Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [103]
But she sensed some darker riddle, some deeper and deadlier puzzle, than she’d first come seeking on this world of fire and ice.
The Jedi and their children had been here.
Roganda Ismaren, once the Emperor’s concubine, had come here … Why?
And why did something snag in her mind just now, some trace of something she had heard?
Drub McKumb had worked his way desperately, through blinding nightmares of agony and confusion, halfway across the galaxy to warn her and Han about something.
And someone here had thought it worthwhile to murder them while they slept.
Admiral Ackbar was still watching her face anxiously through the wavery light of the subspace transmission, so she said, “We’ll be returning soon.”
“Will we?” asked Han as the admiral’s image faded.
“I don’t … I don’t know,” said Leia softly. “If there’s some kind of trouble brewing among the old Houses of the Senex Sector I think we’ll have to. They’ve kept quiet … even under Palpatine all they wanted was to be left alone, to rule the so-called natives on their planets however they wanted to …”
“I’ve heard that before,” said Han grimly. “The big corporations just love governments like that.”
Leia sniffed. “Ask us no questions and we’ll hand you no responsibilities. Yes.” She folded her arms uneasily, prowled past Chewie and Artoo’s quest game and back into the bedroom, to stand with one shoulder against the window jamb, staring out into the mists of the orchard where that morning she’d seen Roganda Ismaren, nearly invisible among the trees. Of course the woman had every right to take refuge here, beyond the frontiers of the New Republic.
The fact that it was “close” to the Senex Sector meant little. It was close only in interstellar terms. It wasn’t anyplace any of those ancient aristocrats, those cold-eyed and elegantly groomed descendants of ancient starfaring conquerors, would come. She remembered Drost Elegin from her days at Court, and tried to picture that disdainful dandy in this provincial world of fruit pickers and backwater smugglers. They’d even considered Coruscant déclassé … “So many bureaucrats, my dear,” Aunt Rouge had said.
A white-sleeved arm reached around from behind with her abandoned cider glass.
“So what was the other interesting thing?”
“Oh,” said Leia, startled. Han leaned against the frame next to her, looking down with quizzical hazel eyes.
“Yes,” said Leia, remembering. “All along, there’s something about this business of droids going haywire that’s bothered me.”
“Bothered you?” Han jerked his head in the direction of the living room, where Artoo’s holographic geofigures were rapidly burying Chewbacca’s enraged Hero. “He tried to—”
“But why did he try to?” Leia asked. “Yes, I know colonies frequently operate with substandard machinery, but in the records I found literally dozens of unexplained malfunctions a year. Even a rough count shows the number has increased dramatically over the past several years.” She gestured back toward the bed, with its scattered counterpane of Artoo’s readouts. “Last night, before Artoo’s attack on us, when I was looking at the records up at the MuniCenter I wasn’t connecting it with anything. I think I’d like to recheck the causes of those malfunctions. If it was a function of the climate, that would have been constant, not increasing.”
“Not necessarily, if their stuff’s wearing out.”
“Maybe,” agreed Leia. “But they’re listed on Artoo’s readouts as ‘unexplained.’ That means they checked for the obvious things, like age and dampness.”
A few years ago Han would have dismissed it as coincidence. Now he said, “So what do you think it was?”
“I don’t know.” Leia ducked under his arm, crossed to the bed, and fetched her blaster and its holster. “But I think I’d like to talk to the head mechanic at Brathflen and see whether those malfunctions were just a fried wire, or whether they involved chains of specific,