Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (8 page)

"Colonel—"

"You got two choices, kid," Frost cut her off. "Take 'em off
yourself, or Dumbarton and Mrishpaw will do it for you." There was a
click, and he was gone.

"Well?" Dumbarton asked.

Alison glared at him. "Fine," she gritted. Rolling to the opposite
side of the bed, she put her hand on the edge of the mattress as she
threw off the comforter and swung her legs over the side.

And to her horror felt a surge of weight on the back of her hand
as Taneem dropped off onto the floor.

Alison clamped down hard on her tongue, potential disaster
flashing in front of her eyes. Taneem clearly had it in mind to hide
under the bed. Only it was a pedestal bed, fastened to the deck, with
barely a three-inch overhang.

For the moment, the K'da was out of the mercenaries' view. But
Dumbarton was already headed back around the side of the bed, clearly
intent on catching up with Alison and making sure she didn't waste any
more of his time. As for the Brummga, all he had to do was unglue his
big feet from the floor and take three paces to his left and he would
likewise get the shock of his life.

"Come on, come on," Dumbarton growled.

"I'm coming," Alison snapped back, pretending her foot was tangled
in the comforter as she lowered her hand toward the crouching K'da and
tapped her fingertips vigorously on the side of the bed.

To her relief, Taneem got the hint. A dragon paw grabbed on to
Alison's wrist, and a moment later the K'da was back on her skin. "No
room," Taneem whispered.

"I know," Alison whispered back. "Off my left foot, when I
signal." Making a show of freeing herself, she stood up. "Can I at
least change in the bathroom?" she asked aloud.

Silently, Dumbarton planted himself directly between her and the
bathroom door and folded his arms across his chest. "Fine," Alison
growled, coming around the bed toward them. "Would you at least get me
one of the robes from the bathroom?"

"Sure." Dumbarton looked at the Brummga, jerked his head.

The big alien turned and lumbered off. "Thanks," Alison said,
unfastening her belt, her eyes darting around the room. With the
Brummga's back toward her, and Dumbarton's attention about to be
elsewhere, getting Taneem off her body without being seen ought to be
easy enough.

But that was only the first problem. In an open room like this,
there were precious few places something the size of a small tiger
could hide.

And then Alison's eyes fell on the computer desk in the corner. It
would be a tight fit, she knew, but it should work.

Provided she could make Taneem understand what she wanted.

"Don't think I'm not going to go straight over to that computer
and log a complaint when this is over," she warned Dumbarton, walking
up to him and looking him straight in his eye.

"I'm sure the colonel's real scared," Dumbarton said dryly.

"He should be." Out of the corner of her eye, Alison saw the
Brummga disappear through the bathroom door. Lifting her left foot past
Dumbarton's legs, she wiggled her ankle furiously.

She nearly lost her balance as Taneem shot out the leg of her
jeans. The K'da hit the deck silently, her neck turning back and forth
as she looked around. Alison held her breath . . .

Then the long neck straightened, and Taneem headed off in a fast
lope toward the desk. Ducking under the modesty panel, she rolled over
onto her back and reached all four legs up toward the underside of the
desktop itself. Because Alison was listening for it, she heard the
faint scrunch of claws digging into wood.

And the gray-scaled K'da body pulled upward and disappeared behind
the panel.

"I'm going to need more clothes, too," she told Dumbarton as the
Brummga emerged with the robe and tossed it on the end of the bed. "At
least one more outfit, plus a nightshirt or something to sleep in."

"Check the closet," Dumbarton said shortly. "There's probably
something in there you can use."

"Oh," Alison said as she turned and snatched up the robe. "I never
thought of that."

Dumbarton snorted under his breath. "Some criminal mastermind," he
muttered.

Alison smiled to herself. Being underestimated, her father had
often said, was nearly as good as not being noticed at all.

Half an hour later, when they brought back her clothes, Alison was
sitting at the desk, her knees helping to support Taneem's weight,
pounding out the indignant entry she'd promised into the ship's log.

Dinner was served at seven o'clock that evening, ship's time. By
then Alison had found and disabled the two microphones that had been
sewn into her clothing while Frost was having them scanned.

The colonel was apparently not the type to give up easily.

She and Taneem ate together in silence, finishing off the entire
selection of food that had been provided. Alison wondered if her
seemingly vast appetite was going to raise any red flags among Frost's
men. Still, she was fourteen, and fourteen-year-olds' appetites were
the stuff of legend. Hopefully, that would be the conclusion Frost
would draw from the next nine days' worth of cleaned plates.

Later, with Taneem again riding her skin, she pulled out her array
of gadgets and began double-checking all of them. Her life was riding
on this job, not to mention the lives of all those K'da and Shontine
out there. Whatever it took, she was going to succeed.

If only to see the look on Jack's face afterward.

The Great Assembly Hall turned out to be the long structure
straddling the river that Draycos had noticed on their flight into the
canyon earlier that day. A good two hundred feet long and thirty wide,
with open sides and a wood-and-weave roof, it was supported by a set of
wide, ten-foot-high stone pylons sunk deep into the edges of the river.

The positioning of the Hall puzzled him for a while until he
remembered that with the high canyon walls, the crops spread out along
the floor would receive only limited sunlight each day. Whatever land
lay beneath the Hall would receive none at all. The Golvins had
therefore built the structure over the river, which couldn't be farmed
anyway.

Dinner was a crowded and noisy affair, with at least two hundred
of the aliens present. Jack was seated at the One's table, laid out
just beneath a tall thronelike chair at the northern end of the Hall.
From the flurry of one- and two-syllable names being tossed around the
table, Draycos concluded that the boy had been seated among the very
top crust of the canyon's social structure.

But while the Golvins chattered and laughed through the meal, Jack
himself was uncharacteristically quiet. He was polite enough, answering
any questions put to him, and smiled and nodded "when appropriate. But
his heart clearly wasn't in any of it.

Draycos's chance came late in the meal, when local custom
apparently required the diners to get up and mingle with those of
different rank. Jack left his seat as well, but instead of milling
around he went to the side of the Hall. Leaning his elbows on the
waist-high wall, he gazed out at the moonlit canyon around them.
"Jack?" Draycos called tentatively from his shoulder.

"Right here," the boy said, his voice sounding as distant as the
rest of him.

"I need to check out the shuttle," Draycos told him, trying
without success to read the boy's face. "Is the area clear?"

Jack took a deep breath, as if forcing himself out of distant
thoughts, and glanced around. "Looks okay," he said. Turning a little,
he stretched his right arm over the wall and let it dangle downward.

Draycos slithered down the boy's arm and popped out of his sleeve.
A quick snap of his front legs, and he had caught the outside of the
wall with his claws. For a moment he hung there, confirming for himself
that the area was clear of observers. Then, with a last look at Jack's
troubled face, he let go and dropped onto the edge of the cropland
below.

There were at least eight different plant species being cultivated
in the canyon, Draycos had noted during Jack's walk that afternoon.
Generally, there were two to four different types in each of the plots
marked off by the narrow irrigation channels.

The farmers probably saw the arrangement as an efficient way of
using the different needs of the different plants. A poet-warrior like
Draycos saw instead the possibilities of having differently sized
plants to move through. Flicking out his tongue every couple of breaths
to sample the subtle odors of the area, he headed downstream toward the
landing pit and the shuttle.

He was halfway there when he spotted a lone Golvin on the far side
of the river moving along the walkways between the crop plots, heading
the same direction Draycos was.

Draycos froze, crouching down beside a wide stand of wheat-like
plants, frowning to himself. The alien wasn't carrying any tools, so he
probably wasn't going out to work in the fields. He probably wasn't
simply going for a stroll, either—he was behaving far too furtively for
that.

And aside from the crops and a couple of the apartment pillars,
the only thing in this direction was the shuttle.

Draycos lashed his tail thoughtfully. Unfortunately for him, the
Golvin didn't have to worry about being seen out here. Draycos did,
which meant that in a straight head-to-head skulking race through the
cropland, the alien would almost certainly reach the shuttle first.

But there was nothing that said Draycos had to keep to the
cropland.

The river water was cool, but not nearly as cold as he'd thought
it might be. He slipped beneath the surface, leaving only the top of
his head above water, and paddled quickly and quietly toward the
landing pit.

He reached it well before the Golvin and eased up out of the
river. Crouching in the shuttle's shadow with the water dripping off
his scales, he gave the vehicle a quick look.

As he'd seen on their earlier trip, the passenger compartment
contained front and rear bench seats, each capable of seating three
Golvins. There was also a wide hatchway in the rear of the vehicle, he
could see now, probably leading to a storage area.

But there was no connection between it and the passenger
compartment. If Draycos wanted to be able to see anything, the storage
area was out.

The Golvin was only about seventy feet away now. Scooping up a
small stone from the riverbed, Draycos wrapped the tip of his tail
around it and flipped it, sling style, over the alien's head.

It landed with a soft rustle in the plants behind him. Startled,
the Golvin spun around, his head wagging back and forth as he searched
for the source of the noise.

And with the other's back turned, Draycos popped the shuttle's
rear door and slipped inside.

Pulling the door closed again, he lay on his side on the rear seat
floor and looked around. The back of the front bench seat was
upholstered with a thick dark blue cloth, he saw, as were the rear
seats. Extending a claw, he cut the cloth away from both the bottom and
the side edges of the front seat, creating a wide flap.

Rolling onto his other side, he did the same with the cloth
extending down from the front of the rear seat. Then, flipping both
flaps up, he lay down on the floor and arranged the flaps on top of
himself.

It was an absurdly simple deception, and in the full light of day
it wouldn't hold up for a second. But the night was dark, and the
Golvin out there was in a hurry. Chances were good he wouldn't give the
rear seat even a first look, let alone a second.

The front driver's side door opened, and Draycos braced himself.
But from the quick and shifting pressures on the seat cushions in front
of him, it appeared the Golvin was intent on just getting in and
getting away.

A few seconds later, the shuttle lifted off into the night.
Cutting hard away from the center of the canyon and the party still
going on in the Great Hall, they headed up. Draycos eased the corners
of the flaps away from his eyes and settled in to wait.

They'd been flying for nearly an hour when Draycos's sense of
balance told him they were starting down. The starlight was joined now
by a diffuse glow reflected from the shuttle ceiling, indicating the
lights of civilization below. Draycos arranged the camouflaging flaps
over himself again, and a few minutes later they were down.

The door opened, there was another quick shifting of the Golvin's
weight on the seat, and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

Draycos gave it a twenty-count. Then, pushing aside the flaps, he
eased up to the level of the window and looked out.

They had landed in a large parking area, apparently not far from
the spaceport where the
Essenay
had arrived a few hours
earlier. Surrounding the landing area on three sides were squat
buildings housing various small shops.

And on the fourth side was a single, large building. Above the
door, in glowing letters, were the words
InterWorld Corporation,
NorthCentral Semaline
.

Draycos felt his claws scratch gently against the shuttle floor.
So that was the reason the Golvin had sneaked away from the big
celebration. He'd had an urgent offworld message to send.

Right after Jack's arrival at the canyon.

Fifteen minutes later, the Golvin emerged from the InterWorld
building and headed toward the shuttle at a fast jog. Draycos was back
under his camouflage flaps before the door was pulled open. Once again,
the Golvin didn't bother to check his rear seat before taking off.

This time, that inattention was going to cost him.

The flight back to the canyon was uneventful. Draycos waited
patiently . . . and as the Golvin eased the shuttle into the landing
pit, the K'da silently brushed aside the flaps and rose up behind the
other. "Don't turn around," he growled.