by Greg Keyes
“No, I doubt that you are. This heresy now has a leader—a Prophet. Little is known of him, but he is gaining in power. Not long ago, he made a prophecy—of a new world, a home for the Shamed Ones, a promise of redemption. A living world.” He placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “Does this not sound like your Zonama Sekot?”
“I know nothing of this Prophet or his babblings,” Nen Yim said.
“Again, I do not doubt you.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you know where this supposed world is?”
“No.”
“So you would have me smuggle you from beneath Shimrra’s nose, equip you with a ship—”
“I can supply my own ship,” Nen Yim interrupted.
His eyes turned appraising, but he resumed. “Very well. So I need only smuggle you out, outfit you, and help you find this planet—which Shimrra claims is destroyed.”
“That is what I desire, yes.”
“I cannot do that,” he said. “I am too highly placed. I will be noticed.”
“Then I have come in vain,” Nen Yim said, preparing the weapon in her finger.
“Perhaps not,” the priest said. “Perhaps the Prophet of whom I spoke could aid you?”
Nen Yim relaxed, marginally. “You counsel me to collaborate with a heretic?”
“If you are correct about the threat this planet poses, then a temporary alliance with a heretic could certainly be forgiven. You were right, by the way, not to ask Shimrra to help you. Neither Ekh’m Val nor any of his crew remains alive. The Supreme Overlord fears this secret. That in itself tells me it is vitally important.”
“On that we agree,” Nen Yim allowed. “Still—what good could come of contacting this ‘Prophet’? Even if he was so disposed, how could he help me?”
“How many Shamed Ones work within the Supreme Overlord’s compound?”
“I do not know.”
“How many of them can you name?”
She snorted. “One.”
Harrar showed his teeth again at the thinly veiled reference.
“This heresy is widespread and well organized. It, as much as your Zonama Sekot, is a threat to the well-being of our people. I feel certain that if this ‘Prophet’ can be convinced you are with his cause, he will find a way to help you. Especially if, as you say, you have a ship.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s getting the ship off the surface of Yuuzhan’tar and out of this system that is the problem.”
A new suspicion struck her. “You want to use me as bait.”
“Indeed. But I will not pounce on the Prophet when he comes to free you. I will wait, until such time as you deem your mission complete. If done in exactly the right way, it might even be possible to convince Lord Shimrra that you were a hostage of the Shamed Ones, rather than the instigator of the expedition.”
“You propose a trade in deceits.”
“Consider. Two great threats to the Yuuzhan Vong—your mysterious planet, my Prophet. We can be rid of them both. If all goes well, you and I continue to serve our people. If not, we go to the gods, who know our motives were pure. Can you see a better path?”
“No,” Nen Yim said. “I cannot. But I know little of this Prophet. I have no way of contacting him.”
“I cannot contact him directly, of course,” Harrar said. “But there are ways of bringing things to his ears. I can arrange this. Are we agreed?”
“We are,” Nen Yim said.
And though she felt she had sealed her doom, she made the trip back through the darkness with lighter feet, and the air felt almost warm.
Harrar watched the shaper move out of sight, wondering again how she had managed to meet him without an entourage of guards. Did she have some sort of concealing cloaker, like the cloak of Nuun the hunters wore?
Probably. She was a master shaper, after all. That didn’t matter.
What mattered was that he had committed himself to the proposition that she did not represent a trap laid for him by Shimrra or someone in the Supreme Overlord’s hierarchy who disliked him. Every natural instinct warned him away, but something very deep—perhaps something from the gods themselves—told him he should trust the strange shaper. Rumors of the planet Zonama Sekot had circulated very quietly among the Quorealists and some priestly sects for many cycles, and he knew for a fact that Ekh’m Val was not the first Yuuzhan Vong to encounter the planet. Nor, indeed, had Ekh’m Val been sent by Shimrra, though the commander himself hadn’t known that.
If Zonama Sekot existed—and especially if the shaper was right about there being some hidden history between it and the Yuuzhan Vong—then it could be very important. In any event, the priesthood was being kept in the dark about something that it clearly should know about.
He had lately begun to have his suspicions about Shimrra. Not voiced ones, certainly, but suspicions nonetheless. And today—which had already brought so many interesting new thoughts—brought another.
Nen Yim did not know, perhaps, how much Harrar knew about shapers and their protocols. He was the first to admit that he did not know everything. But one thing was clear—Nen Yim operated outside the realm of normal shaping, and the heresy of the Shamed Ones was not the only heresy around. Mezhan Kwaad, Nen Yim’s late master, had been a heretic, and had died for it.
And here was Nen Yim, alive, favored by the Supreme Overlord, and perhaps practicing her own heresy in guarded secrecy.
If true, it could mean only one thing: Shimrra himself was a heretic. And that—like everything else in this situation—had the potential to change everything.
If things went as planned, he might manage to kill three targets with a single thud bug.
He rose, and smelled the air, and felt destiny in his veins.
EIGHT
Nom Anor turned the message this way and that in his mind, and saw it sharp in every angle. It was hard to wrap his thoughts around it without feeling the cut, so pregnant with the possibility of betrayal it seemed.
“Who sent you, Loiin Sool?” he asked the messenger, softly. The messenger was a Shamed One, his shoulders and face a mass of poorly healed scar tissue. His eyes were concealed by a constricted uruun cloth, placed there before he’d begun his descent into the dark, dank places of Nom Anor’s domain. The domain of the Prophet.
A wave of his hand, and Loiin Sool would never see anything again.
“I come on behalf of the shaper Nen Yim,” Sool answered. “I know little more than that. I was taken from my work detail, given the message, and sent to find you.”
Nom Anor nodded. Sool had been checked for implants, of course, though no test short of thorough dissection was certain. Was someone looking at him now, from some hidden pore in the messenger’s skin?
If so, they saw not Nom Anor but the Prophet Yu’shaa, his face hidden behind a grotesque ooglith masquer that showed only one spectacularly Shamed, eyes festering with inflammation and lesions rendering the visage almost unrecognizable as Yuuzhan Vong in origin.
His surroundings would tell them little more. Yuuzhan’tar was a warren of rusting holes like this one.
“Why does the shaper not come to me herself?”
“She may not leave Lord Shimrra’s compound, I am told. She takes great risk even in sending this message.”
That was undoubtedly true. What little Nom Anor knew of Nen Yim suggested that her role was one that Shimrra was not eager to have widely known. He had lent her for a time to Tsavong Lah, but since her return from that liaison, she had been little seen or heard from. Indeed, Nom Anor had wondered if she had been quietly disposed of.
And perhaps she had. There was no knowing whether this message actually came from her. Since he’d lost Ngaaluh, his spy in Shimrra’s court, much was uncertain.
“Why does she seek me out?” Nom Anor asked.
“She heard of your prophecy of the new world. Her studies lead her to believe it is a true one. She desires to see this world for herself.”
“So you have already said. Why does she seek my aid?”
“Who else could give it? Shimrra and his minions are corrupt. They have done everything they can to deny the existence of our redeemer. He and the elite will do much more, because they know that if the truth is known, they will be seen as the false leaders they are. And you, my lord, will be seen as the true Prophet.”
“What does a shaper care for that?” Nom Anor wondered aloud.
“Nen Yim seeks only truth,” Sool said.
“You’ve already told me you do not know her,” Nom Anor pointed out. “How can you speak for her or pretend to understand her motivations?”
“This is the message, Prophet,” Sool answered. “I only repeat it.”
A vague chanting had gone up among Nom Anor’s acolytes. He began to wish he had received Sool in private rather than in front of thirty or so followers.
A firm voice cut above the rest: “Praised be the Prophet. He has indeed prophesied truly. The planet of our salvation, our deliverance, is now in our very grasp. And Lord Shimrra’s own shaper knows it is true! Our destiny has become a force stronger than gravity.”
“Do not be hasty, Kunra,” another voice said. “This may be nothing more than a trap, a deception to lure the Prophet into their grasp.”
“If so, they must fail,” Kunra said. He turned to Nom Anor. “You are the Prophet, are you not? Did you not see this, as well? Did you not see yourself walking through the forests of the new world, preparing it for us?”
“I saw it,” Nom Anor agreed. He had little choice. He had added that little embellishment a few days before. But what was Kunra up to? Kunra had been with him since the beginning of this whole farce. He knew who Nom Anor really was—that the “prophet” and his planet were equally fabulous.
“Then the time has come to rise against Shimrra.”
“No,” Nom Anor slipped out. “Do not presume to interpret my prophecy when I still sit here among you. The time is not yet come.”
“But we have found the planet,” Kunra said. “Let me go, Great One. I will liberate the shaper from Shimrra. I will quest with her for the new world. If there is betrayal, our cause will suffer little. If this is truth—”
“Truth must be practical,” Nom Anor said. “We would have to flow rivers of Shamed blood to liberate this shaper, and still she does not know the location of the planet.”
“I don’t understand,” Kunra said. “Do you fear your own prophecy?”
“Quiet,” Nom Anor said, his mind whirling furiously. Zonama Sekot was, indeed, important—if only because Shimrra feared it so much. He knew, too, that the shaper had been given what remained of the Sekotan ship to study, and it would seem she had discovered something quite important. This message suggested one of two possibilities. Either she was telling the truth, and she needed help from outside the system to escape Shimrra and find the planet, or—more likely—they thought Nom Anor knew where the planet was. They couldn’t know that he had learned of the planet by eavesdropping on Shimrra and Ekh’m Val, that what he had learned there was all he knew.
Well, not quite all. He had heard rumors that the Jedi had found the world.
Which struck him suddenly as a very fortuitous piece of information.
“The prophecy is indeed nearing fulfillment,” Nom Anor told his followers. “But something remains. A piece is missing. When I set foot upon the new world, I shall not be alone. Jeedai will be with me.”
A collective gasp went up at that. Even Kunra seemed disconcerted.
“Great One—”
“The time has come,” Nom Anor said, solemnly. “As Vua Rapuung fought with Anakin Solo, so shall I and the Jeedai free this shaper and find our world.”
Cheers, of course.
Let the Jedi do the work and take the risk of freeing Nen Yim. If they failed, they would be blamed, rather than him. If they succeeded—then perhaps he would indeed bring his own prophecy to fruition. At the moment, he had little to lose.
NINE
Han Solo scowled and shook a crooked finger at Tahiri. “Kid,” he drawled, “I hope you aren’t counting on another lucky break your whole life, because you’ve just used up whatever you may have had coming.”
“Easy, Han,” Leia interposed. “Anyway, look who’s talking. They don’t call it Solo luck for nothing.”
“ ‘They’ don’t know what they’re talking about,” Han replied. “I’ve never needed luck—I’ve always depended on skill.”
“Of course you have, dear,” Leia said, raising her eyebrows.
“Yeah, well, I—anyway, that’s not the issue,” Han grumbled. “The issue is you, young lady, flying off against good advice to a planet that’s always been trouble for this family, alone, running past a Yuuzhan Vong frigate in an X-wing—”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Tahiri pointed out. “The frigate was sort of between me and escape.”
“Sure you had a choice. From what you say, they probably didn’t even know you were there—they were after their own runaways. You had a whole planet to hide on. You could have picked a better opportunity to leave—like after they did. It’s a real miracle that you got out of the system, jumping on a half-fried engine—it’s amazing you didn’t end up on Tatooine. And Ylesia. And Bonadan. What was your blazing hurry?”
“I made a promise,” Tahiri said.
“A promise? To what, a marsh spider?”
“No. To a Shamed One.”
“A Yuuzhan Vong?” His tone was incredulous, but then his face registered his mistake. Everyone was still getting used to exactly who she was now.
That didn’t mean she was going to let him off the hook. “I made a promise to a person,” she said. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
Han closed his eyes and looked momentarily very, very tired. “If I could name the times I’ve heard that right thing to do line … Tahiri, you’re too young for this. You’ve been through a lot. Can’t you just—just—take a rest?”
“Good advice,” Leia interposed, taking Tahiri by the shoulders. “Can’t you see how tired she is? Why don’t we talk about this after she’s been to the ’fresher and caught a nap? It can wait that long, can’t it, Tahiri?”
“Yes,” Tahiri said.
“But—” Han began, but Leia cut him off.
“My husband is just trying to tell you he was worried about you and he’s glad you’re home.”
“I know,” Tahiri said. “And I appreciate it.”
Han’s face softened, and then set into lines of reluctant acceptance. “Well, yeah. But I still think—”
“Why don’t you get cleaned up, Tahiri, and we’ll have a bit of dinner. We can talk more then.”
“It is good to have you back, Mistress Tahiri,” the golden droid assured her as she made her way toward the refresher.
“Thanks, Threepio,” she said. “It’s good to be back.”
She meant it. She’d grown up on Tatooine and in a Yuuzhan Vong creèche, she’d studied the ways of the Jedi on Yavin 4, but more and more the Millennium Falcon felt like home. It was a feeling both comfortable and unsettling, but from what she’d gathered, that was a large part of what home was all about.
“I hope you weren’t injured in your travels,” C-3PO went on.
“No, I’m just a little banged up. And tired.”
“Well, now you can rest. And, I must say, Onih k’leth mof’qey.”
That sent a little shock through her. “Don’t—” she began, but cut herself off. This was not an abomination—it was 3PO.
C-3PO caught the sudden anger in her tone, however. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Mistress Tahiri. I only wanted to—”
“Make me feel welcome,” she guessed, “both as a human and a Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“It’s okay, Threepio. I’m still working the bugs out of this. It’s just, hearing a droid speak that language—”
“Oh, yes. I understand how the Yuuzhan Vong feel about droids. In the future I shan’t—”
“No. Like I said, it’s
okay. These are exactly the things I have to face.” And hope I can.
“Very well,” C-3PO said, with extravagant relief. “But, if I may ask, is the integration of your former personalities … complete?”
Tahiri smiled. “It’s complete. But it’s like—like being raised by parents who taught you one set of values, and then learning a different set of values in school. Which is right? There are conflicts in what most people feel and believe. I’m no different in that respect, maybe just a little more extreme. Do you understand?”
“I believe so.”
“Part of me was raised to believe that machines—especially thinking machines—are abominations. But that’s just something I learned. It’s not part of who I am. It’s not part of the Yuuzhan Vong on any intrinsic level, either—it’s just what the leaders and priests teach us as crèchelings. It’s something that can be unlearned, that must be unlearned, because it’s wrong. You’re my friend, Threepio, or at least I hope you are. And if, now and then, I have an unthinking reaction to you, I truly hope you can understand and forgive me.”
“Oh, very easily,” C-3PO said. “Thank you for explaining it to me.” His voice shifted back to consternation. “Oh, heavens, I’m holding you up when you should be resting. I’ll go now.”
“Wait, Threepio.”
“Is there something else?”
“Just this.” And she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.
“Oh, my,” C-3PO said. But he sounded pleased.
She woke, not knowing exactly where she was. She lay still in the darkness, letting the world return to her, solidify about her, fearing something but not knowing what.
The Millennium Falcon, she thought. Right. That’s where I am.
She glanced at the table chrono and realized she’d been asleep for almost a standard day. Shaking off the dream-shroud, she pulled on her Jedi robes, visited the ’fresher, and then went looking for Han and Leia.
She found them in the lounge, discussing something in low and somewhat heated tones. She coughed softly, not wanting to eavesdrop.