Part 19 (1/2)
Jan's eyes narrowed. ”Tycho Celchu? He was here once for several months.
They called him out one day and he vanished. Was he a traitor?”
”He's the reason I'm here. He gave the Imps override code data on a Headhunter I was flying. They took control and I'm here.” Corran forced his balled fists open. ”Isard told me Tycho is on trial for my murder, so justice does prevail.”
Urior scratched at his jaw. ”Celchu was a sleeper, wasn't he?”
As much as Corran hated Tycho, that description sent a s.h.i.+ver down his spine. Within the prisoner population were individuals who were suffering severe shock from their inter-rogations. Most were ambulatory, but not much beyond that. In the brief time he'd been in the general population he'd seen one or two of them recover to a certain extent, but their attention spans and short-term memory were short and shot respectively.
They did seem to get better, but only grad-ually.
”I believed he was, but that must have been an act. If you think about it, being a sleeper meant many people would speak in front of him. When he recovered he'd have folks trying to help him with his memory.” Jan shook his head. ”When he got to the point where he should have been better, they pulled him out and debriefed him. He had me fooled.”
”He had a lot of people fooled, Wedge Antilles in-cluded.” Corran nodded firmly. ”He's not fooling folks any longer, though. Just goes to show the Empire doesn't win them all, not by a long shot. And if my experiment works, we'll give them one more loss to account for.”
In some ways Wedge was surprised by his reaction to the display of hospitality Koh'shak put on for his benefit. He found it both barbaric and somehow naive. An area had been cleared near the Alliance s.h.i.+ps.
Opalescent glow-stones--technological lamps designed to look like natural stones--had been brought out from homes and arranged in a circular pattern. While red and gold highlights played through them, the illumination they produced was coldly blue and white. It made the humans into pale ghosts and rendered the Twi'leks as cyanotic ice creatures.
Rogue Squadron and the s.h.i.+ps' crews had been invited to the celebration.
The visitors arrayed themselves in a circle that put them five meters from the outer edge of the glow-stone circle. Twi'leks from various clans interspersed them-selves among the visitors, with one who spoke pa.s.sable Basic acting as interpreter for two or three others. Wedge harbored no illusions about what was going on--his people were being interrogated, albeit politely. Their stories would be com-pared at Twi'lek councils, and decisions would be made about the future of Ryloth based on what the Twi'leks learned.
Servants pa.s.sed around the outside of the circle, offering the visitors food, drink, and gifts. The musicians who had been a.s.sembled opposite him played a variety of string and wind instruments producing notes that ran up and down on a thirteen-note scale. Wedge found the music only marginally painful, while Liat Tsayv and Aril Nunb seemed to be mov-ing in sync with notes he couldn't hear. Out behind the cold spectral light cast by the glowstones, life continued as usual in Kala'uun. People walking by gawked for a moment or two, and many braintails--or lekku, as Wedge had learned they were called in Rylothean--twitched with silent messages about the a.s.sembly.
Wedge didn't really have eyes for much of what was happening outside the visitors' circle, primarily because of what was going on at its heart. A lithe, pet.i.te Twi'lek female dancer spun and leaped through the air. Her tattooed lekku lashed out like whips, then whirled down and enfolded her like ivy. The tails of the loincloth she wore similarly clung to her body, sliding away as she whirled, to reveal silken flesh over taut and powerful muscles. She gave Wedge a pixie-wink, prompting a smile from him, then she twirled off to charm another of the visitors.
Cazne'olan draped a braintail over Wedge's shoulder. ”Sienn'rha is the only positive thing Bib Fortuna ever accom-plished. He stole her from her darkside family and meant to present her to Jabba the Hutt. In preparation for that he had her taught to dance as well as she does. She was saved from Jabba by your Lukesky'walker. She always dances wonderfully, but this night she approaches perfection because of the grat.i.tude she feels to the Alliance.”
”She is spectacular.” Wedge could not deny that he found her dance exciting and even stimulating, but that both-ered him just a bit. By seeing her as being so seductive and beautiful, and reacting to her on a physiological level, it was very easy for him to forget she was a living, thinking crea-ture. That made it deceptively simple for him to see how the Imperials found objectifying and dehumanizing other races justifiable--if they seem like animals or appeal to you on an animal level, clearly they are animals.
Cazne'olan tapped him on the shoulder. ”It would be possible for a private dance to be arranged for you, my friend.”
”I appreciate the offer, but . . .”
Cazne'olan's voice dropped to a whisper. ”Sienn'rha asked me to convey that suggestion to you, on her behalf. She is well aware of your history and considers you quite a hero.”
”I see.” Wedge considered for a moment all the offer implied and felt sorely tempted. Sienn'rha's sensuous beauty, from her full lips and dark eyes to her fluid and athletic grace, hinted at pleasures he'd not had time to enjoy for . . . If l can't remember off the top of my head, it's been well and nigh too long. But is here and now, with Sienn'rha, the time to change that?
Wedge smiled at Cazne'olan. ”Convey to her my pro-found appreciation of her offer, and my sincere regret at having to refuse. Ultimately I am here as a representative of the Alliance. Perhaps some time when I am merely here as myself .... ”
”She will understand, I think.”
”I hope so.” Wedge frowned for a moment. ”I have a question to ask you about something you said a moment ago.”
A lek twitched. ”Ask.”
”You p.r.o.nounce my name as Wedgan'tilles and Nawara Ven's name as Nawar'aven, running them together. When you mentioned Bib Fortuna, you distinctly broke his name up. Why?”
Cazne'olan nodded slowly and let his iekku slip from Wedge's shoulder.
”Bib Fortuna was a member of the Una clan. Because of his predations on his own people, he was cast out. The joining of personal and clan names is, among us, a sign of belonging. Breaking the names apart is a statement of the distance between that person and his people.”
Wedge nodded. ”How do you decide what a name will become? Nawara is a member of the Ven clan, but you make his surname into 'aven' when you p.r.o.nounce it.”
”And I know your surname is Antilles, but I break it in twO.”
”Exactly.”
The Twi'lek laughed lightly. ”Naming conventions are determined by a venerable set of rules--superst.i.tions al-most-that transform names into auspicious omens. Ven, for example, translates into Basic as 'silver.'
Nawara would translate roughly as 'speaker' or 'tongue,' either of which suggests a gifted negotiator. However, if his name were pro-nounced as Nawara'ven, because of peculiarities in Rylothean, his name would mean 'tarnished silver.' By changing the p.r.o.nunciation slightly we retain the correct meaning.”
”l'm impressed.” Wedge smiled openly. ”So, what does my name mean, the way you p.r.o.nounce it?”
The Twi'lek shrugged. ”There is no good, direct transla-tion of foreign names, but Wedgan'tilles comes close to 'slayer of stars.'”
”I like it.”
”It is much to be preferred to the alternative suggested by the Basic p.r.o.nunciation.”
”Which is?”
”Difficult to translate.”
”Give me a rough go at it.”
Cazne'olan's braintails twitched sharply. ”Being gener-ous, it is 'One so foul he could induce vomiting in a ran-COt.' '~ Wedge shuddered. ”I prefer your p.r.o.nunciation, I think.”
A gentle vibration running through the ground fore-stalled further lessons about Twi'lek culture. He a.s.sumed the vibration was produced by the raising of the portcullis, so he looked off toward where the tunnel entered the Kala'uun cavern. Boiling up out of it, in three pairs, came a half-dozen Uglies. The X-wing fighter's distinctive S-foils jutted out from the sides of a TIE fighter's ball c.o.c.kpit. The stabilizers had been fastened to a collar that surrounded the c.o.c.kpit, and as the fighters maneuvered and cavorted in the air above the a.s.sembly, he saw the S-foils rotating around the c.o.c.kpit, making the design similar in principle to that of the B-wing fighter in service with the Alliance.
Never seen those before. Must be a homegrown Twi'lek design. The S-foils collapsed into a single wing on either side of the c.o.c.kpit, then landing skids extended from the bottom of the collar and the peculiar s.h.i.+ps descended. They landed in a rough semicircle facing the Alliance s.h.i.+ps, easily menac-ing all the visitors.
One of the c.o.c.kpit hatches opened and a huge Twi'lek pilot emerged from the top of the sphere. He wore a black Imperial flight suit, but a scarlet loincloth and cloak had been added to make it seem closer to native warrior attire. His lekku had been tattooed with a variety of sinuous and serpentine shapes which Wedge supposed were Rylothean glyphs, but he could not even guess at their significance.
As the warrior strode over to the circle, the music died and the servants shrank back. Sienn'rha stopped her dance and retreated into Wedge's shadow. Wedge stood, with Cazne'olan on one side and the great, lumpish Koh'shak on the other. As the warrior came closer, Wedge saw he was positively huge, easily forty centimeters taller than Wedge and ma.s.sing at least another thirty kilos. How he actually managed to jam himself into the TIE c.o.c.kpit Wedge couldn't imagine.
The warrior stepped through a quickly widening gap in the circle, then stopped five meters from Wedge. ”I am Tal'dira, first among Twi'lek warriors. You, the lekku-less who wears the clothes of a warrior, you are Wedge Antilles?”
Wedge did his best to ignore the faint retching sound Tal'dira made in the back of his throat as he p.r.o.nounced Wedge's name. ”I am Wedgan'tilles.”
The Twi'lek warrior raised an eyebrow at Wedge's reply. ”And you have come here for ryll?”
”I have come for ryll kor.” Wedge's reply won a gasp from Koh'shak and a !ekku-twitching from Tal'dira. ”Is there a problem?”
”None, Wedge Antilles, if--” Tal'dira drew a pair of slender vibroblades from sheaths hidden in his bandoleer, ”--you are willing to fight to prove you are a warrior. A warrior should deal with warriors. Win the fight and the kor shall be yours.”