Dragon and Thief

He held up his hand as several voices tried to speak at once. "However, I can assure you right now that you almost certainly have nothing to worry about. At the moment, it appears that no one actually got into the vault."

"Then what set off the security alarm?" someone demanded. "I heard it right through the ballroom wall."

"And the captain told me that the vault had been opened," someone else added.

"That was the first report, yes," the sergeant conceded. "However, it appears now that it was a false alarm. The lock does not seem to have been tampered with, and no one entered any codes into it. We're doing an electronic confirmation of that now."

"Yes, but—"

Behind the sergeant the door opened and another security man appeared. The two of them talked together for a minute in low voices as a buzz of conversation rippled through the crowd.

The sergeant turned back. "I've just been informed that the lock pad has definitely not been tampered with," he said. "We can therefore assume that the door indicator was indeed a false alarm."

Jack smiled to himself. Security knew perfectly well that there was more to it than that, of course. The smoke bomb in the monitor room vent and the knife he'd put through the camera junction box proved that much, not to mention the unlocked office door. Someone in authority must have decided to downplay the whole thing so as not to worry the passengers any more than necessary.

To be fair, of course, the sergeant was certainly right on one point. The lock pad hadn't been tampered with.

"Lieutenant Snyder has also informed me that we'll be allowing you in now to check your boxes," he went on. "If you'll all wait out here, we'll take you in one at a time."

"How about we wait inside?" someone demanded.

"That's right," another voice put in. "I want to know if anybody lost anything."

A chorus of agreement ran around the crowd. "Very well," the sergeant said, giving in. "Follow me, please. And make sure you have your keys ready."

One by one, they were brought behind the counter. Each person gave his or her box number, showed some identification, and was allowed into the vault to confirm everything was in order. Then, satisfied if not exactly happy, they wandered off back to their staterooms or their interrupted evening's entertainment.

At least, most of them did.

The man who'd checked out Box 125 was one of those dressed like servants or bodyguards. From his size and the way he walked, Jack had quickly narrowed that down to bodyguard.

Following at a careful distance, he tracked the other to what Uncle Virgil would have called "crust central," the most expensive section of the starliner's living sections. The door he went into was at the far end of one of the more luxurious corridors.

"The top of the top," Jack commented as they headed back toward the more modest area where his own stateroom was located.

"Pardon?" Draycos asked.

"A room at the end of a corridor like that is probably a suite," Jack explained. "Something the size of the Essenay, I'd guess. Probably costs more per week than the Star of Wonders captain makes in a year. High-level corporate territory, all right."

"A likely target for a human such as Cornelius Braxton, then?"

"Very much so," Jack agreed. "Guys like Braxton prefer to go for big bites instead of little nibbles." He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the suite. "Whoever's in there is definitely in the big-bite category."

Draycos was silent a moment. "Then let us hope that Braxton has bitten off more than he can swallow."

Jack glanced down at the dragon in surprise. "Hey, that's a human saying," he commented. "Where did you pick it up?"

"It is also K'da wisdom," Draycos told him. "Perhaps the thought is universal."

"Could be," Jack said. "Yes, let's hope this guy sticks in his throat."

"When will we speak to him?"

"There's no point trying to barge in tonight," Jack said. "We'll let him sleep in and try to see him in the morning."

"What will you do with the cylinder?"

"I thought you were the one who wanted to give it back," Jack reminded him.

"But we do not want to bring it with us to his room," Draycos pointed out. "That would leave no room for conversation."

"Yeah, you're right," Jack agreed, chewing his lip. "No room for bargaining, either. He'd just whistle for the captain and have me thrown in the brig."

"We also do not want the humans from the Advocatus Diaboli to find it," Draycos added.

"Right," Jack said. "And we know they're aboard somewhere."

"We must therefore find a hiding place," Draycos concluded.

Ahead was a bank of elevators. "No problem," Jack assured him. "Watch the master and learn."

He touched the call button and the rightmost elevator door slid open. Jack stepped inside and pushed for the lowest deck. "Lowest deck is vehicle storage," he told Draycos as the doors slid closed. "A thousand places to hide something this size. Especially if anyone watching me notices that I've gone down there."

"You will hide it in a vehicle, then?"

"Like I said, watch the master," Jack said, pulling the cylinder from his inside coat pocket. "You know, we really ought to mark this thing somehow, in case it ever gets mixed up with the fake one. Let's see..."

With a bound, Draycos leaped out from his collar and landed beside him. "Permit me," he said, holding up one of his front paws. "Hold it firmly with the end facing me, please."

Frowning, Jack did so. The dragon extended a claw and scraped it briefly against the bottom of the cylinder. "There," he said.

Jack turned the cylinder around to look. Sure enough, there was a subtle but quite visible symbol scratched into the metal. "It is kesh," Draycos identified it. "The first letter in the K'da word for genuine."

Jack whistled softly. "So those claws of yours cut right through metal, huh?"

"Certain metals, yes," Draycos said, "though the harder varieties require more effort than a soft metal like this one." He cocked his head. "Why? Does that disturb you?"

Jack shrugged uncomfortably. "It doesn't exactly fill me with warm fuzzies, if that's what you mean," he admitted, swinging open the elevator's trouble panel. Behind the panel was a recessed box containing an emergency phone. "Here, hold this," he added, handing the dragon the cylinder and pulling out his multitool. He set to work on the side panel of the phone box, unfastening two of the screws that held it in place.

"Does that mean it does disturb you?" Draycos asked again, gripping the cylinder between his front paws.

"A little, I guess," Jack said. He had the side panel loose enough to swing inward, exposing the wires and soft foam sound insulation packed in between the side of the phone box and the elevator wall. "I mean, let's face it. You K'da are superior to humans in about every way I can think of."

He took the cylinder back and pressed it into the insulation. It fit, barely. "You're faster, you're stronger, and you're probably smarter," he went on, pushing the panel back into place and starting to fasten the screws again. "You can turn two-dimensional and look through walls. And now I find out you can scratch metal, too. What can't you do?"

"We ca

Jack paused, frowning over his shoulder. The dragon was standing motionless, with no emotion that Jack could read on his long face. But at the same time, he could somehow sense a deep sadness there. "Yeah," he said. "There is that."

The beeping of the elevator as it passed the next floor reminded him that time was short. Turning back, he finished fastening the plate and swung the trouble panel door shut again. He was on his feet, putting the multitool away, when the elevator settled onto the deck he'd punched for.