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Lost and Found: A Study in Noir

I.

The gentleman in question came out into the office hurriedly, slapping his briefcase down onto his desk and immediately moving to the filing cabinet propped against the far wall. He fumbled with the lock and muttered a curse to himself in an obscure dialect of Palcraff, and then wrenched the second drawer open with too much force. He was nervous. Given his situation, it was easy to see why that would be the case. He began rifling through the contents of the drawer, muttering some sort of curious monologue to himself.

"Ah!" he said, finding one of the folders he'd been looking for. He pulled it loose and tossed it over to the desk, where it landed with a plop. He turned back to the filing cabinet, continuing his search.

It sometimes comes as a surprise to people that, after nearly 30,000 years of the information age, most multistellar corporations and governments still keep hard-copy records. Surely computerized storage is well-enough established that flimsi files are unnecessary? The Grotean riots of the 2650s BrS were a bloody reminder that 'puter systems aren't infallible, and that hard-copy is a vital failsafe in many cases. Unfortunately, in some cases, hard-copy can also be a liability, because it can't be erased or altered with the stroke of a key.

The gentleman in question found the last of the folders he'd been looking for, and turned to the desk, probably to rifle through them and extract the specific docs he wanted. It was then that he finally saw me.

"What the – ?!"

"The important thing is for you to not be alarmed, Doctor," I said, lighting a cigarette. I never liked the flavor of most brands of cigarra, and cigarettes are much cheaper, anyway. I'm not an epicure.

The gentleman in question was obviously not prepared for this sort of thing, because he was caught between wanting to demand to know who I was and what I was doing in his office, and wanting to reach for the blaster he'd stuffed awkwardly into the waistband of his trousers. After a moment's hesitation he fumbled for the blaster. I hit him in the eye with my pyro. Not too much heft to the thing – smoking cigarettes doesn't require that much lighter fluid – but it caught him off guard and made my point. I was faster than he was, and unlike him I wasn't a theoretician in the use of forceful arguments. I was in the practical side of that discipline.

The gentleman in question rocked back slightly, surprised by the sudden blow to his eye. I took a step forward, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, and yanked it down around his biceps, pinning his arms to his side. Not very good for keeping someone immobilized for very long, but it works in a pinch. I relieved him of the unfamiliar burden of his blaster, and set it calmly against the desk.

"Now, like I said, Doctor, the important thing is for you to not be alarmed," I said. I identified myself and showed him my credentials. "I'm not after you, Doctor," I said. "I'm not even here to recover the money you took. I'm here for the data tape, and that's it. Just hand it over, and I'll be on my way. You can finish ransacking your office and you can high-tail it to whatever corner of the galaxy you think you'll be safe in. I just want the data tape, Doctor."

He looked at me warily. "How did you know where to find me?"

"That's a joke, right?" I gestured to the files on his desk. "I don't have time to chat with you, Doctor, and you don't have time to chat with me. So let's cut to the chase, all right? Just give me the data tape."

He worked his arms out of the impromptu straightjacket I'd put him in, straightened himself out, and looked at me with an indignant expression on his face. Probably thought he was too good to deal with me. Lots of people feel that way. I'm not in this business to make friends.

"I don't have it," he said.

I demonstrated to him that I don't have a very high tolerance for being lied to. He had nine lies left to tell me before I worked my way up from his hands.

"It's – It's not with me, I mean!" he said, gripping at his left hand as though applying pressure would make it hurt less. "It's back in the – "

Eight lies left.

"Perhaps now you will give me the data tape," I said.

"All right! All right!" he fumbled about his jacket pocket, and removed the item in question. He started to hand it over, then stopped and took a few steps back. "How do I know you'll keep your word? How do I know you'll let me go?"

"You're an intelligent man, Doctor," I said, "but not very smart. If I'd wanted to kill you, I could've done it long before you even entered this office. If I'd wanted to capture you, I could've done it when you first got here. I knew you had the data tape on you. If I were really after any more than that, I wouldn't have given you the courtesy of a chance to hand it over without any fuss. I'm not a bounty hunter, and I'm not an assassin. I'm just losing my patience."

He thought about that for a moment. He handed over the data tape. I thanked him and turned to leave. There was a pause, and then the damn fool went for the blaster.

I hate it when they do that.

I am the possessor of an MI 330-712A Investigating Certificate. That means a lot of things, both legally and professionally. It means I'm licensed directly by the Imperial State, not by any of the Dominion governments, and as such I'm exempt from a plethora of fees and restrictions (even if I am subject to a hefty number of others). One of the most important benefits of the 330-712A is that it's a Class I certificate, like the more famous MI 603-730 Peace-Keeping Certificate and the rarely-seen MS 000-001 Assassin's Accreditation. Possessing a Class I certificate means that I am legally authorized to use deadly force in the course of lawfully-conducted professional activities. I also possess an MI 225-621C permit, which specifies that I do not require any additional permits or licenses to operate anywhere in the Imperial State's immediate territories or in territories subject to the interposed jurisdiction of a Dominion government.

In short, that means my license to kill is good anywhere in the Empire.

It really annoys me, on a professional level, when some schmuck with a blaster and an overinflated sense of his own competence thinks he – a small-time crook or a professional thief, maybe, or even a crooked businessman or an oversexed university professor – is going to get the drop on me. Mininter isn't run by idiots, despite what the holomedia would have people believe, and they don't just hand out 225-621Cs.

So there I stood, the smoke of my cigarette mingling with the smoke of my blaster, the reek of burnt flesh thick in the room. A person gets used to that smell eventually. I shook my head. I wasn't lying when I said I'm not a bounty hunter or an assassin. I don't like the Guilds that dominate those businesses, and I don't like killing when I don't have to.

There's too damned much paperwork.

Interesting story. Is it set in the Galactic Empire of 'Star Wars', in another sci-fi empire, or in an original universe you created?

Sidewinder wrote:Interesting story. Is it set in the Galactic Empire of 'Star Wars', in another sci-fi empire, or in an original universe you created?

It's set in the Galactic Empire. This is more an introduction to the character than a part of the story itself.

He's a smooth operator, to be sure. I was quite impressed by how parts were kept intentionally vague during the questioning. It wasn't sharp and brutal, but it was certainly enough to make me apprehensive, because I didn't know what was going beyond a general idea. Very nice.

Lost and Found: A Study in Noir

II.

I brought my boat into range of the ferry's tractor beam and slaved the conn to the ferry's space-traffic control center. I don't have my own ship, for a number of reasons. Number one, I'm not a freighter captain or a smuggler and I don't need a lot of cargo space. I don't have a Master Spacer's Certificate or a Captain's Accredited License, and I don't plan on getting one, either. My boat's big enough to accommodate me and up to three guests for short interstellar trips. I can make cross-Sector trips, but I'd have to stop and refuel along the way. I don't really need that kind of range for the most part, and when I do, it's a lot cheaper to book space aboard a ferry. Most people don't realize what kind of an investment a ship is. Between all the licenses, the fuel, the weapons, regular stores, and the myriad little things they never talk about in the Millennium holos, it's too damned much money. I don't need it, so I don't have it.

The comm light began to blink as I stood up to stretch my legs. I glanced at my chrono, considered ignoring it. In the end, economics won out and I sat down. I make a good living, but not so good that I can just pick and choose when I want to work. It's funny how many things in life can depend on something so simple as whether or not to take this call or that one.

My boat's equipped to handle tridimensional signals as well as bidimensional, so it's really based on the preference of the person on the other end. You can usually tell a lot about somebody based on which one they go for; tri-D's more expensive – not prohibitively so, mind you, but enough to be noticeable. People who use tri-D as a matter of course are used to having resources and infrastructure as part of the background, things they never think about. This usually translates to being willing to pay more for my services, but it takes a lot to make the rich people want to deal with somebody like me in the first place. People who use bi-D are more likely to have a keen appreciation for the value of a credit. They're usually much pickier about paying, too.

I recognized the tri-D face that formed on my dashboard as being that of Antonys pul-Matté, the executive director of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Commission's staff. Pul-Matté's one of those Core World public school types, the kind who knows people who know people. He's pretty young for such a senior member of the Senate's bureaucracy, but what he lacks in age he makes up for in arrogance. He's smart and he's competent, but he didn't rise through the bureaucratic ranks by being smart and competent. He knows people. Nobody gets anywhere in the Rotunda's back halls without knowing people.

I don't like pul-Matté, but there's no rule that says you have to like a man to take his money. As the SIOC's executive director, it falls to him to make arrangements for the Senators' policies and directives to be implemented. He wouldn't be caught dead talking to a man like me if he didn't have to, so it's always a pleasure to hear from him. His need translates to my profit.

"Good morning, Detective," he said. "I trust you've fully healed?"

"I'm fine, thank you," I said. "What can I do for you, Mr. pul-Matté?"

Pul-Matté's usual social circles are rarely so frank, but he didn't want to exchange pleasantries with me anymore than I did with him, so it worked out well for both of us. The Commission wanted to retain my services, he explained, which was interesting enough in and of itself.

"Is this line secure?" he asked unnecessarily. I assured him that it was.

"Very well," he said. "There's a briefcase gone missing, and the recovery of information being one of your specialties, the Commission wants you to do precisely that: recover it."

I told him to send whatever details he could, and I'd take care of it. He didn't ask if I wanted to know what's in the briefcase; he knew I didn't care. He didn't ask if I wanted to know how much they'd be willing to pay me; the Senate's learned not to be stingy when it's paying for private sector expertise like mine. The conversation ended.

I considered the situation for a moment. The Senate doesn't usually tell its staff directors like pul-Matté to hire private investigators like me. In theory, all the Senate's investigations are either undertaken by the Government Accounting Office, independent counsels, or No. 1030 Glitannai Esplanade — that's the Office of Criminal Investigations, for those of you who aren't familiar with metonymy. If they're deliberately hiring outsiders like me, it's because they don't trust the official channels for some reason. Contrary to what Minitrue would have you believe, the Empire's government isn't one Big Happy Family.

Lots of people – even people who should know better – like to think of the Empire as a kind of monolith, probably because that's the way the Empire likes to think of itself. After all, look at Correct Thought, the official ideology of the New Order: The Three Pillars are (mirabile dictu) Unity, Stability, and Conformity. Some people, Party members mostly, really think that that's what the Empire's all about. Some parts of it are, sure. But not all of it.

That's the point, though, isn't it? The Empire isn't a monolith. It's a big tent containing a whole lot of little booths, not all of which get along with each other. People like to focus on the big groups, things like the Republicans versus the Monarchists, but even that covers up a lot of details. The Republicans don't all see eye to eye; neither do the Monarchists. The Monarchists are about as monolithic as a paranoid schizo with MPD, mixing paternalists with authoritarians with totalitarians. Practically every other week the Palpatinist-Tarkinists are at the aristos' throats, with the robber barons egging both sides on. Only thing worse than a non-believer's the wrong kind of believer. And just about everyone in the Empire’s loyal to one of these groups or another, regardless of who he works for.

You find it all over the place. It's a rare bird that doesn't serve two masters, and you've got to go pretty far up the food chain to find 'em. The Twins of Naboo, for instance, and the Black Twin's pet sorcerer, Darth Vader. A couple of the biggest names at court, too, like the Gray Eminence, the Iron Marquess, Slick Willy Tarkin, maybe a few others. Everybody else? They've got their masters to please. Sometimes it's a perverse incentive, like when some grayshirt at 1030 Glitannai doesn't feel like scrutinizing Moff Shmuckatelli's business dealings too closely, even though that's his job. It can get downright nasty, too. Ex-Minister President Koskov was executed after one of his secretaries turned State's evidence against him back during the Perinelli scandal. Why? Turns out Koskov hadn't realized his secretary was a Party member. Oops.

You’ve got True Believers working for cynics, you’ve got sell-outs working for bean-counters — and vice versa. Can’t begin to tell you how many cases I’ve seen with industrial spies or faction agents inside the halls of the Imperial State or the Dominions, or how many grayshirts I’ve brought in for ties to Mothmatists, Separatists, or even plain old organized crime. Everybody’s got his masters.

So, the Senators didn't trust the official channels to obtain the briefcase. Or, perhaps more accurately, they didn't trust them to obtain the briefcase and bring it back to the Senators. I'm sure quite a bit of interesting evidence has vanished into 1030 Glitannai's archives. Still, the Senate's not the only group in the galaxy that hears about these things. Chances are pretty good that if the Senate's got somebody – i.e., me – looking for the briefcase, there are other people looking for it, too. 1030 Glitannai, no doubt, even if the Senate doesn't want them to find it first, and the Central Office, too – no grayshirt in any department or office ever moves a muscle without a whiteshirt wondering what he's up to. And if the ISB's got people on it, then ten'll get you twenty that the Ubiqtorate's got better trained people on it, as a matter of principle.

I read through the datapack pul-Matté uploaded to my 'puter. This was going to be a messy one, no doubt about that. I dialed up the ferry's number and made arrangements for a trip to Coruscant, then I left for the cabin and consigned myself to the oblivion of sleep. Neat little trick I picked up back during my days of running around with Old Man Baamonde — this was back before they made him a Moff — , being able to rack out and catch some Zs whenever I want. It pays off to be well-rested when you can be; you never know when you'll get the next chance to sleep.

Some people in my line of work don't like to sleep, because they get bad dreams. I suppose that's reasonable enough; I've been from one end of this galaxy to the other, and I've worked a lot of jobs in my day, and believe me when I tell you I've seen some pretty horrible things. I've seen Inquisitors lose their tempers, and I've seen Jedi lose their minds. I suppose I can understand better than most how and why some people don't like to dream. Me, I don't have that problem.

I don't get paid to dream.

This is a real slick story Publius. What time period are we talking here?

Well, it's between the rise of the Empire and Yavin, so that's less than a 20 year period in which it could be set. Looks to me like Tarkin's been promoted to Grand Moff at this point, so I think that puts it at least a few years in.

For the most part, the time period isn't important. As Alan Bolte has pointed out, Tarkin is very powerful (and not dead), which generally places it at some point in the middle period of Imperial history.

---

Lost and Found: A Study in Noir

III.

The first thing you notice about Coruscant is the smell.

The holonovels — especially those trashy romances Chalil churns out — always make a big deal out of the lights, but let's be honest, who hasn't seen lights before? Coruscant is pretty much like any city on any planet, just bigger. It's just that once you actually set foot on the planet, you get a whiff of that unique bouquet — an indescribable blend of the sweat and scent of trillions of beings from a hundred thousand different species, the steam and exhaust of billions of 'pulserlifts, the smoke of the factories and the byproducts of the recycleries, all that. It's not exactly unpleasant — there must be a billion tons of perfume on the planet, for one thing — but it's not exactly pleasant, either. It's unique. It smells like... well, I suppose it smells like Coruscant.

I wasn't there to take in the sights or the smells. I berthed my boat and called for a taxi, and headed toward Unity Gardens.

I'd been to Unity Gardens a hundred times, but it's still some sort of big thrill to people when they hear you're going there on business. The perpetual mystique of the Navy, I suppose. As far as architecture goes, it's pretty impressive, I'll admit that. Certainly not up to the standards of the Imperial Palace, but then that's why the Palace is one of the Twenty Wonders of the Galaxy and Unity Gardens isn't. Fortunately for the Navy, its complex at Unity Gardens is far enough down Glitannai Esplanade that its architecture doesn't automatically draw unfavorable comparisons between it and the Palace. When you sweep up into that main plaza, with the huge silver-blue buildings towering over you on either side and that huge zero-g fountain in the middle, I've got to admit, it's hard not to be impressed. And there's a very good reason the complex is named after the gardens out there. They say the Purple Twin designed the gardens himself. If it's true, there's no wonder he's the Black Twin's alter ego. The man's got an amazing eye for details.

I passed under the colossal arch with the words HEADQUARTERS NAVY COMMAND MINISTRY OF THE NAVY in ten-meter-tall letters emblazoned across it and entered the main lobby, with that huge Navy crest lasered onto the marble floor, surrounded by the age-old motto SERVICE FEALTY FIDELITY in gleaming letters. The entire complex was laid out in pure Imperial style, with the intent of overwhelming the observer with its grandeur and the bold, sweeping lines that spoke of the vast power of the Empire. Not baroque, but who needs to be baroque when you can use simple geometry to make people feel microscopically tiny and insignificant? Standard Imperial philosophy at work, there. You can see it in millions of Imperial buildings throughout the galaxy, from the local garrison all the way up to the Imperial Palace.

The receptionist who spoke to me was a pretty young thing in a gray Civil Servant's uniform, rather than a Navy one. She took my name told me someone would be along to escort me to Lieutenant Commander Purkins's office in a few minutes. The Navy doesn't let anybody wander around Unity Gardens without an escort, not even Senators, and certainly not people flashing badges. They say it's for security purposes, and to help ensure that people don't get lost. That's probably true enough. I once had to chase a man for half an hour inside Trommer Hall, and not even once did we pass through the same corridor twice. Trommer Hall's not even the biggest building at Unity Gardens.

There's something insufferably smug about the Navy. Probably because they're the single biggest item in the Imperial annual budget, even bigger if you count the rest of the Naval Service. Any civics class teacher will tell you responsibility for space is split up among the three ministries, Space, the Navy, and Intergalactic Transit, but it's the Chief of Naval Operations and First Space Lord that's the real king of space. In theory the Minister President appoints the CNO/1SL and all the other senior officers, including the Commodore IFA and the Scoutmaster General. In reality, the Navy usually tells him who's going to be sporting the Admiral of the Navy's collar devices, and he's going to tell his "boss" who'll be taking the other offices. Remember what I said about perverse influences?

Don't get me wrong, the CNO/1SL doesn't have total control of the Navy, not by a long shot. Not with all the Moffs and Grand Moffs controlling the Sector and Regional and Oversector Commands out there. Ultimately, the Privy Council has the last say about most of the fleet's affairs outside of the Oversectors and the strategic reserves. But let's be realistic: Every single CNO/1SL in the Empire's history has been a member of the Privy Council. And not even one CNO/1SL has been sacked in years, but there've been plenty of Navy, Space, and IGT Ministers in that time. Remember a couple of years back when the Admiral of the Navy spat in the Minister of Space's face during the New Year Fête? It wasn't Terrinald Screed that got fired, it was the Rodrigo Rendar.

A master at arms in a black Navy uniform showed up and led me through the labyrinthine halls of Unity Gardens — "passageways," the Navy calls them (or just "P-ways," if you're a fan of brevity). I entered the office and identified myself to the man seated behind the desk. He didn't rise to greet me. Lieutenant Commander Purkins already didn't like me, that much was clear, even if he was being polite about it. It was nothing personal. He and I had never met; in that respect we were like two hawkbats who'd also never met. It was professional; he was one of those arrogant types who disliked everyone who was beneath him and everyone who was above him. Probably didn't go dancing much.

"What can I do for you, Detective?" he said, setting his stylus down on the desk and folding his hands in front of himself. He didn't have to minimize the window he'd been working in before I'd interrupted him. Like almost all government screens, it wasn't two-way; I couldn't see what he was working on even if I'd been interested — which I wasn't.

"I've been assigned to investigate the disappearance of a briefcase," I said, after identifying myself and showing him my credentials.

"Oh, stars, not that again," he said, pushing his chair away from his desk and moving toward his office window. "Don't you people talk to each other? I've already answered all of your questions about this."

"Please just humor me, Commander," I said, dropping my hat onto his desk and drawing my datapad out from my overcoat. We went over all the usual questions, and he stonewalled on almost everything. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed by his performance; he managed to give me all the details I need without telling me even one detail I didn't need or wasn't cleared for. By the time I was done asking questions, I had all the basic facts about the briefcase and the circumstances under which it'd gone missing, without even knowing the name of the office it'd gone missing from. A subsequent background check on Purkins confirmed my suspicion; he'd spent a few years in the office of the Navy's Chief of Legislative Liaison. Spend a few years lying to the Senate, and you get to be pretty good at answering questions without answering them.

One of the things you learn in my line of work is that you can't take things at face value. You can't trust people to tell you the truth, no matter what species they are, and no matter what you think you know about their cultures or their backgrounds. That doesn't meant that what they're telling you isn't true. It just means that you can't trust them to tell you the truth. Just because somebody says something doesn't make it true. Just because you see something doesn't make it true, either. Your eyes can deceive you.

"Commander, there's some gentlemen here to see you," said Purkins's writer through his office intercom. He leaned over his chair to touch the intercom key.

"Who is it?"

There was a slight pause, and the yeoman's voice came back. "Sir, there are two gentlemen here from Naval Intelligence, and two gentlemen from the OCI."

Purkins's blue eyes snapped up sharply to look at me again. He had the pale complexion of a man who spent most of his time indoors under artificial light — fairly common among Navy types, especially those at Unity Gardens — and like many of the officers that command desks instead of ships, he had a slight paunch that came from working out only sporadically, in preparation for the semiannual physical readiness test. "Who did you say you're with, Detective?"

I hate it when that happens. I was surprised that 1030 Glitannai's grayshirts were only now showing up to talk to Purkins; that meant whoever had come to see him before – he'd said "not that again," you might recall – was with somebody else. "I didn't," I said. He'd made a very simple mistake; he saw my badge and heard the word "detective," and just assumed that I was OCI. Not all of them wear uniforms, and I usually wear a suit that any respectable businessman or civil servant could wear to work in good conscience. It's an easy mistake to make, and one that's helped me out more than once. Thing is, I'm not the one responsible for checking my credentials. I'm required by law to show them, not to hold people's hands while they examine them. They don't read the fine print? Not my problem.

"I'm a private eye," I said brusquely, rising from the chair and tucking my datapad back into my overcoat's inner pocket. I picked up my hat and turned toward the door when I felt Lieutenant Commander Purkins lay hands on me.

I'm not so naïf that I'm surprised when people get angry with me, but my dear old grandmother didn't raise me in a barn, and I believe in good manners. I expressed to Purkins my concern that he behave himself like an officer and a gentleman, and deposited him – uniform slightly rumpled — back in his chair. "Been a real pleasure, Commander," I said, picking up my hat and dusting it off.

I stepped out of the office and bumped into my opposite numbers, Detectives Iosif Lestrade and Davin Stebbins from 1030 Glitannai. Both of them were wearing the gray Civil Servant's uniforms with the OCI pin on the left breast, over the rank badge.

"Fancy meeting you here," Lestrade said drily.

"Detective Lestrade, Detective Stebbins," I said, nodding in greeting. "He's all yours, gentlemen, but I warn you that he's both good at lying and bad at judging when he's bitten off more than he can chew. He's probably in a bad mood."

Stebbins masticated fiercely on the unlit and mangled cigarra in his mouth, a habit he'd picked up long ago from his days as a beat cop in the meaner streets of Imperial City. He grinned wolfishly at me. "Let me guess. The old 'I'm a detective' routine?"

"One of these days you're going to get busted for impersonating an officer of the law," Lestrade said, not even a ghost of a smile on his lips. He was a good, solid policeman; he respected me and I respected him, but he didn't approve of my methods.

"I never claimed to be a grayshirt, Ios’," I said. "Not my fault if people jump to conclusions. Now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have to be going. Spaceman Drovis, if you'd be so kind?" The master at arms escorted me back to the main lobby, and I caught a taxi from there to Vanesa District and the public records building. I spent quite a few long hours there, headed over to my office on Upherholt Avenue, and did some more snooping on the subnets. I don’t live on Coruscant, but it pays to keep an office there. Especially since my generous patron-who-shall-remain-nameless had seen fit to provide me with access to the secure nets used by Triumph House, Unity Gardens, and the Panopticon. It’s nice to know what the Army, Navy, and Intelligence are talking about.

Sometimes I thought about letting an apartment, too, but ultimately I could never justify the expense. I prefer to sleep in my boat when I’m not at home, anyway. After a brief stopover in the undercity, I caught a taxi back to Westport, where I'd docked my boat. I removed my coat and waistcoat and tossed my datapad onto my rack. I lit a cigarette and had a seat.

Time to do some review.

Lost and Found: A Study in Noir

IV.


Based on the information pul-Matté had given me, I knew that a briefcase had been brought under heavily armed guard into Milmach Hall, at 12 Navy Observatory Circle. I'd never been to Milmach Hall; the Navy didn't like anyone to know what went on in there, but rumor had it that Section Nineteen had something to do with it. Purkins hadn't given away too much, but he had indicated subtly that Imperial Intelligence had gotten involved at some point. One of the civilians working in Milmach Hall, one Jeras Xaviedie, had absconded with the briefcase under... unclear circumstances.

My cigarette was burning low, so I deposited it in the ash tray next to my rack and lit another. Pul-Matté'd given me a few scant details about Xaviedie, probably what he'd been able to scrounge out of the GAO. Mininav wasn't known to be very free with details about its civilians. Man was a white-collar worker, some sort of technical consultant. Details about that weren't available. Not a Party member. Average political and ideological ratings. Got his baccalaureate in applied science from the Deltranin University, and both his master's and his doctorate from Lobden Institute of Technology — prestigious schools on Wukkar. No surprise there; LIT is a known grayshirt factory. That's not to say that it's a diploma mill – no, it's one of the finest schools of its kind in the galaxy, with a healthy rivalry with the Magrody Institute. It's just that there's not much else you can call a school that has 90% of its graduates working for the Wukkaran or Imperial governments.

One of the most important skills in my line of work is the ability to control curiosity. I'm not paid to find out my employers' secrets, I'm paid to recover their belongings or to find out secrets about someone else. Case in point: Was I curious about what was in the briefcase? I'm mostly human, sure. There's not a soul that's more or less human that can hear about a forbidden secret and not feel the least murmur of curiosity. Long years of experience squelched that murmur, leaving it stillborn somewhere deep inside of me. I wasn't being paid to wonder, so I wasn't going to. Whatever was in the briefcase was none of my concern.

Not too much about Xaviedie's politics, other than the Ideological Monitor's ratings. Like I said, average across the board. That meant that he was not regarded as a political malefactor or an ideological recusant, no 'counterrevolutionary tendencies' or the like, broadly supportive of the New Order. Respectable credentials of loyalty, but not a noted partisan of Correct Thought and the principles of Palpatinism-Tarkinism. Apparently at least one of his coworkers – no one knew exactly which one – hadn't liked the way the matter was being handled, so he — or she, or it — had tipped off the Senate that something was up. Common enough; there's lots of grayshirts that are loyal to their homeworlds and the Senate rather than the various factions in the Imperial State. Republicans may not be as common in the Civil Service as Monarchists, but they're there. Like I said, everybody's got his masters. Conflict of interest? Try status quo.

It might have ended there (as far as the Senate was concerned), but for the fact that the Ubiqtorate had put some I-men on it. Any time the Isard family business shows an interest in something, my current employers – the Senate Intelligence Oversight Commission – sits up and takes notice. Nobody outside the Imperial State likes the Ubiqtorate; hell, plenty of people inside the Imperial State don't, either. Not without good reason, I assure you. It's a well known fact that the Ubiqtorate's got spies and informers everywhere, including inside the multistellar corporations and the Dominion governments. That always gets people's hackles up. For one thing, nobody likes the thought that their office mate or the local grocer might be an agent of the All-Seeing Eye. For another, the Krianelg-Mozphri Domestic/Internal Intelligence Act contains strict prohibitions against the use of the Ubiqtorate to spy on Dominion governments and Dominion nationals, to include artificial persons. The K-MD/IIA isn't worth the flimsi it's printed on, in case you didn't know. The Empire spies on the Dominions, the Dominions spy on the Empire. Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail, right? There are no gentlemen in the game of interstellar intrigue. When the players shake hands, they're not crossing their fingers behind their backs. They're clutching long knives.

What followed was typical of this kind of thing. Naval Intelligence and the Ubiqtorate have a pretty cordial relationship, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the I-men stepped in to help with damage-control. Even before the Ubiqtorate's mortal enemies at the ISB could get involved, the Commission had stepped in and made very clear that it knew something was up, and it expected the contents of the briefcase to be recovered and handed over for its examination. Unity Gardens and the Panopticon made the necessary obeisance – "As you wish, Senator!" – and promised to recover the briefcase as soon as possible and – of course – present it to the Commission. That usually means the contents of the briefcase would never see the light of day again. The GAO, always eager to assert its authority, had stepped in and demanded a full investigation. The whiteshirts of the ISB took this as an engraved invitation. Things snowballed from there. I'd have to move fast if I was going to catch Xaviedie before the Empire's packs of Neks did.

I took a long drag off my cigarette. The trick to finding someone on the lam is to consider things from his perspective. Sure, I know how I would go about making sure I'm not found, but then, I'm a professional. I know things, and I know people, and I know the tricks of the trade. Other people don't. You've got to consider how much your quarry knows, and what he'd do with that. Xaviedie was an academic type, a scientist. He probably didn't have too much experience with getting his hands dirty. He'd try to keep under the scopes, sure, but he'd be direct and logical about it. Where he'd go, though, depended on what he was running from.

I thought about that for a second. Was he running from the Empire, per se? Did he take the briefcase because he wanted to keep the Empire from having whatever was in it? Or did he want to turn it over to someone else, someone he trusted to handle it? Did he want to sell it to the highest bidder? Not the first time some white-collar's pulled that kind of stunt. The Empire's not known to be very friendly about that kind of thing, but when you're looking at billions of credits from one of the multistellars, your judgment can get kind of impaired. Why was he running? Had he been disillusioned, somehow? Seen something that broke his faith in the Empire, left him unwilling to work for it any longer? What makes a man turn traitor?

Philosophizing again. Old habits die hard. I pressed the remnants of my cigarette into the ashtray and considered lighting a third. Not the healthiest of habits to have, but it's only cancer. Blaster bolt'll probably kill me long before I need a new lung, anyway. I glanced at my chrono and rubbed my eyes. I always chain smoke when I'm tired. I'd spent very long hours at the publicord building doing research. Not the most glamorous part of the business, but I'm not paid to be glamorous. There's a very old saying, from the distant past when space flight was new: Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut.

My research had confirmed to me that Xaviedie had spent most of his life either in school or working for Mininav, which translated to spending most of his life on Wukkar or on Coruscant, with the occasional trip to Anaxes. The upshot to that was that it meant that almost all of his personal network of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances was to be found on those three worlds. That was good and bad. Good, because it meant that he was almost totally incapable of operating outside of those worlds. He needed to get in touch with people on one of those three worlds, and only an idiot with a death wish would try to hide from the Empire on Anaxes. The only things on Anaxes that don't work for the Empire are children, trees, and domesticated animals. Everybody else wears black jackboots to work. So that eliminated hiding on the Defender of the Core, but had the unfortunate side effect of leaving only two options open — naturally, Coruscant and Wukkar.

The combined, permanent populations of Coruscant and Wukkar number somewhere between five to six trillion sapient beings, according to the last Census. Numbers that big are hard to comprehend; they literally boggle the mind. Here's a quick and dirty illustration: If you looked at a different face every second, and you use the galactic standard time parts of 60 seconds per minute, sixty minutes per hour, twenty-four hours per day, and 368 days per year, you'd be looking at faces for close to two thousand years of looking at faces nonstop before you even looked at everyone who actually lives on Coruscant and Wukkar right now. That doesn't take into consideration the enormous number of people who work there but aren't permanent residents, or the invisible populations not counted in the Census, or the birth and death rates. Not even the Empire's got the resources to do a comprehensive person-by-person search on that scale. It'd take nothing short of a bored deity to run that kind of operation.

Still and all, it just wasn't a good idea to try to remain on Coruscant. No way Xaviedie'd try that; he'd never be able to hang around the upper levels, not with the number of two-way flatscreens, spy-eyes, and other means of surveillance. Never mind the fact that 1030 Glitannai, the Panopticon, Unity Gardens, and the Central Office almost certainly had every set of eyes at their disposal looking for him; certainly never mind the fact that the Inquisitorius has an enormous number of people on Coruscant at any given moment, and nobody really knows what they can and cannot do with their sorcerer's tricks. Would they be keeping an eye out for Xaviedie? Impossible to say – not even I know too much about the Inquisitorius. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of those men?

Likewise, the undercity's strictly off-limits to an ivory-towered intellectual like Xaviedie. The man'd spent his entire life in the luxury-liner parts of the Core; never spent even so much as a day in the seedier parts of the universe. There were things down in the undercity that'd eat a man like him for breakfast – literally. Plus, his grooming, bearing, and accent would definitely set him apart as someone who didn't belong down there. The sublevel dwellers are pretty nonchalant, sure, but they don't like having Imperial entanglements any more than anybody else. Certainly the idea of Ubiqtorate spies or whiteshirts spending any length of time among them is unwelcome; they've been known to turn over fugitives before, if for no better reason than to avoid official notice.

So, he'd probably make a run for Wukkar. Well, the first thing you've got to do if you're on the run is to get cash, and lots of it. It's entirely too easy to track wired payments on a cred line, because they're tied to particular locations or particular services. If you book passage on line, all I've got to do is get a look at your payment history, and then I know who you're paying to go where. From there, I can find out the when and where of your arrival and departure — and believe me, if you're running from the Empire, that's about the last thing you want people to know. This is simple stuff; the crime-drama holos point it out all the time.

Cash, though, is much harder to track. That's one of the reasons why it's so popular on the Invisible Market, or when making purchases you don't want other people to know about. Blue films, controlled substances, paying off bookies or procurers, that sort of thing. In fact, some of the more politically active Palpatinist-Tarkinists have advocated the total abolition of hard currency for years; it may be one of the only issues on which 1030 Glitannai and the Central Office are in total agreement.

It looked as though Xaviedie were smart enough to realize that using a cred line was a bad idea.. While I'd been back at my office I'd pulled up his financial records, which showed that he'd made a number of cash withdrawals shortly before his disappearance. In fact, he'd pushed his accounts to the maximum currently allowed by law. Shortly before I'd left the office, I'd heard back from a contact of mine in the undercity, who'd confirmed to me that Xaviedie had met with an ID forger whom I'd paid a brief visit on my way back to the boat. One of the advantages to be being a private eye is that you can make offers grayshirts and whiteshirts can't. In this case, it'd been one the forger couldn't and didn't refuse. He'd answered my questions.

Xaviedie had spent a pretty cred on buying himself a new identity. He'd gotten the works — new fingerprints, new ocular patterns, new ID. Not cheap. I don't know what was more surprising at the time, that he'd known where to go for the procedure or that he'd had the money to be able to afford it. In retrospect, his Wukkaran citizenship should've told me the latter. He must have done some research before he absconded with the briefcase.

Still, you can't get around in space without playing the Empire's game. Practically the entire merchant marine's in the Empire's back pocket. The Bureau of Ships and Services is independent, sure, but it does so much business with the Empire that it really can't afford to alienate it. One in every twenty ships along the main hyperspace routes is a Customs cutter. Those aren't good odds. There's a one in five chance that any spacer crew with ten or more hands has at least one Ubiqtorate agent or whiteshirt informer in it. Those are even worse odds.

Coruscant really is the ideal place to look for information if you know the right people. Thanks to my generous patron who-shall-remain-nameless, I do. You've got to love a patron who can get you into the Empire's files. I got onto my computer and spent a few hours snooping through the Panopticon's and Central Office's secure networks, looking for the information I wanted. The manifests and passenger lists of every liner and transport to pass through Imperial Center space are routed directly to the Panopticon, where the Ubiqtorate's supercomputers and analysts can scrutinize them at will. Meanwhile, the Central Office is obsessive about records-keeping, and has a meticulously organized database of its informers' tips. Someday somebody unscrupulous is going to get ahold of that database, and a whole lot of snitches are going to rue the day the ISB decided to be anal-retentive.

Ah. Aha.

Got 'im. Leonard Sikinazs. Passage booked to Wukkar, paid by cred line. A glance at the line told me it was for a newly-established account with Sixth/Fourth Bank, deposit in cash. Sixth/Fifth is a local operation, mostly only in Sector Zero, but they're working on expanding their market share. To put it mildly, they're not known for putting their clients' credentials up to a great deal of scrutiny. "Respecting your privacy" is their slogan, but in practice this amounts to "No questions asked." So, 'Mr. Sikinazs' was on his way to Wukkar, eh? There was little chance I'd beat him there. Nothing for that. I knew where he'd be and approximately when he'd be there. I'd have to pick up the trail again once I got to Wukkar. No time to book space for my boat on a ferry. I'd have to leave it behind and catch the express from Coruscant to Wukkar.

As I made the booking and left my boat, I reflected on the fact that the information I'd found was already in the Ubiqtorate's and the whiteshirts' hands. They just didn't know what they had, and they certainly wouldn't share it with each other to put two and two the way I had.

No wonder people are willing to pay me so much. I don't spend half my budget trying to screw my coworkers.

Nicely done, Publius.