by Troy Denning
Grees indicated the second Squib, who stepped forward and rubbed his cheek over the hands of both Han and Leia.
“And I’m Emala.” The third Squib pressed her cheek to Leia’s hand. “I’ve seen worse from a Twi’lek.”
“Thank you,” Leia said. “I think.”
Han waited for Emala to nuzzle his hand, then asked, “Which one’s coming to see the painting? I want to be sure you know what you’re bidding on.”
Emala and Grees turned to Sligh expectantly.
Sligh let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll go.” He shook his head in disgust. “But when I come back, I’m out front.”
They emerged from behind the mirrfield to find the Imperial officers, having already completed their inspection, leaving the dance house. A tangible sense of relief filled the air, and the polite murmur intensified to an electric drone. More prospective purchasers appeared out of dark corners and the backs of the booths, and the beverage bars on the satellite stages began to do a brisk business. Leia, Han, and Sligh took their place at the back of the line and had to wait nearly an hour before their turn came to go through the mirrfield.
Instead of the painting, inside the trio found half a dozen of Mawbo’s thugs in nylar tunics and shimmersilk capes, all holding blaster rifles trained on their prospective purchasers.
“Don’t worry,” a Rodian said. His cone-shaped snout twitched toward the dark corner to Leia’s right, and someone came up from behind and blindfolded her. “Just a security precaution.”
“How much security do you need?” Han grumbled. “You have a Weequay sniffer checking for blasters.”
“You want to see the moss or not?”
Han fell silent. They were led through the back of the booth, down a long hallway, then up a liftglide into a quiet area reeking of acrid thaq smoke. Their blindfolds were removed. The trio found themselves standing in a dark chamber before a section of wall illuminated by an overhead glow panel and flanked by two Gamorrean guards. In the middle of the wall hung the velvety rectangle of a sublimely colored Alderaanian moss-painting, its moisture-control apparatus artfully concealed within an internal frame. It was smaller than Leia remembered, no more than fifty centimeters across, but even more beautiful and moving.
“Killik Twilight,” a harsh female voice croaked behind her. “You got two minutes.”
Leia wanted to protest that two minutes was not nearly enough, not after a decade of trying to keep its bold composition and subtle hues locked in her mind. She had thought it a treasure forever lost to her—and to future generations of Alderaanian descendants. And now here it was, hanging in front of her close enough to touch, with its stormy sky sweeping over of a city of Killik pinnacles and, in the foreground, its line of enigmatic insectoid figures—the vanished species who had inhabited Alderaan before humans—turning to look back at the approaching darkness. She could never look upon it without marveling at the artist’s prescience, wondering how Ob Khaddor could have seen so clearly what Palpatine’s rise meant for the galaxy… and how he could have expressed his sorrow so beautifully and completely in such a small space.
“You need to verify it, go ahead,” the harsh voice said. “But brush sampling only. No clipping.”
Sligh instantly stepped forward, already turning his furry cheek toward the painting.
Leia barely caught the Squib in time. “No!”
“Who’s going to be buying this thing, you or us?” Sligh demanded, the lip of his muzzle lifted in an irritated snarl. “We have to check the merchandise.”
“It’s the real thing.” Leia pulled the Squib away. “I don’t need a test kit to tell me that.”
She glanced over to find Han staring at the painting, his gaze fixed and his jaw slack with wonder.
After eight years together, it was good to know Han could still surprise her.
Chapter Three
Han had never been so moved by a piece of art. For the next two hours, as they sat at a local tapcaf waiting for the auction to begin, his thoughts kept returning to the painting, to how the Killiks were turning to face the storm. The image reminded Han that people—and bugs—were swept through life by forces they could not understand, that in the tempests life threw at them, they could control nothing but their own reactions. That was something Han tended to forget when the winds ran against him, and it was one of the things he loved most about Leia—the way she never flinched in a storm, the way she always stood firm while those around her were being blown off their feet.
Han wanted Leia to have that moss-painting. She had spent her youth looking at Killik Twilight every time she left her bedchamber, and it was the one physical connection to her family’s palace that had survived the destruction of Alderaan. And, not that it mattered to potential bidders, it probably still belonged to her. Han would have hesitated to call the seller a thief—the moss-painting had been in transit, and galactic salvage laws applied to artwork like anything else—but there was a reason it was being sold on a lawless planet like Tatooine, and he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the health benefits of dry desert air.
Like every tapcaf near Mawbo’s Performance Hall, the one in which he and Leia sat was so packed that the air was almost humid with breath moisture. The customers—mostly bidders waiting for the auction to start—were chattering among themselves, decked out in their finest outfits and trying not to be too obvious as they appraised the competition. Slumped in a dim corner and doing their best to appear crassly involved with each other, Han and Leia drew few long glances. Chewbacca and C-3PO were in a tapcaf across the street, far enough away to avoid being associated with “Jaxal” and “Limba,” yet close enough to come running in case of trouble.
Sellers from the auction began to arrive in ones and twos, among them the Barabel with the alasl bowls and the dark-haired man offering the holocube of the young Podracer. Han was not surprised to see Leia’s eyes following the human toward a vacant counter stool. Though she seldom gave any work of holography more than a passing glance, there was clearly something different about this one—and Han felt sure he knew what it was.
He slipped an arm around the back of Leia’s chair and began to stroke her prosthetic lekku. The head-tail responded with an appreciative squirm.
“You know,” Han said, “you never did tell me who the kid in the holocube reminded you of.”
“He didn’t remind me of anyone. Only his eyes.”
“Sure,” Han said. “If you say so.”
Leia was not taking the bait. “I do.”
“Come on. You can say it. I thought the kid was cute, too.”
“What makes you think I found him cute?”
“I saw the way you looked at him.”
Leia shot him a glare that could have frozen a sun. “So?”
“So, maybe there’s a reason.”
Leia narrowed her eyes. “What kind of reason, Han?”
Han took a big gulp. He could see that Leia knew where this was going as well as he did, and he knew what kind of reaction to expect. But it was one of those risks a man had to take.
“Maybe it’s because you like kids,” Han said. “Maybe because you want one.”
Leia’s face went blank and emotionless, a sure sign that she was angry—really angry. Furious, even. She took a long sip of her drink and avoided looking at Han.
“We talked about children before we were married. I thought you understood.”
“Yeah, I understood,” Han said. “But I thought—”
“We agreed.” Leia returned the glass to the table with a bang. “You can’t just change your mind.”
Han bit his tongue. How could he tell her he had not changed his mind—that his mind had changed him? That marriage had changed him?
“I know what we said,” he allowed. “But has it ever occurred to you that you’re being irrational?”
“Irrational?”
“Irrational.” Han had to wet his throat. “How can a kid—”
“Please tell me you just dis
covered you had a child with Bria Tharen,” Leia said. “Because I could live with that. Everyone has a past.”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure mine doesn’t include kids,” Han said. Bria had been his first love, a willowy red-haired beauty who was one of the founders of the Rebellion—and who had died a martyr after double-crossing him to secure the plans to the first Death Star. “Bria did have her secrets.”
“None of which has anything to do with this conversation, I take it.”
“Afraid not.” Han leaned closer and spoke in a near whisper. “I know we talked about this, but I can’t believe the dark side really runs in your blood.”
“That’s not what I said,” Leia corrected. “It’s the power that runs in my blood. And power corrupts. I see that every day.”
“Not always.” Han took Leia’s arm, then played his trump card. “Just look at your brother. No one is stronger in the Force than he is. If anyone was going to go be corrupted, it would be him.”
Leia jerked away and, fixing her gaze on the tapcaf’s much-blemished wall, gulped down half her drink. “Drop it.”
“Look, I’m not saying we have to decide today—”
“You’ve known how I felt since Bakura.” Leia still did not look at him. “I don’t have the right to bring someone who could become another Darth Vader into the galaxy. If you can’t live with that, why didn’t you let me marry Prince Isolder?”
The mere mention of Isolder’s name set Han’s teeth on edge. The whole Hapan incident had shattered what little faith he’d ever had in politicians.
“What about—” Han heard his voice start to rise and caught himself. He checked for eavesdroppers and found none; with the auction approaching, the room was filled with an escalating drone that rendered conversations difficult to understand even at the same table. “What about Isolder?”
Leia finally turned and met his eye again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s pretty clear,” Han said. “Did you tell him you didn’t want children?”
“It never came to that. Someone abducted me before negotiations went that far.”
“Yeah?” Han saw the waitress approaching and waved her off. “And what if negotiations had gone that far? Do you think Ta’a Chume would have allowed the wedding to take place knowing you didn’t want children?”
Leia’s composure broke, and she looked at him with tears welling in her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you don’t know what you want.”
“And you do?” Leia asked.
“I see how your face lights up when someone lets you hold a baby,” Han said. “And I saw the way you looked at that kid in the holocube.”
“You’re way off course—”
“You know I’m right,” Han interrupted. “And you’re afraid to admit it. The only reason you don’t want kids is you’re still afraid of your father—afraid of him and mad at him. And that’s a lousy excuse for not having kids. Not when we both want them.”
Leia waited until he had stopped speaking, then asked, “Are you finished?”
“Yeah. It’s not that complicated.”
“I agree,” Leia said. “Because I’m sure I remember you telling me you could live without children. That’s very clear in my mind.”
Han shrugged. “I like being married. Maybe that’s changed my thinking about kids.” He lowered his gaze and stared into the dark ale in his mug. “I didn’t realize how much I’d love this—being a family, I mean. I keep wondering what it would be like to shape a kid’s life, to give him a safe place to grow up.”
“Like the home you never had,” Leia said.
“Yeah, like that,” Han admitted. He had seen Leia take control of difficult negotiations often enough to know when she was trying to avoid the subject. “But you still haven’t answered me about Ta’Chume and Isolder. When were you going to tell them you didn’t want children?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe never.” Han was not bitter about the suggestion; he was just trying to point out to Leia that there were some circumstances in which she might have had children. “Maybe you’d have risked it for the New Republic.”
“I would have told them.” Leia raised her chin. “With the power of the Hapes Consortium behind it, any child of mine would be more likely to become the thing I feared, not less.”
Han’s scowl was thwarted by the fang dentures of his Devaronian disguise. “Ta’a Chume would never have agreed to that.”
Leia flashed him a typically sad Twi’lek smile. “Maybe that’s why I wasn’t so worried when the Hapans came to visit.”
Half a standard hour later, Han and Leia sat behind the mirrfield wall of one of the performance hall’s private booths, watching the main floor fill with spectators and bidders. Everything had the sound of money: the nervous laughter that rang like clinking credits, the electric babble that rose and fell with the familiar rhythm of market-day bartering all over the galaxy, the voices of bartenders and waitresses selling eyeblasters and pallies at prices ten times normal.
The Imperial watch commander stood in front of the primary stage, where the auction would take place. His science officer companion was gone, replaced by two burly bodyguards in full dress uniform. They were the only beings in the room with more elbow room than they really needed.
Han could see Grees, Sligh, and Emala pushing through the packed performance hall, approaching likely-looking Twilight bidders on the pretext of offering them inside information on the auction merchandise. There were a few takers, and these the Squibs offered a thinly disguised sales pitch for their own wares. Sometimes the buyers paid for the advice and sometimes they didn’t, but the trio never wasted more than a few moments quarreling before they moved to the next prospect.
They worked hardest trying to sell those who dismissed them most quickly, spending as much as three minutes arguing while they quietly assessed the competition. There were a few social climbers hoping to land a steal because the auction was being held on Tatooine, but most bidders were thuggish, hired more to protect the fund transfer chips they were carrying—a requirement of purchase—than for their expertise as auction agents. Once, Han caught a glimpse of Emala quietly slipping a vibroblade out of a hidden boot sheath while Grees and Slight kept the weapon’s Aqualish owner occupied with a sales pitch.
“Those Squibs are good—maybe too good,” Leia said. She was sitting beside Han at the booth’s plastoid cocktail table, slumped down on an overstuffed wraparound lounger that would abide no other posture. “Are you sure we can afford that deal we struck?”
“It’s under control.”
Leia looked doubtful, the sensors in the base of her false lekku reacting to her mood and causing the tentacles to writhe in short, tightly spaced waves. “You know they have something planned.”
“Yeah, but we have a Wookiee.”
Han tipped his counterfeit horns toward Chewbacca, who was out in the theater enduring Sligh’s sales pitch as they tried to size him up. He had dyed a red streak over his shoulder; a Wookiee could do little to disguise himself except change his markings. Chewbacca endured no more than five seconds of the Squibs’ harangue, then bared his fangs and raised a foot, sending all three scrambling for cover.
“See? No problem.”
C-3PO, whose disguise consisted of a false green patina, watched the exchange from several meters away. He started to push through the crowd, politely asking permission and excusing himself each time he eased past someone.
Leia activated her comlink and opened a channel to the droid. “What are you doing?”
C-3PO raised his own comlink. “They appear to need a translator. I was going to offer my—”
“No,” Leia said. “Leave them alone.”
C-3PO stopped, but did not lower his comlink. “Are you quite certain? The Squibs are trying to be helpful, and it sounds as though they have some interesting infor—”
“No,” Han said, speaking into Leia’s comlink—and
praying the Squibs were too frightened of Chewbacca to notice the droid approaching. “Just do your job.”
C-3PO fell silent for precisely one second—the electronic equivalent of a sigh—then rotated his head toward Han and Leia’s booth, practically shouting the location of his owners to any careful observer.
“As you wish.”
Leia deactivated her comlink and rolled her eyes. “You’re sure about this?”
Han shrugged. “What could go wrong?”
They spent the next few minutes trying to pick out the watch commander’s backup. It was not difficult. Predictably, they had stationed themselves in pairs on opposite sides of the chamber, wearing nondescript tunics and dreary business tabards in a crowd that favored parvenu-flamboyant, thug-crass, or Tatooine-tattered. Seeming to sense the essential wrongness of these people, the spectators and bidders alike remained well apart, with the result that the Imperials stood out like rancors in a nerf pen. It was all much too obvious, and it took the next half hour to find the rest of the bodyguards, a dozen men and women scattered through the room in the garb of well-groomed ruffians or overmuscled natives.
Han also found the black-haired man who had tried to sell them the holocube of the boy Podracer, standing not too far from the Imperial commander at the front of the crowd. He was half turned, studying the room, not quite searching for someone in particular, but taking note of whom he did and didn’t see. Han was still bothered by the way the man had focused on Leia during the pre-auction inspection, by how he had seemed so certain she would be drawn to the holocube, and—most especially—by how right he had been.
Precisely on the hour, a stout human woman with pale skin and almond eyes and a long tail of braided black hair stepped through the holographic cityscape at the back of the stage. She waited for the room to quiet, then glided forward in a slinky stride that had lost none of its poise or grace despite the forty kilograms she had added since her dancing days. In a voice roughened by hubba smoke, she welcomed the bidders to the auction and introduced herself as Mawbo Kem, drawing a laugh by commenting that of course the males in the audience knew that already.