Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [57]
They couldn’t be doing this. The hypospray wouldn’t hurt much, but he remembered now what would follow. How could they be so unkind, after all he had done? Didn’t they love him? Didn’t Firwirrung? Recognition filtered up out of Dev’s memory. They’d been unkind before, and before that too.
This was his right mind. This was Dev Sibwarra, human, restored by touching the Outsider … but he couldn’t beat his masters’ drugs or Bluescale’s direct domination. He was slipping.
The hypospray relaxed him as before, though he fought it for the sake of his secret. Firwirrung bent close. “Look outward, Dev. Serve us now. Where is this one? What is his name? How can we find him?”
Firwirrung’s head blurred. Dev squeezed a salty river out of each eye. Then he closed out his grief and his awareness of the Shriwirr’s deck, and escaped into the Force. He let the swirling universe carry him past his masters’ dim auras.
The Outsider felt as strong and as close as before, undeniably masculine and kindred, though a second, diffuse feminine presence hung close by. The first one’s sharply focused light almost washed out the second: an echo, perhaps? He didn’t understand. All that he knew was that love and security came from Firwirrung. He avoided touching the Outsider’s Force presence. “In the capital city,” he murmured, half-conscious. “Salis D’aar. The man’s name is Skywalker. Luke Skywalker.” Distracted by the effort of speaking, he opened his eyes again. Firwirrung’s shallow happy breathing tore at his heart. The master didn’t care—maybe didn’t even know!—how jealous their attention to the Outsider made him. Perhaps Ssi-ruuk never were jealous.
“Skywalker,” repeated Bluescale. “An auspicious name. Well done, Dev.”
Dev relaxed into the Force. Their glee and greed vibrated around him. With an unlimited supply of enteched humans, Admiral Ivpikkis could rapidly conquer known space. Dev would be part of it.
Yet he felt humiliated. As much as he resented the Outsider, he opened himself to a bare touch, almost a Force caress, of farewell.
Firwirrung bent close and sang, “Are you unhappy, Dev?”
His sentiments had seesawed so many times in the last few minutes that he was sure of only one thing: if they manipulated him once more, he might lose his sanity. He shut his eyes and nodded. “I am content, Master.” I hate you I hate you I hate you. They would not twist his humanity. No more games with his mind.
Yet he could not hate Firwirrung, the only family he had known for five years. The emotion softened. He dared to reopen his eyes. “Master,” he whispered, “my highest pleasure is to help those who love me.” He forced himself to gaze fondly at Firwirrung.
Firwirrung honked thoughtfully. Plainly the entechment chief’s pleasure was not compassion this time, but control. He touched Bluescale with one foreclaw. “Elder, Dev has grown close to having true love for our kind. Let him stretch a little. Let the decision to serve me be of his own free will. That is higher affection.”
Dev shuddered. Firwirrung had already enslaved him, spirit and soul. Now he wanted Dev willingly to tighten the cords of his own bondage. That might be Firwirrung’s mistake.
Dev laid a hand on Firwirrung’s upper forelimb, making the gesture as Ssi-ruuvi as he could. “This is my master,” he crooned. At any moment, Bluescale might look into his eyes or smell the deception.
“You see?” said Firwirrung. “Our relationship broadens.”
“Take your pet and go,” said Admiral Ivpikkis. “Abuse it as you will. We have work to do, as do you. Busy your mind with the modifications … for Skywalker.”
Firwirrung rocked his head gravely and swept a foreclaw toward the hatch.
Every step away from Bluescale took him that much farther from enslavement. Dev reached the hatchway, then the corridor. The hatch slid shut behind Firwirrung.
An hour later, forgotten as Firwirrung busied himself with schematic drawings, Dev curled up in the sleeping pit’s warm center. How had his mother taught him to open contact? It had been five years. His ordeal had exhausted him. He