Vision of the future

He hesitated. 'The other thing you might not know is that a month or two after his recapture, his wife pulled the same sort of vanishing act.'

Lando frowned. 'I remember Wedge talking about that once. But you say 'vanishing'—I thought it was the Empire who snatched her.'

'That's what everyone thought at the time,' Han agreed. 'But once they started sifting through the evidence, it was a lot less clear what had happened. Anyway, no one ever found a trace of her, either.'

Lando shook his head. 'If any of this is supposed to reassure me, it's not. The only way Isard could have gotten Fel back on the Empire's side would have been to braintwist him. You want to tell me what kind of clone is going to come from that?'

Han sighed. 'I don't know. All I know is that Leia cleared him.' Lando nodded. 'Yeah. Sure.'

Again, silence descended on the bridge. This time, it was Han who broke it. 'What are Lobot and Moegid doing back there?' he asked.

'They were practicing their slicing techniques before you had me shut the computer down,' Lando said, still sounding grumpy. 'They're probably checking over Moegid's equipment now.'

'Did you tell them where we were going?'

Lando's lips compressed briefly. 'I told them we were going into the Empire. I didn't tell them exactly where. Or why.'

'Maybe you'd better go do that,' Han suggested. 'Moegid may need to brush up on Imperial computer systems or something.'

'I don't think Verpine ever have to brush up on anything,' Lando said. But he nevertheless levered himself out of his seat. 'Sure, why not? We might as well all be worried together. It's better than sitting around waiting for the hammer to drop, anyway.'

'Don't worry,' Han called after him as he left the bridge. 'It'll work out. Trust me.' There was no response but the metallic thud of the door as it slid shut behind him. Sighing again, Han turned his attention back to watching for Carib's freighter to return. Trying hard not to worry.

* * *

The Ubiqtorate agent seated at his console gazed up at his visitor from under bushy eyebrows.

'All right,' he said in a voice that somehow reminded Carib of a thousand prasher worms scratching their wings against tallgrain leaves. 'Your ID checks out.'

'Glad to hear it,' Carib said, trying to put some righteous indignation into his tone. To his ears, though, he sounded merely plaintive. 'Does that mean you're finally ready to listen?' The agent leaned back in his seat, regarding Carib coolly. 'Sure,' he said. 'Provided you're ready to hear a list of charges against you if this big news of yours isn't as flacking urgent as you seem to think it is.'

He slammed his stylus down on the desk in front of him. 'Blast it, Devist, you know you're never supposed to come here yourself. All you people are supposed to know that. Everything you have to report goes through channels. Everything.'

Carib remained standing at attention, listening to the reprimand with half an ear and waiting with all the patience he could muster for the other to run out of words. The self-generated tirade, he knew, was one of the Ubiqtorate's classic tactics for rattling someone they wanted to be vulnerable. But no. That wasn't something he knew. It was something Baron Soontir Fel had known. Something that had been artificially transferred along with his piloting skill to Carib and his brothers. Memories that were not his own, from a person who was not him.

And yet, on some level, was indeed him.

It was a mind-numbing thought, a painful and depressing blurring of identity that had cost Carib many a sleepless night back on Pakrik Minor before he'd finally made the conscious decision to bury it as far back at the edge of his mind as he could.

And he'd done a fair job of keeping it there... until the long-awaited, long-feared orders had come in from the remnants of the Empire—could it really have been only two weeks ago?—reactivating his TIE combat unit. Then, all the old uncertainties and questions and self-doubts had surged back to the front of his mind. He was a clone. A clone. A clone...

Stop it, he snarled at the word. I am Carib Devist. Husband of Lacy, father of Daberin and Keena, tallgrain farmer of the Dorchess Valley of Pakrik Minor. Where I came from and how I came to be don't matter. I am who I am.