle Virge said. "That's the lesson here,
Jack lad. You have to look out for yourself, because no one will do it
for you."

"Jack!" Draycos called.

Jack looked up. The dragon was standing beside one of the lockers
about thirty feet away, his head turned in Jack's direction.
"Something?" Jack asked.

"Perhaps," Draycos said, his tail twitching. "Come."

Jack was at his side a few seconds later. "What is it?"

"This storage unit," Draycos said, poking his snout at the door.
"It is alone of all the others in having this attached to it."

Jack frowned. Stuck across the door beside the lock mechanism was
a small sticker with red edges.

A sticker with some very interesting words:

Beneath the words was one of the most recognizable symbols in the
Orion Arm: the Braxton Universis corporate logo.

"I do not read your word-symbols," Draycos went on. "What does it
say?"

"It says the stuff inside is the property of Braxton Universis,"
Jack told him. "And that casual snoops like us are to keep our hands
off."

Draycos's green eyes glittered. "Yet you said all their material
should already be gone."

"Yes, I did, didn't I?" Jack agreed, studying the lock.

"How's it look, lad?" Uncle Virge asked from the comm clip.

"Not too bad," Jack said. The lock was sturdy enough, but it
didn't look too complicated. Certainly not for someone who'd studied
under Uncle Virgil. "Looks pretty standard for this type of locker. I
wish I'd brought some real tools, though."

"What will you do?" Draycos asked.

"We call it breaking and entering," Uncle Virge said, an edge of
sarcasm to his voice. "Not something a noble warrior of the K'da would
do, I'm sure, but it's better than staring at a locked door and
wondering what's inside."

"You said you had a sensor device," Draycos pointed out, gesturing
to the EvGa in Jack's hand.

"Sure, but it won't see through locked doors," Jack told him.
"It's a police EvGa, an evidence-gathering sensor. It can pull up
fingerprints and dust and fiber samples, but not much more than that."

"Then let us first use it," Draycos said. "Afterwards, perhaps
there will be another way to look inside."

"Such as?" Uncle Virge asked.

"No, he's right," Jack spoke up quickly. There had been a
challenge in Uncle Virge's voice, and he didn't want to sit here
listening to the two of them argue. "I'll start with the locker. Ready?"

"Ready," Uncle Virge muttered.

It took five minutes for Jack to run the EvGa over the front of
the locker. There were dozens of fingerprints, plus various alien
smudges and finger marks. Uncle Virge dutifully logged each one as the
sensor picked it up and analyzed it. "A waste of time," he grumbled
about every other minute. "A whole army of people could have come
through here in the past two weeks."

"Yet this locker warns others to stay away," Draycos pointed out.

"It doesn't say not to touch," Uncle Virge countered. "You almost
done, Jack?"

"Finished," Jack said, lifting the EvGa away from the door.
"What's the grand total?"

"We've got eighteen separate sets of human prints," Uncle Virge
said reluctantly. "There are also finger marks from two different
Jantris, three Parprins—"

He broke off. "Three Parprins and . . .?" Jack prompted.

"Two different Brummgas," Uncle Virge finished, sounding intrigued.

Jack looked at Draycos. The dragon was looking back at him.
"Brummgas," he echoed.

"That's right," Uncle Virge confirmed. "Well, well. Small
universe, isn't it?"

"Are Brummgas not common among your worlds?" Draycos asked.

"They're common enough," Jack told him, determined not to jump to
any conclusions here. "They specialize in low-voltage muscle."

"Pardon?"

"Strong backs, weak minds," Jack explained. "Mercenaries, guards,
heavy lifting—that sort of thing. There's no reason to make a
connection with the Brummga we ran into on the
Havenseeker
."

"I understand," Draycos said. But he nevertheless sounded
thoughtful.

"Can we get on with this?" Uncle Virge suggested.

"Right," Jack said, looking around. Even after hours, someone was
bound to wander this direction sooner or later. "We'll do the floor
around the locker now."

"You're joking," Uncle Virge protested. "What in the name of
buttered toast do you expect to find there? That whole army will have
walked
by, too, you know."

"Scanning now," Jack said, leaning over and holding the scanner a
few inches off the floor. "Start recording."

This time, though, Uncle Virge was right. They found nothing
interesting, or at least nothing that didn't belong in a spaceport. A
whole army
had
apparently walked past the locker.

"At least we've got the fingerprints," Jack said, putting the EvGa
away and pulling out his multitool. "Now for the door, I guess. You
said there was another way to get in, Draycos?"

"To look in," Draycos corrected. Crouching down, he bounded at
Jack's chest and melted onto his skin. "Will you stand with your back
pressed against the door?" he added from Jack's shoulder.

Jack frowned sideways down at him. "Tell me first what you've got
in mind," he said warily. "You've already torn one of my shirts and
nearly broken my wrist."

"There will be no damage," Draycos assured him. "Do you recall my
picture of how the K'da can seem to become two-dimensional?"

"That data reader thing you showed me on the
Havenseeker?
"
Jack asked. "Sure. Not that I really understand it."

"It is not an easy concept," Draycos conceded. "But think back to
that picture now. This time, imagine that the data reader can bend."

"Hold it," Jack said. "You lost me."

"Use your hand," Draycos suggested. "Hold it flat against your
arm."

"Okay," Jack said, holding up his right arm and laying his left
hand flat along the forearm. "That's two-dimensional." He angled the
hand like a drawbridge going up, leaving the heel of his hand against
the arm. "And now it's one-dimensional. Right?"