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“Is it a mineral?” Han asked. “I know it’s mined.”

“It is naturally occurring, but we don’t know how it’s formed, Pilot. We believe it may have a biological origin, but we’re not sure. It’s found deep in the tunnels on Kessel, and it must be mined in total darkness, just as you see here.”

“And the strands have gotta be put into these casings just right.”

“Correct. Improper alignment can cause the tiny crystals to fracture against each other. If that happens, they grind each other into a far less potent—and valuable—powder. It can take a skilled worker an hour to properly align just one or two cylinders of glitterstim.”

“I see,” Han said, fascinated. “Do you mind if we just wander around? I promise we won’t touch anything.”

“You may. However, please avoid distracting any of the workers while they are aligning the spice. One inadvertent twist, as I said, could ruin an entire thread.”

“I understand,” Han said.

The raw glitterstim threads were all black, but Han knew from hearing about it that they would shine blue when they ignited in visible light. Han stopped behind one of the human workers and watched in fascination as the worker separated out threads of ebony-colored spice, aligning them with the utmost care. The threads curled around the worker’s fingers, some of them as fine-spun as silk, but the tiny crystals made them incredibly sharp.

The worker positioned one group of incredibly tangled threads in the jaws of a tiny vise, then proceeded to painstakingly separate out the threads, until the crystalline structures were aligned. The worker’s fingers moved almost too fast to watch, and Han realized that he was watching a highly skilled craftsman—no, woman. He was amazed that these pilgrims could actually accomplish something requiring this much dexterity. After seeing them last night following the “Exultation,” he’d more or less assumed that they were dull-witted cretins. They’d certainly looked like it …

The glitterstim worker took out a minuscule set of pliers to untangle a particularly bad snarl. She wormed the narrow-nosed pliers into the tangle, peering intently to find the place where the sharp little crystals were caught together. The fibrous glitterstim curled around her hands like tiny, living tentacles, the sharp little crystal glimmering. The worker abruptly brought her hand back, tugging, and suddenly the snarl straightened out until all the fibers aligned perfectly.

Except one.

Han watched in distress as one sharp-studded strand cut between the woman’s forefinger and thumb. A thin line of blood welled from the deep gash. Han sucked in a breath. A few centimeters deeper, and the tendon in her thumb would have been severed. She hissed with pain, then muttered something in Basic and, freeing her hand, held it to stop the bleeding. Han froze as he heard her accent. This pilgrim was Corellian!

He hadn’t even looked at her before, hidden as she was by the shapeless tan robe, her cap pulled down tightly over her goggled head. But now he realized she was young, not old. She grimaced slightly as she examined the cut. Turning her hand over, she twisted in her seat and held her hand over the floor, so the blood wouldn’t drip onto her workstation.

Han knew he wasn’t supposed to speak to the worker, but she wasn’t working at the moment, and he was concerned. She was bleeding profusely. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Let me call the supervisor so she can fix you up.”

The girl—she was his age, possibly younger—started slightly, then looked up at him. Her face was a whitish-green blur beneath her goggles and cap, and seemed deathly pale in the infrared light. No wonder, Han thought, cooped up down here all day long, no exposure to sunlight.

“No, please don’t,” she said, speaking Basic with that soft accent that placed her as being from Corellia’s southern continent. “If she sends me to the infirmary, I’ll miss the Exultation.” She shivered at the thought—though it might also have been from the cold. Han himself was beginning