Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [65]
The tsils were not remotely human. From his earlier contacts with them, they did not seem to be able to think purely abstractly. Even if they’d had ears, the spoken word “airspeeder” would not cause them to think of an airspeeder, nor would the word if written in text form, nor would even a simplified drawing of an airspeeder. But they were capable of some symbolic thought. One realistic image could be substituted for another, conveying an idea of association or comparison. That was how, three decades before, they had first communicated with Luke to inform him that crystals of their own kind were being brain-damaged, reprogrammed, and taken away to tragic lives of servitude as slaves.
And the tsils did care about living beings. Perhaps they did not truly worry about short-lived beings such as humans on an individual basis, but they cared about the survival of living, sapient species. They had struggled for better than seven centuries to keep the menace of the Death Seed plague, represented by the drochs, imprisoned on Nam Chorios, and this was in part over a concern for the fate of entire species other than their own.
Luke started with an image of a droch. He let it grow to a great size, the size of a human, the size of long-dead Dzym who had nearly escaped Nam Chorios three decades earlier. Luke modified the image in his mind, giving it many more legs and the greater angularity of the energy spiders of Kessel, but allowing it to retain the flavor, the Force-corrupting “taste,” of the drochs en masse, memory of which could still make him shudder.
Then, preserving its menace and awfulness, he slowly, meticulously re-formed it into Abeloth’s shape—humanoid but with a mouth broader than that of any human, with wavering tentacles instead of fingers, her body wreathed in mist. Then she changed again, becoming a human woman, silver-eyed and beautiful.
Luke was not done. He began creating other images to stand beside Abeloth. First was Callista, his love of so many years before. She stood, smiling and sad, beside Abeloth, so real in Luke’s mind that he felt a squeeze across his heart.
Abeloth opened her mouth … and Callista was drawn, shrieking, increasingly tiny, into that maw.
And Abeloth became Callista.
Next was Dyon Stadd, the onetime Jedi applicant who had helped Luke and Ben on Dathomir. He was dark-haired, natty, and vigorous, dressed in shorts and vest for tropical temperatures. Callista opened her mouth, and Dyon diminished in size. Thrashing and shrinking, he was drawn into her mouth.
A moment later Callista became Dyon.
Again and again Luke repeated this pattern, creating further images from whole cloth or basing them on characters from decades-old holodramas, showing the process of Abeloth absorbing lives.
He had just conjured up a beautiful blond human woman played by actress Wynssa Starflare, had her devoured by the particularly menacing but imaginary Devaronian man he had created just before, and had Abeloth assume Starflare’s guise, when the next victim appeared without his participation. It was an elderly man, gray-bearded and fierce-eyed, wearing a patched blue jumpsuit appropriate to life on Nam Chorios.
Luke knew his face. The man was Nenn, leader of the Theran Listeners.
Luke felt a touch of grief as Wynssa Starflare opened her mouth and Nenn was drawn, flailing and screaming, into it. Then the actress became the Theran Listener.
And the cycle ended. Nenn simply stood there in Luke’s imagination, smiling, his mouth open just a little, with the suggestion of movement within it—movement of dozens of beings now trapped forever within Abeloth.
The tsils knew. They knew even more than Luke did of Abeloth’s activities here on this planet. Now, perhaps, they could suggest some course of action, some way to keep Abeloth from seizing control of the Listeners …
Luke’s vision cleared and he found himself conscious once more.
Directly opposite him, wrapped up as he