People from many worlds crowded around Han and his companions as they made their way toward the graceful gilt buildings. Han thought he saw the ghostling who had approached him in the welcome dome.
The effect of calligraphy, of esoteric hieroglyphics, was magnified by the entry to the structure. An intricate design traced secrets in gold across the mirrored facade. The building’s wings curved around to form a sheltered, quiet courtyard. The visitors gathered just outside, then entered the silent space singly or in small groups.
Xaverri calmly waited their turn. Han passed the time by trying to identify as many homeworlds as he could. After several dozen, there were still individuals left over whose origin he could not guess.
He nudged Threepio. “Where do those folks over there come from?” He did not point; too many people in the Republic found pointing intolerably rude. He nodded toward a multihumped stack of mobile seaweed. “And is it a group, or one person?”
“Why, a group, of course, sir. They are from the fourth world of Markbee’s Star, specifically, from—if I am not mistaken—Zeffliffl. That is to say, from the shallow seas of the smaller southern continent—”
One of the leafy mounds produced a bulging bag, twisted one end, and squeezed liquid from the bag in an arching spray to splash itself and its companions. Some of the droplets rained down on Han. He stepped back, but it was only saltwater. The wet leaves of the Zeffliffl glistened blackly in the gold light of the building. A few leaves fluttered to the ground and lay twitching.
“How about them?” He gestured toward a second group, half a dozen massive, low-to-the-ground ovoidal people with short, powerful legs and eyes on thick flexible stalks.
“They are,” Threepio said.
“Are what?”
Threepio did not reply.
“What?” Han asked.
“I just told you, sir,” Threepio said. “Oh. I beg your pardon. The language exists at a frequency below the limits of your hearing. It is a function of the environment, which is extremely high gravity.”
“They’re sick,” Luke said softly.
“No, Master Luke,” Threepio said patiently, “they are speaking a language that human ears—”
“I don’t mean them,” Luke said. “I mean—there’s somebody in almost every group who’s ill or injured.”
Paying more attention to types of people he was familiar with, Han soon saw that Luke was right. The gathering took on a poignancy that he had not previously perceived. Here a family huddled together, protecting a child or parent or cross-cousin; there a clan group carried a stretcher that supported a moaning, palsied colleague.
Han nodded at Luke, agreeing with his analysis.
Luke doesn’t look so hot himself, Han thought. What’s happening to him? He never gets sick …
“You will understand soon,” Xaverri said. Her expression was grim. “It is our turn.”
She entered the courtyard. Han followed, with Luke at his side; Threepio brought up the rear.
Silence surrounded them. The golden calligraphy on the front of the building glimmered against the mirrored sheen of the wall. The perspective changed as Han walked. The calligraphy moved and shifted and writhed, as if it were still being written.
They were alone in the courtyard. The quiet was eerie. Han glanced over his shoulder, taken by the illusion that all the other people had disappeared. They had not; they remained where he had left them, crowded up to the entrance of the courtyard, waiting, speaking with quiet excitement among themselves. But their voices were inaudible.
“Master Luke, I wonder, all things considered,” Threepio said, “shall I wait outside?”
“If you prefer,” Xaverri said. “But I am accepted. There will be no danger to any of us.”
“Danger!” Han said. “Wait just a minute. Who said anything about any danger?”
“No one,” Xaverri said, amused. “I said there is no danger, if you follow my lead.”
“But—”
“I meant,” Threepio said, “that this does not appear to be a place likely to welcome … my kind.”
“All forms of sentience are welcome here,” Xaverri said.
“Even droids?”
“Even droids.”
“Ah,” Threepio said. “Somewhat unusual. Quite … enlightened.”
They passed beneath an archway at the far end of the courtyard, and descended into bedlam.
Inside, the awed gathering had transformed itself into wailing, begging supplicants. They roiled in an undisciplined crowd toward the back of the wide, low theater, where a high golden altar loomed above them.
“Waru, help us! Waru, heal my child, heal my egg-sister, protect my hearth-friends from the curse laid upon them!”
The pleas echoed in the chamber. Luke grabbed Han’s upper arm. His fingers dug painfully into Han’s biceps.
“Hey, kid—”
“Look,” Luke said urgently.
The altar moved.
Han tensed. “What—? Where is that from, Threepio?”
“I confess, sir, that despite my knowledge of all the worlds of the New Republic, and many worlds outside it, I am unfamiliar with this being.”
“That is Waru,” Xaverri said.
The altar—the being—rose higher with a clenching contraction. It oriented itself toward them.
“Approach me, Xaverri.”
The voice was rich and full and clear and very, very soft. It filled the chamber with a whisper, insinuating itself past the pleading of the congregation. Xaverri stepped forward, and the crowd parted for her. Han followed without thinking; all he knew was that he did not want her to approach the strange being alone. He pulled himself free of Luke’s restraining hand.
As Han neared the altar, he got a better look at Waru. It was a complex construct of chased gold shields. But beneath the shields, visible from certain angles and at certain movements of the being, lay a slab of raw, uncovered tissue, like chunks of meat. Fluid—blood?—glistened between the massive shields, oozed out, and fell by drops and fine streams onto the stage, where it coagulated into a crusted pool. The blood ran off the stage and formed stalactites that hung nearly to the floor of the auditorium.
Xaverri stopped at the edge of the stage.
“Thou art not alone, Xaverri,” Waru whispered.
“I am not alone, Waru.”
“Do they wish to be healed?” Waru sounded infinitely tired.
“No, Waru. I have brought new students to study thy revelations, and learn thy truth, and appreciate thine existence. To give thee their devotion.”
Thou? Han thought. Oh, fine, what is this, some obscure dialect—? Thou art, thou hast, thou wouldst … What did they just say? Thou wouldst hadst beenst …? No, that’s not right.
Waru sighed. “I am very pleased. Only thou, Xaverri, hast ever offered me a gift. All others plead for my gifts—and I am glad to give them! But …”
“Thy generosity is the marvel of Crseih Station,” Xaverri said.
No one else responded to Waru’s complaint. It was as if the being’s whisper reached only Xaverri and her friends. Come to think of it, Han had not heard Waru speaking to anyone else. He had only heard Waru’s whisper when the being addressed Xaverri directly.
Good trick, Han thought. It has to be a trick—doesn’t it? Unless … it’s what Luke is looking for.
He glanced at Luke, but he could not tell whether this was the lost Jedi Luke sought. Luke’s expression was intent, but he revealed no joy.
The golden plates riffled, as sensuous and sleek as an animal’s fur. They contracted, and the veins between them closed together. Fluid—Ichor, Han thought, this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything that should truly be called ichor—ran from beneath Waru’s massive base, seeping out to form a new, glistening layer around it. One droplet flowed along the spike of a stalactite, hung at the tip, simultaneously stretched and coagulated, and froze into a narrow, sharp edge at the end of the spike.
As Waru’s armor contracted, the being rose even higher, craning toward them. Han searched in vain for obvious organs of sight, hearing, smell, or other sensation. But he could not even tell how Waru produced a voice.
Maybe it perceives us as heat impressions, right on its skin, Han thought.
Or maybe, he thought, it doesn’t perceive us at all. Maybe it isn’t even alive.
“Thou hast brought me a new creature,” Waru said to Xaverri. “I have seen humans before—oh, yes, many humans, humans are so frail—but not this other being.” Waru leaned forward. The crusted ichor cracked and flaked away, revealing new edges of gold scales. “Who are you? What are you?”
Xaverri drew See-Threepio forward. “This is my new acquaintance, Purple-Three. I thought perhaps thou hadst not met his like before.”
“Welcome, Purple-Three,” Waru said.
“Thank you, Mr. Waru,” Threepio said. “I am most honored to be permitted into your presence.”
Han gave Threepio a lot of credit for picking up on Waru’s use of the standard you instead of the esoteric thou. The droid had noticed, as Han had not, that Waru used thou for Xaverri alone.
I would have put my foot in it, Han thought. Probably offended the hell out of this critter. Why didn’t Xaverri tell us—?
“My name is only Waru,” the enormous being said, its voice a purr. “Though some call me ‘teacher.’ It is the only honorific I esteem.”
“Then I would be pleased to use it, if you will accept it from me,” Threepio said. “I have studied many subjects, in many places. I am an expert on human-cyborg relationships and am fluent in six million forms of communication. I am always grateful for a teacher willing to share esoteric knowledge.”
Han found the heat and humidity oppressive. The coppery scent of Waru’s ichor prickled uncomfortably in his lungs. Beside him, Luke stared at the being with a fixed, hypnotized gaze.
“Relax, kid.” Han’s voice was quiet, amused. “It’s only a—”
Xaverri shot him a quick, furious warning glance. Luke turned slowly toward him with an icy, inhuman glare, then returned his attention to Waru. Startled, Han shut up, but he finished the comment to himself: This is a scam, he thought. It’s the most elaborate one I’ve seen in a while, but it’s still a scam. If Luke and Ben Kenobi are anything to judge by, no Jedi would behave like this—and if Waru represented the dark side, Luke would know it.
The best reaction I can give this thing is laughter.
“Xaverri, honored student, wert thou able to study the texts I gave thee?”
“Yes, teacher,” Xaverri said.
“Of course thou didst comprehend the connection between the ego-flux and the universal backlight, but I wonder if thou didst make the conceptual leap to the synergy of intellectual realization and quantum crystallization?”
“I am embarrassed to admit that I had not,” Xaverri said, “though now that thou hast shown me the path, I can see that the interaction is completely inevitable.”
Han repressed a snort of annoyance and disbelief.
Xaverri and Waru conversed in that manner for a few minutes, oblivious to the crowd and the noise and the pleas for assistance. The wailing began to get on Han’s nerves. What he wanted to do was leap up on the stage and tell all these people to go home and see their doctors. He wanted to ask Xaverri why she kept flattering Waru. It shocked him to witness her deference to the being.
In the old days, she had never been susceptible to this kind of fraud. She knew too much about fraud to be taken in. She had designed some similar hoaxes herself, though she reserved the healer scam for particularly loathsome Imperial officers. She had never failed to relieve her chosen prey of a considerable portion of their resources.
Did she believe Waru’s nonsense? If she did, she had changed beyond recognition from the person Han used to know, changed far beyond the physical. If she did not believe—then what were they doing here?
Threepio observed the conversation in uncharacteristic silence. Han frowned. Threepio’s expression was impossible to read, but it was seldom difficult to know what the droid thought about any particular situation. Threepio would tell you. Or the droid would dissemble transparently. For a diplomat, Threepio was one of the poorest liars Han had ever met.
On the other hand, a lot of people found it flattering to know they were being lied to, if the lie was to soothe their feelings or acknowledge their status. Threepio was a master of that technique.
Luke watched and listened with the same fixed and intense expression that had possessed him as soon as he encountered Waru. Luke’s reaction troubled Han most of all.
Waru completed a philosophical discourse on the state of the universe, which Han had long since lost track of.
“And now,” Waru said with every evidence of disappointment, “I cannot further indulge myself in this enlightening conversation.”
Xaverri placed her hand on one of Waru’s golden scales. She closed her eyes and fell silent and still. The gold scale took on a pink glow and radiated gentle warmth around Xaverri’s fingers. Luke took one step toward her, lifting his hand. Han grabbed him and pulled him back. Luke turned on him, snarling.
With a startled curse, Han nearly dropped Luke’s wrist. He wanted to walk out of the assembly in disgust even if it meant leaving his friends to be bilked and shamed.
“Don’t be stupid!” Han whispered fiercely. “And don’t presume on a few minutes’ acquaintance!” He tightened his grip.
Luke looked at Han’s fingers clamped around his flesh and squeezing his bones together. Intelligence leaked back into Luke’s eyes. He made a leisurely turning movement of his hand; he slipped from Han’s tight grasp without apparent effort.
“You’re right,” he said. His voice was tight. He turned his back on Han and watched Xaverri and Waru, intently, hungrily.
“I hate it when you do that,” Han muttered. His fingers tingled, not because of any violence in Luke’s motion, but because he had been holding so tightly that his hand spasmed when Luke pulled free.
The marks of Han’s fingers remained, first white, then red, on Luke’s skin.
Xaverri drew back from Waru. Her handprint glowed, then faded from the golden scale. A drop of ichor oozed from the scale’s lower edge and fell with a sticky plop. Xaverri made a motion of obeisance toward Waru.
The being’s attention left them abruptly, like a release of pressure. Han staggered one step forward, caught himself, and shrugged off the odd effect. But he was curious about how the effect had been produced.
Xaverri backed up. The roiling crowd surged ahead of her, each member keening for Waru’s recognition.
Xaverri’s knees buckled. Her collapse surprised Han so thoroughly that he nearly let her fall. In all the years he had known her, in the old days, she had never fainted, even at times of exhaustion or pain. Her stamina had always amazed him. His first thought, as she fell, was that she must be sinking to the ground for some deliberate reason: she wanted to make another bow to Waru; she had dropped something and had to retrieve it.
Han jumped forward and caught her before she fell beneath trampling feet. She trembled violently. Luke and Threepio closed in, forming a small circle. Moving against the flow of the crowd, they pushed their way to the back of the theater. Han plunged toward the door, but Xaverri struggled free.
“Stay here!” she said. “I am all right, I only—speaking with Waru affects me for a moment. But you must see the ceremony.”
“Affects you?” Han said. “It knocked you flat. Let’s get out of here!”
The color began to return to her golden-tan face, and her shivering ceased.
“You must observe,” she said again.
“She’s right,” Luke said. “It’s what we came here for.”
“All right,” Han said unwillingly.
It’s all a fraud, he said to himself. But even frauds can be dangerous.
They made their way to the very back of the auditorium. The floor slanted, so they had a view over the crowd. On the stage, in the frozen pool of ichor, Waru waited as one of the small groups of supplicants brought one of their members into the teacher’s presence. The Zeffliffl pressed one of the leafy comrades to the top of their heap, then slid the individual forward till it huddled on the ichor. Its color was noticeably paler than that of its companions, a sickly yellow-green rather than shiny and blue-black. It shed a flutter of small wilted leaves whenever it moved.
“Do you wish me to try to heal you, seeker?” Waru’s voice, no longer a directed, private whisper, rumbled through the hall.
The Zeffliffl responded with a flurry of sound, like leaves swirled in water.
“She says, ‘I entreat you to help me,’ ” Threepio said.
Now comes the scam, Han thought. Give Waru all your worldly goods—
“Then I will try to help you,” Waru said.
Every sound in the auditorium ceased abruptly. The attention of every being focused on Waru and Waru’s patient.
Waru leaned over the Zeffliffl. Several of the golden scales liquefied and splashed over the huddled Zeffliffl, covering it with a bright metallic shell. Han watched closely, wishing he were at the front of the auditorium so he could figure out how Waru conceived that effect.
Why’d you bring us all the way back here, Xaverri? he wondered. Were you afraid for me to be too close?
The metallic shell attached the Zeffliffl to Waru like a parasite, like an exterior womb. The raw wound left where the scales had melted gushed bloody ichor. The liquid flowed over the shell, patterning it like the calligraphy on the facade of Waru’s compound. The runnels flowed together, creating a translucent chrysalis around the shell.
At the foot of the stage, the Zeffliffl group huddled together, their leaves fluttering as if they were in a windstorm.
The room grew still. All around Han, people were bowing their heads. Even Xaverri, who had never bowed her head to anyone. Stubbornly, Han kept watching.
Waru shuddered. The golden scales touched, ringing together with pure clear tones, like bells enlivened by the wind.
Han divided his feelings equally between admiration for the effects and scorn for the gullibility of Waru’s followers.
The shuddering extended into the chrysalis. It trembled. It shook, and expanded.
The solidified ichor exploded. Like silver dust, the fragments hung and shivered in the air. Scars and scratches marred the golden shell. It, too, shivered, then slowly opened like a flower, revealing the Zeffliffl.
The gold petals drew back; Waru’s body resorbed them and re-formed the melted scales. At Waru’s base, the Zeffliffl lay quiet.
Suddenly it shook itself like a wet puppy. Its groupmates shrilled with excitement. Its leaves, green and dark with moisture, fanned open.
“They say,” Threepio whispered, “that their groupmate has returned from the dead.”
The healed Zeffliffl scrambled down and disappeared among the groupmates. The mass of beings backed away, twittering.
The silence of the auditorium ended as every being at Waru’s feet burst into speech and song and light.
“The Zeffliffl said thank you,” Threepio said, speaking loudly enough for them all to hear, “and—”
“And, “We will give you all our worldly goods,”” Han said cynically.
“No, sir, not at all,” Threepio said. “They acclaim Waru as their benefactor. No mention of monetary recompense has been made.”
Han shrugged, unconvinced. “Recompense always gets mentioned,” he said. “Eventually. Can we get out of here? The gratitude is making me sick.”
Xaverri turned away from him and walked out of the auditorium. After a moment of surprise, Han followed her. In the relative coolness and silence of the courtyard, welcome after the tumult of Waru’s reception hall, he caught up to her and touched her shoulder.
“Xaverri—!”
She shrugged him off and plunged through the gateway. Outside the calligraphed arch, she spun on him.
“Never speak, inside the courtyard. Never.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blow your cover.”
Threepio joined them. “Master Han, Mistress Xaverri, is anything wrong?”
“No,” Han said. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Except Luke’s still back there!”
Han plunged through the archway and ran through the courtyard, unreasonably anxious considering Luke had been out of his sight for about a minute. Han pushed his way back into the auditorium. At first he did not see Luke anywhere. His eyes were no longer accustomed to the dimness, and the noise and heat oppressed him.
He looked at the place where they had all been. Luke stood right where Han had left him. The young Jedi stared at the stage, where Waru had encysted another supplicant.
“Come on!” Han said. He grabbed Luke by the sleeve and dragged him bodily out of the theater.
Luke did not resist.
Xaverri was walking away, already a couple of hundred paces down the trail to the main entry of the dome. Threepio hovered halfway between, moving a few steps toward Xaverri and calling her name plaintively, then returning. When he saw Han and Luke, he stopped stock-still in relief, then hurried to join them.
“She would not wait, Master Han,” Threepio said. “I asked her politely, but …” Threepio stopped, at a loss for words.
“You worry too much,” Han said. “Purple-Three. Come on.”
Han led Luke past Threepio. Only when they had caught up to Xaverri did he let Luke go. Han’s brother-in-law had made no attempt to escape. His gaze was distant, his expression blank.
“Luke! What’s wrong? Snap out of it! Xaverri, wait!”
She complied, but her shoulders were stiff with anger.
Luke raised his head. Suddenly he was back, his usual self.
“Is Waru your lost Jedi?” Han demanded.
“No,” Luke said. “I don’t think so … I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.” He gazed into the distance. “I ought to be able to tell, to sense another Jedi Master. But I can’t.” He took a deep breath.
“Is it any kind of manifestation of the Force?” Han asked Luke.
Luke hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m sure I’d know it if it were. It isn’t. It’s … something else.”
He smiled, a luminescent smile that wiped out his hesitation, his apprehension.
“But it was amazing,” Luke said. “Wasn’t it amazing?”
Xaverri nodded. “Every time I see Waru do that, I cannot believe it. But I must.”
“I don’t believe it,” Han said. “If that thing isn’t a manifestation of the Force, what else could it be but a fraud? I can think of six different ways Waru—whatever it is—could bring off that illusion. Substitute another Zeffliffl for the sick one—”
“But, sir,” Threepio said, “the groupmates would not have accepted a substitute for their colleague. They would have reacted to an impostor quite violently.”
Han shrugged. “So Waru paid them off.”
“The reaction cannot be bought, sir,” Threepio said. “It is not conscious. It is comparable to an allergic response.”
Han flung up his arms in exasperation. “Then the sick one was the impostor, or a mechanical device. Or they painted the healthy one seasick-green and washed it off in the cocoon. It doesn’t matter how they did it—what matters is, they could have done it. Waru didn’t need supernatural healing powers to heal the Zeffliffl because the Zeffliffl didn’t need to be healed in the first place!”
Xaverri folded her arms and stared thoughtfully at the ground.
“Do you think I have completely lost my mind?” she asked, her tone cold.
Her contempt goaded him.
“Yeah, that would about cover it,” he said.
“I, Xaverri, the best creator of deceptions in the old Empire?”
“We all change,” he said. “Look, if somebody had a really fine scam, one even you couldn’t figure out—then you’d be easy to fool. You’re so good, it’s hard to imagine anyone better.”
“It is impossible,” she said.
Luke stared through the archway. Han feared he might have to chase Luke down again to keep him from going back inside.
“There’s something,” Luke said.
“But not your lost Jedi.”
“Han, it isn’t a fraud.”
“Luke is correct,” Xaverri said.
“Fine!” Han said. “I give up! Waru is for real, which means you don’t need me, because it isn’t the Republic’s business to interfere in people’s Worship!” He started down the trail without another word.
“Han!” Luke called. “Where are you going?”
“On vacation,” Han said. “I still have some vacation left!”
Threepio hurried after him.
“Master Han, if I may be so forward—”
“What is it?”
“Our resources are severely depleted. If you plan to gamble—and I certainly do not wish to imply that I believe you should not gamble, or that I believe there is anything wrong with gambling, or that there is any possibility that you might lose—but if you plan to gamble … don’t you think it would be for the best, merely as insurance of course, for you to leave some of your previous winnings in my care? That way I could pay our outstanding bill at the lodge. I noticed the lodge-keeper toting up our accounts as we left today, and he fixed me with a positively poisonous glare!”
Han pulled a wad of credits out of his pocket and thrust it into Threepio’s fingers.
“When you want some money, all you have to do is say, ‘Can I have some money?’ ” Han said. He laughed, thinking about the gaming table, the cards that he trusted to go his way. “Plenty more where that came from.”
He strode away.
Leia and Chewbacca did what they could for Rillao, the injured Firrerreo. Alderaan’s medical equipment expressed confusion when Leia asked for information. The Firrerreo were basically human, but something more, something different.
The equipment recommended food that might not be toxic. It failed to suggest a safe antibiotic, but, then, Rillao’s injuries had not become infected. She had astonishing powers of recuperation. Once the webbing had withdrawn, her skin began to regenerate and the hairline lacerations closed quickly enough for Leia to watch, with astonishment, as the healing occurred. Silver threads of scar tissue formed across Rillao’s golden skin.
But Rillao showed no signs of waking.
“What else should we do?” Leia asked the nameless Firrerreo.
He shrugged, barely moving his shoulders. “She’ll live, Lelila, or she’ll die.” He sprawled in a chair, perfectly relaxed.
“Don’t you care, either way?”
“She isn’t my clan.”
Leia let the subject drop. She brushed Rillao’s striped hair away from her thin, fierce face and drew a blanket up around her shoulders.
“Do your people sleep lying down?” she asked the nameless Firrerreo.
“How else?” he said, surprised into replying without an argument.
“How else, indeed,” Leia said. She laid one hand gently on Artoo-Detoo’s carapace. “Will you watch her for me?”
Artoo-Detoo beeped softly.
“Thank you,” Leia said to the droid. She turned to Chewbacca and the nameless Firrerreo. “Are you hungry?”
Chewbacca roared, with relief and hunger.
“Me, too,” Leia said.
She was ravenous. She had had nothing since the chamberlain’s cookies and drugged tea. She led the way to Alderaan’s tiny galley. She wondered if the Firrerreo would refuse to accept food, but he sniffed the bowl of stew she gave him—the analysis had suggested his metabolism required high levels of protein—tasted a bite, and dug in hungrily. He held the bowl near his mouth and delicately plucked the meat up in his first two fingers.
Chewbacca fixed himself a bowl of stew and garnished it with salty dry seaweed and a dribble of forest honey.
The dinner conversation was nonexistent, until Leia scraped up the last of her stew with a spoon. As she watched the Firrerreo drink the sauce from his second serving, she thought, He accepted my food because he doesn’t accept any obligation. He didn’t ask me for food. If I asked him for gratitude, he’d say, No one asked you to offer me anything. I owe you nothing.
“Why do you hate Rillao?” Leia asked.
He licked his lips and glanced at the stew pot, but thought again about overloading his system with a third helping.
“She was in the chamber!” His languor vanished and he leaned toward Leia, angry and intense. “She must be the reason we were exiled, Lelila. Why else would the Empire sentence her to spend the trip under torture?”
“Random cruelty.” Leia wondered why the Firrerreo used her name—her alias—so often. No matter. It helped her remember what she was calling herself.
“No. No. The Empire is cruel, Lelila, but it directs its cruelty. To create fear, to extort, to increase its power—”
“The Empire is gone,” Leia said. “It’s finished. Defeated. You’re free, you and your people.”
If she expected gratitude or even happiness, she was disappointed.
“Defeated!” He thumped his fist on the table. “You said you could give me my freedom—but, Lelila, it wasn’t yours to give!”
“I said you were free,” Leia said. “That’s all I said.” If she admitted who she was, she could claim some responsibility for his freedom. Instead, she would remain Lelila.
He growled low in his throat. Chewbacca growled, too.
But Leia remained calm. She smiled at the unnamed one.
“No one asked me for an explanation,” she said. “You only asked me for your freedom.”
He snorted in disgust, but his contempt lessened, to be replaced with an expression of grudging respect. To her astonishment, he rose and bowed.
Then he walked away.
“Where are you going, unnamed one?” Leia asked.
Without replying—Why did I expect him to reply? Leia thought—he left Alderaan’s galley.
She followed him; she caught up to him. He was a head taller than she, sleek and potentially powerful despite his gauntness. He continued toward the airlock without acknowledging her presence.
“Are you going to wake up your people, unnamed one?”
A few paces farther along, he said, “Here, Lelila? To what purpose?”
“The ship will return their strength while they sleep.”
“—and to decide what to do now that you’re free!”
“Should we return to our home, Lelila?” he snarled.
He knows, Leia thought. She wondered if the Empire troops had awakened him and tormented him with the news of his world’s death.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s quarantined. No one can land, and live … nothing can ever leave the planet.”
He stopped short at the airlock door. His shoulders slumped. Leia took his elbow, steadying him. The sound he made was the cry of a grief-stricken predator.
And Leia knew how he felt.
“I’m sorry,” Leia said again. “I’m so sorry.”
He turned upon her. “Lelila, did you have a hand in poisoning my world?”
“No! I—I played a small part in bringing down the people who ordered the poisoning.”
“The Starcrash Brigade?”
The Starcrash Brigade had been one of the Empire’s elite assault teams.
“Not the Brigade—the Empire.” She looked him in the eye. “It destroyed my world, too.”
He narrowed his wide black eyes. “Ah. Alderaan, yes, Lelila, I thought perhaps you were from Alderaan.”
The airlock door slid open. The unnamed one strode from Alderaan into the freighter’s echoing entry dock. Leia grabbed his wrist, but snatched back her hand when she felt his muscles tighten.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Continue.”
“But you don’t have to! Everyone’s free, now, within the New Republic.”
“The Empire bequeathed us a world. We will continue.”
“But it might be—you don’t know—what about the other ships stranded here?”
He leaned toward her. In the low gravity, the motion spread his hair around his head like a brindled halo.
“The other ships have nothing to do with me,” he said. “And I have nothing to do with them. Do with them as you will, Lelila. As for the new world … we are adventurous people. We will take our chances.”
“You’ll be traveling at sublight,” Leia said. “You’ll be traveling for years! The Republic could give you hyperdrive, or find a world for you within its bounds—”
“To what purpose?” he asked again. “We will not notice the length of time. We will not care. We will be asleep. If all memory of the Empire has vanished when we wake—so much the better. If your Republic has vanished when we wake—we will not care.”
Leia stepped back. Nothing she could say could change his mind, she knew that. He was doing what was right by his own sense of duty. She could not force him to accept hers.
“Good-bye, then,” she said. “And good luck.”
“May you always be shielded from the wind, Lelila.”
“Why do you keep repeating my name?” Leia asked.
“For power,” he said. “Lelila.”
The airlock door began to slide shut.
“But I gain only a little power from your false name, Princess Leia,” he said. “You wear it uncomfortably.” As the airlock door closed, he said, “And your disguise is pathetic.”
Han returned to the city domes and sauntered down the street. He wanted some more of the local ale, and he wanted another card game where Chance & Hazard topped the deck. But he also wanted a different tavern from the one he had been in last night.
“Good evening, small human.”
He spun around, and once more bumped his nose against the chest of the enhanced human. She laughed down at him, but Han got the distinct impression that her laughter was superficial.
“You left our game far too soon,” she said. “The cards began to turn my way, later on in the evening.”
“Congratulations!” Han said heartily. “I’m glad to hear your night wasn’t a complete loss.”
She leaned toward him, and the heavy, entangled locks of her white hair swung down on either side of her face.
“Nor will tonight be,” she said. “You are obviously well born and well mannered, so you will give me the chance to make myself even with you.”
“I wasn’t planning on cards tonight,” Han said. “Nope, no cards, I was just taking the air, just came out for a glass of ale.”
“Ale will run as plentifully as water,” she said. She took his upper arm in her huge hand. Her fingers met around his biceps.
“I mean, I’ve already had my glass of ale,” he said. “Hit my limit—”
He tried to twist his arm from her grip, as Luke had twisted from his. The enhanced human lifted his arm, lifted his whole body. Han stretched on tiptoe to stay in contact with the ground.
“You may drink or not, as you choose,” the enhanced human said. “But you will play.”
“Well, okay, sure, why didn’t you say you had your heart set on a game?” Han said. “Fine, let’s go. Would you do me a favor? Either put me down or pick me up. This is very uncomfortable.”
He thought she might sling him over her shoulder and cart him away. She could certainly do it if she chose. Finally she let him down. But she did not let him loose. She urged him down the street, holding his arm tight enough to bruise.
“I didn’t get your name last night,” Han said in a companionable tone. “What did you say it was? And by the way, you want to loosen up a little?”
“I did not say,” she said, “and you did not ask, but my name is Celestial Serenity. No, I do not want to loosen up at all.”
He glanced up at her. She smiled down at him and walked faster, pushing him along.
Jaina ate her breakfast.
She was so hungry she hardly even tasted the rancid grease that floated on top of the thin porridge. When she finished, her stomach still growled. She could smell the ripe fruit and honey and fresh hot bread that the Proctors passed among themselves.
Jaina’s mouth watered. She watched the Proctors at the highest table and the helpers at the middle table breakfasting on good food, more than they could eat. They laughed and shouted and threw half-eaten food on the floor to go to waste, and leaned way back in their chairs with their feet on the table.
The children, at the low tables, had to wait to be excused until the Proctors were all finished.
It isn’t fair! she thought.
Jaina could see Jacen, but only the top of his head. He was all the way on the other side of the cafeteria. She wished she could talk to him about what she had learned she could do. And she wished she could tell him she had drilled halfway through the door of her cell to the lock. Then she had stuck the sawdust together with spit, Ick, and pressed it back into the hole in the door so no one would notice.
Vram sat at the middle table with the other helpers. He wolfed down a piece of fruit, some bread, and a whole bunch of cookies. He picked up a honey-cake and waved it at the other children. At Jaina. Honey dripped down Vram’s fingers. He licked it off.
Jaina looked down so she would not have to see him.
On the table in front of her, a bug, a tiny myrmin, tiptoed past on its hair-thin legs.
It isn’t really a myrmin, Jaina thought. It has ten legs instead of just six, and an extra set of feelers! But it sort of looks like a myrmin. Jacen would know what it is. I bet it’s hungry.
Jaina scraped the last tiny grain of porridge out of her bowl. She put it near the myrmin. The myrmin walked around it, tapped it with its feelers, and struggled to lift it and move it and carry it.
I hope that tastes better to myrmins than to children, Jaina thought.
The myrmin balanced the sand-grain-sized bit of porridge and climbed down over the edge of the table.
The myrmin gave Jaina an idea.
Sand got tracked in from the playfield. It lay in the cracks between the stone tiles on the floor, and even in the spaces where the planks of the table touched. Jaina experimented with moving a grain.
I’ll pretend I’m a myrmin, she thought. Not a little girl, not Jaina. I don’t have any Jedi abilities—I’m just a myrmin! Who would pay any attention to a myrmin?
She pushed the sand grain. It skittered across the table and fell over the edge.
Jaina hunched her shoulders, expecting Hethrir’s cold wet blanket to fall around her and cut her off from the world.
Nothing happened. It was just like last night with the air molecules.
Jaina reached for sand grains on the Proctors’ table. She found none. Someone cleaned their table better. But plenty of sand lay on the platform at their feet. Jaina played with a few grains. They spiraled up into the air. No one noticed.
The Head Proctor picked up a section of fruit. Jaina dropped the scatter of sand grains on it. The Proctor tossed it down to Vram. For a second, Jaina thought the Proctor had noticed the sand, but then she decided not because he did not look mad and he did not look for more sand on the sticky bun he chose from a steaming basket.
Vram popped the fruit into his mouth and gobbled it without even noticing the sand.
Jaina felt a little sorry for him. But only a little.
If somebody gave me a piece of fruit right now, she thought, I probably wouldn’t notice sand on it, either.
The second time she moved sand, she dropped it onto the Head Proctor’s sticky bun. Jaina felt like she had done something very, very bad, to spoil good food like that.
The Proctor pulled off a piece of the soft, sweet bread and put it in his mouth. He chewed.
His expression changed. Jaina felt glad. Not happy-glad. Jaina felt satisfied-glad.
She lifted another handful of sand and scattered it across the Proctors’ table, so it fell on all their plates.
The Head Proctor spit out his mouthful of sticky bun.
That’s disgusting! Jaina thought. He didn’t even cover his mouth with his napkin.
“Grake!” the Head Proctor shouted.
Several of the other Proctors spit out their food, too, and soon they were looking at it and poking it, even the half-chewed bits, and talking to each other and arguing. Jaina watched them, pretending not to. Soon she did not even have to pretend, because all the other children were watching, too.
“Grake! Get out here!”
The door beside the Proctors’ stage slammed open, bouncing against the wall.
A huge being thundered through the doorway. Jaina flinched—she thought the dragon had broken into the bunker—then looked again, surprised and excited.
The being in the wide white apron was a Veubg, from Gbu, a high-gravity world. Gbu was the last world before Munto Codru that Mama had visited. The New Republic delegation had not been able to go to the surface, most of them, of course, because the gravity would have squashed them. But the Veubgri had traveled to the meeting satellite. They had liked Jaina and Jacen and Anakin. Jaina remembered the soft touch of their tendrils on her hair. Her mouth watered at the memory of their sweets. She wanted to jump up and wave at the Veubg.
But Grake had never seen Jaina or her brothers. She would not recognize them. She would not care.
“Why are you yelling at me, little blue-clothes?” Grake climbed the stairs, light-footed and powerful, tendrils coiled around a heavy wooden spatula, and stopped behind the center chair. “I work all day for you, and you only yell at me, you are a very unappreciative person.”
“There’s sand in the food!” the Head Proctor shouted. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“A joke? Sand—in my food?” Grake smacked the Head Proctor on the side of the head with the spatula.
The Head Proctor fell off his chair and scrambled up, staring, stunned.
Jaina gasped. She wanted to hide her eyes. She was sure the Proctors would hurt Grake—use the Force to make her explode! And it would be Jaina’s fault.
But nothing like that happened.
Maybe they can’t, Jaina thought. Maybe all they can do with the Force is just barely turn on their lightsabers, or maybe Hethrir even cheated to let them do that!
Grake leaped to the end of the stage and whacked the Proctor who lounged in the last seat. He scrambled to keep his balance, lurching sideways and forward to grab the edge of the table.
“Take your feet off the table!” The Veubg leaped again, all the way from one end of the stage to the other, knocking the spatula against the head of each Proctor in turn. “You complain of sand in my food—when you put your feet on the dinner table? You have the manners of dragons!”
The Veubg landed soundlessly—then stamped all six feet. The whole Proctors’ table bounced a handsbreadth in the air and forward.
Jaina giggled. She could not help it. She tried to stop and so did all the other children. She knew they would get in trouble for laughing and she knew she would be the cause of it. But she could not help it. And how she wished Lusa were here to see it too!
“Stop it!” the Head Proctor shouted.
Jaina could not tell whether he meant her or Grake.
Grake snatched handsful of fruit from the serving dishes and flung them over the second table and out to the children. Everybody shrieked with excitement and grabbed for the fruit.
Jaina caught a chunk of melon and stuffed it into her mouth. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. It made tears spring to her eyes.
She was glad she had not poured sand on the serving dishes, but she would have eaten the fruit anyway.
“Sand! In my food!” Grake flung the contents of a whole serving bowl of cookies over the children’s heads. Everyone was running around and jumping up to catch the sweets and snatching them off the floor before they got trampled.
Jaina snatched more sand, even though she really wanted a cookie. A little cloud of sand grains floated up from the tiles. She dropped the sharp grains down the necks of the Proctors’ uniforms. The sand fell down their backs and into their pants.
At first they did not notice because they were all on their feet, yelling. Then the Head Proctor drew his lightsaber. Its blade hummed and glowed.
Jaina jumped up, horrified. Uncle Luke always said that when she became a Jedi Knight, she should never draw her blade, except for practice, unless she was willing to kill.
Jaina had never even touched a lightsaber.
Grake did not give the Proctor the chance to kill her. She leaped down the stage, down the steps, and through the doorway even before the Proctor could strike, if he was going to. Jaina had never seen anyone move so fast.
The Proctors shouted a few last insults. The Head Proctor put away his lightsaber. Jaina did not know if he would have killed Grake, or if he was only threatening. Or joking. She did not think they should threaten or joke with a lightsaber.
The Proctors shouted after Grake, and pushed each other back and forth, and finally sat down again.
None of them put their feet on the table.
“Be quiet!” the Head Proctor yelled at the children. “Sit down and be quiet or we’ll come put you in your places.”
Jaina sat back down and so did the other children. They might as well, because all the extra food was gone. Everybody was looking around, hoping to find one last tart grape or sweet crumb.
The Proctors sat uneasily at their table, not wanting to dismiss the meal because that would mean they had failed at something. But they did not eat any more of the sandy food.
The Head Proctor frowned and fidgeted and pulled his uniform away from his sides and shook it. Jaina stared down at the table. If she started to laugh before anybody else noticed what was happening, the Proctors would know it was all her fault.
Jaina wished a grape had fallen on the table in front of her so she could eat it. But the table was empty. She carefully looked past the edge of the table. The Proctors were talking together now. They sounded mad. Jaina made herself not smile. Instead she jiggled the sand in the Proctors’ uniforms, and looked for more sand.
She had used it all up. The floor tiles, even the cracks between them, were clean.
Except for little black spots moving toward the Proctors’ table. They formed a line across the floor like the foam on waves.
The myrmins scurried up the front of the Proctors’ stage. As the Proctors squirmed and itched and hissed impatiently at the Head Proctor to dismiss dinner, the myrmins ran over their shoes and into their pants legs.
Jaina could not resist anymore. She looked across the cafeteria toward her brother. She even stood up so she could see him. At the same time, Jacen stood up and looked at her. He grinned quickly. They both sat down again before anyone could catch them.
Jaina knew Jacen had asked the myrmins to climb up the stage.
One of the Proctors leaped to his feet with a shout. He thought he just had sand in his pants. Then the sand bit him. The other Proctors started jumping up and yelling and scratching. And stamping, stamping on the myrmins.
“Oh!” Jaina whispered. “Oh—poor myrmins, thank you, myrmins.” Some of them were running away now, disappearing into cracks and hiding. But some of them were being killed.
“We’re sorry, myrmins,” she said, sincerely, the way Chewbacca spoke to insects he sometimes killed, even if he never meant to, when he harvested forest honey. She risked another glance across the hall at Jacen.
Stricken, he started to cry. He cried when Chewbacca apologized to the forest insects, too. But this time it was his fault that the myrmins were being hurt.
Suddenly the myrmins all disappeared. Jaina felt the flare of Jacen’s abilities, whisking the little creatures out of danger.
Hethrir’s cold wet invisible blanket fell down around Jaina—It’s not fair, she thought, I didn’t do anything … well, not much, anyway—and she knew the same thing had happened to Jacen. She gasped, and shivered, and struggled up out of her seat, and stumbled across the cafeteria to Jacen.
They hugged each other. It was such a good hug. It almost made Hethrir’s blanket go away. Or anyway it made it feel only cool and damp instead of cold and wet.
“Jacen, Jacen, they took Anakin, they took Lusa—”
That was the first time she thought that Hethrir might have taken Anakin away forever, the way he took Lusa. Where else could their brother be?
“We have to do something,” she whispered.
“All you children get back to your studies!” the Head Proctor said, scratching the side of his leg. The myrmins were gone, but their bites remained!
“Thank you, little myrmins,” Jaina whispered.
“Thank you, little myrmins,” Jacen said too, “I’m s-sorry!”
“Back to your studies!”
The children straggled into an uneven line. They could not keep from giggling. Jaina stayed near Jacen. Maybe no one would notice they were together.
“Do something about that line!” the Head Proctor said to his underlings.
The other Proctors all looked at him like they thought he was crazy.
And they ignored him and ran out of the cafeteria. Some of them were already unfastening their uniforms before they got out of the room.
The Head Proctor glared down at the children.
And then he winced and started to scratch, in a place it was very naughty to scratch in public, and turned around and strode out of the room. As soon as he vanished, his footsteps speeded up. He ran away.