Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [57]
“Just make them sweep up the confetti when they’re done.”
They kissed again, and Leia strode down the ramp to street level, Artoo trundling in her wake. It had grown dark. Silver-winged moths fluttered crazily around the lamps; pittins and mooklas hunted frogs beneath the bridges. The world smelled of sweet growing things, of grass and fruit—fruit bred specially, calculatedly, to make the inhabitants of this rift, this world, wealthy and competitive in the galactic markets. In the darkness among the trees, luminous insects flickered like fairy candles.
A paradise, thought Leia.
If you didn’t know about the kretch underneath it.
If you didn’t know about Drub McKumb’s voice screaming, Kill you all … going to kill you all …
They’re gathering …
If you didn’t know that occasionally someone who followed up unsubstantiated rumors about the tunnels beneath Plett’s House would vanish without a trace.
In a market square among the sleek white prefabs, the dark huddle of old stone walls, barrow men and vendors were striking their awnings, folding up their wares amid the final desultory shoppers of the day. Above the market the MuniCenter reared on the first of the low benches above the town, only its lights visible as a blurred galaxy in the dark fog. The sloping path toward it wound among the orchards, and because of the multitude of hot springs that came out of the valley’s point there the fog was thick, the sodium arc lights with their unreal white glare edged a few leaves with light and left all else swallowed by the night. Now and then a mechanical tree feeder would stalk momentarily into view, unnervingly like a huge metal spider with its half dozen long, jointed arms, its blind turrets and proboscislike squirters, rows and rings of yellow lights outlining it like shining crowns and bracelets of jewels.
Unlighted, silent, not quite ruined enough, Plett’s House rose invisible in the dark behind. Leia remembered the vision she’d seen there, the deep sense of silent peace. Remembered the voices of the children, and old Ho’Din, beautiful with his pale-green skin against the black Jedi cloak; remembered his haunted eyes.
She remembered also the urgency in Luke’s voice when he’d told her not to bring the children to this paradise of a place.
Had she brought them, she wondered, what would they have seen?
Abruptly, Artoo-Detoo, who had been following her along the path, made a right-angle turn and trundled off into the foggy darkness to her right. Leia turned, startled: “Artoo?” She could hear the crash of his heavy cylindrical body in the foliage, the furious yik-yik-yik of the guard-critters around the trees, the startled whoops of night birds.
“Artoo!”
His treads left deep marks in the soft grass. Leia followed, pushing at the leaves, wet ferns slapping at her boots, pulling out her glowrod and holding it before her where the darkness grew dense away from the lights.
“Artoo, what is it?”
The ground dipped sharply beneath her feet. She heard Artoo’s startled tweet, the crash of something falling. Branches caught at her hair, slithered damply across her face as she hurried forward.
The little astromech droid had come to a stop at the base of a wall, pressed against it and still trying vainly to go forward. Leia could hear the whirr of his servos, the grind of his treads in the soft ground. She flashed the light swiftly to the right and left but saw nothing, only the dark of the enclosing foliage, barely visible through the dense mists, the bob of firebugs among the sweet-scented trees. “Artoo, stop!” she ordered. “Stop!”
The whirring of the gears halted.
“Back up.”
He was mired. “Hold it,” said Leia, and after another careful scout around with her light, she took from her boot the small knife she carried and cut branches—making sure they bore no fruit—to lay in the deep tread marks on the muddy ground. “Back up.”
The droid obeyed.
“Artoo,