For the first few minutes Jesson’s efforts were unrewarded; then a hologram blossomed before them. The glowing image was a schematic of the entire room, the chamber itself. They could see a narrow shaft beneath the gold seal, and at the bottom of that shaft, behind a thick shield, lay two precious eggs surrounded by a laser array. Tentatively, he reached out through the Force … but the mechanism controlling the array was too complex for his understanding. His heart sank. There was little question that the array would defeat any efforts he might make to circumvent it. How he wished that Anakin were here! His Padawan learner was an intuitive genius with all things mechanical, and might well have devised a means of defeating this apparatus. Obi-Wan felt helpless.
Thankfully, his X’Ting companion had survived to enter the capsule. Their only hope of success lay in Jesson’s four capable hands.
Jesson took the controls as if he were playing some kind of complex musical instrument. Obi-Wan could hear varying sighs and squeaks, and the X’Ting warrior answered the calls in a blur of finger-play across the control board.
Finally the schematic floated to the left. A spherical target shape appeared, its three layers rotating above a core resembling the egg chamber.
Three concentric layers. Obi-Wan’s mouth felt dry.
He glanced at his wrist chrono and was astounded. Had only an hour elapsed since they had first entered the catacombs? Since they had left the X’Ting council chamber? It felt like days!
An X’Ting voice with an interrogative intonation sounded, followed by a voice speaking in Basic. “Answer the following question: What is in the hive but not of the hive? What nurtures but is nurtured, what dreams but never sleeps?”
Jesson took a deep breath. From a belt pod he extracted a flat rectangle. “This is the last remaining key chip,” he said. “I have only three chances, but I think that we will succeed.”
“Do you know the answer to the riddle?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Yes,” Jesson said confidently. “It is the Zeetsa. They live in the hive but are not X’Ting. They give to us, but in turn receive nourishment and care. They dream but are aware.” His certainty increasing with every motion, Jesson placed the card in its slot.
There was a soft blur, and the voiced of the scanner said: “Your answer?”
“The Zeetsa,” Jesson said.
There was a pause. The sphere began to rotate more swiftly and the outer third began to peel away, the pieces dissolving as they did. Jesson sat, astounded, as the voice said, first in X’Tingian and then in Basic:
“Incorrect.”
Jesson stood from the chair, eyes wide and disbelieving. The voice said: “Sit down, or the session is terminated.”
Jesson looked back at Obi-Wan. The nozzles at the edges of the room opened like sunblossoms welcoming the dawn. Obi-Wan suspected—no, he knew that if the session was terminated, so were they. And so were the eggs.
“Sit down,” he said quietly. And Jesson did. The nozzles seemed to track their motion. Obi-Wan had no interest in discovering what might flow through them at a moment’s notice.
“Do you wish to continue the sequence?” the machine asked.
“Do I have a choice?” Jesson said miserably.
“Yes. You may choose personal termination. If you choose this option, the eggs will not be damaged.”
“I’ll try again,” he said, and swallowed hard.
“Very well.” A pause. The pause lasted for so long that Obi-Wan wondered if it was going to speak again, but then it did.
“Who lived and now stand still? Who cared not for acclaim, but are idolized by all? Who carried weight and now ring hollow?”
“You speak Basic and X’Tingian,” Obi-Wan said to Jesson. “Are the words accurately translated?”
The warrior’s serrated teeth clattered. “I think so. There is a certain poetry missing from the Basic translation.”
“ ‘Who lived and stand still,’ ” Obi-Wan went on. “That could have two meanings: to be motionless, or to persist, to ‘still stand,’ if you get my meaning. Do you understand this one?”
“I believe so,” Jesson said, but he no longer seemed so confident.
“Then do you think you know the answer?”
Jesson stared at the spilling sphere. Just two layers left. “I think so.”
“Then answer,” Obi-Wan said, trying to give the X’Ting confidence that he himself did not entirely feel.
Jesson took a deep breath. “I am ready to proceed,” he said.
“Answer,” the machine said.
“The heroes of the hive. The Hall of Heroes.”
The seconds ticked past, and nothing happened. Then the sphere began to rotate more swiftly, and the second, orange layer peeled away and vanished.
“Incorrect,” the voice said.
Jesson shivered in the seat, and Obi-Wan detected a sharp, sour odor in the air. Fear? “They should not have sent me,” the X’Ting said.
Self-pity? Jesson did not seem the type, but … Then the warrior went on, haltingly, “I can’t do this. Because of me, the eggs will be destroyed.”
There it was. The reaction hadn’t been self-pity at all. It was concern for the eggs Obi-Wan had heard in Jesson’s voice, seen in his body, smelled in the air.
The warrior was on the edge, about to give up. Obi-Wan had seen this before. It was not fear, as most beings knew it, because for most, fear was a matter of personal loss: loss of self-image, loss of health, loss of life. But even without being able to directly interpret the pheromones now flooding the air, he knew that these were not the source of Jesson’s anguish. The X’Ting warrior loved the hive, and was now terribly afraid of letting it down. He had been well chosen. He would be more than happy to die in the accomplishment of this task, die anonymously and in great pain if need be, if the hive could only survive and thrive, and be raised up to its rightful glory.
Jesson was locked almost in paralysis, his hands hovering over the controls. Every muscle in his body seemed to be stiffened in unyielding contraction, all of the cockiness drained from him by the reality of the tests he had already failed. “How?” he said. “How could it be? What answers were they looking for?”
“We can’t know,” Obi-Wan said, and laid a hand on the X’Ting’s shoulder. “All we can do, all we can ever do, is the best we can. The rest is controlled by the Force.”
“The Force!” Jesson spat. “I’ve heard so much about you precious Jedi and your Force.”
“It is not our Force,” Obi-Wan said, trying to comfort him. “It owns us. And you. It creates all of us, but is also created by us.”
“Riddles!” Jesson screamed. “Nothing but riddles. I’ve had enough!”
He leapt up from the seat and ran across the room, hammering at the door, screaming, “Let me out! Let me out!”
“Return to the seat, or the session will be terminated,” the machine said calmly.
Obi-Wan gazed at Jesson and then made a snap decision. He went to sit in the chair.
“You are not the original participant,” the machine said in its androgynous, synthesized voice. “It is necessary that the original participant finish the process.”
Obi-Wan looked back over his shoulder at the wounded, broken X’Ting warrior. How proud and confident he had seemed only an hour before! How obvious now that all of that pride had been a thin shield against the fear of failing his people, a support against the terrible weight of that responsibility.
“He is unable to continue,” Obi-Wan said.
“In one hundred seconds this test is terminated,” the voice said. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight …”
“Ask me die questions!” Desperation crept into Obi-Wan’s voice. “Please. Ask me the—”
“Ninety-three, ninety-two …”
Obi-Wan jumped out of the chair and went to Jesson, still huddled on the floor, primary and secondary arms wrapped around his knees.
“Jesson,” he said in his calmest voice. “You must try again.”
“I can’t.”
>
“You must. There is no one else.”
The X’Ting sank his head against his knees and shivered.
“All your life,” Obi-Wan said, “you have prepared yourself for a great challenge. As all warriors do.”
No response.
“Do not think I don’t know how you feel. Your warrior clan could not protect the hive from Cestus Cybernetics. They have power beyond anything your people can match. And so you feel that even your death cannot free your people. Even the best effort you can manage is not enough to fill the need. So deep in your heart you feel that there is nothing.”
Jesson finally looked up. “You understand this?”
“It is the same on planets all over the galaxy,” the Jedi said. “Whenever there are conquered species, the warriors are the first to be oppressed. Because they are the most dangerous.”
“Seventy … sixty-nine … sixty-eight …”
“All my life,” Jesson said, “all I’ve wanted is to fulfill the function I was appointed at birth. As my ancestors did. When female, to bear healthy eggs, to learn and heal and teach. When male, to fight for my hive, to keep it safe. Perhaps to die.”
Jesson looked up at Obi-Wan, faceted eyes glimmering with hope. If the offworlder could understand his misery, then perhaps, just perhaps there was a way out. There was an answer.
“And then when G’Mai Duris regained leadership of the hive council, you had hope.”
“Yes!”
“Fifty-four, fifty-three …”
Obi-Wan fought to keep his voice calm, although he felt the urgency boiling within him. “And when you were chosen to be the one to find and bring back the royals, you thought that this was your chance. This was your opportunity to serve the hive. This was the moment of glory!”
“Yes!”
“It still is,” Obi-Wan said. “All warriors dream of conquest, of glorious victory or glorious death. But none of us knows the price of our lives. None of us knows the worth of our deaths. That is for others to decide, after we are gone. All we can do is struggle, to fight with both courage and compassion, to sell our lives dearly. And later, after the battle is over, others will be able to decide if that sacrifice was in vain, or whether it was the deciding factor. Some of us must place our lives on the altar of sacrifice. Others on our dreams of victory.”
Jesson gazed up at him, some small measure of hope and understanding creeping in. “And if I fail, and the royal eggs die?”
“Then you will have done all that you could, serving the hive with all your strength.”
“And if my failure costs your life as well as my own, Jedi?”
Obi-Wan spoke as kindly as he could. “My life was forfeit the moment I set myself on this path. Tread not the path to war seeking to preserve life. That is a fool’s dream. Seek to live your days honoring whatever principles you hold dear. Work to gain the highest skills of which you are capable. Sell your life dearly.”
“Be true to the hive,” Jesson said.
“Yes.”
“How can a human understand so well?”
Obi-Wan smiled. “We all have a hive,” he said.
“Twenty-seven, twenty-six …”
“Stand, X’Ting warrior,” Obi-Wan said, putting durasteel into his voice.
Jesson stood.
“Fifteen, fourteen …”
He made his way back to the chair and sat down. The countdown ceased.
“Are you prepared to continue?” the voice asked in Basic, after a series of X’Tingian pops.
Jesson answered in affirmative clicks.
There was a pause. The rotating hologrammic sphere was moving more swiftly now. But a single layer remained over the egg chamber.
“Answer,” the machine said. “Who ate our eggs and now hide their young? Whose web. of fear ensnares them? Who stole the sun but now live in shadow?”
“It’s too simple,” Jesson whispered.
“Sometimes simplicity is the best disguise,” Obi-Wan said. “Don’t try to be tricky. Answer with truth.”
“But that is what I did before,” Jesson said. “And both times I was wrong.”
“This was created by your own people,” Obi-Wan said. “They would not make it impossible for you to succeed. Trust your forebears.”
But Obi-Wan felt a slight prickle at the back of his neck. Something. A warning? A clue? Something. What was it? Something about the array of weapons around the chair? The nozzles. The questions. Apparently simple for an X’Ting …
But the answers were wrong.
Obi-Wan’s instinct was screaming at him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what, exactly, it was trying to say. Couldn’t, but had to. This was the last chance, and if he couldn’t help his X’Ting companion, all was lost, and his cause was set back irreparably.
Still, in the depths of his heart, he felt a simple answer, heard it echoing with the truth of the Force.
“Answer truthfully,” he said again. “Don’t try to be clever. Don’t try to second-guess. Give it the answer that you know to be true.”
Jesson nodded. “The spider people,” he said. “Once, they were the lords of this planet. Once, they drove us from the surface. We sent them to the shadows.”
His hands splayed out on the control panel, and his eyes were locked on the rotating sphere. What? What …?
It rotated more rapidly, and a thin whining sound arose in the room, seemed to envelop them. Then the sphere accelerated faster still, and the segments fragmented and flew away.
“Answer incorrect,” the voice said. “Egg termination has begun.”
Obi-Wan stared, shocked. How wrong could he have been? Rarely had his insights been proven so horribly wrong. Perhaps he could burn through the floor with his lightsaber and save the royal pair …
He triggered his weapon and blazed it into the floor’s pentagonal gold seal. Beneath it, he imagined, was a case-hardened durasteel vault door. The hologrammic image was melting, blazing, even as the first sparks leapt from the floor and the room filled with smoke. Jesson sat stunned in the chair, unable to move. “No,” he said. “I did everything right. I did everything. No, please.”
“Vaporization fifty percent complete—”
The chamber lights flashed on and off in dizzying bursts, and nozzles at the corners of the rooms began to hiss, expelling a thin greenish gas. Obi-Wan snapped his rebreather into his mouth, sorry that he didn’t have one for Jesson, as well. But if he could just get through this lock, if he could just get to the egg vault, even if his companion perished, the mission would still…
“Vaporization complete.”
He felt numb.
Jesson leaned over the controls, sobbing. “Kill me, kill me,” he said, speaking to no one in particular, and the universe in general.
The weapons array around Jesson began to glow, and the mist filling the air was sucked toward it. In a few minutes the room was cleared of mist, and Jesson lay still. Obi-Wan looked at his companion’s limp body, feeling a sense of despair and failure that he had rarely known.
Then … Jesson moved.
He sat up and looked around, as torpidly as if he had been drugged. “Why am I still alive?” he asked.
“Look at the holo,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
Without any fuss, the schematic had reappeared on the display. In miniature form, the egg chamber was rising up through the shaft.
“What … what is this?” Jesson said.
The computer began a series of clicks and pops.
“What does it say?” Obi-Wan asked.
Jesson listened carefully. “It says … ‘Congratulations, X’Ting warrior. You have succeeded.’ ”
Obi-Wan was staggered. What was this?
He looked more carefully at the weapons array around the chair and realized that he had been wrong. It wasn’t a weapons array at all. They were sensors. And the gas? It had been some kind of analytic compound that combined with Jesson’s pheromones, the smells that X’Ting emitted under stress. The resultant cockta
il had been reabsorbed and analyzed by the sensor array …
Clarity struck like lightning. “You were never intended to answer the questions successfully,” Obi-Wan exclaimed. “Your answers were probably correct. Answering them proved that you knew X’Ting history. The sensors proved you were X’Ting. But it needed to know how you would react to failure.”
“To … failure? But I don’t understand.”
“You might have sought the egg from a wish to destroy it. Or to control all the X’Ting. It might have been for lust of power, or from greed. But when you came from love of hive, and failed, and saw your failure as killing the last king and queen, you felt not anger, but anguish. The test was not for your mind. It was for your heart.”
“It smelled my grief,” Jesson said, comprehending.
The burned gold seal rose up, exposing a durasteel column of the same shape. The column rose until it was Jesson’s height, revealing a chamber. Thick transparent crystal windows slid open, showing a disk half a meter high. Around the edge of the disk blinked the red-white lights of an activated antigrav ring. With the greatest delicacy, Jesson pulled the disk out. The antigrav ring reduced its effective weight to no more than a few grams. Holding it in hovering position with the touch of their fingers, X’Ting and Jedi checked the little readout meter blinking at the top.
“They are alive,” he whispered. “I will take them to the council. Our medical clan will know what to do.”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said.
The walls were blinking more rapidly. A speaker squealed a deep, booming vibration that rattled Obi-Wan’s spine.
“What’s that?” Jesson asked.
Obi-Wan inspected the controls. “I think it’s a worm repellent,” he said. “The room is letting us leave.”
The doors unsealed. They examined the far door. The dead X’Ting lay limp and half melted. “What killed him?” Jesson asked.
“1 don’t know. And I don’t want to take the risk. We know the hazards behind us. We’ll go back the way we came.”
7
The egg cask was relatively easy to take through the door leading to the worm chamber. They stood on the ledge and gazed down on the floor beneath them. Artificial lights had triggered along the ceiling and, in combination with the fungus, illuminated the plowed soil where the worms had fled the shrill, painful sounds. Obi-Wan extended his senses into Force: nothing. The cave was deserted.
The Cestus Deception: Star Wars (Clone Wars): A Clone Wars Novel Page 41
