Not many senior Imperials wore white jackets. Those were reserved for ISB officers, a handful of more obscure ranks that held similar levels of authority and power, and even grand admirals. White jackets were said to inspire respect; really they instilled fear. Leia’s heart thumped faster at the sight of this man, whoever he was. Far worse than the white jacket was the fact that the unknown Imperial officer was talking easily with Winmey Lenz, as though they were friends.
That doesn’t mean anything. Mom and Dad made nice with Grand Moff Tarkin not so long ago. Still, Leia couldn’t shake her uneasiness.
“Stay out of sight,” she told Amilyn. “I want to find out if I can overhear what they’re saying.”
Only after she’d said it did she realize she had absolutely no good explanation for what she was doing. Luckily her companion was the person least likely to require one. “What about over there?” Amilyn pointed to a fuel crawler parked close to the charter ship, definitely close enough for Leia to eavesdrop. Swiftly she fell into step behind a group of Pau’ans, whose tall stature and long, flowing robes provided good cover. Once she’d reached the fuel crawler she ducked behind it—then realized Amilyn was right behind her.
“I told you not to come with me!” she whispered.
Amilyn frowned. “No, you didn’t.”
Choose your words more carefully next time, Leia reminded herself. But Winmey Lenz was speaking again, and she focused entirely on him.
“—pleasure is entirely mine, Director.” Lenz smiled at this mysterious director as easily as he’d smiled for everyone at the last banquet. “Petty regulations mustn’t be allowed to stand in the way of necessary construction.”
“You’re a sensible man, Lenz. Are you sure you’re from Chandrila?” The director’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What luck, you having so much quadanium at hand.”
Lenz’s gaze no longer met the director’s. “Sometimes the fates align us with what we need most.”
As their conversation shifted into farewell pleasantries, Amilyn straightened and took on an unfamiliarly serious expression. “Why would the Empire be buying cut-rate quadanium from a senator? Why wouldn’t they just take it from a planet that’s on penalty?”
Leia put that together fast. “It could be a few reasons. Most likely, some project is experiencing budget overages that the director doesn’t want to take to his superiors.” Especially since the superiors of officers in white jackets were exclusively those at the topmost levels of the Empire—not the kind of people you wanted to disappoint.
“Is this illegal?” Amilyn clasped her hands together as though in delight. “Did we find crime?”
“I don’t know. Some sales like that are illegal, but some aren’t. Maybe the director asked Lenz to keep the deal secret for his own reasons.”
Regardless, Leia realized, Winmey Lenz’s behavior was troubling. At the very least, the man had a strong relationship with a senior Imperial official, one he was actively assisting in some major building project. He’d specifically denied having any substantive Imperial contacts in the past; that was a lie. And if he was lying to her parents and Mon Mothma about this, what else might he be lying about?
Worse: what might he be telling the truth about?
Panic seized Leia as it hit her that Lenz might already have informed on her parents. No, he can’t have—if he had, we’d already be in prison, or dead. But he knows everything about my parents’ plans, everything Mon Mothma is trying to put together. He has their trust, but he’s lying to them. That means he could turn at any minute.
“Cloud-colored,” Amilyn said.
“What?” Leia sounded snappish and didn’t care. This wasn’t the time for any of Amilyn’s wandering metaphors.
“You’ve gone so pale you’re cloud-colored.” Amilyn clasped Leia’s upper arm, as though she thought Leia would faint at any moment. Cargo shipments and travelers kept hurrying past them, reminding Leia of the mudslide on Chandrila, tumbling over and over in the muck without any way to right herself. “What’s wrong? Why is it so bad that Lenz is selling the materials?”
Telling her the entire truth was impossible. Leia managed, “He’s being deceptive. Chandrila always stands up to Palpatine in the Senate, but privately? Lenz is good buddies with a high-ranking Imperial official.”
“It’s like the cream side of the muffin.”
Leia refused to ask. She just stared at Amilyn, wondering when the tide of weirdness would ever run dry.
“They say that when you drop the muffin, it always lands cream side down,” Amilyn said, repeating the old saying like it was some profound discovery. “So I always wondered, what if you covered the muffin with cream completely, and then dropped it? There wouldn’t be a side left to point upward, so the muffin would never fall. It would remain in the air, skyfaring without scarves.”
Enough of the ridiculous—Leia opened her mouth to utter the angry thoughts in her head, before understanding came rushing in. “Wait. You mean Lenz is playing both sides. He wants to curry favor with the Empire and the ones who oppose it, so that if Palpatine does ever fall from power, he could still benefit.”
“Senator Lenz is the muffin in the analogy,” Amilyn said. “Just to be clear.”
“I got that part.” Leia’s mind was racing, considering all the possibilities. Winmey Lenz wouldn’t expose her parents, Mon Mothma, and their allies for no reason. He wasn’t a risk…yet. But the first time they faced real danger, the immediate threat of exposure, Lenz might well turn informant to save his own skin. It would be the smartest move.
An assistant was speaking with Lenz now, talking over the quadanium shipments. Probably they should seize the opportunity presented by his distraction to get away. It was difficult to remember that they were still on a pathfinding trip. Before she’d turned, though, she heard the assistant say something that pricked at her ears and made the noise of the spaceport seem very far away.
“Did he say Ocahont?” Leia asked.
Amilyn shrugged. “I wasn’t listening. I was envisioning a levitating muffin.”
“I think he said Ocahont.” That name had figured heavily in her mother’s so-called spaceport development accounts. It had to be linked to the rebellion plans. Was it possible Lenz had already betrayed them after all? The shipment to Ocahont could be bait—something for the Empire to follow and then “discover” whatever outpost awaited there.
“You’re cloud-colored again,” Amilyn said.
“I have to find out what’s going on with that shipment to Ocahont.” Leia gestured to what seemed to be the cargo vessel in question. Frantically she tried to think of ways to investigate that she could somehow implement in the next few minutes. Maybe she could access the manifest. Her royal rank didn’t give her the authority to pull a random ship’s manifest, but it was possible a Pamarthen local wouldn’t know that.
In her reverie she stared at the ground, or really at nothing, so it took her a moment to realize Amilyn was gone. Leia jerked her head upright, looking around wildly, then gaped as she saw Amilyn sneaking on to the vessel headed for Ocahont. She tiptoed up the boarding ramp, paused at the door, smiled back at Leia, and waved her forward.