She was, of course, in most of the holovid recordings.

Ben had watched those over and over until he could look past his mother's body and the pain of reliving the discov-ery. He saw instead the position of the body, the surround-ing area, what material was dislodged or broken, the unoxidized bright color of the smashed bricks that told him the damage was new; he reconstructed a savage fight, so much destruction of the tunnel complex on that aban-doned world that Force-use was obvious. There were no traces of detonite, the only other explanation for that much damage, and Mara Skywalker would never have had to use that much effort against a run-of-the-mill attacker. She'd fought someone at least as powerful as herself.

Ben checked the profiles of the air samples he'd taken. There was the trace of high-energy vaporization from lightsabers and a lot of trace elements released by smashed brick, wood, and stone. He'd almost hoped for a whisper of the air from Jacen's lungs, but the datapad-sized device couldn't do magic.

What could he have missed? His mother's body had been examined thoroughly by Cilghal. Other Jedi had combed the tunnels for evidence, picking up on all the possible clues that ordinary technology might have missed, but there was nothing discarded except the sterile-pack of poison darts that were so like Alema's weapons of choice, and the echoes of dark energy, which were equally likely to have come from Alema.

But they hadn't picked up echoes of Alema herself. Was she adept enough to disguise her pa.s.sage through Kavan? Jacen certainly was. He could hide in the Force, and even cloak Lumiya's presence right under the Jedi Council's nose.

But it was still all what wasn't there at the scene, not what was.

The Hapan deep-s.p.a.ce security sensors picked up the university transport as soon as it came within range, and the only thing that seemed to concern the control center was whether the survey was looking for gemstones. They seemed touchy about that. Shevu put on a very convincing droning voice, explaining that gemstones weren't anywhere near as interesting as the Carlanian volcanic pipes and surrounding igneous rocks that would shed more light on the latest theory about the origins and formation of the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter. He was reading off a datapad. It did the trick. The control center stopped him midway through a riveting explanation of the outcropping of cylindrical dia-tremes, and gave them clearance to land on Kavan.

I can do this. Ben concentrated on detached calm as the windswept surface of Kavan expanded rapidly beneath the vessel. I can face this.

"You okay, Ben?"

"I'm fine."

"Think cop. Just keep thinking cop."

It was a lot less desolate than Ben recalled. The season had moved on, and the ground was covered in different plants, tussocks of tiny star-shaped red flowers with amber spikes for leaves. Shevu set the geo-survey droid to explore and drill some convincing core samples, just in case, and they walked the course-the CSF's slang for revisiting a crime scene and pacing out distances and angles in the hope of getting fresh insight. They stood at the location where Mara's StealthX had been found, looking for inspiration.

"Jacen must have landed here in his StealthX, "said Shevu. "His was signed out from the GAG hangar during the relevant time frame, and we know your mother called Hapan ATC to say she knew he was in the area. So unless he switched vessels, we're looking for traces of that special Tibanna isotope."

"Cilghal's team did the sweep." Ben had covered every angle. He was sure of that, but he wanted to be wrong and for an unforeseen forensic revelation to emerge. "StealthXs kick so much of it around on takeoff that traces were spread over five hundred meters. If Mom landed hers anywhere near Jacen's, which is likely if she was going after him, then she wiped out his isotope footprint."

"Just checking."

"Let's do the tunnels."

It was the hardest thing of all, but Ben thought cop as Shevu advised, and saw only what was in front of him, not what might have taken place there. Cilghal had found traces of blood on rubble that had fallen from a collapsed ceiling, as if it had hit someone below, but it had been too degraded by the energy of blasterfire to identify its source. It might even have been his mother's.

The sequence of events seemed clear, though. Someone-at least two people-had fought their way through the tunnels, causing huge damage.

Some was blasterfire, and some showed no signs of its cause, which Ben guessed might have been ma.s.sive Force pushes. It's you, Jacen, I know it, we all know it, but I have to have hard evidence. Shevu looked more and more exasperated as he rescanned walls and floors, shaking his head as he looked at the readouts. The crime scene was months old.

"I think that's all we're going to get, "said Ben. "Let's go."

"No, I'm not done, "said Shevu.

"I'll try another route. You don't have to..."

"If I just wanted him for murder, I've already got a case with real live witnesses-Lieutenant Tebut. I'm doing this for you, Ben. YOM need to know for sure."

Did Mara Skywalker's death matter more than Patra Tebut's? It did to Ben, and he felt a little guilty about having so many resources to throw at his search for justice. He knew nothing about Tebut-whether she had a family and what they might be going through now, or even what story her next of kin had been told to explain her death. He rea-soned that he was doing it for her, too, and all the beings who'd died because of Jacen, even Boba Fett's daughter, criminal or not.

I should have known what he was then. I should have known when I sat outside that interrogation room and heard Jacen kill her.

"You're right, "said Ben. "We keep going."

They were back outside now. The sky was filling with clouds, threatening to spit light rain. Shevu went off to pace the distance from the StealthX's last known location-seeing the terrain through Jacen's eyes, he said-and Ben concentrated on his datapad again.

It was hard to ignore the image of Mom. He thought of all the things he'd never had the chance to say to her, and magnified the picture so that the screen showed a close-up of her face. The injuries were fresh; if only she'd gouged a chunk out of Jacen with her nails, then there'd have been tissue to match with his, but Cilghal had said her wounds were peppered with dust as if bricks had hit her in the face.

As Ben gazed at her image, he could have sworn it shifted slightly, as if something was wrong with the datapad's dis-play.

The screen reflected a short-lived shaft of sunlight. Ben angled it slightly to see better. And then his mother's face on the screen really did move, reflected from behind him, and he gulped in a silent gasp of air as he spun around and she was there, right there, looking straight into his eyes. She was a touch away from him. She looked just as she had in life, but bathed in a haze of faint blue-white light like a faulty hologram. She smiled, a little sad frown of a smile but a smile nonetheless, and buried the fingers of her right hand in her thick red hair to yank at it. Still smiling, she held out torn strands as if to drop them into his hands. Ben couldn't make a sound: he cupped his palm to catch the hairs but nothing fell, and suddenly she was walking slowly away from him. He tried so hard to yell at her to stop, to wait, to talk to him, to come back, that he loved her so much, but she kept on walking, and all he could say was, "Love you..."

Then she turned, tugged at a lock of her hair, and he read her lips: Love you too, Ben.

And she was gone.

Ben could hear only his hammering pulse now. His scalp felt stretched tight across his skull, and he couldn't move. "Ben?" Shevu called. "Ben, are you okay?"

Get a grip. "Did you see anything?"

"You don't look so good."

"Did you see anything?"

"No, there's nothing here that I can see that was missed the first time, and if there was.... it's weeks ago, and it's gone." He caught Ben's shoulders with both hands. "You look terrible. Come on, let's sit you down in the transport. Get your bearings again."

Ben knew that Shevu thought he was overcome by his memories. Shevu hadn't seen Mom, and Ben had no idea how to tell him that he had.

Bereaved people saw their loved ones everywhere they looked when the loss was fresh, and that was probably the explanation, except she'd looked at him, and her gestures had been so clear; and she'd spoken, even though he couldn't hear the sound. He didn't know much about Force ghosts-n.o.body did-but that weird bluish haze... if his brain had been playing tricks on him, he'd have seen her as he remembered her, not with stuff he didn't understand added to it all.

She came back. She came back to tell me.

"I'm.... fine, "he said.

He thought desperately. He had to grab this while it was still vivid and every detail was fresh. The hair. Why had she torn out hairs from her head? Why had she appeared to him here? Why here? Why not back on Endor, or at home? If she could contact him like that, why didn't she just tell him Jacen killed her?

Did she even know who killed her? She could have been ambushed. And then why didn't she know now, now that she was one with the Force-but Ben stopped there. He was off chasing the nebulous world of ghosts, when he needed evidence in the mundane world to show everyone.

"Ben, I've got a flask of caf. Nice hot cup will make you feel better."

Why here? Because we're doing an investigation. She was telling him hair was significant.

"Lon, "he said, "when people fight, they leave all kinds of traces on each other, don't they?"

"Yes, but it's too late to ask for swabs from Jacen. And do Jedi actually land punches?"

"No, but..."

"Stang." Shevu was furious. Something had occurred to him, and he was angry with someone, or maybe even him" self. "Stang, the StealthX. We didn't test the StealthX. In CSF, we'd normally go over that with a fine-tooth comb as a matter of course..."

"n.o.body thought it was Jacen at the time. n.o.body thought that there might have been anything to look for anyway, because we don't fight like non-Force-users. And..."

"What would we be looking for?" Shevu asked. "Come on, Ben, what's on your mind?"

Ben swallowed. "Hair. Mom's hair."

"Could she ever have flown in Jacen's StealthX? If we find anything, is there any other way it could have ended up there apart from being transferred on his clothing? I know she came to see him at GAG HQ, but did they have any contact outside work that would have led to transfer?"

"Not that I know."

"Then we've got to go for that, Ben."

"How are we going to get a chance to go over the thing? And he's had weeks to clean the c.o.c.kpit."

"We'll think of something." Shevu looked torn between staying and doing more searching while they had the light, and heading back home. "If we come up empty, fine, but I'm not leaving that stone unturned. Come on."

They retrieved the droid and took off toward the hyper-s.p.a.ce lane.

A hundred times on the journey back, Ben shut his eyes to replay that memory of his mother and saw her lips moving.

Love you too, Ben.

Too. She'd heard him. She'd heard, seen, sensed, what-ever-but she knew he'd said he loved her. He burst into tears and sobbed until his abdominal muscles ached.

"Sorry, "he said at last, wiping his face on his sleeve. "I'm a bit crazy."

"Your mother was murdered, "Shevu said quietly. "You're ent.i.tled to go as crazy as you like."

Ben wondered whether to tell Shevu about the appari-tion, but thought better of it. Later, maybe. He might not even tell his dad for a while. He didn't know how. But he'd call him and let him know where he was as soon as they dropped back out of hypers.p.a.ce. He missed Luke, and couldn't imagine why he'd spent so much effort in the past trying to escape his attention. He cherished every second with him now.

"The dead talk, Ben, "Shevu said. "They bear witness."

"Yes, "said Ben. "They do."

BEVIIN-VASUR FARM. OUTSIDE KELDABE.

Dr. Beluine gave Sintas another shot of tranquilizer and checked her pulse. This time, she didn't lash out.

"I wouldn't usually administer this, "he said, "but she'll injure herself knocking into things if she isn't sedated."

Fett saw the open maw of the sarlacc a split second be-fore he plunged into the lightless, hopeless pit of acid. Thanks, Solo. "They do say."

"Stop talking about me as if I'm dead, "Sintas snapped.

"Everything's so loud. Where am I? Why can't I see?"

She looked dazed now, but it was an improvement on stumbling around the room. She sounded sane enough, too, but sanity was a fragile thing and Fett knew the odds. It was fifty-fifty that she'd ever be completely normal again. He didn't know where to start explaining, and even Mirta, who usually had all the smart answers, erred on the side of extreme caution. Sintas sat on the bed, hugging her knees, blind gaze wandering unsteadily between voices.

How did you tell a woman she'd been frozen down for thirty-odd years, and that while she was busy being uncon-scious, her daughter had gone after her ex-husband, bent on deadly revenge, and then that daughter had been picked up by the secret police and tortured to death, and that she had a granddaughter, and.... Fett had rehea.r.s.ed it in his mind.

Stang. It sounded just as bad now as it had three months ago: worse, maybe.

If she remembered that all on her own, it was going to be bad enough.

Medrit, to his credit, did what Beviin would have done had he not been out chasing another potential problem. He saved his Mand'alor from embarra.s.sment and handled the diplomacy.

"You're Sintas Vel, "Medrit said quietly. She seemed very sensitive to noise. It was just as well she was blind, though. Had she seen Medrit-a pillar of muscle with a frown that announced his short temper-she wouldn't have felt rea.s.sured. "You've been encased in carbonite for a while. You know what that is?"

"Of course I do."

"Okay, you're in Keldabe, on Mandalore. I'm Medrit Vasur. This is my farm, and you can stay here until you're well enough to leave. What's the last thing you can remember?"

Sintas stared straight ahead, sightless. She kept rubbing her eyes in evident frustration, sedated or not. "Where's my necklace?"

"Can you remember a necklace, madam?" Beluine asked.

"I had a necklace. Where is it?"

Beluine turned to Fett. "Did she?"

"Yes, "Fett said. "She did."

"It's very encouraging that she recalls it."

Fett looked at Mirta. Their eyes locked and she reached inside her collar to take off the heart-of-fire, or at least the half of it that wasn't buried with Ailyn. He'd given it to Sintas as a marriage gift when they were both too young to know any better, but that wasn't what made his gut tighten now. Sintas was from Kiffu. The gem-one of the rarer gold ones, shot with inner light in a rainbow of colors-was said to hold part of the soul of the giver and the receiver. Kiffar could sense the memories stored in the stones as if it were a data crystal, but with the added layer-the added unasked-for complications, Fett thought-of the emotional elements. Even if she was crazy or blind, that stone might just speak to Sintas and jog her memory far too fast for his liking. He was a man who said only what he had to say, which wasn't usually a great deal, but this was different.

Who am I more worried about-Sintas, or Mirta? Nei-ther woman had the full picture of the mess their family was-yet.

Beluine, who didn't impress Fett half as much as the local farm vet who'd treated him, made a valiant attempt to earn his fee. He pulled up a chair beside the bed and spoke to Sintas in his best bedside manner. "Do you recall being in carbonite, my dear? Were you conscious?"

Sintas jerked her head as she heard the med droid enter. "Nothing.

I don't remember a thing. And you can keep that droid away from me, too."

Mirta dangled the heart-of-fire from its leather cord wrapped around her forefinger. She gave Fett a meaningful look-now or never, Ba'buir-and approached Sintas cau-tiously.

"Here's your necklace, "she said. She wrapped her grandmother's hand around the stone, folding her fingers gently. "I kept it safe for you. My name's Mirta Gev. We never met, but I'm... a relative of yours."

Sintas froze for a moment, almost ma.s.saging the heart-of-fire in her hand, gaze fixed. "It's.... not the way I remember it."

Fett detached at that point. He'd learned to do it in the days after his father was killed, a trick of flipping a switch between emotions rubbed raw and complete numbness. He found he could do it with physical pain, too. Anyone could learn to do it if they wanted to escape pain badly enough.

"We had to break it, "he said. "You can get another one."

Sintas turned her head slowly toward him, and for a mo-ment he expected her to recognize his voice. She certainly looked as if she was pondering something, but she lowered her head and seemed to be focused on the heart-of-fire. Mirta just sat there on the edge of the bed with her shoulder touching her grandmother's, her face set in that grim way she had when she was determined not to let him see how upset she was.

"And do I know you?" Sintas asked.

Beluine leaned close to Fett. "It might be too much, too soon. The case studies I've read say that excessively rapid exposure to their real situation can cause carbonite pa-tients to go into a catatonic state."