The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  “What is it, Brashaa?” Lord Hethrir said.

  “My lord. For many years now you have promised action. We grow weary of concealing ourselves from usurpers of the New Republic.”

  Anakin saw the fanged creature. He jumped off the pew and would have run toward the monster if Tigris had not held him back.

  “Sit still, little one,” Tigris whispered.

  “Anakin want woof!” Anakin said.

  “Shh.”

  Lord Hethrir said nothing in response to Brashaa. He waited, silent and dangerous, until Brashaa gathered the courage to continue.

  “My lord, we tire—desperately—of treating nonhumans as equal beings. We must act soon, before our children are too much affected by egalitarian propaganda, before our generation is too old to act—to fight!”

  “I think you do not trust me, Brashaa,” Hethrir said.

  “I trust you with my life and with my wealth, my lord. I only mean—”

  “I suspect you doubt me, Brashaa.”

  “Not at all, my lord. Not for a moment.”

  “I wonder if you are a traitor, Brashaa.”

  “My lord!” Brashaa protested. He grew pale with dread and regret. Tigris felt sorry for him, and horrified that the man had questioned Lord Hethrir.

  “Leave us, Brashaa. You have no part in this meeting. I cannot trust you to hear my plan.”

  Brashaa stared at him, speechless even to defend himself. He hesitated, as if he hoped Lord Hethrir would repeal the sentence he had pronounced.

  Lord Hethrir stared at him. Brashaa’s face reddened. He gasped for breath. All around him, people withdrew, afraid that to stand too close would mean contamination.

  A trickle of blood leaked from Brashaa’s nostril.

  Anakin clambered up on the seat of the pew and stared, wide-eyed and silent. Brashaa dropped the chain of the fanged creature, who watched its owner as intently as Anakin.

  “I beg your forgiveness, my lord!”

  Lord Hethrir simply gazed at him.

  The traitor staggered toward the center aisle. Lord Hethrir’s followers made way for him. No one reached out a hand to help him.

  “Your forgiveness, my lord!”

  Lord Hethrir would never let him live, after such a challenge. Tigris looked away, ashamed of his own weakness but unwilling to watch another man die.

  And yet Brashaa did not fall. His footsteps sounded toward the back of the meeting hall.

  “Your forgiveness, my lord!”

  Tigris turned just in time to see Brashaa flee out the doorway.

  The fanged creature looked around. Its ears perked up. Its chain rattled. No one moved to restrain it.

  Tigris turned toward Lord Hethrir. He was shocked by his lord’s strained face. Hethrir’s complexion was even paler than usual, gray in contrast to the brilliant white of his robes and the soft white velvet.

  He did mean Brashaa to die! Tigris thought. But something—something went wrong. The way Lord Hethrir’s lightsaber went wrong …

  Anakin plopped himself down on the seat beside Tigris.

  “Bad mans, Tigris,” he said solemnly.

  “Shh, little one.” Tigris hoped Lord Hethrir did not hear. Anakin clutched Tigris’s hand in his grubby little fist. Tigris did not draw away. Confused and unhappy, trying to put aside his disloyal ideas, he thought: Lord Hethrir erred.

  The fanged creature skulked down the aisle. Everyone ignored it. Instead of running away, or following its master from the hall, it settled itself at Anakin’s feet.

  “Shoo!” Tigris whispered.

  “Hello, woof,” Anakin said. The monster leaned its ugly head against Anakin’s knee. Anakin scratched the black fur behind the creature’s ears.

  Hethrir’s guests had returned their fascinated attention to their lord. Hethrir recovered himself. He smiled benevolently, as if he had let Brashaa live on purpose.

  “Does any one of you have a question,” he asked kindly, “before I tell you of my plan?”

  No one spoke.

  At Anakin’s feet, the wolf-creature whined.

  Hot and sweaty in the oppressive heat, Han trudged toward Waru’s calligraphed building. He was so tired that the calligraphy leaped and spun and rewrote itself in his vision. He was traveling against the traffic; Waru’s supplicants danced along the path.

  The service must be over, Han thought. Fine. Maybe I’ll meet Luke and Threepio coming out. Maybe they’ll meet me halfway. Maybe Xaverri is around here somewhere, too, and we can clear everything up all at once.

  The idea of entering Waru’s presence again gave him the creeps. If he never had to see the damned thing again, he would be perfectly happy.

  One of the supplicants stopped Han. “Waru has dismissed us, seeker,” the scaled and feathered being said to him. The feathers ruffled; the scales turned tan, then pure bright yellow. “You will have to come to a later service.”

  “It’s okay,” Han said. “I’m meeting someone.”

  The feathered being patted his shoulder in a friendly manner and continued down the walkway.

  Han passed the end of the line of departing supplicants. Luke and Threepio were nowhere in sight.

  Han crossed the silent courtyard, whistling defiantly, and entered Waru’s building. His shadows disappeared. He paused in the cool foyer and listened. A single voice spoke, the words and timbre jumbled by complicated acoustics. After a silence, a second voice replied. Han recognized the second voice: Waru.

  He stepped into the theater.

  At the foot of the stage, Luke stood with his shoulders slumped, facing Waru.

  “I am tired, Luke Skywalker,” Waru said.

  Oh, fine, Han thought. He’s told that guy who he is!

  “You think of me as a tireless benefactor, a limitless healer. But I am a living being, and I tire like all other living beings. My other followers have acquiesced to my request that they depart. Can you not show me the same courtesy?”

  “I’m afraid if you don’t help me, I’ll die.”

  What the—? Han thought.

  Waru gave the impression of a deep sigh. “Very well. I will help you.”

  Luke stepped up on the altar.

  “Luke!” Han yelled. As Luke stretched his arms to Waru, placing his palms on the limpid gold scales, Han sprinted toward him, his boots pounding the floor. He reached the altar and leaped up beside Luke. He grabbed him and pulled him away. Luke struggled, blindly reaching for his lightsaber. Han wrestled with him and pulled Luke’s arms behind his back. Once Luke got his hands on the lightsaber, Han knew he could not win.

  “Stop it!” he said. “You’re not going to use the lightsaber on me and you know it!”

  Then he got a look at Luke’s face, pale and drawn and intense with pain, his eyes staring, and he was not so sure.

  “Leave him,” Waru said. “He has asked my aid, and I have offered it.”

  “No, it’s too much to ask,” Han said. “We’ll come back when you’re rested.”

  Wait a minute! Han thought. I’m trying to be diplomatic—while I’m dragging Luke out of here?

  “He has the right to determine his own fate,” Waru said. The low voice flowed like silk. “To choose to try to save his life.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him, dammit!”

  Han jumped off the edge of the altar, pulling Luke with him, barely managing to keep his balance. Luke stumbled against him, going limp. Han expected a trick. He expected Luke to will the lightsaber into his hand. Instead, he found himself half dragging and half carrying Luke away from Waru’s altar.

  “He is very ill, very weak,” Waru said. “Bring him back to me. If he can be healed, I will heal him.”

  Without replying, Han pulled Luke to his feet.

  “Give me some help here, brother,” he muttered.

  Beside him, Luke staggered upright.

  “Please, Han,” he whispered. “Help me …”

  “Bring him to me!” Waru’s words shook the chamber.

&nbs
p; Han slung Luke’s arm over his shoulder and kept going toward the exit.

  “No,” Luke whispered. “No … please …”

  Han went cold. Luke was begging not for escape, but to return to Waru. Han refused to let him go.

  “I’ve saved your life before, kid,” Han muttered. “You owe it to me at least once.”

  He dragged Luke out of the theater and through the silent entryway and into the open field. The disintegrating stars dazzled him. His eyes watered and his vision blurred. The black hole blazed and the crystal star pulsated, high in the sky. Their brightness increased, battering the strained radiation shields. Han shivered.

  But Han had a lot more things to be uneasy about right now than the stars in his sky.

  He wrestled Luke around and headed toward Xaverri’s secret path.

  Tigris listened, rapt, to Lord Hethrir’s speech. He had been speaking for hours. Like the others, Tigris was fascinated, hypnotized, by the Lord’s voice and his powerful message.

  Only Anakin was immune to the power of Lord Hethrir’s voice. The little boy had clambered to the floor and curled up with the six-legged fanged creature. They slept soundly on Tigris’s feet.

  “Today, I will consolidate my power,” Lord Hethrir said.

  “Today, I will be refined like precious metal from the rough ore of earthly existence.

  “Today, I will be reborn—like the Empire, whose reincarnation I have conceived and incubated.

  “Today I will bring forth—the Empire Reborn.”

  His followers gazed at him, stunned by his audacity. Then, all together, they leaped to their feet and cheered.

  Tigris, too, started to rise. But if Tigris got up, he would wake Anakin. Anakin might begin to cry, and disturb the Lord’s triumph.

  Besides, Tigris’s feet had gone to sleep.

  Some of the slave children were whimpering and crying. But their behavior was not Tigris’s responsibility. Anakin’s was.

  Tigris stayed where he was, hoping he was far enough in the back, far enough in shadows, so his failure to stand up and acclaim the plan would never be noticed. A whole roomful of people was standing, shouting, waving, applauding, between Tigris and Hethrir. Perhaps, for once, the Lord would not know everything Tigris did.

  Anakin looks so peaceful, Tigris thought. I wonder how he can sleep, in all this noise?

  He smiled fondly at the little boy, curled up on the floor among the fanged creature’s six legs.

  I wish he was always so peaceful! Tigris thought. I wonder what it would be like to have a little brother like Anakin? I wonder what it would be like to have a brother or a sister or a family at all? Why was my mother a traitor? Who was my father, and why did he abandon me?

  Anakin opened his eyes. He blinked, sleepily, saw Tigris smiling at him, and took his thumb out of his mouth to smile back. He clambered up on the seat beside Tigris. He reached into his pocket with his sticky hand and pulled out a sweetmeat with one bite taken out of it. He offered it to Tigris.

  Tigris laughed softly. “Thanks,” he said. He broke off the least battered end and ate it. It tasted as good as the slice of fruit Anakin had offered him, back on the starship. “Where did you get this?” he asked. It looked like one of the sweetmeats the vendor had offered them in the welcome dome, which they could not buy because they had no money. Anakin just grinned and ate the rest of the sweet.

  Tigris wiggled his toes so his feet would wake up. His skin prickled. The fanged creature snorted, woke, and stretched.

  The meeting hall suddenly fell silent. The people sat down. The slave children huddled at their feet. Hethrir stood above them, his arms extended. The wide sleeves of his white robe spread like wings, the edges shining with silver light. Tigris hurriedly swallowed the last crumbs of Anakin’s gift and wiped his mouth on his sleeve and urged Anakin to sit up straight. Instead, Anakin burrowed against his side.

  “Anakin, go to sleep,” he said.

  “Come with me,” Lord Hethrir said. He descended from the podium and strode down the aisle, looking neither right nor left, paying no attention whatever to whether anyone was following him.

  For, of course, they did follow him. Two of his Proctors ran before him to open the door, while his guests spilled into the aisle behind him and followed him out of the lodge and trooped down the path. They pulled the sleepy slave children along with them.

  “Don’t sleep yet, little brother,” Tigris whispered. “Come on, we have to go.” He gathered the child into his arms and stood up. Now that the excitement of Lord Hethrir’s speech was fading, Tigris felt as tired as Anakin.

  “Hey, nursemaid!” One of the Proctors pointed at Tigris, jeering. “You’ll get left behind!”

  The Proctors followed the crowd, laughing, letting the door slam shut behind them. Tigris had to balance Anakin on his hip and wrestle the door open wide enough to slip through. The wolf-creature trotted after him, dragging its chain.

  Clenching his teeth, Tigris held his head high.

  Leia, Rillao, Chewbacca, Jaina, Jacen, and Artoo-Detoo rode Crseih’s landing field tractor to the station.

  What a raiding party we make! Leia thought. A raiding party disguised as a family outing.

  She looked for the Millennium Falcon, but could not see it beneath the multitude of irregularly shaped radiation shields.

  I could ask after it, she thought, but I don’t want to give myself away.

  “Does the landing field have a registry of ships?” she asked the driver.

  “Such a list will be stored.”

  “How can I look at it?”

  “You will not.”

  “Why not?”

  “The company will protect its information.”

  Jaina snuggled against Leia, clutching her multitool in one hand and a smart camping blanket from Alderaan in the other. She said the camping blanket was for Anakin when they rescued him. But Anakin did not have the habit of sleeping with a camping blanket or carrying one around. Jaina had, when she was younger, but her blanket was back home on Coruscant. When Winter asked if she wanted to bring it on the tour, Jaina had said she was not a baby any longer and did not need a blanket except for camping, and besides, maybe it was lonely for the other camping blankets.

  Leia had no intention of teasing her daughter about carrying the cuddly blanket.

  Leia’s comfort was the touch of her children, and the hope that all three would be safe in a short time.

  Jacen petted the little four-winged bat, which peeked out from beneath his shirt. The bat made Leia nervous, mildly venomous as it was. If it bit Jacen, he would have a terrible itch. But if it had been going to bite him, it probably would have done so long since. Leia had learned to regard Jacen’s explorations with a certain Jedi-like calm that drew very little from Luke’s lessons in meditation. She was working on the same reaction to Jaina’s habit of dismantling household machines.

  Leia was traveling incognito, as Lelila, though this time without abandoning her real identity in the personality of the bounty hunter. She doubted her position as Chief of State of the New Republic would provide her much esteem on Crseih. Her hair swirled wild and long and free.

  Rillao carried herself so proudly, she looked so regal in the emerald tunic, that it was possible to overlook how rumpled the tunic, and how tired and drawn Rillao was. The tunic covered most of her scars.

  Chewbacca still limped; a bandage wrapped his leg. But he had bathed, and combed his brindled fur. The new silver and black streaks curved into smooth patterns. He was the most presentable of the biological members of the party.

  Jaina and Jacen were clean and well dressed. They no longer wolfed down every meal and snack. But an aura of intensity and distress possessed them both.

  Among them all, only Artoo-Detoo looked and acted exactly as Leia expected him to.

  Jaina pulled at Leia’s sleeve.

  “Mama!” she whispered, excited. “That’s one of the ships!” She pointed across the landing field toward a shiny gold space
craft beneath a custom-made radiation shield.

  “Which ships, sweetheart?”

  “The ships that came to the worldcraft—right before Hethrir took Lusa away!”

  Leia and Rillao looked at each other. Leia saw hope in Rillao’s eyes, and felt hope in her own heart.

  “We have to go rescue Lusa, Mama!”

  Could it be this easy? Leia wondered. But … if Anakin is in that ship, why can’t I tell?

  “Driver,” she said, “we would like to visit that ship.” She gestured toward the gold spacecraft.

  “You will pay more,” the arthropoid driver said.

  Chewbacca growled. Leia patted his arm gently.

  “That’s acceptable,” she said to the driver.

  No one in the ship replied to the driver’s signal. The crawler pressed its entry tunnel up against the ship’s gold surface. From a distance, the gold ship appeared featureless. Close up, Leia could see its many gilded ports, peering mysteriously at her.

  “Be careful, Mama!” Jacen said. “Mean people took Lusa!” Jaina whispered.

  Leia knocked on the outer shell of the spaceship. Her heart sounded just as loud, beating with anticipation and fear.

  Nothing happened. Leia waited, then knocked, louder, on one of the ports. She cupped her hands around her face and tried to peer inside, but the gilding was so strong that she might be imagining the shadows inside. She knocked a third time.

  The seamless gold surface parted irregularly, softly.

  “Patience, gentle, patience! What do you want?”

  “I’m—”

  It would be so easy, Leia thought, if I knew Anakin and the other stolen children were in there. But if they were—I’d know it. Wouldn’t I? It would have been so much easier in the old days, when we knew …

  “We are looking for a child,” Rillao said.

  “That’s right,” Leia said, following Rillao’s direct approach, the same approach she had used to the Indexer.