'You have to fill your bowl by dinnertime,' Noy explained. 'Otherwise, no dinner. Didn't Fleck tell you?'
Jack looked off to the left. Fleck was off in the distance, pacing back and forth behind a group of Jantris. 'No, he didn't tell me,' he growled. 'How full does it have to be?'
'Up to here,' Noy said, pointing to a line about half an inch below the rim of the container.
'Got it,' Jack said, a sinking feeling swirling in the pit of his stomach as he stared into the nearly empty bowl. 'Then what?'
'You take your bowl over there,' Noy said, pointing to a pair of tables set up in the shade of a tall tree. 'The Brummgas show up between five thirty and six.
You bring them a full bowl, and they give you a meal ticket.'
'A what?'
'A meal ticket,' Noy repeated. 'It's a little metal square you can trade in for dinner in the meal hall.'
'And no ticket, no dinner?'
'Right,' Noy said. 'So I'd better let you get back to work. I just wanted to say hi.'
'Thanks,' Jack said. 'And thanks for the warning.'
'No problem,' Noy said, moving away. 'See you later.'
He wandered off toward another spot in the tangle of bushes, stopping every few feet to check the nearest branches. 'That was awfully nice of Fleck, wasn't that?' Jack muttered toward his shoulder as he turned back to his work. 'Perhaps there was no malice intended,' Draycos suggested. 'He may merely have forgotten to tell you.'
'You don't even believe that one yourself,' Jack said. 'The guy just thought it would be funny for me to listen to my stomach growl all night.'
He stopped short, a jolt of conscience suddenly hitting him. 'Which reminds me... I didn't save you any of my food last night. I'm sorry.'
'That is all right,' Draycos assured him. 'There was no practical way you could have done so with Maerlynn and the others watching.'
'I know, but...' Jack ran out of words.
'Do not worry about me, Jack,' Draycos said into the awkward silence. 'I am a poet-warrior of the K'da. I am accustomed to hardship in the line of duty.
You must not worry about me, but keep your full attention on the task at hand.
Agreed?'
Jack sighed. 'Agreed.'
'Good,' Draycos said. 'I am working on a plan that I believe will allow us to move undetected into the Chookoock family grounds. From that point, it will be up to you.'
'Okay,' Jack said. He'd finished the upper branches of this particular bush; kneeling down on the soft ground, he started checking the lower ones. 'From that I assume the hedge is wired?'
'Yes,' Draycos said. 'The gap we were brought through has many sensors attached.
How did you know?'
'Because an open gap like that is about as obvious as an elephant at an anteaters' tea party,' Jack said with sniff. 'These Brummgas are not exactly mental giants. I hope you aren't going to try to disarm them by yourself.'
'I am not going to disarm them at all,' Draycos said. 'I have begun carving a tunnel through the base of the hedge at a secluded location.'
'There'll still be all the rest of the grounds to get though after that,'
Jack pointed out.
'True,' Draycos said. 'As I said, that part is up to you.'
Jack snorted. 'Thanks. Loads.'
CHAPTER 9
There were two breaks that morning, each one a big fat five minutes long.
Most of the slaves took the opportunity to sit down and stretch tired muscles.
Jack, in contrast, worked straight through both.
A longer, twenty-minute break came at noon, accompanied by a cup of what Maerlynn called nutrient broth. To Jack, it seemed more like flavored water with delusions of souphood. But it tasted all right, and he had to admit he felt better after drinking it.
He worked through most of that break, too, holding his soup cup with one hand and sipping from it as he picked.
It was midafternoon, and Fleck had just called another five-minute break, when he first heard the music.
He paused and looked around. It was a delicate sound, clear and precise and clean. Ethereal, even, if he was remembering that word right. The kind of music that would fit perfectly with a movie scene of a tropical paradise. Which made its presence in the middle of a slave colony like a sweetly smiling kick in the teeth.
'Where is that music coming from?' Draycos murmured.
'I don't know,' Jack said, straightening up and looking around.
And then, an old man came into view from around a curve in the bushes. He walked slowly, as if his knees were tired or stiff or both, and on his head he wore an amazingly wide-brimmed hat.
And in his hands he carried a musical instrument like nothing Jack had ever seen before.
Jack blinked, wiping the sweat off his forehead. The instrument was mostly metal; that much he could tell from the glints of sunlight off its surface.
Sections of it looked familiar, too, as if the old man had put it together from pieces of a half dozen other instruments. The part he was blowing into seemed to have come from a flute, but there were also valves from a trumpet and possibly a
tuba. Other parts Jack didn't recognize at all.
He glanced around. The only other slave nearby was Lisssa, leaning half into her bush as she strained to reach some berry deep inside the tangle of branches.
'Hey, Lisssa,' Jack said, stepping over to her. 'What's with the musician?'
She made a sound like a horse snorting. 'It's the Klezmer.'
'What's a Klezmer?'
'I look like an encyclopedia to you?' she retorted. 'That's just what he calls himself.'
'Okay, okay,' Jack said soothingly. 'I was just asking.'
'And I'm just telling,' Lisssa said sourly. 'Probably means 'leach' in some human language.'
Jack frowned. 'Leach?'
Lisssa snorted again. 'Take another look.'
Jack turned back. The Klezmer was walking slowly along the line of berry pickers now. Each of the working slaves turned toward him as he passed.
And to Jack's surprise, each dropped some berries into the container looped around the Klezmer's neck.
'Okay, I give up,' Jack said. 'What are they doing?'
'Like I said, he's a leach,' Lisssa growled. 'Story goes his eyes have gone too bad for him to pick berries. My eyes so cry over him.'
'But don't the Brummgas have some kind of...?' Jack floundered.
'What, retirement plan?' Lisssa asked scornfully. 'Don't be ridiculous. We don't work, we don't eat. Period.'
She shrugged in the Klezmer's direction, the thick scales of her shoulder scratching against the branches with the movement. 'So he's got this scam going.
He plays music and pretends he's not begging. And everyone else gives him berries and pretends it's not charity.'
Jack studied her right ear, about all of her face he could see through the branches and leaves. There had been an odd emphasis on the last word. 'You don't believe in charity?'
Reluctantly, he thought, she pulled back from the bush and turned those dark eyes on him. 'Are you that
