Maul did indeed stop to do the preflight check in a more remote part of Orsis. This landscape was more like what he remembered, scraggly and rocky, one step up from a desert. Even here, though, mining machines could be seen on the horizon.
For most of the trip, Maul researched Glee Anselm. It wasn't difficult to find a database of hundreds of Motoko families, although since Maul had no idea what region Kilindi had come from or what her parents' names were, the list was only slightly more useful than a map of the entire planet.
The other thing that the research told him was that life on Glee Anselm was easier for an aquatic being than one that thrived only on land. Glee Anselm probably wouldn't look like it had a glut of water for a species like Mon Calamarians or Kaminoans, but it had enough that most of the dwellings were, he read, built half in and half out of either the saltwater sea or freshwater rivers and canals. There had to be enough dry land for emissaries of the Republic to walk on, though, and the holonet informed him that he shouldn't have trouble finding someone who spoke Basic.
There was a bit of a cultural divide on Glee Anselm, and one which, after getting sidetracked on Bandomeer, Maul did not want to accidentally disrupt. The Anselmi species had been basically forgotten by the Republic Senate after the Nautolan species had driven them to live, in ever-decreasing tribal numbers, in the remotest seas.
Then there was the problem of finding the Motoko family. It was important that he get to them, specifically. They had, for whatever reason, sent their daughter to a training camp for mercenaries. Some of the children Maul had fought beside had been orphans who had fallen into the underworld and found an affinity for it, while others were from underworld families, and had the full support of their parents and often their entire social network in their movement toward making hired assassin their career choice. Others had been runaways, who chose the life of an assassin because of the dark prestige. Just like any of the other groups, some of these succeeded and others did not. They must have been good at finding people in order to even know that the Orsis Academy existed.
Near the end of the trip, Maul blinked and pushed at the seat of Kasen's ship. He had kept the place clean, ignored the statue of the goddess, and realized that he would need to pick up fuel on Glee Anselm if not closer in order to get anywhere else.
Focus, he thought.
Thinking too hard about Kilindi's family and what he would do when he got there made his brain fuzz, made his thoughts track toward her like trains on fixed rails. Wheels turning, arms pumping, stretching out across the world. He had not been greatly attached to her when he had killed her - now, it was almost like she was a ghost.
Focus.
He was seeking solace, or something, from the people whose daughter he had murdered.
This would not be easy.
And he would likely get sidetracked from solace. The mean worming discontent that he had felt since Sidious abandoned him was tied up in all of these desires for focus. Maul needed to cast those things aside. He could use his single-mindedness as an ally as well as a curse.
He had never even had to think about that before.
For a while he distracted himself with the maintenance of the ship. Cleaning, minor repairs, and simply knowing what was what in this strange craft occupied him for most of the long journey. In between, he trained, shoving things to the side in the living room so that he could do katas and stretches. He powerfully wished for a lightsaber in his hand but had no idea where he would get one unless he came upon a Jedi he could easily pick off. There were surely one or two Jedi envoys or Watchmen on Glee Anselm.
He shook his head. He shouldn't want them to find him...or at least not as badly as he did.
The trip left him shaken and antsy. He had settled on going to the city with the highest number of Motokos. For whatever regional reason, and to Maul's great satisfaction, it was not a particularly large settlement. It stretched along one of the many coasts, a city on paper but really spread out into multiple districts or villages set on different patches of dry ground. The spaceport was open to visitors, only requiring a decontamination process against various alien diseases which, the travel guide said, should take only a few minutes.
Maul only learned the ship's name then, when he read it off of the identification screen when he had to descend to the spaceport. The name was Jeklo Coli. Maul had no idea what that meant.
When he arrived on Glee Anselm the moisture was so thick in the air that it ran down the walls. There were glistening puddles on the floor presenting reflections of the black metal ceiling overhead. Nautolan workers moved back and forth around the walls of the spaceport, carefully staying beyond the painted red and yellow lines to avoid the wash from the engine. Their long, green tentacles lay loose around their backs and over their shoulders.
Maul went through processing quickly. The techs were more worried about identifying bacteria than about identifying individuals. Decontamination was a swift process, although both signs and attendants told him that a change of clothes was recommended (body and clothes went through separate sprayers), and Maul did not have this option available. Providing for clothing was beginning to be a priority. Or, he could wash his in the sea.
As soon as he stepped outside the spaceport Maul was faced with a more rustic scene than the modern interior had led him to believe. Speeder taxis were queued up outside the spaceport, although this seemed to be a quiet period. There were only three businessmen, all Nautolan, waving down cars. The fashion on this planet seemed not unusual by Coruscant standards: the men clearly wore suits, although of a more flowing cut that crossed at the necks like Maul's own robes. One family of a species Maul didn't recognize - humanoid but with three large eyes - were packing suitcases into the trunk of another large speeder driven by one of their kind. The air smelled salty.
A sign had been written in flimsi, laminated, and nailed to a board just outside the spaceport. It showed directions to the nearest hotels and restaurants, of which there were few. This was not a tourist town. Maul looked to either side, wondering where to go. The road turned into dirt one hundred meters from the spaceport on either side.
He had memorized a few addresses of Motokos in the ship, and had an idea of the layout of the town, but had no commlink or personal computer to help him if he got very lost. The Force could probably guide him back to the spaceport, which had the largest concentration of people.
He headed toward a suburb called the Glen, which he had seen on the map. It was further inland than most of the rest of the city, set on an island in a swamp which was accessible by a high drawbridge.
Almost as soon as he got out of sight of the spaceport he saw that the town was quaint. The buildings were odd mixtures of stilted above-ground dwellings and pools, encircled by seaweed or rocks, which presumably housed even more underwater rooms. There was a town hall next to a general store next to a more modern-looking mall that displayed both fashionable clothing and diving suits in the windows.
His inability to swim in the water without the weight of his legs dragging him down would be a liability here.
He passed the mall and walked on to a landscape made almost entirely of bridges and sculpted ground. He was clearly getting further into the swamp, although the natives had done their best to separate squishy ground into sea-parts and land-parts. Small dams and locks dotted the flat land, with artfully decorated railings scattered throughout on the higher ground.
There were very few trees. One suburb seemed to have a cluster of them, and Maul thought that it was a safe bet to assume that that was the Glen. He could certainly be wrong - it could have been named hundreds of years ago, at a time when the area looked differently. But it was a start.
There seemed to be no laws at all about where or where not someone could jump into the water: Maul saw two Nautolans walking along the thin, dirt path ahead of him and one swimming with a child. He could only see the tops of their green heads as they moved quickly through the water. They could have been animals, migrating inland. The sun was hot, though, and Maul imagined that the cool water must be a welcome relief. It was about as warm here as it had been on Orsis, much hotter than Bandomeer, and humid but not muggy.
He crossed one bridge just out of curiosity, and saw a cluster of low houses beyond it. These weren't raised up on stilts. Instead, he saw gray buoys arranged around them. Were the houses floating? Perhaps they were tethered underneath. The ocean, more gray than blue here in the deeper water, made rippling waves around them.
Just beyond the bridge, a girl was fishing. She wore a loose red tunic and yellow pants, and her head-tails were decorated with wide bands in the same colors. She looked to be in her mid-teens, and was skinny to a degree that Maul almost thought might be unhealthy: her ankles and bare feet were tiny, with all of the bones outlined under her green skin. The cast of that skin looked healthy, though, and she reeled in the fishing line with practiced confidence. She had a metal cooler next to her, presumably holding the day's catch, and an overcoat lay rumpled on the neatly cut grass beside her.
The line she reeled in, though, held nothing. Maul couldn't see her expression as she examined the fibers, then tossed it back in again. In the Force, she did not feel particularly perturbed or disappointed.
She glanced up almost as soon as she saw him watching her, and although he could have loitered meters away pretending to look at something else, he approached instead. It was no use dawdling, figuring out what passed as polite on this planet.
The rod stayed in the water, bobbing slightly. Instead of taking her hands off it to look at him she simply switched them and turned slightly to look over her shoulder.
He couldn't threaten to push her into the water. It would have to be the Force or the blaster then.
As soon as she opened her mouth to speak he said, "I am looking for the Motoko family."
"I don't know anyone by that name," she said. She was soft-spoken. Regardless of how her species aged, that voice would make her sound young.
"I also need work, during my search."
She looked around. "Do you live here?"
"No. I just arrived."
She paused. "Are you a murderer?"
There was no correct way to answer that question. He tried to find one anyway. "I do not think so."
She smiled tightly, tentatively. He wondered if she knew where the nearest security station was. "What's your name?" She said.
"Maul."
This did not elicit a reaction any more than his appearance had. Perhaps she didn't know enough Basic. Whatever it was, Maul was finding that humans were just about the only species that found his appearance inherently frightening. Not every species told stories about devils with horns and red skin, and not all of them knew what "Maul" meant. There was a certain elitism in even naming oneself using a Basic word, since humans tended to think that since they were one of the fastest-breeding species in the galaxy they were right by virtue of majority, but that lent itself well to the Sith, who knew themselves to be right by virtue of minority.
"And you're traveling?"
"Yes. Looking for the family of my friend."
"Did you lose her?"
Which way? He wondered. There were many ways to lose people. He couldn't tell which one she meant, not by her inflection and not by her age. If she thought like a child, the question would be innocent. If she thought like a teenager, the question would be derisive. If she thought like an adult, the question would be pitying.
"Yes," he said, not sadly, to get the measure of her.
A few of her headtails flipped, the tips jumping up. He wasn't sure what that meant, but a moment later she seemed to have reached her decision on whether or not he was a murderer. "My grandmother is looking for help," she said. "Can you fish?"
Maul couldn't help but smile at the fact that she trusted him. How foolish she was, to believe this half-lie he had told. He had killed Motoko, and not looked back. The girl would be shocked, at the least, to know that. Instead, as he kept it from her it became a glowing spark inside his throat, a laughing secret that he lorded over her. To her, the emotion in his eyes would look like glee.
But now that she had started to trust him, he would have to deal with that as much as he would have had to deal with mistrust otherwise. Trust, someone knowing your name, was just another kind of burden sometimes. Kasen's persistence, while Maul was thankful for certain results of it, had proven that.
Could he fish. Maul hesitated. He was good at killing most things - should fish be an exception?
"Yes." He said. "Although I may have to be taught the traditions of your world."
She looked askance at him. "Fishing's fishing," she said with some surprise. Her tendrils all slid over her shoulder and disappeared behind her back, fast, like a brightly-colored anemone withdrawing into a hole in the ground. "Unless there's less gravity or something. Then maybe you have to look up."
"Take me to your grandmother."
"It's right over there." The girl pointed. "If you murder me, she'll see you. I just want you to know that."
Maul nodded. He needed to stay under cover for this mission. Although it was likely that the Motokos had no idea he was coming or even that he existed, he did not think that drawing a lot of attention to himself was the right way to go.
It had not ended very well last time.
She took her time reeling in her line, carefully stowing it away separate from the rod, in a wooden box. She affixed both to her person in order to carry them: the box went into a clip on her belt that Maul would have guessed had been specially sized for it, and the rod she slung over her shoulder.
The first time she turned her back on him she kept looking over her shoulder, her head-tails separating to allow her to look between them, looking more like a starfish's legs and less like human hair.
Then she walked briskly, though, leading him toward the village. Her grandmother's house was close. If she had screamed, the grandmother would most likely have heard it. Maul glanced at the bridge into the Grove proper, but the girl did not lead him that way.
The grandmother's home's connection to the water was not immediately apparent. The home looked like a very squat hut, much more enclosed than the other houses in the neighborhood. It looked less flood-resistant, less natural than the others. Maybe it was older, or newer, but it looked almost human.
The girl didn't knock in order to get in. She just pressed open the door.
Inside was a clutter of artwork. The mediums were varied: metal, paper, stone, but the style was consistent: natural, abstract forms, often climbing high or spiking upward, art impaled on metal rods. There were no faces, no recognizable forms or function. It was art for art's sake, and it would all likely be lost in the next flood.
The floor plan was open. Maul did see the home's connection to the water soon after he walked in; behind a table piled with sculptures there was simply a square hole in the ground, like a trap door without the hatch. The water beneath was deep and dark. Maul did not think that the girl's grandmother had tunneled straight down into the ground and found this: the whole town would be sinking if that were the case, and it looked as stable and dry as a town in an archipelago could be. The passage through the water must have been carved. Adding to that impression were the almost perfectly square walls that looked like they had been cut by a machine, or at least with intelligent intent. The passage went down maybe eight feet, deep enough for any natural size of Zabrak to completely submerge but not wide enough for them to turn around. If someone dived in head-first, they would need to go head-first. If they dived in feet-first they would need to go on feet-first, until they got to a bend in the passage. The water got darker there, but was colored in deep greens and blues and purple, perhaps reflections of the colors of algae covering the passage with a fuzzy carpet.
He looked up when the old woman shuffled something on her desk and looked up. Moving away from the pit, he saw that she was almost hidden behind a workbench piled with...something.
The old woman was surrounded by transparent sculptures - small globes, mostly, some hanging from wire frames and some strung like bracelets or necklaces. At her work bench she was creating a new one, holding one of the transparent, reflective balls (it looked exactly like a bubble) with one hand and a small black device with a pincer at the end in the other hand. There was a pile of the pincer things at her right hand. Her skin was a darker green than the girl's, with large dark pine splotches covering her forehead and extending onto her head tails. The skin there was not as deeply wrinkled as on her face, but showed the same crowfoot signs of age.
"This being is looking for work," said the girl, using the multi-species term 'being' since it was politer than 'man.' "He said he can fish. I know you were looking for someone to take advantage of the larger schools..."
Maul realized then that the girl might be hiring him to do her job. Time would tell him whether she wasn't very good at fishing or whether she had something else she would rather do. He certainly hadn't seen her catch anything so far.
Except for him.
"Where are you from?" The older Nautolan asked. Her voice was cracked but strong, and slightly accented.
"Bandomeer," he said without thinking much about it. He set that idea firmly in his mind. He would probably have to corroborate that lie with other people.
"And what is it you wear?" She looked at him intently, and Maul had to touch his own collar to remember that he was still wearing the necklace that Mother Talzin had given him in order to help him find Savage.
"It was given to me."
"On your home planet?"
He paused. "No."
She stood up, revealing a brownish-green tunic and pants under a thin, faded black shawl edged with equally faded green and gold tassels. "It's very pretty. What is it made of?"
He did not hold the talisman out, although she seemed to want to touch it. "I do not know."
She smiled. "Well, maybe we can find out. I have work," she said. "If you fish for me, I will pay you. Young Athon-Emen will teach you." Maul could tell that the girl had gotten her inflection from her grandmother, although the girl's accent was the widely used one that Maul had grown up hearing most often among the commoners who lived around the Galactic Senate. Maul himself tended toward an upper-class accent, but Sidious, in his role as Chancellor Palpatine, had decided on something between the two, something that would make most people he spoke to think that he might have come from their home planet, their home town.
The Nautolan girl and her grandmother spoke with the natural version of this faked kinship, in the same, slow way.
"Athonemen," Maul repeated.
"Athon-Emen." The girl pronounced her own name slowly, leaning forward. For the first time, she seemed comfortable with getting closer to him. Some barrier had broken. He had, presumably, shifted out of the murderer category into the more convivial stranger.
Her grandmother resumed her calm speech as if nothing had interrupted it, although perhaps a bit more assertively. "However, as you can see I have no room to house anyone in this cottage. I am sorry. There is a hostel near the airport if you want cheap accommodations. Even tell Ravel at the front desk that I sent you: it might be worth your time."
Maul nodded.
"When does he start?" Athon-Emen asked excitedly. Maul mentally put one check mark in the 'she has something to do besides fishing' category.
"Tomorrow morning. Come to this house when you're ready. I would like if it was before noon, but there is no rush at first."
"At first?"
"Yes."
He liked her seriousness, the way she laid down the rules without explicitly stating them.
Maul nodded. Now that the formalities were done, he focused on his mission again. "I am looking for a family named Motoko. Do you know of them?"
"Hmm." The grandmother thought about it. "Visal Motoko was on the town council until very recently. I think he lived in the Glen. He was a stormsurfer."
Maul tipped his head.
"He would go out in the hurricanes. Half of the council thought he would be killed. Or thought he was too old for it." She laughed quietly. Maul had a feeling that she respected what he did.
"Do you know anything else about him?"
"That's it. You could attend a council. Even if he's not there they might know."
"Thank you."
"I'll see you tomorrow." She looked at his talisman again, but did not ask any more about it.
When he went outside, Athon-Emen did not follow him, and he did not look back to see whether her grandmother, whose name he still did not know, had sat down. He had no intention of going to a hostel: he would sleep in the ship. That way he wouldn't have to pay for both birthing for the ship and a room for himself. He had Kasen's food stores too, enough to last him at least a week.
He walked back to the spaceport, smelling the sea and the sky. There were more people out now, although not much time had passed while he was in Athon-Emen's grandmother's house. The whiff of spring and the smell of wet dirt churned up under someone's feet were both relaxing and strange. The season was stirring, and Maul had jumped around to so many planets in the last year that his body didn't even know what to do with that fact any more.
Having a job and a cover story didn't help him find the Motokos, however.
Inside the ship he ate a ration bar and a previously frozen piece of fruit and headed back out to the Glen. He held on to the Dathomirian talisman for a moment, pulling it against his neck until it chafed. Savage had given this to him. Supposedly, it contained a blot of Maul's own blood, collected when he was training on Orsis. Maul had taken it from Savage when they had been traveling together. His brother had left it on a table, and, when Maul picked it up, not protested.
"I don't need it any more," Savage said.
This was before the Mandalorians but after Maul had kicked Savage into submission, a submission which ultimately revealed some sort of brotherly bond between them despite their very recent reunion and Maul's complete lack of memories of his family. The Dathomirian's (for Maul thought of Savage as Dathomirian but himself as a Zabrak) forgetfulness was not a sign of a grudge or a ploy: it simply happened. Savage was pushed along by life instead of making choices, but Maul respected things about that and knew in a way that it was no different from the way his own life under Sidious had gone. Savage had simply been born or re-born into less stable circumstances. If Maul could have given Savage to a Sith Master that Maul knew would not abandon Savage or use him as a pawn, Maul would have done that.
Savage had dropped the talisman onto the table, hard. It had made a thumping sound. Maul picked it up more gently, since precision was his way and brutality was Savage's.
Maul wondered whether there was still some sort of power in the thing. He didn't like the idea that it was magic - there was no such thing as magic. The talisman did not work off of any of the capabilities of the Force, though, not if Sidious had come at all close to teaching Maul the extent of the Force's abilities.
Even if midi-chlorians in the blood could 'sense' midi-chlorians in the source of the blood, why would they glow this way? It was irrelevant to Maul whether the Force had some sort of larger consciousness or not. He used it so much, practically constantly, and thought that if it had wanted to tell him something in a way that a sentient being would, it would have done so already. A consciousness that did not communicate was no more useful than a non-sentient Force of nature - which could be very useful indeed. There was no use thinking about its will, though.
At this point, Force philosophy got touchy, since 'the will of the Force' was a phrase often bandied about. The Sith had an easy solution to this, however. The Sith would do what they wished regardless, and the will of the Force, which was as indicated in the very word to create people with great power, was that one person gain the most power possible. Which person this was did not matter so much as how much power they had.
This was part of Sidious' philosophy regarding the rumored Chosen One. No matter what form the Chosen One took, the person who controlled him, her, or it would still be more powerful. This idea had lead Darth Bane to seek the Sith'Ari and it had lead Darth Sidious to seek the Chosen One. History would reveal which was more powerful, although it hardly mattered. Darth Bane was dead. In that regard, Sidious had won.
Darth Maul sometimes enjoyed his status as tool of a greater power and sometimes resented it. These opinions varied depending on the day, the situation, and the amount of desperation he was feeling.
"Leave it," he said to Savage as Maul looked at the talisman.
"If you wish."
"I do," said Maul, and almost hissed.
His brother backed away.
Maul had kept the talisman out of a sense of protectiveness: not over his brother, and not even over his own blood, but over the Force. He would place what he ddi not understand next to his heart until he understood it. Whether that placement was a strangulation or an embrace did not matter.
Maul headed for the Grove. Athon-Emen was no longer in her fishing spot: Maul glanced at it as he passed. Her grandmother's door was closed. Beyond that the houses were bigger, with more elaborate porches. He could tell that even these were braced against hurricane winds. Some of them had pendulums on the bottom, as if the whole thing was designed to balance itself. A clockwork living space.
As soon as he crossed the gently curved wooden bridge into the area designated as the Grove, he saw that the houses were closer together here. It looked like an area that was not well travelled by spacers, but still provided enough amenities to its residents to be a sort of community all on its own: there was a shop in the center containing both a grocery store and a library. Slaughtered fish, silver and blue, had been arrayed in long rows in wooden boxes. There was an almost overwhelming smell of fish and salt. No one seemed to be walking around the thin paths between houses. The driveways looked too thin to contain speeders, although he didn't see any animal conveyance either. There were a few Nautolans in the shop.
Multiple homes had long surf boards sitting in the front yards, on the sides, or bobbing in the water behind them. (Every house in this puzzle-piece of a development backed into the swampy sea.) He chose the largest one as the one most likely to belong to the councilman Motoko. It looked grand enough to both keep up appearances and house children.
After choosing the home that he thought was most likely that belonging to his target, he went back to his stolen ship and pulled up HoloNet records for that address. Indeed, it was listed as belonging to his target.
He went out again that night.
There was no fence around the yard. Maul had gotten the impression that there weren't many fences in Nautolan towns, or at least not in this region: they would just tip over in the swampy ground, and Nautolans were not as touchy about their personal space as many humans were. Nevertheless, there was a private Coruscant courtyard feel to the grassy lawn outside the Motoko house. The carpet of grass was pine-green in the darkness. Glee Anselm's moons had not yet risen. Later in the day, there would be a soft green glow on the horizon from the reflected satellites and the algae thriving in the sea.
There was no fence to jump.
The Motokos had a ladder up to the on-land portion of their house. The underwater portion was accessed by a wooden porch, wider and more like a connecting corridor than the one on most of the other houses he had seen. That pathway would be open to the elements during storm except for the canvas sheets Maul could see folded at intervals along the open walkway. Maul imagined that they would be unfurled to create a sort of tunnel of canvas during mild rain storms, and shut again on sunny days or on storms so severe that they might blow the canvas away.
Maul arrived at the house from nearer the water and jumped up the ladder, clinging like a spider at the fourth rung before scurrying up further. He had picked the right night. There was a sense of tension in the room above. He heard people moving around, cutlery clacking with a dull sound like wood instead of a sharp sound like metal.
He heard snatches of conversation, in both a male and female voice.
"I don't think that will be necessary."
"We could donate to your cause. A cause of your choice, that is. There are various charities..."
"Hurricane Salav survival rates..."
And then a second male voice, this one deeper. It sounded older, like the man had worn out his throat with death sticks, or simply with age. "We will bring this up at the next meeting of the family. You planned to host it, correct?"
"Yes," said the woman hesitantly. But not here. There is a cantina in town that we thought might be good."
"Red Curtain."
One good thing about Nautolans was that you could hear their head gestures. The woman's head tails shushed and scratched against her clothing as she nodded or shook her head, bur a moment later Maul got his confirmation on which one it was. "That's the place."
Maul gripped the ladder, hanging close to it so that no one could see him from the road. He had done a similar thing when he had been listening in on InterGalactic Ore miners many years ago, the first time he had run into that ill-fated company. This time, he hoped, his stealth efforts would go more successfully. He had, after all, learned something from his mistake. And he needed not to show his face here if he was going to stay with Amon-Emen and her grandmother and become a recognized, benevolent part of the community.
He was going to have to buy a cloak with a cowl.
And then visit the Red Curtain.
But when?
The gravely-voiced man, who Maul assumed but was not positive was a Nautolan as well, wanted to know the same thing. "I know Rakosh does his work there. He is usually in late..."
"We were thinking at 20 hours," the younger man said. "Good time for a drink, not too late."
The older man nodded. He seemed displeased with the other man's increasingly casual tone, though, and adopted an angrier one. "Fine. Have a good evening, friends. I'll see you at Rakosh's." Slowly, and with what Maul imagined was a grumpy grandeur, he moved toward the door. Maul could hear the floor creak.
The Zabrak released the rung of the ladder. He fell fast, cushioning his drop with the Force only slightly in an almost instinctual reliance on it. He used the Force as easily as he used any of his senses.
He eased around the side of the house, his boots sinking into the damp grass.
The older Nautolan came out armed. He was dressed in a long, piratical coat, but Maul could immediately tell that he was holding something that was probably a weapon: a long stick. At first Maul could not even tell, in the dimness, whether it was the long barrel of a gun or a sword, but then from the way the man held it and presented himself to the night Maul realized that it was a cudgel or shock stick, maybe even something that could be disguised as a walking cane. The Force also told Maul that the Nautolan was not anticipating an attack. He was using the weapon both just in case there was anyone waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder and as a flamboyance. The Nautolan liked to appear ready, liked to swing the stick at people just to see them jump. Anything that was sinister about him could also be interpreted as jovial.
Maul watched him go, never revealing himself. The Nautolan looked around, but never past the corner of the house, and he was clearly unable to feel the Force. Maul did not think that he would pose much of a threat, now or in the future. He memorized the bulky shape of the old man's shoulders, though. Unable to see much of the man's head shape or face, Maul would rely mostly on the Force to recognize his presence, which was also weary, skeptical, sinister, and jovial.
Then, through a gap in a green curtain in the house above him, Maul got his first look at Kilindi Motoko's parents.
He barely remembered the shape of the young assassin's face, but thought he saw it reflected in the mother's long face and thin lips. She had big eyes - but then, all Nautolans did - and a small chin, making her face almost perfectly, bizarrely triangular. The father had a missing head tail, and did not make an effort to hide it. In fact it was one of the head tails that hung just in front of his left shoulder, and was one of the first things Maul noticed about the man, even from a distance.
They were talking, making subtle gestures with their hands and head tails, and were not angry about the conversation in which they had just participated. Their attitude was businesslike. They had clearly not taken anything personally. Maul watched them for a moment, but knew that his position was precarious, and departed.
On the way back, he thought about what he had learned. The two were part of something - something that the older Nautolan was also part of, which necessitated late-night meetings with friendly bartenders. There was also charity work involved, but the whole conversation had had an aura of clandestine nastiness about it that made Maul think that there was more politicking than good will going on here. The charity had been discussed like a business venture, which perhaps it was. He had a bad feeling about it, though.
Which could be very useful. If the older man was bribing the councilman Motoko in order to get something done for him, Maul would file that information away and see if he could use it.
(For what? He thought, back in his brain where he didn't want to think about it too hard. What mission was he on, right now? To find out about the family, yes, but - he was purposefully making it hard on himself, making it run like one of Sidious' missions. Almost exactly like one of them, in fact, if he considered both InterGalactic Ore, the skulking on ladders, and the political corruption.
What was he here for?
He had to tell the Motokos that he knew their daughter at one point. Athon-Emen would notice if he kept passing them by without addressing the thing that he had told Athon-Emen he had come to this planet to do.
But he wasn't ready to just walk up to their front door. That would be too easy.
As it happened, the next day, something different but almost as easy presented itself.
The Motoko patriarch interrupted Maul's first fishing lesson.