CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mezhan Kwaad curled her headdress in recognition at Nen Yim as she entered the laboratory.

"Detail your progress, Adept," the master said. Her tone was curt and her tendrils suggested irritation.

"We made good progress in your absence, Master," Nen Yim said cautiously. "I think with only minor genetic adjustments, the memory implants will be permanent. She resists them less than she did when last you were here."

"Yes," Mezhan Kwaad replied, anger twitching her tendrils.

"Valuable days, missed." She turned to Nen Yim. " But at least you were here, my adept, and competent to carry on."

Nen Yim watched Mezhan Kwaad cross to the vivarium.

The Jeedai still had a blank look most of the time, but now and then Nen Yim thought she saw something working behind those alien green eyes. Something more Yuuzhan Vong than human.

"Can you tell me your name?" Mezhan Kwaad asked the Jeedai.

Only a slight hesitation, this time. "Riina," the Jeedai said.

"My name is Riina."

"Very good, Riina. Did Nen Yim explain what has been done to you?"

"A little."

"Tell me what you remember."

"The infidels captured me as a child, at the rim of their galaxy. They made me look like one of them and gave me 227

false memories with their Jeedai powers."

"This seems right to you?"

"Not always. Sometimes I think I am—" She gasped and clenched her hands. "—someone else."

"The infidel conditioning was excellent. Before we rescued you, they tried to wipe your mind clean. There was much damage."

"I feel that," the Jeedai answered.

"There is something I need to know," Mezhan Kwaad replied. "You were born with certain powers. You were taught lies about these powers, but we are attending to that.

What I fear, Riina, is that your injuries may have crippled those powers."

"I cannot even think of them," the Jeedai said. Small droplets of water formed in the corners of her eyes and ran down her face.

"I'm going to help you with that," the master said. She gestured to make the vivarium opaque to sound and spoke to Nen Yim. "Quiet the provoker spineray."

Nen Yim started. "Master, that might not be wise. She still has moments when she asserts her real identity. We have closed most of those neural paths, but if we remove the promise of pain—"

"The new memories are in place for now, yes? They seem to be working quite well. They will keep her in check. This will not take long."

"This will confuse her," Nen Yim argued. "It might set us back."

"Who is master here, Adept?" Mezhan Kwaad asked brusquely. "Are you seriously questioning my expertise?"

Nen Yim quickly genuflected. "I am pitiable, Master. Of course I shall do as you say. I merely wished to voice my concerns."

"They are noted. Now, silence the spineray."

Nen Yim did so, and Mezhan Kwaad once again made the membrane permeable to sound. She produced a small stone from her oozhith's pouch and placed it on the 228

chamber floor.

"Once you could lift a stone like this with your will," she told the Jeedai. "I wish to see you do so now."

"I will have to call upon false memories," the Jeedai moaned. "Painful ones."

"We embrace pain," Mezhan Kwaad said. "Your resistance to it is a human weakness implanted in you. Do as I say."

"Yes, Master," the Jeedai replied. She fixed her gaze on the stone and closed her eyes. She winced, but then her face smoothed, and the stone lifted from the floor as if grasped in an invisible hand.

Mezhan Kwaad barked a brief, victorious laugh. "Nen Yim," she commanded, "map the brain areas showing the most activity."

"Yes, Master."

"Riina, you may lower the stone, now."

Obediently, the stone sank back to the floor.

"It didn't hurt," the Jeedai said. "I thought it would hurt."

"You see? Your cure is progressing well. Soon you will remember everything about your life as a Yuuzhan Vong."

" I wish . . ." The Jeedai trailed off wistfully.

"What?"

"I feel like I'm two halves of two different people, glued together," she said. "I wish I were whole again."

"You will be," Mezhan Kwaad answered. "Before you know it, you will be. Now, if you could lift the stone again, please."

"Clearly these abilities aren't located in a single brain center any more than they are generated by an organ," Mezhan Kwaad said later, as they looked over the results of their experimentation.

"Her Jeedai powers are distributed in the neural net somehow, nonlocalized. The commands come from this lobe in the front of her brain, obviously, which is where most of her coherent thought occurs, as well. And yet there is also considerable activity in the hindbrain."

"Perhaps her control emanates from modified muscular 229

systems," Nen Yim suggested.

"I see no evidence that this young female has been modified in any way, and the infidels have shown only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology."

"I meant modified by selection from generation to generation."

"Selective breeding? Interesting. We know from our infidel sources that this 'Force' runs more strongly in some families than others, and that Jeedai often mate with Jeedai." Her tentacles knotted in frustration. "We need more Jeedai, a larger sample. The incompetence of warriors—" She suddenly tremored and reached her eight-fingered hand to her head. "It is time. I must have the Vaa-tumor removed.

Yet another despicable delay."

Nen Yim gave her master a puzzled look. "I thought that's where you've been, having the Vaa-tumor removed."

Mezhan Kwaad's eyes went to slits. "What? Why did you think that?"

" You were gone for two cycles, Master."

"Indeed, engaged in meaningless political exercises with Master Yal Phaath. He called via villip for a formal convocation of masters on the matter of delegating re-sponsibilities on the new worldship. I was forced into a ritual seclusion, and at a quite inconvenient time."

"But the assistant you sent said nothing of that. He did say you were having your Vaa-tumor removed."

That had a remarkable effect on Mezhan Kwaad. Her tendrils fell limp, and her tone went colder than frozen nitrogen. "What assistant?"

"Tsun."

"I know no one by that name," Mezhan Kwaad said.

"But he told me you sent him."

"And that I was having my Vaa-tumor removed?"

"Yes. But he knew things about me. About what we do here."

Mezhan Kwaad folded down to a sitting mat and rubbed her head.

230

"No," she sighed. "He guessed that we were engaged in heresy, and you confirmed it. The convocation was a ruse to keep me busy. Yal Phaath now has his evidence, thanks to you."

"No!"

"Oh, I'm afraid so," a voice from the doorway boomed. Nen Yim spun to see Commander Tsaak Vootuh standing in the doorway, an escort of his personal guard just behind him.

Mezhan Kwaad drew herself to her full height.

"This is a shaper damutek. You do not have my permission to enter it."

"I do not need it," the commander replied. "I have the authority of Master Yal Phaath. I'm also afraid I must take both of you captive and search your chambers for evidence."

"Evidence of what? Accuse us!" Mezhan Kwaad snapped.

"Do not insult us with captivity without challenging!"

"The accusation is heresy, of course," Tsaak Vootuh replied. "An accusation readily born out by the evidence, I feel certain."

231