Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Slave

Reflexively, Jack flinched back, banging his left elbow against the wall in the process.

He needn't have bothered. With another wrist flick, Gazen stopped the tip of the weapon a foot in front of his face. "Nervous this morning, I see," he commented.

"Not too nervous to perform, I hope."

Jack felt his eyes narrowing. So this was it. The slave auction was indeed coming off early. "Perform?" he asked innocently.

"There are some men who have come to see what you can do," Gazen said. "I trust you'll make it worth their trouble."

"I think I can manage that," Jack said.

"Good," Gazen said. "Because I'd hate to see you embarrass yourself in front of such distinguished visitors."

"I understand," Jack said. "What are they, mercenaries? Other slaveowners?

Oversized rodents?"

Gazen smiled slightly. "Very good," he said. "Once again, you show how quickly you grasp the realities of a situation. You've realized that I can't twitch you the way I normally would at such a disrespectful tone. After all, we can't afford to upset those delicate finger muscles."

"Not if we want me to bring a good price," Jack agreed.

"Certainly not," Gazen said. "Still, it may be that no one wants you. Tell me, did you happen to notice a group of slaves come through the kitchen this morning?"

Someday, Jack promised himself darkly, he would find a way to sandblast that bland expression off Gazen's face. "Yes."

"Good," Gazen said. "Then we can both hope that you bring a good price. I trust I need say no more?" Jack swallowed. No, the implications were as clear as two feet of empty space.

He could impress the stuffing out of Gazen's prospective buyers, or he could end up with a shredded back himself. "No, sir."

"Good," Gazen said, standing up. "I do so like a quick learner."

Picking up his slapstick, he slid it into his belt pouch. "Come. Your audience awaits your performance."

He led the way to the banquet hall where they'd held Her Thumbleness's High Day celebration a few nights earlier. But the room had been so rearranged that Jack hardly recognized it. The center had been completely cleared out, with a rug laid down and the tables and chairs arranged in concentric circles around it.

Scattered through the empty center were a dozen different types of safes, door locks, and alarm systems. It was rather like a strange dinner theater set up to host a home security show.

There was also a lot of open floor between the various stations, far more than would be needed for each of the audience members to have a clear view. That probably meant the rug was loaded with traps and alarms that Jack was supposed to identify and avoid or disarm.

Fortunately, he wasn't going to have to do it bare-handed. An assortment of tools had been spread out on one of the tables at the edge of the circle, tools that ranged from standard-workman to standard-burglar to extremely non-standard-burglar. Scattered in among them, he saw, were the tools he'd used to break into the gatekeeper's house.

And surrounding it all, seated silently at their tables, was the audience.

There were at least two hundred of them, Jack noted, most of them human but with a number of aliens scattered throughout their midst. There were quite a few Brummgas present as well, mostly lounging around the rear areas of the room chatting quietly to each other. Cynically, he wondered if the auction's invitations had been slanted toward groups who had already hired some of the Chookoock family's mercenaries. A few of the guests were in expensive civilian suits—criminal bosses, most likely, or else representatives of some of the Orion Arm's sleazier governments. But most of the potential bidders were wearing military uniforms.

All sorts of uniforms, too, running the range from very elegant to just barely above shabby. Mercenaries, privateers, maybe a few pirate gangs. All the various groups who might come into possession of other people's safes in their lines of work.

All of them, apparently, looking for a way to get into those safes without the risky use of high explosives.

"Good day to you all," Gazen said, waving Jack to a halt and stepping alone to the edge of the circle. "As you know, the reason for this auction..."

He launched into a glowing report of Jack's skills and history, every bit of the latter completely made up. He was going for a high price, all right.

"Jack!" Draycos murmured at Jack's ear.

"Shh," Jack hissed back, glancing at Gazen. The man might be busy spinning a castle out of cobwebs, but that didn't mean he'd gone deaf. And he was only five feet away.

"To your left," Draycos whispered, a note of urgency in his voice. "Four tables back, wearing green clothing."

Casually, Jack shifted his feet and turned leisurely to look that direction.

There were four tables' worth of soldiers in green combat fatigues back there.

"Which one?" he murmured.

"Behind the three in ordinary clothing," the dragon said.

Jack had already noticed that particular group of civilians. Two of the three men were young and alert and dangerous looking. Obvious bodyguard types. The third man, the one in the middle, was something quite different. He was late-middle-aged, with black-streaked silver hair, a nose like a hawk's beak, and a mouth set in tight and bitter lines. "Where?" Jack asked again, shifting his attention to the group of mercenaries behind the civilians, trying to figure out which one Draycos had found so interesting.

"Fourth from the left," Draycos murmured.

Jack focused on him. The man was reasonably big, strongly built, with dark hair and craggy features. There didn't seem to be anything special about him.

And then, suddenly, the face clicked.

It was Dumbarton. The man who'd grabbed Jack as he and Draycos had escaped from the wreckage of Draycos's ship on Iota Klestis. The man Draycos had zapped unconscious with his own slapstick, then insisted on propping up against a tree so that he wouldn't burn to death.

Jack turned away, faking a quiet cough into his right fist. His lungs were suddenly aching, his heart feeling like it was trying to batter its way out of his chest. It was over, then. Any minute now Dumbarton would recognize him, and blow the whistle—

"He attacked you from behind," Draycos murmured in his ear. "I do not believe he ever saw your face."

Jack frowned, running the memory through his mind. The dragon was right.

Dumbarton had hidden behind a tree, grabbing Jack as he ran past. Before he'd had a chance to turn his prisoner around, Draycos had knocked him out.

Of course, he must have seen Jack coming toward him before the grab. But that whole ridge had been thick with smoke from the crash and its aftermath, and the man had been careful to duck out of sight before his prey got too close.

Jack coughed again, just for show, then straightened up again and looked casually back at Dumbarton. There was indeed no sign of recognition in the man's face.

He turned back to Gazen, his heartbeat beginning to calm down again. So if Dumbarton wasn't a threat, why had Draycos bothered to point him out? Merely to show that, despite Jack's earlier prediction, they had indeed bumped into him again? And then it hit him. Dumbarton hadn't been wearing any insignia during the looting of the K'da ship. Neither had the Brummga they'd also tangled with.

Neither, for that matter, had the Djinn-90 fighters they'd had to fight their way past. Whoever had set up that attack had taken pains to make sure any potential witnesses couldn't identify them.

But here, there was no need for such caution.

And there was indeed a small red-and-yellow insignia attached to the top left of Dumbarton's green shirt. Squinting slightly, Jack could just make out the two words circling around it.