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.""Lorn Pavan wasn’t my master," the droid said."He was my friend." The muscles in Den’s forehead were starting to get sore from their strenuous workout."Your friend?""We were ’business associates.’ We traded under-world information, ran sabacc numbers, brokered the occasional minor government intel-that sort of thing.Not exactly the thrilling life one sees in the holodramas, but it did offer an occasional frisson or two.""Colorful," Den commented.When the droid did not continue, he said, "Well, you’re a long way from the big city now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.Why are-?" He broke off, noticing I-Five’s sudden shifting of at-tention from him to a group of surgeons who had just entered.Among them was Zan Yant, who carried his quetarra.Den assumed there would be music later on, after the cantina filled up a little more; that was the usual way of it.He didn’t mind; he liked Yant’s musical choices, for the most part, although the Talusian’s homeworld compositions sounded to him like two sand cats in a sack.The droid, however, seemed a bit-nervous.I’d swear he somehow shows expressions with that metal mug of his, Den thought.The concept was surprising, but no more so than the idea of a droid having the emotions necessary to produce those expressions.Den’s second drink was set down before him, and he lifted it thoughtfully."So, what motivated you to pack up and leave such a rewarding existence?" I-Five said, "I have no idea.Lorn and I were being pursued by." He seemed to be choosing his words carefully.".an assassin.""A Zabrak," Den said casually.He watched the droid’s face carefully this time.His photoreceptors didn’t get bigger, but they did get brighter, which some-how conveyed surprise just as well.That’s it, he thought.The eyes are the most expressive organs in most humanoid faces.You can read a world of meaning into their slightest movement.Somehow, I-Five gets much the same results by varying the intensity and an-gle of those optical sensors of his.He was so intent on figuring out how the droid showed expression that he almost missed I-Five’s reply."Do I rummage around in your data banks without permission?""Sorry; reporter’s instincts.It was obvious that some-thing bothered you about seeing Yant come in, and since I’m assuming you’re not a music hater-""Congratulations.The assassin was an Iridonian Zabrak.Quite deadly; a martial arts master skilled enough to make Phow Ji look like a drunken Jawa.He had.other skills as well."Den nodded."I see.Yant’s from Talus, if that makes any difference." I-Five didn’t reply to that."This assassin stole an item of value from us and fled Coruscant, into orbit.Lorn and I were about to go after him, and then-the next thing I knew, I was serving on a spice-smuggling freighter.""Any theories?""I think Lorn deactivated me to keep me out of dan-ger.By then this had turned into something very per-sonal for him, you see.Someone he cared for greatly had sacrificed herself to save us, and-""Sounds like a great story," Den said."Wish I’d been around to write it up.""Trust me-you don’t.This assassin was-" I-Five hesitated, then shook his head-another disturbingly human action."Black Sun?""Worse.Far worse.Besides," he said softly, "what’s a story without an ending?""Every story has an ending.""This one doesn’t-not for me.I don’t know what happened to Lorn.I suspect he’s dead, but there’s no way to know for certain.I’ve tried to find out, but this all took place more than a decade ago, and routes of in-quiry are limited for droids, even droids that know how to hack past pyrowalls and other computer defenses.The entire thing seems to have been completely hushed up at an extremely high level.""Now you’re getting me interested," Den said."Nothing like a good conspiracy story, although they tend to go over better when there’s not a war on.I’ll see what I can dig up.""Dig too deep on this, and you may be the one who gets buried," the droid said darkly."I have no idea how I escaped being mindwiped.All I know is one minute I was at the spaceport on Coruscant; the next I’m helping feed people’s glitterstim habits across the Core systems."That’s subjective, of course.According to my inte-rior chrono, I was deactivated for about twelve standard weeks.From what I was able to learn afterward, I was part of some kind of barter arrangement.I was on the Kessel Run for six years; then the smugglers’ships were raided by a local system’s solar patrol.I was confiscated and auctioned to a merchant captain-why, I’m not certain.There are still large gaps in my data banks I can’t account for-several years’ worth, in fact."When the war began to spread, the Republic confis-cated as many droids as they could to keep them out of the Separatists’ hands.I was serving as a house droid for a noble family on Naboo when the order came.My pro-gramming was augmented with medical training, and now here I sit in this.picturesque
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