The Crystal Star (32 page)

"No more nasty food," she said. "I'll make something good for all of you. No, my sweeties, Hethrir isn't

your hold-father.

Our friend is right." She gestured toward Rillao, standing in the doorway. She introduced her children to

the Firrerreo. "This is Jaina, and this is Jacen." "What's your name?" Jaina asked.

"Jaina!" Jacen said, shocked.

"You may call me Firrerreo, little one," Rillao said. "When I know you better, perhaps I'll tell you my

name." "You look just like Tigris," Jaina said.

"Where did you see him?" Rillao asked, her voice so intense that Jaina took one apprehensive step back.

"Is he here? Is he with Hethrir? Is Hethrir here?" "Are you his mama?" Jaina asked.

"Yes, little one," Rillao said. "And I have not seen him in a long time. I miss him very much." Leia grasped

Rillao's hand. "We'll find him. Don't worry, we'll find him." While they spoke, Chewbacca dropped

Alderaan to just above the struggling, muddy mob, and loosed a cable for them to grab. He used Leia's

ship as their anchor, and watched while they pulled themselves out of the mud. He could have pulled

them out with the strength of the ship. But he did not.

Rillao hurried to the display and expanded it.

She searched the group, then turned away, downcast.

"Tigris isn't one of those Proctors," Jaina said.

"Where is he? What is he doing?" "He... I don't know," Jaina said.

"Mostly he followed Hethrir around. And he took Anakin." "Hethrir told him to," Jacen said.

Jaina glowered at Rillao. "He kept trying to act mean." "But he wasn't, not really," Jacen said.

Alderaan swooped. Chewbacca herded the Proctors through the stand of bushes and across the stream.

"Make them go in the desert, Chewieffwas Jaina said. "There's a place we can keep them where they

can't be mean to anybody!" The huge pink and black and tan lizard exploded from the center of the

stream, flinging her head up, lashing her tail, roaring in challenge at Leia's starship. Water splashed in

great sprays, like rain falling upward. Sunlight reflected through the droplets, cloaking the enormous lizard

in rainbows. The creature lumbered across the stream, following Alderaan.

It climbed the bank. Its claws left great gouges in the mud.

"Look, Mama, Mistress Dragon is coming, too." Jacen grinned. "I bet she got tired of taking a bath, and

she wants to go back to her sand nest." Mistress Dragon followed the Proctors into the desert. As she

caught up to them, they tried to run. They all looked exhausted.

"Did my son tell you his name, children?" Rillao asked.

Jaina wrinkled her nose in deep thought.

"No, that was Hethrir who told us." "Hethrir..." Rillao said softly, dangerously.

The deck of the starship was cold and hard, even harder than Tigris's steel bunk on the worldcraft. At

least back on the worldcraft he had a thin mattress and a blanket. Sometimes he slept without them, to

toughen himself. Tonight, he wished he had them. A faint breath of warm air trickled from beneath

Hethrir's door. A faint buzzing sound came with it. At first Tigris thought it might be a snore, but he

banished the improper thought. Lord Hethrir had said he would meditate; he would naturally focus his

attention with a chant.

Another noise came to him, from the passenger compartment of the starship. Anakin was crying again,

with an exhausted sob. Tigris tried to ignore him, tried to disregard how hungry the child must be. He

could not understand why the Proctors had not soothed him and fed him.

His own stomach growled. That was easy to ignore. He would not eat till Lord Hethrir bade him to.

But the Lord had not commanded him to remain here all night. He had merely given Tigris permission to

sleep here, if he wished. Surely it would cause no harm to attend to the child. It was important for Anakin

to be strong and alert when he was purified.

Tigris rose silently and crept down the dim corridor to the passenger compartment.

Except for Anakin, it was empty. All the Proctors had gone to their cabins to sleep or gamble.

Anakin's face was smudged and blotchy with crying. He stared warily at Tigris.

"Come along, little one," Tigris said. "You must be lonely, all by yourself. And hungry.

Let's get you cleaned up, and find you some supper. We have to be quiet, though, so we won't disturb

Lord Hethrir." He unfastened the harness and offered his hand to Anakin. Anakin took it, slid down from

the couch, and followed Tigris quietly and obediently.

A little later, they found fruit and bread and milk in the ship's galley. Anakin ate hungrily. With a mustache

of milk, and crumbs on his chin, he offered Tigris a half-eaten slice of bread.

"Supper!" he said.

"No, thank you," Tigris said, strangely touched, reprimanding himself not only for being touched but for

being tempted to take the bread and dunk it into the glass of milk and eat it. "That's your supper."

"Share!" Anakin said.

"No, thank you," Tigris said again.

"Anakin want cookie," Anakin said.

"Lord Hethrir doesn't eat cookies!" Tigris exclaimed, shocked.

Anakin pushed his lower lip out stubbornly.

"No cookies!" Tigris said.

"Papa," Anakin said. "Papa, Mama..." He was about to cry again. Tigris wiped Anakin's face with the

edge of his sleeve, hoping to distract him. He stopped sniffling.

"I want my papa," he said.

Tigris knelt beside him and gazed into his eyes.

"Anakin, little one," he said, "there's something you must know. Your mama and your papa don't want

you anymore. Lord Hethrir saved you, adopted you. As he adopted me, and all of us." Anakin scowled.

He gnawed on a piece of fruit, thoughtfully and silently. He did not start to cry again.

"What is this? A picnic?" Tigris leaped to his feet, startled and dismayed. Lord Hethrir stood in the

doorway, elegant as always in his long white robes, though his hair was disarranged.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Tigris said.

"The child--I thought--" "Be quiet. Put the child back in his place.

Your permission to attend me is revoked. You will stay in the passenger compartment with the child until

the voyage is ended." Hethrir left them, striding away. He had not even raised his voice, but Tigris

trembled.

Whatever good impression he had somehow managed to make, it was destroyed. He glanced at Anakin

in irritation. Destroyed because of the child.

Tigris sighed. Much as he wanted to blame his disgrace on someone else, in good conscience he could

not.

He turned to Anakin.

The child offered him a sticky piece of fruit.

"Supper?" Anakin said.

Tigris accepted the slice of fruit. He ate it. It tasted delicious.

In the passenger compartment, cut off from the sight of space and stars, Tigris and Anakin waited

together while Lord Hethrir landed at Crseih Station, better known in the trade as Asylum.

Alderaan hovered above a low, massive compound, a windowless stockade of huge gray stones, built

atop a hill. The Proctors trudged up the slope toward it, a dejected group.

Jaina pointed to a canyon that split the hillside below the stockade. "That's where we played, Mama," she

said.

"And Mistress Dragon lives in the dunes," Jacen said.

"We never got to go in the house," Jaina said, gazing down at the stockade. "We were underground." "In

long dark tunnels!" Jacen said.

"And little tiny rooms. With no light!" "Oh, my dears," Leia said softly.

Alderaan landed near the courtyard of the stockade. Leia disembarked, followed by Jaina and Jacen, all

the other children, and Rillao and Chewbacca.

"Will you search the compound?" Leia asked Rillao and Chewbacca.

Chewbacca growled.

"And leave you here alone with them?" Rillao said in a tone of protest. She gestured toward the group of

Proctors straggling into the courtyard.

Mistress Dragon ambled along behind them.

The Proctors staggered across the cobblestones and flung themselves at Leia's feet.

"Madam, your mercy, we beg you!" They looked as if they had been on a desperate campaign. Their

skin was blotched with insect bites. Their clothes were torn from the bushes and muddy from the swamp.

Their feet were swollen and blistered from the tramp across the desert.

"I think I'll be all right," Leia said dryly.

"Very well." Rillao and Chewbacca crossed the compound and disappeared down the staircase into the

stockade.

Mistress Dragon lumbered in behind the Proctors, snortling and roaring. The Proctors shuddered and

flattened themselves to the ground and lay very still, though their mud-stained blue uniforms gave them no

camouflage against the stones.

"Please, my lady," whispered the Proctor with the most elaborate decorations on his shoulders and

sleeves. "Save us from these plagues.

Please don't feed us to the dragon!" Mistress Dragon lay down near them with a great "Huff!" of breath.

She lashed her tail.

The Proctor ducked, flattening himself to the ground again.

"Beg the pardon of my--" Leia revised what she had begun to say. "Beg the pardon of all these children,"

she said. "Then I'll consider mercy." It occurred to her that if Mistress Dragon decided to snack on a

Proctor or two, she had no way of stopping the beast.

The Proctor lay still, facedown, humiliated. Then his terror and his discomfort overcame his

embarrassment. He crawled slowly --keeping his head very low--ffthe children gathered behind Leia.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"Promise that you'll never behave toward another being as you've behaved toward these children." "I

promise," he said.

"Now stand up, and remove that nonsense from your shoulders." He balked at that, but she stared him

down. He rose, glancing over his shoulder at Mistress Dragon (who closed her eyes and snored), then

pulled away the jeweled patches from his uniform.

Each of the Proctors made a similar promise. The pile of insignia grew. While the Proctors watched, Leia

handed their epaulets and medals to the children to use as toys and decorations.

"Where are the other children?" Leia asked the leader of the Proctors. "Where did Hethrir take them?" "I

don't know, madam," he said.

She could see a tiny flare of fear in him.

He was not exactly lying, but he was not telling her the whole truth, either.

"Where might they be?" she asked, her voice a cutting edge. "The little child Anakin, and the youth

Tigris--" In the back of the group, one of the Proctors snickered nastily. Leia silenced him with a glance.

"And Lusaffwas Jaina said.

"And Mr. Chamberlain's wyrwulf!" Jacen said.

The Head Proctor stared at the ground.

"It will go better for you, if you tell me," she said.

"The Lord Hethrir... he culled the group only yesterday." "Culled them?" Leia felt her skin grow cold, and

her heart angry.

"Only to sell, madam!" the Proctor said.

"Then he departed--" "To Asylum Station?" "Yes, madam. He took the child Anakin.

And Tigris--" "Such contempt," Leia said with wonder at his tone of voice.

"Tigris is weak! The Lord Hethrir wouldn't even make him a helper!" The Proctor sneered. "He had to

serve at table, and nursemaid the youngest children--" "And you believe that task isn't fitting for a strong

young Proctor?" Leia said easily.

"Children are useless until they're old enough to serve the cause of the Empire Rebornffwas "No one will

serve the Empire Reborn," Leia said. "Not ever again." Defiantly, the Proctor raised his arms and cried,

"The Empire Rebornffwas If he had not been so pathetic, so young, Leia would have been angry. As it

was, she glanced at the bedraggled Proctors and she glanced at the tired band of children who had

bested them.

She laughed. The Head Proctor flinched as if she had struck him. And then, at least, he had the

intelligence to look abashed.

"Now," Leia said, "we'll find a place for you where you'll make no more trouble." "I know where to put

them!" Jaina said.

Jaina led the way through long, dark tunnels to a huge, low-ceilinged room as oppressive as a cave. She

flung open one of the doors that lined its walls and showed Leia one of the tiny dark cells.

"This is where we had to sleep! In the dark!

So they should have to sleep--" Appalled though she was by the cells, Leia put her hand on Jaina's

shoulder. Her daughter fell silent and looked up at her, angry and confused.

"They asked for my mercy," Leia said. "And they asked your pardon--" "They didn't really mean it," Jaina

muttered. his--and we won't treat them harshly. We mustn't take revenge, sweetheart. That isn't just."

She looked over the bedraggled group of Proctors, realizing how young they all were.

She addressed them directly. "However, we have no other place to keep you where you will be safe."

Where you can't get into mischief, Leia thought.

"You must stay in this hall, with the door locked. You may use the cells--if you like." Leia knew from the

stubborn set of her daughter's jaw that Jaina was far from satisfied, and Leia did not blame her.

"If one of them's bad," Jaina said, "and you have to shut him in--don't use my cell." She pointed at one of

the doors, indistinguishable from all the rest. "Because I broke the latch!" Leia knelt beside her and

hugged her.

"It was very clever and brave of you to do that." "And I put sand in their pants and Jacen made the

myrmins bite them!" Jacen looked at the floor. "But the Proctors killed them. The myrmins," he said