“Aww, sweetie, where did you come from?” Salkies had a thick mane that covered their whole head from shoulders to eyes, and looked a much cuter creature than the savage predator they were bred from. “Did some silly person leave the doors open? Where’s your collar?” She risked fumbling through its mane to look for some identity tag; these creatures were expensive, so it was certain to have one. “We’ll get someone to collect you, sweetheart. You just hold still…”
“What is this?” said the salky in a liquidly rich male voice. “Has your building got a no-pets rule or something? Let me in before somebody spots me.”
Besany yelped and jumped back, stunned. Before she could even begin to panic about hallucinations, the salky deformed into a smooth shapeless mass and squeezed through the gap like molten metal before changing color. Now Besany was looking at a pool of black glossy material that resolved into a four-legged, fanged creature like a sand panther.
“Fierfek,” she said, and that wasn’t a word she used often. “It’s you.”
The Gurlanin narrowed brilliant orange eyes and padded over to the sofa. “I’m not Jinart, but I suppose we all look the same to you. Am I allowed on the furniture?”
“Look, I…”
“Don’t worry about the name.” He sniffed around the room as if checking for something. “Your people kept your side of the bargain. The last human has left Qiilura. So as a parting gesture of goodwill to those charming soldier boys, I have some information for you.”
The Gurlanins had said they could be anywhere and no-body would know. She almost asked this one if he’d thought about a career in Treasury Audit, then had a chilling thought that a Gurlanin could have been working right next to her or following her in the street at any time. What did you say to a shapeshifting spy? “That’s very kind.”
“One, make sure you keep that blaster with you at all times, because your meeting with Senator Skeenah did not go unnoticed, and you’re under surveillance by Republic Intelligence, and I don’t mean Sergeant Skirata’s men. I mean the highest level of government.” He shoved his snout into the kitchen and snuffled again. “Two, you won’t find Dhannut Logistics, because they don’t exist. They’re a front for moving credits around inside Republic finances. You did well to find the connection with Centax Two, but if you keep crashing around you’re going to get caught, so I’ll save you some time. Yes, there are clones now being produced in facilities outside Kamino-some here, most on Centax, and a lot of them. No, the Grand Army command hasn’t been told, because those Jedi generals will want the extra men to deploy right away, but they won’t get them. So you can pass that on to your contact.”
Besany didn’t think she’d been crashing around anywhere. She was mortified. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because Qiilura has a fragile ecology and we know Skirata is a vengeful little piece of vermin who really could persuade the fleet to melt it to slag. We want to be left alone now. Really alone.”
“I see.”
“We’ll maintain a presence here, by way of insurance,” said the Gurlanin. “Not that you’d notice.”
“Okay, but can I ask…”
“No.”
“Just the..”
“I said no. And don’t be tempted to dig further, because you have no idea what you’re really dealing with.” The Gurlanin sat back on his haunches and looked as if he was shrugging his shoulders, rippling long muscles, and then she realized he was changing form again. “Things can always get a lot worse.”
“Did I really crash around?”
“Actually, you did exceptionally well-for a human. But that’s not going to be good enough. And things might be getting too dangerous even for us.”
He lapsed into silence without explaining what that meant, and then became a shapeless lump of marble before extruding-there was no other word for it-into a man, upright and all too familiar.
Gurlanins were perfect mimics. She’d seen one posing as a civilian employee she worked with, and never spotted it. They could pass as anyone and anything!
It seemed they could also pass as clone troopers. Besany stared back at a man in white armor who could have been Ordo, except he wasn’t behaving like him, and he didn’t have a helmet. The replica smiled coldly at her; her stomach churned, and it took every scrap of strength to stop herself from thinking through the implications of that chilling little trick.
“I’ll let myself out the front door,” he said. “It’s not as if people don’t know about Ordo now, is it?”