“I will do both,” Uingali promised. “A safe and profitable voyage to you, Senior Captain Lakinda.”
“Thank you. Grayshrike out.”
Lakinda keyed off the mike. “Helm, get us moving. Jump-by-jump, best speed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wikivv said, and busied herself with her board.
“Depending on how thorough Thrawn decides to be,” Apros said, “a jump-by-jump may well get us there after he’s already left. Again, I remind the captain that emergency regulations likely apply here.”
“One: Thrawn’s not going to run his sky-walker all sixteen of those hours,” Lakinda said. “Not for something like this. He’ll give her time to rest, which means he won’t be getting there ahead of Wikivv’s projected schedule.”
“Even if it means he arrives very late back at the Vigilant to complete the Council’s mandated task?”
“Thrawn’s extremely good at arguing from points of weakness and even marginal insubordination,” Lakinda said sourly. Especially when it resulted in better standing for his family and worse standing for everyone else. “Two: You saw how tired Bet’nih is. We’ll start jump-by-jump and bring her in after she’s had her full rest period.”
“Understood,” Apros said. He was still unhappy with the decision, Lakinda could tell, especially since there were members of the Aristocra who would have no qualms at all about slapping the Grayshrike’s own delays onto its captain’s and senior officers’ shoulders.
But he knew better than to keep pushing once Lakinda’s mind was made up. “May I ask what that bit was about a password?” he asked. “I didn’t know we had passwords for situations like this.”
“As far as I know, we don’t,” Lakinda agreed. “I threw that in mostly to see how he would react to the question.”
“Did he pass the test?”
“I’m not sure I know,” Lakinda admitted. “He’s alien, and I don’t know any of his verbal parameters.”
She checked her chrono. Her bridge watch had been over for half an hour. “I’ll be in my quarters if you need me,” she said, standing up. “Make sure Junior Captain Ovinon is fully apprised of the situation when you turn the watch over to him. I’ll want him to switch over from jump-by-jump as soon as Bet’nih’s ready to return to duty.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Apros said. “Sleep well, Captain.”
She would sleep, all right, Lakinda thought as she left the bridge and headed down the corridor. But how fast she got there, and how deep that sleep turned out to be, would depend largely on whether or not she could figure out how exactly Thrawn intended to use all this to his advantage.
And just where and how badly his family’s success would hurt her own.
The wind whistled across Thurfian’s face and hair, rustling the knee-high grass he and his Evroes guide were standing in and sending a mist of loose soil off the edge of the cliff two meters in front of them. “There,” Evroes’pu’titor said, staying well back from the edge as he pointed past the winding river below toward the section of young forest to their right. “That’s the area of dispute.”
“Yes, I see it,” Thurfian said, feeling a very unstatesmanlike amusement at Oesputi’s obvious discomfort. The other had mentioned at least twice that the disputed region could be seen more efficiently from the air than from the edge of the low mountain they were currently standing on. But Thurfian had wanted to see things from the Xodlak side of the issue, so here they were.
And now, with the breeze and the subtle odors of the farm, forest, and river swirling around him, one conclusion rose uppermost in his mind.
He really needed to get out of his underground Csilla office more often.
“You can see the problem,” Oesputi continued. “The seeds from the forest below us were blown across the river to our farmland, where they started a new forest.”
“All of which began, what, twenty years ago?” Thurfian asked.
“Closer to thirty,” Oesputi conceded. “At first, you see, the trees were sparse and not a concern to the farmers. Then, as they grew, they provided homes for the blinkbirds that controlled the fields’ vermin population. But now you can see what it’s like.”
“Yes,” Thurfian said, his earlier amusement fading back into the underlying seriousness of the situation. The forest canopy had grown too thick for ground crops to thrive beneath it, and as the forest slowly spread outward, more and more arable ground was being lost. “And you can’t just cut down the trees?”
“The Xodlak forbid it,” Oesputi said with a sigh. “They claim the trees are a specific hybrid they own title to, and that no one can harvest them without permission.”
And of course, the license the local Xodlak Patriel was offering the farmers was expensive enough to suck all the profit out of any logging they might do. Typical Xodlak self-centered worldview. “What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything you can do,” Oesputi admitted. “The Xodlak are of the Forty Great Families. The Evroes are …” He sighed again. “Of nothing.”
“You’re a family and a people of the Chiss Ascendancy,” Thurfian said firmly. “As such, you’re owed justice.”
Justice that should have come via the Irizi, Thurfian added sourly to himself. The Xodlak were their allies, and they should have been the ones to step in and handle this negotiation.
But the Irizi were apparently too preoccupied with yet another attempt to court the Chaf family into a full alliance to be bothered with anything this small and petty.
He frowned, leaning a little closer to the edge. Were those purple flowers he was glimpsing through the trees of the main forest?
“Careful,” Oesputi said nervously. “These cliffs can be treacherous.”
“I’m all right,” Thurfian said, shifting his gaze back across the river to the Evroes farmland. Those fields were dotted with the same purple, all right. “Tell me, Oesputi, do the winds here shift direction during the year?”
“Yes, quite dramatically, in fact,” Oesputi said. “In winter they come from the south, while in summer they come from the north.”
“So winter is when the Xodlak seeds ride the winds across the river to your land.” Thurfian pointed downward. “And summer, then, is when your seeds go the other direction.”
Carefully, Oesputi eased a few centimeters forward. “Why, yes,” he said, sounding puzzled. “I never noticed that before.” He took a long step back. “But as I’ve already said, the grain down there will be of poor quality.”
“I’m not concerned about the quality,” Thurfian said. “I’m pointing out that your crops are on Xodlak land.” He smiled tightly. “And if you can’t harvest or damage their trees without permission, neither can they harvest or damage your crops.”
“But they aren’t harvesting any of—”
“Or damage them,” Thurfian interrupted, leaning on the words.
For a long minute Oesputi stared at the forest. Thurfian waited, again savoring the feel of the wind in his hair. “But our crops aren’t a protected hybrid,” the other said at last.
“Doesn’t matter,” Thurfian said. “The point is that both families have a claim against the other. More to the point is that the Xodlak have a lot more to lose from any cross-compensation decision that might be rendered. That threat alone should be enough to bring them to negotiation.”
“Oh, my,” Oesputi breathed, looking at Thurfian with an expression that was disturbingly close to adulation. “Syndic Thurfian, if you could give us even that much hope, the Evroes will forever be in your debt.”