"From what the children said about the voice resembling their father's, I think it is highly likely that the speaker was indeed Thrackan sal-solo. Let us suppose it was. Suppose he was handed a script and told to read it, without being told what it was about.

Perhaps the authors of that message wanted someone with a Corellian accent. Perhaps they wanted Thrackan's voice so that when Thrackan did reveal himself, they would be linked with him. Perhaps he just happened to be handy when they wanted the words read.

"In any event, the message was recorded. If Mara Jade was not part of the plot, then it could have been recorded no more recently than about three weeks ago, when it came into Jade's possession. Of course, if she is part of the plot, it could have been recorded at any time up to the moment leia Organa Solo opened the message cube. But let us a.s.sume Jade is n0t involved. In that case, the message could have been taped months, even years, before."

"What of it?" Marcha asked.

"Then all is explained. Let me tell you a tale, if you will. I think something like this happened sal-solo is approached by the senders of the first message, for whatever reason. My guess is that he was involved in some aspect of the plot, and they wanted a Corellian voice.

"However the details work, he reads the spoken message, and then, somehow, learns the content of the written messageH) r, at least, learned of the starbuster plot.

And he decides to invent his own piggyback conspiracy.

He knows when the message is going to be delivered, or at least can learn when it has been. All he has to do is watch for Mara Jade to arrive and contact leia Organa Solo. He immediately puts his own plan for an uprising into effect. He makes his broadcast claiming he controls the starbuster, and then activates the jamming and interdiction field."

Aunt Marcha shook her head. "I can go with you part of the way, but not the whole distance. What of the simultaneous revolts on the other worlds? Your theory requires either sal-solo to mastermind antihuman revolts, or else an astonishing degree of coincidence.

From what we know of it, the Human League does not sound like the sort of operation that can operate a ma.s.sively powerful jamming system, let alone develop superweapons like the systemize interdiction-field generator or the starbuster. Besides, if you give the jamming and the interdiction system to Thrackan, you have two shadowy organizations capable of developing technology. Make him nothing but a messenger boy and a powerless malcontent, and the plot only needs one."

Ebrihim thought for a moment. "Will you let him control the jamming system? It is a brute-force sort of technology and does not require any new invention. I think I can make a case that Thrackan did that much."

Aunt Marcha nodded cautiously. "I suppose," she said. "See if you can convince me."

"Thank you. Let's see if I can present a revised scenario."

Ebrihim paused for a moment and thought it through before he spoke.

"Thrackan sal-solo's group is a.s.signed to deliver the message before the nova explosion, thereby proving the authors of the message could blow up stars at will. Either by chance or by choice, SaleSolo's people bungle that a.s.signment, so that it arrives after the star has detonated. sal-solo's people are also instructed to report to their masters when the message reaches leia Organa Solo, as that will be the cue for all the revolts to take place. leia Organa Solo gets the message, and the orders to start the revolutions go out.

"What the masterminds of the plot intended was for the interdiction field to be activated, trapping the New Republic's Chief of State in-system, and preventing the New Republic from interfering.

However, communications were to be left open so that negotiations could take place-after the entire system erupted in chaos, with the masterminds' lackeys, recruited from among local hotheads and malcontents, overthrowing the various planetary governments.

The masterminds would then negotiate with the New Republic government, destroying one star after another until they got what they wanted. The masterminds would then control the Corel1jan planetary system, and thus the Corellian Sector, with their lackeys in control of the planets.

"Except Thrackan sal-solo double-crosses his masters. He starts his revolt, but then broadcasts his message, falsely taking credit for the starbuster-and then jams all communications so that the masterminds of the plot cannot respond. He either seizes control of the interdiction generator, or else simply prevents the masterminds from getting to it and shutting it off.

"Having created chaos, he then exploits it. Perhaps he plans to grab the Corellian system for himself, before the masterminds of the plot can respond. He cannot keep up the jamming forever, and sooner or later the interdiction field must come down. But by the time they are shut down, by the time the smoke clears, he will be in command of the entire Corellian planetary system."

The d.u.c.h.ess looked at her nephew unhappily. "I must concede that you have offered a convincing theory," she said. "But it is, unfortunately, a most dis LUUTSM I turbing one. If you are correct, then the conspirators have already fallen out with each other and are fighting among themselves."

"Unfortunately, even if my hypothesis is correct-and I believe it is at least close to the truth-we do not have the whole story," said Ebrihim. "None of it explains what it was that the children found in that chamberr why the Human League seemed to be searching desperately for it, or what if any connection any of this has to the archaeological dig here on Drall."

"I think there is the closest of connections," Marcha replied.

"Based on Q9's imagery, and what I have heard about the dig here, I would say the two sites are all but identical, the only difference being that perhaps more of the installation has been excavated on Corellia I have a pretty fair idea what the children found, and I suspect an identical chamber can be found in the archaeological site here on Drall. But we have to find it first, and for that I am afraid we are going to need help from the childrenr at least from Anakin."

Ebrihim looked at his aunt. "I a.s.sure you, if you need Anakin, you need all three of them. The two older ones seem to be taking their responsibilities toward him very seriously indeed in the past few days.

Beyond which, they seem to be the only ones who can get him to do anything.

"I see. I must say that doesn't surprise me. Be that as it may, I intend to take the children to the dig here, and let Anakin see if he can find a similar chamber. There will be some slight risk involved.

Do you think the children will be willing to cooperate?"

"I would expect so. Human children tend not to worry as much as they should. But that is not the issue.

You are on shaky ethical ground in asking children to a.s.sist in a risky enterprise, and they are far too young to judge the balance of risks and benefits. They a, re well below the age of informed consent for humans.

The d.u.c.h.ess Marcha looked over the list of star coordinates Anakin had written. A list of stars in an oddly precise child's hand, a list of stars with planets full of people. A list of stars that someone had marked down for destruction. "I do not relish the thought of using children," she said, "but I do not see that we have a choice."

Tendra Risant satin the pilot's chair of the Gentleman Caller rigidly alert, trying to watch every instrument at once. She was near, very near, to the edge of the Corellian interdiction field, and did not quite know what to do. "Near" was a relative term. She knew she was approximately at the edge of the field, but the information she had been able to buy concerning the Corellian Field was vague in the extreme. She might be right on top of it, or she might have another billion kilometers to go. In theory, there was nothing preventing her from dropping out of hypers.p.a.ce deliberately, here and now, and sailing toward Corellia in normal s.p.a.ce. But suppose she was a billion kilometers off? That would add another week or ten days to her transit time, and after only a few days aboard the Gent, she was quite certain she did not want to extend the trip if she could help it.

No, she would stay in hypers.p.a.ce as long as she could, and let the interdiction field knock her back into normalWHAM!

The Gentleman Caller shuddered from stem to stern as the ship was thrown out of hypers.p.a.ce into the universe proper. The viewports flared with a tangled crazyquilt of jumbled star lines, and every alarm in the ship went off at once. Tendra, very much a greenhorn pilot, panicked for a moment and froze up as the lights cut out and the ship started pinwheeling across the darkness. Then she snapped herself out of it, and reached out for the manual hyperdrive cutoff switch.

Half the alarms cut out as soon as the hyperdrive went off-line, and was no longer trying to hold the ship in hypers.p.a.ce. With any luck, she had cut the drive off before it could burn out. Not that it would matter anytime soon, of course. She hit the resets on the other alarms and set to work regaining att.i.tude control of the tumbling ship.

No rush on that, in practical terms, of course, but it was more than a little disconcerting to see the entire universe tumbling past the viewports in all directions.

Besides, she wanted the view steadied down enough so she could see where she was going.

There. There it was. Still distant enough that it did not show a disk. There, the close, bright star. That was Corell, the star that shone on Corellia It might take her a while to get there, but she was on her way. Well on her way.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Under the Iceberg an had lost all track of time.

On and on through the scarlet-lit tunnels they went, moving at a snail's pace. There was something indefinably old about the tunnels, something that, in spite of the fact that all were dry, well-made, well-kept, told Han they had been here a long time. Well, why not?

There had been Selonians on-and more to the point, inCorellia for untold thousands of years, and a tunnel, once dug, had a tendency to remain where it was. There must have been thousands of kilometers of tunnel under the surface in the capital region alone.

Han, however, would have been just as pleased if they had built fewer tunnels but made them bigger. Now and again his wish came true, and they would come to a larger pa.s.sage, sometimes merely wide enough for two Selonians to walk side by side, sometimes a vast artificial cavern hundreds of meters across, all of it lit in that same dark, lurid red.

Han was glad to see any such place, so long as the ceiling was high enough for him to stand uprightyen if he was no longer capable of standing. The endless hours of crawling in the cramped 197 tunnels had left him hunched over, his back aching, his knees so bashed and battered and sore he could barely straighten them. But even tottering along stiff-legged, with stabbing pains shooting through his back, was preferable to crawling through the low tunnels.

Nor was there anything private about his ordeal.

There were plenty of folks in the audience. Any chamber large enough to hold large numbers of Selonians was doing exactly that.

There were dozens of them, hundreds of them, everywhere, busily working on bits of machinery Han could not quite identify, carrying things back and forth, talking and arguing and shouting and laughing in both the standard Selonian Han had learned and the whistles-and-hoots language he had first heard in the tunnel.

It was plainly time to start wondering just how standard "standard"

Selonian was.

Everywhere he went, they all watched him, all eyes locked on the strange apparition from the upper world.

In the more crowded chambers, they did their best to steer clear of him-whether out of fear or disgust or respect, or simply because they were ordered to do so, he had no idea. Once or twice he was jostled as some Selonian on an urgent errand failed to look where he was going.

Han didn't mind that so much. It made him feel as if he were really there. He even almost didn't mind the staring from all corners.

He could sympathize with it.

After all, Han was, if anyone ever had been, a born tourist. Even in the midst of his misery, he was determinedly struggling to see all he could see, knowing full well what a rare privilege it was.

He even caught a glimpse of the other castes, the breeder males and femalesr at least he thought he did. In one large chamber he pa.s.sed through, he saw four or five larger, plumper-looking Selonians off to one side, and they seemed to have a great number of attendants fussing over them. And yet there was nothing the least bit servile about the attention being paid to the plump Selonians. Instead, there was something impersonal and cold-bloodedly efficient about it all.

Han saw one attendant bring a plate of food to the breeders-but there was no ceremony about it, nothing at all fancy about the meal.

Somehow it looked more like a farmer bringing feed to the cattle, rather than a servant catering to royalty.

He gradually became aware of a faint, spicy scent in the tunnels, not unpleasant, but sharp and tangy. It was the fragrance of many Selonians together in one place.

Han found it soothing, comforting somehow.

Han had never had the slightest idea that the Selonian tunnels were so extensive. Growing up, he had had some vague notion that the Selonians liked to live underground, but somehow that had always been presented as some part of the primitive past, something that had happened long ago.

Modern, urban, civilized Selonians didn't live in tunnels under the ground. They lived in nice, normal houses and apartments, the way humans did, the normal way.

It was beginning to sink in with Han that the Selonians humans saw in the cities were but the tip of the iceberg, especially trained for the task of dealing with outsiders. And it was getting more and more obvious that they were mere window dressing, carefully trained to make humans comfortable, to make Selonians seem less alien, less strange to them.

There had always been some sort of half-awareness on his part that the old ways of dens and septs and underground pa.s.sages still lived on, but he had always thought that such things were vestiges of the past, unimportant in the modern day of Selonian life. He was beginning to understand that it was the modern ways that were unimportant.

He was seeing things that he never knew existed, and yet, clearly, they had been part of the world he had grown up on, part of the world he called home. Just how His -'n- 2U1 blind had he been, had all humans on Corellia been, to the true nature of Selonian culture? And what of the Drall? Could it be that they had secrets just as deep?

Han had gotten that far in his thinking when they came Out of a particularly tight crawlway tunnel and into a huge chamber, easily twice the size of anything Han had seen so far. It was something close to the size of an underground town, and a crowded one at that.

There was something frantic in the air of the placequite literally so. That spicy aroma of many Selonians was there again, stronger than ever. There was a strange bite to the scent, a tang of what could only be fearsweat.

Han followed Dracmus out of the tiny side tunnel and climbed painfully to his feet. It seemed as if every square centimeter of his body had its own special ache or sore or twinge. He still hadn't gotten completely over the pasting Dracmus had given him for Thrackan '5 amus.e.m.e.nt. That had only been a few days ago, and yet somehow it seemed a half a lifetime at least. Those injuries would have been hard enough to get over without the further punishment of the trip through the Selonian tunnels. It was something of a wonder he could even move at all.

But in spite of all, it was, undeniably, a pleasure to stand up straight again. He pulled himself fully erect-and suddenly changed his mind as shooting pains stabbed down his back. It was not so much of a pleasure after all.

But there was more going on here than an aching back. He looked around himself. He noticed that there seemed to be a number of badly injured Selonians in the throng, several of them laid out on stretchers.

Some wore b.l.o.o.d.y bandages, and under the general hubbub of crowd noises, Han could hear a high-pitched keening, a sound of pain and fear, someone unseen crying out, a cry that was past all hope of help or relief, a mourning call of loss and sorrow. Even those who seemed uninjured looked lost, arraid, gaunt, sh.e.l.l-shocked.

"Who are they?" Han asked.

"Refugees," Dracmus said, her voice hard-edged and angry. No matter what orders she had about answering questions, she could not restrain herself. "Refugees of the making of your cousin Sal-Solo and his Human League. Their surface homes burned, gas bombs in their tunnels. Chased and hunted and shot at. The main transit ways clogged with more of them, and all other transit must take the backways, the small tunnels.

"We fought back when we could, but the Human League had numbers and weapons and surprise. So we flee, we retreat, we hide. Supplies ruined or far away, and there is nothing we can use to help them. No bandages, no medicine, not even any food. We can get none of these, because the Human League blocks our access.

My people suffer because Thrackan Sal-Solo, a human of your blood, says they must, and for no reason other."

Han wanted to protest, to say again that it was not his fault, that Thrackan was Han's enemy as much as Dracmus's. But then he realized that it was not true.

Thrackan Sal-Solo was never going to hunt down all the members of Han's family for the crime of being human, or demand they all be ejected from the planet of their birth to make room for another race.

Han tried to look at the situation the way Dracmus did. Selonian family relationships were irrevocable in ways human relationships were not. You were born into your sept, your clan, and there was no way outH) r even any thought that there could be any way out. You were part of the whole in ways that humans never were. The clan, the sept, the den moved as one. A sept-sister would no more act against the sept than a person's hand would try to wrap itself around its owner's neck and strangle her.

In Selonian eyes, Han was a part of the whole of his cousin's family. If the misery before him was the treatment a member of his family offered to Selonians, Han was starting to understand why the Selonians distrusted him so much.

Actually, the only surprising thing was that they had not killed him yet. He just hoped the operative word wasn't "yet."

"Come, honored Solo," said Dracmus. "We must keep moving. The end is near, but time is short."

The end is near? There was a phrase with unpleasant connotations.

Han didn't even dare ask what it meant.

The other statements, though- "Moving to where?"

Han asked as he struggled forward. Even standing still for that short a time had left him stiff and tired. "Time is short until what?"

The expression on her face was unreadable, even for a Selonian.

"I have said too much already," she replied.

"Come now."

Han stumbled forward, following Dracmus through the tumult of the huge chamber.

Luke Skywalker stepped into the courtyard gardens of Gaeriel Captison's home, and sat quietly on the bench that faced the marker-stone. Beneath it, as he had learned, were the ashes of Pter Thanas, Gaeriel's dead husband. It was hard for him not to look at that stone, hard to avoid thinking about that man it remembered A good man, and by all accounts, a good husband for Gaeriel.

But that husband had not been Luke Skywalker.

There. There it was. That was the one thing he had found hardest to face. Another man had been to her what he might have been, perhaps would have been if fate had molded events differently.

But events had been as they were. There was nothing to be done about it. Now, on the morning of leavetaking, it was time to accept things as they were, and move on. The Corellian Sector, his sister, 'his family, were in trouble. He had to worry about them, not about might-have-beens.

Leaving the past behind, however, would not be quite so easy. Not this morning. He heard a sound behind him, stood up, and turned around.

There they were, coming down the rear stairs. Gaeriel.

Gaeriel and her daughter, Malinza.

The little girl had luxuriant black hair, and wore it in long tresses that hung down her back. She was paleskinned with serious-looking brown eyes. Mother and child were both wearing long white robes, quite plain and undecorated. Gaeriel was coming down the stairs at a slow, dignified pace, but Malinza was making a game of it, hopping down the stairs one step at a time, and singing a little song to herself.

Luke walked toward them and met them at the bottom of the stairs.