[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(31)

“Sure,” Shada murmured. She knew, all right. What hurt the most was that for the past twelve years she’d been a willing participant in it. Willing, and very able.

Sometimes, late at night, she wondered what had happened to the galaxy. Or perhaps it was just her.

At the near edge of the crowd a young Garoos appeared, easing himself and his loaded tray gingerly between a pair of loud and wildly gesticulating Ishori. He made it without spilling the drinks, and wilted into the seat across from Mazzic. “Wheh!” he half-whistled, picking up one of the four drinks from the tray, his purple-tinged gill flaps undulating rhythmically as he breathed. “Dint think I was gon make it.”

“And a fine job you did, too, Cromf,” Mazzic assured him, selecting two of the other glasses and setting one in front of Shada. “Any sign of our quarry yet?”

“I dint see him,” Cromf said, sipping carefully at his drink and looking nervously around him. One ear cluster opened briefly as someone nearby gave a raucous laugh, then closed down again. “I don’t like this, Maz’k. Too man’ here watch.”

“Don’t worry,” Mazzic soothed. “You just get him to the table. We’ll do the rest.”

Beside Shada’s left ear, one of the decorative lacquered needles twisted into her hair gave two soft clicks. “Signal from Griv,” she told Mazzic. “Possible make.”

“Good,” Mazzic said. “Go get him, Cromf-side entrance. Concentrate on the other half of your finder’s fee.”

The Garoos half-whistled as he got up from the table and disappeared again into the crowd. Shada took a deep breath, settling into combat mode and gave the area around them a final examination. If the Devaronian smelled trouble and tried to bolt, he would probably head to his left

And then Cromf was back, a horn-headed Devaronian in tow. “Wheh!” he half-whistled, sitting down beside Mazzic. “Crowd in here. This Lak Jit. This smug’ Maz’k.”

“Pleased to meet you, Lak Jit,” Mazzic said, offering him the fourth glass from the tray. “You drink Vistulo brandale, I trust?”

“When someone else is paying,” Lak Jit said, taking the seat across from Mazzic. “I want you to know first, Mazzic, that though what I am about to tell you is true, I know I cannot ask for money in exchange. I no longer have tangible proof, only the evidence of my own eyes.”

“I understand,” Mazzic said, setting his hand down in the center of the table. He withdrew it, revealing the short stack of high-denomination coins. “Still, a respectable gentleman should be willing to pay for value received.”

Lak Jit smiled his thin Devaronian smile and reached for the coins&mdash

And found his wrist locked solidly in Mazzic’s grip. “For value received,” Mazzic reminded him coldly. Reaching out with the other hand, he slid the stack of coins back to the edge of the table in front of him. “Now,” he said, releasing the Devaronian’s wrist. “Let’s hear what you have.”

Lak Jit hunched forward to lean across the table. “Understand that what I am about to tell you is both private and exclusive,” he murmured. “No one else outside the New Republic government knows this.”

“Of course,” Mazzic said dryly, his tone making it clear to Shada that he didn’t believe that any more than she did. The Devaronian had probably already sold this same “exclusive” information to a half-dozen other people. “Let’s hear it.”

Lak Jit glanced around and hunched a little closer. “It concerns Caamas,” he said. “There exists evidence that it was indeed agents of the then Senator Palpatine who engineered its destruction.”

Beneath the table, Shada felt her hand curl into a hard fist. Caamas. It had been a long time since she’d thought about that world. A long time since she’d tried to block its name and the childhood memories it evoked of her own world of Emberlene from her mind. Now, suddenly, it was all coming back.

She wouldn’t have expected Mazzic to be equally moved. And he wasn’t. “Hardly groundbreaking news,” he said with a shrug. “That’s been the leading theory practically since the last Caamasi firestorm burned itself out.”

“But this is proof,” Lak Jit insisted. “A record recovered from the Emperor’s personal storehouse on Wayland.”

“A document you don’t happen to have.”

“But there’s more,” the Devaronian hissed, leaning forward until his horns were almost touching Mazzic’s forehead. “We now know how it was that the planet was so easily destroyed. The shield generators were deliberately sabotaged.” He jabbed a finger onto the table for emphasis. “By a group of Bothans.”