Later Again.
This is getting silly, I think I'll drop this.
Entry number 35
Lorna Kees is dead. Presumed dead. Dropped into the Sarlacc. Eaten.
I do not really believe it. 'Presumed' is a very extendable term, I know better then to trust it. Kees has done a pretty good job being me and between my armour and her wits, I don't put it beyond her to have gotten out. Not unhurt, it is a Sarlacc after all, and probably with some help. I don't know, maybe she even needs some time to recover now. The timing is good, if not what I had intended.
Time for me to act.
Time to play the brazen impostor, the guy who believes it safe to impersonate a dead man.
The irony of it.
But I have not time to think about that now.
When will the right time be?
Probably never.
I could go and have a look.
But that would be folly. The moment Jabba's death got known on Tatooine, his palace will have been ransacked. And since there was nobody around to assume his power, the chaos will have been substantial. Good luck I did not have any deposits there. Hutts are just not trustworthy. There will be little left by now. Nothing, more likely. Whatever the remainders of his household could not carry off, mercenaries and treasure hunters will have collected. Jabba was too well-known not to have his treasures abstracted the moment he was dead.
And for the leftovers of the sail barge in the Dune Sea, the Jawas have already made short work of anything left. If it was metal or electronics, they have picked it up. So even if there had been evidence of Kees in the vicinity, the armour was gone long time by now. My armour, gone. I wonder how well it did protect her from the digestive fluids of the Sarlacc. Maybe I will have to keep her alive for a while to get some answers.
Alive.
It's funny how we are both dead right now without actually being dead at all. In the past I had staged my death a few times. It can be easier to achieve something if you are presumed dead. But then, nobody else took my life while I played dead. Nobody dared. The other bounty hunters feared me too much to try such a con. But Lorna Kees had no idea who I am. It took a complete stranger to impersonate me. Would she have done so, if she had known? Another breath of live gained by another answer I'd like.
I didn't have questions before.
There was nothing I wanted to know except the price on the head and the difference between dead and alive. Nothing else mattered. The clear-cut simplicity of it is beautiful. Alluring and tempting, an easy way to go, no matter how difficult the tasks. I never wondered about the 'why' of it. The only answer I was after was the transferring of credits to my account. The monetary 'well done' as impersonal as the rest of the business.
But now, I want to know. I really want to know.
Genuine interest is - no not new, but something I had but forgotten. It started with Sinar. I still have to find a way to help Sinar. Still, it is not like an infection festering on my personality, encompassing all I get to meet. I am as distanced as ever. I have not changed.
But what if I fool myself? What if I am obsessed? Never before has a single person arisen that much interest in me before, and we have not even met. Maybe that is it. The mystery dissolves when seen face to face. That is what the helmet is for. So I can be sure that detachment will return after I settled the score.
And what then?
Then I will be myself again. My old self, my true self.
Now who is trying to fool himself?
No, I will be myself again. My father's son, with my father's ship.
And your father's legacy?
Ner buir, ner cuyir.
But I am no Mando'a.