Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Thief

He shook his head. "We can't fight the whole Orion Arm, Draycos," he said quietly. "I don't know what Braxton has against your people, or how he got involved with this. But we can't fight him and whoever else he's got in his pocket and this Death weapon."

For a moment the dragon was silent. "If what you say is true, the odds against us are indeed immense," he said at last. "But again, odds do not alter the rightness or wrongness of a course of action. And I believe we have already determined what that right course of action should be."

Jack smiled wanly. "So in other words, you want to take on Braxton Universis," he said. "Just you and me."

"We must of course begin with just you and me," Draycos agreed. "But that does not mean we will not gather allies to our side as we go. The owner of the cylinder, for one, may be grateful for our assistance."

Jack shook his head again. "I can just hear what Uncle Virge would have to say about this."

"I can imagine that, as well," Draycos said. "But the question is what you have to say."

Jack sighed. "The Orion Arm's a big place," he said. "Even Cornelius Braxton must have better things to do than track down some punk-nosed kid who messed up on him. Sure, let's give it a shot."

Draycos ducked his head. "I am proud of you, Jack," he said. "Though you are only a boy, you have the spirit of a K'da warrior."

"Yeah, well, let's hope that spirit doesn't get permanently separated from the rest of me tonight," Jack said sourly, looking at his watch. "It's after eleven. I guess we'd better start getting ready."

The Essenay, he knew, would be waiting at the rendezvous point on Aldershot by now. Dimly, he wondered what Uncle Virge would do when he simply vanished.

The purser's office was set to close at midnight. Jack got there at exactly five minutes till.

The purser and his two assistants were in the process of closing up for the night as Jack stepped in through the door. "Oh, wait a minute," he called, putting a little pleading into his voice. "Please? Am I too late to put something else in the safe?"

"Not at all, young sir," the purser assured him, coming over to the counter. "Your uncle remembered something else?"

"Yeah." Jack shook his head. "He is so absentminded sometimes."

"No problem," the purser said. "Come on back."

He opened the counter section and walked Jack to the back. Again making sure Jack couldn't see the keypad, he opened the vault. "You have your key?"

"Right here," Jack said, pulling out the key and an expensive-looking jewelry case. Like the data tube he'd put in earlier, he'd bought the jewelry case at one of the liner's gift shops. But of course the purser wouldn't know that. "I really appreciate this."

"Not a problem," the purser said, finishing the combination and pulling open the safe door.

Jack stepped inside and opened Box 48. Laying the jewelry case carefully inside, he closed and locked the box again. "That it?" the purser asked as Jack stepped out of the vault.

"Yes, thank you," Jack said, pausing right by the edge of the door.

Now came the tricky part. Cupping his right hand around the cuff link he was palming, he threw a quick look at each of the purser's assistants. Busy with their computers, neither was looking his direction.

"Watch yourself," the purser warned. Leaning his weight against the door, he started to push it closed.

"I'm okay," Jack said, glancing sideways at the hidden security cameras over the office door. They could be more of a problem, but it didn't look like either of them would have a clear view, either.

The door swung almost closed; and with a sudden twitch of his right wrist, Jack sent the cufflink he was holding clattering onto the floor toward the counter. "Blast!" he said.

It was probably the oldest distraction in the universe. But as Uncle Virgil had been fond of pointing out, the old tricks got old precisely because they worked. Even as he continued pushing the vault door closed, the purser's eyes automatically went to the cuff link bouncing across his floor.

And as Jack threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration, his left hand dipped for a split-second behind the nearly closed door.

Draycos was ready. With a brief tug of weight, he shot out of Jack's sleeve through the gap and into the safe.

Jack's arms continued their upward swing, his left hand moving clear of the vault door just as it slammed shut with a muffled thud. "Darn it all, anyway," Jack growled, chasing after the cufflink. "I am forever losing that thing."

"Let me see it," the purser offered as Jack caught up with the cufflink and picked it up. "Maybe it can be fixed."

"I don't know how anyone could," Jack said, handing it over. He didn't know if the man was suspicious or just trying to be helpful, but it didn't matter. Uncle Virgil had long ago taught him to watch the details, and he'd made sure to carefully break the cuff link. "See how this connector piece flops around?"

"Yes, I see," the purser agreed, twisting it back and forth. "We do have a licensed jeweler aboard, in Gantor Gems down on Deck 17. She may be able to fix it for you."

"That's a good idea," Jack said as the man handed back the cuff link. "Maybe I'll go see her tomorrow. Thanks."

"You're welcome," the purser said, ushering him through the counter opening and out the door. "Have a good night."

Well, a busy night, anyway, Jack told himself as he left the office and headed back down the corridor. First stop would be back to their stateroom for a change of clothing, including the thin plastic gloves he always carried in a hidden pocket in his jacket, and to pick up the rest of the props for the night's performance. He just hoped Draycos would remember the instructions he'd given him for working that emergency release lever.

He also hoped the dragon wasn't claustrophobic.

He had to walk past the monitor room a half dozen times before the area was clear enough for him to sneak into the service hallway without being seen. He got the electrical room door open, slipped inside, and started work on the air vent grill—

He had it halfway off when there was a sudden commotion outside his door. He froze, crouched by the vent, sure that he'd been spotted and that the jig was up.

But the voices and footsteps went past without anyone pounding on his door or trying to open it. The noise faded away, and he realized to his limp relief that it had been nothing but the one o'clock shift change. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he got back to work.

A minute later the grill was off. Pulling his homemade smoke bomb from a side pocket, he set it carefully into the air conduit and started the fuse. In exactly twenty minutes, if he'd done the job right, the bomb would go off. When it did, the air flow would blow the smoke straight into the monitor room.

It took him seventeen of those twenty minutes to get back to the corridor outside the purser's office. Again, it took him a few tries before he could get into the service hallway without being seen.

Exactly nineteen minutes after setting the bomb, he was in position.

For that last minute he stood in the hallway, counting down the seconds in his mind and staring at the curved mark Draycos had made on the wall. For him, the waiting had always been the hardest part of any job. That was when all the doubts came swirling in: doubts about whether he'd covered all the details, whether someone was off their usual schedule, whether there was some vital bit of information he didn't know or had forgotten.

Sometimes, there had been doubts of a more serious sort.

Questions about whether he should even be doing this sort of work.

Uncle Virgil had done his best to make sure that last set of doubts didn't raise their heads very often. When they did, he'd done his best to brush them aside. That was probably why it hadn't been until after his death that Jack had been able to even start thinking about quitting the business.