Doole fiddled with his mechanical eye, and the lenses clicked and whirred
into place, like a camera unit. His Rybet fingers were long and wide at the
end, showing signs of vestigial suction cups as he adjusted the focus and
pressed his face close to Han's. The blind eye stared milkily off in another
direction. After a long inspection he finally hissed in recognition. "It is
you, Han Solo!"
Han frowned. "Been hitting the spice too heavily, I see, Moruth. Always gets
the eyesight first."
"It wasn't spice that did this," Doole snapped, tapping the contraption on
his eye. He drew in another long sputtering breath that sounded like a
carbonated drink spilled on hot coals. "Why are you here, Solo? I want you
to tell me, but maybe I want you to resist just a little bit so I can make
this hurt."
Chewbacca roared in anger. Han tried to spread out his hands, but the
stun-cuffs zapped him. "Wait a minute, Moruth! You'd better explain a few
things to me. I don't quite know--''
Doole didn't hear him, rubbing his splayed hands together and smiling with
his squishy lips. "The hardest part is going to be restraining myself from
having you dismembered right here where I can watch."
Han felt his heart pound. "Can we be reasonable for just a minute? We were
business partners, Moruth, and I never crossed you." Han didn't mention his
suspicions that Doole had crossed him in that last spice run. "I apologize
if I did something to upset you. Can we work it out?"
He remembered his conversation with the hit man Greedo in the Mos Eisley
cantina. Once offended, Jabba the Hutt had never been interested in working
anything out. He hoped Doole would be more reasonable.
Moruth Doole stepped backward, fluttering his long-fingered hands. "Work it
out? What are you going to do, buy me a droid replacement for my eye? I hate
droids! Because of you, Jabba tried to have me killed. I had to beg them to
take only my eye. I had to beg them to take my eye!" He jabbed at his
boiled-egg blind side.
Skynxnex shambled closer to Doole, lowering his voice. "I think you're
confusing him, rather than frightening him, Moruth. Maybe he really doesn't
know what happened."
Doole sat down at his desk and straightened his lizard-skin waistcoat,
regaining his composure. "When you dumped your load of spice, Jabba blamed
it on me! He put out a contract on my life. All because of your cowardice."
Chewbacca roared in outrage. Han barely kept his anger in check. "Jabba put
out a contract on me too, Doole. Greedo tried to assassinate me on Tatooine.
Boba Fett captured me on Bespin and I was trapped in carbonite, just like
your friend there"--he gestured to the gruesome trophy on the wall--"and I
got sent to Jabba anyway."
Doole waved a hand in dismissal. "Jabba's men had already infiltrated the
spice-mining operations, and he wanted to expose me, so his own people could
procure the glitterstim directly. One of his hit men fried my eye and half
blinded the other. He was about to do more, but Skynxnex killed him."
At the doorway the scarecrow smiled with pride.
"Jabba forced my hand, and I had to act. We staged the prison revolt. The
warden himself was Jabba's man, but half of the guards were on my side. I
paid them well, you see. Luckily, the Empire was thrown into chaos right
about the same time. We took Kessel for ourselves. There were a few other
upstart slave lords on the other side of the planet, but they didn't last
long. I've been stockpiling spice supplies and building up a massive defense
fleet with everything I can scrape together. Nobody--and I mean nobody!--is
going to come here and take things away from me."
Doole grabbed his head with his long fingers in a gesture of weariness.
"Everything was going just fine before you had to get Jabba angry at me!
Everything was safe. I knew just how to play the game. Now I'm jumping at
shadows, afraid every moment."
Doole stared at Han with his mechanical eye. "But ruining my life once isn't
good enough for you, is it? You come back here broadcasting a message from
the New Republic. Somehow I thought remnants of the Empire would try to grab
the spice mines back first, but big governments are all the same. You are a
spy, a particularly inept one. Did you think you could just fly into our
space, look around, and go back to your Republic with all the information
they need to come take us over?" He slapped his palm on the desktop with a
damp splat. "We'll strike the first blow by killing their spy, and we will
be ready to blast them out of the sky the moment your attack ships come out
of hyperspace!"
"You haven't got a chance!" Skynxnex sneered.
Han allowed himself to smile, then actually chuckled. "You boys have it all
wrong. Absolutely wrong." Chewbacca grunted his agreement.
Skynxnex scowled. Doole stared at Han in silence for a moment. "We'll see
about that."
Doole reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a small
ancient-looking key, which he inserted into one of the drawers of the former
warden's desk. He fumbled with the lock, then opened the drawer. Reaching
in, he pulled out an armored strongbox. He hefted the strongbox to the
table, then dug in another pocket of his waistcoat to extract a second key.
Han watched, his curiosity piqued, as Doole opened the strongbox and
withdrew a smaller sealed container. Doole meticulously slipped both his
keys back into his pockets before looking at Han.
"I'd like to spend time interrogating you thoroughly, but I want to know
exactly when the New Republic plans to come in and take over, how many ships
they are sending, what type of forces they will use. I'll get the
information now, but I may have time to enjoy interrogating you later, just
on general principle."
Doole placed his webbed Rybet palm on the top of the sealed container. With
a slight hum a beam of light curled around his fingers in an ID scan; the
small container burped as the airtight seal was broken. The lid slid away to
reveal a padded interior compartment.
The box was filled with slender, black-wrapped cylinders about half as long
as a finger. Han recognized them immediately. "Glitterstim," he said.
Doole looked at him. "The most potent form of spice. With it I'll be able to
read the truth of what you say. Your errant thoughts will betray you."
Han felt a sudden sense of relief. "But what if I don't have any hidden
thoughts to betray?"
Skynxnex struck Han's head with the back of his hand, sending him reeling.
Chewbacca tried to stagger forward, but the stun-cuffs silenced his bellows
and made him sway dizzily, barely able to keep his balance.
Doole selected one of the slim black cylinders and held it in his fingers.
With a deft motion he peeled off the opaque outer wrapper and withdrew a
thin bundle of transparent glassy fibers. As Doole held the inert
glitterstim up to the light pouring through the broad viewing window, the
light-sensitive spice began to scintillate and glow from within, ripening.
Han watched until it was ready for Doole to consu
me. He swallowed a dry lump
in his throat.
Doole opened his mouth when the segment of glitterstim glowed a pearlescent
blue. He extended his sharp purplish tongue to wrap around the crystalline
fibers, which he drew back into his mouth. The glitterstim crackled and
fizzed; as Doole flexed his lips, tiny sparks seeped out the corners.
Han stared as Doole closed his blind eye and breathed deep, watery breaths.
The spice would act on Doole's mind, pump up his latent powers. The
automatic focusing gears of Doole's mechanical eye clicked and whirred,
spinning around as it tried to make sense of the visions pouring through the
Rybet's mind. Then Doole turned to face Han and Chewbacca.
Han winced as he felt tiny fingers clawing around in his brain, picking
through the lobes of memory, images he had stored in his
thoughts...searching, searching. He tried to shrink away but knew he could
keep no secrets from anyone pumped on glitterstim. Skynxnex chuckled, then
immediately fell silent, as if afraid of directing Doole's attention to
himself, where his own brain could be picked.
Han felt anger growing, outrage that Moruth Doole could dissect the private
moments he had with Leia, could observe the births of Han's three children.
But the spice effects lasted only a few moments, and Doole would be
concerned mainly with learning why Han and Chewbacca had come to Kessel.
"I really was telling you the truth, Doole," Han said quietly. "We are on a
peaceful mission to reestablish diplomatic contact with Kessel. The New
Republic is trying to open up trade and welcome you. We came in peace, but
you just declared war on yourself by shooting down their first ambassadors."
Chewbacca growled.
Skynxnex stiffened, then took a few awkward steps forward. "What is he
talking about?"
Han raised his voice. "Read the truth in my mind, Moruth."
The Rybet's mouth hung slack, and Han could see glitterstim sparks
sputtering around his cheeks. He felt the tiny probing fingers crawl deeper
and deeper into his mind, scrabbling around. Doole was frantically trying to
find some proof of his suspicions as the spice enhancement faded away.
But Doole could find nothing; there was nothing to find. The only thing he
did learn was the power of the Alliance forces that would be arrayed against
him. A fleet that had succeeded in overthrowing the entire Empire would
certainly be sufficient to destroy a ragtag outlaw operation on Kessel.
"No!" Doole wailed. He whirled to glare at Skynxnex. "What are we going to
do? He's telling the truth!"
"He can't be!" Skynxnex said. "He's a--he's--''
'The spice doesn't lie. He's here for exactly the reasons he said. And we
shot him down. We took him prisoner. The New Republic is going to come after
us, and they'll wipe us out."
"Kill the two of them now," Skynxnex said. "If we work fast, we can cover
everything up."
Han felt sudden fear return. "Now, wait a minute! I'm sure we can fix this
with a few careful messages. I am the ambassador, after all! Diplomatic
credentials and everything. I wouldn't want a simple misunderstanding--''
'No!" Skynxnex said, keeping his attention fixed on Doole. "We can't risk
that. You know what Solo has done before. He knows you tipped off the
Imperial tariff ships to go after him."
Actually, Han hadn't been certain until that very moment. "Now, there's no
need to panic," he said again. "I can talk to the New Republic Senate. I
know Mon Mothma personally, and my wife Leia is a cabinet member, and--''
His mind whirled, trying to think of how Leia would handle this. Many times
he had watched her smooth diplomatic problems. She had a finesse with words,
a way of approaching other people's concerns and stroking them, delicately
maneuvering opposing sides into a compromise. But right now Leia wasn't with
him.
"Yes, I think I agree," Doole said, tapping a finger against his swollen
lips. Han let out a sigh of relief. "I agree with Skynxnex. I'll review the
battle tapes, but I don't believe you transmitted any messages after coming
out of hyperspace. One of our fighters shot off your subspace antenna dish.
The New Republic has no way of knowing you arrived safely. With no evidence
they will conclude you got swallowed up by the Maw."
Doole began to pace in front of the large viewing window. "We'll delete any
mention of you from our records. Instruct all my mercenaries to forget about
the attack. Yes, that'll be the safest alternative!"
"You're making a big mistake!" Han said. He could barely restrain his urge
to yank at the stun-cuffs.
"No," Doole replied, tapping his squishy-tipped fingers together. "I don't
think so."
Chewbacca bellowed a loud string of guttural words.
rubbed his fingers against his blind eye. "But you still owe me for this,
Solo. Even if you worked every day for a hundred years, it would never repay
me for the loss of my eye. You both are going down into the spice mines, the
deepest and most distant tunnels. They've been needing quite a few
replacements lately."
Doole grinned with his wide froglike mouth. A final flicker of blue sparks
rippled at the corner of his lips.
"No one will ever find you down there."
The former Imperial Information Center lay buried deep beneath the old
palace, covered by layers of shielding walls and guarded by tight security
at every entrance. To keep the temperatures within tolerable limits for the
great data archive machines, vast heat-exchanger systems and powerful
cooling units filled the room with a background roar.
Hunched over fourteen consoles were lumpy dull-gray slicer droids, hardwired
into the terminals as they meticulously hacked at the security encryption
codes and backup viruses set up in the Emperor's mainframes. The slicer
droids had been working for a full year, ferreting out vital tidbits from
the labyrinthine databases. Already they had exposed twenty-three Imperial
spies in deep cover trying to sabotage the burgeoning New Republic.
The hum of the cooling units and the motionlessness of the slicer droids
blanketed the Center with an echoing emptiness. Lonely and fidgety, the
protocol droid See-Threepio paced back and forth, his servomotors whirring,
as he viewed the room with his optical sensors for the hundredth time.
"Haven't you found anything yet, Artoo?" he said.
Jacked into one of the information ports, Artoo-Detoo bleeped an impatient
negative and continued whirring as he tunneled through the overwhelming
amounts of information.
"Don't forget to double-check everything," Threepio said, and began pacing
again. "And don't be afraid to follow unlikely leads. Master Luke would call
them hunches. This is very important, Artoo."
Artoo hooted indignantly.
"And remember to check every planet from the Old Republic. The Empire didn't
necessarily have time to update its information on all of them."
This time Artoo did not bother to reply but continued to work.
A moment later T
hreepio heard the outer doors open, and a shadowy figure
moved toward them with silent grace. As always, Luke Skywalker wore his Jedi
cloak, but this time the hood was draped casually over his shoulders. Luke
walked with an eagerness in his step.
Threepio was glad to see a resurgence of the excited boyishness that had so
characterized young Luke when the droids first met him after they had been
purchased from the Jawas on Tatooine. Of late Luke's eyes had not been able
to hide the haunted look and the barely contained power of a Jedi Master.
"Master Luke! How good of you to check on us!"
"How's it going, Threepio? Found anything yet?"
Artoo beeped an answer, which Threepio translated. "Artoo says he's going as
fast as he can, but he wishes me to remind you of the enormous amount of
data he must inspect."
"Well, I'll be leaving in a few hours to follow up on some earlier leads I
uncovered by myself. I just wanted to make sure you two have everything you
need before I take off."
Threepio straightened in a gesture of surprise. "Might I ask where you are
going, Master Luke?"
Artoo chittered and Luke turned to him. "Not this time, Artoo. It's more
important that you stay here and continue the search. I can fly by myself."
Luke turned to answer Threepio's question. "I'm going to Bespin to check on
somebody there, but first I want to go to an old outpost called Eol Sha.