Vision of the future

He felt her muscles tighten beneath his hands. 'Of course,' she said, her voice not betraying any of her sudden concern. 'There's a meeting room just down the corridor.' A few minutes later they were seated in deeply comfortable chairs behind a sealed door. 'The room's not monitored,' Leia said. 'I've already checked. What's wrong?' Han braced himself. 'We got the Caamas Document, like I told you,' he said. 'What I didn't know at the time was that—well, look, let me give you the whole story.' With occasional side comments from Lando, he ran a summary of their trip to Bastion, ending with Moegid's discovery that the document had been altered. 'I guess I should have figured he had some con going,' he growled, glaring at the datacard on the low central table. Going through the events again had rekindled his embarrassed anger at himself for falling for the whole stupid trick in the first place. 'I should have waited until Lando and Moegid had completely cleared the thing before I even said anything to you.'

Leia squeezed his hand reassuringly. 'It's all right,' she said, the set of her mouth making it clear that it wasn't all right at all. 'It's as much my fault as yours. I knew Thrawn was back on the scene, too. I should have realized this had been too easy.'

'Yeah, but you didn't know he was the one who'd given us the datacard,' Han argued, obscurely determined not to let her take any of the blame for this. 'All you knew was—' Across the table, Lando cleared his throat. 'Whenever you two have finished figuring out whose fault it is,' he said, just a bit dryly, 'maybe we can move on to what we're going to do about it.' Han looked at Leia, saw her mouth relax slightly into a wry smile. 'Point taken,' she said, matching his tone. 'And it may not be as bad as it looks. There's still a chance we'll be able to get hold of a copy of the document from somewhere else.'

'You mean Karrde?' Han asked.

'No, there's another possibility.' Leia hesitated. 'I really shouldn't say anything more about it right now, except that if it works it'll probably take a few more days.'

'The point is still that we've got to stall everyone off for a while,' Lando said briskly. 'Now, Han and I had a couple of days to deal all this around the table, and we think we may have a way to at least buy us a little time.'

'Right.' Han nodded, glad to change subjects. 'First off, I'm going to tell Gavrisom he can't have the Caamas Document yet.'

Leia's eyes widened. 'How in the worlds are you going to justify that?'

'On the grounds that the situation over Bothawui is too tense for my taste,' Han said loftily. 'I'm going to demand that everyone break it up and go home before I turn the document over to anyone.' Leia's face was a study in stunned astonishment. 'Han, you can't possibly get away with that.'

'Why not?' Han countered, shrugging. 'This is me, remember? Everyone expects me to do crazy things.'

'Yes, but—' With clear effort, Leia strangled down her objections. 'All right, let's assume Gavrisom lets you get away with that one. What then?'

Han glanced at Lando. 'Actually, we hadn't gotten much past that part,' he conceded. 'Moegid says there's an outside chance he can reconstruct the data—depends on how expert the guy was who changed it. And now that we've actually got the document, we might be able to bluff the Bothans into telling us what they know.'

'Assuming they actually do know something,' Leia pointed out. 'If they don't, we're no better off than we were. Worse, really, because someone's bound to accuse the New Republic of making a deal with them to withhold the names.'

'I know,' Han said, trying to hide his sudden surge of frustration. 'But if we just go out and tell them we haven't got anything, they're going to say the same thing, aren't they?' Leia squeezed his hand again. 'Probably,' she said, her eyes taking on that faraway look that meant she was thinking furiously. 'All right,' she said. 'The two biggest instigators out there are the Diamala and Ishori. If we can get them to back down, even temporarily, a lot of the others should follow along. That's why Gavrisom came out here, in fact, to try talking to them.' Han grimaced, remembering his own less than successful try at getting the two species to agree. And that had just been shipping details. 'Just keep them out of the same room,' he warned.

'Exactly,' Leia said, looking over at Lando. 'Lando, are you and Senator Miatamia still on good terms?'

Lando eyed her suspiciously. 'I don't know if we were ever on good terms, exactly,' he said cautiously. 'Especially not after that ride I gave him ended with an invitation for High Day drinks with Thrawn aboard his personal Star Destroyer. What exactly did you have in mind?'

'Miatamia arrived here yesterday evening to look the situation over,' Leia said. 'He's staying over on one of the big Diamalan warships, the Industrious Thoughts. I'd like you to go over there and talk to him.'

Lando's jaw sagged. 'Me? Leia—'

'You have to do it,' Leia said firmly. 'Diamala have a strong sense of personal pride, and Miatamia still owes you for that ride. You can use that.'

'Look, I don't know what you think my hospitality is worth on the open market,' Lando protested. 'But—' He took