Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (21 page)

Of course, commercial fire procedures
could
have changed
in the past couple of years. If they had, he would find that out very
soon.

He gave the people in the monitor room another minute to clear out
completely. Then, pulling out a steak knife he'd borrowed from the
dining room, he set the point against the mark Draycos had made on the
wall. Hoping fervently that the dragon had made it
exactly
over
the junction box, he shoved the blade into the wall with all his
strength.

There was no flash of fire or crackle of electrical sparks.
Nothing at all, in fact, to tell him whether or not the cameras had
been knocked out of action.

If they hadn't been shut down, he would find that out very soon,
too.

Twenty seconds' work with his multitool and he had the door to the
purser's office open. Slipping inside, he closed the door behind him
and turned on the lights.

No one was waiting for him inside. Jumping onto and over the
counter, he went straight to the vault. With the end of his multitool,
he pounded on the door with the thud-thud, thud-thud signal they'd
agreed on.

For a dozen seconds nothing happened. A dozen horrible thoughts
ran through Jack's mind in that time. Had Draycos not heard him? Had he
panicked in the enclosed space? Was he lying whimpering in a corner,
unable to move? Had the release lever malfunctioned, trapping him
inside? Had he already suffocated?

There was a click from the lock, and to his relief the door
started to slowly swing outward.

He grabbed the handle and pulled. The thing was heavier than he'd
realized. But they got it open, and Draycos bounded out. "The exit
mechanism is indeed as you said," he commented. The dragon was as calm
as if he'd just been for a walk in the park, instead of being locked in
a large metal coffin for over an hour. "A useful yet puzzling design."

"It's a safety feature, in case someone gets accidentally locked
inside," Jack said, brushing past him into the vault. Setting himself
in front of Box 125, he set hurriedly to work. "Like Uncle Virgil once
told me, all the best tricks are already done before the magician snaps
his fingers."

"You seem hurried," Draycos said. "Is there trouble?"

"There's always trouble," Jack told him. "In this case, even if I
knocked out the cameras, there's probably a signal that goes off when
the vault door is opened."

"Why did you not disarm it?"

"I couldn't," Jack told him. "It would be a separate
self-contained system. But if I'm fast enough—ah."

The box popped open. "Get ready to help me close the vault door,"
Jack told Draycos, pulling out the cylinder and replacing it with the
one from his inner coat pocket. Putting the real cylinder into his
pocket, he closed the box and locked it. "Okay, let's go," he said,
stepping out of the vault.

Together, they shoved the door closed. Half a minute later they
were outside the purser's office, Draycos riding Jack's back, heading
down the corridor toward the lounge where they'd done their planning
that afternoon. "Should you not have locked the outer door?" Draycos
asked from his headrest on Jack's right shoulder.

"No point," Jack told him as he stripped off his plastic gloves
and tucked them away in a side pocket. Was that the sound of running
footsteps he could hear coming down the corridor behind him? No, it was
just his imagination. "They already know someone's been in there. Come
on, this sort of work always makes me thirsty."

He was sitting in the bar ordering a fizzy-soda when the first
group of security men went pounding past.

He gave the situation back at the purser's office forty minutes
and two fizzy-sodas to come to a nice boil. Then, leaving the bar, he
strolled back that direction.

Bad news, Uncle Virgil had often told him, was the only thing in
the universe that traveled faster than the speed of light. Jack had
never quite believed it; but as he approached the office he had to
admit that maybe Uncle Virgil had had a point.

There were probably twenty people crowded into the corridor
outside the door. Many were dressed in fancy and expensive outfits,
probably fresh from the
Star of Wonders
formal late-night
activities. Others were dressed more haphazardly, as if they'd been
asleep and had just thrown on whatever was handy. Still others were
wearing the neat but simple clothing of servants or bodyguards.

All of them looked anxious. Most of them looked angry.

Facing them down, his back pressed against the door, was a
security man wearing a sergeant's shoulder patches. "I appreciate your
concerns, ladies and gentlemen," the sergeant was saying as Jack joined
the back of the crowd. "Our investigation of the room is proceeding as
quickly as possible. When it's finished, you'll all be allowed to
examine your individual deposit boxes."

He held up his hand as several voices tried to speak at once.
"However, I can assure you right now that you almost certainly have
nothing to worry about. At the moment, it appears that no one actually
got into the vault."

"Then what set off the security alarm?" someone demanded. "I heard
it right through the ballroom wall."

"And the captain told
me
that the vault
had
been
opened," someone else added.

"That was the first report, yes," the sergeant conceded. "However,
it appears now that it was a false alarm. The lock does not seem to
have been tampered with, and no one entered any codes into it. We're
doing an electronic confirmation of that now."

"Yes, but—"

Behind the sergeant the door opened and another security man
appeared. The two of them talked together for a minute in low voices as
a buzz of conversation rippled through the crowd.

The sergeant turned back. "I've just been informed that the lock
pad has definitely not been tampered with," he said. "We can therefore
assume that the door indicator was indeed a false alarm."

Jack smiled to himself. Security knew perfectly well that there
was more to it than that, of course. The smoke bomb in the monitor room
vent and the knife he'd put through the camera junction box proved that
much, not to mention the unlocked office door. Someone in authority
must have decided to downplay the whole thing so as not to worry the
passengers any more than necessary.

To be fair, of course, the sergeant was certainly right on one
point. The lock pad
hadn't
been tampered with.

"Lieutenant Snyder has also informed me that we'll be allowing you
in now to check your boxes," he went on. "If you'll all wait out here,
we'll take you in one at a time."

"How about we wait inside?" someone demanded.

"That's right," another voice put in. "I want to know if
anybody
lost anything."

A chorus of agreement ran around the crowd. "Very well," the
sergeant said, giving in. "Follow me, please. And make sure you have
your keys ready."

One by one, they were brought behind the counter. Each person gave
his or her box number, showed some identification, and was allowed into
the vault to confirm everything was in order. Then, satisfied if not
exactly happy, they wandered off back to their staterooms or their
interrupted evening's entertainment.

At least, most of them did.

The man who'd checked out Box 125 was one of those dressed like
servants or bodyguards. From his size and the way he walked, Jack had
quickly narrowed that down to bodyguard.

Following at a careful distance, he tracked the other to what
Uncle Virgil would have called "crust central," the most expensive
section of the starliner's living sections. The door he went into was
at the far end of one of the more luxurious corridors.

"The top of the top," Jack commented as they headed back toward
the more modest area where his own stateroom was located.

"Pardon?" Draycos asked.

"A room at the end of a corridor like that is probably a suite,"
Jack explained. "Something the size of the
Essenay
, I'd guess.
Probably costs more per week than the
Star of Wonders
captain
makes in a year. High-level corporate territory, all right."

"A likely target for a human such as Cornelius Braxton, then?"

"Very much so," Jack agreed. "Guys like Braxton prefer to go for
big bites instead of little nibbles." He jerked his thumb back in the
direction of the suite. "Whoever's in there is definitely in the
big-bite category."

Draycos was silent a moment. "Then let us hope that Braxton has
bitten off more than he can swallow."

Jack glanced down at the dragon in surprise. "Hey, that's a human
saying," he commented. "Where did you pick it up?"

"It is also K'da wisdom," Draycos told him. "Perhaps the thought
is universal."

"Could be," Jack said. "Yes, let's hope this guy sticks in his
throat."

"When will we speak to him?"

"There's no point trying to barge in tonight," Jack said. "We'll
let him sleep in and try to see him in the morning."

"What will you do with the cylinder?"

"I thought you were the one who wanted to give it back," Jack
reminded him.

"But we do not want to bring it with us to his room," Draycos
pointed out. "That would leave no room for conversation."

"Yeah, you're right," Jack agreed, chewing his lip. "No room for
bargaining, either. He'd just whistle for the captain and have me
thrown in the brig."

"We also do not want the humans from the
Advocatus Diaboli
to find it," Draycos added.

"Right," Jack said. "And we know they're aboard somewhere."

"We must therefore find a hiding place," Draycos concluded.

Ahead was a bank of elevators. "No problem," Jack assured him.
"Watch the master and learn."

He touched the call button and the rightmost elevator door slid
open. Jack stepped inside and pushed for the lowest deck. "Lowest deck
is vehicle storage," he told Draycos as the doors slid closed. "A
thousand places to hide something this size. Especially if anyone
watching me notices that I've gone down there."

"You will hide it in a vehicle, then?"

"Like I said, watch the master," Jack said, pulling the cylinder
from his inside coat pocket. "You know, we really ought to mark this
thing somehow, in case it ever gets mixed up with the fake one. Let's
see . . ."

With a bound, Draycos leaped out from his collar and landed beside
him. "Permit me," he said, holding up one of his front paws. "Hold it
firmly with the end facing me, please."

Frowning, Jack did so. The dragon extended a claw and scraped it
briefly against the bottom of the cylinder. "There," he said.

Jack turned the cylinder around to look. Sure enough, there was a
subtle but quite visible symbol scratched into the metal. "It is
kesh,
"
Draycos identified it. "The first letter in the K'da word for
genuine
."

Jack whistled softly. "So those claws of yours cut right through
metal, huh?"

"Certain metals, yes," Draycos said, "though the harder varieties
require more effort than a soft metal like this one." He cocked his
head. "Why? Does that disturb you?"

Jack shrugged uncomfortably. "It doesn't exactly fill me with warm
fuzzies, if that's what you mean," he admitted, swinging open the
elevator's trouble panel. Behind the panel was a recessed box
containing an emergency phone. "Here, hold this," he added, handing the
dragon the cylinder and pulling out his multitool. He set to work on
the side panel of the phone box, unfastening two of the screws that
held it in place.

"Does that mean it
does
disturb you?" Draycos asked again,
gripping the cylinder between his front paws.

"A little, I guess," Jack said. He had the side panel loose enough
to swing inward, exposing the wires and soft foam sound insulation
packed in between the side of the phone box and the elevator wall. "I
mean, let's face it. You K'da are superior to humans in about every way
I can think of."

He took the cylinder back and pressed it into the insulation. It
fit, barely. "You're faster, you're stronger, and you're probably
smarter," he went on, pushing the panel back into place and starting to
fasten the screws again. "You can turn two-dimensional and look through
walls. And now I find out you can scratch metal, too. What
can't
you do?"

"We cannot live alone," Draycos said softly. "Not for longer than
six hours."

Jack paused, frowning over his shoulder. The dragon was standing
motionless, with no emotion that Jack could read on his long face. But
at the same time, he could somehow sense a deep sadness there. "Yeah,"
he said. "There is that."

The beeping of the elevator as it passed the next floor reminded
him that time was short. Turning back, he finished fastening the plate
and swung the trouble panel door shut again. He was on his feet,
putting the multitool away, when the elevator settled onto the deck
he'd punched for.

A flicker of weight on his neck, and Draycos was again safely
hidden away. The elevator doors started to open; and Jack settled into
the earnest young boy act that had worked so well in the purser's
office. There would be a guard around here somewhere . . ..

"Wow!" he said, stepping out of the elevator and looking around.
Ahead, stretching as far as he could see, were rows and rows of cars
and small aircraft.

There was a guard, all right: a man in white sitting in a booth
just beside the elevators. "May I help you?" he asked.

"Oh, no, I just came down to see the cars," Jack said, trying to
look friendly, startled, and harmless all at the same time. "My dad
told me there were Rolls Royce-Dymeis here and everything."

"There sure are," the guard said. "But I'm afraid you can't just
wander around. Do you have a vehicle of your own down here?"