It was much shorter than the report on Star Morning, as befitted a ship that Luke guessed had probably spent most of its life grounded. The little ship was impractical for anything more than the occasional businessman’s vacation or off-the-spacelanes sales call. Most of its value was as a status symbol, something a Have could talk about where the Have-Nots could listen in envy. To judge by the skiff’s lines and detailing, Verpine had very consciously traded comfort underway for a design that looked fast while sitting still.
But Luke’s only interests were the ownership records and the most recent entries in the traffic log.
After Akanah’s behavior on Atzerri, Luke had developed a renewed interest in independent confirmation of the things she had been telling him. He still wanted to believe her, but was no longer sure that he could. And, one way or another, he had to know.
Luke also found he had developed a renewed curiosity about the things Akanah was not telling him. It had occurred to him, for instance, that almost every time
Akanah spoke about her past, she spoke about her life on Carratos, not Lucazec. Knowing how hungry he was for information about his mother, he had expected Akanah to be generous with anecdotes and remembrances about the part of her life she claimed to look back on most fondly.
But such remembrances had been few, and Nashira had figured in even fewer. It made Luke wonder, and wondering led to doubt, and doubt to suspicion—a highly undesirable state of affairs.
So Luke was relieved at first when the initial screen of the report informed him that NR80-109399, a Verpine Adventurer, Model 201, production group E, belonged to: Akanah Norand Pell, being an adult resident of Chofin, a settlement belonging to the autonomous state of Carratos, under the authority of which this registration is granted.
And the recording date for the articles of registration was recent—not quite half a year past.
Turning to the traffic log, Luke found more welcome news. The only planetfalls recorded for Mud Sloth since Akanah had taken ownership were at Golkus and Coruscant, and Golkus was near enough to being on a line from Carratos to Coruscant that a stop there en route needed no explanation. Curiously, though, there was no record of their departure from Coruscant, nor of their stops at Lucazec, Teyr, or Atzerri.
The latter omission Luke could explain by the update cycles—there must not have been time for the routine transmission of data from those flight control centers to Coruscant, or for the addition of that data to the master record. But the former omission was puzzling.
Luke’s cloaking work as they left Coruscant should only have concealed their point of origin from watching eyes and discouraged curiosity about any out-of-trajectory alarms at Flight Control.
But as far as Coruscant was concerned, Mud Sloth had never left. The skiff had never requested clearance to lift to orbit, had never requested clearance through the planetary shield—except they never could have left without it. And shield passage required not only that the skiff answer a transponder interrogation, but also that Ship Registry verify the ID. It was impossible to imagine how their passage had gone unrecorded.
Luke wondered what would happen when the out-world updates arrived and Mud Sloth was suddenly in two places at once.
Then, just for a moment, he toyed with the idea that both places were really the same—that they were still on Coruscant, perhaps even still in his hermitage, and some elaborate deception was under way.
He quickly rejected the idea as too extreme a solution to the mystery.
But it left a worrisome question in its wake: Just what was Akanah capable of? What were the limits of her power?
May I cloak us as we leave? she had asked.
And he had not thought to question it.
What had she done? Something that could hide them completely from the best planetary security the best engineers could devise? He realized he had missed a pattern.
How had she gotten into his hermitage without his knowing it? How had she gotten past the security droid and into the commonal on Teyr? All the questions pointed toward the same answer—some gift of deception, illusion, or concealment that went well beyond what he himself could call upon.
She can pierce my projections, he realized. I wonder if I can pierce hers. I wonder if I can even tell when she’s using one.
Distracted by such thoughts, Luke almost overlooked the other surprise in the report from Coruscant.
It waited for him in the section on ownership history, and fell under his eyes while he was wondering why, if she had such a talent for concealment, Akanah had needed to buy a ship at all.
You could have stowed away on any ship at any time, he was thinking.
You wouldn’t have been trapped on Lucazec. Stang, you could have stolen the price of passage, even the price of the shipm Then he noticed that the sole prior owner of the skiff was a man named Andras Pell, and that the transfer category given was: CLASS III NONTAXABLE—INHERITANCE BY MARRIAGE He rose out of the couch and turned to stare at the closed curtain screening the bunk. Just how did you buy your freedom? he thought at Akanah. And what else are you keeping from me?