Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (4 page)

"But you are here," the One said thoughtfully. "And they are
right, you
do
smell like Jupa Stuart. And there is much work to
be done."

"You wouldn't like the quality of my work," Jack warned, a sinking
feeling in his stomach.

"You are a Jupa," the One said, all the hesitation gone from his
voice. "You are
the
Jupa."

And before Jack could say anything, the One turned toward the
crowd and lifted his arms. "The Jupa Stuart will not return," he
called, his voice echoing across the canyon. "But he has sent another
Jupa. The Jupa—" He turned a quizzical look toward Jack.

Jack sighed. "I'm Jack," he said.

"The Jupa Jack," the One intoned, turning back to the crowd.
"Welcome him to your lives and his duty."

The entire crowd exploded into a cacophony of whistles, shrieks,
and birdcalls. "Look, there's been a mistake," Jack called, trying one
last time. "I'm not—"

"Let a bridge be constructed to the Jupa's new home," the One
ordered.

The crowd surged forward, the whistles and birdcalls louder than
ever. Jack took an involuntary step backward, half expecting to be
trampled.

Fortunately, the flow split apart before it reached him. Some of
the Golvins headed for the pillar, while the rest swarmed toward a pile
of large flagstones stacked at the base of one of the other pillars.
Grabbing stones half as big as they were, they staggered their way back
to the pillar.

And as Jack watched in amazement, they proceeded to build a bridge.

Not just a stack of stone, but a real bridge. They started the
project some twenty feet out from the pillar, manhandling the stones
together into an arch curving upward. Jack wondered how they were
holding the stones together, and gradually realized that they were
using nothing but their own spit.

Within minutes the arch was high and curved enough that it was
threatening to tip over. But other Golvins were standing ready, putting
in vertical supports beneath the far end as the rest continued working
on the bridge itself.

Fifteen minutes later, it was finished: a climbable archway
leading from the ground to the second-floor doorway the Golvins had
indicated was to be Jack's new home.

"It is complete," the One said with clear satisfaction as a pair
of aliens at the top spit-glued the whole thing to the pillar wall.
"Unless you will require handrails?"

"No, this will do fine," Jack assured him, wondering what their
spit would do to human flesh if it happened to get on him. Best to make
sure he never found out. "Thank you. I'd like to rest a bit, and then
you can explain my duties."

The One's face wrinkled. "You do not—? But of course. You wish to
see the lists of sides and uprights."

"That would be a good start," Jack agreed. "I'll be out
presently." Stepping to the archway, he got a grip on the edges and
started climbing.

At first he went carefully, not quite ready to believe the thing
was as solid as it looked. But there was no give or jostle at all to
the structure, and by the time he reached the top he was convinced.
Pushing aside the hanging fringe, he went inside.

The apartment turned out to be brighter than it had looked from
outside. Though there were no actual windows, there were a half-dozen
waist-high openings in the inner walls where slabs of white rock angled
against the outer walls sent a soft glow into the room. Between that
and the light filtering in through the doorway fringe, there was enough
for him to see that the room was furnished with a couch, two chairs, a
small table, a battery-powered light, and a small self-contained galley
setup that looked like it had been pulled straight out of an old cargo
hauler. Through another pair of doorways in the back he could see what
looked like a bedroom and a bathroom. The bathroom's inner workings
also seemed to have been scavenged from a spaceship.

"The light must be streaming down onto the stones from above,"
Draycos murmured from his shoulder.

"Keep it down, buddy," Jack warned quietly, walking around the
room and making a quick check of the walls and furnishings. He couldn't
imagine a simpleminded people like the Golvins bugging the room of
their great and glorious Jupa, whatever the blazes that was. But
surrounded by unknown aliens in a canyon three hundred feet deep was no
place to take chances.

As it turned out, his first gut feeling was right. The living area
wasn't bugged, nor were the bedroom or bathroom. "And so here we are,"
Jack said, dropping tiredly onto the bed. The mattress felt a little
stiff, but not too bad. "Wherever in the name of vacuum sealant
here
is."

With a brief pressure of paws against Jack's shoulders, Draycos
leaped out of the boy's shirt and landed with his usual silent grace on
the stone floor. "We are approximately four hundred miles east of the
NorthCentral Spaceport," the K'da said, stepping over to one of the
white-stone openings and twisting his neck to peer upward into the gap
between inner and outer walls. "The western edge of the desert is
approximately seventy miles away."

Jack winced as he lay back onto the mattress and closed his eves.
Seventy miles. So much for any chance they could simply walk out of
here. "Any other helpful tidbits?" he asked, more sarcastically than
he'd really intended.

"Possibly," Draycos said calmly. "There are the remains of a
mining operation less than a mile to the southeast."

"I already told you there was some mining out here."

"Yes,
you did," Draycos acknowledged. "You also told me
your parents had been killed in a mine accident."

Jack opened his eyes, frowning at the K'da. "What exactly are you
suggesting?"

"And," Draycos added, "the people here seem to recognize your
scent."

For a long moment the room was silent. Jack listened to the sudden
thudding of his heart, the vague and half-formed memories of his
parents flooding back through his mind. "Are you saying," he said at
last, "that
this
is where they died?"

"I don't know for certain," Draycos said, padding to the bed and
resting his upper body on the mattress beside Jack. "But the facts seem
to point that direction."

Jack's gaze darted around the room, a sudden inexplicable panic
flooding into him.
Get away
! was his first reflexive reaction.
Run,
before they get you, too
.

He took a careful breath, forcing down the panic. He wasn't three
years old anymore, after all. "Let's assume you're right," he said.
"What do they want from me?"

"That may depend on how they remember your parents," Draycos said.
"Fortunately, they seem to hold Jupas in great esteem."

"Only
I'm
not a Jupa," Jack reminded him.

"Perhaps there is some task your parents were attempting when they
died," Draycos suggested. "They may hope you'll complete it."

"I hope they don't want me to reopen the mine," Jack muttered, a
sudden lump rising into his throat. "I don't know the first thing about
mining."

"Yet you learn quickly," Draycos pointed out.

Jack snorted. "I hate to tell you, symby, but a hundred feet
underground is no place to start learning a trade. Mining is a lot
trickier than it looks."

"We'll take it slow and easy," Draycos assured him. "And we'll do
it together."

"Terrific," Jack countered. "How much do
you
know about
mining?"

The whiplike tail arched thoughtfully. "It involves digging," he
said helpfully.

"Thanks," Jack said dryly. "
That
much I knew." Sitting up,
he twisted his left shoe around and prodded at the molded rubber of the
sole. The secret compartment popped open, and he dug out his spare comm
clip. "First things first. Let's see if the cavalry was paying
attention back there." He clicked on the device. "Uncle Virge?" he
called. "Uncle Virge? Alison? Anyone home?"

There was no reply. "We'll have only limited range surrounded by
this much rock," Draycos pointed out.

"I know," Jack said. Getting up, he went out of the bedroom and
crossed the living room to the exit door. The crowd had dispersed, the
Golvins having apparently gone back to tending various parts of the
cropland. Looking more closely, Jack could now see that there was an
intricate and efficient-looking irrigation system leading off from the
river. Maybe these people weren't as simpleminded as he'd first
thought. "Uncle Virge?" he called again quietly.

Still no response. With a sigh, Jack shut off the comm clip and
went back to the bedroom.

Draycos was by one of the white stones, peering up between the
walls. "The gap is quite spacious," he said. "It would be easily
passable."

"And it probably conducts sound like crazy," Jack warned, crossing
to his side.

"Perhaps, but not between apartments," Draycos said. "These shafts
appear to lead only to this particular set of rooms. There may be other
shafts extending downward to other apartments."

Jack craned his neck and looked up. The entire shaft seemed to be
made of white stone glowing in the reflected light from the sky above.
The shimmer made it difficult to see more than a few dozen feet, but
there were certainly no other openings within that distance. "Took a
heck of a lot of digging to open these up," he commented.

"True, if they burrowed these rooms and shafts from preexisting
stone columns," Draycos agreed. "But having watched them build the
bridge, I suspect they constructed the pillars themselves. In that
case, they simply designed the structures with these double walls."

"That's almost worse," Jack said, wrinkling his nose as an odd
scent drifted down between the two walls. "There must be almost forty
of these things scattered around the canyon."

"They have clearly been at this a long time," Draycos agreed.

Jack shook his head as he eased his way out of the shaft. "I don't
know," he said. "If push comes to shove, I think I'd rather take my
chances holding on to your tail while you climb up the outside."

"For three hundred feet?"

"You're right," Jack agreed. "I may have to tie a knot in it
first."

The dragon tilted his head warningly. "What?" he rumbled.

"Kidding," Jack hastened to assure him.

"Good," Draycos said. "I find it interesting that the other Jupas
seemed to have had no problem reaching this apartment."

"Probably had climbing gear or lift belts," Jack said.
"Unfortunately, all that stuff's back aboard the
Essenay
."

"They'll come for us," Draycos assured him quietly. "Uncle Virge
will not abandon you. He and Alison will somehow learn where we are."

"Or maybe he already knows," Jack said, frowning as a sudden
thought struck him. "If this is where my parents died . . ."

He looked sharply at Draycos as some of the pieces fell together.
"Why that rotten—" he bit out, a sudden anger flooding through him. "He
knew
these Golvins were looking for me.
That
's why he
never let me off the ship whenever we were on Semaline."

"That does now seem likely," Draycos agreed.

"Likely, my left foot," Jack growled. "It's a dead cert. Geez.
First Neverlin, and now these Golvins. Is there
anyone
out
there who doesn't want a piece of me?"

Draycos flicked his tail. "You're a very popular person."

Jack glared at him. "This isn't funny, buddy."

Draycos ducked his head. "My apologies," he said. "I was trying to
lighten the mood."

Jack sighed. "I know," he said, reaching over to scratch Draycos
behind his ear. "I'm sorry. I'm just . . . I thought I'd buried all these
memories a long time ago."

"Memories are not a bad thing," Draycos reminded him. "They anchor
us to the past—"

"And give us a sense of the present, and point the way to the
future," Jack finished for him. "Yes, I remember the spiel you gave Noy
back in the Chookoock slave quarters."

"It was
not
a spiel," Draycos said stiffly. "The boy was
ill, and I was trying to comfort him."

"I know," Jack said, his mind drifting back to that terrible time.
At least these Golvins didn't seem to want him as a slave. "I wonder
how he's doing."

"I'm sure he's fine," Draycos said. "He and the others had
Maerlynn to look after them. Perhaps Fleck, too."

"Maybe." Jack took a deep breath. "Well, no point putting this off
any longer. Climb aboard, buddy. Let's go see what the One Among Many
wants with me."

In those first crucial seconds as the man's hand closed on her
wrist, Alison tried her best to break free. But the man was a good
eight inches taller and a
lot
of pounds heavier than she was.
He also knew all the same tricks she did, and he clearly wasn't in any
mood to be trifled with. A moment later, despite her best efforts, she
found herself being hauled bodily down the street.

"Who are you?" she demanded, hearing her voice crack with strain.
"Let me go. Let me
go
."

The man ignored her. Alison thought about her Corvine, tucked away
out of sight beneath her jacket. But she was pretty sure he would be
ready for something like that, too. Clenching her teeth, trying to keep
from getting dragged off her feet, she left the gun where it was.

It was probably just as well that she did. As the man pulled her
into a cafe with a closed sign on the door, a second hard-faced man
slipped out of concealment in one of the nearby doorways and followed
them in.

The inside of the cafe was deserted. "What in Gringold's mother is
going on?" Alison demanded as her captor dragged her to one of the back
tables where they'd be less visible to the people passing by on the
street. "Are you cops?"

"Got a news flash for you, buddy," the second man said as he
frowned at Alison. He looked a lot like the first, except that instead
of a bushy mustache he had wide muttonchop sideburns. "This is
definitely
not
Virgil Morgan."