Dragon and Herdsman

"It's got to be at least a few hours away," Jack said. "Add in whatever time Frost and Neverlin will need to figure out a new strategy and we're probably talking at least a day. Maybe more if Neverlin is in transit somewhere and Frost can't get hold of him right away."

"I doubt Neverlin's anywhere except hanging around his own InterWorld transmitter waiting for the joyous news of our capture," Alison said sourly. "And he probably doesn't need to rappel his men down, by the way. A Kapstan usually carries a short-range floater plus one or two ground-hugger armored cars. If Frost left the floater behind, they could shuttle troops all over the forest if they wanted to."

"Oh, that's encouraging," Jack said with a grimace. "How come you know so much about Kapstans, anyway?"

"Same way I know they can carry up to thirty troops," she said. "Mercenaries and mercenary equipment are my job." She cocked her head to the side, the posture somehow reminding Jack of Taneem. "You ready to tell me what exactly they want with you?"

Jack lifted his hands, palms upward. "I know Neverlin is extremely annoyed with me, for a couple of different reasons," he said. "But if all he wanted was to kill me, a few well-placed missiles would have taken care of the problem."

"And they wouldn't have bothered with tanglers back there, either," Alison agreed. "They definitely want you alive."

"For which we should both be grateful," Jack said, shivering. "Why they want me alive, though, I haven't a clue. Really."

For a moment Alison was silent. "Well, work on it," she said at last. "Just in case your ship didn't survive its high-dive belly flop."

She leaned back to look at the small section of stars visible through the trees. "Too bad we haven't run into any decent-sized clearings. With the transport gone, you could whistle up the Essenay and we could be out of here before they knew what was happening."

"Wouldn't work," Jack said. "Uncle Virge will have the comm off, along with every other system he can do without. He won't turn it back on until he's well inside the forest and ready to start listening. Any idea how much farther we've got to go?"

"I'd guess we did eight miles today, as the gooney bird flies," Alison said. "Maybe a little more. Barring any serious trouble, four to five more days ought to do it."

Four to five days, with the Malison Ring on their tails the whole way. But there wasn't much they could do about that. "Let's make it four," he said. "You want me to take the first watch?"

"I think we can safely skip that for tonight," Alison said. "Like you said, the mercs aren't likely to come looking for more trouble right away. And both of us can use as much rest as we can get."

"Sounds good to me," Jack said. Suddenly, his eyelids were drooping with fatigue. It had indeed been a full and rich day. "Pleasant dreams."

Besides, even if he and Alison both slept through the night, the camp wouldn't be left unguarded. Not if Jack knew Draycos.

CHAPTER 16

There was no trouble that night, from the mercenaries or anything else. Alison got everyone up at dawn, then sat around in obvious irritation for another hour and a half while Hren and the other Erassvas insisted on picking themselves a breakfast of berries and watching the Phookas perform their ritual morning dance. After that, the group finally got under way.

The day turned out to be a much calmer version of the previous one. Once the morning mists burned off, the air began to warm up, though it never got above chilly in the perpetual twilight beneath the trees. Still, the cool made for good travel weather. Moreover, the night's sleep had worked wonders with the Erassvas' mood, and though the aliens walked mostly in silence, they no longer seemed angry or resentful.

As before, Alison and the green Phooka led the way. Jack brought up the rear, moving back and forth to either side as he watched for Phooka strays. Draycos, for his part, traveled in a wide-ranging circle around the rest of them, alert for signs of enemy activity.

But for this day, at least, the Malison Ring seemed uninterested in starting any fresh trouble. The result was a quiet, uneventful, almost pleasant journey.

And it gave Jack the chance to make some unexpected discoveries.

All through his childhood, he'd tried numerous times to talk Uncle Virgil into letting him have a pet. But the other had always turned him down, insisting he didn't want any animals underfoot on his ship. As a result, Jack's only contact with pets had been with those of other people, usually during the course of some scam.

Most of those contacts had been very brief, with Jack unable to spare much time or attention from the job at hand. He'd thus come away with the vague impression that, aside from superficial things like color of fur or feathers, all animals were pretty much the same.