Dragon and Herdsman

"I slipped it up onto the back of Chips's holster," Jack told him. "So now the big question, Uncle Virge: can you code me a data tube that'll match their key well enough to get me inside?"

"Absolutely," Uncle Virge assured him. "And as a bonus, I can also make a blocker to get you through the cavity-wave alarm system just inside the door. Unless you'd rather disarm that one yourself."

"No, that's all right," Jack assured him. "Package deals are good."

"I just thought you might enjoy the challenge," Uncle Virge said. "It's clear you've still got the magic touch."

"Thank you kindly," Jack said dryly. "Just don't forget that that touch goes into retirement the minute Draycos's people are safe."

Uncle Virge gave a theatrical sigh. "I understand," he said. "Just a moment . . . ah. They've taken the money and dropped the clip into a wastebasket."

"Perfect," Jack said. "We'll be able to eavesdrop on the whole office."

"At least until they empty the trash," Uncle Virge said. "I presume you want me to get started coding the key?"

"Right," Jack said. "We'll spend the rest of today getting organized, and tonight we do it."

"You make it sound so easy," Draycos said.

"This time it will be," Jack assured him.

"That'll be a first." Uncle Virge muttered.

CHAPTER 2

During the long nights Jack had spent outside the Malison Ring office, the two mercenaries had always arrived between four-fifty and five-fifteen in the morning. Jack made sure he and Draycos were there at three-thirty sharp.

"Okay, buddy," he murmured to Draycos as they approached along the office's side of the street. "There are three security cameras covering the area around the front door, built into that low parapet on the roof. You think you can handle them?"

"I shall do my best," Draycos said. With a surge of weight, he leaped out the back of the boy's collar, his front paws pushing down on Jack's shoulders to give himself some upward momentum. There was a second, harder surge as his hind paws pushed down in the same places, and Jack looked up in rime to see a flicker of gold scales disappear up onto the roof of the building they were passing.

He crossed to the far side of the street and continued on, rubbing briefly at his shoulders where the dragon had pushed off. In his early days with Draycos, that maneuver would probably have knocked him flat on his face. Now, he was so used to it he hardly even noticed. No doubt about it, he and Draycos were becoming a real team.

Just when that team might be about to dissolve.

Jack shivered, this time not from the cold night air. Only a couple of weeks ago, near the end of his time as a slave, Draycos had been doing his look-over-a-wall trick in two-dimensional form when he'd suddenly fallen completely off Jack's back, ending up on the far side of the wall he'd been looking through.

Fortunately, he'd come out in proper three-dimensional form on the other side. But that hadn't made the whole thing any less scary. By Draycos's own admission, no other K'da had ever managed such a trick before with their regular Shontine symbiotic hosts.

The fact that Draycos hadn't accidentally slipped off Jack's back since then wasn't any real comfort. Neither was the fact that the dragon insisted he'd never felt better in his life. The bottom line was that something unexplained had happened.

And if there was one thing Uncle Virgil had made sure to hammer into Jack's skull, it was that the unexplained was always something to worry about.

Was Jack's body somehow rejecting Draycos? That was the simplest possibility. It was also the most ominous. A K'da couldn't live away from a host for more than six hours at a time. If he tried, he would go two-dimensional anyway and disappear off into death. The rest of the Shontine refugees were on their way, but they were still almost three months out from the eastern edge of the Orion Arm. If it turned out that human beings like Jack could only act as temporary K'da hosts, Draycos would most likely be dead long before they arrived.

Ahead was the doorway that had been Jack's second home for most of the last week. He paused there, peering across at the Malison Ring office, determination settling into his stomach like a lead weight. If Draycos was going to die, there was probably nothing either of them could do to prevent it. But whatever happened, no matter what it took, Jack would see to it that the rest of the K'da and Shontine made it safely to their new home. He owed Draycos that much.

Across the street, a gold-scaled dragon head lifted into view over the roof parapet, the long snout turning sharply upward in silent signal. Peeling himself away from the wall, Jack hurried over.

Draycos dropped from the roof as Jack approached, landing in a crouch beside the door. "The cameras are disabled," he reported quietly. "There was also a fourth, hidden from the street, guarding the approaches to the other three. I dealt with that one first."