[Dark Nest] - 3(26)

“Twool said you wanted to see me.” Jacen glanced toward Ghent and Mara. “But if I’ve come at a bad time-“

“No, we need to talk.” Luke motioned him toward the outer office. “Let’s go out here. I don’t want to disturb Ghent.”

“That’s okay,” Ghent said, surprising Luke by reacting to a remark that wasn’t directed at him. “You’re not disturbing me.”

“I think Luke needs to talk with Jacen privately,” Mara explained.

“Oh.” Ghent continued to work, peering through his magnispecs into R2-D2’s data compartment. “Doesn’t he want to see if the omnigate works?”

“Of course,” Luke said. The omnigate was a sliver of circuitry Ghent had found inside the prototype droid. Supposedly, it was a sort of hardware passkey that would unlock all of R2-D2’s sequestered files. “You mean you’re ready?”

“Almost,” Ghent said. “And you’d better not leave. The omnigate is pretty deteriorated-it might not last long.”

“You’ve figured out a way to unlock Artoo?” Jacen started across the room without seeking permission from Luke. “You can bring up a holo of my grandmother?”

“Sure.” Ghent pulled his micrograbbers out of R2-D2’s data compartment, then flipped up his magnispecs. “Either that or lose Artoo’s entire memory to a security wipe.”

“At least the risks are clear,” Luke said, following Jacen back over to the slicer’s side. This was hardly the reason he had sent for his nephew, but Jacen had almost as much right to see the lost holos as Luke himself. “Which is more likely?”

Ghent shrugged. “Depends on how much you trust the Thul woman. Her story makes sense.”

Luke waited while Ghent’s gaze grew increasingly distant … as it often did when the slicer actually had to discuss something.

After a moment, Luke prompted, “But?”

Ghent’s eyes snapped back into focus, and he restarted the conversation where he had left off. “But if that isn’t the real Intellex Four prototype in there, the omnigate will trigger every security system your droid has. We’ll be lucky if our memories aren’t erased, overwritten, and reformatted.”

“So it depends entirely on whether Aryn Thul is being honest with us?” Mara asked.

“And on whoever sold her the prototype,” Ghent said. “Droid antiquers are always getting crisped by counterfeit prototypes.”

“That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about,” Mara said. “Nobody is going to swindle Aryn Thul. That woman is a business rancor.”

Luke turned to Jacen. “What do you think?”

Jacen finally looked surprised. “Me?”

“You have an interest in this, too,” Luke said. The conversation he wanted to have with his nephew would be difficult enough, so it seemed wise to reassure Jacen that he was still held in high regard. “You should be part of the decision.”

“Thanks … I think.” Jacen furrowed his brow, then said, “Madame Thul certainly has reason to be suspicious of you—even angry. But I don’t see any advantage to her in erasing Artoo’s memory.”

“So you think we should try?” Luke asked. The answer had been exactly what he wasn’t looking for, relying as it did on calculation and logic instead of the insight and empathy that had been Jacen’s special gifts before the war with the Yuuzhan Vong had changed him. “You want to take the chance?”

Jacen nodded. “I don’t see that Madame Thul could gain anything by slipping you a counterfeit omnigate.”

“That’s not what Luke asked,” Mara said, apparently sensing Luke’s disappointment. “He wants to know how you feel about it.”

“How I feel?” Jacen’s eyes lit with comprehension. “That’s a silly question. How do you think I feel?”

Luke smiled. “I’ll take that as a go-ahead.” He turned to Ghent and nodded. “Do it.”

“Okay, nobody even breathe for a second.” Ghent flipped his magnispecs down. “I need to seat the omnigate.”

As Ghent lowered his micrograbbers into R2-D2’s data compartment, Luke’s heart began to beat so hard that he half feared the pounding would break the slicer’s concentration. As much as he wanted to learn his mother’s fate, more depended on the omnigate than filling the gaps in his family history.

During his stay on Woteba, the Dark Nest had insinuated that Mara might be trying to hide her involvement-during her days as the Emperor’s Hand-in the death of Luke’s mother. Of course, Luke had realized even then that the insinuation was unfounded. But the known facts left just enough room to keep doubt alive, and doubt could be a very stubborn enemy … especially when it was bolstered by the Dark Nest.