Beyond the dyanthis leaves that masked the edges of the observation port,
Leia's eye was caught by a flickering of the lights along the Adamantine's
gleaming sides. She saw that in the rear quarter of the escort ship, a
number of them had blinked out.
"What do you mean, you can't get through?" Commander Zoalin turned, harried,
from the comm board, which had blazed into life like a festival lamp, to
stab yet another flashing switch. "Are you not getting an answer from the
Borealis, or what?"
"It seems to be a simple signal block, sir." Communications Chief Oran
touched her forehead in a nervous salute. "Legassi is running a scan for
it."
In the small screen, Oran turned in her chair, granting the Commander a
glimpse of the comm center, on whose main board a huge readout of the
Adamantine's comm circuits was illuminated in glowing yellow lines.
Red lights flowed along them, synaptic testing for a blockage or
interference in the power transmission, easy enough to find and correct
under ordinary circumstances.
But the circumstances had gone from ordinary to hideous in just under ten
minutes. And by the red lights flaring all over his comm board; by the
hastily gasped message from the infirmary; and by the sudden absence of
anyone replying or reporting from maintenance, shuttles, power, and several
other ship sections, things were plunging from bad to worse with the speed
of a decaying orbit.
"Legassi?" ()ran rose from her chair. Zoalin saw' past her that the chair he
had thought empty in front of the scan console was, in fact, occupied.
Yeoman Legassi had collapsed forward over his console, squa-mous
salmon-colored hands clutching the edge of the board spasmodically, in time
to the dreadful shudders that ran like waves through his frame.
Zoalin thought, Calamari aren't supposed to be affected by human viruses . .
. If this was a virus.
Neither, of course, were Sullustans or Nalroni, both of which species were
represented by crew members who had reported ill in the past five minutes.
Zoalin seemed to recall from his xenoNology courses that Nalroni and Mon
Calamari were a textbook example of mutually exclusive immune systems. What
a Nalroni could get, a Calamari literally couldn't.
"Legassi?" Oran bent over the Mon Calamari's shivering body.
"Legassi, what . . . ?" She staggered a little, almost as if she had been
struck, and put a hand to her chest. Groping, as if trying to massage away
some numbness or pain.
"Commander Zoalin," stated the calm voice of Two-Onebee, the head of the
infirmary section, on the channel that he had left open, "I regret to report
that bacta tank therapy appears to accelerate rather than retard dissolution
of subjects, by a factor of nearly thirty-five percent, as far as can be
analyzed."
With the measured tones sounding in his earclip, Zoalin flicked the central
console screen from image to image, keying through to corridors. here the
search teams in quest of the signal block device turned toward the infirmary
as first one, then another of their number would stop, lean against the
wall, knead and rub at the chest or head or side.
The view cut to sick bay', where the calm and tireless droids operated
mechanical lifts to remove Sergeant Wover's lifeless, dripping body from the
bacta tank; to the shuttle bay control room where the last yeoman on duty
lay dying alone in a corner by the door.
Fifteen minutes, thought Zoalin blankly. fifteen minutes since Wover
signaled from the deck-nine break room.
He hadn't even severed the connection when the other calls had started
pouring in. Midshipman Gasto down. Engineering Chief Cho P'qun down.
Sir, we can't get any signal from maintenance . . .
"Foursi." He clicked through a channel to the Central Computer's Operating
Signal Division--Division 4C. "Emergency reprogramming request. All
maintenance droids of the . . ." His head was aching--his chest, too. He
found it difficult to breathe. Stress, he told himself. And no wonder. He
had to find the signal block, had to get in touch with the Chief of State's
flagship. Had to get a signal out to the Sector Medical Facility on Nim
Drovis.
"All maintenance droids of the See-Three category. Search for nonstandard
equipment in . . ." What color would the lines be, that a signal blocker
would be cut into? "Nonstandard equipment in the green lines." He hoped that
was right. His head was throbbing. "Implement immediately."
Not that it would do much good, he thought. Droids were systematic.
Their method of hunting for nonstandard equipment would be to start at the
Adamantine's nose and work to the stern, investigating every hatch and
relay, rather than checking the most obvious places first, the places where
some member of Seti Ashgad's small good-faith party might have made a few
moments for himself alone.
Not that it had to be Ashgad. A signal blocker could have been set with a
timer. The thing could have been planted in the Adamantine before their
inconspicuous departure from Hesperidium.
Zoalin found that without thinking about it, he had slumped back into his
chair. His hands and feet felt cold. He cut into the image of the flagship
Borealis, distant against the blackness of the stars. So close, but
kilometers away in the palely shimmering green glow of the planet beneath.
Had this, whatever it was, broken out there, too. Was Captain Ioa trying to
reach him.
He leaned his head back. Twenty minutes, he thought. Twenty minutes.
He felt as if he were in a turbolift, plunging into long darkness.
"I realize there's been a great deal of ill said about the Rationalist Party
over the past few years." Seti Ashgad had risen from his chair as if the
sheer importance of his cause drove him to his feet, and paced restlessly
back and forth behind it. "But I assure you, Your Excellency, that we're not
the--the strip-mining capitalists we've been portrayed.
The Newcomers went to Nam Chorios in the hopes of opening new frontiers.
Individual entrepreneurs can't get a foothold in Pedducis Chorios. Places
like Nim Drovis and Budpock and Ampliquen have their own civilizations,
settled up and locked in. Given the presence of the heavy industry in the
Antemeridian sector, the trading opportunities alone should have made the
entire colonizing of Nam Chorios self-sufficient!
"But it isn't just that the Newcomers are forbidden to bring in any ships
larger than a personal flitter--or to let any out. The Theran habit of
opening fire on any vessel over a certain size means that when equipment
wears out, it can't be replaced except for an exorbitant fee.
It means there's no export to support anything but the barest subsistence
livelihood. It means we have to pay smugglers' prices for everything. It
means that because the Registry didn't give sufficient information about
conditions, these people have condemned themselves to exile in a cultural
backwater. You can't pretend that's fair."
"No, I can't," said Leia slowly. "But isn't that what colonization is about.
Gambling on what conditions are going to be when you get when?
I'm not saying that the Therans are right," she added, holding up a hand as
the man before her drew breath for an indignant protest.
"What I am saying is that they are supported by the majority of the
population of the planet."
"Who are kept as their slaves by superstition and lies!"
That isn't the Republic's business. Leia straightened her shoulders under
the velvet weight of her robe, seeing, in the flare of Ashgad's anger, the
reflection of what her own reactions would have been at eighteen. But it
shouldn't be that way--She remembered crying to her father, when after a
complicated and emotional court case concerning vampiric Garhoons and their
prey, the prey had elected to return to their vampires. It had taken her a
long time to understand and respect her father's decision to pursue the
matter no further.
"Nam Chorios is not a part of the Republic. Legally, we have no right to
interfere in their affairs."
"Not even to protect the rights of the colonists. The rights of men and
women who . . . ?"
"Who left the Republic," said Leia, "to go live on a world that was not part
of worldo decided to take a chance on a world about which they knew almost
nothing. Everyone knows the deficiencies in the Registry's information. And
the Empire 'protected the rights' of Alzoc III, of Garnib, of Trosh."
Ashgad's broad face reddened. "The cases are nothing alike! We certainly
aren't asking you to enslave a native population! Just to ensure those who
wish it the right to a decent livelihood."
"The majority of Nam Chorios's population voted not to affiliate with the
Republic," said Leia. "And that, the colonists did know. We have no right to
disregard the wishes of the majority. I have no wish to sound hard-hearted,
Master Ashgad, but the Newcomers are not being constrained in any fashion
that I have heard of."
"Except that their lives are there. All their assets, which with the gun
stations in operation they can't even take with them should they leave.
Their stake in the future is on that planet."
"So is the stake of the original inhabitants, Master Ashgad."
The big man stood for a moment, one hand on his hip, the other on the back
of his chair, head down, one dark lock of his thick hair hanging over a
forehead furrowed with frustration and thought.
Among the dusky leaves of his miniature boavet, Dzym had fallen silent
again, gloved hands folded, a small frown of concentration furrowing his
smooth forehead. He hadn't, as far as Leia could discover, even made
secretarial notes to himself in a hide-out mike to supplement a recorded
transcript of the interview.
"What I will do is this," said Leia, after a moment's silence. "When I
return to Coruscant, I'll authorize an investigation team to see what's
really going on down on the planet and to explore other options, if
possible. We may be able to negotiate with the Therans who control the gun
stations."
"No one negotiates with the Therans." Fierce bitterness flashed like a
dagger in Ashgad's voice and glinted in his green eyes. "They're fanatical
lunatics who've had that entire population of credulous fools under their
spell for generations."
There was a small movement among the dyanthis leaves. Leia glanced quickly
across at Dzym, in time to see the secretary sit back, strangely
misshapen-looking in his granite-colored robes, an expression of satiated
ecstasy moving across his face. He sighed deeply, savoringly, and was still.
"I had hoped to convince you to come to our aid, Your Excellency."
Ashgad's voice again drew her mind away from the curiously nonworking
secretary. "And I very much appreciate your sending a commission.
I'll certainly use all the influence I possess in the Newcomer community to
help them with their findings."
Leia rose, and extended her hand. "I know you will." She spoke with genuine
warmth, though the cynical rebel who still lived in the back of her mind
added, I just bet you will.
Ashgad bowed low over her hand, an old-fashioned courtesy she hadn't
encountered since she'd left Palpatine's court. The man seemed completely
sincere, and Leia's own instinct to help and protect embattled minorities
sympathized with his frustration. From having contended with such factions
as the Agro-Militants and the United Separatists, she did genuinely wish
that she could do something for modern, intelligent people struggling to
free themselves from irrational tyranny.
If that was what was actually going on.
"See that Master Ashgad finds his way back to the shuttle bay all right,
would you, Ssyrmik?"
Leia's small honor guard sprang to their feet as the Chief of State and her
guests stepped through the doors to the conference chamber's anteroom. The
lieutenant bowed, and shouldered her sleek white-and-silver ceremonial
blaster rifle. "This way, Master Ashgad, Master Dzym."
Looking at the youthful faces and earnest demeanor of those half dozen young
graduates of the New Republic's Space Academy made Leia feel a hundred years
old.
The trio of bodyguards Ashgad had brought with him bowed to her as well
Handsome androgynes in close-fitting, light blue uniforms with the oddly
dead-looking hair of very expensive dolls.
As she watched the bronze-embossed doors of the corridor shut
behind them, Leia heard a soft, gravelly whisper behind her say, "Those
three smell wrong, Lady. They are no living flesh."
Leia glanced behind her at the four small, gray, wrinkled human-oids who
seemed to have melted from the antechamber's walls. The smallest, who barely
topped Leia's elbow, regarded the bronze doors with narrowed yellow eyes.
Several years had passed since, in the face of mounting pressure from the
Council, Leia had eliminated her bodyguard of Noghri hunter-killers.
Leia understood it; even before the unfortunate incident of the Barabel
ambassador, there were those who said it ill behooved her to wield a weapon
that had been Palpatine's. Bringing them on this mission had been a terrible
risk.
Do not trust Ashgad, the message had said.
She had sent for them, secretly, just before departure. There were some
risks greater than schism in the Council.
"Technically, it is living flesh, though," said Leia thoughtfully.
"They're synthdroids, Ezrakh. I've seen them in the pleasure domes on
Hesperidium and Carosi. Sculpted synthflesh over metal armatures.
They have only minimal internal computers; their actions are centrally
controlled, probably from Ashgad's ship, because I don't know of any
technology that would transmit from as far away as Chorios itself."
She folded her arms, and a small dark line appeared between the sharp
brushstrokes of her brow. "And as far as I know, they're very, very
expensive. Would you just make sure for me that they do get on their
vessel?"
The Noghri inclined his head, but not before she saw the wrinkle of amused
comprehension in his eyes. "Gshkaath already sees to it, L
ady."
Maybe the message she had received had prejudiced her, she thought, shaking
her head. It was something she tried daily to guard herself against, but
personal prejudice could never entirely be discounted.
The Noghri started to withdraw--they tended to keep themselves separate from
the Academy honor guard, who were among the few even aware of their presence
on the ship--but Leia raised her hand impulsively.
"What about Master Dzym?" she asked. "How does he smell to you?"
Ezrakh hesitated a moment, weighing the question, the folds of his leathery
gray face tightening. Then he made a sign of negation. "His smell is a human
smell. I do not like him either, Lady--I do not like his eyes--but he smells
as other humans do."
Leia nodded, a little comforted. "Will you come with me?" she asked.
"And you, Marcopius, if you would. She smiled to one of the young Academy
guards. It wasn't their fault, she knew, that the hunter-killers of Honoghr
could slice a potential assassin to pieces before a human--particularly
these youths--could unlimber a blaster rifle, nor was it the fault of the
Academy guards that she could not risk any possibility of threat while on
this mission. Throughout the trip she had been very careful to keep the
Academy guards in their usual position at her side, and to emphasize to them
that the Noghri were only a backup, a holdout weapon against unexpected
catastrophe.
And as Luke would say, there was no way of telling which group might be her
salvation in a crisis.
At the turbolifts she touched the summon switch, and when she nd her two
guards were within the car, toggled the controls for the shuttlecraft hangar
deck.
Do not meet with Ash`gad.
Down on the Borealis shuttle deck, Luke Skywalker turned the slip of
fiimsiplast over in his hands.
It was small, about the length and width of two fingers, the
semi-transparent stuff used for packing and wrapping delicate objects for
shipping. It had been carefully but unevenly torn from a larger piece and
wadded tight in the innards of a cheap music box in fact.
The words were written in graphite marker, such as his uncle had used to
mark rocks and scrap metal out in the field.
The tune the box played was an old one, a song about a beleaguered queen and
her three magical birds.
The handwriting was Callista's.
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