The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  The best reaction I can give this thing is laughter.

  “Xaverri, honored student, wert thou able to study the texts I gave thee?”

  “Yes, teacher,” Xaverri said.

  “Of course thou didst comprehend the connection between the ego-flux and the universal backlight, but I wonder if thou didst make the conceptual leap to the synergy of intellectual realization and quantum crystallization?”

  “I am embarrassed to admit that I had not,” Xaverri said, “though now that thou hast shown me the path, I can see that the interaction is completely inevitable.”

  Han repressed a snort of annoyance and disbelief.

  Xaverri and Waru conversed in that manner for a few minutes, oblivious to the crowd and the noise and the pleas for assistance. The wailing began to get on Han’s nerves. What he wanted to do was leap up on the stage and tell all these people to go home and see their doctors. He wanted to ask Xaverri why she kept flattering Waru. It shocked him to witness her deference to the being.

  In the old days, she had never been susceptible to this kind of fraud. She knew too much about fraud to be taken in. She had designed some similar hoaxes herself, though she reserved the healer scam for particularly loathsome Imperial officers. She had never failed to relieve her chosen prey of a considerable portion of their resources.

  Did she believe Waru’s nonsense? If she did, she had changed beyond recognition from the person Han used to know, changed far beyond the physical. If she did not believe—then what were they doing here?

  Threepio observed the conversation in uncharacteristic silence. Han frowned. Threepio’s expression was impossible to read, but it was seldom difficult to know what the droid thought about any particular situation. Threepio would tell you. Or the droid would dissemble transparently. For a diplomat, Threepio was one of the poorest liars Han had ever met.

  On the other hand, a lot of people found it flattering to know they were being lied to, if the lie was to soothe their feelings or acknowledge their status. Threepio was a master of that technique.

  Luke watched and listened with the same fixed and intense expression that had possessed him as soon as he encountered Waru. Luke’s reaction troubled Han most of all.

  Waru completed a philosophical discourse on the state of the universe, which Han had long since lost track of.

  “And now,” Waru said with every evidence of disappointment, “I cannot further indulge myself in this enlightening conversation.”

  Xaverri placed her hand on one of Waru’s golden scales. She closed her eyes and fell silent and still. The gold scale took on a pink glow and radiated gentle warmth around Xaverri’s fingers. Luke took one step toward her, lifting his hand. Han grabbed him and pulled him back. Luke turned on him, snarling.

  With a startled curse, Han nearly dropped Luke’s wrist. He wanted to walk out of the assembly in disgust even if it meant leaving his friends to be bilked and shamed.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Han whispered fiercely. “And don’t presume on a few minutes’ acquaintance!” He tightened his grip.

  Luke looked at Han’s fingers clamped around his flesh and squeezing his bones together. Intelligence leaked back into Luke’s eyes. He made a leisurely turning movement of his hand; he slipped from Han’s tight grasp without apparent effort.

  “You’re right,” he said. His voice was tight. He turned his back on Han and watched Xaverri and Waru, intently, hungrily.

  “I hate it when you do that,” Han muttered. His fingers tingled, not because of any violence in Luke’s motion, but because he had been holding so tightly that his hand spasmed when Luke pulled free.

  The marks of Han’s fingers remained, first white, then red, on Luke’s skin.

  Xaverri drew back from Waru. Her handprint glowed, then faded from the golden scale. A drop of ichor oozed from the scale’s lower edge and fell with a sticky plop. Xaverri made a motion of obeisance toward Waru.

  The being’s attention left them abruptly, like a release of pressure. Han staggered one step forward, caught himself, and shrugged off the odd effect. But he was curious about how the effect had been produced.

  Xaverri backed up. The roiling crowd surged ahead of her, each member keening for Waru’s recognition.

  Xaverri’s knees buckled. Her collapse surprised Han so thoroughly that he nearly let her fall. In all the years he had known her, in the old days, she had never fainted, even at times of exhaustion or pain. Her stamina had always amazed him. His first thought, as she fell, was that she must be sinking to the ground for some deliberate reason: she wanted to make another bow to Waru; she had dropped something and had to retrieve it.

  Han jumped forward and caught her before she fell beneath trampling feet. She trembled violently. Luke and Threepio closed in, forming a small circle. Moving against the flow of the crowd, they pushed their way to the back of the theater. Han plunged toward the door, but Xaverri struggled free.

  “Stay here!” she said. “I am all right, I only—speaking with Waru affects me for a moment. But you must see the ceremony.”

  “Affects you?” Han said. “It knocked you flat. Let’s get out of here!”

  The color began to return to her golden-tan face, and her shivering ceased.

  “You must observe,” she said again.

  “She’s right,” Luke said. “It’s what we came here for.”

  “All right,” Han said unwillingly.

  It’s all a fraud, he said to himself. But even frauds can be dangerous.

  They made their way to the very back of the auditorium. The floor slanted, so they had a view over the crowd. On the stage, in the frozen pool of ichor, Waru waited as one of the small groups of supplicants brought one of their members into the teacher’s presence. The Zeffliffl pressed one of the leafy comrades to the top of their heap, then slid the individual forward till it huddled on the ichor. Its color was noticeably paler than that of its companions, a sickly yellow-green rather than shiny and blue-black. It shed a flutter of small wilted leaves whenever it moved.

  “Do you wish me to try to heal you, seeker?” Waru’s voice, no longer a directed, private whisper, rumbled through the hall.

  The Zeffliffl responded with a flurry of sound, like leaves swirled in water.

  “She says, ‘I entreat you to help me,’ ” Threepio said.

  Now comes the scam, Han thought. Give Waru all your worldly goods—

  “Then I will try to help you,” Waru said.

  Every sound in the auditorium ceased abruptly. The attention of every being focused on Waru and Waru’s patient.

  Waru leaned over the Zeffliffl. Several of the golden scales liquefied and splashed over the huddled Zeffliffl, covering it with a bright metallic shell. Han watched closely, wishing he were at the front of the auditorium so he could figure out how Waru conceived that effect.

  Why’d you bring us all the way back here, Xaverri? he wondered. Were you afraid for me to be too close?

  The metallic shell attached the Zeffliffl to Waru like a parasite, like an exterior womb. The raw wound left where the scales had melted gushed bloody ichor. The liquid flowed over the shell, patterning it like the calligraphy on the facade of Waru’s compound. The runnels flowed together, creating a translucent chrysalis around the shell.

  At the foot of the stage, the Zeffliffl group huddled together, their leaves fluttering as if they were in a windstorm.

  The room grew still. All around Han, people were bowing their heads. Even Xaverri, who had never bowed her head to anyone. Stubbornly, Han kept watching.

  Waru shuddered. The golden scales touched, ringing together with pure clear tones, like bells enlivened by the wind.

  Han divided his feelings equally between admiration for the effects and scorn for the gullibility of Waru’s followers.

  The shuddering extended into the chrysalis. It trembled. It shook, and expanded.

  The solidified ichor exploded. Like silver dust, the fragments hung and shivered in the air. Scars and scra
tches marred the golden shell. It, too, shivered, then slowly opened like a flower, revealing the Zeffliffl.

  The gold petals drew back; Waru’s body resorbed them and re-formed the melted scales. At Waru’s base, the Zeffliffl lay quiet.

  Suddenly it shook itself like a wet puppy. Its groupmates shrilled with excitement. Its leaves, green and dark with moisture, fanned open.

  “They say,” Threepio whispered, “that their groupmate has returned from the dead.”

  The healed Zeffliffl scrambled down and disappeared among the groupmates. The mass of beings backed away, twittering.

  The silence of the auditorium ended as every being at Waru’s feet burst into speech and song and light.

  “The Zeffliffl said thank you,” Threepio said, speaking loudly enough for them all to hear, “and—”

  “And, “We will give you all our worldly goods,”” Han said cynically.

  “No, sir, not at all,” Threepio said. “They acclaim Waru as their benefactor. No mention of monetary recompense has been made.”

  Han shrugged, unconvinced. “Recompense always gets mentioned,” he said. “Eventually. Can we get out of here? The gratitude is making me sick.”

  Xaverri turned away from him and walked out of the auditorium. After a moment of surprise, Han followed her. In the relative coolness and silence of the courtyard, welcome after the tumult of Waru’s reception hall, he caught up to her and touched her shoulder.

  “Xaverri—!”

  She shrugged him off and plunged through the gateway. Outside the calligraphed arch, she spun on him.

  “Never speak, inside the courtyard. Never.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blow your cover.”

  Threepio joined them. “Master Han, Mistress Xaverri, is anything wrong?”

  “No,” Han said. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Except Luke’s still back there!”

  Han plunged through the archway and ran through the courtyard, unreasonably anxious considering Luke had been out of his sight for about a minute. Han pushed his way back into the auditorium. At first he did not see Luke anywhere. His eyes were no longer accustomed to the dimness, and the noise and heat oppressed him.

  He looked at the place where they had all been. Luke stood right where Han had left him. The young Jedi stared at the stage, where Waru had encysted another supplicant.

  “Come on!” Han said. He grabbed Luke by the sleeve and dragged him bodily out of the theater.

  Luke did not resist.

  Xaverri was walking away, already a couple of hundred paces down the trail to the main entry of the dome. Threepio hovered halfway between, moving a few steps toward Xaverri and calling her name plaintively, then returning. When he saw Han and Luke, he stopped stock-still in relief, then hurried to join them.

  “She would not wait, Master Han,” Threepio said. “I asked her politely, but …” Threepio stopped, at a loss for words.

  “You worry too much,” Han said. “Purple-Three. Come on.”

  Han led Luke past Threepio. Only when they had caught up to Xaverri did he let Luke go. Han’s brother-in-law had made no attempt to escape. His gaze was distant, his expression blank.

  “Luke! What’s wrong? Snap out of it! Xaverri, wait!”

  She complied, but her shoulders were stiff with anger.

  Luke raised his head. Suddenly he was back, his usual self.

  “Is Waru your lost Jedi?” Han demanded.

  “No,” Luke said. “I don’t think so … I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.” He gazed into the distance. “I ought to be able to tell, to sense another Jedi Master. But I can’t.” He took a deep breath.

  “Is it any kind of manifestation of the Force?” Han asked Luke.

  Luke hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m sure I’d know it if it were. It isn’t. It’s … something else.”

  He smiled, a luminescent smile that wiped out his hesitation, his apprehension.

  “But it was amazing,” Luke said. “Wasn’t it amazing?”

  Xaverri nodded. “Every time I see Waru do that, I cannot believe it. But I must.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Han said. “If that thing isn’t a manifestation of the Force, what else could it be but a fraud? I can think of six different ways Waru—whatever it is—could bring off that illusion. Substitute another Zeffliffl for the sick one—”

  “But, sir,” Threepio said, “the groupmates would not have accepted a substitute for their colleague. They would have reacted to an impostor quite violently.”

  Han shrugged. “So Waru paid them off.”

  “The reaction cannot be bought, sir,” Threepio said. “It is not conscious. It is comparable to an allergic response.”

  Han flung up his arms in exasperation. “Then the sick one was the impostor, or a mechanical device. Or they painted the healthy one seasick-green and washed it off in the cocoon. It doesn’t matter how they did it—what matters is, they could have done it. Waru didn’t need supernatural healing powers to heal the Zeffliffl because the Zeffliffl didn’t need to be healed in the first place!”

  Xaverri folded her arms and stared thoughtfully at the ground.

  “Do you think I have completely lost my mind?” she asked, her tone cold.

  Her contempt goaded him.

  “Yeah, that would about cover it,” he said.

  “I, Xaverri, the best creator of deceptions in the old Empire?”

  “We all change,” he said. “Look, if somebody had a really fine scam, one even you couldn’t figure out—then you’d be easy to fool. You’re so good, it’s hard to imagine anyone better.”

  “It is impossible,” she said.

  Luke stared through the archway. Han feared he might have to chase Luke down again to keep him from going back inside.

  “There’s something,” Luke said.

  “But not your lost Jedi.”

  “Han, it isn’t a fraud.”

  “Luke is correct,” Xaverri said.

  “Fine!” Han said. “I give up! Waru is for real, which means you don’t need me, because it isn’t the Republic’s business to interfere in people’s Worship!” He started down the trail without another word.

  “Han!” Luke called. “Where are you going?”

  “On vacation,” Han said. “I still have some vacation left!”

  Threepio hurried after him.

  “Master Han, if I may be so forward—”

  “What is it?”

  “Our resources are severely depleted. If you plan to gamble—and I certainly do not wish to imply that I believe you should not gamble, or that I believe there is anything wrong with gambling, or that there is any possibility that you might lose—but if you plan to gamble … don’t you think it would be for the best, merely as insurance of course, for you to leave some of your previous winnings in my care? That way I could pay our outstanding bill at the lodge. I noticed the lodge-keeper toting up our accounts as we left today, and he fixed me with a positively poisonous glare!”

  Han pulled a wad of credits out of his pocket and thrust it into Threepio’s fingers.

  “When you want some money, all you have to do is say, ‘Can I have some money?’ ” Han said. He laughed, thinking about the gaming table, the cards that he trusted to go his way. “Plenty more where that came from.”

  He strode away.

  Leia and Chewbacca did what they could for Rillao, the injured Firrerreo. Alderaan’s medical equipment expressed confusion when Leia asked for information. The Firrerreo were basically human, but something more, something different.

  The equipment recommended food that might not be toxic. It failed to suggest a safe antibiotic, but, then, Rillao’s injuries had not become infected. She had astonishing powers of recuperation. Once the webbing had withdrawn, her skin began to regenerate and the hairline lacerations closed quickly enough for Leia to watch, with astonishment, as the healing occurred. Silver threads of scar tissue formed across Rillao’s golden skin.

&nb
sp; But Rillao showed no signs of waking.

  “What else should we do?” Leia asked the nameless Firrerreo.

  He shrugged, barely moving his shoulders. “She’ll live, Lelila, or she’ll die.” He sprawled in a chair, perfectly relaxed.

  “Don’t you care, either way?”

  “She isn’t my clan.”

  Leia let the subject drop. She brushed Rillao’s striped hair away from her thin, fierce face and drew a blanket up around her shoulders.

  “Do your people sleep lying down?” she asked the nameless Firrerreo.

  “How else?” he said, surprised into replying without an argument.

  “How else, indeed,” Leia said. She laid one hand gently on Artoo-Detoo’s carapace. “Will you watch her for me?”

  Artoo-Detoo beeped softly.

  “Thank you,” Leia said to the droid. She turned to Chewbacca and the nameless Firrerreo. “Are you hungry?”

  Chewbacca roared, with relief and hunger.

  “Me, too,” Leia said.

  She was ravenous. She had had nothing since the chamberlain’s cookies and drugged tea. She led the way to Alderaan’s tiny galley. She wondered if the Firrerreo would refuse to accept food, but he sniffed the bowl of stew she gave him—the analysis had suggested his metabolism required high levels of protein—tasted a bite, and dug in hungrily. He held the bowl near his mouth and delicately plucked the meat up in his first two fingers.

  Chewbacca fixed himself a bowl of stew and garnished it with salty dry seaweed and a dribble of forest honey.

  The dinner conversation was nonexistent, until Leia scraped up the last of her stew with a spoon. As she watched the Firrerreo drink the sauce from his second serving, she thought, He accepted my food because he doesn’t accept any obligation. He didn’t ask me for food. If I asked him for gratitude, he’d say, No one asked you to offer me anything. I owe you nothing.