“The bug. The one in Leia’s droid? He planted it. I couldn’t manage to track it back to him, but he was the one who gained from the information. It had to be him, Sinjir. I know it.”
“One suspects that’s true. He was using it to gain a political advantage, not a criminal one. The Orishen are almost overly noble, driven mad by an aggressive sense of honor. Something-something sacrifice, something-something stern father telling his son how hard it is out there.” He sneers. “I do despise how they name themselves, though. Tolwar Wartol. Vendar Darven. TimTam TamTim. You’d think they could be more original.”
“It’s cultural.”
“Well, that’s no excuse.”
“Go,” Conder says. “Deliver your fruit. Be as polite as you can manage. Do not start an intergalactic incident.”
“Those I leave to Jom.”
“Have fun at work, honey.”
“Thank you, doll. And if you call me ‘honey’ again, I’ll rip that beard off your face swatch by swatch with miserable pinching tugs.” He mimes the gesture with his hand, just in case Conder doesn’t get it.
“You’re such a romantic.”
“My heart is a dry nest of dead birds.” He stoops down to kiss the man’s scrubby cheek. “Bye, Con.”
“Bye, Sin.”
—
Wartol sits. Still as the steeple of an old temple. In front of him is a cup of something bitter smelling: probably some kind of old root juice the Orishen people consume. Steam rises off it.
Around, the Ganoidian cruiser is decked out in the Orishen way: severe, spare, blocky, unpleasant. Sinjir likes it. It’s quiet, too. No security to be found. No pilot. No anyone except for the senator himself.
He sets the basket on the floor. “A gift from the chancellor.”
“You’re the ex-Imperial.” Wartol’s voice is a deep, thrumming timbre.
“And you’re the chancellor candidate who has been outplayed at every turn, including by a ginger woman with a single, sour fruit. Oops.”
The senator’s slitted nostrils pucker with irritation even as his jaw gently eases apart before stitching back together again. “You work for her, now? You’re a symptom. You see that, don’t you? A symptom of a larger, nastier disease.”
“Do tell.”
“An Imperial, working for the chancellor? So cozy with her? Oh, my, how cosmopolitan. Your presence has infected the process. Whispering in her ear, surely. Ah, but I give you too much credit. You won’t lead her. She’ll lead you. She’ll lead us all. Mon doesn’t need you to thin her moral code, because it’s already thinner than a slurry made of spit. Mon Mothma is weak. She will destroy this Republic if we let her. People like you at her side will only hasten its demise. We’ll blink and one day, the Republic will have fallen and the Empire will step out of her shadow and gently take its place.”
Sinjir thinks at first to hold his tongue, but really, what’s the point? The chancellor knew what she was getting when she sent him along. You ask a hound to find a bone, you can expect some holes dug in the yard. And it’s not like the pta fruits are a subtle message, are they? No, she wants him to scrap a little. Sinjir will do it so she doesn’t have to.
He says, “It’s ironic, you know? You go on about fearing another Empire, and yet you’re the one who reminds me of every Imperial autocrat, every bully-fed officer who thinks that the best way to lead is through acts of severity, through a parade of cruelty just to remind the men Mmm, life is hard and so you must be harder. They go on about sacrifice but never really sacrifice squat themselves, oh no, because they’re the ones above the heavy boot on the back of the neck, not the ones beneath it. You want war. You want defense. You’re a raptor who sees all his people as defenseless little flit-wrens—and you’ll save them, if only they give up the fanciful notion that they can lead themselves, that they can protect themselves.”
“You understand nothing.”
“Meanwhile,” Sinjir says, really leaning into it now, “your opponent is a woman who wants to give democracy to the entirety of the galaxy. Freedom for all. Oppression for none.”
“It’s na?ve.”
“It may be. But at this point, I’m going to side with her precious na?veté over your authoritarian bluster. Enjoy your fruit, Senator. We’ll send you a lifetime supply as a consolation when you lose the election.”
Sinjir sets the basket down on the table.
And when he does, he notices three things.
First, Wartol never stood up. That’s odd. It’s standard to get up and greet guests no matter how much you despise them, especially among the Orishen, who have a rather firm grip on protocol.
Second, Wartol’s left hand holds the cup of steaming dark juice—but his right hand has never gone above the table. It rests beneath it.
Third, on the surface of the table, across from where the Orishen sits, waits a faint ring of moisture. As if from a cup resting there, a cup sweating its condensation or steam onto the tabletop.
Sinjir’s gaze turns to it, then to Wartol. The senator is watching him. Wartol saw him look. It is necessary, perhaps, to acknowledge it.