There was a murmuring of remembrance, a stir of suppressed excitement. Change was coming hard and fast to the One, the Other, and the Rest.
“This being was peaceful, unaggressive even by our standards, for we had shaped him in this way for several reasons that made sense to us and still do. Nonetheless, he has become embroiled in one violent incident after another, brutal, sanguine clashes with primitive cultures. Lives have been lost.
“Yet he has learned much, and the time has arrived for us to learn it from him.”
The rumbling of comment from the Rest grew louder. The One gave them time to contemplate, then said at last, “We go now to gather him in. We do not even know whether he will be happy to see us, to learn that his searches, at least for the time being, are over with. Let us greet him in dignity and love, understand the trials he has been through, and treasure what he has to give us, for it is rich.
“And it will change everything.”
IX
TUMBLING PONDEROUSLY BOW over stern, and with the slightest of rolls to starboard, the Millennium Falcon slowed microscopically, her attitude burners sputtering at irregular intervals in the eternal darkness. Her roll corrected, her pitch losing its momentum, she stabilized and came to a full stop. There was a fitful, uncertain fluttering of red at her ports, scattered here and there around her battered hull, then the strong, clear crimson of emergency lighting.
From small jets at the rear, streams of milky liquid struck her aft hull plates, boiling off noiselessly in thick, gaseous clouds that mingled with the trailing smoke. A still-molten stub of structural metal projecting to the precise edge of her shield radius cooled and dimmed. The smoke ceased pouring; the interior lights and running markers came on full.
From a pressure valve in the circular hatch atop the Falcon's hull a mast extruded, silvery, slender, obviously being paid out by hand in jerky increments. It stopped with a springy quiver when two meters of it were visible. Lehesu, floating nearby, heard a familiar voice:
“Hello there, old flatfish! Lost the main antenna in all the excitement back there! That is you, isn't it, Lehesu? Glad to be here. If Vuffi Raa had hesitated by a picosecond, you'd be talking to our radioactive ghosts!”
From a rather different culture - one, for example, whose conception of death did not encompass fancies of an ectoplasmic afterlife - Lehesu failed to comprehend at least two-thirds of the greeting.
Nevertheless, he understood that his friends had safely arrived in the ThonBoka, and was overjoyed.
“Landocaptainmaster!” the vacuum-breather exclaimed, unconsciously addressing the human occupant of the starship as an Oswaft Elder, “Yes it is I!” He swam closer to the spacecraft until he could peer into its control room through the canopy. Inside sat Lando Calrissian, con man and sometime gambler (or gambler and sometime con man), and his mechanical would-be servant, Vuffi Raa. Full-time robot.
The two were still busily turning knobs and pushing buttons, attempting to restore the Millennium Falcon to some semblance of operational normality. The captain's seat harness lay unfastened, floating in the temporarily gravity-free air about his acceleration couch. So it had been he, most probably, who had erected the antenna, aft and upstairs. The young Oswaft was pleased to have deducted the data, insignificant as they might be. It meant he was beginning to have a feel for what had been a totally alien environment and civilization.
“Greetings and salutations, friend Lehesu,” the droid echoed. “Not one of my better entrances, I'm afraid. And we both apologize for the delay in reaching you.” He looked to Lando, who was nodding, although whether in assent to the apology or as a comment on the robot's flying skills was moot.
“We were within hailing distance,” Vuffi Raa continued, “of the StarCave, several days ago, but it was necessary to work our way through the blockading fleet by means of deception.”
There was the slightest hint of distaste in the robot's voice, Lando thought. It annoyed him; deception was supposed to be one of his major stocks-in-trade, and Vuffi Raa understood that as well as anyone. Besides, how else were they supposed to have gotten through. the fleet? He lit a cigar and gazed out through the wedge-sectioned port at the Oswaft floating gently ahead of the motionless Falcon. Blockade or not, it was good to be out of circulation, beyond the reach of what passed for civilization - and of hired assassins - however temporarily.
Knowing the navy, he had a pessimistic notion just how safe they were within the nebula and for how long. But he had a plan for that, too, and encouraged by his relatively easy victory over the fleet thus far, he intended to relax.
“I do not understand,” Lehesu protested in response to something Vuffi Raa had said when Lando wasn't listening. “I believed that I had seen you and the Falcon utterly destroyed. Of course, at the time, I didn't know it was you, but...”
Satisfaction suffused the droid's tone, “It was my master's idea, really. During the time I described to you, while he was spying upon the enemy under the guise of selling things and gambling, I fitted out a cylinder of powdered metallic shavings mixed with various volatiles, and attached it to the stern of the Falcon. This we left unshielded, so that the cruiser's rays, upon striking it, would convey the illusion that...”
I wonder what we would have done if they'd simply used a tractor beam, Lando mused. He'd counted on the guns being manned by trigger-happy jerks, and, as usual, he'd been right.
For a while he watched Lehesu, not really paying attention as that being and the little droid communicated. They seemed to get along automatically, he thought, had little trouble achieving understanding.
Idly, he wondered why. For all the goodwill in the galaxy, he had to struggle to identify with a creature who had never known a planet's surface, for whom empty space was a comfortable home, who could shift light-years at a time within it, somehow avoiding the necessity for those careful computations the gambler had learned so painfully as an inexperienced captain.
Against the charcoal backdrop of the nebula, a handful of stars twinkled merrily through the transparent innards of the space being. Lando laughed, dismissing every doubt and trouble he was feeling with a shake of his head, took another drag on his cigar through a wide grin, then rose from his seat.
“Pardon me, old gumball machine, if you can, but I'm going aft to change into my bathing togs. Care to join me?” Without waiting for a reply, he stubbed out the cigar and pulled himself between the jumpseats toward the rear of the cockpit.
“If,” the robot stirred from his conversation with the Oswaft, “I interpret you correctly, Master, I think I should like that very much.” His five chromium-plated tentacles glittered over the control panels. “I shall inform our friend, and place the ship on automatic.”
“Swell. Don't call me master.”
Ducking through the doorway, Lando floated along the corridor until he reached a locker where he changed from the well-worn shipclothes he'd been wearing for the navy's benefit, into a spacesuit.
By the time he'd sealed all the fittings and run through the checklist programmed into it, Vuffi Raa, who hadn't needed to change, caught up with him. Together they made their way to the airlock and cycled out through it into the void.
Lehesu was there to meet them.
It was the gambler's first good look at the ThonBoka from the inside, and the sight was eerie. Behind him, the nearly circular mouth of the nebula displayed the sky as he was accustomed to seeing it, a dense scattering of stars - with the occasional intrusion of an eruption of destructive energies from the fleet.
Everywhere else, the gas and dust shut out the rest of the universe with a solid wall of deep gray that appeared slightly phosphorescent, and through which gigantic bolts of lightning played intermittent natural counterpoint to the unnatural discharges from the navy. The eye, perhaps the mind itself, violently rejected proper proportions in that place. Lando knew that he was gazing across a dozen light-years, something like ten trillion kilometers, to the opposite wall, in reality a finite region o
f diffuse particles that would be scarcely noticeable to those aboard a ship traveling through it. His eyes told him he was near the entrance to an enormous but comprehensibly sized cavern, one that might require several days to traverse on foot, but a cavern nevertheless.
Billows and folds in the nebula resembled geologic flows, sheets of limestone deposition. All that was missing were stalagmites and stalactites. Illumination was provided by three small planetless blue-white stars that shone in the center of the StarCave, their photon pressure probably accounting for its hollow form, but not for their own presence. One star might have been sensible. Three, spaced a light-year or two apart, would have physicists making excuses to one another well into the next century. Lando was happy to be a gambler, a profession where alibis don't count. Biologists would be unhappy - or ecstatic - at the strange life that had evolved in the sheltered space.
Fingering colored plastic control buttons set into a small panel on the arm of his spacesuit, Lando jetted away from the upper hull and retroed to a floating halt a daring few meters away from the impressive young Oswaft. It was something like greeting an ocean liner politely.
He circumnavigated the five hundred-meter creature in a smooth arc, tucked himself into a roll, straightened, and sprang away with arms extended wide, legs spread, and an expression of sudden joy on his face.
“Yaaahooo!” he whooped uncharacteristically, rejoicing in the sensation of free movement, open space. He realized he'd been cooped up aboard ship far too long. It felt like his entire life. Or perhaps evolving on a planet, squeezed between the ground and low-hanging sky, made one feel permanently claustrophobic.
Vuffi Raa, propelled by the Core alone knew what, spun like a bright metallic snowflake beside him as Lehesu rotated majestically, then veered off in a huge graceful curve the two smaller beings attempted to emulate. One of them succeeded.
“Hey, you guys, wait for me!” Lando shouted unnecessarily; his suit radio carried perfectly well over the kilometer or two he'd missed intercepting them by. Correcting, he tumbled slightly - the free-fall equivalent of tripping over his own feet - stabilized, and swooped to join his friends. By which time, of course, they were somewhere else.
Lando didn't care. On his own, he began essaying ancient patterns, maneuvers that, elsewhere and elsewhen, would be called Luftberry circles, Immelmann turns, imitating the inspired antics of fighting aerocraft of the pre-space eras of every culture momentarily infatuated with free flight and glorious death. He dived on Lehesu, showering the vacuum-breather with imaginary reciprocating gun bullets, then pulled up at the last instant as the startled being instinctively rolled to peel the attacking foe off his back.
That didn't save Vuffi Raa. The unfortunate droid was sitting squarely in the bull's-eye etching of Lando's helmet - ordinarily used for the more mundane purpose of orienting oneself before setting off one's suit propellants - when Lando's deadly pointed fingers filled him full of hot-jacketed lead.
Caught up in the spirit of the thing, the robot spun out and downward, wishing he could trail smoke for his master's amusement. There were limits, however, even to Vuffi Raa's remarkable capabilities.
Three small blue-white suns glowed against a somber dark-gray backdrop. Lightning licked the folds and billows of the cavern walls.
Three odd beings, Oswaft, droid, and, oddest of all, human, passed an endless hour or so, playing at combat like the young of all intelligent life everywhere. It was both a release and a return at the same time, marred only by the momentarily suppressed dread of what lay outside the StarCave - and the sudden flare of baleful energy as the fleet, on its clockwork schedule of mass murder sprayed poison and lethal power into the space around the ThonBoka mouth.
Lando cut his spin - that time, he had been the victim of Vuffi Raa's machine guns - and halted, hanging in space, resenting being catapulted back into adulthood, watching the stupidity unnecessary fleet operations with an angry grimace clearly visible through his transparent bubble helmet. Life was so simple, he thought bitterly, so thoroughly enjoyable. Why were there always people whose chosen profession was to louse it up for everybody else?
Vuffi Raa swam up beside the gambler, not needing to be telepathic to read his master's thoughts. They were joined by Lehesu. All three stared out through the mouth of the nebula, watching the evil net of beams that did its work of making life impossible for the Oswaft. All knew of the enzymes drifting into the ThonBoka, as well.
“The nutrient current grows impoverished, my friends,” Lehesu observed sadly. He was not actually breathing heavily from the hour's exercise, but the effect was much the same. Lando and Vuffi Raa didn't know his kind quite well enough to understand it was a bad sign.
“Core forgive me!” Lando exclaimed, “I'd almost forgotten why we came here in the first place!” He turned toward the Millennium Falcon, applied thrust to his suit. “We'll get you a little snack, old skate, then you can show us where best to place the rest of our cargo.”
The robot and the man scooted underneath the starship, began manipulating the locks on a small cargo hatch. In a moment, clinging to the hull, they had it open and delivered of a small canister that Vuffi Raa held out.
“Here you are,” Lando heard through his helmet phones. “Shall I just spray it around, or would you prefer-”
“That will be quite suitable, my friend, and many thanks.”
Lehesu tried hard to keep hunger out of his voice. He hadn't noticed until now how famished he'd become. As the specially selected amino acids and other compounds began drifting around the ship, he moved slowly and with dignity, scooping them up and ingesting them. He could feel them sing through his body and knew a joy akin to that which Lando felt at the prospect of freedom.
“Well, I certainly trust you're enjoying yourself in your selfish gluttony!”
It was a strange new voice over the ether, one incomprehensible to Lando, but Vuffi Raa understood it - and correctly interpreted its hostile tone. Both of them jetted quickly out from under the hull of the Falcon, which was blocking their view, as a pair of titanic monsters slid casually alongside, making even Lehesu appear small and meek. He may not have had the robot's talent for languages, but the air of sarcastic disapproval hadn't been missed by the gambler, either.
Reflexively, he patted the spacesuit pocket where he kept his stingbeam - then laughed inwardly at himself as he thought of pitting its miniscule power against these...these...
“These are the Elders you told us about, Lehesu?”' he asked finally. “Tell them we're here to help them, and that, at the very least, we mean them absolutely no harm.” He removed his hand from the pocket and tried to sound sincere.
And almost succeeded.
Easily seven hundred meters from wingtip to wingtip, the pair of Oswaft dwarfed the Falcon, and everything else in view. They positioned themselves on either side of Lando's younger vacuum-breathing friend, as if that worthy were being arrested. Or sent to bed without his dinner.
“No,” Lehesu replied in words the gambler could understand, “these are most assuredly not the Elders, and they have no right or authority to interfere with us. Elders are much larger.” He'd directed the final comment to the two interlopers. Apparently it was some kind of insult, although it was probably lost on the pair, spoken as it had been in human language, Lando thought. If Elders were even larger than these creatures, the gambler reflected, he certainly didn't want to mess with them.
Vuffi Raa put on a burst of speed, whipped around as if to block the progress of the three giant beings - as if a microbe could block the progress of a bantha. “I suggest,” the droid radiated in a businesslike tone, “that you be civil to our friend Lehesu, for he has performed a great service for you and the rest of your-”
“Silence, insignificant one!” one of the creatures replied. “You know not of what you speak. We are here at the explicit request of the Elders themselves. The three of you are to come to them at once, in order to explain your impertinence and face their mighty jud
gment!”
X
“SABACC!” CRIED LANDO Calrissian, gambler, con artiste, and interstellar diplomat. He sat back on sheer nothingness with a satisfied look on his face and let the Millennium Falcon gather in his winnings, shuffle the “deck,” and deal out the “cardchips” once again.
It was the weirdest and most profitable game he'd ever played.
Senwannus'gourkahipaff, senior Elder of the Oswaft, let a little ticklish signal be broadcast, indicating amusement and pleasure.
“Truly it is amazing, Captainmasterlandocalrissian.”
Lando gave a mental shrug: if the head vacuum-breather wished to address him with a title longer than his own, indicating deep respect and a relaxed sort of submission, the gambler wasn't going to correct him. There was far too much at stake, and it had very little to do with the game of sabacc.
“Amazing,” the thousand-meter being continued, “you cannot even see the cards, yet you have won hand after hand under fair and impartial conditions. I abase myself to your skill and intellect.”
Lando congratulated himself a little, too, principally on his luck. They were playing in the center of the Cave of the Elders, the only architectural structure, as far as he knew, within the ThonBoka, very probably the only such the Oswaft had ever constructed. Or thought to construct.
Located in the middle of the triangular plane formed by the three blue-white stars in the center of the nebula, the Cave of the Elders was a meticulous replica of the StarCave itself.
From where he sat – hung might be a better word, as they were relaxing in free-fall - he could make out the folds and tucks he'd seen outside, duplicated in exact detail a mere ten kilometers away. A circular doorway repeated the pattern of the mouth of the ThonBoka (sans, he was happy for small favors, the blockading fleet), and what he'd seen of the detail outside spoke exceptionally well for the inferential powers of the Oswaft. With the exception of the adventurous Lehesu, they had never actually seen the outside of their nebula, yet they knew just what it had to look like.
Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian 03 - The StarCave of ThonBoka Page 8
