It was a good alibi. Jacen couldn’t have committed a murder because he was too busy planning an abduction, Your Honor. Ben strove for a rational tone. “Aunt Leia, why do you think Mom hung on in corporeal form for so long? Why do you think her body disappeared just as Jacen showed up at her funeral? Don’t you think the Force might be saying something to us? I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve turned it over and over in my head for weeks. I daren’t discuss it with Dad. But it’s driving me crazy.”
Leia took a few steps forward and squatted in front of him to put her hands on his knees. “Ben, you said you recorded everything you could at the scene.”
“Yeah, because nobody can mind-rub that or tell me I imagined it…”
“Have you found anything in the recordings?”
Ben stood his ground. He was sure, more sure every day now. “Not yet.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to find out exactly what happened, Aunt Leia. I have to, and I’m going to do it by the book, because I need to be certain or I won’t be able to live with it.”
“What if you find evidence that it’s not Jacen?” asked
Jaina. “Are you going to accept what the provable facts tell you?”
Ben had committed himself to take the rational, legal path rather than that of intuition and Force senses. “I don’t want to get the wrong person. Whatever I feel about Jacen for the other things he did to me, I don’t want to pin it on him if that means Mom’s real killer is still walking around. And if it really was Alema-well, fine. The result’s the same.”
Jaina looked into his face for a few long moments and then smiled sadly. With Leia still squatting in front of him, wearing that same sorrowful expression, Ben felt pinned down by their tolerant doubt. Maybe they were humoring him. Well, it didn’t matter. He’d stated his case, and he was going to prove it, because he couldn’t carry on with his life until he got answers.
And he would carry on with his life. When Jori Lekauf had been killed saving him, and he’d been drowning in guilt, Mara had told him that the best way to honor that sacrifice was to live well, to the maximum, and not waste a gift so dearly bought.
He’d do that for his mother. He’d live for her.
BASTION, IMPERIAL REMNANT: ADMIRAL PELLAEON’S RESIDENCE
Gilad Pellaeon, still healthy in his nineties and with no intention of fading into senility, was playing Theed quoits on the lawn when his aide entered the walled garden at a brisk walk.
The admiral didn’t take his eyes off the target-a short pole shaped like the flower spike of a Cezith waterlily, one of a dozen set in the shallow ornamental pond-but he could see all the signs of urgency in his peripheral vision.
“Yes, Vitor?” Pellaeon held the quoit between thumb and forefinger, resting its weight on his palm. “I hope you’re rushing to tell me that the chef has acquired Jacen Solo’s entrails and is braising them for dinner.”
“Not quite, Admiral.”
“Life is full of disappointments.”
“A military attache from the Galactic Alliance is here to see you.” Vitor Reige had saved Pellaeon’s life in the Yuuzhan Vong War, and now he defended him from all other equally irksome visitors. Anyone from the GA fitted the description these days. “Shall I send him away?”
“Remind him that he should make an appointment if he wants an audience, not drop by to solicit me like some door-to-door tradesperson.”
“I think he might have been anticipating that. He handed me this note.”
Reige rustled. Pellaeon turned his head to look at a neatly sealed flimsi square, pale blue and bearing handwriting. It would be some sop from the strutting little demagogue Solo or one of his minions, some invitation or other public relations exercise to make his junta look more respectable. Pellaeon focused again on the lily, and tossed the quoit with a practiced hand. It fell neatly over the spike and came to rest on its base.
“Open it for me, “he said, taking another quoit in his hand. “If you think it might raise my blood pressure, throw it in the bin. If not… it can wait until I finish my game.”
Theed quoits was a pursuit that taught patience and concentration, as well as providing gentle exercise. It was al-ways played on water; careless throws meant fishing around in a pond with your hand to recover the quoit. Some said that it had once been played with carnivorous fish in the water, and began life as a hunting technique on Naboo, but Pellaeon had quite enough predators in his life without adding that refinement. He settled for nothing more dangerous than a wet sleeve when he missed the tar-get.