She felt very alone. Han and Luke had left on an adventure, with her blessing. Winter had taken the opportunity of this peaceful tour to attend a conference on runaway children. She too was worlds away.
The coincidence did not amuse Leia.
She waited outside the surgery, where Dr. Hyos and her assistants worked to heal Chewbacca’s wounds. Courtiers and aides hovered until Leia, with careful courtesy, sent them away.
The wyrwulf sprawled before the surgery doors. Dr. Hyos had spoken to it, told it that it could not enter the surgery until it was older, and left it on guard. It dozed, and its head tipped forward until it balanced on the tips of its awful fangs.
Chamberlain Iyon hurried into the stark stone waiting room.
“There’s no sign,” he said. “No sign. They are very bold, very clever. Madam, we must wait for them to communicate.”
“Wait?” Leia exclaimed. “That seems … unwise … to me.” When she was younger she would have chosen a more intemperate description: Stupid. Ill-advised. Idiotic.
“The ransom demand will come in the morning,” the chamberlain said, trying to reassure her.
“Morning! By morning the kidnappers could escape!”
“They cannot escape, madam. The port is closed. And furthermore, they will not escape. They have no reason to.”
“But it’s been two hours,” Leia said. “The people who stole my children also stole two hours!”
Mr. Iyon frowned. “How, stole? Madam, you worked through the noon hour. The chronos are correct, the sun is in its proper place …” He let his voice trail off, aware that his feeble joke had failed to lighten the mood.
“They stole two hours,” Leia said again. “These were no ordinary kidnappers! Ordinary kidnappers could never get through our defenses, they couldn’t get past Chewbacca, they couldn’t steal time from us!”
“But, madam, as I explained—Munto Codru produces kidnappers of rare quality.” He looked at her sadly.
He thinks I’m reacting from fear and grief, Leia thought. If I tell him I suspect a follower of the dark side is responsible for this outrage, he’ll believe I’ve lost my mind.
The doors of the surgery opened; Dr. Hyos patted the wyrwulf’s heavy head, came to Leia, and took her hands. The doctor held each of Leia’s hands pressed between two of her own.
“Chewbacca,” she said. “He’ll be fine. His hearing will take time to recover from the effects of the pressure bomb. He’ll be weak while he builds up his blood.”
“Did he tell you—”
“He’s not in any shape to tell anyone anything. Leia, my princess, he must sleep or he’ll be in danger.”
“Did you send my message to Han and Luke?” Leia asked the chamberlain.
“Yes, madam, but I regret—they are too close to Crseih Station. The star system is most violent. The black hole, its quantum crystal companion—their influence blocks communication.”
“Then we must send a ship out after them.”
“Madam, the port is closed.”
“I closed the port! I can order a ship to leave the planet!”
Concerned and gentle, he touched her hand in comfort.
“We must maintain an illusion,” he said. “The port is closed because of a malfunction in the tracking equipment. If a ship leaves, if the emergency is revealed publicly to be a sham, we will have offered the ransomers a mortal insult.”
“But you said they’d know—”
“The kidnappers,” Dr. Hyos said. “They know, and we know. Everyone else may guess. No matter. Perception, that’s what matters. Not reality.”
“Dr. Hyos is correct, madam,” the chamberlain said. “I beg you, madam, carry on with your afternoon’s appointments as if nothing had happened. Call on the bravery for which we all honor you. For the sake of the children.”
Leia struggled to hide her trembling, struggled to think clearly.
By the time a ship could reach Han, she thought, whatever happens will have happened. I gain nothing by sending for him.
“I’ll go back to the receiving room,” she said. “I’ll finish my appointments. If we haven’t heard from—if we haven’t heard anything by sundown—”
“By morning, please, madam.” The chamberlain’s face was anxious. “By morning, I assure you, we’ll have instructions.”
“I’ll finish my appointments.” Leia left the waiting room.
“Leia—” Dr. Hyos said.
“Madam—” the chamberlain said.
“What!” She faced them both, glaring.
Mr. Iyon gestured, unhappily, wordlessly, at her bloody hands, her muddy skirt.
I’ve met ambassadors and heads of state in worse clothes than this, Leia thought. Worse clothes, and dirtier.
Leia scrubbed Chewbacca’s blood from her hands. Her gown was a lost cause, bloodied and mud stained, its delicate fabric slashed by the grass blades. She threw it into the recycler, and her slippers after it. In her bathing room, as she stood in her shift, she started to tremble. She lowered her eyelids, blotting out the reflection of her own disarranged hair and stark face and staring eyes, reaching for calm, reaching for certainty.
The fluting warble of Artoo-Detoo drifted into the room. The droid came closer. At the same time, Leia heard a person’s voice, high and childish and uncertain.
“No, I don’t remember, I don’t remember …”
Artoo-Detoo sang.
Leia hurried toward the voices. As she entered her bedchamber, the silk rugs soft beneath her bare feet, a young Codru-Ji, a native of this world, backed erratically into the room.
“I don’t know, I don’t remember,” she said.
Artoo-Detoo’s front foot preceded his cylindrical body; finally his domed head and his rear feet appeared in the doorway. He was herding the Codru-Ji to her.
“I only saw that the small ones were gone, and the large one was hurt, I only ran for help.”
It was the page who had reported the kidnapping. The blood had been washed from her face, and her abrasions treated, and her torn clothes replaced by a hospital gown.
Leia hurried forward. “Oh, my dear—” The page did not react. Leia touched her upper shoulder.
Startled by the touch, the page jumped straight up and turned around in the air. She came down with all four hands clenched into fists behind her, and backed rapidly away.
She saw Leia. Her eyes widened.
“Forgive me, forgive me—”
Leia took her gently by one lower arm and urged her into the room.
“Why are you out of bed?” Leia asked. “You should be resting—healing.”
“The small droid came to me, and I saw I must beg your forgiveness—”
“Artoo, how could you?” Leia said. “Fetch Dr. Hyos—quickly!”
The droid warbled, backed up, came forward, hesitated.
“Hurry!”
With a descending trill, the droid scooted through the doorway.
Leia led the page to a couch and tried to help her to sit. At first the page resisted.
“No, I mustn’t sit—”
“It’s all right,” Leia said. “Please don’t stand on ceremony.”
Leia tried to urge her to sit, but the page’s knees locked. Leia allowed her to remain standing, and stood beside her.
“You saved Chewbacca’s life,” Leia said. “And you gave the alarm—”
The page stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Milady, I’m sorry, I cannot hear …” She put her hands to her ears. She started to cry, her sobs shaking her silently.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said, her words broken by tears. “They were there, playing, and then—” She shuddered and flinched; Leia wondered if she was experiencing the pressure bomb all over again. “I … I must have fallen asleep, madam. I should be exiled! And when I awoke the small ones were gone, and—” She touched the shells of her ears. She made a high-pitched whistling sound in her own language.
“That is to say, Mr. Chewbacca was hurt, and—
and I cannot hear, madam!”
Leia held her—awkwardly, because of the difference in their forms, but tenderly—and tried to soothe her.
Dr. Hyos arrived, indignant that her patient had been disturbed.
“I can’t imagine what Artoo was thinking, to bring her here,” Leia said. “Of course she shouldn’t be up—”
“She shouldn’t be down,” Dr. Hyos said cryptically. “But you are correct, she must rest and recover.”
The page broke away from Dr. Hyos and grasped Leia’s hands.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“I forgive you,” Leia said, slowly and carefully. “I forgive you. Do you understand me?”
The page hesitated, then nodded, and allowed the doctor to take her away.
Artoo-Detoo remained in Leia’s apartment, whistling unhappily and arcing back and forth while Leia dressed. His noise irritated her, but he would not stop and he would not stay still and he would not tell her what was wrong. He followed her from her apartments. When they came to an intersection of corridors, he rolled along one that led outside, while Leia squared her shoulders and trudged toward the meeting room.
Artoo-Detoo whistled insistently.
“I can’t,” Leia said. “I have to … pretend.”
She walked into the receiving room. The herald, usually so efficient, glanced at her, dismissed her with his gaze, took a step toward her to show her out, then snapped to attention, recognizing her at last despite her rough clothes.
“Chief of State of the New Republic, daughter of—”
“No time for the whole list!” Leia said. The herald fell silent. Everyone in the room, her aides and advisers and native Codru-Ji alike, stared at her in confusion. The chamberlain took a hesitant step toward her.
Leia crossed the receiving room, her boots loud on the polished stone floor. She took her place in the circle of chairs, leaned back, and crossed her legs. The heavy fabric of her stiff new hiking trousers rasped against itself. She forced herself to look relaxed.
“Your pardon, Ambassador Kirl,” she said to the representative from the province of Kirl. “Thank you for your patience. We had a slight … a slight domestic upset.” She forced her most charming smile. “You know how it is—” Her voice suddenly failed her.
The handsome Kirlian ambassador, who took his name from his province, spread all four hands. He returned her smile.
“I do know how it is,” Kirl said. “Many’s the time I’ve interrupted my work—as you say, for a slight domestic upset. No apology is necessary, though you are notably gracious to offer it!”
Always before, his grandiose manner had amused and sometimes even charmed her. Now it felt to Leia as if his words went on forever, each one dragged out like molasses.
The day continued, interminably. Munto Codru’s convoluted politics meant that she had to receive ambassadors from an endless number of independent political entities. No wonder the world lay at the edge—outside the edge—of importance to the Republic. It spent most of its energy facing its own international disagreements. Its citizens had little time or attention left over for the larger questions of interplanetary cooperation. They had taken years to agree to choose a chamberlain, another year to settle on Mr. Iyon.
When the evening bell rang, the ambassador bowed and withdrew. As the aides shut the doors of the receiving chamber, the people left in the waiting room whistled and sighed in the native language. The doors closed, shutting off the sound.
“Any word?” Leia asked, her voice tight.
“No, madam,” the chamberlain said. “But we must not expect to hear before morning. That is the tradition.”
“Those other people,” Leia said. “What did they want? Are you sure they weren’t the kidnappers, trying to talk to me?”
“What other people?”
“The people still in my waiting room.”
“Nothing and no one of importance, madam,” Mr. Iyon said. “Small matters—many invented so the petitioner may go home and say, ‘I met the princess—I spoke to the Chief of State of the New Republic!’ ”
“Nevertheless, I’d like to speak with them.”
“They will return. Come, now, you must eat. Tomorrow you’ll negotiate with the ransomers, and the children will come home, and everything will be as it was.”
Leia forced herself to unclench her hands from the arms of her chair.
Her fingernails had torn small crescents into the heavy satin upholstery.
Leia hurried toward the silent surgery. Inside, Dr. Hyos stood at her desk. The doctor’s eyes were closed. She dozed, standing up, with all four arms slightly extended, shifting subtly as if in a slow-motion dance or a soft breeze, balancing her. Leia had never seen a native of Munto Codru sleep.
What an odd position, Leia thought. Is that normal? Or unique to Dr. Hyos? Maybe she just fell asleep standing up. I’m about to do the same.
The wyrwulf lay at the doctor’s feet. It raised its horrible head and gazed at Leia with its horrible bright eyes. It snorted and laid its head back on its frontmost paws. But it did not close its eyes. Leia had no reason to be frightened of the wyrwulf, but it disconcerted her nonetheless.
Leia let the doctor sleep. Walking softly, giving the wyrwulf a wide berth, she entered Chewbacca’s sickroom.
He lay in a hammock that cradled his huge form. Regeneration bandages covered his leg. Leia had been afraid she would find him immersed in a bacta tank, suspended and unable to communicate.
Leia sat in a chair nearby and watched him, impatient with his sleep. His breathing was shallow and fast. She wanted him to wake. She wanted to talk to him, to find out what he had seen, to find out if he too had lost two hours or if he had observed what had happened and could confirm her suspicions about these events.
And of course she wanted to reassure him, to tell him she did not blame him—
A wave of fury rushed across her, so powerful that she gasped.
She did blame him. She was furious at him. There was nothing at all in the world that she could say to him.
Leia rose and backed out of the room. She closed the door, turned, and very nearly ran into Dr. Hyos.
“Oh—! I saw you sleeping, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Did you speak with Chewbacca?”
“No, I—” How could she admit how she felt about her husband’s oldest friend? “Isn’t he sedated?”
“Of course. He is badly injured.”
“Have you treated Wookiees before?”
“No, Chewbacca is the first of his kind to visit our world.”
“Then how did you know how to treat him?”
“It’s my job to know. I have never treated a human, either, but when your mission was announced, I made it my business to learn something of the people who would visit us.”
“He’s lucky,” Leia said. He has no worries, she thought, just oblivion. By the time he’s healed, and awakes, I’ll know … and I’ll have lived through every hellish moment.
“He’s very badly hurt,” Dr. Hyos said. “And he lost a great deal of blood. If he were lucky, he would not have been injured.”
“Can you wake him? Just for a moment? If he saw something, anything—”
“The page saw nothing. She heard nothing. I doubt Chewbacca saw anything either. It would be a great risk to wake him.”
“But he might—”
“An unnecessary risk.”
Dr. Hyos turned Leia toward the front of the surgery and led her away from Chewbacca’s room.
“You’ve had a long, terrible day,” the doctor said. “Try to rest. A coup abduction is never easy. But tomorrow—”
A high keening sound cut off her words. She hurried into a nearby room. Leia followed, all too aware that the wyrwulf followed too. Its claws clacked loudly on the floor.
The page stood in the center of the room, still wearing the soft hospital gown, steadied in her upright position by a harness. The doctor stopped beside her, stroked her soft short hair, sooth
ed her. They spoke to each other in their own language, whistles and warbles that passed beyond the range of Leia’s hearing. Soon the page dozed again. Dr. Hyos left her, looking worried.
“Will she be all right?”
“Are you still here?”
“Will she?”
“The bomb damaged her hearing.”
“But you were talking to her—she heard you. She’ll heal, won’t she?”
“I fear she will never recover the highest range. And yet she will live.”
“I’m glad,” Leia said.
“Are you?” Dr. Hyos exclaimed.
“That she’ll live? Of course!”
“Our hearing is more sensitive than yours, and more delicate. Our most intimate communications take place in the upper ranges,” Dr. Hyos said softly. “Imagine your body numb. Imagine all your senses reduced by half. All. Perhaps you humans could endure such an existence, but her future will be … difficult.”
“Oh,” Leia said. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” She glanced toward the page with renewed sympathy. “Wouldn’t she be more comfortable lying down?”
“Adults don’t sleep lying down.”
The wyrwulf raised its head and gazed at Leia.
“Go,” Dr. Hyos said kindly. “Rest.”
Leia flung herself onto her bed with a cry of despair. How had she survived this intolerable, interminable day? Her muscles ached with tension that she could not dispel. She regretted, as she had regretted so often in the past, the duties that had kept her from studying the way of the Jedi.
I’ll bet Luke just says to his body, Enough, no more being stiff, Leia thought uncharitably. Or he says to himself, I don’t feel any pain, and he doesn’t.
How can I wait till morning to hear from the kidnappers?
She believed the chamberlain’s assurances that a coup abduction was not meant to hurt its victims. And yet she believed her children were in mortal danger. If the kidnappers had, somehow, allied themselves with a practitioner of the dark side.…
It must be. The chamberlain and Dr. Hyos, whom Leia thought admirable, considered coup kidnappers honorable. But the kidnappers of Leia’s children were ruthless and cruel: they had injured Chewbacca and the page when they were already unconscious, helpless.
The Crystal Star Page 2
