They moved the disk down to the dirt floor. With the help of the antigrav unit, the carbonite disk virtually floated across the cavern. The rock walls seemed so huge and majestic now. Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to appreciate it, but as artificial lights switched on in the ceiling, the sight of cascading stalactites and vast arched walls took his breath away.
What sort of celebratory scene had the builders pictured for this moment? Were thousands of X’Ting expected to be gathered now, cheering this ceremony as a new queen and king entered the world?
How strangely and sorrowfully it had all worked out.
There would be such celebration eventually, of course, but not now. Now there was silence and shadows.
The egg cask slid easily through the pentagonal openings on the far side of the cavern. Jesson seemed drained but exultant, a different being from the cocky young warrior who had accompanied Obi-Wan from the council chamber less than two hours before.
Truly, Obi-Wan thought, transformation was not a matter of time. It happened in a blink, or not at all.
They crawled through the darkness, pulling the precious cargo between them. Jesson found his way through the labyrinth more easily this time, and their steady shuffling was not really laborious—it was filled with a sense of purpose.
“You know, Jedi,” Jesson said back over his shoulder, “I may have been wrong about you.”
“It’s possible,” Obi-Wan said, smiling.
A few moments passed, during which they proceeded in darkness, Jesson scenting his way and perhaps organizing his thoughts.
“I’ve seen what you can do, and who and what you are.” He paused. “It is even possible that Duris wasn’t lying about that Jedi Master. Maybe he really did visit, and maybe he really did do something worth remembering.”
Obi-Wan chuckled. He himself might never know. At least, not until he returned to Coruscant. Then he might make polite inquiries, just to satisfy his curiosity.
On the other hand, some of the greatest Jedi were notoriously reticent to speak of their deeds. His questions might well be carefully deflected, his curiosity never satisfied.
They reached the next chamber, the hall of statues where they had first entered. Jesson climbed out and down onto the ledge. Obi-Wan gently pushed the egg cask out. Suspended by its antigrav unit, it floated down to Jesson as gently as a chunk of tilewood settling through water.
Obi-Wan jumped down lightly. There was a choice to make: to go back the way they had come, to reenter that first hollow statue and brave the cannibals again, or . . .
“I’m in no mood for an unnecessary battle,” the Jedi said. “Let’s climb the rocks and see if the door up on the far side will open.”
“Agreed,” Jesson said. Fatigue blurred his voice. The last hours had to have been the most taxing of the X’Ting warrior’s life. A frantic battle, a climb through darkness, pursuit by carnivorous cave worms, dooming and then saving his species’ royal heirs . . .
Obi-Wan wondered: would an X’Ting deal with this stress by celebrating, or by hibernating?
When they were both safely on the stone ledge, they guided the egg cask up the incline toward what Jesson said was a door.
It took several nerve-racking minutes to get the egg cask over the rockfall. On the far side they found something ghastly: the corpse of another of Jesson’s broodmates, his lower body jutting from beneath a boulder. His withered secondary arm still clutched a lamp.
So much death, in service to their hive. Any species that produced both a G’Mai Duris and a Jesson Di Blinth was formidable indeed.
Obi-Wan picked up the lamp. It was of industrial design, heavier and more powerful than the GAR-surplus model Jesson had brought down into the labyrinth. When he triggered it, an eye-searing beam splayed out against the wall.
Pity it hadn’t helped Jesson’s brother.
Just a few meters up the ramp was the door that would take them back to the main hive. A droid mechanism had barred the door. In all probability, the same booby trap had triggered the deadfall.
“I think my question is answered,” Jesson said behind Obi-Wan, voice deep and respectful.
“What question is that?” Obi-Wan asked, triggering his lightsaber’s energy beam. He examined the door more closely, judging the best angle for the initial cut.
“Look. Please,” Jesson said.
Obi-Wan turned around, allowing his eyes to follow Jesson’s beam of light. It played out along the cavern, illuminating in turn image after gigantic image of the kings and queens of the X’Ting, their greatest leaders in colossal array. Rendered in chewed stone was a veritable forest of noble, insectoid titans. Some male, some female, some tall and young, some stooped and old, their four hands variously held in postures of beseeching, imploring, protecting, comforting, teaching, healing.
A hall of heroes, indeed, Obi-Wan thought. “What is it?”
“There,” Jesson replied. “Where we first came in.” And he focused the beam on the largest statue.
Now Obi-Wan could see the stooped, aged figure far more clearly. The narrow ladder tube they had descended had been a cane. The chamber in which they had fought so desperately against the cannibal X’Ting was, from without, seen to be a muscularly rounded torso. Their point of initial entry, the very first chamber, was a head with flared, triangular ears. The statue stood at least seventy meters high, taller than any other in the X’Ting Hall of Heroes.
Indeed, many questions were answered, but more remained, questions that Obi-Wan might never satisfy. For there, robed arm outstretched in greeting, gigantic and benevolent in the lamplight of a valiant, long-dead X’Ting soldier, loomed the hollow, chewed-stone statue of a smiling Master Yoda.
Star Wars: The Hive is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.
All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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eISBN 0-345-47868-1
First Edition: June 2004
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