Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [78]
And, of course, it was not charging at him.
“A related species. Maybe herbivorous.” Leia remained irritatingly unafraid.
“Maybe omnivorous, and willing to add a couple of humans to its snack list.” Han reshouldered his rifle. “C'mon, let's get out of here. Maybe it's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind predator.”
“All right.”
They moved on, Han keeping a sharp eye on the spider. But it never rose from the perch it was feeding upon, never turned their way. It did not even pay attention to the centipedes moving across the tops of adjacent fungi, and realizing that, only then was Han half certain the thing had to be disinterested in animal life.
Another kilometer farther on, Leia made a noise of surprise. Another bogey emerged, this one from a silver-gray structure the size of the building where the Solos kept their quarters on Coruscant. It had a darker color scheme, its lights a more muted arrangement of violets and reds. The noise it made was quite musical, like a harp being played by a Kowakian monkey-lizard.
Leia did not hesitate, but approached it and brushed her hand across its outer nimbus. Again she crackled with static electricity; again her hair stood out in a display that suggested electrocution.
“Start talking, Princess. I need to know you're not unconscious on your feet.”
“Looking,” she said, her tone distant. “Variables. Unimaginable numbers of them. Maintaining.”
“Maintaining what?” Reluctantly, Han turned his back on Leia and the bogey, once again keeping guard against the sea of fungi and the life-forms within it.
“I don't know … The data will be lost. Cycle ending, cycle winding down.”
That had an ominous sound to it. But Han was distracted by something in the distance. If they were following a north-south wall—and he had no reason to believe they were, for the speeder's sensors were long gone, but he called it north-south because he had to call it something of his own—then off at an angle, maybe a kilometer away due northwest, there was something in the middle of the fungus field. It looked like a mound of—he wasn't sure. Steel barrels, lashed together, like an improvised fuel dump in a wartime encampment.
“Centerpoint … Oh.” Leia gasped. Han turned to see her staggering back, the musical bogey disappearing into the stone at their feet.
Han grabbed her, held her upright while she recovered. “Why did you say Centerpoint?”
“I saw Centerpoint Station! As clear as a holo.” Her eyes darted back and forth as she reviewed what she'd just experienced. “Han, that image I had before, the millions of random intensities?”
“Yeah?”
“Gravity wells, I'm sure of it. A galaxy's worth of gravity wells.”
“Huh. Is this thing one gigantic astronomical observatory?”
“Maybe.” She straightened, recovered, but did not break his embrace. “But for what purpose?”
“Centerpoint Station was all about gravity. Its super-tractor-beam was gravitic in nature.” Han glanced along the seemingly endless row of machinery. “Could this be from the same makers? The so-called Celestials? It doesn't look that old.”
“Neither did Centerpoint.”
Han gestured at the distant mound of barrels. “Something different to look at.”
“Let's eat first. Communing with energy blobs is hard work.”
Half an hour later, fortified by travel rations, they reached the mound.
Traveling through the fungus forest to get there had not been safe. Most of the life-forms fled at their approach, but the red-and-yellow centipedes were aggressive and fast moving. Fortunately, they were also loud, skittering forward with all the subtlety of a two-year-old flying a speeder bike. Han shot two before they approached closer than ten meters, and Leia cut one in half with her lightsaber when it reared up over the fungus ahead of them.
And then they