Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 04_ Exile - Aaron Allston [105]
“I agree. Assuming it’s fully fueled, armed, provisioned…and not sabotaged.”
“Understood. What else?”
“I’m going to need to lay some credits around to buy the information you need. Fifteen, twenty thousand.”
“Done.”
“And I want you to get a message to your parents for me.”
“What?”
“You can do that, can’t you?”
“What message?”
“I want them to send me a way, any way, to reach them. At my leisure. Just for one transmission.”
“Do you know them?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“None of your business. I’ll swear to that. It doesn’t involve you; it won’t do you any harm.” She looked steadily at him.
He considered, then said, “All right. I’ll find a way.”
She smiled at him. “That’s it.”
“I expected you to ask for a lot more than that. Because of injured feelings.”
“The trick to negotiations,” she said, “which you’d know if your father had raised you right, is never to ask for so much that the other party would prefer to kill you than to go through with the deal.”
Jacen considered that, looking at her, for a long moment. Then he simply said, “Thank you,” and left.
Still smiling, Lavint stretched out on the bed. Now she had to figure out just what she’d accomplished. If Alema were here, then that last bit of negotiation was going to get the Solos killed, and Lavint freed—unless Alema decided to kill her, too, which Lavint fully expected the crazy Twi’lek to do. But if Alema hadn’t heard this conversation, those negotiations would probably get Alema killed, which was the outcome Lavint preferred.
“Hey, crazy girl,” she said, “are you here?”
There was no answer. Lavint relaxed.
Her eyes closed, and within two minutes she was snoring.
chapter seventeen
ZIOST
Every morning Ben awoke with the memory of the voices in his ears. Some part of his mind tried to listen to them, to puzzle out what they were saying. The rest of him worked harder to avoid comprehending. He knew, deep down, that if he listened long enough to understand, he’d want to do what they told him, and that what they told him would be very, very wrong.
So sleep was not restful for Ben, even on the nights when his fire burned through all the darkness hours and Kiara huddled against him, sad but trusting.
During those nights, he often awoke to a sense of worry or a beep from Shaker to see eyes gleaming from the other side of the fire. Nocturnal predators, Jacen would have called them, and Ben could feel them in the Force. They were big, powerful presences there, suffused with energy…and wrongness. He could feel that they were as twisted as the blighted trees of this place.
So far they hadn’t attacked, but Ben made sure that Kiara was never more than a step or two from him—except when either of them needed to perform some private business in the trees. Then he made sure Shaker stayed near the girl. The droid’s presence seemed not to violate her sense of privacy.
There was another presence, too. The day after Ben found Kiara, at about noon, they had stopped for a quick meal of canned rations. Ben sat, consuming some grease-packed meat product, and eating quickly so that he wouldn’t taste the stuff. Wary of the wild beasts he still had not seen, he had his physical and Force-awareness stretched to their limits, and abruptly he was certain that someone was looking at him.
He stood, looking around, and grabbed his lightsaber, but nothing approached. And after a few moments the sensation faded.
The next day, again at planetary noon, it happened once more, this time as they reached the remains of what must have once been a road. Now trees protruded through it, but there were long stretches where it remained flat and level, and Shaker could make much better time. The astromech had just assumed its tripodal wheeled