Pellaeon turned back to Thrawn. “Shall we try to stop it, Admiral?”
Thrawn looked down at the data pad, his face tight with concentration. “No,” he said at last. “Let it land, but track it. And order a tech team from the Chimaera to meet us at the ship’s final destination.” His eyes searched the line of Noghri dynasts, came to rest on one of them. “Dynast Ir’khaim, clan Kihm’bar, step forward.”
The Noghri did so. “What is your wish, my lord?” he mewed.
“One of your people has come home,” Thrawn said. “We go to his village to welcome him.”
Ir’khaim bowed. “At my lord’s request.”
Thrawn stood up. “Order the shuttle to be prepared, Captain,” he told Pellaeon. “We leave at once.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, nodding the order on to Lieutenant Tschel. “Wouldn’t it be easier, sir, to have the ship and pilot brought here to us?”
“Easier, perhaps,” Thrawn acknowledged, “but possibly not as illuminating. You obviously didn’t recognize the pilot’s name; but Khabarakh, clan Kihm’bar, was once part of commando team twenty-two. Does that jog any memories?”
Pellaeon felt his stomach tighten. “That was the team that went after Leia Organa Solo on Kashyyyk.”
“And of which team only Khabarakh still survives,” Thrawn nodded. “I think it might be instructive to hear from him the details of that failed mission. And to find out why it’s taken him this long to return home.”
Thrawn’s eyes glittered. “And to find out,” he added quietly, “just why he’s trying so hard to avoid us.”
CHAPTER
10
It was full dark by the time Khabarakh brought the ship to ground in his village, a tight-grouped cluster of huts with brightly lit windows. “Do ships land here often?” Leia asked as Khabarakh pointed the ship toward a shadowy structure standing apart near the center of the village. In the glare of the landing lights the shadow became a large cylindrical building with a flat cone-shaped roof, the circular wall composed of massive vertical wooden pillars alternating with a lighter, shimmery wood. Just beneath the eaves she caught a glint of a metal band encircling the entire building.
“It is not common,” Khabarakh said, cutting the repulsorlifts and running the ship’s systems down to standby. “Neither is it unheard of.”
In other words, it was probably going to attract a fair amount of attention. Chewbacca, who had recovered enough for Leia to help into one of the cockpit passenger seats, was obviously thinking along the same lines. “The villagers are all close family of the clan Kihm’bar,” Khabarakh said in answer to the Wookiee’s slightly slurred question. “They will accept my promise of protection as their own. Come.”
Leia unstrapped and stood up, suppressing a grimace as she did so. But they were here now, and she could only hope that Khabarakh’s confidence was more than just the unfounded idealism of youth.
She helped Chewbacca unstrap and together they followed the Noghri back toward the main hatchway, collecting Threepio from her cabin on the way. “I must go first,” Khabarakh said as they reached the exit. “By custom, I must approach alone to the dukha of the clan Kihm’bar upon arrival. By law, I am required to announce out-clan visitors to the head of my family.”
“I understand,” Leia said, fighting back a fresh surge of uneasiness. She didn’t like this business of Khabarakh having conversations with his fellow Noghri that she wasn’t in on. Once again, there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. “We’ll wait here until you come and get us.”
“I will be quick,” Khabarakh promised. He palmed the door release twice, slipping outside as the panel slid open and then shut again.
Chewbacca growled something unintelligible under his breath. “He’ll be back soon,” Leia soothed him, making a guess as to what was bothering the Wookiee.
“I’m certain he is telling the truth,” Threepio added helpfully. “Customs and rituals of this sort are very common among the more socially primitive prespaceflight cultures.”
“Except that this culture isn’t prespaceflight,” Leia pointed out, her hand playing restlessly with the grip of her lightsaber as she stared at the closed hatchway in front of her. Khabarakh could at least have left the door open so that they would be able to see when he was coming back.
Unless, of course, he didn’t want them to see when he was coming back.
“That is evident, Your Highness,” Threepio agreed, his voice taking on a professorial tone. “I feel certain, however, that their status in that regard has been changed only recent— Well!” he broke off as Chewbacca abruptly pushed past him and lumbered back toward the center of the ship.
“Where are you going?” Leia called after the Wookiee. His only reply was some comment about the Imperials that she wasn’t quite able to catch. “Chewie, get back here,” she snapped. “Khabarakh will be back any minute.”
This time the Wookiee didn’t bother to answer. “Great,” Leia muttered, trying to decide what to do. If Khabarakh came back and found Chewbacca gone—but if he came and found both of them gone— “As I was saying,” Threepio went on, apparently deciding that the actions of rude Wookiees were better left ignored, “all the evidence I have gathered so far about this culture indicates that they were until recently a nonspacefaring people. Khabarakh’s reference to the dukha—obviously a clan center of some sort—the familial and clan structures themselves, plus this whole preoccupation with your perceived royal status—”
“The high court of Alderaan had a royal hierarchy, too,” Leia reminded him tartly, still looking back along the empty corridor. No, she decided, she and Threepio had better stay here and wait for Khabarakh. “Most other people in the galaxy didn’t consider us to be socially primitive.”
“No, of course not,” Threepio said, sounding a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to imply any such thing.”
“I know,” Leia assured him, a little embarrassed herself at jumping on Threepio like that. She’d known what he meant. “Where is he, anyway?”
The question had been rhetorical; but even as she voiced it the hatchway abruptly slid open again. “Come,” Khabarakh said. His dark eyes flicked over Leia and Threepio—“Where is the Wookiee?”
“He went back into the ship,” Leia told him. “I don’t know why. Do you want me to go and find him?”
Khabarakh made a sound halfway between a hiss and a purr. “There is no time,” he said. “The maitrakh is waiting. Come.”
Turning, he started back down the ramp. “Any idea how long it will take you to pick up the language?” Leia asked Threepio as they followed.
“I really cannot say, Your Highness,” the droid answered as Khabarakh led them across a dirt courtyard past the large wooden building they’d seen on landing—the clan dukha, Leia decided. One of the smaller structures beyond it seemed to be their goal. “Learning an entirely new language would be difficult indeed,” Threepio continued. “However, if it is similar to any of the six million forms of communication with which I am familiar—”
“I understand,” Leia cut him off. They were almost to the lighted building now; and as they approached, a pair of short Noghri standing in the shadows pulled open the double doors for them. Taking a deep breath, Leia followed Khabarakh inside.
From the amount of light coming through the windows she would have expected the building’s interior to be uncomfortably bright. To her surprise, the room they entered was actually darker than it had been immediately outside. A glance to the side showed why: the brightly lit “windows” were in fact standard self-powered lighting panels, with the operational sides facing outward. Except for a small amount of spillage from the panels, the interior of the building was lit only by a pair of floating-wick lamps. Threepio’s assessment of the society echoed through her mind; apparently, he’d known what he was talking about.
In the center of the room, standing silently in a row facing her, were five Noghri.
Leia swallowed hard, sensing somehow that the first words should be theirs. Khabarakh stepped to the Noghri in the center and dropped to his knees, ducking his head to the floor and splaying out his hands to his sides. The same gesture of respect, she remembered, that he’d extended to her back in the Kashyyyk holding cell. “Ilyr’ush mir lakh svoril’lae,” he said. “Mir’lae karah siv Mal’ary’ush vir’ae Vader’ush.”
“Can you understand it?” Leia murmured to Threepio.
“To a degree,” the droid replied. “It appears to be a dialect of the ancient trade language—”
“Sha’vah!” the Noghri in the center of the line spat.