Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissia by L. Neil Smith Page A

cool drink and shearing two-legged sheep.
    “Why, I don’t know, Master,” came the reply. “I simply acted as quickly as I could. Brace yourself, everybody, we’re going in!” The droid began punching console buttons again.
    Rafa V—birthplace of the fabled Sharu or not—was not the favored planet for human colonization. There was atmosphere, the usual thick scattering of titanic multicolored buildings, and, most importantly, the ubiquitous life-orchards. But the place was just a trifle too cold, a trifle too dry, and Rafa IV, the planet they’d just come from, was moist and shirt-sleeve comfortable over a wide range of latitudes.
    Here and there, according to their orbital survey and maps programmed into the
Falcon
at Teguta Lusat, lay small settlements, orchard-stations where a combination of Toka (native to the planet, as they were to all bodies in the system with sufficient resources), convicts, and government horticulturists harvested life-crystals, although on nowhere near the scale of Rafa IV.
    No doubt in another hundred years or so, there would be towns, eventually cities other than those the Sharu had abandoned. But for now, there were a paltry few hundred individuals sprinkled over an entire planetary surface.
    The colossal pyramid Mohs pointed them toward was atleast a thousand kilometers from any contemporary outpost of civilization.
    Vuffi Raa brought the
Falcon
to a gentle leaflike landing in a space between several ancient constructs at the foot of the pyramid that dwarfed even them. There were no convenient words to describe the building that now loomed over them. At least seven kilometers of it protruded above ground level. The
Falcon
’s various scanners had disclosed that it kept on going beneath the surface, but the depths exceeded the capabilities of her instruments. It was a literal mountain of smooth impervious plastic that served no discernible function.
    The pyramid had five facets (not counting the bottom—wherever
that
was), the angles between each of them not particularly uniform, giving the gigantic construct an eerie, dangerous, lopsided look. Each face was a different brilliant color: magenta, apricot, mustard, aquamarine, turquoise, lavender.
    Execrable taste, Lando thought, well deserving of cultural extinction.
    There was no finishing ornament at the top; the sides simply came together in a peak sharp enough to give anyone who reached it a nasty puncture wound.
    Not for the first time, Lando wondered who or what it was that had scared off creatures capable of creating such an edifice. He rummaged through the ship’s chests and his own wardrobe looking for suitable clothing, settled finally on a light electrically heated parka, heavy trousers, micro-insulated gloves, and rugged boots with tough, synthetic soles. It was a measure of his uneasiness about the place that he broke long precedent, slinging a short, weighty, two-handed blaster over his shoulder and filling his pockets with extra power modules.
    The weapon hung at his waist, muzzle swinging with his body when he moved.
    Mohs flatly turned down the offer of additional warm clothing, joined the gambler and Vuffi Raa at the boarding ramp. Lando wondered if the old fellow wanted to add frostbite to the rest of his infirmities. If nothing else, they already made an impressive collection.
    “Now, you’re absolutely certain this is the place?”
    Mohs nodded vigorously as the ramp lowered them and itself to ground level, unaffected by the cold as the angle beneath their feet steepened and a deep chill entered the belly ofthe ship. Air puffed out in visible vaporous clouds. They tramped down onto the dry-frozen soil.
    “Master,” Vuffi Raa admonished, “I trust you’re carrying sufficient water. The humidity in this region does not quite reach two percent.”
    Lando slapped the gurgling plastic flasks tucked into the pockets of his parka. “Yes. And I brought a deck of card-chips, as well.” He looked out over the barren