Star Wars Rogue Planet ( Greg Bear )

by Kenneth Stephens

  "Don't listen to the braggart," another forger called out.

  "You'll be lucky to end up with a handcart!"

  "Ah, they're giving you the complete experience" their forger growled. "Never mind. We're buds, us all." He squinted at them and rubbed his arms, knocking off shed bits of white shell from many seed-partners. The bits drifted down around him like flakes of snow. "The old Magister split us into the valley folks upland and down. We're down, and we know this end of the run better than anyone. He picked us out by hand and told us to make families, the Ferroans upland, the Langhesi down. We know our places. He did right."

  Anakin had learned about a small and ancient world called Langhesa, read about it in the Temple map room on Coruscant. It had been overrun a hundred years before by Tsinimals, who had enslaved the Langhesi natives, forcing huge migrations to other parts of the galaxy. They had specialized in farming and the vital arts, learning how to mold the elements of life into new and novel forms. For many centuries, they had supplied exotic pets to rich families throughout the Republic.

  The Tsinimals, graceful and intolerant, had regarded the Langhesi's vital arts as a sin against their gods. Piracy and galaxy-wide conquest, however, had not bothered the Tsinimal gods in the least.

  "But never mind the details. You'll get your ship, and then the uplanders will bring on a forgetting! Still, you'll have the complete experience. You'll remember the forging pits. And—" He leered, making a grotesque, ruddy mask of his face. "—my name is Vagno. You'll remember me!"

  Chapter 37

  There appears to be a difficulty on Zonama Sekot," Captain Kett said. He climbed to the navigation bridge and handed Sienar a decoded message from Ke Daiv. Sienar read the message with a blank expression, then, abruptly, his brow furrowed and he looked at Kett as if he might be to blame.

  Kett's eyes narrowed defensively.

  "He's been rejected," Sienar said. "Something about seed-partners taking a dislike to him. Chewing off all his clothes."

  Kett did not have to feign ignorance.

  "We cannot rely on Ke Daiv," Sienar concluded.

  "I also have a message from Tarkin," Kett said with a twitch of his lips. He gave Sienar the second small cylinder, and the commander read the brief message on the secure rollout.

  "He's getting nervous. He wants an update," Sienar said, pursing his lips.

  "Shall we move into a diplomatic orbit, or a negotiation or­bit?" Kett asked. "All systems and droids are ready. Taking action immediately could be the best foundation for a reply."

  "It would be, if I were Tarkin," Sienar said, regarding the captain shrewdly. "But I am not here to play political games. There isn't time. Ke Daiv still has his instructions, and I will give him another day." Sienar wondered himself if that was a smart move, betting everything on a Blood Carver. But he had no choice! Something told him massive action on their part would be a mistake.

  "Sir, we risk being discovered by even the most primitive sen­sors if we do not act soon. The element of surprise—

  "Have we detected any weapons systems on Zonama Sekot with our passive sensors?"

  "No, sir, but I have never depended upon passive sensing alone. It is a shallow—"

  "The planet has relied on stealth for decades. Maybe they're complacent." But don't count on it, he told himself.

  "Sir, I have been thinking about those signs of battle damage on the planet's surface--“

  "As have I, Captain Kett. And what have you concluded?"

  "They could not have been produced by any weapons known to me, sir. The signature of turbolasers and proton weapons leaves very different residues in rocky targets. These gouges may have been made by neutron dissemblers, which in theory would leave the residues we detect, yet no one in the known galaxy has learned how to harness such weapons."

  Sienar listened to this as if he were being lectured by a grade-school child, but then looked away in frustrated silence, and his brow furrowed deeper. He tapped his fingers on the railing, his long nails making distinct rhythmic ticks. "Do you think they conceal such weapons, and have recently fought a war?" he asked, barely hiding his satisfaction.

  "No, sir. The pattern is more like that of a preemptive strike, or a dramatic show of force, with no discernible follow-up. I can't imagine a state of apparent peace, and a total absence of visible weapons, if the political forces on the planet have recently undergone such a challenge. We have been listening to commu­nications from the planet since we arrived, and there is total si­lence. All comm systems are secure and efficiently channeled. All I can conclude with confidence is that there is too much we don't know."

  Sienar was no fool. Hearing his own conclusions stated by another gave him no comfort, but if he was to survive this mis­sion with status and reputation intact, comfort was the least of his concerns.

  He keyed a quick reply into the secure datapad and handed it back to Kett.

  Kett lingered as if he might be made privy to what was on the message. Sienar turned away, and Kett departed from the naviga­tion bridge.

  On the datapad, he had written, Tour operative has tried to assassinate me and failed. I gave him a suicide mission-of-honor. Have discovered something unexpected and quite marvelous. Am proceeding with my own plans. Do not require assistance.

  Sienar smiled. That would undoubtedly bring Tarkin run­ning with the biggest force he could assemble, but it would be days before he arrived, and by then, Sienar would have tried all his plans and engaged all the forces at his own disposal. And there was always Ke Daiv's backup plan. If that succeeded, they would have an intact Sekotan ship, a living—and very frightened—pilot, and perhaps even two Jedi, though Sienar hoped to avoid having to deal with them.

  He knew what Jedi were capable of.

  Chapter 38

  With deep misgivings, Anakin watched Vagno toss their seed-partners into the same deep pit. Night had fallen over the arched canopy, and the only light came from torches carried by the shapers' assistants or hung from poles stuck into the cindery ground, and from the fires scattered at some distance around the valley.

  "Some of the pits are huge," Anakin said to Obi-Wan. "I wonder what they make there?"

  "I don't think they make anything while clients are around," Obi-Wan said. Their forger had said, "before they start up with more big ones." Big what?

  Vagno's assistants gathered at the edge of their pit, which was about twenty meters across. Each assistant in the crew carried a long, razor-sharp, scythelike blade on the end of a metal pole.

  Carapods dumped their loads of fuel—the detritus of the upper tampasi—on top of the seed-partners, and Vagno directed his crew to even out the piles and push aside holes with their long blades. He then inspected the pit, looked back at Anakin and Obi-Wan from the center, gave them a thumbs-up and a toothy grin, and deftly clambered along the top of the debris. "We need pellets here, and here," he told his men, and baskets of small red pellets, each round and smooth as a protanut case, were poured into the holes.

  "Your seeds are quiet," Vagno said thoughtfully. "Moment of destiny."

  "How many survive?" Anakin asked, his throat dry. He could still feel the separate flavors or voices of the seeds in his mind, lingering traces of their need, their affection.

  "Most. Don't worry. We keep the heat distributed. It's better here than out in the tampasi. And remember—it's the way of Sekot."

  Anakin had hoped Vagno would say "All." The boy hunkered down beside Obi-Wan and played with a bit of dry stick. Vagno walked toward him, stared down, and pointed for the stick to be tossed into the pit. "It's our way," he said. "The ground must be clean."

  Scattered around the valley, other clients—Anakin counted three, each half a kilometer or more from the others—watched their own partners be heaped with fuel.

  "How many new clients?" Anakin asked.

  "Three, apparently," Obi-Wan said. "I see three other active pits."

  "Right," Anakin said. "I feel so nervous!"

  "The co
nnection with the seeds," Obi-Wan said. "Beware."

  "Of what?"

  "They are about to be transformed. No one here knows what that feels like to them—but you and I, perhaps, will learn."

  "Oh," Anakin said. He swallowed a lump in his throat and stood, brushing off his pants and the edge of his tunic.

  Vagno finished his inspection. He shone his torch beam up, and Anakin saw a circular shape, like a thick hoop, descend from the canopy. Carapods there were lowering it on heavy tendrils. As it descended over the pit, limbs unfolded from the underside and displayed a variety of implements, some apparently natural, others made of metal.

  Anakin knew many cultures that had combined organic forms with technology. The Gungans were masters at that—but they had never built interstellar ships. Still, most of those procedures were kept secret—and now he was going to witness, if not understand, how the Zonamans worked to achieve even more startling results. He would have felt proud if he had remained the boy Qui-Gon had freed on Tatooine. Jedi training had, at the very least, taught him the perils of pride. Instead, he felt an intense curiosity.

  Curiosity was the deepest expression, for Anakin, of a connection with the living Force.

  He looked to his master. Obi-Wan wore an expression of both concern and curiosity. Anakin could feel the banked flame of his master's controlled spirit, and at its core, though more ordered, it was not so different from his own.

  The descending circle of shaper tools stopped, and valves popped open between the hanging limbs, which all folded or retracted, making the hoop shiver. Vagno let out a shout, and his crew reached up and tapped the hoop simultaneously, all around the pit, with the flats of their long blades.

  From the open valves descended an aromatic fluid that made Anakin's nose smart. He drew back just as Vagno planted his feet firmly in front of them. From his thick belt Vagno produced a wick and a flint, and with one chop of the flint, the wick caught fire. "Just in case," he said. "This can be tricky."

  The hoop quickly ascended.

  With a chant in Langhesan, the crew held out their blades and peered up. A hole about a hundred meters wide had opened in the overgrowth. Above the hole roiled thick, heavy black clouds.

  Anakin saw long tendrils rise from the circumference of the hole, their tips glinting. Across the factory valley, other holes opened over other pits. The air smelled electric.

  "The tampasi controls the weather," he whispered to Obi-Wan.

  "A fair conclusion," Obi-Wan agreed.

  Vagno's face wrinkled, and he drew his arm back in anticipa­tion. He turned his head away and, with one hand, motioned for Anakin and Obi-Wan to do the same.

  His crew raised their blades, and they, too, squinted and looked away from the pit.

  The tension in the air became unbearable. Anakin's hair crackled and his clothes clung to his skin, writhing as if alive. His eyeballs felt as if they would dance out over his cheeks. It was an awful sensation and he wanted to cry out.

  Simultaneously, sun-hot orange bolts of lightning tumbled from the thick, pillowing clouds, danced along the upraised, iron-tipped tendrils, and fell with sizzling rage to the pits below. The bolts raced around the upraised tools of Vagno's forgers, quicker than the eye could follow, flinging the lances back though the men held on with all the strength in their mas­sive arms.

  The crew sang out as one and pushed the lances forward, and the bolts converged on the pit.

  Vagno cackled with glee and tossed the flaming wick aside, not needed. "It's a sky fire!" he shouted. "The best there can be!"

  The burst of flame where the bolts struck was intense. The accelerant from the hoop spread the ignition in less than a second, and the entire heap of fuel and pellets blazed up against the smoky darkness. In just seconds, the pyre poured flame into the sky to a height of at least forty meters, illuminating the underside of the canopy and all the scuttling creatures and creature-machines there. The entire canopy seemed alive with movement.

  Anakin felt as if he were inside a gigantic colony of myrmins.

  Then he felt the voices of the seeds. They are afraid. The heat is baking them. Their shells are crisping.

  Most of the heat rose in rippling sheets of air, but as the fuel blazed and embers settled out, the seeds were being roasted like sugar hulls in a campfire.

  Perversely, Anakin shivered as if with cold.

  Obi-Wan put an arm around his shoulders. Anakin saw that his master's face was beaded with sweat. He, too, could feel the seeds in the fire.

  "Something wrong?" Vagno asked, his face glinting and flowing in the yellow light from fire, as if he were part of the blaze, a stray ember given human shape. He walked around them critically.

  "We're fine," Obi-Wan said.

  But Anakin did not feel fine. He wanted to curl up and hide, or run, but he knew the seeds no longer had legs, no way of escaping, even if they wanted to.

  "I've never lost a client. No fear, no fear," Vagno said.

  The seeds were afraid but did not move under their burden of embers and flame. Theirs was courage, and also an awareness of fate or destiny.

  The seeds were not nearly as intelligent as a human—they did not really think for themselves—but inside of each was the potential for awareness and intelligence. The fire was bringing that awareness to the fore.

  This will happen to you.

  Anakin gasped. He was not dreaming.

  This is your destiny, your fate.

  Obi-Wan had said nothing. Anakin knew where the voice was coming from, whom it belonged to, but could not believe what he knew.

  There will be heat and death and resurrection. A seed will quicken. Will it burn or shine'? Will it think and create or be ruled by fear and destroy?

  And then the voice fell silent.

  Obi-Wan's arm tightened around Anakin, as if he would protect the boy. "The wave is not what we expected," he said.

  Anakin stared into the flames, his inmost self suddenly calm. The seeds were changing. They were no longer afraid.

  "They'll pop like bombs! Stand back!" Vagno pushed Obi-Wan and Anakin back just as the first explosion sent a cloud of embers high into the air. Sparks showered around them, crisping little holes in their robes. For a moment, Anakin looked like a devil, his hair sending out tendrils of smoke. Obi-Wan extinguished the little fires with quick, light slaps of his hand.

  One, two, three . . . suddenly, there were many explosions, too many to keep track of. But Anakin knew that all the seeds had survived, and all had been quickened by the flames.

  "It's going to be a fabulous ship!" he enthused, slapping his knees. "It's going to be the greatest ship

  "Not yet," Vagno said, grimacing critically. "They have to be gathered, annealed, and shaped—we'll teach them ways of the outer worlds! Come. Let the ashes be stirred." He herded Anakin and Obi-Wan back with his hands until they stood beside an empty carapod. "And stand back! Some of the seeds explode twice."

  Chapter 39

  Obi-Wan felt woozy, a little ill. He had never experienced such a strange twist in his awareness of the living Force. That the twist was centered on Anakin was evident, but something about where they were—about the planet itself—gave the effect a pecu­liar focus and intensity.

  He could almost convince himself that had Mace Windu or Yoda or any other Jedi Master been on Zonama Sekot, the twist—the shape of this strange wave of destiny—would have surprised them, as well.

  And perhaps these unprecedented circumstances explained his repeated sensing of the presence of Qui-Gon.

  Obi-Wan had seen his Master impaled on the glowing, singing lightsaber of Darth Maul. The Force had not been gentle or supportive then. Qui-Gon's body had not vanished; it had shown the truth of death, of the severing of all connections with the flesh.

  And that was as it should be. The Force had a shape, and death was an inevitable part of that shape. Perhaps Obi-Wan was not yet mature enough to let go of all sentiment and all love for his Master, to say good-bye to him f
orever.

  Vagno and his crew stirred the ashes from the perimeter of the pit. The dependent hoop of limbs and tools dropped lower with the subsidence of the flames, and thick, blackened paddles dropped to help them mix the embers. Smoke and ash swirled high into the darkness, and flecks of red ember blinked like feral eyes.

  Elsewhere under the broad canopy, in the factory valley, new fires burst forth. Obi-Wan could see, kilometers away, hidden by low hills in the terrain, that the canopy itself glowed brilliant with much larger forges than theirs. New seeds were being forged, far too many to satisfy just a few clients from offworld. The valley was filled with such forges, dozens, even hundreds of them.

  The big ones are being made now, even as we watch, Obi-Wan thought.

  Vagno put on heavier boots and fireproof waders and jumped into the pit. He flung up clouds of hot ash and laughed as he poked forth something large, maybe twenty times bigger than a seed. He exchanged his tool for a flat-bladed shovel and scooped into the ash, then flipped out a broad, flat, fringed disk, immobile, sooty, and gray. He wiped off some of the ash and revealed a palm-swipe of pearly white. His crew grabbed the disk by its fringe and flung it callously onto the back of a carapod. Vagno probed, discovered, and laughed once more, flipped out another disk, and again the crew grabbed and stacked.

  Anakin looked to Obi-Wan, his eyes dancing with joy. The seeds had been forged. All fifteen seeds had survived. Each had exploded in the heat, puffed out into the fringed disks now loaded on the carapod behind them.

  Then the boy's face fell. "I don't feel them," Anakin said. "Are they still alive?"

  Obi-Wan had no answer. He was almost punch-drunk with what he had experienced. He felt like a boy himself now, lost in shock and wonder and an irritating tickle of fear.

  At last you know the spirit of adventure!

  Obi-Wan closed his eyes tightly, as if to ward off the voice. He missed his Master intensely, but he would not let a vagrant fantasy besmirch Qui-Gon's memory.

  "Adventure," Anakin said. The boy rode beside Obi-Wan on the carapod. Vagno was taking them across the valley, around sev­eral of the tall, river-carved pillars, toward a narrower and darker cleft on the southern side. "Is adventure the same as danger?"