"I see the universe hasn't run out of ways to surprise me," the smuggler commented, inclining his head to Luke in an abbreviated bow as he slid his blaster back into its holster. "From the way you were acting I thought you were probably a spy from the New Republic. But I have to admit you're the last person I would have expected them to send."
Luke eyed him, trying hard to read the sense of the man. The last time he'd seen Karrde, just after the battle for the Katana, the other had emphasized that he and his smuggling group intended to remain neutral in this war. "And what were you going to do after you knew for sure?"
"I hadn't planned on turning you in, if that's what you mean," Karrde said, throwing a glance behind him down the bridgeway. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to move on. Berchestians don't normally hold extended conversations in bridgeways. And the tunnel can carry voices a surprising distance."
And if there were an ambush waiting for them at the other end of the bridgeway? But if there were, Luke would know before they reached it. "Fine with me," he said, stepping to the side and gesturing Karrde forward.
The other favored him with a sardonic smile. "You don't trust me, do you?" he said, brushing past Luke and heading down the bridgeway.
"Must be Han's influence," Luke said apologetically, falling into step beside him. "His, or yours. Or maybe Mara's."
He caught the shift in Karrde's sense: a quick flash of concern that was as quickly buried again. "Speaking of Mara, how is she?"
"Nearly recovered," Luke assured him. "The medics tell me that repairing that kind of light neural damage isn't difficult, just time-consuming."
Karrde nodded, his eyes on the tunnel ahead. "I appreciate you taking care of her," he said, almost grudgingly. "Our own medical facilities wouldn't have been up to the task."
Luke waved the thanks away. "It was the least we could do after the help you gave us at the Katana."
"Perhaps."
They reached the end of the bridgeway and stepped out into a street considerably less crowded than the one they'd left. Above and ahead of them, the three intricately carved government headquarter towers that faced the sea could be seen above the nearby buildings. Reaching out with the Force, Luke did a quick reading of the people passing by. Nothing. "You heading anywhere in particular?" he asked Karrde.
The other shook his head. "Wandering the city," he said casually. "You?"
"The same," Luke said, trying to match the other's tone.
"And hoping to see a familiar face or two? Or three, or four, or five?"
So Karrde knew, or had guessed, why he was here. Somehow, that didn't really surprise him. "If they're here to be seen, I'll find them," he said. "I don't suppose you have any information I could use?"
"I might," Karrde said. "Do you have enough money to pay for it?"
"Knowing your prices, probably not," Luke said. "But I could set you up a credit line when I get back."
"If you get back," Karrde countered. "Considering how many Imperial troops there are between you and safe territory, you're not what I would call a good investment risk at the moment."
Luke cocked an eyebrow at him. "As opposed to a smuggler at the top of the Empire's locate-and-detain list?" he asked pointedly.
Karrde smiled. "As it happens, Calius is one of the few places in Imperial space where I'm perfectly safe. The Berchestian governor and I have known each other for several years. More to the point, there are certain items important to him which only I can supply."
"Military items?"
"I'm not part of your war, Skywalker," Karrde reminded him coolly. "I'm neutral, and I intend to stay that way. I thought I'd made that clear to you and your sister when we last parted company."
"Oh, it was clear enough," Luke agreed. "I just thought that events of the past month might have changed your mind."
Karrde's expression didn't change, but Luke could detect the almost unwilling shift in his sense. "I don't particularly like the idea of Grand Admiral Thrawn having access to a cloning facility," he conceded. "It has the long-term potential for shifting the balance of power in his favor, and that's something neither of us wants to see happen. But I think your side is rather overreacting to the situation."
"I don't know how you can call it overreacting," Luke said. "The Empire has most of the two hundred Dreadnaughts of the Katana fleet, and now they've got an unlimited supply of clones to crew them with."
" 'Unlimited' is hardly the word I would use," Karrde said. "Clones can only be grown so quickly if you want them mentally stable enough to trust with your warships. One year minimum per clone, as I recall the old rule of thumb."
A group of five Vaathkree passed by in front of them along a cross street. So far the Empire had been only cloning humans, but Luke checked them out anyway. Again, nothing. "A year per clone, you say?"
"At the absolute minimum," Karrde said. "The pre-Clone Wars documents I've seen suggest three to five years would be a more appropriate period. Quicker than the standard human growth cycle, certainly, but hardly any reason for panic."
Luke looked up at the carved towers, their sunlit red-orange in sharp contrast to the billowing white clouds rolling in from the sea behind them. "What would you say if I told you the clones who attacked us on the Katana were grown in less than a year?"
Karrde shrugged. "That depends on how much less."
"The full cycle was fifteen to twenty days."
Karrde stopped short. "What?" he demanded, turning to stare at Luke.
"Fifteen to twenty days," Luke repeated, stopping beside him.
For a long moment Karrde locked eyes with him. Then, slowly, he turned away and began walking again. "That's impossible," he said. "There must be an error."
"I can get you a copy of the studies." Karrde nodded thoughtfully, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. "At least that explains Ukio."
"Ukio?" Luke frowned.
Karrde glanced at him. "That's right—you've probably been out of touch for a while. Two days ago the Imperials launched a multiple attack on targets in the Abrion and Dufilvian sectors. They severely damaged the military base at Ord Pardron and captured the Ukio system."
Luke felt a hollow sensation in his stomach. Ukio was one of the top five producers of foodstuffs in the entire New Republic. The repercussions for Abrion sector alone— "How badly was Ukio damaged?"
"Apparently not at all," Karrde said. "My sources tell me it was taken with its shields and ground/space weaponry intact."
The hollow feeling got a little bigger. "I thought that was impossible to do."
"A knack for doing the impossible was one of the things Grand Admirals were selected for," Karrde said dryly. "Details of the attack are still sketchy; it'll be interesting to see how he pulled it off."
So Thrawn had the Katana Dreadnaughts; and he had clones to man them with; and now he had the ability to provide food for those clones. "This isn't just the setup to another series of raids," Luke said slowly. "The Empire's getting ready to launch a major offensive."
"It does begin to look that way," Karrde agreed. "Offhand, I'd say you have your work cut out for you."
Luke studied him. Karrde's voice and face were as calm as ever, but the sense behind them wasn't nearly so certain anymore. "And none of this changes your mind?" he prompted the other.
"I'm not joining the New Republic, Skywalker," Karrde said, shaking his head. "For many reasons. Not the least being that I don't entirely trust certain elements in your government."
"I think Fey'lya's been pretty well discredited—"
"I wasn't referring only to Fey'lya," Karrde cut him off. "You know as well as I do how fond the Mon Calamari have always been of smugglers. Now that Admiral Ackbar's been reinstated to his Council and Supreme Commander positions, all of us in the trade are going to have to start watching over our shoulders again."
"Oh, come on," Luke snorted. "You don't think Ackbar's going to have time to worry about smugglers, do you?"
Karrde smiled wryly
. "Not really. But I'm not willing to risk my life on it, either."
Stalemate. "All right, then," Luke said. "Let's put it on a strictly business level. We need to know the Empire's movements and intentions, which is something you probably keep track of anyway. Can we buy that information from you?"
Karrde considered. "That might be possible," he said cautiously. "But only if I have the final say on what I pass on to you. I won't have you turning my group into an unofficial arm of New Republic Intelligence."
"Agreed," Luke said. It was less than he might have hoped for, but it was better than nothing. "I'll set up a credit line for you as soon as I get back."
"Perhaps we should start with a straight information trade," Karrde said, looking around at the crystalline buildings. "Tell me what started your people looking at Calius."
"I'll do better than that," Luke said. The distant touch on his mind was faint but unmistakable. "How about if I confirm the clones are here?"
"Where?" Karrde asked sharply.
"Somewhere that way," Luke said, pointing ahead and slightly to the right. "Half a kilometer away, maybe—it's hard to tell."
"Inside one of the Towers," Karrde decided. "Nice and secure and well hidden from prying eyes. I wonder if there's any way to get inside for a look."
"Wait a minute—they're moving," Luke said, frowning as he tried to hang on to the contact. "Heading . . . almost toward us, but not quite."
"Probably being taken to the landing field," Karrde said. He glanced around, pointed to their right. "They'll probably use Mavrille Street—two blocks that direction."
Balancing speed with the need to remain inconspicuous, they covered the distance in three minutes. "They'll probably use a cargo carrier or light transport," Karrde said as they found a spot where they could watch the street without being run over by the pedestrian traffic along the edges of the vehicle way. "Anything obviously military would attract attention."
Luke nodded. Mavrille, he remembered from the maps, was one of the handful of streets in Calius that had been carved large enough for vehicles to use, with the result that the traffic was running pretty much fore to aft. "I wish I had some macrobinoculars with me," he commented.
"Trust me—you're conspicuous enough as it is," Karrde countered as he craned his neck over the passing crowds. "Any sign of them?"
"They're definitely coming this way," Luke told him. He reached out with the Force, trying to sort out the clone sense from the sandstorm of other thoughts and minds surrounding him. "I'd guess twenty to thirty of them."
"A cargo carrier, then," Karrde decided. "There's one coming now—just behind that Trast speeder truck."
"I see it." Luke took a deep breath, calling on every bit of his Jedi skill. "That's them," he murmured, a shiver running up his back.
"All right," Karrde said, his voice grim. "Watch closely; they might have left one or more of the ventilation panels open."
The cargo carrier made its way toward them on its repulsorlifts, coming abruptly to a halt a short block away as the driver of the speeder truck in front of it suddenly woke up to the fact that he'd reached his turn. Gingerly, the truck eased around the corner, blocking the whole traffic flow behind it.
"Wait here," Karrde said, and dived into the stream of pedestrians heading that direction. Luke kept his eyes sweeping the area, alert for any sense that he or Karrde had been seen and recognized. If this whole setup was some land of elaborate trap for offworld spies, now would be the obvious time to spring it.
The truck finally finished its turn, and the cargo carrier lumbered on. It passed Luke and continued down the street, disappearing within a few seconds around one of the red-orange buildings. Stepping back into the side street behind him, Luke waited; and a minute later Karrde had returned. "Two of the vents were open, but I couldn't see enough to be sure," he told Luke, breathing heavily. "You?"
Luke shook his head. "I couldn't see anything, either. But it was them. I'm sure of it."
For a moment Karrde studied his face. Then, he gave a curt nod. "All right. What now?"
"I'm going to see if I can get my ship offplanet ahead of them," Luke said. "If I can track their hyperspace vector, maybe we can figure out where they go from here." He lifted his eyebrows. "Though two ships working together could do a better track."
Karrde smiled slightly. "You'll forgive me if I decline the offer," he said. "Flying in tandem with a New Republic agent is not exactly what I would call maintaining neutrality." He glanced over Luke's shoulder at the street behind him. "At any rate, I think I'd prefer to try backtracking them from here. See if I can identify their point of origin."
"Sounds good," Luke nodded. "I'd better get over to the landing field and get my ship prepped."
"I'll be in touch," Karrde promised. "Make sure that credit line is a generous one."
Standing at the uppermost window of Central Government Tower Number One, Governor Staffa lowered his macrobinoculars with a satisfied snort. "That was him, all right, Fingal," he said to the little man hovering at his side. "No doubt about it. Luke Skywalker himself."
"Do you suppose he saw the special transport?" Fingal asked, fingering his own macrobinoculars nervously.
"Well, of course he saw it," Staffa growled. "You think he was hanging around Mavrille Street for his health?"
"I only thought—"
"Don't think, Fingal," Staffa cut him off. "You aren't properly equipped for it."
He sauntered to his desk, dropped the macrobinoculars into a drawer, and pulled up Grand Admiral Thrawn's directive on his data pad. It was a rather bizarre directive, in his private and strictly confidential opinion, more peculiar even than these mysterious troop transfers the Imperial High Command had been running through Calius of late. But one had no choice under the circumstances but to assume Thrawn knew what he was doing.
At any rate, it was on his own head—not Staffa's—if he didn't, and that was the important thing. "I want you to send a message to the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera," he told Fingal, lowering his bulk carefully into his chair and pushing the data pad across the desk. "Coded as per the instructions here. Inform Grand Admiral Thrawn that Skywalker has been on Calius and that I have personally observed him near the special transport. Also as per the Grand Admiral's directive, he has been allowed to leave Berchest unhindered."
"Yes, Governor," Fingal said, making notes on his own data pad. If the little man saw anything unusual about letting a Rebel spy walk freely through Imperial territory, he wasn't showing it. "What about the other man, Governor? The one who was with Skywalker down there?"
Staffa pursed his lips. The price on Talon Karrde's head was up to nearly fifty thousand now—a great deal of money, even for a man with a planetary governor's salary and perks. He had always known that someday it would be in his best interests to terminate the quiet business relationship he had with Karrde. Perhaps that time had finally come.
No. No, not while war still raged through the galaxy. Later, perhaps, when victory was near and private supply lines could be made more reliable. But not now. "The other man is of no importance," he told Fingal. "A special agent I sent to help smoke the Rebel spy into the open. Forget him. Go on—get that message coded and sent."
"Yes, sir," Fingal nodded, stepping toward the door.
The panel slid open . . . and for just a second, as Fingal stepped through, Staffa thought he saw an odd glint in the little man's eye. Some strange trick of the outer office light, of course. Next to his unbending loyalty for his governor, Fingal's most prominent and endearing attribute was his equally unbending lack of imagination.