Han made arrangements for an extra shield for the Falcon. A few minutes later, a crawler shuffled toward them, towing the big transparent sheet.
“Efficient,” Luke said.
“Or bored. Sure isn’t much traffic.” He scowled, “Wouldn’t you know? First vacation I ever get, and I come to a backwater.”
“Threepio, where’s your contact?” Luke asked.
A few dozen other ships of various types and vintages hunkered down on the blasted rock. Most were shielded. A few had been left naked and exposed in the cosmic weather, decaying to derelicts.
“Here to meet us, I’m virtually certain, Master Luke.” See-Threepio peered nervously through the viewport. “Perhaps riding out on the crawler?”
See-Threepio fidgeted. A few weeks ago, Han had begun to receive incomprehensible messages. But Threepio recognized the language; he said it was nearly extinct. The messages passed on rumors of strange events at Crseih Station.
“It is my fault we’ve set out on this investigation,” See-Threepio said.
Han had charged Threepio with replying to the messages, using the same obscure language, and with setting up a rendezvous. Now Threepio, being Threepio, took full responsibility for the entire expedition.
“I do hope we are not following a hoax,” Threepio said.
“It’s all right, Threepio,” Han said. “It wouldn’t be your fault.”
“But I could hardly survive the embarrassment if the rumors turned out to be of no account.…”
Han gave up listening to Threepio’s worries. Han would be sorry for Luke, of course, if he failed to find the lost Jedi. But Han was content to be here, whether the trip turned out to be vacation or adventure.
He turned his attention to the outpost. The low, oblate airlinks covered and protected and connected the districts of the station, some rich and well kept, some collapsing into piles of rubble. Though the Empire’s research facilities had been abandoned, the community that had sprung up around them had continued. Some of the inhabitants had found other ways to thrive, without the presence of the Empire or the attention of the New Republic.
Representatives and ambassadors concentrated their attention on more populous worlds closer to the center of power.
And that’s a relief, Han thought. No ambassadors, no court dress. No formal dinners.
The crawler hesitated.
“How will you be wishing to pay for this service?” its operator asked.
“Letter of resources,” Han said.
“Hard credits only.” The crawler started to back away.
“Wait a minute!” Han shouted. “Do you—” He stopped. He had been about to say, “Do you know who I am?” But he was traveling incognito. Of course the operator did not know who he was.
The thought gave him a feeling of freedom.
“The letter of resources must be deposited, Master Ha—” See-Threepio’s memory programming cut off the use of Han’s real name just in time. “Sir. Otherwise it cannot be drawn upon.”
“I know that.” Han grinned. “I guess I just wanted to flash it around. All those seals and signatures.” And a fake identity.
The crawler headed for the airlinks.
“Come back here!” Han said. “Cash money.”
“Show your coin.”
Han displayed the rainbow edges of a few bills of New Republic currency. He was glad, for old times’ sake, for the sake of his smuggling days, that the Senate had failed to pass a law abandoning physical currency. Smuggling would have been a whole lot harder without hard-to-trace cash money. Of course, that was why the Senate wanted to abandon it.
The crawler pulled forward again and maneuvered until the shield covered the Falcon. It disengaged, and the shield settled. The crawler nestled up beneath the Falcon.
Han shut down the Falcon and set several security devices, some of them cleverer than others.
“Let’s go,” he said. “And remember who we are. I mean, who we aren’t.”
Threepio had put on the purple lacquer; Han had grown his beard. But Luke had done nothing to disguise himself.
“I don’t know, kid,” Han said to Luke. “I still think you ought to do something. Shave your head, maybe? Otherwise, somebody’s sure to recognize you.”
Luke gave him a quizzical glance. “I’m not shaving my head. No one will recognize me.”
Han felt dizzy. Luke’s features suddenly blurred and reformed. He became, in Han’s eyes, a different individual: darker hair, a handspan taller, thinner, his features ordinary and unmemorable.
“Dammit!” Han said. “Don’t do that to me!”
The image shivered away, revealing Luke.
“All right,” Luke said. “I won’t affect you. But no one else will recognize me.”
“Okay.”
They descended.
Han wished Chewbacca was with them, but traveling incognito, it had been too risky. With his beard, Han could probably escape identification. A human man and a chestnut Wookiee traveling together, though: throughout the Republic, that image made people think of General Han Solo and his friend, the Hero of the New Republic, Chewbacca.
At the bottom of the Millennium Falcon’s ramp, the crawler’s entryway was dim. A translucent rod barred Han’s path. He pushed it. It moved in his hand. He gripped it harder. It shivered and shook and rattled against the skin of the crawler. Several similar rods, each one segmented, each joint a faceted bulge, snapped across the doorway in front of him.
“Hey!” Han yelled.
“Let go!” the driver said.
“Let him go,” Luke said. “You’re holding on to his arm. His leg. His appendage.”
“How do you know?”
Luke just looked at him.
Han let go. “I hate it when you do that,” he said to Luke.
“Pay first,” the driver said. “Then enter.”
Han peeled off several bills and gave them over to the driver.
One of the thin, translucent appendages slid across the doorway in front of him until its four-clawed end hovered before his face. The claws were as sharp and blue as steel, and each was as long as his hand.
“Nice fingernails,” Han said. He put the cash into the claws. They closed gently, without piercing the engraved paper.
“Thank you,” the driver said. “You will pay more.”
“More? Now?” Han exclaimed. “For parking on a chunk of rock?”
“For parking on a chunk of rock under a rented shield,” the driver said, “when a new X-ray storm will approach. My rented shield. However, I will move it away if you would prefer.”
Han had considered the radiation flux strong enough to qualify as an X-ray storm. On Crseih, though, it was normal weather. When the white dwarf neared the black hole, and the black hole began tearing heated gas from its surface, the X rays would intensify into a true storm, an X-ray hurricane.
“An X-ray storm will surely have adverse effects on the systems of the Mil—of your ship,” See-Threepio said, “if it is left unprotected.”
“I know that,” Han said. He pulled off three more bills and shoved them into the driver’s claws. He thought, This is going to leave us pretty short of cash. Never mind, the letter of resources will take care of the problem.
The claws withdrew. Rustling, the other legs parted. Han’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light. The driver sat on the other side of the crawler cabin, pulling its legs in around it like a pile of dry sticks.
“The ride to Crseih,” the driver said, “will be free.”
“Thanks so much,” Han said. Behind them, the Falcon drew in its ramp and locked its hatch.
See-Threepio peered around the inside of the crawler.
“You have no other passengers?” he asked.
“I will only have room to carry you,” the driver said.
Threepio said a few words in a language so strange it hurt Han’s ears. Threepio had spoken it to him before, while translating the messages from Crseih Station.
/> Threepio thinks this guy might be our contact! Han thought.
The driver rattled several appendages, including those with aural sensory hairs, and sharp defensive spines.
“What will you mean?” the driver said to Threepio. “Why will you irritate my auditory organs?”
“I beg your pardon,” Threepio said. “I said nothing of any importance. I mistook you for someone else.”
The crawler left the starship beneath its shield and headed toward the city.
The driver stopped the crawler in its bay. The airlink moved to meet the door. Han vaulted down and strode into Crseih Station. Luke and See-Threepio followed.
The crawler backed out and rumbled away.
“Spiders,” Han said, shuddering. “I’m sorry, but spiders really give me the creeps.”
“Spiders?” See-Threepio said. “Are there spiders? Where? I must be careful that they do not spin their webs in my joints. Why, I knew a droid once—”
“I meant the driver,” Han said.
“But the driver was not a spider,” See-Threepio said.
“Metaphorically speaking,” Han said.
“But—”
“Never mind,” Han said. “Forget I said anything.”
“He was a good businessman,” Luke said.
Han laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. He was pretty grabby.”
See-Threepio took a few nervous steps forward and looked around.
“I’m certain our contact is here somewhere!” he said, despite their being alone in the entry bay.
Han glanced at Luke. “Now what? Do you have any idea where to start looking for your lost Jedi?”
Luke shook his head. His hair fell across his forehead and for a moment he looked like the green kid he had been when Han first met him. But he was not a green kid anymore. Far from it. Over the years, he had developed an otherworldly presence that Han found both touching and alarming.
“I expected to be able to sense—” Luke shrugged unhappily. “There’s nothing. Maybe they’re shielding themselves. Hiding. After the way the Empire hunted them down, who can blame them?”
“You’d think they’d notice,” Han said, “that there hasn’t been any Empire for years.”
“But there are plenty of people who want it to return,” Luke said stubbornly.
“Okay, okay.” Han did not believe a group of lost Jedi existed. On the other hand, the longer Luke searched for them, the longer Han’s vacation would last.
Maybe I’d better go easy on the teasing, he said to himself.
Beneath the transparent radiation shields, the carnival light of the burning whirlpool turned gray and soft. Small shadows appeared and disappeared, dappling the ground.
Han glanced up. As Crseih Station spun on its axis, the black hole and its accretion disk created a violent dawn. The burning whirlpool stretched across a quarter of the sky. When it set, its white dwarf companion would rise. As the white dwarf plunged toward the center of the star system, it and its companion would rise closer and closer to the same time, until they rose together and burned the heavens.
Han was careful not to look directly at the accretion disk of the black hole, even with the protection of the shields. In an instant, the natural fireworks display expended more energy than all the celebrations conceived by civilization since the beginning of history.
He proceeded through the airlink toward the first dome of the station proper. Hot, moist air, tropical and fetid, closed in around Han. He could practically see the air, practically open his fingers and grab a handful of it.
Most of the folks who live here must be from tropical worlds, he thought. It’s easy to keep a space station cool—
But not a station like Crseih. Overworked cooling machinery vibrated the floor. The shields protected the living space by absorbing X rays. But the enormous energy reradiated as heat, and the heat had to go somewhere. The cooling machinery strained to transport it to Crseih’s night side, where the heat could be radiated into the vacuum of space. With the black hole on one side of the station, and the white dwarf on the other, Crseih’s night side was barely a sliver of shadow.
Han held his palm a finger’s width from the surface of the airlink. After a moment he pulled back. Even with the efforts of the cooling machinery, the surface was uncomfortably hot.
See-Threepio hurried on ahead, strutting stiffly, strange in his purple-lacquer disguise. He continued his futile search for his contact.
“I distinctly told our correspondent to meet us,” Threepio said querulously. “I cannot understand—”
Luke strode past Han—
He did go by me, didn’t he? Han thought. Did I see him? Or didn’t I? Damn, I hate it when he does that!
“Threepio,” Luke said, “it would be better not to broadcast our plans.”
“But, Master Luke, I never would—I assure you I wasn’t engaging my transmitter!”
“Don’t engage your vocal unit, either.”
“Very well, Master Luke,” See-Threepio said, “if that’s as you prefer it.” The droid walked on, body language as expressive as words that he had expected to be met at the landing field.
In the humidity and the heat, sweat ran down Han’s back and sides and beaded on his forehead without evaporating. He wiped his face and rolled up his sleeves, for once not worrying whether he looked proper.
Over the years, Leia and his own advisers had made him more aware of his clothing. Instead of putting on whatever came to hand out of his closet, in whatever combination the cleaner droid deposited it, he had begun to dress according to his day’s duties. Usually he could get away without wearing a formal uniform, unless his schedule included addressing or inspecting regular troops, or a diplomatic reception. Han Solo hated uniforms. He was not particularly keen on speeches or receptions, either.
On this trip, he had not even brought a uniform. And though his frayed pants and comfortable old shirt were too heavy for the climate of Crseih Station, he felt as if he were expanding with freedom.
No uniforms, no speeches, no receptions.
He laughed out loud.
“This is going to be fun,” he said.
They rounded a curve of the steamy airlink. It stretched on empty before them.
“Where’s Threepio?” Luke said.
“I don’t know,” Han said. “You probably hurt his feelings by telling him to shut up.”
“I just told him to keep our plans to himself.”
“Don’t you know where he is?”
“I could find him,” Luke said, “but I’d better not. I’d better not do anything long-range. I don’t want to give us away.”
“Why not send up a signal flare? Let the Jedi Masters find us.”
“Let’s get the lay of the land first,” Luke said. “After all, we don’t know much about the people I’m looking for. Only the rumors, and the strange stories—”
“You’re right, kid,” Han said. The longer Luke takes, the longer before I have to put on another uniform. “Absolutely right. Take all the time you want.”
“And if they are Jedi—I want to be certain they aren’t on the dark side.”
“Wouldn’t you know it—wouldn’t you sense it—if someone using the dark side was near?”
“Sure I would,” Luke said.
“Good.”
“I think I would.” Luke stared through the translucent side of the tunnel. In the distance, domes perched on flat rock between craters. He said in a soft voice, “I hope I would.”
Exasperated, Han strode on ahead. “What do I always say?” he muttered. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
He burst through the exit of the airlink and entered the first dome of Crseih Station. Noise and light surrounded him, as thick and exciting as the hot, steamy air.
Luke followed more cautiously, poised at Han’s right shoulder, keeping watch.
Han wondered how far Luke could project his illusion of disguise. Did the inhabitants of the station see him as he
really was, when they were at a distance, and then think they had mistaken what he looked like when they got nearer? Or did his local effect of disguise surround him like a cloak, and project his image to anyone who glanced at him?
Han could not tell, for Luke had kept his promise to leave his partner unaffected. As far as Han was concerned, the young man beside him was Luke Skywalker, pilot, brother-in-law, and, incidentally, Jedi Knight. He wore his robes, which fortunately were not much different from the everyday garb of many humanoid beings. They did not mark him as Jedi, and they did conceal his lightsaber.
Han stroked his beard, a habit he had picked up while it was still growing. Those last few weeks before he and Luke began this trip, he had been eager and anxious to be on their way. Stroking his beard surely had not made it grow any faster, but the motion was a talisman, a reminder that in two more weeks—if he could just get through this review, then in one more week—if he could just get through this speech—he would be away and on his own again.
The enormous first dome of Crseih Station spread out like a carnival around him. Bands and jugglers, acrobats and merchants demonstrated their abilities or displayed their wares.
A group of Brebishems lay in a heap on the side of the path, wriggling and rolling together, twisting their long snouts and flapping their wide leaf-shaped ears. They squeezed so close together that they resembled one organism, as if their soft wrinkled mauve skins had touched and melded. A low continuous moan emanated from the group. It was impossible to tell if one or all made the sound.
Luke threw a coin into the basket sitting before the Brebishems.
“What’s that for?” Han said.
“Appreciation for their art.”
“Art?” Han looked at Luke askance, but Luke was perfectly serious.
“It isn’t any stranger than dancing, or bolo-ball.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Han said. An image came to him, unbidden, of the last time he and Leia had danced. Some reception somewhere, he could not remember when or even what planet the event had been on. Only that there had been a few minutes free of diplomacy, toasts, and salutations, and he and Leia had held each other close in the mirror-fractured light on the sparkling dance floor. A sharp pang of desire and loneliness touched his heart.
The Crystal Star Page 4