Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (46 page)

“I was,” she said. “My father was a chieftain, and I danced for the honor of our tribe in the largest competition.”

She could not keep a note of pride out of her voice, but then, remembering the year in Jabba’s palace, she sighed. “I won that competition. And then ˇ.. the slavers came. They took us…

Nautag, me, our cublings. They… they killed one of our babies during the capture.” Her throat felt tight.

“And they brought you to Tatooine?” Doallyn asked, his tone almost gentle.

She nodded. “Jabba had asked them for an Askajian dancer. So they captured me… and I had to dance for the Hutt. Jabba promised me that he would not sell my children as long as I danced well for him. But you know the Bloated One could not be trusted… I was always afraid that he would allow me to work, to gain the money to buy our freedom, then kill me because it amused him to do so. And then keep my children in slavery.”

He nodded understandingly. “Dancing for Jabba must have been hard, after everything else that had happened.”

“It was,” she said. “But Doallyn… do you know what was hardest about it?” Unconsciously she reached out and laid a hand on his forearm, then realizing what she had done, Yarna hastily withdrew, tucking her hands inside the folds of her robe.

“What?”

“They… laughed at me. All of them. They said that I was…” Her mouth twisted at the word “ugly.” Her indrawn breath felt raw in her throat.

“They called me gross, and ridiculous, and… fat.

Even Jabba laughed at me. But he did not laugh because he thought I was ugly, he laughed because he knew it hurt me to hear them. He… enjoyed the pain of others. You know.”

Doallyn nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“It hurt,” she said. “I learned not to show it, to lose myself in the dancing, and not let myself hear the laughing… much. But it hurt.” She gave him a glance that flashed defiance. “I am the way I was born to be! Why do beings have to judge each other? Why do they have to stare, and sneer, and say cruel things?”

He shook his head, and his fingers came up to tap the scar that she had nearly forgotten about. “I have no answer for you, Yarna,” he said gravely. “But I understand the questions only too well.”

A ray from the westering suns slid across Doallyn’s eyes, waking him from an exhausted slumber. He blinked, then sat up halfway in the cramped shelter, propping himself on his hands. His companion was still asleep, breathing deeply. The white material of her robe outlined one generous haunch, and he experienced a faint stirring of male interest.

How long had it been since he had been With a female… of any species?

Nearly a year, he realized. He was not the sort to indulge in casual liaisons often… and so much of his time was spent alone, in the wilderness. Doubtless the females atJabba’s court would have been repulsed by his scar. Enough women had drawn back from his face since he’d acquired that scar that he’d grown very cautious about taking off his mask in a woman’s presence. He’d tried hiring women, from time to time, but he’d found that unsatisfactory, too. It was easier to abstain than it was to see revulsion… or, almost worse, indifference in a partner’s eyes.

A heartless, temporary coupling left him feeling even worse than solitude did, Doallyn had discovered.

From time to time he’d wished he had a friend, someone to talk to, but the habit of silence was a hard one to break, He’d talked more to Yarna since their escape than he’d spoken to any one person in the past year.

Of course talking with Yarna couldn’t be avoided, but their time together was strictly temporary, the hunter reminded himself. He’d be glad when he could resume his solitary existence.

Doallyn slid backward, out of the little shelter. As he stood up, he automatically checked the amount of hydron-three remaining in the cartridge. Less than a third gone: He wouldn’t need another until midnight or so.

The hunter walked around the side of a dune to answer nature’s call, then spent a few minutes with the navicomputer on the landspeeder, checking their course. Just as he finished, he heard a sound, then saw Yarna walking toward him. He found himself thinking about the story she’d told. From what he knew of Jabba’s fickle tastes, it was amazing that Yarna had lasted a whole year in the Hutt’s “employ.”

As she strode toward him, the cooling breeze blew her robes around so they billowed out, then outlined her body. Doallyn was startled… the Askajian dancer was visibly smaller. He remembered her curt answer that on a nondesert world she would be “thinner.”

Her body tissues evidently soaked up liquid like a sponge, then utilized the fluid as it was needed, so she could indeed go a long time without water.

“Will we reach Mos Eisley today?” she asked, coming up beside him.

Doallyn shook his head. “Not this evening, anyway.”

He showed her their plotted course on the navicomputer screen.

“Once we get into the Wastes, we’ll have to slow down because of the hills and ravines. If we can halt somewhere north of the Stone Needle and rest for a few hours, we’ll be doing well.”

“And from there, how far?”

“Only about another five hundred klicks. If we start at dawn, we’ll be there by noon or so.”

A slow smile illuminated her broad features, until they glowed like Tatooine’s dawn. “Then I can see my children tomorrow?”

“With any luck,” he said, with an answering smile that she couldn’t see.

“Doallyn…” Her eyes were very intent. With a jolt of surprise, he noted that they were a lovely, clear green. “Thank you for coming with me. For piloting the landspeeder. I don’t think I could have managed without you.”

“How were you planning to get across the Dune Sea?” he asked.

He’d been wondering about that since yesterday.

“I had planned to walk,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I’m strong, and my wind is excellent. But”—she glanced around her at the unending dunes and frowned—”this terrain is… very harsh. It would have been hard to bring enough provisions… it would have taken me a long, long time. I might not have made it.”

The Sand People would have killed you, Doallyn thought, if the suns didn’t… But he was impressed by her courage, nevertheless.

After reloading the landspeeder, Doallyn and Yarna climbed in and glided off across the sands. The suns were far down on the western horizon, and it soon grew chilly. Doallyn kept the speeder at a good clip, but he was uncomfortably aware that the steering problem was growing steadily worse. What if the speeder broke down altogether?

They’d be stranded in the Dune Sea… no, a glance at the navicomputer reassured the pilot slightly. The Dune Sea now lay behind them; they were skimming over the rugged folds and chasms of the Jundland Wastes.

Doallyn was forced to slow the speeder’s headlong rush, and to give all his attention to piloting. The steering problem grew steadily worse, and soon the muscles and tendons in his left arm and shoulder were protesting. It was with relief that the hunter saw that they were approaching the coordinates he’d selected.

He began searching for a good place to stop for the few hours that remained of the night…

Yarna awoke at dawn, to find herself huddled against Doallyn’s back, where she must’ve instinctively migrated in search of warmth.

She hastily rolled away and sat up, rubbing her eyes and looking around her at the bleak desolation that was the Jundland Wastes.

Rock… rock everywhere. Tortured, wind-sculpted rock, in various hues of brown. Ocher-brown, yellow-brown, tan, reddish-brown, dark brown… with miserable scraps of yellowish-green vegetation scattered here and there.

And sand, White sand, so pure and pristine that it dazzled the eye with its whiteness. It appeared innocent and safe, but she knew that the Jundland Wastes were rife with treacherous sand pits that could swallow the unwary. Yarna had been careful to acquire a long stick and to probe the ground before her wherever she ventured.

Turning to look south, Yarna glimpsed the narrow spire of what must be the Stone Needle, the tallest landmark in the Jundland Wastes.

In the pellucid air of dawn she could see it clearly, even at this distance.

Taking out the provisions, she divided a packet meticulously in two, then allowed herself a few scant swallows of water. She ran her hands down her front, realizing that she was now nearly a third less bulky than she had been in Jabba’s court. He’d liked her at maximum fluid capacity, claiming it made her jiggle more effectively, but it had been hard to maintain the greater bulk. She was glad that she could shed some of it now.

When Doallyn awoke, the two escapees quickly loaded the landspeeder, then headed east, toward Mos Eisley. Yarna leaned back in her seat, pleased that she could now move and stretch with far greater freedom.

She was increasingly aware that Doallyn was having to struggle with the steering from time to time. “Is this speeder going to make it?” she asked worriedly.

He nodded. “But I’m getting cramps in my arms trying to hold it on course.”

“I wish I knew how to pilot.”

Buoyed by the knowledge that they were rapidly approaching their goal, the two talked as they sped along. Doallyn described his searches for the krayt dragons that lived in the Jundland Wastes, and told Yarna that there was a surprising amount of life in the wilderness. Whole tribes of Sand People eked out an existence, even though-there was almost no ground water, and they had only a few, stolen moisture vaporators and dew collectors.

“How do they survive?” she wondered.

“Hubba gourds,” he said, and told her about the round, yellowish fruits that grew in the shadows of the cliffs. The fruits held fluid in their tough, stringy inner fibers, liquid that could be sucked and squeezed out to keep life going.

He also described how vicious the Sand People were, how they would kill for no reason more than to steal one’s clothing. “The terrain is dangerous enough,” Doallyn said, “with wild banthas and poisonous lizards and sand pits to worry about… but the Sand People are even worse.”

Yarna shivered despite the heat, and peered at the navicomputer.

“How much farther?”

“We passed Motesta nearly an hour ago.” Doallyn pointed at an orange dot on the screen. “We’re about fifty klicks from the outskirts of Mos Eisley. We’ll be there by—” He broke off in a strangled sound, half gasp, half scream, and the landspeeder swerved wildly.

Yarna had been watching Doallyn—she never saw it coming. All she knew was that one moment the speeder was gliding along, the next, it was struck so hard that it went spinning through the air like a child’s whirl-toy. Yarna screamed as centrifugal force clamped her into the seat like a giant hand. Then the nose of the speeder struck the rocks in front of them, and Doallyn went tumbling out.

Yarna screamed again as she caught a glimpse of a massive figure that loomed like a living, scaled mountain.

She realized that the sound she’d been dimly aware of was a loud hissing, as though all the kettles in the world were spouting at once.

The speeder’s tail went down in answer to another crushing blow, and then Yarna too was flung out. She landed half on a rock, half on sand, and felt the sand give way beneath her, sucking her leg down.

Sand pit! she thought, and desperately grabbed the rock, heaving herself free of the shifting pull. As she did so, she saw a dark shape that was already halfway buried and sinking fast: Oh, no! The landspeeder!

Yarna watched helplessly as their only transport was sucked down until it disappeared completely. Her attention was distracted by a roar that made the ground shake, and she glanced around. What hit us?

She was dizzy, disoriented, as she wondered where Doallyn was.

Stumbling, careful not to step on anything but the stone, she edged her way around the rocky buttress that had saved her, until she could see.

The sight that met her eyes was so overwhelming that her knees buckled, and she had to grab the rock wall for support. The thing that filled the ancient riverbed where they’d “landed” was huge far bigger than the rancor. A krayt dragon—it had to be.

The creature was yellowish-brown in color, almost golden as its scaled back caught the suns’ rays. It had three huge horns, one above each eye and one in the middle of its forehead. Slitted nostrils flared above a mouthful of fangs nearly as long as Yarna’s arm. A ridge of dorsal spines studded its back from its neck to its spike-tinned tail. The monster stood on four squat legs that were bowed outward from the huge mass of its body. The dragon’s eyes were greenish-yellow, with horizontally slitted pupils that glittered like sapphires.

Yarna stiffened as the massive head, many times the size of her own body, swung toward her. Then she heard Doallyn’s voice. “They hunt by sensing motion.

Stand still!”

There was nothing else she could do. Yarna felt as though her feet had taken root, become part of the rocks beneath her. She rolled her eyes sideways in their sockets, and saw DoallYn. The hunter was crouched low, moving toward the dragon from behind a low ridge of rock.

His blaster was in his hand.

What is he doing? she wanted to shriek aloud, but fear held her paralyzed. He can’t mean to try and fight that thing! The idea of a human, even armed with a blaster, taking on that huge mountain of an animal was ludicrous.

But that was plainly what Doallyn intended. The krayt dragon snorted, testing the air, and the finned tail lashed back and forth.

The head swung slowly from one side to the other, with the horns lowered, as though the beast were using them to detect motion.

Doallyn was close, now, crouched only a few dozen meters from the beast.

He checked the charge on his blaster. No. Yarna wanted to shriek.

Let’s climb up the cliffs! It can’t follow us there!

Doallyn, NO!”

But no sound would emerge from her paralyzed throat. She could not move.

Coiling himself like a spring, Doallyn leaped to his feet, vaulted over the low barrier of rock, and raced straight toward the dragon.

His movement broke Yarna’s paralysis. “No!” she shrieked. The massive head swung toward the hunter, the jaws gaping, slavering, wide enough to swallow the landspeeder in two bites. “No, don’t!” she screamed, and moved. Darting out from behind her rock, she grabbed a chunk of sandstone from the riverbed and flung it at the creature.