Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

There was a short, half-heard conversation, followed by a quiet
order to the guard's companion.
    Followed by the sound of two sets of footsteps moving away down
the corridor.
    "Is that it?" Taneem murmured from Alison's shoulder when the
footsteps had faded into silence.
    "That's it," Alison said. Steeling herself, she opened the door.
    She'd half-expected to discover that the trick had failed, that
she would find herself facing men and Brummgas with drawn weapons and
evil grins. But the corridor was deserted. Getting her bearings, she
headed forward. "Where are we going?" Taneem whispered.
    "You'll see," Alison whispered back. Another corridor cut across
theirs directly ahead. She paused to check around the corner, then
turned into the cross-corridor and headed outward toward the ship's
hull.
    A minute later, they had reached their destination.
    "What is this?" Taneem asked, lifting her head from Alison's
shoulder to study the red-rimmed door in front of them.
    "One of the ship's lifepods," Alison said, running a finger across
the thin, multicolored seal pasted across the edge of the door. "Two
weeks' worth of food and water and air for four people. Perfect place
to hide until we reach the rendezvous."
    Taneem seemed to digest that. "And the catch?"
    Alison lifted her eyebrows at her symbiont as she pulled a small
coil of nearly invisible but incredibly strong monofilament thread from
her shirt cuff. "The catch ?"
    Taneem shrugged, a sideways flip of her crest. "Jack says that
when something looks too good or too easy there's always a catch."
    "Talk about cynical ," Alison commented, taking the cap off
her pen and carefully setting the loops at the ends of the monofilament
into small grooves in both cap and pen.
    "Is he wrong?"
    "In this case, no," Alison said. Setting the pen and cap on the
deck, she pulled out a pair of thumb caps and worked them onto the tips
of her thumbs. "See this seal? It's designed to break easily so that
people can get into the lifepod in an emergency. But once it's broken,
it's broken."
    "Showing that someone has been inside?"
    "Exactly," Alison said. "It's supposed to discourage people from
sneaking inside and pilfering any of the goodies."
    "But you have a way to repair it?"
    "Not exactly." Picking up the monofilament again, Alison gripped
the pen and cap in opposite hands and set the thread against the door
by the end of the seal. Pressing the thread firmly against the metal
with her protected thumbs, she eased the thread beneath the seal. "The
plan is to get the seal off but keep it intact."
    It was a technique she'd practiced many times under her father's
watchful eye. But she'd never had to do it in the field, and rather to
her surprise she discovered it actually worked. The monofilament slid
smoothly beneath the seal, cutting through its adhesive and releasing
it from the metal.
    Her biggest fear was that the seal would simply fold itself back
onto the door as the thread passed beneath it. Fortunately, that didn't
happen. Instead, the seal curled slightly away from the metal as she
worked, eliminating that danger.
    A minute later, she was finished. Praying that Neverlin hadn't
added any entry alarms, she touched the release.
    He hadn't. The door slid open, the pod's lights came on, and she
slipped inside.
    "Are we going to close the door?" Taneem prompted, peering out
Alison's shirt back into the ship.
    "Patience," Alison said, pulling out her multitool and getting to
work on the control panel plate beside the door. "Closing the door
normally starts a ten-second eject countdown."
    "Oh."
    "Oh, indeed," Alison said. "We'd really like to keep that from
happening. Especially since I'm not sure what happens to a lifepod
ejected while the ship's still running on the ECHO stardrive."
    "But you can keep that from happening?"
    Alison grimaced. "We'll find out in a minute."
    The plate came off. Nudging the bundle of wires out of the way
with her screwdriver, she located the right one and popped the end