Vision of the future

Navett swore. He should have known better than to trust local talent. 'They get caught?'

'According to them, the actual lift went smooth as lake ice.' Klif grimaced. 'It's just that when they got back to me, they didn't have the wallets anymore.'

Navett felt his eyes narrow. 'What do you mean, they didn't have them?'

'Just what I said: they lost them. Best guess is that someone in the crowd saw them lift the wallets and returned the favor.'

'You're sure they didn't just pocket the cash themselves?'

Klif shrugged. 'Not absolutely sure, no. But it's hard to believe a pair of New Rep agents would be carrying more cash than I was offering.' He pursed his lips. 'Unless, of course, they aren't New Rep agents.'

Navett pulled over a chair and settled thoughtfully into it. Could he have been mistaken about them?

'No,' he answered his own question. 'No, they're New Rep, all right. Probably military, too, from the look of them. The question is, who is this new skifter who's joined the party?'

'You don't think it was just another lifter taking advantage of the situation?' Klif asked. Navett cocked an eyebrow. 'Do you?'

'No, not really,' Klif said heavily. 'Too much danger of getting caught with the goods when the marks woke up.'

'My point exactly,' Navett said. 'No, they've picked up a fringe ally. A very good fringe ally, too, from the sound of it.'

Klif hissed softly between his teeth. 'We don't have anyone to spare for a proper surveillance,' he reminded Navett. 'Maybe we ought to get rid of them.'

Navett scratched his cheek. It was a tempting suggestion. A tricky job on a tight timetable was bad enough without New Rep military agents snooping around. If they could be quietly eliminated...

'No,' he said. 'Not yet. They can't possibly be on to us. We'll keep an eye out, and if they seem to be taking too much interest in us we may have to do something about it. But for right now, we'll let them be.'

Klif's lip twitched. 'You're the boss,' he said. 'I hope you're not making a mistake.'

'If I am, it's a mistake that's easily corrected,' Navett said, standing up. 'Come on. Let's put on our earnest-but- stupid faces and go get our animals.'

CHAPTER

12

From somewhere in the far distance came the warbling call of Noghri combat code. 'The ship is approaching,' Barkhimkh translated. 'Sakhisakh can see it.'

'I'll take his word for it,' Leia said. Hemmed in by the closely spaced trees that clustered on this small hill overlooking Pakrik Minor's North Barris Spaceport, she could see precious little but greenery around her, a minuscule patch of blue sky directly above her, and the landspeeder they'd borrowed from Sabmin beneath her.

A slightly awkward situation, in her opinion, and probably unnecessary, besides. Given that that transmission had carried Bel Iblis's personal signature code and bridgebreak confirmation, it could be no one but the general on that incoming ship. But her Noghri guards hadn't wanted her to show herself until the ship's occupant was positively identified, and for the sake of their concerns she had agreed to do this their way.

She could hear the approaching ship now. 'Sounds pretty small,' she said, running through her Jedi sensory enhancement exercises to boost the distant whine into something clearer.

'It does indeed,' Barkhimkh's quiet agreement boomed uncomfortably loudly in her sensitized hearing. 'I will observe.'

There was the crash of a body moving through foliage, the thunderous noise fading to whispers as Leia reduced her hearing back to its normal level. In the distance she heard the whine blip up, then drop off sharply as the ship settled onto its pad and powered down.

The sound faded away completely, and for a long minute there was nothing but the rustling of leaves around her. Leia waited, wondering what was going on out there. The grandly named spaceport was actually little more than a large open field with a handful of permacrete landing pads scattered around; it shouldn't take this long for Sakhisakh to get over to the ship and check it out. Unless there was some kind of trouble. She stretched out to the Force, seeking guidance... And then, drifting in on the breeze, came a second Noghri battle call. 'There is no