Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [146]
A few meters onward and Ben could hear the distant thrumming of machinery from ahead. A sign on a metal door to the side read EMERGENCY SHELTER. OPENING DOOR ACTIVATES ALARM. Yet the door was open. Luke and Ben peered in.
Inside, on benches, all across the permacrete floors, lay Oldtimers, men and women, many of them curled up in fetal positions. Their eyes were half open and fixed. Also fixed were the expressions of misery and despair on their faces. Ben recognized the Theran Listeners who had been at the healing hall when Luke had learned the mnemotherapy technique.
And then he recognized one other. Lying faceup on the farthest bench, looking as though she were trapped in a dream of apocalypse and horror, was Sel.
Ben winced and glanced at his father. He kept his voice a whisper. “Suffering to benefit Abeloth. Should we try to break them out of it?”
Luke shook his head. “They’d still be under her control. They’d alert her and attack us, delay us. How many of them do you want to injure or kill?”
“None.”
“Still, this is good news. It proves we’re close.”
Another forty meters and the tunnel opened into a rectangular artificial chamber. It was around a hundred meters in length and fifty in width, large enough to comfortably hold an oval running track. The entire length of it on the left side was dominated by machinery two stories in height. The top story, metal tube works and pistons attached to rotating cams the size of airspeeders, clanked dully as it probably had for centuries, doing the vital job of drawing water to the planet’s surface. The lower story seemed to be made up entirely of enclosed tanks for holding water. Immediately before Ben, Luke, and Vestara, a permacrete platform led to catwalks along the machinery to the left and to permacrete stairs leading down to the tank level below. Directly ahead was open air. Here, at least, was a sense of openness, countering the claustrophobia of the tunnels. Glow rod arrays overhead made the chamber bright, and there were large potted plants tucked in between the water tanks and at points along the walls.
And there were the bodies on the floor below. Scores of them, more Oldtimers, doubtless Theran Listeners, all of them alive, all of them suffering.
There was one among them who was not lying down. A young man, energetic, he wore Jedi robes as he strolled among the bodies, carefully stepping among them. Perhaps sensing the new arrivals’ eyes upon him, he looked up at them. It was Valin Horn.
His tone was polite enough. “Master Skywalker.”
“Jedi Horn.” Luke took the permacrete stairs down. “So sorry you made it here.”
“I’m not. It’s given me the opportunity to learn many things. To understand what has happened to you.”
Ben and Vestara followed Luke down. Ben gave Valin a dubious look. “What has happened to us.”
Valin nodded. “You’re not to blame for what’s happened. You’re not even impostors, exactly. You’ve simply been compromised, invaded by an alien intelligence that cuts you off from the true Force. Fortunately, you can be cured. As Jysella and I were. All these poor unfortunates, too, are in the process of being cured.”
Luke stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the younger Jedi. “The one who explained that to you, I have to admire her creativity. It’s a story that reinforces everything the madness of the Shelter Jedi Knights causes them to believe.”
Valin offered him a pitying expression. “Whoever is Grand Master Callista Ming. Though she’ll renounce her title in your favor when you’ve been cured, too.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Ben rolled his eyes. “Good of her. Where is she?”
“Coming.”
“How about Abeloth?”
“She is nearby. Maintaining the ongoing cure.” Valin’s gesture took in all the suffering Oldtimers. “You don’t need to see her yet.”
Luke leaned in close to Ben and Vestara so only they could hear him. “Follow my lead on everything. We need to stall so I can get some things accomplished and to give the