Part 13 (1/2)
”I don't know why he doesn't answer.” He tried again. ”See Threepio, come in. Do you read?”
”See Threepio,” the muted voice continued to call, ”come in, See Threepio.” It was Luke's voice and it issued softly in between buzzings from the small hand comlink resting on the deserted computer console. Save for the intermittent pleading, the gantry office was silent.
A tremendous explosion drowned out the m.u.f.fled pleadings. It blew the office door clean across the room, sending metal fragments flying in all directions. Several of them struck the comlink, sending it flying to the floor and cutting off Luke's voice in mid-transmission.
In the wake of the minor cataclysm four armed and ready troopers entered through the blown portal. Initial study indicated the office was deserted-until a dim, frightened voice was heard coming from one of the tall supply cabinets near the back of the room.
”Help, help! Let us out!”
Several of the troopers bent to inspect the immobile bodies of the gantry officer and his aide while others opened the noisy cabinet. Two robots, one tall and humanoid, the other purely mechanical and three-legged, stepped out into the office. The taller one gave the impression of being half unbalanced with fear.
”They're madmen, I tell you, madmen!” He gestured urgently toward the doorway. ”I think they said something about heading for the prison level. They just left. If you hurry, you might catch them. That way, that way!”
Two of the troopers inside joined those waiting in the hallway in hustling off down the corridor. That left two guards to watch over the office. They totally ignored the robots as they discussed what might have taken place.
”All the excitement has overloaded the circuitry in my companion here,” Threepio explained carefully. ”If you don't mind, I'd like to take him down to Maintenance.”
”Hmmm?” One of the guards looked up indifferently and nodded to the robot. Threepio and Artoo hurried out the door without looking back. As they departed it occurred to the guard that the taller of the two droids was of a type he had never seen before. He shrugged. That was not surprising on a station of this size.
”That was too close,” Threepio muttered as they scurried down an empty corridor. ”Now we'll have to find another information-control console and plug you back in, or everything is lost.”
The garbage chamber grew remorselessly smaller, the smoothly fitting metal walls moving toward one another with stolid precision. Larger pieces of refuse performed a concerto of snapping and popping that was rising toward a final shuddering crescendo.
Chewbacca whined pitifully as he fought with all his incredible strength and weight to hold back one of the walls, looking like a hirsute Tantalus approaching his final summit.
”One thing's for sure,” Solo noted unhappily. ”We're all going to be much thinner. This could prove popular for slimming. The only trouble is its permanence.”
Luke paused for breath, shaking the innocent comlink angrily. ”What could have happened to Threepio?”
”Try the hatch again,” advised Leia. ”It's our only hope.”
Solo s.h.i.+elded his eyes and did so. The ineffectual blast echoed mockingly through the narrowing chamber.
The service bay was unoccupied, everyone apparently having been drawn away by the commotion elsewhere. After a cautious survey of the room Threepio beckoned for Artoo to follow. Together they commenced a hurried search of the many service panels. Artoo let out a beep, and Threepio rushed to him. He waited impatiently as the smaller unit plugged the receptive arm carefully into the open socket.
A superfast flurry of electronics spewed in undisciplined fas.h.i.+on from the grid of the little droid. Threepio made cautioning motions.
”Wait a minute, slow down!” The sounds dropped to a crawl. ”That's better. They're where? They what? Oh, no! They'll only come out of there as a liquid!”
Less than a meter of life was left to the trapped occupants of the garbage room. Leia and Solo had been forced to turn sideways, had ended up facing each other. For the first time the haughtiness was gone from the Princess's face. Reaching out, she took Solo's hand, clutching it convulsively as she felt the first touch of the closing walls.
Luke had fallen and was lying on his side, fighting to keep his head above the rising ooze. He nearly choked on a mouthful of compressed sludge when his comlink began buzzing for attention.
”Threepio!”
”Are you there, sir?” the droid replied. ”We've had some minor problems. You would not believe-”
”Shut up, Threepio!” Luke screamed into the unit. ”And shut down all the refuse units on the detention level or immediately below it. Do you copy? Shut down the refuse-”
Moments later Threepio grabbed at his head in pain as a terrific screeching and yelling sounded over the comlink.
”No, shut them all down!” he implored Artoo. ”Hurry! Oh, listen to them-they're dying, Artoo! I curse this metal body of mine. I was not fast enough. It was my fault. My poor master-all of them... no, no, no!”
The screaming and yelling, however, continued far beyond what seemed like a reasonable interval. In fact, they were shouts of relief.
The chamber walls had reversed direction automatically with Artoo's shutdown and were moving apart again.
”Artoo, Threepio,” Luke hollered into the comlink, ”it's all right, we're all right! Do you read me? We're okay-you did just fine.”
Brus.h.i.+ng distastefully at the clinging slime, he made his way as rapidly as possible toward the hatchcover. Bending, he sc.r.a.ped acc.u.mulated detritus away, noting the number thus revealed.
”Open the pressure-maintenance hatch on unit 366-117891.”
”Yes, sir,” came Threepio's acknowledgment.
They may have been the happiest words Luke had ever heard.
= X =.
LINED with power cables and circuitry conduits that rose from the depths and vanished into the heavens, the service trench appeared to be hundreds of kilometers deep. The narrow catwalk running around one side looked like a starched thread glued on a glowing ocean. It was barely wide enough for one man to traverse.
One man edged his way along that treacherous walkway now, his gaze intent on something ahead of him instead of the awesome metal abyss below. The clacking sounds of enormous switching devices resounded like captive leviathans in the vast open s.p.a.ce, tireless and never sleeping.
Two thick cables joined beneath an overlay panel. It was locked, but after careful inspection of sides, top and bottom, Ben Ken.o.bi pressed the panel cover in a particular fas.h.i.+on causing it to spring aside. A blinking computer terminal was revealed beneath.
With equal care he performed several adjustments to the terminal. His actions were rewarded when several indicator lights on the board changed from red to blue.
Without warning, a secondary door close behind him opened. Hurriedly reclosing the panel cover, the old man slipped deeper into the shadows. A detachment of troopers had appeared in the portal, and the officer in charge moved to within a couple of meters of the motionless, hidden figure.
”Secure this area until the alert has been cancelled.”
As they began to disperse, Ken.o.bi became one with the dark.
Chewbacca grunted and wheezed, and barely succeeded in forcing his thick torso through the hatchway opening with Luke's and Solo's help. That accomplished, Luke turned to take stock of their surroundings.
The hallway they had emerged into showed dust on the floor. It gave the impression of not having been used since the station had been built. Probably it was only a repair access corridor. He had no idea where they were.
Something hit the wall behind them with a ma.s.sive thunk, and Luke yelled for everyone to watch out as a long, gelatinous limb worked its way through the hatch and flailed hopefully about in the open corridor. Solo aimed his pistol at it as Leia tried to slip past the half-paralyzed Chewbacca.
”Somebody get this big hairy walking carpet out of my way.” Suddenly she noticed what Solo was preparing to do. ”No, wait! It'll be heard!”
Solo ignored her and fired at the hatchway. The burst of energy was rewarded with a distant roar as an avalanche of weakened wall and beaming all but buried the creature in the chamber beyond.
Magnified by the narrow corridor, the sounds continued to roll and echo for long minutes afterward. Luke shook his head in disgust, realizing that someone like Solo who spoke with the mouth of a gun might not always act sensibly. Until now he had sort of looked up to the Corellian. But the senseless gesture of firing at the hatchway brought them, for the first time in Luke's mind, to the same level.
The Princess's actions were more surprising than Solo's, however. ”Listen,” she began, staring up at him, ”I don't know where you came from, but I'm grateful.” Almost as an afterthought she glanced back at Luke, adding, ”To the both of you.” Her attention turned back to Solo. ”But from now on you do as I tell you.”
Solo gaped at her. This time the smug smile wouldn't come. ”Look, Your Holiness,” he was finally able to stammer, ”let's get something straight. I take orders only from one person-me.”