Halden spent six credits making two missing boxes of surgical sealant become important.
Darren watched the priority request move through the supplier system with growing respect.
“That’s it?”
“Priority supplier reconciliation.”
“You paid six credits to create bureaucracy.”
“The bureaucracy already existed. I paid to make it move faster.”
Darren considered the distinction.
“That’s worse.”
Halden’s note of Lena’s authorization lay beside the request.
The supplier had confirmed that the discrepancy was still open and that she could sign for its reconciliation in person.
Halden checked the contact field once more before sending it.
Nothing in the request mentioned Tarin Voss or Ralo.
By the time they reached Upper CoCo Town, Ralo confirmed that Lena had left the cooperative.
She would call him after the supplier visit about getting home.
Darren put the communicator away before asking where she would spend the night; they had agreed that Ralo would handle it.
Safe was too strong a word; away was enough for the moment.
Varel Storage and Document Services looked as though it had been designed by people who considered personality an insurance liability.
Gray walls, gray floor, gray counters; even the clerk wore gray.
Darren decided that was enough gray to make the decorating committee more suspicious than the company.
The clerk was human, perhaps in her early thirties, with brown hair cut at the jaw and a small geometric tattoo behind one ear.
Her badge read MIRA.
Halden gave his name and asked about a storage account inherited from Oridian Exchange.
Mira read his audit credentials, then the reference he had copied from the public acquisition record.
“Are you acting for the estate?”
“No. I’m tracing commercial records that may have been stored here.”
“Then you cannot claim the property.”
“I’m asking whether it still exists.”
“Oridian Exchange?”
“Yes.”
“We inherited four storage blocks and thirty-two years of legal problems.”
“That sounds promising.”
She looked toward Darren.
“It isn’t.”
He smiled.
“I continue to choose the wrong profession.”
Mira checked the old customer record.
TARIN VOSS.
The name seemed heavier simply because another system still remembered it.
“Account inactive,” she said.
“Property moved to abandonment review after death certification.”
Halden leaned slightly over the counter.
“Disposed?”
“Not yet.”
Darren tried to keep his expression neutral.
Mira looked up from the record.
“You were expecting it to be gone.”
“That’s usually how my week works.”
“Estate claim exists.”
That changed the shape of the visit immediately.
“When filed?” Halden asked.
Mira checked the record.
“Eleven days ago.”
Voss had been dead for six months.
Someone had developed a legal interest in his abandoned property eleven days earlier.
Halden’s eyes stayed on the filing date a second longer.
“Can we inspect the abandonment inventory?”
“Not private contents.”
“Liability classification only,” Halden said.
“Hazardous material, restricted media, regulated technical property. We do not need personal correspondence.”
The wording was careful enough to be mostly true, and Mira studied the rulebook displayed on her terminal rather than either man.
“There is a classification review still open. I can let you observe it. No copying protected documents. No removing property.”
Darren nodded.
Mira entered his temporary registration beside Halden’s credentials.
“And security stays outside the storage cage.”
“Less fair.”
“Still the rule.”
“Then I admire its consistency.”
Mira did not smile, which Darren considered a fair response.
Mira brought the container out of the locked cage on a trolley.
Darren waited behind a yellow line until she stopped beside the inspection bench.
Beyond her, the cage door closed with a heavy mechanical click.
“Here. Both of you.”
Tarin Voss’s stored possessions occupied a gray container one meter long.
Two jackets lay over work shoes.
There were three books, a framed photograph and a bottle of amber liquor.
Mira placed a bundle of handwritten financial notes to one side without unfolding them.
“Those stay closed.”
Halden drew his hand back.
Mira gave them thin gloves and indicated the remaining objects.
“You can help me check the bindings and cases for undeclared media. On the bench, where I can see your hands.”
The first glove split across Darren’s knuckle.
Mira gave him another without comment.
He put it on more slowly while Halden waited for her to clear a space beside the notes.
Voss’s work shoes were worn down along the outside of the right heel.
A folded transit receipt protruded from a jacket pocket.
Mira turned a book on municipal finance to check its binding; three corrections crowded the margin beside her thumb, and a coffee stain ran across the index.
The framed photograph showed Voss beside an older woman and a boy.
The boy had leaned away from the camera, pulling Voss’s sleeve with him.
“Family?” Darren asked.
“Mother and nephew,” Mira said, checking the intake file.
“His mother died three years ago. The nephew declined responsibility for the storage fees.”
Darren looked at the bottle again.
Lena had said Voss took one home from a dinner to investigate the wine.
This one could have come from anywhere.
He left it where it was.
“Can we contact the nephew?”
“No. Not through me.”
Darren nodded and left the question there.
Halden kept looking at the folded financial notes.
Darren leaned toward him.
“You’ll wear through the paper.”
“I can read without touching.”
“Not those,” Mira said.
Halden looked away.
She moved the bundle behind her reader, out of Halden’s reach.
Darren lifted the travel guide from beneath the other books.
The spine stayed rigid when he eased the cover back.
He stopped before it could crack.
He had checked bindings for concealed storage before.
Working a thumb along the inside edge, he felt a second strip beneath the covering.
Something shifted against it.
Mira saw his fingers pause.
“Put it down.”
Darren obeyed immediately.
“There’s something inside the binding.”
Halden looked toward Mira rather than the book.
“Can concealed technical media fall under liability classification?”
Mira swore under her breath and reached for a service tool.
She opened the binding herself.
The inner strip separated cleanly and released a thin navigation data wafer with no label, only one scratched number.
44.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Darren looked from the scratched number to Halden, who had already uncapped his pen.
Mira put the wafer inside an isolated reader.
“Metadata only.”
“May I record the classification header?” Halden asked.
She checked the first screen.
“That header, yes. No coordinates, keys or contents.”
He took out his paper.
Darren moved beside him, leaving Mira’s access to the reader clear.
The display populated.
ASTERON AUTHORIZATION FAMILY.
EXTERNAL FREIGHT.
RISHI OUTBOUND.
SOUTHERN APPROACH.
DESTINATION: ENCODED.
Darren’s mouth went dry as the metadata aligned with a shape his memory already knew: Rishi, south, then the word he had been trying not to manufacture.
Kamino.
He did not say it.
Halden looked at Darren instead of the display, which was becoming inconveniently common.
“You know something.”
“I remember a name associated with that region.”
“What name?”
“Not yet.”
Halden’s expression hardened.
“Vale.”
Darren glanced at Mira.
“Later. Somewhere else.”
“You said you would tell me when you recognized something.”
“I just did.”
Halden’s pen remained above the last line.
Darren could hear the reader’s cooling fan and, beyond it, wheels crossing a joint in the corridor floor.
“I don’t want that name in a query,” he said quietly.
“Not until we know who sees it.”
Halden finished the transcription without answering.
Mira looked between them.
“I have no idea what either of you is talking about.”
“That’s probably healthier.”
A door opened beyond the storage cage before the conversation could go any farther.
Mira glanced at the wall display, and something in her expression changed.
“Estate representative. He’s early.”
Darren stepped away from the inspection bench.
The wafer was still in the reader.
Mira left one hand beside it as she turned toward the door.
The man who entered was human, perhaps fifty, well dressed without visible insignia.
Nothing about him looked threatening, which Darren had learned was compatible with almost every kind of threat worth worrying about.
The representative greeted Mira by name and presented credentials.
Varel’s system accepted the credentials.
The man looked at Halden, then Darren, then the isolated reader, keeping his attention on it a fraction longer than Darren liked.
Darren tried to judge whether he could see the header from the door.
The angle was wrong; the representative had already turned back to Mira.
“Problem?” the man asked.
Mira answered before either visitor could.
“Abandonment liability review before release.”
“Of course.”
There was no argument, intimidation or demand to know what they had seen.
Halden’s pen stopped moving.
Mira checked his transcription against the permitted header, then disconnected the reader and returned the wafer to the travel guide.
She put the book back in the container; the property was due to pass to the claimant once the estate release completed.
Darren could still reach the guide.
A tipped trolley would make them look down; the book was on top, the wafer thin enough to hide against his wrist.
Then he found the camera above the bench.
He did not know where its feed went.
Mira’s hand rested on the lid, and Halden stood close enough to be caught in anything Darren started.
Mira would have to explain a missing object from her bench.
Halden would have to explain why his security contractor had taken it.
Darren imagined trying to read the wafer afterward, alone with an object whose lock he did not understand.
He took off the gloves.
One caught on his damp thumb; he worked it free while Mira closed the lid.
The estate representative accompanied them out of the storage block with perfect courtesy.
Darren disliked him more with every meter.
The man never asked what they had seen.
Instead he asked whether Varel’s safety procedures had been satisfactory, whether Halden required a receipt for the liability review, and whether Darren had found the security restrictions inconvenient.
Every question was reasonable on its own; together they felt like fingers testing the edge of a wound.
At the lift bank, the man offered a hand.
“Aris Lorne.”
Halden shook it.
Lorne turned to Darren with his hand still extended.
“And Mr. Vale.”
Darren had not introduced himself.
He shifted his weight before catching the movement, then accepted the offered hand.
Lorne’s gaze dipped briefly toward the blaster.
“Your name is on the audit access record,” he said.
“Nothing mysterious.”
Darren forced his shoulders to loosen.
“I have developed an unhealthy relationship with mysterious things.”
“So I gathered.”
The lift arrived.
Lorne stepped inside without holding the door.
“Mr. Voss left very little of value,” he said.
“I hope the review was worth your time.”
Then the doors closed.
Halden waited until the indicator moved three floors.
“How long before he leaves with it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could you find out?”
Darren watched the lift stop.
He wanted to press the button beside it and reach the lower floor before Lorne could leave.
The man had seen his face, his weapon, the way he reacted to his own name.
“He’ll recognize me.”
“You’ve followed people before.”
“Yes. And this one has a legal reason to be here. I don’t have one for staying on his heels.”
Halden looked down at his notes.
“That book is the first thing we’ve found that might tell us where the money went.”
“I was standing beside you.”
Halden looked up.
The words had been his own, earlier that day.
Darren pressed the button for another lift.
Outside, rain fell through a gap between the levels and broke against the awning above them.
Halden shielded his paper inside his coat.
“We ask Ralo about a hold,” he said.
“And Tessa about what we can do with that.” Darren pointed at the notes.
“Before we decide we need the book.”
Halden took one last look at Varel and stepped out beneath the awning’s edge.
At the first public booth outside Varel, Halden called Ralo.
He gave the detective Lorne’s name, the claim date and the permitted metadata, asking whether anything could stop the release.
Ralo said he would check; he could not promise authority before it went through.
They called Tessa from another booth three districts away.
Her face appeared above a scratched projector.
“You look worse.”
“Coruscant.”
“Fair.”
Darren gave her only the technical problem.
“Private navigation package. Rishi outbound. Southern approach. Destination encoded.”
Tessa stopped smiling as soon as she heard southern approach.
“How far south?”
“Unknown.”
“Then the metadata tells you almost nothing.”
Halden looked offended on behalf of the investigation, which improved Darren’s mood enough to smile.
“I called because I knew you would improve morale.”
Tessa ignored him.
“Outside standardized routes, you need a coordinate package, correction key and usually beacon or route-service validation. You do not just point south and hope.”
“Could a ship carry the route without the owner knowing the destination?”
“Crew? Yes, depending on how the package is sealed. Captain? Harder. Nav service? Probably knows enough to validate it.”
“Could we identify the service from the metadata?”
“Maybe.”
Darren sighed.
“You people have infected the galaxy with that word.”
“Ask whoever issued the validation.”
“Safely.”
“Don’t start with an online destination search. Find someone with an offline key library. That header may be enough to identify who issued it.”
Darren nodded.
“See? This is why I call.”
Tessa gave him the look reserved for problems she had not agreed to adopt.
“Also that.”
She ended the call, leaving Halden staring at the dead projector.
“I like her.”
“Don’t encourage her.”
They collected Darren’s bag before the lodging’s storage desk closed.
The attendant returned it with the storage tag still fastened to the handle.
Darren checked the fastening and thanked her.
When he lifted the bag, his shoulder objected; he changed hands before following Halden out.
Halden paid for a twin room near the transit interchange and entered the lodging under work expenses.
Darren set his bag beside the nearer bed; the other was already holding Halden’s coat and folders.
Two hundred and thirty-six credits remained Darren’s, and the space between the beds was narrow enough that either man would have to move if the other wanted to leave.
While Darren unpacked, Halden checked for a reply.
Ralo had not been able to secure a hold.
Darren wrote his private notes by hand.
OBSERVED: SUPPORT CATEGORIES SHIFT TOWARD MOBILE / DEPLOYMENT USE.
INFERENCE: PACKET 44 MAY IDENTIFY WHERE THAT SUPPORT GOES.
MEMORY: KAMINO.
UNCONFIRMED.
DO NOT SEARCH THE NAME ON A TRACEABLE SYSTEM.
He underlined UNCONFIRMED once, then stopped before turning the note into an argument with himself.
Before the evening ended, a message from Varel arrived.
PROPERTY RELEASE COMPLETE.
They could no longer ask Mira to put the wafer back on the bench.
Darren sat with that fact longer than he expected.
Halden worked at the opposite end of the room, moving through acquisition records with the concentration of someone who believed frustration was not a recognized accounting category.
Halden had not asked for the name again.
Darren found himself watching the pauses in his typing.
“Do you trust me?”
Halden left his hands on the pad.
“Enough to let you stand between me and a gun.”
“But?”
“At Varel you looked at that screen and stopped talking to me. I had to keep asking in front of a clerk.”
“I asked you to wait.”
“For what? This morning it was the Chancellor. Now it’s a place you won’t name. I’m putting my credentials into these systems. I need to know what I’m helping you do.”
Darren folded the handwritten page over the word KAMINO.
Halden watched him do it.
“I didn’t know how to say it in there.”
“You aren’t in there now.”
“I remember a planet that should not be easy to find. I remember people being raised there for a war that has not started yet. That is as far as I can go.”
Halden’s expression changed, but he did not interrupt.
“I might be wrong about the timing. I might be wrong about the route. I might be wrong because whatever put me here has already changed things.” Darren looked toward the covered window.
“And if I am right, the people at the end of that route are not cargo. That is the part I cannot let the investigation forget.”
Halden pushed his pad aside.
“Are you trying to find evidence, or planning to take people out of there?”
“First I have to find out whether they’re there.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know what I could do.” Darren looked at the thin partition beside the bed.
“I know I’d want to do something.”
Halden rubbed both hands over his face.
When he lowered them, he looked tired enough that Darren wished he had answered earlier.
“I can trace transactions. I can ask about an authorization. Don’t turn that into an extraction plan with my name on it.”
“I won’t.”
“Tell me before you decide you have to.”
Darren nodded.
Halden pulled his pad back toward him, but left the acquisition record unopened while he read the metadata again.
Mira contacted Halden before the end of the evening from a personal terminal rather than the Varel corporate channel, and kept the projection audio-only.
“I am not giving you protected estate information,” she said before Halden could greet her.
Across the room, Darren mouthed admirable woman.
Halden ignored him.
“What are you giving me?”
“A warning. The representative requested the full access log after release. Your names are in it.”
“He’s entitled to it,” Mira added.
It was exactly what Darren would have done if he wanted to know who had touched the box.
“Did he ask for your notes?” Halden asked.
“No. He had no right to them.”
“And if he asks?”
“He will continue having no right to them.”
Darren leaned toward the pickup.
“Mira.”
After a short pause, Mira answered.
“Yes?”
“Do you want us to stop contacting you?”
Halden looked at Darren sharply but did not interrupt.
Mira took longer to answer than he expected.
“I want you to stop having arguments about secrets beside my desk. I had to explain that review to my supervisor.”
“Reasonable.”
“I also want to know if the property I released was connected to someone’s death.”
Darren considered what they actually knew.
“We do not know.”
“That answer is irritating.”
“Yes.”
“Is it honest?”
“Yes.”
After another pause, Mira said, “Then do not call unless that changes or unless I am legally required to preserve something.”
“Agreed.”
She disconnected.
Halden had written two questions beneath Mira’s contact.
He crossed out the first.
“The release time,” he said.
“I could have asked her.”
“Ask Ralo.”
“He may not get it.”
“I know.”
Halden left the second question uncrossed, closed the contact and copied the metadata summary twice.
He placed one copy inside his encrypted archive and handed Darren the other on paper.
Darren looked at the copy before taking it.
“Paper?”
“Harder to query remotely.”
“Romantic.”
“Cheap.”
Darren held the copy beside his folded note.
Halden began putting the folders away.
Darren stayed seated with the two sheets in his hand, one carrying what they had seen, the other what he remembered.
He slid them into separate folds of his jacket lining.
“Are you going to sleep in that chair?” Halden asked.
“I’m assessing the alternatives.”
“Mine is taken.”
Darren stood.
Halden had left him the bed nearer the door.
He could not tell whether it was consideration or the sensible placement of a man who might get up four times before morning.
He took off his boots and set them within reach.
Darren woke before the room lights brightened, his shoulder stiff from sleeping on it.
Halden was already at the small table, warming his hands around a cup.
A second cup waited beside the pad.
“How long?” Darren asked.
“Long enough for yours to become drinkable.”
Darren sat down carefully.
On the pad was a list of navigation specialists and people who dealt with private freight routes.
Halden had marked several in CoCo Town.
“Anyone with the library Tessa mentioned?”
“People we can ask. I haven’t sent the header.”
Darren drank the caf while he read.
Varel’s release notice remained open in a smaller window beneath the list.
He reached past it to turn the screen toward the light.
“This one opens early.”
“Then get your boots on.”
Halden saved the list and put the copied header in his pocket.
Darren checked for his own copy without unfolding the other sheet.
The room key lay between their cups.
He picked it up, and Halden followed him to the door.