by Greg Keyes
“Can you tell me your name?” Mezhan Kwaad asked the Jeedai.
Only a slight hesitation, this time. “Riina,” the Jeedai said. “My name is Riina.”
“Very good, Riina. Did Nen Yim explain what has been done to you?”
“A little.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“The infidels captured me as a child, at the rim of their galaxy. They made me look like one of them and gave me false memories with their Jeedai powers.”
“This seems right to you?”
“Not always. Sometimes I think I am—” She gasped and clenched her hands. “—someone else.”
“The infidel conditioning was excellent. Before we rescued you, they tried to wipe your mind clean. There was much damage.”
“I feel that,” the Jeedai answered.
“There is something I need to know,” Mezhan Kwaad replied. “You were born with certain powers. You were taught lies about these powers, but we are attending to that. What I fear, Riina, is that your injuries may have crippled those powers.”
“I cannot even think of them,” the Jeedai said. Small droplets of water formed in the corners of her eyes and ran down her face.
“I’m going to help you with that,” the master said. She gestured to make the vivarium opaque to sound and spoke to Nen Yim. “Quiet the provoker spineray.”
Nen Yim started. “Master, that might not be wise. She still has moments when she asserts her real identity. We have closed most of those neural paths, but if we remove the promise of pain—”
“The new memories are in place for now, yes? They seem to be working quite well. They will keep her in check. This will not take long.”
“This will confuse her,” Nen Yim argued. “It might set us back.”
“Who is master here, Adept?” Mezhan Kwaad asked brusquely. “Are you seriously questioning my expertise?”
Nen Yim quickly genuflected. “I am pitiable, Master. Of course I shall do as you say. I merely wished to voice my concerns.”
“They are noted. Now, silence the spineray.”
Nen Yim did so, and Mezhan Kwaad once again made the membrane permeable to sound. She produced a small stone from her oozhith’s pouch and placed it on the chamber floor.
“Once you could lift a stone like this with your will,” she told the Jeedai. “I wish to see you do so now.”
“I will have to call upon false memories,” the Jeedai moaned. “Painful ones.”
“We embrace pain,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “Your resistance to it is a human weakness implanted in you. Do as I say.”
“Yes, Master,” the Jeedai replied. She fixed her gaze on the stone and closed her eyes. She winced, but then her face smoothed, and the stone lifted from the floor as if grasped in an invisible hand.
Mezhan Kwaad barked a brief, victorious laugh. “Nen Yim,” she commanded, “map the brain areas showing the most activity.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Riina, you may lower the stone, now.”
Obediently, the stone sank back to the floor.
“It didn’t hurt,” the Jeedai said. “I thought it would hurt.”
“You see? Your cure is progressing well. Soon you will remember everything about your life as a Yuuzhan Vong.”
“I wish …” The Jeedai trailed off wistfully.
“What?”
“I feel like I’m two halves of two different people, glued together,” she said. “I wish I were whole again.”
“You will be,” Mezhan Kwaad answered. “Before you know it, you will be. Now, if you could lift the stone again, please.”
“Clearly these abilities aren’t located in a single brain center any more than they are generated by an organ,” Mezhan Kwaad said later, as they looked over the results of their experimentation.
“Her Jeedai powers are distributed in the neural net somehow, nonlocalized. The commands come from this lobe in the front of her brain, obviously, which is where most of her coherent thought occurs, as well. And yet there is also considerable activity in the hindbrain.”
“Perhaps her control emanates from modified muscular systems,” Nen Yim suggested.
“I see no evidence that this young female has been modified in any way, and the infidels have shown only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology.”
“I meant modified by selection from generation to generation.”
“Selective breeding? Interesting. We know from our infidel sources that this ‘Force’ runs more strongly in some families than others, and that Jeedai often mate with Jeedai.” Her tentacles knotted in frustration. “We need more Jeedai, a larger sample. The incompetence of warriors—” She suddenly tremored and reached her eight-fingered hand to her head. “It is time. I must have the Vaa-tumor removed. Yet another despicable delay.”
Nen Yim gave her master a puzzled look. “I thought that’s where you’ve been, having the Vaa-tumor removed.”
Mezhan Kwaad’s eyes went to slits. “What? Why did you think that?”
“You were gone for two cycles, Master.”
“Indeed, engaged in meaningless political exercises with Master Yal Phaath. He called via villip for a formal convocation of masters on the matter of delegating responsibilities on the new worldship. I was forced into a ritual seclusion, and at a quite inconvenient time.”
“But the assistant you sent said nothing of that. He did say you were having your Vaa-tumor removed.”
That had a remarkable effect on Mezhan Kwaad. Her tendrils fell limp, and her tone went colder than frozen nitrogen. “What assistant?”
“Tsun.”
“I know no one by that name,” Mezhan Kwaad said.
“But he told me you sent him.”
“And that I was having my Vaa-tumor removed?”
“Yes. But he knew things about me. About what we do here.”
Mezhan Kwaad folded down to a sitting mat and rubbed her head.
“No,” she sighed. “He guessed that we were engaged in heresy, and you confirmed it. The convocation was a ruse to keep me busy. Yal Phaath now has his evidence, thanks to you.”
“No!”
“Oh, I’m afraid so,” a voice from the doorway boomed. Nen Yim spun to see Commander Tsaak Vootuh standing in the doorway, an escort of his personal guard just behind him.
Mezhan Kwaad drew herself to her full height.
“This is a shaper damutek. You do not have my permission to enter it.”
“I do not need it,” the commander replied. “I have the authority of Master Yal Phaath. I’m also afraid I must take both of you captive and search your chambers for evidence.”
“Evidence of what? Accuse us!” Mezhan Kwaad snapped. “Do not insult us with captivity without challenging!”
“The accusation is heresy, of course,” Tsaak Vootuh replied. “An accusation readily born out by the evidence, I feel certain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Going back up the root was much easier than coming down it; the current was with them. It was not one micron more pleasant.
They emerged in the succession pool under orange Yavin light.
On the way up, Anakin had noticed an interesting thing.
Vua Rapuung existed for him now.
Not in the Force, not with the clarity that the Force offered, but he was there, a shadow of fury cast from the lambent to Anakin’s mind.
That wasn’t all. He also felt the confused, staticky hum of the hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong around him. The noise cut in and out, like a bad comm transmission, but it was undeniably there.
It wasn’t the Force, but it was something, and he could see their works with new eyes. His gaze was drawn to details in the living structures around him he hadn’t noticed—or cared to notice—before.
With Rapuung, Anakin slipped into the shadows.
“Your Jeedai is still in this damutek?” Rapuung asked.
Anakin concentrated. Tahiri was there, but every day she became … fuzzier, harder to pinpoint. Now he b
arely heard her at all.
“She hasn’t moved,” Anakin replied. “She’s that way.” He pointed.
Rapuung grimaced. “That’s not the core laboratories of the shaping compound.”
“It’s where I feel her.”
Rapuung rubbed his flat nose. “It makes sense. It’s where her quarters are, her personal chambers. If she keeps the work on the Jeedai close to her, and hopes it will go unseen, she would do it there.”
“Why would she want that?” Anakin asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand the way of shapers. And yet she was always secretive in what she did. She was always nervous.” His voice softened slightly. “Always doing things she shouldn’t.”
“Like having an affair with you.”
Rapuung’s nostrils contracted until they were nearly closed, but he chopped his head once. “Yes. Speak no more of it. Come, infidel.”
“Lead on. I know the direction, but not the way.”
Without another word, Rapuung padded off. An opening in the wall parted for him.
The shaper compound was an eight-armed star with the pool in the center. The corridor they entered took them up one of the arms. Within, the compound was illuminated by phosphorescence punctuated by the occasional lambent that sparked to life when Rapuung came near. A faint smell of seaweed and lizard permeated the corridors, which were at turns quite regular and wildly asymmetric. The pool was not the crosswalks of the place; a torus of connecting corridors joined the rays of the star and served that purpose.
Anakin tensed as they met their first Yuuzhan Vong. A cluster of them stood together, discussing something he couldn’t quite catch. When they saw Rapuung and Anakin they stopped and stared, but didn’t say anything.
“This is easier than I thought it would be,” Anakin said, after they were past the group.
Rapuung grunted. “I would have killed them if I thought it would help, but they sent the signal the instant they saw us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A Shamed One and a slave in a shaper compound? Unlikely.”
“But they didn’t—”
“Scream? Run? Shapers they may be, but they are Yuuzhan Vong. If we came to kill them, they would be dead. They know that.”
“So what do we expect now?”
But Rapuung didn’t have to answer. Ahead of them, the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor suddenly met one another.
“Whoops,” Anakin managed. A quick look behind him showed the same thing.
“We have seconds,” Rapuung said. “Do not inhale.”
Anakin nodded and ignited his lightsaber. The fierce purple light highlighted the mist emerging from the corridor walls. Anakin approached the obstruction and cut into it with broad strokes.
Vonduun crab armor it wasn’t. After the first cut, the stuff actually flinched away from his blade. In moments he had carved a hole large enough to step through.
Beyond, the corridor continued another four meters and ended in another dilation. This section was already full of mist.
Anakin cut through that, too, but his lungs were starting to hurt now, and black spots danced before his eyes, so rather than attacking the inevitable barrier that had closed beyond the second one, he cut through the wall to his right.
That spilled the pair into a large chamber where two startled Yuuzhan Vong looked up from examining something that resembled a twined bundle of black vines as big around as Anakin’s thigh. He couldn’t tell if it was animal or vegetable, and he didn’t care.
“Which way now?” Anakin asked.
Rapuung stabbed a finger at the two shapers. “One of you. Take me to the personal laboratories of Master Mezhan Kwaad.”
The shorter of the two frowned. “You’re a Shamed One.”
Rapuung reached him in two strides and struck him high in the chest, lifting the shaper from his feet and slamming him into the wall. He slumped to the floor, blood spilling from his lips.
“You,” Rapuung said to the other. “Lead us to Mezhan Kwaad.”
The second shaper looked at his unconscious companion.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Can they fill this chamber with gas?” Anakin asked Rapuung.
“Of course. However, now that we’ve exited the corridor they think we’re in they’ll have to consult with the damutek brain to find us. That will take time. By then, the warriors will be here.”
“I was wondering why there weren’t any guards.”
“This is a shaper place. Warriors must be invited here, and then only in times of duress. Normally there is no need for guards. It’s been centuries since anyone invaded a shaper damutek. Who would wish to but an infidel?”
“Vua Rapuung, apparently,” Anakin replied.
The shaper took them through a quick series of turns and then into a long, straight corridor that ended in one of the membranes that normally served as doors.
“Through there,” their captive said, “is the master’s personal chambers. But the threshold will not open itself to any of us.”
“That is why I have a Jeedai with me,” Rapuung told him, as Anakin thumbed the blade on and cut through the door. In doing so he nearly bisected the warrior just on the other side. The Yuuzhan Vong blinked at him in astonishment, then jerked his amphistaff to an attack position.
Rapuung charged past Anakin, lunged beneath the warrior’s not-quite-ready guard, and struck him under the chin with the deteriorating talon on his elbow. The implant jammed in the being’s mandible and tore out. Rapuung hardly seemed to notice, turning his attention instead to the roomful of warriors beyond.
Anakin leapt in behind him and turned aside an amphistaff slashing toward Rapuung with the blade of his lightsaber. Rapuung’s attacker, recognizing the new danger, twisted the amphistaff and let it go limp. Then he whipped it underhand toward Anakin’s throat. Anakin did a quick circular parry, wrapping the limp staff around his blade, and did a jumping front kick. The Yuuzhan Vong blocked that with his free hand, but some of the blow’s force got through. Anakin cut his blade, dropped in at close quarters, jammed the blade emitter under the warrior’s armpit, and flicked it back on.
The warrior jerked and fell away, exhaling a cloud of steam.
Anakin sensed a blow from behind, and without thinking he ducked, did a behind-the-back block, and felt the sharp rap of an amphistaff. He dropped, swept his unseen attacker’s feet, and tumbled away from yet a third attacker.
Only when he was back in the clear, preparing to meet the two, did he realize what had happened. He had sensed the Yuuzhan Vong behind him. Not as clearly as he might in the Force, but it had been good enough to save his life.
They came at him with a certain caution, which gave Anakin time to notice that Vua Rapuung had downed another warrior and was busily engaged with three more. That seemed to complete the count of warriors in the chamber, though others might run in from the large opening at the other end of the room.
One problem at a time.
One of the Yuuzhan Vong slashed at Anakin’s left leg, while another did a whip-over toward his right shoulder. He leapt over the low attack and sliced his blade down the semirigid side of the high one. His blade hit the Yuuzhan Vong’s fingers, and two of them came off. From there Anakin lunged toward his second foe’s eye. The fellow jerked his head back and yanked his amphistaff up to parry. Anakin disengaged, avoiding the parry, and finished his blow right where a human sternum would be. The vonduun crab armor scorched but did not split, but the blow was strong. The Yuuzhan Vong was already off balance from avoiding the thrust to his eye, and now he sprawled heavily to the ground.
In those two or three seconds, Anakin’s other opponent whipped the amphistaff in such a way that it coiled around Anakin’s head and blade, the latter of which he had just drawn to an inner guard at his shoulder. Only turning the blade off kept him from being cut by his own weapon, but then there was nothing to prevent the amphistaff from closing around his neck like a garrote
. Anakin reached reflexively for his throat, dropping his weapon. With a cry, the Yuuzhan Vong warrior turned his back, clearly intending to heave Anakin in a hard shoulder throw and snap his neck in the process. Anakin went with the throw and came down face-to-face with the warrior, his neck still intact.
Of course, he couldn’t draw the tiniest sip of air. Almost contemptuously, the warrior lifted him from the floor, both hands still gripping the ends of the amphistaff.
The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t see the lightsaber lift from the floor behind him, but he did notice when the purple blade appeared in his neck. He dropped Anakin, then.
Unfortunately, the amphistaff continued with the business of choking Anakin, and his second foe had found his feet. Anakin managed to get his blade in hand in time to block a dozen blows from the warrior’s staff, before he felt his lights going out. His blood screamed for air and his legs felt like they were made of wood.
He fell away from the attack, dropped like a rag doll, and in the minute pause when his enemy thought he had really collapsed, he turned the fall into a roll that took him past the Yuuzhan Vong, where he cut both legs behind the knee.
Then Anakin saw space.
“How long was I out?” Anakin asked Vua Rapuung. The Yuuzhan Vong dropped the amphistaff that had been coiled around Anakin’s neck.
“Only heartbeats.”
Anakin pushed himself up. “Are there more warriors?”
“None capable of fighting, not in this chamber. There may be more nearby.”
Anakin gingerly massaged his neck. “I thought you said there wouldn’t be warriors in here.”
“I was wrong. But they must be here for some purpose.”
“Maybe they knew we were coming.”
“Perhaps. I do not think so. These are the commander’s personal troops.”
“Wonderful. We’d better hurry this up, then.”
“Our guide fled, but we need him no longer. We must be near now.”
Anakin looked around at the fallen warriors. “Not that you seem to need it,” he said, “but why not take one of these amphistaffs?”
“I have sworn an oath to the gods,” Rapuung said. “Until I am redeemed before my people, I will not lift the weapon of a warrior.”