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“Well, sir … there is one thing you might want to see. With your permission?” She indicated the computer. He regarded her for a moment. This had better be good, otherwise her impertinence would not be overlooked.

“Go ahead, impress me,” he said.

She didn’t flinch, but her resolution in the Force wavered, just for an instant. Then she leaned over him and tapped in something.

What appeared on the screen was a vision of beauty. It looked like a geyser at the moment of eruption, captured forever in time, each finger of water, each splash, each droplet, frozen so that one could admire its power and grace. Swirling, turning, it was vibrant, creative motion somehow paused, and Taalon’s heart leapt. Like all the Sith Tribe, he put a great value on beauty, whether it be in the lines of a being’s face, the drape of a handmade garment, or the curve of a shikkar handle.

This moved him to his core.

He had to have it.

“It is … exquisite,” breathed Taalon. “Is it a statue?”

Pleased at his response, Leeha smiled. “No, sir. It is a natural formation. It’s a type of glass.”

He turned his head sharply to look at her, but she was serious. Glass … glass more lovely, more dramatic, than any piece he had ever owned. Ever seen constructed for any building in Tahv.

“How is this possible? What is it?”

“It is called the Fountain of the Hutt Ancients. The planet produces deep in its core a substance called wintrium. Back before recorded time—and that’s a long time here, sir, tens of thousands of years—there was some kind of fissure in the planet’s crust. The wintrium erupted. There was a chemical change when it came into contact with the air. Rather like water freezing instantly, except it was transformed into glass rather than ice.”

If it had been a statue, Taalon mused, he would have abducted the artist on the spot and forced him or her to create a piece of equal or superior beauty for Taalon’s private collection. But as it was a natural formation …

“I imagine this Fountain is highly regarded among the Klatooinians?”

“Oh, definitely. It’s a sacred object to them. Time is very important to their mind-set and culture,” Leeha continued, warming to the subject. Clearly, she’d done a lot of research before bringing the Fountain to her captain’s attention. “The wintrium continues to harden through the centuries, becoming stronger instead of more fragile.”

Interesting, thought Taalon. A material that grows stronger over time. Weapons … that grow stronger over time …

He pulled thoughtfully on his neatly trimmed goatee, his eyes never leaving the image of the Fountain as Leeha spoke.

“The Klatooinians, too, believe they grow stronger over time. One of the reasons they agreed to become servants of the Hutts twenty-five thousand years ago was because the Hutts promised to always keep the Fountain safe.”

He shot her a quick glance. “Hutts? As in the name of the Fountain Hutts?”

“Well, yes, although it was originally just called the Fountain of the Ancients.”

“What are Hutts?”

Leeha didn’t miss a beat. She leaned over, not bothering to ask his permission a second time—he liked that, it showed initiative and confidence—and called up another image. This was of a large wormlike creature, with a large head, grinning mouth, and two small arm-like appendages. It was most certainly not beautiful.

“Hutts can live to be a thousand years old, which was why when they descended upon Klatooine they were revered as being connected to the mythological ancients. The Hutts are intelligent, self-serving, and manipulative, and they took advantage of the Klatooinian belief that they were akin to gods. They tricked the Klatooinians into signing over their younglings to be sent to work for the Hutts wherever they saw fit. In dangerous mines, as tradespeople, as soldiers in an army—for whatever the Hutts needed, they used the Klatooinians.”

Ugly they might be, but Taalon felt a new respect for the giant worm things.

“For how long?”

Leeha smiled openly. “Forever.”

“My, my. I think we can