"It does not matter what species they are; people trust what they
see.
Words alone will not make them believe they were fooled. Out there,
they are turning to each other and saying, 'Well, what do you think we
ought to do about this?" Not 'Do you think it's true?" I don't know
what they will decide they feel. I only know that it is true, for them
the Yevetha have allied with the Empire."
Engh rocked back in his chair. "I think the President's image analysts
should see this as soon as possible.
And I hope you will finally make time to meet with them yourself,
Leia.
The days ahead will not be shaped by questions and answers, the lore of
experts, the reasoned judgment of earnest beings gathered around
tables.
Cherished belief, powerful emotion, and the image that plays in the
mind in the moment before sleep comes--they will write the story of the
days ahead."
Tholatin was uninhabited save for the smugglers' hideaway known as
Esau's Ridge, nestled in a deep lateral erosion cut at the base of a
towering rock face. The cut was a thousand meters long and up to a
hundred meters deep, with a maximum of six meters' clearance in the
berthing area under the cantilevered granite ceiling.
A warren of smaller artificial tunnels and chambers extended the
complex another two hundred meters into the mountain.
It was one of the most private of all the smugglers' sanctuaries,
invisible from orbit and well defended against intruders. Even the
three landing clearings in the forest that covered the valley floor
were concealed, hidden.
by retractable military-grade camouflage nets with infrared screens.
It was also one of the most exclusive sanctuaries, open only to the
elite veterans of the trade, to the well-connected rather than the
well-heeled. Or, at least, it once had been. When the Millennium
Falcon arrived there, Esau's Ridge was more crowded than Chewbacca
could remember ever seeing it. Parking clearances in the landing area
were down to half a meter, and the floating berth fees were accordingly
high.
[Peace did not seem to have hurt the trade,] he growled to the berthing
collector as he paid the first day's fee.
"When they are not busy fighting wars, governments amuse themselves by
forbidding things," said the collector. "There will always be work for
us. Welcome back to the Ridge, Chewbacca. By the way, I threw two of
the kids out of here to make room for this trash heap you call a
ship."
Chewbacca paid without complaint the expected bribe for that privilege
of seniority. [Is Plothis still here?] "Shot four years ago in a
squabble with a customer.
Bracha e'Naso took over the business."
[What about Formayj and the brokerage?] "Same old place," said the
ollector. "Be sure and look up Armatin the Dread while you're here--he
retired and bought the slava bar. He'll be glad to see you if you can
catch him sober."
For their own protection, Chewbacca instructed Lumpawarrump and Jowdrrl
to stay inside the ship.
With Shoran and Dryanta standing guard, the Falcon
was as safe as it could be in a port of thieves--but Esau's Ridge
could be as dangerous as the Shadow Forest for the inexperienced.
Chewbacca had come there for information and for specialized
supplies.
The former proved more costly than the latter, and the latter came dear
enough. e'Naso treated Chewbacca like a celebrity, then tried to
overcharge him by half, as though he were some star-eyed pupling who'd
never run a picket line.
"It's almost impossible for me to keep these items in stock," e'Naso
protested when Chewbacca growled threateningly. "You've seen the
berthing line--demand is very high, and replacing my stock will cost me
a premium.
You want a better price, you get Maniid and the others who run my
shipments to take less for their risk."
Another customer, an old Kiffu male browsing through the catalog of
bootleg holos, overheard the conversation and intervened. "Haggling
with a Wookiee," the customer said, shaking his head. "That shows
courage, e'Nasoeven Plothis wouldn't have dared it. Have you decided
who will inherit the shop?"
Chewbacca showed a toothy grimace, all the more ominous for the hint of
a smile it contained.
e'Naso quickly countered his own best offer, cutting the total by
twenty percent. When that did not change Chewbacca's expression, he
let the Wookiee name his price.
[And you deliver it all to my ship,] he added.
"Of course. Of course."
Outside, Chewbacca paid the Kiffu his third of the savings.
Dealing with Formayj was another matter altogether.
The long-lived Yao had not only seen all the tricks, he had gotten in
early enough to invent several of them. Besides that, Formayj did not
haggle. His memories and his connections, both carefully built up over
more than a century of brokering, were his stock in trade. He
carefully appraised the worth of each before parting with it.
"Koornacht Cluster," Formayj said, nodding.
"Maps, inhabitants, hyperspace routes, ship designs, planetary
defenses, sensor grids--very rare. Expensive."
[I will pay your price.] "Come back two days. Will know more then."
So Chewbacca and the others waited, staying close to the Falcon and
watching the neighboring ships in the berth line come and go. The
arrival of e'Naso's delivery .sled brought a welcome interruption to
the waiting, and several hours' work studying, testing, and stowing the
gear took the edge off their impatience. But by the next morning,
Lumpawarrump was bouncing off the bulkheads as though the Falcon were a
cage.
[How much longer, Father?] [Long enough for you to take five falls with
Jowdrrl in the forward cargo hold.] [She is busy with the dorsal gun
turret again.] [She is making herself busy--she will make the time if
you ask.] [Could I take some falls with you instead?] [You already know
how to lose--and I must go see other brokers and old friends,]
Chewbacca said, ruffling his son's fur roughly. [Stay here. Study the
ship, practice your skills of defense and attack--you will need them
soon enough.] A day of drinking in the slava bar, listening to
smugglers' bragging and tall tales, ground Chewbacca's own patience
thin. When the third fight of the afternoon broke out, he roared to
his feet, seized both adversaries, and flung them into opposite
corners--for no reason other than that he needed to release the
restless tension building up inside.
He returned to Formayj's brokerage the next morning, but the visit
claimed little of his day.
"Difficult," said Formayj. "Come back two days."
Two days later, he said the same thing.
On their fifth day in Esau's Ridge, Chewbacca yielded to Lumpawarrump's
endless pleading looks and took his son into the sanctuary.
The excursion almost ended as quickly as it began,
when Lumpawarrump
took too close
an interest in a parked slaver for the liking of its
Trandoshan owner.
"Mind your own business!" the owner shouted from atop the ship. An
instant later, a blaster bolt singed the flowing fur on Lumpawarrump's
right shoulder.
"Move along!"
Chewbacca seized his son by the scruff and dragged him away toward the
tunnels, waving his bowcaster and exchanging threat-growls and insults
with the owner as he did so.
[Did you not listen to me? Curiosity is not rewarded on Esau's Ridge,]
he chided Lumpawarrump when they were alone inside. [Watch, but do not
be caught looking; listen, but do not be caught overhearing; ask no
questions, and question no lies--that is the code honored here.] Seven
days after their arrival, Formayj called Chewbacca to his brokerage.
"I show you price first, you decide," he said.
[You would not cheat me,] Chewbacca said. [Show me what you have.] The
price was almost unspeakably high, but the value was there. A
smuggler's annotated copy of a Yevethan navigational map--six years
old, but priceless even so. An even older Imperial autopsy report on
three Yevethan corpses. A recording of Nil Spaar's address to the
Senate. A still of a spherical starship with the entryways and gun
emplacements overmarked. And the capper: the data and holo files of a
New Republic recon pass over Wakiza, complete with an NRI seal.
"So new you can still smell Imperial City on it," said the broker,
pointing. "You like?"
[You are the best, Formayj.] "Of course. That is why they come
here."
Smiling, he took Chewbacca's payment, then disarmed the erase-bot and
other daemons that would otherwise have been unleashed by a trigger in
the brokerage door. "Now, the other matter."
Chewbacca was already rising to leave at that point, and rumbled
questioningly.
"You asked all around the Ridge about Han Solo.
Did not ask me, as if I did not know he is a prisoner in Koornacht,"
said Formayj. "I know where everyone has come from and where everyone
is going when they leave. I know why customer wants the information
before I sell it to them. At times must even disappoint them because
of what I know. You plan a rescue, yes?"
Chewbacca growled his assent.
"You ask where he must be held. Even though you do not come to me, I
inquire on my own." Formayj shook his head. "Discouraging. No one
knows. There is no prison. His name is not spoken by any who would
know, on Coruscant or N'zoth." He reached up and handed Chewbacca
another holo card. "Perhaps this helps you. Free--my cost nothing."
He gestured toward the viewer. "Go on--see."
It was a recording of Nil Spaar speaking to the members of the New
Republic via Channel 81. Time-stamped forty hours ago, it began, "I
address the strong, proud leaders of the vassal worlds--" Formayj
pressed another object on Chewbacca, this one a datacard. "Old
Imperial Star Destroyer shield codes, sensor jam frequencies, defensive
fire patterns--these are readily at hand. No demand. Historical value
only," he said. "My service charge will cover." Standing, Formayj
offered his hand. "Still like Han, old trickster.
Smuggler made good. Deliver greetings to him, if you see him."
Chewbacca hurried back to the ship and played the recording for the
others. [My honor brother is Nil Spaar's prize,] he said, and pointed
at the blue-black hull of the great starship visible behind the
viceroy.
[Wherever this enemy is, Han will be.] Then Chewbacca pointed at the
planet beyond. [They are there now.] Twenty minutes later, the
Millennium Falcon lifted off from Esau's Ridge. Immediately on making
orbit, it turned toward Koornacht Cluster and jumped into hyperspace,
continuing its solitary journey to N'zoth.
Derelict
With Artoo guiding him, Lobot had penetrated deep into a realm the
structure and purpose of which he was still struggling to understand.
The vagabond's core passages were more akin to the great accumulator
conduit in which they had spent their first hours aboard the vessel
than they were like the network of chambers in which they had spent the
last many days. But the core passages were much narrower than the
accumulator conduit. Their cross section was never greater than
Lobot's armspan, and often less--especially at the junctions.
And there were many junctions. The passages were cross-connected in a
complex web that had not yet revealed its pattern. This web promised
to link all parts of the vagabond as a transport or communications
system might, but nothing was moving through or along the passages save
for Lobot and the droids. None of the ready biological
metaphors--vascular tubules, alimentary canals, respiratory ducts,
neurological pathways--seemed appropriate.
Lobot wondered if the lack of activity was a symptom Of the damage the
vagabond had sustained or a sign that he still did not understand the
nature of the vessel.
He had to keep reminding himself that though the ship was the product
of bioengineering, it was not an organism.
It was a biological machine, which was still an unfamiliar paradigm.
Three hundred meters in from chamber 228, the passage had narrowed to
the point where Lobot found it necessary to shed his contact suit in
order to continue.
"Master Lobot, are you certain that you wish to do this?" Threepio
asked in a familiarly anxious tone. "Are you confident that the risk
is justified? Given our present circumstances, and the alarming
frequency with which warships seem to attack this vessel--" "I'm
certain," Lobot said. "The deeper we go into the core, the more it
feels like an obstacle standing between me and the ship. When my
shoulders brushed both sides at the same time, it felt like the ship
was inviting me to shed the suit. I can't explain this in acceptable
terms, but I think I must do this to find what I am looking for."
"I see, sir," said Threepio. "Artoo, are you still monitoring the air
in this passage?"
"The air is fine, Threepio," Lobot said, patting the droid on the top
of his head. "I am fine. I am simply following a hunch."
"Oh, dear," Threepio fretted.
"What's the matter?"
"Very well, Master Lobot--since you asked, I shall tell you," said
Threepio. "If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, Master Lando's
influence on your habits of thought is becoming manifest at the worst
possible time."
"What influence would that be?"
"Why, his unhealthy psychological dependence on the teleological
self-deceptions of a gambler, sir--hunches, lucky streaks, wish
fulfillment, feelings of entitlement, and the other trappings of
magical thinking," Threepio said. "I have come to regard you as an
unusually practical and rational individual--for a human being."
"Thank you," Lobot said. "But what makes you think that Lando ever
really gambles?"
"Sir, I have heard Master Han speak of it many times. I believe that
Master Lando even considered himself a professional ga
mbler during one
period of his life."
"That's true," said Lobot. "And no one hates trusting to chance and
fate more than a professional gambler. You've misread Lando all along,
Threepio."
"Sir, I do not understand."
"Think about this, then--maybe it'will help," said Lobot, discarding
the last piece of his contact suit.
"When a human being--a sentient being--faces a question for which there
is no known right answer, a decision for which there's no obvious right
choice, he will almost always end up following what feels right. The
logician will construct one kind of justification, the magician
another, but at the moment of choosing, the two are more alike than
they are different."
"I see, sir. Thank you. But I do not believe a droid is capable of
truly understanding a process that' is so fundamentally subjective."
"No?" asked Lobot, raising an eyebrow. "Then tell me, what was going
through your circuits when you grabbed that beckon call away from Lando
and signaled Lady Luck? Were you doing the logical thing, or what you
felt was the right thing?"
"I am not entirely certain, sir."
"Good," said Lobot approvingly. "I suggest you think on that a while,
too. You may find it has something to do with the questions you asked
THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST Page 21
