“And she found it hard to ever trust another man.”
Fett still sat in silence, one boot on the chair. Sintas had never trusted anyone. Bounty hunters weren’t the trusting kind, so it was a safe, easy deduction dressed up as revelation.
“Her worst days were when your daughter learned to talk, and asked where Dada was.”
Fett was starting to tire of this. He shifted in his seat, ignoring the voice that whispered it was probably true. How would he know, anyway? He couldn’t verify it. He and Sintas had parted by then and he saw nothing more of Ailyn.
Not until I saw her dead body.
“She thought you still cared when you recovered the hologram for her.”
Now that wasn’t a guess. It was specific. And it was … true. Fett didn’t dare look at Mirta. The inn was absolutely silent: the popping and crackling of the tapcaf ‘s log fire sounded like battlefield explosions.
“She said you were far too young to know what you were doing, and you said you only needed to know that she was beautiful, that she was a terrific shot, and that you could trust her as much as you could trust any woman.”
Fett’s scalp tightened and prickled. It was exactly what he’d said, and it was too stupid and juvenile a line for anyone to make up on the spot. No, he has to have information, he has to be putting on a show, he got the information from someone … but how?
The man took a deep breath and hesitated before speaking again.
“You told her that you’d make Lenovar pay for what he did to her, and she tried to talk you out of it”
It was too much for Fett. “Enough.” He thrust out his hand, palm up. “So you can read the stone.”
Venku lowered his chin. Even without sight of the man’s face, Fett knew the expression behind the visor was fearless and protective anger.
The old Mando took a gentler approach than his bodyguard. “Just tell me what you want to know,” he said. “I know these things can be painful.”
Mirta didn’t give Fett a chance to answer. It was just as well: he couldn’t bring himself to say it. To onlookers, he was just being typically silent and surly.
“I want to know how she spent her last hours,” Mirta said. “I want to find her body.”
The old man put the heart-of-fire on the table while he removed his helmet. He had a fine-boned, thin face and a wispy beard that was whiter than his hair, which still showed traces of sandy blond. He was sweating: picking up the memories and traces of time embedded in the stone’s molecular structure seemed to be exhausting him.
And he didn’t have a Kiffar facial tattoo. But then neither did Mirta, despite the fact that Ailyn had embraced the Kiffar culture completely. In some lines of work, a permanent identifying mark had its drawbacks.
“It doesn’t give me the memories in order,” said the veteran. “It’s all random, like flashbacks. I see images, hear sounds, smell aromas, and so on. Making sense of it isn’t easy.”
He laid his helmet on the table and picked up the stone again, this time pressing it between both palms. Venku put a steadying hand on his shoulder, and Fett felt inexplicably uneasy.
“Do you want me to … find acts of violence?”
Fett glanced at Mirta, not for agreement but because he couldn’t help it. Her brow was creased in a little frown. Dry-eyed; focused. Not a pretty girl, but a good strong bone structure.
“You’ll find plenty of that,” she said. “She was a bounty hunter.”
“You’re not in here, Mirta … ,” said the old Mando, eyes tight shut.
“She died before I was born. I want to know who killed her.”
There were a few more people now in the tapcaf than there had been. Fett indicated the door with a jerk of his thumb. “Out. I’ll let you know when you can finish your drinks.”
I want to know who killed her, too. It’s too long ago, but I want to know.
“She wore this all the time.” The old man looked almost in pain, and Venku squeezed his shoulder. “She was angry a lot of the time. Scared, too. There are so many people passing through here … but I keep coming back to a chart of Phaeda. Red skies, and someone she was following. Resada? Rezoda?”
Mirta didn’t blink. She seemed transfixed. “Grandmama didn’t tell anyone where she was going, or who she was hunting.”
The man opened his eyes and took a rasping breath. “Phaeda. Whatever it was, it happened on Phaeda.” He jerked back and stared at the stone. “And she fought to hang on to this. She fought hard.”
Fett managed not to swallow. He was sure they’d all hear it. “She lost.”
“I want to know,” said Mirta.