Balance Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

calling it, swinging both arms.
    Gateway had been erected on the ruins of Tayana, an ancient Duros mining city. Under the new refugee huts, two upturned rock layers came together, one relatively soft and one exceptionally dense. Leia hoped to convert the old hard-rock mines into shelters, in case of breaches in the dome or other emergencies. SELCORE had sent two mammoth stone-chewing machines, and she’d been promised a state-of-the-art mining laser.
    If she paused and stood still, she could hear the big chewers underfoot.
    Chewers.
    Chewie.
    Leia’s chest ached every time she thought of the beloved Wookiee. She strode on, frowning. She couldn’t flinch every time something reminded her of his name. Naturally, it’d taken a falling moon to kill the big Wook. Duro had no moon, only twenty orbital cities.
    On her left, an open-sided barn housed her major construction machinery, used for outside projects and new housing.
    Housing! She’d been warned to expect an influx of Falleen and Rodians.
    Not at Gateway, she hoped. That combination would be explosive. Refugee settlements were springing up all around the planet’s equator. They nestled like baby Vors under the protective orbital cities, sheltered by their planetary shields.
    A new neighborhood lay beyond the construction barn, a few duracrete-block buildings made from her engineers’ experimental concoctions—local cement, mixed with marsh grass that’d been steeped in an antitoxinbrew and then heat-dried. Beyond that, a hydroponics complex gave off the unsubtle odor of organic fertilizer.
    She entered the admin complex by its north door, then plodded up a flight of stairs that circled an interior light-well. A U2C1 housekeeping droid hummed softly, its hoselike arms sweeping back and forth, rattling with the pebbles that constantly fell out of local duracrete. Two stories tall, plus a basement, this building had been constructed on-site by SELCORE before the big ships left.
    Was that only nine weeks ago? Leia opened the door of the sparsely furnished room that served her as office and quarters. Near the north-facing window—which overlooked the research building, construction shed, and a patchwork of refugee families’ straggly garden plots—she’d placed the massive SELCORE desk. A stranger had offered a pair of heirloom wall sconces. “I don’t want to burn down our tent,” she’d explained, so Leia agreed to keep them until that family took permanent housing in the new apartments Leia hoped to build, the projected Bail Organa complex.
    Along the left wall were her cot and a cooking unit. The refresher was down the hall.
    Something smelled odd. C-3PO stood beside the focus cooker.
    His head swiveled. “Good evening, Mistress Leia. I am sorry, this would have been more savory an hour ago—”
    “Not your problem, Threepio.” She sank down at the table. “I’ll eat now, before it gets any worse.”
    Whatever it was—probably soypro cutlets, beside a pile of local greens that had been overcooked to a slimy gel—probably had been tasty once. She made appreciative noises for C-3PO’s sake. His culinary programming wasn’t at fault. Her meeting had gone long.
    He took up his usual position at the routing board, assigningincoming supplies and checking duty lists. He would spend the night working there.
    “May I wonder, Mistress Leia …”
    She chewed a rubbery bite. “Go ahead, Threepio.”
    “If you would permit me to make a personal inquiry …” He trailed off again. Leia thought she knew what was coming.
    “Is it possible,” he said, “that Captain Solo will be permanently absent from our … operation? I had rather thought he might appear, or at least communicate, by this time.”
    The soypro stuck in her throat. “The last time he called in, he didn’t know exactly where he was going.”
    She eyed the protocol droid’s gleaming finish. Was that a touch of corrosion on his left shoulder? She’d sent him outside the dome several