The Han Solo Adventures Part 35

"Badure, they've got those ships parked and tied down with their rear ends into the wind." Since the craft on the field followed common aerodynamic design principles, the sensible way to position them would have been with their noses into the prevailing air currents.

Badure lowered the scope and handed back Han's blaster. "The wind's been steady, at least since last night. Either they don't care what kind of knocking-around their ships will take if a storm kicks up, or the place is deserted."

"We haven't seen a soul down there," Hasti said.

Han turned to Bollux. "Are you still getting those signals?"

"Yes, Captain. They originate from that antenna mast down there by the field, I would say. They're very weak. I only picked them up because the summit we climbed was close on a direct line of sight."

Han and Bollux had ascended that summit, a laborious session of trudging and scrambling and occasionally climbing, because of a suspicion of Han's. In the mining camp, Hasti and Badure had heard rumors that J'uoch and her partners were increasing camp security. Adding to that an apparent interest in the mountains on the part of Lanni, Hasti's late sister, Han thought it possible the mountains were seeded with antipersonnel sensors that were somehow tied in with the treasure. On the chance that, if there were sensors, they would be active rather than pa.s.sive and therefore detectable, Han had taken the futilely protesting labor 'droid up to see if, now that they were approaching the lowlands, they could detect any signals. Using his built-in command-signal receiver, Bollux had tried all the standard calibrations and, when those yielded nothing, sampled others. Finally he had picked up a signal of a long-outmoded sort, and Han had taken a rough fix on it. The signal had led the group to this narrow valley, and the morning revealed what was apparently a landing field bracketed in stone.

They had been marching through the mountains for days; songs and high spirits had given way to sore feet, overworked servo-motors, aching muscles, and shoulders chafed by pack straps. The visit to the spa at the University of Rudrig seemed to Han like a dream of another life. According to the map, they were very nearly through the mountains.

That map had turned out to be their most important piece of equipment, allowing them to choose the easiest course. Nonetheless, they had hit a number of places where they had had to climb, where Skynx suddenly became a major a.s.set. The Ruurian could scale or descend sheer rock faces, carrying one end of a climbing rope with him. Without Skynx, Han knew, they would still be somewhere far back in the mountains. As it was, their food was running low. Fortunately they had managed to find water on their route.

But even after they left the mountains they would still have to cross an expanse of open plains before reaching the mining site. A common thought was running through the group's respective biological and synthetic synapses: acquisition of a ship, even an atmospheric craft, would mark an end to their walking days. In addition, the field might offer supplies as well as transportation.

"Could this be what Lanni was curious about?" Badure wondered aloud.

"We'll see," Han decided. They had concealed themselves behind some rocks within a kilometer of the field. "Chewie and I'll go in first. If we give the all-clear sign, come on down." He demonstrated a broad waving motion, left to right. "But if we don't signal you within a half hour, or we give you any other kind of signal, get yourselves out of here. Write us off and try to reach the mining site, or double back to the city if that's what seems best."

Han and the Wookiee started shedding their extra gear. "I'm not so sure we shouldn't have stayed in the city," said Hasti.

Han tried to rea.s.sure her. "You would be if you'd ever done any time swabbing out the plumbing in some local lockup, doll. You ready, Chewie?"

He was. They moved out, taking turns advancing from cover to cover. Each awaited the other's hand motion before moving; they had done this sort of thing together before.

They observed no sentries, patrols, watchtowers, or surveillance equipment as they approached; but they felt no less uneasy. When at last they reached the edge of the field, they held a brief but heated debate conducted entirely in hand signals, over who would be first to step into the open. Each insisted that he should be the one. Han cut the dispute short, just before it devolved into an exchange of angry gestures, by rising and stepping out from the cover of the boulder.

Chewbacca, eyes roving the scene, bowcaster raised and ready, immediately shifted to a position from which he could give supporting fire. Han slowly moved across the open area, blaster out, nerves taut.

No shot or outcry came-and no alarm. The field was a simple expanse of flat ground-partly smoothed soil and partly rock that, from the looks of it, had been leveled a long time ago. Han wondered why somebody hadn't done a complete job and paved it over with formex or some other surfacing material.

He saw no buildings of any kind-only the primitive antenna mast, ground beacons, ground-control light cl.u.s.ters, and area illumination banks. He skirted the edge of the field, darting in among the rocks without warning to make sure no one was waiting in ambush.

He reemerged and continued working his way toward the parked ships. When he was satisfied that n.o.body had a gun turret or missile tube pointed at him from one of the craft, he approached them. And when he had come close enough to make out detail, he had difficulty speaking for a second.

What the flaming-"Hey, Chewie! Get over here!"

The Wookiee was out in the open instantly, racing toward him, bowcaster held high. His charge slowed to a distracted lope, then immobility as he saw what Han was talking about. He gave a bemused, lowing sound.

"That's right," Han agreed, slamming the side of one of the ships with his fist. It gave, leaving a deep indentation. "They're phonies."

Chewbacca came up slowly, shouldering his weapon, and took a firm grasp on the hatch of the next ship in line. He tore it off easily: it was merely a mockup constructed of treated extrusion sheeting and light structural alloys. He cast the hatch aside with a brayed Wookiee imprecation and leaned into the open hatchway. Light came through the clear pane used to simulate the c.o.c.kpit windshield. The dummy ship, ribbed by support members, was gloomy, stale-smelling, and empty.

Han, examining the ships and the general layout of the field, was stumped. Nonetheless, he kept his pistol in his hand. The mockups were crude but had been made with obvious attention to details of landing gear, fuselage, propulsore, and control surfaces. They were copied-at least, he presumed them to have been copied-from models he didn't recognize and secured in place with lines of some artificial fiber.

His first thought was that this was a decoy base, part of some military campaign or defense system. But there had been no organized conflict on Dellalt or, for that matter, in this sector of s.p.a.ce for years and years. Furthermore, this fake landing field must demand a certain amount of upkeep to be in the shape it was. A trick of J'uoch's? No logic sustained that.

Chewbacca was more instinctive. In his mind the place conjured images of some malign force using the field as a sort of trap, like those of the webweavers on the lower tree levels of his home planet. Nervously glancing around, eager to be away, he set one paw against Han's shoulder to get him moving.

The pilot shrugged off the paw. "Take it easy, will you? This place might still have some stuff we can use. Take a quick look around while I check out that antenna mast."

The Wookiee shambled off unenthusiastically. He made a rapid, thorough sweep of the area, discovering no watchers, no tracks, nor any fresh scents.

When Chewbacca returned, Han straightened from his examination of the instrument pods at the mast. "It runs off some kind of sealed power plant, a little one. It might have started broadcasting yesterday or been going for years and years. I gave the others the signal to come ahead."

Chewbacca whined unhappily, wanting only to depart from this place. Han was losing patience. "Chewie, I'm getting tired of this. There's receiver gear here that we can use to check for sensors and get a bearing on J'uoch's mining camp. This thing's been beaming for a whole day at least; if anybody in this miserable solar system were coming, they'd be here by now." That made the entire installation much more of a curiosity, he had to admit; but he didn't mention it, not wanting to make his towering sidekick any more nervous than he already was.

Badure, Hasti, Skynx, and Bollux soon appeared and, when they had looked over the bogus landing field, voiced surprise and mystification.

"This isn't any part of J'uoch's operation, I'm sure," Hasti said. Badure didn't add anything, but his expression conveyed discomfort. Skynx's antennae were waving a little erratically, but Han chalked that up to the Ruurian's timidity.

"All right," the pilot said briskly. "If we work fast, we'll be out of here inside of an hour. Bollux, I want to patch you and Max in on some of the equipment; one of Max's adaptor arms ought to fit. The rest of you fan out and keep your eyes open. Hey, Skynx, you feeling okay?"

The little Ruurian's antennae were waving even more p.r.o.nouncedly now. His head wobbled for a moment, then he shook himself. "Yes, I-felt strange for a second, Captain. Strain of the journey, I should imagine."

"Well, hang in there, old fellow. You'll make it." Han started off with the labor 'droid while the others began spreading out.

Then he heard a panicked squeak and whirled to see Skynx collapse in a multilegged heap, antennae vibrating. "Stay away from him!" Han shouted.

Hasti fairly jumped back. "What's happened to him?"

"I don't know, but it's not going to happen to us." They had too few facts to decide with any accuracy what was wrong with him; it could be a disease, or something natural to his peculiar physiology, perhaps even a part of the Ruurian life cycle. But Han wasn't going to risk having any other living members of the party contaminated. "Bollux, pick him up; we're pulling out of here. Everybody else, cover."

They formed a ring, weapons ready, as the labor 'droid hoisted the small, limp form and held it easily in his gleaming arms. Han barked out instructions. "Chewie, take the lead." But as they moved out Han found his own vision becoming blurry.

He shook his head violently, which helped, but a surge of alarm made his breathing more rapid, and his heart began pumping furiously. They had only gone a few more paces when Badure, opening his flight jacket's collar, slurred: "Whatever it is, I'm in it with Skynx." He collapsed to the ground without another word, but his eyes remained open, his breathing regular.

Hasti rushed to him, but she, too, was already unsteady on her feet. Chewbacca would have put out a paw to support her, but Han snagged a handful of his partner's pelt and pulled him back. "No, Chewie. We've got to get clear before it happens to us." Han knew that they might be able to come back and help the others later, but if they succ.u.mbed now, no one was likely to survive.

Without warning, Han's legs gave way. The Wookiee, chugging like a steam engine, shifted his bowcaster to one hand and reached for his friend. His prodigious strength seemed to give him additional resistance to whatever was affecting the others. He considered running for it, for Han's statement that someone must get clear was correct. But the Wookiee code of ethics left no room for desertion. Tugging at his friend, he made a mournful sound.

Chewbacca wrestled his partner's slack body up onto his shoulder. Han, eyes still open, unable to speak, watched dully as the world spun by. Showing his fangs, the Wookiee put one broad foot in front of the other with determination. After a gallant struggle that brought him almost to the edge of the field, Chewbacca sank to his knees, nearly struggled up again, then pitched forward. Han regretted numbly that he couldn't tell his friend what a good try it had been.

Bollux now found himself in a crisis of decision-all actions and inactions pointed to members of the group coming to harm or dying. Resolving a course of action nearly burned out his basic logic stacks. Then the 'droid put Skynx down, and the Ruurian curled up into a ball by reflex. Bollux began the task of dragging Han Solo to safety. The pilot was, in the 'droid's evaluation, the one most likely to aid the others by virtue of his talents, turn of mind, and stubbornness.

As it happened, Chewbacca's fall had left Han in a position from which he could see Bollux approach. He wanted to tell the 'droid to take Chewbacca instead, but could form no words. Han's view of the 'droid was suddenly blocked by fantastic figures that leaped, capered, and circled around Bollux, gesturing and gibbering at him. They were dressed in bright costumes that were half-uniform, half-masquerade costume, and wore fantastic headgear, elaborate contrivances that suggested both helmet and mask. Even in his stupor Han registered the fact that they carried firearms of diverse types. Han thought them to be humans.

After a quick conference among themselves, the new arrivals began to push, pull, and shoo the distraught 'droid, forcing him out of Han's field of vision. The pilot was unable to move his head to follow the action.

A masked head thrust in close to him, examining him, but Han couldn't move back or even flinch. The globular mask bore a strong resemblance to a high-alt.i.tude or s.p.a.cesuit helmet, but many of the details of instrumentation, pressure valves, hookups, and couplings were painted on. The air hoses and power-supply cords were useless tubes that dangled and swirled as the mask moved. Unintelligible words in a male human voice rang hollowly.

Han felt himself being lifted, but distantly, as if he had been packed in a crate of dunnage beads. Incidental views showed him that the same was happening to all the others except Bollux, who seemed to have disappeared altogether.

Then came a ride of uncertain duration. The lay of the land and the vagaries of the portage showed Han the rocky ground, Dellalt's blue-white sun, his companions being carried along by other captors, and then the ground again, with no predictability.

At last he saw a gaping hole in the terrain, an entrance to a subsurface area three times the size of the Falcon's main hatch. The boulder that had hidden it was raised on six thick support jacks. Lowered, it would seal and camouflage the hole perfectly, Han knew, because he himself had prowled past it earlier in investigating the area.

Wide pleated hoses had been brought up from beneath the surface. Their pulsations indicated that a gas was being pumped through them, but Han could detect nothing by sight or smell. This was how they had been paralyzed, then; he concluded dizzily that the fantastic headgear he had seen contained breathing filters or respirators.

His bearers moved toward the opening. Suddenly darkness swirled all around him. Either he drifted into and out of consciousness or the lighting in the underground area was only intermittent; it was impossible to tell which. He knew that once or twice he caught sight of the sources of illumination: primitive glow-rods arcing over the tunnels, like tracer trails of rockets, in soft colors of blue and green and red.

Han was carried past many rooms that seemed to serve a wide variety of functions. Once he heard sounds of adults chanting, then of children doing the same. There were the rhythms of heavy machinery, whirring turbines and banging switching panels, racing gears and the spitting, crackling openings and closings of ma.s.sive power bars. He smelled foods that were strange to him, and people, with all their various odors.

He tried to concentrate, either to find a way out of his predicament or to experience his last moments fully, but instead kept drifting into pa.s.sivity.

His first indication that the paralysis was wearing off was when he was unceremoniously dumped onto a cold stone floor; he didn't quite let out a yelp but came close. He hurt where he had hit: his shoulder, back, and rump.

He heard someone-Badure, he thought-groan. Han tried to sit up. A bad mistake; a flare ignited in his forehead. He lay back down, knowing now what had elicited Badure's groan. He clasped his forehead, a major victory of movement, and ran his tongue over his teeth, checking to see if fungus were really growing there.

Suddenly an enormous s.h.a.ggy face was hovering over him. Chewbacca hauled him up by great fistsful of his flight jacket and sat him up against a large stone. Han's faltering hand went automatically to his holster and found it vacant. That frightened him, but galvanized him as well.

He clamped both hands to his head, whispering so that it wouldn't come apart. "Best time to escape's the soonest," he told his first mate. "Kick the door over and let's leg it."

His friend urrffed with a disgusted gesture to the door. Han made a major effort and looked up, setting off little shooting stars on the periphery of his vision.

The door was barely discernible, an oblong of stone fitted into the wall so tightly that barely a hairline crack showed. There was a glow-rod on either side of it, but the rest of the room was unlit. Han frisked himself-no tools, no weapons, not even a toothpick.

Badure and Hasti had been dumped together. Skynx was still rolled in a tight ball, but of Bollux there was no sign. The Wookiee plucked Han to his feet, and the pilot moved to one of the glow-rods and pulled it from its socket. The filament retained enough power to run independently for some time. Han moved farther into the chamber, waving the light as he explored; his partner trailed behind, huge fists ready.

"Check the size of this place!" Han found the breath to whisper. The Wookiee grunted. The stone ceiling arced away into the gloom beyond the light. Han came upon row after long row of low stone monoliths, about the height of his sternum, twice as wide as they were high. He couldn't see an end to them.

A voice behind them made both partners jump. "Where are we?" It was Hasti, who had just recovered enough to rise and follow. "And what are those things? Shelves? Work tables?"

"Runways?" Han added, wincing at the throbbing in his head. "Paperweights? Who knows? Let's look the rest of this granite gymnasium over." At least, he thought, moving about would help counteract the paralysis. Best to let the others rest for now.

But a search of the gargantuan room, which was about the size and shape of a medium s.p.a.cecraft hangar, yielded no other doors, no other features at all, simply a vast s.p.a.ce filled with the stone slabs.

"The whole mountain's probably hollow," Han conjectured, keeping his voice low. "But I don't see how those hopping half-wits we saw could've done it." They started back toward the door.

Chewbacca uttered a low sound.

Han translated. "He's saying how dry it is in here. You'd expect it to be damp, from condensation if nothing else." Their footsteps clacked and echoed.

By that time Badure was sitting up and Skynx had uncurled. Interrupting one another with several simultaneous conversations and frequent crossovers, they established the bare facts of what had happened.

"What will they do with us?" Skynx asked, not concealing his trembling.

"Who knows?" Han responded. "But they took Bollux and Max. I hope those two lads don't end up as drill bits and belt buckles." He regretted now his own and Chewbacca's abuse of the aircraft mockups on the landing field, and wondered if this was the standard treatment of vandals, recalling the Swimmer Shazeen's comment that few travelers made it through the mountains. "Anyway, they haven't killed us out of hand; that's one thing in our favor, right?" Skynx did not seem comforted.

"I'm thirsty," Hasti announced, "and hungry as a Wookiee."

"I'll summon room service," offered Han. "Marinated range-squab for four, and a few magnums of chilled T'iil-T'iil? We'll get the place redecorated while we're at it."

She snorted. "You should get the auto-valet, Solo, and feed yourself into it; you look like a jet-juicer just off an eight-day twister."

Amused, Han glanced at her, giving her a long-suffering smile. Then he sighed and sat down with his back against one of the stone slabs. Chewbacca lowered himself next to Han. "Hey, partner; forward guard to your center's flanking slot, six win-lose units."

Chewbacca fell into deep concentration, chin on fist, envisioning the gameboard match they would be playing on the Falcon. Without computer a.s.sistance, playing was much more difficult and involved, but it might help pa.s.s the time.

Hasti went to stand before the chamber's single door. Han looked up and saw that her shoulders were shaking, as was the glow-rod she held in her hand. He got up and went to comfort her, a.s.suming she was weeping, but she pushed his hand away, and it dawned on him that she was trembling in anger.

Without warning, the girl flung herself at the door, swinging the glow-rod. It burst into splinters and a shower of sparks and blazing shards. She pounded the stone with the stump of the glow-rod, kicking it and beating it with her free hand, ranting maledictions she had learned in a life among the mining camps and factory worlds of the Tion Hegemony.

Han and Badure approached her when the worst of her rage seemed spent. "n.o.body's locking me under some old mountain to rot!" she yelled. She swung randomly at the men with the battered stump of the glow-rod, and they found it more politic to duck than to grapple. "Part of that treasure's mine, and n.o.body better try to cut me out of it!"

Puffing, drained, she shuffled over to where the Wookiee sat. Chewbacca had watched the proceedings curiously. Hasti dropped the glow-rod stump and sat down next to the Millennium Falcon's first mate.

Han was about to say something, if only to comment on the intensity of her avarice, when a glissando from Skynx's flute sounded through the room.

The Ruurian still wore his instruments. They had been cradled to his middle, concealed by his woolly coat, when he had curled up. He was tuning them in an absorbed way, shutting out his current distress, having perched on the slab against which Chewbacca and Hasti sat.

Han went to listen while Badure stayed at the door to study it with the remaining glow-rod. In the halflight Skynx played a haunting tune full of longing and loneliness. Han dropped down next to Hasti and together they listened. The music made strange play with the acoustics of the vast s.p.a.ce.

Skynx paused. "This is a song of my home colony, you see. It's called 'By the Banks of the Warm, Pink Z'gag.' It's played at coc.o.o.n-weaving time, when the cycle's crop of larvae gather to go chrysalis. At the same time the previous cycle's coc.o.o.ns open and the chroma-wings come forth to exude their pheromones, which draw them to one another. The air is sweet and light then; gaiety is there."

A large globule of emotion-secretion gathered at the corner of each faceted red eye. "This adventuring has been educational, but most of it is nothing more than danger and hardship a very long way from home. If I were ever to come to the banks of the Z'gag again, I would never leave!" He resumed playing the sad melody.

Hasti, gazing vacantly into the darkness, was disheveled, but looked attractive nonetheless, nearly as pretty as when she had been gowned and primped onboard the Falcon. Han slipped an arm around her and she leaned against him, scarcely noticing him.

"Don't fold until the hand's over," he encouraged her quietly.

She turned to him with a labored smile, brushing her dirty fingers against his stubble of beard, tracing the raw scar across his chin. "You know, this is an improvement, Solo. You're not Slick now, not so smooth and careless."

He leaned toward her and she didn't turn away. And then he kissed her. There was some question as to who was more surprised. Without parting, they settled into a more comfortable embrace, and gave the kiss serious attention. Skynx's music carried them along.

She shoved herself free at last. "Han, oh, I-stop it; please, stop!" He retreated, confused. "The last thing I need is to get involved with you."

Sounding wounded, he asked, "What's wrong with me?"

"You run all over people and you never take anything seriously, for starters. You joke through life with that silly smirk on your face, so sure of yourself I want to bounce a rock off your skull!"

She kept him at arm's length. "Solo, my sister Lanni inherited Dad's Guild book, so she had pilot's status here in the Tion. But I had to work any job I could get. Mess-hand, housegirl, sanit-crew, I've done them all in the camps, the mines, the factories. I've seen your type all my life. Everything's a big laugh, and you can charm the daylights out of people when you feel like it, but you're gone the next day and you never look back. Han, there are no people in your life!"

He protested, "Chewie-"

"-is your friend," she cut him off, "but he's a Wookiee. And you've got that pair of mechanical cohorts, Max and Bollux, and that hotshot starship of yours, but the rest of us are temporary cargo. Where are the people, Han?"

He started to defend himself, but she overrode him. Chewbacca, intrigued, forgot about his next gameboard move.

"I'm sure you drive the portside girls wild, Solo; you look like you just stepped out of a holo-thriller. But I'm not one of them; never was, never will be."

She softened a bit. "I'm no different from Skynx. On my birthworld there's a stretch of land my parents used to own. I'm going to get my cut of the treasure, I swear on my blisters, and buy it back if I have to purchase the whole planet. I'll build a home and take care of Badure, because he took care of Lanni and me. I'll have things of my own and a life of my own. I'll share it if I meet the right man, but I'll live without him if I don't. Solo, light housekeeping in a starship isn't my idea of a dream come true!" She drew away from him and went to join Badure, pushing her fingers through the tangles of red hair.

Skynx finished his sad song, then lowered his flute. "I wish I could see the home colony one more time, the air filled with the chroma-wings and their pheromones and the sounds of their wooing. What would you wish for, Captain Solo?"

Staring absently after Hasti, Han shrugged. "Stronger pheromones."