THE PARADISE SNARE(20)

He’s gone! They’re both gone!”

Burying her face in her hands, she began to weep hysterically.

Thrackan grabbed Han by the arm and dragged him out of the house. “Now look what you did, you little idiot,” the youth said, glancing uneasily up at his mother’s window. “She’ll be a mess for days, she always is when she gets like that.”

Han shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. She just looked at me, that’s all.

What’s wrong with her?”

With a muffled curse, Thrackan backhanded Han across the face so hard it split the younger boy’s lip. “Shut up!” he snarled. “You’ve got no right to talk about her. There’s nothing wrong with her, hear me?

Nothing!”

The blow stung, but Han had been hit often, by experts, and one thing he knew was how to take a punch and stay on his feet. For a moment he was tempted to fly at the older boy’s throat, but he made himself relax. There had been genuine pain in Thrackan’s eyes as he defended his mother. Han figured he might have done the same thing, if he’d ever had a mother. I have to stay here, he reminded himself. Anything is better than Shrike …

“Sorry,” he managed to say.

Thrackan looked a little abashed. ‘Just watch what you say about my mom, okay?”

The next six weeks were some of the strangest of Han’s life. Thrackan allowed Han to stay with him in his rooms (Tiion almost never came into Thrackan’s part of the house), and the two of them spent time talking and getting to know each other.

Thrackan was a demanding host, Han soon learned. Han had to agree with him completely, and rush to do his bidding, or he lost his temper and cuffed the younger boy. Thrackan made Han pilot him around the countryside in an aging landspeeder, and the two of them even went on a few expeditions to vacant estates Thrackan knew about, whose inhabitants were away on vacation. Thrackan would demand that Han pick the locks and disable the security systems, and then the older boy would steal whatever took his fancy.

Han began to wonder whether he’d done himself any favor by running away from Trader’s Luck. Two things kept him at the Solo estate: his fear that if he displeased Thrackan, the older boy would turn him over to the authorities—thus allowing Shrike to locate him; and his hope that Thrackan would break down and tell Han everything he knew about who Han really was. He kept hinting that he knew how they might be related.

“All in good time,” Thrackan would say when Han tried to pry information out of him. “All in good time, Han. Let’s go flying. I want you to teach me to pilot the speeder.”

Han tried, but Thrackan wasn’t very good at it. The older boy nearly crashed them several times before he mastered even the rudiments of flying the small craft.

I have to get out of here, Han kept telling himself. I’ll run away to some other world, where they’ll never find me. Maybe I can get adopted or get a job or something. There’s got to be some way …

But he couldn’t think of any way to get free of Thrackan. The older boy was vindictive, sadistic, and just plain mean. Several times Han saw him torture insects or animals, and when he realized that his actions disturbed the younger boy, he did it frequently. Han had never had a pet, but he tended to like furred creatures because of Dewlanna.

He missed her every day.

The situation became more and more explosive, until one day Thrackan really lost his temper with Han. Grabbing the younger boy by the hair, he dragged him to the kitchen, picked up a knife, and held it before Han’s eyes. “See this?” he snarled. “If you don’t apologize, and don’t do exactly what I say, I’m going to cut your ears off. Now apologize!” He shook Han hard. “And you’d better make me believe it!”

Han stared at the shining blade of the knife, and wet his lips. He tried to force out words of apology, but a huge burst of red rage welled up in him.

All the insults, all the cuffs and blows and beatings—Shrike’s as well as Thrackan’s—seemed to come to a head.

With a bellow as loud as a Wookiee’s, Han went berserk. He slammed his fist against Thruckan’s arm, sending the knife flying, and slammed his other elbow into Thrackan’s stomach. The breath whooshed out of the older boy, and before Thrackan could recover himself, Han was all over him.

Kicking, biting, punching, gouging—Han used every dirty trick he’d learned on the streets to beat up Thrackan. Stunned and reeling from Han’s fury, Thrackan never did recover, until the fight ended with Han sitting astride Thrackan, holding the knife to the older boy’s throat.

“Hey …” Thrackan’s eyes glittered like a trapped vrelt’s. “Hey, Han, stop kidding around. This isn’t funny.”