Star Wars - Black Fleet Crisis - Shield Of Lies
Page 18
You've tramped around, Luke mused as he skimmed the list. I haven't
even heard of most of these places.
The list was spotty, obviously incomplete. There were many stretches
of a month or longer--well more than the ship's rated stand-alone
endurance--with no port calls listed. But a footnote explained that
early records from some Alliance worlds were unavailable, records from
worlds heavily involved in the war were incomplete or had been
destroyed, and some recently acquired records hadn't yet been
processed.
"THE ABSENCE OF DATA SHOULD NOT IN AND OF ITSELF BE CONSIDERED
INDICATIVE OF PROSCRIBED TRAVEL OR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES," read the
disclaimer at the top of the port call list.
That didn't stop Luke from wondering and speculating.
The longest gap, a few days short of a year, started just three months
after the name Mandarin had been burned off the hull. The gap began
weeks before the Battle of Endor and continued through the worst of the
fighting of the last year of the war against the Empire.
According to the record in front of Luke, Star Morning had left Motexx
fully loaded, heading for Gowdawl under a charter license. The liner
wasn't seen again until she turned up, cabin and cargo holds empty, at
Arat Fraca some three hundred days later.
All things considered, that was a good time for an unarmed liner to lie
up in port or another safe haven. But where had she gone? Motexx and
Arat Fraca lay nearly two sectors apart, separated not only by
thousands of light-years, but also by the unnavigable Black Nebula in
Parfadi, with its twin supermassive neutron stars. And what had
happened to the passengers from Motexx?
There was no record that Star Morning had ever berthed at Gowdawl.
Another port conspicuous by its absence was Atzerri. Star Morning's
first destination after Teyr had been Darepp. In the weeks that
followed, it wandered erratically toward the Rim, stopping at colony
worlds named 23 Mere, Yisgga, New Polokia, Fwiis, and Bab-badod before
turning back toward the heart of the galaxy and, in time, its
appointment at Motexx. As best Luke could determine with the
Adventurer's navicom, the closest Star Morning had come to Atzerri was
en route to Fwiismbut without enough unaccounted time for it to have
made a 150-light-year side trip.
Luke felt himself girding for an argument with Akanah. The Fallanassi
didn't go straight to Atzerri from Teyr--so why is it so important that
we do? Did they know when they left that they would end up there? Why
didn't the pointer point to Darepp? I wish I knew exactly what the
message at the commonal said.
But it was the third discovery Luke sifted from the report that seemed
the most urgent. That was the one that prompted him to leave his couch
and go back to the service access compartment, where Akanah was putting
on a good show of being otherwise occupied.
Akanah's vehicle for that was what Luke thought of as her stretching
exercises and what she called active meditation. At that particular
moment she was sitting with eyes closed and, without evident stress,
with her ankles crossed behind her neck. A light touch of the tips of
her forefingers on the deck pad maintained her upright balance.
"Found something," he said quietly, and waited for her to acknowledge
him. When that acknowledgment was slow in coming, he added,
"Akanah?"
Drawing a deep breath, she let her body roll forward and unfold, then
sat back up in a more conventional position. Her eyes opened slowly,
and her gaze was steady. "What did you find?"
"Star Morning," Luke said. "For most of the last few months, she's
been way over in Farana, on the far side of the Corporate Sector. But
she put in at Vulvarch not twelve hours ago."
"Why do you think that that's important?"
"Vulvarch is just thirty-four light-years away," Luke said. "We could
be there in half the time it would take us to get to Atzerri. Less
than half."
"The ship is not important," Akanah said. "Our path leads to
Atzerri."
"That path's overgrown with fifteen years of bramble," Luke said.
"Look at what's happened so far--the chances are that all we'll find on
Atzerri is another message telling us to go somewhere else, to Darepp,
or Bab-badod, or Arat Fraca. Star Morning's been all over the galactic
map."
"The ship is not important," Akanah repeated. "It's a
tool--property.
We were told to go to Atzerri."
"Anything or anyone waiting for us on Atzerri has been waiting fifteen
years and can wait a few more days," Luke said, growing frustrated with
her stubbornness.
"But this lead is only twelve hours old. If we jump right now, we
should be able to reach Vulvarch before Star Morning lifts again."
She shook her head. "We won't find the circle there."
Luke's tone betrayed his impatience. "The same pilot's been listed for
the ship since Kell Plath took it over.
She has to be one of you, or at least in the know.
Akanah, we could spend months following the circle's movements over
fifteen years. But Star Morning could send us--maybe even take
us--right to where the Fallanassi are today. I thought that was what
you wanted."
"I'll follow the way left for me," Akanah said. "It's what I know.
It's what I was promised--the way home will be marked."
Luke turned his face away, one hand clenched in a fist at his side,
then retreated to the forward compartment.
When he had shed the anger, he returned. She had already resumed her
meditation.
"Will you at least talk to them before we jump out of here?" Luke
asked. "I have Star Morning's hypercomm receiver address--I can set up
a secure link for you. You can have all the privacy you want to
exchange whatever recognition signs you need to with the crew. Maybe
they can save us at least one wasted trip."
"No," Akanah said without looking up. "They can't."
"Why not?"
She paused and turned her face to him. "Even if the crew of the ship
is of the circle, they will never reveal themselves to a stranger such
a distance away. As I will not reveal myself to anyone I cannot feel
in the Current.
The outward signs and spoken words are only ritual--the recognition
lies in sensing another adept beside you.
I'm sorry."
Her refusal left Luke wordless with frustration, and she saw it in his
eyes.
You should understand," she said. "It's the same with you and those
like you. The only recognition that matters is what you feel here."
She tapped between her breasts with three fingers of her left hand.
"That is the truth that can never deceive."
The dispute hung in the air between them as unspoken suspicion and
resentment.
A kanah did not try to forbid Luke to contact Star Morning on his own.
But she hovered close enough to the flight stations to make it
impossible for Luke to do so without her knowledge. It was absolutely
clear that she meant to prevent any more surpris
es like the one that
had greeted her after her nap.
For his part, though he had said nothing of it, Luke had already
concluded that hailing the other ship without Akanah's cooperation
could only be counterproductive.
And since he had reluctantly accepted her decision and resigned himself
to taking Mud Sloth to Atzerri, he resented her vigilant scrutiny.
Her scrutiny also prevented Luke from collecting the report on the Mud
Slotb's history, which was surely ready for him in Ship Registry's
Pending queue. His discoveries in the Star Morning report and Akanah's
stubbornness over Atzerri made him more curious than ever to see it.
But that curiosity was being thwarted, leaving him doubly resentful and
harboring some suspicions of his own.
When the time came to jump out from Teyr, Luke handled the details
without announcing them to Akanah, then climbed into the bunk to sleep
through the short hop he had programmed. When he did, he purposefully
left the Star Morning report open on the flight station's secondary
display. Whether Akanah was tempted by that invitation, he did not
know. Opening wide his connection to the Force, Luke allowed the
discordant emotions to bleed away, and he was asleep within minutes.
Three hours out from Teyr, the Verpine Adventurer dropped out of
hyperspace as programmed. Climbing out of the bunk, Luke found a
friendly smile for Akanah, who managed a quick, somewhat tired smile in
return.
less you know some reason not to," Luke said, sliding into the pilot's
seat.
"No," she said. "Do you need privacy?"
Luke shook his head and keyed the hypercomm.
"Nothing secret here--just limited access." He tried another smile and
found it still felt sincere. "There's a shortage of privacy here,
anyway."
It took only a few minutes to put in his requests, and the responses
started coming back immediately.
Luke chose not to mention that all seven additional worlds for which he
requested backgrounders were onetime ports of call for Star Morning.
If she recognized the names from reading the report, she would know his
reason.
If not, it would never be an issue.
"I'm going to start my inspection," Luke said, standing.
"May I look at these files?"
"Of course," Luke said. "It's better if you do, in fact. As I said,
no secrets. I'll be in earshot--feel free to talk to me if you find
something you think I should know."
The interior inspection took nearly an hour. Beginning at the rear of
the skiff's small service compartment, Luke systematically opened every
removable panel and access door inside the ship, searching for anything
that looked as if it might not belong. His examination turned up a
clumsy retrofit to the water recycler that accounted for one of the
Adventurer's eccentricities, and half a dozen lost objects of the
slipped-through-the-cracks variety, but nothing more.
"I don't understand why the spaceport wouldn't allow service work in
the parking area," Akanah said when he rejoined her.
"Probably protecting the interests of the ship services licensee. Have
to keep those maintenance bays full, you know." Luke gestured toward
the displays. "Interesting reading?"
"There's no Flight Control Zone at Atzerri," she said. "We can jump
right into orbit if we like and pick our own landing site--all the
spaceports are indepen dent. There's not much government of any kind
there, it seems."
"I've been on Free Trader worlds before," Luke said. "Free Traders are
the closet anarchists of the galaxy.
If they could figure out how to do without any government at all and
not risk losing their finer things to bandits, they wouldn't
hesitate.
Even as it is, they tend to tolerate a lot of fighting over the
scraps.
You don't want to be poor or slow on a Free Trader world."
Luke missed the look that crossed her face, but he felt the shiver of
revulsion. "Carratos was a lot like that, after the Imperial garrison
left," she said. "I should feel right at home."
"But would the Fallanassi?"
"What do you mean?"
"It just doesn't strike me as any more your people's sort of place than
Teyr was," said Luke. "Did you find anything in the background to
suggest why they would go there--much less stay there?"
"They're your people, too," she said with a sad little smile. "I don't
have an answer to your question. Perhaps being what it is made it a
better place to disappear."
"I suppose that could be an answer."
"Let's not guess," she said. "Is the ship clean?"
"I couldn't find anything."
"Then let's go. Let's go directly to Atzerri."
"I'm not saying there aren't people who could hide things I couldn't
find," Luke warned.
"I know that."
"Well--let's see if a direct route is available from here," Luke said,
turning to the astrogator. "I'd been planning to line it up with the
next one."
They jumped out twenty minutes later, with the report on the Mud Sloth
still waiting for him on Corus-cant.
The skiff had a way of getting smaller the longer they were in it, and
the recent tensions had accelerated the process. As soon as they were
on their way to Atzerri, Akanah and Luke resumed sleeping in shifts.
It worked largely because the active noise-canceling system in the bunk
was effective enough that the curtain divided the ship into two worlds,
dark and light, awake and asleep. For most of a day's cycle, no matter
which side of the curtain they were on, both Luke and Akanah could
enjoy the illusion of being alone on the ship. They allowed just
enough time between shifts with both awake to avoid military-style
hot-bunking--though Luke could usually catch Akanah's gentle scent on
the pillow even after he turned it.
The jump to Atzerri was a long one. The travelers did not have much to
say to each other at the first turn--she was impatient for bed and he
to read the diplomatic files. It was little different at the second
turn, when the conversation was polite and perfunctory.
By the third, they were both just lonely enough again to welcome some
company and to linger together in idle talk. And by the fourth, Luke
ventured to broach a subject that had kept touching his thoughts in the
time he spent alone.
"Akanah--if telling me what the scribing says violates your oath, why
do you do it?"
"Because I consider you one of us," she said, her expression carrying a
hint of surprise. "You are un-trained-you are not an adept--but you
are Fallanassi."
"Why? Because my mother was--is?"
"That, and because of the potential within you, given proof by your
skill with the Force."
Luke returned to the pilot's couch and curled up sideways in it. "How
do people become part of the circle?"
"Curiosity is not sufficient--which I hazard you know. Some are born
to it. Some come to it. Is it any different in your discipline?"
"Born with the gift
, do you mean, or born to someone who already
belongs, to a trained adept?"
"Is the gift not in the blood?"
"Sometimes it seems that way. Sometimes it seems as if the talent goes
wild, almost as if the Force chooses its own," Luke said, turning on
his back and propping one foot on the control panel.
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Look at the way the Jedi are coming back," said Luke. "The Empire
hunted us so relentlessly that most everyone who escaped thought they
were the only Jedi left. But it isn't just that a few solitaries who
were hiding have resurfaced. I've found students with no family
history whatsoever, in species that were never represented before in
the Order."
"Some of your number may have been adventurous travelers," said
Akanah.
"On Carratos, I heard many jokes about how the Emperor spent his
evenings. If a Jedi sleeps alone, surely it must be by choice, as it
is with you."
"Are you saying that you expected me to warm a bed with you?" Luke
said. "I didn't think that was our bargain."
"No," she said. "I never expected that."