The Han Solo Adventures Part 24

When a distant thunder reached his sharp ears, his head snapped up at once. The grazers, so quiescent and unthreatening a moment before, were now in stampede. So far, they were sweeping wide of the Falcon, but the herd began ranging out, the front of the stampede widening as Chewbacca watched, becoming a sea of s.h.a.ggy backs and a forest of antlers. The soarers were making sweeping dives in along the leading edge of the stampede, emitting eerie wailing sounds.

The Wookiee wasted no time speculating on whether the flying things had started the stampede with air attacks to cut out weaker or slower grazers. s.n.a.t.c.hing up his equipment, he took in the surrounding terrain, searching for some shelter. More grazers were galloping up from the lower slopes and the stampede gained momentum every second. The animals were no longer lumbering, clumsy shufflers; in flight, they were six-legged powerhouses, the smallest adult among them weighing four times what the Wookiee did, traveling at high speed with the formidable impetus of fright.

But the narrow pa.s.s was already choked with struggling grazers, and as Chewbacca watched, the excess began to mill in a tossing of antlers and fill the lower valley. He put down his equipment and prepared to run, only to discover that he was already cut off. The grazers were flowing around the high point he had selected, avoiding its steep incline on their way to the lower valley.

A quick glance told him that the beasts were still avoiding the unfamiliar bulk of the Millennium Falcon, but if the backup from the pa.s.s reached that far, their reticence could change. The Wookiee hoped that Spray would have the sense to use the disabled stars.h.i.+p's weaponry to keep the animals from damaging her further. By that time, of course, the grazers would be all over the ridge; they would start forging up the steeper slopes as soon as the pressure of the bottled herd grew great enough.

He held his bowcaster and took stock of his situation as objectively as he could, observing the animals below and the terrain around him. At length he decided that to try to work his way through the herd or even run with them would be suicide; they were aroused and in panic now and would be quick to attack any outsider among them. On the other hand- He broke off in midthought as a shadow pa.s.sed over him and a wailing cry warned him. He hit the ground rolling, clutching his weapon to him. Broad wings hissed through the air over him and sharp claws closed on nothing. The soarer swept onward, leaving a carrion reek in the air, screaming its frustration. A second, behind it, tried a swoop of its own.

The Wookiee came up onto one knee and threw his bowcaster up to his shoulder, lacking time to focus through the weapon's scope. There was the high tw.a.n.g of the bow, a simultaneous detonation as the explosive quarrel crumpled the soarer's wingtip. The flier veered, crippled.

Chewbacca fell backward, jacking the foregrip of his bowcaster to rec.o.c.k it and strip another round off its magazine. He got two more shots into the predatory flier as it half-fell, half-flew past him, putting yawning wounds in its rib cage.

The creature tumbled, dead on the wing. It came down among the stampeding grazers and in a moment was gone from view, trampled into a shapeless ma.s.s by hundreds of hooves. Another soarer had glided in, sheered off when it heard the explosive quarrels and come around for another pa.s.s.

Chewbacca realized now why the soarers had come together in such numbers for the migration of grazers. The stampede through the wild mountain country would inevitably produce casualties, leave behind the weak or injured and, too, strand refugees like himself, ripe pickings for the airborne pack. The soarers' primitive brains had recognized the chance for a feast.

The Wookiee brought up his bowcaster again and carefully sighted on the oncoming soarer. It stooped for him, claws open, long, narrow beak wide with its cry. He centered it precisely in his scope and fired directly into the gaping maw. The top of its boney skull disappeared and it nosed down at once, plowing into the ground. He had to jump back out of the way as the soarer's corpse, seeming to collapse in on itself, slid to a stop where he had stood.

With two of their number down, the soarers were more cautious about approaching the ridge. They tilted membranous wings and put distance between themselves and whatever mysterious thing had killed their companions, searching all the while for more approachable prey. Chewbacca stole a look back down at the valley.

The press of grazers at the pa.s.s was backing up toward him quickly. Even now a few of the beasts were pausing to mill around the lower part of the ridge. The Wookiee fired several rounds into the ground there, blowing showers of soil and rock into the air and sending off the terrified, bellowing grazers. But the swirl of the backlogged stampede moved more animals in toward the ridge again; they were too scared and too stupid to notice the cause of the explosions of a moment before. He would never hold them back, even if he had unlimited ammunition.

A tremendous racket, rising over the cannonading hooves, came from the Millennium Falcon. It was the s.h.i.+p's distress signals-hooters and klaxons combined with flas.h.i.+ng lights, designed to attract the attention of searchers in case of crash or emergency landing. Apparently the grazers had begun to get too close to the s.h.i.+p, and Spray had resorted to this to save her. It was good thinking on the skip-tracer's part, but Chewbacca knew he could look for little else in the way of help. He doubted if even the stars.h.i.+p's guns could clear a secure path through the ma.s.sed herd.

A soarer's cry sounded and he spied the creature rising from the cliff across the valley, bearing what looked like a stunned or injured grazer calf. The Wookiee growled an imprecation at the flier and wished for a second that he, too, had wings. Then he shook his fist in the air and bellowed wildly, for a mad inspiration worthy of Han Solo had just struck him.

As he worked out details, he slung his bowcaster and began rummaging through the equipment he had brought. First, the tripod. He clamped all three legs under his arm and got a firm grip on its mounting plate. Cords of muscle swelled in his arms and paws, and he gritted his fierce teeth in exertion. Slowly, he put the needed crease into the tough metal of the plate.

When he was satisfied, he put down the tripod and began to work furiously, casting occasional glances down to the growing turmoil in the valley as it surged toward his high ground. He had, he believed, the tools and materials he required; time was another question entirely.

He threw the downed soarer's carca.s.s over onto its back without trouble; its bones were hollow and it had, for all its size, evolved for minimum weight. He jammed the bent mounting plate up under its chin, ignoring the ruin of its gaping skull, and fixed it there with a retainer from his tool roll, turning its screw down as tightly as he could without crus.h.i.+ng the bone.

He spread two of the tripod's legs, extending them to maximum length, and lay them out along each wing. He curled the leading edge of the wings over the tripod legs and wrapped them two full turns at the tips, exerting his strength against the resistance of the wing cartilage. There was barely any fold at all near the wing joints, but it would have to serve. He had only eight clamps in his carryall pouch; four for each wing had better be enough. He tightened them down quickly to hold the tripod legs in place within the folds of the wing edges.

Stopping to check, he saw that the grazers were already thronging on the lower slopes of his high ground, packed tightly together, antlers swaying and flas.h.i.+ng. He applied himself to his task with redoubled energy.

He drew the central tripod leg out along the soarer's body as a longitudinal axis. The creature was an efficient glider, but its breast lacked the prominent keel to which flight muscles are attached in birds, and that made fastening a problem. He settled, after no more than a few seconds' thought, on a row of ring-fasteners punched through the skin and pa.s.sed around the creature's slender sternum. Fortunately, it had no more than a vestigial tail. He swallowed and tried to ignore its nauseating odor as he worked.

Then came his worst problem, a kingpost. Taking one of the bracing members he had brought, he thrust it up directly through the soarer's body next to the sternum, to stand a meter and a half out its back, and made it fast to the longitudinal axis. Then he fit the longest brace he had across the juncture, securing it to the other two tripod legs as a lateral axis. He didn't fret over the various vile substances now leaking out of the soarer; that decreased the weight, which could only help.

He spent a frantic several minutes cutting and fitting cable, with no time to measure or experiment, connecting wingtips, tail, and beak to the tip of the kingpost.

He had to pause when a group of grazers breasted the ridge, wild-eyed and quick to swing their antlers in his direction. He jammed a new magazine into his bowcaster and emptied it into the ground, filling the air with explosions that could be heard over the countless hoof-falls in the valley, driving the animals back down for the time being. But the valley was now filled and there would be no room for them below, he knew; it was only a matter of moments before a major part of the stampede covered the high ground and engulfed the Wookiee.

The soarer's grasping legs probably hadn't given it very good locomotion, but they made a plausible control bar once Chewbacca had stiffened them with supports, wired the claws together, and braced the shoulders with ground spikes. Then they, too, were cabled to wingtips, nose, and vestigial tail. The Wookiee dashed around the soarer's body, tightening down turnbuckles with no more than a hasty guess at the tension needed.

He heaved, thews bulging under his pelt, and lifted the animal framework, gazing down and hoping the stampede had receded and that he would be spared the necessity of testing his handiwork.

It hadn't; grazers were literally being borne up toward him by the pressure of those below. Another barrage from the bowcaster only made them fall back for a moment; the tightly packed bodies came at him again.

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 carca.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 makes.h.i.+ft 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 pa.s.sed it now, and the freighter seemed to be intact. But his makes.h.i.+ft 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 att.i.tude, 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 carca.s.s 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 cus.h.i.+ony 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 sh.o.r.e, Chewbacca decided he felt exactly the same way about the sky.

XI.

"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 s.h.i.+ps 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 nonent.i.ty, 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 s.h.i.+ps without concerning ourselves with their use. Zlarb and his a.s.sociates 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 finis.h.i.+ng loading the lifeboat with guidance components-s.h.i.+elded circuitry rather than those d.a.m.ned 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 bypa.s.sed the s.p.a.ceport."

"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 s.p.a.cer'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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ceport, 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 scouts.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ceport's detectors. "We know the course Chewie was on when he pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

Spray, the skip-tracer, wound his sinuous body through the chilly water, fully at home, indulging in aquabatics and playful zigzags for the sheer joy of it, his tapered tail and webbed paws driving and guiding him with grace and power, his nostrils clenched shut tightly. The clear water in this small mountaintop lake, fed by underground springs and runoff, was cold even by Spray's standards, but his pelt kept him comfortable enough for short swims. As a youth, he had swum in much colder water, but he hadn't had the leisure for much swimming in a long time.

At last the Tynnan saw what he was looking for, one of the multilegged crustaceans that made its home in the lake's bottom. Spray was a bit short on air, having been frolicking when he should have been searching, he realized a little guiltily. He put on a burst of speed, hoping to catch the creature without a prolonged chase.

The crustacean didn't sense Spray's shadow or the pressure-wave he threw out before him until it was too late. It had barely begun to pick up speed when Spray seized it from behind-carefully, to avoid the pincers and walking legs. The velocity of his dive carried him down nearer the lake's bottom where, to his great surprise, his shadow scared up a second crustacean.

With a happy burble at the thought of the good lunch he would provide, Spray struck and doubled his catch for the day. When his air supply approached its limit, Spray headed for the lake's surface. He broke through with a happy squeal, spitting a jet of water high into the air and filling his lungs again.

He held his catch over his head, treading water and waving the crustaceans at Chewbacca, who stood on the sh.o.r.e. The Wookiee woofed happily and hungrily and waved back. By the time Spray was wading ash.o.r.e, the Falcon's first mate was already knee-deep in the cold water, holding an empty toolbag wide open. Spray dropped his prizes into the bag gingerly, and Chewbacca shut it at once; he ruffled the skiptracer's furry head in approval. "You came along at just the right moment," said the Tynnan.

The freighter's rations had been all but depleted when Chewbacca had set her down, and no grazers had come near since the stampede. But Spray's skill had kept them fed, and they had split their tasks-Chewbacca staying busy with repairs and Spray taking on the job of meal procurement. Now they turned back for the half-kilometer trudge to the grounded stars.h.i.+p. Water was already bubbling in an old inducer cowling that Spray had set over a thermal coil at the ramp's foot.

Their contemplation of a tasty meal was broken when Spray's head perked up, his ears swinging this way and that. Chewbacca craned at the sky and pointed, woofing an exclamation. A small boat or large gravsled had just crested the ridge and was now dropping in directly toward them.

The Wookiee pressed the toolbag into Spray's hands, leaving his own free to unsling his bowcaster. Not that the weapons would be much good against an aircraft, he reminded himself, as there was no cover near them. Luckily, Spray had the sense to imitate Chewbacca in remaining perfectly still. He realized that movement, more than anything else, would attract the attention of the airborne observer.

The boat pa.s.sed over them, but even as it did, Chewbacca could hear the strain of its steering thrusters as its pilot came about for another pa.s.s. He pivoted, watching, then barked and roared with pleasure. On its second pa.s.s the boat waggled and went into a barrel roll. It could only be Han Solo.

Chewbacca plunged through the snow toward the freighter, yowling at the top of his lungs, making the shallow valley echo. Spray, clutching the writhing toolbag to his chest, followed in the Wookiee's wake as best he could.

When the lifeboat had settled next to the Falcon, its lock opened and Han jumped out. Chewbacca raced to him, kicking up an aftermath of churned snow, and began pounding his friend on the back and howling his delight across the valley from time to time. When the first wave of joy had pa.s.sed, the Wookiee noticed Fiolla at the boat's hatch. He plucked her down and whirled her around in a carefully restrained hug, then set her on her feet.

Last to descend was Bollux. To him Chewbacca extended a friendly growl but withheld a helping paw, not wanting to imply that the 'droid needed a.s.sistance. A rumble of inquiry from the Wookiee and a thumb indicating Bollux's chest panels brought a.s.surances that Blue Max, too, was present.