She couldn't imagine him coming after this frail old man and harming him for once having been a Jedi. If Gotab had been here for sixty years, then he must have known that Mandalorians, however violent and uncompromising, tended not to blame folks for who their parents-or brothers-were. On Mandalore, you could erase your past.

"It's going to come as a shock to Fett, for a start, "said Venku.

"But maybe it's time, because even if anyone knew and wanted to exploit it, they'd have to take me first, and I don't come from a family of pushovers." "Look, just tell me."

Sixty years was a long time to sit on a secret that big. It grew to be a habit, and then it probably became unthink-able to imagine naming it. Jaina knew the size of the secrets in her own family, the ones about her grandfather. The longer she spent with Fett and the Mandalorians, the more she saw of how parallel their lives were in so many ways, and she wondered how much of that had fueled the ani-mosity.

"I was a Jedi general in the Clone Wars, "Gotab said at last. "I left the Order because I couldn't stomach how we talked about compa.s.sion and then turned a blind eye to using human clones for our slave army. The clones I served with were my brothers. I helped them escape, I healed them. I did whatever I could to atone for the wrong that Jedi did those men. And Venku-Kad'ika-his mother was a Jedi and his father was a clone soldier. We hid from the Empire for years because they could have bred a whole new clone army from him. We hid so well that not even Fett's fixer, that Beviin, knew who we were, or even what our true clan name was."

It didn't answer the question about Fett, but Jaina felt she'd pushed it as far as she could go. Living in fear and se-crecy bred a certain paranoia. "So would you do it for Sintas Vel?"

"Healing's hard work, "Venku said. "Look what it's done to him."

"Fett would pay, and if he wouldn't, I would." Gotab nodded as if she'd confirmed something. "Well, your brother killed her daughter. It's the least you can do." Was there anyone here who didn't know every sordid detail of her family's troubles? "But I don't want your credits or Fett's. I'll do it because I can. It's wrong to refuse just be-cause the poor woman used to be married to Fett." It was a breakthrough. "She's at Beviin's farm." "They're not going to think we're Kiffar anymore, are they?" said Gotab.

"No. But n.o.body's persecuting Jedi these days. It's not like the Purge."

Venku hadn't drunk much of his ale, and Gotab hadn't even touched his. Venku stood up, making it clear the meeting was over. "That would explain why the Jedi Coun-cil has fled from Coruscant, "he said. "Because it's totally okay to be a Jedi now."

They didn't miss much, even if they did live in the wilds-and wilds here must have been seriously isolated.

"You're not a Jedi, though, "Jaina said. "You were never trained."

"No, and I'm all for keeping Jedi away from government-and Sith, of course. But I'll still always be a Force-sensitive however hard I try not to be, and that won't always sit well with folks if they know about it.

They think you mess with their minds."

Jaina wanted to press a credit chip into Gotab's hand, because he needed to eat as much as anyone, but she didn't know how he'd react. She went back to the farm and spent the rest of the daylight hours overhauling Beviin's harvester droid and composing endless messages to Jag in her head, but when she got to the point of committing anything to the datapad, it all seemed like too much to tell him. In the end, she avoided comming him, or her parents, and just sent a message to all of them saying everything was fine, and that she'd be in touch soon, and that flying a Bes'ithik was a lot a fun. They'd all seen Jacen's confession. Fine and fun didn't come into it. She felt guilty for expressing such trivial sentiments. Sometimes, though, life needed the illu-sion that ordinary pleasures still existed and could be found again even after the depths of misery.

That evening, while she was eating dinner with Beviin's family and making Shalk and Briila giggle by moving their plates with a Force-push, she felt Gotab and Venku ap-proaching the farmhouse.

"Beviin, "she said, trying not to say it in front of the kids, "It's Gotab. He's the one who's going to be doing the healing. He's a Jedi. He used to be, anyway. Don't punish him, please. He's been one of you for nearly sixty years."

Beviin and Medrit looked at each other, and it was obvious that Fett's fixer, as Gotab called Beviin, was clearly rattled that a secret of that magnitude had eluded him. He chewed thoughtfully, gaze fixed on the pot of caf on the table.

"We won't even tell Fett it's him, if he's that scared, "he said at last. "Well, fancy that. A jetii throwing his lot in with us. Puts Venku in an interesting context, though."

Much as Jaina liked Beviin, she didn't think he needed to know that Venku was the son of a Jedi. If Venku wanted anyone to know.... he could tell them himself. She'd already gone far enough.

She smiled as best she could. "Gotab's a healer, remember. Maybe Venku owes him an old debt of honor."

It was probably true. It was true enough for her not to feel guilty about saying it. Beviin got up to let Gotab in, and Medrit gave Jaina a knowing look. Dinua and Jintar distracted the kids.

"We'd always heard rumors, "Medrit said. "Never thought it was Gotab, though."

Jaina wished she'd thought ahead a little more and moved Sintas to the Oyu'baat for the healing session. "I'm sure he's paid his debt to society..."

"He didn't have a choice to be a Jedi, did he?"

"No, but he chose to be one of you."

"Then the matter's closed, "Medrit said. Shalk stared at him in the way that only a voraciously curious child could when he thought the grown-ups were talking secrets. "And that makes Jaing Skirata one of his clan. Which is even more interesting."

Gotab edged into the room with Venku looming over him like a bodyguard, and the two children stared at him.

They didn't say a word. Gotab nodded politely and fol-lowed Jaina into Sintas's room.

"So, do you work miracles?" Sintas asked, turning her head towards him. "I could do with one."

"You can still say no, "Gotab said. "You know you have tragedy in your past."

Sintas, amnesiac or not, showed a streak of tough re-solve that must have stood her in good stead as a bounty hunter. "Then I'll face it, "she said. "Because it's part of who I am."

Jaina suddenly felt pity for the whole Fett clan, imagin-ing what it might be like to lose Jag and then find him again when she was too old and their bond was too damaged. Nothing could put Fett's family right: Mirta's children would be the first to grow up with a chance of ordinary happiness. It was a wake-up call for Jaina, too.

"Stay, "Gotab said to her. "Just in case we need a little extra Force help."

Force-healing was low-key and tedious for a spectator. Gotab sat on the edge of Sintas's bed and placed both hands gently on her head. Even for Jaina, used to medita-tion, two hours of sitting with relative strangers and saying nothing was a trial.

"Oh, "Sintas said at one point. "Oh, that's.... that's odd..."

Gotab smiled. It transformed him. "I've healed brain in-juries before, and my patients tell me they get disjointed flashbacks. Don't be afraid."

"It's not memories, "Sintas said. "I can see flashes of light."

Jaina felt genuine elation. It sounded as if the impulses to the optic nerve were getting through again. "How many sessions might this take?"

"I don't know, "Gotab said. He took one hand off Sintas's forehead and moved the lamp closer to her. "I've never healed a Kiffar before."

Sintas flinched. "I can see the contrast." She rubbed her eyes, straining, and turned to the lamp. "I can see light and dark..."

Jaina tempered her own excitement with the reminder that if Sintas's memory came back, it wouldn't be quite as welcome.

Gotab seemed to be flagging. Venku took the old man's elbow and steered his hand back to his side.

"Enough for tonight, Buir, "he said. Jaina knew he wasn't really Venku's father, but she wasn't sure if the term was simply respect or an indication of adoption. "Let's get some rest. We have a long way to go."

Medrit gave Venku a package as he left, a bundle of packets that looked like an a.s.sortment of meat and preserves. Mandalore was still a hungry place to live.

"I'm sure Fett will be grateful, "he said.

"No need." Gotab headed for the door, leaning on Venku's arm. "It's for Sintas Vel, not him. And don't feel so bad about never finding us when Fett sent you after the clone with gray gloves... Jaing is an expert at covering his tracks, the best there is, as are we."

Beviin listened to the speeder's drive fade into the night. "I think I scared them off, "he said. "I don't know if they'll come back."

Jaina lay awake that night, wondering what would happen when it got around-as things seemed to do here-about Gotab and Venku. Had either of them had kids? Were there Force-sensitive Mandalorians everywhere? It was all getting complicated, and making her mind race when she needed to sleep, and to concentrate on making the most of the training time she had with Fett.

Sound carried a long way in the quiet night, and she could hear some celebration still in progress at Level's farm a little way down the dirt road. Revelers were laughing raucously, and she was on the point of storming over there through the field and snarling at them to shut up so she could get some sleep, just like a Mando woman would. Then there was a sudden, complete silence before a lone male voice, a surprisingly sweet tenor, began singing a slow ballad with the kind of perfect top notes that caught her off guard, and made her throat ache and her eyes fill with tears tor no reason. One by one, other voices joined in until it was a choir.

Jaina couldn't understand a word of it, except for Mando'ade and Manda'yaim. It still transfixed her. She held her breath. The chorus repeated twice, and then the voices trailed off one by one to leave the solo tenor to fade into si-lence.

The song spoke to her of yearning for home, and loves left waiting for the warriors' return. She was having trouble fighting back incipient tears. She made her way down-stairs and found Beviin pottering around the kitchen doing ch.o.r.es in total silence.

"You're very stealthy, "she whispered. "I didn't know you were awake."

"Singing, "he said. "I'm not a heavy sleeper. It's my sus-picious nature."

"Yeah, I heard it, too. It was absolutely beautiful. Is it a love song? It sounds so lonely and longing."

Beviin stifled a laugh. "It roughly translates as, 'n.o.body likes us but we don't care, because we're Mandos, and we're the best.' Sorry to spoil the illusion. But we do have our mournful ballads." He c.o.c.ked an ear in the direction of Sintas's room. "I think she's having nightmares.

Whatever Gotab's done, the old neural pathways are connecting again..."

Sintas was definitely having nightmares; Jaina listened outside for a while and then went in to sit with her just in case she woke up screaming. She was thrashing around, muttering incoherently, and the only words Jaina could understand were "you could have told them..."

Jaina found herself unable to keep her eyes open, and dozed in the chair. She woke with a start; Sintas was sitting up, and it was starting to get light outside. "Stang, "Sintas said. "Daylight." "You can see?" "I can."

"That's excellent news." Jaina took her hand. "You were having a nightmare."

"I had a dream, but I don't think it was one. I remembered something. There was a bounty I was hunting, but I ended up being grabbed, and there was this barve saying I'd be worth something for ransom, and he shot me full of some sedative or other..."

"Someone who knew you were Fett's ex-wife?"

"Bo.... oh, stang, it's coming back... Bo never took kindly to anyone messing with me, even after we split up. Then there was.... oh, Ailyn, no..."

Jaina braced for some trauma to emerge. Just ending up in carbonite would have been enough, but she had all the bounty hunter baggage, plus Fett, and then a dead daughter. "Hey, take it easy."

"She was so excited. I said I'd be back from the job in time to take her to Coruscant, see the big city, buy her some nice things."

Ailyn had been about sixteen. Carbonite and fate had wiped out the best part of forty years and a family lifetime that could have been.

Sintas seemed as tough as old boots, but tears were now streaming down her face.

"Bo, "she said. "He shot someone."

That didn't narrow it down much. Jaina handed her a cloth to wipe her face. "Maybe you need some meds to slow all this down a little..."

"No, no, I need to remember this, I need to." Sintas put her hand to her mouth. "Ailyn, and then Mirta-whatever did I say that made her go and do all that? I never told her about it. We never talked. I never told her why Bo and I divorced."

"Mirta thought he abandoned you." It was definitely none of Jaina's business, and she shouldn't have said it. Too late now. "Ailyn blamed his not being around for your.... well, death."

"I know, but.... look, Bo was exiled for murder. It wasn't like that. It was much more complicated."

Jaina preferred Fett's more succinct a.n.a.lyses: he'd left her and he obviously felt bad about the effect it had on her. It sounded pitifully small and domestic, the kind of stuff the divorce lawyers thrived on, not the catalyst for a vendetta on Ailyn's scale that ended up with Jacen killing her. But Sintas was getting increasingly distraught as memories were starting to connect. She seemed to have a much more complicated recollection of the breakdown of their marriage. So the law had caught up with Fett at least once in his life. All that surprised Jaina was that he'd been caught at all.

But he'd always have his reasons, she knew that by now. "I think I'd better go and get Mirta, "Jaina said. "No, please, not yet. You look like a sympathetic person who understands how families can tear themselves apart." They said Kiffar people were psychic. They weren't wrong there. Sintas had the Solos and Skywalkers down pat.

"Okay, "said Jaina. "But I still think I should go get your granddaughter."

"Not yet, "Sintas said. "I need to work out how I'm going to explain this to her-that her grandfather was ex-iled for killing the man who raped me... his superior officer.

Chapter 20.

My lord Caedus, I disobeyed your instructions about where to search for the Jedi Council, and went back to the locations where Luke Skywalker had hideouts in his Rebel days. I'm now on Endor. There's an old Imperial base here, just full of force energy, even though the camp's been abandoned. The Jedi have been here very recently, but I don't know where they've gone-yet.

-Comm message from Tahiri Veila, Sith apprentice, to Darth Caedus, Dark Lord of the Sith and Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance KELDABE, MANDALORE: A WEEK LATER Mirta and Grade had exchanged marriage vows that morning, Vevut said, and so it was high time to have few drinks and celebrate.

Fett heard about it from Beviin. If he allowed himself to think about it too much, it would eat at him. He sat in Slave I's c.o.c.kpit half listening to the HNE financial news while he did the maintenance on his HUD. Mandalore, self-sufficient and well able to pull itself up by its boot-straps minus Fett, went on thriving all around him.

You have to give her the stone. It won't change a thing, but at least she can sell it, and she might even listen to what it's got to say.

He fished in his belt pouch and held the oval stone up to the light from the viewscreen; a royal blue heart-of-fire as rare as they came, five centimeters long and superbly cut. His broker had done pretty well to find it. If he held it just 50, the rainbow of colors was complete. He peered into its heart with a magnifier from his HUD tool kit and admired the play of internal fire that created the iridescence. Geolo-gists said it was due to microscopic bubbles of pinac.l.i.te trapped when the crystal was first formed, and also that the substance might have explained the stone's ability to store data from people who'd owned it.

Kiffar preferred the more mystic explanation, that it trapped a little bit of the soul of both giver and receiver. It definitely did record something. Gotab-the barve was a Jedi, and Fett had worked that out even if Beviin didn't want to discuss it-could certainly skim Fett's unhappy marital history from it in painful detail. He wondered how much he'd burden Sintas if some of his soul got trapped in the magnificent blue stone.

You know the thing actually does it. You had proof. Loud hammering on the side viewscreen made him look up. Beviin was standing on the hull, making impatient gestures.

"S'open, "Fett said.

"Get your shebs to your granddaughter's wedding feast, Bob'ika."

Beviin stood in the hatchway in his cobalt-blue armor, with a dark navy leather kama, the traditional Mandalorian half kilt. He didn't normally wear that. It was his holiday best for a special day. "It's a disgrace if you don't."

Fett held up the gem between thumb and forefinger. "Matches your beskar'gam." "For Mirta?" "Sin."

"Is that a good idea?" "It's a good-bye. I'm not delusional."

Beviin just shook his head. "She'd probably prefer one of your properties."

"I'm way ahead." Fett reached inside his dump pouch and slid out a flimsi envelope, the kind old-fashioned lawyers used. "Portfolio here of shares and property. She'll never have to worry about bounty hunting again. When you give it to her, say that..."

"Shab, Bob'ika, "Beviin said. "Tell her yourself. It's one errand I'm not running for you. But when you want to tell me what happened-I mean what really happened-then you know where I am."

Beviin jumped down off the airframe, kama slapping against his plates, and stalked off. How did he think Fett could show up to celebrate her marriage, with what Sintas had told her? It was better that the girl had a fresh start and got swept up in a clan that didn't have a reputation like the Fett one, or its remarkable bad luck.

Sintas won't want for anything. Nor Mirta. It's the least I can do.

Fett went on tinkering with his helmet and wondering if Jaina Solo had what it took to deal with her brother.

"What's the matter, Bo?" said a voice behind him. "Don't you worry about security anymore?"

He stopped. Sintas was right behind him. She wasn't going to leave his life in a tidy, anesthetized way. He'd been naive to think he could avoid the pain.