Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (20 page)

"Genie Bolo, survey specialist for the Triost Mining Group," the
other said, holding out his hand. His smile took on a slight frown. "I
have to say, you look awfully young for your position."

"I've always looked young for my age," Jack explained, shaking
Bolo's hand firmly but briefly, in the upper-class professional's style
Uncle Virgil had taught him. "Even at twenty-four, a lot of people peg
me as only seventeen or eighteen."

"I'd have made it even younger," Bolo admitted. "But don't worry
about it. You'll appreciate the effect when you're fifty and still look
thirty-five." His smile turned a little rueful as he ran a hand through
his thinning hair. "As you see, I've got the opposite problem."

"At least people take you seriously," Jack said. "What brings you
here, Mr. Bolo?"

"Survey work, like the job title says," Bolo said. "We've got a
petrometal station going in about a hundred miles east of here. I was
told to see whether it would be cheaper for us to build a pipeline to
the NorthCentral Spaceport for the stuff or to build our own tanker
landing area next to the station."

Jack frowned. "I didn't know you could pump metals."

"Actually, we'd be pumping a slurry," Bolo said. "That's a lot of
water or other liquid with metals or whatever suspended in it."

"Ah," Jack said. So that was what the tunnel pipes and vats were
for that he and Draycos had seen. One pipe would bring water to the
mine face, and the ore would be dumped into it in one of the vats. The
resulting slurry would then be pumped back to the surface through the
other pipe. "Interesting. I presume that in this case the liquid would
be the oil part of the petrometal deposits?"

"Exactly," Bolo said. "You know much about mining?"

"Hardly anything," Jack said. "How long will you be in the area?"

"I'll be coming and going over the next few days," Bolo said,
looking around. "Frankly, this canyon throws kind of a wrench into the
whole pipeline idea. I think the head office must have forgotten it was
even here."

Jack smiled tightly. Sure they had. "Well, I wish you luck," he
said.

Bolo inclined his head. "Thank you. I must say, it's nice to see a
human face out here in the middle of nowhere."

"Indeed," Jack agreed. "Perhaps after you're done for the day,
you'd be able to join us for dinner." He caught the One's eye. "One
Among Many? Would that be possible?"

"Yes, of course," the One said.

His voice and expression were polite enough. But Jack had lived
with these people long enough to have picked up on all the smaller and
more subtle touches of face and gesture.

The One was worried. He was badly worried.

"Sorry, but I can't," Bolo said. "I've got a ton of work to do,
and not nearly enough time to do it all in." He paused, gazing at
nothing as if thinking hard. "But I should be back here in two or three
days," he continued. "Maybe we can find time then for a dinner or even
just a lunch."

"Sounds good to me," Jack said. "I guess we'll see you when we see
you."

"That you will," Bolo agreed, smiling as he nodded a farewell. He
shifted his eyes to the One—"One Among Many," he said, nodding again.
Then, brushing past Jack, he headed back to his aircar.

The One stepped to Jack's side. "You should not have invited him
back," he said, his voice dark. "We do not want him here."

"I want him here," Jack told him. "I think he's the key to some
questions that need answering."

"It will end in death," the One warned.

Jack felt his throat tighten. "It usually does," he said. He
gestured to Thonsifi, who had come up silently behind him. "I'll start
hearing cases in an hour," he told her. "Can you get the complainants
lined up for then?"

She bowed her head. "I will," she said, and headed toward one of
the apartment pillars.

"You need to rest after your visit to the mine?" the One asked.

"Actually, I need to walk," Jack said. Stepping around the other,
he headed down the path toward the Great Hall.

"Where are we going?" Draycos asked quietly.

Jack took a deep breath. "To find the place where my parents were
murdered."

He had reached the nearest end of the Great Hall before Draycos
spoke again. "You don't believe anymore that they died in the mine?"

"No, they died right here in the canyon," Jack said, pausing at
the base of one of the Great Hall's supporting pylons and looking
around. It would most likely be on the far side, he decided, somewhere
along the northern part of the river. The area up there was much more
open than the part to the south.

And now that he was looking, he could see the hint of where the
pathways had once been. Stepping around the river side of the pylon,
being careful not to step into the water itself, he headed along the
ground beneath the building. "In fact," he added to Draycos, "I'd lay
money that it was right in the middle of arguments in the case."

Draycos stirred on his skin. "Apparently, I have missed something."

"No more than I did," Jack assured him, feeling slightly disgusted
with himself. "This thing above us is the Great Assembly Hall, right?"

"Correct."

"Why
Great
?" Jack asked. "Why not just call it the
Assembly Hall?"

He felt the K'da's sudden twitch of understanding. "Once there was
also a Small Assembly Hall."

"Exactly," Jack said. "Only eleven years ago, it was blown to
bits, or at least wrecked enough that it couldn't be fixed. So they
tore it down."

"Or they didn't want evidence of what had happened to remain,"
Draycos said slowly. "Remember what the shuttle pilot, Eithon, said on
the way?"

"That there was danger in the mine."

"Only the parts we visited seemed perfectly safe."

Jack shrugged. "Scare tactics."

"Or else the danger wasn't going to come from the mine itself,"
Draycos said.

The skin on the back of Jack's neck gave an unpleasant tingle.
Trying to look casual about it, he glanced over his shoulder.

Bolo hadn't left. He was still standing by his aircar, fiddling
with something in the rear storage compartment.

Only what he was really doing was watching Jack. "Oh, boy," Jack
murmured.

"He's watching us?"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said, turning back around to face forward. "He's
trying not to look like it, but he is."

"Perhaps we should abandon our search until later?" Draycos
suggested.

Jack shook his head. "Too late. He already knows I was in the
mine—he would have seen the Golvins' shuttle parked at the entrance on
his way in. And there's no reason why I should be walking around under
here unless I was looking for something that's not here anymore."

"Assuming he knows about that."

"Oh, he knows," Jack said. "I know his type, Draycos— Uncle Virgil
hung around with far too many just like him. They're all smooth and
polite and professional on the surface, but underneath they're as
vicious as anyone you've ever met. Their job is to fix other people's
messes and loose ends. Usually by making a few messes of their own."

Draycos seemed to digest that. "I doubt he will take any action
right now," he said slowly. "Though if he doesn't fear the Golvins as
witnesses against him . . .?"

"No, we're okay for the moment," Jack assured him. "Even if he
doesn't mind shooting me in front of everyone, he still doesn't know
how much I know or who I might have told it to. He has to worm all of
that out of me before he makes his move."

"I suppose that's reasonable," Draycos said, a little doubtfully.
"What then is our strategy?"

"Basically, we're going to play the game right back at him," Jack
said. "See if we can figure out first who
he
is and what
he
knows."

"A dangerous game."

Jack sighed. "Yeah, but it's the only one in town."

They reached the other end of the Great Hall and emerged again
into the sunlight. Jack continued along the river, peering into the
water and the muddy bank.

A hundred yards from the Great Hall, he found it. "There," he
said, squatting down and touching a small piece of blackened wood
poking a couple of inches out of the mud at the edge of the river. "See
it?"

Draycos shifted across Jack's skin to where he could look through
the neck of his shirt. "A piece of wood?"

"A piece of
burned
wood," Jack corrected. "Very important
difference." Carefully, he dug a finger into the mud beside the shard.

And winced as his fingertip ran into something sharp. "There's
more under the surface," he said, feeling around. "Feels like more wood
. . . yeah. Yeah, there's a whole—feels like a round column of it. Sunk
pretty deep, too."

"A supporting pylon," Draycos said. "Like the Great Hall, only for
the Small Hall they were able to use wood instead of stone."

"Treated somehow to keep from rotting," Jack agreed, rinsing his
hand off in the river.

"Yet a bomb strong enough to destroy any structure this size would
have caused serious damage to the entire canyon," Draycos said. "I
believe your earlier conclusion was right: the Golvins themselves
completed its destruction."

"And have been shaking in their vests ever since, wondering if
someone would come looking for the missing Judge-Paladins," Jack said
grimly.

"Not all of them, I think, have such guilty consciences," Draycos
said slowly. "Otherwise, why would any of them have brought you here?"

"You're right," Jack said, nodding. "Only the One and maybe a few
more know the whole truth."

"A truth which we need to learn."

"Oh, we will, buddy," Jack promised darkly. "Trust me. We will."

The next morning, Alison had just finished dressing when Dumbarton
and Mrishpaw arrived at her door. "They're ready for you," Dumbarton
said.

"What, no breakfast?" Alison asked.

"They've got something there," Dumbarton said, jerking a thumb
over his shoulder as the Brummga scooped up her bag of disguised
burglar equipment. "Come on, come on—they're waiting."

They went back upstairs, across the main foyer, and up a wide
staircase to a second-floor balcony. From there they walked down a
nicely furnished corridor, then up another set of stairs, and finally
to a domed chamber the size of a small conference room, only much more
nicely furnished.

As Dumbarton had said, Neverlin and Frost were waiting for her.
They were seated in comfortable chairs beside a line of five safes,
looking rather like spectators at some sporting event. Along the side
wall a small breakfast buffet had been laid out, with both hot and cold
food. The aromas rising from it made Alison's stomach growl.

And over in the far corner, seated in a chair that looked rather
like a throne, was an old, wrinkled, glowering Brummga.

"Morning, Kayna," Frost greeted her with a sort of gruff
politeness. "Ready to start?"

"As soon as I've eaten something," Alison told him, nodding over
at the old Brummga. "Who's your friend?"

An instant later, a hard blow across her shoulder blades sent her
sprawling flat onto the thick carpet. "Hey!" she yelped, rolling back
up into a sitting position and glaring up at the two mercenaries behind
her. "What was that—?"

She broke off, throwing herself into a diving roll that barely
managed to get her out of the way as Mrishpaw swiped at her again.

"Mrishpaw—stand down!" Frost snapped.

But the other ignored him. Taking a long step toward Alison, he
raised his hand for another try. "Patri, call him off," Neverlin said
quietly. "We need her alive
and
unharmed."

There was no order that Alison could hear. But to her relief,
Mrishpaw jerked to a halt. Fora moment he glowered down at her, then
stepped back to Dumbarton's side. Breathing hard, Alison turned her
head to look at the old Brummga.

He was gazing back at her from his throne, his face
expressionless. "Does it have learned respect?" he rumbled.

Alison took a careful breath. "I humbly crave the pardon of the
Patri Chookoock," she said.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Frost stir a little at the
subtle edge of sarcasm beneath the words. Fortunately, the Patri
Chookoock didn't seem to hear it. "You may can stand," he said.

"Thank you." Keeping a wary eye on Mrishpaw, Alison got her feet
under her and stood up. Jack had told her about his casual mistreatment
here at the Chookoock estate. She should have been ready for some of
the same.

"Now; shall we try it again?" Neverlin asked. "Are you ready to
begin?"

Alison glanced sideways at the Patri. "I will begin at your
pleasure," she said. "May I humbly suggest that I'll do better if I'm
allowed to eat first?"

"You may indeed so suggest." Neverlin turned to the Patri. "Patri?"

"It were is better," the Patri rumbled. "Allow it to eat."

Neverlin gestured to the buffet. "Go ahead."

"Thank you," Alison said, bowing to each of the three in turn
before crossing over to the food. It irritated her no end to have to
play this kind of humility game, especially in front of a creature who
made his money buying and selling living beings.

But the very first thing her father had taught her was not to let
emotion get in the way of the job. If it took a little groveling to get
what she wanted out of these people, she could handle that.

She ate a quick breakfast, making sure to thank the Patri twice
more between bites, and then set to work.

The safes were tricky, though not quite as bad as the ones she'd
opened aboard ship, and it took the entire day to get them open. But by
the time the sun was sinking behind the white wall, even Neverlin was
convinced. "Excellent," he said as he peered into the last of the empty
safes and then closed the door again. "You were right, Colonel—she
does
seem to have some talent in this area."