The Wookiee growled something vicious and started pushing his way through the crowd. But even as the Noghri made way for him, Leia knew he would never make it. Espionage droids weren't brilliant, but they were smart enough to know not to hang around after their cover had been blown. Long before Chewbacca could get over there it would be off and running. If it had a transmitter-and if there were any Imperial ships within range 'People of Honoghr!' she shouted over the conversation. 'I will prove to you right now the truth of what I say. One of the Empiror's decon droids is there.' She pointed to it. 'Bring it to me.
The crowd turned to look, and Leia could sense their uncertainty. But before anyone could move, the droid abruptly vanished around the corner of the building it had been skulking beside. A second later Leia caught a glimpse of it between two other buildings, scuttling away for all it was worth. It was, tactically, the worst decision the droid could have made. Running away was as good as admitting guilt, particularly in front of a people who had grown up with the things and knew exactly what the normal behavioral range of a decon droid was. The crowd roared, and from the rear perhaps fifty of the older adolescents took off after it.
And as they did so, one of the guards on the terrace beside Leia cupped his hand around his mouth and sent a piercing half-scream into the air. Leia jerked away, ears ringing with the sound. The guard screamed again, and this time there was an answer from somewhere in the near distance. The guard switched to a warble that sounded like a complicated medley of birdcalls; a short reply, and both fell silent. 'He calls others to the hunt,' the maitrakh told Leia.
Leia nodded, squeezing her hands into fists as she watched the pursuers disappear around a corner after the droid. If the droid had a transmitter it would right now be frantically dumping its data ... And then, suddenly, the pursuers were back in sight, accompanied by a half dozen adult Noghri males. Held aloft like the prize from a hunt, still wiggling uselessly in their grip, was the droid.
Leia took a deep breath. 'Bring it here to me,' she said as the party approached. They did so, six of the adolescents lugging it up the stairs and laying it on its back on the terrace. Leia ignited her lightsaber, her eyes searching the droid as she did so for signs of a concealed antenna port. She couldn't see one, but that by itself didn't prove anything. Steeling herself for the worst, she sliced a vertical cut through the droid's outer shell. Two more crosswise cuts, and its internal workings were laid out for all to see. Chewbacca was already kneeling beside the droid as Leia shut down her lightsaber, his huge fingers probing delicately among the maze of tubes and cables and fibers. Near the top of the cavity was a small gray box. He threw a significant look at Leia and pulled it free from its connections. Leia swallowed as he laid it on the ground beside him. She recognized it, all right, from long and sometimes bitter experience: the motivator recorder unit from an Imperial probe droid. But the antenna connector jack was empty. Luck, or the Force, was still with them.
Chewbacca was poking around the lower part of the cavity now. Leia watched as he pulled several cylinders out of the tangle, examined their markings, and returned them to their places. The crowd was starting to murmur again when, with a satisfied murmur of his own, he pulled out a large cylinder and slender needle from near the intake hopper.
Gingerly, Leia took the cylinder from him. It shouldn't be dangerous to her, but there was no point in taking chances. 'I call on the dynasts to bear witness that this cylinder was indeed taken from the inside of this machine,' she called to the crowd.
'Is this your proof?' Ir'khaim asked, eyeing the cylinder doubtfully.
'It is,' Leia nodded. 'I have said that these plants are not the kholm-grass you remember from before the disaster. But I have not yet said what is different about them.' Picking up one of the plants, she held it up for them to see. 'The Emperor's scientists took your kholm-grass and changed it,' she told the crowd. 'They created differences that would breed true between generations. The altered smell you have noticed is caused by a chemical which the stem, roots, and leaves secrete. A chemical which has one purpose only: to inhibit the growth of all other plant life. The machines that the Grand Admiral claims are cleaning the ground are in fact doing nothing but destroying this special kholm-grass which the Empire planted.'
'Your truth is again dreams,' Vor'corldi scoffed. 'The droid machines require nearly two tens of days to cleanse a single pirkha of land. My daughters could destroy the kholm-grass there in one.' Leia smiled grimly. 'Perhaps the machines don't require as much time as it appears. Let's find out.' Holding the kholm-grass out in front of her, she eased a drop of pale liquid from the tip of the needle and touched it to the stem.
It was as dramatic a demonstration as she could have hoped for. The drop soaked through the dull brown surface of the plant, and for a handful of seconds nothing seemed to happen. There was a faint sizzling sound; and then, without warning, the plant suddenly began to turn black and wither. There was a hissing gasp from the crowd as the patch of catalytic destruction spread along the stem toward the leaves and roots. Leia held it up a moment longer, then dropped it on the terrace. There it lay, writhing like a dry branch thrown into a fire, until there was nothing left but a short and unrecognizable filament of wrinkled black. Leia touched it tentatively with the toe of her hoot, and it disintegrated into a fine powder. She had expected another outburst of surprise or outrage from the crowd. Their dead silence was in its own way more unnerving than any noise would have been. The Noghri understood the implications of the demonstration, all right.
And as she looked around at their faces, she knew that she'd won. She put the cylinder down on the terrace beside the destroyed plant and turned to face the dynasts. 'I have shown you my proof,' she said. 'You must now decide whether the Noghri debt has been paid.' She looked at Vor'corkh; and moved by an impulse she couldn't explain, she unhooked her lightsaber from her belt and put it in his hand. Stepping past him, she went over to Khabarakh. 'I'm sorry,' she said softly.
'I didn't expect for you to have to go through anything like this because of me.'
Khabarath opened his mouth in a needle-toothed Noghri smile. 'The Empire has long taught us that it is a honor pride and duty to face pain for his overlord. Should I do less for the Mal'ary'ush of the Lord Vader?' Leia shook her head. 'I'm not your overlord, Khabarakh, and I never will be. The Noghri are a free people. I came only to try to restore that freedom to you.'
'And to bring us on your side against the Empire,' Vor'corkh said caustically from behind her.
