Mohs

"It must be as it has been told, else it would not have been told to begin with."

- Mohs

Mohs was an aged and stooped male of the Toka people. He was the High Singer of the subintelligent Toka, and he knew all their legends about the ancient Sharu species. Mohs lived in Teguta Lusat on Rafa IV. After Lando Calrissian was tasked with finding the legendary Mindharp of the Sharu species by Rokur Gepta and local governor Duttes Mer, Mohs encountered him in the Spaceman's Rest. He attempted to steal the Fabled Key from Calrissian's possession, but was unsuccessful. Agreeing to help Calrissian find the Mindharp on Rafa V, Mohs instead betrayed him to the local Toka. He was forbidden from killing Calrissian, and instead tied him to a tree in one of Rafa V's life-orchards.

After Calrissian escaped both death from exposure and the intelligence-sucking life-orchard, Mohs showed the adventurer and his droid companion, Vuffi Raa, where to find the Great Lock set into the largest of the Sharu pyramids. When Calrissian, Raa, and Mohs entered the pyramid, its Sharu technology caused Mohs to grow to sixty times his original height, and mysteriously lose his sight. While in the Sharu pyramid, Mohs began to regain some of the intelligence that had been stripped from him and the rest of the Toka in the distant past. While Calrissian and Raa were still exploring the pyramid to find the Mindharp, Mohs abandoned him and returned via Sharu technology to Rafa IV, where he began making preparations for Calrissian's return.

Four months after he entered the pyramid, Calrissian discovered the Mindharp and was transported back to Teguta Lusat. Betrayed by Vuffi Raa, he was forced to surrender the Mindharp to Duttes Mer, who attempted to access its secrets. While fleeing the earthquakes caused by the Mindharp's use, Calrissian encountered Mohs again inside the Millennium Falcon. The Toka man, now revealed as a Sharu, explained that all the Toka were becoming Sharu again. Mohs then left Calrissian's starship before the Millennium Falcon fled the Rafa system.

Rafa IV
"Naughty, naughty, Mohs. No fair doing Holy Things without the duly constituted Key Bearer's help."

- Lando Calrissian

Mohs was chosen when he was young to be the High Singer of the Sharu, and heard and obeyed the voices of the Rafa system's Sharu artifacts all his life. As a symbol of his position, he bore on his forehead a line drawing of the Mindharp. Like all Toka, he was essentially a slave of the Centran colonists. After another Toka working at the Spaceman's Rest saloon spotted a Sharu artifact in the possession of Lando Calrissian, Mohs came to speak with the itinerant adventurer.

Calrissian had been given the Fabled Key of the Sharu by Scrivinir Rokur Gepta and local governor Duttes Mer, who were employing him to find the fabled Mindharp, said to be the Ultimate Instrument of Music. In Toka legend, the Key Bearer and his companion the Emissary would liberate the Mindharp with the Fabled Key and use it to call back the presumed-extinct Sharu species. While Mohs initially believed that Calrissian was the Key Bearer, and Calrissian's companion Vuffi Raa was the Emissary, Calrissian's behavior made him reconsider this.

After another altercation distracted Calrissian, Mohs swiped the Key and slipped out the back door. Calrissian spotted him and tackled him, beating Mohs into submission. Groveling, Mohs apologized and Calrissian invited him to come along on his mission as a guide. While Calrissian and Vuffi Raa took a hoverbus, Sharu technology transported Mohs to the spaceport instantaneously. A crowd of chanting Toka gathered around him.

Aboard the Millennium Falcon
"Hail, Lord Key Bearer and Emissary. It is, indeed, as it has been told. Long have we awaited thee. Vouchsafe now unto thy servants what it is that shall next come to pass." "We shall climb aboard yon Millennium Falcon, tuck ourselves into our little beddy-byes, and get some - yipe!"

- Mohs and Lando Calrissian

After the Toka crowd finished chanting the Song of the Emissary, Mohs asked Lando Calrissian about his plans. Calrissian intended to sleep aboard his starship, the Millennium Falcon, but was startled when he found local police surrounding it. Duttes Mer's men were loading the promised reward of Rafan life-crystals in the Falcon's hold, but had also sabotaged the hyperdrive to compel Calrissian's compliance. Calrissian then boarded the vessel with Vuffi Raa and Mohs in tow. In the cockpit, Mohs spoke about the Toka legend that a dark adventurer and his shiny companion would come to liberate the Mindharp. Calrissian then realized that Gepta and Mer had chosen him because he fit the profile of the prophesied rescuer.

The next day, after the Millennium Falcon took off, Calrissian asked Mohs where the Mindharp was. Pointing out the viewscreen, he recited the Song of the Reflective Telescope, directing the spacer and his droid companion to the nearby world of Rafa V. Calrissian and Raa then quizzed the Toka further on the various chants he knew, before setting out. After a few hours of travel, the Millennium Falcon hit some space debris in Rafa V's orbit. Since its deflector shields were down, the Falcon's hull was breached and it began to lose atmosphere. Raa brought the vessel in for an emergency landing where Mohs had indicated, near an asymmetric multicolored plastic Sharu pyramid approximately twelve kilometers tall and seven kilometers wide.

A hail of arrows
"Imposter, hear me: we are forbidden to remove the holy Key from the Key Bearer, even should the Bearer be a false one. You have somehow guessed this. Nor may we kill him who bears the Key, although we have killed the false Emissary, which makes us glad."

- Mohs

The world of Rafa V was bitterly cold, with low humidity. After the trio departed the vessel and the Falcon's ramp had been raised, they were ambushed by a tribe of Toka with weapons that resembled crossbows. Their extremely accurate fire disabled Vuffi Raa as well as Calrissian's blaster. Mohs took command of the natives, and demanded the Key from Calrissian, who refused and insulted Mohs' mother. Since Mohs and the other Toka were ritually forbidden from harming the Bearer of the Key, they instead marched him miles away to a life-orchard. They then stripped him of his clothing, tied him to one of the intelligence-draining trees, and abandoned him to the elements in only a loincloth and his semi-formal cummerbund.

Calrissian escaped his bonds, captured a police detachment sent to arrest him, and returned to the place next to the pyramid where he had earlier been ambushed. Mohs was there to meet him, cooking a vuole on a stick over a fire. After some discussion, Mohs agreed to show Calrissian the place to use the Key. Vuffi Raa uncovered the Great Lock a meter below the surface, and Calrissian inserted the Key. While at first Calrissian thought the Key had had no effect, Mohs and Raa vanished as soon as the gambler looked away.

Within the great pyramid
"Behold! Look upon the very ancestors of Those whose name it is not wise to speak in this place!" "You mean the Sharu?" "Yes, Captain, I mean the Sharu."

- Mohs and Lando Calrissian

Mohs fell through the wall of the pyramid, and into darkness. He was instantaneously blinded, although he failed to notice. As soon as he was in the pyramid, he began to think clearer than he ever had before. By the time Calrissian arrived through the wall, he had discovered a new, less drafty way to tie his loincloth and was considering problems of geometry.

The technology of the Sharu caused both Mohs and Calrissian to grow to sixty times their normal heights. Their thought processes and perception of the flow of time was altered so that to an outside observer they appeared to act with incredible slowness. Vuffi Raa was unaffected, but shunted into a maintenance system for more than thirty-two hours. When Raa emerged, only about half an hour had passed from the point of view of Mohs and Lando Calrissian.

Mohs directed Calrissian (and Raa, who was riding on Calrissian's earlobe) to a ramp set into the floor. As the two giants stepped onto the ramp, it began to move. The moving ramp descended in a six hundred kilometer diameter spiral. The journey on the ramp took many hours from the giants' perspective. The tunnel then flattened out and began traveling through a diagonal upthrust formation. After Calrissian dropped off to sleep, Mohs gained more understanding of the purpose of the Sharu artifacts and left the group, eventually regaining his usual size and traveling back to Rafa IV via Sharu technology. The pyramid then erased all memory of Mohs from Vuffi Raa.

Sharu reborn
"I assure you, Captain, everything is under control. You'd realize that, if you truly know our secrets."

- Mohs

Four months after Calrissian, Mohs, and Vuffi Raa entered the pyramid on Rafa V, Calrissian and Raa emerged on the streets of Teguta Lusat, bearing the meter-high Mindharp. Raa immediately betrayed Calrissian to the authorities as he had been programmed to do. Governor Duttes Mer then seized the Mindharp and sent Calrissian to the life-orchards. Regretting his actions, Raa attempted to undo the harm that he had done by saving Calrissian, who he viewed as his true master.

While Raa rescued Calrissian, Duttes Mer attempted to play the Mindharp, thinking it would give him total control over everyone in the system. Instead, his continued attempts triggered massive earthquakes. The Sharu artifacts across the Rafa system began to collapse, warp, and change as the ancient computer system began to restore the Toka and the lost Sharu civilization, and Duttes Mer was killed as he and the Mindharp melted together. Calrissian and Raa escaped to the Millennium Falcon, but found a snappily-dressed Mohs already inside. Mohs, now sporting insect-like, brightly colored compound eyes, lowered the ramp, and discussed what had happened and what was happening with the gambler and his droid companion as they went through their pre-flight checklist. Mohs remained behind on the changing world as the Millennium Falcon shot down Rokur Gepta's pursuing scoutship and fled the Rafa system.

Personality and traits
"Captain, please do not be distressed. There is nothing free in this life. I seem to have exchanged my eyes for a certain understanding. I now know what I was: a retarded savage who could see, but did not know what it was he saw. Now I am an intelligent, civilized man, who happens to be blind. Do you not think it a fair trade?"

- Mohs

Mohs spent most of his life in an uncivilized state, doing as the Rafa IV colonists directed and hearing the voices of the sophisticated ancient Sharu computer system. He was ordered about and transported places at their command. Mohs was the only High Singer of the Toka in his generation, and the symbol of his position was a line drawing tattoo of the Mindharp on his forehead. He was ancient and toothless, and wore a three-meter long gray loincloth wrapped crudely around his waist.

The High Singer alternated between awe and suspicion of Lando Calrissian and Vuffi Raa, helping and betraying them in equal measure. His role allowed him to instantly take command of any Toka group in the system. He knew approximately seven thousand, six hundred, and twenty three chants of the Toka, and spoke both a peculiar version of Galactic Basic Standard and the Toka variant of Old High Trammic.

After he entered the Sharu pyramid, Mohs was no longer intellectually stunted by the Rafan life-orchards. He began to think in innovative ways, and was able to use the rest of his senses to completely compensate for his eyes being removed. When he left the pyramid, his ruined eyes were replaced by multicolored compound cybernetics by the ancient Sharu computer system. After he returned to Rafa IV, Mohs also demonstrated more care for his appearance, acquiring an expensive business suit and a nice haircut.

Behind the scenes
Mohs was created by L. Neil Smith for the book Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu.

Appearances

 * Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu

Notes and references
Mohs