Dragon and Judge

"I'll get them out," Uncle Virge promised grimly. "You watch yourself, lass."

"I will," Alison promised. "Oh, one other thing. How did you even know I was here?"

"Through your comm clip, of course," Uncle Virge said. "Your kidnappers practically gave me the Chookoocks' address."

Alison thought back. "But the clip was off."

"Well . . . not exactly," Uncle Virge said, sounding a little embarrassed. "Jack rigged that clip to be permanently on. You know, as a precaution?"

Alison felt her lip twist. So much for Taneem's question about whether Jack trusted her. Just as well that he didn't. "Remind me to be mad about that later," she told Uncle Virge. "In the meantime, go get him out of there."

She clicked off the comm clip and slipped it into her pocket. "Do you really know a place where we can hide?" Taneem asked.

Alison shrugged. "Let's find out."

The landscape around them changed from grassy lawn to sculpted trees, and the path split three times before they reached Alison's objective.

The wall.

"I don't know," Taneem asked as they sat in the car looking up at the wall's wave-shaped overhang. "This seems very uncertain."

"In theory, it should work just fine," Alison said, studying the white ceramic gleaming in the starlight. The shadowed underside of the wave was much harder to see, but she was almost positive that the inward-curling edge of the wave curved upward a little right at the end. The big question was whether it curved up enough to form a trough where she and Taneem could lie hidden from view.

The even bigger question was whether they could get up there to find out.

"The entire wall's about thirty feet tall, which puts that wave trough between twenty and twenty-five," Alison went on. "First thing to do is see if you can jump that high."

"I'll try." Crouching down, Taneem gathered herself and leaped.

Alison held her breath. The K'da soared upward, and with a faint scrabbling of claw against ceramic she caught the edge of the wave. For a second she hung there, then stirred and pulled herself up and disappeared into the trough.

Alison looked around. There were no aircars or other ground vehicles visible. Apparently, her escape was still undiscovered.

Which wasn't surprising, actually. Frost was busy organizing the Semaline attack force, and Alison doubted that anyone else in the house knew about his order to kill her. Until the colonel started wondering why Dumbarton and Mrishpaw hadn't shown up to give him the good news about her death, she was unlikely to be missed.

There was a flicker of motion, and she looked over as Taneem dropped again to the ground. "I think there is enough room for us," she reported. "Though it is filthy with feathers and bird droppings."

"That's okay," Alison assured her. "Now the big question: can you carry me that high?"

"No," Taneem said, ducking her head apologetically. "I could lift you perhaps half that distance, but not the entire way."

Alison chewed at her lip. Desperate needs, the old saying whispered through her mind, called for desperate measures. "Halfway it is," she said. "Help me get Dumbarton and Mrishpaw out of the car."

It took some creative maneuvering, plus a lot of grunting, but within a few minutes Alison and Taneem had the two mercenaries out and settled under one of the nearby shrubs. "Here's the plan," Alison said, doing a quick search of the unconscious bodies. Neither was carrying a gun, but Mrishpaw had a slapstick belted at his side. Pulling it from its holster, she held it up. "We're going to back the car up a ways and get in. I'm going to wedge the accelerator with this, and we'll charge full-bore toward the wall."

"Toward the wall?" Taneem asked, her neck arching.

"Straight toward it," Alison confirmed. "With the wall curved that way we should run up along it like a Great Galaxy Romp roller coaster heading into a crazyloop. You'll be holding on to me, and when the car's at its highest point, you'll jump us toward the lip. If we do it right, we should land nice and neat inside the trough."

Taneem's tail was lashing agitatedly at the air. "I can't do that," she said, her voice trembling. "No. I can't."

"We have to try," Alison said firmly. "We don't know the grounds. The Brummgas do. They'll know about any other place we might find to hide. This is the only spot they might not think of."

"But we could be killed." Taneem looked up at the frozen white wave above them. "Draycos could do it—he has the strength and skill. But I'm not like him. I can't."

"Taneem." Reaching over, Alison put her hand on the side of the K'da's snout and pulled her head gently around to face her. "Earlier today, I didn't think I could figure out the safe," she said. "But you had faith in me, and I did it. Well, I have faith in you. You can do this. I know you can."

Taneem's glowing silver eyes stared unblinkingly into hers. Alison held her gaze, mentally crossing her fingers. Then, the K'da gave a little sigh. "What was it Uncle Virge said back there?"

" 'You're out of your apple-buttered mind'?"