Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [33]
“But there’s no reason why we can’t be pleasant about things until then. Sergeant!”
“Captain-Supervisor!” the noncom acknowledged, stepping over smartly.
“See these two escorted to the restraining area.”
“Which cell, sir?”
“The maximum secure holding pen,” Grammel replied, his face unreadable.
The sergeant hesitated. “But, sir, that cell’s already occupied. Its occupants are dangerous … they’ve already put three men in the infirmary.”
“No matter,” Grammel insisted indifferently. “I’m sure these two can handle themselves. Besides, prisoners don’t fight other prisoners. Not too often, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” the Princess demanded to know, climbing to her feet. “What are you caging us with?”
“You’ll find out,” Grammel assured her pleasantly. Several troops entered the room and boxed themselves around Luke and Leia. “Please try to keep yourselves alive until I can check on your story. I’d be distressed if it developed that you’ve been telling me the truth and couldn’t survive the company of your cell companions long enough to be released.”
“We’ve been honest with you!” Luke insisted, sounding desperate.
“Sergeant?”
The noncom led the two prisoners to the exit. Grammel ignored Luke’s entreaties to know what they were being sent to.
When they were gone and the chamber was quiet again, the Captain-Supervisor spent several minutes gazing at the glowing fragment of crystal. Then he touched a switch behind his desk. Another door opened and a small cloaked figure entered the room for the second time.
“That’s the thing you saw, Bot?” said Grammel, gesturing at the open box sitting on the desk. A nod from the hooded shape. “You know what it is?” A negative shake this time.
“Neither do I,” Grammel confessed. “I think the youth underestimates its strangeness. I’ve never seen or heard of anything remotely like it. Have you?” Another sideways shake of the hooded skull.
Grammel glanced at the closed doorway where Luke and Leia had been taken out. “Those two could be what the boy said they were. I don’t know. I have the feeling his story is a little too neat, too convenient. Almost as if he were gauging his responses to what I wanted to hear. I can’t decide whether he’s an inefficient crook or a supernally smooth liar.
“Something else. He sounded almost confident that he and the girl could make contact with Rebels on the Ten or Twelve. None of our agents have been able to do that.”
A husk of a sentence from the figure and Grammel nodded.
“I know that the Rebels have ways of separating true traitors from our people, but the boy’s confidence still troubles me. It seems misplaced in a petty criminal. And the girl had more spirit than her type normally displays. I’m puzzled, Bot. But I think … I think there might be something important in all this. I just don’t have the facts available to glue it all together with … yet. It might mean much to us both.” The figure nodded vigorously, pleased.
Grammel reached a decision. “I’m going to have to contact higher authority. I don’t like the idea of sharing anything like this, but I don’t see a way around it.” He jerked his head contemptuously toward the door. “In any event, we’ll cut the truth out of them before anyone of importance can get here.”
Leaving the desk, he walked to the wall behind it and touched a small switch. A section of wall vanished, leaving revealed behind it a blank screen of golden hue. Grammel adjusted another control. A panel awash with dials and studs slid out of the wall beneath the reflective screen. Further adjustment, and then he spoke into a protruding vo-pickup.
“I have a deep-space communication of the First Priority for Governor Bin Essada, on the territorial administrative world of Gyndine.” He glanced back at the cloaked form for reassurance, was rewarded with a nod.
“Call is being processed,” a computer voice declared flatly. Visual static appeared for a moment, then the screen cleared with gratifying speed. By Imperial distances Gyndine was not very