“I expect even you have heard of their people. Their father was a hero of the war against the Empire—and, it appears, the cousin of the Human League’s leader, though he was less than pleased to hear that, I can tell you! Their mother is Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic. Their uncle is Luke Skywalker himself.”
“Heavens!” Aunt Marcha said, impressed in spite of herself. Marcha, as head of a very grand family, had always known that there were times when long family lineages merely meant that a pack of idiots had been reproducing for too long. She had always been more interested in accomplishment than in hereditary status. But some families were impressive. “You are traveling in interesting circles, nephew. Tell me all.”
“Very well, Aunt Marcha. But I warn you, it is a long story.”
“I have never known you to tell a short one, nephew.”
Ebrihim took another cup of tea and proceeded to tell her a remarkable tale, of all that had happened since he had been hired by Leia Organa Solo. Clearly, intrigues had been swirling around Corellia for some time. It was typical of Ebrihim that he would manage to get himself right in the middle of it all.
Marcha had always worried about her nephew. To humans, perhaps, he seemed levelheaded, sensible, even dour. By Drallish standards, he was flighty, irresponsible, a flibbertigibbet. She had long ago given up on him settling down and starting his own family. It did not take much knowledge of psychology to tell her that his affection for the human children might be some sort of substitute for the children of his own he would never have. On the other paw, it took even less knowledge of psychology to suspect herself of reading too much into it. The Duchess of Mastigophorous had little time for nonsense, especially her own.
But, nonetheless, every family had its eccentric nephews and cousins, and there were unquestioned benefits to that arrangement. The Duchess Marcha learned this anew as she listened to Ebrihim’s account of his adventures with the Organa Solo family. The spying, the secret attacks, Han Solo’s kidnapping and release, the attack on Corona House; all of it was quite remarkable.
But the one thing that shocked her most was, of course, his using the family’s high status as a means of getting into an archaeological dig, for no other reason than so he could see the dig himself. If the dig proved interesting to his employers, and educational to the children, so much the better. The sheer effrontery of it was breathtaking. Even most humans would have trouble taking advantage of their position in that way. No sensible Drall would have gotten mixed up in such goings-on. At least good had come of it. For if they had never gone to the dig, little Anakin would never have found that strange, huge chamber.
But the story reminded her of something. Something strange she had seen in the news some time before. “Nephew,” she said. “Have you ever heard of such a thing as an archaeological dig on Drall?”
Ebrihim looked at her and frowned. “Of course not,” he said. “That was part of why I was so interested in seeing one. There’s no such thing as Drallish archaeology, any more than there’s such a thing as human tail grooming.”
“That,” said Marcha, “was my impression. We have no need of archaeology. There is nothing worth digging for.” The Drall were a tidy people, and an ancient one, much given to keeping good records and keeping things organized. For thousands of years, everything of importance had either been neatly filed away in storage or else recycled. There was no such thing as Drallish prehistory, or preliterate history. At least, if there were, they were so long forgotten that they might as well not exist. “That is why it surprised me some time ago to see a brief mention in the press recently of a large archaeological project near the equator.”
“That’s absurd!” Ebrihim protested.
“I quite agree,” she said. “I found it peculiar enough that I tried to learn more. I was able to establish the exact location of the dig, but that was all. There were no further news stories, and I could not get anywhere at all making private inquiries. It was nothing more than idle curiosity that made me pursue the question, and perhaps I gave it up too quickly. What intrigues me is that the account of the dig made it sound a great deal like the one you described.”
Ebrihim looked at his aunt in openmouthed astonishment. “Aunt Marcha! The implications of what you are saying—”
“I know, I know. They are enormous. But I don’t see that we have any choice but to pursue the question. I think we have to know more—a great deal more—about what the children discovered.”
* * *
Tendra Risant guided her newly acquired ship through hyperspace toward the Corellian planetary system—and whatever awaited her there. The ship was a slow and elderly Corellian runabout she had named Gentleman Caller, and the Gent wasn’t much to look at. But looks didn’t count for a great deal. The ship would get her there—eventually. That was all that mattered.
She was only half a day out from Sacorria, but had already learned a lot of interesting things about interstellar travel, and she was eager to sit down and talk about them with Lando, if and when she ever found him. She had a feeling they were the sorts of lessons he often found useful in his work.
The first and greatest lesson was that money made nearly all things possible, and most things dead easy, especially when you were ready to throw cold hard cash around in the form of bribes and other encouragements. Embargoes? Orders grounding all spacecraft and forbidding the sale of used spacecraft? Registration filing? None of those impediments could stand up to a good strong dose of money properly applied.
The second was that people were awfully spoiled about space travel. Everyone seemed to assume that the interdiction field around Corellia might as well have been a solid, impenetrable wall, impossible to get through. Nonsense, all of it. The interdiction field simply prevented a spacecraft from entering the Corellian system while moving faster than the speed of light; nothing more.
Getting to Corellia was no problem, provided you didn’t mind taking your time on the way. The navicomputer told her the trip from the edge of the interdiction field to the planet Corellia would take her three long months at the Gentleman’s best sublight speed, but Tendra half-expected she would not have anywhere near that long to wait. The Corellians could not keep the interdiction field in place forever. They would have to take it down some time—if someone else didn’t take it down for them. Or perhaps the jamming would end, even if the interdiction field stayed up.
Besides, Tendra knew she might well be able to do a great deal of good without ever getting close to Corellia. All the normal comlink frequencies might be jammed, but that meant nothing to the special communications gear Lando had given her before he left for Corellia. He had intended it as a romantic gift, a way for them to send secret lovers’ messages back and forth to Sacorria, but the system could be put to other uses.
It was a strange old system he had given her. It transmitted and received modulated electromagnetic radiation in the radio band of the spectrum. Because the signal sent by the system used electromagnetic radiation, the broadcast was limited by the speed of light. Lando had said it was called a radionics communications system. While Tendra could see no particular reason the system could not be adapted to send visual images, the unit she had was sound only. Very crude. You spoke into a microphone, and your voice went out as modulations on a radio-band carrier signal, ambling out into the universe at the speed of light.
But even the speed of light was faster than a spacecraft limited to sublight speeds. The Corellian planetary system was only a few light-hours across. If Lando were in-system, and if he—or anyone else—happened to switch on a radionics receiver tuned to the proper frequency, then Tendra’s warning about the fleet massing at Sacorria would reach them in only a few hours, once she was in-system. It was a long shot proposition. Tendra knew that. But even long shots paid off every once in a while.
And besides, it got her off Sacorria.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Tale of Ratiocination
On the morning af
ter their arrival at the villa of the Duchess Marcha, the children had nothing more in mind than getting breakfast eaten as soon as possible so they could get started exploring the huge house and its grounds.
But Q9 was waiting for them in the kitchen, and even though he served them breakfast in a most helpful and efficient manner, the news that Ebrihim and Aunt Marcha wanted to have a little chat about the huge underground chamber that Anakin had found put a most effective damper on their enthusiasm. Breakfast suddenly took on the feel of the condemned prisoner’s last meal.
There has never been a child living who did not feel that special twinge of fear when summoned in by the adults to explain something. Even the most innocent childhood problems seem to have a way of ballooning out of control when exposed to grown-up viewpoints.
When the offense was the accidental breaking of a window, things were bad enough. Even given that accidents happen to everyone, a sensible child must approach the interview armed with the knowledge that adults often have a very different idea of what an “accident” is.
When the offense was the semiaccidental discovery of a huge, ancient, alien, much-sought-after, and mysterious underground facility, the problem was, of course, far worse. Jaina instantly conjured up two or three ways that finding the chamber could get them in big trouble. Maybe, despite their precautions, they had left a clue that had let those Human League creeps find it. Maybe it was some strange, huge, burial chamber and they had violated someone’s taboo. Maybe, worst of all, finding it had been what had set off the whole war. She could not see how that could be, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.
Anakin tried to sneak off with an excuse that he had to go help Chewbacca fix the Falcon, but that one didn’t even fool Q9. None of them were getting out of it.
“So did they say what they wanted to know?” Jaina asked as she poked her spoon around her bowl of diced fruit.
“Only that they wished to hear from you, in your words, all about the chamber Anakin found. I have told you that three times now. I should think the first two times should have been clear enough.”
“Well, maybe I want more of an answer than that.”
“Then I suggest that you ask more of a question.”
“Look, Q9,” Jacen said. “The one big question is—are we in trouble?”
“In trouble for what?” the droid asked.
“I don’t know,” Jacen asked. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask.”
“How can I tell you what you want to know when I don’t know what it is?” Q9 asked.
“But I want to know if you know what I don’t,” Jacen said.
“But I can’t know what that is if you don’t tell me,” Q9 replied.
“Yes, but—”
“Quiet!” Anakin shouted. “Too loud.”
“I’m with Anakin,” Jaina said. “Let’s eat our breakfast and then we’ll find out.”
* * *
The children finished eating in a nervous sort of silence, and then followed Q9 from the kitchen to Aunt Marcha’s study, an odd little room with a door so low that Jacen had to duck just a bit to get through it. The room was windowless, and the walls and floors were rounded, and merged one into the other, and there was a dry, loamy smell to the room. The walls were painted a swirly sort of dark brown, and the furniture consisted solely of what appeared to be big, flat rounded rocks scattered about. The rocks, however, turned out to be soft and comfortable cushions, and the children settled into them very happily.
“Why does this room look so funny?” Anakin asked.
“Anakin!” Jaina cried. “Don’t be rude.”
“It’s quite all right,” said Aunt Marcha. “There’s never any harm in an honest question respectfully asked. And though you might learn how to ask things like that a bit more politely, I’ll tell you. Long, long ago, all Drall would hibernate in underground burrows during the cold, cold winter. Some Drall still believe that Drall were meant to hibernate, and do so to this day. I don’t go quite that far, but many Drall like the idea of a place that is like a snug underground burrow, warm and safe against the cold. It relaxes us. I think this is a very good place to think and talk. What do you think?”
Anakin looked around and nodded. “I kind of like it,” he announced.
“Good,” said Aunt Marcha. “Now then, let’s get started. Children, Q9-X2 has shown us the images he recorded when you visited that cavern. But let’s pretend we didn’t see them. Tell me everything you can about it. Don’t leave out a single thing.”
“Well,” Jaina said, “okay.” Aunt Marcha didn’t sound mad. Maybe things were not as bad as she thought. Maybe they weren’t in trouble after all. Unless Ebrihim’s Aunt Marcha was one sneaky old character. “We didn’t find it, first off. Anakin did. And I don’t know how, either. It was like he saw some sort of line or arrow or something we couldn’t see, something under the tunnel floor, and the invisible arrow led him to it.”
“Anakin does weird stuff like that,” Jacen said blandly.
“I see,” said Aunt Marcha, in a tone of voice that made it clear she did not.
“All three children are very strong in the Force,” said Ebrihim. “Anakin’s abilities are—ah—most unusual.”
“Yeah,” Jacen said. “He’s spooky-good with machines. Stuff like that. Mom and Dad say he might grow out of it.”
“Or I might not,” Anakin put in. Jaina had the feeling her little brother thought they were blaming him for whatever-it-was. “I don’t think anyone’s mad at you for finding the chamber,” she said reassuringly.
“Quite the contrary,” said Aunt Marcha. “It might be very, very important that you found it. But go on, please. Anakin, ah, followed this invisible guide. Then what happened?”
Jaina and Jacen told the rest of it, finishing each other’s sentences and adding details to whatever the other said, in the way twins often did. Anakin chimed in now and again, but as often as not, no one quite knew what to make of his contributions. Nevertheless they managed to give Aunt Marcha a good idea of the place, in however disjointed a fashion.
They described the way Anakin had led them to one stretch of blank wall, seemingly just like all the others, and the way he had found the hidden keypad control and opened the massive door. They described the strange silver walkway behind the door, and the platform it led to. And they described the huge conical chamber spread out below the platform, with six silver cones in a circle at its base, and a seventh cone in the center.
Ebrihim’s Aunt Marcha stopped them now and again to ask questions. She had Q9 project all the imagery he had recorded, and went over it with the children in detail, asking how old things looked, how hot the place had been, if they had noticed anything about the top of the conical chamber. The children answered as best they could, and Aunt Marcha generally seemed to get the answers she was expecting.
At last she seemed to decide she had all the information she was going to get from the three of them. “Thank you, children,” she said. “What you have told me is very important. More important than you could imagine. I think that Ebrihim and I need to sit down and talk about it all for a while. You may go.”
Jacen and Anakin scrambled to their feet and headed for the door of the odd little den. But Jaina stayed where she was. Ebrihim’s aunt might think she knew all she needed to know, but she was wrong. Jaina felt sure of that. There was something more, something besides the strange hidden chamber. It had been preying on her mind for a long time, and she was determined to say something, even if it left her in a world of trouble. “Um, ah, Your Grace?”
“Yes, child? What is it?”
“There’s something else you should know about. Something that we all heard, that we weren’t supposed to hear.”
“Jaina!” Jacen protested. “Don’t!”
“We have to, Jacen. It might be real important. And we can trust her. We can. We have to.”
Jacen turned away from the door and sat back down. “I think it’s a mistake,” he said.
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“Well, if it is, it’s my mistake,” Jaina said. She turned back toward the Duchess. “The night before the attack on Corona House, our parents had a meeting with Governor-General Micamberlecto and a lady named Mara Jade. She’s a—”
“I know all about Master Trader Mara Jade,” said Aunt Marcha, in studiously neutral tones. “Go on.”
“Well, she brought them a message from someone who sounded a lot like Dad.…” Jaina told the Duchess all about the meeting the children had overheard, and about the written message they had seen projected on the wall and the spoken message they had heard, about the threat to blow up a whole series of stars, culminating in Corell itself. Aunt Marcha listened carefully, asking occasional questions. Jaina went through the whole story, but she hesitated a moment at the end. No. She had to go the whole way. “There’s another thing. I can’t quite say how, or why, but there’s some sort of connection between what we heard in the message and the place Anakin found. I can’t explain it, exactly, but somehow they felt the same.”
“I don’t see how that could be,” said Aunt Marcha. “Not if my suspicions about the place Anakin found are right—and I am almost certain they are.”
“If it is any comfort, Jaina, I don’t think you gave away any secrets,” said Ebrihim. “Chewbacca and I heard a similar message that was broadcast to all of the planet Corellia the very next day. We didn’t want to tell you about it, because we didn’t want to frighten you. Little did we know.”
“But the message we heard said to keep everything a big secret!” Jaina protested. “Why tell it to the whole world the next day?”
“That,” said Ebrihim, “is an excellent question.”
“I have my own questions,” said Aunt Marcha. “Most of them about that list of times and coordinates. Where were they? What were the times? If we knew the schedule, that might tell us something very important.”
“I know what they are!” Anakin announced. “I could write ’em down for you.”
Assault at Selonia Page 18
