The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  He stripped off his clothing and moved to the full-length mirror at the side of his room. He liked to watch this, to use the visual stimulation to heighten the sensation of exquisite agony.

  He moved his hand up beside his nose, to the little crease beside his nostril, his fingers working at the obscure seam at the side of his left nostril, the contact point for the ooglith masquer. Sensitive to his touch, and well-trained, the creature immediately responded.

  And Yomin Carr clenched his teeth and fought hard to steady his trembling as the thousands of tiny grappling tendrils pulled free of his pores, the ooglith masquer rolling back over his nose and separating across his cheeks. The seam widened down his chin and neck and the front of his torso, his fake skin peeling back, rolling down until he merely stepped out of it.

  The ooglith masquer shuffled across the floor toward the dark closet, making slurping, sucking sounds as it moved, and Yomin Carr stood at the mirror, regarding his true form admiringly, his taut, strong muscles, his tattoo pattern, nearly complete upon his body, a sign of high rank in the warrior class, and mostly, his intentional disfigurements, the oft-broken nose, the extended tear to his lip, the split eyelid. And now, showing his ornamental disfigurements and tattoos, he was ready to address the executor on this most important matter.

  He moved to the side of the room, to his locker, and he was trembling so badly that he could hardly work the combination. He finally did manage to open it, though, and as the top rolled back, the platform inside raised up, showing a brown cloth covering a pair of ball-like lumps.

  Gently, Yomin Carr removed the cloth and considered the lumps, his villips. He almost went to the one on the left, the one joined with Prefect Da’Gara’s villip, but he knew the protocol and wouldn’t dare disobey.

  So he went to the one on the right and gently stroked its ridged top until the single break in the membranous tissue, a hole that resembled an eye socket, puckered to life.

  Yomin Carr continued to stroke the creature, to awaken the consciousness-joined villip more than halfway across the galaxy. He felt the pull of that creature a moment later and knew the sensation to mean that the executor had heard his call and was likewise awakening his own villip.

  Yomin Carr moved his hand back fast as that central hole puckered and then opened wide, and then rolled back over itself, the villip inverting to assume the appearance of the head of the executor.

  Yomin Carr bowed respectfully. “It is time,” he said, glad to be using his native language once more.

  “You have silenced the station?” the executor asked.

  “I go now,” Yomin Carr explained.

  “Then go,” the executor said, and with typical discipline, not even inquiring about the details of the incoming signal, he broke communication. In response, Yomin Carr’s villip rolled back in on itself to once again appear as a nondescript ridged membranous ball.

  Again, the warrior resisted the urge to utilize the other villip, reminding himself that he had to move fast, that the executor would not tolerate any failure from him at this critical juncture. He rushed across the room, back to his closet, and took out a small coffer; he kissed it twice and muttered a swift prayer before opening it. Inside sat a small statue of a creature, the most beautiful creature of all to Yomin Carr and to all the warriors of the Yuuzhan Vong. Its mass resembled a brain, with a single huge eye and a puckered maw. Many tentacles extended from that bulk, some thick and short, others fine and long. This was Yun-Yammka, the Slayer, the Yuuzhan Vong god of war.

  Yomin Carr prayed again, the entire litany of Yun-Yammka, then kissed the statue gently and replaced the coffer in his closet.

  He wore only a skin loincloth, as it had been in the purer days of his warrior people’s dawn, showing all of his remarkable tattoos and his rippling muscles, and he carried only his coufee, a crude, but ultimately effective, large double-edged knife, again, a ceremonial throwback to the early days of the warrior Yuuzhan Vong. Yomin Carr thought all ceremony appropriate for this particular mission, the linking salvo between the advance force and the actual invasion. He poked his head out into the hall, then moved through the complex, his bare feet making not a whisper of sound. He knew that getting out of the place without his human disguise might be difficult, but realized also that if he was discovered without the masquer, no one would recognize him as their associate. Besides, he figured, if he was discovered, that would only be an excuse to kill someone, an appropriate sacrifice to Yun-Yammka on this momentous night.

  The night was chill, but that only invigorated Yomin Carr. His blood pumped furiously from the excitement, from the danger of this mission to the understanding that the Great Doctrine was at last under way. He ran to the wall and sprinted up a ladder, scrambling over the top and dropping, with hardly a thought, to the cleared ground outside.

  The distant roar of a redcrested cougar gave him no pause. He was in that creature’s element now, but he, too, was a hunter. Perhaps one of those 140-kilogram animals, with 10-centimeter fangs, huge claws, and a tail that ended in a lump of bone as solid as any crafted cudgel, would provide him good sport this night. And Yomin Carr was ready for such a challenge. His blood pounding, his strong heart racing, a terrific fight would be a wonderful release.

  But not now, he reminded himself, for he was indeed drifting toward the thick jungle canopy in anticipation of meeting a redcrested cougar. He straightened his line and ran flat out to the tall girder-work tower, the only structure outside the compound. He considered the thick cable that crawled out from the compound to the base of the metalwork, and almost started for it with his coufee.

  Too easy to repair, he realized, and his gaze drifted up, up. Fortunately, the gridwork pattern of the girders was not wide spaced, so up Yomin Carr went, hand over hand, his strong, toned muscles working furiously, propelling him fast to the top of the hundredmeter tower. He didn’t look down, was not afraid, was never afraid, and focused solely on the junction box and the cable.

  Chill winds buffeted him, giving him an idea, so he went to work on the connection between cable and box gently, easing out one rivet, turning open one screw. The others, if they ever managed to get this far along in their repairs, would think this damage to be the result of the constant wind and the often harsh Belkadan weather.

  Secure that the connection was broken, Yomin Carr started down the tall tower, again working fast, reminding himself that the incoming signal was likely nearing L10, and that he had a long way yet to go. He dropped the last few meters, landing in a roll and coming up right beside the cable. This time he couldn’t resist; he knew that these were just communication wires and nothing carrying substantial power. He brought the cable to his mouth and chewed it viciously, taking perverted pleasure in the tingle of pain as he got through the insulation and sparks erupted all about his mouth and face.

  Let them find this break and repair it, he thought, and then return inside to learn that the system still would not function!

  Mouth, cheeks, and chin bloody, his nose—already permanently misshapen and flattened to one side—torn along both nostrils, the warrior started back for the compound, but he stopped fast, noting a movement along the ground not far away. He hustled over and fell to his knees, and then smiled widely as he held up a reddish brown beetle with hooked mandibles and a single protruding tubular tongue. “My pet,” he whispered, for he had not seen any of the beetles since coming to Belkadan, since bringing them to Belkadan, and he was glad to learn that they had already traveled this far across the planet’s surface.

  Danni Quee would soon learn the reason that her precious sunsets were becoming somewhat tinted.

  Yomin Carr set the dweebit down again and, reminding himself of the dangers of delay, sprinted back for the compound, catching the top of the three-meter wall in one great leap, then running on, back into the main structure, padding quietly along darkened, silent halls. In his own room, he went to the closet, bidding the ooglith masquer back to him.

  The pain as the cr
eature enveloped him, thousands of tiny tendrils boring into his skin, was perfectly exquisite, bringing shudder after shudder of edgy pleasure to Yomin Carr. A quick trip to the mirror showed him that the disguise was complete.

  Then he took out another small coffer and carefully removed the top. Inside was a single wriggling creature, a small worm. Yomin Carr eased the coffer up near to his ear and tilted it, and the worm responded, crawling forth and burrowing right into the Yuuzhan Vong’s ear cavity. Yomin Carr put his finger up there a moment later, to ensure that the tizowyrm had crawled all the way in, and also to signal the creature to begin its work. He felt the low vibrations a moment later. Tizowyrms were decoders, a creature bred by the Yuuzhan Vong alchemists to translate other languages. Despite their diminutive size, they could store enormous amounts of information and could emit that information subliminally. Thus, as Yomin Carr left his room, he was getting yet another lesson in the language most commonly used in this galaxy.

  A few minutes later, he was back in the control room, to find Tee-ubo and a very unsteady Garth huddled about Pod 3, with Danni working to reposition Pod 4 to the same alignment.

  “Yomin,” Danni called, noting his return. “Come here, quick. I can’t believe you missed this!”

  “Missed?” Yomin Carr echoed.

  “A signal!” Danni explained breathlessly.

  “Static,” Yomin Carr offered, running to her side.

  And there it was, on the screen and through the audio lead, the clear signal of something—something very large—crossing through the galactic rim, into the galaxy.

  “Extragalactic,” Danni said seriously.

  Yomin Carr bent low over the instruments, studying the data, calculating the vector, though he knew, of course, that Danni’s description had been accurate. He looked up at her solemnly and nodded.

  Bensin Tomri burst into the room then, along with several other members of the team, and soon enough, all fifteen were present, angling the pod viewers, computer-enhancing the signals, running comparisons of this signal to all the millions of others in their data banks, trying to gain as many perspectives as possible on whatever had just streaked into their galaxy.

  Then, predictably, the debate began. It never ceased to amaze Yomin Carr how endlessly these humans could debate and argue about practically anything, an observation that merely reinforced his belief in the strict hierarchical structure of his own society. He would never question a prefect, a prefect would never question a high prefect, as these fools were arguing with Danni now.

  Never—and that, he believed, was the weakness his masters would come to exploit.

  At first, the debate centered on the composition of the incoming asteroid. As it was transmitting no apparent technological signals, there was little argument for its being a vessel. An asteroid, then, somehow finding its way through the great emptiness between galaxies, somehow penetrating the turbulence some scientists theorized existed beyond the small band of empty space surrounding the galaxy, and obviously getting some sort of a boost in speed—perhaps from crossing too near a tremendous gravity field—in the process. That belief, that this was merely an extragalactic lump of rock, perhaps even a lump of rock from their own galaxy that had somehow escaped and then got pulled back in, did little to temper the excitement, though. Before this moment, no one had ever witnessed evidence of, let alone the actual event of, an extragalactic breach. Many scientists argued that such a breach could not even be accomplished. Certainly several brave explorers, and a couple of desperate outlaws being chased by the authorities, had gone into the turbulence of the galactic rim over the last few decades, but none had ever been heard from again. Here might be the answer. And the questions. What materials might this asteroid contain? What signs of life? Would this asteroid, once they caught up to it and examined it, provide new answers to the questions of the universe, perhaps even to the creation of the universe, or would it simply raise many, many more questions, perhaps some that went to the very root of their understanding of physics?

  And then the debate shifted to a less profound, though certainly no less contested, matter. It started when Bensin Tomri remarked that he would put together the announcement, to be broadcast back to ExGal Command.

  “Not yet,” another of the scientists strongly argued.

  “We have to tell them,” Bensin replied. “We have to get some ships out here fast enough to catch the thing for study.”

  “Where’s it going?” the other man came back sarcastically.

  “It’s in our galaxy now, and we can track it to the other rim, if necessary,” another added.

  “We’re not an autonomous unit,” a woman, Lysire, reminded.

  “Aren’t we?” another argued.

  “But do we really know what we’re tracking?” Yomin Carr asked, and all eyes turned toward him, most expressions incredulous.

  “Do we?” he asked again, in all seriousness.

  “Something extragalactic,” another answered.

  “Never did I agree to that,” Yomin Carr said, and again, the curious expressions turned his way.

  “We don’t know that,” Danni put in, apparently taking Yomin Carr’s side. “We’ve already agreed that it’s just as likely an asteroid from our own galaxy that escaped, or nearly escaped, and was pulled back in.”

  “It could indeed be something from our own galaxy,” Yomin Carr went on, smiling inwardly at the irony of that statement, at the secret double meaning of our own galaxy. “In fact, I think it very likely that it is just that.”

  “Then what’s your point?” Bensin Tomri asked rather indignantly.

  “My point?” Yomin Carr echoed, mostly because it bought him the time to figure out the meaning, with help from the tizowyrm, of that curious expression. “My point is that we do not even know if it was ever extragalactic,” Yomin Carr answered.

  “You saw the vector,” Bensin argued.

  “I did indeed,” Yomin Carr said. “A vector that could reflect a rebound.”

  “That’s absurd,” Bensin retorted.

  “How come we didn’t track it out there, then?” another asked.

  “We do not know that we didn’t,” Yomin Carr said. He held up his hands to deflate any further attacks. “All that I am saying is that we should be absolutely certain before alerting the rest of the galaxy.”

  “And any call we make will be public information before it ever gets to ExGal Command,” Danni agreed.

  “Yes,” Yomin Carr said, “and then we may discover the signal to be no more than a failure of one of our tracking systems, or a piece of useless space debris bouncing back in from our own galaxy, and how intelligent we shall look in the eyes of the judging ExGal commanders.”

  “This is bigger than us,” Bensin Tomri replied.

  “It is,” Danni agreed. “But we were put out here to function independently. Maybe Yomin Carr’s right. If we go prematurely alerting the whole galaxy, we could look like fools.”

  “And any such error, rousing half the fleet, could hurt the funding of ExGal,” Tee-ubo added with a nod.

  “Even if we are correct, if this is something that escaped and returned, or even something from another galaxy or from the supposed emptiness between galaxies, are you ready to announce it?” Yomin Carr asked Bensin directly.

  Bensin looked at him as if he did not understand.

  “Do you want a host of New Republic scientists, and perhaps even a couple of Jedi Knights to show up?” Yomin Carr asked sarcastically. Some of the expressions coming back at him showed that others hardly saw any connection between this and the Jedi, but Yomin Carr didn’t let that slow him. “This is our moment. This is what we have earned from our sacrifice of months—for most of you, even years—of our lives, toiling in this wretched place. At the very least, we owe it to ourselves to prevent embarrassment, or to ensure our proper credit if it does show to be extragalactic. To begin the first formal study. To chart where it came from to make sure it’s not a rebound. To chart its current p
ath, and to try to gain as many insights as possible.”

  “Way to go, newbie,” Garth Breise remarked with a grin.

  The debate ended as abruptly as it had begun. Danni backed Yomin’s argument completely, and even Bensin didn’t disagree.

  Yomin Carr smiled inwardly once again. If practical arguments didn’t work against these often stubborn inferior heretics, then appealing to their overblown sense of pride always did. He looked about at the working scientists, at their excitement and sense of relief and accomplishment. If only they knew.

  More than halfway across the galaxy, Nom Anor sat quietly in front of his villip, considering the words of his agent, Yomin Carr.

  It had begun.

  With a hesitation in his step that betrayed his uncomfortable feelings, Jacen Solo followed his uncle Luke into the council chamber. Jacen knew the new chief of state and his six councilors, of course, but his dealings with them had been primarily restricted to social events. This was business, serious business, judging from the tense nature of Luke Skywalker’s stride. They had come to Coruscant so that Luke could accept an invitation to address the New Republic Advisory Council concerning his plans to reestablish the Jedi Council, but there was no doubt in Luke’s mind that he would face some tough opposition on that matter, even from some councilors he considered his friends.

  What made it all the worse for Jacen was the fact that he hoped his uncle Luke’s opponents proved victorious in this matter.

  The six councilors, Chief of State Borsk Fey’lya in the middle, sat at a semicircular table facing the doorway. Two chairs had been set before the long table—down lower, Jacen noted, and it seemed to him a rather thinly veiled attempt to elevate the stature of the councilors above their invited guests.

  In this particular instance, that seemed utterly ridiculous.

  Especially in the case of Borsk Fey’lya. Jacen had been with his uncle Luke and his mother, Leia, when the news had come through that Borsk, as the longest-serving member of the council, the “elder statesman” of the New Republic, had been elected chief of state, a position the conniving Bothan no doubt relished.