Conquest: Edge of Victory I

by Greg Keyes

  Anakin suddenly noticed that the two had stopped talking. Just as he was thinking about taking a look, he heard a loud splash.

  “You may come out from cover now, infidel,” Rapuung said in Basic.

  Anakin rose warily from his hiding place. Rapuung stood on the floater. Alone.

  “Where did he go?” Anakin asked.

  Rapuung gestured toward the water on the other side of the floater. “In the river.”

  “You threw him in? Will he drown?”

  “No. He is already dead.”

  “You killed him?”

  “A broken neck killed him. Mount the vangaak and let us depart.”

  Anakin stood there for a moment, trying to master his anger.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “Because to leave him alive was an unacceptable risk.”

  Anakin almost retched. Instead, he climbed up onto the floater, trying not to look at the corpse floating beyond.

  That was one innocent, unarmed sapient being dead because Anakin had saved Rapuung’s life. How many more would there be?

  Rapuung began manipulating several knobby projections on the carapace. Anakin assumed they were nerve clusters or something of the sort.

  “Who was he?” he asked, as the floater turned sluggishly downstream.

  “A Shamed One. A person of no consequence.”

  “No one is of no consequence,” Anakin said, trying to keep his voice steady.

  Rapuung laughed. “The gods cursed him at birth. Every breath he drew was borrowed.”

  “But you knew him.”

  “Yes.”

  They continued down the river at a leisurely pace. “How did you know him?” Anakin persisted. “What was he doing up here?”

  “Trawling the stream. It was his usual route. It used to be mine.”

  “You’re an angler?” Anakin said incredulously.

  “Among other things. Why so many questions?”

  “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

  The warrior grunted and held his silence for five minutes. Then, almost reluctantly, he turned to Anakin.

  “To find you, I had to disappear. I faked my death out here, on the water. I made it appear as if some water beast had eaten me. They gave Qe’u my route. I will return and tell a story of how I survived, lost on this strange world, until I came across the vangaak, pilotless. I will not know what happened to Qe’u. Perhaps a Jeedai killed him, perhaps he met the same water beast I did.”

  “Oh. And they’ll let us through the security on the river. But why should they believe that story?”

  “They will not care. He was a Shamed One. His death will be of no concern. Even if they suspect I killed him for some reason, no one will question my story.”

  “And how will you explain me?”

  Rapuung grinned nastily. “I won’t. They won’t see you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Nen Yim found her master staring into the waters of the succession pool—the heart, lungs, and liver of the damutek. It rippled slightly as the native food fish of the moon investigated her shadow. It smelled faintly of sulfur, iodine, and something oily and burnt, almost like singed hair.

  Master Mezhan Kwaad’s headdress was woven into an expression of deep contemplation, so Nen Yim stood behind her, waiting for her attention.

  A drop of something plunked into the succession pool, just below the master’s feet. Another followed, and another.

  When Mezhan Kwaad finally turned, Nen Yim saw it was blood, drizzling from her nostrils.

  “Greetings, Adept,” the master said. “Have you come in search of me, or of the succession pool?”

  “Of you, Master. But if you would speak at another time …”

  “There will be no better time until my cycle of sacrifice is complete and my Vaa-tumor is removed. You had your first implanted yesterday, did you not?”

  “I did, Master. I cannot feel it yet.”

  “Bear it well. It is one of the oldest mysteries.” She cocked her head, focusing her regard on Nen Yim’s face. “You wish to know what it does, the Vaa-tumor?”

  “I am content in the knowledge that the gods desire this sacrifice of our caste,” Nen Yim replied dutifully.

  “Once passing to adepthood, you enter the mystery,” Mezhan Kwaad said, as if speaking in a dream. “As warriors take on the outward aspects of Yun-Yammka, so we take on the inner qualities of Yun-Ne’Shel, she-whoshapes. The Vaa-tumor is her most ancient gift to us. Yun-Ne’Shel plucked a fragment of her own brain to make it. As it grows, it models our cells, changes our very thoughts, takes us nearer the mind and essence of Yun-Ne’Shel.” She sighed. “The journey is painful. It is glorious. And, regrettably, we must return from it, excise her gift from our bodies. But though we return to a semblance of who we were, each time that we are vessels for that pain and glory we are forever changed. Something of it remains with us. Until …” Her words seemed to fail her.

  “You shall see,” Mezhan Kwaad finally said. “And now—what have you come to tell me?”

  Nen Yim glanced around, making certain no one was within hearing.

  “It is quite safe here, Adept,” Mezhan Kwaad assured her. “Speak freely.”

  “I believe I have finished mapping the Jeedai’s nervous system and brain structure.”

  “That is good news. Very commendable. And how would you proceed now?”

  “It depends on what results we want. If we wish her obedience, then we should use restraint implants.”

  “Why, then, have we mapped her nervous system?”

  Nen Yim felt her headdress fidgeting and tried to calm it. “I don’t know, Master. It was your command.”

  Mezhan Kwaad tilted her head and smiled faintly. “I am not trying to trick you, Adept. I chose you for very particular reasons. I have told you some of them; about others I have remained silent, but I suspect you are bright enough to know what they are. Suppose, just for a moment, that there are no protocols to be followed. In the absence of direction, what would you do? Hypothetically.”

  “Hypothetically,” Nen Yim said. She felt as if she were poised over the digestive villi of a maw luur. She could almost smell the sour scent of the acid. If she answered this question truthfully, she might be revealed as a heretic. If what she had come to suspect about her master was wrong, this conversation would be her last as a shaper, and one of the last in her life.

  But she could not surrender to fear.

  “I would modify the provoker spineray to fit our expectations of her nervous system, to give us very fine control.”

  “Why?”

  Nen Yim did not hesitate this time. It was already too late, whichever way it went.

  “Despite the assurances of the protocol we followed, what we have now is only an educated guess concerning how her nervous system functions. All we have done is to map unknowns onto knowns. But the ‘knowns’ are Yuuzhan Vong norms, not human ones, and we know already that she lacks analogs to some of our structures and has others that have no comparable configuration in ourselves.”

  “Are you saying, then, the ancient protocol is meaningless?”

  “No, Master Mezhan Kwaad. I am saying it is a starting point. It asserts certain things about how the Jeedai’s brain works. I suggest that we now test those assertions.”

  “In other words, you would question the protocols given us by the gods.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “And you understand this is heresy of the first order?”

  “I do.”

  Mezhan Kwaad’s eyes were oily pools, utterly unreadable. Nen Yim met her gaze steadily, without flinching, for a very long time.

  “I have searched for an apprentice like you,” the master shaper finally said. “I have asked the gods to send you to me. If you are not what you appear to be, you will not be forgiven. You will not profit from any betrayal of me, I promise you that.”

  That gave Nen Yim a start. The thought that the master might be afraid of her ha
d never crossed her mind.

  “I am your apprentice,” Nen Yim said. “I would not betray you. I have put my life and my position in your thirteen fingers.”

  “They are well placed, Adept,” Mezhan Kwaad said softly. “Proceed as you have just suggested. Do not speak to anyone but me about this. If our results are to the liking of our leaders, I assure you they will not look closely at our methods. But we must be discreet. We must move with caution.” She glanced once more at the pool and touched her head.

  “When the pain of the Vaa-tumor reaches its peak, there are colors to be seen that have never been seen before, thoughts to be had, strange and mighty … Well, you will see. At times I am almost ashamed to have it removed, to retreat from the final embrace of it. I should like to know where it would take me.” She gave Nen Yim a rare genuine smile. “One day the gods shall ordain it. Until then, I have much work to do for them.” She draped her eight slender fingers on Nen Yim’s shoulder.

  “Let us go see our young Jeedai, shall we?”

  The Jeedai watched them come in. Only her green eyes moved, following them closely, like one beast seeking the soft throat of another.

  “I would advise you not to attack us with your Jeedai tricks,” Mezhan Kwaad told her. “The provoker has been told to stimulate you to great agony if we are afflicted in any way. Though in time you will come to understand agony, at the moment you seem to dislike it, and it clearly disrupts your concentration. There are worse things we could do to you.”

  The Jeedai’s eyes widened. “I can understand you,” she said. Then she stopped, looking even more confused. “I’m not speaking Basic. This is—”

  “You speak our language now, yes,” the master shaper said. “If you are to be one of us, you must speak the sacred tongue.”

  “Be one of you?” The Jeedai sneered. “Thanks, but I’d much rather be the slime under a Hutt.”

  “That’s because you perceive yourself an infidel,” Mezhan Kwaad said reasonably. “You do not understand us, and there are things that confound us about you and the other Jeedai. But we will understand you, and you will understand us. You will become a tissue connecting the Yuuzhan Vong and the Jeedai, nurturing both. You will make it possible for understanding to flow both ways.”

  “That’s what you want from me?”

  “You are the path to peace,” Mezhan Kwaad assured her.

  “Kidnapping me won’t get you peace!” the Jeedai shouted.

  “We did not kidnap you,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “We rescued you from the other infidels, remember?”

  “You’re twisting things,” the Jeedai returned. “The whole reason they captured me was to give me to you.”

  The master’s headdress rearranged itself into an expression of mild anger.

  “Memory is a most malleable commodity,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “It is mostly chemical. For instance, you now know our language. You did not learn it.”

  “You put it there,” the Jeedai said.

  “Yes. Your memory of the words, the grammar, the syntax. All introduced to you.”

  “So you can implant memories. Big deal. We Jedi can do that, as well.”

  “Indeed. I have no doubt those Jeedai abilities could do much to confuse one as young as yourself. How many of your memories are real? How many manufactured? How could you tell the difference?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is this. Right now you think you are—what is it, Taher’ai?”

  “My name is Tahiri.”

  “Yes. Tahiri, a young Jeedai candidate, raised by a tribe strange to her—”

  “Sand People.”

  “Of course. But soon enough, you will remember. After we’ve stripped away the false memories and undone the disgusting modifications made to your body, you will remember who you are.”

  “What are you talking about?” the Jeedai exploded.

  “You are Riina of Domain Kwaad. You are one of us. You always have been.”

  “No! I know who my parents were!”

  “You know the lies you were told, the memories you were given. Fear not. We will bring you back.”

  Mezhan Kwaad signaled, and Nen Yim bowed and followed her from the room. Behind them, the young Jeedai wailed in the first sign of true despair that Nen Yim had heard from her.

  “Do not wait for tomorrow,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “Make your modifications and begin your trials. We must show results, soon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Anakin rode in the belly of the beast.

  Literally. And it stank. The Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of an organic gill, the gnullith Anakin wore did nothing to buffer the confused and odious smells of river crawlfish, silman eel, rotting wetweed, the viscous mucus that coated the inside of the vangaak like jelly—or of the breather itself, which insisted on reminding him, by slowly and constantly writhing, that he had a live animal shoving its tentacles down his throat and nostrils.

  The only bright spot was that he hadn’t eaten anything for a day and a half.

  It had been better, earlier, when the trawling-boat creature was still making its catch, swimming with its mouth expanded into a flattened funnel ten meters across. The water passed through and out the filtering membranes in its posterior, acting as the underwater equivalent of a fresh breeze. Now that the belly was bloated, the lips had sucked in on themselves, and water flow was cut to the minimum necessary to sustain the live catch squirming all around him.

  He was reminded of the story of how his mother and father had met, on the Death Star, a story he’d heard far too many times. Seconds after seeing each other for the first time, they’d ended up fleeing stormtroopers into a garbage hold.

  “What an incredible smell you’ve discovered,” his father had sarcastically told his future wife. He hadn’t been very happy with her at the time.

  I’ve found a better smell than you did, Mom, he thought.

  The thought of Rapuung above, in the warm breezes of Yavin 4 and no doubt delighted over the discomfort of his infidel ally, did nothing to improve Anakin’s mood. If he’d had a working lightsaber, he would have long ago slashed his way through the vangaak even if it meant facing a hundred Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Some things made death seem pretty.

  He immediately regretted that thought. There were beings in the galaxy who endured misery that made what he was going through look like a day in a garden on Ithor.

  Well, back when Ithor had gardens.

  Still, he was more than ready to get out. He passed the time by getting to know his bellymates, gently convincing the more adventurous ones he wasn’t something to nibble on. He tried to relax and forget his body and the unpleasant sensory data it was processing. He found Tahiri—in pain, but alive. He thought he briefly found Jaina, then lost her again. Time stretched and ceased to have meaning.

  Some strange motion jarred him. Had he been asleep? It was difficult to tell.

  The motion came again, a sudden contraction that squeezed water-dwellers against him.

  Then a stronger contraction hurtled him forward, blasting into the light in a stream of fluid and fish, then plunging into new water. Something strong caught his arm and hauled him up, and he found himself staring blearily into the face of Vua Rapuung.

  The warrior set him down on his feet and detached the gnullith. Anakin coughed up water and then took deep, grateful breaths. He looked up at Rapuung.

  “I’ve just been vomited by a fish,” he said.

  Vua Rapuung cocked his head. “Obviously. Why are you telling me?”

  “Never mind. Where are we?” The vangaak had disgorged its prey at the narrow end of a wedge-shaped pool. The larger end of the wedge, about twenty meters away, opened into an even larger aquatic space. Anakin and Rapuung stood on a landing, of sorts, bounded by slightly uneven coral walls six meters high. Every six meters or so, the walls were marked by ovoids the size of doorways, obvious because of their darker shade. The vangaak had apparently entered this complex through one canal opening at the e
nd of the wedge. Anakin could see daylight and swaying Massassi trees beyond.

  He could see the sky above, too.

  “I see,” Anakin said. “We’re in one of the—what did you call them?”

  “Damuteks.”

  “Right. They’re shaped like rayed stars. We’re at the end of one of the rays. This is one of the compounds filled with water.”

  “Each damutek has a succession pool. Some have coverings over them so the space can be used for other things.”

  Anakin pointed at the canal. “We came up that. It goes to the river, right?”

  “Correct again.”

  “Why is the water in the canal flowing toward the river, then?”

  “Why ask after such irrelevancies? The succession pool is filled from below. Its rooting tubes seek water and minerals. The outflow goes to the river. And that is enough talk.”

  “You’re right,” Anakin agreed. “Let’s find Tahiri and get out of here.”

  Rapuung glared at him. “It isn’t so simple. First we must disguise you. An unbound human, walking free? Then we must locate your other Jeedai.”

  “I can find her.”

  “I surmised as much, from what I have heard of Jeedai. You can sniff each other out at a distance, yes?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Then you will be my hunting uspeq. But not yet. Even when we know where she is—”

  “We have to chart the course. I get it. You’ll figure the layout of the place. And your revenge? What about that?”

  “When we find the other Jeedai, we will find my revenge.”

  The coldness in Rapuung’s voice touched a worry in the back of Anakin’s mind. “Your revenge is not against Tahiri, is it?” he asked. “Tell me now if it is.”

  Rapuung showed his teeth in grim humor. “If I wanted revenge on your Jeedai, I need only to let the shapers have her. Nothing could be worse than to be in Mezhan Kwaad’s fingers.”

  “Mezhan Kwaad?”

  “Don’t repeat that name,” Rapuung snarled.