by Greg Keyes
"Hey, easy," Corran murmured. "I misunderstood you, that's all."
"No, no-Corran, you're my hero. Ever since that time when you and Anakin
and I-I thought we were friends, and then-" She stopped. She was just sounding
stupid.
"Look, Tahiri..."
"I need more training," she blurted out. "Special training. Can't you see
that? Why haven't you ever offered - I mean you know so much more than I do...
" She trailed off, both horrified and relieved that she had finally said it.
He just stared at her for a second. "I never imagined you wanted anything
like that from me."
"Well..." How could someone so smart be so stupid?
"Why wouldn't I? I need some sort of guidance, Corran. I might seem like
I know what I'm doing, but I don't."
"I'm not a Master, Tahiri," Corran said gently. "There are Masters who
would be happy to train you."
"You have half a chance of understanding me," Tahiri said. "They don't."
"I think you're selling them short."
"Maybe." She thrust her chin out defiantly. "Does that mean you don't
want me?"
"No," Corran said. "But it's not that simple. We'd have to ask Master
Skywalker. And at the least it means you'll stop talking back and do what I
say. Do you understand that?"
"You mean you'll take me on?"
"Provisionally, since there are no Masters around, and until I get Luke's
yes or no on the matter-if you agree to those conditions."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I agree, then."
"Good. Then you stay here with Nen Yim and the Prophet. The end."
"Okay."
Nen Yim examined the thing she had grown. It was, to all appearances, a
qahsa. The differences between it and the usual item were invisible to the
naked eye. She reached for it, but the faint sound of approaching footsteps
gave her pause.
It was the shaped Jedi, of course. She was never far from Nen Yim, always
watching. It had been a source of irrita-tion, at first, but now it seemed
somehow less of a bother. The young human's insights had proven valuable, and
had even prompted this experiment.
"Hello," the shaper said.
"You seem in a good mood," Tahiri replied. The corners of Nen Yim's mouth
turned up. "That may change in a moment. I'm about to try something new. It
will probably fail."
"Is it dangerous?"
"I don't see how it could be, but anything is possible."
"Maybe you should wait until Corran and Harrar get back," Tahiri
suggested.
"They only left a few hours ago," Nen Yim said. "They could be gone
indefinitely. I think this should be safe." Tahiri turned a curious eye toward
the experiment. "What is it, exactly? It looks like a qahsa."
"It is, so far as it goes. But I grew it with modifications." The Jedi
sat cross-legged near her. "What sort of modifications?"
"Your talk of the Force binding the life of this world and serving as its
means of intercommunication interested me. And yet, since Yuuzhan Vong life
does not appear in the Force, I could think of no way to test that
possibility. How-ever, it occurred to me that if the ecosystem of this world
is truly self-regulating, it must have some sort of memory-it needs to know
what happened yesterday and last cycle to plan for tomorrow. Furthermore, that
memory must be shared somehow by all of its constituents."
"I'm with you so far."
Nen Yim indicated a ten-legged arthropod she had en-closed in a nurturing
membrane. "Even if the memory were stored at a molecular level, a creature
this size could not possibly carry enough to be useful, so I reason the
planet's central memory core lies elsewhere, but that any living thing-even a
cell-must be able to contact it, perhaps through this Force of yours."
"Interesting. And you've found a way to test that?"
"I think so." She glanced up at the young Jedi. "To ex-plain, I may have
to speak of things that will upset you." Tahiri's eyes narrowed. "This
concerns my own shaping, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Goon."
"There is a protocol-the protocol of Qah-which is used to integrate
manufactured or borrowed memories into the brain tissue of Yuuzhan Vong life.
We use it often, mostly for rather mundane purposes-teaching ships to fly, for
in-stance. But we also use it at times to enhance our own memo-ries, to gain
skills or knowledge without having to learn them. In the past, on rare
occasions, we've used the protocol to re-place entire personalities."
"Which is what you tried to do to me."
"Exactly. But the protocol of Qah did not work on your human tissues,
naturally-Yuuzhan Vong and human tissue are not sufficiently compatible for
that. So instead we used your own brain cells to create a sort of human Qah
cell, but filled with Yuuzhan Vong information. It was a hybrid cell."
"And that worked," Tahiri said.
"Correct," Nen Yim said. "In terms of your brain tissue, you are quite
literally half Yuuzhan Vong. We did not im-plant merely memories, but also the
cells that carried them." Tahiri's eyes narrowed. Nen Yim had learned that was
a sign of danger.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked.
"No. I mean, yes, but it's like picking a scab. In fact, there's
something I've been meaning to ask you."
"I attend," Nen Yim said, cautiously.
"I need to know-was there a real Riina?"
Nen Yim blinked. What an interesting question-but of course she would be
curious about that. "I'm sure there must have been," she said. "The name was
probably changed-names are easy to change-but the details of your child-hood
undoubtedly came from a real person. Such memories might be generated, I
suppose, but there would be no reason to when they could be donated by any
living Yuu-zhan Vong."
"Is she-dead?"
"I've no idea. Mezhan Kwaad supplied the memory data. Only she could know
who the donor was-and of course, she's in no position to tell you." Her
tendrils curled with cu-riosity. "Did it truly work? You remember being in a
creche, and so on?"
Tahiri nodded. "Some things like crystal, others muddier. I remember
once, my creche-mates-P'loh and Zhul-we took one of the scrubbing korsks and
put it in the com-munal food area. It..."
"Ate all the i'fii," Nen Yim finished, feeling a strange twisting in her.
"Yes," Tahiri said. She frowned. "How did you know?"
"Do you remember an incident involving a damaged fighting n'amiq?"
"I... wait. You mean those lizard-bird things the warriors used to fight
against each other? I... I found one once. One of the warriors had abandoned
it in the grand vivarium because it wouldn't fight. It was injured and I
nursed it back to health. Then one of my creche-mates took it and fought it...
I got there in time to see it die. It was torn to shreds. I thought it kept
looking at me, pleading for help."
The chill deepened.
"What's wrong?" Tahiri asked.
Nen Yim sighed. "Those are my memories."
Tahiri stared at her for a long moment without speaking, as if trying to
see through her skin. Nen Yim was glad for that, beca
use she had to collect
her own thoughts. Median Kwoad, she thought, may the gods devour you twice a
day.
Tahiri finally dropped her lids over her green eyes. She seemed to be
trying to compose herself.
Or perhaps she was about to kill Nen Yim. The thought of her onetime
tormentor sharing the same childhood memories might well be too much for her.
But when Tahiri looked back up, her gaze held only curi-osity. "Whatever
happened to P'loh?" she asked.
Relief spread down Nen Yim's backbone. "She was as-signed to Belkadan,
and killed there," she replied.
"And Zhul?" "Zhul is an adept on the worldship Baanu Ghezk, and so far as
I know is well."
"And the young warrior who watched our dormitories in primary shaping?"
We, Nen Yim noted. She said we, as if...
"Killed taking Yuuzhan'tar. They say he died bravely, crashing into an
infidel ship even as his own disintegrated."
Tahiri rubbed her forehead. "He was nice," she said.
"Yes, if such can be said of a warrior."
"As if I wasn't confused enough," Tahiri murmured.
Now I find out I have friends on both sides of the war who died. Maybe I
even killed one of them."
Nen Yim didn't have a response to that.
"I have a lot of questions to ask you," Tahiri said. "But now isn't the
time. I need-I need to absorb this."
"As do I'll knew no more than you."
Tahiri looked up. "I forgave you, you know. Even before I knew this."
"I didn't ask for that."
"I know."
"But I'm glad."
For another stretched moment, they sat together. Tahiri was the first to
speak.
"Uh... you were telling me about the qahsa."
Nen Yim nodded, happy to return to a subject she could get a grip on. "I
extracted nerve cells from Sekotan life and modified them as your cells were
modified. It was an easier task, because Sekotan life is genetically similar
to our own. I hope, through them, to gain access to the memories of this
world, as I might access a qahsa."
"But if those memories are transmitted through the Force, and Yuuzhan
Vong life is outside the Force-"
"Consider, Tahiri. Your brain contains Yuuzhan Vong implants. Yet you
still sense and use the Force."
"Yes!" Tahiri said. "And when my personalities were in-tegrating, Riina
used a lightsaber, like a Jedi." She peered at the qahsa. "So this could work.
"
"It could. If one of the many assumptions I've made doesn't turn out to
be false. But I suppose now I shall see."
"May I watch?"
"I would be honored."
Nen Yim hesitated no longer, but reached for the qahsa and joined with
it.
For an instant, there was nothing, and then the world seemed to shatter.
Images and data roared through her mind, stars and vacuum, the feel of life on
her skin, the tear of wind across her polar regions. Feelings-fear, pain,
despair, joy, all on a scale that dwarfed the tiny Yuuzhan Vong brain trying
to interpret it. The images came faster, running together burning in her,
casting light into every corner of her brain. Please, slow down, this will
kill me, and I will mm understand.
It was something like trying to access the eighth cortex, but both less
painful and, she understood, more dangerous. Her thoughts were disintegrating
under the onslaught. Nen Yim was vanishing. Something else was hollowing her
out. A god was eating her from the inside.
Nen Yim clasped the qahsa and a look of vast surprise twisted her
features. Then her body jerked strangely and she fell over, convulsing, the
qahsa still gripped between her fingers.
"Nen Yim!" Tahiri cried, starting forward. She reached to help her, to
pull the thing from her hands, but stopped. She didn't know what was
happening. Anything she did might make it worse.
Of course if she did nothing, Nen Yim might die, she thought, as the
shaper's convulsions grew more and more violent.
Carefully, she reached out in the Force. Nen Yim herself was a blank
slate, as usual, but in the qahsa, something was happening. It was buzzing and
humming with power...
Tahiri could feel the flow of it from all around her, a million voices
speaking at once.
Black blood began to dribble from Nen Yim's nostrils.
Okay, Tahiri thought. I have to do something. Breaking Nen Yim's bond
with the qahsa couldn't make things worse-it was already killing her.
She reached for the qahsa, hoping the Force would guide her.
When she touched it, a world struck her down.
Suddenly, the stream of sight and smell and tactile data slowed and
distilled. The noise dropped away, and Nen Yim found herself in the middle of
a quiet moment, a totality rather than a sequence.
She found herself understanding.
And she knew the secret of Zonama Sekot.
She felt like laughing and crying at once.
When Tahiri came to, Nen Yim was daubing her forehead with some sort of
damp tissue. It smelled minty.
"What happened?" she mumbled through a tongue that felt like a bloated
grysh-worm. Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt.
"I'm not certain," the shaper admitted. "When I ceased contact with...
when it was over, I found you unconscious."
"I was trying to help you. I touched the qahsa, and there was this light-
that's all I remember." Her eyes held concern. "Are you okay?"
Nen Yim nodded. "As I have never been."
"So you made contact with Zonama Sekot?"
Tahiri's words seemed slow, after what Nen Yim had just been through. The
whole world seemed slow, and wonderful. "Not with the living consciousness,
no," she said. "I think you are correct-one must have some connection to the
Force for that. But the memories-the memories alone nearly overwhelmed me."
She stood. "I must beg your indulgence. I must meditate now. But I think-I
believe I have the solution."
"To what?"
Nen Yim felt her mouth pull in an unaccustomed smile.
She still felt as if in a dream. "Everything that concerns us," she said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nom Anor drew himself quietly deeper into the forest above the cave.
Neither of the females had noticed him. From his angle he couldn't see them,
but he'd heard most of their conversation. If only he'd understood more of it.
What did Nen Yim mean when she said that she had learned the secret of
Zonama Sekot?
As he watched, the shaper walked into view, carrying her qahsa, and then
out of view again, into the deep boles of the bottomland.
Tahiri did not appear, apparently respecting Nen Yim's desire for
solitude.
After a moment, Nom Anor slipped up the ridge, traveled fifty meters or
so in the direction he believed Nen Yim had gone, and then descended the hill
after her. Nen Yim gazed at the trees around her, immersed herself in the
lisping of wind through their leaves and the insistent purr of insects and
chatter of animals. She felt something tight in her relax, release her
inhibitions and prejudices, and saw the living world, at last, as alive.
Finally she felt herself as alive.<
br />
For so many years, she had been the quintessential ob-server. Even her
actions-even the extreme actions that had brought her to this place-had merely
been in the service of observation. And yet she had never thought of herself
as part of what she observed, as a piece of the great mystery that was the
world. She was always outside-outside her people, her caste, her companions.
But now she felt in the center, as everything was its own center, and she
was... happy.
"It's what we always should have been," she murmured to herself. "Zonama
Sekot is..."
"Am I interrupting you?"
She shook herself from her reverie, and then smiled. It was the Prophet.
"You knew all along," she said. "Somehow, you knew all along."
"You have discovered something," the Prophet said.
"Something wonderful," Nen Yim replied. "I'm eager to share it with all
of you."
"Is it about our redemption?" he asked. To her surprise, she thought he
sounded mildly sarcastic.
"It is," she assured him. "And not merely for the Shamed Ones, but for
all of us. But it will not be easy. Shimrra will resist the truth."
"You're beginning to sound like me," the Prophet said.
"I suppose I am," she replied. "But when you know the truth..."
"Truth is an entirely relative thing," the Prophet said, stepping a
little closer. "And sometimes not even that." He reached toward his face.
"Why are you removing your masquer?"
"If this is the day of revelation, let us all stand before Zonama Sekot
as we truly are. But you've interrupted me. I was speaking of truth. My
truths, for instance, were all carefully crafted lies."
His voice had harshened as the masquer unpeeled from his face. "What?"
she asked. But then the masquer dropped away to reveal, not the face of a
Shamed One, but the perfectly normal face of an executor, except that one of
his eyes-She gasped, and flung up her shaper's hand. In an instant, the whip-
sting hissed from her finger toward the face, but he was faster, much faster,
bringing his arm up so that the sting drilled through it. He gasped, snarled,
and quickly ro-tated his arm, wrapping the whip-sting around it so she could
not withdraw for another strike.
Then he set his feet and yanked her toward him. She saw the pupil of his
eye dilate impossibly wide, and then it spit at her.