The Final Prophecy (26 page)

“Again? I’m sick of baby-sitting. Don’t you trust them yet? They’re completely moon-eyed over this place, both of them. Harrar is the one we ought to worry about.”

“I do worry about Harrar. That’s why I’m keeping an eye on him. But the other two—they’re still the enemy, Tahiri. No matter how well we seem to be getting along with them as individuals, we can’t lose sight of the fact that our goals might be quite different.”

“I understand that. It’s just that Nen Yim and the Prophet are
boring
. All they do is poke at bugs and twigs all day. Why don’t you let
me
go and you stay here, if you think someone has to?”

“Because this is how I want it, that’s why. Brush up on your meditation technique and practice your lightsaber footwork.”

“That’s all I’ve
been
doing for the past week.”

“Well, life is hard,” Corran said, more sarcastically than he needed to. “Sometimes you actually have to spend a week
without
going into battle. I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Yes, sir,” Tahiri replied, unenthusiastically. She felt a knot of hurt and resentment in her belly. Why was Corran treating her this way? Couldn’t he see it hurt?

“So Harrar and I will start in the morning,” he went on. “It shouldn’t take us more than a day or a day and a half of walking, but I can’t say how long it will be before I figure out if there’s anything useful there—maybe an hour, maybe days. I need you to stay alert here.”

“For what? Vicious fruit?”

Corran looked up, his eyes sharp. “I don’t know,” he said. “But the longer we’re here, the itchier I feel.”

“Maybe you’re bored, too.”

“It’s more than that. I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole deal. But there’s nothing I can do about it until I have some way to contact Luke.”

“If he’s still here.”

“I think he is. I get occasional glimpses.”

“So do I,” Tahiri said, “especially of Jacen. But the Force doesn’t care how far away they are. They could be back on Mon Calamari.”

“That’s not how it feels,” Corran said. “You’re going to have to trust I’ve learned a thing or two over the years.”

The angry tone startled her. “Corran, I
know
you’re a more experienced Jedi than I am.”

“Not the impression you give.”

“I’m sorry if I—” The knot, growing since she had first seen him again, exploded. She felt warmth on her face and realized to her utter shame that she was crying.

“Sometimes I don’t express myself very well, I think,” she said. “I mean, I’ve just integrated two personalities. I don’t have this all worked out yet.”

“Hey, easy,” Corran murmured. “I misunderstood you, that’s all.”

“No, no—Corran, you’re my
hero
. Ever since that time when you and Anakin and I—I thought we were friends, and then—” She stopped. She was just sounding stupid.

“Look, Tahiri—”

“I need more training,” she blurted out. “Special training. Can’t you
see
that? Why haven’t you ever offered—I mean you know so much more than I do …” She trailed off, both horrified and relieved that she had finally said it.

He just stared at her for a second. “I never imagined you wanted anything like that from me.”

“Well—” How could someone so smart be so stupid? “Why wouldn’t I? I need some sort of guidance, Corran. I might seem like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t.”

“I’m not a Master, Tahiri,” Corran said gently. “There are Masters who would be happy to train you.”

“You have half a chance of understanding me,” Tahiri said. “They don’t.”

“I think you’re selling them short.”

“Maybe.” She thrust her chin out defiantly. “Does that mean you don’t want me?”

“No,” Corran said. “But it’s not that simple. We’d have to ask Master Skywalker. And at the least it means you’ll stop talking back and do what I say. Do you understand that?”

“You mean you’ll take me on?”

“Provisionally, since there are no Masters around, and until I get Luke’s yes or no on the matter—if you agree to those conditions.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I agree, then.”

“Good. Then you stay here with Nen Yim and the Prophet. The end.”

“Okay.”

Nen Yim examined the thing she had grown. It was, to all appearances, a qahsa. The differences between it and the usual item were invisible to the naked eye. She reached for it, but the faint sound of approaching footsteps gave her pause.

It was the shaped Jedi, of course. She was never far from Nen Yim, always watching. It had been a source of irritation, at first, but now it seemed somehow less of a bother. The young human’s insights had proven valuable, and had even prompted this experiment.

“Hello,” the shaper said.

“You seem in a good mood,” Tahiri replied.

The corners of Nen Yim’s mouth turned up. “That may change in a moment. I’m about to try something new. It will probably fail.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“I don’t see how it could be, but anything is possible.”

“Maybe you should wait until Corran and Harrar get back,” Tahiri suggested.

“They only left a few hours ago,” Nen Yim said. “They could be gone indefinitely. I think this should be safe.”

Tahiri turned a curious eye toward the experiment. “What is it, exactly? It looks like a qahsa.”

“It is, so far as it goes. But I grew it with modifications.”

The Jedi sat cross-legged near her. “What sort of modifications?”

“Your talk of the Force binding the life of this world and serving as its means of intercommunication interested me. And yet, since Yuuzhan Vong life does not appear in the Force, I could think of no way to test that possibility. However, it occurred to me that if the ecosystem of this world is
truly self-regulating, it must have some sort of memory—it needs to know what happened yesterday and last cycle to plan for tomorrow. Furthermore, that memory must be shared somehow by all of its constituents.”

“I’m with you so far.”

Nen Yim indicated a ten-legged arthropod she had enclosed in a nurturing membrane. “Even if the memory were stored at a molecular level, a creature this size could not possibly carry enough to be useful, so I reason the planet’s central memory core lies elsewhere, but that any living thing—even a cell—must be able to contact it, perhaps through this Force of yours.”

“Interesting. And you’ve found a way to test that?”

“I think so.” She glanced up at the young Jedi. “To explain, I may have to speak of things that will upset you.”

Tahiri’s eyes narrowed. “This concerns my own shaping, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“There is a protocol—the protocol of Qah—which is used to integrate manufactured or borrowed memories into the brain tissue of Yuuzhan Vong life. We use it often, mostly for rather mundane purposes—teaching ships to fly, for instance. But we also use it at times to enhance our own memories, to gain skills or knowledge without having to learn them. In the past, on rare occasions, we’ve used the protocol to replace entire personalities.”

“Which is what you tried to do to me.”

“Exactly. But the protocol of Qah did not work on your human tissues, naturally—Yuuzhan Vong and human tissue are not sufficiently compatible for that. So instead we used your own brain cells to create a sort of human Qah cell, but filled with Yuuzhan Vong information. It was a hybrid cell.”

“And that worked,” Tahiri said.

“Correct,” Nen Yim said. “In terms of your brain tissue, you are quite literally half Yuuzhan Vong. We did not implant merely memories, but also the cells that carried them.”

Tahiri’s eyes narrowed. Nen Yim had learned that was a sign of danger.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked.

“No. I mean, yes, but it’s like picking a scab. In fact, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“I attend,” Nen Yim said, cautiously.

“I need to know—was there a real Riina?”

Nen Yim blinked. What an interesting question—but of course she would be curious about that. “I’m sure there must have been,” she said. “The name was probably changed—names are easy to change—but the details of your childhood undoubtedly came from a real person. Such memories might be generated, I suppose, but there would be no reason to when they could be donated by any living Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Is she—dead?”

“I’ve no idea. Mezhan Kwaad supplied the memory data. Only she could know who the donor was—and of course, she’s in no position to tell you.” Her tendrils curled with curiosity. “Did it truly work? You remember being in a crèche, and so on?”

Tahiri nodded. “Some things like crystal, others muddier. I remember once, my crèche-mates—P’loh and Zhul—we took one of the scrubbing korsks and put it in the communal food area. It—”

“Ate all the i’fii,” Nen Yim finished, feeling a strange twisting in her.

“Yes,” Tahiri said. She frowned. “How did you know?”

“Do you remember an incident involving a damaged fighting n’amiq?”

“I—wait. You mean those lizard-bird things the warriors
used to fight against each other? I … I found one once. One of the warriors had abandoned it in the grand vivarium because it wouldn’t fight. It was injured and I nursed it back to health. Then one of my crèche-mates took it and fought it—I got there in time to see it die. It was torn to shreds. I thought it kept looking at me, pleading for help.”

The chill deepened.

“What’s wrong?” Tahiri asked.

Nen Yim sighed. “Those are
my
memories.”

Tahiri stared at her for a long moment without speaking, as if trying to see through her skin. Nen Yim was glad for that, because she had to collect her own thoughts.
Mezhan Kwaad
, she thought,
may the gods devour you twice a day
.

Tahiri finally dropped her lids over her green eyes. She seemed to be trying to compose herself.

Or perhaps she was about to kill Nen Yim. The thought of her onetime tormentor sharing the same childhood memories might well be too much for her.

But when Tahiri looked back up, her gaze held only curiosity. “Whatever happened to P’loh?” she asked.

Relief spread down Nen Yim’s backbone. “She was assigned to Belkadan, and killed there,” she replied.

“And Zhul?”

“Zhul is an adept on the worldship
Baanu Ghezh
, and so far as I know is well.”

“And the young warrior who watched our dormitories in primary shaping?”

We
, Nen Yim noted.
She said
we,
as if …
“Killed taking Yuuzhan’tar. They say he died bravely, crashing into an infidel ship even as his own disintegrated.”

Tahiri rubbed her forehead. “He was nice,” she said.

“Yes, if such can be said of a warrior.”

“As if I wasn’t confused enough,” Tahiri murmured. “Now I find out I have friends on both sides of the war who died. Maybe I even killed one of them.”

Nen Yim didn’t have a response to that.

“I have a lot of questions to ask you,” Tahiri said. “But now isn’t the time. I need—I need to absorb this.”

“As do I. I knew no more than you.”

Tahiri looked up. “I forgave you, you know. Even before I knew this.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“I know.”

“But I’m glad.”

For another stretched moment, they sat together. Tahiri was the first to speak.

“Uh … you were telling me about the qahsa.”

Nen Yim nodded, happy to return to a subject she could get a grip on. “I extracted nerve cells from Sekotan life and modified them as your cells were modified. It was an easier task, because Sekotan life is genetically similar to our own. I hope, through them, to gain access to the memories of this world, as I might access a qahsa.”

“But if those memories are transmitted through the Force, and Yuuzhan Vong life is outside the Force—”

“Consider, Tahiri. Your brain contains Yuuzhan Vong implants. Yet you still sense and use the Force.”

“Yes!” Tahiri said. “And when my personalities were integrating, Riina used a lightsaber, like a Jedi.” She peered at the qahsa. “So this could work.”

“It could. If one of the many assumptions I’ve made doesn’t turn out to be false. But I suppose now I shall see.”

“May I watch?”

“I would be honored.”

Nen Yim hesitated no longer, but reached for the qahsa and joined with it.

For an instant, there was nothing, and then the world seemed to shatter. Images and data roared through her mind, stars and vacuum, the feel of life on her skin, the tear of wind across her polar regions. Feelings—fear, pain, despair, joy, all
on a scale that dwarfed the tiny Yuuzhan Vong brain trying to interpret it. The images came faster, running together, burning in her, casting light into every corner of her brain.

Please, slow down, this will kill me, and I will never understand
.

It was something like trying to access the eighth cortex, but both less painful and, she understood, more dangerous. Her thoughts were disintegrating under the onslaught. Nen Yim was vanishing. Something else was hollowing her out. A god was eating her from the inside.

Nen Yim clasped the qahsa and a look of vast surprise twisted her features. Then her body jerked strangely and she fell over, convulsing, the qahsa still gripped between her fingers.

“Nen Yim!” Tahiri cried, starting forward. She reached to help her, to pull the thing from her hands, but stopped.

She didn’t know what was happening. Anything she did might make it worse.

Of course if she did nothing, Nen Yim might die, she thought, as the shaper’s convulsions grew more and more violent.

Carefully, she reached out in the Force. Nen Yim herself was a blank slate, as usual, but in the qahsa, something was happening. It was buzzing and humming with power—Tahiri could feel the flow of it from all around her, a million voices speaking at once.

Black blood began to dribble from Nen Yim’s nostrils.

Okay
, Tahiri thought.
I have to do something
. Breaking Nen Yim’s bond with the qahsa couldn’t make things worse—it was already killing her.

She reached for the qahsa, hoping the Force would guide her.