Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (11 page)

But on the other hand, maybe this was exactly the right time for a
little creativity. "Step forward," he ordered the Golvin.

Foeinatw hesitated, then shuffled a few steps closer. Jack leaned
forward, peering closely at him. "Did these assailants strike you or
merely lock your arms?" he asked.

"They struck me." Gingerly, Foeinatw touched his neck. "Here."

"Yes, I see." Jack leaned back again in his chair. "I will make
inquiries among the Many," he said. "You are released for the moment
without punishment."

Thonsifi turned to Jack, her skin wrinkling in surprise. "Jupa?"

"Clearly, he's been hit," Jack said, pointing out the bruise. "If
he was assaulted and others did the damage to the flying transport, he
cannot be held accountable."

"No, of course not," Thonsifi murmured. "Foeinatw, you may go."

"I thank the Jupa," Foeinatw said, his face as wrinkled with
surprise as Thonsifi's. But along with the surprise, Jack could see a
hint of puzzlement as well.

Small wonder. The Golvin had probably concluded that his attacker
was Jack himself, or someone in league with him, and that his trial
would thus be a complete sham.

Except that the Jupa had not only accepted his explanation, but
had even let him off.

He would, Jack suspected, be doing a lot of rethinking tonight.

"That is the last case for the day," Thonsifi said, closing down
her notebook as Foeinatw headed for the door. "It has been an honor to
serve with you, Jupa Jack. I look forward to doing so again tomorrow."

"As do I," Jack said, standing up and stretching his shoulders.
"How badly was the flying transport damaged, by the way?"

"Not badly," Thonsifi assured him. "Merely some torn cloth. It has
been taken to the Fabric-Makers' shop for repair."

"Ah," Jack said. And as long as it was there, presumably, it
wouldn't be available for Foeinatw to borrow again, which was good.

Unfortunately, it also wouldn't be available for Jack and Draycos
to borrow should the need arise. That wasn't so good. "I trust it will
be repaired soon," he added.

"Sooner than we will find Foeinatw's assailants, I expect,"
Thonsifi said, a hint of her earlier disapproval coloring her voice.

"I take it you don't think much of him?" Jack suggested.

Thonsifi's ears stretched out briefly. A shrug? "He is not one of
the uprights," she said. "Far from it. I will say no more."

"I suppose every place has a few scoundrels," Jack said, a part of
him noting the irony. A few months earlier, he would have qualified as
one of the scoundrels himself. "If they didn't, we wouldn't need
Judge-Paladins."

Thonsifi bowed her head to him. "And we are most grateful for your
service and wisdom."

"You're welcome," Jack said, suppressing his automatic impulse to
downplay his so-called wisdom. "Speaking of service, how many cases did
we serve today?"

"Forty-one," Thonsifi said. "An excellent start."

"How many cases are left?"

She consulted her notebook. "Seven hundred ninety-two."

Jack suppressed a groan. Great. "I guess we won't be running out
of work anytime soon, then," he said as cheerfully as he could manage.
"Good night, Thonsifi. Good night, One Among Many," he added, looking
at the One.

"Good evening to you, Jupa Jack," the One said gravely. "Your
evening food is waiting in your apartment."

"Thank you," Jack said. He was, he suddenly realized, ravenously
hungry. And he would bet that Draycos was even more so.

"Sleep well and peacefully," the One added. "I will see you
tomorrow."

Taneem had changed a great deal in the past couple of weeks, in
many ways, as if having awakened from a long dream. Her former life on
Rho Scorvi was like a vague and distant memory. There had been little
to do back there beneath the edges of the great forest except hunt for
berries and grubs and small animals, or to perform the little dances
the Erassvas had taught them, or to sleep against her host's large,
soft body.

Sometimes there had been a little more excitement. A small
predator might arrive and need to be driven off, or a low-flying bird
could be snatched from midair and eaten. But for the most part, life
there had been slow and lazy, comfortable and rather boring.

Still, she was quite sure it hadn't been nearly as boring as
this
.

Alison wouldn't let her get very far away, for one thing. That was
reasonable, Taneem supposed, since they didn't know when any of the bad
people aboard might decide to come into their room. But it meant she
had to either rest on Alison's skin or else follow the girl around like
a baby linzling.

Alison didn't talk to her very much either. Partly, again, that
was because she didn't want anyone suddenly opening the door to hear
her talking to a room that was supposed to be empty. Taneem could
understand that, too. But mostly it was because Alison was spending
most of her time with her pack of tools and with the pieces of paper
from the bag she'd brought from the safe on Semaline.

Sometimes Taneem tried looking over Alison's shoulder as she
studied the papers. But most of the written ones were in a type of
writing Draycos hadn't yet taught her, while the pictures were of
places and people of which she had no knowledge.

It didn't seem as if Alison understood much of it, either. All she
ever did was scowl at the notes and pictures or lay them out on
different parts of the room's low table. Sometimes she gathered them
all together again and sorted them out into a different order.

It was on the fifth night of their journey when the routine
suddenly changed.

Alison had been asleep for nearly two hours, and Taneem was dozing
lightly against her skin, when across the room the door quietly slid
open.

Instantly Taneem went still, as Draycos and Jack and Alison had
all warned her to do whenever others were around. The blankets were
pulled up around Alison's chin, blocking any chance for Taneem to see
what was happening.

But she could hear just fine . . . and as Alison's slow breathing
continued unchanged she heard two of the bad people go across the room
to the table. There was a soft shuffling of papers, and then they went
back to the door again. It closed behind them, and they were gone.

Taneem counted slowly to twenty the way Draycos had taught her.
Then, she eased herself off Alison's skin and slid out from beneath the
blankets onto the floor at the side of the bed.

The bad people were gone. So were all the papers Alison had been
studying.

Taneem's first impulse was to wake the girl and tell her the bad
news. But she knew that wouldn't do any good. Early on in the trip
Alison had discovered that the room's door was locked from the outside,
and now that the bad people were gone there was no way for her to chase
after them.

She should have awakened Alison as soon as they had come in, she
realized glumly. Now, the papers were gone, with no way to get them
back.

At least, no way for Alison to do it.

Taneem tilted her long neck to look up. Along the wall just below
the ceiling was a rectangular grille covering an opening through which
cool, fresh air flowed into the room. Alison had said the opening was
part of a whole series of passages called ducts. Once, a couple of days
ago, Taneem had jumped up and hooked her front claws in the grille,
hanging there looking in until Alison had noticed and told her to get
off.

The duct had been dark, but Taneem was positive she could fit in
there just fine. If she could find where the men had taken the papers,
maybe she could get them back.

And best of all, inside all those ducts no one would see her. She
could do this without breaking any of Alison's rules.

The first task was to remove the grille. Fortunately, she had
noticed while she was hanging there that time that the plate was held
by four connecting devices called bolts, one in each corner.

An easy leap upward, and she had deftly sheared off the heads of
two of the bolts with her front claws. On the second leap, she took off
the heads of the other two, catching the grille between her jaws as it
fell.

She dropped back to the deck, making sure the grille didn't bump
against the floor. It was heavier than she'd expected, and now that she
had it off she could see the flat panels fastened to its back. Devices
to heat or cool the incoming air, she guessed, remembering now how
Alison had used a wall control to adjust the temperature of the room
that first night.

Leaning the grille against the wall out of the way, she took one
final look at the sleeping Alison. Then, backing up a few steps, she
leaped upward and slipped neatly through the opening into the duct.

It was a tighter fit than it had looked. But as long as she kept
her head low and her legs tucked in close to her sides it would be easy
enough to get through. The first turn was a little tricky, too, where
her duct ran into another one and she had to go either left or right.
For some reason turning right seemed easier, so she picked that
direction. She made it around the turn and kept going.

The system was indeed complicated, more so than anything else
Taneem had ever encountered. The ducts went all directions, with turns
and occasional dips or raises, and with other grilles leading off into
other rooms at regular intervals.

For a while she stopped at each opening and peered into the room
beyond. But most of the rooms were unoccupied, and after a while she
stopped even bothering to look.

A few of the rooms had voices or sounds or smells coming from
them. In those cases she stopped before passing, easing one eye around
the edge of the grille to make sure no one was looking in her direction
before continuing silently past.

But so far there was no sign of Alison's papers.

Taneem continued on. It was getting warmer now, and there were new
noises drifting through the grilles. The rooms she passed were larger,
too, full of machines and people tending them. Once she had to wait a
full minute before a man at a desk covered with lights turned away long
enough for her to sneak past.

After a few minutes, the heat faded and the noises quieted. The
machinery rooms were replaced again by rooms like hers and Alison's,
with even nicer furniture.

And then, finally, from one of the grilles ahead she heard the
murmuring of a familiar voice.

She crept forward, listening hard. "—know what all the fuss is
about," Colonel Frost was saying. "Near as I can tell there's nothing
here worth spit."

"Morgan isn't the sort of person to hold on to useless junk," a
different voice answered. It was softer and strangely vague, as if
coming from a great distance.

And there was something in the voice that sent a shiver along
Taneem's back.

"Maybe they're personal mementos," Frost said. "Even master
criminals can get sentimental."

Taneem reached the grille and looked in. The room was reasonably
large, with a number of carved wooden desks and work areas, plus
several comfortable-looking chairs. Frost was sitting in one of the
chairs in front of a desk covered with glowing lights and symbols she
couldn't make out. Alison's bag was on the table, and Frost was holding
her sheaf of papers in his hand.

There was no one else in the room.

"Virgil Morgan hasn't got a sentimental synapse in his entire
body," the other voice said firmly from the room's emptiness. Or
rather, from the glowing-light desk, the same way Uncle Virge's voice
came out of the walls aboard the
Essenay
. "I'll want to see
these papers when you get here."

"Four more days," Frost reminded him. "Unless you want me to
transmit you some copies."

"No, I can wait for the originals," the other said. "Right now,
I'm more concerned about this girl you've picked up."

"What about her?" Frost asked. "Your stakeouts on Semaline seemed
to think she knew what she was doing."

"They'd better be right," the other warned. "We're starting to run
low on time here."

"You want me to test her myself?" Frost offered. "By my count,
you've got four separate safes aboard this ship."

"Very amusing," the other said, his voice suddenly stiff. "Don't
worry, I'll test her myself."

"I thought we were running low on time," Frost reminded him.
"Besides, it might be interesting to see what you have stashed away in
there."

"Don't push your luck, Colonel," the other warned, his voice
turning even darker. "Not with me."

"Warfare
is
luck, Mr. Neverlin," Frost countered in the
same tone. "And ours, I think, has just improved a little."

Taneem felt another shiver run up her back. Mr. Neverlin, the man
Jack and Draycos had told her about. No wonder his voice had chilled
her the way it had.

"We'll see, Colonel," Mr. Neverlin said softly. "Just remember
that it's
our
luck, not just yours."

"You just make sure Patri Chookoock understands that," Frost
retorted. "I'll see you in four days." He leaned over to the desk and
touched a switch.

Some of the desk's lights went out. For a moment Frost just sat
there, glaring at the far wall. Then, with a snort, he gathered
Alison's papers together from the desktop and put them back in the bag.
With the bag dangling from his hand, he stood up and strode from the
room.

Taneem lay where she was, trying to decide what to do. She could
continue on through the ducts and try to track Frost back to his own
room. Maybe she would have an opportunity there to get the bag back.

But Frost had talked about giving Alison more safes to open. If he
went straight there, she would have no warning of this new test. No,
Taneem had better return at once.

Turning around in the narrow space proved harder than she'd
expected. After a few failed attempts she hit on the plan of going to
the next duct, turning into it, backing up, then turning again into her
original duct. Taking care to move silently, she headed back.