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  “Strange words to hear from a Yuuzhan Vong mouth—your kind has no idea what logic is.”

  “There. There!” Scut’s voice rose. “I am Yuuzhan Vong like you are Gamorrean. In part. I have human family, too.”

  “Adopted. You had plenty of years before they came along to become twisted, a sociopath.”

  “Oh. Well, if I am all Yuuzhan Vong despite how I was reared, you are all Gamorrean. Lazy, stupid, fat, amoral, coarse. Grunt for me, pig-man.”

  “Is that the best you have? No, you’re not done yet. Keep going. I’ll know when we’ve gotten to the truth. If there’s any truth in you.”

  “Very well.” Scut returned his voice to normal pitch and volume. If being pressed against the wall by Voort, being physically intimidated, was making him uncomfortable, he did not show it. “I knew of you, you personally, from when I was a child. From when I first met my human parents.”

  “How?”

  “Not important yet. But I knew about the Wraiths. Heroes! They outwit those who enslave and destroy. You think I lie? You lie. Tell me, did you become a teacher because you love it?”

  “Because I love it. Yes. Because I needed to turn to the next phase of my life. All Wraiths do that eventually. The ones who survive, anyway.”

  “I have met teachers who love teaching. Tell me now, the whole truth like you want from me. When you are through with your students, do they go forth, engines roaring, filled with a love of numbers that you have taught them?”

  “Not ... many.” Thoughtful, Voort finally took a half step backward.

  “Because you have no love to bestow on them. You teach because it doesn’t remind you of what you quit. You teach because it’s a painless way to die.”

  Voort felt his fist clench. But he forced it to relax. Somewhere, buried in Scut’s words, there was a kernel of truth. Unlike other instructors, he never had prize students. He never seemed to infect his pupils with the love of the art of numbers.

  What did that mean?

  Scut continued, relentless. “You are not a fit teammate, much less a leader, because every day you show us that you have let down every teammate who ever worked with you, especially those who died serving with you, and you will let us down the same way.”

  “Explain.”

  “Because you are not full of life, idiot! You saved, you preserved. My own human father among them. And now, when you are reminded of times gone by, you do nothing but grieve. The ones who have fallen, would they smile to know that all you do is grieve and count your losses? That you dress yourself in their burial shrouds?” Scut took a deep breath. “Bhindi just died at your side. And now you will never speak her name again, any more than you speak the names of those who fell before. Bhindi died knowing that you will not tell happy stories of her, or use her example to inspire. Just like your numbers, you cannot impart love of us.”

  Voort felt his anger ebbing. The change was probably more due to adrenaline fading than to Scut’s argument. He injected a little mockery into his next words; his implant, trained to interpret certain vocal traits, did add the appropriate sarcasm to his tone. “I am so very, very sorry I didn’t live up to your expectations.”

  “I think you are lying.”

  “You mentioned your human father before. We helped him?”

  “Long ago. The Joyls’ situation reminds me of how my father met the Wraiths, including you. You saved him. Like Usan Joyl, he was kidnapped by a powerful officer for his skills. The Wraiths rescued him. In an unguarded moment, they spoke frankly to him. He learned some of their names. He learned the name Wraith Squadron.”

  Voort snorted. “That wasn’t an unguarded moment. Face Loran used to make a snap judgment about someone the Wraiths had helped. He’d spill a few secrets. Only when that someone had skills or resources the Wraiths might be able to call on later.”

  “Oh.” Scut pondered that. “So in an instant, Face understood that my father was trustworthy and useful.”

  “Clearly, Face didn’t grasp how faulty your father’s judgment was on certain things.”

  Scut let the insult pass. “And Face knew that, over time, stories of the Wraiths would filter out into the wider military and intelligence community. And even elsewhere.”

  “Including to smugglers and pirates. Having a fearsome reputation can win battles before they’re fought.”

  “Wise.” Scut looked thoughtful. “But more calculating than I would have guessed.”

  “And that’s how Face knew about you? He recommended Bhindi recruit you?”

  Scut nodded.

  “Your father is a xenobiologist, correct?”

  “No, that is my mother. My father is a multidisciplinary scientist. Inorganic chemistry, mineralogy, gemology, physics.”

  That triggered a distant memory in Voort. He looked more intently at Scut. “His name isn’t Gorsat, then.”

  “Gorsat is a Yuuzhan Vong name, one I chose. It is a name not of the class I was born into, so it angers the older warriors to hear it. My father is named Mulus—”

  “—Cheems. Of course.” Voort nodded and let his memories float back three decades. “I remember him. I was on that mission. So were Jesmin’s father and Wran’s aunt.” Voort let his voice become more dispassionate. “And so was my best friend. I had no other family, and we were like brothers. He was always playing pranks on me. I always said that I’d get him back, but I never did.” He paused, forcing himself through the quagmire of the next memory. “Sixteen years later, I put a blaster under his chin and burned his brains out.”

  Scut’s expression did not change. “I know the story. It was a mercy killing.”

  “Yes. But the instant I pulled that trigger, and for the next fifteen years—and still today—there’s been a little voice in the back of my head whispering, You finally got him back. I hate that voice. And since I was stupid enough to let Face recruit me again, there hasn’t been a moment when the presence of the new Wraiths hasn’t reminded me of that instant. So you might think about that the next time you’re tempted to preach to me about finding joy in life and telling funny stories about dead people.”

  “You have just admitted you are irrational.” Scut’s stare did not soften. “That was the last maggot of complaint. You have not begun to crush them.”

  “I can’t ... crush them all.” Oddly, that admission did not disturb Voort as much as he’d thought it would.

  “Then you must resign as leader. You cannot lead.”

  Voort smiled at him. It was a teeth-baring, tusk-displaying warrior’s expression. “Watch me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Just past dawn, four more artillery units arrived and settled in to add their strength to the siege. The pounding of the hilltop became more intense.

  Trey finished his explorations into the hill’s lower levels. He returned with word of food and supply storage chambers, now empty. He had found corridors that led to chambers that had once held power machinery but did so no longer, and corridors that led nowhere. He had found circular doors in permacrete plugs blocking the way to natural caves; the doors were not locked but the caves did not lead to the mountain slope or some distant exit hole.

  Trey had used a rangefinder to gauge the mountain’s exterior dimensions and superimpose a wire frame of that roughly conical shape over the map of the chambers below. In the former cable car chamber, on Trey’s datapad, Voort studied the results.

  He pointed at one spot on the mountain’s south slope. “It looks like we have a natural cave here that comes pretty close to the surface.”

  Sharr, one of the Wraiths gathered for the meeting, shrugged. “So?”

  “So ... we came away from the intrusion with a bag full of explosives. Enough, maybe, to breach the cave’s outer wall, creating a hole we could leave through? If we could manage some distraction on the north slope, blow our south exit innocuously ...”

  Trey gave him a dubious look. “The phrase high explosives and the word innocuously don’t really get along. It wou
ld be more likely if we had a really experienced explosives expert and a really good geologist. Plus, the measurements we get from a blaster scope rangefinder to build this diagram are a little chancy.”

  Voort fixed him with a stare. “And if I ordered you to do it and make it work?”

  “I’d make it work ... or die trying. I’d put my credits on die trying.”

  Voort made an exasperated noise. “Well, that becomes our backup plan, then.”

  Wran frowned. “What’s our primary plan?”

  “Wait for Myri to save us.”

  “Oh. How reassuring.”

  Voort closed Trey’s datapad and returned it to him. “I am reassured. Has anybody on the wall noticed anything to suggest she and Jesmin have been grabbed? Pop-Dogs congregating at a spot out where there’s no soldier emplacement or artillery unit?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “So she may still be our best chance for relief. Plus, we have two more resources we’re unfamiliar with.”

  Trey frowned. “What are they?”

  Voort sighed. “Back to the bad-student corner, Trey. The Joyls. Send them in.”

  Usan and Dashan joined them, sitting, like the others, on the litter-strewn floor.

  Voort spent no time on pleasantries. “Do you two have anything to get us out of here alive?”

  Usan shrugged. “Oh, dear. When they ask the hapless for help, it means the helpful have become hapless ... Probably not. I don’t know much about this area.”

  “But you know Thaal better than any of us.” Voort tried to look approving. That was a sentiment difficult for a Gamorrean to convey facially. “I guess we’ll need you to tell us all you can.”

  Dashan was heard to murmur, “In case you die and they get away, they need their facts to survive.”

  “Easy, child.” Usan kept his tone calm and melodic. “That human girl who went off on her own mission? The daughter of Wedge Antilles. I doubt these people are of a mind to sacrifice us to lighten their load and just take our knowledge away.”

  Dashan’s reply was a sniff.

  Usan returned his attention to Voort. “What do you want to know?”

  “I understand that you were forging new identity records for Thaal. What is that new identity? Where’s the new him supposed to be from?”

  Usan shook his head. “It’s not as easy as that—neither part of your question. I was doing more than creating a file of data to be plugged into some distant records computer. I was creating a new type of new identity, comprehensive, more elaborate perhaps than has ever been done before.”

  Thaymes’s eyes gleamed. “How?”

  “Multiple stages, multiple levels of deception. False birth, education, and business records, the basics, yes—of course.”

  Thaymes, if anything, seemed more delighted. “But handprints, palm prints, retinal identification—”

  “Skin prints do grow back, in humans anyway, if abraded away. But what happens if you change relevant genes, a full course of gene therapy, and then abrade them away?”

  Thaymes’s eyebrows shot up. “They grow back different?”

  Usan nodded. He waited as a series of explosions sounded from outside and shook more pebbles from the ceiling—the latest sweep of artillery hits—then continued. “As for eyes. More problematic. Treat the pupils with special dye to alter the color. And subject each eye, in a series of laser operations, to, well, what I call a re-texturing sequence. Each eye undergoes four operations—”

  “Stop.” Even in the glow from Voort’s glow rod, space-taped to the wreckage of the cable car, Sharr was beginning to pale. “Just stop. We get it.”

  Thaymes chortled. “Sharr? You? Master of psychological warfare—squeamish about eye penetration?”

  “Don’t even say those words.” Sharr glared at him. “I’ve only ever strangled a man to death once, but I was very, very successful at it.”

  “Thaymes.” Voort kept his tone light. “Whatever Sharr throws up, you clean up. Please go on, Usan.”

  “Also surgeries to eliminate or add distinguishing features, to alter old bone breaks and his dental profile. A comprehensive series of treatments. For speed’s sake, as I was under duress, I integrated dozens of techniques introduced by colleagues or more legitimate medical scientists, and created an entire program for Thaal to experience. But I was never privy to the precise details of the identities Thaal and his loyal soldiers were to experience.”

  “And his soldiers.” Voort frowned, puzzled. “How many alternative identities will he be generating?”

  “I do not know. I was never privy to that information, either. As many as he wants. He only trusts his Pop-Dogs and a few others, all military or former military.”

  “Interesting.” Voort glanced at Trey. “His mistress wasn’t military. Do you remember her name?”

  “I ran searches on her.” Trey frowned, thinking back. “Keura something.”

  “Keura Fallatte.” Dashan’s voice was raised barely above a whisper. “She was in a cell near ours. For a while. Nice girl. Confused by her imprisonment. Said the general referred to her as a loose end.” Dashan finally met Voort’s eyes. “The general killed her. Shot her himself, in front of us. He told us, ‘This is what I’ll do to someone I love. I did it to attain my objective. Imagine what I might do to someone I find inconvenient.’ ”

  Voort struggled for an answer, but could not come up with one. Finally he returned to the original subject. “So the instant Thaal disappears, he’ll begin this transition to his new identity. Will he need you? If we drop hints that you’re where he could find you, would he come for you?”

  Usan shook his head. “He’ll send someone to kill me. He already has his experts, his medics, everyone he needs to alter his identity.”

  “Commonality.” The one word was spoken by Thaymes.

  They waited while another series of explosions rocked the west face of the mountain. Then Voort brushed some pebbles and plaster from his head. “Explain that, Thaymes.”

  “He’s changing lots of identities, not just his own. There have to be points in common between some of them, if not all of them. That’s his weakness. If I had to forge, say, forty identicards, and I’m pretty good at that—maybe not as good as Usan here—there would be common elements to their backgrounds.”

  Voort looked back at the older Duros. “How about that?”

  “He is correct. And, at least in a vague way, there is a profile I established for Thaal’s new identity that he could have used as a template for all the Pop-Dogs.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  Usan paused a moment, staring at the wall above and behind Voort. Then he returned his attention to the Gamorrean. “First, the planet the false identity is from will be one that has had a significant catastrophe or disruption in the past. The person’s date of birth will be from the time of the catastrophe or before it. For instance, Coruscant, conquered and transformed by the Yuuzhan Vong less than twenty years ago. Thaal’s own world of Carida. Alderaan, destroyed nearly forty-five years ago. And so on.”

  Voort nodded. “The disruption in question accounting for a limited number of records and a limited number of people who might be expected to have known the person. In other words, this identity is set up to withstand more than casual investigation.”

  “Correct.” Usan sounded approving. “It will hold up to the most rigorous investigation. Second, the government bureau or other agency that recorded the birth and any other details must not maintain noneditable records or archives. This also goes for academic records, sports achievements, and so on.”

  Thaymes brightened. “Meaning that you’re confident that you can crack the security on the editable records ... but if those records are backed up in some noneditable way, anyone going back through the archives could spot the discrepancy. So you prevent any discrepancy by choosing only those records that can be altered, no matter how difficult that alteration is.”

  “Very good.” Usan looked at his grandson. “
Clearly, we have fallen in with scoundrels.”

  Dashan nodded. “I feel very comfortable with them. I’d be more comfortable if we weren’t being bombarded.”

  “You are wise beyond your years. Third, I told you that the individual receiving the new identity experienced a genetic therapy treatment that resulted in some genetic alteration. Enough to give him a unique genetic numerical identifier, enough to ‘prove’ that he is not who he was before. But it’s still possible for a comprehensive set of laboratory tests, performed on new tissue samples compared with old tissue samples, to establish a link. Therefore all old, pre-change tissue samples must be stolen, destroyed. To prevent such a laboratory comparison.”

  Voort considered that. “So if you’ve been hospitalized for an injury, and tissue samples were taken—”

  Usan nodded. “They must be eliminated.”

  “So tissue-bank thefts or sabotage at various hospitals suggest that they were storing samples from people who later went through the transformation process.” Voort scratched his cheek. “That helps tell us who’s part of the conspiracy ... at this end. But not where they go after the change.”

  “Wait a moment.” Turman’s eyes widened as if he’d just been splashed with cold water. “Aren’t your family members a type of genetic tissue sample that can be matched to yours? Their own gene structures could be compared with the person who’s received the transformation.”

  “Yessss.” Usan hissed out the word. “So you will see a specific set of results from that fact. Pop-Dogs who have no children or other immediate family are more likely to be in the clear. Those who do have blood relations will either take those family members with them into disappearance, if they trust them utterly ... or see to it that those family members disappear. Thaal has no immediate family members.”

  Turman’s face lost all expression. “And his mistress?”

  “She had family.”

  “So ...” Voort shook his head, unable to arrive at a complete answer. “We might be able to figure out who’s part of his conspiracy by comparing these characteristics of people, especially Pop-Dogs and their family members. But how do we find them, once they’ve fled? Scattered all over the galaxy? And how do we pinpoint which one is Thaal?”