THE PARADISE SNARE(26)
“Ten Standard hours, sir,” the Sacredot replied.
No wonder the weather is so stormy, Han thought. We’ve got a hot, wet world with a really rapid rotation.
Han looked out across the cleared area. The permacrete ended abruptly, giving way to the natural ground and vegetation. Pools of water attested to recent torrential rain. Reddish mud made an arresting contrast to lush, bluegreen vegetation. The flowers hanging from the vines and trees in the encroaching jungle were huge and multicolored—scarlet, deep purple, and vivid yellow.
“This is Colony One,” Veratil explained. “We have also established two new colonies for our pilgrims. Two years ago we founded Colony Two, and last winter we built Colony Three, which is still very small.
Colony Two lies about one hundred fifty kilometers north, and Colony Three about seventy kilometers south of here.”
“How long has Colony One been here?” Han asked.
“Nearly five Standard years.”
Han looked out across Colony One. Directly across from the Welcome Center lay the landing pad. A little freighter lay there, listing on her repulsors. That must be the Dream, Han thought, realizing he’d never seen the ship from the outside.
The Ylesian Dream was a small vessel, shaped like a fat, somewhat irregular teardrop. On her underside was a bulge where there was a gun well, proving that the ship hadn’t always been a robot freighter.
Another, larger bulge denoted the location of the primary cargo hold.
She was a graceful ship, small enough to be agile. Corellian-built, almost certainly.
Han could see massive ship dock droids working on the Dream, beginning to repair her repulsors. The ship, droids, and everything nearby was splashed with reddish mud from the crash landing.
Off to the northeast, high above even the jungle giant trees, Han could make out a glimpse of snowcapped heights. He pointed. “What mountains are those?”
“The Mountains of the Exalted,” Veratil told him. “The Altar of Promises where the faithful gather each night to be Exulted lies before them. You shall see it tonight, when you attend devotions.”
Oh, great, Han thought. Do I have to attend services, too? Then he remembered how much the Ylesians were paying him. Han nodded. “I’ll bet it’s something to see.”
To the pilot’s left, he could make out a large expanse of the reddish mud.
Several beings of Teroenza’s and Veratil’s race lolled in mudholes, tended by droids and servants of assorted species. Han recognized a couple of Rodians, several Gamorreans, and at least one human. “Those are the mudflats,” Veratil said, waving a dainty hand at the mudbathers and their attendants. “My people relish our mudbaths.”
“What are your people?” Han asked. “Are you native to Ylesia?”
“No, we are native–or as native as our distant cousins, the Hutts—to Nal Hutta,” Veratil replied. “We are the t’landa Til.”
Han resolved to learn the t’landa Til’s language as soon as he could.
Knowing a language that people didn’t know you knew could often prove an asset…
The Sacredot led Han around to the rear of the Welcome Center. Han’s eyes widened as he took in the huge cleared area before him. Clearing that much jungle must have been quite a chore. The cleared area was roughly rectangular, and at least a kilometer on each side. The mountains were now behind and to his left, and he could see, on his extreme right, the blue-gray glitter of water. “Lake?” he asked, indicating it.
“No, that is Zoma Gawanga, the Western Ocean,” Veratil informed him.
Han counted the huge buildings that lay before the mudflats. There were nine of them. Five were three stories high, the other four were only one story. Each was easily the size of a Corellian city block.
“Homes for the pilgrims?” he asked, waving at the buildings.
“No, the dormitory for our pilgrims is over there,” Veratil said. The priest waved at a massive two-story building on the far left. “The multistory buildings are where we process ryll, andris, and carsunum.
The sin-glestory buildings you see extend far underground, a necessity for processing glitterstim, which must be handled in complete darkness.”
Andris, ryll, carsunum, and glitterstim … Han’s nostrils flared.
Of course, that explains the odor! These are factories for processing spice!
He remembered that the Ylesian Dream had originally carried a cargo of high-grade glitterstim, the most expensive and exotic variety of spice.
The other types were usually cheaper—though they were still one of the most profitable cargoes a smuggler could take on.
“We receive shipments of raw materials from worlds such as Kessel, Ryloth, and Nal Hutta several times a month,” Veratil went on. “In the beginning, the robot freighters which supplied us landed here at Colony One, but that practice soon had to be discontinued.”