Foster, Alan Dean Star Wars Splinter of the Mind's Eye

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you've said, then I'll have to assume that everything you've told me is pure fabrication. In that unfortunate
event I'll be forced to resort to indelicate methods of obtaining the truth." Luke would have preferred any
kind of smile to the empty, inhuman expression Grammel wore as he said that.
"But there's no reason why we can't be pleasant about things until then.Sergeant!"
"Captain-Supervisor!" the noncom acknowledged, stepping over smartly.
"See these two escorted to the restraining area."
"Which cell, sir?"
"The maximum secure holding pen," Grammel replied, his face unreadable.
The sergeant hesitated. "But, sir, that cell's already occupied. Its occupants are dangerous... they've
already put three men in the infirmary."
"No matter," Grammel insisted indifferently. "I'm sure these two can handle themselves. Besides,
prisoners don't fight other prisoners.Not too often, anyway."
"What are you talking about?" the Princess demanded to know, climbing to her feet. "What are you
caging us with?"
"You'll find out," Grammel assured her pleasantly. Several troops entered the room and boxed
themselves around Luke and Leia. "Please try to keep yourselves alive until I can check on your story.
I'd be distressed if it developed that you've been telling me the truth and couldn't survive the company of
your cell companions long enough to be released."
"We've been honest with you!" Luke insisted, sounding desperate.
"Sergeant?"
The noncom led the two prisoners to the exit. Grammel ignored Luke's entreaties to know what they
were being sent to.
When they were gone and the chamber was quiet again, the Captain-Supervisor spent several
minutes gazing at the glowing fragment of crystal. Then he touched a switch behind his desk. Another
door opened and a small cloaked figure entered the room for the second time.
"That's the thing you saw, Bot?" said Grammel, gesturing at the open box sitting on the desk.A nod
from the hooded shape. "You know what it is?"A negative shake this time.
"Neither doI ," Grammel confessed. "I think the youth underestimates its strangeness. I've never seen
or heard of anything remotely like it. Have you?"Another sideways shake of the hooded skull.
Grammel glanced at the closed doorway where Luke and Leia had been taken out. "Those two
could be what the boy said they were. I don't know. I have the feeling his story is a little too neat, too
convenient. Almost as if hewere gauging his responses to what I wanted to hear. I can't decide whether
he's an inefficient crook or a supernally smooth liar.
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"Something else.He sounded almost confident that he and the girl could make contact with Rebels on
the Ten or Twelve. None of our agents have been able to do that."
A husk of a sentence from the figure and Grammel nodded.
"I know that the Rebels have ways of separating true traitors from our people, but the boy's
confidence still troubles me. It seems misplaced in a petty criminal. And the girl had more spirit than her
type normally displays. I'm puzzled, Bot. But I think... I think there might be something important in all
this. I just don't have the facts available to glue it all together with... yet. It might mean much to us both."
The figure nodded vigorously, pleased.
Grammel reached a decision. "I'm going to have to contact higher authority. I don't like the idea of
sharing anything like this, but I don't see a way around it." He jerked his head contemptuously toward the
door. "In any event, we'll cut the truth out of them before anyone of importance can get here."
Leaving the desk, he walked to the wall behind it and touched a small switch. A section of wall
vanished, leaving revealed behind a blank screen of golden hue. Grammel adjusted another control. A
panel awash with dials and studs slid out of the wall beneath the reflective screen. Further adjustment,
and then he spoke into a protruding vo-pickup.
"I have a deep-space communication of the First Priority for Governor Bin Essada, on the territorial
administrative world of Gyndine." He glanced back at the cloaked form for reassurance, was rewarded
with a nod.
"Call is being processed," a computer voice declared flatly. Visual static appeared for a moment,then
the screen cleared with gratifying speed. By Imperial distances Gyndine was not very far away.
The portrait that appeared on the screen was of an overweight, swarthy individual whose most
outstanding feature was a series of chins falling in steps to the upper part of his shirt. Curly black hair,
touched with white at the sides and dyed orange in a spiral pattern on top, crowned the face like
seaweed on some water-worn boulder. Dark eyes squinted perpetually, their pink pupils ever sensitive to
light. "I havework to do," Governor Essada grunted in a porcine contralto."Who calls and what for?"
With that smug, powerful visage looming over him on the screen, much of Grammel's customary
assurance melted away. His own words came out sounding shaky and subservient.
"It is only I, Governor, a humble servant of the Emperor, Captain-Supervisor Grammel."
"I don't know any Captain-Supervisor Grammel," the voice said.
"I am in charge of the secret mining colony on Cicarpous V, sir," explained Grammel hopefully.
Essada paused momentarily, looked up from the tape he was inspecting. "I am familiar with the
Imperial operations in that system," he replied guardedly. "What business do you have that requires First [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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