[Republic Commando] - 03(172)

“She was getting more hacked off with life by the day.” Mereel removed the ligature. “She must have known she wasn’t going home. But I never had Kaminoans down as suicidal. Excessive self-esteem. It might have been the ultimate act of contempt for us.”

Vau prodded the cadaver thoughtfully. “But they’re not the most cosmopolitan and well traveled of species. Big deal for them to leave Kamino. Personally, I’m not surprised she went off the rails.”

“I’d have taken the pearl-handled blaster and done the decent thing ages ago,” Mereel muttered. “But then I’m not an arrogant xenophobic piece of tatsushi.”

Skirata could only see a tenuous stream of data that had finally dried up. “I’m glad to see this hasn’t traumatized you boys,” he said sourly. His shock hadn’t taken long to give way to anger. “I was getting worried that it might have scarred you for life.”

She’d already done that to Mereel, of course. “She might have run out of information to give us.”

“She might,” said Skirata, “have been jerking our chain all along.”

“Well, I know what I’m going to be doing for the foresee-able future. Collating what we’ve got and finding another geneticist or three to advise me.” Mereel slotted a probe into the computer. “Just checking she hasn’t trashed the data… no, she thought her work was too sacred even to have so much as a full stop erased. What a gal. Scrub the theory on the ultimate act of contempt, then.”

“I still think we should risk it and do a deal with Arkanian Micro,” said Vau. “Every cloner has to handle accelerated development. It’s what they run on.”

“But they’re cheap and nasty,” Mereel said.

“So? We’re not buying from them. We just want them to say, Hey, those are the genes you need to switch on and off, and then we get the regulator manufactured by a pharma company.”

“I’ve got that in hand,” Skirata said, unable to take his eyes off the dead Kaminoan. He half expected her to be playing dead, not a corpse at all. “First things first.”

“Once we”know what it is we’ve got, too,” Mereel said. “We’re sitting on the cloning equivalent of the Sacred Scroll of Gurrisalia and we can’t read the language-not well enough, anyway.”

They still had a dead Kaminoan to dispose of, too. Skirata wondered what use he could make of her now. Nobody would ever believe he hadn’t killed her-he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t, in the end-so maybe there was some advantage to be gained here. If she couldn’t be useful to him alive, she’d earn her keep dead.

“Delta’s still digging away under ActionWorld island, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Kal’buir.”

“I think they need to find what they’re looking for. Put the Chancellor’s mind at rest. Get him off our areas of interest, so to speak.”

“How are we going to plant her there?” Vau asked. “We’re not,” Skirata said. “I’m going to have a word with Delta.”

Mereel shook his head. “They’re not us. They stick to the rules. They’ll tell Zey.”

Vau looked offended. “Don’t underestimate how diplomatic they can be, Kal. They didn’t tell him about the bank raid, did they?”

“Okay, Walon, I’ll get my story straight so we don’t dump Jusik in it as the leak on Ko Sai, and I’ll provide some forensics for them to slap on Zey’s desk.”

“Done. Now what about the body?”

“I’m not looking forward to this.” Skirata’s hatred of Ko Sai and her kind didn’t extend to making what he had to do next any easier. “But help me move her into the barn. I’ll do my own dirty work.”

“I think Jaing and I should do it, actually, Buir.” Mereel ushered the two older men out of the lab. “Ko Sai and us… we go back a long way.”

Skirata could always rely on the Nulls. One day they might talk about it, but for the time being he was simply grateful that they volunteered, and wondered if there was now some kind of closure in it for them.

“Are you… donating the entire body to Delta?” Vau asked.

“No,” Skirata said, suddenly getting a whole new idea, and not liking himself for it. Did she have any family? After all the years he spent on Kamino, he still didn’t know. “It wouldn’t do Lama Su any harm to think that we got to her in the end. I think I’m going to do the decent thing and send most of her home.”

“They’ll appreciate that…, ” Vau said.