Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls Part 5

"Got it!" Abalone cries, waking Professor Isabella and startling me.

"What?" Professor Isabella yawns.

"I'm ready to let Sarah earn her keep," Abalone says. "We can move as soon as tomorrow evening."

Excitement and trepidation war within me. I am certain I can mechanically manage what Abalone wants, but doubt my nerve. Nor has Abalone yet confided the details of her plan to me; now seems a fit time to ask, while she is flush with her victory.

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft-a-gley. An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain, for promised joy," I say.

"Huh?" Abalone's eyes are wide as I roll out the words in the Scottish accent of a sailor who had resided in the Home for a time.

"I believe she wants to know what you have in mind for her," Professor Isabella says, shaking her skirts down. "I must admit, I've been sitting on my own curiosity."

"Lumpy seat, that," Betwixt snickers. "It's been popping up more than Head Wolf's..."

I pinch his mouth shut while Between laughs. Silently, I resolve that the dragons may wait in the Heights next time I visit the Lair.

Abalone has been considering Professor Isabella's question and, lifting the window curtain, she sees that we have some time left until proper daylight.

"I'll fill you both in," she decides. "I think I've thought of everything but...You must have guessed that I break programs, Professor Isabella."

Professor Isabella nods, her eyes lively as she sips from a cup of almost viscous coffee.

"Well, a while back, I found the way into the Vehicle Registration Banks. With some work, I can reregister anyone's vehicle to anyone else. What I do is usually cruise the streets until I find a nice piece or two habitually parked with either an electronic guard or none at all. I get the external ident data and then trace it in the VRB. After I craft a new ID, I register the target to me."

The smile on Professor Isabella's face encourages Abalone to go on with barely a break.

"When I pick the vehicle up, I'm not stealing it. Even if I was pulled over, all the data would agree it was mine. The 'real' owner would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise. Then I go to a dealer and make a quick sale."

"Let me guess," Professor Isabella interrupts. "You've done this often enough that your plan is to set Sarah up as the 'owner' and have her sell the car. Have you decided how to get around her rather distinctive appearance and way of talking?"

"I thought of several," Abalone replies, just barely bragging. "At first, I figured she could just memorize key responses to the questions. Funny, for all her remembering odd quotes, she couldn't get any of this."

Professor Isabella shrugs with a theatrical sigh. "Sarah's memory is a mystery to me. What and why she chooses to remember or understand anything is a miracle. She apparently didn't speak at all until she was somewhere in her twenties."

"Well," Abalone continues, "when that didn't work out, I thought about fitting her with a voder and speaking through it. That was too crazy and complex. What I settled on is so simple that I can't handle it."

"Go, on, Sh.e.l.lfish," Professor Isabella exclaims. "Dawn is coming and won't Head Wolf turn you into a pumpkin if you're out past curfew?"

Abalone rolls her eyes. "She'll pretend that she's lost her voice and come in with a prepared sales offer. The guy I have in mind speaks English real good but he doesn't read much English, just Korean-he voice notes his sales-He'll scan the offer into his computer, maybe d.i.c.ker a little. Sarah can nod 'yes' or 'no' and I'll tell her the acceptable range."

"Won't he wonder why she's selling while she's sick? Why she doesn't wait until she's better?"

"Nope." Abalone flips onto her stomach and drums her heels in the air. "Not when he sees the registration and loan stuff. He'll see she's got a payment due the next day and realize that she needs to sell to cover it."

"Clever," Professor Isabella admits. "Simple and elegant. Of course, you'll disguise her more-distinctive features and all the dealer will see is another pretty Anglo. What are you doing on the street, girl?"

Abalone freezes up, burying her face in the pillow. Slowly, Professor Isabella inches across the floor to her and pats her shoulder.

"Sorry, Abalone, I should know better than to ask. G.o.d knows, every day I fear that one of my former students will recognize me. How could I ever explain? Not all of them would be as fine as sweet Sarah."

"Thanks." Abalone rolls onto her back. "Do you think you can do it, Sarah?"

I ignore the tears she's wiping away and settle for nodding my agreement.

We part that dawn, quiet and reflective, promising to meet Professor Isabella when the deed is done. In the Jungle, I worry that my tension will keep me awake, but I fall asleep as soon as I have climbed into my hammock. In my dreams, I drive down streets of the deserted financial district. My car mirror shows me a face with golden hair and bright emerald eyes.

The next evening, we go through the secret subway and end in the locked rest room. This time I change my clothing as well, putting on a tidy maple jumpsuit. Abalone fits an ash blond wig over my hair.

"Your eyes will do-no one will believe that color is natural anyhow, but combined with cream-colored hair you are just too memorable." She shrugs. "When you first came to the Jungle, I kept waiting for it to grow out, but it's real, isn't it?"

Watching the stranger in the mirror move, I nod.

"Strange color," Abalone muses, pulling on her own nondescript outfit. "I've only seen it on palomino horses and cats. Cream and jade."

We head out, Betwixt and Between in the neat pseudosuede bag swinging from my shoulder.

The damp sidewalks seem to stick to my shoes as we walk. Once again, I am following Abalone; this time I know what we are seeking. I don't need Abalone's slight nod to tell me when we have reached the target.

A sign with a painted ideogram tells me that we have reached where the car is parked in a small garage. The first test of Abalone's skill will be here. Without a glance at her, I turn, fumble in my bag past Betwixt and Between, and find the brown Moroccan leather wallet Abalone had given me. Nervously, I pull a plastic slip out and slide it into the guard door. It swallows it and then the door slides open. On the other side, I retrieve it.

A fruity male voice says, "Thank you, Ms. Rena."

As the door closes behind me, the aloneness that had left when Abalone picked me up from the street rushes back, chilling me. I know I must move quickly, yet I turn slowly as if wading in icy slush up to my knees.

It waits for me: sleek, predatory, silver and black, seeming to drift on parking jets. I wade toward it and am sliding the key strip into the lock when I come up short. A woman is already in the car-her gaze meets mine and when I see pale green jade the picture falls into place. The woman is me.

I know this, but my hand still is shaking nearly too hard to match the flimsy slip and its slot. I manage and step in, feeling the car bob on its jets.

The dashboard is different than the one I have been so patiently studying. I cannot find the start b.u.t.ton; I cannot find the acceleration s.h.i.+ft; I cannot find the brake. Only the steering crescent is familiar.

When I place my hand on the soft curve, perception chimes. The brake is beneath my right foot as Abalone had promised. Now I find the start b.u.t.ton-a few inches higher than I had been taught. The acceleration shaft is snapped into a recess right of the driver's seat. I find the release tab, press it, and the shaft rises beneath my right hand.

Abalone has written a navigation program and I drop this into the consol. The silver-and-black shark bites and I can drop, shaking, into the padded seat while the program reels us to our destination. Outside, rain on the tinted windows stars the streetlights and headlights, beginning to shoot as the car picks up speed.

When the car idles to a stop in the driveway of a used vehicle lot, I am enough in control to steer us to a fairly graceful park outside the sales office door. The shark has barely fallen quiet when the office door slams up and a small Korean man emerges.

Touching my throat, I hand him the note Abalone has written for me. He takes it, wrinkling his brow as he reads. I see confusion, amazement, and, finally, greed travel across his features. The face he turns to me is bland and gently friendly.

"I am sorry to hear," he chuckles at his own joke, "that you have lost your voice, Ms. Rena. Do you have a copy of your license and registration? I need to check them before we negotiate a possible sale."

I nod and dig again for my wallet and pull out the paperwork.

As I drop the wallet in Betwixt and Between puff rea.s.suringly at me. I notice as I snap my bag shut that they have gotten into a roll of breath mints and curls of silver paper roll around their stout, stocky ankles.

Mr. Joon invites me into this office, pours me coffee, and offers me a selection of magazines. Then he disappears behind a burlap-textured screen. I strain and hear the snap as the forged ident.i.ties are run. Beyond fear, I wait in confidence of Abalone's skill, sipping coffee and leafing through a magazine. Blus.h.i.+ng, I realize that I have it upside down and flip it over just as Mr. Joon reemerges.

Pus.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+ny black bangs from his forehead, he smiles.

"All looks fine, Alice," he says.

I almost look around, but remember that the name on the car's papers is Alice Rena. Instead, I nod and gesture with my head toward the shark.

"I'll need to run a diagnostic on the vehicle itself," Mr. Joon says, taking an oval box from a cabinet by the door, "but if everything proves in as good shape as it appears, I am interested in making you an offer."

We walk outside and he plugs the oval into an aperture in the dashboard. Abalone has explained to me that this small computer will talk with the shark's computer and provide a systems a.n.a.lysis. Mr. Joon will combine this with his own visual inspection and certain trade standards will set his price.

I watch as he caresses seat covers, fingers the wear on the floor mats, and plays with the sound system. The whistle from his oval box blends into the sound pouring from the vehicle and Mr. Joon ignores it until he sees the amber readout flas.h.i.+ng a completed operation and pops it free.

Face professionally neutral, he scans the readouts and then courteously shows them to me.

Biting my inner lip to keep from revealing my growing insecurity, I wait a moment as if studying the figures and holodiagrams and then nod, looking at him with what I hope is a decisive expression.

Mr. Joon's patter about the shark's condition flows over me. Caught in the crosscurrents of his voice and my own fears, I wait for the numbers Abalone had promised me would come. I know what is acceptable and what is not-or did when I left the Jungle. I pray inarticulately that I will not forget.

He names a figure. Resisting the urge to grab at it as a life-line, to nod "yes" and flee, I weigh it against Abalone's lessons.

I do not even need subtlety. The number is far too low. Extending my hand, I shake my head and gesture upward with my thumb.

The next figure Mr. Joon names is better, but I hazard one more raise. He does, not as much as I might wish, but within the range Abalone had set. I nod agreement. We close the deal and I walk away with a slip showing that Alice Rena is thousands richer-as am I.

I walk quickly toward the subway entrance and find Abalone lurking where she promised to be. We vanish down into the smelly tunnels and in ten minutes Alice Rena is gone and only Sarah and the thousands remain.

Abalone waits until we are safely away to ask me how things went. "Were you scared, Sarah?"

"True n.o.bility is exempt from fear," I reply, winking at her.

She throws her arms around me and together we laugh until the laughter shakes away all memory of my fears and leaves only the triumph of my success.

Six.

A FEW DAYS AFTER THE HUNTING OF THE SHARK FEW DAYS AFTER THE HUNTING OF THE SHARK, HEAD W WOLF lets me know that he would be pleased if I wanted to spend some of the day with him in his lair. I gladly agree and, after informing Abalone where I would be, I go. As I had resolved previously, I leave my dragons behind. lets me know that he would be pleased if I wanted to spend some of the day with him in his lair. I gladly agree and, after informing Abalone where I would be, I go. As I had resolved previously, I leave my dragons behind.

I return to my place in the Reaches somewhat sooner than I had planned (b.u.mblebee had decided to join us and while Head Wolf welcomed her, I was not interested in female honey).

Abalone is gone. Searching quickly, I find that her tappety-tap is also gone. Around me, the Free People sleep, so very softly I whisper to the dragons.

"Abalone?"

"We're not Abalone!" Between says indignantly. "Where is little blue lips, anyway?"

"Weren't you staying to screw Head Wolf?" Betwixt asks, his red eyes s.h.i.+ning.

I can tell that the dragons are hurt by my abandoning them, so I hold my questions until I have fed them some jelly and crackers from my h.o.a.rd. The food sweetens them.

Betwixt finishes the last crumbs of his share. "Scratch my eye ridge, would you, Sarah?"

When I do so, not neglecting Between, the dragon relaxes. The ruby eyes seem to glow amiably rather than burn.

"Soon after you left," Between says, "Abalone got bored with her magazine. She didn't seem sleepy and I heard her mutter something about going to the Park."

"That was a while ago," Betwixt adds. "I guess she'll be back soon."

I try to relax and agree. Abalone has done well without me; certainly I must be a trouble to her-a constant shadow. I stretch out on my hammock and set myself gently rocking. Balanced on my stomach, the dragons drowse.

"Go to sleep, Sarah," Between says soothingly. "You're beat. We'll take turns watching and wake you when Abalone comes back."

I can feel exhaustion stealing through me and yawn nodding my acceptance of the dragon's plan.

"For some must watch, while some must sleep: so runs the world away."

Pulling my blanket over me, I position the dragons so they can watch. My last sensation is their claws, like little needles, gripping for purchase as we gently swing.

I do not awaken when Abalone makes her stealthy return, but true to their promise, the dragons hiss me awake. Even in my pleasure at seeing Abalone safely returned, I do not miss that they are more agitated than seems warranted.

"Say 'h.e.l.lo' quickly, Sarah," Betwixt urges, "and don't let her drop off yet. We've got to tell you something and I think she should hear it, too."

"Abalone!" I call, reaching out across the s.p.a.ce between our hammocks. I struggle, but I cannot find words for my irrational concern for her safety and my joy at her return and must settle for smiling.

"Hush, Sarah," she whispers. "You'll rouse all the Jungle. I didn't expect to see you here so early."

"Hide me from day's garish eye," I comment softly, hoping she will read my grimace into my words, "while the bee with the honied thigh..."

"Oh," Abalone chuckles. "b.u.mblebee came calling. She's been watching you, my friend. I'm surprised she waited this long."

She begins to snuggle into the down-filled sleeping bag that lines her hammock. Betwixt and Between hiss urgently at me.

"Tell her we heard Edelweiss saying that someone is looking for you. Someone from the Home from what she said. We heard her telling Tapestry while you were sleeping."

My mouth opens and shuts like a clam in an old cartoon. There are no words in my mind for this fragmented message. Still, I reach and shake Abalone.

She yawns at me. "Yeah?"

"I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls," I start.

"Sarah, I'm tired," Abalone sighs. "I know about the dragon."

"Charity begins at home!" I try again, my voice breaking above a whisper.

"Hus.h.!.+"

"'Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are from home," I mutter futilely to myself.