But not alone. To Leia’s surprise, a young Noghri female was already seated at the driver’s seat of the open-topped landspeeder the maitrakh had obtained for them; and as they drove through the village at a brisk walking pace a dozen more Noghri joined them, striding along on both sides of the landspeeder like an honor guard. The maitrakh herself walked next to the vehicle, her face unreadable in the dim reflected light from the instrument panel. Sitting in the back seat next to the analysis unit, Chewbacca fingered his bowcaster and rumbled distrustingly deep in his throat. Behind him, wedged into the luggage compartment at the rear of the vehicle, Threepio was uncharacteristically quiet.
They passed through the village into the surrounding cropland, running without lights, the small group of Noghri around them virtually invisible in the cloud-shrouded starlight. The party reached another village, barely distinguishable from the cropland now that its own lights were darkened for the night, and passed through without incident. More cropland; another village; more cropland. Occasionally Leia caught glimpses of the lights of Nystao far ahead, and she wondered uneasily whether confronting the dynasts directly was really the wisest course of action at this point. They ruled with the assistance or at least the tacit consent of the Empire, and to accuse them of collaboration with a lie would not sit well with such a proud and honor-driven people.
And then, in the northeast sky, the larger of Honoghr’s three moons broke through a thick cloud bank … and with a shock Leia saw that she and her original escort were no longer alone. All around them was an immense sea of shadowy figures, flowing like a silent tide along the landspeeder’s path.
Behind her, Chewbacca growled surprise of his own. With his hunter’s senses he had already been aware that the size of their party was increasing with each village they passed through. But even he hadn’t grasped the full extent of the recruitment, and wasn’t at all certain he liked it.
But Leia found some of the tightness in her chest easing as she settled back against the landspeeder’s cushions. Whatever happened in Nystao now, the sheer size of the assemblage would make it impossible for the dynasts to simply arrest her and cover up the fact that she’d ever been there.
The maitrakh had guaranteed her a chance to speak. The rest would be up to her.
They reached the edge of Nystao just before sunrise … to find another crowd of Noghri waiting for them.
“Word has arrived ahead of us,” the maitrakh told Leia as the landspeeder and its escort moved toward them. “They have come to see the daughter of the Lord Vader and to hear her message.”
Leia looked at the crowd. “And what is the message you’ve told them to expect?”
“That the debt of honor to the Empire has been paid in full,” the maitrakh said. “That you have come to offer a new life for the Noghri people.”
Her dark eyes bored into Leia’s face in unspoken question. Leia looked in turn over her shoulder at Chewbacca, and raised her eyebrows. The Wookiee rumbled an affirmative and tilted the analysis unit up to show her the display.
Sometime during their midnight journey the unit had finally finished its work … and as she read the analysis, Leia felt a fresh stirring of her earlier anger toward the Empire at what they’d done to these people. “Yes,” she told the maitrakh. “I can indeed prove that the debt has been paid.”
Nearer now to the waiting crowd, she could see in the dusky light that most of the Noghri were females. The relative handful of males she could spot were either the very light gray skin tone of children and young adolescents or the much darker gray of the elderly. But directly in line with the landspeeder’s path were a group of about ten males with the steely-gray color of young adults. “I see the dynasts have heard the word, too,” she said.
“That is our official escort,” the maitrakh said. “They will accompany us to the Grand Dukha, where the dynasts await you.”
The official escort—or guards, or soldiers; Leia wasn’t quite sure how to think of them—remained silent as they walked in arrowhead formation in front of the landspeeder. The rest of the crowd was alive with whispered conversation, most of it between the city dwellers and the villagers. What they were saying Leia didn’t know; but wherever her eyes turned the Noghri fell silent and gazed back in obvious fascination.
The city was smaller than Leia had expected, particularly given the limited land area the Noghri had available to them. After only a few minutes, they arrived at the Grand Dukha.
From its name Leia had expected it to be simply a larger version of the dukha back in the village. It was certainly larger; but despite the similarity in design, there was a far different sense to this version. Its walls and roof were made of a silver-blue metal instead of wood, with no carvings of any sort on their surfaces. The supporting pillars were black—metal or worked stone, Leia couldn’t tell which. A wide set of black-and-red-marbled steps led up to a gray flagstone entrance terrace outside the double doors. The whole thing seemed cold and remote, very different from the mental picture of the Noghri ethos that she’d built up over the past few days. Fleetingly, she wondered if the Grand Dukha had been built not by the Noghri, but by the Empire.
At the top of the steps stood a row of thirteen middle-aged Noghri males, each wearing an elaborately tooled garment that looked like a cross between a vest and a shawl. Behind them, his arms and legs chained to a pair of upright posts in the middle of the terrace, was Khabarakh.
Leia gazed past the row of dynasts at him, a ripple of sympathetic ache running through her. The maitrakh had described the mechanics of a Noghri public humiliation to her; but it was only as she looked at him that she began to grasp the full depth of the shame involved in the ritual. Khabarakh’s face was haggard and pale, and he sagged with fatigue against the chains holding his wrists and upper arms. But his head was upright, his dark eyes alert and watching.
The crowd parted to both sides as the landspeeder reached the dukha area, forming a passage for the vehicle to move through. The official escort went up the stairs, forming a line between the crowd and the row of dynasts. “Remember, we’re not here to fight,” Leia murmured to Chewbacca; and summoning every bit of regal demeanor she could muster, she stepped out of the landspeeder and walked up the stairs.
The last rustle of conversation in the crowd behind her vanished as she reached the top. “I greet you, dynasts of the Noghri people,” she said in a loud voice. “I am Leia Organa Solo, daughter of your Lord Darth Vader. He who came to you in your distress, and brought you aid.” She held out the back of her hand toward the Noghri in the center of the line.
He gazed at her for a moment without moving. Then, with obvious reluctance, he stepped forward and gingerly sniffed at her hand. He repeated the test twice before straightening up again. “The Lord Vader is dead,” he said. “Our new lord the Grand Admiral has ordered us to bring you to him, Leia Organa Solo. You will come with us to await the preparation of transport.”
From the bottom of the steps Chewbacca growled warningly. Leia quieted him with a gesture and shook her head. “I have not come here to surrender to your Grand Admiral,” she told the dynast.
“You will do so nonetheless,” he said. He signaled, and two of the guards left their line and moved toward Leia.
She stood her ground, again signaling Chewbacca to do the same. “Do you serve the Empire, then, or the people of Honoghr?”
“All Noghri of honor serve both,” the dynast said.
“Indeed?” Leia said. “Does serving Honoghr now mean sending generation after generation of young men to die in the Empire’s wars?”
“You are an alien,” the dynast said contemptuously. “You know nothing about the honor of the Noghri.” He nodded to the guards now standing at Leia’s sides. “Take her into the dukha.”
“Are you then so afraid of the words of a lone alien woman?” Leia asked as the Noghri took her arms in a firm grip. “Or is it that you fear your own power will be diminished by my coming?”
“You will speak no words of discord and poison!” the dynast snarled.
Chewbacca rumbled again, and Leia could sense him preparing to leap up the stairs to her aid. “My words are not of discord,” she said, raising her voice loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. “My words are of treachery.”
There was a sudden stirring from the crowd. “You will be silent,” the dynast insisted. “Or I will have you silenced.”
“I would hear her speak,” the maitrakh called from below.
“You will be silent as well!” the dynast barked as the crowd murmured approval of the maitrakh’s demand. “You have no place or speech here, maitrakh of the clan Kihm’bar. I have not called a convocate of the Noghri people.”
“Yet the convocate is here,” the maitrakh countered. “The Lady Vader has come. We would hear her words.”
“Then you will hear them in prison.” The dynast gestured, and two more of the official guard left their line, heading purposefully toward the steps.
It was, Leia judged, the right moment. Glancing down at her belt, she reached out through the Force with all the power and control she could manage—