Lump took her and Zed back to the exact spot where he'd last seen Alik. It was amidst a row of food vendors, open tents with a variety of items for sale: smoky meats, desert fruits, and warm breads, their scents rising into the morning air, filling it with the call to eat. Her stomach turned; how could she eat when her friend had obviously been kidnapped?
Friend? Yes, she supposed he was. And she had to find him.
"He was standing right here?" she asked Lump.
I bought four skewers of roast bantha from that guy, Lump said, gesturing at one of the tents. And he was right there, where you are.
She looked around herself. She could track through sand – she'd done it more times than she could count. But that was in the open desert of Jakku, where tracks could stay untouched for days. The sand beneath their feet here in this little city had been trod by dozens of beings already; there was no way to see what might have transpired half an hour ago. She sighed with frustration.
"Did he say anything? Call out?" She already knew the answer to that question, of course. Lump would have said if he'd heard Alik being taken – indeed, Lump would have intervened if he'd had the chance; for all he complained about Alik's presence in their company, he'd shot that Zabrak without a second thought when he'd threatened him. And Alik had been generous and helpful to their cause, and he was kind to them both, in his own, presumptuous way. Rey shook her head. "Maybe someone else saw something. Did you ask the bantha vendor?"
Lump gave a compliant grunt and turned toward the food tents. Rey scanned the space around this spot where Alik had stood. There was a tan stone building behind her, its tall wall unbroken by windows but supported by thick buttresses facing the street. A small dome capped off the building, and another building identical to it stood beside. There was a narrow alleyway between the buildings, wide enough for a humanoid to pass. On the far side stood a third building with heavy stone stairs leading up into a dark doorway. Above her, the rooves were no more than two stories up, a convenient place for a being to observe the street below. In short, there were dozens of places where Artess' men could have lain in wait.
Rey reached out with the Force, trying to draw some kind of information up from the ground itself. Which was foolish: she knew it didn't work that way. The Force emanated from life, not sand and stone. Only living beings could tell her anything. She examined the pedestrians as they passed by, searching for any hidden knowledge, any attempts to hide. There was nothing. The feeling in her heart contracted as she stopped stretching out to random strangers.
She looked down again. If there were no tracks in the sand to follow, at least there also did not appear to be any blood, human or otherwise. Surely that boded well: whoever had grabbed Alik had done so without drawing blood, giving him a better chance of still being alive right now. She drew in a shaky breath. She needed to be logical here. If one of Artess' men had seen Alik standing alone and taken the chance to grab him, then it was because they still wanted to force Alik to run spice for them while he went on his art-dealing ventures. There was no point in killing him without getting him to agree to that, at least until he'd exhausted their hope and their patience.
But if there was one thing Alik was really good at, it was exhausting other people's patience. "Alik, don't act like yourself right now," she breathed. "Give me a chance to find you first."
"If I may, madam," Zed piped up. Rey had forgotten she was even there, and she jumped a little when the droid spoke to her. Recovering herself, Rey turned to her, Zed's metallic mauve body shining brightly in the sunlight. "Master Alik purchased me because of my knowledge of this region. If you would tell me something about who you suspect of taking him, perhaps I might have some information that could help find him."
In her panic, Rey had not considered Zed's value, but of course Zed could be useful here. Or at least, she could try.
No one saw anything suspicious, Lump said, suddenly behind her. But who knows? They could all be lying.
Rey turned and looked up at him. Her friend had definitely grown taller since she'd known him. His soft brown fur shimmered in the bright sun, his eyes shining down at her. Rey was more grateful than she could say that, in that moment, she was not alone. She had friends, here and even elsewhere, and finding Alik was a task that they could accomplish.
She looked at Zed. "Out of the street. I'll tell you what we know."
~/~/~
Standing in the alleyway out of the sun, Rey gave Zed the bare outline of what she knew about Alik's business – which was, admittedly, not much, but he clearly had a lot of knowledge about the materials he bought and sold, and he'd been able to secure a deal with a Hutt on a planet he didn't know in under a day. He was good at his job. No doubt that the gangsters wanted him using those connections for their own ends.
Rey shifted her bag on her shoulder, the weight of her Jedi texts heavy in the warming day. "The one in charge is called Artess, but I don't think he's even on this planet."
Zed listened in silence, waiting her turn to speak – again, Rey thought about how different she was from the Resistance droids, and she missed little BB8.
"So what do you think?" Rey asked her at last.
It took Zed a moment to respond. "I don't know anyone by that name, madam. But, if you're looking for a den of spice runners, there are several in this gloomy excuse for a spaceport."
Rey sighed. That bit of information was of dubious value; had she just wasted precious minutes telling the story to a droid?
"There are the Blue Lyleks who work mostly in the marketplace, and an Ugnaught who runs out of a cantina downtown. Some of them operate out of a building west of town," Zed continued, "Run by someone called Sargon."
Sargon.
Lump roared, triumph in his voice.
"Take us there, Zed," Rey said, a smile spreading on her face. They were going to find Alik after all.
Zed turned sharply on her heel and began walking away. Rey nodded up at Lump and urged him to follow. She ran her hand over her hip, checking on her gold lightsaber that hung there beside her borrowed blaster. She lifted the hood of her poncho over hair and smoothed the body of it over the weapons, readjusted her bag on her shoulder, and followed them into the street.
~/~/~
The spaceport's streets were filling as the twin suns rose into the sky, first one and then the other, pouring heat onto the arid ground. While she couldn't say it was her favorite sensation, it was at least familiar, and she felt comfortable moving freely under it. Zed made not one word of complaint – she tsked with concern over her missing master, but said nothing about the heat. Lump, however, was wearing a fur coat and seemed to feel it very much. There was nothing Rey could do to relieve his discomfort except try to think about what reward she could offer him when they returned with Alik. Perhaps he'd be so grateful for his rescue that he'd offer to buy Lump the services of a groomer of some sort.
Rey realized after not too long that they were slowing down. Lump fell behind to be the last in their little caravan; in short time, as they passed out of what could be loosely called civilization and into the open desert, he was looking warily all around himself, looking for tentacled beasts dwelling beneath the sand. She lost track of exactly how long they had walked, but she was very aware that there hadn't been a building for quite some time. It was just occurring to her that perhaps she should be more wary of the droid leading them, when a crumbling sandstone edifice appeared before them.
"Here we are, madam," Zed said, very pleased with herself. "The spice runner Sargon and his men use this as their primary hiding place, if the rumors are to be believed."
Rumors? Lump echoed, aghast. They had come all the way out here under the hot suns on the basis of rumors?
Rey gazed at the building. It was not unlike some of the building back in the spaceport, solid with a hint of a dome on top. Thick walls to keep the nighttime cool in and high ceilings to allow any heat to rise up and away from the inhabitants. While the buildings in town were mostly well-maintained, being inhabited dwellings, this one looked like it hadn't been looked after in some time. It needed repairs to its corners, which were worn down by years of blasting, sandy wind; sand crept up the wall facing that wind as no one had come by to sweep it down. In a few more years, it would be as completely reclaimed by the desert as the ruins she could just see around it.
"I can assure you, sir," Zed continued, and Rey was amused to hear her address Lump as "sir," "You will not find a more wretched hive."
"Well," Rey said, with finality. "I'll have to go see if that's where he is."
I'm going with you, Lump said. He drew his bowcaster.
"No, you're not," Rey replied, laying a hand on his weapon and pointing it down, harmlessly, at the sand. "I have no idea what's waiting for us in there and I can't put you at risk too."
I'm here to protect you, Lump protested. My mother's life debt –
"Does not oblige you to die for me. We agreed that you'd take me to the Skywalker farm and you will. Besides," she said, "I have the Force. I'll be fine."
Which was a little bit absurd, and she knew it even as she said it. No degree of power in the Force could exempt one from death. She knew that as bitingly as anyone ever had. Lump opened his mouth to argue further; she couldn't bear it. No more losses. No more.
"You will go back to the Falcon," she said, employing the mind trick. Lump's expression changed minutely: it was working. "You will go back to the Falcon with my things and keep them safe. We will meet you back here when you return."
I'm going to go get the Falcon and bring it over here, Lump said. Rey felt physically ill; what she was doing was wrong. Luke would have given her a growl; Leia would have given her a lecture; Ben would have – well, Ben would probably approve. But they weren't here, and she had to protect him. She could think of no other way to do that than to simply get him out.
"Take my things," she reminded him, handing over the canvas bag that contained the clothes Malla had made her, the texts, and the lightsabers. "Keep them safe."
I'll meet you back here, Lump said, and he turned and headed back toward the spaceport.
"Follow the same path we took getting here," she called after him. "Be careful for sand beasts."
"Oh my," Zed said, with a familiar intonation that only made Rey's heart sink further. "That was very abrupt."