Once again on Zonama Sekot
The orb of the planet Zonama Sekot still hung over the point of the capital planet where Shimrra's citadel ship was also anchored. Even as Coruscant rotated, Zonama Sekot moved with it to keep a close eye on the still Yuuzhan Vong center. So the glittering green ship didn't have to travel too far until it reached the point where it had landed the first time.
It was like a gentle flapping of wings that made Nen Yim sit up and take notice. She placed the sample she was about to examine on the table in her hut and went outside through the already open door. She had never heard the flapping of wings like this before, and yet she knew immediately who it belonged to.
The Sekotan ship descended onto the landing pad and Nen Yim stood and waited. Below the ship hung a coral skipper of the kind she was familiar with from her people's fleet. The tongue flicked out and the familiar figure with which she had arrived more than a month ago appeared. He was carrying the Qang Qahsa in his hand and at that moment Nen Yim felt that everything, absolutely everything, would heal.
"Yu'shaa, you've returned," she greeted him in a neutral voice, pointing to the coral skipper. "And it looks like you've arranged for your return journey, too."
He bowed gallantly. "I do have to apologize for my hasty departure back then and it's better to at least factor in a return trip than not having a ship if you do need one."
She raised her brows in astonishment. "So you want to stay longer?"
He smiled charmingly. "Until everything is discussed and settled." With these words he held out the Qang Qahsa to her.
"Thanks." She took back her research collection. "So let's go inside and you tell me what's happened since then. In the meantime, I'll fix you a little snack."
"So you still don't know about Shimrra's death and that Onimi is in custody?" he asked once they were inside the parlor.
She shook her head "In custody?"
"The cell is so safe and well guarded that not even a Sith Lord could escape from there," he assured her.
"Then I will never see him again?"
He smiled confidently. "I hope so."
Nom Anor internally cheered. So Nen Yim had been so engrossed in her studies that, despite being so close to Coruscant, she hadn't noticed anything except...
"But you've noticed that the planet has been moving from one place to another, haven't you?"
She gestured downward with her hand. "It jerked a bit, but otherwise everything was normal," she reflected, "except that instead of sky, we suddenly had hyperspace above us. I felt like I was traveling between the galaxies again." She kneaded her hands. "To be honest, I really panicked and thought the planet was truly leaving this galaxy, but then Sekot came and calmed me down."
"Then the spirit of the planet must have taken you very dear when it first simulated that abduction and has now enlightened you personally about the journey," Yu'shaa said and sat down at the table.
Nen Yim placed a carafe of fresh water on the table and poured some into a clay jar, which she placed in front of him.
"Sekot teased me a bit," Nen Yim said as she walked to the oven to take out freshly cooked food. "First, by that brook, she appeared to me in the form of that Vergere, do you know her?"
Nom Anor made a dismissive gesture and reached for the clay jug of water to take a hearty sip. "More than I would have liked, but please pass it on."
Nen Yim served him a fried fish and some yellow tubers, then sat down. "Suddenly Priest Harrar stood in the door and told me not to be afraid." She also took some of the yellow tubers and the fish on her plate. "I then asked him if Sekot had changed his mind and let him stay, and he said, the next time Harrar will come here, he, Sekot, wouldn't mind. Then I had to change my feelings. When I then asked him/her why he/she wasn't showing up in the familiar Vergere guise, he/she said, 'I like to joke every now and then.'"
He narrowed his right eye mockingly. "A planetary spirit who likes to joke - it makes you feel so much safer." Nom Anor picked up a yellow bulb and popped it into his mouth.
"Careful," Nen Yim warned. "They are hotter on the inside than they appear on the outside."
In fact, he had to take the yellow, oblong piece of food out of his mouth to let it cool down a bit on the plate. Deliberately, he used a spoon to scoop off a smaller piece and slowly, allowing time to cool, put it back in his mouth. "Are they from here?"
"This fruit is called Kaddoffi and it only grows here on Zonama Sekot. I find them far tastier than our Muur-pap."
Yu'shaa also tried the fish and thought it was excellent. "You shapers are already good cooks."
Nen Yim was silent and he saw her lips pout as her pupils narrowed.
"You are an excellent cook ... shaper …"
Nen Yim kept pouting and her gaze missed him resolutely.
"Master Shaper," he added, and finally Nen Yim smiled.
"You're learning, Prophet."
"Well, like I said at the beginning, I'm not that good at these subjects," he replied modestly. "Would you have preferred it, if it really was Harrar and not the Planet Spirit?"
She lowered her eyes briefly. "I like it the way it is right now."
He raised his water jug towards her and smiled.
"Cheers to our reunion
sweeter than an Ojomian onion."
She returned the gesture with her tankard, but frowned. "Please no rhymes. Onimi really tormented me enough with that back then."
"As the lady wishes."
"If you stay until evening, then we can have a look at Coruscant from here", she made a proposal. "It looks beautiful from up here - so green and without those ugly protruding houses that used to be there. The planet looked like a spiked ball."
He told her at length about Shimrra's death, Onimi's defeat, and the latter greatly pleased Nen Yim. He then told her that all the Shamed Ones were now free and equal, and that Drathul, as High Prefect, now ruled the affairs of the Yuuzhan Vong.
When evening came, they went out onto a hill and sat there on a roughly made wooden bench to look out over nearby Coruscant.
"A five kets ago you told me that you had a mate you hadn't seen in a long time," Nen Yim began. "Have you seen her again?"
He nodded sadly. "She has left me."
Consternation crossed her face, but despite the courtesy, Nom Anor recognized the expectation and hope behind it.
"Why?" she asked, as expected.
"Onimi put her in a two-piece bikini and loincloth and made her dance for a couple of hours until she fell over in exhaustion. Then the planet that was written on the dance floor in that place should be eliminated by the infidels' Centerpoint battle station," he said with dramatic emphasis, only to continue a little more optimistically: "...which I prevented by an ingenious plan. But she hasn't forgiven me for having to dance in front of Onimi in a skimpy two-piece, and that it was Priest Harrar who went to Corellia to rescue her, not me, while I was on Coruscant to tend to the Shamed Ones whom Harrar didn't know at all. She might also have been uncomfortable with having so many broadcast villips and holocams pointed at her, while she was dancing", he admitted hesitantly.
"But she was saved - by your plan," Nen Yim lectured. "And it could have been worse for her - like Onimi could have forced her to dance naked."
Yu'shaa looked incredulous.
She nodded indignantly. "Yes, he definitely demanded something so frivolous back then! How ungrateful of your former mate. But if she danced well that day, she might be famous now and even earn some credits for it in this galaxy."
He smiled enigmatically. "I didn't think you would care about her like that."
"Sorry," Nen Yim said, assuming she said something wrong. "Perhaps the priests of Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah* would be happy to employ her as well, provided she has other entertaining qualifications. What intendant's domain she is from, if I may ask?"
Yu'shaa chose the truth. "Of the Domain of Shesh."
Nen Yim raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of this domain, but who knows all the domains of our people."
They talked about this and that for a while, and finally they descended the hill again, and Nen Yim indicated Yu'shaa's place to camp, separating it with a cloth from the rest of the one room that was in her hut.
"It would be nice if you would come along on a plant and animal expedition tomorrow morning," she said as she hung the sheet to divide the room. "You know – the thing with the bees and the flowers. And this time you won't take the Qang Qahsa away with you and then I'll show you," she smiled seductively, "what one can do with it."
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The next morning they got up early. After making sure her guest was already awake and dressed, Nen Yim pushed aside the dividing curtain and saw that the Prophet was meditating. After a hearty breakfast they went outside on expedition. The Prophet carried the Qang Qahsa for Nen Yim and the young shaper was not afraid that he would take off again.
Small, black, spiked balls rolled across their path. "What's that?" Nom Anor asked.
"These are the seeds of the bora trees that seek a place to nest in the ground," Nen Yim explained. "There they either sprout or they gang together to form seed partners, from which the ships of this planet then arise."
"Interesting," he murmured.
They went on and came to that clearing where they had been before weeks.
Nen Yim told him to put the Qang Qahsa on the ground. "Did you actually tamper with it on Coruscant?" she asked her expedition companion.
"In order to bring down Onimi, it was necessary to resort to Hon Akua's protocol for creating grutchins," he explained. "And that's why I opened your qang qahsa and poked around in it."
"You can do something like that?"
He grinned. "Contrary to what you probably think, I am well able to understand its contents."
"How did you bypass the password?" Nen Yim wanted to know.
"Not at all." He smiled mischievously. "Nen Yim, are you not particularly imaginative when it comes to coming up with an original and strong password?"
"You know it?"
"If I may." He sat down in front of the sack-like attic and said, "Mezhan."
The bag immediately unfolded, revealing a screen.
"Am I really that easy to see through?"
He bowed his head. "Let's say I already know you very well. And yes, I remembered your Master's name well, when you told me about her during our first visit here."
"You are very thoughtful for an otherworldly, spiritual preacher."
He put his palms together. "Understanding is the essence of enlightenment."
"And for espionage." She seemed lost in thought, then her green eyes met his directly. "I'm just wondering what you were up to before you became a prophet."
"The moment is not far off when I will reveal this to you, Nen Yim." He pointed to the opened Qang Qahsa. "But now we will finally make the ruined day from back then perfect and round."
Nen Yim entered some data into the storage medium. "I've heard that Jedi can dig up old memories from people. I can do that with my Qang Qahsa too. It is far more than just a storage medium. I have taken nerve cells from Sekotan life forms and modified them, such as the cells of a yammosk implanted with the memories of its ancestors from ages past. But this also works the other way around. I hope to be able to access the memories of this world through the local life forms, particularly those thousand-year-old trees called boras, whose seeds we encountered earlier on our journey."
Yu'shaa looked a little hesitant. "I have never heard of such intense personal world exploration on any of the worlds conquered by our people. Usually the planets get a world brain implanted by us that does what it's supposed to and that's it. Has your master already done such a thing?"
Nen Yim shook her head. "I'm the first to use this method because I developed it. I'm not sure where this is going yet, but together we can unravel the mystery."
"And what am I supposed to do about it?"
"Give me your hand," she said, already reaching for it and he let it happen. "Put your other hand on the Qang Qahsa here."
She herself put her other free hand to another spot on the storage medium and then they connected to the device. "Warning, it could be a bit exhausting."
"I'm honored."
Nothing happened for a while, then information trickled and poured into her and the Prophet. She saw pictures and heard scraps of noise, saw stars, flew through a vacuum - fell into an abyss. And then the feelings: The whole strange and yet not strange life seemed to take place directly on her skin and underneath - a brown planet appeared before her eyes, orbited by a comet with a fiery tail - a moon, as she suddenly knew. The moon dug into the planet and it trembled, shattering into several pieces - one of the pieces was oddly out of focus before her closed yet seeing eyes. The opaque shape sailed away while the other planet parts stayed behind, forming a sluggish group of oddly shaped asteroids in orbit. The image faded and gave way to others, the sequence accelerating, illuminating and blinding every corner of her brain in stroboscopic progression.
Her insides felt emptier every more second, as if what she was seeing, or rather what was behind it, was eating her out from the inside, and for a moment Nen Yim believed that she had been wrong before and that there are gods, as she had been taught all her life. She surrendered to the flowing stream of information when suddenly a gigantic light was switched on inside her.
Too much - and suddenly everything went dark.
Nen Yim was the first to wake up from the trance. She sat up and dabbed a damp cloth over the Prophet's face to wake him up and wipe his sweat.
Immediately his eyes shot open and he blinked. "What are you doing? Why are you removing my masquer?"
"I'm trying... what?"
With the damp cloth she had just dabbed at a spot near his nose and immediately the tanned skin on his face began to peel away, revealing his true likeness - yellowish skin with graphite tattoos, a protruding chin fractured multiple times... and those blue eyes... She realized his left eye was none.
A shy smile hushed over her face. He looks better than I had imagined under his mask.
His confused blink turned into a smile, reproaching hers. "Actually, I wanted to wait until you told me the secret of Zonama Sekot, but why should it always be me who surprises you?"
"Honestly, I was waiting for this when you told me the Shamed Ones were vindicated, but you also told me at the time that your mask was sewn on tight; I didn't think it was dangerous to touch that point ..."
He sat up and moved a little closer to her. Then his yellow hand stroked her blue one, which was holding the towel, "It's okay. If this is the day of revelation, let us all stand or sit before Zonama Sekot as we truly are and …"
She looked into his blue eyes and saw the feline pupil of his right eye dilate wide. And he does like me. "I … know you."
"That's very flattering," Nom Anor replied, a little more harshly than before. "If I remember correctly, we only met once before I became a prophet. But you've interrupted me. I was speaking of revelations."
He grabbed her shoulders and yanked her all of the sudden towards him. "... what we really feel," he finished the sentence from earlier, then he pushed her into the damp, comfortable bed of moss and placed himself over her. He wondered why he had been thinking about Viqi Shesh for so long after she had dismissed him that way - and for the second time. Here below him, however, lay a fellow species who spoke his language, was intelligent and, what's more, was damn good looking. What more could he want? Nen Yim would never...
"But Zonama Sekot. I..." she stuttered. "… the answer."
"I don't give a damn now," gasped Nom Anor, and began expertly stripping her of her organic shaper robe—and she let it happen.
Which part of the Qang Qahsa have you seen? Just the part what happened through Yun-Q'aah and Yun-Txiin*?
While he was already pulling down her panties, Nen Yim winced when she realized that the two sentences she had just thought rhymed. If Nom Anor sensed her irritation beneath him, he gave no sign.
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When Viqi Shesh arrived home at Kuat at the spaceport, her mother was ready to receive her. Dozens of journalists also crowded around the former Yuuzhan Vong spy, loudly and insistently asking for information.
"No comment," the former senator dismissed most of the questions. Even the question of whether the priest named Harrar was her new liaison now.
"Why didn't you deny at least that you have nothing to do with him privately, child?" asked the mother when they were both alone at home in the villa of that branch of the Shesh family. "He has only three fingers on each hand – that is far worse than a protruding chin."
"Well, certain people should make an effort," replied the daughter.
"So you're still hoping that Nom Anor will come back to you?"
Viqi smiled. "No comment."
"But you can tell me, I'm your mother," Emlee Shesh urged.
"I saved a planet yesterday," said the daughter, tossing her travel bag in the corner and flopping noisily onto the wide, comfortable bed of what was her childhood bedroom and now her office. "I don't see why I should now explain myself for any trivialities," she added snippily.
Emlee Shesh giggled. "I know you weren't alone in saving Kuat, but I like your attitude in the last part of your sentence."
This chapter contains events from the book series "New Jedi Order", Vol. 18. "The Final Prophecy" by Greg Keyes (2003)
*Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah, the gods of love and hate among the Yuuzhan Vong.
*Yammosk – squid-like war coordinator of the Yuuzhan Vong in battle