The Crystal Star (19 page)

The crusted ichor cracked and flaked away, revealing new edges of gold scales. "Who are you? What

are you?" Xaverri drew See-Threepio forward. "This is my new acquaintance, Purple-Three. I thought

perhaps thou hadst not met his like before." "Welcome, Purple-Three," Waru said.

"Thank you, Mr. Waru," Threepio said.

"I am most honored to be permitted into your presence." Han gave Threepio a lot of credit for picking up

on Waru's use of the standard you instead of the esoteric thou. The droid had noticed, as Han had not,

that Waru used thou for Xaverri alone.

I would have put my foot in it, Han thought.

Probably offended the hell out of this critter.

Why didn't Xaverri tell us--?

"My name is only Waru," the enormous being said, its voice a purr. "Though some call me "teacher."' It is

the only honorific I esteem." "Then I would be pleased to use it, if you will accept it from me," Threepio

said. "I have studied many subjects, in many places. I am an expert on human-cyborg relationships and

am fluent in six million forms of communication.

I am always grateful for a teacher willing to share esoteric knowledge." Han found the heat and humidity

oppressive.

The coppery scent of Waru's ichor prickled uncomfortably in his lungs. Beside him, Luke stared at the

being with a fixed, hypnotized gaze.

"Relax, kid." Han's voice was quiet, amused. "It's only a--" Xaverri shot him a quick, furious warning

glance. Luke turned slowly toward him with an icy, inhuman glare, then returned his attention to Waru.

Startled, Han shut up, but he finished the comment to himself: This is a scam, he thought.

It's the most elaborate one I've seen in a while, but it's still a scam. If Luke and Ben Kenobi are anything

to judge by, no Jedi would behave like this--and if Waru represented the dark side, Luke would know it.

The best reaction I can give this thing is laughter.

"Xaverri, honored student, wert thou able to study the texts I gave thee?" "Yes, teacher," Xaverri said.

"Of course thou didst comprehend the connection between the ego-flux and the universal backlight, but I

wonder if thou didst make the conceptual leap to the synergy of intellectual realization and quantum

crystallization?" "I am embarrassed to admit that I had not," Xaverri said, "though now that thou hast

shown me the path, I can see that the interaction is completely inevitable." Han repressed a snort of

annoyance and disbelief.

Xaverri and Waru conversed in that manner for a few minutes, oblivious to the crowd and the noise and

the pleas for assistance. The wailing began to get on Han's nerves. What he wanted to do was leap up on

the stage and tell all these people to go home and see their doctors. He wanted to ask Xaverri why she

kept flattering Waru. It shocked him to witness her deference to the being.

In the old days, she had never been susceptible to this kind of fraud. She knew too much about fraud to

be taken in. She had designed some similar hoaxes herself, though she reserved the healer scam for

particularly loathsome Imperial officers. She had never failed to relieve her chosen prey of a considerable

portion of their resources.

Did she believe Waru's nonsense? If she did, she had changed beyond recognition from the person Han

used to know, changed far beyond the physical. If she did not believe--then what were they doing here?

Threepio observed the conversation in uncharacteristic silence. Han frowned. Threepio's expression was

impossible to read, but it was seldom difficult to know what the droid thought about any particular

situation. Threepio would tell you. Or the droid would dissemble transparently. For a diplomat, Threepio

was one of the poorest liars Han had ever met.

On the other hand, a lot of people found it flattering to know they were being lied to, if the lie was to

soothe their feelings or acknowledge their status.

Threepio was a master of that technique.

Luke watched and listened with the same fixed and intense expression that had possessed him as soon as

he encountered Waru. Luke's reaction troubled Han most of all.

Waru completed a philosophical discourse on the state of the universe, which Han had long since lost

track of.

"And now," Waru said with every evidence of disappointment, "I cannot further indulge myself in this

enlightening conversation." Xaverri placed her hand on one of Waru's golden scales. She closed her eyes

and fell silent and still. The gold scale took on a pink glow and radiated gentle warmth around Xaverri's

fingers. Luke took one step toward her, lifting his hand. Han grabbed him and pulled him back.

Luke turned on him, snarling.

With a startled curse, Han nearly dropped Luke's wrist. He wanted to walk out of the assembly in

disgust even if it meant leaving his friends to be bilked and shamed.

"Don't be stupid!" Han whispered fiercely. "And don't presume on a few minutes' acquaintance!" He

tightened his grip.

Luke looked at Han's fingers clamped around his flesh and squeezing his bones together.

Intelligence leaked back into Luke's eyes.

He made a leisurely turning movement of his hand; he slipped from Han's tight grasp without apparent

effort.

"You're right," he said. His voice was tight.

He turned his back on Han and watched Xaverri and Waru, intently, hungrily.

"I hate it when you do that," Han muttered.

His fingers tingled, not because of any violence in Luke's motion, but because he had been holding so

tightly that his hand spasmed when Luke pulled free.

The marks of Han's fingers remained, first white, then red, on Luke's skin.

Xaverri drew back from Waru. Her handprint glowed, then faded from the golden scale. A drop of ichor

oozed from the scale's lower edge and fell with a sticky plop. Xaverri made a motion of obeisance

toward Waru.

The being's attention left them abruptly, like a release of pressure. Han staggered one step forward,

caught himself, and shrugged off the odd effect. But he was curious about how the effect had been

produced.

Xaverri backed up. The roiling crowd surged ahead of her, each member keening for Waru's recognition.

Xaverri's knees buckled. Her collapse surprised Han so thoroughly that he nearly let her fall. In all the

years he had known her, in the old days, she had never fainted, even at times of exhaustion or pain. Her

stamina had always amazed him. His first thought, as she fell, was that she must be sinking to the ground

for some deliberate reason: she wanted to make another bow to Waru; she had dropped something and

had to retrieve it.

Han jumped forward and caught her before she fell beneath trampling feet. She trembled violently. Luke

and Threepio closed in, forming a small circle. Moving against the flow of the crowd, they pushed their

way to the back of the theater.

Han plunged toward the door, but Xaverri struggled free.

"Stay here!" she said. "I am all right, I only--speaking with Waru affects me for a moment.

But you must see the ceremony." "Affects you?" Han said. "It knocked you flat. Let's get out of here!"

The color began to return to her golden-tan face, and her shivering ceased.

"You must observe," she said again.

"She's right," Luke said. "It's what we came here for." "All right," Han said unwillingly.

It's all a fraud, he said to himself. But even frauds can be dangerous.

They made their way to the very back of the auditorium. The floor slanted, so they had a view over the

crowd. On the stage, in the frozen pool of ichor, Waru waited as one of the small groups of supplicants

brought one of their members into the teacher's presence. The Zefflifflike pressed one of the leafy

comrades to the top of their heap, then slid the individual forward till it huddled on the ichor. Its color

was noticeably paler than that of its companions, a sickly yellow-green rather than shiny and blue-black.

It shed a flutter of small wilted leaves whenever it moved.

"Do you wish me to try to heal you, seeker?" Waru's voice, no longer a directed, private whisper,

rumbled through the hall.

The Zefflifflike responded with a flurry of sound, like leaves swirled in water.

"She says, "I entreat you to help me,"'" Threepio said.

Now comes the scam, Han thought. Give Waru all your worldly goods--"Then I will try to help you,"

Waru said.

Every sound in the auditorium ceased abruptly.

The attention of every being focused on Waru and Waru's patient.

Waru leaned over the Zeffliffl.

Several of the golden scales liquefied and splashed over the huddled Zefflifflike, covering it with a bright

metallic shell. Han watched closely, wishing he were at the front of the auditorium so he could figure out

how Waru conceived that effect.

Why'd you bring us all the way back here, Xaverri? he wondered. [ you afraid for me to be too close?

The metallic shell attached the Zefflifflike to Waru like a parasite, like an exterior womb.

The raw wound left where the scales had melted gushed bloody ichor. The liquid flowed over the shell,

patterning it like the calligraphy on the facade of Waru's compound. The runnels flowed together, creating

a translucent chrysalis around the shell.

At the foot of the stage, the Zefflifflike group huddled together, their leaves fluttering as if they were in a

windstorm.

The room grew still. All around Han, people were bowing their heads. Even Xaverri, who had never

bowed her head to anyone. Stubbornly, Han kept watching.

Waru shuddered. The golden scales touched, ringing together with pure clear tones, like bells enlivened

by the wind.

Han divided his feelings equally between admiration for the effects and scorn for the gullibility of Waru's

followers.

The shuddering extended into the chrysalis. It trembled. It shook, and expanded.

The solidified ichor exploded. Like silver dust, the fragments hung and shivered in the air.

Scars and scratches marred the golden shell.

It, too, shivered, then slowly opened like a flower, revealing the Zeffliffl.

The gold petals drew back; Waru's body resorbed them and reformed the melted scales. At Waru's

base, the Zefflifflike lay quiet.

Suddenly it shook itself like a wet puppy. Its groupmates shrilled with excitement. Its leaves, green and

dark with moisture, fanned open.

"They say," Threepio whispered, "that their groupmate has returned from the dead." The healed

Zefflifflike scrambled down and disappeared among the groupmates. The mass of beings backed away,

twittering.

The silence of the auditorium ended as every being at Waru's feet burst into speech and song and light.

"The Zefflifflike said thank you," Threepio said, speaking loudly enough for them all to hear, "and--"

"And, "We will give you all our worldly goods,"'" Han said cynically.

"No, sir, not at all," Threepio said.

"They acclaim Waru as their benefactor. No mention of monetary recompense has been made." Han

shrugged, unconvinced. "Recompense always gets mentioned," he said. "Eventually. Can we get out of

here? The gratitude is making me sick." Xaverri turned away from him and walked out of the auditorium.

After a moment of surprise, Han followed her. In the relative coolness and silence of the courtyard,

welcome after the tumult of Waru's reception hall, he caught up to her and touched her shoulder.

"Xaverri--!" She shrugged him off and plunged through the gateway. Outside the calligraphed arch, she

spun on him.

"Never speak, inside the courtyard. Never." "Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blow your cover."

Threepio joined them. "Master Han, Mistress Xaverri, is anything wrong?" "No," Han said. "I don't think

so. I don't know. Except Luke's still back there!" Han plunged through the archway and ran through the

courtyard, unreasonably anxious considering Luke had been out of his sight for about a minute.

Han pushed his way back into the auditorium.

At first he did not see Luke anywhere. His eyes were no longer accustomed to the dimness, and the

noise and heat oppressed him.

He looked at the place where they had all been. Luke stood right where Han had left him.

The young Jedi stared at the stage, where Waru had encysted another supplicant.

"Come on!" Han said. He grabbed Luke by the sleeve and dragged him bodily out of the theater.

Luke did not resist.

Xaverri was walking away, already a couple of hundred paces down the trail to the main entry of the

dome. Threepio hovered halfway between, moving a few steps toward Xaverri and calling her name

plaintively, then returning. When he saw Han and Luke, he stopped stock-st in relief, then hurried to join

them.

"She would not wait, Master Han," Threepio said. "I asked her politely, but..." Threepio stopped, at a

loss for ^ws.

"You worry too much," Han said.

"Purple-Three. Come on." Han led Luke past Threepio. Only when they had caught up to Xaverri did he

let Luke go. Han's brother-in-law had made no attempt to escape. His gaze was distant, his expression

blank.

"Luke! What's wrong? Snap out of it!

Xaverri, wait!" She complied, but her shoulders were stiff with anger.

Luke raised his head. Suddenly he was back, his usual self.

"Is Waru your lost Jedi?" Han demanded.

"No," Luke said. "I don't think so.

I don't know. I don't know what it is." He gazed into the distance. "I ought to be able to tell, to sense