The children were alone in the cafeteria.
“Let’s go out!” Jaina said. She did not know what she could do once she was outside, but she felt desperate to get away from this cold hard building.
She and Jacen ran down the long dark corridor. All the other children followed them. They burst out into the light, as the tiny planet’s tiny sun leaped into the sky. The little planet spun fast, so its days were much shorter than regular days. The children shouted and ran and cheered in the warmth.
Jaina and Jacen held hands and leaned backward and spun around and around, just like the little planet. Jaina whipped her hair back and forth till she felt dizzy. She and Jacen fell down in the sand, panting and laughing.
Jaina jumped up again and Jacen jumped up beside her.
“Jacen, I missed you so much! I don’t know where Anakin is!”
“If we could reach for him—” Jacen said.
“—we might be able to find him. But—”
“—we have to run far away from that blanket!” Jacen finished their shared thought. Jaina was glad he thought about it the same way she did, but that did not help them figure out how to get away from it.
“We have to get past the dragon,” Jaina said.
“There’s no dragon,” Jacen said scornfully. “That’s just to scare us.” He marched straight toward the canyon fence, straight into the blank space.
Jaina ran after him. The dragon jumped out of the sand and roared and bounced against the fence. Jaina grabbed Jacen and pulled him back till the dragon could not see them anymore. She did not have to pull him very hard because he was scared too, but he was also amazed.
The dragon forgot it had seen them and snuffled around the edge of the fence looking for a soft warm patch of sand.
“Wow,” Jacen whispered.
“Maybe I could jump up and down and wave and—” She was thinking Jacen could run around behind and climb the fence. But then she would still be stuck inside.
“Maybe I could tame her,” Jacen said. “And we could ride her away!”
Jaina had no idea how Jacen knew it was a Mistress Dragon and not a Mister Dragon. But he was always right about this sort of stuff.
“Ride her?” Jaina said, entranced.
Then Jacen’s lips trembled. “But maybe the Proctors would hurt her the way they hurt the myrmins.”
“How could they hurt a dragon?” Jaina asked.
“With their lightsabers!”
“They’d be too scared! I bet they wouldn’t even get close to her.”
“With a blaster, then,” Jacen said.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Maybe we could distract her,” Jacen said thoughtfully.
“We better do it fast,” Jaina said.
“I need something to throw,” Jacen said. He looked around but there was just sand.
The dragon lumbered to the fence and rubbed her nubbly-scaled shoulder against the wire mesh, closing her eyes and groaning happily.
If Jaina could use her abilities, she could easily distract the dragon. Together with Jacen, they might even be able to stop the dragon. But Jaina thought that would be a lot to try to do, without Uncle Luke’s help.
“I know!” Jaina pulled her multitool out of her pocket.
Jacen grabbed for it eagerly.
“No, wait!” Jaina snatched it back. “Don’t throw it.” She opened up the lens and caught the light and flashed it on the ground in front of the dragon.
“Isn’t she pretty?” Jacen said.
When the dragon opened her eyes, she saw the concentrated point of light from Jaina’s lens. She snorted and lowered her head. Jaina gave the multitool to Jacen. He was better with critters than she was.
He wiggled the light near the dragon’s front paws. The dragon put her paw on the place where the light was. Then she had to put her other paw on top of her first paw, and still the light was not covered. She pulled her first paw out from under her second paw and lost her balance. She rolled completely over, snortling and wriggling. Then she jumped up and looked around for the light.
Jacen moved it around for her to chase. She jumped forward after it, shaking the ground when she landed, raising great sprays of sand. Jaina laughed with delight.
By now all the other children had gathered behind Jaina and Jacen to watch the dragon play.
Jacen danced the light before the dragon, who gallumphed after it, pouncing to try to catch it. Jacen skipped the light up the cliffside that projected beyond the fence. The dragon scratched the rock with her front feet, ripping loose bits of stone. She roared joyously. She lashed her tail.
All the time, Jacen kept moving closer to the fence, crossing the undisturbed ground till he was right up against the thick metal mesh. Jaina followed him. The other children stayed back, still frightened of the dragon.
“Hey, dragon,” Jacen said softly. “Hey, Mistress Dragon.” He wiggled the light down the cliff again, and the dragon followed. The light crept toward the fence.
The dragon followed.
Jacen brought the spark of sunlight right up next to the fence. Jaina caught her breath. Her heart beat very fast.
The dragon’s snout pressed against the fence. Her big teeth stuck out of her mouth and she drooled in the sand. Her tongue flicked, flicked, flicked between her lips. Her eyes were the size of Jaina’s fists, big and gold. The dragon blinked her heavy beaded eyelids. Her hot breath ruffled the sand where the spot of light lay.
Jacen was having trouble keeping the light near the dragon because the sun was already falling in the sky.
As the spot of light faded, Jacen put his hand through the fence. Jaina gasped. Jacen touched the dragon’s great eyebrow, and rubbed her smooth scales.
“There, Mistress Dragon,” Jacen said. He rubbed harder. The dragon pressed against his hand, and made a low, rumbling, pleasant snorting sound. The dragon did not mind that she could no longer play with the light.
“She likes you,” Jaina whispered.
“She’s all alone,” Jacen said. “She’s lonely, she’s a little dragon, she wants someone to play with.”
“Hey! You children!”
The dragon jerked her head up, startled by the shout. Jaina turned around. The Head Proctor stood at the head of the stairwell. The other children scattered away into the twilight.
The dragon roared. The fence rang as she rose up and crashed against it. Jacen snatched his hand away from the fence, and he and Jaina ran to the playfield. Jacen pressed the multitool into Jaina’s hand, and she hid it in her pocket.
The Head Proctor laughed at them.
“Now you’ll believe in the dragon, I think,” he said. “You children all line up! You’ve been very bad. I told you to get back to your studies.”
“We couldn’t hear you, sir,” Jaina said respectfully. “We thought you said to go outside.”
He glared at her. He looked very uncomfortable. He had swelling red bites on his wrists and his neck. He kept moving inside his uniform as if he wanted to scratch. Jaina looked him straight in the eye without laughing, even though she wanted to laugh.
“That’s right, sir,” Jacen said. “I thought I heard you say to go outside, and I was much closer to you than my sister!”
“That’s right, sir,” one of the other children said.
The Head Proctor was wearing a rumpled uniform with a dirty smudge across one arm, and all his medals pinned on crooked.
I bet he didn’t do his laundry when he was supposed to! Jaina thought. I bet he lets it pile up all over the floor of his room, and he didn’t have anything clean to put on when the myrmins and the sand got in his clothes.
Jaina felt very grateful to Winter, who always encouraged Jaina and Jacen to pick up after themselves. She had even shown them how to do their laundry if they needed to, if the laundry droid wasn’t working or forgot how you liked your clothes ironed.
“Get in line,” the Head Proctor said. All the other children lined up behind Jaina and Jacen.
The Proctors marched the children back inside. Jaina sighed. They had not escaped, and now they would have to spend all day staring at the horrible, dull displays that said how wonderful everything would be when Hethrir made himself Emperor.
Probably Lord Hethrir would come and leeture them, too. She was scared of that. He would probably know that she had caused all the trouble.
Jaina yearned for her classes back home. Sometimes she and Jacen read stories to Winter or to Papa and Mama. Sometimes they made up stories! Jaina was learning number theory and she loved it, it was so beautiful. On Munto Codru, Jacen had been studying first aid with Dr. Hyos and her child. Jaina bet Jacen was as bored with these dumb displays as she was. She bet all the children were bored.
Instead of taking the children to the study desks, the Proctors herded them back to their rooms. Most of the children groaned.
“Be quiet!” the Head Proctor shouted. “Your discipline is dreadful! Lord Hethrir will never choose any of you as his helpers at this rate.”
The children fell silent. Jaina realized she should have groaned, too, but the truth was that she no longer feared the dark of her cell. She was overjoyed that she would have a few hours, maybe all the way until tomorrow morning, by herself, to work and plan.
“You’ll spend the day in bed,” the Head Proctor said. “So that tomorrow, you’ll appreciate the opportunity Lord Hethrir gives you to learn.”
He opened Jaina’s door and pushed her inside and slammed the door closed after her.
Bits of sawdust scattered to the floor. But the Head Proctor had not noticed that Jaina had been drilling the wood.
And Lord Hethrir had not come to lecture them or inspect them.
Finally, outside Jaina’s cell, the faint sounds of closing doors and the voices of the Proctors and the sounds of their boots on the floor stopped.
Jaina rubbed some molecules of air together and created a faint light to work with. She brushed the last of the sawdust away from the hole she had made, pulled out her multitool, and began to drill again.
For several hours, the Firrerre passenger freighter hovered in space, coming alive. The first thing it did, long before it reached full power, was to disengage itself from Alderaan.
Leia took her ship out of range of the freighter’s propulsion field.
“Good luck,” she said, transmitting to the nameless Firrerreo.
He did not reply. The freighter hovered in space, gathering itself for its lonely voyage. Even if Leia could do any more to help the Firrerre ship, its inhabitants did not want her aid.
Leia checked on Rillao, who remained asleep. But Artoo-Detoo and the medical equipment thought her body was regaining its strength.
“Thank you for watching her,” Leia said to Artoo-Detoo.
Chewbacca came in and looked mournfully at the sleeping Firrerreo.
“What are we going to do?” Leia said. “This is a dead end! The trail is gone.” She tried again, reaching out desperately all around her for any trace of her children.
Rillao’s pain had blasted the trail out of existence.
The kidnappers tortured her, Leia thought. The nameless Firrerreo was wrong: Rillao wasn’t left here by the Empire at all. The kidnappers tortured her so no one could follow them!
Unless … they’re the same people.
That would make sense, Leia thought. And it would explain how they knew where to find the passenger freighters. But it doesn’t give me any better clues to finding them.
Chewbacca put one giant hand on her shoulder. The fur of his fingers tickled Leia’s cheek. His plaintive groan conveyed his sympathy and his grief. Leia’s family was his family, his Honor Family. He had chosen to share his life with the people she loved. She could not remain angry at him.
“The Firrerreo was right about one thing!” Leia said. “Our disguise is no disguise at all. We’ll never get anywhere if everyone knows we’re Leia and Chewbacca. And if we’re up against Imperial loyalists—come on!”
She took Chewbacca to her cabin and pulled out all the cosmetics in the dressing-table drawer. Chewbacca looked at them quizzically.
“You didn’t think my eyelids were this color naturally, did you?” she asked. “Didn’t you notice the color changes sometimes?”
He snorted.
“No, my skin doesn’t camouflage itself!” Leia said.
As she spoke, she pulled the pins from her hair and unbraided the long plait. Chewbacca watched with astonishment.
I so seldom take my hair down, she thought. Hardly anyone has seen me with my hair down in years … except Han.
She had thought, over the years, of cutting her hair, but the idea was too radical. On Alderaan, adults grew their hair long and usually kept it bound.
Feeling reckless, Leia brushed her hair loose and free over her shoulders. She stood up. Her hair spilled almost to her knees. She kept brushing it, till it parted down the center and hung on either side of her face and draped down over her breasts. It tended to fall across her eyes, so she looked out through a curtain.
All the better, she thought. All the better to hide me with.
She rummaged through the bottles and packets. Some she had bought on a whim and never even tried. She kept them on her ship because her ship was her place for whims and fancies.
Leia remembered the first time she had taken Han out on Alderaan. She shook the stirring memory away. Now was no time for such memories.
Several packets of color-crawlers lay in her hand.
“Aren’t you tired of being chestnut all the time, Chewbacca?” she said. She tore open a package of black and a package of silver, mixed them together, and tossed them at Chewbacca. He blew out his breath in surprise, reached up as if to brush them off, then looked at them curiously.
The color-crawlers picked their way over and across and through his fur, leaving intermittent trails of black and silver behind them. Chewbacca plucked one up, delicately, let it crawl along his finger, and watched it streak a patch of chestnut hair with silver. The hair on his chest had already begun to mottle with silver and black.
Amused, the Wookiee let the color-crawlers have their way with his fur.
“Soon you’ll just be one more brindled Wookiee.” Leia said. “Now. What about me?”
Chewbacca chose several different greens and handed them to her.
“I look terrible in green,” Leia said. “I can’t imagine why I bought those.” She chose, instead, several shades of ordinary brown and let them loose in her hair.
I can’t imagine why I bought these colors, either, she thought. I gave Chewbacca the best shades. Oh, well.
She chose one package of very dark green and opened it into her hair.
Chewbacca whuffled with approval.
I’m going to look so boring, Leia thought.
But I want to be invisible, Leia reminded herself. There’s no way to make Chewbacca invisible. I only have to make him not-Chewbacca. And I have to make sure no one notices me.
She was glad Artoo-Detoo was a common sort of droid, so she did not have to disguise him, too.
She envied Han his beard. Such an easy way to hide one’s face. She considered disguising herself as a man, but only for a moment.
In stories, she said to herself, princesses always disguise themselves as princes. But princesses in stories never have any hips. They never have any breasts. No. I’d look like a woman in disguise; I’d only draw more attention.
Better to be invisible.
Chewbacca gazed at his changing fur with every evidence of fascination. But then he sighed, deeply, woefully. His sigh echoed in the empty space in Leia’s heart where she could not find any perception of her children.
“We can’t be Leia and Chewbacca anymore,” she said.
Chewbacca raised his head slowly. His eyes were dark and sad and questioning.
“We have to be Lelila and Geyyahab—we have to be Lelila and somebody, if you don’t want to be Geyyahab you can choose another name.”
Chewbacca—Geyyahab—indicated that he accepted her choice of names, but did not understand the necessity.
“Whoever stole the children meant it as a strike against me,” Leia said. “And against you and Han and Luke. The kidnappers will expect us to come after them. They’ll be watching for us. Setting a trap. I think the only way we’ll defeat them is with surprise.”
Chewbacca whined at her quizzically.
“No,” Leia said, in despair. “I don’t know who they are. Or where they went.” But they must be remnants of the fallen Empire, she thought. Who else could hate me enough to attack me through my children?
She grabbed the most lurid vial of eye-paint from the clutter on her bed. She wrenched the vial open and slashed the purple paint across her eyelids, under her eyes, like the kohl of desert fighters. She highlighted her forehead and her cheeks with gold.
“I’ll find out,” she said. “Maybe Rillao knows who—who hurt her. But if she doesn’t, I’ll wake up every passenger on every freighter, if I have to. Someone must know who they are and what they plan. And where to look for them.”
She looked in the mirror. Her hair hung around her face, half hiding her. Her eyes peered out, intense and dark and wild with purple. The paint’s gold and ruby enhancers glittered and shifted. She looked less like a desert fighter than a saloon dancer.
It doesn’t matter, she said to herself. All that matters is, I don’t look like Leia anymore. From now on, I’m Lelila.
Artoo-Detoo buzzed fast over the threshold, hesitated, and hooted as its sensors took in the changes in its biological companions. As soon as the droid recognized them, it reversed and vanished again.
Lelila the bounty hunter jumped up and ran after the droid. Behind her, Geyyahab her client followed along, the change in his fur nearly complete.
Han had to admit that as far as he could tell, the game had been honest. Of course, as far as he could tell, Waru was legit, too, and he did not believe Waru either.
He plodded down the street toward the lodge, reeking of six kinds of smoke, his head aching. He wished he had drunk another glass of local ale; he might feel better. He thought the stuff had magical healing powers.
“Just like Waru,” he muttered.
He reached the lodge. The proprietor popped up and greeted him in a friendly manner.
Threepio must have paid our bill, Han thought. Wonder what our cordial host will say tomorrow when we ask for an extension … and don’t pay for it?
He climbed the steps, tripping only once, and counted doors carefully till he came to his own. It opened for him. The eerie glow of Luke’s lightsaber flowed over his feet and across the carpet.
Han quickly straightened his shirt, combed his hair and his beard with his fingers, and strolled casually inside. The blade of the saber hummed and disappeared. Luke sat in the corner, exactly as he had the night before.
“Hi, Luke,” Han said, pretending to be much more cheerful than he felt.
“We have to talk,” Luke said. “Xaverri and I, we went back to the—the ceremony. Han, there’s no mistaking what we saw—what you saw.”
Unable to maintain his pose, Han flung himself on his bed and covered his face with the pillow. His head ached fiercely.
“Master Han!” Threepio’s feet clattered metallically on the floor tiles. “I paid our bills. Thank you very much! I will have other expenses to pay, in the morning, perhaps before you arise, and I wondered—”
“I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” Han said.
“But I had thought to go shopping early. Were I to lay in some provisions, that would save my human companions from the expense of eating in restaurants—”
“We’re on vacation! Half the fun of being on vacation is eating in restaurants!” Han tried to remember when the last time was that he had eaten. Have I been subsisting on local ale? he thought. The stuff is even better than I thought.
“—and it would allow me to serve you breakfast in bed.”
“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” Han said. “I really need some sleep.”
“Did you lose all the money?” Luke asked.
Han flung himself up. The pillow fell off his face and flopped onto the floor.
“No.” He shrugged, and grinned. “Not all of it.”
“Oh, Master Han,” Threepio said. “How am I to go shopping in the morning, if you lost all our money?”
“I didn’t lose all of it,” Han said. “I can get more. I just had a bad evening. Relax. Now can I get some sleep?”
“No,” Luke said. “Dammit, Han, wake up!”
“How can I wake up when you haven’t given me a chance to go to sleep yet?”
The blade of Luke’s lightsaber shivered into being. The ghostly green light filled the room. It brightened, oddly, to pure white; its low hum rose to a shriek. Han shouted in protest.
Luke quickly turned off the lightsaber and slipped the handle beneath his robe.
“What was that?” Han asked. He was wide awake.
“I don’t—nothing. It’s all right.” He sounded uncharacteristically startled, “Han, this Waru … if we could persuade this being to come back with us, we could make a tremendous difference in the Republic. The Jedi—and your legions, of course—protect the peace. Waru could directly improve people’s lives.”
“Waru isn’t a Jedi—for certain?”
“No. I mean … I’m not getting any of the perceptions I ought to feel.” He leaned forward, intent. “When your kids were born, I knew, right away, that they belonged among us. Especially Anakin. When I first saw him, and he looked straight at me—” Luke exhaled loudly. “If Waru were Jedi, I don’t think I’d make a mistake.” He interlaced his fingers, opened his hands, stared at his palms. “But maybe Waru is connected to the Force, by some means we aren’t aware of. Some means I’m not aware of.” He pulled his hands apart and clenched them into fists. “I just don’t know! And I’ve got to find out.”
“Okay, okay, take it easy.” Han rubbed his face. He was so sleepy he could hardly keep his attention on what Luke was saying, despite Luke’s urgency.
“Xaverri said she thought Waru was dangerous. A danger to the Republic, she said. And now you want to take him—it—the being—back to the heart of our government?”
“Waru has attracted a lot of followers here. They could form a powerful faction. Wouldn’t it be best to cooperate, right from the beginning?”
Han chuckled. “You don’t usually sound like a politician.” Han doubted that Luke cared one way or the other if Waru’s followers formed an opposition to Leia’s government. But the young Jedi was fascinated with what he perceived as remarkable abilities; he obviously wanted Waru where he could keep an eye on the being, and perhaps even learn from him.
Han still had no idea why Xaverri thought Waru was dangerous.
Han produced one of his last coins, as if he had brought it out of thin air.
Luke smiled slightly. “Not bad.”
“I told you, more where this came from.” Han made it disappear again.
Threepio approached. “How were you able to do that?”
Han produced the coin from Threepio’s mouth.
Threepio’s eyes changed. “Do that again, if you please, Master Han.”
Han complied.
“Ah,” Threepio said. “Exceedingly dexterous.”
“What’d you do?” Han asked. “Slow it down?”
“Indeed I did, Master Han.”
“Did you watch Waru that way?”
“I regret that I did not, sir,” Threepio replied to Han. “I was so intrigued by what Mistress Xaverri had brought us to see, it did not occur to me.”
“Where is Xaverri, anyway?” Han asked. “Did she go home?”
“She stayed back at the compound,” Luke said. “She wanted to—”
“You left her there?”
“Sure.”
Han grabbed his boots from the floor where he had just thrown them and wrestled them back on.
“She’s lived here for years,” Luke said reasonably. “She’s been attending Waru’s meetings since they began. She knows how to take care of herself.”
“You said yourself, something weird is going on—”
“And you said it was a fraud!”
“Just because something’s a fraud doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. You saw how Xaverri reacted yesterday.” He hunted around for his jacket, then realized he had never taken it off.
Han Solo ran out the door.
Rillao lay very still beneath the shroud of medical equipment. Only her eyes moved. Her gaze flicked over everything in the room, searching for weaknesses, searching for escape. A moaning growl shuddered deep in her throat.
Lelila stood in the doorway, regarding the Firrerreo dispassionately.
Compassion was wasted on the nameless Firrerreo, Lelila thought. Besides, I can’t afford compassion.
She waited till Rillao’s gaze found her.
Lelila moved forward deliberately, and stopped a pace away from Rillao’s bedside. Rillao glared at her.
“I saved you,” Lelila said.
“Who asked you to?” Rillao’s voice was hoarse and rough.
“I saved you from torture, Rillao,” Lelila said. She adopted the speech habits of the unnamed Firrerreo who used names to gain power. “I freed you from the web, I took you from the passenger freighter, I brought you to my ship, and I healed you. Rillao.”
Rillao’s expression changed. Apprehension replaced some of the arrogance.
“You own my name,” she said. “Do you also own my body?”
“Perhaps I did, for a moment,” Lelila said. “But I give it back to you.”
“Magnanimous of you,” Rillao said. She glanced around the cabin, with its understated elegance and its up-to-date medical equipment. “You are too rich, I suppose, to worry about the profit.”
“Profit?” Lelila said.
Rillao stared at her, disbelieving. She pushed herself up on her elbows, shrugging away the medical equipment’s sensors. Her striped hair snarled in sweaty tangles. The medical equipment, noting her recovery, pulled up to the ceiling to protect itself.
“The freighter was taken from its route,” Rillao said. “It was hidden, far off trade routes. If you aren’t a slaver, how did you find it? What are you doing here?”
Lelila’s knees went weak. She locked them, or she would have fallen. She felt herself go cold and pale, and she was glad her hair nearly hid her face. She wished she had put on even more makeup. Behind her, Geyyahab roared in surprise and fury. Lelila reached back, grabbed his hand, and silenced him with a squeeze of warning.
Slavery had existed under the Empire. But the Republic ended the practice. The government she served had sought out the people bound by the ugly Imperial laws. They were free. The Empire no longer existed to sell political prisoners into slavery, to steal their children and sell them.
There were no slavers to steal Anakin and Jaina and Jacen!
“How long have you been here?” Lelila asked suddenly. “How long did you sleep?”
“I never slept,” Rillao whispered. “I was not one of the freighter’s original passengers.”
“But did you know the Empire—”
“I was brought here five years ago,” Rillao said.
“—is defeated? Oh. You must. But the Republic stopped the slave trade!”
“Some exist who are content to allow that belief. It suits their purposes, to steal people in secret.”
Chewbacca—Geyyahab! Leia reminded herself, Geyyahab and Lelila!—wrapped his huge hand around her upper arm. She leaned gratefully against his strength. But he, too, trembled.
Rillao stretched her right hand toward Lelila. A deep, badly healed, patterned scar disfigured her palm. A slave mark. Lelila had seen scars like that before, on the hands of people requesting medical treatment to have them removed. Before they asked for anything else, they asked to have the scars removed.
Lelila wondered if the brindled chestnut hand on her arm had also borne a slave mark.
“That’s all in the past,” Lelila said. “My equipment can’t take the scar away, but as soon as we get back to civilization—”
Rillao closed her hand, folding her long slender fingers flat against her palm. There was nothing of a fist about her motion, but a move of concealment, protection.
“No,” she said. “I have reason to keep that scar a while longer.”
She pushed herself to her knees on the bunk, lurching clumsily in her weakness.
“How did you find this place?” she demanded.
The most important commodity Lelila and Rillao had between them to trade was information. Lelila decided to spend some of her currency.
“I followed a ship here.”
The bedclothes shredded in Rillao’s clenched hands.
“Did you kill it?” she said, her voice suddenly empty. “Did you kill the ship?”
“Of course not!” Lelila exclaimed. “Lie down, Rillao. You’re too weak to get up.”
“Did you—”
“Lie down! And I’ll tell you what happened.”
Reluctantly, Rillao lay back on the bunk. She pulled the shredded blanket with her, fraying its torn edge with her fingers.
“I followed the ship here.”
“Through hyperspace? That’s impossible!”
“I have a method, Rillao.” It pained Leia to see Rillao flinch every time her name was spoken, but Lelila the bounty hunter took some comfort in having the upper hand. “Don’t question me too closely.”
“You saw the ship?”
“I did not. It was too far ahead of me. It came, and went.”
“But you can trail it!”
“No. My method was … disturbed.” She could not say that Rillao’s own pain had created the disturbance. The Firrerreo might guess Leia’s abilities. “The trail is gone.”
Rillao slumped back. The moaning growl returned, but stopped abruptly as Rillao struggled to control herself.
“Do you know where the ship went?” Lelila asked.
Rillao shook her head. “It could have gone anywhere. Some places are more likely than others: where slavers, and others, hide, and wait, and gather their resources, and plan for the Empire Reborn.”
“The Empire Reborn?” Leia scowled. “More deluded supremacists!”
Neither Leia of the New Republic nor Lelila the bounty hunter understood why anyone would maintain loyalty to the old Empire, after its defeat, after the revelations of its atrocities. But, then, neither of them understood why Rillao wanted to keep her slave mark, either.
“The adherents of the Empire Reborn are powerful and wealthy. They have sworn a blood oath of secrecy and devotion.” Rillao named several worlds where followers held power.
All the names surprised Lelila.
“And Munto Codru as well?” she asked.
“Munto Codru is a backwater,” Rillao said, shrugging a dismissal. “And far too independent. Munto Codru was never amenable to the Empire. No one I ever heard of cared to hide on Munto Codru.”
Leia put aside her concern about the Empire Reborn. Time to deal with it, after the children were safe. She had no attention to spare for anything else.
“Why did you think I’d killed the ship?” Lelila asked.
“Its owners have many enemies.”
“Including you, I’d think,” Lelila said.
Lelila the bounty hunter had no children trapped aboard that ship. She had no reason to shudder when she thought: How many people might want to kill it? Eventually, someone will succeed.
“Why did it trouble you so, Rillao, that I might have killed it?”
Rillao stared in silence at the shredded bits of blanket in her hands.
“Answer me, Rillao,” Lelila said.
“My son is on the slaver ship!” Her voice broke. She wailed, with an eerie keening of desperate grief that lifted the hair at the back of Lelila’s neck.
Lelila glanced back and up at Geyyahab. He blinked at her with infinite sadness, brushed past her into the cabin, and sat on the deck beside Rillao’s bunk. He placed his huge brindled hand over Rillao’s scarred one.
Lelila wanted to go to her, too, to embrace her and reassure her. But that was too much her other identity. Lelila the bounty hunter remained aloof.
She waited till Rillao’s wail faded. Rillao’s grief remained too intense to shut out. Geyyahab patted Rillao, crooning a purr that Lelila had never heard from a Wookiee before.
“Rillao,” Lelila said, when both the Firrerreo and the Wookiee had fallen silent.
Rillao raised her head and looked her straight in the eye.
“We’ll find him,” Lelila said. “Your son. When I catch up to that ship, we’ll find him. But you know more about the slavers. You must help me figure out where to go to catch them.”
* * *
Han was badly winded by the time he reached Waru’s dome, even taking the shorter public route.
Too much generaling, Han thought, and not enough work.
The field outside Waru’s temple was deserted. Han paused beneath the filigree of the entry arch. For all he knew, it said “No admission allowed after the service has begun.”
After the performance has begun is more like it, Han thought.
He did not care if the sign said “No admission.” He plunged through the arch and across the courtyard. Instead of experiencing the silence as serene, Han felt oppressed by the brooding quiet.
“I’ll talk in here if I want to!” Han said out loud.
He slipped into the theater.
The auditorium was filled, as before, with supplicants. They filled the seats, the resting pillows, and the aisles. Han had no way to get down to the front, where Waru held court. Standing on tiptoe, Han tried to look over the heads and backs and carapaces of the assembly. Finally he spotted Xaverri, standing near Waru’s base. As far as he could tell, she was all right, though he did not much like the way she stood with her head down, her shoulders slumped.
If she collapses again, Han thought … What will I do? What can I do?
He scanned the huge room, searching for another way to reach the stage. But the auditorium was dangerously crowded.
Waru had accepted another subject for healing: an Ithorian family.
“Do you wish me to try to heal you, seeker?” Waru said.
Waru’s voice filled the auditorium. Inclined to find everything about Waru suspicious, Han noted the difference between Xaverri’s private conversation with the being and the public voice that drew everyone’s attention more firmly to the ceremony.
“Then I will try to help you,” Waru said.
Han snorted, then wiped the contemptuous expression from his face as a huge leathery being turned slowly to loom over him, gazing down with irritated distraction.
“Just a little allergy,” Han said.
The being waved its ears and returned its attention to Waru.
Han could not reach the foot of the stage. The crowd was impassable. Han tried to keep an eye on Xaverri, for all the good it would do; at the same time he watched Waru’s performance and tried to figure out the illusion.
A subfamily of Ithorians approached the altar. The quintet of tall, crooknecked beings carried a blanket-wrapped companion to Waru. The tallest of the Ithorians opened the blanket, revealing a youth, painfully thin. Its intelligent eyes blazed at the ends of its hammer-shaped head, and it struggled to remain upright. The adult family members petted it and whispered to the youth, perhaps promising that they would soon return to their herd-city, and helped the child lie down on Waru’s altar. Their stereo voices warbled strangely in the theater.
The youth was pathetically weak. The family gave it into Waru’s care and stepped back.
As before, the gold scales liquefied, flowed, and covered Waru’s patient. Ichor dripped around the cocoon and solidified. Light glowed through the translucent covering.
But after that, everything changed.
Waru shuddered violently, crying out. The cry rose and fell, simultaneously: it climbed to a piercing shriek and descended to a rumbling roar. The high pitch screamed in Han’s hearing, then vanished above his range. He felt as if his brain were being pierced by sound waves. At the same time, the low roar became an unsettling vibration. The walls reverberated at a low pitch that shook Han’s bones.
It sounded, to Han, like a great cat growling in satisfaction over its prey.
The supplicants cried out in a horrified, keening wail, and fell to the floor before Waru, covering their eyes. Only Han was left standing. Even Xaverri knelt at the base of the altar, her head down.
Waru shuddered.
But this ritual was different. Han strained to see, but he was certain Waru had changed the procedure. Instead of expanding, the chrysalis clenched, as if it were squeezing the Ithorian youth.
Waru sighed.
The chrysalis exploded. Like the embers from a forest fire out of control, whipped by a screaming wind, brilliant sparks whirled up from the altar. The whirlpool of fire spiraled through the hall. Sweat burst out on Han’s forehead. The air became hot and oppressive.
Han watched in horror.
Waru’s scales fluttered, and smoothed.
On the altar, the Ithorian youth lay in a collapsed pile of awkward limbs. The youth’s family huddled in a heap, holding each other, crying, afraid to look up.
“I regret,” Waru said. “I regret. I cannot always succeed. Perhaps you waited too long to ask my help, or perhaps your offspring’s time had come.”
The Ithorian family climbed uncertainly to their feet, holding each other, silent.
“We honor you, Waru.” Speaking Basic, the shortest of the Ithorians blinked sadly. The Ithorian’s voice fell to a ragged whisper. “We honor you.”
“I have exhausted myself,” Waru said. “I must rest.” The golden scales contracted together, closing the ichor-producing veins.
Acquiescing to Waru’s demand, the Ithorian family wrapped its offspring in the blanket, now a shroud, and picked its way from the altar through the crowd. The people made way for them, then followed them out of the theater.
Han pressed himself against the rear wall of the theater. Sweat sparkled and prickled in his vision. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out what he had seen. People brushed past him, and finally the hall was silent.
“Come with me, Solo,” Xaverri said.
He opened his eyes. She stroked his arm, gently, soothing him; he stared at her. Horror possessed him. He could not speak. He could barely breathe. Xaverri wrapped her fingers around his, and led him silently from the theater.
Behind them Waru hulked, and slept.
Xaverri and Han walked in silence through the courtyard. Even after they passed beneath the arch, they did not speak.
Luke ran toward them across the field, his robes flying. Threepio hurried after him, falling behind with every step.
Luke stopped in front of Han and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“Waru … I don’t know. I’m all right, but …” Han drew a deep breath, trying to collect himself.
“I felt—I don’t know, a disturbance—” Luke let Han go and rocked back on his heels and raked his fingers through his hair. “What’s going on, Han? I feel like I’m standing on quicksand, and I can’t find solid ground.”
“Somebody died,” Han said softly. “A kid. Come on, let’s go back to the lodge.”
Without a word, Luke and Threepio—Threepio, without a word!—turned and joined them.
Han trudged up the path, with leaden feet.
When they were out of sight of Waru’s dome, Xaverri drew Han from the trail. She took his hands and looked into his eyes. He tried to shut her out. He did not want to think about what he had seen.
“Now,” she said, “do you understand why I think Waru is true … and dangerous?”
“Yes,” Han said, his voice as hoarse as if he had been screaming.
The Ithorian family had given the youth into Waru’s care.
And Waru had killed it. Killed it, and pretended effort and weakness and exhaustion in its benefit.
But I saw Waru crush that child, Han thought, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Han had heard Waru’s growl of satisfaction as the Ithorian youth’s life passed into Waru’s power.
“Yes,” Han said. “Now I understand.”