Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (5 page)

"Very well," Draycos said. "Now lift the data reader so that one
edge remains on the deck."

Jack did as instructed. "Okay. So?"

"In this picture, the data reader is still two-dimensional,"
Draycos said. "Yet to an observer within the two-dimensional universe
of the deck, it now appears as a one-dimensional portion of a line. It
has length only, but no width. The part that would give it width has
lifted away along a third dimension."

Jack stared down at the reader, a funny tingling sensation
creeping across the skin at the back of his neck. Was Draycos saying
what he thought he was saying? "Are you trying to tell me," he asked
slowly, "that you're really three-dimensional, but that you somehow
became
two
-dimensional? Just plain flat? And then that you
somehow pasted yourself across my back?"

"I am still three-dimensional," Draycos said. "As with the data
reader, most of my body is now projected along a fourth dimension,
outside the bounds of this universe."

On Jack's left shoulder, the comm clip had gone silent.
Apparently, even Uncle Virge couldn't think of anything to say to this
one. That was a bad sign. "No," Jack said. "Sorry, but this doesn't
make any sense at all."

"Yet I am here," Draycos reminded him.

"No," Jack said firmly. He turned his eyes away to the left, away
from the dragon head staring up at him from his right shoulder. "This
isn't real. It can't be real. It's some kind of trick."

"Why would I wish to trick you?" Draycos asked, sliding around
Jack's back to his left shoulder and again looking up at him. "What
purpose would it serve?"

"Stop
doing
that!" Jack snapped, twisting his head back
the other way. Reaching around, he pulled the hanging sleeve back
around and got his right arm into it. "I don't know why. What purpose
does anything serve? What do you want?"

"I want that which all beings desire," Draycos told him. "Life."

"And what, you can't live anywhere except my back?" Jack demanded
sarcastically.

"No," Draycos said. "I cannot."

Jack had been about to fasten his shirt's sealing strip again. Now
he paused, frowning down at the gold scales on his chest. "What do you
mean?"

"The K'da are not like other beings, Jack Morgan," the dragon
said. "We cannot run freely for longer than six of your hours at a
time. After that we must return to this two-dimensional form and rest
against a host body."

"Or?" Jack prompted.

"If we do not have a host, we fade away and die," Draycos said. "I
was nearly dead when you appeared. Your arrival, plus the fortunate
fact that your species is able to serve as a K'da host, has saved my
life. For this I thank you."

"You're welcome," Jack said automatically. "Not like I had a
choice. So, what, you're some kind of parasite?"

"I do not know that word."

"A parasite is something that feeds off its host organism," Jack
explained. "It takes food or something else it needs from the host."

"I take nothing from my host," Draycos said. "I must use the
surface of my host's body, but that is all."

"You take away his privacy," Jack pointed out.

"I offer companionship and protection in return," Draycos said.
"For that reason, we consider ourselves to be symbionts with our hosts,
not . . . parasites. But perhaps you do not consider that a fair
exchange. Does your species require more loneliness than I understood?"

"We all like to be alone every so often," Jack said gruffly,
trying to hide the sudden pang of emotion.
Loneliness
. Whether
he'd meant to or not, the dragon had touched a painful nerve with that
one. "So why me? Why didn't you wrap yourself around a tree or
something?"

"It does not work that way," Draycos said. "We must have a proper
host. I do not know what it is that makes one species acceptable and
another not. Perhaps none of the K'da do."

"Oh," Jack said, for lack of anything better to say. "So . . .
what now?"

"That is your decision," Draycos said. "Do you wish me to leave?"

The obvious answer—
yes
!—unexpectedly got stuck in Jack's
throat. "If I said yes, where would you go?" he asked instead. "I mean,
there's no one here but me."

"After six hours had passed, I would die," Draycos said softly.
"But I am a warrior of the K'da. I will not force myself upon you if
you do not wish it."

"Yeah," Jack muttered, hunching his shoulders with indecision.
Intriguing though this might be, he still had troubles of his own. The
last thing he could afford right now was to take on passengers.

Especially a passenger who looked like a bright gold dragon. That
was definitely
not
the way to keep a low profile. "Look,
Draycos—"

"Before you decide, I must add one other piece of information,"
the dragon said. "The reason we are standing amid the wreckage of my
ship is that my people were attacked. Moreover, we were attacked by the
ultimate weapon of the Valahgua, our mortal enemies."

Jack shook his head. "Never heard of them. Uncle Virge?"

"No reference on the books," the other said.

"I would not expect you to know of them," Draycos said.

"Like us, they live a long way from here. Our voyage took nearly
two years, human measure, and carried us across a great void of space."

"You mean like from another spiral arm?" Jack hazarded, trying to
visualize the map of the Milky Way galaxy from the limited and highly
informal schooling Uncle Virgil had given him between jobs. All of
explored space, both the human-colonized regions as well as all the
other known alien species and planets, lay along the broad band of
stars called the Orion Arm. To get here from outside that band would be
quite a trip.

"That is correct," Draycos confirmed. "We came in hopes of fleeing
the Valahgua and their terrible weapon. Yet the weapon was here waiting
for us."

"They must have followed you."

"Impossible," Draycos said. "As I said, their weapon was here
ahead of us."

"And on human-designed ships, too," Uncle Virge pointed out.
"Unless your Valahgua fly Djinn-90s."

"The only explanation was that we were betrayed," Draycos said.
"You have to help me find those responsible."

"Oh, no I don't," Jack retorted. "Look, I'm sorry your people got
nailed. But this isn't any of my business."

"You are wrong," Draycos said firmly. "The Death chooses no
favorites, be they Shontine or K'da or human. There is no defense
against it, and there is no bargaining with the Valahgua. If they have
formed a secret alliance with one of the species in this region, all of
your people are in deadly danger."

"What do you mean, no defense?" Uncle Virge asked.

"There is no material that can block the weapon," Draycos said.
"Its range is short, but all within that range die. We must bring
warning to your people."

Jack made a face. "Yes, well, that might be a little difficult,"
he said. "You see—"

"Quiet!" Draycos cut him off suddenly.

"What?" Jack whispered.

"Footsteps," Draycos whispered back. "Someone is coming."

Jack was still holding the alien data reader. Flipping up his
shirttail, he stuffed the gadget into one of the back pockets of his
jeans. "How many?" he whispered.

"Only one set of footsteps," Draycos murmured back. The dragon
head had again lifted out of Jack's shoulder, the long snout poking out
under the edge of the shirt. "He moves cautiously, like a warrior."

"Or a cop," Jack muttered, crossing as silently as he could to the
chair where he'd hung his jacket. He couldn't hear the footsteps
himself, but he didn't doubt the dragon's pointy little ears for a
minute. "Any other way out of here?"

"There is the bubble," Draycos said. The snout lifted to point
toward the ceiling. "But the ladder is no longer secure."

Jack looked up as he got his arms into his jacket sleeves. It was
a good twenty feet up to the first landing, plus another ten feet to a
second landing and then the broken glass of the bubble. And the ladder
did indeed look pretty rickety.

But the chance of a two-story fall was still better than tangling
with a trained soldier.
Or
with a cop. "I'll risk it," he said,
shifting direction toward the ladder. He reached it, got a grip on the
uprights—

"Solidify!" a hard, flat voice snapped from the doorway behind him.

Jack froze in place, wincing. Caught like a rat in a box; and he
still hadn't heard any footsteps. Whoever this guy was, he was way too
good for Jack's liking. "Don't shoot," he called, putting some
near-panic into his voice. "Please don't shoot."

"Turn around," the voice ordered. "Keep your hands up."

Jack obeyed, turning just far enough to keep his right shoulder
toward the newcomer. The tangler belted at his left hip was a
short-range weapon, and he wanted to keep it his little secret as long
as possible.

The figure standing just inside the room to the right of the
doorway was big and wide and definitely not human. He was a Brummga,
most of his round face obscured by his helmet. He was dressed in a
mismatched collection of ground-soldier combat gear, with a dark red
helmet, blue protector vest, and green combat fatigues. A small orange
medkit hung from the left side of his belt beside some kind of wand in
a narrow, brown-and-white-striped holster. The combined effect of his
body shape and the colorful outfit made him look rather comical.

But there was nothing funny about the shoulder-slung weapon
pointed in Jack's direction.
It
was black and shiny and nasty
looking, and would probably make a serious mess if the Brummga pulled
the trigger. Whatever thoughts Jack might have had about using his
tangler vanished quietly into the morning mists.

But he had to do
something
. If these Valahgua guys Draycos
had mentioned didn't want any witnesses to their attack, a Brummga was
just the sort of boneheaded hatchetman to cheerfully clean the plate
for them. Jack's only hope was to convince the Brummga that he knew
absolutely nothing about what was going on.

"Who are you?" the Brummga demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't mean anything," Jack pleaded, using the frightened-child
whine that Uncle Virgil had found so useful on so many jobs. "I saw the
ship and just wanted to see if there was anything I could use. I didn't
mean anything."

"How did you see the ship?" the Brummga asked. "Where did you come
from?"

"Right over there," Jack said, waving vaguely off to the side.
"We've got a little place off in the forest."

The alien made a sound like a bass drum being attacked by a gang
of chipmunks. "How many of you are there?" he demanded, starting across
the room toward Jack. "What did you see?"

"What do you mean?" Jack asked, trying to sound bewildered. It
wasn't easy to out-stupid a Brummga, but he was determined to give it
his best shot. "We saw this ship. I told you that."

"
Before
you saw the ship," the Brummga growled. He was
close enough now for Jack to see that his fatigues carried no military
rank badges or insignia. "What happened
before?
"

"Well, there was a lot of
noise,
" Jack huffed, as if that
should be obvious, still keeping his right shoulder toward the Brummga
as the other approached. The tangler was no longer an option, not with
that gun pointed at his chest. But his shirt and jacket were still open
in front, and the last thing he wanted was to let the other get a clear
view of Draycos wrapped around his chest. "What do you mean, what
happened?"

"Did you see anything up in space?" the Brummga asked. "Were you
watching up into space?"

Jack blinked. "Into
space?
" he asked. Along the left side
of his rib cage, the side away from the Brummga, he could again feel
the flowing-paint sensation as Draycos stealthily changed position.

If the dragon was getting restless with the conversation, he
wasn't the only one. "You ask many questions," the Brummga rumbled, his
ugly face turning even uglier. "But you don't answer any. Maybe you
need help with your mouth."

"Look, I didn't mean anything," Jack said, putting a little more
whine into his voice as he tried desperately to come up with a good
story. The Brummga was only four steps away. Another few seconds, and
Jack was probably going to find that big ugly gun pressed up against
his cheek. If he didn't come up with something before then—

Without warning, a horrible scream pierced the air. It was a sound
like Jack had never heard before, and in that single terrifying second
he hoped he would never hear it again. It was like the cry of a screech
owl twisted together with the howl of a hunting wolf, with the wail of
a banshee from Uncle Virgil's old Irish legends thrown into the mix. It
seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere, bouncing around the
room and threatening to bring down the rest of the glass from the
broken bubble above them.

The Brummga reacted instantly, dropping into a crouch and swinging
his gun around to point at the doorway behind him.

And as he turned away from Jack, there was a sudden surge of
movement and weight at Jack's back, and a twitching at his holster. The
weight disappeared as something fell from beneath his shirt. Jack
twisted his head around, just in time to see Draycos land silently on
the deck behind him . . .

With Jack's tangler clutched in his front paws.

There was a soft
chuff;
and an instant later the tangler
cartridge burst against the Brummga's upper back, sending hundreds of
thick, milky-white threads bursting outward. The threads whipped around
him, wrapping themselves around his torso, head, and arms like an
instant spiderweb.

He howled, staggering off balance as he tried to turn around. But
he was way too late. Even as he spun back, his gun pointing mostly
upward where the tangle of threads had trapped it, the cocoon completed
itself. With a brief flash, the capacitor built into the cartridge
discharged, sending a jolt of stunning electric current through its
captive. The Brummga gave a pitiful doglike yelp, toppled over onto the
deck, and lay still.