Heir To The Empire (24 page)

For a moment he just stared at her. Then, with an urf-urf-urf of laughter, he turned back to the controls.

Ahead and to the right, a tighter group of the extra-tall wroshyr trees had come into view. Chewbacca turned the Lady Luck toward it, and within a few minutes they were close enough for Leia to see the network of cables or thin branches linking them together just above cloud height. Chewbacca circled the ship partway around, bringing it within the perimeter; and then, with just a growl of warning, dropped sharply down into the clouds.

Leia grimaced. She’d never really liked flying blind, especially in an area crowded with obstacles the size of wroshyr trees. But almost before the Lady Luck was completely enveloped by the thick white fog they were clear of it again. Immediately below them was another cloud layer. Chewbacca dropped them into that one, too, and drove through it to clear air again-

Leia inhaled sharply. Filling the entire gap between the group of massive trees, apparently hanging suspended in midair, was a city.

Not just a collection of primitive huts and fires like the Ewok tree villages on Endor. This was a real, genuine city, stretching out over a square kilometer or more of space. Even from this distance she could see that the buildings were large and complex, some of them two or three stories high, and that the avenues between them were straight and carefully laid out. The huge boles of the trees poked up around and, in some places, through the city, giving the illusion of giant brown columns supporting a rooftop of clouds. Surrounding the city on all sides, strangely colored searchlight beams lanced outward.

Beside her, Chewbacca rumbled a question. “No, I’ve never even seen holos of a Wookiee village,” she breathed. “My loss, obviously.” They were getting closer now; close enough for her to see that the Cloud City-type unipod she’d expected was nowhere to be seen.

For that matter, there was no support of any kind visible. Was the whole city being held up by repulsorlifts?

The Lady Luck banked slightly to the left. Directly ahead of them now, at one edge of the city and a little above it, was a circular platform rimmed with landing lights. The platform seemed to be sticking straight out from one of the trees, and it took a few seconds for her to realize that the whole thing was nothing more or less than the remnant of a huge limb that had been horizontally cut off near the trunk.

A not insignificant engineering feat. Dimly, she wondered how they’d disposed of the rest of the limb.

The platform didn’t look nearly big enough to accommodate a ship the size of the Lady Luck, but a quick glance back at the city itself showed that the apparent smallness was merely a trick of the tree’s deceptive scale. By the time Chewbacca put them down on the fire-blackened wood, in fact, it was clear that the platform could not only easily handle the Lady Luck, but probably full-sized passenger liners, as well.

Or, for that matter, Imperial Strike Cruisers. Perhaps, Leia decided, she shouldn’t inquire too deeply into the circumstances of the platform’s construction.

She had half expected the Wookiees to send a delegation out to meet her, and she turned out to have been half right. Two of the giant aliens were waiting beside the Lady Luck as Chewbacca lowered the entry ramp, indistinguishable to her untrained eye except for their slightly different heights and the noticeably different designs of the wide baldrics curving from shoulder to waist across their brown fur. The taller of the two, his baldric composed of gold-threaded tan, took a step forward as Leia headed down the ramp. She continued toward him, using all the calming Jedi techniques she knew, praying that this wouldn’t be as awkward as she was very much afraid it would be. Chewbacca was hard enough for her to understand, and he’d been living out among humans for decades. A native Wookiee, speaking a native dialect, was likely to be totally incomprehensible.

The tall Wookiee bowed his head slightly and opened his mouth. Leia braced herself-

[I to you, Leiaorganasolo, bring greetings,] he roared. [I to Rwookrrorro welcome you.]

Leia felt her jaw drop in astonishment. “Ah . . . thank you,” she managed. “I’m-ah-honored to be here.”

[As we by yourr presence arre honored,] he growled politely. [I am Ralrracheen. You may find it easierr to call me Ralrra.]

“I’m honored to meet you,” Leia nodded, still feeling a little dazed by it all. Apart from the odd extended growling of his final r sounds, Ralrra’s Wookiee speech was perfectly understandable. Listening to him, in fact, it was as if all the static she’d always had to plow through had suddenly cleared away. She could feel her face warming, and hoped her surprise didn’t show.

Apparently, it did. Beside her, Chewbacca was urf-urf-urfing quietly again. “Let me guess,” she suggested dryly, looking up at him. “You’ve had a speech impediment all these years and never thought to mention it to me?”

Chewbacca laughed even louder. [Chewbacca speaks most excellently,] Ralrra told her. [It is I who has a speech impediment. Strangely, it is the kind of trouble that humans find easierr to understand.]

“I see,” Leia said, though she didn’t entirely. “Were you an ambassador, then?”

Abruptly, the air around her seemed to grow chilly. [I was a slave to the Empirre,] Ralrra growled softly. [As was Chewbacca also, beforre Hansolo freed him. My captorrs found me useful, to speak with the otherr Wookiee slaves.]

Leia shivered. “I’m sorry,” was all she could think of to say.

[You must not be,] he insisted. [My role gave me much information about the Empirre’s forces. Information that proved useful when yourr Alliance freed us.]

Abruptly, Leia realized that Chewbacca was no longer standing at her side. To her shock, she saw that he was locked in a death grip with the other Wookiee, his bowcaster trapped uselessly against his shoulder by the other’s massive arm. “Chewie!” she snapped, hand dropping to the blaster belted at her side.

She’d barely gotten hold of it, though, before Ralrra’s shaggy hand landed in an iron grip on top of hers. [Do not disturb them,] the Wookiee told her firmly. [Chewbacca and Salporin have been friends since childhood, and have not seen each otherr in many yearrs. Theirr greeting must not be interrupted.]

“Sorry,” Leia murmured, dropping her hand to her side and feeling like an idiot.

[Chewbacca said in his message that you requirre sanctuary,] Ralrra continued, perhaps recognizing her embarrassment. [Come. I will show you the preparations we have made.]

Leia’s eyes flicked to Chewbacca and Salporin, still clinging to each other. “Perhaps we should wait for the others,” she suggested, a little uncertainly.

[Therre will be no dangerr.] Ralrra drew himself up to his full height. [Leiaorganasolo, you must understand. Without you and yourr people many of us would still be slaves to the Empirre. Slaves, orr dead at theirr hand. To you and yourr Republic we owe a life debt.]

“Thank you,” Leia said, feeling the last bit of residual tension draining away. There was a great deal about Wookiee culture and psychology that was still opaque to her; but the life debt, at least, she understood very well. Ralrra had formally committed himself to her safety now, that commitment backed up by Wookiee honor, tenacity, and raw strength.

[Come,] Ralrra growled, gesturing toward what looked like an open-cage liftcar at the edge of the platform. [We will go to the village.]

“Certainly,” Leia said. “That reminds me-I was going to ask how you keep the village in place. Do you use repulsorlifts?”

[Come,] Ralrra said. [I will show you.]

The village was not, in fact, being held up by repulsorlifts. Nor with unipods, tractor anchorlines, or any other clever scheme of modern technology. Which made it all the more sobering for Leia to realize that the Wookiees’ method was, in its own way, more sophisticated than any of them.

The village was held up by branches.

[It was a great task, a village of this size to build,] Ralrra told her, waving a massive hand upward at the latticework above them. [Many of the branches at the level desired werre removed. Those which remained then grew strongerr and fasterr.]

“It looks almost like a giant spiderweb,” Leia commented, peering from the liftcar at the underside of the village and trying not to think about the kilometers of empty space directly beneath them. “How did you mesh them together like that?”

[We did not. Through theirr own growth they arre a unity.]

Leia blinked. “Excuse me?”

[They have grown togetherr,] Ralrra explained. [When two wroshyr branches meet, they grow into one. Togetherr then they sprout new branches in all directions.]

He growled something under his breath, a word or phrase for which Leia had no translation. [It is a living reminderr of the unity and strength of the Wookiee people,] he added, almost to himself.

Leia nodded silently. It was also, she realized, a strong indication that all the wroshyr trees in this bunch were a single giant plant, with a unified or at least an intermixed root system. Did the Wookiees realize that? Or had their obvious reverence for the trees forbidden such thinking and research?

Not that curiosity would help them all that much in this case. Dropping her gaze, she peered down into the hazy dimness beneath the liftcar. Somewhere down there were the shorter wroshyrs and hundreds of other types of trees that made up the vast jungles of Kashyyyk. Several different arboreal ecosystems were reputed to exist in the jungle, arranged in roughly horizontal layers descending toward the ground, each layer more deadly than the one above. She didn’t know whether the Wookiees had ever even made it all the way down to the surface; it was for sure that no one who had would have taken the time for leisurely botanical studies.

[They arre called kroyies,] Ralrra said.

Leia blinked at the odd non sequitur. But even as she opened her mouth to ask what he was talking about, she spotted the double wedge of birds flying swiftly through the sky beneath them. “Those birds?” she asked.

[Yes. Once they werre a prize food to the Wookiee people. Now even the poorr may eat them.] He pointed toward the edge of the village above them, to the haze of light coming from the searchlights she’d seen during their approach. [Kroyies will come to those lights,] he explained. [Hunterrs therre await them.]

Leia nodded understanding; she’d seen visual lures of varying degrees of sophistication used to attract food animals on other worlds. “Don’t all those clouds interfere with their effectiveness, though?”

[Through the clouds they work best,] Ralrra said. [The clouds spread the light. A kroyie will see it from great distances and come.]

As he spoke, the double wedge of birds banked sharply, climbing toward the clouds overhead and the lights playing against them. [Even so, you see. Tonight we shall perhaps dine on one of them.]

“I’d like that,” she said. “I remember Chewie saying once that they were delicious.”

[Then we must return to the village,] Ralrra said, touching the liftcar’s control. With a creak of the cable, it started upward. [We had hoped to shelterr you in one of the morre luxurious homes,] he commented as they started upward. [But Chewbacca would not allow it.]

He gestured, and for the first time Leia noticed the homes built directly into the tree beside them. Some of them were multistoried and quite elaborate; all of them seemed to open up directly onto empty space. “Chewbacca understands my preferences,” she told Ralrra, suppressing a shiver. “I was wondering why the liftcar went this far down past the village proper.”

[The liftcarr is used mainly forr cargo transportation orr the ill,] Ralrra said. [Most Wookiees preferr to climb the trees naturally.]

He held out a hand to her, palm up; and as the muscles under the skin and fur flexed, a set of wickedly curved claws slid into sight from hidden fingertip sheaths.

Leia swallowed hard. “I didn’t realize Wookiees had claws like those,” she said. “Though I suppose I should have. You are arboreal, after all.”

[To live among trees without them would be impossible,] Ralrra agreed. The claws retracted again, and the Wookiee waved the hand upward. [Even vine travel would be difficult without them.]

“Vines?” Leia echoed, frowning up through the liftcar’s transparent roof. She hadn’t noticed any vines on the trees earlier, and didn’t really see any now. Her eyes fell on the cable running from the liftcar up into the leaves and branches above . . .

The dark green cable.

“That cable?” she asked carefully, nodding toward it. “That’s a vine?”

[It a kshyy vine is,] he assured her. [Do not worry about its strength. It is strongerr than composite cable material, and cannot even by blasterrs be cut. Too, it is self-repairing.]

“I see,” Leia said, staring at the vine and fighting hard against the sudden sense of panic. She’d flown all around the galaxy in hundreds of different types of airspeeders and spaceships without the slightest twinge of acrophobia, but this hanging out on the edge of nowhere without a solid powered cockpit around her was something else entirely. The warm sense of security she’d been feeling at being on Kashyyyk was starting to evaporate. “Have the vines ever broken?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

[In the past, it sometimes happened,] Ralrra said. [Various parasites and fungi, if unchecked, can erode them. Now, we employ safeguards which ourr ancestorrs did not have. Liftcarrs such as this one contain emergency repulsorlift systems.]

“Ah,” Leia said, the momentary discomfort easing as she once again found herself feeling like a raw and not very bright diplomatic beginner. It was easy to forget that, despite their somewhat quaint-looking arboreal villages and their own animalistic appearance, Wookiees generally were quite at home with high technology.

The liftcar rose above the level of the village floor. Chewbacca and Salporin were standing there waiting for them, the former fingering his bowcaster and giving the little twitches that Leia had learned to associate with impatience. Ralrra brought them to a stop at the level of the wide exit ramp and opened the door, Salporin stepping forward as he did so to offer Leia his hand in assistance.