He gazed at her for another moment. Then, slowly, he stood up and reached out a hand. “Your hand,” he said, his voice gravelly and strangely accented. “May I have it?”
Leia took a step forward and offered him her hand, acutely aware that she had just committed an irrevocable act of trust. From here, if he so chose, he could pull her to him and snap her neck before anyone outside could possibly intervene.
He didn’t pull her toward him. Leaning forward, holding her hand in an oddly gentle grip, he raised it to his snout and pressed it against two large nostrils half hidden beneath strands of hair.
And smelled it.
He smelled it again, and again, taking long, deep breaths. Leia found herself staring at his nostrils, noticing for the first time their size and the soft flexibility of the skin folds around them. Like those of a tracking animal, she realized. A memory flashed to mind: how, as he’d held her helpless back at the house, those same nostrils had been pressed into her neck.
And right after that was when he’d let her go …
Slowly, almost tenderly, the alien straightened up. “It is then true,” he grated, releasing her hand and letting his own fall to his side. Those huge eyes stared at her, brimming with an emotion whose nature her Jedi skills could vaguely sense but couldn’t begin to identify. “I was not mistaken before.”
Abruptly, he dropped to both knees. “I seek forgiveness, Leia Organa Solo, for my actions,” he said, ducking his head to the floor, his hands splayed out to the sides as they had been in that encounter back at the house. “Our orders did not identify you, but gave only your name.”
“I understand.” She nodded, wishing she did. “But now you know who I am?”
The alien’s face dropped a couple of centimeters closer to the floor. “You are the Mal’ary’ush,” he said. “The daughter and heir of the Lord Darth Vader.
“He who was our master.”
Leia stared down at him, feeling her mouth fall open as she struggled to regain her mental balance. The right-angle turns were all coming too quickly. “Your master?” she repeated carefully.
“He who came to us in our desperate need,” the alien said, his voice almost reverent. “Who lifted us from our despair, and gave us hope.”
“I see,” she managed. This whole thing was rapidly becoming unreal … but one fact already stood out. The alien prostrating himself before her was prepared to treat her as royalty.
And she knew how to behave like royalty.
“You may rise,” she told him, feeling her voice and posture and manner settling into the almost-forgotten patterns of the Alderaanian court. “What is your name?”
“I am called Khabarakh by our lord,” the alien said, getting to his feet. “In the language of the Noghri—” He made a long, convoluted roiling noise that Leia’s vocal cords didn’t have a hope of imitating.
“I’ll call you Khabarakh,” she said. “Your people are called the Noghri?”
“Yes.” The first hint of uncertainty seemed to cross the dark eyes. “But you are the Mal’ary’ush,” he added, with obvious question.
“My father had many secrets,” she told him grimly. “You, obviously, were one of them. You said he brought you hope. Tell me how.”
“He came to us,” the Noghri said. “After the mighty battle. After the destruction.”
“What battle?”
Khabarakh’s eyes seemed to drift into memory. “Two great starships met in the space over our world,” he said, his gravelly voice low. “Perhaps more than two; we never knew for certain. They fought all the day and much of the night … and when the battle was over, our land was devastated.”
Leia winced, a pang of sympathetic ache running through her. Of ache, and of guilt. “We never hurt non-Imperial forces or worlds on purpose,” she said softly. “Whatever happened, it was an accident.”
The dark eyes fixed again on her. “The Lord Vader did not think so. He believed it was done on purpose, to drive fear and terror into the souls of the Emperor’s enemies.”
“Then the Lord Vader was mistaken,” Leia said, meeting that gaze firmly. “Our battle was with the Emperor, not his subjugated servants.”
Khabarakh drew himself up stiffly. “We were not the Emperor’s servants,” he grated. “We were a simple people, content to live our lives without concern for the dealings of others.”
“You serve the Empire now,” Leia pointed out.
“In return for the Emperor’s help,” Khabarakh said, a hint of pride showing through his deference. “Only he came to our aid when we so desperately needed it. In his memory, we serve his designated heir—the man to whom the Lord Vader long ago entrusted us.”
“I find it difficult to believe the Emperor ever really cared about you,” Leia told him bluntly. “That’s not the sort of man he was. All he cared about was obtaining your service against us.”
“Only he came to our aid,” Khabarakh repeated.
“Because we were unaware of your plight,” Leia told him.
“So you say.”
Leia raised her eyebrows. “Then give me a chance to prove it. Tell me where your world is.”
Khabarakh jerked back. “That is impossible. You would seek us out and complete the destruction—”
“Khabarakh,” Leia cut him off. “Who am I?”
The folds around the Noghri’s nostrils seemed to flatten. “You are the Lady Vader. The Mal’ary’ush.”
“Did the Lord Vader ever lie to you?”
“You said he did.”
“I said he was mistaken,” Leia reminded him, perspiration starting to collect beneath her collar as she recognized the knife edge she was now walking along here. Her newfound status with Khabarakh rested solely on the Noghri’s reverence for Darth Vader. Somehow, she had to attack Vader’s words without simultaneously damaging that respect. “Even the Lord Vader could be deceived … and the Emperor was a master of deception.”
“The Lord Vader served the Emperor,” Khabarakh insisted. “The Emperor would not have lied to him.”
Leia gritted her teeth. Stalemate. “Is your new lord equally honest with you?”
Khabarakh hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do—you said yourself he didn’t tell you who it was you’d been sent to capture.”
A strange sort of low moan rumbled in Khabarakh’s throat. “I am only a soldier, my lady. These matters are far beyond my authority and ability. My duty is to obey my orders. All of my orders.”
Leia frowned. Something about the way he’d said that … and abruptly, she knew what it was. For a captured commando facing interrogation, there could be only one order left to follow. “Yet you now know something none of your people are aware of,” she said quickly. “You must live, to bring this information to them.”
Khabarakh had brought his palms to face each other, as if preparing to clap them together. Now he froze, staring at her. “The Lord Vader could read the souls of the Noghri,” he said softly. “You are indeed his Mal’ary’ush.”
“Your people need you, Khabarakh,” she told him. “As do I. Your death now would only hurt those you seek to help.”
Slowly, he lowered his hands. “How is it you need me?”
“Because I need your help if I’m to do anything for your people,” she said. “You must tell me the location of your world.”
“I cannot,” he said firmly. “To do so could bring ultimate destruction upon my world. And upon me, if it were learned I had given you such information.”
Leia pursed her lips. “Then take me there.”
“I cannot!”
“Why not?”
“I … cannot.”
She fixed him with her best regal stare. “I am the daughter—the Mal’ary’ush—of the Lord Darth Vader,” she said firmly. “By your own admission, he was the hope of your world. Have matters improved since he delivered you to your new leader?”