Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [64]
“You would save your parents from further embarrassment by not returning to the Paqwe dominion,” Ourn was advised in the termination notice.
Since that time, Ourn had clung ever more tightly to the frail reed of hope represented by the Yevethan blind-relay transmitter and the promise from Nil Spaar. If only the viceroy could appease his peers on N’zoth and deliver the thrustship as he had agreed he would—not only could Ourn repair his savaged reputation at home, but he would have a hundred generals and five hundred senators begging him for a chance to study the Yevethan vessel.
Ourn clung to that hope against all reason, mining the grids and the gossip in the hostel’s courtyards for even the smallest tidbits of information, making himself believe that his next dispatch would be the one by which he would earn the Yevetha’s confidence, and his reward.
But when he saw the stories on Plat Mallar’s narrow escape from Polneye and Captain Llotta’s death at Morning Bell, that hope finally evaporated. There was no escaping the truth—the pretty silver spheres were also deadly warships, and Nil Spaar would never receive permission to deliver one to Belezaboth Ourn.
“If only the peace had held a little longer,” he said resignedly in the privacy of his room. “If only the Princess had not been so stubborn. She has cost me everything.” He picked up the hypercomm black box and turned it over in his hands. “So perhaps I shall ask her for my payment. Perhaps this toy is worth more than the words that have passed through it.”
There were a hundred things Leia should have been doing, a thousand better uses for her energy than lining a garden path with brilliant white sasalea blossoms, one fragrant ball—the size of Anakin’s fist—to a planting. It was work a droid could do, work the residence’s groundskeeper would have gladly seen to in the morning.
But none of those other things she might have been doing that evening had half the appeal of burying her hands in the cool, moist soil, crumbling it between her fingers, cradling each sasalea plant gently into its new home. On a day where nothing she had tackled had yielded to her efforts, it was intensely gratifying to take on a task where every element was under her control—spade and earth, stalk and blossom. Her vision, her time, her labor, her triumph, her satisfaction.
It was a small triumph, a minor transformation of a tiny landscape, but it was balm for her whole being—reassurance that she was, at the end of the day, master of her own world. If you don’t believe that what you do matters, it’s awfully hard to get up in the morning.
“Princess—”
Leia looked up from her work in surprise at the voice. “Tarrick. What are you doing here?”
“There’s someone here—back at the gate, actually—who I thought you might want to see. He came to the office early this afternoon sounding like a typical hem-tugger, and we sent him out on the usual off-list runaround. He came back,” said Tarrick. “But the second time, he got to the point. We sent him down to see the moles. When Collomus and his people were done talking to him, we all agreed you should hear what he has to say.”
Leia stood, brushing the dirt from her hands. “Well—you have me curious. Bring him in.”
The visitor was a Paqwe—a short yellow-green alien with a wide carriage and a sway-backed, waddling gait. He was swathed in tattered reception-hall finery and smelled strongly of bitter salts.
“Princess Leia! It is a great honor. I am Belezaboth Ourn, extraordinary counsel of the Paqwepori.” Behind him, Tarrick shook his head in a slow, exaggerated fashion. “I am grateful to you for taking the time to see me.”
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “What do you want?”
“What I want—no, what I can offer. I