Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

“I’ll bet Riske could get something out of them,”

Anakin suggested.

For a long moment Obi-Wan was tempted. After all, the assassination plot was directed against Magistrate Argente.

It would be only fitting for them to be turned over to Argente’s people for interrogation.

But that wasn’t the way Jedi were supposed to do things. “We’ll turn them over to the city police,” he told Anakin, pulling Out his comlink. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait for Lorana to wake up. Maybe she can tell us more.”

“We going to wait here?” Anakin asked, frowning.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan said, smiling tightly. “After all, Jhompfi or Filvian or Defender might drop by.”

“Right,” Anakin murmured understandingly. “If we’re lucky.”

The Vagaari ship had been anchored to the outside of the Crustai asteroid base a quarter of the circumference around from the entrance tunnel. With a Chiss warrior at the controls, Thrawn and the three humans took one of the transports out from the base and docked with it.

To Car’das’s private dismay, the alien bodies were still there, lying crumpled right where they’d fallen.

Qennto was apparently not thrilled by that fact, either.

“You are planning to clean up this place eventually, aren’t you?”

he asked distastefully as they picked their way through the corridor toward the treasure room.

“Eventually,” Thrawn assured him. “First we need to learn what we can of the enemy’s strategy and tactics, and for that we need to know where each combatant was and how he was positioned when he died.”

“Shouldn’t you have put the ship somewhere out of sight?” Maris asked. She was ‘clinging tightly to Qennto’s arm as they walked, Car’das noted, apparently not doing nearly as well this time around as she had on their last visit. It made him feel better, somehow.

“Eventually, we’ll move it inside the base,” Thrawn said. “But we need to first establish that there are no dangerous instabilities in its engines or weaponry.”

The treasure room, like the corridors, looked exactly the same as it had just after the ship’s capture, except that now there were a pair of Chiss moving along the stacks, apparently making sensor records of the various items. “Spread out,”

Thrawn ordered the humans. “See if you can find anything of a familiar style.”

“You mean like different kinds of money?” Qennto asked as he looked around the room.

“Or are you talking about the gemstones?” Maris added.

“I was speaking mainly of the artwork,” Thrawn said.

“We can learn more from that than we can from currency or gems.”

Qennto snorted. “You expecting there to be sales receipts?”

“I was thinking more of the art’s origins.” Thrawn gestured toward a set of nested tressles. “Those, for instance, were probably created by beings with an extra joint between wrist and elbow, who see largely in the blue-ultraviolet part of the spectrum.”

Qennto and Maris exchanged looks. “The Frunchies, you think?” Maris suggested.

“Yeah, right,” Qennto said with a grunt. He eyed Thrawn suspiciously, then unhooked Maris’s arm from his and strode over to the tressles.

“What are Frunchies?” Car’das asked.

“The Frunchettan-sai,” Maris explained. “They have a couple of colony worlds in the Outer Rim. Rak calls them Frunchies because—”

“I’ll be broggled,” Qennto said, cutting her off as he leaned over the tressles with his head cocked to the side.

“What?” Maris said.

“He’s right,” Qennto said, sounding stunned. “It’s signed with formal Frunchv script.” He turned back to Thrawn, a strange expression on his face. “I thought you said you hadn’t made it to Republic space.”

“To the best of my knowledge, we haven’t,” Thrawn said. “But the artist’s physical characteristics are obvious simply from looking at his work.”

“Maybe to you it’s obvious,” Qennto growled, looking back at the tressles. “It sure isn’t to me.”

“Or me,” Maris seconded.

Thrawn raised his eyebrows at Car’das. “Car’das?”

Car’das peered at the artwork, trying to spot whatever these subtle cues were that Thrawn had seen. But he couldn’t.

“Sorry.”

“Maybe it was just luck,” Qennto said, abandoning the tressles and kneeling down beside an elaborate blue-and-white sculpt. “Let me see here… yeah, I thought so.” He looked over his shoulder at Thrawn. “How about this one?”

For a moment Thrawn studied the sculpt in silence, his eyes occasionally flicking around the rest of the room as if seeking inspiration. “The artist is humanoid,” he said at last.

“Proportioned differently from humans and Chiss, with either a wider torso or longer arms.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “There’s something of a distance to his emotional state, too. I would say his people are both drawn to and yet repulsed by or fearful of the physical objects they live among.”

Qennto’s breath went out in a huff. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “That’s the Pashvi, all right.”

“I don’t think I know them,” Maris said.

“They’ve got a system on the edge of Wild Space,”

Qennto said. “I’ve been there a few times—there’s a small but stable market for their art, mostly in the Corporate Sector.”

“What did Commander Thrawn mean about fear of physical objects?” Car’das asked.

“Their world is sprinkled with thousands of rock pillars,” Qennto said. “Most of the best food plants grow on the tops. Unfortunately, so does a nasty predator avian. It makes for—well, for pretty much just what he said.”

“And you got all that from a single sculpt?” Maris asked, gazing at Thrawn with a strange look on her face.

“Actually, no,” the Chiss assured her. “There are—let me see—twelve more examples of their artwork.” He pointed to two other areas of the room.

“You sure?” Car’das asked, frowning at the indicated sculpts and flats. “They don’t look at all alike to me.”

“They were created by different artists,” Thrawn said.

“But the species is the same.”

“This is really weird,” Qennto said, shaking his head.

“Like some crazy Jedi thing.”

“Jedi?” Thrawn asked.

“They’re the guardians of the peace in the Republic,”

Maris told him. “Probably the only reason we’ve held together as long as we have. They’re very powerful, very noble people.”

Qennto caught Car’das’s eye, his nose wrinkling slightly. His opinion of Jedi, Car’das knew, was considerably lower than his girlfriend’s.

“They sound intriguing.” Thrawn nodded toward the sculpt. “I presume these Pashvi won’t have put up muchresistance to Vagaari raids?”

“Hardly,” Qennto confirmed grimly. “They’re a pretty agreeable people. Lousy at fighting.”

“And your Republic and these Jedi don’t protect them?”

“The Jedi are spread way too thin,” Car’das said.

“Anyway, Wild Space isn’t actually part of the Republic.”

“Even if it were, the government is too busy with its own intrigues to bother with little things like life-and-death situations,” Marls said, a bitter edge to her voice.

“I see,” Thrawn said. “Well. Let us continue our survey, and please inform me if you find anything else from your region of space.”

He looked at Marls. “And as we search, perhaps you’ll tell me more about these Jedi.”

Guildmaster Gilfrome’s here,“ Anakin’s voice said softly from Obi-Wan’s comlink. ”just coming up the steps to the east door.“

“Magistrate Argente’s here, too,” Obi-Wan told him, gazing down from the administration building’s west door as Argente climbed up the stairs on that side, his people pressed protectively around him. “And I see Master C’baoth and Lorana approaching through the marketplace.”