The Crystal Star (13 page)

introduced." Luke let his lightsaber blade vanish. The room turned pale with the dawn of the burning

whirlpool.

Han finished untangling himself from his blankets and stood up. His heart beat wildly; he felt as if he had

run a race.

Xaverri faced him. She was nearly his height. She used to look him straight in the eye, but she was not

wearing the high-heeled boots that had been so much a part of her style in the time he had known her.

Nor was her heavy, curly black hair elaborately dressed, for she had cropped it into short, tight curls.

Instead of revealing silks, she wore homespun trousers and shirt.

"I do remember you, Xaverri," Han said softly. "Of course I remember you. I could never forget you."

When he had known her, she had acted both carefree and careless, avoiding any responsibility, moving

on a whim. She took extraordinary risks. For a long time, Han believed she simply sought excitement

because she enjoyed it. Exhilarated, they had taken the risks and experienced the excitement together.

Finally, Han discovered that she did not care if she lived or died. He had not understood why, back then.

But now he did understand.

Xaverri had risked her life against the chance that she could outsmart and outrun high officers of the

Empire. She had always won.

Han had begun to wonder, in those heady days of excited terror, if she won because she did not care if

she lost. If she lost, she would die, and her grief would end. When she won, revenge eased the grief a

little.

She had changed. When he knew her in the old days she had hidden herself behind makeup and

expensive clothing and jewels. She had heightened the gold glow of her skin and disguised the round lines

of her smooth face. She had concealed the soft brown of her eyes behind iris-enhancers of opaque silver,

piercing green, or eerie faceted diamond.

Yet her beauty and intensity had always glowed through her veneer of sophistication. Now she no longer

hid behind anything, and her spirit shone as strongly. Han would not have recognized a picture of her. But

her voice was the same, and her strength.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked.

"How could I not?" Xaverri asked. "I sent you the message." "Why didn't you say it was you? Why didn't

you use a language I know?" "Because I did not want my message to be easily read." She hesitated.

"And.

I did not know you would respond, if you knew the message was from me." Han started to protest, but

kept his silence.

She might be right, he thought. I'm ashamed to admit it, but she might be right.

"At first I did not know you," she admitted.

She touched his beard. "But as soon as you spoke--" Han felt as if he had plunged back into the old

days, when his thoughts and Xaverri's mirrored each other with eerie precision.

He could not speak directly about those old days. He was surprised at the turbulence of his feelings and

the strength of his pain.

"What have you been doing, all these years?" he asked. "What have you been doing in the Republic, now

that all the Empire officers are gone?" "They are not gone, Solo," she said.

She had always called him Solo. In the society of Xaverri's birth, the given name came last, after a long

list of ancestral references. She had assumed his given name was Solo, and that he was of low class or an

orphan, with only a single prename. Once they got that straightened out, she was used to calling him Solo

and he was used to hearing it.

"They are not gone. Some--some that you fought--are dead. But many are hiding beneath respectability,

waiting and working for your government to falter and fail. Waiting for their chance." "They'll wait a long

time," Han said.

"I hope so. In the meantime, they are as greedy and venal as they always were. They are as susceptible

to temptation, when I offer them more wealth." Her smile was joyous and unmerciful.

"And they are even more vulnerable, because they have fallen from power. They do not dare draw the

attention of your authorities. I wrong them dreadfully--and they cannot complain." Han laughed, imagining

the arrogant Empire officers he had known, brought low by fear and Xaverri's predations. Then he

sobered.

"You should tell me who they are," he said.

"Who they're pretending to be. So the New Republic can bring them to justice." "My justice is harsher,"

Xaverri said, "and more satisfying. Perhaps, when I have taken sufficient revenge, I will tell you the names

of the ones I have humiliated and impoverished.

And then I will humiliate and impoverish more of them, and tell you who they are. Thus I will have my

justice, and the Republic will have its justice." Han wished he could ease her memories, and her need for

vengeance. But he could not help her in the old days, and he could not help her now. He wished he had

embraced her as soon as he recognized her, but now he felt awkward about doing so. He backed away

a step, and looked around for his boots. His exhaustion had vanished.

"You've met Luke and Threepio, I see," he said. He sat on the edge of his bed to pull on his boots.

"Yes." Xaverri inclined her head to Threepio. "I am not often received with such diplomacy." She turned

toward Luke. "And I had not expected the New Republic to respond to my warning with such illustrious

investigators." "We decided--" his--t the report deserved a serious response," Han said quickly, cutting

Luke's ^ws off. Luke might have said the same thing. Then again, he might have let it slip that Han was

using her strange report as an excuse for a vacation.

He did not want her to know he had not taken the message seriously.

"Your report," Luke said. "You wouldn't tell us the source of the strange phenomena. Will you now?"

"No," Xaverri said.

Luke jumped to his feet. "But you must!

Who--?" "I will show you," she said.

"Just tell me!" Luke exclaimed.

"You would not believe me. You must see for yourself."

Jaina trudged down the hallway, one of many in the long line of children. The helpers made sure the line

stayed straight, while a Proctor oversaw the whole group. Tigris walked nearby.

Is that what they always have for lunch? she thought.

She could still taste the rancid grease of the soup she had been given. She had tasted one bite, and then

--politely, as she had been taught, she did have good manners no matter what Hethrir and the Proctors

said--she had said it was rotten. She did not mean it tasted bad--well, yes, she did mean it tasted bad. It

was also spoiled.

She had not eaten it. Everyone else had. She had given hers to the red-gold centauriform child. But a little

bullyboy named Vram had snatched it away and thrown it on the floor and gone and told on them. The

helpers had given him a piece of fruit as a reward. They liked Vram.

Jaina's stomach growled. She was very, very hungry.

Someone nudged her shoulder. She glanced back.

"Play, soon," said the red-gold centauriform child. "Play, now." She spoke with a heavy accent, but Jaina

understood her.

She cantered one quick step in place, just as she had when Jaina skipped across the gathering room.

Her dainty hooves tapped on the stone.

Tigris glanced back to stop the cheerful noise. But the red-gold child was plodding along with everyone

else by then. Her tail switched briskly.

Jaina wondered what the red-gold child meant.

Play? she thought. I don't believe nasty mean Tigris will ever let us play. Why can he tell me what to do,

he isn't a Proctor, I don't think he's even a helper!

The children marched down another long hallway.

Jaina wondered why it was so far between places, in these endless underground tunnels. They must have

been hard to build. The castle at Munto Codru had been honeycombed with tunnels, but the tunnels

connected hundreds of rooms and storage chambers and spy-windows and secret places. Here the

tunnels had no windows, no doors, no twists or turns. Each had only a beginning and an ending, with

maybe one curve or corner in all its long length.

Jaina saw light! Real light, white and full of color, not this ghostly gray. It blazed down at her, silhouetting

the children ahead of her.

She wanted to run toward it. She wanted to shout with joy.

Ahead of her, the other children climbed stairs and walked out into the light. It washed over them,

bathing them in radiance. But they just kept walking. When Jaina saw the sun, she would raise her face to

it and let it pour down over her. She would run into the brightness--"Stop." All the children stopped at

the Proctor's command.

Jaina was only a few steps from the dazzling brightness at the bottom of the stairs. She caught her breath.

She feared they would take her back into the darkness.

The Proctor gestured sharply to Tigris.

Jaina yearned toward the light in dismay, certain Tigris would pull her from the line and make her go back

to the dim study cubicle, or the dark sleeping cell.

Tigris raised her chin and turned her toward him and made her look up at him.

"You can walk, in the play yard," he said.

"You can speak quietly in the play yard. You can't shout. You can't run. You can't dig the sand.

You mustn't pick the leaves. Do you understand?" She nodded. His grubby fingers pinched her chin.

He let her go.

"And you can't go near the fence!" he said.

"Why do you have so many rules?" Jaina asked.

"That isn't a rule," Tigris said. "If you go near the fence--the dragon will eat you!" A dragon! Jaina was

entranced.

The Proctors allowed the children to move forward again, and Jaina climbed out of the pit into the

sunlight.

It was bright and hot, much more intense than she was used to. She blinked the sparks away from her

vision, looking for Jacen, anxious to see him, trying to discover where she was and how they might

escape for home.

Mr. Chamberlain's wyrwulf ran toward her across the sand. She fell to her knees and flung her arms

around its neck.

"Oh, you're all right! Did they leave you out here all alone? You're lucky, though, you don't have to study

those dumb lessons!" The heavy black guard hairs of the wyrwulf's coat felt rough against Jaina's face. A

heavy metal and leather collar had been fastened around the wyrwulf's throat. Jaina tried to free the

wyrwulf.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't get it off." Her fingers were not strong enough to unfasten the collar.

The wyrwulf whined and leaned against her.

"Let's explore." Jaina got to her feet. "Let's see if there's a way out of here." She looked around.

The play yard was the bottom of a canyon. The canyon was not very deep, but its sides were very steep

and smooth. They would be hard to climb.

There was some way to get up there. On the cliff high above, the Proctors in their light blue uniforms

spun and struck and slashed, practicing with lightsabers.

Jaina stared at them in disbelief. Why did these bad people have lightsabers? Lightsabers were for good

people, for Jedi Knights. She wanted to be a Jedi Knight. She wanted to be old enough to build her own

lightsaber, and learn to use it.

She also wanted to be a mechanic, and a raceship driver, and a drum player.

She turned her back on the Proctors, up on their high cliff, and kept looking around for a way to escape.

Mr. Chamberlain's wyrwulf trotted after her.

A fence closed the far end of the canyon.

Jaina walked toward the fence. It might not be as hard to climb as the stone cliffso.

She was not on Munto Codru. She was not on any world she had ever visited. It was a very small world.

Past the fence, the horizon lay very close.

And the horizon curved. The tiny hot sun moved in the sky, so fast the shadows moved.

This isn't a real world, Jaina thought. It's too small. It's a made one, a built one.

Otherwise it wouldn't have this much gravity. And it spins so fast, its day is only a couple of hours long!

A few prickly plants struggled to grow in the dry sand. Jaina could not imagine wanting to pick their

thorny leaves.

There was nothing to play on, only the bare canyon sand surrounding the staircase pit, and the fence

locking them all inside.

Someone nudged Jaina from behind. The red-gold centaur child danced around in front of her. Her sides

and back were spotted with white. Velvety knobs above her temples poked through her wild, curly hair.

"You're different," the red-gold child said.

"I'm Jaina." "I'm Lusa." Lusa looked sidelong at the wyrwulf. "Does it bite?" "No, it just has big teeth. Do

you see my brothers?" Jaina looked around, but there were only half as many children in the play yard as

there had been in the gathering room.

Lusa took Jaina's hand. "Every day, they mix us up. Every day, it's different. Tomorrow your brothers

are in this group, I'm not. Tomorrow, you're in their group, I'm still here." It took Jaina a little time to

figure out Lusa's way of talking.

She tells me different things that could happen, Jaina thought. But that's okay. At least they aren't awful

things. Except that I want to see Jacen now, not tomorrow or the next day. And I want to know if

Anakin is all right.

Hand in hand, Jaina and Lusa walked across the yard. Every few steps, Lusa hopped, springing into the

air and coming down on all four feet.

"I want to run," she said sadly when she saw Jaina watching her curiously. "I want to gallop, and jump."