She nodded. “I knew one would speak to you and you alone. And from my own researches I already knew that this collection of tassels would inevitably point to Dr. Rotham on Lorrd for decipherment; any other so-called experts in the field would eventually refer you to her. So you’d be here, sooner or later.”
“You killed the security captain, Tawaler.”
She shook her head. “I saw him killed, from a distance. A hooded figure spaced him through an air lock. Knowing that the Jedi investigations would lead to that air lock, I chose to leave the tassels there. Then I walked out of the Narsacc Habitat before security measures closed off the corridor to the main station.”
“And you coincidentally ended up in the same shuttle by which the soldiers arrived at the station.”
“No coincidence. I used my own resources to track it down. Not tricky at all, since I assumed it would go to the Corellia system; and there it was, hangared at the main Coronet City spaceport. I confronted its pilot, but he attacked me rather than answer questions, and I was forced to kill him. Which left me in possession of the shuttle. When I ran its identification numbers, I found that it had been stolen on Commenor a few months ago, and the title had been vested in its insurers after they’d paid off its value to the company it had been stolen from. I bought it from them, clean and legal.”
“How did you kill the pilot?” Jacen asked.
“Bare hands. And I buried him. No sense in involving the authorities on Corellia … when the authorities on Corellia were the ones who sent those killers to wreck the Toryaz Station meeting in the first place.”
“You’re assuming.”
“I’m concluding, based on evidence.”
“And then you came here, because you knew that the tassels would lead the Jedi who found them here to Lorrd.”
She shook her head. “Not the Jedi who found them. You.”
“You almost ended up with my sister running down their origin.”
“I don’t think so. In all the galaxy, only you, Jacen Solo, would be sufficiently intrigued to follow them all the way here and beyond.”
“Why me?”
“Because only you could read and understand one of the tassels. Only you could detect its significance. And so you’d demand to be the one who investigated it.”
Ben studied Jacen’s face. His mentor gave nothing away with his expression. But Ben remembered that there was one tassel Jacen had been able to translate when even Dr. Rotham hadn’t-the one from the Sith world. He felt a little chill of unease.
“All right,” Jacen said, “let’s put all this into some sort of context. Let’s have your story from the start.”
“From the start? From when I was a little girl?”
“Sure.”
“No, not here. I’ll tell you at my home.”
“On Commenor?”
“No; my true home, on a planetoid in a star system close to Bimmiel. Not far from here, as galactic distances go. We could take your shuttle or mine.”
“No, thanks.”
“Then you’re not getting any more answers.”
“And you’ll rot in custody here for quite a while.”
Brisha Syo offered him a cool smile. “I don’t think so. What charge would I be held on? The best you could do would be suspicion of complicity in the Toryaz Station incident. There’s enough evidence there to begin assembling a case … but not enough to deny me my freedom while the machinery of the justice system grinds along. I’ll spend a day in jail, then be freed, ordered to stay on Lorrd while things are investigated. Having the run of this lovely educational planet is not exactly what I call rotting. And in the meantime, you get no more information.”
“I could just decide that you’re guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and then kill you.”
The woman’s smile did not falter. “No, you couldn’t.”
“What makes you think that?”
“First, the Force is not telling you that I’m guilty. I know this because I’m not. I doubt you’d murder when not even the Force is defining me as evil, or a threat. Second, to kill me you’d first have to kill Nelani here. Wouldn’t you?”
Jacen and Nelani exchanged a look. Jacen’s face was as free of emotion as it had been for most of the interview. Nelani’s expression, hard to read, had elements of determination and sadness to it. Ben could feel her emotions, though, naked and unconcealed-a hope that Jacen would make “the right choice,” a grim determination to face him if he did not, an underlying attraction to Jacen that was increasingly sad.
Ben backed away from that surge of feelings. They were too complicated, too intermixed. They unsettled him.