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“Find Jax Pavan,” Den said. “My way.”

twelve

Kaird had heard it said that all politics are local politics, and he firmly believed this. There was very little difference between running a galactic-scale government and running a small, one-industry town on some backrocket world so far out in the Reach that they had to pipe in starlight. At the end of the day, it all came down to alliances and betrayals, conflicts and resolutions … blinking and not blinking.

It was like a game of dejarik; a clichéd comparison, perhaps, but Kaird knew that the reason clichés were clichés was because there was a lot of truth in them. You thought far ahead, you planned your moves in advance, and you prepared, as best you could, for any eventuality.

To use another metaphor, the world of Black Sun was a jungle world, no less so than Mimban or Yavin 4. Survival required more than keen senses and quick reflexes; it also took the courage to stalk the enemy, even as he was stalking you. You set your snares and your traps; then, having camouflaged your deadfall as best you could, you waited in the hope that whatever crafty beast you’d set your sights on blundered into it.

But your opponent set snares as well. Survival depended on knowing this, expecting this.

That sort of deviousness did not come easily to Kaird. His ancestors had been raptors, masters of the swift, surgical strike. The poison in the wine, the dagger in the back—these sorts of intrigue did not come naturally to him. But he had learned them during his years in the organization, learned them well.

Which was why he was in The Works, one of the seedier areas of Coruscant’s lower levels; not as dangerous as the Corridor or the Slums, but still beneath the smog layer. He’d come here to see Endrigorn, a Rakririan fence who dealt primarily in stolen light sculptures, holo-art, precious gems, and the like. It would not do, of course, for the insectoid to be questioned later and give up Kaird—which Kaird knew Endrigorn would do in a picosecond if threatened. Which was why he was wearing a skinsuit disguise; to Endrigorn and anyone else who might be watching, it was a Besalisk, nattily dressed in a synthcloth suit with a short, brocaded capelet, who entered the shop. The suit’s servos moved it silently and easily, the osmotic design provided for easy air circulation, and it even had an algorithmic feedback loop that extrapolated movements for the lower arms, based on how Kaird moved the upper ones.

It was hard to read the insectoid’s face. Being covered in chitin, it had about as much expression as a mask—the mask Kaird was wearing, in fact, showed more mobility. It (Endrigorn was a drone, a “facilitator” between male and female Rakririans) stood perfectly, unnaturally still, save for slowly opening and closing its mandibles. Kaird had been told that the movement might mean it was in a receptive frame of mind. Or that it might be poised to defend itself. Hard to tell with Rakririans; he would have to hope for the best.

“I have a proposition for you that would be to our mutual benefit,” he told Endrigorn. “Are you interested?”

The insectoid lifted its segmented body, leaving six legs on the ground and four in the air; the latter performed a complex and apparently ritualistic series of gestures before speaking. “Prozzzeed,” it said in buzzing, barely understandable Basic.

“I have recently come into possession of a nearly flawless hypergem,” he said. Endrigorn’s antennae twitched, and its front legs performed more genuflections. Kaird got the impression that it was excited, as well it should be. Hypergems were incredibly rare, and even more valuable. Formed by the unimaginable gravitational forces in the hearts of neutron stars, they were aperiodic diamondoids with crystalline planar networks extending into higher dimensions. The effect of trying to take in a multidimensional lattice with a brain accustomed to only three spatial extensions and one temporal extension caused some species to immediately go insane,