NINE

A gentle Woteban breeze was wafting across the bog, cool and damp and filled with acrid wisps of the peat smoke rising from the chimneys of the nearest Saras tunnel-house. Close by, the serpentine skeletons of ten more structures were beginning to take shape beneath the bustling anarchy of Killik construction crews. A kilometer beyond, at the far edge of the nest expansion, more insects were moving hamogoni pilings off a steady stream of lumber sleds.

“Oh, boy,” Luke said, eyeing all the new construction. “This is bad.”

“Only if there are contaminants,” Han said. “If there aren’t any, it might be okay.”

Their Saras escort, a chest-high worker that had been waiting to meet the logging sled on which they had hitched a ride back to the nest, thrummed a short question.

“Saras wishes to know what might be okay,” C-3PO informed them. “And why you are so worried about contaminants.”

“Bur ru ub br urrb,” the insect added. “Rrrrr uu uu bub.”

“Oh, dear,” C-3PO said. “Saras says the nest has a perfectly sound method of disposing of toxins—it pumps them into the bog!”

“Great,” Han growled. He turned to Luke. “We gotta get off this sponge before we start glowing or something.”

“Let’s talk to Raynar,” Luke said. “Maybe once the Killiks understand what’s happening, he’ll consider our promise kept.”

“Urru buur rbur.” Their escort waited as an empty lumber sled glided past and disappeared down a winding boulevard into Saras nest proper, then started toward the completed building. “Ubu ruru buub.”

“Raynar Thul is dead,” C-3PO translated. “But UnuThul is waiting for us in the replica factory.”

“Sounds like he’s already heard part of it,” Han said. “I just hope he doesn’t blast the messenger when he hears the rest.”

Luke led the others after the escort, through a large iris membrane into the throat of a twining, hangar-sized tunnel-house so filled with smoke and manufacturing fumes that the iridescent walls were barely visible. Along one wall stood a long row of peat-fired furnaces, serviced by hundreds of bustling Killiks. The middle of the chamber was filled with steaming vats, also surrounded by hundreds of Killiks. Along the far wall ran a serpentine workbench, flanked on each side by a seemingly endless Killik production line.

Luke stopped a few paces inside the door. Han let out a complaining cough, then leaned close.

“Better make this fast,” he whispered. “It’s a wonder this place hasn’t been Fizzed already.”

Luke did not reply, for Raynar had emerged from the swarm along the workbench and was coming toward them with a pair of spinglass sculptures in his hands. As usual, he was followed by the teeming Unu entourage. He stopped five paces away and stared at them expectantly, as though he assumed they would cross the remaining distance to him.

When they did not, there was a moment of tense silence.

Finally, Han demanded, “What’s so important you couldn’t let us hit the refresher first?” He pulled at his dirty tunic. “We’re kind of ripe.”

Raynar’s scarred face seemed to harden. “We were worried you might be difficult to find later—if, for instance, you decided to get off this sponge before you ‘started glowing or something.’ ”

Luke dipped his head in acknowledgment. “You’ve been keeping tabs on us through our escort,” he said. “We thought as much. So you must also know we have no intention of leaving until you consider our promise kept.”

“I have heard.” Raynar’s rigid lips pressed into an awkward smirk; then he turned to Han. “We apologize if our summons seemed abrupt, but we wished to thank you and Master Skywalker for discovering the star amber cheats. Saras did not realize they were taking something so valuable.”

Raynar closed the last of the distance separating them, and Luke saw that the sculptures in his hands were spinglass replicas of Millennium Falcon and a T-65 X-wing.

Raynar turned to Luke first and presented him with the X-wing. “Unu wanted you to be the first to have one of these. It is an exact copy of the fighter you were flying when you destroyed the original Death Star.”

More than a little stunned by the gesture, Luke accepted the sculpture with genuine gratitude. The piece was so intricately executed that Luke could identify both R2-D2 and the loose stabilizers the droid had been struggling to repair as he began the final assault run.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll treasure it.”

“It’s the first of a limited run commissioned by one of our business partners in the Galactic Alliance,” Raynar said proudly. “Turn it over. It’s numbered and signed by the artist.”

Luke did as Raynar asked. Etched into the bottom was SARAS: 1/1,000,000,000. SECOND MISTAKE ENTERPRISES.

Luke nodded politely, then turned it back over. “I’m sure the line will be a great success.”

“We think so, too,” Raynar said. He turned to Han and gave him the replica of Millennium Falcon. “Also a first run.”

“Thanks. Real nice.” Han turned it over and inspected the artist’s signature. “Second Mistake Enterprises?” He frowned, then looked back to Raynar. “Your partners wouldn’t happen to be three Squibs named Sligh, Grees, and Emala?”

Raynar’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“Leia and I had some dealings with them, back before you were born,” Han said. Luke remembered something about a trio of Squibs being involved when Killik Twilight fell into Imperial hands during the war. “They’ve got a nose for fine artwork—supplied Thrawn for a while, as a matter of fact.”

Raynar’s voice grew suspicious. “Do not bother contacting them,” he warned. “Our agreement is exclusive.”

Han’s brow rose. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He nonchalantly passed the replica to C-3PO. “You guys were made for each other.”

“Good.” Raynar almost smiled. “They expect the value of the first pieces to grow exponentially. That’s why Unu wanted you and Master Skywalker to have these two replicas, as a reward for helping Saras catch the star amber cheat.”

“I appreciate it.” Han furrowed his brow and cast a questioning glance in Luke’s direction, then, when Luke nodded, he continued, “But the guy Saras caught wasn’t exactly a cheat.”

“It was something of an inside job,” Luke added. “We’ll tell you about it later, but first—”

“Tell us about it now,” Raynar interrupted. “If you believe any of our transacting partners are not being honest with us, we wish to hear it.”

“Actually, it isn’t your partners,” Luke said. “The Dark Nest has been the one taking the star ambers.”

The Unu began to clack their mandibles, and Raynar lowered his melted brow. “The Neimoidian is a Joiner?”

“No,” Luke said. “We think—”

“We know,” Han corrected.

“It looked like the Neimoidian had a deal with Gorog,” Luke compromised. “He was trading reactor fuel and hyperdrive coolant to them.”

This drew a tumult of mandible clacking from Unu.

“Perhaps we were mistaken about the nature of the material,” C-3PO suggested quietly. “Unu seems quite amused by the idea that the Colony owns a reactor.”

“They wouldn’t know,” Han insisted. “Who can say what Gorog is hiding?”

“Of course we would know, Captain Solo! The Colony learns from its mistakes.” Raynar fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a calmer voice. “But we will discuss your idea while I show you our production facilities, if that will make you feel better.”

He extended a hand toward the furnaces.

Luke and Han exchanged glances. Luke said, “It might be better to do that—”

“Come!” Raynar insisted. “What are you afraid of? Killiks do not have accidents.”

Luke exhaled in frustration, but reluctantly nodded and led the others after Raynar toward the furnaces.

Their first stop was a large, semicircular basin. Dozens of huge-headed Saras were standing around the curved end on all sixes, spitting out long streams of sticky white fiber and using their mandibles to feed it into the tub. On the other side of the basin, a steady procession of workers was gathering up large bundles of the dried fiber and carrying it off toward the furnaces.

“This is the materials pit,” Raynar explained. He pointed at the spitting Killiks. “Saras’s spinners produce the raw spin, and the workers take it to the furnaces to be melted down.”

“Yeah, real interesting,” Han said. “But about that reactor—have you actually been to Gorog’s nest?”

Raynar’s reply was curt. “Of course not. Gorog keeps its nest secret.”

“Then you really can’t know whether they have a reactor, can you?” Luke asked, picking up on Han’s line of thought. “And it’s probably a pretty big one, too, judging by how much fuel the Neimoidian had with him.”

An uneasy murmur rolled through the Unu, then Raynar said, “If there was so much fuel, why didn’t Saras find any when they captured the Neimoidian?”

“Because the fuel went the same place as our landspeeder and the ‘Moid’s guards,” Han said. “The Fizz took it.”

“And that’s something we should discuss now.” Luke’s throat was aching from all the smoke and soot in the air; even without the Fizz, he would not have wanted to stay inside the building long enough for a complete tour. “The Fizz didn’t just bubble up when those fuel rods happened to be there. It was attacking them.”

Unu’s drumming grew more agitated.

“Now they don’t believe there ever was any fuel,” C-3PO reported. “They’re accusing us of making up the whole story.”

Han rolled his eyes. “I knew this would happen.” He turned to Raynar. “Look, it’s been a long couple of days. If you don’t want to listen—”

“Hold on, Han,” Luke said. “We have evidence.”

Han frowned. “We do?”

Luke nodded. “Probably.” He turned to R2-D2. “Artoo, do you have a record of what happened in the forest?”

R2-D2 whistled a cheerful affirmative and began to project a hologram of the incident. The quality was not as good as what came out of a dedicated holopad, of course, but it was more than adequate to show the blue-black forms of several Gorog sneaking down a slope of hamogoni stumps. C-3PO’s voice came from R2-D2’s acoustic signaler, warning Luke and Han about the sneak attack. A pair of Gorog turned toward the holocam, and the scene grew confused as the battle played out.

A few moments later, it showed the Neimoidian smuggler fleeing his hoversled, while his Aqualish bodyguards remained behind, kneeling behind the barrels in the cargo bed and trading fire with Han and Luke. When one of the barrels suddenly rose and crashed back down, spilling its cargo, a murmur of surprise raced through the Unu entourage. R2-D2 added to the excitement by displaying a set of ionic-decay readings that left no doubt about the nature of the rods.

By the time the froth began to consume the rods a few minutes later, a stunned silence had fallen over Raynar and Unu. Luke waited until the Fizz had engulfed the hoversled, its cargo, and the Aqualish guards, then had R2-D2 shut down his holoprojector.

Raynar remained silent a long time, and even the cacophony inside the replica facility grew subdued. A stream of orange slag began to shoot out of one furnace and disappear down a waste tube through the floor, and Han groaned and made a winding motion with his finger.

Luke signaled him to be patient. The froth had appeared very quickly after the reactor rods were exposed in the forest, but slag was not nearly as toxic as reactor rods—or even hyperdrive coolant. It would take a lot more slag to trigger the Fizz. So Luke hoped, anyway.

Finally, Raynar raised his gaze. “We thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

“Friends should be willing to tell each other difficult truths,” Luke said, feeling encouraged by Raynar’s reasonable tone. “It’s only a theory at this point. But if we’re right, the Fizz is going to keep attacking Saras.”

The pronouncement sent a peal of nervous drumming through Unu. Raynar’s eyes seemed to sink even deeper into their dark sockets, but he said, “Theory or not, we are listening.”

“Good.” Luke glanced down at R2-D2. “Start the holo where we left off.”

The droid reactivated his holoprojector. Unu crowded closer, the insects in back climbing onto the shoulders of those in front, and within moments they were towering over Luke and his companions in a great, teeming mass. Luke squatted down beside the holo and shifted the X-wing replica to one hand.

“Look how the Fizz is attacking the hoversled and the fuel, but not the hamogoni trunk.” He inserted his finger into the holo, pointing out the features as he named them, then moved to the stone foundation, where the Aqualish had collapsed. “The same here. It’s attacking the bodyguards, but not the stones they’re on.”

A low, chattery rustle rose from Unu, and Raynar asked, “Are you saying that the Fizz does not attack anything native to Woteba?”

“Not quite,” Luke said. R2-D2 continued to run the holorecording, and the hoversled and Aqualish began to disintegrate beneath the Fizz. “I’m saying it only attacks things that harm Woteba.”

“And you think that is why the Fizz attacks us?” Raynar clarified. “Because we harm Woteba?”

“I think it attacks you when you harm Woteba,” Luke corrected. “As long as you aren’t hurting the environment, it remains inert.”

The last bits of the hoversled and the Aqualish vanished. The froth quickly subsided, leaving only piles of brown dirt behind, and the forest in the holorecording returned to stillness.

R2-D2 shut down his projector, and when Raynar and Unu still remained silent, Han couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well, that’s our theory, anyway,” he said. “There might be others that are just as good.”

This brought Raynar out of his silence. “It is not a bad theory,” he said. “It fits with what we have seen ourselves.”

Luke felt like an immense weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation—then a soft shudder, so faint it was barely perceptible, ran through Unu.

“Sometimes, Master Skywalker, we forget how clever you are.” Raynar raised his hand and shook the stump of a gloved index finger toward Luke. “But not today.”

“I don’t understand,” Luke said. Alarmed by Raynar’s sudden hostility, he quieted himself inside and began to concentrate on the Force itself, on its liquid grasp, on its ripples lapping him from all sides. “You saw Artoo-Detoo’s holo.”

“We will not let you say we brought this on ourselves,” Raynar said. “We know who is responsible.”

“Not the Jedi,” Luke said. It wasn’t easy to match all the different ripples in the Force to an individual source—not with Saras and Unu obscuring the picture with their own hazy presences. “I promise you that.”

The Unu mass began to disassemble itself and drop to the floor.

“Uh, maybe we should just forget the tour.” Han began to ease toward the exit. “Thanks for the ship models. Really.”

But Luke was not ready to give up. A familiar prickling had begun to rise between his shoulder blades, and he knew the Dark Nest was watching from the shadows, quietly reaching out to Raynar, carefully distorting the facts to put the Jedi in a bad light. Luke did not fight back. Instead he accepted his growing feeling of unease, allowing it to build into a chill along his entire spine, until the feeling had grown strong enough for him to have some sense of its source.

When Luke did not follow Han toward the exit, Han took his arm and began to pull. Raynar’s eyes barely narrowed, but the Unu immediately moved to cut off their escape, mandibles spread.

“Uh, Luke?” Han said. “If you’re going into a trance or something, now isn’t the time. Really.”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.” Luke passed the X-wing replica to Han, then pulled free and turned toward the nearest furnace, where there was a bantha-sized mound of dried spin he did not remember seeing a few moments before. “Just keep Raynar busy a second.”

“Sure,” Han said. “I’ll let him explode my brain or something.”

Luke used the Force to open a path through the Unu and started toward the heap. His entire back began to nettle with danger sense; then Han’s voice rose behind him.

“You know what I don’t get? The pilot. How do you get that kind of detail inside—”

“Out of my way!” Raynar roared.

But that was all the time Luke needed to pull his lightsaber off his belt. He gathered himself for a Force leap . . . and that was when Alema Rar emerged from behind the spin mound, dressed in a midnight-blue jumpsuit with a plunging neckline and side slits.

“We are very impressed, Master Skywalker.” Her lip curled into a smile that came off as more of a sneer. “But you won’t need your lightsaber. We are not here to harm you.”

“Is that so?” Luke deactivated his lightsaber—and allowed himself a small smile of triumph. Given the revulsion Raynar had shown on Kr when he saw the Dark Nest’s slave-eating larvae, Luke felt certain that exposing the Dark Nest’s presence now would redirect Raynar’s hostility to where it belonged. “Then why were you hiding?”

“How could we have been hiding? We only just arrived.” Alema started forward. “It came to our attention that we needed to correct a misunderstanding about what you saw in the forest.”

“No misunderstanding,” Han said. “We know what we saw.”

“Do you?”

Alema slipped past Han without a second glance and continued toward Raynar. Luke tried to follow, but it was slow going. The mass of Unu seemed to part to let the Twi’lek pass, then crowd in behind her to gather in Luke’s way.

“The rods were fuel rods, nobody is arguing that.” Alema kept her gaze fixed on Raynar. “But maybe it was the Jedi who brought them to Woteba. Maybe Gorog discovered what you were doing and was there to intercept the reactor fuel.”

“What?” Han cried. “That’s backward. And a lie!”

Unu erupted into a tumult of clacking mandibles and booming thoraxes, and C-3PO reported, “Now Unu is saying we must have brought the rods!”

“That’s ridiculous.” Luke spoke in a calm voice, addressing Raynar directly, confident that Raynar’s revulsion toward the Dark Nest would soon show itself. “Why would the Jedi bring reactor fuel to Woteba?”

Alema stopped two meters from Raynar. “Perhaps because you know more about the Fizz than you’re saying.” Though her words were addressed to Luke, her gaze remained fixed on Raynar. “Perhaps the Jedi knew it would trigger the Fizz. Perhaps that is why they sent reactor fuel to all of the Utegetu worlds.”

“Wait a minute!” Han gasped. “You’re saying all the Utegetu worlds have problems with Fizz?”

“Yes.” Raynar’s tone was bitter. “All the worlds you traded to us are poisoned.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luke said, finally coming up behind Alema. “But the Jedi didn’t know—and we didn’t send reactor fuel to any of the worlds. We have no reason to wish the Colony harm.”

“You serve the Galactic Alliance, do you not?” Raynar asked. “And the Alliance feels threatened by our rise.”

“How do you figure?” Han scoffed. “Because you’re harboring a few pirates and running some black membrosia? That’s O-class stuff. If you were inside Alliance territory, you’d barely be a crime syndicate.”

Raynar’s face began to twitch beneath its scars, and it grew clear that he was not going to turn on Alema—at least not without some nudging.

“UnuThul, Han is right,” Luke said. “The Galactic Alliance would like the Colony to be a good neighbor, but it is not afraid of you. The Dark Nest has been using your own fear to deceive you.”

Given the Killiks’ fluid sense of truth and fact, Luke knew his argument would be a difficult one to make—but the alternative was to ignite his lightsaber and cut a path back to the spaceport.

“Perhaps you are the one who is being deceived, Master Skywalker,” Alema said. She turned to look at him, her eyes now smoky and dark and as deep as black holes. “Perhaps Chief Omas and Commander Sovv haven’t told you just how afraid of us they really are . . . and perhaps they are not the only ones deceiving you.”

Luke tried to puzzle out the Twi’lek’s implication, then gave up and frowned at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As soon as Luke asked the question, he began to feel smoky and raw inside, and a cloudiness came to the edges of his vision.

“Have you given any more thought to why Mara lied to you about Daxar Ies?” Alema asked.

“No,” Luke said. “And I doubt Mara did lie.”

But even as he said it, Luke began to see why Mara could have been reluctant to tell him. She knew how much learning more about his mother meant to him, and being the one who had deprived him of that opportunity would have weighed heavily on her conscience. She might even have found the prospect to be more than she could bear.

Alema stepped closer, then spoke in a coldly alluring voice. “Of course, we hope that you’re right, Master Skywalker, but, for everyone’s sake, it’s important that you consider the possibility that you’re wrong—that you’re being deceived by those close to you.”

“There is no possibility,” Han growled.

“Then no harm will come of considering it.” Alema kept her gaze fixed on Luke, and the cloudiness at the edges of his vision began to darken. “But Master Skywalker must make up his own mind. That is why we have decided to give him the next code.”

R2-D2 gave a little squeal of protest, and Luke said, “I don’t want it.”

Alema’s voice grew sultry and knowing. “Now who are you deceiving, Master Skywalker? It is not us.” She turned to C-3PO. “Remember this sequence. Master Skywalker will want it later.”

She started to rattle off a string of numbers and letters, but Han pushed in front of her.

“All right, that’s enough,” Han said. “He said he didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” Luke pulled him away. “Alema’s right.”

Han turned to face him. “You’re sure?”

Luke nodded. “A code sequence isn’t going to hurt us.”

He knew, of course, that the sequence would hurt him; the Gorog’s Night Herald would not be giving it to him otherwise. But Luke wanted the code anyway, not because he believed anything he might learn from R2-D2’s files could change his love for Mara, or even because the smoke inside him was growing darker and harsher and harder to ignore every moment. He wanted the code because it had frightened him—and if he allowed himself to be afraid of what he did not know, then the Dark Nest had already won.

After giving the rest of the code sequence to C-3PO, Alema turned to Luke.

“You are as brave as we recall, Master Skywalker.” The Twi’lek sent a cold shiver through Luke by trailing a finger down his arm, then added, “We don’t know what Mara is trying to hide from you, but we hope it has nothing to do with your mother’s death. It would be very sad if Daxar Ies was not her only victim.”

The suggestion rocked Luke as hard as she intended, leaving him stunned, his mind clouded by the acrid smoke that had been rising inside since he had given her that first opening.

Not so with Han.

“What?” he roared. In a move so fast that even Luke barely saw it, Han pulled his blaster and leveled it at the Twi’lek’s head. “Now you’ve just gone too far.”

Alema calmly turned to look down the barrel. “Come, Han.” She flicked her finger in the air, using the Force to send the barrel of Han’s blaster jerking toward the ceiling. “If you were going to pull the trigger, you wouldn’t have wasted your one chance talking about it.”

She turned her back on Han, then went over to Raynar, rose up on her toes, and kissed his scar-stiffened lips.

“We’ll see you in our dreams.” She remained there for a moment, then dropped back down and looked toward Luke and Han. “And keep a closer watch on these two. We can’t have them stirring up any more Fizz with those reactor rods.”

Raynar spent a moment studying Luke and Han over Alema’s head, then nodded and released her hand without looking at her. She slipped past and moved off through the mass of Unu, and though Luke was careful never to take his eyes off her, he somehow missed the moment when she vanished from sight.

Once Alema was gone, Raynar said, “We have decided to keep a closer watch on you two. We cannot have you two stirring up any more Fizz with your reactor rods.”

“You don’t say?” Han’s tone was sarcastic. “Does she tell you when to sanibrush your teeth and use the refresher, too?”

“She?” Raynar lowered his brow. “She who?”

“Alema Rar,” Luke prompted. “The Night Herald?”

Raynar frowned, and Unu drummed their thoraxes.

“The Killiks seem to have no idea who you’re talking about,” C-3PO informed them. “Unu claims it has never met Alema Rar.”

“Burrurruru ubburr,” one of the insects added. “Uuubu burru.”

“And everyone knows the Night Herald is just a myth you tell the larvae,” C-3PO translated, “to make them regurgitate.”

Han scowled and pointed his blaster at the ground in front of Raynar. “That myth was just standing there kissing you.”

“Had we ever kissed Alema Rar, we are sure we would remember,” Raynar retorted. “And we certainly were not just kissing her. Alema Rar is dead.”

“Don’t tell me,” Han said. “She died in the Crash.”

“Of course not,” Raynar said. “She died at Kr, with the rest of the Dark Nest.”

“Just great.” Han let his chin drop. “Here we go again.”

“We do not understand why you persist in this fantasy, but you are not going anywhere. That is the point.” Raynar extended his hand. “You will give us your weapons.”

Han’s knuckles whitened around his blaster grip. “When Hutts ride swoops!”

“We would rather have it now,” Raynar said. Han’s blaster twisted free of his grasp and floated over, then Raynar turned to Luke. “Master Skywalker?”

Luke hated to yield his weapon—especially with Alema Rar running around loose—but he would have an easier time recovering it later than fighting to keep it now. He removed the focusing crystal from the handle—the Jedi equivalent of unloading a weapon before surrendering it—and handed both the crystal and the lightsaber over.

“A wise choice,” Raynar said. A swarm of large, orange-chested worker insects began to gather around Luke and Han. “Saras will see you to your new quarters. Please do not force us to harm you by attempting to leave before Princess Leia returns with a way to stop the Fizz.”