The Cestus Deception (18 page)

For a dozen generations the leaders of the Five Families had ruled as if by divine privilege. So long as ore flowed to the foundries, and those foundries fed the factories creating droids and armor, channeling credits to Cestus coffers, that power might last for generations more.

The trappings of royalty provided what the actuality did not: a lavish wealth of art, fine subtle scents, and furnishings that might have done credit to any office in the Republic. If Cestus could not come to civilization, civilization had indeed come to Cestus.

At the moment, however, some of the conversation in the throne room was far from polite. For hours now the arguments had raged, and although on the surface the words used were polite, there was no mistaking the fierceness beneath them.

“Every event can have multiple meanings as well as consequences,” said Llitishi, whose family had sprung from the daughter of an ore miner and the son of a murderer.

“I am aware of this,” Duris said.

Quill, the room’s only other X’Ting, stood. “The hive is upset that the Republic Senate has declared planets have no right of secession.”

The Five Family leaders were arrayed in a semicircle about Duris’s throne. In theory, the forces they represented were no more powerful than hers. In practice, of course, Duris was almost completely under their control.

“They are not fools,” Duris said. “If Palpatine interferes with our right to commerce, it will drive more planets away.”

Quill bore in. “If the Republic offers violence as a means of persuasion, the situation worsens.”

Duris sighed, and remained silent as her esteemed guest spoke. It had been a week now, and as Obi-Wan presented his case to yet another group of the Five Families’ representatives and barristers, she began to despair that a true consensus would ever be reached.

“I stand before you with a fair and just offer,” Obi-Wan said. “We can stop the Gabonna crystal blockade and advance funds to purchase two thousand units of your class JL and JK droids.”

G’Mai paused. This offer was new. She knew, of course, that Obi-Wan had been communicating with his Coruscant masters. In fact, some of those communications had already been intercepted and decrypted.

The X’Ting was similarly taken aback. “That might…,” he said, then emphasized, “
might
be enough to secure our market position.”

Debbikin nodded. “I am willing to believe that this Jedi speaks honorably.”

Obi-Wan inclined his head. “A fact noted and appreciated.”

Lady Por’Ten’s nephew raised his skeletal hand, as if warding off expectations of easy settlement. “But even this offer is risky. The cost of the war mounts. Taxes soar. The central government offers payment in credit bonds, to be redeemed at a later time. Such bonds can be traded for goods, but usually at a lower rate than face value…”

Obi-Wan had kept his voice and manner even, but he found the entire discussion dreadful, dull, and exasperating. Time was short, and there was a limit to the tricks he could pull, a limit to the negotiating room extended him by the Supreme Chancellor.

And if he ran out of maneuvering room… he shuddered to think of the cost. Perhaps sensing his mood, Snoil bent down and whispered to him. “Time is running out. This is more and more troubling: if the Republic wins, the rebellious planets will face a heavy punishment for their attempt to leave. But if the Republic loses, then planets belonging to the Republic will carry the tax burden.”

Obi-Wan felt the patch of cold behind his left ear expand. The stress level was climbing intolerably. “My cephalopodan friend, you are giving me a headache. You, and the sense that Duris may be correct.”

“In what way?” Snoil asked.

The Five Family executives were so busy arguing with each other that for the moment, no one seemed focused on them. “This may all be misdirection,” he said. “I fear that lack of clarity will haunt me yet.”

Duris raised both primary and secondary hands, requesting quiet. “We have an obligation to conduct these negotiations with good faith. I believe my honored associates hold the financial welfare of Cestus Cybernetics closely to heart, as they should. I represent the planet of Cestus, with all its citizens, and the hive, and its interests. Cestus Cybernetics could conceivably move to another planet, whereas this is our only home. Save the squabbling for another time. Our survival is at stake.”

There was stunned silence for a moment, and then the discussion began anew, this time with a less argumentative tone.

After the hours of negotiation were past, the Jedi and the barrister returned to their lodgings. The other members of the Five Families packed their docufiles and left, but Quill approached Duris.

“You have blocked me for the last time,” he said, seething. “I have spent a lifetime arranging a deal just such as this, and I will not tolerate your interference. Appear before the council tonight. You may end your own life, or you can go to the sand. Those are your only choices.”

He leaned closer. “Personally, I hope you choose to fight. It would be good to kill you, as I did your mate. He died begging. I would like to hear those same words from you, smell your surrender.”

Quill paused. “Then, of course, I will kill you.”

In the dead of night, Trillot’s people delivered the documents Obi-Wan had requested. Between those and the official records, Snoil had access to enough information to keep a research staff busy for years.

They didn’t
have
years.

He absorbed, scanned, noted, summoned up abstracts, and worked well into the night. As far as Obi-Wan could determine, the Vippit hadn’t slept since they arrived. Because he was uncertain of Vippit physiology, he wasn’t sure whether this was exceptional. Still, he had grown more and more concerned until the hour when an exhausted Snoil informed Obi-Wan that he was ready for sleep.

Snoil crawled into his bedroom and was not seen again for ten hours, when he appeared in the doorway with an enormous smile splitting his face.

“Doolb?” Obi-Wan asked.

Snoil was radiant. “Obi-Wan!” he called. “Obi-Wan! While I slept, the two halves of my brain talked to each other. I’ve found it!”

“Found what?” he asked.

“Look here,” he said, feverish with excitement. “In this document, executives of the Cestus Cybernetics
boast
about the fact that the land was purchased with synthstones. They actually laugh at the ignorant aboriginals.”

Venality. Offensive in all its forms. “And?”

“Technically, synthstones represent counterfeit money.” Snoil’s eyes gleamed. “Follow me here, Obi-Wan. Cestus Cybernetics was a licensed subsidiary of the prison. The prison was constructed and operated under a Republic contract.”

“Yes? And?” He still couldn’t see where this was leading.

“Obi-Wan,” Snoil said in exasperation, “Cestus Cybernetics was at that point a representative of the Republic, held to the same standards as any ambassador. A purchase made with counterfeit currency is no purchase at all. This
nullifies
the original sale. The land beneath every factory on Cestus still belongs to the hive!”

Obi-Wan’s head spun. If this information got out, the Five Families were finished. Coruscant would take control of the situation, and only the hive would profit. Great for X’Ting, but if the economy crashed, the water and food shortages might kill millions. So it was a dreadful, last-minute leverage, barely better than an all-out bombardment.

But it
was
better…

There was a knock on the door. Chipple the driver stood in the entrance, his secondary hands extending a datadisk. “Client say play this.”

Obi-Wan inserted the disk in his astromech, and waited a moment as the image field was generated.

G’Mai Duris appeared in the air before them. “Things have come to a head,” she said, “and my leadership of the hive council is under attack. There is no one else I can trust, and I ask that you come to my quarters, where we can speak in greater privacy. My condition is dire.”

Duris kept an apartment in the penthouse section of ChikatLik. A servant admitted Obi-Wan to the luxurious accommodations.

The inside of her apartment was a blend of technology and traditional X’Ting “chewed duracrete” architecture.

Obi-Wan followed Duris into her kitchen. There, a variety of glowing lights were illuminating a beautiful little garden of various mushrooms and fungi. It took his breath away. This was master-level skill, a lifetime’s education in creating a miniature fungus forest.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“It is our medicine and cuisine, our meditation and entertainment,” Duris said. “Each family has its own mushroom forest, a balance of different species that has been passed through the line for thousands of years.”

G’Mai Duris took a twist here, a pinch there, and as Obi-Wan watched put the finishing touches on a meal that seemed created of a hundred different dishes using fungi of varying texture in various ways. Her private forest provided the spice and garnish. Larger amounts of a heavier, meatier fungus were added from a special locker. The aromas were growing almost intoxicatingly delicious when she said, “I am being forced to fight Quill tonight. I’ve heard of the Jedi—you are said to be the greatest fighters in the galaxy. Can you teach me to fight?”

Obi-Wan bowed his head. “I am sorry. There is no time.” He considered.

She kept preparing, but her primary and secondary hands were starting to shake.

“Is it possible that you might have a second?” he asked. “A champion?”

“It is not done,” she said sadly. “I had hoped this day would never arrive. So. I knew it was a foolish hope,” she added. “Still, I had to try. Would you stay, please, and dine with me? Please?”

She was shaking so piteously that he couldn’t deny her.

She served him what she called her “death meal.” A last ritual act. As with every official motion and word, her actions were perfect. Her motions were precise, elegant, controlled.

He asked her questions about the hive, and the rituals.

She kept glancing at the chrono, and he knew her time was drawing near.

“I cannot face Quill in the arena, just to be slaughtered publicly. I am afraid of what I might do. I might beg and disgrace my lineage. Better for me to die tonight. In my fungus forest are the plants I need to end my life.” She smiled wanly. “There is a saying among my people:
Death is darkness. The children are safe.
It means to have courage.”

So things had gone that far. He was appalled that her conversation could have taken such a lethally casual tone.

A thought occurred to him. “What happens if both you and Quill die?” he asked.

“Then the council would be free to make its own decisions. Without Quill, I believe they would be more reasonable.”

“Then I have the answer for you,” Obi-Wan said. “The answer is in your death meal.”

“What?”

“Listen to me,” he said, and bent close. “I have the answer, if you have the courage.”

Together they took a turbolift down into the depths of the city, below the sections where offworlders lived and worked and thought themselves the owners of a captive world. Down into the oldest sections they went. There, some thousands of X’Ting still lived in something approximating a community.

The caves had been formed by water seepage, not volcanic activity. The walls had been textured with the familiar creases of hive-style chewed duracrete. Here, below, they did things in the old ways.

At the hive council table sat twelve ancient X’Ting, one for each of the planet’s hives. How powerful and regal they must have seemed once. Now, their hives broken and scattered, they clung to mere fragments of their former glory. Despite their daily humiliations, the twelve faced their Regent and her offworlder companion with dignity.

Quill doffed his robe, baring his powerful thorax. “So you decided not to take your life,” he grinned. “Good. I want the entire council to smell the stench as you die.”

Duris trembled so badly she could barely remove her cloak, and almost dropped it as she handed it to Obi-Wan. “Courage,” he said softly. “Death is darkness. The children will be safe.”

“I have no children,” she whispered. It was almost a whimper.

“Every soul on this planet is in your hands,” he said. “They are all your children.”

G’Mai Duris nodded.

Their arena was a circle of groomed sand twenty meters in diameter. Radiating contempt, Quill began as Duris expected, strutting and boasting. He made short, lightning stinger thrusts, and instead of responding with parry or flight, Duris closed her eyes, folding together the fingers of her primary and secondary hands.

“
The answer is in your death meal,
” Obi-Wan had told her. The ritual death meal, designed to drain all emotion. Only a master, prepared to serve the death meal from birth, could have matched her actions in the apartment. Even though facing the end of her life, G’Mai Duris had been utterly calm.

“
This is what you do,
” Obi-Wan had said. “
Close your eyes. Think that you are preparing your death meal, and be calm. When he stings you, the instant you feel his stinger, sting him. Do not try to survive. Go as one already dead.
”

Quill approached her, and she merely waited.

He turned this way and that, trying to frighten her. Nothing he tried worked.

“
There is a secret to the warrior arts,
” Obi-Wan had said. “
One that has nothing to do with training. Nothing to do with fancy movements. It is the willingness to trade lives with your enemy. To never fight for anything you would not die for. Those who fight for glory, or gold, or power, stand on shifting sand, not the bedrock of true courage. Fight for your people. Fight for your mate. For you, dying means winning. The arena is not a circle of sand. The arena is your heart.
”

Quill leapt and pranced and shook his stinger. He hissed and circled and made fearsome faces. And through it all, G’Mai Duris merely stood.

Waiting to share death with him.

At last Quill stopped, stupefied, for the first time his mask of confidence cracking. Beneath, was fear.

G’Mai Duris stood, eyes closed. Waiting.

Quill’s mouth quivered, and he lowered his eyes to the sand. “I… I concede,” he said, radiating hatred.

The eldest X’Ting on the council stood and spoke. “G’Mai Duris is the winner. Caiza Quill must yield his seat.”

G’Mai Duris drew herself up to full height, folding the fingers of primary and secondary hands formally. “My peers and elders,” she said. “My dear friend Master Kenobi has told me an astonishing thing. For centuries we have known that our ancestors were cheated out of their land, land purchased with worthless baubles we believed were legal tender.

“For years we had no means of redress, save to accept whatever sops Cestus Cybernetics threw our way. But that has changed.” Her faceted eyes gleamed. “Master Kenobi brought a barrister with him from Coruscant, a Vippit who knows their laws well. And according to the central authority, if we should choose to press our suit, we can destroy Cestus Cybernetics. If we own the land beneath their factories, we can charge them whatever we wish for land usage, possibly even take the facilities themselves.”

“What?” the council’s eldest said, faceted eyes widening in shock. “Is this truth?”

Quill sputtered. “You would do nothing except destroy the planet! Destroy Cestus Cybernetics, and you destroy our economy!”

The elder looked at Quill with contempt. “The hive was here before Cestus Cybernetics. It is not the hive that will suffer if this company changes hands… or even if it dies. It will be those who have sold themselves to offworlders for a promise of power.”

“But my lords,” Duris said. “I have obligations to the offworlders, people who came to Cestus with skills and heart, and wanted only to build a life here. We cannot use this opportunity to destroy. We must use it to build, and heal.”

The elders nodded, as if pleased by her empathy.

Quill quivered. “You have won nothing, Duris! I will block you, I swear. Regardless of what you think you have, what you think you know… this isn’t over yet.” He stormed out, humiliated and enraged.

“Can he do that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Perhaps. Any member of the Five Families can veto any specific business deal. If he believes it is in his best interest, or just for the sake of hatred, he will try.” An alarming thought occurred to her. “He might try to keep you from sending Palpatine this information. Perhaps you should send it immediately.”

Reluctantly, Obi-Wan shook his head. “The Chancellor will use it to shut Cestus Cybernetics down legally. No one wins. I think our best bet is to use this bit of information as final, emergency leverage.” He looked at that supposition from every angle he could, and saw no flaw in his logic.

So. Nothing about this assignment was to be easy. “But the Families have thought of all this as finances and politics. So long as they do, they can make decisions based upon ledger sheets. It is time we changed that, time we made their dilemma more… personal.”