The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  Rillao glanced at the altar. The sphere contracted to half its size, to half its size again, and again. Each contraction happened more quickly. The sphere was the size of an orange, an egg, a marble. It blurred.

  A grain of golden sand lay on the altar. With a blaze of energy, the pop! of air filling a vacuum, it disappeared.

  Rillao shivered and turned away.

  “Come with me,” Leia said.

  “Very well, Lelila.”

  Together, they walked into the light of the crystal star.

  Tigris had run halfway to the hill, and then he had stopped. He sat on the ground with his back to them, his head down. Rillao watched him from a distance.

  Leia passed through the archway of Waru’s retreat. Heat and brilliance hit her. Her knees trembled with exhaustion. She sat abruptly on the ground. Jacen ran to her, worried, and cuddled in her lap. She held him, smoothing his unruly hair. Rillao sat on her heels beside them, gazing toward her son.

  The sky beyond the dome amazed Leia. The crystal star orbited the black hole, closer and closer, crashing through the glowing whirlpool. Gravitational stress was ripping it apart. The black hole pulled a swirl of glowing star-stuff from the dwarfs surface and spun it into the accretion disk, which blazed more and more brightly. Leia had to look away, before it dazzled her.

  Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf flung itself at her feet and gazed at her with wide gold eyes, panting.

  Free for the first time in—how long?—the stolen children ran and shouted and played. Lusa leaped in a capriole, jumping high in the air and kicking her hind feet.

  Han sat behind Leia.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, too tired to speak.

  Jaina nestled in her lap next to Jacen. Anakin ran over and cuddled with his brother and sister. Leia hugged them. Han put one arm around them all, and stroked Leia’s hair. Leia leaned gratefully into Han’s warmth and strength.

  “We’d better get out of here,” he said. “But first we have to find Threepio.”

  “And Artoo,” Leia said.

  “Speaking of,” Luke said.

  Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio descended the trail, Artoo rolling and bumping along at full speed, Threepio walking as fast as he could.

  “Mistress Leia! Master Luke, Master Han!”

  “Mr. Threep!” Anakin jumped up and ran toward Threepio and grabbed him around the leg.

  “Master Anakin!” Threepio said. “I’m delighted to see you well!”

  Anakin stood on Threepio’s foot to ride back to Leia. He shrieked with delight.

  Both droids slowed when they saw Tigris, but the youth did not react to them. Artoo rolled on by; Threepio passed him with a curious glance.

  Anakin jumped off Threepio’s foot and ran to Tigris. He grabbed Tigris’s grubby shirt and pulled him toward the others. Tigris shrugged, pulling his shirt out of Anakin’s hands.

  Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf loped after Anakin. The heavy chain attached to its collar clanked and rattled.

  Threepio reached Leia and Han. “We must hurry, Master Han!” he exclaimed.

  “Where have you been?” Han asked. “And what happened to you?”

  Threepio’s new purple varnish had crackled all over like the glaze of an antique pot.

  “A strange man—he was with that boy—” Threepio gestured toward Tigris. “Master Anakin was with him! When I requested an explanation, why, the man struck me! With a lightsaber! I was of course completely disabled. I was lucky not to be dismembered! Master Luke, if this is the caliber of the people you are looking for, I beg you not to try to find any more of them!”

  “Don’t worry, Threepio,” Luke said.

  “They imprisoned me! Artoo discovered me, and resuscitated my circuits—”

  Artoo-Detoo trilled emphatically.

  “—but no time for that!” Threepio exclaimed. “Artoo has made an ominous discovery!”

  “I’m not sure we can stand another ominous discovery.” Han said indulgently. “Can it wait till after supper?”

  “I fear not, sir. The white dwarf star has cooled into a perfect quantum crystal. Very rare—unique, to my knowledge! As the black hole increases the amplitude of its resonance—”

  “The crystal star is resonating?”

  “I beg your pardon, Master Luke?”

  “The crystal star is resonating.”

  “Indeed it is, sir—I believe I said as much. The resonances destabilize its orbit. The crystal star is in danger of falling into the black hole at any moment.”

  Threepio paused to be sure everyone knew what this meant.

  Everyone did.

  Threepio continued anyway. “When that happens—the violence of the explosion, the density of the X-ray flux … No living being, biological or mechanical, will survive.”

  “How long have we got?” Han demanded.

  “The possibilities are never all calculable, I regret to say,” Threepio said.

  Artoo whistled insistently.

  “I believe I said that, too,” Threepio retorted. “It is clear to everyone that we do not have much time.”

  Leia shooed Jaina and Jacen out of her lap, and jumped to her feet.

  “Children!” she called. “Come along! It’s time to go home.”

  None of the stolen children begged to be allowed to run and play a little longer. Even Lusa, who had run all the way around Waru’s retreat at a dead gallop and passed Leia on the way to making another circuit, slid to a halt. She pranced and danced in place.

  “Home!” she said. “Home!”

  The stolen children set off up the hillside, shepherded by Chewbacca and Threepio and Artoo. Chewbacca looked like a pile of children, for he carried them on his back and in his arms. Two of the little ones rode his feet, delightedly clutching his fur and squealing with each stride. The rest of the children jockeyed for a place as near to him as they could get.

  “Let’s go, love,” Han said to Leia. They held hands and walked toward the hillside trail. Rillao and Luke and the twins followed.

  As they approached Tigris and Anakin, Tigris unfastened the collar and chain from Mr. Iyon’s wyrwulf. He rose and threw the collar away, as hard as he could.

  Mr. Iyon’s wyrwulf sat on its haunches and gave its neck a good scratch with both feet of its central legs.

  Rillao stopped a few paces from Tigris.

  “My son,” she said gently. “We must leave.”

  Tigris glared at her. “No.”

  “This system will die soon.”

  “I don’t care!”

  Leia joined them. “Then it doesn’t matter,” she said, “whether you come with us or not. So you might as well.”

  Tigris glanced at her, quizzically.

  “Tigis come home!” Anakin demanded.

  Tigris laid his hand on Anakin’s dark curly hair. “I have no home, little one.”

  “Cookies!” Anakin grabbed Tigris’s hand and pulled.

  Tigris raised his head and looked his mother in the eyes.

  “You didn’t steal the Force from me, did you?”

  “No, my sweet,” she whispered.

  “I never had any abilities at all, did I?”

  Sadly, she shook her head.

  “Wait a minute!” Han said. “Kid, you saved my son’s life. Maybe you can’t use the Force. So what? Neither can I, and it hasn’t held me back.”

  “Who are you?” Tigris said.

  Han laughed, surprised. “Maybe my disguise is better than I thought. I’m Han Solo.”

  “I was taught to hate you.” Tigris added thoughtfully. “As I was taught to hate my mother.”

  “That’s too bad,” Han said with genuine regret. “I’m grateful to you. Thank you for bringing Anakin back to us.”

  “And I was taught to respect you—” Tigris said.

  “That’s a start—”

  “—as an enemy.”

  Han grinned his lopsided grin. “A weird start, but a start all the same. Come on, kid. Let’s ge
t out of here.”

  “I don’t have any choice, do I?” Tigris said belligerently.

  “Not a whole hell of a lot,” Han said.

  With a show of revulsion, Tigris trudged after the other children. Rillao watched him go, her shoulders slumped. Leia put her arm around her new friend.

  “It is a beginning,” she said.

  “Yes, Lelila. A beginning.”

  Han made a choking sound. Startled, Leia looked up.

  He was doing his best not to laugh at Tigris.

  “Han!” Leia said. “Stop it!”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice strangled. He controlled his laughter by force of will, and grinned crookedly at her. “I don’t know what he does think,” he said, “but I don’t think he wants to die.”

  Even Rillao brightened at that. “I believe you are right,” she said.

  “Luke?” Leia said. Her brother was staring at Waru’s retreat. Leia had the irrational fear that he would run back inside.

  “Resonance,” Luke said. “That’s it.”

  “What?” Han asked.

  “The resonance. Of the crystal star. It’s disrupting the Force—that’s what’s been happening to me.”

  “To me, too,” Rillao said.

  Luke spun toward her. “You—a Jedi?”

  She drew the inactive lightsaber from inside her robe. She did not try to engage it, but she fastened it to her belt in its proper place.

  “I see that you found your ‘small machine,’ ” Leia said.

  Rillao nodded solemnly, then glanced at Luke.

  “Perhaps, when we have left this place, we might spar a bit. Though I am badly out of practice.”

  Luke managed a smile. “I’d like that.”

  Han thought: We have three hours to get out of here. Three hours, more or less. It’s the “less” that bothers me. Like Threepio said, the possibilities are never all calculable.

  “What about Crseih?” he said to Leia.

  “What about it?” she replied.

  “When the star goes—the station will get blown to dust.”

  “Subatomic particles, more likely,” Leia said with some satisfaction.

  “Leia!” Han protested.

  “She is right,” Rillao said. “This place is best destroyed.”

  “People live here,” Han said. “A friend of mine lives here.”

  “Warn her,” Rillao said.

  “If I can find her,” Han said.

  “If Xaverri does not survive,” Rillao said, “it will be a shame.”

  Leia relented. “We’ll warn everyone. Of course. But surely they keep watch on their own star. Surely they know they have to evacuate! This is supposed to be a research station, after all.”

  “Whatever was done here,” Han said, “you can hardly call it research.”

  Leia slipped her hand into his.

  “How could I not know about the trade?” she said. “I thought everything was going so well, and all along the Empire still terrorized people, in secret—!”

  “You sent Winter to investigate—”

  “I never talked to people who might have been affected. Back on Munto Codru, I spent a whole day talking to officials and ambassadors, and when I asked about the people still waiting to talk to me, I let myself be told they didn’t have anything important to say.”

  “Sweetheart,” Han said. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She leaned against him and embraced him, and they walked close together. “You’ve been working yourself half to death—you expect too much of yourself.”

  “I could say the same of you,” Leia said fondly.

  “And I could say I should have known about the trade.”

  “But—”

  “I learned a lot about Hethrir and his followers from Xaverri,” Han said. “They’re careful and they’re wary and they have enormous resources. Plunder from the Empire …”

  “All the more reason to find them.”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “I always like to have an important project,” Leia said dryly.

  Han chuckled, his laugh part self-deprecation.

  They walked up the hill in silence, and passed into the airlink.

  Han leaned toward Leia and whispered, “Did I tell you how much I like your hair that way?” He twined his fingers in the long, smooth strands.

  Her free hand flew to her head.

  “I forgot it was down!” she said.

  She decided to leave it that way.

  Han surveyed the landing field. It was a cacophony of departing starships, shipowners arguing with field personnel, residents seeking a passenger berth.

  “Looks like some people are paying attention,” Han said.

  As Leia and Chewbacca divided the children into two groups, one to board Alderaan and the other to depart on the Millennium Falcon, Han hurried over to See-Threepio.

  “Can you get in touch with Xaverri?” he said. “She never would tell me where she lived, how to reach her—”

  “I have already done so, Master Han,” Threepio said. “In fact …” He pointed to a derelict-looking ship rising off the field with a precision and speed that belied its ugliness. “I believe that is her ship now, on a course for hyperspace.”

  Han relaxed, and grinned. “She always did like deceptive appearances.”

  “Papa!” Anakin, riding on top of Han’s shoulders, kicked his heels against his father’s chest “Look at Mr. Chamberlain’s woof!”

  The great fanged wyrwulf lay on the field, curled up, its nose hidden by its bushy black tail, all six limbs pulled in close beneath it. Han strode over to it and sat on his heels beside it.

  “Hey, fella, are you all right?”

  The wyrwulf opened one eye halfway, whined, and curled up tighter.

  Leia hurried over. “Oh, my,” she said.

  “Do you know what’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Strange kind of nothing.”

  The beast was sweating heavily. Its sweat was thick and blue. It flowed out over the wyrwulf’s fur, matting it down.

  She smiled. “I think that when we get back to Munto Codru, we’ll bring a little boy or a little girl to Chamberlain Iyon, in place of his wyrwulf.”

  “What?”

  The blue sweat solidified on the wyrwulfs body, forming a rubbery coating.

  “It’s metamorphosing,” Leia said. “When it wakes up again, it will be self-aware—a Codru-Ji child.”

  The blue sweat flowed down over the wyrwulf’s face. The wyrwulf snorted; the sweat covered its nose and mouth. The rubbery blue coating formed a seal.

  “Help me carry it onto the ship.”

  Luke joined them. “It looks like I feel,” he said.

  “You do look a little blue,” Han said.

  “I’ll be all right as soon as I get out of—”

  Luke fainted.

  Jaina waited for liftoff in Alderaan. She held Uncle Luke’s hand. Jacen sat on Uncle Luke’s other side. Between them they kept watch over him. If they could just get away from this system! Mr. Threepio had tried to explain about the resonating star, the quantum crystal Jaina did not understand why the white dwarf star did not look like a big jewel, a huge diamond in space. But she did understand that it was why she could not use her abilities. She understood that it was making Uncle Luke sick. That it would also make her and Mama and Jacen and Rillao, and Anakin especially, sick, if they did not leave soon.

  “Almost ready, now,” Mama said, her voice disembodied. She was up front in the cockpit with Rillao. Papa and Chewbacca were over on the Millennium Falcon, with Threepio and Artoo and Anakin and most of the other children. Tigris was on Alderaan, but he might as well be anywhere, or no place at all, because he would not speak to anyone.

  Lusa and the wyrwulf’s chrysalis lay on Mama’s bed in the other cabin. Lusa was scared. She had not been on very many space flights. Jaina wished she could be with her.

  “We’re all ready, Mama,” Jaina s
aid.

  “How’s Luke?”

  “He’s … he’s very quiet, Mama.”

  The engines whispered.

  “Leia, is Artoo with you?” Papa’s voice sounded fuzzy through the comlink.

  “No, I thought he was on the Falcon,” Mama said.

  “What? Okay, you get Luke out of here, I’ll take one more look around for him.”

  Han could not lift off without Artoo-Detoo.

  The radiation shields withdrew. Above Millennium Falcon and Alderaan, the sky was free.

  But Han could not leave without the droid.

  He jumped up with a curse. “Did you see where Artoo went?”

  Chewbacca snorted a negative.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Threepio said. “That Artoo-Detoo never does as I ask—never does as expected—”

  “Where did he go?” Han demanded.

  “I believe—though I could be wrong, he does sometimes give me inaccurate information—”

  “Where?”

  “He went looking for the engine controls of Crseih Station.”

  “I ought to let him get vaporized along with the rest of the blasted place—”

  Han jumped up and headed for the Falcon’s exit ramp.

  “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes—”

  Chewbacca’s roar drowned out his words. Han grinned. Chewbacca was not about to leave without him.

  With a musical beep and warble, Artoo-Detoo lurched from the landing field to the Falcon’s entry ramp, and rolled toward him.

  “About damn time!” Han said. “We were going to leave you behind.”

  Unperturbed, Artoo whistled and rolled on by. Han and Threepio followed the little droid into the Falcon.

  “What did you say?” Threepio said, outraged. “What do you mean, you don’t care if you miss the flight? Do you want to get vaporized? Why, we’ve waited so long looking for you that we might be vaporized no matter what!”

  Artoo-Detoo whined and wheeped.

  “Why—why, I must say, that was very clever of you.”

  Han threw himself into the pilot’s seat and strapped in. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The Millennium Falcon came to life around him.

  “Artoo-Detoo has arranged,” Threepio said, “for Crseih Station to follow us out of this system so it will not be vaporized. Many of Lord Hethrir’s guests are still on board …”

  “And they’ll be easy to round up,” Han said.