Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Thief

The dragon hit the graytop and twisted back around. "What is wrong?" he demanded.

"You almost broke my arm, that's what's wrong," Jack snapped, clutching his wrist where Draycos's emerging bulk had compressed it against his jacket. "Geez."

"I do not understand," Draycos said, stepping close.

"This is leather," Jack said, hooking a finger in the jacket's cuff for the dragon's inspection. "See? Leather. Leather doesn't stretch. This is a snap holding the sleeve cuff together. See? Snaps don't stretch, either."

"I see," Draycos said. "I apologize."

"Yeah, it's okay," Jack muttered. The pain was already starting to fade. "Only the next time you want to go out that way, let me know first, okay? Give me a chance to unsnap it."

"No need," Draycos said, tossing his head in a way that reminded Jack of a horse. "I will not do that again."

"Good enough," Jack said. Beneath the jacket sleeve his shirt felt odd. Popping the snap, he gave it a quick look. Draycos's careless exit hadn't been enough to pop the jacket snap, but it had had no trouble popping the button off the shirt cuff.

"That was my fault, too?" Draycos asked, stretching his long neck to peer at the sleeve.

"Don't worry about it," Jack told him. "I've been on my own long enough to know how to sew on buttons." He shook his head. "I bet I'm the only person in the Orion Arm who needs dog flaps in my wardrobe."

"Pardon?"

"Skip it," Jack said, resnapping the jacket sleeve. "I repeat: what now?"

"We will investigate," Draycos said. He looked around, then padded off.

Jack watched him go, rubbing his wrist as he groused silently to himself. Coming here had been a complete waste of time. He knew it, Uncle Virge knew it, and if Draycos had any brains he'd have known it, too.

So how and why had he let the dragon talk him into this in the first place?

On the other hand, he'd already seen Draycos pull some pretty cool tricks out of his hat. Maybe there really was a chance.

He hoped so. He really did. After all the scams and thefts he'd helped Uncle Virgil pull off, it would be pretty unfair if he had to stay on the run for something he didn't even do.

Speaking of Uncle Virgil...

With a sigh, he reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out the old police EvGa scanner Uncle Virgil had lifted from somewhere a few years ago. Getting his comm clip out of another pocket, he attached it to his shirt collar and turned it on. "Uncle Virge?"

"About time," Uncle Virge said. "What took you so long?"

"We ran into a little trouble," Jack told him, activating the EvGa and keying it to run its data transmissions through the comm clip. "You getting the signal?"

"It's fine," Uncle Virge said. "What sort of trouble? Was it the dragon's fault?"

"Hardly," Jack said. "We ran into a pack of heenas. Draycos was the one who got us out of it."

"I see."

Jack frowned. There was an odd tone in Uncle Virge's voice. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You should have called," Uncle Virge said. "You should have let me know."

"There wasn't a whole lot of time," Jack pointed out dryly. "Besides, what could you have done?"

"That's not the point," Uncle Virge said. "I don't like you being out of touch with me for so long."

"Hey, you were the one who didn't want me transmitting until we had the scanner hooked up," Jack reminded him. "Traceable radio signals, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Uncle Virge said huffily. "I just didn't think you'd take so long to get there."

Jack frowned. "What's gotten into you, anyway?" he demanded. "Come on, let's hear it."

There was a short pause. "What's gotten into me is your new friend," Uncle Virge said, lowering his voice. "I don't trust him. We know practically nothing about him, you know. Him or his people or his situation. He could be spinning us a complete rainbow and we'd never know it."

"You mean like the rainbows you're always spinning on me?" Jack couldn't resist pointing out.

"Exactly my point," Uncle Virge agreed. "As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. And you know as well as I do that a con man's first job is to convince the pigeon he's far too good a person to even think of doing anything dishonest."

"Uh-huh," Jack said, nodding. He got it now. "It's not so much that you don't trust him. You just don't like him."

"You see any reason why I should?" Uncle Virge countered stiffly. "All right, no, I don't like him. I don't like the way he's giving orders and taking charge of everything. I especially don't like the way he keeps trying to fill your head with this warrior-ethic claptrap of his."

"He is not filling my head," Jack protested. "Besides, what's claptrappy about it?"

"You don't think it's claptrappy to risk your life and safety just to keep an enemy from burning his little hands?" Uncle Virge asked pointedly. "Back on Iota Klestis, remember?"

"Well... okay, maybe that was a little strange," Jack had to admit. "But—"

"Did it gain you anything?" Uncle Virge persisted. "That's the scale you have to measure everything against, you know. Do you think that thug will be grateful enough to do you a good turn if you ever meet up with him again?"

"Well, no, probably not," Jack had to admit that one, too. "But it didn't hurt us any, either."

Uncle Virge sighed. "That's not the point, Jack lad," he said. "It could have hurt you a lot. It could have given his friends time to grab you, or to find the ship. But that's not the point, either."

"Then what is the point?"

"That this noble K'da warrior bit sounds fine when you read it in a storybook," Uncle Virge said bluntly. "But in real life, it just doesn't work."

Jack looked over at Draycos, prowling along a row of large storage lockers that lined the warehouse wall near the entrance to the tube. "It seems to work okay for Draycos," he said.

"I'm sure it used to," Uncle Virge countered. "It's easy to be grand and noble when you're a soldier, surrounded by lots of other soldiers. It's quite a bit different when you're alone. Did you ever hear of the Dragonbacks?"

Jack frowned. "No."

"They were a small group of idealistic, do-gooder soldiers that came out of Trantson about a hundred fifty years ago," Uncle Virge said. "Each of them had a small dragon tattoo on his back just between his shoulder blades. Said it gave them strength and courage."

"Sounds Chinese," Jack offered. "Dragons were a big deal in their ancient legends."

"Actually, they did claim they were inspired by some obscure Terran Chinese or Japanese story," Uncle Virge said. "Of course, they also said they were descendants of the Knights Templar of Terran Europe, so who knows what they were thinking. If they were thinking at all."

"Sounds like you don't like them."

"What's not to like?" Uncle Virge countered. "The whole group died out maybe ten years after they got started."

Jack puckered his lips. "Because they tried to be helpful?"

"Because they got involved with other people's problems instead of taking care of their own," Uncle Virge said. "That's the lesson here, Jack lad. You have to look out for yourself, because no one will do it for you."

"Jack!" Draycos called.

Jack looked up. The dragon was standing beside one of the lockers about thirty feet away, his head turned in Jack's direction. "Something?" Jack asked.

"Perhaps," Draycos said, his tail twitching. "Come."

Jack was at his side a few seconds later. "What is it?"

"This storage unit," Draycos said, poking his snout at the door. "It is alone of all the others in having this attached to it."

Jack frowned. Stuck across the door beside the lock mechanism was a small sticker with red edges.

A sticker with some very interesting words:

PROPERTY OF BRAXTON UNIVERSIS, INC. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.