Vision of the future

'Very good,' Thrawn acknowledged. 'Continue the search. Your Excellency, I presume you have not forgotten your appointment.'

Disra looked at his chrono, suppressing a scowl. Yes, Pellaeon would be arriving at the palace any minute now. And between that time crunch and the confusion his barbed remark about saboteurs had caused, the con man had managed to blunt the Moff's verbal attack without saying anything that could be construed as insubordination.

Just the sort of thing the real Thrawn might have done. Disra supposed he ought to be pleased.

'Thank you for the reminder, Admiral,' he said. 'Carry on here. And let me know the minute—the minute—you find anything.'

* * *

They had been back at work for half an hour when Lobot's fingers abruptly came to a halt. 'What is it?' Han asked, the smell of the miasra sauce on his breath wafting by Lando's ear as Han leaned over his shoulder. 'Are we in?'

'I don't know,' Lando said, frowning at Lobot. The other's face had changed subtly, too, at about the same time his fingers had stopped typing. More importantly, the pattern of tiny lights on the frequency readout of his cyborg implant had changed. 'Something's interrupted his contact with Moegid.'

'Uh-oh,' Han muttered under his breath. 'You think they're on to us?'

'I don't know,' Lando said again, studying Lobot's profile and wondering if he should try talking to him. Lobot's eyes seemed almost glazed over, as if he were in a trance or deep in thought. 'I've never seen that comm pattern before.'

'Um.' Han reached out and experimentally touched Lobot's shoulder. There was no response.

'Backup frequency, maybe?'

'Could be,' Lando agreed. 'I didn't know they'd set up a second biocomm frequency, but that would make sense. I just wish—'

Abruptly, the pattern of tiny lights changed again. 'Beware,' Lobot croaked out, his voice an eerie parody of a Verpine's insectine speech. 'Security frequencies very active.'

'Moegid's talking through him,' Lando said, a tight sensation in the pit of his stomach. As far he could remember, Lobot and Moegid had never done that before, either. 'Moegid, can you hear me?' There was a long pause, as if some kind of awkward two-way translation was taking place. 'I hear,' Lobot said at last. 'Beware. Security frequencies very active.'

'They're on to us,' Han said decisively, standing up. 'Come on, let's get out of here.'

'You think that's a good idea?' Lando asked, looking at the slightly blurred scene outside their privacy field. 'At least here they'll have to come right up to us to get a good look at our faces.'

'Only if they can't find a display unit to plug that droid out there into,' Han said tartly. 'Come on, give me a hand with Lobot—he might not be able to steer himself right now. Moegid, is there anyone snooping around the ship?'

They had made it halfway to the door, each of them gripping one of Lobot's upper arms, before Moegid's answer came back. 'No one,' Lobot assured them in the same Verpine croak.

'Instructions.'

'Stay put,' Han told him. 'We'll be there as soon as we can. Better cut off your transmissions to Lobot, too.'

'And don't touch anything,' Lando added. 'You start up the engines and they'll have you targeted in half a minute.'

'They might anyway,' Han warned as they continued toward the exit. 'Two will get you the hand pot they figured out the record Leia and I gave Carib wasn't taken at Pakrik Minor. All they have to do is run the records for any ships that arrived after that drone probe did.'

'Unless Moegid got into the spaceport computer and changed our arrival date,' Lando grunted.

'Was he going to do that?'

'He was going to try. I don't know if he managed it or not.'

The lights on Lobot's implant changed again; and suddenly, like a sleepwalker suddenly coming awake, he straightened up in their grasp, his tread becoming steady and firm. 'We'll just have to get back as fast as we can,'