“So. At any point in the next two nights, you need to visit the Temple’s fourth-level exercise changing room. Open the leftmost locker, combination six-eight-six, and retrieve the packet of clothes and items there …”
CHAPTER NINE
Clad in nondescript rust-colored garments and a hooded green traveler’s rain drape that would remind no one of Jedi robes, Ben shut the locker, hit the button to lock it again, and dropped his lightsaber into a belt pouch. He forced his shoulders down. He’d been edgy since entering the chamber, worried that someone would walk in on him as he changed, but it hadn’t happened. He’d chosen the quietest hour of the night, and had chosen correctly.
He moved to the loading slot for the laundry chute. It was large enough to accommodate the cloth bags full of dirty clothes, labeled with the names of their owners, that were delivered to the laundry facilities. That meant that it was large enough for children, too. Rumor had it that children couldn’t get through the chutes into the automated laundry facilities, but just exactly how they were prevented from descending was a mystery; apprentices who’d tried it told mutually contradictory stories of greased chutes, robot defenders with electrocuting or tickling attachments on their arms, barrel-shaped chambers that whirled offenders until they were sick, stern talkings-to, and extra chores.
Ben pulled the lever, opening the drum into which bags were to be placed, and crawled in. It was a tight fit. At thirteen, almost fourteen, he was physically just a little large for such a stunt. He used his body weight to roll the drum closed, which opened the chute access immediately beneath him. Bracing himself with arms and legs so as not to fall, he pulled out a glow rod and peered into the depths.
“That’s a chute, all right,” he said. It was a square plasteel hole leading into the depths of the Temple.
He maneuvered himself to enter the chute feetfirst and braced them against the walls. Then he focused his attention on what he was doing, calling on the Force to allow him to dictate the exact amount of friction his feet would experience against the chute sides.
And he dropped.
He did not so much fall as descend in a controlled skid. As he descended, he could see the edges of the individual plasteel panels that made up the chute.
He passed a sensor. What would it be sensing? he wondered. Nothing right now-Seha or some other ally of Jacen’s would have disabled it.
Below him, he saw discolored patches along the chute sides. He increased the friction to slow down and descended past them at the pace of a crawling insect.
On one side was a panel with a hinge at the bottom. He poked it as he passed, and it swung freely open, then shut again.
Directly opposite it was inset a small but ordinary repulsor unit, the sort one might find on the bottom of a hoverchair or hovergurney.
He nodded. That made sense. The sensor had to detect density or mass. If something dropped by that was too dense-boys and girls being made of denser materials than bags full of laundry-then the repulsor would kick on, shoving the child into a side chute, probably sending him or her to a holding cell and notifying the appropriate Masters in charge of punishment, lectures, and chores.
Ben slid on past and picked up the pace.
Below was a small square of light, and it was getting larger. The end of the chute. Ben skidded to a silent stop when he was still two meters above it.
Warm air rose past him, and he heard the hum and clank of machinery. Three meters below the end of the chute was a smooth, wear-darkened permacrete floor with several gray laundry bags lying in a pile.
As Ben watched, a wheeled wagon rolled into view, pushed by a nondescript silver-white droid. The droid picked up the bags, tossed them in the wagon, and then pushed the conveyance out of sight.
Extending his senses through the Force, Ben could detect the droid’s movement, but he could feel nothing else moving in the immediate vicinity. He dropped the remaining five meters, rolled as he hit the permacrete, and came silently up on his feet.
In one direction, the droid’s retreating back; in the other, no observers. Either way, he was looking at an undecorated access corridor, machinery or storage crates piled here and there against a wall; often there was nothing concealing the drab grayness of the surfaces. The glow rods mounted in the ceiling, widely separated and offering only low light, created an even more dismal appearance.
Per Jacen’s instructions, Ben turned right and dashed silently in that direction. Soon enough, the main corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left, but there was a door in the wall there; heavy metal with an imposing-looking durasteel rim, it was labeled EMERGENCY EVACUATION ACCESS. USE ONLY IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY. TEMPLE SECURITY WILL BE ALERTED.