Vision of the future

'Talon Karrde,' Karrde repeated, the bitter taste of defeat and disappointment and utter fatigue in his mouth. All this way. They'd come all this way to see Car'das and plead for his help. All of Karrde's fears about this meeting— his fears, his regrets, his guilt—all of it for nothing. The Jorj Car'das he had lived in quiet terror of for so many years was long gone. In his place was an empty shell.

Dimly, through the darkness swirling through his mind, he felt a hand on his shoulder. 'Come on, Karrde,' Shada said quietly. 'There's nothing here anymore.'

'It was Karrde, right?' the old man asked. A thin arm came up from beneath the blankets, flailing a bit before the hand was able to tuck the pillows tighter behind his neck. 'Tarron Karrde?'

'It's Talon Karrde, Jorj,' Entoo Nee corrected, his voice that of a patient parent to a very young child. 'Is there anything I can get for you?'

Car'das frowned, his head settling back onto the pillow, his eyes again drifting to whatever it was he saw on the ceiling. 'Shem-mebal ostorran se'mmitas Mertan anial?' he muttered, his voice almost inaudible. 'Karmida David shumidas krree?'

'Old Tarmidian,' Entoo Nee murmured. 'The language of his childhood. He's been slipping into that more and more lately.'

'Threepio?' Shada prompted.

'He's asking if Mertan has been by here today,' the droid translated. For once, there was no mention of how many types of communication he was fluent in. 'Or that nice Admiral David person.'

'No, neither of them,' Entoo Nee said to the figure in the bed, motioning Karrde to back out of the room. 'I'll be back later, Jorj. Try to get some sleep, all right?' He followed Karrde out of the room and reached for the door control. 'Sleep?' The old man snorted weakly, giving a cackling laugh. 'Can't sleep now, Mertan. Too much to do. Far too much to—'

The door slid shut, mercifully cutting off the rest. 'You see, now, how it is,' Entoo Nee said quietly.

Karrde nodded, the taste of ashes in his mouth. All those years... 'How long has he been this way?'

'And why did you even bother bringing us here in the first place?' Shada demanded.

'What can I say?' Entoo Nee said. 'He's old—very old—with the many and varied afflictions that so often come of long age.' His bright eyes shifted to Shada. 'And as for bringing you here, you were the ones who wanted to come.'

'We wanted to see Jorj Car'das,' Shada bit out. 'What's in there is not what we had in mind.'

'It's all right, Shada,' Karrde said. All those years... 'It's my fault, not Entoo Nee's. I should have come here years ago.'

He blinked sudden tears from his eyes. 'I suppose there's only one more question to be asked. Entoo Nee, Car'das once had a huge datacard library. Do you have any idea where it might be?' Entoo Nee shrugged. 'Whatever he did with it, he did it long before I came to be in his service.' Karrde nodded. So much for even their last hope of finding a copy of the Caamas Document here. Wasted fears, and now a wasted trip. Suddenly, he was feeling very old. 'Thank you,' he said, pulling out his comlink and keying it on. 'Dankin?'

'Right here, Chief,' Dankin's voice came promptly, an edge of tautness to it. 'How are things?'

'Running quite smoothly, thank you,' Karrde said, giving the all-clear code response. 'The mission is over. Get the ship ready; we'll be leaving as soon as we get back.'

'Yeah, well, that might be a bit tricky,' Dankin said, his voice turning grim. 'There's something about to happen here, Chief, something big. Every ship on the field's getting tooled up for combat.' Karrde frowned. 'Are you sure?'

'I'm positive,' Dankin said. 'There are racks of missiles being taken aboard, gunner-type flak-vac suits—the works. And they seem to be arming a lot of civilian ships, too.'

'It's Rei'Kas and his pirates,' Entoo Nee murmured quietly at Karrde's side. 'It would appear one of them followed you in.'

Karrde grimaced, yet another piece of his carefully built up mental picture crumbling to dust. He'd been so sure that Rei'Kas had been hired and brought here by Car'das. 'No one should have been able to follow us,' he told Entoo Nee. 'We always watch our backtrail very closely.' Entoo Nee shrugged again. 'I don't know how they did it. I only know that they did. According to Admiral David, their entire fleet has now left its hidden base and is on its way to Exocron.'

'You knew about this before we even landed?' Shada demanded. 'Why didn't you say something?'