I laughed aloud. "I thought, when you retired, you wanted to leave all this sort of thing behind."
He nodded. "I would have been more than happy to, but others who want power were not content to leave me alone. Unfortunately, they have neither the grace nor sense for me to leave them alone, either." He reached out and caressed the leaves of a small plant. "Now I can send a seedling to someone with a note suggesting I had read of this opinion or that which he holds. If I say I am disappointed, their thinking tends to be modified. If I say I support them, they move more strongly in that direction. I choose my targets and my issues carefully. I seek to curb the excesses of the young and foolish, or old and foolish. There's even talk among the shadowy cabal of pundits who advise leaders about what it means for me to send a live plant versus a cut bouquet, or the true significance of a night blooming flower versus something that blooms once and dies."
My grandfather smiled at me. "But you didn't come here to ask after my gardens or to listen to me natter on about warping the small minds of politicians, did you?"
"I'm happy to see you, of course, and I do want to hear about your life, and tell you about mine."
His smile broadened indulgently. "The name you chose to greet me and what you did out there tells me why you are here. You want to know what your father left behind for you, don't you?"
I nodded slowly. "You don't mind'?"
My grandfather looked at me with surprise, then laughed. "Mind'? My dear boy, I've spent nearly the last half century preserving your heritage for you and for your father. I would have been disappointed if this day had never come."
I smiled. "Would you have sent me a flower to let me know how disappointed you were?"
"I would have sent you many, many flowers." He opened his arms to take in the greenhouse and the gardens. "These flow-ers, Corran, are the Halcyon heritage. Where better to store knowledge of the Jedi and the Force, than in things that live?"
J watched my grandfather closely because I didn't quite understand what he'd said. He was old and could be losing it, though I'd seen no evidence of that so far. "Your comments are sailing right past me."
He laughed delightedly, a deep, rich sound I remembered very well. "Don't feel disappointed, Corran. I had to come up with a storage system that would befuddle even the most dili-gent of investigators. Come with me."
I followed him toward the rear of the greenhouse to the computers and genetic manipulation processors. "You probably do not recall this from your schooling, but the genetic code in many lifeforms consists of four nucleotides arranged in pairs. They provide a genetic blueprint that produces what we are."
I nodded. "I know. Imps messed around with genetics to produce the Krytos Virus."
"Yes, a nasty piece of work, that." My grandfather keyed something into the computer and the attached holopad showed me a double-helix slowly revolving in the air. It looked like two twisting ladders spiraling around each other. "What most peo-ple fail to realize is that while genes are very small, they consist of a vast number of these base pairs of nucleotides. What they also don't know is that much of the coding for any gene is redundant and genes are often filled with pieces of nonsense coding, or bits of coding left over by evolution. These inconse-quential bits of code are essentially inert and useless. What I've done is to manufacture replacement strings of base pairs to put in their place. These replacement strings use one pair to repre-sent zero and another to represent one."
I stared at him gap-mouthed. "You digitized data and in-serted it into the genetic material of a plant, allowing the plants to duplicate the code with every cell division."
"Correct. While random mutations might destroy little bits of the data, there are so many samples out there that comparing them will fill in any gaps." He smiled broadly. "I recall at least one Jedi-hunter coming here and asking for some basic plant stock for his garden back on Imperial Center. I gave him as much as he wanted of my Jedi line."
My eyes narrowed. "The flowers you send to politicians... they contain the decryption keys to the files that concern them, don't they?"
"I must amuse myself, mustn't I?" He rolled up his sleeves.
"I spent enough time with Nejaa to know that the Jedi consid-
ered nothing coincidental. I knew if I put the Jedi information
into these plants and ensured their distribution, the informa-
tion would be discovered again. At the time I started I thought
the discovery would not happen in my lifetime, but I wanted it
available."
I smiled. "I want you to tell me about him, about Nejaa." "I will." He looked at me and shook his head again. "Your appearance, I didn't know you at first. Your father had a saying, one he picked up from his father. Do you recall it? `If you cannot recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.'" I nodded. "I remember."
"Well, seeing you now, I must have you tell me who you have become." He pointed back at the house. "First, however, we will have something to eat. Then you'll join me turning the compost pile."
"More data hidden in there?"
He winked at me. "I think you will find the work rewarding."
We talked mostly of his flowers and the way the neighborhood had been in the old days. Because his household staff bustled in and out, Corran Horn was referred to in third person, as if Keiran Halcyon had been a playmate of his. By rights I guess I should have found the subterfuge awkward, but I slipped into the Halcyon role the way I would have slipped into any under-cover identity. It was a game we shared and both took great delight in it.
Grandfather dispatched Tosruk to my hotel to pick up my things while the two of us went out to the compost heap armed with shovels. My grandfather directed me toward a pile of bantha dung that he used for fertilizer. He'd been getting it from the Coronet City Zoological and Botanical Gardens for longer than I could remember, in exchange for providing them with his latest hybrids.
"Dig deep and shift the pile over this way about three me-ters." Leaning on a shovel, wearing bibbed splatter-slacks and knee-high rubber boots, he smiled at me. "If you can shift it any other way, feel free."
I shook my head. "I could make you think it had moved." "Halcyons always have been notoriously weak in the teleki-netic skill area." He laughed. "Dice were the only game of chance in which I felt safe playing against Nejaa."
"Someday I aspire to making dice move with the Force."
My grandfather smiled. "The Halcyons have their strengths. The mental projection you allude to was something Nejaa did very well. He also could absorb energy. I was told this was a very rare ability among Jedi."
I nodded. "That's what I've heard as well. Well, without tele-kinesis, I guess I'll have to use this shovel and elbow grease to move that pile."
As I dug, my grandfather told me tales of Nejaa Halcyon. "We worked together for a good long time, or so it seemed, before he was called away to the Clone Wars. Our partnership was only ten years or so, as I recall. I guess I was seven years older than you are when he left. He was a bit older than me and his wife-I'd grown up living near Scerra, so I knew her quite well before they ever met. Your father was only ten at the time Nejaa left, but had been working with Nejaa for years to de-velop his skills."
I swiped at the sweat on my brow. "Nejaa died in the Clone Wars, right?"
"Actually, he died shortly thereafter, before he could ever return home. He and I had joked about his going off to the Clone Wars, for it was said that a Corellian Jedi who leaves the system does so at his own peril." My grandfather's eyes clouded over. "Nejaa promised his wife and me that the Clone Wars would not kill him. He was right, but still suffered the fate of those Corellian Jedi who go away.
"A friend of his, a Caamasi Jedi named Ylenic It'kla, came here, bringing Nejaa's effects home. He apologized for not bringing Nejaa's body, but the bodies of Jedi Masters fade away upon death. He also didn't have Nejaa's lightsaber. He said the Galactic Museum had asked for it fo
r their Jedi collection." He smiled slightly. "I suppose it is still there."
I shook my head. "Nope. It has served me well on a couple of occasions. Saved my life."
He clapped his hands. "And mine as well. `Thieves run in fright from its silvery light.' I used to kid Nejaa about that."
I smiled, but kept digging. "He used to go out with you when you worked cases?"
"All the time. Most often he would be dressed in street clothes, just like me. He found a lot of people were wary of the Jedi and afraid of them. Without them knowing who he was, he could help victims. When it came time for us to go after crimi-nals, he'd don his cloak and more traditional Jedi garb. Scerra used to refer to it as his hunting clothes. Criminals learned it didn't hurt as much if they didn't resist, so we were able to defuse many a tense situation just by having him show up as a Jedi. Of course, stories of what he had done spread throughout the underworld and became quickly exaggerated, so people re-acted to his image and reputation, not reality."
I cleared the area my grandfather had indicated and peeled back the plasticized tarpaulin that had been beneath the dung heap. I noticed, on the underside, a metallic sheen. "This is a diffuser pad?"
"Is it? I hadn't noticed."
I frowned. Diffusers came in all different shapes and sizes and simply channeled the energy from scanners away so return signals from scanners would not reveal whatever was hidden by the diffuser. Smugglers regularly used them to prevent cursory searches from uncovering contraband, but a little time and a little effort made finding the diffusers easy, and finding one of them meant finding whatever they covered.
In this case, the diffuser covered a bare patch of ground. "Let me guess: a buried door that no one has found because they didn't want to dig through bantha dung?"
"See, it was effort like that which allowed your father to catch Booster Terrik. Not a surprise the man hated the Horns." "He's got more reason now."
My grandfather smiled. "Yes, how does he like having his daughter married to a Horn?"
I turned one spadeful of dirt, then looked at my grandfather with surprise. "You know?"
"Corran, I love you dearly and I think you will recall that we have spent many long hours discussing your love life and the disasters attendant thereunto."
"Don't remind me." I growled at him. "Hey, is that just a leaning shovel, or can it dig, too?"
"It can dig. Do you want to use it? Is yours worn out?"
I arched an eyebrow at him. "You're not going to help?"
"I did my part in burying it." His smile slackened slightly. "Get going, it's not that far down. Back to the point-when your garbled missives coming to me stopped mentioning ro-mantic difficulties, I assumed you had found someone. I made inquiries."
"And you're not disappointed?"
"Disappointed? Why would I be?"
"She's Booster Terrik's daughter."
My grandfather walked over and rested his right hand on the back of my neck. "Corran, if she was enough to win your heart and keep it, she has to be wonderful. I am happy for you, truly. Someday you will bring her here so I can meet her."
"Sure, as soon as the murder warrants for me are lifted." He frowned. "Oh, yes, Gil Bastra's work. I'll take care of that. Perhaps that Imperial Liaison officer you had should be found guilty."
"Loor? He's dead."
"So much the better." He glanced down at the hole as my shovel hit metal. "There you go."
I cleared the hole. "Old storm cellar?"
"It was here when I bought the house." He crouched and helped me tug the metal door open. "It's rather snug down there. You can go first." He pulled a glowrod from his back pocket, flicked it on and handed it to me.
I clambered down the rusty ladder built into the side of the duracrete shaft. At the bottom the enclosure opened out into the area beneath the dung heap. The boxy room had been cleared of everything save one dusty and dirty old fiberplast trunk. It appeared to be of the sort I'd seen used a lot by smugglers-old pre-Imperial military surplus, cheap and in ready supply.
I heard my grandfather come down behind me. "This trunk, what is it?"
"When the Empire decided all Jedi must die, I made some decisions. Some, like altering files to hide your grandmother and father from Imperial hunters, were good decisions. I do not regret them in the least."
I glanced back at him. "Were there other Corellian Jedi fam-ilies you hid?"
"That's not information you need to know, Corran. If there are any, and if they are meant to be found, they will be." His hands rested on my shoulders. "Other decisions were risky. I chose, foolishly, to put my family and myself in jeopardy by hiding this down here. Had it been discovered I could have gotten all of us killed. By rights, I should have destroyed it- your grandmother and father thought I had because I told them I had, but I just couldn't."
His hands gave my shoulders a squeeze. "There, in that box, are all the things Ylenic It'kla brought back here after Nejaa's death."
I nodded slowly, the light bobbing up and down over the packing case's dark bulk. "How did Nejaa die?"
"I don't know the details. The Caamasi asked that I not in-quire. What he did tell me was that a great man, a hero of the Clone Wars, selected them for a very special and honorable mission. They went with him and the three of them vanquished most deadly foes, but Nejaa was mortally wounded. All the Jedi healing techniques could not save him and he died." "Then you married his wife and adopted his son."
My grandfather's voice grew distant. "I'd known Scerra all my life. We'd always been good friends, and we both lost our best friend at the same time. Our shared grief brought us more closely together and our shared lives provided us with strong roots together. I have always chosen to think that Nejaa had an inkling of his fate and what would happen to us after his pass-ing. I like to think knowing his friends would salvage love out of their mourning made his death that much easier."
He patted me on the shoulder. "The dust down here has my eyes watering. I'm going to head back up. We can pull the chest out of here, if you want, or you can open it and just look at the things here. Your choice. You are the last Halcyon, so they belong to you."
"Thank you." I took a step toward the case, then turned and faced my grandfather. "You're wrong in one thing, though." Tears glistened in the half-light. "Am I?"
I nodded. "I don't see myself as the last Halcyon. I'm the last Horn. I just hope, in this chest and in the garden above, there's everything I need to guarantee both lines will continue."
Alone in the still darkness, I opened the trunk. Dust trickled down from the lid, filling the air. I expected a musty odor of old clothes that had long since mildewed away to nothing, but in-stead I found a chest packed neatly and tightly. All the clothing had been folded precisely and sealed in clear plastine pouches. I carefully pulled one after another out but opened none of them. Still, from what I could see in the glowrod light, the clothes had all been laundered, leading me to suspect the Caamasi Jedi had taken great pains to care for his friend's effects.
Toward the bottom of the trunk I found boots encased in plastine, as well as a cloak and blanket similarly pouched. Be-low that I saw the lid of a hinged compartment that I lifted up. Inside it was thick foam padding with hollowed spaces for vari-ous items. I easily recognized the slot meant for Nejaa's light-saber. A small first aid kit, a shaving kit and a set of eating utensils all sat in their appropriate slots. Odd coins filled other slots, as did power packs for a variety of items and a positively antique comlink.
What immediately attracted my attention, however, was the rectangular slot filled with static holograms. I fished them out and carried them back over to where the sun's light filtered down through the long chimney. One by one, I flipped through them and found myself smiling though I recognized no one.
I figured out which person had to be Nejaa after a couple of shots. From other items in the picture, especially the lightsaber clipped to his belt, I could tell he'd stood slightly taller than me, but no taller than my f
ather, and he had my trim build. We didn't really look that much alike, except around the eyes and chin. Still, he stood there easily and openly, feet shoulder-width apart, hands open, a smile on his face and life in his eyes. I recognized in his stance the way my father used to stand around and knew I'd adopted the stance as well.
The other figure I found easy to recognize was a Caamasi. Golden down covered him except around the eyes, where pur-ple fur formed a mask around his eyes that spread tendrils up and back to stripe his skull. The Caamasi's large, dark eyes seemed full of inquisitiveness, not the sadness marking the Caamasi I'd seen; but then I'd only seen Caamasi rarely and this shot had been taken before they'd almost all been wiped out. The two of them-my grandfather and his friend-looked weary in some shots, but that was to be expected of people fighting a war. That they also looked content spoke a lot about their commitment to keeping the galaxy safe.