Balance Point (14 page)

Ten minutes later, she was getting another runaround on the ground-orbit comm unit. “Listen,” she said, gritting her teeth to keep from shouting. “I want that stuff here, where it belongs. I’ve got the biggest population onworld.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the voice on the other end said. “CorDuro took that shipment to Settlement Thirty-two for
their water treatment plant, with an allowance for next month. They do supply you with—”

“Next month?” Incredulous, Leia glared at the GOCU. “They think we can stockpile? Who is this guy?”

The shipping clerk shook his head. “He seemed to feel that since the water purification benefits your people even more than his own, you wouldn’t mind. Do you want to send a message?”

“I’m too busy to waste the effort. Contact SELCORE and see if we can get a duplicate shipment.”
And a new administrator for Settlement Thirty-two
, she would’ve added, if she’d thought it would do any good. Maybe SELCORE could draft Lando and Tendra.

Down a stone tunnel between Gateway’s laboratory building and the toxic marshes, Nom Anor had set up an underground office. Leia Organa Solo’s people had dug out the long tunnel; he’d created a side passage, using small organisms that fed on soft rock. As they bloated and died, he disposed of them by the thousands, deep in the marshes. There they decomposed, their gut bacteria working the “miracles” that delighted Organa Solo’s people.

He marched through his outer chamber, fingering the disengagement spot on his gablith masquer. Pore by pore, it pulled out of his body. He gritted his teeth. Unlike Warmaster Tsavong Lah and the rest of them, he did not believe that his pain fed the gods. He claimed to serve Yun-Harla, the Trickster—and if she did exist, she probably loved the deception—but Nom Anor served only himself, and his chance of promotion. He had told the warmaster the truth, by one definition. Leia Organa Solo was not true Jedi, and her daughter still was not proven—but if Tsavong Lah thought of them that way,
he would be all the more impressed when Nom Anor destroyed them.

As soon as Thirty-two collapsed, Organa Solo would probably put him to work analyzing the catastrophe. He wished he didn’t have to avoid her. He would love to see her face when they brought word that her children had been caught in the disaster.

He shook off the semisolid mass of masquer around his ankles, then stretched languorously, relishing the sensation of free, living air on his own skin. He had an hour to spare. To relax.

He plucked one of his tiny pets off the wall and hefted it one-handed. It didn’t feel quite fully grown, which made it perfect for another purpose. Stretching up, he pressed its wriggling cilia deep into a ceiling crack. He’d weakened several sections of ceiling this way, then stationed other kinds of creatures down in the fracture zones. On his command, they could inflate themselves like woodcutters’ wedges, bringing down long or deep stretches of ceiling.

It was simply one more precaution.

Jacen crouched at the edge of a hut, scraping wormlike creatures off the underside of its synthplas eaves.

“They could be edible,” Mezza cautioned, gripping her hips to make a bunch of culottes fabric on each side. One of her people had found these creatures less than an hour ago. “Maybe we could raise them? Extra protein for the phraig stew?”

Jacen tried not to gag as he sealed his sample sack. “It’s a thought. But feel this spot on the eaves. There’s a pit.” He ran a hand along the area where he’d scraped off the wriggling, finger-length creatures. “They’re actually eating synthplas.”

“Then carry them in something other than that skimpy little sack.”

Jacen wasn’t going to take them far. “Have your people watch for more.” He looked down the narrow lane. “This spot is close to the off-loading area. They probably came in on a supply ship.”

At Hydroponics Two, Jacen found Romany, the other clan leader—who’d been a biologist—working alongside Han and Jaina.

“Not my specialty,” Romany insisted when Jacen presented the wriggling sample sack. One of the wormlike creatures seized a pinch of synthplas and started chewing.

Han glowered. Jaina put down a hydrospanner and adjusted her goggle-mask.

Jacen flicked the creature off the synthplas. “Maybe not, Romany, but you’re the best authority we have, without sending over to Gateway. I didn’t want to do that.”

“Ri-ight.” Romany ran long fingers through his bushy mane. “They’d quarantine us. And if the Duros heard about this, they might not send any more ships. We were mighty glad to get that extra shipment.” He and Han exchanged a knowing look.

Jacen’s mind bounced back to the Duros. “I wonder if one of the CorDuro ships brought in the egg pod these”—he shook the little sack—“hatched from.” Each gray worm had nine segments and twice that many legs, with massive black eyes and mouthparts that were all out of proportion to the rest of their bodies.

Jaina shook her head.

“Can’t see them?” Han asked gently.

She blinked. “I am getting better. The blurs have edges.”

“Here we are,” the Ryn said, eyeing the creatures, “huddled under a synthplas dome.”

“Great,” Han said. “Just great.”

Jacen pulled his cloak around him a little tighter. “Romany, you and Mezza could organize the children into hunt teams. We’ve got a little sucrose set aside for treats. We could pay them by the worm.”

“Hey, Droma,” Han shouted over the top of a hydroponics vat. “I don’t suppose you people eat little wiggly bugs.”

A white-maned head appeared over the transparent lid. “With the right spices,” Droma said with grave dignity, “almost anything is edible. And—”

“Randa would probably love them.” This time, Jacen finished Droma’s sentence.

Then he looked aside. Han stared at Jaina, arching his eyebrows, his eyes soft and sad.

Jacen glanced from his father to his sister, comparing profiles. People generally claimed she resembled a young Leia, but below her bobbed hair, her forehead and cheeks really did have the same angles as Han’s. Jacen abruptly pitied any man who wounded Jaina’s heart with less than a galaxy between himself and her father.

As Jaina hiked off with Romany to look for Mezza, Jacen asked his dad, “Do you think all this is going to take the edge off her fighting ability?”

“If she doesn’t want it to, it won’t.” Han shifted his weight, frowning. “She’s too much like her mother.”

Jacen looked up sharply, hearing a depth of loneliness that Han never expressed openly.

“You’re right,” he told Han, not wanting to say too much. He hustled after Jaina, though.

He caught up at Mezza’s hut. “I think it’s time we went looking for Mom,” he told his twin.

*   *   *

Lenya, this morning’s comm operator, stared at the transceiver with her oblique eyes wide. Even Randa seemed flabbergasted. Jaina had found Admiral Dizzlewit’s soft spot: He had some sympathy for injured military personnel. Jaina had been given immediate access to the outsystem relay.

“SELCORE.” A human male wearing a high blue collar and short cape appeared on the relay screen, amid the usual cloud of blurred snowflakes. Deep-space relays went down or out of repair every day, blasted by the Yuuzhan Vong or sideswiped by space debris, but nobody dared to go out and fix them. They’d lost commercial HoloNet broadcasts completely. “How shall I direct your call?”

Jaina sat up a little straighter, and Jacen pulled his hand off her shoulder.

“We’re looking for Ambassador Organa Solo,” Jaina said.

“Do you have official business?”

Not again
, Jacen groaned to himself. One more runaround.

“Yes,” Jaina said. “We’re calling in from a SELCORE locale.”

“Not bad, on the spur of the moment,” Jacen muttered while the screen blanked.

“You’re not the only one who can make the truth sound impressive.”

“Get the news from Nal Hutta,” Randa urged.

Gamely, they stayed on-line while bureaucratic underlings shuffled them back and forth. Then a long-faced, elegant woman appeared, her black hair pulled back severely to show exquisite ears.

“Jedi Solo,” she said smoothly. “And—what a pleasant surprise,
two
Jedi Solos. How may I assist you?”

Jacen bent toward Jaina’s ear, but she’d already identified the voice. “Senator Shesh,” Jaina said, “we need to contact Mother. I’ve been furloughed out, injured. The last we heard anything specific, she was on Coruscant. Can your office trace her?”

“I’m sure we can,” the senator said. “It is splendid to see you together, and looking so well.” There was something false in her tone, though. Jacen leaned toward the image—

Randa pushed forward, into his way. “Senator,” he gushed, “please! You must send additional troops to—”

“I’m sorry.” Senator Shesh tilted her head. “We mustn’t hold this line open for nonessential communications. I’ll have my staff return your call.”

“Wait!” Jacen stretched forward, over Jaina’s shoulder. “This connection took us an hour to—”

The senator’s image dissolved into a network of fine diagonal lines.

Jaina gargled a cry of frustration. “Randa! I’m the one who got the call through. I’m the one who deserved to talk to her. You ruined it!”

Randa undulated backwards, away from the console. Tempted to insist that SELCORE would surely call back, Jacen pressed his lips shut. The callback might take days, or weeks, or it might not come.

“Speaking of worms,” he said, and he couldn’t resist glancing at Randa as the Hutt left the shed. “Senator Shesh rubs me wrong.”

Jaina frowned. “But she’s been named to the Advisory Council. She’s practically the head of SELCORE.”

“I know,” Jacen said, “and SELCORE isn’t exactly keeping its commitments. Think about the way she was standing, too. And that falseness in her tone of voice … The way she held herself, and that strange little smile.
They reminded me of the holovids I’ve seen of another senator.”

Jaina twisted the mask in her lap. “I hate guessing games.”

“Palpatine, pre-Empire,” he explained. “When he was on his way up, and he didn’t care who or what he destroyed to get there.”

Jaina frowned. “And she’s the one,” she said, “who delivers what we need to survive.”

“She’s also the one,” Jacen said, “who put us here. Who decided Duro was safe.”

“I don’t like where you’re taking this, Jacen.”

“Neither do I,” he said softly. “Not at all.”

Tsavong Lah stroked the villip in his privacy chamber. His agents had recently delivered a newly budded subordinate villip to their contact on Coruscant. This first time, his contact might need a few moments to realize she was being called. On future occasions, his agents would deliver appropriate discipline if she delayed.

She must have been eager. In only one minute, the villip softened and everted on its stand. Bumps formed on its pale surface. An aristocratic nose emerged first, then a dominating chin, high forehead, strong cheekbones, a firm stern mouth. He’d studied the human species enough to recognize the flare of her nostrils and the widening of her eyes as signs of distaste. For the villip itself, maybe—in her diplomatic work, she would have dealt with many species and their methods. She controlled her reaction quickly.

“Senator Shesh,” he said, forming words in her language as prompted by the tizowyrm he’d slipped into his ear. He enjoyed seeing her eyes and nostrils twitch again, as her villip spoke his words. “I will receive your report.”

The villip rotated slightly forward. She must have inclined her head, a sign of respect. “Warmaster Lah,
thank you for responding to my offer to open negotiations.”

“I will receive your report,” he repeated. She was young in his ways. He must make some allowances.

Her eyes widened slightly. “We are withdrawing from Kubindi,” she said, “and from Rodia. We wish to live at peace with your people.”

Peace
, as the tizowyrm translated her tongue, meant willing and appropriate submission. “Excellent,” he said. “We accept your peace.”

“In turn,” she said, “we would like some assurance that your invasion is nearly complete. Surely you can provide your people with homes and sustenance now. Leave us the worlds that remain. We must learn to live alongside each other. In … peace.”

His eyes narrowed, and he wondered if the tizowyrm had translated something incorrectly. Peace flowed from a submissive underling to a conqueror, never in both directions.

“Our ultimate need,” he said, “is the system you have prepared. For that, receive thanks.” From Duro, he could neutralize the famous Drive Yards in her home system of Kuat, as well as the monstrous weapon at Corellia—but she had been told nothing about these plans. “You have assured me you will set agents to work sabotaging Centerpoint.”

The villip inclined itself again. “As soon as it can be done. Thanks also for your gift of the ooglith masquers. I enjoy traveling unrecognized. I might hope,” she added in a lighter voice, “that the masking and unmasking process becomes less uncomfortable over time.”

He saw no reason to coddle her. The sharp sensation of each pseudopod piercing a pore was a vital part of the masquers’ function. “No,” he said.

Her left eye twitched. She hadn’t yet accepted the discipline of pain.

“You are to be praised,” he told her, “for helping bring about a lasting
peace
for your people. Your role will be widely honored, among us and your own folk.”

“But not until peace comes.” She raised her weirdly mobile eyebrows. “Promise me that.”

Was she learning humility, or was she simply afraid of how her exaltation would come about? She had every reason to fear. He would want native rulers for his slave population, but the gods needed worthy sacrifices.
Sunulok
’s priestess, Vaecta, was bloodthirsty on their behalf.

Perhaps this woman simply didn’t want her people to know she’d changed loyalty. “Your villip will invert again now. Remember to care for it.” Ending with the insult of extra words was an appropriate way to chastise her.

The villip spoke again, though. “Wait, Warmaster Lah. I have new information.”

He waited.

“It concerns my SELCORE operation at Duro. I learned today there is a Jedi at one settlement who has sworn off using his abilities. Maybe you can make use of him.”