Plagueis was speechless for a moment. Santhe had inherited principal ownership of Santhe/Sienar Technologies from the elder Kerred — who had the distinction of being Plagueis’s first murder under the tutelage of Darth Tenebrous. But that a wealthy industrialist like Santhe should have need of a gambler’s winnings made little sense. Unless the Shi’ido was somehow in debt to Santhe. Did the circuitous connection to Tenebrous explain how the skinshifter had first come to Venamis’s attention?
“How well versed are you in Shi’ido physiology?” Plagueis asked 11-4D.
“Shi’ido subjects participated in longevity studies conducted on Obroa-skai. They possess a very flexible physiology and anatomy, with reconfigurable tendons and ligaments, and thin but dense skeletal features that allow them to support their fleshy mass and extensive reserves of bodily fluids.”
“Are your sensors capable of determining when a Shi’ido is about to skinshift?”
“If the Shi’ido is in close proximity, yes.”
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose.”
Catching up with their quarry as he was entering the public square, they overtook him and hurried into the pedestrian tunnel ahead of him. A hundred meters along, they found themselves in an unoccupied, dimly lighted stretch that Plagueis surmised the Shi’ido would make use of to transform, and they waited.
The Shi’ido did not disappoint him. And the moment he began to shift — from Askajian to what might have been either an Ongree or a Gotal—11-4D activated the laser weapon hidden in its right arm and fired a tightbeam into the base of the Shi’ido’s brain.
The momentarily monstrous medley of species loosed a tormented scream and collapsed to the floor of the tunnel, squirming in pain. Moving quickly, 11-4D dragged him deeper into the dimness, where Plagueis positioned himself behind the skinshifter’s grotesquely bulging cranium, uneven shoulders, and hunched back.
“Why did you transfer your winnings to Kerred Santhe?” Plagueis asked.
The Shi’ido’s twisted mouth struggled to form a response. “Are you with the Gaming Authority?”
“You only wish. Again: Why Kerred Santhe?”
“Gambling debts,” the Shi’ido slurred, as slaver dripped to the ground. “He’s in debt to a couple of Black Sun Vigos and other lenders.”
“Santhe is one of the galaxy’s wealthiest beings,” Plagueis pressed. “Why would he need what you’ve been stealing from casinos from here to Coruscant?”
“He’s
The Forceful Shi’ido craned his lumpy neck in an effort to get a look at his inquisitor. “He knows that. But the Vigos are threatening to go public with the information. A scandal could persuade Santhe/Sienar’s board of directors to oust him as chief operating officer and appoint Narro Sienar as his replacement.”
Plagueis laughed shortly in a surprised but satisfied way. “As well they should, skinshifter.” He stood and began to move off. “You’ve been most helpful. You’re free to go.”
“You can’t leave me like this,” the Shi’ido begged.
Plagueis came to a halt and returned to his victim. “If you were funding terrorism or purchasing weapons, I might have allowed you to continue fleecing the casinos. But by fattening Black Sun’s coffers and protecting the reputation of an enemy of one of my friends, you become my enemy, as well.” He lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “Consider this: you have one last chance to use your Force talents to win big before your horrid image becomes the centerpiece of the cheaters database on every gambling world. I suggest you use your winnings wisely to make a new life for yourself where the Gaming Authority won’t be able to find you, and I won’t come looking for you.”
To say that the planet Saleucami was the bright spot of its system meant merely that it alone, among half a dozen airless and desolate worlds, was capable of supporting life. Its own bright spots were not, as one might suspect, those areas that hadn’t yet been victimized by meteor bombardments, but rather some of the impact craters the ceaseless celestial storm had left behind. For there the meteor strikes had conjured mineral-rich underground waters to the arid surface, turning the craters into caldera lakes, and the environs into oases of orbiculate flora.
Blue-skinned, yellow-eyed bipeds from the far side of the Core had been the first to colonize Saleucami, which meant “oasis” in their tongue, for the world was just that among those they had visited during the long journey from Wroona. Since then had come hearty groups of Weequay, Gran, and Twi’leks, in flight from conflicts or in search of hardscrabble isolation, and up to the tasks of farming the colorless ground for moisture and subsisting on tasteless root crops that withered in the midday heat and froze solid at night. Eventually the planet had given rise to a city and a spaceport, constructed in the shadow of one of the calderas nourished by geothermal energy.
Saleucami’s more recent immigrants were of a different sort: young beings from worlds as distant as Glee Anselm and Arkania, dressed in tattered clothing and carrying their possessions on their backs. Drifters and searchers arriving in the battered transports and tramp freighters that served the Outer Rim systems. Male and female, though three times the latter to the former, distinguished by what some saw as a restless gaze and others the look of the lost. At first the native colonists didn’t know what to make of these feckless wanderers, but gradually an entire industry had grown up to cater to their simple if peculiar needs for shelter, food, and surface transport into the wastelands, where enlightenment awaited, delivered at the outsized hands of a being who was rumored to possess prophetic powers.
Among them that day was a Muun wearing a simple hooded robe and well-worn boots. Where normally the mere sight of a Muun might have generated rumors that Saleucami was about to be acquired by the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the youthful horde the Munn had fallen in with barely gave him a second glance. Not when the crowd already included Ryn and Fosh and other exotic species; and not when Saleucami itself was viewed as little more than a stepping-stone to a greater world.
Plagueis had left 11-4D on Sy Myrth and completed the journey by freighter in the hope of maintaining as low a profile as possible. Background data on the prophet was scant, though Venamis had noted that she had been born in the Inner Rim and had arrived on Saleucami only three years earlier. Saleucami’s colonists were willing to tolerate her presence, as well as the camp followers she attracted, provided they confined their assemblies to the wastelands.
Wedged in among forty others in an overpacked speeder bus, Plagueis let his gaze sweep across a forlorn landscape of volcanic mountains and the sheer walls of impact craters. In a cloudless sky of pale purple, blinding light flashed intermittently, and the monotony of the five-hour trip was relieved only by the occasional settlement or lone moisture farm. Journey’s end was a relatively small caldera lake, from the shores of which rose a communal sprawl of tents and crude shelters, populated by the dreamy veterans of previous assemblies.
The Selected, as they were called.
Climbing from the speeder bus, Plagueis joined the crowd of newcomers in a short trek to a natural amphitheater, where pieces of meteorite provided seats for some. Others sat on their backpacks or spread out on the uneven ground. Shortly, the sound of whining engines announced the arrival of a caravan of hybridized landspeeders, many in pristine condition, though covered with dust and bleached of color by the harsh light. Nearly everyone in the amphitheater stood up and a wave of anticipation moved through the crowd, building to a fervor as an Iktotchi female stepped from one of the vehicles, encircled by disciples dressed as plainly as she was.
Plagueis couldn’t think of a being more suited to Saleucami or cult status: a hairless biped with downward- curving horns and a prominent brow, skin hardened to withstand the violent winds of her homeworld, and a contentious countenance that belied an emotional nature. But, most important, possessed of proven precognitive ability.
Alone, she mounted a slab of stone that was the amphitheater’s stage and, once the crowd had quieted, began to speak in a solemn voice.
“I have seen the coming darkness and the beings that will visit it upon the galaxy.” She paused briefly to allow her words to be felt. “I have witnessed the collapse of the Republic, and I have beheld the Jedi Order spun into turmoil.” She aimed a finger toward distant mountains. “On the horizon looms a galaxy-spanning war — a conflict between machines of alloy and machines of flesh, and the subsequent death of tens of millions of
