"Afraid so," Jack agreed grimly, searching the walls and ceiling for evidence of listening devices. There hadn't been any in the other hotboxes, but one so close to the main house might run under different rules.

An instant later he jerked violently as a jolt of current burned through him.

"Ow!"

"Are you injured?" Draycos asked anxiously.

"No, I'm just fine," Jack gritted out, his teeth clenched against the fresh waves of pain rolling through his body. The shock itself hadn't been all that painful, but it had reawakened all the nerve endings already scrubbed raw by Gazen's slapstick.

He wondered if Gazen had thought about that part before throwing him in here.

Odds were, he had.

"Jack—"

"No, it's okay," Jack reassured the dragon. "Really. If they wanted to kill me, there are easier ways."

"Nevertheless, it is clearly painful," Draycos said. "Move as far as you can to the side."

"You must be kidding," Jack said, looking around. Like the regular hotboxes, there wasn't enough spare room in here for a decent hamster cage. "Move to what side where?"

"Press your body against the right-hand wall," Draycos ordered, sliding around on Jack's back. "And raise the lower part of your shirt."

Another jolt sparked through the mesh. This time, Jack's spasming legs drove the back of his head against the ceiling. "Now; move quickly," Draycos said as the current shut off and Jack sagged back down. "Before it happens again."

"Sure," Jack muttered, tasting blood where his clenching teeth had caught the side of his tongue. Rolling partway onto his side, he pressed his chest against the wires and raised the back of his shirt.

Draycos lifted up from his lower back, squeezing himself into the remaining space. The sudden change in the number of occupants shoved Jack hard against the wall, forcing the side of his face up against the cold metal as well.

He closed his eyes, muscles tightening in anticipation and dread. If another shock came now, there would be nowhere for him to even twitch away to.

Draycos's own body would hold him against the mesh until the current knocked him unconscious.

Or else seriously burned him. Maybe even killed him.

Gazen would be very unhappy if that happened. Slaves of the Chookoock family were not supposed to do anything, not even die, without official permission.

The kind of permission Noy had been given this morning.

Abruptly, Draycos melted back onto Jack's skin. "What?" Jack demanded as the unexpected loss of pressure sent him rolling over onto his back.

"I have altered the wiring," the dragon said, a grim satisfaction in his voice.

"It will no longer send current through the mesh."

"Great," Jack growled. "At least, not until someone notices and sends out a repairman. Then they'll see what you've done, and wonder where I got any tools—"

"No one will come," Draycos interrupted him. "No one will notice. I have not simply connected the outer wires together, but have run them through a small piece of wood. If I have calculated correctly, the wood will indicate a similar level of electrical resistance as a human body."

Jack shook his head. "I have no idea what any of that means."

From below him came a sudden crackle of electricity. He tensed, but no shock stabbed into his skin. "It means," Draycos said as the crackling stopped,

"that any instruments they have attached to the system will show that it is still hurting you."

"Oh," Jack said. "Well... okay. Thanks."

"You are welcome."

For a minute neither of them spoke. Jack shifted around, trying to get comfortable. It was a futile task, as every move brought fresh agony to his muscles. But oddly enough, and rather to his own surprise, his thoughts weren't on his own aches and pains.

Instead, they were with Noy. He could practically see the younger boy's face floating in front of his eyes there in the gloom of the frying pan. He could hear his voice, too, cheerful but with a hidden defiance lurking beneath it.

Unlike Greb and Grib, Noy hadn't simply accepted his slavery as if it were just the way things had to be, even though he'd been born into it.

But then, Maerlynn had said something about his parents trying to escape once.

Maybe they'd managed to teach him about freedom before they'd died.

And now Noy was sick, stuck away somewhere in the isolation hut Gazen had ordered him tossed into. Sick, and weak, and hungry. Maybe dying.

All alone.

Another crackle came and went. "You are very quiet," Draycos said softly.

"Are you in pain?"

Jack's first impulse was to lie about it. Compassion had not exactly been at the top of Uncle Virgil's list of prized qualities. He'd considered it a sign of weakness, in fact, and had done his best to hammer that same way of thinking into Jack's skull. Since his death, it had been a task Uncle Virge had done his best to continue.

But Jack was getting tired of that kind of life. He was also getting tired of lying. "I was thinking about Noy," he told Draycos. "Wondering how he was doing."

For a moment the dragon was silent. Automatically, Jack braced himself for the scorn and ridicule that would have come instantly from either version of his uncle. "His situation did not sound good," Draycos agreed. "Do you think there is anything we can do for him?"

"It could be dangerous," Jack warned. "You game to give it a try?"

"Absolutely," Draycos said, sounding vaguely insulted. "Did you have any doubt?"

Jack smiled. The K'da warrior ethic. "No, not really," he said.

"Good," Draycos said firmly. "What is your plan?"

"Come on, give me a break," Jack protested. "I just started thinking about this.

You expect me to have a plan already?"

"Of course not," the dragon murmured. "Forgive me."

"But I'm working on it," Jack assured him, wincing as he shifted aching shoulders again. "Gazen sure is a fun person to have around, isn't he?"

"In my opinion, he is mentally unstable," Draycos said firmly. "But one thing still bothers me."

"Only one?"

"The Daughters of Harriet Tubman," Draycos went on, ignoring the comment. "If Gazen dislikes them so much, why does he tolerate their presence near Chookoock family property?"

"Mainly, because he hasn't got a choice," Jack said. "Remember the rest of the sign? 'Internos Consular Adjunct.' The consular part means the place is part of the Internos diplomatic system. I don't know how the Tubman Group managed that one."

"And the Internos would be upset if the Brummgas threw them out?"

Jack shook his head. "You don't get it. Foreign embassies are considered the property of that particular nation or government. By being a consular station, the Tubman house is basically a small chunk of Internos territory on Brum-a-dum.

Internos law applies there, not the Brummgan versions."

"Interesting," Draycos said thoughtfully. "How is it you know all this? Is it common knowledge?"

"It's common enough," Jack said. "I know it mostly because Uncle Virgil once did a scam that depended on how diplomatic privilege works."

"So you are saying that an attempt to move the Tubman Group out could be considered the same as an invasion?"

"The diplomats would probably find nicer-sounding words," Jack said. "But, yeah, that's what it boils down to. Gazen can hate it all he wants, but there's not a

grease-stained thing he can do about it."

"An interesting system," Draycos said. "And this applies to government and diplomatic stations throughout the Orion Arm?"

"Pretty much," Jack said. "It's at least as old as pre-space Earth politics.

The idea is that everyone wants their diplomats to be as secure as possible.

Sometimes they're the only ones who can keep two sides from stumbling into a war."

"But only when neither side actually desires that war," Draycos said grimly.