The Unseen Queen Read Free Page A

Skywalkers, and C-3PO and R2-D2. “Not so creepy after all.”
    “Don’t call them bugs, Han,” Leia reminded him. “Insulting your hosts is never a good way to start a visit.”
    “Right, we wouldn’t want to insult ’em,” Han said. “Not for a little thing like harboring pirates and running black membrosia.”
    He crossed a spinglass bridge and stopped at the edge of a meandering ribbon of street. The silver lane was packed with chest-high Killiks hauling rough lumber, quarried moirestone, casks of bluewater. Here and there, bleary-eyed spacers—human and otherwise—were staggering back to their ships at the sore end of a membrosia binge. On the balconies overhanging the tunnel-house entrances, glittered-up Joiners—beings who had spent too much time among Killiks and been absorbed into the nest’s collective mind—were smiling and dancing to the soft trill of spinning wind horns. The only incongruous sight was in the marshy, two-meter gap that served as the gutter between the hangar and the street. A lone insect lay facedown in the muck, its orange thorax and white-striped abdomen half covered in some sort of dull gray froth.
    “Raynar must know we’ve arrived,” Luke said. He was still on the bridge behind Han. “Any sign of a guide?”
    The bug in the gutter lifted itself on its arms and began to drum its thorax.
    “I don’t know,” Han answered, eyeing the bug uncertainly. When it began to drag itself toward the bridge, he said, “Make that a maybe.”
    The Killik stopped and stared up at them with a pair of bulbous green eyes.
“Bur r rruubb, ubur ruur.”
    “Sorry—don’t understand a throb.” Han knelt on the street’s glimmering surface and extended a hand. “But come on up. Our protocol droid knows over six million—”
    The insect spread its mandibles and backed away, pointing at the blaster on Han’s hip.
    “Hey, take it easy,” Han said, still holding out his hand. “That’s just for show. I’m not here to shoot anybody.”
    “Brubr.”
The Killik raised a pincer-hand, then tapped itself between the eyes.
“Urrubb uu.”
    “Oh, dear,” C-3PO said from the back of the bridge. “She seems to be
asking
you to blast her.”
    The bug nodded enthusiastically, then averted its eyes.
    “Don’t get crazy,” Han said. “You’re not that late.”
    “I think it’s in pain, Han.” Mara knelt on the street beside Han and motioned the insect to come closer. “Come here. We’ll try to help.”
    The Killik shook its head and tapped itself between the eyes again.
“Buurubuur, ubu ru.”
    “She says
nothing
can help,” C-3PO said. “She has the Fizz.”
    “The Fizz?” Han echoed.
    The Killik thrummed a long explanation.
    “She says it is very painful,” C-3PO said. “And she would appreciate it if you would end her misery as soon as possible. UnuThul is waiting in the Garden Hall.”
    “Sorry,” Han said. “I’m not blasting anyone this trip.”
    The Killik rumbled something that sounded like
rodder
, then started to drag itself away.
    “Wait!” Luke extended his hand, and the Killik rose out of the mud. “Maybe we can rig an isolation ward—”
    The rest of the offer was drowned out as Saras porters turned to point at their nest-fellow’s frothy legs, drumming their chests and knocking the loads out of one another’s arms. The Joiner dancers vanished from their balconies, and startled spacers staggered toward the gutter, squinting and reaching for their blasters.
    Luke began to float the Killik back toward the bridge. It clacked its mandibles in protest and thrashed its arms, but its legs—hidden beneath a thick layer of froth—dangled motionlessly beneath its thorax. A steady drizzle of what looked like dirt specks fell from its feet into the gutter.
    Han frowned. “Luke, maybe we’d better leave—”
    A blaster bolt whined out from down the street, taking the Killik in midthorax and spraying a fist-sized circle of chitin and froth onto the hangar’s