THE PARADISE SNARE(8)
She wanted to protect me from Shrike …
He sighed, knowing it to be true. Wookiees were among the most steadfast and loyal companions in the galaxy, or so he’d heard.
Wookiee loyalty and friendship was not lightly given, but once bestowed, it never wavered.
He leaned back in his alcove, checking the air pak. Three quarters left.
Han wondered how far the Dream had traveled while he’d slept. In a little while he’d go to the control room, see if he could decipher the instrumentation on the autopilot.
Han’s mind drifted back in time, remembering Dewlanna sadly, then as he relaxed, his mind wandered to even earlier days. His earliest “real” memory–everything else was just meaningless fragments, snatches of images too old and distorted to have any meaning—was of the day Garris Shrike had brought him “home” to Trader’s Luck …
The child huddled in the mouth of the dank; filthy alley, trying not to cry. He was too big to cry, wasn’t he? Even if he was cold and hungry and alone. For a moment the child wondered why he was alone, but it was as if a huge metal door slammed down on that thought, shutting everything behind it. Behind the door lay danger, behind that door lay … bad things.
Pain, and … and…
The boy shook his head, and his lank; filthy hair fell straggling into his face. He pushed it back with a hand that was so grimed with dirt that his natural skin color barely showed. He wore only a pair of ragged pants and a torn, sleeveless tunic that was too small. HIS feet were bare. Had he ever had shoes?
The child thought that perhaps he remembered shoes. Good shoes, nice ones, shoes that someone had put on his feet and helped him fasten.
Someone who was gentle, who smiled instead of scowled, someone who was clean and smelled good, who wore pretty clothes-SLAM!!
The door came down again, and little Han (he knew that was his name, but knew of no other that went with it winced from the pain in his mind. He knew better than to let those thoughts fill his mind.
Thoughts and memories like that were bad, they hurt.., better not to think them.
He sniffled again and wiped futilely at his runny nose. He realized he was standing in a puddle of foulness, and that his feet were so cold he could barely feel them. It was night now, and it promised to be a cold one.
Hunger twisted in Han’s stomach like a living thing, a creature that bit painfully. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Had it been this morning when he’d found that kavasa fruit in a garbage dump, the ripe, juicy one that was only half-eaten? Or had that been last night?
He couldn’t keep standing here, the little boy decided. He had to move.
Han stepped out of the alley, onto. the pathwalk. He knew how to beg…
who was it that had taught him?
SLAM!
Never mind who’d taught him, they had taught him well. Adjusting his features to their most pitiful, Han shuffled toward the nearest passerby.
“Please … lady …” he whimpered. “Hungry, I’m so hungry . .
.” He held out his hand, palm up. The woman he addressed slowed fractionally, then suddenly looked down at his dirty palm and recoiled, holding her skirts back so they wouldn’t brush against him.
“Lady …” Han breathed, turning with more than professional interest to watch her walk away. She had on a nice dress, soft and shiny, sort of…
glowing … in the harsh streetlights of the Corellian harbor town.
She reminded him of someone, with her big, dark eyes, her smooth skin, her hair-SLAM!
He began to sob, hopelessly, his small body shaking from cold, hunger, grief, and loneliness.
“Hey, there! Han!” the sharp but not unfriendly voice broke through his wall of misery. Sniffling and gulping, Han looked up to see a tall form bending over him. Black hair, pale blue eyes. He smelled of Alderaanian ale, and the smoke from half a dozen proscribed drugs, but he was steady on his feet, unlike many of the other passersby.
Seeing that Han was looking up at him, the man squatted down onto his heels, which brought him to only a little above Han’s eye level.
“You’re too big to cry in the street, you know that, don’t you?”
Han nodded, still sniffling, but trying to control himself. “Yeth . .
.
yes.” At first he lisped a little, the way he had when he’d first learned to talk. That was a long, long time ago, Han thought. He’d been talking since the cold season, and it was soon going to be cold season again. He’d been talking since …
SLAM!
The child shuddered again as his mind resolutely shut away all his memories of that beforetime. Something else surfaced, something he’d overlooked at first in his misery. Han’s eyes widened. This man had called him by name!