Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [41]
“What was that all about?” she asked Luke. “I don’t understand that monkey talk.”
“Hin told me,” Luke translated for her, “that if you can get us out of the cell, Kee and he will take care of getting us out of the building.”
“You think they can?” Halla wondered, licking her lips.
Luke looked confident. “I wouldn’t want to bet against a pair of desperate Yuzzem. There’s something else. If we help them escape, they’ll help us in the hunt for the crystal.”
“A help they’d be,” Halla admitted readily. “And I can see why they’d throw in with us. Once they break jail, they’ve no hope of leniency from Grammel.”
“How are you going to get us out of here?”
Halla adjusted her precarious stance above the sheer drop, then said proudly, “I told you I was a master of the Force. Stand aside, young man.”
Not knowing what to expect, Luke did as he was told. The Princess folded her arms and looked skeptical and anxious simultaneously.
Halla’s eyes closed and she appeared to enter some kind of trance. Luke felt the stirring, knew that she was manipulating the Force in a way he could never manage well. Not necessarily in a superior fashion, just … different. His greatest concern was that in her altered condition she might lose her grip on the temple’s exterior. But she remained in place as if frozen there, her brow contorted as she strained.
He heard a gasp, and he spun around to look where the Princess was pointing. One of the metal food trays had risen, drifted lazily in the air of the cell. It began moving toward the bars. Luke looked back at Halla. It was a simple parlor trick, but one he could never have duplicated. Levitation was not a skill he had mastered very well. But it seemed to be the one thing Halla could do. He remembered the spice shaker on the tavern table, and held his breath.
Sweating, her face twisted with the effort, Halla moved the tray. It thumped against the bars. Luke winced, thinking it might be too wide to squeeze through any of the openings. But the tray turned, angled to match the bars, and slipped through with a slight scraping sound. Fluttering, it continued drifting up the corridor.
Halla was hardly breathing now, her entire being thrown into the tremendous effort she was making. Luke watched as the tray dipped, rose to its former height, dipped again before continuing on up the corridor.
“Boy,” came an echo of the old woman’s voice, “you got to help me.” Her eyes were still closed.
“I can’t, Halla,” he told her tightly. “I’m no good at this.”
“Got to, boy. Can’t hold it myself much longer.” Even as she finished the tray dipped, struck the ground with a clang before rising once again.
Luke shut his own eyes and tried to concentrate only on the tray, ignoring the cell, the Princess, everything but that floating flat plane of formed metal. A familiar voice seemed to remind him of something.
“Don’t try so hard, Luke,” the voice said. “Remember how I taught you. Relax, relax, let the Force work through you. Don’t try to force the Force.”
Letting other thoughts leak into his mind, pleasant thoughts, Luke strove to comply. A general sense of well-being flowed through him and he smiled. The tray lifted firmly to its former height, continued on up the hallway at a rapid pace.
The Princess switched her gaze constantly from Luke to Halla and back. Striking the corridor wall, the tray commenced bumping along it. It finally reached the recessed control, turned itself flat to the wall and covered the depression. A very faint click sounded. An open ellipsoid appeared in the middle of the cell bars.
Halla let out a long, slow sigh and wavered, almost falling. She caught herself as the tray plunged toward the floor. Hin and Kee gasped, as did the Princess.
Luke leaned forward, his brows lifting sharply. Something caught the tray barely a centimeter above the