Star Wars - I, Jedi Part 23

Booster scoffed. "You'll try."

"There is no try, Booster." I let the edge bleed out of my voice. "I need you to do two things. First, use your network and get me as much data as you can about the Invid crews. I want to know who is shipping on what and out of where. If it gets to a point where we have to hit, I want to make sure we hit hard and hurt them badly."

"Done." Booster smiled. "Karrde may think he's the data-lord of the New Republic, but I've flipped bits he's not even aware exist."

"Good."

My father-in-law picked up the holocube and froze a recent shot of Mirax so she smiled at both of us. "What's the other thing?"

I tried to sound nonchalant. "Get me into Corellia and out again."

Booster lost his grip on the holocube, dropping it to the desk. "Get you in past the Diktat's watchmen? And out again? Have you lost what little mind you have?"

"I hope not, because if I have, neither one of us will see your daughter again." I stood and held my lightsaber aloft. "It's going to be a Corellian Jedi that saves your daughter, and unless I get home and back out again, there just flat out aren't going to be any Corellian Jedi around to do the job."

My perspective as a member of the Corellian Security Force had never really led me to a proper appreciation for how well Booster Terrik operated. Our animosity had shielded me from his professionalism. Now, with his being galvanized by his effort to find and save his daughter, Booster pushed himself into overdrive with truly remarkable results.

Securing for me false identification doc.u.ments took less time than I would have imagined. Booster's people accessed a data-base of pre-existing dataphantoms and merely attached my holographs to them. Using the Destroyer's own Imperial-issue doc.u.ment fabrication machinery, I had three sets of doc.u.ments in no time. One for getting me onto Corellia, one for walking around on Corellia and a third for getting me back out.

I smiled. The Rebellion's insertion of Rogue Squadron onto Coruscant hadn't provided doc.u.mentation this good.

After that Booster sent me to the middle of the three "luxury" deck levels on board. These decks were each fitted out with a variety of establishments suited to the clientele allowed access to them. The lowest of the decks made pestholes like Mos Eisley look luxurious. On Black Level the denizens consisted mostly of out-of-work crews, poor folks looking for cheap transit, criminals, petty thieves, swindlers and con men. I'm not exactly certain why Booster allowed them on his ship, but even they might have information he could sell elsewhere.

Blue Level, where he sent me, was a bit more respectable than Treasure Ship Row down in Coronet City on CoreIlia. I saw just enough unsavory characters-Boba Fett wannabes, Han Solo wannabes and, albeit too few, Princess Leia wan-nabes. Mostly I saw traders and dealers and adventurous sorts who seemed to find shipping aboard a fearsome Star Destroyer thrilling. And Traders' Alley-the cash-only bazaar-meant one could always find something thrilling here.

Of major import on this level was the central courtyard area. It actually linked up with Diamond Level above it through a ma.s.sive refitting effort that cored through three decks in the heart of the ship. In this airy well each day was displayed a brilliant holographic presentation of the Thyferra campaign. I noticed that Booster's role, and that of the Errant Venture, were expanded, and that my role was all but eliminated. That niggled a little bit, but I decided the presentation was theatrical not historical, so hyperbole was bound to creep in.

On Blue Level I visited a tailor who scanned me and started fabricating clothes that would fit my ident.i.ties. I had him double-check the measurement on my collar. It would have been just like Booster to have him trim three or six centimeters off so I'd choke my way through my trip. The tailor, a Sull.u.s.tan, cheebled at me that he'd never do such a thing-proper fit was his stock in trade, after all.

Booster's final effort to get me onto Corellia was a master-work. He wouldn't even let me up on Diamond Level-he said just having someone from CorSec on Blue Level was dampen-ing the hedonistic abandon of luxury pa.s.sengers-but he found me help up there. He convinced a Corellian couple that the only real way to feel the illicit thrill of being a smuggler was trying to smuggle something onto Coreilia. He went so far as to say that even though they were Corellians, he didn't think they could pull it off.

They demanded he let them try. He demurred. They pressed. He relented, after they bribed him, and even thanked him for finding them replacement crew members for two of their yacht crew who had run into trouble in a Black Level entertainment establishment.

I had no idea what the couple was smuggling, aside from me, but watching them pretend to be smugglers was rather amusing. When we arrived at the Coronet City s.p.a.ceport, they decided to brazen out their effort by dumping a hefty bribe on the Customs inspector who greeted them. The inspector, taken aback by the bribe, began to question them closely. His col-leagues in Immigration were intrigued with what was going on, and undoubtedly wanted their share of his bribe, so they pa.s.sed the crew through without more than cursory glances at our identification, then zeroed in on the couple.

Shouldering my two satchels of clothing and equipment, I departed the s.p.a.ceport and found a fairly clean transient housing facility just off Treasure Ship Row. Despite my having worked the Row in years past, I wasn't worried about running into old colleagues and being discovered.

CorSec had changed through the years-it wasn't even the Corellian Security Force any more. The Diktat had morphed it into the Public Safety Service, and had exchanged the traditional emerald and black uniforms for something darker and more Imperialistic. The PSS's mission had become more snoopy and more concerned with maintaining public order than solving crimes.

The past I knew here is dead. A shiver ran down my spine.

Treasure Ship Row had changed in the six years I'd been away. It has always been seedy and disreputable, but the bright lights had provided a carnival veneer to the whole place. People of all types had been able to come here and find amus.e.m.e.nt. Certainly there were places good and respectful folks didn't go except by accident, but the slight air of menace made the jaunts here more memorable-much like shipping aboard the Errant Venture.

The changes on Treasure Ship Row might have seemed an improvement to many. The main street had been cleaned up considerably. All the paint was fresh, and graffiti was obliterated before it had time to dry. The lighting appeared less garish and the establishments were milder in tone.

It had moved from being a place to being a showplace, leaving it all artificial and shallow.

Out and around it, in the area that had not been transformed, the shadows had deepened and the menace festered, until anyone venturing a block away from the safe zone would drown in reality. The government, in cleaning up Treasure Ship Row, clearly believed it had gotten rid of all the unsociable elements that used to call it home, and was using the Public Safety Service to insulate themselves from reality and its conse-quences.

The only positive point about the change was that I found it very easy to hire a speeder-cab. I gave him the directions to my grandfather's home and the driver, a Klatooinan, graced me with a smile that was all tooth.

I sank back into the rear seat, but refrained from drawing in a deep breath to relax myself. A Jedi might not know pain, but the scents in the back seat of a speeder-cab could gag a Gamorrean.

I hoped I was not on a fool's errand. While in the bacta tank I had realized that I'd taken my father's message to be encouragement to join the Jedi academy. What Luke had told me about the Force allowing one to see pieces of the past or present or future suggested my father had somehow known the academy would come into being. That was an unwarranted a.s.sumption. Moreover, my father always hedged his bets. Knowing the future was mutable, he couldn't be certain the academy would exist. As a result, I had to a.s.sume that he had made arrangements for information to be left behind for me so I could recover my heritage.

I smiled slowly. Even if my father had left nothing behind, seeing my grandfather again would be fun. Nearing his home, back in the hill district where I had grown up, I began to realize how much I missed him and Coreilia. I had gone away-had been forced to flee-to avoid Imperial entanglements and death. From that point I had pretty much been in hiding or up to my neck in missions with Rogue Squadron. While we had exchanged holographic greetings, the Diktat's censors had chopped the messages up enough that little of my grandfather's wit or warmth had gotten through.

The speeder-cab came to a halt at a gate that blocked the whole street on which I'd grown up. My father had purchased a house across a circle from my grandfather, and there had been eight other houses scattered around that circle. We'd never had a wall surrounding the area and certainly no gate. "Are you sure this is the right place'?"

The Klatooinan nodded and tapped the display unit on his vehicle's local navicomp. He reached out, plucked a wired com-link from its holder beside the gate and threaded it back to me. "h.e.l.lo?"

A stiff and formal voice answered back. "The Horn Estate."

Estate? "I'd like to speak with Rostek Horn, please."

"Director Horn has asked not to be disturbed."

I ducked my head and tried to peer through the gate's bars at the houses further in, but I couldn't see my grandfather's place. Nor could I see the home I'd grown up in. Instead all I could see was a huge, sprawling building of very recent manufacture. It gleamed brightly against the green of the hills behind it, all white and silvery where tinted transparisteel sheets took the place of walls.

"Please, tell him it's his . . ." I hesitated. If I said grandson, I could cause trouble since I still had murder warrants out for me in the Corellian system. "Tell him it's an old friend. Keiran Halcyon."

"Director Horn knows no one by that name."

I put an edge into my voice. "You clearly have not been with him long. I grew up in this neighborhood. He was like a grandfather to me. Tell him that."

"Just a moment."

The Klatooinan pa.s.sed the time by bringing me up to speed on the local Zoneball league standings. He tried to impress me with the fact that Staive Pedsten, the local star-who, did I know, had once been romantically linked with Princess Leia-had sat where I sat. I was a.s.sured the athlete was not as handsome as I was, but the Klatooinan remembered him because he was a most generous tipper.

I smiled back at my driver and nodded, but before he could regale me with Pedsten's latest scoring coup, the gate opened. The Klatooinan hit the accelerator, which jolted us forward and tore the wired comlink from my hands. It clipped him in the back of the head as it snapped out his window. He grumbled a bit as he rubbed at the rising lump, but managed to run me up to the estate's front door without further incident. I paid him off and tipped very well-it was Booster's money, after all, and I was pretty sure it wasn't counterfeit.

Once outside the speeder, I realized that the distant view of the building had failed to convey its actual size. My grandfather's house had only ever been a modest two-story affair, with all the spare capital and his spare time going into maintaining the gorgeous sunken gardens in the back. The building I stood before now occupied three times the footprint of the old house, and rose another whole level above the old house's roof. In its construction I could see bits and pieces of things my grandfa-ther would love, but if he'd had the money to build this house, he would have just expanded his gardens even further instead.

I walked up to the door, but before I could ring the bell, a small, wiry man with olive skin pulled the door open. He wore a black uniform festooned with white b.u.t.tons. White gloves encased his hands and he eyed me suspiciously. He gave me no smile and looked me over carefully before he stepped aside and let me into the horne's grand foyer.

The man spoke in the same clipped tones I'd heard over the comlink.

"Director Horn is waiting for you in the garden." He set off at a brisk pace, his shoes clicking sharply against the rose and black granite flooring. In the center of it, fashioned out of black marble and slices of malachite, the old CorSec logo had been rendered beautifully. I hopped over it, breaking my stride, which brought the man's head back around to see what I was doing.

It didn't surprise me that my grandfather was in the garden. When he retired he said he wanted to dig and plant there, until he was dug in and planted. After a long walk, we emerged onto a veranda that was amply shaded from the noontime sun. Beyond it, down a short green pathway leading to a central fountain within an amphitheatre of colorful flowerbeds, stood my grandfather.

Taller than me, taller even than my father had been, Rostek Horn had a lean, aristocratic bearing about him. Despite his age, his white hair grew in full and thick. His grey eyes never seemed to rest, and while I had only ever seen love and affection in them, colleagues who had chanced to be disciplined by my grandfather said they could be colder than the darkest iceball in the galaxy. While he seemed thinner than when I had last seen him, he was no less vital and, for the first time, I saw him as the predator colleagues had reported he could be.

What struck me as most unusual was that there he stood, full in the noon sun, wearing a formal black suit, with high, stiff collar. He was not dressed for a day in the garden, but a day dealing with the variety of things that had occupied him during his days with CorSec. With his right flank toward me-providing less of a target, perhaps?--he brought his head around to look at me. Those cold grey eyes sent a jolt through me.

I started past my guide and onto the path, but the small man pressed a hand against my stomach, stopping me.

I looked at my grandfather and half-closed my eyes. I projected into his mind an image of my running and screaming and falling and laughing as a child on the same expanse of green that separated us now one from another. Opening my eyes fully, I said, "It has been a long time, Director. Perhaps you do not remember me."

My grandfather remained rock still for a moment, then nodded. "Tosruk, he is known to me. You are dismissed."

Tosruk's brown eyes narrowed. "He scanned cleanly on his approach, but he might have skills."

"I have nothing to fear from Halcyon here, do I?"

I shook my head. "No, sir."

My grandfather slowly smiled. "You see, Tosruk, I am safe. Go about your other duties. Have the cook prepare us a light luncheon-and I mean light, not just with less gravy."

Tosruk snapped his head forward in a bow, then spun on his heel and retreated.

I approached my grandfather slowly, not daring to break into the run I would have preferred to use in greeting him. I extended my hand to him and he took it, then pulled me into a firm hug. I wanted to say something, but I felt a lump rise to my throat and tears beginning to fill my eyes.

He pulled back and held me out at arm's length. "Emperor's black bones, you shouldn't be here."

"I had to come. I've been away too long." I glanced back at the house.

"Many changes."

My grandfather's smile broadened and a sinister laugh accompanied it.

"Yes, there have been many changes." He waved me toward the greenhouse across the far side of the garden. "If you would join me, I'll show you some of my newer efforts. Prize winners, all."

I dropped into step with him and said nothing until we had reached the greenhouse and stepped inside. My grandfather stripped off his jacket and hung it on a peg inside the doorway. He flipped a couple of switches, and glowpanels went on with all but one of them. The rising illumination revealed row after row of potting benches covered with seedlings, all the way to the back to the small bay of machines he used for genetically manipulating flowers for color and size of blossom.

He gave me a cautious grin. "We're safe to speak in here-I have it swept each week."

"Good." I glanced back at the house. "What happened to your house?"

"You may recall I had something of a reputation for maintaining all sorts of files on local politicians, Imperial liaisons and the like? When CorSec became the Public Safety Service it was determined that my files would be an embarra.s.sment. It was further a.s.sumed that I had them in the house. A mysterious fire consumed the house, and then the house you grew up in."

He kept his voice low, but full of curious tones that suggested he found the fires somewhat funny. "What they discovered was that there were multiple copies of my files all over, in computer systems new and old.

The encryption keys were what they lacked. A few people suddenly found interesting files on activities they would have preferred to keep hidden arriving on data-cards in their homes, usually accompanied by a flower or two that were easily identified as a hybrid I'd created. The implications were clear, so, in recompense for my long years of service to CorSec, and to protect me-since now I am considered a treasure for my horticultural skills-the government bought up and ceded to me all this land. They built my new home and filled it with all sorts of interesting mechanical listening devices and scanners. Tosruk and the rest of the staff report regularly to petty officials-though those officials don't realize that the staff's loyalty is to me. The very files used by the officials to choose staffers who could be manipulated were files I created."

I laughed aloud. "I thought, when you retired, you wanted to leave all this sort of thing behind."

He nodded. "I would have been more than happy to, but others who want power were not content to leave me alone. Unfortunately, they have neither the grace nor sense for me to leave them alone, either." He reached out and caressed the leaves of a small plant. "Now I can send a seedling to someone with a note suggesting I had read of this opinion or that which he holds. If I say I am disappointed, their thinking tends to be modified. If I say I support them, they move more strongly in that direction. I choose my targets and my issues carefully. I seek to curb the excesses of the young and foolish, or old and foolish. There's even talk among the shadowy cabal of pundits who advise leaders about what it means for me to send a live plant versus a cut bouquet, or the true significance of a night blooming flower versus something that blooms once and dies."

My grandfather smiled at me. "But you didn't come here to ask after my gardens or to listen to me natter on about warping the small minds of politicians, did you?"

"I'm happy to see you, of course, and I do want to hear about your life, and tell you about mine."

His smile broadened indulgently. "The name you chose to greet me and what you did out there tells me why you are here. You want to know what your father left behind for you, don't you?"

I nodded slowly. "You don't mind'?"

My grandfather looked at me with surprise, then laughed. "Mind'? My dear boy, I've spent nearly the last half century preserving your heritage for you and for your father. I would have been disappointed if this day had never come."

I smiled. "Would you have sent me a flower to let me know how disappointed you were?"

"I would have sent you many, many flowers." He opened his arms to take in the greenhouse and the gardens. "These flowers, Corran, are the Halcyon heritage. Where better to store knowledge of the Jedi and the Force, than in things that live?"

I watched my grandfather closely because I didn't quite understand what he'd said. He was old and could be losing it, though I'd seen no evidence of that so far. "Your comments are sailing right past me."

He laughed delightedly, a deep, rich sound I remembered very well. "Don't feel disappointed, Corran. I had to come up with a storage system that would befuddle even the most diligent of investigators. Come with me."

I followed him toward the rear of the greenhouse to the computers and genetic manipulation processors. "You probably do not recall this from your schooling, but the genetic code in many lifeforms consists of four nucleotides arranged in pairs. They provide a genetic blueprint that produces what we are."

I nodded. "I know. Imps messed around with genetics to produce the Krytos Virus."

"Yes, a nasty piece of work, that." My grandfather keyed something into the computer and the attached holopad showed me a double-helix slowly revolving in the air. It looked like two twisting ladders spiraling around each other. "What most people fail to realize is that while genes are very small, they consist of a vast number of these base pairs of nucleotides. What they also don't know is that much of the coding for any gene is redundant and genes are often filled with pieces of nonsense coding, or bits of coding left over by evolution. These inconsequential bits of code are essentially inert and useless. What I've done is to manufacture replacement strings of base pairs to put in their place.

These replacement strings use one pair to represent zero and another to represent one."

I stared at him gap-mouthed. "You digitized data and inserted it into the genetic material of a plant, allowing the plants to duplicate the code with every cell division."

"Correct. While random mutations might destroy little bits of the data, there are so many samples out there that comparing them will fill in any gaps." He smiled broadly. "I recall at least one Jedi-hunter coming here and asking for some basic plant stock for his garden back on Imperial Center. I gave him as much as he wanted of my Jedi line."

My eyes narrowed. "The flowers you send to politicians . . . they contain the decryption keys to the files that concern them, don't they?"

"I must amuse myself, mustn't I?" He rolled up his sleeves.

"I spent enough time with Nejaa to know that the Jedi considered nothing coincidental. I knew if I put the Jedi information into these plants and ensured their distribution, the information would be discovered again. At the time I started I thought the discovery would not happen in my lifetime, but I wanted it available."

I smiled. "I want you to tell me about him, about Nejaa."

"I will." He looked at me and shook his head again. "Your appearance, I didn't know you at first. Your father had a saying, one he picked up from his father. Do you recall it? 'If you cannot recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.'"

I nodded. "I remember."

"Well, seeing you now, I must have you tell me who you have become." He pointed back at the house. "First, however, we will have something to eat. Then you'll join me turning the compost pile."

"More data hidden in there?"

He winked at me. "I think you will find the work rewarding."

We talked mostly of his flowers and the way the neighborhood had been in the old days. Because his household staff bustled in and out, Corran Horn was referred to in third person, as if Keiran Halcyon had been a playmate of his. By rights I guess I should have found the subterfuge awkward, but I slipped into the Halcyon role the way I would have slipped into any under-cover ident.i.ty. It was a game we shared and both took great delight in it.

Grandfather dispatched Tosruk to my hotel to pick up my things while the two of us went out to the compost heap armed with shovels. My grandfather directed me toward a pile of bantha dung that he used for fertilizer.

He'd been getting it from the Coronet City Zoological and Botanical Gardens for longer than I could remember, in exchange for providing them with his latest hybrids.

"Dig deep and shift the pile over this way about three meters." Leaning on a shovel, wearing bibbed splatter-slacks and knee-high rubber boots, he smiled at me. "If you can shift it any other way, feel free."

I shook my head. "I could make you think it had moved."

"Halcyons always have been notoriously weak in the telekinetic skill area." He laughed. "Dice were the only game of chance in which I felt safe playing against Nejaa."