Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge (3 page)

"No," the answer came, just audible over the background noise.
"But you're about the same place he was when the transmission cut off."

Alison worked her way to the nearest wall, pausing there to crane
her neck over the crowd. No Jack, but also no one who looked like they
might be a Malison Ring mercenary. Unless they'd just grabbed Jack and
run.

No. For some reason, they still seemed to want Virgil Morgan. They
wouldn't just run off with Jack without at least hanging around long
enough to leave a ransom demand.

"It sounded to me like there was something there at the end about
going to the bank," she said.

"Jack said he needed to go to the bank," Uncle Virge corrected.
"No one said they were actually going there."

"Maybe not, but it's as good a place to start as any," Alison
said. Rejoining the crowd, she continued inward. She reached the center
to find an entire half circle dedicated to ground and air taxis.
Working her way to the first vehicle in line, she got in.

"To?" a long-faced Golvin asked, his flat nose snuffling at the
air between them like a piece of paper flapping in a stiff breeze.

"Bank of Lloffle," she told him.

His nose snuffled another moment, and then he turned back to the
wheel and pulled out into the drive. Alison leaned back, trying to look
all directions.

Ten minutes later the driver pulled up in front of the bank. Jack,
unfortunately, was nowhere in sight. "Now what?" Uncle Virge asked as
Alison climbed the steep steps toward the front door.

"I'm going in," she told him. "They could easily have gotten here
ahead of me. If not—" She shrugged. "I might as well at least clear out
the box."

"With Jack holding the only key?" Uncle Virge retorted. "That'll
be a neat trick."

"Not really," Alison said, smiling despite the seriousness of the
situation. If he only knew. "It's Box 433, right?"

"Right," Uncle Virge said suspiciously. "What are you—?"

"I'm shutting down," Alison said. "Stay cool, okay?"

"Alison—"

She tapped the comm clip, cutting off his protest, and went inside.

The bank interior was small and modestly decorated, as befit a
small operation on a world most of the Orion Arm's society and culture
had long since left behind. Two Compfrins were working the counter, and
a bulky Trin-trang was seated at a desk by the doorway leading into the
back room. "May we assist?" one of the Compfrins asked.

"I need to get into Box 433," Alison said, walking toward the
Trin-trang at the desk. "The name of record is Virgil Morgan."

The Trin-trang typed for a moment on his keyboard, then peered at
his display. "Yes," he confirmed, opening a drawer and pulling out a
shiny gold-metal electronic key. "You have the key?"

"Of course," Alison said, digging her right hand into her pocket
for her collection of small keys. Picking by touch the one she knew
looked the most like the Trin-trang's, she pulled it out and held it
up. "Right here," she said, keeping her hand moving so that he couldn't
quite get a clear look at the key. "I'm in rather a hurry," she added,
lowering her hand to her side.

The Trin-trang's shoulders hunched in the equivalent of a frown,
but without a word he stood up and gestured toward the doorway. "Come."

He led the way into the back room and the vault beyond it. Keeping
her left hand out of his view, Alison squeezed her thumb against the
base of her left forefinger.

And the plastic lockpick surgically implanted beneath the
fingernail silently slid out into ready position.

Recessed into the side of the vault were three rows of private
lockboxes. "Four thirty-three," the Trin-trang said, pointing a thick
finger at one of them as he went to the far end of the row and inserted
his key into the master lock at the end. "At your convenience."

Alison stepped to the indicated box, turning a little to put her
shoulder between the Trin-trang and the lockbox. Using both hands as if
she was having trouble inserting the key, she slid the lockpick into
the keyhole. The semifluid plastic did its magic, flowing up against
the markpins and triggering the proper transponder connections, and
with a twist of her wrist the lock came open. Sliding the lockpick back
into concealment, she pulled the drawer open.

The only thing inside was a small shoulder bag, flattened and
compressed to fit into the narrow space. She picked it up, noting that
it seemed surprisingly light, and looped the strap over her shoulder.
"Thank you," she told the Trin-trang as she returned the empty box to
its place.

"You are welcome," the Trin-trang said, turning his key in the
master lock again. "We live to serve."

Alison headed for the door, the bag bouncing gently against her
side. So much, she thought sourly, for the lockbox being full of cash,
the way Jack had implied.

A minute later, she was back outside, heading briskly down the
steps and wondering what to try next. Obviously, Jack hadn't gotten to
the bank ahead of her. Should she wait around and see if he might still
turn up? Or should she assume that he and Draycos would get free and
call Uncle Virge on their spare comm clip?

Maybe Uncle Virge would have an idea. She reached to her collar to
turn her comm clip back on—

"I don't think so," a deep voice murmured in her ear as a large
hand curled solidly around her wrist. "Just keep walking."

Alison twisted her head around. The man holding her arm was large
and muscular, with short hair, a bushy mustache, and the bent nose of a
man who'd been in more than his share of fights. "What do you think
you're doing?" she demanded.

"So Virgil Morgan finally sent someone to open his lock-box," the
man said. "You'd better hope he's willing to come out and play."

He smiled a grim smile. "Because if he's not," he added, "you're
dead."

They'd been flying for nearly an hour, and Jack was developing a
serious crick in his neck from the shuttle's low ceiling, when they
finally started down.

Their destination seemed to be a wide canyon cutting through the
buttes and rock pillars and sand of the desert around them. As they
flew closer, he could see that there were more rock pillars dotting the
floor of the canyon, some of them reaching all the way up to the level
of the surrounding desert surface. The canyon's pillars also had
slender stone archways and guy wires linking them, creating a spiderweb
of connections between them and the canyon's steep walls on either side.

Near the center of the canyon was a long, flat structure that
seemed to straddle the river itself. From the air, it looked like a
cross between a meeting hall and a covered bridge. At a dozen places
north and south of the structure, the river had been spanned by narrow
bridges.

The canyon floor, in contrast to the light brown sand of the
desert around them, was a patchwork of vibrant green. Plants of some
sort, probably crops. Along both sides of the canyon floor, the areas
farthest from the river, were numerous clusters of trees.

I need to see more to the right
.

Jack winced. Draycos should know better than to talk to him in
such close confines.

But if the Golvins pressed against him on either side had heard
the K'da's murmur, they gave no sign. Carefully, Jack turned his torso
a little to the right.

He felt the subtle movement as Draycos eased along his skin to
where he could look through the open shirt collar. Jack looked that
direction, too, wondering what exactly the dragon was looking at. Aside
from the canyon, all of the desert looked pretty much the same.

"We have returned," the driver said, pointing at the canyon below.
"You will be ready to begin at once?"

"Let's first see what kind of accommodations you have for me,"
Jack improvised.

"We will provide the best," the Golvin seated beside the driver
assured him. "Low down by the river, near to the Great Assembly Hall
and the Seat of Decision."

"Ah," Jack said, a sinking sensation in his stomach.
Low down
in the canyon and surrounded by all that rock would severely limit the
range of the spare comm clip in his shoe. Alison and Uncle Virge would
pretty much have to fly directly over the place in order to pick up his
signal.

And flying over it was the best they were going to manage, too.
With all the archways and guy wires connecting the rock pillars, there
was no way a ship the size of the
Essenay
would be putting down
inside the canyon itself anytime soon.

In fact, the shuttle driver himself nearly didn't manage it. With
the shifting wind currents along the canyon's edges buffeting the
shuttle, Jack had a few very bad moments as they worked their way
through the guy wires toward the landing pit by the river a couple
hundred yards south of the big building.

But they made it, the engines sending ripples through the tall
plants surrounding the landing pit as the pilot shut them down. More
Golvins were starting to gather, Jack saw, all of them wearing the same
long, pocketed vests as his kidnappers. Some of the outfits were
differently cut, though, while others had colorful bits of decoration
sewn onto them. By the time Jack maneuvered his way out of the shuttle
there were at least fifty of the creatures standing silently watching
him.

"I don't suppose it would do any good to tell
them
I'm not
this Jupa you're looking for, would it?" Jack suggested as the driver
and the other front-seat passenger joined him.

"You are the Jupa," the driver said firmly. "As indeed they can
now tell for themselves."

Jack looked back at his audience. Sure enough, the entire crowd
had that fluttering-nose thing going. Something about him apparently
smelled really tasty.

He just hoped it wasn't going to be in the culinary sense.

"You wished to see your accommodations," the driver continued.
"Come. I will show you."

"And I need to talk to your leaders, too," Jack added as the
Golvin started along a path leading from the landing pit toward one of
the taller stone pillars a hundred yards away. Aside from the various
paths and the landing pit itself, Jack noted, the entire canyon floor
seemed devoted to cropland. The trees along both sides, he suspected,
probably produced fruit or nuts as well as wood.

"The One will see you shortly," the Golvin assured him. "Come."

Jack followed, the other Golvins from the shuttle coming behind
him like an honor guard. There was a doorway in the base of the pillar,
he could see, leading into a shadowy room or series of rooms. The
doorway itself was decorated with multicolored streamers on both sides
and a long colored fringe hanging from the top most of the way to the
ground. Twenty feet above the opening, offset a little to the right,
was another doorway, a little less lavishly decorated. Above it were
more doorways, extending nearly to the pillar's top, most of these with
only a sheet of plain cloth covering them. The other pillars were
similarly honeycombed with doorways. Apparently, the Golvins liked to
live up off the ground.

He was still looking around when his guide reached their
destination. Without pausing, the alien spread his hands out onto the
stone and started to climb.

"Whoa," Jack said. "Excuse me?"

The Golvin paused five feet up and looked quizzically back over
his shoulder. "Yes?"

"I can't do that," Jack told him. "I'll need another way to get
up."

"Strange," one of the other Golvins said. "The other Jupas had no
problem climbing the grasses."

The grasses
? "I already told you I wasn't a Jupa," Jack
reminded him, looking more closely at the pillar. Sure enough, there
was a crisscrossed mesh of ivylike plants growing out of the rock. Was
that what the Golvins' sticky hands were holding onto? "How about
giving me the ground-level room instead?" he suggested.

"Impossible," the Golvin beside him said, the skin of his face
suddenly wrinkling all over. "That is the dwelling of the One."

"Then you'll need to find me a ladder," Jack said. "I can't climb
the way you can."

"Who is this you have brought?" a new voice demanded from behind
him.

Jack turned to find an older Golvin striding toward him. His vest
was the most elaborately decorated yet, with streamers like those of
the ground-floor doorway attached to both shoulders and a matching
fringe along the vest's bottom. The implication was obvious. "I gather
you're the One?" Jack hazarded.

A ripple of excited murmuring ran through the crowd at Jack's
deduction. The leader himself, however, didn't join in. Silently, he
continued forward until he was only a couple of feet away from Jack.
Then, with a double flick of his wrist, he gestured to the three
Golvins still standing beside Jack. Hastily, they backed up a
half-dozen paces. "I am the One Among Many," the leader said, his voice
stiff and formal as he studied Jack's face. "You claim to be the Jupa?"

Jack looked over the One's shoulder at the crowd. They'd gone
silent again, their faces intent as they watched the confrontation. "To
be honest, I have no idea what they're talking about," Jack admitted,
lowering his voice. "But I can't seem to convince them of that."

For a moment the One eyed him. Then, leaning forward a little, he
gave Jack a gingerly sniff. "You
do
smell like the Jupa
Stuart," he admitted with clear reluctance as he leaned back again.
"But he is dead."

"As is the other Jupa, I hear," Jack agreed. "Look, I know you're
not crazy about me being here. Me, neither. So let's see if we can find
a way to make me quietly go away."

The One's face wrinkled. "Go away?" he repeated, his voice
suddenly sounding strange.

"I mean leave and go home," Jack said, frowning at the other's
reaction. "So how about you give me another sniff, tell them that I'm
close but no holiday prize, and they can take me back to the spaceport."