His eyes hardened. "Breaking and entering Chookoock family property is even more serious," he went on. "That one can earn you an immediate death penalty."
"I didn't know," Jack said in a low, pleading voice. So here he was, all alone with Gazen. No leg cuffs, no handcuffs. And as far as he could tell, Gazen wasn't even armed.
Of course, the big man did outweigh him by at least two to one. Still, a panicked, desperate kid might still take the chance.
Which meant that this was a test. Gazen was trying to see just how cool under pressure Jack could be.
"Of course you knew," Gazen said calmly. "Don't play stupid. Your partner sent you there specifically to try to steal the gate codes."
"No," Jack protested. "No, he didn't tell me what I was supposed to get. He didn't tell me any of that. He just said to get whatever was in the safe. He never even told me whose house I was breaking into. It's his fault, not mine."
Gazen's expression didn't change, but Jack could see a slight tightening at the corners of his mouth. First Uncle Virge had offered to sell Jack to him, and now Jack was trying to shoot all the blame straight back at Uncle Virge. Both of them perfectly willing to sell out the other at the drop of a biscuit.
It was exactly the way Gazen should expect a couple of self-centered criminals to behave. Probably the way he would behave himself in the same situation.
At least, Jack hoped so. This whole thing hinged on Gazen believing the situation was exactly as Uncle Virge had presented it. The minute he suspected there was something more going on, Jack was dead.
"It doesn't really matter who knew what," the big man said. "You were the one caught with your fingers in the fudge mix. That makes you the one skip-dancing on eggs."
Jack swallowed hard. "Is there anything I can do to, you know, make things right?"
"Such as?"
"Well—" Jack shrugged slightly. "Maybe I could... you know, work off my punishment?"
"And how exactly do you propose to work off twenty years worth of prison time?"
Gazen countered. "Are you suggesting you work for me for the next twenty years?"
Jack grimaced. "I was hoping I could pay it off a little faster than that," he said. "Maybe I could help you with a job or two?"
Gazen lifted his eyebrows. "Are you suggesting I hire you to commit crimes for me?"
"No, no," Jack said hastily. "I just thought I could maybe help you out in some way."
Gazen leaned back in his chair again, studying Jack's face. "All right," he said at last. "Perhaps there is something you can do. I'll look into it."
He got to his feet. "And while I do, let's put you somewhere safe. Guards?"
Jack slowly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. So it had worked, exactly the way he'd told Uncle Virge it would. Gazen would now lock him up somewhere, he and Draycos would escape and get to one of their computers, and with luck they would be able to track down the mercenary group they were looking for.
Behind him, the door swung open. "Yes, Panjan Gazen?" one of the Brummgas asked.
Gazen gestured to Jack. "The boy needs a lesson," he said. "He needs to know the cost of crossing the Chookoock family."
He looked back at Jack... and for the first time since the two of them had met, the big man smiled.
Not a pleasant, cheerful, human smile, but something dark and vacant and as cold as a penguin's footprints. "Take him," he ordered softly, "to the slaves'
hotbox."
CHAPTER 5
The Brummgas led Jack out the back of the house to a row of open-topped cars.
They shoved him into one, three of them piled in around him, and they turned onto a smooth road built of dark stones fitted neatly together like pieces of an extra-long puzzle. With the soft clicking of stone edges beneath their tires, they headed off away from the mansion.
And suddenly this plan wasn't looking nearly so good anymore.
The road wound its way through another section of formal garden, then past the open sports field they'd seen earlier from the air. Beyond the field a ten-foot-tall hedge stretched across the grounds, as far to both sides as Jack could see in the backwash from the headlights. The road led them through a narrow gap in the hedge, just barely wide enough for the car.
Beyond the hedge, the landscape was rougher and wilder, with none of the careful maintenance he'd seen in the grounds near the house. The fancy stone road ended at the hedge, too, turning into a more ordinary stone-embedded blacktop.
They had left the Chookoock family's personal compound. Now, they were in the working areas of the estate.
The slave areas.
Jack stared out into the glow of the headlights, trying to remember the layout he'd seen from the Essenay. But it was all rather vague in his mind. His plan had always been to get into the main house, and once it was clear he wasn't going to get there by going over the wall he'd mostly lost interest in the grounds themselves.
But Draycos would have paid attention, he knew. The K'da warrior was very good at details like that. That would help.
He only hoped it would help enough.
They were coming up on the edge of a forest when the headlights finally picked up a group of buildings ahead. At first glance, the setup reminded Jack of the Whinyard's Edge training camp, with a couple of long barracks-style buildings mixed in with a few other structures of different shapes and sizes.
But at second glance, it was clear this was a very different sort of place.
The paint on the buildings was peeling badly, and in many of those spots the bare wood was discolored and rotting. The steps leading up to the various doors were rough and unfinished, some of them with the bark still attached to the wood.
The overall construction was poorly done, too. Not all the boards seemed to fit right, and there were gaps in places where the boards had been too short, or else had rotted away.
The car turned a little to the left as they approached the cluster of buildings.
Its headlights swept across and then steadied on a group of what looked like three metal packing crates set out in the middle of a wide circle of sand.
One of the Brummgas sitting behind Jack tapped his shoulder with a finger the size and weight of a wrench. "Pick a number," he said.
Jack frowned. "Two hundred seventeen."
The Brummga made a disgusted sound. "Pick a number from one to three."
In the privacy of the darkness, Jack made a face. Like he was supposed to have known that. "Three."
"Number three," the Brummga told the driver.
The car angled a couple more degrees, and a moment later came to rest with its headlights centered on the packing crate on the far left. "Get out," the first Brummga ordered.
Jack obeyed, the aliens piling out alongside him. While the other two stood guard, the driver stepped to the box and crouched down. There was a large handle near the bottom of the crate, just above a narrow horizontal slit, with a keyhole at one end. The Brummga fumbled a key into place and turned it. Getting a grip on the handle, he straightened up again, swinging the whole front of the box upward.
"Get in," he ordered, gesturing inside with his free hand.
Steeling himself, Jack did so.
From the outside, the box had seemed pretty small. From the inside, it seemed even smaller. He had to duck low to keep from whacking his head on the ceiling as he stepped in, and if he'd tried waving his arms around he would have dislocated both elbows. There was a small pan in one corner; from its lingering aroma, it probably served as the toilet facilities.
The driver didn't give him much chance to study his new quarters. Jack was barely inside when the wall swung shut behind him, throwing a brief gust of air at the back of his neck and plunging him into darkness. There was another click from the lock, the sound of plodding footsteps in the sand, and the hum of the car as it pulled away and headed for home.