The unvoiced suspicions behind Luke’s questions left him feeling ashamed.
“We’ll find them,” he said firmly as the Rift Skyway appeared ahead of them. “When we get back to Mud Sloth, I can access the New Republic Ship Registry’s traffic logs. We should be able to find out where Star Morning has been, and when. We can surely find out where she is now.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Akanah said. Reaching out, she laid her hand across his, as though she were trying to reassure him. “Atzerri. We need to go to Atzerri now.
And I know that it may not, but I pray this ends there.”
Chapter 7
For hours after Mud Sloth lifted from Teyr, Luke sat at the pilot’s station studying the traffic leaving the planet behind them.
The traveler’s aid card helpfully informed him that there was no direct regular service between Teyr and distant Atzerri by any commercial spaceline. So Luke concentrated on the private vessels, monitoring and logging the ID profiles their transponders sent as they passed the inner Flight Control buoys: Star Hummer, RN80-440330, owner]oa Pqis, registry Vobos, Tammuz-an-Rode to Ruin, RN27-382992, owner Fracca, registry Orron III Amanda’s Toy II, RN18-950319, owner Unlimited Horizons Inc., registry Kalla-“What are you looking for?” Akanah finally asked him. “No one bothered us on Teyr. No one saw me in the commonal.”
“I’m just being cautious,” Luke said, keeping his eyes on the code reader. “Just because no one confronted us doesn’t mean no one was aware of us.”
“Aware of us—what does that mean?”
“Whoever those men on Lucazec were working for, they wanted what you know as much as they wanted you. I don’t know what they think they can do with you, but the Fallanassi are the prize.”
“I would never betray the circle. And there is nothing anyone could do to compel me. Not even you.”
“But you’re taking me there,” Luke said. “And if they simply keep touch with us, you’ll take them there, too. All they have to do is follow us, and be patient.
That’s what I’m looking for—someone following. If any of these ships leaving Teyr now show up at—show up later, we’ll have to do something about it.”
“The circle can protect itself.”
“I’m sure the Jedi thought they were safe, too,” said Luke. “But they were wrong.”
“The Jedi faced a terrible enemy, and the betrayal of one of their own,” said Akanah.
“There are enough enemies left,” Luke said. “All the assorted dictators and warlords in the Imperial sectors-including Admiral Daala, who isn’t likely to have found a new hobby. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of inhabited systems in the Borderlands, the Corporate Sector—” “And there is the New Republic.”
Luke turned toward her. “What?”
“The New Republic stands now where the Empire stood—as the single great power in the galaxy,” said Akanah. “They have the most to lose if their power is successfully challenged. And their power is the greatest threat to those who choose to stand apart, who take a different view.”
“You can’t think that the New Republic is hunting the Fallanassi.”
“Why not?” she asked calmly. “It was you who decided those men on Lucazec were Imperial agents. How do you know they weren’t from Coruscant? How do you know they weren’t from your NRI?”
The suggestion was absurd, laughable—but it silenced Luke all the same. He looked back to the con trols, trying to sort out his thoughts. For some reason, he couldn’t now remember why it was he had been so sure the men at Ialtra were Imperial sleepers. And Akanah’s suggestion offered an explanation for something he had no explanation for—the Elomin were so principled that the prospect of one’s working for an Imperial spy network was beyond imagining. But the NRI-Out of Touch, RN40-844033, owner Tok-Foge Pokresh, registry Bothawui-“They would have to have been tipped off by me,” Luke said finally, then shook his head. “But I only spoke to Leia and Han that night. And Leia didn’t even give me a chance to tell her what little I knew. No one knew I was going away, or why.”
Akanah touched his shoulder. “Please don’t think that I suspected you,” she said. “The men at Ialtra were not expecting you—and if the NRI could count on your assistance, they would have no need to shadow us.”
“I don’t know that anyone is shadowing us,” Luke said. “I just want to make sure that no one tries—and if they do try, that they don’t succeed. We can jump out of here at any time if we need to. And before we make our final jump, I’m going to go over this ship from bow to baffles and make sure we didn’t acquire a tracking device while we were parked on Teyr.”