kilometers was blessedly uneventful for the captain and “crew” of the
Millennium Falcon
.
They hadn’t started it at once. Vuffi Raa and Lando quizzed the elderly Mohs, had made him repeat and translate the appropriate stanzas of the appropriate Songs until they, too, were as certain as they could be, under the circumstances, that Rafa V was the place to find the Mindharp.
That is, if you were willing to place much confidence in an intermittently senile shaman mouthing rhymed and metered legends of an indeterminate age.
Lando spent the few hours of transit catching up on his sleep, while Mohs and Vuffi Raa carried on whatever passed for conversational small talk between them. The pilot’s acceleration couch was infinitely more comfortable than the sleeping bag, and by the time Vuffi Raa woke him again, he felt halfway human. Downright cheerful, in fact. Or at least as cheerful as he ever—
SPANG!
Something struck the roof of the control cabin, hard.
“What in the eternal blue blazes was that?” Lando shouted. Behind him, the old man cringed, began gibbering to himself in a high-pitched, hysterical voice. Something about the wrath of—
SPENG!
This time, it was somewhere aft, near the engines. A yellow light winked on the control board. Vuffi Raa stabbed console buttons, his tentacles blurring with speed into near invisibility. “One moment, Master, while I—”
SPING! SPONG!
Red lights flickered now. There was the faint but definite whistle indicating loss of atmosphere. Lando swallowed hard. His ears popped as the pressure equalized, although that hadn’t been his intention.
Something was striking the
Millennium Falcon
repeatedly and with great force. For some odd reason, the image of Constable Jandler (if that was really his name) flashed through Lando’s mind. They were in close orbit over Rafa V, preparing to use the old Toka chants as a guide to selecting a landing site.
Vuffi Raa heeled the
Falcon
over so she could take whatever was hitting her on her better-armored underside, but they had already received at least minor damage.
SPUNG!
“In the name of the Galactic Center, what’s
that
?” Lando hollered.
An unlikely object had wedged itself into the space between the cockpit transparency and a small communications antenna. It resembled nothing more than a fancy cut-glass plumber’s helper, complete with handle and suction cup, but rendered in some crystalline substance reminiscent of Rafa orchard produce.
“I don’t know, Master!”
Was that hysteria in the robot’s voice? Wonderful, thought Lando.
The ship rolled, stabilized, and they were traveling in orbit on her side. The bombardment seemed to slacken off. The droid turned to Lando.
“It’s an artifact of some kind, Master. Archaeoastronomers believe that Rafa V was the original home of the Sharu, the planet they evolved on. Mohs’ Songs seem to agree with that. I suspect, Master, that we’re seeing—and suffering—the remnants of their first attempts at spaceflight, objects launched byprimitive rockets, others expelled by small spacecraft as they prepared to reenter atmosphere.”
It made sense. Planetary orbits were always the richest fields in which to discover the leavings of primitive technology. There were probably cameras out there, used spacesuits, free-fall table scraps, all of them practically as good as the day they had been jettisoned—barring a little micrometeorite and radiation damage.
A thought came to him.
“Vuffi Raa, why didn’t you just power the
Falcon
’s shields up when we started taking hits? There’s nothing out there the deflectors couldn’t have handled, especially given our relative speeds in orbit.”
Reading through the flight manual over and over again seemed to be doing him some good, Lando thought. Maybe if he watched the robot fly this machine long enough, he’d pick up the knack himself.
On the other hand, right now he could be aboard a luxury passenger liner, sipping a tall
Millennium Falcon
.
They hadn’t started it at once. Vuffi Raa and Lando quizzed the elderly Mohs, had made him repeat and translate the appropriate stanzas of the appropriate Songs until they, too, were as certain as they could be, under the circumstances, that Rafa V was the place to find the Mindharp.
That is, if you were willing to place much confidence in an intermittently senile shaman mouthing rhymed and metered legends of an indeterminate age.
Lando spent the few hours of transit catching up on his sleep, while Mohs and Vuffi Raa carried on whatever passed for conversational small talk between them. The pilot’s acceleration couch was infinitely more comfortable than the sleeping bag, and by the time Vuffi Raa woke him again, he felt halfway human. Downright cheerful, in fact. Or at least as cheerful as he ever—
SPANG!
Something struck the roof of the control cabin, hard.
“What in the eternal blue blazes was that?” Lando shouted. Behind him, the old man cringed, began gibbering to himself in a high-pitched, hysterical voice. Something about the wrath of—
SPENG!
This time, it was somewhere aft, near the engines. A yellow light winked on the control board. Vuffi Raa stabbed console buttons, his tentacles blurring with speed into near invisibility. “One moment, Master, while I—”
SPING! SPONG!
Red lights flickered now. There was the faint but definite whistle indicating loss of atmosphere. Lando swallowed hard. His ears popped as the pressure equalized, although that hadn’t been his intention.
Something was striking the
Millennium Falcon
repeatedly and with great force. For some odd reason, the image of Constable Jandler (if that was really his name) flashed through Lando’s mind. They were in close orbit over Rafa V, preparing to use the old Toka chants as a guide to selecting a landing site.
Vuffi Raa heeled the
Falcon
over so she could take whatever was hitting her on her better-armored underside, but they had already received at least minor damage.
SPUNG!
“In the name of the Galactic Center, what’s
that
?” Lando hollered.
An unlikely object had wedged itself into the space between the cockpit transparency and a small communications antenna. It resembled nothing more than a fancy cut-glass plumber’s helper, complete with handle and suction cup, but rendered in some crystalline substance reminiscent of Rafa orchard produce.
“I don’t know, Master!”
Was that hysteria in the robot’s voice? Wonderful, thought Lando.
The ship rolled, stabilized, and they were traveling in orbit on her side. The bombardment seemed to slacken off. The droid turned to Lando.
“It’s an artifact of some kind, Master. Archaeoastronomers believe that Rafa V was the original home of the Sharu, the planet they evolved on. Mohs’ Songs seem to agree with that. I suspect, Master, that we’re seeing—and suffering—the remnants of their first attempts at spaceflight, objects launched byprimitive rockets, others expelled by small spacecraft as they prepared to reenter atmosphere.”
It made sense. Planetary orbits were always the richest fields in which to discover the leavings of primitive technology. There were probably cameras out there, used spacesuits, free-fall table scraps, all of them practically as good as the day they had been jettisoned—barring a little micrometeorite and radiation damage.
A thought came to him.
“Vuffi Raa, why didn’t you just power the
Falcon
’s shields up when we started taking hits? There’s nothing out there the deflectors couldn’t have handled, especially given our relative speeds in orbit.”
Reading through the flight manual over and over again seemed to be doing him some good, Lando thought. Maybe if he watched the robot fly this machine long enough, he’d pick up the knack himself.
On the other hand, right now he could be aboard a luxury passenger liner, sipping a tall
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