Part 10 (1/2)
”Then, if we may begin. Chewbacca. Jaina Solo.
Jacen Solo. Anakin Solo,” said Ebrihim. ”Permit me to present the d.u.c.h.ess Marcha of Mastigophorous. If she will so deign to honor us, she will be your hostess. Pray do her honor.
”You never told us your aunt was a d.u.c.h.ess,” Jacen said accusingly.
”You never asked,” Ebrihim replied evenly.
Jaina curtsied prettily, and managed somehow to look quite ladylike, considering that she was in rumpled, oversized s.h.i.+p's coverall& ”Pleased to meet you, Your Grace.” Chewbacca bowed, and did so with a surprising grace.
Ebrihim turned toward Jacen and Anakin and waited in silence until Jaina gave her twin a poke in the ribs.
”Huh? Oh.” Jacen bowed awkwardly, popping up and down rather clumsily. Anakin got the idea, but imitated his sister's curtsy instead of his brother's bow.
”Close enough,” Ebrihim muttered to himself. Then he turned to his aunt. ”Your Grace, may I present the Wookiee Chewbacca, and the humans Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, and Anakin Solo, all of the planet Coruscant.”
”Ignored again, I see,” Q9 muttered.
As good manners required, the d.u.c.h.ess paid the droid no attention whatsoever. ”I am most pleased to meet you all,” she said, nodding gravely. ”I am honored to have such guests. Please make my home your home”Within reason. Ebrihim said with a warning look at the children.
”-and accept all that my hospitality may offer,” the d.u.c.h.ess concluded, not missing a beat.
”Thank you,” the three children said in chorus.
”Come, then, and enter,” said the d.u.c.h.ess, and gestured toward the door, which opened on its own.
She stood aside and let her guests go. The children went first, followed by Chewbacca and Q9. Ebrihim and Marcha entered side by side, and waited while Chewbacca and the children admired the interior of the dome.
Ebrihim remembered his own first visit to the dome.
No one could set foot in it without stopping just to look It was a special and magic place. The plain white walls of the hemispheric dome rose up to the ceiling, peaceful and perfect, its warm white featurelessness drawing the eye upward. The columned entryways to the two wings of the house faced each other, each as elaborate as the exterior of the building was plain. One entry was carved in purest white marble, the other in jet-back ebony.
Monsters and fabulous creatures out of legend and history clambered and slithered and flew up and down the doorframes and around the columns.
The elaborate entryways faced each other across a F formal courtyard filled with planters and flowers of all kinds. A jet of water danced in the center of the dome, tempting those who dared to thread their way through the hedgerow maze that surrounded the fountain itself.
A dozen species of Drallish aviars and Corellian birds and other flying creatures flittered and fluttered about the dome.
After a moment or two of wide-eyed admiration, the children rushed into the dome, eager to explore.
Ebrihim saw Anakin rush straight into the maze, and wondered whether the lad would break all records m solving it, or whether he would vanish into it for all time.
”We have to conserve power everywhere else to do it,” Marcha said to Ebrihim and Chewbacca, watching the children race about, ”but by the stars, I am going to keep this dome green and alive.” She began to walk about the garden, Ebrihim by her side, and Chewbacca and Q9 walking behind.
”I am glad of that, Aunt Marcha,” said Ebrihim. ”But we have just now arrived from Corellia, where there has been a complete news block.
What has caused the power shortage?”
”Bandits. Terrorists. Drallists. Call them by the names they have earned, or by the name they give themselves.
It doesn't much matter. They cut the power lines and sabotaged the local backup generator. All we have is the auxiliary house generator, and that's been balky. I had to send all the help home, not just to conserve power, but for their own safety. Driggs is the only one here with me.
He's been caretaker here since before you were born.
This is his home.”
”Aunt, please, tell me. What is a Drallist?”
His aunt turned and looked at him solemnly. ”If you do not know the answer to that question, you did well to come here,” she said.
”The Drallists are Drall who say Drall for the Drall! Foreigners out!
No Selonians. No humans. Everyone with a tail off the planet!
Everyone without fur off the planet!”
”Not here, too,” Ebrihim said. ”The madness has not reached our people as well.”
”Oh, yes it has, dearest nephew. Yes it has.” She paused to regard Chewbacca and Ebrihim. ”But it is late, and you have had a long journey-and it will take some doing to get those human cubs to bed, if I am any judge. We shall talk more in the morning.”
Chewbacca bowed low and let out a low moan and a quiet little whoop as he pointed back toward the s.h.i.+p outside.
”What is it your friend is saying, Ebrihim? I never did learn Wookiee.”
”He is offering to run power from his s.h.i.+p to the house and to take a look at your generators. And, I might add, our s.h.i.+p is in need of repairs. Nothing major, I take it, but the hyperdrive needs a bit of work, along with some other adjustments.”
”I thank you for your offer of help, and will gladly accept what a.s.sistance you can provide,” Marcha said to Chewbacca. ”And you are, of course, welcome to repair your s.h.i.+p here, but not much joy will you have of a hyperdrive. Don't you know about the interdiction field?
The broadcast comlinks are down, but we still get news over the fiber cable links, and we heard about it.” Ebrihim looked at her blankly.
”What interdiction field? As I said, we have just come from Corellia The last news we got was of Thrackan sal-solo using the Dogff Moc1fl A-v starbuster to demand all nonhumans be thrown off Corellia-”
”What? What in the heavens are you talking about?”
”The threat to blow up more stars if the Human League's threats aren't met.”
”There has not been the slightest mention of that on Drall,” Aunt Marcha said. ”If there had, it would have been all over the planet in an hour. How did you get this remarkable news?”
”It was on an all-channel broadcast that Millennium Fakon's corn system recorded automatically while were making our escape. Chewbacca and I played it back later, and we agreed not to tell the children about it.
No need to frighten them. I take it you did not hear any of this on Drall.”
”Nothing. Not at all.”
”But what would be the point of making the threat on only one world?”
”How could anyone seriously threaten to blow up F stars to begin with?” Marcha asked.