That brought a chilly end to the conversation. The woman left the club
alone; shortly after, the Lafran disappeared up the stairs leading to
the guest quarters. Luke returned his attention to his meal.
But when "Oola" came by with an unordered second drink, Li Stonn asked
if it would be possible to get a newsrecord on the troubles in
Farlax.
She smiled as though he had asked a foolish question, and returned with
it before the last bite of nerf disappeared. The price of that
convenience was added to his bill as a stiff service charge, along with
the cost of the drink.
Shortly after, a holographic Jabba made an appearance on the dais above
the main floor. That signaled the start of an elaborately scripted
show that promised to involve not only "Bib Fortuna" and the dancers,
but additional actors and the audience as well.
Luke took that as his cue to leave. His decision was affirmed when,
climbing up the curving stairs to the street, he encountered the bounty
hunter Boushh coming down them with an unconvincing Chewbacca in tow.
"Aren't you a little short for a Wookiee?" he muttered under his
breath as they passed.
When Luke reached the docking bay, the door was still locked, the skiff
was still secure, and Akanah was still away. Nor was there any sign
she had returned and left again. Checking the chronometers, he found
that she had been gone more than sixteen hours.
Where are you? he thought. What are you doing so long out there? You
have so little money, and asked me for none--and that's all this place
respects-But Luke resisted the impulse to collect h is light-saber and
head off in the direction of the Pemblehov District. Climbing up to
the Mud Sloth's flight deck, he settled in the flight couch with his
reader and two expensive data cards. As the balance of the night
slowly ground by, he diverted himself with absurdities about the Jedi
and the troubling news about what sounded like a coming war--hoping
that wherever they were at that moment, neither Akanah nor Leia needed
his help more than she needed him to stay away.
Akanah stood before the housing block known as Atrium 41 and viewed it
with dismay.
Even in the forgiving early-morning light, the fif-teen-level tower
looked like a home for people who had made a habit of leaving
everything they had in the casinos.
Every other letter was missing from the unlit sign, and the entry
arch's security doors were propped open with metal bars. There was an
unpleasant smell in the air that seemed to arise from the sun shining
on the stone.
Akanah's journey to reach this point had taken her through dozens of
shabby clubs, shops, and nightspots in the second-tier outer districts
of Talos--the optimistically named New Marketplace, the tawdry flesh
auction that was Pemblehov, the rough-tempered Demon's Lair.
She had bought and traded information as she could, walked long
distances on now aching feet, fended off three attacks and at least
twenty propositions without drawing blood, and been granted an
unexpected measure of compassion by a street captain, who gave her a
sheltered place to rest without expecting anything in return.
Now she stood before her objective brushing a streak of alley grime
from the sleeve of her dar-cloak and trying to fight off
disappointment. She found herself hoping that her last informant had
lied to her--it would be better to be played for a fool than to have to
accept this as the truth. It was that hope, as much as anything, that
finally moved her forward through the entrance arch.
The tower's 'atrium was barely deserving of the name. Just four meters
across and ten meters long, it was more truly an open stairwell with a
skylight at the top.
Metal-grate balconies with bent and broken railings circled the atrium
on each level, linked up and down with companionways at the narrow
end.
Triangular doors aping the gratings led to each level's four
apartments.
Akanah made her way to the third level unmolested, but there her way
was blocked by a gray-furred Gotal wearing a black Imperial Navy
officer's tunic with a blaster hole scorched through it, and a
vibroblade slung in a smuggler-style hip belt.
"Nice trophy," Akanah said. "Vice admiral, isn't it?
Did you take him yourself?"
The Gotal answered with a wordless growl.
"What's your business?"
"Does Joreb Goss live here?"
"Who asks?"
"I am Akanah."
"Who sends you here?"
"I am here on my own, on business of my own, in search of Joreb
Goss."
"Master Joreb owns all of this, and by his graciousness allows his
friends and servants the comforts of his domain. Are you to be one of
his girls?"
"Yes," Akanah said. "I am."
"You're early," the Gotal said. "Don't be disturbing the Master. Wait
in the playroom for the others."
"I'm not part of the morning auditions," Akanah said, growing
impatient. She washed the Current gently across the Gotal's sensitive
head-cone receptors, hoping to make him more pliant. "Take me to him,
please."
"When the Master rises, I will tell him that the woman Akanah comes,
asking after him on business of her own," said the guard. "He will
decide what meaning that has to him." The Gotal pointed at a door one
level up on the Opposite side. "Wait there."
Joreb Goss had the swagger of petty self-importance and the presence of
someone who believed he was the power in the room. Tall and trim, with
pale blue eyes in a lined but otherwise unmarked face, Joreb was
handsome despite his age. His long, thick silver hair was swept back
to a vertical comb and hung to the small of his back.
But his mock flight suit was gaudy and cheap, his black boots buffed to
an unlikely shine. His smile had the same false cast, and those alert
blue eyes appraised Akanah familiarly before meeting her gaze.
"So you are my visitor," Joreb said.
"No," Akanah said, holding herself erect. "I'm your daughter."
Joreb's eyes widened, but he said nothing at first.
Clasping one wrist behind his back, he circled her slowly. "My
daughter," he repeated. "Who is your mother?"
"My mother was Isela Talsava Norand," Akanah said. "She's dead now."
Completing his circuit, Joreb stopped facing Akanah and leaned in
toward her. "I don't know this name," he said. "What is it you want,
daughter of Isela?"
"That you not lie to me," Akanah said. "You knew my mother well--let
me remind you when. You met her on Praidaw, came to live with her on
Gavens, where she had a house in Torlas--the house in which I was
born.
You moved with us to Lucazec. And within the year, you left us
there."
"You speak of things older than my memories," Joreb said. "How am I to
know the truth of them?"
"What do you mean?" Akanah said, a sudden flare of anger in her eyes
and her tone. "I was the child, not you. I'm the one who had to learn
about you in a story told by my mother."
"I have not heard this story," said Joreb. "Perhaps you will tell it
to me."
"I came so far to find you," she said in a small voice.
"How can you be so cold to me--" "You are not unattractive, and perhaps
there is something about your eyes I find familiar," Joreb said.
"But, you see, I have developed a fondness for Rokna blae." His tone
was sorrowfully apologetic. "Do you know it?"
"It's a deadly poison," Akanah said. "From a tree fungus that grows on
Endor."
Joreb brought one hand forward and waggled a finger at her. "Yes,
that's right--Endor. I had forgotten.
But you see, Rokna blue is not so deadly as some think.
The smallest amount brings an exquisite state of bliss. It magnifies
all other pleasures for hours--indescribable.
You must try it to know. I would be happy to stand you to your
first--" "No, thank you," Akanah said curtly. "What does this have to
do with your memory?"
Joreb looked momentarily lost. "What-- Ah, yes. I was saying, in the
proper doses--a microgram, no morerathe blue is not deadly. But it
still does demand a price for its blessings."
"A price?"
Joreb touched his temple with two fingers of his left hand. "My
memories do not go back even as much as a year. Everything is new to
me. No, do not pity me--I have chosen to live in a vivid present
rather than hold on to what is now the forgotten past."
Akanah wore her horror openly. "How could you make such a choice?"
A smile spread slowly across Joreb's face. "Bliss beyond imagining,"
he said. "I could show you."
"No," she said firmly.
Joreb shrugged. "I find your choice as puzzling as you find mine. Do
you have memories worth treasuring?
It seems I did not."
"I would have treasured them," she said, and tears ran freely from her
eyes. "I came here to find my father.
What am I to do now?"
"You can stay if you like," he offered. "There are rooms open on the
upper levels. Or, at least, I think there still are. Trass will know
for certain. But I'm afraid I will never be able to add anything to
the story your mother told you. You may be my daughter, as you say,"
Joreb said, then shook his head regretfully. "But I am not your
father."
(Chapter 9
Akanah returned to Docking Bay A13 twenty-two hours after she had left
it, her face pale, her clothing dirty, her eyes dull.
"They aren't here," she said wearily as she climbed into the skiff,
waking Luke from an unplanned nap in the pilot's couch. "We can go."
Then, without saying anything more, she tried to crawl into the bunk
and draw the curtain against Luke.
But he followed close behind her, unwilling to settle for so little
after so long.
"Go where?" he said, catching the curtain with a hand and throwing it
aside. "Did you find anything?"
"I found enough," Akanah said, turning her back to him. "I'll tell you
when we're outbound."
"You said you'd come back for me. I'd like to see the scribing. I'd
like to see where they lived. There might be something I can pick
up."
"I'm too tired," she said.
"You're a mess, too, but I'm not keeping score," Luke said. "Look, I
paid to have the shower cleaned. I think you should go make it dirty
again, and we'll talk after. You'll feel better, no matter what comes
next."
To Luke's surprise, Akanah allowed herself to be directed. She
lingered a long time under the water, longer than Luke himself had.
When she emerged, she was standing a bit straighter, with better color
in her face and a little life in her eyes.
But it seemed to Luke that whatever strength the shower had returned to
Akanah went directly into stubbornness.
She flatly refused to take him back out into the city, or to talk about
what she had done and where she had gone.
"I want to sleep," she said, standing at the foot of the mounting
ladder with her soiled dar-cloak draped over one arm, the sun
glistening in the last drops of water beaded on her bare shoulders.
"I'm going to sleep, or I'm going to fall down where I'm standing."
"I'll hire a speeder--" "No!" she said sharply. "We're finished
when I'm rested. Just take us away from here. Lift ship and jump us a
few hours toward the Core. I should be human again by the time you're
done doing that. But right now, I need to be alone, and I need to
sleep. And that's what I'm going to do."
Brushing close enough past him that he caught the scent of soap on her
hair, Akanah clambered back up the spindly ladder into the skiff.
Fr owning resignedly, Luke walked to the bow of the skiff and started
his preflight inspection. By the time he made his way up the ladder
into the flight compartment, the bunk was sealed as tight as a cocoon,
with as little clue to what would eventually emerge.
He slipped back into the pilot's couch with a sigh, switching off the
datapad and tucking it under a tie-down. "Mud Sloth to Talos tower,"
Luke said. "Departing A-Thirteen, requesting clearance to orbit."
"Talos tower. Please hold, Mud Sloth. There's traffic ahead of
you."
Luke glanced at the chronometer and shook his head with a wry
expression. They had been on Atzerri a few minutes short of a full
day. His reply was far more Luke than Li Stonn.
"Talos tower, copy, I have the traffic on my sensors, and it looks from
here like a slow accountant making an extra pass," he said. "Do you
think it'd help him along if I rattle the walls with my thrusters while
I'm waiting for him to count to one?"
Clearance to lift came a few moments later. But Luke was not greatly
surprised to find that the final bill, transmitted to him as he cleared
the atmosphere, still assessed him for two days' berthing.
Free Traders, Luke thought with disgust. Thieves with business
cards.
Just before jumping the skiff out from Atzerri, Luke remembered to
retrieve the report on the Mud Sloth from the New Republic Ship
Registry on Coruscant.
It was much shorter than the report on Star Morning, as befitted a ship
that Luke guessed had probably spent most of its life grounded. The
little ship was impractical for anything more than the occasional
businessman's vacation or off-the-spacelanes sales call. Most of its
value was as a status symbol, something a Have could talk about where
the Have-Nots could listen in envy. To judge by the skiff's lines and
detailing, Verpine had very consciously traded comfort underway for a
design that looked fast while sitting still.
But Luke's only interests were the ownership records and the most
recent entries in the traffic log.
After Akanah's behavior on Atzerri, Luke had developed a renewed
interest in independent confirmation of the things she had been telling
him. He still wanted to believe her, but was no longer sure that he
could. And, one way or ano
ther, he had to know.
Luke also found he had developed a renewed curiosity about the things
Akanah was not telling him. It had occurred to him, for instance, that
almost every time
Akanah spoke about her past, she spoke about her life on Carratos, not
Lucazec. Knowing how hungry he was for information about his mother,
he had expected Akanah to be generous with anecdotes and remembrances
about the part of her life she claimed to look back on most fondly.
But such remembrances had been few, and Nashira had figured in even
fewer. It made Luke wonder, and wondering led to doubt, and doubt to
suspicion--a highly undesirable state of affairs.
So Luke was relieved at first when the initial screen of the report
informed him that NR80-109399, a Verpine Adventurer, Model 201,
production group E, belonged to Akanah Norand Pell, being an adult
resident of Chofin, a settlement belonging to the autonomous state of
Carratos, under the authority of which this registration is granted.
And the recording date for the articles of registration was recent--not
quite half a year past.
Turning to the traffic log, Luke found more welcome news. The only