She snorted derisively. "What is all this?" she asked, gesturing at
the walls.
He found her voice a kind of coppery music. "The planet is honeycombed
with mines and tunnels. They are the easiest way of traveling
without detection."
She chuckled, although what might have piqued her amusement
was beyond him. She turned at last to face him. "And you are—?"
"Fizzik, brother to Trillot, who awaits your arrival."
When she offered no introduction in return, he shrank back. He
stared at her, and as he did her eyes grew vast and dark. "Perhaps," he
said, "I should just let you rest from your no doubt long and arduous
journey."
Their passenger closed her eyes. And no matter how abrupt their
spins and turns, what jolts the tunnel runner got from near misses,
she did not open them again until the vehicle came to a halt.
The instant the vehicle shushed to stillness her eyes snapped open,
and Asajj Ventress was as alert as a Gotal on the hunt. Her short nap
had apparently refreshed and renewed her. That is, if such a creature
required refreshment and renewal.
They had arrived in a cave below the heart of the city. Five of Trillot's
most trusted aides awaited them. Whereas she had exited the
ship like a queen or some kind of dark princess, here she opened the
front of her cloak and assumed another aspect, which Fizzik recognized
as that of a military leader. Beneath the black skintight suit her
body was as sinewy as a snake, only her breasts and hips feminizing
an otherwise androgynously muscular physique.
Trillot had briefed Fizzik about Commander Ventress, of course.
Rumors had floated about, and even his brother wasn't certain which
to believe. Some said she was a Jedi herself; that she had left the ancient
Order, taking her weapons with her. Others said that she was
an acolyte of some shadowy group superior to even the feared Jedi
Knights.
The ring of greeters parted, and they stepped to a turbolift platform
large enough for four. He noted that the aides did not deign to
step aboard, as if they wished to keep a safe distance. The two rode
up together.
She smelled of acid fruit.
Darkness enfolded and then released them as they reached the
upper level.
As they emerged into Trillot's headquarters, the hard, cold creatures
who awaited them seemed to part like shallow water. No one
dared touch her; none approached her. A kind of silence descended
over the entire floor as he escorted her to her meeting.
Trillot was seated at his desk as she entered his office. He was
bloated now, his transformative hormones in full effect, accelerated
by the alien herbs. He squirmed and fidgeted almost continuously, as
if he could find no comfortable position.
Oddly, Ventress seemed somewhat deferential. From a pack so
cunningly hidden upon her taut body that he had missed it entirely,
she withdrew several items and politely placed them on the table before
Trillot.
The golden gang lord's faceted red eyes moved back and forth
across the items, and he waited. The air shifted, and he smelled the
slightest musky tang. Trillot, he knew, exuded musk from neck
glands when going through the Change, but that smell intensified
when he was nervous. In all the years he had known his brother,
Fizzik had smelled it only twice before.
The woman nodded deeply. The bag shuddered. Something black
and red thrust its head out of the flap, forked tongue flickering as if
tasting alien air.
"Gifts," Ventress said. Was that the very tiniest trace of mockery in
her voice? "Of salt, water, and meat."
Trillot stared, uncertain what to do. Ritual meals were common, a
highly developed art in X'Ting hive politics. But Trillot was no royal,
not even a noble. What could he make of this? Mockery or not, he
dared not respond impolitely. His gaze shifted to Ventress and then
back to the table. The red-and-black head proved to be the head of a
banded snake, emerging from the bag slowly. No . . . it wasn't a snake.
Its small stubby legs paddled as it attempted to escape its confines. It
moved sluggishly, as if it had been drugged.
Trillot looked at his protocol droid, and then back at the crawling
creature .. . no, creatures, because a second had emerged.
The protocol droid bent and said quietly: "I believe that you are expected
to ingest the windsnakes. With relish, sir."
Yes, that was definitely a tiny smile on Ventress's face, but whether
genuine or artificial he couldn't say.
Trillot studied her for a moment, and Fizzik wondered what his
employer was going to do. Again, an unexpected flash of emotion.
This woman became more intriguing with every passing moment.
With a movement swift enough to baffle sight, Trillot's hand
snapped out, grasped one of the windsnakes just behind the head,
and dashed its body against the table. Even more swiftly the second
time, he repeated the maneuver with the other one.
"Send for Janu," he said. A droid scurried out of the room, and a
moment later an enormous brown creature with a distended chin and
a raised, horny crest dividing its head waddled into the room, great
dusky folds of skin cascading down to the floor. "Yes, sir?"
"Water, salt, and two succulent windsnakes. What recipe can you
concoct?"
Janu tilted his waffled head sideways as if measuring. He picked up
the limp bodies and sniffed them, bringing them close to his flat, wet
nostrils. Then, suddenly, his thick lips split in a grin. "Ah! Glymph
pie. Windsnakes come from Ploo Two, and the Glymphids are famous
for a variety of casseroles. I can procure fantazi mushrooms—"
"No," Trillot said, voice cracking a bit. Fizzik sharpened his eyes.
Ah! The vocal change was another dead giveaway: his brother was
thick in the shift toward his female state. Soon his eyes would change
from rust-red to emerald. "I will need my wits about me this evening."
As he said this, he glanced at Ventress, who remained motionless,
squatting on the balls of her feet, back perfectly straight, immobile as
a stone. Again, Fizzik had never heard his brother discussing his private
practices or habits with an outsider. Or at all, when it came right
down to it. An almost perverse fascination bubbled within him.
"Fine," Janu said. "Then I will use . . . banthaweed."
"That should suffice." He waved at the tray, and the enormous
Janu lifted it and carried it away.
"I thank you for your gifts," Trillot said. "I assure you that I will
enjoy them to the full."
Ventress inclined her head with palpably false modesty. "A small
gift from Count Dooku," she said. "A delicacy. Take heart: the Yanthans
who remove the venom sacs rarely make a mistake." She
smiled. "And even if they do—it is said to be a good death."
Fizzik wasn't sure he wanted to know how a creature like Ventress
might define good. It was difficult to tell whether she was serious, or
merely enjoyed tormenting her host.
In either case, t
he results were fascinating.
"I trust that your journey was pleasant?" Trillot asked.
Her expression did not change. "Irrelevant. I wish to know why I
was not met by the Families. At the least, why I was not brought immediately
to their presence."
"We have a new guest in the capital," Trillot said, attempting to
placate. "Until we know his precise business, a measure of additional
discretion was thought wise."
She gazed at him, and although Ventress did not speak, Fizzik felt
he could hear her thoughts. Miserable cowards.
Fizzik had observed Trillot's immense bodyguards as they watched
their boss defer to this woman. There were also a dozen lean young
male X'Ting around Trillot's nest: thugs trying to get rich easy, looking
for someone strong to follow. Not necessarily bad, but lost, and
lost in dreams of glory past. There was no way of telling how they
might react. They might exhibit typical hive behavior and simply follow.
The more disloyal might sense an opportunity to jump track, to
find a way to ingratiate themselves to a superior power. But there was
another reaction as well, and Fizzik could see it brewing in the filmed
eyes of one of the smaller bodyguards, a member of the X'Ting assassin
clan. His name was Remlout.
"Excuse me," Remlout said in the high, reedy voice he assumed
when speaking Basic. "I've heard a story about you."
She rose and turned to him. Again the corners of her mouth raised,
as if she already knew what he was going to say, and welcomed it.
"In all politeness," Remlout sneered, "I've heard that you never,
ever turn down a challenge. Is that true?"
She glanced at his shoulders, his hands, his eyes. "You've been to
Xagobah," she said. "To learn Tal-Gun?"
"Yes," Remlout said, confused. Not many X'Ting ventured offplanet.
Asajj Ventress smiled. "Your neck is pale: their blue sun's burning
has faded. You've been away from your teachers a long time."
He nodded, mouth slightly open in surprise.
"Count Dooku told me that if I wished to progress in the arts, it
was vital to take every challenge." She cocked her head lazily at Trillot.
Her smile widened. She turned to Trillot. "Would this displease
your
Trillot looked back and forth between Ventress and Remlout.
Fizzik knew what his brother was thinking. Trillot did not like this
woman, but for a variety of reasons was bound to honor her wishes.
Fizzik had witnessed Remlout's skills, but was uncertain they would
be enough to defeat Ventress, and didn't want to lose a bodyguard.
On the other hand . . .
Challenge simmered in the air.
Trillot leaned back, grimacing as he strove to make his swelling
egg sac less uncomfortable. The gang lord—not quite lady, not yet—
templed his fingers together. "If both participants are willing, then it
is not my place to say no."
Ventress nodded and turned to face Remlout, pivoting as if on ball
bearings. Her fingers crooked like claws.
Now Trillot added, "But please, Commander Ventress. It is hard to
find good bodyguards."
"I won't kill him," she promised. "At your pleasure," she said to her
opponent.
Remlout bowed. His vestigial wings fluttered with warning, and he
spread his primary and secondary arms. The creatures who served at
Trillot's pleasure backed against the walls.
Now the two of them were in a cleared space. Remlout stepped in
an arc, circling Ventress.
Remlout cartwheeled, and then balanced on his primary hands, his
feet tracking Ventress as if they were scan detectors. Those primary
hands were as broad and strong as most feet, and Fizzik knew that
Remlout could stand like this for hours.
Fizzik had seen this once before: Remlout making his formal challenge
of any visitor who had a similar code of warrior ethics—or
seemed to offend his master Trillot. The fact that he had made the
challenge so soon was not remarkable in itself, but Fizzik suspected
that there was something more going on here. He had seen foes attempt
to penetrate Remlout's defense only to be struck with such
nimble violence that Remlout's punishing feet might have been
arms.
Most cowered at the sight.
Ventress was another matter altogether, however. She swayed back
and forth, ripples surging through her body as if she were some kind
of sea frond. Strange: she was clearly female, but she moved more
like an X'Ting male.
Remlout made his attack: left-right-left, feet jabbing out in a
breathtaking three-strike combination. Ventress never shifted her
legs, but somehow avoided the triple threat. Fizzik ran the sequence
back through his mind: Ventress had moved bonelessly, with a spinal
relaxation so extreme that she could have shifted only a centimeter or
less, angling sideways, sliding from the path of each kick as if she had
had all the time in the world.
Something else had happened, something obscured by the flash
and flex of limbs. Fizzik couldn't see it, but Remlout was on the
ground, writhing, face purpling, twisting on his side, hands reaching
around for his shell.
The assassin spasmed, the muscles in his back tightening again.
Remlout's face grew tauter and tauter, more deformed with strain,
and he howled as if in the midst of the most monstrous and debilitating
muscle spasm in history. His entire body arched, and with a series
of rending pops Remlout's supercontracted muscles splintered his
own shell. He collapsed, drooling and almost motionless, his head
wobbling in aimless circles.
A medical droid rolled forward, performed a swift analysis, and
then reported back to Trillot.
Trillot looked at Ventress, eyes gone dark. Fizzik knew that his
employer wanted to censure her, to remind her of her promise, but
dared not.
Ventress might have read Trillot's mind. "He is not dead," she said
matter-of-factly.
"Indeed not," Trillot replied. "And for that I am grateful."
She bowed graciously as several of Trillot's employees picked up
the hapless Remlout and carried him away. With every jostle, he
screamed. They were not as gentle as they might have been, and Fizzik
supposed that Remlout's history as a bully now worked against
him.
He noted that, without another word being said, the body language
of every creature in that room was suddenly more respectful
and alert. It couldn't have worked better for Ventress had she scripted
it. She brushed imaginary dust from her spotless cloak and stood before
Trillot once again. Fizzik counted the pulses at her jawline,
clearly visible but unhurried. A knot of muscle at the base of one tattoo
quivered in unhurried rhythm.
Trillot seemed to have moved on, apparently wishing to change
the subject as quickly as possible. "And there is one more development,"
he said.
"Yes?" Ventress stood immobile. The previous moment's violent
action might have meant nothing at all. But in the name of the
galaxy, what
had she done to poor Remlout? And would he, Fizzik,
ever have the temerity to ask?
"Yes," Trillot said. "Now. As to the Jedi negotiating with our good
lady Regent—"
That, finally, caught the offworlder s attention. "His name?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Now, for the first time, Ventress's attention was riveted. "Obi-
Wan. " Her blue eyes flamed. Again, Fizzik sensed that it might be
worth his life to inquire. "I know this one. He needs to die."
"Please," Trillot implored. "There is business to be conducted.
There may not be time . . ."
Ventress cast a scathingly cold glare upon her host. "Did someone
request your advice? I think not." She closed her eyes, and in stillness
she seemed like the center of a storm. She opened her eyes again. "I
don't believe in coincidence. Obi-Wan and I are here on the same
business." The tip of her pink tongue wet her lips. "I think I will kill
him."
Trillot s faceted gaze met hers, and Trillot lost, looking away. "I
brought you here, thinking that with the Jedi in the capital, we need
special arrangements before the meeting—"
Ventress's head tilted slightly sideways, and her voice was snakequiet.
"No. Obi-Wan will attempt to subvert the Families. He may
already have a spy among them. No. Who knows I am here?"
"The families know Count Dooku is sending a representative,"
Trillot said. "But not who or when."
"Splendid. Leave it thus. First I will destroy Kenobi. Then I speak
business with your precious Five Families."
From her initial flare Ventress had grown abnormally quiet, almost
like a negative space, drawing light and heat from the room around
her. This woman was as dangerous as a sand viper. Never had he seen
her like.
"Yes, of course." What else could Trillot say?
Fizzik mused that he would certainly serve out the rest of his contract,
but when it was complete . . . he wondered if the woman Ventress
might conceivably need an assistant.
t rroottiocol, Chancellor Palpatine had often said, is the oil greasing the
wheels of diplomacy. After an exchange of pleasantries, they retired to
Duris's office for a more private conversation. Three of her advisers
accompanied her, and although they refrained from most interjections,
he knew they were fully engaged with the negotiation process.
Barrister Snoil was debating a minor point as Shar Shar, the little
The Cestus Deception Page 15
