“No,” Thrawn said. “The empty cars ride higher on their rails than the full ones. We’ve also passed through three connecting loci, and there were no cars or passengers waiting at any of them.”

He turned, fixing her with such an intense look that she reflexively drew back a little. “What’s happened to our capital, Ziara?”

“The same thing that happened to the whole planet,” Ziara said quietly. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have done that to you. But you’re not supposed to know.”

“To know what? That the people of Csilla are gone?”

“Oh, they’re not gone,” she said. “Well, yes, most of them are, but the big exodus happened over a thousand years ago. What they taught you in school about how changes in the sun’s output and the slow freezing of the surface forced the population of Csilla underground is mostly true. What the histories leave out is that the numbers that were moved below were a far cry from the four billion who’d been living here at the time.”

“Where did they go?”

“Other planets,” Ziara said. “Mostly Rentor, Avidich, and Sarvchi. The Syndicure and fleet headquarters were kept here, along with a lot of the cargo and merchant facilities. Some of the families moved their homesteads to worlds where they already had strong presences, but most didn’t want to leave Csilla entirely.”

“They also moved underground?”

“Right,” Ziara said. “My family’s new homestead—well, new as of a thousand years ago—is in a huge cavern about two kilometers below the surface. Still on our same land, of course. The Irizi are a bit obsessive about territory and history.”

“So how many people actually live on Csilla?”

“Sixty or seventy million,” Ziara said. “Though all the official records put the number at eight billion.” She waved at the city around them. “All the rest of this is just for show.”

“For whom?”

“Our visitors,” she said. “Our alien trading partners.” She felt her throat tighten. “Our enemies.”

“So a few continue to live aboveground to create the illusion,” Thrawn murmured. “Light and heat are also maintained. Tube cars continue to travel across the remaining cities, pretending to be the traffic of a thriving population.” He looked at Ziara. “I presume that on the far side our tube will descend into one of the tunnels?”

She nodded. “There are a few hundred people in Csaplar at any given time. They’re rotated out frequently so they don’t have to put up with the conditions up here for very long. The rest of the city—the real city—is spread out in caverns, mostly concentrated around the Syndicure complex. More illusion for our diplomatic visitors.”

“And of course, most civilian visitors and merchants stay close to one of the spaceports,” Thrawn said, nodding. “The activity there and around the government complex disguises the emptiness of the rest of the city.”