"What does she say?" Anakin asked, in a whisper.
"She's left Zonama Sekot, to pursue an even greater mystery."
"What?"
"The message is not clear. Something about beings from beyond the boundaries, unknown to the Jedi. She had to move very quickly."
The rider's thick-skinned, heavily wrinkled face looked squashed and sunburned, and his eyes were a reddish hazel, as if filled with fire. "Clients?" the rider asked in the thickest-accented Galactic Basic they had yet heard on Zonama Sekot.
"Yes," Anakin said, stepping forward and thrusting out his chin, as if to protect Obi-Wan.
"Magister's folks leave you here?"
"Yes."
"Get on," the rider said gruffly, smirking and pointing to the steplike first joint of his carapod's center leg. "You're late! We're getting our last load!"
The rider looked up as Anakin and Obi-Wan climbed to the back of the stable mount, and his eyes widened. "We are your forgers. Team, in line!" he shouted. The carapods and their riders formed a tight single line.
Dozens of riderless carapods ran at top speed from the rim of the valley down ramps flanking the staircase shaft down to the river. They must have traveled from the tampasi, and on their broad flat backs they carried heaps of boras foliage, shattered stalks, branches, deflated leaf-balloons, scraps dried and rustling and held down by upthrust side legs.
The tinder-laden carapods rushed past with a staccato cacophony of drumlike calls, jostling their fellows in the tight line.
At the same time, overhead, other creatures, obviously related to the carapods but with different arrangements of grasping limbs, clambered along the underside of the arched canopy of boras, transporting more scraps in pendulous baskets.
"Forging fuel," the forger said as he took his place between the carapod's spurs. "That's the last load! Let's go and get our seeds in before they start up with more big ones!"
The carapods spun about and followed the herd at a remarkably smooth and comfortable gallop, legs thudding with hypnotic rhythm against the floor of the stone causeway.
Anakin looked once more at Obi-Wan. His master seemed to be in control again, face firm.The boy listened to the voices of his own seeds. With enthusiasm and joy, they were promising unmatched friendship and vital beauty beyond compare.
But Anakin realized, They don't know what they're going to make!
Chapter 36
The carapods trotted to where the stone columns ended, and the shapers brought them to a halt. Here, beyond the basalt causeway, the factory valley broadened out onto a plain covered with tightly coiled tendrils arranged like markers on a game board. The fuel-laden carapods ran ahead between immense pillars of water-sculpted rock, each hundreds of meters high, acting as supports for the green vault of boras.
It was the biggest enclosed space Anakin had ever seen. Clouds bunched up around the tops of the pillars, and in the distance, kilometers away, a thick layer of mist below the interwoven canopy was actually condensing out as rain.
"We keep the forging pits here," the red-faced forger told them. He dropped down from the carapod and pointed to where thick billows of smoke boiled up from red-lit pits near the overgrown valley walls. He looked up to count their seed-partners, his lips moving as he jabbed his finger. "You have a lot of 'em, boy. What do they say to you? Hear them?"
Anakin nodded.
"Well? Tell your forger."
"They say they're eager."
"That's what I like to hear. Give 'em to me and follow."
Anakin took his twelve seeds and gently plucked them from his clothes. Each made a tiny squeak but did not attempt to hang on. He passed them to the forger, who tossed them to the back of the carapod.
"They ride, you walk," the forger announced, and then took Obi-Wan's complement of three. "The most and the least," he added with a sniff. "Make 'em as one for the clients they hand over to us, that's the way! Good thing you got me rather than them." He flung his thumb back over his shoulder at the other forgers, who laughed. He hooted and laughed back. "They're all amateurs compared to me. I can easily forge fifteen and persuade 'em to join!"
"Don't listen to the braggart," another forger called out.
"You'll be lucky to end up with a handcart!"
"Ah, they're giving you the complete experience" their forger growled. "Never mind. We're buds, us all." He squinted at them and rubbed his arms, knocking off shed bits of white shell from many seed-partners. The bits drifted down around him like flakes of snow. "The old Magister split us into the valley folks upland and down. We're down, and we know this end of the run better than anyone. He picked us out by hand and told us to make families, the Ferroans upland, the Langhesi down. We know our places. He did right."
Anakin had learned about a small and ancient world called Langhesa, read about it in the Temple map room on Coruscant. It had been overrun a hundred years before by Tsinimals, who had enslaved the Langhesi natives, forcing huge migrations to other parts of the galaxy. They had specialized in farming and the vital arts, learning how to mold the elements of life into new and novel forms. For many centuries, they had supplied exotic pets to rich families throughout the Republic.
The Tsinimals, graceful and intolerant, had regarded the Langhesi's vital arts as a sin against their gods. Piracy and galaxy-wide conquest, however, had not bothered the Tsinimal gods in the least.
"But never mind the details. You'll get your ship, and then the uplanders will bring on a forgetting! Still, you'll have the complete experience. You'll remember the forging pits. And-" He leered, making a grotesque, ruddy mask of his face. "-my name is Vagno. You'll remember me!"
Chapter 37
There appears to be a difficulty on Zonama Sekot," Captain Kett said. He climbed to the navigation bridge and handed Sienar a decoded message from Ke Daiv. Sienar read the message with a blank expression, then, abruptly, his brow furrowed and he looked at Kett as if he might be to blame.
Kett's eyes narrowed defensively.
"He's been rejected," Sienar said. "Something about seed- partners taking a dislike to him. Chewing off all his clothes."
Kett did not have to feign ignorance.
"We cannot rely on Ke Daiv," Sienar concluded.
"I also have a message from Tarkin," Kett said with a twitch of his lips. He gave Sienar the second small cylinder, and the commander read the brief message on the secure rollout.
"He's getting nervous. He wants an update," Sienar said, pursing his lips.
"Shall we move into a diplomatic orbit, or a negotiation orbit?" Kett asked. "All systems and droids are ready. Taking action immediately could be the best foundation for a reply."
"It would be, if I were Tarkin," Sienar said, regarding the captain shrewdly. "But I am not here to play political games. There isn't time. Ke Daiv still has his instructions, and I will give him another day." Sienar wondered himself if that was a smart move, betting everything on a Blood Carver. But he had no choice! Something told him massive action on their part would be a mistake.