translated incredulously. "What an absurdity.
Even you can't be that foolish. You are obviously malfunctioning."
Lando sighed and surveyed the passage's face--they had dropped the
words "wall" and "bulkhead" as inappropriate some time earlier. "It
makes as much sense as anything else," he said tiredly. "We've seen
something of the tricks their technology can do. Maybe nothing about
this ship is immutable, not even its dimensions. Maybe the Qella don't
play fair."
"You have beaten rigged games in the past," Lobot said.
"Yeah--I guess I have," said Lando. "But it helps a lot if you can
watch the table for a while first. Kill the map, Artoo, but keep
tracking us as best you can. We're going to pick up the pace a
little.
Two meters per second, on my mark--" Most of another hour dragged by
before Artoo made a discovery that set him to beeping agitatedly.
"What is it?" Lando demanded.
"Artoo says that there is an irregularity ahead," Threepio said. "It
may be an artifact of some kind."
Lando jetted ahead, scanning the passage face hopefully.
"Which side?"
"Ahead and high to your left, Master Lando," said Threepio.
"I see it," said Lando. "Blast, it's tiny. Wait--oh, no."
"What is it? Lando?"
Lando did not explain, but when the others joined him, they got all the
explanation they needed. A fragment of metal diamond grid protruded
from the face of the passage, and a short cord waved from its anchoring
knot.
Threepio gave voice to the unspoken. "Why, we're back where we
started."
"That's impossible," Lobot said, with a touch of irritation.
"Yeah, you'd think so, but how else do you explain this?" Lando said,
gesturing.
"Perhaps it was moved," said Lobot.
"How? You think there's someone else on this ship?"
"I do not know," said Lobot. "This could be a copy of our marker, a
deception. Artoo's sensors still indicate that we're heading toward
the bow."
"Oh, we are--for the second time, most likely.
What kind of crazy ship are we On? This passage doesn't go anywhere,
and it doesn't do anything."
"It occupied us for two hours," Lobot pointed out.
"So it did. And we've wasted those two hours and"--Lando checked his
readouts--"about nine percent of my thrust mass. Same for both of you,
I'd guess."
"This is most distressing. What do we do now?"
Threepio asked.
"We start playing smarter," said Lando. "How much carbon line do we
have?"
Lobot knew the answer without looking. "Two spools, five thousand
meters each. Why?"
"If we keep going around in circles, we could find ourselves unable to
get anywhere for lack of propellant.
There's not enough grid to spare to make handholds the length of the
passage, but there might be enough for line anchors. I think we'd
better start stringing some hand lines now," Lando said. "And they'll
help keep us from getting fooled again."
"Yes--we can build a topological map rather than a representational
one," Lobot said. "We will at least know the relationships between the
places we have been, even if the exact geometry escapes us."
Lando nodded. "Something had better start happening.
I'm starting to get seriously annoyed."
According to the counter on the line spool, they had gone 884 meters
down the passage, staking four improvised line anchors along the way,
when they came to the junction.
"This is nuts," Lando said, hovering in midair before the twin
openings. "This passage didn't branch the last time we were through
here."
"If we've been through here before."
"Don't start with me," Lando said, turning.
"It was not a jest," Lobot said. "It remains a possibility that these
passages are channels or conduits, related in some way to the operation
of the ship. What we have seen in here may have nothing to do with
us."
"Conduits for what? They're dry as a bone."
"There are other types of fluids and flows--gases, energy plasmas,
electrical charges," Lobot said. "And conduits generally require
stops, valves, and switches of some sort. This is likely to be one,
directly ahead of us.
There may be another somewhere behind us that placed us on this
path."
Lando slowly spun back to face the junction. "If I had a fat toe, a
short toe, a black toe, a new toe, I would know, where to go," he
chanted softly.
"What?"
"Pardon me, sir. It is a children's counting rhyme, from Basarais,"
Threepio said. "Master Lando, may I make a suggestion?"
"Anytime, Threepio. The last thing I want is for the last thing I hear
to be someone saying, 'You know, I wondered about that earlier--I guess
I should have spoken up."
"Very well, Master Lando. My suggestion is that we should separate
into two parties and explore both passages at the same time. This
would be the most efficient method. If each party consists of a human
and a droid, I believe we should be able to maintain communications
even if we become separated by some distance."
"Not bad, Threepio," said Lando. "We have two spools--we could set
lines in both passages. Lobot?"
"I strongly advise against separating," Lobot said.
"Valves and stops which open seemingly at random can as easily close.
It is also possible that we have been presented with this choice
precisely for this purpose--to divide us."
Lando frowned. "If we don't separate, which passage do we take?"
Lobot shook his head. "It will not matter, Lando.
Just choose."
It did not matter. The passage Lando chose ended three hundred meters
later, after turning downward--inward--nearly ninety degrees. When
they doubled back, the alternate passage led them to another junction
that was the reverse of the first, and to another short passage that
turned sharply before ending abruptly.
"There's something down there," Lando said, lingering as the others
turned back. "Both dead ends go to the same place. The hyperdrive
could be down there."
Lobot could tell that the baron was powerfully tempted to test his
theory by blasting a hole in the wall, and touched his shoulder with an
outstretched hand.
"Come," the cyborg said.
"I'm tired of this."
"I kno w," said Lobot. "But you know that disabling a hyperdrive and
destabilizing one are two very different matters. We will find a
better way."
Lando glanced at his telltales. "All right," he said.
"But if we haven't found it by the time these numbers reach single
digits, I'm coming back here. I'm not just going to wait for death,
Lobot."
"I would not expect that of you," Lobot said. "But for now, please, my
friend."
They jetted back up the passage together, side by side.
With an artfulness born of desperation, Lando and Lobot managed to
improvise forty-one line anchors from the equipment grid and the
sup
plies attached to it.
Spaced two hundred meters apart, those anchors secured more than eight
kilometers of hand lines, covering three major passages and more than
fifteen branches.
In the course of their explorations, the team cataloged eleven stop
valves, eighteen switch valves, and three different routes back to
their original marker. The purpose of the mechanisms and the pattern
of their movements remained impenetrable, but Artoo-Detoo's holographic
map steadily took on more useful form, framing the unknown with the
known.
Through it all the vagabond bored on through hyperspace, seemingly
oblivious to the passengers within.
The early fears faded. The vessel remained mysterious, giving up few
of its secrets, but it was no longer menac ing in its own right. The
threat to their lives was as impersonal as the 'graph of an
equation--one in which none of the variables was under their control.
At a point when yet another unexplored passage had disappointed them by
leading them to a passage already hung with hand lines, by unspoken
mutual consent they lingered there--to rest, and to recover their
resolve.
Lando looped the slack of a hand line around one wrist and let it hold
him in place. "How long is this jump now?"
"A little over thirty-seven hours," Lobot said.
"Going a long way to somewhere," Lando sighed.
"Let's see, four times three-point-one-four times thirty-nine cubed
divided by three--by now we could be anywhere in a quarter of a million
cubic light-years of space.
They'll need a telepath to find us."
"You and I should sleep," said Lobot.
"Why?"
"Sleeping will conserve our consumables. And human beings do not
perform at peak efficiency when fatigued."
"We don't get very much done when we're dead, either," Lando said.
"The five hours we spend napping might be five hours we need to get out
of this fix."
"And the five hours we do not spend 'napping' may result in one of us
making a nonrecoverable error."
"We have the droids to keep us from making mistakes. They don't get
tired," Lando said. "Besides--I'm hungry. I'm kinda counting on
turning up an after-hours cafe somewhere around here."
"Lando, that is not a rational expectation."
Lando chuckled tiredly. "I know when I'm being silly," he said. "Do
you know when you're being stuffy?"
"Master Lando--" "What is it, Threepio?"
"Is it possible that this vessel could already have exited hyperspace,
without our knowing? Perhaps we were distracted by our other
activities. We may not have gone as far as you fear."
"No," Lando said curtly. "I've never heard a ship growl like this one
does going in and coming out. We couldn't have missed it. I couldn't
have, anyway. That's something I've been thinking about. Thinking
about how long this ship's been jumping at shadows, hopping in and out
of hyperspace. About how long it's been since it was in for a
structural inspection and an overhaul.
"I had a friend in the yard at Atzerri who showed me scanning holos of
the ships that'd come through there--microfractures in the hyperdrive
cage, the inner stringers, even the keel of a Dreadnaught.
"No, even if we had all the oxygen, all the water, all the hot cafe
food we could eat, all the time we could ask for, I don't think I'd
want to hang around here long enough to hear that growl too many more
times. Because someday soon, no matter how well the Qella tightened
the nuts, this old crate is going to turn herself into a deep-space
junkyard."
Artoo cooed worriedly.
"I wonder where Glorious is now," said Threepio. "That I won't think
about," said Lando, and laughed. "I don't want to get depressed." He
released the hand line and floated free. "You rest if you want. Show
me the map, Artoo. There's still a lot of ship to explore."
They found the coupling panel in the seventy-first hour of their
imprisonment. It was pure luck that they did, since it appeared in a
section they had already passed through twice and would not have
returned to if a new passage they were marking had not brought them
there.
Nearly two meters long and more than a meter wide, the round-cornered
panel was inset flush in the "ceiling" of the passage. (Lando had
established by flat that the hand lines defined the "right" face of the
pas sage and all other directions derived from it.) The panel was
liberally decorated with sockets and projections of various heights,
depths, and diameters, with the sockets clustered symmetrically in the
center third and the projections flanking it.
"Master Lando, what do you think it is?"
"Some sort of intelligence test, maybe," Lando said, trying to peer
through one of the larger-diameter sockets.
"Anyone feel up to taking it?"
"Why, it does bear some resemblance to the busy box Ambassador Nugek
gave to Anakin Solo," Threepio said. "My, how he enjoyed spinning the
wheels and pushing blocks through the holes--" "Shut up, Threepio."
"Yes, sir."
Lobot was carrying out his own examination of the artifact.
"Twenty-four sockets, in two sizes. Eighteen projections. I can see
no obvious moving parts. The metal has a high sheen and reflectivity,
and no protective finish. Yet there are no scratches or scars, even in
and around the sockets."
"It looks like some sort of bus port to me," Lando said. "Like the
diag rack on the Falcon, or the maintenance cabinet on Lady Luck. Plug
in here and you have access to the ship's systems."
"That is what you have been looking for," said Lobot. "How likely is
it that you would find it?"
"It's the only mechanism we've seen in nine klicks of passageway."
"It is the only mechanism we have been able to recognize," said
Lobot.
"But the design of this vessel apparently provides for mechanisms to be
concealed until they are needed. I ask you to consider why this
mechanism has appeared now."
"You tell me."
"Most likely because the ship will shortly need whatever function this
mechanism serves--" "Which gives us a chance to slip in and take care
of ourselves," Lando said. "These couplings weren't designed for us,
but maybe we can make use of them anyway.
Energy is energy--Artoo can cope with thermal, plasma, or electrical
ports. And data is data--if Artoo can read it, Threepio can
interpret."
"Lando, you have no basis for concluding that this is a system port,"
Lobot pressed. "It is more likely that the function of this mechanism
is related to the function of these passages."
"Which is what?" Lando snapped. "Holding cell?
Ventilator? Rodent maze? A fungi farm? Are you saying we're not
supposed to touch this, either? Blast it all, how long are we supposed
to wait before we do something?"
"You have not had more than two hours' sleep in nearly three days,"
Lobot said. "Your sense of urgency has been heightened--" "That's
right," Lando said. "I haven't h
ad anything to eat in so long I'd cut
a friend dead for a fracking cracker. My water supply tastes like it's
gone around half a dozen times already. Are you more machine than
man?
Doesn't any of this affect you?"
"I am as human as you are," Lobot said. "I doubt that you could be any
hungrier than I am. My water supply is as disagreeable to me as yours
is to you. But I do not understand the discoveries we have made--"
"Then don't you want to learn more? I want the droids to try to
interface with this port. That's all. No blasters. No creative
structural renovations," "Please listen," Lobot said earnestly. "I do
not understand why structures as extensive as these have been inert
throughout our tenure on this ship, or why we have been permitted to
move about in them unimpeded. These questions trouble me. And I am
concerned that the appearance of this artifact may signal the end of
either or both of those conditions--" "All the more reason for us to
Star Wars - Black Fleet Crisis - Shield Of Lies Page 6