A distorted grin sliced Onimi’s crooked head in a sign of mock regard. “Sweet Nen Yim,” he croaked. “How delightful your presence.”
How disgusting yours, Nen Yim thought. She did not say it, and she did not need to. The tendrils of her headdress writhed and curled in revulsion, and her multifingered master’s hand spasmed into a knot.
If the Supreme Overlord’s jester noticed any of this, he made no sign, but stood there grinning at her as if they were close crèche-mates sharing a joke. They weren’t; she was the most important of all shapers, and he was an appalling example of a Shamed One, a being upon whom the gods had placed a permanent stamp of unreserved disapproval. Why Shimrra, the chosen of the gods—the Supreme Overlord of her entire species—should choose him as emissary was utterly beyond her comprehension. It was more than an affront, it was a misery to even be in his presence, especially when she remembered—and she could hardly forget—that those fingers had once touched her, when he had disguised himself as a master shaper.
For that alone, he deserved the most ignominious death imaginable. She had plotted his murder even when she believed him to be her superior, and blessed by the gods. Now, when she had the means at her disposal and knew what he really was, she did not dare.
Onimi simpered and smiled. “Your thoughts croon toward me,” he said. “Your tendrils ache for my touch. So much I can see of you, Nen Yim.”
Well, he had noticed something, she reflected. He merely mistook her passion.
“Have you come on some errand, Onimi, or merely to waste my time in foolish conversation?”
“Conversation is not foolish that begs the fool,” Onimi said, winking, as if that actually meant something.
“Yes, as you wish,” she said, sighing. “Do you bring word from the Supreme Overlord?”
“I bring a dainty,” Onimi said. “A glistering pustule from the gods, a gift for my sweet little—”
“Address me as master,” Nen Yim said, stiffly. “I am no ‘little’ anything of yours. And come to the point. Whatever else the Supreme Overlord wants of me, I doubt he wants much of my time taken up, not with so much that needs doing.”
From the corner of her eye she caught one of her assistants suppressing a smile, and reminded herself to reprimand her later.
Onimi’s eyes went wide, and then he set a finger to his lips, leaned near, and whispered, “Fleeting time laps hours, devours days, months and years, passes them like gas.”
She said nothing. What other response was there? But Onimi gestured, and with a great deal of reluctance she followed him down the mycoluminescent corridor of her central damutek, through the laboratories where she worked her heretical science to produce the miracles the Yuuzhan Vong needed to take their rightful place in a galaxy of infidels. When they passed into a corridor secured even from her, she began to grow intrigued, and more easily ignored the off-key singing of the jester, who was blasphemously describing in ancient octameter certain activities of the goddess Yun-Harla of which Nen Yim—thankfully—had never heard.
Of course that was spoiled now.
At last they arrived in a dim space. Something irregular and large bulked ahead. Light was in it, a faint shifting radiance so delicate it could almost be the colors of the dark behind her eyes.
She walked nearer, her shaping fingers outstretched to feel and taste the surface. It was smooth, almost slick. It tasted of long carbon chains, and water, and silicates. It tasted quick and familiar.
“This is alive,” she whispered. “What is this?” She gestured impatiently. “I need more light.”
“Eyes are the senses’ gluttons,” Onimi chortled. “They always want more, but they often tell us less.”
But brighter lights came up, revealing the thing.
Sleek, that was the first impression. The glasslike surface curved into four long lozenges that sharpened almost to needles on one end and ended rounded on the other. The lobes were joined around a central axis, though she could not see how. She was reminded of the taaphur, a sea creature that existed now only as a genetic blueprint in the memory qahsa of the shapers and in its biotechnological derivatives.
Damaged, that was the second impression. The life that hummed beneath her fingers flickered in some places and was absent in others, where the hull—yes, hull—had gone dark.
“This is a ship,” Nen Yim murmured, more to herself than to the useless Onimi. “A living ship, but not Yuuzhan Vong. This came from one of the infidel peoples?”
“Folds the mystery, and folds again to crumple, our chart is all torn.”
“You mean you don’t know?” Nen Yim asked, impatiently.
For answer, Onimi reached for her. Her tendrils prickled, bumps rose on her flesh, and her nostrils flared.
But he did not touch her. He handed her something instead—a small, portable qahsa.
“Secrets are like knives,” he said softly. “Of your tongue a secret make, and your mouth is cut.”
He left, then, and she watched him go with disdain. Idiotic, to warn her of secrets. She was a heretic, a heretic secretly kept by the Supreme Overlord. Everything she did was done in obscurity.
“Master Nen Yim?”
Nen Yim looked up from the qahsa. Her junior assistant Qelah Kwaad stood a few feet away, a look of great concern on her face.
“Adept,” Nen Yim acknowledged softly.
“I hope it is not too impertinent, but my project—”
“I will examine your progress in due time,” Nen Yim said. “My time.”
Qelah Kwaad’s tendrils retracted a bit. “Yes, Master Yim,” she replied.
“And, Adept?”
“Yes, Master Yim?”
“I understand you are not used to the presence of Onimi and the effect he can have. But I will not have my subordinates laughing behind my back. Is that understood?”
The adept’s eyes grew round with consternation.
“Master Yim, you cannot believe—”
“Do not use the word can in reference to me, Adept, in either the affirmative or negative form. What I can and cannot do is entirely beyond your control.”
“Yes, Master.”
Nen Yim sighed. “It is bad enough, Adept, that we have to bear the presence of such an abomination. It is worse to let him know he has caused amusement.”
“I understand, Master Yim. But—why? Why must we bear his presence at all? He is a Shamed One, cursed by the gods.”
“He is Supreme Overlord Shimrra’s jester, and, when it pleases him, his emissary.”
“I don’t understand. How can such a thing be? A jester, yes, but to entrust him with secret information—”
“What secret information might that be, Adept?” Nen Yim asked sharply.
“Your pardon, Master Yim, but the jester came, took you to the restricted area, and you returned with a portable qahsa. It seems obvious that he revealed something to you.”
Nen Yim studied the adept appraisingly.
“Just so,” she said. “You are correct. But perhaps you ought to concentrate more on your work and less on my activities.”
Again, the adept looked abashed.
“You have great promise, Qelah Kwaad,” Nen Yim said. “But in this place, we must all take care. We live outside the world of our people, and this place has rules of its own.”
The adept straightened. “I am proud of my service here, Master. The Supreme Overlord has vindicated what the other shapers see as heresy.”
“He has not,” Nen Yim said. “Not publicly. Nor will he. Have you not noticed the guards?”
“Of course we are guarded. Our work is of great importance. If the infidels learn of us, they will surely try to destroy us.”
“That is true,” Nen Yim told her. “But a wall that keeps something out can also keep something in. No warrior, no priest, no outside shaper will ever learn what we do here. Shimrra values our heresy, yes—we produce new weapons and technology badly needed for the war effort. But he will never allow anyone beyond these to know how that technology comes into being.”
“But why?”
“You are intelligent, Adept. Figure it out for yourself—and then never, never speak it aloud. Do you understand me?”
“I—I think so.”
“Good. Now leave me.”
Qelah Kwaad made the sign of obeisance and did as she was told. Nen Yim spared her a single glance.
Because, Adept, Shimrra must maintain the fiction that our inventions are gifts from the gods, and that he is the intermediary through whom these things flow. If the truth is discovered, and the Supreme Overlord shown to be a fraud …
Well, suffice to say, Adept, none of us will leave this service alive.
Which was fine with Nen Yim. It was her pride and her duty to serve the Yuuzhan Vong, and to die honorably for her people when the time came.
Putting the whole matter from her mind, she settled the qahsa before her and interfaced with it.
As she began to understand, her excitement grew—and her trepidation.
No wonder Shimrra had sent her his thing. It could change everything.
It could be their doom.