They were approaching a massive, forbidding ziggurat of ancient Mimbanian architecture. It was constructed of gray and black stone, exactly like the ruins Luke had spotted when searching for the Princess’ ship. The edifice towered, despite its roughly tapering shape, over the more recent, simpler structures of the mining town.
“Not your average lockup,” he commented softly as they strode under the thick stone arch over the entrance. Boldly, he queried the trooper next to him. “What is this place?”
The helmeted soldier turned to him with, “Prisoners and violators of the law are to provide answers, not questions.”
Surprisingly, as they moved down a stone corridor lined with modern tubing and electronic componentry, the trooper volunteered some information. “This is one of the old temples built by the natives of this world.”
Luke’s surprise was genuine. “You mean, those pitiful wretches who beg for drinks?”
Unexpectedly, the man laughed. “Good, you’ve got a sense of humor. You’ll need it. Greenies, building this? You must spend all your time in the mines. Not me.”
The trooper swelled with self-importance. “I’m always trying to improve myself. As you know,” he began, “there are several semi-intelligent races on this world, besides the greenies. Some are more degenerate than the others. Whatever race built these places,” and he gestured with his rifle at the stone roof arching overhead, “has long since died out. At least, insofar as the Imperial survey has been able to determine.” They turned another corner and Luke marveled at the size of the structure.
“This one’s been converted to house the mine offices and Imperial headquarters for Mimban.” He shook his head. “You miners, you don’t know much of anything except your own work.”
“That’s true,” Luke admitted, feeling no remorse at damning all miners. They hadn’t been particularly hospitable to him since he’d landed in their company. “We’re from another town,” he added for good measure.
The trooper’s brief venture into camaraderie vanished and he replied coldly, “That may or may not be. You chronic brawlers lie a lot. Just because the Empire tolerates a limited amount of disorder here as a safety valve for you people is no reason to abuse the privilege. You make it tough on all your fellows.” He pointed ahead, to the trooper who was hefting the satchel of confiscated weapons.
“When killing devices are involved, it becomes more than a question of worker discipline. Charges will be brought. Too bad for you. I hope you get what you deserve.”
“Thanks,” said Luke drily.
One of the miners grumbled, “Not our fault. Saberman and the woman led us on.”
“Shut up, you,” ordered the sergeant. “You’ll have your own chance to tell your side of it to Captain-Supervisor Grammel.”
That caused both Luke and Leia to start violently. Grammel was the man Halla had warned them about.
“Perhaps he’ll be generous,” the sergeant went on philosophically. “Good workers are difficult to get here. He may leave you most of your fingers.”
“I wish we’d asked Halla more about this Grammel,” Luke murmured.
“Yes, Halla.” The Princess sounded discouraged. “She didn’t break her back trying to save us, did she?”
“What could she do,” Luke countered, “against Imperials?”
“You’re right, I guess. But I would’ve thought she’d try something.” Leia shrugged. “I suppose I can’t blame her for saving herself.”
“At least Threepio and Artoo got away,” Luke added softly.
“Hey, any more chatter back there and I’ll take off some digits myself,” the sergeant warned.
“How would you like to bury yourself under four feet of mud for about an hour?” the Princess snapped.
“I wouldn’t,” admitted the sergeant calmly. “How would you like your pretty tongue burnt out with a low-power blaster?”
Leia subsided. They were in enough trouble. She’d gain nothing by provoking them more. She concentrated her stare on the middle of the sergeant’s back, trying to drive him insane. The sergeant showed no hint of being affected. Probably solid bone under the helmet, she mused.
They turned a last corner and entered a large chamber. After the spartan gray stone inside and out, the sybaritic furnishings here came as a shock. Real and artificial fur was used lavishly. Many of the creature comforts Luke would have associated with a far more developed world than Mimban were present. They were not flaunted, however, which indicated that the inhabitant of this chamber regarded them as his natural accouterments.
Across the chamber a single man sat behind an unimposing, functional desk. “Bring them over, sergeant.” His bored voice was broken and gravelly. Luke thought he must have suffered some damage to his vocal cords.
At a gesture from the sergeant, the seven prisoners—including one with a limp and a crudely bandaged leg—were herded across the room to stand close by the desk.
The most impressive thing about Grammel, Luke thought, was the reaction to him by the miners. All of their bluster and swagger had disappeared. They stood staring at the floor, the walls, each other—anywhere but at the man behind the desk. Feet shuffled uneasily.
Without seeming to stare, Luke tried to see the personage who inspired such respectful subservience from hardened men like the five miners. Grammel had his head buried in his hands as he studied some paper. Finally he rubbed his eyes, folded his hands and leaned his elbows on the desk as he surveyed them.
Grammel added no color to his surroundings. His face was egg-shell pale, and the image of the Imperial officer was tarnished further when he stood to reveal a modest paunch curving gently from beneath his sternum like a frozen waterfall of suet, to crash and tumble somewhere below the waistline in a jumble of uniform.
The silver and gray uniform itself was spotless and neat, however, as if in an attempt to camouflage the belly beneath. Above the tight, high collar the neck jumped out to a square jaw bordered by a drooping mustache. The line of that facial hair matched well the dour expression the Captain-Supervisor wore—habitually, Luke guessed. Tiny, penetrating eyes peered out from beneath brows like a granite ridge, over-topped by uneasy black and gray hair.
This was a face that rarely laughed, Luke decided, and then for the wrong reasons.
Grammel began examining each of the uneasy group in turn. Luke borrowed a hint from the miners and tried to concentrate solely on a stain on the furred floor.
“So these are the disturbers, who break the peace to fight with killing weapons,” he observed disapprovingly. Once more that voice grated on Luke’s ears, like a piece of rusty machinery long overdue for lubrication. Full of grimy squeaks and groans, it suited Grammel perfectly.
Stepping forward smartly, the sergeant reported, “Yes, Captain-Supervisor. Permission to take the two wounded to the infirmary.”
“Granted,” said Grammel. He did not quite smile, but his permanent frown faded enough for his lips to straighten slightly. “For a time, they will be better off than those who remain here.”
Under guard, the handless miner and the one with the limp were taken from the room. Grammel resumed his examination of the remaining people. When he reached Luke and the Princess, his mouth twitched as if someone had jabbed him with a pin.
“You two I don’t recognize. Who are you?” He came around from behind the desk, stood nose to nose with Luke. “You, boy! What are you?”
“Just a contract miner, Captain-Supervisor,” Luke stammered, trying to sound appropriately terrified. It wasn’t a difficult task. Nor did he mind a little verbal groveling if his life hung in the balance.
Grammel moved to stare down at the Princess. Now he smiled gingerly, as if the effort hurt him. “And you, my dear? You’re a miner too, I suppose.”
“No.” Leia didn’t look at him. She nodded briefly toward Luke. “I’m his … servant.”
“That’s right,” Luke said quickly. “She’s only my—”
“I can hear, boy,” Grammel m
urmured. He stared back at her, ran a finger down one cheek. “Pretty woman …” She twitched out of his grip. “Spirited, too.” He looked at Luke. “I congratulate you on your taste, boy.”
“Thank you, sir.” Leia glared at him, but what else could he have said?
“Your manners are probably matched only by your incompetence,” the Princess told him.
Grammel merely nodded with satisfaction. “Manners,” he repeated. “Incompetence. Odd way for a servant to speak.” He barked at the sergeant, standing stiffly at attention nearby: “What identification did you find on these two?”
“Identification, Captain-Supervisor? We assumed that it was standard, sir.”
“You haven’t checked their identification, Sergeant?” Grammel inquired slowly.
Succeeding only in giving the impression of a man sweating beneath his armor, the officer explained lamely, “No, sir. We just assumed.”
“Never assume, Sergeant. The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.” He turned politely to Luke and Leia. “Your identification now, please?”
Luke made a pretense of searching his clothing, tried to look stunned when the nonexistent identification didn’t materialize. The Princess fought to imitate him.
“We must have lost it during the fight,” he declared, and then hurriedly tried to change the subject. “These five—three now—attacked us without provocation and—”
“It’s a lie!” one of the miners objected strenuously. He looked to Grammel for sympathy, found none.
“You,” Grammel told the man very quietly, “shut up.” The man complied with alacrity.
A trooper entered the chamber, called out ingratiatingly, “Captain-Supervisor?”
Grammel appeared irritated at the interruption. “Yes, what is it?”
The trooper approached the desk, whispered something in Grammel’s ear. Grammel looked surprised. “Yes, I’ll see him.” He walked toward the door.
A small cloaked figure entered and engaged Grammel in conversation. Luke couldn’t make out more than an occasional word. Leaning over, he whispered to the Princess, “I don’t like this, Leia.”
She whispered back tightly, “You have this wonderfully evocative way about you, Luke, of reducing the most excruciatingly uncomfortable circumstances to the merely mundane.”
Luke looked hurt. The Captain-Supervisor concluded his conversation with the stunted figure, which promptly bowed and scurried from the room. Idly, Luke wondered if the thing under the cloak was human or maybe one of the natives. His speculation was interrupted by Grammel’s return.
“You miners started the fight,” he stated in a no-nonsense tone, pointedly excluding Luke and Leia from that category.
“Oh, but Captain-Supervisor,” the largest of the three began obsequiously, “we were provoked. We were trying only to uphold the town law about fighting.”
“By breaking it,” Grammel countered, “and by attacking this young lady?”
“It wasn’t anything serious,” the man ventured. “We were only goin’ to have a little fun, first.”
“Your fun will cost each of you a half time-period’s pay,” Grammel declared. “I’m going to be lenient with you.” The three men hardly dared appear hopeful. “The mine laws here are lax and permit you considerable leeway in terms of relaxation.” Now he glowered at them.
“However, assault with intent to murder is not the Empire’s idea of productive leisure. Whatever,” he added as an afterthought, “I may think personally.”
Emboldened, one of the miners decided to push his luck. Stepping forward, he announced, “Captain-Supervisor Grammel, I appeal the judgment.”
Grammel eyed the man the way a botanist would a new species of weed. “You have that right. On what grounds?”
“Shortness … shortness of trial and informality of circumstances,” the man finally got out.
“Very well. Since I am the Imperial law here, I will consider your appeal myself.” Grammel paused a moment, then said easily, “Your appeal is rejected.”
“Then I appeal to the Imperial Department of Resources representative in charge of mining operations,” the man riposted. “I want to see the judgment reviewed in another fashion.”
“Certainly,” Grammel agreed. He walked over to the wall behind his desk. Taking a long thin bar of plastic from its place there, he pressed the switch at one end as he came back around the desk. “The conversation has been recorded,” he informed them all.
He depressed another switch and the bar showed a moving line of words across its waxy surface. When the record had finished, he raised and abruptly thrust one end of the unyielding plastic into the argumentative miner’s left eye.
Blood and pulp squirted in all directions as the man collapsed, screaming, to the floor. One of his terrified companions bent over him, tried to staunch the flow of blood from the ruined socket. It ran in a steady stream down the man’s face and coverall front.
“You three are dismissed,” Grammel told them perfunctorily, as if nothing unusual had happened. “Sergeant?”
“Captain-Supervisor?”
“Take these three into the rear holding cells. Their two companions can join them as soon as they’re well enough. Let them sit and think for a while. Record their names and identification codes so that they may more easily pay their fines. Unless,” he finished conversationally, tapping the recorder rod in one palm, “someone else would like to appeal my judgment?”
As the two miners half-carried, half-dragged their unconscious companion to the exit, under guard, Grammel gestured at them with the rod. “He still has his eye, you know. It’s recorded permanently on this. Bring him back when he recovers and I’ll let him see it again.”
The sergeant saw the guards and miners out, then returned to stand watch beside the door.
“I dislike these administrative details,” Grammel said amiably to Luke and the Princess. “But this is a largely unknown, unexplored world and I have little time to waste. Sometimes my decisions must be fast and harsh.
“Only the degree of their ability to devise more sophisticated debasements for themselves separates the human animals that work here from the natives. This kind of inventiveness has been a persistent and lamentable quality of mankind’s for millennia. Realizing that as you must, I’m sure you two will be more sensible than those lower types who just left us.” He sat back on the edge of the desk, commenced tapping his lower leg with the red-tipped rod. Luke watched it nervously.
“I told you, Captain-Supervisor,” he reiterated, “we must have lost our identification in the fight. It must have fallen in the mud. If you’ll just let us go back there I’m sure we can find it. Unless,” he added with seeming concern, “someone came by after the fight and stole it.”
“Oh, I don’t think any of our hard-working citizens would do that,” Grammel commented, turning away. He looked sharply back over his shoulder. “In fact, I don’t think it’s lying there, either. I don’t think you two had any identification to lose.
“From what I’ve been told, you both are more than strangers to this town. You’re strangers to the mine, to the Imperial presence here, to this very world. How you arrived undetected and unauthorized and in one piece I can’t imagine.” He gritted his teeth and added dangerously, “I will find out, however. I always find out what I want to know.”
“That’s funny,” noted the Princess, “because you strike me as having a particularly limited capacity for learning.”
Her remark didn’t faze Grammel. If anything, the Princess’ studied insults appeared to please him. “A little while ago, young lady, you called me incompetent. Now you belittle me intellectually. I am no intellectual, but I am also neither incompetent nor uneducated. I got that way by learning how to get answers to my questions.
“But your first comment was correct, about my manners.” He drew back his left foot and kicked her in the left thigh with the point of his boot. Moaning in pain, the Princess grabbed her side below the hip an
d sank forward to her knees. Her right hand stopped her fall while the other continued holding the bruised place. Luke raged inside but resolutely stared straight ahead. This was not the place or time to die.
“However, I am straightforward,” Grammel continued, gazing down at her. Using his leg again, he kicked her right arm out from under her. She fell forward, then rolled over and sat up, still holding her left leg. The Captain-Supervisor kicked out sharply, catching the base of the spine but not hard enough to paralyze her. She wailed as both hands went to the small of her back and she fell over on her side, where she lay moaning.
Grammel drew back his leg again. Unable to stand by any longer, Luke stepped between them, said rapidly, “If I told you the truth, Captain-Supervisor, you wouldn’t believe me.”
That offer was intriguing enough to cause Grammel to forget the Princess for the moment. “I’m always willing to listen, young man.”
Luke took a disconsolate breath, looked downcast. “We’re escaped criminals from Circarpous,” he confessed painfully. “We’re wanted there for extortion and blackmail.” He indicated the prone form of the Princess.
“The girl’s my partner and lure. We … made the mistake of compromising some people who turned out to be more important than we thought. We’re not very important criminals, but we managed to get some very important people mad at us.” He stopped.
“Go on,” urged Grammel noncommittally.
“Circarpous still maintains the death penalty for many crimes,” Luke continued. “It’s a hectic, private-enterprise-style world.”
“I know all about Circarpous,” the Captain-Supervisor snapped impatiently.
Luke hastened to go on with his story. “We stole a small lifeship. We’d heard about the small colonies on Twelve and Ten.”
“So you tried to flee there,” Grammel interjected. “Logical enough.”
“In hopes of finding a way to gain passage outsystem,” Luke finished rapidly. His enthusiasm was honest, because Grammel, at least so far, hadn’t rejected the story out of hand. “We even,” he added for good measure, “went so far as to consider joining the Rebels if that would help us escape prosecution.”