CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Anakin rode in the belly of the beast.
Literally. And it stank. The Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of an organic gill, the gnullith Anakin wore did nothing to buffer the confused and odious smells of river crawlfish, silman eel, rotting wetweed, the viscous mucus that coated the inside of the vangaak like jelly—or of the breather itself, which insisted on reminding him, by slowly and constantly writhing, that he had a live animal shoving its tentacles down his throat and nostrils.
The only bright spot was that he hadn’t eaten anything for a day and a half.
It had been better, earlier, when the trawling-boat creature was still making its catch, swimming with its mouth expanded into a flattened funnel ten meters across. The water passed through and out the filtering membranes in its posterior, acting as the underwater equivalent of a fresh breeze. Now that the belly was bloated, the lips had sucked in on themselves, and water flow was cut to the minimum necessary to sustain the live catch squirming all around him.
He was reminded of the story of how his mother and father had met, on the Death Star, a story he’d heard far too many times. Seconds after seeing each other for the first time, they’d ended up fleeing stormtroopers into a garbage hold.
“What an incredible smell you’ve discovered,” his father had sarcastically told his future wife. He hadn’t been very happy with her at the time.
I’ve found a better smell than you did, Mom, he thought.
The thought of Rapuung above, in the warm breezes of Yavin 4 and no doubt delighted over the discomfort of his infidel ally, did nothing to improve Anakin’s mood. If he’d had a working lightsaber, he would have long ago slashed his way through the vangaak even if it meant facing a hundred Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Some things made death seem pretty.
He immediately regretted that thought. There were beings in the galaxy who endured misery that made what he was going through look like a day in a garden on Ithor.
Well, back when Ithor had gardens.
Still, he was more than ready to get out. He passed the time by getting to know his bellymates, gently convincing the more adventurous ones he wasn’t something to nibble on. He tried to relax and forget his body and the unpleasant sensory data it was processing. He found Tahiri—in pain, but alive. He thought he briefly found Jaina, then lost her again. Time stretched and ceased to have meaning.
Some strange motion jarred him. Had he been asleep? It was difficult to tell.
The motion came again, a sudden contraction that squeezed water-dwellers against him.
Then a stronger contraction hurtled him forward, blasting into the light in a stream of fluid and fish, then plunging into new water. Something strong caught his arm and hauled him up, and he found himself staring blearily into the face of Vua Rapuung.
The warrior set him down on his feet and detached the gnullith. Anakin coughed up water and then took deep, grateful breaths. He looked up at Rapuung.
“I’ve just been vomited by a fish,” he said.
Vua Rapuung cocked his head. “Obviously. Why are you telling me?”
“Never mind. Where are we?” The vangaak had disgorged its prey at the narrow end of a wedge-shaped pool. The larger end of the wedge, about twenty meters away, opened into an even larger aquatic space. Anakin and Rapuung stood on a landing, of sorts, bounded by slightly uneven coral walls six meters high. Every six meters or so, the walls were marked by ovoids the size of doorways, obvious because of their darker shade. The vangaak had apparently entered this complex through one canal opening at the end of the wedge. Anakin could see daylight and swaying Massassi trees beyond.
He could see the sky above, too.
“I see,” Anakin said. “We’re in one of the—what did you call them?”
“Damuteks.”
“Right. They’re shaped like rayed stars. We’re at the end of one of the rays. This is one of the compounds filled with water.”
“Each damutek has a succession pool. Some have coverings over them so the space can be used for other things.”
Anakin pointed at the canal. “We came up that. It goes to the river, right?”
“Correct again.”
“Why is the water in the canal flowing toward the river, then?”
“Why ask after such irrelevancies? The succession pool is filled from below. Its rooting tubes seek water and minerals. The outflow goes to the river. And that is enough talk.”
“You’re right,” Anakin agreed. “Let’s find Tahiri and get out of here.”
Rapuung glared at him. “It isn’t so simple. First we must disguise you. An unbound human, walking free? Then we must locate your other Jeedai.”
“I surmised as much, from what I have heard of Jeedai. You can sniff each other out at a distance, yes?”
“Something like that.”
“Then you will be my hunting uspeq. But not yet. Even when we know where she is—”
“We have to chart the course. I get it. You’ll figure the layout of the place. And your revenge? What about that?”
“When we find the other Jeedai, we will find my revenge.”
The coldness in Rapuung’s voice touched a worry in the back of Anakin’s mind. “Your revenge is not against Tahiri, is it?” he asked. “Tell me now if it is.”
Rapuung showed his teeth in grim humor. “If I wanted revenge on your Jeedai, I need only to let the shapers have her. Nothing could be worse than to be in Mezhan Kwaad’s fingers.”
“Mezhan Kwaad?”
“Don’t repeat that name,” Rapuung snarled.
“But you just said it.”
“If you repeat it again, I will kill you.”
Anakin drew himself taller. “You’re welcome to try,” he said softly.
Rapuung’s muscles bunched and tensed and his mauled lips twitched. Again he seemed more like a dangerous, poisonous animal than a person. But then he rasped a sigh. “Here, I know what is best. You must learn to listen to me. How else would you have entered the perimeter of the base? But from here, the dangers we face have increased. You must make peace with my commands. Furthermore, the longer we argue, the more likely it is that we will be thwarted here and now. We’re lucky no one has yet chanced by. You have passed through the nostrils of this beast, but you will not live to find the beating heart without me.”
That was probably true, Anakin reflected. Pride was not the way of the Jedi. Rapuung kept pricking at his pride, and he kept twitching like a Twi’lek’s lekku. He could almost hear Jacen and Uncle Luke scolding him now.
“I apologize,” Anakin said. “You’re right. What do we do now?”
Rapuung nodded curtly. “Now we make you a slave.”
Anakin had thought he’d been through some hard things before; but nothing had prepared him for the ordeal of letting Vua Rapuung implant the coral growth on him. It looked exactly like the sickening, ulcerous growths he’d seen on more Yuuzhan Vong slaves than he could count. He’d watched and sensed sentient beings lose their reason, grow thin and vanish in the Force, become mindless drones for the Yuuzhan Vong, because of just such infections.
“It is not real,” Vua Rapuung told him, “but you must respond as if it is real. You must follow certain commands.”
How do I know this isn’t a trick? Anakin’s brain screamed at him. How do I know this wasn’t the plan all along, to march me into the shaper base and have me willingly give up my very being?
Again he felt as if his eyes had been struck out, his tongue cut off, the nerves of his fingers numbed. He had absolutely no way of knowing what Vua Rapuung was thinking.
But it seemed somehow unlike the mutilated warrior to play out such an elaborate charade.
“So I have to act like a mindless drone?”
“No. We do not use that form of restraint on most work slaves anymore. It proved too debilitating to them. What use is a slave that dies or becomes stupid? The implant merely insures you can be restrained if need be. If it tingles, pretend pain and paralysis. If it actually gives you pain, pretend to die.”
“Got it.”
So Anakin let the Yuuzhan Vong warrior prick the thing into his flesh, tried not to wince as it rooted. He concentrated on recognizing the first sign—any sign—that his will was being taken from him.
When Rapuung was done, he felt violated, as if his own flesh had become a hateful thing, but he still felt in control. For the moment.
“Where can I hide my lightsaber?” Anakin asked. Rapuung had made him shed his clothes and gear back in the jungle. The broken weapon was the only possession he retained.
“It does not work.”
“I know. Where can I hide it?”
Rapuung hesitated for a moment. “Here,” he said. “In the far corner of the succession pool. It will be unnoticed in the organic material on the bottom.”
Anakin reluctantly followed Rapuung’s advice. It was a hard thing to watch the lightsaber he had built with his own hands sink into the water. But right now, it could only get him caught.
Moments later, Anakin was suddenly surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong, hundreds of them. They’d exited the larger compound at the same point the boat creature entered it, walking along the quay that ran parallel to the canal. The latter he could see curved off to join the river.
Between the river and the damutek complexes was the shantytown he had observed from the ridge. Unlike the orderly compounds, the dwellings here seemed placed almost at random, a series of organic domes and hollow circles pierced by openings. Most seemed barely large enough to sleep in, and he didn’t see many people coming in or out of them. Most of the Yuuzhan Vong he saw were like the angler Rapuung had killed. They were unscarred or had very few scars. Some had malformed or festering scars like Vua Rapuung, and they wore the same sort of loincloth that Rapuung and now Anakin had donned.
Of course it wasn’t a cloth at all, but something alive. If he pulled it away from his flesh, it slowly sealed itself there again.
He also had a tizowyrm secreted in his ear, and the speech of those around him reached him in little starts and flurries. But almost no one was talking. They went about their business quietly, rarely making eye contact.
He wasn’t the only non–Yuuzhan Vong either, he saw. There were a fair number of them, all with the coral restraining implants. Their expressions he readily recognized; they ranged from utter hopelessness to mere misery. Now and then he caught a glimmer from one that suggested he or she still hoped for escape. Like the Yuuzhan Vong, none gave him more than a glance.
“You!” a voice called from behind. Rapuung turned toward it, and Anakin shambled around more slowly, trying to keep the expression of the humans he had seen.
The Yuuzhan Vong who had addressed them was a warrior, the first Anakin had seen here. He struggled to keep still; up until now being this close to a warrior meant a fight to the death, and he had had more than his share of those.
The warrior twitched when he saw Rapuung’s face, and for a brief moment he looked almost as if he were about to genuflect. Then his eyes turned to obsidian.
“It is you. They told me at the port you had returned.”
“I have,” Rapuung answered.
“Many thought you had fled your shame. Many were glad not to have to look upon it.”
“The gods know no shame is on me,” Rapuung answered.
“Your flesh says otherwise,” the warrior answered.
“So it may be,” Rapuung replied. “Do you have a command?”
“No. What task has your executor given you?”
“I go to speak to him now.”
“The trawling schedules are filled for another four days. Perhaps you may spend that time in sacrifice and penitence begging Yun-Shuno to intercede for you. A word could be planted in your executor’s ear.”
“That is most generous, Hul Rapuung. But I do not require favor.”
“It is no favor to be given time to beg, even of the gods,” Hul Rapuung answered. “Go.” He turned brusquely and started to leave, then turned back. “The slave. Why does it accompany you?”
“I found it wandering aimless. I take it to my executor for assignment.”
“Aimless, you say? You know that in the wilderness several Jeedai skulk.”
“This one was here before I was lost. He has always been of a forgetful nature.”
Hul Rapuung lifted his chin. “Is it so?” His voice lowered. “There is a story—a rumor, really, that one of these Jeedai is not a Jeedai at all, but a Yuuzhan Vong, driven mad somehow by their powers.”
“I know nothing of such rumors.”
“No. They began only a short time ago.” He spat. “Go to your executor.”
“I go,” Vua Rapuung said.
“Vua Rapuung. You are a Shamed One,” Anakin said, as soon as the warrior was out of earshot. He kept his head down and tried not to move his lips too much.
Rapuung looked briefly around, grabbed Anakin’s arm, and propelled him into the nearest structure. Inside, it was cozy, but smelled sour like an unwashed Bothan.
“Did I tell you to hold your tongue?” Rapuung snapped.
“You should have told me,” Anakin replied. “If you want me to keep quiet, then make it so I’m not surprised every ten seconds.”
Rapuung clenched and unclenched his fists several times. He gnashed his teeth.
“I must act the part of a Shamed One. I am not.”
“First of all, what is a Shamed One? And don’t give me that ‘they aren’t worth speaking of’ fodder.”
“They aren’t—” Rapuung began, then stopped. He closed his eyes. “Shamed Ones are cursed by the gods. Their bodies reject proper scarring. They do not heal well. The implants of utility and rank that set us apart as castes and individuals are rejected by their feeble bodies. They are useless.”
“Your scars. Your sores. Your implants have rotted out.”
“I was a great warrior,” Rapuung said. “A commander. None doubted my ability. And then one day, my body betrayed me.” He started pacing suddenly, slamming his palms on the coral, cutting them. “But it was not the gods. I know who did it. I know why. And she shall pay.”
“The female whose name you told me not to repeat again.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s the one you want to kill.”
“Kill?” Rapuung’s eyes widened, then he spat. “Infidel. You think death, which comes to all, is punishment in itself. My revenge will be to force her to admit what she has done, so everyone will know that Vua Rapuung was never shamed! So the Yuuzhan Vong will know her crime. My revenge will be to know that when she does die, however she dies, it will be in ignominy. But kill her? I would not give her the honor.”
“Oh,” Anakin said. That was all he could think of. Despite Rapuung’s secrecy, Anakin had at least thought he knew what the Yuuzhan Vong meant by revenge. In two quick reversals, everything he knew about Rapuung fell apart.
“Is that enough of my blood in your ears for the moment?” Rapuung asked in a low, strange voice.
“One more question. The warrior we just met. Part of your name is the same as his.”
“As it should be. He is a sibling of my crèche.”
Rapuung inclined his head slightly in the affirmative. “We go to the executor now. I will suggest you once worked clearing fields for growing lambents. Those slaves live the longest. We will meet when I can manage it without suspicion. Play your part. Do not falter. Use your powers to locate the nearest point where the other Jeedai is. I will see you in seven days or so. Until then we will not speak another word. Watch the other slaves. Speak as they speak or not at all. Now, come.”
He glanced outside, then walked out, towing Anakin by the arm. No one seemed to notice. Together, they walked toward the largest building, unnoticeable among the other slaves and Shamed Ones.
Or so Anakin hoped.