Splinter of the Mind's Eye: Star Wars

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Even if I knew exactly, you’d never be able to cut us free, get to them, and get back in time. You’re pretty good with that lightsaber, I expect, but you can’t fight a hundred spears all flying at you from different directions at once. Unless,” she brightened hopefully, “that toy of yours generates a screen as well as a blade.”

  “No,” Luke confessed, “just the blade. How long have you been tied here?”

  “About half a day, and my bladder’s killing me,” she informed him. “They’ve spent the time arguing about which way to go about killing us. They don’t have any personal grudge against us … they just don’t like humans generally. Not surprising, if they’ve been able to observe how the miners treat the greenies. I don’t think our Coway friends would be too upset if every human on Mimban suddenly picked up and left.”

  “Tell them we’re not like the local humans,” Luke insisted, eying the circle of hostile faces. “Tell them that we don’t want anything to do with the local people either.”

  “This isn’t a tribe of philosophers, Luke boy,” Halla explained patiently. “Their concept of government is damned simple. You can’t explain something like the Rebellion to the Coway. But I think,” she added, peering past Luke at the three chiefs who were still engaged in heated discussion among themselves, “they’ll give us one chance.”

  “I don’t believe it,” the Princess countered, glowering at the old woman. “Would we give an enemy who’d already killed four of our own a second chance?”

  “According to the fella with the gash in his shoulder who preceded you here,” Halla went on, “you only killed two. The others are just wounded. Apparently the Coway treat death as an inevitable, everyday occurrence. Primitive society, remember? To their way of thinking the two you killed simply died a little earlier than they should have. One chief even berated the dead men just now for making a poor decision. Says they ought to have waited for reinforcements. He’s arguing that the blame isn’t yours, it’s the dead ones’, for acting stupid when they should have known better.”

  “That’s barbaric,” the Princess muttered.

  Halla looked smug. “What’ve I been telling you all along? Anyway, the one with the shoulder you sliced, Luke, is telling—”

  “Not him,” objected the Princess, “me.”

  “Oh?” Halla’s estimate of the Princess rose a notch. “Well, he’s been ranting on about what a great fighter Luke is.”

  Luke looked distressed at this admiration of an action he’d despised. “A lightsaber against spears and axes isn’t a very fair fight.”

  Halla nodded agreeably. “That’s what they’re arguing about now.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you, Halla.”

  “I tried to tell them everything, Luke boy,” she explained, “when you and the girl were climbing down this side of the rockfall. I tried to convince them that not only were we from off-planet and of different variety from the miners, but that you were both fighting the humans on the surface and that if we won, you’d kick them all off Mimban. Then the Coway could go back to roaming the surface whenever they pleased.

  “One chief is all for it, the second thinks I’m the biggest liar in the history of their race, and the third is undecided. That’s what all the noise is about: the first two are each trying to persuade the third to take his side.”

  “What about this proposal?” the Princess wanted to know.

  “Oh, that.” Halla managed to look embarrassed. “I suggested that if they couldn’t make up their minds as to what the truth was, they could let Canu decide. As near as I can figure, Canu’s their local god in charge of adjudicating. All our greatest warrior has to do to convince Canu that we’re telling the truth is to defeat one of their tribal champions.”

  Luke blinked. “Give me that again, Halla?”

  “Don’t worry,” Halla assured him, “you have the Force on your side, remember?”

  “Force? I’d rather have my saber.”

  She shook her head apologetically. “Sorry, Luke boy. You said it yourself. Axes and spears against a saber’s not fair.”

  Luke turned away, looked discouraged. “I’m no fighter, Halla, and you overestimate the Force’s usefulness.”

  “Luke, these people are no giants.”

  “They’re not midgets, either. What happens if we agree to this contest and I happen to lose?”

  Halla’s answer was delivered with her usual aplomb. “Then we’ll likely have our throats cut in some uniquely primitive manner.” He kicked angrily at the ground. “Please, Luke. I tried my best. It’s our only possibility. They wouldn’t agree to fight one of the Yuzzem. They don’t think of them as intelligent.”

  “Either that, or they’re not as primitive as you think,” declared the Princess.

  “It’s not that so much, child, as the fact that it’s we humans who are exploiting the surface. So we’re the ones who have to prove ourselves before Canu.”

  Further discussion was forestalled when the three chiefs abruptly broke off their conversation. One of them—Luke couldn’t tell them apart—turned and called something out at Halla. She listened intently, then grinned.

  “It’s on. They’re willing to abide by Canu’s judgment.” She turned a concerned gaze to Luke. “I’m an old woman, boy, but like I’ve told you, I still have a lot of living planned. Don’t let me down.”

  “You must win, Luke,” the Princess said. “If I don’t attend that meeting of the underground on Circarpous eventually, our absence is likely to keep them from ever considering joining the Alliance.”

  Luke’s eyes moved from Halla to Leia. “The Alliance? What about me? Don’t let you down. Both of you listen.” He tapped his chest and regarded Leia. “It’s more important in the end that I go on living than it is for me to make some vague patriotic sacrifice. Or,” he continued, facing Halla, “that I get you out of a jam that you should have been able to avoid. You’re the one with all the Mimbanian experience.”

  “Luke boy—” she started to argue.

  He shut her up with a wave. “Not now. It doesn’t matter anymore.” He handed the lightsaber to the Princess. “All right … what are the rules? And who do I fight? Let’s finish this … one way or the other.”

  “You fight,” Halla translated laboriously, listening to the chief’s words, “until one of you quits, or dies. The word for quit is saen. That doesn’t matter, since you’ve nothing to gain by saying it.”

  Luke merely grunted, walked toward the chiefs. The entire crowd was babbling now, apparently in anticipation of the imminent battle. Luke found that despite the coolness he was beginning to sweat.

  The crowd parted and Luke had his first glimpse of the Coway he apparently was going to fight. Some of the tenseness left him. Though broader than he was, the creature was the same height. He didn’t appear especially ferocious, either. There were larger Coways in the crowd and more fearsome-looking ones. Yet this modest-appearing specimen was the chosen champion. There had to be a reason, which he was sure to discover sooner than he wished. He examined his opponent guardedly. For its part, the Coway stared back, gave him a profound bow and made an intricate movement with both arms.

  Unable to duplicate the complex ritual, Luke gave the Alliance salute. What sounded like a murmur of approval issued from the crowd. It might also have been their way of saying that he was going to be torn to small furless bits, but he preferred to believe the other.

  The Coway walked past him, stopped on the far side of the pond. “What do I do now?” Luke wondered, calling back to Halla.

  “Walk to this side of the pond and face him,” he was told. “When the second chief, that one in the middle with the blue spines sticking out of his collar, drops his right arm, the two of you go after each other.” Her voice held no humor now.

  “Do we have to fight in the water?” he inquired worriedly.

  “No one’s said so.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  A singularly chilling howl came fr
om the crowd. It was followed by dead silence. The middle chief raised its arm, dropped it with a swipe. Immediately, the Coway started across the pond toward Luke.

  Luke prowled his side of the water, trying to decide what to try. Should he strike at the head or body? It was impossible to detect any obvious vulnerable spot under that gray carpet of fur. Shouts from the onlookers thundered around the cavern walls.

  “Why did you bother to tell Luke the word for quitting,” the Princess whispered to Halla, “if he can’t gain anything by using it?”

  “I’m hoping he’ll get in a tight spot and use it as a last resort,” Halla whispered back.

  “But why?”

  “Because it’s not the Coway term for quitting. It’s a local swear word. Has something to do with parentage, I think.”

  Whirling, the Princess gave her a shocked look. “In Alliance’s cause, why’d you do that, old woman?”

  “I thought it might do us some good if Luke yells something defiant while that brute is choking the life out of him. We’ve nothing to lose by it. Luke doesn’t either. The Coway admire spirit.”

  The Princess was too shocked and disgusted to reply. Her obvious feelings had no effect on Halla. She was staring past her, toward the pond.

  “If we’re lucky he’ll never have to utter it,” she said blithely. “In any case, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Luke jumped around the edge of the water, trying to get some estimate of his rival’s mobility. Either his opponent was too clever to respond, or more likely he just didn’t care. The Coway headed relentlessly straight for Luke, splashing and kicking up water in a fine display of indifference to anything Luke chose to do.

  As far as Luke was concerned, the Coway was far too enthusiastic about this contest. Its actions bespoke an assurance Luke couldn’t begin to share.

  If he remained where he was, Luke reflected frantically, the Coway would have to come up-slope out of the water after him. It would give the worried youth a slight technical advantage. So he stopped moving around, checked his footing, and waited.

  Arms outstretched for an unaffectionate embrace, the Coway charged.

  Luke met directness with directness. As soon as the creature was close, he threw his best punch straight at the onrushing jaw. Maybe the Coway had glass chins. As it turned out the metaphor was inappropriate. The Coway’s lower jaw was made of solid granite, not glass. Even so, the force of Luke’s blow stopped it. For a second.

  When it came on him again Luke jabbed with his other fist at where the solar plexus would have been in a human. It didn’t even slow the Coway. Luke tried to duck and roll under an outstretched arm, but the aborigine was startlingly quick. It grabbed Luke’s shoulder and spun him around.

  Luke desperately tried to backpedal, found himself in water. The pond bottom was slippery and he fell backward, landing with a splash. As the Coway threw himself at him, he twisted in fear and found himself on top of his opponent.

  With both hands he tried to force the furry head beneath the water. It wouldn’t budge.

  It was rapidly growing clear to Luke why the Coway had selected this slightly smaller version of themselves as their representative to Canu’s court. He was lithe and agile and one big piece of muscle under all the deceptively soft-looking fuzz.

  No other rules, he reminded himself. With one hand he hunted hopefully along the slick pond bottom for a rock, for anything solid and smaller than his fist. He encountered only sand, and all the probing unbalanced him. The Coway threw him off and fell on his chest. Unlike the native, Luke found his head easily forced under the surface.

  A few centimeters of water served to turn the roars of the crowd to a muffled echo. He stared upward. Distorted by the water, the batrachian face of the Coway glared down at him. Inexorable pressure held him under with one hand as the native balanced itself with the other.

  Desperately, Luke turned to the right. His mouth bumped against something warm and he bit down hard. With a jerk the Coway pulled its injured member away. Luke’s head broke water and he swallowed air gratefully. Like another opponent, the crowd noise assailed him again. Through it he could hear Halla and Leia and Threepio screaming frantic encouragement. Both Yuzzem were hooting deafeningly, while Artoo beeped and whistled loud enough to drown out half the Coways.

  If only Hin were in his place! The Coway above him wouldn’t be grinning so easily. As the hand he’d bitten returned and tried to get a fresh grip on his skull, Luke twisted violently and probed with both hands. Fingers searched the creature’s flanks, hunting for anything sensitive. Most of the regions Luke wanted to try were out of reach, however.

  Impatient, the Coway brought its other hand over to steady Luke’s head so that the right hand could get a firm grip on it. Thus balanced, Luke discovered the water working to his advantage. He heaved and spun. The teetering native went over sideways into the pond.

  Thoroughly soaked and half-drowned, Luke staggered to his feet. He eyed the Coway as it rose again, tried to think of something to attack next. Meanwhile the native lowered its shoulders and charged.

  This time Luke used his right leg. As the youth put every ounce of his remaining strength into the kick, his foot fairly exploded out of the water. It caught the Coway in the mid-section, roughly where a human stomach would be located. Whether from the tremendous force of the kick or the fact that he’d struck a more vulnerable area, the Coway let out a startled whoof! and sat down hard in the water.

  Stumbling toward it, Luke lifted his leg and kicked again. The Coway wasn’t so stunned it failed to raise an arm to block the kick. Simultaneously it grabbed the swinging leg and fell across it. Luke tried to turn over as the still sitting Coway pulled him toward itself by the one thrashing leg. If the creature could get its hands on him this time, Luke knew the matter would be ended. He was facedown on the sand. There would be nothing he could do.

  His dragging hands encountered something oblong and unyielding. A rock, but too large for him to get a hand around. He’d need both hands to raise anything so massive, and much better leverage than he possessed at the moment to make use of it.

  The hand he feared came down on the back of his neck. It shoved downward, brutally hard; so hard that Luke’s face plunged into the sandy bottom of the pond. He felt the clean grains pressing into his nostrils. Raised on a desert world, he was about to meet a death damper than any he’d ever conceived of.

  His thoughts became hazy as his blood scoured the last dregs of oxygen from his lungs. A voice sang fancifully in the back of his mind. It was exorting him to relax. Well, that was simple enough to do, he reflected pleasantly. Relax he would. He was tired, so tired now.

  The Coway took it for a ploy and didn’t ease the pressure on Luke. If anything, it shoved harder, sensing victory. Then, miraculously, the pressure vanished from Luke’s neck. Unable to think of turning to defend himself, of striking back, Luke shot to the surface.

  Air! Most delicious of gases, it filled his starved lungs, those weakened bellows pumping harder with every fresh breath. Coughing up water, he stayed on his knees, delirious with the pleasure of being able to breathe again. Only when his system’s panicky requests for oxygen faded did he think to turn and look for his opponent.

  Blood trickled from the side of the Coway’s head into the clear pond water. It was lying on its back, manifestly unconscious, maybe dead.

  On hands and knees a thoroughly dazed and somewhat puzzled Luke crawled to the Coway’s motionless side. With one hand he touched the other’s face, raised a fist over it. But there was no movement. The Coway’s distress was genuine and not some cat-and-mouse alien ploy. It did not rise to attack.

  Another body was suddenly in the water beside him. “You won, Luke, you beat him!” the Princess was shouting into his ear. She had both arms wrapped tightly around him and the pressure almost sent them both tumbling together into the water.

  “Don’t you understand?” she asked brightly. “You won. We can all go free now. That i
s,” she continued in a more subdued voice, staring around at the silent crowd and trying not to show any fear, “we can if these creatures have any sense of honor.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Leia,” he advised her, wiping water from his face. “Canu has judged, remember? Besides, it takes many thousands of years of advanced technological development for a society to reduce honor to an abstract moral truism devoid of real meaning.

  “If this were an Imperial arena, then I’d be concerned.” He regarded the watching natives. “I think the Coway keep their word.”

  “We’ll find out,” she assured him, wishing she could share his certainty. Putting his left arm around her shoulders, she helped him to his feet. As they started out of the pond Luke heard something burbling and snorting like a hog in heat. A glance to his left showed the twitching form of his opponent. He was gratified. The Coway wasn’t dead.

  As soon as this became apparent, several Coway broke from the assembled ranks and approached their injured relative. For a moment Luke felt concern. He’d heard of primitive societies where the vanquished or dishonored representative of a tribe was put to death for his or her failure.

  It looked as if the Coway were more mature than that. They lifted their defeated champion to a sitting position and held some kind of burning plant under his face. Luke caught a whiff of it and it helped him regain his strength. He tried to hurry past. Even if the Coway was dead, he decided only half-jokingly, one breath of that incredibly pungent burning substance would have aroused him.

  Then something caught his eye and he paused, staring blankly at it. What had riveted his attention was not the Coway’s continuing methods of medication, nor the vanquished warrior’s convulsive reactions to them, but a large rock. As big as a man’s head, it lay in the water close by the Coway’s head.

  His fingertips retained the memory of that stone. It was the one he’d encountered prior to passing out. Or had he passed out? It seemed as if something deep inside him, some resource of which he was unaware, had reacted on the brink of asphyxiation to help him raise the rock, turn and fling it at his tormentor.