he was broken. Then, for the entertainment value, Doole had planted spice
grubs in his body. As the grubs chewed up his insides, the warden had gone
through marvelously theatrical convulsions, in the middle of which Doole
encased him in carbonite, using freezing equipment that had once been used
to prepare violent and dangerous prisoners for transport.
Reminiscing always aroused him. Reaching into a drawer of his desk, Doole
withdrew the bright-yellow cravat that signified his readiness to mate. He
secured it in place, then drew in a long hissing breath as he refocused his
mechanical eye and glanced at his reflection. Irresistible!
Doole rubbed his palms along his ribs to straighten the lizard-skin
waistcoat, then strutted out of his office, down the corridor. He entered
the secure wing, keying in the access code that only he knew; then he sucked
in a deep breath. Flicking his tongue in and out, he could pick up the
pheromones from the air.
Inside their cubicle-cells, the captive Rybet females huddled in the
corners, trying to hide in the shadows. Doole's yellow cravat seemed very
bright in the dimness.
Alone on Kessel, Moruth Doole had been frustrated for many years. But now
that he ran the planet, he could afford to have dozens of female slaves
shipped from his homeworld. Sometimes the females did not cooperate, but
after years of working in the correctional facility, Doole had plenty of
experience in dealing with unruly prisoners.
Lately, his only difficulty had been in choosing among the females. As he
sauntered down the narrow corridor, setting his mechanical eye to high focus
and peering into the cells, Moruth Doole's writhing lips formed a huge,
lustful smile.
Kessel's landscape rushed beneath the armored prisoner transport. Han Solo
could see only a narrow strip through the window slits in the prisoners'
compartment. He and Chewie had been strapped into their seats and linked to
resistance-feedback electrodes that would knock them unconscious if they
struggled too much. Chewbacca had even more trouble with the full-body
restraint than he had with the stun-cuffs.
Skynxnex hunched over the pilot controls, circling the transport away from
the battlements of the Imperial Correction Facility. An armored guard sat in
the copilot's seat, directing his blaster rifle toward Han and Chewie.
"Hey, how about pointing out some of the landmarks, Skynxnex?" Han said.
"What kind of tour is this, anyway?"
"Shut up, Solo!" Skynxnex said.
"Why should I? I bought a full-price ticket."
Skynxnex sent a painful jolt through the restraining electrodes. Chewbacca
roared. Han muttered, "There goes your tip, Skynxnex."
The scarecrow guided the transport around a huge open pit that plunged deep
into the ground. Rusted girders and support structures stood like skeletal
fingers propped up in the whitish barrens. It took Han a moment to realize
this was a shaft bored into the crust by the giant atmosphere factories,
chewing through the rocks and dissolving out oxygen and carbon dioxide to
replenish the constantly fading air. After the huge factory had sucked out
the viable breathing gases, it had left access to an entire network of
underground tunnels for spice mining.
Skynxnex set the prisoner transport down on the rocky ground and fitted a
breath mask over his nose and mouth; he gave another mask to the guard.
"What about us?" Han said.
"You won't be out very long," Skynxnex said. "A little light-headedness will
do you good."
Punching a button on the control panel, Skynxnex released their restraints.
Han stretched his sore arms. Instantly, the guard snapped up his rifle, and
Skynxnex whipped out his modified double-blaster, both pointing the deadly
barrels directly at Han.
Han froze. "Just ... stretching. It's okay. Calm down!"
When Skynxnex opened the side door to the transport vehicle, Han felt his
ears pop. Moist air flashed into white vapor, wafting in the rarefied
atmosphere next to the open pit.
Han felt oxygen being stolen from his lungs. Instinctively, he drew in a
deep breath, but that helped little. He and Chewbacca stumbled out of the
craft as Skynxnex and the guard prodded them.
At the rim of the crater they found an elevator cage on tracks that plunged
deep into the pit. Skynxnex seemed to be moving with deliberate slowness.
Unable to breathe, Han tried to hurry, stumbling into the elevator cage and
gesturing Chewbacca after him. He gasped and wheezed. Black spots began to
appear in front of his eyes. When he did manage to breathe an entire lungful
of the thin air, the cold of Kessel bit into his chest.
"A few years ago we had the atmosphere factories running full tilt,"
Skynxnex said, his words muffled behind the facemask. "Doole figured it was
a frivolous waste of energy."
The guard shut the wire mesh door, and Skynxnex operated the elevator
controls. The cage descended at a rapid clip until the window of sky shrank
to a small spot of blue light high above.
They saw openings into the rock wall sealed off with steel doors. At each
level a ring of light encircled the pit, but many of the illuminators had
either burned out or been broken.
Chewbacca hung on to the bars of the elevator with his long hairy arms,
panting for air. His pink tongue protruded, turning purplish from lack of
oxygen. Han, shivering and dizzy and starved for breath, slumped to the
bottom of the elevator.
When the elevator abruptly stopped, the jolt slammed Han's head into the
mesh. As he looked down through the open cage floor, he saw the pit
continuing immeasurably far below them.
"Get up!" Skynxnex said, kicking him. "No time to sleep. Come on, you'll get
a breath of fresh air inside."
With some help from Skynxnex, Han managed to haul himself to his feet. The
smaller guard had much more difficulty manhandling Chewbacca forward.
Opening the gate of the elevator, they had access to one of the sealed metal
doors. Skynxnex cranked the hatch, and all four of them staggered into a
small tiled chamber.
Han could barely see anymore. His ears buzzed. His eyesight was a mixture of
black specks, roaring blood, and dim shadows of the objects around him. But
as soon as Skynxnex sealed the door, glorious oxygen flooded the chamber.
Before the captives could recover, the guard shoved the barrel of his
blaster rifle under Chewbacca's chin, and Skynxnex held his own weapon
against Han's head. "Almost there," Skynxnex said. "No funny stuff now."
Han, happy just to be breathing again, couldn't dream of doing anything. At
least not yet.
On the other side of the airlock was a large muster room filled with
lethargic-looking workers ready to begin their shift in the spice mines. The
muster room had been blasted out of solid rock, and a tall bank of bunks ran
along one side of the room. An empty eating section with long tables took up
the central area.
Cameras stared down at the activity from perches on the walls. Guards in
hodgepodge stormtrooper uniforms
waited behind screens in the control rooms.
Other guards kept an eye on the people moving about in the muster area. All
the workers looked pale and haggard, as if they had been underground and
underfed for years.
A burly man strode up to meet them, keeping his eyes fixed on Skynxnex. The
man had a lumpy face, a lumpy chin covered with bristly black stubble, and
lumpy arms as if his massive muscles had all been attached at the wrong
places.
"You brought me two more?" the man said. "Only two? That's not enough." He
reached out to grab Chewbacca's hairy arm. Chewbacca roared and flinched
away, but the lumpy man didn't notice. "Well, the Wookiee's worth three men,
but I don't know about the other one. This doesn't take care of half the
people I've lost."
Skynxnex glowered at him. "So stop losing people," he said with a voice of
ice, then nudged Han. "This is Boss Roke. He's in charge of breaking you. He
gets extra points with Moruth Doole to make your life miserable."
"He doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of keeping track of his
workers," Han said.
Roke flashed him a withering glare. "Something's taking my men down in the
deep tunnels. I've had two more missing since yesterday. They vanish without
a trace--no locators, nothing."
Han shrugged. "It's hard to get good help these days."
Skynxnex pulled out his double-blaster and shoved it in Han's face again,
but he spoke to Boss Roke. "Get thermal suits for these two. We'll watch
them while they get into uniform."
Roke snapped his fingers, and two guards went rummaging through some
cubicles. "The human won't be difficult, but the Wookiee--we don't carry
much in that size."
In the end the guard found a large misshapen suit that had once been worn by
some alien creature that had three arms, but it fit Chewbacca well enough
after they sealed off the third arm; the empty sleeve and glove dangled down
his chest.
A heater-pack between the shoulder blades powered the whole thing to keep
them warm down in the frigid mine tunnels. Han was relieved to see a small
breath mask attached to the suit.
Skynxnex backed toward the elevator. The guard had already entered the
airlock chamber. One last time, as if he felt he hadn't used enough tiresome
threats for one afternoon, Skynxnex pointed the double-blaster at Han. "Next
time maybe Moruth will let me use this."
"If you clean up your room without being told, and if you eat all your
vegetables," Han taunted, "then he might let you have a special treat."
"Shift alpha, ready for work detail!" Boss Roke bellowed into the muster
room, and dozens of weary people shuffled to squares painted on the floor.
Roke pointed to two empty squares. "You two, positions eighteen and
nineteen. Now!"
"What, no new-employee orientation?" Han asked.
With a sadistic grin on his face, Boss Roke shoved him toward the squares.
"It's on-the-job training."
At some unspoken signal the workers mounted breath masks on their faces.
Seeing this, Han and Chewbacca followed suit. A big metal door on the far
side of the wall slid open to reveal an illuminated chamber a hundred meters
long, in which floated a centipede-like mine transport of little cars linked
together by magnetic attractors.
A high-pitched tone pinged through hidden speakers, and the workers took
their seats on one of the floating mine cars. As people climbed aboard, the
separate sections of the cars swayed back and forth.
Chewbacca grunted a question. Han looked around, blinking. "I don't know any
more about this than you do, buddy." Now that Skynxnex had departed, he no
longer needed to continue his blustering. Fear started to trickle into his
limbs.
Boss Roke took a seat in the pilot car; other guards were stationed evenly
throughout the open tram. All the guards wore infrared goggles. Every one of
the prisoners sat motionless. Behind them the metal door slammed shut.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for something.
"Now what?" Han mumbled to himself.
All the lights went out. Han and Chewbacca plunged into an absolute
suffocating blackness like a blanket of tar.
"What the--'' Han drew a sudden deep breath. The blackness was palpable. He
couldn't see a thing. Beside him Chewbacca groaned in alarm. He heard the
other workers moving, shuffling. Han's ears strained as his imagination
tried to understand what was going on. He heard a clunking, sliding sound.
"Hold on, Chewie," he said.
A metal door at the opposite side of the chamber opened up. The sound of its
movement along rough metal tracks echoed in the enclosed space. Wind rushed
around their ears as the air spilled outward into the mine tunnels of
Kessel.
In a sudden panic Han pushed his breath mask tighter against his face just
as he felt the atmosphere grow thin. The fleeing air took with it whatever
heat had remained, making his exposed skin tingle with cold.
The mine cars lurched on their repulsorlifts, picking up speed. Acceleration
slammed Han into his hard, uncomfortable seat. He could hear the air roaring
past his head, feel the tunnel walls around him. The transport whipped
around a curve, and Han grabbed the cold metal railing to keep himself from
flying out of his seat. The mine cars whisked along, tilting downward, then
lurching sideways. He had no idea how Boss Roke could possibly see where he
was going unless the whole system was computer controlled.
Behind them, just after they had passed under an echoing archway, a heavy
metal door slammed shut with a sound like an avalanche of scrap metal.
Han couldn't understand why the spice miners didn't string up at least some
cheap illuminators as guideposts along the tunnels. But then it came to him
like a slap in the face: the realization that since glitterstim spice was
photoactive--made potent in the presence of light--it obviously had to be
mined in total darkness or else it would be ruined.
Total darkness.
Han and Chewbacca would spend their days at hard labor in the mines without
ever being able to see each other, or where they were, or what they were
doing. Han had to blink his eyes just to make sure they were open instead of
closed--not that it made any difference.
A shiver went down his back. Boss Roke had said that some unknown thing deep
in the mines was preying on helpless workers, snatching them unawares. How
could anybody run from a carnivorous attacker while surrounded was complete
darkness?
The quality of the sound changed off and on. As Han's mind grew accustomed
to processing information through his ears, it became obvious whenever the
rushing mine car passed side tunnels, because of the sudden hole in the
wind. Breathing through the mask, he could smell nothing other than flat
recycled air.
The mine car wobbled from side to side, rocking as somebody moved about in
the seats, climbing over the individual cars. The person slowly clambered
over one seat back, then another, approaching their position. Han thought he
heard someone breathing,
straining, growing nearer.
"You there! Number fourteen! Sit down!" a guard shouted.
Number fourteen? Han thought. How could the guard possibly see which one had
been moving about? Then he remembered the infrared goggles. The guards could
probably see everyone, bright silhouettes against the backdrop of blackness.
The car stopped jostling for a few moments, but then the rocking started
again. The mysterious person kept moving toward them. Somebody heaved
himself over the seat to the empty spot right behind Han and Chewbacca.
"Hey, I told you to sit down!" the guard shouted.
"This is my new seat," a voice said.
"That's your new seat!" the guard said, strangely repeating the words before
he fell silent.
Han forced himself not to speak. Since he couldn't see anything himself, the
intruder must be just shifting about, unable to tell where he was going. Or
could he have his own set of infrared goggles? Had Skynxnex or Moruth Doole
hired some assassin to get rid of Han and Chewbacca while no one was
watching?
A quick slash from a vibrator knife? A shove that knocked him off the
floating transport, abandoning him down in the empty labyrinth of tunnels?
In the darkness Han would never be able to find his way back. He wondered if
he would starve, freeze, or suffocate first. He didn't want to find out.
He heard the faint, echoed breathing of someone speaking behind a breath
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