Dragon and Herdsman

"Good point," she said. "Okay. If you and Draycos want to start shuttling them over, I'll go take guard duty with the main group."

"Right," Jack said. "By the way, how many rounds does your Corvine have left?"

"Eleven," Alison said. "We'd never make it through another firefight like the one we had two nights ago."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The stars were starting to appear through the treetops by the time they finally finished getting everyone to the stream and back. Only then, as they settled in for the night, did Jack and Draycos finally have a chance to talk.

"What do you think?" Jack asked quietly as they sat together.

"I see no signs of trouble," Draycos said. "Though I am a little concerned by the fact that Taneem stayed with her the entire day instead of coming off to eat."

"It sounded like she was sleeping a lot of that time, too," Jack said, frowning across at Alison. She was little more than a dark silhouette against the fading light, sitting against the vine netting, her head slumped forward onto her chest. "Is that abnormal?"

"Not necessarily," Draycos said. "It sometimes takes a while to adjust to a new host, especially when the K'da is young. Of course, Taneem is an adult."

"On the other hand, this is a radically different host than the one she's used to," Jack reminded him.

"True," Draycos said, clearly still not convinced. Or else he was simply afraid to let himself hope that anything would come from the experiment. "She may simply come off Alison very well rested."

"No, there's more going on here," Jack said, scratching his cheek. "Remember the red Phooka who fell down that cliff? He didn't want anything to do with me, and in fact resisted the whole idea until it was either that or run off the end of his time limit. And even then he got off me just as soon as he could."

"I'm certain he found the change confusing."

"Confusing and uncomfortable both," Jack agreed. "Taneem, on the other hand, seems to have taken to Alison like a cat to nip."

For a moment Draycos was silent. "We will have to wait and see, I suppose," he said at last. "On another more serious subject, did you hear the air vehicle passing back and forth over the forest for much of the afternoon?"

"No, I didn't," Jack said, frowning. "How come you didn't say something earlier?"

"Because you and Alison were busy," the K'da said. "Also, there was little that either of you could do about it."

"We could have gotten ourselves ready for an ambush," Jack countered.

Draycos twitched his tail in a negative. "There was no indication that the vehicle was landing nearby. It was also not flying directly overhead, but instead along a course a kilometer or more to the east of our path."

"So either they were out looking for us," Jack said slowly, "or else they already knew where we are and were setting up another picket line in front of us."

"The latter would be my guess," Draycos said. "I thought that once it's full night I would scout ahead."

"Sounds good," Jack said. "Only this time you're going to have company."

"Jack—"

"No argument," Jack said firmly. "I need to know what's going on out there. Anyway, you'll be there with me. What can go wrong?"

The dragon sighed. "Very well. Do you wish to tell Alison, or shall I?"

Jack looked across at Alison. "Let's let her sleep," he decided. "But you'd better make a pass around the area before we go. Make sure no one's close enough to sneak up on the camp."

The forest was alive with the same nocturnal creatures Draycos had seen on their two previous nights. Fortunately, there were no hunting mercenaries among them.

Nor did he see or smell any of the creatures Jack had dubbed Kodiaks, or the horn-headed plant-eaters whose presence might attract such predators. The only even mildly dangerous creatures were small predators similar in size to the heenas he and Jack had encountered at the Vagran Colony spaceport soon after they met.

Unlike the heenas, though, these animals hunted alone instead of in packs, and seemed to concentrate their efforts on small rodentlike creatures. The likelihood that they would take on a group of Phookas, Draycos decided, was small enough to safely ignore.

He returned to the encampment to find Jack ready. "I thought we'd take about a hundred feet of rope, my tangler, and my knife," the boy said. "You think of anything else we need?"

"I believe that's most everything we have, actually," Draycos pointed out. "The area appears to be secure. Let us go."

They set off through the woods. Only a little of the starlight overhead made it through the forest canopy, but that was enough for Draycos to find his way without difficulty. Jack, for his part, held on to Draycos's tail and let the K'da guide him.

They'd been hiking for perhaps forty minutes when they reached the mercenaries.

"I don't see anything," Jack whispered as they lay side by side behind a wide tree trunk.