He had four more patients lined up. He knew what he had to do.
Jos pronounced the man and had a droid haul him away. There was no other choice. If he kept working on this one, the patients waiting would almost certainly die.
Or maybe you’ll kill them, too, the malicious little voice within whispered, as the next patient was placed before him.
He had never felt more tired in his life. Blast this war.
25
Den sat listening to the Ugnaught med-mechano specialist, Rorand Zuzz, feeling as if he had just been handed the key to Coruscant on a platinum platter. Zuzz had supplied him with useful information in the past, but nothing like this.
“You’re sure?”
“Y’kin take it t’the IGB ’n’ swap it f’creds, Dhur. Oh, yar.”
“How did you come by this information?”
Zuzz grinned. “Femnaught in Rimsoo Twelve, over’n Xenoby, she lustin’ f’me. She runs alla d’test on d’local crop.”
“Have another drink,” Den said. This was big. Huge. Monstrous. So important, in fact, that…
“Why haven’t I heard about this?”
The stubby little alien shrugged. “Dunno. Rachott, d’fem, say she runnin’ d’tests, passin’ ’em ’long, ’n’ no feke, the stuff’s gettin’ weaker ’n’ weaker. Somebody sittin’ on d’results. Who knows why?”
The server arrived with a fresh drink, and Zuzz grabbed it as if it were the last drop of liquid on the day side of a nonrotating planet.
Den continued to think about this. If the bota was indeed losing its potency, that was major news. The stuff was worth its weight in first-grade firestones, if not more, and if it died out, the price of any that still had full strength and full spectrum would rise right out of the galaxy. Once word got around, everybody and his ugly little sibling would be out there in the fields trying to grab up as much as they could. A being could retire on what he could hide in his pockets …
Yeah, this was a story, all right. A ticket-to-anywhere, the kind of piece that came along once in a Falleen’s lifetime. Spin it right—and he knew he could—it might even be a Poracsa Prize winner, and that would set him up for life.
Den had to confirm it, and fast. He had to break it before somebody else leaked it. This would put him on the map. They’d name journalism colleges for him…
He paid for another three drinks for his Ugnaught source, got up, and left the cantina. He had to find at least two more confirmations. Maybe even just one. Once it had been confirmed, he would get the story out, somehow. Even if his comm unit was on the crackle at the moment, there had to be a way. He’d tattoo it on a soldier mustering out, if he had to. Something.
As he started to cross the hot and fetid compound, he saw Eyar heading toward the chow hall. He moved to intercept her.
No doubt about it—she was one gorgeous fem.
She smiled, and they exchanged ritual greetings.
“You look excited about something,” she said.
“How could I be anything else but excited in your presence, Sweetflaps?”
She laughed. “I love a Sullustan who makes me laugh. But I ken something else in your attitude.”
“A story,” he admitted. “A big one, if it checks out.”
“Good for you!” Her voice was warm, generous, sincere.
Den looked at her, and for a moment, he felt a pang of regret for the wives and families he had never had time to build. It had always been the work, first, last, and in the middle. The lane not taken included watching the younglings venture out of the caves for the first time, hearing the sounds of childish laughter, feeling the warmth of a spouse or spouses in a bed under a cooling sheet. Things he had planned to do, someday, when he had time. Only, it had never worked out that way.
“Your brow furrows in thought,” she said.
He sighed. “A few regrets in my old age.”
She grinned. “Not that old.”
“I thought I reminded you of your grandfather.”
“You do—but our family started young. He’s still fit and active, my grandfather. Six wives, fourteen children, twenty-six grandchildren, and he took a new spouse just two seasons past. She’s already with child.”
“Impressive.”
“Do you ever think about returning to the homeworld?”
He nodded. “I have. More and more, lately. Chasing after wars does get old. I’ve considered quitting the field, getting a local news beat back on Sullust, and trying to find a few ancient fems desperate enough to consider me as a husband.”
“They wouldn’t have to be desperate,” she said, looking down at the tops of her feet. “Or ancient.”
Den stopped walking and looked at her. “Uh …perhaps my ear dampeners are malfunctioning. What are you saying, Eyar-la?”
Eyar glided to a halt as well, and turned to face him directly.
“After this war ends, and my tour breaks up, I plan on returning home and finding a cohabitation cave.”
“What? And leave show business?”
She laughed again—it sounded like a cascade of tone-crystals—then continued. “The prospects I know are young, but serious mascs. Don’t get me wrong; they’d be good fathers, and I hope to collect one or two more like them, but they’re maybe lacking a bit in the sense-of-humor department. There would always be room for a Sullustan of your cut, Den-la.”
Den was astonished. He grinned at Eyar. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a boukk’s age.”
“Then consider it formal,” she said. “Younglings need fit and strong fathers, but they also need older and wiser ones. You would honor my cave if you chose to live in it.”
Den blinked against the sudden welling in his eyes. Impossible that they could be tears—not for a crusty old cynic like him. Marriage? A family? A cave full of in-laws and younglings? He had thought all that was too far in his past, out of reach. Not for him. A hard-bitten reporter, decades away from the homeworld, he had always figured he’d die on a battlefield, or drunk in some pesthole hive of scum and villainy.
But now, to be offered an alternative, especially by one so young and sweet…
“Please consider it,” she said, mistaking his hesitation for a possible negative response.
“You know what? If I live past the end of this war, I believe I will try to find my way home.” Den paused, took a deep breath, then said, “It would honor me to join my cave with yours.”
She smiled, a broad, delightful expression. “Really? It would?”
Her enthusiasm washed over him, full of energy and cheer. “I can’t wait to tell my family! Den Dhur, the famous reporter, joining us!”
“Not so famous.”
“You hide your sconce under a shield, Den-la. I’ve been reading your stories for years. Everybody on Sullust knows who you are.”
“Not nice to mock your elders,” he said with false severity.
“Nonsense. It’s true. In my home-warren there are younglings who want to grow up to be you.”
“No mopak? Uh, I mean—”
She laughed. “No mopak,” she said. She reached out and caught his hand. “Perhaps you’d like to come back to my cubicle and seal the vow? Unless, of course, you’re too busy with your story …?”
Den smiled. “The story can wait. It’s not that important.” And even as he said it, he realized it was true. In the end, there really were things more important than tomorrow’s newsdisc, or even easy money.
Who would’ve thought it?
As Den left Eyar’s kiosk, it was already getting dark. He saw I-Five standing outside the OT, talking to Jos. The surgeon said something to the droid, then turned and went back inside.
“I-Five, old buddy!”
The droid turned and saw him. Den swaggered up to him and punched him playfully in one arm. “Good t’see you. What’s up?”
“Besides you?”
Den giggled as the two of them walked through the muggy evening air. Eyar had opened a bottle of fine Bothan grain wi
ne to celebrate their possible nuptial agreement, and it had put up little resistance. He was feeling just fine, all around. While at Eyar’s, he’d confirmed via his comm the bota story’s probable veracity from three separate sources whom he trusted. He was now in a mood to celebrate.
“Hey, I’m just feeling a little friendly. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” he told the droid. “Speaking of which, we still got to get you into the club.”
“And what club might that be?”
Den wagged a finger at him. “Don’t tell me you’re backing out. You must experience the joys of intoxication. It’ll be good for your silicon soul.”
“Ah, yes. As a matter of fact, I believe I’ve come up with an absurdly simple way to do it. I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it before.”
“Do tell, then.”
“I am, as I was just reminding Doctor Vandar, a machine, essentially. My synaptic grid processor is heuristic—I extrapolate new data from known data. But I also have an algorithmic subprocessor that serves my autonomic needs.”
“Okay…”
“You didn’t understand a word of that, did you?”
“I believe I got also, and my.”
“It’s like your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls your breathing, heartbeat, and so forth— functions your body needs that aren’t under conscious control. While I don’t need to breathe, I do need constant monitoring of things like balance, lubrication, powerbus functioning…”
“Right, got it,” Den said. “But what’s this got to do with tying one on?”
“Simple. My subprocessor is programmable. I can encode it to simulate a state of inebriation.”
Den stopped and stared at him. “You can program yourself to get drunk? I thought you couldn’t mess around with your systems.”
“The hardware is protected. I have some leeway with the software, now that my full memories have returned.”
“How long would it take you?”
There was a slight but unmistakable hint of snobbery in I-Five’s voice as he answered. “I have a SyntheTech AA-One nanoprocessor, operating at seven petahertz, with a five-exabyte capacity. I wrote the program just after I mentioned it to you. It took me six-point-one picoseconds to encode the basic algorithm and calculate its functional parameters.”
“Wow. That’s…fast.”
They stopped to let a small flock of R4 astromechs roll by, beeping and whistling at each other. “So, when are you going to implement the program? Or get mopakfaced, as we organics say.”
“No time like the present. As you organics say.”
Den considered. “Okay. I guess you could do it anywhere. But there’s custom to be observed, trust me on this. Besides, I’d like to join you. I’ve got a nice little buzz on, and I don’t mind keeping it going. And it’s getting close to sabacc time. Everyone’ll be there.”
“Wonderful. Nothing like an audience.”
Den made an after-you gesture toward the cantina, then fell in behind I-Five.
There was an old saying on Nedij—you are never more than seven wings away from the Great Raptor. Stretched to fit the entire galaxy, that number went up considerably, of course, but the principle was the same: talk to somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else, and so on, until, in what was always an amazingly short list, you found that you were able to link up with just about anybody.
Kaird, now comfortably and gratefully back in the robes of The Silent, stood in the gathering shade of a building thunderstorm, watching the food service tech leave the main chow hall kitchens and head for her communal kiosk. The proverb’s truth was even simpler here, on a world peopled entirely by occupying forces, with no indigenes of its own. With this female, he was but two sets of hands away from the pilot of the ship he intended to steal.
The female, a Twi’lek named Ord Vorra, had a relationship with Biggs Bogan, a human pilot, who was one of a trio of such in the rotation to fly the admiral’s personal ship. This Twi’lek–human relationship was noteworthy for an unusual—at least here on this world— reason: Vorra and Bogan were both Strag players, and both of them were ranked Adepts. The ancient game of strategy and tactics, played on a simple hologrammic board with a dozen pieces on each side, was an intellectual pursuit that required an excellent memory, and years of practice, to achieve mastery. Kaird himself was passing familiar with the game, but had never been able to give it the time necessary to reach the level of Adept. That there were two such on a planet like Drongar was most unusual, and so, naturally, they would have found each other.
A ship’s pilot and a kitchen worker, both of them Strag Adepts. Just went to show you that the galaxy was a strange place—a fact of which Kaird had long been aware.
He moved across the compound, staying well back from the Twi’lek as he shadowed her. If she noticed him, likely she would not think much of one of The Silent out taking an evening stroll, but best not to take chances.
A warm breeze, heralding the coming rain, barely stirred the humidity, adding a small bit of freshness to the fetid air. He had already checked out the communal living quarters in which the Twi’lek lived—much too crowded for his uses, and always somebody around. But Vorra and Bogan had no doubt found places where they could be alone, since constant noise and motion were distractions that Strag players preferred to avoid. Not that they couldn’t tune such things out—an Adept, it was said, could plan four moves ahead in the middle of a Piluvian salamander-storm—they just would rather not. So Kaird was confident that, sooner or later, the Twi’lek and the human would seek out a place where they could be together without other company, and that place would be a potential contact point for Kaird.
He had no interest in Vorra, save as a conduit to Bogan. Bogan, who, on the days when he was on standby for ferrying Admiral Kersos about, would have the new security codes for the admiral’s ship. Kaird would learn when that was, and then it was just a matter of how and when to gather what he needed…
Ord Vorra stopped at the stores kiosk. Kaird drifted into the deep shadow of one of the industrial recyclers across the lane from the supply building and became effectively invisible.
The wind picked up, and the smell of the coming rain grew heavier. Kaird waited and sweated. The dome would not slow the rain coming, nor the evaporating puddles from leaving. When force-shields and -domes were first experimented with, ages ago, such things had not always been taken into consideration, and the result had often caused much discomfort—and worse—for the residents. A force-dome that filled with greenhouse gases that could not escape, allowing water vapor to condense on the inner aspect and causing thick fog or more rain— not to mention a sudden lack of breathable air—these were all bad things. And so the newly repaired dome had been set to pretty much the same environmental parameters as it had before the “winter glitch,” as it was now referred to. Which meant they were back to weather that would steam the hide off a dewback.
The new admiral had apparently inherited the old admiral’s personal vessel, or at least the use of it. Kaird approved of this. The vessel in question was a modified Surronian assault ship, a sleek craft powered by a quad cluster of A2- and A2.50-grade engines. It was fast in atmosphere, according to what Kaird had learned— comparable to a Naboo N-1 starfighter—but, more importantly, it was fast to lightspeed, also. Not to mention being armed with fire-linked ion and laser cannons, and, while less than thirty meters in length, sufficiently fueled and comfortable for a long flight, with more than enough range to get him off this mudball and back to Black Sun’s headquarters on Coruscant.
Once he was there, and his business was done, it was his intention to somehow keep the ship and use it to get back to his real home.
Back to the snow-dusted mountains of Nedij…
The Twi’lek emerged from the store, carrying a small package. She was not unattractive, if one’s desires ran to featherless bipeds, though she was much too heavy for Kaird’s taste. Nediji females were hollow-boned and willowy, and that standard
was hardwired into male Nediji’s brains.
She moved off into the gathering dusk, and Kaird resisted the urge to follow immediately. No need to rush. He had his quarry, and now he would learn everything germane to his needs about them. He would obtain their medical records from Lens. From a clerk in Personnel, he would get their service information. A censor in Comm Intercept would provide copies of communications, if any, the pair had sent or received from family or friends.
In a day, probably less, he would have amassed as much intel about these two as anybody here could possibly need to know. Then, when he had enough information, he would find a keystone, a link, a glitch—some small bit of data around which he would build a plan. Not a perfect plan, perhaps, but Kaird had learned many things in his years with Black Sun, and he counted this as one of the most important: it didn’t have to be perfect. One always had to leave some looseness for variables.
He would also think of ways that would cover any contingencies, of course. Then he would put things into motion. All things going well, it would slide like a greased mynock over transparisteel. Even if there were problems, he could deal with them. It would still happen.
A few days from now, he would be in his new ship, with a cargo valued far beyond easy measure, on his way to turn it in, and then to take an early retirement. And to live happily thereafter, until the Final Flight…
There was a flash of lightning, an almost immediate clap of thunder to reveal how close the strike had been— very close—and the rain started falling, fat, heavy drops.
Time to get indoors, Kaird thought. He’d done enough for tonight. It was best, he knew, not to get too far ahead in his plans. It was always good to remember his eggmother’s recipe for taboret stew: first, you must catch a taboret…
Column was not without regret, or even remorse, as the coded message was sent to the spy’s Separatist superiors. There had been a moment of hesitation, a long and reflective pause—but in the end, one did what one had to do. The control function was initiated, the information transmitted. And it could not be recalled, once it was gone.
Star Wars®: MedStar II: Jedi Healer Page 16
