Heir To The Empire by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

them for this?” she asked, reaching a slightly unsteady hand for her own wine. “They’d certainly make you pay if you wanted something. That’s about all the Empire really cares about these days, money.”
    He shrugged. “We get to have our people watching them from the moment they set down to the moment they lift off. That seems an adequate fee to me.”
    She studied him. “You don’t believe they’re here just to pick up ysalamiri, do you?”
    “Not really.” Karrde took a bite of his bruallki. “At least, not unless there’s a use for the things that we don’t know about. Coming all the way out here to collect ysalamiri is a bit of an overkill to use against a single Jedi.”
    Mara’s eyes again drifted away. “Maybe it’s not Skywalker they’re after,” she murmured. “Maybe they’ve found some more Jedi.”
    “Seems unlikely,” Karrde said, watching her closely. The emotion in her voice when she’d said Luke Skywalker’s name . . . “The Emperor supposedly made a clean sweep of them in the early days of the New Order. Unless,” he added as another thought occurred to him, “they’ve perhaps found Darth Vader.”
    “Vader died on the Death Star,” Mara said. “Along with the Emperor.”
    “That’s the story, certainly-”
    “He died there,” Mara cut him off, her voice suddenly sharp. “Of course,” Karrde nodded. It had taken him five months of close observation, but he’d finally pinned down the handful of subjects guaranteed to trigger strong responses from the woman. The late Emperor was among them, as was the pre-Endor Empire.
    And at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum was Luke Skywalker. “Still,” he continued thoughtfully, “if a Grand Admiral thinks he has a good reason to carry ysalamiri aboard his ships, we might do well to follow his lead.”
    Abruptly, Mara’s eyes focused on him again. “What for?” she demanded.
    “A simple precaution,” Karrde said. “Why so vehement?”
    He watched as she fought a brief internal battle. “It seems like a waste of time,” she said. “Thrawn’s probably just jumping at shadows. Anyway, how are you going to keep ysalamiri alive on a ship without transplanting some trees along with them?”
    “I’m sure Thrawn has some ideas as to the mechanics of it,” Karrde assured her. “Dankin and Chin will know how to poke around for details.”
    Her eyes seemed strangely hooded. “Yes,” she muttered, her voice conceding defeat. “I’m sure they will.”
    “And in the meantime,” Karrde said, pretending not to notice, “we still have business to discuss. As I recall, you were going to list some improvements you would make in the organization.”
    “Yes.” Mara took another deep breath, closing her eyes . . . and when she opened them again she was back to her usual cool self. “Yes. Well-”
    Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing confidence, she launched into a detailed and generally insightful compendium of his group’s shortcomings. Karrde listened closely as he ate, wondering again at the hidden talents of this woman. Someday, he promised himself silently, he was going to find a way to dig the details of her past out from under the cloak of secrecy she’d so carefully shrouded it with. To find out where she’d come from, and who and what she was.
    And to learn exactly what it was Luke Skywalker had done to make her so desperately hate him.

Chapter 4
    It took the Chimaera nearly five days at its Point Four cruising speed to cover the three hundred fifty light-years between Myrkr and Wayland. But that was all right, because it took the engineers nearly that long to come up with a portable frame that would both support and nourish the ysalamiri.
    “I’m still not convinced this is really necessary,” Pellaeon grumbled, eyeing with distaste the thick curved pipe and the furscaled, salamanderlike creature attached to it. The pipe and its attached frame were blasted heavy, and the creature itself didn’t