Star Wars: A Forest Apart Page 7

  Leia waited until he had stopped speaking, then asked, “Are you finished?”

  “Yeah. It’s not that complicated.”

  “I agree,” Leia said. “Because I’m sure I remember you telling me you could live without children. That’s very clear in my mind.”

  Han shrugged. “I like being married. Maybe that’s changed my thinking about kids.” He lowered his gaze and stared into the dark ale in his mug. “I didn’t realize how much I’d love this—being a family, I mean. I keep wondering what it would be like to shape a kid’s life, to give him a safe place to grow up.”

  “Like the home you never had,” Leia said.

  “Yeah, like that,” Han admitted. He had seen Leia take control of difficult negotiations often enough to know when she was trying to avoid the subject. “But you still haven’t answered me about Ta’Chume and Isolder. When were you going to tell them you didn’t want children?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe never.” Han was not bitter about the suggestion; he was just trying to point out to Leia that there were some circumstances in which she might have had children. “Maybe you’d have risked it for the New Republic.”

  “I would have told them.” Leia raised her chin. “With the power of the Hapes Consortium behind it, any child of mine would be more likely to become the thing I feared, not less.”

  Han’s scowl was thwarted by the fang dentures of his Devaronian disguise. “Ta’a Chume would never have agreed to that.”

  Leia flashed him a typically sad Twi’lek smile. “Maybe that’s why I wasn’t so worried when the Hapans came to visit.”

  Half a standard hour later, Han and Leia sat behind the mirrfield wall of one of the performance hall’s private booths, watching the main floor fill with spectators and bidders. Everything had the sound of money: the nervous laughter that rang like clinking credits, the electric babble that rose and fell with the familiar rhythm of market-day bartering all over the galaxy, the voices of bartenders and waitresses selling eyeblasters and pallies at prices ten times normal.

  The Imperial watch commander stood in front of the primary stage, where the auction would take place. His science officer companion was gone, replaced by two burly bodyguards in full dress uniform. They were the only beings in the room with more elbow room than they really needed.

  Han could see Grees, Sligh, and Emala pushing through the packed performance hall, approaching likely-looking Twilight bidders on the pretext of offering them inside information on the auction merchandise. There were a few takers, and these the Squibs offered a thinly disguised sales pitch for their own wares. Sometimes the buyers paid for the advice and sometimes they didn’t, but the trio never wasted more than a few moments quarreling before they moved to the next prospect.

  They worked hardest trying to sell those who dismissed them most quickly, spending as much as three minutes arguing while they quietly assessed the competition. There were a few social climbers hoping to land a steal because the auction was being held on Tatooine, but most bidders were thuggish, hired more to protect the fund transfer chips they were carrying—a requirement of purchase—than for their expertise as auction agents. Once, Han caught a glimpse of Emala quietly slipping a vibroblade out of a hidden boot sheath while Grees and Slight kept the weapon’s Aqualish owner occupied with a sales pitch.

  “Those Squibs are good—maybe too good,” Leia said. She was sitting beside Han at the booth’s plastoid cocktail table, slumped down on an overstuffed wraparound lounger that would abide no other posture. “Are you sure we can afford that deal we struck?”

  “It’s under control.”

  Leia looked doubtful, the sensors in the base of her false lekku reacting to her mood and causing the tentacles to writhe in short, tightly spaced waves. “You know they have something planned.”

  “Yeah, but we have a Wookiee.”

  Han tipped his counterfeit horns toward Chewbacca, who was out in the theater enduring Sligh’s sales pitch as they tried to size him up. He had dyed a red streak over his shoulder; a Wookiee could do little to disguise himself except change his markings. Chewbacca endured no more than five seconds of the Squibs’ harangue, then bared his fangs and raised a foot, sending all three scrambling for cover.

  “See? No problem.”

  C-3PO, whose disguise consisted of a false green patina, watched the exchange from several meters away. He started to push through the crowd, politely asking permission and excusing himself each time he eased past someone.

  Leia activated her comlink and opened a channel to the droid. “What are you doing?”

  C-3PO raised his own comlink. “They appear to need a translator. I was going to offer my—”

  “No,” Leia said. “Leave them alone.”

  C-3PO stopped, but did not lower his comlink. “Are you quite certain? The Squibs are trying to be helpful, and it sounds as though they have some interesting infor—”

  “No,” Han said, speaking into Leia’s comlink—and praying the Squibs were too frightened of Chewbacca to notice the droid approaching. “Just do your job.”

  C-3PO fell silent for precisely one second—the electronic equivalent of a sigh—then rotated his head toward Han and Leia’s booth, practically shouting the location of his owners to any careful observer.

  “As you wish.”

  Leia deactivated her comlink and rolled her eyes. “You’re sure about this?”

  Han shrugged. “What could go wrong?”

  They spent the next few minutes trying to pick out the watch commander’s backup. It was not difficult. Predictably, they had stationed themselves in pairs on opposite sides of the chamber, wearing nondescript tunics and dreary business tabards in a crowd that favored parvenu-flamboyant, thug-crass, or Tatooine-tattered. Seeming to sense the essential wrongness of these people, the spectators and bidders alike remained well apart, with the result that the Imperials stood out like rancors in a nerf pen. It was all much too obvious, and it took the next half hour to find the rest of the bodyguards, a dozen men and women scattered through the room in the garb of well-groomed ruffians or overmuscled natives.

  Han also found the black-haired man who had tried to sell them the holocube of the boy Podracer, standing not too far from the Imperial commander at the front of the crowd. He was half turned, studying the room, not quite searching for someone in particular, but taking note of whom he did and didn’t see. Han was still bothered by the way the man had focused on Leia during the pre-auction inspection, by how he had seemed so certain she would be drawn to the holocube, and—most especially—by how right he had been.

  Precisely on the hour, a stout human woman with pale skin and almond eyes and a long tail of braided black hair stepped through the holographic cityscape at the back of the stage. She waited for the room to quiet, then glided forward in a slinky stride that had lost none of its poise or grace despite the forty kilograms she had added since her dancing days. In a voice roughened by hubba smoke, she welcomed the bidders to the auction and introduced herself as Mawbo Kem, drawing a laugh by commenting that of course the males in the audience knew that already.

  When the theater grew quiet again, Mawbo announced that she would start the auction with a bang. Exactly on cue, the four-armed Codru-Ji who had served Han and Leia earlier stepped forward with the day’s first offering cradled in her four hands. An instant later, a giant hologram of the featured item appeared beneath the ceiling. To Han’s surprise, it was the holocube of the young Podracer.

  Several offworlders began to boo and hiss. The locals shouted them down and cheered even more loudly, and almost instantly the theater erupted into a tumult of cheering and jeering a little too heartfelt to be good-natured.

  Ever the consummate show-woman, Mawbo remained silent, allowing the cacophony to build and add energy to the auction.

  A single muffled click sounded from the comlink in Han’s pocket: Sligh confirming that he should go ahead with their side deal. Han answered with a double
click: Go ahead.

  “Wonderful,” Leia grumbled. “Wake me when they get to Twilight—sometime around midnight.”

  Despite her tone, her eyes were fixed on the hologram above the stage. Han had to turn away to hide his smile.

  On the stage, Celia was using her two upper arms to hold the holocube above her head and parading along the perimeter of the stage in her haughty dancer’s stride.

  Mawbo said, “As you can see, this is the same ’cube displayed this morning in booth twelve. It’s a one-of-a-kind original holograph of the only human Podracer ever to win the Boonta Eve Classic, taken four decades ago and now offered at auction by the pilot’s best friend, Kitster Banai.”

  When the audience failed to erupt in skeptical jeers, Han said, “I can’t believe they’re buying this. There’s an old racetrack just outside town. The locals ought to know humans can’t pilot Podracers.”

  The dark-haired man who was offering the holocube—Kitster Banai—stepped to the edge of the stage and said something to Mawbo.

  She nodded and, waving him back to his place with a thick-fingered hand, said, “For the offworlders out there who toured Kitster’s booth after his signscreen malfunctioned, the boy in the holocube is Mos Espa’s very own Anakin Skywalk—”

  The theater again erupted into jeering and cheering, and the last syllable of the name was lost to cacophony. Mawbo asked for quiet, but it was slow in coming.

  “What did she say?” Leia asked, again transfixed by the holocube. “Did she say Anakin Skywalker?”

  “Maybe.”

  Feeling a little queasy, Han went to the mirrfield, as though moving that tiny distance closer to holocube would make it easier to see any semblance between the boy and Leia. There wasn’t much—high cheeks, the shape of the eyes and maybe the face—but enough that it seemed possible.

  Han cursed under his breath, but kept his voice even as he said, “Definitely Anakin Skysomething. Luke did say he’d found something in a ’Net search that suggested your father might have lived on Tatooine as a boy,” Han said.

  “He didn’t say it had been here.” Leia stared at the table. “He didn’t say it had been Mos Espa.”

  Han shrugged. “There aren’t many cities on Tatooine.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and clicked his comlink once—Sligh’s no-bid signal. “It’s not that surprising.”

  Leia took her time meeting his gaze. “You have no idea.”

  Sligh answered with a double click: bid.

  Han repeated his no-bid one click and tried to pretend nothing was going on. “Well, at least the name explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  Han started to say the kid’s identity explained why she seemed incapable of taking her eyes off the holocube for more than five minutes at a time, but he saw Leia narrow her eyes and decided another answer would be safer.

  “How a nine-year-old human won the Boonta Eve Classic,” Han said. “He had the Force.”

  Mawbo finally got the crowd quieted and wasted no time opening the auction. “Who will start the bidding?” She looked first to the Imperial commander in the front row. “How about you, sir? Young Anakin went on to make quite a career for himself.”

  Han was not surprised when the commander waved her off with a curt gesture. The officer was old enough to have served in the Imperial Navy during the height of Darth Vader’s power, and the only people with more reason than the Rebels to fear Vader were the officers who served under him. Mawbo wasted no time looking for another bidder.

  “One hundred credits!”

  The bidder was hidden from Han’s view by the crowd, but the reedy voice was all too familiar. Sligh was opening at a third the maximum Han had authorized, trying to scare off undecided buyers before they grew excited and drove up the price.

  Mawbo’s gaze dropped to belt high in the front row. “A hundred credits from the Squib in front.”

  “From a Squib?” Leia hissed. “Our Squibs are bidding on a ’cube of Darth Vader?”

  Han shrugged, then single-clicked Sligh again.

  “Do I hear—”

  “A hundred twenty.” The bid came from a straw-haired local woman in a tattered sand cloak.

  “A hundred fifty,” Sligh offered, still trying to scare off the others.

  “What’s he doing?” Leia sounded more alarmed than puzzled. “Do they know that’s not what we want?”

  “They know. Don’t worry.”

  A Kurtzen in patched leathers bid 175, and Sligh countered with 180. Han single-clicked again.

  Grees pushed through the mirrfield and thrust out a smooth-palmed hand. “Give me your comlink.”

  “What for?” Han said. “I’m just trying to make sure Sligh knows we’re not interested in the holocube.”

  “Should have thought of that before the auction.” Grees wagged his fingers for the comlink. “Pass it over. You’re breaking Sligh’s concentration.”

  “Thought of what before the auction?” Leia narrowed her eyes. “What’s he talking about, Ha—er, Jaxal?”

  There was no use denying it. Leia knew Han too well to be fooled, and he would only make matters worse by trying to play innocent. He pulled the comlink from his pocket and passed it over. “Call him off. We don’t want the ’cube.”

  “Too late.” Grees closed the channel and handed it back. “A deal is a deal.”

  Leia’s jaw dropped. “Deal? You’re trying to buy a holograph of my . . . of Darth Vader?”

  “Anakin Skywalker,” Han corrected. “And I didn’t know who he was. I just thought you liked the picture. You could barely take your eyes off it.”

  Grees left the booth and disappeared back into the crowd. The bidding was already at 230, and now Sligh was trying to slow it down, taking it up in 2- and 3-credit intervals. The blond woman and the Kurtzen weren’t cooperating.

  “You thought I’d like a holocube.” Leia studied him with a durasteel gaze, the counterfeit lekku thrashing on her back like snakes. “Of my father?”

  Han spread his hands. “How could I know?”

  By then, the bidding was at 260. Sligh jumped it straight to three hundred credits and finally succeeded in scaring the other bidders. Mawbo tried to coax a higher offer by sweet-talking the Kurtzen and taunting the woman, then finally gave up and pointed into the crowd where Sligh was presumably standing.

  “Three hundred credits to the Squib,” she said. “Going once, twice—”

  “Three hundred ten,” the woman said.

  “Three hundred eleven!” Sligh shot back.

  “Hey! That’s over the limit!”

  Han opened the channel again and single-clicked the Squib, only to have him bid 320 a second later. He stepped out through the mirrfield, but Grees and Elama were nowhere to be seen. Asking Leia to wait for him, he pushed his way down the narrow aisle between the wall booths and the crowded main floor. Of course, Leia didn’t wait. She was right behind him when he reached the front of the room, where the large VIP booths—the ones with the hidden doors that opened into the vicechambers in the rear of the theater—sat on elevated platforms mere meters from the stage.

  “I thought I asked you to wait.”

  “You asked,” Leia said. “What’s going on?”

  “I told him three hundred.” The bidding was now at 420. “He’s breaking the deal.”

  “And we’re trusting them with Twilight?”

  The hiss of a repulsor chair sounded from the adjacent booth, and Han looked over to see a pudgy human hand slipping through the mirrfield to beckon a service droid. On the smallest finger sparkled a big Corusca gem, set in a boxy ring too garish to be overlooked . . . or easily forgotten. Han started to ask Leia if she saw the hand, but she was already pulling him along behind the front row of bidders.

  “Forget what’s in the booth,” she said. “The important thing is to rein in Sligh. If we end up with that holocube, I’ll crack it over your head.”

  “But you saw the ring, right?” Han asked.

  Lei
a pulled him close and lowered her voice. “There are a lot of ostentatious rings in the galaxy, my dear.”

  What Leia left unsaid was that one of those rings—the ring that Han had seen—belonged to Threkin Horm, the immensely corpulent president of the powerful Alderaanian Council. Seeing tremendous advantage—perhaps even a new homeworld for his people—in a union of the royal houses of Alderaan and Hapes, Horm had been the loudest of those urging Leia to wed Prince Isolder. That put him high on Han’s list of bad guys.

  They slipped behind the Imperials, drawing a wary glare and two well-placed elbows from the watch commander’s bodyguards, and found Sligh standing alone in the buffer zone the other bidders had left around the Imperials. The bid was at 510, and Han had to pull the Squib out of the front row to keep him from making it 520.

  “Put me down!” Sligh bared his teeth as though to bite, but did not dip his head toward Han’s arm. “I’ll have it in two bids!”

  “Yeah? On whose credits?” Han asked. “The limit was three hundred.”

  “Three hundred?” Sligh asked, sneaking glances at the adjacent bidders. “What are you, broke?”

  Han looked up to find the Imperial commander and several other inactive bidders looking in his direction. Too disciplined to smirk, the officer could not quite keep a patronizing light from his eyes.

  “It’s not too late to cancel the other deal, if that’s what you think.”

  “Cancel?” Sligh’s attitude changed from arrogant to alarmed. “You can’t cancel. That’s a separate deal.”

  “Try me.”

  Han dropped Sligh and led Leia back to the booth, all too aware of the eyes turned their way.

  As they resumed their seats, Leia said, “I thought we hired the Squibs to avoid drawing attention.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t tell them that,” he said. “They were setting up an angle.”

  “What kind of angle?”

  Han shrugged. “With Squibs, who can tell?”

  A Del Rey® Book

  Published by the Ballantine Publishing Group