Timothy Zahn - Dragon and Slave

Malison Ring.

He took a deep breath. Finally. After two months of trying to dig through spacecraft records, mercenary records, and now even slave records, they had finally done it. They had found the mercenary group who had joined with the Valahgua.

And after all that work and sweat, the answer had practically dropped into their laps. All because Dumbarton had come to Gazen's slave auction.

Because he hadn't burned to death on Iota Klestis. Because Draycos had taken the time to perform a very minor act of mercy.

Mentally, Jack shook his head. Uncle Virge, he knew, wasn't going to believe this.

Gazen finished his presentation and gestured Jack toward the tool table. "All right, Jack," he said, smiling as always. But Jack could see a hint of the earlier warning in his eyes. "There are the locks. Open them."

Jack smiled back. The first smile he'd really felt since arriving on Brum-a-dum.

And it felt good. It felt really good. "Certainly," he said. Four hours later, Gazen called a break for lunch. By that time, Jack had managed to open three of the door lock systems and four of the safes. He had also, just for good measure, disarmed three hidden floor alarms without a peep out of any of them.

He had hoped he might be able to con Gazen into allowing him to eat with the rest of the group. Mingling with them would increase the risk that Dumbarton would suddenly recognize him, but it would also give him a chance for a decent and unpoisoned meal.

But no such luck. The minute the Wistawki waiters appeared, Jack was whisked off under Brummgan guard back to the kitchen.

There, Heetoorieef had another meal ready for him. It contained the same poison as the breakfast stew.

Jack spent part of the lunch break moving the food around on his plate and pretending to eat. Occasionally, when no one was looking, he forked a few bites down behind one of the cabinets. If he could convince them that he'd swallowed enough of the poison, they might quit spiking his food.

On the other hand, at that point they would presumably also start feeding him the antidote. That could be just as dangerous; and there was no guarantee that his resident K'da could sniff it out the way he could a straight poison. All the more reason to wrap this up and get off this planet. An hour later, with the buyers well fed and Jack's own stomach still growling unhappily, he was taken back into the banquet hall.

The afternoon session went as well as the morning one had. Jack finished opening the safes, popped the rest of the door locks, and disarmed the security alarms.

He also avoided two more booby-traps that Gazen had added to areas of the rug Jack had already cleared. A rather cheap trick, in his opinion, but one he'd sort of expected the slavemaster to pull.

As near as he could read his audience, that success alone made as much of an impression as all the rest of it put together.

The sky was beginning to darken outside the windows by the time Gazen called a

halt. "Thank you all for coming," he said as Jack returned his tools to the table. "You have until nine o'clock tomorrow morning to submit your bids. In the meantime, the hospitality of the Chookoock family is at your disposal."

There was a general murmuring and creaking of chairs as the buyers started to gather their notes and other items. "You—come with me," Gazen said to Jack.

"You—" he added to one of the Brummgan guards, pointing to the equipment table

"—put those away. And make sure he didn't steal anything."

He set off across the banquet room floor. Jack followed, the inevitable Brummgan guards thudding stolidly along behind him.

Midway to the door, he managed to quietly lose the lockpick he'd palmed.

He'd expected Gazen to take him back to the kitchen for a third try at stuffing squatter poison down his throat. Instead, the slavemaster led the way toward his office.

Toward it, but not to it. Circling past the door, he went into the small conference room around the corner from it.

The same conference room where Jack and Draycos had hidden their stolen recorder.

Gazen opened the door and went in. "Sit," he ordered, jabbing a finger at a chair near the back of the room. "There's someone who wants to meet you."

"Oh?" Jack asked, glancing around the empty room as he crossed to the seats.

"Where is he?"

"He'll be along in a moment," Gazen promised. "You did very well today. Very well indeed. Even I was impressed."

"Thank you," Jack said, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling unpleasantly as he sat down. What was the slavemaster up to this time?

"You particularly impressed one of our visitors, as well," Gazen went on. "So much so that he asked for a private meeting." Behind him the door opened, and one of the civilian bodyguards who'd been sitting in front of Dumbarton stepped in. He glanced around, then nodded back toward the door. A moment later, his two companions from the demonstration joined him, first the hawk-nosed, middle-aged man, then the second bodyguard.

And there was something in the older man's eyes that sent a shiver up Jack's back.

"Here they are now," Gazen said, a strange sort of sinister amusement lurking in his tone. "This, gentlemen, is Jack McCoy. Say hello, Jack."

"Hello," Jack said cautiously.

"And now say hello to Jack," Gazen invited. The hawk-nosed man took half a step forward. "Hello, Jack Morgan," he said quietly.

Jack felt the breath freeze in his lungs. He'd heard this voice before. Twice before. The first time was through Dumbarton's comm clip as he stood in the hot dirt of Iota Klestis. The second time was from behind glaring lights in the luxury office aboard the Advocatus Diaboli.

It was the man he'd called Snake Voice. The man who had framed him for robbery, and then for murder, and then had forced him into his plan to kill Cornelius Braxton.

A man who'd also been present when Draycos's advance team was slaughtered by the Valahgua.

"Well, well," Jack said as calmly as he could. "Mr. Arthur Neverlin. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, sir."

Neverlin's face didn't even twitch. But Gazen's did. Rather strongly, in fact.

"I thought you said he didn't know you," he said, flashing a glare at Neverlin.

"I said he'd never seen me," Neverlin corrected. "We have met, though, after a

fashion."

"Of course we've met," Jack said, with a heartiness he didn't especially feel.

So there it was, the connection he and Draycos had been searching for all this time: Arthur Neverlin, the Chookoock family, and the Malison Ring, an unholy alliance tied together with the Valahgua. "Didn't he tell you, Panjan Gazen?

He tried to kill Cornelius Braxton and take over Braxton Universis. That's why he's on the run now, from Braxton and most of the law enforcement agencies in the Orion Arm."

"As you can see, he's also been listening to Braxton's lies about me,"

Neverlin said, lifting his eyebrows at Jack. "I don't suppose he bothered to mention that I've been his chief troubleshooter for over twenty years. Or that I've pulled Braxton Universis out of trouble more times than you could count or that he could remember."

He leveled an accusing finger at Jack's face. "And while I'm slaving away running his empire, he's spending his time dabbling in his little charities and getting his picture taken with Internos politicians. I'm the one who keeps the company running. I'm the one who does the work. Why shouldn't I have the title and the authority?"

"Gee, I don't know," Jack said. "Maybe because it isn't yours?"

"That's rich, coming from a professional thief," Neverlin said scornfully.

"You've got a lot to learn about how the real world operates."

Jack grimaced. "You sound like Uncle Virge."