'Going to be some awfully big words there,' Uncle Virge warned sourly. 'You may not be up to third-grade reading level yet.'
'I can use the practice,' Draycos assured him calmly. After only ten days of study, he had already made good headway in learning to read the humans' written language. His progress had pleased him, amazed Jack, and no doubt irritated Uncle Virge. A worthwhile accomplishment on all three counts. 'Rest well, Jack,' he added as he headed across the cabin.
'Sure,' Jack said, already starting to sound sleepy again. 'By the way, how old were you when you were in your first battle?'
Draycos paused in the doorway. 'I was younger than you,' he said quietly, turning his long neck to look around behind him. 'And the K'da and Shontine lost that battle.'
'Younger than me,' Jack repeated, his voice sounding odd. 'You had loose rules, didn't you?'
'We were fighting for our survival,' Draycos reminded him. 'We still are.'
Jack didn't say anything. For a wonder, neither did Uncle Virge.
Chapter 2
The planet Carrion was, in Jack's opinion, a very appropriately named world.
Or so it seemed as he paid the taxi driver and joined the stream of pedestrians hurrying along the wide sidewalks. Even just glancing around, he could spot the uniforms of a half dozen different mercenary groups among the crowds. The men and women inside the uniforms were rough-looking types, all of them with small areas of empty space around them as they strode along. Like arrogant vultures gathered to feed on their prey, he thought darkly, with the ordinary citizens trying to keep as far away from them as possible.
Or maybe he was imagining the citizens' reaction. Maybe he was just projecting his own feelings onto the people around him.
What in the world was he doing here, anyway?
'Is that it ahead?' Draycos murmured from his right shoulder.
Jack made a face as he focused on the plain white building half a block down the street ahead of them. 'That's it,' he confirmed. 'The main Carrion recruitment office of the Whinyard's Edge.'
'A whinyard was a Scottish name for a dagger or short sword,' Uncle Virge put in from the comm clip fastened to Jack's left collar. 'It dates back to—'
'Thank you, Professor,' Jack cut him off. The last thing he was in the mood for right now was a history lesson. 'Unless you've got something useful to say, everyone just shut up. Okay?'
'Have the young people from the spaceport arrived yet?' Draycos asked.
'I don't see them,' Jack said, craning his neck to try to look over the crowd and slowing down a little. He didn't want to reach the recruitment office before the group he and Draycos had spotted being gathered together at the spaceport. The idea was to blend in with them when they went in to sign their enlistment papers, not to be the one leading the charge. 'They were probably getting them here by bus. Busses always take longer than cabs.'
'A bus also implies they're expected, Jack lad,' Uncle Virge warned. 'That means the Whinyard's Edge will know how many of them there are supposed to be.'
'Maybe,' Jack said. 'I can handle that.'
'It's not too late to back out,' Uncle Virge went on. 'We could try to put together enough money to simply buy the information we need from them.'
'And if they refuse, it'll just put them on their guard,' Jack pointed out. 'Hang on a second.'
Ahead, a sleek bus pulled to the curb in front of the white building. 'Okay, they're here,' Jack confirmed as a boy his age got rather hesitantly off the bus. 'I'm shutting down,' he added, reaching for the comm clip. 'Wish me luck.'
There was an electronic sigh. 'Good luck,' Uncle Virge said.
Jack clicked off the clip, unfastened it, and slipped it into his pocket. The first kids off the bus had gathered into a little group by the curb, hanging back instead of going directly into the building. Either they were nervous, or else they were waiting for someone who was still behind them.
'You have not yet explained this indenture process,' Draycos said from his shoulder.
'It's sort of like an apprenticeship,' Jack said. An adult was getting off now, a woman wearing a Whinyard's Edge uniform. Not only were they expected, but the mercenaries had even sent a babysitter to the spaceport to herd them in. 'Parents hire their kids out to different mere groups, usually for two to five years.'
'And what do they receive in exchange?'
'Cash,' Jack told him. 'Lots of it.'
'It is a form of slavery,' Draycos declared, his voice dark. 'Your people permit this?'
'Not exactly,' Jack said. The woman was striding toward the white building, the kids following like scared but obedient ducklings. This was probably the first time most of them had ever been away from home, he suspected. 'The Internos government officially condemns it, but there are plenty of human worlds that sort of wink at the whole thing. Mostly the poorer ones where the people don't have any other way to make a living.'
'There are always other ways,' Draycos insisted. 'This is not the behavior of a civilized society.'
'No, of course not,' Jack soothed. Uncivilized this, uncivilized that—the dragon needed to lighten up a little. Things were the way they were; and like it or not, there wasn't a thing you could do about it.
The universe was a giant mulching machine, Uncle Virgil had often said. If you were smart, you rolled with the gears. If you weren't, you got chewed up by them.
'And there are so very many of them,' Draycos murmured, obviously still brooding about it.
'Which is what we want, remember?' Jack reminded him patiently. 'Uncle Virge said this was one of only a couple of groups who were hiring lots of kids right now. The more they've got coming in, the easier it'll be for me to slip in and get lost in the crowd.'
'I understand the reasoning,' Draycos said, a bit tartly. 'That does not mean I have to enjoy my part in this.'
The last kid had gotten off the bus. 'Okay,' Jack muttered, taking a deep breath and picking up his pace. 'Nice and easy. Here we go.'
And as the last boy in line walked through the white building's door, Jack closed the gap and stepped in right behind him.
He found himself in a large reception room with a pair of ornate desks at the
