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From elsewhere in the doctor’s spacious dome floated Ben’s voice: “Doesn’t he wear anything but black?”

Vestara, from another room, answered. “You’re one to talk.”

“Some people can pull it off, Vestara. Others can’t.”

Snaplaunce listened to the exchange, his head cocked. “Your boy is very energetic. He seems quite responsible.”

“He is. Mature beyond his age. In most ways. Not all.”

“He and the girl, are they a couple?”

Luke cleared his throat. In some cultures, a question like that would never be asked by a stranger, but on a world like this, in a town where everyone knew everyone else, there was little regard for privacy. “No.” And let them continue not to be.

“They argue like one.”

“So you are a couple with every one of your political opponents?”

“Oh, well struck, Master Skywalker.”

“And Wei? Other relationships, co-workers, colleagues?” Luke went back to paging through the sheaf of printouts. Most seemed to be meticulous, mind-numbingly boring accounts of the effects of experimental medicines on test creatures and computer simulations, with emphasis on the slightest variations in their responses.

“He technically is retired, now living on medicine patent royalties and interest on his banked capital. So he conducts his scientific explorations chiefly alone. When he wants an assistant, he hires someone from the staff of the hospital or the Enzymar Research and Development facility, usually a new graduate in need of a little more income. I’ll put out word to find out if he has had any such in the last year.”

“Thank you.”

Ben stepped into view behind the mayor. Snaplaunce moved aside. Ben moved in, a sheet of flimsi in his hands, his expression grave.

“Let’s see it,” Luke said.

“I found it under his mattress.” Ben handed him the sheet.

It was a page, slightly crinkled, dominated by drawings in black ink. Luke could see that the drawings had not been rendered by an ordinary stylus; the ink had flowed, smoothly and sometimes broadly, as if from an artist’s instrument.

Part of the diagram was an outline of a human male viewed from the side—a silhouette with a hollow interior. The outline indicated no clothing, but there was something projecting from the back of the figure’s neck. Lines radiating from the projection angled out to a box showing a blowup of that section of the diagram. The blowup was clearly a droch half the size of a human fist.

There were notations all over the page; the lettering was from a printer. Luke read some of them. “ ‘Third thoracic placement—humans—for optimal effect. Signal strength and clarity drop-off not measurable at planetary distances, speed of light transmission the only limiter. Conditioning from childhood beneficial but not crucial. Average life span post-placement: seven point five standard years. Mutation remains a concern.’ ” The first few words created a flutter in his stomach, and it only worsened as he continued to read.

“May I see?” the mayor asked.

Luke handed the page to the mayor, who studied it intently, passing it first below one eye and then the other. “The ink is comparatively fresh. You can still smell it. But what does this mean?”

“It means, at the very least, that he’s considering use of drochs on human hosts for some purpose.” Luke sighed, suddenly weary of all the ways people, human or not, could imagine using, diminishing, and murdering one another for their own gain. “These drochs would have to be altered somehow to keep them from killing their hosts rapidly. Possibly the means of alteration is why he’s concerned with mutation. I’m guessing that they’d serve as some sort of energy-transference mechanism, or perhaps a monitoring or even control mechanism.”

Ben grimaced. “If he already knows how long a host normally lives after one of these things is attached …”

Luke nodded. “Then he’s probably already experimented with the process.”

The mayor handed the flimsi back. “There’s something wrong with this.”

Ben gave him a look of polite inquiry. “Based on your familiarity with Wei?”

“Based on my decades