"He'll wash up somewhere downstream," Gilamar said. "The buffeting and the rocks will mash the body a bit, but we don't have Jaller Obrim or the CSF Forensics Service here to worry about. Come on. I'll make my peace with Kal."

"Who's going to make the most noise when they realize Priest's missing?" Ordo asked.

He checked himself for blood before climbing the steps again. "Other than Reau?"

"Does it matter?" Gilamar cleaned his knife in the spray from the river and shook off the water. "We're all borked anyway. Might as well hang for a bantha as a jackrab."

It was time to bang out of Keldabe. They'd infected enough people by now anyway.

And Reau-Ordo knew they'd have to deal with her sooner or later.

It would take her a long time to work out who'd killed Priest.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Your prowess with a lightsaber is childish vanity. Your physical Force powers are no more than a conjuror's trick, sleight of hand to dazzle the ordinary beings you should be more than a conjuror's trick, sleight of hand to dazzle the ordinary beings you should be serving. You profane these powers by using them as weapons in war. And you fail to serving. You profane these powers by using them as weapons in war. And you fail to grasp the single, simple, uncompromising duty of the true Jedi. The Jedi is the rock-lion grasp the single, simple, uncompromising duty of the true Jedi. The Jedi is the rock-lion at the gate who says, "I will defend these beings with my life, and that is the sum of me." at the gate who says, "I will defend these beings with my life, and that is the sum of me."

Etain Tur-Mukan died to save one life, a man she did not even know, but felt compelled to save, and that is what made her stronger in the Force and a truer Jedi than any of you to save, and that is what made her stronger in the Force and a truer Jedi than any of you acrobats, tricksters, and specious, empty philosophers. acrobats, tricksters, and specious, empty philosophers.

Kina Ha, Jedi Knight; unsure of her exact age, but at least a thousand years old Kyrimorut, Mandalore Kyrimorut, Mandalore "Arla? It's me. Can I come in?"

Jusik rapped on her door and waited for a response. It was locked from the outside, but he had to give her some control over the only sanctuary she had. Laseema listened, head tilted in concentration.

"She's been awful while you were down in Keldabe." Laseema adjusted the balance of dishes on the tray. "Hallucinations, muscle spasms, vomiting, the lot. I had to get Fi to give her medical aid while Scout kept her calm. He's really good."

"He trained as a squad battlefield medic," Jusik said. "I always think of him as just the sniper. I tend to forget the medic side."

"This is the first time she's been too far out of it to wash and dress herself. That's why I'm worried."

"What were the hallucinations about?"

"The only thing I could understand was that she thought she was burning. There were flames coming toward her."

Jusik didn't know enough to even guess if that was a clue to an underlying problem.

And he'd never seen anyone suffer withdrawal symptoms before. It was distressing. When he opened the door, Arla was thrashing around on the bed, clearly in pain, panting for breath. Her eyes were half open.

"Let me die," she mumbled, apparently lucid. "If you understood, you'd end this for me."

Jusik turned to Laseema. "Better get Mij'ika Mij'ika." This was medically beyond him. "Arla, this is going to pass. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it will will be over soon." be over soon."

He put his hand under her head, feeling the matted, sweaty hair, and wondered how medics ever coped daily with the smell of illness. She struggled to focus on him.

"It won't won't pass," she whispered. "It's not the drugs. It's me." pass," she whispered. "It's not the drugs. It's me."

"When that stuff is out of your system, then we can fix you. We can."

"No. It's still there. It always will be."

Gilamar arrived with an assortment of hyposprays. For a man who'd just killed a former comrade, he looked oddly calm. "What's wrong, Arla? Stomach cramps? Throwing up? Head hurt?" He placed a blood pressure sensor in the crook of her elbow. "That's a bit low. Let's fix that first."

"Twitching muscles...stang, my legs..."

"Two for two, so far." Gilamar gave her two shots and stood back. "Should be kicking in anytime, Arla. Hang in there. Now, where are you, and what can you see?"

"Bedroom...window...you...Bardan...and Laseema was here."

"You're not hallucinating, then. You're going to feel like a speeder wreck for a couple of days yet. What's your biggest problem right now?"

Arla rolled over on one side and flung off one of the blankets. "I want to stop thinking.

I want it all to stop."

Gilamar bent down to whisper in Jusik's ear. "She's lucid and feeling ropey. Apart from monitoring her blood pressure that's all I can do until something else mechanical or chemical goes wrong."

Jusik sat with Arla for half an hour, trying to feel her mental state, and all he could get was a sensation in his mind of her constantly trying not to look at something hanging in front of her eyes. He tended to see solid images superimposed at a point that felt somewhere behind his eyes and level with the roof of his mouth. Then he felt Zey and Kina Ha approaching. Kina Ha was distinctive in the Force, such a weight of time and experience stored in her being that the Force felt as if it curved around her. Zey was an odd mix now: the old Master, impatient and frustrated like an escaping sigh, but almost completely engulfed in a terrible regret that peaked and fell on a cycle like a heartbeat.

"If we can help," Zey said. "Just say."

Kina Ha settled down with majestic slowness and dipped her long neck to gaze into Arla's face.

"I'm old old," she said. "And there's nothing you have done that can shock me. I've seen so so many many. Whatever it is, you're not the most terrible being who ever lived. It won't let you go, so you can't run from it, but you can grab it and hold it where you can see it for what it is."

Jusik had no idea what the Kaminoan was going on about, although she seemed to sense that thing that Arla was trying not to see. It was obvious: a terrible memory. It would be agony to relive what the Death Watch did to her family and then to her, but it seemed to be the only option left.

Zey just watched. Jusik moved back a little. Kina Ha took Arla's arm and examined the cuts and deep wounds.

"What are you trying to cut out of yourself?" she asked. Jusik tried not to jump too far ahead, but he could guess guilt, taste guilt, calculate calculate guilt. Arla didn't know her brother Jango had survived. But there wasn't a happy ending to that, either, so Jusik decided to save it until she was a lot stronger. guilt. Arla didn't know her brother Jango had survived. But there wasn't a happy ending to that, either, so Jusik decided to save it until she was a lot stronger.

"What I am," Arla said at last.

"And what are you?"

"One of them."

"Who?"

Jusik looked at Zey, who seemed just as lost as he was. Kina Ha's thousand years of life-what had she seen and experienced? More than any human, ten times over, even more than any Hutt, even if she spent it all in secluded contemplation. She'd had time to listen to whole worlds worlds.

"Look," Arla said. "I can't say it."

She scrambled into a sitting position, and struggled to lift the back of her shirt. Jusik didn't know what to expect; he just knew that she'd been hurt, physically and emotionally.

Jango had told Vau just the barest detail about the Death Watch punishing his father for harboring Jaster Mereel, and his mother shooting one of them dead so Jango-eight, maybe-could get away. That was the last he saw of all of them, his mother shielding fourteen-year-old Arla, his father on his knees yelling at him to run.

Jango thought they'd all died. Arla seemed to think she was the lone survivor, too.

Between those two views lay a mystery.

Arla still fumbled with her shirt. Jusik didn't dare touch her to help her. He left it to Kina Ha.

"Look," Arla said. Kina Ha lifted the fabric higher. "I can't reach it. If I could, I'd cut it out. But I'd I'd still be in here. It's me who needs to go." still be in here. It's me who needs to go."

Jusik steeled himself to look. He was expecting worse. He wasn't sure if the dark brown mark was a tattoo, or a scar, or a branding mark, but he knew exactly what it was because he'd seen one only hours ago, or a version of it: the Death Watch emblem, the ragged winged W shape. It didn't surprise him. She'd been spoils of war as far as they were concerned, an animal to be used, and marked as their property.

"A surgeon can remove that," Kina Ha said. "Would that help?"

Arla pulled down her shirt again. "You don't get it. You can't guess because it's so bad."

"Whatever it was, you were a child of fourteen, Walon tells me. When we're adult, we look back and judge our childhood actions by unfairly adult rules."

Arla didn't turn around. "It's not a wound or a humiliation. It's a badge."

"Explain."

"After I was kidnapped, after it stopped being a nightmare, I stayed with them. I became one of them. I stayed stayed. I could have run away. But I stayed stayed." She looked over her shoulder at Jusik. "Could you stand being me?"

"Oh, shab shab," Jusik said.

"Stop me remembering it all," she begged. "Let me die, or kill me, but I can't live in this head anymore. I kept trying to die. But the doctors wouldn't let me."

Arla was frighteningly lucid now. Jusik wasn't sure if Kina Ha had induced some state of clarity, but whatever it was, he'd rescued a woman who didn't want to stay rescued.

There was no point telling her that kidnap victims, hostages, and abused, helpless kids often found themselves depending on the very people hurting them, and even growing to like them, because their own lives were held in those hands. Humans generally weren't the magnificent heroes of holovids who fought back, but simply normal beings doing instinctive things just to stay alive.

"You know you're not evil or unusual for doing that," he said. "Don't you?"

"Maybe." Arla started scratching her forearm, as if the muscle relaxant was wearing off. "But that doesn't change how hard it is to make it through the next second from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep."

"When did you get away from them?"

Arla went quiet for a moment. "When I got arrested for the last shooting. Five, six years? Something like that."

"Try ten," said Jusik.

Arla shut her eyes for a second. "That long?"

Zey didn't even seem to be breathing. Kina Ha looked as if she was resting now, having unlocked that mental door. Now Jusik had to sweep up the Arla that was falling out of it. He wasn't going to start asking her about the killings, not now.

"Your brother Jango survived," he said. "He went on to be a legendary soldier and-well, most of my brothers here were cloned from him. He founded the finest army in galactic history."

"I sort of knew he was doing okay as a bounty hunter," Arla said. "The Watch was aware of stuff. But you talk as if he's dead now."

That was a shock; Jusik had no idea she even knew he'd survived. But that was before he knew she'd been living with the Death Watch for most of her life. She'd shifted from tragic lost youth to something he didn't understand yet, a sister who never let her brother know she was still alive, but still observed him from afar.

I need to stop filling gaps in history with pieces from the obvious.

"He was killed at the outbreak of the Clone War. I'm sorry." It didn't feel like a good idea right then to tell her that a Jedi killed him, and how much Jango had grown to loathe them.

"We were all good shots," Arla said, "That was why I did so many assassinations for the Death Watch." She looked over her shoulder again. " Now Now are you going to give me a quick way out? What do you think Jango would have done to me if he'd known I was with them." are you going to give me a quick way out? What do you think Jango would have done to me if he'd known I was with them."

Jusik felt Jango would have forgiven her. "Would the Death Watch be looking for you now, if they were still around?"

That made her flinch. "Are they?"

"If they are, they won't get near you."

Arla looked at Jusik for a long time. "You know," she said at last, "that this lull will wear off, and I'll crash again, don't you?"

"You don't want the medication, obviously."

"Try it sometime. It doesn't stop you remembering. Just stops you doing something about it."

Jusik knew what he might be able to do. He was about to do it to Kina Ha, Scout, and Zey, after all: he could blank out parts of her memory. He didn't know whether to offer.

Shab, he had to. She was his personal responsibility.

"I used to be a Jedi," he said. "I can erase memories. But beyond just removing recollection of the last five minutes or so, I don't know how safe it is, or what else I'll remove in the process."

Arla reached down for the discarded blanket and pulled it around her.

"I was going to die first chance I got anyway," she said. "If you can make this go away-no, I don't think I deserve to feel better."

Jusik moved automatically into that game of guessing the motivator. She was still trying to atone for letting her parents' murderers become her family. "Well, if I practice on you," Jusik said, "I'll be much safer when I come to wipe my Jedi friends' memories, and you can still give me useful intel on the Death Watch. A few years out of date beats zero any day."

Zey gave him a look that said his little earnest Jedi Knight had grown up rather fast since leaving the Order.

"Do it," Arla said. "And if you turn me into a vegetable, you shoot me. Deal?"

Jusik nodded. "Deal," he said.

Kyrimorut Skirata couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed with Gilamar, let alone angry. Priest got what was coming to him. And leaving him alive to tell the tale-no, that hadn't been an option. Gilamar had done what Skirata should have done years ago, just by way of cleansing the Mando gene pool. Vau agreed.

But things were still getting a little too close to home. Clan Skirata didn't have the monopoly on Mandalorian resourcefulness. Sooner or later, someone was going to track them down. Skirata flipped Priest's shoulder plate between his fingers like meditation beads, staring at the emblem and wondering just what was out there waiting to return from ba'slan shev'la ba'slan shev'la.

Does it matter who kills you in the end? Yes, I think it does.

"So what if Reau works out it was one of us?" Ordo leaned on the roba pen wall, watching one of the sows with her new litter. Fi was going to get his smoked roba slices one day soon. "Is that going to make us any more wanted by the Empire than we already are? There's no trail back to this place either way."

"Bardan's planning a relocation for Kyrimorut in case the worst happens. Ret'lini Ret'lini." It was the watchword for prudence; just in case just in case. Everyone had a plan B. Jaing, in his business-minded way, had taken to calling it offsite hot standby offsite hot standby. "I'm thinking that we should have a bolt-hole on Cheravh."

"Why stay in the Mandalore sector?"