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On the walk back to his quarters, he thought about what to do.

The fact that Seha seemed to think she, or he, or both of them, would be under observation bothered him. Are Dad and Mom having me watched? That question left a sour taste in his mind. Or is someone watching Seha? But if I’m the one being watched, how do I find out what’s on the card?

Not a Temple computer. That could be monitored. Come to think of it, so could any datapad capable of transmitting and receiving. But a datapad without a comlink would be safe, if he could find one.

Or make one.

He stopped in at a playroom set aside for Rontos, students three to five years younger than Ben. There were no children or adults present, but there were games and toys scattered here and there among the cushiony chairs and other brightly colored items of furniture.

As he knew there must be, there were datapads, most of them with larger controls suited to smaller, clumsier fingers, and one of them had a privacy headset. He took it.

He stepped into a closet used to hold cleaning supplies. Standing in the narrow gap between shelves holding pungent-smelling bottles and plasteel containers, he opened the datapad and quickly stripped out its communications chip. He felt nervous doing this anywhere in the Temple, but didn’t think that, even if he was under near-constant observation, they could have put holocams everywhere. Not in a cleaning supply closet. Surely not.

In his quarters he moved his chair so that he could sit with his back to a corner. He made a slightly exaggerated show of selecting a game card from his small collection of entertainments; as he was sitting down, he palmed the game card and inserted Seha’s instead. Then he donned the headset and accessed the card.

The Galactic Alliance Guard logo came up with a brief message: SPECIAL AGENT BEN SKYWALKER, ENTER ACCESS CODE.

Ben typed in the password he used in the GAG offices to access messages and orders.

The message changed to say, SOUND MODE FOR SECURE SURROUNDINGS OR TEXT MODE FOR PUBLIC AREAS?

He chose sound.

The screen flickered, and Jacen’s image came up. “Ben,” Jacen said, his voice a little thin over the headset speakers, “this is important. Memorize the information on this card. Replay it if necessary. Once you’re sure you have it memorized, destroy the chip. Don’t just break it, destroy it irretrievably.” He paused as if to give Ben time to absorb the gravity of his words.

Ben felt that thrill again. This is real, this is important. And…this means Seha is working with Jacen! She’s an ally!

“I need to send you on a mission,” Jacen continued. “You, specifically, because it has to be someone with the GAG’s interests, my interests, at heart, someone who is Force-sensitive, and someone who has proven that he can operate alone. That’s you or me, and I can’t leave my duties at this time. I’m sorry about interrupting your training and sorrier still that this may cause friction between you and your parents, but I’ll make them understand that this was all my doing.

“Here’s the essential core of the mission. Remember it, so that if anything goes wrong with the operational details I give you, you’ll remember what’s most important. You’re to acquire the Amulet of Kalara and secretly bring it to me.”

The image switched to a standard planetary data screen with the name ALMANIA at the top. Jacen’s voice continued, “The Amulet is on the planet of Almania, in the planetary offices of Tendrando Arms. It resides in a display case on the two hundred fifteenth floor of their office building. Security in the building is nothing special, since it’s shared by hundreds of different firms, and security on the display case is also poor, because the owner doesn’t know what he possesses.”

The image changed to a close-up view of a jewel hanging from a silver chain. The jewel was a gray oval, its surface knobby and textured rather than smooth. In the center of the face was a vertical bar of some ruby-like gem, flanked by lustrous black semiprecious stone. The effect was rather like looking at a silvery feline eye with