Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Slave

That point arrived two hours later, when Jack began shivering in his sleep.

Draycos managed to postpone it another half hour by returning to three-dimensional form and using his body to help keep the boy warm. But eventually, even that wasn't enough.

Jack listened in silence as Draycos related the night's activities. "That was a

close one, all right," he commented when the K'da had finished. "Thanks to Fleck and his low-rent friends. A shame we can't ever tell him—I'd love to see the expression on that ugly slap-catcher face of his."

"It would be interesting," Draycos agreed. "I presume, then, that you no longer wish to make him eat the spilled berries?"

Jack waved a hand. "The bugs have probably gotten to most of them by now, anyway."

He shivered violently. "I just wish I'd thought to bury that blanket Maerlynn gave me in the floor here. It would have come in handy."

"As a matter of fact, I did bury it," Draycos told him. "I thought it would might be bad for Maerlynn if you were found with it. Unfortunately, it is no longer here."

"Maerlynn must have dug it up afterward," Jack said with a sigh. "Too bad."

"The point is that we now have a serious problem," Draycos said. "I would have no difficulty myself jumping over the hedge. But I could not carry you over without risking injury to you."

"That just means we'll need another way over, that's all," Jack said. "Over, or through."

Draycos felt his ears twitch. "You have an idea?"

"I think so," Jack said. "It'll take some fancy timing, but if I can pull that part of it off it should work."

"May I ask what you have in mind?"

"Sure." In the dim light, he saw Jack smile tightly. "You remember Greb mentioning a couple of days ago that his and Grib's hatchday was coming up in three weeks? I thought we might throw them a little hatchday party."

"In three weeks?" Draycos asked, frowning.

Jack shook his head. "Life is uncertain," he said. "Let's do it now."

The Brummgas let him out of the hotbox an hour or so after sunrise, just about the time the place was starting to warm up to a decent temperature. The rest of the slave colony was quiet, with everyone no doubt taking advantage of their day off to catch up on some sleep.

All except Fleck. The ugly man was waiting with the Brummgas, a bowl in his hand. Without a word he held it out toward Jack and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Sighing to himself, Jack looped the strap around his neck and trudged off. It was, he knew, going to be a long, lonely, tiring day.

He reached the rainbow berry bushes to find he'd been wrong on all three counts.

He wasn't going to be alone. Maerlynn was already there, along with Greb and Grib and Noy and a half dozen others.

All of them already with small piles of berries on the ground beside them.

"What's this?" Jack asked, blinking in surprise as he looked around. "I thought this was Tenthday."

"Good morning, Jack," Maerlynn said cheerfully. "Yes, it is. Better get these piles picked up right away, before someone steps on one of them."

"I'll help," Noy offered. Stepping carefully over his own pile he trotted over to Jack and put in the few he still had in his hands. "Grib's pile is the biggest—we'll get those first."

"But—" Jack said, still bewildered as he let Noy lead him over toward the twin Jantris. "Isn't this your day off?"

"Sure," Noy said. He turned his head away from Jack and coughed. "But it's your day off, too. We wanted to help you."

"We saw what happened," Maerlynn explained as Noy carefully scooped up Grib's pile of berries and laid them gently in the bowl. "It isn't fair to punish you for a rule you didn't know."

Jack stared down at Noy as the boy moved to Greb's pile and started gathering the berries into his hands. Selfishness between thieves and con men was something he knew very well. Help between soldiers he could sort of understand—after all, their lives might depend on each other.

But none of the slaves working here had a single thing to gain by helping him out. In fact, it could well be exactly the opposite. "Won't you get in trouble?" he asked. "I mean, that Brummga wanted me to sweat all day."

"Maybe that's what he wanted," Maerlynn said. "What he said was that you had to bring in a full bowl of berries if you wanted to eat. He never said you had to fill the bowl yourself."

"But that's what he meant," Jack argued. "Don't get me wrong—I appreciate the help. But I don't want to get you into trouble."

Maerlynn smiled, an oddly sad look on her face. "We're already slaves, Jack," she said gently. "How much worse trouble could we be in?"

Lots worse, the obvious answer flashed through Jack's mind. But for once in his life, he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. These people all knew the risk they were taking for him. They were taking it anyway. "Thank you," he murmured instead.

"We have to stick together," Maerlynn said quietly. "If we don't look out for each other, who else will?"

"No one, I guess," Jack said, thinking about what Lisssa had said once about charity and looking out for yourself.

Lisssa herself, naturally, was nowhere to be seen.

"So let's get a move on," Maerlynn said firmly. "It's our day off. Let's get this finished and go relax."

With all those hands, and with only one bowl to fill, they were done in less than half an hour. "And that's that," Maerlynn said as Jack dropped in the final handful. Right to the line, he confirmed with a sort of guilty satisfaction, and not a single berry over.

"Now we'll put them inside the hut, under your bed, until the Brummgas come to pick them up," Maerlynn said as they all trooped back to the colony. The place was starting to come alive, Jack noted, with several of the slaves moving about.

"And then we'll be done for the day."

"So what does everyone do on Tenthday?" Jack asked. "Aside from laundry, I mean," he added as he spotted a pair of Compfrin females carrying grimy-looking bundles.

"In the morning we mostly just rest," Noy said, pausing to cough. That cough had been getting worse all morning, Jack had noted uneasily. It was starting to sound wet, too, as if fluid was gathering in his lungs. "In the afternoon we usually play games," the boy went on. "Some of the grownups like to carve or make things out of wood."

"There are often repairs that need to be attended to," Maerlynn said. "Beds sometimes fall apart, or some of the cooking or serving equipment breaks. The Brummgas aren't very good about maintaining this end of their land."

"You like chopball?" Greb asked. "We're going to play some later."

"Haven't ever played," Jack said. "But I had an idea for something else we might do. You said you and your brother had your hatchday coming up, right?"

"Right," Grib said. "We'll be sixteen. Almost adults."

"We're already molting," Greb added proudly, running a finger across his chest.

"We should have all our adult feathers before we're seventeen."

"A lot of Jantris don't even start getting their feathers until they're seventeen," Grib said. "That's what Maerlynn said. She reads a lot."

"She said that meant we were percocious," Greb said.

"That's 'precocious,' " Maerlynn corrected him. "That means you're growing up faster than the average Jantri."

Or else it just meant the Brum-a-dum year was a little longer than the Jantri standard. But Jack wasn't about to bring that up. It would only kick off a new topic of conversation, and he might not get in another word all morning.

Getting a Jantri to shut up was like trying to sweep back the tide with a paintbrush.

"I'm sure you are," he said instead. "So what do you say we have a party."

Both Jantris blinked in unison. "A party?"

"I'm not sure we can do that, Jack," Maerlynn put in warningly. Clearly, she didn't want to get the twins' hopes up and then squash them like an overripe berry. "There isn't any extra food we could use. Or anything we could make special treats from."