HWEG SHUL, NAM CHORIOS
BEN DECIDED THAT HE’D NEVER SEEN A TOWN QUITE LIKE HWEG SHUL.
Not that he’d seen much more than a few meters of it at a time. The driving wind and the dust storm that blanketed the town made any comprehensive overview impossible, and the intense cold, threatening to strip heat right out of his body despite his winter cloak and insulated clothes, made him happy to scurry with Luke and Vestara from sheltered spot to sheltered spot without much time for sightseeing.
But Ben did have time to see the disparity of architecture in the town.
The majority of dwellings and businesses were built on stilts or pilings—some wood, mostly permacrete, a few of durasteel coated in corrosion-resistant ceramics. These stilts tended to be a meter and a half to two meters high, the buildings themselves permacrete or duraplast domes of various colors, their foundations, resting atop the stilts, of sand-scoured permacrete. A meter up on the stilts, on most buildings, he could see bright glow rod modules, shining even at high noon—a measure against drochs, he assumed.
The dome shapes were highly wind-resistant, but their undersides, the flat permacrete foundations, were not. An occasional wind at the correct angle and speed would sweep under these elevated buildings, making lifting surfaces of the foundations. They did not actually lift off their stilts; they were too firmly attached for that. But the contact caused a succession of shuddering booms as the wind hit underside after underside in turn. It sounded like a city being strafed.
These, his father had told him, were the Newcomers’ buildings.
Less numerous and far older were the dwellings and businesses of the Oldtimers. Often built with angled walls or even with trapezoidal shapes to keep the winds from hammering them constantly at right angles, they were made of stone covered with stucco, or, in the case of more shanty-like dwellings, cast-off duraplast covered in stucco. The stucco itself, like the materials the Newcomers’ buildings were made of, was wind-scoured.
Viewports on both types of buildings were small patches of transparisteel, usually scratched by sand until they better served as diffusers rather than admitters of light. Ben quickly realized that the homes of the wealthier residents of town were characterized by transparisteel panels that were regularly replaced or polished, and thus more transparent than those in the less wealthy homes.
And everything, at least indoors, had a faint, not-too-offensive chemical smell. It was sweetish, a little cloying. Ben didn’t recognize it or know what it was until he unpacked his duffel and, at his father’s suggestion, sprayed down his clothes and the bag interior with the droch repellent he’d been provided at Koval Station. That was the smell—every plastoid surface, whether it be chamber walls, carpet, or furnishings, was coated or imbued with something to keep the drochs at bay.
His father led the three of them out of the Admirable Admiral, the hostel where they’d taken two adjoining rooms, and through the streets of this wind tunnel masquerading as a town.
Again, Ben raised his voice to a shout in order to be heard. “Looking for something, Dad? Why not use the town directory?”
“What we’re looking for isn’t in the directory. I know—I looked.”
That got Vestara’s attention. “What is it?”
“Theran Listeners.”
Ben shook his head. “I thought they were the planet’s healers. Why don’t they advertise? It’s not like they’re the Black Sun.”
“Computers and data grids are newfangled. Not to their liking.” Luke spotted something that must have looked promising to him. He headed in that direction. Ben and Vestara followed.
It was, to all outward appearances, an Oldtimers’ hovel, larger than most, but with light shining out through every hazy viewport. It was, unlike many such buildings, set back from the street, with a few aging landspeeders and speeder bikes parked outside, rocking in the wind.
The front door was a vault-like durasteel portal, a very old-fashioned design that swung out on metal hinges, and Ben belatedly recognized it as an ancient air lock door, doubtless transported from some crashed ship or ancient installation to this place. As the three neared it, a short man in hide garments and coat, fur lining showing at the wrists above his gloves, finished pulling the door open and stepped inside. He looked back, caught sight of Ben and his companions, did a double take, and then pulled the door shut just as the three reached it. The cycle light, scratched transparisteel inset at eye height, switched from green to red.
Ben stared at the formidable portal. “Friendly.”
Luke gestured at Ben’s clothing, which, though modest and stylistically ubiquitous in the spaceways, was clearly dissimilar to that worn by the man who had preceded them. “We’re obviously not locals.”
Vestara quirked a smile. “Are they going to gang up on us and beat us up because we’re strangers? Or because we have a vocabulary of more than twelve words?”
“Now, now.” The cycle light switched from red to green, and Luke pulled the door open.
Just inside was a small chamber—gray permacrete floor and ceiling, comparatively undamaged stucco walls. But the door opposite was the counterpart of the one by which they’d entered. Its cycle light showed red; as soon as Luke pulled his door shut against the howling wind, it went to green.
They stepped through into the main room of a pub. The floor and walls were covered in what looked like dark green vines tightly pressed into an irregular wall but, on closer inspection, proved to be absolutely flat, the appearance of roughness and depth an illusion. There were several long wooden tables and even more small round ones, but only about a dozen men and women sat among them. They were all hardy-looking customers, a bit below average Galactic Alliance human height standards, brown-haired and brown-eyed, clothed in garments of thin hide or hard-wearing cloth of brown or green.
And as Ben, Luke, and Vestara entered, their conversation stopped. They turned to look at the three intruders, their faces impassive.
They continued staring, silent, forbidding.
Automatically, reflexively, Ben opened himself to the Force. Alertness to ripples and eddies in the Force would give him an instant’s advance warning if any of these insular locals chose to attack.
But it was not their emotions he felt, not the expected combination of suspicion and perhaps growing resentment or anger.
He felt … surrounded, as if he’d suddenly realized that he was at the exact center of an amphitheater with thousands of spectators in the stands. And the observers’ emotions were cool, analytical, not heated.
It was such a jolt, to feel himself under such immense scrutiny when he thought he was in a room with fewer than twenty people, that his eyes widened. He tried to keep his sudden surprise off his face.
The barkeeper, behind the bar, wiping its surface down with a yellow rag glistening with some sort of oil or polish, was a bald man of middle years, more heavily muscled and thicker in the middle than most of his customers. He made a face as though he’d come to an unhappy decision, and then spoke. “Help you?”
Luke didn’t throw back his hood or take off his goggles. “Looking for healing.”
“You’re not local.”
“Looking for healing.”
Ben rubbed at his goggles. Despite the anti-fogging surface on them, the temperature and humidity difference between the outside and inside were causing them to fog up. Plus, the action might distract observers from his sudden surprise of a moment earlier. He glanced at Vestara and saw that she, too, was looking around as if seeking the source of all those extra, unseen eyes.
The exchange between Luke and the barkeeper had been odd. Curt, primitive. His father didn’t even sound like himself. His voice had taken on the flat, slightly monotonous character of the barkeep’s speech.
The barkeeper just kept polishing.
Luke just stood where he was.
Another Oldtimer, a young woman, her face long and weather-beaten but her eyes lively, finally spoke. “Sel.”
Another, a gray-bearded man, nodded as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “Aye, Sel.”
“Huh.” The barkeeper considered it, then nodded. He looked back at Luke and jerked his thumb toward the wall to Ben’s left. “Two streets down, three streets over to the right. Blue Newcomer dome. Ask for Sel. She’ll set you right … or send you home.”
The second man who’d spoken snickered. “I vote home.”
“Thanks.” Luke turned back toward the door.
As Ben and Vestara turned to follow, Ben felt a light impact against his back. He spun in time to see an insect the size of his thumbnail leap free from his cloak, hit the floor, and scurry away on six articulated legs to the shadowy baseboard.
None of the Oldtimers had apparently moved. The one who had flicked the droch onto Ben’s back was clearly adroit at covering up his schoolroom-style pranks.
The barkeeper smiled. “Looks like you’ve got a pet, newmer.”
Luke pulled the old air lock door open and led them out.
Back in the windy street, Ben gave his father a curious look. “I thought you said things had changed here in thirty years. From what I’ve read about this planet, what we just went through sounds like what would have happened back in the old days.”
Luke shook his head. “Things have changed. They didn’t go after us with scatterblasters and clubs.”
Vestara snorted. “Not yet. But I’m keeping my eyes open.”
“And the Force.” Ben tried not to sound as thunderstruck and naïve as he felt. “Is that what it feels like all the time?”
Luke’s smile became a little more sour. “That’s what it’s like when things are calm.”
* * *
The barkeeper’s directions led them to a small sea-blue dome, its viewports scoured to a frosty opacity. Its fold-down front steps were retracted.
Beside the spot on the foundation where those steps accordioned was a glowing green button with an intercom grille beside it. Both were inset a little, providing some protection from side winds. Luke pressed the button.
A moment later a woman’s voice, buzzy and poppy, sounded from the antiquated device. “What is it?”
“We’re looking for someone called Sel.”
The voice at the other end did not reply, but the stairs, skeletal durasteel ones painted in alternating stripes of black and yellow for high visibility, unfolded. When they were done, the lowest one was still a quarter meter above the ground. Luke led the others up into the front-door alcove, and the door slid to one side, opening for them.
Beyond was a small antechamber, and as soon as the outer door slid shut, the inner one opened.
Next was a medium-sized all-purpose room. Ben saw tight-weave green carpet, a stuffed sofa and chair in tan, a long white duraplasttopped table that could have served for family dinners or medical examinations, walls lined with shelves stacked with piles of flimsi printouts, a door in the center of the back wall. By his calculation, this chamber would take up half the ground floor, with a much smaller second floor, under the apex of the dome, above the door they now faced.
That door opened and a woman emerged, wiping her hands on an off-white cloth. She was lean and fit but elderly, with white hair cut in a flat-topped hairstyle. Her eyes were a light blue, her skin fair. She wore a utilitarian burgundy jumpsuit. She must, Ben decided, have been beautiful in her youth; she was beautiful now.
She gave the three visitors a smile, showing white, even teeth. “I’m Sel.”
Luke pulled his hood back and removed his goggles. “I’m—”
“Luke Skywalker.” Sel dropped her drying cloth on one end of the white table and advanced, her hand outstretched. “An honor.”
Luke shook her hand. He turned to indicate Ben and Vestara. “And this is …” But his voice trailed off and he turned back to Sel, his eyes narrowing—not in anger, Ben thought, but in consideration, perhaps suspicion.
“Sel.” Luke’s voice turned just a little incredulous. “Teselda?”
The old woman nodded, her smile half fading away. “That’s my full given name, yes.”
“You don’t remember me?”
“I know who you are.”
“No, from before. From thirty years ago. You knew me as Owen Lars.”
“Ah.” Sel gave him a blank look. “I’ll take your word for it. There are things I don’t recall.”
Finally, Luke remembered to finish introductions. “This is my son, Ben Skywalker, and our companion, Vestara Khai. Ben, Vestara, this is Teselda … perhaps the galaxy’s oldest surviving Jedi.”