It was only then that he realized Anakin was no longer with him.

"Blast!" he bit out under his breath, breaking into a run. There was a diffuse blue light flickering from somewhere inside the house, and as he headed up the walkway to the open door he heard the familiar hum of his Padawan's lightsaber. Picking up his pace, he charged inside.

He found Anakin in one of the inner rooms, standing over Lorana's limp form, his lightsaber held in guard position toward a pair of Brolfi cowering in the corner. A third Brolf lay motionlessly on the floor, the remains of a blaster beside him. "Master," Anakin said, clearly trying to sound casual but not entirely succeeding. "I found her."

"So I see," Obi-Wan said, closing down his lightsaber and kneeling down beside the young woman. Her breathing and pulse were slow but steady.

"What did you use on her?" he demanded, turning toward the Brolfi in the corner.

Neither answered. "I didn't see anything when I came in," Anakin offered.

"Then they must have it on them," Obi-Wan said. Stepping past Anakin, he ignited his lightsaber and started deliberately toward them.

As with the Brolf he'd dealt with outside, neither of these two was interested in being a hero. "He's got it," one of them spoke up hastily, digging a thumb into his partner's side.

"Yeah, here it is," the other agreed, digging a hypo from inside his tunic and lobbing it at Obi-Wan's feet.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan said politely. "Let's add your comlinks to the pile, shall we? And any weapons, of course."

A moment later two comlinks and a pair of long knives had joined the hypo. "What do we do with them?" Anakin asked.

"That depends on what they've been dosing her with," Obi-Wan said ominously, closing down his lightsaber again and picking up the hypo. It was unlabeled, of course. Running through his Jedi sensory enhancement techniques, he squirted a small drop of the liquid onto his sleeve and held it up to his nose.

One sniff was all it took. "It's okay," he a.s.sured Anakin as he let the enhancement fade away. "It's a strong sedative, not a poison. She'll be all right once it wears off."

He gestured toward the two Brolfi. "Which means they won't be facing any murder charges." He c.o.c.ked his head. "At least, not until their homemade missile goes off."

Both of the prisoners jerked noticeably at the word missile. "We had nothing to do with that," one of them insisted. "It was all Filvian's idea. His, and the human's."

Obi-Wan frowned. There was a human mixed up in this? "What human?" he demanded. "What's his name?"

"He calls himself Defender," the Brolf said. "That's all I know."

"What does he look like?"

The Brolf looked helplessly at his companion. "Like a human," the second Brolf said, waving a hand vaguely.

"Do they need more persuasion, Master?" Anakin asked, letting his voice harden.

Obi-Wan suppressed a smile. In his experience, threats from fourteen-year-olds were seldom very convincing.

His eyes dropped to the dead Brolf on the floor. On second thought, in this case maybe they were. "Don't bother," he told Anakin. "They probably really don't know how to describe him."

"I'll bet Riske could get something out of them," Anakin suggested.

For a long moment Obi-Wan was tempted. After all, the a.s.sa.s.sination plot was directed against Magistrate Argente. It would be only fitting for them to be turned over to Argente's people for interrogation.

But that wasn't the way Jedi were supposed to do things. "We'll turn them over to the city police," he told Anakin, pulling Out his comlink. "Then I guess we'll just have to wait for Lorana to wake up. Maybe she can tell us more."

"We going to wait here?" Anakin asked, frowning.

"Of course," Obi-Wan said, smiling tightly. "After all, Jhompfi or Filvian or Defender might drop by."

"Right," Anakin murmured understandingly. "If we're lucky."

The Vagaari ship had been anch.o.r.ed to the outside of the Crustai asteroid base a quarter of the circ.u.mference around from the entrance tunnel. With a Chiss warrior at the controls, Thrawn and the three humans took one of the transports out from the base and docked with it.

To Car'das's private dismay, the alien bodies were still there, lying crumpled right where they'd fallen.

Qennto was apparently not thrilled by that fact, either. "You are planning to clean up this place eventually, aren't you?" he asked distastefully as they picked their way through the corridor toward the treasure room.

"Eventually," Thrawn a.s.sured him. "First we need to learn what we can of the enemy's strategy and tactics, and for that we need to know where each combatant was and how he was positioned when he died."

"Shouldn't you have put the ship somewhere out of sight?" Maris asked.

She was 'clinging tightly to Qennto's arm as they walked, Car'das noted, apparently not doing nearly as well this time around as she had on their last visit. It made him feel better, somehow.

"Eventually, we'll move it inside the base," Thrawn said. "But we need to first establish that there are no dangerous instabilities in its engines or weaponry."

The treasure room, like the corridors, looked exactly the same as it had just after the ship's capture, except that now there were a pair of Chiss moving along the stacks, apparently making sensor records of the various items. "Spread out," Thrawn ordered the humans. "See if you can find anything of a familiar style."

"You mean like different kinds of money?" Qennto asked as he looked around the room.

"Or are you talking about the gemstones?" Maris added.

"I was speaking mainly of the artwork," Thrawn said. "We can learn more from that than we can from currency or gems."

Qennto snorted. "You expecting there to be sales receipts?"

"I was thinking more of the art's origins." Thrawn gestured toward a set of nested tressles. "Those, for instance, were probably created by beings with an extra joint between wrist and elbow, who see largely in the blue-ultraviolet part of the spectrum."

Qennto and Maris exchanged looks. "The Frunchies, you think?" Maris suggested.

"Yeah, right," Qennto said with a grunt. He eyed Thrawn suspiciously, then unhooked Maris's arm from his and strode over to the tressles.

"What are Frunchies?" Car'das asked.

"The Frunchettan-sai," Maris explained. "They have a couple of colony worlds in the Outer Rim. Rak calls them Frunchies because-"

"I'll be broggled," Qennto said, cutting her off as he leaned over the tressles with his head c.o.c.ked to the side.

"What?" Maris said.

"He's right," Qennto said, sounding stunned. "It's signed with formal Frunchv script." He turned back to Thrawn, a strange expression on his face. "I thought you said you hadn't made it to Republic s.p.a.ce."

"To the best of my knowledge, we haven't," Thrawn said. "But the artist's physical characteristics are obvious simply from looking at his work."

"Maybe to you it's obvious," Qennto growled, looking back at the tressles. "It sure isn't to me."

"Or me," Maris seconded.

Thrawn raised his eyebrows at Car'das. "Car'das?"

Car'das peered at the artwork, trying to spot whatever these subtle cues were that Thrawn had seen. But he couldn't.

"Sorry."

"Maybe it was just luck," Qennto said, abandoning the tressles and kneeling down beside an elaborate blue-and-white sculpt. "Let me see here ... yeah, I thought so." He looked over his shoulder at Thrawn. "How about this one?"

For a moment Thrawn studied the sculpt in silence, his eyes occasionally flicking around the rest of the room as if seeking inspiration. "The artist is humanoid," he said at last. "Proportioned differently from humans and Chiss, with either a wider torso or longer arms." His eyes narrowed slightly. "There's something of a distance to his emotional state, too. I would say his people are both drawn to and yet repulsed by or fearful of the physical objects they live among."

Qennto's breath went out in a huff. "I don't believe this," he said.

"That's the Pashvi, all right."

"I don't think I know them," Maris said.

"They've got a system on the edge of Wild s.p.a.ce," Qennto said. "I've been there a few times-there's a small but stable market for their art, mostly in the Corporate Sector."

"What did Commander Thrawn mean about fear of physical objects?" Car'das asked.

"Their world is sprinkled with thousands of rock pillars," Qennto said.

"Most of the best food plants grow on the tops. Unfortunately, so does a nasty predator avian. It makes for-well, for pretty much just what he said."

"And you got all that from a single sculpt?" Maris asked, gazing at Thrawn with a strange look on her face.

"Actually, no," the Chiss a.s.sured her. "There are-let me see-twelve more examples of their artwork." He pointed to two other areas of the room.

"You sure?" Car'das asked, frowning at the indicated sculpts and flats.

"They don't look at all alike to me."

"They were created by different artists," Thrawn said. "But the species is the same."

"This is really weird," Qennto said, shaking his head. "Like some crazy Jedi thing."

"Jedi?" Thrawn asked.

"They're the guardians of the peace in the Republic," Maris told him.

"Probably the only reason we've held together as long as we have. They're very powerful, very n.o.ble people."

Qennto caught Car'das's eye, his nose wrinkling slightly. His opinion of Jedi, Car'das knew, was considerably lower than his girlfriend's.

"They sound intriguing." Thrawn nodded toward the sculpt. "I presume these Pashvi won't have put up much resistance to Vagaari raids?"

"Hardly," Qennto confirmed grimly. "They're a pretty agreeable people.

Lousy at fighting."

"And your Republic and these Jedi don't protect them?"

"The Jedi are spread way too thin," Car'das said. "Anyway, Wild s.p.a.ce isn't actually part of the Republic."

"Even if it were, the government is too busy with its own intrigues to bother with little things like life-and-death situations," Marls said, a bitter edge to her voice.

"I see," Thrawn said. "Well. Let us continue our survey, and please inform me if you find anything else from your region of s.p.a.ce."

He looked at Marls. "And as we search, perhaps you'll tell me more about these Jedi."

9.

Guildmaster Gilfrome's here," Anakin's voice said softly from Obi-Wan's comlink. "just coming up the steps to the east door."

"Magistrate Argente's here, too," Obi-Wan told him, gazing down from the administration building's west door as Argente climbed up the stairs on that side, his people pressed protectively around him. "And I see Master C'baoth and Lorana approaching through the marketplace."

"So that's it?" Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan scratched his check thoughtfully. The expected attack on Magistrate Argente hadn't come during the night, nor had it been launched on the trip here to the conference room.

Now, with the miners' representative on the scene, the conspirators' last chance was gone, at least until the negotiators broke for lunch. "It is for now, anyway," he told Anakin. "But stay alert."

Argente and his people reached the top of the stairs, and Obi-Wan bowed in greeting. The group brushed past without a single acknowledging glance and disappeared inside. Suppressing a flicker of annoyance, Obi-Wan turned his attention to C'baoth and Lorana as they started up the stairs.

Lorana, he noted, was a bit pale, her steps a little tentative. But her expression was determined, and as they reached the top of the steps she smiled a bit awkwardly at him. "Master Ken.o.bi," she said, nodding. "I never had a chance to properly thank you for what you and Anakin did for me yesterday."

"And this is also not the time," C'baoth put in. Nevertheless, there was a flicker of approval in his eyes as the two Jedi exchanged nods. "There is still danger, both to the negotiators and the negotiations themselves.

Stay here with Master Ken.o.bi and watch the crowd for familiar faces."

"Yes, Master C'baoth," Lorana said.

With another nod at Obi-Wan, C'baoth strode past through the doorway, leaving the two of them alone. "How do you feel?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Much better, thank you," Lorana said. "I really don't know how much good I can do here, though," she added, turning toward the marketplace spread out before them at the bottom of the steps. "I only saw three of the conspirators."

"That's three more than the rest of us have," Obi-Wan pointed out. "Not counting the ones already in custody, of course."

"Maybe their arrest scared off the others."

"It may have scared them away from a missile attack, but they're not going to just give up and go away," Obi-Wan said. "They seem obsessed with what they see as the Corporate Alliance's attempt to steal their planet's wealth, and once a person's obsessed he or she doesn't listen to logic anymore. Sheer momentum will carry them the rest of the way through this."