his uncle's looking for vengeance, not something coming at him from Braxton Universis itself.
But thanks to Draycos's cleverness, that hope was now shattered. This was some corporate game, all right. The vast power of Braxton Universis was on one side, some unknown player was on the other, and Jack Morgan was dead-center in the middle of it.
'You are troubled.'
Jack shifted his glare to Draycos. 'Your bet your tail I'm troubled,' he growled. 'And if you had any brains, you would be, too. This is Cornelius Braxton we're up against.'
He took another look at the dragon's face, and instantly regretted his words. 'I'm sorry,' he said, a layer of guilt adding to the rest of his misery. 'I know you just don't know.'
'I am not offended,' Draycos assured him. 'Tell me about him.'
'What's to tell?' Jack asked, shrugging uncomfortably. 'In a spiral arm's worth of hardball businessmen, Braxton's one of the hardest. He inherited a business from his father and built it into an empire. He's smart, he's ruthless, and he gets whatever he wants.'
Pulling the metal suitcase from under his bed, he opened it. 'And whatever he's up to this time, this thing is the key,' he said, taking out the cylinder. 'I wish I knew what was in it.'
'Or what is in the one you are to switch it for,' Draycos said.
'That, too,' Jack agreed glumly, peering at the cylinder. 'I don't know whether he's trying to plant this one on someone, or get the other one away from him. Either way, when the roof caves in, there's only going to be one fall guy.'
'Pardon?'
'Fall guy,' Jack repeated. 'The guy who takes the fall, the blame for something someone else did. In this case, me.'
Draycos uncoiled from the chair and padded over to Jack's side. 'What then do you propose we do?'
For a moment Jack had the sudden urge to stroke the dragon's head, just like he might have petted a dog. He resisted the impulse. 'I don't know,' he confessed, turning the cylinder over in his hand instead. 'Remember, I'm their guarantee of Uncle Virgil's good behavior. If they were willing to let me out of their sight, it's because I'm not going to be out of their sight.'
Draycos twitched the tip of his tail. 'They will have someone watching you.'
'Watching me, and watching for Uncle Virgil,' Jack said. 'That means I can't run and I can't call the police. And I can't just sit around and do nothing. What's left?'
The dragon was silent a moment. 'There is a style of warfare the K'da call koi shike,' he said. 'It speaks of a large stone thrown into quiet water to force a response from hiding fish.'
'Yeah, we've got something like that, too,' Jack growled. 'We call it 'rocking the boat.' What's your point?'
Draycos ran a paw thoughtfully along the side of the cylinder. 'Let us do as they demand,' he said. 'Let us steal the item and replace it with this duplicate. We will then follow the ripples from the stone and see where they lead.'
Jack snorted. 'You make it sound so easy.'
'I am a warrior of the K'da,' Draycos said. 'You are skilled in the arts of theft and cunning. Together we can surely find a way.'
Jack shook his head. 'I wouldn't bet on that,' he warned. 'But I don't have anything better to offer.'
He returned the cylinder to its hiding place under the bed and stood up. 'I guess the least we can do is go take a look at the safe,' he added, stepping to the closet and getting out the suit coat that went with his new shirt and slacks. 'You coming?'
Draycos's response was to leap in through Jack's open-necked shirt. 'And then?' the dragon asked from his shoulder.
Jack took a deep breath. 'We'll come up with something. I hope.'
Chapter 18
The purser's office was bigger than Jack had expected, probably four times as big as his own stateroom. It had a chest-high counter extending across the entire room near the door, where the purser stood dealing with passengers who wanted to store their valuables. Behind the counter, another man and woman dressed in white uniforms worked at computer desks, presumably keeping track of what was in the safe and doing other odd jobs.
The safe was bigger than Jack had expected, too. It was more like a small bank vault, easily big enough for three or four people to walk inside. Probably big enough for them to dance in, too. There was a flat metal plate over the spot where the keypad or combination dial would be on a normal safe door. There were also two emergency lights set into the upper walls, one pointed at the vault, the other pointed at the door.
All this he got from a single pass by the open door. The outer door itself, he noted, had a standard lock setup. 'We are not going in?' Draycos asked as Jack continued down the corridor.
'In a minute,' Jack said. A hundred feet down the corridor from the purser's office was one of the ship's bars, with a small lounge area across the hallway from it. On the far side of the lounge was a glass wall that looked down onto a casino one deck below. 'I thought we might like to come up with a plan first,' he added, stepping into the lounge.
'Would not our room be safer?' Draycos murmured as Jack selected a table by the glass wall, well away from the other half dozen people who were talking or sipping drinks.
'This is safe enough,' Jack assured him, swiveling his chair around so that he could look down into the casino. With his back to the rest of the lounge, no one would see his lips moving as he and Draycos talked.
