Read Online Star Wars - Planet Of Twilight by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Hambly
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the console. The belts held--there was an explosion of sealant and crash foam--the B-wing rolled twice more, like a barrel, and came to a stop up against something that sent up another splintering cloud of fragments and dust.
Then stillness, the moaning of the wind, and the dying pitter of pebbles raining down on the laser-cracked hull.
“Here, Your Excellency.”
Strong hands helped Leia sit up, put a cup into hers, held it steady while she drank. “How are you feeling?”
She blinked. The divan had been moved out onto the terrace. Weak, strangely colored sunlight lay in mosaics of glassy brightness across the cinder-colored permacrete walls of the house that loomed over them, glinted on the treeless lunacy of the heaped stone ridges, columns, pinnacles, and buttresses that dwarfed the house on three sides and framed, on the fourth, eternities of flashing gravel, as if the sea had sunk away long ago and left its foam solidified into salt and glass.
It must be the crystals that pick up and reflect the sunlight, thought Leia, looking around at the huge outcrops of them embedded everywhere in the rocks of the mountains. The small sun gave only thready light in cobalt oceans of sky. Dim stars shone even in the presence of its glow.
Because of the light thrown back by the rocks, there seemed to be no shadows anywhere, or a confusing multiplicity of watered ones. The dry air tightened her face, as it had not in the moister mini-climate of the house.
She turned from those bizarre distances to meet the anxious dark eyes of the man who sat on the divan at her side.
It was Seti Ashgad's pilot.
A nice man, she thought at once. He reminded her a little of the pilot Greglik for some reason, though the physical appearance could not have been more dissimilar. Of medium height and slender build, this man had a sort of saturnine darkness to him in utter contrast with the Rebel pilot's flamboyant good looks. Maybe it was the nose--an elegant aquiline--or the battered, deeply woven wrinkles around the eyes that spoke of a life lived very hard.
More probably, she thought, it was somethin in the expression of the eyes. Odd again, to think of the daredevil Greglik. This man's eyes were the eyes of one who wouldn't harm so much as an insect or stand up to someone who was taking shameless advantage of him for fear of hurt feelings. An escaper, she thought. Not escape into drugs--he hadn't Greglik's unhealthy complexion--but escape by simply not being there if he could manage to get away.
But nice.
“I'm fine. I think I'm fine.” Had Dzym been a dream? The slicing pain in the sides of her neck, the hands that drew life from her, exactly as the sickness had on the ship. The horrible impression she had had of some other being under his clothing, some vile movement, tucked away where it didn't show. “Where am I? What happened?” Her thoughts felt as if she'd dropped them, and they'd rolled to the far ends of the room, and exhaustion prevented her from gathering them up again.
“I'm afraid i can't tell you where you are, Your Excellency.” He sounded genuinely sorry about it. “You understand, it's better if you don't know. My name is Liegeus Sarpaetius Vorn.”
“Vorn . . .” With the greatest of difficulty, as if she were laboriously constructing a house of cards by means of waldoes, Leia put things together in her mind. “Liegeus Vorn--You were Seti Ashgad's pilot, weren't you. And Dzym . . . Dzym was here. Is this Nam Chorios?”
“Dzym was here?” He held the vessel away from her reaching hands, his dark brows knotting. “I think you've had enough of this, Your Excellency. I'll get you some water.”
He emptied the cup--which Leia thought had contained water--over the low wall at the edge of the terrace. She sat up, watching it fall, the droplets flashing and dwindling as they tumbled in slow motion past the walls of the house, past the rocks of the bluff on which it stood, down to the broken tumble of slate and scree
Then stillness, the moaning of the wind, and the dying pitter of pebbles raining down on the laser-cracked hull.
“Here, Your Excellency.”
Strong hands helped Leia sit up, put a cup into hers, held it steady while she drank. “How are you feeling?”
She blinked. The divan had been moved out onto the terrace. Weak, strangely colored sunlight lay in mosaics of glassy brightness across the cinder-colored permacrete walls of the house that loomed over them, glinted on the treeless lunacy of the heaped stone ridges, columns, pinnacles, and buttresses that dwarfed the house on three sides and framed, on the fourth, eternities of flashing gravel, as if the sea had sunk away long ago and left its foam solidified into salt and glass.
It must be the crystals that pick up and reflect the sunlight, thought Leia, looking around at the huge outcrops of them embedded everywhere in the rocks of the mountains. The small sun gave only thready light in cobalt oceans of sky. Dim stars shone even in the presence of its glow.
Because of the light thrown back by the rocks, there seemed to be no shadows anywhere, or a confusing multiplicity of watered ones. The dry air tightened her face, as it had not in the moister mini-climate of the house.
She turned from those bizarre distances to meet the anxious dark eyes of the man who sat on the divan at her side.
It was Seti Ashgad's pilot.
A nice man, she thought at once. He reminded her a little of the pilot Greglik for some reason, though the physical appearance could not have been more dissimilar. Of medium height and slender build, this man had a sort of saturnine darkness to him in utter contrast with the Rebel pilot's flamboyant good looks. Maybe it was the nose--an elegant aquiline--or the battered, deeply woven wrinkles around the eyes that spoke of a life lived very hard.
More probably, she thought, it was somethin in the expression of the eyes. Odd again, to think of the daredevil Greglik. This man's eyes were the eyes of one who wouldn't harm so much as an insect or stand up to someone who was taking shameless advantage of him for fear of hurt feelings. An escaper, she thought. Not escape into drugs--he hadn't Greglik's unhealthy complexion--but escape by simply not being there if he could manage to get away.
But nice.
“I'm fine. I think I'm fine.” Had Dzym been a dream? The slicing pain in the sides of her neck, the hands that drew life from her, exactly as the sickness had on the ship. The horrible impression she had had of some other being under his clothing, some vile movement, tucked away where it didn't show. “Where am I? What happened?” Her thoughts felt as if she'd dropped them, and they'd rolled to the far ends of the room, and exhaustion prevented her from gathering them up again.
“I'm afraid i can't tell you where you are, Your Excellency.” He sounded genuinely sorry about it. “You understand, it's better if you don't know. My name is Liegeus Sarpaetius Vorn.”
“Vorn . . .” With the greatest of difficulty, as if she were laboriously constructing a house of cards by means of waldoes, Leia put things together in her mind. “Liegeus Vorn--You were Seti Ashgad's pilot, weren't you. And Dzym . . . Dzym was here. Is this Nam Chorios?”
“Dzym was here?” He held the vessel away from her reaching hands, his dark brows knotting. “I think you've had enough of this, Your Excellency. I'll get you some water.”
He emptied the cup--which Leia thought had contained water--over the low wall at the edge of the terrace. She sat up, watching it fall, the droplets flashing and dwindling as they tumbled in slow motion past the walls of the house, past the rocks of the bluff on which it stood, down to the broken tumble of slate and scree
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