Part 46 (1/2)
”Parja and Fi. She's making him walk today. His balance is shot to haran but she's got handrails set up, droids on standby, you name it. That girl never quits on a repair or orphaned nuna chicks.”
Etain still saw what Fi had had and then lost: once a perfectly made, supremely fit man, now one who struggled to have a basic conversation, forgot where he was, needed help to eat, and was learning to walk properly again. Parja, never having known that perfect Fi to use as a benchmark, just saw who he was now, and appeared to find that he struck a chord in her. She seemed tireless in her devotion.
I wouldn 't cross these people, but if I had to choose who to trust if my life depended on it. . .
But she had chosen, and had not been disappointed.
”I'll go say good-bye to Ko Sai,” Etain said. It still sounded utterly unbelievable to her, as if this was just a neighbor she had to humor for harmony's sake. It was sobering to think how normal even the most repellent beings could seem if you inured yourself to their ways by spending time with them. Darkness crept up quietly on the unwary. ”I wonder what genetic goody I can think up, to keep her amused and cooperative.”
Bralor resumed her business-as-usual tone again. ”You know Kal's going to have to shoot her one day, don't you?”
”I suppose I do.”
”Personally, I'd do it now, take the files you have to an-other clonemaster and trade it with them, because they all know how to age clones fast at some stage. Or just haul the shabuir down to Arkania and let them shake it out of her for you.” Bralor placed a large floppy parcel in Etain's straining bag. ”If she knows anything worth having, that is. That's the shatual, by the way, roasted and sliced. Share it with Darman and the boys. Right way to celebrate the birth of a son-even if you can't tell them yet.”
Etain walked around the outside of the bastion to Ko Sai's laboratory, Venku held close to her, and caught sight of Parja guiding Fi between two fence rails. Fi fell over; Parja hauled him up with the aid of a droid, and they started over. Fi had once left an impression in the Force of resentment and bewildered loneliness, constantly wondering why he couldn't have the freedom and companions.h.i.+p in life that every other being around him seemed to have. But when Etain reached out in the Force to see what he radiated now, the mix was different- scared, confused, and seeking his old self, but the loneliness had all but vanished.
At last, Fi no longer felt alone. He'd paid a terrible price to reach that state, but he seemed more at peace than he ever had. The Force balanced its books in strange ways.
Holding Venku in her left arm, Etain rapped on the doors. ”Ko Sai, it's Etain. Can I come in?” It was just diplomacy. The locked door was key-coded, and Etain could come and go as she pleased. But there was no point rubbing Ko Sai's nose in it. Seeing Venku might chip away further at her resolve. ”Ko Sai?”
There was no answer. Etain had a sudden cold panic: the Kaminoan had fled with the tissue samples.
Don 't be stupid. She can 't escape. She's just engrossed in something.
Etain keyed in the code and walked in anyway.
Ko Sai had indeed fled: but she'd escaped to where no-body could follow, taking whatever knowledge she had with her.
She hung lifeless from a noose slung over one of the crossbeams.
Etain put her hand to her mouth, but she didn't scream. She'd seen far too much on the battlefield to react. I know the drill. I call Kal. Oh no, no, no . . . She found herself cursing in a sobbing voice under her breath as she summoned Skirata by comlink, and glanced at the note on the datapad that lay still illuminated on the workbench.
Thank you, Etain. It was fascinating.
Once more, Ko Sai, geneticist without equal, had had the last word.
Chapter 19.
Maze, if you ever find you wish to pursue an alternative career, let me know-privately, mind. I'm sure I could acquire some resources to help you . . . relocate.
-General Arligan Zey to his aide, ARC trooper Captain Maze, after receiving inconclusive answers about what might happen to clone troops wanting to leave the army after the war * * *
Kyrimorut bastion, Mandalore, 545 days after Geonosis So the aiwha-bait was still jerking his chain, even though she was dead.
Skirata leaned against the door frame and stared at Ko Sai's body, wondering what he had missed. Vau and Mereel checked it over carefully.
”I don't do full postmortems, not even for a hobby,” said Vau, ”but I can't see how anyone could have come close enough to Ko Sai out here to a.s.sa.s.sinate her, even if they knew we were holding her.”
”She was getting more hacked off with life by the day.” Mereel removed the ligature. ”She must have known she wasn't going home. But I never had Kaminoans down as suicidal. Excessive self-esteem. It might have been the ultimate act of contempt for us.”
Vau prodded the cadaver thoughtfully. ”But they're not the most cosmopolitan and well traveled of species. Big deal for them to leave Kamino. Personally, I'm not surprised she went off the rails.”
”I'd have taken the pearl-handled blaster and done the decent thing ages ago,” Mereel muttered. ”But then I'm not an arrogant xenophobic piece of tatsus.h.i.+.”
Skirata could only see a tenuous stream of data that had finally dried up. ”I'm glad to see this hasn't traumatized you boys,” he said sourly. His shock hadn't taken long to give way to anger. ”I was getting worried that it might have scarred you for life.”
She'd already done that to Mereel, of course. ”She might have run out of information to give us.”
”She might,” said Skirata, ”have been jerking our chain all along.”
”Well, I know what I'm going to be doing for the foresee-able future. Collating what we've got and finding another geneticist or three to advise me.” Mereel slotted a probe into the computer. ”Just checking she hasn't trashed the data .. . no, she thought her work was too sacred even to have so much as a full stop erased. What a gal. Scrub the theory on the ultimate act of contempt, then.”
”I still think we should risk it and do a deal with Arkanian Micro,” said Vau. ”Every cloner has to handle accelerated development. It's what they run on.”
”But they're cheap and nasty,” Mereel said.
”So? We're not buying from them. We just want them to say, Hey, those are the genes you need to switch on and off, and then we get the regulator manufactured by a pharma company.”
”I've got that in hand,” Skirata said, unable to take his eyes off the dead Kaminoan. He half expected her to be playing dead, not a corpse at all. ”First things first.”
”Once we”know what it is we've got, too,” Mereel said. ”We're sitting on the cloning equivalent of the Sacred Scroll of Gurrisalia and we can't read the language-not well enough, anyway.”
They still had a dead Kaminoan to dispose of, too. Skirata wondered what use he could make of her now. n.o.body would ever believe he hadn't killed her-he wasn't sure why he hadn't, in the end-so maybe there was some advantage to be gained here. If she couldn't be useful to him alive, she'd earn her keep dead.
”Delta's still digging away under ActionWorld island, aren't they?”
”Yes, Kal'buir.”
”I think they need to find what they're looking for. Put the Chancellor's mind at rest. Get him off our areas of interest, so to speak.”
”How are we going to plant her there?” Vau asked. ”We're not,” Skirata said. ”I'm going to have a word with Delta.”
Mereel shook his head. ”They're not us. They stick to the rules. They'll tell Zey.”
Vau looked offended. ”Don't underestimate how diplomatic they can be, Kal. They didn't tell him about the bank raid, did they?”
”Okay, Walon, I'll get my story straight so we don't dump Jusik in it as the leak on Ko Sai, and I'll provide some forensics for them to slap on Zey's desk.”
”Done. Now what about the body?”
”I'm not looking forward to this.” Skirata's hatred of Ko Sai and her kind didn't extend to making what he had to do next any easier. ”But help me move her into the barn. I'll do my own dirty work.”
”I think Jaing and I should do it, actually, Buir.” Mereel ushered the two older men out of the lab. ”Ko Sai and us... we go back a long way.”