by Greg Bear
"Not the Jentari," he said with a quick, melodic laugh. "It's forging and shaping can knock a few limbs away. The forgers and shapers never did teach me how to handle their tools. So here I stay now. They won't let me come near the pits, lest I lose a leg or my head." He stood and bowed deeply. "Welcome to my domain. Shall we fashion something unique and beautiful today?"
Shappa Farrs was a small, slender man, immaculately dressed. His face was narrow and flat, his nose barely projecting from between prominent cheekbones, and his hair was almost black with age. He stood up from his stool, stepped from behind the desk, and looked the Jedi over with a wide-eyed, amused expression.
He saw Sheekla lurking beyond the door, talking with Gann, and bent forward suddenly, neck outthrust. He flapped his arm and made a sharp squawking noise. "Lurking, my dearest?"
"Stop that," Sheekla said with a wry face, entering the room. "They'll think you're crazy. He is, you know. Completely crazy." Gann followed reluctantly, as if entering a shop full of feminine undergarments.
"She knows me, yet she loves me" Shappa said smugly. "I'm twice any other man in brain and body, in her heart, even when mangled. As for Gann. . my liaison with all that is practical on Zonama Sekot! So timid! So fearful of the dark secrets of Sekotan life! Like looking back into the womb, for him."
Gann's face grew longer, but he kept his silence.
"Come in, all," Shappa crowed. "All are welcome."
The desk was piled with broad stacks of flimsiplast and ancient information disks, not seen on Coruscant for centuries except in museums. Shappa turned to Anakin, then glanced at Obi-Wan.
"You pay, he flies, is that it?" he asked Obi-Wan.
"We're buying the spacecraft together," Obi-Wan said. "And he will fly."
"I'll bet your seed-partners are chewing up the upholstery in my waiting room right now," Shappa said. "Can't let them in here. They love to eat flimsi, throw disks. But we won't keep you more than a couple of hours." He focused on Anakin once more. "Would you like to see what's possible?"
Anakin's face glowed with enthusiasm. "It's why I'm here," he said quietly.
"Possible, I mean, in ships, young man, ships only," Shappa added, drawing back a little at the boy's response. "The boy has an appetite. Very well, let's feed. Here!" He flung out his hand and grabbed a broad, crackling sheet of change flimsiplast. "Hold this," he told Gann. Gann held one edge, and Shappa unrolled it with deft, fast fingers.
On the flimsi was precisely sketched in red and brown lines a lovely starship, all compound curves and gentle swellings, the engines nestled within graceful fairings, the surface shaded with marvelous artistry to look smooth and taut as the skin on a crisp shellava. Judging from the scale, the length was thirty meters, the beam or wingspan-the wings were indistinguishable from the fuselage-over three times that.
"I've wanted to make a ship like this for some time, but it was only a dream," Shappa said. "No seed wants to get this complicated, and clients bring me only three or four seeds. But for you…" He smiled and swept his fingers over the drawing. At his prompting, the flimsi produced different perspectives, each new sketch stored in the porous surface and emerging at the artist's command.
Anakin whistled. "This is ferocious," he commented.
"High praise indeed," Obi-Wan translated for a puzzled Shappa.
"Yes. You bring me fifteen seeds, the largest complement ever for a ship."
"Can you work with so many?" Gann asked.
"Can I?" Shappa said, and his body twitched with energy. "Just watch! The best Sekotan ship ever made. A marvel."
"He says that to everyone," Sheekla warned them.
"This time, I mean it." Shappa handed Obi-Wan the edge of the change flimsi and tapped Anakin on the shoulder. "Can you draft?" he said. "I have a second helmet. And a third. Come, clients. I'm sure you have your own ideas."
"I'm sure," Obi-Wan said, with a nod to Anakin.
"Let's knock heads and helmets and wield our scribers as if they were. . lightsabers, no? Let's dream in the air. It will all come out on the change flimsi. New designs will replace the old. It will be like magic, young Anakin Skywalker."
"I don't need magic," Anakin said solemnly.
Shappa laughed a little nervously. "Neither do you, I bet," he said to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan smiled.
"I forgot. You're Jedi. No magic, then. But of mystery there will be plenty. I doubt the shapers and forgers will reveal all their secrets, even to you, dear Jedi."
He handed Obi-Wan and Anakin drafting helmets pulled from a drawer, and pulled up stools around the periphery of the table. As they sat, he perched on his own, taller stool, clapped his hand on the table in front of him, and said, "Your turn!"
"A solid, sturdy design is what we're after," Obi-Wan reminded Anakin. Anakin wrinkled his nose.
Shappa held his own helmet above his head and regarded them each in turn for several seconds, face blank. Then he twitched his lips, said, "It's all in the mind of the owners. Sometimes we just have to find out who we truly are, and the ships, the beautiful ships, will just be there, like visions of a lost love."
"You have no lost love," Sheekla said, amused. "Just me. We were married when we were very young," she said to Obi- Wan.
"A figure of speech," Shappa said. "Allow me my enthusiasms."
The rest of the morning passed quickly. Obi-Wan found himself deeply absorbed in the design process, as absorbed as his Padawan, whose involvement was intense. He also found himself more and more impressed by the architect. Beneath Shappa's blithe surface lurked a powerful personality. He had seen this several times in his life, strong artists who in some sense seemed to gather the Force around them, collaborating on a deep and instinctive level.
Yoda had said, once, in a training session with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, "An artist the Force is. Not to be happy about that- look what artists do! Unpredictable they are, like children."
Under the skilled, though eccentric, guidance of Zonama Sekot's master architect, Obi-Wan's own sense of freedom and boyhood came back, and he found himself alternating between the inner structure of the beautiful craft coming together in the space accessed by their three helmets, and the space of his own memory.
A memory of a time before he was apprenticed to Qui-Gon Youth: painful, awkward, brighter than a thousand suns. A youth filled with dreams of travel and fast ships and endless glory, an infinite futurity of challenge and mastery and, all in good time, knowledge, wisdom.
No different from Anakin Skywalker.
Not in anything that truly mattered.
If only I could believe that! Obi-Wan thought.
Chapter 29
The Blood Carver made his report to Raith Sienar on a cat walk overlooking the bay that contained most of the squadron's battle droids. They were still too far from Zonama Sekot to make detailed observations, so Sienar had sent Ke Daiv down in a fleet two-passenger spy ship with banked engine flares, part of Admiral Korvin's complement of small craft. Ke Daiv had gone in with a pilot Sienar had picked from the most experienced of the Trade Federation personnel.
"We made our way in, and returned, without being scanned," Ke Daiv said. "The planet is half covered with clouds."
"You made no attempt to see below the clouds?"
"We looked at what was immediately visible, and nothing more," Ke Daiv confirmed.
Sienar nodded. "Good. From what I've been told, the whole planet is sensitive."
"There is little detail visible in the southern hemisphere," the Blood Carver continued. "A single mountain pushes through the clouds, an ancient volcano-nothing more."
"Yes," Sienar said. He nodded as if this was familiar to him.
"The northern hemisphere is comparatively cloud-free, though storms migrate from south to north, dropping great quantities of rain and some snow."
"Naturally," Sienar said, lip curling.
Ke Daiv paused indignantly, as if concerned he might be boring the commander, but Sienar lifted his hand. "Go on."
"
There are signs of a recent struggle. At least fifteen deep slashes in the crust, over three kilometers wide, not natural. They are mostly hidden by the southern clouds, but I saw long, straight dips in the clouds along the equator, signifying clefts many kilometers deep. Perhaps these are the effects of large orbital weapons, though of a power and type unfamiliar to me."
Sienar's face went blank. He was thinking. "Are you sure they're not an excavation? Some massive construction project?"
"No," Ke Daiv said. "In the slash visible above the equator, there are jagged edges, scorch marks, jumbled terrain. But there were many large elevations in the northern hemisphere, rectangular in shape, and far from the inhabited regions. All these elevations are uniform in size, four hundred kilometers by two hundred, and densely covered with growth."
Sienar cocked his head to one side and poked his thumb into his chin. He waggled hand and thumb, as if trying to find something behind his jawbone. "Did you see the factory valley?"
"Yes," Ke Daiv said. "Although at this point, we thought it best to return, to avoid being observed." "Good. Tell me about the valley."
"It is a thousand kilometers long, three kilometers deep, and lined on both sides by huge growths, much larger than anything else we could see."
"Jentari," Sienar breathed. "What I would not give to have that valley installed on another world, some more practical location," he said wistfully. "Did you see any ships?"
"No. The valley was engaged in some manufacture of large objects, not ships, but like pieces of ships, or equipment. Some were being carried to the southern end of the valley, where it debouches on a wide river. Transports were waiting there, some already laden. And then-without warning-the valley was covered by huge limbs, growths, hiding it from view. I believe we were not observed, but this concerned me enough that I decided we should return."
"Excellent, excellent," Sienar said.
Ke Daiv did not react. Among Blood Carvers, compliments and insults were very little different-either one could lead to a duel. He had placed Sienar in a special category, however, outside normal Blood Carver etiquette.
"Now for the next step, and this one is crucial. We must move quickly. Tarkin informed you we would attempt to capture a ship, did he not?"
"Yes."
"He didn't have the slightest notion how difficult that might be-his kind believes might is quicker than reason. He's far too used to money to realize how useful it can be."
"Might," Ke Daiv repeated.
"Forget might for now. I will reveal another part of my not-so-little secret to you, because you are such an excellent and efficient fellow."
Ke Daiv stood like a piece of stone on the catwalk. Below, droids were being activated and preprogrammed. The noise of thousands of tiny motors whirring and clanking made it difficult to hear, even on the catwalk, but the Blood Carver's nose flaps functioned as gatherers of sound, as well. He leaned forward to catch Sienar's words.
"We have with us a very elegant little starship, in its own bay on this flagship. Not part of the normal complement. One of my private vessels, obviously the craft of a well-to- do individual. Scrubbed of identity but waiting for a new owner." He smiled at the thought of getting Tarkin to approve this addition. He had tried to suggest, with a semblance of childish pique, that being without any of his toys would make him less effective as a leader. Tarkin had agreed with a barely concealed new freshet of contempt for his former classmate. "A rich and well-bred owner," Sienar continued, "who has stumbled across one of the approved pilots and sales representatives of Zonama Sekot, and convinced him-or it-of his wealth and legitimate interest in the art of spacecraft design. A connoisseur. That would be you. I did my research well on Coruscant-you come from an influential family."
"Powerful, not wealthy," Ke Daiv corrected with a slight hiss. Even when placed in a protected category, this human could push him near the edge.
"Yes, indeed, the concentration of resources being a sin of sorts among your kind. Well, now you have ample sin to work with-over six billion credits at your disposal, in untraceable Republic bonds. Quite sufficient to buy a Sekotan ship."
Ke Daiv's eyes grew smaller and sank deeper into his skull. Though he was constitutionally incapable of being impressed by money, he knew how much six billion credits was, and how much it would impress others. "How do you know all this about Zonama Sekot?"
"Not your concern," Sienar said lightly. He really did enjoy Ke Daiv's reactions-the constant sense of treading in dangerous territory was stimulating.
Without showing the least anxiety, as if working with a spooked animal and knowing when to turn his back and when not to, Sienar looked down over the railing toward the Xi Char weapons. The elegant and powerful droid starfighters were stored on long rolling racks, their claw nacelles collapsed and pulled inboard. The racks were being pushed by astromechs from one side of the bay to their streamlined, dull gray, stealth-cloaked landing ships.
The Admiral Korvin contained three landing ships, each of which carried ten of the versatile starfighters. With slender nacelles that could split, rotate, and become legs, these droids were flexible, ingenious, and powerfully armed. They were perhaps the best of the centrally controlled Trade Federation weapons systems.
Inside the broad mouths of the lander weapons pods, loading drums spun about with hollow ratcheting sounds. The starfighters were attached quickly to broad, flat drums for rapid-fire deployment just above the planet's atmosphere. The drums were mounted in turn on vertical rotors. When the starfighters were launched they would emerge from the pods like bullets out of a spinning cylinder. When a drum was empty, it would be ejected into space, and the next would move forward on the rotor.
Sienar admired the Xi Char engineers that had designed and built the starfighters, but he doubted the droids would be decisive.
A ferocious battle had just recently been decided, apparently in favor of the locals. Whatever had left those hideous marks on the surface of the planet was no longer in evidence.
"I would like to introduce you to your sponsor on Zonama Sekot, the authorized representative, in my quarters, in one hour," Sienar told the Blood Carver.
Ke Daiv may have felt curiosity-emotions or impulses were hard to read on the face of the highborn Blood Carver-but he simply bowed his head and narrowed his nose flaps, forming once again that disconcerting hatchet that denoted respect and compliance, as well as-with certain color changes-anger, rage, and intent to kill.
Chapter 30
The black and red ritual airship carried them beyond the last dwellings of Middle Distance and along a narrowing in the canyon. This far north and west, the rocky walls were wet and slippery but almost devoid of Sekotan growth. Boras could not gain purchase here. Streamers of cloud dropped into the canyon and left the air around the gondola thick with moisture.
Anakin stood in the prow, foot propped in a heroic pose on a forward cleat. His seed-partners clustered around him, quiet for once, peering over the rail with their small, intent black eyes as if looking into their future.
Obi-Wan stood two steps behind Anakin, letting the boy en joy this moment. There would be little enough joy in the next few days, he suspected. What Anakin had detected days before-and called a "single wave"-now left the space around them charged with a feeling of imminent and massive change in the Force, which Obi-Wan could only describe as a void. Neither Qui-Gon nor any other Jedi Master had ever hinted at such things. That the change was coming from beyond Zonama Sekot, however, was not as apparent to Obi-Wan as it had been to Anakin. I sense something very close, triggered by something from without. But Anakin is correct-it will be a trial.
The airship's guiding ropes flexed under the pressure of winds rising out of the deep gorge and the rushing waters below. The pilot was having some difficulty keeping the airship from exerting too much strain and parting the ropes. The airship would not last more than a couple of minutes in these winds, in such close quarters, before being smashed against the sheer, slick stone walls-an
ignominious end for a party of clients!
That kind of danger Obi-Wan appreciated: immediate, manageable, if one trusted the conveyance and its pilot-and the young woman seemed experienced enough. None of the other passengers-not Gann, nor Sheekla Farrs, nor the three attendants-showed alarm. In fact, they seemed to feel the same exhilaration he did.
Anakin looked back and grinned at his master. "The seeds are trembling-feel them? They know something big is happening!" Gann hooked two hands to the rail and sidled closer to Obi-Wan. "The boy's a natural," he said over the roar of wind. "There can be only one pilot. Have you decided which of you it will be?"
"The boy will be pilot," Obi-Wan said. He could never hope to match Anakin's skill in that area.
