And for a moment the mental haze of his approaching death cleared, and a strange thought occurred to him.

Yes, he could attack this intruder as he'd planned. He could probably even kill the boy before he lost his hold on this universe and vanished into death and oblivion.

Or, instead, he could use that same last bit of strength to try to connect with him.

"Still not moving," the boy said. "I guess it's dead. Too bad—it's pretty neat looking. Huh—those gold scales have little bits of red on them, too, right at the edges. Cool."

It was a gamble, Draycos knew. A terrible, desperate gamble. Throughout their history, the K'da had met only two species who could act as hosts to them. There wasn't a chance in a hundred that these humans could do so.

And if the connection failed, there would be no attack. Draycos had strength enough for only a single action.

"Still not moving," the boy reported.

Draycos came to a decision. He was a K'da warrior, and he could not attack an untrained and unprepared opponent without clear cause. The boy stopped and leaned close....

Draycos leaped.

Chapter 4

It was about the last thing Jack would ever have expected: for one of the "dead" bodies aboard the wrecked ship to suddenly come alive and charge at him. With a startled gasp he jumped backwards, reflexively throwing up an arm in front of his eyes. There was a flash of gold right in his face—he blinked—

And then, without a sound, it was gone. He spun around, nearly losing his balance on the litter-strewn deck.

The dragon had vanished.

Only then did he remember the tangler belted at his waist. He yanked out the weapon and popped off the safety catch, breathing hard and trembling with reaction as he looked wildly around. The dragon was gone, all right.

Only one small problem: there wasn't any place it could have gone to. It couldn't possibly have made it across the room and out the doorway back there, not in the half second it had taken Jack to turn around. With most everything solid in the room lying in broken piles on the floor, there was no place in the room itself for it to hide.