Part 28 (1/2)

They were on the northwest quadrant of the island's shelf, and the slope on their starboard side was pocked with dark depressions that could have been caves. Strewn across the smooth seabed was a sharply delineated area of small fragments. They were visible even in the filtered sunlight, but when Mereel directed the external lamp ahead of the vessel they stood out in sharp relief.

”That's not a rockfall,” he said. ”If it was scree, it'd cover the whole area from the foot of the slope, because it slides. But there's a gap, about ten meters. Rock doesn't jump, does it?”

Mereel brought Aay'han up twenty meters and maneuvered to a dead stop right above the debris. From the exterior holocams, the aerial view projected onto the c.o.c.kpit monitor reminded Vau of a bag of flour dropped on a clean floor.

”Relatively recent, too,” Skirata said. ”Or the silt would have covered it.”

”Looks like someone dropped a load of spoil from an excavation a long time after the island was terraformed.”

Vau actually felt excited. It was an odd hunt, but every bit as exhilarating as a chase. Mird picked up on his excitement and slid off his lap, rumbling in antic.i.p.ation. ”It's very tempting,” Vau said, ”to work out a direction of travel from the shape of that spoil...”

The three men looked at one another.

”Let's go for it,” Mereel said, with a big grin.

They were above the fifty-meter limit now, and as Aay'han circled slowly above the island shelf, the sensors picked up the throb of drives and the churning sounds of propulsion units from submersibles and surface vessels exploring the turquoise shallows. The scan showed them as points of light, most of them well within the ten-kilometer safety zone. They wouldn't be disturbed down here.

”I never completed the diving course,” Skirata said suddenly. ”I just thought you ought to know that.”

”Might not even need to get our feet wet, Kal'buir.” Mereel took Aay'han deeper, facing the submerged cliff. ”Look at the three-D scan.”

Head-on, the sonar showed a complex pattern of holes, although none of them seemed to extend far into the rock. But there was an overhang that was more or less in line with the patch of debris. Mereel skimmed the seabed, stirring silt into the clear water, and came in close to the jutting shelf of weed-coated rock.

And there it was. From this angle, the scan picked up a deep tunnel, mostly hidden from casual inspection by the overhang, but now visible as a rectangular shaft with rounded corners and an aperture about eight meters by five. Aay'han had a twenty-meter beam.

”Well.” Skirata shrugged. ”We can't just drive in, can we?”

”You're so nautical” Vau said.

Mereel still had that grin on his face. ”There's always the chance we'll find that it's only a waste outlet, and that there's a hungry thing twice the size of a dianoga living in there.”

”Let's find out.”

”If Ko Sai's in there, then she'll be using transport to get in and out. Let's head back to the resort and see what they've got for rental.”

”This means diving, doesn't it?”

”Not necessarily, Kal'buir.”

Whatever Mereel had in mind, it amused him. Dangerous things usually did. Vau raised an eyebrow. ”I'll put Mird ash.o.r.e, if that's okay with you.”

”Trust me,” said Mereel.

Aay'han surfaced well clear of the harbor and skimmed through the gap in the breakwaters toward her berth. As they drew nearer to the pontoons and slowed almost to a stop to come alongside, Mereel pointed across the water.

”That's what we need,” he said. ”I knew they'd have them here. Perfect.”

Vau and Skirata followed his finger, but Vau could see nothing except choppy waves. Then something broke from the surface, like a Whaladon breaching, and arced three meters into the air before cras.h.i.+ng back into the sea again. At first, Vau thought it was an enormous silver fish, but by the time it had progressed across the harbor in extravagant, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g leaps, he'd managed to focus on the thing long enough to see that it was an extraordinary s.h.i.+p shaped like a firaxa shark, minus the head fin. It was five sleek meters long with a brilliant scarlet flash on one flank and the words WAVE-CHASER picked out in gold.

Fierfek, it looked like fun. Vau could barely recall fun. The craft would also fit neatly through the entrance to what he hoped was Ko Sai's laboratory, as well as Aay'han's cargo hatch.

”Let's go rent one,” Mereel said. ”They're two-seaters and they've got a top speed of twenty-five kilometers an hour. Not that I researched them earlier, of course.”

Skirata just looked blank. It was the expression he wore when he wanted to say nu draar-the most vividly emphatic of Mando'a refusals-but felt he had to keep up appearances. ”One.”

”Someone has to pilot Aay'han, because those things won't have much range,” Vau said. ”And I'm volunteering. I had my midlife crisis about ten years ago, so you can go play boy racer this time, Kal...”

”Shabuir,” Skirata muttered, but he looked nervous.

The Wavechasers turned out to be for sale or rent. Price had long since ceased to be an issue for any of them now that time was the rarest and most precious thing imaginable, so Skirata bought one.

”Handy runabout for Aay'han,” he said, staring at his boots. ”And if we dent the thing, we won't have any explaining to do to the rental office.” Then he looked up at Mereel, a head taller than him, and slapped the pa.s.scard in the Null's palm. ”All yours, son. High time you owned some-thing nice.”

Vau was usually immune to Skirata's polar extremes of emotion, but for a few seconds the old chakaar and his surrogate son simply looked at each other as if there was nothing else that mattered in the galaxy, and Vau felt genuine envy.

It wasn't Skirata he envied. It was Mereel, for having a father who doted on him so much that he could do no wrong. Like time, it was something his wealth had never bought him.

Chapter 11.

There's one thing that bothers me, sir. They say Master Yoda referred to the war as the Clone War right after the Battle of Geonosis. It was the very first battle of the war. Why did he identify the war that way, by the clones who are fighting it? Have we ever said the Fifth Fleet War or the Corellian Baji Brigade War? What does he know that we don't?

-General Bardan Jusik, confiding in General Arligan Zey * * *

Shuttle, en route for Dorumaa from Qiilura, 478 days after Geonosis What does cyar'ika mean?” Etain asked, gazing at some-thing in the palm of her hand.

Ordo could guess where this was heading, and as they were stuck in the c.o.c.kpit of a small shuttle he had no option but to have a conversation. He was afraid things would stray into areas where he felt woefully ignorant, and not having the answers always troubled him. He expected to be perfect.

”It means 'darling,' ” he said. ”Sweetheart. Beloved. Dearest.”

Etain swallowed audibly and didn't look up. ”And it's okay for a woman to use that word to a man?”

”You can use it to anyone,” Ordo said. Ah, she was groping her way through the minefield of a relations.h.i.+p in a foreign language. ”Anyone or anything you love. Child, spouse, pet, parent.”

”Oh.” There was a slight drop in her tone as if she hadn't expected to hear that. ”Okay.”

”If Darman uses it, it's not because he regards you as his strill, General...”

She made a little sound as if she was trying to laugh but had forgotten how. ”So does everyone else know about the baby except Dar?”

”Just Kal'buir, Sergeant Vau, and my brothers. And Bard'ika, obviously.” Ordo respected Jusik's ability to sit on the news for as long as he had, but it made him wonder what else the Jedi didn't tell him. He longed for a day when none of this subterfuge was necessary. ”Because we have a duty to look after you.”

”I... I appreciate your concern.”

”No pain?”

”No.”