undamaged.'
Paying no attention to the threat, she reached out and up to put her hands on the sides of his head and draw it toward her. Her fingers were cool against his skull, he realized, and there were too many of them, but otherwise her touch was inoffensive. Calming, even.
Several moments later, he was blinking back at her with the same awed realization that had not long before nearly overcome his companion. Unlike Bulgan, he did not throw his arms wildly in the air and dance small circles. Instead, he bowed. As performed by an Ansionian, it was a particularly graceful and supple gesture.
'I owe you my sanity, Padawan. For had you not interceded, I see surely now that the pain I have been living with would have led all too soon to utter madness, and eventually to death.' Turning from her, he embraced his old companion-in- despair, long arms wrapping around Bulgan's broad shoulders, maned and bald head bobbing together in ardent, mutual exultation.
The joyous sight of the two Ansionians she had been able to heal did Barriss's heart good-but it was not getting her out of this place, or restoring her to her friends. 'My name is Barriss Offee, my Master is the Jedi Luminara Unduli, and the sooner we find them, the better it will be for me and the safer, I suspect, it will be for you. For surely your employer will not be pleased to learn of the unexpected turn you have done him.'
'Bossban Soergg!' Bulgan exclaimed. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he looked askance at his companion. But Kyakhta was not upset at the unforced revelation.
'It doesn't matter now, Bulgan. I've just finished relaying news of our success to his headquarters. Someone else will have to inform him of this change in plans. We've cast our lot in with this female. Now she is going to have to deliver us from Soergg, instead of us delivering her to him.' He eyed the Jedi expectantly. 'Can you do that? We throw ourselves under your protection, without which we two who stand now clanless before you will surely be food for marauding shanhs before tomorrow's first light.'
'Get me out of here in one piece,' she assured them with a grim smile, 'and I can promise you the gratitude of two Jedi Knights and a fellow Padawan-in addition to my own personal indebtedness.' She started purposefully for the open doorway. 'That's enough reassurance for almost anyone in the galaxy.'
'Strange,' Bulgan murmured as he followed his companion and their former captive toward the exit, 'how clear thinking im proves one's outlook on life. For the first time in a long, long while I begin to see myself as a person again, instead of a lowly source of jokes and cruel humor.'
'I never saw you that way, my friend,' Kyakhta called softly back to him as they quietly mounted the spiral staircase.
'Yes, you did,' Bulgan shot back, 'but I don't blame you for it. It wasn't your fault. It was all in the mind.'
'Most cheap invective is.' Feeling slightly naked without her service belt, Barriss followed Kyakhta upward. 'Where is my gear?'
'In the storeroom. We'll get it for you before we leave.'
There was one guard in the room. The Dorun sat in a deeply indented chair designed to accommodate his commodious back side. In his twinned tentacles, he held an oval reader. Both stalk-mounted oculars swiveled in Kyakhta's direction as the latter emerged from the stairwell.
'How beeth the prisoner?'
Kyakhta shrugged boredly as Bulgan emerged behind him. Barriss kept out of sight farther down in the stairwell. 'Quiet. An unusual state of affairs, or so I have been told, for a humanoid female.'
'Resignedeth to her fate by now, I wager.' The Dorun re turned to his viewing. Neither of his independently swiveling eyes noticed Bulgan picking up an empty chair. Both swiveling oculars dimmed when the powerful Alwari brought it down on the guard's head.
'Quickly now!' Entering a combination into a keypad, Kyakhta reached into the drawer that popped open in response and withdrew Barriss's service belt. Her lightsaber, she was re lieved to note, was still fastened in place. As she was slipping the belt around her middle, she noticed Kyakhta fingering a small device secured at his own waist.
'What's that?'
'We have to call in our position at regular intervals,' the Alwari explained dolefully, 'or we'll die.' He rubbed the back of his neck. 'Bossban Soergg had explosive devices placed in our necks to ensure our compliance with his orders.'
Barriss made what was, for a Padawan, a rude noise. 'Typical of a Hutt. We certainly can't let him track us. Come, let me see.'
Obediently, Kyakhta and Bulgan approached. Taking a scanner from her belt, she passed it carefully over the indicated spot on the back of Kyakhta's neck. It wasn't hard to find the inserted device. There was a perceptible bump under the skin just to the right of his mane.
Checking the scanner's reading, she entered a sequence and passed the compact instrument a second time over the Alwari's neck, then repeated the procedure with Bulgan. Satisfied, she headed cautiously for the outer door.
Kyakhta followed, once more rubbing his fingers over the
raised place. 'The explosive is still there.' Cleansed mind or not, he was still understandably uneasy at its presence.
Barriss studied the street outside. From everything she could see, traffic appeared normal. 'I could cut them out, but I'd rather have it done neatly, and I don't have the tools with me. So I just deactivated them. They're harmless now. But we'd do well to move fast. Possibly the process of my deactivating them will result in notification of whoever is monitoring you for your boss-ban that something has gone wrong. I assume a rapid response will be forthcoming.'
'Let's go, then.' Pushing past her, Bulgan opened the door and stepped unflinchingly out onto the street. Kyakhta and their former prisoner followed.
'Central square, I think. The shop where you found me.' Barriss followed Kyakhta's lead. 'In looking for me, my companions will split up and begin their search from there.' She fondled the closed-band comlink on her belt.
