Chapter 44 · Property Questions

Caro Antilles had brought three note cases, one legal droid, and the expression of a man who had found something unpleasant in a place where unpleasant things were expected to have the courtesy of being dead.

Thrawn looked up when the interview room door opened.

He was seated on the far side of the table, posture controlled, one hand resting beside the cup of water Medical continued to insist upon and he continued to treat as an administrative obligation. The room was, as always, secure, sound-dampened, monitored only through channels agreed to by counsel, and furnished with the New Republic’s preferred theory of comfort: clean surfaces, neutral colors, and chairs designed by someone who believed lumbar support was a political compromise.

ALEX-4 entered behind Caro and took a place near the recording console.

That had required three additional security checks, one unnecessary scan of his chassis, and a conversation at the outer desk in which New Republic security had become very concerned about the conceptual difference between a legal assistant, a recording device, and a mobile evidence container.

Caro had enjoyed none of it. ALEX-4, being a legal droid, had enjoyed it less audibly.

“Good morning, Grand Admiral,” Caro said.

“Counselor.”

Thrawn’s eyes moved from Caro to the droid, then to the door as it closed behind them. “You brought an ALEX unit.”

Caro paused. “Are you familiar with them?”

“I have seen a few during my career.”

“That is a carefully dull answer.”

“They were commonly used in military legal proceedings. Courts-martial, formal inquiries, command reviews. Less often in ordinary advisory interviews.”

ALEX-4’s photoreceptors brightened by the smallest degree. “I am also fully qualified for ordinary advisory interviews,” he said.

“I did not intend to imply otherwise,” Thrawn replied.

“Noted.”

Caro looked between them. “Wonderful. He has met the species.”

“I am not a species,” ALEX-4 said.

“No, Alex, but you are a professional type, and those are worse.”

Thrawn’s gaze returned to Caro. “You brought it despite New Republic security’s objections.”

“New Republic security has recently developed strong opinions about recording devices with legs.”

“And not Ms. Tann.” Thrawn noted.

“No,” Caro said. “The New Republic does not classify Ms. Tann as a recording device with legs.” There was a pause. Caro looked briefly toward ALEX-4. Then back to Thrawn. “That may have been a rather inappropriate joke,” he said. “Apologies.”

ALEX-4’s photoreceptors brightened. “Apology noted.”

“Not to you, Alex.”

“Also noted.”

Thrawn, who had not moved throughout the exchange, took a measured sip of water.

Caro set the first note case on the table. Then the second. Then the third.

Thrawn watched the movement. “That suggests this interview is either unusually technical, unusually sensitive, or likely to become unfair to the junior attorney.”

“Grand Admiral,” Caro said, taking the chair opposite him, “that is the most optimistic list of possibilities available.”

Thrawn looked at the note cases. “That appears excessive.”

“It is either excessive,” Caro said, “or I have had a very bad morning.”

“Which is more likely?”

“I was hoping you would tell me.”

Thrawn’s gaze returned to ALEX-4. “The presence of a legal droid means then you intend the record to be unusually precise.”

“Furthermore, the presence of three note cases suggests I am about to become unusually unpleasant.”

“I see.”

“No,” Caro said. “But we are going to correct that.”

ALEX-4’s amber photoreceptors brightened. “Shall I open a standard interview record, Counselor Antilles?”

“No,” Caro said. “Restricted record. Attorney-client. Internal defense review. Tag it under asset status, compensation history, citizenship, and legal capacity.”

ALEX-4 paused for exactly the amount of time required to make the pause insulting. “Those categories are not usually grouped.”

“No,” Caro said. “That is why I am in a mood.”

“Record opened.”

Thrawn did not look at the droid. He looked at Caro. “Asset status,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That is a broad category.”

“It is about to become broader. I have property questions.”

Thrawn was silent for one quiet second. “That is rarely the beginning of a simple conversation.”

“No,” Caro said. “But it is a socially acceptable lie before we reach citizenship, legal capacity, enslavement, and the late Emperor’s apparent contempt for forms.”

Thrawn’s expression did not change. That, Caro thought, was not comforting.

He opened the first note case and removed a thin stack of copied records. Not originals. Originals had lives of their own, and Caro disliked giving them opportunities to vanish. These were certified reproductions, marked, cross-indexed, and ugly in the particular way Imperial documents became ugly when they tried too hard to be clean.

“Let us begin with citizenship,” Caro said. Thrawn inclined his head. “Were you ever naturalized as an Imperial citizen?”

“I do not know.”

Caro’s stylus stopped above the pad. Not because the answer surprised him. Because confirmation always had a worse weight than suspicion.

ALEX-4 made a soft notation tone.

Caro did not look away from Thrawn. “That was very quick.”

“Yes.”

“You did not need to consider it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no memory of an act of naturalization.”

“That is not quite the same as not being naturalized.”

“No.”

“Were you ever told that you had become an Imperial citizen?”

“No.”

“Were you ever given civil documentation confirming Imperial citizenship?”

“No. I was given my Imperial Navy credentials.”

“Did you ever sign an oath of citizenship?”

“I signed several oaths.”

Caro’s eyes narrowed. “Military.”

“Yes.”

“Service oaths. Academy oaths. Commissioning documentation.”

“Yes.”

“Not citizenship.”

“No.”

Caro leaned back. The chair objected quietly. He ignored it.

“Grand Admiral, I am going to ask a number of questions that may sound insulting, obvious, grotesque, or all three. I need you to answer them as precisely as possible and resist any urge to make the Empire appear more coherent than it was.”

“I will try.”

“That was not reassuring.”

“It was precise.”

“Yes,” Caro said. “You see the problem.”

He drew the first page toward him. “Your admission to the Royal Imperial Academy.”

“Yes.”

“We have the entry notation. We have the override. We have references to executive authorization. What we do not have is a standard admission file.” Thrawn said nothing. “No application. No prior equivalency review. No civil sponsor. No immigration status. No regular alien registration. No naturalization certificate attached before or after admission. No Form GA-7b.”

ALEX-4 rotated his head slightly.

Caro pointed the stylus at him without looking. “Do not begin.”

“I had not spoken.”

“You were about to explain that the GA-7b was mandatory for non-human foreign nationals admitted to Imperial military training under provisional exception.”

“That is correct. Although the form was established later, following several exceptional admissions under which the Imperial Army and Navy permitted non-human individuals to enter service.”

“Yes. Thank you for not helping.”

ALEX-4 returned to stillness.

Thrawn watched the exchange with the faintest suggestion of interest.

Caro tapped the page once. “What we have instead is a Palace override.”

“Yes.”

“From Palpatine’s office.”

“Yes.”

“Following your presentation by Voss Parck.”

“That’s correct.”

“Presentation,” Caro repeated.

The word disliked the room. Thrawn’s face remained still.

Caro let the silence sit for one second, then moved on. Not because the question did not matter. Because it mattered too much to waste early.

“We will return to Parck. First, money.”

“Money then.” Thrawn nodded slowly.

“Yes. Credits. Salary. Accounts. The vulgar little trail by which civilized governments accidentally confess what they thought a person was.”

Thrawn’s head tilted slightly. “You believe compensation may clarify status.”

“No,” Caro said. “I believe compensation may confuse status so effectively that opposing counsel will try to use it as proof of freedom.”

“That seems likely.”

“It also seems lazy, and I dislike being defeated by laziness.”

He opened the second note case. “Were you paid?”

“Yes.”

“By the Imperial Navy?”

“Yes.”

“To an account in your name?”

“Yes.”

“Opened by you?”

“No.”

Caro looked up. Thrawn did not elaborate.

“That,” Caro said, “is the sort of answer that makes accountants reach for religion.”

“It was the arrangement available.”

“Available to whom?”

“To the Empire.”

ALEX-4 recorded the answer.

Caro could hear the small tone. He wished he could not. “Who opened the account?”

“I do not know.”

“Were you required to sign for access?”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Caro repeated.

“Yes.”

“Before that?”

“Funds were available through assigned channels.”

“Assigned by whom?”

“The Navy.”

“On whose authority?”

“I was not informed.”

Caro stared at him.

Thrawn met the stare with infuriating calm. Not evasive calm. That would at least have given Caro something to attack.

This was worse in every human respect, and better in almost every legal one.

This was the calm of a man describing a door he had walked through decades ago because it had been the only door in front of him, and only now being asked whether the lock had been on his side.

Caro set the stylus down. Very carefully. “Could you withdraw funds?”

“Yes.”

“Transfer them?”

“Yes.”

“Purchase goods?”

“Yes.”

“Invest?”

“In limited forms.”

“Own property?”

Thrawn did not answer immediately. Caro hated the small delay with an intimacy usually reserved for prosecutors and relatives.

“I cannot say with certainty,” Thrawn said.

Caro’s eyes narrowed. “That is not the same as no.”

“No.”

“What did you own?”

“Personal effects. Clothing. Books. Several pieces of art. A small number of antiques from the Clone Wars period.”

“Movable property.”

“Yes.”

“Anything registered? Land, shares, a residence, commercial holdings, ships?”

“No.”

“Because you were prohibited from acquiring them?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Because you had no interest maybe then?”

“Yes.”

Caro watched him.

Thrawn added, “I assume that, as an officer of the Imperial Navy, I could have acquired property had I wished to do so.”

“You assume.”

“Yes.”

“You never tested it.”

“No. I didn’t have the need to.”

Caro closed his eyes.

ALEX-4 remained silent. Very sensible of him.

When Caro opened his eyes again, he reached for the third note case.

“Your Coruscant residence.”

“Yes.”

“Granted by Palpatine personally.”

“Yes.”

“In your name?”

“I occupied it.”

“That was not my question.”

“No.”

“Was it yours?”

Thrawn’s eyes remained steady. “I do not know.”

Caro sat back very slowly. “You do not know whether your own home was yours.”

“It functioned as mine.”

“A barracks functions as home to a soldier. A cell functions as home to a prisoner. Function is not title.”

“I understand the difference.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Caro believed him. That made it worse.

He sat back and looked at the three note cases as if one of them had personally offended him. It was a tempting thing, in law, to fall in love with a useful horror.

Caro had seen it happen. Young advocates did it first: found a procedural outrage, a statutory defect, a government mistake large enough to shelter a client beneath it, and mistook usefulness for purity. Older advocates did it more quietly and with better tailoring. They called it strategy. Sometimes it was. Sometimes it was just the pleasure of discovering that the other side had been monstrously careless and could be made to bleed for it.

This was different. This was useful. It was also vile.

And because it was both, Caro intended to build it properly or not at all.

He drew the top sheet from the third note case and placed it in front of him. “I am going to explain what we are doing,” he said.

Thrawn inclined his head.

“We are not, at this stage, asking the court to accept that you were a slave.”

“No.”

Caro looked up. “That was not a question.”

“No,” Thrawn said. “But it is a correct statement.”

“Yes. It is.” Caro tapped the page once with two fingers. “We are also not asking the court to accept that you lacked rank, office, command authority, practical freedom of movement, access to funds, or the ability to make decisions. You had all of those things. The record is very enthusiastic about proving it.”

ALEX-4 made a notation tone. “Enthusiastic is not a legal classification,” the droid said.

“It should be. Continue recording.”

“Continuing.”

Thrawn remained still.

Caro went on. “What we are doing is separating categories the prosecution would very much like to collapse into one another. Office is not citizenship. Command is not naturalization. Pay is not legal capacity. Residence is not title. Use is not ownership. Obedience from Imperial officers is not proof that the Empire recognized you as a person capable of consenting to Imperial service.”

The room seemed to grow quieter around the words. Thrawn’s expression did not change. Caro had expected a reaction. Not because he wanted shock. Shock would have been easier to distrust. He hated it because Thrawn was listening as though each category mattered. As though the violence was not in the accusation, but in the administrative precision by which it had once been made possible.

Caro turned another sheet. “These are the facts I can prove or may be able to prove. One: no standard naturalization record has been produced. Two: no ordinary alien military admission file has been produced. Three: no GA-7b or equivalent provisional-status filing exists in the material disclosed so far. Four: Academy admission appears to have been accomplished by executive override from the Imperial Palace. Five: your first monetary arrangements were created for you, not by you. Six: your residence on Coruscant was granted for your use by Palpatine personally, but we do not yet have title documentation showing ownership in your name. Seven: Voss Parck’s initial presentation of you used language that may have treated you as a thing conveyed to the Emperor.”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed at the last point. Barely. Enough.

Caro noticed. Of course he did. “We will come to Parck,” Caro said.

“Will we?”

“Oh, yes. I expect to dislike it tremendously.”

Thrawn said nothing.

Caro folded his hands over the notes. “The strategy is this. We do not lead with enslavement. Not yet. If we do, the New Republic will panic, the prosecution will call it grotesque opportunism, half the Senate will accuse us of insulting actual slaves by applying the term to a Grand Admiral, and the other half will discover moral philosophy only after it becomes politically useful.”

ALEX-4’s head turned very slightly. “Counselor Antilles, that may be an overstatement.”

“No, Alex. That was restraint.”

“Noted.”

Caro kept his eyes on Thrawn. “We begin with capacity and status. We demand the government identify the legal basis on which the Empire claimed you as a citizen, officer, and criminally responsible Imperial actor. Not morally responsible. Not historically involved. Legally chargeable under the theory they have chosen. We make them show the bridge between alien prisoner, executive possession, Academy anomaly, naval officer, and Grand Admiral.”

Thrawn’s voice was quiet. “And if they cannot?”

“Then they have a problem.”

“And if they can?”

“Then we have documents they have not disclosed, and I become unbearable in a different direction.”

For the first time, something almost moved at the corner of Thrawn’s mouth.

Caro ignored it on principle.

“The important point,” he continued, “is that we are not trying to prove you were powerless. That would be false, insulting, and strategically stupid. We are asking whether the Empire’s legal structure ever gave you the status that the New Republic now needs you to have had in order to prosecute you cleanly for exercising Imperial authority.” He leaned forward slightly.

“That is a narrow question with very large teeth.” Thrawn looked at the sealed note cases. “It may redirect responsibility.”

“Yes.”

“I do not seek that.”

“I know.”

“I made decisions.”

“Yes.”

“I accepted command.”

“Yes.”

“I remained.”

Caro’s expression hardened. “Possibly. But before the court gets to remained, it may have to ask whether you were ever legally permitted to leave.”

The silence that followed had weight. Not drama. Weight. ALEX-4 did not interrupt it. Caro let it remain for several seconds, because some sentences deserved to sit in the room that had earned them.

“Now,” he said, “we discuss Voss Parck.”

Thrawn’s expression did not change. Caro disliked that he had begun to recognize degrees within that lack of change. “Tell me about your capture,” he said.

“By Captain Parck?”

“Yes. From your perspective, not from the record’s desperate attempt to sound tidy.”

Thrawn considered that for a moment. “Captain Parck’s force entered the area where I had established my position. I allowed evidence of my presence to be discovered. His personnel followed the indications I had prepared.”

Caro stared at him. “You arranged your own capture.”

“I arranged contact.”

“That is not the answer of an innocent man.”

“No.”

“It is, however, the answer of a very inconvenient one. Continue.”

“Parck’s men believed they had found me. I permitted that belief until it was no longer useful.”

ALEX-4 made a notation tone.

Caro lifted one hand. “Yes, Alex, I heard it too.”

“I had not spoken,” ALEX-4 said.

“You were thinking in evidentiary categories.”

“That is my function.”

“And a comfort to us all.”

Thrawn waited.

Caro turned back to him. “Were you restrained upon capture?”

“Yes.”

“Physically?”

“At first.”

“Prisoner status?”

“Yes.”

“Interrogated?”

“Yes.”

“Interrogated?”

“Yes.”

“By Parck?”

“And by his officers. My Basic was limited at the time, which complicated the first exchanges.”

Caro looked up. “Limited how?”

“Sufficient for simple statements. Insufficient for technical explanation, strategic nuance, or persuasion.”

“That must have been inconvenient for everyone.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“One of Parck’s cadets suggested the use of Sy Bisti. Cadet Vanto spoke it. So did I.”

Caro’s stylus stopped. “Cadet Vanto?”

“Yes.”

“The same Vanto as Lieutenant Commander Eli N. Vanto?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” Caro murmured. “Naturally the missing man was already in the room at the beginning.” Thrawn did not comment. “Vanto translated for the interrogations?”

“From that point onward, yes.”

“For Parck?”

“For Parck and his officers.”

“And for you.”

Thrawn’s eyes remained steady. “Yes.”

Caro wrote that down with care. Not because translation was unusual. Because translation was never neutral when the translated man was restrained, foreign, legally undefined, and being carried toward the Emperor as a gift.

“Were you harmed?”

“No.”

“Threatened?”

“Not beyond what was implied by my situation.”

Caro wrote that down. It was a lawyer’s answer from a man who was not a lawyer, which made Caro resent several educational institutions on principle. “And the journey to Coruscant?”

“I was transported under guard.”

“As prisoner, guest, asset, curiosity, or gift?”

Thrawn’s eyes lifted slightly. “There may have been overlap.”

“Of course there was. The Empire never used one atrocity where four would fit.”

ALEX-4’s photoreceptors brightened. “Counselor Antilles—”

“Rhetorical.”

“Noted.”

Caro looked back at Thrawn. “How were you described during the transit?”

“Alien prisoner. Unknown species. Strategic intelligence source. Potential asset.”

“And gift?”

“Not consistently.”

“That is not no.”

“No.”

Caro’s stylus moved once against the pad. “When does the word appear?”

“Before the audience with the Emperor.”

“By Parck?”

“Yes.”

“In your hearing?”

“Yes.”

“Exact phrasing?”

Thrawn was silent long enough that Caro knew he was not avoiding the question. He was translating memory into testimony. “I was presented as a gift for the Emperor.”

Caro closed his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Wonderful. Disgusting and wonderful. We are all very fortunate to live in a galaxy where language has survived this much abuse.” He opened his eyes again. “How were you taken to Palpatine?”

“Under guard.”

“Still restrained?”

“Yes.”

Caro’s stylus stopped. “Restrained even in the audience chamber?”

“Yes.”

“In front of the Emperor.”

“Yes.”

Caro stared at the page for a moment. Then he looked up. “Grand Admiral, I am going to ask you to appreciate that this is a terrible answer.”

“I understand.”

“No, I mean terrible in the moral sense. In the legal sense it is becoming aggressively useful.”

Thrawn said nothing.

Caro tapped the stylus once against the pad. “You were captured, transported under guard, described at least in part as a gift, and brought before Palpatine in restraints.”

“Yes.”

“Not as a visiting officer.”

“No.”

“Not as a diplomatic irregularity.”

“No.”

“Not as a foreign military petitioner.”

“No.”

“As a prisoner.”

“Yes.”

Caro closed his eyes briefly, suppressing a smile.

“Wonderful,” Caro pointed the stylus at him. “Do not help me too efficiently. It makes me suspicious.”

Thrawn inclined his head. Caro glanced down at the notes.

Capture arranged by Thrawn. Transport under guard. Presentation language: gift. Restraints present during audience. Palace override follows. Academy admission follows. Commission follows.

It was a chain. An ugly one. Still incomplete.

He tapped the page once. “What happened during the audience?”

Thrawn did not answer immediately. This silence was different. Not reluctance. Not exactly.

Caro looked up. “We have no record of it,” he said.

“No.”

“No transcript. No court memorandum. No Palace summary beyond the override sequence. No aide’s note worth insulting with the name. Nothing.”

“The Emperor did not record all conversations.”

“No, but the Emperor’s bureaucracy recorded the weather if it thought weather might one day be evidence against someone. The absence is noticeable.”

“Yes.”

Caro leaned forward. “What happened?”

Thrawn’s gaze remained steady. “I convinced the Emperor to take me into his service. To use my abilities and knowledge.”

Caro stopped moving.

ALEX-4 stopped making notation sounds.

For a moment, the room seemed to understand the answer before either of them did.

Then Caro said, very softly, “You convinced him.”

“Yes.”

“Not Parck.”

“Parck brought me to him. He argued that I had value.”

“But you argued your own value.”

“Yes.”

“To Palpatine.”

“Yes.”

“In the audience.”

“Yes.”

Caro sat back. Slowly. There were smiles that expressed amusement, and smiles that expressed pleasure, and smiles that expressed a man discovering that an apparently locked door had just confessed to having hinges.

Caro’s was none of those at first. At first, it was only stillness. Then it began.

“Oh,” he said. Thrawn watched him. Caro’s smile widened. Not kindly. Not happily. Professionally. “Oh, that is interesting.”

ALEX-4 turned his head toward him. “Counselor Antilles?”

“Alex.”

“Yes.”

“Mark this segment.”

“It is already marked.”

“Mark it more aggressively.”

“There is no such classification.”

“Create one.”

“I cannot create evidentiary classifications based on emotional intensity.”

“Then make a note that I am about to become emotionally intense.”

“Noted.”

Thrawn’s expression had not changed, but Caro saw the faint attention behind his eyes.

“You consider this significant,” Thrawn said.

“Grand Admiral, I consider this the first polite thing the facts have done all morning.”

“The conversation was not recorded.”

“No,” Caro said. “But the audience occurred.”

“Yes.”

“And there were witnesses?”

“Yes.”

Caro’s smile froze at its widest point. Then became sharper. “Witnesses.”

“Yes.”

“To the audience?”

“To parts of it.”

“Define parts.”

“Parck was present initially. Cadet Vanto as well, acting as translator. Palace personnel were present. Guards. At least one aide. Others may be identified from access protocols.”

“And they heard you speak?”

“Yes.”

“They heard you answer Palpatine?”

“Yes.”

“They heard you present information?”

“Yes.”

“They heard you persuade him.”

Thrawn paused. “Not all of it.”

Caro’s smile did not vanish. It became greedy in a way he would have denied under oath. “Explain.”

“The Emperor dismissed most personnel for a portion of the discussion.”

“Of course he did.”

“We walked in the gardens.”

Caro stared at him. “You walked in the gardens with Palpatine.”

“Yes.”

“Unrecorded.”

“To my knowledge.”

“Unwitnessed.”

“Yes.”

“After the witnessed portion of an audience in which you spoke, answered questions, and demonstrated sufficient intelligence, intention, and agency that the Emperor chose to continue the conversation privately.”

Thrawn was silent.

Caro leaned forward, both hands flat on the table. “That,” he said, “I can use.”

“I did not say what you may wish me to have said.”

“No. You said something better.”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed very slightly.

Caro pointed to the notes. “If the prosecution wishes to treat you as an Imperial officer with full legal responsibility, they must show the legal basis by which the Empire recognized you as such. If they wish to avoid the uglier implication that you were conveyed to Palpatine as property, they will have to emphasize the audience. Your intelligence. Your statements. Your voluntary offer of service. Your persuasion of the Emperor.” He smiled again. “And if they emphasize that, they prove that Palpatine knew you were not a beast, not an object, not an exotic military curiosity, but a person capable of argument, consent, and political value — and then failed to naturalize you properly anyway.”

ALEX-4’s photoreceptors brightened. “That contradiction is procedurally significant.”

“Alex,” Caro said, “that contradiction is a gift.”

Thrawn looked at him.

Caro’s smile faltered by one degree. The word had landed badly. He heard it as soon as he said it.

For once, ALEX-4 did not need to correct him.

Caro exhaled through his nose. “An evidentiary gift,” he amended. “And that may have been an unfortunate term.”

“Yes,” ALEX-4 said.

“Thank you, Alex.”

“You are welcome.”

Thrawn took a measured sip of water.

Caro rubbed one hand over his face. “Right. Strategy.” He gathered the pages together, now with more care than before. “We need Parck and the access list for that audience.” Thrawn kept a blank face. “We need Palace personnel rosters, guard rotations, aide logs, transport records, and anyone still alive who remembers whether the Emperor was presented with a captured alien animal or a thinking military actor who persuaded him in front of witnesses.”

Thrawn’s voice was quiet. “That distinction may not have mattered to Palpatine.”

“No,” Caro said. “But it will matter to a court.” He tapped the sealed stack once. “Or it will matter when the court tries very hard to pretend it does not.” Caro’s smile did not vanish at once. It settled. That was usually more dangerous. He gathered the pages into a neater stack and tapped them once against the table.

“Voss Parck,” he said. Thrawn waited. “After Coruscant. After the Academy. Did you have further contact with him?”

“Yes.” Caro looked up. “Several times.”

“In what capacity?”

“At first, indirectly. Later, professionally.”

“That is a marvelously sterile word.”

“It is accurate.”

“Give me the least sterile version.”

Thrawn’s expression remained still. “By the time our contact became significant again, I was a Grand Admiral.”

Caro’s stylus stopped. “And Parck?”

“An admiral.”

For a moment, Caro said nothing. Then he leaned back very slowly. “Well,” he said. “That must have been exquisitely awkward.”

Thrawn did not answer. Very wise of him.

Caro looked down at the notes again, but he was no longer reading them. He was seeing the line they made: Parck’s prisoner, Palpatine’s gift, Imperial cadet, officer, commander, Grand Admiral. Then Parck again, no longer captor and specimen, but subordinate colleague, forced by the Empire’s own promotions to stand before the man he had once carried to the Emperor in restraints.

The law enjoyed continuity. It was much less prepared for irony.

“Did Parck ever discuss your initial presentation to Palpatine with you afterward?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Did he apologize?”

“No. Why would he?” Caro’s eyes lifted. Thrawn met them. “It is possible,” Thrawn said, “that he did not believe an apology was required.”

“That,” Caro said, “is one of the more Imperial sentences I have heard this week, and the competition has been appalling.”

ALEX-4 made a notation tone.

Caro glanced toward him. “Do not mark that as substantive.”

“I marked it as contextual.”

“Fine. I dislike that you may be right.”

Thrawn took another measured sip of water.

Caro closed the third note case. The sound was soft. Final enough. “We are going to stop here.”

Thrawn inclined his head. “Because you have what you need?”

“No.” Caro placed both hands on top of the sealed case. “Because I have enough to know what I need next, and because if I keep asking questions while irritated, I may accidentally become a prosecutor.”

“That would be inconvenient.”

“For both of us, but mostly for my self-respect.”