Dragon and Liberator

"No," Taneem said, feeling her heart slowing down a little. Looking down at her paws, she saw that the extra blood from her panicked reaction had turned her gray scales black. "No, I'm around a corner."

"Good," Alison said. "Now tell me: did he jump up and head for the grille as soon as you made your noise?"

From the direction of Harper's room came the faint sound of the grille being pulled free of the duct. "No, he finished pulling off the skin first," Taneem said, lowering her voice a little more. "Then he took out something from the inside of one of the pieces and came over to the grille."

"Then I think you're okay," Alison said. "Just hang there a minute and listen."

Taneem nodded, feeling herself calming down. If Alison wasn't worried, she probably shouldn't be, either. The scales on her paws, she noticed, were starting to go back to their usual gray.

For a moment there was silence. In her mind's eye Taneem saw Harper with his head sticking into the opening, looking both ways down the duct.

She flicked her tongue out a few times, tasting the mixture of human and unidentified scents flowing through the ducts. Some Earth animals, she'd read in the Essenay's encyclopedia, could smell or otherwise sense fear and anger. Distantly, she wondered if a properly experienced K'da could do the same.

And then, she heard the sound of the grille being put back in place. Another minute of scratching as the bolts were replaced, and then all was silent again.

She waited another minute, just to make sure. "Alison?" she whispered. "I think he's done."

"He didn't spot you?"

"No."

"Good," Alison said. "Okay. I want you to look back around the corner—carefully—and tell me what you see."

Taneem frowned. What could there possibly be to see besides an empty duct?

But Alison knew about these things. She must have her reasons. Moving forward, Taneem eased her head back around the corner.

The grille, as she'd guessed, was indeed back in place.

But the duct was no longer empty.

"There's something there," she said, frowning even harder. Was that what she thought it was? "I think—Alison, he's put the two strips of skin into the duct."

"That's what I thought he was up to," Alison said, sounding grimly pleased with herself. "He got the stuff in past Frost okay, but didn't want to risk getting caught with it on him. Literally on him, in this case."

"What is it?" Taneem asked, eyeing the strips with a mixture of fascination and distaste.

"Let's find out," Alison said. "Why don't you scoot over there and grab them?"

Taneem felt her whole body go rigid. "What?"

"Keep your voice down," Alison admonished. "What's the big deal? You sneak over, you pick up the goodies, and you get out. Couldn't be simpler."

"But what if he sees me?"

"He won't if you're careful," Alison said. "Come on, Taneem. If this is something he doesn't want Frost and Neverlin knowing about, we definitely want to take a look."

Taneem curled her tail into a grimace. "All right," she said with a sigh. "I'll try."

She edged around the corner and down the duct. There was no reaction that she could sense. Her heart pounding again, she eased up to the grille and peered through it.

Harper was lying on his back on the bed, one arm across his chest, the other resting across his eyes. Without taking her own eyes off him, she scooped up the two flaps of skin and retreated hastily back down the duct. "I've got them," she whispered to Alison.

"Great," Alison said. "Find a safe place to talk, and let's check them out."

Having already had one narrow escape, Taneem was in no mood to try for another. She therefore made her way to the very back of the ship, to the very end of the air duct system, where she could taste no humans or Brummgas nearby.

Finding a spot midway between the air-pumping room and a darkened machine shop, she laid her new prizes out in front of her. "All right, I'm ready," she said.

"Good," Alison said. "Describe the items for me."

Taneem leaned close, studying the flaps of skin with the light from her own glowing silver eyes. "First are two small, flat pieces of plastic. The end of one of them has a funny sort of shape, like a sort of squished X."

"Does it look like it would snap open into a square shape if you opened it up?"

Taneem frowned. Then she saw what Alison meant. "Yes, it does," she said. "The other piece of plastic is just flat."

"Screwdrivers," Alison identified them. "Probably started out as a set of three, only Harper used the crosshead one on the grille. What else?"

"Two small half cylinders that look like they fit together to make a complete tube," Taneem said. "There's another tube, a solid one, that looks like it would fit inside the other one."

"Anything there that looks like needles?"

"I don't see—oh yes, there they are," Taneem corrected herself. "They're on the other flap. There are five of them."

"Knockout needles, with either a hypo or a spring-load launcher to deliver the goods," Alison said. "Harper certainly came ready for trouble. What else?"