Part 3 (1/2)
”But everybody watch your ster your wheels, or whatever. The corridor is old, and the footing is not all it could be. And watch it at the bottom of the ramp.
The ghouls know that's a good place to lie in wait. Now, once we're at the base of the ramp, we'll be in front of a big blast-proof door, about ten meters away the base of the ramp. Beyond the door is the safe room where we're meeting. There's a keypad entrance system on the door, and if you could cover me while I'm punching in the code, that would be most helpful. The ghouls seem to like attacking while we're working the door.”
”Ah-just a quick question,” Lando said.
”Yes, what?” Showolter asked.
”If the corridor ghouls are as nasty as you say, why can't you just sweep them out of this part of the tunnels and then block all the entrances?”
Showolter laughed unpleasantly. ”I see I haven't made myself clear.
We like having them around. They're part of the security system. So if you don't need to shoot one, please don't.”
”I don't get it,” Lando said.
”Very simple,” Showolter replied. ”Once we're all inside the safe room, we turn out the lights in the corridors. Anyone who comes snooping around is going to get a very nasty surprise.”
”That sounds like the NRI I've heard about. And you people wonder why you have trouble with recruiting, ' Lando said.
Showolter laughed. ”Whatever. Just be ready.” He turned, faced the front of the car, and held his weapon at the ready. ”All right Berleman,”
he said to the open air. ”Open door.”
Obviously someone was running the turbolift by remote. The door slid open and Showolter stepped into a huge, grim-looking chamber cut out of the living rock.
The chamber was dimly lit, its only illumination coming from the turbolift interior and from ceiling glo't'tube fixtures in a tunnel that opened out in the chamber wall directly opposite the turbolift door.
The turbolift door slid shut, instantly cutting off half the light in the chamber. It was clearly a large s.p.a.ce, but the light from the tunnel glowtubes was nowhere near bright enough to illuminate all of it.
But there was little time to look around. Showolter was leading them toward the tunnel at a brisk pace, his blaster at the ready. The group entered the narrow tunnel single file, Showolter in the lead, followed by Lando, then the droids, with Luke in the rear.
The walls of the tunnel were raw, dark brown stone, moist and dank, with some sort of slimy fluid seeping down them. Luke could hear a steady drip, drip, drip in the distance. The air was cold enough that he could see his breath.
The light in the corridor was dim, coming from occasional glowtubes bolted to the low ceiling of the corridor, which was barely wide enough for two humans to walk abreast. Luke could see that the grimy stone floor of the corridor had been smooth and finished once, perhaps back when the Old Republic was a new idea. Now it was cracked and broken, with a vile, meandering stream of fluid flowing down it' off into the darkness. In most places the stone surface was covered with muddy dirt that had silted down from the upper levels of the city over the generations.
”Oh my goodness!” Threepio said. ”What a perfectly dreadful place.
We're all certain to be destroyed!”
”Take it ea; y Threepio,” Luke said. ”We've been in worse places.
”Considering some of the places we have been, I hardly take that as a recommendation, Master Luke,” Threepio replied. ”I can't imagine why any, the would want to bring us to such awful surroundings.
Luke had to admit, if only to himself, that Threepio had a point.
This fetid tunnel was not a good place to be. He reached out with his Force ability to see if he could sense any of Showolter's corridor ghouls in the area, but it was no use. The abandoned lower levels of Coruscant were home to myriad forms of life, and there was no way to know which of the minds he was sensing were ghouls and which were not But, then, suddenly, just as Showolter was nearing the first intersection in the tunnel and their first left turn, Luke had no trouble at all sensing the ghouls.
Because, at that moment, the ghouls started to scream-and the sound was coming from in front of them. Luke looked to Showolter and Lando, saw the fear in their eyes, and knew the same look had to be on his own face.
The screaming went on and on, voice over voice, echoing through the corridor. Luke reminded himself that it was a hunting cry, nothing more, a call from one predator to another. But even so, the sound made his blood run cold. He might know, in cold, logical terms, that the ghoul screams had no more meaning than a bird's song or a womp rat's chittering. And yet, to human ears, it was a primordial shriek of terror, of hatred, of loss, of pain.
Showolter pulled back from the intersection and threw his back against the slimy wall. ”Master Skywalker!” he called out, trying to make himself heard over the terrible noise. ”If you could be so good as to switch on that lightsaber of yours and watch our back They like to come from both-” But then the screaming started from behind them, and there was no need to give a further warning.
Luke switched on his lightsaber and took up a one-handed position at guard. He ignored the screams from ahead. Let Showolter and Lando worry about them. He concentrated his full attention behind him, and tried to see beyond the end of the lights, to the chamber with the turbolift.
The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and just then, Luke saw a flicker of movement, barely discernible in the gloom. Then another, and another.
”Company coming for sure from back here,” Luke called out.
And suddenly, there they were; three of them, standing there at the tunnel entrance. Showolter's description of them was right as far as it went. They were about a meter high at the shoulder with a fairly conventional quadrupedal body arrangement, their bodies long and lean and wiry. They were long legged, and clearly made for running and jumping.
Their ears were huge and pointed, and were constantly swiveling back and forth, independent of each other, as if they were tuning in on each sound in turn. Their eyeless heads had long muzzles, their noses twitching constantly. Luke guessed that their sense of smell was as good as their hearing. The three of them were just standing there with their mouths open, making no sound at all that Luke could hear.
Luke called over his shoulder, ”Threepio, Artlt; an you hear anything in ultrasonic?”
”Why yes, of course, Master Luke. The sound a pears to be coming from the ghouls directly ahead of you. It is similar to the screams we just heard, but at a far higher frequency.” Artoo bleeped and blooped, and Threepio translated. ”Good heavens! Artoo reports they are directing beamed ultrasonics at us. He suggests -suggests they are probing our internal structures in order to decide which of us might be good to eat!”
”Relax, then, Threepio,” Luke said. ”I doubt they'd find much good eating on a metal android.”
”Why, that's true,” Threepio said, obviously relieved.
”That's quite a great comfort.”
”Glad to hear it,” Luke muttered. ”Lando! Captain Showolter,” he called out. ”mik to me. What's going on up there?”
”We can't see them, or hear them, but they're still there, somewhere.”
”Hold on a moment,” Luke said. He reached out with his power in the Force and felt for the minds of the creatures in front of him. He found spirits full of hunger, and cunning, and eagerness. Now he knew what a corridor ghoul's mind felt like. He reached out further, into the darkness of the tunnel at his back, feeling for the same sort of mind.
There were an astonis.h.i.+ng number of creature minds in the dark corridors, but now Luke knew what to look for. ”There are three more of them,” he said. The three hungry minds were close by, but on a lower level. ”If I've got the layout straight, then they're at the bottom of that ramp you talked about. Let me see what I can do.”
”What are you talking about?” Showolter demanded.
”Quiet,” Lando said. ”Let the man work.”
Luke reached out for the minds of the ghouls in front of him, searching for a way to send them away. Even without Showolter's admonition, he would have had no desire to kill them. They had clever little minds, sharp and quick and direct. No subtle tricks or indirection would work here. Well, sometimes the simplest ways were best. Luke found the proper spots in their minds and struck them with a jolt of pure terror.
They were gone almost before Luke was aware they had moved at all, and he relaxed his guard, if only a trifle. Even if they were easily scared, they would no doubt work up the nerve to come back again soon.
”I've chased off our friends back here,” Luke said. ”Artoo, keep watch on the rear and give a shout if you spot anything. Lando, you watch the rear as well. I've got to go up to the front.”
”Right, Luke,” said Lando. Artoo acknowledged with a beep.
Luke cut the power on his lightsaber and shouldered past Lando and the droids to the first intersection, where Showolter was waiting, his back still to the wall.
”All right,” Luke said, ”I need to know if that's a deadend corridor down there.”
”Yes,” Showolter said. ”At least so far as we know.
The corridor ends in an area of rockfall. There are cracks and crevices all over the place. We think we've plugged all the ones that lead somewhere, but we can't be absolutely sure. And there's always the chance that the ghouls or some other animals managed to reopen a hole we thought we sealed. But for humans, yes, a dead end.”