Pellaeon favored him with a slightly indulgent smile. “Information on Imperial activities is very expensive. I’d have thought a man in your line of work would know that.”
“Indeed,” Karrde agreed, watching the other closely. “But occasionally one finds bargains. It’s the ysalamiri you’re after, isn’t it?”
The other’s smile froze. “There are no bargains to be had here, Karrde,” he said after a moment, his voice very soft. “And expensive can also mean costly.”
“True,” Karrde said. “Unless, of course, it’s traded for something equally valuable. I presume you’re already familiar with the ysalamiri’s rather unique characteristics—otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Can I assume you’re also familiar with the somewhat esoteric art of safely getting them off their tree branches?”
Pellaeon studied him, suspicion all over his face. “I was under the impression that ysalamiri were no more than fifty centimeters long and not predatory.”
“I wasn’t referring to your safety, Captain,” Karrde told him. “I meant theirs. You can’t just pull them off their branches, not without killing them. An ysalamir in this stage is sessile—its claws have elongated to the point where they’ve essentially grown directly into the core of the branch it inhabits.”6
“And you, I suppose, know the proper way to do it?”
“Some of my people do, yes,” Karrde told him. “If you’d like, I could send one of them to rendezvous with your shuttles. The technique involved isn’t especially difficult, but it really does have to be demonstrated.”
“Of course,” Pellaeon said, heavily sardonic. “And the fee for this esoteric demonstration …?”
“No fee, Captain. As I said earlier, we’re just being neighborly.”
Pellaeon cocked his head slightly to one side. “Your generosity will be remembered.” For a moment he held Karrde’s gaze; and there was no mistaking the twin-edged meaning to the words. If Karrde was planning some sort of betrayal, it too would be remembered. “I’ll signal my shuttles to expect your expert.”
“He’ll be there. Good-bye, Captain.”
Pellaeon reached for something off-camera, and once again Aves’s face replaced his on the screen. “You get all that?” Karrde asked the other.
Aves nodded. “Dankin and Chin are already warming up one of the Skiprays.”
“Good. Have them leave an open transmission; and I’ll want to see them as soon as they’re back.”
“Right.” The display clicked off.
Karrde stepped away from the desk, glanced once at Mara, and reseated himself at the table. “Sorry for the interruption,” he said conversationally, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he poured himself some more wine.
Slowly, the green eyes came back from infinity; and as she looked at him, the muscles of her face eased from their deathlike rigidness. “You’re really not going to charge them for this?” she asked, reaching a slightly unsteady hand for her own wine. “They’d certainly make you pay if you wanted something. That’s about all the Empire really cares about these days, money.”
He shrugged. “We get to have our people watching them from the moment they set down to the moment they lift off. That seems an adequate fee to me.”7
She studied him. “You don’t believe they’re here just to pick up ysalamiri, do you?”
“Not really.” Karrde took a bite of his bruallki. “At least, not unless there’s a use for the things that we don’t know about. Coming all the way out here to collect ysalamiri is a bit of an overkill to use against a single Jedi.”
Mara’s eyes again drifted away. “Maybe it’s not Skywalker they’re after,” she murmured. “Maybe they’ve found some more Jedi.”
“Seems unlikely,” Karrde said, watching her closely. The emotion in her voice when she’d said Luke Skywalker’s name … “The Emperor supposedly made a clean sweep of them in the early days of the New Order. Unless,” he added as another thought occurred to him, “they’ve perhaps found Darth Vader.”
“Vader died on the Death Star,” Mara said. “Along with the Emperor.”
“That’s the story, certainly—”
“He died there,” Mara cut him off, her voice suddenly sharp.
“Of course.” Karrde nodded. It had taken him five months of close observation, but he’d finally pinned down the handful of subjects guaranteed to trigger strong responses from the woman. The late Emperor was among them, as was the pre-Endor Empire.
And at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum was Luke Skywalker. “Still,” he continued thoughtfully, “if a Grand Admiral thinks he has a good reason to carry ysalamiri aboard his ships, we might do well to follow his lead.”
Abruptly, Mara’s eyes focused on him again. “What for?” she demanded.
“A simple precaution,” Karrde said. “Why so vehement?”
He watched as she fought a brief internal battle. “It seems like a waste of time,” she said. “Thrawn’s probably just jumping at shadows. Anyway, how are you going to keep ysalamiri alive on a ship without transplanting some trees along with them?”
“I’m sure Thrawn has some ideas as to the mechanics of it,” Karrde assured her. “Dankin and Chin will know how to poke around for details.”
Her eyes seemed strangely hooded. “Yes,” she muttered, her voice conceding defeat. “I’m sure they will.”
“And in the meantime,” Karrde said, pretending not to notice, “we still have business to discuss. As I recall, you were going to list some improvements you would make in the organization.”
“Yes.” Mara took another deep breath, closing her eyes … and when she opened them again she was back to her usual cool self. “Yes. Well—”
Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing confidence, she launched into a detailed and generally insightful compendium of his group’s shortcomings. Karrde listened closely as he ate, wondering again at the hidden talents of this woman. Someday, he promised himself silently, he was going to find a way to dig the details of her past out from under the cloak of secrecy she’d so carefully shrouded it with. To find out where she’d come from, and who and what she was.
And to learn exactly what it was Luke Skywalker had done to make her so desperately hate him.8
C H A P T E R 4
It took the Chimaera nearly five days at its Point Four1 cruising speed to cover the three hundred fifty light-years between Myrkr and Wayland. But that was all right, because it took the engineers nearly that long to come up with a portable frame that would both support and nourish the ysalamiri.
“I’m still not convinced this is really necessary,” Pellaeon grumbled, eyeing with distaste the thick curved pipe and the fur-scaled, salamander-like creature attached to it. The pipe and its attached frame were blasted heavy, and the creature itself didn’t smell all that good. “If this Guardian you’re expecting was put on Wayland by the Emperor in the first place, then I don’t see why we should have any problems with him.”
“Call it a precaution, Captain,” Thrawn said, settling into the shuttle’s copilot seat and fastening his own straps. “It’s conceivable we could have trouble convincing him of who we are. Or even that we still serve the Empire.” He sent a casual glance across the displays and nodded to the pilot. “Go.”
There was a muffled clank, and with a slight jolt the shuttle dropped from the Chimaera’s docking bay and started its descent toward the planet surface. “We might have had an easier time convincing him with a squad of stormtroopers along,” Pellaeon muttered, watching the repeater display beside his seat.
“We might also have irritated him,” Thrawn pointed out. “A Dark Jedi’s2 pride and sensibilities are not to be taken lightly, Captain. Besides—” he looked over his shoulder “—that’s what Rukh is for. Any close associate of the Emperor ought to be familiar with the glorious role the Noghri have played over the years.”