'Yes, Your Thumbleness,' he said, setting aside the glasses and again picking up the three potatoes.
It was going to be a very long night.
CHAPTER 15
The night turned out to be a lot longer than he'd expected.
Earlier, he'd been surprised that the whole Chookoock family seemed to have dropped in for dinner. Now, with Uncle Virge's running translation, he was able to catch enough bits and pieces of conversation to figure out what was actually going on.
It was, it seemed, Her Thumbleness's High Day.
He never did nail down whether it was her birthday, or some other kind of anniversary, or even just the day they all celebrated her favorite color.
Whatever it was, though, it was a big deal around the Chookoock household.
And Her Thumbleness was playing it for all it was worth. After dinner came a huge dessert that looked like a sentence of death by chocolate and ground-up tree bark. Apparently, the idea was to make as much of a mess as possible while eating it. Her Thumbleness and her friends did that part very well.
After that came game time, with the chocolate-smeared children and a few of the adults gathering in an underground room about the size of a regulation basketball court. The games generated nearly as much noise as the whole crowd upstairs had been able to produce, with the added feature of bone-crunching thuds and wallops as the kids ran into each other.
They played a number of different games, with a whole range of different types of balls. The nearest Jack got to figuring out the rules to any of them was that whenever one Brummga had a chance to run into another one, he did so.
That, and whenever Her Thumbleness came to the sidelines for a break her new court jester had better have a trick or something ready to amuse her.
Under the circumstances, it was impossible for him to slip away to go computer hunting. Standing at the sidelines, listening to a couple of the adults breathing loudly behind him, he wondered if the party girl was ever going to run out of steam.
He thought that moment had finally come when the children dropped their balls and disks and toss-bladders in the middle of the court and all came jogging back to the sidelines. But no such luck. After the games, apparently, Her Thumbleness had scheduled a sleepover with several of her closer friends.
They headed upstairs again, jabbering away in a dozen different conversations.
Jack trudged along behind them, bone-tired but trying hard not to show it. If Her Thumbleness's new toy didn't work the way she wanted it to, she would almost certainly send it back, and he couldn't afford that.
Besides, even a Brummgan kid on a massive sugar high couldn't keep up this pace forever. Eventually, she and her friends would have to give up on the fun and frolic and get some sleep.
Eventually, they did, winding down their chattering and boardcomp games and collapsing one by one onto the heavy mats that had been set up for them in Her Thumbleness's bedroom suite. But by the time the girl dismissed Jack with a lazy wave of her hand, the sky to the east was starting to glow red. The rest of the slave staff was already hard at work downstairs, cooking breakfast and preparing the house for their masters' day.
And it wasn't just the slaves who were on the move, either. Some of the Brummgas and their staff were stirring, as well. Even as Jack headed along the side of the large entryway toward the stairs to the slave quarters, he caught a glimpse of Gazen going into an office on the far side of the chamber.
Luckily, Gazen didn't see him. But any hopes Jack might still have had of trying to get to the computers ended right there. Wandering slaves he might be willing to risk. A wandering Gazen he wasn't.
'Well, that was fun,' he commented tiredly as he closed the door of his tiny room and dropped onto the bed. 'Wasn't that fun, everybody?'
'What exactly are you doing, lad?' Uncle Virge demanded. 'Some kind of marathon magic show?'
'Pretty close,' Jack admitted, wincing as he bent his left leg up to get to his shoe. After all those hours on his feet, his knees were as stiff as a customs official's glare.
With a burst of gold scales, Draycos leaped out of his collar and landed on the narrow strip of floor beside the bed. 'May I help?' he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he began unfastening Jack's shoes.
'Thanks,' Jack said, letting his leg go flat again.
'It is the least I can do,' Draycos said, getting the first shoe off and setting it down on the floor. 'I have been of little aid to you so far.'
'You certainly have,' Jack assured him. 'If you hadn't gotten the comm clip out when you did—' He shook his head.
'What do you mean?' Uncle Virge asked suspiciously. 'What's been happening?'
'The Brummgas treat their slaves like low-grade costume jewelry,' Jack told him.
'If the slaves don't understand what they're saying, they treat them like punching bags.'
Uncle Virge muttered something nasty under his breath. 'Are you all right, lad?' 'I'm fine,' Jack assured him, wiggling his toes as Draycos got the other shoe off. 'It was really only the one Brummga at the dinner, and he was too drunk to really hit straight. Mostly, I've just been run off my feet.'
'And there has been no opportunity yet to locate the computers,' Draycos added.
'But I am in the house,' Jack pointed out. 'That's definitely progress.' He yawned widely. 'I'd better get some sleep while I can, though. Her Thumbleness will probably want me to brush her teeth for her when she wakes up.'
Uncle Virge sighed softly. 'All right, lad,' he said. 'Pleasant dreams.'
Jack clicked off the comm clip and turned his head to look at Draycos. The dragon was pacing the floor, his back arched and uncomfortable looking. 'You coming aboard?' he asked.
'I think I will remain out for a while,' Draycos said.
Jack frowned. Offhand, he couldn't remember ever seeing the dragon quite this twitchy. 'What's wrong?'
Draycos paused in his pacing. His long neck twisted toward Jack, then turned away. 'I am all right,' he muttered.
'Sure you are,' Jack said, studying him. 'Come on, what's the problem? Her Thumbleness getting to you or something?'
Reluctantly, he thought, Draycos came to a halt. 'It is not her,' he said.
'It is this place. It is all of this place.' His tongue slashed out in emphasis.
'I am sorry.'
'Sorry for what?' Jack asked. 'I don't like it much, either.'
The dragon twisted his neck oddly. 'It is not a matter of liking or disliking,' he said, his voice suddenly very quiet. 'For a K'da, this is an echo of a time long past. A terrible time.'
Jack sat up on the bed, his fatigue suddenly forgotten. Something in the dragon's tone had sent a shiver straight through him. 'Sounds serious,' he said in his most soothing, tell-me-all-about-it voice.
And was instantly ashamed of himself. Uncle Virgil had taught him that tone for wheedling information out of people they were trying to scam. He shouldn't be using it on a friend. Especially not on a friend who could carve his initials in steel plate. 'I mean... you want to talk about it?'
For a long moment the dragon was silent. 'We were not always with the Shontine,' he said at last. 'In the beginning we were on another world, with another host race.'
'Who?' Jack asked. 'I mean, what were their names?'
'We remember them as the Dhghem,' Draycos said. 'They were strong and cheerful, full of laughter and wisdom. We were both their symbionts and their friends.'
'Sounds perfect,' Jack said. It sounded too perfect, actually, but that was to be expected. Whatever nuggets of real history there might be in this story, they were almost certainly soaked in myth, sprinkled with legend, and served up with a side order of wishful thinking.
Still, he was hardly in a position to point fingers. Uncle Virgil had never talked about Jack's own parents, and he had only vague memories of them himself.
But that hadn't stopped him from spending hours wondering what they'd been like, or fantasizing about how his
