“They don’t have birds on Togoria,” she reminded him. “Just teeny flying lizards.”
“That’s true,” he said. “But get up early, okay?”
“Okay.”
When Bria arose the next morning, she could not find Han anywhere in their suite of rooms. But she did find a basket of fruit, a jug of fruit juice, some strips of smoked meat, and a loaf of bread on a tray. On the tray was a strip of flimsy and written on it were the following words: “Dress, eat, and come outside. I’ll be waiting—H.”
Bria read the note, raised her eyebrows, then went off to do as it said. Her curiosity was so strong that it even muted the constant craving for the Exultation. Sometimes the longings came in waves so intense that she felt that she might go mad. But as the days passed, such occurrences were rarer.
Bria prayed to all the true gods of the universe that someday they would cease altogether.
When she reached the courtyard outside the building where they’d been quartered, Bria found Han waiting for her. He was sitting astride a mosgoth, with a pack and a blanket strapped behind the saddle. As she stood there uncertainly, he leaned down and held out a hand. “C’mon! Climb up!”
She stared from him to the mosgoth, to the open reaches of the Togorian sky. “You want me to fly with you on this … creature?” she asked. To fly in a spaceship, or aboard a landskimmer, was one thing. To climb aboard a huge reptile and soar off into the sky seemed quite another.
“Sure!” Han leaned over to pat the neck of his mount. “This is Kaydiss, and she’s a real sweetie, aren’t you, girl?”
The mosgoth arched her sinewy neck and flicked out a long, forked tongue, obviously enjoying the caress.
Bria took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. After all, she thought, the worst that can happen is that we’ll fall out of the sky and get killed. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the Exultation anymore, would I?
Grasping his hand, she put a foot up onto the beast’s leg, which it obligingly crooked to help her mount. With a pull and a scramble, she was up, sitting before Han. His arms were around her, as secure as a safety harness. Bria gasped, then shut her eyes as he clucked to Kaydiss and twitched the reins.
With two huge leaping strides and a thrust of the mosgoth’s powerful wings, Han and Bria were airborne and climbing steadily. Bria opened her eyes to find herself high above the tops of the buildings. The wind rushed by her face, blowing her hair, bringing tears to her eyes.
“Oh!” she cried. “Han, this is wonderful!”
“Yep,” he said, a pardonable note of smugness in his voice. “And just wait till you see where I’m taking you.”
Bria held the front of the saddle (with the two of them squeezed together, she wasn’t too worried about falling off) and exulted in the feeling of really flying.
Forests and rivers flowed by beneath them. Bria stared down at the fields, the towns, and the lakes, grinning ecstatically. She hadn’t felt this good since … well, since her last Exultation.
But even the Exultation seemed to have lost its power over her, for the moment. Leaning forward, Bria opened her mouth, drinking in the wind of their passage. She wanted to wave her arms and whoop aloud, but she resisted, not wanting to chance unbalancing the mosgoth.
“Won’t it tire her out, carrying double?” she shouted back at Han.
His voice came almost in her ear. She could feel the warmth of his breath. “She’s used to carrying male Togorians. You and me together don’t weigh as much as Muuurgh—or even some of the smaller males. Kaydiss is fine.”
Half an hour later, the broad river they’d been following widened, until it branched into a large delta. Han turned the mosgoth north, and then, within a few more minutes, Bria saw the curling white breakers breaking over silvery-gold sand.
She turned to give Han an excited smile. “The beach!”
“I promised myself that someday we’d go to a real beach,” he said. “One where we could swim, and not worry about getting eaten.”
He was guiding the mosgoth lower and lower now, and finally, she came to a halt on the sand. Han slipped on her wing hobble, then left her to forage for herself in the nearby salt marsh. He returned, carrying the blanket and their lunch.
“Swim first,” he asked, “or food first?”
Bria looked at the white surf and felt the tug of the water. Her family owned a beach house on Corellia, and she’d loved to swim ever since she’d been old enough to walk. “Swim,” she said.
Glad that she’d worn a one-piece singlet beneath her shirt and trousers, Bria pulled off her outer clothes and raced into the water. Han, having stripped down to his shorts, followed her.
She soon found that, to her surprise, he couldn’t swim.
“Never got the chance to learn,” he admitted, a little embarrassed. “I was always working, and when I wasn’t actually working, I was swoop racing or something. I told you, the beach on Ylesia was the first time I’d ever seen a lot of water all together.”
“Well,” said Bria firmly, “today you’re going to learn. You’re young and strong and you’ve got good balance and reflexes. You’ll be fine.”
Han proved an apt pupil. Bria was amazed at how hard he concentrated, how precisely he followed her instructions on how to move his arms, his legs, when to breathe, etc. She commented on it at one point. Han smiled sardonically. “Pilots learn to follow instructions,” he said. “Or they wind up dead pilots.”
Before they came out of the water to eat, he was paddling around fearlessly in the surf and had begun to be able to coordinate his breathing with his arm strokes and leg kicks.
“You’re a very good pupil,” Bria praised as they sat together on the blanket, gazing out to sea.
“Thanks,” he said. “You’re a good teacher.”
They shared food from the provisions he’d brought, and then they walked hand in hand along the beach. At one point a tiny lizard flew overhead, winking in shades of green and gold. Bria put out a hand and held very, very still, and the tiny thing lighted on her fingers and clung there, its wings waving gently in the breeze. Han grinned at her. “You look … beautiful …” he said.
“I feel as though I own the world,” she replied, half joking. “This day … I’ll remember it always, Han.”
“You own this beach,” he said, smiling down at her. “I give it to you. It’s yours, for today.”
The lizard took wing, still quite unafraid, and flew away.
As they strolled through the breakers, Han told her more about his determination to get into the Imperial Academy. “People look up to an Imperial officer,” he said. “Nobody’s ever looked up to me for anything, before, but if I can get in, that’s all going to change. I’ll be able to turn my life around, Bria. I’ll never have to steal or smuggle or cheat anyone again.”
Bria’s eyes filled with tears at the earnestness in his voice. She reached up and caressed his cheek gently. “My heart breaks for you, sometimes,” she whispered. “You’ve known such cruelty, such betrayal …”
He touched her cheek in return, his brown eyes intent. The wind ruffled his hair. “But I also had one person who loved me,” he said. “Let me tell you about Dewlanna …”
They walked slowly along, hand in hand, and Bria listened as he told her about his best friend during his childhood. By the time they’d reached the blanket again, they were walking in silence. “Garris Shrike sounds like he’d fit in perfectly on Ylesia,” Bria said, finally.
“He’d probably wind up running the place,” Han agreed, a bleak note in his voice. He lowered himself onto the blanket and sat, arms draped across the tops of his knees, looking out to sea, his expression troubled. “I should have killed him when I had the chance, Bria. But … I didn’t.”
She dropped down beside him. “That’s because you’re a decent person, Han,” she said fiercely. “You think you’re tough, and you are—but you’re also decent. You’re no coldblooded killer like Shrike. If you’d shot him, you’d be no better th
an he is.”
He turned to her, his face profoundly intent, very serious. “You’re right,” he said softly. “Sometimes when things seem so confused, you make them all come clear … with just a few words. You’re a very … wise … woman …”
Bria sat perfectly still as he leaned forward and kissed her, gently, on the cheek. His lips were warm. As he started to pull away, she put her hand on his cheek. “Don’t.”
His head turned, and his lips found her mouth. He tasted of sea salt. Bria closed her eyes, and time seemed to stop.
After several long heartbeats, he drew back. Bria opened her eyes to find him searching her face. “How was that?” he asked softly, sounding a little breathless. “Okay?”
Bria was more than a little breathless. “Better than okay,” she whispered, sliding her arms around his neck, feeling the sun-warmed skin of his bare shoulders. His arms went around her, holding her tightly. “Much, much better …”
She kissed him back, and it was a long, long time before they spoke again …
The following day Mrrov and Muuurgh made ready to set off on their “honeymoon” and Bria and Han prepared to raise ship for the Corellian system.
At their final moment of parting, Muuurgh grasped Han by the shoulders and shook him, very gently. “I will miss you,” he said in his halting—but much improved—Basic. “Must you go? You like Togoria, you said so. Without you, I would never have found Mrrov. The Margrave of all Togoria has asked me to tell you that you and Bria are welcome to stay forever. You can hunt with us, Han. Fly mosgoths. We would be happy.”
Han smiled at the big alien. “And see Bria only once a year? I’m afraid that’s not the way we humans do things, pal. But thanks for the invite, Muuurgh. Maybe I’ll come back and see how you and Mrrov are doing someday.”
“Han do that, and soon,” Muuurgh said, his Basic disintegrating in the face of strong emotion. He grabbed the Corellian in a hug, scooping him clean off the ground. Han hugged him back.
Bria and Mrrov also exchanged a fond farewell. “You will conquer your need for the Exultation,” Mrrov told Bria, earnestly. “I did. For a long while after I made myself resist it, I grieved for it. But after many days, the longing eased, and now I never feel it. I let my anger against those slavers help me wipe the longing from my spirit.”
“I hope I can be as strong as you, Mrrov,” Bria said.
“You already are,” the Togorian female assured her. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
Once aboard the Talisman, Han lifted the Ylesian yacht into the clear skies of Togoria with a genuine feeling of regret. “This is a good world,” he said to Bria, who was sitting beside him in the copilot’s seat. “Good people, too.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was certainly good to us. I’ll never forget yesterday, if I live to be a hundred.”
Han smiled at her. “Me neither, sweetheart. All my life I wanted to go to the beach and just be able to act like a regular citizen—no scams, no security forces to worry about, no contraband burning a hole in my pocket. Thanks to you, I know what that’s like, now.”
She gave him such a tender smile that he leaned over and kissed her. “Bria … I …” Han hesitated, took a deep breath, and then shook his head.
Squaring his shoulders, he turned back to his controls and grew very busy with his piloting. Bria sat there watching him, never taking her eyes off him as he calculated their jump to hyperspace, and fed the coordinates he’d chosen into the navicomputer.
When the stars streaked by them, and they had safely made the jump, she swiveled her seat toward his and put a hand on his arm. “Yes?” she said. “Go on. You were saying?”
Han tried to look innocent, and failed. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“You were about to tell me something, when you got busy piloting. Well, we’re safely in hyperspace now, so there’s no reason you can’t tell me.” She smiled slightly. “I’m waiting.”
“Well, I was just thinking … that I’m hungry,” he finished in a rush. “Really hungry. Let’s go get some lunch.”
“We ate before we left, barely an hour ago,” she reminded him. Her expression gentle, she reached out and captured one of his hands and held it in both her own. “Tell me,” she said.
“Well …” He shrugged. “I’m telling you I’m hungry again.”
“Are you?” she asked quietly.
“I …” He shook his head, obviously ill at ease. “Uh, no. Hey … Bria, honey … I’m no good at this.”
“You’re good at some things,” she said, smiling impishly.
“Like what?” he challenged, grinning back.
“Like … piloting. And fighting. And rescuing people.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” He looked at her again, and all the sudden rush of bravado faded. “Bria … what I was trying to say was that I …” He cleared his throat. “This is not easy.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
Raising his hand to her lips, she kissed it, then said, “Han … I love you, too.”
He looked both pleased and surprised. “You do?”
“Yes. For a long time, now. I think I fell in love with you that day in the refectory, when you wouldn’t go away, no matter how much I told you to.”
“Really? I didn’t know until … I don’t know when I knew. But when I figured it out … it scared me, Bria. Never happened to me before.”
“Loving someone? Or being loved?”
“Both. Except for Dewlanna. She loved me, I guess. But that was different.”
“Yes.” Her eyes were shining. “This is different. I just hope we can be together, Han.”
Now it was his turn to take her hands in his. “Of course we’ll be together,” he said. “I won’t let anything get in the way of that. Count on it, sweetheart.”
· · ·
Han set a course for the Talisman that took them far away from Hutt space and brought them in a leisurely three-day trip to the Corellian system. He was deliberately prolonging his and Bria’s time alone together. Inwardly, he was dreading having to go back to Corellia and meet her family. He knew almost nothing about how “citizens” lived, and he was pretty sure he would have trouble fitting in.
He also knew that once they reached Tralus, he’d have to get busy. Han was all ready to change identities as soon as they landed on Corellia. But Bria would be wanted by the t’landa Til and the Hutts, too, and they knew her real name. The first thing Han planned to do as soon as he had credits available was to equip Bria with a fake ID.
Besides, he was trying to give her as much time as he could to heal. He knew she still pined for the Exultation, though she no longer broke down in panic attacks or fits of sobbing. But several times he’d awakened in the night to find her gone.
When he searched for her, he usually found her in the control cabin, sitting in the copilot’s seat and staring out at the stars with such wistful longing in her eyes that Han felt a pang of jealousy.
Why can’t I be enough for her? Why isn’t our love enough? he wondered. He wanted to be enough for her, wanted her to be happy and content—but he could tell she wasn’t. It grieved Han, and it made him angry, too.
Once he tried to talk to her about it. “It’s been almost ten days! Why do you miss it so much, still?” he demanded, hearing the edge of anger in his voice and unable to stop it. “Tell me, Bria. Make me understand!”
She gazed at him, her blue-green eyes very sad, almost haunted. “I can’t explain it, Han. It’s like they took a piece of me … a piece of my spirit. It’s not just missing the Exultation itself, the pleasure, the warmth. I’m getting past that. It’s the …” she faltered, then fell silent.
He was sitting beside her in the pilot’s seat, and he reached out and grasped her hands. They were cold, and he warmed them gently in his. “Go on …” he said quietly. “I’m here. I’m listening.”
“Both Mrrov and Teroenza were wrong when they said only weak-minded people fall into the trap of the Ylesian religi
on,” Bria said slowly, selecting her words with care. “Oh, some of the pilgrims may be discontented people who’ve never been successful in life and are looking for a way to escape responsibility. But not most of them. I got to know a lot of them, Han.”
“Yeah, you did,” he encouraged.
“Most of the Ylesian pilgrims were … idealists, I guess you’d say. People who believed that there was something better, some meaning to life. They went looking in the wrong places, they got fooled into believing the priest’s bilge about the One and the All … but that doesn’t make their goal—their aspiration—of believing in a higher power stupid.”
He nodded, and saw tears gather in her beautiful eyes and spill over. Concerned, he burst out, “Bria … sweetheart. Don’t tear yourself up like this! Just because this religion turned out to be a hokey fake doesn’t mean life isn’t worth living. We have each other. We’re gonna have money. We’ll be fine.”
“Han …” Gently she touched his cheek, caressed his face, and gave him a loving smile. “You’re the ultimate pragmatist, aren’t you? If you’re not getting shot at or caught in a tractor beam, life is great, right?”
He shook his head, a little stung. “I’m a simple guy, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand what you’re talking about, Bria. It would be nice if there were some higher power, maybe. I just don’t happen to believe there is. And it hurts me to see you hurt.”
“Han … don’t you realize that the only person you can really take care of and protect is you—”
“And you, Bria,” he broke in. “Don’t forget that for one second. We’re a team, sweetheart.”
“Yes,” she said. “We are a team. But it’s hard for me to be content with not being shot at or having money. I want more.”
“You want some reason for everything that happens. You want to work to make your ideals real,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But I understand that you don’t let questions like the meaning of life torment you. You’re probably the smart one, Han.”
“Smart?” Han frowned. “I ain’t dumb, I know that, but I never pretended to be a philosopher or something.”
Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy I: The Paradise Snare Page 24
