vegetables by hiding them under overturned cups. On the other side of the room,
opposite the food service area, a giant holovid display was running endless
coverage of the latest tragedies of the Clone Wars.
In short, there was nothing to show that the world as Whie knew it had
slipped over some terrible event horizon, never to be seen again.
"You were born Whie Malreaux," the red-and-ivory droid said in its fussy,
precise manner. "You came into this life on the planet of Vjun, after a
difficult labor that lasted two standard nights and a day in early spring. You
were a good-natured child, unlike your unfortunate brother, quick to walk and
quick to talk. The one thing he did better than you was sleep," the droid said,
still speaking quietly but holding Whie's eyes with his own. "For even as a very
young child, you were troubled by your dreams."
"How do you know all this?" Whie whispered.
"I was there."
"But—"
The droid touched his livery of metal paint. "These are the colors of the
House Malreaux, crimson and cream; blood and ivory, if you prefer. And I am a
servant of that house."
Whie felt as if his mind had just made the jump to hyperspace. Into it leapt
the image from his most recent visionary dream—himself and Scout and the evil
woman standing in a rich house, the rich carpet under his feet, and under it,
stretching away from the woven edges, a checkered floor of red and ivory tiles.
Home. The word a certainty in his heart.
He was going home.
"When the Jedi stole you from your home—"
"Stole! The Jedi don't steal!"
The droid brushed him aside with a brisk wave of his hand. "They found your
mother in a weak moment, shocked by the death of her husband and so drunk she
was half insensible. I urged her to reconsider, but nobody listens to a droid's
advice." He sniffed. "The point is, the thing was done, and could not be undone.
But within days your mother realized the Jedi had kidnapped the heir of a noble
house. She sent me to Coruscant to watch over you, and wait."
"Ten years? Eleven?" Whie said, incredulous.
The droid shrugged. He was extremely well programmed—while still clearly a
machine, his movements were fluid, natural, and precise.
"My name is Fidelis," the droid said. "I am programmed for absolute loyalty
to the House Malreaux, which I have served through madness and war for twelve
generations. Now I serve you."
"But, but ... I don't want—" Whie stammered. "I am Jedi. I have no other
family. I can't accept your service."
"Beg pardon, Master, but my service is mine to give. Whether you choose to
accept it or not is outside the parameters of my programming."
"Then I order you to leave me alone!"
"Your mother is currently the head of House Malreaux, and while I respect
your wishes, you do not currently have the authority to countermand her
instructions. Beyond which," Fidelis said, "my ultimate loyalty is to the House
Malreaux itself, and I am programmed with wide discretionary powers in deciding
which actions best serve the family. In this case, I am very comfortable looking
out for you, whether you wish me to or not. I can offer you some choices about
what form that service would take," he went on soothingly. "I am most
comfortable in my preferred role as your gentleman's personal gentlething, but
if you would prefer a wordless bodyguard, or even a discreet assassin who simply
haunts your travels, I am fully equipped to fill those roles."
"You don't understand," Whie said plaintively. "There's no such thing as a
Jedi who runs around the galaxy with a, a, gentleman's personal gentlething!"
"There is now. Master Whie, consider your familial obligations. At this very
moment you have a mother who waits for you in Château Malreaux, daily insulted
and degraded by the odious Count Dooku."
"Dooku!" Whie said. "Dooku is at my house right now?" He sprang up from the
table and loped toward the lift tube banks. "I've got to tell Y—I've got to tell
the others right away."
Fidelis, humming to himself and turning over Whie's use of the phrase my
house, gathered up the trays of food and drink and followed. He didn't have the
Force to aid him, but he had waited table at the Château Malreaux for twelve
food, it came to pretty much the same thing.
Across the cafeteria from Whie and Fidelis, the ship's holobroadcast was
interrupted for a special news bulletin.
Meanwhile, in a turbolift moving briskly toward the Taupe Corridor of Level
17A, Scout and Solis were debating the conduct of the Republic and the
Confederacy in the current conflict. "Honestly," Scout said with some heat, "do
you really want to live in a world run by battle droids?"
Had Solis's manufacturer seen fit to equip him with eyebrows, he would have
raised them.
"Oh," Scout said, looking at her own dim reflection in the scuffed metal
plate of the droid's chest. "Well, I guess that would look different, from your
point of—"
She stopped suddenly, her attention caught by the words "Master Yoda" echoing
tinnily from the little holo-screen above the lift tube buttons.
. . . this video, shot from a defense installation at the edge of the
Ithorian system, clearly shows the attacker destroying all but one of the Jedi
Master's guard ships. The attacker's ship, a modified version of Count Dooku's
notorious sailer, has been identified as Last Call, registered to the notorious
pirate and saboteur Asajj Ventress, who is wanted on eight worlds in connection
with the deaths of eleven Jedi Knights."
"Seventeen!" Asajj growled, shaking her head. "Can you believe that? And they
call themselves journalists."
Palleus Chuff, lashed firmly into the copilot's seat of Last Call, assumed
that this was a rhetorical question. Just as well. He was normally as glib as
kiss-your-hand Palleus Chuff; considered quite witty in the better circles of
the Coruscant actors' fraternity, which was saying a lot. But between the gag in
his mouth and the unfortunate tendency to faint that had been coming over him at
regular intervals since Ventress's tractor beams first gripped on to his ship,
holding a conversation was more than he could currently manage.
…. while a second clip released by Ithorian officials clearly shows a debris
field now positively identified as the remains of Master Yoda's ship. Chancellor
Palpatine's office has declined to comment before a thorough investigation into
the ambush has been completed, but privately, faces in the capital are grim, as
the Republic must prepare for new Confederacy offensives without the Jedi who
was not only her chief military strategist, but, in a very important way, her
heart and soul."
"But that's not right," Scout blurted. "That's impossible." She looked
blankly at Solis. "We have to tell them!"
"Tell them what?" he asked blandly. "Urn—nothing," she said, collecting her
wits. "Nothing. Tell my friends, is what I meant. I have to get back to the room
and tell my friends right away."
"Certainly," Solis said. "We're almost there."
In the Kidz Arkade, Donni Bratz was watching his brother Chuck play his
fourth consecutive game of Wookiee Warpath. "Is it my turn now?" he asked
timidly. He tried to say it quietly, so as not to interrupt.
"Donni, shut it. I'm in the middle of the Gozar level, here." Chuck was
playing hard now, using a little footwork and all the advantages his four thumbs
could give him.
Donni thought Chuck was a god when it came to Wookiee Warpath.
Chuck had put his StarFries and Fizzy-Bip down next to the machine. Some very
bad part of Donni considered tipping the Fizzy-Bip over, but he would certainly
never do such a thing. Chuck, as Mom never stopped telling him, was the best big
brother a guy could have. Besides, the last time he did something like that,
Chuck had tied him to the old zink-sled with the missing right rear gimble and
set it going until he threw up all over Mom's newly upholstered lounge chair.
Donni watched Chuck play, trying to be content with admiring his brother's
skill, but after the Flying Knives and the Swamp level, and when Chuck had
completely exploded all the Floating Toads of Doom, Donni couldn't help saying,
"You said I could have a turn after you. You said. And that was four credits
ago," he added under his breath.
"Don't be a pest, Meatface."
Donni's antennae slumped over. "Mom said you weren't supposed to call me
that."
Chuck tore the arm off a green Wookiee with a smartly executed Twister Grab.
"Well, Meatface, Mom isn't here, is she?"
Unnoticed by Chuck, who was in tense hand-to-hand with four berserk Wookiees,
a short R2 unit lurched somewhat erratically into the Arkade and then stopped
dead with its central video sensor locked in on the FizzyBip. Donni watched,
puzzled, as the little droid sidled up to Wookiee Warpath and reached for the
Bip with one jerky mechanical claw. The claw snapped, missed, grabbed again.
"Hey," Donni said.
"Shut up, Meatface! It's not your turn yet!"
"But—" Donni gulped as the top of the little R2 swiveled around and locked on
to his eyes. A queer, almost glassy feeling came over him, and then, as if by
magic, two ideas popped vividly into his head, one after another. The first was
that actually, when you got right down to it, Chuck was kind of a creep, and it
would serve him right if some R2 unit stole his drink. The second was: What
drink?
On its way out of the Arkade, the little R2 paused, orienting to a small
holoscreen by the door, where a carefully groomed news holoanchor, nearly
inaudible over the simulated blasterfire, was saying, "For a commentary on
today's shocking news, we go to correspondent Zorug Briefly, who asks the
question of the hour—What now, Jedi Knights?"
Two bells binged softly in the turbolift bank at the bottom of Taupe
Corridor, and two sets of doors slid smoothly down on either side of the foyer,
so that Scout found herself facing the R2 unit. "You!" she said. "You're not
supposed to be out! Where have you been?"
The little R2 dropped an empty Fizzy-Bip carton in what a careful observer
might have called a furtive manner. Scout, bursting with her news, didn't
notice.
The bare metal droid standing next to her did, though.
Scout was already running down the corridor. "It doesn't matter. Listen, we
have to get a message back to—" She glanced at Solis. "—to our friends right
away. There's been a terrible mix-up."
The R2 gave an unconvincing chirp and wheeled after her, taking the corner so
fast it rose up on one wheel.
Solis watched the little R2 very thoughtfully indeed, and then, without
appearing to hurry, moved swiftly after them.
Seconds later, Whie appeared at the other end of Taupe Corridor, running fast
and shouting.
"Have you heard?" Scout yelled to him as she banged on the door of 524.
"He's on Vjun!" Whie said. "Count Dooku! He's on Vjun!"
The security monad mounted over the Taupe Corridor was not nearly a close
enough observer to notice that this remark had been directed not to Scout, but
to the little R2 unit.
Solis, on the other hand, was a very close observer indeed. He might not have
the latest hologame downloads installed on his system, but Fate had given him an
altogether more varied life than his companion, Fidelis, who now came trotting
after Whie. Underneath his metal exterior, Fidelis was somewhat overwhelmed by
the longed-for consummation of actually serving the Malreaux boy. Solis, who had
no especial feelings for House Malreaux in general or this boy in particular,
was more riveted by the fact that the tray Fidelis was carrying held five
drinks, instead of four.
"Master Jai! Master Jai, open up! It's me!" Scout said, continuing to hammer
on the door. "We have to send a message to the Temple !"
At this moment, a series of events occurred in quick succession. First, the
door to Cabin 524 slid almost (but not completely) open, releasing a billow of
steam and revealing Jedi Master Jai Maruk, looking considerably put out and
wearing nothing but the towel he had grabbed on his way out of the shower. "This
had better be important," he said, glowering at Scout.
As he spoke, the door of Cabin 523 slid down, and Master Maks Leem's worried
face peered out through a cloud of dense black incense smoke. "Whie? What's all
the commotion?"
"I just found out where Doo—"
Here Whie was interrupted by a loud crash as the little R2 unit
careened—apparently by accident—into Fidelis, and the rest of the Padawan's
words were drowned in the clatter and splash of dinner for five hitting the
floor.
At the same moment, the Taupe Corridor security monad watched in electric
ecstasy as the clouds of steam and incense in the corridor finally surpassed the
hazard level on its built-in smoke detectors. Lights flashed and alarms sounded
with all the passion of seventy-three trillion processor cycles of anticipation.
"Mistress Pho," Jai Maruk said heavily, "do you remember what the number one
priority of this trip was?" He hitched his towel up with one hand and looked
grimly from Scout to the flashing alarms, to the spilled food and the watching
droids, and back to Scout again.
Scout gulped. "Yes, Mast—I mean, Father."
"And what was it?"
Whie and Scout exchanged pale looks before replying in unison. "Keep a low
profile."
The extremely private comm console on Last Call chimed. "Yes?"
It was a droid. "I have some information you may be interested in acquiring."
"Not likely," Asajj said.
"I know where Yoda is. The real one."
Asajj sat up straight. "What do you mean? Don't you watch the news? Yoda is—"
"I can cut this link right now," the droid said. He was unmarked and
unpainted, and his calm voice carried absolute conviction.
"No!" Asajj said sharply.
"You admit you are interested?"
"I might be."
"Would your interest extend to seven hundred and thirty-four thousand nine
hundred ninety-five Republic credits?"
"A curious sum."
Her caller shrugged. "My treason tables are very precisely calibrated."
Asajj thought for a moment. "I think we might be able to do business."
When the terms had been negotiated and the communication broken off, Asajj
set a course for Phindar Spaceport. After a moment's thought, she lifted a clip
of the droid's face from the comm console's log of their communication and asked
the computer to make a deep search, looking for a match for the droid's
particular make and model. Such a search was rather slow, given the transmission
lag between her current position and the 'Net, so she grabbed a quick lunch and
administered an ampoule of adrenaline to her prisoner, whose tendency to stop
breathing and pass out was becoming annoying.
The comm console gave a polite cough to announce the completion of her
search. "Match found," it said, displaying a picture from the authorative
Peterson's Guide to Droids of the Republic, Vol. VII: The Great Corporate
Expansion Era.
THE LEGENDARY TAC-SPEC FOOTMAN DROID.
PRODUCED AT ENORMOUS EXPENSE IN A
LIMITED PRODUCTION RUN, MOST EXPERTS
CONSIDER THE FOOTMEN THE DEADLIEST
PERSONAL SERVICE UNITS EVER CREATED,
COMBINING FANATICAL LOYALTY WITH A KILL
RATIO THAT MAKES THE STATS OF MODERN-DAY
ASSASSINS PALE IN COMPARISON.
Asajj came away from her console looking very thoughtful indeed.
7
Jai Maruk had always been a light sleeper, and at the first stealthy rustle
he was wide awake. His hand was light and tingling, ready to sweep out the
lightsaber from under his cot. He reached out with the Force, sensing the room:
the Esterhazy girl was out like a log, making little snores. Even through the
thin walls Jai could feel the gentle glow, like a banked fire, of Master Yoda,
who now slept next door—Cabin 522 had opened up when another passenger had
debarked two days ago.
Another rustle. Jai Maruk relaxed. There was no intruder; just Whie, stealing
quietly into a set of robes. Wound up about something; across the room in the
dark, Jai could feel him in the Force, his nerves jangling like the strings of a
tri-harp.
Well, Jai thought, no surprise there. His first trip out of the Jedi Temple ,