“Boy. Wake up.”
Maul watched as Eogan opened his eyes and stared directly up at the red, tattooed face peering down at him. When Eogan tried to sit up, Maul held his shoulders down, pinning him flat to his bunk, leaning down to speak into his ear.
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s still in medbay,” the boy said. “His leg—”
Maul shook his head. “I just checked. He’s not there. Where was he taken?”
“Taken?” The bewilderment in Eogan’s face erupted into panic. His face looked haggard and terrified, his cheek still bruised and swollen from where Voystock’s elbow had struck it, and then realization began to seep through his features. “Why would anyone—”
“Your father knew Radique,” Maul said.
“Who?”
“Iram Radique. Your father saved his life and followed him here to Cog Hive Seven. That’s why he brought you here. In medbay he told me that you have information about where I can find him. He said you know everything that he knows.”
“That’s not …” Eogan shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that, I swear.”
Maul resisted the urge to shake him just to see what might come loose. It had not been a good night. Since leaving the factory floor and his highly unsatisfactory meeting with Zero and Coyle, he’d prowled the holding cells restlessly, making his way to medbay, only to find it deserted. The old man’s cell was empty, too. Maul had questioned the gang members, but no one knew anything of Artagan Truax’s whereabouts. Having spoken Radique’s name aloud, the old man seemed to have vanished completely, swallowed whole by the system that imprisoned him.
“Look, you have to believe me,” Eogan said. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you.” He gaped up at Maul beseechingly. “I’ve never even heard of this guy Radique.”
Maul looked down at him. Maddening as it was, everything the boy said rang true. His ignorance on the topic of Radique and his father’s connection to the arms dealer sounded absolutely authentic.
There was only one part of the story that didn’t make sense.
“If you don’t have any connection with Radique,” Maul said, “then why are you still alive? Why didn’t the guards terminate you and your father after you tried to escape?”
To this, the boy had no answer.
Maul left him there in his bunk and went back out to the concourse, up the long hallway to the silence that lay beyond.
“Jagannath?” Izhsmash’s voice whispered. “It’s me.”
Maul paused and glanced down to where the other inmate was crouched back against the wall outside the prison laundry facility. Even here amid the leftover reek of detergent, he’d smelled the Nelvaanian before he’d seen him, the dampish, feral odor of the inmate’s fur already familiar to his nostrils.
“Brought you something,” Izhsmash said, digging into the hip pocket of his uniform and slipping a tightly folded rectangle of flimsiplast into Maul’s palm. “Just downloaded it off a utility server. Not the easiest thing to get, either, on account of—”
“Is it complete?”
“Uh-huh.” There was no mistaking the trace of pride in the Nelvaanian’s voice. “That’s everybody, far as I can tell.”
Maul scanned the list of inmates—two hundred and eighteen names in all, with numbers, cell assignments, and criminal histories in reverse chronological order, some of them going back several years. His own name was the most recent addition: a single name, Jagannath, and a list of trumped-up mercenary charges and crimes that Sidious had provided for him before he’d dispatched Maul on this mission.
Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Izhsmash beginning to edge away into the shadows.
“Wait.”
The Nelvaanian stopped.
“Who’s this?” Maul pointed to a name midway down the list, one that had leapt out at him instantly, echoing the last word he’d heard spoken from Zero, down on the factory floor.
“Rook?” Izhsmash looked up at him, eyes widening ever so slightly.
“Who is he?”
The Nelvaanian shook his head. “Don’t know. Never heard of him before.”
“He’s here in Cog Hive Seven. What species is he?”
“No idea.” Izhsmash shrugged. “Look, there’re lots of inmates on this list I’ve never met,” he said. He was already beginning to back away again, casting longing glances at the hallway. “Now, if there’s nothing else you need—”
“There is.” Maul’s hand fell to the other inmate’s shoulder, stopping him. “I need you to hack back into the system again—get into the algorithm itself. Fix the next match so I’m fighting Rook.”
“What?” Izhsmash shot him a look of pure incredulity. “Do you have any idea how difficult that’s going to be? Especially after I’ve hacked it once already?” He shook his head. “After what happened in medbay, the guards will be looking for anything out of the ordinary.”
“You’ve done well,” Maul said, nodding at the list of inmates. “You’ve already proven yourself more valuable to my cause than the one who was leading you. Strabo will learn his place beneath you,” Maul said. “If he has not already.”
“I’ll need time.”
“You’ll have till the next match. By my count that gives you three hours.”
“I’ll create a diversion,” Maul said. “I suggest you take advantage of it.”
“How will I know when the time is right?”
“I’ll be in contact with you.”
He took the list and walked away.