by Greg Keyes
Tears were blurring Tahiri’s vision. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
“You are a part of this,” she said.
“So are you. And part of me. Don’t forget.” Nen Yim gasped and her body seized. “Wanted to tell you about Sekot. It’s what—” But that was the last thing she said. Her mouth kept working for a time, but no words came out. A few moments later, her pulse was gone.
Tahiri stood grimly, anger and grief coursing through her. Jacen had said you could draw power from anger without turning to the dark side. That evil was praxis, not the emotions that drove it.
But there had to be a trick in that. Because what she wanted most to do at that moment was cut the Prophet’s heart out—and not too quickly.
He would be headed to where Corran and Harrar had gone. Was Harrar in on this?
Then there would be two hearts to carve.
TWENTY-NINE
Corran stood gazing up at the immense metal vanes, trying to imagine the engineering job that had produced them. Now that they were near, he could see more of the engines—three vast pits that must be the exhaust vents of ion or even fusion drives.
It smacked of the Empire, when everything came in deluxe sizes. Was this whole planet some sort of super-weapon? It had destroyed the better part of a Yuuzhan Vong fleet, after all, not the easiest thing to do.
“You know what these are, don’t you?” Harrar said in an accusatory tone. “They look like made-things.”
Might as well get it over with, Corran thought. “Yes. These are part of a hyperdrive engine.”
“A hyper—the planet can be moved?”
“It has been moved. It took the Jedi quite some time to find it because it had left the system where it was last recorded.”
“I see now why you avoided bringing me here,” Harrar said. “No, don’t deny it—it was clear that you wished to keep this from me for as long as possible.”
“I don’t deny that,” Corran said. “I thought it might—cloud the issue of Zonama Sekot.”
“You underestimate my ability to reason,” Harrar said. “Do you think all Yuuzhan Vong react without consideration? You insult me.”
“I’m sorry,” Corran said. “No insult was intended.”
Harrar shrugged. “You should have told me sooner, but you did not. Now I know. The issue is moot—unless you are still holding information back.” He looked out over the nearest pit. “We move planets,” he said. “But we use dovin basals. There is no—how would you say it? Push-back?”
“Counterreaction,” Corran said.
“Yes. How can a planet stand the stress of the sort of engines you use?”
“Not without cost, I would think.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Nen Yim mentioned recent mass extinctions. Using this engine may have been the cause of them.”
“The danger they were fleeing must have been great,” Harrar said.
Corran laughed. Harrar gave him a puzzled look.
“We think they were fleeing you,” Corran explained. “The Yuuzhan Vong.”
The priest seemed to absorb that. “Shimrra fears Zonama Sekot,” he said. “Zonama Sekot fears the Yuuzhan Vong. What can be the explanation?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Nor do I understand how this planet’s consciousness, if it indeed has one, can countenance this—thing—driven into its very surface.”
“Perhaps Sekot believes that life and technology can coexist peacefully,” Corran suggested.
“Perhaps,” Harrar said dubiously. “Or perhaps the infi—the sentients who dwell here have enslaved the planet and imposed this technology upon it.”
“That’s also a possibility,” Corran admitted. “But as Nen Yim might say, we’re not going to find the truth by merely speculating.”
“What was your reason for coming to this place, if you already knew what this was?”
“I’m looking for a communications device, so I can contact the Ferroans or the ship in orbit. Otherwise, we could be stuck here for a very long time.”
“You could have told me that, too,” Harrar said. “Did you think I would object?”
“To falling into the hands of the enemy? Maybe.”
“I placed myself in your hands,” Harrar reminded him. “I trust you have enough honor to make certain we are not made prisoners, but will be paroled to return to our people.”
“I promise to do the best I can,” Corran said, “but the matter might be taken out of my hands. Anyway, are you sure you want to go back? I doubt that Shimrra will be very pleased with you.”
“That risk is mine,” Harrar said, “and that of the others if they choose to take it. I feel that you would do the same in my place, Corran Horn.”
“Probably.”
Harrar searched about with his gaze. “Where do we look for this communications device of yours?”
“I don’t know. I figure there must be some sort of maintenance access to the hyperdrive core. I’m hoping we’ll find something—or someone—there. If not, I’m fresh out of ideas.”
“Where should we look? Down one of those pits?”
Corran chuckled wryly. “Climb down the exhaust vent of an engine big enough to move a planet? No, thanks. It should be someplace obvious, say at the base of one of these vanes.”
They found that access with relatively little trouble—a large metallic dome was half buried in rock about twenty meters from the northernmost tower. Corran could see that the top was built to open so that large parts and equipment could be shuttled in and out. A more modest ground-level entrance wouldn’t open for them, but Corran was able to solve that little problem after a few minutes with his lightsaber. He hoped the Ferroans would go easy on vandals, if they had good cause.
Within, they found an enormous shaft plunging straight down toward the planet’s core. Faint track lights illuminated the floor as they entered.
“The maintenance area will be down there,” Corran said, gesturing down the shaft. “This could take a while, if it’s as big as it looks.”
“I suggest we begin, in that case,” Harrar said.
Nom Anor watched the entrance to the huge hyperdrive for a long while before starting down. It was clear that the Jedi and Harrar had gained entrance using the Jedi’s weapon. What wasn’t clear was where they were exactly, and what they were doing. Still, it was convenient for him that they had opened the way.
He entered and listened carefully, but heard only the wretched hum of machinery. Perhaps they were not within, after all, but had moved on, or were returning to camp by a different route. Darkness was falling, and a storm coming. He could not wait forever.
He’d replaced the masquer on his face. If he met them, he would simply say he had followed out of curiosity.
So determined, he entered the building and began searching for a way down, where logic dictated he might find what he sought.
He found a series of lifts not very different from those he had encountered on a dozen infidel worlds. He stepped in, found the control that would send it down, and reached for it.
At that moment, he heard another lift arrive, coming up from below. He froze, wishing he had a cloak of Nuun to make him invisible.
The door to his lift closed just as the other opened, and he heard the voices of Harrar and Corran. He quickly stabbed his finger at the control to pause his descent.
“I might be able to piece something together with this stuff,” Corran was saying. “But it will take a while.”
“Perhaps we should fire the engines,” Harrar said. “That should get their attention.”
A chill went up Nom Anor’s spine. From his tone, Harrar was clearly joking, but that was insane for two reasons. The first was that Harrar never joked. The second was that no Yuuzhan Vong would casually jest about using machine technology. There was no possible humor in that.
Which meant that what he’d told Nen Yim was true—the planet was driving Harrar mad. No wonder Shimrra feared it.
When the vo
ices had faded beyond hearing, he touched the descent control and the lift began to whir down its shaft. It took what seemed a long time, so long that the air actually seemed to get thicker. He was beginning to wonder if he would simply continue on to the other side of the planet when the car finally arrived in an immense room. Banks of machines and control panels gleamed in the faint light from the floor.
He called all the lifts down, wedged them open with some crates he found stacked nearby, and began his search.
He had very little technical knowledge concerning hyperdrive cores, but he didn’t really need any. What he was looking for was an interface, something where the biosphere of Sekot met the cold metal of the infidel machines.
He sat cross-legged on a console and took out Nen Yim’s qahsa, searching through it for the data on the Sekotan ship. There was a long entry on the engine moorings, the analog of which was certainly what he was looking for.
The ship had been grown around a sort of neural net. The hyperdrive was probably connected to something similar. So where would that be?
He suspected he had a long search ahead of him.
Halfway back to the camp, Corran heard a rustling in the underbrush and saw Tahiri, moving at a fast trot. She had her lightsaber in her hand, and he could sense her anger like a torch in the high wind.
“Tahiri,” he called.
She whirled at the sound of her name. Her eyes looked wild.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“Nen Yim is dead,” she said, her voice as heavy and flat as a sheet of duracrete. “The Prophet killed her.”
“The Prophet?” Harrar asked. “Are you certain?”
She turned on Harrar almost as if she meant to attack him. “She told me so herself, before she died,” she snapped. “She’d just made some sort of discovery about Sekot, something important. She told me she wanted to be alone and think. She was gone for a long time, so I went looking for her. I found her. He’d done a pretty good job on her head with a rock. But she managed to tell me that he’s planning on killing Sekot.”
“Killing?…” Corran began, then put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay. Slow down. Tell me everything she told you. And start with this discovery of hers.”
He listened carefully as Tahiri went through the story. Telling it again did not seem to calm her down.
“But the Prophet believes this planet is the salvation of his followers,” Corran said. “Why would he want to destroy it?”
“Because he isn’t the Prophet,” Tahiri replied. “He’s Nom Anor.”
“Nom Anor?” Corran and Harrar repeated in unison.
Harrar closed his eyes and ground his knuckles into his forehead. “Nom Anor,” he muttered. “Of course.”
Corran certainly knew who Nom Anor was, and not just by reputation. The executor had very nearly killed him—and Tahiri and Anakin—in the Yag’Dhul system.
“What do you mean, of course?” he asked.
“Don’t you see?” Harrar said. “Nom Anor is the Prophet.”
“I don’t see at all,” Corran replied. “Nom Anor was the agent behind half the Yuuzhan Vong invasions in this galaxy. Why would he be a Prophet of the Shamed Ones?”
“Because he failed too often,” Harrar replied. “After the disaster at Ebaq Nine, Shimrra called for his sacrifice—after which he vanished.”
“And became the Prophet of the Shamed Ones, maybe in a bid to take the throne by revolution,” Tahiri guessed. “What does it matter? We have to find him.”
“No, wait,” Corran said. “Harrar, you acted as if you should have guessed his identity.”
“I didn’t know, if that’s what you mean,” Harrar replied. “But—he did not act like a Shamed One. I could tell he had once been an intendant, and suspected he wore the masquer for fear Nen Yim and I would recognize him from his former life. And he seemed, at times, familiar. I can’t believe he made such a fool of me.”
“He fooled us all,” Corran said. “The question is—why would he want to destroy Sekot?”
“To win back Shimrra’s good graces,” Harrar snarled.
“But he’ll be stuck here, with the rest of us,” Corran said, then immediately felt stupid. “No,” he said. “They’re coming after him, aren’t they?”
“The lump under his arm,” Harrar said. “If that was Nom Anor, it was no disfigurement. It must have been a villip.”
“But Nen Yim released a virus to destroy anything like that,” Tahiri pointed out.
“She did?” Harrar said. “I shouldn’t be surprised. She was resourceful, that one. But if it was sealed in a q’et—a sort of living bag for preserving other organisms—it may have survived.”
“Which means we have to find him fast,” Tahiri said. “So what are we waiting for?”
“For you to calm down, for one thing,” Corran said. “I’m not having an apprentice of mine run into battle in your state.”
“I’m okay,” Tahiri said, defensively.
“No, you’re angry. Remember our deal. Especially the part where you have to do what I say.”
She nodded, then took a deep breath. “I’ll try. It’s hard.”
“The Yuuzhan Vong belief in revenge is very strong,” Harrar said.
“I’m aware of that,” Tahiri said. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel right to fight it.”
“Anger always makes you feel good at the time,” Corran said. “Makes you feel bigger than yourself, makes you feel that everything you do is justified. But it’s a trap.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she looked calmer. “Thank you,” she said.
“Good.” He scratched his beard. It was no longer neatly trimmed, but sprawling all over his face. “We didn’t see the Prophet or anyone else at the hyperdrive assembly.”
“He might have easily slipped past us,” Harrar said. “While we were searching for a communications device.”
“You’re right. We’d better go back.”
It was beginning to rain as they swept the area around the vanes, and then entered the repair complex, lightsabers ready. They didn’t find anyone at the entry level.
But they did find the turbolifts jammed.
“He’s down there,” Corran said.
“Well, we can’t wait for him to come back up,” Tahiri said. “By then, it’ll be too late.”
“Do you have any idea what he intends to do?” Corran asked.
“None,” Tahiri said.
“Nen Yim once spoke of protocols already in the possession of shapers that seemed intended for use against the biology of this planet,” Harrar said. “I’ve no doubt she developed weapons of her own, as well.”
“Are you saying Nen Yim planned to destroy Sekot?” Corran asked.
“I think she initially believed, like Shimrra, that Zonama Sekot was a threat to our people,” the priest said. “As did I. But I believe that both of us came to a different conclusion.” He sighed. “I wish I could have spoken to her about her new discovery.”
“She said she had the solution to all our problems,” Tahiri said.
Corran noticed her eyes were damp. “Maybe she thought that solution was killing Sekot,” he ventured.
Tahiri shook her head. “I don’t think so, Master.”
“Right, well, there’s only one way to really find out, isn’t there?” Corran peered down the shaft. “There ought to be a manual way down, in case the power cuts out, but I don’t see anything.”
“They probably use some sort of flitter or hoverlift,” Tahiri pointed out. “That’s too far down to go by ladder.”
“Yes, it is,” Corran said, eyes still searching. “But I think I do see a way. It’s just not one I like.”
To Nom Anor’s delight, the search was not nearly as long as he feared it would be. In fact, the object of his search was so large and obvious that he overlooked it at first.
In the center of the chamber was a knob about twice as tall as he was, and about the same in diameter. At first glance, it seemed
to be wrapped in some sort of rough fabric, but a closer inspection showed that it was heavily wound in very fine threads. At the base of the thing, the threads spread out like fine roots and dug into the damp, exposed stone of the floor.
He’d found it, as easily as that. The threads were precisely like the filaments of the neural net on the ship. There were just more of them—many more.
He quickly unpacked the incubator, a wet, fleshy device about the size of his hand. He linked it to the qahsa and accessed a protocol that was both a genetic and developmental blueprint. A stream of chemical and telepathic data moved from the qahsa to the incubator. The latter quivered and began to vibrate ever so slightly. Nom Anor allowed himself a smile. The incubator was already transforming genetic blueprints into living organisms. The result would be a soldier virus that would invade the neural integuments and corrupt their ability to carry data. The result should be a feedback explosion in the core. That would not only render the planet unable to travel, but sear a third of the biosphere away, as well. If that did not kill Sekot, it should at least distract it long enough for him to get away. Shimrra could send a small number of ships to finish the job.
He had only to hide the incubator and leave.
He pushed experimentally at the filaments. They were too tough to break, but they pushed readily aside, so that he was able to bury the organism deep within. When he was finished, the filaments slowly returned to their places, leaving no sign of what he had done. Even if the Jedi were following him, they would have to not only know what he had done—and he couldn’t imagine how they could—but also find the incubator, a task that might take hours.
By then it would be too late—the microbes would be leaking out and invading the strands. Ten hours after that, things would start going very wrong for Zonama Sekot. But by then, Nom Anor would no longer be on the planet.
He removed his disguise, produced his villip, and stroked it. A moment later, the fierce visage of a warrior appeared.
“I am Ushk Choka,” the villip informed him. “You are the one I have come for?”
“Yes,” Nom Anor replied. “What is your present position?”
