“No,” Thrawn said, gazing out the viewport. “All my training and briefings took place at the Expansionary Fleet complex on Naporar.”

Ziara peered at his profile. There was a tightness around his eyes and lips. “You seem worried.”

“Worried?”

“The state of seeing large nighthunters lurking in your future,” Ziara said. “You know you have nothing to be concerned about, right? The liner owners can squawk all they want, but the fact remains that you saved eight thousand people who otherwise would be compressed mush right now.”

“I imagine anything resembling mush would have long since dissipated into tendrils of shredded organic molecules within the atmospheric currents.”

“Oh, I like that one,” Ziara said. “Okay if I borrow it?”

“You’re welcome to it.” Thrawn nodded at the planet. “No, I was just thinking. I’ve been in trouble before, but I’ve never been called to such a high-level hearing.”

“Because all the other questionable things you did were essentially military,” Ziara reminded him. “This one is essentially civilian. More important, it’s civilian connected to one of the Nine Families. That puts you on everyone’s scanners.”

“Yet you suggest I don’t need to worry?”

“No, because the passenger list included Aristocra from at least five of the other Nine Families,” Ziara said. “When pique comes to poke, five-to-one odds make a pretty decent battle position.”

“I hope it won’t come to that.” Thrawn nodded toward the viewport. “Is that Csaplar?”

Ziara craned her neck. Barely visible in the otherwise featureless surface was what appeared to be a massive city frozen in the ice. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Capital of the Chiss Ascendancy, and once the flower-spray of culture and refinement. We’ll be landing at the spaceport on the southwest edge and taking a tunnel car westward to fleet headquarters. You won’t see that complex from up here, by the way—it’s mostly underground.”

“Yes, I know,” Thrawn said. “You say Csaplar was once a center of culture. Not anymore?”

“Sadly, no,” Ziara said. “But it really was marvelous once.”

“Odd,” Thrawn said, sounding a bit confused. “I would think that a city population of seven million would be more than enough to support both a government and the arts.”

“One would think so,” Ziara agreed, looking casually around the shuttle. Too many people. But there would be plenty of time later to tell him the truth. “But don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find something down there to do.”

The hearing, as Ziara had predicted, was short and perfunctory. The Boadil family, which had owned the doomed liner, had sent a representative who loudly insisted that Thrawn be punished, demoted, or possibly thrown out of the Expansionary Defense Fleet altogether. Three of the five families whose members had been saved from death were also represented, countering that Thrawn deserved promotion, not censure. In the end, it all balanced out, and Thrawn ended up exactly where he’d started.