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The sound of t’landa Til voices echoed up from the dimness below, and Fwa heard their characteristic shuffling gait. The assassin checked the two small hold-out blasters he had smuggled into the compound. Fully charged, of course.

He tensed, thinking that the credits he was about to become entitled to were not so much the prize of a hunt, so much as a gift. Security here in Colony Seven was lax beyond belief.

Fwa could see them coming now, and he pressed himself into a hollow in the uneven wall. As he’d expected, it was his targets—the three male Sacredots. He could smell them, and his sensitive nostrils recognized the reek of the males.

They were close now, coming closer, closer.…

Fwa leaped out with a ferocious roar, blasters raised. Aim for their eyes! he thought, as he fired his first salvo.

“In service to the All, every One is Exulted.”

… every One is Exulted.

Tuga SalPivo, down-on-his luck Corellian space-tramp and jack-of-all-trades, paused for a moment at the edge of the Ylesian jungle and looked back. Colony Eight was a gray smudge in the very first light of dawn. Sunrise was still an hour away. SalPivo grinned and wiped the sweat off his face with a back-and-forth motion, catching a whiff of the vinegary vomm powder residue on his hand. He couldn’t wait to see the explosion.…

It was so quiet. Even the scraping and peeping of the Ylesian jungle was gone. There was no wind at all.

SalPivo forced himself not to blink as he waited. When the brilliant orange flame flowered from the t’landa Til’s sleeping chamber, there was a moment before the sound reached him, and he thought, It doesn’t seem real.…

Then the crack and boom rolled over him, almost knocking him down, followed by the cries and wails of the remaining inhabitants. Job well done, he said to himself, chuckling. I’ll be back on Poytta before the fire’s put out.…

“We sacrifice to achieve the All. We serve the One.”

… serve the One.

The Rodian named Sniquux sniffed the air thoughtfully, his aqua snout wiggling. Mid-afternoon sun slanted down into the wide courtyard, and dust seemed to hang in the hot, thick air. With infinite care, he secured the last strand of monofilament fiber across the opening of the passageway to the factory compound. Colony Nine was not yet finished, but the main buildings and dormitories were close enough to completion to start up operation. Nearly three hundred Pilgrims were resident, most of them employed on the construction gang. Sniquux had come in with the last bunch, his experience as a permacrete artisan coming in handy.

Here they come! The Rodian stepped back from the invisible wire, then ducked under it, making sure he came nowhere near the deadly stuff. Once in the corridor, he made his way up to the first level balcony, which overlooked the courtyard. The six t’landa Til, three males and three females, were returning from their post-siesta walkabout, ambling toward the dinner hall and their supper. A cadre of Gamorrean guards surrounded them, their axe heads glinting in the sun. Sniquux pulled the sound projector remote control from his little pouch, hefting the device and feeling the smoothness of its contours.

I don’t even have to get near them, he thought, delightedly. I love this assignment. I don’t have to risk my delicate little neck. His ears twitched expectantly as he turned the dial to its maximum position and engaged the trigger.

Suddenly, from the other side of the courtyard, a hideous, shrill wailing began, a sound so high it made Sniquux shiver. It was an ancient recording of the savage thota, the principal predator of the t’landa Til on their long-lost homeworld of Varl.

The t’landa Til froze for a second, their protuberant eyes swinging in every direction as they tried to locate the source of the cry. The head Sacredot, Tarrz by name, reared up onto his hind limbs and spun about, calling to the others, but it was no use. The huge creatures stampeded mindlessly in all directions, trampling Gamorreans as they headed for the openings