by Greg Keyes
“Is she—dead?”
“I’ve no idea. Mezhan Kwaad supplied the memory data. Only she could know who the donor was—and of course, she’s in no position to tell you.” Her tendrils curled with curiosity. “Did it truly work? You remember being in a crèche, and so on?”
Tahiri nodded. “Some things like crystal, others muddier. I remember once, my crèche-mates—P’loh and Zhul—we took one of the scrubbing korsks and put it in the communal food area. It—”
“Ate all the i’fii,” Nen Yim finished, feeling a strange twisting in her.
“Yes,” Tahiri said. She frowned. “How did you know?”
“Do you remember an incident involving a damaged fighting n’amiq?”
“I—wait. You mean those lizard-bird things the warriors used to fight against each other? I … I found one once. One of the warriors had abandoned it in the grand vivarium because it wouldn’t fight. It was injured and I nursed it back to health. Then one of my crèche-mates took it and fought it—I got there in time to see it die. It was torn to shreds. I thought it kept looking at me, pleading for help.”
The chill deepened.
“What’s wrong?” Tahiri asked.
Nen Yim sighed. “Those are my memories.”
Tahiri stared at her for a long moment without speaking, as if trying to see through her skin. Nen Yim was glad for that, because she had to collect her own thoughts. Mezhan Kwaad, she thought, may the gods devour you twice a day.
Tahiri finally dropped her lids over her green eyes. She seemed to be trying to compose herself.
Or perhaps she was about to kill Nen Yim. The thought of her onetime tormentor sharing the same childhood memories might well be too much for her.
But when Tahiri looked back up, her gaze held only curiosity. “Whatever happened to P’loh?” she asked.
Relief spread down Nen Yim’s backbone. “She was assigned to Belkadan, and killed there,” she replied.
“And Zhul?”
“Zhul is an adept on the worldship Baanu Ghezh, and so far as I know is well.”
“And the young warrior who watched our dormitories in primary shaping?”
We, Nen Yim noted. She said we, as if … “Killed taking Yuuzhan’tar. They say he died bravely, crashing into an infidel ship even as his own disintegrated.”
Tahiri rubbed her forehead. “He was nice,” she said.
“Yes, if such can be said of a warrior.”
“As if I wasn’t confused enough,” Tahiri murmured. “Now I find out I have friends on both sides of the war who died. Maybe I even killed one of them.”
Nen Yim didn’t have a response to that.
“I have a lot of questions to ask you,” Tahiri said. “But now isn’t the time. I need—I need to absorb this.”
“As do I. I knew no more than you.”
Tahiri looked up. “I forgave you, you know. Even before I knew this.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“I know.”
“But I’m glad.”
For another stretched moment, they sat together. Tahiri was the first to speak.
“Uh … you were telling me about the qahsa.”
Nen Yim nodded, happy to return to a subject she could get a grip on. “I extracted nerve cells from Sekotan life and modified them as your cells were modified. It was an easier task, because Sekotan life is genetically similar to our own. I hope, through them, to gain access to the memories of this world, as I might access a qahsa.”
“But if those memories are transmitted through the Force, and Yuuzhan Vong life is outside the Force—”
“Consider, Tahiri. Your brain contains Yuuzhan Vong implants. Yet you still sense and use the Force.”
“Yes!” Tahiri said. “And when my personalities were integrating, Riina used a lightsaber, like a Jedi.” She peered at the qahsa. “So this could work.”
“It could. If one of the many assumptions I’ve made doesn’t turn out to be false. But I suppose now I shall see.”
“May I watch?”
“I would be honored.”
Nen Yim hesitated no longer, but reached for the qahsa and joined with it.
For an instant, there was nothing, and then the world seemed to shatter. Images and data roared through her mind, stars and vacuum, the feel of life on her skin, the tear of wind across her polar regions. Feelings—fear, pain, despair, joy, all on a scale that dwarfed the tiny Yuuzhan Vong brain trying to interpret it. The images came faster, running together, burning in her, casting light into every corner of her brain.
Please, slow down, this will kill me, and I will never understand.
It was something like trying to access the eighth cortex, but both less painful and, she understood, more dangerous. Her thoughts were disintegrating under the onslaught. Nen Yim was vanishing. Something else was hollowing her out. A god was eating her from the inside.
Nen Yim clasped the qahsa and a look of vast surprise twisted her features. Then her body jerked strangely and she fell over, convulsing, the qahsa still gripped between her fingers.
“Nen Yim!” Tahiri cried, starting forward. She reached to help her, to pull the thing from her hands, but stopped.
She didn’t know what was happening. Anything she did might make it worse.
Of course if she did nothing, Nen Yim might die, she thought, as the shaper’s convulsions grew more and more violent.
Carefully, she reached out in the Force. Nen Yim herself was a blank slate, as usual, but in the qahsa, something was happening. It was buzzing and humming with power—Tahiri could feel the flow of it from all around her, a million voices speaking at once.
Black blood began to dribble from Nen Yim’s nostrils.
Okay, Tahiri thought. I have to do something. Breaking Nen Yim’s bond with the qahsa couldn’t make things worse—it was already killing her.
She reached for the qahsa, hoping the Force would guide her.
When she touched it, a world struck her down.
* * *
Suddenly, the stream of sight and smell and tactile data slowed and distilled. The noise dropped away, and Nen Yim found herself in the middle of a quiet moment, a totality rather than a sequence.
She found herself understanding.
And she knew the secret of Zonama Sekot.
She felt like laughing and crying at once.
When Tahiri came to, Nen Yim was daubing her forehead with some sort of damp tissue. It smelled minty.
“What happened?” she mumbled through a tongue that felt like a bloated grysh-worm. Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt.
“I’m not certain,” the shaper admitted. “When I ceased contact with … when it was over, I found you unconscious.”
“I was trying to help you. I touched the qahsa, and there was this light—that’s all I remember.” Her eyes held concern. “Are you okay?”
Nen Yim nodded. “As I have never been.”
“So you made contact with Zonama Sekot?”
Tahiri’s words seemed slow, after what Nen Yim had just been through. The whole world seemed slow, and wonderful. “Not with the living consciousness, no,” she said. “I think you are correct—one must have some connection to the Force for that. But the memories—the memories alone nearly overwhelmed me.” She stood. “I must beg your indulgence. I must meditate now. But I think—I believe I have the solution.”
“To what?”
Nen Yim felt her mouth pull in an unaccustomed smile. She still felt as if in a dream. “Everything that concerns us,” she said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nom Anor drew himself quietly deeper into the forest above the cave. Neither of the females had noticed him. From his angle he couldn’t see them, but he’d heard most of their conversation. If only he’d understood more of it.
What did Nen Yim mean when she said that she had learned the secret of Zonama Sekot?
As he watched, the shaper walked into view, carrying her qahsa, and then out of view again, into the deep bole
s of the bottomland.
Tahiri did not appear, apparently respecting Nen Yim’s desire for solitude.
After a moment, Nom Anor slipped up the ridge, traveled fifty meters or so in the direction he believed Nen Yim had gone, and then descended the hill after her.
Nen Yim gazed at the trees around her, immersed herself in the lisping of wind through their leaves and the insistent purr of insects and chatter of animals. She felt something tight in her relax, release her inhibitions and prejudices, and saw the living world, at last, as alive. Finally she felt herself as alive.
For so many years, she had been the quintessential observer. Even her actions—even the extreme actions that had brought her to this place—had merely been in the service of observation. And yet she had never thought of herself as part of what she observed, as a piece of the great mystery that was the world. She was always outside—outside her people, her caste, her companions.
But now she felt in the center, as everything was its own center, and she was … happy.
“It’s what we always should have been,” she murmured to herself. “Zonama Sekot is—”
“Am I interrupting you?”
She shook herself from her reverie, and then smiled. It was the Prophet.
“You knew all along,” she said. “Somehow, you knew all along.”
“You have discovered something,” the Prophet said.
“Something wonderful,” Nen Yim replied. “I’m eager to share it with all of you.”
“Is it about our redemption?” he asked. To her surprise, she thought he sounded mildly sarcastic.
“It is,” she assured him. “And not merely for the Shamed Ones, but for all of us. But it will not be easy. Shimrra will resist the truth.”
“You’re beginning to sound like me,” the Prophet said.
“I suppose I am,” she replied. “But when you know the truth—”
“Truth is an entirely relative thing,” the Prophet said, stepping a little closer. “And sometimes not even that.” He reached toward his face.
“Why are you removing your masquer?”
“If this is the day of revelation, let us all stand before Zonama Sekot as we truly are. But you’ve interrupted me. I was speaking of truth. My truths, for instance, were all carefully crafted lies.”
His voice had harshened as the masquer unpeeled from his face. “What?” she asked. But then the masquer dropped away to reveal, not the face of a Shamed One, but the perfectly normal face of an executor, except that one of his eyes—
She gasped, and flung up her shaper’s hand. In an instant, the whip-sting hissed from her finger toward the face, but he was faster, much faster, bringing his arm up so that the sting drilled through it. He gasped, snarled, and quickly rotated his arm, wrapping the whip-sting around it so she could not withdraw for another strike.
Then he set his feet and yanked her toward him. She saw the pupil of his eye dilate impossibly wide, and then it spit at her.
Plaeryin bol, she had time to think, before the poison struck her.
Her muscles contracted instantly, and she felt her heartbeat roaring in her ears as she thudded to the ground in what seemed like slow motion. The sounds of the forest seemed, conversely, to rise in pitch, and she saw everything as through a distorted sheet of mica. Her body flopped until she was on her back, and she found the executor standing over her. She could no longer make out the features of his face.
“Know you …” she managed.
“I’m flattered,” he replied. “We met only once, I think.”
“Why?” Her lips were numb, the words torture to form, but she knew if she could keep him talking, the reagent implants in her body would manufacture an antidote to the toxin. She noticed he had released the sting from his arm.
“Why?” he repeated, moving away, apparently searching for something on the ground. “You don’t have long enough for me to explain it, my dear.”
“But Zonama Sekot. I … the answer.”
“I really couldn’t care less,” the false Prophet said. “You’ve gone mad, you and Harrar. Whatever future you would launch from here, I don’t think it would be one I care for. There is only so much a people can change before they lose themselves.”
“Already … lost.” She needed to make him understand. The Yuuzhan Vong had lost their way long before coming to this galaxy.
“I really don’t think that’s your judgment to make,” the Prophet said diffidently. She remembered his real name, suddenly. Nom Anor. “After I’m done with you,” he continued, “Zonama Sekot won’t be far behind. You see, you gave me access to your qahsa, and contrary to what you probably think, I am well able to understand its contents.”
“No. You’re mad.” She was feeling a little stronger. Sensation was returning to her extremities. She felt her whipsting, trailing on the ground, unretracted.
He reached down for something and picked it up. A rock.
“You’ll have to excuse me if I’m humble enough to doubt that a poison of my manufacture will kill you, Nen Yim. You truly are a genius. You are a terrible loss to our people.”
He came toward her, hefting the rock in one hand. Her heartbeat blurred into a steady vibration as with every bit of strength she had left she thrust her sting at him.
He swung the rock down, and something thundered, and one side of her head felt huge.
The second blow seemed softer. She saw again the rush of images that Zonama Sekot had shown her, the beauty of a world in harmony, a harmony so sublime that the Yuuzhan Vong had no word for it—though once they must have.
She saw the back of her own hand, the normal one, the one she had been born with. She was suddenly very young, back in the crèche, noticing it for the first time, fascinated that she could make the little things on it move.
Does Tahiri remember this, too? she wondered.
She wiggled the fingers, trying to guess how they worked. She could not seem to move them very much.
Nom Anor gasped as the sting ran him through, but used the pain to drive the rock into Nen Yim’s head a second time. The forest floor was already black with blood, and he was spattered with it. He could taste it, somehow, though he hadn’t remembered opening his mouth.
He hit her a third time and fell back, pulling at the thing in him, wondering if she had managed to kill him, too. He’d been stupid—he should have killed her more quickly. He was lucky the plaeryin bol venom worked at all, upon reflection. He was never more grateful that he had chosen to replace his lost implant.
He was relieved to discover the sting had gone through the meat of his side. She had missed any organs, and he didn’t think the sting was poisoned. Still, it hurt, as did the hole she had made in his arm. He’d been lucky—if he hadn’t surprised her, things might well have gone very differently.
Ignoring his oozing wounds, he reached down and picked up the qahsa, examining it with a critical eye. Was this her original qahsa, or the thing she had used to contact the memories of Zonama Sekot? He fervently hoped it was the former, and that she had brought it along to record her new discovery. If it was the other one, he would have to go back to the cave and face Tahiri. That was a very risky proposition—he would have to take her from behind. He had only a partly depleted plaeryin bol and a rock, no match for her Jedi powers and a lightsaber. She could take his rock from him and club him to death with it from ten meters away.
To his relief, it was the qahsa he sought—the one Nen Yim had keyed him to. He took it and left the clearing, quickly climbing back up the ridge. Over the last few days, he had stolen the other components he needed to carry out his plan—the only thing lacking was the protocol itself, which was too complicated to memorize. Now he had it.
He faced out toward the gigantic hyperdrive guides. He still had challenges ahead. There were still Corran and Harrar to deal with, and Tahiri would surely come after him.
And he had little time. In less than a day-cycle, the ships sent by Shimrra would be here. By that time, Zon
ama Sekot had to be dead, or at the very least crippled. He intended to see it done.
When sundown drew near and Nen Yim hadn’t returned, Tahiri went looking for her. She hadn’t seen the Prophet in a while, either, and suddenly worried that Nen Yim’s performance had been just that—a ruse to create an opportunity for their departure.
She went in the general direction the shaper had taken. Above her, clouds were gathering, and the tall boras creaked in a quickening wind. Leaves whirled and danced, and a scent like electricity and resin crackled in the humid air.
She found Nen Yim in a small clearing. A trail of blood showed that she’d crawled a few meters before collapsing. As Tahiri knelt beside her, she saw the shaper’s head was a messy ruin. Her one remaining eye was still open, however, if unfocused. Her breath came in faint wheezes.
“Nen Yim,” Tahiri said gently. “Who did this?”
“Prophet. He’s not—” She quivered at the effort of saying the words. “… Nom Anor.”
“Nom Anor?” Tahiri looked quickly around, her hand grasping for her lightsaber. Nom Anor, the one who had tried to kill them at Yag’Dhul, had been right under her nose? A sick chill ran through her.
Nen Yim shivered and gasped.
“I—I have a medpac back at the camp,” Tahiri said. “Just hang on, and I’ll be back.”
“No—I’ve stayed too long already. I can’t—He thought I was dead. He’s going to kill Sekot. You have to stop him.”
“Kill Sekot?”
“Has my qahsa. I brought protocols, in case Sekot was a danger to us.”
“Where’s he gone?”
“He will seek—drive mechanism. The center that controls it can be sabotaged to make the drive fail cataclysmically. Probably made-thing drive, if the ship is an example. Stop him.”
“Of course I will. But you have to help me.”
“No.” Nen Yim’s hand came up. “Leave me here. Let me become a part of this.”
