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“You accept that?” A’baht asked.

“Given their history of alliances, they wouldn’t align themselves with anyone without having a contingency plan in place.” Sovv ran his hand down his prominently jowled face. “Even the Hutts can’t risk being caught on the wrong side when the Yuuzhan Vong are defeated.”

“When, not if,” Commodore Brand said around an arrogant grin. “I find such optimism refreshing.”

A’baht frowned. “I find it wishful thinking.”

FOUR

From the waiting room of the great spired and onion-domed palace of Nal Hutta’s ruling Hutt, Nom Anor gazed out on a despoiled landscape of feculent swamps, mold-covered stunted trees, and parcels of wan vermin-riddled marsh grass. Stained by a mélange of industrial pollutants and spotted with flocks of ungainly birds, the sky was a brooding ceiling, frequently lamenting its wretched state with lackluster showers of grimy rain. The stilted, destitute precincts so abundant in the vicinity of the spaceport were nowhere to be seen, but the terrain itself reeked of impoverishment and decay.

“What a vile world this is,” Commander Malik Carr commented as he joined Nom Anor at the bay window.

“The Hutts know it as ‘Glorious Jewel,’ ” the executor replied nonchalantly. “But it’s not without potential. The moon, Nar Shaddaa, is far worse—completely encased by buildings and technology.”

Malik Carr grunted. “I see no potential. But perhaps your one true eye sees more clearly than my pair.”

Nom Anor quirked a smile. “I have been in this galaxy for some time, Commander, and have learned to look beyond appearances.” He turned slightly in Malik Carr’s direction. “Imagine Nal Hutta as, say, a laboratory for genetic experimentation.”

Malik Carr smiled slowly. “Yes, yes, even I can envision that.”

Taller than Nom Anor, the commander was displayed in all his glory, without ooglith masquer or cloaker. Malik Carr’s incised face and bare upper torso told of an illustrious military career. Cinched around his backward-sloping forehead was a vibrant head cloth whose tassels were braided into lustrous black hair, forming a tail that hung nearly to his waist. Recently arrived from the galactic edge, where argosies waited eagerly for the warrior caste to complete the invasion, the commander had been charged by Supreme Commander Nas Choka with overseeing the next phase of the conquest.

To keep his own identity concealed—even from the Hutts—as well as in deference to Malik Carr, Nom Anor wore an ooglith masquer that obscured the scars, augmentations, and like evidence of his sacrifices to the gods, along with a prosthesis in the empty eye socket that normally housed a venom-spitting plaeryin bol.

Malik Carr swung from the window and planted his fists on his hips in anger. “How dare this creature keep us waiting. Is he completely unaware of what he risks for himself and his pathetic world?”

“She, Commander,” Nom Anor corrected. “Currently, at any rate. Hutts are said to be hermaphroditic. That is to say, male and female characteristics are combined in each.”

Malik Carr looked at him askance. “And just now this one is female?”

“Fully female, as you will see. As for the prolonged wait, it’s nothing more than tradition.”

“But the precedent—”

“Don’t concern yourself with precedent. I have a plan for dealing with this outmoded formality.”

As the two Yuuzhan Vong walked toward the center of the antechamber, an entourage of ten honor guards and as many attendants snapped to attention. The guards wore vonduun crab armor and carried living amphistaffs and doubled-edge coufee knives. The female attendants were attired in veils, tunics, and cloaks that left visible only the sinuous markings that adorned their bared arms.

Malik Carr acknowledged the guards’ brisk salutes and sat down on a cushioned bench. Nom Anor remained standing. The waiting room’s high ceiling was supported by a dozen stately if moldy pillars. The floor was made of cut stone polished to a dazzling sheen, and woven textiles of intricate design graced the walls.

A bright-green, orb-eyed