She hurried on in determined silence. The empty colony was testimony to many things: hopes and fears, bravery and cowardice, the everyday and the profound. Ax wasn't interested in any of that. She hadn't come to Sebaddon in search of a museum. She had come because the Dark Council ordered her to, because fate demanded it, and because of Dao Stryver. Maudlin sentimentality was irrelevant to her.

Still, Ax's pace increased until she was almost running from room to room, seeking something she couldn't put a name to. Master Satele followed, moving lightly and silently in her wake. The corridors wound deeper and deeper, connecting to larger s.p.a.ces and more business-like structures, including air and water purifiers and power plants. The pressure steadily increased around them. In several places they saw slow leaks, dripping red into growing puddles.

They came at last to a large, square room that looked more like a warehouse than a laboratory, although clearly it had once been the latter. Droid parts lay scattered in various states of repair alongside tools of all shapes and sizes and arcane instruments of measurement. Holoprojectors displayed rotating designs, revealing several hex variants that Ax hadn't seen before: versions with ten legs or more, multiple bodies, specialist limbs, and agglomerated into larger machines capable of s.p.a.ce travel or ma.s.s destruction. Some of them changed as she walked toward them, indicating that the evolutionary algorithms responsible for them were still running. Thick cables ran everywhere through a centimeters-deep layer of red. Some of them led to a tubular gla.s.s tank, five times larger than a bacta tank, which stood in one corner of the room. It was full of opaque red fluid, apparently identical to the stuff outside.

Master Satele approached the tank, but Ax hung back. She sensed that this was what had drawn her here, but now that she was standing in front of it, she was nervous. Did she really want to know what her mother's fate had been?

"It's warm, " said Master Satele. She had taken off a glove and pressed it against the gla.s.s. "Body temperature, or thereabouts. "

"That red stuff, " said Ax. "It's in all the hexes. It looks like lava, but it's not. It's the biological component the Hutts detected. "

"Is it blood?"

"I don't know. " She shuddered. "I hope not. "

The Grand Master was still standing with her hand touching the gla.s.s. She watched Ax closely. "This is what I tap into when I subdue the hexes. It's alive, but at the same time not alive. It's incomplete, like a body without a mind. "

"Could the CI be its mind?"

"It could be, but we've seen no sign of the CI so far. If it's in this section of the planet, it's keeping a very low profile. "

The fluid in the tank stirred, and Master Satele pulled sharply away.

"There's something else in there, " she said. "I felt it. "

Ax hugged herself without realizing. She wanted to run but couldn't move. Her feet were frozen to the floor. Her eyes couldn't look away.

Inside the tank, something white swept against the gla.s.s. It vanished almost instantly, back into the red murk, but then returned a moment later, pressing hard.

Ax gasped. It was a human hand. Another appeared beside it, with fingers splayed out wide. The red fluid stirred as the body the hands were attached to steadied itself in the fluid.

Something whirred in the laboratory. A cam turned to stare at Master Satele, then tracked to take in Ax.

"I recognize you. "

The voice came from all around them. Female, breathless, surprised.

"I know you. "

A face loomed closer to the gla.s.s wall of the tank, coming slowly into view.

"I am you. "

Ax felt her insides turn to water. The face was her own.

CHAPTER 41.

Ula watched the repulsor platform rising from the planet's south pole with something approaching awe. The skyhook was huge and well defended, and the hexes had built it in almost no time at all. If Stryver still needed to convince anyone of the reality of his geometric growth theory, the proof was right there in front of him.

"What's a skyhook doing at the pole?" Jet asked. "It'd be useless, floating there. "

"Why?"

"Because the best place to get to higher orbits is at the equator, and that's what they'll be wanting to do. Isn't it?"

Ula just shrugged. Skyhooks had many uses, not just as a staging point to orbit, as they were usually employed, hanging motionlessly over points on a planet's surface. They could provide defense or act as displays of wealth. Who knew what the hexes wanted? He was still learning what they could do.

"Target that thing, " he ordered the combined fleet, just to be sure. "Bring it down!"

The Paramount sent a halfhearted salvo in the skyhook's direction, but it was clear Kalisch was keeping significant firepower in reserve. The Commenor sent nothing at all.

"Didn't you hear me. Captain Pipalidi? We need to stop that thing from reaching the upper atmosphere. "

"And I need to ensure the security of what ships we have left, " said the leader of the Republic contingent. "If the Paramount turns its weapons on us while we're looking elsewhere, we'll be defenseless. "

"If the hexes escape, we all lose. "

"On Kalisch's head be it. "

He punched the instrument panel in frustration.

Jet looked at him in reproach. "Hey, take it easy. "

"It's just so-so pointless! What's the point of fighting each other? All they have to do is cooperate a little longer and we stand a chance. "

"They're too alike. That's the problem. You see that in primitive cultures when schisms divide religions into similar but not identical sects. They hate each other more than the enemy. "

"What are you talking about? The Empire isn't a primitive culture. "

"No, but the principle still holds. Similar hierarchies, with a dominant high priest caste; similar beliefs but different practices; competing over the same territory..."

"Stop it, " said Ula. "You're not helping. "

"Just trying to point out why it was never going to work. "

"So we shouldn't even have tried?"

"Everything's worth trying once. And I have been known to be wrong on occasions. Unfortunately, this isn't turning out to be one of them. "

"So how do we turn it around? What can we do to stop the hexes from getting out?"

"There's always Plan B. "

"Which is?"

"I was hoping you might have one. "

Stryver was heading north, away from the south pole. Ula projected the Mandalorian's progress across a map of the planet's surface and found the likely CI location at the end of it. That portion of the map was a mess of activity. Ula used satellite and tighter data to zoom in closer.

Something was rising up from a lake of lava, tilling the crater where the landing site had been.

"Another skyhook?" he said, pointing at the image.

"It's in the right spot, " said Jet, "but I don't think so. The design isn't right, and it doesn't appear to have the repulsorlift capacity it would need to get off the ground. "

A circular hatch irised open on the top of the thing, like an enormous iris. Another s.p.a.ce opened up among the hexes directly above.

Ula waited, but nothing emerged from the hatch.

"This doesn't make any sense, " he said.

"There's Stryver again, " Jet said, pointing at a solitary blip circling the new arrival.

"I guess he's chasing those subs.p.a.ce foci, " Ula said. "That one must be a biggie. "

"Like the skyhook's. " Jet pointed at the south of the planet. "Which is moving, by the way. "

He was right. The skyhook had drifted away from the pole and was accelerating ponderously northward.

Ula thought fast. If the skyhook kept accelerating at that rate and stayed on that heading...

"They're two halves of one thing, " he cried. "The skyhook was at the pole because that's where the master factory built it. Now it's coming to pick up the CI and take it offworld. I bet the drives are being built on the moon, as we speak. They're getting ready to break free. We have to stop them!"

"I think you're right, " said Jet, "and I agree that this is serious. Try Kalisch and Pipalidi one more time. Maybe they'll change their minds. "

Ula knew it was pointless. The fleet was breaking up. Shots were being fired by fighters pa.s.sing perilously close to the opposite side's capital vessels. It was clear that lines were being drawn and beads taken. All it would take was one mistake for open warfare to erupt.

"If there was only some way to make them do what's needed, " he said.

"I knew you had the makings of an emperor. "

"How can you joke at a time like this?"

"Who's joking?" Jet turned in his seat and said to Clunker, "Time for Plan B. "

The droid inclined its battered head. A series of new screens flickered in and out of the main holoprojector as the droid sent a series of commands through the Auriga Fire's main computers.

"Don't tell me, " said Ula. "You cracked the hex code but have been sitting on it, waiting for the rest of us to figure it out for ourselves. "

"Believe me, I wouldn't have waited. Also, there's nothing to be gained in doing that. Once the code is cracked, the hexes are dead, and I'm out of pocket. "

"So what are you going to do?"

"Something n.o.ble and probably quite stupid. In return, I need you to do something for me. "

"Just ask. "

"I need you to pretend it never happened. "

Ula stared at him.

"Watch the screens, " Jet said.

The combined fleet was breaking up, but not down faction lines. The Paramount was leading one mixed contingent down to a lower orbit, there to target the CI with greater precision. The Commenor was heading for the moon with a smaller retinue and two squadrons of fighters. All internecine squabbling had abruptly ceased.

Comms weren't down, but they were suspiciously quiet. No one was giving orders to coordinate the fleet's movements. It was just happening.

"You're doing this, " Ula said, appalled.

"Clunker is. He's got a very good head on his shoulders. "

"You used me to infiltrate the Imperial and Republic networks. You cracked their codes. Now you've taken over!"

"The end justifies the means, right?"

"That's what Stryver said. I'm not sure I agree. "

"Being alive is always better than being dead. That's my golden rule. "

"But what comes afterward?"

"The fleets change their codes. Business goes back to usual. "

"If you let them go. "

"Why wouldn't I? I'm not power-mad like you. There might be money to be had in empire building, but never at the top. You only end up on the wrong end of a coup, or an invasion, or a sniper's rifle. Your Emperor will learn that eventually, the hard way. "

Ula was trapped. He had betrayed the Republic, after all, but he had betrayed the Empire along with it. And now he was utterly powerless. All he could do was sit back and watch-and wonder if he would intervene if the opportunity arose. Jet was, after all, doing the job that he had failed to do. Who was he to get in the way?

Maybe Jet, too, was defying his baser instincts and trying to do the right thing.

A voice crackled from the planet on a Republic frequency. Ula recognized it instantly.

"...higher now so the jamming might not be as effective. This is Lieutenant Moxla calling Director Vii. I've hitched a lift on the back of the skyhook and I'm placing transponders on the vulnerable points. Strike them as hard as you can. Please respond. Let me know I'm getting through. We're higher now so the jamming might not be as effective. This is Lieutenant Moxla calling Director..."

"It's a recording. " Jet reduced the volume. "I see the transponders. If she's done her job properly, we can hit the skyhook with everything the Paramount has and take it out of commission before it reaches the equator. "

"What about Larin?"

"Maybe she's already ditched. "

"We can't know, can we?"