Citywide waste delivery system now malfunctioning, the screen advised.
Bog’s face went bright red. “You’re supposed to be fixing the system, not making it worse!”
Ferus shrugged. Bog stamped out. Ferus turned away from the coding chaos on his screen. He had the names in his head. Now all he had to do was cross-check them. But he couldn’t do it here.
He jumped out of his seat and headed for the door, waving his hand over the sensor as he moved so that he jumped through the hissing doors as they opened, surprising a stormtrooper just outside.
The stormtrooper snapped to attention. “I will contact Bog Divinian for you, sir. He just left. I can ”
“No need,” Ferus said. “I’ll be back.”
He left the huge Sath Managing Complex and swung onto one of the main boulevards. Although Sath was a teeming city, he was now familiar with its layout. The main landing platform was less than a quarter kilometer away. He could sense a seeker droid behind him, no doubt tracking him, but he didn’t care. There would be a time when he would ditch his surveillance, but it hadn’t come yet.
He jumped onto the turbolift and hit the sensor for the landing platform. He strode out and found the same Sathan official in the Dockmaster Office. He was copying out names from the durasheets stacked on his desk.
“Leaving already? Don’t blame you.”
“I need some information. The day the saboteur struck,” Ferus said. “When the Imperials closed the spaceport. How many were scheduled to depart?”
“Three hundred and twenty-seven,” he said, without looking up.
“How many filed for a refund on the departure tax? Have you tabulated?”
“Almost all.”
“May I see?”
The official hunted through the papers and handed a sheaf to Ferus. He quickly flipped through them. He immediately discovered the names of those who didn’t file for a refund of the hefty departure tax.
The refund was a considerable amount of credits. Not many would turn down the chance to receive it.
He memorized the five names. One more stop and he’d be sure.
Thanking the official, he hurried back onto the turbolift. He took it down to the main level. There he hopped aboard a moving ramp that shot him forward. He could feel the presence of the seeker droid behind him.
Ferus took the ramp to the very center of the city. He exited and turned to the right, where a gleaming white structure loomed, long and low. This was the place where the Sathans mourned their dead. He walked inside.
The glowlamps were red and softly powered down, the air scented with herbs. The mausoleum wasn’t staffed, but relied on huge datascreens for those who entered to find the name of their loved ones on the intricately carved, curving walls. By pressing the name, information about the loved one would appear and messages could be left.
The datascreens weren’t working. But the names were arranged alphabetically, so Ferus was able to run down the curving walls, looking for a match to any of the five names he’d memorized. He found it in the Fs. There it was, Quintus Farel, just as he’d thought.
Quintus Farel had turned up in two places on the list of those who had applied for a Vehicle Purchase Registration Request and on a list of those who never applied for a refund on the departure tax. If Quintus had bought a star cruiser and planned to leave, his plans had been foiled. But he hadn’t bothered to get a refund.
All of this wasn’t very interesting, except that Quintus Farel was dead.
He’d died twenty-five years ago at age two. A terrible speeder accident. His parents had died, too. Their names were beside him, here in the mausoleum.
Someone had stolen his name and ID information.
It was a common way to get an alias. Find a name that had already been recorded and it was easier to forge ID docs. A security number would have already been issued.
The saboteur had hit the personal records first the birth and death records. They’d thought their tracks would be covered by the chaos that ensued.
But by cross-referencing the landing platform records which an overly zealous bureaucrat had painstakingly kept on durasheets, unbeknownst to the saboteur with the mausoleum records that were kept engraved on synthstone, Ferus had found his first clue.
“Gotcha,” he murmured.
Before he left, he paused. The longer he let the seeker droid track him, the more information he’d be giving to Bog and the Empire. He wanted to find the saboteur himself, then decide what to do. He needed to make sure that he wasn’t handing over the planet to Imperial control. He had to hope that Solace and Oryon would be able to find Roan and Dona and free them before he had to make a choice.
He stepped out into the street again. He felt the seeker lurking underneath the curved roof of the building.