Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [91]
“The pieces that are missing are gone,” Qwi said, “but those that remain are vivid images, bright pieces that I’m able to connect in my mind. I can string them together, so that it seems like I remember, even though much of it is just my imagination.” Qwi stared across at the warehouses, intent on something.
Wedge watched her. He liked looking at her face, liked seeing her reactions to new things, and it made him see old familiar places with a new eye. He found it refreshing.
Suddenly Qwi’s body went rigid, and she gave an absurd high-pitched whistle as she sucked in a little gasp of air. Qwi stood up too quickly and bumped her drink, spilling the foaming liquid across the tabletop.
“What is it?” Wedge grabbed for her thin wrist.
Qwi pointed across at the warehouses. “I just saw him—there! I recognized him.”
“Who?” Wedge said, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Qwi had better eyesight than he did—he knew that from long experience—but none of the figures moving toward the warehouses seemed distinctive: an assortment of surly-looking humanoids, a few hardbitten aliens, and a paunchy man, all of whom disappeared into the murky building.
“I know him,” Qwi insisted. “I worked with him. Bevel Lemelisk. We designed the Death Star together. He’s here. Why is he here? How could he be here?”
Wedge held her, and her entire body was trembling. “Come on, Qwi—that couldn’t possibly be him.” He lowered his voice. “You can’t see anything clear enough from here. We were just talking about your old memories. It must have sparked something in you. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.”
“But I’m sure it was him,” Qwi said.
“Maybe it was,” Wedge answered doubtfully, “but if so, what does it matter? Maw Installation is no longer a threat. The Empire is gone. Maybe he’s fallen in with some smugglers.”
Qwi sat down, still troubled. “I don’t want to stay here anymore,” she said.
Wedge handed her his drink. “We can share mine. Drink up,” he said. “We’ll go back to our ship”—then he added with a wry smile—“unless you want to go find one of those Hutt bathhouses I’ve heard so much about?”
“No thanks,” Qwi said.
Bevel Lemelisk went with his entourage through the back streets of Nar Shaddaa until they reached the warehouse sector. Lemelisk kept pausing to rub his feet on cleaner patches of the pavement, trying to remove the sticky residue and slime he stepped in every time he averted his eyes from the path.
The Twi’lek captain drew his blaster and stomped toward an old, ugly warehouse. The towering, corroded door stood locked; giant letters painted across its riveted surface proclaimed RESTRICTED and TRESPASSERS WILL BE DISINTEGRATED—but then, Lemelisk realized that everything on Nar Shaddaa was restricted, so the warning hardly mattered.
As they waited for the Twi’lek to access the heavy door, Lemelisk looked around at the brooding, shadowy city. His skin prickled with the creepy feeling that someone was watching him. He turned and looked, but noted nothing out of the ordinary. When the Twi’lek opened the door into the cool and musty-smelling warehouse, Lemelisk ducked down to be the first inside.
The Twi’lek switched on a bank of glowpanels. One flickered and died, but the remaining four cast their dirty light into the crate-filled warehouse. Cargo containers stood high against the far wall, stenciled with an indecipherable language; many of their sides were cracked and oozed a noxious-looking substance.
The human copilot gestured to Lemelisk and grunted, taking him to a pair of crates in the center of the room. From the footprints on the dusty floor Lemelisk could tell that the crates had been placed there recently. The wording on their sides marked them as “Sewage Inspection Systems—Quality Control Samples.”
The Gamorrean guards tore open the crates, spilling out the self-digesting packing material and exposing a pair of large computer cores, antique cybernetic systems, slow and long obsolete.
Lemelisk stifled a laugh. This was the best Sulamar could do with his great Imperial connections? He went