by Greg Keyes
“And you believe it will redeem the Shamed Ones?”
“Yes. But not just the Shamed Ones. Once they are redeemed, all of us are.”
“But this vision,” she persisted. “Where did it come from?”
“I do not know the true source of my visions,” Nom Anor said carefully. “Only that they are always true. Perhaps the gods send them. Perhaps this planet itself sent them. What does it matter?”
“Because that is a lim tree,” she said.
“I do not understand you.”
“The lim tree was a plant of the homeworld. It has long been extinct except as a code in the Qang qahsa. I grew one for myself, to adorn my apartment at Shimrra’s court.”
“And now you find one here. Curious.”
“No, not curious, impossible.”
He waited for her to explain further.
“These other things,” she said, “these plants and creatures around us, they share much with our own biota at the cellular and molecular level. That is one thing I came here to confirm—the Sekotan ship might have been a fluke, a false similarity that arose from similar engineering. But this life you see all around us evolved naturally, or at least most of it did. It does not bear the mark of shaping. And though, as I said, there is reason to believe we are biologically related to all of this—no other species I have seen here corresponds on any one-to-one basis with the extinct life-forms of the homeworld.”
“And yet this lim tree is one of our species.”
“Yes. The differences between this tree and a lim are small enough that they must have shared a common ancestor only a few millennia ago.”
“I still don’t understand the significance.”
She gave him an exasperated stare. “Relationship at the molecular level could be explained by a common ancestor millions or even billions of years ago. In all that time, it is not so far-fetched to believe that somehow life from our home galaxy was brought here—by a long-extinct spacefaring race, or merely as spores, riding the faint push of light and currents of gravity. But something as complex and specific as a lim tree cannot be explained in that way. It indicates more recent contact between this world and our own.”
“Perhaps Commander Val left one behind.”
“When I accessed the Qang qahsa for my lim tree’s genetic code, it had not been accessed in a thousand years. The plant is of no use to a spacefaring race.”
“How do you explain it, then?”
“I can’t. Perhaps there was an earlier ship—a worldship that left our galaxy long before the main fleet. Perhaps they came here—” She stopped. “No, that can only be conjecture. I need more data before I begin to talk like this.”
Nom Anor smiled. “But I must say it is enjoyable to hear you talk like this. Your passion is obvious. You are a credit to our people, Nen Yim. You will find the right path for us.”
That got a smile from her. “I thought that was your job.”
“I had the vision, but you are the one realizing it. I am little more than a passenger on this trip.”
“Your insight has been interesting, however.”
“I wish I understood enough about your work to be of real aid.”
“You can be, if you’re willing to learn.”
“I’m eager to,” he said.
“Good. You carry the qahsa and record what I tell you. I’m going to collect a few live specimens of the arthropods living in that rotten log over there.”
And with that, she placed a world of information into Nom Anor’s hand. He stared at it, feeling he had won a victory, not quite sure what to do with it.
TWENTY-ONE
“Ah,” Harrar said. “Success at last.”
“Looks like it,” Corran said. “So long as somebody doesn’t already call it home.”
They were facing up a long, rocky ridge that showed a number of pronounced overhangs. Corran tried to hide his disappointment—their search had carried them less than a kilometer from the downed ship, during which time he’d seen no signs whatsoever of civilization. Of course, it was hard to search thoroughly when you refused to take your eyes off your search partner. He was a very long way from trusting Harrar. Or any of the Yuuzhan Vong, for that matter, but especially a priest. A priestess of the deception sect had very nearly succeeded in wiping out a good portion of the Jedi.
He started up the slope, keenly aware of the man beside him, fighting reflexes that told him to draw his lightsaber now.
“Is your home like this?” Harrar asked.
“My home?”
“Your planet of origin.”
“Oh. Not really. I mean, it’s got forests and fields, but for the most part it’s pretty civilized.” He frowned.
“It is covered in cities?” Harrar asked.
“If you’re thinking about Coruscant when you say that, no.”
Harrar made a peculiar face. “For us,” he said, “the world you called Coruscant represented the ultimate abomination. A world entirely covered in machines. It is because it represented everything we despise that we chose it for our capital, to remake it in the image of our lost homeworld.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Corran said curtly. “If you have a point to make, make it.”
Harrar’s eyes seemed to harden a bit. “I am searching for a point, I think,” he said. “I have had little opportunity to speak with infidels when they weren’t being sacrificed or tortured.”
“You’re not scoring big with me right now, Harrar,” Corran pointed out. He let his hand drift toward his lightsaber.
Harrar cocked his head, and a grim smile played across his scarred features. “Do not think I fear you, Jeedai. I do not doubt that you—the slayer of Shedao Shai—could best me in combat. But you would remember the fight.”
“Is that what you want?” Corran asked. “To fight me?”
“Of course not.”
“Fine. Then we won’t.”
They had reached the rock shelter now. It looked good—dry, protected, no caves leading off to the lair of who-knew-what.
“But I would like to ask you something,” the priest said, settling cross-legged upon a stone.
“Ask, then,” Corran said.
“I mentioned Shedao Shai. When you dueled him, you risked your life for the planet Ithor, correct? Those were the only stakes?”
“Yes,” Corran said. “The Yuuzhan Vong were going to poison the planet. Shedao Shai agreed that if I won the duel, it wouldn’t happen. If he won, he got the bones of his ancestor back.”
“And yet, from what I have been able to determine, Ithor had no real strategic value, no valuable minerals for your machines. So why did you do it?”
Corran frowned, wondering where Harrar could possibly be going with this. “Three reasons,” he said. “The first was that I couldn’t stand aside and let Ithor be destroyed if there was something I could do about it. And there was—Shai had a vendetta against me. I was the only one around who could tempt him with such a duel with such stakes. The second reason was that I had something of a vendetta against him, as well—he murdered my friend Elegos when he tried to make peace with your people.”
“That last I can understand,” Harrar said. “Revenge is desirable.”
“Not for a Jedi,” Corran said. “It was foolish and dangerous of me to fight Shai with those feelings in my heart. If I had been fighting primarily for revenge, rather than for Ithor, it would have been wrong.”
“I have heard it said that Jeedai avoid the strong emotions. I have never understood it. Perhaps another time you can explain it to me.”
“I can try.”
“Good. But for present, I don’t want to lose the scent of this hunt. I still don’t understand your motives. And not just yours—many of your people died defending Ithor. You fought for it from the start. Were you protecting the secret of the pollen that destroyed our troops? Surely you could have replicated it elsewhere.”
“We were never actually able to replicate it,” Corran said. “But no
, we fought for Ithor because it was one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy, and because the Ithorians are a peaceful people who never harmed anyone.” He crossed his arms. “And because it was one of our planets.”
“And yet you personally suffered disgrace for defending it.”
Corran stiffened. “You know a lot about me,” he said.
“It is a famous story,” Harrar said. “Shimrra was delighted at your treatment. It was then that he began to understand that the best way to destroy the Jeedai was merely to turn your own people against you, something that was remarkably easy to do.”
“Yes, wasn’t it,” Corran said. “All Tsavong Lah had to do was promise not to wipe out any more entire planets if we were handed to him for sacrifice. Some people were frightened enough to do it.”
“There must be more to it than that,” Harrar said. “Perhaps some are jealous of you and resent your powers. Perhaps because some Jeedai may abuse that power?”
Tricky, Corran thought. He’s trying to pump me for information on our weaknesses.
“Think what you want. The reason for my disgrace after Ithor was because a lot of people hadn’t quite figured you guys out. They didn’t realize that you weren’t planning to stop until every last one of us was dead or enslaved. They couldn’t imagine why anyone would poison an entire planet—a planet that, as you say, had no military or commercial value—just because they could. They thought it must have been because the Jedi put up a fight and angered you. A lot of people figured that Ithor was destroyed because I killed Shai rather than in spite of it.” He realized, suddenly, that his voice had been rising, and that he had just delivered a genuine diatribe. He hadn’t realized how much bitterness lingered in him.
But this was the first time he had really discussed the matter with one of them.
“Here is my dilemma,” Harrar said. “I do not understand how a people who placed such value on Ithor could also hold dear the abomination that was Coruscant.”
Corran snorted. “And I don’t understand how a people who claim to worship life would destroy a pristine planet,” he replied.
“So you’ve said once already. But since you said it, I’ve been thinking about it. You may be right. There may be a contradiction there.”
“May?” Corran studied the Yuuzhan Vong’s face for signs of mockery. The near-human visage suddenly seemed more alien than ever.
“Understand,” Harrar said, “all life ends. Killing is in itself no wrongdoing. Even here, in this forest, plants are eaten by animals, animals devour one another, the dead form the food for the plants. My earlier concern for the saplings you cut was that the planet might take it as an attack, since we are from outside, not because I felt it was wrong on some intrinsic level for you to cut them. In the end, every living thing dies. Planets die. But life itself should go on. Your technology threatens that—ours does not. A world like Coruscant proves that a world could exist without forests or true seas. And if the living sentients in its belly were replaced by the machines-that-mock-life you call droids, there could be completion. Machines could spread without benefit of life. They could replace it. That, my people cannot—would never—allow. We would fight until all of us were dead to prevent it, even the Shamed who now rise against us.”
“But—”
Harrar raised a hand. “Please. Allow me to finish answering your question. When we destroy life—even an entire planet, as with Ithor—we replace it with new life.”
“Yuuzhan Vong bioformed life.”
“Yes, of course.”
“So you think that makes it okay?” Corran asked.
“Yes,” the priest answered.
Corran shrugged. “So if that’s your view, where is the contradiction?”
“Because in my heart,” Harrar said, pronouncing each word carefully and distinctly, “I feel the destruction of Ithor was wrong.”
Corran regarded the priest for a long moment, wishing the Force could help him decide if he was lying or not. Of course, before he’d learned to know the Force, natural suspicion and CorSec training had served pretty well. To those ears, Harrar sounded sincere.
“What do you want from me?” Corran asked, finally.
Harrar steepled his fingers together. “I’ve spoken of the contradiction in my people. I want to understand the contradiction in yours.”
“Oh. That’s simple—we’re not really one people. There are thousands of ‘peoples’ in this galaxy, and often we don’t have a whole lot in common. If there’s one thing you can say about ‘us,’ it’s that we’re a diverse lot. There are some cultures that probably would have made Ithor like Coruscant or a wasteland like Bonadan. There are beings in this galaxy who don’t value life at all, and others who worship it to the exclusion of all else. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Believe it or not, technology and ‘life’ really can coexist.”
“That is what I’m struggling with. You believe that. My people do not. Whatever Zonama Sekot represents, whatever promise it holds for my people, I do not know that it can ever bring peace between you and me. I do not think the Yuuzhan Vong could ever make peace with machines, especially thinking ones—or the people who use them.”
“That’s an interesting thing to tell me,” Corran said. “You mean that you and I may have to fight after all?”
“Not you and I—not unless it is by your choice. But our peoples …” Harrar shook his head. “I see no end to the war here.”
“Well, we’ve only just arrived,” Corran said. “Maybe there’s something neither of us is seeing.”
“Perhaps.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Corran slipping into reverie of the battle for Ithor and the terrible thing that the Yuuzhan Vong had done to the garden of the galaxy.
What if Harrar was right? What if there was no way to make peace with the Yuuzhan Vong?
He sighed, rose, and looked around the edge of the cave until he saw what he was looking for—a slope that kept going up.
“Where are you going?” Harrar asked.
“I want to check out what’s up above our happy-home-to-be,” Corran said. “Don’t want any nasty monsters or giant bugs coming down to eat us in the night.”
“You’ve more experience with wild planets than I.”
“Doesn’t seem too wild to me, this planet,” Corran said, not entirely certain what he meant.
“Well. Natural planets then. Nonbioformed worlds.”
“I think this world is bioformed,” Corran replied. “I think it bioformed itself.”
“Then you believe the planet itself is alive, sentient, as Yu’shaa claims?”
“That’s the rumor. That’s what your shaper is here to find out, right?”
“Among other things. I’m not entirely certain I understand Nen Yim’s interests.”
Three different castes, three different agendas, Corran thought.
They reached the top of the ridge in a few moments, which gave them an excellent view of the valley below. In fact, Corran could see the wrecked Sekotan ship, which was good. If anyone came looking from the air, that’s what they would spot, and they would be near should such a search come.
But not too near if the searchers were unfriendly.
“What is that?” Harrar asked.
Corran turned and looked the other way.
The priest wasn’t pointing. He didn’t have to. Rising from the forest were three gigantic identical metal vanes. They looked to be at least three hundred meters tall. They were utterly familiar, but it still took him a long moment to recognize them. When he did, he felt suddenly light-headed.
“I’m not sure,” he lied.
“Perhaps we should investigate.” Did Harrar sound suspicious?
“Not today,” Corran said. “It’ll be dark in a few hours, and we’ll want to have the important stuff moved up here by then.”
“Very well.”
He was just delaying the inevitable, he knew. But given Harrar’s little speech just now, when the Yuuzha
n Vong did figure out what those vanes were, they weren’t going to be very happy. Not happy at all.
He wanted a little time to prepare for that.
TWENTY-TWO
Wedge had a hurried conference via hyperwave transceiver with his commanders, and then began transmitting battle plans. Their only hope now was to do the very thing they had begun as a feint—knock out one of the interdictors. If they tried to run, the ships would just follow them.
“We’ll line up for the outsystem interdictor,” he said. “Spoke formation. We’ll cut a fire lane and hope some of the starfighters can get there in time. Pick your squadrons, commanders.”
“Wedge, do you see that?” Pash Cracken asked excitedly.
He had, and he didn’t believe it. More than half the approaching insystem force was dropping away from the fight. The interdictor was still there, and a healthy force to guard it, but now the fight was suddenly more or less even.
What were the Yuuzhan Vong up to?
“Five minutes until maximum firing range, sir,” Cel reported.
“Very good,” he said, still staring at the monitor.
The retreating ships increased their speed and suddenly vanished into hyperspace.
“What in the space lanes—?” he wondered.
Suddenly he felt a little smile carve itself on his face, and he vented a brief laugh.
“Sir?” Cel asked.
“This worked better than we ever dreamed it would,” he explained. “They’re so convinced this is a feint they’ve sent half their ships someplace else.”
“I wonder where?”
“Who cares? The odds are almost even, now. Attack groups, lining up for an insystem run. Ithor, you take the outside.”
The massive ships began turning their backs to the outsystem forces, which were now greater than those toward the shipyards.