Dragonback 05 Dragon and Judge Read Online Free PDF Page A

get on him. Best to make
sure he never found out. "Thank you. I'd like to rest a bit, and then
you can explain my duties."
    The One's face wrinkled. "You do not—? But of course. You wish to
see the lists of sides and uprights."
    "That would be a good start," Jack agreed. "I'll be out
presently." Stepping to the archway, he got a grip on the edges and
started climbing.
    At first he went carefully, not quite ready to believe the thing
was as solid as it looked. But there was no give or jostle at all to
the structure, and by the time he reached the top he was convinced.
Pushing aside the hanging fringe, he went inside.
    The apartment turned out to be brighter than it had looked from
outside. Though there were no actual windows, there were a half-dozen
waist-high openings in the inner walls where slabs of white rock angled
against the outer walls sent a soft glow into the room. Between that
and the light filtering in through the doorway fringe, there was enough
for him to see that the room was furnished with a couch, two chairs, a
small table, a battery-powered light, and a small self-contained galley
setup that looked like it had been pulled straight out of an old cargo
hauler. Through another pair of doorways in the back he could see what
looked like a bedroom and a bathroom. The bathroom's inner workings
also seemed to have been scavenged from a spaceship.
    "The light must be streaming down onto the stones from above,"
Draycos murmured from his shoulder.
    "Keep it down, buddy," Jack warned quietly, walking around the
room and making a quick check of the walls and furnishings. He couldn't
imagine a simpleminded people like the Golvins bugging the room of
their great and glorious Jupa, whatever the blazes that was. But
surrounded by unknown aliens in a canyon three hundred feet deep was no
place to take chances.
    As it turned out, his first gut feeling was right. The living area
wasn't bugged, nor were the bedroom or bathroom. "And so here we are,"
Jack said, dropping tiredly onto the bed. The mattress felt a little
stiff, but not too bad. "Wherever in the name of vacuum sealant here is."
    With a brief pressure of paws against Jack's shoulders, Draycos
leaped out of the boy's shirt and landed with his usual silent grace on
the stone floor. "We are approximately four hundred miles east of the
NorthCentral Spaceport," the K'da said, stepping over to one of the
white-stone openings and twisting his neck to peer upward into the gap
between inner and outer walls. "The western edge of the desert is
approximately seventy miles away."
    Jack winced as he lay back onto the mattress and closed his eves.
Seventy miles. So much for any chance they could simply walk out of
here. "Any other helpful tidbits?" he asked, more sarcastically than
he'd really intended.
    "Possibly," Draycos said calmly. "There are the remains of a
mining operation less than a mile to the southeast."
    "I already told you there was some mining out here."
    "Yes,you did," Draycos acknowledged. "You also told me
your parents had been killed in a mine accident."
    Jack opened his eyes, frowning at the K'da. "What exactly are you
suggesting?"
    "And," Draycos added, "the people here seem to recognize your
scent."
    For a long moment the room was silent. Jack listened to the sudden
thudding of his heart, the vague and half-formed memories of his
parents flooding back through his mind. "Are you saying," he said at
last, "that this is where they died?"
    "I don't know for certain," Draycos said, padding to the bed and
resting his upper body on the mattress beside Jack. "But the facts seem
to point that direction."
    Jack's gaze darted around the room, a sudden inexplicable panic
flooding into him. Get away ! was his first reflexive reaction. Run,
before they get you, too .
    He took a careful breath, forcing down the panic. He wasn't three
years old anymore, after all. "Let's assume you're right," he said.
"What do they want from me?"
    "That may depend on how they remember your