“You’d both make pretty pitiful traitors,” Grammel observed. “The Rebels would have sneered at you. They don’t enroll criminals in their ranks. Odd, since they’re all technically the worst sort of criminals. Anyone can see by looking at you that you’d never be accepted by them.” Fortunately, the Princess was in too much pain to snicker, Luke knew.
“I happen to think that your story, young man, though plausible, is a cleverly crafted falsehood.” Luke went cold inside. “But … it could be true. If that’s the case, if you are what you claim to be, we might even manage to bend the laws a little for you. I admire ingenuity in others.
“We might even find something for you to do here on Mimban. The Empire has many malcontents working in the mines. You’ve already encountered five of them.
“Of course,” he concluded, “I could always return you to Circarpous for prosecution there.”
“Oh no, Captain-Supervisor!” Luke cried, dropping to his knees and clutching desperately at Grammel’s trouser legs. “Please don’t do that. They’ll have us executed. Please, we’ll work till we drop, but don’t send us back there!” He was sobbing openly now.
“Get off my boots,” Grammel ordered disgustedly. As Luke backed away obediently the Captain-Supervisor bent to brush at his pants where Luke had touched him.
Wiping tears conjured with difficulty away from his eyes, Luke tried not to appear too hopeful as he regarded Grammel. The Princess, meanwhile, had shifted to a sitting position. She was still rubbing the small of her back with one hand, carefully avoiding Grammel’s gaze.
“As I stated, everything you’ve told me is possible and unlikely,” the Captain-Supervisor went on. He eyed Luke in a funny way. “There is one thing which does interest me, however. It would be a sign of your good faith if you were honest with me about it.”
“I don’t understand, Captain-Supervisor,” Luke admitted blankly.
“I am told,” Grammel continued, “that you have in your possession a small gemstone.…”
Luke froze.
V
“GREAT Captain-Supervisor,” he finally managed to say “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Please,” Grammel requested, showing a hint of genuine emotion for the first time, “don’t toy with me. You were observed conversing with a local person,” the last words uttered with obvious distaste, “whose presence here is barely tolerated by the Imperial law. She remains always just the safe side of illegality. Despite personal feelings, deporting her illegally and unnecessarily would irritate certain segments of the populace who find her amusing. Besides, it would be expensive.
“You were seen showing her a small glowing red stone. Something you acquired during your illegal sojourning on Circarpous, perhaps?”
Luke’s thoughts were in turmoil. Unquestionably some informant of Grammel’s, probably the tiny cloaked figure the Captain-Supervisor had talked with some minutes ago, had seen the shard of Kaiburr crystal that Halla had presented to them. But the spy hadn’t seen Halla bring it out and show it to Luke.
So Grammel and his spy were assuming that the stone was something Luke had brought with him and was showing to Halla! Which was fine for the old woman, he thought. She shouldn’t be drawn into this now.
For an awful moment Luke thought that Grammel might be a Force-sensitive with the knowledge and ability to operate the crystal, or at least to sense its special property. But a hasty reaching out revealed only the usual vapid vacuum associated with normal humans hovering about Grammel’s mind. He couldn’t suspect anything about the fragment’s real importance. Nevertheless, Luke balked at turning over the precious splinter to a servant of the Empire.
Grammel wasn’t one to waste time. “Come on, young man. You seem like a sensible sort. Surely it can’t be worth additional inconvenience to you?”
“Really,” Luke insisted, stalling frantically, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, if you will press me,” Grammel responded, not particularly displeased. He turned his attention to the Princess, who continued to sit on the floor nursing her bruises. “The young lady is something more than a business associate, maybe? She means something to you?”
Luke shrugged elaborately. “She means nothing to me.”
“Fine,” said the Captain-Supervisor. “Then you won’t mind what’s going to happen next.”
He gestured to the sergeant. The armor-clad soldier walked over and reached down for the Princess. Leia reached up to grab his hand, slipped a leg under his, and pulled and kicked simultaneously. As the trooper went crashing to the floor, she was rushing for the doorway, calling for Luke to follow.
No matter how she tried the door key and switch, it wouldn’t open for her.
“You’re wasting your time, my dear,” Grammel advised her. “You should have gone for his weapon. The door is keyed to me personally, to certain close members of my staff, and to troopers who have the proper resonator built into their armor. You don’t qualify at any level, I’m afraid.”
Angry now, the sergeant was back on his feet, moving toward her with open arms. She started to run past him, stumbled, and went sprawling to the floor. Grammel loomed over her, his right hand forming into a fist.
“No,” Luke exclaimed at the absolute last possible moment. Grammel’s hand paused in mid-air as he glanced back at him.
“That’s much better,” he advised Luke. “Better to be sensible than obstinate. I’d find the stone anyway, of course, but you’d find the finding unpleasant.”
Luke unsnapped a pocket, reached in. “You can’t!” a voice objected. He turned to see the Princess staring up at him. Evidently she’d come to believe at least part of Halla’s story. Or maybe, he corrected himself, she was simply playing out her part of the petty thief reluctant to part with hard-won goods.
“We’ve no choice.” As long as Grammel didn’t ask for names, he saw no point in volunteering any, faked or otherwise. Unwrapping the small box, he handed it to the expectant administrator.
Grammel eyed it, asked a question Luke hadn’t prepared for. “What’s the combination?”
For a second, Luke panicked. If he confessed that he didn’t know the combination, his whole carefully fabricated lie would disintegrate here and now. So he took the only gamble he could.
“It’s open.”
Both he and Leia held their breath as Grammel touched the tiny catch. There was an audible click. Luke had never bothered to rescramble the combination after Halla had given him the box.
Captain-Supervisor Grammel stared fascinated at the fragment of glowing crimson. “Very pretty. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Luke lied. “I have no idea what kind of gem it is.” Grammel looked sternly at him. “It’s true … I’m no gemologist or chemist.” There, that much was easily said.
“Is the glow natural,” Grammel inquired, “or the result of external excitation?” He moved the gem around in the box with a probing finger.
“I’ve no idea. It’s glowed ever since we’ve had it, so I’d hazard a guess that it’s a natural property of the stone.”
The Captain-Supervisor smiled at him in a way he didn’t like. “If you know so little about it, why did you steal it?”
“I didn’t say we stole it.” Grammel snickered derisively and Luke, playing the part willingly, assumed a defensive attitude. “All right, so we stole it. It was pretty and I’d never seen anything like it. Anything pretty and rare is likely to be valuable.”
“You told me your field of expertise was extortion, not burglary,” Grammel countered.
“The thing intrigued me and I had the chance to swipe it, so I did,” Luke responded with a touch of belligerent bravado.
Apparently that was the right approach. “Sensible,” Grammel conceded. He turned his gaze back to the splinter. “I don’t recognize it either. As a gem it’s not very impressive … not faceted or even trimmed for cutting. But you’re right about it being unusual. The radiant property alone is enough to
mark it as that.” Abruptly, he stopped turning it over and over with his finger, moved his hand away.
“It’s not harmful, is it?”
“Not so far,” Luke conceded, affecting an attitude of sudden concern. Let Grammel sweat a little!
“You haven’t suffered any ill effects since it’s been in your possession?”
“Not until we were brought here.” That almost produced laughter from the administrator.
“I think,” he went on slowly, putting the box down on his desk and moving away from it, “that I’ll have it analyzed professionally before I come to any conclusions about it.” He looked up amiably at Luke.
“It’s been confiscated, of course. You may consider it your fine for being involved in the fight.”
“We were the ones assaulted,” Luke argued, for appearance’s sake.
“Are you disputing my judgment?” Grammel asked dangerously.
“No, Captain-Supervisor!”
“That’s good. I can see that you’re an intelligent young man. Pity your companion works her mouth to the exclusion of her brain.” Leia glared at him, but for once had the sense not to say anything.
“I believe we can work something out. Meanwhile, it remains that you two are here on this world illegally, in defiance of a great deal of Imperial effort to keep this installation a secret. So you will be detained until I can verify your story.”
Luke started to speak but Grammel waved him to silence. “No, don’t bother with names. I’d expect you to offer me an alias anyway. We’ll take retinal prints, natural portraits and other suitable information. I have contacts on Circarpous, both legal and not so.
“If they send me back information that you two are known petty criminals on that world, and judging from your story you ought to be known, then what you’ve told me will be substantiated and we’ll adjust relationships accordingly—and not necessarily to your detriment.
“If it turns out that no one unearths any information on you, or information that conflicts with what you’ve said, then I’ll have to assume that everything you’ve told me is pure fabrication. In that unfortunate event I’ll be forced to resort to indelicate methods of obtaining the truth.” Luke would have preferred any kind of smile to the empty, inhuman expression Grammel wore as he said that.
“But there’s no reason why we can’t be pleasant about things until then. Sergeant!”
“Captain-Supervisor!” the noncom acknowledged, stepping over smartly.
“See these two escorted to the restraining area.”
“Which cell, sir?”
“The maximum secure holding pen,” Grammel replied, his face unreadable.
The sergeant hesitated. “But, sir, that cell’s already occupied. Its occupants are dangerous … they’ve already put three men in the infirmary.”
“No matter,” Grammel insisted indifferently. “I’m sure these two can handle themselves. Besides, prisoners don’t fight other prisoners. Not too often, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” the Princess demanded to know, climbing to her feet. “What are you caging us with?”
“You’ll find out,” Grammel assured her pleasantly. Several troops entered the room and boxed themselves around Luke and Leia. “Please try to keep yourselves alive until I can check on your story. I’d be distressed if it developed that you’ve been telling me the truth and couldn’t survive the company of your cell companions long enough to be released.”
“We’ve been honest with you!” Luke insisted, sounding desperate.
“Sergeant?”
The noncom led the two prisoners to the exit. Grammel ignored Luke’s entreaties to know what they were being sent to.
When they were gone and the chamber was quiet again, the Captain-Supervisor spent several minutes gazing at the glowing fragment of crystal. Then he touched a switch behind his desk. Another door opened and a small cloaked figure entered the room for the second time.
“That’s the thing you saw, Bot?” said Grammel, gesturing at the open box sitting on the desk. A nod from the hooded shape. “You know what it is?” A negative shake this time.
“Neither do I,” Grammel confessed. “I think the youth underestimates its strangeness. I’ve never seen or heard of anything remotely like it. Have you?” Another sideways shake of the hooded skull.
Grammel glanced at the closed doorway where Luke and Leia had been taken out. “Those two could be what the boy said they were. I don’t know. I have the feeling his story is a little too neat, too convenient. Almost as if he were gauging his responses to what I wanted to hear. I can’t decide whether he’s an inefficient crook or a supernally smooth liar.
“Something else. He sounded almost confident that he and the girl could make contact with Rebels on the Ten or Twelve. None of our agents have been able to do that.”
A husk of a sentence from the figure and Grammel nodded.
“I know that the Rebels have ways of separating true traitors from our people, but the boy’s confidence still troubles me. It seems misplaced in a petty criminal. And the girl had more spirit than her type normally displays. I’m puzzled, Bot. But I think … I think there might be something important in all this. I just don’t have the facts available to glue it all together with … yet. It might mean much to us both.” The figure nodded vigorously, pleased.
Grammel reached a decision. “I’m going to have to contact higher authority. I don’t like the idea of sharing anything like this, but I don’t see a way around it.” He jerked his head contemptuously toward the door. “In any event, we’ll cut the truth out of them before anyone of importance can get here.”
Leaving the desk, he walked to the wall behind it and touched a small switch. A section of wall vanished, leaving revealed behind it a blank screen of golden hue. Grammel adjusted another control. A panel awash with dials and studs slid out of the wall beneath the reflective screen. Further adjustment, and then he spoke into a protruding vo-pickup.
“I have a deep-space communication of the First Priority for Governor Bin Essada, on the territorial administrative world of Gyndine.” He glanced back at the cloaked form for reassurance, was rewarded with a nod.
“Call is being processed,” a computer voice declared flatly. Visual static appeared for a moment, then the screen cleared with gratifying speed. By Imperial distances Gyndine was not very far away.
The portrait that appeared on the screen was of an overweight, swarthy individual whose most outstanding feature was a series of chins falling in steps to the upper part of his shirt. Curly black hair, touched with white at the sides and dyed orange in a spiral pattern on top, crowned the face like seaweed on some water-worn boulder. Dark eyes squinted perpetually, their pink pupils ever sensitive to light. “I have work to do,” Governor Essada grunted in a porcine contralto. “Who calls and what for?”
With that smug, powerful visage looming over him on the screen, much of Grammel’s customary assurance melted away. His own words came out sounding shaky and subservient.
“It is only I, Governor, a humble servant of the Emperor, Captain-Supervisor Grammel.”
“I don’t know any Captain-Supervisor Grammel,” the voice said.
“I am in charge of the secret mining colony on Circarpous V, sir,” explained Grammel hopefully.
Essada paused momentarily, looked up from the tape he was inspecting. “I am familiar with the Imperial operations in that system,” he replied guardedly. “What business do you have that requires First Priority with me?” The huge bulk leaned forward. “It had better be important, Captain-Supervisor Grammel. I know you now.”
“Yes, sir.” Grammel bowed his head repeatedly to the screen. “It’s a matter involving two strangers who somehow set down here secretly. Two strangers and a peculiar bit of crystal they had in their possession. The people aren’t important, but as you, sir, are widely famed as an expert on unusual radiations, I thought perhaps—”
“Don’t waste my time with flattery, Grammel,” Essa
da warned. “Since the Emperor dissolved the Senate, we regional governors have been overwhelmed with work.”
“I understand, sir,” Grammel said hastily, rushing to gather up the tiny box containing the stone. He held it so that the vis-pickup in the room could see it. “Here it is.”
Essada peered at it. “Strange … I’ve never seen anything like that, Grammel. The radiation is generated from within?”
“Yes, sir, I’m certain.”
“I’m not,” the Governor replied, “but I admit it looks to be so. Tell me more about the people who had it.”
Grammel shrugged. “They’re nothing, probably just a couple of petty thieves who stole it, sir.”
“A couple of petty thieves penetrated and landed in secret on Circarpous V?” said the Governor disbelievingly.
“I think so, sir. A boy and a young woman …”
“Young woman,” Essada repeated. “We’ve heard rumors from Circarpous IV, about an important meeting that the underground leaders there were preparing for … a young woman, you say? Would she be dark-haired, fiery-tempered, perhaps even a touch sarcastic?”
“The very person, sir,” a startled Grammel stammered.
“You have identified them?”
“No, sir. We’ve only just imprisoned them. They’ve been jailed together with—”
“Chaos take your details, Grammel!” Essada shouted. “Give me visual representation of both of these people.”
“That is easily done,” a relieved Grammel replied. He took the plastic recorder rod from the desk, held it up uncertainly before the screen. “This has not yet been transferred, sir. Do you think you can make out the rod imagery?”
“I can make out many things, Grammel, down to the shallow depths of your own soul. Place it close to your vis-pickup.”
The administrator adjusted the requisite switch and placed the long glassy tube close to the screen panel. He touched the retrieval stud and two-dimensional portraits appeared within the rod’s substance. A pause, and then he shifted the rod to show full-length views of both subjects.
Splinter of the Mind's Eye: Star Wars Page 8
