by Джуд Уотсон
She did not look happy to see Obi-Wan. "More questions," she said.
"Where's your big friend?"
"I don't know," Obi-Wan said. "That's why I'm here."
She shrugged, then turned and walked into her quarters.
Obi-Wan and Astri followed. Boxes and bins were piled around them, some of them sealed, others half open. She was packing.
"You are leaving?"
"I am returning to Belasco. To do what, I don't know." She gave Obi- Wan a direct look. "Please ask what you came to ask. I am busy."
The Senator had always been direct. He would meet that directness with his own. "Why did you have Captain Yur T'aug drop the investigation into your son's murder?"
"What good would it have done to continue?" Uta S'orn said with a sigh. "He was killed by some lowlife, some criminal on Simpla-12. He associated with them, gambled with them, probably got into an argument. He led a life of squalor. Why investigate it, why drag every sordid detail into the sun? Who knows what Captain Yur T'aug could have found about Ren?"
Uta S'orn's expression was tight and strained. "I did not want to know.
Don't you understand? I want it all to go away, and you keep bringing it up again."
"But your son might have left a clue behind to help find his killer,"
Astri said. "He said he would leave a clue behind in case he was killed."
"Can't you understand that I don't care?" she said impatiently. She picked up a blanket and began to fold it.
"What if you knew his killer?" Obi-Wan asked. "Why would I know the dregs of Simpla-12?" she scoffed.
"We believe that Jenna Zan Arbor was involved in your son's death,"
Obi-Wan told her.
She whipped around to face him. "That is impossible."
"It is true," Obi-Wan said. "We know that Jenna Zan Arbor is conducting experiments on the Force. We know she contacted your son — "
Uta S'orn laughed in disbelief. "You are on the wrong track. Jenna is my friend. I have helped her with her funding, introduced legislation for her, gotten her onto committees, sometimes at personal risk to my career…
She would never hurt my son. She didn't even know him."
"Did she tell you that she contacted him on Simpla-12?"
Uta S'orn went pale. She knew the Jedi did not lie. "You know this is true?"
Obi-Wan nodded. "Tell me. She knew Ren was Force-sensitive, didn't she?"
"I told her in confidence…"
"This was at the beginning of her experiments," Obi-Wan said, thinking. "She probably couldn't get to any Jedi. She was looking for anyone who was Force-sensitive, most likely. Beings no one would miss — "
Obi-Wan saw pain constrict Uta S'orn's features. "I am sorry. I know you miss your son. Perhaps she thought you would not."
"I was not in touch with Ren at the time," Uta S'orn said reluctantly. "I told Jenna I had disowned him. I was trying to be strong."
"She offered him money if he would be a subject in an experiment,"
Obi-Wan said quietly. "He went. When he returned, his friends say he was changed. He was afraid."
Uta S'orn's legs seemed to collapse underneath her. She sat on a chair. Her hands went to her mouth. "Did she… hurt him?"
"We are not sure what happened," Obi-Wan said. "Or why he was killed.
Do you know where Jenna Zan Arbor's lab is? Not her official lab. But another lab, a secret lab."
Uta S'orn shook her head. "I didn't know she had one."
"We think Ren left a clue behind," Obi-Wan said. "Do you have anything of his?"
She stood and went to the pile of boxes in a corner. She withdrew a small durasteel bin. "This is all he owned. If there's a message here, I haven't found it." She handed it to Obi-Wan. "Take it. And if you find out your suspicions are true, find her."
"I will," Obi-Wan promised.
Quickly, he and Astri hurried outside. The walkways teemed with beings. The area surrounding the Senate was always crowded.
"We need to go through this bin, but we don't have time to get to the Temple," Obi-Wan said. "I don't want to do it in public. Ona Nobis could be anywhere."
"Didi's Cafc is close, and I still have the key," Astri said. "Follow me."
She led him down an alley and across the square. Now Obi-Wan recognized where he was. They would approach Didi's Cafc from the back.
Astri snaked through several alleys and they came to the back door.
"Good, the landlord hasn't rented it yet," she said, swiping her key card through the lock. The door hissed open.
There was no power to the building, so Astri opened a shutter a crack to let in enough light to see. They sat at the long kitchen table. Obi-Wan carefully removed the contents of Ren's bin and spread them out on the table.
A utility pouch with one protein food capsule and a small servodriver. A few credits. A vibroshiv. A few crystals. A deck of cards for sabacc. A tunic with empty pockets. A thermal cape, folded neatly.
They were all items carried by the kind of being who owned little and ranged throughout the galaxy. Nothing special. And if there was a message here, he couldn't read it either. Disappointment thudded through him.
Astri slumped in the chair. "It's a dead end."
Obi-Wan felt a presence nearby. Out of the corner of his eye a fleeting shadow flickered. There was someone hovering outside the half- shuttered window. He did not turn and look. Instead, he signaled to Astri with a glance that something was amiss.
"Maybe there is something hidden in the lining of the tunic," he said in a normal voice. "I'll fetch something to slice it open."
"Try the office," Astri said. Under the cover of the table, she withdrew her vibroblade from its holster.
Obi-Wan left the kitchen at a normal pace but raced up the stairs to the private quarters above. He slid open a shutter noiselessly and looked down at the alley. Someone in a long, dusty tunic was peering in the kitchen window. The hood to the tunic was raised. He could not identify the person as Ona Nobis, but he knew such a disguise would be easy for her.
He eased out onto the ledge and paused for a moment, gathering the Force. He would need help if he was to meet this opponent again. Drawing his lightsaber in one smooth movement, he leaped toward the intruder below.
Chapter 16
"N0000000000!" the intruder cried.
Still in midair, Obi-Wan looked down at the surprised face of Cholly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Weez and Tup spring back out of the way.
Obi-Wan twisted his body in midair to avoid landing on Cholly. But a panicked Cholly moved as well, and Obi-Wan half-landed on him. He cushioned the fall with his hands, feeling the shock of the impact up to his armpits.
"Oof! You're a big one," Cholly puffed.
Obi-Wan rolled off and sprang to his feet. He gazed at the three incredulously as Astri burst through the kitchen window, vibroblade in hand. She took in the situation with one swift glance.
"What's going on?" she demanded. "What are the three of you doing here?"
Tup looked at Weez. "Uh. Sightseeing?" Obi-Wan deactivated his lightsaber but kept it in his hand. "You are interfering with a Jedi mission," he said sternly. "There are lives at stake. So answer me, now!"
"Gibbertz and ham, everyone is so touchy today," Tup said. He blew out a breath. "Woosh."
"We have just as much right to be here as you do," Cholly said.
"It's a free planet," Weez added. He frowned. "Isn't it?"
Astri brandished her vibroblade menacingly. "It's a big planet. And there's no one around. Haven't you noticed that?"
Cholly scampered backward. "Whoa, whoa, strong lady, okay, okay. We were following you because of Ren's box."
"What about Ren's box?" Obi-Wan asked.
"His personal effects, yes?" Cholly asked. "We requested them from his mother after he… left us."
"We said, for sentimental reasons. We were his best friends," Tup added.
"She said no, why should she give wh
at's left of her son to his lowlife lizard friends?" Weez said. "Some people have no generosity."
"So true, wise friend," Cholly agreed sadly. "The universe is so often against us."
Astri rolled her eyes. "Cut the blather. Why do you really want the bin?"
Cholly, Weez, and Tup exchanged glances.
"Ah, if we tell you, you won't cut us out of the deal?" Cholly asked.
Obi-Wan and Astri exchanged a glance. Obi-Wan did not trust the three scoundrels, but they could give them a lead.
"We'll cut you in," Astri said.
Cholly, Weez, and Tup exchanged another glance. Then they all nodded simultaneously.
"The place where Ren was held," Cholly said. "He said the lab had stockpiled medicines. Vaccines, antitoxins, cures for many viruses."
Astri stiffened. "And?"
"Well. We thought, if such a place has such a stockpile, someone somewhere would want to buy it. And someone would have to sell it."
"So why shouldn't the someone be us?" Weez asked.
"But Ren said no," Tup volunteered.
"He, too, wanted to steal the medicines," Cholly said. "But he did not want to sell them. He wanted to turn them over to the Senate, or the Jedi. Some agency that would disperse them honestly. And get this scientist in trouble."
"We had a small disagreement about this," Weez said. "We would help him steal them, but only if we made a profit of some kind."
"So what happened?" Astri demanded. "Did he tell you where the lab was?"
"This disagreement was not resolved," Cholly said. "Instead, Ren was murdered. But he told us he had the location of the lab in a safe place. So if something happened to him, someone would know where to go."
"Then something happened to him," Tup added helpfully.
"And his mother would not release his belongings," Weez said.
"So we had nothing, just like before," Cholly added. "Until you came along. Then we thought, well, if you are on the trail of who killed Ren, perhaps we can find these medicines somehow."
"So we followed you," Weez said. "You see? No harm done. The end!"
"Unless, of course, you wish to steal the medicines as well," Cholly added. "There is great profit here for all."
Astri grabbed Obi-Wan's arm and pulled him away. "Now we know for sure that Zan Arbor didn't destroy the antitoxins she developed. She has them, Obi-Wan! We have to find that lab!"
"I know," Obi-Wan said. "But they don't know where the lab is."
"May I suggest something?" Cholly broke in. "Perhaps if we could look at Ren's effects, we would see something you did not. Because we knew him, you see. We would understand the message that you could not."
"Why would he leave you a message if he didn't want to steal the medicines?" Astri asked angrily.
"Because we are better than nothing," Tup said.
"At least he knew we would try to find the lab," Weez said.
"I hate to say it, but they make sense," Obi-Wan murmured to Astri.
"We might as well see," she agreed.
Beckoning to the trio, Obi-Wan and Astri led them inside the cafc.
Obi-Wan gestured at the items on the table.
"This is what was in the bin," he said.
Cholly picked up various items. "Not much here."
"No datapad?" Weez asked.
Obi-Wan shook his head.
"No big sign that says, LOOK HERE?" Tup asked hopefully.
Weez picked up the sabacc cards and rifled through them. "We played many a game with these."
"Until no one would play with us anymore," Cholly said.
Weez sighed. "They thought we cheated. The galaxy is so unfair to beings like us."
"Did you cheat?" Astri asked.
"Well, yes," Weez admitted. "We marked the cards. We had our coded system. But we didn't bet much. Se we didn't cheat them out of very much."
"We were fair cheaters," Tup said.
"We are so misunderstood," Cholly said sadly. "Wait a minute," Astri said. "You marked the cards?"
"It's an honest living!" Tup protested.
Astri took the cards from Tup's hands and spread them on the table.
"Look at them carefully. Is anything different?"
The three stared down at the cards for a long moment. Then, tentatively, Tup reached out one finger and moved a card away from the pack.
"Look," he said, pointing to the design on the back. "See the mark?"
"Of course," Cholly said. He squinted at the cards.
Cholly moved another card. Then Weez moved a third. One by one, they separated cards from the pack. Then Cholly arranged them in a row.
"These are marked," Cholly said.
"But the marks don't make sense for sabacc," Tup said.
"They correspond to numbers and letters," Weez said.
"I put them in order for you," Cholly added.
"But what does it say?" Astri asked urgently. "Do you have a durasheet?" Cholly asked. "I can write it out."
Astri scrambled in a drawer for a durasheet. She handed it to Cholly.
Consulting the cards, he wrote out: L 1 Q2 BU 3 SP 1 2 "What does it mean?" Astri asked, baffled. Cholly, Tup, and Weez exchanged glances. "We have no idea," Cholly said.
"It could be an address," Obi-Wan said. He stared at the sequence of numbers and letters. Different worlds were coded on astrogation maps with abbreviations to identify them. But there were thousands of such abbreviations. He would have to run the sequence through an astrogation computer. The possibilities were almost endless. It would take so much time..
Look for the obvious first. Use what you know. Then move on.
He heard Qui-Gon's words as clearly as if his Master had spoken in his ear. "It could be," he murmured.
Astri only half-heard him. "What did you say?" "S P 1 2," Obi-Wan said. "That's the astrogation abbreviation for Simpla-12."
"So it is," Cholly agreed.
"Could Ren have been held on Simpla-12?" Obi-Wan asked them.
"You could hide anything on Simpla-12," Weez said. "But when he left for the lab, Ren told us he was going off-planet."
"Did you actually see him leave?" Obi-Wan asked urgently.
"No," Tup said. "He said good-bye at a cafc."
"The rest could be an address," Obi-Wan said, staring down at the durasheet. "How is Sim First mapped?"
"By quads and blocks," Weez offered.
"Everything is on level one," Tup said. "There are plans for levels two and three, but no one on Simpla-12 can get organized enough to build."
Obi-Wan pointed to the sequence. "Level One, Quad Two, Block Unit 3,"
he said.
Astri stared at the letters and numbers. "Are you sure?" she asked doubtfully. "This could mean anything."
"I'm not sure of anything," Obi-Wan admitted. "But I say we return to Simpla-12."
Chapter 17
Obi-Wan hailed an air taxi to transport the group to the Temple. As they zoomed through the crowded air lanes, he turned to Cholly, Weez, and Tup.
"I need your help. But we're not going to steal the medicines in order to sell them," he told them. "It would be wrong."
Cholly, Weez, and Tup looked at one another as if this concept was new to them.
"But we helped you," Cholly pointed out, disappointed.
"Why should we keep helping you, if we don't get anything?" Weez asked plaintively.
"This scientist has a bounty hunter working for her named Ona Nobis,"
Obi-Wan said. "There's a reward for her capture."
"Hey, wait a second," Astri said. "That reward is mine!"
Obi-Wan shot her an impatient look. "You can share it. We need their help. And we need it now."
Astri's aggrieved look faded. "You're right."
Obi-Wan scrawled a few items on a durasheet and handed it to Cholly, Weez, and Tup. "Once we get to Simpla-12, we need you to find these items as quickly as you can. Then you'll meet us at the address."
Cholly looked at the list, puzzled. "Ob
viously, you are crazy, my friend." Then he grinned and tucked the durasheet into his tunic. "But perhaps you will make our fortune. So we're with you."