Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [60]
Behind them, the glittering inverted metropolis of Foamwander City drifted like a huge undersea creature with thousands of tiny figures swimming around it. On the sea floor Leia could see dull orange glows and domed cities, sites of Quarren deep-mining operations in the ocean crust. Above, the light turned milky as it filtered through waves churned by the pelting storm.
Cilghal spoke little, though the radio pickup worked quite well. They left the floating city far behind, and Leia began to feel uneasy at being so far from civilization.
Leia remained close beside Cilghal as their jetpacks bubbled and streamed. Eventually, Cilghal gestured toward a crevasse broken into the ocean crust, surrounded by lumps of coral and waving fronds of red and brown seaweed. “We are going to the Calamarian knowledge bank,” Cilghal said through the tiny voice pickup.
They cruised between zigzags of rock overgrown with slow sculptures of coral and hair-fine tendrils of deep plants. The water streamed faster as the rock walls channeled stray currents. Above and around them fleets of bright-colored fish skimmed about, fed upon by larger fish that snapped, swallowed, and returned to feed again.
Leia looked ahead and saw a haphazard bed of shells, polished hulking mollusks a meter across. A faint lustrous glow seemed to come from the shells themselves.
Cilghal unexpectedly switched off her jetpack, and Leia shot past her before managing to stop her own thrusters. Cilghal kicked her broad feet to push herself toward the bottom with long gliding motions.
Leia struggled to keep up as they approached the enormous mollusks. Slowly kicking her feet to maintain her position against the current, Cilghal spread her arms wide as she bent over the largest of the humped shells at the front of the large bed. She hummed, a strange noise that vibrated through the water as much as it moved through the pickup circuit in Leia’s ear.
“We have questions,” Cilghal said, speaking to the giant shells. “We require access to the knowledge stored here in the great collection of memories. We must know if you have the answers we seek.”
The top shell of the largest mollusk groaned open. The crack between its bivalve shells widened until a stream of golden illumination shone out, as if precious sunlight had been captured and held inside the impenetrable shell walls.
Leia couldn’t say anything in her astonishment. As the shell cracked open even wider, she saw the soft fleshy mass inside, swirled and curved—not just the meaty lump of a shellfish, but the contours of a brain, an enormous brain that pulsed and shone with yellow light.
A sluggish pulsing sound drummed at Leia’s ears through the water, and Cilghal turned to her. “They will answer,” she said.
As Leia watched, row upon row of the giant shells opened, shedding rays of warm light into the narrow crevasse and exposing the swirled lumps of other large brains.
“They sit,” Cilghal said. “They wait. They listen. They know everything that happens on this planet—and they never forget.”
Cilghal began a long, ritualistic communion with the mollusk knowledge bank in a slow hypnotic language. Leia floated in place and watched, mystified and anxious.
Finally Cilghal swam backward, brushing her flipper-hands back and forth as she drifted away. The thick mollusks closed their shells, sealing the golden light away from the shadows of the canyon.
Leia had trouble seeing in the suddenly restored dimness of the depths, but the ambassador’s words came crisply through the ear jack. “They have told me where to find him.”
Leia could detect no emotion in Cilghal’s even voice, but she felt her own thrill of elation.
As they turned to swim upward, Leia stared toward the lip of the crevasse. She froze as she saw a deadly sleek form like an Imperial attack ship above—an enormous living creature with a long bullet-shaped body, spined fins, a mouth filled with fangs.