Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [72]
No, he reflected, he probably never would completely understand the Princess. “What do you expect,” he mumbled, laughing at himself, “from an untutored country boy?”
“I think,” the Princess responded softly, not looking at him, “that for an untutored country boy, you’re one of the most sophisticated men I know.”
Primitive music and chanting faded into the background as he turned to her in surprise. Like a missile launcher sighting on its prey, his eyes contacted hers. There was a brief, silent explosion before she looked hurriedly away.
Thinking very hard about something he’d hardly dared think about for several years, he bit into the fruit again, more carefully this time.
Suddenly his hand opened as if he’d been shot. The pink bulb fell to the ground as Luke stood bolt upright, eyes open and staring. The Princess rose, tried to make something of the gaping expression on his face.
“Luke … what’s wrong?” He took a couple of unsteady steps.
“Was it the fruit, boy?” Halla looked equally concerned. “Boy?”
Luke blinked, turned slowly to face them all. “What?”
“We were worried, Master Luke. You …” But Threepio broke off as Luke turned away to stare eastward.
“He’s coming,” he murmured, every letter resounding. “He’s near, very near.”
“Luke boy, you’d better start making some sense or I’ll have Hin hold you down and feed you dipills,” Halla said. “Who’s coming?”
“There was a stirring,” Luke whispered by way of reply. “A profound disturbance in the Force. I’ve felt it before, weakly. I felt it most strongly when Ben Kenobi was killed.”
Leia inhaled in terror, her eyes widening. “No, not him again, not here.”
“Something blacker than night stirs the Force, Leia,” Luke told her. “This Governor Essada must have contacted him, sent him here. He’d be especially interested in locating you and me.”
“Who would?” Halla half-shouted in frustration.
“Lord Darth Vader,” Leia mumbled, barely audible. “A dark lord of the Sith. We’ve … met before.” Her hands were trembling. She fought to still them.
A shouting native voice broke the brief moment of desolate contemplation. The music ceased. The dancers halted their gravity-defying leaps and pirouettes.
All three chiefs rose and stared at the native running toward the assembly. The runner collapsed in the arms of one chief. A short, mostly one-sided conversation followed. Then the chief left the courier gasping on hands and knees, turned and gesticulated wildly as he relayed the courier’s information to his people.
Consternation replaced joy among the gathered Coway. Soon the orderly assembly had become a riot, natives rushing in every direction, hairy arms flying, eyes bulging in panic. Food, utensils, instruments were forgotten, were trampled or overturned.
Then the chief approached the non-Coway celebrants, chattered at Halla.
“What did he say?”
She turned to Luke and the others. “Humans are coming. Hard-shell humans. Down the main passage from the surface. The way we came in.” She looked disgusted, angry. “Many humans, carrying rods of death. They’ve already killed two Coway who were gathering food near the exit and tried to run from them.”
“Imperial troops, in armor,” Luke murmured with satisfaction. “It has to be, given the other presence I sensed.”
“But how could Vader have found us down here?” the Princess demanded to know. “How?” Luke was listening to something none of the others could hear, so she turned to Halla. “Could our trail in the swamp crawler have been followed?”
Halla considered the impossible situation reluctantly. “Possible, but I doubt it. There were a lot of places where we just about floated across bog, and couldn’t have left a trail. But it’s conceivable a top-tracker could have plotted a rough course through the surface, making use of the traces we did leave. It seems incredible, though. I know all the Imperial terrain tracers and none of them are that good.”
“Even if one of them were,” the Princess rushed on, “how could they go from the ruined crawler to