Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier Read Free

clip, unfastened it, and slipped it into his
pocket. The first kids off the bus had gathered into a little group by
the curb, hanging back instead of going directly into the building.
Either they were nervous, or else they were waiting for someone who was
still behind them.
    "You have not yet explained this indenture process," Draycos said
from his shoulder.
    "It's sort of like an apprenticeship," Jack said. An adult was
getting off now, a woman wearing a Whinyard's Edge uniform. Not only
were they expected, but the mercenaries had even sent a babysitter to
the spaceport to herd them in. "Parents hire their kids out to
different merc groups, usually for two to five years."
    "And what do they receive in exchange?"
    "Cash," Jack told him. "Lots of it."
    "It is a form of slavery," Draycos declared, his voice dark. "Your
people permit this?"
    "Not exactly," Jack said. The woman was striding toward the white
building, the kids following like scared but obedient ducklings. This
was probably the first time most of them had ever been away from home,
he suspected. "The Internos government officially condemns it, but
there are plenty of human worlds that sort of wink at the whole thing.
Mostly the poorer ones where the people don't have any other way to
make a living."
    "There are always other ways," Draycos insisted. "This is not the
behavior of a civilized society."
    "No, of course not," Jack soothed. Uncivilized this, uncivilized
that—the dragon needed to lighten up a little. Things were the way they
were; and like it or not, there wasn't a thing you could do about it.
    The universe was a giant mulching machine, Uncle Virgil had often
said. If you were smart, you rolled with the gears. If you weren't, you
got chewed up by them.
    "And there are so very many of them," Draycos murmured, obviously
still brooding about it.
    "Which is what we want, remember?" Jack reminded him patiently.
"Uncle Virge said this was one of only a couple of groups who were
hiring lots of kids right now. The more they've got coming in, the
easier it'll be for me to slip in and get lost in the crowd."
    "I understand the reasoning," Draycos said, a bit tartly. "That
does not mean I have to enjoy my part in this."
    The last kid had gotten off the bus. "Okay," Jack muttered, taking
a deep breath and picking up his pace. "Nice and easy. Here we go."
    And as the last boy in line walked through the white building's
door, Jack closed the gap and stepped in right behind him.
    He found himself in a large reception room with a pair of ornate
desks at the far end beneath a huge wood carving of the Whinyard's Edge
insignia. The woman who had escorted the teens in from the bus was
seated at one of the desks, while an older gray-haired man sat at the
other.
    Off to either side of the main room, near where Jack had entered,
were a pair of unmarked doorways. One of the doors was slightly ajar,
and through it Jack caught a glimpse of the simple desk and filing
cabinets of a secretarial work station. On the far back wall, behind
the fancy desks and directly beneath the wooden insignia, was a door
with a picture of a dagger painted on it and what looked like a motto
stenciled around its edge.
    The number of teens in the reception room was a surprise. Even
huddled together like sheep the way they were, they filled the room all
the way to the walls. The bus Jack had seen pull up must have been only
the last of a group of them, possibly bringing in new recruits from
several different parts of the spaceport. Apparently, the Whinyard's
Edge was holding an even bigger recruitment drive than he'd realized.
    Briefly, his mind flicked back to his confident statement to Uncle
Virge that there were no major wars going on anywhere. He hoped he
hadn't been wrong about that.
    "Over there," Draycos murmured, just loud enough for Jack to hear
over the soft buzz of conversation. The dragon's snout rose slightly
from Jack's upper chest beneath his shirt, pointing to the left. "That
boy has