Part 13 (1/2)

dataport and don't give me any more nonsense. As I was about to say, if I am right-which is not so rare an occurrence, thank you very much-we might well need all the evidence we can find to convince Captain Calrissian of the situation. Hurry! Hurry!”

Luke Skywalker walked along beside his friend, enjoying the pleasant morning-but also starting to realize that something was not quite right. His Jedi senses were trying to tell him something, but he was not quite sure what.

Luke glanced up and down the quiet street. There were fewer houses out this way, and they were larger and grander than the ones in the center of town. There were only a few pa.s.sersby on the sidewalk, and they merely glanced over at the pair of strangers with the mildest of curiosity. No threat from that quarter, clearly enough.

And yet there was something. Luke realized that his hand had drifted toward the handle of his lightsaber. He was more spooked than he realized. He glanced over at Lando, but it was obvious that his friend was quite unconcerned. Plainly there was nothing on his mind more stressful than his usual cheerfully larcenous schemes. So what was it?

For a half a moment he considered the possibility of grabbing Lando by the arm and urging him to turn back. But no. Even a Jedi Master needed more than a vague notion of something not quite right.

* * * The two droids finally found a public city dataport in an obscure corner of the main terminal building of the s.p.a.ceport. ”Plug in!

Plug in!” Threepio cried, urging on Artoo.

”Everything, everything you can find on Karia Ver Seryan.

I only hope I'm wrong-” Artoo beeped and blurped rapidly in a high register.

”What do you mean, why should this time be different?” he demanded, swatting Artoo on the dome. ”Plug into the Lando and Luke managed to time their walk rather well, getting to Karia Ver Seryan's house just a minute or two before the appointed time.

Her house was hard to miss in that quiet, tree-lined street.

It was, by far, the largest in the neighborhood. Nearly all the other homes were made out of a sort of dark yellow brick, with here or there one built from bluish-gray wood.

But Ver Seryan's house was built of well-mortared dark gray stone.

It was five stories tall, although all the other nearby buildings were two or three stories at most. It stood on a piece of land at least four times as large as any of the other houses. The grounds were surrounded by a high fence made up of elaborately decorated black iron bars, set into the ground, twelve centimeters apart. It looked more like a fortress than a home.

Luke noticed that the houses on either side of Ver Seryan's house were empty and abandoned, their grounds overgrown with brambles, in stark contrast to the elaborate gardens and private menageries on display everywhere else.

At first glance, the gardens surrounding Ver Seryan's house seemed a tribute to ostentation for its own sake. There were paths and stone seats, and exotic plants from a dozen foreign worlds. A decorative artificial stream completely circled the house, no doubt set in motion by some sort of pumping system. A path led from the front gate over a diminutive footbridge to the front door.

There was a widening in the brook on the right side of the house, and in the middle of it stood a complicated threetiered fountain. Its jets of water played high into the air in an intricate and ever-s.h.i.+fting pattern. However, despite the distraction of the fountain, it did not escape Luke's attention that, if the bridge were raised, as it seemed it could be, the decorative ciscular brook would stand in good service as a moat.

And there, in the middle of all the elaborate landscaping, was the house itself, and the house seemed to have nothing in common with its own grounds. There was nothing pretty or ornamental about it. It was built to be big and strong, and that was that. Despite the attempt to disguise the fact with fancy plants and whimsical fountains, it was plain to see Ver Seryan's house was a fortress, designed to keep people out.

Luke looked up at the place, feeling even less happy about the circ.u.mstances. What sort of woman needed a home that could protect her against a mob? It was plainly a mob that the owner of this house was worried about.

Moats and iron fences were not the sort of precautions that would hold back a determined burglar, or an organized a.s.sault with modern weapons. No. It was the sort of setup designed to slow down and discourage a crowd in an ugly mood, and hold a disorganized, emotional mob at bay.

Nor was there any way Luke could tell himself that it was all decorative, some sort of holdover from an architectural tradition. The proof was there, in front of his eyes, on the wall of the house, just to the right of the door. There was some sort of creeping plant growing up over them, but it would take more than a few leaves and tendrils to hide blaster burns that big.

”Looks like she's pretty well off,” Lando said.

Luke was about to say something, but thought better of it. There was just too much of a difference between his viewpoint and Lando's.

Where Luke saw a defense system, Lando saw evidence of cash flow. Who was to say which of them was right? Maybe everything Luke had noticed involved the previous owner, or some spot of bother brought on by the war against the Empire.

But he could not convince himself. Something was not right. Luke reached out with the Force and tried to get a sense of the place, a feel for the mood of the people. Now the feeling that had bothered him before came back, clearer and more intensely. Luke could feel the way it centered around this point, this house.

Now that he knew what to look for, he sought out the minds of whatever people his Force sense could locate in the general vicinity of Ver Seryan's house.

Every mind he could find held at least some trace of the feeling.

It was not uppermost in their thoughts, but it was there, and it got stronger the closer people were to the house.

Not hatred, or anger. It was a muted, subtle kind of fear, something closer to the state of mind of someone trying to avoid touching a plant with thorns, someone aware they were sitting a trifle too close to a campfire, someone wary of getting any closer to a potential dangerous animal. In the back of every mind there was the sense that it was unwise to get too close to the house of Karia Ver Seryan.

Luke refocused his Force sense in a new direction, and got another surprise. He could sense only one sentient living mind in the house. It had to be Ver Seryan. But it was abundanfly clear from the first brush with her mind that there was nothing malevolent there. She did not regard herself as dangerous, but as quite the opposite. In her he sensed an almost cloying benevolence, someone almost overeager to do good for anyone and everyone, whether they liked it or not. There was more than a whisper of greed in her mind as well, but nothing that could account for the cautious, careful, fear that surrounded her. If that degree of greed was all it took to inspire fear, Lando should have caused a worldwide panic the moment he set foot on the planet.

Still, it was a truism that no person ever regards himself or herself as evil. Even the emperor believed himself to be in the right, even as he crushed the Old Republic and established his tyranny throughout the galaxy. Just because Ver Seryan regarded herself as good, it did not mean she was. But even so, something here did not fit.

”Come on, Luke,” said Lando, breaking into his thoughts. ”You going to spend the whole day staring at her house? I don't want to keep the lady waiting.”

Luke put his hand on his friend's arm. ”Lando,” he said. ”Be careful, all right?”

”In a negotiation? What else have I ever been? Come on.

Lando pushed on the gate and it swung open. He led the way into the grounds of the house, and Luke followed a step or two behind and more than a little reluctantly.

The two of them went up the path, crossed the little bridge, and went up the stairs to the solid-looking steel doors of the house. Lando waited for Luke to catch up and pressed the annunciator disk as soon as Luke joined him.

After a delay brief enough that Luke a.s.sumed they had been watched from inside the house, the door swung open to reveal a strikingly lovely young woman. Luke was about to ask if Ver Seryan was at home when he recalled that he had only sensed one human being in the house. This had to be her-though this woman was nothing like he'd expected.

”Welcome to you both,” the woman said. ”I am Karia Ver Seryan.

Welcome to you, Lando Calrissian. I received your communication and am eager to speak further with you. We may well be able to come to an arrangement of mutual interest.” She turned to Luke. ”And of course, welcome to you, most high Jedi Master. Your exploits are legend, and it is the greatest of honors to welcome you into my humble abode. Please, gentles both, do come in.”

Lando winked at Luke when Van Seryan was not looking.

Obviously, it was Luke's reputation that had opened this door.

Lando lost no further time in stepping through it, with Luke following behind.

Luke was not quite sure what he had expected of the interior, but it was certainly not what he saw. The dark solidity of the exterior was nowhere in evidence. Inside, all was softness and light. The interior walls were white stone, and they were decorated with elaborate and costly hangings and paintings from across the galaxy. The ground floor seemed to be one vast room. A grand staircase led UP the back wall from left to right, the line of stairs broken by landings a third and two thirds of the way up. Doorways led out of each landing, presumably to living quarters.

Folding screens and freestanding shelves and display cases broke the s.p.a.ce up into a number of cozy-looking sitting areas. Comfortable-looking couches and chairs and luxurious carpets were arranged invitingly. It looked to be the sort of room made for a splendid paity, not for sheltering one lone woman.

But if the room was unexpected, it was far less so than their hostess. Working from the scanty information Lando had been able to gather, Luke had been imagining Karia Ver Seryan as a frumpy, indolent sort of woman who had married for money, and then let herself go completely once her husband was safely dead. From the way Lando had spoken, it was clear that he had expected much the same.

But the reality of Karia Ver Seryan could not have been further from that image. She was tall, slender, and darkskinned, with eyes of the most startling deep violet. Her hair was the color of late sunset, and she moved with a remarkably artless grace. She was dressed in a simple, elegant, black dress of modest cut that did more to accentuate her figure than any more revealing dress could have possibly done, and a single large diamond hung around her neck on a platinum chain. One look at Lando, and it was obvious that the size of bankroll he would take to get him to marry her had just shrunk rather precipitously.

”Your home is lovely,” he said, ”but not remotely as lovely as its owner.”

Ver Seryan smiled prettily and gave a very slight bow of acknowledgment. ”Thank you, kind sir. It is difficult for me to hire servants, as you might imagine. I will not disguise from you the problems of maintaining my home with nothing but droid labor. I do freely admit that I would be most happy to have a man about the place-to serve as a handyman, if nothing else.”

”I can a.s.sure you that I would be most interested in the position,”