Dragon and Judge

"No, I can handle it," Jack assured him. "You stay here and keep an ear out for any other tricks Bolo might have up his sleeve."

It took a few minutes for Jack to reach the end of the tunnel. It took another minute for him to cut away the protective plastic from one of the two diggers with his multitool. His one fear, that the diggers' power cells would have drained over the past eleven years, proved unfounded. A minute of trial and error as he figured out the controls, and he and the machine were on their way back up the tunnel.

He arrived at the blockage to find Draycos digging carefully at one edge of the rock pile. Beside the K'da, the slurry pipe against the wall had been freshly sliced open. "All set," Jack announced. He pointed at the pipe. "Getting bored?"

"I was concerned the air might fail before we finish," Draycos explained. "Fortunately, the collapse doesn't seem to have damaged the pipe."

"Good," Jack said, holding out a hand. "Come on aboard— there's not enough room here for all of us."

A minute later Draycos was on his back, and Jack plowed his new toy into the rock pile.

The job went surprisingly quickly, though as Jack thought about it he realized that a machine designed to eat into a solid rock face would have little trouble with what were basically just very large chunks of gravel. The toothed roller on the front end dug into the pile, taking in the rocks and sending them back into a set of grinders where they were chewed up still further before being ejected out the machine's back end.

Every couple of minutes the pile would shift, scattering the rocks and sending more dust into the air. But the fresh breeze from the slurry pipe helped blow it clear. Fifteen minutes into the task, Jack could already see a gap at the top of the pile. Five minutes after that, the pile was low enough that he could see the huge dome Bolo's explosive had blasted in the ceiling.

And ten minutes after that, he was able to shut down the digger and crawl carefully over what was left of the pile to freedom.

"I suppose the next question is what we do next," Jack muttered to Draycos as he trudged back up the tunnel. "Bolo and his aircar will be long gone by now, and from here to anywhere is going to be a really long walk."

Why not go back to the canyon?

Jack rolled his eyes. With their ears recovered from the blast there was no longer any reason not to just talk to each other. Clearly, Draycos was delighted with this new parlor game he'd learned and was determined to practice it every chance he got.

Personally, Jack found it a lot harder and more distracting to focus his thoughts that way. But he supposed the K'da was right. / have no problem with that, he said, concentrating hard on forming each word in his mind. The problem's going to be getting someone's attention from up on the rim. Unless you were thinking of climbing down with me hanging on to your tail.

He had a quick mental image of the K'da giving one of his crack-jawed smiles. I think that would be a bit more than the Golvins are ready for just now.

Ahead, Jack could see a faint glow as the beam from his flashlight reflected off the white ceramic ceiling of the assembly area. They were almost home. So again, what do we do? he asked. Wait for Thonsifi to start wondering what happened to me and get Eithon to fly her up here?

That is certainly a possibility, Draycos said. We may need to spend the day here, but surely she will not allow the sun to set without coming to see if you need assistance.

I don't know, Jack replied doubtfully. Now that we know why the One wasn't happy to see me in the first place, I don't think he'd be all that heartbroken if I never came back.

They had reached the end of the tunnel now. With a sense of relief, Jack stepped into the big assembly room.

And without warning, a hand lanced out from just inside the room and grabbed his shirt collar. Before he could do more than gasp, he was yanked sideways off his feet, the arm shifting around to catch him around the throat.

"Cute, kid," Bolo's voice grated in his ear. The arm tightened around Jack's throat, and he felt the muzzle of a gun press up against the back of his head. "Just tell me everything, huh? I'm already dead, huh? Where was your friend hiding, the end of the tunnel?"