Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [70]
Flexible armor is for bullets and energy beams. It’s no protection at all against an unarmed man. The guard folded. Lando took his gun away, added it to the weapon he’d taken at the labor camp.
“Let’s go!”
They ran toward the Falcon, and, as they approached it, the boarding ramp swung downward slowly, as if in welcome. Cautiously, Lando and Vuffi Raa walked up the inclined plane.
At the top, still aged and wrinkled, but sporting a stylish haircut and expensive business suit, stood Mohs, High Singer of the Toka. Where his ruined eyes had been now glittered a pair of faceted multicolored optics like those of a giant psychedelic spider.
Duttes Mer glared resentfully at the alien object on his desk. Twice, now, following the mental procedure conveyed to him by Gepta’s captive sociologists, he had tried to gain control of the Mindharp, and thus—
He slammed his hand down on the desk, making the object jump. He didn’t want to try again; all it seemed to do was cause quakes that threatened to tear his administration building apart. Why that should be, he didn’t know, but he knew one thing: Rokur Gepta was coming.
The spaceport radar people had confirmed it, just before the communications lines had gone dead. A small, extremely fast craft was no more than twenty minutes from landfall. Mer suspected that Gepta didn’t need the port facilities; there was a wide flat space atop the administration building. It would do nicely for—
He hit the annunciator button. “Give me the Captain of the Guard!”
At first there was no answer. Then a terrified secretary told him, “Sir, the guard contingent has left the building because of the tremors. I was about to go, myself. I—”
“If you leave, I’ll have you shot. Summon those four men who went to Rafa XI. They’re under house arrest here in the building. Tell them to get up on the roof and—never mind, I’ll tell them myself!”
Once more, he looked upon the Mindharp. It had better work this time.
Rokur Gepta was coming.
“You will pardon my dramatic appearance, Captain Calrissian,” Mohs said as he ushered them around the curving corridor toward the Falcon’s cockpit, “but things are beginning to happen, and I am too busy to be anything but dramatic.”
“I know,” Lando said, throwing himself into the left-hand seat. He flipped a couple of switches and helped Vuffi Raa through the preflight checklist. It was a long list, much too long for comfort. “I know everything—but I’m in something of a hurry myself right now.”
Mohs looked puzzled, then relaxed and grinned. “Ah, yes. You put the pieces together. All my life I was the instrument of my ancestors, given orders—the Voices of the Gods—whisked thither and yon at Their bidding. It was terrifying to the savage that I was, for example, to brush near an ancient wall, as I did that night in Teguta Lusat, and appear an instant later, leagues away, amidst a gathering of my people. I apologize also for vanishing from the tunnel; its purpose was elementary education, you see, and I matriculated and went on to higher things.” He absently ran a fingertip over his bizarre eyes. “The decision was made for me, and I—”
“Had no choice about it?” Lando asked. He looked at Vuffi Raa. “There’s a lot of that going around. What in heaven’s name is that red light on the life-support panel! Here, let’s override—”
“You are in no danger,” Mohs smiled. “The two of you helped me, and now I shall help you. We mean you no harm.”
“Swell. Can you fend off the governor and his friend the sorcerer?”
“I can tell you that the governor is alone, trying to use the Mindharp, while Gepta is on his way from Rafa V. He ought to be down any minute, but he won’t be coming to the spaceport.”
Lando turned to look at the old man, no longer bent and wizened. He was still old, but it lent him dignity and authority now.
The tattoo of the Key—the Mindharp, Lando realized—was darker now, stood