The Unseen Queen (15 page)

“Let’s talk to Raynar,” Luke said. “Maybe once the Killiks understand what’s happening, he’ll consider our promise kept.”

“
Urru buur rbur
.” Their escort waited as an empty lumber sled glided past and disappeared down a winding boulevard into Saras nest proper, then started toward the completed building. “
Ubu ruru buub
.”

“Raynar Thul is dead,” C-3PO translated. “But UnuThul is waiting for us in the replica factory.”

“Sounds like he’s already heard part of it,” Han said. “I just hope he doesn’t blast the messenger when he hears the rest.”

Luke led the others after the escort, through a large iris membrane into the throat of a twining, hangar-sized tunnel-house so filled with smoke and manufacturing fumes that the iridescent walls were barely visible. Along one wall stood a long row of peat-fired furnaces, serviced by hundreds of bustling Killiks. The middle of the chamber was filled with steaming vats, also surrounded by hundreds of Killiks. Along the far wall ran a serpentine workbench, flanked on each side by a seemingly endless Killik production line.

Luke stopped a few paces inside the door. Han let out a complaining cough, then leaned close.

“Better make this fast,” he whispered. “It’s a wonder this place hasn’t been Fizzed already.”

Luke did not reply, for Raynar had emerged from the swarm along the workbench and was coming toward them with a pair of spinglass sculptures in his hands. As usual, he was followed by the teeming Unu entourage. He stopped five paces away and stared at them expectantly, as though
he assumed they would cross the remaining distance to him.

When they did not, there was a moment of tense silence.

Finally, Han demanded, “What’s so important you couldn’t let us hit the refresher first?” He pulled at his dirty tunic. “We’re kind of ripe.”

Raynar’s scarred face seemed to harden. “We were worried you might be difficult to find later—if, for instance, you decided to get off this sponge before you ‘started glowing or something.’ ”

Luke dipped his head in acknowledgment. “You’ve been keeping tabs on us through our escort,” he said. “We thought as much. So you must also know we have no intention of leaving until
you
consider our promise kept.”

“I have heard.” Raynar’s rigid lips pressed into an awkward smirk; then he turned to Han. “We apologize if our summons seemed abrupt, but we wished to thank you and Master Skywalker for discovering the star amber cheats. Saras did not realize they were taking something so valuable.”

Raynar closed the last of the distance separating them, and Luke saw that the sculptures in his hands were spin-glass replicas of
Millennium Falcon
and a T-65 X-wing.

Raynar turned to Luke first and presented him with the X-wing. “Unu wanted you to be the first to have one of these. It is an exact copy of the fighter you were flying when you destroyed the original Death Star.”

More than a little stunned by the gesture, Luke accepted the sculpture with genuine gratitude. The piece was so intricately executed that Luke could identify both R2-D2 and the loose stabilizers the droid had been struggling to repair as he began the final assault run.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll treasure it.”

“It’s the first of a limited run commissioned by one of
our business partners in the Galactic Alliance,” Raynar said proudly. “Turn it over. It’s numbered and signed by the artist.”

Luke did as Raynar asked. Etched into the bottom was
SARAS
:
1/1,000,000,000.
SECOND MISTAKE ENTERPRISES
.

Luke nodded politely, then turned it back over. “I’m sure the line will be a great success.”

“We think so, too,” Raynar said. He turned to Han and gave him the replica of
Millennium Falcon
. “Also a first run.”

“Thanks. Real nice.” Han turned it over and inspected the artist’s signature. “Second Mistake Enterprises?” He frowned, then looked back to Raynar. “Your partners wouldn’t happen to be three Squibs named Sligh, Grees, and Emala?”

Raynar’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“Leia and I had some dealings with them, back before you were born,” Han said. Luke remembered something about a trio of Squibs being involved when
Killik Twilight
fell into Imperial hands during the war. “They’ve got a nose for fine artwork—supplied Thrawn for a while, as a matter of fact.”

Raynar’s voice grew suspicious. “Do not bother contacting them,” he warned. “Our agreement is exclusive.”

Han’s brow rose. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He nonchalantly passed the replica to C-3PO. “You guys were made for each other.”

“Good.” Raynar almost smiled. “They expect the value of the first pieces to grow exponentially. That’s why Unu wanted you and Master Skywalker to have these two replicas, as a reward for helping Saras catch the star amber cheat.”

“I appreciate it.” Han furrowed his brow and cast a questioning glance in Luke’s direction, then, when Luke
nodded, he continued, “But the guy Saras caught wasn’t exactly a cheat.”

“It was something of an inside job,” Luke added. “We’ll tell you about it later, but first—”

“Tell us about it now,” Raynar interrupted. “If you believe any of our transacting partners are not being honest with us, we wish to hear it.”

“Actually, it isn’t your partners,” Luke said. “The Dark Nest has been the one taking the star ambers.”

The Unu began to clack their mandibles, and Raynar lowered his melted brow. “The Neimoidian is a Joiner?”

“No,” Luke said. “We think—”

“We
know
,” Han corrected.

“It
looked
like the Neimoidian had a deal with Gorog,” Luke compromised. “He was trading reactor fuel and hyperdrive coolant to them.”

This drew a tumult of mandible clacking from Unu.

“Perhaps we were mistaken about the nature of the material,” C-3PO suggested quietly. “Unu seems quite amused by the idea that the Colony owns a reactor.”

“They wouldn’t know,” Han insisted. “Who can say what Gorog is hiding?”

“Of course we would know, Captain Solo! The Colony learns from its mistakes.” Raynar fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a calmer voice. “But we will discuss your idea while I show you our production facilities, if that will make you feel better.”

He extended a hand toward the furnaces.

Luke and Han exchanged glances. Luke said, “It might be better to do that—”

“Come!” Raynar insisted. “What are you afraid of? Killiks do not have accidents.”

Luke exhaled in frustration, but reluctantly nodded and led the others after Raynar toward the furnaces.

Their first stop was a large, semicircular basin. Dozens of huge-headed Saras were standing around the curved end on all sixes, spitting out long streams of sticky white fiber and using their mandibles to feed it into the tub. On the other side of the basin, a steady procession of workers was gathering up large bundles of the dried fiber and carrying it off toward the furnaces.

“This is the materials pit,” Raynar explained. He pointed at the spitting Killiks. “Saras’s spinners produce the raw spin, and the workers take it to the furnaces to be melted down.”

“Yeah, real interesting,” Han said. “But about that reactor—have you actually
been
to Gorog’s nest?”

Raynar’s reply was curt. “Of course not. Gorog keeps its nest secret.”

“Then you really can’t know whether they have a reactor, can you?” Luke asked, picking up on Han’s line of thought. “And it’s probably a pretty big one, too, judging by how much fuel the Neimoidian had with him.”

An uneasy murmur rolled through the Unu, then Raynar said, “If there was so much fuel, why didn’t Saras find any when they captured the Neimoidian?”

“Because the fuel went the same place as our landspeeder and the ‘Moid’s guards,” Han said. “The Fizz took it.”

“And that’s something we should discuss
now
.” Luke’s throat was aching from all the smoke and soot in the air; even without the Fizz, he would not have wanted to stay inside the building long enough for a complete tour. “The Fizz didn’t just bubble up when those fuel rods happened to be there. It was
attacking
them.”

Unu’s drumming grew more agitated.

“Now they don’t believe there ever was any fuel,”
C-3PO reported. “They’re accusing us of making up the whole story.”

Han rolled his eyes. “I knew this would happen.” He turned to Raynar. “Look, it’s been a long couple of days. If you don’t want to listen—”

“Hold on, Han,” Luke said. “We have evidence.”

Han frowned. “We do?”

Luke nodded. “Probably.” He turned to R2-D2. “Artoo, do you have a record of what happened in the forest?”

R2-D2 whistled a cheerful affirmative and began to project a hologram of the incident. The quality was not as good as what came out of a dedicated holopad, of course, but it was more than adequate to show the blue-black forms of several Gorog sneaking down a slope of hamogoni stumps. C-3PO’s voice came from R2-D2’s acoustic signaler, warning Luke and Han about the sneak attack. A pair of Gorog turned toward the holocam, and the scene grew confused as the battle played out.

A few moments later, it showed the Neimoidian smuggler fleeing his hoversled, while his Aqualish bodyguards remained behind, kneeling behind the barrels in the cargo bed and trading fire with Han and Luke. When one of the barrels suddenly rose and crashed back down, spilling its cargo, a murmur of surprise raced through the Unu entourage. R2-D2 added to the excitement by displaying a set of ionic-decay readings that left no doubt about the nature of the rods.

By the time the froth began to consume the rods a few minutes later, a stunned silence had fallen over Raynar and Unu. Luke waited until the Fizz had engulfed the hoversled, its cargo, and the Aqualish guards, then had R2-D2 shut down his holoprojector.

Raynar remained silent a long time, and even the cacophony inside the replica facility grew subdued. A stream
of orange slag began to shoot out of one furnace and disappear down a waste tube through the floor, and Han groaned and made a winding motion with his finger.

Luke signaled him to be patient. The froth had appeared very quickly after the reactor rods were exposed in the forest, but slag was not nearly as toxic as reactor rods—or even hyperdrive coolant. It would take a lot more slag to trigger the Fizz. So Luke hoped, anyway.

Finally, Raynar raised his gaze. “We thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

“Friends
should
be willing to tell each other difficult truths,” Luke said, feeling encouraged by Raynar’s reasonable tone. “It’s only a theory at this point. But if we’re right, the Fizz is going to keep attacking Saras.”

The pronouncement sent a peal of nervous drumming through Unu. Raynar’s eyes seemed to sink even deeper into their dark sockets, but he said, “Theory or not, we are listening.”

“Good.” Luke glanced down at R2-D2. “Start the holo where we left off.”

The droid reactivated his holoprojector. Unu crowded closer, the insects in back climbing onto the shoulders of those in front, and within moments they were towering over Luke and his companions in a great, teeming mass. Luke squatted down beside the holo and shifted the X-wing replica to one hand.

“Look how the Fizz is attacking the hoversled and the fuel, but not the hamogoni trunk.” He inserted his finger into the holo, pointing out the features as he named them, then moved to the stone foundation, where the Aqualish had collapsed. “The same here. It’s attacking the bodyguards, but not the stones they’re on.”

A low, chattery rustle rose from Unu, and Raynar asked,
“Are you saying that the Fizz does not attack anything native to Woteba?”

“Not quite,” Luke said. R2-D2 continued to run the holorecording, and the hoversled and Aqualish began to disintegrate beneath the Fizz. “I’m saying it only attacks things that harm Woteba.”

“And you think that is why the Fizz attacks us?” Raynar clarified. “Because we harm Woteba?”

“I think it attacks you
when
you harm Woteba,” Luke corrected. “As long as you aren’t hurting the environment, it remains inert.”

The last bits of the hoversled and the Aqualish vanished. The froth quickly subsided, leaving only piles of brown dirt behind, and the forest in the holorecording returned to stillness.

R2-D2 shut down his projector, and when Raynar and Unu
still
remained silent, Han couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well, that’s our theory, anyway,” he said. “There might be others that are just as good.”

This brought Raynar out of his silence. “It is not a bad theory,” he said. “It fits with what we have seen ourselves.”

Luke felt like an immense weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation—then a soft shudder, so faint it was barely perceptible, ran through Unu.

“Sometimes, Master Skywalker, we forget how clever you are.” Raynar raised his hand and shook the stump of a gloved index finger toward Luke. “But not today.”

“I don’t understand,” Luke said. Alarmed by Raynar’s sudden hostility, he quieted himself inside and began to concentrate on the Force itself, on its liquid grasp, on its ripples lapping him from all sides. “You saw Artoo-Detoo’s holo.”

“We will not let you say we brought this on ourselves,” Raynar said. “We
know
who is responsible.”

“Not the Jedi,” Luke said. It wasn’t easy to match all the different ripples in the Force to an individual source—not with Saras and Unu obscuring the picture with their own hazy presences. “I promise you that.”

The Unu mass began to disassemble itself and drop to the floor.

“Uh, maybe we should just forget the tour.” Han began to ease toward the exit. “Thanks for the ship models. Really.”

But Luke was not ready to give up. A familiar prickling had begun to rise between his shoulder blades, and he knew the Dark Nest was watching from the shadows, quietly reaching out to Raynar, carefully distorting the facts to put the Jedi in a bad light. Luke did not fight back. Instead he accepted his growing feeling of unease, allowing it to build into a chill along his entire spine, until the feeling had grown strong enough for him to have some sense of its source.