"I know," Obi-Wan said grimly. "But right now, it's all we've got. Let's go take a look."

The neighborhood where the Covered Brush house ring was located was similar to many Obi-Wan had seen in his journeys around the Republic. It was poor but clean, a place where the people worked hard for what little they had but nevertheless worked equally hard to maintain their pride and dignity.

Some Jedi, he knew, treated such places and people with disdain or condescension. For his own part, he far preferred them to Coruscant's upper-level inhabitants with their immensely greater wealth but shifting-sand ethics. Most of the people in these places were friendlier and more forthright, without hidden political agendas or the l.u.s.t for position and power.

At the very least, if someone here wanted to stab someone, he used a knife and not a deceitful smile.

"Where do we start?" Anakin murmured as they stopped beside one of the hedges across the street from the building.

"You could start by staying out of my way," a voice murmured from somewhere behind them.

Obi-Wan spun around, his hand darting beneath his tunic to his lightsaber as a face rose from concealment behind a section of hedge they'd just pa.s.sed.

One look was all he needed. "h.e.l.lo, Riske," he said, releasing his grip on his lightsaber. "Imagine meeting you here."

"I could say the same thing," Riske said sourly, jerking his head toward his side of the hedge. "You want to step into my office a minute?"

Obi-Wan glanced around. There were only a few Brolfi still out in the gathering dusk, and none of them was looking in their direction. Tapping Anakin on the arm, he did a quick backward leap over the hedge. He landed in a crouch, Anakin right beside him.

"You're persistent, I'll give you that," Riske said as he waddled over to join them, keeping his head down. "What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for a Brolf named Jhompfi," Obi-Wan told him. "He had someone steal a pair of burst thrusters for him this afternoon. We were hoping to ask him why."

"While you're at it, you could also ask about the explosives that disappeared from a mining site one of his close friends was working at,"

Riske said darkly. "Or about the stabilization system another friend apparently borrowed from his boss's hobby swoop, or the alloy packing cylinders that were lifted from another work site. You seeing a pattern here?"

Obi-Wan grimaced. "Someone's building a homemade missile."

"Or two or three of them," Riske said. "And it doesn't look like either of us will be able to ask Jhompfi about it, since he and all his friends seem to have disappeared."

"Wonderful," Obi-Wan said, peering over the hedge.

"Yeah, that's the word I was thinking," Riske said. "So what's your interest in him?"

"Our friend-the Padawan you ran into earlier-was following him," Obi-Wan said. "She's disappeared, and I can't raise her on the comlink."

"Too bad," Riske said. "Nice kid, but not much combat savvy."

"We're not ready to give up on her quite yet," Obi-Wan growled. "You have any idea where Jhompfi might have gone to ground?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be hanging around here," Riske countered. "I've got people checking out the Mining Guild centers, but if Jhompfi's not coming home I doubt he'd be stupid enough to go to any of them."

"So what do we do?" Anakin asked.

"What I'm going to do is head back to the hotel and make sure we've got our security set up," Riske said. "I'm figuring it'll come tonight-the duracrete slugs always disappear just before they drop the house on you."

"Or they might try for the city administration center tomorrow," Obi-Wan suggested.

"Unlikely," Riske said. "Jhompfi's hardly going to attack a place where his own guildmaster is busy negotiating for him. No, it's got to be the hotel, or maybe the route to the admin center in the morning."

Unfortunately, Riske's a.n.a.lysis made sense. "Okay," Obi-Wan said. "You tie down that end, and we'll keep looking for Lorana."

"Good luck." Riske shook his head. "You know, I almost planted a tracker on her earlier, just so I could make sure she was staying out of my way.

I wish now I had."

"I wish you had, too," Obi-Wan said. "We'll just have to manage on our own."

"Jedi are supposed to be good at such things," Riske said, pulling out a data card and handing it over. "This'll give you a direct connection to my comlink, running it through one of our encryptions. Call me if you hear anything, okay?"

"I will," Obi-Wan promised, sliding the card into his comlink pouch.

Riske nodded and moved away. He reached the far end of the hedge, glanced over it, then slipped back around and headed off at a brisk walk. "Now what?" Anakin asked.

"We'd better let Master C'baoth know what happened," Obi-Wan said reluctantly. "He and Lorana may be close enough for him to be able to detect her Force-signature."

"Maybe," Anakin said doubtfully as they returned to the end of the hedge and back onto the walkway. "You know, maybe we all should carry trackers."

Obi-Wan looked sideways at him. "I can think of at least one person who ought to have one," he muttered under his breath. "What was that?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Never mind."

C'baoth, when they finally raised him on the comlink, wasn't at all happy about being disturbed. He was even less happy when he heard their story "For the moment we'll pa.s.s over the fact that you involved yourself with the Barlok situation against my direct order," the Jedi Master rumbled, and Obi-Wan could imagine his eyes flashing from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "The important point right now is that you've put my Padawan at risk."

"I understand your anger, Master C'baoth-" Obi-Wan began.

"Anger?" C'baoth cut him off. "There is no anger, Master Ken.o.bi. Not for a Jedi."

"My apologies," Obi-Wan said, trying hard to suppress some annoyance of his own. A situation like this, and all the man could do was recite Jedi canon? "It was an improper choice of words."

"Better," C'baoth rumbled. "What about you, Padawan Skywalker? Have you any thoughts?"

Obi-Wan angled the comlink toward the boy. "Not really, Master C'baoth,"

Anakin said. "Mostly, I'm concerned about Lorana's safety. I'm worried that she may have been killed."

For a moment C'baoth didn't answer. "No, she's not dead," he said at last. "I would have felt such a disturbance in the Force."

"Then you can locate her?" Anakin asked hopefully.

"The one does not necessarily follow from the other," C'baoth told him.

"Unfortunately, I can't pick up her Force-signature at the moment. Master Ken.o.bi, you said you'd spoken to the boy who obtained the boosters. He might know where Jhompfi's favorite hiding spots are."

"I don't think so," Anakin said. "He doesn't seem to be a part of the actual conspiracy."

"Yet he knows Jhompfi, and may have seen something in the past that will point the way."

"I doubt he'd be willing to discuss it," Obi-Wan said. "At least not with strangers."

"Did I ask if he would be willing?"

Obi-Wan felt his throat tighten. "Are you suggesting I force his mind?"

"No, of course not," C'baoth a.s.sured him. But the words, Obi-Wan knew, were for Anakin's benefit. That was, in fact, exactly what C'baoth had been suggesting. "We're the protectors of the weak, not their oppressors.

At the same time, a crime has been perpetrated against a Jedi. Such a thing cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Even if Padawan Jinzler chose not to fight in her own defense," he added darkly.

Obi-Wan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"There have been no reports of lightsabers being seen in the city, Master Ken.o.bi," C'baoth said patiently. "Nor has news of multiple severed limbs reached my ears. Lorana Jinzler is only a Padawan, but I have certainly instructed her in combat better than that."

"Of course," Obi-Wan said, a sudden idea striking him. If C'baoth was right about Lorana going quietly with her kidnappers . . . "Thank you for your time, Master C'baoth."

"I will expect my Padawan to be at my side when I meet Iviagistrate Argente and Guildmaster Gilfrome in the morning," C'baoth warned.

"Understood," Obi-Wan said. Breaking the connection, he slid the comlink back into his belt.

"So how are we going to find her?" Anakin asked.

"Master C'baoth gave us the hint himself," Obi-Wan told him. "He's right: if Lorana had fought against her attackers, we certainly would have heard of it. Therefore, she didn't."

"Okay," Anakin said. "And that means what?"

"It means that she must have decided that surrendering quietly would gain her more than fighting," Obi-Wan said. "She probably hoped she'd be taken into the center of the conspiracy where she could meet the people in charge. But."

He let the word hang expectantly in the air, hoping Anakin would pick up the train of logic. "But they'd be crazy to bring a Jedi to their leaders," the boy said slowly. "Even a Padawan."

"Exactly," Obi-Wan said. "And what's the fastest way to tell if someone like Lorana is a Jedi?"

"If you catch her carrying a lightsaber," Anakin said, his voice suddenly picking up on Obi-Wan's own cautious hope. "So she had to get rid of it!"

"Right," Obi-Wan confirmed. "And she probably got rid of it on the spur of the moment, someplace near where she was kidnapped."

"Someplace close enough for us to be able to sense its Ilum crystal,"

Anakin finished excitedly. "But we'll still have to get pretty close, won't we?"

"True, but at least out in the street we'll be able to get that close,"

Obi-Wan pointed out. "If she and her lightsaber were both inside a house, we probably wouldn't be able to spot the crystal, at least not from outside." He gestured down the street, darkened now except for the faint glow of streetlights. "We'll start here in the Covered Brush area.

Jhompfi was smart enough to stay away from his own house, but he may have been stupid enough to go to a nearby friend's. If we don't find anything, we'll start going through the poorer neighborhoods of Patameene District."

"Because that's the sort of neighborhood Jhompfi's used to?"

"No, because that's where they use hedges instead of walls to mark the land boundaries," Obi-Wan said. "You're not going to bury a lightsaber inside a stone wall without somebody noticing. If we don't find her there, we'll move on to the wealthier areas, then move on to other districts."

Anakin took a deep breath. "All right. I'm game if you are."

"Good," Obi-Wan said. "Then clear your mind, my young Padawan. It's likely to be a long night."

They'd been tramping the streets for hours when Obi-Wan finally felt the tingle he'd been waiting for.

The Ilum crystal in Lorana's lightsaber was close at hand.

He looked sideways at Anakin, waiting for the boy to sense it as well.

Even in the middle of a serious situation, training exercises were part of a Padawan's life.

They got three more steps before Anakin's steady footsteps suddenly faltered. "There," the boy said. "Just ahead, on the left."

"Very good," Obi-Wan said approvingly, letting his eyes drift around the neighborhood. It was still a good two hours till dawn, and the houses around them were dark and silent, their inhabitants fast asleep.

Or at least, most of them were. The particular inhabitants they were interested in would be very much awake. "No, don't go to it," he told Anakin, catching the boy's arm as he started toward the hedge where Lorana's lightsaber lay hidden. "Here, around on the other side-quickly, now."

Together they moved around the end of the hedge and ducked down out of sight. "Is someone watching us?" Anakin murmured as Obi-Wan led them in a crouch to within a few meters of the lightsaber.

"We'll find out in a moment," Obi-Wan said. "Tell me, what would you do if you were guarding a prisoner in the middle of the night and suddenly something strange happened outside your window?"

"I don't know," Anakin said, frowning in thought. "I suppose it would depend on how strange it was."

"Let's find out." Stretching out to the Force, Obi-Wan reached his mind across the distance and triggered Lorana's lightsaber.

With a muted snap-hiss the green blade lanced out, startlingly bright in the nighttime darkness. A few small leaves showered down where they'd been cut loose from their branches, but the handle was wedged solidly in place and stayed where it was. "Now, let's see who in the neighborhood is still awake," he commented.

They didn't have long to wait. Less than a minute later a door in one of the houses across the street opened, and a lone Brolf peered anxiously out, his eyes darting around. Seeing no one, he lumbered across the street to the blazing lightsaber.

For a moment he stared at it uncertainly. Then, gingerly, he reached into the mesh of branches and pulled the weapon free. Holding it at arm's length, he turned it carefully in his hand, clearly trying to figure out how to shut it off.

"Allow me," Obi-Wan spoke up, rising to his full height behind the hedge.

Reaching out with the Force, he closed down the lightsaber.

The Brolf was fast, all right. Almost before the blade had vanished he leapt into action, jumping sideways and hurling the lightsaber straight at Obi-Wan's face as he hauled a blaster out of his tunic.

Fast, but stupid. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, with Jedi reflexes, and he had his own lightsaber ready in his hand before the Brolf even started his leap.

Reaching up with his free hand, he caught Lorana's weapon and then ignited his own, casually catching the Brolf's shot on his blade and sending it ricocheting off into the night sky.

Stubbornly, the Brolf kept at it, firing again and again with the single-minded foolhardiness of a battle droid. Obi-Wan settled into battle mode, his attention focused inward as he let the Force guide his hands, deflecting the shots as he strode toward his attacker.

And then, through his tunnel vision, he dimly sensed something happening across the street. The Brolf heard or saw it, too, and for a split second his attention wavered as his eyes darted that direction.

It was all the opening Obi-Wan needed. Taking an extra-long step forward, he gave a short, controlled slash that sliced the Brolf's blaster neatly in half.

The Brolf had been quick to attack. Now, with equal speed, he dropped the remaining half of his blaster and took off down the street as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Obi-Wan considered chasing him down, decided against it, and turned toward the house the other had emerged from.