Balance Point (20 page)

The Duros on the platform spoke loudly, waving a knobby hand. “Independence is virrrtue,” she shouted. “In dangerrrous times, depending on an outside force for sustenance or defense could kill us all. If you cannot feed yourrr family group, you fail them. If you cannot protect
yourrr own, you kill them. Arrre you murderers … or prrroviders?”

“Anakin,” Mara muttered, “go with Artoo, but stay in visual contact. Get a feel for the crowd. If you sense danger, get back over here.”

“Right,” he said. “Mom.”

Right in character.

“Symbiosis,” the Duros called, “has been prrreached since time immemorrrial. Has it made us frrree? Does it make us safe? They say we depend on each otherrr.” Now she took on a simpering tone. “That we need each otherrr. Hutt slime!”

Several Duros cheered.

“We, we must be strrrong. We, ourselves. Whoever needs help will fall. Each—one—of—us,” she cried, punctuating each word with a grunt, “must be strrrong enough to take what he wants. Or all will die. All!”

On Mara’s left side, a few Duros turned toward her, then moved aside, whispering. She didn’t catch any intent to attack, and her danger sense lay still, but she kept one hand near her lightsaber, under the dark cloak.

The speaker raised her arm, reaching toward a bank of lights that gave Duggan Station the appearance of yellowish daylight. “We are independent of the worrrld below.”

“Yes!” someone from the crowd cried.

“We are independent of the worrrlds at great distance.”

The answering “Yes!” picked up volume.

“Symbiosis,” she cried, “interrrdependence. They are for the weak. The weak must stand togetherrr to stand at all!”

The Duros cheered.

She crouched down, pressing her palms together. “Like the point of a duha spear, like the blade of a knife, strrrength lies where metal comes to a point. Where
worrrlds stand alone, with no need to wait for other fleets to defend them, there is trrrue might. Each of us,” she concluded, sweeping an arm out over the crowd, “must be strrrong. Strong enough to take what she wants … and defend it!”

Loud cheers.

Mara backed up against Luke and turned her masked head slightly. “This kind of talk could finish what’s left of the New Republic.”

She caught just a shade of Force energy spinning around him, extended to protect her. Evidently he wasn’t trusting completely to their disguises, but taking a basic defensive stance, blurring the orator’s view of their faces.

“I’ve heard enough,” he said.

Anakin hadn’t gone far. R2-D2 couldn’t roll sideways in a crowd, so when Mara caught Anakin’s attention and flicked a gloved finger, he nodded and backed away from the podium in a straight line. R2-D2 rolled beside him, wearing a new coat of copper-hued glaze.

The avenue inbound from Duggan Station was lined with planters that served the obvious dual purpose of aesthetics and air-scrubbing. Most local traffic seemed to travel on one- or two-passenger hoverbikes or enclosed hoverpods.

They found an inexpensive hostel, where Luke took a two-room unit. It had three basic cot-over-storage units and a refresher. One wall was programmable to several flatscreen images, including—according to its instruction panel—an exterior view of Bburru City, hanging majestically in space over the dull-brown planet below; Coruscant’s night side, with or without an overlay of auroral displays; or shipping traffic entering and exiting hyperspace near Yag’Dhul, at the intersection of the Corellian Trade Spine and the Rimma Trade Route. Mara left it blank.

R2-D2 rolled straight to a data station and plugged himself in. Mara peeled out of her goggles, mask, gloves, and dark robe, emerging in a comfortable flight suit.

By then, Anakin’s disguise lay strewn all over his cot. He sat down, stretching and flexing his fingers. “After all the New Republic has done for them, how could they think that way?”

“That’s just one troublemaker,” Mara said. “But sometimes, it only takes one. Remember Rhommamool, and that firebrand Nom Anor.”

“Fortunately,” Anakin said, “I didn’t meet him.”

For Mara, Rhommamool had been a second encounter. Serving as a minor diplomat’s bodyguard to festivities on Monor II, she’d endured Anor’s rhetoric until even the gentle native Sunesi couldn’t tolerate him. They’d asked him to leave.

“Anor fanned an intrasystem resentment into open warfare at Rhommamool. Got most of his own people killed … and himself, too. But one troublemaker can sometimes be reached.”

Luke nodded. “Reasoned with. I hope that’s what we’ve got here—”

R2-D2 bleeped urgently.

Luke paused halfway through pulling off one boot. “What is it, Artoo?”

Mara couldn’t follow the stream of toots and whistles.

Evidently Luke couldn’t either. “Hold on, hold on.” He pushed up off his cot and crossed to the readout over R2-D2’s data port. Mara felt a sudden, somber change in his mood.

“Nothing serious,” he told her, “everyone’s all right. But Han and Jacen’s dome just got evacuated into Leia’s. Some kind of infestation.”

“Jacen’s probably collecting again,” Anakin said.

“Not funny,” Mara muttered. “I don’t think Duro supports much life.”

Luke’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “They’re all fine,” he said. “And Jacen just arrived up here on Bburru.”

“Great,” Anakin muttered.

“Anakin,” Luke said softly, “Jacen has to find his own path. It’s part of hitting maturity. Sometimes that takes a while.”

Anakin sniffed. Mara wondered if she’d ever had a sibling, and if they would’ve gotten along.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll bump into him sooner or later. But for now, our priorities are to find Tresina’s missing apprentice and figure out Duro’s political situation. Number one’s probably dependent on number two.”

“Right,” Luke said. “I’ll talk to CorDuro Shipping. Unless I’m wrong, that’s where Jacen has headed.”

“Do that.” An idea was forming at the back of Mara’s mind. She’d brought along other disguises. Other people could have come to Duro fishing for well-formulated reasons not to open their worlds to refugees. The Kuati senator Viqi Shesh certainly hadn’t established SELCORE’s main camp anywhere near Kuat. Maybe Mara could scare up some information on who
else
here had antirefugee leanings.

She hauled one of her duffels into the refresher.

When she stepped out half an hour later, Anakin grabbed his cot’s edge with both hands. His eyebrows rose so far that they almost vanished under his dark hair.

Laughing inwardly, she tilted up her chin and stared down at him. “You may kiss our palm,” she said in a languid Kuati accent.

“Wow,” he choked.

Luke folded his arms and leaned against the blank
view-wall, grinning. He’d seen her in many guises, but this one
was
spectacular. She’d tinted her red-gold mane a deep reddish brown and pulled it back severely into a tail at the crown of her head, securing it with a circlet of false émeraudes. Bits of masking putty raised the bridge of her nose; shadowing gel gave her cheeks a prominent hollow. More émeraudes rimmed her ears and dangled halfway down her neck. The amethyst-colored tunic, belted in what would pass for gold, had a spatter of green gems on one shoulder, and the cutout beneath the high collar plunged drastically. Her elevated shoes were tapered to give the illusion that the extra height was all her own, but the heels could be kicked off if she needed to make a fast getaway.

She cuffed Anakin’s shoulder. “Don’t drool on the carpet,” she said. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“We won’t be for long.” Luke pushed off the wall.

Mara smiled ruefully, sensing that he’d like her to stick around for another hour or so. Actually, that sounded good to her, too—but after putting on all this gear, she wanted to keep it unrumpled.

“We have an appointment,” Luke said. “That is, two Kubaz have an appointment.”

Anakin frowned, still massaging life back into his face from wearing the rubbery mask.

“I’m just going to nose around,” Mara said. “See what I can get from that crowd down at Port Duggan, where the performance is going on.”

She read
Be careful
in his eyes. Respecting his restraint, she didn’t promise that she would. She simply nodded.

His lips twitched.

She enjoyed that—communicating without words
or
the Force. “I’ll send Artoo a message if I end up elsewhere,” she promised.

Then she realized that she wanted to say,
You two take care
—simply as a parting nicety. She was getting soft.

She offered Luke her palm. He seized her hand, touched it with his lips, then tugged her close enough to whisper, “Come back soon.”

An aide ushered Luke into CorDuro Vice-Director Durgard Brarun’s sumptuous office. Lit by crisscrossed strips on the ceiling and walls, its focal point was a decorative air-circulation grille. Other black grilles reached from floor to ceiling in freeform designs. At the room’s front was a narrow counter, like something out of a tapcaf. A lone Duros sat behind it. The triangular CorDuro insignia on his right breast had a gold edging. Gray-green skin hung in folds under his chin. Over his ears, his hairless scalp was turning pale.

He stood to greet the pair of imitation Kubaz. “Gentles, how may I serrrve you?”

Luke wasn’t sure what information might be available. He meant to convince Vice-Director Brarun that he and Anakin were harmless, trying to bluff their way into dangerous circles.

It mattered more than ever that he succeed. Everything mattered more, now. He was helping to shape the future in which his child would grow up.

In his best Kubaz whirr-overlaid Basic, he said, “Many of our people are homeless. We have set up a colony on Yag’Dhul, but we need supplies. I was told there were basic goods to be bought here, for a price.”

The Duros reached toward his countertop. “The price could be more than you wish to pay, gentles,” he said.

Two large humans appeared from behind a brown wall screen. Luke recognized the determination in their eyes, then the hopelessness behind it. He’d seen that mixture before—in Peace Brigade collaborators, humans who were already convinced the Yuuzhan Vong would win this war.

That
was an unwelcome complication. Had CorDuro been corrupted? Or had Thrynni Vae vanished because she detected collaboration on an even wider scope?

A second thought hit him like an ion cannon blast, disrupting his other thoughts. Were the Yuuzhan Vong already targeting Duro, and were these their advance agents?

He scrambled to regain his composure. “We are prepared,” he whirred, “to offer New Republic credits, Kubindi bonds redeemable offworld, or—”

A tone sounded through the room, and their host straightened. “One moment, gentles.”

Brarun touched something in front of him, eyed a readout, and half smiled. Luke sensed an urge to send the strangers away. He countered it subtly, suggesting that Brarun perceive his Kubindi guests as neutral witnesses. After all, their world was already gone.

Brarun appeared to consider the new thought, then said, “Gentles, please lingerrr for a few minutes. I am reminded of a guest that my staff has kept waiting, so that he will know his place. I shall admit him now. Keep still, or your escorrrts will have to see you out.”

“Gladly,” Luke whirred, “for my people’s sake.”

He gestured Anakin back toward the brown wall screen. As they backed away, Luke evaluated the big human guards again: commanding in size, but not devastatingly brilliant. They shouldn’t present two Jedi much challenge if this came down to blows—which it shouldn’t.

Luke sensed Jacen as he walked in, wearing a soft blue cap and a brown flight suit. To his deep concern, Jacen neither probed nor reached out with the Force. In fact, Luke sensed a deliberate damping of the Force all around his elder apprentice, worse than before.

He’d told Anakin that Jacen must find his own path. He knew it with all his heart and mind, but seeing Jacen like this hurt badly. Luke had made mistakes. He knew how painful the consequences might be.

Especially here and now.

He stretched out and nudged Jacen.

Jacen had spent most of the last hour in an anteroom, waiting for the vice-director to admit him. He’d tried to sit patiently and reflect on his vision. It hadn’t exactly called him to diplomacy, but this didn’t seem like a wrong path.

Now, like an echo out of his vision, he sensed his uncle—there, one of the two Kubaz in the corner, between muscular bodyguard types.

The other Kubaz was Anakin.

From his uncle, he thought he sensed a nudge to get the Duros talking.

Straightening, he faced Vice-Director Brarun. What an opportunity! He could show his uncle
and
his brother the direction his vision and conscience and experiences were taking him.

“Jedi Jacen Solo.” The vice-director, like other CorDuro employees, wore a red-trimmed brown flight suit. “This is unexpected.”

“Thank you for—” Jacen stepped toward the desk.

“Stop,” the Duros said. “That’s close enough.”

Jacen halted. Did Brarun want him standing on this exact spot? Testing, he edged sideways. The vice-director didn’t object.

He deduced that the Duros wasn’t trying to stand him over or under a Greenie-trap, but was simply frightened of Jedi and trying to protect himself.

“Sir, I’m here on behalf of some very needy people. The refugees inside my mother’s dome—”

“She is Leia Organa Solo. Corrrect?”

Jacen’s ear for accents and languages had almost adjusted to the Duros’ tendency to gargle their
Rs
. “Yes, sir. Those refugees are living under unbelievably primitive conditions. They—”

“Where are your Jedi robes, Jacen Solo? Are you here as an infiltrator?”

“No.” Jacen spread his hands. “Not at all.”

The Duros pointed a long, knobby hand down at Jacen. “Your supply problems are not our concern. Perhaps SELCORE is shorting you.”

“Why would SELCORE do that?”

The Duros shrugged eloquently. “Why not? SELCORE decided for us that we wanted our planet reclaimed.” He raised a hand before Jacen could answer. “We were consulted, but only nominally.”