Star Wars_ Traitor Part 23

Jacen spoke in quiet tones throughout the processional, relating bits of insight he'd gained into Yuuzhan Vong culture and biotechnology, keeping his voice low, half whispered, lips barely moving so that none of their escort would know he was talking. Ganner could only understand half of what he heard, and he was sure he wouldn't remember half of what he understood. He couldn't concentrate on what Jacen might be telling him; most of his attention had to stay focused on walking while his legs wobbled and kept trying to collapse. And did it matter what he remembered and what he didn't? He wouldn't live to tell anyone. It wasn't fear that was making him sick. He was afraid to die, sure, but he'd faced that fear before--without this knee-buckling nausea.

He clutched the handgrip of Anakin's lightsaber up his sleeve; only that smooth solidity let him keep a composed expression on his face instead of puking down the front of his robe. Maybe part of what was making Ganner sick was the world itself. He'd thought he'd be ready for his first view of Coruscant; he'd heard dozens of tales about it from the refugees on the camp s.h.i.+ps during his investigation. He'd heard about the insanely prolific jungle that patched the ruined planetary city. He'd been told about the dazzling orbital rings that some of the refugees called the Bridge. He knew that the Yuuzhan Vong had altered Coruscant's...o...b..t to bring it closer to its star. But knowing these things was entirely different from walking out of cool shadow into a blue-white noon that jammed needles into his eyeb.a.l.l.s and pounded sweat from his hairline, sweat that trickled into his mouth, his ears, trailed like a river down his spine and made his leggings stick to his knees.

The air was as humid as a Priapulin's breath, and smelled like the whole planet had been a monkey-lizard den that somebody had buried in rotting honeyflowers. The processional spiraled through a t.i.tanic hedge maze that was still growing, knitting itself into place around them, huge curving walls of interwoven branches that sported needle-pointed thorns ranging from half a centimeter to as long as Ganner's arm. Thousands of Yuuzhan Vong of unknown caste clambered up and down and across these walls, festooning them with brilliantly colored epiphytes and flowering vines, hanging living cages and nests occupied by a bewildering variety of creatures so alien Ganner couldn't even really see them clearly: his eyes kept trying to interpret them as insects or reptiles, rodents or felines or some other type of animal with which he was already familiar, when these were really nothing like anything he'd ever seen before.

He caught some of Jacen's explanation, that this hedge maze would serve a dual purpose: not only was it a ceremonial avenue, but it would also double as an antipersonnel defense surrounding the all-important Well of the World Brain if Yuuzhan'tar were ever invaded. When mature, the hedge thorns would meet overhead, forming a tunnel twenty meters high and thirty wide, hard as durasteel, fireproof, and resilient enough to minimize the effects of explosives--and the thorns would contain a neurotoxin so potent that a single p.r.i.c.k could destroy the central nervous system of any unfortunate creature who touched one. Groundborne invaders would be forced to trace the same route along which the processional now marched, facing dozens of ambush points along the way.

Occasionally, through gaps in the half-completed maze, Ganner could catch glimpses of their destination. Enveloping the Well of the World Brain was a mountain of yorik coral half a kilometer high, spreading in a shallow dome nearly two kilometers across.

Even buried, the shape that underlay the coral mountain was, to anyone who'd ever been to Coruscant, unmistakable. Ganner knew exactly what it used to be. That might have been part of what was making him feel sick, too. The Well of the World Brain used to be the Galactic Senate.

The Senate had come through the planetary bombardment with only cosmetic damage; its original architect, a thousand years before, had claimed that any weapon powerful enough to destroy the Galactic Senate would crack the planet itself. While this was a boastful exaggeration, there was no doubt that the Galactic Senate was one of the most durable buildings ever designed. Even the total destruction of the original Senate Hall ten years before had left the structure itself barely damaged; the Grand Convocation Chamber of the New Republic had been built directly upon the bones of the old. The Senate's honeycombed construction gave it incredible structural strength similar, in engineering terms, to yorik coral itself. Only direct hits could do any damage at all, and the interior had been designed in crumple zones, localizing damage by minimizing shock transmission.

Jacen explained: once the yorik coral enzymatically digested the Senate's duracrete and transparisteel and finished using the digested minerals to build its own skeleton, the Yuuzhan Vong would have taken that long-forgotten architect's boast and made it into prophecy. Any weapon that could harm the World Brain would have to be so powerful that it would destroy the planet, too. Not that they were content with this: they had also seeded the dome with a defensive array of dovin basals.

Even if the New Republic somehow delivered a planet-buster, the Well might survive the planet's destruction as a self-contained vessel, preserving the Brain, with its irreplaceable genetics and invaluable skills. But the coral conversion was not yet complete. There were still some weak points in the structure--for example, the area damaged by the proton bomb that had detonated in Borsk Fey'lya's office.

"Somebody bombed Fey'lya's office?" Ganner muttered to the back of Jacen's head. "Before or after the invasion?"

Jacen's soft answering chuckle was dry as summer on Tatooine. He nodded toward the jungle-clutched ruin of the Imperial Palace, enough structure still visible to show the half-kilometer bite the bomb had taken from one corner. "They say Fey'lya set off the bomb himself. They say he took out something like twenty-five thousand crack troops and a bunch of high-ranking Vong officers-- including the drop commander."

"They who? Who says?"

"The Yuuzhan Vong themselves. They admire that kind of thing.

They look on Fey'lya as a kind of minor hero."

"Huh. They didn't know him like we did."

Jacen's shoulders twitched in what might have been a shrug.

"And maybe we didn't know him as well as we should have."

Ganner shook his head. This conversation wasn't making him feel any better; just the opposite.

"How do you even know this isn't all a test?" he asked. "How do you know there won't be a company of warriors waiting inside the Well to kill you at the first sign you're not going to go through with this?"

"I don't. But I've been told that the Yuuzhan Vong would regard such atest' as sacrilege. Warriors would never be allowed to lie in ambush in the Well."

"Told? Told by whom?"

"My--a friend. Her name's Vergere."

Ganner scowled, remembering the alien in his dream. "Is this the Vergere? The same one who was the pet of that Yuuzhan Vong a.s.sa.s.sin?"

"The same one who healed Mara with her tears. The same one whose tears have healed you."

"The one who turned you over to the Yuuzhan Vong." Ganner didn't like the sound of this at all. "You're sure she's on our side?"

"Our side?" Jacen said distantly. "You mean the New Republic side?

I doubt it."

Suddenly Ganner was overtaken by a stingingly potent wish that he might see Jacen's face; there was something about the angle of his head...

"I'm not sure whose side she's on," Jacen continued. "I'm not sure she's on anybody's. I'm not sure she believes in 'sides' at all."

"But you told her what you're planning? How can you trust her?"

"Because I have decided to believe she won't betray me."

Ganner heard the echo inside his head: Trust is always an act of faith. That swelling ball of nausea in his stomach was getting heavier with every step. The world swam around him like a slow whirlpool of gelatin. The thorn maze abruptly ended, opening onto an immense wedge-shaped causeway of curving pale ribs that seemed to be the smoothly interlaced horizontal trunks of living trees; leaf-bearing branches tangled toward the sun to either side. The foot of the causeway spanned at least a hundred meters between the branch-walls. It tapered like an arrowhead as it rose, forming a ramp whose point touched the Great Door of the Galactic Senate: a double leaf of durasteel layered like the hull armor of a Star Destroyer, intaglioed with the Galactic Great Seal surrounded by the seals of the Thousand Worlds.

Here the yorik coral had been shaped to preserve access; there grew around the perimeter of the door an immature hatch sphincter of incredible size--though still only half grown--that left the central third of the Great Door exposed. As the vanguard began to mount the causeway, their music of screams slowed, deepened, broadened in a decorous segue from the briskly martial to the solemnly devotional. The change in the music seemed to suck the last of the strength from Ganner's legs; his knees buckled, and he pitched forward onto the causeway's foot, curled into a fetal ball around the spiny fist of nausea clenched in his guts.

Saliva flooded his mouth, and his sides heaved. He squeezed shut his eyes to restrain a retch.

"Ganner? Ganner, what's wrong?" Jacen's voice came from close by, just above, low and worried. "C'mon, Ganner, you have to get up!"

Ganner couldn't get up. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even open his eyes. The smooth, hard trunks that made up the ribs of the causeway were cool beneath him, much cooler than the sun that scorched his other side, and all he wanted was to die.

Right here. Right now. If only he could die... The grunting hack of the Yuuzhan Vong tongue sounded in the middle distance, two voices, one imperiously disdainful, the other unctuous, conciliating.

A moment later, he heard Nom Anor's rasp in Basic, closer by: "The Shaper Lord inquires why the Jedi cowers like a brenzlit.

I lied to him, Jacen Solo. I told him this is how humans show reverence for the True G.o.ds. Make him get up. Make this weak, pathetic excuse for a Jedi get on with this sacrifice--before the Shaper Lord knows I lied."

"He's only a man," Ganner heard Jacen reply. "You can't keep a human sedated for weeks and then expect him to march like this.

He's weak because he's ill."

Ganner burned with shame: even Jacen was lying for him now.

The weakness that pinned him helplessly to the causeway wasn't physical. And having Jacen make excuses for him only made it worse.

Everyone has to lie for me, he thought. Everyone has to pretend I'm not as pathetic and useless and weak as I really am.

But I can't pretend anymore. I can't.

Self-loathing rose up the back of Ganner's throat like vomit, burning, driving stinging tears through his eyes. Within his robe's sleeve, his thumb found the activation plate on Anakin's lightsaber; without really understanding what he was doing, he pressed the lightsaber's crystal against his own ribs. One quick squeeze, and the purple shaft of pure energy would shear through flesh and bone and weak watery guts to spear oblivion into his coward's heart...

"C'mon, Ganner, we're almost there," Jacen whispered. "Don't screw it up now."

"... sorry... can't do this..." was all Ganner could say, a low miserable moan. He hugged himself, clutching at his ribs, arms crossed over his rebelliously spasming stomach. "... can't do this, Jacen...

sorry... let you down..." His finger tightened on the lightsaber's activation plate--And invisible hands caught him under the shoulders and lifted him to his feet. Though he hung limp, the processional once more began to move forward, mounting the causeway toward the Great Door. His legs swung without his will to drive them, moving as though he walked under his own power. His body tingled with the touch of the Force. Jacen was carrying him.

"There, you see?" Jacen said to Nom Anor. "He's fine. Return to your place, and rea.s.sure the Shaper Lord."

Ganner hung in Jacen's invisible Force grip, drowning in humiliation as Nom Anor moved quickly away. If only he could die--if only the trunk-causeway beneath his feet would gape like a mouth and swallow him right now... His whole life, he'd chased a single dream.

He had only wanted to be a hero. That's all. Not even that--not even a hero--not really. All he'd ever wanted was to walk through a room full of strangers and overhear somebody say "There goes Ganner Rhysode.

He's a man who gets things done."

Yeah, I get things done. I get things done to me. Some hero. More like a damsel in distress. And that was it: that's what was making him sick. Himself. He was sick of being Ganner Rhysode. Sick of trying to be a hero. Sick of trying not to be a hero. Sick of being a c.r.a.ppy Jedi, a mediocre pilot, and a b.l.o.o.d.y lousy leader of men.

Sick of being a joke. Just sick.

The vanguard parted as it approached the Great Door, dividing down the middle to line either side of the causeway, as their music of screams swelled toward a triumphal climax. The warriors who accompanied Nom Anor and the Shaper Lord formed another line within. The priests who had surrounded Jacen and Ganner knelt, lowering their foreheads to the causeway. Jacen paced forward steadily, smoothly, giving no sign of strain, no hint that might betray effort, no clue to the a.s.sembled thousands of Yuuzhan Vong that he was carrying Ganner like a child in the invisible arms of the Force. He came to a stop before the Great Door and moved Ganner to his side. From here, the living city of Yuuzhan'tar spread below them, a vast tangled jungle of every conceivable color and texture of life, shaped by a skeleton built of duracrete and transparisteel.

"Ganner, can you stand?" he asked softly. "You don't have to walk.

Just stand. I need to do something else right now."

Ganner clenched every ounce of his will to swallow the rising tide of his shame and self-disgust. He drew on the Force to hold himself upright, and for the strength to steady his voice.

"Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I'm okay, Jacen," he lied, then made himself say, "Thanks." Jacen flashed him a hint of that quick Solo smile. "You'd do the same for me."

As if I'd ever have to, Ganner thought, but held his tongue.

Solemnity settled back over Jacen's features like a mask. He turned to face the a.s.sembled thousands, and lifted his arms.

"I am Jacen Solo! I am human! I was a Jedi" His voice boomed out like artillery fire, and the echoes came back in Yuuzhan Vong: Nikk pryozz Jacen Solo! Nikk pryozz human! Nikk pr'zzyo Jeedai!

"I am now a servant of the Truth!" How he said that made Ganner suddenly scowl; for someone who was only playing a part, Jacen sounded unsettlingly sincere--Ganner felt a surge in the Force like a vast rus.h.i.+ng wind; it pa.s.sed him without touching him.

The Great Door swung inward, to reveal the shadowed reach of the Atrium beyond, and the cavernous mouths of the Grand Concourse to either side. Jacen turned his palms upward as though reaching for the braided arch of impossible color that was the Bridge overhead.

"WITNESS!" he thundered.

The echo cried: Tchurokk!

"WITNESS THE WILL OF THE G.o.dS!".

Before the echo finished roaring Tchurokk Yun'tchilat, Jacen had already turned and walked briskly through the Great Door; a swirl of the Force drew Ganner after him. Nom Anor and the Shaper Lord made to follow, along with the priests and the vanguard band, but as soon as Ganner was clear of the doorway, Jacen turned and made a small gesture that Ganner felt as another swift, incredibly powerful rush in the Force. The Great Door boomed shut.

Echoes faded. Slowly. The Atrium had become a vast cavern of living yorik coral. The immense statues that had once represented the varied species of the New Republic had become unidentifiable, misshapen pillars like boils of old lava. Shadows huge and black masked every fold of coral, and the mouths of the Grand Concourse to either side yawned bottomless depths of night; the sole light--a pulsing, sulfurous glow mingling reds and yellows--leaked into the Atrium from an archway opposite the Great Door.

"What's making that light? And, and, and, wait..." Ganner said numbly.

"I don't remember any door there... that was, uh, the Information Services office, wasn't it?..."

"Maybe you've noticed: things have changed." Jacen was already trotting toward the archway. "Follow me. We don't have much time."

Ganner stumbled after him. The arch led to nearly half a kilometer of yorik coral tunnel. The roof and sides formed a rough semicircle, a little less than five meters wide at the base and the same in height.

Pulsing red-orange light filled the far end, flaring sometimes to an eye-burning yellow.

"How are you doing?" Jacen asked as he jogged along; Ganner was lagging, breathing hard. "Keeping up okay? You need any more help?"

"I'm... I am..." not going to screw this up, Ganner swore to himself. "... okay. I'm okay. I'm right behind you."

The tunnel's roof opened to a vast cavernous red-lit s.p.a.ce overhead, and the walls, too, fell away; the tunnel's floor became a cantilevered bridgeway out to a circular platform ten meters across, which hung unsupported in great swirls of sulfurous mist that burned Ganner's throat and scoured tears from his eyes.

"What is this place?"

"Look around," Jacen said grimly. If the scorching heat or brimstone-reeking fog bothered him at all, he didn't show it. He seemed to be listening for something.

"Give me a minute. I have to concentrate."

Ganner barely heard him. He gaped, turning in a slow, dumbfounded circle. This used to be the Senate's Grand Convocation Chamber.

A hundred meters below, where once had stood the pillar of the Chief of State's Podium, there now boiled a great pool of glowing slime; huge bubbles roiled to the surface, bursting into flares of scarlet and starflower yellow--it was from this pool that the light came.

Rising around the pool, a gargantuan bowl of yorik coral climbed the staggered rank upon rank of Senatorial platforms, slowly scaling the walls toward the dim, shadowed vault of the ceiling. And down in that pool of glowing slime, a vast fleshy bulge moved, breaching the surface in a slick black curve before submerging once more.

Ganner jolted back from the edge.

"Gyahh...! Jacen, there's something down there!"

"Yeah." Jacen stepped to the front edge of the platform. "Don't worry.

It's a friend of mine."

"A friend?" Ganner looked down again--and again the creature breached: black, bloated, a ghastly stomach turned inside out, swollen with malice. A yellow eye the size of an X-wing glared up at them, blinking, wiped by a triple layer of transparent eyelids that slid across its surface at different angles to sc.r.a.pe it free of slime. Then a second eye appeared, blinked, and fixed on them: a parallax, for ranging.

A spray of tentacles shot upward from the slime. Ganner threw himself backward as tentacles hissed through the fog around them, impossibly flexible ropes of muscle slicing the air so fast he couldn't even tell how many there were. Tentacles slammed against the platform, knocking Ganner half off his feet, chipping away head-sized hunks of coral.

Jacen never moved.

"This... uh, friend of yours," Ganner said shakily. "It doesn't seem too happy to see you..."

"Yeah, well, I can't say I'm surprised. The last time we saw each other, I was trying to kill it."

"To kill... uh, your friend?" Gazing downward in a daze of horrified revulsion, Ganner tried a laugh; it came out too high, too tight, too close to a hysterical giggle. "How do you treat your enemies?

Jacen c.o.c.ked his head, his brown eyes suddenly thoughtful, then he shrugged. "I don't have any enemies."

"What?" Jacen pointed at an angle, down across the Well.

"See that platform--the one sticking out under that fold of coral?

That's the platform for the Kashyyyk delegation. They like manual doors. I know you're not as strong as a Wookiee, but with the Force you should be able to get them open."

"Down there?" Ganner clutched his guts again. "You want me to go in there?"