Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [131]
“Show respect, Ben.” Luke's voice was soft, but he let an edge of warning creep into it.
“Yes, sir.” Ben took a couple of deep, calming breaths. “Koro Ziil there wouldn't tolerate the risk of those food shipments being detected or traced down here if the food wasn't absolutely necessary. Therefore it is. Therefore, in blowing up the tunnel, I've doomed us all. We suffocate, you starve.
“Except for the other lies. Here's the next one. Look!” He gestured at the exit. Most of the Kel Dors followed his gaze, then looked back at him, confused.
“Blast doors,” Ben said, as if explaining to a none-too-bright classroom of younglings. “The lie that these big doors were made here. Your foundries do fine for recycling metal containers and making metal parts. But they're not big enough to build blast doors. The big pieces had to come from an industrial-sized metal plant. And they're too big to fit down your little tunnel. So where did they come from?
“There's lie number three, the really big one. That lie says the tunnel you've been using for shipments, two hundred kilometers of pure tedium, is in any way necessary. It's not.
“Here's why. Lie number four. The lie that if the bad thing happens and the Baran Do are wiped out up top, you'll wait for the dust to settle, then begin teaching new sages by telepathy. No, you won't. The technique doesn't exist. If it did, the Hidden One would have issued his orders to the surface by telepathy, not by comlink. Those blast doors came down by bigger tunnels, the first tunnels dug down to this place, and if the bad thing happened, you were going to get back to the surface by those tunnels and spread out to begin your teaching.
“Those are the lies most of you have lived with down here for I don't know how many years. Probably only the Hidden One and the first generation of Baran Do dead sages know where the big tunnel is. But it's here, and now you need it.” Ben glared, defiant, at the Hidden One.
The Hidden One tried again to stand. Ithia attempted to hold him in place but then relented, and the aged Kel Dor got to his feet. He faced Ben, unbowed, unrelenting. “Then you have killed us all, not just yourself. I will not give up the secrets of this place. Nor will anyone else.”
Undismayed, Ben stared at him. “So your pride is more important than your mission. The fact that you rule here and would be just another retired Master up there means nearly fifty of your followers have to die.”
The Hidden One glowered but did not answer.
Burra did. His expression sorrowful, he stepped forward. “The tunnel out is just above the garment storeroom.”
The Hidden One turned on him, his eyes eloquent with the betrayal he felt. “Burra, not you.”
“The ceiling there is synthstone, artfully detailed to match the natural stone around it. A few blows with chisels will reveal a sliding hatch. Above it is a turbolift chamber. Its generator will need maintenance before it can be activated.”
The Hidden One just stared at him. Then, with slow, halting steps, he turned toward the exit from the chamber.
The boy, Wyss, came forward to tuck himself under the Hidden One's arm and support him on his walk.
It was as Burra said. A few minutes with mining tools broke away the veneer of synthstone, revealing a door mounted in the ceiling and a control panel beside it. The control panel, a single mechanical switch, had no lights or readouts to indicate whether it was functional, but Burra had no doubts. “It triggers a capacitance charge, which opens the door.”
And so it did. Once the switch was flipped, the doors slid open and air, kept contained and musty for some sixty years, flowed down into the caverns of the seed of the Baran Do.
As they waited for Burra and others to get the generator in the chamber above operational, Luke took Ben aside. “You acted, well, unilaterally.”
“He wasn't going to change, Dad.