"Walk that line, Fi. Off you go."

Fi took a breath as if he was going to object, but turned and started walking. Jusik and Gilamar stood behind him and watched his progress, recording his movements with a handheld holoscanner. Jusik couldn't help noticing that the device had a stenciled mark on it: property of republic central medsupply.

"Nice piece of kit," Jusik said. "Free gift from a grateful Republic?"

Gilamar chuckled to himself but didn't look away from the small screen. The monitor was capturing reference points on Fi's body-spine, joints, skull-and analyzing his movement and posture. "Well, they left it loafing around" he said "and I had a patient in need." He put one hand in his belt pouch, eyes still fixed on the monitor, and drew out a couple of small but expensive-looking instruments. "Stylus scanners. Encephaloscan and neurochemical assay. Best in the galaxy. State of the shabla art."

Fi reached the end of the compound did a pretty good about-turn, and then began walking back again.

"You stole it all," Jusik said.

"I liberated it," Gilamar corrected. "The taxpayers can afford it, seeing as they're not paying for clone rehab centers. I've just got to locate a few more portable diagnostic tools and assorted toys, and we can have a pretty good field medical facility here. You never know what state those boys are going to show up in when the time comes. And brain trauma's common."

"I wasn't criticizing," Jusik said. "I was admiring."

Jedi weren't above appropriating goods and cheating their owners in the cause of justice, of course; Jusik had heard many accounts of Jedi Masters commandeering vessels and pulling other dubious tricks without the slightest thought of recompense for the owner. He couldn't see any difference between that and Gilamar's pillage of the Republic's medcenters for a socially purposeful cause.

"You'd be amazed what you stroll off with if you can talk like a medic, wear the right outfit, and know how to misuse medcenter security," said Gilamar. "I nicked a complete operating table once."

Fi finished his test walk and stood with his chin lowered, waiting for the verdict. "How did I do? Can I get dressed now?"

Gilamar turned the small holoscreen so that he could see it. "That's you, compared with one of your brothers at his peak fitness. See?" The screen, as far as Jusik could tell, showed percentages. "That measures how much your gait wobbles, how far you stride, how much bend there is in your spine, all that kind of biometric stuff. Look."

Fi frowned slightly as if calculating. "Eighty-nine percent, just over."

"Eighty-nine point two percent correlation with the benchmark," said Gilamar.

Fi let out a long sigh. "Oh well..."

"What do you mean, Oh well?"

"I'm never going to be a hundred percent."

"Never's a long time, ad'ika, and eighty-nine percent of a clone commando is probably about a hundred and fifty percent of a randomly conceived human. You're the luxury model of humankind. You can afford to lose a few points."

Fi didn't look convinced. "So I'm better than a mongrel. Great."

"Get dressed and we'll do your cognitive tests."

Fi trudged off into the bastion, and they followed. Jusik felt he'd failed him despite the huge progress he'd made. He was prepared to spend the rest of his life healing him, if that's what it took. But he was a Jedi, with a reasonable expectation of a longer life than a regular human, and Fi had drawn the short straw on life expectancy.

Healing took it out of Jusik. It was increasingly exhausting. The improvement in Fi's condition had been dramatic at first. But now it was marginal, the kind of changes that had to be measured with sophisticated equipment.

When Fi's happy-well, that's the only benchmark I can trust.

"It can take years to see any kind of improvement, and plenty of folks never recover," Gilamar said as they stepped into the main accommodations from the utility area, wiping their boots out of reflex because Rav Bralor had told them she'd skewer them if they messed up the new floors. "But it's no good telling him he's made an incredible recovery, because he won't see it like that. I've seen the sequence of brain scans. He had damage to at least two separate areas. How he ever survived at all-well, clone lads are built from Jango, and he had a tremendously robust physiology. Fi's still got damaged areas in the forebrain, though, and that's what's causing the memory blips and the temper."

Jusik considered how much effort had gone into getting Fi this far-saving just one man-and despaired at the numbers he would never know or be able to help. "He wants to come back to Coruscant with me and see the squad."

"Maybe that's what he needs." Gilamar consulted his looted medical sensors again. "I'd still love to know how you did it."

"I don't really know." Jusik healed by visualizing. He saw the fabric of the body at its most basic level, the ruptured cell walls and tangled proteins, and imagined them whole and straight again. It felt the same to him in the Force as the way he harnessed energy to Force-rip a door off its runners. "I have theories. I always do. I like to think of it as a mix of micro-telekinesis and stimulating the body's natural healing mechanisms."

"How precise is it?"

As a Jedi, Jusik had been taught to trust his feelings, and not to think. He never completely learned that lesson; he refused to, because he knew he could think very well indeed, and the Force wouldn't have manifested itself in him if it hadn't had some use for that intellect. And if the Force had no purpose-deliberate or accidental-then he wasn't inclined to let it rule him.

He grabbed a slice of fruitbread from the conservator, chewed slowly, and realized he had never been a very Jedi-like Jedi.

"As precise as I can imagine, Mij'ika."

"Well, when I acquire the right kit to do brain scans at neuron resolution, I'd better give you a crash course in brain anatomy. Then you can be very, very precise." Gilamar held out his hand for a share of the fruitbread. His armor was almost the same shade of dull gold as Skirata's, gold for vengeance, but he wasn't from the same clan. It was a personal statement. "You're even smarter than you think, Bard'ika."

"The Masters at the academy told me that I thought too much and asked too many questions."

"Well, that's what any secret cabal that doesn't like its authority to be questioned would say."

Jusik couldn't resist the urge to ask. "Why the gold armor?"

"There you go again with the questions." "Sorry. Didn't mean to pry."

"It's a fair question. I fell in love with a Mandalorian girl, married into the clans, and a hut'uun killed her. I know his name. I'll find him. And then I'll show him what it means to make a bad enemy of a Mandalorian with anatomical expertise and a scalpel."

The dark side could be very dark indeed in Mandalore. Jusik didn't shy from it. "May she find rest in the manda."

"Do you believe in that possibility?"

Jusik saw nothing incongruous about the manda, the Mandalorian collective consciousness, the oversoul for want of a better word even if he knew most Mandos didn't take it literally. "I use the Force, Mij. I'm prepared to give a lot of things the benefit of the doubt."

"Do your old buddies think you're lost to the dark side now?"

"Probably. I just wish they'd stop worrying about light and dark, and learn the difference between right and wrong instead."

Gilamar laughed loudly. Jusik was glad he could get a laugh out of him after making him remember grief, but he suspected that the man never forgot it for a minute.

"What's the joke?" Fi asked appearing in the doorway. He was wearing his gray undersuit, no plates. "Is it the one about the Hutt and the trash compactor?"

"Just conjuring tricks." Gilamar took out his datapad. "Now see how far we get with this today." It was a program that flashed up images of objects, from the everyday to the obscure, and Fi had to name them. He still had a problem with that, and it seemed to be the source of much of his frustration. "And don't say thingie, because thingie will not do, soldier."

"I'm not a soldier anymore," Fi said quietly. His eyes flickered as the images scrolled. "Table . . . anti-armor round . . . bantha. . ."

No wonder he felt like a child again. He was doing better, but it was all about what Fi regarded as normal for Fi, not the average human male. Jusik tried to imagine waking up with no Force powers. He'd still be smart and capable, but with his extra edge missing he'd feel blind and deaf, he knew.

"That's an improvement," Gilamar said showing Fi the collated results. Jusik didn't know if they made any sense to him. It was all numbers. "You're one of nature's miracles, even if you do need a haircut. Now let me check your blood."

Fi submitted to the probe pressed into his fingertip, watching Jusik with one eyebrow raised until Jusik got the hint and gave him some of the fruitbread.

"Sergeant Kal used to tell us every day that we would do the best because we were the best," Fi said chomping enthusiastically. "Good enough isn't good enough."

"He didn't mean it that way, Fi." Jusik ruffled his hair. He'd spent so many hours with his hands on Fi's skull, healing him, that he knew the contours of it better than his own. "He was instilling self-esteem."

"Only way from best is down."

"Oh, you are a little ray of sunshine today, aren't you?" Gilamar said tapping Fi gently on the nose like a naughty akk pup. Gilamar was a mercenary, and he'd trained some fearsomely hard men, but sometimes Jusik could see the physician he'd once been. He doubted that Gilamar had ever been the simple country doctor that he claimed, though. "Now, look at your progesterone levels. Still higher than normal. Are you pregnant? Have you been throwing up?"

"No. But I get cravings." Fi frowned. "Will I get stretch marks?"

Jusik always paused now to work out if Fi was being funny or if it was some odd disconnection in his brain. It had be-come a weather gauge of his recovery. But this was the old Fi, back for a while.

Gilamar kept a straight face. "Yeah, say good-bye to your figure. Everything sags from now on in."

Jusik rejoiced silently at Fi's improved mood. "Is the progesterone a problem, Mij'ika?"

"No," said Gilamar. "Every human's got progesterone. Males can't make testosterone without it. But it might explain how you've been able to get Fi's brain to repair itself-it's been shown to aid healing in brain trauma. Your Force shenanigans might be stimulating secretion."

"You'll have to bill me later, Bard'ika," Fi said. "I'm a bit boracyk until payday."

Jusik took out a cash credit and shoved it in Fi's hand. Creds-largely untraceable-were no problem in the alternate morality of Skirata's renegade gang. Jusik was only occasionally surprised at how quickly he'd come to see it as acceptable. "Ba'gedet'ye. Here's something to tide you over."

Fi studied it. "Did you rob a bank?" "No, Vau did."

"Where am I going to spend it? Nearest shop is Enceri, and I can't drive a speeder ... yet."

There was a heartfelt plea in the statement. Fi was imprisoned here without transport. "Parja can drive you in the meantime."

"She's had to powder my shebs like a baby too often. It's time I grew up again."

Fi got up and rummaged in the conservator, head down. While his back was turned Gilamar mouthed a silent warning: He needs a break. Jusik nodded.

"Well, I must be going-I've got an embryologist to threaten." Gilamar pulled on his gauntlets and helmet. "The barve said he'd have the research ready for me today." He winked at Jusik. "We're getting there. Nothing definitive yet, but we'll have a very good data library for Uthan to work from."

Fi watched Gilamar go and stared at the doors for a long time afterward. "Talking of pregnant," he said "Dar still doesn't know about Kad does he?" "No," said Jusik.

"It's wrong. It's not fair to him." Fi stood up. "Can we go to Keldabe? I can't keep hanging around Parja's workshop. She's got a business to run."

Jusik knew that Parja would have thrown the business out the window and lived on water and dead borrats if she had to choose between the workshop and Fi. But Fi wanted to be out and about. Keldabe seemed to do him good even if it sometimes seemed overwhelmingly complex to him.

"If you're good" Jusik said "I'll let you take the speeder controls. And you can visit the barber. But no brawling if we run into Sull."

Fi grinned. "It's just like old times."

Yes, it was. They were just two young men having a day on the town. It didn't matter at all that one had been a Jedi and the other had been a clone bred to serve him.

Mandalore was like that. It was a great leveler, and a fresh start.

Special Operations Brigade HQ, Coruscant "How have you been keeping, Kal?" Zey asked.

Skirata sat down without being invited. Zey knew him well enough by now not to take offense at his lack of respect for rank. He'd even laid out caf. Outside the window, a platoon of clone troopers selected for commando cross-training were being put through unarmed combat drills by Tay'haai and Vau. Vau kept saying he wasn't GAR personnel any longer, but it was awfully hard to tell. Where would any of them have ended up without the army?

"Not bad General," said Kal.

"You had your leg fixed, I see."

"It was slowing me down."

"I'd ask how the family was, but that would put you on the spot, wouldn't it?" "Not really." Skirata took a gulp of the caf. Zey was probably still angling to find out what had really happened to Fi. Why did it bother the man so much? He didn't care what happened to clones, except in that theoretical Jedi way. Skirata decided to lob in a verbal grenade, just to show Zey that mundane beings could beat Jedi omniscience. "My daughter's still missing."

Zey did a freeze-and-turn that told Skirata he hadn't been expecting that, and didn't feel the need to hide his reaction. "I didn't know you had a daughter," he said. "I'm very sorry. Can we help?"

"When I say missing," Skirata went on, satisfied at having scored a point, "I mean that she appears to not want to be found. Ruusaan's over thirty, so she can look after herself."

"How do you know she's all right?"

"She was still using her identichip up to a month ago."

"How do you know?"

"I'm her father, and fathers know that kind of stuff." Skirata wondered if it had been a good idea to remind Zey that his skills ran to slicing into secure records. Shab, Zey knew the kind of stuff the Republic asked the Nulls to do. Zey was the one who did the asking, obliquely enough to be deniable, of course. "Just keeping a watchful eye and all that."

"I meant your grandson. When I asked about family, that is."

Skirata had never taken Kad anywhere near Zey for fear of the Jedi sensing the baby's latent Force abilities. Skirata didn't trust Jedi not to abduct and indoctrinate him, and he was never sure if gossip about Etain and Darman ever reached Zey's ears. The man heard a lot more than he let on.

"Kad's terrific," Skirata said carefully. "He's into everything. A real handful. Look, I can see this social chitchat is a trial for you, General. What do you want?"

"The Treasury needs some special Null expertise."

Skirata felt his gut somersault. If he hadn't already had warning from Besany that Jaing's spyware had been detected, it would have done a lot worse. Zey must have felt his reaction in the Force. It was too strong to miss.

"Yes, I know they're not where they should be, Kal," Zey said, guessing wrong. "My professional blind eye is still turned to their extracurricular activities, whatever they might be."

The nice thing about the Force was that it was so vague. Etain had told him that. All Zey knew was that either the mention of the Nulls or the Treasury had made Skirata jumpy, and he opted for Nulls. Ha. So much for omniscience, Jedi.

"I have such wayward kids," said Skirata. "What do they need to do?"

"Jaing and Mereel are the information technology specialists, aren't they? They've certainly cracked a few Separatist systems."

And yours. "Correct."

"Then I need them to investigate a very clever program that was installed on the Treasury mainframe. It erased itself as soon as the technicians started trying to isolate the code, and they have no idea what it was doing, but it shouldn't have been there, and Intel fears a Separatist sleeper in the camp."

"Okay, I'll call them in and you can brief them. Who's vetting the Treasury staff? Do they have any idea where it was introduced into the system?" Skirata actually needed to know. If Zey could sense his panic and urgency, he wouldn't be far wrong. "It might be a long shot, even for my boys, but they'll do their best."

It could be worse.

Zey nodded. "The Treasury wants its own senior auditor on the job, too. Some woman called Wennen." Then again, maybe it couldn't.

Skirata's immediate reaction was that Zey was shaking him down. He knew; or at least he looked as if he knew. "So you want us to look for spy programs and dodgy staff."