• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Jarik walked over to the lip and cautiously leaned over to look down. Then he walked back to Han, gave him a long, silent look. Without speaking, he began climbing into his quulaar.

Out of curiosity, Han walked over to look down, too.

He’d known it intellectually, of course, but it was one thing to know it with his brain, another to know it in his gut. He was kilometers high in the air. Below him the forest went on … and on … and on.…

The tree trunks stretched down, past the point where Han’s excellent eyesight could distinguish them from each other. Despite all his piloting experience and his outstanding sense of balance, the sight made Han’s head swim for a moment. He walked back to Chewbacca, who was helpfully holding out the quulaar. When Han hesitated, the Wookiee flexed his powerful hands and made his claws pop out. They were very sharp, and, coupled with Chewie’s great strength, would enable him to dig deep into a tree trunk when climbing.

“I’m gonna regret this.…” Han muttered, and climbed into the sack.

Chewbacca wanted to carry Han, but his relatives convinced him that, since it had been a long time since he’d done any forest-traversing, it would be better if he had only himself to worry about.

So Motamba carried Jarik, and Tarkazza carried Han, both humans stuffed inside their respective quulaars. Han wanted to look out, but Tarkazza was firm, pushing the human’s head down into the sack, warning him to keep his arms inside, too, and to stay still, so he wouldn’t disturb his carrier’s balance.

Inside the quulaar, Han felt the bag sway as Tarkazza walked to the edge of the platform lip. Then, with a grunt and a powerful leap, the Wookiee launched himself. They were falling, falling!

Han barely managed to hold back a yell, and he heard Jarik let out a short, bitten-off cry.

Seconds later Tarkazza smacked into a hard surface, clung, then began climbing rapidly upward. Leaves swished against the quulaar. Han had just started to relax, when suddenly they leaped again!

The next few minutes, all Han could do was try not to move, and to keep concentrating on not being sick. The sack swung and jerked and spun and slapped against the tree trunks, despite Tarkazza’s best efforts.

Swing, scramble, climb.

Leap, grip, swing.

Grab, grunt, swing-climb.…

Han finally had to close his eyes, not that he could see much anyway, and just try to hang on. It seemed as though the nightmare journey took hours, but Han realized when he checked his chrono later, that it had taken only about fifteen minutes.

Finally, with a last swing and grunt of effort, the movement stopped, and Han found himself lying on the ground, still inside the quulaar. When the world around him stopped spinning (which took a moment) the Corellian began clawing his way out of the sack.

Moments later, he was standing, legs braced wide apart for balance, on the great platform where the great, mostly enclosed city of Rwookrrorro was located. It was a massive, flattened ovoid, with homes studding the outskirts and scattered all over the platform. Branches grew straight up along the avenues, through the material making up the streets, adding touches of green.

The world steadied around Han, and he drew a deep breath. The city before him was beautiful, in a way that was hard to describe. Not as pastel as Cloud City, Rwookrrorro had some of the same openness and airiness. Perhaps because it was, like Cloud City, so high up?

Some of the buildings were several stories tall, yet they harmonized, somehow, with the treetops. All around them the vivid green topmost branches of the wroshyr trees swayed in the breeze. The sky overhead was blue, with a hint of green. Thick, flattened masses of sparkling white clouds drifted by.

Hearing a strangled gurgle, Han looked over and saw Jarik, bent over, clutching his middle, obviously in distress. He went over and touched the youth’s shoulder. “Hey, kid, you okay?”

Jarik shook his head, then looked as though he’d regretted doing that. “I’m gonna be okay,” he mumbled. “Jus