He took a deep breath. "Well," he said, to no one in particular. "I guess that's that."

"It is indeed," Uncle Virge agreed, sounding rather awestruck himself. "Never let it be said that you do things halfway, Jack lad."

Jack pursed his lips. Maybe. Maybe not. For now, he could only hope he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do. "We'd better get out of here before those fighters arrive," he said, reaching for the controls. "You with me, Draycos?"

"I am here," the dragon said softly. "Yes; let us go."

"Sorry, lad," Uncle Virge said, his voice as quiet and apologetic and sincere as a professional fundraiser. "I'm afraid the Shamshir Mercenaries keep pretty sloppy records on their competitors' aircraft. There isn't any way we're going to be able to trace those Djinn-90s from this."

"Uh-huh," Jack said, gazing across the table with a fascinated repugnance as he watched Draycos tearing into his fourth soup bowl full of hamburger, tuna fish, chocolate sauce, and motor oil.

It wasn't that he couldn't understand the dragon's hunger. After all, Draycos hadn't had much to eat for the past three weeks. But the thought of that particular food combination still sent Jack's own taste buds screaming for cover. "So that's it, huh?"

"That's it," Uncle Virge confirmed. "And if I may say so, you might recall that I thought the idea was doomed idiocy from the start. So now we can get on with a proper job of saving Draycos's people?"

"By which you mean turning him over to the Star-Force?" Jack suggested.

Draycos looked up, his long tongue nicking a bit of tuna fish off one corner of his snout. "We cannot do that, Jack," he protested. "It is too dangerous."

"Relax," Jack said, taking a sip of his fizzy-soda. Yes, Uncle Virge had sounded quiet and apologetic and sincere, all right. Unfortunately for him, Jack had heard that tone of voice before. Many times before. "You know, Draycos, for being such a clever K'da poet-warrior, you're kind of slow on the uptake sometimes."

The dragon's neck arched warningly. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice ominous.

"Relax," Jack hastened to reassure him. Apparently, the dragon wasn't in a mood for joking. "Watch and learn."

He cleared his throat. "Okay, Uncle Virge," he said. "So we don't have anything on the Djinn-90s. What interesting tidbits did you happen to find in the Shamshir data?"

"You only asked for the Djinn-90 information," Uncle Virge reminded him.

"I know what I asked for," Jack said firmly. "Quit stalling. What did you find?"

There was a moment of sulky silence. "There's one small piece that might be considered interesting," Uncle Virge conceded at last. "But, really, it's so minuscule—"

"I said quit stalling," Jack interrupted. "Give."

"It's just an item about the Brummgas," Uncle Virge groused. "Remember how you ran into a Brummga on Iota Klestis, at the site of Draycos's crash?"

"Like I'd forget," Jack said with a grimace. If Draycos hadn't used Jack's tangler gun on the big alien, both he and the dragon would have wound up very dead. "And Lieutenant Cue Ball had a couple on his staff, too, hanging around looking ugly," he added. "So?"

"So at least from the Shamshir data," Uncle Virge said grudgingly, "it looks like all the Brummgas in the various mercenary forces come from the same place."

Jack sat up a little straighter. "What do you mean, the same place?" he asked. "The same city? Same province?"

Uncle Virge sighed audibly. "Same dealer."

Draycos's neck was still arched. "What do you mean by 'dealer'?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Jack said grimly. "But I can guess. Are you talking about a slave dealer, Uncle Virge?"

"Well, of course, mercenaries are considered skilled labor," Uncle Virge hedged. "And Brummgan law isn't quite, shall we say, up to Internos standards—"

"They deal in slavery," Draycos cut him off.

Uncle Virge sighed again. "Yes."

Draycos hissed like he had a bad taste in his mouth, his neck crest stiffer than Jack had ever seen it. "The indenture of children was barbaric enough," he bit out, his eyes glittering like lasers filtered through a pair of emeralds. "But for intelligent beings to be owned like animals—"

"Easy, pal, easy," Jack said hastily, holding up his hands. "Don't get mad at me. Or at the Internos government, for that matter. Like I've told you before, we humans aren't in charge of everything that happens out there."

"What about the Trade Association?" Draycos demanded. "Are there not laws concerning such things?"

"There are some, sure," Jack said. "But you can only enforce what you can see. And there are only so many Judge-Paladins to go around. Come on—we're trying."

Slowly, the crest softened. "I understand," he murmured. "It is still an abomination."

"No argument there," Jack agreed, shivering. He'd seen a group of slaves on one of the worlds he and Uncle Virgil had visited once. The memory of their haunted eyes and faces had stuck with him ever since. "But in this case, it could be a useful abomination."

"What do you mean?" Draycos asked.

"Nothing good," Uncle Virge cut in. "You can wager your teeth and tail on that. Jack—look, lad—"

"We need to find those mercenaries, Uncle Virge," Jack said. "And since we aren't having any luck tracing their fighters, maybe we can trace their personnel."

"And how do you intend to do that?" Uncle Virge demanded. "How do you expect to get close enough to a Brum-mga slave lord to get a look at his records?"

"Perhaps as a soldier for hire," Draycos suggested.

"Forget it," Jack said firmly. "I'm not cut out to be a soldier."

"You did not do badly," Draycos said. "Do not forget that you were not properly trained or led. And you were certainly not among true warriors."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Jack said dryly. "But I think we'll find a different way in, if it's all the same to you."

"That is your option," Draycos said. "Still, whether you accept it or not, you are showing great progress in living by a warrior's ethic."

Jack snorted gently. "I don't know how you figure that one."

"You told Alison not to risk coming back for you," Draycos reminded him. "That showed your consideration of others' safety before your own."

Jack felt his lip twist. "Well... actually, no, it didn't. I just didn't want her bringing the Shamshir chase ships back my direction."

Draycos's tail arched. "Truly?"

Jack shrugged. "Sorry."

Uncle Virge laughed out loud. "That's my boy," he said smugly. "See there, Draycos, old snake? Jack's not as easily corrupted by this warrior ethic nonsense as you'd like to think."

"Perhaps," Draycos said, his eyes seeming to measure Jack. "Perhaps it is merely a path that will require many small steps. Do not forget he did return to rescue the others."

"Only because you pressured him, I'd wager," Uncle Virge said. "Like I suppose you also pressured him into wrecking that daublite mine for no good reason."

"I suggested nothing of the sort," Draycos protested. "Furthermore, there was a good reason. The Agri had become virtual prisoners of the Shamshir mercenaries they had hired. From all appearances, the Parprins were in same situation with the Whinyard's Edge."

"And whose fault was that?" Uncle Virge shot back. "Theirs, that's whose."

"Is it a fault to work to create a source of profit, only to have it stolen away?" Draycos countered.

"Of course not," Jack put in. "That's as bad as a bunch of mercenaries trying to steal someone else's property and having a kid come along and con it right out from under them."

The budding argument stopped dead on its rails. "What did you say?" Uncle Virge demanded suspiciously.