by Greg Bear
Perhaps this journey was devious not because of a misplaced sense of ritual, but because of fear.
Chapter 33
Your ship has arrived at the northern plateau," Captain Kett told Sienar. "We've received a laser beacon signal from Ke Daiv himself. The protocol droid has established its credentials and presented him. He is awaiting transport to Middle Distance."
Kett preceded the commander down the bright corridor leading to the Admiral Korvin's shuttle bay.
Sienar nodded absently at the news. He was about to inspect the squadron. If Ke Daiv failed to buy a Sekotan ship, the next step would be all too Tarkinish a show of power diplomacy at close quarters.
Sienar briefly gave in to a vision where he traded one Republic Dreadnought for all the ships in his squadron. Not like you to prefer the large and impressive. Tarkin's thinking getting to you'? Not sure Ke Daiv will succeed? Subtlety will win this day. You have what you need.
He was confident he could make what he had seem a very tangible threat, under the circumstances. Something has burned them already. Once burned, perhaps twice cowed.
Unless they've faced an even greater threat. . . and prevailed.
But he could not see how that was possible. The planet was only very lightly developed and sparsely settled. It was practically virgin territory. Who would bother to mount a planet-scarring invasion?
They walked up the short ramp into the diminutive shuttle.
Kett absorbed the long pause philosophically. He was growing accustomed to this commander's style, though he did not like it. Sienar pulled back his long coat and sat in the central chair, with a good view of the slowly precessing star field beyond the shuttle's long, sloping nose. "Anything more on those gouges?"
"No, sir."
"Battle scars?" he mused. They had reminded him of snips made along puckered flesh by an expert surgeon.
"I believe they will prove to be geological anomalies," Kett said.
"Maintain squadron distance and keep all intership communication to a minimum," Sienar said. "I want no one scanning that planet. We are not here. Send a specific directive to all ships reminding them of that."
"Yes, sir."
"We're very close," Sienar said, rubbing his hands on his elbows. They were unaccountably damp with sweat. "I will not tolerate any mistakes."
Chapter 34
A dim green light dropped like thick syrup from the end of the tunnel. The river had settled into a smooth, gently roiling flow as the cavern widened. Gann guided the boat with a few sure, deft stabs of the pole. They glided behind a natural ledge festooned with green and red tendrils. An open space atop the ledge had been kept clear, and Gann and the two attendants slipped ropes to two older Ferroans in black and gray.
The boat was snugged in and bobbed against the dock's buffers like an animal nuz zling up an old friendship.
Obi-Wan walked forward and saw that his Padawan had fallen asleep. The long, restless night had finally taken its toll on him. Anakin lay in deep slumber, surrounded by his seed-partners, all still. His face was beautifully blank, brows straight, lips parted in slow and shallow breath, a simple and profound work of living art. Jabitha sat near his head, her hand brushing at the boy's silky hair, and looked up at Obi-Wan, with her lower lip between her teeth.
"He's very pretty," she said. "Should we just let him sleep? There's time."
Anakin slept like a baby in the girl's presence. That was significant. Obi-Wan was well aware of the boy's frequent nightmares. He seemed much younger, asleep. Obi-Wan could easily bring back in memory the nine-year-old who had become his apprentice, now grown two hand spans taller-the same pleasant broad features, the nose a little larger.
He misses the female. Thracia Cho Leem knew that.
Obi-Wan reached out, then hesitated. He felt a strong urge not to wake the boy, to let him sleep like this forever, to forever anticipate a great adventure, forever dream of personal triumph and joy. This feeling held too much sentiment and weakness to be allowed, but he allowed it nevertheless. This must be how a father feels, looking down on his son, worried about an uncertain future, Obi-Wan thought. / would hate to see him fail. But I would hate far more to lose this boy. I would almost rather freeze time here, and freeze myself with it, than face that.
Someone familiar seemed to stand at his shoulder, and lost in this un-Jedi emotion, self-critically, wonderingly, Obi-Wan murmured, "He is no more special than any other child, is he?"
Like a whisper, in reply, "To you, he is. And now you know."
Obi-Wan swung about and saw Gann approaching. The voice had not been Gann's.
"Time to move on," Gann said, searching Obi-Wan's drawn and startled face. "Something wrong?"
"No." With a small shiver, Obi-Wan gripped Anakin's shoulder and gave him a single gentle shake. Anakin, as always, came from deep sleep to instant alertness. His seed-partners stirred and reattached themselves to his tunic and pants.
Obi-Wan's seeds crawled up to his shoulders and chest, and together, master and apprentice climbed out of the long boat. Gann and Jabitha followed.
"I dreamed I was with Qui-Gon," Anakin said. "He was teaching me something ... I forget what." The boy smiled and stretched his arms. "He said to tell you hello. He said you're so hard to talk to." Anakin ran for the ramp and stepped up onto the ledge of stone.
Obi-Wan stood as if stunned by a blow, then set his jaw and followed his Padawan.
Drums and the music of plucked strings drifted down the shaft. Behind this music came a number of deep male voices engaged in a strong, grunting chant.
"They're waiting," Gann said anxiously. "The forging is about to begin!"
Jabitha walked in step beside Anakin. "Are you excited?" she said.
"Why should I be?" he asked with bravado.
"Because you're the youngest client ever," she said. "And because if you succeed, your ship may be the best ever made."
"All right," Anakin said, taking a deep breath. "That's pretty exciting."
Jabitha gave him a broad smile and put her arm around his shoulders. Anakin's face stiffened in youthful dignity, and Obi-Wan detected a flush on his cheeks, even in the dim light. As they climbed, they passed two choruses of Ferroan men, all holding small drums and stringed allutas. Lit by electric torches, they chanted, their voices following the party of four all the way to the top of the shaft.
"Aren't they grand?" Jabitha said.
"If you think so," Anakin said.
Chapter 35
This is the head of the factory valley," Gann said as they reached the top of the last long flight of steps. Anakin's extra brace of seed-partners felt particularly heavy after the climb. Jabitha had run ahead, reaching the top before they did, and now rejoined them, her face wreathed in a smile.
Anakin looked up at the high, arching branches of boras densely interlaced over a hundred meters overhead, forming the roof of an immense hall. Sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, casting a dreamlike, green-tinted light over a causeway of stones. The causeway extended for several kilometers between straight walls comprised of long, close-packed, octagonal columns of lava.
Tumbled brown boulders had been caught in these walls before they solidified, interrupting the regular fence-post arrangements. Some of the boulders, as big as Anakin's room in the Temple, had cracked open, revealing hollows in which brilliant orange and green crystals were packed as tight as needles in Shmi's knitting cushion. All along the walls, thick black tendrils striped with red thrust up between the regular, octagonal basalt paving stones of the causeway, pushing them aside, and reaching for dozens of meters to join with the trunks of the boras. Smaller green-striped tendrils forked from the big ones and curled within the hollow boulders, as if resting before some final effort.
The air beneath the canopy was dense and moist, blood-temperature, not easy to breathe. It was filled with thick, sweet smells-flowers and cakes, wine and ale, and an intense undertone of soil.
"The stones were here before we arr
ived," Jabitha said, face solemn in the green-cast gloom. "And the boras were here, as well. Just last year, Father made a new rule When the factory begins its work, the boras hide what we're making, in case anyone should catch us by surprise."
"Your father is a brilliant man," Gann said solemnly. Obi-Wan again noted Gann's pallor when they talked about the recent past.
A sound like giant horns blew down between the stone walls, followed by great warm blasts of thicker, moister air. Above, the massive trunks of the boras twisted and shivered, and the arching branches stirred and rustled with a sound like many hissing voices. Fragments of cast-off boras skin showered down upon the causeway.
Their seed-partners shivered violently.
"They can't wait much longer," Gann said.
Anakin could not believe he was actually here. Had he dreamed this place, that it seemed so familiar? With every step, he felt as if he were two people, one who had been here before, who knew all this so well, and a young boy born on another world far, far away. He was not sure from moment to moment was foremost, who did his walking and thinking. He looked at Obi-Wan and for a moment could not remember who the man was, walking beside Gann, wearing a Sekotan ritual robe.
But Anakin bore down and drew these selves together, using Jedi discipline to sharpen and unify his consciousness, and to unify and bring to order all those ranks of thought below consciousness. All but the lowest and most private layer, on the edge of non-self. It was here that this other lurked with its vague, dark, and separate memories.
Anakin decided that now was no time to report this anomaly to his master. But he was interrupted. What looked like large red, black, and green insects marched along the causeway toward them. Their bodies were wide and flat, with three legs on each side and a seventh, central leg front and center. Two long, gray, thornlike spurs thrust up from beside the central leg. They seemed to have been born to carry heavy cargo.
On each of these creatures a stocky, soot-smudged man rode between the spurs, gripping them with hands covered with thick black gloves.
"Are those Jentari?" Anakin asked Jabitha. "No," she said, laughing lightly. "They're carapods. The men riding them are forgers."
"Are the carapods alive?"
"Mostly. Some of them are part machine." She stared straight ahead at the many-legged creatures.
Gann looked down at Anakin. "We leave you here with the forgers. They will prepare your seeds and take you to the shapers and the Jentari." He looked sad and a little resentful. "I have never been beyond this point. It is the Magister's will."
"Good luck!" Jabitha said. "I'll catch up with you on the other end!" She returned to the steps with Gann and gave Anakin one last glance over her shoulder, eyes bright, lips pressed tightly together. Then she quickly descended.
"I grow weary of ceremony and mystery," Obi-Wan said. "And I tire of being passed hand to hand like old clothes."
"I think it's wizard,'" Anakin said. And he did. It was exciting, and it helped him in some way he could not put into words-helped him to visualize the task ahead. Still, he knew Obi-Wan was suspicious, and with good cause. Anakin frowned. "I'm so excited, and yet I'm a little afraid. Master, why do I feel that way?"
"The seeds are talking to us," Obi-Wan said. "Some of them have been here before, perhaps with Vergere. You're hearing their enthusiasm and responding to their memories."
"Of course," Anakin said. "The seeds! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you carry so many they're flooding you," Obi-Wan said. "I wish I had the equipment to measure their midi-chlorian levels." A funny, introspective look came over his face.
"They'd be very strong," Anakin said, giving Obi-Wan's arm a light poke, as a teacher might rouse an inattentive student.
Obi-Wan lifted an eyebrow. "But not, I think, as strong as you," he said, and shook his head. "Listen to them, but control your connection with the Force, Padawan. Do not forget who and what you are."
"No," Anakin said, a little chastened.
The carapods were now within a few dozen meters of where they waited, alone, under the high, restless, arched canopy of the boras. Anakin wiped dust from his eyes and folded his hands in front of him, as if holding a practice lightsaber.
Each carapod stood as high as a man at the main joint of each leg. Glints of metal shone here and there on their bodies, as if the living organisms of Sekot had been melded with steel.
The expression on his master's face had grown more and more peculiar. "Something's distracting you, Master!" Anakin said.
The carapods dr ew up around them, yet Obi-Wan paid them no attention. "Vergere," he finally said. "In the seeds . . . she's left a message ..."
He drew himself up and composed his features just as one of the riders clambered down from his mount and approached them with a dark and determined expression.
"What does she say?" Anakin asked, in a whisper.
"She's left Zonama Sekot, to pursue an even greater mystery."
"What?"
"The message is not clear. Something about beings from beyond the boundaries, unknown to the Jedi. She had to move very quickly."
The rider's thick-skinned, heavily wrinkled face looked squashed and sunburned, and his eyes were a reddish hazel, as if filled with fire. "Clients?" the rider asked in the thickest-accented Galactic Basic they had yet heard on Zonama Sekot.
"Yes," Anakin said, stepping forward and thrusting out his chin, as if to protect Obi-Wan.
"Magister's folks leave you here?"
"Yes."
"Get on," the rider said gruffly, smirking and pointing to the steplike first joint of his carapod's center leg. "You're late! We're getting our last load!"
The rider looked up as Anakin and Obi-Wan climbed to the back of the stable mount, and his eyes widened. "We are your forgers. Team, in line!" he shouted. The carapods and their riders formed a tight single line.
Dozens of riderless carapods ran at top speed from the rim of the valley down ramps flanking the staircase shaft down to the river. They must have traveled from the tampasi, and on their broad flat backs they carried heaps of boras foliage, shattered stalks, branches, deflated leaf-balloons, scraps dried and rustling and held down by upthrust side legs.
The tinder-laden carapods rushed past with a staccato cacophony of drumlike calls, jostling their fellows in the tight line.
At the same time, overhead, other creatures, obviously related to the carapods but with different arrangements of grasping limbs, clambered along the underside of the arched canopy of boras, transporting more scraps in pendulous baskets.
"Forging fuel," the forger said as he took his place between the carapod's spurs. "That's the last load! Let's go and get our seeds in before they start up with more big ones!"
The carapods spun about and followed the herd at a remarkably smooth and comfortable gallop, legs thudding with hypnotic rhythm against the floor of the stone causeway.
Anakin looked once more at Obi-Wan. His master seemed to be in control again, face firm. The boy listened to the voices of his own seeds. With enthusiasm and joy, they were promising unmatched friendship and vital beauty beyond compare.
But Anakin realized, They don't know what they're going to make!
Chapter 36
The carapods trotted to where the stone columns ended, and the shapers brought them to a halt. Here, beyond the basalt causeway, the factory valley broadened out onto a plain covered with tightly coiled tendrils arranged like markers on a game board. The fuel-laden carapods ran ahead between immense pillars of water-sculpted rock, each hundreds of meters high, acting as supports for the green vault of boras.
It was the biggest enclosed space Anakin had ever seen. Clouds bunched up around the tops of the pillars, and in the distance, kilometers away, a thick layer of mist below the interwoven canopy was actually condensing out as rain.
"We keep the forging pits here," the red-faced forger told them. He dropped down from the carapod and pointed to where thick billows of smoke boile
d up from red-lit pits near the overgrown valley walls. He looked up to count their seed-partners, his lips moving as he jabbed his finger. "You have a lot of 'em, boy. What do they say to you? Hear them?"
Anakin nodded.
"Well? Tell your forger."
"They say they're eager."
"That's what I like to hear. Give 'em to me and follow."
Anakin took his twelve seeds and gently plucked them from his clothes. Each made a tiny squeak but did not attempt to hang on. He passed them to the forger, who tossed them to the back of the carapod.
"They ride, you walk," the forger announced, and then took Obi-Wan's complement of three. "The most and the least," he added with a sniff. "Make 'em as one for the clients they hand over to us, that's the way! Good thing you got me rather than them." He flung his thumb back over his shoulder at the other forgers, who laughed. He hooted and laughed back. "They're all amateurs compared to me. I can easily forge fifteen and persuade 'em to join!"
"Don't listen to the braggart," another forger called out.
"You'll be lucky to end up with a handcart!"
"Ah, they're giving you the complete experience" their forger growled. "Never mind. We're buds, us all." He squinted at them and rubbed his arms, knocking off shed bits of white shell from many seed-partners. The bits drifted down around him like flakes of snow. "The old Magister split us into the valley folks upland and down. We're down, and we know this end of the run better than anyone. He picked us out by hand and told us to make families, the Ferroans upland, the Langhesi down. We know our places. He did right."
Anakin had learned about a small and ancient world called Langhesa, read about it in the Temple map room on Coruscant. It had been overrun a hundred years before by Tsinimals, who had enslaved the Langhesi natives, forcing huge migrations to other parts of the galaxy. They had specialized in farming and the vital arts, learning how to mold the elements of life into new and novel forms. For many centuries, they had supplied exotic pets to rich families throughout the Republic.
