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very good job of being invisible."
"No one cares," Luke said. "No one's watching. All these people have
tunnel vision--all they can see right now are their own plans and
worries and hopes. They're all eager for confirmation that this really
will be the vacation of a lifetime."
Raising her head, Akanah sought confirmation of his words. "On
Carratos, everyone notices public tears," she said, wiping her
cheeks.
"My ears expected to hear ridicule."
"Looks like you'll have to do without, this time," he said. "So where
do we start? Who are we looking for?"
"The city of Griann," she said. "It's in what they call the Greenbelt
Region. That's where they were taken--Jib Djalla, Novus, Tipagna, and
Norika. The first three are boys," she added. "Novus is Twi'lek, the
others are human."
"Okay. Let's go see what the machines can tell us about Griann," Luke
said, reaching down and shouldering both bags.
As they stood in line for an information kiosk, Akanah's mood seemed to
brighten, as though she were absorbing some of the joyful energy around
her. But Luke again felt someone's curiosity as a sudden shiver, as if
someone had lightly touched his face, trying to recognize him.
Looking back across Welcome Park on a pretense of casual
crowd-watching, Luke focused in on the tall, slender form of an Elomin
male, already turning his horned face away. Luke watched his quarry
move aloofly through the gathering until it disappeared behind the
curve of the information center, but the Elomin never glanced his way
again.
You're getting twitchy, Luke told himself. There's no way that an
Elomin would be working for Imperial intelligence.
But the fact that an Elomin--perhaps this same one--had parked an
airspeeder directly across from Mud Sloth would not leave his
awareness. And the noise and the bustle of the crowd in the park
suddenly seemed less a joyful party and more a potentially deadly
distraction.
Maybe they were holding us up for a reason, Akanah, Luke thought
worriedly, patting the bulge of his lightsaber along his thigh to
reassure himself that it was there.
But though he stayed protectively close, Luke said nothing to Akanah
beyond the kind of inconsequential chatter a couple as accustomed to
each other as they were to traveling might Share while waiting in
line.
There's something here that I still don't understand---some question
I've failed to ask. He shook his head in annoyance, with such vigor
that Akanah noticed.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Oh--I've just done it again, that's all," said Li Stonn. "The lines
on either side are moving faster than ours. I shouldn't ever pick.
You pick the line next time, all right?"
She slipped her hand into his. "Be patient, dear," she said with an
affectionate smile. "We're almost there--and maybe this will be the
last line we have to stand in."
Someone behind them chuckled deeply. "This is your first time on Teyr,
isn't it?" the stranger called out.
"You haven't seen anything yet. Wait until you get near the Rift."
"Oh, it'll be worth it, I'm sure," Akanah said brightly, tightening her
grip on Luke's hand. "I just know it will be worth the wait."
Chapter 6
Luke and Akanah rode the Rift Skyrail as far as Cloud Bridge, the
southernmost of the West Rim stops. That treated them to a
breathtaking view of the last eighty kilometers of the Rift--one of the
narrow-est sections, and consequently one of the most spectacular.
The elevated track was perched right on the edge of the chasm, leaping
across side canyons that would have been major attractions in their own
right anywhere else.
At Cloud Bridge, Li Stonn rented a bubbleback, a local landspeeder
variant popular with visitors who wanted to explore the canyon
bottom.
But instead of heading for the elevators at the Cloud Bridge Rift
Access Point, Luke turned the bubbleback west along Flyway 120, toward
the Greenbelt.
An hour and a half at the top speed allowed on the flyway brought them
to the intersection with Harvest Flyway, which Akanah's traveler's aid
card told them was an important cargo route connecting the heart of the
Greenbelt with Turos Noth. There was no speed limit on the lightly
traveled cargo route, which put the agricultural city of Griann not
quite two hours away at the bubbleback's top speed.
"Need to stretch?"
"No," she said, pointing behind them. "I can manage."
As "getaway" vehicles, bubblebacks featured a compact waste station and
reprocessor, with a full set of standard humanoid fittings. "Do we
need to refuel?"
" No. Griann has fuel stops, I assume."
Akanah checked her aid card. "Yes. Though 'local prices may vary from
published visitor area rates."
Please, let's push on."
They had nearly reached Griann when Akanah finally noticed the outline
of the cylinder in the right thigh pocket of Luke's walk-arounds.
"You brought your lightsaber?" she asked, leaning toward him.
"Yes," he said. "You sound surprised."
"How did you get it through Arrival Screening? You can't fool a
scanner with Jedi mind tricks. Can you?"
"You can fool the person whose job it is to respond to scanner alarms,"
Luke said. "But even that wasn't necessary. Lightsabers are still the
rarest weapons in the galaxy. There's only one model of general
security scanner that's programmed to recognize them, and Teyr doesn't
use it."
"Then what do they think it is?"
Luke smiled. "Most scanners misidentify a light-saber as a type of
shaver. Which I suppose it could be, in a pinch--if you were very,
very good with it."
She settled back in her seat. "I wish you had left it in the ship."
"That's asking too much," Luke said. "I don't carry it every minute,
but I don't like to be that far away from it. I've gotten in more
tough spots because of not having it close enough than I ever have for
carrying it."
Looking out her window at the gently rolling fields and the day moon
that was setting over them, Akanah said, "Please remember what I asked
of you--it's important to me."
"I remember," Luke said. "I hope you remember that I didn't make you
any promises."
"Is there that much pleasure in killing, that it becomes something
difficult to give up?"
Luke shot a hard glance across the bubbleback at her. "What makes you
think I take pleasure in killing?"
"That you won't renounce it," she said, turning to meet his gaze. "If
I had caused a million deaths, I don't think I could ever pick up a
weapon again. I don't understand how you can."
With no ready answer, Luke turned his gaze back toward the flyway
ahead. It wasn't until years after the Battle of Yavin that Luke had
first become aware that the Death Star he had destroyed at Yavin had a
complement-officers, crew, and support staff--of more than a million
sentients.
In retrospect, it was something he should have realized without [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]