"All right," Anakin said. The vibrating seeds were a real distraction now. His head was starting to hurt from their jostling.
Jabitha patted a few of his restless seeds, and they made little drum sounds. Her touch seemed to soothe them for the moment. "The seeds take root in a nursery protected by the oldest boras. Then they go through the forging. That's really something to see! The boras drop-dead limbs and old dry leaves and these special little pellets all over the nursery, until the entire open area is covered. The seeds just dig around and eat and eat and eat for hours, growing all the time. When the seeds are big enough, the oldest boras call down lightning from the sky-just call it down, with uplifted branches. The branches actually have iron tips! The lightning forks down and sets what's left of the nursery heap ablaze, and the seeds kind of cook inside, though they aren't killed. Something changes and they split open. The seeds have a way of expanding outward, almost exploding, making these puffed-out bubbles, shapes with thin walls of tissue- like the lamina, only even more malleable and alive.
"Other b oras called annealers have these long spadelike shaping arms that sculpt the exploded seeds. The air is thick with this perfumey smell, like cakes in an oven . . . It's very complicated, but when they're done, the seeds become different kinds of boras, and they can move out of the nursery and take up their places in the tampasi."
"When did the settlers learn to control the shaping?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Before I was born," Jabitha said. "My grandfather was the first Magister. He and my grandmother studied the boras and made friends with them-that's a really long story-and they were allowed to watch the changes in a tampasi nursery. After a while, the boras invited them in as shapers-but it took them twenty years to learn the craft. They taught it to my father. A few years later, the rest of the settlers came from Ferro."
"The image we saw of you in the Magister's house was not a hologram," Obi-Wan said. "It was a mental image, projected by some extraordinary will."
Jabitha looked uncomfortable. "I guess that's my father, then," she said. She turned and looked over the basket's railing. "Those are wild-type boras," she said. "We call them rogues. They don't have any nursery affiliations. They scavenge off the communal fields."
Anakin again saw white triangular flying shapes, as well as many-legged creeping cylinders, bigger than a human, moving in and out of caves in the walls of the valley. Small avians twinkled in the valley shadow like night wisps on Tatooine. Dark tentacles lashed out from the shadows beneath overhangs to snatch at them.
This part of the valley seemed engaged in a much more familiar planetary life cycle-eating and being eaten.
"Do they ever rejoin with the communal boras?" Anakin asked.
"No. They're called lost ones," Jabitha said. "Father thinks some of them escape from the burning nurseries and get shaped elsewhere, maybe by other rogues. But they're useful. I think they keep the communes on their toes. Sometimes they fly in and snatch seeds, to eat or to raise as their own. I've even seen clouds of smaller wild-types come in during the forging, before the lightning is called down, and snatch up the branches and scraps and pellets intended for the seeds. There aren't many rogues overall. This part of the valley is pretty thick with them, however."
"Have you ever shaped anything?" Anakin asked.
"I helped my mother make our house a couple of years ago. We had three seed-partners Mother had bonded with, and I helped her use the carvers and prods . . . but that's getting ahead of things!"
Anakin shook his head. "It all sounds terrific. But I still don't see how you can turn seeds into spacecraft."
"You have to be patient," Jabitha said petulantly. She looked at Obi-Wan. "My father made the first spacecraft when he was a boy. They used the engines from their original colony ship. That was just after my grandfather went looking for more settlers. We wanted all types of people here."
"We have met only Ferroans," Obi-Wan said.
"There are others. Quite a few now. They work in the factory valley."
"Why did your father decide to sell these spacecraft?"
Jabitha ignored Obi-Wan's question. "Look! We're getting close."
Sheekla Farrs stepped forward as the airship was pulled into a docking chute and tied down. Jabitha leapt over the railing onto the landing and helped Anakin out of the gondola. Obi-Wan she left to his own devices. Anakin seemed very interested in everything she had to say.
Jabitha could become a distraction for Anakin, but likely a welcome one, Obi-Wan decided. She would take his mind off ships and help him come to a better understanding of social relationships. Anakin's social upbringing, with the exception of his times spent with the other affiliates and auxiliaries, had been piecemeal at best. A few normal encounters with people his own age could be very helpful-and this girl seemed refreshingly normal. When she is actually physically present!
But Obi-Wan was still concerned about so many unanswered questions. They were still no closer to understanding what had happened to Vergere.
The night before, while Anakin slept, Obi-Wan had visited the library, trying to keep his seed-partners from chewing on the texts. The library had told him nothing he needed to know.
Obi-Wan Kenobi hated knots, puzzles, and conundrums. As Anakin-and Qui-Gon-had reminded him so often, he was a linear kind of guy. But he understood something very well.
The Force was never a nursemaid.
Chapter 31
Though at times a very patient man, Raith Sienar itched to get on with his mission. Instinct told him time was of the essence, that such an open world, with such a valuable secret, was like a ripe carcass under a sky full of winged scavengers.
Not that he had ever contended with winged scavengers. Sienar preferred the high-tech comforts of a well-developed planet, whose wilderness had long since been tamed. But he was an educated man and he knew a scavenger when he saw one.
He felt like a scavenger himself, right now.
The first of many.
He looked down on the small image of Kett that flickered to bluish life on his command table. "Yes, Captain?"
Kett seemed uncomfortable. "I have complied with your orders and released the Blood Carver in your ship, Commander."
"All went well?" Sienar had introduced Ke Daiv to his sponsoring "pilot" in the small shuttle docking bay where the private starship had been loaded. Ke Daiv had seemed uncomfortable working with a droid. Sienar had not bothered to explain how he had come by this droid, or how the droid had become a sponsor of clients for Zonama Sekot. Some secrets were best kept.
"Yes, sir."
"And he is well away, heading toward Zonama Sekot?"
"Yes, Commander."
"And no one on the planet has detected our squadron, this far out in the system?"
"No, Commander."
Sienar breathed a sigh of relief. "Then we will await word from Ke Daiv before we make our next move. You seem unhappy, Captain Kett."
"May I speak freely, Commander?"
"Indeed, please do."
"None of this is in accord with our original orders, as outlined by Tarkin."
"And so?"
"I hope to be blunt without causing offense. This is a delicate time, Commander. My ships were once part of an honorable and effective defense force assigned to protect ships belonging to members of the Trade Federation. Our record goes back centuries, with never a blot."
"A record to be proud of, Captain."
"I do not know how we will be treated as part of the Republic defense forces. I hope the integration will be smooth, and that I may continue my honorable career."
Honor, Sienar thought, is much overstated in that record. You took part in the worst of the Trade Federation transgressions. You personally held planetary systems at blasterpoint, forced concessions, escorted contraband drugs and machines, and transported immigrants whose bodies were laced with time-delay biological weapons. . .You will be lucky if people like Tarkin can divert the attention of the senatorial arm of justice and
save you from a summary trade-crimes trial. But he maintained a sympathetic face for the captain.
"I do not trust this Blood Carver, sir. His people are notorious for fiery tempers and dirty deeds."
"He was handpicked by Tarkin. You have in your orders that he is to be accorded complete cooperation in whatever he might do."
Including assassination of your commander should things go wrong.
"I am aware of that, sir."
"Then what is your point, Captain Kett?"
"I wish to communicate my unease, sir."
"So noted. I hope you will maintain your vigilance."
"Yes, sir."
Sienar disconnected, and the image blipped into nothing.
Using the Blood Carver as a client was not a brilliant stratagem, but it would serve. Judging from all he had learned from the pilot of the ruined Sekotan craft now in his deep-city hangar, before that pilot had died . . .
Things Sienar had not revealed to Tarkin-he'd even lied to Tarkin about how he obtained the ship. Facts that he had learned long before Tarkin had in his slippery way tried to involve Sienar in this overblown and all-too-obvious scheme.
From the Gensang pilot's dying words, encouraged by subtle Agrilat drugs, Sienar had concluded that Zonama Sekot's settlers were hungry for something, or just plain greedy-that they had found a treasure of incredible proportions, and instead of arranging for a well-orchestrated exploitation, with bidding wars conducted between members of the Trade Federation, they had taken a decidedly risky path, catering to the galaxy's spoiled little rich boys, and engaging in a remarkable but ultimately futile quest to hide themselves.
The settlers needed capital to buy things. Expensive things. They needed it quickly and quietly, and as soon as possible.
The pilot, a newly wealthy Gensang spice thief whose forebears had smuggled for over a thousand generations with no great success, had picked up a curious sort of compact protocol droid in a gambling palace on Serpine.
That droid had been lost to the Gensang by a reckless and exceedingly wealthy young Rodian in a life-or-death, total-forfeit game. Life had not been the young Rodian's fate. Instead, he had rolled a fist-sized ruby joom-ball along the classic spiral chute, the joom-ball had fallen into the mouth of a cranky and venom-drooling old Passar, the Passar had blurted in its disgusting and bubbling voice a prophecy insulting to the extremely superstitious emperor-governor of Serpine, and the Rodian had been cut to pieces by outraged palace guards. Everything in his possession, including his spacecraft hold full of credit bonds, had been handed over to the Gensang, who had reveled in his run of luck.
The small droid that had come with this booty had told its new master a fantastic tale. The droid claimed it was fully qualified to take customers to a mysterious world that made the fastest starships etc. etc. etc., a journey that the Rodian had not lived long enough to make.
The Gensang had been intr igued. He had passed a puzzling social-psychological test conducted by the droid, showed the droid part of his cache of bonds, more than sufficient, and had been warned he would experience the adventure of a lifetime on an exotic world, some details of which he would soon after almost completely forget.
It had been the Gensang's misfortune to buy his Sekotan ship and run afoul of thieves. They had taken the Gensang and the droid and the disintegrating remains of the ship and sold them to Sienar's agents for a tidy sum. Sienar's agents had then killed the thieves.
Such was the endless roil of greed and money. Perhaps the Blood Carver's people were right to hold such disdain for wealth.
Sienar lay on his stomach by the long sitting room window, now open to the stars, with Zonama Sekot eternally in view. Before his communication with Kett, he had finished a light repast of biscuits and steamed Alderaan wine, one of the few tastes he shared with Tarkin.
Generally Sienar was unimpressed by food and drink, and almost never was he tempted by other fleshly pursuits. What got his blood going was power. The power to design and build extraordinary things. The power to make one's old friends sorry they had ever tried a clumsy double cross.
I, who have built ships for the galaxy's most powerful . .. I, of all people, manipulated by a second-rate military student, deceiving himself that he sees more clearly .than his intellectual superior the shape of a new order!
The very thought made his lips curl and his eyes narrow to dark slashes.
Sienar had let the protocol droid perform its tests on the Blood Carver. As he had suspected, the Blood Carver had passed handily-elegance, education, good family, and the sight of so many credits piled on the floor of the commander's cabin had tripped all the droid's little circuits.
Foolish leaders on a lost world, trusting such judgments to a protocol droid!
Now the droid was flying with Ke Daiv in Sienar's personal starcraft to Zonama Sekot. If Ke Daiv brought back one of the planet's wondrous ships, Sienar was ready with all the surgical and mindwipe tools necessary to turn the Blood Carver into his own personal chauffeur. He would analyze the living Sekotan craft, learn its secrets, and reverse Tarkin's game with such stunning speed that his old friend would never recover.
And that could give Sienar the power and influence necessary to cut his own deals with any emerging political power.
Delicious. Absolutely delicious. Much better than even the choicest of Alderaan wines, warmed in the finest gold-flecked crystal over a muskwood fire.
Sienar gave another great sigh. The game was truly interesting now. Dear Captain Kett, he thought, my honor is no purer than your own. But I at least am not a hypocrite.
Chapter 32
Reaching the docking ramp, it turned out, was just the beginning of a new leg of their journey. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Jabitha, and Gann descended the carven steps of a steeply slanting volcanic tube to a low-ceilinged cavern set with dimly glowing lanterns.
They could hear the sound of rushing water.
"An underground river," Anakin said. Jabitha nodded, reached up, and touched the top of his head. He flinched, and she smiled.
"It's just a way of saying how smart you are! But we have to go some distance before we reach the river."
Obi-Wan had never enjoyed being deep underground. He much preferred the openness of space to the depths of a planet, though he had never admitted this to anyone.
After another twenty minutes, they emerged from the end of the tube into a wide round chamber carved out of the basalt. A stone slab jutted into swift water that flowed around the slab with a guttural rumble. Regular and frequent splashes darkened the rough surface of the rock. A slender boat floated in a calm spot in the slab's shadow. Ahead, they could dimly make out a mouth leading even deeper into the planet's crust.
They boarded the slender boat, and two male attendants pushed them away from the dock. Gann then poled the boat out of the calm, into the swift water. The river rushed them down the broad, dark channel.
The seed-partners were still. Anakin was concerned that they might be sick or even dead. Jabitha reassured them this was not the case. "They know we're going to see the forgers and shapers. It's a serious moment for a seed."
"How do they know?" Anakin asked.
"This river feeds the factory valley," she said. "It's carried seeds for millions of years. They just recognize it." "What are the Jentari?" Obi-Wan asked. "Grandfather trained them first. Trained them, or made them, or both! They're very large shapers that work for us and with us. You'll see." She sounded very proud.
As their eyes adjusted, they spotted long red lines glowing on the tunnel ceiling, well above the water. Gann played a torch beam on the rock, revealing unbroken, close-bundled tendrils of red and green. "Sekot sends these through the rivers and tunnels and caverns," he said reverently. "All parts of the planet are connected."
"Except for the south," Jabitha said quietly. "And why not there?" Obi-Wan asked. "I don't know," she said. "Father said it was all finished down there."
"That's where his house is," Anakin said.
&nb
sp; Gann broke in. "The south died of a disease just a few months ago, the entire hemisphere," he murmured. His face appeared ashen, features wavering in the moving lights from the boat lantern and his torch.
His hands are shaking, Obi-Wan observed.
"Was it a war?" Anakin asked.
Gann tightened his jaw muscles and shook his head. "No," he said. "Just a disease."
"You shouldn't talk any more about that," Jabitha said. "Even I don't know what happened down there."
"Does your father know?" Obi-Wan asked.
She gave him a veiled look that held no small amount of anger. Best not to pursue the matter.
The river journey lasted several hours. Anakin and Jabitha sat on the bench at the bow, talking. Obi-Wan allowed his eyes to linger on the tendrils that glowed like tracer shells frozen in flight.
Wherever their destination was, a Sekotan air transport could have easily carried them there in a few minutes. The settlers were hoping to keep a few secrets from their clients. Or perhaps they understood the value of ritual.
Personally Obi-Wan found ritual a bore. Jedi training was remarkably free from it-only the greatest moments were so marked.
When conversation with Anakin lagged, Jabitha worked intricate geometric puzzles from a small lamina box she carried in her cloak. When she placed the box on the bench of the boat, Anakin noticed that a corner of the box fastened to the lamina of the bench. And when she finished a puzzle, the pieces re-formed into new shapes. She would never have to work the same puzzle twice.
Communication, coordination, constant touch-these people had harnessed a marvelous network of living creatures that seemed, all of them, intimately related, like a huge family.
How much more disturbing it must have been, then, for literally half the family to die of disease! Or to face the destruction caused by whatever energies had gouged the planet to bedrock along the equator.