Instead of looking offended, Ta.s.saa Bareesh beamed a wide, lascivious smile. The Hutt matriarch was impressively large, sprawling sluglike with short-fingered hands resting on her bulging belly. Jewels gleamed from numerous necklaces and rings, and silk draped across her sloping shoulders, but nothing could hide the repulsiveness of her skin, which was as green and oily as a swamp reptile's back. The matriarch rumbled briefly, then reached for a snack. It wriggled and squirmed uselessly before dropping into the cavernous maw and dying with a crunch.

"Ta.s.saa Bareesh understands your urgent desire to proceed to business, " said the translator. "Would you like to view the merchandise?"

"Please. "

The Hutt matriarch barked a command. From the crowd of onlookers stepped a tall, bejeweled Twi'lek, who bowed and said, "My name is Yeama. I will be your guide. "

Nirvin bowed in return. "If the merchandise meets our needs, we may wish to offer a price immediately. "

"Of course, " Yeama said, "but I'm afraid we have another party due to arrive shortly. We could not possibly come to any arrangements until they have had an opportunity to see what you have seen. "

"When is this other party due?"

"Today, I believe. "

"From the Republic?"

"I cannot reveal their ident.i.ty. "

"Can you tell me how many other interested parties there are?"

Yeama smiled with his lips only. "This way, please. "

Envoy Nirvin's expression was sour, but he did as he was told. The Twi'lek led him and his retinue from the throne room. They formed a gaudy procession, with Yeama and Nirvin at the lead, accompanied by one Bareesh soldier for every Imperial bodyguard. Ax brought up the rear, glad to be moving again. She tolerated diplomacy rather than enjoying it.

Balancing Ax was the biggest Houk she had ever seen. He matched her stride pace for pace, his expression impa.s.sive.

As she left the room, Ax glimpsed an una.s.suming figure at the back. A human of average height, he wore practical clothes that had seen better days. His salt-and-pepper hair looked as though he had been hauled from bed just moments before. On a street anywhere else in the galaxy, Ax would have ignored him as a matter of course, but in Bareesh's palace he was the only being not dripping with finery. Standing directly behind him was a boxy old combat droid that looked even more battered than he was.

He saw Ax looking at him and glanced away, as though bored.

She turned her eyes forward and followed the envoy.

Yeama led them through a maze of corridors, each more opulent than the last. Had Ax any interest in paintings, sculptures, and tapestries-or even just the value of such things-she was sure she would have been impressed. Instead, while carefully memorizing the route, she kept her eyes open for tactical information: how many guards stood at each intersection, which areas were covered by security cams, where blast doors were located, concealed or not.

Unsurprisingly, she quickly concluded that the palace was a fortress wrapped up in tinfoil. The Hutts loved their luxury, but they loved their lives more. Ta.s.saa Bareesh hadn't elevated herself to head of a Hutt cartel simply by throwing the biggest parties. She knew how to watch her back, too.

There were weaknesses to every security detail, though. Ax was sure she could get to the matriarch if she needed to. Luckily for Ta.s.saa Bareesh, her mission was simply to steal.

Yeama brought the commingled retinues to a halt in a large circular room under a domed roof distinguished by a chandelier made from thousands of pieces of baroquely curved gla.s.s. There were only two entrances to this room: the one they had just come through, with thick armored doors currently standing open under a ma.s.sive stone statue of Ta.s.saa Bareesh herself, and the other ahead of them, with a pair of doors to match, thus forming a security air lock. Yeama clapped his hands, and the doors behind them slammed shut. Ax kept her hand on the pommel of her lightsaber, even though she knew Ta.s.saa Bareesh couldn't possibly be stupid enough to plan an ambush, and she noted with approval that the envoy's bodyguards had moved in closer around him.

A thud and a clunk came from the doorways on the opposite side of the room. They swung open, revealing an antechamber that was pleasingly devoid of decoration. Walls, floor, and ceiling were a uniform, spotless white. There was easily enough room for everyone as they filed in after Yeama. The antechamber could have held more than fifty humans.

Four circular vault doors opened onto the antechamber, each more than four meters across. Small but very thick transparisteel portals in the center allowed visual access to the contents. Only one of those portals appeared to be unshuttered. It was to that vault door that Yeama led them.

"Here at last, Envoy Nirvin, is the prize you have been promised. But allow me first to describe how it came to be in our hands. "

Nirvin glanced through the portal, frowned, and turned back to Yeama. "Do so, " he barked.

Ax was too far away to see. She itched to push past them and look for herself, but for the moment she would have to be satisfied with words alone.

"Some of what I am about to tell is known outside this room, " Yeama said. "The rest is not. Two weeks ago, one of our affiliates stopped a ship in the depths of Wild s.p.a.ce. "

Affiliates, Ax a.s.sumed, was a diplomatic term for "pirate. " And stopped surely meant "interdicted and boarded under arms. "

"It was a routine encounter, but it soon took a surprising turn. "

"Surprising how?" asked Nirvin.

"Here is the conversation that took place between our affiliate and the vessel. "

An audio recording filled the antechamber, rich with breathing, static, and comm crackle. A couple of clicks suggested that it had been edited, but the ambience sounded authentic.

"Stand by for boarding. "

That was the affiliate, Ax guessed: experienced, pragmatic, with an edge of tension that belied the Twi'lek's description of the encounter as "routine. "

"Negative. We do not recognize your authority"

That was the Cinzia, Ax a.s.sumed-and here a strange feeling ran down her spine. The speaker was male and sounded impossibly distant. Had he known her mother? Was he related to her?

She forced herself to concentrate on the rest of the conversation.

"You're a privateer. You work for the Republic. "

"Now, that simply isn't true. "

"We're on a diplomatic mission. "

"To whom? From where?"

There was a long, static-filled pause.

"All right, then. What will it cost for you to let us go?"

"You're clear out of luck, mate. Best vent those air locks, smartish. We're coming in. "

The recording ended with a blast of white noise that made the envoy jump.

"What was that?" he asked.

"An explosion, " said Yeama. "The ship our affiliate approached possessed an ion drive of unfamiliar design. It was this that blew, taking the ship and all hands with it. "

As though the Twi'lek were reading Ax's thoughts, he added, "We believe that the drive's power cells were deliberately ignited. "

"They blew themselves up?"

"Yes, Envoy Nirvin. Rather than be boarded, they chose to destroy their ship and all its contents. Unfortunately for them, the destruction was not complete. Significant fragments survived. What you see before you are two items retrieved from the detritus. The first is the Cinzia's navicomp, which contains the coordinates of its origin. The second is more mysterious. What do you make of it?"

The envoy peered through the thick transparisteel portal a second time. He frowned once more.

"I've never seen anything like it. "

"Our sentiments exactly, " Yeama said.

Again, Ax resisted the impulse to push past and see for herself.

"This much we can tell you. " Yeama folded his hands across his midriff. "We have detected signs of machining on the outer sh.e.l.l, which is made from an alloy of two extremely rare metals, lutetium and promethium. So it is a construct of some kind, and one of considerable material value alone. On the other hand, there is also a biological component, the nature of which we have been unable to fathom. It is undoubtedly present, we know it's in there, but we cannot examine the source of the reading more closely without physically penetrating the casing. Doing so would, of course, reduce the object's value, so we will leave that up to the ultimate purchaser. "

"Can we get any closer?"

"The combination to the vault is what you will be bidding for, Envoy Nirvin. Until you have purchased it, the door remains shut. "

The envoy nodded his understanding, but his frown remained intact. Stepping away from the window, he finally waved Ax forward.

"Take a look, " he said. "See what you make of it. "

Although it rankled to take the administrative puppet's orders, Ax did as she was told, peering with intense curiosity at what lay inside the vault. Finally, she could see what all the fuss was about.

The navicomp was easily identifiable, although it had been twisted and partially melted by the blast that had destroyed the ship around it. It was a handheld model, unexpectedly small, more resembling a chunky satellite comlink than the heart of a starship's navigation system. Presumably it was voiceprinted, but such security provisions could easily be circ.u.mvented by a talented slicer. Ax could only take Yeama's word for whether it still worked or not. It rested in a transparisteel box on a gla.s.s plinth to the left of the room's center, and was closely observed by numerous sensors mounted in the vault's durasteel walls, floor, and ceiling.

Sitting on the floor to its right was the second object. Nirvin was correct: it didn't match any design aesthetic she'd ever encountered. It was squat, like a T3 utility droid, but without any legs or visible environmental interfaces. Its body was tubular and rested flush to the floor of the vault. There were no markings apart from a series of almost gill-like ripples around its middle. Its head was slightly convex, as though it had been pushed down from above, and part of it was scorched black. The natural color of its casing appeared to be silver. No writing, no symbols, no identifying markers at all.

Ax didn't know what it was, either, but she didn't say so immediately. Taking the opportunity to inspect the interior of the vault in more detail, she memorized sensor emplacements, estimated the strength of the walls, and measured the distance of each object from the door, just in case she had to perform in the dark. It would be much better, of course, to take the prize once it was out of the vault and away from all these impediments, but she would be prepared for anything.

"It could be a bioreactor, " she said to the envoy, returning control of the window to him.

"Plague agents, perhaps?"

"Hard to say without opening it. "

"Indeed. " Nirvin turned back to Yeama. "Is that all you have to show us?"

"All?" The Twi'lek showed his teeth. They were as pointed as the tips of his lekku. "I will escort you to a waiting room, where you may examine data relating to our find in perfect comfort. "

"Very well. " Nirvin indicated that Yeama should lead the way.

Ax fell in behind them, with her huge Houk shadow at her side. The objects in the vault didn't speak to her either as a Sith apprentice or as the biological offspring of Lema Xandret. The plague bioreactor, if such it was, provoked no memories at all.

The spa.r.s.e information they had been given told her only a little more. That the object was made from an alloy of extremely rare metals boded well for her Master's dreams of giving the Emperor a rich new world, but it meant nothing in itself. With the crew of the Cinzia dead, there were no leads to follow there, either, unless she could uncover something that had been hidden by the Hutts-like a survivor, perhaps, or another clue as to the ship's origins. She didn't put it past Ta.s.saa Bareesh to auction only half of what they'd found while keeping something extra in reserve, to sell to the auction's losing party.

Yeama took them out of the antechamber and back into the circular security air lock, where the heavy doors cycled again. From there, Yeama led them along a new set of luscious corridors in the direction of the no doubt equally luscious waiting room.

Ax made it her business to be elsewhere. Confusing her Houk escort with a well-placed mind trick, she slipped away from the group and vanished into the shadows.

CHAPTER 9.

Ula endured Ta.s.saa Bareesh's welcoming spiel with ill-disguised contempt. Cordiality and profitability made untrustworthy bed partners, particularly when honesty and ethics weren't invited, too. When his host promised him an array of amenities including chemical enhancements and even more dubious forms of entertainment, it was all he could do not to spit to get the bad taste out of his mouth.

"I think we can dispense with all that, " he said. "Why don't we just get down to business?"

Ta.s.saa Bareesh's slit-like grin widened even farther, if that were possible.

Her pointy-headed protocol droid a.s.sured Ula that Ta.s.saa Bareesh understood completely.

She waved forward an underling, a salacious-looking Twi'lek, who took over negotiations from that point The Twi'lek promised that they would soon see the legacy of the Cinzia. As Ula was led from the throne room, he glimpsed a scruffy-looking man leaning up against the rear wall with a blank look on his face and a battered orange droid close at his shoulder. The man's ennui had a manufactured air, and it was this that caught Ula's eye.

"Who was that fellow back there?" he asked his guide.

"Which fellow?" Yeama didn't even glance over his shoulder.

Ula described him, not yet willing to give the matter up. Being a good informer meant taking nothing for granted and noticing all the details.

"Grayish hair, prominent nose, brown eyes-with an old droid. "

"Oh, no one in particular, " the Twi'lek a.s.sured him. "A pilot whose ship is currently berthed here. He has the favor of my mistress, and therefore the run of the palace. "

"What's his name?"

"Jet Nebula, Envoy Vii. You won't have heard of him. "

That was true. It didn't even sound like a real name. But he wasn't fool enough to take Yeama at his word. The Hutts and their servants were natural liars. Like him.

He filed the name away in his memory.

Yeama took him through several ridiculous security measures in order to introduce him to the cause of all this fuss. A navicomp and a battered bit of s.p.a.ce junk-it all seemed an utter beat-up as far as he could tell, although that in itself was something of a relief. If the charade amounted to nothing, it would soon therefore be over. Nonetheless, he attended carefully to the details and asked the questions expected of him.

"No survivors, you say?" he asked after hearing the last transmissions from the Cinzia. "How can I be sure your affiliate didn't murder them and concoct this mad story to cover the deed?"

"The fate of the pa.s.sengers is irrelevant to us, " Yeama answered. "We would not lie to spare your sensibilities. "

That Ula believed completely, and it revived the moral outrage he had felt at being in the court of a Hutt. Ta.s.saa Bareesh's venal tactics only confirmed his low opinion of her kind and his hopes that they would be undone, somehow. The Hutts were walking a very fine line. The more valuable the items they were auctioning, the more they could obviously charge-but how long until one or another party simply walked in and took them?

He wondered if either side had just such contingencies in place.

Supreme Commander Stantorrs obviously suspected so, with respect to the Jedi, and there had been no chance to ask Watcher Three if the Emperor had sent someone other than an official envoy. A Cipher Agent, perhaps, capable of far greater feats than a mere informer such as himself. Ula had glimpsed an Imperial shuttle in the dock at the rear of the palace, so he knew he wasn't the only envoy Bareesh had entertained that day.

It had occurred to him on the way that the Imperial envoy wouldn't know that the Republic envoy was actually a traitor with no intention of winning the auction for his so-called masters. If he could only find some way to communicate that message, it might save the Emperor a great deal of trouble and expense...

Yeama was speaking again. "The auction will be held tomorrow, with all parties present. You will be bidding for the combination to this vault. The safety of all parties is our primary concern, so the process will be anonymous. I will take you to your secure accommodation now, and you may examine the data there overnight. "

"If the bidders are anonymous, " said Ula, seeing his chance of getting a message to the Imperial envoy slipping away from him, "how will we know that the bids are genuine?"