Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave (18 page)

With a Brummga gripping each arm, he was carried through the door
and out into the hall, the sound of Her Thumbleness's snoring fading
away behind him. Down the hall they went, then down the stairs, with
Jack's feet only occasionally touching the floor. It was, he thought
once, what it must feel like to get caught in a river flash flood.

Gazen was waiting in his office, seated in the comfy chair Jack
had so recently had the chance to try out. "Thank you," he said to the
Brummgas as they deposited Jack on the floor in front of him. "Leave
us."

Silently, the Brummgas went out, closing the door behind them. For
a long minute Gazen just stared at Jack, his face a smooth mask, his
dark brown eyes impossible to read. "Well," he said at last, his voice
as unnaturally calm as his expression. "Here we are again."

Jack shrugged slightly. "I guess so," he said.

An instant later he was on his knees, a knife-edge of pain ripping
through his shoulder. "Some respect, if you please," Gazen said, his
voice still calm. Waving idly in his hand like a stalk of wheat in a
gentle breeze was a long, thin slapstick Jack hadn't even seen him
holding.

"Yes, sir," Jack managed.

An instant later he'd gone from knees to stomach, a new focus of
agony deep within his left thigh. " 'Sir'?" Gazen's voice came through
the haze. " '
Sir
'? That's not my title, slave."

Jack clenched his teeth against the pain, trying desperately to
remember what the Brummgas had called him when he'd first been brought
inside the white wall. Pancake? Panrig? Panjam?

Panjan
. That was it:
Panjan
. "I'm sorry,
Panjan
Gazen," he said.

And bit back a scream as a third slapstick blow caught him across
his back. "
Panjan
is a Brummgan title," Gazen said, his voice
almost too quiet to hear over Jack's own gasping. "Not proper for a
human to use. Try again."

Jack shook his head, the movement sending fresh waves of pain
through him. "I don't know . . . what you want," he panted. "I don't
know . . . what to say."

He braced himself for another blow. But it didn't come. "That's
better," Gazen said. "You're starting to understand."

Suddenly, there was a shoe filling Jack's field of view. He winced
back, fully expecting that the next thing he felt would be that shoe
connecting hard with his cheek.

But again, the expected didn't happen. "Get up," Gazen said.

Jack tried to obey. He really did. But his muscles were still
shaking too badly from the slapstick's sting. "I—"

He twitched violently back as the tip of the slapstick swept past
his eyes. The movement sent fresh waves of pain washing over him,
almost as bad as if Gazen had actually hit him. "I said get up."

Setting his teeth together, Jack forced his hands under his chest.
Slowly, inch by inch, he got himself pushed up off the floor. Rolling
over onto his side, he looked up at Gazen.

The man was back in his chair. Still fingering his slapstick, he
was watching Jack with the same vaguely interested expression someone
might give a slug working its way through the grass.

And that really was all he was to Gazen, Jack realized dully. A
slug, living under his feet with a bunch of other slugs. All of them
alive only because they weren't quite worth the trouble of killing.

Clenching his teeth some more, he got back to the task of getting
up.

It seemed to take forever. But finally, his shirt soaked with
sweat, his body feeling like he had a three-alarm sunburn, he pulled
himself more or less upright.

"Impressive," Gazen said. "You're tougher than you look, McCoy.
I'll have to remember to use a stronger setting next time."

He waved the slapstick for emphasis. Instinctively, Jack flinched
back, the movement nearly throwing him off balance again.

That one earned him a cold half-smile. "And you're a quick learner
on top of it," Gazen added. "Good. I trust we won't have to repeat this
lesson."

Jack shook his head, not daring to try to speak. "Good," Gazen
said. That seemed to be his favorite word this morning. "There's a
chair behind you. Sit."

It hurt almost as much to sit down, Jack discovered, as it had to
drag himself to his feet in the first place. But at least now he didn't
have to worry about his knees giving way. "Now," Gazen said briskly,
laying the slapstick on the desk beside his computer. "You were in here
tonight. Why?"

Jack took a deep breath. Originally, his plan had been to deny
everything, in the hope of maneuvering Gazen into telling him exactly
what he knew about Jack's nighttime activities. But the slapstick
beating had demolished any interest in playing psychological games with
this man. "I was tired of picking berries and playing punching bag for
Her Thumbleness," he muttered between slightly numb lips. "I thought
this would be a way to remind you that I was more valuable than that."

"And exactly how valuable do you think you are?"

Jack started to shrug, remembered what had happened the last time
he did that. "I disabled your security system and got into your
office," he said. "I took this to prove it."

He pulled the paperweight from his pocket and set it on the
nearest corner of Gazen's desk. "Not just anyone could do something
like that and get away with it."

Gazen's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Do you really think you got
away with it?"

Jack winced. "No, not really."

"Good," Gazen said. "Then all we have to do is decide what exactly
I'm going to do with you."

Jack's pulse was pounding unpleasantly hard in his neck. The basic
assumption here had always been that he was worth too much money to
kill out of hand. Now, looking into Gazen's dead eyes, he wasn't at all
sure about that anymore. "I'm a professional thief," he said carefully.
"A good one, too. I could do those kinds of jobs for you."

"I've got my own thieves," Gazen said. "What do I need you for?"

Jack's pulse picked up a little more speed. Had Gazen given up on
the auction Uncle Virge had mentioned? Or was this a psychological game
of his own? "People don't expect a kid like me to be a thief," he said.

"Especially when that thief goes under another name?" Gazen
suggested. "Or did Heetoorieef merely get your name wrong when you
checked in with him?"

"No, I gave him the wrong one," Jack admitted.

"Why?"

That was a darn good question, Jack decided. It deserved a good
answer, too.

Problem was, he didn't have one to give. "It was mostly because—"

He broke off as a knock came at the door. "Enter," Gazen called.

The door opened, and an extra-wide Brummga lumbered in. "Morning
slave report,
Panjan
Gazen," he announced, handing Gazen a data
tube.

"Thank you," Gazen said, plugging the tube into his computer. He
flipped a few pages, his eyes skimming across the display. "Still sick,
I see."

He looked back at Jack. "The next time you borrow a name, try to
pick someone who isn't already showing up on the sick reports," he
said. "Or did you think Brummgan computer systems would be too stupid
to notice something like that?"

Jack felt his throat tighten. The day of the magic show, he
remembered, Noy had been coughing a lot. "I didn't know he was sick,"
he said.

"And didn't care either, I suppose." Gazen shifted his eyes back
to the computer display. "Put him in an isolation hut," he told the
Brummga. "We don't want this spreading to the rest of them."

"Treatment?" the Brummga asked.

"None," Gazen said darkly. "I'm tired of this. The boy's always
been more trouble than he's worth."

"Like his parents," the Brummga said.

"Exactly like his parents," Gazen agreed, an edge of contempt in
his voice. "Put him in a hut and leave him there. If he gets well,
fine. We'll get a little more work out of him." He pulled the tube out
of the computer and handed it back. "If he doesn't, make sure you
decontaminate the body before you get rid of it."

The Brummga nodded as he took the tube. "I obey,
Panjan
Gazen." He lumbered back out, closing the door behind him.

"Now," Gazen said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs.
"Where were we?"

Jack took a careful breath—"Oh, that's right," Gazen said before
he could speak. "You were going to spin me some lie as to why you used
a false name when you were brought in here."

He picked up the slapstick and began waving it gently around
again. "Would you like me to tell you what
I
think?" he asked.

Jack was still trying to decide whether he was supposed to answer
when Gazen flicked the slapstick toward him—

And a fresh slash of pain burst across on his shoulder like a bolt
of lightning.

He gasped, jerking back in shock and pain. And only then did his
squinting eyes register what had just happened.

Gazen's weapon wasn't an ordinary slapstick, he realized now.
Instead, it was composed of a slightly flexible cylindrical spiral that
could extend several feet outward at the flick of a wrist. Even as Jack
clutched at his shoulder, Gazen lifted the slapstick back toward the
ceiling, letting the extended sections slide smoothly back into the
outer sheath. "When I ask a question, I expect an answer," he said.
"Shall I repeat it for you?"

Jack shook his head. "Yes, I'd like you to tell me what you
think," he managed.

"Better," Gazen said approvingly, waving the slapstick idly in his
hand again. "I think this whole thing about your partner selling you to
us was never more than a complete scam. I think he's sitting in your
ship right now, monitoring your activities and waiting for you to reach
your objective."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong."

Jack thought his heart had been trotting along at a pretty good
clip before. Now, as he stared into Gazen's face, he could feel it
going into sprint mode. "I don't understand," he said. "What do you
mean, selling me to you?"

Gazen gave him a smile as thin as a con man's promise. "Oh, of
course," he said. "I forgot. You knew nothing about that, did you?"

"I still don't—I mean—"

"You see, we have a problem here," Gazen went on. "The problem is
that he's still sitting out there at the spaceport. If he'd really sold
you as he claimed, don't you think he'd have taken off for parts
unknown the minute he had his money?"

Except that Gazen's payment hadn't been made in cash, Jack knew.
It had been in the form of credit, good only at the Ponocce Spaceport.
Uncle Virge
couldn't
go anywhere else, at least not if he
wanted to spend that money. He opened his mouth to point that out—

And strangled back the words just in time. He wasn't supposed to
know anything about the deal, after all, including how the payment had
been made. Mentioning the credit line would be a dead giveaway that he
was still in contact with the partner who'd supposedly sold him into
slavery.

And from the look in Gazen's eyes, he realized with a creepy
sensation, that was exactly what the slavemaster had been fishing for.
Proof that Jack wasn't what he claimed to be.

Jack's mouth was still open, waiting for words to come out. "He's
probably trying to get me out," he improvised. He could hear a quaver
in his voice, one that had nothing to do with his acting skills. "Maybe
trying to work a deal with the authorities about that burglary charge."

"Very good," Gazen said softly. Either Jack's act hadn't fooled
him, or else he wasn't ready to abandon the bluff just yet. "Stubborn
loyalty, naïve unthinking trust. Honor among thieves. Is that it?"

"I don't know about honor," Jack said. "But he
is
my
partner. We've been together a long time."

"Of course," Gazen said. "Tell me something. Just for my own
curiosity, you understand. Are you an actual member of the Daughters of
Harriet Tubman? Or are you simply a stupid young fool they talked into
doing this job for them?"

Jack blinked. "A member of
what
?"

"Don't insult my intelligence, McCoy," Gazen said, his voice
abruptly as cold as Neptune's north pole. "
If
that's even your
real name. I was watching just now as we discussed that useless Noy
kid. You reacted far too strongly for a simple professional thief. I
know the type, and none of them cares about anything but the continued
safety of his or her own skin."

"I don't care about Noy," Jack protested. Even to his own ears the
words sounded lame. "I don't care about any of them."

"Of course not," Gazen said, clearly not believing a word of it.
"Did the people who hired you happen to mention that they've been a
splinter up my fingernail for longer than you've been alive? Or that I
hate everything and anyone associated with them? Hmm? Did they?"

And then, suddenly, the name clicked.
The Daughters of Harriet
Tubman:
the building Draycos had spotted across from the
gatekeeper's house. "I don't know what you mean," he insisted. "I never
even heard of them before."

"Still, I have to admit they've come up with something new this
time," Gazen went on. "Usually they try official protests or attempts
to interfere with Chookoock family business. Sending in a thief to
steal our records is beyond even their usual level of insolence."

He tilted his head toward his computer. "I trust you had no
trouble with my files?"

"I didn't touch your computer," Jack said. "I told you, I only
came in—"

"Of course, as they say, it doesn't always take a genius to create
a clever plan," Gazen cut him off. "Sometimes an idiot can fall over
one by accident."

He smiled faintly. "But as they also say, you can't make lox
without smoking a few fish. In this case, you're that fish."

Again, he flicked out the slapstick. Jack flinched away, the
movement sending another splash of pain through him. But the tip of the
weapon passed harmlessly past his left shoulder. Gazen was just playing
with him. "What that means is that you're going to disappear," the
slavemaster continued, his voice as calm as if he were ordering dinner.
"You will be prepared for service; and then you will be quietly
smuggled off-planet and delivered to your new owners."