And then, suddenly, the name clicked. The Daughters of Harriet Tubman: the building Draycos had spotted across from the gatekeeper's house. "I don't know what you mean," he insisted. "I never even heard of them before."

"Still, I have to admit they've come up with something new this time," Gazen went on. "Usually they try official protests or attempts to interfere with Chookoock family business. Sending in a thief to steal our records is beyond even their usual level of insolence."

He tilted his head toward his computer. "I trust you had no trouble with my files?"

"I didn't touch your computer," Jack said. "I told you, I only came in—"

"Of course, as they say, it doesn't always take a genius to create a clever plan," Gazen cut him off. "Sometimes an idiot can fall over one by accident."

He smiled faintly. "But as they also say, you can't make lox without smoking a

few fish. In this case, you're that fish."

Again, he flicked out the slapstick. Jack flinched away, the movement sending another splash of pain through him. But the tip of the weapon passed harmlessly past his left shoulder. Gazen was just playing with him. "What that means is that you're going to disappear," the slavemaster continued, his voice as calm as if he were ordering dinner. "You will be prepared for service; and then you will be quietly smuggled off-planet and delivered to your new owners."

He waved the slapstick idly. "Leaving your friends at Tubman to sit around their meeting rooms, sipping their tea and eating their scones. Wondering occasionally whatever happened to you."

A heavy silence filled the room. Jack tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat were as dry as a summer's day in the Gobi. Certainly he'd been in tighter situations than this one, facing ruthless people like Snake Voice and the enemy mercenary he'd dubbed Lieutenant Cue Ball.

But all the others had at least seen him as a person, someone to be manipulated or squeezed or maybe bargained with. Gazen saw him as nothing more than an old hat he might sell for a little pocket change.

And somehow that fact was more chilling than any of the man's veiled threats.

Death he could face, and maybe talk or wiggle or con his way out of. A

lifetime of slavery stretching out in front of him was a more horrible thought.

And for perhaps the first time, he truly understood why it was that Draycos hated slavery so much.

Draycos.

And suddenly the spiderweb of fear and pain Gazen had spun with his words and slapstick collapsed into the proper perspective. Jack wasn't alone here, after all. Not by a long shot.

And humming away almost within arm's reach was Gazen's computer. Already up and running, with all the passwords already entered.

Exactly the situation he'd been looking for. A kaleidoscope of possibilities flashed across his mind like the lights of a broken status board. He could do it; right here, right now. A simple order to attack, and he would get to see the expression of horror on Gazen's face as he saw a poet-warrior of the K'da come boiling out of Jack's shirt collar.

Not that the expression—or the face—were likely to last very long. Slapstick or no slapstick, the dragon would make hamburger out of him in nothing flat.

Jack could dig out the mercenary data, they could cut their way through however many Brummgan guards were loitering around outside, and head for the main gate. It was almost too easy.

And then he took another look at Gazen's face. He was watching Jack closely, like some interesting specimen squirming under a microscope.

No, not like a specimen under a microscope. Like an approaching spaceship that seemed way too harmless to be real. A ship that somehow, somewhere, had hidden weapons that had to be located and identified.

The setup wasn't almost too easy. It was too easy.

This was a test. The whole thing; from the humming computer, to the deliberate mention of Noy's sickness, to even being in here alone with Gazen.

The slavemaster was trying to goad him into some kind of reaction. Feeding him rope and waiting for him to take it, obligingly tie a noose, and hang himself.

Which meant Gazen's apparent helplessness was an illusion. The first move Jack made in that direction, and it would be as if somebody had dumped a bucket of Brummgas over his head.

He took a careful breath, quieting his emotions. No, Gazen was still motivated by money, and Jack was worth a lot of it. According to Uncle Virge's eavesdropped timetable, there were still a few days before they would be ready to ship him off the planet. He would continue to play innocent—or at least as innocent as he could under the circumstances—and wait for the right opportunity.

An opportunity, and a timing, of his choosing. Not Gazen's.

"You're taking this remarkably well, I must say," Gazen murmured into Jack's thoughts. "Perhaps you're expecting to be rescued? If so, I'd advise you to lay that hope to rest. It won't happen. Guaranteed."

He slid his slapstick back into the holster at his waist. "Or perhaps it's just that you're too stupid to comprehend the fate that awaits you," he added in a nastier tone. "Perhaps a small taste will help spur your imagination. Guards!"

The door slammed open, and three Brummgas bounded into the room. Their headlong rush seemed to falter, the rear one almost stumbling over the other two, as they caught sight of Jack still sitting quietly in his chair. "Yes, Panjan Gazen?" one of them said, looking uncertainly between Gazen and Jack.

"He needs more of a lesson than the regular hotboxes can provide," Gazen said.

His dark eyes focused one final time on Jack's face. Then, as if in complete dismissal of Jack as both puzzle and person, he turned back to his computer.

"Take him away," he said over his shoulder, "and put him in the frying pan."

CHAPTER 22

Jack cleared his throat as the Brummgas surrounded his chair. "Aren't you forgetting one small thing?" he asked.

Reluctantly, it seemed, Gazen turned back around to face him. "And that is...?"

"Her Thumbleness will be expecting me to play with her today," Jack said.

"She's likely to be upset if I don't turn up."

Gazen's eyes flicked to the Brummgas. "Her Thumbleness needs to learn she can't have everything she wants."

"Absolutely," Jack agreed. "But I wouldn't want to be the one who has to teach her that."

Gazen smiled thinly. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I can handle Her Thumbleness."

His eyes flicked to the Brummgas again. "The frying pan," he ordered again.

"Make it the full treatment."

The frying pan turned out to be a small metal shed tucked out of sight in a clump of bushes about fifty yards from the mansion's kitchen entrance.

Probably hidden, Jack thought cynically, so as not to disturb the more delicate members of the Chookoock family. Other than that, it looked pretty much like the regular hotboxes he'd become acquainted with over the past couple of weeks.

Uneasily, he wondered what extras Gazen had added to give it such an ominous name.

The answer came as the lead Brummga led the way around to the far side of the frying pan and levered up the door. The other hotboxes had been plain tin structures, with plain tin insides. This one, in contrast, was lined with a bright copper mesh, with horizontal and vertical wires carefully separated by thin black rubbery spacers.

The Brummgas shoved him inside and swung the door closed again. The lock clicked, and with a muttering of deep voices the aliens clumped their way back toward the main house. "I had wondered what was meant by the name frying pan,"

Draycos murmured when the footsteps had faded away. "These wires are electrical, correct?"