The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  As citizens of the Republic, you have full right to redress of

  grievances."

  Thak Val Zsing pulled at his crimson beard with his fingers and

  spat into the dust. "The Families couldn't care less about your rules.

  You talk pretty, and offer us nothing."

  That was a perfectly accurate answer, and Nate felt a bit flustered.

  The Jedi suddenly appeared behind him. "I offer the opportunity

  to serve your Republic," General Fisto said. Nate had been

  so fixed on the members of Desert Wind that he hadn't heard a

  sound.

  The vast dark pools of the Nautolan's eyes captivated the anarchists.

  Thak Val Zsing was the first to break out of the trance; the

  others followed swiftly and began to grumble. "Serve how?"

  "Come," the general said urgently. "Fight with us."

  "In other words, take your orders."

  "Be our comrades."

  The sincerity in his words was mesmerizing, his Nautolan charisma

  doubly effective on this desert world. Most of Desert Wind's

  ragged members seemed to feel it like a blow to the chest.

  Most, but not all. Thak Val Zsing shook his head. "Nope. Don't

  like this. We've heard enough promises, and taken enough orders.

  We'll win our own freedom."

  "If you act on your own, you become common criminals," Fisto

  said. "With us, you are patriots." Hard words, but these folk were at

  the end of their resources. They had nothing to lose.

  The ragged members of Desert Wind looked from Thak Val Zsing

  to Kit Fisto and back again. One devil they knew, one they didn't.

  Like most creatures, they went with what they knew. They would

  continue to harry the government, and they would be eventually

  caught, or jailed, or killed.

  And that was the end of it, with nothing that anyone could really

  do to stop it.

  General Fisto extended his hand to Thak Val Zsing. "Wait," he

  said.

  "What?" Val Zsing was tired, but also proud.

  "I could offer your people clemency if they work with us. When

  our job is complete your crimes will be expunged, and you'll return to

  your mines and farms and shops. I would not have you throw your

  lives away."

  Nate knew Val Zsing had to be warring with himself. This was a

  good man, but too weary to have much optimism left in him; he had

  been told too many lies to believe a Jedi, or a Jedi's clone soldiers. He

  could hear the old man's thoughts as clearly as if he spoke them

  aloud.

  "What do the others say?" General Fisto asked.

  "They say they trust me" Thak Val Zsing said, puffing his chest

  out. "And I don't trust you. I only came here because they asked me

  to. But now that I've seen ya . . ."

  The general gazed across the faces of Desert Wind, then turned

  back to Thak Val Zsing. "These are your people. How did you win

  their hearts?"

  "By blood," he said. Nate could see it in Thak Val Zsing's eyes. Despite

  his bravado the man wanted to believe, but couldn't.

  "I see," the Nautolan replied.

  "There might be another way," Thak Val Zsing said slowly. The

  battered warriors straightened and stared at him.

  They looked at each other as if the confrontation was about to turn

  into something physically unpleasant, and then Thak Val Zsing's

  shoulders slumped.

  Once, perhaps, the old man had been a great fighter, but those days

  were long past. Still, the members of his group looked up to him, and

  respected him as they would a father. Doubtless he'd shepherded

  them through more than one tight squeeze.

  How could the dynamic be altered? What resolution could

  there be?

  More than anyone else, Thak Val Zsing seemed to understand the

  stakes. One last action. One last judgment. It might mean destruction

  or salvation for his ragtag band. But what to do?

  "Thirty years ago I took command of this group," Val Zsing said,

  his eyes locked with the general's. "You could guide them, if you were

  willing to pass the same test."

  "Test?"

  He nodded. "Brother Fate?" he said quietly.

  A gray-tufted old X'Ting male in brown robes walked over. He

  was accompanied by a somewhat bulkier X'Ting female, also in

  brown robes. They carried a woven reed basket suspended between

  them.

  The basket was large enough to hold a human infant, and that was

  what Nate initially supposed it held. He had heard of extremist

  groups who worshiped some child or infant, supposing it the avatar

  of a god, or the reincarnation of some sacred soul.

  But a moment later he realized he had made an error. Whatever lay

  in that basket was nothing human. It weighed more than an infant as

  well: perhaps ten kilos. And it hissed. The basket wobbled slightly,

  and from their efforts to keep it balanced, he knew that there was

  something moving in there, something serpentine.

  "Will you trust us as you ask us to trust you?" the old X'Ting female

  said.

  "What would you have me do?"

  "Place your hand inside," she said.

  "And?"

  "And then we will see."

  General Fisto looked at her, and then at Thak Val Zsing.

  Nate held his breath. This was a test of both courage and intuition.

  Trust and common sense. What was in the basket? The woven

  sand-reed container was large enough to hold any of a thousand

  venomous creatures. And if it bit the general, what then? Was Kit

  Fisto supposed to magically transform the poison within his body?

  To charm the beast so that it would not bite? Or was this entire

  thing some kind of an elaborate assassination plan? Whatever it

  was, he could not repress a hint of apprehension. What would the

  Jedi do?

  General Fisto's expression didn't change, but he nodded his head.

  "Yes."

  The old X'Ting couple laid the basket down. The cover still obscured

  whatever was inside. The general rolled up the sleeve of his

  robe and extended his hand into the container. Nate noticed that the

  pace of entrance was neither slow nor fast, but continued at a single

  unvaried medium rate.

  General Fisto's eyes never left the old woman's. His arm had disappeared

  up to the elbow, and the witnesses watched carefully.

  And yet. . . what was he missing? There was something happening

  here that defied definition.

  Finally one of the other old females nodded, and the general, using

  the same slow, steady pace, withdrew his arm from the basket.

  Its underside glistened with something wet. He rolled his sleeve

  down without wiping the wetness away. The Nautolan's face was

  impassive.

  The two brown-robed X'Tings retreated to a neutral position and

  sat cross-legged, primary and secondary arms folded in a prayer position,

  foreheads leaning against each other. The others formed a wall

  between the clones and General Fisto and the basket. They were

  hunched over and seemed to be studying something.

  Then they returned. "He tells the truth," the woman said. And the

  others nodded.

  Thak Val Zsing exhaled mightily. Nate could tell that
he was relieved,

  but his pride wouldn't let him speak it.

  "Very well, then," Thak Val Zsing said. "The Guides . . . have

  never been wrong before. All right. I yield the leadership of Desert

  Wind." He paused. "And I hope I'm not making the biggest mistake

  of my life."

  As Kit Fisto walked back up to the cave, Nate ran up next to him

  and spoke in a low voice. "What did you feel in the basket?" he asked.

  "Some kind of rock viper?"

  "I do not know," Kit said, barely moving his lips. "It did not try

  to harm me. But I felt. . . something. A presence I have sensed before."

  When Kit said no more, Nate accepted that and rejoined his

  brothers.

  Thak Val Zsing shook his head as they walked toward the cave.

  "I wouldn't have believed it," he said. His eyes burned with challenge.

  "I'm not the one who's trusting you, Jedi. Remember

  that."

  "I will," Kit promised.

  "Well," he said, scratching his head. "A promise is a promise."

  "It is good that you are a being of your word."

  "Sometimes," said Thak Val Zsing, his shoulders slumping, "his

  word is all a man has."

  "You bring more than words," Kit replied. "Eat with us?"

  Thak Val Zsing and his people jostled to find seats at their rude

  table. As steaming platters heaped with fresh meat, mushrooms, and

  hot bread were placed before them, he turned to Kit again. "We

  haven't had a good meal in a week. Can you . . . ?"

  "All you can eat," Kit said.

  Thak Val Zsing and his people attacked their plates ferociously,

  bolting down their food like starving Hutts. Finally they slowed,

  belching and laughing, and it became possible to speak with them.

  "I have read the files," Kit said, "but I'd like to know your views.

  What happened on Cestus?"

  "The story's an old one," Thak Val Zsing said. "I probably look like

  a miner, by now. Truth is, I was a history professor. Lost my job when

  the government cut social programs and utilities to the outlying

  areas."

  "The elected government? The regent G'Mai Duris?"

  He snorted. "She's not the real power here, star-boy. Better play

  catch-up. Anyway, I went to work in the mines. The rest, as they

  say, is history." He grinned. "Look. Old story. You have oppressors

  and the oppressed. That was true before the Republic ever

  found these people: the X'Ting drove the spiders into the mountains,

  and probably exterminated some others who were gone before

  we ever arrived. We came, bought land from them for a few

  trunks of worthless synthstones, and a couple of hundred years later

  some mysterious 'plagues' killed about ninety percent of 'em. Convenient,

  eh?"

  "Extremely. You think these plagues no accident?"

  Val Zsing snorted. "There's no evidence you could trouble your

  precious Chancellor with. Any prison cramming together species

  from around the galaxy is a forcing ground for exotic disease. Let's

  just say that the Five Families weren't heartbroken."

  Thak Val Zsing tore a great chunk out of a roasted bird and

  chewed as juice ran down through his beard and onto his shirt.

  "Maybe my great-grandfather laughed about it, but it's not funny

  now. The Five Families own everything. Those of us at the bottom

  barely have enough bread. Our babies cry in the night."

  "I thought Cestus Cybernetics was wealthy," Kit said.

  "Yes. But precious few of those credits make their way to the bottom."

  "We're gonna change that," Skot OnSon said. "Overthrow the

  government, take back our world."

  world, Kit thought. And just whose world was it? The Five

  Families? The immigrants? The X'Ting hive? What about those

  wretched spiders the troopers had driven into the dark? He was sorry

  to have taken their cave now, but happy to have restrained the troopers

  from pursuit.

  0bi-Wan and Barrister Snoil hadn't left their apartment since returning

  from the throne room. The attendants seemed to hover

  around them, hoping for tips, bringing them food and rather clumsily

  trying to overhear their conversations. Finally Obi-Wan had to

  ask the hotel's management to solve the problem.

  Snoil had an unquenchable appetite for work. The Vippit rarely ate

  and never slept. He pored over documents, consulted with Cestian

  legal minds, relayed communications through their cruiser to Coruscant

  for second and third opinions.

  Through it all, Obi-Wan sensed not desperation but a kind of joy

  at having an opportunity to discharge his old debt through excellent

  performance. If he could just find a way through this legal warren,

  understand the path that might lead to peaceful resolution, they

  might all leave Cestus happy.

  Obi-Wan helped where he could, offered advice, tried to take

  some of the burden from Snoil's shell, but in the end he felt almost

  useless. Their next meeting with G'Mai Duris was in no more than

  eighteen hours, and as of yet they had no ammunition to turn the

  tide.

  But something would come up. Something always did . . .

  23

  hree hundred kilometers northeast of the command base stood

  the saw-toothed expanse of the Tolmea mountain range. Its tallest

  peak, Tolmeatek, rose thirty-two thousand meters from the valley

  floor, its snowcapped summit a gleaming beacon for the adventurous.

  Only within the last hundred years had any non-native managed the

  climb without rebreathing apparatus. The very word tolmeatek meant

  "untravelable" in X'Ting. The lesser mountains were of the same inhospitable

  disposition, stark inclines and flash storms making the entire

  region too dangerous for casual travel.

  And ideal for clandestine activities. Within the shadow of mighty

  Tolmeatek nestled another landing pad, also hidden from chance observation.

  A three-X'Ting delegation gazed up into the stars until one of the

  orbs began to change position. Oddly, it appeared tiny until the last

  possible moment, when it seemed as if the minuscule object suddenly

  expanded with impossible speed.

  The greeters waited at their places, unmoving. Two wore shadowy

  robes, one a recently acquired offworlder style cut for an insectile

  X'Ting. A narrow landing ramp descended from the shining ship. A

  female humanoid appeared in the doorway. She wore a floor-length

  T

  cloak and was clearly visible only in silhouette, but what they could

  see made them hold their breath.

  The cabin behind her was dark. Her profile was clean-shaven, with

  a skull both symmetrical and large enough to suggest formidable intellect.

  The pale skin covering it was so clear and flawless as to be almost

  translucent. Six knife-shaped tattoos were arrayed on each side

  of her head, daggers pointing at her ears. She seemed to sparkle a bit,

  as if with some inner radiance. Doubtless, a trick of the light.

  As she descended, they saw that her eyes were a flat and expressionless

  blue, briefly examining Fizzik without any comment or

  judgment. He was so far beneath her notice that he barely registered

  at all, neither th
reat nor ally. For all the change in her expression he

  might have been an astromech droid.

  Fizzik was afraid of this woman, and found the sensation oddly

  delicious.

  He stepped forward, prepared to offer his planned greeting.

  "Ma'am . . . ?"

  The woman tilted her head slowly sideways, staring at him as if he

  were an unaccustomed form of lower animal life. That odd sensation

  within him, the fear-thing, swelled. Fizzik went silent.

  She took two more steps and then touched her belt. All around the

  ship, in a giant circle with a radius of perhaps twenty meters, the sand

  sizzled. Fizzik had noticed a line of tiny sandwasps crawling across

  the sand, mindlessly carrying their burdens back to their nest. Where

  that line crossed the sand, half a dozen of the tiny creatures had

  curled into smoking balls. The others on either side of the line were

  unharmed.

  For the first time, she spoke. "If your people approach my ship,"

  she said, "you'll need new people."

  "Yes, Mistress."

  "Very good," she mocked. "Take me to Trillot."

  Fizzik opened the back of a little snub-nosed tunnel speeder to

  her, and she entered without another word. Her movements flowed,

  as if she were more felinoid than humanoid. A savagely beautiful

  predator.

  The tunnel runner hovered and then pivoted, heading into one of

  the nearby entrances. The little geebug was built for swift maneuvering

  in the warren of tunnels beneath Cestus's surface.

  These tunnels had been built by hive technicians eons ago, but had

  only been electronically mapped fairly recently—a few standard decades,

  perhaps. The geebug was also equipped with the very latest and

  most powerful scanning equipment and skittered through the tunnels

  like a thrinx on a griddle.

  Fizzik sat beside the pilot in the front seat, but took a chance to

  cast a glance back at the rear seat, to see, perhaps, if their guest was

  at all discomfited by the series of near misses as they negotiated the

  warren.

  She seemed unflappable, her piercing blue eyes amused, full pale

  lips curled up at the edges as they scraped through an especially close

  call. She scanned the cave walls as they flew past, noting everything.

  Their passenger turned and looked at him, curiosity lighting her face

  at last. "So the Five Families fear to meet with me openly."

  "It is considered risky. But you will be with them soon."