Shield of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “Do you want me to take the oaths of the circle, too?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But only when you’re ready, and you are not ready—and only for the right reason, and this is not the right reason.”

  “Then how can I give you the assurances you want? How do I show you that I’m ready?”

  “Choose to leave your weapon behind when we land at Atzerri,” she said. “If you do that, you will have shown me something. That would be a beginning.”

  Resting his elbows on his knees, Luke pressed a fist into a cupped hand and stared down over it at the deck. “I’ll have to think about that, too,” he said finally, standing. “If I do it, I want it to be for the right reason—not just to pay a tutor for my next lesson.”

  She smiled warmly. “I knew I was right about you,” she said. “You will be welcomed by the circle, when the time comes.”

  He nodded, lips pressed together, as he edged between the couches and toward the bunk. But his face must have said something more to her, for she stood and called after him, “Are you having doubts about me, Luke?”

  Luke paused, one foot in the bunk’s step-up, and looked back. “There are things I don’t understand, and things I wonder about,” he said. “Is that the same as ‘having doubts’? I don’t know.”

  “It is,” she said. “Why don’t you ever ask me about these ‘things’? I’m not afraid of your questions. Are you afraid of my answers?”

  “Hardly that.”

  “Of giving offense with your curiosity, then.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I’m not easily offended. Ask me something now, and perhaps there’ll be one less mystery to trouble your sleep.”

  Luke turned toward her, bringing both feet back to the deck. “All right,” he said. “How is it you came to buy this ship? Why didn’t you go to Lucazec when you’d saved the price of passage? That had to be far less than the price you paid for this ship. It seems you could have gone there years ago. I don’t understand why you didn’t.”

  “I almost did, six years ago,” she said, with a wistful smile. “I had the price of passage, as you say. I could have gotten myself to Ialtra. The temptation was almost beyond resisting.”

  Luke gestured with one hand. “And?”

  “If I had gone, I would have been trapped there,” she said. “I would’ve been on Lucazec, yes, but I would’ve been poor again. On Carratos, at least, there were busy ports, and I knew how to earn enough to keep some. You saw Lucazec—there’s not enough wealth there to take by theft or marriage, much less by honest work.”

  “So you waited.”

  “There was really no choice,” Akanah said. “I realized I needed to buy myself more than passage off Carratos—I needed to buy myself freedom from ever living like that again. I have nothing but this ship, Luke, and a few credits—but I have this ship. Though with your perquisites as a hero, you may not understand how much that means to me.”

  “No,” Luke said. “I understand. I remember what it felt like to be trapped on Tatooine.”

  “Then have I answered your question? Do you understand now?”

  Luke nodded. “All except for this—when you finally got the ship, why did you come for me first? Why Coruscant and not Lucazec?”

  “Because when I dreamed of returning to Ialtra, you were always there,” Akanah said gently. “Which puzzled me, until I realized what it meant—that I was supposed to take you with me. That I was to bring you to the circle. That you belong there.”

  Almost to his surprise, though not to his displeasure, Luke found that he believed her answers. They had the simple directness of emotional truth.

  But for some reason, they did not make it any easier for him to sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  “Talos Spaceport, Atzerri.”

  Akanah glanced sideways at Luke. “May I?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Luke said with an offering gesture, settling back in the pilot’s couch.

  “Talos Spaceport, this is Mud Sloth,” Akanah said. “What’s your berth price for twenty meters and under?”

  “What currency will you be paying in?”

  “New Republic credits,” she said.

  “Nine hundred for the first two days, including landing fees and topping your consumables. One hundred a day beyond that. But if you’re staying longer than ten days, we can start you with long-term rates from the third day.”

  “Talos, you must have mistaken me for a rube,” said Akanah. “Because those can’t be anything but rube rates.”

  “Those are the published rates as of the first of the month,” the spaceport controller said. “Nine hundred to plop and fill, a hundred a day for the lockup. I don’t have any latitude on that.”

  “Talos, I said twenty meters, not two hundred,” said Akanah. “And I’m only renting the berth, not buying it. So why don’t you start again, and this time try not to be insulting.”

  “Nine hundred to plop, a hundred a day for the lockup,” the controller repeated. “Do you want it, or not? There aren’t that many spaces available.”

  “Really? I would have thought all your berths would be empty, seeing as Skreeka is landing the little stuff for six hundred, with five days’ lockup included.”

  “Skreeka is run by thieves,” the controller said. “Their lockups have the worst security on the continent.”

  “You’ll have to give us a better reason than that not to go there,” Akanah said. “After all, you’ve already tried to rob me.”

  “One moment, Mud Sloth.” A yellow light glowed on the comm display.

  “Watch,” Akanah said to Luke. “He’ll come back with a better offer and say his supervisor authorized it. But it’s all a matter of how much of his margin he’s willing to give up to keep us from going to Skreeka. Whatever he comes back with, you can be sure it’s above the port’s internal rates—he’ll make sure he gets something out of this.”

  “I didn’t think you were so well traveled.”

  She smiled. “I stayed close to the ports on Carratos, and I listened well.”

  “When did you get the quote from Skreeka?”

  “Oh, I made it up.”

  The yellow indicator winked out and was replaced by a green one. “Talos Spaceport. We see this is your first visit here. My supervisor doesn’t want to see you taken advantage of by those scoundrels at Skreeka. He’s authorized a one-time courtesy rate—five hundred to land and load up, seventy-five a day. That’s the very best I can do for you, and I’d take it, if I were you. Trust me when I tell you, we’re not making a credit at those prices. And I don’t care where you go, anyone who asks you for less is gonna find some way to get the difference back from you.”

  “Thank your supervisor for me,” Akanah said. “We accept.”

  “A good decision,” the controller said. “As soon as you transmit your authorization, we’ll put you on the beam.”

  The indicator turned red, then blacked out completely as Akanah turned her head toward Luke. “All yours, dear,” she said, smiling sweetly. “We have a reservation.”

  Docking Bay A13 reminded Luke of a smaller version of the Mos Eisley facility in which he first encountered the Millennium Falcon. The design was similar, and the amenities were as old-fashioned—hand umbilicals, a machine shop without a single tool-and-die droid, mechanical locks, and no storm cover.

  “I can’t believe I paid them five hundred for this,” Akanah said with disgust, raising her hands wide. “This berth must be a hundred years old. It’s been paid for twenty times over.”

  “Discount rates,” Luke said, securing the last of the umbilicals to the Adventurer’s three propulsion systems. “Can’t expect luxury accommodations.”

  “Or to be dealt with honestly. We overpaid by half, or more. I hope they enjoyed their little joke.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Luke said. “This will do. Shall we take a look in ship’s supplies and see if there’s a food pack old enough to fit Mud Sloth’s reprocessor?”
<
br />   “I’ll leave that to you,” Akanah said, shouldering her bag. “I have to go.”

  Luke emerged from under the repulsorlift “wing” of the skiff. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have to do this by myself,” said Akanah.

  “Why?”

  “If the Fallanassi are here, I must approach them alone,” she said. “If I take you with me, they won’t let themselves be found. They won’t see you as I see you. They’ll only see you as an outsider.”

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re off by yourself?”

  “You can stay here. I’ll come back for you if I find them—you know I will. And I’ll come back to you if I don’t.”

  “What if I don’t want to stay here?”

  “Then do your own exploring in the city. Go where you like. Do what pleases you. If you’re not here when I return, I’ll wait for you,” Akanah said. “All I ask is that you not follow me. You’d only hinder our purpose here.”

  “This doesn’t feel right to me,” Luke said. “Why can’t we go together, like we did on Lucazec, and Teyr?”

  “Because I knew that the circle had left Lucazec, and Norika had left Teyr,” she said. “But I do not know that they have left Atzerri.”

  “I didn’t realize you were embarrassed to be seen with me,” Luke said wryly.

  “Please understand—if you leave the docking bay, it will be as Li Stonn. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the others can pierce that illusion, just as I did,” Akanah said. “If we’re seen together, or you follow me, they’ll think you’re a deceiver, a threat. They’ll wait for a chance to approach me when I’m alone. But if you’re recognized, I don’t know what they will do. They might decide to stay hidden from me, fearing I’ve been turned. They might even decide to leave Atzerri. We can’t risk that. I have to go alone.”

  A deep frown creased Luke’s face. Everything she said was perfectly reasonable. But everything she said felt completely wrong. “I don’t like the idea of us being separated. Especially here.”

  “Do you still think I need your protection?” she asked. “I’ve been living around this kind of petty evil for most of my life. I know them—street bangers, body slavers, drug dealers, turf warriors, blackmailers, and the cold-eyes who just enjoy making someone scream. I got caught a few times and hurt a few times, but I learned. I got stronger, I got smarter, and I became my own protector. I’ll be fine, Luke.”

  “All right,” Luke said, reluctantly surrendering. “But I should at least know where you’re going—in case you don’t come back. In case you run into something you’re not expecting. Something not so ‘petty.’”

  “That’s fair,” she agreed. “But give me enough time to do what I need to. Promise that you won’t come looking for me until—let’s say until I’ve been gone three days with no word.”

  Luke shot her a disbelieving look. “Three days? That’s long enough for someone to grab you and be halfway to the Tion Hegemony.”

  She laughed. “The last man who tried to grab me only wanted to take me as far as the alley,” she said. “Three minutes later, he knew he’d made a mistake.”

  “All right,” Luke said. “But I still don’t understand why you need three days.”

  “I shouldn’t,” Akanah said. “That’s why you should come look for me then. I’m going to the Pemblehov District, north of the park.”

  “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  “That’s all I can tell you,” Akanah said. “Good-bye, Luke. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”

  After Akanah left, Luke first took some time to explore behind all the doors of the docking bay.

  The public showers and refresher were overdue for a cleaning, no doubt due to the fifty-credit cleaning fee. But the prospect of a real six-head unlimited-water spacer’s shower was too appealing to resist. Luke vouched for the additional charge and secured the door so that the automated scrubdown and sterilization could begin.

  Luke tried to get even on the day rummaging through the lockers of ship’s supplies. To his surprise, there were two K-18 food packs—both out of date, but not too badly so. He installed the older of the two in the skiff’s reprocessor and tested it, then found stowage for the other in the crowded belly bay. The portmaster would nick his account again for returning only one empty, but not enough to dissuade him.

  When scavenging paled, Luke turned to tinkering.

  The control systems terminal offered an extensive list of flight system upgrades, with a data card burner right beside it. Most of the skiff’s flight systems were out of date, but Luke located half a dozen aftermarket upgrades and coaxed Mud Sloth into taking them. All of them came up virus-free—something he hadn’t expected, considering the source. But the navigation upgrade spotted Luke’s handiwork on the FCZ interlock, forcing him to restore the original, blissfully unaware package.

  In time Luke had done all the tinkering he could without risking having something crucial arrayed in pieces on the bench or the bay floor at an awkward moment.

  He then took advantage of the open space inside the bay to work his first complete set of Jedi training drills since leaving Coruscant. Working both with and without his lightsaber, he patiently went through the complex exercises which brought him to a profound state of restful clarity.

  It was in this state that he felt most keenly the truth and the wisdom of the simple words: There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force. The peace, the knowledge, and the serenity were gifts that came with his surrender to the Force and with his connection through the Force to all that was.

  Sustaining that clarity was always the challenge. In the isolation of a Dagobah, the Jundland Wastes, or a hermitage on a frozen shore, an experienced Jedi could preserve that inner state indefinitely.

  But the chaos of the real world was another matter. When ego returned, so did will. The surrender became tainted, the connection flawed. The clarity gradually slipped away under the continuous assault of elementary drives and passions. Even the greatest of the masters needed to perform the practice regularly lest they lose the discipline that made them what they were.

  The drills were as much a test for the body as for the mind, and the docking bay’s newly sanitized shower brought a blissful peace to muscles that were telling Luke they had not been properly exercised in too long. He stood for a long time in the place where the six needle jets converged, letting the water flowing down his body become another meditation.

  When Luke finally emerged from the shower and once again donned his clothes, he allowed himself to check the skiff’s chronometer and see how long Akanah had been gone.

  Barely six hours had passed.

  Standing beside the skiff’s bow, Luke looked around the bay. Inexplicably, it seemed much smaller when viewed through the prospect of spending the next several days there.

  Donning his hooded cloak, Luke secured the skiff, locked the docking bay—bending a pin so that only he could unlock it again—and went out into the night.

  As he looked out across the spaceport and at the lights of Talos beyond, his hand—out of habit—went to the place at his hip where his lightsaber usually hung. His fingers found only air, which puzzled him for just an instant. Then he drew the face of Li Stonn down over his own and walked on.

  It was a much-remarked irony that very little was free on a Free Trader world. Walking and breathing were among the few activities without a price tag—though some said that was only because the Traders’ Coalition hadn’t figured out how to deny those amenities to those who wouldn’t pay.

  But there was a twenty-credit service fee to enter Talos, which crowded up against the spaceport boundary in classic Free Trader fashion. Virtually anything could be bought on Atzerri, and no small part of the catalog could be had within five hundred meters of Talos spaceport’s three entrances. Every major trader in the city
had at least one of the kiosk-size satellite storefronts that crowded along the broad boulevards leading to the cabs and hire shops along the flyway ramp.

  The narrow little stores were aggressively gaudy and loud. Multistory display panels above their doorways graphically hawked their wares while door barkers made promises and entreaties shoppers were well advised to ignore. Every shop along the boulevard was willing to refund service fees and provide express transport to the sponsor’s main location. Some sent small armies of droids out to stand outside competitors’ doorsteps with even sweeter offers.

  The entire purpose of Traders Plaza was to snap up as many newly arrived “greens” as possible. Once they were safely away from competitors, they could be worked at leisure or steered to other members of a trading alliance—a scratchback, in Atzerri argot. The scratchback networks were elaborate. There was nothing a Free Trader hated more than having a willing buyer and seeing a competitor get the sale.

  Luke surveyed the offerings in Traders Plaza with a mixture of wonder and horror. The last time he had been on a Free Trader world, it had been to try to buy weapons for the Rebellion, and there had been no time for browsing the commercial districts. Few of the offerings in the plaza had any appeal to him now, but his curiosity went beyond the personal.

  Information brokers offered religious, political, and technical secrets. The forbidden vices of ten thousand worlds were available openly and without shame. Traders who called themselves facilitators arranged personal experiences. Embargoed technologies were readily available alongside unlicensed copies of commercial products. Librarians sold entertainments in every known medium without respect to content or copyright.

  Though Luke had prepared himself to resist the blandishments of the sellers on Traders Plaza, his resistance was broken down by one unexpected offering on the display board of The Galactic Archives. He accepted a credit tab from the barker outside, then stepped into the tiny storefront.

  “Welcome! Welcome to The Galactic Archives, your one-stop source for everything that’s worth knowing,” said the hook, greeting him with a broad, oily smile. “Whatever you want, we have—or we’ll get it for you, free. What did you say your name was?”