Exile

by Aaron Allston

  “Hey,” Ben said. “Your table is broken.”

  The proprietor moved over to look. He pointed at a symbol at the menu’s lower left corner, an animation of tiny blaster bolts crisscrossing, right to left and left to right.

  “No. Holocomm data link’s live. That means it’s checking all the way back to wherever your account’s supposed to be. And there’s no account to find. Got another credcard? Or coin?”

  Ben felt in his pocket. There was one credcoin there, his last. He’d planned to get local coins through his credcard. He shook his head.

  The proprietor gave him a sympathetic look. “Well, go ask your mother or father for more.”

  The hunger Ben was feeling was graduating from mild to sharp and painful. “Maybe,” he said, “you could let me have my breakfast, and I’d get Dad to pay you back later today.” To his suggestion he added a sizable push through the Force.

  The proprietor laughed. “I could. But after a year of doing that, I’d be out of business. Off with you, son.”

  Ben sighed and left the table. He really was hungry now, and perhaps, he reflected, the hunger had kept him from concentrating and being able to affect the man. Or maybe Ben was just too weak because, like his father said, he hadn’t had sufficient Jedi training. Or maybe the proprietor was too strong-willed.

  It didn’t matter. Ben resisted the urge to stomp his frustrations away as he left the café.

  And now his plans needed further revision. Before reconnaissance, he needed food. And he needed to find out what had become of the special account that was supposed to be available to him for this mission.

  Banking kiosks turned out to be no help. Twice he inserted his credcard in their slots and tried to access his account, but all he received was a cryptic ACCOUNT NOT FOUND screen. He tried to send a message to the establishment, but even a tiny data query would cost money if sent over a holocomm connection, and he had no money to draw on.

  Well, that had to change. He had to, as his mother had put it so many times, acquire resources. And in this situation, that meant … stealing.

  He hesitated over that. Stealing was wrong. Sure, everybody in his family had hijacked ships at one time or another, but those were always emergencies. Nobody stole for breakfast credits.

  But this wasn’t just breakfast credits. He was on a mission, one he was proud to have been assigned, one that was important and might save the lives of Jedi and Guards … didn’t that make it an emergency?

  He decided it did.

  He drifted across the street to stand near the doors into the Crossroutes building. Perhaps someone would flash a credcard, Ben would see where he pocketed it, and he could follow the owner—

  And what? He didn’t have his mother’s skills. He couldn’t pick someone’s pocket clean without that person feeling it. He could follow his target into a lonely corridor or alley, hit him over the head … but Ben’s already upset stomach rebelled at that notion. Suddenly he was a mugger, injuring or possibly killing someone in an effort to obtain pocket credits.

  He shook his head. Hitting someone over the head for breakfast credits would be a mistake, and he couldn’t afford to make a mistake right now.

  The answer came to him a moment later. A public conveyance airspeeder, striped red and yellow to make it even more conspicuous than the glowdot marquee reading FOR HIRE on the hood, pulled to a landing in front of the building, and its driver hopped out to open a front-end cargo compartment and off-load luggage. The passenger exited and waited on the walkway, a small portfolio of black simulated nerf leather open in his hand. And tucked into many of the numerous little pockets of that portfolio, Ben saw, were credcards. Some were banking institution credcards, the sort that required validation from the institution to access funds, but others were stamped to indicate that they carried their own value in their memory.

  Ben knew what he could do. He drifted closer.

  When the driver was finished and three pieces of luggage rested on the walkway, the passenger handed him one of the institutional cards. At that moment, Ben flicked a finger and exerted himself through the Force. One of the other cards, the lesser ones, leapt free of the portfolio and fluttered to the street.

  Ben edged closer and pinned the card to the ground with his mental exertion. A moment later, the driver handed the other card back to the passenger, entered the driver’s compartment, and accelerated away. The passenger pocketed his portfolio, clumsily picked up the luggage, and moved on into the Crossroutes building.

  Ben moved over beside the street, knelt as if to fiddle with his boot, and picked up the card.

  And that was it. He was a thief, but he’d only taken a little bit of what the man possessed and had hurt no one. He’d made the wrong as small as he possibly could.

  Half an hour later, well fed on caf and kruffy potpie, which turned out to be savory fowl meat, vegetables, and gravy in a thick pastry shell, he felt ready to put his troubles behind him and get the mission under way.

  A few minutes with his datapad communicating with a public data terminal gave him some of the information he needed.

  Tendrando Arms leased the 212th through 215th floors. That suggested to Ben that the floor he wanted, 215, was where the most important employees had their offices. His mother had told him on numerous occasions that one way people liked to feel important was by sitting on top of their subordinates, and the practical way to do this was to have their offices on upper floors.

  Since the building had its decorative planetary rings every five stories, starting with the sixth story, then 215 had to be just beneath one of those rings. Ben searched the building directory and found that Lyster Innovations leased the next three floors, 216 through 218. Lyster Innovations’ public records indicated that the firm employed quality specialists and “idea generators” who would visit other companies and tell them how to do their jobs better. Ben frowned over that, dubious, but decided that descending from 216 might be the easiest way to get onto 215 unobserved.

  He occupied himself for another hour researching Tendrando Arms’ local office and Lyster Innovations, then spent the rest of the morning and some of the afternoon buying things: food and bottled liquids that would not rapidly deteriorate, twenty meters of thin, pliant, strong cable, basic mechanical tools, a box of sweets, a length of red ribbon, and a large backpack. The last of the credits on the card he’d stolen went to buying himself a hot midday meal.

  As the workday grew late and workers began streaming out of the Crossroutes building in anticipation of shift change, Ben entered the building, backpack on his shoulders and ribbon-wrapped box of sweets in his hands, and took the turbolift up to 216.

  The doors opened into a jungle. Ben stared at healthy trees growing up out of dark, moist-looking soil, smelled the warm, heavy air of a tropical rain forest, saw a distant solar light through the trees that was a whiter hue than Almania’s sun. Somewhere in the distance, water splashed. There was no sound of industry, of harassed workers, of overtaxed terminals.

  He stepped out onto the jungle floor, and the turbolift doors closed behind him. He turned to look at them and saw only a sheer rock face. It was a perfect illusion.

  When he tried to examine it through the Force, he could sense very little. The trees did not resonate with life. He could detect no movement of insects through the air or underneath the soil.

  He grinned toward the trees. “It’s all mechanical,” he told himself.

  “So it is.” The voice, male, came from only a few meters ahead. “Follow the path, please.”

  The path, the ground and leaves underfoot convincingly soft and resilient, led forward, then curved right, revealing a clearing that should have been visible from the turbolift but was not. The right half of the clearing was dominated by a stone-lined pool, seemingly natural, into which water from an adjacent waterfall splashed. Next to it was a desk apparently made of black stone. As it came into view, the man who sat behind it, young and pale-skinned, lowered his lizard-skin boots from t
he desktop and sat forward in a more normal pose. His jumpsuit, though apparently cloth, had the same color and texture as his boots. “Welcome to Lyster Innovations,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “What is all this?” Ben asked, gesturing around.

  “Corporate culture.” The man offered Ben a big, practiced smile to go with his big, practiced words. “One of the things we do is show companies how to establish and maintain their own cultural identities through environmental design. Here in our receiving area, the floor, walls, and decorative pillars are made of or coated with our patented chameleon cover material, which allows the ultimate in decorative versatility. With just a few words, I can establish a new tone, a new work environment. For instance—Décor, Purity.”

  He’d hardly finished the second word when a change rippled through the chamber. Trees straightened, becoming vertical, absolutely symmetrical, their branches folding up into their sides. The floor flattened into a perfect plane and Ben, balancing, could feel it harden under his feet.

  Most objects faded to white smoothness, the trees becoming featureless and gleaming. Even the man’s clothes transformed from their green scale texture to pure white. His desk became silver, and the rim of stones around the pool became a silvery seating bench.

  Now Ben could see the true dimensions of the room—for a reception area, it was large, about twenty meters by twenty, but it no longer seemed to stretch forever in every direction. Silvery panels on the walls—doors, he supposed—showed him where the boundaries were.

  The man was watching him closely, and Ben did not need to tap into the Force to feel that he wanted Ben to be impressed. He lives for praise, Ben thought. And Jacen says that when you give people what they want, they can be more cooperative.

  “Wow,” Ben said. “I mean, wow.”

  “Wow indeed.” The man smiled, apparently satisfied. “So, are you looking for someone in particular?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ben pretended to consult his datapad. “I have something for, um, Gilthor Breen.”

  “I’m Gilthor Breen.”

  I know that, Ben thought. Your face and your name are on the company’s public page. And a whole long list of your likes and dislikes. “Then this is for you.” He put the beribboned box on the desk top.

  Gilthor looked closely at Ben, then subjected the box to the same scrutiny. He pulled the ribbon end to untie the bow, then opened the box and gave a brief, uncertain smile when he saw the variety of sweets within. “Uh, is there a note?”

  Ben checked his datapad again. “No note. She just left a short message. ‘Two days.’ ”

  “ ‘Two days.’ She. Who’s she? What’s her name?”

  Ben shrugged. “She didn’t leave one. But she was very short, with long black hair and black eyes. And cute, really cute.” This was a description of Aliniaca Verr, a young holodrama actress currently in vogue. She was from the world of Balmorra, like Gilthor himself, and she was his favorite actress, three facts that Ben had found on Gilthor’s personal page. Ben wasn’t going to try to persuade Gilthor that his admirer was Verr herself; it just seemed reasonable that if Gilthor admired Verr, he’d also be interested in a woman who looked like her.

  Apparently he’d guessed correctly. Gilthor practically began to vibrate in his chair. “Two days,” he said. “Until what? Maybe she’ll be in touch again. That’s it.” Abruptly realizing that Ben was still present, he dug into a pocket and drew out a credcoin. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Um, can I use your refresher?”

  “Of course, of course. Décor, refresher.”

  A melodious droid voice to Ben’s left said, “Here I am,” and when Ben glanced toward it, he saw that one of the silver panels was now cycling between silver and black. Ben smiled and trotted that way.

  He spent little time in the refresher, just long enough to determine that its jet-black tiled floor and blue tiled walls seemed content to stay in their respective colors, and that there were exterior windows on one wall. That’s what he needed to know.

  Moments later he trotted out to the silvery turbolift access and waved good-bye to Gilthor. The man gave him a distracted nod and spoke a couple of words Ben couldn’t hear. The lift doors opened.

  Now was the moment of truth. Ben took half a step forward but did not quite enter the turbolift. He concentrated on Gilthor and imagined, in some detail and with great conviction, himself getting aboard. As the doors closed, he tried to project the image of the doors closing with him on the other side. I got on the turbolift, he thought. Think about the girl.

  Gilthor leaned back in his chair and put his feet up again. He seemed to be whistling.

  Slowly, quietly, Ben moved at a crouch back toward the refresher. I got on. I went away. I’m gone.

  By the time he reached the refresher door again, he was sweating through his garments, but Gilthor never looked his way.

  Ben set himself up in one of the stalls, hand-lettering a sign that read IN NEED OF REPAIR. MAINTENANCE HAS BEEN SUMMONED. REPAIRS SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW. This he placed on the front of the stall, and he kept his Force-senses and more ordinary senses sharp, straining to hear or feel anyone who might approach this refresher chamber. But no one did, and he could feel Gilthor outside, seated at his desk. He could also feel a steady stream of life moving up and down the turbolift, mostly down as the offices were depopulated by the late hour. But no one came to this refresher before Ben was done.

  With his tools, Ben unscrewed one viewport panel from the wall and carried all his equipment through it to rest on the planetary ring structure beyond. Twilight was gathering outside, and from here Ben could see all the lights of the city, the majority of them pale blue, pale green, or white, a striking difference from the nighttime skies of Coruscant in all their spectral beauty.

  The decorative ring turned out to be made of plasteel, mounted sturdily to the building exterior. It shifted not at all under the occasional breeze. A gap of about ten centimeters separated it from the building edge, and through the gap Ben could see the regularly spaced mounting struts that held the ring to the building exterior.

  Though in the growing darkness Ben didn’t think he could be seen, he kept his movements to a minimum as he repositioned the transparisteel panel he’d removed and carefully dogged it back into place.

  Then he knotted the cable he’d brought at one-meter intervals. He tied it at about the middle around one of the support struts visible through the gap. He threaded one half down through the gap, tossing the other over the edge.

  Carefully he lowered himself over the edge and climbed down the cable.

  This put him directly opposite one of the viewports of the Tendrando Arms offices. It was only dimly lit, and hanging there Ben could see it was furnished mostly with sturdy-looking stand-up lockers as tall as a human man. Weapons lockers, he guessed, given that Tendrando was an arms manufacturing firm, and wondered if he should help himself to a weapon or two. But he shook his head. Jedi weren’t supposed to need anything but their lightsabers—except when they piloted warcraft, of course.

  He descended a few more meters on his cable, bringing him down opposite the 214th floor, and began shifting his weight, causing him to swing toward the building wall and the other half of the cable dangling there. After a few moments, his swings brought him close enough to that cable to grab it. He let go of the first one, leaving him dangling next to the building wall, and climbed back up to 215.

  Leaning in close to the viewport, he could see the mechanical control that opened the viewport from within. It seemed, from this angle, to be a simple hand crank, but its handle was now folded against its shaft, and the control itself was snugly fitted within a small transparisteel cylinder with a mechanical lock holding the cylinder to the apparatus.

  Ben studied it for a few moments and decided he understood its workings. With the handle up against the shaft and the smooth transparisteel cylinder in the way, an ordinary person’s grip strength could probably not develop the torque necessary to
open the window.

  He half closed his eyes and concentrated on the apparatus. He reached out to it through the Force, gripping it as he’d grip his lightsaber hilt to yank it to him, and twisted.

  It didn’t budge.

  He tried the other direction. Now it did move, a few degrees of arc. He frowned, concentrating harder, and the crank began to rotate, very slowly. It was hard work.

  As it moved, a tiny gap appeared at the top of the viewport, and it widened—one centimeter, two—

  Ben’s grip slipped and he fell.

  Ben grabbed frantically, wrapped one arm around the cable, felt its knots bumping their way past his elbow hard enough to leave bruises. He tightened his grip, grabbed with his free hand and the Force, and arrested his fall, the impact of his stop yanking both arms to full, painful extension.

  He gulped for a few moments, then looked down.

  He’d fallen only two stories. There was still more cable beneath him—he hadn’t grabbed the very end. And two stories down was the next decorative ring. Had he missed the cable altogether, he would have hit that—possibly not even with enough force and noise to alert every security officer within a kilometer. Possibly.

  Half dreading what he might see, he looked into the viewport where he now found himself, expecting to peer into the alarmed faces of office workers, but instead he saw an unoccupied chamber, a combination lounge and kitchen.

  He gulped in a few breaths, then climbed back up, furious at himself. His concentration on the Force had been so great that he’d lost focus on his hands. He couldn’t afford to do that. He’d get himself killed.

  When he reached the viewport again, he spent a few moments tying the cable around his waist, with a knot he could undo with just a pull, then got back to work.

  In a couple of minutes, the viewport was open enough to admit him. He scrambled through, pulled the release length of cable, and dropped to the floor.