Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [90]
“I don’t understand,” Luke murmured. But he hefted the crystal again in both hands, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate and relax at the same time. The glow from the crystal intensified.
“I understand,” came a voice out of Luke’s body that might or might not have been Luke’s.
The crimson glow emerged from the crystal again. It started up Luke’s arms, only to halt at the elbows. Holding the crystal with one hand, he opened his eyes. Like a man sleepwalking he reached down. One fingertip touched the Princess’ face, traced the scar left by Vader’s saber. As he traced it with the red glow, the scar vanished. Halla could see the skin moving, folding, healing behind it.
Slowly, wordlessly, as a rapt Halla watched, Luke proceeded to trace each of the wounds Vader had inflicted on the Princess. When he finished the final one, he placed his open palm first for a lingering moment over her heart, then her forehead. Then he sat back. The glow from the crystal subsided to normal.
Several more minutes passed. Uninjured, her beauty restored, Leia Organa slowly sat up. Both hands went to her head.
“Are you all right, Leia?” he asked solicitously.
She winced, stared at him. “Luke, I have the most awful headache.”
“Headache,” he echoed. He turned, smiled at Halla. “She has a headache.”
Halla grinned back at him, chuckled, then was roaring with relieved laughter. Luke joined in, his embarrassed, happy laughing interrupted only by an occasional cough. The crystal had repaired his injured insides, but he was still oxygen-weak.
The Princess looked suddenly uncertain. She glanced down at herself. Events returned with a rush as she felt of her leg, her face.
“They’re gone,” she murmured in disbelief. “Healed. How?”
Luke turned serious. “It was the crystal, Leia. It healed me, healed you, and I wasn’t even aware it was doing so. Everything that Halla surmised about it is true. It does use the Force. The crystal healed you, Leia … not me.”
“Now, Luke boy,” Halla admonished him, “you were the agent the crystal worked through. Without you, wouldn’t be nothin’ but rock.”
“Luke, we …” Leia stopped, stared around nervously. “What about …?”
Luke reassured her. “Down there.” He indicated the pit. “I never heard him hit bottom. Vader’s finished, Leia.” Yet … even as he said it, there was that peculiar tingling in the Force again, like a smell of sulfur.
She shattered that unwholesome train of thought. “What about Threepio, and Artoo?”
“They’re all right,” Halla responded. “Least-wise, they looked fine to me when I was just now, uh, checking out the crawler to make sure it hadn’t been booby-trapped by your Dark Lord. They’re turned off, but no damage that I can see.”
Luke sighed with relief, put an arm around Leia. She didn’t move to shrug it off.
“Here,” he said, handing the crystal to Halla. She eyed him uncertainly, then took it, held it with reverence. “You might as well keep it for a while, since you’re coming with us.”
“With you?” Halla looked wary. “What do you want with a tired, old woman? What good would I do you?”
“A world of good,” Luke assured her. “A universe of good. We’ll get you safely off Mimban with us. Then, if you still don’t feel like joining the cause of a bunch of ‘outlaws,’ you don’t have to.” He thought wistfully. “I know another man, a smuggler and a pirate, who once thought the same way as you.”
“Don’t compare me with any smugglers, and don’t rush me,” she instructed him crossly. “I might be persuaded … the Force knows what you want with me, though. But where am I going with you?”
Luke looked down at Leia, smiled. She leaned into his side and smiled in return. “We’re going to Circarpous IV,” he informed her. “We’re late for a very important date.” He turned to look at her. “With an underground movement. We’ll make an idealistic revolutionary out of you yet, Halla.”
“Not likely!” she snorted. But she didn’t object further as she followed them outside the temple of Pomojema.
Back on the crawler, Luke adjusted