Марта Уэллс - From a Certain Point of View

“I know.” Lonaste pushed past assorted relatives and dumped a young cousin out of the chair at her jury-rigged console. She tapped the pad to pull up the hacked interface she had used to break into Baron Calrissian’s private comm.

Behind her, everyone was talking. “She told us,” Beetase was saying loudly. “And none of you would listen—”

Uncle Donsat began, “Stop your panicking—”

Lonaste ignored the rising arguments and exclamations. Ever since the Imperial lord and his troops had arrived in the city looking for rebels, she had known this would happen. The communications she intercepted, the rising suspicions and fear of the other sentients in the city, the warnings passed on from human workers, had all told the same story: The Imperials would take Bespin. She had tried to convince her family to leave, even if the other Ugnaught clans wouldn’t. But the reality of the situation made her hands shake as she paged through the console’s screens. They’ll take us into slavery, just like on Gentes. As usual, no one was listening to her, but she said, “You all need to pack, just the essentials. I’ll figure out how much time we have—”

“Yoxgit and the others say not to worry,” Donsat objected. Lonaste knew Donsat wasn’t an Imperial supporter, he was just desperately afraid of change, but it didn’t make it any easier to listen to him, especially now. “It’s not as if they’ll blow up the city.”

“Because Imperials never do that,” Beetase said grimly. There was a chorus of frightened objections, and cousin Jamint added, “Calrissian himself said to go.”

“He’s talking to the humans, not us. Yoxgit says the Empire has no quarrel with us,” Donsat countered. Yoxgit was a member of the wealthiest Ugnaught clan in the city, and Donsat was a terrible social climber.

“Oh, and you believe everything that arms dealer says. Are you his puppet?” Aunt Maloste entered the fray swinging. She wasn’t the best ally, as her idea of a discussion was to bludgeon the others into agreement, and it always caused bad feelings. Half the family had old disagreements with her, and now they all jumped into the argument on Donsat’s side.

Lonaste searched the comm records. She had set the system to do regular captures of Calrissian’s communications, because she had to sleep and work her shifts and she couldn’t sit here all the time, even though it made her nerves vibrate not to know what was happening.

The last message capture was only three hours ago. Calrissian’s sources had warned him that an Imperial takeover was imminent. Why he had waited until now to call the evacuation, Lonaste had no idea. The Tibanna gas merchants had spread the rumor that Calrissian had made a deal to leave the city free of Imperial control; maybe Calrissian had been counting on that, but obviously it hadn’t worked out. Humans, she thought in disgust. But it’s going to be all right, we have a plan.

Two days ago, Lonaste had made a secret deal to buy passage for the clan on a Duros cargo ship, trading them a stockpile of scraps saved from the reclamation center. It had taken most of the past year to get enough precious metals, even with Beetase and her other cousins helping her. All she had to do now was contact the crew to arrange a meeting at the city docks. She tapped in the secure comm code the ship’s captain had given her, but the console refused the connection. Lonaste’s throat went dry. She tried it again, hoping she had just fumbled the keys, but the comm wouldn’t connect. Uh-oh.

Beetase jittered at her elbow. “Did you call the ship? What did they say?”

Lonaste tried to connect to the port controller as a test. The comm gave her static and ineffectual beeps. “The Imperials must be jamming the city’s communications,” she said, loud enough to cut through all the agitated voices.

The others went quiet. There was no reason for the Imperials to jam the internal comms of a city they didn’t mean to attack; surely that would convince the doubters. Lonaste pushed to her feet. They were all still standing there, staring at her. “What are you doing? We need to get ready to leave!”

Everyone turned to look at Aunt Temarit, the eldest. Her tufts of hair and brows were silver-white, and age had left deep furrows in her round cheeks. She stood silent and enigmatic, clasping her forearms. Uncle Donsat said, “Surely there is no reason—”

Temarit interrupted, “Jamint, go ask Amigast what his clan means to do.”

Jamint elbowed his cousins aside and hurried for the door.

Lonaste seethed at the delay, but she thought Amigast, the leader of the largest Ugnaught clan in the miners’ union, would support her. At the last meeting, where the clans had argued about the Imperial presence in the city, Amigast had asked, “If this Imperial lord only wanted the rebels, why hasn’t he left with them?”

Yoxgit the arms dealer had said, “He’s waiting to capture a rebel leader called Skywalker, then he’ll leave.”

Amigast had countered, “The city militia says there are rumors of a Star Destroyer somewhere in the system.”

Yoxgit had raised placating hands. “They only want the rebel humans. For us, everything will go on as usual. There’re credits to be made here, no point in disrupting it.”

Lonaste had bared her teeth in disgust. Didn’t anyone else notice how fast Yoxgit had gone from “the Imperials will take what they want and leave” to “everything will go on as usual”? And Yoxgit seemed to know a lot about what the Imperials were planning. She had raised her voice and said to Yoxgit, “You probably want the Imperials here. It’s good for your business, right?” Yoxgit sold Tibanna gas to the arms merchants, though why he thought the Imperials wouldn’t just take the gas for themselves, she had no idea.

It caused a stir, some clan leaders demanding Yoxgit answer, others defending him. Uncle Donsat had weighed in, saying, “The unions would never permit—”

Lonaste had flailed in exasperation. “The unions can’t protect us! This is just like Gentes, the Imperials will enslave us and send us away from one another! It’s what they’ve done on a hundred other worlds!”

Uncle Donsat had turned to Yoxgit and the clan elders. “You must excuse her,” he had said loudly. “She’s young and has lots of strange notions, and they panic her.”

Aunt Moloste had smacked him in the shoulder and growled, “Don’t air family matters at the union meeting, you fool.”

Lonaste had tried to speak again, but Donsat had dismissed her so thoroughly, no one would listen to her. Again.

Now here they were, with precious seconds passing and no one doing anything. Lonaste drew breath to say something, hopefully something persuasive and not furious. But then Jamint shoved in through the crowded door. His expression frightened, he said, “Amigast’s clan is gone, their section is empty!”

It was like the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room. Shocked, his voice suddenly uncertain, Donsat said, “What?”

“Gone!” Jamint repeated. “They evacuated.”

The silence was deep enough for Lonaste to hear urgent shouting echoing from far down the walkway. Then Aunt Moloste, her expression sober, said, “We should go.”

“But you couldn’t call the ship.” Cousin Sallat turned to Lonaste. “How will we—”

“I’ll go to the port and make sure they can take us aboard,” Lonaste said, her heart pounding.

Beetase said immediately, “I’ll go with you.”

The others all looked at Aunt Temarit. Lonaste clamped her jaw shut and forced herself not to plead or argue.

Then Temarit said, “Go. We’ll be ready when you return.”

Lonaste gasped in relief. Beetase grabbed her arm, and the others cleared the way as they rushed out of the room.