"You're dying," said the physician.
Boba Fett could see the man's reflection in the wall-wide sheet of transparisteel as he stared out over the choppy seas. Light beige coat, white-blond hair, ashen face: he must have wondered why Fett had summoned him all this way to carry out more tests.
Because I think I need the Kaminoan's special medical expertise, not just yours. And I was right.
Tipoca City was a sad ruin of the minimalist elegance that it had been in his father's day, but its few crippled towers were still more of a haven for Fett than Coruscant would ever be. He concentrated hard on the dark surface of the sea and waited a few moments to see if the aiwhas were gathering in pods again, then took in the doctor's words and digested them.
They tasted familiar, inevitable, and yet were a ball of ice in his stomach. He resisted all movement in his facial muscles and presented a mask to the doctor that was as impenetrable as his Mandalorian helmet.
Dr. Beluine was one of only a handful who had ever seen him without it. Doctors could handle disfigurement a great deal better than most.
"Of course I'm dying," said Fett. "I'm paying you to tell me what I can do about it."
Beluine paused and Fett watched him glance at Koa Ne, the Kaminoan scientist now in charge of a cloning facility that was a shadow of its former self. Perhaps Beluine feared telling a professional killer that he had a terminal illness, or perhaps it was the pause of a good doctor trying to tell his patient the bad news as kindly as he could. Fett turned from the huge window, thumbs hooked over his belt, and raised his scarred brows in a silent question.
Beluine took the cue. "Nothing."
You give up easy, Doctor. "How long?"
"You have a year or two, if you take it easy. Less if you don't."
"Don't guess. I deal in facts."
Beluine's eyelids fluttered in a spasm of nervous blinking. "There are always uncertainties in prognosis, sir. But the degeneration of your tissues is accelerating, even in your transplanted leg, and the medication isn't controlling your liver function any longer. It might have something to do with the... unusual nature of your background."
"That I'm a clone, you mean."
"Yes."
"I'll take that as a don't know."
Beluine -- Coruscant-trained, very expensive, very exclusive -- had the look of a man on the brink of making a run for the door. "It's understandable that you'd want a second opinion."
"I've got one," said Fett. "Mine. And my opinion is that I'll die when I'm good and ready."
"I'm sorry to give you bad news."
"I've had worse."
"If I had access to the original Kaminoan laboratory records, then perhaps-- "
"I need to talk to Koa Ne about that. Show the doctor out."
The Kaminoan politician, all politely unfeeling gray grace, indicated the doors, and the doctor slipped between them before they had fully opened. He was very anxious to leave. The doors hissed shut behind him.
"So where's the data?" said Fett. "And Taun We?"
"Taun We has...left."
Well, that was a surprise. Fett knew Taun We as well as anyone could -- any human, anyway -- and she'd seemed solidly loyal to her own kind. She'd looked after him as a boy when his father was away. He'd even liked her.
"When?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Any reason for the timing?"
"Perhaps the galaxy's current political instability."
"So she bolted in the end, just like Ko Sai."
"I admit that some of my colleagues have shown a willingness to accept employment elsewhere."
Kaminoans weren't exactly keen on travel. Fett couldn't imagine anywhere they'd find tolerable beyond their own closed world. "And they took your data with them."
Koa Ne seemed hesitant. "Yes. We have never located Ko Sai's original research."
"So what's Taun We taken?"
"Apart from her human developmental expertise? A great deal of minor data."
The Kaminoans had lost their reputation as the top cloning technologists of the galaxy more than fifty years earlier as their scientists defected, but nobody had ever equaled their quality since. Anyone who could assemble that knowledge again would make a fortune -- enough to boost a whole planet's economy, not just a bank account.
If he hadn't been dying, Fett would have been sorely tempted to grab the opportunity.
"Are you not concerned that Beluine might talk?" asked Koa Ne.
"He won't talk any more than my armorer or accountant would." Fett was looking for aiwhas again, letting the distraction order his thoughts, instinctively prioritizing the actions he now had to take. "They get paid for silence. So what if he tells the galaxy that I'm dying? I've been a dead man before."
"It creates instability."
"For who?"
"Mandalorians."
"You don't care about us."
Koa Ne, like all Kaminoans, didn't care about anything except Kamino, whatever impression the polite facade created. Fett's ambivalent view of Kaminoans veered more towards dislike the older he became. They were for hire, just as he had been. He'd taken a fee for some dubious causes himself in his time. But there was still something less than admirable about a species that grew others to do their fighting for them.
"We have always had a special regard for you, Boba."
He didn't like Koa Ne using his first name. Have you still got any of my Dad's tissue samples? Still planning to make some use of him? No, you couldn't keep the material intact that long, could you? "No point hunting Taun We. Even the leg she cloned for me is degenerating. Spare parts won't help."
"We have a use for that technology..."
"I don't."
"Taun We may yet be useful to you. She is most skilled."
"Maybe you should have hired me to hunt Ko Sai a few decades ago, rather than go after Taun We now."
"Wehave...reason to believe someone found Ko Sai. But we had sufficient expertise left to continue cloning without her, even if we had lost the original research on control of aging."
"If anyone found it, they never tried to sell it. Who would sit on merchandise worth that much? Nobody I know."
It was probably Ko Sai's research that Fett needed now, but that was a trail that had gone very cold more than fifty years ago. Even he would have a tough job tracking it down.
But someone had it. Ko Sai had defected somewhere. There was always an audit trail to follow, as his accountant called it. And Taun We might be a lead to it. Maybe she had taken the same route out. Maybe she had the same paymasters; top-class cloners were rare.
"We both have reasons to recover as much data and as many personnel as we can," said Koa Ne. If the minister had been human, Fett suspected he would be smirking. "Will you help?"
"Making the most of me while I'm still alive?"
"Mutual benefit."
"Benefit costs." Fett turned away from the window and picked up his helmet. "I don't do help."
