Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [75]
Or to scream.
A number of the heads were hollow, the backs removed. Chips, droid brains, and on-off switches hung in packs from the ceiling.
“Doesn’t this place give you the creeps?”
The droid swiveled its head toward Luke. “Jedi Skywalker, we have made innovations in droids, but none that would give a droid human emotion. You know as well as I that human emotion in a droid would ruin its usefulness.”
Luke remembered the arc of Artoo’s very expressive scream and Threepio’s nervous chatter. He found them extremely useful.
“Besides,” the droid continued, “we must all accept where we come from.”
That much was true. His own struggle in accepting Darth Vader as his father was a case in point.
He didn’t like the subject matter. Or how far he was getting from his X-wing. “Where are you taking me?”
“We are going to the assembly room. It is quite an honor for you to see the room. Most of our guests never do.”
Luke wasn’t sure if he felt honored or not. He could still sense Brakiss, though. Brakiss was closer, and he was getting his fear under control. Luke couldn’t quite tell if the fear was of him, or someone else. Brakiss had never been afraid of him in the past.
“How far is the assembly room?”
“Not far, Jedi Skywalker, but we shall be leaving the public areas. You must not touch anything as you pass it from now on.”
Luke nodded. That wouldn’t be hard. He almost felt as if he were walking in a droid graveyard, seeing the skeletal remains of friends long gone.
The droid avoided a main door, and opened a door beside it. Luke hadn’t even noticed that door until the droid touched it. The door had blended in with the metallic walls, and some heads were stacked near enough to it to hide the door’s knob.
They stepped inside. The lighting was thinner here. The air smelled of hydraulic fluid. The walls were unfinished. Shelves rose from floor to ceiling, holding smaller droid parts, all painted golden for the protocol droids. Fingertips, knuckle joints, chips were all filed according to number and type. As Luke passed a shelf of eyes, they all flickered on. The corridor was suddenly filled with golden light.
“Those are for the newest model protocol droids. They are motion detectors as well, and sensitive to the body heat of sentient life.” Despite its memory wipe, the droid seemed to have retained its sense of pride.
“What about life forms with no body heat, like Glottalphibs or Verpine?”
“They will find such a droid useful in detecting outsiders,” the droid said.
Luke peered at a shelf of eyes. They appeared to be looking back at him. Their shape was no longer round, but oval. “The eyes are made here?” he asked.
The backs of the eyes moved as he spoke. A small filament flickered with each word. They weren’t just motion detectors. They were bugged as well. What an odd property, and one he didn’t entirely understand. Why would eyes need to hear? Protocol droids had hearing devices.
“Of course,” the droid said. “All parts are made here.” It noticed Luke looking at the eyes. “Come along, Jedi Skywalker. We must not be late.”
He hadn’t known until that moment that they were on any kind of time schedule.
Since the eyes were sensitive to both motion and sound, he couldn’t sweep one into his pocket. He would simply have to put it into his memory, and think about it later.
As he and the droid moved beyond the eyes, the glaring lights shut off, leaving only the dim overhangs. The shelves’ contents became more and more mysterious as he moved by. Chips with numbers, wires that were color-coded, tiny pieces of metal wire. Nothing as interesting or as unnerving as the eyes.
Eventually, the shelved walls widened. The corridor became a long, narrow room. The shelves rose above a bank of computers. No chairs stood in front of the computers, and the touchpads were well above waist-high. They were designed