The Crystal Star (24 page)

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 ^w, Luke and Threepio-Threepio, without a ^w!--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."

Rillao's strength returned quickly. She sat up in her bed, eating stew as the unnamed one had: picking out

the chunks of meat with her fingers, then drinking the sauce when the meat was gone. Beside the wide

port, Lelila and Geyyahab sat with her and planned a strategy. Outside the ship, the hijacked ships

orbited each other in a complicated dance, against a brilliant backdrop of stars.

Rillao watched the ship of the Firrerreo through the porthole.

"Lelila," she said, "when you found me, did you find anything else, anything... strange?" "Besides a web

feeding on your body? Besides a shipload of abandoned people? Something strange like what?" "Like a

small machine. You could... hold it in your hand. Perhaps it was on the table, or fallen on the floor?"

"No," Lelila said. "What was it?" "Nothing," Rillao said. "Nothing of any importance." Beyond the group

of passenger freighters, the ship of the Firrerreo began to accelerate. It moved slowly out of the dance of

ships, speeding up so gradually that its motion was nearly imperceptible.