Qui-Gon and Adi left the cave and continued on the road to the city of Settlement 5. The city had no outskirts. It simply rose in the middle of a convergence of roads. There seemed to be no green spaces, no culture centers or amusements, just businesses and homes, all built on a grid of streets and lanes.
The city was more like an overgrown village than a sophisticated center. Qui-Gon and Adi walked through the streets, their hoods up, trying to blend in. It wasn't hard. They were taller than the average Quadrant Seven, but that wasn't a problem. All the Quadrant Sevens wore practical and neutral-colored robes, just as the Jedi did. Most of them walked with their hoods over their faces. Qui-Gon felt anonymous in the crowd, and he soon realized why.
"They're all trying to blend in," he murmured to Adi.
"Even if they recognize us as outlanders, they won't show it."
Usually in a main city of a world in the Core or Mid-Rim, there were plenty of opportunities to buy or rent speeders, and often dealers in spaceworthy cruisers clustered around the landing platforms of the city. But there was a strange absence of such dealers on this planet. It took Adi and Qui-Gon some time to find a seller of speeders tucked away down a narrow lane off a secondary road.
A laserboard outside discreetly flashed specials. "Nothing spaceworthy," Qui-Gon said. "But no doubt he can tell us where to purchase a ship."
They walked inside. The dwellers of Quadrant Seven were humanoid, with small, pointed ears and short, whiskery antennae that gave the appearance of bristly hair but were finely attuned to disturbances in the air. The dealer turned, his antennae quivering.
He didn't ask them what they wanted, or if he could help them. He just stood, waiting for them to speak. "We're looking for a space cruiser," Qui-Gon said. "I don't sell that here," the dealer said.
"We thought you could tell us where in Settlement Five we could purchase one."
"Nowhere. There's no call for selling of space cruisers. Quadrants don't like to travel out of their own atmosphere."
"But surely," Qui-Gon said patiently, "there is a way to get off planet."
"Well, of course there is."
Adi kept her tone even. "Maybe you could tell us what that is."
"Wait for the freighter. It comes once a month." Qui-Gon felt his heart fall. "Once a month?"
The dealer seemed to feel that he had no need to elaborate.
"Can you tell us when it will stop again?" Adi asked.
The dealer consulted a calendar on his datapad. "Ah, that would be market day."
"And market day is . . ."
"In five standard days time."
Qui-Gon took out his comlink. "Can you tell us where on Quadrant Seven we could find a space cruiser? We could contact them and —"
"Ah, that would be Settlement Twenty-three. That's where you'd be able to bargain for a ship. But you can't contact them by comlink. There's a BlocNet on Quadrant Seven. Comlinks are licensed. Ordinary citizens aren't allowed to carry them, just emergency personnel. Your comlink won't work here."
"But why outlaw comlinks?" Adi asked.
"Don't believe in 'em. Comlinks make distances shorter. And when distances get shorter, problems get bigger. We like to slow things down on Quadrant Seven. Which reminds me, you need a permit to send a HoloNet message off planet. It will be monitored and archived, too."
"And who has access to the archives?" Adi asked. "Everyone. Makes beings nicer if they know they can't send out messages that aren't public."
Adi and Qui-Gon stared at each other in frustration. That meant if they sent a message to the Temple, everyone would be able to see it. The bounty hunters could trace them.
"Can we buy a speeder to travel to Settlement Twenty-three?" Qui-Gon asked.
"Sure. But you have to apply for a permit. All outlanders do."
"How long will it take to get a permit?"
"Hard to say. Could be a week."
Adi was becoming used to the dealer's way of talking. "Or . . . ?
"Could be a month. Hard to say."
"This is ridiculous," Adi muttered. "What a way to run a planet."
"We haven't had a war in five hundred and seventy-three years," the dealer said. "Don't have toxic pools or chemical air. Everybody pretty much gets along. That doesn't sound too ridiculous, does it?"
Adi just sighed.
"If I were you, I'd wait for the freighter. Quadrant Seven is a nice place to visit. Of course we don't have much in the way of hotels or cafés. And we don't go in for amusements the way they do in other places. There's not much to do. But still."
"Look, we don't have time to wait," Qui-Gon said. "Can't you find a way to help us?"
"Nope." The dealer's face was still blandly polite. He would be friendly, but not help them. That much was clear. They walked out of the shop.
"Looks like we're waiting for the freighter," Adi said. "We'll just have to lay low. We could send a coded communication to the Temple. . . ."
"But why risk it?" Adi completed the sentence. "If by some chance the bounty hunter searches the planet, that's the first place he'd investigate. Even a coded message would stand out."
"We can canvass the area, look to see if anyone owns a ship and try to buy it," Qui-Gon said.
Adi nodded. "It doesn't appear that Quadrant Sevens travel, but we might get lucky."
"It's only five days," Qui-Gon said. "The assassination will take place in a week. This can all work, if nothing else goes wrong."
He felt the dark side surge as a warning just as Adi pulled him back from walking out into the watery sunlight. The bounty hunter was striding by on the street, his pale eyes flicking into the shadows.
"Something else just went wrong," Adi said.
CHAPTER 7
"Let's follow him," Adi murmured. "Better to know where he is — and perhaps we'll learn something."
Qui-Gon nodded. They melted into the crowd in the street. It was rare that a being knew when he was being followed by a Jedi. They were able to use the Force to direct objects to move into their path if someone turned to look behind them. They were able to move before their prey could track their steps. After a short time, the Jedi were able to so absorb their quarry's way of moving that they could predict it and easily avoid discovery.
The bounty hunter was good. He was careful. Yet he was no match for them. Adi and Qui-Gon followed him easily as he walked to the opposite edge of Settlement 5 and then struck out across the hills and rocks.
This area was even more rugged than where they'd left Obi-Wan and Siri. They trailed him through a series of small, deep canyons. The boulders offered plenty of hiding places. At last he slipped into a narrow opening and disappeared. Qui-Gon and Adi carefully moved forward. Positioning themselves behind an outcropping, they peered into the opening.
It led to a canyon that was just a cleft in the landscape. They recognized the bounty hunter's light freighter. Next to it was a slightly larger ship. Together they took up nearly the entire width of the canyon.
The bounty hunter disappeared into the larger ship. The ramp was down, and Qui-Gon and Adi slowly made their way there. With a glance at each other, they agreed to try to observe what was going on. It was worth the risk.
They crept up the ramp and slipped inside the ship. They heard raised voices coming from the cockpit.
Good, Qui-Gon thought. If a group was arguing, they would be too distracted to stay alert.
Tall and graceful, Adi moved ahead of him down the hall, her boots soundless on the polished floor. She beckoned to him. She had found a vent at eye level, in a storage room right off the cockpit. Qui-Gon could see quite clearly into the next room.
His heart fell. There were five bounty hunters in the cockpit, including the one chasing them. Among them was one he recognized — Gorm the Dissolver. He was a formidable presence, dwarfing the others in his plated armor and helmet. Created by Arkanian Renegades, he was half-bio, half-droid. His bio parts were made up of six different aliens. His droid components allowed him to b
e a nearly invincible killing machine. Gorm's tracking skill was legendary and his merciless attacks were spoken of in whispers in spaceports throughout the galaxy.
All of these bounty hunters in one place, for one assassination? Qui-Gon wondered again who the target could be.
"We've only got a week," one of the bounty hunters said. It was a humanoid woman, small and compact, dressed in a leather tunic and leggings. Her fair hair was twisted in many braids that fell to her shoulders. She appeared to be completely ordinary, if you didn't notice the firepower strapped to her waist, her wrist gauntlets with an array of weapons systems, or the armored kneepads she wore. By the look of her armor, Qui-Gon guessed she was a Mandalorian, or at least that she had somehow procured some of the warrior army's famous weaponry. "You shouldn't have blasted that escape pod, Magus," she went on. "Now we don't know for sure if you got the kid."
The bounty hunter who had chased them on Cirrus turned slowly and rested his steely gaze on the female.
"Don't give me that black-hole look, Magus," she said. "You know I'm right. We need proof that the kid has been neutralized. If he's still alive, he could compromise the mission. I don't mind pulling this off, but I don't want anybody to know I was involved. Those Senatorial committees can get touchy about political assassinations."
"We're only a week away from our hits," another bounty hunter said. He was a tall creature with green-tinged skin and a cranial horn on top of his head. "I for one don't relish the thought of assassinating a world leader if security is waiting for me. And we've got twenty targets. That's twenty times the security."
Qui-Gon and Adi exchanged a glance. Twenty planetary leaders?
"I told you, they won't have their regular security," Magus said.
"We still have no way of knowing how much this kid knows and who he's alerted," the female bounty hunter continued.
"You promised they wouldn't be expecting us, that we'd have the element of surprise," the third bounty hunter said to Magus. He wore a greasy cloak and his leggings were thick with grime. Tufts of wiry hair stood out on his head like horns. On his grimy face gills flapped open and closed with his breathing. He looked like a large, unkempt fish. A name floated into Qui-Gon's head. Raptor. This could be the bounty hunter he'd been hearing about, the one who was willing to take any job, no matter how dangerous or cruel. "That's one reason we agreed. Well — that and the fee. But if security gets tipped off, I'm heading back to the Core and picking up another job. What does our employer say?"
Magus rose slowly. If he was bothered by the dissension in the others, it wasn't apparent. "Our employer leaves the details to me. As you should."
"We did that," the being with the cranial horn said. "And now we don't know if the kid is dead or not. We don't know if he blabbed yet or not. We don't know if he's on his way to the Senate to testify."
"I heard you the first time, Pilot," Magus said, the anger now clear in his tone.
"Really? Because it doesn't seem like you're listening," the female said irritably.
"Lunasa is right," Raptor said. "You've got a problem listening to any voice but your own."
Magus slammed a vibroblade down on the table. "Enough whining!" he exploded. With the exception of Gorm, the bounty hunters all looked unnerved. "I said I would take care of the boy. First we need to complete the preparations we discussed. There's still much to be done, and we're wasting time here."
Without waiting for agreement, Magus simply strode off. Qui-Gon and Adi had to scurry back along the corridor to avoid him. He strode down the ramp and headed for his own ship.
"Who elected him king, I'd like to know," Lunasa muttered.
"He recruited us," Pilot said. "But the employer talks to me, too. I can go to him anytime." A bragging note had entered his voice.
"Whoa, and that makes you so special," Raptor said. "I'm keeping track of what Magus does," Pilot said huffily. "That's all I'm saying."
"Shut up." Gorm spoke for the first time. "Let's go."
It took them a moment, no doubt because they didn't want to appear to follow anyone's orders, but the bounty hunters began to make preparations for departure. Pilot headed for the controls. Lunasa worked on the nav computer. The one Qui-Gon suspected of being Raptor shrugged and took off down the corridor, presumably to his own cabin. Qui-Gon and Adi ducked into a storage room.
"Twenty leaders? It's much bigger than we thought," Adi said. "We have to find out who they're targeting."
"And why," Qui-Gon added. "If we find the why, we can discover who hired them." He thought quickly. "We should stay aboard."
"But Taly —"
"Obi-Wan and Siri can protect him. They are well hidden. We can return for them. There's no way off the planet for five days. Magus knows that as well — that's why he's leaving. No doubt he plans to return, but we can be back by then."
Adi frowned. "I don't like leaving the three of them."
"Uncovering the plot will help Taly more than our presence," Qui-Gon said. "I don't like leaving them, either. But I feel Obi-Wan and Siri can handle this."
Adi nodded slowly. "Agreed."
"Once we're out of the Quadrant Seven atmosphere, we can send them a message," Qui-Gon said. "Incoming messages aren't recorded. It's a risk to leave, but . . ."
". . . we have to take it," Adi said.
They felt the thrust of the engines. The ship lifted into the air.
"Hey!" they heard Lunasa call. "Magus is staying!"
"He never tells us what he's doing," Pilot said.
"I guess he's going for the kid after all," Lunasa said. Adi and Qui-Gon glanced at each other. The ship was already climbing to the upper atmosphere. It was too late to get off.
CHAPTER 8
"They should have been back by now."
Siri kept her voice low, but Taly seemed off in another world. He sat at the entrance to the cave, his arms around his knees. Occasionally he would dip his head down and stare at the ground.
"I know." Obi-Wan wanted to argue with her, but he didn't have a good feeling about the length of time Qui-Gon and Adi had been gone.
"I should go look for them."
"They told us to stay here."
Siri shook her head impatiently. "Obi-Wan, in all my years of knowing you, I can't tell you how many times you've told me what I should be doing."
"Well, somebody has to," Obi-Wan said with a grin.
But Siri didn't crack a smile. "They could be in trouble."
"Or they could be negotiating for a starship. Or they could be contacting the Temple. Or they could be on their way back. They could be doing a thousand things. None of which are our concern. Our concern is Taly. They told us both to protect him. So here we stay."
Siri's jaw set stubbornly. She stared stonily out into the landscape.
Taly suddenly rose and came back to stand with them. "I have a proposition for you," he said.
Obi-Wan wanted to smile. There was something so touching about Taly. Here was this slender, small boy who seemed ready to take on the world. Sometimes the lost look in his eyes made him look like a child. Yet sometimes he talked like an adult. Obi-Wan had no idea how much of Taly's confidence was bravery and how much was bravado. All he knew was that he admired him.
"Let's hear it," Siri said.
"I want you to let me go," Taly said.
"Let you go?" Obi-Wan repeated, incredulous.
Taly nodded. "I've been thinking about it. My uncle is a subplanetary engineer on the planet Qexis. It's a high-security planet with only one spaceport. It's in the Outer Rim. Nobody really knows about it except tech-heads. It's a total research planet. He'd hide me for as long as it takes. And you could tell my parents where I'm heading and they could meet me there. I could make my way there."
"You could make your way there?" Obi-Wan tried unsuccessfully to keep his voice from rising.
Taly looked at Siri. "Does he always repeat what people say?"
Siri nodded. "Yeah."
"Taly, there's no way we
're going to let you go," Obi-Wan said. "That's preposterous. What makes you think you could get to the Outer Rim by yourself? You're just a kid!"
"Nobody notices a kid," Taly said. "I can do it, I know I can. It's just a question of getting from Point A to Point B. The bounty hunters think I'm dead."
"You don't know that for sure. We tricked one of them. We don't know if it worked. That's why we're still in hiding."
"That's what gives me a head start," Taly said. "Look, you know as well as I do that if I testify to those Senators, I'm dead."
"That's not true," Obi-Wan said, shocked. "They'll protect you."
"You trust the Senate?" Taly gave a bark of a laugh. "And you call me a kid?"
Obi-Wan shook his head. He wasn't going to argue with Taly. He shot Siri an exasperated look, but to his surprise, Siri was looking at Taly thoughtfully.
"You know it's true," Taly said, turning to Siri. "They won't care about me once I testify. Sure, they'll give me new ID docs. But they won't protect me or my parents, not really. But if I don't testify, maybe the bounty hunters will leave me alone."
"Taly, they won't leave you alone," Obi-Wan said gently. "I'm sorry to say it. But you'll always be a risk to them."
"Not after they do the assassination," Taly argued.
"Then they won't care. Or even if they care, they're not going to chase me for long. I'm not worth it. I can disappear." He turned back to Siri. "Okay, I'll make a deal with you. You can escort me to Qexis. Then leave me there. Pretend I escaped. You can save my life. You can save my parents. You can."
"Taly, I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said.
"Siri?" Taly looked at her beseechingly.
Siri spoke through dry lips. "I'm sorry, too."
Taly stomped off to the front of the cave, a kid again. Obi-Wan looked at Siri.
"I could have used a little support," he said.
"What if he's right?" Siri asked.
"What if he's right?"
Siri rolled her eyes. "There you go again."
"There I Siri, you can't be serious. You can't think that we could possibly let Taly go."
"No, of course not. But we could take him to Qexis. It would be a good place to hide. And the Senate won't protect him. Not the way they should. They just want what they want. Once he testifies, they won't care about him. He's not wrong, Obi-Wan."