There was one more thing he had to do. Taking the pistol he had brought with him, he flipped open its butt end. Switching the terminal control from Charge to Draw, he attached it to the matching terminals in the haft of his lightsaber.
Leaning back, he regarded the mist silently as his father’s ancient weapon sucked power.…
VIII
AFTER replacing the marrow, the doctor had heat-sealed the bone, then folded muscle, flesh and skin around it to re-form. An epidermal flush concluded the operation and assured that the new skin would take and not fall off in fragments and flakes in the near future.
While powerful, the local anesthetic the doctor had used was beginning to wear off. Captain-Supervisor Grammel still had no sensation in his right arm, but he could see it. He used his left hand to lift the rebuilt limb toward the light, turned it over for a look at the obverse side.
Experimentally he tried flexing his fingers. They reacted only slightly, but they reacted.
“There is no permanent nerve damage,” the doctor informed him as Grammel slid out of the infirmary surgery booth. Grammel continued to study his arm. “The nerves were easy to lay back in and the bone sealed smooth. Your arm is good as new. It will feel and act like it in about five days. Only one thing.” The Captain-Supervisor looked at her. “You’ll never sweat from that arm again.” As the doctor continued putting away her instruments, she continued conversationally, “If more than your forearm had been equally destroyed—let’s suppose the entire upper half of your right side—then we’d have had to equip you with at least one series of artificial perspirators. But with radical reconstruction restricted to your right forearm, your body will compensate for the lost area easily enough.”
With an exploratory hand she reached out and touched the right side of Grammel’s face. “How is your hearing on this side?”
“Adequate,” Grammel replied curtly. “You’re an efficient mechanic, Doctor. I’ll see that you’re suitably rewarded.”
“There is a way to do that.”
“What would you like?”
She slipped out of her stained robe and returned to arranging her instruments neatly within the proper cabinets. She was an old woman and her eyesight and hearing were not what they once were. Certainly not as good as Captain-Supervisor Grammel’s, even allowing for the new timpanium she’d installed in the rebuilt ear.
An unlucky woman, she’d permitted her modest talents to be used by the Empire. Such was often the case with people who no longer cared much about living or dying. She hadn’t cared since a particular young man had perished in a fiery landspeeder crash some forty years ago. The Empire had stepped in and given her, if not exactly a reason to live, something useful to do in lieu of dying.
She squinted up at him. “Don’t execute those six troops. The ones from the rear restraint detachment.”
“That’s a surprising request for a reward,” Grammel mused. “No,” he added somberly, seeing the expression on her face, “I suppose it’s not. Not coming from you. I have to refuse.”
He ran a hand over the dark suture that ran from the upper part of his partly shaved skull down by his rebuilt ear to disappear like a fishing line into his lower jaw. There was an organic suspension implanted along that line. It would hold his jaw in place and allow it to function normally until that side of his face knitted properly. When the healing process was complete, the suture would be absorbed into his body.
“They’re incompetent,” he finished.
“Unlucky,” the doctor countered firmly. She was about the only person on Mimban who dared argue with the Captain-Supervisor. Healers can usually afford to be independent. Those who might be tempted to fight with them never know when they might have need of their services. To Grammel, a little dissension was cheap insurance against an accidental slip of the bone welder.
Turning from her, he studied himself in a mirror. “Six fools. They allowed the prisoners to escape.”
As usual, the doctor couldn’t begin to read Grammel’s thoughts. It was entirely possible he was admiring the scar running parallel to her suture. Most men would have been appalled by it. Grammel’s aesthetics, however, differed from those of most men.
“Two Yuzzem,” the doctor reminded him, “with human aid are a difficult combination to fight. Especially if outside help was involved.”
Grammel turned to her. “That is what has been troubling me. They must have had such help. The escape was too clean, too neat, for it to be otherwise. Especially for a pair of strangers. You still have not given me a legitimate reason for canceling the execution of the six guards.”
“Two of them are permanently maimed,” she told him, “and the others all scarred in various ways beyond my ability to repair. Your resources here are far from limitless, Captain-Supervisor. If you intend to search the region around all the towns you’re going to need every walking man you have. Besides, compassion makes men work harder than fear.”
“You’re a romantic, Doctor,” Grammel countered. “Despite which, your evaluation of my resources is quite accurate.” He turned to exit the room.
“Then you’ll countermand those execution orders?” she called after him.
“I have no choice,” he admitted. “One cannot argue with figures.” The door closed silently behind him.
The doctor turned back to her white sanctuary, gratified. Her task was to save lives. Whenever she could do that in a situation in which Grammel was involved, she felt a true sense of accomplishment.…
Days passed, became four, then five, six.
On the morning of the seventh day, Luke slid into the seat alongside Halla. The old woman insisted on taking her turn behind the controls and neither Luke nor Leia could talk her out of it.
“You said seven days,” Luke finally ventured evenly.
“To ten,” she admitted amiably, continuing to keep her attention on the ground ahead of them. She fought to give the impression that age had honed instead of weakened her ability to penetrate the mist.
Great trees with down-curving branches hung close by them. Halla negotiated a winding path around the thick boles.
Leia was resting on one of the cushioned, water-repellent seats behind them, gnawing on an oblong piece of fruit she’d found in one of the food lockers. The fruit shone in the dim daylight. It had been treated with some kind of slick preservative that gave it a honey-like glaze.
“You sure we’re going in the right direction?”
“Oh, there’s no mistaking that, girl,” Halla insisted. “But the distance could be a little uncertain. The greenies have a way of telling you what you want to hear. Maybe the one who babbled to me felt that if he’d told me the temple of Pomojema was a month’s journey off instead of a week’s, I wouldn’t have given him his methanol roll.”
“Maybe,” the Princess suggested, “he told you there was a temple because he thought the same way. Maybe there is no such temple.”
“We do have the piece of crystal as proof,” Luke pointed out. “At least, we did.” He looked downcast.
“There now, Luke boy,” Halla comforted him. “As you said, there was nothing you could have done about that.”
“Are you sure about the crystal’s properties, Luke?” the Princess asked uncertainly.
Luke nodded slowly. “I couldn’t have made a mistake, Leia. That stirring inside me when I touched it … I’ve only felt that before in the presence of Obi-wan Kenobi.” He stared off into the damp greenery. “It’s strange, like waves breaking inside your head, through your whole body.”
“Okay, the crystal gets first priority then.” She turned to face Halla. “But afterward, we have to get off this planet. The Alliance will give you whatever reward you wish, Halla, if you help us.”
“Oh, you can count on that,” she said. “I’ll do my best for you two.” She noticed a beep from Artoo and added, “Excuse me … you four. But I want nothin’ to do with the Rebels. I’m no outlaw.”
“We’re not outlaws either!” an ou
traged Leia exclaimed. “We’re revolutionaries and reformers.”
“Political outlaws, then,” Halla shot back.
“The Empire is staffed by outlaws.”
The old woman grinned back at Leia, her expression wizened by years. “I’m no philosopher, girl, and I lost any martyr complex I might’ve had forty years ago.”
“Come on, you two,” Luke broke in uncomfortably.
“Do you think she’s right, Luke?” the Princess asked quietly.
“Leia, I …”
“Well, boy?” Halla watched him expectantly.
He was saved the necessity of a response as an abrupt lurch threw everyone toward the left side of the crawler. Halla responded swiftly by throwing all six wheels into reverse. Leaning over the side, Luke had a bad moment when he saw the forward balloon wheel sinking into something with the consistency of watered porridge.
But the crawler was well designed. Multiwheel drive and the powerful engine pulled them clear. Halla leaned over the wheel for a minute, then studied the terrain ahead. A paler plot of ground lay between patches of the treacherous sludge. Running forward once more, the crawler pushed on over firmer ground.
“You have to be alert every second on Mimban,” Halla declared. “This is a crazy world, where the ground itself is your most uncertain enemy.” As if in response, the ground trembled beneath them. Luke frowned, peered over the side.
“Just how stable is this region?” the Princess inquired uneasily.
“First you want me to be a philosopher, now a seismologist,” quipped Halla. “Stable? You know as much as I, child. There are no volcanoes hereabouts, but—”
She froze, barely retaining enough sensation to bring the crawler to a halt.
“I knew that quake wasn’t the right word,” Luke stated.
The firm, winding path they were traveling had risen abruptly in front of them, turned back on itself, and was now staring at them quizzically.
“Force preserve us!” Halla yelped, even as she spun the crawler on its central global wheel and sent them racing at high speed back the way they’d come.
The ground continued to turn and come after them.
Pale cream in color, with streaks of brown, the colossus possessed nothing resembling a normal eye. Instead, the blunt end which was curling back toward them boasted a score of haphazardly spaced, dull, black spots like the eyes of a spider.
A ragged tear below the black orbs was the only other recognizable feature. It split now, revealing jet-black teeth set in concentric circles lining an endless gullet.
Both Yuzzem were chattering madly and firing at the great hulk, with as little accuracy as effect. The Yuzzem’s rifles left thin black streaks on the anemic-looking flesh, but didn’t penetrate deeply enough to cause any real destruction. Luke had his own pistol out and working, as did the Princess. Their bolts glanced harmlessly off back or sides, or the bottom body plates. Threepio and Artoo hung on desperately.
“Wandrella!” Halla was yelling. “It’s a wandrella! We’re finished.”
The great blunt head was still winding ponderously back toward them. They were traveling on firm ground now and not on the monster’s back. But the swamp crawler was built for sturdiness and stability, not speed.
Branches and whole trees snapped off as the probing head curled after them, followed by the great white train of the wandrella’s gargantuan body. Thick sucking sounds issued from beneath the huge body plates as the creature humped along after them. It traveled slowly, but each time it moved it covered meters. And it moved in an inexorable straight line, whereas the crawler had to dodge trees and pools of bottomless ooze. It drew so close that Luke and the others gathered desperately in the front of the crawler.
“Aim for the eye-spots!” he ordered.
Everyone took his advice, and this time their shots seemed more effective. Several bolts struck a couple of the black circles, searing them badly. A dull rumble boiled up out of the creature’s depths, a lingering, moaning thunder. It was part confusion, part barely realized pain.
By now it was clear that the wandrella’s nervous system was either too primitive to be instantly neutralized by energy fire, or too evenly distributed throughout its mass and thus devoid of any vital center.
Ten meters of its front end lifted up, dropped like a great white tree falling in slow motion. Halla tried to dodge, and the crawler struck a thick, rotting stump. The first wheel climbed over with a jolt, sending them tumbling to the floor of the crawler cab, but the second did not. They were hung, the stump pinning them between first and second axle, as that nightmare torso plunged down at them,
Opening wide, the black maw bit and clamped tight around the rear of the crawler. Its grip was devastatingly firm for so rubbery-looking a creature. No one had to give the order to abandon the vehicle. That was understood instantaneously.
Kee was last off, lingering for a final shot down the partly opened throat. He barely leapt clear as the crawler rose into the air. Only his extra-long arms enabled him to retreat safely.
Then they were sprinting for a biding place, but there weren’t any. No mountains to climb, no caves in hillsides here, and they had to be cautious or seemingly solid ground would devour them as efficiently as the worm behind them.
Crumpling noises reached them. Looking back over a shoulder as they ran, Luke saw the wandrella chewing the swamp crawler as if it were some choice morsel plucked from a tree. The analogy was not lost on him. If any of them tried climbing a tree for protection, the same fate would befall them as the unlucky crawler
Their only chance was to find some kind of hiding place, secrete themselves out of sight, and pray that the hulking threat’s sense of smell did not match its size.
Possibly the creature belonged to so primitive a species that it would regard prey as out of sight, out of mind. If it could no longer see them, hopefully the dull-witted monstrosity would interpret that to mean they no longer existed.
“This way!” Luke abruptly decided, turning and running to his left. Leia followed. Slightly ahead and sandwiched between the two Yuzzem, Halla didn’t hear him. She and the two big aliens continued on the way they were headed.
Several minutes passed before a tired Halla slowed and did think to glance behind her. When she did, she saw only the phosphorescent convoy of white worm sliding through the mist well behind them.
She came to a stop, admonishing the two Yuzzem to do likewise. “It’s gone off in a different direction,” she exclaimed. Hin, panting like an engine, nodded affirmation. The trio squinted into the fog around them.
“Luke boy, child,” she called, “you can come out now. It’s given up on us.” Mist-sounds and peeps from the underbrush responded blankly. “Come on, Luke boy,” she added, beginning to feel a little nervous, “don’t be fooling old Halla like this.”
Trying to help, Kee let out a stentorian bellow. Halla had to jump to clap a hand over his mouth, then put her own hand over her own mouth and shook her head, pointing to the last bit of wandrella disappearing into the growth not far enough away. Kee nodded realization, called again more softly through his snoot for their missing companions. Artoo was whistling mournfully.
“Luke,” Halla called again, worried. Together, the three began searching the surrounding brush. When several minutes of this failed to turn up any sign of the Princess or Luke, Halla gathered up the two Yuzzem and glanced back the way they’d come.
“I don’t think it got them … not yet, anyhow. They were right behind us.” She turned, and they started to retrace their steps in the hope that Luke and Leia had somehow managed to elude the beast.
“They may be hiding under a tree somewhere,” ventured Threepio hopefully.
Neither assumption was correct. Luke and the Princess hadn’t been devoured, but neither had they lost their lumpish pursuer. As they had deserted the crawler, the wandrella noted the movement unemotionally. Once the mangled swamp vehicle proved itself unappetizing, the leviathan had turned after smaller,
and, it was hoped, more nutritious prey.
But mysteriously, its food had split into two parts. In primitive wandrella reasoning, the nearer was the tastier. Ignoring Halla and the others, it swerved to follow Luke and Leia.
“It’s still behind us,” Luke told her, breathing with difficulty. A massive circle lined with black dots was humping through bog and brush after them. Leia stumbled over a gnarled root and Luke fought to help her up.
“I … don’t know how much longer I can … keep this up, Luke.”
“Neither do I,” he confessed tiredly, his frantic gaze hunting for someplace, anyplace, to conceal themselves.
“What about a tree?”
“Already thought of that,” he informed her, as they stumbled on. “That thing could pull us out of the biggest tree here, or push it down.”
“It’s getting closer,” she exclaimed, with a backward glance. Her voice was starting to crack.
Luke squinted, saw what appeared to be a regular line of rocks. “Over there,” he urged.
They staggered up to what turned out to be, not a natural formation, but an artificial construct. Each stone was shaped in a hexagonal pattern and fitted to its neighbors without any visible cement or putty. A peculiar tripod of wood and plaited vines decorated with paint or dyes was arranged above the circular wall.
“Looks like some kind of ceremonial cistern,” the Princess decided as they stumbled the last few meters toward it. “Maybe it holds water for a dry season.” She looked back. The merciless pale horror continued remorselessly toward them.
Luke started to put a foot over the wall, got a glimpse beyond it at the same time and recoiled in terror The stone wall surrounded a pit a good nine or ten meters in circumference. Though the sunlight here was far from bright, filtered as it was through mist and rain, it was sufficient to indicate that the empty gulf yawning beneath him was of frightening depth.
The Princess got a look at it too, sucked in her breath. “Luke, we can’t …” But he was running round the edge of the abyss, calling to her.