"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автора

she'd already borne. She left, and Huff married me."
"Biggs's mother died before I was born. Aunt Lanal is actually my mother's
sister, so she's my aunt on both sides." Gavin gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"Is Uncle Huff avail-able?"
Lanal nodded. "He asked me to put you in the library. He's meeting with someone
else right now, but he should be free shortly."
"Great."
The Darklighter estate struck Corran as an expensive compromise between the
practicalities demanded by Tatooine and the essence of elegance as defined in
other places within
the galaxy. Fountains and pools would have been a foolish waste, but Huff
succeeded in providing water features by en-casing them entirely in
transparisteel. Whereas a simple deco-rative column in any other home might have
been painted brightly, Huff filled it with water and bubbled air up through it.
Tiles on the thick walls were decorated and colored in such a way that they
created optical illusions meant to diminish the blockiness of the house's
design. Liberal use of transpari-steel gave the dwelling an openness that it
would not have otherwise had, yet elsewhere in the house more traditional design
and decoration made Corran feel as if he'd never left Coruscant.
The library into which Lanal guided them was just one such room.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined all the walls except where the doorways split
them in two places. They entered through the south wall, and a closed double
doorway bifur-cated the east wall. The shelves and the doors were probably of
duraplast, but Corran couldn't rule out actual wood hav-ing been used. If that's
true, it bad to be imported from many light-years away and probably cost as much
as a squadron of X-wings.
Corran felt a chill run through him as he entered the library. Box after box of
datacards filled the shelves, though trinkets and other odds and ends spaced
them out a bit. What made Corran feel odd about the room was that it reminded
him very much of the library in the Lusankya annex facility through which he had
escaped from Isard. Though no trace of it was found after the Lusankya blasted
its way free of Coruscant, the setup had been almost identical to the Impe-rial
library in the private floor of Imperial Palace. At least it seemed so to Corran
when he viewed a broadcast hologram about the palace.
I suppose a businessman like Huff Darklighter would want a decor that made
Imperial officials feel at home. The briefing files Winter had given Corran
about Huff Darklighter left no doubt that Huff had worked out an accommodation
with the local Imperial officials that had given him free rein to operate on
Tatooine. Those same arrangements also got his son Biggs his appointment to the
Imperial Military Academy
and, in the end, led to Biggs's death. Since Darklighter isn't prone to
accepting blame for anything himself, the favor Imps had done for him was seen
as the cause of his son's death. Conversely, because Biggs is a hero of the
Rebellion, Darklighter is willing to deal with the New Republic.
Gavin looked around at the shelves, then smiled. "Huff's working office is up in
the tower. His negotiating office is next door. Once he ushers out whoever is in
there, we'll get to go in. Once he learns you're from Corellia I bet he finds
you some Whyren's Reserve whisky."
Mirax smiled. "I'll take that and maybe make a side deal for any extra he has
stashed away."