Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [154]
“Leia!” They were hugging like schoolkids, rocking in each other’s arms—Han felt an idiotic urge to whirl her in his arms and dance.
“Admiral Larm …” she began.
“Is space dust,” finished Han. “His fleet went back to Antemeridian to give him a nice memorial service. I don’t think they’re gonna be back.”
“You know what happened?”
“Pretty much. The plague’s over three-quarters of the sector, there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping it. The boys at Med Central say it’s like the Death Seed …”
“It is the Death Seed.” Luke came over to them, limping heavily with a stick, wearing the same sort of padded jacket and loose, ragged robe that the Therans had on. “And the—the Guardian tsils have agreed to send some of their number offplanet, to the sector medical facility, to be installed in apparatus that will destroy the drochs. Once we’ve got the sentient Spook crystals to channel light through, it shouldn’t be hard to destroy the drochs wherever they are. All they ask in exchange is that we return every Spook crystal that has ever been taken off and programmed.”
“And you’re gonna explain that to Loronar how?”
“I’m going to explain,” said Leia sweetly, “that without their cooperation, the entire story of their support of the epidemic will be released for general consumption, accompanied by sanctions that will put them out of business in a week.”
Han nodded judiciously. “You got me sold.”
“Once the Guardians are able to get offplanet,” said Luke quietly, “I don’t think Loronar’s going to have much of a market for Needles anymore. The CCIRs worked because the central controllers mimicked the vibrations of the Guardians themselves. But even reprogrammed, the enslaved Spooks will know and obey the voices of the Guardians, their—their family, their alterselves. The living crystals that have inhabited this planet since first it was formed.
“They knew about the drochs,” he went on, speaking to Leia. “They were aware, when the Grissmath Dynasty seeded the planet with them to kill its political émigrés. They did their best, for seven and a half centuries, to keep the drochs from getting offplanet. They invaded the dreams of the prophet Theras and his followers, taking whatever forms they found there, whatever they would believe, and instructing them to keep anything larger than about the size of a B-wing from taking off. Anything bigger would have sufficient shielding to protect the drochs from the radiation. But there’s nothing, really, to keep large cargoes from coming in. And there are seams of mineral wealth, platinum and rock ivory, deep in the mountains that can be exported in small enough quantities to be ray screened and still support those who take them off.”
“Which is just fine with me,” put in Umolly Darm, hurrying past with Arvid and his aunt. “I never liked that Spook crystal business. Too fragile, the ones with good color were too far back in the hills, and even a box or two of the things gave me the willies. That Theran Listener Bé is already putting together an expedition for rock ivory with me and Arvid here.”
She hurried on her way, Arvid waving back at Luke, to the stock freighter that stood some distance from the gun station’s walls.
Leia glanced in the direction of the shuttle and then back inquiringly at Han. “An old friend,” said Han, rather drily. “She showed up at the last minute to help us out. She wants to have a diplomatic discussion and some assurances from you.”
Leia nodded, “All right.”
She turned back, “Luke?”
He and Liegeus were among the Therans, shaking hands with those who had found Luke in the wastelands, sent by the voices