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A Bad Case of the Blues
By Colleen Winters |
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A cool draft meandered down the long stone corridor.
Recessed lights provided cold illumination and glimmered off the stone
floor, which was polished to a mirror sheen. The sound of pumps and other machinery
contributed a steady background noise. A small oval of
dim bluish light appeared, midway up the corridor wall. The oval
expanded rapidly until it was about five feet in height. A group
of four curious creatures sprang out of this portal one after the other,
gasping as if they had been running for some time. The last one caught
his toe in the opening and sprawled his length on the stone floor with
a muffled curse.
"Hey! Why so clumsy? Get up an' help
us close this portal before the Duergar jump in after us!" Their
leader glared out of narrowed green eyes at her fallen follower.
A generalized scramble ensued to close the magical
opening. Four pairs of hands waved mystical signs and four voices
muttered incantations.
"This is much harder than it ought to be!
Our magic feels weaker here." cried the one with dark brown fur.
"Well then, try harder! If ya slack off now
they’ll have ya for a new fur coat!"
Thus encouraged, the group growled a final spell
in unison and the blue oval shrank and finally disappeared with a soft
pop. The participants sank down to rest, leaning against the wall.
"Do you know, Tip, I don't think we're in Kansas
anymore." The speaker scratched his head then ran his fingers down
his long muzzle. "Look at me! I'm half human and half fox,
and it doesn't feel as if I'm going to be able to shift into either form
very easily. I'll bet you any amount of money that we're not in our
own universe."
"Huh! You win the bet. I can tell just
from the feel that we're far from our home territory." Tip Blue Fox
rose to her feet and inspected her body carefully. At least all of
the parts appeared to be attached where they belonged. On her home
world of Earth the magical fox had two forms. One form was that of
a blue fox and the other a fox-tailed human child that seemed to be 10
years of age. Tip was a kitsune and changing shape was as natural
to her as changing clothes was to a normal human being. The kitsune
had lived a few centuries and had done quite a bit of cross-dimensional
traveling. She had long since learned that the rules of magic shifted
depending upon which universe one occupied. In some dimensions shape
changing became difficult and the visitor had to put up with whatever shape
that particular universe thought belonged to one. This universe seemed
to think that she and her kitsune companions ought to look like bipedal
fox/hominid hybrids, with fox-like heads, more or less humanoid bodies,
and long, bushy fox tails.
Tip grinned around a mouth full of pointy teeth
and said, "I wonder if we’re in the Xanadu universe? These bodies
look like the right type for that dimension."
"I don't know about that. What about all this
high-tech stuff that I can hear surrounding us? Xanadu is a high
magic, low-tech zone," said Toddy, a red fox sporting a pair of well-worn
denim cutoffs.
Tip pondered this statement for a moment.
"Good thought, Toddy. I think you're right. Sounds like we
ought to do a bit of exploring and scope out where we are." She gestured
to her companions. "Come on, let's get going. This doesn't
look like a resort area, so I suppose we ought to be a bit cautious.
But you never know, we may stumble onto something valuable."
Her companions climbed to their feet. After
a brief consultation they sorted out their marching order and began to
proceed quietly down the hall toward the source of the noise throbbing
around them.
The small group walked for some time, pausing every
now and then to hide themselves when the tramp of marching feet came too
close. Fortunately, the network of hallways through which they walked
was full of alcoves and niches containing things they could hide behind.
They were so good at this that they never caught sight of the marchers.
The mechanical noise drew them onward until finally they opened a set of
metallic sliding doors and looked out onto an amazing scene.
"My Goddess! What in the name of Inari are
they manufacturing here?" Tip exclaimed in a low voice. She
moved into the vast chamber and leaned on its balcony railing. Her
friends entered behind her and spread out along the catwalk. The
view was spectacular - an enormous room, apparently hollowed out from the
heart of a mountain - yawned before them. The walls were of rough-hewn
stone. Tier upon tier of tall glass cylinders lined the walls of
the cavernous chamber like the layers of a great wedding cake. The
cylinders bubbled quietly. For the moment, no one appeared to be
in attendance. Tip gathered her companions and spoke quietly.
"I don't think I like the look of this spread. It smells like a secret
military base. Let's poke around and try to see what's going on.
Carefully now, we don't want to be seen. I've got a bad feeling about
this whole thing."
The fox people filtered quietly into the chamber
and quickly vanished among the cylinders. Tip trotted along the catwalk
until she found a ladder leading downward. The ladders were spaced
at regular intervals, offset so that a clumsy person could not tumble all
the way to the bottom of the chamber. Soon she had managed to climb
down several levels.
She paused to examine one of the large glassy tubes.
It was taller than the average human being and was filled with some sort
of viscous fluid. The cylinders on the upper most level had not appeared
to contain anything, but the cylinders on this level were occupied.
Tip stared through the glass at what appeared to be a nearly grown human.
The person in the cylinder was a man with brown hair and a high-bridged
nose. Tip looked at the adjacent cylinder. It too, was occupied
by a man with brown hair and a high-bridged nose. So was the next
cylinder, and the next. Tip felt the short hairs rise on the back
of her neck and she bared her teeth in a silent snarl. A noise from
somewhere to her right caught her attention. Farther down the maze
of cylinders a door was opening and she could feel the subtle change in
air currents. With silent speed Tip climbed the various gangways
upward, following the scent of her companions. With quiet gestures
she collected them. From below came the sound of voices.
"Quick! We've got to find some kind of bolt
hole," Tip said.
The small troupe moved quickly and fairly quietly
as they searched for the nearest exit from the chamber. Kuro, the
young samurai who was in the lead, waved urgently and pointed to a small
door inset between what appeared to be an enormous pair of pumps.
Tip cocked an ear. She could still hear the voices from below but
they did not sound as if they were angry. So far, she assumed, their
intrusion had not been discovered.
"Go ahead Kuro, and check it out. If no one
is in there give us the high sign. If it's occupied try not to get
into a noisy fight."
Kuro nodded, drew his short sword, opened the door
just wide enough to admit his slender body, and disappeared into the unknown
room beyond. Tip and her friends waited, trying not to make noise
and trying also to ignore the things growing in the cylinders around them.
Something touched Tip's shoulder and she repressed
a scream as she realized the hand belonged to Kuro. He nodded to
her and gave her a thumbs up sign. With a sigh of relief Tip motioned
to her friends. In single file they followed him out of the chamber.
Once the door had closed behind them they found themselves in a narrow
corridor dimly lit by small lamps set into the walls.
"This way," Kuro said. "There doesn't seem
to be anyone here."
"I hope not," Tip said. "Let’s walk fast,
OK? We'd have to fight anyone one at a time in this narrow space."
Almost on the heels of her statement, Tip heard
the distinctive sound of a door opening somewhere ahead of them, followed
almost immediately by the tramp of boots. Desperately the group plunged
through the closest door and found themselves in a small room containing
several statues and one cylinder. The fox people looked about frantically.
"I don't see a back door!" Toddy cried.
The red hair on his head was standing up in alarm.
"They're coming closer!" Kuro hissed urgently
with one ear pressed to the door. Tip eyed the statues and snapped
her fingers.
"All right everybody, it's glamour time! When
in doubt hide in plain sight."
The kitsune gathered together not too far from the
bubbling cylinder. They murmured spells frantically.
"Is it working?" Kon had to ask. The brown
fox fingered the hilt of his Bowie knife nervously.
"It better. Feels like it is."
A moment later the door slid open to admit a tall,
skinny old man dressed in long brown robes. His hair and beard were
long and gray, and his eyes held an unhealthy gleam. He was accompanied
by someone who looked very much like a scientist, dressed in a lab coat
and clutching a small handheld computer on which he scribbled notes with
a stylus. The old man moved immediately to stand in front of the
cylinder. Rubbing the medallion hanging about his neck he smiled
and chuckled unpleasantly.
"He's growing well, don't you think? How soon
until he can be decanted? I look forward to beginning his training
as my faithful servant." The sound of his voice made Tip's teeth
hurt.
"He is growing very well, Master C'baoth.
He requires a little more time, perhaps two or three days at most."
The scientist looked at the old man with an anxious expression.
The old man's bushy eyebrows puckered into a fierce
scowl and the scientist edged away from him, obviously afraid. Master
C'baoth ignored the man, reserving his deadly look for the occupant of
the cylinder. "Soon, soon, you will be mine, to do with as I please,"
he gloated. "Soon I will have the pleasant work of altering your
mind to hold only my thoughts. Once I take you outside, away from
these cursed Force-dampening Ysalamiri, your mind will be open to mine."
Turning to the scientist he added in an imperious tone, "You will
inform me the minute he is ready."
"Of course, Master."
"Good, good," he crooned. His eyes were full
of madness. "The Grand Admiral will have ample time to regret not
acknowledging my power and greatness from the start." A sudden realization
made him smile. "Of course, this version will never have the will
to have any regrets."
Master C'baoth's eyes left the cylinder and focused
directly on the statue standing nearby. He did not know it, but it
was a very nice replica of a North Coast totem pole, complete with grimacing
faces. For a moment his scowl deepened.
"Look at this ugly thing! The late Emperor's
taste in artwork was almost as bad as the Grand Admiral's. I will
make sure his clone will have no time to waste on such nonsense."
With an awful chuckle, Master C'baoth and his scientific
flunky left the room. For a long moment nothing moved, then with
a groan, the "ugly" statue fell apart into its component members.
Kon and Kuro moved to take up guard positions near the door while Tip and
Toddy stretched cramped muscles.
"That old geezer has to be the creepiest guy I've
seen in a long time!" Toddy exclaimed to the group in general.
"So these guys under glass are clones, eh? I'm sure glad I'm not
the guy in this tube! He must have really hacked off the old creep.
Did you hear the way he was ranting on?"
"Yeah, some useful info there. So who is the
guy in the cylinder?" Tip approached the object in question and peered
through the glass. At her low whistle Toddy asked, "Well? Who
is it? Anybody we know?"
"Whoever he is, he's not human."
"Not human - y'mean, he's got tentacles or something?"
"Uh-uh, body's human enough, but his skin is blue.
Kind of a nice shade, if I do say so myself."
Toddy stepped up to the glass and stared for long
moment. "How about that? He looks like a Gamilon! Do
you suppose he's one of Leader Desslok's bastards?"
Tip scrambled up the slick glass of the cylinder
and began to poke around among the tubing and wires protruding from the
cover at the top.
"I don't care who he is. I'm not leaving him
for that creepy dude to play with. Annie wouldn’t approve of leaving
someone to the tender mercies of an Evil Wizard. I can hear her now:
‘Tip, we’ve GOT to rescue him!’" Tip managed a fair imitation of
the voice of Ann Coppre, Oxford librarian, were-unicorn, and honorary "Mom"
to this pack of semi-immortal tricksters. Toddy smothered a
laugh.
Tip’s companions watched from below as she struggled
to find a way to open the cylinder. Tip tugged and fussed to no avail.
Finally, she said. "Kuro, get over here and cut me an opening in
this thing. There's no obvious way to get this top off. I think
it requires some sort of special key."
Kuro left his post at the door and approached the
cylinder, drawing his short sword as he came. It was a Japanese wakizashi,
a single-edged sword. The light sparkled off its keen edge.
He looked through the glass at the man inside and nodded.
"I will cut an opening through which we can pull
him." Kuro stepped back and held his sword in a two handed grip,
then he paused as a thought occurred to him. "Didn't that scientist
say this man still needed three more days to grow? Won't taking him
out now cause him harm?"
"Leaving him here for that geezer to experiment
on would be more harmful. There are worse things than just dying,
you know," Tip said. Her expression was serious. "Cut him out
of there and do it quickly. I feel that we're running out of time."
Kuro nodded, and assumed a ready stance with his
sword. A moment later his blade became a blur of motion. A
high pitched scream of sound made the kitsune wince. This noise was
followed immediately by the gush of liquid from inside the container.
A large oval chunk of glass worked itself free from the walls of the cylinder
and fell to the floor where it shattered. A long blue arm dangled
from the opening and twitched spasmodically. The fox people ran forward
to pull the man from his artificial womb. He was a tall man and it
took all of them to extract his body and carry him to one side away from
the spilled fluid and broken glass.
The kitsune watched as the blue humanoid coughed
up a quantity of liquid and began to breathe raggedly. For some time
he lay curled on his side on the floor, then with jerky movements he began
to struggle to sit up. Once he had managed that task he coughed a
few more times, rubbed at his eyes, then opened them and looked about.
His hair was black with bluish highlights, and at the moment it was plastered
wetly to his head.
The kitsune made little murmurs.
"Oh, look! He has red eyes! Do you suppose
he is part oni?" Kon asked. He stared at the man in fascination.
The object of his attention did indeed have glowing red eyes with neither
white nor pupil. For his part, the man looked at the kitsune with
a mixture of bewilderment and surprise.
"Who - what are you? You aren’t Imperial crewers!"
"All right! You can talk! That makes
things much easier," Tip said, ignoring his questions. "Do you know
who you are?"
The man sat up straighter, with an expression of
injured dignity. "Of course. I am Grand Admiral Thrawn, of the Imperial
Fleet." He looked down at himself and glanced around at the room
and at his strange companions. He scraped at some of the oozy residue
still sticking to his shoulder. His expression became almost unreadable
and his glowing red eyes narrowed. "The Pilirian fever. One
of the crew members must have brought it aboard after our last planet fall.
That explains the hallucinations. I must be in the Chimaera's
sick bay."
Tip moved a little closer to the man and spoke in
an encouraging tone. "No, you aren't sick. You are in the middle
of some sort of secret cloning facility. We just pulled you out of
that cylinder over there." Tip pointed at the damaged tube.
"There's a creepy old guy here who has really big plans for you, an' none
of them are good. He wants to make you into some sort of mindless
slave. We figured you needed a rescue."
The Grand Admiral looked in the direction she indicated.
His red eyes widened in recognition. "A Spaarti cylinder! Then
I must be on Wayland. But how?" His brows knitted in concentration
and his angular face became grim as an awful conclusion slowly dawned.
"I'm a clone, a clone of my - myself. I'm not on the ship - I'm inside
the facility on Mount Tantiss. Joruus C'baoth - this is his doing!
Somehow he has managed to clone me. I've been a fool, believing I
could control him."
"Actually, it’s your original who was the fool.
You’re just an innocent victim, at least so far." Tip explained helpfully,
doing her best to stand in for Ann. That clarification didn’t seem
to make the clone of the Grand Admiral feel much better. He wrapped
his arms about his shoulders and tried to suppress a shudder. He
was unsuccessful and soon he was shivering steadily. The black-haired
kitsune watched this with concern.
"Tip’san, the Admiral needs some clothing, and quickly.
We are below ground and the air is always chilly. He is still wet
and could catch his death before long," Kuro said. The young samurai
was, as always, practical.
"Point taken, Kuro’kun, but this
place doesn’t exactly look like a Wal-Mart, and my magic still feels off.
I bet… it won’t…" At this point she pulled out a grimy handkerchief and
waved a furry hand over it. The hanky sparkled, grew into a lovely
pale evening gown, then immediately collapsed into a pile of ashes.
"Woops! I knew it!" Tip shook the ashes from her hand.
"Good thing I didn’t waste my nice shirt on that." From where he
sat, Thrawn thought that the strange alien’s shirt looked anything but
‘nice’, covered as it was by dirty handprints and unidentifiable smears.
Much to his horror, she removed her shirt, wadded it up, and handed it
to him.
"Here, dry off with that. The inside’s cleaner
‘n the outside. C’mon you guys, lend him something before he freezes
solid." Thrawn accepted the shirt dubiously.
"But this…" he murmured.
"Ah, don’t worry about messing it up! It’s
had worse stains on it before!" Tip chuckled.
"I’m sure," he replied faintly, and began to scrub
at his wet and freezing skin.
After some effort, the Admiral managed to dry himself.
He looked up from this task to find that the creature with black fur was
offering him the short robes that he’d been wearing. The alien was
barely half his height but the loose robes offered the best coverage of
their clothing. He excepted it with a nod and the small alien gave
him a bow which managed to be incredibly formal in spite of the fact that
he now wore only a loin cloth, his natural fur, and sandals. The
Admiral shrugged his way into the robes and secured it around his waist
with the sash. The strange clothing barely answered the demands of
modesty and he tugged at the short hem unhappily. "Not exactly Imperial
standard," he said with a small, dry smile.
"Nice try, Kuro, but I think were going to have
to find him something more substantial to wear," Tip said. She wandered
beside the door, scanning the walls as if searching for a cupboard or closet.
"I wonder where they keep the supplies in this place?"
Scarcely had the words left her mouth than the door,
which had been left unguarded in all the excitement, slid open to admit
three storm troopers in white armor. These strode into the room and
halted in surprise to see the strange occupants and the damage.
"Look how the gods provide!" Kon cried with
delight.
"Well, well. If it isn't Larry, Moe, and Curly!"
The storm troopers whirled about at Tip's shout, then began to slip helplessly
in the puddle on the floor. Arms that had begun to grab for weapons flailed
the air helplessly. With a regal gesture Tip said, "Go get 'em, boys."
Thrawn watched as the three smaller aliens swiftly
overwhelmed their larger opponents. Within moments they were merrily
stripping the bodies of their gear and armor. The alien named Kuro
sorted through the piles of stuff and soon returned to the Admiral with
an armful of clothing. The Admiral examined the offerings. These
were the one-piece bodysleeves for the storm trooper’s armor. Kuro
also had gathered gloves and boots. Working quickly, he returned
Kuro’s robes and began to pull the new clothing on, grateful that it was
still warm and shuddering at the fact. At least the trooper's bodysleeve
was stretchy enough to fully cover his longer limbs. He observed
the other aliens, red, blue, and brown respectively, tying up the troopers.
"You did not kill them?" he asked curiously.
With some proper Imperial-issue clothing and a blaster at his hip he felt
much less vulnerable, in spite of being in the bowels of what was basically
a death trap.
"Nah, we’re predators. We don’t kill unless
we have to - or unless we’re hungry." The red haired one answered.
He gave the nearest trooper a nudge with his foot. "I ain’t that
hungry right now." He gave the Admiral a curious look from under
canine eyebrows. "Are you hungry?"
"No! Not for something like that." Thrawn
felt somewhat sick at the concept of feasting on raw storm trooper.
He looked at his diminutive companions, who were just waist-high to him.
"What sort of people are you? I do not recall seeing anyone like
you during all my years of service to the Empire. Or rather, my original
has no memory of an alien race like yourselves." Thrawn found it
difficult to think of himself as having two separate existances.
The very thought made his head hurt.
Tip nodded at the Admiral as she finished gathering
up whatever items she had decided would be useful. Around her waist
she had fastened a utility belt belonging to one of the storm troopers.
"We're new to this part of the galaxy. You're
not the only one who wouldn’t recognize us. We're called kitsune.
Perhaps fortunately there ain’t very many of us, at least not in this universe."
The Admiral considered this information in silence.
Although he could think of many reasons why a group of aliens might be
infiltrating an Imperial secret base, the fact that they were willing to
risk whatever mission they had had to rescue him made them allies, at least
for the foreseeable future.
"Don't you want any of this armor?" the one called
Kon asked.
"No, I am a little too tall for the standard armor,
and I prefer keeping the range of motion I have without it. The bodysleeve
will do until I can find a proper officer’s uniform." Gathering his
legs under him he rose to his feet. He wobbled only a little.
He was indeed several inches taller than their storm trooper captives.
Clad in the form-fitting black bodysleeve he made an impressive figure.
"We need to be able to get you out of here."
Tip rubbed her hands together thoughtfully. "Do you know enough
of the layout of this place to help us? I don't think it will be
good for you if that creepy old geezer discovers you’re loose."
The Admiral nodded. Kneeling down, he began
to trace out a map on the floor. "I believe we are currently in one
of the mid-level rooms inside the Emperor's treasure house. There
will be a very large facility for Imperial starships on the lowest level.
I estimate that will be about 10 levels below where we are now. I
am not positive of today's date, but if all continued according to the
memories of my predecessor, this facility should be staffed by several
thousand storm troopers. I estimate our chances of successfully reaching
the shuttle bay level at 1 in 1,000."
One of his listeners whistled aloud at his last
statement. Tip merely shrugged.
"I don't care about the odds. Just show us
the way and we'll do the rest. The big thing is to avoid that evil
wizard. We've got magic, but I'm not sure it would be strong enough
to take care of him."
"He is not evil wizard, he is a dark Jedi called
Joruus C’baoth, and that is trouble enough for all of us," Thrawn said.
"Fortunately, this facility is full of Force resistant creatures called
Ysalamiri which my predecessor collected and placed here partly to protect
the minds of the growing clones and partly to nullify the power of the
Jedi. We will be relatively safe as long as we remain inside their
sphere of influence." The Admiral thought for a long moment then
continued. "Now that I think of it, I am sure C’baoth was able to
turn the minds of many of the personnel here in this facility by somehow
luring them outside where he could use his dark powers on them."
"Dark Jedi!" Tip stared at the Admiral in
disbelief. Her mouth hung open, then with her fist she gave herself
a good thump on the head. "We’re in the Star Wars universe!"
The other kitsune snickered and Toddy answered,
"Duh! Whatever gave it away? The storm troopers? How
many times have you seen the trilogy?"
Tip glared at them. "What do I look like?!
An expert? I don't spend all of my time in front of the TV like some
people I know!" Geesh! Now I’m really starting to sound like
Annie! Tip thought with chagrin.
"Ha! You're just pissed because we figured
it out first!" said Toddy.
"Yeah! Toddy is an expert! He's seen
the whole thing a hundred times!" Kon declared proudly. The
Grand Admiral listened to the mysterious exchange, hoping that eventually
someone would say something understandable. Their language sounded
like Basic, but was so idiosyncratic that sometimes he wondered if they
were talking in a foreign tongue.
"Okay, bright boy, if you’re so smart, tell me how
to get us down to the shuttle bay without getting shot up by storm troopers
or hexed by that evil Jedi."
Toddy looked blankly at Tip. "I don't know
- this place wasn't shown in the movies. I bet one of the books might
have covered it, but I wouldn't know about that part of this universe.
I don't read very much."
"Right! Unless you can think of something
useful, how about keeping your trap shut?" Tip gave him a deadly
glower and the red fox subsided a bit.
"Sounds like Annie, only ruder," he muttered.
"Don't you people have any discipline?" Thrawn
asked. His face was set in lines of austere disapproval. The
entire group of furry bipeds turned on him with looks of true innocence.
He felt his heart sink as he saw their obvious non-comprehension.
"Never mind. I already know the answer." Touching the blaster
at his side he nodded at the door. "Shall we go?" He decided
that it would have been pointless to discuss such things as ‘chain of command’
and order of march with them.
"Wait! Wait!" Toddy whispered loudly,
"I just had an idea that might work!"
"Well then, spit it out," Tip said.
"Our glamour! It worked on that dark Jedi
before! It's easy for us to do and works even in this universe."
"Good going! I'd forgotten already about that."
Tip looked at the Admiral and said, "We’re capable of casting a field of
illusion around ourselves. We call this glamour. We used it
before we cut you out of that tube. That Jedi you called C’baoth
looked right at us and didn't see us. I’d like you to walk in the
middle of our group. That way you'll be protected by the illusion
we project."
"And what sort of illusion will you use? I
would not recommend masquerading as storm troopers or as regular Imperial
staff. An officer might then try to give you orders and that would
cause … complications," Thrawn said.
"Don't worry about that, we're very good at this.
We have an all-purpose spell which we call ‘mind your own business’.
People see something innocuous, something in which they have no interest.
Works great."
"If it works. You forget this place is mostly
inside a Force-free bubble."
"You missed our earlier illusion. Trust me,
it works! Besides, this ain’t the Force, it’s magic!
"Ah, that makes everything clear." The sarcasm
was lost on his listeners. Thrawn gave it up, knowing that he had
little choice but to trust to the skills of his strange rescuers.
So far, they had managed pretty well. He drew in a deep breath and
readied himself for what he assumed would be an eventual fire fight.
Come on, we'd better get going." Tip lined
everyone up with Kuro and Toddy in the lead, the Admiral in the middle,
and Kon and herself behind him.
"Everyone ready? Let's go. Remember,
if you gotta talk, do it in a whisper. The spell can cover some noise,
but let’s not push it." She nodded at Kuro, who triggered the door
release. The hall facing them was empty. The group of adventurers
moved out into the corridor, closing the door behind them to hide their
captives from casual view. They set off at a brisk walk, their footsteps
echoing softly as they moved.
*****
Shir Kinoha glared across the expanse of the shuttle
bay flight deck, mad at the universe in general and at Imperial scientists
in particular.
This is typical of the Imperial bureaucracy, she
thought angrily. Choosing me out of all the other fighter pilots
aboard my ship to be a cloning template, a signal honor, arranging to have
me fly here along with the best of the best the Imperial starfleet has
to offer, all to bequeath our superior genetics to the glory of the Empire,
only to be rejected! And on such an absurd pretext! Still fuming,
Shir glared at her datapad as if she could stare a hole through its surface.
Her eyes focused at last on the text and she was able to read that her
ship would be cleared for launch within the hour. The ship was an
Imperial shuttle, a far cry from the TIE fighter that she normally piloted.
Her mood lifted as she took in the sleek lines of the ship. This
particular model could hold 20 people comfortably and was capable of hyperdrive.
It could take her anywhere in the galaxy. Right now, however, the
only place she wanted to be was back with her comrades aboard the Chimaera.
Touching the datapad she registered her acceptance
of the proposed departure time. Shir was mildly surprised at how
promptly the ground crew had turned her around, but then again, she supposed
that the people in charge here did not want her hanging about wasting their
supplies when she could be spending the time left to her destroying the
enemies of the Empire.
"Ephemeral, indeed!" she growled. "What do
they know about anything? As if they truly expect the clones they
are growing to have a really long life span." With a snort of disgust
she thrust the small datapad into a pocket in her tunic and began to walk
out into the cavernous hangar bay toward her shuttle. As she approached
the ship she admired the three graceful wings that swept out from the body
of the craft. Two of the wings were folded up for landing, but that
did nothing to hide the ship’s fine lines. Its passenger ramp had
been extended for boarding but she ignored it for the moment to walk around
the shuttle, eyeing the exterior for any flaws, drips, or other damage.
When her pre-flight inspection had been performed to her satisfaction,
she walked toward the ramp. A movement flickered in the corner of
her eye and she turned to see a cargo handler droid trundling along towing
a pallet of supplies.
"You there, where do you think you’re going?"
Her voice was brusque.
The handler halted and produced a whirring sound
as it turned its domed head and focused its lenses on her. "This
is a cargo of data cores, emergency supplies, and food stocks for this
ship. I'm to put it in the cargo bay, ma'am."
"Very well, but you'd best be quick about it.
I’m to leave within the hour." The droid puttered off, trailing a
string of electronic beeping noises. Shir had scarcely placed her
feet on the ramp before she noticed yet another handler droid, similarly
laden, following hard on the heels of the first. It paused to look
at her but she only waved it on. "Hurry up, your friend has gone
on ahead of you." Without bothering to watch it she ran briskly up
the incline and into the interior of the shuttle. The comforting
smell of the ship, compounded of plastene, warm metals, and lubricants,
settled around her as she moved forward into the cockpit. This was,
more than anything for her, the scent of home.
The cockpit area was a good deal more plush than
that of her TIE fighter. Shir sank down into the pilot's seat with
a frown. The cushioning felt far too soft for her taste. She
raised her view to the instrument panel and all minor annoyances were banished,
dispelled by the sheer joy of getting to play with all the latest high-tech
the Empire had to offer. She cracked her knuckles happily, strapped
in, then began to tap at the keyboard and read the displays.
"Full charge on all weapons systems. Hyperdrive
and sublight systems at nominal. Main and backup controllers online."
With the unconscious ease of long practice, she followed her strict mental
checklist. The minutes passed unnoticed at she worked. Finally
she checked a set of indicators. "All access ways show clear.
Now closing all cargo and passenger ramps." The indicators shifted
from red to green. "Cabin pressure now at normal, oxygen normal."
Satisfied with the readings from the cockpit, she
touched a button on the keypad built into the arm of her chair. A
soft beep sounded. "Tantiss Mountain control, this is the Imperial
shuttle Sharpness. Request clearance for takeoff, destination:
rendezvous with fleet command stardestroyer Chimaera." With
crisp military efficiency the reply sounded in the cabin.
"Shuttle Sharpness, we show you green across
the board. You are cleared for takeoff."
Her hands were already powering up the sublight engines as she replied,
"Permission acknowledged, launching now."
Her receiver gave her the controller's farewell. "A good journey
Sharpness."
"Aye, control." She closed the connection
before speaking further. "Any journey will be good if it gets me
away from this place." Smoothly she piloted the shuttle through the
open space of the hangar bay, lifting to clear a row of TIEs. An
enormous set of metal doors had begun to slide open to permit her craft
egress. Looking ahead she decided that the gap was wide enough for
her ship, and with a happy smile she punched the speed control. The
shuttle spurted forward eagerly in response and shot through the opening
with inches to spare. Touching the controls, she rotated the wings
into their deep space configuration. A steady pull on the joystick
sent her ship into a steep climb. The color of the sky shifted quickly
from planetary blue to space black. The Tantiss Mountain facility
shrank into insignificance in the landscape below. She turned her
eyes toward the stars and prepared to forget this episode of her life.
An urgent beeping from the communicator demanded
attention. She stabbed at the button and instantly heard the strained
voice of the controller.
"Shuttle Sharpness! Abort your takeoff
and return to the base immediately! Acknowledge!"
With a frown of concern she asked. "Tantiss Mountain control,
what seems to be the problem? Is there an emergency?"
"Never mind! You must return at once!"
The controller sounded almost frantic.
"Certainly, I will..." Shir became aware of
several things simultaneously. The first was that there was a person
or persons standing behind her. The second was that something small,
hard, and cold was being pressed into the side of her head. The something
had the unmistakable feel of a standard issue Imperial blaster. She
rolled her head slowly to the right, bringing her unknown passenger into
her field of vision. Grand Admiral Thrawn stood by her side holding
a blaster in one hand. With the other he signaled for silence.
Her immediate impulse was to leap up and salute, but, since she had strapped
herself in, the effort came to naught. The communicator shrilled
at her and she started, every muscle jumping, then forced herself to relax.
She placed her finger over the comm button to reply, looking to her superior
for some sign. When the Admiral nodded she touched the button and
spoke carefully.
"Mountain control, we are experiencing technical
difficulties, return at this time is impossible." She cut off the
communicator before any response could come through. The Grand Admiral
was out of uniform but he was unmistakable with his pale blue skin and
red eyes. Those eyes were fixed at disturbingly close range on her
own. Now that she actually had a moment to think, the sheer shock
of having the commander of the entire Imperial fleet here in her ship unannounced
made her feel sick. For a moment she concentrated on the instruments
before her and fought down a sudden unfamiliar wave of nausea and dizziness.
When she was finally able to expand her focus, the Grand Admiral had seated
himself in the copilot’s station beside her. He still held the blaster
but it was no longer pointed directly at her.
"Sir, your pardon sir, is there a problem below?"
She managed to sound quite calm.
"Oh, yes. And with your help Lieutenant …,"
Thrawn paused pointedly.
"Kinoha. Shir Kinoha, sir."
"Lieutenant Kinoha, I hope to set things to rights
on Wayland."
She had multiple questions waiting to be asked,
but she was too well-trained to break discipline and blurt them out.
Shir finally asked the obvious in polite tones.
"What are your orders, sir?"
"The first task is to remove ourselves from Wayland,
the faster the better." His angular face showed concern as he continued.
"The Jedi master who was once our ally has decided to seize power for himself.
He is extremely dangerous. We need to get clear of the system as
quickly as we can."
"Master C'baoth!" Shir exclaimed. "I'd
heard some rumors from the crew below, but I wasn't there long enough to
really see anything out of order."
"He does not seem to have suborned your will at
least," the Admiral observed.
The pilot looked disturbed at the thought.
"Please kill me at once if he has."
"I do not believe such an action is necessary.
Carry on, Lieutenant." The Admiral put his weapon away.
For some moments Shir busied herself with the controls.
"Sir, we're coming out of the primary orbital envelope of Wayland."
She indicated the shuttle's main display. "The cruiser Draklor
is moving on an intercept course. Do you want me to rendezvous with
them?"
"No, I have reason to believe the commanders may
have been affected by C'baoth. Evade them and jump to hyperspace
as quickly as you can. What was your original destination?"
"Tangrene sector space. Once there I was to
receive the decrypt of the Chimaera's current location."
"That will do for now. It will give us some
time to plan."
Noticing the 'us' in his statement, Shir took a
moment to glance into the back of the cockpit. What she saw made
her try once again to leap out of her seat.
"What - what are those?" she gasped,
utterly forgetting the military etiquette she had been following so well.
To her surprise the Grand Admiral chuckled.
"That was my first reaction as well."
Now that they had been noticed, the four furry creatures,
none of them more than two-thirds of her height, moved up closer.
They either sat on the deck or on the row of seats directly behind the
pilot's area. The one with blue fur leaned companionably over the
back of her seat.
"Hi. We’re kitsune. We're here on vacation,"
she said.
"The hotel room service was terrible," a voice from
behind said. This was followed by laughter.
"What?" Shir shot a concerned look at the
Admiral. "What are they saying? Do you understand them?"
"I'm beginning to get used to them," he said.
After some reflection he continued for the confused lieutenant's benefit.
"They are our allies."
"Yup. We're friends, you betcha!" The
speaker's red-furred face split in a wide, sharp-fanged smile. Then
the blue one leaned closer, causing Shir to twitch backwards.
"Well, you're as nervous as a Thoroughbred on speed."
"Better make that an Akhal-Teke."
The one with brown fur reached forward and carefully gathered up a swatch
of loose hair which had escaped from the long braid in which Shir had put
it up. The hair was a very dark pewter color over laid with a brilliant
metallic sheen of silver. Before Shir could begin to question her
strange passengers about the unknown terminology they were using, the one
with blue fur said, "Hey! You’re a female type person! Since
when did the Empire start hiring women?"
"What?" Shir gave her questioner a fierce
frown. "Since before my time. Generations of my people have
been in Imperial service."
"Really? So what do you do normally?
Program computers? Push papers?"
When the Grand Admiral made no response to the questions
himself, Shir managed to say in almost normal tones. "I fly TIE fighters.
I've been doing so for eleven years."
"TIE fighters?!" The entire group suddenly
gathered around to look at her with awe and wonder. The one with
black fur patted her on the shoulder and made little bowing motions.
"Sugoi desu nee! How very splendid! Samurai
desu!" Shir ignored them in favor of the information which had
popped up on her tactical display. This new data showed a definite
change for the worse in their situation.
"Admiral! The assault cruiser Dagger
is inbound and is coordinating an intercept course with Draklor.
We will be within effective range of their tractor beams in …" She
checked the readout. "…Eight minutes."
The Grand Admiral leaned forward to check the display
and nodded. "How long until we can jump?"
"Too long, sir. Permission to use extraordinary
measures?"
"Permission granted."
Shir sketched him a quick salute.
"Will you take the controls, sir? I've something
in mind that I learned back in flight school, but I need to make some quick
mods."
"Certainly, Lieutenant." He checked the tactical
display again. "I do hope they are very quick modifications?"
"Aye, sir. You have the con." Shir released
her harness, then wowed her audience by plunging head first onto the deck,
removing an access plate and nearly disappearing under the forward control
console. All the kitsune could see of her was her black-clad legs
and boots. From inside the panel came soft tinkering noises, then
a loud exclamation.
"Need anything?" Kon asked helpfully at the opening.
"Yes, I need this." Shir bent her wiry frame
double in the cramped space and drew from the top of her boot a long, slender
knife. She immediately vanished again into the equipment.
"Four minutes until intercept." The Grand
Admiral's voice was calm, as if he were announcing the weather. From
below deck came a shredding sound, followed by a brief shower of sparks.
"Ha! Got you! You gods-forsaken piece
of..." The rest of the phrase was unintelligible.
"Three minutes."
Shir slithered out of the access with her knife
in one hand and a bundle of wires in the other. Her hair was disheveled,
but her eyes held a merry sparkle. Clutched in her teeth were three
wire segments with brightly marked bulges in their middles. These
dangled from her mouth like so many alien cigars. She tossed the
wires in her hand away, returned the blade to her boot and strapped herself
back into her seat.
The Admiral eyed her prizes. "Those appear
to be the hyperdrive safety inter-locks."
"Yes sir, they are," she answered around the objects.
Her fingers danced easily over the console. "This is a trick I had
from Baron Fel while he was still teaching at the Academy. We're
going to do something that is difficult but possible, at least in theory."
"And does this ever work?" Thrawn asked, concern
and curiosity vying for possession of his voice and face.
"Funny, I never thought to ask him that."
Shir gave a final entry to the computer, which sounded an alarm in response.
"Hushup!" she growled and punched a key. The alarm cut off.
When she looked ahead it was to see the Draklor looming far too
close for comfort on their planetary horizon. The Dagger was
also coming into range.
"One minute. The con is yours, lieutenant
Kinoha."
"Holy Amida! Look at the size of that thing!"
Toddy pointed at the Draklor.
"It's only a cruiser, the stardestroyers are much
larger. Go strap in and hang on, it's going to be a little rough
for a while."
"How rough is rough?" someone asked as they all
found seats.
"All the safeties for the hyperdrive have been removed.
Normally a ship can't jump to hyperspace while within a planet's gravity
well. I assume we're going to try a series of quick skips.
This should boost us past the cruiser's effective tractor area and into
deeper space," the Admiral answered.
"Cool! Does it work?" Kon wondered out
loud.
"Well, the failures would have had their component
molecules scattered from one end of the system to the other, so it is hard
to say if it works," Shir replied.
"Good grief, lady! Don't you care if you live
or die?" Tip asked.
"No. Should I?" Shir said. Her
face held a peaceful, untroubled expression.
"Ten seconds," Thrawn added.
"Hold on. This is the fun part!" With
a happy grin, she punched a last button on the console and the program
she'd hastily entered began to run. The ship's hyperdrives pulsed,
then pulsed again. To the observers aboard the cruisers, the shuttle
flickered, then winked out, vanishing from screen and scope.
*****
To the people inside the shuttle, it felt as if the
entire galaxy was trying to careen through their veins. Normally,
hyperspace was a phenomenon kept at a comfortable distance outside the
ship. Now, however, it tore through them, trying to snatch them everywhere
at once. The effect was awful, unendurable.
Thrawn came to his senses aware that people were
groaning all around him. The chronometer read ten minutes past the
intercept time. His pilot had tried her best to curl up into a ball
in her seat. As he watched, she unfolded herself and with stiff,
jerky movements checked the screens and her instruments. Much to
his surprise, the shuttle was managing quite well. The starfield
ahead was clear and empty of any pursuit. Shir made a series of hacking
coughs, then cleared her throat and said, "Well, that wasn't so bad was
it?"
From behind came the voice of Tip, speaking in a
manner which mimicked the voice of a commercial starliner attendant.
"Thank you for flying Crashscade Scarelines. We are pleased that
you survived our flight. Please retrieve all body parts from the
overhead bins before disembarking. Be sure to recommend us to all
the relatives you hate, and remember our motto: 'we fly by night!'"
Thrawn smiled but held in a laugh for fear of what it would do to his unsettled
stomach.
"Now I know what ‘deus irae’ means," groaned
Toddy. When he got blank stares from the Imperials, he explained,
"It means ‘wrath of the gods’. It’s Latin or somesuch old language."
"I thought you said this was going to be fun?" said
Kon.
"But it was! At least for the ship," Shir
said.
"Lady, are you from ‘The Planet of Crazy Teenagers’?"
Tip asked.
"No, I’m from Harlek. Actually, we do call
our world ‘The Land of the Young’." Shir spoke while looking ahead.
"I’ve got a clear jump to hyperspace with a course set for the Tangrene
sector. Permission to jump, sir?" she asked.
"Granted." Thrawn answered.
"Hey, wait! We’re not gonna do another of
those brain-bending jumps, are we?" Toddy asked in sudden concern.
"No, of course not," Shir replied calmly.
"The scrambling effect only happens if we jump out of a nearby gravity
well. We should be quite comfortable this time."
"Okay, if you say so," said Toddy.
Shir touched the controls and the stars ahead blurred
into long lines then vanished as the ship made the jump to hyperspace.
A comforting cloudy grayness replaced the ebony sky of space.
When nothing horrible happened, Kon asked.
"Got anything to eat in this place?"
"I believe so," said Shir, "Assuming you are able
to eat anything after all that jumping." She unfastened herself and
rose from her seat with a minor wince. Looking at the Admiral she
asked, "Sir?"
He waved a hand. "Dismissed, Lieutenant."
As the pilot turned to go, he added, "And Lieutenant, good work."
Some color returned to Shir's face and she saluted sharply, turned and
marched off briskly.
"Come along, food service and crew areas are this
way. We've a three-day hyperspace transit until we hit Tangrene,"
she called to the kitsune.
"Three days! I always thought hyperspace was
instant travel anywhere?" Toddy asked.
"Oh no, it can take days or weeks ship time before
you reach a destination. It all depends on how far you're going and
what route you are following."
"So," Kuro said. "I wonder if there are any
books on the subject?"
"We have plenty of information in the ship's databank
I'm sure. What's that?!" She exclaimed as a knee-high brown
predator thing bounded by her down the passageway. It skidded to
a halt in front of them and bounced up and down excitedly.
"Look, look! I've got my magic back!
It's all back, Kuro, can't you feel it?" Kon exclaimed.
"Ah, so I can." Kuro looked at his hands and
flexed his black, furry fingers. As Shir watched in fascination,
his hands glowed softly and became more human, as did the rest of him.
Finally Kuro looked very much like a human child with straight black hair,
brown eyes, and a long, brushy tail.
"This is better, ne?" he asked
Tip, who, Shir noticed, had also assumed a more human shape.
"Can all of you change shape? What is your
true form?" This question came from the Admiral, who had quietly
followed the group into the interior of the ship.
"We kitsune are shape shifters, but our original
shape is that of the fox. Like those guys." Tip pointed to
Kon and Toddy who were now wrestling on the deck.
"How very interesting," the Admiral said as he moved
around the two of them. Shir led the way toward the ship's galley.
Kon and Toddy broke off their play to follow along.
"The Mryn of the planet Resar were reputed to be
excellent shape shifters," she said.
"This is true, but the Mryn were only pets.
These are Jedi," Thrawn replied.
"Since when have we become Jedi?" Tip asked with
a scowl. When Thrawn did not answer, she thought about it as she
watched the pilot coax something that looked like food and drink from various
items of equipment.
"Our magic barely worked while we were on the planet
Wayland near all those Force-blocking critters. It returned once
we left. I wonder if it does mean that much of our magic in this
universe comes from the Force? I'll have to think about that one."
Kon trotted up and resumed a humanoid shape.
He accepted a plate of food and sat down cross-legged to eat. "Does
this mean we gotta get light sabers? I'll bet Kuro would like that,
but I think they're pretty darn dangerous," he said while munching.
"I would not recommend that unless you had taken
proper training with the sword, my friend. It would not do to have
you accidentally removing the limbs from innocent bystanders or from yourself,"
said Kuro.
Shir handed around food to everyone who looked as
if they could eat. For herself she fixed a mug of hot chama tea.
She gave the Admiral the same, realizing that he probably felt no better
than she did. When it looked as if he was able to drink that without
becoming ill, she silently served him some bread. This he managed
to eat, although she noticed he took his time about it.
*****
The small crew settled into the routine of the ship.
This meant waking and sleeping in regular cycles to mirror the time kept
by all Imperial crews. It also meant time spent in study. Kon
and Toddy were interested in all of the technical advances available in
this universe, especially hyperdrive equipped ships. Once Tip had
learned how to use the ship's computer to access the vast records kept
in Imperial databases, the Admiral kept her busy searching for items of
interest to himself. When he was not studying hyperdrive technology
along with his friends, Kuro occupied himself in teaching Shir the finer
points of fencing with the Japanese sword. He had managed to make
a passable katana for her, sized for her taller frame and longer reach.
When they practiced together they used the blunt versions of the sword
called shinai. Shir proved to be an excellent student, learning at
a fantastic rate of speed. Her fine learning ability did not seem
to include deducing that the person she assumed was the Grand Admiral was
in reality a clone produced by the Tantiss facility.
On the second day, while watching one of their practice
sessions, the Admiral asked, "Lieutenant, why were you returning
to the Chimaera? Weren't you sent to Wayland to be a cloning
template?"
Shir withdrew from the match with a bow and lay down her practice weapon.
"Yes sir, I was. But the scientists at the facility rejected me when
they learned that I was Harlekki. They said I was too old."
"Too old?" The Admiral put down the datapad
he had been reading and rose to his feet. He beckoned to the pilot.
"Come here, Lieutenant." She obeyed at once, crossing the space in
the main cabin to stand before him at attention. "At ease," he said.
Reaching out his hands he turned her head gently right and left, looking
minutely at her face. Her skin was uniformly smooth and had the unblemished
elasticity of youth. Under the day-phase lights her hair had even
more of that unusual metallic sparkle. "How old are you, lieutenant?"
"I am 21 Standard years of age, sir."
He frowned. "I do not understand the reasoning
of the scientists. Your home world has been a loyal part of the Empire
for as long as I can remember. I have seen people like yourself aboard
the Chimaera. They all had the same sort of metallic hair.
They were also, if memory serves me, excellent fighter pilots."
Shir squared her shoulders proudly. "Yes,
sir, Captain Pellaeon took on crew members from our world as often as he
could. He prized our service."
The Admiral looked thoughtful as he considered the
information she had given him. "Your planet has some interesting
customs. I remember seeing TIE fighter crew members with long red
ribbons tied in their hair before we were to begin a combat mission.
The good captain acted as if they were simply part of some quaint colonial
custom. I felt that he was perhaps withholding the full story from
me. I never had time to pursue the matter. Will you explain
it to me now?"
"The Az-hara, the red ribbons, indicates that the
wearer intends to die."
"They announce the desire to commit suicide?
The few Harlekki I have seen did not strike me as being prone to the despair
that fuels an act of self-destruction."
"No, sir. It is not an act of despair, but
instead part of the natural order of our lives. Those who wear the
Az-hara will die in a short time, whether they will or not."
The Admiral favored his pilot with a keen look.
"I do not remember the people with ribbons as looking particularly aged.
Were they ill, then?"
"No, sir, not so. It is just the way of our
people when they have reached the end of their time." Under the intense
stare of the Grand Admiral, Shir felt compelled to give him the entire
story, which was not something ordinarily shared with non-natives.
Drawing a deep breath she recited, "My people, the Harlekki, are a registered
human variant. We colonized our original home world sometime after
the fall of the Sith Empire. The technology of the time was not advanced
enough to tell our people that the new world on which they lived gave off
mutagenic radiation. This radiation radically altered our genome
to the point that our people began to die in great numbers. What
children were born during this time were terribly altered. Alarmed
by this unforeseen disaster, our scientists commenced a massive program
of research. The cause of our mutation was discovered. Since
there was nothing to be done about the radiation, we decided to move our
colony to another world in the same system. This is the world we
call Harlek. Our scientists then devoted every effort to the building
of genetic engineering facilities which were used to stabilize the genome
of the surviving population. This engineering was successful and
resulted in the people we are today."
"So what is the problem? You look fine to
me," Tip asked. She, along with Kuro, had been following the story
with great interest.
"I do not think there is any problem at all, but
not everyone in the Empire thinks the same way. We are different,
although the differences are not easily detected," she nodded at Tip and
touched her head, "Except for the hair."
"You said once that your planet was called ‘The
Land of the Young’. On our world we have a land of legend which is
named the same. In the Gaelic tongue, it is called ‘Tir Nan Og’.
In this land is said that the people who live there never grow old," Tip
said.
"The same could be said of us," Shir said with a
smile. "We do not live long enough to suffer the ravages of old age.
We consider it a fair trade."
The Admiral’s glowing red eyes watched Shir intently.
"Please go on with the story of your people. Before she could continue,
he added. "But first, tell me: how long is your average life
span?"
She looked at the floor for a moment as if the debating
the answer internally. This was the very thing that had denied her
a chance at being a cloning template and the rejection still smarted.
Then she met the Admiral's eyes directly and continued. "None of
us Harlekki live beyond the age of 30 Standard years. We are born
in the normal manner of human beings, but we grow at a much faster rate.
We are attending school by age two. We are fully mature by the time
we are five. We have had our children by the time we are ten.
After that, a number of choices become available to us. We can raise
the children of our clan, we can attend advanced school to become scientists,
engineers, or doctors. We can take holy orders and join a monastery.
Or we can join the service of the Empire. Since we are by nature
a military society, many of us choose the latter option. It is considered
a highly honorable path to follow for the remainder of one's life."
"Huh, you’ve got the life span of an Akhal-Teke
as well as the coat color," Tip mused aloud.
"Excuse me?" Shir looked confused.
"They’re these neat riding animals from our world.
Very pretty, good for riding into battle, and their life span is about
30 years."
"Do continue," Thrawn prompted, ignoring Tip.
"Those of us who take service go by choice into
those branches of the military that allow us to fight. Assuming the
average Harlekki joins at age 13, we can give up to 17 years to the Empire.
Many of the fleet captains, like our Captain Pellaeon, are aware of our
superior learning speed and reflexes and deliberately pad their TIE fighter
crews with our folk. This works out very well. When we are
Called, we tie the red Az-hara in our manes, notify our wing commander,
who gives us an expendable ship, and then we go forth and die in battle.
It is very symmetrical."
"Called? You mean you know when you are about
to die?"
"Yes, the gods Call us. While no one knows
exactly how long they have, everyone hears the Calling when it happens,
so there is no mistake."
"And this happens when you turn thirty years old?"
"No, sir. It can happen at any time, but usually
from age 25 onward. I do not recall anyone from Harlek actually reaching
thirty years of age."
"And what if you do not have an expendable ship
available? What do your people do on your home world? Surely
they do not all go and seek death in battle?"
"Oh no, of course not. At home one would again
tie the Az-hara in their hair, go to the local temple, hold a ceremony
where one disposes of one’s possessions, and then one dies. The body
is burned in a later ritual."
"You kill yourselves?" Kuro asked matter-of-factly.
"No. When you are Called, at the proper time
you let your spirit out." Shir made a throwing away gesture.
"You know, you just… go. That’s how it’s done."
"Not on most planets." The Admiral said.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." He paused a beat, then asked, "I am
curious as to how your people manage to plan for the future with such a
compacted lifetime?"
"What future?" Shir asked curiously. We do
not have the word in our own language, except for one that means ‘tomorrow’,
and even that is rarely used. We exist in the now. The future
takes care of itself."
"Oh, gods!" Tip swore softly as she watched Shir
resume her practice with Kuro. "An entire planet of Carricks!"
"Of what?" Thrawn asked.
"He’s a friend from home. He’s got no sense
of time an’ no sense of fear. It’s bad enough he and his kin are
like that. I can’t imagine a whole world full of people the same
as him."
"The People with no Future," Thrawn said.
He kept his voice low. "My predecessor was obsessed with planning
ahead. Before starting a campaign, he would control every variable
that could be controlled, and calculated the risks, benefits, and probabilities
of all other variables not otherwise controllable. I have his memories.
Living entirely in the now seems impossible." He closed his eyes.
"People with no future," he repeated, as if trying to gain some understanding
of such an alien concept. "That phrase could describe myself as well,
unless I make at least some attempt at planning."
*****
Late in the evening of the second day the Admiral encountered
Kon and Toddy in the ship's galley. They had prepared something
which looked like stew and were sharing it out as he approached.
Without a word Kon filled a third bowl and handed it to him. He sat
down at the small round table and tried the food. It was actually
tasty, which was surprising, because Tip had warned him that kitsune were
not terribly good at cooking. They ate in silence for some moments,
which gave him the time to notice that his smaller companions were not
only in human shape (not counting their tails) but were eating with proper
utensils and not with their hands. Just as he was about to congratulate
himself on getting the wild creatures to behave with something like proper
decorum, Toddy spoke.
"You're an alright guy!"
Confused by this strange non sequitur Thrawn
had to ask. "Whatever do you mean?" He had a feeling he would
not enjoy the enlightenment that was sure to follow.
"I mean here you are sharing close quarters with
a pretty gal and you haven't even tried to touch her." Toddy gave
him a wink and a smile.
His companion frowned and said. "Don't give
him a hard time! After all, he's only two days old."
"Yeah, but his original must have been over forty
years old, he must know something about how everything works."
Thrawn was so appalled he could scarcely think of
anything to say in reply. Finally he managed to choke out a short
statement. "Military regulations forbid that sort of fraternization
between ranks."
"I've never known that to slow down anyone."
Toddy said with a chuckle, "Not humans nor elves."
"Leave him be. He's not exactly a human, perhaps
his people are seasonal breeders?" Kon said.
"I hadn't thought of that. We foxes breed
in the spring, so do many critters on our planet. Are your people
like that?" Toddy asked.
Thrawn sucked in a deep, exasperated breath. "My
people..." The Admiral stopped his diatribe before it was fairly
started as he realized he had no memory of what his people
did. Frowning, he turned his thoughts inward and still found nothing.
A light film of sweat layered his skin as he searched for any sort of memory
earlier than his years of Imperial service. Still nothing.
He had no memory of mother or father, of home world, or of childhood, not
even the echo of a memory. Pure, cold fear gripped his heart, a sensation
he was quite sure his original had rarely felt. "My memories are
incomplete. My entire early life is missing. What else am I
missing?" Thrawn propped his head in his hands, trying to find some
scrap of memory. Still nothing. The kitsune looked at him with
concern, all joking set aside.
"We don't know. We took you out of the cylinder
two or three days early. We had to do this because we didn't know
when that crazy old man would realize that we were there to mess up his
plans. We figured we had no time to waste. It was a risk, but
we didn't want him to get started with you." Kon said.
He looked at them through his fingers and with an
effort of will sat up, forced his hands down to the tabletop and made his
heart slow to something resembling a normal beat. Their rescue had
obviously disrupted the downloading of memories, but he could not argue
with their logic. His memories concerning C'baoth were only too clear.
The Jedi had been untrustworthy and dangerous. He would have been
unable to resist the Jedi’s dark power had he been left on Wayland to finish
maturing. "I understand you did what you thought was right.
I am grateful for the rescue. But I fear I cannot answer your question
about my people. The memories of my predecessor are unclear as well.
I think he spent his energies in the service of the Empire and thought
of little else."
Kon patted his arm consolingly. " Try not
to worry about it. There are an awful lot of people who would like
to forget their past. Look at the bright side, any memories you make
will be yours alone. And that includes any memories of love -- if
and when you choose to make them."
Here Toddy gave the Admiral a very nice smile.
"And if things aren't working, we're just the people to see! We're
the familiars of the goddess Inari. She's in charge of everything
having to do with the harvest and fertility, so don't worry about anything.
If you got a problem, we can fix it. We do love spells, too!"
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind." Struggling
to contain a near-hysterical urge to either laugh or scream, he rose and
left them, reflecting that the truncated memories of his original provided
no experiences to prepare his clone-self for the situations he now had
to deal with.
*****
After three days of travel, they popped out of hyperspace
on the edge of the Tangrene sector, a standard Imperial operating procedure.
This maneuver would give them time to receive the encrypted position of
the fleet, without attracting too much attention from the rebels, who doubtless
had a presence in the system. As they sailed past the outlying planets
of the system, the two Imperials waited impatiently for the ship's computer
to decode the information they had received. After the last of the
message had scrolled by, Shir looked at the Admiral.
"The bulk of the fleet has gone to Bilbringi.
The Chimaera will almost certainly be there. I can make the
calculations for the jump and we can rendezvous with the fleet within 24
hours. What are your orders, sir?"
The Grand Admiral looked out of the forward viewports
at the distant lights of a deep space manufacturing facility. For
some time, he gave no answer. Shir worked with the computer, entering
the coordinates for the jump to what she assumed would be their eventual
destination.
"I have the coordinates laid in sir, permission
to make the jump to hyperspace?" Her hand rested over the jump control.
"No, Lieutenant. Continue on our present course.
I wish to inspect the system. I understand it has received some damage
from rebel saboteurs."
The Imperial pilot glanced at her superior officer
with some surprise. "With respect, sir, I thought you wanted to rendezvous
with your flagship as soon as possible?"
The Admiral turned on her a forbidding expression.
"A rendezvous with Chimaera is undesirable at this time."
Shir looked thoroughly confused.
"Why would you not want to return to Chimaera?
That's your command ship, you do not often leave it. Actually, how
did you get to Wayland with no one knowing, not even a rumor?..." Her voice
trailed off as she thought of something too terrible to say out loud.
Hesitantly, she said. "The scientists at the Tantiss
facility. They didn't. They wouldn't!"
"Would and did," said Tip. The Admiral watched
her narrowly, but said nothing.
"But, but who - the Grand Admiral surely wouldn't
authorize such a thing unless he wanted an heir for some reason?" Shir
said.
"I'll give you three guesses, and the first two
don't count," Tip snorted. Thrawn spoke before Shir could fill the
gap with any further questions.
"No, my predecessor had no memories of ordering
any such thing." He spoke with a bitter smile. "I find it the
height of irony that he was actually planning to clone C'baoth, the author
of our difficulties."
"He beat you to it," Tip said, ignoring his unhappy
expression. "Got to give the crazy old coot credit. Now you've
got a couple of bad problems." She held up two fingers "Two of the
biggest are: C'baoth is still out there, and so is your original.
I'd bet Thrawn prime will be just thrilled when you show up."
"Why wouldn't he be?" Shir asked. The TIE
pilot was lost. "It's like having a son or brother. Why would
he mind?"
"Kid, you haven't read much history, have you?"
Toddy asked. Toddy had read very little history himself, but he had
seen I, Claudius many times.
"No, who has the time for that?" Shir said, making
a careless shrug.
"People in power don't usually want to share with
their relatives. History is full of nasty examples of fratricide,
parricide, you name it -cide," said Toddy. "Take the Roman Empress
Livia, she murdered half her family: her husband, her children, her in-laws.
I think she went through some of her grandkids as well. She didn't
care who she killed as long as she could keep control of her Empire."
"Actually, given the way a lot of upper echelon
Imperials behave and think, I guess that your original would be more likely
to view you as a potential stock of spare parts than as a partner of any
sort," Tip mused out loud. She looked at the Admiral, whose face
had gone tight with inner concentration. "Am I right?"
"Perhaps," Thrawn replied in a strained tone.
"When viewed as a separate being from myself, I am forced to admit that
dealing with him would be problematic at best, which is why I am reluctant
to rejoin the Chimaera without proper preparation."
"What you mean is, if we're lucky, he'll kill us
all quickly," Tip said. Thrawn made a gesture of assent.
"Well, what's to be done then? If we traipse
in and he has us all shot what's the good in that?" Kon sounded offended.
"You're forgetting the interrogation part," Tip
said.
"Merciful Kannon! I
had forgotten that bit with the Princess! Cripes!!" The listening
Imperials had no idea what Kon was referring to. They remained blissfully
ignorant of the fact that a large slice of their recent history was considered
fictional entertainment by the inhabitants of a world a universe away.
"And you’re forgetting another important thing which
I forgot to list earlier," Tip added.
"And that is?" the Admiral asked.
"What is the Lieutenant here to do? She knows
now that you are a clone of the Grand Admiral. Where do her loyalties
lie? You're the Grand Admiral’s double, not the real thing," Tip
pointed out objectively.
Thrawn looked steadily at the only other representative
of the Empire present in the ship. "If you want to be absolutely
accurate, I suppose you could consider me Imperial property." He
still wore at his side the blaster he had acquired from the storm trooper
on Wayland. He could touch it unseen with the fingers of his right
hand. Shir herself was unarmed. She sat as if frozen in place,
her face a study in conflicting emotions. Finally her expression
smoothed and she spoke calmly.
"You must excuse me, sir. I am no politician
and you already know my opinion of Imperial scientists. With respect,
I must state that I do not believe what I have heard." Dropping her
eyes, she continued rapidly. "Unless I can see both yourself and
the other standing side-by-side, I must believe the evidence of my own
senses. Unless it is proven otherwise, you are the Grand Admiral,
and I will obey whatever orders you care to give. Sir." She
heaved a great breath as if glad to get the whole statement out.
She lifted her chin and looked straight out the viewport. "You can,
of course, demand my life whenever you require it."
Thrawn relaxed his grip on the butt of the blaster.
Relief lifted his mood. I should have known: the crew aboard
Chimaera
had a reputation for loyalty to their commanding officers. "I do
not require it today, Lieutenant. What I do require is that you set
a course for Dankara, the midpoint between here and Bilbringi. That
will give us time to collect more data and plan for what I hope to be a
smooth return to the forces of the Empire. You have the con."
"Aye, sir." Shir replied, returning with gratitude
to the mundane task of flying the starship. Thrawn rose and left
her to her work. His escort of kitsune followed in his wake.
*****
"Well, one problem down, only two to go," Tip said cheerfully.
The Grand Admiral looked down at her.
"Why are you troubling yourselves with this?
Now that you can use the Force, or your magic, or whatever it is, you can
return to your own dimension, I assume. It is only Lieutenant Kinoha
and myself who must plan for the problems of the immediate future.
You need not put yourselves at risk." The Admiral had folded his
arms across his chest and drawn himself up to his full height. He
radiated a formidable cool formality. The small group of kitsune
all straightened their postures automatically. After hearing his
statements, they gathered into a close knot and held a brief discussion
in low voices.
Finally Tip said. "Here, Kuro, you do the
explanations. You're the best at this sort of thing." Kuro
stood forth from the group, and paced himself forward until he faced the
Admiral at close range. With his arms at his sides he gave him a
formal bow from the waist.
"Admiral, we saw to your birth. We also helped
to arrange your escape from Wayland."
"Yes, that is true," Thrawn said cautiously.
"In our culture this means we have responsibility
for your life. To abandon you to a terrible fate would be dishonorable."
"And how do you know my fate would be terrible?
Can you see the future?"
"No, we do not normally see the future. But
it requires no great skill to foresee what would occur if you were to fall
into the hands of either the dark Jedi or your original. We feel
an obligation to see you well started on your life's path." Kuro
paused for a moment. The other kitsune all nodded at him to go on.
"Can you tell us why you didn't kill Lieutenant Kinoha the minute she discovered
your presence aboard this ship? You can fly this type of ship yourself."
"We would never have evaded the cruisers without
her skills," Thrawn said evenly.
"But you didn't know that at first. You took
a great risk. Why did you spare her life?"
"She's a loyal Imperial officer. I do not
spend my people’s lives unnecessarily."
"Based on our knowledge of high-ranking Imperials,
we sense your original would have done so without regret. Do you
know Admiral, that ever since your birth you have been diverging from your
original, making memories you do not share with him, making your own decisions?"
"Of course, that is inevitable, but it has no bearing
on this situation." The Admiral looked as if he were reluctant to
continue the conversation, but Kuro pressed on.
"Your pardon, but it does. You spared her
life because you're not an asura. You have good ki, the ki
of a human being."
"Please explain, you are using words which I do
not understand."
"An asura is a creature less advanced than a human,
it lives in the lower dimensions. It is a hungry spirit with no conscience.
These type of beings sometimes manage to inhabit the bodies of humans.
We can always tell when this happens because of the way the person behaves.
Sometimes it happens that human beings behave so badly during the course
of their lives that they become asuras inside. This means that they
have become lower than animals. Your ki is your breath, your
heart, your spirit. It is the power that lives inside." Kuro
patted his chest. "We can tell that you have a good spirit, and so
you are a human being. We honor you for this and feel obligated to
give you what help we can."
The Admiral frowned at him. "I am, as I understand
it, an alien. I am a member of a humanoid species, but I do not know
if we are related to humans or not."
"That’s just legal niceties. You’re talking body.
We’re talking spirit. What Kuro says is still true, no matter who
your parents were or what species you are," Tip said firmly.
"How strange that you seem to know what I am, and
I do not."
"It’s cool. Self-knowledge is the most difficult
to acquire. When you’ve lived as long as us, it’ll be much easier
for you."
Thrawn permitted himself to be distracted by her
statement, deciding that the current conversation was far too uncomfortable.
"And how long is that?"
"Me, I’m over 400 years old. Kuro is maybe
300. Kon and Toddy are just kids, they’re both over 100."
"Four hundred years?!" he exclaimed, "I would need
several lifetimes to achieve that!"
"Been known to happen," Tip chuckled, following
with the others down toward the crew lounge area. She had to trot
to keep up with his long strides.
The Admiral gave up trying to talk sense to his
entourage. Their speeches about obligations based on the state of
one's spirit were utterly outside his own base of knowledge. The
Empire did not support the teaching of religious philosophy and consequently
he had little experience with dealing with such concepts, except as purely
intellectual knowledge absorbed during his studies of psychology.
What his own people believed was lost in the blank areas of his memories.
He said with some asperity as he went, "Fine. Do whatever you think
is right." The kitsune leaped about happily and cavorted in the passageway.
"See! See! This is why we know you're
worth the trouble!" They galloped off, leaving Thrawn as deeply mystified
as ever as to what they thought was so wonderful.
*****
"So, what next?" Tip asked some hours later.
She had been patiently watching the Admiral reading datapads and making
notes. Now it seemed as if he had surfaced for air and a cup of tea,
so she decided to ask her question at this opportune moment.
"What next?" Thrawn asked, repeating her question.
He stared abstractedly at some of the notes he had made.
"Yes. It's not as if you can just return to
the Empire, is it? Are you going to join the Rebellion?" The
lines of the Admiral's face hardened as he considered her query.
"Join the Rebellion? That is out of the question.
You forget to whom you are speaking. Both Lieutenant Kinoha and myself
are loyal Imperial subjects."
Tip continued undaunted. "You may be loyal,
but you’re dead people if you return. You said yourself you had no
legal status, and the good Lieutenant will be branded a traitor for assisting
in your escape. Why not join the Rebellion? They've accepted
lots of former Imperials into their fellowship."
The Admiral shook his head negatively. "The
Empire brought stability to the galaxy! Everyone knew their place
in the Imperial hierarchy, everything was in order. The Rebellion
promises nothing but chaos. We need control, not disorder!
How could anyone reasonable want chaos?"
"Imperial order? Everything in its place?
You are the person with no place at all, or worse yet, if you took your
place in the Imperial order, you would die." Tip saw that the Admiral
was either not listening to her or did not want to hear what she was saying.
His expression settled into stubbornness.
"I cannot join the Rebellion. I will not throw
in my lot with people who have destroyed the forces of order in the galaxy."
Tip threw back her head and laughed merrily, much
to his amazement. When she caught her breath she said. "Well,
this is really rich! The gods have such a sense of humor!"
"How so?" Thrawn asked, wary of the answer.
"You were rescued by four adherents of chaos, that's
how! It's too funny!" She went off again into gales of laughter.
"Adherents of chaos?" he asked cautiously.
"You are not under the command of anyone?"
Tip wiped her streaming eyes. "Oh, no.
No one commands us. The gods themselves despair of our obedience!"
"Then your rescue of me?"
"We ended up on Wayland purely by accident.
Don't get me wrong, once we found out your predicament, we couldn't just
leave you to your fate. Perhaps our arriving there was the work of
the gods, but no one gave us any order." Tip looked at him out of
green eyes. Her pupils were vertically slit, he noticed. With
a smile and a shrug she said, "For someone who’s into order, you're in
strange company."
"I'm learning to live with it," he said stiffly.
Gathering up his datapad he moved through the room toward the passage leading
to the crew quarters. "I'm retiring for the night, good evening."
"Nighty-night, Admiral," Tip said. Once he
was gone, she added, "You're learning mighty fast. We may not make
a rebel out of you, but who knows?"
*****
He was looking at a planetary viewscreen aboard his
old command ship, the Admonitor. It showed the alien landscape
of the world below. The equally alien inhabitants moved about in
their clusters of villages, going about their daily business. They
were bulky, with four heavy limbs for walking and a set of lighter arms
which they used to manipulate objects. In his memory was the image
of their strange artwork, which he had been unable to understand.
What he did understand was that they refused to acknowledge the supremacy
of the Empire, and that was not allowed. Calmly, he gave the order.
"Commence bombardment. Stop only when they offer unconditional surrender."
The order was acknowledged. As he watched, the viewscreen began to
show lances of brilliant green fire beginning to rain down on the planetary
surface. A village took a direct hit. The buildings melted
and ran like wax, their occupants vanishing into vapor. The bombardment
went on and on. The ground based camera which fed images to the viewscreen
melted. Thrawn switched to watching the tactical display. The minutes
crawled by into hours.
A staff member said, "Sir, do you wish us to go
on? Our sensor scans show no life forms remaining below."
He replied evenly, "Suspend the bombardment, log
the planet as no longer of interest to the Empire." With a twinge
of regret for the alien stubbornness that had brought him to this action,
he left the bridge. The pain struck him almost immediately,
searing like a lightning bolt, shredding his nerves, agonizing in its intensity.
He doubled over, too surprised to scream, at least at first. The
pain continued, and he realized that it was not really his own pain, but
the pain of others. Others whose lives had just come to a sudden
and horrible end. He could feel everything, their thoughts, emotions,
physical sensations. Their alien thoughts he could not understand,
but the rest needed no interpretation. He threw himself down on the
steel deck trying to escape the agony but it was no use. He kept
hoping a crew member would find him and at least carry him to sick bay,
but the hall remained empty. He was alone with three million deaths.
After what felt like an eternity Thrawn sensed that
someone was approaching and managed to open his eyes. He squinted
through a film of tears and sweat, trying to see. An old man of medium
height and build walked briskly up the corridor and stopped before him.
His outline shimmered. He had a neatly trimmed gray beard, long robes,
and his expression was peaceful. He looked down at Thrawn who, still
in the throes of anguish, was unable to stand. His face became concerned
and he knelt down and said, "This is not right, you are the wrong one.
This is not for you. Give me your hands." The Admiral thrust
out his hands stiffly and the stranger grasped them and pulled him to his
feet. The pain cut off as if someone had thrown a switch and for
a moment Thrawn allowed the old man to hold him up. At last he was
able to stand without help. He tried to speak, but his rescuer took
him by the shoulders and said, "This is not part of you, you are dreaming
and you need to wake up soon."
"Dreaming?" Thrawn thought his voice echoed
oddly in the emptiness of the corridor.
"Yes, time means nothing here, and some things are
best learned through experience. But this particular lesson is not
meant for you." His expression became compassionate. "Wake
up now, but before you go, child of the Grand Admiral, remember this, the
Force is with you."
Thrawn jerked upright, his mouth open in a silent
cry. Around him was his berth aboard the Sharpness, which
was still in night phase. The hum of the ship was normal, no one
else stirred. The transition from one reality to another was so abrupt
that for some time he just sat and re-grouped, breathing hard.
The Force, he thought, the Force is for
Jedi and enemies of the Empire, what has the Force to do with me?
He shivered in the still air, his skin wet with sweat. Dragging up
the coverlet, he wrapped it around his shoulders. His right arm ached
and he massaged it with his left hand as he thought. All that
talk about spirits that are good and evil must have provided fuel for my
dreams. My first nightmare, he corrected himself. Thrawn
frowned as he realized that the memories he had inherited gave no indication
that his original had ever experienced such a thing. What is the
difference between myself and my original? In spite of my lack of
his earliest memories we share practically all the ones that should be
important. By all logic we should be the same. He lay back
in his bunk and began with singular concentration to search those shared
memories. His predecessor’s recollection of the encounter with the
aliens was similar in every respect to that of his dream except that his
original had suffered no pain whatsoever from his act of destruction.
Thrawn found in those memories a sense of vague regret over the loss of
irreplaceable artwork, nothing else.
He felt nothing. All those deaths and he
felt nothing. Why do I feel when he did not? the Admiral stared
into the darkness. No immediate answers surfaced to his questions,
although it did seem to him that the kitsune had been correct in saying
that he was different from his original. The ache in his right arm
had settled into a sort of dull numbness. Does this difference
make me weaker or stronger? he wondered. In the Empire only stronger
mattered. Thrawn found the realization disturbing, but before he
could pursue the thought further he drifted back into sleep.
The dawn alarm awoke him with a start. He
rose, suppressing a groan at the many small pains that promptly attacked
every muscle in his body. The pain was worse on his right side; even
his tongue felt sore. If this is what typical nightmares are like
I would rather do without them, he thought with a grimace. Moving
gingerly he cleaned up and dressed, then moved out into the ship in search
of an analgesic.
The memory of his dream stayed with him and his
active mind worried at it, looking for meaning. He poked at his breakfast,
watching Shir eat her own morning meal with enthusiasm. The Harlekki
was in a fine good humor, the prospect of action filling her with cheerful
energy. The old man who spoke to me of the Force, could he have
been a Jedi? he wondered. The Admiral took a sip of hot tea,
rolling the liquid to the left side of his mouth, since the right remained
stubbornly sore. What did he mean when he said my nightmare was
a lesson, and the lesson wasn't for me? If not for me, then…
"Admiral’sama, do you feel all
right?" Kuro asked. The samurai was a keen observer.
"Yes, but I think I may have an… obligation to my
predecessor."
"An obligation?" Several voices asked together.
"What sort of obligation?"
"Isn't it proper to give a warning to someone who
may be facing a terrible danger?" The painful dream-memory nagged
at the back of his mind.
"I suppose so, although you've got to understand
that while you may warn someone, that doesn't mean they’ll heed your advice,"
Tip said. She gave the Admiral a shrewd glance. "Are you having
a premonition about your original?"
The Admiral finished his tea and tossed the cup into the disposal unit.
"I'm not sure, I just feel that time is moving quickly." He looked
at the lieutenant, who promptly rose to her feet and made him a sharp salute.
"It is a short jump from Dankara to Bilbringi, Lieutenant. Is the
ship ready to see some engagement?"
"The Sharpness is ready and at your command,
sir," she replied formally. The two Imperials moved forward to the
flight deck where they settled themselves and prepared for the transition
to sublight.
*****
They arrived at Dankara on time, performing a sweep
of the system perimeter that enabled them to intercept and decode the latest
Imperial communications. The incoming news was strange, the fleet
was engaged at Bilbringi and something irregular was occurring at Wayland.
"What is happening? Did the rebels locate
the cloning facility?" asked Shir, squinting at the quickly scrolling decrypt
of Imperial ship traffic on her screen. "It sounds as if they're
fighting down there. Were they expecting trouble?"
"They should be fighting at Bilbringi. I have
memories of beginning the preparations for a large engagement with the
Rebellion," the Admiral said, as he also watched the decrypt stream by.
"I, or he, was not expecting anything unusual to happen at Wayland, unless
my predecessor was successful in his other plan?" He speculated aloud,
then stopped as he realized that everyone was looking at him.
"What other plans?" asked Tip. Her blue tail
had bushed out considerably.
"He was trying to implement a plan to keep C'baoth
busy and entertained," Thrawn said, half-distracted by yet more ops reports
scrolling by. The incoming reports from Wayland were starting to
sound more and more disorganized, whereas the ones originating from Bilbringi
were in proper military form.
"Entertain a dark Jedi?" Toddy looked at him
with disbelief. "What would it take to entertain someone like him?"
"Young Jedi and Jedi children to train and mold
in his own image," Thrawn said reluctantly. Even as he spoke the
words he could feel how repugnant such an action would be, both to himself
and to his listeners. Having nearly been the victim of C’baoth’s
attentions had given him a different perspective from that of the original
Admiral.
"What!? Whose kids? What Jedi?" Kon
said sharply, beating Tip to the punch.
"Ah, I recall my original was planning on giving
him the twin infant children of Leia Organa Solo. Also Organa Solo
and Luke Skywalker themselves, if he could manage it."
The kitsune groaned in unison. Shir turned
on them a curious expression.
"What is wrong? I'll admit kidnapping is not
normal Imperial S.O.P., but..."
"Are you kidding?! Giving a crazy evil Jedi
a bunch more Jedi is like throwing fuel on a bonfire! However, now
that I think about who your original planned on grabbing, I'll just bet
that now he's reaping the whirlwind," Tip said.
"He's doing what?" Shir asked.
"If you sow the wind, you shall reap the whirlwind,
it's a quote from our home world. It means when you plan bad, stupid
stuff, you usually get to suffer the consequences."
"So how do you know when an action is bad before
you suffer the consequences?" the Admiral asked, looking at Tip with a
strange expression.
"I'm probably not the one you should be asking,
but the ones who could give you a really good answer ain’t here, so I’ll
give you my answer." She thrust a finger at Thrawn’s chest, poking
him with enough force that he could feel it. "You’ve gotta listen
to your innards. When you want to do something and just thinking
about it makes your heart hurt, or when you know it will make you feel
good and others feel rotten, then what you want to do is probably bad.
Of course, I’m assuming you have any feeling for anyone other than yourself.
Some folks never feel pain, so they figure nobody else feels pain either
and they go around wreaking havoc until someone removes them from the universe."
Tip waved her hands in a fluttering motion. "It's not always possible
to get through life without hurting or inconveniencing people, but the
gods demand that you behave as honorably as possible. They see everything
you do. If you can manage to do more good than harm in your life,
then you’ve done well indeed."
"And where do you stand on the balance sheet you
have just defined?" Thrawn asked. He found the idea of godly cosmic
scorekeepers too strange to believe.
Tip gave him a thoroughly cheezy smile before she
answered. "Let's just say that we kitsune try to do more good than
harm, but given our natures, it's a good thing that we automatically go
to the Torii heaven when we die, being as we're beloved of the goddess
Inari and all."
Before the Admiral could ask for a definition of
'heaven', Kuro said. "The Torii heaven is one of the lower circles
of heaven, or the afterlife; the Buddha lives in the highest heaven with
the gods, but kitsune do not usually go there."
"It's just as well, Nirvana sounds like a pretty
dull place, an’ what are you gonna talk about with a Bhoddisatva, anyways?"
Toddy said. As usual, their answers gave the Admiral a copious supply
of new questions to replace the one he had just asked, but his train of
thought was effectively derailed when Shir exclaimed over a new decrypt.
"Sir! The Tantiss facility reports heavy internal
damage, but they are unable to say what precisely is happening."
"I imagine Luke Skywalker and his family are on
Wayland now, which means the facility will soon be completely destroyed,"
Kuro said.
Thrawn and Shir both looked at the small warrior.
"Why do you assume they will be successful? And how are you so sure
it is them?" the Admiral asked.
Tip answered for him. "Law of the Universe.
You do enough bad deeds and the universe tries to balance it out.
Your original has been trying to snatch Leia's cubs and you think they'll
ignore the danger in letting it go on? These aren’t passive people,
y’know."
"Yeah, there's nothing more dangerous than a new
mother with cubs. When her children are threatened, watch out!
And this mom is a Jedi and her brother is a Jedi. You think they
would just let the threat continue without doing anything? Leia and
her family will be all over C'baoth like a cheap suit!" Kon said, snapping
his fingers.
"It's a good thing we got you out of there.
Since your original has been trying for some time to grab Leia's kids and
send them to Wayland, into the clutches of a dark Jedi, and the Emperor's
cloning facility is there, then you can bet your last credit that Skywalker
and his whole gang of friends will go there. Which means," Tip paused
to crunch on a bread stick which she had thoughtfully brought with her
from the galley. "Mount Tantiss is toast."
Shir gave the blue-haired girl an annoyed glance.
"Toast?! What's that? You people always talk so funny," she
objected. Tip swallowed her mouthful of food.
"Toast is toast. Bread cooked crunchy, sort
of like this stuff." Here she snapped another breadstick by way of
illustration. "How about fried? Exploded, destroyed, utterly
demolished? Take your pick, Skywalker is Destruction, Inc."
"Do you mean to say he can destroy the facility
single-handedly?" Thrawn asked. He did not want to believe that such
a feat was possible, but in his memory was the knowledge that Luke Skywalker
had managed somehow to destroy the Death Star.
"Him and his friends, yes. You gotta understand,
Skywalker is the 'Sword of the Gods', if he's near anything bad or evil
it’s going to be destroyed, more likely sooner rather than later."
Thrawn scanned the decrypt which had come in during
their conversation. "I must concede your assessment was correct,"
he said gravely. "Transmissions from Tantiss control have just ceased
with no further explanation." The group sat in silence. Tip
decided the Imperials really did not need to hear "I told you so" at this
particular moment and she slapped a quick hand over Kon's mouth when it
looked as if he was going to say it.
"What is happening at Bilbringi?" Shir asked.
"If we've lost the Tantiss facility, should we go and help our people at
the shipyard engagement?" The Admiral sat quietly, looking out the
forward viewport with a very odd look on his face. "This shuttle
is well armed, and far better shielded then my TIE fighter, we could render
effective assistance," she added eagerly.
"There’s still the problem about running into the
original Admiral," Tip reminded her.
"We... may no longer need to worry about him," Thrawn
said. His voice sounded distant and strained.
"Eh? Why not?" Tip asked. She
moved forward the better to be able to see his face.
"Because someone just now stabbed him. Here."
He rubbed at the center of his chest with his left hand, the corners of
his mouth pulled down in pain. He closed his eyes and hunched forward,
speaking with difficulty. "He is dying."
Shir turned sideways as far as the straps of her
seat would allow her and caught at the Admiral's sagging shoulder.
"Sir! What is happening?" When she received no immediate response,
she began to pull at his sleeve in alarm. "Admiral! Wake up!"
Tip sprang up into Thrawn's lap and began to shake
him, none too gently, and shouted urgently, "Hey! Don't go there!
Don't follow him! You're here! You're alive!" The others
joined in, sensing the peril of the situation.
As if from a far distance, Thrawn could hear people
shouting. Their voices echoed as if they were calling down a deep
shaft. Somewhere nearby a dark pit yawned, pulling at him.
The voices sounded familiar and he realized that they were the voices of
people whom he considered friends. They were frantic with worry.
With a great effort he pulled himself toward them and opened his eyes.
The interior of the shuttle came into focus, as did the faces of his companions.
The attraction of that deep pit faded. "There's no need to shout,
I can hear you." To his surprise, his voice sounded almost normal,
if somewhat quiet, "What is the matter?"
"We thought you were gonna leave us!" Tip exclaimed.
"Not yet. Although I do owe you some thanks
for recalling me to my duties." He sat up, drawing a deep, steadying
breath. "Lieutenant, take us to Bilbringi. The fleet needs
our support, and now, with care, I believe we may be able to approach Captain
Pellaeon."
"That's assuming him and his ship survive the fight
with the Alliance," Tip said.
"Exactly." Thrawn spoke shortly, his red eyes
narrowed. "Lieutenant Kinoha, prepare for a hot fire encounter.
For the duration of the upcoming engagement you have command. You
are the only one of us with current small fighter combat experience, so
I will defer to you in this. I will leave the control of the ship
and the fighting to you once we arrive. It is of paramount importance
that the Chimaera remain functional." He gave her a polite
nod. "The Sharpness is at your command, Lieutenant."
"Sir," Shir acknowledged, watching the elapsed time
indicator count down toward their exact departure time for Bilbringi.
She had been busy while the Admiral had been speaking. Now she touched
the controls and the stars became streamers of light as they jumped to
hyperspace.
"ETA to Bilbringi 10 minutes, sir." She cast
a glance back at the kitsune. "All of you strap in. The decrypts
indicate a massive battle near the shipyards. We’ll come under fire
the minute we emerge from hyperspace. Admiral, I will need you to
track the ship's energy output and shielding."
Shir felt her pulse accelerate in pleasant anticipation
of battle. "Everyone secured?" she asked. At the affirmative
responses from the kitsune, she added, "Now for the fun part."
"Hey! Didn't you say something like that the
last time? Right before that awful jump?" Kon asked suspiciously.
"Speaking of which, did you ever put back those
inter-locks?" Thrawn asked, managing to sound only mildly curious.
"Certainly, sir. I put them back three days
ago." Shir dropped her eyes to the control panel in front of her.
"I did, however, take the liberty of adding a cutout circuit and switch."
Tip craned over the pilot’s shoulder. Sure
enough, a new rocker switch had been wired into the surface of the control
array.
"Oh brother!" she sighed. Tip liked adventure
as much as the next kitsune, but she didn't really enjoy the sensation
of being ripped apart and re-assembled that unshielded hyperspace tripping
out of a gravity well gave her. Looking at the Grand Admiral, Tip
could see that his thoughts must have turned in a similar direction.
Her dire misgivings were interrupted as the Lieutenant began what sounded
like a ritual litany, chanting phrases and adjusting controls while checking
the corresponding readouts.
"All systems nominal. Energy consumption nominal.
Power nominal. Oxygen levels normal. Shields at 100 percent
on auto. Now charging the turbolasers." Shir clicked over a
sequence of switches and a deep hum was added to the constant soft background
noise of the ship's engines. "The ship is secured for battle.
Entering Bilbringi real space - now." The stars streamed by, then
snapped into place.
"The fleet?" asked the Admiral, looking at the forward
tactical display.
"Dead ahead, sir. Our fleet is in the thick
of it, all around the shipyard."
"Looks like a kicked hornet's nest," Tip observed,
watching random clouds of small fighters swarming around the larger capital
ships. The big ships were throwing what looked like lightning bolts
of violent colors at each other.
"I've found the Chimaera," Thrawn said, tapping
a display on the screen. "She's holding off several rebel assault
frigates."
"And a boatload of little fighters!" Toddy interjected.
"Yes, let's give her a hand, shall we?" the Admiral
said. He leaned forward a little, looking intently at the tactical
display.
Before the lieutenant could answer him, she yawed
the Sharpness suddenly, avoiding the red bolts of energy spewed
at her by two B-wing fighters.
"What in the name of space was that?!" Tip
shouted, ducking by reflex, even though she knew it would do no good.
Shir did not bother to answer but instead pulled the shuttle around in
a screaming turn which caught their pursuers by surprise. The smaller
fighters overran their target and shot ahead of the shuttle. Shir
pulled the ship out of the completed turn, firing immediately. First
one, then another of the fighters burst into expanding clouds of fiery
gases.
"Good shooting!" Toddy cried in genuine admiration.
"The Red Baron couldn't do a better job!"
Although Shir could not understand the entire reference,
she did understand the complimentary tone. The Harlekki smiled briefly,
then her face returned to its intent expression and she turned the ship
toward the distant embattled form of the Chimaera.
"That was just a warm up," she said. "Hold
tight, the main course is coming." A moment later the truth of her
words was proven as they were pursued by a small mob of Alliance fighters
as they flew toward their objective. Unfortunately, the pilots of
those fighters had made the assumption that the shuttle was being handled
by an ordinary Imperial pilot. They expected the craft to surrender
after a few warning shots. Instead, they were immediately attacked
by someone who flew the shuttle as if it were a TIE fighter. As soon
as she had blasted a hole through the surrounding fighters, Shir punched
the ship's engines and dashed ahead of the survivors.
"That's five down," Kon said, "Only 10,000 more
to go."
"I do believe Shir'san is willing to cut her way
through all of them," Kuro observed.
"Our Lieutenant does not believe in subtleties,"
Thrawn said. The face of his pilot was calm and showed no sign of
stress. Rather, she seemed to be enjoying herself. She gave
no indication of having heard their commentary. Adjusting the trajectory
of the ship she aimed the Sharpness directly at the Chimaera.
"Quickest route is usually the best," she said.
"How are the shields?"
"Still at maximum power. We've suffered no
damage so far." The Admiral checked the tactical display. He
raised his head to see their goal growing larger ahead. He touched
the communicator and was rewarded by a loud burst of static. He cranked
the volume down, frowned for a moment, then said, "Battle jamming.
I expected this, but it makes boarding the Chimaera much more difficult.
We cannot dock unless she makes an opening in her shields for us to enter."
"Well then, we shall just have to keep busy out
here until we are noticed and signaled docking clearance." Shir grinned
happily, rolling and looping the ship in a maneuver that on Earth would
have been called an Immelman turn. Two more fighters blossomed into
red flowers of destruction.
"Some shooting, ne?" Kuro said.
"Y'know, it just occurred to me that those ships
she's shooting down so neatly belonged to the Alliance. You know,
the good guys?" Tip said quietly to her companions.
"Uh-oh! So should we be cheering?" Toddy asked
in some concern.
"Well, I guess since they're trying to blast our
butts out of existence I suppose it's okay to cheer for now," Tip decided.
"Do you have a problem?" The Grand Admiral
asked them politely, turning in his seat so he could get a better view
of them. Watching the Harlekki ply her trade, he was chagrined to
discover, was a gut- and nerve-wrenching experience. Lieutenant Kinoha,
having no fear of death to act as a brake, flew like a thrice-scalded mynock
and fought like a starving rancor. Thrawn concluded that it was quite
one thing to read accounts of dogfights, or even to experience them in
simulation, and quite another to have to go along for the ride with no
way to control the outcome. After observing the kitsune's pale faces,
he wondered if the only person who could fly co-pilot to a Harlekki was
another Harlekki. The only one who seemed to have any appreciation
of the moment was Kuro, and even he seemed to want to be doing something
other than sitting passively. The brief conversation between the
aliens offered at least a moment's distraction for Thrawn. Shir continued
working her way closer to the Chimaera. At this point it would
have taken a physical blow to catch her attention.
"You mentioned something about the Rebel fighters?
Are you now wanting to claim loyalty to them?" He favored Tip with
a cool expression. Tip was not fooled.
"You know better'n that! We didn't get through
all that mess with you to betray you now. I just noticed we'd hit
what our ‘mom’, Annie, would call a ‘moral gray area,’ where we feel one
group is righter than the other, but we're helping what she'd call the
wrong side." Here she paused and gave him a wink and a shrug.
"Lucky for you guys we kitsune were made to inhabit gray areas! So
don't worry about us." Tip looked past the Admiral out the forward
viewports. "Instead, I'd worry about that big cruiser!" she cried,
ducking down and shrinking into her fox form.
The Admiral made himself face forward. Sure
enough, straight ahead, an enemy star cruiser loomed as they arrowed in
toward it. For an instant the urge to grab the controls away from
Shir was almost overwhelming, but some other feeling held him back.
Behind him he could hear the kitsune gasp as they rushed on in a collision
course. Finally, the Rebel fighters peeled off their pursuit, and
at that instant Shir pulled the ship away in a hairpin turn, so close to
the cruiser that Thrawn could see the startled faces of the ship's crew
through the viewports.
The lieutenant finished looping the ship around
into a firing position behind one of the fighters, blowing it into oblivion.
She followed this maneuver with another tight loop which brought her around
into a head-on course with the second fighter.
"I can't believe it! We're playing chicken
in outer space!" Kon cried, clapping his hands over his eyes.
"We've taken some hits, shields are now at 80 percent."
The Admiral spoke calmly to his pilot. With scarcely a pause he asked,
"What is chicken and how do you play it?" He was trying gamely
not to lose his breakfast, and rather envied the kitsune their ability
to freely display their emotions. Shir, thoroughly enrapt in combat
mode, remained oblivious to their side conversations.
"AAUGH!" cried Tip. The scream was muffled
through her paws. "How can you ask that?! We're playing the
game right now!" She curled herself up into a quivering blue ball
of fur.
"First one to flinch is the chicken!" Kon said,
watching with wide eyes.
Thrawn felt the Sharpness lurch, as the ship
endured the lash of fire from the cruiser. When he dared to open
his eyes, he discovered they were sailing into a patch of space momentarily
clear of the enemy. Automatically he checked for the status of the
ship's shields, then he looked at the tactical display for the whereabouts
of the Chimaera. They were tantalizingly close.
"We're almost there. Shields?" the lieutenant
asked.
"Forward shields at 40 percent, the rest are at
20 percent," the Admiral answered.
"That will do," she said, "A quick dash. We'll
hardly need our shields for that. Once we reach Chimaera we'll
have plenty of protection."
Shir heeled the ship over and boosted the engines
for the last short run to the Chimaera. They were making excellent
progress when without warning, the Chimaera shimmered and vanished
into hyperspace. In the space of five seconds the rest of the Imperial
battle fleet likewise disappeared, leaving the small group in the shuttle
quite alone.
"Well, damn!" Tip said. The kitsune was open-mouthed
in astonishment. "Where the heck did they go?"
The Lieutenant uttered a string of colloquial obscenities
in her own language. The Grand Admiral gazed wordlessly at the space
formerly occupied by the flagship of the Imperial fleet. Finally
Shir ran out of curse words and spoke in Basic.
"They've abandoned the battle! The loss of
Mount Tantiss and the death of their Grand Admiral may have been too much
for them and so they have followed the procedures he trained them in.
The entire fleet has jumped to some secure Imperial position to re-group."
Shir ran her fingers restlessly over the controls. "I was briefed
on several safe jump points, but my information is now over seven days
old. Captain Pellaeon is no fool, he would not use those old points
for fear Rebellion spies may now have knowledge of them. Admiral,
do you know where the fleet has gone?"
Thrawn sat stiffly in his seat, his face set in
a grim frown. "Like yourself, I have memories of a number of rendezvous
points considered relatively safe for the Imperial fleet. Unfortunately,
up until very recently, my predecessor had planned this entire engagement
with victory in mind. I have no memory of any one site in particular
being selected as a point of retreat. The memories we shared cease
on the day I was rescued. He may well have decided on a site the
day before his death, after our memories had diverged."
"How many sites?" Shir asked.
"I can recall at least 20," Thrawn answered.
"Of that 20, 10 had facilities available for the repair of fleet ships.
That would make them higher on the scale of probability given that the
fleet has endured some damage."
"Well, better pick a spot quickly. In case
you haven’t noticed, we've got company!" Toddy exclaimed.
The large sector of space outside the shuttle seemed
suddenly crowded with ships of all sizes and descriptions. Thrawn
was quite sure that none of them were friendly. The ships of the
Rebellion formed a loose globe around the Sharpness. Some
of the ships were light cruisers, and the Admiral could feel the shuttle
shudder slightly as tractor beams began to cast about for their ship.
"We'd best be going. Although none of these
ships are interdictor cruisers, we don't have the necessary mass or thrust
to pull free if they get a firm tractor lock on us," Thrawn said.
The feeling of being surrounded by hostile forces was unpleasant.
"Destination, sir?" Shir asked.
"Enstiron. It is one of those safe places
that possesses facilities for ship repair. If the fleet is not there,
we should at least be able to get in contact with them through the local
garrison."
"Aye, sir. Enstiron it is." The Harlekki's
fingers flew over the controls as she set the course. The ship shuddered
again, then jounced roughly as it evaded yet another tractor beam.
Somehow, Shir managed to fly and set course at the same time.
"Why aren't they firing at us?" Tip asked.
"They can stand way off and shoot at us right now."
The Grand Admiral looked at the tactical display
and his frown deepened. "They now have enough mass around us to interfere
with our jump to hyperspace. I imagine they have assumed that they
can take their time capturing us. They may be curious as to who is
lingering in this place in an Imperial shuttle." He looked up to
see his lieutenant smiling out at the encircling enemy ships with that
same peaceful smile she wore while she was fighting. Thrawn felt
his heart skip a beat as he noticed her left fist positioned above the
switch she had added to the control panel.
"With your permission sir, we will jump now," Shir
requested. Although an unshielded jump was the last thing he wanted
to experience again, Thrawn realized that it was the only option left open
to them. Their shields were nearly spent and they were massively
outnumbered. His pilot was quite willing to continue fighting to
the death and would have done so had he ordered it, but he knew that it
would have been a futile gesture. The lieutenant's forethought had
provided them with an avenue of escape. However risky it might be,
the odds were better than what they faced here and now. It took him
less than one second to come to this conclusion in spite of his mental
qualms, and in a remarkably calm voice he said, "Permission granted, Lieutenant."
After a moment's thought he added quickly, "I commend your good work, and
good luck." Little enough reward, he thought, to take into the void,
perhaps.
As Shir's hand hit the cutout switch and then the
hyperspace control, he heard Tip say clearly, "We gone bye-bye, catch you
on the flip-flop." As he puzzled over the strange syntax, the universe
imploded.
*****
Thrawn came to slowly, aware that it was taking some
effort to breathe. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but a soft
blue color which he gradually decided was the ceiling. He was lying
atop his own berth in the sleeping quarters of the Sharpness.
He sat up with a gasp of pain. The right side of his body felt filled
with needles which prickled sharply at every movement. A blue-haired
head poked into the tiny chamber. The name attached to the worried
face finally surfaced in his memory.
"Tip. How is the Sharpness?" he croaked.
He worked his jaws, unhappily aware that the right side of his mouth was
now entirely numb. It was almost better than the pins and needles
sensation he was suffering elsewhere. Almost.
"Ship’s fine. We popped out at Enstiron like
a champ."
"And the crew?" The question came out before
he could bother to decide if there was a distinction between his Imperial
and non-Imperial shipmates. Tip favored him with a lopsided grin
and held out a glass of water. He went to take it with his right
hand, thought better of it, and grasped it carefully in his left.
Tiny tidal waves rippled through the liquid, betraying the muscular tremors
he was trying to control.
"Shir is up. Looks about as terrible as you
do. You was all out for eight hours. We were getting worried."
"And you are?"
"Pretty okay for being torn into little pieces and
re-assembled. Lucky for you us kitsune regenerate fast. Me
and the others woke up about an hour after we got here. Good thing,
too." Tip waved a hand in the direction of outside. "The ship
was on its own while we were all out. It went into orbit around the
nearest planet and after awhile a nasty-looking ship came by spoiling for
a fight. Wasn't Imperial or Alliance. Demanded we dock up and
let 'em in."
"Space pirates, perhaps slavers. This part
of the galaxy is not heavily patrolled. All sorts of scum and brigands
have taken advantage of the power vacuum to ply their trade," the Admiral
said. "Do continue," he prompted Tip.
"Yeah, well, we was all in a bad mood, and once
we figured out they were up to no good, I put a curse on them. While
they were busy with that, we cast a big spell together and made them go
away."
"Go away where?" Thrawn did not doubt her
veracity, but he had to wonder where the aliens would send a ship full
of criminals.
"Oh, uh, Kessel. We'd heard it was a bad place.
Sounded about right for those guys."
Thrawn grunted with stifled laughter. "Your
opinion was correct. Kessel is indeed a bad place, defended as it
is by a powerful criminal cartel who are extremely jealous of their territory.
I imagine the pirates will trouble people no longer." He took a drink
of water. It did not restore sensation, but did much to ease the
dryness in his throat.
"You mentioned a curse?" he asked.
"Nothing fatal. I wanted a distraction, so
I cursed them with the itches. Now that I think of it, I don't remember
removing the curse before we sent them off to Kessel. Oh well, assuming
they survive, the curse will eventually wear off." Tip smiled wolfishly.
"Itch curses are the pits."
"I doubt that they will be able to file any sort
of legal complaint," Thrawn said dryly. He drank off the remaining
contents of the glass, swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, and stood
up. With Tip preceding him he walked through the crew quarters toward
the galley, favoring his right leg, which seemed to be more than half asleep
and reluctant to function properly. He found the rest of the crew
seated around a table. The kitsune were somewhat more rumpled than
usual, but eating heartily, he noticed. His pilot sat with her head
propped up on one arm, looking pale and drawn. She was idly chasing
a bit of food about on her plate with her fork, but appeared to be making
little progress at catching it. Kuro brightened at their approach,
and the others looked up.
"Sir!" cried Shir, hauling herself to her feet and
giving him a salute. "Are you all right?"
Before the Admiral could answer, Toddy said, "That
must’ve been some party! You look like 20 miles of bad road!"
"I’ve felt better," Thrawn admitted, waving at Shir,
"Sit down, Lieutenant, we’re in no danger at the present and I see no need
for you to tax yourself." The Harlekki sank back into her chair with
a sigh of relief.
"Thank you, sir. I must admit I am not exactly
fond of unshielded hyperspace jumping as a regular means of transport.
The effects on the body are undesirable."
"You’re the master of understatement, kid," Kon
growled. "I heal quick, and even I can’t stand it. I’m amazed
you human-types are still sane."
"What does sanity have to do with flying a ship?"
Shir asked. Her smile indicated that the question was anything but
serious.
"Some of us prefer to remain in our right minds,"
the Admiral said. The statement was spoken so mildly that it took
the listeners several moments to realize that he too was joking.
Thrawn joined them at the table, but prior experience
told him to wait before trying to eat anything solid. Instead, he
removed his datapad from a pocket and laid it on the table. Several
keystrokes served to patch him into the ship's network and a few queries
soon had a stream of information traveling across the datapad's screen.
With patience, he began a search for any sign of the vanished fleet.
After reading for several minutes, he halted the flow and began typing
a series of commands, several of which required high-level clearance and
passwords. This took more care and attention than a simple request
for Imperial fleet news. Sometime later he looked up in surprise
to find the kitsune setting the table for what looked like dinner.
His stomach growled at him. He closed down the datapad and put it
aside in favor of the food. Shir joined them, eating what was placed
before her with her normal appetite. The Admiral ate cautiously and
was gratified when his meal seemed inclined to stay where it belonged.
His immediate needs taken care of, he spoke to his lieutenant.
"The fleet is not here, as I am sure you are aware."
"Yes, sir. Besides the incursion by the pirates,
the only traffic in this sector has been small freighters and merchant
ships on legitimate business. Sensor scans indicate the small Imperial
repair facility orbiting the 5th planet of Enstiron is currently staffed
by a skeleton crew. Open communications traffic gives no indication
that the fleet is expected to arrive here," Shir said. "Of course,
I would not expect to hear such things discussed over open channels if
the crew is keeping proper military procedure."
"Indeed," the Admiral said. "The information
normally available to me through encrypted fleet communications has been
sparse. I suspect Captain Pellaeon has been keeping communications
to a bare minimum to avoid attracting the attention of the rebels and their
spies. The lack of any information about the fleet in this sector
of the galaxy leads me to conclude that he has taken the fleet to one of
the frontier worlds, perhaps one of the worlds my predecessor originally
pacified and brought into the Empire some years ago."
"You know where they've gone then?" Tip asked.
Thrawn looked pleased with himself. "I have
some ideas that may narrow the field of our search considerably.
I need to run a few more queries on secure Imperial databases, but by tomorrow
morning I should have the information we need to find and rendezvous with
the fleet." Reaching behind himself, he retrieved his datapad from
a countertop and stood up with the intention of finding a more comfortable
place to sit while he searched for further clues. He took one step
forward and collapsed to the deck.
At once he was surrounded by worried people.
"Admiral! Are you all right?" Shir was
the first to ask.
"Did you hurt anything?" Tip echoed her concern.
"Only my dignity," he said. Pulling himself
up into a sitting position, he massaged his right leg which, during the
passage of time, had quietly gone almost entirely numb. Shir knelt
beside him.
"What is wrong?" she asked. The Admiral gave
her a dismissive gesture.
"It is nothing. Attend to your duties."
He looked up to see Tip peering at him at close range.
"You can't brush us off so easily. Tell us
your symptoms, all of them, and don't lie. You've been having some
problems ever since Bilbringi. I ain't blind and I ain't stupid,
so talk to me."
The Admiral sighed in annoyance and ground his knuckles
into his right thigh in the hope of invoking some sort of sensation.
All he could feel was a slight pressure. Neither the lieutenant nor
the kitsune showed any sign of leaving his side. Finally he said,
"I have been progressively losing sensation. The problem seems, at
the moment, confined to the right side of my body. My right leg and
the right side of my mouth and face are numb. From the feel of it,
my right arm will soon be the same."
"Merciful gods! You've been having a stroke
or something and you didn't tell us?! You can't leave these things
go! What were you thinking of? You could die or worse!
Why didn't you tell us?!" Tip fired the questions rapidly.
Shir kept still, willing to let the alien girl grill her commander.
"I was rather busy, and it didn't seem so bad.
I thought perhaps it was just a reaction to the jumping," Thrawn replied,
trying not to think about the 'or worse' part of Tip's statement.
"That'll look just great on your grave stone:
'I was busy'," Tip growled. Looking at Shir, she asked, "Does this
bucket o'bolts have anything like a medical section - and do you know how
to use it?"
"Of course, there is a standard Imperial diagnostic
unit aboard. My own training covers medical emergencies of the sort
that happen during combat, but I am no physician." Noticing that
the Admiral was beginning to try to get up, Shir silently offered him her
arm, which he accepted without comment. With her assistance he was
able to stand and limp to the medical unit located just aft of the crew
quarters.
*****
Tip had been half-expecting some sort of arrangement
similar to the diagnostic beds from "Star Trek", but she soon discovered
that the Empire went in for equipment that was quite a bit more scary looking,
if solidly functional. The Grand Admiral at least seemed comfortable
with the idea of arranging himself amidst a nest of tubes, wires, and things
ending in needles, all of which moved under the control of the medical
computer. This particular model did not have speech capability, but
instead displayed diagnostic information on its control panel. Thrawn
lay down and soon had drifted off to sleep. Whether his sleep was
natural or whether the machine had given him a sedative, Tip could not
tell. The unit clicked and chuckled to itself and at first provided
little useful information beyond such basic data as Thrawn's blood type,
respiration rate, and blood pressure. After waiting impatiently for
what seemed like hours, but was actually only 30 minutes, Tip growled,
"How long does this refugee from an automat take to figure things out?"
"I believe it depends upon the severity and rarity
of the illness," Shir replied. "This may take some time. Its
first priority is to stabilize the injured person."
After thinking about it, Tip decided that they could
take turns watching over the Admiral and waiting for some sort of information
to emerge from the medical unit.
*****
"So what does 'Progressive Myelin Degeneration' mean?"
Toddy asked with a frown, reading the datascreen that provided the main
user interface. Although it was early morning, ship's time, the entire
crew, with the exception of Kuro, had assembled at his summons to read
the diagnostic information as it displayed.
"Dunno, sounds kinda familiar," Tip said.
"Wish Annie was here, she’d know right away."
"Your friend is a doctor?" Shir asked, likewise
puzzling over the readout. Advanced medicine was entirely beyond
her knowledge. It was enough for her that medical droids and physicians
existed who could repair a battle-damaged body.
"She’s a librarian who spent lots of time managing medical texts -
she ended up reading tons of the stuff, so she probably knows more than
most doctors about things like this." Tip chewed a fingernail, her
brows furrowed. "Myelin - I’ve seen this term somewhere. I
ought to know what it is."
"Myelin is the covering or sheathing over your nerves."
Kuro said, joining them. "It is needed to keep them from firing at
random, or not firing at all."
"Yeah? An’ how do you know that?" Kon demanded.
"How’d you get so smart?"
"Ann’sama has many interesting books in her home.
I’ve read some of them," he replied modestly.
"Well, fine," Tip cut in, shooting a ‘shut up’ glare
at Kon. "What does this translate into in English?" She waved
at the medical display. Kuro came up through the group to read the
information, pausing to click through several screens. He typed one
query, then another, his face expressionless. Finally he spoke quietly.
"If I understand this correctly, the Admiral has
something which is causing the covering over his nerves to come apart.
On Earth, Multiple Sclerosis or Lou Gherig’s disease are two illnesses
like this one."
"What?! How could he get that here?" Tip demanded,
outraged that a Terran sickness could somehow follow them to another universe.
"You mean he’ll end up all disabled like that Brit scientist - Stephen
Hawking?"
"This isn’t the same, but the symptoms are similar,"
Kuro said. Pointing at the display, he continued, "This machine says
the damage is being caused by a genetic instability, a flaw in the DNA
of the material making up his nerves." He flicked down the page.
"It recommends we take him immediately to a facility which supports genetic
resection and DNA splicing."
"Uh-huh. And where would that be?"
"Mount Tantiss would do - or would have done," Shir
said.
"Oops," said Tip, "Never mind, they’re probably
the reason he’s got a problem in the first place. I bet their QA
sucked. Anywhere else?"
"This readout recommends the Saruti genetic research
facility on Coruscant," Kuro replied.
"Coruscant belongs to the Rebellion!" Shir glared
at the impassive machine. She thought about it, then smiled nastily.
"Of course, I could take him there, whether the rebels welcomed us or not.
Assuming I got us through the planetary pickets, they would not refuse
medical care to someone who was in need."
"Not a great idea," Toddy said, "To shoot your way
into your enemy’s camp, then demand assistance of them."
"How much time do we have to find a place?"
The lieutenant glanced at Kuro, who was still reading through the pages
of diagnostic data.
"People live with MS for years," Tip said hopefully.
Looking at Kuro’s face told her something otherwise.
"The medical unit urges immediate action.
The loss of sensation and paralysis is continual and rapidly progressive.
It estimates the degeneration will reach the area of the brain that controls
breathing in under four days."
His companions stared at him in stunned silence.
"Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere?" Shir
asked, belatedly remembering how close they were to the Admiral.
"No, you may as well stay here," Thrawn said unexpectedly,
startling the group.
"How long have you been…?" Tip began.
"Long enough," he said calmly. "How many days
to Coruscant?"
"I will check the navicomputer, sir," Shir said.
The pilot dashed off toward the cockpit at high speed.
"Hey, what about going home and fetching back one
of our unicorns?" Kon proposed.
"Unicorns?" asked the Admiral.
"Creatures that heal," Tip said. The werefox
looked happy for a moment, then a new thought made her frown.
"What’s the matter?" Toddy asked.
"Just thinking - what would this universe do to
them? Remember how we changed shape when we arrived here?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So our magic is derived from the Force. Unicorns
are practically the Force given a physical body. They’re full of
energy inside. You know what happens to them when they die?"
"Yeah, they go up like a nuclear bomb." Toddy
thought for a moment. "Are you saying this universe might not give
them their proper bodies?"
"Yes, I'm thinking that if we bring them here they
may turn into energy beings, and I don't like to think about what would
happen to the ship, or us, for that matter."
"Good point. Never mind. This universe
is so technologically advanced there's got to be a solution here somewhere,"
Kon said.
Shir returned and halted before them with a salute
for the Admiral. "Sir, the navicomputer says that it is a five-day
journey to Coruscant."
"I rather expected that answer. Coruscant
would have been a hostile situation anyway." The Admiral closed his
eyes with a weary sigh.
"It's too bad that your planet no longer has the
genetic engineering facility your scientists used to stabilize your population,"
Tip said.
"But it does! I'm a fool! I had forgotten!"
Shir exclaimed. Her eyes brightened. "Harlek is closer than
Coruscant. I would estimate it is a three or four-day journey through
hyperspace."
The Grand Admiral sat up. Ignoring the protest
from the medical unit, he propped himself upright on his left elbow.
"Does your home world still have the pool of scientific talent necessary
to use that facility?" The pilot nodded vigorously. "Three
to four days?" he wondered out loud. "That is cutting it rather close.
It leaves no margin for error. If people with the appropriate expertise
cannot be found quickly, if there is any problem with the equipment itself..."
Shir looked downcast at his assessment of the situation.
He was correct she knew, but that did not make the knowledge any easier
to contemplate.
"Is there nothing to be done then?" she asked.
Kuro looked up from the pages of medical diagnostics
he had been patiently reading. "Although much of this information
is in language that only a physician would find helpful, there is a note
here on the last page that says, in essence, ‘if immediate medical assistance
is unavailable, stabilize and place the patient in a stasis unit and provide
immediate transport to a medical facility’." He looked at Shir, "Is
there a stasis unit onboard?"
"Yes! We have several in storage. I
saw the listing during my preflight inspection on Wayland. They are
usually used for either transport of dangerous prisoners, or as a form
of last-ditch life preserver in the event of a serious hull rupture or
loss of ship’s life support." Shir turned to go, then gestured at
Kon and Toddy. "Come and help me bring one up." The three of
them disappeared into the aft regions of the ship. They returned
pushing what looked like a large coffin of black and silver metal on a
repulsorlift.
Thrawn looked at the device with a feeling of nameless
dread. It was one thing to lie in the care of the medical unit.
Even in his sedated state he had had some level of awareness of activity
around him. It was something entirely different to put his body into
a machine that would basically stop time for him. He pushed himself
fully upright.
"Once you allow yourself to be placed inside one
of these." He reached out and rested his good hand atop the stasis
unit. "You lose all control over your fate." He considered
the thing in silence for some time, then turned away, his face set in that
carefully neutral expression which his crew had learned meant that he was
controlling some strong emotion. "Given that I was originally created
to have no say over my destiny, I cannot yet bring myself to give permission
for you to place me in this should the need arise." The thought of
losing an unknown amount of time: minutes, days, months perhaps,
was horrible to think of, like something out of a Correllian tale to frighten
children. He wanted very much to get up and walk away, but that was
impossible. His right leg now had no feeling whatsoever and in the
hours he had been in the medical unit his left leg had likewise begun to
lose sensation. He lay back cautiously and looked at the faces of
his crew rather than at the stasis unit.
"Sir, on pure instinct I agree with you. To
be rendered inactive and placed outside of normal time is a fate that my
people find extremely distasteful. We use such units very rarely,"
Shir said.
"So, would you allow such a thing to be done to
you?" Thrawn asked, watching her closely.
"No sir," she answered at once, then added, "Not
unless it was made clear to me that doing so would fulfill some aspect
of my duty." She exhaled heavily, "There is always that."
The Admiral made a noise of agreement. "Yes.
There is."
"You said you'd find it hard to give us permission?"
Tip asked.
"You heard correctly."
Tip chose her next words carefully. "You're
making the assumption that all of us will obey your orders once you become
incapacitated - even to the point of watching you die."
"I am." He gave Tip a look from eyes the color
of banked coals. "Have I reason to believe otherwise?"
"No, Admiral'sama. You are both Lord and samurai.
Your fate is your own to choose. You have the right to select the
manner of your death, if such is necessary." Kuro bowed before him.
"My own sire chose the manner of his ending, as was correct for someone
of his station."
Toddy nodded in agreement. "It is so.
Humans have free will. It is proper that they have a choice."
"It is the same with us," Shir added. "I shall
obey your commands, whatever they are."
For some reason, hearing that they would carry out
his wishes and abide by his decisions alleviated some of his anxiety.
Shir shifted from foot to foot, catching his attention. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
The Imperial pilot looked away at some distant point.
"Please understand sir, that under those circumstances, I shall not long
survive you."
"What?!" Thrawn's head snapped around.
"There's nothing physically wrong with you!"
"No, but to stand by and lose my commanding officer
in such a way would be too disgraceful to bear." She held out a hand
toward Kuro. "I am sure this one understands."
"Yes. For samurai, for warriors of honor,
this is only proper and right." He bowed to Shir, who returned the
gesture.
Given what Thrawn knew about Harlekki in general
and this one in particular, her statement should not have bothered him,
but he found that it did. I'll be dead. Harlekki have such
short life spans, they don't even care if they live or die. This
news should not disturb me, he thought. One more life shouldn't
matter, especially not after my own has ended. But his gut told
him otherwise. It did matter on some level far beyond cold logic.
And
my responsibilities? Where do they end, then? He thought
of Captain Pellaeon and the fleet, leaderless and adrift, and his heart
sank. What had seemed to be a simple equation had grown suddenly
complicated. He sighed with exasperation - the universe was far less
amenable to control than his predecessor's memories had led him to believe.
He shot a dark glare at the kitsune.
"And what will you do? Join my stubborn Lieutenant?"
"Oh no, we're not into that," Tip said, scowling
back at him. "We'd bury you both, then go home, I suppose."
"But first we'd have to have a proper wake," Toddy
added.
"A wake?!" Tip stared at her compatriot.
"Sure - what else do you do for the dead?"
He began to count on his fingers, "We'd need music, food, and a priest,
and mourners."
"Ain't nobody dead yet!" shouted Kon furiously.
"These things take planning," Toddy protested.
"How 'bout I chew yer head off now and avoid the
rush?" growled Tip. Shrinking into her fox form she flew at Toddy,
who likewise changed to meet her. An instant later Kon joined them
and for a few moments they writhed in a snarling heap on the deck, then
Toddy broke away and fled, trailed closely by his irate friends.
"Saa..." Kuro murmured, "I believe they are upset.
Please excuse them."
"Each to their own way of doing things," said Shir.
Digging into a pocket in her tunic, she pulled out a long item which when
shaken out, proved to be a bunch of fine streamers of bright red ribbon.
She offered this to the Admiral, the brave colors dancing with every tiny
movement of her hand. "If it is your intention to die, do you wish
to wear the Az-hara?" she asked.
He reached out with his good hand and touched them,
letting the ribbons sift through his fingers. They felt cool and
silky. "No, not yet." He closed her hand gently around the
bundle. "When and if it becomes necessary, I shall ask for them.
For now I thank you and ask you to keep them for me."
He looked at the ceiling for some time in the silent
company of Shir and Kuro, tapping the edge of his bed restlessly.
Finally he puffed out a short breath. "I suppose if I am to go into
stasis, I should do so immediately, and so put a halt to the deterioration."
"Yes, sir, if you will, that would be best," Shir
said, hardly daring to trust her ears.
The Admiral seized her wrist suddenly and looked
at her sternly. "You understand, Lieutenant Kinoha, that while you
are responsible for me you will not be allowed to take your own life or
to spend it recklessly."
"No sir!" she exclaimed. Some color came into
her pale cheeks. "I would not do anything to risk your life, sir."
He touched the handful of red ribbon Shir still
held. "Put this away then, since it is not for either of us right
now, and help set that up to receive me." He pointed at the stasis
unit. Shir obeyed with alacrity, cabling the stasis unit into the
main medical computer so the two machines could share data. Thrawn
carefully lay back down.
The display on the data screen changed and
Shir keyed in responses as necessary.
"Sir, the medical computer says it will give you
a general anesthetic before we are to place you in stasis."
"Whatever for? Tell it no. I'm
not in pain and not feeling anything is one of my problems."
Shir poked at a key and was rewarded by an angry
beep from the machine. "I can't stop it, it has set a counter for
60 seconds. It claims the genetic repair that you will be receiving
once we reach Harlek will require you to be unconscious." She frowned
at the display. "This thing has its own opinion about what is the
correct procedure and won't allow itself to be overridden, at least not
by me."
"Leave it, then. An override would require
a physician's clearance number." Thrawn was unsure whether or not
he liked the idea of sleeping through his time in stasis, but decided that
it was pointless for him to worry about it. Strongly ingrained Imperial
discipline kept him from tearing at the intravenous lines in his arms,
much as he was tempted to do so. A movement caught his eye.
Tip and her friends had returned in human shape. He was relieved
to see that although they looked somewhat disheveled they were otherwise
uninjured. Tip placed her hands on the edge of the bed.
"You get some rest and don't worry about anything.
Us and the Lieutenant will look after you and the ship."
"Thank you," the Admiral said, "I do wonder if a
world loyal to the Empire might find it difficult to defend someone who
is simply property of the Empire. I have no legal rank or existence
for that matter. This may cause an incident." He spoke with
difficulty, it was becoming increasingly harder to stay awake, which meant
the medical unit was performing what it considered the proper preparation
of its patient and dosing him with drugs.
"What they don't know won't hurt them," Tip said,
giving him a strange and wicked smile. "Shir won't tell them."
The lieutenant nodded in agreement. "An' neither will we. You
forget, we're the emissaries of the gods. We'll take care of everything,"
Tip promised, patting him on his good shoulder.
"Who wins," he murmured, fighting off the enervating
effect of the anesthetic for a moment longer. "When the gods meet
the Empire?"
"We'll let you know after you wake up," Tip said.
When the Admiral did not answer she touched his left cheek. He gave
no response, lying quietly with his eyes closed, breathing slowly and regularly.
"Good night. Sleep well," she said to him. Looking at Shir,
she asked. "Should we move him now?"
The Harlekki scanned the datascreen intently before
answering. "In two minutes. This says it wants to deliver a
certain blood level of medication before we transfer him. It also
says to leave the shunts in."
"Think I prefer healing by unicorn or thaumaturge,"
Toddy said with a dainty shudder at the various bits of tubing sticking
out of the Admiral’s arms.
"It isn’t as bad as it looks," Shir said.
"The shunts do not hurt and it is far better than being stabbed repeatedly
with needles by a medical droid."
"You sound like you speak from experience," Kon
said, eyeing the Imperial pilot curiously.
"Well, yes, I did have a rather hard landing once
after a really fun dogfight - I came in with half my wings shot off and
no port handling jets. I popped my TIE into the hangar bay in a tight
arc, cut the power and made a sliding stop - into a row of fighters in
for maintenance. What a mess." She chuckled at the memory.
"They say any landing you can walk away from is
a good one," Tip said.
"Well, then, this one wasn’t so good. I spent
a week in a bacta tank regrowing a lot of the muscles in my legs.
I had so many tubes in me I looked like a Ss’lid octopoid."
"Oh, gross!" Kon cried, plainly as fascinated as
he was repelled. "Didn’t being in a tank make you crazy?"
"To tell the truth, I hardly noticed." She
waved airily. "Drugs help a lot." She checked Thrawn.
"Same for the Admiral. With any luck, it will seem to him like no
time at all."
"I hope so," Toddy said, peering at the recumbent
form dubiously. "He’s so pale he looks like he’s died already.
You sure we don’t wanna do a wake?"
Tip delivered a whack on the head to the red-haired
fox boy. "You numbskull! Enough with the wake already!
Annie told me once that people under anesthesia can still hear what you
say even though they’re unconscious and if their doctors talk bad about
‘em it can affect their recovery!" She glared at him and growled.
"You mess up his healing with any more talk about wakes an’ I guarantee
you’ll be needing a healer AND a priest!"
"Cheez, I get’cha, no need to shout!" Toddy cried,
ducking in anticipation of further blows.
"Here, we can move him now," Shir said. She
carefully disconnected the bits of tubing from the medical unit, crossing
the Admiral’s arms over his chest neatly. "Help me lift him, if you
will." Her request brought about an immediate cessation of hostilities
as the group of small people gathered about. With so many willing
hands, Thrawn was lifted easily and settled into the stasis unit.
A moment after they closed the lid, indicator lights on the unit’s control
panel shifted from red to green. Shir sighed in relief and stood
for a minute with her hands on the unit and her head sagging wearily.
"You OK?" Tip asked with concern.
Shir straightened slowly and squared her shoulders.
"Yes, I’m better now that I no longer have to watch my commander die by
inches. My folk don’t usually suffer from ills such as this.
When we die, we die quickly, so watching him fade was hard, very hard.
The facility at Harlek can heal him, I know it." Leaving the stasis
unit she moved at her normal rapid gait toward the flight deck. "I’ll
set course for my home world immediately and the Force help any rebels
or pirates who try to get in my way!"
"That’s the spirit!" Kuro called, racing off to
join her.
"Cheating the reaper on his pale horse, eh?"
Kon patted the unit. "Clever. Samhain
can’t grab the Admiral while he’s outside of time."
"No, but he can hang about just the same," Toddy
said, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder.
"Usually you can’t outrun him, but this thing gives
us a chance." Tip smiled. "Now it’s a race." She rubbed
her hands happily. "Gather round me boys, let’s make some plans before
we get to Harlek. When gambling with Enma, I
wanna make sure the deck is stacked in our favor."
*****
Drug-induced tiredness brought sleep, which was filled
with bits of odd, random dreaming. Thrawn floated, weightless, then
a sensation of pressure combined with something that might have been pain
tugged at his consciousness, pulling him gradually to waking. He
opened his eyes and then immediately squinted, trying to bring what he
saw into focus. Dim, soft colors and shapes ran together like the
watercolor works of Impressionistic Corellian masters. He was faintly
amused that his memory immediately supplied an artistic metaphor.
Why was everything so very blurry? He blinked hard, trying to clear
his vision. Something swirled against his left cheek and he realized
with a start that it was fluid, blood-warm and heavier feeling than a puff
of air. He curled the fingers of his left hand. Even though
they moved sluggishly at his command, they still moved enough that he could
feel the slight resistance as they passed through liquid. I’m
in a tank, bacta or something of that nature, he thought, suppressing
the initial surge of fear that being submerged woke in him. They
use this for healing. The knowledge at least gave him an explanation
for his poor vision, but he immediately fell to speculating how long he
would have to stay like this.
I wonder if I can ask? An attempt to
speak failed at once when his teeth closed on something in his mouth.
The something was smooth and hard. He could feel it on his tongue,
or at least that part of his tongue that was capable of feeling.
The substance gave a little when he bit down on it. The thing shifted
when flexed and he decided it was a tube which extended down his throat
and into his trachea. Giving him air? No, not exactly.
The stuff being pushed into and out of his lungs felt more like fizzy water.
Thicker than air, it burned a little in his chest. Again he fought
down a drowning panic. He could not call for help, nor even utter
a sound done up the way he was. He’d been mercifully unaware of his
time of growth in the cloning cylinder on Wayland, his consciousness not
fully awakened, but some atavistic memory remnant tormented him now, tearing
at his mind with steely fingers of fear. Can I move? he wondered.
If
so, perhaps I can give an indication to anyone outside. He clung
stubbornly to the assumption that he was on Harlek rather than Coruscant
or some other world hostile to the Empire. Beyond his period of sleep,
he had no way of telling how much time had elapsed. Four or five
days at least, he assumed.
There were people in the greater room outside his
liquid-filled prison. He could just see the vague movements of humanoid
forms now and then. With an effort of will he brought his arm up
and moved his left hand into his limited field of view - and immediately
wished he hadn’t. Coils of fine, fine tubing strung away from his
arm and hand, the sight of which wouldn’t have been so disturbing if each
slender tube hadn’t terminated in what looked like an equally-fine series
of metal rods sunk into his flesh at regular one inch intervals.
He could see three or four inches of metal protruding above the surface
of his skin. In some cases it looked as if the rods had been thrust
all the way through his arm and out the other side. That at least
explained the strange, persistent feeling of pressure. His heart
leaped in horror. Thrawn wanted desperately to scream, but was unable
to produce any sort of sound. Those parts of his body which still
had sensation felt the same as his left arm. He squeezed his eyes
shut, refusing to look any further. With a convulsive jerk he thrust
his arm out hard, away from himself, barking his knuckles on the clear
wall of the tank. The liquid reverberated with a dull thunk of sound.
Seconds later a smaller noise made him open his
eyes. The familiar face of Tip peered at him through the transplex.
The sound had been made by the fingers of her smaller hands tapping the
wall. The blue hair of the kitsune was a welcome sight and brought
some minor measure of relief to the Admiral. He flicked out his fingers
at her. Tip’s eyes widened, then she placed both hands against the
tank and spoke. The words filtered through, deepened by passage through
the liquid, but still understandable.
"Holy cow! You’re awake?! Hang on and
don’t move!"
Thrawn waved his fingers at her in acknowledgment
and watched her run off into the depths of the room. Idly he wondered
what a "cow" was. One of her pantheon of outlandish gods? The
speculation kept his mind off his own situation, then he discovered he
could hear Tip’s clear voice speaking and found that if he listened carefully
he could understand her conversation even through the fluid-caused distortion.
He could not hear the responses from whoever she was speaking to, but from
the one-sided dialog, he could form some deductions.
"He’s awake! He ain’t supposed to be awake
for this! He’s in pain, you put him out right now and keep him that
way till you’re done!" Someone answered her, in a querying tone.
"How do I know he’s in pain?! I’m psychic!"
This was said with heavy sarcasm. More speech from what Thrawn guessed
was a doctor or scientist.
"You people give me a rash! Tell ya what,
I’ll put a spell on you so you can feel exactly what he’s feeling and then
you’ll know if he’s in pain or not!" The physician must have believed
the threat to be true, because bare moments later the room dimmed before
his eyes, the sensation of pressure and pain lessened, then finally everything
vanished into comforting darkness.
*****
Wakefulness brought, yet again, a view of a room’s ceiling.
This one was painted a pale, cheerful yellow. Someone in an Imperial
officer’s uniform was sitting at the foot of the bed. The person
was somewhat shorter than an adult human. Thrawn moved his upper
body slightly, cheered by the fact that he could still do so, and saw the
black-haired head and fine profile of Kuro above the olive-grey uniform.
He was sitting with one leg folded up under him, hands on his knees.
His expression was one of calm meditation. At Thrawn’s slight motion,
Kuro opened his eyes, leaped up in a smooth movement, and turned to face
him with a bow, exposing rank flashes that proclaimed him a commander in
the Imperial fleet.
"Admiral’sama! I am so glad! How are
you feeling?" he asked. Kuro wore his sword thrust through a black
sash wrapped neatly around his middle. It was the only part of his
attire not standard issue.
"Kuro, you've grown!" Thrawn said. He pushed
himself upright to get a better look at the kitsune. He'd become
used to them shrinking into small predators, but he had never seen them
make their humanoid versions any taller than ten year old children.
It gratified him to find that he could use both arms to sit up, and from
the feel of it, both legs were working as well. He released the breath
he was hardly aware of holding and began to breathe normally for the first
time in days. Kuro bowed again with an apologetic smile.
"Yes, it was necessary to grow a little. The
people here would have become very upset if we did not. They expect
things to behave in an orderly way and we have made some adjustments in
order to accommodate them."
Thrawn looked at the very proper uniform Kuro wore
and raised an expressive eyebrow. "Adjustments indeed," he said mildly.
Remembering the question he had asked of Tip before going into stasis,
he had to know: "And how stands the score between the gods and the
Empire?"
"So far, I'd say it's gods three, Empire two," said
a new voice. The Admiral turned his head to see Tip stride into the
room. The girl's blue hair was as wild-looking as ever, but she was
now nearly as tall as an adolescent human and likewise dressed in Imperial
uniform. She looked as uncomfortable and irritated as he had ever
seen her, but her expression brightened considerably when she saw him sitting
up.
"Oh, thank Kannon you're finally awake!" she
cried, running up and flinging her arms around him in a fierce hug that
would have been considered rather improper by those well versed in Imperial
military etiquette.
Somewhat taken aback by this display, the Admiral
returned the gesture, giving Tip a careful squeeze with arms that could
actually feel the pressure. After a moment, he released her and stood
her off a pace to get a better view. Looking at her badges of rank,
he said. "I see you have done well for yourself, Captain Tip."
Color came up into the kitsune's cheeks and she scowled at him.
"Don't remind me! You don't want to know what
we went through to get you proper medical treatment on this planet full
of militaristic, rule-loving teenagers!" She flung out her arms in
a broad gesture that included the world at large.
"You had some difficulties?" he asked curiously.
"Since we are not under guard or in a prison, I assumed everything had
gone smoothly. The very fact that I am alive and speaking to you
meant that you were successful, as far as I can tell."
"Well, you've missed all the fun parts, as Shir
would've called them. Kuro, did you bring the Admiral up to speed?"
"No, Tip'san, he has only just awakened."
"Okay, then I'll do the quick and dirty synopses;
if you don't mind?"
"By all means, you can tell me what has transpired
while I dress. There is something wearable about, isn't there?
Other than this?" He tweezed up a bit of the thin gown-like garment
he currently wore and that seemed to be the universally inadequate covering
for humanoid patients in every universe.
"Oh yeah, here," Tip opened a cupboard against the
far wall and returned with an armload of neatly folded clothing in the
same dark Imperial colors as her own. He accepted it and began to
pull on the undershirt and tunic which went over it, profoundly grateful
for the return to normalcy such a mundane activity promised. Kuro
acted as a silent valet, while Tip recited.
"Let's see, we got you here to Harlek in just under
four days and Shir got us in straight to the genetic facility. That's
when the problems started."
"Problems of what nature?" Thrawn asked.
"Well, the facility had been on cold standby for
50 years and that was just for starters! Nobody here lives long,
so the scientists are all little kids, at least that's what they seem like
to me. The information they needed for genetic repair existed in
the planetary knowledge base, but they had to find it, absorb it, and then
get the facilities functional. Luckily the Harlekki are very fast
learners." Tip said this with approving tones. "Then once they
figured they were ready for you, they took you out of stasis, got a look
at you, realized you weren't a regular human being, and put you right back
in stasis while they tried to figure out how to repair your own peculiar
DNA. Back they went to the knowledge base and the lab. Everything
they wanted to try on you they had to try on cloned tissue from your body
first."
"They didn't actually clone me again, did they?"
Thrawn asked anxiously. He remembered a history text which mentioned
in dry terminology how the early inventors of cloning technology had used
the process to clone entire human beings for the purpose of harvesting
their internal organs for transplants. The thought that this might
have been done to save his life made him feel nauseated.
"No, no, they just made cell cultures in the lab
so they could try out rudimentary genetic repair without causing you any
harm," Tip said. "When they finally got that down, the really hard
part began."
"That being?"
"Making the actual repairs. Turns out fixing
broken DNA in a test tube is fairly easy as such things go. Fixing
it in a living body without killing that body is a trick."
"I thought the Harlekki had to repair their entire
race once?" the Admiral asked.
"Well, kinda’. What they really did was cheat.
They fixed the DNA of their germ plasm – their sperm and eggs. At
the one-cell stage repairs are simple. Then they grew healthy kids
from that, decanted them and turned them loose to make the next generation.
I don’t think any of the original settlers mended themselves permanently
or survived for very long after they finished their experiment in genetic
engineering."
"You mean, they have never performed a repair like
this?" He tapped his chest.
"They’ve treated bad injuries and radiation victims
that needed some level of gene repair, but you were the most ambitious
project they’ve ever tackled. They had to make up the rules as they
went along."
Thrawn remembered his moments of waking in the tank
and shuddered. "So I am a medical first – wonderful."
"You ain’t kidding! Your nerve cells were
so badly messed up, the scientists had to engineer some sort of amalgam
of their DNA and yours to make something that would hold up. I guess
you could say you’re a bit of a hybrid." The kitsune looked keenly
at him as he paced before her, fully clad and walking unaided on his own
legs. "You look the same as usual, at least on the surface," she
added helpfully.
"Thank you for that assessment," he said wryly.
"Given my previous situation, I am not inclined to quibble over their methodology.
I rather doubt the physicians on Coruscant would have been so painstaking."
"Maybe not," Tip agreed.
"All of this effort," Thrawn said, "Makes me believe
that more than several days were required for my cure. How long did
it take to heal me? A month?" The expression on Tip’s face
caused him to add to his estimate. "Several months?"
The kitsune coughed, shook her head and said, "It’s
been eight years since we arrived here, Admiral. Enough time for
an entire generation of Harlekki to have been born and matured. Kind
of scary if I think about it."
"Eight years!" The Admiral was stunned at
the unexpected gulf of time that had opened before him. He made a
quick circuit of the room, stepping around the few items in the room without
seeing them, paused at a sudden thought. "Then Lieutenant Kinoha
- Shir…" His face set into austere, grim lines.
"Yeah? What about Shir?" Tip asked, looking
at him curiously. "What’s wrong?"
"I can still perform simple addition," he said curtly.
"The Lieutenant was 21 years old before I went into stasis. The passage
of eight years would put her age at 29, the very limit of Harlekki life
endurance." He frowned a little at the strange pain the thought caused
him. "She's dead, isn't she? Dead of old age, dead from waiting."
It was a bitter conclusion.
"Huh? Shir isn't dead," Tip said.
"How could she not be? Too much time has passed
for her to have survived." He stared at her.
"It doesn't matter, she’s been outside of time just
like you were." Tip pointed at a familiar shape pushed neatly against
the wall. The Admiral reached it in three long strides, scarcely
able to believe.
"A stasis unit, of course," he said softly.
After checking the status display on the end of the unit, he punched in
a command. The indicator lights changed color and after a few moments
the lid of the unit unsealed with a soft pop of compressed air. Thrawn
pulled the lid open. Shir lay inside, looking little different from
the last time he had seen her. She was wearing her formal uniform
and her face was composed and tranquil. When she did not immediately
wake, he touched her face. Her skin was warm and her breathing was
steady, but she did not react to his touch. He placed his fingers
gently over the pulse point in her neck and felt her slow heartbeat.
"She's been given some sort of drug?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Something similar to what you were given before
you went into stasis. The local doctors figured it would be better
if she woke up gradually rather than going bang from one time into another."
"As I recall, she did not approve of stasis to begin
with. Why did she choose to do this?" He gave Tip a sharp look.
"She did choose this, didn't she?"
"Well, the thought did occur to me after your cure
dragged on for a month that we could have made her sleep and done it to
her without her knowledge, but Kuro wouldn't have allowed it, honorable
fellow that he is." Tip looked at the ceiling and steepled her fingers
thoughtfully. Then she smiled, revealing her sharp white canines.
"Besides, we were able to persuade her to volunteer."
"Using what argument?" He could hardly imagine
that Shir would have willingly chosen such a fate after expressing such
strong objections to the idea of prolonging life with stasis.
"I used the same argument she used on you," Tip
said with a cheerful grin. "Fair is fair."
"The same?… " The exact sequence of the persuasions
they had used to coax him into stasis had escaped his memory.
"Yes. She still had a duty to fulfill.
Remember that one? Worked like a charm."
Reaching into the stasis unit, Thrawn lifted Shir
free. She was tall, but not overly heavy, and he found he could easily
carry her in his arms. He laid her out on the bed he had recently
occupied, dragged up a chair and sat down nearby.
"Going to wait for her to wake up?" asked Tip.
"I think it would be best, yes. I have only
begun to worry about the consequences of losing so much time. I'm
quite sure that our Lieutenant did not imagine the entire price she would
be paying for waiting for me. The least I can give her is the immediate
knowledge that I have survived. That should ease her mind somewhat."
He caught Kuro's eye and the kitsune approached in response to the unspoken
command. "If you would be so kind as to find something for us to
eat and drink, I shall continue to debrief Tip here for the highlights
of the last eight years." His voice grew heavier as the full
weight of the time lost settled into his mind.
"Sir," Kuro acknowledged. The young samurai
vanished into the hall outside, closing the door as he left. Keeping
an eye on Shir, Thrawn beckoned Tip to take a chair opposite himself and
asked. "Now begin at the beginning if you
will. What has happened with the Empire? With my fleet?"
Although his tone was now as calm and measured as it normally was, the
kitsune could sense the tightly controlled urgency underneath.
Tip sighed deeply. This was going to take
some time and much of the news would be bad, at least to a loyal Imperial
officer.
"The Empire isn't doing so well. Various Warlords,
Moffs, Generals, Lords, and other pretenders to the throne have come and
gone, leaving a mess behind. The Emperor himself came back in a clone
body about a year after you'd gone into stasis, but he immediately picked
a fight with Skywalker and his family." Tip paused significantly
and took a sudden interest in the toes of her shiny boots.
"And?" Thrawn had to ask in spite of the fact
that he felt he already knew the answer to his question.
"Didn't last out the year," Tip said. "Now
he’s really, really dead."
"Why am I not surprised?" he asked, rising to pace
about the room restlessly. He returned to his chair after completing
another round. "And what of the Imperial fleet?"
"Scattered. Some later disaster broke up the
main fleet which had been under your command. The surviving parts
joined planetary warlords or other leaders in their sectors. Some
follow the few remaining admirals and protect pockets of the old Empire.
Some stragglers may be little better than pirates."
"What of Captain Pellaeon?" Thrawn feared
the answer, but had to know. Pellaeon had been the only partial confidant
his original had recently had and was the nearest to being a potential
friend. Not that my predecessor ever collected many friends that
I can remember, Thrawn thought with a pang, I myself do not have
many to spare, I do not want to lose any. Whether he is to be my
friend or not, to Pellaeon I owe duty.
"He’s still alive and kicking. Last I heard, he was leading a
small fleet in defense of one of those chunks of the Empire I mentioned
earlier. That was a couple years ago. Haven’t heard that he
came to grief, so I assume he’s still performing his job."
Thrawn breathed a soundless exhalation of relief
as he heard Tip’s news. Pellaeon and some remnant of his original
fleet still existed. He decided he could learn the details later.
Tip swung her legs in a gesture of childlike fidgeting
as she thought back through the intervening years for bits of information
the Admiral would find useful. "Oh yeah. The Emperor’s homeworld
and fortress."
"The planet Biss?" Thrawn asked. "It
was a world of evil reputation as I recall from those who had occasion
to go there. A planet of great beauty, but hidden places were filled
with the Emperor’s mutated warbeasts and other monstrosities."
"Well, it’s gone now. Totally destroyed by
the misfiring of a new superweapon designed by one of his flamin’ geniuses.
Rumor has it Skywalker and his group had something to do with the whole
thing."
The Admiral snorted. "It seems Skywalker has
an unreasonable knack for destroying large weapons."
"Imperial ones, to be sure, and even some non-Imperial
weapons, if the rumors I’ve heard were true," Tip agreed. "The fleet
isn’t a total loss, however, and there are some new admirals I’ve heard
about…" Tip halted her recitation when Thrawn lifted a hand for silence.
"She’s coming around, I think," he said, nodding
at Shir.
They waited, quietly watching as the lieutenant’s
breathing shifted from the unnaturally steady rate of someone on sedatives
to the more irregular pace of normal dreaming sleep. Finally Shir
stretched, yawned, and sat up quickly, scrubbing at her eyes with both
hands. Thrawn coughed softly and Shir dropped her hands to look at
him. Her eyes widened for a moment as she took in the sight of him,
then she grinned broadly and cried. "It worked! Gods above,
it worked, you’re alive!" She caught up his right hand in her own
and felt him give her fingers a squeeze. She gave a delighted laugh.
"You can move again, I’m so relieved," she said. Belatedly remembering
the differences in rank, she let go his hand and struggled to get up and
give him a proper salute. Her legs were still weak from the drugs,
however, and her uncoordinated movements served to pitch her forward out
of the bed. The Admiral caught her before she could strike the floor
and replaced her flat on her back.
"Stay still for awhile, Lieutenant, you are recovering
from being sedated, and you haven’t eaten in eight years. I’ve sent
Kuro out for food, I want you to rest until he returns and the drug is
out of your system."
"Kuro? He’s a good fellow," Shir said.
"Eight years, eh?" She gazed happily at the Admiral, shrugged and
said, "Eight years or eight hundred, it makes no difference to me, it was
all worth it to see you well again." Shir looked at the room’s lone
window, set in a thick casement. It revealed a patch of pale sky
beyond. "I wonder how my clan has fared? I imagine I won’t
know many of them."
"I do regret that," Thrawn said quietly. Shir
at least had something resembling family and he wondered if the loss of
so much time would prove painful to his pilot. To his surprise, she
shook her head.
"There’s no need for regret. Once we join
the Imperial service, we do not normally return home. I said my farewells
long ago. It would please me to know that my clan has survived.
I can go to the hall of my kin and they will welcome me - although given
my supposed age I imagine they will regard me as something of an antique
relic." She chuckled at the thought. Taking her eyes away from
the Admiral for the first time since her awakening, she sighted Tip sitting
quietly in her chair.
"Hey," said the kitsune, noticing the shift in her
attention. "Welcome back."
Shir frowned at her for a few seconds, taking in
the familiar face above the familiar uniform. The problem was, the
face and the uniform did not normally go together in her mind.
"Ah?" she said in a querying tone. Then as
the import finally penetrated, the Harlekki cried loudly. "You!
Look at you! A Captain in the Imperial Fleet!" Pointing at
Tip, Shir convulsed with helpless laughter.
Tip flushed to the roots of her blue hair.
"What are you laughing at?" she growled defensively. "This is all
your fault, anyway!" Tip tugged at the front of her uniform as if
offering evidence at a trial.
"Mine?" Shir asked, looking innocently at Tip, through
eyes blurred by tears of laughter.
"Yeah, you! You're the one who nailed the
planetary administrator when he wanted to halt the project and then went
into stasis. We had to join the military bureaucracy to keep everything
going." Tip continued, regally ignoring the fact that they were the ones
who had persuaded Shir to go into stasis in the first place. "I've
had to be responsible for almost eight years!"
"How awful," Shir murmured, seemingly contrite,
then with a roguish smile twitching at the corner of her mouth she added.
"You look adorable!" She tried unsuccessfully to stifle more laughter.
Tip groaned in mortification. "If my friends
back on my home world ever find out, I'll never live it down!"
"Please explain what it means when you ‘nail’ someone?"
The Admiral inquired politely.
Shir and Tip looked at each other and then turned
to look at him. Suddenly sober, Shir answered. "When we have
a situation that is not covered by the ordinary rules and regulations of
this world, it is the custom to resolve serious disputes by dueling.
This is perfectly legal procedure on Harlek. The planetary administrator
was becoming more and more unsupportive of our efforts to heal you and
finally began to threaten to close down the repair facility. I challenged
him. We fought with swords. I won."
"She used the sword techniques Kuro had taught her,"
Tip said. With a bow toward Shir, Tip added. "She learned the
techniques very well."
"You fought to save my life?" The Admiral
looked at the keen face of his pilot. Her eyes still held a hot glow
at the memory of what to her was a recent battle.
"Yes. It was a most honorable combat," Shir
replied. "The taking of that person’s life brought us the status
necessary to get everything attended to with no further delay."
"Were there any other fatalities?"
"No. Like I said before, Harlekki learn very
fast. After the duel however, Kuro acquired a bunch of sword apprentices.
He's been teaching them ever since. Shir is still the best swordsman
I've ever seen on this world, even after eight years. Must be those
pilot reflexes," Tip said.
"Would that every battle was fought so conservatively,"
Thrawn said. "My congratulations to you both on cleverly handling
such a challenging situation." The thought of the obstacles his small
crew had been willing to surmount made him feel honored. It occurred
to him that had the Emperor possessed such a team of devoted comrades,
he might well have survived his reversal of fortune. My predecessor
as well might have lived beyond his defeat at Bilbringi, had he truly trusted
Captain Pellaeon, and if he had treated the Noghri commandos who served
him with honor instead of as Imperial slaves. May the gods that Tip
swears to so often give me the wisdom to learn the lessons my original
did not, he mused somberly.
A polite knock on the door announced the arrival
of Kuro, Kon, and Toddy, all bearing trays of food and drink. Someone
had remembered as well to bring a portable table around which the small
group gathered for food and a continuing exchange of news.
*****
"It was pretty boring while you were all packed away,
so we had to come up with things to keep us busy," Toddy said over their
meal. He had actually remembered to swallow his mouthful of food
before speaking, a noticeable improvement in manners.
"What sort of … things?" The Admiral asked.
He ate slowly, taking the time to appreciate the fact that he could taste
food again now that his mouth and tongue were no longer numb.
"Oh, all sorts of stuff," Kon said. "Kuro
ran a sword school, me and Toddy and Tip all took turns traveling the planet,
talking to folks, teaching kids, discussing religion with the priests,
spreading art and literature…"
"Literature?!" Thrawn stared at the curly-haired
kitsune. "No insult intended, but what do you know of literature?"
"Heck, I know all sorts of poetry and the people
here love to do recitations! Here’s a good one:
'Early to bed and early to rise will make you miss all the regular
guys'."
"How very - profound," the Admiral said carefully.
He did not even want to think about what they might have done to ‘further
art’ among the Harlekki.
"What do you want to do now, sir?" Shir asked.
"Before I can begin to plan for the future of the
Empire, I need to collect data. This is a turbulent time. Tip's
summary of the past eight years have made me realize that too many events
have happened far too quickly for any one person to absorb the import quickly.
I need to take the time to gather the depth of intelligence I need to support
my decisions and plans." Thrawn glanced at the chronometer on the
wall. "This day is nearly done. Tomorrow, I will need to meet
with the upper level staff of this facility and be given the privileges
needed to access the Imperial planetary knowledge base."
Kuro saluted the Admiral. "Such a meeting
will be easy to arrange, and the access privileges you require should be
yours within the day. The data facilities here are quite good."
"Excellent," Thrawn said. "I have hopes that
the Empire has not irretrievably collapsed. Careful planning may
well preserve whatever we have left and give us a foundation on which we
can rebuild."
"Will we be taking the battle to the Rebellion soon?"
Shir asked. Her eyes held a bright anticipation.
The Admiral rose to his feet and moved to the window.
For the first time, he looked out over the surface of Harlek. A wild,
almost desolate landscape met his gaze. The land was built of harsh,
rugged mountains covered with pockets of tough-looking vegetation.
Everything seemed to have strong vertical lines with the mountains towering
up and up, far beyond his range of sight. High above, visible in
the rift between the massifs, was a sky of palest blue. The building
in which he stood had been set into the side of the range.
Thrawn drew in a deep breath. "I feel sure
that we will face combat eventually. Whether we actually fight the
Rebellion or not remains to be seen." The view from the window brought
to him an odd feeling of dizziness. He turned away and the sensation
subsided. "In all of the excitement, I have neglected to ask where
I am," he said. His voice held polite curiosity.
"This is the Suray Stronghold, the seat of Imperial
government on Harlek. Actually, Imperial government and planetary
government are practically synonymous on this world. Harlek has been
a member of the Empire for so long that the two systems of government merged
some time ago." Shir made a gesture which included the entire planet.
"The Stronghold includes buildings which house government and administration,
the hospital and genetic repair facility, as well as one of our many military
academies. Open, flat land is nonexistent on our planet, but we have
facilities for starships built into the upper reaches of the mountain range
above the Stronghold. There is also a city around us, made like this
place, as an integral part of the mountains. If you wish, sir, we
can show you around?"
"An excellent idea, Lieutenant. Once I have
been settled in quarters appropriate to my needs, I will accept your offer."
Taking that as her cue, Tip rose from the table
and gave the Admiral a precise salute. "Speaking of proper quarters,
let us show you and the Lieutenant to the suite of rooms set aside for
your use. This is actually part of the medical wing, so it is pretty
barren. The living quarters are quite a bit better. If you
will follow me?"
The Grand Admiral stood up and followed his blue-tailed
captain out of the room and into the corridors of the Stronghold.
The rest of his crew trailed in neat formation at his heels.
*****
The path led steeply toward the sky, winding along the
edge of what the locals called "the hill". Ten paces ahead, Shir
Kinoha bounded upward, her breath leaving smoking streamers in the thin,
cold air. The Admiral paused at a wide spot in the trail to catch
his breath. He was pleasantly surprised at how quickly he had adapted
over the last several weeks to both the up and down climbing and the rarefied
atmosphere.
Harlek had been settled as a second choice when
the first world in the system that humans had colonized had proven too
deadly for human life. The Harlekki had been adjusting the atmosphere
for centuries, adapting local plants and carefully introducing alien plants
and animals that could survive under the harsh conditions. Even so,
the world had only recently developed enough atmospheric pressure for the
cities to abandon their force field domes.
Between marathon sessions of data gathering, Thrawn
had settled into a routine of day hiking several times a week to rebuild
his strength. He also found the exercise gave him time to think over
the information he had absorbed. Swoops and floaters were available
for transport inside the city, but outside in the rugged canyons and mountain
valleys, the wind could blow with terrific force. Travel on foot
was a viable if slow alternative to heavy lift vehicles. Hiking was
the only mode of transportation if the traveler wanted to see something
of the land itself or buildings not within the shelter of the city.
This day their destination was a temple located
along the top of the ridgeline of the local mountain range. Shir
proved to be an excellent guide to local places of cultural and artistic
interest, having been born and raised in this particular enclave of Harlek.
Usually, the Admiral and his pilot were accompanied by one or several of
the kitsune. This morning was no exception. Tip sniffed her
way along the trail behind him. In her fox shape she hunted small
game as they hiked upward.
The Admiral watched Tip as the blue-furred predator
searched for prey diligently, blithely ignoring the steep drop at the edge
of the trail. She had not yet managed to catch anything, much to
his relief. The kitsune was quite generous about wanting to share
her kills. As far as the Grand Admiral was concerned, food was meant
to come from food processors and that was fine with him. It was disturbing
to be presented with a meal made up of small creatures that he knew had
been alive only hours earlier. Shir was somewhat more adventuresome
and had been willing to try the exotic foods, which she pronounced "interesting".
Thrawn found he did not really mind the odd side effects of hiking with
the kitsune, since he enjoyed her company and he knew that the trips provided
some welcome relief from the routine of an Imperial officer which Tip had
found herself obligated to perform.
His pulse rate recovered to somewhat nearer normal,
the Admiral resumed his steady climb, noting that Shir had silently waited
for him. Now she turned and moved onward at a somewhat slower rate
than before, making allowances for the higher altitude. They had
already exceeded by half the heights they had climbed the previous outing
and the thinner air told on them both. They worked their way upward,
the silence broken only by their increasingly harsher breathing.
After another hour, Thrawn looked ahead and up to find the blue dome of
the sky far closer than he’d ever seen it before. He stopped, panting
heavily and dignity be damned when it felt as if the planet had suddenly
run out of air.
"Here, sir," Shir said between gasps. She
indicated a cleft in the rocks just a few steps ahead. He managed
to move up beside her and saw a portal of tall pillars carved into the
facing granite. Vines of some sort had been trained up the pillars
and offered a refreshing bit of live blue-green against the dark maroon
stone.
The Admiral could not resist another look back the
way they had come. The mountain canyon opened before him, plunging
down in jagged scarps and prominences into the deeply riven cleft of the
valley. Far away sparkled the windows of the city of Maxur, their
current home, while above the sky was streaked with clouds so fine and
high they looked as if they were the work of some godly artist’s brush.
Thrawn felt for the first time that he was truly standing upon the surface
of an enormous ball in space, with absolutely nothing solid between himself
and the immense void he knew stretched beyond the fragile planetary surface.
All of his memories involved living within some
sort of man-made structure, whether a starship or space station or building.
He had never actually been out in the open before his time on Harlek, and
he had never been so exposed as now. For a moment, the sensation
of light-headed dizziness he had felt upon his first look out of a window
returned with a vengeance. He ignored it stubbornly, determined not
to give in to the weakness, and it subsided a little.
Temples were one of the few places on Harlek where
life moved at a slower pace, despite the short life span of the natives.
Thrawn stepped through the stone gate into a well lit passageway lined
with stone carvings of gods, goddesses, and fanciful beasts. He lingered
to admire them. Part of him noticed that the unpleasant dizziness
receded once he was inside the enclosure. As he understood it, each
of the carvings often represented the life's work of a priest or priestess.
Nearest the entrance to the temple itself, his gaze fell on two stone statues
placed one on either side of the doorway. The statues were somewhat
larger than life size renditions of foxes, one seated and one with an upraised
paw. His red eyes narrowed at the sight.
"These look suspiciously familiar," he said, pointing
at the statues in question.
Tip sat before one of them, a grin on her vulpine
face. "Hmm. Could be. Not a bad likeness, if I do say
so meself!"
"You had them carve this?" His tone was carefully
neutral.
"No, no! The priests here insisted after they
got to know us. Turns out their religious philosophy is really similar
to our own. Once they found out we're the emissaries of the gods,
they insisted on adding this tradition of guardian statues to their own.
Kitsune statues are placed as guardians in every Shinto temple on our home
world." Tip explained, patting the statue on her right.
"The pranksters guard the entrance to the god’s
place?" Shir asked in a tone of disbelief. During her month
of waiting for the Admiral’s cure, she had learned quite a bit more of
the mischievous nature of the "emissaries" than the Admiral himself.
"Yep. Told you before, the gods have a sense
of humor."
"The gods preserve us from further examples of the
same," Thrawn murmured as he halted before the inner gate of the temple.
"This sort of duty is traditional for kitsune,"
Tip added. In a lower voice, she said. "Our service is probably
one of the reasons we're allowed into heaven at all. You got no idea
how we lower the tone of the establishment," she chuckled.
The inner gate opened, revealing the form of a priest,
who bowed to them and motioned them silently inside the temple proper.
The priest, like most Harlekki, looked far too young to the Admiral.
This particular individual was dressed in long brown robes tied about the
middle with a simple sash from which hung a few small implements.
He was tall and well formed, with an open, pleasant face. His short
dark hair glimmered with a bright overshine of metallic gold.
"Welcome seekers, to the Ozen-az temple," he said
as they gathered inside. From the short passageway at the gate the
temple opened into a wide area, lined with columned porticoes along its
periphery. The central plaza was open to the sky, the sunlight of
late afternoon shone on a graceful tree positioned in the center.
The tree was hung with tiny decorations that made a faint, sweet, tinkling
sound in the breeze.
Thrawn turned to ask the priest about the ornamented
tree only to find that the man had vanished. After a fruitless look
about, he directed a question at Shir. "The priest has gone?"
"Yes sir, this is a contemplative order and the
priests will not stay to speak. Seekers are left to ponder the infinite
as they wish."
The Admiral made a low sound. "And what if
the seeker has questions?"
"Someone could be found, I am sure. The head
priest and priestess will speak if need be, although this central area
is not the place for long conversations. This is where those who
have been Called take their leave. The last time I was here was to
attend the Calling On ceremony for my clansire." Shir looked vaguely
guilty as she said this and kept her voice quiet as she spoke. "There
are places in the temple for visitors to stay. We may want to do
so as the day is now late, unless you want to descend the mountain trail
at night?"
"No, Lieutenant. I believe staying the night
is a good idea." Thrawn's mind shied away from the thought of re-tracing
their arduous trek in the dark. Standing beneath the boughs of the
tree, he inspected one of the dangling decorations. It was made up
of an intricate series of tiny golden bells, each one etched with fine
abstract designs. The exquisite artistry seized his imagination with
wonder. "All questions of religion aside, I would find it easy to
spend months looking at the artwork here. The evening will pass quickly
enough for me. I do hope that once we have our situation with the
rebels under control, I will be able to study such places as this at my
leisure."
"Very good, sir. I will make the arrangements."
Shir saluted and moved away into one of the many passageways dimly visible
under the porticoes. Tip trotted up beside him, sat down before the
tree and barked twice, then flopped herself down in the shade. She
did not seem inclined to move any farther, so Thrawn took the time to wander
about the inner temple and inspect the artwork sheltered under the porticoes.
The walls were covered with murals comprised of precise, colorful, abstract
geometrics. Spaced at intervals in recessed alcoves were the occasional
statue or pen and ink drawing on fine fabric.
The ink drawings were muscular and sparse and utterly unlike the other
artwork in the temple. These were not abstract, but were instead
deceptively simple line renderings of landscapes, plants, animals, and
people. The more Thrawn studied them, the more he wondered at the
minds behind the artwork. Harlekki as a rule were grounded
in the here and now and loved order and structure. The abstract designs
everywhere evident made perfect sense in the light of that knowledge.
The inks however were so very different in form and intent that they could
have been the work of an entirely different race.
A change in the air around him announced the presence
of his pilot, who had come quietly up behind him. Shir had a respectful
reluctance to interrupt his musings, a trait he appreciated more and more.
"Correct me if I am wrong Lieutenant, but these
drawings are not the work of the average Harlekki, are they?" He
nodded at the image before him, which was of a tiny bird perched on a gnarled
twig. It looked as if it were prepared to take flight at any moment.
"Average, sir?" Shir asked, moving up a stride to
look at the drawing. "These inks are created by those who have come
to the temple at the time of their Calling. Many of these were done
by planet bound warriors of the past. Others may pen a piece of poetry
or a philosophical thought when their time comes. The warriors prefer
to make the ink and brush artwork such as you see here. This temple
is one of the oldest on Harlek, so it holds works of great antiquity."
"Done at their Calling? A last act of creation
at the end of a brief life. What an enormous change in thought these
reflect, compared to the other images here. Why such a change at
the end, when it will do them little good?"
"Good is as it is," Shir said. "What change
are you speaking of? It is symmetrical to make these, when the time
comes."
"Symmetrical?! You don't see it, do you?"
he asked her. Looking into her eyes, he could see no understanding
in those patient, silver gray orbs. "Look here," he pointed at an
intricate design on the surrounding wall. "This is stable, static.
This," he waved at the ink drawing. "This has movement and intent.
It lives."
"Yes. They live. Perhaps that is reason
enough for doing them..." She stopped speaking, as the Admiral had
seized her by both shoulders.
"Yes! Exactly! You have it exactly,
I do believe." For a long instant she had a close-up view of the
Admiral's fiery eyes, staring into her own with hot intensity.
"Shir Kinoha, you are a genius. Your insight
cuts to the heart of the matter." He looked as pleased as she'd ever
seen him.
Shir's forehead crinkled into little-used frown
lines. "Not to contradict your opinions sir, but I fear the only
talent I have is for piloting fighters. I have no training in the
arts. I do not understand these drawings as you seem to think I do."
Thrawn released his grip and carefully brushed out
the wrinkles he'd set into the sleeves of her tunic. "That
is quite all right, Lieutenant, genius transcends ordinary knowledge, that
is why it is called 'genius' and not 'talent'. For this at least
you need not understand anything."
"Very well," Shir said, looking relieved.
Her expression smoothed out as she realized that the Admiral was not suddenly
going to ask her to expound on the meaning of every bit of artwork before
them. Much more relaxed, she followed him as he continued his tour
of the temple.
*****
The evening meal was brought to them in an open room
some distance away from the central courtyard of the temple. A priestess
carried the food on a tall stack of trays which seemed precariously balanced,
but she moved so smoothly not a dish rattled. As she set out the
meal before them, Shir noticed the head of a small animal poking out of
a deep pocket in her long robes.
"Ooo, look!" she cried softly, pointing at the bright-eyed
creature. "What's that? It looks like a kitsune!"
The priestess put down the last of the trays, with
a smile extracted the fuzzy thing, and held it out for Shir to take.
It slithered into her arms with a yap and a wriggle and Shir cuddled it
to her chest.
"It really does look like a kitsune!" Shir
exclaimed, stroking the soft fur. The animal was spotted black and
silver gray, its sharp muzzled face was streaked with white. When
it opened its mouth to lick her chin, it revealed small, sharp, puppy teeth.
"So, where did this come from, I wonder?" Thrawn
said, intercepting the animal as it bounded from Shir’s lap toward him.
It moved as if propelled by tireless springs.
"The emissaries gave us the parents of these cubs
several years ago," the priestess said in a friendly tone. "We call
them 'kitzu', which means ‘little hunters’ in our language. We thought
it auspicious that the word is so close to the word the emissaries use
to describe themselves."
"The emissaries, eh?" Thrawn asked, giving Tip a
half-lidded look as he tried to keep the cub out of his soup bowl.
"And how did you produce these?"
Tip, human-shaped and properly attired in her Imperial
uniform, sipped her soup decorously and then said with a smile. "We
bred this one’s ancestors in the spring, in the usual manner." Here
she gave the Admiral an arch look. "You do know how these things
happen, yes?"
"I remember something of basic mammalian biology
- you are mammals, aren’t you?" he said crisply. When Tip nodded
an affirmation, he said. "You didn’t keep and raise your own offspring?"
"What’s to raise?" The kitsune shrugged carelessly.
"Us kitsune start off as foxes first, we become shape-changers later.
Our cubs are just fox cubs. They grow up in a couple of months, then
they’re gone to live their own lives. Some very few, if they got
it in ‘em, have magic, and if they live past 100 years, they become kitsune
like us. We been around a long time, and so far our homeworld isn’t
overrun with our kind."
"Probably a good thing," Shir said with a laugh.
"These are cute, however." She lured the little fox back to her side
by wiggling a noodle from one of the side dishes they had been served.
The priestess had vanished for the moment, leaving the cub in their care.
"Yep, cute and smart. They’ll eat all sorts
of little pests that might otherwise be bothering the people."
"I see," Thrawn said, frowning for a moment as the
cub adroitly snitched a strip of something fried from the central platter
and wolfed it down without tasting it. "And they aren’t little pests
themselves?"
Tip laughed delightedly. "Guess that all depends,
doesn’t it!"
"Did you - um - mother all of the kitzu on Harlek?"
Shir asked, then added. "And how many are there here now?"
"Must have done!" she snickered. "Actually
it ain’t as awful as you think We mate in the early spring and I have one
set of cubs in the early summer. It’s been eight years we’ve been
here, with me makin’ maybe 4-5 per litter. I didn’t have any this
year. Most of the kitsu here now are my cub’s produce, so this one’d
be my grandcub, or maybe even a great-grandcub. Remember they mature
in a year and can have cubs the year after." She paused to pat the
cub with absent affection. "Kinda like Harlekki, ne?"
"Yes, rather," Shir said. "Do they have our
life span?"
"No, a wild fox will live 4 or 5 years, maybe 6
if it’s lucky. Of course, the temple folks are taking care of all
of these, so they’re well looked-after. This little guy should live
to be 10 or 12, I think. Unless he’s got magic. You never can
tell."
"These live only in the temples?"
"Yep, after we started producing ‘em, the priests
and priestesses asked to keep ‘em, since the outside environment is still
so harsh. Looks like its been working out pretty well. They
trade them back and forth with other temples."
"This one doesn’t quite look like any of you."
The Admiral observed. The cub, after stuffing himself with samples
from everyone’s plates, had collapsed into a well-fed heap with his head
pillowed on Thrawn’s knee.
Tip looked at it critically. "True.
Me an’ the boys all took turns in springtime. We had to leave two
of the guys in charge while me and whoever went off and did what comes
naturally. Each batch had a different sire, then those groups interbred.
This universe and this planet affect them as well, so I’m not surprised
they mutated a bit. Who knows what they’ll turn into, given time.
I think they’ll do fine, no matter what. Foxes are resilient critters."
"They should do well here," Shir agreed. "If
they help us and prosper along with us, it will be good for all."
"Good philosophy, kid. You’ll go far in this
universe. Keep making wise talk and you’ll have to become a Jedi
knight."
Shir sat back sharply. "Gods protect me from
such a fate!" she cried with a horrified expression.
"What’s the matter? There’s plenty of Jedi
who’re good people. You’re good people, too, so why not?"
"There aren’t any Jedi in the Empire now that the
Emperor is gone. Except for the dark Jedi like C’baoth," Shir amended.
"I wouldn’t want anything to do with a creature like him!" Her eyes
flashed dangerously.
"Take it easy, nobody can make you an adherent of
the dark side unless you want it to be so. Most Jedi around now are
light-siders like Skywalker."
Shir uttered a low growling sound. "I’m more
likely to join the Rebellion than I am to become a Jedi, dark or light."
After sitting silently for a moment, she said. "Well, it’s something
I needn’t worry about, anyway. I don’t have the Force, so it doesn’t
matter."
Tip smiled in a way which made the Admiral wonder,
but she said nothing further on the subject. Shir returned to her
neglected meal, eating normally, having obviously dropped the conversation
from her memory. Thrawn felt a moment’s envy at her ability, then
thought, Someone had best remember these things. However did the
Harlekki manage, living so much in the now as they do? It occurred
to him that perhaps this was one of the reasons they had felt so comfortable
merging their culture with that of the Empire. In that orderly structure
was a form of collective memory that survived the brief generations and
kept their society stable.
A distinct knock on the door of their room sounded,
a noise quite unlike the soft tapping the priestess would make. Tip
sprang up. "All right! They’re here!" She rubbed her
hands with glee.
"They?" asked Thrawn.
"Yep. The rest of the gang," Tip said, throwing
wide the door with a flourish. She was correct. Kuro, Kon,
and Toddy, all formal in their uniforms, were revealed standing in a neat
line in the hall outside. Being the first in the queue, Kuro gave
the Admiral a sharp salute, which Thrawn returned.
"Come in, Commander, and the rest of you, as well,"
he said, motioning them inside. The kitsune filed in and seated themselves
with the group at the table.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?
I do not believe anything is wrong at the stronghold, is it?"
"Oh no, sir," replied Kon. "Everything is
perfectly quiet."
"So did you all decide that you had an interest
in esoteric Harlekki temple artwork?" he prodded.
"No, Admiral’sama," said Kuro. "Because it
is quiet in the city and the stronghold, we knew we could all come
away and meet you here. The seasons and the stars say that the time
is right for our return to our own dimension."
"We’ve got to go home sometime, you know," Toddy
said.
"But before we do that, we wanted to do some scrying,
to make sure we’re leaving you at a good time," Tip added.
"There’s a good time for leaving?" Shir asked, her
face unhappy at the prospect of losing her friends. Then she answered
her own question. "Of course there is, although parting is sad.
I’ll miss all of you."
"What, pray tell, is scrying, and why do you need
to perform it before you can return home?" The Admiral asked.
"As I understand it, you can leave at any time, can't you?"
"Technically, yes. Do you remember when we
last spoke of this, we told you that we felt obligated to stay until we
were sure that you were going to be safe and well started in your life?"
"Yes, I do recall that conversation," he answered.
"Well, scrying is a form of magic that we can do
that will enable us to look into the future a little. There's nothing
like planning ahead, especially in this universe full of dangerous stuff
and scary people."
"You want to control future events? That's
rather ambitious, don't you think?"
"Nah, not to control, we just want to help everything
flow smoother," Tip smiled. "Sort of like that symmetrical stuff
Shir talks about. There's a balance to how things happen and it's
a good idea to pay attention to it before doing anything that may affect
that balance."
"Now who's talking like a Jedi?" Shir muttered.
"Hey, it's catching," Tip shrugged. "With
your permission, we'll do the spells required this evening once the sun
sets. After we see what's coming, we will make our plans for leaving."
"Very well. You have always been free to go
whenever you please. Are we going to be able to watch this usage
of magic? I must admit I am curious." The Admiral looked intently
at his alien officers. He had become used to their casual shapeshifting,
but he had never seen them perform anything like actual spellcasting.
"You bet you can watch! In truth, to make
the spells work proper, your presence is necessary."
"You mean, we have to do magic as well?" Shir asked.
"No, but when we try to look ahead, we got to remember
that the future is a tremendously vast area and trying to see it all is
pretty useless. The parts we’re really keen to see is your future.
So if you are here for us to concentrate on, the visions we get ought to
be more specific to your needs."
"In theory," Toddy added. The red-haired young
officer grinned at them. "We've said before that seeing the future
is not the great strength of kitsune. We're going to try something
new."
"And given that we are occupying a universe different
from our own, we're not sure exactly what sort of results we will get."
Kon rubbed his hands together, then cracked his knuckles. "It ought
to be interesting."
"What shall we gain from this exercise in magic?"
Thrawn asked. He leaned forward across the table to better look at
his officers. "It seems to be an uncertain way to gain data that
may or may not be relevant."
"Well, the general rule when petitioning the gods
is that it never hurts to ask for something," Tip said. "And if you
don't get an answer it never hurts to keep on pestering. This works
for us. Scrying can yield some really useful information. Forewarned
is forearmed, as they say."
"Well, I will leave this scrying to you,
since you are the ones who can do this sort of thing," the Admiral said.
"My predecessor once twitted Captain Pellaeon over his lack of faith in
information derived from Delta source, a secret spy network which has since
been destroyed, but at the time it was a source of information available
only to the existing Grand Admiral. The Thrawn of that time derived
some amusement over Pellaeon's doubt in the veracity of the information,
but I have a different perspective. I understand his doubt, and my
predecessor and myself are alike in our preference for hard, reliable information.
However, I am willing to learn and I am willing to live with some uncertainty
in return for information that may be useful later. This reliance
on unusual methods seems to have served the Jedi well, perhaps it will
serve us also."
"Good, sir." Tip said. "Leave the preparations
to us. The priestess has said we can use the temple proper for our
spellcasting. Let's all meet there at the midnight hour."
"Very well," Thrawn said with a nod of approval.
"Until then, you can do as you please. Dismissed."
*****
"I will miss you, you know," Shir said. She leaned
over the pool of steaming water, testing it with the fingers of her left
hand.
The two females were in the baths in the priestess’
section of the temple. Thrawn, having no memories outside of Imperial
service, was used to the segregation by gender required by the military
and was quite willing to go with the boys for the evening.
"I'll miss you too, kid, but we can't stay here
forever. The gods know how we'd mess up this place if we hung around
for too long. I saw some Burma Shave signs on the main trail coming up
here."
"Oh, you mean the road poetry?"
"Yeah, that. Kon's idea of culture, American
style." Tip made a crooked smile. "You guys really don't need
more of our strange stuff filtering into your society. You've got
eight year's worth already."
"But I like the road poetry!" Shir protested, rinsing
out her long hair. While they had been speaking, the two of them
had been washing themselves prior to soaking in the hot pool.
"So do a lot of Harlekki, but mother Ann would have
a cow if she found out. She'd have another fit over the way your
folks have absorbed our slang." Tip breathed out hard. "Man
alive! If the Emperor had had someone like Annie around to nag him,
I'll bet he would’ve never become such a bad boy." Tip paused as
she poured water over herself to rinse off the soap. Shir helped
to rinse the remnants out of the girl's blue furred tail. "Ugh, I've
never bathed so much in my life," Tip said with a grimace. "Talk
about cultural pollution! I really need to get out of here before
I turn into both a neatness- and control freak."
"Control is good," Shir said primly. "So is
neatness, or at least cleanliness. Show me an Imperial officer who
is slovenly in his personal habits and I can just about guarantee that
he is slovenly in procedure as well. Not good for ship discipline."
"Probably not good for your nose either, if no one
on the ship bathed!" Tip snickered. Marching up to the hot pool,
she turned about and let herself fall in backward, raising a small tidal
wave of steaming water. A moment later the kitsune seemed to levitate
herself out of the pool. "Hot, hot, hot!" she shrieked, waving her
arms as if she could fly. Instead, she did the next-best thing and
hurtled out of the water in one long leap.
"Well of course it is," Shir laughed. "You're
supposed to get in over here, where the cool water flows in, then move
to the hotter area as you adjust." Matching her actions to her own
instructions, Shir went around the pool's edge and stepped in at a sloping
place obviously meant as an entrance. Tip, now somewhat recovered,
followed her around cautiously and waded in to her ankles. The water
was nicely warm, rather than scalding, and Tip splashed in and sat down
with a sigh of relief. Shir paused when the water reached her waist
to gather up her damp hair and tie it atop her head.
"Hey," Tip said, staring intently. "Hold still
a moment."
"Yes?" Shir paused with her arms up and looked
at the kitsune curiously. Her skin was a soft tawny color, with a
smooth tone. Her breasts were small and fine, set high on a chest
that was covered with layers of lean muscle. She had little of the
subcutaneous fat that normally padded the frames of Terran women.
Her arms were likewise lean and muscular, in their raised position however,
Tip had seen something.
"You've got bruises showing where the Admiral grabbed
you. He must be way stronger than he looks."
"Bruises?" Shir turned her head to examine
the underside of her upper arms. Sure enough, a sequence of five
distinct round marks corresponding to the fingers and thumb of a hand patterned
her skin just below her right and left shoulders. She sucked in her
breath in a sound like a suppressed gasp.
"They hurt?" Tip asked.
"No. They aren't bruises." Shir uttered
a heavy sigh. "I'm not seeing these. They don't exist."
"What's the matter?" Tip got up to look closer
at the marks. "If they ain't bruises, what are they?"
Shir dropped her arms and sank down into the water.
For some time she just sat and soaked, then she spoke carefully.
"These happen between men and women of breeding age. They are usually
taken as a sign that the two of them are compatible, that they can produce
children, you see. We call them 'tennan', our doctors call them 'accommodation
marks' and they will go on at length about pheromones and DNA outcross
selection. All I know is that it is a reaction peculiar to Harlekki
breeders." She glared at her arms as if personally insulted.
"Which is why I never expected to ever see these again!"
"Why so? You're just a youngster." Tip
objected.
"You forget, we have our children from age five
to ten, after that we become infertile and start our next careers.
This really shouldn't be happening. I'm far past the age where I
can have children."
"Yeah, well, maybe your hormones or whatever still
work." Tip examined Shir's left arm. Although her skin had
reddened in response to the hot water, the mark left on her biceps by the
Admiral's thumb still showed clearly. "Wow. Good reaction."
She frowned. "Wait a minute - the Admiral's an alien! How can
you have a response like this to someone who is not of your own particular
group?"
"I don't know. This is an awful mystery to
me." Shir shook her head.
"Well, what normally happens when you get these?"
"That depends. Ordinarily if the man in question
is someone I would want for a mate, I'd have him touch me again, over a
period of days or weeks. Eventually, our bodies would adjust and
at the proper season we'd cycle together and join. The children of
our union would belong to our clans depending upon our clan inheritance
agreements."
"That's fine. Just arrange to shake hands
with the Admiral every now and then. When spring rolls around you
can jump him proper." Tip clapped her hands together. "End
of problem."
Shir turned pale and sat in the water staring at
the kitsune as if she’d suggested Shir join her in a cup of poison.
"I... I couldn't do that," she croaked.
"Why not? It's what is natural for you to
do, isn't it? Don't you like him?"
"I like him just fine. This isn't a matter
of liking." Shir protested.
"What then? You afraid he'd be too alien?
Trust me, I've seen him, all of him, while the doctors were repairing his
nerves. He's made a little different from a male human, but not all
that different. Kind of like one of my kitsune guys, only without
all the fuzz." She patted Shir on the head. "Don't worry, you'd
be compatible."
The pilot put her head in her hands and groaned
with embarrassment. "I am not hearing this! This is not proper."
"Why not, if you’re gonna mate with the man, you’d
find out what he looks like eventually?"
"I told you, I cannot!"
"Why?"
"Because of the rules! You’re an Imperial
officer, you must know I can’t touch an officer in my command, especially
a superior officer - or a junior, for that matter!"
"It never happens? C’mon!" Tip shook
her head in disbelief.
"It may, but not among us Harlekki, nor can I imagine
the Admiral breaking these regulations, either. He is extremely law-abiding."
"It can’t ever happen for you guys?"
"Not as long as we wear these uniforms." Shir
had folded her arms across her chest and set her expression into a stubborn
glower, not noticing that at the moment, she wore no uniform at all.
Tip played "stare down" with her for awhile, then her face shifted into
a cheerful smile.
"Okay, let it go for now. Will you be physically
sound, if you don’t do anything?"
"I should be, as long as we don’t touch each other
too often."
"Great, just don’t shower naked with him and you’ll
be fine!" Tip declared with a snort of merriment, flicking a spray of water
at Shir. The pilot’s cry of outrage echoed in the stone-lined bath
chamber.
*****
"That’s odd," said Thrawn, toweling the beads of water
still clinging to his blue skin. He and his alien officers had just
walked through an icy waterfall after first cooking themselves in a hot
spring. The effect was supposed to be invigorating, but Toddy had
muttered something about ‘penance’ as he’d endured the cold rinse.
"I fancied that I heard someone screaming, just now?" Shaking the
water out of his ears, he listened carefully, but the sound was not repeated.
"Must be one of those vorn hunting birds, they really
have a loud cry," Kon speculated.
*****
There being no seats in the temple, the Admiral and
Shir settled themselves on the short grassy sward that covered the ground.
The kitsune filled in to either side of them, forming a circle around a
large earthenware bowl. The only light came from the globe-shaped
lanterns hung from the porticoes some distance away from the central area.
The thin evening air was keen, tempered somewhat by transparent force fields
turned on at night to provide some protection from the wind and freezing
exterior temperature. Tip glanced upward. The sky was clear,
revealing a bright blaze of stars. The constellations had become
familiar to her during her time on Harlek.
"Now then, everyone is here, so we can begin the
spells." Tip spoke in a normal tone, her voice carrying easily to
all gathered around before the tree in the temple. "Since we will
need to adjust the spells to this universe, this may take awhile.
You can get up and wander around if you need to, or talk, or even doze
off if you want, but don’t touch the bowl while we’re making the magic."
She pointed at the bowl on the ground before her. It was filled to
within an inch of the rim with plain water. "Steam or smoke may rise
from the bowl while we’re working. You may see visions in the steam.
This is all right, but remember, no matter what, don’t touch the bowl."
"Very well." The Admiral nodded at the kitsune.
"Also, you need to know that although the visions you see may be good,
strange, or even frightening, the events you see may not have happened
yet, and may never happen," Kuro spoke seriously. "The future changes
with each passing moment, so it is difficult to be absolutely certain that
any one event will occur. In some cases, you may even see a bit of
the past. There is usually a good reason for that."
Thrawn looked over and caught Shir stifling a yawn. "The future
does not interest you, Lieutenant?" Shir had the grace to look chagrined.
"Pardon, sir. We of Harlek are not in the
habit of thinking about the future, much less trying to predict it.
I do want to see the magic, however." She faced the bowl with a look
of determination.
For several long minutes the kitsune sat silently.
At some moment of unspoken agreement, they leaned forward and touched hands
above the water. Sitting back, Kon began to tap a soft rhythm on
a small drum. Toddy joined in on a flute of silvery metal.
The tune was soft and calming. As the music played on, Tip and Kuro
gestured over the water, their movements precisely mirroring each other.
The water sparkled and danced with tiny internal
points of light, then began to glow as if lit from within. Tip and
Kuro made a final pass over the bowl with their hands. From the bright
surface a curtain of mist streamed upward, spread out, and rose slowly
skyward. Vague shapes and colors moved in the mist. Tip and
her companions sat still, staring intently.
Thrawn narrowed his eyes, trying to bring the blurry
images into focus. It was maddening work - no sooner had he willed
an item into clarity then it was replaced by another. As his mind
adjusted to the effort he was able to see snatches of scenes. Unfortunately,
few of the scenarios made any sense to him. Well, they did warn
us of that possibility, he thought, squinting at a vision of what appeared
to be a huge, pyramidal structure set in a steamy jungle. People
dueled with swords of light in a courtyard outside the pyramid. Thrawn
leaned forward. Did one of those tiny, misty figures have blue skin?
An old man in brown robes materialized next, standing
upon a great dune of golden sand. Their point of view drifted closer,
giving the Admiral an excellent view of the man’s face.
"I know you! I dreamed you! You rescued
me from my nightmare!" Thrawn exclaimed softly. To his surprise and
discomfort, the man looked straight at him and gave him a sweet, knowing
smile.
"And how do you know I did not dream you?
You must learn the ways of the Force, if you are to become a Jedi Knight,"
he said calmly. "It is unwise to remain in ignorance."
"What?!"
"Wow, that’s Obi-Wan Kenobi himself!" Kon sighed
in admiration.
"Who?" Thrawn asked, tearing his eyes away for a
moment, caught between watching and wanting immediate answers. When
he looked again at the mist, the old man of his dream was gone.
The scene shifted to show a tall woman standing
in a great room. Her Imperial uniform proclaimed her to be an admiral
of the fleet. She shook her fist and shouted. Her long red
hair streamed behind her like flame, her handsome face was twisted with
fury. She struck out toward him with what looked like a handful of
purple lightning that sizzled and flashed. Thrawn threw himself back
quickly, away from the vision of fatal anger. Somehow he managed
not to kick the bowl over in his haste. His peripheral vision told
him the kitsune had done the same. The woman admiral faded, to be
replaced by a fleet of Imperial ships cruising between the stars.
Now he saw the bridge of a star destroyer. The vision flicked to
a view of a group of fleet officers. One of the officers was a slender,
trim man of medium height, his gray hair close-cropped under his uniform
hat.
"Captain Pellaeon!" Thrawn exclaimed. For
an instant, the misty image turned toward him, the Captain’s pale, worried
eyes seeming to look into his own across the gulf of space and time.
The scene rippled like water, showing the interior corridor of the starship.
Storm troopers milled about, firing at some unseen menace. Some of
them actually broke ranks and fled. A figure in a black fighter pilot’s
suit leaped into their midst. Something brilliant and sharp flashed
about, the remaining troopers fell in pieces, giving Thrawn a clear view
of the fighter. Shir Kinoha stood alone, smiling that pleasant smile
she wore during combat, gripping the hilt of a long, bright sword.
Something not visible to the Admiral caught her attention and she began
to stalk purposefully toward what-or whoever it was. A bolt of blue
fire splattered over her, sending her sprawling to the deck. Red-gloved
hands moved to seize her. The vision shifted to an exterior view
of a star destroyer. Without warning, it exploded, flashing into
an expanding ball of fiery light and ionized gasses. The Admiral
bit back a cry of dismay, knowing in his gut that he had just witnessed
the destruction of Pellaeon’s ship. Which one? And when?
Tip had said he is still alive? Did I just see a replay of past events?
Or some new disaster in the future? His mind raced along at breakneck
speed.
A man sat at the controls of a small starship, talking
to a woman who sat beside him in the copilot’s seat. The man’s face
was still youthful, his blond hair trying to stray into his blue eyes.
Thrawn did not recognize the man, but the woman he had seen on countless
news holovids. "Leia Organa-Solo," he murmured. The princess
turned as if she could hear him.
"Yes?" she said aloud. The young man closed
his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked intently at the Admiral.
"There is someone there, I can feel him. Hello,
you’re new, aren’t you?" He extended a hand out toward his silent
watcher. "We can train you. Come to us." He looked toward
Thrawn, but did not indicate that he could actually see him. Thrawn
could feel something, a pull, strange and new, drawing him toward the young
man and the princess. The princess which memory told him his predecessor
had tried his best to harm. With a terrific effort he pulled himself
away, cutting the tenuous contact. He sat back with a shudder and
closed his eyes for several minutes, until he felt somewhat calmer.
It was not until some time later he concluded that if he had been seeing
Princess Leia, then the Force-using man with her could have been none other
than Luke Skywalker. He opened his eyes with a snap, but the pair
of them were gone, replaced by other scenes.
The images flicked by, one after another, at an
accelerated pace. Gradually they grew paler and harder to see.
Thrawn rubbed his eyes, stared hard, then finally realized that the night
had fled at the approach of dawn, turning the mist more and more translucent
until the images faded from view completely.
Tip and Kuro put out their hands, dispersing the
now-ragged remnants of mist above the bowl.
"Well," Tip said with a deep sigh. "That’s
that."
"That is enough, I believe, Tip’san," Kuro replied.
"The gods heard our request and answered most generously."
"So they did. Now as to interpretation."
Tip moved to sit beside Kuro and the other kitsune gathered around to listen.
Thrawn turned to ask Shir what she had thought of the whole thing.
At first she seemed to have vanished from her place, then he lowered his
gaze. At some point during the evening his pilot had stretched herself
at length on the ground and fallen asleep. She had folded her hands
over her stomach and slept on peacefully through the noise and furor of
the visions.
Did she see herself fighting? He wondered.
He reached to wake her, then thought better of it. The morning was
extremely early and now that he took some time to consider it, the idea
of some rest seemed quite practical. His head ached fiercely with
the effort he had put into watching the future visions.
"Here." Tip had moved up to him and was offering
a small cup of liquid. The other kitsune were passing around cups
and pouring something into them from a bottle. "Drink this, it’s
sake - wine - or the local equivalent, and good for the headache."
Thrawn accepted the cup and sipped at the contents.
It was hot and mildly sweet, and as promised, his headache eased its grip
on his skull. He drank the rest of it gratefully. "Is it always
so bad afterwards?" he asked, trying to suppress a yawn.
"Sometimes, yes," Tip said, tossing back the contents
of her cup with an experienced air. "You always get the headache,
no matter if you see anything good or not. But see, the gods have
given us the cure." She hefted her cup and grinned, then gestured
at Shir. "Here, we’re going to sit around and discuss metaphysics.
Why don’t you have a lie down for awhile? We’ll wake you before the
morning gets too late." Reaching behind her, she pulled out a coverlet
borrowed from a guest room and gave it to him.
That sounded far too attractive to pass up, and
he was now so tired that he doubted he could even walk to a room unaided.
He glanced down at Shir. Although the collar of her tunic had not
yet strangled her, some bit of memory told him that it was uncomfortable
to sleep in. He undid the topmost fasteners on his own shirt, then
with a caution dictated by severe tiredness he did the same for his pilot.
At least her skin felt warm enough and she did not seem to have suffered
from the cold. He lay himself down beside her and threw the coverlet
over them both. The springy turf welcomed his tired body. "I
think I will, for a little while," he managed to reply before sleep claimed
him utterly.
"Well, he’s out for the count," Toddy said, pouring
more wine for Kon. "He did real good for a mortal."
"Un, that is so," Kuro agreed, nodding seriously.
"Some of the visions were quite dire indeed. These two warriors,"
he gestured at the Admiral and the Lieutenant, "Will need some assistance
to face what will come."
"That they do. We should be able to prepare
something for them, don’t you think?" Tip glanced at the two sleeping
forms and smiled. "It’s so amazing how it works out. Shir had
decided she couldn’t touch the Admiral any more, but nobody told him not
to touch her. You can’t fight the will of the gods, y’know," Tip
addressed this last statement at Shir, who made no answer except a soft
oblivious snore.
"What’re you talking about? Who can’t touch
who?" Kon asked in confusion.
"I’ll give you the details later, it’s too funny,"
Tip said. "Right now, while they are here for magicing, we need to
get to work." The fox people huddled then, discussing the import
of the various visions, weighing probabilities against certain universal
certainties.
"That’s too yang," said Kon, after hearing Tip’s
proposal.
"Yang!? Whattaya mean?! she growled.
"What about karma and kama?" Kuro asked.
"Did you consider the balance of the humors as well?"
Toddy chipped in.
"Crud, no." Tip sighed in irritation.
"This universe gives me the wim-whams."
"With any luck, it feels the same way about us."
Kuro smiled at her. "Shall we consider all the pieces of the puzzle
again?"
"And don’t forget ol’Obi-Wan. He’s been taking
an interest in our Admiral, and you don’t want to get crosswise of a Jedi
spirit’s plans, I don’t think," Kon said firmly.
"OK, OK! Once again…" Tip sighed. Maybe
all that Imperial military training is gonna come in handy for planning
this caper? She thought with a mental snort. Wouldn’t
that be symmetrical, as Shir would call it? Better not let Annie
find out I can actually plan ahead!
*****
Thrawn awoke to find Shir kneeling beside him with a
cup of tea. She looked fresh and alert. He struggled up, feeling
bleary and half-awake at first, but the sensation soon fled. Accepting
the tea, he looked half-suspiciously into the cup.
"I do not ordinarily fall asleep on the ground as
I did. Does this contain just…?"
"Just tea," Tip said. "Believe me, it didn’t
take much extra magic to put you out, the scrying drains energy and you
didn’t have much left. It's safer for mortals to rest afterward."
"And besides," Kon added. "For the magic that
followed, we needed you to sleep."
"What magic? I missed it!" Shir looked disappointed.
"I saw the mist rise from the bowl last night, but I don’t remember anything
after the old man spoke to me."
"What old man?" Tip asked. "What did he look
like?"
"He spoke to you?" The Admiral’s question followed
hard on the heels of the kitsune’s.
Shir nodded at both of them. "The old man
in brown robes standing in the sand. I thought perhaps he was a human
priest of some sort. He talked to you, I remember that, then he looked
at me."
"I didn’t see that," Thrawn said. To Tip he
asked. "Is it possible to see separate visions?"
"Divergent views can happen - that’s why we talk
about what we’ve seen afterwards. Sometimes the gods give us each
a different viewpoint."
"What did he say to you?" The Admiral looked
at Shir intently. She closed her eyes as if replaying the scene in
her mind.
"He said, ‘Welcome, we’ve been waiting for you.
The new ones will need your skills.’ That is all he spoke to me,
but behind him I could just see many people, some human, some not.
They were very bright and it was difficult to look at them for long."
Shir opened her eyes and breathed a long sigh. "After that, I must
have gone to sleep because the next thing I remember is waking up here
and Tip giving me some tea." She gave a sinewy stretch, then rubbed
at her neck. Finding the collar of her uniform open, she fastened
it up with an abstracted frown. From where she sat, Tip could clearly
see the new tennan markings that dappled the skin of her throat before
the collar hid them from view. Shir caught the kitsune giving her
a very nice smile and she gave Tip a perplexed look.
"What?" she asked. She had begun to understand
that kitsune did not usually smile like that for no reason.
"Nothing, nothing," Tip replied, trying with fair
success at assuming a normal expression. "Isn’t the sky blue today?"
"It’s always blue!" Shir snorted.
"Ah, but some blues are better than others," Toddy
said, picking up his flute and playing a passage from Rhapsody in Blue
by Gershwin. Shir listened in delight at the strange, compelling
music, thoroughly distracted. The Admiral, however, remained focused
on the matter at hand.
"You mentioned magic after your scrying. I
would like to know why you thought it necessary that we should miss that
in particular?"
"Because if you moved around at all, it would have
been very bad for you, Admiral’sama," Kuro said politely, answering with
a non-answer.
"But now, we can show you the results of our efforts!"
Tip moved off a short distance, picked up something from the ground and
came back, cradling the object in her arms. At her return, she passed
it to Thrawn, who took it in both hands. It was long, wrapped in
a covering of fine dark cloth, and had a certain sober weight to it.
Cords wound around the latter third of the thing held the cloth in place.
The cords were tied in elaborate knots. He put his hands on the cords
and looked at his quiet audience.
"Go ahead and open it," Tip encouraged. "It
is almost done and this last part needs your help to finish it."
The Admiral gave the object to his lieutenant, who
held it steady lengthwise so he could release the knots. They came
apart at last and with his natural caution he drew off the wrapping to
reveal the item beneath.
"A sword!" Shir exclaimed, looking as delighted
as a kid at Christmas. She held it out for the Admiral to admire.
He took it from her, turning it in his hands. It was a long blade,
sheathed in some dark material, made in the alien style which Kuro had
brought with him, with a slight curve to the weapon’s edge. The handle
was laced with bindings of silky cord over an inner grip of rough material.
Tiny charms of fanciful beasts were bound to the grip under the lacing,
while the guard was a simple ring of forged metal. He hefted the
thing, feeling its unfamiliar weight and balance.
"I do not understand. I have no training in
the sword, and it would take me years of practice to gain even minor competency."
He looked curiously at Tip.
"Maybe so, although I feel you’ll eventually learn
how to use a sword of some sort in the future. But although we made
this for your protection, you don’t have to carry it."
"No? Then how…?"
"This is for Shir to carry and use for whatever
cause you think is right. See? It works out nice! She
carries it now, and your heirs will carry it later."
Thrawn thought this over for a time. "Very
well, that sounds logical to me, although at present I have not even begun
to consider who would be a proper heir for myself." He had never
thought that he might someday actually have children. Given his tangled
genetic heritage, he considered it a remote possibility at best and dismissed
the notion from his mind.
"And to me," Shir added. "I will use it in
his service and pass it on in turn to whoever the Admiral designates."
"Here, then." Making a long, straight arm, Thrawn
held the sword out to the Lieutenant. "Use it with honor."
She accepted it with both hands, then raised the
weapon to her forehead in a formal gesture of respect. Backing away
a step, she drew the sword out several inches from the scabbard to examine
the blade.
"This is strange, it looks as if the metal has been
frosted." Shir turned the sword back and forth, but no shine came
from the blade, which looked dull and non-reflective.
"It isn’t done, yet." Tip nodded at her.
"Finishing the blade is the final bit of magic we need to work."
Kuro took up the explanation. "While you slept,
we made a great magic and drew the essence of the sword from your substance.
The blade has virtue. Now, with your consent, we will perform the
final spell that will bind it to your service."
Shir looked toward the Admiral, who gave her a brief
nod as he spoke. "What do you need from us?"
"Your blood," Tip said, then at Shir’s stare, she
added. "Just a few drops on the blade from each of you." She
gestured at the sword. "Here, draw the sword all the way out - that’s
right - and nick the base of your thumb on the edge.
That’s the proper way to do these things. In Kuro’s homeland, this
is how the warriors seal a pact with one another."
As Shir prepared to do this, Kuro said. "Touch
it gently, the edge is very sharp and you do not want a deep injury."
Shir cradled the sword in the crook of her left arm and pinked her hand
delicately on the exposed edge. A small rivulet of red crawled slowly
along the downward slant of the dull metallic surface.
When she offered to hand the blade to Thrawn he
said. "Hold it for me, Lieutenant, if you will." Shir froze
in place as the Admiral touched the blade firmly with his right hand, sending
a second trickle of crimson to join the first. He withdrew his hand,
inspecting the fine, long cut that had materialized in his palm, then shifted
his attention at Shir’s gasp of surprise.
The blood was slowly disappearing as if somehow
being absorbed by the metal. The sword’s surface immediately rippled
with an expanding rainbow play of colors, some of which defied description.
The Admiral found the display even more difficult to focus on than the
scrying mist. His hand itched and stung, seemingly in time with the
pulse of colors. Shir remained utterly still, holding the blade in
her arms as if convinced that the slightest movement might upset the magical
process. Gradually the rippling ceased and the colors faded, leaving
the blade as bright as if someone had carefully polished it to an absolute
mirror sheen.
"It is done and done well!" Kuro bowed to
both of them.
Shir admired the long blade. "I have never
seen a sword’s edge so very bright."
"I do not understand why you have spent so much
effort to create this weapon," Thrawn said. "It is very beautiful
- I appreciate it on a purely artistic level, but that does not change
the fact that it is an archaic thing from an era so long removed that only
the most primitive of cultures still use them, or weapons like them.
I know they mean much to military societies such as that of the Harlekki,
and fencing is still admired and taught for its military discipline, but
what will carrying this gain us? It is not that I distrust your skill
with the sword, Lieutenant." Here he made a respectful nod to Shir.
"But what chance would she stand against someone with an Imperial standard
blaster? Or against the lightsaber of a Jedi?"
"That’s the beauty of it!" Tip chuckled and
snapped her fingers in a carefree gesture. "Nobody in their right
mind would expect something like an ol’sword to be a real threat.
If someone saw Shir carrying that blade, they’d think like you do, wouldn’t
they?" The kitsune - all of them - smiled in unison, showing white,
sharp teeth in identical predatory grins. "They’d be wrong."
"Tell me why." Thrawn urged.
"You said yourself the blade is bright, it was made
so for a reason. It will not only deflect blaster bolts, it will
deflect all sorts of energy." Tip narrowed her green eyes.
"I wouldn’t want to test it on a Death Star-level beam weapon, but it might
actually work."
"It will also cut anything, when used with purpose
and spirit," Kuro said.
"And what of the lightsaber?" Shir asked, looking
at the sword with even greater interest.
"It will cut anything," Kuro repeated patiently,
gazing calmly into Shir’s face.
The Harlekki looked a last time at the sword, then
swept it around and sheathed it in one smooth motion. "I understand."
She bowed to Kuro and then to the group of magical creatures. Kuro
stepped to her side and wound a black sash about her waist, tying it in
the simple knot he used for his own. Shir pushed the sword’s scabbard
into the sash and seated it with a firm twist.
Silently, Thrawn observed the proceedings.
Without thinking, he flexed his right hand, then when he felt no pain,
turned it palm up to look at the cut. It had vanished, leaving a
fine white scar in its place.
"Another nice thing about this sword," said Kon.
"It has no energy-using components, so it is virtually undetectable by
the security scanners of this age. Part of the magic we worked on
it is a spell of concealment. You can carry it practically anywhere
and no one will notice it, at least until you draw it."
"But I can see it plainly," Thrawn pointed out.
"Yes, but you’re part of it, or it is part of you.
It is bound to your service and so you will always be able to see it and
use it, if necessary. Same for Shir. Your enemies, by the way,
will not be able to draw the sword, or use it in any way even if they get
their hands on it. It will protect itself, if necessary."
"Protect itself? It isn’t a droid with any
level of awareness, is it?" Shir asked, now thoroughly puzzled.
"Nope, but like Kuro said earlier, the blade has
virtue and knows the difference between friend and foe. If a bad
guy grabs it and tries to draw it - zap! Fried chicken!" Birdlike,
Tip waved her hands. Shir laughed at the expression, understanding
the intent if not the reference to edible Terran birds.
The Admiral found himself full of unanswered questions.
He drew breath to ask another, then stopped and tapped Shir on the shoulder.
She gave him a questioning look. He pointed at the coverlet they had left
on the ground in the place where they had slept. It was moving, or
rather a lump of it was moving, in irregular, jerky motions. Shir
touched her sword hilt for a moment, smiled and strode to the mysteriously
ambulatory cloth and lifted up an edge. The gray spotted kitzu cub
wriggled out from under the folds and emerged into the sunshine, greeting
them with little barks of enthusiasm.
"Our grand-cub!" cried Kon.
"When did he come in?" asked Tip.
"Was he there all night?" Toddy wondered.
Shir swept him up into her arms, where he lay happily,
looking at them with bright blue eyes.
"How much magic do you think he absorbed?" Toddy
asked, peering at the cub as if through a microscope.
Kon joined in the examination. "He fairly
sparkles with it."
"Hmm, hard to say," Tip said, nibbling on a fingernail,
a very odd looking gesture from someone in Imperial uniform.
"Well, even if he was only here for the forging
of the sword, he’d have gotten a pretty large dose, that’s for sure," Kon
said.
"It won’t hurt him, will it?" Shir patted
the cub’s head with motherly concern.
"Hurt him? Not at all. It just might,
um, speed up his development, that’s all," Tip said.
"Well, that’s all right, then," Shir said, ruffling
the cub’s soft fur. "It’s perfectly proper to grow up quickly on
Harlek."
"Do you like him?" Tip asked unexpectedly.
"Like him? Of course I do! I wouldn’t
want anything bad to happen to him."
"Would you like to take him with you?"
"Me? Really?" Shir was at once startled
and pleased.
"Really, the priest and priestess chose him out
for you guys to keep, if you wanted him."
Shir looked at the Admiral hopefully.
"Why not?" he murmured with a smile. "This
seems to be the day for odd gifts."
"No, no, you got it wrong. He ain’t a gift,
he’s to be a crew member. He’s a working boy, he’ll earn his keep
soon enough." At Thrawn’s dubious look, she added. "Hey, trust
me! Have I ever been wrong?" She studiously ignored her pack
mates who were coughing and jostling behind her, the cads.
"Well, you have never been wrong in my experience,"
he answered carefully.
"Right!" Tip folded her arms across her chest
and shot a glower at her fellow-kitsune. "So there! And now,"
she went on without pausing. "For the last, here’s my gift to you."
From a pocket, she produced a stone the size of a child’s fist. It
had obviously been plucked from the side of the mountain, being of dense
red granite. For a moment, she held it between two fingers, then
she opened her hand. The stone spun gently in the air, floating weightless.
Tip’s face wore an expression of extreme concentration. She stared
at the stone as if trying to will a hole into its irregular surface.
Finally, she pointed at the stone, her finger nearly touching it then
barked out a short, sharp command. Light flared around the thing,
painfully intense. When the watchers were able to clear the spots
from their vision, Tip held it up again for their inspection.
"How lovely!" Shir exclaimed. "It looks like
firestone or flame gem!" Tip gave the stone, which was now finely
faceted, to the Admiral, who received it and handled it gently.
"This is to buy - what?" he asked, genuinely puzzled
at the gift.
"You may as well sell your head as sell that," Tip
replied with a snort.
"It is not just a gemstone?"
"You’re catching on! The sword is more than
a sword, and this is far more than a gem. This is a holocron.
I found out about these while you all were sleeping for eight years.
The Jedi used these in the past to hold their teachings, but this doesn’t
contain Jedi stuff - at least not strictly speaking."
"What does it contain?" Thrawn turned the
jewel over and over, letting his eyes follow the bright sparkles inward.
Tiny shapes danced in its interior. With an effort he looked away
from the holocron at Tip.
"The legends of our world. You see, we debated
what sort of knowledge to leave with you, being as you are the sort of
person who treasures learning. Our planet has religions galore, but
I don’t think this universe needs too much more of that. You certainly
don’t need our political stuff either. Our history is the same-old
same-old that humans have been dealing with for eons. What’s left
is the Things That Are True, the stories we tell our children, generation
after generation."
"Stories and legends?"
"Yes. It contains childhood. Yours."
"Mine? But I don’t have…" He stopped, gripping
his hand tightly over the gem. He closed his eyes and for a time
stood motionless. When he looked at them again his eyes had turned
almost purple-violet in color. "I think I understand, somewhat.
I thank you for the gift."
Embarassed, Tip put her arms behind her head. "Hey, it’s okay. If you’ve gotta make your own
childhood, you might as well make it a good one."
"These are easy to use, y’know. Just set it
down somewhere quiet, look at it and clear your mind and think, ‘tell me
a story’, just like that. You might want to start with the Faerie
tales of George MacDonald, and steer clear of Baba Yaga for awhile.
She’s kind’o scary, till you understand what she’s all about."
"Don’t worry," Kon added helpfully. "The holocron
contains a librarian so you can ask for explanations for anything you don’t
understand. The librarian will also suggest stories if you don’t
know what you want to see."
"I hope you will find the selection of Japanese
folk tales enlightening," said Kuro. "Plus I put in some of the stories
about Musashi, the great master of the sword."
"An’ I made sure all the good Celtic stories got
in - Shir ought to like those, they’ve got lots of fighting, and drinking,
and poetry contests, and more fighting." Toddy grinned at Shir.
"The old Celts knew how to party!"
"Why does that sound like the Corellian definition
of ‘party’?" Thrawn asked, looking again into the bottomless depths of
the jewel in his hand.
*****
The forest was still. Pale, luminescent moonflowers
were just opening in the cool of the early evening. With a tiny rushing
noise, a bright blue glowing oval appeared in the air of a clearing beneath
the outspread branches of an ancient oak. It expanded quickly until
it was over four feet in diameter. Through this opening, one after
another, leaped four tall youths dressed alike in dark uniforms and black
boots. Each of them sported a fox’s tail in addition to their sidearms
and military accouterments. The last one through the opening in space
paused, saluted, and shouted through the gateway.
"Good-bye and good luck to you! If yer ever
in our neck of the woods, look us up!" With a final wave, Tip Blue
Fox spread her arms till they almost touched the glowing edges of the oval,
then brought her hands together in a steady movement. The oval shrank
rapidly into a small, brightly glowing point, then vanished with a soft
pop. The light vanished as well, leaving the kitsune blinking their
eyes in the dim evening light.
"Well, the homeward spell was easier than I thought,"
she said in satisfaction.
"It probably helped not to be near any ysalamiri
while we were spellcasting," Toddy reflected. The Irish kitsune peered
through the trees. "Hey, we’re almost home! Our den is just
over that rise. Good point-to-point!"
"Have I got it, or what?" Tip preened
at the praise from her comrade.
"Good show! Back in Merry Ol’ England!" Kon
exclaimed. "Let’s get ourselves changed out of these monkey suits
and back to normal!" He began to march at a quick pace toward the
tree that marked the entrance to their underground dwelling.
"Yeah, and then we can run over to Carrick’s and
see what Ann has baked while we were gone. I’m starving! I
know it’s been just a few days here, but I’ve been years away from proper
cookies and cakes!"
Tip grabbed both Kon and Toddy by their tails, effectively
putting the brakes on them. "Just hol’ on a moment! Before
we even set foot in their cottage, I want you all to swear: not a
word of our being Imperial officers for eight years. Swear it now,
or you know we’ll never live it down!"
"I swear, I won’t tell a soul," Toddy promised.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Kon pitched in.
Tip shot a look at Kuro, who had remained silent
during this conversation. "Well?" She prompted him.
Kuro sighed and spoke carefully. "I do promise,
Tip sempai, that I will not tell anyone of our adventure
without your permission. You do know, however, that I do not lie,
and if Ann’okusan or Carrick’sama ask directly, I
will answer. I will not volunteer information, however."
Tip nodded. "That will do, Kuro’kun, that
will do. So now we’re home, nevermore to roam, an’ all our worries
are over! C’mon, race you to the den!" With muffled cries of
delight, the four travelers tore off toward their dwelling and silence
descended over the faerie clearing.
"Thank goodness, they’re gone, who could possibly
sleep with all that yammering and racket?" Azara Darkas peered down from
his perch high in the boughs of the old oak, his pale limbs blending in
with the tree’s own. The night gaunt rose up on hands and knees,
stretched, then resettled himself with a grunt. "What’s so important
about being an officer of the British Empire, anyway?" he muttered before
returning to his interrupted nap.
*****
"Well, they are really gone," Shir said with a sigh.
"It just won’t be the same without them."
"Very true," Thrawn said dryly. "It will be
much quieter, I am sure." The Grand Admiral stood in the temple courtyard,
watching his lieutenant gather up various items for their return trip to
the city. The problems and duties of the Empire’s survival waited
for them below and Thrawn found himself eager to begin the work.
"Hungry."
"Eh, so am I, a little. Perhaps we should
eat something before we climb down the mountain?" he said.
"What?" Shir asked in confusion.
"Didn’t you just say you were hungry?"
"No, not I," she looked at him curiously.
"Hungry." The voice repeated. This time
Thrawn could plainly tell that Shir was not the one talking. He walked
about the courtyard quickly, searching for the speaker, but could see no
one. The kitzu cub bounded at his heels and when he paused in perplexity,
it sat down before him and clearly said. "Hungry!" He
gazed up at Thrawn with a happy look, switching his short fox tail expectantly.
The Admiral stared at the small creature as if he had never seen it before.
He suddenly realized that while the alien Force-users had returned to their
home world, their gods-with-a-sense-of-humor may well have stayed behind.
"You were saying, sir, that things would be quieter?"
Shir asked innocently.
###
This story takes place during and just after the events
depicted in The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn.
Various Star Wars characters ©2000 Lucasfilm.
The original Adm. Thrawn was created by Timothy Zahn for his series of
Star Wars novels: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising,
The
Last Command, and the Hand of Thrawn duology.
This is a work of non-profit fan fiction. This
product was not tested on animals.
Shir Kinoha, Tip, Kuro, Kon, Toddy, Ann, and Carrick
are © 1998 C. Winters.
Edits and proofreeting graciously done by Judith Cuta, Kathi Irish,
Ann Nichols, Kay Iscah.
Footnotes:
1. Kun - a Japanese honorific that is usually
interpreted as "young Mr." In Tip's context, the meaning is more
like: "friend Kuro".
1. Akhal-Teke: A horse of Oriental bloodlines
noted for its slender frame, hot-blooded disposition, and metallic shine.
2. Sugoi desu nee! - How wonderful!
Samurai desu! - You’re a samurai! (Kuro is being very polite when
he says it this way.)
3. Ne - Japanese ending to a sentence that seeks
an opinion from the listener. Analogous to "…isn’t it?".
4. Kannon, Kwan-Yin, Cannon: Buddhist
god/goddess of compassion and mercy. Although the kitsune are patrons
of the Shinto goddess Inari, Kannon is the one they turn to when they need
- uh, non-judgmental help.
5. Sama - a Japanese honorific which is politer
than the more usual "san". Could be translated as "honorable Admiral".
6. QA - Quality Assurance. Testing
for quality of manufacture and performance done by engineers on new equipment
and (in theory) new software.
7. Samhain - Old Celtic deity of
the harvest, literally, ‘The Reaper’. Samhain also refers to the great harvest festival, celebrated on Halloween.
8. Enma - the Japanese lord of the underworld,
or Yomi no Kuni. Similar to the Greek god of the underworld, Hades.
9. Early to Bed, a poem by George Ade
10. Sempai - A Japanese term that literally means
‘senior’, as in Tip is Kuro’s senior and mentor.
11. Okusan - a term of respect for a married lady,
equivalent to 'Mrs.'.