"You sure are strangers here," Halla commented. "Nothing's put under guard here if it's larger than a personal handcase. There's nowhere to run off to with anything big. The only way off-planet is under Imperial supervision and they check everything that comes down and especially anything going off.
"Anyone could make off with a crawler like this one or a truck. But just try and steal one drill bit! No, any thief has only one place to run to, and that's back to one of the five mine towns... and Grammel."
The Princess nodded. "I'm hungry myself. Luke?"
"In a minute." While she moved to excavate something for them to eat, Luke turned to Halla.
"How far do you estimate we have to go before we reach the temple where the crystal's supposed to be?"
"According to what the native told me... Oh, here, it makes more sense if you can see it." She reached inside the top of her suit, brought out a small slipcase. It bulged with papers. Hunting through it, she finally selected one and unfolded it before Luke.
He studied the drawing in the dim light of the crawler's console illumination. "I can't make anything out of this."
"I'm no artist," she grumbled, "and the native wasn't either."
"No, you're not." Luke stared at this enigmatic old woman in the mist. "What are you, Halla?"
She broke into a wide, toothy smile. "I'm ambitious, boy. That's enough for you to know." Picking up the map, she checked some instrumentation on the console, then pointed into the darkness.
"A week to ten days' travel, local time, in the crawler."
"That's all?" Luke exclaimed in surprise. "So close to the mine? I'd think a ship coming down would be able to spot it easily."
"Even if it could, through this soup," Halla told him, "it wouldn't inspire a rush to the site. There are probably a hundred temples in the immediate vicinity of the mine towns, and more scattered through the jungle nearby. Why bother with it? Also, a thousand men could march within five meters of a temple here and miss it entirely."
"I see." Luke sat back, considering. "What kind of place is it? Is it anything like the temple building that Grammel's people used for a headquarters?"
"That, nobody knows, not even the native. No human's ever seen the temple of Pomojema. Remember, the natives who built the temples had thousands of gods and deities. Each had its own sanctuary.
"According to the records I managed to get a look at-they're not classified or anything-this Pomojema was a minor god, but one who was supposed to be able to give his priests the ability to perform miraculous feats. Healing the sick and stuff like that. Of course, half the Mimbanian gods were supposed to be capable of miracles. Nobody wants his neighbor's god to have a bigger reputation than his own. But with this Pomojema, those legends could hold some truth. The Kaiburr crystal could be the basis for those stories."
"If Grammel's Essada gets hold of it," Luke muttered disconsolately, "it'll become a force for destruction, not healing."
Halla frowned. "Essada? Who's this Essada?" Her gaze went from Luke back to the Princess. "Is there something you two aren't telling me?"
"Governor Essada," the Princess told her, shifting uncomfortably at the mention of the name.
"A Governor? An Imperial Governor?" Halla was becoming visibly upset. Luke nodded. "An Imperial Governor's after you two?" Another nod.
She spun in her seat, started the crawler's engine. "This expedition is canceled, boy! Off! I've heard rumors of what the Governors can order done to ordinary citizens. I don't want any part of it."
"Stop it, Halla! Stop it!" Luke was wrestling with her for the controls. His greater strength finally prevailed and he shut the engine back down. "Artoo, don't start up again unless I give permission." A response beep sounded.
Halla gave up, slumped tiredly. "Leave it alone, boy. I'm an old woman, but I've still got some life left in me. I don't want to throw it away. Not even for a chance at the crystal."
"Halla, we have to find the crystal, and we have to do it before Grammel can catch us or this Governor or his representatives arrive on Mimban."
"Grammel," she muttered knowingly. "He must have recognized the significance of the splinter he took from you. He must have contacted this Essada."
"He did," admitted Luke, "but I'm not so sure he understands the worth of the crystal, or this Essada either. We can't take that chance. We have to find it first, because if we're captured, they'll learn about it from us... no matter how hard we try to keep it a secret."
"That's so," she admitted.
"And if we can't escape with it," Luke continued remorselessly, "we have to destroy it. It must not be allowed to come into Imperial possession."
"Seven years, boy, seven years," Halla muttered. "I can't promise you that if we do find it, I'll be ready to break it into dust."
"All right," Luke agreed. "Let's say we don't worry about that now. All that's important is finding it before Grammel finds us."
"A week to ten days," she told him. "If the terrain doesn't get too bad and we don't run into trouble with the locals."
"What locals?" The Princess wasn't impressed. "You don't mean those pitiful things we saw crawling and begging for a drink back in the town?"
"Some of the native races of Mimban haven't been ruined by contact with human beings," Halla, told them. "They're not all as degraded as the greenies. Some of them can, and will, fight. Keep in mind how little of this world has actually been explored. Nobody really has much idea what's out there," she waved toward the night, "beyond the immediate perimeter of the mine towns. Not the archeologists, not the anthropologists... no one.
"There are enough discoveries right by the towns to keep the small scientific station here plenty occupied, girl. They don't have the time or the need to go tramping off into this muck looking for specimens. Not when the specimens wander into town.
"We'll be going places no one's had reason to go before, and we'll likely encounter things no one's met up with before. This is a thriving, healthy world. We're a nice dollop of meat. I've seen visuals of some of the carnivores of Mimban. Their described methods of eating aren't any prettier than they are."
She turned back to Luke. "Look under the seat, boy." Luke did so, found a compartment holding two blaster rifles and four pistols. "They're all charged," she informed him, "which is more than you can say for the ones you broke out with."
Luke removed the two rifles, passed them to the Yuzzem who would be able to handle the bulky weapons easily. Then he handed a pistol to Leia, gave one to Halla, and kept the third for himself. The remaining one he left inside the compartment.
Hin began sighting along the rifle experimentally. On this model, the trigger guard was set close to the trigger itself. Too close for a thick Yuzzem finger. Hin used both hands, applied pressure in a certain way. After the guard snapped off, he tossed it over the side and thumbed the trigger with satisfaction.
Luke speculatively aimed his own pistol at a nearby bush. A touch of the firing stud and a brief flare of intense light dissolved the bush. Pleased with the new weapon, he slipped on the safety and attached it to his belt.
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 reform. 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 outraged 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.
&nb
sp; "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.