Star Wars: Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon by L. Neil Smith

Author:L. Neil Smith
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345311634
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1983-09-12T07:00:00+00:00

For the first time in his long existence, he wished sincerely that he had the same limits to his awareness as his master. For the first time in a very long existence indeed, he entertained the notion that what he didn't know mightn't hurt him.

Lando had finished being sick-or at least with having something to be sick with. Fortunately the cockpit sanitation unit was still functioning. Of course it wasn't electronic and had almost no moving parts. Lando, wishing for the impossible like everybody else, was wishing he didn't have any moving parts, because, every time he moved something, it sent waves of nausea up whatever limb it happened to be, waves that zeroed in on his solar plexus and waggled it back and forth until he had to inspect the sanitation unit again.

Closely.

He didn't think he ever wanted to see anything purple again as long as he lived. If he lived. Or wanted to.

A blueness that was more than blue seeped in through every port, window, blister, bubble, and televisor on the ship. With the same delightful irony that determines every other day-today event in a malicious universe, the only electronic devices on the ship that worked perfectly were the outside visual pickups and their repeaters inside the hull.

Navy blue, robin's-egg blue, sky blue (the sky of a million different planets, all mixed together indiscriminately in agate whirls), powder blue, denym blue, velvet blue, true blue.

Lando blew his nose.

His stomach seemed to have subsided a little. He glanced at Vuffi Raa, who bristled with alertness, tentacles on the controls and his big red eye fastened on the cockpit transparency.

"How are you feeling, Master? Better?"

"Don't call me master. Yes, I'm feeling better. How are you feeling, old trash-compacter?" Lando thought about lighting a cigar-and immediately had to lean over to the sanitation unit again.

False alarm, but it very nearly made him stop smoking for the rest of his life.

"I don't know, Master. I'm afraid I had to shut my feelings off in order to function. Please forgive me if I don't seem quite myself for the duration of this journey."

Lando laughed. "I'm never going to be myself again! What can I do to help? You look like you have your tentacles pretty full. "There is really nothing either of us can do, Master. The course is logged in and-one trusts-being followed. I am merely monitoring life-support and other housekeeping functions. And wondering how reliable even those indicators are."

"We could always go back and look-you or 1, I mean, whichever you think best." He tightened his chair harness a little, straightened up.

He'd always wondered why sadness was described as being "blue." Now he knew: much more of this, and he'd be looking around for something sharp to cut his wrists with.

He'd never known there were so many shades of blue, all of them ugly.

"I think not, Master. If something goes wrong up here, I t)elieve it will require the attention of both of us to correct it. You might try asking one of our passengers how things are elsewhere in the ship, though.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.