A Certain Point of View/Part 9

"So, basically, I could've just pulled up a computer terminal and found all this?" Narasi asked sheepishly.

"Nah, they give us free access to the legal document server in the Law program," Zina assured her, then smirked without looking up from her left screen. "Without this, you'd have had to walk all the way to City Hall."

She snickered, and Narasi giggled despite herself. Rylar looked more like Tirien—they shared the short purple hair and the facial structure, where Zina's hair was long, glossy black, and tied up in a ponytail—but Tirien's sister had more of his mannerisms. It was weird seeing Tirien's tattoos on a woman who looked passingly like him, but there was no denying they were siblings.

"Got a date range?" Zina asked.

''Hi! I'm Ayson! I'm four!'' "It'd be within the last five years."

Zina typed in the parameters. "Survivors?"

"Uh…Dorje." She wasn't sure they'd list children.

Zina keyed the search, then nodded in a self-satisfied way. "Only one result." She pulled it up, then arched one eyebrow the same way Tirien did in situations where normal people had much more demonstrative reactions. "Eugh. Cause of death: Total physical incineration caused by spaceship explosion."

Narasi winced. Poor Ayson. "Was it an accident?"

Zina frowned. "I don't think so. Two years and six months ago…that sounds familiar…"

Zina started typing, though she kept looking at the death certificate. Narasi sat at the next terminal, logging in and scrolling through news archives. It didn't take long to find the story in question, and she ran her fingers through her hair and laced them at the back of her head as she blew out a breath. "Pirates."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Zina confirmed. "I remember this story. It was a big deal—they weren't in-system, but they were only one jump out.  The whole Sujimis Collective thing started not long after, and I remember protestors holding placards—something like The Martyrs of Maryx Minor."

Leaning back in her chair and staring at the library's arched ceiling, Narasi wondered how they could overcome this. Dorje had lost his wife in a horrible fashion, and now they wanted to take his son. Tirien had no way to empathize; as Narasi knew now, his family was alive and well. And Narasi herself…

Shaking her head, she sat forward. "Thanks, Zina."

"No problem," the Pantoran replied, logging out of the database. The library was deserted mid-morning, so Zina just leaned over the back of her chair to look at Narasi. "So this is going to help with…?"

"Jedi business," Narasi said in a tone of confirmation, hoping to leave it there.

Zina smirked. "Do people really just let you leave it at that? Or are you going to do one of your Jedi mind tricks on me?"

Narasi flushed. "If you're anything like your brother, it probably wouldn't work on you anyway," she admitted. "But I'm really not supposed to talk about it."

"Well, if you were here to root out the pirates, you wouldn't be digging up details on their victims—or you'd be looking for all of them, not just one," Zina reasoned. "You can't be investigating Dorje Sokos for anything; Jedi wouldn't come out here for local crime, and if he was a big intersystem criminal mastermind or something, he'd have a record, and he doesn't."

Narasi stared. "How do you know that?"

Zina turned her second screen so Narasi could see the criminal database search and its zero hits. She had copied Dorje's personal identification code from Hera Sokos's death certificate. "I figured you could find the news articles without my help, so…"

While Narasi was still struggling for words, Zina clicked over to another screen—a record of live birth. "And Dorje and Hera Sokos have one child, four years old…and Tirien got taken at five…"

She trailed off with a rising inflection, and Narasi groaned, putting her head in her hands and shaking it. "Brains run in the family," she grumped. "Right."

Zina laughed. "If my big brother was here to see me, it wouldn't have taken a whole day, and Rylar wouldn't have had to ask you to ask for us."

Slowly, Narasi looked up. Zina was still wearing that little smirk, but Narasi had a sudden and vivid understanding in the Force that it was only camouflage. Rylar had more of Tirien's seriousness and stoicism, but beneath her humor Zina wanted this reunion as much as her brother did—and the fact that it wasn't guaranteed was just as painful to her.

"Zina, I…"

"Narasi, I'm happy to help you with this," Zina said. "Sincerely. If I'm helping you, I'm helping Tirien, and I've always wanted a way to do that.  But Harshee told my mom and dad decades ago that Jedi don't go back to their families, so tell me the truth—does he want anything to do with us?"

"Well, he doesn't know you and Rylar exist," Narasi hedged. "There wasn't a good way to bring it up last night."

"But if he did," she pressed. "What would he want? Are we just strangers to him?"

Narasi knew what Tirien had said, but she also knew that he had his family's symbol tattooed on his face. She didn't want to let Rylar and Zina down, and she wanted her master to want this—to admit that he wanted this, as she suspected he secretly did. How could he not?

Narasi, do you miss your own parents?

"Truthfully, Zina, I don't know what he'll say," Narasi admitted, then steeled herself. "But I know what I'm going to say to him."

Zina studied her warily. "And what's that?"

"Family matters. Yeah, we have to serve the Republic, and I'd never want us not to—we have a war to fight.  But he's got a chance to reconnect with his family, and I'm going to tell him to take it."

Narasi sensed Zina warring with hope. "What's the Jedi problem with family?"

"It…attachment's a problem for us," Narasi admitted reluctantly. "Being attached to something makes you possessive of it, and that can make you greedy. When you have powers like ours, having temptations like that can make us…dangerous.  It's like…if you stay every night in a luxury hotel, eventually even a normal hotel will feel like it's not enough, you know?  So family is kind of like that, except it's emotional pampering instead of physical."

She made a face. "Or that's what the Masters say, at least."

Zina weighed that; Narasi had expected the usual civilian objection and criticism, but Tirien's sister seemed more contemplative than critical. "I guess that makes sense—at least, I can see it from their perspective. Your Order is kind of spiritual, what with the Force and all."

She laughed once, wistful. "You know, I'm not much of a believer now—not very spiritual. But my mom and dad think there's something more out there—whether it's the Force or something else, I don't know.  When I was a little girl, we would always pray for Tirien.  I stopped believing a long time ago, but…I still pray for him now and then.  I want what's best for him."

Touched, Narasi nodded fervently. "Me too."