"Warmaster, may I ask two questions?"

"You may." They emerged from the ganadote into a large, blood-blue corridor, and were joined by Tsavong Lah's personal guards, who marched a respectful distance ahead of and behind them.

"First, will there be no outcry from the priesthood of Yun-Yuuzhan, from the shapers?"

"An outcry? Of course there will be. A cry for blood. When word returns to us that their transport was attacked by pilots of Borleias, all its passengers slaughtered, there will be a great cry for revenge."

"Ah." Nen Yim walked along in silence for a moment, knowing that his reply had spelled her doom, too. "Should I not go with them? Or is my death to be a different one?"

"I can't kill you. You're on loan from Overlord Shimmra. Besides, I have no reason to wish you harm." They entered the stomach compartment that now housed Tsa-vong Lah's private transport. The eyelidlike wall on the far side was closed now, keeping the chamber's atmosphere intact.

They walked to the transport's ramplike protrusion and climbed into the creature's passenger stomach. "I am pleased with you, Nen Yim. Do you plan to tell this story? To rouse hatred against me?"

"No."

"If you did, what would happen?"

She thought about that as she settled into her seat. Its fleshy surface flowed around her waist, her torso, holding her in place against the acceleration to come. "The only reason to do so would be to harm you.

In which case it becomes the story of a discredited shaper against that of the warmaster. And I would die before I could present proof."

"And such a waste. Your cleverness, used in our service, more than makes up for the loss of Ghithra Dal and his conspirators. Will you use it in our service?"

"I will." She did not hesitate. Tsavong Lah said our service. To her, that meant the Yuuzhan Vong, not him personally, and she could swear to that with a whole heart.

"Some day soon, the seedship will return to this world and complete its transformation. I wish you to return to Lord Shimmra and study the World-Brain. I wish you to do nothing to displease the gods... but to find that knowledge which the gods do not mind us knowing."

"I will, Warmaster."

"Then speak no more of your death. It will come when the time is appropriate. It is not appropriate now."

Coruscant Baljos Arnjak was beginning to look like he, too, was being Vongformed. His beard and mustache were growing in; shaggy and in colors that ranged from light brown to black, his beard seemed like a riotous life-form not native to this world. The orange jumpsuit he wore when not traveling in Yuuzhan Vong armor seemed to have many more stains on it now, and some of them might have been living patches of mold or lichen.

But these changes and the group's circumstances seemed to be sitting well with him; his eyes were bright, his manner animated. "Come in, come in,"

he said, waving the Jedi and Danni into the Lord Nyax suspended animation chamber. Bhindi was already there, perched on a stool.

"Tell me you have some information," Luke said.

Baljos beamed. "I have some information. There, that was painless, wasn't it? You can all go now."

"Don't taunt the Jedi," Bhindi said. "And don't take credit you don't deserve. I'm the one who dug most of the information out of the wrecked guts of those maintenance machines."

"True enough, Circuitry Girl. Not that you could have interpreted-"

Baljos doubtless saw the impatience in someone's face, probably Tahiri's, for he broke off that line of talk. "We're prepared to tell you whatever you need to know about Lord Nyax. Anything Bhindi didn't find in the machine memory, we'll just make up."

Luke leaned against a wrecked computer console and crossed his arms as though to put up a defense against whatever information was to come.

"So, who is he? What was he modified for?"

Baljos nodded as though that was the first pair of questions he'd expected. "He is-or used to be-a Dark Jedi. His name was Irek Ismaren."

Luke frowned, then shook his head. "No, that's not possible."

"Who's Irek Ismaren?" Tahiri asked.

Luke dug his datapad out of a belt pouch. "Like Baljos said. He was a Dark Jedi in training. A son either of the Emperor or of one Sarcev Quest by a woman named Ro-ganda Ismaren. She was a crazy woman who modified her son with computer implants. My sister Leia ran into him on Belsavis, oh, about fifteen years ago."

He opened the datapad and began scrolling through entries. Though nowhere near as comprehensive as the database he kept in whatever hidden site might serve as the Jedi headquarters, this datapad included an abbreviated listing on every Jedi, Sith, Force-sensitive, or Force-related person or site he had ever encountered in his long searches for knowledge of the Jedi Order.

Within moments, he found the file he wanted. A face resolved into clarity on the datapad screen: aristocratic, handsome, somehow unfinished in a teenaged way, framed by curly dark hair.

It was the face of a younger Lord Nyax.

Suddenly Luke felt as pale as Lord Nyax. He showed the image to Mara.

She nodded. She noted some of the details that appeared on the screen under Irek's name, "So he should be about thirty now."

"Yes. And of normal height."

"Except," Baljos interrupted, "he spent most of the intervening years in that suspended animation chamber, so he's physically younger than his chronological age. His vital processes were slowed. He was subjected to the medical treatments I mentioned earlier, treatments that kept his bones growing long past the point they should have sealed, that gave him lots more muscle mass. As a baby, he'd had a computer apparatus implanted in his brain by his mother; it helped give him enough focus - monomania may be a better word for it-to learn to control the Force far out of proportion to his age. When he was here, that apparatus was augmented to make his control even greater. It apparently stimulates what's left of his brain in ways beneficial to Force control. He was equipped with lightsaber weapons, their use part of the hard coding in his brain implant-" Luke snapped the datapad shut. "How did this happen?"

Bhindi said, "It appears that after leaving Belsavis, he and his mother came to Coruscant and hid here... and by 'here' I mean in this very facility. His mother carefully Monitored his progress in the Force, training him so that he'd be the most powerful Dark Jedi in existence, and Save him medical treatments to make him much bigger, more imposing, more physically powerful. She also arranged to bring in the ysalamiri to keep him hidden as his Presence in the Force grew stronger."

"Then something happened," Baljos said. "The notes are not exactly clear, but it seems like they found and I took on a partner, another Dark Jedi, and at some point Irek and the new partner got in a dispute and dueled. The partner was killed, and Irek took a Hghtsaber thrust right through the skull. He died."

"Died," Luke said.

"Technically died," Baljos added. "Brain activity ceased. He fell down and didn't move anymore. But his mother and the attendant medical droids were able to maintain his autonomic functions and keep his body alive. Her journal, not surprisingly, gets a bit harder to understand at this point, and becomes increasingly demented over the years, but it becomes obvious that she kept his body in suspended animation and had the medical droids insert increasingly sophisticated components into the computer apparatus in his skull."

Luke grimaced. "With what purpose?"

"I think," Baljos said, "that she was trying to make him into her son again-an unlikely prospect, since most of the portions of the brain that pertained to memory and the less violent emotions were charred into carbon - and also to make him into a new leader for the Empire. She was just crazy enough to imagine he could be Emperor Irek, loving son, Dark Jedi, and unconquerable tyrant."

Luke exchanged a look with Mara. She didn't let any of her emotions reach her face, but he could feel them through the Force, a revulsion for a woman mad enough to keep her own son on the butcher's block like that for so many years. "What happened to Roganda Ismaren?" he asked.

"She was the female corpse we found here. We ran cell samples against her records in the files. There's no mistake."

Luke gave him a disbelieving look. "Irek killed her?"

"He's not Irek anymore. Lord Nyax killed her. He didn't recognize her. She was just another moving shape in the way when he broke out of his holding tank." Baljos shook his head. "Very nasty business. It gives even mad science a bad name."

"Does he have any weaknesses?" Mara asked.

"Oh, yes." Baljos gestured at the suspended animation unit. "He's not ripe. "

"Ripe," Luke repeated.

"It appears that a groundquake caused some ceiling rubble to drop onto one or more of the ysalamiri, killing them and damaging the unit. He woke up, burst out, went on a rampage, and fled. But he wasn't due to come out for another couple of years." Baljos pointed at one of the computer consoles. "All his operational programming was there, plus the refabricated 'Irek' memories Roganda planned to implant in him, and they weren't transferred over. He has his instincts, he has some combat programming, and he has some deep-level motivations - such as to seek out Jedi and kill them, to seek out hot-points of the Force and control them, to conquer the universe, little things like that. But he lacks memories, tactical skills... even language, I think. I doubt he's even verbal."

"So we can't even talk to him." Tahiri looked down-cast. "Maybe that's a weakness, but it doesn't make things easier on us. He can't be reasoned with."

"I guess that leaves me with only one more question." Luke returned the datapad to his belt pouch and prepared himself for what he expected to be more bad news. "Is there any way to save him? To befriend him, teach him about the light side?"

Baljos finally became serious. "I don't think so. He's had almost all humanity burned out of his brain. He's just a predator whose only goal is to dominate."

"Great," Luke said.

Viqi spent almost her every hour in the chamber that concealed the Ugly Truth. Though not technically proficient, she knew enough about machinery-and could glean more from the ship's computer memory-to have a good sense of the resources available to her here.

Ugly Truth was definitely capable of spaceflight, and her inboard diagnostics indicated that every ship's system was undamaged, operational. The ship was fully fueled, and battery power, for starting up systems and even providing her with some discretionary lights and occasional cool air, was adequate to last for weeks more.

The problem was the exit chute. It had collapsed during Coruscant's fall or subsequent bombardment. Small chunks of duracrete and ferrocrete had fallen, then metal beams had twisted and more rubble had fallen onto the beams, the whole mass crushing into an impenetrable plug.

Floors above the hidden hangar, she'd found a hole providing access into the exit chute above the plug. Here there were signs that someone had been working, digging away at the plug from above, hauling blocks of duracrete into an office chamber at that level. She supposed that the worker had been the pretty boy who'd given her the locator.

She'd evert found the boy's name. In the ship's computer records was information about the family that had owned the Ugly Truth. Hasville and Adray Terson had been the founders of Terson Comfort Carriers, an airtaxi company; Viqi had seen the ubiquitous vehicles of their fleet, even ridden within them during her secret activities aiding the Yuuzhan Vong. The ship's records included a holo of their son, Hasray, the boy with the remote.

Another little sad story, she decided. She pondered that for a while. She couldn't feel the sadness of it-far from it, she was elated that the boy's sacrifice meant her salvation.

Viqi spent most of her time studying the ship's controls and diagrams, digging into the ship's stores of food, regaining her strength.

Occasionally she had to venture forth-very quietly, very carefully-to work on unplugging the exit chute or to find the chamber, down the hall on this floor, she had chosen for a refresher.

This day, she emerged from the refresher and peered up and down the corridor with her customary caution. There was no sound, no sign of movement. Slowly, carefully she headed back toward the Terson family quarters.

Something wrapped around her neck from behind, jerked her off her feet. She landed on her back, choking, and stared up... into the features of Denua Ku. The warrior held his amphistaff in one hand; the other end of the weapon was coiled around Viqi's neck.

She gaped up at him. He was dead, she knew he was dead, he'd died back in the furniture manufacturer's. But now he stared down at her, helmet off, eyes neither angry nor solicitous. "Get up," he said.

She struggled to her feet, assuming control over her expression, her manner, her breathing. As she rose, the amphistaff's tail slid from around her. "Denua Ku," she said. "I'd thought you had died."

"I ran." The warrior's voice sounded bitter. "My duty dictated that I return to my commander and describe what I'd seen-the giant Jeedai. Now that my superiors are informed, I can return to confront the monstrous thing... and kill it, or be killed by it. Why did you not seek out the Yuuzhan Vong and tell them what had happened?"

She let some scorn creep into her tone. "A human, alone, wandering about the rooftops, waving down coral-skippers? Do you know what happens to them? I do. I was shot at twice." That was a lie; she'd never ventured to the rooftops. But she'd seen the skips on patrol, seen how they fired at anything that might be an inhabitant of the planet caught above-ground.

"So you came here? Why?"

"I knew the people who lived here." This lie came smoothly to her, too. "Hasville and Adray Terson, and their boy Hasray. They were wealthy.

I knew their quarters would have preserved food hidden in them, and I was right. I knew that would give me time to figure out how to return to the worldship without getting myself killed. How did you find me?"

He reached under his armor at the armpit and pulled forth a creature-an insect about the size of one of Viqi's fingernails. It looked like some sort of beetle, but was the red color of arterial blood. Though its wings were folded along its back, perfectly shaped to its carapace, they vibrated, causing the little creature to buzz constantly.

"This is a nisbat," the warrior said. "When it is near any of its hatchmates, it makes this noise, increasing in volume as it gets closer."

"So?"

"So one of its hatchmates is within you."

Viqi couldn't keep her eyes from widening. "Something that size is inside me-"

"No. It was implanted in you when it was fresh-hatched. It cannot grow. It cannot even vibrate. But it can be felt by its fellows."

"I am... grateful to it. That it has allowed you to find me."

"Hmmm." Denua Ku's acknowledgment sounded neither accepting nor dubious. "Now you will be able to return to the worldship."

"I am delighted."

"After we find and kill the giant Jeedai."

Viqi's heart sank. She kept it from her face. "Shall I hold him down while you kill him?"

Denua Ku's lips twitched up in a smile. "Amusing. Is that as funny in Basic as it is in our tongue?"

"If our two cultures share anything, it is irony."

The warrior held up a hand. From other doorways in the corridor emerged more warriors-a party of two dozen or more, Viqi calculated.

And with them was another voxyn. This one was worse off than the previous one; it was a sickly yellow almost everywhere, and in places, its scales were flaking off completely. Its head hung listlessly, and it did not even bother to snap at the warrior nearest it.

"Ah." Viqi forced a smile. "Even better."

"Come along." Derma Ku led the way toward the nearest emergency stairwell.

Viqi followed, her smile fixed, her mind racing.

She would find a way to elude them. She would pry the nisbat from her body, wherever it was hidden. She still had her locator tucked away, and the stairwell to the Ugly Truth was closed, hidden; she would be able to return here. She would clear that exit chute and blast off to safety.

And if it were humanly possible, she would see Denua Ku dead first, dead for daring to force her back into his plans when her plans were so much more important.

She kept her back straight and her manner haughty. No matter whom she aided, no matter what she wore, she was of the royal lines of Kuat.

THIRTEEN.

Coruscant In a deep tunnel, a maintenance causeway sealed off from the surrounding habitat areas, a passage constantly dripping with nearly opaque seepage from the levels above, the voxyn became more alert. It raised its head and began the familiar side-to-side sweeping gestures.

The Yuuzhan Vong warriors became agitated and allowed the voxyn and its handler up to the front.

"Warriors, flank it," Denua Ku ordered. "We cannot lose this one.