“Booster!” Corran snapped, glaring at his father-in-law. “Seal your word port, will you?”
“Perhaps I can help,” Karrde offered. “I do have certain information sources of my own. Some of which, I daresay, are better even than Booster’s.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Corran said. “We’ll manage.”
“He does have a point, Corran,” Booster said, rubbing his cheek thoughtfully. “Maybe you ought to lay the situation out for him.”
“No.” Corran shook his head. “No offense, Karrde, but this is high-level stuff. You’re not authorized to know anything about it.,’
“Yes, but-” Booster began.
“No, that’s all right,” Karrde said, holding up a hand. “If his superiors don’t even want outsiders knowing he and his family are here, they certainly wouldn’t want him discussing his errand.”
“Exactly,” Corran said. “Thank you for understanding.”
“So if I may, I’ll just borrow Booster for a few minutes to discuss my errand,” Karrde continued, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a datacard. “But before I forget, Mirax, I brought this for your son.”
Mirax frowned as he handed her the datacard. “What is it?”
“An Ettian tonal card for his chordokeylo,” Karrde told her blandly. “I understand it’s proper etiquette for a guest to bring a small gift for his hosts’ children.”
Corran leaned over her shoulder to look at the datacard, a slightly sandbagged look on his face. “But how did you know-?” He looked back at Karrde, shifted a rapidly hardening glare to his father-in-law. “Booster?”
“Not guilty,” Booster said hastily, holding up both hands. “I didn’t tell anyone you were coming. Not even my own people.”
“As I said,” Karrde said quietly. “My information sources are quite good.”
For a minute the bridge was silent Corran looked at Booster, then at Mirax, got no help from either of them, and finally looked back at Karrde. “What’s it going to cost me?” he sighed.
Karrde shrugged. “Whatever it’s worth, of course. We can negotiate price later.”
Corran looked at Booster. “I’ve heard that before.”
“If you’d prefer, we could leave that part up to Councilor Organa Solo,” Karrde offered. “In the past she and I have always been able to arrive at a mutually acceptable arrangement.”
“I’d hate to think what some of those arrangements might have cost us,” Corran growled. “All right, fine. I presume you’re aware we’ve had a lot of demonstrations and riots lately against Bothan businesses and consulates.”
“Over the revelations contained in the Caamas Document,” Karrde murmured.
“Right. Well, in and among all these protests we’re starting to hear the name Vengeance’ being batted around. Not as a word, but as a group or organization.”
Karrde looked at Odonnl. “Have we heard anything about that?”
“I haven’t personally,” Odonnl said. “But there’s a lot of stuff our sources send in that I don’t have time to look at.”
“We’ll do a data search when we get back to the Wild Karrde,” Karrde said. “What are Coruscant’s conclusions?”
“No conclusions yet, just questions,” Corran said. “The main ones being who and what this Vengeance is … and whether they’re home-grown or getting help from outside.”
“Let me guess. The Empire?”
Corran’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You say that like you don’t believe it.”
“Not exactly,” Karrde corrected. “I say that like someone who rather cynically notices that whenever anything goes wrong in the New Republic, official blaming fingers immediately zero in on the Empire.”
“That’s a little unfair,” Booster said. “Especially considering the Empire’s long history of this kind of meddling.”
“I’m not saying they’re not involved,” Karrde said. “I’m simply warning against the automatic assumption that they are.”
“But-“
“No, he’s right,” Corran said reluctantly. “There are a lot of beings who remember the Empire doing exactly the same thing to us: blaming the Rebellion for everything, then using that as an excuse to tighten their grip. That’s why my visit here was supposed to be kept secret, in fact-General Bel Iblis didn’t want it leaking out that we were even thinking in this direction.”
Karrde nodded. He should have guessed Bel Iblis would be the one who’d put this Ratitan whisperfly in Con-an’s ear. Unlike some of the New Republic’s leaders, Bel Iblis knew how to keep his eye on his goal. And, when necessary, to ignore the shortcomings of the people he might have to deal with in order to reach that goal. “Understood,” he said. “We’ll check our files; if there’s nothing there, we’ll start some quiet inquiries and see what we can find.”