Muuurgh led Han up a paved path through the jungle, until they reached a large, very modern building. “Administration Center,” the Togorian said, indicating the building.
The “bodyguard” led Han around to a side entrance, and then down a corridor until he reached a door. “You, Muuurgh, sleep here,” he said, opening the door.
Inside was a small suite consisting of a bedroom, refresher unit, and a small sitting room. Han was pleased to see that Teroenza had been mindful of the terms of the contract. In one corner of the bedroom was a fully equipped sim unit. Muuurgh walked to the door of the bedroom and waved a clawed hand at it. “Yours. Pilot sleep here.”
“But where will you sleep?” Han asked.
As expected, Muuurgh indicated the sitting room. “Muuurgh here.”
Great, Han said. These priests don’t trust me any more than I trust them. With Muuurgh sleeping between me and the door to the outside, I’d be taking a big chance trying to sneak out at night. Just great.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable to me,” Han said, doing his best imitation of wide-eyed innocence. Inwardly, he was wondering whether Muuurgh was a sound sleeper. “Maybe you should get a room of your own, so you could sleep comfortably.”
“Muuurgh most comfortable when he is keeping word of honor,” the Togorian said. Han stared at the catlike being. Had he glimpsed a flash of humor in those blue-green eyes with their slitted pupils? “Muuurgh give word of honor to watch Pilot always, so Muuurgh most comfortable here.”
Han nodded. “Right.”
He stared for a moment at the blaster in the Togorian’s holster. “I had a blaster when I came here, but I don’t know where it is, now,” he commented. “I guess I’ll need to ask about getting it back.”
“Pilot not need blaster.” Muuurgh flexed his fingers and the retractable claws popped out. “High Priest say Pilot not need blaster.”
“But what if I get attacked by some kind of … predator?” Han waved at the omnipresent jungle outside the building. There were probably dozens of predators who might enjoy hunting an off-worlder, either for food or fun.
The giant alien shook his whiskered head. “Never happen. Pilot have Muuurgh, who has blaster.”
“Uh … that’s true,” Han said. Mentally, he made a note to ask Teroenza for some kind of weapon. He felt naked without one, even after only having had one for a couple of days.
“So, Muuurgh, shall we go exploring?” Han asked. “I don’t have any baggage to unpack, as you can see.”
“Explore where?” the Togorian asked.
“I’d like to tour the factories,” Han said. “And this Administration Center.”
“Fine,” the Togorian said. “Come, Pilot.”
“Right behind you,” Han said, suiting his action to his words.
They walked the corridors of the Administration Center, glanced in at the mess hall, toured the guards’ wing, and peeked at the priests’ quarters. When Han caught a glimpse of the Armory, he realized that the Ylesian priests must be afraid of a pilgrim uprising, because the percentage of guards to workers was high. The Armory boasted a lot of heavy-duty riot control armament—force pikes and stun gas. The guards they met came from many different worlds. Besides humans, Han saw Rodians, Sullustans, Twi’leks, and porcine Gamorreans.
“So let me get this straight,” he said to Muuurgh as they skirted an area in the Administration Center that signs in many languages identified as RESTRICTED ACCESS. “The guards all sleep here most of the time? But why don’t they sleep near the pilgrims’ dormitory if the priests want to make sure the workers stay under control?”
“Sleep-time not the problem,” the Togorian said in his halting Basic. “After pilgrims are Exulted, can barely walk back, go sleep right away. Only time pilgrims get mad, angry at bosses, is before Exultation.”
Makes sense, Han thought dourly. Give the addicts their fix, and then they just sleep it off until the next day. “Then the guard patro—”
The pilot stopped in midword when he glimpsed something large and grayish gliding far down the corridor in the off-limits area. Han squinted into the dimness. “Hey … what was that?” he muttered. “That looked just like a—” Han broke off as the object turned the corner. He started after it at a good clip.
Muuurgh made a futile grab for his charge, but Han was quicker than the big alien and dodged. He jogged down the “forbidden” hallway, listening hard for the sound of footsteps, but none came.
When he reached the junction of the corridors, Han turned to stare up the one where he’d glimpsed that flicker of gliding motion. His eyes widened.
Hey, it is a Hutt! What’s a Hutt doing here? There was no mistaking the identity of that huge, sluglike form reclining on its repulsorlift sled.
As he hesitated, Muuurgh pounced on him as though he were a vrelt, and picked up the Corellian bodily. Han repressed a yelp of dismay as the Togorian tucked him under one muscled arm and ran back down the corridor, until they were back in the UNRESTRICTED ACCESS section of the Center.
Muuurgh set Han back on his feet and flexed a hand under the Corellian’s nose. “My people teach, everyone entitled to ONE mistake,” the bodyguard said. “Pilot just have his. No more mistakes, or Muuurgh have to teach Pilot like little cub. Muuurgh has given word of honor, remember. Understood?”
Han eyed the claws that gleamed under his nose, sharp and shiny as razors. “Uh … yeah,” he managed to say. “I understand, Muuurgh. Humans just get … curious, you know?”
“Curiosity fatal sometimes,” Muuurgh growled.
“I can see your point,” Han said dryly. “Or, rather, your points.”
Muuurgh stared at the sharp, shining tips of his claws, then his muzzle lifted back from his fangs, and he made a low, mewling sound. For a moment Han froze, then he looked at the Togorian and realized this was the alien’s form of laughter. Evidently Muuurgh had caught the joke.
Han managed a weak chuckle. “So, how about we get some food, then check out those factories, eh, pal?” he asked.
“Muuurgh always hungry,” the Togorian agreed, leading the way toward the mess hall. “What means this word ‘pal’?”
“Oh, a pal is a friend, a buddy, you know. Someone you spend time with that you like,” Han explained.
“Yessss …” the Togorian said, nodding. “Pilot means ‘packmate.’ ”
“Right.”
“Good,” the bodyguard said. “Muuurgh misses his packmates.”
Han recalled Teroenza saying that his people came from Nal Hutta, the Hutt homeworld, but Han hadn’t realized that that meant there were Hutts living on Ylesia. When questioned, Muuurgh confirmed that he had seen several of the “slug masters who ride on air” as he called them.
There’s only one reason Hutts are here, Han thought. They’re the real masters of Ylesia. After all, they dominate the contraband spice trade …
Lunch was good, if unimaginative and (to Han’s taste) lacking in seasoning. Still, the cook was no slouch. His or her bread was very good, Han thought as he chewed on a bite of Alderaanian flatbread. He realized suddenly, with a pang, that it had been nearly a day since he’d thought of Dewlanna. The thought made him feel vaguely disloyal, but then he took himself in hand. Dewlanna wouldn’t want him to mope and grieve over her. She’d always enjoyed life, and she wouldn’t expect Han not to, just because she was gone …
He came back out of his reverie to find Muuurgh watching him curiously. “Pilot is thinking of someone far away,” the Togorian observed, waving the bone he had just finished gnawing. Tiny fragments of raw meat still clung to it, but Muuurgh had cleaned it impressively, Han thought. He had to get every little bit. It required a lot of raw meat to keep that massive body going.
“Yeah,” Han agreed with a sigh. “Someone about as far away as anyone can be.”
“Pilot have sweetheart?”
Han shook his head. “Well, there’ve been a few girls here and there,” he admitted, “but nobody special. No, I was th
inking of the person who more or less raised me.”
Muuurgh took a huge gulp of some foamy stuff from a tankard. “Humans raise young much differently than my people do,” he said.
“Really? Tell me about your world.”
Muuurgh obediently launched into a description of Togoria, a world where males and females, though equal, did not mix their societies. Males lived a nomadic hunting existence, flying over the plains on their huge, domesticated flying reptiles, called “mosgoths.” They hunted in packs.
The females, on the other hand, had domesticated animals for meat, so they did not need to hunt. They lived in cities and villages, and it was the female Togorians who had developed all of the planet’s technology.
“Well, if your people don’t live together, how do you”—Han searched for a polite term—“uh … get together, you know, to … uh … reproduce?”
“We travel to city to stay with our mates once each year,” Muuurgh said. “Betweentimes, we think often of each other. Togorians very emotional people, capable of great love,” he added earnestly. “Especially males. Great love is why Muuurgh is here. Males of my species rarely leave our world, does Pilot know that?”
“I do now,” Han said. “So … Muuurgh … when you say great love made you come to Ylesia, what do you mean? Do you have a mate?”
The Togorian nodded. “Promised mate. Someday be mated for life, if Muuurgh can but find her.” The huge alien sighed, looking so woeful that Han felt sorry for him.
“What’s her name?”
“Mrrov. Beautiful, beautiful Mrrov. As Togorian females do, she decided to take look at big galaxy. Muuurgh begged her not to go, but females very stubborn.”
The alien looked at Han, who nodded. “Yeah, I’ve run into that myself.”
“Mrrov gone long time, years. When she not come home to be mated, Muuurgh so sad that he cannot stay on Togoria. Must discover what happened to her.”
“So … did you?” Han took a sip of his Polanis ale.
“Muuurgh traced her, from world to world to world.”
“And?” Han prompted when the Togorian paused.
“And Muuurgh lost her. Someone on Ord Mantell said he saw her board ship at spaceport. Muuurgh check schedules, find out ship had many pilgrims on board. Several ports of call for ship. Muuurgh take chance, come here, because so many pilgrims come here.” The big felinoid sighed heavily and nibbled on a meat-dripping bone. “Gamble no good. Muuurgh ask, priests say no Togorians here. Muuurgh not know where else to go. Muuurgh need credits to continue search …” The alien swallowed a last bite, and his whiskers actually drooped.
“So you decided to take a job as a guard here, while you got enough money to go on searching,” Han said, guessing at the logical end of the story.
“Yessss …”
Han shook his head. “That’s sad, pal. I hope you find her, I really do. It’s tough to lose people that you love.”
The bodyguard nodded.
After lunch, they headed down to the factories and walked around the huge buildings. Han sniffed the air, smelling the odor of the different spices mingling. His nose tingled slightly, and he wondered if just smelling the spice could be intoxicating. He waved at the glitterstim building. “Let’s go inside. I’ve heard about how they process this spice, and I’d like to see it for myself.”
When they walked into the cavernous building, a guard stopped them and conferred with Muuurgh, who explained who Han was. The Rodian guard on duty gave them badges and infrared goggles, then waved them on in.
“Goggles?” Han said in Rodian. He understood the language perfectly, but his pronunciation was a bit laborious. “We have to wear them?”
The guard’s purple eyes sparkled at hearing a human speak his language. “Yes, Pilot Draygo,” he said. “Below the ground floor, there are no visible lights permitted. You take the turbolift down. Each level down represents a one-grade increase in the quality of the spice. The longest and best fibers are processed far below ground, to eliminate any possibility of their being ruined by light.”
“Okay,” Han said, beckoning to Muuurgh. The two walked between aisles of supplies, to reach the platform turbolift in the center of the facility. “Let’s go all the way down and see the really good stuff,” he said to the Togorian. Privately, Han was wondering whether he might be able to light-finger some of those tiny black vials. Selling a little glitterstim on the side in a port city would increase his credit account by leaps and bounds …
Han pushed the button for the bottom floor, and the platform, swaying slightly, started down.
Cool air wafted up from the depths as the turbolift went down in pitch-darkness. The draft felt wonderful after the humid heat of the Ylesian jungle.
Within one floor, all light was gone. Han fumbled for his goggles, pulled them up over his eyes. Immediately he could see, though everything was in shades of black and white. The illumination came from small light inserts in the walls. The turbolift plunged downward, and Han could see the workers as they crouched over their workstations. Piles of raw, fibrous threads studded with minuscule crystals lay piled before them.
Finally, six floors down, the turbolift ground to a halt. Han and Muuurgh got off. “Have you ever been here before?” he asked the bodyguard softly. Muuurgh’s neck fur was standing on end, and his white whiskers bristled beneath his goggled eyes.
“No …” the Togorian whispered back. “My people are plains-dwellers. Not like caves. Not like dark. Muuurgh will be happy when Pilot wishes to leave this place. Only Muuurgh’s word of honor keeps him here in wretched darkness.”
“Steady,” Han said. “We won’t be here that long. I just want to get a look around.”
He led the way into the factory. The cavernous area was filled with soft swishings, but was otherwise silent. Long tables lined the walls and were ranged in the aisleways. Each table was a workstation, and a worker sat or crouched, according to his, her, or its individual anatomy, before the table. There were many humans, Han realized, sitting on tall stools, hunched over their work.
Few looked up as Han and Muuurgh went up to the level supervisor, a furred Devaronian female, and identified themselves. The supervisor waved a reddish, sharp-nailed hand at the floor. “My workers are the most skilled,” she said proudly. “It takes skill to measure and trim the number of fibrous strands so each dose will contain the correct amount of spice. It is essential—but very difficult—to line up the fibers so precisely that they will all activate at the same moment when exposed to visible light.”
“Is it a mineral?” Han asked. “I know it’s mined.”
“It is naturally occurring, but we don’t know how it’s formed, Pilot. We believe it may have a biological origin, but we’re not sure. It’s found deep in the tunnels on Kessel, and it must be mined in total darkness, just as you see here.”
“And the strands have gotta be put into these casings just right.”
“Correct. Improper alignment can cause the tiny crystals to fracture against each other. If that happens, they grind each other into a far less potent—and valuable—powder. It can take a skilled worker an hour to properly align just one or two cylinders of glitterstim.”
“I see,” Han said, fascinated. “Do you mind if we just wander around? I promise we won’t touch anything.”
“You may. However, please avoid distracting any of the workers while they are aligning the spice. One inadvertent twist, as I said, could ruin an entire thread.”
“I understand,” Han said.
The raw glitterstim threads were all black, but Han knew from hearing about it that they would shine blue when they ignited in visible light. Han stopped behind one of the human workers and watched in fascination as the worker separated out threads of ebony-colored spice, aligning them with the utmost care. The threads curled around the worker’s fingers, some of them as fine-spun as silk, but the tiny crystals made them incredibly sharp.
The worker positioned one group of incredibly tangled thr
eads in the jaws of a tiny vise, then proceeded to painstakingly separate out the threads, until the crystalline structures were aligned. The worker’s fingers moved almost too fast to watch, and Han realized that he was watching a highly skilled craftsman—no, woman. He was amazed that these pilgrims could actually accomplish something requiring this much dexterity. After seeing them last night following the “Exultation,” he’d more or less assumed that they were dull-witted cretins. They’d certainly looked like it …
The glitterstim worker took out a minuscule set of pliers to untangle a particularly bad snarl. She wormed the narrow-nosed pliers into the tangle, peering intently to find the place where the sharp little crystals were caught together. The fibrous glitterstim curled around her hands like tiny, living tentacles, the sharp little crystal glimmering. The worker abruptly brought her hand back, tugging, and suddenly the snarl straightened out until all the fibers aligned perfectly.
Except one.
Han watched in distress as one sharp-studded strand cut between the woman’s forefinger and thumb. A thin line of blood welled from the deep gash. Han sucked in a breath. A few centimeters deeper, and the tendon in her thumb would have been severed. She hissed with pain, then muttered something in Basic and, freeing her hand, held it to stop the bleeding. Han froze as he heard her accent. This pilgrim was Corellian!
He hadn’t even looked at her before, hidden as she was by the shapeless tan robe, her cap pulled down tightly over her goggled head. But now he realized she was young, not old. She grimaced slightly as she examined the cut. Turning her hand over, she twisted in her seat and held her hand over the floor, so the blood wouldn’t drip onto her workstation.
Han knew he wasn’t supposed to speak to the worker, but she wasn’t working at the moment, and he was concerned. She was bleeding profusely. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Let me call the supervisor so she can fix you up.”
The girl—she was his age, possibly younger—started slightly, then looked up at him. Her face was a whitish-green blur beneath her goggles and cap, and seemed deathly pale in the infrared light. No wonder, Han thought, cooped up down here all day long, no exposure to sunlight.
Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy I: The Paradise Snare Page 9
