The Crystal Eye Read online

  From the creators of the Star Wars saga and the adventures of Indiana Jones comes a story of triumph over adversity . . .

  LUCASFILM’S

  ALIEN

  CHRONICLES

  In a universe far from ours, the rule of the mighty reptilian Viis is coming to an end. Planetary resources have been wasted. Slave races are challenging their masters. And a prophecy will come to pass as the story of Ampris the Exile concludes . . .

  THE CRYSTAL EYE

  Ampris’s days as a gladiator and freedom fighter are far behind her. She only wants to raise her children—half Aaroun, half Viis—away from the influence of their reptilian heritage. But the wilderness is taking its toll on her children and the other refugees. Desperate, Ampris returns to the ghetto that spawned her to seek the knowledge contained in the Imperial Archives that can save her people.

  Instead she learns the truth behind the enslavement of her race—a shocking betrayal that forces Ampris to walk the warrior’s path once more. It is a path that will lead Ampris into a final confrontation with her old enemy Israi—and decide the future of a universe.

  THE ALIENS OF

  LUCASFILM’S

  ALIEN

  CHRONICLES

  THE VIIS . . . a race of seven-foot tall, beautifully reptilian creatures. Their physical attractiveness has convinced the Viis that they are the most important, godlike creatures in the universe. This has led to an underground race of the “uglies”—Viis that were cast off as unacceptable, worthless spawn . . .

  THE AAROUN . . . The race of Ampris are powerful, golden-furred creatures with sharp teeth. They have long been kept by the Viis as slaves, or as in the case of Ampris, pets.

  THE KELTH . . . a submissive, doglike race with stiff, bristly coats and simian hands. Because they are so easily intimidated, Kelth are considered unreliable to handle important tasks. They are not to be trusted . . .

  THE MYAL . . . Renowned for their insight and memories. Myal stand barely three feet tall and are usually poets, musicians, and historians. They control the archives of the Viis empire.

  THE ZRHELI . . . They are filthy, noisy, foul-smelling, and socially repulsive creatures. Yet they are unequaled at maintaining and repairing quantum hardware (the only reason to tolerate them).

  THE SKEK . . . Less than two feet high, furry, multilimbed, and quick, the Skek live like rats in the ducts and garbage of the Viis. It’s a common slave belief that if you dropped one Skek in a barrel, the barrel would explode with Skek offspring within a day.

  THE TOTHS . . . Big, stupid, and brutal, Toths roam the ghetto streets as thugs, but they are also used by their Viis masters as hired enforcers and brownshirts. Nearly as tall as the Viis, they have massive heads covered with thick mats of dirty, curly brown hair. Flies usually buzz around their long, floppy ears. Their faces are broad and flat, with wide nostrils, and their eyes are small and cruel.

  Lucasfilm’s Alien Chronicles™

  by Deborah Chester

  THE GOLDEN ONE

  THE CRIMSON CLAW

  THE CRYSTAL EYE

  LUCASFILM’S ALIEN CHRONICLES™: THE CRYSTAL EYE

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Lucasfilm Ltd.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace edition / August 1999

  All rights reserved.

  Trademark and Copyright © 1999 by Lucasfilm Ltd.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York. New York 10014.

  Cover artist Bob Eggleton

  Alien artist Teryl Whitlatch

  ISBN: 0-441-00635-3

  ACE®

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CHAPTER•ONE

  Panting in the heat, Ampris dragged her harvest basket to the end of the row. She looked around warily, staying alert for the first sign of trouble, but no one was paying attention to her. Lugging her heavy basket, she walked over to the sorting bin and joined the end of the line, where workers were waiting to dump the contents of their baskets.

  The sorting bin shook and hummed noisily, vibrating all over. Its belts screeched, in need of maintenance. Slaves stood on a platform above the bin, tipping the contents of baskets into its maw. Mechanical teeth and rollers shook the globular grain heads, each one as large as Ampris’s fist. They bounced through openings that determined grade and rolled along an open chute that fed them into the cargo hold of a parked transport. The heads too small to make grade went rolling out a side chute into a smaller bin.

  Ampris hunched her broad shoulders and kept her head low to make herself look smaller. The line shuffled forward, and she dragged her heavy basket on her left side to conceal her limp. She wore a ragged jerkin, belt, and conical straw hat with a torn brim to protect her from the brutal sun. She looked exactly like every other slave at work in this stelf field. But she was no longer a slave; she did not belong here; and if all went as planned neither the guards nor the overseer would notice her.

  She moved forward again, glancing ahead at a lean Kelth with grayish-brown fur and a slim, pointed muzzle. Wielding a long-handled rake, he was pushing the grain heads along the chute into the transport hold. Garbed in a coat with both sleeves torn off, its color long since faded to a nondescript gray, Elrabin snagged any grain heads that were too bruised or rotten to go to processing. As Ampris watched him from beneath her ragged hat brim, Elrabin raked out two deformed heads, then slyly snagged a plump, perfect one. He dropped the deformed ones into the stinking basin that encircled the base of his platform and with a flick of his wrist tossed the good one into the basket he had concealed in the weeds.

  Ampris drew in a satisfied breath and lowered her head. All was going perfectly. She and Elrabin had slipped into the fields just after dawn, when the security nets were turned off. They had come down from the foothills in the dark, taking cover and waiting until morning. Ampris had watched the operations of this farm for several days, while she formulated her plan.

  She knew the slaves were carted to the fields on the decrepit old grain transports, but once they were unloaded they were left unrestrained while the transports were parked and other machinery was set up. The guards all seemed to be Toths, which meant they were both stupid and lazy. They seldom bothered to do more than make sure no slave bolted for freedom into the hills.

  With such a lax operation, it was simple to emerge from cover and join the slaves. Once inside the field with everyone milling around. Ampris and Elrabin found it easy to blend in.

  Right away, Elrabin had climbed onto the sorting platform and talked a worker into letting him handle the job, probably saying he was ordered to take over. Ampris picked up a basket and a slicer along with the others, unremarked by the guards handing out equipment.

  It was risky, what they were doing. If they got caught, they would be hanged from the boundary markers at one corner of the farm. Ampris had seen such dangling corpses. Now, despite the fact that the plan was working smoothly, she couldn’t help but think of death. She shuddered and stepped forward in line, telling herself to stop worrying. She wasn’t going to get caught, and she wasn’t going to be hanged.

  A dirty haze of pollution obscured the sky, and the air held a faint stench of smoke. Sneezing, Ampris supposed one of the Viis cities was on fire. Maybe far away in Vir the abiru folk had finally rebelled against their cruel Viis masters and were burning the
capital city. For a moment Ampris let her mind drift over her old dream of freeing all the abiru races. Years ago, she had been a rebel dedicated to the cause of freedom. She had established the Freedom Network and worked hard to unite the abiru into one cause. She knew that if they could ever be persuaded to work together, they could overthrow the Viis yoke. But those old days of rebellion were long since over. Ampris no longer traveled the length and breadth of the empire as she had when she was a champion gladiator. She no longer had contact with other members of the underground. She no longer plotted and schemed to bring down the Viis empire.

  Instead, she lived free in the wilderness areas of Viisymel with her half-grown cubs and a little band of abiru folk. She spent her time hunting, trying to make sure she and her cubs did not starve.

  When she led a raid these days, it was in the name of survival, not rebellion.

  Sighing to herself for a past that had long ago ceased to matter, Ampris stopped gazing at the smoky sky and shuffled forward again in line.

  A Toth guard strolled by, swinging his stun-stick and looking bored. Flies swarmed his matted, dark brown hair and collected at the corner of his right eye, which looked diseased. The Toth rubbed his face, grumbling to himself, and glanced up at Elrabin just as the Kelth raked another prime grain head out of the chute.

  Ampris gripped her basket in alarm, her heart thudding in her chest. Just like that, they were caught. Her risky plan was over, and they were done for. She panted harder, tensing her muscles to spring to Elrabin’s aid.

  But Elrabin never hesitated. “I’ll get it!” he shouted over the screeching clank of the machinery. He jumped down off his platform and rooted around on the ground in the tall, scraggly weeds before bouncing upright again with the grain head clutched aloft in his hand. “Got it!” he announced, while the Toth glared at him suspiciously.

  The Toth flipped his drooping ears back and forth and slid his thick tongue up into first one nostril, then the other. He said nothing while Elrabin climbed onto his platform and tossed the grain head back in.

  Elrabin yipped nervously and grinned. “Made a mistake,” he said to the guard. “Thought it had blight spots on it, but it’s just a little dirt.”

  The guard’s small, stupid eyes stared at Elrabin for another moment, then he walked on without a word.

  Ampris let out her breath in a long sigh, drained with relief. Up on his platform, Elrabin looked at the Toth’s departing back and let his narrow jaws part in a grin before scooping out two plump grain heads and dropping them out of sight.

  Ampris grinned to herself and ducked her head lower.

  The slave behind her prodded her in the back to make her move forward. She hoisted her heavy basket up with a grant to workers who dumped its contents into the main sorting bin and handed her empty basket back to her.

  Ampris glanced around to make sure no other guards were close by and circled around the base of the machinery to where Elrabin’s small basket stood concealed in the weeds.

  It was nearly full of stolen grain. She poured it into her own basket. The basin holding the rejected produce was half-full of black slime, with blighted grain heads floating on top. The sickly sweet stench of rotting grain nearly overpowered her sensitive nostrils.

  Trying to breathe as little as possible, Ampris gathered a few of the blighted heads and put them on top of her stolen ones. The slaves were allowed to gather all the rejected grain they wanted for their own consumption. The fact that the blight usually rendered the grain poisonous seemed of no consequence to the Viis landowners.

  She hoisted up her basket with a grunt and balanced it on her hip before glancing up at Elrabin, who stood on the machinery platform looking the other way. She pinched the back of his heel.

  He threw another blighted head into the garbage with a splat. Ampris dodged to one side and whispered, “I’ll cut one more row.”

  Elrabin raked out another deformed head and twisted around to drop it. As he did so, he shot her a warning look and muttered, “Got enough, Goldie. Don’t get greedy.”

  “We need another basket,” she insisted.

  He backed his ears. “Ain’t worth the risk—”

  “One more,” she said and walked away with her laden basket.

  He snarled behind her, but Ampris limped over to a rusting shed that housed the irrigation well pump and circled around behind it. No one seemed to be looking.

  At the rear of the shed was a low, slanted lean-to attachment of polyfibe boards that were brittle and decaying from age and no maintenance. One of the boards was hinged to allow access to the interior, and the lean-to had probably been designed to hold tools for servicing the irrigation pump. It was now empty, except for Ampris’s hoard of stolen food.

  Kneeling, she pried open the hinged board and swiftly dumped in the contents of her basket. The space beneath the little lean-to was almost full, and as she lowered the board back in place Ampris’s sense of satisfaction faded momentarily.

  Maybe Elrabin was right, she thought. Maybe they should thank their good luck at what they’d gotten so far and get out of here while they could.

  But then she thought of the hungry mouths back in their little camp up in the foothills rising above the east side of this dusty field. She thought of how she’d hunted all day yesterday and brought in no game. Neither had anyone else. The long summer drought had driven them here into the semi-arid Seren region, but they had not fared well in the move. Last month they had lost Morlol, a big Aaroun male who was their best provider, in a hunting accident. Elrabin worked hard to bring in food, but while he might be quick, clever, and streetwise, even twelve years of living off the land had not managed to make a good hunter of him. Paket, one of the Kelths who had escaped with her from the Vess Vaas Laboratory years ago. was getting old and stiff. Robuhl, a Myal, was so ancient his mane had turned white. Blind and senile, he had to be watched constantly so that he didn’t wander away from camp and get lost. Tantha was pregnant and still grieving for her dead mate Morlol. Normally she would be as strong and tireless as Ampris, but she was near her birthing time and needed to stay as inactive as possible. Velia was a timid Kelth female, mate to Elrabin. Long abused before she gained her freedom from her Viis masters, she would not leave the camp by herself and usually took on the main domestic tasks of cooking, mending, and watching over Robuhl. The two Viis Rejects. Luax and Harthril, could hunt successfully if there was any game to find, but they did not always bring home enough to feed the entire camp and tended to take care of their own dietary needs first. Ampris’s cubs, Foloth and Nashmarl. had begun to shoot up in growth. They were nearly as tall as Elrabin now, and constantly, voraciously hungry.

  No, Ampris decided, thinking of the many responsibilities resting on her shoulders; she could not take the safe course and steal only enough for them to eat one or two meals. Ampris was determined to take enough to supply their needs for several days. She wanted to dry the grain and pound it into flour. They needed to move on from this region, perhaps venture closer to Vir by the end of summer. With old ones and cubs soon to be born. they would need a warm, fairly gentle climate for the winter months. Relocating was hard work, involving difficult travel on foot and the need to scout ahead to make sure they ran into no trouble or encountered no settlements where their presence might be reported to the authorities. Hunting would be harder than ever. Therefore, she needed to get as much food as she could today before the work ended.

  At night the uncut harvest was guarded with electronic sensors that protected it from theft. Her only chance was to cut the produce boldly today, in full sight of the guards.

  Once cut, the grain heads would keep for three days before they began to rot. This field would be harvested by the end of today or early tomorrow. As soon as it was cleared, a mechanics crew would come to cap off the well and remove the pump starter. Thus locked down, the field and well would be abandoned until next season’s planting time. No longer would the security nets be activated. It would be a simple matter f
or Ampris to come back under cover of darkness and collect her cache of food.

  Ampris had not been born a thief, but she had learned to do whatever was necessary to survive.

  Rising to her feet, she clipped her empty basket to her belt and unsheathed her slicer. As she limped back into the field, heading for an uncut row of the waist-high stelf, she saw a skimmer approaching at such speed the driver’s clothing billowed out behind him.

  He circled the field once, then twice, the metal sides of the skimmer flashing in the sun. A static-filled loudspeaker blared:

  “Everyone, work faster! Faster! This field must be cleared by midday.”

  Holding her slicer in her hand, Ampris stood gawking at the skimmer, which was driven by an obese Gorlican. He must be the overseer, she thought, but why was he in such a hurry? She looked at the amount of grain yet to be cut. There was a full day’s work ahead of them. They couldn’t possibly finish in a couple of hours.

  The overseer flew his skimmer to the sorting bins, where he gestured at Elrabin and the other workers. “Stop sorting!” the Gorlican shouted. “Dump everything into the holds. Faster! There is little time.”

  Ampris watched Elrabin move to shut off the noisy machinery, and for an instant quiet settled over the field. The slaves were still staring in disbelief.

  Then a whip cracked across Ampris’s shoulders without warning. The pain knocked her to her knees, and she cried out before she could stop herself.

  A Toth guard towered over her. “Work,” he said, his small brutal eyes holding no mercy. He whipped her again before she had a chance to regain her feet. “Work fast. Bantet has ordered it.”

  Ampris scrambled upright, clutching her basket and slicer. Her hat had fallen askew over one eye, and she tipped it back. The pain across the back of her shoulders burned like fire, and she could hear her own breath keening raggedly in the back of her throat. Realizing it, she forced herself to stop making the sound.