Chapter 10

At first, Rhaga did not know what to do. He drifted away from the landing pad, the echoes of the transport's departure still ringing in his ears. Even shouldering through the crowd, brushing against their sleeves and feelings, he suffered a brief pang of loneliness and abandonment. This was not his environment. It never had been. Eleven years on a world where the biggest town was scarcely bigger than this space port, the rest up a mountain – what did he know of cities?

There was much he needed to learn if he was to do as his teacher had instructed.

As he slipped towards the entrance into the city proper, he narrowed his focus on to the immediate situation. Would he have to pass through some sort of immigration control? There did not seem to be anything up ahead. Instead, the crowd was just flowing out on to the streets. That definitely made things easier.

But what now? Having no money to his name was going to make it hard to live in the kind of place that ran on credits. He would need at least enough to acquire food honestly over a sustained period of time. The thought crossed his mind that this was just the situation that called for a working knowledge of sabaac, but since he had nothing to wager, that idea would not go very far. In the short term at least, survival was going to require gainful employment.

Now he just needed to find someone willing to give him a job.

Salintam welcomed visitors with open arms. Rhaga discovered this quickly as he passed rows of citizen information terminals and holographic guides. Beyond the walls, off-worlders were required to register with the planetary authorities and carry the appropriate documentation. Within, however, they were free to come and go as they pleased, which was easy enough in a metropolis that sprawled for kilometres in all directions, including down and up. Free trade was god in the city: as an important stop-off point before the long, empty stretches of the Col-pahd Reach on top of sitting at the intersection of two major sector-spanning polities, it was a haven for traders and merchants of all kinds.

In theory, this presented numerous openings for potential work. In practice, rather less so.

Rhaga scrutinised himself in the darkened window of an emporium selling objects of ill-defined and possibly painful use. He had to admit, his clothes were a problem. Not inaccurately, they made him look like a herder just come in out of the wild. There was little outward evidence of his training and instinctively he knew that advertising that training vocally would not earn him any favourable interest.

Looking like a farmer was not something he would have automatically assumed counted against him. Several long hours traipsing from store to store had shown categorically that it did. Besides, it was not just his clothes: he was beginning to suspect that his lack of any great height and the general wiriness of his body were not doing him any favours either. Clearly, the traders of Salintam expected a good deal more girth for their credits than he could provide.

Once physicality proved a problem, he fell back on skill. There were dozens of mechanics shops on the space port levels alone and it seemed like he had applied at every single one of them. Most turned him away with scarcely a glance. The few that did appraise him more closely asked, reasonably enough, for proof of his qualifications. Such assurances as he could give them were patently not enough and by the end, he was more or less talking himself out of the job on his own initiative.

On top of all that, he was being followed.

Methodically eliminating possible workplaces had taken him into the upper levels, to streets slung between the ever-rising towers. As he climbed, he had been aware of a constant presence at his heel. He first noticed it after finding no luck at a cantina on the corner of a busy crossroads and it had been flitting around the edge of his conscious thoughts ever since. There was nothing overtly threatening in the sense of whoever it was, yet its very persistence concerned him.

Who would want to follow him? He hardly looked wealthy enough to rob. Besides, pursuing him for hours without making any kind of move seemed beyond the realm of opportunism. But then what?

He tried several times to discern the identity of his tail, without success. Tracking targets through crowds was a great deal more complicated than tracing them through forest and brush. The constant shifting of the environment and the sheer variety of minds brushing up against his were going to take a lot of getting used to.

With a sigh, he drifted away from the store-front and across the walkway to the wall that separated pedestrians from the fifty storey drop down to what was nominally ground level for the city. Speeders whipped past at speeds that were not even nominally safe. Ozone and refuse hung heavy on the breeze, mingling with spiced meat and spacecraft fuel. He breathed it in, centring himself amidst it all. The Force was turbulent with complexity and contradictory emotions. It reminded him of the snowstorm, ever forming and reforming, patterns torn to pieces almost as soon as they were visible.

Or was it simply that he could not yet see the larger patterns?

The whisper that was his pursuer sounded closer. He could almost see the shape they left in the Force now. Going still, he kept his hands resting on the wall, his face pointed out towards the skyline. Let them approach. If this was the point they made their move, he would be ready –

A hand landed on the back of his shoulder. "Hey buddy!"

He spun, a hair's breadth from flipping his assailant over into the chasm. The twi'lek man beamed at him, grin full of slightly pointed teeth.

"You looking for a job, huh?"

Rhaga regarded him steadily, taking in the man's battered labourer's trousers, the sleeveless vest that hung loose and open to show off a slim, muscled torso and slender arms ringed in tattoos, his narrow face and the black bands tied around his head-tails. Instinct told him this was not the kind of person it was wise to trust. But his senses, the background hum of his feelings . . .

"Yes," he said, taking the chance.

The twi'lek's smile somehow widened, crinkling his eyes. "Try Kariz'lal's shop. Third level, Torma District." With his free hand, he produced a small printed card from a vest pocket. "I hear she's got an opening for an assistant and you look just the right sort." He pressed the card into Rhaga's hand, touched the side of his head in a jaunty salute and slipped effortlessly back into the crowd.

Rhaga blinked.