The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  Hethrir used his test to divide the children into two groups, one with Jaina and Jacen, the other with Lusa. Lusa stood shivering in the heat, with her head down. Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf leaned against her front leg, panting. Hethrir did not test the wyrwulf. He just pointed at it without looking at it, and two helpers came and fastened chains to the heavy collar and dragged the wyrwulf away.

  All the children were terrified, crying or keening or hunkering down within their body armor or shaking their fur, however their own people expressed fear and grief.

  All the children in Jaina’s group were human beings. A few human children had been sent to Lusa’s group, but mostly Lusa’s group was other species. Jaina thought that was weird. All the Proctors and all the helpers were human, too. Jaina thought that was even weirder.

  Lusa looked back over her shoulder at Jaina.

  “Take me,” Jaina said to Hethrir. “Take me instead, don’t take Lusa away, don’t cut off her horns!”

  Hethrir ignored Jaina. The Proctors marched down the stairwell. Their medals and epaulets glittered. Some of the helpers marched Lusa’s group away. Two of them dragged the growling wyrwulf.

  Lusa’s cry echoed up out of the tunnel.

  “Lusa!” Jaina cried.

  Vram pointed at Jaina. “You’re so dumb, you’re so dumb!”

  Maybe they’re just going back to their places, Jaina thought desperately. Maybe it is me that Hethrir is sending away—and Jacen too! and probably Anakin!—because we’re too much trouble! We don’t have horns to cut off. If Lusa’s staying and we’re going, she’ll be safe!

  Hethrir strode over to Jaina. He glanced down at her. His gaze flicked briefly over her face. The smothering sensation of wet sand all around her disappeared. She stood up. Jacen climbed to his feet, too. They hugged each other. Jaina felt very heavy and very tired.

  “There,” Hethrir said, using his kind voice. He was talking to everybody, not just Jaina. “Go back to your places and study hard. The other children are going away because they are not as good as you. You may stay, because I expect you to make me proud of you.”

  “I never will!” Jaina shouted. “I never will, Lusa’s just as good as me, and I’ll never do anything to make you proud!”

  Chapter 5

  Alderaan fell out of hyperspace. The scarlet trail led to a cold dark region of space. The nearest star was light-years away.

  A burst of pain and fear and despair obliterated the trail.

  Leia cried out.

  If they’ve hurt my children … she thought. If they’ve harmed one hair—If they’ve …

  The memory of pain faded.

  I didn’t feel death, Leia thought. It wasn’t death! And it wasn’t Jaina or Jacen or Anakin. Who was it?

  The fear she had felt was not fear of death, but fear of continued life. She shuddered, imagining what could happen to a person to create such terror.

  Bathed in sweat and weak with exhaustion, Leia drew a long, ragged breath.

  Leia extended her ship’s sensors outward. She watched and listened.

  She found a ship.

  “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “I have you—!”

  She fought back the urge to press toward it immediately. It would not do, to find her children only to fall into a trap.

  Artoo-Detoo raced into the cockpit.

  “I’m still not speaking to you!” she said.

  Artoo-Detoo grabbed the new ship’s signature from the sensors and traced it in the air. Then the droid traced another signature beside it: the record of the kidnappers’ ship.

  The two ships were nothing alike.

  “No!” Leia cried. “No, this has to be them. I followed them here, and there’s no trail away! Maybe the ship was disguised—”

  She accentuated the visual aspect of the unknown ship. The result struck her silent. The vessel she had found was a huge, hulking passenger freighter, the kind the Empire had used to transport unwilling colonists from star to star. It traveled slowly, carrying its sleeping cargo at sublight speeds. The Empire did not care if the colonists—political prisoners, convicts, and other undesirables—lost touch with families and friends, who lived their lives and aged and died. The colonists slept on, trapped in dreams of a new world that would welcome them, or in nightmares of a world that would kill them. They had been slaves in all but name, sent away to prepare a new world until their masters chose to seek them out again.

  We’ve been looking for these ships, Leia thought. Trying to rescue them. No wonder we couldn’t find them, way out here at the end of nowhere!

  Leia frowned. The passenger freighter was derelict, drifting, its engines dead and its interior barely functioning.

  “What’s it doing here?” she said. “We couldn’t just have stumbled across it, that’s too much of a coincidence to bear.”

  Alderaan’s sensors touched a second ship, and a third.

  “I don’t believe it …” Leia whispered.

  Fully two dozen ships lay within her perception.

  She had found a graveyard of abandoned starships. They hung in a slowly shifting cluster, circling each other in a tangled and chaotic dance.

  Chewbacca roared, a cry of grief and understanding.

  Leia jumped out of the pilot’s chair.

  “What are you doing up? What are you doing awake! Are you determined to—” She bit off the words before they left her mouth. If she accused Chewbacca of trying to kill himself, he might agree with her.

  He limped forward and lowered himself painfully into the copilot’s seat. He gazed at her. She glared at him, but finally her expression softened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was blaming you. I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, you couldn’t have stopped it. I couldn’t have. Maybe even Luke couldn’t have done anything.”

  Chewbacca touched the thick chestnut fur at his throat. He raised his chin, combed his fingers through his pelt, and revealed a patch of stark white hair. He let her look at it for a moment, then lowered his head again.

  “Is that—?”

  He growled in assent.

  Chewbacca had been a slave. Not a colonist-slave, but the chattel of an Imperial officer. Leia knew very little about that part of his life. She knew he had been kidnapped from the deep and magical forests of his world. He had been chained, and punished for any defiance, and worked nearly to death.

  Young Han Solo of the Imperial Navy had freed him. Han had saved Chewbacca’s life, for no Wookiee lived long as a slave.

  “Is that what happened here?” Leia said. “Did the Empire hijack ships, did it steal their passengers? That doesn’t make sense!” She gestured toward the sensor reports. “Those are Imperial colony ships. The Empire wouldn’t take slaves from its own ships, it already considered those people slaves. It wouldn’t abandon ships like this. It would take them away and use them again. It was evil—but it was efficient.”

  Leia looked at the reports more closely.

  “Oh, no …” she whispered.

  The ships still contained passengers, and many of them had died. But some were alive. Just barely alive.

  Xaverri showed Han the way, along a path that led toward still another dome. The trail led into a dense thicket of tall, twisting bushes. Branches tangled together to form impenetrable walls and a leafy ceiling, and to let in nothing but gloomy deep green light. The path twisted and turned, leading deeper into the thicket.

  It feels like a trap, Han thought. I trust Xaverri—I trusted her, with my life, and I was never sorry.

  But he had also trusted her with his heart.

  That was the old days, he said to himself. Everything’s different now.

  Han walked behind Xaverri, with Luke and See-Threepio following. The pathway could only accommodate one person at a time.

  I wish, Han thought, not for the first time during this expedition, that Chewbacca was with us.

  “Look, Master Luke,” Threepio said. “These leaves are all d
ifferent shapes. Look how they fall when I touch them.”

  As Threepio’s querulous voice fell a little way behind, Han noticed the leaves for the first time. Threepio was right, they were misshapen. Scabrous colors mottled the irregular shapes. He brushed his hand along a branch, and leaves fell fluttering to the ground.

  “I wonder,” Threepio said, “if we should return to the ship and secure some radiation detectors. I believe more radiation may be penetrating the domes than the station management is prepared to admit.” His voice faded as Han rounded a bend in the path. “Why, I can virtually feel my intelligence circuits exploding beneath the assault.”

  “Your intelligence sounds normal to me,” Luke said.

  Han chuckled, and lengthened his stride to catch up to Xaverri. He wanted to speak with her privately.

  But when he was walking just at her shoulder, he could not decide what to say. He wanted to know what had happened in her life, in the years since they had parted, but he felt uncharacteristically shy of asking.

  “You recognized Luke,” Han said to Xaverri.

  “Yes.”

  “He said no one would.”

  “I demanded some proof that he was a true representative of the New Republic. He removed his disguise.”

  “So he did look different to you, at first?”

  “Very different. But he released me from his influence.” She shivered slightly. “He is very skilled, Solo. I did not even know he was affecting me, until he let me go.”

  “He’s talented,” Han said. “But he never had the chance to finish his formal training.”

  “Ah,” she said. “That’s said to be very dangerous.”

  “Yes. And he’s had occasion to realize it.”

  “I had heard … some rumors on that subject,” Xaverri said.

  “Did you?” Han said. “We thought we’d managed to keep it from public knowledge.”

  “Perhaps you did,” Xaverri replied. “But I am not precisely the public … and I put considerable energy into cultivating many lines of communication.”

  “Some of them are better than mine,” Han said, annoyed by the realization.

  “Some of them are different than yours, Solo,” Xaverri said. “There are many people who will speak to a thief, who might have spoken to a young smuggler … who will not speak to a General of the New Republic.”

  Han did not like to admit he had changed so much from the old days. Admit it or not, though, it was true.

  “You could be an asset to the Republic,” he said.

  “Me?” She chuckled. “No. As soon as I became an asset, I would become valueless.”

  “Your work would be secret.”

  “Nothing is secret. And you know it, Solo.”

  “Then why did you get in contact with us? What do you want?”

  “I want nothing from you!” she said angrily. “The Republic has made my work harder. You are worthless as prey—you are all so honorable—so dull!”

  Xaverri glared at him a moment, then her anger eased. Her expression turned to worry.

  “I heard about phenomena that are strange and dangerous. I investigated them. I think they are a threat to the Republic.”

  “You just said you don’t like the Republic,” Luke said.

  Han started. Luke had come up behind him without a sound, without warning. He hoped Luke had not heard him discussing Luke’s frailties with Xaverri.

  “She did not precisely say she did not like the Republic,” Threepio said, pedantically. “She said—”

  “I have no quarrel with the Republic,” Xaverri said. “My profits are less, but I do not need much to live on. Perhaps I shall retire soon.”

  “But you said—” Han said.

  “You must remember what it was like!” Xaverri snapped. “When the Emperor ruled, his minions raided our homes. When the Emperor ruled, our only protection was bribery and blackmail. When the Emperor ruled, I required great sums to protect my homeworld from raids, to protect my friends from death, to save their children from the press gangs. And even then … sometimes my efforts were not sufficient.”

  Her voice broke. Han touched her wrist. She twisted her hand so her fingers curled around his; she pressed his hand briefly, then released him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I remember how it was.”

  “So, you see,” Xaverri said, in control of her voice once more, “thanks to the Republic, I no longer need huge sums.” She grinned. “Only moderate sums.”

  “How much farther?” Luke asked suddenly.

  “It is still some distance,” Xaverri said. “Are you tired, Jedi?”

  “I’m curious,” Luke said.

  “Be patient, kid,” Han said. Just like the old days, when Luke had been restless and eager as well as green. In recent years, he had developed the ability to fall into a preternatural calm. Han found it disturbing.

  They continued on through the garden maze, walking in silence. The path through the bushes grew narrower, lower; Han had to stoop, and the branches scraped against Threepio’s purple lacquer with short, high-pitched screeches.

  Han’s back started to hurt, and the march no longer reminded him so much of the good old days.

  Finally, when he was about to give up and call for a rest, the tunnel ended at the side of the translucent dome. Xaverri ducked through an opening and disappeared. Han followed, stiffly. Behind him, Luke’s robe rustled quietly against the ground as he stooped.

  “Wait, please, I do not bend well that way,” Threepio said. He clanked against the edge of the dome material, scraped through, and joined them on the other side. He clambered to his feet.

  Han peered into the new dome. It was almost as dim as the green illumination of the leaf tunnel. But the eerie greenness had possessed a quality of life and growth. Here the twilight was oppressive.

  Great gray stones loomed around them. The rocks perched on the edge of a cliff: the steep and partially collapsed side of a huge crater.

  Xaverri edged over the top of a great cracked stone. Han slithered up beside her. From their vantage point they could see the whole dome. Its floor lay far below. A small complex of buildings occupied the center of the crater. The buildings were gilt, and brightly lit: the only spot of light and color in Han’s view. The delicate lines of the complex traced calligraphy against stone.

  Han wondered what the pattern might mean.

  Several rough paths led into the crater. On all of them, people picked their way across the desolate lava toward the haven. A constant stream of people from many worlds entered the compound, and no one was leaving.

  “That is our destination,” Xaverri said.

  “What are we looking for? Why’s it so special?”

  She shook her head and refused to answer. “If you do not see it for yourself, you will not believe.”

  Luke started forward, heading for a space between two rocks. Xaverri slid quickly down from her perch. She barely touched his sleeve, then snatched her hand back. Luke had already stopped within the protective concealment of the stones.

  Han jumped down beside them. “Kid, what’s the matter?”

  Luke was pale and tense, his gaze far away. One hand rested on the grip of his lightsaber.

  Threepio bent solicitously toward Luke. He laid one long purple finger against Luke’s forehead. Luke shook his head, barely distracted, jerking himself away from Threepio’s touch.

  “I fear Master Luke has contracted some ailment,” Threepio said. “His temperature is abnormally low. Perhaps some form of landfall disorder—”

  “Threepio,” Luke said patiently, “your sensor’s covered with purple paint, that’s all.”

  Chagrined, Threepio inspected the tip of his finger.

  “But Threepio’s right,” Han said. “You look awful. What’s wrong?”

  “I … I don’t know,” Luke said. “Something … there’s something here, but I’ve never …” He started away again, as if he had never begun the conversation.

  “Jedi!” X
averri said.

  Reluctantly, Luke glanced back.

  “Let me lead you,” she said. “I am accepted. And there is an easy path, farther along the rim … I would prefer no one else knew of this escape.”

  Luke glanced between the stones, as if he might leap between them, slip over the edge of the cliff, ignore the faint steep twisting path, and plunge straight down.

  And he probably could do it, Han thought.

  “Very well,” Luke said.

  Tigris answered Lord Hethrir’s summons to his receiving chamber. He carried the child Anakin, who slept more than any little one Tigris had ever met.

  Hethrir had built his private receiving chamber from the finest wood of all the old Empire. Body-wood, they called it. It resembled the flesh of the people who had inhabited the forest, before the Emperor claimed the world. To his most favored officers he had dispensed the right to exploit certain resources. Hethrir’s reward had been the license to export body-wood. Lord Hethrir had begun his fortune from the license. But he used the wood profligately for himself as well. The walls and floor and ceiling of the chamber glowed with it.

  The surface of the polished body-wood was the palest pink. Scarlet streaks shot through it, gleaming with light, like cut and polished precious stones. Tigris always thought the wood looked alive, and indeed it was said that the body-wood trees sustained a certain intelligence. It was said that they cried, when Hethrir cut them down. Tigris almost believed that they cried. He knew their wood bled. He had the task, the honor, of cleaning up the scarlet rivulets before they pooled on the floor and stained it.

  When will Lord Hethrir allow me to do something important? Tigris wondered. Tigris shifted Anakin to a more comfortable position in his aching arms.

  Tigris had been moved and impressed by the promotion ceremony, but he resented being left out.

  He wondered when Lord Hethrir would sell him, along with the other inferior children. He could not even pass the first test! He was desperately grateful that his lord had allowed him to stay this long.

  In the receiving chamber, Lord Hethrir welcomed his guests. Lord Qaqquqqu, Lady Ucce, and Lord Cnorec bowed low. Hethrir acknowledged their respect with a simple nod. He sat in a chair of gold and fur and satin pillows. He glanced at Tigris and gestured with his chin toward a small rug on the floor beside him.