She envied Han his beard. Such an easy way to hide one’s face. She considered disguising herself as a man, but only for a moment.
In stories, she said to herself, princesses always disguise themselves as princes. But princesses in stories never have any hips. They never have any breasts. No. I’d look like a woman in disguise; I’d only draw more attention.
Better to be invisible.
Chewbacca gazed at his changing fur with every evidence of fascination. But then he sighed, deeply, woefully. His sigh echoed in the empty space in Leia’s heart where she could not find any perception of her children.
“We can’t be Leia and Chewbacca anymore,” she said.
Chewbacca raised his head slowly. His eyes were dark and sad and questioning.
“We have to be Lelila and Geyyahab—we have to be Lelila and somebody, if you don’t want to be Geyyahab you can choose another name.”
Chewbacca—Geyyahab—indicated that he accepted her choice of names, but did not understand the necessity.
“Whoever stole the children meant it as a strike against me,” Leia said. “And against you and Han and Luke. The kidnappers will expect us to come after them. They’ll be watching for us. Setting a trap. I think the only way we’ll defeat them is with surprise.”
Chewbacca whined at her quizzically.
“No,” Leia said, in despair. “I don’t know who they are. Or where they went.” But they must be remnants of the fallen Empire, she thought. Who else could hate me enough to attack me through my children?
She grabbed the most lurid vial of eye-paint from the clutter on her bed. She wrenched the vial open and slashed the purple paint across her eyelids, under her eyes, like the kohl of desert fighters. She highlighted her forehead and her cheeks with gold.
“I’ll find out,” she said. “Maybe Rillao knows who—who hurt her. But if she doesn’t, I’ll wake up every passenger on every freighter, if I have to. Someone must know who they are and what they plan. And where to look for them.”
She looked in the mirror. Her hair hung around her face, half hiding her. Her eyes peered out, intense and dark and wild with purple. The paint’s gold and ruby enhancers glittered and shifted. She looked less like a desert fighter than a saloon dancer.
It doesn’t matter, she said to herself. All that matters is, I don’t look like Leia anymore. From now on, I’m Lelila.
Artoo-Detoo buzzed fast over the threshold, hesitated, and hooted as its sensors took in the changes in its biological companions. As soon as the droid recognized them, it reversed and vanished again.
Lelila the bounty hunter jumped up and ran after the droid. Behind her, Geyyahab her client followed along, the change in his fur nearly complete.
Han had to admit that as far as he could tell, the game had been honest. Of course, as far as he could tell, Waru was legit, too, and he did not believe Waru either.
He plodded down the street toward the lodge, reeking of six kinds of smoke, his head aching. He wished he had drunk another glass of local ale; he might feel better. He thought the stuff had magical healing powers.
“Just like Waru,” he muttered.
He reached the lodge. The proprietor popped up and greeted him in a friendly manner.
Threepio must have paid our bill, Han thought. Wonder what our cordial host will say tomorrow when we ask for an extension … and don’t pay for it?
He climbed the steps, tripping only once, and counted doors carefully till he came to his own. It opened for him. The eerie glow of Luke’s lightsaber flowed over his feet and across the carpet.
Han quickly straightened his shirt, combed his hair and his beard with his fingers, and strolled casually inside. The blade of the saber hummed and disappeared. Luke sat in the corner, exactly as he had the night before.
“Hi, Luke,” Han said, pretending to be much more cheerful than he felt.
“We have to talk,” Luke said. “Xaverri and I, we went back to the—the ceremony. Han, there’s no mistaking what we saw—what you saw.”
Unable to maintain his pose, Han flung himself on his bed and covered his face with the pillow. His head ached fiercely.
“Master Han!” Threepio’s feet clattered metallically on the floor tiles. “I paid our bills. Thank you very much! I will have other expenses to pay, in the morning, perhaps before you arise, and I wondered—”
“I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” Han said.
“But I had thought to go shopping early. Were I to lay in some provisions, that would save my human companions from the expense of eating in restaurants—”
“We’re on vacation! Half the fun of being on vacation is eating in restaurants!” Han tried to remember when the last time was that he had eaten. Have I been subsisting on local ale? he thought. The stuff is even better than I thought.
“—and it would allow me to serve you breakfast in bed.”
“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” Han said. “I really need some sleep.”
“Did you lose all the money?” Luke asked.
Han flung himself up. The pillow fell off his face and flopped onto the floor.
“No.” He shrugged, and grinned. “Not all of it.”
“Oh, Master Han,” Threepio said. “How am I to go shopping in the morning, if you lost all our money?”
“I didn’t lose all of it,” Han said. “I can get more. I just had a bad evening. Relax. Now can I get some sleep?”
“No,” Luke said. “Dammit, Han, wake up!”
“How can I wake up when you haven’t given me a chance to go to sleep yet?”
The blade of Luke’s lightsaber shivered into being. The ghostly green light filled the room. It brightened, oddly, to pure white; its low hum rose to a shriek. Han shouted in protest.
Luke quickly turned off the lightsaber and slipped the handle beneath his robe.
“What was that?” Han asked. He was wide awake.
“I don’t—nothing. It’s all right.” He sounded uncharacteristically startled, “Han, this Waru … if we could persuade this being to come back with us, we could make a tremendous difference in the Republic. The Jedi—and your legions, of course—protect the peace. Waru could directly improve people’s lives.”
“Waru isn’t a Jedi—for certain?”
“No. I mean … I’m not getting any of the perceptions I ought to feel.” He leaned forward, intent. “When your kids were born, I knew, right away, that they belonged among us. Especially Anakin. When I first saw him, and he looked straight at me—” Luke exhaled loudly. “If Waru were Jedi, I don’t think I’d make a mistake.” He interlaced his fingers, opened his hands, stared at his palms. “But maybe Waru is connected to the Force, by some means we aren’t aware of. Some means I’m not aware of.” He pulled his hands apart and clenched them into fists. “I just don’t know! And I’ve got to find out.”
“Okay, okay, take it easy.” Han rubbed his face. He was so sleepy he could hardly keep his attention on what Luke was saying, despite Luke’s urgency.
“Xaverri said she thought Waru was dangerous. A danger to the Republic, she said. And now you want to take him—it—the being—back to the heart of our government?”
“Waru has attracted a lot of followers here. They could form a powerful faction. Wouldn’t it be best to cooperate, right from the beginning?”
Han chuckled. “You don’t usually sound like a politician.” Han doubted that Luke cared one way or the other if Waru’s followers formed an opposition to Leia’s government. But the young Jedi was fascinated with what he perceived as remarkable abilities; he obviously wanted Waru where he could keep an eye on the being, and perhaps even learn from him.
Han still had no idea why Xaverri thought Waru was dangerous.
Han produced one of his last coins, as if he had brought it out of thin air.
Luke smiled slightly. “Not bad.”
“I told you, more where this came from.” Han made it disappear again.
Threepio approached. “How were y
ou able to do that?”
Han produced the coin from Threepio’s mouth.
Threepio’s eyes changed. “Do that again, if you please, Master Han.”
Han complied.
“Ah,” Threepio said. “Exceedingly dexterous.”
“What’d you do?” Han asked. “Slow it down?”
“Indeed I did, Master Han.”
“Did you watch Waru that way?”
“I regret that I did not, sir,” Threepio replied to Han. “I was so intrigued by what Mistress Xaverri had brought us to see, it did not occur to me.”
“Where is Xaverri, anyway?” Han asked. “Did she go home?”
“She stayed back at the compound,” Luke said. “She wanted to—”
“You left her there?”
“Sure.”
Han grabbed his boots from the floor where he had just thrown them and wrestled them back on.
“She’s lived here for years,” Luke said reasonably. “She’s been attending Waru’s meetings since they began. She knows how to take care of herself.”
“You said yourself, something weird is going on—”
“And you said it was a fraud!”
“Just because something’s a fraud doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. You saw how Xaverri reacted yesterday.” He hunted around for his jacket, then realized he had never taken it off.
Han Solo ran out the door.
Rillao lay very still beneath the shroud of medical equipment. Only her eyes moved. Her gaze flicked over everything in the room, searching for weaknesses, searching for escape. A moaning growl shuddered deep in her throat.
Lelila stood in the doorway, regarding the Firrerreo dispassionately.
Compassion was wasted on the nameless Firrerreo, Lelila thought. Besides, I can’t afford compassion.
She waited till Rillao’s gaze found her.
Lelila moved forward deliberately, and stopped a pace away from Rillao’s bedside. Rillao glared at her.
“I saved you,” Lelila said.
“Who asked you to?” Rillao’s voice was hoarse and rough.
“I saved you from torture, Rillao,” Lelila said. She adopted the speech habits of the unnamed Firrerreo who used names to gain power. “I freed you from the web, I took you from the passenger freighter, I brought you to my ship, and I healed you. Rillao.”
Rillao’s expression changed. Apprehension replaced some of the arrogance.
“You own my name,” she said. “Do you also own my body?”
“Perhaps I did, for a moment,” Lelila said. “But I give it back to you.”
“Magnanimous of you,” Rillao said. She glanced around the cabin, with its understated elegance and its up-to-date medical equipment. “You are too rich, I suppose, to worry about the profit.”
“Profit?” Lelila said.
Rillao stared at her, disbelieving. She pushed herself up on her elbows, shrugging away the medical equipment’s sensors. Her striped hair snarled in sweaty tangles. The medical equipment, noting her recovery, pulled up to the ceiling to protect itself.
“The freighter was taken from its route,” Rillao said. “It was hidden, far off trade routes. If you aren’t a slaver, how did you find it? What are you doing here?”
Lelila’s knees went weak. She locked them, or she would have fallen. She felt herself go cold and pale, and she was glad her hair nearly hid her face. She wished she had put on even more makeup. Behind her, Geyyahab roared in surprise and fury. Lelila reached back, grabbed his hand, and silenced him with a squeeze of warning.
Slavery had existed under the Empire. But the Republic ended the practice. The government she served had sought out the people bound by the ugly Imperial laws. They were free. The Empire no longer existed to sell political prisoners into slavery, to steal their children and sell them.
There were no slavers to steal Anakin and Jaina and Jacen!
“How long have you been here?” Lelila asked suddenly. “How long did you sleep?”
“I never slept,” Rillao whispered. “I was not one of the freighter’s original passengers.”
“But did you know the Empire—”
“I was brought here five years ago,” Rillao said.
“—is defeated? Oh. You must. But the Republic stopped the slave trade!”
“Some exist who are content to allow that belief. It suits their purposes, to steal people in secret.”
Chewbacca—Geyyahab! Leia reminded herself, Geyyahab and Lelila!—wrapped his huge hand around her upper arm. She leaned gratefully against his strength. But he, too, trembled.
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.”
L
eia 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.
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