It was odd to see Gerion again after so many years.

The colours were hardly spectacular—a grey and ochre city in a landscape of muddy green and more ochre, steppes and fields and more steppes, some farmland in between, with patches of more brown than ochre in places, which Rhun knew to be hills.

Rhun couldn’t even remember what it had looked like from above. He didn’t really recall what he’d been doing when he’d got away from here with Dyson, seven years ago, but he was almost certain he hadn’t been interested in looking out of the viewport. He’d only been glad to be leaving, and in his youthful naïveté, he’d scornfully decided he was never coming back.

He felt Samica squeeze his hand beside him, in the freighter’s other passenger seat, and supposed she had her own demons to contend with.

‘Looks familiar,’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ Rhun replied. ‘I don’t really remember how it used to look. But I guess you’ve seen it from above a couple of times.’

She nodded, and he saw she was staring at the garrison, the white hexagon sticking out from the rest of the city as if it didn’t belong there. As a matter of fact, it belonged to Gerion more than to any other town on any other planet where the same construction had been planted. Gerion had only been founded some thirty years ago, and the Imperial garrison was almost as old. The architectural clash could have been worse. Which wasn’t very flattering to the rest of Garon II’s architecture: utterly and bleakly functional, sometimes looking as if structures that had been intended to be makeshift had lasted for so long that people had become used to them and nobody had really thought about replacing them. As a relatively new colony world, Garon II had taken to the Empire quickly, almost logically. There had never been many nonhumans on the planet, no native races, very few alien colonists, so the city looked as if it was taken from a propaganda holo—simple, hard-working humans living in peace under a regime that let them live in peace.

Rhun knew the truth was far from it.

Gerion was no different from most big cities in the galaxy, at least where the human areas were concerned. To be sure, there were those hard-working, simple people who would never even consider thinking about supporting the Rebel Alliance because their own lives were so perfectly normal. But there was the usual share of corruption, and bribing, and organised crime, and poverty in those areas you normally didn’t see in the propaganda holos. The sector Moff was far away on the sector capital world Tergon, and Garon II was too unimportant to bother with anyway, so it was very unlikely anything was going to happen in that regard. Which, in a way, suited Eggshell’s crew fine.

It was not until the entry hatch opened and Rhun saw and smelled Gerion spaceport again that he realised he was actually back. The customs officer checking their ship had been utterly disinterested, hadn’t even noticed Dyson’s camouflage brandy, just inspected their forged IDs, gave them a datapad containing spacer information and wished them a good day, which didn’t sound as if he really cared whether they had a good day or were overrun by a speeder once they were around the next corner.

‘You all right, kid?’ Dyson asked him quietly when they headed for the exit into town.

‘Yeah,’ Rhun replied, equally softly. ‘Where’re we going?’

‘The "Stardust,"’ de Boeck supplied. ‘A spacer’s bar at the edge of the starport. After that, Grant and I go collecting the refugees, while you can take some time on your own, if you like.’

The ‘Stardust’ was rather cosy, surprisingly clean, and from the bartender’s welcome, Dyson and de Boeck were frequent patrons there. There were terminals showing what was up in Gerion that week, and Samica watched them with interest. Rhun found himself returning to them time and again, too. He was torn between wanting some time on his own and pretending to be leading a normal life where you went to the holocinema, bought your food in a store, and went for a walk in the park.

Suddenly he noticed a look of dismay cross Samica’s face, and he quickly looked up at the screen to see what had upset her, half expecting to see something that might remind her of her time here as a pilot, but all the text on the screen said was, ‘Last showing today: Win or Die with Garik Loran, the once-famous boy actor who was reportedly shot by Rebels three standard months ago. 16.30 at the Galaxy, admission five credits.’

‘What is it?’ Rhun asked Samica.

She shook her head. ‘I hadn’t known Garik Loran had died,’ she said.

He frowned. ‘Did you know him?’

She looked at him as if she was wondering whether he was pulling her leg. ‘You’re telling me you’ve never heard about Garik Loran?’

‘Did I miss something?’

Samica shook her head. ‘He is—was—a famous actor on Imperial Centre. I guess everywhere. You could have gone into any Year Seven at any school in Imperial City a couple of years ago, and every girl there would have been able to quote The Black Bantha forwards and backwards.’

Rhun grinned at her. ‘You as well?’

‘I always thought he was a little young . . . but well, he was really rather cute. My friend Tass had her whole room covered up in holos of him.’

‘I’d have liked to see your room when you were twelve,’ he said.

‘You would have had to duck to avoid banging against a TIE fighter or Star Destroyer model at every step,’ she said with a smile.

‘Oh no!’

‘Oh, yes.’

Rhun thought for a moment. ‘Well, I was just thinking I would like to catch up on some free time I haven’t had since I was sixteen. What about seeing Win or Die? We could hold hands.’

Samica grinned. ‘Sure. But I have to warn you . . . it’s an Imperial holodrama.’

Dyson made a face. ‘I’ll see both of you tomorrow night, then. I’d really love to wish you a good time, but I’ve seen the thing.’

They left the holocinema at eighteen hundred, after ninety minutes of the most disgusting Imperial propaganda Rhun had ever seen—and Rhun had worked in Intentions and decoded all sorts of recruitment holos. The ending had been a scream—the poor boy dying in the Emperor’s arms, shot in the back by his reactionary father who was a supporter of the Republic. The Emperor seemed to have shed centuries in that drama. Rhun resolved to buy the movie on data slug and show it to some of his Intel colleagues; they had little to laugh about.

‘Did you like it?’ Samica asked.

Rhun took a long time in answering. ‘The actor was very cute,’ he finally said.

Samica laughed. They had both had difficulty not collapsing on the floor during the holodrama, and the worst thing was that they had been the only ones. The rest of the audience had left the holocinema rather teary-eyed. ‘Still, I can’t really believe he was shot by Rebels who thought he was dangerous,’ Samica remarked as they walked along the brightly lit street. They had booked a room in a small, inexpensive hotel before going to see the movie.

‘That sounds like another kind of propaganda,’ she went on. It had become cold as well as dark; the wind had been cool all day, and Gerion in autumn was rather chilly. The streets were emptying fast.

‘Hmmm,’ Rhun said.

She stopped and looked at him. ‘What is it?’

He let out a sigh and looked up into the dark grey sky. ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s rather silly thinking about that drama, but it . . . damn, it brings back a lot. Not only that people see this crap and believe it, but . . .’ He broke off and looked at her. ‘Sam . . . would you mind if I went for a little walk on my own? It’s really not that I don’t want you around, but I’d like to be alone right now.’

Samica hesitated, but then she nodded. ‘No, it’s okay.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Don’t run into trouble, all right?’

He stroked her hair. ‘I promise.’

For a while, he simply roamed about the streets, sticking to the more busy areas of the town—there were memories about side streets he didn’t want to dwell on. He recognised some of the shops, but most were new; he had never been much of a shopper anyway.

When he finally went into the direction of less crowded living blocks, it wasn’t really totally by coincidence. He knew that what he was about to do was the height of stupidity, but he kept telling himself that there was no way his father could be home at this time. He’d usually come home after twenty hundred, and there was a scene in Rhun’s head about dinner on the table, and his mother home with his brother Ren, which turned out to be irresistible. He was almost surprised at how eager he was to see his mother again—his scorched earth policy of seven years earlier seemed to have evaporated into nothing.

The tall block looked as it always had, and his heart was beating in his mouth as he looked at the door buzzers on the wall, and found the one labelled van Leuken.

He stood back from the building and looked up; the climbing plant with the leaves that stank like rotten eggs when you pinched them had grown well past the ninth floor, so he had to count the windows from the bottom, but he found the right one without difficulty. There was even the same old decoration in the dining room window that his aunt had once sent their father as a birthday present and that his mother had only put up there because it was so ugly. The windows were dark, every one of them. Even when Rhun went around the building and looked from the other side, it was obvious that there was nobody at home. His heart still beating hard, he buzzed, but nothing happened.

It surprised him how disappointed he was, and he stuck around the entrance for a while longer, until the door opened and an elderly man came out. Rhun had never seen him before, and the man hardly gave him a second glance when Rhun slipped inside.

The lift was new; at least Rhun hadn’t seen it. When he reached the ninth floor, he wondered for the first time just what he was doing here. He could hardly break in, after all.

He had stood before the door buzzer for a while when the door to the flat next to his parents’ opened and a middle-aged woman looked at him suspiciously. He didn’t know her; they had to have moved in after he’d left. And she’d probably been watching him from behind her door.

‘Good evening,’ he said in the friendliest way possible, which was what she had least expected. ‘You don’t happen to know if the van Leukens are home, do you?’

‘What do you want?’ she asked, still suspicious.

‘I was just in town and thought I’d drop by for a visit to Mrs van Leuken, but there seems to be nobody here.’

She put her hands on her hips. ‘You can’t have seen her for a while if you look for her here,’ she stated.

Rhun felt his stomach sink. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She moved out. Weeks ago, with the little boy. And if you ask me, I’d have done that years ago.’

‘She moved out?’ Rhun managed. ‘Do you know where?’

‘No, just that the man was hopping mad when he found she was gone. I wonder how she put up with him for so long. I’ve been living here for three years now, and I haven’t seen him sober once.’

Rhun swallowed. It didn’t take much imagination to guess who ‘he’ was. His father had taken to drinking after Jon, his older brother, had died, but he hadn’t known it had become so bad. The idea that his running away might be responsible only made it worse.

He murmured a ‘thank you,’ then turned and took the lift down. He wandered aimlessly through the quarter and was just about to head back for the hotel when he heard his comlink beep.

‘Yes?’

‘Rhun? This is Dyson. I’ve got some news you might want to know about.’

Rhun just waited.

‘I’ve seen the list of the fugitives. There’s one Riga van Leuken-Deering among them.’

The house was small, inconspicuous-looking and right on the edge of the town, an hour’s walk from the starport area. Rhun pulled his jacket tighter around himself. It was nearly midnight; he had called Sam via comlink earlier and told her he wouldn’t be back for a while. She hadn’t asked why, only wished him goodnight. He was glad she hadn’t made him explain.

It was so much more difficult to sound the door buzzer here than it had been two hours before, even if the name on the tag next to it said only Kjaer. A man in his thirties opened the door but eyed him carefully.

‘Dyson’s friend?’ he asked.

Rhun nodded, and the man let him in and carefully closed the door behind him.

‘Name’s Kilis Kjaer,’ he introduced himself. ‘Dyson’s left already. He brought the people here; I’ll be coming with you when we get them away from here tomorrow.’ He looked at the younger man. ‘Dyson told me you wanted to talk to one of the people here?’

Rhun nodded again. ‘Mrs Riga van Leuken.’

‘The one with the boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s in the third room on the left, but I’m not sure if she’s still awake.’

‘She won’t mind,’ Rhun answered.

Kjaer shrugged. ‘Well, go ahead, then. But be quiet; the others will want to sleep.’

Rhun nodded yet again and went up to the door Kjaer had indicated. As this was not a regular apartment block, there were no buzzers at the doors, so he knocked, waited, then knocked again, slightly stronger this time, when there was no reply at first.

There was movement at the other side of the door, and Rhun heard a voice he hadn’t heard for too long, saying something he couldn’t understand. Then the door opened.

A small boy of seven stood before him, looking a little sleepy. The blond hair was a shade lighter than Rhun’s own and the brown eyes a shade darker, but he was still so unmistakably van Leuken that Rhun felt a lump rise in his throat.

‘What is it?’ came his mother’s voice from the back of the room. ‘Kjaer, is anything wrong?’

‘Mommy,’ the boy said, staring at Rhun, who was still unable to get out a sound, ‘there’s a man at the door who looks like the holo of Jon in the living-room back home.’

She then appeared in the doorframe, a questioning look on her face, drawing a robe around her. Afterwards, he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in her arms, as he couldn’t recall either of them moving, but he supposed they must have stayed that way for an eternity, holding on to each other. What he did remember were Ren’s confused questions what was up, and who he was anyway, but he only became really aware of them after a while. He found his face and her robe were wet with tears he didn’t remember shedding, and when he finally had the stomach to look into his mother’s face, he found she was crying, too.

Her hair was down, and he brushed a strand of it out of her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he managed to whisper.

She shook her head vehemently and drew him into her arms again. ‘It’s all right,’ she said hoarsely. ‘It’s all right.’

Rhun finally remembered his brother, who had stopped repeating his questions a while ago and had returned to the cot where he’d been sleeping on the floor. As soon as the boy saw he had been noticed again, he asked, for the twenty-oddth time, ‘Who is that, Mom?’

Riga van Leuken released her older son a bit without quite letting him go. ‘That’s your brother Rhun,’ she replied.

Ren frowned. ‘I don’t have a brother Rhun.’

‘Yes, you have,’ his mother said. ‘I told you about him, remember? He’s been away for a while.’ Rhun noticed that she managed to say this without sounding accusing.

‘Where’ve you been, then?’ Ren wanted to know.

Rhun smiled. ‘All sorts of places. I’ll tell you sometime.’

‘Can’t you tell me now?’

Rhun shook his head. ‘Later.’

‘What are you doing here?’ his mother now asked. ‘You haven’t been in Gerion, have you?’

‘I joined the Rebellion,’ he said softly. ‘Six years ago. I would have tried to contact you before now, but that wasn’t possible . . . you know why.’

‘He’s lost it completely, Rhun,’ she told him, almost in a whisper. ‘You know he started drinking after what happened to Jon, but it got worse when . . . Nobody was even allowed to mention your name in his presence. He’d completely lose his mind, especially when we heard the police were looking for you.’

Rhun swallowed. ‘You knew that?’

She shrugged. ‘I saw the newsfeed; Gorn wouldn’t have told me about it for the life of him. But when he realised you had strayed from the straight and narrow, in his eyes anyway . . .’ His mother shook her head. ‘The last to notice seem to be his superiors in the Army. I can’t imagine he’s any different there than he was at home, but they don’t seem to care. But I haven’t seen him sober for weeks. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I always thought I couldn’t do this to Ren, running away, I mean, so I tried to tolerate it, but when he began to—’ she broke off. ‘I found I could do this to Ren after all. I’d heard that a friend of mine, Dreisene—you remember her?’

Rhun nodded.

‘Dreisene had taken part in a couple of anti-Imperial protests, and she had to hide from the police. When she found I’d left Gorn, she put me up here with Kjaer, and since Ren and I both knew we’d have to leave Garon II anyway . . .’ she shrugged.

‘We’re having an adventure,’ Ren proclaimed.

Riga nodded tiredly. ‘Yes, love, that’s right. But you must have had even more of an adventure.’ She looked at Rhun again.

Rhun shrugged. ‘Well, not too much of an adventure, really. I’m working in Intentions. That means decrypting and encrypting messages most of the time.’ He couldn’t have said why he was lying to her. Maybe he was just too worried to scare her again with what he was really doing.

‘Will you be coming with us tomorrow?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes, at least for a while. I’ve got to go back sooner or later, but I’ll sure visit you. I promise, Mom.’

‘Where exactly have you been?’ Riga wanted to know again.

Rhun hugged her. ‘Sorry, I can’t say. Some of my superiors would give me a good hiding when they knew what I’ve told you already.’

His mother shook her head affectionately. ‘My pacifist son talking about his superiors. You’ve changed, Rhun.’

‘The Rebellion is different, Mom,’ he answered.

Ren piped up again. ‘Daddy says the Rebels are evil.’

‘I bet Daddy says a lot of things, and some of them are lies,’ Rhun replied.

Ren’s face screwed up in concentration as he thought about this, then he decided, if a little worriedly, ‘So Daddy’s evil, then?’

Rhun shook his head sadly. ‘No, Ren, Daddy isn’t evil. He just believes other people’s lies. You know the Emperor?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen him on holo. He looks funny.’

‘He’s evil. He lies to people so they do what he wants even if they don’t want it. He can make you do things you don’t want to do, and that’s why he’s evil. But he’s also the Emperor, and I and some people besides me try to . . . er . . . make him go away so other people can rule.’ Well, it really is rather easy, so why in the galaxy do so few people understand it?

‘Where are we going tomorrow?’ Ren wanted to know, obviously of the opinion that the topic had been exhausted.

‘You’ll like it,’ Rhun answered, also looking at his mother. ‘It’s a Safe World. I can’t tell you where it is, but it’s warmer than here, and there are no Imperials, of course . . . and I’ll be able to see you. It won’t be very often, but I promise I’ll see you as often as I get permission.’ To Ren, he added, ‘There’ll be lots of other kids to play with, and not just boring humans, but also Rodians, and Calamaris, and Wookiees . . .’

‘Fishheads,’ Ren chimed in.

Rhun raised an eyebrow. ‘They don’t really like being called fishheads,’ he told the boy, ruffling his hair. ‘How would you like to be called a scarecrow, huh?’ Ren yelped, trying to squirm out of his brother’s grasp. Rhun noticed his mother’s worried look, quite unexpected, and let go of the boy. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘He’s got two broken ribs,’ Riga answered. ‘They’re healing, but they’re still sore. That was why I decided I couldn’t stay with Gorn any longer.’

Rhun became serious again in an instant. ‘This time tomorrow, you’ll be out of here, and you needn’t ever come back,’ he said. ‘I swear it.’

When Rhun finally went back, it was four hours after midnight, but he was too elated to feel any tiredness. He hadn’t dared imagine that the reunion with his mother might turn out like this, and now he was looking forward to the long hyper jump to the Safe World Cheldiria.

He couldn’t wait to tell Sam, couldn’t wait to tell her everything. He chuckled again as he recalled the look on her face when she had seen they had a room with a double bed—doubtlessly the friendly old woman at the reception had meant to be nice. The truth was that they hadn’t come exactly very far since that first kiss just after the battle of Yavin, but he didn’t mind right now. He didn’t mind anything right now.

Silently, he opened the door to their room and crept inside. Without turning on the light, he undressed quietly and slipped into bed, reaching over to her.

It was then that he noticed she was not there. The bed hadn’t even been touched.