Dragon and Judge

"But the Jupas are gone," the second Golvin repeated.

"But there is so much that needs to be done," the first countered. "He smells like the Jupa Stuart and the Jupa Ariel. He must therefore be a Jupa."

"Or I'm just a human," Jack interjected, wondering what in space aJupa was. "Maybe what you're smelling is just normal human scent."

"I have smelled other humans," the first Golvin insisted. "You are a Jupa."

"The One will know the truth," the third Golvin spoke up. "We should take him to the One."

"Yes, indeed," the first Golvin said, brightening. "You must come with us, Jupa."

"Wait a minute," Jack protested, trying to pull away. But their hands had some sort of odd stickiness to them, and the more he pulled the more he seemed permanently attached. "I can't go with you. I have to get to the bank."

"You are the Jupa," the first Golvin said firmly. "We have awaited your arrival for a long time."

"I have to go to the bank," Jack insisted, twisting his arms free of his jacket. But the three sets of sticky hands merely transferred themselves to his shirt and jeans. "Look, you're confusing me with someone else. I'm not who you think I am. Really."

"Jack?" Draycos murmured urgently from his shoulder.

"No—stay down," Jack warned quietly, eyeing the crowd around them. The last thing he and Draycos needed right now was for the K'da's existence to burst into public knowledge. He and Alison needed a certain freedom of movement if they were going to stop Neverlin and the Valahgua.

The Golvins were moving Jack along now, herding him like a prize sheep as they headed for one of the exits into the inner transportation area. Maybe out in the open, Jack thought, he would have a better chance of escaping.

He was still waiting for that chance when the Golvins ushered him into the backseat of a cramped, beat-up old air shuttle and piled in around him. The driver produced a starter from one of his vest's pockets, and ten seconds later they were in the air and heading east.

It was only then that Jack noticed that both his comm clip and his tangler were missing.

"Where was he when you lost him?" Alison asked, checking the clip in her compact Corvine 4mm pistol as she raced toward the airlock.

"Third ring toward the middle," Uncle Virge said, his voice as agitated as Alison had ever heard it. "He was talking to someone—at least two people, maybe more—and then the transmission cut off."

So whoever they were, they'd made sure to shut off Jack's comm clip when they grabbed him. That was a bad sign. "He's got the spare in his shoe, right?"

"If he can get to it," Uncle Virge said grimly. "There's a comm clip for you on the shelf in the airlock."

"I've got my own," Alison reminded him.

"This one's already tuned to my frequency and pattern specs."

"Fine," Alison growled. "Whatever."

Taneem was waiting in the airlock, her gray scales shimmering in the light as she paced restlessly around the room. "There is danger?" she asked anxiously as Alison picked up the comm clip Uncle Virge had mentioned and fastened it to her collar.

"Don't know yet," Alison said, trying to put the best possible light on the situation. Despite her adult K'da body, Taneem was still not much more than a child intellectually, and scaring her wouldn't do either of them any good. "Come on—get aboard."

She held out her hand. Taneem lifted a paw and set it on her palm, and a second later had gone two-dimensional and slithered up Alison's arm onto her back.

Alison hunched her shoulders, her skin tingling as the K'da slid across her back to the wraparound position she'd found to be the most comfortable for her. Even after two weeks of doing this a couple times a day she still wasn't used to it. "Uncle Virge?" she called, tapping the comm clip.

"Signal's clear," the computer personality confirmed tightly. "Watch yourself."

"I will," Alison promised as the hatch popped open and the gangway ramp slid down to the stained concrete of the landing pad.

From the air, the spaceport had looked rather poorly designed. Now, as Alison fought her way through the crowds streaming toward the central bottleneck, she realized just how badly designed it really was. She kept her eyes open as she walked and shoved and was shoved in turn. But if Jack was still here, she wasn't spotting him. "Still nothing from his comm clip?" she asked Uncle Virge.

"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.