Vader’s final, self-sacrificial defiance against the Emperor, with Luke’s life hanging in the balance. “Yes,” Leia murmured. “It took until the end, but he was finally able to rid himself of the Emperor’s web of deception.”
For a moment the maitrakh was silent. Then, she stirred. “Walk with me, Lady Vader.”
She turned and began walking along the wall. Leia joined her, noticing for the first time that the dukha’s inner walls were decorated with carvings, too. A historical record of their family? “My thirdson has gained a new respect for your Wookiee,” she said, gesturing toward Chewbacca and Khabarakh. “Our lord the Grand Admiral came last eve seeking proof that my thirdson had deceived him about his flying craft being broken. Because of your Wookiee, he found no such proof.”
Leia nodded. “Yes, Chewie told me last night about gimmicking the ship. I don’t have his knowledge of spaceship mechanics, but I know it can’t be easy to fake a pair of linked malfunctions the way he did. It’s fortunate for all of us he had the foresight and skill to do so.”
“The Wookiee is not of your family or clan,” the maitrakh said. “Yet you trust him, as if he were a friend?”
Leia took a deep breath. “I never knew my true father, the Lord Vader, as I was growing up. I was instead taken to Alderaan and raised by the Viceroy as if I were his own child. On Alderaan, as seems to also be the case here, family relationships were the basis of our culture and society. I grew up memorizing lists of aunts and uncles and cousins, learning how to place them in order of closeness to my adoptive line.” She gestured to Chewbacca. “Chewie was once merely a good friend. Now, he is part of my family. As much a part as my husband and brother are.
They were perhaps a quarter of the way around the dukha before the maitrakh spoke again. “Why have you come here?”
“Khabarakh told me his people needed help,” Leia said simply. “I thought there might be something I could do.”
“Some will say you have come to sow discord among us.”
“You said that yourself last night,” Leia reminded her. “I can only give you my word that discord is not my intention.”
The maitrakh made a long hissing sound that ended with a sharp double click of needle teeth. “The goal and the end are not always the same, Lady Vader. Now we serve one overclan only. You would require service to another. This is the seed of discord and death.”
Leia pursed her lips. “Does service to the Empire satisfy you, then?” she asked. “Does it gain your people better life or higher honor?”
“We serve the Empire as one clan,” the maitrakh said. “For you to demand our service would be to bring back the conflicts of old.” They had reached the wall chart now, and she gestured a thin hand up toward it. “Do you see our history, Lady Vader?”
Leia craned her neck to look. Neatly carved lines of alien script covered the bottom two-thirds of the wall, with each word connected to a dozen others in a bewildering crisscross of vertical, horizontal, and angled lines, each cut seemingly of a different width and depth. Then she got it: the chart was a genealogical tree, either of the entire clan Kihm’bar or else just this particular family. “I see it,” she said.
“Then you see the terrible destruction of life created by the conflicts of old,” the maitrakh said. She gestured to three or four places on the chart which were, to Leia, indistinguishable from the rest of the design. Reading Noghri genealogies was apparently an acquired skill. “I do not wish to return to those days,” the maitrakh continued. “Not even for the daughter of the Lord Darth Vader.”
“I understand,” Leia said quietly, shivering as the ghosts of Yavin, Hath, Endor, and a hundred more rose up before her. “I’ve seen more conflict and death in my lifetime than I ever thought possible. I have no wish to add to the list.”
“Then you must leave,” the maitrakh said firmly. “You must leave and not come back while the Empire lives.”
They began to walk again. “Is there no alternative?” Leia asked. “What if I could persuade all of your people to leave their service to the Empire? There would be no conflict then among you.”
“The Emperor aided us when no one else would,” the maitrakh reminded her.
“That was only because we didn’t know about your need,” Leia said, feeling a twinge of conscience at the half truth. Yes, the Alliance had truly not known about the desperate situation here; and yes, Mon Mothma and the other leaders would certainly have wanted to help if they had. But whether they would have had the resources to actually do anything was another question entirely. “We know now, and we offer you our help.”