'Fine,' Shada said. 'Let's try again. David says you didn't use us to lure Rei'Kas in. I say you did.'
Car'das looked at Karrde. 'I like her, Talon,' he declared. 'She has a fine spirit.' He shifted his eyes to Shada. 'I don't suppose you'd be interested in a new job, would you?'
'I wasted a dozen years with a smuggling gang, Car'das,' Shada growled. 'I'm not interested in joining another.'
'Ah,' he said with a nod. 'Forgive me. Here we are.' The tunnel had come to an end in a small, well-lighted room. Car'das popped the door and bounded out as the quadrail slid smoothly to a stop. 'Come, come,' he urged the others. 'You're going to love this place, Talon, you really are. All ready? Let's go.' Almost bouncing with childlike anticipation, he led the way to an archway-topped door. He waved his hand as he approached; and as the wall at the blue house had done, the door simply vanished.
And stretched out beyond the doorway was a dream world.
Karrde stepped through, his first impression being that they had stepped out into the open air into a meticulously tended garden. Directly in front of them was a wide expanse of flowers and small plants and shrubs, all carefully and artistically arranged, stretching for perhaps a hundred meters ahead of them. A winding path led through the garden, with stone benches set at various points along it. At its side edges the garden gave way to a forest of tall trees of dozens of different species, with leaves whose colors varied from dark blue to brilliant red. From somewhere within the forest came the bubbling sound of water running over a rock-bottomed creek, but from their position he couldn't see where it was.
It wasn't until he followed the tallest trees up to their tops that he spotted the sky-blue dome above them. A dome that flowed down into unobtrusive walls behind the stands of trees...
'Yes, it's all inside,' Car'das confirmed. 'Very much inside, in fact—we're under one of the mountains to the east of Rintatta City. Beautiful, isn't it?'
'You tend it yourself?' Karrde asked.
'I do most of the work,' Car'das said, starting forward toward the path. 'But there are a few others, as well. This way.'
He led them through the garden to a concealed door between two red-trunked trees on the far side. 'Must have been some job putting all this together,' Shada commented as the door again vanished at a wave of Car'das's hand. 'Your Aing-Tii friends help?'
'In an indirect way, yes,' Car'das said. 'This is my conversation room. As beautiful as the garden, in its own way.'
'Yes,' Karrde agreed, looking around. The conversation room was laid out in more or less classic High Alderaanian style, done up in dark wood and intertwined plants, with the same feeling of expansiveness as the garden outside. 'What did you mean by indirect help?'
'It's rather ironic, really,' Car'das said, angling off through the conversation room toward a door to their right. 'When I arrived on Exocron I started building my home under these mountains purely for defensive reasons. Now that defense is no longer an issue, I find I enjoy the place for its solitude.' Karrde glanced at Shada. Defense no longer an issue? 'Was Rei'Kas that much of a threat?' Car'das frowned. 'Rei'Kas? Oh, no, Talon, you misunderstand. Rei'Kas was a threat, certainly, but only to the rest of Exocron. I helped get rid of him in order to protect my neighbors, but I myself was in no danger at all. Come; you'll particularly want to see this.' He waved the door away, and gestured them forward. Karrde stepped inside—
And stopped in amazement. He was standing at the outer rim of a circular room that appeared to be even bigger across than the garden they'd just left. The floor of the room dipped, amphitheater fashion, toward the center, where he could see the edge of what looked like a work station or computer desk. Arrayed in concentric circles around the desk, with only narrow walkways separating them, were circle after circle of two-meter-high data cases.
And filling each of the shelves on each of the data cases were datacards. Thousands and thousands of datacards.
'Knowledge, Talon,' Car'das said quietly from beside him. 'Information. My passion, once; my weapon and my defense and my comfort.' He shook his head. 'Amazing, isn't it, what we sometimes persuade ourselves are the most important things in life.'
'Yes,' Karrde murmured. Car'das's library... and the Caamas Document.
'So Entoo Nee lied to us,' Shada spoke up, the edge in her voice cutting into Karrde's sense of wonder. 'He said he didn't know what happened to your library.'
'Entoo Nee?' Car'das called. 'Did you lie to them?'
'Not at all, Jorj,' Entoo Nee's distant voice protested from behind them. Karrde turned, to see the little man still on the far side of the conversation room, busying himself with drinks. 'I merely said that whatever you had done with it had been done before I came to be in your service.'
