Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [73]
He snaked his body through, climbed desperately, wondering what he’d do if he became disoriented, climbed sideways, climbed down again, got swept away by the current that was dragging him, clutching him, sweeping him on into blackness.
He thought, I may not survive this one.
His head broke water just as he thought he couldn’t hold his breath another second. He felt weak, sickened, but at least he could hook his arms through the spaces between the bars and not rely on the dwindling strength of his hands. “Down at the bottom,” he gasped. “Way down.”
The water ripped him away.
Han and Chewbacca lay for a long time on the grass beside the warm spring, gasping for air like half-drowned vermin belched from some Coruscant sewer. Far off, a dim gold low-power light marked where a path lay. Phosphor bugs played like truant diamonds among the trees. The smell of bowvine fruit and damp grass almost drowned the faint, putrid whiff of sulfur from the stream. Skreekers and peepers made a tiny bass line under the warbling of a night-bird in the orchard.
Han rolled over, threw up a considerable quantity of water, and said, “I’m getting too old for this.”
Chewbacca concurred.
At least they wouldn’t catch cold, Han reflected. The river that ran from Plett’s Well was hotter than bathwater and the air around it not much cooler. Vapor wraiths surrounded them from the hotter springs that came to the surface lower in the orchard, piped from the cellars of the ancient houses. He wondered if they’d get into much trouble just falling asleep where they were.
But he recalled something about what had happened in the crypts, and decided that might not be such a good idea.
With considerable effort, and some misgivings, he propped himself up on his elbows.
“You notice something about our pals back in the crypts, Chewie?”
The Wookiee’s sardonic reply made Han wonder why some people said the species had no sense of humor.
“When the second and third and fourth batches showed up,” said Han quietly, “they knew where to find us.”
Chewie was silent. For certain species of cave apes—perhaps even for Wookiees—this would have been no oddity. Smell, and echolocation, were highly developed in races and species used to the dark.
But these, Han had seen, were not members of those races and species, unless you counted the Gotal, who had been one of the first batch of attackers. They were, he suspected, exactly what Drub McKumb had been: smugglers, or friends of smugglers, who had heard the rumors about the crypts that weren’t supposed to exist, who had their “calculations.” Who had gone seeking the source of the xylen chips and gold wire that had formed the basis of Nubblyk the Slyte’s brief wealth, and had found … what?
“C’mon, Chewie,” he said tiredly. “Let’s get home.”
Chapter 11
Watching Cray’s face, Luke tried to ascertain whether she had remembered who she was, whether she was still under the influence of the Will’s programming.
From the small image in the section lounge vidscreen, it wasn’t easy to tell. Bruises marked her cheeks and chin and her shoulder, visible through a tear in her tunic; her pale hair was stiff with sweat and grime. But her eyes, as two Klagg boars pulled her the length of the displayed chamber to the small black podium of the Justice Station, were desperate, hard with fury and frustration.
“Soap-lovin’ Klagg!” howled Ugbuz, standing by the table at Luke’s side. “Prissy-butt!” “Flower-nose!” “Cabbage-eater!” yelled the other Gakfedds, clustered close around the vidscreen in the dim confines of the lounge.
Though disheveled and exhausted, aside from her bruises Cray looked unhurt. In his utterly fruitless search of the Detention Block on Deck 6, Luke had been haunted by the dread that the Will had implanted in the Klaggs the notion that as a Rebel saboteur, Cray had to be interrogated, and this nightmare had kept him combing the corridors around the Main Block for several additional hours until he’d made certain that Cray had never been there,