THE PARADISE SNARE(37)

Still those sacrilegious thoughts kept intruding. Thoughts …

memories, too. He was Corellian … and so was she.

Pilgrim 921 thought of her homeworld, and for just an instant allowed herself to remember it, to remember her family. Were her parents still alive? Her brother?

How long had she been here? 921 tried to remember, but the days here were all the same … work, a few morsels of unappetizing food, Exultation and prayers, then exhausted sleep. One day flowed into each other, and Ylesia had almost no seasons …

For a moment she wondered just how long she’d been here. Months?

Years?

How old was she? Did she have wrinkles? Gray hair?

921’s scarred hands flew to her forehead, her cheeks. Bones beneath flesh, prominent bones. Much more prominent than they had ever been before.

But no wrinkles. She was not old. She might have been here months, but not years. How old had she been when she’d heard of Ylesia and sold all her jewelry to buy passage on a pilgrim ship? Seventeen… she’d just finished the last of her undergraduate schooling and had been looking forward to going offworld to attend the university on Coruscant.

She’d been going to study … archaeology. With an emphasis on ancient art.

Yes, that was it. She’d even spent a couple of summers working on a dig, learning to preserve ancient treasures.

She’d wanted to become a museum curator.

As a child, history had always been her favorite subject. She loved learning about the Jedi Knights, and was fascinated by their adventures.

She’d grown up in the aftermath of the Clone Wars, and had been interested in that, too. And the birth of the Republic, so very, very long ago …

921 sighed as she swallowed a bite of dusty grain-cake. Sometimes it bothered her when she realized that her memories were fading, that her intelligence seemed to be fading, along with her ability to perceive the world outside. She knew that as a pilgrim, she was supposed to eschew all worldly things, to expunge from her mind and body the appreciation of fleshly pleasures.

In the old days, pleasure and having fun had been the focus of her life.

In those days, her life had had little purpose, compared to now. In the old days, she’d drifted from place to place, subject to subject, party to party …

And it had all been so meaningless.

Life now had meaning. Now she was Exulted. Every night, the One conferred blessing upon her, through the priests. Exultation was the way the All communicated with the pilgrims. It was a deeply spiritual experience—and it felt so good…

921 thought that she’d successfully managed to expunge all memory of Vykk Draygo and his smile from her mind, so she went back to work on her glitterstim pile—only to find herself wondering, minutes later, whether he’d really look for her, try to talk to her again …

921 shivered in the ever-present dank chill and tried very hard to forget Vykk Draygo and all he stood for …

That night, Han skipped devotionals in favor of spending time with several of the sims. This was his first opportunity to earn an “honest” living, and he didn’t want to mess up. Han knew that citizens complained about how hard they had to Work, and he figured that was essential for success. It was true that begging, pickpocketing, burglary, and scamming citizens frequently required considerable time and effort, but Han knew that somehow it just wasn’t comparable.

Heading for the sim station in his bedroom, Han began skimming through the system, accessing what was available to him. Teroenza had been as good as his promise, and the simulations were there. He scanned what was available, chose the sims he wanted to work on, and ordered the system to prepare several sequences. He was careful to specify “atmospheric turbulence” to be included in each training exercise.

He looked up at Muuurgh, who was standing there, watching him. “I’ve got to work for a while,” he said. “Why don’t you take some time for yourself?”

Muuurgh shook his head slowly. “Muuurgh not leave Pilot alone.

Against orders.”

“Okay.” Han shrugged. “Your choice.”

Muuurgh watched nervously as Han put on the visi-hood, cutting himself off from contact with his real surroundings and plunging himself into a training flight that felt exactly like the real thing. The Togorian was uncomfortable with technology.

Han let himself sink into the sim, and within minutes the sim had accomplished one of its primary purposes—Han quite forgot that it was a sim. He was convinced that he was really piloting—really negotiating asteroid fields at high speeds, really piloting through the Ylesian atmosphere, really landing the craft under all sorts of adverse conditions.

The Corellian emerged from the sim two hours later, having successfully landed, flown, taken off, and performed the full range of maneuvers possible with the shuttle he’d be flying to Colony 2 and Colony 3 on the morrow. He’d also reviewed the controls on the transport vessels he’d be flying—the Ylesian Dream was being converted to manual piloting—as well as those on Teroenza’s private yacht.