Tiros glanced behind him as Tian and the cat woman entered the cockpit. They had just left hyperspace, and now a large planet, the fifth in a system of eight, took up much of the viewscreen. Most of the planet was a dull yellow-brown color, a lot like the cat woman's skin. The instruments read that there were millions of life-forms on the planet, and very little technology. The one concentration of technology was on the far side of the planet near one of the poles, and that was the only port on the planet.
"Traffic control just called, and we've been given our landing coordinates," he told her, not so much out of courtesy as because he knew she would ask him anyway. "We should be landing within the hour."
"Good."
"What do you plan to do when we land?"
"Kenneth and I will go to my Clan's lands to find my mother's body. He," she nodded her head towards the rear cabin, "has assured me that he can identify almost any toxin ever found. When he identifies the toxin, and I double check it, we will start. If it is a native toxin, I will take you to the planet of your choice and pay you for your services. If it is not, we will be looking for proof of the murder."
Tiros nodded, "Fine. So we just sit here until you get back?"
She nodded, "That is, of course, unless anyone would like to accompany us to the Clan." She paused, then added, "Oh. You have enough supplies to last for several weeks. With a landspeeder, it should take us less than a day to reach my Clan's lands. It might take me a few days to get access to my mother's body. If we do not return within a week, you may assume that something has gone wrong and we will not be returning. In that case, the ship is yours, as well as all the supplies and credits on board. I trust that you will see that everyone has been reimbursed fairly. I also have a message that will automatically be sent out should I not return, so don't be surprised if the ship starts transmitting on it's own." The woman didn't seem at all worried that she had taken such cares in the event of her death. Tiros glanced at his son, who was looking very worried. He's really too young for all of this. I should have turned her down.
"Any questions?" Tiros shook his head.
"I would like to come along," spoke a soft voice from behind the woman.
Melana spun around, her hand raised as if prepared to strike a blow. She slowly lowered her hand, and relaxed. It was a fascinating process to watch, because when the woman relaxed, it was possible to see her muscles relax, one by one, like a wave running over her body. Tiros found himself smiling and forced the expression off his face. He had made it all these years by never getting involved in any of his jobs. Now was not the time to break his habits.
It was the young girl who had snuck up behind the woman. Tiros silently cursed. He should have never allowed her on the ship. Anyone who was that good and moving quietly was not to be trusted. He didn't trust anyone anyway, but especially sneakers.
"You what?"
"I'd like to come along. The more experience I have on different planets, the more valuable I am."
"I do not think you will ever return to this planet."
"But I might meet some of your people somewhere else."
Melana looked as if she would have liked to argue the point, but did not want to insult the girl. "Fine. But you do understand the dangers."
"I do. I'm a survivor."
"Fine."
"I want to come too," Tian said, half-rising out of the co-pilot's seat.
Tiros was shocked. He had raised the boy ever since his hoar mother had arrived at Tiros's door, carrying a baby boy in her arms. She had claimed that Tian was his child, although to this day he had no proof. But that had never mattered to either of them. Tian had always been a good boy, a bit belligerent at times, never really respected anyone, but a decent kid. He had always been reasonable, and usually listened to advice.
Tiros couldn't believe that his son would loose his head so quickly over some girl. He thought he had taught him a little better than that. "Tian," he murmured warningly.
Tian shot him a dark look, then made a small sign with his hand. He clenched his hand in a fist, then pointed upward with his index and middle finger, then flattened his entire hand. Tiros frowned; over time they had developed a number of discreet hand signals, each with a specific meaning. Those signals had come in handy more than once, like with that backstabing Imperial...
But the signal that Tian had just used meant, 'no problems' or, more accurately, 'I know what's going on.' Tiros frowned. He usually trusted his son's judgment, but this time his hormones might have got the best of him. Tian's frown deepened, and he repeated the signal.
Realizing that there was very little he could do to stop Tian, Tiros nodded his agreement. "If it's all right with Melana." He hoped it wouldn't be all right.
Melana frowned, but nodded carefully. "If that's what you want, but I'm warning you now that my planet is a dangerous place. Just because I'll be with you is no guarantee that anyone will get out alive."
Tian swallowed but didn't say anything. "Go put on something that's either tan or brown. You're too easy to see in that. You too." Tian was wearing a white logo T-shirt and loose red-brown pants. The girl was wearing a light blue shirt and black stretch pants. Both of them turned around and left the cockpit.
Fifteen minutes later, Tiros received clearance from traffic control. He got the landing vector programmed into the computer, then sat back to enjoy the ride. The hanger they were given was practically decomposing, cracks in the walls and ceiling, and moss growing all over the floor. As soon as they were settled, Tiros jumped out of the cockpit and ran outside the ship, anxiously looking at the ceiling over the ship, afraid the ceiling would collapse on top of them. By some miracle, there were no major cracks over the ship. Shaking his head over the terrible accommodations, Tiros headed back into the ship.
Tian was standing just inside the door. He had changed into a tan shirt and light brown pants. "What's wrong?"
"Damn hanger's just about to fall down on us. This place can't have seen a repair crew in ten years. They'd better not charge us for staying in this dump."
Tian nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Tiros gestured to Tian's clothes. "I've heard a little about this planet - it's just one big deathtrap."
"I've gotta," Tian glanced behind him. "That girl, Lola?"
"Lotah," Tiros supplied.
"Yeah. Listen, remember how she was wearing that big cloak before? And she said that she was comfortable? I saw her before, when she took off the cloak, and she was drenched in sweat. And just now in the 'pit, did you see her? She looked terrible - like she saw a ghost or something; dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was messed up. I...I just don't trust her."
Tiros also glanced towards the cabin. "Join the crowd. But that's no reason to stick your neck out."
"I don't trust her going along. I didn't believe her when she said why she wanted to come along. I'm going along to make sure she doesn't make any trouble."
"That woman isn't your problem. She isn't your responsibility."
"I'm going." Tiros recognized the stubborn tone in his son's voice from his own past, and recognized a hopeless cause.
"Fine," he did his best not to snap at his son. He heard a step to his right and glanced in that direction. "I'm going out to see if I can find some parts to fix up this ship. If this job's going to be half as tough as she says, I'm not going to take my chances with these shields and armor. Melana gave me some money, so I'm going shopping. This place doesn't have much, but whatever it's got has to be better than what we have now."
"Can I go with you?" spoke a deep voice.
Tiros turned all the way around to face the mercenary, Lorb. "What do you know about ship parts?"
"I've flown a ship or two in my day. I know my way around a ship lot, and I'm very good at getting a good deal on parts." He smiled, and Tiros could very easily imagine how he could get a really good deal on some equipment, towering over someone with all those weapons.
"You can come along, but if you get in any trouble, that's your problem."
"Agreed."
Tiros turned to face his son. "Tian, I..." he trailed off. He couldn't speak in front of this stranger.
Tian smiled, understanding. At least Tiros hoped he understood. "I'll see you when I get back, Dad," he said in an uncharacteristic show of sentiment.
Tiros nodded, and forced himself to turn away and walk out of the hanger with Lorb.
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Lotah glanced at herself in the mirror, and was satisfied with the results. She had used one of her hair dyes to change her hair to a tawny brown color, and one of her three pairs of lenses to change her eyes to a yellow-green color. Then, observing that her skin looked weird with the hair and eye colors, she darkened her skin with makeup until it looked fairly normal. She made a mental note to buy some more hair dyes - she had been using them quite often recently.
Stepping back, she looked at her full reflection. She didn't have that many different clothes, so she settled for a tan jumpsuit she had kept from her last job as a crewman on a meat hauler. It was still hot out, so she grabbed the strands of hair that fell around her face and braided them up behind her head. That left her a little more open to inspection than she was comfortable with, but definitely cooler. Someone knocked on the door to the main cabin.
She jumped, then controlled herself. She was getting too tense, it was beginning to look weird, and would draw attraction. "Who is it?"
"It's Tian Une. Melana says that we're leaving in fifteen minutes."
"Thank you. I'll be there." There was the sound of footsteps retreating from the door.
Lotah sat down on one of the bunks and stared at the computer consul on the wall. She needed to check the communications channels, but wasn't sure if she should risk it on this ship. Finally she stood up and walked to the wall, searching for a control panel. She wasn't going to have access to the channels anywhere else for a while now, and she needed to see what the bounty on her was.
There was no panel. She stared at the wall in confusion. There was a screen for communications, but no way to activate it. Lotah sat back down on one of the beds. She had been around and seen all sorts of ships, but she had never seen anything like this. Her eyes fell on a small round black disk above the screen, and she thought of something. The rest of the crew on the last ship had been talking about the vacation they were getting because some new sort of technology was being installed in all of the ships in that fleet. Something about a completely voice-activated communications consul.
She glanced at her chronometer. Ten minutes left. It was worth a try. "Computer," she spoke aloud. "Give me access to the main holo channels."
The screen flickered to life, displaying a menu. "What do you wish to search?" it inquired politely.
"Bounties available on individuals."
"Searching." A few seconds later a list of names appeared on the screen. It was written in Basic, but most of the names had obviously come from planets that didn't speak Basic. All of the names on her list began with the letter 'A,' and all but the last began with 'AAA.' The last began with 'AAB,' and there were almost a hundred names on the screen. It would take her years to get to her own name at this rate, and she only had five minutes left.
"Description of object of bounty."
Lotah glanced around guiltily. It had become almost distasteful for her to say her real name and description, for anyone. "Human, female, approximately 1.6 meters tall, black and red hair, red eyes. Name is Lotah."
"Last name?" the computer inquired.
Lotah paused, wondering whether the officials would have used her former master's last name as her own. "No last name," she finally concluded. She checked her chronometer. Three minutes.
"Searching..." Suddenly a picture of Lotah appeared on the screen. The picture was over a year old, but it was still definitely her, before she ran away, still wearing a slave collar. She winced at the sight. "Computer, delete the picture."
"Cannot comply. Picture is part of the main file. Do you wish to have the picture hidden from you?"
"Yes." The picture disappeared, and she stared at the screen. "Shit!" she exclaimed.
"Searching..." the computer said, and the file disappeared. But it didn't matter, she had already seen the numbers. The Imperial bounty on her had risen five credits, but that wasn't what had upset her. The other bounty, the mystery one, had risen to seven hundred and fifty credits. If it got much bigger, more respectable bounty hunters would be coming after her. What had happened?!
The computer's voice brought her back to reality. The screen was now displaying a variety of pictures, none of which Lotah could identify. "Description of shit desired."
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Lotah turned off the screen and rushed out of the room and down the ramp to the hanger. It was a mess, but she paid more attention to Tian, the scientist, and Melana, who were all staring at her. Following their eyes, she put a hand to her head, and remembered that she had put on all of that makeup. "I thought my hair and eyes might stick out," she muttered, trying to kill the issue at once. She didn't like talking about herself, and this crew was way too smart. And weird. She started to shiver, but stopped herself, with difficulty.
"Let's go." Melana didn't make any more comments.
The cat woman led them out of the back of the hanger, and right out onto a field. Looking all around, Lotah was amazed at the seemingly endless plains. She was used to cities of all different types, but had rarely visited primitive planets in her years of traveling. There was a strange beauty to it. It was so open - there were no walls anywhere, and the sky went on forever. Lotah thought of the endless void of space.
Melana led them around the side of the building, where a landspeeder was parked. "Get in," she said shortly, and jumped from the ground up over the side of the speeder, several feet above the ground.
"Show off," Lotah muttered, and grabbed for the step hanging a few feet below the speeder. It was meant for a taller person, though, so she had to lift her foot almost to her hip in order to stand on the step. Suddenly someone grabbed the material of her suit on her back, and hauled her up into the speeder. She landed with an ungraceful thump on her rear end, and glared at Tian, who was watching her.
"I could have got in," she hissed.
"Shh," Melana muttered. She started up the speeder and started guiding it around the edge of the town. This town was literally a box, with the walls of all of the buildings touching each other to make a long wall, unbroken except for the back doors of the buildings. "Why is the town built like this?" she asked, gesturing to the wall.
Melana glanced towards the wall again. "Shhh. There are warring Clans around here. The wall is to make sure that they keep the wars among themselves, and not bring it into 'civilized society.' It doesn't work, but we don't want to alert the Clans anyway." She gazed across the plains thoughtfully. "We'll be cutting through the city. It's too dangerous and will take too long to go all the way around the city. We're coming up on the main gate now. When we get inside, don't say anything until we leave, and don't look at anyone directly."
Lotah saw the scientist shoot Melana an alarmed glance. Two minutes later they turned through a large hole in the wall onto a busy street. As they passed through, Lotah saw an energy field wink into existence in the hole behind them. Here all of the grass and weeds had been trampled into nonexistence, and a thin layer of brown dust covered everything.
There were hundreds of Melana's people as they drove through the streets, along with a mixture of other races, most of whom were wearing the clothes of traders. Then they rounded a corner and there was a tall black building, with two stormtroopers standing guard at the door. Lotah gasped, and slid down a little in her seat, trying to hide. A few seconds later, she realized that there was no reason for her to hide, and that she looked fairly ridiculous.
As she straightened up, she caught a glimpse of Tian. He, too, had sunk down in his seat and was watching the stormtroopers. When he noticed her staring at him, he turned bright red and sat up.
She didn't have time to puzzle out his actions, because then they entered the main square. Lotah was watching an exhibition of fine fabrics when something else caught her eye. Slaves. A long line of the Cat people, like Melana, were chained in a line together. Lotah stiffened and half-rose out of her seat. A clawed hand landed onto her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Melana hissed in her ear.
Lotah sat back down in her seat, ashamed by her lack of control. "Nothing. I just wasn't expecting to see slaves here," she murmured into her chest, refusing to look up.
"It's a good way to get rid of prisoners at a good price. When you compare that with exiling the prisoner, which is always a death sentence, it is merciful. Now do not speak."
"Merciful..." Lotah muttered, but she raised her eyes to look at the slaves again. A few seconds later they turned at the corner of a brick building and the slave auction was out of view. She settled back in her seat and stared blankly into space.
-----------------------------------------
The landspeeder stopped with a shudder, and Lotah woke. After leaving the village, they had started across the endless plains. She had watched the unchanging scenery for a while, then had drifted off. She glanced at her chronometer, and saw that a few hours had passed. Stretching her arms above her head, she stood up and looked around.
"Finally awake?" the boy was already out of the speeder, checking his blaster and looking around.
She didn't bother to answer him, but put a hand on the side of the speeder and vaulted to the ground. The shock of the ground made a sharp pain shoot up her ankles, but she ignored the pain, and got the satisfaction of seeing the surprise on his face.
Glancing around the speeder, Lotah saw a few small bushes, and one tree with bright red leaves, and the plains. "Why did we stop?" Melana was nowhere in sight, but the scientist answered her as he climbed out of the speeder.
"The...the woman, Melana. She went to check out something, she didn't say what. But she says that we've reached her Clan's lands, and we can't go any further in the speeder. She said not to go anywhere." He tripped on the last step and fell to the ground, landing on his rear. Lotah rolled her eyes, but he didn't seem to notice, scrambling to his feet and staring at the ground. "Amazing foliage," he murmured.
Lotah sighed and leaned against the speeder. Tian, who had been watching them out of the corner of his eye, shoved his blaster into the holster and sat down on the ground. Lotah pulled the knife out of its sheath on her belt and examined the edge. Tian watched her. After a few seconds Lotah shoved the blade back in the sheath. The blade was in perfect condition, the same way it always was. The small plain blade she kept in a sheath at her ankle was also in perfect condition. She didn't bother to check that one, not because she knew it was fine, but because she didn't want the boy to know she had it. He continued to watch her expectantly.
Finally Lotah gave up and sat down on the ground, a few feet from Tian.
"So," he said carefully. "Why did you freak out so much when you saw the slaves?"
Lotah started - she hadn't realized he had noticed that. He was a lot more observant than he looked. She made a mental note - things like that could be important. "I once knew someone who was sold into slavery," she answered cautiously, sticking to the story of the name she was using. She had half a dozen different fake names, some using her real first name, some not, and all with a different story behind them. "He was a friend, accused falsely of theft on a planet with very strict laws. The last I ever saw of him was him being led away in chains by the person who bought him. It's a barbaric idea, and I hate it." Those last words were spoken with a little more passion than Lotah meant to use. "Anyway, whenever I see a slave line, I think of him."
"What was his name?"
"Yenus. Yenus Lanius."
"That's too bad."
Lotah forced herself to be silent. If she said anything more, she would give herself away. After a few seconds it became clear it was up to her to say something. Nervously she shifted position to change the circulation in her legs, and looked for Melana. Where could she be that was taking so long to get back? Lotah always hated these 'heart-to-heart' talks, she was always terrified that she'd forget some detail, or let something slip that would give her away.
"So what's your story?" she finally asked.
"What?"
"You look almost human, except for those scales and that hair. I've been all over the place, and I've never seen anyone like you. What planet are you from?"
"I'm not from any planet. And there's a good reason why you've never seen anyone like me - I'm a one of a kind," he grinned. "Tiros is my father, and my mother was an alien. For some reason, she happened to be able to reproduce with humans, and I'm the result. Luckily, I look human enough that people assume I'm just a variant on the regular human, so we don't run into any problems. You know, with the Imps, people who hate non-human." Lotah nodded.
"Do those scales have any use?"
"Not really. They're tougher than skin, but the line is so thin that it doesn't make much of a difference. Sometimes I sweat through the spaces between the scales, and they're pretty sharp, but that's about it. My father had a genetic scan done on me when I was a baby, to make sure I didn't have any serious genetic problems that wouldn't turn up until I was older, but there aren't. I'm mostly human." He fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, "So how about you?"
"What?" Lotah echoed him.
"You're not exactly ordinary-looking."
"My parents had a funny sense of beauty. They thought I'd look better, or more unique, or something, with crazy colored eyes and hair. That's originally why I learned about makeup, so I'd look more like 'normal' kids." She smiled ruefully, not because of a childhood problem like Tian would think, not a problem dealing with parents, but because of a lost childhood and missing parents.
"Parents can be tough," he smiled sympathetically.
"You seem to be doing pretty well," she pointed out, maybe a little too sharply.
He didn't notice. "Well, you know, my old man's OK..." he seemed evasive, and Lotah wondered what he was hiding. She had been around too many people with too much to hide recently.
Lotah glanced up, and saw something move in the grass. Her hand immediately went to the knife at her belt, although she hid the knife behind her leg, shielding it from whoever was in the grass. It was not hidden from Tian, though. "What's wrong?" he asked, his hand going to his blaster.
"I see something," she murmured, watching the grass carefully. The movement she had seen before was gone, but she remained alert, looking for any sign of life. There was a quick gleam of light against metal in the grass fifty feet from them, then it was gone.
Lotah jumped to her feet, still hiding the knife. Her eyes roamed all over the grass, but she couldn't find the metal again. Now Tian was also on his feet, scanning the grasses in front of them. Lotah was slowly becoming more desperate. She didn't like guessing like this, and whoever it was had moved almost twenty feet in just a few seconds. If they kept moving at this rate, they would be at the speeder in the next second. The scientist was still staring at the plants in front of him, blissfully unaware of the danger bearing down on them.
She had no choice. Lotah closed her eyes for a second and reached out with her mind. There was a brief gleam of light in front of her, and she opened her eyes and lunged toward that spot with her knife. She stopped just short of a mass of hair. "Stand up," she said shortly.
The person stood up, and up, and up. Not until the person raised her head at the last moment did Lotah recognize her. "Melana!" she exclaimed, sheathing her knife.
"That was well done," Melana told her, but the woman was looking around them in all different directions. There were no more movements in the grass, though, and Melana stopped looking around. "How did you know where I was?"
"I have good eyes."
"Good eyes?! Are you sure your parents didn't put mechanical eyes in? I didn't see anything, and I've got nearly perfect vision!" Tian exclaimed.
Lotah shrugged - she didn't like bringing attention to herself. "Where have you been?" she asked pointedly.
"I've been checking our borders. They've changed a little."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Tian asked when Melana didn't show any signs of elaborating on her comment.
"Bad. It means that things have changed since I was here. The borders, the leaders, and the traps."
"Traps?" the scientist finally stopped looking at plants and glanced at Melana in alarm. "You didn't say anything about traps!"
"You didn't ask, and I need you to come along, anyway. I'll do my best to protect all of you."
"What sort of traps are those?" Tian asked.
"Some simple holes, with collapsing branches covering them. There are several wire-traps, so watch where you step. And I believe that they have set up a few trip-wires that throw poison darts. We protect our borders harshly."
"What have we been driving through?" Lotah asked. "Why didn't we run into any of these traps on the way here?"
"The land belongs to the planetary government, and they do not choose to guard their borders," Melana looked like she couldn't believe the stupidity of the government. "Let's go." She started to lead them through the waist-high grass.
They had barely been walking for ten minutes when Melana threw her arms up in front of the group. "What is it?" Tian asked from the back of the line. Lotah decided that he had a serious problem with patience.
"Look, but don't go in front of me." They all lined up next to Melana and stared at the ground in front of them. The grass looked normal, growing just as high as anywhere else, waving gently in the breeze that blew perpetually across the plains. As she looked, Lotah thought she saw a slight incongruity in the field in front of her. There was a small line, about four inches wide, on the ground where no grass would grow. Following the line with her eyes, Lotah saw that it curved about fifteen feet in front of her.
"I don't see anything," Tian said.
"It's there," Lotah pointed to the line. She was beginning to get a little tired of his impatience. "See? Where the grass doesn't grow." Tian stared at the grass, but obviously didn't see anything.
"Watch." Melana knelt down by the line and poked in the dirt. A few seconds later she pointed to a thick branch lying horizontal on the ground in front of her. Tian had also dropped to his knees and was staring at the branch. Lotah remained standing. Now that she knew what to look for, Lotah didn't need to see the actual trap. She had seen this sort of thing before on other primitive worlds; a hidden pit with spikes at the bottom. This one had the best camouflage she had ever seen, on any world.
Tian whistled as he saw the inside of the pit, but didn't have any comment other than, 'wow.' Melana straightened up and led them around the pit.
"Wait a second," Tian said. "You're going to leave it?"
"It's my land, too, or at least it was. Why should I remove the defenses?"
"Why is it so well hidden? I've seen a few of those, and that's the best one I've ever seen."
"My people are used to such tricks. That sort of trap would only catch a very careless frasel, ah, Cat person. That is just meant to warn people that they have entered our territory. The real traps will start soon. When I say so, you must watch every time you put down your foot until I say it is safe. Am I understood?" They nodded.
They were silent for the next twenty minutes as they waded through the grass. Melana took them on a very indirect route, but Lotah didn't say anything, assuming - hoping, that the Cat woman was leading them past the worst of the dangers.
Lotah strained her eyes to look at the horizon. For the last five minutes she thought she had seen something out there. Now she was almost certain that it wasn't just an illusion or something. During the trip they had passed a number of short, scraggly trees. They seemed to grow in groups of two or three every half-mile or so. She had commented on them earlier, and Melana's only comment was that they had some sort of religious importance.
Now they were approaching another group of trees. Lotah felt a strange tingling running up and down her spine. She shivered, anticipating trouble. It had something to do with those trees. She glanced at Melana, and was relieved to see that the woman was staring at the trees suspiciously. Lotah waited for her to say something in warning, but Melana didn't say anything.
The trees looked just like the others they had passed, but Lotah remained wary. They passed the trees, and nothing happened. Lotah kept glancing back at the trees, almost expecting to see a laser cannon appear.
Suddenly her foot came down on something that gave way, and her entire body shook as the danger feeling hit her. She threw herself backwards, taking Tian with her, and felt something disturb the air in front of her. Then she landed on the ground, and sat, stunned, for a second.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Tian exclaimed, pushing her forward. When she had backed up, she had also shoved him back, and he was sitting behind her on the ground.
"Something..." The danger feeling was still too fresh for Lotah's tastes, and she was out of breath. Examining the ground in front of her, Lotah found a set of five short darts, still quivering, their points driven deep into the earth a little to her right. "What are those?" she asked, her voice shaky.
Melana had frozen in place, and was again searching the plains. When she didn't answer, Lotah cried loudly, almost shouting, "What are you looking for!?" Melana didn't answer, and Lotah swallowed several times, trying to regain control of herself. She had dealt with danger before, she reminded herself. But the danger... She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. There was too much going on here to take the time to examine her strange feelings.
Melana finally noticed her. "Nothing...I just thought I heard something." She dropped to her knees and picked up one of the darts with her extended claws. Holding it a few inches from her nose, she sniffed gently. "It's a good thing you got out of the way in time. Don't touch these with your skin, they're coated in poison. If it got in your bloodstream, you'd be dead within an hour. Even casual touching with the skin is enough to send you into a coma for several weeks. How did you get out of the way in time?" she asked, suddenly watching Lotah with a strange intensity.
"I...I...ah...I...tripped."
"No you didn't," Tian cut in. "You shoved me out of the way. You saved my life." He said that quietly, as if it had just occurred to him how close he had just come to death.
Lotah blushed bright red, and hoped it didn't show through her makeup. "I...I felt the string go under my foot, and I jumped backwards. It was just luck," she finished unconvincingly. Seeing the disbelief on Melana's face, Lotah let herself slump towards the ground in a pretend faint. It was as good a way as any to allay suspicions - no one who was any kind of a warrior fainted at the first sign of danger. Tian caught her, and she stammered, "I...I'm sorry. I just realized..." she struggled to her feet. "I'm all right, really. Let's keep going." Melana continued to watch her, but this time she looked more worried than suspicious.
Lotah didn't let it show on the outside, but inwardly she sighed in relief. This wasn't the first rough trip she had taken and it wouldn't be the last. She just had to be a little more careful from now on.
-------------------------------------------
They avoided the rest of the traps on the way to the village. Melana tried not to let it show, but she was growing more and more anxious about seeing her people again. There had been a big dispute when she left for the Jedi Academy more than a year ago, and she wasn't sure how her return would be viewed, especially after she had sent word that she would not be returning. Very few people left Nalaskya, and fewer still returned, for any reason. Most clansmen did not view 'deserters' well.
Suddenly Kenneth veered off of the narrow beaten path. "What are you doing?" she asked, some of her anxiety showing in the form of a short temper.
"I've never seen vegetation like this," he rasped. Melana could barely hear him.
"Like what?" She suddenly smelled something strange. Reaching out, she snagged one of his arms and hauled him back on the path. "Don't go near that!"
"Near what?" Tian asked.
"That plant," Melana replied, pointing to a small weed with smooth circular leaves and thin hair-like projections on the stem. "It's mikit, and it's one of those native poisons I was talking about. You're lucky you didn't touch it. We use the leaves to make a poison that can be put in food or scattered around a room. If it's cured properly, the merest whiff will knock a person out, and a small amount in the food will kill. The leaves themselves are poison to the touch."
Lotah sounded impressed. "If it's so poisonous, how do you protect yourselves against it?"
"It's very difficult to harvest. The person who wants it has to make a special harvesting device, and gloves to handle it, and it takes several weeks to cure, all of the time being a danger to anyone around it. It killed many of my people when we first arrived, but almost no one uses it any more. Now we just avoid it, and burn any that grows too close to the village. I'm surprised that this one was allowed to grow." She glanced at it one more time before continuing.
It was only a few months old, which probably explained its existence. It had been almost a month since she first received word of her mother's death, and she might have died weeks before that. Since then the Clan would have been occupied with the craziness that always followed the death of a chieftain, with the usual accusation and denials, and then there would have been the competition. The new chieftain would be only a few days in the position, so the lands would naturally be in slightly worse condition than usual. The mikit would probably be cleared out soon.
Melana saw the scout before anyone else, and brought the group to a stop. She wanted to give whomever it was a chance to get a good look at her before she reached the actual village. It greatly lessened the chances of them being shot by accident.
"We'll wait here for ten minutes," she told the others, who immediately dropped to the ground, hiding themselves in the tall grass. Unfortunately, between Tian's and Kenneth's hair, any camouflage the grass might have provided was lost. There just didn't seem to be any logical evolutionary purpose for dark hair.
She stopped that train of thought almost immediately. Master Skywalker had taught her not to think of the universe in such limited terms. After all, there had to be a use for dark hair on some planet, somewhere. But, observing how obvious their hair was against the tan grass, not here. At least Lotah had fixed her hair so that she wasn't a complete giveaway. There was no way she could have hidden those bright pink stripes out here.
"What are we waiting for?" Tian asked in a whisper. Kenneth shot the boy an angry look, startling Melana. Most of the time the scientist was pathetically inept at almost anything having to do with real life, but every now and then he showed surprising knowledge of fighting. Like hiding in the tall grass to avoid being spotted - after his performance by the speeder, she wouldn't have been surprised if he had stayed standing, providing a nice target for anyone watching. And now this instinctive need for silence, although that might just be common sense. Up until now she would have sworn he didn't have any.
She shrugged off her suspicions. The scientist had probably just read a book on fighting at some point. She had a much bigger problem in the girl, who was a lot tougher than she looked. Melana wished that the old man had tried to exert the power he claimed and excluded her from the trip. The girl was dangerous, and Melana wouldn't trust her enough to sleep in the same room as her. It would have made things a lot easier not to have to worry about watching your back all the time. And the trip had barely started!
Without giving her companions any warning, Melana rose slowly to her feet and looked around. The figure in the grass was running in the other direction, towards the village. Melana gauged the distance to the village to be a little less than a kilometer, and then guessed that the runner would make it there several minutes before her group would, probably more at the slow pace they set. She gestured for the others to rise, and led them at a fast walk to the village.
In a few minutes she heard the boy start panting, and realized that she was setting a pace that most straight humans could never hope to match. Quickly slowing down, she heard several sighs of relief from behind her. Why was she in such a rush to get to the village? She had been dreading this reunion for almost a month, why was she so impatient now?
Probably just want to get it out of the way, she decided as the full village came into view. It was part way down a long hill on a small plateau, with the rest of the hill spreading out below it in a large fan. The village itself was a circle of small huts made out of reeds and grass and dirt, with the outer walls and roofs reinforced against the possibility of attack. The inside of the circle contained a large open area, used for dancing, fighting, teaching, cooking, and almost any other occupation in the village. Most recently it had been the sight of the competition, an event symbolized by the withered red flowers still hanging from a few of the houses. There was only one way out of the village, through a hole in the circle of houses, and it was guarded very carefully, both day and night. Most of the houses also had security systems of their own, all hidden from their neighbors.
As they descended the last slope before the village, four warriors surrounded them, a guard or a prison detail, Melana wasn't sure.
They were escorted to the center of the village, where they stopped. Melana shot the nearest guard a piercing look, and was relieved to see him look away. Another warrior, tall even by their standards, with dark brown splotches all over her body emerged from the largest hut. Melana carefully controlled her expression - the last person she had seen emerging from that hut was her mother. She stepped forward to see the person who succeeded her mother as chieftain.
The chief stepped up to the group, and Melana got her first good look at the new chief, and gasped. "Nimra?" she asked incredulously. The face in front of her had been a childhood friend, barely an adult when she left for the Jedi Academy. For her to rise to power so quickly after reaching adulthood was almost unheard of.
"Melana," Nimra's tone was cautious. "I understood that you would not be returning."
"I have come to see my mother's body," Melana kept her voice completely serious, down to business. She had learned something new about friendships at the Academy, but those ideals did not exist here. Two people who were friends for years might be turned against each other in seconds by a Clan political move or by an attack by a rival Clan.
Nimra simply nodded, but Melana noticed her cheek moving in a nervous twitch that she had acquired after a close call with a urynt. It's claws had left a large scar on her cheek, and had given her the habit of touching that cheek whenever she was upset. "We must speak before I can decide whether you will be allowed to see the body."
This time it was Melana who nodded, but inside she felt something give. It was not easy for her to return to this place, and now it was obvious things had happened that had alienated her only friend. "Of course, your companions may not enter my dwelling. They will be escorted to another, where they will wait for the duration of their visit. I will post a guard to make sure that no harm comes to them, on pain of death," she added to an older male who had stepped up beside her. He nodded and bowed, exposing the back of his neck in submission. A recent slave addition from another tribe, Melana thought, averting her eyes as custom dictated.
Suddenly something hard and cold was pushed into her palm. "If you get access to the body," a voice whispered into her ear, "take a sample with this. I can look at it later to determine the toxin that killed her." Melana caught a glimpse of Kenneth as he and the others were led away. His face wore a happy, expectant expression. Lotah was glaring furiously at her, and Tian kept glancing worriedly behind him. Melana breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened between them, Nimra could be trusted to keep her word. Melana need not worry about her companions while they were here.
She followed Nimra into the hut.
----------------------------------------------
When she entered the hut, it was surprisingly dark. All of the curtains were drawn, and there was only a single light resting on a short wooden table in the center of the main room. As Melana watched, Nimra closed the outside door firmly, then lit up several more lights. Melana noticed her former friend glance nervously towards the door several times. Then Nimra ceased her actions and stared at Melana, who returned the gaze without any sign of emotion.
Suddenly she rushed up at Melana. Melana raised her claws defensively, but it was unnecessary. Nimra had wrapped her arms around Melana's shoulders and was purring happily. "I thought I'd never see you again," she murmured between purrs. Melana returned the embrace awkwardly, she didn't have a lot of experience with them, and felt vulnerable with someone else's arms so close to her throat. Luckily Nimra broke off quickly, again glancing at the door. "Why did you come back?!" she demanded, suddenly angry. "Do you realize how dangerous it is for you to be here?" Melana nodded. "So why did you come?"
"I heard of my mother's death."
Nimra paused, and finally said, "I'm sorry that your mother's end was necessary for my survival." It was as close to showing sympathy for a non-family member that Melana had ever heard any of her people come. Something strange had happened here since she had left, something vital that she was missing.
"What has happened here?" Melana asked. "I encountered very few obstacles on my way here, and yet there was a patch of mikit. You have adopted many customs foreign to our people for generations, and you are the chieftain when there have been none so young for many years. No insult intended."
"None taken. Things have changed much since you left. Have you noticed how few warriors there are?" In fact, Melana hadn't noticed, but she nodded anyway. "The port has been taken over by a group of foreigners called Imperials. They allow more slave trading than ever before, and it has become the main export of our planet, even bigger than the jibb gems. It is such a business that we have had six raids in the last year and two of them weren't even from other tribes - they were space traders. Suddenly everyone was in danger all of the time, from other tribes and spacers, as well as from within the tribe and animals - people became more valuable, and so did cooperation. Before her death, Uthiope was making arrangements to have a temporary alliance with another tribe to protect ourselves against the traders."
"That's impossible. There has never been an alliance between any tribes - never since the planet was first founded. My mother would never have broken custom so."
"She was trying to do just that. You must have had some effect on her, with your peace-talk... is it true that you have given up the life of a warrior?"
"It is."
"How could you do it? You were always one of the best fighters in the entire Clan. In fifty years or less, you might have been chieftain."
"I've seen a different view, and I no longer desire to become chieftain, of this Clan or any other."
Nimra shook her head in disbelief, but didn't comment further. "It really hurt her when you sent word, you know. She followed custom and declared you dead, but she was truly grieving. She even shut herself off for two days."
Melana felt tears coming to her eyes but blinked them away. "How did she die?"
"She was found in here one morning after she failed to answer calls. She was already dead when we found her."
Melana nodded. "May I see the body?"
"Of course, but why?"
Melana held up the small metal devise Kenneth had shoved into her hand at the last second. It was about ten centimeters long, cylindrical, and there were several red buttons sticking out along the side. "I would like to take a reading with this."
"Why?" Nimra's tone was suddenly cautious.
"I do not believe my mother could have been killed by normal means. I wish to prove that she was illegally murdered, and then find the murderer."
Nimra shook her head. "Your mother was good, possibly one of the best, but she wasn't infallible. She probably just let her guard down once. Let it go, and get off this planet."
That reminded Melana of the purpose of their discussion. "So what happened here, exactly?"
"The Imperials came down here, showed a little bit of firepower, and the Trader Board completely capitulated," she made a rude sound. "If they had come to any of the Clans, the response would have been very different. The traders turned over the entire port to the Imperials and accepted the taxes and restrictions that followed. We wouldn't care at all, except that the slave raids are increasing. That's why I have allowed the mikit to grow, in hopes that it would stop some potential slavers before they reach the village. Still we are too close to the port - we may have to move altogether in the next year to survive." She looked very tired - the strain of ruling an endangered people had left its mark. Melana remembered the expression well, she had seen it every day on her mother's face.
"But why did the Imperials come here?"
Nimra shrugged. "There are several rumors circulating. There are two that I believe. One is that they are planning to turn this planet into a slave world, like that of the Wookies. If that is the case, I have to move our people away from here as soon as possible. The other reason is that they were just looking for a planet to work off of, and we just happened to be handy. Also, I think they also want to get a monopoly on the gem trade. Whatever the cause, they show no signs of leaving."
"How did you win the contest?"
Nimra frowned, but answered, "Your mother died at a very bad time. We had just had a raid on the village in which we lost most of the best warriors in our Clan. Many of the remaining warriors were severely injured. Then she died, and the Contest was held. There were only six warriors, including me, that were available to compete."
"Six?" Melana was horrified. At her mother's Contest there had been more than thirty competitors.
Nimra nodded. "So I won, over inexperienced warriors. One of the first things we did was to lead a raid of our own on the port and retrieved eight of our people. The rest had already been sold. Then I started to cultivate the mikit, to protect our borders."
Melana nodded, but she was only half-listening. If there were only six warriors available for the competition, that narrowed the list of people who would have murdered her mother considerably. Unless the poison was slow-acting, in which case the murderer might already be dead. It depended on the poison. "May I see the body now?"
Nimra nodded and pushed aside a curtain separating a room from the rest of the hut. Melana automatically held her breath as she crossed the threshold. Every house had one room devoted to meditation, quiet thought, and when necessary, to mourning. Now several strings of red flowers adorned the walls of the room. In the center of the room was a low table with a body on it. It was a woman, very similar in appearance to Melana except that the woman had a red tint to her hair. She was wearing a red tunic with very little embroidery. A blaster, a knife, and a bow and several arrows lay on the table next to her. Melana didn't remember her mother ever having a blaster - she must have bought it in the last year. If things had changed as much as Nimra said they had, it wasn't surprising that the common rule of traders never to sell firearms to the locals had been broken.
"I had the body preserved when you sent word of your return," Nimra stated. "You have five minutes. When you leave, she will be burned." Then she disappeared back behind the curtain.
Melana stared for a full minute at what was left of her mother. She tried to repeat the Jedi Code, but the words stuck in her throat. As much as she wanted to, she could not say goodbye to her mother with an oath of peace. It would have been disrespectful to her mother's memory - she had been born, lived, and died a warrior. She had loved fighting, even if it was just for survival. "Good hunting," Melana murmured.
She took the sample that Kenneth needed and left without a backwards glance.
"Traffic control just called, and we've been given our landing coordinates," he told her, not so much out of courtesy as because he knew she would ask him anyway. "We should be landing within the hour."
"Good."
"What do you plan to do when we land?"
"Kenneth and I will go to my Clan's lands to find my mother's body. He," she nodded her head towards the rear cabin, "has assured me that he can identify almost any toxin ever found. When he identifies the toxin, and I double check it, we will start. If it is a native toxin, I will take you to the planet of your choice and pay you for your services. If it is not, we will be looking for proof of the murder."
Tiros nodded, "Fine. So we just sit here until you get back?"
She nodded, "That is, of course, unless anyone would like to accompany us to the Clan." She paused, then added, "Oh. You have enough supplies to last for several weeks. With a landspeeder, it should take us less than a day to reach my Clan's lands. It might take me a few days to get access to my mother's body. If we do not return within a week, you may assume that something has gone wrong and we will not be returning. In that case, the ship is yours, as well as all the supplies and credits on board. I trust that you will see that everyone has been reimbursed fairly. I also have a message that will automatically be sent out should I not return, so don't be surprised if the ship starts transmitting on it's own." The woman didn't seem at all worried that she had taken such cares in the event of her death. Tiros glanced at his son, who was looking very worried. He's really too young for all of this. I should have turned her down.
"Any questions?" Tiros shook his head.
"I would like to come along," spoke a soft voice from behind the woman.
Melana spun around, her hand raised as if prepared to strike a blow. She slowly lowered her hand, and relaxed. It was a fascinating process to watch, because when the woman relaxed, it was possible to see her muscles relax, one by one, like a wave running over her body. Tiros found himself smiling and forced the expression off his face. He had made it all these years by never getting involved in any of his jobs. Now was not the time to break his habits.
It was the young girl who had snuck up behind the woman. Tiros silently cursed. He should have never allowed her on the ship. Anyone who was that good and moving quietly was not to be trusted. He didn't trust anyone anyway, but especially sneakers.
"You what?"
"I'd like to come along. The more experience I have on different planets, the more valuable I am."
"I do not think you will ever return to this planet."
"But I might meet some of your people somewhere else."
Melana looked as if she would have liked to argue the point, but did not want to insult the girl. "Fine. But you do understand the dangers."
"I do. I'm a survivor."
"Fine."
"I want to come too," Tian said, half-rising out of the co-pilot's seat.
Tiros was shocked. He had raised the boy ever since his hoar mother had arrived at Tiros's door, carrying a baby boy in her arms. She had claimed that Tian was his child, although to this day he had no proof. But that had never mattered to either of them. Tian had always been a good boy, a bit belligerent at times, never really respected anyone, but a decent kid. He had always been reasonable, and usually listened to advice.
Tiros couldn't believe that his son would loose his head so quickly over some girl. He thought he had taught him a little better than that. "Tian," he murmured warningly.
Tian shot him a dark look, then made a small sign with his hand. He clenched his hand in a fist, then pointed upward with his index and middle finger, then flattened his entire hand. Tiros frowned; over time they had developed a number of discreet hand signals, each with a specific meaning. Those signals had come in handy more than once, like with that backstabing Imperial...
But the signal that Tian had just used meant, 'no problems' or, more accurately, 'I know what's going on.' Tiros frowned. He usually trusted his son's judgment, but this time his hormones might have got the best of him. Tian's frown deepened, and he repeated the signal.
Realizing that there was very little he could do to stop Tian, Tiros nodded his agreement. "If it's all right with Melana." He hoped it wouldn't be all right.
Melana frowned, but nodded carefully. "If that's what you want, but I'm warning you now that my planet is a dangerous place. Just because I'll be with you is no guarantee that anyone will get out alive."
Tian swallowed but didn't say anything. "Go put on something that's either tan or brown. You're too easy to see in that. You too." Tian was wearing a white logo T-shirt and loose red-brown pants. The girl was wearing a light blue shirt and black stretch pants. Both of them turned around and left the cockpit.
Fifteen minutes later, Tiros received clearance from traffic control. He got the landing vector programmed into the computer, then sat back to enjoy the ride. The hanger they were given was practically decomposing, cracks in the walls and ceiling, and moss growing all over the floor. As soon as they were settled, Tiros jumped out of the cockpit and ran outside the ship, anxiously looking at the ceiling over the ship, afraid the ceiling would collapse on top of them. By some miracle, there were no major cracks over the ship. Shaking his head over the terrible accommodations, Tiros headed back into the ship.
Tian was standing just inside the door. He had changed into a tan shirt and light brown pants. "What's wrong?"
"Damn hanger's just about to fall down on us. This place can't have seen a repair crew in ten years. They'd better not charge us for staying in this dump."
Tian nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Tiros gestured to Tian's clothes. "I've heard a little about this planet - it's just one big deathtrap."
"I've gotta," Tian glanced behind him. "That girl, Lola?"
"Lotah," Tiros supplied.
"Yeah. Listen, remember how she was wearing that big cloak before? And she said that she was comfortable? I saw her before, when she took off the cloak, and she was drenched in sweat. And just now in the 'pit, did you see her? She looked terrible - like she saw a ghost or something; dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was messed up. I...I just don't trust her."
Tiros also glanced towards the cabin. "Join the crowd. But that's no reason to stick your neck out."
"I don't trust her going along. I didn't believe her when she said why she wanted to come along. I'm going along to make sure she doesn't make any trouble."
"That woman isn't your problem. She isn't your responsibility."
"I'm going." Tiros recognized the stubborn tone in his son's voice from his own past, and recognized a hopeless cause.
"Fine," he did his best not to snap at his son. He heard a step to his right and glanced in that direction. "I'm going out to see if I can find some parts to fix up this ship. If this job's going to be half as tough as she says, I'm not going to take my chances with these shields and armor. Melana gave me some money, so I'm going shopping. This place doesn't have much, but whatever it's got has to be better than what we have now."
"Can I go with you?" spoke a deep voice.
Tiros turned all the way around to face the mercenary, Lorb. "What do you know about ship parts?"
"I've flown a ship or two in my day. I know my way around a ship lot, and I'm very good at getting a good deal on parts." He smiled, and Tiros could very easily imagine how he could get a really good deal on some equipment, towering over someone with all those weapons.
"You can come along, but if you get in any trouble, that's your problem."
"Agreed."
Tiros turned to face his son. "Tian, I..." he trailed off. He couldn't speak in front of this stranger.
Tian smiled, understanding. At least Tiros hoped he understood. "I'll see you when I get back, Dad," he said in an uncharacteristic show of sentiment.
Tiros nodded, and forced himself to turn away and walk out of the hanger with Lorb.
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Lotah glanced at herself in the mirror, and was satisfied with the results. She had used one of her hair dyes to change her hair to a tawny brown color, and one of her three pairs of lenses to change her eyes to a yellow-green color. Then, observing that her skin looked weird with the hair and eye colors, she darkened her skin with makeup until it looked fairly normal. She made a mental note to buy some more hair dyes - she had been using them quite often recently.
Stepping back, she looked at her full reflection. She didn't have that many different clothes, so she settled for a tan jumpsuit she had kept from her last job as a crewman on a meat hauler. It was still hot out, so she grabbed the strands of hair that fell around her face and braided them up behind her head. That left her a little more open to inspection than she was comfortable with, but definitely cooler. Someone knocked on the door to the main cabin.
She jumped, then controlled herself. She was getting too tense, it was beginning to look weird, and would draw attraction. "Who is it?"
"It's Tian Une. Melana says that we're leaving in fifteen minutes."
"Thank you. I'll be there." There was the sound of footsteps retreating from the door.
Lotah sat down on one of the bunks and stared at the computer consul on the wall. She needed to check the communications channels, but wasn't sure if she should risk it on this ship. Finally she stood up and walked to the wall, searching for a control panel. She wasn't going to have access to the channels anywhere else for a while now, and she needed to see what the bounty on her was.
There was no panel. She stared at the wall in confusion. There was a screen for communications, but no way to activate it. Lotah sat back down on one of the beds. She had been around and seen all sorts of ships, but she had never seen anything like this. Her eyes fell on a small round black disk above the screen, and she thought of something. The rest of the crew on the last ship had been talking about the vacation they were getting because some new sort of technology was being installed in all of the ships in that fleet. Something about a completely voice-activated communications consul.
She glanced at her chronometer. Ten minutes left. It was worth a try. "Computer," she spoke aloud. "Give me access to the main holo channels."
The screen flickered to life, displaying a menu. "What do you wish to search?" it inquired politely.
"Bounties available on individuals."
"Searching." A few seconds later a list of names appeared on the screen. It was written in Basic, but most of the names had obviously come from planets that didn't speak Basic. All of the names on her list began with the letter 'A,' and all but the last began with 'AAA.' The last began with 'AAB,' and there were almost a hundred names on the screen. It would take her years to get to her own name at this rate, and she only had five minutes left.
"Description of object of bounty."
Lotah glanced around guiltily. It had become almost distasteful for her to say her real name and description, for anyone. "Human, female, approximately 1.6 meters tall, black and red hair, red eyes. Name is Lotah."
"Last name?" the computer inquired.
Lotah paused, wondering whether the officials would have used her former master's last name as her own. "No last name," she finally concluded. She checked her chronometer. Three minutes.
"Searching..." Suddenly a picture of Lotah appeared on the screen. The picture was over a year old, but it was still definitely her, before she ran away, still wearing a slave collar. She winced at the sight. "Computer, delete the picture."
"Cannot comply. Picture is part of the main file. Do you wish to have the picture hidden from you?"
"Yes." The picture disappeared, and she stared at the screen. "Shit!" she exclaimed.
"Searching..." the computer said, and the file disappeared. But it didn't matter, she had already seen the numbers. The Imperial bounty on her had risen five credits, but that wasn't what had upset her. The other bounty, the mystery one, had risen to seven hundred and fifty credits. If it got much bigger, more respectable bounty hunters would be coming after her. What had happened?!
The computer's voice brought her back to reality. The screen was now displaying a variety of pictures, none of which Lotah could identify. "Description of shit desired."
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Lotah turned off the screen and rushed out of the room and down the ramp to the hanger. It was a mess, but she paid more attention to Tian, the scientist, and Melana, who were all staring at her. Following their eyes, she put a hand to her head, and remembered that she had put on all of that makeup. "I thought my hair and eyes might stick out," she muttered, trying to kill the issue at once. She didn't like talking about herself, and this crew was way too smart. And weird. She started to shiver, but stopped herself, with difficulty.
"Let's go." Melana didn't make any more comments.
The cat woman led them out of the back of the hanger, and right out onto a field. Looking all around, Lotah was amazed at the seemingly endless plains. She was used to cities of all different types, but had rarely visited primitive planets in her years of traveling. There was a strange beauty to it. It was so open - there were no walls anywhere, and the sky went on forever. Lotah thought of the endless void of space.
Melana led them around the side of the building, where a landspeeder was parked. "Get in," she said shortly, and jumped from the ground up over the side of the speeder, several feet above the ground.
"Show off," Lotah muttered, and grabbed for the step hanging a few feet below the speeder. It was meant for a taller person, though, so she had to lift her foot almost to her hip in order to stand on the step. Suddenly someone grabbed the material of her suit on her back, and hauled her up into the speeder. She landed with an ungraceful thump on her rear end, and glared at Tian, who was watching her.
"I could have got in," she hissed.
"Shh," Melana muttered. She started up the speeder and started guiding it around the edge of the town. This town was literally a box, with the walls of all of the buildings touching each other to make a long wall, unbroken except for the back doors of the buildings. "Why is the town built like this?" she asked, gesturing to the wall.
Melana glanced towards the wall again. "Shhh. There are warring Clans around here. The wall is to make sure that they keep the wars among themselves, and not bring it into 'civilized society.' It doesn't work, but we don't want to alert the Clans anyway." She gazed across the plains thoughtfully. "We'll be cutting through the city. It's too dangerous and will take too long to go all the way around the city. We're coming up on the main gate now. When we get inside, don't say anything until we leave, and don't look at anyone directly."
Lotah saw the scientist shoot Melana an alarmed glance. Two minutes later they turned through a large hole in the wall onto a busy street. As they passed through, Lotah saw an energy field wink into existence in the hole behind them. Here all of the grass and weeds had been trampled into nonexistence, and a thin layer of brown dust covered everything.
There were hundreds of Melana's people as they drove through the streets, along with a mixture of other races, most of whom were wearing the clothes of traders. Then they rounded a corner and there was a tall black building, with two stormtroopers standing guard at the door. Lotah gasped, and slid down a little in her seat, trying to hide. A few seconds later, she realized that there was no reason for her to hide, and that she looked fairly ridiculous.
As she straightened up, she caught a glimpse of Tian. He, too, had sunk down in his seat and was watching the stormtroopers. When he noticed her staring at him, he turned bright red and sat up.
She didn't have time to puzzle out his actions, because then they entered the main square. Lotah was watching an exhibition of fine fabrics when something else caught her eye. Slaves. A long line of the Cat people, like Melana, were chained in a line together. Lotah stiffened and half-rose out of her seat. A clawed hand landed onto her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Melana hissed in her ear.
Lotah sat back down in her seat, ashamed by her lack of control. "Nothing. I just wasn't expecting to see slaves here," she murmured into her chest, refusing to look up.
"It's a good way to get rid of prisoners at a good price. When you compare that with exiling the prisoner, which is always a death sentence, it is merciful. Now do not speak."
"Merciful..." Lotah muttered, but she raised her eyes to look at the slaves again. A few seconds later they turned at the corner of a brick building and the slave auction was out of view. She settled back in her seat and stared blankly into space.
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The landspeeder stopped with a shudder, and Lotah woke. After leaving the village, they had started across the endless plains. She had watched the unchanging scenery for a while, then had drifted off. She glanced at her chronometer, and saw that a few hours had passed. Stretching her arms above her head, she stood up and looked around.
"Finally awake?" the boy was already out of the speeder, checking his blaster and looking around.
She didn't bother to answer him, but put a hand on the side of the speeder and vaulted to the ground. The shock of the ground made a sharp pain shoot up her ankles, but she ignored the pain, and got the satisfaction of seeing the surprise on his face.
Glancing around the speeder, Lotah saw a few small bushes, and one tree with bright red leaves, and the plains. "Why did we stop?" Melana was nowhere in sight, but the scientist answered her as he climbed out of the speeder.
"The...the woman, Melana. She went to check out something, she didn't say what. But she says that we've reached her Clan's lands, and we can't go any further in the speeder. She said not to go anywhere." He tripped on the last step and fell to the ground, landing on his rear. Lotah rolled her eyes, but he didn't seem to notice, scrambling to his feet and staring at the ground. "Amazing foliage," he murmured.
Lotah sighed and leaned against the speeder. Tian, who had been watching them out of the corner of his eye, shoved his blaster into the holster and sat down on the ground. Lotah pulled the knife out of its sheath on her belt and examined the edge. Tian watched her. After a few seconds Lotah shoved the blade back in the sheath. The blade was in perfect condition, the same way it always was. The small plain blade she kept in a sheath at her ankle was also in perfect condition. She didn't bother to check that one, not because she knew it was fine, but because she didn't want the boy to know she had it. He continued to watch her expectantly.
Finally Lotah gave up and sat down on the ground, a few feet from Tian.
"So," he said carefully. "Why did you freak out so much when you saw the slaves?"
Lotah started - she hadn't realized he had noticed that. He was a lot more observant than he looked. She made a mental note - things like that could be important. "I once knew someone who was sold into slavery," she answered cautiously, sticking to the story of the name she was using. She had half a dozen different fake names, some using her real first name, some not, and all with a different story behind them. "He was a friend, accused falsely of theft on a planet with very strict laws. The last I ever saw of him was him being led away in chains by the person who bought him. It's a barbaric idea, and I hate it." Those last words were spoken with a little more passion than Lotah meant to use. "Anyway, whenever I see a slave line, I think of him."
"What was his name?"
"Yenus. Yenus Lanius."
"That's too bad."
Lotah forced herself to be silent. If she said anything more, she would give herself away. After a few seconds it became clear it was up to her to say something. Nervously she shifted position to change the circulation in her legs, and looked for Melana. Where could she be that was taking so long to get back? Lotah always hated these 'heart-to-heart' talks, she was always terrified that she'd forget some detail, or let something slip that would give her away.
"So what's your story?" she finally asked.
"What?"
"You look almost human, except for those scales and that hair. I've been all over the place, and I've never seen anyone like you. What planet are you from?"
"I'm not from any planet. And there's a good reason why you've never seen anyone like me - I'm a one of a kind," he grinned. "Tiros is my father, and my mother was an alien. For some reason, she happened to be able to reproduce with humans, and I'm the result. Luckily, I look human enough that people assume I'm just a variant on the regular human, so we don't run into any problems. You know, with the Imps, people who hate non-human." Lotah nodded.
"Do those scales have any use?"
"Not really. They're tougher than skin, but the line is so thin that it doesn't make much of a difference. Sometimes I sweat through the spaces between the scales, and they're pretty sharp, but that's about it. My father had a genetic scan done on me when I was a baby, to make sure I didn't have any serious genetic problems that wouldn't turn up until I was older, but there aren't. I'm mostly human." He fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, "So how about you?"
"What?" Lotah echoed him.
"You're not exactly ordinary-looking."
"My parents had a funny sense of beauty. They thought I'd look better, or more unique, or something, with crazy colored eyes and hair. That's originally why I learned about makeup, so I'd look more like 'normal' kids." She smiled ruefully, not because of a childhood problem like Tian would think, not a problem dealing with parents, but because of a lost childhood and missing parents.
"Parents can be tough," he smiled sympathetically.
"You seem to be doing pretty well," she pointed out, maybe a little too sharply.
He didn't notice. "Well, you know, my old man's OK..." he seemed evasive, and Lotah wondered what he was hiding. She had been around too many people with too much to hide recently.
Lotah glanced up, and saw something move in the grass. Her hand immediately went to the knife at her belt, although she hid the knife behind her leg, shielding it from whoever was in the grass. It was not hidden from Tian, though. "What's wrong?" he asked, his hand going to his blaster.
"I see something," she murmured, watching the grass carefully. The movement she had seen before was gone, but she remained alert, looking for any sign of life. There was a quick gleam of light against metal in the grass fifty feet from them, then it was gone.
Lotah jumped to her feet, still hiding the knife. Her eyes roamed all over the grass, but she couldn't find the metal again. Now Tian was also on his feet, scanning the grasses in front of them. Lotah was slowly becoming more desperate. She didn't like guessing like this, and whoever it was had moved almost twenty feet in just a few seconds. If they kept moving at this rate, they would be at the speeder in the next second. The scientist was still staring at the plants in front of him, blissfully unaware of the danger bearing down on them.
She had no choice. Lotah closed her eyes for a second and reached out with her mind. There was a brief gleam of light in front of her, and she opened her eyes and lunged toward that spot with her knife. She stopped just short of a mass of hair. "Stand up," she said shortly.
The person stood up, and up, and up. Not until the person raised her head at the last moment did Lotah recognize her. "Melana!" she exclaimed, sheathing her knife.
"That was well done," Melana told her, but the woman was looking around them in all different directions. There were no more movements in the grass, though, and Melana stopped looking around. "How did you know where I was?"
"I have good eyes."
"Good eyes?! Are you sure your parents didn't put mechanical eyes in? I didn't see anything, and I've got nearly perfect vision!" Tian exclaimed.
Lotah shrugged - she didn't like bringing attention to herself. "Where have you been?" she asked pointedly.
"I've been checking our borders. They've changed a little."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Tian asked when Melana didn't show any signs of elaborating on her comment.
"Bad. It means that things have changed since I was here. The borders, the leaders, and the traps."
"Traps?" the scientist finally stopped looking at plants and glanced at Melana in alarm. "You didn't say anything about traps!"
"You didn't ask, and I need you to come along, anyway. I'll do my best to protect all of you."
"What sort of traps are those?" Tian asked.
"Some simple holes, with collapsing branches covering them. There are several wire-traps, so watch where you step. And I believe that they have set up a few trip-wires that throw poison darts. We protect our borders harshly."
"What have we been driving through?" Lotah asked. "Why didn't we run into any of these traps on the way here?"
"The land belongs to the planetary government, and they do not choose to guard their borders," Melana looked like she couldn't believe the stupidity of the government. "Let's go." She started to lead them through the waist-high grass.
They had barely been walking for ten minutes when Melana threw her arms up in front of the group. "What is it?" Tian asked from the back of the line. Lotah decided that he had a serious problem with patience.
"Look, but don't go in front of me." They all lined up next to Melana and stared at the ground in front of them. The grass looked normal, growing just as high as anywhere else, waving gently in the breeze that blew perpetually across the plains. As she looked, Lotah thought she saw a slight incongruity in the field in front of her. There was a small line, about four inches wide, on the ground where no grass would grow. Following the line with her eyes, Lotah saw that it curved about fifteen feet in front of her.
"I don't see anything," Tian said.
"It's there," Lotah pointed to the line. She was beginning to get a little tired of his impatience. "See? Where the grass doesn't grow." Tian stared at the grass, but obviously didn't see anything.
"Watch." Melana knelt down by the line and poked in the dirt. A few seconds later she pointed to a thick branch lying horizontal on the ground in front of her. Tian had also dropped to his knees and was staring at the branch. Lotah remained standing. Now that she knew what to look for, Lotah didn't need to see the actual trap. She had seen this sort of thing before on other primitive worlds; a hidden pit with spikes at the bottom. This one had the best camouflage she had ever seen, on any world.
Tian whistled as he saw the inside of the pit, but didn't have any comment other than, 'wow.' Melana straightened up and led them around the pit.
"Wait a second," Tian said. "You're going to leave it?"
"It's my land, too, or at least it was. Why should I remove the defenses?"
"Why is it so well hidden? I've seen a few of those, and that's the best one I've ever seen."
"My people are used to such tricks. That sort of trap would only catch a very careless frasel, ah, Cat person. That is just meant to warn people that they have entered our territory. The real traps will start soon. When I say so, you must watch every time you put down your foot until I say it is safe. Am I understood?" They nodded.
They were silent for the next twenty minutes as they waded through the grass. Melana took them on a very indirect route, but Lotah didn't say anything, assuming - hoping, that the Cat woman was leading them past the worst of the dangers.
Lotah strained her eyes to look at the horizon. For the last five minutes she thought she had seen something out there. Now she was almost certain that it wasn't just an illusion or something. During the trip they had passed a number of short, scraggly trees. They seemed to grow in groups of two or three every half-mile or so. She had commented on them earlier, and Melana's only comment was that they had some sort of religious importance.
Now they were approaching another group of trees. Lotah felt a strange tingling running up and down her spine. She shivered, anticipating trouble. It had something to do with those trees. She glanced at Melana, and was relieved to see that the woman was staring at the trees suspiciously. Lotah waited for her to say something in warning, but Melana didn't say anything.
The trees looked just like the others they had passed, but Lotah remained wary. They passed the trees, and nothing happened. Lotah kept glancing back at the trees, almost expecting to see a laser cannon appear.
Suddenly her foot came down on something that gave way, and her entire body shook as the danger feeling hit her. She threw herself backwards, taking Tian with her, and felt something disturb the air in front of her. Then she landed on the ground, and sat, stunned, for a second.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Tian exclaimed, pushing her forward. When she had backed up, she had also shoved him back, and he was sitting behind her on the ground.
"Something..." The danger feeling was still too fresh for Lotah's tastes, and she was out of breath. Examining the ground in front of her, Lotah found a set of five short darts, still quivering, their points driven deep into the earth a little to her right. "What are those?" she asked, her voice shaky.
Melana had frozen in place, and was again searching the plains. When she didn't answer, Lotah cried loudly, almost shouting, "What are you looking for!?" Melana didn't answer, and Lotah swallowed several times, trying to regain control of herself. She had dealt with danger before, she reminded herself. But the danger... She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. There was too much going on here to take the time to examine her strange feelings.
Melana finally noticed her. "Nothing...I just thought I heard something." She dropped to her knees and picked up one of the darts with her extended claws. Holding it a few inches from her nose, she sniffed gently. "It's a good thing you got out of the way in time. Don't touch these with your skin, they're coated in poison. If it got in your bloodstream, you'd be dead within an hour. Even casual touching with the skin is enough to send you into a coma for several weeks. How did you get out of the way in time?" she asked, suddenly watching Lotah with a strange intensity.
"I...I...ah...I...tripped."
"No you didn't," Tian cut in. "You shoved me out of the way. You saved my life." He said that quietly, as if it had just occurred to him how close he had just come to death.
Lotah blushed bright red, and hoped it didn't show through her makeup. "I...I felt the string go under my foot, and I jumped backwards. It was just luck," she finished unconvincingly. Seeing the disbelief on Melana's face, Lotah let herself slump towards the ground in a pretend faint. It was as good a way as any to allay suspicions - no one who was any kind of a warrior fainted at the first sign of danger. Tian caught her, and she stammered, "I...I'm sorry. I just realized..." she struggled to her feet. "I'm all right, really. Let's keep going." Melana continued to watch her, but this time she looked more worried than suspicious.
Lotah didn't let it show on the outside, but inwardly she sighed in relief. This wasn't the first rough trip she had taken and it wouldn't be the last. She just had to be a little more careful from now on.
-------------------------------------------
They avoided the rest of the traps on the way to the village. Melana tried not to let it show, but she was growing more and more anxious about seeing her people again. There had been a big dispute when she left for the Jedi Academy more than a year ago, and she wasn't sure how her return would be viewed, especially after she had sent word that she would not be returning. Very few people left Nalaskya, and fewer still returned, for any reason. Most clansmen did not view 'deserters' well.
Suddenly Kenneth veered off of the narrow beaten path. "What are you doing?" she asked, some of her anxiety showing in the form of a short temper.
"I've never seen vegetation like this," he rasped. Melana could barely hear him.
"Like what?" She suddenly smelled something strange. Reaching out, she snagged one of his arms and hauled him back on the path. "Don't go near that!"
"Near what?" Tian asked.
"That plant," Melana replied, pointing to a small weed with smooth circular leaves and thin hair-like projections on the stem. "It's mikit, and it's one of those native poisons I was talking about. You're lucky you didn't touch it. We use the leaves to make a poison that can be put in food or scattered around a room. If it's cured properly, the merest whiff will knock a person out, and a small amount in the food will kill. The leaves themselves are poison to the touch."
Lotah sounded impressed. "If it's so poisonous, how do you protect yourselves against it?"
"It's very difficult to harvest. The person who wants it has to make a special harvesting device, and gloves to handle it, and it takes several weeks to cure, all of the time being a danger to anyone around it. It killed many of my people when we first arrived, but almost no one uses it any more. Now we just avoid it, and burn any that grows too close to the village. I'm surprised that this one was allowed to grow." She glanced at it one more time before continuing.
It was only a few months old, which probably explained its existence. It had been almost a month since she first received word of her mother's death, and she might have died weeks before that. Since then the Clan would have been occupied with the craziness that always followed the death of a chieftain, with the usual accusation and denials, and then there would have been the competition. The new chieftain would be only a few days in the position, so the lands would naturally be in slightly worse condition than usual. The mikit would probably be cleared out soon.
Melana saw the scout before anyone else, and brought the group to a stop. She wanted to give whomever it was a chance to get a good look at her before she reached the actual village. It greatly lessened the chances of them being shot by accident.
"We'll wait here for ten minutes," she told the others, who immediately dropped to the ground, hiding themselves in the tall grass. Unfortunately, between Tian's and Kenneth's hair, any camouflage the grass might have provided was lost. There just didn't seem to be any logical evolutionary purpose for dark hair.
She stopped that train of thought almost immediately. Master Skywalker had taught her not to think of the universe in such limited terms. After all, there had to be a use for dark hair on some planet, somewhere. But, observing how obvious their hair was against the tan grass, not here. At least Lotah had fixed her hair so that she wasn't a complete giveaway. There was no way she could have hidden those bright pink stripes out here.
"What are we waiting for?" Tian asked in a whisper. Kenneth shot the boy an angry look, startling Melana. Most of the time the scientist was pathetically inept at almost anything having to do with real life, but every now and then he showed surprising knowledge of fighting. Like hiding in the tall grass to avoid being spotted - after his performance by the speeder, she wouldn't have been surprised if he had stayed standing, providing a nice target for anyone watching. And now this instinctive need for silence, although that might just be common sense. Up until now she would have sworn he didn't have any.
She shrugged off her suspicions. The scientist had probably just read a book on fighting at some point. She had a much bigger problem in the girl, who was a lot tougher than she looked. Melana wished that the old man had tried to exert the power he claimed and excluded her from the trip. The girl was dangerous, and Melana wouldn't trust her enough to sleep in the same room as her. It would have made things a lot easier not to have to worry about watching your back all the time. And the trip had barely started!
Without giving her companions any warning, Melana rose slowly to her feet and looked around. The figure in the grass was running in the other direction, towards the village. Melana gauged the distance to the village to be a little less than a kilometer, and then guessed that the runner would make it there several minutes before her group would, probably more at the slow pace they set. She gestured for the others to rise, and led them at a fast walk to the village.
In a few minutes she heard the boy start panting, and realized that she was setting a pace that most straight humans could never hope to match. Quickly slowing down, she heard several sighs of relief from behind her. Why was she in such a rush to get to the village? She had been dreading this reunion for almost a month, why was she so impatient now?
Probably just want to get it out of the way, she decided as the full village came into view. It was part way down a long hill on a small plateau, with the rest of the hill spreading out below it in a large fan. The village itself was a circle of small huts made out of reeds and grass and dirt, with the outer walls and roofs reinforced against the possibility of attack. The inside of the circle contained a large open area, used for dancing, fighting, teaching, cooking, and almost any other occupation in the village. Most recently it had been the sight of the competition, an event symbolized by the withered red flowers still hanging from a few of the houses. There was only one way out of the village, through a hole in the circle of houses, and it was guarded very carefully, both day and night. Most of the houses also had security systems of their own, all hidden from their neighbors.
As they descended the last slope before the village, four warriors surrounded them, a guard or a prison detail, Melana wasn't sure.
They were escorted to the center of the village, where they stopped. Melana shot the nearest guard a piercing look, and was relieved to see him look away. Another warrior, tall even by their standards, with dark brown splotches all over her body emerged from the largest hut. Melana carefully controlled her expression - the last person she had seen emerging from that hut was her mother. She stepped forward to see the person who succeeded her mother as chieftain.
The chief stepped up to the group, and Melana got her first good look at the new chief, and gasped. "Nimra?" she asked incredulously. The face in front of her had been a childhood friend, barely an adult when she left for the Jedi Academy. For her to rise to power so quickly after reaching adulthood was almost unheard of.
"Melana," Nimra's tone was cautious. "I understood that you would not be returning."
"I have come to see my mother's body," Melana kept her voice completely serious, down to business. She had learned something new about friendships at the Academy, but those ideals did not exist here. Two people who were friends for years might be turned against each other in seconds by a Clan political move or by an attack by a rival Clan.
Nimra simply nodded, but Melana noticed her cheek moving in a nervous twitch that she had acquired after a close call with a urynt. It's claws had left a large scar on her cheek, and had given her the habit of touching that cheek whenever she was upset. "We must speak before I can decide whether you will be allowed to see the body."
This time it was Melana who nodded, but inside she felt something give. It was not easy for her to return to this place, and now it was obvious things had happened that had alienated her only friend. "Of course, your companions may not enter my dwelling. They will be escorted to another, where they will wait for the duration of their visit. I will post a guard to make sure that no harm comes to them, on pain of death," she added to an older male who had stepped up beside her. He nodded and bowed, exposing the back of his neck in submission. A recent slave addition from another tribe, Melana thought, averting her eyes as custom dictated.
Suddenly something hard and cold was pushed into her palm. "If you get access to the body," a voice whispered into her ear, "take a sample with this. I can look at it later to determine the toxin that killed her." Melana caught a glimpse of Kenneth as he and the others were led away. His face wore a happy, expectant expression. Lotah was glaring furiously at her, and Tian kept glancing worriedly behind him. Melana breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened between them, Nimra could be trusted to keep her word. Melana need not worry about her companions while they were here.
She followed Nimra into the hut.
----------------------------------------------
When she entered the hut, it was surprisingly dark. All of the curtains were drawn, and there was only a single light resting on a short wooden table in the center of the main room. As Melana watched, Nimra closed the outside door firmly, then lit up several more lights. Melana noticed her former friend glance nervously towards the door several times. Then Nimra ceased her actions and stared at Melana, who returned the gaze without any sign of emotion.
Suddenly she rushed up at Melana. Melana raised her claws defensively, but it was unnecessary. Nimra had wrapped her arms around Melana's shoulders and was purring happily. "I thought I'd never see you again," she murmured between purrs. Melana returned the embrace awkwardly, she didn't have a lot of experience with them, and felt vulnerable with someone else's arms so close to her throat. Luckily Nimra broke off quickly, again glancing at the door. "Why did you come back?!" she demanded, suddenly angry. "Do you realize how dangerous it is for you to be here?" Melana nodded. "So why did you come?"
"I heard of my mother's death."
Nimra paused, and finally said, "I'm sorry that your mother's end was necessary for my survival." It was as close to showing sympathy for a non-family member that Melana had ever heard any of her people come. Something strange had happened here since she had left, something vital that she was missing.
"What has happened here?" Melana asked. "I encountered very few obstacles on my way here, and yet there was a patch of mikit. You have adopted many customs foreign to our people for generations, and you are the chieftain when there have been none so young for many years. No insult intended."
"None taken. Things have changed much since you left. Have you noticed how few warriors there are?" In fact, Melana hadn't noticed, but she nodded anyway. "The port has been taken over by a group of foreigners called Imperials. They allow more slave trading than ever before, and it has become the main export of our planet, even bigger than the jibb gems. It is such a business that we have had six raids in the last year and two of them weren't even from other tribes - they were space traders. Suddenly everyone was in danger all of the time, from other tribes and spacers, as well as from within the tribe and animals - people became more valuable, and so did cooperation. Before her death, Uthiope was making arrangements to have a temporary alliance with another tribe to protect ourselves against the traders."
"That's impossible. There has never been an alliance between any tribes - never since the planet was first founded. My mother would never have broken custom so."
"She was trying to do just that. You must have had some effect on her, with your peace-talk... is it true that you have given up the life of a warrior?"
"It is."
"How could you do it? You were always one of the best fighters in the entire Clan. In fifty years or less, you might have been chieftain."
"I've seen a different view, and I no longer desire to become chieftain, of this Clan or any other."
Nimra shook her head in disbelief, but didn't comment further. "It really hurt her when you sent word, you know. She followed custom and declared you dead, but she was truly grieving. She even shut herself off for two days."
Melana felt tears coming to her eyes but blinked them away. "How did she die?"
"She was found in here one morning after she failed to answer calls. She was already dead when we found her."
Melana nodded. "May I see the body?"
"Of course, but why?"
Melana held up the small metal devise Kenneth had shoved into her hand at the last second. It was about ten centimeters long, cylindrical, and there were several red buttons sticking out along the side. "I would like to take a reading with this."
"Why?" Nimra's tone was suddenly cautious.
"I do not believe my mother could have been killed by normal means. I wish to prove that she was illegally murdered, and then find the murderer."
Nimra shook her head. "Your mother was good, possibly one of the best, but she wasn't infallible. She probably just let her guard down once. Let it go, and get off this planet."
That reminded Melana of the purpose of their discussion. "So what happened here, exactly?"
"The Imperials came down here, showed a little bit of firepower, and the Trader Board completely capitulated," she made a rude sound. "If they had come to any of the Clans, the response would have been very different. The traders turned over the entire port to the Imperials and accepted the taxes and restrictions that followed. We wouldn't care at all, except that the slave raids are increasing. That's why I have allowed the mikit to grow, in hopes that it would stop some potential slavers before they reach the village. Still we are too close to the port - we may have to move altogether in the next year to survive." She looked very tired - the strain of ruling an endangered people had left its mark. Melana remembered the expression well, she had seen it every day on her mother's face.
"But why did the Imperials come here?"
Nimra shrugged. "There are several rumors circulating. There are two that I believe. One is that they are planning to turn this planet into a slave world, like that of the Wookies. If that is the case, I have to move our people away from here as soon as possible. The other reason is that they were just looking for a planet to work off of, and we just happened to be handy. Also, I think they also want to get a monopoly on the gem trade. Whatever the cause, they show no signs of leaving."
"How did you win the contest?"
Nimra frowned, but answered, "Your mother died at a very bad time. We had just had a raid on the village in which we lost most of the best warriors in our Clan. Many of the remaining warriors were severely injured. Then she died, and the Contest was held. There were only six warriors, including me, that were available to compete."
"Six?" Melana was horrified. At her mother's Contest there had been more than thirty competitors.
Nimra nodded. "So I won, over inexperienced warriors. One of the first things we did was to lead a raid of our own on the port and retrieved eight of our people. The rest had already been sold. Then I started to cultivate the mikit, to protect our borders."
Melana nodded, but she was only half-listening. If there were only six warriors available for the competition, that narrowed the list of people who would have murdered her mother considerably. Unless the poison was slow-acting, in which case the murderer might already be dead. It depended on the poison. "May I see the body now?"
Nimra nodded and pushed aside a curtain separating a room from the rest of the hut. Melana automatically held her breath as she crossed the threshold. Every house had one room devoted to meditation, quiet thought, and when necessary, to mourning. Now several strings of red flowers adorned the walls of the room. In the center of the room was a low table with a body on it. It was a woman, very similar in appearance to Melana except that the woman had a red tint to her hair. She was wearing a red tunic with very little embroidery. A blaster, a knife, and a bow and several arrows lay on the table next to her. Melana didn't remember her mother ever having a blaster - she must have bought it in the last year. If things had changed as much as Nimra said they had, it wasn't surprising that the common rule of traders never to sell firearms to the locals had been broken.
"I had the body preserved when you sent word of your return," Nimra stated. "You have five minutes. When you leave, she will be burned." Then she disappeared back behind the curtain.
Melana stared for a full minute at what was left of her mother. She tried to repeat the Jedi Code, but the words stuck in her throat. As much as she wanted to, she could not say goodbye to her mother with an oath of peace. It would have been disrespectful to her mother's memory - she had been born, lived, and died a warrior. She had loved fighting, even if it was just for survival. "Good hunting," Melana murmured.
She took the sample that Kenneth needed and left without a backwards glance.