[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(84)
A world whose people no one had ever even noticed, let alone cared about. Unlike, say, Caamas.
With an effort, she choked down the ripple of resentment at all the attention Caamas had been getting the past couple of weeks. The destruction of Emberlene was too far in the past to get emotional about anymore, even for her. No one in the galaxy had cared back when it was attacked; they certainly couldn’t be expected to care now. Yes, it was unfair, but no one had ever claimed the universe was fair.
From just above and to her left came a soft, questioning burp. Shada paused, looking up into the darkness, and spotted the reflection from a faint pair of close-set eyes looking down at her from deep shadow. “It’s okay,” she murmured toward the eyes, cautiously pulling herself up for a closer look. On this part of Borcorash it was probably a harmless blufferavian, but it never hurt to be careful.
The caution turned out to be unnecessary. It was indeed a blufferavian, resting on a nest built into a particularly deep niche in the wall. From beneath its wing she caught a glimpse of a couple of speckled eggs.
“Don’t worry, I’m not hungry,” she soothed the creature. Once upon a time, she remembered darkly, she’d been quite good at catching avians that size. They’d tasted much better than the city’s scavenger insects .
Shaking away the thoughts, she shifted her weight to free up one hand and pulled a safety anchor off her climbing harness. Her Mistryl instructors would probably have criticized her use of a safety line, pointing out that it took time to fasten the anchors and that a true Mistryl would never slip in the first place. But her climb training was many years in her past, and all the speed in the galaxy would gain her nothing if she fell before reaching the rooftop.
On the other band, if there was anything to Mazzic’s suspicions about this meeting, getting up there too late would be just as futile as not getting there at all. About two meters of wall left, she estimated as she glanced upward, with maybe twice that number of minutes left before Mazzic and Griv arrived upstairs. Locking the slender, nearly invisible safety line into the anchor, not waiting until the faint hiss of the molecular welding between anchor and wall had faded away, she passed the blufferavian’s nest and continued her climb.
She had made it to the top, and was just reaching a hand up toward the edge, when she heard a faint sound.
She froze, listening, but the sound wasn’t repeated. Easing her hand down, she pulled another safety anchor from her harness and set it against the wall as far to her left as she could reach. Hoping the hissing sound was too quiet to be heard by whoever was up there, she locked her safety line into the anchor and also locked the feed at her harness. Now, if she was shot at when she poked her head up over the edge, dropping down would swing her around that point in a tight arc to pop up a meter and a half to the side. It wasn’t much, but in a gunfight the ability to throw off an opponent’s aim even that much could make all the difference. Easing her blaster from its holster, she flicked off the safety&mdash
“Hello, Shada,” a soft voice said from directly above her.
She looked up. A cloaked figure was standing at the edge looking down at her. But even in the gloom Shada could see enough of the other’s face… “Karoly?” she murmured.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Karoly D’ulin said. “Just put your blaster up here on the roof, would you? Then come on up.”
Shada reached up and set the weapon beside Karoly’s feet. Then, remembering to unlock the line feed from her harness, she pulled herself the rest of the way.
Straightening up, she took a quick look around. Here at the edge the roof was flat, but a few meters inward it rose at a sharp angle another meter or so before flattening out again. Beyond the rise Shada could see the top of the long skylight enclosure that crowned the upper room.
The room where Mazzic was about to get down to business.
“You’re probably the last person I would have expected to see up here,” she commented, looking back at Karoly.
“I imagine so,” Karoly agreed. She’d picked up the blaster while Shada was finishing her climb, and now tucked it away somewhere inside her cloak. “You can take off those climbing hooks, too-we’ll be going back down by one of the interior stairways. Just set them down on the roof, if you would.”
“Of course,” Shada said, unstrapping the hooks from her forearms and setting them down on the roof beside her. They weren’t all that useful as weapons, but Karoly obviously wasn’t interested in taking chances. Kneeling down, she undid the foot hooks as well, then straightened up again. “Happy?”