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By Root 351 0

uncomfortable. The robes disguising him as a Silent had been bad enough in this weather, but this new masquerade was worse, since he was now wearing a flex-mask as well. Such precautions were necessary, however. One of the reasons he was successful as a Black Sun operative, despite being someone who tended to stand out in a crowd, was his skill at camouflage. He had hidden his distinctive features and form behind a number of different identities in his years of service, all to good degrees of success. He had even worn a “Hutt suit” once, a plastoid frame with synthflesh skin and face. By the Egg, that had been a chore. Compared to that, this Kubaz flex-mask and robes weren’t all that bad.

His choice of species to impersonate was somewhat limited, due to the shape of his own features. The truncated trunk of a Kubaz nose hid his own beaklike mouth very well, however, and the goggles that the bug-eaters wore in bright sunlight covered his violet eyes. No one glanced twice at him at the spaceport; Kubaz were ubiquitous throughout the galaxy.

Kaird was waiting for the latest transport to land. Along with the supplies and matériel it was delivering, it was also bringing a team who had been highly recommended to him. One was an Umbaran, the other a Falleen. According to Lens they were not cheap antenna-breakers, but possessed subtlety and skill. They were opportunists, con artists who made their way along the space lanes from world to world by virtue of various scams. Like most grifters, Lens had said, they had had periods of solvency, even wealth, and periods of desperation. The latter was their current lot in life.

Which meant that they might be useful to Kaird.

The transport lowered on repulsor beams down through the crimson and copper spore clouds, was admitted through the force-dome’s interrupt, then settled on its pad. Droids and binary loadlifters began unloading the cargo. Kaird watched the disembarkation ramp. There were only a few passengers on this trip: a Kaminoan there for some sort of biological inspection, and a trio of human officers to discuss the bota plant shipment quotas with Colonel Vaetes. Some droids, and his two potential employees, rounded out the list.

His two prospects were the last to debark, followed by an RC-101 “redcap” droid carrying their luggage. Neither seemed disturbed by the hot, soupy air, even though the spores were particularly bad today. Kaird appraised the prospects. They appeared as different as it was possible for two carbon-based humanoids to be, so dissimilar as to be almost ludicrous. The Umbaran was short, perhaps one and a quarter meters, bald and pallid. The Falleen, on the other hand, was more than a head taller and wore her hair gathered in a topknot. She walked proudly, like a warrior. She carried no weapons, but from the fluid play of her muscles under the tight synthcloth one-piece, Kaird judged that she would be dangerous even unarmed.

In contrast, the Umbaran looked like a strong wind would send him sailing away over the poptrees, particularly with that voluminous cloak enveloping him from neck to feet. Kaird had done his research on both species, and knew that the garment was called a shadowcloak. To most humanoid species it appeared as chalk-white as the Umbaran’s skin, but not to other Umbarans, since their vision range was primarily in the ultraviolet wavelength, below three hundred nanometers.

Nor did it appear that way to Kaird. The winged raptors that were his ancestors had had access to a visual palette wider than the narrow slit of radiation available to most eyes. Though hundreds of thousands of generations removed, the Nediji eye could still see deep into both ends of the visible spectrum. To him the cloak was a churning riot of colors for which few languages beside his own had names: berl, crynor, nusp, onsible…

It really was beautiful. As the Umbaran walked, the cloak’s designs seemed to eddy and swirl into ever-new shades and hues, a constant, kaleidoscopic play of light and shadow. A magnificent garment, Kaird thought. He had seen rulers of worlds who