"Did you see anything up in space?" the Brummga asked. "Were you watching up into space?"

Jack blinked. "Into space?" he asked. Along the left side of his rib cage, the side away from the Brummga, he could again feel the flowing-paint sensation as Draycos stealthily changed position.

If the dragon was getting restless with the conversation, he wasn't the only one. "You ask many questions," the Brummga rumbled, his ugly face turning even uglier. "But you don't answer any. Maybe you need help with your mouth."

"Look, I didn't mean anything," Jack said, putting a little more whine into his voice as he tried desperately to come up with a good story. The Brummga was only four steps away. Another few seconds, and Jack was probably going to find that big ugly gun pressed up against his cheek. If he didn't come up with something before then—

Without warning, a horrible scream pierced the air. It was a sound like Jack had never heard before, and in that single terrifying second he hoped he would never hear it again. It was like the cry of a screech owl twisted together with the howl of a hunting wolf, with the wail of a banshee from Uncle Virgil's old Irish legends thrown into the mix. It seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere, bouncing around the room and threatening to bring down the rest of the glass from the broken bubble above them.

The Brummga reacted instantly, dropping into a crouch and swinging his gun around to point at the doorway behind him.

And as he turned away from Jack, there was a sudden surge of movement and weight at Jack's back, and a twitching at his holster. The weight disappeared as something fell from beneath his shirt. Jack twisted his head around, just in time to see Draycos land silently on the deck behind him...

With Jack's tangler clutched in his front paws.

There was a soft chuff; and an instant later the tangler cartridge burst against the Brummga's upper back, sending hundreds of thick, milky-white threads bursting outward. The threads whipped around him, wrapping themselves around his torso, head, and arms like an instant spiderweb.

He howled, staggering off balance as he tried to turn around. But he was way too late. Even as he spun back, his gun pointing mostly upward where the tangle of threads had trapped it, the cocoon completed itself. With a brief flash, the capacitor built into the cartridge discharged, sending a jolt of stunning electric current through its captive. The Brummga gave a pitiful doglike yelp, toppled over onto the deck, and lay still.

Draycos was already in motion, bounding over to the fallen mercenary and giving him a quick examination. "An interesting weapon," he commented, turning back to Jack. "We had best get moving."

It took Jack two tries to find his voice. "Right," he managed. "That was... was that you?"

"A K'da battle cry," Draycos said, flipping the tangler to Jack. "It seemed a reasonable diversion. Are you ready?"

"I'm three blocks past ready," Jack said, dropping the weapon back into its holster.

"Pardon?"

"Skip it," Jack said. "The ladder?"

"Yes," Draycos confirmed, turning his glittering green eyes upward toward the bubble. "When I say." Crouching down, he leaped.

Jack followed him with his eyes, feeling his mouth drop open. Twenty feet straight up, and the dragon made it with a foot or two to spare. Twisting around, catlike, on the narrow landing, he got his front paws firmly wrapped around the upper part of the ladder. "Now; come," he said.

"Hang on," Jack said, kneeling down beside the unconscious Brummga as a sudden thought struck him.

"What are you doing?" Draycos demanded.

"Trying to get this thing out," Jack told him, digging into the tangler webbing over the long holstered wand lying along the mercenary's left leg.

"An unknown weapon is dangerous to use," Draycos warned.

"You mean like my tangler?" Jack retorted. "You seemed to handle that just fine."

"I am a K'da warrior," Draycos said stiffly. "The understanding and use of weapons is my profession."

"You're still lucky I hadn't put the safety catch back on," Jack grunted. "Don't worry, a slapstick's the easiest thing in the world to use. You press the button at your end and touch the other guy with the other end, and he won't be bothering you for a couple of hours. Rats."

"What?"

"It's buried too deep under the webbing," Jack said, standing up again. "Never mind. Here I come."

Even with the dragon bracing the top, the ladder felt pretty shaky. He didn't want to think what it would have been like without the extra support.

But the ladder held, and so did the one to the upper control area. The lower section of the dome wasn't as badly crunched as it had looked from below, but there were several gaps big enough for them to get through. A minute later, they were standing outside on the top of the ship.

"Where is your spacecraft?" Draycos asked.

"Way back there," Jack said, pointing toward the forested areas to the right. "There's a crack in the hull about fifty yards back where I came in."

"Good," Draycos said. "Quickly, then."

They headed off. The damage wasn't as bad up here as it had been along the sides of the hull, Jack noted, but the handful of trees lining both sides more than made up for it. Most of them had been smashed into toothpicks as the ship plowed through the area, and those that remained standing had been knocked about at crazy angles. Mostly they were leaning away from the ship, but a few were actually leaning toward it.

Everything within sight, trees and ground alike, had been scorched and blackened by the heat of the crash. They were probably lucky the crash hadn't sparked a forest fire.

From the direction of the wrecked bubble behind them came the faint sound of crunching metal. Jack spun around, tangler in hand, but no one was visible. "You think the ladder went down?" he hazarded.

"With some assistance, yes," Draycos agreed. "I believe the pursuit has begun. Come; over here."

He veered suddenly toward the edge, aiming toward a tree that was leaning inward. "Wait a second," Jack said, frowning, as he turned to follow. "The Essenay's still further back."

"If we remain here, they will have a very limited search area," Draycos explained over his shoulder. "On the ground our chances of eluding them are greater."

"Yeah, but it's forty feet to the ground," Jack objected. "There was a ladder built into the hull near where I came in—let's use that."

"All ladders will be watched," Draycos said. "This they may not expect."

"Right," Jack muttered, throwing a dubious look at the tree they were making for. Leaning toward the ship, yes, but at its closest it was still a good ten feet away. "I suppose it's too late to mention that my species doesn't jump nearly as well as yours does."

"Do not worry," Draycos said, trotting to a halt beside the tree at the point where the hull started its downward curve. This time he didn't even bother to crouch, but just jumped from a standing start over to the tree.

For a second he hung there, all four feet clinging to the tree with claws Jack hadn't noticed before. Then, turning his head, he peered back toward Jack. "Leap when I say," he said. "Ready—"

With a convulsive jerk, the dragon pushed away with his hind legs and arched his whole body backwards, like a reversed vid of how he'd landed on the tree in the first place. The arching continued until he was stretched straight back toward Jack. His tail uncurled and stiffened—"Leap," Draycos ordered.

If Jack had stopped to think, he never would have done it. To jump to the tail of an unknown alien as it hung from a fire-damaged tree was an amazingly stupid thing to do.

But all he could think about at the moment was the tangled Brummga and his buddies. He jumped as ordered, caught the gold-scaled tail, and a second later slammed against the blackened tree trunk as the dragon collapsed back to vertical again.