protective cases, which would then be ferried up to the shipyard and
transfer base on Kessel's moon. With the larvae working comfortably in the
total darkness necessary for spice processing, Doole's operation ran much
more smoothly than it had under Imperial control.
The brief telepathic boost offered by glitterstim spice had made the
substance a valuable commodity tightly controlled by the Empire. Other
planets had a weaker form of spice, sometimes known as the mineral ryll, but
Kessel was the only place where glitterstim could be found. The Empire had
kept an iron fist around Kessel's spice production, keeping the glitterstim
for espionage and interrogation purposes, as well as checks on loyalty and
the granting of security clearances.
But there had always been a vast demand on the invisible market: lovers
wanting to share an ephemeral telepathic link, creative artists seeking
inspiration, investors trying to obtain inside information, scam operators
wanting to dupe rich clients. Many smugglers delivered the spice to Jabba
the Hutt and other gangster distributors.
But the Empire no longer controlled spice production. Doole had expected to
have no further problems--until Solo came back.
Doole had been waiting for the call from Coruscant for days. He had
rehearsed his answers over and over, knowing exactly what he should say.
Perhaps he had rehearsed too much, coming up with snap answers that might
make Minister Organa Solo suspicious.
Skynxnex told Doole he was overreacting, that they just needed to play their
part. Solo and the Wookiee had been safely exiled to the spice mines. No one
would ever find them. But there was always a chance something could go
wrong. Maybe it would be best if he just ordered Solo killed and got rid of
all the risks.
Doole walked along the rows of larval workers. His vision in the blurry
infrared was not much worse than the normal eyesight from his mechanical
eye. The caterpillar-like larvae bowed in silence, working slavishly. Doole
had taken them from the egg sac and raised them here, centering their
existence on processing spice. He was a god to them.
As Doole passed, one of the largest males reared up in a defensive posture,
waving his frail arms as if to ward off Doole from his territory. To his
shock Doole noticed that the male larva had nearly reached maturity. Had
time gone by so quickly? This one would soon shed his skin and emerge as a
strong adult.
Doole would have to kill him well before that. The last thing he needed
right now was competition--even if it did mean killing one of his own
children.
Boss Roke stood in the muster room with hands on his hips, giving the
workers a lumpy, appraising smile. "We lost another team yesterday. A guard
and four workers, down in the deep new tunnels." He waited for that to sink
in, but most of the prisoners had already noticed the missing workers.
"The samples brought up earlier show that this could be one of the richest
strikes of spice we've found, and I'm not going to let incompetence and
superstition cheat me out of a big payoff. I need some volunteers to go down
with me to the lower tunnels and check it out--and if I don't get
volunteers, I'll pick them anyway." Boss Roke waited. "Don't all volunteer
at once."
He scanned the room. Watching him, Han knew that because of his part in the
brawl the day before, he would be one of those picked. But he didn't
mind--not if his suspicions were correct. Rather than give Roke the
satisfaction of coercing him, Han stepped forward. "I'll volunteer. Beats
another day of getting dirt under my fingernails."
Roke looked at him in surprise, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"I'll go along, too." Kyp Durron stepped beside Han. Han felt a happy warmth
swell up inside him, but he pushed it back. He didn't want to explain
anything, not just yet.
Chewbacca yowled in surprise, then grunted a question about Han's sanity.
"What did he say?" Boss Roke asked.
"He's volunteering, too," Han said.
Chewie let out an uncomfortable snort of denial but made no further
argument.
"One more volunteer," Roke said, then scanned the room. "You, Clorr." He
pointed to a former prison worker who had done a lot of damage in Han's
brawl. "I'm taking one guard and you four. Suit up. Let's go."
Roke didn't waste any time. By now Han had grown used to pulling on his
thermal suit and adjusting the breath mask. He switched on the power pack to
start warmth pulsating through his suit. Chewbacca looked ridiculous with
his suit's empty third sleeve limp and taped flat against his torso.
Kyp and Chewbacca kept staring at Han, wondering what he had in mind. Han
moved his hands slightly to quell their questions for the time being. Of
course he had a plan.
One of the other guards, looking fidgety and uncomfortable, shifted a
blaster rifle from shoulder to shoulder.
"Let's go!" Boss Roke said, and clapped his hands.
The four volunteers and the second guard lined up at the opening to the long
metal chamber that housed the floating mine cars. They entered, and Boss
Roke disengaged three cars from the long train. Roke and the guard sat up
front, while the others crammed into the remaining two cars.
"Hey, how about some of those infrared goggles?" Han called. "If there
really is something out there, we'll need to be able to see where to run."
Roke contemptuously put his own goggles over his eyes. "You're expendable."
He activated the guidance system on the front car's controls. The lights
went out, and the opposite door groaned open, flooding the compartment with
cold, thin air.
"So much for that idea," Han said, then scrambled to put his breath mask in
place.
The unenthusiastic prisoner, Clorr, groaned in dismay. Then the floating
cars lurched into motion, gaining speed until they bulleted through the
tunnels. The air whooshed as the car sped close to crumbling rock tubes from
which generations of spice miners had peeled glitterstim deposits.
When the wind of their passage drowned out other noises, Kyp leaned closer
to Han, speaking through his breath mask. "Okay, so tell me what we got
ourselves into."
Han shrugged. "I have an idea, and if I'm right, we can all get out of this
mess."
Chewbacca made a skeptical sound but ended in a question.
"Think about it, Chewie. People have been disappearing off and on from the
same place--what if they found a way to escape? They've been working new
tunnels, going into unexplored areas looking for spice, then suddenly a
bunch of them don't come back. You and I know there are plenty of abandoned
shafts from the illicit miners that slipped through Imperial security. This
planet is honeycombed with entrances to the spice tunnels."
Han paused, hoping they had already figured it out. "Roke's teams usually
have one guard and five blind prisoners. What if they came around the corner
and suddenly found an opening to the surface, letting them see again. They
could overpower the guard and make th
eir way to freedom.
"Once Roke discovers the way out, though, he'll block it up and we won't
have another chance. If we're ever going to get out, if I'm ever going to
get back and see Leia and the kids, I've got to try. I thought maybe this
desperate gamble would be worth it."
"Sounds like a good chance," Kyp said. "I've been down here so long, I'm
willing to try anything."
Chewbacca agreed, but with somewhat less enthusiasm.
They plunged down and down, whipping around sharp corners. Several times Han
thought the rocky walls brushed within a handbreadth of his head, and he
tried to crouch down inside the car. He didn't want to imagine what would
happen if Chewbacca's head struck an outcropping at the speed they were
moving.
In the black spice mines Han rapidly lost all conception of time. He had no
idea how long they traveled, how far they went, or how fast the floating
cars moved through the tunnels. Boss Roke brought the vehicle to a stop and
called for the prisoners to dismount. The guard noisily unshouldered his
blaster rifle.
Han paid extra attention to the small noises he heard, building the best
mental picture possible of where Boss Roke and the guard were standing at
all times. That was something he would need to know if he had to make a
quick escape. But they had gone down so deep now, he could not imagine
finding a passage to the surface.
"Follow me," Boss Roke said. "I want one prisoner up front ahead of me and
the guard taking the rear."
Han heard a shove and a gasp, then someone stumbled forward. Was it Kyp? No,
from the unpleasant groan he determined that the point man would be Clorr,
the former prison worker.
Boss Roke rustled in his pack, withdrawing some piece of equipment. Han
heard an electronic clicking and pinging sound. It was some sort of
detector. Han strained his ears, listening to the tones change as Roke moved
the scanner from side to side.
"Spice all around us," Roke said. "Just as we thought, and the concentration
seems even higher up ahead. Move forward."
Clorr stumbled into the blackness, followed by Boss Roke. Han walked
blindly. He felt Kyp taking hold of his waist, and he heard Chewbacca's
breath echoing behind his breath mask.
As they went farther, the tunnels grew colder and colder. Han's naked
fingers crackled when he bent them. He turned up the heat in his suit, but
the warmth comforted him little.
The electronic clicks from Roke's detector grew louder. "Concentration
increasing," he said. "These are some of the densest, freshest veins of
spice we've ever uncovered. There'll be a lot more work for you prisoners to
do."
The detector clicked, and they shuffled ahead. Other than their own noises,
the spice tunnel seemed a mouth of silence. Han thought he heard a sudden
scuttling noise farther down the passage, something massive that moved,
stopped, moved again, then slowly began to come back, as if stalking. Up
front Clorr muttered to himself, but Han heard Boss Roke shove him onward.
"The reading gets stronger right up around the corner." Boss Roke's gravelly
voice carried a childlike hint of excitement. "I'm going to have to
recalibrate this sensor."
Han heard the distant skittering sound again, but it seemed farther ahead.
It wasn't a noise that anyone in their party had made. It sounded like sharp
metal points ticking against glass.
The tenor of shuffling human footsteps changed as they turned the corner.
"Spice reading is off the scale!" Boss Roke cried.
Suddenly Clorr screamed.
"Hey!" Roke said.
Clorr screamed again, but the sound came from much deeper in the tunnel, as
if something had yanked him away and fled, carrying him to a secret lair.
"Where are--'' Roke said, then he, too, gave a startled shout.
Han heard booted feet turning around, running back. Han nudged Kyp aside,
back the way they had come. "Watch yourself!"
Boss Roke stumbled into Han, then fell backward. Han reeled against the
rocky wall but kept his balance. Roke clawed at the floor, desperate to
flee.
"Turn around!" Han shouted to Kyp, giving the young man a push toward the
floating cars. "What is it?" he yelled to Boss Roke. He heard the pointy,
ticking sound again, moving closer, skittering like many sharp legs that
ended in stiletto claws.
Roke screamed, then gave an oooof! as the air was knocked out of him. Han
heard a thud as the man hit the ground, but Roke clambered to his feet
again, or at least to his knees, crawling forward.
As Han started to run, Roke grabbed his leg and held on. Han tried to jerk
free, shouting, "Stop it! We've got to get out of here!"
But before Roke could let go, something behind him--something very large and
very, very close--grabbed Roke and yanked him backward, breaking his grip.
Roke's fingernails were like claws as he tried to grasp the slick fabric of
Han's thermal suit, but with a quick whisking sound he was dragged away down
the tunnel, still gurgling and crying out.
In the darkness Han could see nothing at all.
"Run!" Han shouted.
Chewbacca roared, then plowed like a demolition vehicle into the guard
behind him. Kyp followed the Wookiee and leaped over the fallen man, but Han
stumbled on him, sprawling flat on the broken rocky floor. Nobody could see
anything.
The guard scrambled to his knees and started thrashing and pummeling as if
Han were the enemy. But Han, blinded and desperate, grabbed for something
else. He snatched at the infrared goggles on the guard's face and pulled
them free.
The walls were closing in around him. The screams and sounds of panicked
fleeing and the tick tick noise of the approaching monstrous thing made
claustrophobic thunder around him.
The fallen guard's wail of sudden blindness and dismay was muffled by his
breath mask. He clutched at Han, but Han knocked the breath mask free. The
escaping oxygen made a whistling sound. The guard had to release Han to
replace his mask.
Han scrabbled forward. He had to see. They needed to find the floating cars
so they could get away. "Run, Chewie! Straight ahead! Make sure Kyp goes
with you!"
He slapped the goggles over his head. He heard the scuttling, thumping
sounds of the sharp, scampering legs again. Had an army of the things come
to attack, or was it just one very large specimen with many legs?
Looking through the goggles, he could see the bright blob of the fallen
guard's infrared signature and the fleeing brilliant shapes of Kyp and
Chewbacca. He heard the thunder of hard, pointed legs coming back up the
tunnel, stampeding down on them.
The guard moved, clambered to his feet, and began stumbling behind Han, but
the man could not see. He weaved back and forth and struck the wall,
smacking his head on a hard outcropping. Running, monstrous feet came
closer, like a patter of meteorites pelting the side of a ship. The guard
screamed.
Han turned around to watch him, but he saw nothing else in the blackness of<
br />
the tunnel, no shape, no signature, no body heat from any creature--nothing
that was alive.
The guard suddenly froze, as if a giant invisible hand had grabbed him from
behind. Then Han saw, to his horror, the silhouette of a long, spindly leg
reaching around in front of the guard's waist and another one clipped over
his shoulder, totally black, like a cutout from the infrared form of the
guard. The man struggled and wailed.
The guard yanked at something--his blaster rifle. Han gasped as a brilliant
lance erupted in the pitch darkness, striking against the multi-legged
thing, illuminating it for the shaved splinter of a heartbeat. Han saw what
seemed to be a writhing mass of sharp twigs, a rat's nest of spindly legs
and claws and fangs intermixed with eyes--many, many eyes. Then the creature
absorbed all the light, plunging the tunnels back into opaque blindness.
The guard was lifted high in the air and turned around. Other shadows of the
icicle legs wrapped around him. The glowing rectangle of the thermal suit's
battery pack burned brilliantly in the infrared, but one of the sharp claws
thrust into x like a stinger. Sparks flew into the darkness, leaving
glimmers in front of Han's eyes.
As Han ran backward, stumbling and tripping, he saw the man's infrared
outline grow dim as he became as cold as his surroundings. The creature,
whatever it was, must be draining or feeding on energy, on body heat or
Jedi Search Page 18