Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave (16 page)

Or could he somehow be sensing Jack's dark mood and trying to
nudge him out of it? "I'm sure you'd both be charmed," he said,
hitching his chair closer to the keyboard. "And yes, that's what we're
going to use. Unless you want to try slicing open the computer and
seeing if you can sift all the right zeros and ones out of it."

"No, thank you," Draycos assured him.

The display finished its sequence and cleared to an impressive
image of the Chookoock family mansion with the rising sun shooting rays
of light across the sky behind it. "They don't think much of
themselves, do they?" Jack muttered, peering down at the keyboard. It
was all done up in Brummgan letters, naturally. Carefully, making sure
he got it right, he keyed in the first part of the sewer-rat sequence.

Nothing happened.

Draycos's head rose slightly from his shoulder. "When will
something happen?" he asked.

"In theory, about three seconds ago," Jack said. He tried the
sequence again, double-checking it as he did. Still nothing. "We got
trouble," he told the dragon, calling up the computer's spec page. A
triple column of Brummgan words scrolled down on top of the picture of
the mansion.

Even with the alien words, one glance was all it took. "Great," he
growled. "This piece of junk isn't using a human operating system. It's
running something Brummgan. Pretty old-fashioned, too, from the looks
of it."

The dragon's head lifted higher, pushing the collar against the
side of Jack's neck. "The sewer-rat trick works only with
human-designed systems?"

Jack let his hands fall uselessly back into his lap. "You got it."

"Did you not consider this possibility? This
is
a Brummgan
facility, after all."

"Sure, but Gazen is a human." Pushing back from the desk, Jack
crossed his foot across his knee. A brief stab of pain ran through the
thigh as he did so, a souvenir of one of Her Thumbleness's casual
kicks. "Besides, who doesn't use human operating systems these days?"

The dragon's tongue flicked out toward the computer. "The
Chookoock family, apparently," he said.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. Pulling out the hidden comm clip, he clicked
it on. "Uncle Virge?"

"I'm here," the computer voice came back. "Are you all right, lad?"

"I'm alive," Jack said sourly. "For a slave, that's doing pretty
good. Where are you?"

"Still at the Ponocce Spaceport," Uncle Virge said. "I've been
putting Gazen's credit line to use fixing some of the damage and
deterioration we've collected over the past few months."

"I hope you aren't letting them take apart anything vital," Jack
warned. "We may need to get out of here on a minute's notice."

"Don't worry, I'm not," Uncle Virge said. "I hope that means that
this call is good news."

"Actually, it's kind of mixed," Jack said. "The good news is that
I'm in Gazen's office. The bad news is that the Chookoock family's
using an old Brummgan operating system."

"How old?"

"Uh—" Jack peered at the complicated script, trying to find the
registration date.

"There," Draycos said. A foreleg rose from the back of Jack's
right hand, an extended claw pointing to the lower left part of the
display. "If I read correctly, that would be . . . forty years ago."

Uncle Virge whistled softly. "Forty
years
? I'm sorry, lad,
but all the tricks I know are for modern computers with modern
operating systems. Not for something that came off the Ark."

Jack sighed. "I was afraid of that."

"What about other information sources?" Draycos asked. "Surely
someone has broken into such systems in the past."

"Yeah, what about that?" Jack asked. "Any of Uncle Virgil's old
friends ever work on Brum-a-dum? Or could someone have a file in a
thieves' database somewhere?"

"I can look," Uncle Virge said, his voice tight. "But unless we're
very lucky, I don't think we'll have enough time to find anything."

An uncomfortable shiver ran up Jack's back. "Why not?"

"Gazen has set up a special slave auction for five days from now,"
Uncle Virge said. "The prize item up for sale is you."

"Okay," Jack said, trying to keep his voice calm and casual.
"That's not so bad. Matter of fact, that might be the best way to get
me out of here. Let them sell me, then I'll duck out on the buyer once
we're off-planet."

"I wouldn't count on that if I were you," Uncle Virge warned. "Or
don't you think the Chookoock family has dealt with unwilling slaves
before?"

Jack felt his throat tighten. "You mean not just handcuffs or
those control collar things they used on us on Sunright?"

Uncle Virge snorted gently. "Amateur stuff, used by people in a
hurry. No, I expect the Chookoock family will be more thorough. A
lot
more thorough."

"So you're telling me I'm in trouble?"

"I'm telling you this whole plan was insane to begin with," Uncle
Virge said flatly. "I'm telling you it's time to give up, pull the
plug, and get out while you still can."

Jack stared at the picture on the display, his eyes tracing along
the patterns of the stone making up the mansion walls. Big stones. Hard
stones. As hard and cold and unfeeling as the people who lived within
them. Even the mercenaries he'd dealt with had cared more about people
than Gazen and the Chookoock family did.

What in space was he doing here, anyway?

"Jack?" Uncle Virge prompted. "Come on, lad, it's over. Cut your
losses and let's blow this pop stand."

"And what will we do then?" Draycos asked. "Where will we go for
the information we need?"

"Where we should have started in the first place," Uncle Virge
said. "We dump this in StarForce's lap and let the professionals handle
it."

"We've been through this, Uncle Virge," Jack said. "We can't let
anyone else know about Draycos."

"Maybe we don't have to," Uncle Virge said. "Correct me if I'm
wrong, but all we want is to keep Draycos safe from whoever the
Valahgua have teamed up with. Right?"

Jack frowned. He knew that tone of voice. There was some trick
here. "All right," he said cautiously. "So?"

"So we go to StarForce," Uncle Virge said. "But we go anonymously."

"Pardon?" Draycos asked.

"Anonymously," Uncle Virge repeated. "We don't let them know who
we are."

"I understand the word," Draycos said. "I do not understand the
logic. How can we convince them of the truth without revealing my
existence?"

"Ah, but we don't have to convince them of anything," Uncle Virge
said. "That's the beauty of it. All we have to do is drop them an
anonymous tip that some mercenary group is using Djinn-90s to smuggle
contraband. They get all hot and huffy and rush off to investigate."

"Assuming they believe us," Jack said. "They must get a million
anonymous tips a day."

"Even if they do believe, how does that help us?" Draycos added.

"Easy," Uncle Virge said. "We just watch over their shoulders
while they investigate. They find our mercenary group, and there we
are."

Jack rubbed his cheek. On the surface, it sounded reasonable
enough. Best of all, he could do it from the comfort of the
Essenay
instead of from a dirty slave colony.

"What if they are delayed, or are too slow?" Draycos asked. "What
if they give up their investigation and we do not know about it?"

"Nonsense," Uncle Virge scoffed. "We'll be on them like white on
rice. We'll know everything they do, practically before they do it."

"And if we miss something important?" Draycos persisted. "We have
less than three and one-half months before the full refugee fleet
arrives. We cannot afford to waste any of that time."

"It wouldn't be a waste," Uncle Virge insisted. "StarForce knows
what they're doing."

"No, he's right, Uncle Virge," Jack said. "We can't afford to take
ourselves out of the game."

"But we wouldn't be," Uncle Virge said, almost pleading now. "And
we could still poke around on our own if you wanted to. We could check
with people who watch merc groups, or even go back to sorting through
Djinn-90 sales records."

Jack shook his head. "No," he said firmly. Firmly, but with a
wispy smoke ring of regret floating about the words. He hadn't realized
just how much he wanted out of this until Uncle Virge dangled the
possibility in front of him. "The timing's too tight to play games."

Uncle Virge sniffed loudly. "And exactly how much time have you
wasted playing this slave game?"

"That's different," Jack said, glaring at the computer display.
"It's
here
, right in front of me. I just have to figure out how
to get at it."

"And then what?" Uncle Virge asked. "What if you
do
find
the group involved? Are you and Draycos going to take them on all by
yourselves? Them, and however many of the Valahgua have moved into the
Orion Arm?"

Jack glanced down at Draycos's head. "We'll figure out that part
when we get there."

"Of course," Uncle Virge said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Forgive me if I'm being difficult, but don't most professional assault
teams do just a
little
more planning before hitting the
beaches?"

"Uncle Virge, look—"

"No,
you
look, Jack lad," Uncle Virge interrupted. "Point
one: you two can't stop the Valahgua alone. Not a chance. Point two:
you probably can't even find the Valahgua and their allies alone. Tell
me I'm wrong."

"Uncle Virge—"

"And point three," Uncle Virge went on quietly. "It seems to me
that you've more than paid back your obligation to Draycos and his
people. It's time for you to point him to the proper authorities, give
him a hearty handshake—"

"Hold on a second," Jack cut him off. "I agreed to help Draycos
save his people, remember? His part was to get me out of that jam with
Braxton Universis, and he did. This is my half of the deal."

"Yes, I remember," Uncle Virge said. "I also remember that he
spent maybe three weeks on your problem, while you've already put in a
month and a half on his. With no end in sight, I might point out.
Doesn't seem very fair to me."

It
didn't
seem very fair, Jack had to admit. Especially
since Draycos's part of the deal hadn't involved anything nearly as
unpleasant as what Jack had had to go through, first as a junior
mercenary soldier, and now as a slave.

And the dragon wasn't even arguing the point, he realized
suddenly. He was just lying there quietly against Jack's skin, waiting
for the discussion to be over.

Waiting for Jack to make a decision.

Jack felt his lip twist. Yes, he hated this. He really did. And
Uncle Virge was right on all the other points, too. Even if he
did
manage to shake loose the data they were looking for, did any of them
honestly think they could take on the bad guys all by themselves?

Uncle Virge was arguing for fairness. Draycos, Jack knew, would
argue on the basis of right and wrong. That keeping a promise was the
right thing to do, whether it seemed like a good deal or not.

But at the moment, neither argument mattered a rat's nest to Jack.
What mattered was that he'd suffered through two weeks of slavery; and
he was
not
going to let those two weeks go to waste. Come hell
or high water or interstellar tax audits, he was going to get what he'd
come here for.

Fairness could go jump. The noble K'da warrior ethic could go pole
vault. It was Jack's professional pride that was on the line here.

"Yeah, well, life never claimed to be fair in the first place," he
told Uncle Virge. "And I've still got a couple of ideas to try."

"Jack, lad—"

"In the meantime, how about making yourself useful?" Jack said.
"See what you can dig up about forty-year-old Brummgan computer
systems."

Uncle Virge gave a sigh. "If you like," he said. "But I would
strongly—
strongly
—suggest that you reconsider. The minute they
start getting you ready for the sale, our chances of getting you out go
way down."

"I'm not worried," Jack said, wishing that was actually true.
"Look, I've got to go. I'll talk to you later."

He turned off the comm clip and returned it to its hiding place.
"That was our bi-monthly argument with Uncle Virge about chucking this
whole thing," he commented as he smoothed the sole back in place. "I
don't know why we have to keep going over the same territory this way."

"Decisions of ethics and behavior are not one-time events,"
Draycos told him. "A person must renew such decisions each day.
Sometimes several times in the same day."

"I suppose," Jack said. "Seems like an awful waste of effort,
though."

"Not really," Draycos said. "Each time you make such a decision,
you grow stronger and more resolved. You become able to face even more
difficult challenges."

"Great," Jack growled. "Make the tough choices, and they get
tougher."

For a moment Draycos was silent. " 'A tree within a quiet glade
will break in gentle rains,' " he murmured. " 'But one upon a windy
coast can face the hurricanes.' "

Jack rolled his eyes. "Don't try to tell me
that
one comes
from an old K'da warrior poem."

"Not a warrior poem, no," the dragon said. "But I spent some time
on the seashore once, and what I observed there—"

"Never mind," Jack interrupted. "I'm sorry I asked."

"As you usually are with such things," Draycos said, a hint of
humor peeking through. "What do we do now?"

"Good question," Jack confessed. "Let me think." For a long minute
he stared at the stubborn computer, shifting plans and ideas around in
his mind like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

He couldn't get into the system. Therefore, he had to sneak in
when the system was already up and running. That would be pretty
tricky. Alternatively, he could be here when Gazen first started up the
computer in the morning and read the codes as they were fed in. That
would be even trickier.