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seventeen

It seemed to Jax that no matter how hard they worked, they couldn’t get a break.

It wasn’t as if no one on the streets had heard of Ves Volette. Ever since the devastation that had been wrought on his homeworld, every prominent Caamasi on Imperial Center had been fodder for media interviews, commentary, and a good deal of tsk-tsk gossip. The violent death of one as famous as Volette made his name even more widespread.

But this was Imperial Center, the world-city, home to billions upon billions and workplace to billions more. Here, the murder of an artist, no matter how well known, was minor news at best. If not for the Caamasi connection, it would have required a dedicated search by those with a particular interest in such matters to determine that it had even occurred.

Jax and his friends had performed such a search, and come up devoid of clues. Ideas they had in plenty; the trouble was, none of them were panning out. The Jedi’s only consolation was that the sector police were no nearer solving the crime than he was. Of course, had Prefect Pol Haus made it a priority and devoted all his resources to its resolution, his department doubtless would have made better progress. But the prefect’s bailiwick included dozens of levels, thousands of buildings, and more species than Jax could name. The murders alone, considered apart from all other violent crimes, were backlogged by years.

At least, Jax thought, there are five of us to focus on a single crime. That was encouraging. Just not very much. Deprived of the resources of a modern police department, all they had to go on were the answers to the several questions they had deployed among contacts who, with luck, were in the know. Thus far these had proved erroneous, futile, or leads to dead ends. Jax dreaded every communication with the disheartened Dejah Duare, because each time he was forced to report the same lack of progress. They were getting nowhere, and his feeling of guilt only increased every time he deposited the Zeltron’s money into their communal account.

They were bound to eventually learn something worthwhile, he told himself, if only through the virtue of sheer persistence.

For the most part, his colleagues went about their assignments with minimum complaints, but without an overabundance of enthusiasm. He was in particular concerned about Laranth, who seemed to be growing more and more withdrawn. The Twi’lek had always been moody, but even Rhinann, who wasn’t exactly a draft of fresh oxy at his best, had had occasion to remark on her state. She had, over the last few days, taken to tucking her lekku stump behind its mate, instead of letting it hang freely as she used to. That meant something, Jax was sure. He just didn’t know what. Also, he noticed that when she spoke to him it was always in brief, curt syllables, never stating or asking more than was absolutely necessary.

Den carried out his tasks with crisp efficiency, but without noticeable enthusiasm. And instead of assisting his companions, I-Five had taken to spending periods of time uplinked to a HoloNet grid—at considerable expense. When Jax had asked his purpose, the droid had replied, “You’re not getting many results with your tactics, so I thought I’d try some things on my own, at a more reasonable dataspeed rate. Frankly, watching you organics laboriously process information is like watching supercooled hydrogen flow.”

“Anything worthwhile to report?”

“Not yet.”

There came at last a day when it seemed that their luck might change. A bored Rhinann received a communication from a local police outpost, which he duly relayed to Jax.

“Excellent,” the Jedi said. “Something from Haus’s people, at last.” He searched the Elomin’s dour face. “What is it? Have they finally picked up a viable suspect? Did someone actually confess? Or is it a good lead they feel free to share with us?”

“None of those.” Rhinann handed Jax a copy. “Read it if you wish. I’ll spare you the details. The gist is that one of us needs to go to sector police subpost one eighty-six to bail out a certain