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“We’ll try it,” Luke agreed. “We’ll go through and meet you.” He turned away, hesitated, then leaned back out and called upward again. “Halla?”

A small face reappeared over the rim of the chasm.

“Yes, Luke boy?”

“What do we do if we meet any Coway?”

“They’re not very numerous, and they move around a lot,” Halla told him. “It’s not likely you’ll run into any. If you do meet up with a couple, they’ll probably be so startled they’ll run from you. Remember, they’re not domesticated like the greenies. They know as little about us as we do about them … I think. You hear lots of reports of them lingering around the towns, but they disappear if anyone goes after them. So that probably means they’re shy and peaceful.”

“That’s two very important probablys,” he shouted uncertainly.

“You’ve still got your saber.”

Luke’s hand went to the comforting shaft of the weapon. “All right. Stay there a second.” He turned to Leia. She wasn’t there. “Leia?” he said aloud. Swelling fears vanished when she reappeared seconds after his call.

“There’s a tunnel back there, just like the old woman thought,” she said cheerfully. “I used my own luma.” She gestured with the tiny, self-contained light. “It widens out right away.”

“Which direction?”

“Off to the east, about a thirty-one-degree heading.” She indicated her suit tracom.

“Thirty-one degrees east, Halla,” he shouted upward, relaying Leia’s information.

“Okay, boy. We’ll move in that direction. How are you two on rations?”

Both hurried to check their belts. The brief survey was more encouraging than Luke had hoped.

“We’ve got enough concentrates between us to keep going for about a week. I expect we’ll find plenty of water.”

Halla’s cackle rippled down the well walls. “I expect you’ll have trouble avoiding it, Luke boy. If what I know about Coway tunnels holds, we should meet up with you in a couple, three days at most. Light, food, water … you two kids hang on, understand? We’ll find you.” A concurring series of squeaks from Hin and Kee, and then the three faces disappeared.

“Please be careful, sir,” Threepio added. Then he, too, vanished.

Luke stood a moment longer gazing at the inviting circle of sunlight and mist above. He reached upward. Despite the seeming nearness, he was not surprised to discover that he couldn’t touch the sky with a fingertip.

“They’re on their way,” he told Leia, turning back to her and switching on his own luma. “We’d better be on ours.…”

IX

THEY’D been walking for some ten minutes when Luke ventured thoughtfully, “I wonder if we might not’ve been better off waiting in the alcove until Halla and the Yuzzem could’ve gone back to a town and come back with some stolen cable. Hin could pull us out of there by himself, with those arms he has.”

Leia stepped over a small pile of rough gravel. “You think she’d consider going back to town without the crystal to face Grammel?”

“What difference would the crystal make?”

Leia eyed him fondly. “You don’t understand her, do you, Luke? Obviously she’s convinced she can turn Grammel into a frog with it.”

Luke made a disparaging sound. “Leia, she’s not that irrational about the crystal.”

“You don’t think so?” The Princess formed her next words carefully, gently. “Think a moment, Luke. Halla’s a very persuasive, knowledgeable old woman, but she’s been on this world a long time. Years spent hunting down a myth. It’s clear to me that she believes the Kaiburr has supernormal powers. Even you agree it doesn’t possess any such thing.”

“I know. Okay, so maybe she’s a little fanatical on the subject, but—”

“Fanatical?” The Princess sighed. “Luke, the poor woman is sick with delusions, can’t you see that? Her dreams have overwhelmed her sense of reality. But we need her, ill as she is, to get off this planet.”

“The crystal’s no delusion,” Luke argued mildly. “It’s real. If this Governor Essada and his people get to it before we do …”

She shuddered visibly. “Essada. I’d almost forgotten about him.”

“Leia, why are you so afraid of an Imperial Governor,