Maul elbowed his way deeper into the crowd outside the mess hall. He’d left Zero in the mess hall, slumped over in his food, having gained nothing from their last exchange. As he’d stood to go, the three inmates who’d approached them earlier had grabbed the Twi’lek and carried him off, no doubt rushing him to medbay. Maul doubted they would make it in time, but he supposed it was possible, if they hurried.
Right now he had more pressing business to take care of.
He found the boy in the cell, sitting next to his father’s body. The old man lay motionless on the bunk, breathing shallowly. His skin was mottled with a sallow, blotchy cast.
“Jagannath?” Eogan asked. “What—”
“Pick him up,” Maul said. “We need to move.”
“Where?”
“Follow me.”
Gently Eogan leaned down and gathered his father’s body in his arms.
The morgue was as silent as Maul remembered it. They stepped through the hatchway single file, the boy shifting his father’s weight to his shoulder in order to get through the entrance.
“What are we doing here?” Eogan asked uneasily.
Maul didn’t look back. “Lay him down there,” he said, nodding to indicate one of the empty tables extending from the wall.
“You still haven’t told me what—”
“Has he said anything else about the Bando Gora?” Maul asked. “Anything at all?”
“No, I told you, he’s—he can’t talk. The infection, it …” The boy swallowed, unable to complete the thought. “He needs medicine.”
Maul said nothing, reaching down beneath the lowermost console to retrieve the holotransmitter from where he’d stashed it, pressing in the code to activate its primary drives. Then he turned to face Artagan Truax.
“Old man.”
The eyelids lifted slightly, regarding him dully. Cracked lips moved but made no sound.
“I need you to enter the hailing frequency for the Bando Gora,” Maul said.
Artagan Truax managed to shake his head. “Don’t remember … anything.”
“You’re going to have to remember,” Maul said. “Or I’m going to kill your son.”
Eogan turned to stare at him. The old man tried to sit up.
“The frequency,” Maul said. “Put it in.”
After what seemed like forever, Artagan Truax began to type. His fingers clicked shakily across the key controls, stabbing in coordinates in uneven bursts. Finishing, he sagged backward into silence.
“Is that it?”
The old man said nothing. Maul was still watching him when he became aware of the boy’s eyes, fixed on the passageway outside.
“Do you hear that?” he asked. “It’s the clarion call.”
Maul listened. Eogan was right.
“Leave me,” he said. “Now.”
The boy glanced at his father. “Where should I—”
“It doesn’t matter. Take him away. Back to your cell,” Maul said. “Just go.”
When Eogan had lifted his father in his arms and carried him off, Maul switched out the hailing frequency for the holotransmitter and activated the device again. He knelt before it, his head lowered, waiting.
Within seconds Darth Sidious appeared in front of him. This time he didn’t bother with the formalities.
“You have news?”
“I do, my Master,” Maul said.
“What is it?”
“Iram Radique,” Maul said. “I found him.”
Moments later, Maul was back down on the factory floor, making his way through the bone statues, searching the shadows for the one who could help him advance to the next stage of his search.
His Master’s response to the news of Iram Radique’s identity had not been what he’d hoped. Sidious had listened impatiently while Maul told him about the Weequay, and how he’d narrowly escaped being pulled to pieces without betraying his abilities as a Force user.
In the end, his Master had simply nodded, as if all of this should have happened far more expediently than it had, and demanded that Maul contact him when the deal was finished. He’d said nothing about the Bando Gora or the difficulty of brokering an arrangement between the cult and Radique. That detail had been left for Maul to arrange—hence, his return to the factory floor, where he’d nearly died.
He stepped forward, listening carefully until he recognized the sound of the Chadra-Fan’s humming in the darkness.
“Ah, Jagannath.” Coyle turned, already smiling up at Maul expectantly. “You have come for what is yours, yes?”
“Is it ready?”
“Just finished.” Still humming, the other inmate turned and walked away, leading him around a pile of loosely assembled bones, then digging through debris both mechanical and organic until he found a flat metal case, holding it up for Maul’s inspection. “Three hundred thousand credits.” A glimmer of pride lit the Chadra-Fan’s eye. “Authentic enough to fool the most discriminating inspection. Do you approve?”
Maul looked down at the stacks and rows of bundled currency, then picked one up from the top and held it to the light. The craftsmanship, while thorough, probably wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny—but it would open the doors that he needed to go through to arrange the final details with Radique.
At this point it would have to suffice.
Amid the press of reeking bodies that filled the corridor, Maul pushed his way along with the metal case at his side. A bulky Bone King bumped shoulders with him, too close to be accidental. Without turning or even breaking stride, he drove his fist into the King’s solar plexus, leaving him doubled over on the floor, gasping for air.
He stopped in his tracks.
His gaze had fallen on an inmate standing absolutely motionless amid the flow of bodies around him. For a moment the entire world went still. All sound dropped away.
It was him.
The one he’d seen standing side by side with Zero on the factory floor.
Radique.
The Weequay was gazing back at him through the crowds of inmates, the clawbird perched on his shoulder. Maul watched as he pulled a scrap of greasy-looking bantha suet from the pocket of his uniform and held it up unhurriedly for the bird to snatch from his fingers. In the blink of an eye, the food disappeared, and the Weequay dug out another chunk. The bird gobbled it even faster than before, its head bobbing in an eager attempt to get the morsel down its throat.
With the metal case that Coyle had given him still at his hip, Maul shoved his way through the crowd, knocking over other inmates. But when he got to where the Weequay had been standing, the other was gone.
Maul turned and looked in every direction. The corridors were clearing now as the last stragglers returned to their cells for matching. The clarion blared on.
You’re so close now. You can’t stop.
Maul turned and almost ran headfirst into the guard standing there.
“You heard the clarion.” The guard glared at him. “Why aren’t you in your cell?”
“I’m on my way now,” Maul said.
“Hold it, maggot.” The guard glared at the metal case in Maul’s hand. “What’s that?”
“I salvaged it from the pile in Nightside.”
“What’s inside?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” The guard yanked the case from Maul’s hands and popped it open, lifting the lid and tipping it upside down.
A loose pile of bones fell out, clattering to the floor. Kicking them aside, the guard tossed the case and glared at Maul. “Get to your cell now.”