"It will cost you," Mali warned.

"I have credits," Obi-Wan said, showing him.

Mali took several credits from his hand. "That will do. Now." He stood. He was a small man, but still agile, Obi-Wan noted as Mali leaped over a storage box and pulled a stool up to the durasteel table.

Whistling through his teeth, Mali first took some crumbs from the cakes and inserted them into a scan grid.

"Cake,” he pronounced after a moment, reading the data. "Sweetener, rnuja, meal, coagulate…"

"Nothing else?" Obi-Wan asked.

Mali licked the residue off his fingers. "It's delicious." He popped the rest into his mouth.

Obi-Wan sighed. "Try the liquid."

Mali poured a drop from the vial into a scan grid. Seconds later, the grid flashed a graph with numbers and symbols.

"Ah," Mali murmured, straightening. "Fascinating."

"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked, leaning forward.

"Tea," Mali said.

"And?" Obi-Wan prompted.

"Water" Mali answered.

"And?" Obi-Wan asked.

Mali squinted at him. "Young impatient man, you must tell me what I am looking for. There are herbal compounds here, some acids, some tannins. But nothing I can tell is out of the ordinary. Unless you tell me what out of the ordinary event you are suspecting."

"Poison," Obi-Wan said reluctantly.

"Well, there you are! Always better to say what you want at the outset.

Otherwise, we waste time. No poison in the cake. A good thing, eh? I ate it!"

Humming, Mali stared at the graph again. He pressed a few keys on the analyzer.

Another graph appeared, then a stream of numbers and symbols.

"Well?" Obi-Wan asked.