Star Wars. Splinter Of The Mind's Eye. by Alan Dean Foster.

Star Wars.
Splinter Of The Mind's Eye.
by Alan Dean Foster.

For Dad and Mom Oxley, Louis and Ellie.
With all my love, which would fill several universes.

One.
How beautiful was the universe, Luke thought. How beautifully flowing, glorious and aglow like the robe of a queen. Ice-black clean in its emptiness and solitude, so unlike the motley collage of spinning dust motes men called their worlds, where the human bacteria throve and multiplied and slaughtered one another. All so that one might say he stood a little higher than his fellows.
In depressed moments he felt sure there was no really happy living matter on any of those worlds. Only a plethora of destructive human diseases which fought and raged constantly against one another, a sequence of cancerous civilizations which fed on its own body, never healing yet somehow not quite dying.
A particularly virulent strain of one of those cancers had killed his own mother and father, then his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. It had also taken from him the man he had learned to respect more than any other, the elderly Jedi knight Ben Kenobi.
Although he had seen Kenobi struck by the light-saber of Darth Vader on board the now obliterated Imperial Deathstar battle station, he could not be certain the old wizard was truly dead. Vader's saber had left only empty air in its wake. That Ben Kenobi had departed this plane of existence was unarguable. What no one could tell was what level of existence he had passed into. Maybe death and?
Maybe not.
There were times when Luke experienced an agreeably crawly sensation, as if someone were lurking just behind him. That unseen presence occasionally seemed to move arms and legs for him, or to supply suggestions and thoughts when his own mind was helplessly blank. Blank as that of the former farm boy of Tatooine's desert world.
Unseen spirits or not, Luke reflected grimly, if there was one thing he was sure of it was that the callow youth he had once been was dead and dry as dust. In the Rebel Alliance of worlds struggling against the corrupt rule of the Imperial government he held no formal title. But no one taunted him or called him farm boy? Not since he had helped destroy the bloated battle station secretly built by Governor Moff Tarkin and his henchman Darth Vader.
Luke had no experience with titles, hence no use for them. When the Rebel leaders offered him any reward within their ability to grant, he had asked only to be permitted to continue piloting a fighter in the Alliance's service. Some thought his request unduly modest, but one shrewd general disagreed, explaining how Luke might be more valuable to the Rebellion without a title or commission which, the veteran pointed out to his colleagues, would serve only to make the youth a prime target for Imperial assassination. So Luke remained the pilot he'd always wanted to be, perfecting his flying skills and always, unceasingly, wrestling with the Force Ben Kenobi had enabled him to begin to understand.
No time for meditating now, he reminded himself as he studied the instruments of his X-wing fighter.
A glance forward showed the brilliant pulsing sun-ball of Circarpous Major, its devastating radiance stopped down to viewable intensity by the phototropic material of the transparent port itself.
"Everything okay back there, Artoo?" he called into his pickup. A cheerful beep from the stubby droid locked in position behind the cockpit assured Luke that it was.
Their destination was the fourth planet out from this star. Like so many others, the Circarpousians were appalled by the atrocities perpetrated by the Empire, but too paralyzed by fear to openly join the Rebel Alliance.
Over the years, a burgeoning underground movement had arisen on Circarpous, an underground needing only enough aid and encouragement from the Alliance to rise and swing their world to the cause of freedom.
From the tiny, hidden Rebel station on the outermost planet of the system, Luke and the Princess were racing to a critically important meeting with the heads of that underground, to offer the necessary promise of support. He checked his console chronometer. They would arrive in plenty of time to reassure the highly nervous underground chiefs.
Leaning slightly forward and glancing to starboard, he could admire the sleek Y-wing fighter cruising alongside. Two figures sat silhouetted by instrument lights within its cockpit. One was the gleaming golden shape of See Threepio, Artoo's droid companion.
The other? Whenever he looked at her, the other caused emotions to boil within him like soup too long on the fire, no matter if she was separated from him by near vacuum as at present or by only an arm's length in a conference room. It was for and because of that individual, Princess and Senator Leia Organa of the now-vaporized world of Alderaan, that Luke had originally become involved in the Rebellion.
First her portrait and then her person had initiated the irreversible metamorphosis from farm boy to fighter pilot. Now the two of them were the official emissaries from the ruling council of the Rebel government to the vacillating underground on Circarpous.
Sending her on so dangerous a mission, Luke had thought from the first, was a risk. But a second system was ready to commit itself to the Alliance, if it was announced that Circarpous had also joined. At the same time, if that second system would declare its defiance of the Empire, then the Circarpousian underground would undoubtedly come over to the side of the Rebellion. So not one, but two systems waited on the outcome of this mission. And if it failed, Luke knew, both systems would probably lose heart and withhold their desperately needed aid. They had to succeed.
Luke had no doubts, as he silently adjusted his ship's attitude a quarter of a degree to the plane of the solar ecliptic, about the outcome of their mission. He couldn't imagine anyone who could not be persuaded by Princess Leia. She could convince him of anything. Luke treasured those moments when she forgot her station and titles. He dreamed of a time when she might forget them forever.
A beep from behind woke Luke from his daydreaming, wiped the smile from his face. They were preparing to pass close by Circarpous Five, and Artoo was reminding him of it. A vast, cloud-shrouded globe, the planet was listed in Luke's library as being mostly unexplored, save for a single early Imperial scouting expedition. According to the computer readout, it was also known to the Circarpousians as Mimban, and? His intership communicator dinged for attention. "I'm receiving you, Princess."
Her reply was filled with irritation. "My port engine is beginning to generate unequal radiation pulses." Even when bothered, to him that voice was as naturally sweet and pleasing as sugar-laden fruit. "How bad?" he inquired, frowning worriedly. "Bad enough, Luke." The words sounded strained. "I'm losing control already, and the inequality's getting worse. I don't think I'm going to be able to compensate. We'll have to stop at the first base down below on Mimban and have the problem corrected." Luke opened his mouth to reply, did so after hesitating briefly. "You can't possibly make it safely to Circarpous Four?"
"I don't think so, Luke. I might make near-orbit, but then we'd have to deal with official repair systems and couldn't set down as planned.
We'd miss the meeting, and we can't miss it. Resistance groups from all over the Circarpous system are going to be there. If I don't arrive, they'll panic. We'll have one Stang of a time getting them to surface again. And the Circarpous, worlds are vital to the Rebellion, Luke."
"I still don't think?" he began.
"Don't make me make it an order, Luke."
Biting back his initial response, he hurriedly began a check of visual readout charts and records. "According to my information tapes, Mimban doesn't have a repair station, Leia. In fact," he added with a glance at the murky green-white sphere below and to one side, "Mimban might not even have an emergency standby station."
"It doesn't matter, Luke. I have to make the conference, and I'm going down while I still have some real control. Surely, in a system as populous as this one, any world with a breathable atmosphere's going to be equipped with facilities for emergency repair. Your data must be old or else you're searching the wrong tapes." A pause, then, "You can prove it by shifting your communicator monitor to frequency oh-foursix-one."
Luke adjusted the requisite controls. Instantly a steady whine filled the small cabin.
"Sound familiar?" she asked him.
"That's a directional landing beacon, all right," he replied, confused.
Several further queries, however, revealed no records of a station on Mimban. "But there's still nothing in the listings on either Imperial or Alliance tapes. If we?" He broke off as a puff of gas glowed brightly from the Princess' Y-wing, expanded brightly and vanished. "Leia! Princess Leia!"
Her small ship was already curving away from him. "Lost lateral controls completely now, Luke! I've got to go down!"
Luke rushed to match her glide path. "I don't deny the presence of the beacon. Maybe we'll be lucky! Try to shift power to your port controls!"
"I'm doing the best I can." A brief silence, followed by, "Stop moving around, Threepio, and watch your ventral manipulators!"
A contrite, metallic, "Sorry, Princess Leia," sounded from her cabin companion, the bronzed human-cyborg relations droid See Threepio.
"But what if Master Luke is correct and there is no station below? We could find ourselves marooned forever on this empty world, without companionship, without knowledge tapes, without? without lubricants!"
"You heard the beacon, didn't you?" Luke saw a small explosion whereupon the Y-wing dove surface-ward at an abruptly sharper angle. For a few moments only static answered his frantic calls. Then the interference cleared. "Close, Luke. I lost my starboard dorsal engine completely. I cut port dorsal ninety percent to balance guidance systems."
"I know. I've cut power to slow with you."
In the Y-wing's tiny cabin Threepio sighed, gripped the walls around him more firmly. "Try to set us down gently, please, Princess. Rough landings do terrible things to my internal gyros."
"They're not so good on my insides either," the Princess shot back, lips clenched tightly as she fought the sluggish controls. "Besides, you've nothing to worry about. droids can't get spacesick."
Threepio could have argued otherwise, but remained silent as the Ywing commenced a stomach-turning roll downward. Luke had to react rapidly to follow. There was one tiny positive sign: the beacon signal was not imaginary. It was really there, beeping steadily when he adjusted the controls on his board so that the signal was audible.
Maybe Leia was right.
But he still didn't feel confident. "Artoo, let me know if you spot anything unusual on our way down. Keep all your sensory plug-ins on full power." A reassuring whistle filled the cockpit.
They were at two hundred kilometers and descending when Luke jumped in his seat. Something began pushing at his mind. A stirring in the Force.
He tried to relax, to let it fill and flow over and through him just as old Ben had instructed him.
His sensitivity was far from perfectly attuned and he sincerely doubted he would ever attain half the command of the Force that Kenobi had possessed? Though the old man had expressed great confidence in Luke's potential. Still, he knew enough to categorize that subtle tingling. It sparked an almost palpable feeling of unease in him, and it came from something (or several somethings) on the surface below.
Yet he wasn't sure. Not that he could do anything about it now. The only concern of the moment was hoping the Princess' ship could set down safely.
But the sooner they left Mimban, the better he'd feel.
Despite her own problems, the Princess was taking the time to relay coordinate information to him. As if he couldn't plot her own course by himself. Instead, he tried to identify something he'd just spotted below them as they entered the outer atmosphere. Something funny in the clouds here? He couldn't decide just what.
He voiced his new concern to the Princess. "Luke you're worrying too much. You'll worry yourself to death at an early age. And that would be a waste of?"
He never did find out what worrying himself to death would be a waste of because at that moment they entered troposphere for the first time and the immediate reaction of both ships to the thicker air and air to ships was anything but normal.
It seemed as if they'd suddenly plunged from a cloud-dotted but unexceptional-appearing sky into an ocean of liquid electricity.
Gigantic multicolored bolts of energy erupted from empty air, contacted the hulls of the two ships and fomented instrumental chaos where order had reigned seconds before. Instead of the blue or yellow tinged canopy they'd expected to sail through, the atmosphere around them was drenched with bizarre, perambulating energies so wild and frenzied they bordered on the animate. Behind Luke, Artoo Detoo beeped nervously.
Luke fought his own instrumentation. It flaunted a farrago of electronic nonsense at him. The madly bucking X-wing was held in the grip of unidentified forces powerful enough to toss it about like a plaything.
The chromatic storm vanished behind him as if he'd suddenly emerged from a waterspout, but his controls continued to exhibit what were probably permanent manifestations of the electronically addled.
A quick verbal survey revealed what he most feared: the Princess' fighter was nowhere in sight. Trying to control his drunken ship with one hand on the manual controls, Luke activated the communicator with the other.
"Leia! Leia, are you??"
"No? control, Luke," came the static-sprinkled reply. He could barely make out the words. "Instruments? replonza. I'm trying to get down in? One piece. If we?"
Gone, no matter how frantically he cajoled the communicator. His attention was diverted as something in one overhead panel blew out in a shower of sparks and metal fragments. The cockpit filled with acrid fumes.
Impelled by a desperate thought, Luke activated the fighter's tracker.
Part of the little ship's offensive armament, it was among its best-built and sealed components. Even so, it had been overloaded by the fury of the peculiar distorting energies, energies which its designers had never anticipated that it would encounter.
Useless now, nonetheless its automatic record was intact and playable.
It showed for several moments the falling spiral which could only have been left by the Princess' ship. As best as he could without autoenhancement, Luke set the X-wing on a pursuit course downward.
There was little to no chance of following the Princess precisely. He simply prayed that now they might land somewhere other than on opposite sides of the planet from each other. He simply prayed they might land.
Swerving slightly like a crippled camel in a sandstorm, the fighter continued to drop. As the lush surface of Mimban rushed up at him Luke caught rolling, twisting glimpses of mountainless green swaths interwoven with veins and arteries of muddy brown and blue.
Though he was utterly ignorant of Mimbanian topography, the green and blue-brown of rivers and streams and vegetation seemed infinitely preferable as landing sites to, say, the endless cerulean of open sea or the gray spires of young mountains. No rock is as soft as water and no water so soft as a swamp, he reflected, trying to cheer himself. He was starting to believe he actually might survive the touchdown, the Princess doing likewise.
Frantically he fought to discover a combination of circuits that would reactivate the target tracker. Once he partly succeeded. The screen showed the Y-wing still on the course he'd just plotted. His chance of setting down close to her ship was looking better.
Despite the demands on his mind, he couldn't help but consider the energy distortions that had ruined their instrumentation. The fact that the rainbow maelstrom was confined to one area? An area very close to the location of the landing beacon?raised questions as intriguing as they were disturbing.
Trying to minimize the effects of his insane controls, Luke switched off his engines and continued down on glide. Back on Tatooine he'd had plenty of practice idling in his skyhopper. But that was considerably different from doing practically the same thing in a vehicle as complex as this fighter. He had no idea if the same thought would occur to the Princess, or if she had had any experience in powerless flight.
Anxiously chewing his lower lip, Luke realized that even if she tried gliding, his own craft was far better suited to such a maneuver than her Y-wing.
If only he could see her he'd feel a lot better. Strain his eyes as he might, though, there was no sign of her. Soon, he knew, all chance of visual contact would vanish. His ship began plunging recklessly into a floor of dirty gray cotton, thick cumulo-nimbus clouds.
Several rambling flashes crackled through the air, only this time the lightning was natural. But Luke was deep in clouds by then and could see nothing. Panic hammered at him. If the visibility stayed like this all the way to the surface he'd locate the ground a bit too late, the hard way. As he considered switching back to auto, distorted as it was, he broke out of the bottom layer of clouds. The air was thick with rain, but not so bad that he failed to make out the terrain below.
Time was running out faster than altitude now. He had barely enough of either to pull back on the atmospheric controls before something jolted the fighter from below. That was followed instantly by a series of similar crackings as he clipped off the crowns of the tallest trees.
Eyeballing his airspeed indicator, Luke fired braking rockets and nudged the ship's nose down ever so gently. At least he would be spared the worry of igniting the vegetation around the landing site.
Everything hereabouts was drenched.
Again he fired the braking rockets. A series of violent jolts and jounces shook him despite his battle harness. A green floral wave crested ahead and overwhelmed him with darkness?
He blinked. Ahead, the shattered foreport of the fighter framed jungle with crystal geometry. All was quiet. As he tried to lean forward water caressed his face. That helped to clear his mind and bring the scenery into sharp focus. Even the rain was falling with caution, he mused, that is if it were indeed a light rain, instead of an exceptionally heavy mist.
Craning his neck, Luke noted that the metal overhead had been peeled back neatly?as if by some giant opener?by the thick, now cracked limb of an enormous tree. If by chance the fighter had slid in here slightly higher, Luke's skull would have been peeled off just as neatly?
A bit more to port and the broad bole of the tree would have smashed him back into the power plant. He had escaped decapitation and fatal compression by a meter either way.
Water continued to drip into the broken, open cockpit from the wood above. Luke suddenly realized he was parched and opened his mouth to let the water quench his thirst. He noticed a slight saltiness that didn't seem right. The rain (or mist) water looked clear and pure. It was. The saltiness, he realized, came from the blood trickling down from the gash in his forehead. It ran down the left side of his nose and onto his lips.
Undoing the g-locks, Luke slipped free of the harness. Even moving slowly and carefully, he felt as if every muscle in his body had been grabbed and pulled from opposite ends to the near-breaking point.
Ignoring the pain as best he could, he inventoried his surroundings.
Between the distortions generated by the electronic storm he'd passed through and the more prosaic results of the crash, his instruments had become candidates for the secondhand shop. They would never operate this fighter again. Turning to his left, he keyed the exit panel but was not surprised when it failed to respond. After throwing the double switch on the manual release he jabbed the emergency stud.
Two of the four explosive bolts fired. The panel moved a few centimeters, then froze.
Pressing himself back in the pilot's seat, Luke braced himself with both hands and kicked. That accomplished nothing save to send shooting pains up both legs. All that remained was the standard exit, if it hadn't been too badly jammed. Reaching up with both hands, he shoved the release mechanism, then pushed. Nothing. He paused, panting as he considered his alternatives.
The cockpit hood began to lift by itself. Squirming frantically, Luke tried to find his pistol. A querulous beep reassured him. "Artoo Detoo!"
A curved metallic hood looked down at him, the single red electronic eye studying him anxiously. "Yes, I'm okay? I think."
Using Artoo's center leg as a brace, Luke pulled himself up and out.
Clearing his legs, he got to his feet and found himself standing on top of the grounded X-wing. He rested his back against the curve of the great, overhanging branch.
A mournful whistle-honk sounded and he glanced down at Artoo, who clung securely to the metal hull nearby. "I don't know what you're saying, Artoo, without Threepio to translate for us. But I can guess."
His gaze turned outward. "I don't know where he and the Princess are.
I'm not even sure where we are."
Slowly he took stock of the surface of Mimban. Dense growth rose all around, but it was clumped in large pockets, instead of presenting a continuous front like a normal jungle. There was ample open space.
Mimban, or at least the section where he'd come down, was part swamp, part jungle, part bog.
Fluid mud filled most of a languid stream to the right of the ship. It meandered in slow motion. To his left the trunk of the enormous tree he'd nearly hit towered into the mist. Beyond lay a tangle of other tall growths fringed with bushes and tired, drooping ferns. Gray-brown ground bordered it. There was no way to tell from a distance how solid the surface was. Bracing himself with a hand on a small branch, Luke leaned over the side of the ship. The X-wing appeared to be resting on similar terrain. It wasn't sinking. That meant he might be able to walk. This was some comfort to him, since without a ship he was a rotten flier.
Smiling slightly to himself, he crouched and peered under the limb.
The double wing on the port side of the ship had been snapped off cleanly somewhere back in the forest, leaving only twin metal stubs.
Both engines on that side, naturally, were also missing. Unequivocally, he was grounded.
Carefully crawling back into the ruined cockpit he unlocked the seat and shifted it to one side, then began rummaging in the sealed compartment behind it for the material he'd have to carry with him.
Emergency rations, his father's lightsaber, a thermal suit? The last because despite the tropic appearance of some of the vegetation, it was decidedly cool outside.
Luke knew there were temperate rain forests as well as tropical ones.
While the temperature would probably not become dangerously cold, it still could combine with the omnipresent moisture to give him an uncomfortable and potentially debilitating chill. So he took the precaution of packing the thin suit. The survival pack for his back was strapped to the backside of the seat. Unbuckling it, he began to fill its copious interior with supplies from the compartment.
When the rip-proof sack was stuffed, he tried to seal the cockpit as best he could to protect it. Then he sat on the edge of the seat and thought.
His preliminary observations had revealed no sign of the Princess' Y-wing. Yet in the damp, foggy air it could have touched down ten meters away and still be effectively invisible. She probably had landed or crashed slightly ahead of him, according to his estimate of how rapidly he had set his own ship down. Lacking any other information, he had no choice but to continue on foot along his last plotted course for her.
It had occurred to him to stand on the nose of the ship and shout, but he'd decided it would be better to locate the ship visually first. The cacophony of cries, hoots, howls, whistles and buzzings which seeped out of the encircling bog and thick vegetation didn't encourage him to make himself conspicuous. Shouting might attract all sorts of attention, some of it possibly carnivorous.
Better to find the Princess' ship first. With any luck she would be seated sensibly in the cockpit, alive and intact and fuming with impatience as she waited for him to arrive.
Pulling himself clear of the cockpit again, Luke used branches for balance as he climbed down to the broken stub of the port double wing. He lowered himself carefully to the ground, which was soft, almost springy.
Pulling up one foot, he saw that his boot sole was already coated with sticky gray gook that resembled wet modeling clay. But the ground held, supported him. Artoo joined him a moment later.
Thanks to the abruptness of his forced landing, he didn't have to search for a walking stick. There was an abundance of shattered, splintered limbs strewn in the fighter's wake. He selected one which would serve both for support and for testing the ground ahead.
Using the nose of the ship as a crude guide, he set his tracomp and they started off, angling a few degrees to starboard.
It might have been a movement of bush branches in the forest, it might have been the Force, or it might have been an old-fashioned hunch, but even Ben Kenobi would have admitted that Luke had only one chance of finding the Princess' ship. If it didn't lie close along the path he was taking, if he missed it and passed on, he could continue trodding the surface of Mimban for a thousand years without ever seeing her again.
If his original plotting tape had been accurate and if she hadn't altered her course of descent at the last moment for some strange reason, he ought to find her within a week. Of course, he considered, she might not have been able to prevent her fighter from changing its angle of fall. He shunted that possibility aside. The situation was grim enough without such speculations.
The fog-mist-rain altered its consistency but never dried up completely.
So it wasn't long before the exposed portions of his body were thoroughly soaked. At present, he thought, it was more of a belligerent fog than a real rain.
His suit kept his body moisture-free, but face, hands and scalp soon had rivulets of their own as water accumulated. There were rare, almost clear-dry moments, but he still spent a lot of energy regularly wiping the accumulated water beads from his forehead and cheeks.
Once he saw something that looked like a four-meter-long pale snake slither off into the underbrush at his approach. As he strode cautiously over the path it had taken, he saw that it had left a grooved track lined with luminous mucus in the soft earth. But Luke wasn't impressed. He had spent little time in zoological study. Even on Tatooine, which harbored its own protoplasmic freaks, such things hadn't interested him much. If a critter didn't try to eat you, claw you or otherwise ingest you, there were other things to absorb one's interest.
Nonetheless, he now had to direct all his attention to keeping to his predetermined path. Despite the tracom built into his suit sleeve he knew he could easily lose his way. A deviation of a tenth of a degree could be critical.
He mounted a slight rise during one of the rare, almost clear periods.
Through the fog and mist he glimpsed monolithic gray battlements off in the distance. It seemed likely to him that those walls had not been raised by human hands.
Their uniform steel-gray color made them look as if they'd been constructed of a child's toy blocks. Luke couldn't be sure, this far away, whether their color was true or distorted by the shifting fog.
Soaring gray towers were inlaid with black stone or metal and boasted misshapen domes.
He paused, tempted for the first time to change direction and explore.
There were discoveries to be made here. However, the Princess waited not in that eldritch city but somewhere further on, in an environment which at any moment might prove hostile.
As if in response to his thought, he noticed a stirring in a clump of rust-green bushes ahead. Straining every sense, he dropped to one knee and removed the lightsaber from its place at his waist. The vegetation began to rustle violently. His thumb slid over the activation stud. Artoo beeped nervously alongside.
Whatever was in there was moving toward him. He thought about testing the wind, remembered sheepishly that there wasn't any. That, however, might not prove an inhibition to the creature approaching him.
Quite abruptly the greenery ahead parted. Out walked the Mimbanite.
It was a large dark brown furry ball, with patches and stripes of green covering its body, roughly a meter in diameter. Four short furry legs supported it, ending in thick, double digits. Four arms poked clear of the upper surface. The modest tail was naked like a rat's.
Two wide eyes peering out from among the bristly fur were all that showed of a face. They grew wider as they settled on Luke and Artoo Detoo.
Luke waited tensely, finger poised over the lightsaber switch.
The creature did not charge. Instead, it produced a startled, muffled squeal and whirled. With all eight limbs propelling it, the creature shot back into the protective brush.
After several minutes of silence, Luke rose. His finger slid clear of the saber stud and he reattached the weapon to his belt, smiling somewhat hysterically.
His first confrontation with an inhabitant of this world had sent it fleeing in terror from him. Maybe the wildlife hereabouts, if not actually benign, was something less than dangerous. With that in mind he continued on, his stride a bit longer, a touch more selfassured. His posture was straighter and his spirits considerably higher, raised up by that stoutest of buoys, false confidence?

Two.
Leia Organa made another half-hearted try at adjusting her rain slicked hair, then gave up in disgust and peered out at the lush growth surrounding her.
After losing all contact with Luke, she'd managed to land hard in this wet hell. She took some measure of comfort in knowing that if Luke had also survived set down, he'd try to reach her. After all, his job was to see that she arrived safely at Circarpous Four.
Angrily she mused that now she was going to be rather more than slightly late for the conference. A quick examination had indicated that she would no longer have to worry about the malfunctioning port engine which was now a crumpled oblong metal shape, incapable of propelling itself or anything else across so much as a light-second. The rest of the Y-wing was in little better shape.
She considered looking for Luke. But it made more sense for one of them to wait for the arrival of the other, and she knew Luke would come for her as soon as he was ready.
"Pardon me, Princess," said the metal form behind her, "but do you think Artoo and Master Luke set down safely in this awful place?"
"Of course they did. Luke's the best pilot we've got. If I made it down, I'm certain he had no trouble." That was a slight lie. What if Luke was lying injured somewhere, unable to move, and she simply sat here awaiting him? Better not to think about that. The vision of a twisted, broken Luke, bleeding to death in the cockpit of his X-wing, made her insides spin tightly.
She slid back the roof of the cockpit once again, her nose wrinkling at the rankness of the dripping morass encircling them. Plenty of noise assailed her from hidden things moving stealthily through the undergrowth. Nothing larger than a couple of brightly hued quasi insects had shown themselves thus far, however. Her pistol rested comfortably on her lap. Not that she'd need it, secure as she was in the cockpit whose sliding roof panel she could throw back in place and lock in seconds. She was perfectly safe.
Threepio felt otherwise. "I don't like this place, Princess. I don't like it at all."
"Relax. There can't be anything out there," she nodded toward the densest growth, "that would find you digestible."
A shrill, hooting cry sounded like a sick trumpet close on her left. She jerked around sharply, sucking in a startled breath. But there was nothing there.
Her face pressed close by the open port as she strove to penetrate the green-brown wall of vegetation with anxious eyes. When the noise did not recur, she forced herself to relax.
"Do you see anything, Threepio?"
"No, Princess. Nothing larger than a few small arthropods, and I'm scanning with infrared also. That doesn't mean something large and inimical couldn't be out there."
"But you don't see anything?"
"No"
She was furious at herself. A simple noise had panicked her. Probably only the forlorn cry of some harmless herbivore, and she'd panicked like an infant. It would not happen again.
She was angry because whatever had caused them to crash would certainly cause her to miss her scheduled arrival demonstration on Circarpous, possibly aggravating the government officials assigned to greet her. She was twice over angry at Luke. Angry for not performing a navigational miracle and following her safely down without instruments or control, and angry most of all because he'd been right in insisting they ought not land here.
So she sat and fumed silently to herself, alternately conjuring up the curses she'd employ when he finally did arrive and worrying about what she'd do if he didn't.
Aahhh-wooop!
Again the trumpeting sound. Whatever had produced it had not left after all. If anything, the sharp hooting sounded closer. This time her hand tightened around the pistol. Once more she examined the surrounding jungle, saw nothing.
As she stared she theorized. Suppose she had misinterpreted that landing beacon somehow? Suppose it was only the barest of automatic installations and this world was devoid not only of mechanics but of facilities for organic travelers as well?
If Luke was dead she'd be marooned here alone, without any idea of?
There was a loud crashing, off to her right this time. Swinging around in the seat she instinctively fired off a burst through the cracked port and was rewarded with the odor of burnt, wet vegetable matter. The muzzle of the pistol remained focused on the carbonized spot.
Hopefully, she'd hit the thing. Fortunately, she hadn't.
"It's me!" a voice shouted, sounding more than a little shaky. She'd barely missed him.
"It's me and Artoo."
"Artoo Detoo!" Threepio clambered out of the cockpit, moved to greet his squat counterpart.
"Artoo, it's good to?" Threepio paused, then continued in a different tone. "What do you think you're doing, making me wait like this?
When I think of the anguish you've caused me?"
"Luke, are you all right?"
He began climbing up the damaged side of the fighter, sat down next to the open cockpit. "Yes. I touched down behind you. I was afraid Artoo and I might miss you."
"I was afraid you?" She stopped, looked down, unable to meet his gaze. "I apologize, Luke. I made a mistake in trying to land here."
Luke also looked away, embarrassed. "Nobody could have foreseen the atmospheric disturbance that forced us down, Leia."
She looked into the jungle. "I managed to plot the location of that homing beacon before my instruments went out completely." She pointed slightly behind them and to her left. "It's back that way. Once we reach the station we can locate whoever's in charge and arrange for passage off this world."
"If there's a station," Luke pointed out mildly, "or anyone in charge of it."
"It occurred to me that it might be a fully automated station," she confessed, "but I don't know what else we can do."
"Agreed," said Luke with a slow sigh. "We've got nothing to gain by sitting here. I used to believe in miracles. I don't, anymore. We can get eaten just as quickly here as we can on the trail."
The Princess looked downcast. "You've encountered carnivorous life, then?"
"No, hardly any life at all, actually. The only animal of any size I confronted," he went on with a slight grin, "took one look at me and ran off like a spooked Bantha." He turned, moved to enter the cockpit.
"Let's get started while it's still light. I'll give you a hand making up a pack."
Carefully he lowered himself in next to her. As he unlatched her seat he became conscious of the confined space they were working in.
Awkwardly pressed up against him, the Princess seemed to take no notice of their proximity. In the dampness, though, her body heat was near palpable to Luke and he had to force himself to keep his attention on what he was doing.
Raising herself from the cockpit, the Princess stood on the nose of the fighter and reached down to him. "Hand it up, Luke."
He lifted the burgeoning pack. "Too heavy?" he asked as he handed it to her. She slid it onto her back, slipped both arms through the straps and adjusted the weight before tightening them.
"The burden of public office was a lot heavier," she shot back. "Let's get moving."
Briskly scrambling over the side, she let herself drop to the ground, planted her feet, took two steps in the direction of the distant beacon?
And began to sink.
"Luke? Threepio?"
"Take it easy, Princess." Edging carefully over the same side, he walked out on the intact wing facing her.
"Luke!" Already she was up to her knees in gray muck. If anything, she was beginning to sink faster.
Trying to anchor himself with his left hand, Luke reached out with his right from the wing edge.
"Lean toward me. Artoo, you lock onto the ship. Threepio, give me your hand."
She did as she was told, the motion generating squelching sounds from the bog. Her hand flailed for him, smacking the soft ground many centimeters from his.
Rising, he scrambled back to the cockpit and retrieved his walking stick, then returned hurriedly to his prone position on the wing and extended it. "Lean toward me," he urged her again. "Threepio, you and Artoo hold tight or I'll go in with her."
"Don't worry sir," Threepio assured him. Artoo added a whistle.
She was up to her waist now. On the first try she missed the pole. The second time her fingers locked around it, were joined by her other hand.
Luke wrapped both hands around his end of the stick and sat up on the wing, leaning back. His feet slid and scraped on the smooth metal.
"Artoo, Threepio? Pull!"
Having secured a firm grip on her, the earth was reluctant to yield its prize. Every muscle in his body taut, Luke struggled to heave and to conjure the Force simultaneously. He tried to put all of his weight behind his arms, behind his desperate pull.
A tired sucking noise sounded, and the Princess lurched forward. Luke allowed his exhausted arms a brief respite and hyperventilated while he had the chance.
"You can play toy engine later," the Princess admonished him. "Pull now."
Momentary anger gave him enough energy to pull her the rest of the way clear. Reaching down, he gave her a hand up and then they were both sitting on the edge of the wing.
Covered from the ribs down in a packing of green-gray mud and pieces of what looked like dried straw, the Princess appeared decidedly unregal.
She pushed futilely at the mud, which was drying rapidly to the consistency of thin concrete. She said nothing, and Luke knew anything he might venture would not be terribly well received.
"Come on," he suggested simply. Taking up his walking stick, he moved to the back side of the wing. Leaning over, he probed at the ground, which displayed no inclination to eat his stick. But still he kept one hand on the wing edge when he stepped off. His feet sank, but only half a centimeter into the spongy loam. Yet the earth here looked no different from the quick clay that had almost taken the Princess.
She dropped down easily beside him and soon they were traveling through intermittent patches of half-familiar vegetation. Branches and bushes blocked tired legs and occasional thorns tore hopefully at them, but Luke's assumption that the ground beneath the taller growths was the firmest held true with gratifying consistency. Even the weighty droids didn't sink into the muck.
From time to time as they hiked along, the Princess would dab or push disgustedly at her lower body, which was now solidly caked with the gook she'd slid into. She remained unusually quiet. Luke couldn't tell whether her silence was due to a desire to conserve her strength or embarrassment at her present situation. He tended to think the former. To his knowledge, being embarrassed was not something she was subject to.
Frequently they would pause, turn circles, and then match up pointer alignment on their tracoms to insure they were still marching toward the beacon site.
"Even if it is an automatic station," he remarked several days later, in an effort to cheer her, "somebody put it down here and so they have to maintain it. However infrequently. I saw some pretty big ruins near the place we set down. Perhaps natives are still living in them or they might be empty, but the beacon could be for the use of a xeno-archeological research post."
"That's possible," she admitted brightly. "Yes? that would also explain why the beacon's not listed. A small scientific outpost could be temporary!"
"And recent," Luke added, excited by the plausibility of his own supposition. Just talking about such a possibility made him, made them both feel better. "If that's the case, then even an automated station that's only used on occasion ought to contain an emergency shelter and survival provisions. Heck, there might even be a subspace planetary relay for contacting Circarpous Four when the scientific team is operating here."
"A cry for help would be a poor way for me to announce my presence," the Princess observed, brushing at her dark hair. "Not," she added quickly, "that I'm going to be particular. I'll settle for arriving in a medical cocoon."
They walked on in silence for awhile before another question entered Luke's mind. "I still wonder, Princess, what caused our instruments to go crazy. That enormous volume of rising free energy we passed through?
Bolts jumping from sky to ship and ship back to sky again? I've never seen anything like that before."
"Nor have I, sir," commented Threepio. "I thought I might go mad."
"Neither have I," admitted the Princess thoughtfully. "And I've never read of a natural phenomenon like it. Several colonized gas giants have bigger storms, but never with so much color. And big thunderheads are always involved. We were above the thick cloud layer when it happened. Still," she hesitated, "the whole thing seemed almost familiar, somehow."
Artoo beeped his agreement.
"You'd think whoever established that homing beacon in this area would also have put a message in the transmission warning ships away from the danger."
"Yes," the Princess agreed. "Hard to imagine a scientific expedition, or any other kind, being that negligent. The omission, it's almost criminal." She shook her head slowly. "That effect? I can almost remember something like it." A diffident smile, then, "My head's still full of the conference."
It should be, Luke thought, full of one thing only? Making it to that homing beacon and hoping there was more there than just a pile of machinery. What he said was, "I understand, Princess."
Not the Force, but a more ancient, more highly developed sense in man half convinced him they were being watched. He found himself turning rapidly to scan the trees and mist behind them and at each side. Nothing looked back at him, but the feeling refused to go away.
Once she spotted him peering hard at a dank copse. "Nervous?" It was part question, part challenge.
"You bet I'm nervous," he shot back. "I'm nervous and frightened and I wish to hell we were on Circarpous right now. Anywhere on Circarpous, instead of trudging through this swamp on foot."
Turning serious, the Princess told him, "One learns to accept whatever events life has in store with the best possible spirits." She stared straight ahead.
"That's just what I'm doing," Luke confessed, "accepting them in the best possible spirits? Nervousness and fear."
"Well, you needn't look at me as if this is all my fault."
"Did I imply that? Did I say that?" Luke countered, a touch more tightly than he intended. She glanced sharply at him and he cursed his inability to conceal his feelings. He would have been, he decided, a rotten card player. Or politician.
"No, but you as much as?" she began hotly.
"Princess," he interrupted softly, "we still have a long way to go, according to your plotted location. Just because something full of teeth and claws hasn't pounced on us from every tree doesn't mean such creatures don't thrive here. One thing we haven't got is time to fight between ourselves. Besides, responsibility is a dead issue now. It's been superseded by survival. Survive we will, if the Force is with us."
There was no reply. That in itself was encouraging. They trudged on, Luke stealing admiring glances at her when she wasn't looking.
Disheveled and caked with mud from the waist down, she was still beautiful. He knew she was upset, not at him, but at the possibility they might miss the scheduled conference with the Circarpousian underground.
There's no night so dark as a night filled with fog, and every night on Mimban was like that. They made a bed for themselves between the parted roots of a great tree. While the Princess started a fire, Luke and the droids constructed a rain shelter by stretching the two survival capes between both massive roots. They huddled together for warmth and watched the night try to slip around the edges of the fire. It crackled reassuringly despite the mist as the night sounds chorused around them.
They were no different from day sounds, but anything that wears the cloak of night, especially on an alien world, partakes of the night's mystery and terror.
"Don't worry, sir," said Threepio. "Artoo and I will keep watch. We don't require sleep, and there's nothing out there that can ingest us."
Something sounding like a broken pipe gurgled stentorianly in the darkness and Threepio started. Artoo gave a derisive beep, and the two droids moved out into the darkness.
"Very funny," Threepio admonished his companion. "I hope one of the local carnivores chokes on you and breaks every one of your external sensors."
Artoo whistled back, sounding unimpressed. The Princess pressed close against Luke. He tried to comfort her without appearing anxious, but as the darkness closed to a stygian blackness around them and the night sounds turned to sepulchral moans and hootings, his arm instinctively went around her shoulders. She didn't object. It made him feel good to sit there like that, leaning against her and trying to ignore the damp ground beneath.
Something called out with an abyssal shrillness, startling Luke from his sleep. Nothing moved beyond the dying fire. With his free hand he tossed several shards of wood onto the embers, watched the fire blaze again.
Then he happened to glance down at his companion's face. It was not the face of a Princess and a Senator or of a leader of the Rebel Alliance, but instead that of a chilled child. Moistly parted in sleep, her lips seemed to beckon to him. He leaned closer, seeking refuge from the damp green and brown of the swamp in that hypnotic redness.
He hesitated, pulled back. She was an aristocrat and Rebel leader. For all he'd accomplished above Yavin, he was still only a pilot and, before that, a farmer's nephew. Peasant and Princess, he mused disgustedly.
His assignment was to protect her. He wouldn't abuse that trust, no matter his own hopeless hopes. He would defend her against anything that leapt out of the darkness, crawled from the slime, dropped from the gnarled branches they walked under. He would do it out of respect and admiration and possibly out of the most powerful of emotions, unrequited love.
He would even defend her from himself, he determined tiredly. In five minutes he was fast asleep?
Any awkwardness was spared by the fact that he awakened first.
Removing his arm from her shoulders, he nudged her gently once, twice. With the third nudge she sat straight up, eyes wide and staring with sudden wakefulness. She turned sharply to stare at him. Then the events of the past several days came flooding back to her and she relaxed a little.
"Sorry. I thought I was someplace else. I was a little frightened." She started to rummage through her survival pack, and Luke did the same with his. Threepio offered a cheery "Good morning."
While the cloud-masked sun rose somewhere behind them, warming the mists slightly, they shared a meager breakfast of emergency cube concentrates.
"Whoever created these," she grimaced in distaste, biting off a small piece of a pink square, "must have been part machine. They didn't program anything like taste or flavor into them."
Luke tried not to let the awful taste he was experiencing show. "Oh, I don't know. They're designed to keep you alive, not to taste good."
"Want another one?" She extended a blue square with the consistency of dead sponge. Luke eyed it, half-smiled queasily.
"Not? Right away. I'm kind of full." She nodded knowingly, then smiled.
He grinned back at her.
The long day never grew truly comfortable, but their suits and the thermal capes kept them warm enough. By late morning it had grown sufficiently hot for them to unhook the capes, fold the thin material into small rectangles, and put them up in suit pockets.
The rare breaks in the mist were never large enough to give them a view of the rising sun, though Threepio and Artoo assured them it was there.
It attacked the mist persistently, raising the light level from mere dimness to a kind of enthusiastic twilight.
"We should be getting close to the beacon," she told them all around midday. Luke wondered how many hours they'd slept. Nights and days would be long on Circarpous/Mimban.
"We have to be prepared to find nothing, Princess. There might not be a beacon station,"
"I know," she admitted quietly. "We'll have to search, though. We can walk in an expanding spiral from the place I plotted, and hope."
A long wall of trees and lesser growth lay ahead. They plunged into it without hesitating, trading ease of passage for secure footing.
"Pardon me, sir."
Luke looked slightly ahead and to his right. Both robots had paused and See Threepio was leaning against something. "What is it, Threepio?"
"Your pardon, sir, but this isn't a tree I'm pressing against," the droid said, "it's metal. I thought the matter worthy enough to bring to your notice. There is a possibility?" A loud beep cut him off and he glared down at Artoo. "Talk too much? What do you mean I talk too much, you factory second!"
"Metal? it is metal!" The Princess was standing alongside the robots, waiting for Luke to make his way through the brush.
"Artoo, see if you can clear some of this undergrowth away." The little droid activated a small cutting flame, used it to burn a path through the jungle. "It's a wall? it's got to be," Luke muttered as they walked parallel to the forest-scarred metal surface.
Sure enough, the metal finally ended, and they emerged from the trees onto a modestly cleared roadway. It led into a street paved with packed clay-earth. Buildings lined both sides of the glorified alley, marching resolutely into the swirling fogs. Warm yellow glows shone from lights hidden behind tightly sealed windows, illuminating and outlining raised metal sidewalks canopied against the mist and rain.
"Thank the Force," the Princess murmured.

"First," Luke began, "we find a place to get cleaned up. Then?" He took a step forward. A hand caught his shoulder, held him back. He eyed Leia curiously. "What's the matter?"
"Think a minute, Luke," she urged him softly. "This is more than just a simple homing beacon site. Much more." Cautiously, she leaned around the corner of the metal wall, peered down the street. Figures were strolling along the metal walkways now. Others crossed the mistslicked street.
"It's too substantial for a scientific post, too."
Luke turned his own attention to the shrouded streets, took in the figures, the crude shape of the structures. "You're right. It's a big installation. Maybe some company from Circarpous?"
"No," she gestured sharply. "Look there."
Two figures were swaying down the center of the street. They wore armor instead of loose clothing, formed armor of white and black.
Armor that was all too familiar.
Both men carried their helmets casually. One dropped his, bent to retrieve it, kicked it accidentally up the street. His companion chided him. Cursing, the clumsy Imperial picked up his helmet, and the two continued on their meandering path.
Luke's eyes had grown as wide as Leia's. "Imperial storm troopers, here.
Without the Circarpousians' knowledge, or we'd have heard of it from the underground there."
She was nodding excitedly. "If the Circarpousians find out, they'll quit the Empire faster than a bureaucrat can quote forms!"
"And who's going to inform them about the violation?" Luke wanted to know.
"Why, we?" The Princess stopped, looked somber. "We have two reasons to need help now, Luke."
"Shsssh," he whispered. They drew back further into the darkness. A large cluster of men and women appeared around the near corner.
They were chatting softly among themselves, but it wasn't their inaudible conversation that intrigued Luke and Leia. They wore unusual clothing, coveralls of some black, reflective material which tucked into matching high boots.
The coveralls rose to end in a cap that fit over the wearer's head.
Some members of the group had their hoods up and fastenformed, others wore them folded flat against their upper back. Various types of equipment Luke didn't recognize hung and swayed from wide belts.
Evidently the Princess knew what they were. "Miners," she informed him, watching as the group moved off down one metal walkway.
"They're wearing mining suits. The Empire's digging something valuable out of this planet, and the Circarpousians don't know a thing about it."
"How can you be so sure?" Luke inquired.
The Princess sounded positive. "They'd have their own installation here, and no troops. The Empire obviously doesn't want anyone to know about this." Artoo whistled soft agreement.
Further conversation was made impossible when the air was suddenly filled with a distant, violent howling. It sounded like a parade of demons tramping along just beneath the surface.
The sound continued for several minutes, then ceased. Realization transformed the Princess' expression.
"Energy mining!" she explained breathlessly to Luke. "They're using some big generators here." A thoughtful pause, then, "That might account for the atmospheric disturbance which forced us down. I knew I'd read about that effect somewhere. A ship has to be specially insulated to drop down through an area where an energy drill is working. By-products, including excess charges, are shunted away skyward.
"But the fallout materials? If this world supports a native race, it's illegal, that kind of mining."
"Since when," observed Luke bitterly, "did legalities ever matter to the Empire?"
"You're right, of course."
"We can't stand here forever," he went on. "First thing we have to do is obtain some substantial food. Those concentrates can keep you alive for only so long without some protein to work with. And," he added, glancing at her muddy exterior, "we've got to get cleaned up. We can't attract any attention. Since Yavin and the Death Star we're both well known to Imperial enforcement officials, we'd be taken on sight."
He studied her pilot's suit, then his own. "We can't go strolling around town in these. I think we'd better work on stealing a change of clothing."
"Steal?" the Princess objected, drawing herself up. "From a possibly honest shopkeeper? If you think for a minute that a former Princess of the royal house of Alderaan, a Senator, is going to resort to?"
"I'll steal them," Luke said curtly. He leaned around the metal corner.
The mist-shrouded street was momentarily deserted and he beckoned for her to follow.
They hugged the walls of the buildings, trying to pass quickly before any lit windows or open doors, slipping furtively from shadow to shadow. Luke hastily examined each storefront in passing. Finally he halted, indicated the sign above a doorway.
"Miner's supplies," he whispered. "This is the one we want." While the Princess watched the walkways, he tried to peer through one dark window.
"Maybe it's a holiday," he guessed hopefully.
"More likely the only establishments open this time of night sell nothing but intoxicants," the Princess pointed out prosaically. "What now?" She looked uncomfortable.
By way of reply Luke led her around back. The rear entrance he'd hoped for was there. But it was secured, as he'd feared. To complicate matters there was a broad open lane behind the buildings, from which the jungle and bog had been shunted away. If anyone happened to come walking past, they'd have nowhere to hide.
"Wonderful," the Princess observed as Luke tried the locked portal.
"How do we get in?" She was indicating the seamless metal door which, no doubt, was locked and controlled from the inside. The back of the building was devoid of windows, possibly to foil intentions such as theirs.
Luke removed the lightsaber from his waist, very slowly adjusted the controls set in the handle.
"What are you going to do, Luke?"
"I don't know how big this town is, but a noisy break-in would attract too much attention. So I'm trying not to be noisy."
Watching with interest, the Princess took a couple of steps back, looking nervously up and down the alleyway. Any second she expected to see a squad of angry troopers racing around a corner toward her, alerted by some hidden alarm they had unknowingly triggered.
Only jungle sounds reached her; however, as Luke activated his saber.
Instead of the meter-plus shaft of white energy, the pommel put forth a short, needle-thin spoke. With concentration worthy of a master craftsman, Luke stepped forward and moved the energy beam along the slight space visible between door and frame. A third of the way down the door a distinct click sounded and the door slid obediently aside.
Readjusting his saber, Luke flicked it off and replaced it at his waist.
"Go ahead," she told him. "The droids and I will keep watch."
He nodded, vanished inside.
Luke's principal objective was conveniently located close to the back of the store. He spent several minutes scrounging through the racks before he found what he wanted. Taking the well-used clothing, he hurried to the back entrance and tossed the booty to the Princess.
Then he stepped just outside the door, reached back in and touched the Close stud. He pulled his arm clear as the door slid shut behind him. With luck it might be several weeks before the storekeeper discovered his loss.
Well pleased with himself, Luke stepped down to the ground and began unsnapping his flight suit. He was partly undressed when he paused and noticed the Princess standing and staring at him.
"Come on. We have to hurry."
She put hands on seal-curve hips, cocked her head to one side and stared meaningfully at him.
"Oh," he murmured, half-smiling. He turned away and continued undressing.
Feeling that nothing had changed behind him, he sneaked a glance, saw the Princess still eying him uncomfortably. "What's wrong, Princess?"
She sounded embarrassed. "Luke, I like you, and we've known each other for awhile, but I'm not sure I can trust you? now."
He grinned. "You know it won't make any difference if the stormtroopers find us here in our flight suits." He gestured. "You can change in the bush."
Turning away from her, he continued changing his own attire. She looked back at the nearby jungle. Tiny yellow points of light, the eyes of unknown creatures, winked on and off in the bushes. Strange, discomfiting sounds hissed and bleated at her. She sighed, started to slip out of her own flight suit, then paused.
"Well, what are you two staring at?"
"Oh? sorry, I?" An insistent whistle. "Yes, you're right, Artoo." Both droids turned away from the Princess.
Shortly, Luke was able to turn and study her approvingly. Her simple, worn suit was a bit snug, but otherwise looked quite natural on her.
"Well?" she asked, obviously not enthralled with her new wardrobe.
"What are you staring at?"
"I think maybe something in a print?" he began. He had to react quickly to duck the boot she threw at him. It clattered off the metal door.
"Sorry," he told her, sounding like he meant it as he picked up the boot.
Bending over his old suit he began transferring various items from it and from his backpack to the belt pouches of the miner's uniform.
One small case he flipped open carefully, went rapidly through its contents before snapping it shut and slipping it into a pocket. "I've got enough Imperial currency to last us a while. You?"
She glanced away from him. "What would a representative of the Alliance be doing with common currency on a diplomatic mission?"
Luke sighed. "We'll make do, I suppose. How would you like something to eat besides a concentrate?"
She faced him, visibly more cheerful. "I could eat half a Chou-shou, Luke. Are you sure we ought to, though?"
"We have to mingle sometime. As long as we don't look or act like total strangers, no one should bother us." They started back toward the main street, after burying their packs and flight suits in a syrupy bog.
They were halfway there when the increasing light caused Luke to stop.
"What's the matter?" the Princess asked, worried.
"Two things," Luke insisted, eying her. "First of all, there's your walk."
"And what's wrong with my walk?"
"Nothing. That's the trouble."
Her brows drew together in puzzlement. "I don't follow you, Luke."
He explained slowly. "You're walking like? Like a Princess. Not like a working woman. Slump your shoulders, take some of the confidence and distance out of your stride. Stagger a litt