Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil

For the next three hours, Thrass and Thrawn worked alone in the Stybla stronghold lounge where Patriarch Lamiov had left them. Thrass used the time to pull up the cargo listings as Thrawn had suggested and start sifting through them.

But those records held a lot of detail. If there was anything unusual, it wasn’t obvious from his first pass.

Thrawn, with his talent for seeing things that other people missed, would probably have done a better job. But while Thrass had been slogging through the manifests, Thrawn had gone off on some other tangent entirely, concentrating on something that was apparently so engrossing he couldn’t even spare enough mental capacity to hear Thrass’s questions and subtle probings.

Thrass had just decided it was time for his questions to get less subtle when Lamiov finally returned.

Returned alone, Thrass noted with mild surprise. Up to now, Senior Aide Lappincyk had always been hovering close to the Patriarch’s side, ready to offer information, advice, and support. His current absence was a bit perplexing, maybe even a little ominous.

“Good evening, Your Venerante,” Thrass greeted the Patriarch as he hastily stood up. Thrawn, focused on his questis, didn’t seem to notice the other’s arrival. “I’m afraid we haven’t made much progress.”

“Understandable,” Lamiov said, eyeing Thrawn still seated in his chair but apparently deciding it wasn’t worth calling him on his breach of etiquette. “It’s a complicated matter. Has food been brought in for you? No? I’ll make sure that oversight is remedied.”

“No need, Your Venerante,” Thrawn said, finally looking up. “We can eat aboard the ship.”

Thrass frowned at him. Ship? Was Thrawn planning to leave already? He opened his mouth to ask, glancing at Lamiov to see the other’s reaction to Thrawn’s odd comment.

The question died midway to completion. The Patriarch’s face had gone rigid, his posture suddenly stiff. “How did you know?” he asked, his voice as strained as his face.

“How did he know what?” Thrass asked, thoroughly confused now.

“The good news, from your perspective,” Thrawn continued, ignoring both questions, “is that I don’t think the Clarr Patriarch knows about the special cargo. I believe the intensity of his search for the hijackers is motivated solely by a desire to find them before you and the Stybla do.”

“Wait a minute, you’ve lost me,” Thrass put in, looking back and forth between Thrawn and Lamiov. Whatever Thrawn was talking about, the two of them were clearly on the same page, whereas Thrass hadn’t even found the right book. “What special cargo? What desire?”

“Your Venerante?” Thrawn prompted.

Lamiov waved his hand, a short, twitchy motion. “You seem to know everything,” he said. Crossing to them, he sank into the chair across from Thrawn. “Please; explain it to him.”

“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “Let me begin by saying I was wrong about the Clarr patrol pilot being part of the plot. I believe now that she was working as an agent of the Clarr Patriarch and had been alerted that the supposed Obbic transport might be a pirate in disguise and was preparing to hijack another ship.”

“If she knew, why didn’t she alert Patrol Command?” Thrass asked.

“Because the Clarr Patriarch didn’t know for certain the attack would take place,” Thrawn said. “Alerting Command or deviating from her proper patrol path might have warned the hijackers and frightened them off.”

“Which would have been a good thing, right?”