Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [56]
From the rail of her balcony terrace, Leia watched one of Ashgad’s numerous synthdroids walk slowly, haltingly, out onto the greater terrace below. She knew these creatures weren’t genuinely alive, only quasiliving synthflesh sculpted like a confectioner’s buttercream over a robotic armature. But seeing the dark patches of necrosis on its face and neck, she felt a surge of rage and pity.
The voice of the pilot Liegeus—whom she had deduced was considerably more than a pilot—rose to her from below, soft and deep and patient. “Every day at noon you are to come out onto this terrace and stand for fifteen minutes in full sunlight. This is a standing order.”
He walked out to where she could see him, clothed in a many-pocketed gray lab coat with his long dark hair pulled out of the way with ornamental sticks. He was a middle-size man, slight beside the synthdroid’s powerful height and bulk. Ashgad must have been trying to impress someone—probably the local population—when he ordered these creatures, Leia thought. The muscular bulk was purely ornamental. Their hydraulic joints had the limitless, terrifying strength of droids, and would have had they been the size and shape of Ewoks.
Liegeus took the synthdroid’s hand, stripped open the sleeve-placket, and examined its arm. Leia could smell the decaying flesh.
“You’re quick to give orders,” murmured the soft voice of Dzym, out of sight within the shadows of the house.
Liegeus turned his head sharply. Leia could see his face, though she was too far away to read any expression. Still, even hazy with the drug, she could feel his fear. It was in his voice, as he said, “These synthdroids are my workers and assistants. They don’t die of the Death Seed but over a period of time their flesh dies. I won’t have you …”
“You won’t have me what?” Dzym spoke slowly, a deadly silence framing each word. “You would prefer that the plague went aboard those ships in your body rather than those of their fellows?”
Liegeus backed a pace, farther into the zone of the sunlight, and his hand moved almost unconsciously up to his chest, as if to massage away some cold, sinking pain.
“You would prefer that I took a little pleasure, a little sustenance, at your expense rather than theirs?” Dzym went on, and his voice sank still further. Leia could feel his presence, as though Death itself stood out of sight below her balcony, where the shadow lay thick. “I was promised, little key tapper. I was promised, and I have yet to receive the payment for those things that only I can do. You remember that there are many hours in a day, and only half of them are hours of light.”
He must have gone then, because Liegeus relaxed. But he stood for a long time in the sunlight, and even from the distance of the upper terrace, Leia could see that he trembled.
He was still shaky when he came up to her room, only a few minutes later. He must have come directly from the terrace, she thought, when she heard the door chime sound softly—Liegeus was the only one who ever used the door chime. Ashgad, and the synthdroids who brought her water and food, simply came in. She thought about going into the chamber to greet him, but somehow couldn’t come up with the motivation. Cold as it was outside, and uncomfortable with the bitter dryness of the air, she found the sunlight soothing. So she remained curled up on the permacrete bench, wrapped in the quilt from her bed and the now-rather-scuffed red velvet robe, watching him as he looked around the room for her, checked the water pitcher, and then, turning, saw her.
He always checked the water pitcher. They all did. Leia was rather proud of herself for finding a place on the terrace rail where it could be poured out, to make it look as if she were drinking the stuff. In the hyperdry climate she had been flirting for days with dehydration and had a headache now most of the time, but it was the only way to keep her mind even a little clear. Since the first day she had been trying to figure out a way of tapping the pipes that supplied the internal mist fields