'I understand,' Jack said, his teeth chattering together with pain and shock and fury.
The Brummga waved the slapstick again, apparently just to see Jack's reaction.
'Good. Don't forget.'
He looked at Fleck and pointed the slapstick at Jack. 'Hotbox,' he ordered.
'Yes, Your Commandary,' Fleck said, bowing his head. Reaching down, he grabbed Jack's arm and hauled him to his feet. With his free hand, he unlooped the now nearly empty bowl from around his neck and handed it to the Brummga. 'How long?'
The other eyed Jack as if measuring him. 'One night,' he decided. 'He will work tomorrow.'
Fleck glanced at Jack. 'Tomorrow is Tenthday, Your Commandary,' he said.
'He will work regardless,' the Brummga said. 'He will bring a full bowl, or he will not eat.'
Fleck bowed again. 'Yes, Your Commandary. It shall be done.'
For a moment the Brummga continued to watch Jack, as if expecting an argument.
Maybe even hoping for an argument.
But Jack had learned his lesson, and remained silent. With a rumble from his chest, the Brummga turned away and plodded back toward the collection table.
As he did so, something else caught Jack's eye. Another car was approaching the slave colony, carrying two Brummgas and a wildly painted Dolom. Lisssa had been right: Crampatch's daughter got bored quickly with her private slaves.
'Come on,' Fleck growled, turning Jack around and giving him a shove toward the hotboxes.
'What about my berries?' Jack asked, looking back at the berries lying on the ground, many of them smashed. A hard, tiring day's work, all gone.
Fleck gave him another shove. 'You didn't want dinner tonight anyway, did you?' he asked sarcastically. 'Think of it as a lesson learned cheap.'
'The guy with the big stick is always right,' Jack murmured. 'I already know that one.'
Five minutes later, he was back in the hotbox. 'Here we go again,' he muttered.
'Our home away from home. Looks just the way we left it, too.'
'I am sorry, Jack,' Draycos murmured from his right shoulder.
Jack shrugged. 'It's not like there was a lot you could have done to help,' he pointed out reasonably. 'Besides, you already did. If you hadn't stopped me from decking that big jerkface, I'd probably have drawn a week in here.'
'Still, I am sorry I could not prevent it,' Draycos persisted.
'Forget it,' Jack said, trying not to let his anger at Fleck and the Brummgas spill over onto Draycos. 'Tell you what. As soon as your people get settled in on Iota Klestis, we'll bring a few of your buddies in and make Fleck pick up every berry he spilled. And eat them. How's that sound?'
Draycos seemed to think that one over. 'You are joking, of course.'
'Mostly,' Jack said. 'But it's still kind of nice to think about.'
'But not very productive.'
'Maybe not,' Jack said. 'But there's not a whole lot of productive I can be at the moment.'
'Still, it is not good for your mind to dwell on such things,' Draycos said.
'It can have a negative effect on your judgment.'
'You didn't seem to have any trouble killing that guy aboard the Star of Wonder,' Jack said.
'That was different,' Draycos said, a little stiffly. 'That was justice. It is not at all the same as revenge.'
'I know,' Jack conceded. He really shouldn't toy with Draycos and his warrior ethic this way, he knew. But it was just too easy sometimes to hot-start the dragon's buttons and play a little tune on them. 'How much longer will it take you to get through that hedge?'
'Not long,' Draycos said. 'Perhaps two days. Three at the most.'
'And then?'
'Once we are both at the hedge, I will cut through the last few branches,'
Draycos said. 'We will then be clear to enter the Chookoock family areas.'
'And from then on it's up to me,' Jack said, nodding. 'Then you'd better get to work. The sooner we get out of here, the better.'
CHAPTER 11
They waited until the camp was dark and quiet. Then, Jack slid his hand under the door, and Draycos slipped out into the night.
The trip to the thorn hedge had become a familiar one over the past few days.
Draycos moved silently along the uneven ground, habit and experience keeping him to shadows and cover wherever possible.
His mind, though, was a million restless leaps away. The injustice of what had just been done to Jack still throbbed in his brain like an angry percussion master with a full set of concert drums.
For that matter, this whole situation was beginning to get beneath his scales.
This was an important mission, and part of his job was to keep personal feelings from affecting his judgment.
But in this case, knowing that and doing it were two very different things.
This was a slave colony, and it was simply not possible for a poet-warrior of the K'da to completely suppress his anger and contempt.
And as to Jack's idea about coming back to make Fleck regret his actions, it was sadly short of the mark. What this place needed was not a few of Draycos's friends, but six assault squads of K'da and Shontine warriors. Three squads to free the slaves, the other three to burn the entire place to the ground.
He flicked his tail sternly. That was not a proper thought for a warrior, and he knew it. Justice was a vital part of the K'da warrior ethic. Vicious, bitter vengeance was not.
And any chance for justice was still a long way in the future. Jack could claim that everything beyond the hedge was his job if he wanted to, but Draycos knew better. There was a large expanse of ground they would have to deal with before they even reached the mansion. Worse, much of that ground was open, without any cover to speak of.
No. Before he could allow Jack through the hedge, he would have to do a thorough check of the area on his own. He would have to examine the grounds, search for hidden guard posts, and study the outside of the mansion itself. His task was far from over.
And perhaps it was because he was thinking too much about the task ahead that he made it to within sight of the thorn hedge before he noticed the faint taste of Brummga in the air.
He stopped abruptly, dropping flat into the shadow of a bush, silently cursing his lack of attention. A well- known route, a routine duty—that was where a warrior faced the greatest threat of trap or ambush or simple mistake.
It was a good and timely reminder. He could only hope it hadn't already been a
fatal one.
For a long minute he lay in the shadows, his nostrils and tongue sampling the air. There was definitely a Brummgan presence nearby; the scent was too strong to be simply left over from the day's activities. But the light breeze kept switching directions, hindering his efforts to pin down a location.
And then, as he strained every sense, he heard a soft cough.
Soft, but loud enough. His pointed ears twitched onto the direction, his eyes probing the darkness.
There he was, sitting beneath the same type of bush Draycos himself was hiding beside. A Brummgan soldier, complete with infrared-view detectors and a short but nasty-looking automatic weapon.
Sitting where he had a perfect view of the spot where Draycos had been digging his tunnel through the hedge.
Slowly, carefully, Draycos gave the rest of the area a complete check. He spotted two more Brummgas, similarly equipped, one in another shadow, the other beneath a sheet of camouflage webbing.
One of them Draycos could have handled, had he decided that such a move would aid their goal. But with three
