Bracing himself for the inevitable reaction, Jack pulled off his soggy shirt.
The boy didn't even look up. Jack glanced around the room, frowning, as he picked up the sackshirt.
Nothing. No one jumped to their feet, no one stared and pointed, no one gasped or whistled or snorted or even breathed extra hard. As far as he could tell, no one even saw him.
He slid the sackshirt over his head, covering Draycos up again. So they really didn't look at each other. He pulled off his shoes and socks, and was working off his jeans when Maerlynn arrived with a basket. "Put your clothes in here," she instructed, holding it out. "I'll have them ready—"
"Five minutes!" a loud voice called from the doorway, cutting her off.
Jack looked that direction. A large, ugly, deeply tanned man with a thick gray-black beard was standing just inside the room. He was wearing the same slightly shabby clothing as everyone else, but with a bright red sash running from shoulder to waist.
The man glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on Jack. For a couple of seconds his gaze lingered, as if he was sizing up the newcomer. Then, without another word, he turned and left.
"That's Fleck," Maerlynn said. "He's what we call a trustee."
"He helps the Brummgas keep us in line," Noy added contemptuously.
"Now, now," Maerlynn said soothingly. "He's a slave just like we are. We all have different jobs and duties, and that one's his. I was starting to say, Jack, that I'll have your clothes ready by morning."
"What, in five minutes?" Jack asked.
"That just means lights off," Maerlynn said. "I've been here long enough to know my way around in the dark. Now, you get yourself some sleep. You too, Noy."
"Okay," Noy said, moving toward a cot on the far side of the Jantris.
"G'night.
G'night, Jack."
" 'Night," Jack said. "And thanks."
He pulled down the thin blanket and got into bed. The mattress and pillow were lumpy, like they'd been stuffed with wood shavings or irregularly shaped beans.
Still, the cot was long enough for him to stretch all the way out. That already put it two steps above the hotbox.
He was still trying to hammer out the major lumps when the overhead lights went out.
The sounds of activity stopped at the same time. Clearly, the rest of the slaves knew the routine well enough to be ready when bedtime came.
Ready, and probably eager. After a few days laboring out in the fields, Jack thought glumly, he would probably be the same way.
Jack had planned to stay awake long enough for the rest of the slaves to get to sleep, and then discuss the situation with Draycos. But the hotbox had drained him more than he'd realized, and he found he simply could not keep his eyes open.
Within seconds, he was fast asleep.
CHAPTER 7
Draycos waited until everyone in the long hut was asleep. Then, sliding off Jack's arm, he dropped to the rough wood of the floor. Senses alert, he padded silently between the rows of cots to the door.
The door had been left open a few inches for ventilation. He looked carefully at the door jamb, mindful of the sorts of alarms and tripwires he and Jack had found in the gatekeeper's house. But there was nothing like that here.
He poked his head halfway through the gap and stood motionless for a minute, watching and listening and tasting the outside air. There were no guards or patrols nearby, at least none he could detect. Shouldering the door open, he slipped down the steps and out into the night.
There were no outside lights, either. But between the starlight and the glow in the sky from the city to their west, there was enough light for K'da eyes to see by.
There was an even brighter glow coming from the direction of the slaveowners'
mansion. Draycos bared his teeth toward it, the tip of his tail twitching with contempt and disgust. Every thread of his being longed to take on the Chookoock family and their despicable slave trade.
But this was not the time to bring justice to these people. His task tonight was much simpler: to learn the enemy's territory. He began with the slave colony itself, circling each of the two long sleeping huts and then briefly nosing around the other buildings. In one of the smaller structures he could hear running water and the sounds of someone moving around.
Maerlynn, he decided, sacrificing some of her precious sleep time to wash Jack's clothing. The other buildings all seemed to be deserted.
Next, he extended his search beyond the buildings, moving out in a standard spiral pattern. Remembering their aerial survey from the Essenay, he made a point of watching for concealed guard posts, especially in the forest areas.
Again, nothing. He ran across an occasional hut nestled into the trees along the way, each one about three times the size of last night's hotbox. But there was no scent of Brummga near any of them. It was as if the Chookoock family, having purchased these people's bodies and minds and souls, simply expected them to stay where they'd been put.
On the other hand, he had to admit, where else was there for them to go?
The nearest section of the perimeter wall was to the northwest. He set off through the forest in that direction, running lightly across the matted leaves, dodging around trees and bushes. Every hundred paces he stopped to listen and smell for patrols or guard stations. But still there was nothing.
The ground near the wall included several rolling hills. Choosing one that would give him a good view, he moved to the edge and climbed the tallest tree he could find. If his estimate was correct, he should now be high enough to look down on the wall and into the center of the curving X-shape. Moving carefully out onto one of the upper branches, he pushed aside the leaves.
And got his first really good look at the barrier he and Jack were going to have to cross.
It was every bit as impressive as he'd expected. The antiaircraft lasers Uncle Virge had warned them about were there, all right. He could see the larger lenses of long-range weapons set into the white ceramic every ten feet or so, with the smaller lenses of shorter-range lasers arrayed between them. Between the lasers were long, narrow grooves that were most likely the flame jets Uncle Virge had also mentioned.
Long-range lasers for high-flying aircraft. Short-range lasers for smaller, lower-flying vehicles that might try to slip through the ten-foot gap between the larger weapons. And flame jets to kill anyone who tried to simply climb over the wall.
The Brummgas seemed to have covered all their bets here. But as Uncle Virge might say, that only meant it was time to cheat.
Because if the fire from the flame jets could be blocked, even for a single minute, Jack might have time to scramble over without harm. And in a forest, the obvious candidate for such a barrier was a tree.
He worked his way around to a different side of his tree and studied the edge of the forest. But no. The Brummgas had been smart enough to cut back the forest along the whole length of the wall. Not very far, but far enough. No one would be able to chop down a tree and have it fall across the wall.
A pity, too. Barely a hundred yards away he could see a hill that was actually taller than the wall. A tree cut from there would have been perfect.
Or could it still be done?
For another minute he studied the tall hill. If he and Jack cut down one of the trees and rolled it to the base of the wall...
But again, no. Any tree thick enough to block the fire would be too heavy for him to lift to the top of the wall. If Jack still had the climbing gear he'd used at the gatekeeper's house, they might have been able to rig something up.
But Gazen had taken that away with the rest of Jack's burglar equipment. And Draycos somehow doubted he and Jack would have time to search the mansion for it.
Could Uncle Virge do something, then? Use the Essenay to haul a tree trunk or ceramic bar to the top of the wall to block the flame jets? But that assumed the Chookoock family had no defenses against an attacker who was too clever to simply try to fly over their wall. Surely they'd planned for something like that.