Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [46]
Ben was apparently doing the same because he said, “You’ve got a cellar down here.”
“Not precisely,” Mun said. The lighting from the glow rods that ran the length of the corridor wasn’t particularly powerful, and several of them were inactive. Luke could now see the two Klatooinians standing on either side of a large door in the floor. They did not appear to be too happy about their assignment, their lugubrious, canine features looking even more jowly with resignation.
Luke understood why. The door was rigged with a WW-47 Cryoban grenade. It appeared to have been modified so that it could be activated from a distance. Once detonated, all the heat in the area would be absorbed, creating an area of freezing cold. It wouldn’t kill Dyon, but it would immobilize him and likely cause nerve damage.
“I guess he could be perceived as that dangerous,” Ben said.
“Here he certainly could be,” Luke agreed, thinking of the conspicuous lack of Force-sensitives or weapons among the general populace—and even among what passed for the military.
“He is heavily sedated and as restrained as we could manage,” Mun said. She knelt and quickly began to disarm the grenade. “And there is a third guard down there with him.”
“We brought along restraints that might be more efficient for a Force-user,” Ben said.
Mun shot him an irritated look, but Luke could tell that the irritation wasn’t really directed at his son. “You can say it. A flimsi box sealed with vartik tree sap would be more efficient to hold a Force-user than what we’ve got. We simply don’t have the resources here to deal with this sort of thing, so I’m more than happy to turn him over to you two.”
She opened the hatch. A scent that one wouldn’t expect on a desert world wafted out—the dank, murky odor of fetid water and mildew.
“It’s not a cellar, it’s an old well,” Ben said, peering down. It went down a long way. There was a dim light at the bottom, just enough so that Luke knew that the unlucky guard likely pointing a decades-old blaster at the unconscious Force-user had a glow rod to help him see better. It would be of little comfort to the hapless fellow to be able to see it clearly if Dyon awoke, snatched the blaster out of his hand and snapped his neck with the Force.
Mun nodded. “On our world, most buildings are built over wells. It’s an old, old tradition to guard against water shortage.”
Water vaporators of some variety had been around for a long, long time. This well must indeed have been ancient.
Ben was thinking along the same lines for he said, “Surely, this is dangerous to just leave around. How come you didn’t fill it in some … you know, ten thousand years ago?”
Mun looked at him evenly. “Because technology sometimes fails. Or fails to arrive when needed, young Skywalker.”
“But—you’re the last stop on the Kessel Run. The Hutts—” Ben stopped in midsentence. Mun’s smile widened, but it was a bitter one. Ben had just answered his own question. The Hutts gave—and failed to give—as they saw fit.
Luke thought about what he had learned of the treaty and about what he knew of the Klatooinians themselves. They honored the treaty, and had for twenty-five thousand years. And yet, they believed, like the Fountain they so honored, that they grew stronger with time.
Luke suspected that, valid as the reason Mun gave was, there were perhaps other reasons.
But now the pressing need was to get Dyon out. Luke caught Ben’s eye, nodded, and father and son Force-leapt down into the deep well. Luke slowed his fall and landed, bending his knees, beside the prone and cuffed figure of Dyon Stad. The guard had obviously been notified at some point because he did not attempt to shoot either Jedi, and merely seemed a little alarmed at their manner of arrival. Ben was already bending