The Han Solo Adventures (34 page)

Chewbacca took his ammo bandolier, twisted it several times to tighten it, then slipped both arms through it as a harness and fastened it together at the front with a length of cable, hooking himself up to the framework where kingpost met longitudinal axis. He shouldered the weight of the soarer and slung his bowcaster around his neck. The body slumped but the extremely light, superstrong support materials kept it in deployment.

A grazer bull with antlers like a hedge of bayonets cut in toward him. The Wookiee skipped out of the way and almost collided with another knot of the animals. The ridge was being overrun. With nothing to lose, Chewbacca churned toward a dropoff, holding the soarer’s reinforced carcass at what he hoped was the correct angle of attack, and launched himself.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if the wings had luffed and, with no lift at all, he had gone tumbling into the stamping, snorting mass of grazers. But a caprice of the strong air currents along the ridge flared the flier’s wings, bearing him along on an updraft.

He began to yaw, the soarer’s beak moving to the right, and pushed hard on the creature’s braced claws to bring its nose around into the wind once more. Even so, his makeshift glider’s sink rate was appalling. He raised his legs behind him and tried to distribute his weight for better control. He nosed up in an instinctive effort to get more lift, caring little about speed. He had flown powered craft of a design based on these same principles, but this was an entirely new experience. He nearly stalled and only barely got moving again.

Then a strong updraft off the ridge caught the soarer’s wings, and a moment later he was truly flying. And for all the terror of unpowered flight, deadly panic of the milling grazers below, reek of ichor dripping down cables and supports from the soarer’s corpse, the Wookiee found himself roaring and howling in elation. He started to dip the soarer’s nose, but the experiment with pitch nearly sent him into a neutral angle of attack—and an abrupt descent. He instantly foreswore the exploration of new aeronautical principles.

Body centered, he made minor corrections and did his best to recall the devotional chants of his distant youth. Below him grazers thrashed and pushed, strident and frenzied, but the Wookiee now had the sound of the wind in his ears. The other soarers steered well clear of this new and bizarre rival. It was large and strange and therefore not to be trusted.

Chewbacca estimated that he was making better than thirty kilometers an hour and suddenly realized he had but one problem—getting down alive. He had angled toward the
Falcon
. The last of the herd had passed it now, and the freighter seemed to be intact. But his makeshift glider wasn’t so inclined, and he found that any decrease in speed threatened to rob him of the lift that kept him aloft. Gradually, though, he cut back on both, bringing the soarer’s nose back toward a neutral attitude, and brayed happily as he spied a good landing spot. The little mountain lake grew before him. He thought for a moment that he was about to overshoot it and began to experiment with a turn, hunching forward and pulling the soarer’s bound claws back toward himself.

He didn’t quite have time to conclude what went wrong; the next moment, Chewbacca and a splayed carcass were gyrating toward the lake’s surface. He caught a split-second flash of his own reflection before it parted for him with all the soft receptiveness of a fusion-formed landing strip.

The curt slap of the water galvanized him, though, helping him overcome the numbing cold. He fought to untwist himself, only to find that the soarer didn’t float well; its wings settled around him and the weight of the metal framework bore him down. Reaching and wriggling, he still couldn’t release himself from the improvised harness that held him to it. The bowcaster around his neck only complicated things.

He became snarled in slack cable and his giant strength meant nothing against the cushiony persistence of the lakewater. His breath, too much to retain, began to escape his lips in silvery bubbles as the Wookiee fought to free himself from the sinking glider. It became hard to see, and he found himself thinking about his family and his green, lush homeworld.

Then he realized a dark shape was circling him, making quick motions and weaving in and out among the tangled rigging with a sure ease and suppleness. A moment later the
Falcon
’s first mate was being tugged toward the surface of the lake, which came at him like an unending, flawed mirror.

Chewbacca broke into the air and drew a breath with such enthusiasm that he found himself choking on it, splitting and coughing and mouthing salty Wookiee expressions. Spray got around behind to support him, swimming with deftness and agility despite the pair of heavy cutters he held in one hand.

“That was fantastic!” gushed the skip-tracer. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! I came after you when I realized you’d overshoot and land in the lake, but I never thought I’d reach you in time. The land just isn’t my element.” He pulled at the Wookie’s shoulder to get him started.

Stroking for the nearby shore, Chewbacca decided he felt exactly the same way about the sky.

“His name was Zlarb,” Han said to the Mor Glayyd in that fortunate young man’s study. “He tried to cheat me
and
kill me. He had a list of ships that were cleared through your clan’s agency, but I haven’t got the plaque with me right now. But if you could find his name in your records—”

“That isn’t necessary. I know his name well,” interrupted the Mor Glayyd, exchanging looks of extreme gravity with his sister.

“His bosses owe me ten thousand,” said Han with something akin to fervor, “and I want it.”

The Mor Glayyd leaned back, his conform lounger molding to him, and folded his hands. He no longer seemed quite so young; he was playing a role for which he’d been well groomed. Han wished he had hung on to one of those guns in the armory.

“What do you know of the clans of Ammuud and their Code, Captain Solo?”

“That the Code almost plotted your terminal orbit for you today,” Han answered.

The youthful Mor Glayyd conceded, “A possibility. The Code is what holds the clans together yet keeps us from one another’s throats. Without it, we’d revert to the backward, warring savages we were a hundred years ago. But betraying a trust or breaking an oath is also covered by the Code, and makes the violator a nonentity, an outcast, whatever his previous status. And not even a clan Mor is above the Code.”

Oh, let me guess where
this
is going
, Han simmered, but he said nothing.

“Those dealings my clan had with Zlarb’s people fall into that category. We asked no questions; we accepted our commission for delivery and pickup of the ships without concerning ourselves with their use. Zlarb and his associates knew our practice; that’s why they were willing to pay us so well.”

“Meaning you’re not going to tell me what I want to know,” Han predicted.

“Meaning that I cannot. You’re free to summon Gallandro back if you wish,” returned the Mor Glayyd stiffly. His sister looked apprehensive.

Fiolla broke in: “Forget that; it’s over with. But Zlarb’s people broke faith with Han. Doesn’t that mean anything to your Code? Do you shield traitors?”

The Mor Glayyd shook his head. “You don’t see. No one broke faith with me or mine; that’s the province of the Code.”

“We’re wasting our time,” Han rasped to Fiolla. He was thinking of Chewbacca and the
Falcon
. He was willing to put aside his quest for the ten thousand for the time being; it didn’t matter as much right now as the fact that Chewbacca was still somewhere out in the Ammuud mountains.

But as a parting shot he waved out at the city, at the departed Gallandro. “You saw what sort of people they are; you’re throwing in with slavers and double-crossers and poisoners! They—”

The Mor Glayyd and his sister came out of their loungers so suddenly that the furniture slid on the slick floor. “How’s that you say,” the girl whispered, “
poisoners
?”

He’d said it thinking of the kit he had found on Zlarb and wondered now what nerve he had hit. “Zlarb was a Malkite poisoner.”

“The late Mor Glayyd, our father, was killed with poison only a half-month ago,” Ido said. “Had you not heard of his death?”

When Han shook his head, the Mor Glayyd went on. “Only the most trusted of my clan circle know he was poisoned. It’s unprecedented; the clans almost never use poisons, but we take precautions against them. And none of our food tasters showed any ill effects.”

“They wouldn’t, from Malkite stuff,” Han told him. “Even some food-scanning equipment and air samplers miss it. And all a Malkite poisoner does to get around tasters is dose them with an antidote beforehand. The tasters never notice, and only the victim dies. Run tests on your tasters, and I bet you’ll find antidote traces in their systems.”

He looked to Fiolla. “The poisoning must be the suggestion Magg spoke about in the tape I found on Zlarb; I don’t know how the duel bears on it.”

The Mor Glayyd had been rocked by what he’d heard. “Then, then—”

His sister finished for him. “We, too, have been betrayed, Ewwen.”

Han Solo checked his pocket to make sure the plaque given him by the Mor Glayyd was secure and tugged at the too-tight collar of the suit he had borrowed. Bollux was just finishing loading the lifeboat with guidance components—shielded circuitry rather than those damned fluidics!—provided from his own repair shops by the Mor Glayyd.

The boat had been moved here to the Glayyd yards so that its departure would be less conspicuous. The Mor Glayyd had shown a grim openhandedness when quick tests had borne out Han’s suspicion that the food tasters’ bodies contained traces of a Malkite antidote.

“You’re certain you don’t want us to accompany you?” the boy was saying for the fourth time.

Han declined. “That would draw too much attention if the slavers or the other clans are watching. I just hope the port defenses don’t burn us out of the sky.”

“Many of my people are on watch today,” the Mor Glayyd answered, “and you’re listed as a regular patrol flight over hereditary Glayyd lands. You’ll go unchallenged. We’ll be listening; if you need us, we’ll come as quickly as we can. I’m sorry that your
Millennium Falcon
dropped beneath the detection ceiling when she bypassed the spaceport.”

“No stress; I’ll find her. But they should be getting the
Lady of Mindor
repaired any time now. Right after that, this place’ll be alive with Espos. Do you think you can stall them?”

The Mor Glayyd was mildly amused. “Captain Solo, I thought you understood; my people are
very
good at not answering questions. None will violate the Silence, especially to Security Police.”

Fiolla joined them. Like Han, she wore a borrowed Glayyd flier’s snugsuit of gleaming blue and high spacer’s boots. She’d been both awed and angered when she’d seen the names of Authority higher-ups who were implicated in the slaving ring by the Glayyd records, though the evidence was a bit tenuous, mostly official permits for ship charters and certifications for operation within the Authority.

“Please remember, Fiolla, we expect to hear from you when you’ve rooted out our enemies,” the Mor Glayyd said. “If we can’t work our own vengeance we will at least witness yours.”

She promised soberly, “You will—and I know what a vow means to the Mor Glayyd. When I’ve gotten all this before an Authority Court I think I’ll be able to keep you from prosecution. But I’d advise you to scrutinize future clients more closely.”

The Mor Glayyd raised his hand in farewell. “We will not be used again, you may be confident.” Ido kissed both Han and Fiolla on the cheek. Then brother and sister stepped back, as did their kinsmen and kinswomen. Within seconds the lifeboat lifted from its resting place, drifted into a departure lane, and sped up toward the mountains above the spaceport, hurtling between them and rising for the higher peaks beyond.

“How are you going to find them, anyway?” Fiolla, again in the copilot’s seat, asked. “The sensors and detectors in this kettle aren’t made for a tight search, are they?” She moved aside a disruptor rifle given them by the Mor Glayyd, to give herself more room.

Han laughed, happy to be off the ground again. “This wreck? You’d be lucky to find your own back pocket with the gear she carries. Even if she had a whole scoutship package, there’d be all these peaks and valleys and the ground clutter. But we’ve got this,” he put a forefinger to his temple dramatically.

“If we haven’t got something a little more high-powered than
that
,” she said, mimicking his gesture perfectly, “I hope there are some drop-harnesses aboard, because I want out!”

Han brought the little craft over onto a prechosen course, satisfied that he’d dipped low enough behind the peaks to be off the spaceport’s detectors. “We know the course Chewie was on when he passed over the port and
I
know how he thinks, how he pilots. I am now Chewie, with a damaged
Falcon
under me, one I’ve got to keep above three thousand meters, with limited guidance response. I know his style well enough to duplicate it. For instance, he’d never bank right off those three high peaks up there. You can’t see enough of what’s beyond to be sure of finding a high enough landing place to set down without blowing the rest of the fluidics.

“The
Falcon
would have enough emergency thrust to take the other cliff, and the terrain layout says there’ll be more open space over there; you can see more of what you’d be getting into. That’s the way my cautious old Wookiee pal likes things. He’ll be looking for an out-of-the-way spot where he can set down, keep out of sight, try to do some repairs himself, and wait for me. I’ll find him, don’t worry.”

“You call this a plan?” she scoffed. “Why don’t we just buzz along yelling his name out the hatch?”

His tone sharpened. “I said
I’d find him
!”

Then Fiolla understood what desperate fears for Chewbacca’s safety Han had been suppressing. “I know you will, Han,” she added quietly.