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Zurel Darillian walked into Dr. Ton Phanan's waiting room, an event strangely parallel to the beginning of the previous book of the now-epic Ton Phanan Chronicles. Sitting on the secretary's desk was a transparisteel cage holding Dr. Phanan's  prized Glass Prowler, which had recently been healed from a dreadful plague. At least Darillian assumed it was in the cage -- the Prowler had been dosed with some convenient decaf, and was back to its normal clear colour.

Behind the desk sat a blonde secretary, armed with an emery board, examining her nails. She wore a vacuous expression that Darillian knew to be false. This was Mish -- trained assassin, master of disguise, and Darillian's main squeeze.

She looked up and smiled at him. "How was Coruscant?" she asked.

Darillian had been on the throneworld, looking up the headquarters of an infamous insect-hating society. He was looking for his former employer, Ran Kether, a fugitive from justice who had tried to wipe out all Glass Prowlers. At the same time, Mish, Phanan, and his nurse Kat had been re-establishing Phanan's surgery. The last one had been ignominiously burned down.

"No sign of him," Darilian admitted.

Mish's smile faded. She really wanted to find the man who had tried to kill her 'baby,' her beloved Glass Prowler. It made Darillian sad to see Mish all cute and sad like that. "So where's Phanan?" he asked.

"He and Kat are back with a patient."

Darillian's jaw dropped. "He actually has a patient? Who?"

"What do I look like, his secretary?"

Darillian refrained from stating the obvious.

Darillian opened the door to Phanan's surgery. He was sitting behind a mahogany desk. This surgery was extraordinarily different from the last one, in that it was very small, very dark and very, very un-lived-in. This was because, due to the unfortunate destruction of the last one, the surgery had been relocated out of funds Ton kept in an off-world bank account, 'just in case'. Kat was standing by another woman, one with long brown hair in a braid, who was sobbing into a HobbieBlue (Yes, this is a colour. Check out his jacket in the comics) tissue, wearing a long, revealing red dress.

"Now is NOT a good time, Darillian," Ton said, and made shooing movements with his hands.

Kat turned her head slightly at the intrusion. Darillian, although he saw a nurse wearing a white uniform with a much-too-short skirt, knew that he was seeing a professional at work, and thought he made out Kat's free hand reaching for a blaster. When she saw it was him, she relaxed again and went back to the crying woman.

 In fact, Darillian thought, this is a bit like in those Noir movies...

"I just thought you'd want to know how Coruscant went," Darillian said confusedly. He was a bit put out about how Ton was acting. They'd been on better terms lately.

"Go tell Mish," Kat suggested, intent on the mystery woman.

"I did already!" Darillian cried. "What's going on here?"

Kat sighed. "Darillian, meet Claire. Claire, this is Darillian, the one we were telling you about."

"The one you thought was a traitor who then decided that he wasn't and you're still not sure of him?" Claire asked Kat, looking at Darillian with suspicious green eyes.

“Yeah, that's the one,“ Kat replied.

Darillian looked a tad shocked and offended at the same instant. "Hmmph," he said, although he didn't really 'say' this, because it wasn't really a word, and he didn't even 'say' it on purpose . . . Let's just say that he said it, and leave it at that. He knew Mish wouldn't let Kat or Phanan's (mis?)conceptions of him get in the way of what she felt for him. "It's not like it'll take very long…" he muttered.

Ton and Kat's attention was, however, back to Claire, who had stopped sobbing and was now looking very composed, and just about to eye-up Darillian. The words 'Face Loran' entered Claire's head as she observed Darillian, but Ton was asking her what was wrong, so she turned back to the man reluctantly, her gaze lingering on Darillian's hair. I thought Face Loran was dark haired? she thought, as she didn't participate in the previous adventure and therefore did not know Darillian's hair had been dyed.

"Can you tell us what you think is wrong?" Ton asked again, noticing the woman zone-ing out.

Ton was about to wave his hands over her face, when she replied, "I need you to find someone for me."

Ton looked confused. "Another person to find? Well sure, hey, I can cope with that. My Superior Intellect can take it."

"That's your job, isn't it?"

Kat grinned. "Yep, got it written on his card." She picked a business card out of her top pocket, and passed it to Claire. 'Ton Phanan: Doctor, Pilot, Wit and Superior Intellect.'

Claire looked confused. "But I thought you were a private investigator?"

Ton looked shocked. Darillian smirked, evidently amused, and said, "He couldn't find a Glass Prowler if it was painted luminous pink and had a neon sign over it pointing to it and saying 'Glass Prowler'."

"I'll have you know they run very fast," Ton replied quickly.

"Oh yeah." Darillian smirked again. Claire noticed once more the similarity to Face Loran.

"Whatever gave you the idea we're a private investigators?" Kat asked Claire, in all seriousness.

"Well," Claire said, "your secretary told me you were, for one."

"Well . . . We're trying to sort that out. Mish's been watching re-runs of 'Randall and Hopkirk (deceased)' recently," Kat said. Mish had recently become even more relaxed about her job, and had been found watching holos, playing on the net, writing, kissing Darillian, reading, drinking and talking on the telephone much more often than was usual in the past few weeks. Kat secretly thought these were probably all signs that she'd been going out with Darillian for too long and she'd set it as her personal mission to make sure Mish paid more attention to her job, and less attention to other things, even if they were more interesting.

"And the door says 'Ton Phanan - Private Investigator' on it."

"And we've been meaning to scratch that off from the previous owner. I only got half way through changing it before you walked in."

"And he looks like a private investigator."

Sure enough, Ton's white lab-coat had been discarded for a very cool long suede jacket, à là Private Investigator.

Kat leveled Ton with an eye of distaste. "Yes. That was left by the previous owner too."

"That's all."

"Oh. Well, sure, we can do that. Who're you looking for?"

"My brother."

"Uh, if he's your brother, shouldn't you know where he is?" Ton asked.

Claire wasn't stumped. "No, he's my long-lost brother. You have to make special allowances for these things."

"Oh."

"Well, where was he last seen?" Kat asked.

"Rudrig."

"Coincidence?" Ton asked. "I think not."

"Our last surgery was on Rudrig," Kat explained. "But go on, what's he look like?"

"Well, kinda like me, but with dark eyes and short hair. Oh, and he's obviously a bloke."

Darillian shrugged. "Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened."

"None come to mind," Ton replied.

"Very good." Kat was making notes, taking control as she saw Phanan and Darillian weren't going to. "And his name?"

"Ran Kether."

"Well, now there’s a coincidence," Darillian repeated after a moment of speechlessness.

Claire looked mildly confused. “Do you know him?” she asked, completely oblivious to the previous adventure. Darillian was starting to eye her up, but then he remembered Mish filing her nails in the other room. He also remembered that the women in revealing red dresses who come crying to the private investigator in Noir movies are invariably villainesses, and desisted.

“We’re looking for him too,” Kat told her. She moved over to the door. “Hey, Mish,” she called. “Claire’s looking for Ran, too.”

Mish came into the office, which had barely had enough room for four people. Her entry forced Kat to squeeze real close to Ton, who wasn’t about to complain.

“You know Kether?” Mish asked Claire.

“He’s my brother,” Claire explained. “My long-lost evil twin.”

Mish whistled, annoyed at the fact that twins everywhere were being exploited in this way.

“Don’t you wish we’d known he was an evil twin before we hired him?” Ton whispered in Kat’s ear.

“So why are you looking for Ran?” Claire wanted to know.

Mish, who was standing closest to the door, stepped out a moment and brought the Glass Prowler’s cage inside, making it even more crowded in the dark-paneled office. “He tried to kill my Glass Prowler!” she cried plaintively.

“Yep, that sounds like something Ran would do,” Claire mused. “When we were kids he tried to rid the galaxy of Xeboracs.”

“What’s a Xeborac?” Darillian asked.

“His plan worked,” Mish went on cryptically.

“So as his sister, do you have any idea where he might be hiding out?” Kat asked, getting into the detective thing.

“If I did, would I have come to a Private Investigator?” Claire asked back.

“But we’re not a Private Invest—" Kat’s glare cut Mish off. “Oops.”

“So you don’t know where he is then?” Ton was finding it hard to concentrate on the case with Kat standing right next to him in her too-short skirt.

“Nope, sorry. Can you still help me?”

Ton shrugged. “Sure, why not. Are we up for another mission?”

Mish glared at him over the transparisteel cage. “What’s this ‘we’?” she asked.

“Well… I came on the last one…” He turned to Kat. “Please?”

“Sweetie, I think maybe Mish and I should do this one alone. Unless…” Kat glanced at Mish, who shook her head. She shrugged. “Sorry, babe.”

Ton pouted. “But I wanna come!”

Kat sighed. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“So when do we leave?” Darillian asked.

“Um, you’re not coming,” Mish told him.

“What? But Mish…”

“Hey, if my boyfriend can’t come, hers can’t either!” Kat told him firmly.

Darillian pouted too. “Man, this sucks. What am I supposed to do while you guys are off looking for Kether, then?”

Mish gave a Devaronian smile. “Well, Ton’s gonna need a secretary for a while…”

Darillian groaned. “No way. I refuse to be his secretary. My nails are too short to file all day.”

“You could be his nurse,” Kat suggested. “You’d look great in the uniform.” She gave a little twirl. Trying to avoid hitting the large mahogany desk, she ended up elbowing Ton in the stomach. He grunted. “Oops, did I get you?” She gave him a little kiss on the nose.

Claire rolled her eyes at this blatant display of shippiness. “So you can help me?” she asked.

Ton nodded. “Yeah, sure, why not.”

“Alright then. Thanks.”

As Claire left, she could hear Darillian saying, “Phanan, I’m not being your nurse.”

Phanan responded, “Well, you know, I’m in need of a security guard…”