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“Keep it calm, Yak. There have got to be political reasons behind this. With politics, nothing runs right … but without politics, nothing runs.”

Reth nodded grudging agreement. “It just keeps piling up, and I have to question Antilles’s competence.”

“Keep it down, will you? You’re starting to sound like a mutineer in training.”

Reth flashed his second-in-command a broad grin. “Nothing like that. I’m just trying to figure out whether I should put in for a transfer, try to get in with a squadron in one of the other fleet groups. I’m not sure what to do yet. If you hear anything along the lines of what I’ve been saying … well, you’ll just keep your ears open, won’t you?”

Ti’wyn waggled his pointed, oversized Bothan ears. “Always do.”

Transport Ship Fu’ulanh, Coruscant Orbit

Wrapped in the concealing folds of her cloakskin, willing her shaper’s headdress to remain still so as not to give away her caste to observers, the Shaper Nen Yim followed the Warmaster Tsavong Lah out onto the ganadote tongue.

Ganadotes were immobile creatures. Born as a flat, long shell about five paces long and wide and a pace high, they were little more than a mouth, an anus, a large canal connecting them as well as opening into side stomach chambers, and a tongue.

But when grown to maturity and trained in their masters’ wishes, they made magnificent entryways and viewing-boxes. Kept fed by servants bringing clip beetle shells and other nutritious waste and dropping those foods straight through their stomach valves, shaped by hormones to change their dimensions, ganadotes could be transformed into domed or spherical vestibules. The tissues that lined their intestinal tracts were beautifully iridescent, and a proper diet kept excretion to a rare event.

But it was the tongue that made the ganadote such a charming architectural feature. One trained in its use could step out onto it and, by leaning or toe pressure, cause it to extend, lower, raise, position its tip anywhere in relation to the creature’s body.

And that was what Tsavong Lah did. Once Nen Yim was in place, he coaxed the ganadote tongue out over the large chamber at the heart of this living ship, over the crowd, short of the fibrous leaves that blocked off the far exit from the chamber.

Tsavong Lah threw up his hands, tossing his cloak back over his shoulders. “Priests and shapers, devotees of the Great God Yun-Yuuzhan, I salute and welcome you. Soon, you will be taken from this place to nearby Borleias, where my sire, Czulkang Lah, drives the infidels into dejection and defeat.”

The listeners, perhaps thirty, castes evenly divided between shapers and priests of Yun-Yuuzhan, raised their voices in noises of celebration, appreciation.

Nen Yim could make out the faces of many, including the shaper Ghithra Dal, whom she had accused, and Takhaff Uul, the priest who had been in Ghithra Dal’s constant, if surreptitious, company these last many weeks.

“As you know,” Tsavong Lah said, “you travel there to take possession of Borleias once it falls. That green, rich world, almost free of the touch of the infidel, will be your reward for service to the gods, service to the Yuuzhan Vong. Half will be the domain of the priests, half of the shapers, all united in the worship of Yun-Yuuzhan. All you need to do to claim it is raise your mighty temples, your gloriously crafted domains upon her.

“Sadly, you will fail to do this.”

And there it was, the start of the warmaster’s revenge, expressed in a handful of calmly expressed words.

The crowd quieted, with many of its members turning to one another, muttering questions.

“I look forward to waking each day without being assailed by the smell of sickness, the odor of the decay of my own arm. I look forward to rising each morning in the sure knowledge that I have not displeased the gods—only a few rogue priests and shapers who dared to misappropriate the god’s will.” Tsavong Lah’s voice turned thunderous, and Nen Yim saw his broad back shake with the emotion of his words. “I look forward to knowing that those who remain behind are united in