Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [93]
“You can’t pay for much elegance on a fruit packer’s wages …”
Oso Nim’s old pal Chatty had had at least three bandages on his fingers. So had half the clientele of the Smoking Jets and most of the people she passed in the market. Bandages on their fingers, and purple hands—or red, or yellow, depending on whether they were packing bowvine, brandifert, lipana, or vine-coffee … And podon and slochan were sturdy enough to be packed by droids.
Leia found herself wondering, as she walked quickly back toward the house on Old Orchard Street, what would have happened to her if she’d gone with Roganda to her rooms for coffee.
Chapter 14
Who are you?
The words glowed in amber silence in the almost-darkness of the quartermaster’s office on Deck 12. Somewhere in the distance a sweet, complex humming echoed in the labyrinth of corridors and rooms: the Talz singing in their hidden enclave of junior officers’ staterooms. Threepio, before he’d shut down, had tried to tap into the Will on this terminal and had reported that though power still functioned in some of its circuits, cable-greedy Jawas had torn out the computer connections somewhere up the trunk line.
Perhaps, thought Luke, that was one reason he felt instinctively safe here.
The far-off wailing halted, then resumed with transmuted rhythm. Even the air circulators were silent. The rooms smelled of Jawas, Talz, the vanilla whiff of the Kitonaks clumped like podgy mushrooms at the end of the corridor, chatting endlessly in their soft, squeaking voices. Luke gazed into the onyx well of the screen and felt suddenly tired unto death.
Who are you?
He felt that he already knew.
The word swam up out of the depth, whole, not letter by letter—as if it had existed there for a long time.
>Callista<
His breath paused. He hadn’t actually thought this would work.
Then, >She’s all right. They haven’t harmed her. Not beyond what she’d take in a rough training session<
Relief was a flood of sensation so violent it was almost like a headache, release bordering on physical pain.
Thank you, typed Luke. He was struck by the absolute bald inadequacy of the words on the screen; something you’d say to someone who moved a chair out of your way when your hands were full. Nothing to do with the interrogator droids in the Detention Area; nothing to do with the bruises on Cray’s face, or the dead, bitter look in her eyes. Nothing to do with the Gamorreans holding the screaming Jawa over the shredder.
“Thank you,” he whispered aloud, to the no-longer-quite-empty darkness of the room. “Thank you.”
>They’re on Deck 19, in the starboard maintenance hangar. They’ve dismantled half a dozen TIEs to make their village—or Mugshub has, anyway. It’s the sows who do all the work<
There was a pause.
>Fortunate, since the boars are about as smart as the average cement extruder and aren’t good for much besides getting into fights and making little Gamorreans<
Can you get me up there?
>I can take you to the cargo lift shaft they’re using as a communications tunnel. They’ve got it booby-trapped and guarded. Can you levitate?<
Yes. I’ve been—
>You don’t have to keyboard, you know. Internal Surveillance had every room and corridor on this ship wired. Charming people<
“I’ve been using perigen for my leg,” said Luke, still looking at the screen, as if it were a wall or a blacked-out window behind which she dwelled. “It’s beginning to interfere a little with my concentration, but I can manage.” Even as he said it he shivered. In addition to the painkiller’s eventual side effect of reduced concentration, fatigue, exhaustion, and the slow grind of constant pain were eroding still more his ability to manipulate the Force. The thought of self-levitating over a lift shaft hundreds of meters deep was an unnerving one.
Again he asked, meaning it differently, “Who are you?”
She didn