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Authors: Barbara Hambly
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and adamant two hundred meters below.
“Stay here in the sunshine,” he urged gently. His voice was very soft, almost inaudible, but deep and one of the most beautiful she had ever heard. “I won't be a moment.”
Leia remained where she was, not because he had told her to, but because the warmth was pleasant on her face, like the slow return of health after a terrible coldness.
The Borealis, she thought. What happened on board the Borealis?
She'd been ill. The memory of cold returned, the slow dimming down of every system in her body. Or had that been later, when Dzym had come into the room there?
Ashgad had apparently taken her off the ship, brought her to this place. She recalled nothing about it. Had Captain Ioa thought she was dead But in that case, they'd have brought her body to Coruscant, not here.
Han, she thought. Han will be worried sick. The children . . .
Other things were leaking back into her consciousness.
The blinking message light on the comm that no one had been there to ansivet.
Yeoman Marcopius darting away down the corridor.
Admiral Ackbar saying, It looks as if there was an information leak at Council level, and Representative Q-Varx tapping the malachite tabletop in her private conference chamber with a stubby brown finger and saying, All arrangements have been made for the secret meeting with Ashgad, Your Excellency. Though he has no official position on the planet, this conference could be the key to the entire policy of beneficial usage of untapped planetary resources.
Do not meet with AshGad.
Do not Go to the Meridian sector.
What had happened to the Noghri.
The thought wended its way leisurely across her mind. She wondered, if she were to go into the room behind her and try the door, whether it would open. But, of course, she thought, locked or unlocked makes little difference. The house itself seemed to be situated in an utterly deserted wasteland of sawtoothed mountains and glaring, jeweled plain.
Voices rose to her from somewhere below. She recognized Seti Ashgad's "We'll just have to go over Larm's head and talk to Dymurra.
Larm's an idiot anyway. He still has no concept of what we need to complete the Reliant. Has any word come in on the subspace?"
The beautiful baritone carried strongly in the thin, dry air. Larm, thought Leia. Moff Getelles had an admiral named Larm. She'd met him at the diplomatic reception on Coruscant to celebrate Getelles's elevation to the position, one of the last she'd attended at the Palace.
Larm was of the flat-backed, by-the-book, spit-and-polish, boot-kissing school of soldiering, toadying Getelles and every other Moff and Governor without ever relaxing his tough-warrior manner. He'd come up through the fleet as Getelles's stringer, a dark-visaged and sternly efficient foil to the new Moff's hail-fellow-well-met fairness and had been duly promoted over the heads of several better-qualified candidates when Getelles had been made Moff of Antemeridian.
Who Dymurra was she had no idea, though the name was familiar to her.
She couldn't make out the words murmured in reply, but the purring voice pierced her, an arrow of cold under her solar plexus.
Dzym. She looked down at her hand again.
Soreness lingered on the sides of her neck, over the main arteries, but she lacked the strength to put her hands up to feel. The cold of death lingered in her mind, and something else, the aftertaste of nightmare.
That was why she felt so weak.
No, she thought. I feel weak because there was sweetblossom in the water.
“I suppose you're right.” Ashgad's voice was quieter, but just as penetrant. “Three synthdroids! When I think about how much even one of those things costs . . .”
Dzym's voice was a little louder now. Knowing Ashgad's habit of pacing, Leia assumed he was farther from his secretary than he had been a few' moments before. “It could not be helped, my lord. Synthdroids were the only way we could bring the Death Seed on board the vessels
“Stay here in the sunshine,” he urged gently. His voice was very soft, almost inaudible, but deep and one of the most beautiful she had ever heard. “I won't be a moment.”
Leia remained where she was, not because he had told her to, but because the warmth was pleasant on her face, like the slow return of health after a terrible coldness.
The Borealis, she thought. What happened on board the Borealis?
She'd been ill. The memory of cold returned, the slow dimming down of every system in her body. Or had that been later, when Dzym had come into the room there?
Ashgad had apparently taken her off the ship, brought her to this place. She recalled nothing about it. Had Captain Ioa thought she was dead But in that case, they'd have brought her body to Coruscant, not here.
Han, she thought. Han will be worried sick. The children . . .
Other things were leaking back into her consciousness.
The blinking message light on the comm that no one had been there to ansivet.
Yeoman Marcopius darting away down the corridor.
Admiral Ackbar saying, It looks as if there was an information leak at Council level, and Representative Q-Varx tapping the malachite tabletop in her private conference chamber with a stubby brown finger and saying, All arrangements have been made for the secret meeting with Ashgad, Your Excellency. Though he has no official position on the planet, this conference could be the key to the entire policy of beneficial usage of untapped planetary resources.
Do not meet with AshGad.
Do not Go to the Meridian sector.
What had happened to the Noghri.
The thought wended its way leisurely across her mind. She wondered, if she were to go into the room behind her and try the door, whether it would open. But, of course, she thought, locked or unlocked makes little difference. The house itself seemed to be situated in an utterly deserted wasteland of sawtoothed mountains and glaring, jeweled plain.
Voices rose to her from somewhere below. She recognized Seti Ashgad's "We'll just have to go over Larm's head and talk to Dymurra.
Larm's an idiot anyway. He still has no concept of what we need to complete the Reliant. Has any word come in on the subspace?"
The beautiful baritone carried strongly in the thin, dry air. Larm, thought Leia. Moff Getelles had an admiral named Larm. She'd met him at the diplomatic reception on Coruscant to celebrate Getelles's elevation to the position, one of the last she'd attended at the Palace.
Larm was of the flat-backed, by-the-book, spit-and-polish, boot-kissing school of soldiering, toadying Getelles and every other Moff and Governor without ever relaxing his tough-warrior manner. He'd come up through the fleet as Getelles's stringer, a dark-visaged and sternly efficient foil to the new Moff's hail-fellow-well-met fairness and had been duly promoted over the heads of several better-qualified candidates when Getelles had been made Moff of Antemeridian.
Who Dymurra was she had no idea, though the name was familiar to her.
She couldn't make out the words murmured in reply, but the purring voice pierced her, an arrow of cold under her solar plexus.
Dzym. She looked down at her hand again.
Soreness lingered on the sides of her neck, over the main arteries, but she lacked the strength to put her hands up to feel. The cold of death lingered in her mind, and something else, the aftertaste of nightmare.
That was why she felt so weak.
No, she thought. I feel weak because there was sweetblossom in the water.
“I suppose you're right.” Ashgad's voice was quieter, but just as penetrant. “Three synthdroids! When I think about how much even one of those things costs . . .”
Dzym's voice was a little louder now. Knowing Ashgad's habit of pacing, Leia assumed he was farther from his secretary than he had been a few' moments before. “It could not be helped, my lord. Synthdroids were the only way we could bring the Death Seed on board the vessels
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