Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (12 page)

She had gone perhaps half of the distance when she suddenly
realized that the scents coming from the grille directly ahead weren't
ones she'd smelled before.

She moved up to the grille and peered through. Beyond was some
kind of food preparation room, with neat rows of cookware and large and
gleaming rectangular boxes. From two of the boxes were wafting aromas
similar to those of their morning breakfast bread.

Backing up a step, she turned her neck around to look behind her.
The last intersection she could see looked familiar, but it clearly
wasn't. Somehow, amid all the ducts and cross-ducts and grilles and
risers, she had taken a wrong turn.

She was lost. Completely and thoroughly lost.

With a start, Alison came awake.

For a moment she lay still, trying to figure out what had
disturbed her. Beyond her closed eyelids the room was still dark, so it
wasn't the false dawn Frost had programmed into the ship's mood
lighting system to mark the beginning of ship's day. There were no
sounds of movement, either, so Taneem wasn't off on one of her midnight
wanderings around the room.

Taneem.

Alison reached into the neck of her nightshirt and touched her
skin. A K'da in two-dimensional form didn't have much of a feel about
her. But there was some, and that feel was very definitely not there.

She opened her mouth to call, then changed her mind. Hunching her
way instead to the nightstand, she switched on the bedside light.

The lamp was set on low, though to darkness-adapted eyes it still
was uncomfortably bright. She squinted away from it a moment until her
pupils had adjusted, then gave the room a quick scan.

Taneem was nowhere to be seen. Swinging back the blankets, Alison
got out of bed. Maybe the K'da was in the bathroom.

And then her eyes fell on the air system grille. Not fastened to
the duct like it was supposed to be, but casually propped up against
the wall.

Apparently, Taneem had decided to go
off
exploring.

One of the room's chairs had an especially high back. Dragging it
over, Alison leaned it against the wall beneath the opening and climbed
up. Carefully, she eased her head into the duct.

Nothing was visible. "Taneem?" she called as loudly as she dared.

There was no answer. Hopping down from the chair, she went to the
desk and picked up her pocket flashlight.

And paused. All her tools and disguised burglar equipment were
there, right where she'd left them. But the bag she'd taken from Virgil
Morgan's Semaline lockbox was gone.

She turned back to the chair, stifling a curse. So that was what
had happened. Frost had sent one of his goons in to steal Morgan's
papers, and Taneem had woken up and decided to give chase.

The flashlight didn't show much more than Alison's unaided eyes
had seen. The duct was still empty, as far as she could see in both
directions.

And with that, she had no choice but to conclude that Taneem was
on her own. The ducts were too small for Alison to get through, at
least not without making a lot of noise. She was actually rather
surprised that Taneem had managed it, though she'd noticed that K'da
seemed as compressible in some ways as Earth cats.

She would just have to sit here and wait for Taneem to come back.
And pray that the K'da wouldn't get spotted along the way.

In the meantime, there was the matter of the detached grille to
deal with.

An examination of the corners showed that Taneem had removed the
plate by the simple method of slicing through the bolts holding it in
place. The tail ends of the bolts were still there, in fact, their now
headless ends poking rather forlornly from their holes.

Removing the sheared bolts would be the easy part. Alison's
multitool included a small set of needle-nose pliers that would do the
job quickly and easily.

The problem was going to be finding something to replace them
with. Climbing off the chair again, she turned on all the lights and
started a tour of her room. Somewhere, she had to find four bolts—or at
least two—that would fit the grille.

Unfortunately, the sheer luxury of the room was working against
her. In a freighter or even a normal passenger liner there would be
exposed deck or bulkhead plates with plenty of bolts to choose from.
Here, all that had been discreetly tucked away beneath softwall and
thick carpets.

Fortunately, the bed had been bolted to its pedestal with exposed
screws of the right size. Picking four that wouldn't affect the bed's
stability, she unfastened them and got them positioned in the corners
of the grille.

And with that, there really
was
nothing she could do but
wait. Ship's morning was nearly seven hours away, with Frost probably
not stirring for another half hour after that.

But Taneem didn't have nearly that long. She had just six hours
from whenever she'd left Alison's skin to return.

Because if she didn't, she would go two-dimensional anyway, and
vanish into nothingness, and die.

Putting her flashlight up into the duct to give the wayward K'da
something to aim for, Alison turned out the rest of the room's lights
and got back into bed. She would not, she suspected grimly, get much
more sleep tonight.

Don't panic
.

Draycos had told her that himself, Taneem remembered, amid the
terror and confusion of that last mad rush through the Rho Scorvi
forest. Disobeying her instructions to stay in the rear with Jack,
she'd run ahead to the front of the pack, mindlessly trying to get as
far away from the danger as she could.

She would have gone even farther, probably, all the way to the
river and certain death. But Draycos had seen her, and come over to try
to soothe her fears.
Don't panic
, he'd said.
Panic freezes
the will and darkens the mind and weakens the muscles. Remember this
song
.

She frowned suddenly. A song?

Yes. There
had
been a song, now that she thought about it.
A simple little song he'd sung to her as they ran. How had that gone?

The fear of night, of black and gray
,

Must never steal your heart away
.

When you must face your fears just say
,

"
My heart is mine; it will not stray
."

When danger lifts its evil head

And fills your heart with chills and dread
,

Just say, before all strength has fled
,

"
My heart will go where I have led
."

For fear is not a thing of shame
,

It comes upon each person's frame

And lights the heart with strength and flame
,

If you its power can but tame
.

So hold your heart, stand fast and tall

And answer to your duty's call

And you can proudly say to all
,

"
I passed the test; I did not fall
."

Yes, that was how it had gone. Odd that she'd forgotten about it
until now. Maybe it was this fresh panic that had brought it to mind.

Maybe that was what Draycos had intended, in fact. That it would
return to comfort her when it was needed.

And to her mild surprise, it had worked. Her scales, which had
been starting to turn black as fear pumped extra blood into her
muscles, had already faded back to their normal gray. A nice color, the
odd thought ran through her mind, though not nearly as noble and
distinctive as Draycos's own golden scales.

As noble and distinctive as Draycos himself. She could only bless
her good fortune to have him as a friend.

She took a deep breath, exhaling away the last of the fear.
Panic
darkens the mind
. Thanks to Alison and Draycos and Jack, she now
had a perfectly good mind.

It was time she started using it.

Silently, she backed away from the food preparation area,
stretching out with all her senses. Sight was of limited use to her
right now, but she hadn't lost her sense of touch or hearing or smell.
Somewhere in this root-tangle of ducts were the clues she needed to get
her back to Alison.

And suddenly she had it. The low rumble of the ship's engines had
been behind her as she left their room. She could sense that same
rumble now, much softer than it had been then.

But instead of being in front of her, as it should be, it was
coming from her left. Somehow, on her way back, she must have made a
wrong turn to her right.

She also hadn't yet passed through the extra-warm area she'd
noticed on her way out. She needed to find a left-hand turn, then
possibly backtrack a little until she found that spot.

It was still a little scary. But at least now she had a plan.
Easing past the food preparation room, she headed toward the next
turning spot.

The plan worked. Three turns and four ducts later she was back on
track. She knew she was back, because now that she was concentrating
she found she could smell Alison's scent on the breeze moving across
her snout.

Five minutes later, she turned one final corner to see a small
flashlight illuminating the duct and the open space where a grille
should be.

Thirty seconds later, she was home.

She had expected Alison to be furious with her, especially after
spending so much time being lost. To her relief, her host turned out to
be mostly just glad she was back safely.

Though Taneem could tell she was a
little
angry.

"For starters, someone might have seen you," Alison told Taneem as
she fastened the grille back in place. "There are also a lot of
very
unpleasant things that could have happened to you in there."

"It seemed safe enough," Taneem said.

"That's because everything was running smoothly," Alison said.
"If, say, there'd been a drop in air pressure—for any reason—there are
a whole set of hidden sealant doors that would have kicked in across
the ducts, cutting the whole system into a bunch of small pieces. You'd
have been trapped in one of them until they'd fixed whatever the
problem was."

She eyed Taneem over her shoulder. "That's assuming you weren't
unlucky enough to have been in the way of one of the doors when they
slammed shut," she added. "In that case, you'd probably have been cut
in half. You understand?"

"Yes," Taneem said. In truth, she only understood about half of
what Alison had just said. But she got the idea. "I won't go off like
that again. I'm sorry."

"I just don't want you getting hurt," Alison said in a gentler
tone. Finishing with the last bolt, she hopped down from the chair and
ran her hand along the side of Taneem's neck. "If for no other reason
than that Draycos would kill me if you did."

"He wouldn't do such a thing," Taneem insisted. A shiver ran
through her. "Though even if he wished to, he might never have the
chance," she added quietly. "What I heard just now—"

"Hold that thought," Alison interrupted. Picking up the chair, she
lugged it back to its usual place and then put her tools away. "Let's
get back under the blankets," she said, holding out her hand toward
Taneem as she headed back to the bed. "Then you can tell me all about
it."

Alison listened in silence as Taneem described the conversation
she'd overheard between Frost and Neverlin. "Okay," she said when
Taneem had finished. "So they're going to test me. No big deal."

"Yet it worries me," Taneem said. "They have had over four months
to open the safes, yet they're still searching for someone to do the
job. Are you truly better than all the others who do this sort of
thing?"

Alison grimaced. "Not even close," she admitted. "Even Jack's
better at it than I am."

"What will they do if you fail?"

Alison had been trying hard not to think about that possibility.
"I won't fail," she said firmly. "For one thing, my father trained me
himself, and he is one of the best in the business."

"The business of theft."

"Everyone has to make a living," Alison said. "Besides, none of
the people he targets will even miss what he takes." Which was not, of
course, strictly true. In fact, even non-strictly it wasn't true. But
there was no reason to burden Taneem with any more truth than she was
already stuck with. "Besides, I have a secret weapon," she said
instead. "You."

"Me?"

"Exactly," Alison said. "You and that K'da trick where you lean
off your host's back and look through a wall."

"
Over
a wall," Taneem murmured.

"Whatever," Alison said. "The point is that you'll be able to get
a look at the actual lock mechanism, which is something none of the
other safecrackers will have had."

"But I know nothing of such mechanisms."

"That won't matter," Alison said, frowning in the darkness. "Well,
no, actually you're right. You'll be able to draw me a better picture
if you know at least the basics."

"We have only four days," Taneem reminded her.

"No problem," Alison assured her, trying to hide her own
misgivings. It had taken her two whole years to learn these skills.

But then, Taneem wasn't going to have to actually open the safe.
"First thing tomorrow, we start your lessons," she told the K'da. "In
the meantime—" She yawned wide enough to hear her jaw crack. "I'm going
back to sleep. Pleasant dreams."

"Yes," Taneem murmured. "And to you."

The days under the desert sun quickly fell into a rhythm. At
sunrise Jack would be awakened by Thonsifi, he would shower and eat,
and then it was off to the Great Hall for the morning judging session.
At noon there would be a break for lunch, at which time the boy
sometimes quietly discussed the thornier cases with his hidden K'da
companion. After lunch would be the afternoon session, and then Jack
would return to his apartment for dinner, a quiet evening of talking
and perhaps a little exercise to help him keep in shape.