Stepping inside her office, Warden Sadiki Blirr flicked her gaze up at the bank of holoscreens that ran the length of the wall like a jury of accusatory eyes. A few of the screens were dedicated surveillance feeds, displaying different areas of the prison—the mess hall, the medbay, the warren of concourses, tunnels, and catwalks that branched like spokes off the vast open gallery area where inmates milled about before and after matches.
The majority of the screens, however, represented incoming calls waiting for her, a queue of holonet conversations with bookies, bureaucrats, and the heads of various gambling combines, all no doubt in response to last night’s bout.
“Good morning, Warden,” the 3D-4 admin droid announced cheerily as Sadiki crossed the office. “And how are we feeling this morning?”
“Living the dream.” She settled in behind the central console, where her morning coffee was already waiting. Leaning forward, she fingerprinted in the biometric code to bring up her morning schedule, watching the vivid swaths of data-wash scrolling over the tablets in front of her. “Pull up the holovid of last night’s match, would you?”
“Of course,” ThreeDee responded, and turned its head to the row of waiting calls. “However, as you can imagine, we already have several representatives from the casinos and the Gaming Commission who are extremely interested in—”
“They can wait.”
“Perhaps I ought to remind you also of your morning meeting with—”
“Thanks for your input,” Sadiki said, without glancing up. “Is the holovid ready?”
“Certainly,” ThreeDee said crisply. “You wish for me to replay it from the beginning?”
“Would you mind terribly?”
“Not at all.” The admin droid had been working with her for three years, and its sheer obliviousness to her sarcasm was one of its most endearing traits. It chirped and swiveled, and its dedicated holoprojector fluttered to life, already making subtle adjustments to amplitude and phase modulations to enhance the image. Behind her desk, Sadiki sat back, put her feet up, and took a sip of coffee as the entire wall of her office filled with the footage of last night’s fight.
This would be the third time she’d watched it.
She made it a habit to view every match at least twice—once live, as it was happening, and then later, with a more analytical eye for the strengths and weaknesses of the individual fighters. What she’d discovered over hundreds of fights was that sometimes, upon repeated viewings, the fight itself would emerge like some third organism, something bigger than either of the combatants, a kind of composite presence knitted together of sweat, desperation, and perhaps unexpected elegance, with a personality all its own.
Last night’s former champion had been a particularly monstrous species that the prison’s most sophisticated recognition algorithm hadn’t been able to identify. Two meters tall and crosshatched with ritualistic scars, brandishing some kind of living staff and little else, the inmate had arrived here on Cog Hive Seven six standard months earlier with a shipment of other convicts, two of whom it had already dispatched in transit. Since that time the thing had defied all attempts at classification. It had screeched and chattered a language none of them recognized, and systematically slaughtered everything pitted against it. Some of the guards thought it was female.
On the other side was the newly arrived inmate—a bald and muscular Zabrak, red-skinned, covered with black tattoos and a crown of ten vestigial horns. Even now, after repeated viewings, Sadiki couldn’t take her eyes off him. In the final moments, when the challenger destroyed the serpent-staff, literally ripping off its head and feeding it to his opponent, she’d felt a dark tremor of excitement that she hadn’t experienced in ages. It was, she supposed, the same primal fascination that kept the gamblers across the galaxy betting millions of credits as they gathered to watch live holofeeds of the contests.
When the fight was over, she froze the holo on the face of the new champion, his red skin and yellow eyes glaring back at her. Gazing at it, she took a thoughtful sip of her coffee.
“He took back his tooth,” she said finally.
ThreeDee’s head swiveled back toward her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Our new champion. Before he killed his opponent, he took back his tooth.”
“Perhaps it is customary for his species to—”
“What’s his name?” she asked. “The new inmate?”
“Prisoner 11240?” ThreeDee answered back. “I’ve already taken the liberty of uploading all relevant data onto your tablet.”
Sadiki punched the numbers into the console in front of her, watching her new champion’s file scroll across the screen. It read:
Inmate 11240
Date of Entry: 01102211224
Name: Jagannath
Species: Zabrak
Gender: Male
Height: 1.75 meters
Mass: 80 kg
Eyes: Yellow
Skin: Red
Prior Occupation: Mercenary
Charged With: Murder
“That’s it?” Sadiki stabbed the cursor down, but the screen was blank. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“Where did he come from? Can somebody at least tell me that?”
“He was apprehended on a routine sweep of the mining colonies on Subterrel, where local authorities identified him from an outstanding murder charge. Initial lab cultures and blood work are still pending.” The droid clicked and whirred toward her, photoreceptors brightening. “So far he has eluded any more detailed classification. Would you like me to order a full psychiatric workup?”
Sadiki considered before shaking her head. “No. Not yet. For now let’s see how long he lasts. He wouldn’t be the first big noise to come through here and pull a quick fade.”
“Of course,” ThreeDee said. “If there’s nothing else, I have Gaming Commissioner Chlorus for you. And Eamon Huang of the casino on Ando Prime. Whom would you like to speak to first?”
“Chlorus?” Sadiki found herself reaching up instinctively to check her reflection in the nearest screen, sweeping her fingers through her bangs. “Put him through.”
“Very good.”
The holovid switched over to a life-sized image of a silver-haired, distinguished-looking human in a double-faced worsted greatcoat that tapered smoothly down to his ankles. Dragomir Chlorus was at least sixty, but his olive-eyed, almost tropically tanned face appeared twenty years younger, even furrowed with the lines of impatience that he wore now.
“Commissioner,” Sadiki said, raising her cup in mock salute. “You’re looking dashing as always. One day you’ll have to tell me your secret for never aging a day. Is it dietary?”
“Yes,” Chlorus said dryly. “I’ve eliminated all gratuitous flattery from my diet.” That famous scowl deepened, drawing deep brackets along either side of his mouth. “Now, I trust that takes care of the pleasantries between us?”
“Mm.” Sadiki sipped coffee and nodded. “Apparently so.”
“Good. You’ve kept me waiting quite long enough, Warden, and regardless of what you might have heard, the galaxy does not revolve around you.”
“Sadly, no.” Sadiki smiled, eyebrows raised. “But there was a time, wasn’t there?”
Chlorus blinked. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not,” she said, still smiling. “Well, give me a moment to put on my penitent cap, and then you can tell me what I’ve done today to offend the delicate sensibilities of the Galactic Gaming Commission.”
“This isn’t an occasion for levity, Warden. Exactly what sort of operation are you running out there?”
Sadiki’s eyebrows spiked. “My goodness, we are formal this morning.” And then, folding her hands on her desk, “All right. Well, as you know, Commissioner, Cog Hive Seven embodies a profitable gaming industry while providing a valuable service to millions of—”
“I think we can bypass the investment propaganda. I want to know about that new inmate from last night’s bout. And I want to know exactly how many credits you won when he tore his opponent apart.”
“Me personally?”
“Don’t play coy with me,” Chlorus snapped. “You’ll discover that I have neither the time nor the temperament for it.”
“Oh dear. And I liked to think that I’d already discovered everything there was to know about you.” Lowering her head, Sadiki flashed him her best innocent look. “I take it that your constituents weren’t satisfied with the outcome of the match?”
“To say the least,” Chlorus said. “And this morning you’ve got odds-makers and casinos from every Core planet yanking their hair out over this business. Frankly, I don’t blame them. Your reigning champion, whatever that thing was, was favored by an outlandishly large advantage. He’d won six straight fights in a row. But that Zabrak beat him handily.”
“He beat the odds,” Sadiki said, and shrugged. “That’s why they call it an upset.”
“May I remind you,” Chlorus said, “of how often that has happened recently in your facility?”
“Now hold on just a moment.” Sadiki sat forward. “You’re not implying that we enjoy an unfair advantage?”
“I never—”
“As you know, my brother and I determine the odds of every fight by a unique algorithm based on the fighting history, weight, criminal record, and all sorts of mitigating factors, the specifics of which are available to our millions of subscribers. Whether or not those individual elements add up a win, of course, is never a sure thing.” She shrugged again. “Which is why it’s considered gambling.”
“Yet the house always wins.”
“As do millions of others.” She looked at him carefully. “It’s a business, Commissioner.”
“An insanely profitable one.”
“Is that a question?”
Chlorus cleared his throat. “Since its inception,” he said, “there’s no question that Cog Hive Seven has enjoyed an unprecedented popularity among the gambling community—”
“Good of you to say so.”
“But at this point I’d remind you to be aware of the fact that there are an increasing number of casino owners, galactic bankers, and …”
Chlorus hesitated. “Particularly the small-time crime syndicates that control the gambling activity in the Outer Rim, all of whom have taken notice of how regularly you set the odds and then proceed to beat them.”
“Which syndicates are we talking about, exactly?” Sadiki asked. “And isn’t that sort of thing really outside your scope of influence?”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“Oh,” Sadiki said, “I think I am. You’re worried about the Commission saving face among its IBC cronies and upholding your personal reputation for being tough on corruption and organized crime. All of which I respect. But I hardly think you need to threaten me with fines—”
“Fines?” Chlorus leaned slightly forward, and his voice softened, becoming almost gentle. “Sadiki, I’m going to stop you right there. I know your proclivity for unorthodox behavior, but out of respect for our shared history, I want you to consider this a friendly warning.” He paused, sighed like a man about to lift a particularly unwieldy weight, then gathered himself and continued. “If Cog Hive Seven is using insider information to place its own bets, then you of all people should know that the Gaming Commission is the last thing you need to worry about.”
“Meaning what, exactly? I’ll have a mob of Black Sun vigos showing up and throwing their weight around my prison?” She gave a throaty chuckle. “Respectfully, I’d like to see them try.”
“Not necessarily Black Sun.”
“Who, then?”
Chlorus cast an uneasy glance to the right, at something offscreen that she couldn’t see. “I’ve said enough. Good-bye, Sadiki.”
“Wait a second—”
But his face was gone. Chlorus had already cut off the transmission. Leaning back into her seat with a sigh, Sadiki reached for her coffee, only to find that it had gone cold.
“Lovely.” She glanced around the office for her droid. “ThreeDee, can you please heat this up for me, and find out whom I’m supposed to placate next?”
“I think,” a voice said from the doorway, “that should probably be me.”
Sadiki glanced up at the tall, slender Muun who seemed to have materialized without warning in the office’s open hatchway. She saw with a certain resigned dismay that he was dressed in signatory Palo fiduciary garb, a round-collared green tunic, formfitting trousers, and boots. The uniform told her all that she needed to know about who he was and, in all likelihood, why he’d come.
With a cool smile, she rose from behind her desk.
“I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
“Vesto Slipher,” the Muun said. “InterGalactic Banking Clan. We’ve spoken before by holofeed, but I’ve never had the pleasure of a face-to-face encounter.”
“Well.” She allowed the smile to retract just slightly into the corners of her mouth. “Always a pleasure to host an unexpected visit from the IBC.”
“Really?” Slipher’s smile matched her own. “Your expression tells me otherwise.”
“Oh, don’t take it personally. It’s been that kind of morning.” Sadiki glanced at ThreeDee, then back at Slipher. “Are you on my schedule?”
“I tried to tell you—” the droid began to protest, but Slipher just smiled.
“My dear,” the Muun said, with infinite civility, “I am your schedule.”