Den stared at the minder in surprise. "Oh, you're good," he said. "You're very good."

"That's why I make the big credits."

Den squirmed in the formchair, despite how comfortable it was. "Well, it's just that-recently I came across some more intel about the men that Phow Ji killed-you remember, he died in his one-man a.s.sault."

Merit didn't move, but something about him warmly invited the reporter to continue. "The twirl pundits managed ro sell him as a hero-no one wanted to touch my story with a ten-meter force pike. Ji was a killer, cold as vacuum, when he was alive. Now he's a milking hero. "Thing is, he just might really be one."

"How do you mean?"

Den fluttered his dewflaps. "He took out a whole contingent of Salissian meres and a super battle droid. Never seen anything like it. Padawan Offee said he just went berserk-killing mindlessly. But he knew he was going to do it-he had himself holoed, and sent the 'cron to me.

"And, according to my source, he didn't pick those meres at random. They were an elite combat team on a training mission, sent here because of the extreme conditions.

Supposedly, they were a strike force being prepared for a major covert attack."

"So you're led to what you feel is an inescapable conclusion: that Phow Ji, instead of just indulging in an orgy of mindless murder, gave his life in a heroic action that may have had large-scale benefits for the Republic."

"I'm not entirely dismissing the mindless-murder-orgy element," Den said. "But basically-yeah." He paused. "When I heard this, I was stunned. Stunned. I felt like Ji himself had kicked me in the gut. I thought I had his number; he was crazy as a dyslexic Givin, and he couldn't stand being humiliated-so he thought-by a Jedi Padawan. He defeated a Jedi Knight in a match once, you know. So he heads for the front lines and goes out in a blaze of glory. Simple."

"Indeed. And it lets you feel a satisfying righteous outrage when he's painted as a champion,"

Den sighed. "I'm nearly twenty standard years a reporter, Doc, and if anyone knows the galaxy isn't black and white, it's me. But now I feel like some wet-between-the-dewflaps cublet who's just learned his system's Senator takes graft. I feel . . . betrayed." He snorted, shook his head, and looked at Merit. "Why?"

"I have a theory. So do you. Let's hear yours first."

Den looked skeptical. "Why not yours first?"

"It's my office."

Merit smiled slightly, and Den couldn't help grinning back. A minder, a Jedi, and a Silent in the same camp, he thought. No wonder the psychic energy around here's thicker than swamp gas.

He pursed his lips, then shrugged. "Padawan Offee told me I had the 'aura' of a hero," he said.

"You certainly proved that when you rescued Zan's quetarra for him."

"Lotta good it did him. n.o.body to play it at his funeral. Look, I don't want to be a hero, Doc. Heroes may get medals, but mostly they get dead, in my experience."

"No one's insisting you be a hero, Den."

"Good, 'cause they'll be disappointed. But I don't want some rabid nexu idolized as one, either. I just want people to know the truth."

"Your truth," Merit said. " Your version of events. And you want them to do more than know-you want them to believe."

Den frowned at him. "You sound disapproving."

"I neither approve nor disapprove. This is just the view from here. But," Merit added, "in all modesty, it's a view that's backed by considerable expertise in reading people."

Den was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. He didn't want to hear Merit's theory; he wasn't interested in s.p.a.cing down the lane the minder was going. He stood I and turned toward the door. "Look, I gotta go. It's nearly I dark and I haven't had one drink yet.

Don't want to fall I behind."

"You can hide from this behind a mug for a while,

Den," Klo Merit said. "If you do, two things can happen, One: the mug will have to get bigger and bigger, to keep shielding you from whatever it is you don't want to iook at. Eventually, you'll fall in."

"And the other thing?"

Merit shrugged. "You look. And you deal with what you see."

"Terrific," Den said. He activated the portal and stepped out into the glare of the setting sun. "You'd make a lousy pubtender, Doc."

5.

Drongar's tropical twilight had begun when Jos finally left the OT. He saw Uli sitting on a bench under a broadleaf tree. The kid had dumped his gown into the re-cycler and was wearing a Republic army one-piece that looked too large for him. A small cloud of fire gnats buzzed about him, but he was evidently too tired to even wave them away.

Jos ambled over. He pulled a chunk of spicetack from a pocket and held it out. "Here. You look like you could use this."

The kid hesitated. "Go ahead," Jos told him. "It's safe enough. A mild rejuvenant. You'll still feel like you've been dragged through a thorn-needle bush-just not backward."

Uli took the spicetack and wadded it into his mouth. "Are you kidding?" he asked around his chewing. "I lived on this stuff during rny residency. Like everyone else I knew."

Jos sat down. "Yep. I remember it well," he said with a sigh. "Stimcaf and spicetack-the diet of champions." He nodded toward the OT. "You handled yourself pretty well in there.

Better than I thought you would, frankly."

Uli rubbed his eyes. Jos noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. "Is it always like this? And please don't say, No, usually it's worse."

"Okay. But it is."

The youth glanced at him with eyes far too old for so young a face. "The first one I worked on had been hit by an agonizer."

Jos nodded grimly. The agonizer was new, an experimental hand weapon that targeted the limbic system with a high-collimation microsonic beam that somehow stimulated runaway prostaglandin formation. The result was intense pain without any physical trauma. It couldn't be blocked by somaprin or other heavy soporifics, and it was often so intense that the patient died from sensory overload. The only way to override it was to sever the no-ciceptor synapses in the thalamic cortex. This required a delicate neurolaser procedure-just the sort of operation ill suited for quick-and-dirty mimn'yet surgery.

"I think I did pretty well, all things considered," said, his voice hollow. "Stopped the pain. Of course, he'll have severe dyskinesia and motor ataxia for the rest of his life ...".

Jos grimaced in sympathy. Neither spoke for a moment. Then Uli said, "I heard about what happened to Doctor Yant. I'm sorry, Jos. I can see how you wouldn't want a new kiosk mate just now."

Jos said, "Sometimes I feel like finding whoever started this rankweed war and performing a pneumonectomy with my bare hands."

"Really."

"For starters, yeah."

Uli chuckled. He glanced at Jos, and Jos, after a moment, grinned. Then, suddenly, they were both laughing, hard gusts and whoops that were not about mirth so much as about anger, loss, frustration . . .

After a minute they subsided-although neither was really laughing anymore.

"I know how you feel," Uli said, wiping his eyes. "I lost a good friend, nearly two years ago, in Mos Espa on Tatooine. There was some battle going on between a couple of bounty hunters and she was too close to it." He hesitated. "It never goes away, does it?"

"No," Jos said. "No, it doesn't. But it does get easier to bear."

"I can't do anything about it," Uli said.

"That's right. And you need to understand that you can't. Blaming yourself because you couldn't save your friend, or stop this war, is a waste of effort and energy. It isn't your fault, Uli. None of it is your fault."

Jos stopped, realizing that he was speaking more to himself than to the boy. He shook his head again. Easy to say that. Harder to believe.

But maybe, just maybe, easier with time.

Kaird was again uncomfortable. The robes disguising him as a Silent had been bad enough in this weather, but this new masquerade was worse, since he was now wearing a flex-mask as well. Such precautions were necessary, however. One of the reasons he was successful as a Black Sun operative, despite being someone who tended to stand out in a crowd, was his skill at camouflage. He had hidden his distinctive features and form behind a number of different ident.i.ties in his years of service, all to good degrees of success. He had even worn a "Hutt suit" once, a plastoid frame with synthflesh skin and face. By the Egg, that had been a ch.o.r.e. Compared to that, this Kubaz flex-mask and robes weren't all that bad.

His choice of species to impersonate was somewhat limited, due to the shape of his own features. The trun-cated trunk of a Kubaz nose hid his own beaklike mouth very well, however, and the goggles that the bug-eaters wore in bright sunlight covered his violet eyes. No one glanced twice at him at the s.p.a.ceport; Kubaz were ubiq-uitous throughout the galaxy.

Kaird was waiting for the latest transport to land, Along with the supplies and materiel it was delivering, it was also bringing a team who had been highly recommended to him. One was an Umbaran, the other a Falleen, According to Lens they were not cheap antenna-breakers, but possessed subtlety and skill. They were opportunists, con artists who made their way along the s.p.a.ce lanes from world to world by virtue of various scams.

Like most grifters, Lens had said, they had had periods of solvency, even wealth, and periods of desperation. The latter was their current lot in life. Which meant that they might be useful to Kaird. The transport lowered on repulsor beams down through the crimson and copper spore clouds, was admitted through the force-dome's interrupt, then settled on its pad, Droids and binary loadlifters began unloading the cargo. Kaird watched the disembarkation ramp. There were only a few pa.s.sengers on this trip: a Kaminoan there for some sort of biological inspection, and a trio of human officers to discuss the bota plant shipment quotas with Colonel Vaetes. Some droids, and his two potential employees, rounded out the list.

His two prospects were the last to debark, followed by an RC-103 "redcap" droid carrying their luggage. Neither seemed disturbed by the hot, soupy air, even though the spores were particularly bad today. Kaird appraised the prospects. They appeared as different as it was possible for two carbon-based humanoids to be, so dissimilar as to be almost ludicrous. The Umbaran was short, perhaps one and a quarter meters, bald and pallid. The Fall-een on the other hand, was more than a head taller and wore her hair gathered in a topknot. She walked proudly, like a warrior. She carried no weapons, but from the fluid play of her muscles under the tight synthcloth one-piece, Kaird judged that she would be dangerous even unarmed.

In contrast, the Umbaran looked like a strong wind would send him sailing away over the poptrees, particularly with that voluminous cloak enveloping him from neck to feet. Kaird had done his research on both species, and knew that the garment was called a shadowcloak.

To most humanoid species it appeared as chalk-white as the Umbaran's skin, but not to other Umbarans, since their vision range was primarily in the ultraviolet wavelength, below three hundred nanometers.

Nor did it appear that way to Kaird. The winged raptors that were his ancestors had had access to a visual palette wider than the narrow slit of radiation available to most eyes.

Though hundreds of thousands of generations removed, the Nediji eye could still see deep into both ends of the visible spectrum. To him the cloak was a churning riot of colors for which few languages beside his own had names: berl, crynor, nusp, onsible .

It really was beautiful. As the Umbaran walked, the cloak's designs seemed to eddy and swirl into ever-new shades and hues, a constant, kaleidoscopic play of light and shadow. A magnificent garment, Kaird thought. He had seen rulers of worlds who were content to wear far less.

He stepped forward and greeted them, the vocoder chip in the mask imitating a harsh Kubindi accent. "Hu-nandin of Apiida Clan, at your service. I have been di-rected by our mutual friend to welcome you to Drongar," The "mutual friend" was, of course, the spy, Lens. "How may I be of use to you?"

The two regarded him. Kaird felt a definite tug of something-yearning? charisma?-toward the Falleen. He knew the probable cause of this. The reptiloids could give off pheromones with a broad chemosignal base that subtly-or not so subtly-influenced many different sen-tients. He wondered if she was releasing the pheromones on purpose or as a reflex action. It didn't matter-as long as he was aware of them, his mind was disciplined enough to cope.

Then he was shocked when the Umbaran spoke. "Fly free, fly straight," he said, "Brother of the Air."

The Nest Blessing, spoken with the proper laryngeal inflection! How? How did they know?

His disguise was good enough to fool everyone in the camp, even other Kubaz. There was no way-Wait. He recalled now another fact about Umbarans: they were reported to have paramental abilities, to be able to see and even influence others' thoughts. Wonderful.

Yet another mindplayer in Rtmsoo Seven, A miracle all our heads don't explode.

Evidently he wasn't the only one who had done research. Few non-Nediji knew any of the language of The Flock. Lens did, and now these two .. .

He said in a low voice, glancing about to make sure no one was within earshot: "I congratulate you on your perspicacity, but let me a.s.sure you it is to our mutual benefit to maintain the illusion of-"

"Of course," the Falleen said. The Umbaran's voice had been little more than a husky whisper; in contrast, hers was rich and full of life. "Your secret ident.i.ty is safe with us, Hunandin." There was a slight twist of sarcasm when she spoke the name. "And excuse our poor manners; we have yet to introduce ourselves." She drew herself up, and Kaird realized that she was slightly taller than he was. "My name is Thula." She gestured to the Umbaran. "This is my a.s.sociate, Squa Tront."

"Delighted," the Umbaran whispered dryly. "Might there be some place on this forsaken world where one can get a drink?"

Inside his mask, Kaird smiled. "Certainly. Come with me; we have much to talk about."

6.

Perhaps half a dozen meters behind Barriss's kiosk was a small clearing bounded on three sides by thick and verdant waxy-leaved croaker bushes-so called because of the odd sound the leaves made when rustling in a breeze. The thick plants were half again her height, and it was here Barriss came to practice various fighting techniques with her lightsaber.

Such training wasn't something Jedi ordinarily did in public, but this place was as private as she could find. The only way somebody would see her was if they happened to pa.s.s by the open end of the little clearing. Since the local swamp started a dozen meters past that, it was unlikely anyone would be walking around in the ooze for their health.

The heat lay upon the small open s.p.a.ce like a sodden blanket. Under it, and under the loose brown robes she wore, she sweated, the perspiration soaking hair and skin, hardly evaporating at all in the high humidity. Unpleasant, but a fact of life on Drongar. She'd gotten used to carrying a hydropak with her at all times; to do otherwise was to risk dehydration.

As she had done countless times before, Barriss ran through the basic arm-and shoulder-limbering exercises, cutting and slashing the fetid tropical air in simple two-and three-combination moves, switching her weapon from hand to hand. The martial movements she danced were primarily those of Form III, one of the seven fighting systems that the Jedi had developed over the ages. Master Unduli favored Form III over the others, even though it was disparaged by some as primarily a defensive discipline. It was true that it had been developed originally as a response to blasterfire and other projectile weapons, but over the centuries it had developed into much more. "Of all the seven forms,"

her Master had told her, "Form Three, with its emphasis on antic.i.p.ating and blocking lightspeed energy blasts, requires the greatest connection to the Force. The road is long, but it is worth the journey, for a true master of Form Three is invincible."

The lightsaber's power hum was a comforting drone, the hard-edged energy beam as familiar to her as her own arm. She could not remember a time when she had not wielded a lightsaber. As a child, there had been the low-powered practice models, with which she and other young Padawans had dueled. They were strong enough to deliver a powerful jolt; when one of them stung you, you knew it.

Pain was a most tasking instructor.

When she turned sixteen she had built her own fully powered unit, choosing a blue crystal as her beam's signature hue. It had been hooked to her belt ever since-she knew every part of it as well as she knew her own fingers. As part of her training, she had taken it apart and rea.s.sembled it using only the Force. It was more than a weapon-it was an extension of her body, an almost or-u ganic part of her . . .

She smiled as she stepped forward, spinning the light-saber rapidly before her, creating what seemed a solid shield of light. Thinking too much again. Concentrate on the moment.

At that instant, there came a blast of cold air, as if someone had opened a freezer door just behind her, shocking in its intensity. It was gone almost before she knew what it was, but the combination of her drifting thoughts and the frigid breeze startled her. She knew immediately that the lightsaber, now moving across her lower body and headed up and around, was-too low.

She heard rather than felt the tip of the pulsing blade slice through the top of her boot.

The boot was spun-plast orthotic, pliable yet extremely tough. When she'd bought the boots, they'd come with a guarantee-wear them out and the manufacturer would replace them, free, for as long as the original owner lived. Spun-plast would turn the edge of a sharp durasteel blade, or even a vibroknlfe. There were few material objects proof against a lightsaber, however, and tough as it was, spun-plast wasn't among those.

Barriss quickly extinguished the lightsaber. She looked, down and saw blood welling in the surgically neat slice across the top of her boot.

She was astonished-not by the wound, but by the error that had resulted in the accident.

How many times had she done this form? Five thousand? Ten? This was a beginner's mistake, a blunder that would be inexcusable in a Padawan child nowhere near her skill level.

Had she imagined it? It was tempting to think so, but when the moving air had rustled the croaker bushes, she had distinctly heard their unmistakable, mournful sound. The breeze had been real, She hung the lightsaber on her belt, lifted her foot, and pulled the boot off, balancing easily on the other foot.

The cut was narrow and not too deep, maybe three centimeters long, and a couple of centimeters above her second and third toes. The epidermal edges were burned, but the cut was still bleeding freely; evidently the spun-plast had absorbed just enough of the blade's energy to prevent complete cauterization of the wound. Barriss stood there, still balanced on one leg, staring at the injury. She shook her head.