Tales from the New Republic Read Online Free PDF Page B

midden of litter and made his way straight for the shop’s transparisteel door. The lettering painted on the door proclaimed the shop to be Arky’s Emporium of Forgotten Treasures; Hal figured most of them were forgotten because they had to be excavated from beneath layers of dust. All the items on display in the viewports were sun-faded and cracked, hardly inviting the casual passerby to venture inside.
    Not that they get many casual passersby down here , Hal thought. He opened the door and quickly scanned the place. The only other customer glanced quickly in his direction when the door buzzed as Hal opened it, then turned and seemed very interested in not letting Hal get a look at his face. That behavior would have struck Hal as odd, but the customer was likely taking his cue from the way Arky had paled when he recognized Hal.
    “Seb Arkos, what a surprise.” The Corellian Security Force officer kept his voice light. “Last I recall, you’d won an all-expenses-paid trip to Kessel.”
    Seb Arkos snorted. He stood as tall as Hal, but had a skeletally thin build that matched the rheumy grumble that underscored his words. “Yeah, well, glitmining isn’t my kind of thing. Out of your range, aren’t you, CorSec?”
    “I’m hurt, Arky. Here I come all this way to see you, and all I get is hostility.” Hal strolled through the store, seeing only a collection of junk. He almost remarked about that fact, but he remembered that his wife had a knack for walking into such a place and rescuing treasures from it. “Dealing in antiques is your sort of thing now, or are those delicate hands still forging the best transport and identification documents in the galaxy?”
    Arky’s smile betrayed him for a second, then he scowled. “I keep my nose clean.”
    Hal raised opened hands. “Hey, the local snoopers are no friends of mine.”
    “But you are looking for a friend?”
    “Someone I feel about the same way I feel about you, Arky.” Hal slipped a static holograph of Moranda Savich from his pocket and flashed it for the forger. “Moranda Savich. Seen her?”
    “Moranda Savich?” The slender man tapped a bony finger against his chin. “Moranda Savich?”
    Hal jerked a thumb at the store’s other customer. “You want me to start asking your clientele?”
    Arky’s eyes widened, the pale blue communicating a jolt of fear. “No, no need to do that. I seen her around, you know, places.”
    “She retaining your services?”
    The forger shook his head. “Nope, she hasn’t asked me to dummy anything up for her.”
    Hal caught a hint of deceit from the shopkeeper. “Let’s not try to slice the truth too thin here. She’s talked to you about smuggling her off this rock, right? And you figured you’d nail her for clean datadocs in the process?”
    The cadaverous man’s eyes narrowed, and a lank of white hair drifted down over his forehead. “Okay, straight bytes, no bits flipped. We talked. She wants to be gone, and you’re the reason. She’s getting very insistent.”
    “And you’re going to let me know when you’re meeting with her next?”
    Arky’s head came up. “Look, Horn, you know I don’t play that way. You set me up to join Booster and the others on Kessel, but I didn’t Vader them out, did I? I was loyal to my mates.”
    Hal shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “Fine. I can wait here forever. We’ll be business partners, you and I. I’ll be your silent partner, checking everyone out, at least until you decide not to be silent.”
    Arky glowered at him, then swiped a hand under his nose. “Okay, maybe she was going to be around. Soon, maybe.”
    The CorSec inspector nodded. “Good enough. I can wait.”
    “Outside, hey?”
    Hal glanced from Arky to the other man in the store, then saw a woman approaching the door. “Sure. Looks like it will be crowded in here soon anyway. I’ll wait outside. She won’t see me and will never know it was you.”
    Across the street, hidden in the