Part 10 (1/2)
”Hold that thought,” Obi-Wan cut him off quietly. There had been a flicker in the Force .. .
”Can we help you?” a suspicious voice asked from behind them.
Keeping his hands visible, Obi-Wan turned around. There were three adult Brolfi coming toward them, their simple tunics worn but neat and clean.
”No thank you,” he said politely. ”We were just noticing all the construction work in there and wondering what they were building.”
”Why would you care?” the spokesman asked.
”My young friend here used to build Podracers,” Obi-Wan explained. ”He's always been fascinated with that sort of thing.”
”Really,” one of the other Brolfi said, looking Anakin up and down. ”You know anything about split-X air intakes?”
”Never used them myself,” Anakin said. ”But I can install them or fix them if there's a problem.”
”Really.” The Brolf filled his lungs. ”Duefgrin!”
There was a slight pause; then the teen they'd been following appeared at the gap in the ring. ”Yes, Uncle?” he called.
”Couple of humans here who say they know split-X systems,” the Brolf said. ”You still having trouble with yours?”
”I don't know,” the teen said, eyeing Obi-Wan and Anakin doubtfully. ”I just picked up a new compression controller. Maybe that'll help.”
Obi-Wan suppressed a grimace. So that was what he and the adult had been doing back in the marketplace. The boy had handed over the stolen burst thrusters and gotten the controller in exchange.
Either that, or he'd stolen the controller earlier in the day. In that case, he might still have the thrusters.
”Only if the split-X doesn't have a back stability problem,” Anakin said.
”What kind of coupling you have on it? Binary or tertiary?”
”Binary,” Duefgrin said. ”I couldn't afford a tertiary.”
”Let me take a look,” Anakin offered, starting toward him. ”If that's okay?” he added, looking at Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan looked questioningly at the three Brolf adults. ”Sure, go ahead,”
Duefgrin's uncle said, waving a hand. ”The sooner he gets that junk heap working and out of the yard, the sooner the neighbors will quit complaining about it.”
”Thanks,” Obi-Wan said, mentally crossing the three adults off his suspects' list. If they were willing to let strangers wander freely through the area, they probably weren't hiding any plots. ”Okay, Anakin, but make it quick.”
”Sure,” Anakin called back over his shoulder. Already, Obi-Wan noted, he and Duefgrin were deep into technical talk. ”I'll be ready to leave when you are.”
”I've heard that before,” Obi-Wan said under his breath as he followed them into the courtyard. Still, Duefgrin himself could be involved with a group of plotters without his uncle's knowledge. It wouldn't hurt for Obi-Wan to take a leisurely turn or two around the house ring while the teenagers worked, stretching out with the Force for any signs of violent intent.
And after that, he would pry Anakin away from whatever it was Duefgrin was building and they would see what kind of luck Lorana was having.
The young Brolf thief, Lorana had noticed, had left the rendezvous at a casual walk, without any indication that he suspected he might be followed or, indeed, any indication that he even cared whether he was or not.
The adult Brolf was another kettle of Giju entirely. He was about as blatantly nervous and suspicious as it was possible to be without actually carrying a sign to that effect. Every dozen steps he threw a quick look over his shoulder, and he crossed and recrossed the street at least once a block. Every block or two he changed directions, sometimes pausing at one of the open-air shops lining the street and pretending to examine the merchandise while actually studying the pedestrians behind him.
It was so ludicrous that it was almost funny. But Lorana felt no urge to laugh. Riske was a professional, with a professional's bearing and subtlety. This Brolf was just the opposite: an amateur conspirator, with an amateur's lack of finesse or ability. And it was the amateur-uncalculating, unthinking, unpredictable-who was often the more dangerous opponent.
Fortunately, it was also the amateur who was the easier to deceive.
Lorana had picked up a few tricks about tailing people during her years of Jedi training, and over the next hour she ended up using every one of them. She varied her distance from the Brolf, ducked through alleys and side streets to get ahead of him, and periodically altered her appearance by putting her robe's hood up or down or using a cord to tie her hair back instead of letting it hang free.
Eventually, the Brolf's paranoia seemed to ease, and his convoluted path straightened out as he turned northwest. Lorana stayed as far back as she could, watching the ornamentation and value of the homes and shops around her steadily diminis.h.i.+ng as they moved farther and farther into one of the poorer areas of the district. Whereas the richer neighborhoods had waist-high walls or fences to delineate the property lines, here the boundaries were marked off by low, tightly woven hedges or simple rows of distinctive flowering plants. A fair sprinkling of the pedestrians she pa.s.sed wore tunics with Mining Guild markings, she noted, and many of them paused in their activities to scrutinize her as she pa.s.sed through their midst.
More than once she thought about calling Obi-Wan and asking for advice or a.s.sistance. More often than that she considered simply turning around and heading back to the safe familiarity of the city center, leaving whatever plots and counterplots to be dealt with by those with more wisdom and experience in such matters.
But each time she took a calming breath, stretched out to the Force, and continued on. A Jedi should never turn away from a path merely because it seems hard or dangerous.
She was just pa.s.sing one of the low' hedges when she felt a warning flicker from the Force.
She kept walking, resisting the impulse to break step. The vague sense of threat was still too diffuse, and coming to a sudden halt would only tip off her unknown foes that she was aware of them. A few more steps, a little carelessness on their part, and she should be able to switch the tables when they made their move.
Her patience was rewarded. A few meters along the sense came into sudden focus: two Brolfi, coming up quickly but silently behind her, both of them simmering with suspicion. She caught the whisper of metal rubbing against cloth She stopped abruptly, the sleeve of her robe catching briefly on the hedge beside her as she spun around to face them. ”Yes?” she asked mildly.
The Brolfi twitched with surprise, coming to a slightly shambling halt a couple of meters away from her. The shorter of the two, Lorana saw, had an antique blaster tucked tightly against his side, as if pressing it against his leg would actually hide it from her. The larger had a less sophisticated but equally nasty weapon: a miner's quarter-pick ax. ”What are you doing here?” the shorter demanded.
”Is this not a public street?” Lorana asked.
”You don't belong here,” the larger growled, taking a step toward her and fingering his ax restlessly. ”What are you looking for?”
”What could be here that anyone would look for?” she countered, feeling her heartbeat starting to pick up. This was it. Somehow, though she wasn't sure exactly how, she knew beyond a doubt that she'd found the threat that Riske had been trying to locate.
The question now was what she should do about it. Because these two Brolfi-or even these two plus the one she'd been following-were merely the edge of the grove. Whipping out her lightsaber would put her no closer to learning the details of the plot or who ultimately was behind it. What she really needed was for them to take her to the actual leaders.
And for them to do' that, they would have to think she was harmless.
”Never mind,” she said, taking as a step backward, staying close to the hedge beside her. ”If you want me to go, I'll go.”
”Not so fast,” the smaller Brolf said, apparently emboldened by her sudden apparent nervousness. ”What's your hurry?”
”No hurry,” Lorana said. She took another step backward, hoping she wasn't getting too close to the end of this particular section of hedge.
”I'm just ready to leave, that's all.” She threw a glance to the side, wis.h.i.+ng she knew which of the dilapidated house rings around them the two Brolfi had come out of.
Apparently, her glance was close enough. ”Get her, Vissfil,” the shorter Brolf snapped, swinging up his blaster and pointing it nervously. ”She knows.”
”I don't know anything,” Lorana protested, taking a final step back as Vissfil strode toward her, his ax held high. ”Please-don't hurt me.” She lifted her hands toward the ax as if to ward off an expected blow.
And with Vissfil's full attention on her uplifted hands, and his body blocking his companion's view, she stretched out with the Force, sliding her lightsaber from inside her tunic and shoving it into concealment inside the hedge beside her.
”Get her comlink,” the smaller Brolf ordered as Vissfil s.h.i.+fted his ax to one hand and pulled her robe partially open with the other.
”Yeah, yeah, I know,” Vissfil growled. For all his size and gruffness, he was clearly uncomfortable as he ran his hand gingerly over her body. He found her comlink and stuffed it inside his own tunic; then, almost as an afterthought, he relieved her of her belt with its attached food and equipment pouches. ”No weapons,” he announced, taking a step back from her. ”What do we do with her?”
”Take her to Defender, I guess,” the other said. He gestured her toward the ring house she'd glanced toward earlier. ”He'll know what to do. This way, human.”