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“That’s true.” Anakin glanced at Whistler as the droid moaned in a low tone. “We wouldn’t go far, Whistler, and we can keep in comlink contact with you. Then again, I could comlink Master Skywalker and ask permission to explore.”

Chalco interlaced his fingers, bridged them, and started cracking the knuckles. “You could do that, but if we’re wrong and she was at the university, and your uncle decides to come back here, he’ll miss her.”

Anakin shot Chalco a sidelong glance. “You know, that kind of circular logic is why you get in trouble a lot.”

“Got me where I am today, kid, which is in a position to help you get this Jedi of yours back on the straight and narrow.” He got the sort of sloppy grin on his face that Anakin recognized his father wearing—usually right before his father wanted to do something quite risky. “Let’s go, kid, up off your butt. Time to go hunting.”

You know better than to do this. Anakin heard the little voice in his head warning him off, but the fact that it sounded more like Jacen than it did himself pushed him away from the sensible course. Jacen had impulsively gone up against a Yuuzhan Vong warrior; but Anakin told himself his mission was nowhere near as dangerous. I’m just going out to find someone we need to find.

He stood, shunting away the twinge of foreboding niggling in the back of his mind. “Let’s go.”

Ariana’s spaceport sat on the outskirts of the beautiful city. The battle to liberate Garos IV had been brief, so not much was damaged. Since the world was largely self-sufficient, the fluctuations in the New Republic’s economy really didn’t affect it that much. In fact, the influx of scholars had increased the university’s reputation. As it expanded to accept more students, the business that catered to students and faculty likewise expanded. An economic boom followed, which allowed rebuilding painlessly and resulted in Garos IV showing up regularly on lists of worlds where the living was desirable.

Despite the world entering into an economic golden age, the area surrounding the spaceport had the usual mixture of industrial zones along with a seedy assortment of cantinas, casinos, cheap hotels, and other places of diversion. The garish holographic signs, the grime, and the powerful spoiled scent emanating from alleys—all of these things assaulted Anakin’s senses. While he’d been well aware of such places—and knew his father, of late, had been spending a lot of his grief time in them—this was pretty much the first time they’d taken on a harsh reality for him.

Chalco did nothing to insulate Anakin from this nasty domain the way Lando Calrissian might have, or his father. Or Chewie. The man had told him he couldn’t go out in his Jedi robes, so they found some clothes aboard the Skate and fixed him up. Anakin assumed they’d belonged to Corran, and they were only slightly too big. That worked to his advantage, though, since he needed to hide his lightsaber inside the nerf-hide jacket. He found a little hook there that let it hang in his left armpit.

Properly attired, and with his brown hair messed up by Chalco’s rough rubbing, Anakin followed the man through the streets. He did note the change in Chalco’s gait as bits of swagger entered it. The man puffed up a bit, nodding, winking, pointing at people as they wandered along. It seemed as if he was making himself obvious on purpose, and that truly did seem to disarm some of those folks on the street. Anakin kept getting a sense of curt dismissal from most folks, or a sense of idle curiosity about him.

He was very careful to keep the Force close to himself. He knew he was fairly powerful as far as the Force was concerned, but by no means did he have full control over it. He assumed Daeshara’cor would be running with the Force held close, as well, and he didn’t want to give her the chance to detect him before he could find her. Worse than following Chalco off on some silly errand would be to tip Daeshara’cor to their presence and start her running in earnest.

As they went along, Anakin’s admiration for Chalco