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“How many could it carry?”

“A Koqus? Maybe sixty, depending on the cargo allocation.”

Akanah nodded. “That would be enough.”

“You don’t seem overly surprised by this,” Luke said, raising an eyebrow. “I was. I thought we were trying to track down refugees, not stockholders.”

“Just because we choose to live simply doesn’t mean that we’re without resources,” Akanah said. “To be poor is to be powerless. The Fallanassi are as old as the Jedi, and we’ve hidden and husbanded our resources well.”

“Then why were you left on Carratos?” Luke asked. “I can see that they might not want to risk bringing their ship there to pick you up, but why couldn’t passage be bought for you?”

“You forget that Carratos fell under Imperial control soon after I was sent there,” she said. “There were head taxes that had to be paid at the port by anyone leaving—high taxes, to discourage people from fleeing the planet.”

“Then why couldn’t the tax have been sent for you?”

“I don’t know that it wasn’t,” said Akanah, her eyes misting. “I don’t know that Talsava didn’t keep it for herself.”

“Your foster mother?”

“My custodian. She was never more than that.” She tried a smile, which fell short of conviction. “There was a morning, you see, when I woke up and she was gone.”

“Gone?”

Bitterness owned her voice. “Her clothes, her little precious geegaws, every personal possession small enough to pack in a bag and carry away in the night, all gone. I never saw her again. She abandoned me there to fend for myself—at fifteen, in a port city that made your Mos Eisley look quiet and genteel.”

The unvoiced suspicions behind Luke’s questions left him feeling ashamed.

“We’ll find them,” he said firmly as the Rift Skyway appeared ahead of them. “When we get back to Mud Sloth, I can access the New Republic Ship Registry’s traffic logs. We should be able to find out where Star Morning has been, and when. We can surely find out where she is now.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Akanah said. Reaching out, she laid her hand across his, as though she were trying to reassure him. “Atzerri. We need to go to Atzerri now. And I know that it may not, but I pray this ends there.”

Chapter 7

For hours after Mud Sloth lifted from Teyr, Luke sat at the pilot’s station studying the traffic leaving the planet behind them. The traveler’s aid card helpfully informed him that there was no direct regular service between Teyr and distant Atzerri by any commercial spaceline. So Luke concentrated on the private vessels, monitoring and logging the ID profiles their transponders sent as they passed the inner Flight Control buoys:

Star Hummer, RN80-440330, owner Joa Pqis, registry Vobos, Tammuz-an—

Rode to Ruin, RN27-382992, owner Fracca, registry Orron III—

Amanda’s Toy II, RN18-950319, owner Unlimited Horizons Inc., registry Kalla—

“What are you looking for?” Akanah finally asked him. “No one bothered us on Teyr. No one saw me in the commonal.”

“I’m just being cautious,” Luke said, keeping his eyes on the code reader. “Just because no one confronted us doesn’t mean no one was aware of us.”

“Aware of us—what does that mean?”

“Whoever those men on Lucazec were working for, they wanted what you know as much as they wanted you. I don’t know what they think they can do with you, but the Fallanassi are the prize.”

“I would never betray the circle. And there is nothing anyone could do to compel me. Not even you.”

“But you’re taking me there,” Luke said. “And if they simply keep touch with us, you’ll take them there, too. All they have to do is follow us, and be patient. That’s what I’m looking for—someone following. If any of these ships leaving Teyr now show up at—show up later, we’ll have to do something about it.”

“The circle can protect itself.”

“I’m sure the Jedi thought they were safe, too,” said Luke. “But they were wrong.”

“The Jedi faced a terrible enemy, and the betrayal of one of their own,” said Akanah.

“There are enough enemies left,” Luke said. “All the assorted dictators and warlords in the Imperial