Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor - Matthew Woodring Stover [17]
Then a burst of precisely calibrated radiation flash-burned off all the hair on his head and face, and the Pawns produced a pair of self-cauterizing laser bone saws and began to cut away the top of his skull.
This was not what produced the screaming, sobbing, and pleading that characterized the Pawning process; the Elect were never even awake enough to experience the messy details of having the upper hemispheres of their skulls removed. The screaming, sobbing, and pleading would begin after a particular Elect had awakened, as a series of neural probes selectively stimulated differing nerve clusters of their exposed brains. The anguish, however, was short-lived; soon the neural probes would identify the precise location of, say, the tickle reflex, and the screams would instantly be replaced by giggling. Shortly, stimulation of olfactory neurons would have the giggling Elect asking for a slice of the grilled bantha steak he believed himself to be smelling, and perhaps a mug of that delightfully rich hot chocolate that he was quite certain someone must have been brewing just out of sight.
And at each and every point, from the nerves that registered the color blue to the nerves that controlled the curl of the Elect’s toes, the Pawns would place a tiny crystal of meltmassif, the same stone as the Table. The same stone as the entire Election Center, and the vault outside. And after the skull was replaced, these crystals would grow into a gem-like latticework spreading throughout the Elect’s brain cavity.
Every Pawn had a head full of diamonds.
Klick did not know what criteria might be used to choose the Elect. Nor did he comprehend the subtle gradations of rank among the Pawns, why and how some seemed to be in charge at some times, and at other times seemed to take the orders of those they had recently commanded. All he knew was that once an Elect had been fitted with his crescent Crown and released as a full Pawn, he was instantly the superior of any trooper or pilot or officer. His slightest gesture was to be obeyed as though it had proceeded from Lord Shadowspawn himself. Very few of the Pawns ever spoke, but some peculiar eloquence in their gestures could make their orders instantly clear to even the dimmest nat-born trooper; Klick suspected it was some arcane use of the Force.
He’d never understood the Force, though he did not doubt its existence; he’d seen the Force used in action by countless Jedi during the Clone Wars. He had no interest in understanding. He’d been bred not for insight, but for obedience. He was content to allow the Force to remain a convenient mystery: one he could use to explain whatever he might find otherwise inexplicable.
Like, for example, how Lord Shadowspawn was able to shape meltmassif seemingly with the power of his will alone. A simple electromagnetic burst was enough to temporarily break down the curious crystalline structure of the rock, but that could not explain how, when Shadowspawn was near and set his will upon it, the meltmassif seemed almost alive. Klick had witnessed it more than once: Shadowspawn would stretch forth his hand, and the stone would flow and shape itself into whatever fantastical form might suit the Lord’s wildest desire.
Ahead, another Pawn beckoned. This Pawn stood at a blank slate-gray wall of meltmassif, but as Klick marched toward it, the Pawn swept a hand as though to usher him on, and the stone dimpled, drawing away from him in a bubble that became a shaft a few meters long. Klick entered the shaft without hesitation, and didn’t even blink as the stone flowed together to seal itself behind him, cutting off all light along with the