Survivor's Quest

He took a deep breath. "And then, finally, there she was."

He closed his eyes, a whole flood of hated memories sweeping back through him. The rustling of Lorana's robes as she walked by them, a tall Jedi striding along watchfully beside her; the sudden tight grip of his mother's hands on his shoulders as she bent down and whispered Lorana's name in his ear.

"They were proud of her," he went on in a low voice. "So very proud of her."

"I take it you weren't impressed?" Pressor asked.

Jinzler shrugged. "She was six. I was four. How impressed should I have been?"

"What happened?" Rosemari asked. "Did she talk to you?"

"No," Jinzler told her. "The Jedi who was with her spotted us, and leaned over to say something. She looked in our direction, hesitated a second, and then the two of them turned and headed off. She never even got within ten meters of us."

"That must have been disappointing," Rosemari murmured.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Jinzler said, hearing the bitterness in his voice. "But not with my parents. Even as she disappeared into the crowd of Jedi I could feel them practically swimming in love and respect and adoration. None of it, of course, directed at me."

"But they loved you, too, didn't they?" Evlyn asked, her voice low and earnest. "I mean... they must have loved you, too."

Even after all these years, Jinzler's throat ached at the memories. "I don't know," he told her quietly. "I'm sure they—I think they tried. But the whole time I was growing up it was clear that Lorana was the real center of their universe. She wasn't even there, but she was still their center. They talked about her all the time, held her up as an example of what people could make of their lives, practically made a shrine to her in a corner of the conversation room. I can't even count the number of times a scolding included the words not something your sister Lorana would ever do somewhere in the middle of it."

"Setting a standard none of the rest of you could ever live up to," Rosemari said.

"Not a chance in the galaxy," Jinzler agreed tiredly. "I tried, you know. I went into my father's own field—electronics—and pushed myself until I'd gone farther than he'd ever made it. Farther than he'd ever hoped to go. Droid repair and pattern design, starship electronics maintenance, comm equipment architecture and repair—"

"And politics?" Evlyn murmured.

Jinzler looked down at her, startled. She was gazing at him with a disturbingly knowing look.

Abruptly, he got it. Ambassador Jinzler. In the rush of ache and memory and old bitterness he'd completely forgotten the role he was playing here. "I tried as hard as I could to make myself into someone they could love as much as her," he said, wrenching himself out of his meanderings and back to the point. "And of course, they said they were proud of me and of what I'd done. But I could see in their eyes that I still didn't measure up. Not to Lorana's standards."

"Did you ever see her again?" Rosemari asked. "Lorana, I mean."

"I saw her a couple more times at the Temple," Jinzler told her. "Always at a distance, of course. Then we met just before Outbound Flight left the Republic." He looked away. "I don't want to talk about that."

For a long moment no one spoke. Jinzler stared at the empty classroom, watching the memories still parading themselves in front of his eyes, wondering why exactly he'd just bared his soul to a trio of total strangers that way. He must be getting old.

It was Pressor who eventually broke the silence. "We should get back to the others," he said, his voice sounding odd. "Uliar's suspicious enough of us as it is. We don't want him to think we're pla

Jinzler took a deep breath, willing the ghosts of the past to go away. The ghosts, as usual, ignored him. "Yes," he said. "Of course."

They retraced their steps through the classrooms, Rosemari leading the way with Evlyn beside her. Not held quite so closely to her side, Pressor noted as he fell in behind Jinzler like a good Peacekeeper should. Apparently, his sister didn't feel quite as nervous about their visitor as she had a few minutes ago.

As for Pressor himself, he didn't know what to think anymore. He'd been fully prepared to hate Jinzler and the others, or at the very least to be extremely distrustful of them, their words, and their motives.

But now, all that nice convenient caution had been thrown for a twist. True, Jinzler's story just now could have been a complete lie, a performance carefully calculated to lull suspicions and evoke sympathy. But Pressor didn't think so. He'd always been good at reading people, and something about Jinzler's revelation had struck him as genuine.

Still, that didn't necessarily mean anything as far as the rest of the group was concerned. He'd caught the subtle hint in Evlyn's question about politics; clearly, Jinzler was no ambassador, or at least nobody who'd been officially sanctioned in that post. Either he was part of some complicated plot, which was seeming less and less likely, or else he'd wormed his way into this expedition under false pretenses. Either way, the logical conclusion was that the chief Chiss, Formbi, was the one in actual charge here, and so far Pressor hadn't been able to read him at all. Hopefully, Uliar was making some progress on that front. The outer school door slid open, and Rosemari stepped out into the corridor—

And nearly collided with Trilli as he shot past at a fast jog.

"Sorry," the Peacekeeper muttered, managing to avoid ru

Pressor glanced at Jinzler. Letting the pseudo-ambassador wander around alone would not be a good idea, he knew. But the look in Trilli's eyes was one that demanded immediate attention, and in private. "Rosemari, will you escort the ambassador to the meeting chamber?" he asked his sister. "I'll be along in a minute."

"Certainly," Rosemari said. "This way, Ambassador." Walking side by side, she, Evlyn, and Jinzler headed down the corridor.

"What is it?" Pressor asked when he judged the group far enough out of earshot.

"I went to lock down the turbolift controls like you said," Trilli said, his voice tight. "The other two trap cars—Two and Six—aren't midtube anymore."

Pressor felt his stomach tighten. "You mean they—? No, that's impossible. We'd have heard the crash."

"I'd sure think so," Trilli agreed. "But if the cars aren't there, and they didn't smash themselves to a group pulp, it means the Jedi and Imperials somehow ungimmicked them and got out."

Pressor hissed softly between his teeth. This was not good. This was very not good. "All right," he said slowly. "They didn't come down here—there are enough people wandering around that we'd surely have heard about it if they had. That means they either went back up to Four, or else they're down in the storage core. Could you tell where the cars ended up?"

Trilli shook his head. "We messed up all the positioning sensors when we rewired the cars way back when. We'd have to physically go in there and see."

"Yeah," Pressor said. "Okay, go scare up a couple of maintenance droids and send them into the shaft, one in each direction. Then get hold of Bels and Amberson and have them lock down all access from Four. If they went up, they're probably pla

"And if they went down?"

Pressor grimaced. From the supply core, the intruders would have access to both the main colony here on Five as well as the nursery on Six. And, of course—

"You think they know about Quarantine?" Trilli asked, echoing Pressor's own thought.