15

staring out the observation window of the orbiting station, Leia thought the Calamarian shipyards looked even more impressive than their reputation had led her to expect.

The starship-construction facilities rode high above the mottled blue planet. Supply platforms sprawled in three dimensions, dotted with winking red, yellow, and green lights that indicated landing pads and docking bays. Small girder impellers pushed huge mounds of plasteel extruded from transorbital rubble shipments from the planet’s single moon; the girders would be used in the frameworks of the famous Mon Calamari star cruisers. Crablike constructor pods flitted in and around a tremendous spacedock hangar like tiny insects against the mammoth form of a half-built cruiser.

“Excuse me, Minister Organa Solo?”

Leia turned to see a small Calamarian female wearing pale-blue ambassadorial robes. While the males had bulbous and lumpy heads, the females were more streamlined, with olive-colored mottling over the pale salmon of their hides.

“I am Cilghal.” When the Calamarian female raised both of her hands, Leia noticed that the webbing between her spatulate fingers seemed more translucent than Ackbar’s.

Leia raised her own hand in acknowledgment. “Thank you for meeting me, Ambassador. I appreciate your help.”

Cilghal’s mottling darkened in a reaction that Leia recognized as humor or amusement. “You humans have called the Mon Calamari the ‘soul of the Rebellion.’ After such a compliment, how can we turn down any request for help?”

The ambassador stepped forward to gesture out at the bustling spacedock facility. “I see you have been observing our work on the Startide. It will be our first addition to the New Republic fleet in many months. We have been devoting most of our resources to recovering from last year’s attack by the Emperor’s World Devastators.”

Leia nodded, looking again at the splotchy organic shape of the Mon Calamari star cruiser, the New Republic’s equivalent of the Imperial Star Destroyer. The ovoid battleship had lumpy protrusions for gun emplacements, field generators, viewports, and staterooms placed at seemingly random intervals. Each star cruiser was unique, modeled after the same basic design, yet altered to meet individual criteria that Leia didn’t quite understand.

“All the drive units are installed,” Cilghal continued, “and the hull is almost complete. We tested the sublight engines just yesterday, hauling the whole spacedock facility once around the planet. It will take another two months to complete the inner bulkheads, staterooms, and crew quarters.”

Leia tore her gaze from the activity and nodded at the ambassador. “As always, I’m astonished at the resourcefulness and dedication of the Calamarians. You have given so much after your enslavement by the Empire, after the attacks you’ve suffered. I feel reluctant to ask for further help—but I desperately need to speak with Admiral Ackbar.”

Cilghal straightened her sky-blue robes. “We have respected Ackbar’s request for privacy and his need for contemplation after the tragedy on Vortex, but our people remain proud of him and support him entirely. If you wish to bring further charges against—”

“No, no!” Leia said. “I’m one of his greatest supporters. But circumstances have changed since he exiled himself here.” Leia swallowed and decided that she would get further if she trusted Cilghal. “I’ve come to beg him to return.”

Cilghal flushed with an olive tinge. She moved quickly, gliding across the floor of the orbital station. “In that case, a shuttle is ready to take you down.”

Leia gripped the widely spaced arms of the passenger seat as Cilghal maneuvered the egg-shaped shuttle through sleeting rain and knotted gray storm clouds.

Whitecaps stippled the dull surface of Calamari’s deep oceans. Cilghal swung the shuttle lower, seemingly unconcerned with the storm winds. She held her splayed hands over the controls and bent to the viewing panels. The high-resolution viewing instruments had been designed for wide-set Calamarian eyes, and the blunt controls were adapted for the digits of the aquatic people.

Cilghal maneuvered the shuttle like a streamlined fish through water. The vessel curved away from small marshy islands—sparse dots of habitable land where the amphibious Calamarians had first established their civilization. Narrow rivulets of rainwater trickled down the passenger window as Cilghal turned broadside to the wind.

The Calamarian ambassador nudged one of the bulbous control knobs and spoke into an invisible voice pickup. “Foamwander City, this is shuttle SQ/one. Please provide a weather update and an approach vector.” Cilghal’s voice sounded smooth and soft, as if she hadn’t needed to shout in her entire life.

A guttural male voice came over the speaker. “Ambassador Cilghal, we are transmitting your approach vector. We are currently experiencing rising winds that are well within seasonal norms. No difficulties expected, but we are issuing an advisory against topside travel for the afternoon.”

“Acknowledged,” Cilghal said. “We were planning on making the rest of our journey underwater. Thank you.” She signed off, then turned back to Leia. “Don’t worry, Minister. I can sense your anxiety, but I assure you, there is nothing to be concerned about.”

Leia sat up, trying to quell her nervousness until she put her finger on its cause. “I don’t doubt you, Ambassador, it’s just that … the last time I flew in a storm was on Vortex.”

Cilghal nodded somberly. “I understand.” Leia sensed Cilghal’s sincerity, and the look on her fishlike face was comforting. “We’ll be safely landed in a few minutes.”

Through the mists and the whipping spray Leia watched them approach a metal island. Lumpy, but smoothed, like an organic coral reef, Foamwander City rose in a hemisphere out of the whitecaps. A forest of reinforced watchtowers and communications antennas rose from the top of the city, but the rest of the drifting metropolis had soft angles and polished outcroppings like a Mon Calamari star cruiser.

The bright lights of thousands of above-surface windows shed jewels of light even through the whipping rain. Below the hemispherical dome Leia knew that the floating cities had underwater towers and descending complexes like the mirror image of a Coruscant skyline. The inverted skyscrapers of dwelling units and water-processing stations beneath the hemisphere made the city look like a mechanical jellyfish.

Starved for raw materials on their marshy islands, the Mon Calamari had not been able to build a civilization until they joined forces with another intelligent species that lived beneath the oceans. The Quarren, a humanoid race with helmet-shaped heads and faces that looked like a fistful of tentacles sprouting beneath close-set eyes, had excavated metallic ores from the ocean crust. Working with the Calamarians, they built dozens of floating cities. Though the Quarren could also breathe air, they chose to remain under the sea while the Calamarians designed starships to explore the bright “islands in space.”

Cilghal approached the lumpy hemisphere of Foamwander City, circling to the leeward side, where the bulk of the metropolis protected them from buffeting winds. Whitecaps broke against the dull gray of the city’s outer shell, sending arcs of droplets high like a handful of diamonds.

“Open wave doors,” Cilghal said into the voice pickup. She aimed the shuttle toward a line of bright lights that guided the ship in. Before Leia could detect the seam, heavy doors split open diagonally like a crooked mouth.

Without slowing, Cilghal shot the vessel into a smooth tunnel, well lit by green illumination strips. Behind them the wave doors closed, sealing the metropolis against the onslaught of the storm.

Leia felt herself swept along as the ambassador moved with a liquid grace, calmly but relentlessly, to the underwater sections of the floating city. Cilghal set a steady, rapid pace that helped Leia hurry but caused no alarm. This was no simple diplomatic mission.

As Leia strode through the curved colorful halls of the upper levels, she was reminded of the corkscrewing chambers inside a gigantic shell. She saw no sharp corners, only rounded edges and smooth, polished decorations made of coral and mother-of-pearl. Even inside the enclosed city, the air had a salty tang, but it was not unpleasant.

“Do you know where Ackbar is?” Leia finally asked.

“Not exactly,” the ambassador said. “We allowed him his privacy and did not follow him.” Cilghal touched Leia’s shoulder with a broad fin-hand. “But do not be concerned. The Calamarians have sources of information that the Empire never suspected. Even during the occupation we were able to keep our collective knowledge intact. We will find Ackbar.”

Leia followed Cilghal into a turbolift that plunged down into the deep underwater levels of the floating city. When they emerged, the quality of the corridors had changed. The lighting was dimmer and shimmering, a jewel-blue reflected through faceted glowlamps and thick transparisteel windows that looked out into the ocean depths.

Leia could see divers swimming among the tangle of nets and mooring lines, satellite cages, and small submersible vehicles moving about the inverted towers of the city. The air was thicker and damper. The people in these levels were primarily Quarren, moving about their business, not acknowledging the presence of the visitors.

Though the Quarren and the Calamarians had allied themselves to build this civilization, Leia knew that the two communities did not work together without friction. The Calamarians insisted on their dreams to reach the stars, while the Quarren wished to return to the oceans. Rumors suggested that the Quarren had betrayed their planet to the Empire, but that they had then been treated just as badly under Imperial occupation as the Calamarians.

Cilghal stopped and spoke to a Quarren who stood by a valve-control station. The Quarren looked up at the interruption, flashing dark eyes at Leia, then at Cilghal. The Calamarian ambassador spoke in a high-pitched bubbly language, and the Quarren answered abruptly in kind. He gestured to the left down a steep ramp that corkscrewed to the lower level.

Cilghal nodded her thanks, undisturbed by the Quarren’s attitude as she led Leia down the ramp. They emerged into an open equipment bay that had been pressurized to allow easy access to the water.

Five Calamarian males worked on a small submersible hoisted on a tractor beam; they moved together to unload dripping crates from a seatree cargo hold. Quarren, dressed in sleek, flat-black suits that seemed covered with minute scales, dived through access fields into the watery depths. The walls of the equipment bay flickered as traces of dim light wandered up and down the polished surfaces, creating a hypnotic bath of dark green and deep blue.

Cilghal went to a row of small porcelain compartments and opened one. Before she could reach inside, two Quarren workers rushed over, speaking quickly and harshly in their bubbling language. Leia smelled a new, sour scent rising from them.

Cilghal bowed in apology, then moved to a different set of compartments, opening them with more caution. Leia followed, trying to make herself small. She realized she was the only non-native in the entire chamber. The Quarren stared at her, though the Calamarians took no notice.

Cilghal removed a pair of the slithery suits worn by the diving Quarren, handing one to Leia. Leia ran her fingers over the fabric. It seemed alive, clinging and slippery at the same time; the tiny mesh expanded and contracted as if seeking an appropriate shape to best serve the wearer.

Cilghal indicated a narrow closet-sized door. “Our changing compartments are a bit cramped, I’m afraid.”

Leia stepped inside, sealing the door behind her as blue-green illumination intensified in the small chamber. She disrobed and slid into the black suit, feeling her skin tingle as the fabric shifted and adjusted, trying to conform. When the crawly sensations stopped, it was the most comfortable garment she had ever worn—warm yet cool, light yet insulating, fuzzy yet slick.

When Leia emerged, Cilghal stood outside the door already wearing her water garment. Without speaking Cilghal fitted a water jetpack over Leia’s shoulders, then rigged a crude net for her long hair. Looking at the smooth salmon-and-olive dome of Cilghal’s head and the fleshy scalps of the Quarren, Leia said, “I don’t suppose you have much need for hair nets around here.”

Cilghal made a sound that Leia suspected might be a laugh, and led her over to one of the access fields. Beside a round opening that shimmered with faint static as it held the Calamarian ocean back, Cilghal dipped her broad hands into a bubbling urn. She pulled out a floppy translucent sheet and held it up. Water streamed off its surface, fizzing with tiny bubbles.

“Humans sometimes find this unpleasant,” Cilghal said. “I apologize.” Without further warning she slapped the gelatinous mass across Leia’s mouth and nose. The membrane was cold and wet, clinging to her cheeks, her skin. Leia stiffened in alarm and tried to struggle, but the strange soft gel stuck fast to her face.

“Relax, and you can breathe,” Cilghal said. “This symbiote filters oxygen from the sea. It can last for weeks under water.”

Starved for air, Leia tried to suck in a deep breath and found that she could indeed inhale clean, ozone-smelling air. Pure oxygen filled her lungs, and as she breathed slowly out, the bubbles percolated back through the symbiote membrane.

Cilghal applied one of the symbiotes to her own angular face and then poked a tiny microphone unit into the soft jelly before adjusting another in her ear hole.

She handed Leia a pair of the small devices. The microphone slid into the gelatinous membrane, but the symbiote held it firmly. When she put the second jack into her ear, Cilghal’s voice came through clearly.

“You must take care to articulate your words,” Cilghal said, “but this system is quite satisfactory.”

Without another word Cilghal took Leia’s arm. She could feel the ambassador’s grip, every detail of her webbed hands transmitted through the remarkable mesh of the slick suit. Together, they plunged through the containment field and into the deep oceans of Calamari.

As they jetted through the water, Leia felt warm currents on her forehead and around her eyes. The symbiote fed her a steady supply of air, and the fine mesh suit kept her warm and dry and comfortable. Some of her hair broke free of the makeshift netting, and thick strands flipped and flailed around her head as she cruised along.

Behind them, the glittering inverted metropolis of Foamwander City drifted like a huge undersea creature with thousands of tiny figures swimming around it. On the sea floor Leia could see dull orange glows and domed cities, sites of Quarren deep-mining operations in the ocean crust. Above, the light turned milky as it filtered through waves churned by the pelting storm.

Cilghal spoke little, though the radio pickup worked quite well. They left the floating city far behind, and Leia began to feel uneasy at being so far from civilization.

Leia remained close beside Cilghal as their jetpacks bubbled and streamed. Eventually, Cilghal gestured toward a crevasse broken into the ocean crust, surrounded by lumps of coral and waving fronds of red and brown seaweed. “We are going to the Calamarian knowledge bank,” Cilghal said through the tiny voice pickup.

They cruised between zigzags of rock overgrown with slow sculptures of coral and hair-fine tendrils of deep plants. The water streamed faster as the rock walls channeled stray currents. Above and around them fleets of bright-colored fish skimmed about, fed upon by larger fish that snapped, swallowed, and returned to feed again.

Leia looked ahead and saw a haphazard bed of shells, polished hulking mollusks a meter across. A faint lustrous glow seemed to come from the shells themselves.

Cilghal unexpectedly switched off her jetpack, and Leia shot past her before managing to stop her own thrusters. Cilghal kicked her broad feet to push herself toward the bottom with long gliding motions.

Leia struggled to keep up as they approached the enormous mollusks. Slowly kicking her feet to maintain her position against the current, Cilghal spread her arms wide as she bent over the largest of the humped shells at the front of the large bed. She hummed, a strange noise that vibrated through the water as much as it moved through the pickup circuit in Leia’s ear.

“We have questions,” Cilghal said, speaking to the giant shells. “We require access to the knowledge stored here in the great collection of memories. We must know if you have the answers we seek.”

The top shell of the largest mollusk groaned open. The crack between its bivalve shells widened until a stream of golden illumination shone out, as if precious sunlight had been captured and held inside the impenetrable shell walls.

Leia couldn’t say anything in her astonishment. As the shell cracked open even wider, she saw the soft fleshy mass inside, swirled and curved—not just the meaty lump of a shellfish, but the contours of a brain, an enormous brain that pulsed and shone with yellow light.

A sluggish pulsing sound drummed at Leia’s ears through the water, and Cilghal turned to her. “They will answer,” she said.

As Leia watched, row upon row of the giant shells opened, shedding rays of warm light into the narrow crevasse and exposing the swirled lumps of other large brains.

“They sit,” Cilghal said. “They wait. They listen. They know everything that happens on this planet—and they never forget.”

Cilghal began a long, ritualistic communion with the mollusk knowledge bank in a slow hypnotic language. Leia floated in place and watched, mystified and anxious.

Finally Cilghal swam backward, brushing her flipper-hands back and forth as she drifted away. The thick mollusks closed their shells, sealing the golden light away from the shadows of the canyon.

Leia had trouble seeing in the suddenly restored dimness of the depths, but the ambassador’s words came crisply through the ear jack. “They have told me where to find him.”

Leia could detect no emotion in Cilghal’s even voice, but she felt her own thrill of elation.

As they turned to swim upward, Leia stared toward the lip of the crevasse. She froze as she saw a deadly sleek form like an Imperial attack ship above—an enormous living creature with a long bullet-shaped body, spined fins, a mouth filled with fangs. On either side of the mouth streamed whipping tentacles, each tipped with razor-jawed pincers.

Leia began to swim frantically backward. Cilghal grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down. “Krakana,” she said.

The monster seemed to notice the bubbles caused by Leia’s struggle. A stream of fizz came from the symbiote on Leia’s mouth as she panted with terror, but Cilghal held her in a firm grip.

“Will it attack us?” Leia said into the voice pickup.

“If it senses us,” Cilghal said. “The krakana will eat anything.”

“Then what—” Leia said.

“It won’t find us.” Cilghal sounded altogether too calm. Fish swam frantically away from the torpedo shape of the predator. Cilghal seemed to be concentrating.

“No, it will get that one,” she gestured with one large hand, “the blue-and-yellow-striped kieler. After that it will take that smaller orange one in the middle of the school. By then all the others will have fled, and the krakana will continue on its way. Then we can leave.”

“How do you know that?” Leia said, gripping the rough-edged lump of coral on the side of the chasm.

“I know,” Cilghal said. “It’s a little trick I have.”

Leia watched in horrified fascination as the krakana streaked forward, coming unexpectedly from below as it reached out with its mass of tentacles to grab the blue-and-yellow kieler and rip it to ragged shreds before stuffing its fang-filled mouth.

By the time the monster had grabbed the pale-orange fish, the rest of the school had vanished to hidden corners of the crevasse or fled into the broad expanse of the ocean. The krakana slid away as it cruised the depths, constantly in search of a meal.

Leia stared at Cilghal, amazed at her prescient ability, but the Calamarian ambassador squeezed Leia’s upper arm before igniting her water jetpack.

“Now we must go find Ackbar,” she said.