Dragonback 04 Dragon and Herdsman (4 page)

"Thank you," Alison said dryly. "That
had
occurred to me.
If you don't mind, we'll just go to my ship—it's in D-2—and you can
walk the rest of the way."

"That's fine," Jack said. "By the way, thanks for getting me out
of there."

"No problem," she said. "You owe me one."

They passed beneath the archway. Jack watched carefully; but if
the Malison Ring had been able to get any men to the port, they weren't
being obvious about it. Certainly no one stepped out into the street in
front of them and started shooting.

So he and Draycos had lost this round. But that was all right.
There were a dozen more major Malison Ring offices scattered around the
Orion Arm. As soon as Jack got back to the
Essenay
he'd get
Uncle Virge looking for another good target. They would come up with
another scheme for getting in, figure out a better disguise this time—

"Uh-oh," Alison muttered.

Jack snapped his attention back. "What?"

"Trouble," she said, nodding toward a rather decrepit-looking
light freighter off to the left. A half-dozen men in business suits
were visible nearby, walking around it or standing idly near the entry
hatch.

"They don't look like mercenaries to me," Jack said.

"They're not," Alison said. "It's still trouble."

She drove past the turnoff, and Jack half-turned to peer out the
back window. The loitering men didn't seem to have noticed them. One of
them shifted position slightly, bringing his face more fully into the
glow of one of the port's lights—

"Did they spot us?" Alison asked.

Jack found his voice. "Doesn't look like it," he said, forcing his
voice to stay casual. "I hope you have a backup plan."

"I do, but not on this planet," Alison said grimly. "I don't
suppose I could talk you into giving me a lift."

Jack hesitated. Even if Draycos's existence wasn't exactly a
secret anymore, they still didn't want to broadcast the news to the
whole Orion Arm. Besides that, he'd taken great pains for over a year
now to keep Uncle Virgil's death a secret. And
that
one hadn't
yet leaked out at all. Having a stranger aboard for even a few days
would be begging for trouble.

But on the other hand . . . "Where exactly did you have in mind?"
he asked.

"It's a planet called Rho Scorvi," she said. "Ever hear of it?"

"I don't think so," Jack said, searching his memory. "Does it have
a real name?"

"The natives probably have their own name for it, but no one else
does," she said. "It's about eighty light-years past Immabwi."

Jack grimaced. Immabwi was off toward the southern edge of the
Orion Arm, not exactly in the mainstream of civilization. It was going
to cost either a lot of time or a lot of fuel to get there. And he and
Draycos didn't have any extra time to spare. "You sure I can't just fly
you twice around the galaxy?"

"That's the nearest place where I know I can find some friendly
transport," she said stiffly. "If it's going to upset your delicate
schedule, forget it."

"Don't get huffy," he said. "I just hope you've got enough cash to
get us there, that's all."

"Don't worry; I've got plenty of fueling credits," she said,
patting her jacket pocket. "Always carry them with me, just in case."

"That's handy," Jack said. "Rich uncle?"

"Careless travelers."

Jack made a face. And here he was, trying hard to
stop
stealing from people. "So how come the guys back there are after you?"

"I never said they were after
me
," she said. "That ship
belongs to some other friends—I've just been hitching a ride. They must
be after
them
."

"Fine" Jack said. "So why are they after
them
?"

"How should I know?" Alison retorted. "Can we just get out of
here?
Whoa
."

"What?" Jack asked, twisting around to look over his shoulder.

"Is
that
your ship?" Alison asked, pointing ahead. "Oh,"
Jack said, relaxing again. "Yes. Actually, it belongs to my uncle."

"Your uncle's doing very well for himself," she said as she
brought the car to a stop near the
Essenay
's air lock hatchway.
"That's, what, a Pergnoir-7 light personal transport?"

"Hardly," Jack said with a snort as he climbed out of the car. His
legs still felt a little wobbly, but he should be able to make it into
the ship without Alison's help. "It's just your basic run-of-the-line
light freighter."

"If you say so," Alison said, sounding doubtful as she followed
him into the air lock. "Sure looks like a Pergnoir to me. You sure
giving me a ride will be all right with your uncle?"

"Don't worry; he's not here at the moment," Jack said, looking
warningly at the air lock's camera/speaker/micro-phone module. He hoped
Uncle Virge would take the hint and keep quiet. "He's off-planet on a
job."

"Handy," Alison said. "When do you need to pick him up?"

"He'll let me know," Jack told her, heading for the cockpit. "Come
on—you can get us our lift clearance while I crank up the systems. The
sooner we get out of here, the better."

Jack prepped the ship while Alison talked to the control tower,
and a few minutes later they were heading up into the faint glow of the
pre-dawn sky. Twenty minutes later, Jack keyed in the ECHO stardrive,
and they were on their way to Rho Scorvi.

Alison had been impressed enough by her first look at the
Essenay
's
exterior. Jack's guided tour of the interior knocked her socks off.

"I don't believe this," she said for probably the fourth time as
he took her into the dayroom. "A full-auto medic chair, a class-five
food synthesizer,
and
a table repeater display. Your uncle
poured a
big
bucket of cash into this thing."

"Like I said, he's good at what he does," Jack said.

"No kidding," Alison said. She turned the table on and off,
watching as the wood-grain surface went transparent and then opaque
again. "What sort of remote sensors do you have?"

"I'm not really sure," Jack said. "Computer?"

"We have a Calico 404 package," Uncle Virge answered. His voice
was bland and emotionless, but there was a definite edge of quiet
annoyance beneath the surface.

Jack heartily sympathized. Unfortunately, there wasn't a thing he
could do about it. Even before they'd lifted, Alison had spotted the
P/S/8 designation on the computer-interface board and recognized it as
a model with personality simulation capabilities. At that point, Jack
had had no choice but to allow—or rather, insist—that Uncle Virge talk
to her.

He'd modified his normal voice, of course, going with something
that sounded more like a standard P/S computer than the more colorful
personality Uncle Virgil had left behind. But it was obvious that he
wasn't happy with any of this.

It was equally obvious he was going to be having a long and
unpleasant conversation with Jack the minute their new passenger was
out of earshot.

"Extremely cool," Alison said, turning the table transparent one
last time. "Can you access your InterWorld transmitter from here, too?"

Jack felt his breath catch in his throat. Ships this small, even
luxury models, never had InterWorld transmitters aboard. How could
Alison have guessed the
Essenay
had one? "What are you talking
about?" he asked guardedly.

"Don't be cute," she said. "I saw the InterWorld directory tab on
the list when you were pulling up Rho Scorvi's coordinates."

"A
directory
?" Jack repeated, thoroughly lost now. "What
does a directory have to do with anything?"

"Because the InterWorld directory is part of the InterWorld access
software," she explained patiently. "If you've got a directory, you've
got the software. If you've got the software, you've got the
transmitter."

"Or my uncle just wants to be able to look up numbers before he
calls them," Jack countered. It was, he thought rather disgustedly, a
pretty weak argument.

Alison apparently thought so, too. "Right," she said
sarcastically. "Even though every spaceport and planet-based
transmitter has its own directory. But fine. Let's ask. Computer—?"

"Never mind," Jack cut her off, half-lifting his hands in a
gesture of surrender. The standard P/S/8 computer interface probably
couldn't lie. Uncle Virge could, and in this case probably would, and
the last thing Jack wanted was for Alison to catch him at it. "Yes,
we've got a transmitter."

"Which is another five or six buckets of cash," Alison concluded,
looking around the dayroom. "I hope you realize just how much money
you're sitting on here, Jack Montana."

She brought her gaze back to him. "
If
that's your real
name."

"Like 'Alison Kayna,' you mean?" Jack asked pointedly.

Her lip twitched. "Fine. None of my business. So where do I sleep?"

"You can use my uncle's cabin," Jack said. "It's down the hall on
your left."

"You're sure he won't mind?" she asked. "I could just sleep here
on the couch."

"He won't mind," Jack assured her. "Besides, I sometimes like to
get up during the night and have a snack. I don't want to trip over
you."

"Fair enough," Alison said. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go
sack out for a while. It's been a long and fairly interesting night."

"Sounds like a plan," Jack agreed. "I think I'll catch some winks
myself after I check the ECHO settings. Help yourself to anything you
want—food or music or whatever. I'll get you some of my clothes, too."

"Okay," Alison said, heading for the door. "Thanks for the tour.
And thanks for the ride. I appreciate it."

"I appreciate you getting me out of that cell," Jack said. "See
you later."

He headed to the cockpit. "She still in her cabin?" he asked as he
dropped into the pilot's chair.

"She's cleaning up in the bathroom," Uncle Virge said.

"Okay," Jack said, bracing himself. "Let's have it."

"Let us have what?" Draycos asked, lifting his head from Jack's
shoulder.

"The objections, arguments, and how-dare-yous," Jack said. "Mouse
got your tongue, Uncle Virge?"

"What are you expecting me to say, Jack lad?" Uncle Virge growled.
"That this is as crazy a scheme as you've ever come up with? And given
your record these past three months, that's a high standard for you to
top."

"Number one," Jack said, holding up a finger, "she got me out of a
tight jam."

"I thought getting you out of jams was what your tame K'da
poet-warrior was for."

Draycos stirred against Jack's skin. "He
could
have gotten
me out, yes," Jack said hurriedly before the dragon could speak.
"Alison got there first. I owe her."

"So buy her a liner ticket to Rho Scorvi and send her on her way."

"Number two," Jack said, lifting another finger, "I never did find
out what kind of game she was playing back at the Whinyard's Edge
training camp. Given that whatever it was nearly got both of us killed,
it might be nice to see if I can wheedle it out of her."

"She was running a scam, of course," Uncle Virge huffed. "Just
like you were."

"And third," Jack said, lifting one final finger, "the people she
was avoiding back at her ship were from Braxton Universis."

There was a short pause. "Are you sure?" Uncle Virge asked, his
huffiness suddenly gone.

"Positive," Jack said. "I saw one of them back on the
Star of
Wonder
. His name's Harper, and he's one of Cornelius Braxton's more
trusted bodyguards."

"Are you suggesting
Braxton
is interested in this girl?"
Uncle Virge asked.

"If not him, then it's someone else high up in the corporation."

"Or they could merely be interested in Alison's friends," Draycos
suggested. "The ones she said she was riding with."

Jack shook his head. "There aren't any friends. That ship is hers."

"Are you certain?"

"Trust me, I know a lie when I hear it," Jack said. "The point is
that if Braxton is interested in her, maybe we should be interested,
too."

"Seems to me it's just one more reason to cut her loose at the
first stop," Uncle Virge said darkly. "Or had it occurred to you that
there's just one person at the top of Braxton's interest list right
now?"

"Arthur Neverlin," Jack agreed. "But if Alison is working for him,
why did she spring me just now?"

"Maybe he wants to give us some rope," Uncle Virge suggested. "A
little running room to see how much we know. It just seems to me that
the timing of this little rescue is awfully convenient."

"True," Jack had to admit. "Still, if she
did
overhear
them yesterday, it wouldn't have taken her any time at all to put
something like this together. We know she's partial to sopor mist—she
probably had everything she needed already aboard her ship."

"I still think she's here to worm out your secrets," Uncle Virge
insisted.

"Or perhaps she hopes you'll lead her to your uncle," Draycos put
in thoughtfully. "Recall that on Brum-a-dum they were still trying to
use you to get to him."

"They were, weren't they?" Jack said slowly, thinking back to that
conversation. Unless they just wanted revenge . . . but Neverlin didn't
seem the type to waste time with revenge. Not his own time, anyway.
"Granted, Alison could be all of that. Even so, I think our best bet is
to hold on to her, at least for a while. How does that saying go? Keep
your friends close, and your enemies closer?"

"That's the one," Uncle Virge said with a sniff. "And if you ask
me, it's a very stupid saying.
I
say keep your enemies as far
away from you as you can."

"And your friends?" Draycos asked.

"Better to make do without them," Uncle Virge retorted.

Jack sighed. In Uncle Virgil's world, people had always fallen
into one of two categories: the ones he could use, and the ones he
couldn't. "Friendship," "affection," "trust"—those might as well have
been alien words as far as he was concerned.