Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Slave

For starters, Her Thumbleness was a kid. That meant that her normal, non-High Day bedtime was earlier than that of the adult Brummgas. And on this particular night, of course, she'd been kicked upstairs early, which gave Jack that much more time to lie around staring at the ceiling.

And then came a twist he hadn't expected. The noise of clumping Brummgas had faded down the hallway; and he was just starting the one-hour countdown he would give them to fall asleep, when he began to hear the soft humming of cleaning machines and the stuttering footsteps of Wistawki feet. Apparently, only now were the house slaves fanning out through the Brummgan residential areas to do their house-cleaning duties.

It was about as bizarre a setup as Jack had ever heard of. In every other place he'd visited over his lifetime, that kind of cleaning always took place during the day, while the occupants were out working or busy with other activities.

Here, it seemed, the Brummgas preferred to have it done practically under their feet as they prepared for bed. Apparently, the Chookoock family didn't want anyone, not even their own slaves, poking around when they weren't there.

"Jack?" Draycos's voice said softly in his ear.

Jack jerked silently awake, realizing only then that he'd fallen asleep. The dragon was crouched over him, his green eyes glowing faintly, his red-edged golden scales glittering in the pale light from the ceiling starscape. "What is it?" he whispered back.

"I believe it is clear now," Draycos said. "It is also getting late."

"I'll bet," Jack said, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. "Any idea what time it is?"

"According to Her Thumbleness's clock, it is just before four in the morning." Jack winced. By six o'clock, he knew from the previous morning, the breakfast staff would be moving around downstairs. That gave him less than two hours to wring that mercenary data out of Gazen's computers. "Then we'd better get cracking," he said.

The corridor outside Her Thumbleness's room was dark and deserted. Jack eased toward the stairway, keeping near the wall and watching for tripwires or other intruder snares. Given the late-night cleaning activity, he had already decided there probably wouldn't be any. But in this line of work, it didn't pay to take anything for granted.

It was just as well he hadn't. The same person who had wired up the gatekeeper's house had apparently had a few gadgets left over after finishing that job.

Jack found a tripwire at the top of the stairway, and a pressure plate four steps down.

Clearly, the Chookoock family was serious about their privacy. Or maybe they just didn't want Her Thumbleness making midnight raids on the kitchen.

But that was all there was, and a few minutes later he was crouched beside Gazen's office door. "There will most likely be security inside," Draycos warned in his ear.

"I know," Jack said, studying the lock carefully. Sturdy enough, but nothing he couldn't handle.

Unless, of course, it held a surprise or two. "How about we take a look?" he suggested, shifting around and pressing his back against the door.

"Certainly." The dragon moved along his skin, and Jack felt him extend his two-dimensional form outward, arching himself "over" the door.

For a minute nothing happened. Jack held position, feeling tiny movements against his skin as Draycos shifted around, studying the door and the office itself. Back when he and Draycos had first met, this little K'da talent hadn't been much more than a curiosity. Draycos had been barely able to speak the language, couldn't read a word of it, and knew absolutely nothing about Orion Arm technology. Sending him to look through locked doors hadn't been much better than giving the job to a trained monkey.

But now, things were different. Draycos was a quick study, and had been eager to learn everything he could about humans and the Orion Arm—

Jack's breath caught suddenly in his throat. For a second there, something about the way Draycos was hanging onto his back had felt different. As if the dragon had somehow been...

He frowned. Slipping was the word that had come to mind.

But Draycos couldn't slip. Could he? In fact, wouldn't sliding off Jack's skin in his two-dimensional form be fatal?

His mind flashed back to their first meeting, when Draycos had been about to die from being too long without a host. If he'd been alone much longer, he would have gone two-dimensional anyway and drifted off into nothingness.

Could something like that be happening now?

He took a deep breath, careful to keep his back pressed firmly against the door.

Steady, he ordered himself. After all, Draycos slipped off Jack's body all the time, every time he popped back into his three-dimensional form. It was just a

matter of timing, that was all. A matter of the dragon doing the transition right as he came off Jack's skin. No problem.

So why was it suddenly feeling so strange?

"Draycos?" he whispered. "You all right?"

There was no answer. He was opening his mouth to try again when there was a stirring, and the dragon came fully and solidly back onto his skin. "There are no alarms in the door mechanism that I can see," he reported from Jack's right shoulder.

"What about the rest of the room?" Jack asked. "Cameras or motion detectors?"

"There appears to be a single camera in the upper left corner of the room," the dragon said. "It is pointed at the door, but covers most of the office."

"That's it?"

"That was all I could see," Draycos replied. "But I do not claim to be an expert yet at these matters."

"No, but you're probably right," Jack assured him. "Gazen's got that overconfident attitude we professional thieves love to see. Besides, here in the middle of the mansion, what does he need security for?"

"We will hope you are correct," Draycos said. "What about the camera?"

"Were there wires attached?" Jack asked. "Or did it seem to be wireless?"

"There were definitely wires," the dragon said. "I could see them going into the wall.

Jack nodded. Again, as he would have expected. The signal from wireless systems could be tapped into by someone who knew what he was doing, possibly even from outside the house. And if there was one thing Gazen wouldn't want, it would be strangers looking over his shoulder. "We should be able to get to them though the wall," he concluded. "Anything else?"

"Only a device labeled 'Dropskip Sequencer' built into the lock," Draycos said.

"It does not appear to be an alarm, but I am certain it has some special purpose."

Jack's brief surge of overconfidence vanished. "Oh, it has a purpose, all right," he said with a sigh. "A sequencer keeps track of how many times the door has been opened. Practically foolproof, and practically undetectable. Except by K'da poet-warriors."

"Can it be disconnected?"

Jack shook his head. "Like I said, foolproof. Even if we were able to take it off, Gazen would know it had been tampered with and figure out someone had been inside. Might as well save ourselves the trouble."

"What is our plan, then?"

Jack chewed at his lip. His time was sliding away, he knew, the seconds vanishing like peanuts at an elephant convention. He had to get in, get the data, and get out. And he had to do it without Gazen knowing he'd been there.

Or did he?

He scratched his cheek as a new thought suddenly struck him. Did he really care whether Gazen knew he'd been in here? After all, the minute he got the mercenary data they needed, he and Draycos were going to be out of here. Through the front gate, over or around whatever security the Brummgas had hanging around, back to the Essenay, and off this rock.

But to knowingly reveal himself in the middle of a job went against every cubic inch of training Uncle Virgil had hammered into him. Very unprofessional.