Authors: James Luceno
OneOne-FourDee gave a kind of start. “A Shi’ido, Magister. The candidate Venamis was monitoring is a skinshifter!”
Little was known about the reclusive, telepathic species from Laomon, save that they were capable of imitating a wide variety of sentient species. The most gifted were said to be able to mimic trees or even rocks. A powerful female Shi’ido named Belia Darzu had been a Sith Lord in the pre-Bane era, creating armies of technobeasts she controlled using dark side energy.
“That would explain the negative blood test results,” 11-4D was saying.
Plagueis nodded. “I suspect that this Forceful Shi’ido has learned how to alter his blood. Or perhaps he merely clouded the mind of the analyst, compelling him to ignore the midi-chlorian count findings.”
They had just stepped down into the gaming area when one of the Bothans hurried forward. “Magister Damask, I’ve just received word that the Kubaz is leaving.”
“Did the Kubaz ask to have his winnings transferred to an account?”
The Bothan shook his head. “He preferred a credit chit. Many winners do, hoping to protect their privacy.”
Plagueis thanked him and swung to the droid. “Hurry, FourDee. Before he gets too much of a lead on us.”
They headed out into the glittering ecumenopolis, where cloud-scrapers and monads towered above them, pedestrian walkways were jammed with beings from up and down the Perlemian Trade Route, and the sky was crowded with traffic. And almost everywhere they looked, they saw the name Santhe—above the doorways to buildings, in advertisements that ran on giant wall screens, emblazoned on the sides of airspeeders and ships. The prominent family all but owned Lianna and had, for the past thirty years, wrested a controlling interest in one of Lianna’s principal enterprises: Sienar Technologies—representatives from which had been guests at the recent Gathering on Sojourn.
Maintaining a reasonable distance, Plagueis and 11-4D trailed the Kubaz from walkway to busy walkway, then across one of the ornate bridges that spanned the Lona Cranith River into Lianna’s sister city, Lola Curich. Past the headquarters of the Allied Tion Historical Society, Fronde’s Airspeeders, a cantina called Thorip Norr … All the while the Kubaz had been glancing over his shoulder and was now increasing his pace as he neared the entrance to a pedestrian tunnel.
“The Shi’ido behaves as if he is aware of being followed,” 11-4D said, photoreceptors fixed on their quarry.
“He’ll attempt to lose us in the tunnel. We’d do better to wait for him to exit.” Plagueis stopped to take a look around. “This way, FourDee.”
Hurrying through buildings undercut by the tunnel, they emerged just where the pedestrian bypass debouched into a public square fronted by restaurants and boutique shops. OneOne-FourDee sharpened his optical receptors and trained them on the mouth of the tunnel. “Based on the rate of speed at which the Shi’ido was walking when he entered the tunnel, he should have exited by now.”
“And indeed he has,” Plagueis said. “Direct your attention to the hefty Askajian who is passing by the Aurodium Spoon.”
The droid’s photoreceptors rotated slightly. “The Shi’ido skinshifted inside the tunnel.”
“I suspected he might.”
“Would that I had a tool comparable to the Force, Magister.”
They resumed their clandestine surveillance, shadowing the Askajian now, who led them on a convoluted tour of Lola Curich that ended at an automated InterGalactic Banking Clan kiosk alongside a PetVac franchise. Plagueis relied on 11-4D to furnish an update on the skinshifter’s activities.
“He has deposited the credit chit,” the droid said. “But I’m unable to provide the account number. Even my macrovision pickups have their limitations.”
Plagueis gestured in dismissal. “That won’t be a problem.”
They waited until the Shi’ido had exited the kiosk to dart inside. With the help of IBC codes Plagueis supplied, 11-4D soon acquired not only the account number but also the identity of the holder.
“Kerred Santhe the Second,” the droid said.
Plagueis was speechless for a moment. Santhe had inherited principal ownership of Santhe/Sienar Technologies from the elder Kerred—who had the distinction of being Plagueis’s first murder under the tutelage of Darth Tenebrous. But that a wealthy industrialist like Santhe should have need of a gambler’s winnings made little sense. Unless the Shi’ido was somehow in debt to Santhe. Did the circuitous connection to Tenebrous explain how the skinshifter had first come to Venamis’s attention?
“How well versed are you in Shi’ido physiology?” Plagueis asked 11-4D.
“Shi’ido subjects participated in longevity studies conducted on Obroa-skai. They possess a very flexible physiology and anatomy, with reconfigurable tendons and ligaments, and thin but dense skeletal features that allow them to support their fleshy mass and extensive reserves of bodily fluids.”
“Are your sensors capable of determining when a Shi’ido is about to skinshift?”
“If the Shi’ido is in close proximity, yes.”
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose.”
Catching up with their quarry as he was entering the public square, they overtook him and hurried into the pedestrian tunnel ahead of him. A hundred meters along, they found themselves in an unoccupied,
dimly lighted stretch that Plagueis surmised the Shi’ido would make use of to transform, and they waited.
The Shi’ido did not disappoint him. And the moment he began to shift—from Askajian to what might have been either an Ongree or a Gotal—11-4D activated the laser weapon hidden in its right arm and fired a tightbeam into the base of the Shi’ido’s brain.
The momentarily monstrous medley of species loosed a tormented scream and collapsed to the floor of the tunnel, squirming in pain. Moving quickly, 11-4D dragged him deeper into the dimness, where Plagueis positioned himself behind the skinshifter’s grotesquely bulging cranium, uneven shoulders, and hunched back.
“Why did you transfer your winnings to Kerred Santhe?” Plagueis asked.
The Shi’ido’s twisted mouth struggled to form a response. “Are you with the Gaming Authority?”
“You only wish. Again: Why Kerred Santhe?”
“Gambling debts,” the Shi’ido slurred, as slaver dripped to the ground. “He’s in debt to a couple of Black Sun Vigos and other lenders.”
“Santhe is one of the galaxy’s wealthiest beings,” Plagueis pressed. “Why would he need what you’ve been stealing from casinos from here to Coruscant?”
“He’s
millions
in debt. He hasn’t stopped drinking and gambling since his father was assassinated.”
Brilliantly
assassinated, Plagueis thought. “Even so, Black Sun would never target him.”
The Forceful Shi’ido craned his lumpy neck in an effort to get a look at his inquisitor. “He knows that. But the Vigos are threatening to go public with the information. A scandal could persuade Santhe/Sienar’s board of directors to oust him as chief operating officer and appoint Narro Sienar as his replacement.”
Plagueis laughed shortly in a surprised but satisfied way. “As well they should, skinshifter.” He stood and began to move off. “You’ve been most helpful. You’re free to go.”
“You can’t leave me like this,” the Shi’ido begged.
Plagueis came to a halt and returned to his victim. “If you were funding terrorism or purchasing weapons, I might have allowed you
to continue fleecing the casinos. But by fattening Black Sun’s coffers and protecting the reputation of an enemy of one of my friends, you become my enemy, as well.” He lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “Consider this: you have one last chance to use your Force talents to win big before your horrid image becomes the centerpiece of the cheaters database on every gambling world. I suggest you use your winnings wisely to make a new life for yourself where the Gaming Authority won’t be able to find you, and I won’t come looking for you.”
To say that the planet Saleucami was the bright spot of its system meant merely that it alone, among half a dozen airless and desolate worlds, was capable of supporting life. Its own bright spots were not, as one might suspect, those areas that hadn’t yet been victimized by meteor bombardments, but rather some of the impact craters the ceaseless celestial storm had left behind. For there the meteor strikes had conjured mineral-rich underground waters to the arid surface, turning the craters into caldera lakes, and the environs into oases of orbiculate flora.
Blue-skinned, yellow-eyed bipeds from the far side of the Core had been the first to colonize Saleucami, which meant “oasis” in their tongue, for the world was just that among those they had visited during the long journey from Wroona. Since then had come hearty groups of Weequay, Gran, and Twi’leks, in flight from conflicts or in search of hardscrabble isolation, and up to the tasks of farming the colorless ground for moisture and subsisting on tasteless root crops that withered in the midday heat and froze solid at night. Eventually the planet had given rise to a city and a spaceport, constructed in the shadow of one of the calderas nourished by geothermal energy.
Saleucami’s more recent immigrants were of a different sort: young beings from worlds as distant as Glee Anselm and Arkania, dressed in tattered clothing and carrying their possessions on their backs. Drifters and searchers arriving in the battered transports and tramp freighters that served the Outer Rim systems. Male and female, though three times the latter to the former, distinguished by what some saw as a restless gaze and others the look of the lost. At first the native colonists didn’t know what to make of these feckless wanderers, but gradually an entire industry had grown up to cater to their simple if peculiar needs
for shelter, food, and surface transport into the wastelands, where enlightenment awaited, delivered at the outsized hands of a being who was rumored to possess prophetic powers.
Among them that day was a Muun wearing a simple hooded robe and well-worn boots. Where normally the mere sight of a Muun might have generated rumors that Saleucami was about to be acquired by the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the youthful horde the Munn had fallen in with barely gave him a second glance. Not when the crowd already included Ryn and Fosh and other exotic species; and not when Saleucami itself was viewed as little more than a stepping-stone to a greater world.
Plagueis had left 11-4D on Sy Myrth and completed the journey by freighter in the hope of maintaining as low a profile as possible. Background data on the prophet was scant, though Venamis had noted that she had been born in the Inner Rim and had arrived on Saleucami only three years earlier. Saleucami’s colonists were willing to tolerate her presence, as well as the camp followers she attracted, provided they confined their assemblies to the wastelands.
Wedged in among forty others in an overpacked speeder bus, Plagueis let his gaze sweep across a forlorn landscape of volcanic mountains and the sheer walls of impact craters. In a cloudless sky of pale purple, blinding light flashed intermittently, and the monotony of the five-hour trip was relieved only by the occasional settlement or lone moisture farm. Journey’s end was a relatively small caldera lake, from the shores of which rose a communal sprawl of tents and crude shelters, populated by the dreamy veterans of previous assemblies.
The Selected, as they were called.
Climbing from the speeder bus, Plagueis joined the crowd of newcomers in a short trek to a natural amphitheater, where pieces of meteorite provided seats for some. Others sat on their backpacks or spread out on the uneven ground. Shortly, the sound of whining engines announced the arrival of a caravan of hybridized landspeeders, many in pristine condition, though covered with dust and bleached of color by the harsh light. Nearly everyone in the amphitheater stood up and a wave of anticipation moved through the crowd, building to a fervor as an Iktotchi female stepped from one of the vehicles, encircled by disciples dressed as plainly as she was.
Plagueis couldn’t think of a being more suited to Saleucami or cult
status: a hairless biped with downward-curving horns and a prominent brow, skin hardened to withstand the violent winds of her homeworld, and a contentious countenance that belied an emotional nature. But, most important, possessed of proven precognitive ability.
Alone, she mounted a slab of stone that was the amphitheater’s stage and, once the crowd had quieted, began to speak in a solemn voice.
“I have seen the coming darkness and the beings that will visit it upon the galaxy.” She paused briefly to allow her words to be felt. “I have witnessed the collapse of the Republic, and I have beheld the Jedi Order spun into turmoil.” She aimed a finger toward distant mountains. “On the horizon looms a galaxy-spanning war—a conflict between machines of alloy and machines of flesh, and the subsequent death of tens of millions of innocents.”
She paced on the slab, almost as if speaking to herself. “I see worlds subjugated and worlds destroyed, and from the chaos a new order born, buttressed by ferocious weapons the likes of which haven’t been seen in more than one thousand years. A galaxy brought under the yoke of a ruthless despot who serves the forces of entropy. And finally I have seen that only those hardened by this ineluctable truth can survive.” She scanned the audience. “Only those of you who are willing to turn upon one another and profit by the misfortunes of others.”
The crowd sat in stunned silence. Iktotchi were said to surrender some of their precognitive abilities the farther they traveled from their homeworld, but that wasn’t always the case. And certainly not, Plagueis told himself, in the case of an Iktotchi who was strong in the Force. It was no wonder that Venamis had been keeping tabs on her.
“I have been sent to overturn your most cherished beliefs in a bright future, and to help you wage war on good intentions and the deception of pure ideas; to teach you how to accept the fact that even in the midst of this seemingly blessed era, this wink of the eye in sentient history, our baser instincts hold sway over us. I have been sent to counsel you that the Force itself will become as if it had been but a passing fancy among the self-deceived—an antiquated illusion that will turn to smoke on the cleansing fires of the new age.”