Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 07_ Shards of Alderaan - Kevin J. Anderson [34]
Four reconditioned cargo haulers cruised in stable orbits next to each'other, high above the atmosphere.Ihe decommissioned, lumbering containers had been declared unserviceable for interstellar transport, but they served well enough as holding tanks for the cast-off people, refugees waiting to go back to a home blasted clean by lava and groundquakes. The freighters'engines had been ripped out, and all cargo bays had been lined with bunks and cubicles to accommodate the greatest number of people. The survivors of Ennth endured. They would give up their privacy and comfort for a year before they could venture back to the surface.
Zekk remembered being a child on one of these refugee stations, how nightmarish it had seemed to him. Yet these people were willing to suffer again, as they had eight years ago and would again eight years hence, for as long as they continued to put up with the cycle of devastation.
Smaller ships flew around, supply runners continuing their ferrying duties, dropping off cargo, arranging return schedules.
Now Zekk could see that while some of them had truly come to help-as Peckhum had last time-many of the traders and expediters" were scam artists taking advantage of a difficult situation. They charged the absolute maximum for their services that the colonists could afford, and the people of Ennth had no choice but to pay....
When the last straggler ships arrived safely at the refugee stations and Zekk had settled in, he went back to his quarters on the Lightning Rod, having declined the colonists' offer of an assigned bunk inside the cramped station. Besides, he needed rest and peace, to be away from the crowds, away from so many people whose lives had suffered such tragedy.
He slept for a fall eleven standard hours, awakening stiff and sore...
but no longer exhausted, no longer at the edge of despair.
Back on the bustling refugee station, he made his way toward the upper levels, taking a series of crowded turbolifts. People moved about, chattering with each other, discussing what they had lost and what they had saved, already making plans for their return to the surface of Ennth.
Zekk nodded in greeting, but did not join in their conversation.
Something disturbed him greatly about their persistence, their forced optimism, their blindness to the tragedy they could have avoided-but he could not pinpoint it.
When he finally reached the popular observation deck of the old cargo hauler, Zekk scanned the groups of people until he saw Rastur standing alone, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out one of the windowports. The others left the stern man to himself, glancing sideways at him, thenmurmuring sadly to each other as theylooked down upon the blistering surface of Ennth. The world boiled below them.
The rigid man moved to one side and stared through - a macro-telescope mounted on a stand near the observation ports. He stared for a long, long time.
Zekk came up behind him. "Is it all gone?" he said.
Rastur was not startled. "I've checked out the positions of all our cities. Newest Coast lbwn, Another Hopetown, Heartland Settlement. I see nothing. No sign that we were ever there.... Once again, it'll be a whole new world just waiting for us."
Zekk looked through the scope and saw flaming trenches of lava. Black pillars of smoke rose up through the roiling thunderclouds. As the immense moon moved away in its orbit and stopped kneading EnntWs surface, the weather would stabihze again, the rains would come, the lava would cool-and Ennth would be a clean slate, ready for the colonists again.
And again and again "Why do you bother?" Zekk finally asked.
He clamped his lips tight as Rastur looked at him in surprise.
"What do you mean?"
@y do you keep coming back, when you know everything will be destroyed again in less than a decade-over and over? Every time,