"Are you taking me to see Yanth the Hutt?"

The gangster glanced at the Padawan. "Good guess."

They reached the end of the corridor and passed through a pair of wide doors that looked as if they had been melted in the center. As they entered the room, Obi-Wan immediately noted several Gamorrean guards lying on the floor. He was no forensic specialist, but it seemed as though they had been shot with blasters. He stepped over a broken force pike and followed Perhi toward a large shape on the floor ahead.

He knelt down and examined the wound that had killed the Hutt. It looked almost as if it might have come from a lightsaber. That wasn't possible, of course. It had to be a blaster burn.

He looked over at the Black Sun representative. Could it be that his organization was having one of its periodic in- fighting episodes? A coup in the making?

"I was hoping, Jedi Kenobi, that you might be able to shed a little light here. Isn't there some-" Perhi gestured vaguely. "-mystic way you can tell who did this?"

It was interesting, Obi-Wan thought, the mythologies of various organizations. Among the Jedi there might well be those who wondered about the mysterious Black Sun, exaggerating their reach, their connections, their dangerousness. Certainly the opposite was true here. Perhi obviously felt there was some cabalistic way his Jedi guest could learn what had happened here.

"Give me a minute," Obi-Wan said. The gangster nodded and stepped back.

Obi-Wan knelt on the floor and allowed his senses to expand, meditating on the apparent events. The sense of corruption he'd felt before on the street came; back strongly, as did the disturbances caused by many other beings-but it was all too muddled. Too much time had passed, too many people had been in and out. A Master such as Mace Windu could probably make sense of it-but Obi-Wan was not a Master. He wasn't even a Jedi Knight yet.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Perhaps if I'd been here earlier-"

The gangster nodded. Obi-Wan sensed his disappointment, though Perhi hid it well. "Not your fault. Thanks anyway."

Obi-Wan was surprised to find that he felt slightly relieved. After all, if he'd found it was Darsha or Master Bondara who had perpetrated this carnage… But in all probability it was not.

But who could it have been?

"No one saw who did this?" he asked Perhi.

"No. You'd think there'd be at least one witness, but everyone says they couldn't get a good look at him, even when he ran right by them."

Obi-Wan nodded. That could be the natural reticence to get involved usually found in people on the far side of the law- or in fear of retribution.

He walked toward the exit, followed by Perhi.

"Jedi Kenobi?"

"Yes?"

"I've never had the pleasure of seeing one of you work until today. What you did up there in the bar- are all Jedi that good?"

Obi-Wan stopped and turned to face Perhi. "No, they're not."

The gangster seemed to relax slightly-but his expression changed as Obi-Wan continued.

"I'm only an apprentice. I have yet to take the Jedi trials. My Master is far more skilled than I. As a student, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a disappointment to him. In terms of fighting skills, I'm probably least among the Jedi."

The Padawan had the satisfaction of watching the gangster pale slightly. Then he turned and left Yanth's underground office, and the Tusken Oasis. With any luck, he had given Dal Perhi something to think about.

As he returned to the street, Obi-Wan mentally reviewed what he knew so far. Not much, unfortunately. He debated reporting back to the council, but decided to wait until he had something more than hearsay and supposition to offer. So far, all he knew for certain was that Darsha Assant had lost the informant she was assigned to protect. Her skyhopper had been gutted by a street gang, and her Master's skycar had been destroyed after a supposed brawl with a cowled figure. He had seen the vehicles, but no body for the informant, no Darsha, and no Master Bondara.

Add to that the fact that a Black Sun vigo, Yanth the Hutt, had been killed by a cowled figure. There had been a sense of corruption pervading the location, similar to what he had experienced at the crash site of Bondara's skycar.

Obi-Wan had two theories, which unfortunately were mutually contradictory. Theory number one: Darsha loses her informant to Black Sun attackers and trails them to the Tusken Oasis, where she is attacked and defeats an entire roomful of guards, along with Yanth the Hutt. She calls for help, and her master comes to aid her. They flee and… vanish.

There were holes in that theory that he could fly a Dreadnought through. Darsha was good in a fight, but if she was that good, she would never have lost her informant in the first place. Also, it didn't explain the sense of wrongness that lingered over the site of the skycar crash and the murders.

Theory number two was that there was some other entity — most likely connected somehow with Black Sun — involved who had killed Yanth the Hutt and his bodyguards. Obi-Wan liked the second theory better for several reasons, not the least of which was that he didn't want to believe any Jedi capable of the crimes he'd been investigating. But neither theory explained where Darsha and her Master were, or why they hadn't been heard from for so long.

Obi- Wan sighed. He hadn't exhausted all his leads yet. There was still the block of cubicles to investigate. He checked the address he had been given and started to walk. With any luck at all, he might learn something there that would shed some light on the entire mess.

No such luck. The site of the cubicle explosion Obi- Wan had learned some very interesting news-but it was news that served only to muddy the waters further. One of the local police investigating the incident had told him that Hath Monchar, the Neimoidian deputy viceroy of the Trade Federation, had been the tenant of the blasted cubicle, and that he, too, had been killed.

It seemed obvious that Black Sun was somehow mixed up in all this. There was no evidence anywhere to suggest that the crime cartel was in bed with the Trade Federation, but it was possible, certainly.

Too many questions, Obi-Wan thought. Too many questions, and not nearly enough answers.