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darkness and Threepio started. Artoo gave a derisive beep, and the two 'droids moved out into the
darkness.
"Very funny," Threepio admonished his companion. "I hope one of the local carnivores chokes on you
and breaks every one of your external sensors." Artoo whistled back, sounding unimpressed. The
Princess pressed close against Luke. He tried to comfort her without appearing anxious, but as the
darkness closed to a stygian blackness around them and the night sounds turned to sepulchral moans and
hootings, his arm instinctively went around her shoulders. She didn't object. It made him feel good to sit
there like that, leaning against her and trying to ignore the damp ground beneath.
Something called out with an abyssal shrillness, startling Luke from his sleep. Nothing moved beyond the
dying fire. With his free hand he tossed several shards of wood onto the embers, watched the fire blaze
again.
Then he happened to glance down at his companion's face. It was not the face of a Princess and a
Senator or of a leader of the Rebel Alliance, but instead that of a chilled child. Moistly parted in sleep,
her lips seemed to beckon to him. He leaned closer, seeking refuge from the damp green and brown of
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the swamp in that hypnotic redness.
He hesitated, pulled back. She was an aristocrat and Rebel leader. For all he'd accomplished above
Yavin, he was still only a pilot and, before that, a farmer's nephew. Peasant and Princess, he mused
disgustedly.
His assignment was to protect her. He wouldn't abuse that trust, no matter his own hopeless hopes. He
would defend her against anything that leapt out of the darkness, crawled from the slime, dropped from
the gnarled branches they walked under. He would do it out of respect and admiration and possibly out
of the most powerful of emotions, unrequited love.
He would even defend her from himself, he determined tiredly. In five minutes he was fast asleep....
Any awkwardness was spared by the fact that he awakened first. Removing his arm from her shoulders,
he nudged her gently once, twice. With the third nudge she sat straight up, eyes wide and staring with
sudden wakefulness. She turned sharply to stare at him. Then the events of the past several days came
flooding back to her and she relaxed a little.
"Sorry. I thought I was someplace else. I was a little frightened." She started to rummage through her
survival pack, and Luke did the same with his. Threepio offered a cheery "Good morning."
While the cloud-masked sun rose somewhere behind them, warming the mists slightly, they shared a
meager breakfast of emergency cube concentrates.
"Whoever created these," she grimaced in distaste, biting off a small piece of a pink square, "must have
been part machine. They didn't program anything like taste or flavor into them."
Luke tried not to let the awful taste he was experiencing show. "Oh, I don't know. They're designed to
keep you alive, not to taste good."
"Want another one?" She extended a blue square with the consistency of dead sponge. Luke eyed it,
half-smiled queasily.
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"Not... right away. I'm kind of full." She nodded knowingly, then smiled. He grinned back at her.
The long day never grew truly comfortable, but their suits and the thermal capes kept them warm
enough. By late morning it had grown sufficiently hot for them to unhook the capes, fold the thin material
into small rectangles, and put them up in suit pockets.
The rare breaks in the mist were never large enough to give them a view of the rising sun, though
Threepio and Artoo assured them it was there. It attacked the mist persistently, raising the light level from
mere dimness to a kind of enthusiastic twilight.
"We should be getting close to the beacon," she told them all around midday. Luke wondered how many
hours they'd slept. Nights and days would be long on Circarpous/Mimban.
"We have to be prepared to find nothing, Princess. There might not be a beacon station,"
"I know," she admitted quietly. "We'll have to search, though. We can walk in an expanding spiral from
the place I plotted, and hope."
A long wall of trees and lesser growth lay ahead. They plunged into it without hesitating, trading ease of
passage for secure footing.
"Pardon me, sir."
Luke looked slightly ahead and to his right. Both robots had paused and See Threepio was leaning
against something. "What is it, Threepio?"
"Your pardon, sir, but this isn't a tree I'm pressing against," the 'droid said, "it's metal. I thought the
matter worthy enough to bring to your notice. There is a possibility..." A loud beep cut him off and he
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