Dragonback 03 Dragon and Slave (19 page)

He waved the slapstick idly. "Leaving your friends at Tubman to
sit around their meeting rooms, sipping their tea and eating their
scones. Wondering occasionally whatever happened to you."

A heavy silence filled the room. Jack tried to swallow, but his
mouth and throat were as dry as a summer's day in the Gobi. Certainly
he'd been in tighter situations than this one, facing ruthless people
like Snake Voice and the enemy mercenary he'd dubbed Lieutenant Cue
Ball.

But all the others had at least seen him as a person, someone to
be manipulated or squeezed or maybe bargained with. Gazen saw him as
nothing more than an old hat he might sell for a little pocket change.

And somehow that fact was more chilling than any of the man's
veiled threats. Death he could face, and maybe talk or wiggle or con
his way out of. A lifetime of slavery stretching out in front of him
was a more horrible thought.

And for perhaps the first time, he truly understood why it was
that Draycos hated slavery so much.

Draycos.

And suddenly the spiderweb of fear and pain Gazen had spun with
his words and slapstick collapsed into the proper perspective. Jack
wasn't alone here, after all. Not by a long shot.

And humming away almost within arm's reach was Gazen's computer.
Already up and running, with all the passwords already entered.

Exactly the situation he'd been looking for.

A kaleidoscope of possibilities flashed across his mind like the
lights of a broken status board. He could do it; right here, right now.
A simple order to attack, and he would get to see the expression of
horror on Gazen's face as he saw a poet-warrior of the K'da come
boiling out of Jack's shirt collar.

Not that the expression—or the face—were likely to last very long.
Slapstick or no slapstick, the dragon would make hamburger out of him
in nothing flat. Jack could dig out the mercenary data, they could cut
their way through however many Brummgan guards were loitering around
outside, and head for the main gate. It was almost too easy.

And then he took another look at Gazen's face. He was watching
Jack closely, like some interesting specimen squirming under a
microscope.

No, not like a specimen under a microscope. Like an approaching
spaceship that seemed way too harmless to be real. A ship that somehow,
somewhere, had hidden weapons that had to be located and identified.

The setup wasn't
almost
too easy. It
was
too easy.

This was a test. The whole thing; from the humming computer, to
the deliberate mention of Noy's sickness, to even being in here alone
with Gazen.

The slavemaster was trying to goad him into some kind of reaction.
Feeding him rope and waiting for him to take it, obligingly tie a
noose, and hang himself.

Which meant Gazen's apparent helplessness was an illusion. The
first move Jack made in that direction, and it would be as if somebody
had dumped a bucket of Brummgas over his head.

He took a careful breath, quieting his emotions. No, Gazen was
still motivated by money, and Jack was worth a lot of it. According to
Uncle Virge's eavesdropped timetable, there were still a few days
before they would be ready to ship him off the planet. He would
continue to play innocent—or at least as innocent as he could under the
circumstances—and wait for the right opportunity.

An opportunity, and a timing, of
his
choosing. Not Gazen's.

"You're taking this remarkably well, I must say," Gazen murmured
into Jack's thoughts. "Perhaps you're expecting to be rescued? If so,
I'd advise you to lay that hope to rest. It won't happen. Guaranteed."

He slid his slapstick back into the holster at his waist. "Or
perhaps it's just that you're too stupid to comprehend the fate that
awaits you," he added in a nastier tone. "Perhaps a small taste will
help spur your imagination. Guards!"

The door slammed open, and three Brummgas bounded into the room.
Their headlong rush seemed to falter, the rear one almost stumbling
over the other two, as they caught sight of Jack still sitting quietly
in his chair. "Yes,
Panjan
Gazen?" one of them said, looking
uncertainly between Gazen and Jack.

"He needs more of a lesson than the regular hotboxes can provide,"
Gazen said.

His dark eyes focused one final time on Jack's face. Then, as if
in complete dismissal of Jack as both puzzle and person, he turned back
to his computer. "Take him away," he said over his shoulder, "and put
him in the frying pan."

Jack cleared his throat as the Brummgas surrounded his chair.
"Aren't you forgetting one small thing?" he asked.

Reluctantly, it seemed, Gazen turned back around to face him. "And
that is . . .?"

"Her Thumbleness will be expecting me to play with her today,"
Jack said. "She's likely to be upset if I don't turn up."

Gazen's eyes flicked to the Brummgas. "Her Thumbleness needs to
learn she can't have everything she wants."

"Absolutely," Jack agreed. "But I wouldn't want to be the one who
has to teach her that."

Gazen smiled thinly. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I can
handle Her Thumbleness."

His eyes flicked to the Brummgas again. "The frying pan," he
ordered again. "Make it the full treatment."

The frying pan turned out to be a small metal shed tucked out of
sight in a clump of bushes about fifty yards from the mansion's kitchen
entrance. Probably hidden, Jack thought cynically, so as not to disturb
the more delicate members of the Chookoock family. Other than that, it
looked pretty much like the regular hotboxes he'd become acquainted
with over the past couple of weeks.

Uneasily, he wondered what extras Gazen had added to give it such
an ominous name.

The answer came as the lead Brummga led the way around to the far
side of the frying pan and levered up the door. The other hotboxes had
been plain tin structures, with plain tin insides. This one, in
contrast, was lined with a bright copper mesh, with horizontal and
vertical wires carefully separated by thin black rubbery spacers.

The Brummgas shoved him inside and swung the door closed again.
The lock clicked, and with a muttering of deep voices the aliens
clumped their way back toward the main house. "I had wondered what was
meant by the name frying pan," Draycos murmured when the footsteps had
faded away. "These wires are electrical, correct?"

"Afraid so," Jack agreed grimly, searching the walls and ceiling
for evidence of listening devices. There hadn't been any in the other
hotboxes, but one so close to the main house might run under different
rules.

An instant later he jerked violently as a jolt of current burned
through him. "Ow!"

"Are you injured?" Draycos asked anxiously.

"No, I'm just fine," Jack gritted out, his teeth clenched against
the fresh waves of pain rolling through his body. The shock itself
hadn't been all that painful, but it had reawakened all the nerve
endings already scrubbed raw by Gazen's slapstick.

He wondered if Gazen had thought about that part before throwing
him in here. Odds were, he had.

"Jack—"

"No, it's okay," Jack reassured the dragon. "Really. If they
wanted to kill me, there are easier ways."

"Nevertheless, it is clearly painful," Draycos said. "Move as far
as you can to the side."

"You must be kidding," Jack said, looking around. Like the regular
hotboxes, there wasn't enough spare room in here for a decent hamster
cage. "Move to what side where?"

"Press your body against the right-hand wall," Draycos ordered,
sliding around on Jack's back. "And raise the lower part of your shirt."

Another jolt sparked through the mesh. This time, Jack's spasming
legs drove the back of his head against the ceiling. "Now; move
quickly," Draycos said as the current shut off and Jack sagged back
down. "Before it happens again."

"Sure," Jack muttered, tasting blood where his clenching teeth had
caught the side of his tongue. Rolling partway onto his side, he
pressed his chest against the wires and raised the back of his shirt.

Draycos lifted up from his lower back, squeezing himself into the
remaining space. The sudden change in the number of occupants shoved
Jack hard against the wall, forcing the side of his face up against the
cold metal as well.

He closed his eyes, muscles tightening in anticipation and dread.
If another shock came now, there would be nowhere for him to even
twitch away to. Draycos's own body would hold him against the mesh
until the current knocked him unconscious.

Or else seriously burned him. Maybe even killed him.

Gazen would be very unhappy if that happened. Slaves of the
Chookoock family were not supposed to do anything, not even die,
without official permission.

The kind of permission Noy had been given this morning.

Abruptly, Draycos melted back onto Jack's skin. "What?" Jack
demanded as the unexpected loss of pressure sent him rolling over onto
his back.

"I have altered the wiring," the dragon said, a grim satisfaction
in his voice. "It will no longer send current through the mesh."

"Great," Jack growled. "At least, not until someone notices and
sends out a repairman. Then they'll see what you've done, and wonder
where I got any tools—"

"No one will come," Draycos interrupted him. "No one will notice.
I have not simply connected the outer wires together, but have run them
through a small piece of wood. If I have calculated correctly, the wood
will indicate a similar level of electrical resistance as a human body."

Jack shook his head. "I have no idea what any of that means."

From below him came a sudden crackle of electricity. He tensed,
but no shock stabbed into his skin. "It means," Draycos said as the
crackling stopped, "that any instruments they have attached to the
system will show that it is still hurting you."

"Oh," Jack said. "Well . . . okay. Thanks."

"You are welcome."

For a minute neither of them spoke. Jack shifted around, trying to
get comfortable. It was a futile task, as every move brought fresh
agony to his muscles. But oddly enough, and rather to his own surprise,
his thoughts weren't on his own aches and pains.

Instead, they were with Noy. He could practically see the younger
boy's face floating in front of his eyes there in the gloom of the
frying pan. He could hear his voice, too, cheerful but with a hidden
defiance lurking beneath it. Unlike Greb and Grib, Noy hadn't simply
accepted his slavery as if it were just the way things had to be, even
though he'd been born into it.

But then, Maerlynn had said something about his parents trying to
escape once. Maybe they'd managed to teach him about freedom before
they'd died.

And now Noy was sick, stuck away somewhere in the isolation hut
Gazen had ordered him tossed into. Sick, and weak, and hungry. Maybe
dying.

All alone.

Another crackle came and went. "You are very quiet," Draycos said
softly. "Are you in pain?"

Jack's first impulse was to lie about it. Compassion had not
exactly been at the top of Uncle Virgil's list of prized qualities.
He'd considered it a sign of weakness, in fact, and had done his best
to hammer that same way of thinking into Jack's skull. Since his death,
it had been a task Uncle Virge had done his best to continue.

But Jack was getting tired of that kind of life. He was also
getting tired of lying. "I was thinking about Noy," he told Draycos.
"Wondering how he was doing."

For a moment the dragon was silent. Automatically, Jack braced
himself for the scorn and ridicule that would have come instantly from
either version of his uncle. "His situation did not sound good,"
Draycos agreed. "Do you think there is anything we can do for him?"

"It could be dangerous," Jack warned. "You game to give it a try?"

"Absolutely," Draycos said, sounding vaguely insulted. "Did you
have any doubt?"

Jack smiled. The K'da warrior ethic. "No, not really," he said.

"Good," Draycos said firmly. "What is your plan?"

"Come on, give me a break," Jack protested. "I just started
thinking about this. You expect me to have a plan already?"

"Of course not," the dragon murmured. "Forgive me."

"But I'm working on it," Jack assured him, wincing as he shifted
aching shoulders again. "Gazen sure is a fun person to have around,
isn't he?"

"In my opinion, he is mentally unstable," Draycos said firmly.
"But one thing still bothers me."

"Only one?"

"The Daughters of Harriet Tubman," Draycos went on, ignoring the
comment. "If Gazen dislikes them so much, why does he tolerate their
presence near Chookoock family property?"

"Mainly, because he hasn't got a choice," Jack said. "Remember the
rest of the sign? 'Internes Consular Adjunct.' The
consular
part means the place is part of the Internes diplomatic system. I don't
know how the Tubman Group managed that one."

"And the Internes would be upset if the Brummgas threw them out?"

Jack shook his head. "You don't get it. Foreign embassies are
considered the property of that particular nation or government. By
being a consular station, the Tubman house is basically a small chunk
of Internes territory on Brum-a-dum. Internes law applies there, not
the Brummgan versions."

"Interesting," Draycos said thoughtfully. "How is it you know all
this? Is it common knowledge?"

"It's common enough," Jack said. "I know it mostly because Uncle
Virgil once did a scam that depended on how diplomatic privilege works."

"So you are saying that an attempt to move the Tubman Group out
could be considered the same as an invasion?"

"The diplomats would probably find nicer-sounding words," Jack
said. "But, yeah, that's what it boils down to. Gazen can hate it all
he wants, but there's not a grease-stained thing he can do about it."