He ignored them. Voices didn't matter. Nothing mattered but to somehow get this thing off him.

He was still flailing around when his foot caught on something and he toppled over onto his side.

Or rather, he should have toppled over onto his side. But even as he tried to get his arm around to break his fall, the feeling on his skin shifted, and something somehow broke his fall, setting him more or less gently onto the broken control board he'd been tumbling toward.

But gentle landing or not, the sudden fall snapped him out of his mindless attack on himself. Gasping for breath, he half sat, half lay there, his shoulder throbbing with the multiple blows he'd just brilliantly hammered down on it. In his left ear, he could hear Uncle Virge's voice shouting from the comm clip on his shirt collar, demanding to know what was happening.

In his right ear, the snakelike voice he'd heard earlier was speaking again.

"Everyone... shut... up," he ordered between gasps. "You hear me? Everyone just shut up."

Both voices went obediently silent. Jack took a few more breaths, trying desperately to calm down. His efforts were only a limited success. "All right," he said at last. "You—Voice Number Two—the one who isn't Uncle Virge. Who are you?"

"My name is Draycos," the snake voice replied from somewhere behind him, the sound tingling strangely against his skin.

Jack twisted around to look, but there was nothing there. The dragon head had disappeared from his shoulder, but out of the corner of his eye he could just see the tip of the snout further around on his back. "I am a poet-warrior of the K'da. Who are you?"

"I'm Jack Morgan," Jack said, his voice starting to shake again. Now for the big question. "Where are you?"

"Tell me first how you came to be aboard my ship," Draycos said. "Are you an enemy of the K'da and Shontine?"

"I'm not an enemy of anyone," Jack protested, scrambling back to his feet. "I saw your ship go down, and I came to check it out. That's all."