Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [60]
“I can handle Cynner and the others, if you wish.”
Oxic gave it thought. “No, they need to hear from me if we're to avoid future mistakes. Send them in.”
Quire nodded and turned, leaving Oxic to pace before the bank of windows that lined the study's west-facing wall, long-fingered hands clasped behind his back and rail-thin legs propelling him a meter with each step. The view took in all of Epica City, which had grown in recent years to fill the bowl formed by the surrounding mountains. Where at one time Hydians Auction House was the city's cynosure, a number of Republic-era structures had sprung up around it, rich in period detail. The cold waters of the nearby sea created fog that obscured the city for part of the year, but Oxic's mansion was well above the fog line, beneath an azure sky even when you couldn't see your hand in front of your face down below.
The star map crystal was one of many examples of authentic Coruscant Republicana that Oxic had spent a fortune acquiring in more than twenty years of collecting. But he collected for love rather than investment. Some of his fondest memories were of the years he had spent on the galactic capital before the Clone Wars, living the high life with the Senators, dignitaries, and celebrities represented by his law firm. During the war, Oxic had frequently served as a defense lawyer for beings accused of sedition by Chancellor Palpatine and his cadre of sinister minions, all of whom Oxic had loathed.
In the long years since, the firm had dwindled in size if not importance and was largely a one-man show, though Oxic employed close to one hundred beings in various capacities. Escorted by the stunning Quire, four of them entered the room now, two—Oxic noted peripherally—still badged with bacta patches as a consequence of the mess on Nar Shaddaa.
Long accustomed to performing before juries or judges, Oxic was suddenly in a position of being both, and unhappy about it. While celebrated for his ability to synthesize information and speak with a facility envied by lawyers of many species, words failed him. Even when he swung away from the windows to glance at Quire, the woman who knew him better than anyone could only return what amounted to a sympathetic shrug.
Oxic came to a halt and whirled on his employees. “Do you have any idea how much I've invested in this man?”
His anger caught him by surprise, and he regretted having led with a question. Though it hardly mattered; they got the point. That was the reason for Koi's rueful expression. She had warned against allowing the Nautolan to organize the pickup. And now all four of them were behaving just as they expected he would want them to behave, keeping their heads down, studying their hands.
“Look at me.”
They raised their heads in unison.
“He's not a criminal. He's not someone who skipped bail. Why did you feel it necessary to treat him like one?”
“We don't know any other way?” Cynner said, speaking for all of them.
Oxic stood over him, using his towering height to maximum advantage. “Is that a question or an explanation? Because if it's the latter,” he added while they were trading uncertain looks, “then I can't have you in my employ.”
“It's not that we don't know how, it's just that we didn't expect the reaction we got.”
“Which was what?”
Cynner's half a dozen head-tentacles twitched, and he gestured to the quartet's sole human. “Remata's nose. My ribs.”
“My airspeeder,” Oxic thought to point out.
Cynner nodded. “The airspeeder.”
“He knew he was being tailed,” Remata said. “And he sure reacted like someone who had jumped bail.”
“Did it occur to you to wait until he was somewhere less public than the spaceport? Somewhere with fewer cams to record your every action?”
“His reaction would have been the same,” Cynner said.
Oxic looked at Koi, and she nodded in an understated way.
Oxic loosed a long exhale and folded his arms across his narrow chest. “Next time my