'She does not look right,' Draycos insisted. 'How can you be certain?'
'Trust me,' Jack assured him. 'I've seen people scared out of their braincases before.'
He nodded toward Li and her escorts. 'Besides, look where they're taking her. They're putting her in isolation, same as they did me. That proves she wasn't tortured.' 'I do not understand.'
Jack sighed. 'They're trying to get one of us to break. Right? So they want the ones who are left to be as scared as possible. If they'd really tortured Li, they'd put her back in with the others instead of off by herself.' 'Why?'
'So everyone could see firsthand all the gory details,' Jack said. 'The more scared they are when their turns come, the more likely they'll be to give Lieutenant Cue Ball what he wants.'
Draycos's tongue flicked out restlessly. 'They put you by yourselves so as to frighten the others?'
'You got it,' Jack said. 'See, when people keep getting taken away and no one comes back, the ones who are left start wondering what's happened to them. Sometimes that's a whole lot scarier than anything they could dream up on their own.'
Draycos was silent a moment. 'It is barbaric.'
'I suppose,' Jack admitted. 'But it's better than beating the sand out of someone. Don't your people ever use psychological warfare?'
'I do not know that term,' Draycos said stiffly. 'But if it is like this, I am certain we do not.'
'Figures,' Jack murmured. Sometimes the K'da were too noble for their own good.
The two Shamshir emerged from the hut, minus Li, and turned purposefully toward the building Jack was crouched beside. Going to collect the next contestant in Lieutenant Cue Ball's little game, no doubt. 'Keep quiet,' he warned Draycos, easing back from the corner out of their sight. 'And get ready.'
The soldiers reached the door and disappeared inside.
And the second they were out of sight, Jack sprinted for the Flying Turtle they'd been brought here in.
He had estimated he would have about a minute to pop the hatchway and get inside before the soldiers reappeared. As it turned out, the hatchway wasn't locked, and he made it with a good twenty seconds to spare. He was already in the cockpit, studying the control board, when the soldiers came back outside.
With Alison Kayna striding along between them.
'They have taken Alison,' Draycos murmured, his head rising from Jack's shoulder for a better look.
'Yeah, I saw,' Jack grunted, still sorting out the board. This thing wasn't going to fly much like the Essenay, but the controls were similar enough. 'Was there something you wanted me to do about it?'
'I was merely observing,' Draycos said mildly. 'She is not being treated as a fellow Shamshir soldier.'
Jack looked up again. The dragon was right. As far as he could tell, she was being marched along the same way he had been earlier, like any other prisoner Lieutenant Cue Ball was hoping to squeeze for information. 'Okay, so maybe it isn't the Shamshir she's working for,' he conceded. 'Maybe it's some other group. Maybe she scrambled the computer codes so that she could be the only one who could pull out the data for them.'
'Why?'
'How should I know?' Jack growled. 'Maybe she was hired to get in good with the Shamshir. Maybe she was hired to chase the Whinyard's Edge off Sunright. Maybe she just wants to make a cash deal, like I tried to.'
Alison and the soldiers disappeared into the building. 'And right now, I don't much care,' Jack added, keying for startup. 'All I want is to get out of here.'
The weight on his shoulder shifted as Draycos looked around the cockpit. 'Will there not be a recognition code required to start the engines?'
'Probably.' Jack gestured to the board. 'Conveniently for us, the pilot left this one on standby. I was hoping he had.'
Draycos cocked his head. 'Careless of him.'
'Agreed,' Jack said. 'But like you said, these guys aren't really soldiers.'
He eased in the lifters, and the Flying Turtle rose gently into the sky. 'Keep your claws crossed,' he warned. 'If anyone's going to object, now's the time they're going to do it.'
But no one challenged them as they headed off into the night. No one challenged, or signaled, or even seemed to notice. Jack kept the transport close to the ground, putting distance between them and Dahtill City as quickly as he dared, wondering how in the world it was they were getting away so easily.
'It would seem that proper military procedure does not exist here,' Draycos commented. 'Perhaps the Agri have not allowed their city to be turned into a base for the Shamshir.'
'Maybe,' Jack said. 'Or maybe it's simpler. If this is where the mine is that everybody wants, neither side will want to have any serious fighting nearby.'
'Perhaps.' Draycos's head rose up higher, his snout pointing past Jack's nose to the left. 'Could that be the mine?'
Jack looked that direction. A mile or so past the edge of the city were three dim structures. The center one was much taller than the others, clearly built to house the kind of crane and digging equipment necessary for a deep-ground mine shaft. The other two buildings seemed to be support structures, probably containing supplies and extra equipment. There were only a few lights in evidence, just enough to keep aircraft from running into them. Apparently, the Agri weren't working a night shift.
'Probably,' he confirmed. 'I seem to remember that daublite is usually deep enough that you have to sink a pretty long shaft to get anywhere near it.'
'That sounds expensive.'
'Expensive and time-consuming both,' Jack agreed.
'The Agri have probably been at this project for years. Maybe even generations.'
'Only to then have others try to steal it away from them,' Draycos said, sounding disgusted. 'Those structures are built over vertical shafts, then?'
'Just the one in the middle,' Jack said. 'It looks like the pictures I've seen of deep mines.'
'A delicate operation,' Draycos murmured. 'Easily destroyed by accident, or by falling debris collapsing the shaft. I can understand why they do not wish battles nearby.'
His head swiveled back toward the view ahead. 'This is not the direction to Mer'seb,' he said. 'From Dahtill City we must turn southwest.'
'Right,' Jack agreed. 'If we were heading for Mer'seb. But we're not. We're going back to Kilo Seven.'
The dragon's head pulled far enough away from Jack's skin that he could peer at
