Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier (2 page)

"Unless they catch you," Uncle Virge said. "You ever think of
that
?"

"I'll be fine," Jack insisted. "Anyway, like Draycos says, he'll
be with me the whole way."

Uncle Virge didn't answer. "So that's settled," Jack said,
flopping back flat onto the cot again. "If you want to be helpful, you
can find us a good merc group to try. Something not too big, but with
jobs all across the Orion Arm. We don't want someone who just works
locally. And make sure it's someone who hires a lot of kids my age—"

"And isn't too fussy about who they take," Uncle Virge cut him off
grudgingly. "Yes, yes, I know what to look for."

"And when you find one, put us on ECHO for their nearest
recruitment center," Jack added. "No point in wasting time."

"No, of course not," Uncle Virge muttered. "Good night, Jack lad."

Jack pushed himself up off the cot again. "Draycos, you getting
back aboard? You're going to need to do it sometime before morning
anyway."

Draycos focused on the clock built into the wall beside Jack's
cot. Yes; even if he had broken contact with the boy just before his
dream began, he would still come close to his limit before the sleep
period was over. A K'da could only go six hours before he needed to
return to two-dimensional form against a host's body. If he stayed away
longer than that, he would still become two-dimensional, and ripple
away into death.

But he had time. And his body always gave him plenty of warning.
"I will join you later," he decided, standing up and stretching all
four legs. "I believe I will go watch Uncle Virge work through the
mercenary information."

"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.

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 merc 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 far end beneath a huge wood carving of the Whinyard's Edge
insignia. The woman who had escorted the teens in from the bus was
seated at one of the desks, while an older gray-haired man sat at the
other.

Off to either side of the main room, near where Jack had entered,
were a pair of unmarked doorways. One of the doors was slightly ajar,
and through it Jack caught a glimpse of the simple desk and filing
cabinets of a secretarial work station. On the far back wall, behind
the fancy desks and directly beneath the wooden insignia, was a door
with a picture of a dagger painted on it and what looked like a motto
stenciled around its edge.

The number of teens in the reception room was a surprise. Even
huddled together like sheep the way they were, they filled the room all
the way to the walls. The bus Jack had seen pull up must have been only
the last of a group of them, possibly bringing in new recruits from
several different parts of the spaceport. Apparently, the Whinyard's
Edge was holding an even bigger recruitment drive than he'd realized.

Briefly, his mind flicked back to his confident statement to Uncle
Virge that there were no major wars going on anywhere. He hoped he
hadn't been wrong about that.

"Over there," Draycos murmured, just loud enough for Jack to hear
over the soft buzz of conversation. The dragon's snout rose slightly
from Jack's upper chest beneath his shirt, pointing to the left. "That
boy has papers."

"Uh-huh," Jack said. More than just papers: it was an official
looking document with a blue-paper backing sheet. A document that Jack
himself didn't have.

This was not good.

Carefully, casually, he eased through the crowd and came up behind
the boy. "Some place, huh?" he commented.

"Terrific," the other said, his voice trembling slightly. First
time away from home, all right.

"Hey, buck up," Jack said, trying for a cheerfully encouraging
tone he suddenly wasn't feeling anymore. The paper the boy was holding
was an official indenture agreement.

On an official Whinyard's Edge form. With an official Whinyard's
Edge signature on the bottom.

And suddenly Jack's plan of simply talking his way inside as part
of the group wasn't looking so hot anymore.

"Yeah, right," the boy said. "Just like summer camp. How long you
in for?"

"Probably the same as you," Jack improvised, searching the form
for the correct number. There was a small bit of weight at his
collarbone as Draycos lifted an eye up to look over the boy's shoulder.
"Two years, right?"

The boy snorted under his breath. "I guess your folks must not
need the money," he said, waving the form up into Jack's face. The name
at the top caught Jack's eye: Jommy Randolph. "I'm in for five. Five
whole years."

"Put a quark in it," a girl at Jack's other side growled. She was
maybe thirteen, with jet-black hair and eyes that were so dark they
were almost black, too.

"You talking to me?" Jommy demanded, his voice threatening.

"You see anyone else in here whining about life?" she countered.

"Maybe it's just that no one else gets it," Jommy said, taking a
half step toward her. Clearly, he wasn't in the mood for criticism.

The girl stood her ground. "Or maybe it's just that no one else's
glue is melting," she said. "You'd think they were drop-kicking you
into prison or something."

"Oh, they're drop-kicking us, all right," Jommy shot back. "I had
an uncle once—-"

"Quiet back there!" a deep voice snapped from the far end of the
room, the words cutting through the buzz.

The buzz instantly evaporated. Grimacing to himself, Jack backed
away from Jommy and the girl and started to ease his way to the exit.
Uncle Virge had been right; this had been a lousy idea. Time to wave
bye-bye and head for the tall grass.

"There is a guard," Draycos whispered.

Jack looked over his shoulder. There was a guard, all right,
standing at attention between him and the door. A very big guard, in
full uniform, with a very big gun belted at his waist.

So much for a gracious retreat. "I'm open to suggestions," he
muttered, turning away from the guard.

"To your left," Draycos said. "The room with the open door."

"Good idea," Jack said, drifting in that direction. The buzz of
whispered conversation was starting to come back now, despite the order
for silence. Maybe they
all
thought it was going to be like
summer camp. "We'll try for a window."

"You will not be going into the room," Draycos said. "I will need
five minutes alone. Unfasten your sleeve."

Jack frowned. But he obeyed, unsnapping the cuffs of his leather
jacket as he eased toward the slightly open door. Beneath his shirt, he
could feel Draycos sliding along his skin, moving as much of his
two-dimensional form as he could onto Jack's left arm.

Obviously preparing to spring out the end of that sleeve. Problem
was, Jack couldn't see what that would gain them.

He had reached the door now, listening as best he could over the
murmurs of the crowd. He hadn't spotted anyone in the room earlier, and
he couldn't hear anyone in there now. But that didn't prove anything.
They would just have to gamble that the office was indeed empty.
"Ready?" he whispered.

Draycos's affirmative was signaled by a light claw-tap on his arm.
Jack stepped to the office door, swung his left hand smoothly into the
open gap—

And with a sudden brief surge of weight, Draycos went
three-dimensional as he leaped out through the end of the sleeve. Jack
caught a flicker of gold scales as the dragon dodged out of sight
behind the door, and then was gone.

Keeping his movements smooth, Jack dropped his arm back to his
side and kept moving. No startled screams came from behind him; the
office must have been empty after all.