The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  But the Lord had not commanded him to remain here all night. He had merely given Tigris permission to sleep here, if he wished. Surely it would cause no harm to attend to the child. It was important for Anakin to be strong and alert when he was purified.

  Tigris rose silently and crept down the dim corridor to the passenger compartment.

  Except for Anakin, it was empty. All the Proctors had gone to their cabins to sleep or gamble.

  Anakin’s face was smudged and blotchy with crying. He stared warily at Tigris.

  “Come along, little one,” Tigris said. “You must be lonely, all by yourself. And hungry. Let’s get you cleaned up, and find you some supper. We have to be quiet, though, so we won’t disturb Lord Hethrir.”

  He unfastened the harness and offered his hand to Anakin. Anakin took it, slid down from the couch, and followed Tigris quietly and obediently.

  A little later, they found fruit and bread and milk in the ship’s galley. Anakin ate hungrily. With a mustache of milk, and crumbs on his chin, he offered Tigris a half-eaten slice of bread.

  “Supper!” he said.

  “No, thank you,” Tigris said, strangely touched, reprimanding himself not only for being touched but for being tempted to take the bread and dunk it into the glass of milk and eat it. “That’s your supper.”

  “Share!” Anakin said.

  “No, thank you,” Tigris said again.

  “Anakin want cookie,” Anakin said.

  “Lord Hethrir doesn’t eat cookies!” Tigris exclaimed, shocked.

  Anakin pushed his lower lip out stubbornly.

  “No cookies!” Tigris said.

  “Papa,” Anakin said. “Papa, Mama …”

  He was about to cry again. Tigris wiped Anakin’s face with the edge of his sleeve, hoping to distract him. He stopped sniffling.

  “I want my papa,” he said.

  Tigris knelt beside him and gazed into his eyes.

  “Anakin, little one,” he said, “there’s something you must know. Your mama and your papa don’t want you anymore. Lord Hethrir saved you, adopted you. As he adopted me, and all of us.”

  Anakin scowled. He gnawed on a piece of fruit, thoughtfully and silently. He did not start to cry again.

  “What is this? A picnic?”

  Tigris leaped to his feet, startled and dismayed. Lord Hethrir stood in the doorway, elegant as always in his long white robes, though his hair was disarranged.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Tigris said. “The child—I thought—”

  “Be quiet. Put the child back in his place. Your permission to attend me is revoked. You will stay in the passenger compartment with the child until the voyage is ended.”

  Hethrir left them, striding away. He had not even raised his voice, but Tigris trembled. Whatever good impression he had somehow managed to make, it was destroyed. He glanced at Anakin in irritation. Destroyed because of the child …

  Tigris sighed. Much as he wanted to blame his disgrace on someone else, in good conscience he could not.

  He turned to Anakin.

  The child offered him a sticky piece of fruit.

  “Supper?” Anakin said.

  Tigris accepted the slice of fruit. He ate it. It tasted delicious.

  In the passenger compartment, cut off from the sight of space and stars, Tigris and Anakin waited together while Lord Hethrir landed at Crseih Station, better known in the trade as Asylum.

  * * *

  Alderaan hovered above a low, massive compound, a windowless stockade of huge gray stones, built atop a hill. The Proctors trudged up the slope toward it, a dejected group.

  Jaina pointed to a canyon that split the hillside below the stockade. “That’s where we played, Mama,” she said.

  “And Mistress Dragon lives in the dunes,” Jacen said.

  “We never got to go in the house,” Jaina said, gazing down at the stockade. “We were underground.”

  “In long dark tunnels!” Jacen said.

  “And little tiny rooms. With no light!”

  “Oh, my dears,” Leia said softly.

  Alderaan landed near the courtyard of the stockade. Leia disembarked, followed by Jaina and Jacen, all the other children, and Rillao and Chewbacca.

  “Will you search the compound?” Leia asked Rillao and Chewbacca.

  Chewbacca growled.

  “And leave you here alone with them?” Rillao said in a tone of protest. She gestured toward the group of Proctors straggling into the courtyard. Mistress Dragon ambled along behind them.

  The Proctors staggered across the cobblestones and flung themselves at Leia’s feet.

  “Madam, your mercy, we beg you!”

  They looked as if they had been on a desperate campaign. Their skin was blotched with insect bites. Their clothes were torn from the bushes and muddy from the swamp. Their feet were swollen and blistered from the tramp across the desert.

  “I think I’ll be all right,” Leia said dryly.

  “Very well.”

  Rillao and Chewbacca crossed the compound and disappeared down the staircase into the stockade.

  Mistress Dragon lumbered in behind the Proctors, snortling and roaring. The Proctors shuddered and flattened themselves to the ground and lay very still, though their mud-stained blue uniforms gave them no camouflage against the stones.

  “Please, my lady,” whispered the Proctor with the most elaborate decorations on his shoulders and sleeves. “Save us from these plagues. Please don’t feed us to the dragon!”

  Mistress Dragon lay down near them with a great “Huff!” of breath. She lashed her tail. The Proctor ducked, flattening himself to the ground again.

  “Beg the pardon of my—” Leia revised what she had begun to say. “Beg the pardon of all these children,” she said. “Then I’ll consider mercy.”

  It occurred to her that if Mistress Dragon decided to snack on a Proctor or two, she had no way of stopping the beast.

  The Proctor lay still, facedown, humiliated. Then his terror and his discomfort overcame his embarrassment. He crawled slowly—keeping his head very low—to the children gathered behind Leia.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said.

  “Promise that you’ll never behave toward another being as you’ve behaved toward these children.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  “Now stand up, and remove that nonsense from your shoulders.”

  He balked at that, but she stared him down. He rose, glancing over his shoulder at Mistress Dragon (who closed her eyes and snored), then pulled away the jeweled patches from his uniform.

  Each of the Proctors made a similar promise. The pile of insignia grew. While the Proctors watched, Leia handed their epaulets and medals to the children to use as toys and decorations.

  “Where are the other children?” Leia asked the leader of the Proctors. “Where did Hethrir take them?”

  “I don’t know, madam,” he said.

  She could see a tiny flare of fear in him. He was not exactly lying, but he was not telling her the whole truth, either.

  “Where might they be?” she asked, her voice a cutting edge. “The little child Anakin, and the youth Tigris—”

  In the back of the group, one of the Proctors snickered nastily. Leia silenced him with a glance.

  “And Lusa!” Jaina said.

  “And Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf!” Jacen said.

  The Head Proctor stared at the ground.

  “It will go better for you, if you tell me,” she said.

  “The Lord Hethrir … he culled the group only yesterday.”

  “Culled them?” Leia felt her skin grow cold, and her heart angry.

  “Only to sell, madam!” the Proctor said. “Then he departed—”

  “To Asylum Station?”

  “Yes, madam. He took the child Anakin. And Tigris—”

  “Such contempt,” Leia said with wonder at his tone of voice.

  “Tigris is weak! The Lord Hethrir wouldn’t even make him a helper!
” The Proctor sneered. “He had to serve at table, and nursemaid the youngest children—”

  “And you believe that task isn’t fitting for a strong young Proctor?” Leia said easily.

  “Children are useless until they’re old enough to serve the cause of the Empire Reborn!”

  “No one will serve the Empire Reborn,” Leia said. “Not ever again.”

  Defiantly, the Proctor raised his arms and cried, “The Empire Reborn!”

  If he had not been so pathetic, so young, Leia would have been angry. As it was, she glanced at the bedraggled Proctors and she glanced at the tired band of children who had bested them.

  She laughed. The Head Proctor flinched as if she had struck him. And then, at least, he had the intelligence to look abashed.

  “Now,” Leia said, “we’ll find a place for you where you’ll make no more trouble.”

  “I know where to put them!” Jaina said.

  Jaina led the way through long, dark tunnels to a huge, low-ceilinged room as oppressive as a cave. She flung open one of the doors that lined its walls and showed Leia one of the tiny dark cells.

  “This is where we had to sleep! In the dark! So they should have to sleep—”

  Appalled though she was by the cells, Leia put her hand on Jaina’s shoulder. Her daughter fell silent and looked up at her, angry and confused.

  “They asked for my mercy,” Leia said. “And they asked your pardon—”

  “They didn’t really mean it,” Jaina muttered.

  “—and we won’t treat them harshly. We mustn’t take revenge, sweetheart. That isn’t just.” She looked over the bedraggled group of Proctors, realizing how young they all were. She addressed them directly. “However, we have no other place to keep you where you will be safe.” Where you can’t get into mischief, Leia thought. “You must stay in this hall, with the door locked. You may use the cells—if you like.”

  Leia knew from the stubborn set of her daughter’s jaw that Jaina was far from satisfied, and Leia did not blame her.

  “If one of them’s bad,” Jaina said, “and you have to shut him in—don’t use my cell.” She pointed at one of the doors, indistinguishable from all the rest. “Because I broke the latch!”

  Leia knelt beside her and hugged her. “It was very clever and brave of you to do that.”

  “And I put sand in their pants and Jacen made the myrmins bite them!”

  Jacen looked at the floor. “But the Proctors killed them. The myrmins,” he said softly.

  Leia hugged him tight. “Oh, my dear. My dear child.” She held his face between her hands and kissed him on the forehead. “That makes them hero myrmins—doesn’t it?”

  He nodded, only a little comforted.

  As Leia shepherded the children from the gathering hall, Rillao and Chewbacca met her.

  “I found another group of children,” Rillao said.

  “Those are the helpers!” Jaina said. “They do whatever Hethrir tells them to, they’re even meaner than the Proctors.”

  Leia exchanged a look of concern with Rillao.

  These young helpers, Leia thought, may be much harder to liberate than my children, and the children who resisted Hethrir with them.

  “And we found the cook and her assistants. Lelila, we must hurry, Hethrir is going to Asylum Station—”

  “So the Head Proctor told me. The Indexer was right. But first we have to see to—”

  She gestured around her, distressed. Her strongest desire was to fling Alderaan back into hyperspace and follow Hethrir.

  But she could not leave the stolen children out here in nowhere by themselves. Leia hesitated, wondering whether it would be harder to persuade Rillao to stay behind, or Chewbacca.

  Chewbacca whuffled.

  “Oh!” Leia said. “Of course—”

  “We will take them with us,” Rillao said. “We will take the worldcraft.”

  “We’ll take it away from here,” Leia said. “But we’ll send it to safety.”

  “A practical suggestion, Lelila.”

  “How long will it take to move it?”

  “Only a few minutes,” Rillao said. “In hyperspace, the worldcraft is as fast as any other ship. I will chart our course.” She strode away, the green silk pantaloons whipping around her ankles.

  For the sake of the other children, Leia forced herself into a fragile calmness. Only a few minutes, she thought.

  Jacen looked up at her, his brown eyes wide. “It will be all right, Mama,” he said. “We’ll find Anakin.”

  Leia knelt and hugged him, hugged both her twins.

  “I know we will. Very soon.”

  Jaina leaned against her. “I’m so hungry, Mama.”

  “Let’s go find everyone some dinner,” Leia said.

  The group of children cheered raggedly.

  Jacen led the way toward the dining hall. As they approached, a tall and massive six-legged being lumbered down the corridor toward them, tendrils wrapped around the handle of a great steaming cauldron. Leia recognized the being as a Veubg, from a culture she remembered with great affection.

  “That’s Grake,” Jaina whispered. “Who threw us food.”

  The being stopped.

  “What are you doing, Grake?” Leia asked.

  “Taking the children’s gruel to the Proctors,” Grake said. “The Proctors’ dinner is on the table for the children.”

  The children cheered and rushed down the hall. Chewbacca hurried after them, to be sure everyone got a share.

  “Go,” Leia said to Jaina and Jacen. “Go with Chewbacca and get some supper.”

  They ran after their friend.

  Leia glanced into the cauldron Grake was carrying.

  “This is dreadful,” she said. “It looks like old dishwater. Whatever were you planning to do with it?”

  “Give it to the Proctors,” Grake said. “To see how they like it.”

  “That’s out of the question.” Leia stopped. “You said—this was the children’s supper?”

  Grake would not meet Leia’s gaze.

  “How could you serve this to children?”

  “How could I not, madam?”

  Leia waited.

  “Lord Hethrir ordered it.”

  “You had the choice whether to follow the order or not!”

  “I did not, madam.”

  “Because you needed the job? Because he’d be angry at you?”

  “Because I’m a slave, madam. Because Lord Hethrir has the power of life and death and punishment over me.”

  Shocked, unable to speak for a moment, Leia gently took the cauldron from Grake. Then she put her hands into the mass of Grake’s tendrils, and let the tendrils wrap around her fingers.

  “I am most sincerely sorry for the manner in which I spoke to you,” Leia said to Grake. “You are no longer a slave. You are free. I cannot take you home for a little while yet. But I will.”

  Grake trembled.

  “Thank you, madam,” she said, her voice soft and rough.

  “Will you show me the kitchen?” Leia said. “And the laundry? There’s work for me to do.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “Whatever pleases you.”

  “It pleases me to cook real food for the children.”

  “You do understand that you’re free?”

  “I do understand, madam. That’s why it pleases me.”

  “Thank you, then,” Leia said. She smiled ruefully. “I’ve never had occasion to learn to be a good cook.”

  “Come along,” Grake said patiently. “Never too late to start learning.” She hesitated, glancing at the cauldron. “What about this?”

  “We’ll throw it out,” Leia said. “And send bread, and fruit, and soup—real soup—to the Proctors.”

  “Because it pleases us,” Grake said.

  Tigris had passed his childhood on a remote, boring, pastoral world, kept from his destiny. Since Lord Hethrir rescued him, he had lived on the quiet worldcraft.

  Tigris
loved Crseih Station.

  The welcome dome of Crseih always overwhelmed him with its noise and activity. People poked at him, plucked his sleeve, offered turn sweetmeats and jewelry and a selection of robes, one of them a silky white one that he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything material in his life.

  But as Lord Hethrir preferred, he walked without pausing, without allowing himself to be visibly tempted.

  Anakin reached for one of the sweetmeats. The sweetmeat-monger drew the tray away, spiraling its wrinkly arms, and the tray, out of Anakin’s grasp.

  “Patience, small person,” the being said. “You must pay, first.”

  “Pay?” Tigris asked, curiously. He knew the concept of paying, but only in context of Lord Hethrir’s political dealings and his involvement in the trade. Pay for food, for clothing? He tried to remember if he had paid for anything when he was a child. He had a vague memory of trading, of being given gifts, of his mother providing aid to one of the other villagers, then finding a bushel of fruit or a brace of game or a length of cloth on the doorstep the next morning.

  “Yes, pay! You are not a beggar and I am not a do-gooder.” The being extended an eyestalk and bent its eye up and down, regarding Tigris. “Or perhaps you are a beggar.”

  Lord Hethrir had not even paused. He strode away, followed by the phalanx of his Proctors. In a moment they would disappear into the crowd. Tigris scooped Anakin up and hurried away from the sweetmeat-monger. The being followed, bulging along with limber gracelessness.

  “This is not a transaction of world-shaking magnitude,” the being said.

  “I have no account,” Tigris said. “Nothing to transfer to you.”

  “No one makes a transfer to buy a sweetmeat! Where are you from, the planet of foolish people? All it requires is a coin of the least magnitude.”

  “Excuse me,” Tigris said, slipping between two groups of beings and nearly getting tangled in their tentacles. He had not realized, before interposing himself between them, that they were engaging in some unexplained interaction.

  The sweetmeat-monger caught up with him on the other side of the group of tentacled beings. Tigris wiped slime from his face and his sleeve.

  “I see you are from the planet of the foolish people,” the being said. “You aren’t safe to be around, even to make a sale. Your pardon, small person,” it said to Anakin, and disappeared.