VII
An X-Wing and its simpler Incom cousin a Headhunter dropped from the clear sky and cruised above the pocked plans of Utapau, glinting with martial silver. Leathery birds rose singing and tilting away from their wake, while identical huge shadows overlapped them fleetly in slow soars.
Deep in one of the many expansive sinkholes, Luke juggled altitude with his ship's footpedals against the tumultuous wind as he eased his flightsuit's helmet off and watched Mara's Headhunter being drawn into a skeletal-looking docking bay built like a fungus against the sandy cliff wall. When it was retracted completely a second eased out and Luke set down on it.
Nearer to the wall the metal-threatening gusts diminished only slightly. No sign showed of mining technology, only a fanned ledge of small docking bays and the suggestion of starship maintenance equipment in the caves beyond the ledge proper. It all smelled briny as Luke jumped down from his ship slightly foggy from a lengthy trance, almost overwhelmingly alive after Coruscant. The chorus of natural life sang sweeter and louder to him than billions of sentients had.
Lando emerged from a tunnel as Luke and Mara stared about at the vertically tapering landscape around them. A phalanx of small aliens--Utai, the HoloNet entry Luke had studied called them--accompanied the trim human and then scurried ahead of him, dragging fuel hoses and diagnostic readers for the two starfighters.
Luke placed some credits into one's proffered hand as Lando swept toward them.
"Welcome! Miss Jade," Lando kissed her hand. "and Luke."
Luke nodded to his friend's triumphant smile. "Ah, new operation, Lando?" He tried to sound glib, unconcerned.
"Actually...you'll see. If neither of you mystics have anything else to do, I'll show you some of the sites of this remarkable planet."
Mara wrested her hand away from Lando's. "No. I have nothing better to do."
Lando lead his visitors alone ledges and thin, beautiful tunnels to an enormous open space, explaining his new venture all the while. Luke kept silent, smelled the brine and unique smells, and tried to concentrate on the freedom of walking without any Jedi self-persuasion.
Lando walked and gestured amicably. "I originally came here to investigate the minerals in these underground seas. Rare ores, very lucrative. Some of the Utapauans, those're the tall ones, told me that what they would really support building is tourism--in sane amounts of course. When I saw the creatures--"
With a flourishing wave he stopped at the cavernous stable's opening. "They use these varactyls and dactillions for transportation."
Just ahead of them giant lizard-birds craned their necks iridescent with feathers and fixed on each human with beady, intelligent eyes. Luke sensed a dog-class loyalty and mind in them. On the other side, similar dark green and rust beasts with four spindly legs and two-meter-long beaks in bald avian heads sat in the company of little Utai.
"I didn't know you liked animals." Mara said.
"I don't particularly." replied Lando. "But I know these things could--will!-- draw people."
Luke had never had more than a casual interest in creatures either, but his pilot's heart thrilled as one of the dactillions spread its sixth pair of limbs, great thin leather falcon-wings, and plunged off the side of the cliff into the sunlight with an Utai in its saddle. I can fly anything.
He turned to Lando. "Can I rent one of those flyers?"
"I'm sure you can." He said. "Talk to a wrangler."
Luke haggled with an Utai and received for his credits instructions for and reins to one of the dactillions. He could not remember the last animal he had worked with, but this one's thoughts were almost clear enough to speak to.
It launched with the Jedi leaning into its simple saddle's movement--Luke embraced the rush. Many X-Wing lengths away at the opposite curve of the sinkhole smaller beasts soared on their extended finger-sails. Luke leaned the reins to turn the dactillion a sightseeing distance from the cliff and it swept across a rhythm of winds, fluidly tucked up its four strange legs, balanced the tiller-beak angled.
Luke let the reins go and fed his hands the warm snakeskin neck just before him, and asked the dactillion's permission to see through its eyes.
They soared indeed; Utai burbled praise of the beginner's skill when they returned. To Luke the ride was nothing like an X-Wing's; the wind beat against his face and the inertia had its way with each turn, each sweeping triangle of wing--
When he returned to the lizard-stables his legs ached a dull pain. Expressively he thanked the Utai wrangler who met him, and it indicated for him to follow where it lead, winding up to Lando's apartment. Surely this new scheme of his would draw people--
In the shaded trails Luke's own lack of purpose reassailed him with its nagging.
Pleasure is only situation, depending on the light and wind or shadows and stillness, where once contentment was not...