Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [51]
Gamorreans were tough. And the Klagg, quite clearly, considered the sizzling nightmare of the gangway a preferable fate to what the Gakfedds would do.
Luke turned away, almost ill, and headed back toward the mess hall. He could hear the Gakfedds’ laughter a long way down the hall.
Armories, naval (regular)—search
• Purpose of this information?
Inventory control
• All inventory consonant with the parameters and intentions of the Will
“Master Luke?”
Schematic search—water piping
• Purpose of this information?
“Master Luke, it’s getting quite late.”
Emergency maintenance
• All maintenance proceeding in accordance with the intent and timetable of the Will
“You lying wad of synapses, you’ve got lighting blacked out over half your crew decks and computers down everywhere you look.”
“Master Luke, the longer you remain this far from the Gakfedd village, the greater your danger from a retaliatory Klagg raid. There haven’t even been Talz, or tripods, in this sector for …”
Luke raised his head. He was sitting at a terminal in the quartermaster’s office, the entrance to a small complex of workshops and storage rooms. The long corridor leading to the mess hall’s starboard entrance was visible through the open door. Visible past Threepio’s shoulder, that is. The protocol droid was standing nervously in the doorway, glancing out with the frequency of a Coruscant stockbroker on the scout for a hovercar after a lunchtime meeting. If Threepio hadn’t had an internal chronometer, thought Luke, he’d be looking at a watch every ten seconds.
He said, “They have Cray.”
Torturing the Jawa had been petty viciousness, like children tormenting an injured animal. The Klagg had been an enemy. And the Klagg would see Cray as an enemy of theirs.
Especially, he thought, after the death of their mate in the gangway wired with that evil opalescent grid.
Wearily, he typed:
Sysshell
• Purpose of this information?
Sysview
• Purpose of this information?
Revsys
• Purpose of this …
“The purpose of this information is to make you cough up something besides the fact that the Will is in charge of everything and everything is perfect,” muttered Luke through his teeth. His head ached again—his whole body felt as if he’d fallen down a flight of stairs, and in spite of the perigen patch on his leg there was a suspicious, grinding inflammation deep inside that made him wonder how long he could summon the Force to battle infection in the torn flesh. “And if I have to go through every Imperial code and slicer Cray and Han and Ghent ever taught me I’ll do it.”
“I do wish Artoo were here, sir,” said Threepio, clanking diffidently to his side. “He’s much better at talking to these supercomputers than I. Why, back when we were with Captain Antilles, we … Oh! Shoo, you nasty little thing!”
Luke knew it was a Jawa even before he turned. Anyone who’d had even the smallest experience with Jawas knew when one had entered an enclosed space.
“No, it’s okay, Threepio.” After seeing the Klagg’s death, Luke had considerably more sympathy for the Jawas. He frowned, puzzled, as he swiveled his chair, for Jawas generally avoided contact with other races, particularly on this ship.
“What do you want, little guy?”
It was the Jawa he’d saved that morning. How he knew this he couldn’t say, because with their all-envelopingly ragged brown robes, grubby gloves, and faces invisible in the shadows of their hoods, it was almost impossible to tell one from another. But somehow he was sure of it.
“Master.” The slangy, squeaky patois of the desert was almost unintelligible. One filthy little hand reached out to touch the lightsaber at Luke’s belt.
He put his own hand guardingly over it, but sensed no real desire to steal. “ ’Fraid that’s mine, pal.”
The Jawa stepped back, silent. Then it reached into its robes. “For you.”
It held out another lightsaber.
Chapter 8
There was a technique to trolling the bars along Spaceport Row for information. Leia recognized it at once as a variation